AUSTRALIAN THEOSOPHICAL
SOCIETY NEWSLETTER
No. : 83 August 2004
Published by the Theosophical Society (Pasadena) Australasian Section 664 Glenhuntly Rd, South Caulfield, Melbourne, Victoria 3162 AUSTRALIA Tel : (03) 9528.1011 Fax: (03) 9528.3907 Email: andrewrooke@hotmail.com WWW homepage : www.theosofie.net/australia/ ISSN : 1447-8188
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CONTENTS
Animals and People
News
Prophets for the 21st Century: The Hopi Indians - Paul Rooke
Obituary : Jean Swan
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ANIMALS AND PEOPLE
Recently we welcomed a new arrival in the family - Amelia Jane, a tiny stray kitten who had been left at the local Vet’s by some kind person. Although only a tiny ball of animated fluff, Amelia immediately proceeded to turn my household upside down within hours of her arrival. There was the right kind of bedding to be found for her, “kitten-strength” cat food, and the inevitable arguments between the kids over who was to look after her at night! Her influence on the mood of the household was immediate, with a party-loving teenage daughter happily sitting home on Saturday night playing with the kitten, and my 14 year old boy choosing to stay away from his beloved computer games to play ‘chasy’ with Amelia. How is it that animals can have such a major affect on us humans just by ‘being there’? Who are the beings we call ‘animals’ and how do they relate to the human kingdom? A study of history shows us that animals were used in a vast array of symbols in the ancient world to indicate various forces in nature and truths concerning the operations of the Universe. The celestial constellatiions themselves were refered to as animals because most ancient traditions recognised that life-force animates all the kingdoms of nature from the stones, plants, animals, people - through to the stars and beyond. According to Theosophy, all entities at their core share a divine essence, but differ in the extent to which they can express its potencies and thus form the myriad of life’s kingdoms or ‘hierarchies’ of our universe. [See April/May 2004 Sunrise on ‘The Great Chain of Being’] This is essentially the difference between the animal and human kingdoms in that animals have not yet evolved the same level of self-consciousness from within as Man. According to Theosophic teachings, animals are living within their ‘kama’ or desire nature whereas Man is operating within the ‘manasic’ or mind principle with the majority of humanity centering our consciousness currently in the ‘kama manas’ or lower aspects of Mind. Men, in a former embodiment of our Earth, were the equivalent then of animals but have, through vast ages of life experience through many incarnations, evolved forth intellectual capacity and an ethical awareness, as yet feebly expressed, which distinguishes us from the animals. Beings we call the ‘Gods’, further progressed on the evolutionary scale from Man, were intimately concerned in awakening the fires of mind in Man, aeons ago, thus accelerating our evolution and making us the self-conscious, thinking beings we are today. One day in the distant future, it will become our duty to perfom this sacred duty for our ‘younger brothers’ - the animals. We are intimately enmeshed in the destiny of the animal kingdom and they with ours - no wonder that little kitten has had such an impact on our household!!
Theosophical teachers on the animals....
HPB..”The [secret] doctrine teaches that the only difference between animate and inanimate objects on earth, between an animal and a human frame, is that in some, the various “fires” [i.e. spiritual principles], are latent, and in others they are active. The vital fires are in all things and not an atom is devoid of them. But no animal has the three higher principles awakened in him; they are simply potential, latent, and thus non-existing. And so would the animal frames of men be to this day, had they been left as they came out from the bodies of their Progenitors, whose shadows they were, to grow, unfolded only by the powers and forces immanent in matter.” [The Secret Doctrine V.2, p. 267]
G. de Purucker writes of the different kingdoms of life with which we are familiar. as follows:
“Those monads which have unfolded two principles we call in their aggregation the mineral kingdom, those which have unfolded three principles compose the vegetable kingdom; whilst those which have unfolded four are the animal kingdom. The human kingdom has unfolded, at least to some degree, five principles out of the twelve. We shall not be really complete human beings until the end of the fifth [global] round [of the Earth’s life - we are in the fourth now], when ‘Manas’ [Sanscrit word for the mind principle], so far as it is possible, will then be fully developed in us. At the present time, being only in the fourth round [of our planet’s life cycle], and yet in the fifth race [of seven in the life cycle of humanity] on the fourth globe [of seven in the Earth’s life cycle], we are a kind of ‘animal-human’, the fourth element of ‘kama’ [Sanskrit word for ‘desire’ principle] manifesting in us more strongly than does the fifth or manasic principle.” [Fountain Source of Occultism, p. 278]
NEWS
AUSTRALIA:
Melbourne: Bookshop Activities: At the time of writing we are awaiting delivery of our 2004 catalogue. This catalogue contains details of over 100 book titles we have to offer our clients. A large proportion of our annual sales are ordered by other Theosophical Societies in Australia - the rest are purchased by our members and “over the counter” by visitors to our Bookshop in South Caulfield, Melbourne. The Bookshop is open on Tuesdays and also twice monthly on Saturday afternoons when we conduct our meetings.
