Writings
of H P Blavatsky
Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24 -1DL
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831 – 1891)
The Founder of Modern Theosophy
Civilization,
The Death of
Art and Beauty
By
H
P Blavatsky
In an interview
with the celebrated Hungarian violinist, M.
Remenyi, the
some very
interesting experiences in the
European artist
who ever played before the Mikado of Japan," he
said; and
reverting to that which has ever been a matter of deep
regret for
every lover of the artistic and the picturesque, the
violinist
added:
On
memorable,
unfortunately, for the change of costume commanded by
the Empress.
She herself, abandoning the exquisite beauty of the
feminine
Japanese costume, appeared on that day for the first time
and at my
concert in European costume, and it made my heart ache
to see her. I
could have greeted her had I dared with a long wail
of despair upon
my travelled violin. Six ladies accompanied her,
they themselves
being clad in their native costume, and walking
with infinite
grace and charm.
Alas, alas, but
this is not all! The Mikado – this hitherto
sacred,
mysterious, invisible and unreachable personage:
The Mikado himself
was in the uniform of a European general!
At that time
the Court etiquette was so strict, my accompanist was
not permitted
into His Majesty's drawing room, and this was told
me beforehand.
I had a good remplacement, as my ambassador, Count
Zaluski, who
had been a pupil of Liszt, was able himself to
accompany me.
You will be astonished when I tell you that, having
chosen for the
first piece in the programme my transcription for
the violin, of
a C sharp minor polonaise by Chopin, a musical
piece of the
most intrinsic value and poetic depths, the Emperor,
when I had
finished, intimated to Count Ito, his first minister,
that I should
play it again. The Japanese taste is good. I was
laden with
presents of untold value, one item only being a
gold-lacquer
box of the seventeenth century. I played in
and outside
There I made an
interesting excursion to the Portuguese possession
of
very
interesting to see outside the Chinese town of
European
Portuguese town which to this very day has remained
unchanged since
the sixteenth century. In the midst of the
exquisite
tropical vegetation of Java, and despite the terrific
heat, I gave
sixty-two concerts in sixty-seven days, travelling
all over the
island, inspecting its antiquities, the chief of
which is a most
wonderful Buddhist temple, the Boro Budhur, or
Many Buddhas.
This building contains six miles of figures, and is
a solid pile of
stone, larger than the pyramids. They have, these
Javans, an
extraordinarily sweet orchestra in the national
Samelang which
consists of percussion instruments played by
eighteen
people; but to hear this orchestra, with its most weird
Oriental chorus
and ecstatic dances, one must have had the
privilege of
being invited by the Sultan of Solo, "Sole Emperor of
the
World." I have seen and heard nothing more dreamy and poetic
than the
Serimpis danced by nine Royal Princesses.
Where are the
Æsthetes of a few years ago? Or was this little
confederation
of the lovers of art but one of the soap-bubbles of
our fin de
siècle, rich in promise and suggestion of many a
possibility,
but dead in works and act? Or, if there are any true
lovers of art
yet left among them, why do they not organize and send
out
missionaries the world over, to tell picturesque
countries ready
to fall victims that, to imitate the
will-o'-the-wisp
of European culture and fascination, means for a
non-Christian
land, the committing of suicide; that it means
sacrificing
one's individuality for an empty show and shadow; at
best it is to
exchange the original and the picturesque for the
vulgar and the
hideous. Truly and indeed it is high time that at
last something
should be done in this direction, and before the
deceitful
civilization of the conceited nations of but yesterday has
irretrievably
hypnotized the older races, and made them succumb to
its upas-tree
wiles and supposed superiority. Otherwise, old arts
and artistic
creations, everything original and unique will very
soon disappear.
Already national dresses and time-honoured customs,
and everything
beautiful, artistic, and worth preservation is fast
disappearing
from view. At no distant day, alas, the best relics of
the past will
perhaps be found only in museums in sorry, solitary,
and be-ticketed
samples preserved under glass!
Such is the
work and the unavoidable result of our modern
civilization.
Skin-deep in reality in its visible effects, in the
"blessings"
it is alleged to have given to the world, its roots are
rotten to the
core. It is to its progress that selfishness and
materialism,
the greatest curses of the nations, are due; and the
latter will
most surely lead to the annihilation of art and of the
appreciation of
the truly harmonious and beautiful. Hitherto,
materialism has
only led to a universal tendency to unification on
the material
plane and a corresponding diversity on that of thought
and spirit. It
is this universal tendency, which by propelling
humanity,
through its ambition and selfish greed, to an incessant
chase after
wealth and the obtaining at any price of the supposed
blessings of
this life, causes it to aspire or rather gravitate to
one level, the
lowest of all – the plane of empty appearance.
