Quest Magazine

Printed in the  Winter 2025  issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Keene, Douglas, "Viewpoint: In Pursuit of the Golden Fleece"   Quest 113:1, pg 10-11

By Douglas Keene

In Greek mythology, the flying winged ram Chrysomallos was the offspring of Poseidon, the god of the sea, and Theophane, the daughter of Bisaltes, who in turn was the son of Helios and Gaia (Sun and Earth).

The ram rescued Phrixus, a youth who was about to be sacrificed by his father, the king of Iolkos (a city on the Aegean coast of Greece, which survives today as a village), and took him to Colchis, a region on the eastern coast of the Black Sea. Here Phrixus took refuge with the king, Aeëtes, and sacrificed the ram to Zeus. The ram was transformed into the constellation Aries.

Chrysomallos means gold wool, because the ram’s fleece was golden. Aeëtes hung it on an oak tree in a grove sacred to the Greek god of war, Ares. Here it was guarded by a large sleepless serpent, the Colchian Dragon. Jason, the mythological hero, embarked on a journey with the great hero Heracles and many warriors on a mighty ship, the Argo, to retrieve the fleece.

After a multitude of challenging adventures common among mythological figures (defined as heroes in these roles), and with the assistance of Aeëtes’ daughter, Medea, Jason succeeded in repelling all evil forces and obtained the object of his search.

On the way to fetch the fleece, Jason and his companions, the Argonauts, stopped in the land of the Doliones. Here they are confronted by Gegenees (whose name means aboriginals), hideous monsters with six arms. Led by Heracles, the Argonauts slaughtered the “stubborn, frenzied attackers” (as they are described in the famous epic poem the Argonautica).

In the legends of the Greeks and many other peoples, monsters, demons, devils, and serpents frequently appear as obstacles to attaining the target of pursuit. In terms of our own inner development, they are often metaphors for internal obstacles met when embarking on a spiritual journey, symbolizing the weaknesses and flaws that we must overcome to seek purification and redemption. They need to be “slain” in order for each of us to advance.

We usually find that the hero is assisted by an unlikely source, frequently with a divine connection, that serves as protector, guide and teacher. Each ordeal is calculated to strengthen the hero and deliver him or her through adversity in order to claim the prize. While many fail and fall, the hero will progress, even if it appears that all is lost at some point in the long and arduous journey.

There may be some fact behind this ancient myth. The Golden Fleece may sound entirely fantastic, but in certain regions of the Black Sea, the inhabitants used to put fleeces in rivers to trap flakes of gold. This may help explain this mystifying detail.

	Jason recovers the Golden Fleece from a sacred tree in the grove of Ares. The head of the fleece's guardian, Dragon-Serpent, darts towards the hero. The goddess Athena, wearing a helm and the aegis-cloak, oversees the endeavor. Behind her stands an Argonaut and the prow of the ship Argo. Attic red-figure vase, attributed to the Orchid Painter, c.470‒60 BC, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

What is the message of this mythological journey? What does the Golden Fleece represent? One interpretation is that it symbolizes that which is nearly unattainable or cannot be easily possessed. Another is that the fleece is a symbol of refinement of sensitivity which elicits awakening and spiritual purity.

In any event, the hero’s journey is central to Greek mythology as well as to those of most cultures. It usually involves an arduous search for something elusive, something divine and powerful that is protected by obstacles of various kinds, fierce and mysterious, and often unknown.

The story of the Holy Grail in the Arthurian tales is another example. The earliest version of this legend (which has many variants) is found in the verse romance Perceval, written in the late twelfth century by the French poet Chrétien de Troyes. In it the youth Perceval (or Percival), seeking knighthood, sees the Grail in a mysterious procession in an enchanted castle. It is being carried by a young woman.

Perceval is curious about this strange procession but does not ask what it is about. Later he is told that this was a mistake, because if he had asked the “Grail question,” it would have removed a curse from the land. Perceval goes in search of the Grail, but in Chrétien’s unfinished poem never finds it. In another version, Arthur’s knight Sir Galahad, who is pure of heart, takes up this mission, and eventually has a vision of the Grail.

The Holy Grail has become synonymous with an object of great desire but is shrouded and sequestered, requiring great sacrifice to obtain. King Arthur realizes he is unable to find the Holy Grail, but perhaps his purified warrior can. These figures can be interpreted as aspects of ourselves.

As Joy Mills writes in Entering on the Sacred Way, “the hero of this legend is a guileless and innocent youth, a widow’s son, who is seeking a treasure hard to find . . . What is relevant to our present study is that in the Percival or Parzifal version of the legend we have a precise illustration of the requirements for discipleship, the essentials for the aspirant’s achievement of ‘kingship’ or ‘adeptship.’”

Here again we see the struggles of the protagonist searching with determination and sacrifice for the magical icon, willing to sacrifice all and abandon comfort, home, and community with the hope of reaching that sacred space. This resembles Gautama’s leaving the protection (or rather overprotection) of his family and high rank, to seek the world for purpose and truth. Eventually he attains enlightenment and becomes the Buddha.

Are these merely stories of people long ago and far away, or does its symbolism apply to our own lives? Is it relevant to our own challenges here and now?

H.P. Blavatsky wrote frequently about this quest for the nearly unattainable, and her book The Voice of the Silence is essentially a treatise on the spiritual path. In another important text, “There Is a Road,” she begins: “There is a road, steep and thorny, beset with perils of every kind, but yet a road, and it leads to the very heart of the Universe.”

“Perils of every kind” certainly can be intimidating. This is not a casual exercise, and these rewards do not come easily. The seeker must be willing to sacrifice all attachments in order to reach his or her goal. But as HPB tells us, for those who are committed to the journey—and ultimately to the “reward”—there is a path forward. If we are not ready, we will fail. But even in failure, lessons are learned. Failure is not permanent. Each adventure prepares us for the next.

Annie Besant, in her book The Outer Court, uses the metaphor of a temple with an outer court atop a mountain. She writes: 

If we look more closely at the temple, if we try to see how that temple is built, we see in the midst of it a holy of holies, and round about the center are courts, four in number, ringing the holy of holies as concentric circles, in these are all within the temple . . . So all who would reach the center must pass through these four gateways, one by one. And outside the temple there is yet another enclosure—the Outer Court—and that court has in it many more persons than are seen within the temple. Looking at the temple and the courts and the mountain road that winds below, we see the picture of human evolution, and the track along which the race is treading, and the temple that is its goal.

This image metaphorically gives us the grand panorama to which most of us are blinded as, incarnated in a single lifetime, we struggle to find our own direction and goals. But by using the temple as a beacon, we can direct our progress by a much more focused and strenuous effort in finding our way up the mountainside. Even the interim goals may be largely unknown to us, but if we follow this guiding ideal, our travel will be rewarded.

Each of us may ask ourselves what we are committed to. What will be our Golden Fleece—that to which we are willing to sacrifice, to devote our efforts, our passion, and even our lives? Are we willing to plunge into the unknown and slay our demons and our impurities? It may seem to be a journey without end, and indeed may last many lifetimes. But we are not alone, and there is help for those who seek it. Are we ready?

Printed in the  Winter 2025  issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Macrae, Janet, "On the Metaphysics of Aging"   Quest 113:1, pg 35-39

 By Janet Macrae                                                        

I recently attended a lecture on basic metaphysics at a large senior residential community. The speaker, a Theosophist, was explaining the different dimensions of subtle energies that comprise the human aura: the densest level being the vital or etheric field that interpenetrates the physical body and extends two to four inches from the surface of the skin; the emotional field, being less dense, interpenetrates the vital field and extends farther from the body; the mental field, even more rarefied, has higher and lower frequencies corresponding to abstract and concrete thought patterns.

