Theos-Talk Archives (September 1995 Message tl00903)

Rich:

>While I was at Harvard University a few years back attending the Divinity
>School, the librarian called my attention to sealed letters from HPB to Mr.
>Judge, which had been sitting there, waiting for the expiration date. That
>date just happened to be January 1, 1992, during my second year there, so I
>opened them, made photocopies, and arranged for them to be circulated among
>Theosophists at large. A ULT member paid for their restoration, and a
>Theosophical scholar is now publishing them in THEOSOPHICAL HISTORY, edited
>by James Santucci.

Are these the HPB letters that John Cooper is also preparing for publication?
Could you post some of the more interesting extracts for us to read?

>Now, though, what has become of the E.S.? After Mr. Judge and Annie Besant
>had their "problems," Annie formed her own and different E.S., with its own
>rules, regluations, and goals.

>It is not clear what, if anything, remains of the E.S. today.

My understanding is that each of the three theosophical groups had their
E.S. In the Point Loma Society, there were numerous grades under Purucker,
and when Long became President the E.S. was ended, merged back into the
mainstream T.S. In The Adyar T.S. it continues to this day, with people
learning of it mostly be word-of-mouth. In The ULT, it is nearly-totally
underground, with its members forbidden to talk about it to outsiders.

We're also taught of a different "school", which any of us could approach
in our hearts and minds, and be admitted based upon our sincere interest
in the spiritual. That school does not issue membership cards, and we may
never meet a teacher or fellow student. Or if we meet them, we may never
know that they belong to it. We can read about it in "The Mahatma Letters"
in a general sense, as we read about the requirements of chelaship. And
it's something that we join *by changing ourselves*.

With the major theosophical organizations, their esoteric sections are,
I'd say, extensions of the same work that the lodges and study classes
promote. The work is with the public, with inquirers and aspirants, it
is with those that seek external stimulation and moral support in order
to be drawn towards the Path. The need for the schools is not felt,
though, after we become self-motivated, and have awakened in ourselves
some sense of telling the real from the unreal, good from evil, truth
from falsehood, and seeing which paths lead up the mountainside.

-- Eldon