The Theosophical Masters believed in a grand conspiracy themselves. What does this mean?

The Theosophical Masters themselves did not merely believe but claimed to know or often come across their adversaries, which they collectively referred to as the “Brothers of the Shadow,” and who they claim control a vast network. According to them, these Dark Adepts want to bring humanity under their reign of Universal Despotism, and long spiritual and mental passivity, of which the world has no idea of. They refer to themselves as, “we the misunderstood Brothers.” Conspiratorial thinking and paranoia is not only integral to America’s Birth, but is also integral to the history of the Theosophical Movement. These clandestine men believed in a conspiracy themselves, of which they identify in their time, their adversaries (the “brothers of the shadow”) as having rank among the Jesuit Order and Bhutanese lamas, among the Bon and Dukpa (Red-cap) sect. The Jesuit order in this time had just consummated its marriage to the Roman Catholic Church — an action H.P. Blavatsky shows to greatly disapprove. However, the Theosophists were swept up in gossip, slander and grand conspiracy that was rooted in the general widespread paranoia awakened by the republican revolutions, namely through lies perpetrated by the Russian Orthodoxy and Catholic Church. It is clear to see that history and the opinions of the masses, which drive it, rides down the slopes of a mountain on a countless pile of rocks of uncorrected lies, as well as bodies!

If you simply look at the contents of Edith Starr Miller’s Index content in “Occult Theocrasy” on Theosophy and the Illuminati on this subject, she argued, that all Occultism and every group were involved in a grand conspiracy to bring about Luciferianism, or Satanism. It is ironic, she was a Fascist and strongly anti-Mormon Christian. According to her, the Adepts, Brahmans, Jesuits, Gnostics, Buddhists, Zionists, Theosophists, Hindus, Italian Carbonari, Freemasons, Irish nationalists, etc., were all in cahoots. This is a highly widespread belief among the masses. The popular conspiracy does not discriminate. Everything is said to be under the strings of one political clique, or a singular cult of Saturn-worshipers, devil-worshipers, or Reptilians. Beliefs which undo all the explanations and work of people like me, scholars and historians of Religion. It encourages an extremely lazy thinking, that guises itself as a thorough investigation.

So, you see the issue here with the allurement of this “grand conspiracy,” when you add everything up. Proven hoaxes and so forth have not even factored into the picture for people. Everybody in those times were accusing each other and conspiring against each other. Today, it is even believed in and promoted by certain celebrities and music artists themselves, who accuse other celebrities and music artists of being in The Illuminati. There is a Gay Illuminati and then there is a Black Illuminati. . .and it never ends. The term is so misused and abused. Attempts to control it on the internet invites even more believers in this giant web of conspiracy. In having to untie all this bad history, cant and out-dated information, it prevents us from actually wanting to have a real conversation about who are we to really blame?

Every group has an idea on who to really blame, and they’re all pointing fingers at each other. Is it those who politically govern us, those who run the financial institutions and corporations, or are humans the true enemy of themselves? Are those who politically govern us also merely people? Is it a secret cabal of financiers people have strangely immortalized and mythologized by bestowing upon them such a dignified title, such as Illuminati? What legitimate case can be built from the ground-up against a ruling political force or regime, without carrying-over the bewildering web of old conspiracy theories that have been weaved together? These are complex questions people jump the gun about. According to H.P. Blavatsky and the “Theosophical Masters,” or secret sponsors, the reality of the situation is complex. Yes, it indeed is.

Despite repeatedly addressing, that several Theosophists have shown K. Paul Johnson’s theories on the real identities of these masters and initiates meet other conflicting accounts and rebuttals, one book that will help you understand the reality of the movement and the underground cultural milieu underlying it is in-fact The Masters Revealed: Madame Blavatsky and the Myth of the Great White Lodge. It is good to recommend, in that it may steer you away from the too fantastical notions that distort actual history. It demonstrates the ideas, strong beliefs, and reality of the struggle of many persons, from princes to revolutionaries, etc., in the 1800s directly or indirectly causing events, inspiring individuals, or becoming apart of events, influencing and founding groups and movements.

“There is more to this movement than you have yet had an inkling of, and the work of the T.S. is linked with similar work that is secretly going on in all parts of the world . . . know you anything of the whole brotherhood and its ramifications? The Old Woman is accused of untruthfulness, inaccuracy in her statements. “ask no questions and you will receive no lies.” She is forbidden to say what she knows. You may cut her to pieces and she will not tell. Nay–she is ordered in cases of need to mislead people. . .” MORYA, THE MAHATMA LETTERS TO A.P. SINNETT, 1882

And what we have managed to do, is shed some light, as best as possible, what this cause was, and whether there was an attempt to form a federation of orders in this time. The cause appears to continuously fail, despite all efforts.

