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EDITOR The Editors assume no responsibility for the views expressed by authors
in Theosophical History.
James A. Santucci
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THEOSOPHICAL
HISTORY
Contents
January 1991
Volume III, Number 5
Editors Notes
James Santucci 133
Correspondence 136
Articles
Review of Books
Theosophical History finally enters 1991 information not only of the Institute but also of the
with this issue. The present issue continues and American Section of the Theosophical Society
completes Professor Godwins The Hidden Hand, during the early portion of the twentieth century.
the first three parts of which previously appearing We eagerly await future volumes of this study.
in III/2-4. This final study investigates the some- Please note the cover photograph for the
what mysterious Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor. July 1990 journal is of Annie Besant wearing the
One of the interests of this journal is the Cagliostro Jewel. See the page 79 drawing of that
exploration of theosophical societies and move- jewel. The picture was donated by Mr. Joseph E.
ments in countries not usually associated with Ross.
such organizations. Professor Bernardino del
Boca, a former Italian Consul in Singapore, was International Theosophical History
kind enough to send information on what he calls Conference
in the title of his essay, The First Practical
Expression of Theosophy in Italy: The Villagio Call For Papers
Verde.
Reviews are also included of two rather It is with great pleasure that we an-
significant historical publications. The first book, nounce plans to hold an International Theosophi-
In Search of the Masters by Paul Johnson, is bound cal History Conference at Point Loma, California
to generate considerable discussion. Just who the from 12-14 June 1992. As many of our readers are
Mahatmas in the Theosophical Society are has already aware, four previous conferences took
been argued since the inception of the Society. place at the headquarters of the English T.S. in
The last significant discussion on these mysteri- London from 1986 to 1989 under the auspices of
ous personages came with the Hare brothers the Theosophical History Centre. With this in
denial of their very existence in their book Who mind, the Theosophical History Foundation wishes
Wrote the Mahatma Letters? (by Harold Edward to continue the valuable work of the Centre and
Hare and William Loftus Hare [London: Williams the founder of this journal, Leslie Price.
and Norgate Ltd., 1936]). Mr. Johnson has taken
a more middle-of-the road approach, indicating The location of the conference will be on
that they were neither superhuman nor figments the grounds of the old Point Loma theosophical
of Madame Blavatskys imagination. The review community (Lomaland), now the Point Loma
is contributed by Dr. Gregory Tillett of Macquarie Nazarene College, from Friday, 12 June 1992, to
University (Australia). The second review exam- Sunday, 14 June 1992. The conference activities
ines Joseph Rosss publication on the origins of will be in Boney Lecture Hall. For those who wish
the Krotona Institute of Hollywood (California). to remain on the campus of P.L.N.C., Finch Hall
Mr. Ross has provided us with much valuable has been reserved at a cost of $15 a person or $30
The Brotherhood of Luxor, or of Light, lost solid evidence for the foundation of such an order
its most famous members when Madame Blav- in 1870, the succeeding years saw a lot of activity
atsky and Colonel Olcott left for India in 1878. of the sort that might be expected to follow on the
Now it disappears from view for several years, so launching of an occult movement. One character
that when a Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor had no place in the description of those events,
emerges in the mid-1880s, there is some question because his association with them is purely on
as to whether this was still the same group, under hearsay; but now it is time to introduce Max
a modified name. For Olcott, it was definitely not: Thon (1847-1927), born in Warsaw as Louis-
he said that the title Brotherhood of Luxor was Maximilien Bimstein, the son of a rabbi. If we can
pilfered by the schemers who started, several believe the story told, years later, by his sometime
years later, the gudgeon-trap called The H.B. of pupil in occultism, Mirra Alfassa-Richard3 (later
L.1 Olcott was determined to dissociate the the Mother of Sri Aurobindos ashram), Thon
Brotherhood of Luxor, whose Masters Tuitit and was very young when he became involved in
Serapis had enrolled him in 1875, from the H.B. occultism, and mastered many languages and
of L. as represented by Peter Davidson in the mid- crafts.4 He had worked with Madame Blavatsky,
1880s. The H.B. of L. was equally keen to and had founded an occult society in Egypt.5
emphasize its pedigree, and this is obviously what Until reading Nahars book on Mirra, I could make
prompted the remark in the later, official history no sense of the rumor, published by Ren Gunon,6
of the order: that the Brotherhood was founded in that Thon was the son of Paulos Metamon, the
1870, and not, as the January number of The
Theosophist says, in 1884...2 3
For Thons biography, see Sujata Nahar, Mothers Chronicles,
In The Brotherhood of Light (Part II of Book 3: Mirra the Occultist (Paris: Institut des Recherches
this article) I concluded that, while there was no Evolutives, 1989). This contains the findings of Patrice Marot
and Christian Chanel; the latter cautions, in private communi-
1
Henry Steel Olcott, Old Diary Leaves: The History of the cation (8 June 1991) against attributing too much importance
Theosophical Society. First Series: America 1874-1878. Sec- to Nahars account. I am grateful to Paul Johnson for access
ond edition (Adyar, Madras: The Theosophical Publishing to this book.
House, 1941), 76. The order in question has always been
4
known by its initials alone, which leaves it ambiguous whether Ibid., 51f.
the L. stands for Luxor or Light (though they may mean the
5
same thing). Ibid., 48.
2 6
Peter Davidson, Origine et objet de lH. B. of L. in H. B. of Ren Gunon, Le Thosophisme: Historie dune Pseudo-
L. Textes et documents secrets de la Hermetic Brotherhood of religion (rev. & augmented ed., Paris: Ed. Traditionnelles,
Luxor (Milan: Arch, 1988), 4. 1982), 313.
