Chapter 1

Chelaship is a Sanskrit word for Discipleship

To play with such expressions, for instance, as spiritual growth,
stages, and initiation, is dangerous, for they tend towards self-
glorification. The source, structure and strength of the self-image,
is the ego protecting its integrity while playing the becoming.
This self-interest in everything we touch is the root of destruction,
and is so difficult to see clearly. This hidden agenda is particularly
addressed to those who have allowed themselves to become dazzled
by the glamorous psychism which so many confuse with spiritual
insight. Preoccupation with status and the power of “glamour”.
Psychic faculties are pure temptation, and we had better leave
psychism strictly alone, and give our attention instead to the laying
the foundation first and put our house in order. The practical side
of occultism, known as Self-Knowledge or to know oneself — the
ancient Delphic injunction, “Man know thyself,” that because we
do not know ourselves, meaning how our brain creates images and
then ‘plays false’ with these, this is the Original Sin. Each one of
us must come to know how we mistake the images we create as
independent objects — not intellectually; but factually, where there
is an awareness of watchfulness, witnessing with no movement of
thought, for thought is memory. If a thought arises, just observed
it or watch it, so to prevent it from clinging to things; thus, it will
vanish not leaving a mark on the brain as memory or making an
image.
Unlike psychism, to know oneself will change our entire way
of living, the capacity to be aware of what-is. The fact that the
more widely known schools of “metaphysical” thought possess
little spiritual insight does not alter the more significant fact that
they continually bring individuals face to face with one’s own self-
image. It is not capacity, but only the steadfast watchfulness towards
awareness which enables us to watch that unholy beast the “I” and
enter into the pure observation.
Krishnamurti writings, his whole life’s work or mission, if one
can call it that, is to challenge us, to awaken us, bringing us out of

1
sleep, out of our unconsciousness into a way of life that we can live in
this world without conflict, and develop the spiritual grace to realize
the truth for ourselves. This can happen only after we have realized
that philosophy, symbols, rituals are a tranquilizer so we can sleep
better, and a religious mind that Krishnamurti points to is a shock to
our experience. We have to step out of the stream of opposites, or the
world of duality so we are not dreaming, but alive, witnessing which
is insight before the ego gets hold of it converting the insight into a
system that is the ego.
The spiritual humility of Krishnamurti contained not the
slightest hint of servility. Rather it consisted of the clear perception
of what-is, that the lowliest beggar along the wayside possessed the
same franchise to live in this universe as the noblest being that walks
the way; that each and every one of us can stand face to face with the
highest principle and declare our truth.
All words are inadequate symbols as said so many times,
Krishnamurti always stated that: “the word is not the thing itself ”.
It is important that we realize words are mere indication. What is
written should be read with care, and attention for the written word
will contain several meanings.
Unless the books we read are used as a sort of mirror in which
we observe ourselves, see the facts as a guide to something that is
beyond the words, they may not really help. It requires a great deal
of attention, and awareness.
P.G. Bowen(1882-1940) was president in 1938 of the Hermetic
Society, Dublin and author of “The sayings of the Ancient One:
dedicated his book “The Occult Way” to the Irish Theosophist AE,
George William Russell (1867-1935).
P.G. Bowen was born in Ireland, and about fifteen he went
to Africa, initiated into an Occult Brotherhood by Mehlo Moya.
Returning to England around 1933, whose father had been a
personal pupil of Madame Blavatsky’s circle of students in London.
He became a close friend of AE, founder of the Hermetic Society,
who entrusted the running of the Dublin Hermetic Society to
him.
In 1938, a question was asked of P. G. Bowen: Do you not

2
 recognize any pledge as absolutely blinding?
His answer: It is a fundamental truth in Occultism that “each
man is his own absolute Lawgiver, the bestower of glory or gloom
upon himself; the creator of his life, his reward, and punishment”.
The wisdom which now binds is absorbed in the wider wisdom of
tomorrow, which may loose. The Occultist is not bound by human
law or human oaths - but this does not mean that he needs to break
a human law or a human pledge in order to demonstrate his freedom.
Question: But in the case of a pledge to keep occult teachings
secret, which is always given to the Higher Self, would you not
hold it binding?
Answer: The foregoing answer applies here also. Such pledges
are not imposed by the Higher Self, but by man and man-made
institutions, and have no more real meaning than any other
promise unwisely given. The fact that they are imposed proves
that the Esoteric School is not truly occult. A true occult teacher
accepts responsibility for the acts of his pupil, whom he has
selected, because he has seen in him potentialities of wisdom. He
will warn him against the unwisdom of attempting to convey to
the uninstructed knowledge they are unable to grasp, and can only
corrupt to their own injury and to that of the world and the Occult
Work itself; but he will not impose upon his pupil any irrevocably
binding pledges. There is no need to do so, for genuine occult
secretes are essentially incommunicable. The idea, encouraged by
certain Esoteric Schools, that higher Disciples and Adepts are
actually oath-bound, is false and absurd. Such men know that they
are always bound by the Law of Life, and that their backslidings and
unwisdom will bring upon them its due results. 01

There is no such thing as occult obedience as usually taught by

the current occult schools. In the early days of the Adyar Esoteric
School, and later the Discipleship in the Egyptian Rite, they taught
that the Master exacted, insisted, demanded, from His disciple that
implicit obedience which actually made the Master responsible and
placed upon His shoulders the destiny of the disciple. Here, I’m
using the word disciple not the accumulation of knowledge and then
01
Bowen, P.G., The Occult Way, “The Learner’s Questions”, Rider & Co., London, 1938,
pg. 197-199.

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act, but being aware, seeing, acting. Then, there is no teacher and
no pupil. There is no blind obedience or spiritual authority. There
must be none of that constant becoming, looking for results, as a
phenomenon which has deterred the many would be disciples. It is
necessary to eliminate the old habits, old conditioning and live in the
present moment. There is no retiring from the world but complete
psychological detachment from the emotions, and the human brain-
mind conditioning as we know it today.
Issued as private by Annie Besant of the Esoteric School, we
find a message from one of her Masters, in 1908 sent out to the
members of the Esoteric School.
A Letter from Master K. [Kuthumi, Koot Hoomi or KH] 02
The following letter was sent to an applicant in the early days
of the T.S. The advice contained in it is as valid and useful now as it
was then. “The path of Occultism is strewn with wrecks”, yet every
new aspirant dreams that he can walk steadily where countless
others have failed. None the less, success is possible, and those are
the most likely to succeed who appreciate most fully the warning
words of the Holy One.
“Sigh not for chelaship; pursue not that the dangers and
hardships of which are unknown to you. Verily many are the chelas
offering themselves to us, and as many have failed this year as were
accepted on probation. Chelaship unveils the inner man and draws
forth the dormant virtue as well as the dormant vice. Latent vice
begets active sins and is often followed by insanity. Throw a glance
round, make an enquiry at Bareilly and Cawnpore, and judge for
yourself. Be pure, virtuous, and lead a holy life and you will be
protected. But remember, he who is not as pure as a young child
better leave chelaship alone. I have forbidden at Headquarters to
send over any letters to me.
P.S. The process of self-purification is not the work of a
moment, nor of a few months, but of years, nay extending over
a series of lives. The later a man begins living the higher life the
longer must be his period of probation. For he has to undo the
effects of a long number of years spent in objects diametrically
opposed to the real goal”. K.H.
02
Besant, Annie, “A Letter from Master K.” The Link, November 1908, pp. 65-67.

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 A warning is needed to many in the E.S., against giving way to
lassitude, weariness and disappointment, in some almost despair,
when for a time, no directly inspired teaching can be given. The
present time is a test period; a great deal has been given; this is
the time for its personal application and for a steady growth in
spiritual life and strength. It is only by learning to work alone
without growing faint-hearted and weary, that you can become
such a body of force as the Masters need to be Their channel of
influence, not merely to individuals but to the world at large, a
force that will be sorely needed; and if you, as individual members
of this organized body, fail, yours is the responsibility.
It is not while teaching is being poured out that most growth
is made; it is while the seed lies hidden under the ground unseen
and seemingly uncared for that its life quickens and it struggles up
to the air and sunshine.
This School, as was said at the beginning, is a School for
the formation of character, and this is the work of each one for
himself; the rules have been given, the help and teaching are given
continuously on the other side when you are out of the body;
but to take full advantage of this there must be no flagging nor
failing on this side, because there is not a stream of fresh teaching
given to your physical brains. Always remember that this feeling
of discontent and desire for something fresh is a barrier to your
receiving the full benefit of the help that never fails nor is weary,
the spiritual teaching which every one of you can and does receive
when out of the body.
Students should note the italicized words — spoken at the
time with great emphasis — about the channel of a force “that will
be sorely needed.” The time has come, and the E.S. is called on
to become the Second Section of the T.S., for the helping of the
world. Many have fallen out of the ranks since these words were
spoken; others will fall out ere long; but some have grown during
these last seven years and are worthy to serve as channels. Blessed
are they, blessed they shall be if they continue steadfast;
ENDURE, ENDURE,
BE FAITHFUL TO THE END. 03

03
Besant, Annie, “A Letter from Master K.”, The Link, November 1908, pp. 65-67.

5
 A. L. Conger of the International Headquarters Theosophical
Society in Covina, California, wrote on February 5th 1946 to Byron
Casselberry regarding his answer on the topic of chelaship. By 1946,
Byron was a close friend, with loyalty to Rajagopal and Krishnamurti
as Raja’s secretary during the South American Tour of 1935. He
spoke fluent Spanish, and was requested to travel with Krishnamurti
and Raja translating Krishnamurti’s talks into Spanish.
Dear Mr. Casselberry,
Your letter of January 23rd to Mr. Harris was referred by Mrs.
Harris to me during the absence of Mr. Harris on a two weeks
vacation, and while Mr. Harris has now returned I would like to take
this occasion to give you my answer to your question at our lodge
meeting as to how a chela-aspirant was to be able to recognize a
Master when he met one. I am not quoting you accurately, but that
is the substance of your question as I now recall it.
The rules of chelaship as fostered by the Covina branch of the
Theosophical Society are substantially as follows: the world-be
chela is encouraged to endeavor to live unselfishly for humanity. At
the end of seven years, the usual term of a probationer for chelaship,
he may or may not hear from his Master; probably not! In this case
his Master can not object to his resolving to work harder for the
next seven years to benefit mankind, and so on and on. And sooner
or later his success will follow his heart’s desire.
It will be seen from the above that our Society does not
encourage, but distinctly discourages the setting up of one chela
over another, as will be seen by the appendix on chelaship in
Volume I of Letters That Have Helped Me by William Q. Judge. I
do not mean that Mr. Judge wrote this appendix but that it was
published in his life time under circumstances which indicated the
acceptance by him of the correctness of the doctrine.
I fancy that if you were to read the above to Krishnamurti it
would elicit a tolerant smile from him — if what you have told me
about him is true.
Run down and see us again any time you feel like it.
Sincerely yours,
A. L. Conger

6
 Around February 11 1946 Byron Casselberry answers the above
letter from Arthur L. Conger.
Dear Col. Conger:
I appreciate your letter of February 5th. It is very kind of you
to say that I may visit you all again any time, and I shall be happy
to do so when opportunity offers. Of course I will let you know
before coming.
I thank you for giving me the brief outline of your rules of
chelaship, in reply to the question I asked at the lodge meeting there.
It seems to me that the moment you pursue chelaship, and form
a group around that idea, you cannot avoid a kind of priestcraft.
You say, “The would-be chela is encouraged.......”. Who does the
encouraging. Surely, someone who is thought to be already a chela,
or at least nearer to chelaship than the aspirant in question. And do
you not then have the old game of those who are close to “God” (or
truth, or wisdom), and those who are far away, with a least the seed
of the iniquities inherent in that conception? The intention at the
start may be pure, but will it not quickly degenerate into the other?
I don’t see how you can avoid having one chela over another, or one
would-be chela over another, the moment you think in terms of
leaders and followers, chela and non-chelas.
Sir, my feeling about the thing is this: Let a man struggle to
live the life; and if Masters exist, and are what they are reputed to
be, he will sooner or later, without seeking it, find himself in their
company. If Masters do not exist, he is still living the life, which is
after all what matters. Chelaship, if it takes place at all, must take
place (as long as the Masters hold themselves apart, and we are not
physically face to face with them), on the subjective planes. Should
we not leave it there, instead of dragging it out into our physical
lives and needlessly creating new and fantastic illusions — illusions
which, incidentally, are quickly snapped up and exploited by those
who know a good thing? The miserable exploitation of the idea of
Masters which is currently so wide-spread originated with and has
arisen from the Master-seeking and Master-worshipping practices
of Theosophists the world over. Responsibility for it is laid directly
at our door. If the Masters exist and are in fact behind the T.S., then
surely that is their rightful place; we should not be everlastingly
pushing them out in front. The objects of the T.S. say nothing about
Masters, and I feel we ought to leave them (the Masters) alone. I feel
there has been almost a universal misunderstanding on this point.
Our job, surely, is to work for the world, to advance brotherhood,

7
 to encourage a study of the Eastern Wisdom, and above all, to
transform our lives. Out of such effort it is difficult to create a false
situation. But when we aim at chelaship and organize around such a
conception, I do not see how it is possible to escape the ancient evil
of priest craft. (How a man feels privately in his heart is naturally
his own affair; although here also he has obviously sooner or later
to learn not to be fanciful and not to deceive himself ). If it is true
(and I hope it is), that you are really free, in your Society, of any such
spirit, it will nevertheless come in course of time, will it not? How
can it be avoided? Is not the thing inherent in the very idea of the
pursuit of chelaship?
I have written frankly my views, and I hope you will not mind
my having done so. If we do not agree, it need not prevent our
working together in matters on which we do agree.
With affectionate regards,
Yours sincerely,
Bryon W. Casselberry

During the 1940’s, Byron Casselberry would answer questions,

put to him regarding chelaship and celibacy, sharing his point of
view of Krishnamurti’s writings in articles and some of his personal
letters during this time period.
Byron writes:
A man who requires himself to abstain from sexual intercourse
may be a celibate, but I do not think he is chaste; and it seems to
me that chastity is what matters, not mere celibacy. I think chastity
has to do with love, whereas celibacy is more often a self-imposed
state, a creature of the will and therefore arid and artificial. As the
author grew up in his childhood with nuns and priest, there was
a saying among them: “If you can’t be chaste, be careful”. That
may or may not be true, but human nature being what it is, it is
probably true enough. People who give every outward show of
celibacy are frequently fakes. If the man hasn’t a hidden mistress
around the corner, he has more inward-turned ways of indulging
the passion which dominates his mind; and even if, with his will,
he manages to control it, like holding a wild dog on a leash, he is
still not free of it. And through control I don’t think he will never
be free.
This is a tremendous problem, going to the very roots of our

8
 existence. No playing about with celibacy and sainthood, though
a popular past time of the would-be religious, will make man free
and happy and fearless. I think we have to begin by finding out
what it means to love. A kind and loving husband is infinitely
superior as a human being to a self-willed prophet, though the
latter may have thousands of followers and be famous for his
asceticism. Remember what Jesus said to the learned gentlemen of
his time? “I tell you, the harlots and sinners will go in before you.”
I think the important thing is to look into one’s own heart
from day to day, and see how dry it is, and not avoid that dryness,
nor escape from it through dreams. Let a man not deceive himself;
let him be simple and begin to understand himself as he is,
unadorned with theoretical conceptions of his own spirituality. Let
him neither praise nor condemn himself, but observe, watch the
near and simple truth of his own everyday nature in relationship
with others. I think this is the A, B, C of Love and hence freedom.

All depends on us, our patience, exactness in detail, and the

discipline which will come naturally not imposed. Witnessing in a
state of wonder and inquiring with no conclusions to understand
what the inquiring is, are we willing to live everyday of our lives of
self-forgetfulness in the very mist of intellectual turmoil?
There was a storm of gossip and criticism among the workers
at Adyar against Annie Besant by October 1 1910, that George
Arundale sent out a statement to all members living on the estate:
I promise
(1) to utter no unkind word or criticism of any one living at Adyar.
(2) to refuse to listen to any unkind word or criticism of any one
living at Adyar.
With the two exceptions:
(i) that if I consider it to be in the interest of our movements or of
the unity of Adyar I may criticise any one to Herakles.
(ii) of such criticism or listening to official complaints as may be in
the course of my duty as employer to employed.
Even in the case of the two exceptions I promise to keep kindliness
and goodwill in my heart and to criticise only in order to help.

One of the most important letters said to be from the

9
theosophical Adepts is the 1900 letter Annie Besant received what
she believed to be a message from the Master KH. Not only it is
very significant in that it was received nine years after HPB passed
away in 1891. It was also ten years before the so-called discovery of
J. Krishnamurti. The full letter was not disclosed by six successive
presidents, criticisms of her administration of the ES, C. Jinarajadasa
published the letter in Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom (First
Series), edited by C. Jinarajadasa, as letter n46. The penciled blue
lines from Master KH, however, are not complete there, as ellipsis
dots indicated that the critical sentences were omitted. C. J. gave
the explanation that the omitted parts were considered to be too
private in relation to the occult life of Annie Besant, which only KH
could have known. The full unedited letter was published outside
the control of TS Adyar Administration. According to Editor, W.
Emmett Small, it was copied from “The Universal Human Family”
#17, Sep/95, the magazine of the WTYF managed by Mr. and Mrs.
Sizzo from Brazil. Published for the first time, as far as they knew, in
1987, in the “Eclectic Theosophist”, n.101, Sept/Oct. I publish only
the omitted parts. Parentheses are mine.
Is the worship of a new Trinity made up of the Blessed M. Upasika and
yourself to take the place of exploded creeds. (no spiritual authority) We ask
not for the worship of ourselves. The disciple should in no way be fettered.
Beware of an Esoteric Popery. (be a light to yourself )
You have for some time been under deluding influences. Shun pride,
vanity and love of power. Be not guided by emotion but learn to stand alone.
Be accurate and critical rather than credulous. The mistakes of the past in
the old religions must not be glossed over with imaginary explanations.
(the word is not the thing) The E.S.T. must be reformed so as to be as
unsectarian and creedless as the T.S. the rules must be few and simple and
acceptable to all.
All who are sincere and pure minded must have admittance.
Misleading secrecy has given the death blow to numerous organizations.
You will have to leave a good deal of your emotions and credulity before
you become a safe guide among the influences that will commence to work in
the new cycle.

10
 I would say that the whole letter of 1900 represents the insight
of what I understand to be Krishnamurti’s mature teachings.
In 1911, Annie Besant re-structured the ES as it was divided
into Esoteric School, a Pledged order, plus an Esoteric Section
consisting of three disciplines.
Letter from the President
November, 1911
Adyar, India

My dear Friends,
Here at Adyar we are in full swing of the winter’s work.
Leadbeater Chambers, Mr. Harvey’s magnificent gift to the
Headquarters of the T.S., is full, all but two rooms awaiting their
occupants within the next two weeks. Truly it is a cosmopolitan
assemblage of students. English, American, French, Bohemian,
Russian, Polish, German, Danish, Dutch, New Zealanddish,
Australian — all these dwell within it, while elsewhere we add
many Indians, a Norwegian and an Italian — fourteen nations
represented here, or fifteen, if I count in my own Irish blood. What
a good training this is for each and all, broadening out sympathy
and rubbing off national prejudices. We are a T.S. in miniature,
without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste, colour.
We have just had a delightful E.S. Conference; nearly 300
members came from all parts of the Presidency, as well as from
Travancore and Cochin. We had addresses from Mr. Leadbeater
and myself and a question meeting with him, and the whole
finished up with a public lecture by myself on ‘Avataras and Rishis’.
There was a big attendance, rather to my surprise as the only notice
was a small paragraph in the Mail and the Standard.
The reports are coming in from many lands and are most
encouraging all over the world the Theosophical Society is
spreading, and it has never in its previous history been so powerful,
so numerous, so united.
The shocks through which it has passed have shaken out its
feebler members, and it is no longer clogged by a large number of
half-hearted adherents. A larger proportion than ever before of its
members are seriously in earnest, and realise more and more the
possibilities of the spiritual life.
This is due to the fresh impulse of life and strength promised
to the T.S. in 1910 — as announced in my Presidential Address

11
 of 1900 — a promise most amply fulfilled. The Initiation into the
White Brotherhood of our most dear young Brother, Alcyone, in
that year, opened a new door for the outflow of the higher life into
the Society, and that outflow has continued steadily since then,
increasing in force and volume. Its object is to lift the Society, as the
Herald of the World-Teacher‘s coming, into a position of influence
and honour, in order that the message with which it is charged may
go forth into a careless world.
The Order of the Star in the East has been established to gather
into one body those who, within and without the Theosophical
Society, look for the coming of the World-Teacher, and would fain
share in the glorious privilege of preparing the Way of the Lord.
Wherever one sees glittering the little Silver Star, one knows that it
is shining above a heart, beating with hope and joy. Every member
of the T.S. who believes in that coming should wear the Silver
Star, for we must not lag behind the less instructed world of non-
Theosophist.
Work then, Brothers and Sisters, strenuously and well: study
hard, in order that you may be able to teach the non-studious;
love, that your good-will may spread abroad, and bless even the
unthankful and the evil; co-operate with Nature in her great work
of evolution, and utilize her laws for the benefit of yourselves and
all around you. And so may the Peace of the Masters be with you,
and Their Wisdom guide your steps.
Your faithful servant,
Annie Besant
President of the Theosophical Society

The following letter gives hints of the founding of “The Order

of the Rising Sun”.
October 20th, 1912
Benares City

My Dear Brothers,
We have not often the pleasure and privilege of admitting a
brother to membership of this Group, and I therefore specially
welcome this occasion on which, with our beloved Head’s approval,
we are to receive our brother here into our midst.
We have been growing very rapidly during the past two years,
more rapidly, perhaps, than might seem desirable — considering
the solemn and serious nature of the responsibilities and duties we

12
 undertake. But it should be understood that rapid growth was in
early days inevitable, for the Group came into existence at a time
when the need for it was great and when, therefore, there were
many ready and eager to answer to the need.
You know we have been told that when the world needs a great
leader, a great teacher, a great statesman, a great warrior, and is ready
for what we may call an embodied answer, the answer comes in the
type called forth; and the need is satisfied, and the world profits
from the vigour it acquires. In the same way did this Group arise,
as an embodied answer to the need there was some years ago for a
band of workers, who would work in complete harmony with, and
in a thorough understanding of, the spirit of our Head’s mission
to the world. When we first started, we were but two or three. We
did not quite realise the bigness of our undertaking, what we were
to do, or how we were to work. We know only that we loved our
Mrs. Besant with a very deep love, and that we were determined to
follow her and to support her to the uttermost. We knew all that
she was to us, how our hearts beat for her and for her alone, how we
longed to serve her, and to guard with all our power the principles
for which she lives. Our knowledge of all her genius and purity was
indeed but limited, and we frankly expected that we might often
through ignorance misinterpret her intentions and so might cause
trouble; but we also knew that in the long run our mistakes could
do but little harm if an intensity of love were behind even them.
We were well aware that our actions might be misconstrued; that
all the antipathy of those whose natures have not as yet seen the
goal in human shape would be directed against us; that we should
be condemned as “blind followers,” as “fanatics,” as people suffering
from ignorant and misdirected enthusiasm, as people who would
willingly and eagerly call black white if we thought Mrs. Besant
would profit form the statement, or if she told us to say so. All this
we did not forget in the great moment of this Group’s foundation;
but we also remembered that this world is a world of love, that it
grows through love because its Ishwara 04 is the God of Love; and
we hoped that if at first our love were ignorant, some day it must
grow wise, and that the jeers of those around us would be but a
small price to pay for an ignorance which sooner or later must for
ever disappear.
And so in a time of storm and difficulty this Group came into
existence, not as a Group, but in the form of two or three people
04
Ishvara (Sans., the Lord)-I. The Supreme. “Ishvara is that might Centre of Consciousness
that exists unchanged in the bosom of the One Existence.”-Evolution of Life and Form.

