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David Anrias' book Through the Eyes of the Masters
entered my life as a matter of habit. I found it around
1984 at a flee-market in Amsterdam. I bought it because
it just looked like an interesting theosophical book, the
price was low and in such cases I would habitually pull
out my wallet. In those days I was still predominantly into
Krishnamurti, whose teachings I had found in 1978. But I
also had picked up Theosophy again, which I studied during
high school, after reading Blavatsky's Isis Unveiled
given to me by a fellow theosophically-minded Krishnamurtian.
I didn't read the Anrias book in-depth, but read some snippets
here and there. The criticism of Krishnamurti in the book
only vaguely registered. What did register was that the
anonymous person who wrote the introduction had also written
the "Initiate" books, though I was not familiar
with those. The following story is about how Scott's "Initiate"
book and his devastating criticisms of Krishnamurti came
thundering into my mind.
In 1986 I had established friendly contacts with some very
artistic people connected with the Summit Lighthouse in
Holland. That organization was by then on my radar, especially
after a discussion with another fellow Krishnamurtian with
a strong interest in Alice Bailey, in which we concluded
that the Summit Lighthouse had a high probability of being
a genuine outlet for the Theosophical Masters. One weekend
in the late summer of 1986 I went along with some Summit
Lighthouse devotees to the south of Holland for some 'postering,'
i.e. spreading posters announcing their upcoming lectures.
The first evening we stayed with an architect and his very
nice family. We recited some of the Summit mantras after
dinner, which triggered some quite profound spiritual feelings
of connectedness. I thought that what I experienced was
probably similar to Cathar meetings in the south of France
around the 12th century. I even thought we all had been
there before. At night though I had pangs of Krishnamurtian
conscience about getting involved in a 'sect' that had many
characteristics that I had learned, from him, to look down
upon as either childish or even dangerous and at least unnecessary.
I had a hard time sleeping. The next day my itinerary brought
me past a New Age bookstore. Of course I had to go in and
browsing in their sales bin I found a very nice hardback
copy with shiny dust jacket of The Initiate in the Dark
Cycle. I remembered that the writer was involved with
the Anrias book with the vague criticisms of Krishnamurti.
I looked in the book and saw that there were two chapters
specifically dedicated to Krishnamurti. I bought the book,
went my way and later in the day, at our rendezvous point
where I had arrived quite early, I had a chance to start
reading the pages on Krishnamurti … Boom!!! It really
felt that a high transcendental source was looking at Krishnamurti,
was actually drawing me into its mind, and was making the
most reasonable and incisive comments on his philosophy
and initiatic history. At the same time it was deeply shocking
to my mind, because I still had loyalties, good memories
and life & world-view sustaining insights connected
with Krishnamurti. But I realized it was a present from
heaven--literally. The timing could not have been better
and was probably organized from above. What chance that
after spending a restless night feeling engulfed in, and
fretting over, the tension between Krishnamurti and the
Masters I would find a perfectly reasonable answer within
a day!!! No coincidence here. In the following months I
also had a chance to pick up the Anrias book again and let
that sink in. After much deliberation, the net effect was
that I converted back to theosophy and became more open
to affiliating myself with the Summit Lighthouse, which
had its own set of severe criticisms of Krishnamurti and
indeed looked more and more as the genuine follow-up organizaton
of the Theosophical Society.
In the spring of 1987 I went to a lecture on Krishnamurti
by a prominent theosophist and talked with that person afterwards
and showed the Anrias book. The theosophist flipped out
and angrily, with high pitched voice, told me "all
images, all images," which in Krishnamurtese would
mean illusion or projection and therefore bad. I was quite
speechless by this aggressivity.
One of the effects of this change was that in the summer
of 1987 I felt inspired to go back to Saanen, Switzerland
where the Krishnamurti gatherings were held and which I
had visited many times before to see Krishnamurti speak.
There was again something of a gathering, though of course
without Krishnamurti, who had died just a year and a half
earlier, and the gathering was much smaller. The attendees
just watched videos and held many discussions. I organized
a lecture at the local hotel in which I intended to present
my recent findings. There wasn't much of an interest. I
had in my audience an older French intellectual who was
a friend of Krishnamurti and had written numerous books
about him. He left in the middle of the lecture. Later I
spoke with him and his wife privately. He didn't care too
much for theosophy, but his wife was quite understanding.
Though the lecture was something of a flop, I had good talks
with other people. I specially remember one lady who had
read something similar I was talking about, but could not
remember anymore what book it was, only that it contained
a scene of theosophical masters discussing Krishnamurti
from an esoteric angle and that they made terrific sense.
Obviously she had read the Initiate book, though
she still enjoyed Krishnamurti and the gatherings.
Not much later I started working full time for the Summit
in Holland, untill I emigrated in 1990 to New Mexico, USA.
Around 1994 the bug to deepen my understanding of the Krishnamurti
phenomenon bit me again and this led me to move to Chicago
in 1995 and to the publication(s) on Krishnamurti in 1997
in which the Scott and Anrias materials are prominently
featured. Also in 1997 I started the Web site Alpheus with
my then wife as an outlet for all the primary sources on
Krishnamurti, amongst them the Scott and Anrias material.
Besides the obvious relevance for the Krishnamurti-Scott-Anrias
issue, the other books by them are also intrinsically interesting.
Scott's study on music is amazing; his "Initiate"
series is a great read; his autobiography of his very young
years is charming and Anrias' more or less astrological
analysis of the Theosophical Society helped me to further
understand the logic of certain changes that had taken place
within the Theosophical Society after its founder, Blavatsky,
had left this world. I'm sure there is more to be found
in their works if I put more energy to it.
One really enlightening idea to further understand Krishnamurti
I found in Scott's study on music. The idea was Scott's
explanation of the relationship between Wagner and some
very high musical Devas that were working through him. The
Devas were allowed a foothold in Wagner and were just only
interested in expressing their musical ideas through him
regardless of Wagner's own limitations, of which they had
no notion. This led to some strange aberrations in Wagner's
character according to Scott. The parallel here is Krishnamurti's
relationship with these very high Devas of the Air under
whom he had taken initiations and who wanted then to express
some very profound truths through him, but had no notion
of the obstacles of the majority of mankind to properly
understand these ideas, and, more importantly, properly
apply them. This might also have caused some aberrations
in Krishnamurti's character. This interpretation, which
is mine and not Anrias' nor Scott's, seems quite consistent
with their other remarks regarding Krishnamurti.
[This biographical note was written in conjunction with
my article "Jean Overton Fuller, Master Narayan and
the Krishnamurti-Scott-Anrias Issue" forthcoming in
Theosophical History Journal 13/3 (July 2007)]
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