From New Dawn 74 (Sept-Oct 2002)
There is more to this movement that you have yet had an inkling of, and the work of the T.S. [Theosophical Society] is linked with similar work that is secretly going on in all parts of the world… know you anything of the whole brotherhood and its ramifications? The old woman [Madame Blavatsky] is accused of untruthfulness and inaccuracy in her statements. “Ask no questions and you will receive no lies”. She is forbidden to say what she knows. You may cut her to pieces and she will not tell. Nay – she is ordered in cases of need to mislead people…
– Mahatma Morya1
One of the more bizarre facets of the New Age movement is the belief in Ascended Masters. While this doctrine seems modern in its diverse applications, its origins are in the earliest machinations of Theosophical history.
The original advent of the Mahatmas was within the framework of the system developed by Madame Blavatsky. Later this system was modified, transformed and many would say distorted by various factional movements that developed within Theosophy. Certainly the Theosophy of Charles Leadbeater and Annie Besant seems at odds with the esotericism found in the Secret Doctrine (Blavatsky’s major theosophical treatise). The problem was that the “Ascended Masters” mythos which began with Blavatsky took on a life of its own; when confronted with the egalitarian democracy of the USA, the Masters became democratic. And so, the Masters began to speak to everyone.
With the early “I AM” movements the Masters changed from “high and mighty” Hindu Supermen to homely religious figures, even including Jesus and Buddha. They also partook of American commercialism and the value of good marketing. Consumer culture and middle-class values became coupled with a lollie-pop version of the perennial wisdom. This reached its “nth” extent in such modern sects as the Church Universal and Triumphant of Elizabeth Claire Prophet. In some sense these Masters are also found in the more anarchistic experience of channelling, spiritualism and UFO cults. The Masters of the Aetherius Society, where Jesus comes from a sector on Mars, is a further extension of this weltanschauung.
What is the origin of this “Ascended Master” mythos? The traditional way of appraising this myth is to either accept it at face (faith) value or reject it totally as a construct of a mad Russian psychic who has seen just one too many spirits.
However, the work of K. Paul Johnson (as found in such titles as The Masters Revealed and Initiates of the Theosophical Masters, State University of New York Press), offers an appealing alternative. By deconstructing Blavatsky’s life and work, Johnson has been able to decode her Master mythos as referring not to ethereal spectres but to living religious, political and esoteric figures.
He proves from her work that these figures (many of them at least) were involved in political agitation of various forms (including the liberation of India from the British), thus the cloaking of their identities was necessary. Blavatsky commandeered the earlier Freemasonic concept of Unknown Superiors or Secret Chiefs and used it as a gloss to cover the identities of her “comrades” in revolution.
While Blavatsky certainly understood the use of the Masters as metaphor, her followers did not. In a letter to Franz Hartmann, Blavatsky says:
…where you speak of the “army” of the deluded – and the “imaginary” Mahatmas of Olcott – you are absolutely and sadly right. Have I not seen the thing for nearly eight years? Have I not struggled and fought against Olcott’s ardent and gushing imagination and tried to stop him every day of my life.2
Throughout her works there are hints to the observant that the Mahatmas she had “created” were myths and figureheads to hide real figures. If we were to trace the development of the Master mythos within her work, we can clearly see it changing from “spirit” guides that appeared in her earlier spiritualistic period, to figures which are ambivalent, withdrawn and seem to be “more than human”.
These figures were coupled with obvious slight of hand tricks (in Adyar), which the more critical might see as “camp” additions to a sideshow, a sideshow that was in some way meant to be seen through by those who possessed the perception. Blavatsky couldn’t tell you that the Masters were metaphors, but her behaviour, erratic descriptions and illusionist tricks would have done the job. These figures should not be seen as spiritual alone. Blavatsky’s view of “manipulating reality” was not that of an outside observer.
Today, Theosophy may wish to paint her as a “saint”, however the available records show that she smoked (tobacco and hashish), swore and had a hell of a temper. Her political views were untempered and many of the “so-called” Mahatmas would not have been offended if we labelled them as terrorists. Many of the secret societies she worked with battled using every possible means to destroy what they saw as the “imperialist and capitalist” monster. They were revolutionaries or terrorists.
Accordingly, as time progressed real revolutionary spiritual figures were replaced with ethereal nonsense. The sad fact is that from this nonsense a whole “Ascended Master” movement developed, melding itself with spiritualism, channelling and other superficial spiritual forms. It has resulted in the counter-initiatory tradition of this time. When we see the original meaning behind the Master metaphor we start to appreciate the shallow vision of modern spirituality.
While there is truth in the original “Secret Chief” or “Unknown Superiors” teaching, this is very different from the egalitarian American package of “McDonald” Masters and apple pie wisdom.
The sources of light were seen as transmitting wisdom through a traditional hierarchical structure to those prepared to receive truth in both an experiential and cognitive form. It had little in common with political foment, eastern guruism or spiritualistic practice.
In a world where hierarchy is a dirty word and intellectual prowess is confused with elitism, it becomes difficult to expound the real ethos of Unknown Superiors in juxtaposition to the easy going, yet facile and vacuous messages of Ascended Masters, Extra Terrestrials and age-old spirits.
The most dangerous aspect of these new Masters is that they are not all benign; they do not all give “spiritualist” candy and meaningless cliches from the other side. Many of these UFO, Masters and Spirit guides are offering messages and encouragement which seem aligned to the development of a New World Order and collective forms of mind control.
We may accept that the Mahatmas of Blavatsky were metaphors alone, but it is a terrifying possibility that “principalities and dominions” may be using the Ascended Master mythos as a means of mass mind control. If leaders of modern spiritual movements are more than willing to open their minds and souls to any being who calls itself “Jesus”, or any spirit than seems benign, or any extraterrestrial who says it comes in peace, then the minds of their followers are surely in jeopardy.
In recent years various UFO cults have come to untimely ends and many others seem to be moving towards fascistic forms of social structure. It is possible that as the Kali Yuga accelerates the Ascended Master mythos will become more and more a mechanism of control.
The New Age is perhaps a little different than we thought. The age of Aquarius is dawning, however, Aquarius is ruled by Uranus (or Saturn in more ancient astrological forms). These planets are not those of enlightenment, but forces of dispersion, destruction and crisis. Saturn itself being the glyph on which the legends of Satan and Set were grafted.
The above article originally appeared on the (now defunct) Living Traditions website.
Footnotes
1. The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett, p. 271-2
2. Blavatsky’s Collected Writings, Volume 3
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