13
who were determined that whatever thoughts others might think,
whatever interpretation others might place upon our leader’s words
and actions, however much she might become discredited even by
those nearest and dearest to her, we at least would remain true to
her, seeking only to understand her and to help in carrying out her
plan, whatever it might be.
We considered it to be outside our province to discuss whether
she made mistakes or not, whether her policy were wise or not,
whether she were unduly influenced or not: we recognised her as
our spiritual superior, and we saw the light she sheds upon life’s
pathway to be so bright that we had no occasion to wonder whether
the light might not be brighter. Her light to ours was, and is, as the
rays of the Sun at noontime to the rays of a lamp at night, and we
did not desire to examine the Sun to see under what conditions it
might possibly ray forth a more dazzling brilliance. We took our
leader as she was, for to us and to many thousands all over the world
she existed as the highest ideal and inspiration of which we could
conceive. Others night do what they liked; we intended to follow
our own course, and to take all its risks and all its responsibilities.
So we pledged ourselves in our hearts that we would strive to
become her true and loyal servants, and to serve her intelligently
and whole-heartedly. In the beginning we carefully kept our
determination from her, for we wanted to prove ourselves true to
her, and to give her no opportunity to refuse a service which our
heats compelled us to try to render. Week after week the Group
meetings were held, and little by little the membership increased,
as we attracted to our little band others who were animated by
the same spirit. Week after week we studied our leader, and tried
to understand, from her writings and from her actions, the lines
along which her work was to be carried on. Every member of the
group thus grew to become an intelligent and a steadfast supporter.
Misrepresentations, doubts, suspicious, criticisms, exaggerations,
and all other forms of ignorance, had no chance of continuing to
live in the presence of a member of the Group. He knew, and was
strong and unflinching, and his determination, his knowledge and
his strength soon swept aside the weakness which finds delight in
criticising a strength and purity as yet foreign to its nature.
As we grew stronger and our influence became more far-
reaching, we thought it wise to inform our Mother of our existence,
and to tell her that we had invoked the blessing of our higher natures
on a determination to serve her with all our hearts, recognising her
as our spiritual superior — so that she could not order us to disband

14
and cause us to break a word of honour which we had spoken in
the presence of the Higher Self. And so one day we all gathered
together in one of the rooms at Shānti Kunja, and asked her to
come to us for a few moments as we had something we wished to
say to her. She came, she saw, she heard — and we conquered; for
she could not refuse to recognise a service which came from pure
and eager hearts. We told her that all the responsibility was ours,
and that we only asked her to meet us that she might know of a few
upon whom she could unhesitatingly utterly rely; and as we looked
upon our dear Mother’s face, as young children look upon the face
of a dearly loved mother, she saw the light of eager, loving trusting,
service in our eyes; she stretched forth her hand and gave us her
blessing, looking benevolently upon us as only she can look, and
radiating upon us the strength and purity of her greatness.
From that meeting we went forth upon our mission as did
from their night’s vigil the warriors of older chivalric times; and
each one of us has since known a happiness and a peace which pass
the understanding of those who have not yet the eyes to see great
teachers in their midst.
As I speak of these great happenings, as I think of our dear
brethren in America, in Bombay, n Adyar, in Italy, in London, in
Scotland, in Amraoti, all members of this inspiring band, my mind
instinctively turns to all the blessings we who are members of the
Group desire from our membership. We know something of the
future that awaits our leader; we know that she will triumph in
the future as she has triumphed in the past; that she will one day
become one of the greatest rulers of the world. And do we not
also know that we are hers by unbreakable bonds of union; that
she cannot but share her life with ours, because we ask for no life
which is not a part of hers. And so her future involves our future;
for inasmuch as we strive to be part of her present existence we are
identifying ourselves with the future; and if she is to become one of
the greatest rulers of the world of Gods and men, we shall at least
by that time have earned the right to be her instruments.
We are told of the great White Brotherhood that, once its
ranks are entered, the further shore of human perfection must
inevitably be reached, and that even the youngest Initiate is safe
for ever. Shall I be wanting in reverence when I think that even
this Group reflects on its own plane this splendid safety, and brings
down into the world of men a blessing which hitherto has fallen
upon those alone who have reached the world of Supermen? I feel
with my whole heart that each one of us, in that great recognition

15
 of the God without us which made us members of this Group from
which we draw our life today, cried out aloud his vow to win Eternal
Life, ad that such a vow also will surely lead him to his goal, for it
is the joyous cry of a nature which has at last recognised, and so has
established consciously, its own supreme Divinity.
Times of trouble may be ahead of us, pain and suffering may
fall to our lot, doubt may force its way into our minds, we may
even temporarily become blinded and led astray by some unreality
which we mistake for a reality. But from the inner recesses of the
heart must ever come, however feebly a loyalty and a steadfastness
which have their foundations in the imperishable stock of an all-
pervading unity which has once been seen. Moods may come and
may go, principles may for the time dominate and may then give
place to others, beliefs may change, conditions may alter, the mind
may lose itself in a maze of forms: but a heart, which once has seen
in the heart of another the promise of its own bright splendour in
the days to come, will never beat truly to aught save that which is in
the present all that it hopes to become hereafter.
So be of good cheer, “rejoice and be exceeding glad,” for when
the heart has spoken in the voce of the Spirit, no bonds of matter
shall evermore have power to blind for long. Your destiny is sure;
and your only care need be so to work and to live that the time of
union may be near at hand, and that your fellow-members may not
have to wait because you do not for the moment choose to move.
We are one in life, one in work, and one in destiny. The progress
of each is the growth of the whole, and not one of us would wish to
reach the goal save with our dear brothers by our side.
George S. Arundale

One year after the first Initation of Krishnamurti, the

documentation of George S. Arundale, and his dedicated service,
made him the ideal Head of an educational establishment; Honorary
Principle, Central Hindu College, Benares where he founded what
was called the “Order of the Rising Sun” on January 11 1911, for
those who believed in the coming of the supreme Teacher. He
started the self-preparation guidelines with a pledge as was being so
eloquently proclaimed by Annie Besant and C.W. Leadbeater. The
organization was to all intents a private venture when the College
Committee members turned against worship of the Hindu boy.
Controversy followed over members of an inner group, and those

16
that did not follow. Parents became agitated that this conflicted
with their educational ambitions for their children, which was
eventually taken over by Annie Besant and made public finally in
July 1911, under the more appropriate designation of the “Order of
the Star in the East”. Annie Besant rebuked George Arundale for
publicizing the “Order of the Rising Sun” without checking with
her first. She made certain changes and modifications of the original
declaration of principles, but the most significant changes were the
acceptance of the office of Protector by Annie Besant and of the
Headship by J. Krishnamurti (Alcyone). In the summer of 1911,
side by side with this activity, Annie Besant presented a written
pledge of absolute obedience to herself without cavil or delay for the
members of the ‘inner’ EST marked ‘private and confidential’ at the
time, the members of this inner group believed that Annie Besant,
and Krishnamurti were on the threshold of divinity, offered flowers,
incense, even prostrating, at their feet when within reach. By August
1913, in a letter from Varengeville, Nitya describes a new order of
“the Servant of the Star”, suggesting that Krishnamurti himself has
authorized its foundation to draw young people together under the
age of twenty-one. Again, C.W. Leadbeater for some reason was left
out of the circle, and knew nothing of these new orders rejected it.
Besant declares the OSE to be ‘the Embryo of a New Religion’ based
on the book At the Feet of the Master.
George Arundale busy working in the Central Hindu College
at the request of Besant, and his devotion to, and reverence for Annie
succeeded in introducing the family spirit into the College, gaining
the respect of being in the position of an elder brother to a very large
number of his colleagues and to all his pupils. They stood as a united
family bound by ties of the deepest love and affection irrespective of
any beliefs or opinions of others. This gave George the opportunity
to organize another group “The Brotherhood” around March 1912
with membership over three hundred and fifty. Annie Besant is very
pleased to have learned of the formation of “The Brotherhood”, and
wished for it all possible success and prosperity:

17
 Brotherhood:
(1) To maintain by daily life and example that Brotherhood is the
one great principle underlying all unity, and that sympathy for others is
independent of all opinions and beliefs.
(2) To show by personal example that it is the special duty of all to
help the poor and suffering.
(3) To show by collective example that a brotherhood is possible
whose members are bound by ties of loving sympathy and goodwill
established and daily strengthened by an ever-growing gentleness and
an increasing understanding of the common life in which all share: and
that such ties are unbreakable by misfortunes of whatever kind, and do
not depend on opinions, on common religion, or a common race, or on
a common caste.
(4) To use the force of the sympathy thus established so that each
member, wherever he may be, and whatever he may be dong, shall be
able to draw on it for the better service of his surroundings.
(5) To establish by personal example the principle that help should
be asked for others rather than for oneself.
(6) To maintain among the members the spirit of one united family
knit together by affection, earnestness, sincerity and one-pointedness —
all enduring through good and evil report, through success and failure.

Since the spirit of Brotherhood swept strongly through each

member, inspiring them to work in brotherhood and in sympathy,
George would integrate this Brotherhood as it continually grows
into the “Discipleship of the Egyptian Rite”, as “Occult Messages”
from the Elder Brothers. We will follow with messages and letters
believed to be from the Elder Brothers or Mahatmas George received
in 1925 titled Code of Honour of the Brotherhood.
Various “messages” from George S. Arundale follow throughout
the three volumes with extra-ordinary self-deception. Therefore we
must question the validity of such messages to either be tricks by
chelas or pure frauds which at times signature of the Mahatmas
magnificently forged are seen on the messages.
Meanwhile, another controversy followed over members that
joined “The Order of the Rosy Cross”, as they were being instructed

18
to use the ritual to increase Arundale’s spiritual power. We will discuss
magical rituals and occult practice in the following two books as we
unveil the mystery of magic of the Egyptian Rite.
To keep criticism and complaints down at the College, George
resigned from his post as Principal of the Central Hindu College at
Benares in April 1913 at the request of Annie Besant. She ordered
him to go to England and tutor Krishnamurti, preparing the boy to
be the ‘vehicle’ of the Maitreya-Bodhisattva, and his brother Nitya.
By June 1921, the “Order of the Star” had over 70,000
members’ world wide, having the same ideals and beliefs. Naturally,
binding them together into a close friendship, growing into a great
cooperation like a great power house. The Order had for its badge a
five pointed Silver Star in the form of a pendant, pin-brooch which
the Brother and Sister of the Star were requested to wear. The Star
symbolized five divine verities. (1) Symbol of the King of the World.
(2) Symbol of the Coming. (3) Symbol of Initiation. (4) Symbol of
God in man. (5) Symbol of man in God. Krishnaji as he was known
to his friends was being groomed by those around him for his work
in preparation for the Coming Teacher, the Lord Maitreya. This
Star work involved publishing many of Krishnamurti’s books, which
today scholars are questioning if they were written by Krishnamurti.
Such books: At the Feet of the Master, Education as Service, and the
book Adyar 1911. However, even the two volumes of The Lives of
Alcyone, published in 1924 by Annie Besant and C.W. Leadbeater
bring questions of how much that is true in the two volumes. I
believe that its publication was unwise, for the interpretations given
to the actions of the personalities are sometimes misleading as
viewpoints of C.W. Leadbeater rather than facts. We are interested
in the publication of Towards Discipleship 1926, although it does
not contain Krishnamurti’s mature teachings, the book does express
points of view which sound more familiar. and which correspond
more closely to Krishnamurti’s later writings.
Along with the Star work regarding Krishnamurti is the
holding large meetings and generally seeking to publicize, as far as
possible, the message of the coming as they saw it according to their
conditioning of the past 2000 years. They were fortunate in securing

19
the support of the Theosophical Society at that time and achieved a
worldwide membership of some 45,000 to 50,000 members. What
is called a full account of this period is available in a series of books;
Candles in the Sun, by Lady Emily Lutyens, Krishnamurti — the Years
of Awakening; Krishnamurti — the Years of Fulfilment; Krishnamurti
— the Open Door; Krishnamurti — His Life and Death, all by Mary
Lutyens, and the book by Evelyne Blau; Krishnamurti 100 Years.
These books and many others not mentioned here, are most valuable
from the historical standpoint, and although the author disagrees
with some of the interpretations of events written by Mary Lutyens,
the books are very worthwhile reading and are necessary for those
who wish to know more about Krishnamurti and his significance to
the Theosophical Society.
Meantime, different groups of the Order of the Star appeared
and then disappeared. Some were short lived. One of these groups,
appeared to have broken up around 1988. Brett J. Mitchell tells the
author, the group, “Order of the Star” directed by Peter Maslin, co-
founder of the Order, was located at 39 Colchester Road, Southend-
On-Sea, Essex SS2 6HW, England; and has nothing to do with
Krishnamurti’s “Order of the Star in the East.” It is a, or was a, group
formed in England by neo-Bailey students in a manner similar to
the Triangles groups, which George Arundale carried on within the
Egyptian Rite. It broke up due to deaths of some of the leaders
shortly after 1988. It’s successor is called “Groups of Twelve” and you
can find it on Brett’s links list in the Bailey section.
At the time the complier received the flyer, the group was also
meeting at the residence of Brett Mitchell in San Diego, California.
According to this flyer, it states:
What is the Order of the Star?
The Order of the Star, from the historical point of view, came
into being in 1911. It was formed by Annie Besant, the famous
theosophist and social reformer, amongst others, as an organization
which was to be used by J. Krishnamurti for his work with the
Christ. K. as he was known to his friends was being groomed by
those around him for his work in preparation for the Christ —
this work involved publishing many books, holding large meetings

20
and generally seeking to publicise, as far as possible, the message
(as they saw it) of the coming Christ. They were fortunate in
securing the support of the Theosophical Society at that time and
achieved a worldwide membership of some 45,000. A full account
of this period is available in the book Krishnamurti — The Years of
Awakening by Mary Lutyens.
The Order was publicly disbanded in 1929 and Krishnamurti
went on to develop his own philosophy. That very basically is the
outer history of the Order — so why are we here proclaiming to
continue the work? Well a very different story unfolds if you view
events from an inner perspective.
It is our information that Christ did indeed intend to use K.
as a vehicle for His return and D.K. [Djwhal Khul] mentions that
a useful work was achieved during this time (Discipleship in the
New Age Vol 2). However the experiment was not a complete
success and the Christ withdrew His influence from K. Christ then
took a momentous decision in 1945 to return Himself without the
need for a physical vehicle provided by another — He would use
His own facilities for His re-emergence.
What about the Order? The Order was never disbanded on
the inner planes — nor could it have been — K. certainly had
a prominent role to play in those early days but the Order is
essentially an ‘expression’ of the Brotherhood of the Star so could
never ‘disbanded.’ The Order was working on esoterically.
In 1982 the Hierarchy made the decision that the Brotherhood
of the Star again required physical expression for certain purposes,
hence the re-emergence of the Order. Many people have
incarnated at this time of opportunity to assist Christ — the
Order is calling them to join with us at the ‘sharp end.’ The Order
has been given certain information regarding the work to be done
and has, if you like, been ‘accredited’ to undertake this section of
the externalization plan. The Order is an experiment, like last
time, and has no guarantee of success, but has the opportunity to
pioneer work in groups and hence precipitate the return of Christ.
(Policy Statement No 1)

21
 The following notes recorded at an ES meeting given by Annie
Besant and C.W. Leadbeater.
Adyar
December 27 1910.
The large convention hall in which the members gathered is
shaped like a letter “T.” Right in the center of the T is the platform
where Annie Besant stood; around her C.W. Leadbeater., Alcoyne,
[ J. Krishnamurti] Mizar [ J. Nityananda] and others. Floor carpeted
in blue. On this sat in Eastern fashion representatives from all
countries, chairs around and in the wings for those who preferred
them.
Annie: “You do not seem to know how near to the lifting of
the veil some of you are: it almost seems as if it needs but a little
effort of the will and you would break through. What is it, I wonder,
that keeps you back? I think it is often nothing more than a little
fretfulness or discontent, something you could easily rid yourselves
of. For instance, I know that some of you fancy I show partiality, that
I have personal preferences, and place this person here, or confer a
favor in another quarter because of these personal likes. You should
know that one holding the position I must work with the law and
for the common good of all. If a person is put forward it is because
it will both help him and the cause; and if another who perhaps
seems more able appears to be overlooked, it is because it is better
for him to wait, better for the movement also. You will find that the
spirit of criticism and discontent will prevent you from rising to the
Master’s plane. Such a spirit finds no place in the White Lodge and
must be thoroughly rooted out from your hearts if you desire to link
yourselves closer with the consciousness of the Elder Brethren.”
Members at Adyar learn in time to distinguish the vibrations
of different Masters although they might not be able to see. When
the Great One took charge of this meeting, many such knew at
once it was as though thunder had sounded, although no actual
sound was heard. He (Lord Maitreya) speaks through the O.H.
Miss Christie said it was impossible to describe anything of the
power and sweetness of that voice. Whiled He spoke many
struggled hard to smother the emotional stress laid upon them,
shaking their composure, while tears were streaming down the face
of others. Standing as it were amongst us, He told of the Elder
Brethren who willed to wait; solely that They might be of service to
us; telling of the gateway to the Higher that stood open; appealing
to the Higher in each one.

22
 Annie: “Do not think We wish to dominate you, We who have
the power to rule the worlds; do not think We wish to rule you, We
wish to help you. Come with us, then Brethren we may help you —
then We can come to you. Come with us, then Brethren to those
Higher lands, but remember, you must leave the lower self behind.”
Then the voice was still, and the Star that shone in the air
ceased to shine. In silence the large gathering dispersed. Indeed,
some of us were so wrought on that we dared not speak.
A. B. while not yet a Master, is filling a certain position no
one else has before filled before they reached Adeptship. She is to
be the Manu, Alcoyne the Bhodisattva, of a new Root-Race —
presumably the 7th — C.W.L. has other work to do.
C.W.L.: “Some of you may be much nearer discipleship than
you think from the indications that register themselves in the
physical body. When out of the body, for instance, many of you
know the Masters, and it is only a question of time before that
knowledge will break through the physical obstacles. After all, it is
not very important that the lower consciousness should share the
knowledge of the higher — it will come when the time is ripe.”
The slow-sounding, heavy-moving tone in which the Word is
often pronounced is not effective. The Om must be piercing and
vibrating. It has to make an opening and cleave a passage for itself
as it were, like the one-pointed thought of devotion that goes right
to its goal. A.B. lays great stress on the proper sounding of the
Word and she utters it with explosive force, like a short from a gun.
Sound, vibration, color and perfume have their correspondences
to higher aspects of being. Even on the physical plane they are the
means of distinguishing one Master from another. Rose is the
perfume of the Master K.H. The presence of the Master Jesus
at Adyar is accompanied by an odour of spices, with cinnamon
predominant. Sandalwood is the perfume of the Master M. It is
said that when fragrance blends with fragrance the scent of the
sandalwood is the pervading and unifying scent.
The sounding of the Om links us magnetically. It creates a
centre of force which is focussed right in front of the pictures. This
is represented on the mental plane by a form somewhat resembling
a half-opened lotus, and is seen by the Masters as a suitable channel
for spiritual force and without regard to who has generated it or
from where it comes. Force is poured into the funnel-shaped top
and you really should feel this as a sort of electrical vibrations.
When you feel it your aim should be to centre it in the heart and
keep it there. The making of this force-centre is a group activity.

23
We meet not as individuals but as a group. It is because we unite in
study, in mediation, and in co-operation in a common cause that we
are represented as a unity as descried, and we are trusted with the
distribution and use of a force making for unity. We have started
to form a sort of group unity into which, as time goes on, more
and more of the group conscious will enter, until it may become
sufficiently evolved to become the vehicle of a Deva to take charge
of and use for the purpose of teaching the group. In the 6th Root-
Race, the people will become the conscious pupils of Devas and it
is in the power of Groups and Lodges in the T.S. to anticipate that
time.
With regard to the force that comes to us in our meetings, it
is nothing more than force, in itself it is neither good nor bad, and
it does not necessarily make us better. It increases our power but it
affects the whole nature, intensifying in us both good and evil. We
need not be alarmed at this — we have made application for this
power and we must accept the responsibility and this responsibility
belongs to the group no less than to the individual. As a matter of
fact power is what most of us want.
Annie: “You are all fairly good people, but there is not enough
of you; none of you are big enough.”
It is quite plain at Adyar that the Masters are looking for
people who can help them. That is the Ideal — that we have power
to do a great deal more than we are doing if we so will it.
“The reward for self-initiated power and service was service
and as we grew more and more service.”
Master M: “Do not hold out your hands to Us expecting to have
goodness poured over you, and pleasant paths prepared for your feet
to tread. Take the world with you. We want you to grow because
We depend on you to help Us. You want more consideration shown
you — We must not hurt your feelings — you wish Us to take you
up and carry you — then go home, go back to the nursery, for it is
not babes We want but men.”
There will be a strenuous time for E.S. members and you will
be asked to carry a big load, but the last straw will never be put
on your back. The strain put upon you may reach what may seem
breaking point but you will never really have more than you can
bear. When the strain comes as said at Adyar, “You will want every
ounce of push you can get.”
A.B. says that all who have reached the First Degree have
worked off at least 4/5ths of back Karma.