During the speaker’s explanation of the mental field, a woman raised her hand and asked an unexpected but significant question. “Is there any compensation for the memory loss that is frustrating for so many of us?”

After a few seconds of silence, a participant raised her hand and offered her personal experience of aging: “Although my memory is getting weaker—particularly my short-term memory—something inside me is getting stronger. I’m receiving more insights when I need to make decisions. Amazing coincidences are happening. And I feel I’m living more creatively now than when I was younger. This, to me, is compensation.”

The speaker responded to her statements by discussing the subtle field of buddhi, which exists beyond the mind as we familiarly know it. It is the source of intuitive insight, wisdom, creativity, and spiritual perception. Our appreciation of beauty comes from here, as well as our sense of meaning and purpose. It is a unitive level through which we see the underlying connections among objects and events rather than their separateness.

The speaker explained that we can cultivate the buddhic consciousness in many ways, for example by artistic activity, paying attention to dreams and synchronistic events, and regularly engaging in spiritual practices such as meditation and contemplative prayer. If we are open to new insights and are willing to change our behavior in accordance with them, the inner wisdom-intuition will guide, strengthen, and enrich our lives.

Unfortunately, only an hour had been allotted for this lecture, and it was soon over. I felt a wave of frustration as people were leaving because, with more time, the speaker could have responded to the woman’s question more fully. She could have discussed the cyclic journey of our consciousness and its significance for the aging process from the perspective of the Ancient Wisdom.

In the first phase of life, consciousness flows outward from its unitive source to gain experience in the material realm. In the later phase, consciousness begins its return: an inner reintegration process that continues in various stages after death.

The advantage for the aging population is that the tide of consciousness is now flowing in the direction of buddhi. From a metaphysical perspective, the aging phase is designed to bring us more in touch with the inner wisdom, peace, and creativity of a higher level of being. Although this dynamic design is working within us, its full actualization requires our conscious cooperation. 

The Hindu concept of the four stages of life is based on the concept of the rhythmic pattern of consciousness. Huston Smith describes these stages in detail in his excellent chapter on Hinduism in The World’s Religions. In brief, the first stage is that of the student; the second, that of the householder; the third is that of retirement for study and meditation; and the final stage is that of the enlightened individual, whose outer personality is merged with the eternal, universal consciousness. The number of years in each stage is not specified, as perhaps it varies with the individual.

Untitled painting of an old white horse by Mildred Miller. About it she wrote: “Drawing an old white horse with a great lump on his side. “‘When that breaks he will die,’ said his owner. “The light was beautiful on the horse, and the color of the light on the grass, and the distance were too beautiful for words. There stood the old white horse waiting patiently for his initiation into the next stage. “Life—how I love it. And the horse perhaps has loved it too.”From Mildred Miller’s diary, probably from 1927, when she painted this image. In Mildred Miller Remembered by Virginia Brown. Photo by Christian Giannelli Photography.

Smith concludes that our attitude is essential for the fulfillment of the promise of old age. If physical beauty and abilities or worldly accomplishments are valued most highly, the earlier stages of life will be the most interesting and satisfying. But if spiritual wisdom and self-knowledge are one’s greatest interest, the later stages can be the happiest and most fulfilling.

In the Western philosophical tradition, the best-known treatise on old age is De senectute by Marcus Tullius Cicero, written in 44 BC. The great Roman statesman wrote about an intrinsic natural rhythm and design to human life, in which aging has its appropriate place.

I follow nature as the best guide and obey her like a god. Since she carefully planned the other parts of the drama of life, it’s unlikely that she would be a bad playwright and neglect the final act . . .     

Nature has but a single path and we travel it only once. Each stage of life has its own appropriate qualities—weakness in childhood, boldness in youth, seriousness in middle age, and maturity in old age. (Freeman, 13, 69)

As with a botanical harvest, the fruits of old age, according to Cicero, require active cultivation throughout all the seasons of one’s life. Nature’s play has been written, but the actors have to fulfill their roles. 

We can become more aware of this intrinsic rhythm of consciousness by reading biographies, for often there is a noticeable shift in attitude, a reaching beyond one’s personal self, as an individual ages. This change can come through some great life challenge. It can also come, as the Catholic priest and mystic Richard Rohr has beautifully written, from an acceptance of the “necessary suffering” that comes from being human.

In Florence Nightingale’s long life (1820‒1910), this inner reorientation came through profound thought and an inner awakening. Well-known as the founder of modern nursing and a pioneer in statistical analysis, she worked tirelessly to help save lives by advocating for public health reform. Throughout her life, her work never changed. But in midlife, she experienced a major change in attitude. She began to integrate the ideal of karma yoga as described in Sir Edwin Arnold’s translation of the Bhagavad Gita: if work is done for the sake of itself, rather than for a specific result or reward, it can become a spiritual practice.

Nightingale’s early biographer Sir Edward Cook wrote that the ideal expressed in this text helped to “set the note” of the latter part of her life. “She strove to attain, and she taught others to ensue, passivity in action—to do the utmost in their power, but to leave the result to a Higher Power” (Cook, 2:241).

The renowned clairvoyant C.W. Leadbeater wrote that in the great cycle of incarnation, the midlife point is much more important than either physical birth or death, “for it marks the limit of the outgoing energy of the eg—the change, as it were, from his out-breathing to his inbreathing” (Leadbeater, 1:69). After midlife, therefore, one should follow the dynamic plan of nature and turn one’s thought to higher things. Leadbeater emphasized the importance of gradually resolving any interpersonal difficulties so that, looking back after death, one is not weighed down by regrets. Discussing the four stages of life in the Eastern tradition, he lamented the fact that Western society is not structured in a way that is in harmony with nature. Because of this, many individuals are unaware of the true purpose of the second half of life—to gradually release attachments and expand one's consciousness—and thus leave much of its potential unfulfilled.

The work of purification and detachment which should have begun in middle life is left until death overtakes them, and has therefore to be done upon the astral plane instead of the physical. Thus unnecessary delay is caused, and through his ignorance of the true meaning of life the man’s progress is slower than it should be. (Leadbeater, 1:71)     

Although Leadbeater makes a valid point, it is also true that in Western society much help is available for the individual seeker. Modern depth psychology in particular provides valuable insights and strategies for navigating the shift in consciousness that occurs after midlife.

A good example is the theory of individuation developed by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung through an extensive study of dreams. From his perspective, the first part of life involves developing the persona, or the face we present to the world. The persona is composed of the individual personality traits with which we are comfortable: those encouraged by parents and teachers and sanctioned by society and our peer groups. The purpose of the later part of life is to rebalance oneself and become consciously attuned to the creative, unifying, ordering source of one’s being, which he called the Self. 

Jung described, in great detail, the path of inner growth during the later years of life and the challenges that must be faced. In the first place, we must come to terms with the shadow: all those characteristics we have ignored or repressed because they are inconsistent with the persona, such as our fears, resentments, nonconformist ideas, and antisocial feelings. In the second place, we must integrate the anima (the female element within the man) or the animus (the male element within the woman). For a detailed discussion of the individuation process, see the chapter in Jung’s Man and His Symbols by Marie-Louise von Franz, a longtime associate of Jung.

Sometimes the shadow is not intrinsically negative, but is simply unacceptable to the conscious self. It can appear in dreams, usually as a person of the same sex as the dreamer, doing something that the dreamer would never consciously do.

One of my own dreams provides a good example of the shadow. I made a film of some event that took place in New York City. There was a stripper at this event, but I had left her out because she was too vulgar. Afterwards a man came to me and said that I should have included her. “She was an integral part of the whole thing.”