84
See J. Godwin, Saint-Yves dAlveydre and the Agarthian
Connection, in Hermetic Journal, 32 (1986), 24-34; 33 (1986),
31-8.
37
See The Church of Light, note 16 above.
35
Gunon, Le Thosophisme, ed. cit., 314.
38
Thomas H. Burgoyne, Zanoni, [swastika symbol], The Light
36
Ellic Howe, The Alchemist of the Golden Dawn of Egypt, or The Science of the Soul and the Stars. Two volumes
(Wellingborough: Aquarian, 1985), 20. (Albuquerque: Sun Books, 1980).
51
See P. Johnson, In Search of the Masters: Beyond the Occult
Myth (South Boston, Va: Author, 1990), Pt. I.
From 1947 to 1951 I was the Italian Consul literature. At the present time, the Villaggio Verde
in Singapore and, being a member of the Theo- possesses a library of 13,000 books and maga-
sophical Society and former president of the zines.
Besant-Arundale Lodge in Novara, Italy I would In 1970 I founded, together with the
often visit the Singapore Lodge located on 8 theosophist Edoardo Bresci, the Publishing House,
Cairnhill Road. At a meeting of the Malayan LEt dell Acquario (The Age of Aquarius), and
Vegetarian Society, I met a Chinese nun, Pitt Tze the magazine LEt dell Acquario, now in its
Hui, who asked me to help her establish a seventy-first issue.
Buddhist society in Singapore. I did my best to In 1981 we bought some wooded land
help her, as did other theosophists, such as Rie near the place of origin of my family, Boca, not far
and S.H. Ph. von Krusenstierna (now Bishop of from Lake Maggiore and Arona, and we started
the Liberal Catholic Church in Australia), Mrs. the Villaggio Verde, a community conforming to
H.B. Moorhead, Mr. V. Rajagopal, and Mr. Chan the principles of Theosophy, trying to escape
Chim Lee. from both the illusion of Time and Space and
Together with Pitt Tze Hui, we published especially from the negative influence of the mind
A bilingual graduated course on the Fundamen- and of the sensory illusion of materialism. Our
tal Teachings of the Lord Buddha (Jen Chien Fu goal is to build fifty-one moduli (apartments)
Chion - Buddhism for this Sansara World). We around a small artificial lake, the already com-
also established a model for a community in Italy pleted lake being the symbol of the Aquarian Age.
where it was possible to live to be and not to At the time of this writing, sixteen have been
have. We had many dreams and we hoped to be constructed (see photo). In front, at the entrance
able to make people understand the invisible of the Village, is a shrine of the phi [spirit beings
reality of the Continuous Infinite Present. who usually inhabit rivers, mountains, wild places
At that time I was very young, but this and trees. In front of many Thai homes is the Sam-
dream of a community or village with individuals Phra-Phum, the home of the earth spirit, to
living in harmony, not just intellectual harmony which this most certainly is - ed.] originating from
but a harmony with the invisible reality of the Bangkok, Thailand. It is a symbol of our greater
Spiritual Realm, has persisted to be somewhat of belief and confidence in the invisible world and
an obsession to me. To this end, I began to collect its spiritual energies. Our agricultural endeavors
books and magazines on alternative and spiritual give us food enough for the inhabitants.
A visitor (left) and Bernardino del Boca (right) standing in front of the entrance to the Villaggio Verde, on either
side of the shrine to the phi.
The myth, or masks, of the Mahatmas It is easy to find minor flaws in the book;
was, Johnson argues, established to conceal the they have nothing to do with the major thesis or
real identities and purposes of the men. Blavatsky the substance of his research. In large part they
was prepared to allow herself to be declared a are the result of the author publishing his own
fraud and a charlatan rather than disclose the real book. Mainstream Theosophical publishers pre-
identities of her Masters. sumably found the subject matter too challenging
and controversial. Playing a game of trivial
However, the problem Johnson faces, pursuit to find fault with the book does not detract
given the elaborate concealment and mythologiz- from the central arguments, and the overwhelm-
ing in which (if his hypothesis is correct) Blav- ing (and, for some readers, probably almost
atsky and her Masters engaged, is to establish unendurable) mass of detail and documentation.
coherent and historically convincing evidence for
his thesis. Like all who enter the shadowy realms Does the author satisfactorily establish
of conspiracy theory, he is caught in something of his thesis? Inevitably, not, but through no fault of
a trap: if there was a secret conspiracy, there is his own. The case he makes out is coherent and
unlikely to be any direct evidence of it. He is well-documented; it depends, however, on sub-
therefore reduced to circumstantial evidence, stantial conjecture, rather than on soundly docu-
suggestions, implications, coincidences, and as- mented history. This is hardly unorthodox in the
sociations. This is the major, and inevitable, area of Theosophical history, or the history of
criticism of his book. occultism generally. Two relatively recent studies
of Blavatsky - Meades Madame Blavatsky: The
And this, to a large extent, explains the Woman behind the Myth (1980) and Fullers Blav-
difficulty of the book, no less than of the research atsky and her Teachers (1988) - make no less use
on which it is based. The research is virtually of speculation and conjecture, from diametrically
beyond criticism; Johnson has explored, uncov- opposed positions, and without the degree of
ered and documented both major pathways and supporting evidence which Johnson employs.
obscure byways and dead-ends of Theosophical
and occult history with a zeal and enthusiasm for The book lacks an index which, particu-
detail which is otherwise almost unknown in larly in works arguing complex historical con-
James A. Santucci