Materialism and
indifference to all save the selfish realization of
wealth and
power, and the over-feeding of national and personal
vanity, have
gradually led nations and men to the almost entire
oblivion of
spiritual ideals, of the love of nature, to the correct
appreciation of
things. Like a hideous leprosy our Western
civilization
has eaten its way through all the quarters of the globe
and hardened
the human heart. "Soul-saving" is its deceitful, lying
pretext; greed
for additional revenue through opium, rum, and the
inoculation of
European vices – the real aim. In the far East it has
infected with
the spirit of imitation the higher classes of the
"pagans"
– save
respect; and in
even on the
dirty, starving proletariat itself! For the last thirty
years, as if
some deceitful semblance of a reversion to the
ancestral type
– awarded to men by the Darwinian theory in its moral
added to its
physical characteristics – were contemplated by an evil
spirit tempting
mankind, almost every race and nation under the Sun
in
the frantic
endeavor to destroy Nature in every direction, and also
every vestige
of older civilizations – far superior to our own in
arts,
godliness, and the appreciation of the grandiose and
harmonious –
must result in such national calamities. Therefore, do
we find
hitherto artistic and picturesque
the temptation
of justifying the "ape theory" by simianizing its
populations in
order to bring the country on a level with canting,
greedy and
artificial
For certainly
from its
diplomats down to its custodians of religion, from its
political down
to its social laws, selfish, greedy and brutal beyond
expression in
its grabbing characteristics. And yet there are those
who wonder at
the gradual decadence of true art, as if art could
exist without
imagination, fancy, and a just appreciation of the
beautiful in
Nature, or without poetry and high religious, hence,
metaphysical
aspirations! The galleries of paintings and sculpture,
we hear, become
every year poorer in quality, if richer in quantity.
It is lamented
that while there is a plethora of ordinary
productions,
the greatest scarcity of remarkable pictures and
statuary
prevails. Is this not most evidently due to the facts that
(a) the artists
will very soon remain with no better models than
nature morte
(or "still life") to inspire themselves with; and (b)
that the chief
concern is not the creation of artistic objects, but
their speedy
sale and profits? Under such conditions, the fall of
true art is
only a natural consequence.
Owing to the
triumphant march and the invasion of civilization,
Nature, as well
as man and ethics, is sacrificed, and is fast
becoming artificial.
Climates are changing, and the face of the
whole world
will soon be altered. Under the murderous hand of the
pioneers of
civilization, the destruction of whole primeval forests
is leading to
the drying up of rivers, and the opening of the Canal
of
divert the
course of the
now becoming
cold and rainy, and fertile lands threaten to be soon
transformed
into sandy deserts. A few years more and there will not
remain within a
radius of fifty miles around our large cities one
single rural
spot inviolate-from vulgar speculation. In scenery, the
picturesque and
the natural is daily replaced by the grotesque and
the artificial.
Scarce a landscape in
nature is
desecrated by the advertisements of "Pears' Soap" and
"Beecham's
Pills." The pure air of the country is polluted with
smoke, the
smells of greasy railway-engines, and the sickening
odours of gin,
whiskey, and beer. And once that every natural spot
in the
surrounding scenery is gone, and the eye of the painter finds
but the
artificial and hideous products of modern speculation to
rest upon,
artistic taste will have to follow suit and disappear
along with them>
"No man
ever did or ever will work well, but either from actual
sight or sight
of faith," says Ruskin, speaking of art. Thus, the
first quarter
of the coming century may witness painters of
landscapes, who
have never seen an acre of land free from human
improvement;
and painters of figures whose ideas of female beauty of
form will be
based on the wasp-like pinched-in waists of corseted,
hollow-chested
and consumptive society belles. It is not from such
models that a
picture deserving of the definition of Horace – "a
poem without
words" – is produced. Artificially draped Parisiennes
and
can never
replace the genuine article; and both free Bedouins and
genuine Italian
peasant girls are, thanks to "civilization," fast
becoming things
of the past. Where shall artists find genuine models
in the coming
century, when the hosts of the free Nomads of the
Desert, and
perchance all the Negro tribes of
remain of them
after their decimation by Christian cannons, and the
rum and opium
of the Christian civilizer – will have donned European
coats and top
hats? And that this is precisely what awaits art under
the beneficial
progress of modern civilization, is self-evident to
all.