24
 One year later, at Shanti Kunja, Benares City, India on December
31, 1911. C.W. Leadbeater writes:
An event which has recently occurred here seems to me of
such transcendent importance that I want to send you an account
of it. A good many members have joined the Order of the Star
in the East during the Convention, and somebody suggested
(quite casually) that it would be a great pleasure to them if the
Head of the Order would himself hand them their certificates of
membership. The idea was taken up with enthusiasm, and other
Order members also asked to be allowed to return their certificates
in order to receive them again directly from the Head. So a time
was fixed (6 p.m. on December 28th) and we went down to the
Indian Section Hall. We thought of it merely as a formal little
ceremony, and I even doubted whether the President would come,
as she was tired after her lecture at 4. Only Star members were
admitted, but the Hall was full: I suppose there were about four
hundred people. Mostly they sat on the floor, but there was a line
of benches round the walls and few chairs at the upper end. The
President and I sat there, with Miss Arundale [George’s aunt] and
Nitya and a few others, and the benches were occupied chiefly
by European ladies. The arrangement was that the Head was to
stand just in front of us, with Telang (the National Representative
for India) beside him. The members were to file past in line, each
handing his certificate to Telang, [P.K.] who read out his name,
and then passed the paper to Krishna, who returned it to its
owner — apparently a simple program but l’homme propose et
Dieu dispose. The marshalling was carried out perfectly (mainly
by Brother Cooper) and the first two or three members took their
papers with a bow and a smile, and passed back to their place.
All at once the Hall was filled with a tremendous power,
which was so evident — flowing through Krishna — that the
next member fell at his feet, overwhelmed by this marvellous
rush of force. I have never seen nor felt anything in the least
like it; it reminded one irresistibly of the rushing, mighty wind,
and the outpouring of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost. The tension
was enormous, and every one in the room was most powerfully
affected. It was exactly the kind of thing that we read about in the
old scriptures, and think exaggerated; but here it was before us

25
in the twentieth century. After that each one prostrated himself
as his turn came, many of them with tears pouring down their
cheeks. The scene was indeed a memorable one, for the stream of
devotees was remarkably representative in character.
There were members from almost every Country in Europe,
from America, and from all parts of India, and it was most striking
and beautiful to see white and dark alike, Brahmans and Buddhists,
Paris and Christians, haughty Rajput Princes and gorgeously-
apparelled merchants, grey-haired men and young children, all
prostrating themselves in rapt devotion at our Krishna’s feet.
The Blessing poured forth was so obvious that everyone present
yearned to share in it, and those who had no certificates with them
tore off their star badges and handed them in, so that they also
might receive something at his hands. He stood all the time with
perfect grace and self-possession, smiling gently upon them, and
holding out his hands in benediction over each prostrate from
in turn. I think the culmination of the strangely-affecting scene
was reached when our dear Nitya threw himself at this brother’s
feet, and the whole congregation burst into enthusiastic applause
— I hardly know why, but somehow it seemed at the moment
not at all irreverent, but entirely appropriate and natural. When
the last of that great company had made his reverence, Krishna
returned to his seat between us, and there were a few minutes
of silent rapture, of strange hushed awe and expectancy. Then the
President whispered to Krishna to close the meeting, and he rose
and held out his right hand over the heads of the audience, and
said solemnly: “May the blessing of the Great Lord rest upon you
forever.”
And so we came down to the ordinary world again, and left
the Hall, feeling that we had passed through one of the greatest
experiences of our lives, and that indeed it had been the greatest
experience of our lives, and that indeed it had been good for us to
be there, for that this has been for us none other than the house of
God and the gate of Heaven.
I have seen many things in Occultism, but never on the
physical plane such an outpouring of force as this, nor anything
which moved all present so profoundly. I suppose most of them
saw nothing, but what they felt shook them to their very souls.
It is not easy to express it in words, but the sense of a Mighty

26
 Living Presence was unmistakable and overpowering. The Occult
side of the phenomenon was wonderfully beautiful. A great circle
of the characteristic blue fire of the Lord Maitreya appeared some
feet above our Krishna’s head, and then stretched down into a
funnel. Just above the mouth of the funnel floated the rosy cross
of the Master Jesus, and high above all, near the ceiling of the
lofty Hall, flashed the Star of the Lord of the World. Down
through the funnel poured a torrent of blue fire tinged with rose,
and all permeated by the indescribable electric glow of the Star.
This stream rushed into our Krishna’s head through the highest of
the force-centres, and poured through his hands upon each person
whom he blessed. Round the Hall stood a circle of great green
Devas, with forms twenty feet height, and as Krishna gave that
final blessing the Bodhisattva Himself stood in the air above him,
smiling beingly on those who had done Him reverence through
the person of His disciple.
Again on the 30th the scene was repeated, though with
somewhat less force. At the meeting of the Esoteric Section on
the 29th the President spoke of what had happened, and said for
the first time quite plainly that, after what they had seen and felt,
it was no longer possible to make even a pretense of concealing
the fact that Krishna’s body had been chosen by the Bodhisattva,
and was even now being attuned by Him. Earlier on the day of
the 28th our Head had taken the chair at a lecture by Arundale
on the Order of the Star, and said a few words very nicely both
before and after the address. Whenever he has appeared during
the Convention he has been received with ovations of applause,
and the Subba Rao medal has been awarded to him for At The
Feet of The Master. I have, by the way, the Urdu 05 and Scindi 06
translations of that book.

I feel it to be of interest to state here that the Temple of the

Rosy Cross was founded in 1912 by Marie Russak, Mrs. Besant, and
J.I. Wedgwood. 07 It was to aid in the preparation for the coming
of the World-Teacher, and to be the Inner Temple of the Order of
05
Urdu language is Hindi spoken predominantly in Pakistan and northwestern India.
06
Sindhi language is spoken Indo-Aryan in Pakistan and Gujarat and Maharashtra states.
07
Krotona of Old Hollywood, Vol. I, 1866-1913, pgs. 148-50, 245, 258, El Montecito Oaks
Press, 1989

27
the Star in the East, and to stand in the same relationship to it, as
does the ES to the TS, and the Ancient Mysteries to the external
religions of their day. Krishnamurti by July 1913, made comments
that the new Temple of the Rosy Cross will be useful when the
Lord Maitreya comes. Meanwhile the Krotona Mystic Star was to
replace the Temple of the Rosy Cross. This history is covered in the
six volumes on the History of Krotona. C. Jinarajadasa writes the
following in 1938, although he modified the Invocation in 1935
from the earlier Invocation by Annie Besant when she wrote it for
the Order of the Star in the East.
The Ritual of The Mystic Star
A copy of the Ritual of the Mystic Star goes to each Pledged
member of the Esoteric School, with this issue of The Disciple.
About the year 1912, an organization was created in London
called the Temple of the Rosy Cross. I believe it’s originators were
Bishop J. I. Wedgwood and Mrs. M. R. Hotchener. Dr. Besant
heartily approved the work proposed, and the three formed a
“triangle” as the chief officers. They gathered others round them
as “Grand Officers” to form a Supreme Council. The aim of the
T.R.C. — as it was called for short — was to aid in the preparation
for the coming of the World-Teacher.
The organization was a secret body; it had an elaborate
ritual, with a striking robe and head-covering of cerise. The ritual
was somewhat long, usually taking two hours and a half. I was
admitted to the Temple in London, and a little later Krishnaji and
his brother.
Bishop Wedgwood was not satisfied with the ritual, and
so when he was in Australia in 1915 with Bishop Leadbeater,
he asked for directions from his Master, the Master R. [Master
Rakocze] The Master spoke at length about the T.R.C. and its
ritual: that He appreciated the devotion shown by its members;
that He had used the ritual, so far as He could; but that there
were serious defects both in the organization and in the ritual.
The Master strongly disapproved of the use of the name of one
of His great Temples in Freemasonry; and He made clear that if
the T.R.C. was to be reorganized, all its work should be under the
direction of the Triangle appointed at Shamballa in 1914 — Dr.

28
 Besant, Krishnaji and myself. The Master stated that the members
of the T.R.C. had two alternatives before them: the first, to work
as a secret body, for the helping of the few; the second, to work a
ritual publicly for the helping of the many.
When Dr. Besant, who was the head of the “triangle” of the
T.R.C., received the report, she decided that it was impossible to
continue the ritual, and that its organization had to be completely
changed. She therefore suspended the Temple of the Rosy Cross,
and then gave me the task of reshaping the ritual. My idea was
to make the ritual a public ceremony; I planned to use as far as
possible the material of the T.R.C. The task was difficult; for,
apart from the fact that I was told to “do it,” and no hints were
given, my energies were taken up with the work of Adyar and
India. The anxieties at the time were great. I had to avoid any
imitation of Freemasonry. During 1915-16 I set to work, writing
and re-writing. I changed the name of the organization from the
Temple of the Rosy Cross to the Brotherhood of the Mystic Star.
I can now continue the story, by quoting from letters of Bishop
Leadbeater. 08

The above letters mentioned from Bishop Leadbeater can be

read in Krotona of Old Hollywood, Vol I, & Vol II, The New Krotona
from Hollywood to Ojai, Vol III, and Spirit of Womanhood. Under the
references to the Temple of the Rosy Cross. Originals are in the
Ross Collection.
On December 28 1912, Leadbeater and Besant had this to say:
Dear Brothers of the Star:
This is a great occasion. Not all of you were present in that hall
at Benares on this day last year. I wish that you could all have seen
not only the wonderful and beautiful scene that was visible on the
physical plane, but the higher manifestation which lay behind and
above what was happening down here. But still at least today we
may hope to catch some reflection of the glory that was about us
there; we may hope to carry away with us something of the spirit
that all felt descending upon us on that occasion.
08
Jinarajadasa, C., “The Ritual of The Mystic Star” The Disciple, n10, (New Series), January
1938, pp. 202-203.

29
 I hope that we shall all not be satisfied with receiving, but
make it our special endeavour to give. Only those who give out
can ever fully obtain the benefit of that which is given to them.
Each one, as our lecturer, Mr. Arundale, has truly said, has the
Christ spirit within him. Most of you would call it by another
name, but we are not dealing with names but with realities, and,
whatever you all it, the divine spark is within every human being
and, because it is there, it can be awakened, it can respond to the
great Divine Spirit without. But it can only respond fully if it is
itself shining forth, if the Great One above is Himself as a sun
shining down upon us; then each of our hears can receive from
Him a little of His warmth, His light, His beauty. But if each heart
in turn becomes a sun for others, then that light, that warmth, that
beauty, can pour through it all the while, and therefore the man
through whose heart it pours receives for himself infinitely more
of all that glory than could ever come to him if it stayed there and
went no farther.
You do this not in order that you may receive more, but in
order that what you receive you may give; but nevertheless, it is
true that in that very action you receive far more than a man could
receive who did not give, and that I should like to be one of the
ideas that you carry away from the meeting of the Order of the
Star; for if the Lord shines in your heart, it is not for yourself
alone, it is in order that others may see its light and be drawn by
light and be drawn by its glory and its beauty to receive into their
hearts in turn the glory of the Lord which when he comes, it is
your Order which should be the first to receive Him; it is you, who
have tried to prepare the way for Him, who should be the first to
recognize and to welcome Him, and each one of your should be a
centre through which He can work.
I think perhaps we do not always realize that the Great Ones
of the earth must work through means, even as we ourselves
have to work through means. Their glory is so far above us, their
power is so stupendous, so infinitely beyond anything that we can
realize, that perhaps we think of that power as though it could
work miracles, as though everything was possible to it. Yes, within
limits, everything is possible; but only, remember, at the cost of a
tremendous outpouring of force. Means must be used, and if you
will make yourselves channels for that power, you may have the

30
wonderful privilege of taking part in His work; because, by making
yourselves such channels, you enable Him to do more with the
same expenditure of power than even He could otherwise do;
because, each of you, being such a channel, adds his force to that
of the Great One. Individually our force must be but little, but in
the aggregate it may be a great deal, and assuredly each little drop,
each tiny amount of force that we put forth will be intensified,
magnified a hundred-fold by that which pours into it and through
it from above; and so there is no one of us who cannot bear this
part in the work that is to come.
I know that we can bear it in other ways as well; I know that
we can help to circulate literature; I know that we can act in various
ways as propagandists for the Order; but the greatest thing of all
that every one of you can do for the Order and for its noble Head
and for the Great One who stands behind — the greatest thing
of all that you can do is to live the Christ life yourself, so that you
maybe even now a channel though which can pour the power that
is preparing the world, through which presently can flow the far
greater power of the Bodhisattva when He shall come.

Mrs. Besant:
I have been dreaming since I sat here, and I think I will tell you
my dream. I dreamed of a day, perhaps some six years hence, when
I, all those years older, should be sitting again on this platform;
when the speaker should be, not my brother Arundale, but he
whom we love under the name of Alcyone; and I dreamed that
perhaps he might be lecturing and many of us be listening again,
and that perhaps in Adyar would be the place where, attending at
a Convention, he might be the chosen lecturer of our Convention
lectures.
And then I dreamed that some years might roll away while he
was winning the love and the hearts of Indians scattered all over
this mighty land; that for several years perchance he might go up
and down it teaching, helping, blessing and preparing the way for
the mighty One yet to come, and that then in later years the Christ
Himself should come and take up the work that His disciple had
begun.
And so the dream grew very beautiful and the light seemed to
shine more and more brightly, and I wondered whether when that

31
 beloved disciple had prepared the way, even to this place also the
Lord Himself might come. And as I dreamed, all the earth grew
fair, and I saw our India once again as the mother of spiritual life
and the source of spiritual energy, and I dreamed that while her
children should feel blessed because on her soil the greatest of
teachers was working, that the other countries too and the lands
all the world over might again for His sake turn their eyes to India
and see it as the Holy Land, the land wherein the Bodhisattva was
living and teaching. And so the old dream should come true and
the old glory should revive; for, whatever India in the future may
be in splendour of intellect, in greatness of material prosperity,
the greatest of all shall be if from her goes out the flood of a new
influx of spiritual life, and if the mighty life that has shone before
upon our globe, shall again be teaching among us and India, the
mother of the ancient faiths, shall bear a new child to the religions
of the world and bring the West under the magic of her spiritual
fascination and turn the feet of all people into the way of peace.

I know from reports, that the Adyar Theosophical Society may

have weathered a century of scandal regarding C.W. Leadbeater’s
scandal in 1906, but their destiny keeps on rolling along. This
documentation is to show how all these different aspects on
Discipleship during the early years around 1911 were centered around
Krishnamurti, and are interwoven like a large tapestry within the
Adyar Esoteric School, the Lotus Circle, the Golden Chain, Order
of the Round Table, the Egyptian Rite of the Ancient Mysteries,
and the Co-Masonry. When Krishnamurti dissolved in 1929 the
International Self-Preparation Group, Pre-Probationary Group,
Preparation Group, and Pupils, George Arundale intergraded these
topics into the Egyptian Rite around 1932 after he announced that
America was not contributing its quota of Pupils and Initiates since
they have been practically left to themselves, without special help
on this physical plane. It would be at the Post Convention Pupils’
Gathering at Wheaton, August 20, that the first pamphlet of fifty
“To All Pupils in America” was sent out in November 1932. George
requested undivided loyalty to his teachings and instructions, and
asking the Pupils not to listen to Krishnamurti. Sidney Cook, as

32
well as Arundale, C. Jinarajadasa, and C.W. Leadbeater had a “little
black book” with names of workers and their rank: initiate, pupil,
accepted, probationer, etc. George Arundale also made it a point
while he was at Olcott, that it was to be the home of one or more of
the Masters, and therefore everyone working there should have or
gain the rank of “Accepted Pupil” at least, in order to create a refined
atmosphere for the to-be-resident Mahatmas. Were they willing to
pay the price. Yes, commericalizing the Masters, initiations etc., for
a fee. At this same time, a “Pre-Probationary Group in America” was
started at Olcott for those renegades in the hope they might reform.
This group was dedicated to the “Masters’ Service”. First publication
came out in December 15 1933, and ended around November 1938.
For many years, at least ten, filled with Judicial scandal in
Madras, (Chennai) as Annie Besant defends her legal guardianship
of the boys and lawsuits. A large amount of the court documents
and correspondence can be found in the Ross Collection with a
unpublished manuscript, under the title, C.W. Leadbeater Occult
Visionary Unveiled: Supplement to Krotona of Old Hollywood Vol. I,
1866-1913. The following article is from a correspondent in that
collection.
Some important public questions arise over the case of
Naraniah v. Besant, and these should not be lost sight of in the
mere interest of the passing personalities. The whole question of the
“right of the father” and the “welfare of the child” arises in this
connexion. Under the Roman law the son was a “chattel,” and the
father’s right over him was absolute. The common law of England
did not go so far as this, but still the father could hold his child
against all comers, and Mr. C.P. Ramasvami, pleading for his
client, gave some gruesome stories under this head, proving that
the common law gave unfortunate children back into the custody
of the most disreputable parent. As the public conscience awoke
to the miseries of children, a new tendency showed itself, and
the “welfare of the child” became the ruling ideas of the Courts,
while the father’s inalienable right shrunk to smaller and smaller
dimensions. Mrs. Besant naturally laid stress on this, and cited a
large number of cases in support of her contention. But Mr. Justice

33
Bakewell totally ignored all these, and asserted the obsolescent
doctrine of the wish of the father as the one thing with which he
was concerned. The passing reference to its being better for Indian
boys to be brought up among their own kindred cannot be taken
seriously, in view of the wide-spread desire of Indian fathers to
secure a University education in England for their sons, and the
admitted fact that the wish of Mr. Naraniah to secure this was
his strongest motive for handing over the care of his sons to Mrs.
Besant. Is it possible that the learned Judge is one of those who
grudge English University distinction to Indian boys? It will be
a pity of this view, which came out strongly on the late Royal
Commission, is to be promulgated from the Bench, and if Indian
boys are not to have the opportunity of gaining high distinction
in England.
In fact the welfare of the children was entirely overlooked by
the Judge. Their education in England is to be violently interrupted,
and all that has been done to carry out the father’s former wishes is
to be disregarded, because he has capriciously changed his mind.
He was perfectly well aware of Mr. Leadbeater’s peculiar opinions
on one point when he placed his children in his care, and it was
obvious that this was now dragged in only to cause prejudice,
just as he invented horrible stories in order, as the Judge said, to
“strengthen his case with lies.” The boys are to be peremptorily
torn from refined comfort and thrust into squalid poverty, their
education is to be ruined, their hopes crushed, all to satisfy a
father’s whim for which no solid reason was pretended. The only
solid reason, the supposed crimes, was marked as a concoction — a
perjury, to speak plainly — yet the boys are to be brought back and
their future is to be ruined.
Things become worse from the public standpoint when we
look at the judgment and the subsequent order. Mr. Naraniah is
said by the Judge to have concocted an infamous story, and he
told it on oath. He accused his son of a shameful crime. As a
reward, he is given not a prosecution for perjury, but the custody
of the slandered boy. The Judge says he was “unscrupulous.” That
is obvious. But may a man carry his unscrupulousness to the point
of blackest perjury in open court, and then he appointed guardian
by the Court of its wards? This is surely a public scandal and an
outrage on public morality. A guardian appointed by the Court

34
 should be at least outwardly respectable. Mrs. Besant’s demand
for an enquiry into Mr. Naranish’s conduct has been refused by
the Judge, and the public will feel uneasy over this refusal, and will
ask what lies behind the request. Moreover, if plaintiffs are not to
be encouraged to bolster up weak cases with perjure accusations,
the High Court should take judicial notice of the strictures made
by the Judge. If Mrs. Besant were to ask permission to prosecute
for perjury, she would probably be called vindictive; yet she might
thus save the boys from their newly appointed guardian. Moreover,
as she is appealing, she can hardly prosecute her opponent at the
same time, and when the appeal is over, the time limit for asking
permission will be overpassed. In any case, is it Mrs. Besant’s duty
to prosecute? Ought not the court to guard its own purity and to
protect future defendants, or is perjury so widespread in Indian
courts that the judges feel compelled to wink at it, even when it is
of a peculiarly black kind, and is used by a father against his son?
If we compare the treatment of the boys by Mrs. Besant, on
the one side, surrounding them with all that she could have given
to her own sons, and by Mr. Naraniah, on the the other, blackening
his son’s character with the most terrible of accusations, we cannot
but recall the old Bible story as to the decision between two women
who claimed possession of a child. The child was awarded to the
one who loved — “she is the mother.” But Mr. Justice Bakewell is
not king Solomon.

A letter to Mrs. J. F. Harley [Mary] from A. P. Sinnett dated

March 22 1913 was among the ER papers.
Dear Madam
In answer to your letter just received, [it does not bear a date].
I write to say that I myself disapprove of the organization called
the Order of the Star of the East. I believe it to be based upon a
misapprehension of the arrangement designed by the great spiritual
authorities of the world in reference to the second coming of
Christ. That, or something closely resembling it, I believe likely to
take place towards the end of the century, but I think Mrs. Besant
is mistaken in supposing that it will have something to do with the
Indian boy in whom she is interested. I do not want to underrate
that boy. I believe him to be a very remarkable Ego through whom
important results may be accomplished when he comes to maturity

35
but there is a long interval between that belief and the idea that has
been circulated in reference to him.
As regards Mrs. Besant’s action in connection with the O.S.E.
you will see from what I have said that I necessarily regret this. But
she is much less to be blamed in the matter than her indiscrete
devotees. I have heard her say in public and she has more than
confirmed the idea in private conversation with me, that she does
not want to impress her beliefs on other people. We have agreed in
quite a friendly way that it in a good thing rather than otherwise
what all Theosophists should be aware of the fact that she and I
differ about many things.
I know so little about the workings of the E.S. with which I have
never consented to have anything to do, that I hardly understand
your reference to “vows” connected with that organization. I should
utterly disapprove of any such vow as you quote. No one in the
society should be asked to pledge himself to any sort of obedience
intellectual or of any other kind to any one on this plane of life.
Any officer of the society who allows himself to prescribe to
such a course of action is entirely misunderstanding his functions,
that is to say, as I should interpret them.
Some people I know, some of my own best friends, believe they
have derived benefit from becoming members of the E.S. and I do
not claim to interfere with their attitude of mind, but my view of
the Theosophical movement and the society is this: — We have
acquired from the Chiefs of the great Adept fraternity teachings of
supreme importance for all who aspire towards spiritual progress.
The earnest study of that teaching should be the main purpose of all
those who enter the society; each for himself must determine how
to live in accordance with it.
Personally I regret that there should be any organization
within the society officially recognized by its chiefs. Theosophists
among themselves should be free to form groups for any purpose
not inconsistent with the main purposes of the society, but whoever
forms such groups it is perfectly clear that no one is called upon to
resign his membership in the general society because he does not
think fit to join such groups.
Finally let me say that in my opinion all mistakes that may
be made within the society under the impulse of trop de sele do
not alter my conviction that on the whole it is looked upon by the
great “Masters of Wisdom” as the most important agency at their
disposal for the moment in connexion with the promotion of the
spiritual growth of the world.

