The New Age movement has given women more significance and more power of expression than art, science or politics of the last century. It is said to have been originated by Madame Blavatsky, who was a co-founder of the Theosophical Society. The chief idea behind the new age spirituality, as unveiled and put forward by Blavatsky, was a belief in panhuman fraternity without distinction of religion, color, caste or race. At the source of all cultures lies a primordial, unified tradition, which is obfuscated by sectarian conflicts and cultural differences. As divinity was believed to rest within every man’s and woman’s psyche, the theosophical emphasis lay on the individual religious experience rather than an adoption of outside, objective cultural forms of cult. As Gary Lachman wrote in a section dedicated to Blavatsky in his A Dark Muse: A History of the Occult:
“At the centre of the mass of doctrines about reincarnation, past lives, astral planes, higher consciousness and spiritual evolution was the formidable, electric and roguish figure of Madame Blavatsky. It is true that the world was waiting for something like theosophy to arrive. Bereft of God through the rise of science, and flooded with a triumphant materialist doctrine, thousands of individuals who sought spiritual guidance found themselves adrift in an indifferent universe. With its broad message of universal brotherhood, spiritual truth and cosmic mysteries, theosophy appealed to both the devout ascetic and the late-Romantic.”
I have not read The Secret Doctrine in its entirety, though I have approached the task and read longer passages, which I found very worthwhile. As the moon is dark right now, I was drawn to a particularly illuminating quote about light and darkness:
“Darkness is Father-Mother: light their son, says an old Eastern proverb. Light is inconceivable except as coming from some source which is the cause of it; and as, in the instance of primordial light, that source is unknown, though as strongly demanded by reason and logic, therefore it is called ‘Darkness’ by us, from an intellectual point of view. As to borrowed or secondary light, whatever its source, it can be but of a temporary mayavic character. Darkness, then, is the eternal matrix in which the sources of light appear and disappear. Nothing is added to darkness to make of it light, or to light to make it darkness, on this our plane. They are interchangeable, and scientifically light is but a mode of darkness and vice versa. Yet both are phenomena of the same noumenon — which is absolute darkness to the scientific mind, and but a gray twilight to the perception of the average mystic, though to that of the spiritual eye of the Initiate it is absolute light. How far we discern the light that shines in darkness depends upon our powers of vision. What is light to us is darkness to certain insects, and the eye of the clairvoyant sees illumination where the normal eye perceives only blackness. When the whole universe was plunged in sleep — had returned to its one primordial element — there was neither centre of luminosity, nor eye to perceive light, and darkness necessarily filled the boundless all.”
What is dark to the scientific mind, is gray twilight to the average mystic but absolute light to the Initiate. The clarity of inner vision is unrelated to the presence or absence of what we profanely understand as light. In the following beautiful poem, the divine is seen and experienced most clearly by direct participation in different geographical zones: the I of the poem, in a sequence of incarnations, was a Celtic ornament, an oar from Ithaca, a bump of clay in a Navajo rug in Native America, a stone in Tibet, and a tongue of bark in the dark heart of Africa. When he just was his vision was clearer and more immediate than the one possessed by his present self – the anthropologist – equipped with all the contemporary trappings of scientific measurement and observation.
“Lives” [for Seamus Heaney], by Derek Mahon
First time out
I was a torc of gold
And wept tears of the sun.That was fun
But they buried me
In the earth two thousand yearsTill a labourer
Turned me up with a pick
In eighteen fifty-fourAnd sold me
For tea and sugar
In Newmarket-on-Fergus.Once I was an oar
But stuck in the shore
To mark the place of a graveWhen the lost ship
Sailed away. I thought
Of Ithaca, but soon decayed.The time that I liked
Best was when
I was a bump of clayIn a Navaho rug,
Put there to mitigate
The too god-likePerfection of that
Merely human artifact.
I served my maker wellHe lived long
To be struck down in
Tucson by an electric shockThe night the lights
Went out in Europe
Never to shine again.So many lives,
So many things to remember!