Aye! let us
boast of the blessings of civilization, by all
means. Let us
brag of our sciences and the grand discoveries of the
age, its
achievements in mechanical arts, its railroads, telephones
and electric
batteries; but let us not forget, meanwhile, to
purchase at
fabulous prices (almost as great as those given in our
day for a prize
dog, or an old prima donna's song) the paintings and
statuary of
uncivilized, barbarous antiquity and of the middle ages:
for such
objects of art will be reproduced no more. Civilization has
tolled their
eleventh hour. It has rung the death-knell of the old
arts, and the
last decade of our century is summoning the world to
the funeral of
all that was grand, genuine, and original in the old
civilizations.
Would Raphael, O ye lovers of art, have created one
single of his
many Madonnas, had he had, instead of Fornarina and
the once
Juno-like women of the Trastevero of
genius, only
the present-day models, or the niched Virgins of the
nooks and
corners of modern
boots? Or would
Andrea del Sarto have produced his famous "Venus and
Cupid"
from a modern
victims to
fashion – holding under the shadow of a gigantic hat a la
mousquetaire,
feathered like the scalp of an Indian chief, a dirty,
scrofulous brat
from the slums? How could Titian have ever
immortalized
his golden-haired patrician ladies of
been compelled
to move all his life in the society of our actual
"professional
beauties," with their straw-colored, dyed capillaries
that transform
human hair into the fur of a yellow Angora cat? May
not one venture
to state with the utmost confidence that the world
would never
have had the Athena Limnia of Phidias – that ideal of
beauty in face
and form – had Aspasia, the Milesian, or the fair
daughters of
other,
disfigured that "form" with stays and bustle, and coated that
"face"
with white enamel, after the fashion of the varnished
features of the
mummies of the dead Egyptians.
We see the same
in architecture. Not even the genius of Michael
Angelo himself
could have failed to receive its death-blow at the
first sight of
the
horrible still,
the Albert Memorial. Nor, for the matter of that,
could it have
received any suggestive idea from the Colosseum and
the palace of
the Cæsars, in their present whitewashed and repaired
state! Whither,
then, shall we, in our days of civilization, go to
find the
natural, or even simply the picturesque? Is it still to
waters be as
blue and transparent as on the day when the people of
Cumæ selected
its shores for a colony, and its surrounding scenery
as gloriously
beautiful as ever – thanks to that spirit of mimicry
which has
infected sea and land, has now lost its most artistic and
most original
features. It is bereft of its lazy, dirty, but
intensely
picturesque figures of old; of its lazzaroni and
barcarolos, its
fishermen and country girls. Instead of the former's
red or blue
Phrygian cap, and the latter's statuesque, half-nude
figure and
poetical rags, we see nowadays but the caricatured
specimens of
modern civilization and fashion. The gay tarantella
resounds no
longer on the cool sands of the moonlit shore; it is
replaced by
that libel on Terpsychore, the modern quadrille, in the
gas-lit,
gin-smelling sailor's trattorias. Filth still pervades the
land, as of
yore; but it is made the more apparent on the threadbare
city coat, the
mangled chimney-pot hat and the once fashionable, now
cast-away
European bonnet. Picked up in the hotel gutters, they now
grace the
unkempt heads of the once picturesque Neapolitans. The
type of the
latter has died out, and there is nothing to distinguish
the lazzaroni
from the Venetian gondoliere, the Calabrian brigand,
or the London
street-sweeper and beggar. The still, sunlit waters of
Canal Grande
bear no longer their gondolas, filled on festival days
with gaily
dressed Venetians, with picturesque boatmen and girls.
The black
gondola that glides silently under the heavy caned
balconies of
the old patrician palazze, reminds one now more of a
black floating
coffin, with a solemn-looking, dark-clothed
undertaker
paddling it on towards the
thirty years
ago.
of Austrian
slavery from which it was rescued by Napoleon III. Once
on shore, its
gondoliere is scarcely distinguishable from his
"fare,"
the British M.P. on his holiday-tour in the old city of the
Doges. Such is
the levelling hand of all-destroying civilization.