We currently hold in stock most of the titles in the catalogue and our well-equipped Theosophical University Press in the USA maintains the objectives and standards of production established over 100 years ago - publication of quality theosophical literature. We also act as sole agents in Australia for another publisher/supplier and details of some of the books they offer are also referred to in our catalogue.
We are soon completing our annual stocktake and when this has been carried out we will be in a position to offer surplus books at a considerable cost reduction. If any readers would like a copy of our latest catalogue and price list and details of discounted books, please telephone (03) 528.1011. We would stress that orders for discounted books will be strictly on a first come, first served basis as such stocks will naturally be limited - Tony Downey, Hon Manager.
New publications of interest: our Press Manager in Pasadena, Will Thackara, has recently published his excellent series of articles as a book on Evolution [2004] available through our bookshop in Melbourne. Recent Australian books of interest include two from Dr David Tacey of La Trobe University in Melbourne The Spirituality Revolution: The Emergence of Contemporary Spirituality [2003] and Re-Enchantment: the New Australian Spirituality [2000]
An Australian magazine dealing with contemporary spirituality as applied to daily living is New Dawn - GPO Box 3126FF Melbourne 3001 Victoria, Australia tel. (03) 9475.0355. Articles in the latest issue (May-June 2004) include - The Gospel of St Magdelene; Umexplained Mysteries of the Moon; Dr Wihelm Reich: genius or madman? and many others including reviews of recent significant books on esoteric philosophy.
Melbourne : CG Jung Society: many of readers will have an interest in the writings and ideas of famous Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Jung had a spiritual approach to psychology which has attracted the interest of theosophical students since Jung’s work became well known from the mid 20th century onwards. There is a Society in Melbourne that offers a wide range of lectures and other activities based on Jung’s work and approach. they have a website at http://home.vicnet.au/~junsoc and can be contacted at 9867 4787 for their program.
Perth: The Theosophical Academy in Perth, Western Australia: is wholly concerned with studying and putting into practice the original works of the modern Theosophical movement founded by HP Blavatsky and others. It is an organization dedicated to assisting its participants towards understanding and realizing the realities and truths of life in an environment of absolute freedom of thought.
It rejects authority of any kind, considering all persons, including noted authors, lecturers, facilitators and general participants to be equal students in the search for Spiritual Truths.
Courses offered include: Introduction to Theosophy 1 (9 weeks), Introduction to Theosophy 2 (7 weeks), Studies in the Theosophy of the Mahatmas (12 months), Spiritual Path (12 months), Book study groups (varying duration). Further information is available at (08)9328.8014.
USA:
The Internet Sacred Text Archive on CD-ROM: The Internet Sacred Text Archive CD-ROM includes electronic texts of nearly a thousand significant religious and philosophical books and articles, including over two hundred transcribed specially for this project. Years of extensive research and scholarship went into this CD-ROM: many core texts of religion, mythology, folklore and the esoteric are on this one disk.
This collection includes the full text of each book, many with footnotes and illustratiions. The CD-ROM costs just US$49.95, worldwide shipping is free when you buy direct.
ISTA P.O. Box 7429 Santa Cruz CA 95061 USA For a complete listing go to - http://www.sacred-texts.com/cdshop/cdcat.htm
AFRICA
Ghana:
We welcome a brand new theosophical publication from Africa - Peace and Love Theosophical Circular published by the Ghananian Section of our Society. The following is an extract from “Transformation of Religions: There is no Religion higher than truth, gently to listen kindly to judge, something you hear today, can be the missing peace in your life”, in Theosophical Society Pasadena Ghanaian Section: Peace and Love, Theosophical Circular, Quarterly Newsletter No. 1, March 2004:
“(Everybody ought to get something for himself, belong to some group which will do better than some other group, so we are creating a world of great insecure and it is insecurity which makes us lean to ideas and opinions, we do not like opinions which are different from others or ours, we do not like any new concepts) this is generally with exception the condition of human beings so we want to impose our ideas to those of others, instead of listening, finding out whether there is some truth in the other persons ideas because, even from a foolish mans concept there may be a grain of truth and the mind that is open could listen to that.
