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Review

Kuthumi on Selfhood
Mark and Elizabeth Clare Prophet (Eds.)
Malibu CA: Summit University Press, 1969
Pearls of Wisdom, Vol. 12

 

Review by M.R. Jaqua (in bold)
with comments by the editor (regular)

"Kuthumi on Selfhood" is a recent re-release under new title of Elizabeth Clare Prophet's 1969 volume 12 of her "Pearls of Wisdom" series. It is a series of short essays supposedly channeled from the adepts behind the founding of the Theosophical Society, Morya and Koot Hoomi (and a host of others from "Archangel Michael" to Gautama Buddha) which are bound together in one volume.

Anybody can have a subscription to these Pearls of Wisdom. They are published somewhat irregular, but every volume, which covers a whole calendar year, has between 45 and 60 issues. Currently the rate is $ 45 per year. Most issues are dictations by different Masters, Archangels and Cosmic Beings, which were mostly given during one of the four quarterly conferences of C.U.T., which are open to the public. Now that Mrs. Prophet is not transmitting any new dictations anymore many of the previously unpublished dictations are being released. All published Pearls of Wisdom from the period 1958-1998 can be purchased on a CD-Rom.

First of all, any serious student of Theosophy realizes that Clare Prophet's "Morya and Kuthumi" are not the REAL Morya and Koot Hoomi since these two adepts did not believe in the practice of mediumship.

Dictations are quite different from mediumship, which opens the possibility that they are the REAL ones.

The impersonation of adepts by astral entities is no uncommon thing as can be seen by Koot Hoomi's own words on page 419 and other places in "The Mahatma Letters."

Agree. At a Whole Life Expo in Los Angeles in the 90s not less than eight persons were channeling Saint Germain. 

While "The Mahatma Letters" (the production of the REAL Koot Hoomi and Morya) is solid philosophy throughout and obviously the production of great minds, whether the critic be theosophist or not, the Contents of Prophet's "Kuthumi on Selfhood" is nearly entirely pollyannic gibberish, with undefined terms piled helter-skelter upon each other from every area of religion and occultism in such an irrational fashion as to make anyone attempting to find even a focal point as a basis for critique to throw his hands up in anguished despair.

Great polemical sentence and probably true for the reviewer's point of view. I had similar experiences reading my first book Dossier on the Ascension by Serapis Bey. I could read Kant, Krishnamurti, HPB, Steiner and still decipher what they were saying. Even Heidegger I could crack open. But the Pearls of Wisdom were quite different. Very frustrating experience. I don't know what made me understand them at a certain moment. Discussions with other students, prolonged exposure to the writings, deciphering its particular vocabulary, illumination from within, Gnostic breakthrough?

Once again, as the case in most all channeling, the discourses are an appeal to the emotions with only the barest necessary trace of rhyme, reason and system.

After a while I found the rhyme and reason and discovered that indeed they appeal to the emotions, though I rather describe it as 'evocation of higher spiritual feelings, with subtle intellectual content.'

One wonders how with any sense of conscience Clare Prophet can for the last 30 years present her channelings as from the same Morya and Koot Hoomi behind the original Theosophical Society and responsible for most of Founder Blavatsky's erudite writings. How could one suppose such a drastic degeneration in style and complete about-face on philosophic matters could come from the same men?

From a philosophical point these teachings can be a bit disappointing. Nevertheless I believe with David Anrias that the intellectual content of Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine was too high for the average western student to be beneficial. One of the reasons being that the life-style most conducive to obtain a beneficial understanding of the Secret Doctrine could hardly be maintained in the frantic west. For this reason the Masters turned more to other practices, like group rituals, to effect the changes in Their students They first tried to accomplish by releasing the Secret Doctrine. In this view it is not so much the content of the Secret Doctrine which counts but more its transformative effects. [See Adepts of the Five Elements (London: Routledge, 1933) pp. 22-23: "The Secret Doctrine was the chief object of group-study, but the higher mental body of the average bewildered western student was usually discovered to be insufficiently equipped for the task. ... Therefore these particular Masters effected a transference of occult force, hitherto wholly confined to the higher mental plane, to the lower mental, and later to the astral plane by means of group ceremonial magic." (some more excerpts) ]

Rudolph Steiner had a similar view of the philosophy of Hegel and Fichte. According to Steiner they were kind of Gnostic philosophers, not because they philosophied about Gnostic doctrines--though in another sense that might be true--but more because by reading them a Gnostic experience could be effected.

