Tag: history

Archaic Deity – Archaic Iconography…

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Many depictions of deity are a tad dated. They arose in times when the power of kings and emperors was quasi absolute. The iconography has “radioactive” halos around sainted beings, chariots, swords and thrones. There are arguments about who stands or sits around the throne and on which side various beings are to be found. There are crowns and often a patrilineal succession of power. Humanity obsesses about organisational flow charts of the heavens and in the past who had career advancement amongst the Gods depended upon level of obedience and sycophancy. The celestial “human” resources department had severance packages to negotiate.

Fear of God put bums on seats and pennies on the collection plate.

These days the power of kings is much diminished. We don’t drive roman chariots all that much. The machete has replaced the short sword. The Heckler and Koch automatic has replaced the spear. The ultimate symbol of mundane power is a ginormous nuclear powered aircraft carrier equipped with stealth bombers. Thrones are old hat.

In constructing a deity and a pecking order of them, whether that be of Gods and angels or Buddhas and bodhisattvas, the notions are related to the mundane order of things. The iconography perhaps an aid for the illiterate. In many cases the “clergy” asserted power over flock and encouraged supplication therefrom. The “clergy” encouraged a notion that they were higher, perhaps better and more revered than the lay. The churches and temples extracted wealth and called it meritorious. It might help your journey in the afterlife to fund the claret of a bishop. It was a good pitch. People can read and think now.

I am not sure older notions of Gods and Buddhas wash as well these days. Despite what fragrances Unilever might add. Subscription to religious providers it probably falling all over the world.

There is a glaring difference in iconography between the seated tranquil garden statue Buddha and the tortured crucified Christ bleeding from his crown of thorns. This despite much similarity in their teachings. Man has emphasised the suffering of Jesus over his peaceful message. It prefers to show images of internecine cruelty and suffering rather than brotherly love. In our time there is much need both for tranquillity and for love.

Religious iconography is very often chavvy and overly ornate. It is showy and “look at me”.

“We have shit loads of gold! We the clergy must be powerful! Kneel pleb!”

Modern military power does not lend itself to very personal, even familial iconography. There is no big hearted daddy on the throne. Rather a couple of old men, fingers above a red button, ready to embody Shiva the destroyer aspect of deity. It is not an image of fatherly love. It is one of pendant wrath and nuclear winter.

Notions of deity need updating in a manner more suitable for modern mind, modern living. And no I do not mean a Marvel escapist universe. The sublime needs divorced from the family drama and the incestuous and the Machiavellian.

Spirit and consciousness needs to evolve away from the zoomorphic whilst retaining the feelings and value. A new form of understanding might spring from where we find ourselves now, so very obsessed with corporeal image and public relations spin-bullshit. Petabytes of images are quite a quagmire for the minds of mankind.

Yup…I think the old forms of iconography and depictions of deity are looking rather dated and may no longer be fit for purpose.

We may even need a thorough review of what we imagine deity and/or a God to be.

I wonder how might we imagine and create a God 2.0 ?

What is on the Cards – Tarot – V&A

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I first started looking into Tarot around 2001. At the time I was an academic in Physical Chemistry at Imperial College London. I was very busy and a part of my job involved considering the second order non linear susceptibility of surfaces and probing these with femtosecond laser pulses.

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It probably wasn’t on the cards that I would share these two interests. Needless to say I did not soap box about tarot to my colleagues, lead ballons and all that.

Last night YouTube suggested a short video from the V&A about tarot and the history thereof. I watched it and found out about Minchiate and subsequently Sicilian tarot. I also found out that you can request to examine and handle some of the collection. The video was well made and interesting.

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« Le minchiate est un jeu de cartes du début du XVIe siècle, originaire de Florence, en Italie, qui n’est quasiment plus joué depuis le XXe siècle. Très proche du tarot, mais plus complexe, il se caractérise par le nombre important d’atouts qu’il utilise : 40, là où le tarot n’en comprend généralement que 21, pour un total de 97 cartes. »

The V&A has a nice web page on the history of Tarot, click here.

In the past I was more often found across the road in the science museum where I, on occasion, explained various exhibits to a little person. Often I would attract a small crowd who pretended not to listen in to what I was saying. The science museum seemed more natural, home turf.