36
 You may make use of this letter as you think fit.
Yours very sincerely
A. P. Sinnett
P.S. I am sending you herewith a copy of the Transaction of London
Lodge over which I preside. Its ideas have some bearing on subjects about
which you write. I wish they could be widely diffused in America.

There will be a reconstruction of the Herald of the Star, and their

second trip to Taormina in Sicily 1914. However, one must keep
09

in mind, and remember, Krishnamurti was never conditioned by the

Theosophical Society or the British lifestyle, never betraying his own
innate light, and understanding. We shall see, out of this intolerable
situation, Krishnamurti has had to find his way alone, and we too
must rely on our best understanding to discover our own way. By
1917, Krishnamurti’s name as editor of the Herald of the Star had
been taken off the cover.
Due to the fact that Krishnamurti stated in America that these
Self-Preparation Groups were started for one purpose only:
That is to train individuals, members of the Star, who are
eager to take themselves in hand and comply with, and mould
themselves to, the requirements. It is not a compulsory body. It is
only for those who wish to enter, and there are no pledges of any
kind nor private bonds, but we wish to have in that Group those
people who are absolutely sincere and who “mean business.” 10

The First International Star Bulletin was issued in November

1927. It would take the place of the magazine Ananda which it was
proposed to issue to only members of the Self-Preparation Group.
By 1927 it was dissolved. The International Star Bulletin, however,
would be available to all the members of the Order and not merely
to a few. One reason, which makes necessary the publication of the
Bulletin is the policy, which is to govern the new magazine The Star
or the Star Review as it is to be called in some countries. Another
reason is the rapid growth of the Order and the vital need for

Ross, Joseph E., Krishnamurti: Taormina Seclusion 1912, Edwin House Pub., 2003.
09

Krishnamurti, J., Editorial Notes, “An Address”, nd, publisher J.F. Duwaer & Zonen,
10

Amsterdam (Holland), p. 191.

37
keeping members throughout the world in close and living touch
with its development; the Camps at Ommen and in Ojai, news about
Krishnamurti, the publication of his books, changes in organization,
the needs of the Order, the movements of lecturers, all of these are
points of outstanding interest to all members and there must be a
channel for the dissemination of such news and notes.
From the Master K.H. to Some of His Younger Disciples
Note by Annie Besant, O.H.
This discourse was addressed to a group of young pupils of
the Master K.H. at different stages of progress in the Inner Life.
Several of them are specially attached to the Master Jesus and the
Lord Maitreya, and had made great progress in former lives in
Christianity, and are preparing to gather round the World-Teacher
when He comes. Some are also Freemasons. Hence the special
references in 3 (b) to the Church and Masonry. The references do
not imply that aspirants belonging to other faiths, or non-Masons,
should become either Christians or Freemasons; speaking to
Hindus or others, He would have drawn His illustrations from
other gatherings. The essence of the idea is that people collectively,
when engaged in a spiritual work, are more potent than they are
separate. Nor is there any meaning in mentioning Theosophical
work last, except that individual work of teaching or lecturing is
not so much a centre of radiating high thought as are (a) and (b);
(b) is the most powerful method — collective action animated by
intense devotion.
I make these comments only to avoid misconception, such as
has occasionally arisen by students reading into statements of a
Master meanings which were not intended.
MY DEAR YOUNG BROTHERS:
Your life is naturally becoming more and more a full and busy
life; you cannot find time for all the varied activities that claim
your attention. Therefore it is important that you should exercise
discrimination — that you should choose wisely among these
manifold activities, and that you should not attempt too much.
Time is a precious gift — a “talent” [Referring to Christ’s Parable
of the Talents, Matthew, XXV, 14-30] entrusted to us, and we must
try to use it to the best advantage. During these earlier years of your

38
life your paramount duty is to build up a strong physical body, so
that you may not be hampered in your later work by its weakness;
and no ideas of rapid progress, either occult or intellectual, must be
allowed to interfere with the fulfilment of that duty.
Never forget that your life is the service of the Brotherhood
is wholly consecrated to the uplifting of humanity. Let that
consecration be real, deep and true, as you sing in one of the hymns
inspired half-a-century ago by our wonderful Poet-Brother;
[Master R. The hymn referred to is “From Glory unto Glory,” by
Frances R. Havergal] let the devotion and the love which you feel
so strongly to your Elder Brothers show forth ever in unremitting
effort to help those younger in evolution and in realisation. To the
earnest disciple such service is the one reason for his existence, and
all his education, all his training, whether upon lower or higher
planes, is undertaken for no other purpose than to prepare him to
do that work well. Realise that education is not an end in itself,
but a means to an end, and that it must be used intelligently from
that point of view. Avoid the mistake made by many enthusiastic
and well intentioned students who set the means above the end,
and let the claims of their training hold them back from a definite
opportunity of present service. Every new faculty or power that
you can develop, all new knowledge that you can acquire, will
help you to do the work better; but some lines of study are more
useful for your object than others, so here again discrimination is
required. The best training of all is to begin to do the work even
now, in such measure as you can; and there are four ways in which
this is possible for you.
1. As by practice you fit yourselves for it, I shall, when occasion
offers, assign to each of you some special service which you may
undertake and carry through to the best of your ability on my
behalf.
2. You should be ever on the watch for opportunities of helping
each individual with whom you come into contact. I sometimes
put persons in your way especially for that purpose, just as I might
send a man to a doctor to be cured of a physical ailment; but you
may and should find suitable cases for yourselves. You must be
prepared to meet and deal with all sorts of different temperaments;
beware therefore of forming rash judgments, of adopting baseless
prejudices, for they always limit your usefulness.

39
 3. You may in various ways do constant service to your district
or immediate neighbourhood:
(a) By making yourselves during meditation centres of active
radiation of high thought, and thus providing a ready channel
for the influence of the Brotherhood.
(b) By joining in collective action with the same object, as
in a Church service or a Masonic meeting — both of them
especially fine opportunities of altruistic work which none
should miss unless compelled by serious illness.
(c) By taking charge of a class for Theosophical instruction, or
by delivering lectures or addresses, in order to do something
to lift the veil of ignorance which causes so much unnecessary
suffering to mankind, and to spread ever more and more
widely the gospel of the all-pervading Love.
4. You may do service to humanity as a whole by realising
your unity with it, and striving to raise it by raising yourselves.
You do this in excellence when, by taking a step in evolution (such
as Acceptance or Initiation), you slightly but quite definitely lift
mankind a hairbreadth nearer to its goal; and you may do it in a
minor but no less real degree in daily life, for by every personal
improvement achieved you make the whole a little better. For men
are one, though as yet most of them know it not; and if, knowing
and feeling that unity, you act consciously on behalf of humanity
without slightest thought of self, the karma that you generate will
go to lighten its oppressive load, and in your sacrifice of personal
gain the whole wide world rejoices. Thus you share with all your
brethren your devotion, your good thought, our knowledge,
thus following humbly in the footsteps of the great Saviours of
mankind.
Hold firmly to the unity among yourselves, and do nothing to
imperil it, for it is your most precious possession, won hardly and
by long-continued effort; let no link ever fail in the golden chain
of love, but draw it ever closer and closer, until in the hands of our
LORD the Deliverer it is strong enough to lift the world. And
thus I give to you that greatest of all blessings, that through you
His world may be blessed. 11

11
In blue ink among Arundale’s papers.

40
 A Message from a Master of Masters
A sterner, but to the strong an exquisitely sweet, note is struck
in the following lines; they were spoken by a Master of Masters,
again through the lips of a disciple in 1906; the disciple had been
urging on the members the duty of working with the liked and the
disliked, and of cultivating the great virtue of Tolerance. Suddenly
a more authoritative Voice spoke, a fuller note was struck:
None works save by His sending them work, and because
He sends them to labour in His field. And if in some things His
servant whom He has sent to guide you is farther on than you, it is
because of that difference of inner feeling which has learnt not to
choose, but to take each as His choice; not to select, but to accept
whatever comes; to work as willingly with the most incongruous
as with the most congruous, and to know that if there is failing
and unwillingness to work the fault is in herself and not with the
one outside.
That is a lesson that you have to learn in the time that lies
before you, and if you cannot learn it, yours the loss, yours the
delay. The danger to the movement, outer as well as inner, lies in
this. There is much work to be done in many lands, all one work
with many workers. None come into it who have not by their own
exertions earned the right and privilege. None share in it save
those who, by some quality in their nature, are able to supply a gap
in the forces that work for all. 12
All have many faults, all have many weaknesses, all fail often
by what they are pleased to consider their virtues. Those who guide
can use all forces, and what is really the worker is used by Them
to counteract other forces in the environment. But when, because
you think you see evil, you take it on yourselves to try to deal with
it, and say: “This shall or shall not be”, then you make confusion
and disorder and difficulty, and outer strife growing out of the
inner disharmony, and the great work suffers. And so the evil in
12
The diversity of work demands diversity of workers, and each who comes into the E.S.
comes for the special capacity that he brings to it. Imagine the building of a house; varied
materials are needed for it, and each is necessary for the perfection of the whole. Thus, one
man may have ninety-nine defects and one virtue, and another ninety-nine virtues and
one effect; the one virtue of the first completes the hundred virtues required, and is more
useful to the work than a duplication of those already in hand and a “gap in the forces.” His
ninety-nine defects do not matter; he comes for the one virtue which he has to give to the
work. “None works save by His sending them.”

41
 each worker, that might have been used to counterbalance other
evil, sets that evil free to work its mischief, and the two forces of
evil set free break the great work and wring the Master’s heart. 13
Do as you will, for yours is the choice. Choose if you will to
work only with what you deem the good, and learn by experience
that the Great Law knows neither good nor evil, save the forces of
the One Will and the One Life; and that all which you call evil is
as necessary as that which you call good. Work for good as you see
it, and leave the evil to those who know how to use it. 14
Then shall your work be blessed. Then shall you tread the
path which leads to the feet of Those whom you do love and seek,
though blinded by your weaknesses and your folly. Because at
heart you love, opportunity for work is given you. Do not lose the
opportunity by the weakness which it is time to put aside. In the
world men work by their own will; here you work by the Great
Will, which is one.
And learn not to judge others but learn to judge yourselves;
for those who judge themselves are not judged by Them. But those
who judge their enemies, they must answer to the great judgment,
as they have invoked it, which shall deal with them as they have
dealt with others — until they learn the Law which is good, and
the insight which is Light.

13
Here is the spiritual science of the Adept. A force of evil in one may be counterbalanced,
neutralized, by a force of an opposite evil in another, and thus both forces cease to injure.
The recklessness of one is neutralized by the cowardice of another, and thus the recklessness
and the cowardice which, separately set free, would have worked injury, counteract each
other and become harmless. So in chemistry, an alkali set free, an acid set free, may eat away
a substance, but when mingled they yield a salt, a neutral body, harmless, even useful. The
Masters “can use all forces,” if only we will not let our petty whims interfere in things too
high for us.
14
No force is put upon us to work with those we dislike; we can choose to work only with
those who suit us, and remain in the lower rank of workers. We shall become wiser in the
future, and for the present we are only asked not to hinder where we do not choose to help.
That which we “call evil” —the destructive forces in nature — are as necessary as that which
we “deem the good” —the constructive forces. Both are equally necessary, but so long as
we are not sufficiently evolved to use destructive forces without rendering them “evil” by
imparting our personality to them, so long we should leave them alone. Only those may
use them safely who have transcended the personality, and whose will is blended with the
Great Will.

42
The Royal Secret Doctrine as seen in Egyptian and Grecian
Antiquities
Lets turn back the history of the world to some millions of years
ago. A million either way makes little difference at the time when
earth’s surface was being shaped, not as now by petty mankind whose
wars and force of arms plays boundary lines, but at the time when
the great Devas of the elements were forming the earth from its
plastic state, the continent today called Africa hardened and dried,
a very important crack was formed, extending down from what we
now know as the Mediterranean, for more than two thousand miles
through the center of the continent. This crack, or crevice, became the
valley of the Nile, and this valley of the Nile became later the cradle
of an evolved race of people, the home of the Egyptian civilization.
The valley of the Nile was perfectly fitted to become the
home of a great people, for it was protected on the north by the
Mediterranean (then unknown to navigation) and on two sides, the
impossible desert of the Sahara hemmed it in. Into this cradle of the
valley of the Nile, came a race of people led from India by Manu-
Vena, [Archaic Period Dynasties I-III (3200 — 2680 B.C.) Dynasty
I (3200 — 2980 B.C.) known in Egypt as King Menes, the first
of the King Initiates. 15 Menes and his line, through the Egyptian
religion, taught the people the mysteries of the unseen dimensions
of nature. The realities of life beyond the physical became the
most important part of their existence. Temples, monuments, and
pyramids bore symbols of this knowledge and of the knowledge of
the Greater Mysteries, held by the kings and priests at that time.
Their religion was ceremonial, and since true religion is the oldest
vehicle of the Secret Doctrine, or of any doctrine of which we have
historical trace, its study affords special interest.
In the earliest times, the Egyptian religion seems to have existed
in its purest form, and, “at one time the Egyptians were said to have
temples without sculptured images.” “Not only the Egyptians,” says
HPB, “but every Nation of the earth began with temples devoid

15
Blavatsky, H.P., Collected Writings 1877, Isis Unveiled, Vol.I, Science, Wheaton, Ill., The
Theosophical Publishing House, 1972, p. 627.

43
of idols and even of symbols. It is only when the remembrance of
the great abstract truths and of the primordial wisdom taught to
humanity by the dynasties of the divine kings died out that men
had to resort to memento’s, and symbology. 16 Such a religion was
particularly fitted to teach the Fourth Race, by allegory, the secrets
of Nature, and this religious ceremonial, when used to the highest
ends, brought one into touch with the Elemental 17 and Deva 18
Kingdoms, that particularly manifested in the early civilizations.
Nearly all the ceremonial side of religions has to do with this
service of the Elementals and Devas, and is a co-operation with
them in the carrying on the world’s work. 19 They have had a great
influence on the religions of the world, these Devas of the Elements,
and we can trace them fairly well if we look at the history of religions.
In the Fourth Race, the two who were working most actively were
Kubera and Varuna (these names are the names of offices, and
they bear them while they hold the office). The Devas of earth and
water; they were especially concerned with the Atlantean evolution,
Kubera most of all, his influence predominating in Egypt. Hence the
religion of Egypt, in its ceremonials, aimed at mastering the forces
of the physical plane, and studied and triumphed in the physical
sciences — chemistry, alchemy, astronomy and astrology as guides
to physical operations, engineering, magnetism, etc. Kubera was its
inspiring deity and the various shapes and names were all penetrated
by him, for the worship of Agni as the Sun, Ra and Osiris, was the
Sun as husband of the earth, and the worship of Varuna in the Nile
was as the fertilizer of the soil for agriculture. …These subordinate
Devas of the Elements are the Rulers of the Nature-Spirits of the
Elements:… Vaya rules the Sylplis, Agni the Salamanders, Varuna
the Undines, and Kubera the Gnomes.” 20
16
Bullock, P.W., “Egyptian Belief,” Theosophically considered a lecture to the “Adelphi”
Lodge, T.S., Theosophical Sifting, No.8, Vol.VI, London, Theosophical Publishing Society,
1893, pp. 4-5.
17
A mythic being described in occult and alchemical works from the 16 century. There are
four elemental categories: gnomes, undines, sylphs, and Salamanders.
18
(Sanskrit:) means heavenly, divine. Deva is masculine, and the related feminine is Devi.
19
Besant, Annie, “The Elemental Kingdoms,” Part II, Esoteric School of Theosophy, nd.
p. 13.
20
Ibid., pp. 17-19.

44
 This gives us a key to the control of the elements, which the
Egyptians had, and used, in the engineering feats of their pyramids,
obelisks, and temples. No doubt, it was by the method of negation
of the force of gravity that they moved and placed in their beds the
great stones of their architecture.
Not only did Egyptians understand their own existence beyond
the gates of death, but also their religion taught them to maintain
an unbroken state of consciousness, and that all things of nature
had their root in the superphysical world. The physical existed as a
passing shadow of the more permanent worlds beyond. Therefore,
the spiritual Nile was given a part in the religious ceremonial; the
sun and solar system had their spiritual duplicates, as did the Nile,
animals, foods and all things in nature. In fact, food was placed in the
tombs, not that it might feed the physical body, but that its spiritual
counterpart might nourish the departed spirit.
One could say that here was an ideal hierarchical form of
government, somewhat similar to that of Peru, in which the kings
and priests were impelled only by the highest, the most unselfish of
motives, to lead their people to a more perfect state of civilization
and a greater knowledge of the mysteries of life.
The Egyptians were profoundly schooled in the arts and sciences
— astronomy, mining, engineering, stone cutting, chemistry, glass,
paper, cloth and metalworking. The records of their skills are still in
existence as fragments in that fascinating land today. The zodiacal
maps of Dendera and Ezna prove that not only were they familiar
with the constellations of the heavens and their movements, but also
of the fixed star around which our solar system proceeds — by which
all their monuments were oriented. They also knew of that other
center which modern astronomers have only been able to postulate;
that center around which this fixed star proceeds and gives to the
earth the phenomenon of the precession of the equinoxes.
Their monuments remain today, after thousands of years, perfect
of their type that the world has produced. The inks, paints and stains
stand as unsolved problems to modern science, the, tourist sees the
colors as perfect today as when they were made thousands of years
ago.

45
 Isis Unveiled gives an example of their engineering skills: “…for
a distance of 500 miles above Cairo, …a strip of land reclaimed from
the desert, and made, according to Professor Carpenter, ‘the most
fertile on the face of the earth.’ He says, ‘for thousands of years these
branch canals have conveyed fresh water from the Nile, to fertilize the
land of this long narrow strip, as well as the Delta.’ ” 21 H.P.B. quotes
Wilkinson: “Menes took accurately the measure of the power which
he had to oppose, and he constructed a dyke whose lofty mounds
and enormous embankments turned the water eastward, and since
that time the river is contained in its new bed.” [Manners and Customs
of the Ancient Egyptians, 1837, Vol.I,p.89] Herodotus, described this man-
made lake “as measuring 450 miles in circumference and 300 feet in
depth.”
“If we now turn to architecture, we find displayed before our
eyes, wonders that baffle all description. Referring to the temples
of Philae, Abu Simbel, Dendera, Edfti, and Karnak, professor
Carpenter remarks that ‘these stupendous and beautiful erections
…these gigantic pyramids and temples’ have a vastness and beauty
which are ‘still impressive after the lapse of thousands of years.’ He is
amazed at ‘the admirable character of the workmanship; the stories
in most cases being fitted together with astonishing nicety, so that
a knife could hardly be thrust between the joints.’ ” “According 22

to Bunsen, [Egypt’s Place, etc., II, p.155] ‘who is considered to have

made the most exact calculations, the mass of masonry in the great
Pyramid of Cheops measures 82,111,000 cubic feet, and would weigh
6,316,000 tons… Kenrick says: ‘The joints are scarcely perceptible,
and not wider than the thickness of silver paper, and the cement so
tenacious, that fragments of the casing stones still remain in their
original position, notwithstanding the lapse of so many centuries,
and the violence by which they were detached.’ [Ancient Egypt under
the Pharaohs, Vol.I, Ch.VI, p.124] Who, of our modern architects and
chemists, will rediscover the indestructible cement of the oldest

21
Blavatsky, H.P., Isis Unveiled, Collected Writings, 1877, Vol. I, Science, The Theosophical
Publishing House, Wheaton, Ill., p. 517.
22
Ibid., pp. 517-18.

46
Egyptian buildings?”
“ ‘The skill of the ancients in quarrying,’ says Bunsen, ‘is displayed
the most in the extracting, of hug blocks, out of which obelisks and
colossal statues were hewn — obelisks ninety feet high, and statues
forty feet high, made out of one stone!’ ’ ’ 23 These statues and obelisks
are still standing in their original positions today.
H.P.B. quotes Champollion’s descriptions of Karnak: “The
ground covered by the mass of remaining buildings is square; and
each side measures 1,800 feet… One is astounded and overcome by the
grandeur of the sublime remnants, the prodigality and magnificence
of workmanship to be seen everywhere… No people of ancient or
modern times has conceived the art of architecture upon a scale so
sublime, so grandiose as It existed among the ancient Egyptians; and
the imagination, which in Europe soars far above our porticos, arrests
itself and falls powerless at the foot of the hundred and forty columns
of the hypostyle of Karnak! In one of its halls, the Cathedral of Notre
Dame might stand and not touch the ceiling, but be considered as a
small ornament in the center of the hall.’ [ J.-F. Champollion, Letters...d’
Egypte, etc., pp.98, 303-04]
An English traveler says, “Courts, halls, gateways, pillars,
obelisks, monolithic figures, sculptures, rows of ’ sphinxes, are massed
in such profusion [at Karnak] that the sight is too much for modern
comprehension.” 24
“Says Denon, the French traveler: ‘It is hardly possible to
believe, after seeing it, in the reality of the existence of so many
buildings collected together on a single point, in their dimensions,
in the resolute perseverance which their construction required, and
in the incalculable expense of so much magnificence! It is necessary
that the reader should fancy what is before him to be a dream, as he
who views the objects themselves occasionally yields to the doubt
whether he be perfectly awake …There are lakes and mountains
within the periphery of the sanctuary. These two edifices are selected as
examples from a list next to inexhaustible. The whole valley and delta
of the Nile, from the cataracts to the sea, was covered with temples,
23
Ibid., p. 518.
24
Ibid., pp. 523-24.

