Alice A Bailey - Ponder On This (Video part 1)

A prolific writer on mysticism and the founder of an international esoteric movement, Alice Bailey was born on 16th June 1880, in Manchester, the daughter of an engineer. After a cloistered upbringing she entered on a period of evangelical work with the British army, which took her to India. In 1907 she married Walter Evans, whom she had met while he was serving in the army in India, and they emigrated to America, where he became an Episcopalian minister. The marriage was not a success, and after the birth of three daughters she obtained a separation and later a divorce.

In America she discovered the works of Madame Blavatsky and became active in the Theosophical Society. The narrow, dogmatic Christianity which she had previously followed gave way to wider spiritual horizons, though the figure of Christ remained central to her beliefs. She later grew disillusioned with the petty intrigues of the Theosophical Society and ceased to play an active part in it, but she always recognized the valuable part that Theosophy had played in her life.

Blavatsky's doctrine of occult Masters led her to identify a spirit that, she said, had guided her from the age of fifteen, with the Theosophical Kut Humi. In 1919 she said she was contacted by the spirit of another individual whom she called 'the Tibetan' and identified with the occult adept Djual Khool mentioned by Blavatsky. After some initial reluctance she agreed to be his amanuensis. The result was a series of books which she claims the Tibetan (whose name she spelt "Djwhal Khul") dictated through an inner voice, and which she wrote down word for word. The most popular, also the most unreadable, is the weighty Treatise on Cosmic Fire, which is even more difficult to read than Madame Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine, but does contain some interesting cosmic diagrams. Some of these diagrams had originally appeared in earlier Theosophical literature, while others were original.

None of this voluminous material, incidentally, has anything to do with authentic Tibetan Buddhism, although there was quite a bit of Theosophy and folksy Christianity in it. Clearly we have here an example of a channelled communication, incorporating elements from the medium's subconscious; but also, as in the case of Jane Robert's "Seth", one cannot discount the possibility of psychic symbiosis with an elevated entity expressing itself through her subconscious.

In 1920 Alice married another Theosophist, Foster Bailey, and in 1923 they started The Arcane School to teach disciples how to further the Great Universal Plan under the guidance of the inner hierarchy of spiritual masters led by Christ. After her death in 1949 the school was carried on by her husband. It still flourishes as a large international organization, and an organisation, the Lucis Trust, was formed to overlook the legal aspects of the School and the published books. The influence of Ms Bailey's difficult writings has been, if anything, even greater than that of Blavatsky in the New Age movement.

To date, the Alice Bailey stream has inspired and continues to inspire many. That it has not gone the way of lesser theosophic and new age teachings like Summit Lighthouse (which also with a series of masters, rays, and so on, derivative of AAB, via the "I AM" movement) may indicate that it belongs to a higher class of channelled communications.