The idea of emailing the V&A collection room to ask to inspect tarot cards from my old Imperial address tickled my fancy. Would they note it and find it odd?

Anyway I have a PowerPoint slide pack course in which I relate tarot to the Kabbalah tree of life and the various paths thereupon, to the Toltec Jewels of Awareness and to the evolution of inherent and evolving awareness. If I remember correctly Théun used to say that it was the Toltecs who invented tarot as a means of communication under things like the catholic inquisition. Anyone who threatened the supremacy of the church was subject to torture and death. The church had a stake in keeping control and power and it burned others on stakes. Tarot being arcane could be hidden under a cover story from prying eyes.

I’ll wager that more people use tarot than second order non-linear hyperpolarizability tensors. Hyperpolarizability is more arcane than tarot.

Back then I looked in detail at much so-called occult literature with the skill set of someone who can read matrices, and spot patterns. I found a lot of the published work shoddy and inconsistent.

I have a weak notion, that I am probably uniquely placed to relate so-called occultism, Toltec, Tarot and Buddhism with the critical thinking of a once pukka scientist.

In the 1990s I never knew that tarot was on the cards for me, though I had started to use I Ching for divination and shamanic journeying to request guidance from the universe. The shaman’s drum and the optical parametric oscillator do not see natural bedfellows. Seemed pretty darned normal to me.

The history of things like tarot will always be largely the overt and exoteric because the esoteric and hidden, is not in the public domain.

I personally cannot get on with the more modern tarot decks, using the tarot de Marseilles almost all of the time. I don’t do cartomancy but allow the major arcana to add pictorial clues to whichever Jewel of Awareness is in play or needs to be used.

I do dream tarot cards from time to time. This may not be common.

Let me be clear occult as I use it means difficult to see, partially hidden from view and not the bleeding obvious. It has nothing to do with Satan nor any dark ritual magic.

There are enough evil people in the world who are successful in the ordinary socio-political and pecuniary sense. They don’t need upside down pentagrams and goat heads. They are just nasty evil selfish people.

I still don’t know what is on the cards for the rest of this year / life …

Past Life CVs or Resumés

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As a part of application for jobs it is not uncommon to be asked to provide a curriculum vitae (CV) or resumé. Often one is asked for references of referees. The offer of job is therefore based on something one writes oneself and what some other geezers say about you. If I understand it correctly it is not uncommon {these days} to do a social media trawl on an applicant and get them to sign some corporate social media usage contract if the application is successful. If people want to work, they must not express any controversial opinion or behaviour in public, there is a kind of thought police. PR concerns may be more important than ability to do the tasks required, adequately or well. The world is an edgy place with PR driven cancel culture.

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In this context I can say that my current incarnation is as a retired person specialising in gardening and DIY. The only person on earth who could write me a reference which is less than five years old is the wife. I have not been employed by a company or institution for nearly twenty years, so there is nobody who could write me, with any honesty, a reference less than ~ two decades old. The logic of this is that I am not qualified for any job which requires a current written or oral reference.

I could say that in a prior incarnation I was a university lecturer. The phlebotomist yesterday asked me why I needed a Ph.D. in chemistry and I said that a long time ago in a land far away I once taught at a university in London.

It is very much like a prior incarnation, an entirely different and pressured existence in a place with a high human density per cubic metre, a prior life. A different world entirely. I said to her, “Londres, c’est fou!”

Why do CVs not extend to prior incarnations?

Few actually check in detail what is claimed in CVs for even the current life. Though no doubt there will be CV fraud and certainly exaggeration. People are encouraged to big up the CV and add a hype polish. It may be interesting to do a statistical analysis of distortion in CVs submitted.

As far as I know only one culture is interested in past-life CVs, prior incarnations and that is the Tibeto-Bhutanese-Nepalese one, which extends by exile into India. Reincarnated Rinpoche Lamas, Tulkus, have travelled to and taught in the west. In that context a great deal of respect is offered to these beings and they get the throne of a lamasery or even to lead a country based upon their rebirth CV which may extend back more than ten incarnations.

