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Showing posts with label Wicca. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wicca. Show all posts

Monday, 11 June 2018

Blavastky & New Age Spirituality

Prayer beyond praying
Dr. Satish K. Kapoor
Prayer awakens the sixth sense-Faculty X-and shows one the path to success in whatever field one wants to operate. Madame Blavatsky, founder of the Theosophical Society, wrote (Isis Unveiled, I): Prayer is desire, and desire develops into will.
http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/life-style/gyan-zone/prayer-beyond-praying/399967.html

Where the author got this Blavatsky anecdote, I do not know:
Joy of Sharing
Saturday, May 13, 2017
https://www.assamtimes.org/node/19023

Stop Studying Success Gurus. Do This Instead.
Michael Schein
Yet Blavatsky is responsible for the popularization of Eastern spirituality in the West, which led to mass interest in activities such as yoga and meditation. Today everyone from professional athletes to Silicon Valley billionaires to neuroscientists vouch for the benefits of these practices.
https://www.inc.com/michael-schein/stop-studying-success-gurus-do-this-instead.html

Blind Faith Has No Place In Witchcraft
May 4, 2017 by Mat Auryn
While I do not blindly believe in many of the things that she taught, Helena Blavatsky once wrote that "I speak ‘with absolute certainty’ only so far as my own personal belief is concerned. Those who have not the same warrant for their belief as I have, would be very credulous and foolish to accept it on blind faith."
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/matauryn/2017/05/04/blind-faith-no-place-witchcraft/#PAyyWZaxKFspoOxy.99

Faith Healer insipired by Theosophy
https://goodmenproject.com/arts/dad-was-normal-then-he-punched-a-hole-in-a-cloud-with-his-mind-wcz/

Manly Hall gets a mainstream biography:
"Master of the Mysteries: New Revelations…" Review & Interview with Author Louis Sahagun
Tenebrous Kate June 14, 2016
https://heathenharvest.org/2016/07/29/master-of-the-mysteries-new-revelations-review-interview-with-author-louis-sahagun/

Friday, 3 February 2017

Blavatsky and Wicca

Blavatsky’s Influence on Wicca:
Where would we be without Wicca? (Part 2) June 16, 2015 - John Halstead
The “occult” is more or less synonymous with “esoteric”.  The only difference is that the former sometimes carries a pejorative connotation and the latter tends to be used more in academic discourse.  Esotericism refers to a nexus of related quasi-religious movements, sometimes called the “Western Esoteric Tradition” or the “Western Mystery Tradition”, which includes elements of Neoplatonism, Gnosticism, Hermeticism, Kaballah, ceremonial magic (or “magick”), astrology, alchemy, tarot, spiritualism, and Theosophy, and the philosophies of Jacob Bohme, Franz Mesmer, Emanuel Swedenborg, Helena Blavatsky, Rudolph Steiner, and Aleister Crowley. The common trait among these movements is the notion that there is secret or hidden (i.e., “occult”) knowledge which available only to a small elect group and only through intense study. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/allergicpagan/2015/06/16/where-would-we-be-without-wicca-part-2/

Pagan studies scholar Thorn Mooney encourages Blavatsky discussion:
I took courses in Buddhism and Chinese religions and found ways to talk about Helena Blavatsky and Henry Steel Olcott (and, obviously, by extension, European occultism)”
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/oathbound/2015/08/pagan-studies-a-guide-for-students/
Blavatsky heads list of “fascinating female occultists:
Author of the pioneering esoteric text The Secret Doctrine and co-founder of the Theosophical Society (focused on exploring the origin of humanity and the divine “without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste, or color”), Helena Blavatsky is one of the progenitors of the New Age movement. Attempting to unify Eastern tradition with Western occult practices, Blavatsky traveled throughout Europe, Asia, and the United States studying various doctrines. She reportedly underwent training with Hindu gurus in India. In her first major book Isis Unveiled, Blavatsky raised eyebrows when she claimed that science and religion was not the way to true enlightenment (she also believed she was psychic), though she did find legions of followers in America during the Spiritualist craze (and later in India once more). She was frequently declared a fraud — a vastly different reception than in her native Russia where she was born into an aristocratic family. Her coarse demeanor and seemingly exaggerated personal history didn’t help her reputation, but Blavatsky’s contributions are still celebrated today.”
http://flavorwire.com/470583/fascinating-female-occultists
Gnosticism Article:
Jesus the Essene July 17, 2015 -
The mystic Madame Blavatsky agreed that “the Gnostics, or early Christians, were but the followers of the old Essenes under a new name.” In 1887, Arthur Lillie published his book Buddhism in Christendom: or, Jesus, the Essene.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/anxiousbench/2015/07/jesus-the-essene/