It is the same
all over
decade ago,
every
clean and fresh
as it was peculiar. Now the people are ashamed to
wear it. They
want to be mistaken for foreign guests, to be regarded
as a civilized
nation which follows suit even in fashion. Cross over
to
garlic is alone
left to remind one of the poetry of the old days in
the country of
the Cid. The graceful mantilla has almost
disappeared;
the proud hidalgo-beggar has taken himself off from the
street-corner;
the nightly serenades of love-sick Romeos are gone
out of fashion;
and the duenna contemplates going in for woman's
rights. The
members of the "Social Purity" Associations may say
"thank
God" to this and lay the change at the door of Christian and
moral reforms
of civilization. But has morality gained anything in
have every
right to say, no. A Don Juan outside a house is less
dangerous than
one inside. Social immorality is as rife as ever – if
not more so, in
"Harper's
Guide Book" quotes in its last edition as follows: "Morals
in all classes,
especially in the higher, are in the most degraded
state. Veils,
indeed, are thrown aside, and serenades are rare, but
gallantry and
intrigue are as active as ever. The men think little
of their
married obligations; the women . . . are willing victims of
unprincipled
gallantry." (
is but on a par
with all other countries civilized or now
civilizing, and
is assuredly not worse than many another country
that could be
named; but that which may be said of it with truth is,
that what it
has lost in poetry through civilization, it has gained
in hypocrisy
and loose morals. The Cortejo has turned into the petit
creve'; the
castanets have become silent, because, perhaps, the
noise of the
uncorked champagne bottles affords more excitement to
the rapidly
civilizing nation; and the Andalouse au teint bruni
having taken to
cosmetics and face-enamel, "la Marquesa d' Almedi"
may be said to
have been buried with Alfred de Musset.
The gods have
indeed been propitious to the
permitted it to
be burnt before its chaste Moresque beauty had been
finally
desecrated, as are the rock-cut temples of
Pyramids and
other relics, by drunken orgies. This superb relic of
the Moors had
already suffered, once before, by Christian
improvement. It
is a tradition still told in
too, that the
monks of Ferdinand and Isabella had made of
that
"palace of petrified flowers dyed with the hues of the wings of
angels" –
a filthy prison for thieves and murderers. Modern
speculators
might have done worse; they might have polluted its
walls and
pearl-inlaid ceilings, the lovely gilding and stucco, the
fairy-like
arabesques, and the marble and gossamer-like carvings,
with commercial
advertisements, after the Inquisitors had already
once before
covered the building with whitewash and permitted the
prison-keepers
to use Alhambra Halls for their donkeys and cattle.
Doubting but little
that the fury of the Madrilenos for imitating
the French and
English must have already, at this stage of modern
civilization,
infected every
lovely country
as dead. A friend speaks, as an eye-witness, of
"cocktails"
spilled near the marble fountain of the
the blood-marks
left by the hapless Abancerages slain by Boabdil,
and of a
Parisian cancan pur sang performed by working girls and
soldiers of
But these are
only trifling signs of the time and the spread of
culture among
the middle and the lower classes. Wherever the spirit
of aping
possesses the heart of the nation – the poor working
classes – there
the elements of nationality disappear and the
country is on
the eve of losing its individuality and all things
change for the
worse. What is the use of talking so loudly of "the
benefits of
Christian civilization," of its having softened public
morals, refined
national customs and manners, etc., etc., when our
modern
civilization has achieved quite the reverse! Civilization has
depended, for
ages, says Burke, "upon two principles . . . the
spirit of a
gentleman and the spirit of religion." And how many true
gentlemen have
we left, when compared even with the days of
half-barbarous
knighthood? Religion has become canting hypocrisy and
the genuine
religious spirit is regarded now-a-days as insanity.
