Theos-Talk Archives (April 1996 Message tl00030)

Forty Years of Occultism

Alan Bain

A month or so ago, on the Internet theosophy list, I mentioned
that come April 4th I would have been involved in matters
theosophical for 40 years to the day, and hinted portentiously
(probably) that come the day I would reveal all.

Naturally, as is the case with we overworked and busy Adepts,
the appointed time and place passed me by without a reminder.

As I had finished scanning and proof-reading chapter six of
Ernest Wood's "Is This Theosophy ... ?" I was reminded by his
experiences of many of my own, including the occasion that has
enabled me through the years to recall the precise date and even
the approximate hour of my own entry into the mysterious world
of occult philosophy (as Cornelius Agrippa called it) or
theosophy (as we call it).

On the night of 3rd/4th April 1956 I had reached a point in my
life whereby it seemed that I had been given no choice but to
stand firm on matters of spiritual principle - as it seemed at
the time - and was in consequence quite alone in the world,
with hardly a single friend, living in a small bedsitter in
London.

I was exhausted in the same way as one can be after a "psychic
battle" and more than ready simply to lie down on the bed in my
clothes and fall asleep.  But I was afraid.  For no reason I
could fathom, hard as I tried to rationalise the matter, I was
filled with a conviction that if I went to sleep I would die.
And I mean die - finished, dead, kaput - no more.  The obvious -
the only - means of avoiding this was to remain awake,
presumably forever, though my thoughts did not follow through
that far, and so I tried, tired as I was, not to stay awake, but
to prevent myself falling asleep.

Eventually - about three in the morning - I realised I was not
going to make it, and quite literally resigned myself,
reconciled myself to the fact - yes, fact - of my impending
demise.  By the morning would I would have died.  I lay on the
bed, no longer fearful, just exhausted and ready as I could be
to face the inevitable.

And so it was that I awoke - rather late on the 4th April -
dead.  That is to say that the Alan Bain who lay down on the bed
at three in the morning was gone, complete with phobias,
inadequacies and inhibitions, and a new Alan Bain had emerged,
chrysalis-like, from the shell of the old.  Reborn.

Within six months I had worked my way through the rudiments of
Astrology, Theosophy (via Jinarajadasa) and Qabalah (as in Dion
Fortune's "Mystical Qabalah").  Within a year I was heading a
small group of students, mostly around my own age - by then 23 -
which was unusual for those days, as most people seemed to
become interested in such matters in their early forties.

Qabalah, later spelt "Kabbalah" to avoid being confused with the
"magical" variety, became my personal working and teaching
method, and the first draft of my "The Keys to Kabbalah" was
completed in 1970-71.  It received its latest redefinition and
extensions last year, 1995.

Like many theosophists since the time of Besant and Leadbeater,
I have been involved with all three of the later manifestations
of the movement: the Liberal Catholic Church (which I find to be
neither liberal nor catholic); Co-Masonry (of limited but some
value, once you have finished playing "Knock knock, who's
there?") and the Adyar-based Theosophical Society.

Like many theosophists I have met, mostly electronically, during
the past year or two, I have come to realise that the real
strength of the occult or theosophical ideal was that, however
imperfectly expressed, by Madame Blavatsky and friends back in
1875.

120 years later, some of us, returning (I suspect) to both our
source and our roots, are wondering about starting over, about
ridding ourselves of hierarchical and power structures which
seem to have done as much harm as they have good.  Without their
having existed, it is fair to say I would have nothing to
write about today, but I think it is also fair to say that
*their* day is passing, and we truly are moving into a "New Dimension"
if not a "New Age" - no doubt we shall see.

Wish me a happy anniversary!

Alan
---------
THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL:
Ancient Wisdom for a New Age
TI@nellie2.demon.co.uk