Quest Magazine

Originally printed in the May - June 2004 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Algeo, John. "Clara Codd: A Personal Recollection." Quest  92.3 (MAY-JUNE 2004):85-86

By John Algeo

Clara Codd came to Miami in the late 1940s, one of a wave of foreign lecturers who toured the country in the years following World War II, when travel again became possible after the years of enforced isolation. Others who also visited the city on Biscayne Bay at that time were John Coats, much later a president of the Theosophical Society, and Rukmini Devi Arundale, the wife of another former president and a dancer. But Clara Codd was special.

Clara Codd must have been in her seventies at the time, but she seemed ageless, as old and wise as mother Isis, and as young and charming—and sometimes mischievous—as the virgin Kore. We knew she traveled all over the world lecturing. We could see that she wore amazing hats but couldn't imagine how she managed to pack them for her travels. Rumor had it that she was on such intimate terms with the Masters that she knew how they saw Theosophy. As a young woman, she had been put into an English jail because of her protests over female suffrage. Now she was one of the Wise Old Women of Theosophy, a patron especially of the young, whom she counseled and instructed, preparing them for their futures. It was whispered to me that perhaps I would be fortunate enough to become one of "Clara's boys."

I was a new Theosophist, a teenager still wet behind the ears, awed by the eminences who visited our city and especially drawn to this remarkable woman, who spoke with a soft voice but seemed to know personally what she was talking about. Because most of the other Theosophists in Miami were what today we call senior citizens (that term had not yet been invented), I must have stood out in her audience as a gawky youngster. Perhaps for that reason, and perhaps because I was pushed forward by one of the pillars of the Lodge who had taken me on as her project to mold, Clara did take notice of me. She drew me aside and we had an earnest conversation about life and aims and choices. She took my name and address and added them to the list of those young people to whom periodically she sent mimeographed letters.

For a teenage novice, Clara Codd was not a person one knew but an icon one venerated. To be in her presence was to receive the sort of grace called darshan in the Hindu tradition. But she was an unusual sort of icon because she was so unpretentious and so comfortably homey. She seemed to be a kindly, typically British nanny who wanted to be sure that her charges did what was best for them, while enjoying themselves in the process. She was an old dear, but a somewhat mysterious and quite marvelous old dear, whose given name was an apt one, for Clara means "bright and shining" but also "renowned and distinguished."

Originally printed in the May - June 2004 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Abdill, Edward. "In Profound Gratitude." Quest  92.3 (MAY-JUNE 2004):88

By Edward Abdill

Perhaps we have all known someone who has helped us get through a difficult time. In our darker moments, the love of those close to us provides comfort and gives us strength. Most likely, we all remember those kind folks, and we are grateful to them for what they did for us.

Yet, as valuable as that is, there are a few people who have an awesome ability to inspire others at the very core of their being. Such inspiration is not personal. It is not given to cheer us up, although it does. It is not given to us because the person is our friend, although they are. It comes to us in the silence, beyond all the words that may help to convey it. It comes to us as a revelation, a sudden flash of understanding, and as deep joy.

Two such individuals have affected me in that way, Dora and Fritz Kunz. Two more dedicated Theosophists would be hard to locate. Dora and Fritz each had that near-sacred power to stimulate the Inner Self. They did it in very different ways.

Let me begin with Fritz.

It was my great privilege to work with Fritz for some years. His passion was to justify the Theosophical philosophy at the bar of modern, exact science. He attracted some of the great minds of his day and got them to write articles for the magazine he founded: Main Currents in Modern Thought.

Fritz was able to articulate the Theosophical metaphysics in such a way that by the sheer power of his understanding, those who listened thought they understood everything he said. They did not, of course. Yet, on leaving his presence, they knew that they had been subtly changed. They had become aware of a previously unknown depth within themselves.

For years I have pondered the ideas first expressed to me by Fritz. Years after his death, I have begun to understand some of them, and they have fired me to present them to others with the same fervor.

Dora Kunz inspired in a very different way.

Unlike Fritz, Dora had no great facility with language. In fact, she was sometimes dreadful at communicating what she wanted to say. She would seldom finish a sentence, often say the opposite of what she meant, and frequently make her audience collapse into laughter by using the wrong words. At the same time, Dora had an enormous vocabulary, and her lack of language skills did not block her great intelligence, practical knowledge, and wisdom.

Many know that Dora was the founder of Therapeutic Touch. She did a great deal to help those who were sick or disturbed. She must have helped thousands over the years, and no doubt those who received her help are grateful.