Civilization,
it is averred, "has destroyed brigandage, established
public
security, elevated morality and built railways which now
honeycomb the
face of the globe." Indeed? Let us analyze seriously
and impartially
all these "benefits" and we shall soon find that
civilization
has done nothing of the kind. At best it has put a
false nose on
every evil of the Past, adding hypocrisy and false
pretence to the
natural ugliness of each. If it is true to say that
it has put down
in some civilized centers of
the
highway-men, it
is also as true that it has, thereby, destroyed
robbery only as
a specialty, the latter having now become a common
occupation in
every city great or small. The robber and cut-throat
has only
exchanged his dress and appearance by donning the livery of
civilization –
the ugly modern attire. Instead of being robbed under
the vault of
thick woods and the protection of darkness, people are
robbed
now-a-days under the electric light of saloons and the
protection of
trade-laws and police-regulations. As to open
day-light
brigandage, the Mafia of
Sicily, with
high officialdom, population, police, and jury forced
to play into
the hands of regularly organized bands of murderers,
thieves, and
tyrants1 in the full glare of European "culture," show
how far our
civilization has succeeded in establishing public
security, or
Christian religion in softening the hearts of men and
the ways and
customs of a barbarous past. Modern Cyclopædias are
very fond of
expatiating upon the decadence of
horrors. But if
the latest editions of the Dictionary of Greek and
Roman Biography
were honest enough to make a parallel between those
"monsters
of depravity" of ancient civilization, Messalina and
Faustina, Nero
and Commodus, and modern European aristocracy, it
might be found
that the latter could give odds to the former – in
social
hypocrisy, at any rate. Between "the shameless and beastly
debauchery"
of an Emperor Commodus, and as beastly a depravity of
more than one
"Honourable," high official representative of the
people, the
only difference to be found is that while Commodus was a
member of all
the sacerdotal colleges of Paganism, the modern
debauchee may
be a high member of the Evangelical Christian
Churches, a
distinguished and pious pupil of Moody and Sankey and
what not. It is
not the Calchas of Homer, who was the type of the
Calchas in the
Operette "La Belle Helene," but the modern sacerdotal
Pecksniff and
his followers.
As to the blessings
of railways and "the annihilation of space
and time,"
it is still an undecided question – without speaking of
the misery and
starvation the introduction of steam engines and
machinery in
general has brought for years on those who depend on
their manual
labour – whether railways do not kill more people in
one month than
the brigands of all
year. The
victims of railroads, moreover, are killed under
circumstances
which surpass in horror anything the cut-throats may
have devised.
One reads almost daily of railway disasters in which
people are
"burned to death in the blazing wreckage," "mangled and
crushed out of
recognition" and killed by dozens and scores.2 This
is a trifle
worse than the highwaymen of old Newgate.
Nor has crime
been abated at all by the spread of civilization;
though owing to
the progress of science in chemistry and physics, it
has become more
secure from detection and more ghastly in its
realization
than it ever has been. Speak of Christian civilization
having improved
public morals; of Christianity being the only
religion which
has established and recognized Universal Brotherhood!
Look at the
brotherly feeling shown by American Christians to the
Red Indian and
the Negro, whose citizenship is the farce of the age.
Witness the
love of the Anglo-Indians for the "mild Hindu," the
Mussulman, and
the Buddhist. See "how these Christians love each
other" in
their incessant law litigations, their libels against each
other, the
mutual hatred of the Churches and of the sects. Modern
civilization
and Christianity are oil and water – they will never
mix. Nations
among which the most horrible crimes are daily
perpetrated;
nations which rejoice in Tropmanns and Jack the
Rippers, in fiends
like Mrs. Reeves the trader in baby slaughter –
to the number
of 300 victims as is believed – for the sake of filthy
lucre; nations
which not only permit but encourage a
hosts of
suicides, that patronize prize-fights, bull-fights, useless
and cruel sport
and even indiscriminate vivisection – such nations
have no right
to boast of their civilization. Nations furthermore
which from
political considerations, dare not put down slave-trade
once for all,
and out of revenue-greed, hesitate to abolish opium
and whiskey
trades, fattening on the untold misery and degradation
of millions of
human beings, have no right to call themselves either
Christian or
civilized. A civilization finally that leads only to
the destruction
of every noble, artistic feeling in man, can only
deserve the
epithet of barbarous. We, the modern-day Europeans, are
Vandals as
great, if not greater than Atilla with his savage hordes.
