Theos-Talk Archives (December 1998 Message tl00107)

Dec 4th 1998

Dear friend:

In regard to the "closing" of a "gate in 1897/98 there was much
speculation at one time.

I have found the best way to answer such questions is to look for
the original references and then decide what philosophically we
can get out of them in the way of useful and present-time
application.  Otherwise they remain as an inexplicable memory and
a vague unease in our minds.
The sun never sets, a period of rest never begins without the
hope or the certainty that the economy of Great Nature will
always bring on a renewal, a reawakening.  And when this happens
the work will go one.  Even during that which is night to some,
there is activity elsewhere. It is a ceaseless urge to grow, to
experience, to learn -- and the move to progress which is innate
in each one of us, as in all the rest of nature -- even to the
tiniest atom.  It is the intimation of innate, persistent
immortality that leaves its insistent mark everywhere.

In her article THE ESOTERIC CHARACTER OF THE GOSPELS ["Lucifer,"
Nov., Dec. 1887,  Feb 1888 ]  HPB gives (in a footnote) [ ULT 3
Vol. Edn. Of HPB's Articles,  Vol. 3, p. 169 fn ] at the outset
an important date relating to occult cycles and the ending of the
"Age of Pisces - and the starting of that of Aquarius - a cycle
of 2,155 years - not long, but very occult as the influence of
sun and zodiac changes in a subtle but definite way (details not
all given).

HPB predicts that psychologists will thereafter have extra work
to do as the psychic idiosyncrasies of humanity will enter on a
great change.  [ And that means this present - and she also
refers to this in her FOURTH MESSAGE TO THE AMERICAN SECTION IN
CONVENTION IN 1891:

"The period which we have now reached in the cycle that will
close between 1897/98 is, and will continue to be one of great
conflict and continued strain.  If the T.S. can hold through it,
good;  if not, while Theosophy will remain unscathed, the Society
will perish-perchance most ingloriously-and the World will
suffer...the critical nature of the stage on which we have
entered is as well known to the forces that fight against us as
to those that fight on our side.  No opportunity will be lost of
sowing dissension, of taking advantage of mistaken and false
moves, of instilling doubt, of augmenting difficulties, of
breathing suspicion, so that by any and every means the unity of
the Society may be broken and the ranks of our Fellows thinned
and thrown into disarray..."

Reviewing the history of the last 100 years we can decide whether
this prophecy has been fulfilled or not.  How many FTS have
honored HPB by the close study and learning of that Theosophy
which she and the Masters of Wisdom jointly presented ?  Are the
ranks of the T. S. one pointed, united, wise and active ?  Or, is
there much work left to be done ?  Each one has to think of these
things and answer to themselves.  Exactly what is/was the work to
be done for ones' self and for others ?

Returning to the matter of intersecting cycles: --

Simultaneously there is the ending of the first 5,000 years of
Kali Yuga cycle ( Total time: 432,000 years for that grand
cycle ).

In the SECRET DOCTRINE (Vol. I, p. 612) she indicates that the
year 1897 will witness a large rent being made in the Veil of
Nature whereby "materialistic science will receive a deathblow."
This date has passed and we have witnessed in the last 100 year a
series of great discoveries, in physics, chemistry, astronomy,
mathematics and biochemistry that have revolutionized our concept
of the atom and the molecule and the interaction of forces and
energies on the most subtlest, as well as the grandest
electro-magnetic scales and ranges of measurement.  The
rediscovery of the "astral body" and the "astral plane" whereby
all material forms are made to cohere, and especially those
biochemical mixtures in which intelligent consciousness and life
of a higher character is seen (plants, animals, humans).  Science
has in fact already entered the realm of energy that leads to an
understanding of the power of the astral and the Pranic energies
that make forms possible and given them the life they enjoy as
entities with a definite purpose in the great scheme of things.
[ Mr. Judge in the OCEAN OF THEOSOPHY speaks of this critical
date and gives information on this theme on p. 125 of the book. ]

The psychological origins and potential achievements of human
consciousness - and its unknown ranges - have been sensed,
vaguely sketched, and it remains for a serious and concentrated
investigation to clear away the concept that all this vast
interacting group of diverse molds or model-forms that underlie
the many physical forms and keep them "living" is moved by one
central cooperative INTELLIGENCE and many INDEPENDENT BUT
VOLUNTARILY COOPERATING INTELLIGENCES.  Man's consciousness
represents one of the most advanced powers focused in such a form
at this time, and from this condition the doors open to an
understanding of the Universe, its purpose (see SD I 268) and he
can understand what his own duty and responsibility is as he
passes through the successive degrees of initiation that are
possible to him - by his own determination and will.

Writing on this concept Mr. Judge in THE OCEAN OF THEOSOPHY (p.
4) says:  this "is an age of transition," when every system of
thought, science, religion, government, and society is changing,
preparing for an alteration into that state which will permit the
race to advance to the point suitable for these elder brothers to
introduce their actual presence to our sight."

Another article speaks of the "precursors of HPB," of the vow
taken by Tsong-Kha-Pa in Tibet to send a mission to the West each
hundred years.  And we can trace from that date in the 14th
Century, the imprint of the work of various "Messengers" whose
task it was to revive in the West the memory of the esoteric
Wisdom.  In the 15th Cent. We had the revival in Florence of the
study of Plato spearheaded by Paschalis, Pico della Mirandola and
Marsilio Ficino.

The next century (16th) saw the work of Giordano Bruno,
Paracelsus, Van Helmont, Reuchlin and Trithemius.  And then that
of Boehme (17th Cent.), Eugenius Philalethes, and with them the
Rosicrucians, Hermetic Philosophers and Fire Philosophers.  In
the 18th Cent. we have St. Germain, St. Martin, Cagliostro and
Mesmer.  Also the Cambridge Platonists worked then and so did
Thomas Taylor who translated the Greek philosophers

HPB speaks to the importance of cycles and dates in her articles:

STARS AND NUMBERS   Theosophist June 1881  [ ULT Edn., HPB's
Articles Vol. III, p. 401 ]
OUR CYCLE AND THE NEXT   Lucifer Vol. 4, p. 177  [ ULT Edn.,
Vol. I, p. 367 ]
THE CYCLE MOVETH  Lucifer March 1890	[ ULT Edn., Vol. I, p. 355 ]
THE NEW CYCLE 1889  La Revue Theosophique  March 1889	[ ULT Edn.,
Vol. I, p. 397 ]

WILL MASTERS' HELP BE WITHDRAWN IN 1898 UNTIL 1975 ?	 -- Judge
PATH, Nov. 1894,
			[ W Q Judge's Articles,  ULT Edn.,  Vol. II, p. 76
ARE WE DESERTED ?	  -- Judge  PATH, December 1892,  [ ULT Edn.,
Vol. II, p. 78 ]
PROPHECIES BY H P BLAVATSKY	-- Judge  [ ULT Edn., Vol. II, p.
81 ]

In closing, here is a quote from the SECRET DOCTRINE where HPB
speaks of the future:

"...it is the esoteric teachings, and the initiates of the
Future, whose mission it is, and will be, to redeem and ennoble
once more the primitive conceptions so sadly profaned by its
crude and gross application to exoteric dogmas and personations
by theological and ecclesiastical religionists.  The silent
worship of abstract or 'noumenal' Nature, the only divine
manifestation, is the one ennobling religion of Humanity."  [ SD
I 381 fn )

Best wishes,

Dallas