How would you behave if you met a Rinpoche tulku lama? Would that differ to the criticism in your head about hocus pocus? Would you go through the motions or refuse to go along with charade?

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People who may not believe in reincarnation might offer respect to a high tulku lama if they meet in a certain cultural context. How they might behave in a pub or coffee shop could be a different matter. Kudos is of course culture specific, yet there is some transferability. An anointed Nobel prizewinning scientist has kudos in Academica and more widely, they have the stardust of deity attached. There are even questions about them on University Challenge!! This ranks them with Tintoretto and Da Vinci.

A CV is meant to be a witness of experience and kudos harvested. If you have been to a famous institution {not asylum} you get CV brownie points. A mere whisper of Harvard sprinkles some magic dust of assumed elite braininess and knowledge. You could have been shit, but the name-kudos camouflages this.

It is very difficult to check the truth of many CV claims. Employers tend not to keep aged records. I could make factual claims {according to my recollections} about where I was employed. But to get supportive records from human resources there may not be facile. I could, knowing this, make some shit up. Proof may not exist, not even in the pudding. There is an unwritten assumption that CVs are not complete packs of lies.

I have circumstantial evidence which suggests that I have had two {three} lifetimes as a Buddhist practitioner {monk / priest}. Does that mean I can put it on my CV to apply for jobs as a Buddhist teacher? Nobody alive could offer me a current reference because they all carked it centuries ago and I have not found them again in this lifetime. If things for prior lives are as difficult to prove as those from current lives why not put them on the CV.

There is a part of me, which might like to submit a CV dating back 3000 B.C.E for a job position just to see if they responded, binned it or kept in “on file” because there were other applicants more suited to the job description dogma grid. My bet would be zero response. I could then telephone to inquire…

Perhaps I could then write a movie script…

“A long time ago in a land far away…”

“A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away….”

3000 B.C.E. Son of a Brahman Indus Valley, Northern India

The Bronze Age in the Indian subcontinent begins around 3000 BCE, and in the end gives rise to the Indus Valley Civilisation, which had its (mature) period between 2600 BCE and 1900 BCE. It continues into the Rigvedic period, the early part of the Vedic period. It is succeeded by the Iron Age in India, beginning in around 1000 BCE.

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Standard cubic weights from the Indus Valley 2600-1900 BCE

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Cubic “dice” made by me {unknowing} for Tibetan Mo divination, Brittany 2024 CE.

The measurments are made with a high precision capacitance micrometer and are accurate to plus or minus 0.01 mm..

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The Slippery Slope to Totalitarianism

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Postulate:

Humanity has a short memory and fails to learn from the past.

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The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). It was launched by Mao Zedong in 1966 and lasted until 1976. Its publicly stated goal was to preserve Chinese socialism by purging remnants of capitalist and traditional elements from Chinese society.

In May 1966, with the help of the Cultural Revolution Group, Mao launched the Revolution and said that bourgeois elements had infiltrated the government and society with the aim of restoring capitalism. Mao called on young people to bombard the headquarters and proclaimed that “to rebel is justified”. Mass upheaval began in Beijing with Red August in 1966. Many young people, mainly students, responded by forming cadres of Red Guards throughout the country. Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung became revered within his cult of personality. In 1967, emboldened radicals began seizing power from local governments and party branches, establishing new revolutionary committees in their place while smashing public security, procuratorate and judicial systems. These committees often split into rival factions, precipitating armed clashes among the radicals. After the fall of Lin Biao in 1971, the Gang of Four became influential in 1972, and the Revolution continued until Mao’s death in 1976, soon followed by the arrest of the Gang of Four.

From Wikipedia

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The first step towards totalitarianism is to purge those who are against you and promote loyal brown nosers and supporters. Sycophantic yes-men are preferred over anyone who queries even if said queries are wise.

The intelligentsia must be crippled and undermined, democracy called into question and belittled. Propaganda is more important than fact. Short adamant statements hook and are preferred over detail.

Any voice to the contrary must be silenced, preferably in public and painfully so.

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Postulate:

The cult of the personality is on the rise in humanity at large.

Substance and ethics are demoted and no longer important. Mini-me types are cloning themselves. We are sleep walking into very retrograde times.

