The Problem with the New Age “Ascended Master Jesus”
Importance of the issue with the concept of “Jesus the Ascended Master” in light of Theosophy.
There are not many left true to the “original program”!
(MORYA)“Ready to lay down our life any day for THEOSOPHY – that great cause of the Universal Brotherhood for which we live and breathe – and willing to shield, if need be, every true theosophist with our own body, we yet denounce as openly and as virulently the distortion of the original lines upon which the Theosophical Society was primarily built, and the gradual loosening and undermining of the original system by the sophistry of many of its highest officers. . . . The wise horticulturist uproots the parasitic herbs, and will hardly lose time in using his garden shears to cut off the heads of poisonous weeds.”
(H.P.B., IS DENUNCIATION A DUTY)“It is pure nonsense to say that “H.P.B. . . . is loyal to the Theosophical Society and to Adyar” (?). H.P.B. is loyal to death to the Theosophical CAUSE, and those great Teachers whose philosophy alone can bind the whole of Humanity into one Brotherhood. . . . The degree of her sympathies with the “Theosophical Society and Adyar” depends upon the degree of the loyalty of that Society to the CAUSE. Let it break away from the original lines and show disloyalty in its policy to the CAUSE and the original programme of the Society, and H.P.B. calling the T.S. disloyal, will shake it off like dust from her feet.”
(H.P.B. SUPPLEMENT TO THE THEOSOPHIST, JULY 1889)“Let it be clearly understood that the rest of my life is devoted only to those who believe in the Masters, and are willing to work for Theosophy as They understand it, and for the T.S. on the lines upon which They originally established it.”
(H.P.B., WHY I DO NOT RETURN TO INDIA)Pseudo-Theosophy and Pseudo-Messiahs: Imitations of Theosophy
Helena Blavatsky is sometimes referred to as the “Mother of the New Age” movement. This is not only untrue, it is not the compliment those that argue this to define her legacy seem to think it is. It can be strongly demonstrated, that H.P. Blavatsky would have critiqued the New Age movement more harshly than…
THE WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE ON “MASTER JESUS” ON THEOSOPHY IS INACCURATE, and does not portray a Theosophical position on Jesus. One of the problematic issues in studying the history of the Theosophical Movement involves the divergent fantastical exaggerations developed from concepts first introduced, or popularized by the Theosophists in the nineteenth-century. This is very much the case with the Rosicrucian and Freemasonic legends about unknown superiors, adepts, and secret chiefs. Pablo Sender, a Theosophist explained in Mahatmas versus Ascended Masters, that Blavatsky first introduced the concept of Mahatmas (Sk. great soul) to the West:
“H.P. Blavatsky was the first person to introduce the concept of the Mahatmas (also called adepts or Masters) to the West. At first she talked about them privately, but after a few years two of these adepts, known by the pseudonyms of Koot Hoomi (K. H.) and Morya (M.), agreed to maintain a correspondence with a couple of British Theosophists—A. P. Sinnett and A. O. Hume. This communication took place from 1880 to 1885, and during those years the knowledge about the Mahatmas became more and more public.”
Due to the knowledge becoming public, during Blavatsky’s time, she began to take notice of several persons and new groups copying the idea for their program. Such persons began to de-emphasize the fact these Mahatmas are mortal and human, claiming to be in communication with the same or other Masters, and constructed fanciful notions about them, that blended spiritualism, Messianism and Christian angelology. The Theosophical Mahatmas had stated, they never communicate through mediumship, and that the vast majority of spiritualistic phenomena were bogus.
After Blavatsky’s death, the influences she had said Theosophists were exposing began to influence Theosophists, and would shape what became termed, Neo-Theosophy and Pseudo-Theosophy by Theosophists that sought to curtail it. Blavatsky herself coined the latter term to demarcate Theosophy from this newly-constructed belief in the “Solar Angels.” The widespread popularization of this belief, which even expanded into UFO lore in Western alternative religion can be mainly attributed to Guy and his wife Edna Ballard, Charles W. Leadbeater, Alice A. Bailey, Mark Prophet and Elizabeth Clare Prophet.
As you can see what was made of Count Germain.
There are Christians, that believed these invocations have real effects, though of a demonic nature, which says more about that religious devotee. In order to believe what, e.g., Elizabeth Clare Prophet was doing have real effect, you must first believe it is real. I, on the other hand do not. Elizabeth Clare Prophet merely represents the later stages of what Blavatsky was observing regarding the deification of adepts into Solar Angels; and mixed with Spiritualism are communicated through means the latter believed the dead and angels communed. Very often, such people came from strongly Christian backgrounds.
In researching this, this is a similar case with the Baháʼí Faith in the conflict between the Baháʼís and Azali/Bábís, when I asked myself once, “is this how religions and schools of thought split.” Then, not until centuries later, we’re sitting here arguing about what was the real teaching. Except, with Theosophy, the issue is obvious, and it undoes all the work of Theosophists if we ignore, that part of the goal was to not create more error.
We must understand, that modern Theosophy in this context, is a philosophical and theoretical teaching composed of the fundamentals of Occult Philosophy, and also, the school of trans-Himalayan esotericism of those teachers. Upon its introduction to the West, some people rushed away with ideas and began to innovate, simplify, and combine them with their particular Christian proclivities, such as views on God and Messianic expectations. Theosophy offers no hope for this expectation of a coming King or Messiah as it is not interested in any particular special person, and thus makes it impossible for any student, or leader to hold this idea, or proclaim to be such special individual. People wanted to keep their beliefs on God, on Jesus and Spiritualist phenomena. Rather than listen, they took.