I realized that he was right. A film is a two-dimensional copy of a three-dimensional event. This may be a metaphor for the personality, which is a three-dimensional “copy” of a transcendent Self. So the dream is saying that my personality is not expressing something vitally important: the stripper, who defies the accepted mores of society with a flair. One message here is that I have been too proper, too accommodating, too concerned about the opinions of other people and with living up to their expectations. On another level, the process of synchronizing with the inner Self could be viewed as “stripping”: summoning the courage to remove worn-out ideas, unnecessary possessions, negative emotions, unhealthy relationships, and all other elements that can cover up our spiritual awareness. In The Cloud of Unknowing, one of the greatest works of Christian mysticism, the unknown author writes that we must put our personal attributes under a “cloud of forgetting” and make a “naked intent to God” (John-Julian, 21, 71).

Unfortunately, an unacknowledged shadow can be projected onto other people, thus interfering with our relationships. From Jung’s perspective, therefore, resolving interpersonal difficulties—which Leadbeater wrote was so important—involves first trying to rebalance ourselves.

The shadow, when unacknowledged, can also interfere with our creative work. In A Room of One’s Own, her classic book about women and fiction, Virginia Woolf wrote of the tendency for repressed anger and other unresolved personal issues to alter the clear vision of the writer and fragment her story: the author writes about herself when she should be writing about her characters. Woolf explained further that an “incandescent” mind—such as the mind of Shakespeare or Jane Austen—is one in which the darker, shadowy elements have been burned up and consumed. The light of creativity is thus undimmed and undistorted, and the works that come forth are complete in themselves.

 Although it is unclear if Woolf (an avowed agnostic) was familiar with Jung’s work, she poetically described the other great challenge of the individuation process: the integration of the animus in the woman and the anima in the man. In the following passage from A Room of One’s Own, Woolf notes that when these elements come together, the individual is naturally creative and “incandescent.” 

I went on amateurishly to sketch a plan of the soul, so that in each one of us two powers preside, one male, one female; and in the man’s brain the man predominates over the woman, and in the woman’s brain the woman predominates over the man . . . If one is a man, still the woman part of the brain must have effect; and a woman must also have intercourse with the man in her. Coleridge perhaps meant this when he said that a great mind is androgynous. It is when this fusion takes place that the mind is fully fertilized and uses all its faculties . . . He meant, perhaps, that the androgynous mind is resonant and porous; that it transmits emotion without impediment; that it is naturally creative, incandescent, and undivided. (Woolf, 102)

 The following dream from my journal illustrates the need for an integration of the male within the female. I was looking through a pile of Life magazines. A picture of Queen Elizabeth II, wearing her crown, was on the cover of every issue.

“This isn’t right,” I thought. “She shouldn’t be here all the time.”

Then I looked at some pictures of other people who deserved to be on the cover. Most of them were men: a fact that I found significant. I felt drawn to one of them. He had a strong, intelligent face; he might have been a sea captain or an explorer.

“He should be on the cover,” I thought.

 I felt the dream was telling me that feminine qualities, symbolized by the long-reigning queen of England, had been ruling my consciousness for too many lifetimes. Now it was time for a change, time to rebalance by welcoming the sea captain into my life. I needed to express some masculine qualities: to become more assertive, even in a quiet way; to stop continually adjusting to the desires of others; to follow my own path; to be more willing to take risks. It is significant that in the previous dream about the shadow, it was a male figure who told me that the stripper should be integrated.

 Von Franz wrote reassuringly that when a sincere effort is made to rebalance oneself and follow the path of individuation, one eventually accesses one’s organizing, creative center: “Whenever a human being genuinely turns to the inner world and tries to know himself . . . then sooner or later the Self emerges. The ego will then find an inner power that contains all the possibilities of renewal” (von Franz, 215).

In dreams the Self can emerge in many symbolic forms: as a superior human figure such as a wise old man or priestess or divine child; as a sacred or helpful animal; as a precious stone or crystal with its ordered configuration. In the following dream, the Self came to me in the form of a powerful lioness.

I was standing just inside a forest, looking out on an open field. A lioness appeared in the field. She saw me and immediately ran toward me. I thought that surely this would be the end of me. When she reached me, however, she stood behind me and enveloped me with her paws in the most benevolent manner. I had the impression that she thought I needed her. But because she was so tremendous, I didn’t feel completely at ease with her. I stood very still, hardly breathing.

Then the scene changed, and I was trying to tell a group of people about this extraordinary occurrence. They weren’t paying much attention to me.

From the metaphysical perspective described above, the clear field represents the unified level of intuitive wisdom, while the forest represents the level of the mind which is filled with details. I stood on the boundary between these two dimensions. The dream seems to be saying that help will come from the clear field of buddhi. It will be both powerful and protective, so I should not be afraid to follow the tide of consciousness as it flows on its inward journey. And there was a warning in the dream: conventional society would not appreciate that which was so significant to me.

The idea of creative insight as compensation, which the woman in the lecture hall experienced—a triumph of the human spirit over memory losses and other physical issues of aging— was beautifully expressed by Mildred Miller, my favorite early-twentieth-century artist. The following passage is from a diary she kept when she was codirector of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts Summer School, dated July 15, 1927:

Yesterday I was working on a hayfield, and when I painted the light on a man’s hat against the loaded wagon it seemed to me that I had struck the actual appearance. “Can it be possible,” I thot, [sic] “that I can really make my own the beautiful light that I see, that I can look at the light dripping from a horse’s flank and say “You are mine?” If I can do that I would not mind old age or being ugly, sickness or death. (Brown, 106)

Not all of us are artists like Mildred Miller, but we can all touch the inner source of creative renewal and—in our own unique ways —express it in the world.

Sources

Arnold, Edwin. The Song Celestial: A Poetic Version of the Bhagavad Gita. Wheaton: Theosophical Publishing House, 1975 [1885].

Brown, Virginia. Mildred Miller Remembered. Xlibris, 2006.

Cook, Edward. The Life of Florence Nightingale. Two volumes. London: Macmillan, 1913.

Freeman, Philip, trans. How to Grow Old by Marcus Tullius Cicero. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2016.

Father John-Julian, trans. The Complete Cloud of Unknowing. Brewster, Mass.: Paraclete Press, 2015.

Leadbeater, Charles. The Other Side of Death Scientifically Examined and Carefully Described, Two volumes. Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House, 1928.

Nicholson, Shirley. Ancient Wisdom, Modern Insight. Wheaton: Quest Books,1985.

Rohr, Richard. Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2011.

Smith, Huston. The World’s Religions. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.

Von Franz, Marie-Louise. “The Process of Individuation.” in Carl Jung et al., Man and His Symbols. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1964.

Woolf, Virginia.  A Room of One’s Own. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1929.

Janet Macrae taught holistic nursing for many years at New York University. She is the author of Nursing as a Spiritual Practice: A Contemporary Application of Florence Nightingale’s Views (Springer). Her article “Original Vision: On the Choice of a New Life” appeared in Quest, fall 2020.

Printed in the  Winter 2025  issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Chapple, Jon, "Sri Krishna Prem: The Forgotten Theosophist"   Quest 113:1, pg 31-34

By Jon Chapple

One of the most influential Theosophical writers of the mid‒twentieth century, Sri Krishna Prem is nevertheless rarely mentioned in the same breath as other famous alumni of the post-Blavatsky Theosophical Society. Even J. Krishnamurti (whose public rejection of Annie Besant and C.W. Leadbeater earned him the label gurudrohi—betrayer of the guru—from Krishna Prem) achieved his later fame largely on the strength of his affiliation with Theosophy.