People are easily drawn into group mind which prevents true thinking. Grievance can be exploited to garner support. Give someone an enemy and they will fall in behind you against them. Enemies unite rabbles and crowds.

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Postulate:

Humanity has an anathema for inconvenient truths.

Humanity prefers any story or “plan” which means that they do not have to change their ways. If someone says that anthropogenic climate change is exaggerated that is easier to believe, because they want to. There is confirmation bias. People prefer to stick their heads in the sand rather than change. The bringer of messages which go against the inconvenient truths is a hero, a friend, “I told you so!”

Goebbels comments here on the power of mantra, the repetition of which can be black magic.

Postulate:

There is no such thing as a sustainable quick fix, this is an inconvenient truth.

Immediacy does not solve anything, knee jerks are never considered they are at best reactive.

Focused blame cultures and look-at-me attempts to fix “single-issue” problems are misguided if popular. It is easier to blame external factors than to accept responsibility and work hard at root cause.

Postulate:

China and Russia were never communist despite finger pointing to the contrary. They were / are totalitarian or authoritarian at best.

The bogey man of communism is an American invention, it has never been realised. Western quasi-socialism of the last century is the closest humanity has come to that ideal.

Postulate:

The cult of the personality is a very dangerous and a slippery slope. This too is an inconvenient truth.

There are numerous examples of this cult currently active and perhaps growing in the so-called democratic West. People can get easily caught up in the faux-euphoria of group mind and its sense of belonging.

Narcissists however have absolutely zero notion of loyalty and are fickle, motivated only by their own desires. Supporters are not shown the loyalty expected and demanded of them.

Postulate:

Humanity is again on the slippery slope to widespread totalitarianism pretending to be democracy.

The Glamour of Secret Knowledge

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In the film “Bullet Proof Monk” a bunch of Nazis go to what looks like Tibet in order to gain a magical scroll which will grant them secret knowledge and near super-powers. The ageing guardian of the scroll is shot in the raid and the burden of keeping it safe and secret passes to a younger monk. There is a magical transference of sorts.

In real life an SS sponsored mission did go to Tibet in 1938-9 and the lead, a Dr Schaefer, was interrogated at the end of the war by USFET Military Intelligence

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Tibet Explorer & Scientist With SS-Sponsored Scientific Institutes
(Including Answers to USFET Special Interrogation Brief No. 104)

United States Forces – European Theater
Military Intelligence Service Center
APO 757 Final Interrogation Report (OI-FIR) No. 32 Feb. 12, 1946.

Schaefer was a member of Das Ahnenerbe, the organization founded by Himmler in 1935 to investigate a variety of scientific and pseudo-scientific problems raised in Germany following the Nazi ascension to power. He belonged also to the Freundeskreis, which included many high SS leaders and German industrialists. Through the success of his last Tibetan expedition of 1938-1939, which was sponsored mainly by Nazi organizations, Schaefer became an outstanding representative of National Socialist science and of considerable propaganda value for the SS. After his return to Germany from this expedition, he was welcomed personally by Himmler. Subsequently he headed the following three scientific organizations: the Sven Hedin Institute, the Instruction and Research Foundation for Horse-Breeding, and the Instruction and Research Institute for Plant Genetics, all of which were connected with Ahnenerbe.

Now he claims that he used the SS solely to obtain the means for his scientific work. He is very helpful in all matters which do not involve himself, and his statements seem to be reliable. The information contained in this report has been confirmed by Miss Friedlieb of Homburg and Mrs. Lehmann of Frankfurt Ginbach, Schaefer’s former secretaries, who were interrogated at their homes.

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Schaefer was able to correspond with Reting Rinpoche the regent of Tibet and the Nechung Oracle who was relatively new to the post Ta Lama Lobsang Namgyal. The oracle had been involved with the finding the 14th Dalai Lama in ~1937.

All of whom are characters in the film Kundun.

The photo of the oracle on Wikipedia is Schaefer’s. So, he must have been very welcome if he was allowed to get close enough to photograph. See the text caption.

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It is reported that he took back to Germany a copy of all 108 volumes of the Tibetan canon, the Kangyur.

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Out of a fact often comes extrapolation.