I was a stone in Tibet,A tongue of bark
At the heart of Africa
Growing darker and darker …It all seems
A little unreal now,
Now that I amAn anthropologist
With my own
Credit card, dictaphone,Army-surplus boots
And a whole boatload
Of photographic equipment.I know too much
To be anything any more;
And if in the distantFuture someone
Thinks he has once been me
As I am today,Let him revise
His insolent ontology
Or teach himself to pray.
by Alex Grey
symbolreader 
This is so rich Monika that it will require at least one re-read for me. I now have a better grasp on the origins of New Age, which is a term I have come to resent and reject.
You may enjoy this article. I have been fortunate to spend many meals and evenings here. The energy is wonderful!
http://articles.philly.com/1988-05-07/news/26260563_1_writings-theosophists-hindu
love,
Linda
LikeLiked by 1 person
Great place, Linda. Well, about New Age, perhaps nobody has resented being called that more than me but now I am embracing it. I want to be New Age 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
The quote on Darkness and Light is superb Monika. Thank you. Great post.
LikeLike
Thank you, Don. I spent a long while contemplating these words and also find them very rich.
LikeLike
This is ultra-beautiful.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I am ultra-pleased. Thank you.
LikeLike
I’m trying to remember if Yeats associated with Madame Blavatsky. I read his autobiography a long time ago and I see to recall a connection.
Wonderful choice of poems.
LikeLike
He tried but was excommunicated, apparently:
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/bb/yeats.htm
LikeLike
Hi Monika.
I hope you are doing well. I was originally exposed to Blavatsky in college, where I had to read excerpts as part of my Yeats class. After college, I attempted to read Secret Doctrine and got about halfway through the first volume, then my mind told me to stop. I may attempt it again at some point, but likely I will read Isis Unveiled first. Have not tried that one yet 🙂
Jeff
LikeLike
Hey Jeff, well this is no beach reading 😉 but if you’ve been through Ulysses, you can take this on. I would like to read Isis Unveiled too. Thanks for dropping by.
Monika
LikeLiked by 1 person
I am a big fan of Theosophy and Blavatsky, although I have bought “The Secret Doctrine” for a friend I do not own a copy myself. I must remedy that. Great presentation as always Monika.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi Sindy, thanks! I think it’s great that you can also read it online. I agree it’s more than worth it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hmm perhaps this summer when I am out of school. 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
Reblogged this on lampmagician.
LikeLike
Pingback: The Light that Shines in Darkness | lampmagician
“There is in God (some say) a deep but dazzling darkness.”
― Henry Vaughan
Henry Vaughan (17 April 1621 – 23 April 1695) was a Welsh author, physician and metaphysical poet. I love the above quotation, and used it as the basis for the title of my book “Wisps from the Dazzling Darkness”. Many thanks for this post, Monika. I am familiar with Blavatsky’s work – she made a great contribution to our understanding in the 20th/21st centuries that all energy arises from the same Ground…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Suvh a Beautiful quote, Anne. Thank you very much.
LikeLike
Reblogged this on Weaving Among The Stars.
LikeLike
Thank you.
LikeLike
Mme Blavatsky and theosophy – i once many years ago went to spend a month with my sister in Bangalore in a house which on the ground floor had been occupied by Anne Besant and Jiddu Krisnamurti – followers lived on the ground floor and we got acquainted with theosophy – your piece inspires me to say ‘do not make too much of this light for the goddess is dark as this new moon, so too Krishna and Rama – withdrawing inversely from you your soul’s light in exquisite union and delight as you blend into the perfection of darkness, suffused and scattered in unidentifiable indigo bliss’
thanks for the inspiration.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Dear Indrajit,
“Do not make too much of this light for the goddess is dark” – I would gladly etch these words indelibly in a deep memory vault. I actually relish darkness, appreciate it immensely and worship its deep symbolism.
Thank you very much.
Monika
LikeLike
even in the photo locking eyes with her gives one vertigo
LikeLiked by 1 person
So true!
LikeLike
Love the article, the quotes, the poem, the images!
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is wonderful. Thank you.
LikeLiked by 1 person
On second reading new thoughts arise!
LikeLiked by 1 person