20 THE FUTURE MESSIAH
In order to understand the strange messianic escapade which caused some stir in recent years, it is necessary to know the very peculiar idea that the Theosophists have of Christ or, more generally, of what they call a 'Great Teacher' or 'World Teacher'. These two expressions are the translation of the Sanskrit terms Mahāguru and Jagadguru, which in reality simply designate the heads of certain Brahmanic schools: thus, the authentic Jagadguru is the chief of the Vedāntine school of Shankarāchārya. Let us say in passing, in order to warn against possible confusions, that the person to whom this title legitimately belongs at present is not the one who passes himself off as such in publications where the exposition of 'Vedānta' is particularly distorted for the use of Westerners (even though one must concede that the distortion is still not as complete as it is with Vivekānanda and his disciples). This episode has a rather curious political side, but that would lead us too far from our present subject. When Theosophists speak in their works of the Mahāguru, the person in question is not one of those in whom this quality is recognized in India, but is identical to the Bodhisattva of whom, as we have already seen, they have made the 'chief of the department of Religious Instruction' in the 'occult government of the world'. According to the Buddhist conception, a Bodhisattva is so to speak a Buddha 'in the making', a being on the point of attaining the state of Buddhahood or the possession of the supreme wisdom who is presently at the degree immediately below it. Theoso-phists accept this idea, but they add a good many fantasies of their own; thus for them there are two functions that are as it were complementary, that of the Manu and that of the Bodhisattva; moreover, there is a Manu and a Bodhisattva especially in charge of each one of the
seven 'mother-races'. When a Bodhisattva has fulfilled his role, he becomes Buddha and is replaced by another 'Adept'; when the Manu completes the period during which he must exercise his function, he passes on to a superior rank, although this is not specified. Finally, the era of the Manu and that of the Bodhisattva do not coincide: 'A Manu always starts with the first sub-race of the mother-race, whereas the Bodhisattva always has his work overlapping two great races. [1]
This said, we can return to the conception of the 'historical Christ' whom Theosophists carefully distinguish from the 'mystical Christ', that is to say the higher principle of man mentioned earlier, and the 'mythological Christ' or 'sun god', for they accept the conclusions of the so-called 'science of religions' regarding 'myths' and their astronomical interpretation. Mme Blavatsky made a distinction, which sounds like a pun, between Christos and Chrestos; she reserved the first of these terms for the 'mystical Christ' and regarded the second as indicating a certain degree of initiation into the ancient mysteries; every man who had attained this degree was therefore not Christos but Chrestos, and such may have been the case with Jesus of Nazareth, if indeed one admits his historical existence-which she strongly doubted. Here is a passage in which she more clearly expresses herself in this regard:
For me, Jesus Christ, that is the Man-God of the Christians-a representation of the Avatars of all countries, of the Hindu Chrishna, [2] and the Egyptian Horus-was never a historical figure. This is a glorified personification of the deified type of the great Hierophants of the Temples, and his story told in the New Testament is an allegory, certainly containing profound esoteric truths, but nonetheless an allegory.' Of course, this 'allegory' is nothing but the famous 'solar myth'.
But let us continue:
The legend I speak of is founded, as explained on various occasions in my writings, on the existence of a figure called Jehoshua (who was turned into Jesus), born in Lud or Lydda around the year 120 before the modern era. If this fact is contested, something I am not opposed to, one must make up one's mind and consider the hero of the Calvary drama as a sheer myth. [3]
However, a little earlier Mme Blavatsky expressed herself differently and much more categorically on the 'fact' in question:
Jesus was a Chrestos... whether he actually lived during the Christian era or a century earlier, under the reign of Alexander Jannes and his wife Salome, in Lud, as indicated by the Sepher Toldoth Jehoshua.