There are many stories about Hitler and his interest in the occult and esotericism. In my experience Germanic efficiency is efficient and organised. It is likely that Hitler and his nasty pals, if they were interested, would have kept records, archives.

People who lust after power also lust after short cuts. It is pretty obvious that Hitler did not bat on the same team as Jesus. It is not a stretch to deem him evil, a nasty piece of work.

So, what happened to Hitler’s occult archives, did they find their way to Moscow, were they shipped to Argentina or Brazil, or did they go to US or UK intelligence services?

The problem is that a scroll or a document cannot grant its owner, whether rightful or not, powers. The guide book, the grimoire needs practice and skill. To wield “magic shit” the person needs discipline, training and practise. There is probably no “ta-dah” moment when some talisman or other grants powers. Life is not like that. Even dark power must be earned. There is no fairy god mother.

The idea of secret knowledge, the holy grail, is salacious to humans. This is because people are lazy. It is very glamorous and makes for entertaining movies. The more secret something is the more exciting it is, for some. Knowledge from the past unearthed by Harrison Ford or Angelina Jolie is unlikely to change the balance of power geo-politically. Magic from the days of Atlantis is best kept buried beneath the waves which it called forth.

It stands to reason that there will be some surveillance of things like the occult. The USA even had a programme looking into “Remote Viewing”. On the off chance that telepathy, telekinesis and things like remote viewing work it would make sense to keep an eye on them. Even if that eye is sceptical.

What are the crazy mystical Russians doing?

Why did China invade Tibet the home of the so-called Masters of Wisdom?

China has a long occult history.

What exactly are in the vast Tibetan libraries?

It is said that knowledge is neutral. It can be used for good or evil dependent upon the user.

If people were not interested in “secret knowledge” Harry Potter would have been a flop.

Secrecy is exciting for some; it hints at power over others. But secrecy leads to darkness and in the darkness strange things grow…

Humans struggle to resist temptation…

Flying – Erice – Cross Pattée Gules {Templar} – 01-09-2012

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In the write up to this dream I have referred to a Maltese cross. However, the sketch is of a Cross Pattée Gules or Templar cross.

I am flying above the earth soaring over landscapes. I am above Erice in Sicily and fly over the landscape there. I can see the bays and mountains. In the distance I can see a cross superimposed on the mountains. I can see the cross above Rio De Janeiro. I fly over to it and see the statue of Christ the Redeemer. I can see the details of its construction.

I continue flying and come to a rocky outcrop at the top of a mountain. I stand there at the top of a cliff and look down to the sea below. It is a long way down. I sense vertigo.

Again and again, I fly to this place, embossed in the stone is a Maltese {actually Templar} cross.

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 I see the image both in stone and coloured red. The flight to this place and the cross repeats multiple times.

There is an inscription in Latin around the cross. I stand beside, view and contemplate.

A coloured tunnel opens in the dreamscape and I am taken through it from the scene direct to my bed.

Dream ends

I have / had tremendous déjà vu at both Erice and Malta. I felt instantly at home in either place.

My hypothesis is that this stems from two lifetimes ago when I was a Christian priest / warrior.

“Contrary to popular belief, when Hugues de Payns and his eight companions founded the Order of the Temple in 1118, they were not wearing this cross. They wore only a white cloak, a symbol of purity and light. This distinguished them from the other Crusader knights, all of whom wore a cloth cross sewn onto their clothing, in a different colour depending on their origin. The French wore a red cross, the English a white one, the Flemish and Germans a green (or later a black) one, the Italians a yellow one and the Angevins a light green one.

It was not until 1147, eleven years after the death of Hugues de Payns, that Pope Eugene III granted the Knights Templar the privilege of wearing the Cross of Gules (red) on their clothing, the colour of which recalled the blood they had shed in defence of the Holy Land. The colour red was also a reminder of the Order’s French origins, since the red cross was, as we have seen, the mark of the French Crusaders.”

Excerpted from:

https://www.nos-colonnes.com/en/blogs/our-items/significance-and-origin-of-the-templar-cross

The Future Schools of Meditation

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Over a century ago the Tibetan outlined a “plan” for the future schools of meditation.

It is well known that “no plan survives first contact”.