Consummatum
est. Such is the work of our modem Christian
civilization
and its direct effects. The destroyer of art, the
Shylock, who,
for every mite of gold it gives, demands and receives
in return a
pound of human flesh, in the heart-blood, in the
physical and
mental suffering of the masses, in the loss of
everything true
and lovable – can hardly pretend to deserve grateful
or respectful
recognition. The unconsciously prophetic fin de
siècle, in
short, is the long ago foreseen fin de cycle; when
according to
Manjunâtha Sutra, "Justice will have died, leaving as
its successor
blind Law, and as its Guru and guide – Selfishness;
when wicked
things and deeds will have to be regarded as
meritorious,
and holy actions as madness." Beliefs are dying out,
divine life is
mocked at; art and genius, truth and justice are
daily sacrificed
to the insatiable mammon of the age – money
grubbing. The
artificial replaces everywhere the real, the false
substitutes the
true. Not a sunny valley, not a shadowy grove left
immaculate on
the bosom of mother nature. And yet what marble
fountain in
fashionable square or city park, what bronze lions or
tumble-down
dolphins with upturned tails can compare with an old
worm-eaten,
moss-covered, weather-stained country well, or a rural
windmill in a
green meadow! What Arc de Triomphe can ever compare
with the low
arch of Grotto Azzurra, at
Champs Elysées,
rival
birth-place of
Tasso? Ancient civilizations have never sacrificed
Nature to
speculation, but holding it as divine, have honoured her
natural
beauties by the erection of works of art, such as our modern
electric
civilization could never produce even in dream. The sublime
grandeur, the
mournful gloom and majesty of the ruined temples of
Pæstum, that
stand for ages like so many sentries over the sepulchre
of the Past and
the forlorn hope of the Future amid the mountain
wilderness of
new
civilization will ever produce. Give us the banditti who once
infested these
ruins, rather than the railroads that cut through the
old Etruscan
tombs; the first may take the purse and life of the
few; the second
are undermining the lives of the millions by
poisoning with
foul gases the sweet breath of the pure air. In ten
years, by
century xxth,
and even
fogs, thanks to
the increase of population and changes of climate.
We hear that
Speculation is preparing a new iniquity against Nature:
smoky, greasy,
stench-breathing funiculaires (baby-railways) are
being
contemplated for some world-renowned mountains. They are
preparing to
creep like so many loathsome, fire-vomiting reptiles
over the
immaculate body of the
pierce the
heart of the snow-capped Virgin mountain, the glory of
priceless
remains of the grand
over its
colossal corpse and sculptured pillars the present Custom
House?
Are we so wrong
then, in maintaining that modern civilization
with its Spirit
of Speculation is the very Genius of Destruction;
and as such,
what better words can be addressed to it than this
definition of
Burke:
"A Spirit
of innovation is generally the result of a selfish
temper and
confined views. People will not look forward to
posterity, who
never look backward to their ancestors."
Lucifer, May,
1891
H. P. Blavatsky
1 Read the
"Cut Throat's
April, 1877,
and the digest of it in the
15th, 1891,
"Murder as a Profession,"
2 To take
one instance. A Reuter's telegram from
accidents
are almost of daily occurrence, gives the following
details of a
wrecked train: "One of the cars which was attached to a
gravel train
and which contained five Italian workmen, was thrown
forward into
the center of the wreck, and the whole mass caught
fire. Two of
the men were killed outright and the remaining three
were
injured, pinioned in the wreckage. As the flames reached them
their cries
and groans were heartrending. Owing to the position of
the car and
the intense heat the rescuers were unable to reach them,
and were
compelled to watch them slowly burn to death. It is
understood
that all the victims leave families."
______________________
Cardiff
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Theosophy
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Preface
Theosophy and the Masters General Principles
The Earth Chain Body and Astral Body Kama – Desire
Manas Of Reincarnation Reincarnation Continued
Karma Kama Loka
Devachan
Cycles
Arguments Supporting Reincarnation
Differentiation Of Species Missing Links
Psychic Laws, Forces, and Phenomena
Psychic Phenomena and Spiritualism
Quick Explanations
with Links to More Detailed Info
What is Theosophy ? Theosophy Defined (More Detail)
Three Fundamental Propositions Key Concepts of Theosophy
Cosmogenesis Anthropogenesis Root Races
Ascended Masters After Death States
The Seven Principles of Man Karma
Reincarnation Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
Colonel Henry Steel Olcott William Quan Judge
The Start of the Theosophical
Society
History of the Theosophical
Society
Theosophical Society Presidents
History of the Theosophical
Society in Wales
The Three Objectives of the
Theosophical Society
Explanation of the Theosophical
Society Emblem
The Theosophical Order of
Service (TOS)
Glossaries of Theosophical Terms
Index of
Searchable
Full Text
Versions of
Definitive
Theosophical
Works
H P Blavatsky’s Secret Doctrine
Isis Unveiled by H P Blavatsky
H P Blavatsky’s Esoteric Glossary
Mahatma Letters to A P Sinnett 1 - 25
A Modern Revival of Ancient Wisdom
(Selection of Articles by H P Blavatsky)
The Secret Doctrine – Volume 3
A compilation of H P Blavatsky’s
writings published after her death
Esoteric Christianity or the Lesser Mysteries
The Early Teachings of The Masters
A Collection of Fugitive Fragments
Fundamentals of the Esoteric Philosophy
Mystical, Philosophical,
Theosophical, Historical
and Scientific
Essays Selected from "The Theosophist"
Edited by George Robert Stow Mead
From Talks on the Path of Occultism - Vol. II
In the Twilight”
Series of Articles
The In the
Twilight” series appeared during
1898 in The
Theosophical Review and
from 1909-1913
in The Theosophist.