47
palaces, tombs, pyramids, obelisks, and pillars. The execution of
the sculptures is beyond praise. The mechanical perfection with
which artists wrought in granite, serpentine, breccia, and basalt,
is wonderful, according to all experts …animals and plants look
as good as natural, and artificial objects are beautifully sculptured;
battles by sea and land, and scenes of domestic life are to be found
in all their bas-reliefs.’ ” [Voyage dans la basse et la haute Egypte, etc., Paris, 1892,
Vol.I, pp.258, et seq.]
“ ‘The monuments,’ says a French author, which there strike the
traveler, fill his mind with great ideas. At the sight of the colossuses
and superb obelisks, which seem to surpass the limits of human
nature, he cannot help exclaiming, ‘This was the work of man, and
this sentiment seems to ennoble his existence.’ ” [Savary, C.E. Lettres
sur L’Egypte, Vol.II, pp.143-44, 2nd ed., 1786.] …Every one of these stones
is covered with hieroglyphics, and the more ancient they are, the more
beautifully we find them chiselled. 25
“The Mysteries preceded the hieroglyphics. [The word
[hieroglyphic] comes from the Greek, ‘heiros,’ (‘sacred’) and ‘glupho’
(‘I grave’).] The Egyptian characters were sacred to the Gods, as
the Indian Devanāgari is the language of the Gods.] They gave
birth to the latter, as permanent records were needed to preserve
and commemorate their secrets. It is primitive Philosophy that has
served as the foundation-stone for modern Philosophy; only the
progeny, while perpetuating the features of the external body, has
lost on its way the Soul and Spirit of its parent.” 26 “There were no
Mysteries in the beginning, we are taught. Knowledge (Vidyā) was
common property, and it reigned universally throughout the Golden
Age (Satya-Yuga) As says the Commentary: Men had not created evil
in those days of bliss and purity, for they were of God-like more than of
human nature. But when mankind, rapidly increasing in numbers,
increased also in variety of idiosyncrasies of body and mind, then
incarnated Spirit showed its weakness. Natural exaggerations, and
25
Ibid., p 524.
26
Blavatsky, H.P., The Secret Doctrine., the synthesis of science, religion and philosophy,
Vol.5, The Adyar Edition, Madras, Theosophical Publishing House, 1938, pp. 264-65.
Blavatsky, H.P., Collected Writings, Vol.XIV, Miscellaneous, The Theosophical Publishing
House, Wheaton, Ill., 1985, pp. 254-255.

48
long with these superstitions, arose in the less cultured and healthy
minds. Selfishness was born out of desire and passions hitherto
unknown, and but too often knowledge and power were abused,
until finally it became necessary to limit the number of those who
knew. Thus arose Initiation.” 27
…“Henceforward the knowledge of the primeval truths
remained entirely in the hands of the Initiates. The Mysteries had
their weak points and their defects, as every institution welded
with the human element must necessarily have. Yet Voltaire has
characterized their benefits in a few words: ‘in the chaos of popular
Superstitions there existed an institution, which has ever prevented
man from falling into absolute brutality: it was that of the Mysteries.’
“Verily, as Jean Marie Ragon puts it of Masonry; ‘Its temple has
Time for duration, the Universe for space… ‘Let us divide that we
may rule, ‘have said the crafty; ‘Let us unite to resist,’ ‘have said the
first Masons.’ [Des Initiations Anciennes et Modernes, [pp.17-18. Nancy, France,
F. Guérard, 2nd Ed., 1842] ‘The mysteries,’ says Ragon, ‘were the gift of India.’
In this he is mistaken, for the Aryan race had brought the mysteries of Initiation
from Atlantis. Nevertheless he is right in saying that the mysteries preceded all
civilizations, and that by polishing the mind and morals of the peoples, they served
as a base for all the laws — civil, political, and religious.]
“Or rather, the Initiates whom the Masons have never ceased to
claim as their primitive and direct Masters. The first and fundamental
principle of moral strength and power is association and solidarity
of thought and purpose. ‘The Sons of Will and Yoga’ united in the
beginning to resist the terrible and ever-growing iniquities of the
left-hand Adepts, the Atlantean’s. This led to the foundation of
still more Secret Schools, temples of learning, and of Mysteries
inaccessible to all except after the most terrible trials and probations.
“Anything that might be said of the earliest Adepts and their
divine Masters would be regarded as fiction. It is necessary, therefore,
if we would know something of the primitive Initiates to judge of
the tree by its fruits, to examine the bearing and the work of their
successors in the Fifth Race as reflected in the works of the classic
Ibid., p. 260., Blavatsky, H.P., Collected Writings, Vol.XIV, Miscellaneous, The Theosophical
27

Publishing House, Wheaton, Ill., 1985, pp. 248-49.

49
writers and the great Philosophers. How were the Initiations and
Initiates regarded during some 2,000 years by the Greek and Roman
writers? Cicero informs his readers in his very clear terms. He says:
“ ‘An Initiate must practice all the virtues in his powers: justice,
fidelity, liberality, modesty, temperance; these virtues cause men to
forget the talents that he may lack.’ ” [De Off., i, 33.]
“Ragon says: when the Egyptian priests said: ‘All for the people,’
nothing through the people,’ they were right: in an ignorant nation
truth must be revealed only to trustworthy persons… We have seen
in our, days, ‘all through the people, nothing for the people,’ a false
and dangerous system. The real axiom ought to be: ‘All for the people
and with the people.’ ” [Des Initiations, ...p.21-22.]
“But in order to achieve this reform the masses have to pass
through a dual transformation: (a) to become divorced from every
element of esoteric superstition and priest craft, and (b) to become
educated men, free from every danger of being enslaved whether by
a man or an idea.
“This, in view of the preceding, may seem paradoxical. The
Initiates were ‘priests,’ we may be told — at any rate, all the Hindu,
Egyptian, Chaldean, Greek, Phoenician, and other Hierophants and
Adepts were priests in the temples, and it was they who invented
their respective exoteric creeds. To this the answer is possible: ‘The
cowl does not make the friar.’ If one may believe tradition and the
unanimous opinion of ancient writers, added to the examples we
have in the ‘priests’ of India, the most conservative nation in the
world, it becomes quite certain that the Egyptian priests were no
more priests in the sense we give to the word than are the temple
Brahmans. They could never be regarded as such if we take as our
standard the European clergy. Laurens observed very correctly that:
“The priests of Egypt were not strictly speaking, ministers of religion.
‘The word ‘priest’ which translation has been badly interpreted,
had an acceptation very different from the one that is applied to it
among us. In the language of antiquity, and especially in the sense
of the initiation of the priests of ancient Egypt, the word ‘priest’
is synonymous with that of ‘philosopher’ …The institution of the
Egyptian priests seems to have been really a confederation of sages

50
gathered to study the art of ruling men, to centre the domain of truth,
modulate its propagation, and arrest its too dangerous dispersion.’
[Essais Historiques et critiques sur la Franche-Maconnerie, pp.142-3.] [2nd. Ed.,
Paris, Chomel, 1806.]
“The Egyptian Priests, like the Brahmans of old, held the reins
of the governing powers, a system that descended to them by direct
inheritance from the Initiates of the great Atlantis. The pure cult of
Nature in the earliest patriarchal days — the word ‘patriarch’ applying
in its first original sense to the Progenitors of the human race, [The
word “patriarch” is composed of the Creek word “Patria” (“family,” “tribe,” or
“nation”) and “Archos” (a “chief ”), the paternal principle. The Jewish Patriarchs
who were pastors, passed their name to the Christian Patriarchs, yet they were
no priests, but were simply the heads of their tribes, like the Indian Rishis.] the
Fathers, Chiefs, and Instructors of primitive men — became the
heirloom of those alone who could discern the noumenon beneath
the phenomenon. Later, the Initiates transmitted their knowledge
to the human kings, as their divine Masters had passed it to their
forefathers. It was their prerogative and duty to reveal the secrets of
Nature that were useful to mankind — the hidden virtues of plants,
the art of healing the sick, and of bringing about brotherly love and
mutual help among mankind. No Initiate was one if he could not
heal — aye; recall to life from apparent death (coma) those who,
too long neglected, would have indeed died during their lethargy.”
[There is no need to observe there that the resurrection of a really dead body is an
impossibility in nature.]
“That which is known of the Priests of Egypt and of the
ancient Brahmans, corroborated as it is by all the ancient classics
and historical writers, gives us the right to believe in that which
is only tradition in the opinion of skeptics. Whence the wonderful
knowledge of the Egyptian priests in every department of Science,
unless they had it form a still more ancient source? The famous
‘Four,’ the seats of learning in old Egypt, are more historically
certain than the beginnings of modern England. It was in the great
Theban sanctuary that Pythagoras upon his arrival from India
studied the Science of Occult numbers. It was in Memphis that
Orpheus popularized his too abstruse Indian metaphysics for the

51
use of Magna Grecia; and thence Thales, and ages later Democritus,
obtained all they knew. It is to Saïs that all the honour must be given
of the wonderful legislation and the art of ruling people, imparted
by its Priests to Lycurgus and Solon, who will both remain objects
of admiration for generations to come. And had Plato and Eudoxus
never gone to worship at the shrine of Heliopolis, most probably the
one would have never astonished future generations with his ethics,
or the other with his wonderful knowledge of mathematics.” [See
Laurens’ Essais historiques ...for further information as to the world-wide, universal
knowledge of the Egyptian Priest.]
“Initiation, though it contained neither rules and principles,
nor any special teaching of Science — now understood — was
nevertheless Science, and the Science of sciences. Though devoid
of dogma, of physical discipline, and of exclusive ritual, it was yet
the one true Religion — that of eternal truth. Outwardly it was
a school, a college, wherein were taught sciences, arts, ethics,
legislation, philanthropy, the cult of the true and real nature of
cosmic phenomena; secretly, during the Mysteries, practical proofs
of the latter were given. Those who could learn truth on all things —
i.e., those who could look the great Isis in her unveiled face and bear
the awful majesty of the Goddess — became Initiates. However, the
children of the Fifth Race had fallen too deeply into matter always to
do so with impunity. Those who failed disappeared from the world,
without leaving a trace behind. Which of the highest kings would
have dared to claim any individual, however high his social standing,
from the stern priests, once that the victim had crossed the threshold
of their sacred Adytum?
“The noble precepts taught by the Initiates of the early races
passed to India, Egypt, and Greece, to China and Chaldea, and thus
spread all over the world. All that is good, noble, and grand in human
nature, every divine faculty and aspiration, were cultured by the
Priest-Philosophers who sought to develop them in then- Initiates.
Their code of ethics, based on altruism, has become, universal. It is
found in Confucius, the ‘atheist,’ who taught that ‘he who loves not
his brother has no virtue in him,’ and in the Old Testament precept,
‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,’ The greater Initiates became

52
like unto the Gods, and Socrates, in Plato’s Phaedo, is represented as
saying: ‘The Initiates are Sure to come into the company of Gods’
“In the same work the great Athenian Sage is made to say: ‘It
is quite apparent that those who have established the Mysteries, or
the secret assemblies of the Initiates, were no mean persons, but
powerful genie, who from the first ages had endeavoured to make us
understand under those enigmas that lie who will reach the invisible
regions unpurifies will be hurled into the abyss [the Eight Sphere
of the Occult Doctrine; that is, he will lose his personality for ever],
while he who will attain them purged of the maculations of this
world, and accomplished in virtues, will be received in the abode of
the Gods.’ ” [Lev. xix, 18.] 28
This was the civilization that developed under the guidance of
the Initiates-King. The qualities and powers possessed by the true
Initiates, lived as they were in those days, must have made these
Master men stand out as symbols of all that perfected man should
be, and will be, when humanity has completed it cycle of evolution.
This civilization lasted many thousands of years. “Bunsen concedes
to Egypt an antiquity of 20,000 years.” 29
But such a civilization is not one that ends to develop the
discriminative faculty, or the quality of Spiritual discernment —
Buddhi. This can only be developed through the exercise of free will
and self-determination. H.P.B. says, “Nothing can be done until the
Disciple grows strong in individuality.” And she defines individuality,
as “the mind principle merged into one with Buddhi.” It is the spiritual
reincarnating Ego. The unfoldment of the Ego is the keynote of
mankind’s existence, and the civilizations that he has developed are
used simply as a means to this unfoldment. Repeatedly through the
history of civilization, have the Guardians of ancient lore assisted in
the founding of a civilization, of a movement, the same as they did
in Egypt, and have then placed this civilization in the hands of Their
28
Blavatsky, H.P., Collected Writings, Vol.XIV, Miscellaneous, The Theosophical Publishing
House, Wheaton, ILL., 1985, pp. 251-256. Blavatsky, H.P., The Secret Doctrine, the synthesis
of science, religion and philosophy, Vol.5, The Adyar Edition, 1938, The Theosophical
Publishing House, pp. 261-66.
29
Blavatsky, H.P., Collected Writings, 1877, Vol. I, Science, Isis Unveiled, The Theosophical
Publishing House, Wheaton, Ill., 1972, p. 520

53
pupils in order that they might develop discrimination thereby.
In Egypt, the Guardians laid the foundations of the civilization,
pointed the way, and then withdrew leaving the children to travel
the way alone. To unfold the latent powers of the Ego through
experience, and make a success or, a failure of that which had been
given them and of the civilization, which They had founded, has ever
been the method of Those who seek to aid mankind on its upward
climb. H.P.B. has said that the primary factor of spiritual life is to
find oneself as the immortal entity, the personal God within. As is
said in The Voice of the Silence, “Tis well, Shravaka. Prepare thyself,
for thou wilts have to travel on alone. The teachers can but point the
way. The path is one for all; the means to reach the goal must vary
with the pilgrims.” 30
Thrown on their own resources, soon the Egyptian civilization
began to deteriorate. Spiritual discernment, that light from Buddhi,
was lost; white magic was turned to black; materialism and spirituality
were ever in conflict, until materialism overwhelmed the spiritual
vision. The priests became degenerate; the higher spirituality had
flown, leaving only the husk of materialism with its pomp and
display. Priest endeavored to sell rites of Initiation, and kings to
purchase them, to oppress and enslave the people.
In all civilizations, no better example of the fact that true spiritual
power and true Initiation can never be conferred by appointment to
an office or Initiation Rites than in degenerate Egypt. Selfishness
was born out of desires and passions, and but too often knowledge
and power were abused until finally it became necessary to limit
the number of those who knew. Thus arose Initiation. Initiation is a
stage of consciousness, of soul growth, and can only be reached by
having been lived. When attained it carries its own recognition and
when not attained, no amount of pomp, oppression, or display can
supply it, we cannot tread the Path until we are the Path.
During those days of materialism, Remises the Second reigned
as a great patron of the arts and sciences. Desperately did he
endeavor to maintain the position of King-Initiate, but perhaps this
Blavatsky, H.P., The Voice of the Silence, “Fragment III, The Seven Portals”, New York,
30

Theosophical Publishing Society, n.d., p. 47.

54
was the breaking point in the line of Initiate-Kings. For Remises the
Second became one of the proudest and most selfish of the line of
materialistic kings, as he enslaved the people to carry on his reign of
pomp, display, and indulgence. Today the remnant of his enforced
greatness may be seen by what remains of temples and hundreds of
colossal statues of himself scattered for a thousand miles along the
Nile. The spiritual vision that is the sunlight of the Higher Ego had
become engulfed in materialism. Egypt fell into decay, and today
we find it a land of desolation and ruin, a frightful example of all
that happens when a civilization loses the spiritual vision and lives
for material things only. Egos too low in the scale of evolution to
be guided by the principle of spiritual discernment, must gather
experience by the other plan of pain and sorrow. The Group Egos
of that civilization were given the opportunity of unfoldment under
spiritual leadership, then when the leadership was withdrawn, unable
to follow that light they learned their lessons through the depths of
pain and materialism.
With the ebb of the Egyptian civilization, came the crest of the
wave of the civilization of Greece. In Greece again the Guardians of
ancient lore came among the people, and Greece was the master of
Philosophy, art, architecture, as well as of commerce and dominion.
The opportunities for unfoldment of the latent qualities of the soul
were much greater than Egypt had ever offered. The Guardians
showed that They regarded the primary schooling of Egypt had been
successful, and harder and more advanced lessons were prescribed in
Greece.
Three things especially stand out from its ruins are the
Parthenon, illustrating its architecture. Even today in its ruin, it is
considered the greatest building in the world. Hermes, illustrates its
art and philosophy, while Bema, a Greek word that referred to the
raised platform on which public addresses or speeches were made,
illustrates its science of government. Here again in Greece we find a
race of people whose basis of physical life, during the perfection of
their civilization, was that of spiritual discernment — the light of the
Buddhic principle, which comes to us through their art, philosophy
and architecture, as also their government.

55
 Whereas Greek architecture has always been supposed to be
founded on the beauty, the strength and the lofty reach of straight
lines, there were no straight lines, but that the whole building is
a curve that changes its angle of deflection at every point and if
continued will not make a circle. The system of curves in the
building, not only are the flutings of the columns in the form of
parabolic curves, but the columns themselves as they rise from the
foundations, apparently in perpendicular, are also parabolic curves.
So complicated is the inter-relation of these systems of curves that it
is impossible to measure and reproduce such architecture. The floor
of the building itself, instead of being flat, is lower at either end than
it is in the center.
Here we find that the Greek have hidden in their architecture
the most perfect definition that architecture can give of their
conception of the Buddhic principle of the Soul, the indefinable
spirit of the Supreme. “The marvels of the One Spirit of Truth,
the ever-concealed and inaccessible Deity, can be unraveled and
assimilated only through Its manifestations by the secondary ‘Gods,’
Its acting powers. While the One and Universal Cause has to remain
for ever in abscondito, Its manifold action may be traced through the
effects in Nature.” 31
This illustrates the use of the parabolic curve in Greek definition
of the secondary Gods. Although, the Greeks recognized that they
could not define the Supreme, yet in the use of the parabolic curves
in architecture they defined its manifestations.
To Phidias we are mostly indebted for the designs of the
Parthenon. It has been said of Phidias, “Shakespeare lives among
men, but Phidias lives among the gods.” The use of curves in this way
is the essence of Art and lies in the borderland of semi-consciousness.
The Greek was the first civilization to study the principle of
light and shadow in art and architecture, and in the use of the
parabolic curve they accomplished the results, by light and shadow, of
producing a softened straight line. The Greek recognized that in the
31
Blavatsky, H.P., The Secret Doctrine, the synthesis of science, religion and philosophy,
Adyar Edition, Vol.5, 1938, p. 261. Blavatsky, H.P., Collected Writings, Miscellaneous, Vol.
XIV, The Theosophical Publishing House, Wheaton, Ill., 1985, p. 249.

56
super physical lay the permanent. And it was in this land of light and
shadow that they laid the foundation of their art and architecture.
In philosophy, art, government, and architecture the Greek ever
surrounded himself with and kept within his consciousness those
ideals that lead upward to the rapid unfoldment of the Soul, and
indeed such as Pythagoras, Plato and Phidias do “live among the
Gods.” As a single example of their profound philosophy, I quote
the following from the writings of Iamblicus, that follower of
Pythagoras and Plato, as given in The Secret Doctrine. “Theurgy unites
us most strongly to divine nature. This nature begets itself through
itself, moves through its own powers, supports all, and is intelligent.
Being the ornament of the Universe, it invites us to intelligible
truth, to perfection and imparting perfection to others. It unites us
so intimately to all the creative actions of the Gods, according to the
capacity of each of us, that the soul having accomplished the sacred
rites is consolidated in their [the Gods’] actions and intelligences,
until it launches itself into and is absorbed by the primordial divine
essence. This is the object of the sacred Initiations of the Egyptians.”
[Iamblichus, De Mysteriis, p.290, lines 15-18 et seq., caps. V, and VII.] 32
The wave crest of the Greek civilization lasted only a short period
and then began the deterioration similar to that, which took place
in Egypt. The wave of spiritual vision again broke on the sands of
materialism and the civilization disappeared from the face of the earth.
In writing of the ebb and flow of spiritual movements, H.P.B. has
said, in The Secret Docrine, and in The Key to Theosophy, that in the last
six hundred years six great waves of spirituality have been sent out,
each of which has suffered the same fate of the loss of the “original
impulses” and of being wreck on the sandbars of materialism. 33
Around 1908, Dr. Besant wrote two small pamphlets taken
from the Instructions given by H.P.B., titled: The Elemental Kingdoms
Part I and II for E.S. members as part of the Esoteric School of
Theosophy. Part II pertains to the present article.
32
Blavatsky, H.P., Collected Writings, Vol.XII, 1889-1890, The Theosophical Publishing
House, Wheaton, Ill., 1980, p. 560. Blavatsky, H.P., The Secret Doctrine, the synthesis of
science, religion and philosophy, Adyar Edition, Vol.5, 1938, p. 452.
33
Blavatsky, Helena Petrovna, The Key to Theosophy, 3rd ed., Revised English ed., 1914,
p.194, original ed., 1889, p. 305.

57
 “…Occultism — the study of Mind in Nature — is intended,
among other things, to make a man master of his various bodies,
to make him understand the inner planes of his own being, the
similar planes external to himself, and the relations between them.
The life we lead on the physical plane is closely correlated with
our life on other planes and with the beings who there exist, and
as students we are intended to acquire knowledge of the invisible
worlds and of the forces that work in them. The fragmentary
knowledge given to the outer world is to be supplemented, and the
gaps filled in, by deeper studies, for which the profane are not yet
prepared. One of these studies is that of the Elemental Kingdoms,
a clear (though still partial) knowledge of which will throw much
light on such fundamental propositions of our Philosophy as
Karma and Reincarnation, and the long journey of the Pilgrim
Soul. Were we to publish this paper, we should only confuse the
outer world by the multiplicity of the necessary details. Until men
have grasped the broad principles of the Esoteric Philosophy and
have worked them into the fabric of their thought, a mass of detail
is more confusing than helpful, for it covers up the outline and
continually scatters the attention. This is one of the reasons for
secrecy, and students should remember that they only embarrass
and repel enquirers by pouring on them a stream of complicated
and abstruse details…”
“…If men only knew these things and could see them for
themselves, how rapidly might evolution proceed by the help
of their patient and wise cooperation. As it is, to tell them all
these facts would but arouse jeering and mockery, and thus fail
to produce beneficial effects. But Esotericists, knowing them,
might often help and guide their friends, advising what is useful
without explaining the deeper causes of the modus operandi. For it
is our privilege to give without the value of the gift being known;
and to use our knowledge to save the ignorant without confusing
them. To work unknown and unrecognized is the glory of the true
Occultist.”

