Criticisms and Accusations of Anti-Semiticism
in the Writings of Alice A. Bailey

James Davis

"One can see why a reasonable person may see certain passage in AAB as anti-Semitic or racist. And one might dialog with a reasonable person on that theme. The problem though, is that many of the AAB critics on this--and perhaps the most vocal of them--do not seem interested in approach to the subject by way of reason and dialog. Instead, there is a kind of astral explosion when the passages are encountered, and it becomes all about emotion and reaction which drowns reason and short circuits all attempts at communication.

Let me illustrate with a quotation. This quotation is or was part of the Wikipedia article on Alice Bailey's life and thought. As I may have mentioned, a large part of the article was written and controlled by Jewish contributors. It's under a subhead titled "Racial Theories" (did you know AAB was a racial theorists?); well here it is, I quote from Wikipedia:

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"Racial theories

Bailey upheld theories of racial differentiation that posited a division of humanity into races that are on different levels in a "ladder of evolution". For example, she said that the Aryans, as an "emerging new race", are the most evolved people on Earth. In her book Education in the New Age [89], Bailey made predictions about the use of occult racial theories in the schools of the future, which she said would be based on racial cohorts such as Lemurians (physically adept), Atlanteans (emotionally adept), Aryans (mentally adept), and the New Race with "group qualities and consciousness and idealistic vision." In her The Destiny of the Nations, Bailey described a process [90] by which the "new race" will evolve from Caucasians, after which "low grade human bodies will disappear, causing a general shift in the racial types toward a higher standard." [91]

Her writings in this area were criticized by Victor Shnirelman, a cultural anthropologist and ethnographer, who in a survey of modern Neopaganism in Russia, drew particular attention to "… groups [that] take an extremely negative view of multi-culturalism, object to the 'mixture' of kinds, [and] support isolationism and the prohibition of immigration." He noted that a number of Bailey's books, as well as those of her contemporary Julius Evola, had been recently translated into Russian, and said that "… racist and antisemitic trends are explicit, for example, in the occult teachings of Alice Bailey (founder of the New Age movement) and her followers, who wish to cleanse Christianity of its 'Jewish inheritance' and reject the 'Jewish Bible' as a prerequisite for entering the Age of Aquarius." [92]

Monica Sjöö, a Swedish-born British artist, writer, and supporter of the Goddess movement, wrote that Bailey, through her published teachings, had a "reactionary and racist influence on the whole New Age movement." [93] She also noted what she called Bailey's (and Theosophy's) "pro-fascist religious views," such as the belief in a secret elite of "Masters" who control world events and human minds through occult means and attempt to bring about the evolution of an Aryan super-race. [94]"

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So, here we see that AAB is made into a racial theorist who is not only anti-Jewish, but a racist, a fascist, an isolationist, a Aryan white supremacist, an elitist, a reactionary, and is guilty by association with those who take a "negative view of multi-culturalism," and in AAB's view Caucasians are the only good guys, etc.

Back when I was trying to guide the development of the AAB article [in Wikipedia], I pointed out all of the distortions and misrepresentations in the above caricature of AAB, but to no avail. The editors were not interested in what was true or what did or did not match with what AAB actually wrote. They were not content to cite reasonable criticism as a scholar might, or just have a reasonable viewpoint acknowledged or "feel heard." The reality is much more aggressive. They were aggressive to insert any distorted thing they could find, so long as it accorded with an emotion based reaction and the confirmed that AAB was a very bad person. And if an editor inserted something into the article that contradicted what the critics wanted said, then the anti-AAB editors would just remove it. What to do when negative emotion controls and expressions of reason are censored? Is this a worst case scenario? I don't know.

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Tough Love from the Master

Phillip Lindsay

DK talks very tough about the Jews but no less so for any other race and nation. He calls a spade a spade if you'll excuse the racial pun. Take a look through all of Destiny of the Nations and others of his books that deal with nations. Just because he does not stroke us emotionally with warm and fuzzies about any of these nations, does not mean that it is not the words of the Master. This is a common criticism of AAB, when readers do not agree with something, it 'must have been her personality bias'.

The reason he talks more about the 'Jewish problem' is because it is the most pressing and urgent problem of our times, in dire need of resolution. THe problem is not just these past few thousand years, it is aeons old.

Hence DK takes a first ray approach (tough love) in attempting to inform us - in sometimes very confronting and shocking ways - we cannot shrink from this. The sword is the symbol of the first ray and that is one approach to cutting the Gordian third ray Knot.

So my approach to one of Abraham's letters is in this spirit. Some of the things Abraham said to Leoni made me think that he could equally handle some criticism, though I did really deliberate whether this
would be wise. As you say, it would be very sad if he said he was going to depart (I canot find where he actually said this?), and for us to miss an opportunity to blend these pair of opposites. Yet, we
have to experiment and experience with this work, there is no road map.

Based upon past experience, I am very aware of the alienation and taking of personal insult that Jewish people can suffer with this. However, I also regard it as part of their collective dweller that can
play upon these emotional hurts and use that in a manipulative way.

This is what has happened in the outer world, you cannot criticise the Jewish people because it has been made so politically incorrect. Cries of anti-Semite etc. It creates this endless loop that keeps us all trapped and unable to rise above it.