compiled from
information supplied by
her relatives
and friends and edited by A P Sinnett
Letters and
Talks on Theosophy and the Theosophical Life
Obras
Teosoficas En Espanol
Theosophische
Schriften Auf Deutsch
An Outstanding
Introduction to Theosophy
By a student of
Katherine Tingley
Elementary Theosophy Who is the Man? Body and Soul
Body, Soul and Spirit Reincarnation Karma
Guide to the
Theosophy
Wales King Arthur Pages
Arthur draws
the Sword from the Stone
The Knights of The Round Table
The Roman Amphitheatre at Caerleon,
Eamont Bridge, Nr Penrith, Cumbria, England.
Geoffrey of Monmouth
(History of the Kings of Britain)
The reliabilty of this work has long been a subject of
debate but it is the first definitive account of Arthur’s
Reign
and one which puts Arthur in a historcal context.
and his version’s political agenda
According to Geoffrey of Monmouth
The first written mention of Arthur as a heroic figure
The British leader who fought twelve battles
King Arthur’s ninth victory at
The Battle of the City of the Legion
King Arthur ambushes an advancing Saxon
army then defeats them at Liddington Castle,
Badbury, Near Swindon, Wiltshire, England.
King Arthur’s twelfth and last victory against the Saxons
Traditionally Arthur’s last battle in which he was
mortally wounded although his side went on to win
No contemporary writings or accounts of his life
but he is placed 50 to 100 years after the accepted
King Arthur period. He refers to Arthur in his inspiring
poems but the earliest written record of these dates
from over three hundred years after Taliesin’s death.
Pendragon Castle
Mallerstang Valley, Nr Kirkby Stephen,
A 12th Century Norman ruin on the site of what is
reputed to have been a stronghold of Uther Pendragon
From wise child with no
earthly father to
Megastar of Arthurian
Legend
History of the Kings of Britain
Drawn from the Stone or received from the Lady of the Lake.
Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur has both versions
with both swords called Excalibur. Other versions
5th & 6th Century Timeline of Britain
From the departure of the Romans from
Britain to the establishment of sizeable
Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms
Glossary of
Arthur’s uncle:- The puppet ruler of the Britons
controlled and eventually killed by Vortigern
Amesbury, Wiltshire, England. Circa 450CE
An alleged massacre of Celtic Nobility by the Saxons
History of the Kings of Britain
Athrwys / Arthrwys
King of Ergyng
Circa 618 - 655 CE
Latin: Artorius; English: Arthur
A warrior King born in Gwent and associated with
Caerleon, a possible Camelot. Although over 100 years
later that the accepted Arthur period, the exploits of
Athrwys may have contributed to the King Arthur Legend.
He became King of Ergyng, a kingdom between
Gwent and Brycheiniog (Brecon)
Angles under Ida seized the Celtic Kingdom of
Bernaccia in North East England in 547 CE forcing
Although much later than the accepted King Arthur
period, the events of Morgan Bulc’s 50 year campaign
to regain his kingdom may have contributed to
Old Welsh: Guorthigirn;
Anglo-Saxon: Wyrtgeorn;
Breton: Gurthiern; Modern Welsh; Gwrtheyrn;
*********************************
An earlier ruler than King Arthur and not a heroic figure.
He is credited with policies that weakened Celtic Britain
to a point from which it never recovered.
Although there are no contemporary accounts of
his rule, there is more written evidence for his
existence than of King Arthur.
How Sir Lancelot slew two giants,
From Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur
How Sir Lancelot rode disguised
in Sir Kay's harness, and how he
From Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur
How Sir Lancelot jousted against
four knights of the Round Table,
From Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur
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Cardiff
Theosophical Society in Wales
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24 -1DL