I would like to give a story to illustrate this: A man travelling with the family on the highways at night had a flat tyre, after removing the wheel nuts he couldn’t find where he has placed the wheel nuts as the place was very dark, he searched all round but to no avail. A madman living around approached them and asked what was the matter, first, no response, second, no response, then the third, the man thought twice and answered, I couldn’t find my wheel nuts, then the madman said: “Why don’t you remove each nut from the remaining three tyres then if you get to a nearby village in the morning, you buy the four nuts and share on each tyre.”
Because the mind is open the man could listen and at last their problem had been solved by a madman. Sometimes a wise person had been called the wisest fool but their mind is not generally open, but sticks to its own perception, therefore it doesn’t want to enquire into anything and it’s ready to accept to be conditioned and beause of this, conflicts have become so widespread, because we are so attach to our nationality, our religion, our opinions, our family and our positions. We want to make ourselves secure and each of these groups are at war with the others and therefore the world is terribly divided, but it is we who are creating that conflicts, all of us who are claiming to some particular thing, mentally putting labels on ourselves. We are creating the conflicts outside, we’re participating in it but we’re unaware of it. We have created a society around us, which helps us to think of ourselves alone and forgetting that there are others.”
PROPHECIES FOR THE 21st CENTURY
Paul Rooke - Melbourne
THE HOPI INDIANS:
The Hopi legends speak of a Great Spirit who created a pact with Mankind. The four races, red, yellow, black and white, were all parties to the pact. Each was given two stones tables and told to hold and protect these. Each race had it’s own separate responsibilities to the world and each was told to live in harmony with each other. The racial responsibilities were allocated as follows:
The red races were the Americian Indians, and they lived in the east. Their role was the responsibility of the guardianship of the earth.
The yellow races were the Asians and lived in the south quarter of the planet. Their role was the guardianship of the wind.
The black races were the Africans and lived in the west. Their role was the guardianship of water.
The white races were the Europeans and lived in the north. Their role was the guardianship of fire, as in power and energy.
These tablets apparently exist. They are protected and have been observed by members of the Hopi tribe and others who have a sympathetic interest in the sacred traditions of the North American Indians. The Eastern tablets are kept by the Hopi elders in Arizona, the Southern tablets by the Tibetans in Tibet, the Western tablets by the Kikuyu tribe in Kenya in Africa, and the Northern tablets are held by the Swiss in Switzerland. The Hopi Indian who wrote the article that I read has seen the American and African tablets.
The Hopi predictions are uncannily accurate and were made at least 10,000 years ago. They concern the world that we are living in now, and they start to take effect from the mid 1600s, the time when the Spanish conquistadors came to America. There are several stages in American history that are predicted by the Hopi tablets, and the outcomes for mankind associated with these are also given.
The first stage is the coming of the turtles. This describes the conquistadors marching across America with their armour on their backs.
The Hopi then moved to the early 20th century where they said that there would be a black ribbon that would come to cover America with bugs crawling all over it, and the ribbon would be shaken and the bugs would take to the air. This would be at about the time of the first great shaking of the earth that was World War I in the earlier years of the last century.
The Hopi then go on to describe the criss-crossing of the world by a cobweb upon which people would talk, the emergence of a tilted sign of life, (the Nazi swastika,) and the sun rising in the west, not in the east. This was, perhaps, the Japanese rising sun. At this time there would be a second shaking of the earth, which was World War II. Both shakings of the earth took place because man had not learned to live with his fellow man in the way that the Great Spirit required when the tablets were written, tens of thousands of years ago.
They then say that the saga will speed up at this stage and that there will be several other elements in it before the Great Outcome which will be a third world war. They talk of a falling of a gourd of ashes. I think this was the dropping of the A-bomb on Hiroshima in World War II. They then go on to say further in their projections that upon he who dropped the gourd of ashes, the gourd of ashes will later fall. This is significant for what might happen in America in the next 10 or 20 years. After this there would be established in the house of mica on the east coast of the land of the turtles, which is obviously the U.N. Building. The Hopi hoped to have some involvement with putting their beliefs before this forum. They weren’t allowed to do so at this time (1950s). They then decided that they’d have to communicate what they knew in English so that their beliefs would be conveyed to the world because they could see what was going to happen. Their traditions were later published in the 1960s as The Book of the Hopi. [available from our Melbourne library]
They went on to predict genetic engineering and sex-change surgery, to speak of an Eagle landing on the moon. Obviously here they were referring to the successful Apollo mission of 1969. They predicted this as a time of great racial unrest in the U.S.A.. They went on to talk from here on of a decline in family ties, the hastening of the pace of life, and of families not having time for each other.