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More Commentary on Tough Love

James Davis

Abraham, I understand that what some of us read as "tough love" you read as unjustified, radically mistaken, and unfair. Your position is perfectly OK with me, and whether wrong or right, it is good that you speak your mind and heart on these matters. Your contrary positions encourages us to explore in more depth than would otherwise be.

More than that, I actually enjoy learning how you think and why you believe as you do.

AD: I will give some examples to demonstrate why, a Master of the Wisdom will not write those things, if you take into account the rest of His writings with some measure of understanding. The first example I have already given you regarding criticism and its destructive effects given By DK.

JD: About this theme: paradox, paradox, paradox. Whatever else his and her writings may be, I believe one thing is clear: DK's writings are not clear unless we bring to them a special synthesis, an awareness of paradox, and an understanding that many passages, taken alone, are apt to mislead us.

Yes, criticism is destructive and yes DK engages in it. And to that we may add that destruction itself is good or bad depending. First destruction is "bad" when the vehicles of the entity channeling the ray are not pure enough. Second, they are apt to be unfortunate in certain blends--other things being equal, ray 1 + 3 is apt to be more dangerous than ray 1 + 2. If we think the writings are inspired by a second ray Master, then there is part of the answer.

For perspective, let's consider some of the harsh uses DK makes of the word "cruel," a word he used for the Jews.

"Nature is cruel and selective. She works by the Law of the survival of the fittest; in the process of selection..." A Treatise on White Magic, p. 356

And so DK "blackens" the image of Mother Nature herself, the Mother in which our lives are embedded and with which we are, in various degrees, deeply identified. But forms are dark according to nature and lighter according to Supernature. We are nature by way of illusion and Supernature by way of reality. Each harsh criticism of our "nature" is an invitation to shift our focus to toward Supernature. That is one way of taking it.

Reading broadly in DK we find that his criticisms are by no means exclusively reserved for the Jewish people or for any isolated entity. Take, for instance the word "cruel" that especially harsh synonym of separtivness. He used that word for the Jews. But look at the larger context:

"In the teaching of history, for instance, are we to revert to the bad old ways wherein each nation glorifies itself at the expense frequently of other nations, in which facts are systematically garbled, in which the pivotal points in history are the various wars down the ages - a history, therefore, of aggression, of the rise of a material and selfish civilization and one which had the nationalistic and, therefore, separate spirit, which has fostered racial hatred and stimulated national prides? The first historical date usually remembered by the average British child is "William, the Conqueror, 1066." The American child remembers the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers and the gradual taking of the country from its rightful inhabitants, and perhaps the Boston Tea Party. The heroes of history are all warriors - Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Attila the Hun, Richard Coeur de Lion, Napoleon, George Washington and many others. Geography is largely history in another form but presented in a similar manner - a history of discovery, investigation and seizure, followed frequently by wicked and cruel treatment of the inhabitants of the discovered lands. Greed, ambition, cruelty and pride are the keynotes of our teaching of history and geography." Education in the New Age, p. 45

Note the wording: "...seizure, followed frequently by wicked and cruel treatment of the inhabitants..." Is he talking about the Jews or about the US and many many others. You see brother Abraham, DK has criticized us all. And he has "blackened" the entire of human history in its superficial aspects.

Now there is no question that DK's criticism of the Jews is strong and underscored. We are given to understand that, as Phillip elaborated, it is a most ancient human problem and crucial in the current crisis (or series of them) in human history; hence, the extra worlds and extra strong words.

"Esoterically, all world Saviors and Sun Gods are born in Capricorn but also the very worst type of man - hard, materialistic, cruel, proud, selfishly ambitious and egoistic." Esoteric Astrology, p. 169

In the above DK names 1/12 of all human incarnations as "cruel" etc. That includes all you Capricorn ruled Jewish types, and the other nations and groups ruled by it and oh yes, me, since I've Sun in Capricorn.

And what about those cruel sex-phobic Christians...

"...pre-eminently a religion which has waged a cruel and oft illogical war upon sex and its implications; it has emphasized a militant celibacy..." Esoteric Astrology, 213.

...with their god-awful history:

"...Christianity, making it a definitely militant religion, oft cruel and sadistic (as witness the murders and tortures carried out in the name of Christ, who was the outstanding Representative of God's love). Throughout the teaching of Christian theology, the theme of blood runs ceaselessly...."

Other groups and entities criticised as cruel include:

"the Gentile," "totalitarian powers," Germany, Japan, the world economic system, fanatical devotees, U.S.S.R., the Russian revolution, those who mistreat racial minorities everywhere, "disciples of Shamballa," the relation between man and animals, "sports," "children" (because of unconscious response to decomposing cosmic forces), those with "insanity in the mental body," the selfish magician, the disciples of Christ, the sixth ray, the first ray, theology, a certain type of nationalism; the "white race" as exemplified by the French in the French Sudan, the Belgians in the Belgian Congo, the Dutch and the British in South Africa and the West Coast of Africa, the Germans in German East Africa and the Italians in Eastern Africa. And lastly, all the nations of the world. (The Externalization of the Hierarchy, p 185.

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