That Krishna Prem is not similarly remembered in Theosophical terms is largely due to his successful “adoption” by scholars of Vaishnavism, who have emphasized his public conversion to, and long-running association with, Vaishnavite Hinduism, as well as his hostility to institutionalized spirituality. (Vaishnavism is the form of Hinduism that worships the god Vishnu as well as his avatars, the best-known of which is Krishna.) Yet his books—all of which, to varying extents, are shaped by Theosophical thought—remain widely read among Theosophists, and the influence of Theosophy is felt even today at Uttar Brindaban (Mirtola), the Indian ashram he cofounded in 1930.

Born Ronald Henry Nixon in Cheltenham, England, on May 10, 1898, he moved to India in the aftermath of the First World War, in which his life, he believed, had been miraculously saved by a “power beyond our ken” while he was serving as a fighter pilot. In India, he cofounded a hilltop hermitage (Mirtola) dedicated to the Hindu god Krishna, for whose love (prem) he was named and to whom he remained singularly devoted for the rest of his life.

That is at least according to the popular version of the Sri Krishna Prem myth. In this telling, repeated in many biographical materials, Krishna Prem remained to his death a conventional Vaishnava in the Gaudiya (Bengali) tradition, serving Krishna in divine ecstasy to the exclusion of all other influences and teachers.

The true story—much like the man himself—is more complicated, charting a deeply personal spiritual odyssey that incorporated influences from Buddhism, Hindu Vedanta, classical yoga, analytical psychology, and the Western mystery tradition, alongside Krishna bhakti (devotion).

One legacy of Krishna Prem’s idiosyncratic and syncretistic approach to spirituality is that published accounts of his life—particularly by authors affiliated with a particular tradition or sect—tend to emphasize one aspect of his belief system at the expense of others. For Gaudiya Vaishnavas, Krishna Prem is notable as the first Western guru in their tradition. Steven Rosen, a disciple of A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON, popularly known as the Hare Krishna movement), connects Krishna Prem’s final words with his guru’s journey to America, writing how “in November of 1965, on his deathbed, Śrī Krishna Prem had been documented as saying, ‘My ship is sailing.’ What he didn’t know, of course, was that the sublime ‘ship of Śrī Krishna Prem’ had, indeed, already set sail, just a few months earlier, headed for Western shores.” By contrast, psychologist Timothy Leary has written that his “interest in healing as well as enlightenment defines Sri Krishna Prem as a precursor of the humanist psychology movement that was to sweep America and Western Europe in the 1970s.”

The late Theosophist Seymour B. Ginsburg, a student of Krishna Prem’s disciple and successor Sri Madhava Ashish, has characterized Mirtola as a “Himalayan ashram with Theosophical rootsHimalayan ashram with Theosophical roots” (see his article in Quest, summer 2012, 98–105).

This article will focus on what Ginsburg calls the “deep Theosophical roots” underpinning Mirtola, as well as the influence of Theosophy on Krishna Prem’s spiritual journey,  practice, and literary output.

Ronald Nixon is first documented as coming under the influence of Theosophical thought at Cambridge University, where he studied English and the “moral sciences” (philosophy), graduating in 1921. His Cambridge contemporary Christmas “Toby” Humphreys—who in 1924 would found the London Buddhist Lodge (later renamed the Buddhist Society) as an offshoot of a Theosophical lodge—described Nixon as a “silent, heavily built man, smoking his eternal meerschaum, and moving on the fringe of the Buddhist-Theosophical activities in which I was then involved.” According to Madhava Ashish, Nixon was given Buddhist diksha (initiation) by a senior member of the TS (possibly Harold Baillie-Weaver, then the general secretary of the Theosophical Society in England) around this time.

Hoping to better understand Buddhism and Hindu Vedanta in the land of their origin, as well as find an explanation for the psychic phenomena he is reported to have begun experiencing during his service with the Royal Air Force, Nixon wrote to the Theosophical Society at Adyar, hoping that his Cambridge degree and Theosophical connections might recommend him for a teaching post. His letter was forwarded to Gyanendra Nath Chakravarti (1863–1936), recently appointed the first vice chancellor of the new University of Lucknow. A meeting was arranged in London between Nixon and Bertram Keightley, Chakravarti’s disciple and a member of the university senate. The young graduate impressed his interviewers, and Keightley lent him money to get to Lucknow, then the capital of the United Provinces in northern India, to take up his new role as a reader (associate professor) in English at Canning College (incorporated into the University of Lucknow in 1922).

Nixon was already familiar with the most important Indian religious texts: his friend, the celebrated composer and yogi Dilip Kumar Roy, in his Yogi Sri Krishnaprem, wrote of listening with “rapt attention when he discussed the Vedas, the [Bhagavad] Gita, the Tantra, etc.” on one of his twice-yearly visits to Lucknow.

Nevertheless, it was in the person of Chakravarti’s wife, Monica, that Nixon found the living spiritual teacher for whom he’d been searching since Cambridge.

Monica (later known as Sri Yashoda Mai) was born in 1882 into a Theosophical family, one of three children, and the only daughter, of Rai Bahadur Gagan Chandra Roy (born 1848–49), a Bengali civil servant who was, among other postings, president of his local Theosophical Lodge (Ghazipore in the United Provinces, now Ghazipur in Uttar Pradesh). When she was twelve, Monica’s marriage was arranged to Chakravarti, a widower nineteen years her senior, then working as a lecturer in mathematics at Muir Central College in Allahabad. Though Chakravarti hesitated at first to remarry, having been left distraught following the death of his first wife, the match was a good one. Chakravarti shared many similarities with his new father-in-law: like Gagan Roy, he was a civil servant, Freemason, and committed Theosophist. As husband and wife, he and Monica were united both by their love for each other and by their dedication to matters of the spirit.        

Chakravarti had joined the Theosophical Society in Cawnpore (modern Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh) in March 1883, and guests at the couple’s wedding in Ghazipore included prominent Indian Theosophists such as Tookaram Tatya, Aditya Ram Bhattacharya, and the future leader of the society, Chakravarti’s English-born disciple Annie Besant. Besant’s biographer, Geoffrey West, describes Chakravarti as a “mysterious Brahmin” who “for a number of years . . . hovers mysteriously in the background of Theosophical history.” Like Bertram Keightley, Chakravarti was an early student of HPB, and (along with Besant, Anagarika Dharmapala, and William Quan Judge) was a member of the Theosophical delegation to the Parliament of the World’s Religions in 1893, representing the “orthodox Brahmanical Societies” of India.

Together, the newlyweds traveled widely on Theosophical business, including to Europe, where stories of Mrs. Chakravarti’s interactions with the locals in the company of Besant have passed into Mirtola lore. Simultaneously sought-after spiritual teachers and members of Lucknow high society, the Chakravartis are said to have lived something of a double life: outwardly a “resplendent ultramodern hostess,” Monica was, in the words of Dilip Kumar Roy, “the life and soul of every party she threw in her salon” at the vice chancellor’s mansion, while her husband was known as “an extremely hospitable man who kept an open table” for visiting Theosophists from England, among them Isabel Cooper-Oakley, the friend and disciple of Mme. Blavatsky, and Mary Tibbits (Mrs. Walter Tibbits), known for her The Voice of the Orient (1909).

Monica’s inclination towards Krishna bhakti is well known, and the story of her taking vows of renunciation, initiating Ronald (whom she called “Gopal”) into the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition, and founding the ashram at Mirtola has already been told elsewhere, and so is outside the scope of this article. What is less well known is the extent to which Theosophical ideas—particularly the belief in a brotherhood of liberated Masters guiding the spiritual development of humanity from afar— continued to hold sway over this supposedly orthodox Vaishnava ashram.