The source she quotes here is a rabbinical book, written with an obvious bias toward anti-Christian polemics, and generally considered as having absolutely no historical value; but this does not prevent him from adding a note in response to certain scholars, including Renan himself, for whom this assertion is erroneous:
I say that the scholars are lying or talking nonsense. Our Masters say so. If the story of Jehoshua or Jesus Ben Pandira is false, then the entire Talmud, the whole Jewish canon, is false. It was the disciple of Jehoshua Ben Parachia, the fifth president of the Sanhedrin after Ezra who rewrote the Bible. Compromised in the Pharisees' revolt against Jannaeus in 105 BC, he fled to Egypt, taking along the young Jesus. This account is much truer than the one in the New Testament on which history remains silent. [4]
Here, then, are the facts that her 'Masters' themselves-if they are to be believed-have guaranteed as real, and which a few months later she is no longer opposed to having treated as mere legend; how explain such contradictions if not by this 'pathological case' later to be denounced by the editor of the very review that had published all these lucubrations?
Wholly different is the attitude of Mrs Besant, for on the contrary she affirms the historical existence of Jesus, although she too takes it back to about a century before the Christian era; we shall summarize the singular account on this subject that she gives in her Esoteric Christianity. [5] The Jewish child whose name was translated as Jesus was born in Palestine in the year 105 BC. His parents taught him Hebrew literature; at the age of twelve, he visited Jerusalem and was later placed in the care of an Essene community in southern Judea. Let us say at once that the story about Jesus' relations with the Essenes was not wholly invented by the Theosophists, and that many other occult organizations before them have wanted to turn it to their advantage; in fact, it is common custom in these circles to claim a link with the Essenes, [6] whom some claim are linked to the Buddhists-it is not known why-and in whom they want to see an origin of Freemasonry. Some thirty years ago there was a spiritualist sect in France which called itself 'Essenian' and believed in two messiahs, Jesus and Joan of Arc. They attached great importance to a manuscript relating to the death of Jesus allegedly found in Alexandria and published in Leipzig in 1849 by a certain Daniel Ramée; an English translation of this document, whose obvious aim is to deny the Resurrection, was recently published in America under the auspices of the 'Great School' or 'Order of Light' of which we spoke earlier. But let us return to Mrs Besant's tale. At the age of nineteen, Jesus entered the monastery of Mount Serbal, which had a large occultist library containing many books 'from trans-Himalayan India.' He then traveled through Egypt where he became 'an initiate of the Esoteric Lodge from which all major religions receive their founder,' that is to say the 'Great White Lodge', which at the time was not yet centralized in Tibet, although another writer-who is definitely not a Theosophist and toward whom the Theosophists in fact show some distrust-claimed to
have discovered traces of Jesus' stay in this country, where he was known by the name of Issa. [7]
What follows requires a bit more explanation, for here we come to the way in which, according to the Theosophists, the manifestation of a 'Great Teacher', or sometimes even of a 'Master' of lesser importance, is produced. In order to spare such an 'evolved' being the trouble of preparing a vehicle himself by going through all the phases of ordinary physical development, an 'initiate' or a 'disciple' must lend him his body after he has been made worthy of the honor by having been specially prepared for this by certain trials. From this moment, then, it will be the 'Master' who, using this body as if it were his very own, will speak from its mouth to teach the 'religion of wisdom'. There is something here analogous to the phenomenon that the spiritists call 'incarnation' with the difference that in this case the 'incarnation' is permanent. It must be added that living 'Masters' can similarly make occasional use of a disciple's body, as they are supposed to have often done with Mme Blavatsky; it is also said that the 'Masters' do not keep the privilege of reincarnation by substitution to themselves and that they sometimes let their most advanced disciples benefit from it. On this point we have already mentioned Sinnett's and Leadbeater's statements that Mme Blavatsky entered another body in this way immediately after her death. But the case that most particularly interests us here is the manifestation of the 'Masters'; it seems to be admitted, though without always being stated in an absolute fashion, that Buddha used the method we just described; here is what Leadbeater says on the subject:
The body of the child born of King Suddhodana and Queen Māyā might not have been inhabited in the first years by Lord Buddha himself, who like Christ, would have asked one of his disciples to take care of this vehicle into which he entered only when this body was weakened by long austerities that he inflicted upon himself for six years in order to find the truth. If such is the case, it is not surprising that Prince Siddhartha did not preserve
the memory of all the previously acquired knowledge of Lord Buddha, since he was not the same person. [8]
Siddhartha, like Jesus, would thus have been the disciple chosen by the 'Master' to prepare an adult body to later yield to him, 'a sacrifice that his disciples will always be happy to offer him'; [9] and what is presented here as mere hypothesis in the passage we just cited is elsewhere presented by the same author as a certain fact and as something quite common:
The idea of borrowing a suitable body is always adopted by great beings when they think that it is important to descend among men in the present conditions. Lord Gautama proceeded in this way when he came to earth in order to attain the dignity of the Buddha. Lord Maitreya did the same when he came to Palestine two thousand years ago. [10]
In any case, as regards Christ's manifestation, which is what the last phrase refers to, present-day Theosophists are always very affirmative. Mrs Besant says that at the age of twenty-nine the 'disciple' Jesus had become 'qualified to serve as a tabernacle and an instrument for a mighty Son of God, Lord of compassion and wisdom.' This 'Master' thus descended into Jesus, and during the three years of his public life 'it was He who lived and moved in the form of the man Jesus ., . . teaching, healing diseases, and gathering round Him as disciples a few of the more advanced souls. [11] At the end of three years, 'the human body of Jesus paid the penalty for enshrining the glorious Presence of a Teacher more than man'; [12] but the disciples he had trained remained under his influence, and for more than fifty years he continued to visit them by means of his 'spiritual body' and to initiate them into the esoteric mysteries. Subsequently, around the accounts of Jesus' historical life crystallized the 'myths' distinguishing a 'solar god', which, once their symbolical meaning ceased to be understood, gave birth to the dogmas of Christianity.
This last point is almost the only one in this whole account where one can find the ideas of Mme Blavatsky.
The 'Lord of Compassion' just mentioned is the Bodhisattva Maitreya; this name and title, referring to the concept of the 'future Buddha', do exist in authentic Buddhism; but this attempt at mixing Buddhism and Christianity, which is a special characteristic of the Theosophists' messianism, is rather awkward. This is yet another example of the eminently fantastic manner in which they claim to reconcile the different traditions from which they borrow; we have already found another in the association of Manu with the Bodhisattva. In the same connection let us also point out that according to contemporary Theosophists, Maitreya had appeared in India in the form of Krishna long before he manifested himself as Christ. However, it doubtless has to be granted that he was not yet a Bodhisattva at the time, but a slightly lower-ranking 'Adept' (as is Koot Hoomi today, who is his designated successor), since Krishna was much earlier than the time when Gautama, the former Bodhisattva, became Buddha. Nevertheless, we are not at all sure that certain Theosophists do not commit an anachronism here and believe that Krishna came after Buddha. Indeed, after having given as a general rule that 'Great Beings' borrow a disciple's body, Leadbeater adds:
The sole exception we know of is this: when a new Bodhisattva assumes the function of World Teacher, his predecessor having become Buddha, he takes birth as an ordinary child when he first appears in the world. Our Lord, the present Bodhisattva, did so when he took birth as Shri Krishna in the golden plains of India, in order to be loved and honored with a passionate devotion which has perhaps never been equalled elsewhere. [13]
In any event, it is the same Bodhisattva Maitreya who is supposed to manifest himself again in our times, in conditions similar to those we mentioned earlier as regards Christ. Says Leadbeater:
The Great Head of the Department of Religious Education, the Lord Maitreya, who already taught the Hindus under the name
of Krishna and the Christians under the name of Christ, announced that he would soon return to the world in order to bring healing and help to the nations, and to revive spirituality, which is almost lost on earth. One of the great tasks of the Theosophical Society is to do all it can to prepare mankind for his coming, so that a greater number of people may be able to benefit from the unique opportunity provided by his very presence among them. The religion he founded when he came to Judea two thousand years ago has now spread all over the world, but when he left his physical body, it is said that the disciples who assembled to consider the new situation numbered only a hundred and twenty. His coming was announced by only one precursor last time; this task now has been given to a Society of twenty thousand members spread worldwide! Let us hope the results will be better this time than the last and that we shall be able to keep the Lord among us for more than three years, before human wickedness forces him to leave; may we also gather a greater number of disciples around him than formerly. [14]