What many did not know about Dora is that she was a master at meditation. She began the practice when she was only five years old and continued it to her death at age ninety-five. She held a weekly meditation class at the New York Theosophical Society for many years. It was my great privilege to be part of that, and it was in that class that I learned to meditate.

When meditating with Dora, it was possible to become aware of a profound peace within. It would fade out of focus, but it would not be forgotten. While no one can awaken the Inner Self for us, Dora was able to stimulate that Self in those around her. Without words, she was able to give students a sense of direction, a sense of purpose, meaning, and finally a sense of the Eternal.

From Fritz I got a better understanding of this world and the full nature of a human being. From Dora, I was led to the experience of the Inner Self. It seems to me that the only way one could ever repay a fellow pilgrim for such gifts is to follow in their steps. In that spirit, I can only hope that I might be able to pass on to others the impersonal gifts received from Fritz and Dora. That is the only gratitude they would want and the only gratitude worth having.

Originally printed in the May - June 2002 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Algeo, John. "Brotherhood." Quest  90.3 (MAY - JUNE 2002):

By John Algeo
National President

A member of our Society recently returned our 2002 Annual Fund leaflet, which included a quotation using the word "brotherhood." That word was circled and the comment added, "I'm not a brother." That comment has been made in recent years by a number of women who object to the use of the word in our first Object: "to form a nucleus of the universal brotherhood of humanity without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste, or color." The use of the word in Theosophy and the history behind it are worth considering.

In the early days of our Society, there were two strong interests among its members. One was to increase human cooperation on an international scale without any bias, to promote cross-cultural understanding, and to transform ones own nature through insight into the nature of reality and of the human constitution. Those interests became embodied in our three Objects, which you find stated on the inside front cover of this journal.

But a second kind of interest was also very widespread, namely, to learn how to do exceptional feats, to perform phenomena, and to acquire unusual abilities. The nineteenth century, when the Theosophical Society was founded, was a hotbed of interest in spiritualism and psychic phenomena. It was, in fact, such interest that led many of the early members to join the Society in the hope of finding in it a channel by which they might experience and learn to produce such phenomena themselves.

The wise teachers who inspired the foundation of the Society, however, had no patience with the second interest. One of them wrote to an Englishman, A. O. Hume, who strongly preferred the latter, as follows: "it has been constantly our wish to spread on the Western Continent among the foremost educated classes 'Branches of the T. S. as the harbingers of a Universal Brotherhood . . . a 'hotbed of magick we never dreamt of" (Mahatma Letters, chronological no. 11). The same teacher wrote to another Englishman, A. P. Sinnett, in even stronger language: "you have ever discussed but to put down the idea of a universal Brotherhood, questioned its usefulness, and advised to remodel the T. S. on the principle of a college for the special study of occultism. This, my respected and esteemed friend and Brother'will never do!" (Mahatma Letters, chronological no. 2).

The brotherhood those teachers were talking about was clearly not a brotherhood of males, but of human beings without distinction (as the first Object says) of race, creed, sex, caste, or color. Almost all words have more than one meaning. Think how many meanings there are for "love" or "fear" or "truth." So also "brotherhood" has many meanings, and one of them is (as defined by the Merriam Websters Third New International Dictionary, the biggest and best dictionary of present-day American English): "a group sharing a common interest or quality." The "universal brotherhood of humanity" is the worldwide group sharing the common quality of humanity, without any distinctions. That is the way early Theosophists understood the term and used it, and it is the way it is used in the first Object.

In more recent years, a new sensitivity to language has developed, and terms that might be misunderstood in a limited sense as applying only to one sex have generally been avoided. So the old generic use of "man" to mean "human being" became taboo (although etymologically "man" is from the same root as the word "mind" and meant a being with a mind, not a masculine being). Conforming to the new sensitivity, in the literature we now produce, we'like almost all publishers these days'make a concerted effort to avoid what today is widely perceived as "sexist" language, although it certainly was not so intended originally or perceived to be so by earlier speakers and writers.

Accordingly some years ago, we looked at rephrasing our Objects. The Objects of the Theosophical Society are international ones. They are defined by the General Council (or main administrative body) of the Society and are stated in our international Rules and papers of incorporation. No nation can of itself change the Objects; they are in common to all branches of the Society around the world. But nations speaking different languages translate the rules into their own language. We argued that the wording of the Objects was late Victorian British English, which needed to be translated into present-day American English, and a committee proposed three such translations of wording in the Objects into current usage. Two of those proposals were accepted; one was not.