The Yoga of the Bhagavat Gita (1938), perhaps Krishna Prem’s most enduring literary work, has its roots in a series of articles originally published in the Theosophical journal The Aryan Path. Krishna Prem’s commentary on the Bhagavad Gita, as well as his view that it is fundamentally a “textbook of Yoga, a guide to the treading of the Path,” bears the influence of Annie Besant’s 1905 translation, which similarly focuses on the text’s symbolic significance while emphasizing the “oneness of the spiritual path, ‘though it has many names.’” (Compare this quote from Krishna Prem: “The Path is not the special property of Hinduism, nor indeed of any religion. It is something which is to be found, more or less deeply buried, in all religions.”) He also recommended Besant’s translation to his own disciples. In turn, Besant likely drew her inspiration from her one-time guru Chakravarti, who urged readers to “take Krishna as the symbol of the immanent God, the inner Godhead.”

Likewise, a contemporary reviewer for The Theosophical Movement argues that Krishna Prem’s next book, 1940’s Yoga of the Kaṭhopanishad, represents a Theosophical reading of that text, noting that Krishna Prem makes “copious and apt use” of Blavatsky’s  Voice of the Silence and Mabel Collins’s Light on the Path “and more than once quotes the ‘Stanzas of Dzyan’ from The Secret Doctrine.” Krishna Prem, the reviewer writes, “has drunk deep at the fount of Theosophy and a comparative study of their interpretations of this great Upanishad proves most interesting. The present volume offers not only a more exhaustive interpretation but also carries marks of deep meditation on the esoteric teachings of the Upanishad.” The author also notes that Krishna Prem uses his part of his commentary on chapter one, verse nine, to defend Blavatsky—whose manifestations of letters from her Masters and other objects made her the target of criticism from skeptics—from charges of being a charlatan.

In the 1940s, with the encouragement of Keightley, Krishna Prem began his most overtly Theosophical work: a commentary on the Stanzas of Dzyan in Blavatsky’s Secret Doctrine. As Gabriel Monod-Herzen, a friend of Dilip Kumar Roy’s and sometime visitor to Mirtola, noted in his review of the book, the project was something of a first: whereas texts such as the Bhagavad Gita and Brahma Sutras are the subjects of “innumerable commentaries,” to his knowledge “not a single Theosophist, Asian or European” had then written a commentary on the Stanzas of Dzyan. The resulting work, published posthumously as Man, the Measure of All Things in the Stanzas of Dzyan (1966) and Man, Son of Man (1970), was completed with the assistance of Madhava Ashish.

Krishna Prem’s enduring fascination with Theosophy, which rejects the concept of a personal creator (HPB once scoffed at what she called “the absurd idea of a personal God”), is incongruous in view of his initiation into a tradition which holds dear the concept of a supreme person. Regarding Man, the Measure of All Things, the scholar Andrew Rawlinson, in his Book of Enlightened Masters (1997), observes: “It is surely very odd that a committed Gaudiya Vaishnava should make use of such an unorthodox source” as The Secret Doctrine. The academic Catherine A. Robinson, in Interpretations of the Bhagavad-Gītā and Images of the Hindu Tradition (2013), contrasts Krishna Prem with A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, noting that while the latter’s “association with this tradition [Gaudiya Vaishnavism] was generally orthodox, Krishna Prem’s was not.” (Swami was a fierce critic of those who denied or minimized God’s personhood and, in his essay “Theosophy Ends in Vaishnavism,” attacked the Theosophical view of “Sree Krishna [only] in His Impersonal Aspect Brahman” rather than as “the Personality of Godhead ‘Bhagwan.’”)

In 1951, following the death of Moti Rani, Yashoda Mai’s daughter (Yashoda Mai herself had died in 1944) and Krishna Prem’s disciple, Krishna Prem and his chosen successor, Madhava Ashish, began to further deemphasize Vaishnava ritual and theism in favour of a universalist, nonsectarian doctrine that Satish Datt Pandey (a disciple of Ashish) describes as a “secular and dynamic spirituality . . . that cannot be covered by any known cult label.” Both Moti Rani and her father, Chakravarti, were said to be in contact with the Masters, and ashramite Bill Aitken alludes to Krishna Prem also being in direct communion with these remote Mahatmas, writing that the “entire Mirtola makeover from orthodox to liberal I understood was at the promptings of the Theosophical Masters. The gurus saw themselves primarily as dedicated instruments of their Masters’ timeless spiritual sovereignty.”

By the early sixties, according to Aitken, “there was no Mirtola teaching as such,” with the two gurus, who referred to themselves as “pupil-teachers,” each pursuing their own philosophical interests—the former, Theosophy and the Sufi poems of Jalaladdin Rumi, and the latter, the Gurdjieff Work—and encouraging their students to do the same.

The teaching there “was adapted to [the] individual needs” of the practitioners, though it consistently drew on concepts introduced to the West by Blavatsky and her chelas. “The Theosophical understanding of the compassionate Bodhisattva concept was the backbone of their belief and teachings while I was there,” Aitken, who lived at the ashram from 1965 to 1972, tells me. Pervin Mahoney, another former resident of Mirtola, confirms: “This is an essential aspect of the mature final guide he [Krishna Prem] evolved into: that the man of attainment ‘remains available’ to help others.”

Krishna Prem also came to view a person’s spiritual progress in terms of their psychological “wholeness,” emphasizing the transformative power of love, meditation, courage, and hard work in order to rid oneself of unwanted habits and hang-ups. As Madhava Ashish explains:

[Krishna Prem] laid considerable stress on meditative practices, regarding them as the most essential part of the work, [but] he held that the work is not complete until the whole from which all things have come is reflected in the wholeness of the man. A man under the sway of inhibitions and compulsions he regarded as partial or incomplete. If through fear one attempted to avoid certain areas of worldly experience, then, when one turned to meditation, the inner or psychic causes of that fear would rise up and bar one’s progress. He therefore saw the work as a dialectical process: the facing of outer challenges opening the way to inner perception, and self-surrendering to the spirit in meditation giving rise to a trans-personal courage with which the challenges of life can be met. That self-surrender, he said, is the surrender of love, and the courage is the courage of love.

This idea has parallels in Theosophy: Light on the Path advises that the “whole nature of man must be used wisely by the one who desires to enter the way . . . Not till the whole personality of the man is dissolved and melted—not until it is held by the divine fragment which has created it, as a mere subject for grave experiment and experience—not until the whole nature has yielded and become subject unto its higher self . . . [can one gain access to] the Hall of Learning.”

Krishna Prem continued to work on the two Man books well into 1965, the year of his death: such is the importance he placed on The Secret Doctrine. “Extraordinarily,” he and Madhava Ashish “turned to this abstruse text with relish at bedtime after a hard day’s work on the temple and farm that began at 5 a.m.,” recalls Aitken, visiting in April of that year. “Pumping up a Petromax lamp to give brilliant light to replace the flickering flame of the kerosene lantern they sent away visitors at 10 p.m. and got down (on the floor) to some seriously introspective writing . . . The source of their enthusiasm was both mystifying and electrifying.”

Yet if The Secret Doctrine, like others, can serve as a useful reminder of the reality of the “path laid down by those who have gone before . . . and reached the goal,” the real truth, Krishna Prem taught consistently, is within, beyond teachers and ancient scriptures, and accessible to all. Like HPB, who urged us to “listen to the word of truth which speaks within you, and to the voice of silence, which can only be heard when the storm of passions has calmed down,” Krishna Prem wrote of “a Light within us which knows the Truth, a Voice which commands the right with absolute certainty” to which we need only listen. As he and Madhava Ashish remind us in Man, the Measure of All Things:

We have got so used to accepting it on external “authority” of some sort, that it is not easy for us to adjust ourselves to the idea that no authority whatever, whether of sacred scripture or whether of men, can guarantee truth, but that it reveals itself in all its infallibility within the pure consciousness. Hence, if we would learn wisdom, we must seek it not primarily in books or teachers but in our hearts.