I was involved in a new age group at the turn of the millennium we met for retreats initially in Wales and later in Scotland. I am aware of other experiments in the antipodes and Scandinavia.

September 28th, 1920

Today our second point comes up for consideration, and we shall in the elucidation of it enter into the realms of prophecy. I would here point out to you that the thing which is indicated as existing in the future may not always work out in detail as foreseen. I but seek to lay before you the big general plan in its outline. The working out in the future will depend upon the intuition or high perception of the thinkers of the race and upon the ability of the incarnating jivas to seize upon the opportunities and fulfil their destiny.

We touched yesterday upon the one fundamental school with its four branches. Today I would take up:

2. The National Subdivisions of the One School

At the outset I would point out to you that not every nation in the world will have its occult school. Only as the causal body of the national group has reached a certain rate of vibration will it be possible to found and institute these schools. Only as the educational work of the nation has reached a certain height will it be possible to use the mental equipment of the nation as a stepping stone for further expansion, and to use it as a basis for the occult school. And, curiously enough, only those nations which originally had a training school for the mysteries (with three exceptions) will be again, during the earlier stages, permitted national schools.

  1. Great Britain.
  2. Canada and the United States.
  3. Australia.

And even these exceptions might be considered only one, the case of Australia, for the other two in Atlantean days had their occult foundations when they formed part of the earlier continent. In the turning of the wheel, earth itself reincarnates; places pass into pralaya and emerge into manifestation, holding within them the seeds that will eventuate in similar vibration, and bring into being again similar modes of expression, and similar forms.

It will be found later on, when the Occult Schools are founded, that they will be situated where some of the old magnetism yet lingers, and where in some cases certain old talismans have been kept by the Brotherhood with just this aim in view.

Branches, affiliated with one of the four central divisions of the one occult foundation, will be found in the following countries:

  1. Egypt. This will be one of the later schools founded and will be profoundly occult and an advanced school in direct communication with the inner grades. This will be touched upon later.
  2. The United States will have a preparatory school somewhere in the southern part of the Middle West, and an extensive occult college in California in a place later to be revealed. This school will be one of the first started when the Great Lord begins His earthly career, and during the next five years the seeds of it may be laid if students rightly apprehend the work to be done.
  3. There will be one school for the Latin countries, probably in Italy or Southern France, but much depends on the political and educational work of the next ten years.
  4. Great Britain. At one of the magnetized spots in either Scotland or Wales, a branch for occult training will be begun before so very long, which will lay the foundation and embrace the curriculum for the earlier grades. After it has been in existence for a few years and has proved the effectiveness of its training, and after troubled Ireland has adjusted her internal problems, a school for the more advanced grades, and for definite preparation for the mysteries will be started in Ireland at one of the magnetized spots there to be found. This school will be very definitely a school where preparation for a major initiation may be taken, and will be under the eye of the Bodhisattva, preparing the pupil for initiation upon the second ray. The first school in Egypt will be for those who take initiation on the first ray in the occident.
    Those who take initiation on the line of the Mahachohan, or on the third ray, will take it at the advanced occult school in Italy. In this way the occident will have its center where active instruction may be given according to the three lines of approach, and which will give preparation in the inner mysteries.
  5. A preparatory occult school will be found, too, in Sweden, for those of the northern and German races who seek the Path, and when it has been extant for some time Russia may then be in a position to house the headquarters for the more advanced school affiliated to the preparatory one in Sweden. In connection with the Egyptian advanced school will be a preparatory one in Greece or in Syria.

You have, therefore, the following schools as planned, and must bear in mind that the schools wherein the preparatory work and earlier grades are found will be first in order of time, and are in process of founding now, or will be founded during the period immediately preceding the Coming of the Great Lord. The founding of others will be definitely the outcome of His work, and that of His Masters, and will depend upon Their decision as to the success of the earlier endeavor.

Preparatory GradesAdvanced School
Greece or Syria leading toEgypt
Middle West, USACalifornia, USA
Southern FranceItaly
Scotland or WalesIreland
SwedenRussia
New ZealandAustralia

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Excerpted from “Letters on Occult Meditation – Letter IX – Future Schools of Meditation”

By Alice Bailey and Djwhal Kuhl