The rejected proposal was to rephrase the first Object to read: "To form a nucleus of the universal human family without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste, or color." Some of us thought that captured the sense of the original, while avoiding the "sexist" misunderstanding of the word "brotherhood." However, that proposed change became a subject of intense and heated controversy. And the reason for the controversy was precisely that early difference of opinion about the purpose of the Theosophical Society, reflected in the two interests of early Theosophists.

Those who objected to changing "brotherhood of humanity" to "human family" thought that we were departing from the intention of the founders of the Society to emphasize human unity to something else, and they cited statements like those quoted above to Hume and Sinnett, which emphasized "brotherhood" as the central purpose of the Society. In the end, we decided to leave the wording of the first Object as it has been for more than a hundred years, with the recognition that "brotherhood" here obviously does not mean "a group of male siblings" but rather "a group sharing the common quality of humanity."

Words have no inherent meaning. They mean only what their users intend them to mean. Of course, other people may misunderstand the intention behind any words, so if one person says to another "I love you," the meaning may be "I honor you and wish the best for you in all things" or "You amuse me" or "I lust after you." If the words are misinterpreted by a hearer, that does not change the meaning intended by the speaker. This is a widespread problem in communication by human language. What is needed is, not an assumption about meaning, but rather an effort by the hearer to discover the intention of the speaker.

The intention of the first Object is made clear by its qualifying prepositional phrase: "without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste, or color." To ignore that phrase is to mis interpret the clear intention of the Object. To insist that "brotherhood" can mean only a group of men is to ignore the fact that the word does in fact mean a number of different things, including a group of human beings. For communication to be effective, two things are needed: for the user to be clear and for the perceiver to make an effort to understand the users intention and not project an imagined meaning on another's words.

Women have always been centrally important in the Theosophical Societys nucleus of universal brotherhood. The chief idea person of Theosophy (Helena Blavatsky) was a woman; its most distinguished leader (Annie Besant) was a woman; the current international President of the Society (Radha Burnier) is a woman. Other members of the Society (such as Matilda Joslyn Gage, Clara Codd, Margaret Cousins, and Dorothy Graham Jinarajadasa) have been active feminists. Ultimately, words are less important than actions, and the actions of Theosophists have always been on the side of equality and a brotherhood that embraces both sexes without distinction.

Originally printed in the May - June 2002 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Hall, Kathleen. "Theosophy and the Emergence of Modern Abstract Art." Quest  90.3 (MAY - JUNE 2002):

By Kathleen Hall

At the turn of the nineteenth century, a movement in art emerged that was a response to higher awareness of cosmic truth. Modern abstract art was the visible manifestation of spiritual ideals professed through the teachings of Theosophy and other wisdom lore. The artists of this movement were scribes who painted what words could not say.

Spirituality in abstract art began around 1890 and ran in parallel with a growing interest in mysticism and the occult. Many artists were becoming intrigued with spiritual writings, in particular with Madame Blavatsky's major work, The Secret Doctrine. Undoubtedly there were other influences, such as the works of Edouard Schuré, Jakob Böhme, and Emmanuel Swedenborg. But it was Theosophy that had the most profound effect on the emergence of modern abstract art and specifically on the founding fathers of the movement, Wassily Kandinsky, Frantisek Kupka, Piet Mondrian, and Kazimer Malevich.

Theosophy gave these artists a vista that became the fundamental groundwork of their spirituality. From this viewpoint, they believed they were able to see beyond and into the natural world, as well as gaining an understanding of the ancient wisdom and cosmic principles of our existence. This lofty vantage point elevated all four beyond this-worldly concerns and gave them a sense of divine sight into otherworldly realms. They stood in the doorway between two worlds, they were the messengers, and communicating this knowledge became the objective of their art.

The language with which these artists translated their vision of one world into terms of the other was abstraction. To be successfully understood, that vision had to be presented in simple, relevant terms that could later develop and expand into complex structuring as it became more familiar to both the artist as teacher and the viewer as student. In its final form, it is outwardly simplistic, while intrinsically complex in its reduction of the divinely enigmatic.

It seems more than coincidental that four distinct artists, at about the same time in history, were all influenced by the teachings of Theosophy and manifested their spirituality through their art, which almost had no choice but to be abstract. The context of their work was not a familiar picture of visible reality, but a faith in things unseen. Visionary, prophetic, mystical, and deeply spiritual, Kandinsky, Kupka, Mondrian, and Malevich can be considered as initiates who came from ages past to teach the ancient wisdom in our time and in images appropriate to us. What they produced was a seam in the universe through which they were able to make the unseen visible so that we can catch a glimpse of the great mysteries of the cosmos.