Jon Chapple is a writer, historian, communications professional, and award-winning journalist based just outside of London. A spiritual seeker, he is also an amateur scholar of Vaishnavism and the bhakti yoga tradition. His debut book, the first full-length biography of Sri Krishna Prem, will be published by Blazing Sapphire Press in 2024. He can be contacted at jonchapple@gmail.com.

Printed in the  Winter 2025  issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Keene, Douglas, "A Brief Introduction to Theosophy"   Quest 113:1, pg 25-30

By Douglas Keene 

The whole order of nature evinces a progressive march toward a higher life.

                                                                                            ―H.P. Blavatsky

“It was once said of the Christian Scriptures,” wrote early Theosophist Annie Besant, “that they contained shallows in which a child could wade and depths in which a giant must swim.” Theosophy is similar, she went on, “for some of its teachings are so simple and so practical that any person of average intelligence can understand and follow them, while others are so lofty, so profound, that the ablest strains his intellect to contain them and sinks exhausted in the effort” (Besant, Ancient Wisdom, 1).

Besant, who became the second president of the international Theosophical Society in 1907, was speaking over a century ago. And even now, when members of the Society are asked, “What is Theosophy, anyway?” they have difficulty responding with a short and simple explanation.

Indeed, many search for years trying to find the true nature of Theosophy. Theosophical thought and commentary spanning numerous topics and perspectives fill libraries (as just one example, approximately 28,000 books, periodicals, and video and audio recordings are housed at the U.S. national headquarters in Wheaton, Illinois). The scope of Theosophy is broad, the depths layered, and the content inexhaustible. It has been called a religion, a philosophy, and a spiritual movement based on the Ancient Wisdom. None of these descriptions suffice to encompass the complexity of the subject, as both students and swimming giants know.   

The modern Theosophical Society was founded in 1875 in New York City by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Henry Steel Olcott, William Quan Judge, and a small number of other students. The term theosophy, however, goes much further back in time, and its core concepts even further. Theosophia, a Greek term combining theos (god) and sophia (wisdom), is often defined as divine wisdom, wisdom of the gods, or knowledge of divine things (the word first appears in the writings of Neoplatonists in the third century AD). Theosophical views have been endorsed by Rosicrucians and Freemasons as well as taught in ancient mystery schools and secret societies in Egypt, Chaldea, and other locations. Adding to potential confusion, many philosophical organizations today—including branches of the original society founded in New York, as well as nonassociated groups and organizations such as Freemasonry, Anthroposophy, and New Age movements—use the term. In The Key to Theosophy, as the fictitious Enquirer asks, “What is the real meaning of the term?” Mme. Blavatsky’s reply is illuminating:

“Divine Wisdom,” (Theosophia) or Wisdom of the gods, as (theogonia), genealogy of the gods. The word theos means a god in Greek, one of the divine beings, certainly not “God” in the sense attached in our day to the term. Therefore, it is not “Wisdom of God,” as translated by some, but Divine Wisdom such as that possessed by the gods. The term is many thousand years old.

She noted that the term comes to us from the Alexandrian philosophers and “dates from the third century of our era and began with Ammonius Saccas and his disciples” (Key to Theosophy, 1‒2). The term has been used in Greek and Latin writings, particularly in those of Neoplatonism, who bear the influence of Ammonius.

HPB once described Theosophy as “the shoreless ocean of universal truth, love, and wisdom, reflecting its radiance on the earth, while the Theosophical Society is only a visible bubble on that reflection” (Key to Theosophy, 57).

Mme. Blavatsky published her magnum opus, The Secret Doctrine, in 1888. Its subtitle―The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy―is perhaps a useful way to regard Theosophy as a whole.

Theosophy is a science in the sense that it can explain our natural world in many ways that have been mysterious to conventional science but are often later confirmed by discoveries such as Blavatsky’s apparent foreknowledge of the wave/particle duality of light (Carlson). It goes much further than mere physical manifestation in describing many layers of “superphysical” existence on higher planes, each with a delicate balance of spirit and matter. Natural laws apply as well to these higher planes, but they are largely uninvestigated by today’s scientists. People with clairvoyant ability have in some cases studied these realms. As Leadbeater describes this advantage,

It asserts that man has no need to trust to blind faith, because he has within him latent powers which, when aroused, enable him to see and examine for himself, and it proceeds to prove its case by showing how those powers may be awakened. It is itself a result of the awakening of such powers by men, for the teachings which it puts before us are founded upon direct observations made in the past, and rendered possible only by such development. (Leadbeater, 2)        

Theosophy is a religion in the sense that many of its tenets are incorporated in today’s religious beliefs, particularly at the esoteric level. Mme. Blavatsky used the term wisdom-religion and describes it thus:

It is from this WISDOM-RELIGION that all the various individual “Religions” (erroneously so-called) have sprung, forming in their turn off-shoots and branches, and also all the minor creeds, based upon and always originated through some personal experience in psychology. Every such religion, or religious offshoot, be it considered orthodox or heretical, wise or foolish, started originally as a clear and unadulterated stream from the Mother-Source. The fact that each became in time polluted with purely human speculations and even inventions, due to interested motives, does not prevent any from having been pure in its early beginnings. (Blavatsky, Collected Writings, 10:167)

This quotation shows the jaundiced eye and sharp tongue HPB had for human distortion of divine teachings. The motto of the Theosophical Society is “There is no religion higher than truth.”

The philosophy of Theosophy, often termed esoteric (hidden) philosophy, refers to a body of knowledge about the cosmos, the Divine, and the human being that takes into account not only the visible aspect but more predominantly the invisible, metaphysical, and spiritual dimensions. HPB notes that “Esoteric philosophy, teaching an objective Idealism―though it regards the objective Universe and all in it as Māyā, temporary illusion―draws a practical distinction between collective illusion, Mahāmāyā, from the purely metaphysical standpoint, and the objective relations in it between various conscious Egos so long as this Illusion lasts” (Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine 1:631).

This esoteric knowledge is protected to a degree in that it is understandable and accessible fully only to those who are dedicated to the search and who, through a series of initiations, can come to a perfected state of awareness and insight.

The present mission statement crafted by the international Theosophical Society in 2018 reads as follows: “To serve humanity by cultivating an ever-deepening understanding and realization of the Ageless Wisdom, spiritual self-transformation, and the unity of all life.”

It appears self-evident that this Ancient Wisdom cannot be communicated in a few words (or even ten thousand). Borrowing from the Sanskrit words, jnana (knowledge) may be a beginning but cannot take us the entire route. Bhakti (devotion) is also necessary. Karma (service and altruism) is a sine qua non. Now it is becoming more obvious why Theosophy is difficult to define.

At the time of the founding, Three Objects were established that are core to the teachings of Theosophy. These have been essentially unchanged since that time and presently are listed as follows:

1. To form a nucleus of the Universal Brotherhood of Humanity, without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste, or color.

2. To encourage the study of comparative religion, philosophy, and science.

3. To investigate unexplained laws of nature and the powers latent in humanity.

Regarding the First Object, to form a “brotherhood of humanity”: brotherhood, of course, was presented as a nongender term for the unity, compassion, and mutual service of the human race. It is predicated on the belief that all beings―in fact, all manifested (and unmanifested) matter―are interconnected and an aspect of a universal whole. This object is to form a “nucleus” of those who are aware of this unity and can model and share it with those who are not yet able to see. Despite the illusion, we are not separate beings, and any action to help or harm another, in truth helps or harms us as well.