58
The Elemental Kingdoms Part II
The Devas
The subject of the Devas is one on which a great amount of
confusion exists, and although, in dealing with it, it is necessary
to touch on matter which is already familiar to students, it will be
best to give a complete view of the subject in outline, so that every
student may be able to fit into one part or the other the many
statements which are to be found in the literature of the world, full
of references, as it is, to the Devas.
This name comes from the root “div,” which means “to shine,”
but also sometimes “to sport,” or “to play.” By the ordinary rules
of change of the Sanskrit vowels, “div” becomes “dev” — “shining”
or “sporting” one, and this name in the first sense is given to
superphysical Intelligences because their bodies are composed
of matter which is luminous. The “Shining Ones” is the English
equivalent, and this is familiar from Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. The
second derivation, “to play” or “to sport” is also specially applicable
to some classes of them, such as Gandharvas and Apsaras, and
generally speaking, the name may be applied to all of them along
the Hindu line of thought, which looks on the whole of creative
activity as a kind of play of the Logos, a drama which He is
performing — His Lila, which means His sport or play. They, as
agents in carrying out the drama, are also playing. That view of
the universe, however, is one which rouses in the minds of some
western people a very strong objection, because, overpowered by
the distress in the world, they regard the words “play” or “sport”
as meaning merely amusement, and are rather shocked by it.
They consider this world a great scene of bloodshed, death and
horror, and the idea that the Logos can be “amused” with it all is
repugnant to them. Can all this agony, this anguish, they ask, be
a matter of sport to God? If this means, Is He indifferent to His
children’s suffering? No. If it means, Does He look at it as a tender
mother looks at the infant crying over a broken toy? Yes.
Looking at the matter from a deeper standpoint — that its
object is that the Selves that are in-turned or germinal may become
out-turned and manifested — we see quite well the meaning of
the word. It is the “pleasure,” the “joy” of the Supreme to give
to all these fragments of Himself, as they are sometimes called,
the field, the possibility for manifestation. All the question as to

59
passing troubles does not really matter. They are no more than the
teething of a child, just a stage which has to be gone through. The
troubles are the dust thrown off in the grinding of the blade, and
the making of the blade is a joy. The more we advance, the more
we realise this one thing: that the troubles are means to an end,
and that we could not do without the gifts they bring us. And
to a fuller, truer view of life, of which it is truly said that it is not
a cry but a song, to the strong glad feeling that all is very well,
storm as well as sunshine, night as well as day, the term “playing”
or “sporting” is not so very much out of place.
I group the Devas, according to their functions, into nine great
classes, into which they naturally fall, and am going to deal with
them under these classes, so that students may have a definite view
of the area of their work and also of their functions. This ninefold
order is recognised in most religions, and the angelic hierarchies
and their work — Angels are Devas — was one of the subjects
studied in the Mysteries of Jesus in the early Church. The word
Elementals is used in theosophical literature for the lower grades
of these hierarchies, but it is not usually applied to the higher. (See
A Study in Consciousness, pp. 79-83)
The first three classes are those which comprise the Kosmic
Devas, who have to do with the whole solar system, the making
up of kosmic types for the whole. They come over with the Logos
from past universes. More than that it is impossible to say as to
their origin, and I cannot answer any questions as to whence they
come. All I can say is that when the Logos becomes manifest,
the putting forth of these entities as individuals — in the highest
sense of the term individuality — is His first work. They are Beings
who co-operate with Him in the building of His universe, Beings
of vast powers and of vast intelligence, the “Sons of God” who
“shouted for joy” as the plan of the universe was unrolled. They
are in no sense products of the evolution of the present universe,
but come onto it at the dawn of its creation, and emerge from the
Logos in strength and beauty at its origin.
The three great classes are:
I. The kosmic Deities of the Elements — in the old sense of
the term: earth, water, fire, air, either, and two others which are
unmanifested.
II. Then come those who are called the Architects, the most

60
prominent members of which class are the Planetary Logoi, who
take from the Logos Himself the scheme of the solar system
and sketch out their own particular planetary part of it. Because
each sketches out his own particular department, or area, they are
spoken of as Architects.
III. Then we come to the class called the Recorders, of whom
the most definite examples in your minds will be the Lipikas.
These, then, represent the three great classes of kosmic Devas,
and they live on the third and fourth planes, counting downwards
— the Âtmic and Buddhic. It is there they make their habitat
for their work in the system. How far their consciousness goes
upwards, we do not know, but it is on the two highest planes that
they are working. That which they do, they do from those elevated
planes through others, directing the activities of the vast hosts
under their command. Their own activity is entirely hidden from
us — almost entirely — but the results of their activity show out
in the lower planes in which our worlds are at present carrying on
their evolution.
I. The first of these classes consists of the Devas of the
Elements — sometimes called, among the Hindus, Deva-Râjâs,
or kings of the Devas — because of their very exalted position,
and because they command and direct the hosts below them; they
have as their bodies the five planes of the system that we know, the
lower fine planes, and all the matter of a plane forms the vehicle
for the consciousness of the Deva of that plane.
That is their first great mark — that the body of each is of the
matter of one of the five great planes, and you may especially think
of the atomic sub-planes as, in the literal sense of the words, the
body, because all the other sub-planes are made up of that. It is
simpler to think of these bodies as consisting of the atoms of the
planes; the whole is a vehicle of their consciousness. Those who
are manifested are, of course, five in number. I only know these
by the Indian names, although I have no doubt the names can be
supplied in the other religions. The Hindu names are: Indra, Vâyu,
Agni, Varuna and Kubera (or sometimes Kşhiti). Those are the
names by which the great Deities are known, and the same names
are used in our own world for the heads and rulers of the modified
planes of the terrene Chain, for all these names are the names
of offices, and individuals bear them while they hold the office.

61
Thus you have their separate types and names in the fourth class,
which works on the lower planes, on two-and-a-half of which the
ordinary evolution is going on.
The planes, then, are their bodies, the whole of the solar system
is the field of their evolution; the whole of that system is to them a
world; though to us it is made up of a great many worlds, to them
it is only one.
Just in the same way as the corpuscles in our bodies might
look on the various organs, such as the heart, the lungs, etc., as
separate bodies, while to us the whole is only one body, of which
all these things are only organs; so, in the solar system, each of the
seven sets of Chains is an organ, a part of this one great body of
the heavenly Man, the Adam Kadmon of the Kabbala.
We can see by this one fact that they can have nothing to do with
the ordinary details of evolution; they do not trouble themselves at
all about special worlds, although they would know of any trouble
that was going on in a world, just as bodily pain in any part of
the body, in any organ, would be known in the consciousness. So
some immense, far-reaching trouble in a planetary Chain would
be known by these Devas as pain or disease in that particular part
of the body; and in such a case they might apply a remedy, as we
might try to apply a remedy to some diseased organ of our body.
It is only in that sort of way that they are concerned with
the parts of the solar system; they have to do with the whole as
a whole, and their evolution consists in the experiences that they
gain in guiding the system as a whole, and in the balancing up
of its particular parts, in the adjustment of any portion of the
mechanism which is thrown out of gear and is hindering the
running. All their work is on that immense scale.
Sometimes people apply things which are said about these to
Devas very much lower down in the scale of being, and consequently
much confusion arises, and imaginary contradictions are seen. In
a similar way, if you are talking of a prince and a peasant under
a common name, what you say about the prince may contradict
what you say about the peasant, and yet both are men, and what is
said is true of one or the other, but not necessarily of both.
II. Of the Architects, the second class, we know if possible even
less than we know about the Devas of the Elements; we are only
able to guess a little about their work by studying the work of the

62
Builders lower down, who make up the Vth and VIth classes. You
can see their work but vaguely. The planetary Logoi are the highest
instances of these, only the Great Architect of the whole system
standing above them in this respect. Under these Archietects work
the Builders in each Chain, and the Masons whom the Builders
guide, right down to the nature-Spirit.
III. Among the Recorders, the Lipikas are known to us by
name. Their function is shown in many of the scriptures of the
world, where “books” are spoken of the records kept by these
Scribes of the solar universe: “the books were opened,” “the book
of life,” are expressions that occur in the Revelation of St. John; the
Hindus speak of their Head as “Chitra-gupta,” literally the “hidden
picture,” the One who sums up in Himself the guardianship of the
âkâshic records. These have to do especially with kârmic law in the
large sense of the term — the most collective of all the collective
records — the collective karma of the universe. Under these there
come Devas on the lower planes of the same type. You will see that
the lower six classes arrange themselves under these, fall under
them, as they are hosts of the same great hierarchies. They are
summed up in the three and the three into one.
These three classes are the Devas into whose ranks men
may pass when they have reached the Jivanmukta stage. That
Initiation, the Initiation of the Adept who has completed His
human evolution, and for whom the world has no further lessons,
opens up to the Victor this path as one of those which He may
tread. When He is the liberated Self, the liberated Life, then it is
possible for Him to become a Deva of one of these classes. This
is one of the seven paths along which such Beings may go. Below
that stage it is not possible to pass into the ranks of the Devas of
the three highest classes.
There are a few references scattered about our literature about
the choosing of the Deva path. Mr. Leadbeater speaks of it in
The Path of Initiation. The adjective “kosmic” is wanted there in
order to make the meaning plain. It does not mean going into
the ordinary Deva evolution, carried on around us, but passing
into one of the kosmic Deva classes, as indeed is indicated by the
phrase used about it: that “their place of evolution is the whole
system.”
Passing on from these, of whom we know very little, we come

63
to what I may describe as the Chain-Devas — the Devas that
are comparatively within our reach, belonging to our own earth
Chain. The whole of the rest of the nine classes belong here, and
presumably similar classes exists in the other Chains. I have spoken
of three classes; that leaves six to be dealt with. These lower six,
belonging to our own Chain, are the lower, so to say local, copies
of those I have been describing, and are classed under them, being
sometimes spoken of as their hosts, their hierarchies. The term
“Lord of Hosts” is applied to the heads of the kosmic orders, and
is significant.

We may tabulate them thus:

Kosmic Devas Their Hosts

I. Devas of the Elements. IV. Subordinate Devas of the

Elements — the Rulers of the Sylphs,
Salamanders, Undines, and Gnomes,
and all these.
II. Architects. V. and VI. Builders.
V. Shapers of the mineral and vegetable
kingdoms.
VI. Shapers of animal and
human forms.
III. Recorders. VII., VIII., IX. Administrators.
VII. National Devas
VIII. Appliers of kârmic law in
individual cases.
IX. Guardians of types, such as
Lunar Pitris.

The higher of the Deva Hosts have their habitat on the “arûpa”
levels of the fith plane; the lower on the rûpa levels of the fifth
plane — Rûpa Devas; on the sixth plane — Kâma Devas and
astral Nature-Spirits; on the seventh plane — ethereal Nature-
Spirits. The VIIth, VIIIth and IXth classes — Kârmic Devas —
are also found on the fifth and sixth planes, and on the etheric
levels of the seventh.
IV. We take first, the Devas of the Elements, at work in a
particular Chain, and these are the familiar Devas whom we
read about in Hindu books, who are continually appearing and

64
disappearing, mingling in the affairs of men, and who have to do
with the building up, the shaping and the guiding of these worlds.
Their names as used in the books are not the names of
individuals, they are the names of offices as in the former cases
— as you might say “King,” “Magistrate,” or “Judge,” and the
particular person who holds that office is called by that name. Your
King may be Edward, James or Charles — he is always “King.” He
takes the name of King as soon as he takes the regal office. They
have all their individual names, but they are known by the name
of their office. According to the Hindu and Buddhist tradition,
the present Indra is the fifth who has held that office during the
present Round. There were four Indras before him, who had to do
with the preceding Root-Races, and who have passed away. This
particular Indra arose with our own Root-Race is formed, a new
occupant of the Indra-office comes forward, while the preceding
occupant falls into the background, and no longer takes an active
part, although his Root-Race is still going on; the rule has passed
into the hands of a new ruler. This word Indra means “Monarch”
or “Emperor,” and he is the ruler or head of all the Chain-Devas
of the Elements; that is why he is sometimes called the “King of
the Gods,” or “the fifth of his dynasty.”
These Chain-Devas of the Elements may be evolved out of
humanity in a particular way, or may come along other lines. The
men who reach this position reach it by work and desire, that is
by work that is prompted by desire. There is no throwing away
of the fruits here, but the carrying on of work motived by the
desire to gain fruits. Do not muddle up those who are working
for Devaship with those to whom the counsels in the Bhagavad-
Gîtâ apply; those counsels are meant for Yogis. Desire is the great
motive force for entering this class of Devas; they are moulded by
desire, these men, and they work in order that they may become
Devas; and this work is exceeding hard, and consists especially in
the sacrifice of physical objects, and the performance of difficult
physical tapas.
Suppose a man has great wealth — he sacrifices the whole of
it to the Deva Kingdom. It is a sacrifice to the Deva Kingdom, and
that means that he spends it in all kinds of rites and ceremonies
which help the Devas in the carrying on of their work. Nearly all
the ceremonial side of all religions has to do with this service of the

65
Devas, and is a co-operation with them in the carrying on of the
world’s work. It is true that this side of religion is now very little
understood in the West, and its partial practice in the great religion
of Christianity is for the most part looked on as superstition by the
“enlightened” people of the twentieth century. But that is due to
the ignorance of these enlightened ones of all that they cannot
reach by the use of the physical senses and the mind. Everything
outside their own range of thought is superstition, and worthy
only of contempt. Work outside their kind of work is useless. This
widespread habit of measuring the great world by our little world,
not confined to the modern leaders of thought, gives rise to many
absurdities; among others to the absurdity of condemning greater
people than ourselves as “selfish” because they do not go along our
line of evolution, who go along a line of evolution which does not
immediately, so far as we can see, benefit man. People have come
to look upon man as the centre of the universe, so that all that does
not serve him is thought to be useless. It is part of the same conceit
as seen in the stars — the mighty suns of other systems — little
lanterns hung in the sky to light very inefficiently, this earth.
In order, then, to become a Deva, a man must give whatever
he has of possessions entirely to the sacrifice to that kingdom, and
work along its line, disregarding all human claims and successes. It
is, however, quite true that all this, in the long run, comes back to
humanity in the service the Deva kingdom renders to humanity.
Apart altogether from sacrifices made with the object of entering
the Deva kingdom, the general service of the Devas has fallen into
oblivion by ignorance. Very many of the difficulties in the world
at the present time are due to the fact that scarcely any sacrifice is
rendered to the Devas by men. The old command: “nourish ye the
Devas, and the Devas shall nourish you,” is entirely disregarded,
and we have, as consequence, ill-regulated seasons, unseasonable
heat and unseasonable cold, drought here and floods there, every
sign of a nature that is out of gear. A great many of the sacrifices
to the Deva kingdom would now seem quite useless, and some
even ludicrous — such as the often ridiculed pouring of ghî
into the sacrificial fire — the Homa of the Hindus. In this act a
certain transmutation takes place by fire, and when it was duly and
regularly performed the Devas were fed, so that they were able to
go on with their work in physical nature.

66
 The present Indra is a very ancient man, who performed a
large number of very costly and difficult sacrifices, and so earned
his present position. He is not a very moral person, judged by the
present standards of mankind, in the eyes of those who take all the
stories au pied de la lettre, and understand nothing of the meanings
of the allegories. Many of the statements shock 19th and 20th
century people — especially missionaries — very much, because
they apply to these Devas the measures of human morality, which
they use in choosing the people they invite to their dinner and
tea-parties.
Moreover, the stories are allegories, in which the ordinary
terms of human society are used with regard to the working of
great “natural forces,” for every force is a Deva. If a force on one
plane generates a force on another, it is called “giving birth to a
child”; if the junction is called a “marriage” of a Deva with a Devi,
and the generated force is their “child.” And why not, since the
forces are beings, and the generated force is also a being. We may
therefore have a Deva “marrying” his “sister” or “daughter.” We
think such a union very “wrong” on our plane, and it is “wrong”
here, because against the laws of health for physical bodies, but
it shows ignorance to measure all things by the human tape, very
useful in human society, but not always applicable in other regions.
At the same time, when Indra does anything which is wrong in
his own world, as he sometimes does, as is natural for one who
has gained his present station by passionate desire, the penalty
of wrong-doing has to be borne by him, for karma knows no
difference between worms, human beings and Gods, and restores
equilibrium at the cost of the disturber, be he who he may. And
Indra, because he has sometimes done things he ought not to
do, has been thrown out of his kingdom for a time, to the great
confusion of all things therein, and a disorderly, destructive force
has for awhile got the upper hand, until the King of the Gods has
re-won his throne by strong efforts and austerities.
This Deva kingdom is open to all of us. Some people work for
it deliberately, life after life. Those who do so have, among other
things, to follow the line of one sex or the other in their successive
incarnations. They take either masculine or feminine incarnations
all along their later evolution, so as to intensify the masculine or
feminine characteristics. Here they differ widely from the line

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followed by the Jîvanmukta, who is aiming at unifying in one form
the qualities of both sexes, and so incarnates in either a masculine
or a feminine body as necessity arises.
In the Deva kingdom you always find the Deva and the Devi
side by side, and these two together make up the whole, and live
and work together as one individual. There is no Deva who has
not his Devi, his own feminine counterpart, and when creative
and shaping activity occurs it cannot take place without her. She
is the energy, the Shakti of the Deva; without her co-operation
he is helpless. She symbolises Matter, while he symbolises Spirit,
and the two are Spirit-Matter. It is because of the necessity of
this on every plane that you have these future Devas and Devis,
that are ripening in humanity, working along one particular line
of sex, incarnation after incarnation. When you hear or read of
people who are developing entirely along one line, as men or as
women, do not think that this is a contradiction of the statement
that, in general masculine and feminine incarnations alternate
in groups along the line of evolution. Reincarnation in one sex
only is a mark of the evolution of the Devas of the Elements of
our chain, and of some other Devas also, of the Administrative
Classes, and this underlines what has been said about twin souls,
or in Lawrence Oliphant’s teaching about affinities, and the like.
These ideas are all twisted and distorted fragments of this perfectly
true occult teaching. But as it is readily misunderstood, and as it
does not apply to very many people in ordinary humanity, it is not
much put forward by us publicly; there is so much likelihood of
distortion in such a matter, and the bringing down of the teaching
to the physical plane, and so materialising and vulgarising a truth.
They have had a great influence on the religions of the world,
these Devas of the Elements, and we can trace them fairly well
if we look at the history of religions. In the Fourth Race, the
two who were working most actively were Kubera and Varuna
— the Devas of earth and water; they were especially concerned
with the Atlantean evolution, Kuera most of all, his influence
predominating in Egypt. Hence the religion of Egypt, in its
ceremonials, aimed at mastering the forces of the physical plane,
and studied and triumphed in the physical science — chemistry,
alchemy, astronomy and astrology as guides to physical operations,
engineering, magnetism, etc. Kubera was its inspiring deity, and

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the various shapes and names were all penetrated by him, for
the worship of Agni as the Sun, Ra and Osiris, was the Sun as
husband of the earth, and the worship of Varuna in the Nile
was as the fertiliser of the soil for agriculture. Varuna was more
prominent among the Babylonians, as Oannes, the Fish-Deity,
and his predominance is evident also in the Fifth Race, for in its
religions Varuna plays a great part, Agni also appearing. Varuna is
water, symbolically matter and the astral plane. All the religions in
which you find great stress laid on the incarnation of God show
his influence, and it is he who gives to Egypt its ideas of divine
incarnations in the Fourth Race, as to Christianity in the Fifth. In
Christianity also you find Christ spoken of as a fish, and he is thus
symbolised in the carvings in the Catacombs. In other religions
also is found the Fish-God, that shows the rule of Varuna, the lord
of the watery element, or of the astral plane.
In the Fifth Race, Agni — fire — becomes predominant. All
the fire-worshippers, such as the Parsîs, come under his influence;
the great alchemists are inspired by him everywhere, as they rise
above the physical elements, and the rites of all Sun-worships and
the Sun-myths are clear evidences of his rule.
Vâyu will belong specifically to the Sixth Race, and Indra to
the Seventh Race, and the elements corresponding to their planes,
i.e., belonging to the corresponding sub-planes of the physical, will
be most in evidence.
These subordinate Devas of the Elements are the Rulers of
the Nature-Spirits of the Elements: the hosts belonging to Indra
are not yet named in the West; Vâyu rules the Sylphs, Agni the
Salamanders, Varuna the Undines, and Kubera the Gnomes. The
latter are the Yakshas of Hindu literature. These have the work of
preparing the globes for occupation, the shaping of the field for
evolution. They prepare the earth, get it ready for man; they have to
do with all great destructions, natural disturbances and cataclysms
of every kind; earthquakes, avalanches, great floods, all are brought
about by their intermediation, but, where humanity is concerned,
not by their initiation. The directions to bring them about, then,
come from another source, the Administrative, or Kârmic, Devas.
In the earlier stages, before humanity was on earth at all, they
worked out the immense changes known to geology, under the
immediate orders of the Devas of the Elements — each working

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with the element of his own Deva, and co-operating in the work,
bringing about the changes which have made the earth what it
is. In big destructions, the great Devas join in actively to give the
necessary force.
V. and VI. the next two classes are called Builders. They come,
as is shown above, under the Architects, and do all the building up
of external nature and the building up of human bodies — but not
quite all the building of human bodies, for in this the ninth class
also co-operates. Their habitat is on the fifth, sixth and seventh
planes, as above described, so that we here meet the Rûpa Devas
and Kâma Devas who are mentioned in the Instructions, the great
host of the Nature-Spirits of all sorts and kinds, for the highest
to the lowest. Those on the lower mânasic plane have to do with
Devachan, with the building of mental bodies, and with the general
carrying on of that sphere. Among these are the exquisite beings
called Grandharvas, and all these are the normal inhabitants of
the mental plane. The inhabitants of the astral world — the Kâma
Devas — have to do with the building of the animal kingdom; the
etheric form the lowest group.
These two classes are the “forces” or “energies” in nature, save
those that are represented in the Nature-Spirits of the Elements.
Each force is an Intelligence, working along its own lines, according
to its nature, and it is to this view of Nature, as a vast society of
interlinked Beings, that Science must at last come. Thus only will
her problems find solution, and the “uniformity of Nature” be seen
as consistent with the practices of religions.
Let us take the Vth class by itself; we can only use for these the
general and convenient name of Nature-Spirits — the Nature-
Spirits of the mineral and vegetable kingdoms. They have etheric
or astral bodies as their lowest vehicles, and the development of
consciousness among them varies as among men. They work in
close amity with the nature-Spirits of the Elements, on whom they
are largely dependent for the success of their own special work,
and themselves fall into corresponding classes, etheric, airy, fiery,
watery, and earthy, each class making its own predominant element
predominant in its creations, although building all elements
into them as needed. They shape minerals, crystals being their
masterpieces in this kingdom, and build up the wondrous realm of
plants, from the lowest to the highest. It is these Devas who make