All four artists first began in the Symbolist style. Their early work expressed representations of cosmic ideals in forms that were familiar and recognizable. However, the iconography of Symbolism limited the manifestation of universal concepts, and Kandinsky, Kupka, Mondrian, and Malevich all became increasingly aware of this limitation. Having experienced the extent of the Symbolist voice, they began to dig deeper into their Theosophical ideals and surfaced with new ways to say things.

The language that emerged was abstraction. Abstraction was a formless voice that dissolved the boundaries of the concrete object to allow the flow of cosmic light to spill forth onto an awaiting canvas, the site where the inner and outer realms of spirituality began a new creative evolution. Each artist was painting the canvas with their own particular brush, but all were dipping from the same paint pots of spiritual awareness.

Wassily Kandinsky was an avid student of occult and mystical teachings. Theosophy provided the main structure for his lessons in spirituality, but he certainly enriched his studies with other material. As his spiritual awareness evolved, so too did his art. Ideals that he was previously content to express in Symbolist form, later shed their casings as they expanded through abstraction. As Theosophical teachings on thought forms and the correlation between vibrations, color, and sound influenced his work, he began to rely very little on form. Shape, line, and color became his main tools for creating a visible image of unseen events in the astral world.

Frantisek Kupka approached the realm of the spiritual in art from a similar direction. He too began as a Symbolist painter and presented concepts found in the Theosophical teachings on esoteric Eastern religions and philosophies. As a Symbolist, these ideas seemed to be a representation rather than a manifestation of his spiritual knowledge. When he began to make the connection between the forces acting in this world as a microcosm of the macrocosmic forces in the universe, his work began to communicate a divine message. This is also when his paintings became more abstracted, evolving into works of sacred geometry.

Piet Mondrian, like Kandinsky, read extensively on spiritual concepts. His endorsement of Theosophy was distinctly acknowledged and he frequently made reference to it in regard to the content of his work. His ideas were first expressed as Symbolist art, then as he began to explore the use of color as a means to project the inner being of an outwardly visible object, his work started to change. His sole objective became the reduction of form to simple contrasts of line and color to signify the unity between opposites: male and female, static and dynamic, spirit and matter. Geometric shapes and primary colors were to become his trademark, representing in simple terms the immensely complex spiritual structuring of the universe.

Kazimir Malevich was originally involved with the Russian Symbolist movement, but then began exploring Zaumism and the fourth dimension. In particular, the time and space concepts he studied came from his readings on P. D. Ouspensky, the Russian Theosophist. Eventually his work evolved into a greater manifestation of the fourth dimension and his Suprematist works began to follow a path that saw the dissolution of form into sacred geometry and Absolute "nothingness."

The effects of Theosophy on the founding fathers of modern abstract art are unmistakable. Each artist— Wassily Kandinsky, Frantisek Kupka, Piet Mondrian, and Kazimir Malevich—manifested in his own particular style varying aspects of Theosophical ideals. All began with the symbolic representation of spiritual concepts, then out of necessity evolved into abstraction. It was an inevitable process. The familiar forms of the visible world were not able to express the cosmic realm. Only line, shape, and color were of use to the artist as a language through which the voice of the universe could be communicated. It was perhaps an experimental translation of Divine concepts.

Theosophy was perhaps the most important spiritual philosophy to emerge in the latter half of the nineteenth century, especially in regard to the profound impact it had on the direction of modern art. Its doctrine of universal "brotherhood," the study of ancient and modern religions, philosophies, and sciences, and the investigation of the unexplained laws of nature and the psychical powers latent in humankind were not only timely in terms of a changing world, but unequivocally compelling to the artist as a seeker of Truth.

It was inevitable that some artists would turn their attention to spirituality at the dawn of the materialistic age of the twentieth century. That change came about, first, because the further humanity is removed from the natural environment, the greater is its need for a spiritual replacement and, second, because everything is as it should be.

Kathleen Hall studied the modern abstractionists and their Theosophical connections while working on the thesis for her master's degree. In connection with that work she corresponded with a number of contemporary Theosophical artists, particularly Burton Callicott, Don Kruse, and Pamela Lowrie. She is a resident of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, and became a member of the Canadian Federation of the Theosophical Society as a result of her study.