The Second Object―to encourage the study of comparative religion, philosophy, and science―is critical for having a deeper understanding of past and present approaches to our natural world and for being conversant in central belief structures; it also shows a respect and appreciation for contributions of other individuals and organizations, small and large. Only by understanding our roots in these disciplines can we hope to integrate the highest aspects into our own comprehension and have a yardstick against which we may judge new notions and ideas. Additionally, pursuing this object will provide unity among different traditions, emphasizing similarities over differences and perhaps finding that at their essence all pursuits have a harmonious relationship.

Finally, regarding the Third Object, which addresses the “unexplained laws of nature” and the “powers latent in humanity,” there appear to be powers in the universe unknown to us and abilities in individuals that are difficult to explain. This confusion is in part due to our myopic views of nature, which are confined primarily to the physical plane and distorted through habituation and training. Nevertheless, we hear stories daily about telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, and other paranormal phenomena. Descriptions abound of near-death experiences, and many books are written on the subject annually. Do we really know who and what we are? What are the depths of human existence and consciousness, and how can we attain them? These profound questions have engaged the human mind from time immemorial. We are encouraged to “investigate” and look for answers. In some sense, Theosophy helps point the way.

 Theosophy teaches that the human being consists not of a single body but in fact seven, superimposed on each other at different vibrational frequencies. All manifestation, in fact, is of a septenary nature. These layers of being are often called seven “principles.” They have different names and are sometimes categorized differently, but generally they are divided into the lower four (the lower quaternary), consisting of the physical body, vitality, the astral body (or etheric double), and the emotional body—all of which are mortal and sequentially perish—and the higher three (upper triad), which are immortal. This triad comprises the higher mind (Sanskrit manas), the intuition (Sanskrit buddhi), and the spirit (Sanskrit atma). The common conception that human beings are a body and have a soul is reversed: the Theosophical belief is that human beings are a soul and have a body. Our physical form is simply a vehicle, a collection of attributes and characteristics, manifested in a specific time and place, that carry our eternal being. Therefore, death is merely a temporary transition to another form and eventually to another body. Leadbeater notes:

What is called death is the laying aside of the vehicle belonging to this lowest world, but the soul or real man in a higher world is no more changed or affected by this than the physical man is changed or affected when he removes his overcoat. All this is a matter, not of speculation, but of observation and experiment. (Leadbeater, 3)

This line of thought leads to the linked concepts of reincarnation and karma. A human lifetime truly is just a day in the eternal life of the real self, the soul. Theosophical sages such as the Mahatmas, Blavatsky, Besant, and Leadbeater tell us that we have experienced numerous past lives, perhaps hundreds or even thousands, and will experience many more in the future, as is inherently necessary for spiritual evolution. We will likely inhabit all sorts of human forms, of different ethnicities, genders, and various physical characteristics. We will be born into different societies and experience a myriad of circumstances. Therefore, any notion of being “superior” or “privileged” is quickly erased. Through each lifetime, we learn, wittingly or unwittingly, how to live a noble and righteous life. We all will make many errors but over time learn from our mistakes, sometimes slowly.

This is where karma has a great influence. The Sanskrit word karma means action or deed. It is sometimes translated as the law of retribution and refers to the law of cause and effect. Even so, it is not punitive and does not give rewards in the sense of “bad” karma and “good” karma; rather, it is always a consequence of thought and behavior in order that we may open our eyes.

Annie Besant writes the following in her book Esoteric Christianity:

As every object has two sides, one of which is behind, out of sight, when the other is in front, in sight, so every act has two sides, which cannot both be seen at once in the physical world. In other worlds, good and happiness, evil and sorrow, are seen as two sides of the same thing. This is what is called karma—a convenient and now widely used term, originally Sanskrit, expressing this connection or identity. (Besant, Esoteric Christianity, 165) 

Our life circumstances are created from karmic consequences, individual and collective, to optimize our opportunities for development. We may wish to rise to prominence and positions of importance, but these will not necessarily fulfill our duties, nurture our loved ones, advocate for social equity, or deepen our understanding of our larger world. Leonardo da Vinci is quoted as having said, “Wisdom is the daughter of experience,” and humorist Will Rogers once quipped, “Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.” Others have expressed similar sentiments. This notion at its heart is very theosophical. We have an opportunity to learn from our mistakes. How quickly we assimilate these lessons is up to us.

When there is discussion of the planetary chains, rounds, and races in Theosophy, some eyes gloss over. This can be a challenging topic both because of its complexity and because of the vast sums of time involved. Just as a human physical life is only “one day” in our true existence, the history of our planet is also only one day in its existence. We are told that our present earth is one “globe” in a series of seven incarnations, descending from the spiritual planes into the physical and then back again to the spiritual. The middle globe of the sequence is our present earth. It is the most material, for it presides at the bottom of the loop schematically. Of course, these are not actually separate planets in separate places but merely the vibrational state and stage of development at a specific time. For each globe, seven “Root Races” occur. It must be clear that these are not races in the modern sense. Instead, they are epochal expressions of humanity. We are presently in our fifth Root Race on this planet, the full complement being seven. The descriptions of prior Root Races can be mystical; the previous one (the fourth) is said to be Atlantean. Each Root Race has subraces, again seven in number, and we are presently in the fifth, moving toward the sixth.

In addition, each cycle through seven globes constitutes one “round.” The life wave that moves through the globes descends into matter and ascends back into spirit, as previously noted. Seven of these rounds, also descending into matter and reascending into spirit, constitute a “chain.” Leadbeater writes:

 Each chain consists of seven globes, and both globes and chains observe the rule of descending into matter and then rising out of it again. In order to make this comprehensible let us take as an example the chain to which our Earth belongs. At the present time it is in its fourth or most material incarnation, and therefore three of its globes belong to the physical world, two to the astral world, and two to the lower part of the mental world. The wave of divine Life passes in succession from globe to globe of this chain, beginning with one of the highest, descending gradually to the lowest and then climbing again to the same level as that at which it began. (Leadbeater, 121–22)

Humanity is presently also at the fourth round of this chain. Therefore, when looking at the entire planetary scheme, we are just slightly past the midpoint, still nearly in the most material (and least spiritual) form. Our globe forms the nadir of the cycles, and our Root Race, being the fifth of seven, is just slightly past it. The aforementioned Atlantean civilization would be the direct midpoint.

Leadbeater goes on to say, “There are ten schemes of evolution at present existing in our solar system, but only seven of them are at the stage where they have planets in the physical world” (Leadbeater, 124). This means that the other planets in our solar system are not inert pieces of rock and ice. Rather, they are the lowest physical manifestation of a complex series of globes that support the evolution of life of a description that is difficult to fathom. And our solar system is only one of an infinite number in the universe, where similar schemes of evolution may be taking place.

 Each night passes into day, winter is followed by summer, birth is followed by death. We see cycles and periodicity everywhere. Our planet, solar system, and universe are no different. Each phase of manifestation is cyclical, having an outbreathing and an inbreathing. In Theosophical terms, the period of manifestation is known as a manvantara, and the period of nonmanifestation (or rest) is known as pralaya. Mme. Blavatsky, in The Secret Doctrine under a section known as the Three Fundamental Propositions, writes, “The Eternity of the Universe in toto as a boundless plane; periodically ‘the playground of numberless Universes incessantly manifesting and disappearing,’ called ‘the manifesting stars,’ and the ‘sparks of Eternity.’ . . . ‘The appearance and disappearance of Worlds is like a regular tidal ebb, flux and reflux’” (Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine, 1:16–17).

