Theos-Talk Archives (April 2004 Message tt00118)

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "stevestubbs" <stevestubbs@y...> 

Steve:
> Very interesting. It has been years since I read any of her stuff 
> but it struck me as pure GD at the time. Especially SSD and 
KABALAH.

There are a number of fairly new collections of articles from The 
Inner Light journal and other sources, which have been gathered up 
from the SIL archives by Gareth Knight (Basil Wilby) and published by 
Thoth. The TS influence is more apparent in some of these articles 
than in The Mystical Qabalah, etc. Also perhaps worth noting that the 
SIL went through a period of very serious interest in Alice Bailey's 
work, after DF died. 

> If she saw through Krishnamurti and CWL that speaks well for her 
> critical judgement IMO. She wrote an absurd book under the name 
> Violet Firth called THE PROBLEM OF PURITY for the instruction of 
> those who wanted to be perpetually chaste and get rid of their 
normal 
> desires through prayer, so that could put her distrust of CWL in 
some 
> perspective, even though what he was doing was criminal.

Yes, The Problem of Purity is a scream! DF at her early Freudian 
worst. She also wrote a terribly offensive book on the "servant 
problem" and cheesy popular novels as V.M. Steele that betray 
unfortunate racial sentiments. She was a very complex woman, and no 
plaster esoteric saint.

> Very interesting. Since her stuff is Kabbalistic I got the 
> impression she started her own spinoff of the GD as so many others 
> did. I have not seen her bios and derived this impression from her 
> books.

The SIL does have undeniable Golden Dawn roots -- but very much mixed 
with what she got from Theodore Moriarty and his Co-Masonic work, her 
Theosophical studies, and her own (alleged) inner contacts with the 
Masters. The Knight bio examines all of these threads in detail.

> So do you see this stuff as purely psychological (as Israel 
Regardie 
> maintained), or is there anything to all this "magical" stuff?

I don't think it is purely psychological (and I suspect Regardie 
didn't either, no matter what he said at times) -- but as to my own 
opinions about the nature of magical ritual..... that's more than I 
can bite off on a Monday morning before work! It would be 
interesting to look at how TS sources allege that ritual (LCC mass, 
Co-Masonry, etc) works.

Dr. Tillett -
Thanks for the clarification on when alleged communication of the 
Masters with the ES stopped. In addition to G. Hodson, I have been 
told (by a couple of her long-time students in New York) that Dora 
Kunz claimed some communication with the Masters. 

Have a good Monday, all -
John