CHAPTER
The End of the Thread?
Returning now to the Western mystery traditions which have been the main subject of this book, we may well wonder about their present condition and prospects. The last link mentioned was the Theosophical Society, which combined a nineteenth-century faith in progress with an esoteric scheme of cyclical history that encouraged cautious optimism. It taught that humanity had already passed the nadir of spiritual obscurity, turned the corner, and was on the upward path that would soon see the birth of a new and more enlightened race.1 Blavatsky was sure that if the Society’s influence were allowed to flourish, “earth will be a heaven in the twenty-first century in comparison with what it is now!”2
Since those words were written, the Golden Thread has frayed into a myriad filaments. The Theosophical Society itself split into several branches, mainly differentiated by their attitude to Blavatsky’s successors, William Q. Judge, Annie Besant, and Charles W. Leadbeater. The Society’s erstwhile rival, an organization known as Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, faded away, but not before seeding several other movements that offered training in practical occultism, not just theoretical. These include the Ancient and Mystical Order of the Rose Cross (AMORC) and several other orders claiming a Rosicrucian pedigree,3 the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO), and the movements influenced by Aleister Crowley. The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn also closed its temples, but other magical orders sprouted from it and remain in operation. The seeker who is sufficiently motivated can find them. The same applies to the esoteric groups that can only be entered through Freemasonry. Those who want to learn practical alchemy can seek out the Philosophers of Nature or their successors; those undeterred by a hard and exclusive path can join the Gurdjieff Work. People with a Christian orientation may gravitate to Martinism, or to Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophy. One no longer has to be Jewish to study the Kabbalah, or Muslim to call oneself a Sufi. Pagans, too, are reviving esoteric teachings and initiatic practices from pre-Christian Europe, especially the Celtic and Northern European strains.
While all these movements can be traced to their roots (and many of them to Theosophy), the twentieth century did see one novel addition to the esoteric tradition, in the form of depth psychology. Carl Jung was mentioned in chapter 13 for his interpretation of alchemy. His neglect of its operative side does not invalidate the insights it gave him into the workings of the psyche, and there are few studies more valuable for the esoteric seeker. Jung showed how we can “know ourselves” to an extent denied to previous generations. To recognize the projections of one’s Shadow, to get to know one’s Anima, and to spot the telltale signs of inflation in oneself and others (especially spiritual teachers!): that is practical wisdom. The post-Jungian movements, especially those under the general umbrella of Transpersonal Psychology, go further than Jung, as a self-declared scientist, would allow himself in his public work.4 From them we can discover the subpersonalities contesting within us, and learn to seek the transcendent Self not outside but as the core of our being: advantages of which many a historical adept was unaware. And to study the different personality types, especially with the aid of psychological astrology, goes far towards explaining why people have such different opinions and experiences of reality. However, this emphasis on psychology only reinforces the individualistic nature of the esoteric path in the modern West. There is no central institution, no single curriculum, no diploma of authenticity.
Nowhere is this variety more evident than in the New Age movement: something so fuzzy that one can neither circumscribe nor pinpoint it, while everyone recognizes its symptoms. Scholars now agree that the New Age descends directly from the Hermetic and theosophical currents, of which it is a popularization and exoteric complement.5 A backward glance at history confirms the diagnosis. Like the Hermetic and Pansophic movements, which hoped to restore peace to Christendom and sanity to warring mankind, the New Age is ecumenical, undogmatic, and pacifistic. Like the alchemists, who believed that all matter is on its way to becoming gold, New Agers are dedicated to personal transformation and the realization of the latent potential in everyone. The occult sciences flourish, admittedly in their shallower modes, in divination systems (Tarot, runes, I Ching), astrology, the science of plants (herbal medicine) and stones (crystals). Just as Paracelsus tramped through Europe chatting with woodsmen and wise women, the New Agers seek out and value the wisdom of indigenous peoples. Like any exoteric religion, the New Age has its less praiseworthy aspects. But at its worst it is silly, rather than vicious, and an extraterrestrial observer would find it the most humanistic and earth-friendly of all our current faiths.
The New Age has no scripture, no dogma or ritual, but at its heart is the phenomenon of channeling, whose long history and connection with theurgy was mentioned in chapter 1. Many of the teachings that come through channelers are esoteric in nature, and the phenomenon itself is not so different from that of Blavatsky, Leadbeater, Bailey, or Helena Roerich writing at the Mahatmas’ behest; Crowley taking the Book of the Law from dictation; W. B. Yeats basing his mythologies on his wife’s mediumship; or the anonymous authors of Oahspe and The Urantia Book. Whether these products derive from the channeler’s subconscious mind, or from possession by a separate entity, and what that entity may be, are questions that science might have been able to answer, if it had not turned its back on such matters.6 As it is, in evaluating channeled teachings one must rely on one’s own reason, learning, and intuition, which is a prudent way to approach any scriptures that purport to come from a higher source.