Such is the goal assigned today to the Theosophical Society, which Mrs Besant declared some twenty years ago 'was chosen to be the cornerstone of the future religions of humanity ... the pure and blessed link between those above and those below. [15] Now, should the total success one wishes for the new manifestation of the Bodhisattva be interpreted in the sense that this time he will achieve perfect Buddhahood? According to Sinnett, 'the fifth, or Maitreya Buddha, will come only after the final disappearance of the fifth race, and when the sixth race will have already been established on earth for some hundreds of thousands of years'; [16] but Sinnett knew nothing about the former manifestations of Maitreya as Bodhisattva, which are an innovation in Theosophy. Besides, when one recalls by how much the interval between us and the beginning of the fifth race was reduced, it is little wonder that its end should be much closer than was first announced. In any case, we are told about the imminent birth of the kernel of the sixth
race, [17] 'under the direction of a Manu who is well-known to Theosophists,' namely the 'Master' Morya. [18]
The role appropriated by the Theosophical Society is not limited to announcing of the coming of the 'Great Teacher'; it is also to find and prepare, as the Essenes are supposed to have done earlier, the chosen 'disciple' in whom 'He who is to come' will incarnate when the time arrives. But in reality the fulfillment of this mission has been somewhat tentative; at least there was a first attempt that failed miserably and which dates back to a time when they were not yet clear about the personality of the future 'Bearer of the Torch', as Mme Blavatsky said. This was in London, a sort of Theosophist community then existed in the Saint John's Woods quarter; a young boy was being raised there, of a sickly and unintelligent aspect, but whose least words were listened to with respect and admiration, for he was no less, it seems, than 'Pythagoras reincarnate'. It is probable that this was not a real reincarnation but rather a manifestation like those just mentioned, since Theosophists grant that Pythagoras has already been reincarnated in Koot Hoomi and that he is still alive. Nonetheless, there are other cases where such an interpretation does not even seem possible but where the Theosophists are hardly troubled by the greatest obstacles; thus, when some of them called Mme Blavatsky 'the nineteenth-century Saint-Germain', [19] others took this literally and believed that she was the actual reincarnation of the Count of Saint-Germain, while the Count, on the other hand, after having been considered as a mere messenger of the 'Great White Lodge', was raised to the rank of a still living 'Master'. In this connection we will note that a Theosophist biography of this man, [20] a truly enigmatic character, moreover, has been written by
Miss Isabel Cooper-Oakley, who was one of Mme Blavatsky's first disciples. [21] There are mysteries here that one doubtless does better not to go into too deeply, for one would probably see that the Theosophists' ideas, here as elsewhere, are extremely undecided and unsettled, and one would even find the most irreconcilable assertions. In any case, according to Sinnett, Mme Blavatsky herself claimed to have been previously incarnated in a member of her own family, in an aunt who died young, and before that to have been a Hindu woman with considerable knowledge of occultism; there is no mention in all of this of the Count of Saint-Germain.
But let us return to Pythagoras, or rather to the young boy who was meant to furnish him a new 'vehicle'. After a certain time the father of this child, a captain retired from the British army, abruptly withdrew his son from the hands of Leadbeater, who had been specially charged with his education. [22] There must even have been some threat of scandal, for in 1906 Leadbeater was expelled from the Theosophical Society for reasons on which a prudent silence was maintained. It was only later that a letter written at the time by Mrs Besant came to light in which she spoke of methods 'worthy of the severest reprobation. [23] Reinstated nonetheless in 1908 after having 'promised not to repeat the dangerous advice formerly given to young people, [24] and reconciled with Mrs Besant even to the point of becoming her constant collaborator in Adyar, Leadbeater was again to play the principal role in the second affair, one much better known, and one that would end in a similar result.