Neo-Theosophy

The term Neo-Theosophy is a term, originally derogatory, used by the followers of Blavatsky to denominate the system of Theosophical ideas expounded by Annie Besant and Charles Webster Leadbeater following the death of Madame Blavatsky in 1891. This material differed in some respects from Blavatsky's original presentation, but it is accepted as genuinely Theosophical by the vast majority of Theosophists around the world.
After Blavatsky died in 1891, William Quan Judge became involved in a dispute with Henry Steele Olcott and Annie Besant over Judge allegedly forging letters from the Mahatmas. As a result, he ended his association with Olcott and Besant during 1895 and took most of the Society's American Section with him. He managed his new organization for about a year until his death in New York, whereupon Katherine Tingley became manager. The organization originating from the faction of Olcott and Besant is based nowadays in India and known as the Theosophical Society - Adyar, while the organization managed by Judge is known nowadays simply as the Theosophical Society, but often with the specification, "international headquarters, Pasadena, California." The Theosophical Society - Adyar is the original group denounced as Neo-Theosophy by those in the Theosophical Society--International Headquarters (Pasadena, California), who are followers of William Q. Judge and the original teachings of Madame Blavatsky; they regard themselves as the Orthodox Theosophists and do not accept what they regard as the Neo-Theosophical teachings of Annie Besant, Henry Olcott, and C.W. Leadbeater.
==The term Neo-Theosophy==
The term Neo-Theosophy was coined by Ferdinand T. Brooks around 1912 in a book called Neo Theosophy Exposed, the second part of an earlier book called The Theosophical Society and its Esoteric Bogeydom.James R. Lewis, Jesper Aagaard Petersen, Controversial New Religions, Oxford University Press, 2004 ISBN 019515682X Page 292 Around 1924, Margaret Thomas published a book called Theosophy Versus Neo-Theosophy. This book, now available online, Theosophy vs. Neo-Theosophy: presents a detailed critical comparison of Blavatskyian Theosophy and Neo-Theosophy.
G. R. S. Mead who was also highly critical of the clairvoyant researches of Besant and Leadbeater, remaining loyal to Blavatskyian Theosophy,by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Clare Goodrick-Clarke G. R. S. Mead and the Gnostic Quest North Atlantic Books ISBN 155643572X Page 22 also used the term Neo-Theosophy to refer to Besant's movement. For him "Theosophy" meant the wisdom element in the great world religions and philosophies.cited in Demetres P. Tryphonopoulos, The Celestial Tradition: A Study of Ezra Pound's the Cantos , Wilfrid Laurier University Press 1992 ISBN 0889202028 Page 85
Later, the term Neo-Theosophical came to be used outside Theosophical circles to refer to groups formed by former Theosophists as well as groups whose central premises borrow heavily from Blavatskyian Theosophy. Robert S. Ellwood, in his 1973 book Religious and Spiritual Groups in Modern America referred to organizations that had been formed by former Theosophists as "devolutions of Theosophy" and included in his survey "Neo-Gnostic groups and Neo-Rosicrucian groups [...] the Anthroposophy of Rudolf Steiner, [...] Alice Bailey's groups, (Guy Ballard's) " I AM Activity" and Max Heindel's Rosicrucianism. Robert S. Ellwood, Jr., "Religious and Spiritual Groups in Modern America", Prentice-Hall, 1973 ISBN 0-13-773317-8 In a later book, Alternative Altars (1979) Professor Ellwood added;
Alice Bailey (1880 - 1949), founder of the Arcane School and the Full Moon Meditation Groups, and Guy Ballard (1878 - 1930), of the "I AM" movement, are representative of those who have started activities based on new and special communications from Theosophical Masters.Robert S. Ellwood, Jr., Alternative Altars: Unconventional and Eastern Spirituality in America, University of Chicago Press, 1979 ISBN 0-226-20618-1
The author Daryl S. Paulson associates "neo-Theosophy" with Alice Bailey.Daryl S. Paulson, "The Near-Death Experience: An Integration of Cultural, Spiritual, and Physical Perspectives", Journal of Near-Death Studies, Springer, Netherlands, ISSN 0891-4494 (Print) 1573-3661 (Online) Issue Volume 18, Number 1 / September, 1999
Other neo-Theosophists include Steiner's contemporary Peter Deunov and Samael Aun Weor, who introduced theosophical teachings to Latin America. Dion Fortune and Aleister Crowley were also influencers of (and influenced by) the leading edge of the theosophical movement, which in turn influenced Anton LaVey's Satanism, L. Ron Hubbard's Scientology, Wiccanism, and the modern New Age and New Thought movements. (Alice Bailey introduced the term New Age).See Neville Drury. "Why Does Aleister Crowley Still Matter?" Richard Metzger, ed. Book of Lies: The Disinformation Guide to Magick and the Occult. Disinformation Books, 2003. A prominent Neo-Theosophical gurus today are Benjamin Creme and Victor Skumin.
==Spiritual man==
thumb|Victor Skumin
In 1990, Skumin elaborated on the theosophical conceptions of spiritual evolution and proposed a classification of Homo spiritalis (Latin: spiritual man), the sixth root race, consisting of eight sub-races (subspecies) – HS0 Anabiosis spiritalis, HS1 Scientella spiritalis, HS2 Aurora spiritalis, HS3 Ascensus spiritalis, HS4 Vocatus spiritalis, HS5 Illuminatio spiritalis, НS6 Creatio spiritalis, and HS7 Servitus spiritalis. 
According to Victor Skumin, *Anabiosis spiritalis is spirituality in the potential of unmanifest accumulations of personality, the charge of the fires of spiritual creation.
Sub-races of Homo spiritalis (spiritual man):
*Scientella spiritalis is the cordial presentiment of the presence and demands of the spirit, spiritualization of the fire of centers, glimpses of self-consciousness of a spiritual person; 
*Aurora spiritalis is the imperative of the spirit, the action of the spiritual fire of the centers in the heart, the kindling of the fire of the spirit, the formation of the orientation of the personality to the spiritual improvement of life; 
*Ascensus spiritalis is the dawn of spiritual aspirations, the action of the fire of the spirit in the heart, searching spiritual work, aspiration of self-consciousness to merge with the One Spirit; 
*Vocatus spiritalis is the maturation of spiritual accumulations, the purposeful spiritual creation, self-awareness and realization of a person as a warrior of the spirit; 
*IIluminatio spiritalis is the beginning of the fiery transmutation, the lighting of the achievement fire; revealing the identity of man - the earthly carrier of the Thoughts of the One Spirit; 
*Creatio Spiritalis is the beginning of fiery creation, the action of the fire of achievement in the heart, the revealing self-consciousness of man as the earthly carrier of the Light of the One Spirit; 
*Servitus Spiritalis is the carrying a consciously accepted duty-commission, the synthesis of spirituality in the clarity of knowledge of a fiery man.
== See also ==
* Agni Yoga
==References==
== External links ==
* Lessons in Theosophy - Lesson 2, The History of the Theosophical Society - brief neutral reference to Neo-Theosophy
* Theosophy Versus Neo-Theosophy - online version of Margaret Thomas's book.
* Bibelportal.net German collection of Neo-Theosophical writings (some available in English)
Category:Theosophy
Category:Esotericism