After this outpouring of the esoteric wisdom of all ages and climes, coupled with the personal freedom that many peoples have come to enjoy, some might be inclined to share in the Theosophists’ optimism. There is, however, a contrary way of looking at history, and that is the pessimistic view of the Traditionalists. The writings of René Guénon, Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, Julius Evola, Frithjof Schuon, Titus Burckhardt, Philip Sherrard, Martin Lings, and Seyyed Hossein Nasr deplore the modern age as the Kali Yuga, the dark or Iron Age that concludes a superhistorical cycle.7
The Traditionalists’ “creation myth” was of a Primordial Tradition revealed to prehistoric mankind and descending through the ages in a series of particular revelations. The reader will recognize it as the prisca theologia, now expanded to embrace Eastern and native traditions. But while the promoters of the earlier version lived in the heady climate of the Italian Renaissance, the Traditionalists were born to the heyday of modernity. They went on the offensive, unmasking its deceitful myth of progress which blinded people to the dangers of unfettered technology, the impotence of modern philosophy, and the cult of ugliness in the arts. They raged against the tyranny of the economy, which dominates every facet of life under what Guénon called “the reign of quantity.”8 But then, far from recognizing the potential counterbalance of the movements described above, the Traditionalists damned Theosophy and all its derivatives as a “pseudo-religion.” They looked on spiritualism with disgust and rejected Jungian psychology on the grounds that it opens the infernal realm of the subconscious and puts the Self in the place of God. Those who lived long enough to see the New Age despised it as a low-grade spiritual supermarket. All they could offer instead was a return to Tradition through adherence to one of the “great religions”—if one could find one still unsullied. Only Evola accepted that in the Kali Yuga there is no tradition left, and that the rare person who aspires to a spiritual path must make his own heroic and lonely way.9
The question remains of whether New Age optimism or Traditionalist pessimism is the order of the day. One thing seems sadly evident: that after a century and a half, the exoteric world is still stuck in the dichotomy that Theosophy sought to resolve: the opposition of materialistic science to dogmatic religion. It is almost incredible that towards the end of the twentieth century, biblical fundamentalism made such a comeback in America. No less astounding is its alliance with the small body of Jewish fundamentalists in Israel to further their respective apocalyptic dreams. And then there is Islamic fundamentalism. These frightening movements reduce their parent religions to the lowest and most literal level, which the European intelligentsia—Jews, Christians, and unbelievers alike—discarded two or three centuries ago.10
On the other side of the chasm is scientific materialism, which is no less dogmatic in denying the existence of any psychical or spiritual reality. This too has its hysterical defenders, as passionate about their belief as any Bible-thumper, and seething with derision for any who question it as the proper path for mankind.11 Because the Western democracies are founded on the practice of tolerance, these two parties enjoy an uncomfortable truce in government, the educational world, social life, and even within a single individual.
The twentieth century has come and gone, but neither side has made the slightest progress. Each is mired in a rigorous and dogmatic frame of mind, and as any student of Jungian psychology knows, this causes it to repress the doubts that would naturally and harmlessly occur to a less rigid person, and to project them as a Shadow onto others. For example, in the current debate over whether the universe is the result of “intelligent design,” the secularists are terrified that if they give an inch, the religionists will crow with triumph. The religionists are afraid that if they concede a point to Darwinism, their God will become redundant. The tragedy, here as in many other dualistic impasses, is that no one in the public arena can proclaim the third way that transcends them. Such a solution should be possible especially in the United States, whose founding philosophy derived from Freemasonry, and, beyond that, from its Hermetic and Pythagorean parentage.12 That should have made their people conversant with the idea of the Great Architect of the Universe, not to be confused with that meddling “Old Nobodaddy.”13
The transcendent philosophy that rises above so many useless arguments has always been there, and never so available as it is today. Knowledge has been put into our hands that was once the closely guarded property of initiates, together with the freedom to discuss and follow it without fear of being executed for heresy. Is this not cause for rejoicing? The price we pay for this historically unique situation is living in the modern world, in which the lunatics quite obviously are running the asylum. So be it. The philosopher knows that the gods are playing their games, the cosmic machinery turns, and history rattles on. But he also knows the timeless, the secret place from which all this can be surveyed with mild amusement, as a flutter on the surface of the ocean.