These men bemoaned the thought of their philosophy becoming distorted, and yet it has. That would be infuriating to me. Would it not be disrespectful to you if it belonged to you? You will find in The Mahatma Letters, K.H. stating “Our doctrine knows no compromises,” and repeated emphasis on “our philosophy.”
There are adherents of certain spiritual groups, even Theosophical Society members who may tell you for example, people like me and others explaining this are bigots, mean, or being dogmatic. This is gaslighting, as the case can be proven from the very writings of the early Theosophists. It is dishonorable and disrespectful then, that there should be persons discouraging those standing up against distortions of Theosophy, merely because their feelings about their attachments to overgrown inventions are hurt. They would be even more hurt, if these teachers were here today to explain to them the same.
Intrigue and interest in Ascended Masters beliefs have steadily decreased since the seventies, and the charade of Benjamin Creme’s Maitreya, but it still lingers. We still have to contend against those, that characterize their beliefs about Ascended Masters as being based on THEOSOPHY, even blaming the Theosophists, Blavatsky, or G.I. Gurdjieff.
This has been the game of all this. In regards to the Wiki article “Master Jesus,” proponents of the Ascended Master and Maitreya-Christ concept have used their ideas to cunningly place themselves on a hierarchy invented and rearranged by them to bolster their “spiritual authority” within particular communities.
It requires a more grounded approach for those who make of H.P.B.’s masters as gods, as they are not. Freemasons and Rosicrucians held such ideas of an invisible college or brotherhood and chiefs before the Theosophists, pointing to the lore of the Middle-East, Central Asia and so forth. Then, the concept suddenly in the twentieth-century becomes a monstrous version of Swedenborg’s angels and Star Trek storylines of distant, god-like mini-Christs and enlightened extra-terrestrials that communicate through mediumship, and come from star systems like Sagittarius B, and the Pleiades. None of this has anything to do with us.
“We have no two beliefs or hypotheses on the same subject.”
H.P. BLAVATSKY, THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY, 87
- Ascended Masters are considered all-powerful angelic god-men in the mould of the Christian Jesus, but additionally, who even communicate through mediumship and channeling.
- Blavatsky’s mentors or sponsors warn against this, and explain that they never communicate through these means. The process and nature of communication is different from the stated two.
- They elaborate that from even the occult view, the ignorance in the very idea. Hence, those claiming to do so are liars.
- The “Great White Brotherhood” was an idea first used by F.G. Irwin, who claimed to be in contact with an individual named Cagliostro who informed him of an order called the Fratres Lucis, or Brothers of Light supposedly founded in the fourteenth-century. Terms like “Spiritual ‘Hierarchy’” ought to be avoided.
- These notions breed high obscurantism, autocratic and totalitarian styles of rule or notions about how to govern orders and associations, i.e., creates harmful cult behavior.
- Theosophy is not a religion.
- Attempting to construct a religion from it can only at this point create a very incomplete one.
- There is no such thing as “orthodox Theosophy” or being “orthodox Theosophists” for saying what has been said.
The Wikipedia article states:
“The Master Jesus is regarded by Theosophists, was regarded by Alice Bailey and was later regarded by students of the “Ascended Master Teachings” as the Master of the Sixth Ray. (…) they believe that the Master Jesus is still the Chohan of the Sixth Ray and that Maitreya is still the World Teacher.”
This is not in Theosophy. This is an Angelology in which Jesus is one of Seven Angelic Beings. The concept of the seven-rayed God is an ancient one dating even back to Mithraism, but this ‘Angelology of ‘Ascended Masters'” is something else. As said, the leading proponents of this concept often place themselves on their newly-invented hierarchy, which is what theosophists, Annie Besant and Charles W. Leadbeater had did to make the claim that they “ascended” and were mahatmas during the Jiddu Krishnamurti scandal in T.S. history.
Depending on the group, they rearrange which historical gurus and prophets of various religions or sects are in this “hierarchy,” and then place themselves in it. Comte St. Germain is even added to this hierarchy of beings, that are similar to beliefs about Catholic Angels and Cosmic Buddhas. Alice Bailey and others nurtured these ideas, which were adopted by other people, but does not belong to Theosophy. It is not a later development of Theosophy, and must not outgrow or outlive it in the minds of the people. The ascended “Master Jesus” concept is not only based in theological error with a traceable origin, but it is neither of our positions. We must determine the outcome as Theosophists, and not leave the descriptions as to what we teach, to the scholars.
“After the time of H.P. Blavatsky and William Q. Judge, a very different and contradictory system arose, also calling itself “Theosophy” and attempting to supersede the original by claiming to be a progressed, corrected, and improved version. This was primarily the work of C.W. Leadbeater and Annie Besant of “The Theosophical Society – Adyar” but was popularised and prolonged even further by Alice Bailey, an Adyar Society member who went on to found her own organisation, known as the Lucis Trust and the Arcane School. The Bailey teachings are based almost entirely on the Leadbeater/Besant teachings but have numerous additions and elaborations.” (Original Theosophy and Later Versions)