H.P. Blavatsky believed that Western Masonry had been infiltrated by other secret societies, and the same forces wanted to infiltrate the Theosophical Society. However, the way she speaks about this subject differs from the way most people discuss the very idea of infiltration among secret sects and societies, because she is not an antagonist, or of orthodox tradition. The stories of surveillance and infiltration in cases whether Police, Fascists, National Socialists, the Bavarian Illuminati, Masonic Lodges and Rosicrucian Lodges centuries ago into the last century happened, but the issue is truly complex. On the other hand, many people’s views on these subjects are too skewed by confusing information, exaggerations, fear, and over a thousand years of theological controversy and polemics.

Speaking of the difference between fiction and reality, however, I consider some legitimacy to the claim of Blavatsky’s sponsors and teachers. This is that the adept man or woman is a result of evolution, and that man is more than an animal destined to live existence finding happiness in the fulfillment of dutiful prostrations and going through the motions of religious or fraternal rites; or on the other side pleasures, fame, and consumerism. Man is not a mere bundle of desires, or a ghost dragging around a meat-bag. There is a hidden source of power dormant in man, which is not allegorical, but real. It is a source for magical knowledge and intelligence of the works of natural law. You see far clearer, the illusory nature of the world; and the inner man (the real adept) and its awakening would demonstrate to the human, the existence in the world of that which has been sensed when in proximity, mortals call vaguely God, or Mind. The discovery of these hidden things would also reveal before us, differing moral paths and compasses, and types of persons with different approaches, motives, attitudes and therefore consequently even politics — who could be holy, upright, gentle-persons, indifferent, selfish, or malignant and highly cunning and intelligent. As we know in fiction, who are the bad guys or who are the good guys, or rather who to place the blame on the cause of history and whether changes are bad or good depends on perspective and even our political and religious allegiances. However, in this case, I do not contest against the existence of spiritual intelligence and spiritual evil. You only need to know of a certain number of things to get a glimpse of the potential knowledge capable of being possessed by a far more able body, or individual.

Lastly, permitting this true, one must then consider that humans have lived long enough for the development and systematization of such hidden knowledge, and for the development of the existence and divisive factions of persons and orders devoted to varying degrees of this knowledge of the two natures. As noble and moral a man can be, there exists other types of knowledge accessible to the most cunning, sensual and intelligent of individuals. For those, who are guessing what this might entail, do not guess. Fiction will only come to mind. Just consider this no different from the mind of a criminal, a complex mental case, or cheat. The potential for this exists in the case of a spiritually evil person, and is not of this plane, if you would consider the explanations of occult philosophy. Will is motion, mind and fire, and higher consciousness of the action of this motion (a principle, not a person or “demon”), in the possession of any learned person’s knowing manifests differently in accordance with one’s mental and moral condition. You have to permit, that there must be those on the side of humanity, that have been unjustly persecuted and misunderstood. Quite every cause we deal with have been characterized as the enemies of humanity secretly plotting against them at every step to take away from them their Christian faith and so forth in place of Satanism or a tyrannical political order. The doctrine of the liberation of man is so profoundly radical, because of the overwhelming nature of mass psychology. Conspiracies have been wielded well and remains the weapon of the totalitarian, and it is us who will be at the end of the pike, whenever the mass-people are directed to a scapegoat. It is best to advise skepticism. As even, the literary character Jesus in the New Testament whom billions claim to worship, adore, and respect met his fate also before an ignorant rabble and leaders with their gossip, slander and manipulated opinion.

It is sad we must sometimes speak of ourselves (the masses) in such a way, but the factor of mass psychology, the flawed nature of the brain and our animal-mammalian nature is so often and perhaps deliberately ignored or forgotten, because it pains us to look at ourselves. It is in fact, the far deeper understanding of the psychic-emotional and animal nature that particularly gives the key to those “arts” that I should not speak of here. Many animals can sense and see the world in ways we cannot even dream of; and yet we are still animals, beasts, and shadows. If we wish to possess knowledge, this factor of the herd or masses is one among many uncomfortable truths we must face, concerning this world. In ignoring it, the student can never learn to defend themselves beyond the physical, or improve the mind and save themselves from pitfalls others all too often fall into.