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Theosophy

The Masonic adventure of Rudolf Steiner

Steiner_Freemasonry

Earlier I touched upon the connection of modern Theosophy and certain kinds of of Freemasonry. It was Annie Besant who helped to found the first “co-Masonic” lodge in the Netherlands, or perhaps in those days she still used the term “Joint Freemasonry”. This was in 1904 in Amsterdam. In fact, Annie Besant founded a great many lodges under “The International Order of Co-Masonry, Le Droit Humain” in many different countries. In her wake, many Theosophists joined the ranks of this brandnew Masonic order that allowed both men and women to join. The ‘Theosophical boom’ was not meant to last. The Dutch lodge that Farwerck was to join was actually a reaction to too much Theosophical influence on the Le Droit Humain kind of Freemasonry. Also the Supreme Council in Paris (the international headquarters of Le Droit Humain) started to push for less Theosophy in their lodges from 1918 onwards, causing the first schisms.

Besides Annie Besant more ‘famous’ Theosophists have been “co-Masons”, most notably Charles Leadbeater (who co-authored Besant’s Rituals). Some websites claim that also co-founder of the Theosophical Society Henry Steel Olcott moved from a men-only order to Le Droit Humain. Olcott became a Freemason before the Theosophical Society was founded in 1875 so logically also before “co-Masonry” started in 1893 in France.

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“The stanzas of dzyan” and “the sifra di-tseniutha”

“There can be little doubt in my opinion that the famous stanzas of the mysterious Book Dzyan on which Mme. H.P. Blavatsky’s magnum opus, The Secret Doctrine, is based owe something, both in title and content, to the pompous pages of the Zoharic writing called Sifra Di-Tseniutha. The first to advance this theory, without further proof, was L.A. Bosman, a Jewish Theosophist, in his booklet The Mysteries of the Qabalah (1916) p. 31. This seems to me, indeed, the true ‘etymology’ of the hitherto unexplained title. Mme Blavatsky has drawn heavily upon Knorr von Rosenroth’s Kabbala Denudata (1677-1684), which contains (vol. II, pp. 347-385) a Latin translation of the Sifra Di-Tseniutha. The solemn and magniloquent style of these pages may well have impressed her susceptible mind. As a matter of fact, H.P.B. herself alludes to such a connection between the two ‘books’ in the very first lines of Isis Unveiled… Read More »“The stanzas of dzyan” and “the sifra di-tseniutha”

The esoteric traditions of the West: part I

An old article from my ‘Theosophical period’, but still republished, since it opens for the ‘series’ about the esoteric systems of the West. Early times To make a start with these series about the esoteric tradition(s) from the west I will go back a long way in time, even before ‘our periode’, the times of Atlantis and farther back. The best basis to build on is the quite well-known (and controversial) theory of the globes and races of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (often abbreviated to HPB) (1831-1891) which she wrote down in her monumental work “The Secret Doctrine” from 1888*1. In short the theory says that evolution goes in steps of seven. The earth passes through seven stages which HPB depicted by seven globes. They are not really interesting for this article though. It does become interesting when is mentioned that on each globe humanity also passes through seven stages, which… Read More »The esoteric traditions of the West: part I

Karma and free will

Many lengthy articles have been written about this subject. If you believe in Karma, can you believe in free will? Isn’t Karma just another word for Fate? Isn’t everything predestined? Most people will say “no”. We don’t like the idea of having no free will and many articles about this paradox are mostly to defend the idea of the free will within the ‘law of karma’. Personally I think I don’t need such a lengthy article to explain my view on the subject. As you probably know Karma is the law of cause and consequence. Often it is explained as “if you do something bad, something bad will happen to you”. This is mostly caused by the bad understanding of Karma by us people from the west. Slowly the idea/explanation of “what you sow, you will reap” gets acclimatized, so also being good will have its benefit in the future.… Read More »Karma and free will

After death

The second subject is kind of difficult, or at least, it’s quite complicated in my view. I shall tell you first what a human is, that’s necessary to tell you what happens after we leave our physical body (my view of course). Further down you’ll read about heaven, hell and purgatory and all interesting things that will come over us when we die.

First I must warn/tell you that my view