The expanse of time and space can be mind-boggling. The time for a major cycle of manifestation (maha-manvantara) is said to be in the hundreds of trillions of years. Mme. Blavatsky has been criticized for offering a “system” that is too complex and abstract to be accepted by the general public. It is curious that the same concerns have not been applied to quantum physics and viral immunology.

No discussion of Theosophy can be complete without reference to the Masters of Wisdom. As evolution progresses and humanity unfolds, some people reach the pinnacle of existence and become “perfected beings.” Of these, some, through their own choice, remain to assist and elevate humanity. These beings are known as the “Masters of Wisdom,” the “Adepts,” the “Arhats,” or the “Mahatmas” (Sanskrit for great souls). In her book on the Masters, Annie Besant writes, “The great religions bestow on this Perfect Man different names, but, whatever the name, the same idea is beneath it; He is Mithra, Osiris, Krishna, Buddha, Christ—but he ever symbolizes the Man made perfect. He does not belong to a single religion, a single nation, a single human family” (Besant, Masters, 1). HPB writes that “a Mahatma is a personage who, by special training and education, has evolved those higher faculties and has attained that spiritual knowledge, which ordinary humanity will acquire after passing through numberless series of reincarnations during the process of cosmic evolution, provided, of course, that they do not go, in the meanwhile, against the purposes of Nature” (Blavatsky, Collected Writings, 6:239).

The Adepts who retain an interest in our fledgling earthly existence have been described as the “Great White Brotherhood.” The phrase is not meant to have any implication regarding race or gender (white refers to light, brotherhood to all humanity), as the Masters are free of these attributes, except when they occasionally take physical bodies as vehicles.

The Masters attempt to guide the evolution of our species, and two in particular have been responsible for the development of the Theosophical Society as well as other religious initiatives in our history. Those two are known as Master Koot Hoomi and Master Morya (often known by their initials: K.H. and M.). Mme. Blavatsky said that they live “beyond the Himalayas,” although they do travel astrally and occasionally in physical form. Blavatsky was a disciple of the Master Morya and met him on several occasions.

In the early days of the Society, A.P. Sinnett, an Englishman living in India who was interested in Theosophical ideas, asked Blavatsky about initiating correspondence with the Masters. She encouraged him to try, and over several years there was an exchange of written communication. These letters have survived and are known as the Mahatma Letters. Initially a private exchange, decades later they were published, and the originals still exist at the British Library in London. The letters have been a rich resource of Theosophical theory and instruction and are revered by many students of Theosophy. N. Sri Ram, a late president of the Theosophical Society, notes that “all the Adepts of whom mention has been made have physical bodies, but many, we are told, do not have such bodies but remain in touch with the earth in their subtle bodies: they have not gone away from the world” (Ram, 5). The work of the Masters is thought to be behind some of the deepest religious and philosophical writings that have been provided through others over the centuries. K.H. writes, “This Theosophy is no new candidate for the world’s attention, but only the restatement of principles which have been recognized from the very infancy of mankind” (Beechey, 109–10).

What, then, is the purpose of life from a Theosophical perspective? This question has no single answer but varies by perspective and emphasis. We are beginning the return path to Divinity from our deepest excursion into materiality. This is a natural cycle of humankind and of consciousness. It is accomplished through character development, compassion, and service. Gaining knowledge through the doctrine of the eye and intuitional wisdom through the doctrine of the heart are both critical. By being aware of deeper states of existence through knowledge (study) and experience (meditation), we can develop spiritual wisdom. Annie Besant, writing about yoga (meaning deep, spiritual union, not simply postures or asanas) says that

Desire must cease; and the Self-determined will must take its place. The last object of desire in a person commencing the Path of Return is the desire to work with the Will of the Supreme; he harmonises his will with the Supreme Will, renounces all separate desires, and thus works to turn of the wheel of life as long as such turning is needed by the law of Life. Desire on the Path of Forthgoing becomes will on the Path of Return; the soul, in harmony with the Divine, works with the law. (Besant, Introduction to Yoga, 134)

Discussing the purpose of life, Leadbeater describes the downward arc into materiality and the upward arc into spirituality this way: “In this stage the spirit, having learnt perfectly how to receive impression through matter and how to express itself through it, and having awakened its dormant powers, learns to use these powers rightly in the service of the Deity” (Leadbeater, 108–09).

Socrates is famous for saying, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Perhaps this is a succinct way of noting that introspection, self-observation, self-understanding, and striving to ascertain life’s purpose are essential to the inner development of the soul during our terrestrial journey. Who we are and how we relate to ourselves, our fellow travelers, our environment, and our collective Divinity define our nature in the present. Our potential, however, goes much further. Legitimate spiritual teachers have attempted to point the way. We can take comfort in the fact that many, both ancient and modern, have traveled this path before us. However, none of them will carry us over the threshold. We must each take our own steps and find our own way. Each path will vary in its challenges and accomplishments.

To be an adherent of Theosophy requires no belief in doctrine, save the unity of all humanity. Each is free to explore avenues and corners to which he or she may be attracted. There is no need to recite or even believe in any particular teaching. We are constantly being told not to accept a specific concept because it was spoken by someone with recognition or written in an acclaimed book. We are counseled to explore for ourselves, to search where we may, and then to make up our own minds. We need not delve into the writings of the Masters, or even acknowledge their existence. If Mme. Blavatsky’s writings are too recondite, many other authors are available. If we find the talk of globes, rounds, and chains overwhelming, we need not dwell on them.

Theosophy, like all traditions, has a history variegated with personalities and opinions. But it is something much more. It has an aliveness and an immediacy. It begins to lift the veil of life’s secrets. It embraces the mystery of who we are and what we can accomplish. It vibrates deep inside us and emanates through our universe, seen and unseen. It is the love we share, the joy we touch, and the common link of all we experience. Each breath brings us closer to Divinity. Blavatsky told her students:

There is a road, steep and thorny, beset with perils of every kind, but yet a road, and it leads to the very heart of the Universe: I can tell you how to find those who will show you the secret gateway that opens inward only, and closes fast behind the neophyte for evermore. There is no danger that dauntless courage cannot conquer; there is no trial that spotless purity cannot pass through; there is no difficulty that strong intellect cannot surmount. For those who win onwards there is reward past all telling—the power to bless and save humanity; for those who fail, there are other lives in which success may come (Blavatsky, Collected Writings, 13:219). 

Sources

Beechey, Katherine A., ed. Daily Meditations: Extracts from Letters of the Masters of Wisdom. 2d ed. Adyar, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1984.

Besant, Annie. The Ancient Wisdom. Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House, 1939.

———. Esoteric Christianity. 2d ed. Wheaton: Quest, 2006.

———. The Masters. Adyar, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1918.

Blavatsky, H.P. The Key to Theosophy. London: Theosophical Publishing Company, 1889; Pasadena, Calif.: Theosophical Publishing Press, 1995. Citations refer to the 1995 edition.

———. Collected Writings. Edited by Boris de Zirkoff. Fifteen volumes. Wheaton: Theosophical Publishing House, 1966‒91.

———. The Secret Doctrine. Edited by Boris de Zirkoff. Two volumes. Wheaton: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993 [1888].

Carlson, Reed. “Foreknowledge of the Wave/Particle Duality of Light.” Theosophy World Resource Centre website, Dec. 1, 1997: https://www.theosophy.world/resource/foreknowledge-waveparticle-duality-light.

Leadbeater, C.W. A Textbook of Theosophy. Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House, 1912.

Ram, N. Sri. Seeking Wisdom. Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House, 1969.