The word "God" is used approximately half a dozen times on each page of Prophet's work, while in "The Mahatma Letters" K.H. and M. would not use this term at all without qualification because of the terms connotation of the Christian *Personal* Diety.

If you would study these teachings more in depth you will find many qualifications of the term God. As I understand it God is not to be equated with the Absolute, which is his 'background,' and God is both personal and impersonal, and many variations in between.

While it is stated repeatedly in the adept-produced writings that it is hoped the Theosophical Movement will avoid any sort of "churchism," Clare Prophet's "masters" have instructed her to do this very thing with her "Church Universal and Triumphant" complete with bishops, et. al.

Well, the Masters made an exception for their Tibetan temples, and later on also for the Liberal Catholic Church and now for Church Universal and Triumphant.

"Morya" is even made to give a wonderful Christmas sermon at one point and vicarious atonement is promulgated at others - something that is the complete antithesis of Theosophical Teachings.

Morya's letter is indeed wonderful. The Masters do not teach the doctrine of vicarious atonement. The exoteric doctrine that Jesus died for our sins and thus liberated us from our negative karma is incorrect. C.U.T.'s esoteric understanding is that Jesus, because of his spiritual attainment and his office as Lord of the Piscean Age, temporarily carried the bulk of humanity's karma so we could more easily grow spiritually and be better prepared when this karma would come due during the transition to a new age, which is happening now.

"Jesus Christ" delivers a message also, and in the adept's earlier Theosophical teachings Christ was held to be an Avatar - a being created by white magic which ceases to exist forever after physical death - one wonders what he is still doing around.

Prophet  teaches, as did CWL, that Jesus and Christ were two different beings. Jesus, under tutelage of the Masters, prepared his body and mind to be overshadowed by the World Teacher and representative of the Cosmic Christ, Lord Maitreya. The same was intended with Krishnamurti about 2000 years later.

Did Clare Prophet's "adepts" change their philosophy from early Theosophical days, or does she merely ignore the above discrepancies and the thousand other paradoxes between her "new" adepts and the old, genuine adepts - who were not "ascended masters" at all (whatever this may be) but real living men.

Discrepancies can indeed be problematic. So far I found some discrepancies solved by deeper study, or I chose one side or the other--both not being infallible--or I just have to suspend judgment. As far as the grander ideas and principles concerned I do not see discrepancies, but mutual reinforcement and, as an effect on me, a deepening of understanding. More problematic for me are the discrepancies between theosophy and Krishnamurti's teachings. Meanwhile, that is since They were instrumental in founding the TS, the two Masters involved made Their ascension at the turn of the century and were later joined by Djwal Kul. They are still living men, but without a physical body, though They could materialize one if so desired. Concerning this issue I wrote in my pamphlet "The Masters and Their Emissaries:From H.P.B. to Guru Ma and Beyond"

"Both Masters [M. and K.H.] took their fifth initiation, the Ascension, at the close of the last century, thereby becoming incorporeal Ascended Masters. And as Blavatsky has written--referring to other saints, that, when “unburthened of their terrestrial tabernacles, their freed souls, henceforth united forever with their spirits, rejoin the whole shining host, which is bound together in one spiritual solidarity of thought and deed, and called the ‘anointed,’ ”--the same glad tidings could be told, not only about these two illustrious Masters, but also about many other brave souls who followed them. [H.P. Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled (Pasadena CA: Theosophical University Press, 1976), II, p. 159]. For practical purposes the difference between an Unascended Master and an Ascended one is not very great. Both can work in the physical as well as in the spiritual realm and both have a wide array of occult powers at their command to guide Their pupils and help mankind. The difference is that an Unascended Master has its base of operations in a physical body and an Ascended Master in a spiritual. To dismiss the latter as spooks, because They do not conform to one’s idea of flesh-and-blood Masters, is to deny oneself the great wisdom coming from the 'anointed.' ”

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