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all the adaptations seen in these two lower kingdoms; all variations
re-initiated by them. The great trouble of the Darwinians, as to
how these variations begin, is solved by this fact. They are caused
by the Nature-Spirits, interworking with each other, helping
each other, instead of working against each other. They drop
those variations that are unsuccessful, and work on those which
are successful, and are always making experiments. “Spontaneons
variations” simply mean the experiments of these particular sets of
Builders. They also have to do with the “failures” in nature, which
are very unintelligible if regarded as the work of the Logos, but
quite intelligible if they are due to these “little people,” the lowest
grades of whom are of exceedingly limited intelligence. And how
many failures we also make in our experiments!
All the “protective” variations are part of their work, and of the
Nature-Spirits of the VIth class. They colour a plant or a creature
so that its enemies may not be able to find it. Here the Devas of
the vegetable kingdom come into conflict with their brethren of
the VIth class, presiding over animal and human evolution. There
is a great deal of plotting and counter-plotting between these
two classes, and between members of the same class when their
interests are different. The hawk’s eyes are sharpened, for instance,
to enable it to pierce through the “protective variations” of its prey.
One Deva works to give his hawks keener vision; the other Deva
strives to devise a more subtle deception. They try to outwit each
other, as it were, and in the effort their protégés advance.
All these Devas do not take any notice of men, unless men try
to push themselves into their kingdom, and then they try to push
them out again. They are very hostile to men on the astral plane,
fearing our mischievous influence. Some of the least evolved of
these are the little creatures that buzz up against us like gnats, if
we pick a flower. They do not like to have it picked or cut off; they
have not the sense to know that it is better for the plant that the
flower should be picked, instead of allowing it to develop its seeds
and exhaust the plant. After a very little time, however, they get
accustomed to you, if you are kind to their creations. In picking a
flower, I have noticed there is at first quite a little buzz coming out
at me, as if they were trying to frighten me away, and later, when
they have seen that one is kind and gentle, they will show no sign
of anger, but will sometimes accompany the flower as it is carried

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off.
The next class, the VIth, or the second class of Builders, have
to do specifically with the bodies of animals and men. They are the
Kâma-Devas, and the fire they give, for they are fiery, is the material
for the expression of desire. They build the bodies out of their own
substance. They take from the Deva of the Element they are allied
to — for they are also in five classes — the material of the physical
or astral sub-plane which corresponds to his plane, and they work
this matter into their won bodies, and thus prepare it for the use of
man, giving it while in their own bodies all kinds of powers which it
would not have otherwise, and then building it into the astral body,
and handing over the physical stuffs to the building elemental, to
build into the body of the unborn child. The materials he takes are
those which have been worked up in the bodies of these Devas, and
the lower aggregations derived from them.
They work very specifically in the senses of man giving each
sense its own particular power, that is, giving a limit of vibration
within which only each organ can respond. You cannot see above
or below a certain number of vibrations. It is these Devas, who
are themselves limited, who give these limitations to man. The old
books speak of the Devas going into the eye and giving sight. These
Elementals work up the eye, and give it the power of vibrating at
their particular rate. That is their work in all the animal and human
kingdoms. They may be reached by man, and help the mental, the
astral, and the physical bodies to evolve. It is possible for men
to persuade them to work with them, co-operate with them. If
a man gains the goodwill of these on any plane, he can improve
the body belonging to the plane very much more rapidly than he
could otherwise improve it. It is part of the work which is called
“magic” to make them co-operate with the will of man.
In the well-known sacred literature of India, we find a very
large number of prayers addressed to these Devas, and mantras are
given, containing their names. A man, using the name in the form
of the mantra, calls that particular influence to work with him. He
chooses his mantra according to the Deva whose help he wants.
A student in India, for instance, would particularly address every
morning such a Being as Ganeha, lord of wisdom, and thus induce
some member of the Devas who serve him to help in the shaping
of the mental body, and thus quicken the changes he is bringing

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about by his study; and so on, through the whole of that great
arrangement for the interaction of Devas and men and for mutual
aiding, of which all great eastern religions speak, and which they
render possible. It is more difficult to find guidance on this head
in Christianity; and yet all these Devas are “Angels,” and might be
reached in similar ways. I do not even know the Christian names
for these nine classes, but students could probably find them out by
reading the Christian books in which the characteristics are given
of these nine Classes. I know the functions, but I do not know the
Christian names. Christian students should read the old literature
on the subject, and some Roman Catholic books probably deal
with these powers. Students should bear in mind the distinctions
given, and then try to sort out the angelic hierarchies — “thrones,
dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers.” There is to be found
in esoteric Christianity the same teaching as is found in eastern
religions.
Lastly we come to those who are under the Recorders — the
Administrators of kârmic law. There are here three classes: the
VIIth, VIIIth and IXth, and they have specially to do with men and
nations in evolution.
VII. The first class of these Administrators comprises the
Devas who guide the nations, and apply the workings of collective
karma. They are a special group. Here again we have great varieties,
grades of very varying intelligence. The higher of them care only
for the ultimate good of the nation, and guide their nation to
whatever is best for it, no matter whether it be joy or sorrow, defeat
or victory — they guide that nation to its own ultimate good. The
Deva Ruler, the Angel-Guide, of the Russian nation is deliberately
guiding his nation through its present troubles, because these are
necessary, are the best for its future evolution, and with a perfectly
unflinching hand he steers his nation through all its miseries. A
beautiful story is told in The Light Invisible of the guardian angel
of a child, who guided the child under the wheel of a cart, when its
death-hour, its hour of freedom, struck; for the Shining Ones see
with clearer eyes than ours, and ever choose the best.
These higher Devas, the Rulers of the nations, seeing the plan
of evolution, and co-opearting therein, do not fall into any conflicts
among themselves; but in the lower ranks of national Devas there
are often conflicts, because these are short-sighted, as we are, and

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they simply seek immediate success; but they only go to a certain
point in their struggles with each other, for when the higher Devas
see that the larger plan is being hindered by such strivings, then
they give the word to cease, and the lower Devas never disobey.
In thinking of the way in which Kârmic Devas liberate men
from their bodies, we must remember that they do not themselves
work in physical bodies, and they look at the physical body as we
look at a coat. To them death means nothing, except that it is
an advantage to the person, who thus gets rid of a heavy coat,
and can work more freely without it. Hence they do not mind
killing, which to them is helping; they kill with a perfectly light
heart, just as you might lift a child out of a ditch. Only we may
readily see, that when people are working on that line of thought,
they must clash very much with the human view, which looks on
killing as wrong. It is quite evident that no Deva can look at killing
as in itself wrong, because he is constantly engaged in it in his
ordinary work; he kills by means of an avalanche, by floods, and so
on. When disease slays the man, it is ever a Deva who says to him:
“come from that body of death into a larger life,” and the message
to him is a message of joyous deliverance. When man kills, he
murders for his own advantage; to the Deva, killing is like the
tearing of a coat which a child has outgrown. If these ideas were
brought down here and people were to work on that line, conflict
with human law, based on human relations, would of course arise.
But it should be remembered that the Deva does not follow out
his own wish or rule in these matters; he merely carries out the law.
Such actions, which are what we call deaths by “natural causes,”
differ fundamentally therefore from what we call murder, which is
killing with a wrong motive, for a personal end.
These Devas of the nations do not concern themselves with
average individuals, but they concern themselves with individuals
who can influence nations — statesmen, politicians, Kings, etc. —
because they care only for the destiny of the nation, and they can
work through these. According to the needs of the nation, they
raise up or pull down, they protect or destroy, and they call on
the Devas of Class VIII to guide into incarnation in a people the
advanced or undeveloped souls needed for the working out of its
national karma.
They also concern themselves more and more, as progress is

74
made, with those who are abnormally quickening their human
evolution. When such men climb high, the Devas begin to take
notice of them and help them to climb yet faster, for they see in
them possible helpers in the near future. But they “help” in a way
that the unwise would consider very undesirable and unpleasant
— by putting difficulties of every possible kind in the way of the
individual to draw out his strength and develop his intuition. The
helper, who can be stopped by an obstacle or turned out his way
by a difficulty, is of no use to them. They need strong men and not
babes. And therefore they concern themselves with those who are
already strong, and they trouble their lives as much as possible; and
the wise man recognises the value of the storms raised around him,
and he uses the “help” from outside, veiled as hindrance though it
be, recognises these Devas as teachers and trainers, and is grateful
to them; the less wise people look on them as their enemies, and
lose the aid they bring. As long as people sit down before an
obstacle and begin to cry over the difficulty, instead of girding up
their loins to climb over it, they let them alone. That is why it is
said: “whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth,” and why tasks are
ever harder and harder as we go on.
There remain two classes who have to do especially with
individuals: the VIIIth and IXth — both of this same order of
Administrators.
The VIIIth class administer kârmic law among ordinary
individuals, by taking advantage of circumstances everywhere,
by slightly quickening or retarding the march of events. If a man
has to pay the penalty of sudden death, such a Deva will suggest
to him the going by a train which is about to have an accident.
If he has chosen such a train, and he has no karma of such an
accident, a Deva will hinder him from reaching the station, by
using a block in the road to delay him, by making his cab-horse
fall, or in a dozen different ways. In the earthquake which wrought
such havoc in India in 1905 it was noticeable that a certain
number of civil servants arrived in the place just in time for the
catastrophe, while a number of others left on the eve of it. Some
came but to be killed, others left on the eve of it. These arrivals and
departures would be ruled by these Devas. People are often heard
to speak of their “providential” escapes, but it must be remembered
that providential” escapes are not more true than “providential”

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accidents. The Deva sees the earthquake coming, and he also sees
that it constitutes a ready way whereby certain individuals within
a certain range can pay off certain kârmic debts, and he quickens
or delays their comings and goings accordingly.
That is the way kârmic law is administered. It could never
work out regularly as it does, were it not for the Devas who take
advantage of circumstances as they arise. As just said, they might
use an ordinary block of the traffic in the Strand to make a person
lose his train, if there is going to be an accident, in which he ought
not to be. People say: “How is it possible that all these carts can
be brought together just for the purpose of stopping a particular
man from travelling by a particular train?” But that is looking
at the matter from the wrong end. The carts come together for
quite independent reasons, and the Deva simply takes advantage
of the often recurring circumstance. This is not an interference
with karma, but a way for the working out of karma. You cannot
interfere with karma. If an accident happens, and a person is there
who is not to be hurt, a Deva will lift that person out of the midst
of it and he will escape unscathed. Thus karma is adjusted.
Another thing they are constantly doing is to offer opportunities
of service to people who have a claim to such opportunities. When
a man has earned the privilege of giving service to somebody, they
guide that man to the place where the service is to be rendered.
Perhaps it is to feed a starving man. That man has to be fed. One of
us may become the agent of karma, or we may refuse, thus putting
a barrier in the road by which help might come to us hereafter in
our own need. Sometimes they even give help themselves, when
there is no other available agent present. As a last resource, they
do a thing themselves. They are always about men’s paths, and they
fill up the gaps of human service where kârmic law demands to be
fulfilled. They prefer to carry out these karmic decrees by human
agents, partly because there is thus less expenditure of energy, and
partly because it gives men an opportunity of working out their
own karma, and thus a double purpose is served, but in some way
or other the law is administered.
Then they also choose births, guiding the incoming Jíva to the
place in which he is to incarnate, finding the appropriate parents
and circumstances. The Devas of Class VII., as already said, call
on them to guide into birth in any given nation the type of souls

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needed for the working out of the nation’s destiny, at that time.
Into a nation which is to triumph, great souls are guided; into one
which is to fall are brought the weak and incompetent.
IX. The last class are those we know under the name of Lunar
Pitris and their servants. They are the great guardians of types —
the Beings who shape the types, and who even, in exceptional
individual cases, change the type of the person concerned. If, as
sometimes happens, a person in his growth and development is
changing the type of his consciousness, it becomes necessary to
change his physical, astral and mental bodies to match the changed
type of consciousness. These Devas direct the necessary changes in
the physical, astral and lower mental bodies; the man has made
the change in consciousness, and these Devas help to change his
bodies into the appropriate type. They are the same Lunar Pitris
who in the earlier evolution of the human race gave their Chhâyas
as types of form, and who, in the beginning of the Fifth Race,
shaped the types of the four great castes in the first Âryan sub-
race. They shape the type of each sub-race — as now in America,
where they are so busy at the present time.
The result of the study of this part of the Elemental Kingdom
should be to cause the student to appreciate better than before the
whole scheme of things in which we live and move. Gradually he
should learn to use his knowledge to co-operate with these workers
on other planes, and thus to make the whole work of nature run
more smoothly than it does at present. The car of nature, just now,
is running badly. As said above, floods and droughts, plagues and
famines, earthquakes and tempests, are all due to the instruments,
who should be constantly co-operating, being out of harmony
with each other, owing to lack of knowledge. The Deva kingdom
is troubled, and the human kingdom is troubled as a consequence.
Look back in the very ancient books, and you find that the two
kingdoms consciously worked together, and that means prosperity
and order in the physical world. Now, all is in confusion. And the
confusion is due to the want of knowledge of the Deva kingdom
by men, the ignorance which always prevails in the Kali Yuga.
Every force in nature that science talks about is, as said above,
a Deva. There is no such thing in nature as a soulless force or an
unintelligent energy; they are all living Intelligences, and they work
with us when we fulfil their conditions for work. Scientific men are

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 busy in finding out those conditions, though they know not that
Devas hide behind the veils of matter. Where the scientific man
blunders is in thinking he has to do merely with forces playing in
particular ways; “forces” are Intelligences.
As long as they are unrecognised, these Devas give not the
active co-operation which they would otherwise render. The
tendency of modern thought is turning in the right direction; and
it is our task to see that it be guided by knowledge and not by
ignorance, whether that ignorance takes the form of unbelief or
of superstition. 34

On the above subject, you may want to read the 28 pages, The
Destinies of Nations, in the Theosophical Review, Vol XXXVII, n218,
pages 129-140 by Annie Besant, October 1905.
It was reported, that around January 1913, Professor G.A.
Reisner, Harvard Egyptologist, made an investigation, and discovery
of a chamber dedicated to the sun within that mysterious Egyptian
monument known as the Sphinx. Inside the Sphinx Professor Reisner
claims that he found a temple with relics of the “Crux Ansata” (the
looped cross) of gold with wires for tiny bells to summon up spirits.
It is older than any of the pyramids, and its date is somewhere about
6000 B.C., the most ancient in Egyptian history. The Professor claims
that the tomb of Menes, who fashioned the Sphinx is found inside.
Tunnels leading into caverns which have not yet been penetrated
has not been supported by the government, and the difficulties in
his work, was the Arabs who are assisting him refuse absolutely to
be in the chamber because of devils or ghosts. Pictures were made of
the inside of the head and shown at Harvard and Lowell Institute.
The compiler has inquired to the institutes mentioned, but, today, we
have heard nothing from them to verify the finding.
The following article is written by [Mabel Emily] M. Besant-
Scott, daughter of Dr. Annie Besant on February 8 1916. Since
the Egyptian Rite of the Ancient Mysteries was started with the
symbolism of Masonry, it is of historical interest only.

34
Besant, Annie, Esoteric School of Theosophy, “The Elemental Kingdoms”, part II, nd.

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The Jewels of the Officers
The celebrated American Mason General Albert Pike
addressing a Lodge once said: “The Symbolism of Masonry is
the Soul of Masonry. Every symbol of the Lodge is a religious
teacher, the mute teacher also of morals and philosophy. It is in its
ancient symbols and in the knowledge of its true meaning that the
pre-eminence of Freemasonry over all other Orders consists. In
other respects some of them may compete with it, rival it, perhaps
even excel it; but, by its symbolism, it will reign without a peer
when it becomes again what its symbols mean, and that each is the
embodiment of some great, old, rare truth.”
Now, there is no doubt that the symbolism that is used in
modern Freemasonry is of very ancient origin, and dates back far
beyond the Operative Masons of mediaeval times. The written
traditions of Freemasonry go back as far as the 14th century, and
the references in these writings leave no possible doubt of the then
antiquity of the traditions. For instance, in the Regius M.S., which
was written somewhere about 1400, the foundation of Masonry is
ascribed to Euclid of Alexandria, and its history is there followed
down to its introduction into England by King Athelstan. But the
system of Geometry which was crystallised by Euclid about the
third century B.C. had already been formed in part by the necessity
for the Egyptians of some method of preserving their landmarks
through the annual inundation of the Nile. Symbolism is as old as
mankind. If we go back to the earliest records of Egyptian history
we find the people being taught by means of signs and pictures
painted on the walls of buildings, just as in our own day we convey
notices of events by posters on hoardings. If we study the symbols
of the old religions, such as Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, etc., we find
that many of them were geometrical figures. The afore-mentioned
American Mason says that “Geometry was the handmaid of
Symbolism. Symbolism, it may be said, is speculative Geometry.”
What exactly do we mean by symbolism? Thomas Carlyle says:
“In a symbol there is concealment and yet revelation, silence
and speech acting together. Some embodiment and revelation of
the infinite, made to blend itself with the finite, to stand visible,
and, as it were, attainable there.” Concealment yet revelation —
concealment so far as the outer world is concerned, yet revelation
to those who, like Freemasons, are striving to become Initiates of

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the Mysteries.
In the Regius M.S. already referred to, is the statement that
“Gemetry” took the name of Masonry, which, if true, would account
for most of our symbols being geometrical, such as the circle, the
triangle, the square and compasses, Masons’ marks, etc. There is,
then, I think, no doubt of the antiquity of Masonic symbology,
and of the fact that it is of far older origin than the date of the
Operative Masons of the Middle Ages who indeed seem to have
gathered into the teachings of their guilds only fragments of the
philosophy of the Rosicrucians, the Alchemists, the Hermetists,
etc., these who were the true successors of the Initiates of the
Ancient Mysteries.
It is a significant fact, as illustrating the antiquity of Masonic
customs, that in the records of the earliest historical times in
China we find a mystic religion expressed in allegorical form and
illustrated by symbols; the priest and the various officers of the
hierarchy were distinguished by symbolic jewels designating the
nature of their office, and while engaged in religious rites they
were loathern aprons marked with the insignia of their rank. There
are many allusions to the symbolism of Masonry in “The Book of
History,” the oldest of the Chinese classics dealing with a period
ranging from the 24th to the 7th century B.C. In another famous
classic, “The Great Learning,” about 500, B.C., there is an allusion
to setting towards others as we would wish them to act towards
us; and the writer adds: “This is called the principle of acting on
the square.” Again, in the writings of Mencius about 300 B.C.
it is taught that men should apply the square and compasses
figuratively to their lives, and the marking line also if they would
keep within the bounds of honour and virtue and live uprightly
and cleanly. We find this very clear statement in book VI of his
philosophy: “A Master Mason, in teaching his apprentices, makes
use of the compasses and the square. Ye who are engaged in the
pursuit of wisdom must also make use of the compasses and
square.” The real secrets of this mystic faith were never written,
but taught orally in specially erected symbolic buildings like to
the Temple of Solomon or the Tabernacle erected by Moses in the
desert. Now we are told that the different officers of this mystic
faith were distinguished by symbolic jewels, and we know also that
this was so among the Hebrews, the Phoenicians, the Assyrians,

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the Egyptians and others. And this brings me to the subject of
tonight’s paper — the Jewels of the Officers.
The Master’s Jewel, the Square, with which we associate
always the compasses, was used in the earliest days of which we
have any recorded in Egypt to mark the angles and extent of each
man’s land before it was inundated by the Nile. The invention of
the square and compasses is ascribed to Daedalus, an eminent
architect. In ancient Egyptian days these were put into the hands
of Anubia or of Horus to warn the people to be in readiness to
measure their lands and to take angles so as to distinguish their
own from the lands of others on the subsidence of the waters of
the Nile. Why should this particular symbol have been chosen
to designate the Master of a Lodge? Because without absolute
squareness and rectitude of conduct no dealings are possible
between man and man, and the attitude of the Master determines
the whole tone of the Lodge. In erecting a building the level
and the plumb-line prove the walls to be a true horizontal and
a true perpendicular, but it is the square which establishes the
right relation between the parts and harmonises the whole. In a
Mason’s Examination in a book entitled “The Grand Mystery of
the Freemasons Discovered,” published in 1724, we read: “How
many make a Lodge?” the answer being: “God and the Square,
with five or seven perfect Masons, on the highest mountains, or
the lowest valleys in the world.” This association of God and the
Square as the prime factors in the formation of a Lodge should
impress on our minds the importance of using our intuition to
discover the design and the will of the God within us, that we
may build our lives according to the lines of the Divine Plan. The
Master who rules his Lodge with true recognition of his position
as representing the Light of Wisdom knows that he has to stand,
like the city of the Apocalypse. “Foursquare;” that is, that he has to
act according to what his intuition tells him is correct, unmoved
and unshaken by all the conflicting opinions and criticisms of the
members of the Lodge. He has to take all opinions and all types
of men and square them into correct shape, judging them by the
principles of morality; he has to notice and instantly correct any
lapse from good conduct and moral department, and continually
apply the square of morality to that true adjustment of feeling
which conduces to real Masonic brotherliness. In Egypt the

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square was an emblem of Justice, a virtue which the Master should
of necessity represent.
In rebuilding in 1830 a very ancient bridge called Baal’s Bridge
near Limerick in Ireland, an old brass square, much corroded, was
found under the foundations; and on its two surfaces was found
this inscription with the date 1517; “I will strive to live with love
and care upon the level by the square.” The Level, the jewel of the
Senior Warden, is the symbol of equality, and denoted the duty
of that officer to see that every brother preserves the principle of
equality without which harmony could not be preserved and the
work would be hindered. The Essense in Judea retained many of
the ancient Masonic secrets, and in admitting members to their
order all distinctions of rank were abolished so that noble and
commoner met on the same level of equality. In applying the level
to our conduct it should remind us that the same level of judgment
should e given to our neighbour’s actions as to our own; and also
of the absolute straightness of the line along which we lay the
conduct of our lives.
With the Square and the Level we associate also the
Plumbline, both in the erection of a building and in the formation
of character. The Plumbline is used to test the straightness and
uprightness of a wall; if the wall lean ever so slightly to one side
or the other, it is insecure and liable to be pushed over by any
pressure or sudden blow. But if the foundation s be well laid and
the wall be absolutely perpendicular it will stand erect amid the
fiercest storms. So with a man. If his life be ruled by absolute
uprightness of thought and action he will not be swayed or moved
from his course by temptations or passions, but will stand firm and
unshaken, a model to those around him. So the Plumbline is the
jewel of the Junior Warden whose duty and authority, as marked
by the position of his column, lie outside the walls of the Lodge
when the brethren are called from labour to refreshment; so that in
the outside world, so ready to find fault, he demonstrates that the
life of a Mason is upright, honest, just and true.
Now these three implements — the Square, the Level and
the Plumbline — are all that is necessary to test the correctness
of a building and the relation of one part to another. The Master’s
Squares, Eyntheizing the Level and the Plumb rule, relate the
two. They are a trinity or triangle of labour. So with the emblems