Then they came to their final prediction which was that a man-made house would be thrown into the sky. This I think refers to the joing American-Russian space station which was launched in 1999. They said this would mark the beginning of World War III and the third great shaking of the earth if mankind didn’t wake up to itself and listen to what they were saying. They said further that at this stage, upon he who dropped the gourd of ashes the gourd of ashes could fall. In particular, they suspected that there would be a lot of heavy bombing of the American agricultural regions of the north of the U.S.. There would be a third world war which would start gradually but would ultimately involve all of mankind. Man would survive it but only in much smaller numbers. The world would then go on to a more harmonious existence where the wish of the Great Spirit that all four races could live in harmony would finally be fulfilled.
OBITUARY
Jean Swan
Jean had a long and fruitful association with Theosophy having joined the Society in April 1945, and remained a dedicated member throughout her long life. Despite her often delicate health, Jean loyally attended meetings throughout the years and was always an active and eager participant in discussions. Jean was a gentle and sensitive person with a quick wit and an ability to get right to the heart of even the most complicated discussion and put matters into a perspective that everyone could relate to.
Jean’s questing spirit led her to be an eager reader of the literature of all the world’s religions, philosophies, and Theosophy. Many readers of our Newsletter around Australia, will no doubt have had books, magazines and photocopies sent on to you by Jean that she had valued from her own reading. Along with husband Arthur, Jean espoused many social and health issues, and she loyally supported Arthur in his community work. Of particular note was Jean’s interest in astrology, alternative medicine, homoeopathy, and natural medicines of all kinds in which she was very much ahead of her time. We salute Jean’s contributions to the work of the Theosophical Society and her example as a Theosophist foremost in her life.
Theosophical teacher Dr. G. de Purucker, spoke of Death as the doorway to a new life, when he wrote:
“Death is the greatest and loveliest change that the heart of Nature has in store for us... It is a phase of live even as life is a phase of death. It is not something to be feared...
Death is birth: and instrad of the wrench that there often is in the case of youth when death comes, death to our older ones comes in the peace and quiet, stealing like an angel of mercy into their being, releasing the bonds binding the soul; and the passage is as gentle as the coming of the twilight preceding night. Exactly the same succession of events takes place in Death that ensues when we drop off into that wonderland of consciousness we call Sleep... Death is a perfect sleep, a perfect rest; as natural, as painless and beautiful as the growth of a lovely flower. It is the doorway through which the pilgrim enters a higher stage of life.”
Andrew Rooke - National Secretary
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Our thanks and appreciation to the many friends around Australia and the world, who send their newsletters to us. We encourage you all to read them as they are kept in our library in Melbourne, or photocopies can be sent. They include : Impuls (Netherlands), Contact (South Africa), The Link (USA), Theosophy North-West View (USA), Kali Yuga Rag (USA), San Diego TS Newsletter (USA), Compass (England), Pashupati (Australia), Melbourne TS Lodge Newsletter (Australia). Also, Dutch and German language translations of Sunrise magazine are sent to us regularly.
Australasian TS Newsletter is issued three times per year in April, August, and November and is edited by Andrew Rooke. We can be contacted at the Theosophical Society (Pasadena), Australasian Section, 664 Glenhuntly Rd., South Caulfield, Melbourne, Victoria 3162, AUSTRALIA. Tel : (03) 9528.1011 Fax : (03) 9528.3907 Email : andrewrooke@hotmail.com World Wide Web homepage at www.theosophie.net/australia/ The current issue of this newsletter is also published electronically on our website and copies can be sent via email.
We welcome contributions on theosophy or related subjects. You can be placed on the mailing list by contacting the editor or see our website.
THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY (PASADENA) AUSTRALIAN SECTION
MEETINGS PROGRAM
SEPTEMBER 2004 TO JANUARY 2005
Meetings at the Theosophical Society (Pasadena) 664 Glenhuntly Rd., South Caulfield
All meetings are held on Saturday Afternoon at 2.30 p.m. on the dates shown below
Sat Sept. 4: Natural disasters: Scientific and Theosophical perspectives - Andrew Rooke & Yurij Kuleshov.
Sat. Sept. 18: Theosophy - History and Concepts.*
Sat. Oct. 2: The Spirituality of Food - Paul Rooke and Heathclyff St. James Deville.
Sat. Oct. 16: Theosophy - History and Concepts.*
Sat. Nov. 6. Good and Evil - Tony Downey.
Sat. Nov. 20: Theosophy - History and Concepts.*
Sat. Dec. 4: The Esoteric Architecture of Walter Burley Griffin (designer of the City of Canberra, Australia’s Capital City) - Evelynne Brown.
Sat. Dec. 18: Theosophy - History and Concepts.*
Sat. Jan. 22: Theosophy - History and Concepts.*
*Lecture series on the history and concepts by Lo Guest.