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or jewels of the Master who rules the Lodge and the Wardens
who assist him in so doing, we get the trinity or triangle which
represents T.G.A.O.T.U. with His divine powers — Eternity,
Science and Power — all that is necessary for the making and
the ruling of the universe. There is an analogy to the relative
positions of the Master and wardens in a legend of Moses. When
the Israelites were fighting against the Amalekites, Moses went
and stood on the top of a hill with the rod of God in his hand.
So long as he held the rod up the Israelites prevailed, but when,
through weariness, he let it fall, the Israelites were defeated. So
Aaron and Hur supported his arms, one on either side, until the
day was won. in an old Bible published in the reign of Elizabeth
there is an alphabetical list of names with their meanings; in the
introduction it is stated that this list was corruptly, purposely and
wickedly withheld from those printed in the reigns of Henry VIII,
Edward VI and Mary I; and it was also withheld from the present
authorised version issued in the reign of James I. In this list the
meaning of Moses is given as “Taken out of the water,” of Aaron
as the “Spirit of Truth” and of Hur as “Liberty”. And so the Master
must be supported by Truth and Liberty if he will prevail against
the powers of darkness and ignorance. We might say that the R.
S. M. is he who has been “taken out of the water,” he who has
crossed the stream and reached the further shore, in all ages the
description of the Great Initiates or Adept.
On the floor of the Lodge are four Officers who are necessary
for the proper performance of the ritual — the D.C., the S. and
J.D.s and the I.G. Their duty is so to build the form that it may
be a true manifestation of the life within. They form the lower
quaternary, the square of manifestation which is the reflection of
the higher triad. Besides these we have also in a Masonic Lodge
three business officers — the Secretary, the Treasurer and the
Orator. Also there is usually an Organist, who conduces so much
to the beauty and aesthetic value of the ceremony. And outside
stands the T., who takes no part in the work inside the Temple.
We will begin with the D.C. because on him depend so largely
the beauty and correctness of the ceremonial. The crossed wands
of the D.C. are a very ancient symbol. In the East any person
preferred to honour bore a staff or scepter which might be plain or
decorated with symbols. In Egypt there would sometimes be two

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little wings, symbolising the wind and emblematic of the swift
flight of thought; sometimes a serpent would be twined around,
denoting life. For the Egyptian word heva or heve means equally
life or serpent. Hence Jehovah the source of all life, Eve the mother
of mankind, and many others. The Aztecs used the serpent as the
symbol of the sun, the source and promoter of life. In Egypt an
ambassador was given a wand and sometimes also wore a plate of
gold on the forehead called cadosu or caduceus, meaning a sacred
person, to show to all people that the man who bore this rod or
mark was a public person free to come and go where he would
and to be received with honour. There is a degree in masculine
Masonry the 30th as the A. & A. Scottish Rite called “Grand
Elect Knights of Kadosh” which is intimately connected with the
Knights Templars. Mercury, the guide of travellers, is pictured
with wand entwined with serpents or serpent, the ambassador
carrying a message from one court to another which would bring
fresh life and prosperity to the nation. Or, more remote still, the
wand was the instrument by which the waters of the Nile were
measured when they overflowed on to the land and so secured the
prosperity of the people. The rod which was given to Mercury by
Apollo had the wonderful power of deciding all controversies and
conferred irresistible eloquence on its owner. The blossoming of
Aaron’s rod made him High Priest above all the other priests. But
always when placed in the hand of a man it is the symbol of power
and authority, and the D.C. with his wand of office has power,
under the ruling of the Master, to direct the movements of all
officers, and all details of ceremonies. Naturally, in such a position,
it is important, indeed necessary, that he should have a thoroughly
complete knowledge of the ritual and of all matters relating to
Masonic department.
The deacons hold a most responsible and important office. They
are near and are the messengers of the Master and the S.W. The
remote origin of the word seems to be astronomical. The eminent
astrologer, Julius Firmicus, says: “The ancient Egyptian divide each
sign of the Zodiac into three sections; and each section was under
the direction of an imaginary being whom they called Decan,
or chief of ten; so that there were three decans in a month, and
thirty-six in a year. Now these decans, who were also called gods,
regulated the destinies of mankind — and were placed particularly

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in certain stars.” In the course of time a slight difference has
taken place in the spelling of the word but practically none in the
pronunciation. Among the Greeks the youths who served at table
were called diaconoi, deacons; that is, ministers, attendants. In the
Greek church the deacons were always the doorkeepers. Formerly
in England the jewels of the deacons were the sun for the senior
deacon and the moon for the junior deacon. In America they wear
the square and compass with the sun and moon respectively. But in
the English male Lodges, as in our own, the jewel of the deacons is
a dove with olive branch, the same emblem being carried on their
wands. The dove has always been looked upon as a messenger and
was so used by Noah when he sent the dove out from the Ark to
see if the waters had subsided; and the bird returned carrying a
spring of olive, the emblem of peace. We find in Egypt the figure
of Isis with the head of a horse on her shoulders and holding a fish
in one hand and doves in the other, evidently proclaiming a feast to
celebrate the return to navigation of the Nile after the inundation,
when the sun left the sign Pisces and brought on the Zephyrs,
the southerly soft breezes, the gentleness of which was denoted
by the dove. (The head of a horse represented a sailing ship, the
winged steed.) This gentleness is very essential for a deacon. He it
is who takes charge of a candidate on his initiation into Masonry.
His is the friendly hand which grasps that of the candidate after
the severe warning of the I.G. We are not concerned now with
all the duties of the deacons, but as the messengers of the ruling
triangle they are the connecting link between it and the square
of the lower manifestation. Too much care therefore cannot be
taken that the channel which conveys the message of the divine
Wisdom, Strength and Love be kept pure and undefiled. Knowing
himself the messenger, the deacon can convey to the candidate
through the physical medium of touch the sense of the divine
Wisdom which tells him that nothing can harm him who seeks
with single-hearted purpose for light, and that all must be well
however much the powers of darkness storm and rage; that divine
Strength will uphold him however difficult and weary the path he
must tread; and that divine Beauty, which is Love, surrounds him
and assures him of safety, pouring through the Brethren around
eager to welcome him into their midst. So surely his office of
deacon is truly a responsible and important office.

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 It is interesting by the way to note that in France there used to
exist a secret society modelled on Freemasonry to which women
were admitted. It was known as “The Knights and Ladies of the
Dove” “Chevaliers et Chevalieres de la Colombe.” It was instituted
at Versailles in 1784 but is now extinct. There is a very short degree
in Masculine Masonry known as “The Ark and The Dove.”
The I.G. wears a crossed sword and dagger as his emblem;
the dagger for presentation at the n.b. of the candidate, and the
sword to guard the door in case any cowan or intruder should pass
the O.G. The dagger as used on the admission of a candidate for
initiation is a symbol of that divine justice which will overtake
those who sin, and it is pointed to the heart by which alone man
will be judged by T.G.A.O.T.U. The sword shows the unflinching
steadiness with which the sanctity of the Temple is to be guarded;
it is an emblem of the guard we should set over our thoughts and
the watch over our lips and actions.
We come now to the three business officers — the Secretary,
the Treasurer and the Orator.
Crossed pens form the jewel of the Secretary. It is an office of
great responsibility, for the Secretary has not only to keep a strict
and exact record of all the proceedings of the Lodge, but he should
be the Master’s right hand — the officer upon whose zeal and tact
the prosperity of the Lodge so largely depends. Up to 1722 in
the Grand Lodge of England the duties of the Grand Secretary
were performed by the Grand Wardens, but at that date the office
of Grand Secretary was created under the Grand Mastership of
the Duke of Wharton. In Scotland the first mention I can find
of the office of Secretary was in Glasgow Lodge in 1788, though
Lodge Canongate Kilwinning has minutes going back to the
initiation and subsequent installation as Master of Earl William
St. Clair on November 26, 1736. The duties of the Secretary are
many, but as they are the usual secretarial duties there is no need
to enumerate them. With regard to the jewel of the Secretary;
two quill pens crossed, it is interesting to note that in Egypt two
feathers were symbolical of Ra and Thoth, the gods of Light and
Air, and were emblematical of the spiritual and material lives in
men. They were worn as an amulet to promote Uprightness in
dealing, Enlightenment and Morality. The single feather worn by
the goddess Maat was to show integrity, Righteousness and Truth.

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The god Thoth was the chief recording angel, and so it is right that
his symbol should be borne by the Secretary of a Masonic Lodge.
The secretarial duties are both onereous and important, and so
much knowledge of Masonic jurisprudence is necessary for him
that it is for the welfare of the Lodge to choose an experienced P.M.
for the position. Exactitude and fidelity should be distinguishing
characteristics of the Secretary, that future generations of Masons
should find in the records the correct descriptions of all proceedings
for the preservation of ancient landmarks.
The Treasurer wears a key as his jewel to show that he has
charge of the monies in the treasurer’s chest. In ancient times the
key was an emblem of power, and has been adopted by the Treasurer
to show that he has command of the purse. He has to receive all
monies ad pay them out again by command of the R.W.M. with
the consent of the Lodge. In such a highly responsible position it
is of course necessary that he should be a person of unblemished
integrity. The key has been used as a symbol of silence and
circumspection. Dr. Oliver says in his book, Historical Landmarks,
“The key is one of the most important symbols of Freemasonry.
It bears the appearance of a common metal instrument, confined
to the performance of one simple act. But the well-instrument,
brother beholds in it the symbol which teaches vices of slander and
defamation.” A large volume might be written on the symbolism
of the key and it is quite useless to attempt to deal at all adequately
with so large a subject in the few minutes possible during a paper
where it is merely one of many things to be discussed. The Cross
keys of St. Peter are keys of mystery dealing with one of the most
sublime truths in the Christian religion. The key and the cross
are almost interchangeable in the way they are used to denote
the method of which we arrive at the solution of a mystery or
a difficulty. The key was the symbol of Apollo and, worn as a
talisman, gave the wearer the virtue of Prudence, remembrance
of the Past and knowledge of the Future; Apollo or Janus, the
sun, was the inventor of locks, doors and gates, and he held the
key of the door through which the prayers of the faithful passed
to the gods. His wife Diana or Jana, the moon, held the key of
light and life. Proserpine is also shown with a key with which, as
guardian of the underworld, she unlocked the door which shut in
the spirits of the dead. The monogram of Thoth, the Egyptian god

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of Wisdom, is a cross with a T through it and a circle underneath
it, signifying the preserver of the world. But, as I said, it is only
possible to touch the fringe of the mass of interesting matter that
has gathered round the symbolism of the key.
The Orator is very largely the lawyer of the Lodge. His jewel
is an open book. In our own Lodges the office of Orator is usually
combined with some cleric of that of Chaplain and hence some
confusion has arisen as to the duties and functions of the Orator.
But the positions of Orator and of Chaplain are quite distinct
and separate and are so marked in English masculine Lodges. On
the Continent where the Masonic Lodges are frankly irreligious
and sometimes even anti-religious there is no office of Chaplain,
but of necessity there is an Orator. In French Lodges the Orator
is a very important person and makes a speech on every possible
occasion. It is not the Master but the Orator who makes a speech
of welcome to a distinguished visiting brother. Here in England
many clergy belong to the Order and the body as a whole
acknowledges T.G.A.O.T.U. as the Supreme Head; and so a
Chaplain is appointed to read portions of the S.L. and to say the
prayers and invocations that occur in the ritual. In none of our
English Co-Masonic Lodges do we appoint a Chaplain, but the
Master is priest as well as Manu and himself offers all the prayers
and invocations, merely calling on the Orator at the close of the
ceremony to read a portion of the V.S.L. Accordingly the open
book which the Orator wears as his jewel can be interpreted as
either the book of the Constitution, or the V.S.L. The only ritual
question which the Master addresses to the Orator is to ask him
for his opinion when some matter of business is being dealt with.
“Bro. Orator, what are your conclusions on this matter? asks the
Master. And the reply is, “All is in order, R.W.M.” That is, the
method in which the business has been dealt with is according to
correct Masonic usage, and conforms to the Laws and Constitution
of the Supreme Council of Universal Co-Freemasonry, and the
Bye-Laws of the Lodge. For the Orator to be able to affirm this
presupposes a very thorough and complete knowledge of the Book
of the Constitution, and the manner in which business should be
conducted without removing any of the landmarks so jealously
guarded by Freemasons. So the orator should be a learned person,
wise in the history and traditions of the Craft, that none of these

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landmarks maybe removed; and in the event of a difficult question
arising, that he may know if there be precedent to which he can
refer, or if he must use his own judgment and general knowledge
of Masonic jurisprudence. The Orator is the only officer in the
Lodge who deals exclusively with the form side of Masonry and
does not touch upon the life side which is the true successor of the
ancient mysteries. But because he deals with the form side only
he has a very important duty to fulfill. It is no light thing to be
responsible for the form in which the life dwells, and to preserve
pure and undefiled the source from which our teachings come.
The Organist is not one of the ritual officers, although he
can and does by his work add so very much to the beauty of our
ceremonial. His jewel is, naturally enough, a musical instrument.
The jewel of the P.M. is the 47th proposition of Book of Euclid:
“In any right-angled triangle the square which is described on the
side subtending the right angel is equal to the squares described
on the sides which contain the right angle.” Naturally I cannot
say very much about this jewel but perhaps this much is allowed.
As this figure was used by the Operative Masons the sides of the
triangle were of lengths in a certain relative proportion to each
other — 3, 4 & 5. The three Grand Masters had rods of these
relative lengths and, they laid these rods in the form of a triangle,
the figure according to which the Universe is build. The forces of
the Lodge flow out in that form, and if we understood how to
control these forces we should know how to build with matter.
And so the Passed Master (as the word was written in Operative
Masonry) is one who has passed through all training, one who has
learned to build, one who has finished with the forming of the
Universe.
Outside the door of the Lodge stands the Tyler with drawn
sword to guard against all cowans and intruders. His sword is
emblematic of the necessity to guard against the approach of all
unworthy thoughts which would sully the purity of the Temple
and prevent the admission of its light. I can find no earlier
mention of this office than in Druidical times when, their rites
having been pronounced illegal, they used to meet in secluded
groves fenced round with stones to prevent anyone entering except
by the passages left open — so the Conventional explanation runs;
and at the entrance to these passages stood an inferior officer with

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drawn sword to guard against cowans. I have various definitions
of this word. In Druidical times a “covin” was an eavesdropper;
in the Middle Ages it was used in the meaning of an enemy and
referred chiefly to Kings who had the power — and used it —
to persecute Masons; it may come from an Arabic root, meaning
“to defraud;” again, it is possibly derived from the Greek “kuon”
a dog. In the early days of the Christian Church the unbaptised
and infidels were called “dogs.” For instance, in St. Matt. VII 6, we
read, “Give not that which is holy to dogs,” and in the Epistle to
the Phillippians III 2 “Beware of Dogs, beware of evil-workers.”
So “kuon” or dog meant one who had not been initiated into the
Christian mysteries. Anther possible explanation is that it is a
corruption of the Hebrew “cohen,” — a rival order of priests not
recongised by the priesthood and therefore having no right of
admission to their ceremonies. Some writers have tried to derive the
word “cowan” from the “Chouans” of the French Revolution but it
was in use before that time, from a copy of Andreson’s Constitutions,
printed in 1769, occur these words: “Working Masons ever will
have their own wages… let cowans do as they please.” Cowans in
the Middle Ages were employed as workmen by the Operative
Masons but were not admitted to the Guild secrets. In a copy of
the “Old Charges” in the Melrose M.S. of the year 1674, though its
reading probably dates from 1581, we are told that “no free mason”
employing “Loses” (cowans) should let them know “ye privilege of
ye compass, square, level and plumb-rule.” The word “cowan” was
in common use in Scotland from 1598 onwards. In America if a
stranger wishes to gain admission to a Masonic Lodge he has to
take an oath that he is a Mason in good standing. This is called
“The Tyler’s Oath,” because it is usually taken in the Tyler’s room
and used to be administered by him, though this is now done by
the committee of examination. The “Tyler’s Toast” is known to all
brethren and refers to all those who, like the Tyler, are in a state
of exile.
The symbolic jewels worn by the officers of a Lodge are only a
tiny part of the symbolism which is the outward form of Masonry,
a subject worthy of deep study and learned exposition. Imperfect
and inadequate as my remarks have been. I think I have said
enough to show how vast is this subject, and how full of fascinating
interest. The symbolism of Masonry, so profound, so wide in its

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range, dealing with the deepest and the highest mysteries of man
and the universe, takes us back into the dawn of history and shows
the eternal spirit in man striving for knowledge of this material
world in which he found himself, striving to express in terms of
T.C.C. the mysteries of is own dual nature. But in searching for
the origins of our symbols we must be cautious about taking the
Egyptian or other ancient symbols as necessarily prototypes of our
own; or driving too far the analogies and similarities to our own
symbology to be found in the various religions of the world or in
secret mystic societies. Madame Blavatsky says in one of her books
that every symbol has a key which turns seven times in the lock,
or that every symbol is capable of at least seven interpretations.
In dealing with the symbolic jewels of the officers of a Masonic
Lodge I thought it would be interesting to see what others say of
these symbols; and so I give the quotations from various learned
writers for what they are worth in the hope that they may help to
throw a little light on a difficult and complex subject.
I cannot better conclude than with some words of the same
learned brother whom I quoted in opening this paper. He says;
“One by one, sometimes with long intervals between, meaning
after meaning disclosed itself to me; and I had not gone far when
I became convinced that in Freemasonry the ancient Greater
Mysteries were revived; and that, as theirs did, its super-excellence
consisted in the philosophical and religious doctrines concealed in
its symbols. I began dimly to discern that Masonry was a far greater
thing than it had seemed to me as I received its degrees. Then the
conviction dawned upon me that in its symbolism, which, and its
spirit of brotherhood, are its essence, Freemasonry is more ancient
and venerable than any of the world’s living religions. It has the
symbols and the doctrines of the old Aryan faith, which, far older
than himself, Zarathustra inculcated. The Brahmins neither knew
the meaning of the Vedic hymns, nor what the deities were whom
these extolled; and the old Gathas of the Zend-Avesta speak to
the Parsees of today in an unknown tongue; and it seemed to me
a spectacle sublime, yet pitiful, that of the ancient faith of the
kindred of our ancestors, a Faith already crowned with the hoar-
frost of antiquity whom the first stone of the first Pyramid was
laid, holding out to the world its symbols once so eloquent, and
mutely and in vain asking for an interpreter. And so I came at last

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 to see clearly that the true greatness and majesty of Freemasonry
consists in its proprietorship of these and its other symbols; and
that its symbolism is its soul.”
M. Besant-Scott (1870-1952)
February 8 1916

The above article is solely for information purposes, and is not

the latest information available, and should not be construed under
any circumstances by implication or otherwise. It is an important
and fascinating documentation by Besant-Scott at the time she was
a member in England of the Co-Masonry until 1935.
Co-Masonry held a further esoteric group within the Adyar TS,
operating a system veiling it’s secrets in allegory and illustrated by
symbols with graded initiations. It is recorded that Miss Francesca
Arundale, was the first Englishwoman to enter Co-Masonry around
1895. Miss Arundale, the aunt of George Arundale, introduced
Annie Besant to the movement in 1902. Men and women quickly
join, for it did not discriminate on the basis of sex, nationality,
religion or ethnicity. In addition, the Co-Masonic order called “Le
Droit Humain” is international, with its governing body in Paris and
groups in some sixty countries of the world.
Traditionally, Masonry was strictly reserved for men, and was a
direct reference to the role of the Elementals in Masonic ritual.
The following information was transmitted through the
inevitably imperfect channel believed to be George Arundale, so it
may be slightly colored by his consciousness. Now the difficulty in
translating messages from the higher planes of consciousness into
physical plane words is that above the conscious plane, images are
used, not words. The words convey the images or thoughts, but these
vary with the mental vocabulary of the translator. The substance of
the thought is conveyed, but the words may be balder or more ornate,
according to the artistic or emotional habit of the translator. Unless
this be understood, many difficulties arise; it is peculiarly true in this
region that “The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth Life.”
I personally took inventory, and documented three other folders
containing messages believed to be from the Masters. They were kept
in Rukmini’s personal archives at Adyar under the heading “Occult

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Investigation and Instructions”. The folders were removed at the
time of Rukmini’s death, and have not surfaced as of today. When
I inquired regarding her archives, and whereabouts regarding her
collection, I was told that Rukmini had no personal archives,which
is not true. Those who removed her collection at the time of her
death have them. I, over many months, documented everything that
was in her private collection and archives, copies of these are now
held in the Ross Collection.
Each reader should use their own judgment in accepting or
rejecting the occult messages that George Arundale brought through
from the Masters, for it is better to record for posterity that the
Mahatmas said the messages did not orignate from Them. This does
not mean Mahatmas do not exist. Annie Besant is reported to have
said that she accepted the messages, for she had her own knowledge,
and insight well developed that she could check for their correctness
at any time. In the handwriting of George Arundale, 15th August
1925, Huizen; Annie Besant went straight to the Master Morya,
as He showed her certain things through images, which she had to
translate through her brain consciousness.
Among the papers “Instructions”, we found a note to George
Arundale from the Master M. regarding his personal life.
“For the present, at any rate, you will not incarnate again.
You will take the Mahacohan Initiation not in the physical body.
Linking together into a whole many different lines of work in the
world. You will be responsible for organization of the forces. This
work being successfully accomplished you will have left in the
world workers who will be guided from within as you will retire
from the world as a Master.”

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Young boy Jiddu Krishnamurti 1912 George Arundale
Central Hindu College

Dutch Group 1926 Egyptian Rite Pupils at The Manor

Byron Casselberry, Byron Casselberry 1927

CWL 1927 Ommen
C.W. Leadbeataer 1927
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