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Re: Helena Blavatsky, by Wikipedia

PostPosted: Thu Jan 17, 2019 4:17 am
by admin
H.P. Blavatsky involvement in Italian Politics with Garibaldi and Mazzini, and the Carbonari’s Role in the Republican Revolutions
The American Minvervan
https://theamericanminvra.com
Posted on 5 Aug 2018

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Blavatsky interest in Italian Politics, and the Carbonari

It is not enough to study history, but to make history, and the movers of history is a function we take interest in. The subject of the relation between Secret Societies, Politics and Theosophy is a fascinating side of history, and the thing is, while we are interested in history, many of us may not be academic scholars. It means, we do not regard the underlying ideas of our branches and movements to be merely ideas and abstractions, especially since these revolutionaries of our interest considered concrete action resultant from their ideas was the point of their sacrifices, philosophy, and mission. This is why, what I have stated, and will state, will be surely discounted and argued against by a few who unwelcome the truth; but try as you might, it cannot. H.P. Blavatsky’s interest in Italian politics has been very scanty in the historical record of her life, but with us, we find it a positive, than a negative. H.P.B. herself had claimed, and proven to H.S. Olcott, as detailed in his Diary Leaves, that she had joined Garibaldi and the Red Shirts (the Garibaldians) at the bloody battle of Mentana, stabbed with a stiletto, her right shoulder with a musket-bullet wound, and her left-arm broken by a sabre-stroke.

She was intimate with a few Carbonaros (of the Italian Carbonari liberals), Mazzinists, and Garibaldians, including his sons, whom she stated alone knew the whole truth of the story of her participation in these events prior to the formation of the Theosophical Society.


The woman was therefore intimately involved in early nationalist movements, and for this reason, intrigues me, in regards to my late research on the Italian philosopher of Actualism, Giovanni Gentile who synthesized and expressed the spirit of that Italian thought, with respects to the Italian political prophet Giuseppe Mazzini.

Understanding this history and the ideas will help us rebuild associations and establish new bonds, and continue the mission, or better, mould our own from it. No harm comes to us for being a little public, as firstly no one will take the efforts seriously. In a more democratically-ruled society of our political age, than the 1800s, there should be no reason to run idiotically, or hide. We have all the avenues and opportunities of freedom of expression of our ideas open to us more than in any age, which people have grown accustomed to on the fundamental level; hence we ought to feel comfortable to express these ideas in their truest sense, as the author aims to do, publicly, and without pseudonyms. Those days are over; or so it seems even in the “liberal order.”

The liberal order turns out to not be as we envision, since the work of the Renaissance is not a finished project; and firstly having no influence on the modern society. Typically it is thought, political interests is one thing, and Occultism another, but in truth, the two are a linked interest and are linked in history, since the intent is to truthfully propagandize, or promulgate our ideas and philosophy, despite public opinion — a thing shaped for us — the citizens, the masses, the uninitiated. The Southern Italian Carbonari was a secret society and political organization founded to advocate liberal ideas in the early nineteenth-century Europe.

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Carbonari society initiation. 1879 illustration showing members of the Italian secret society known as the Carbonari performing an initiation ceremony in a cave. The Carbonari was an informal network of Italian secret societies active in Italy from around 1800 to 1831. They were a focus for those unhappy with the repressive political situation in Italy following 1815, especially in the south of the Italian Peninsula. Members of the Carbonari took part in important events in the process of Italian unification (the Risorgimento), especially the failed Revolution of 1820.

The Carbonari spread into Northern Italy by 1815, when Napoleon was defeated, and they were initially united in the goal to oppose Napoleonic ruler of Naples, Joachim Murat. The Carbonari were composed of advocates of both constitutional monarchy and republicanism, and Freemasons. What united the Freemasons and Carbonari was “militant opposition to the Roman Catholic Church domination of Italy,” K. Paul Johnson explains in The Masters Revealed (Johnson 38). Marquis de Lafayette often known in the United States simply as Lafayette (as spoken of by W.Q. Judge and H.P.B. on the Freemasons and Rosicrucians' roles in the Revolutions in Adepts in America in 1776: William Q. Judge’s Speculations prompt Blavatsky to Question “Illuminati” Theory), was a vital figure in the historical fight for American and French Independence served as leader of the Charbonnerie in France. Thus far, in the public’s opinion, they are made to think of this as nefarious, and suspect. The goal of opposition to the Church for the Carbonari and Freemasons was primarily for a secular Italy, and to restrict the power of the Church, promote freedom of religion and secular education. Yet, there is more to this vision, which they fought for, and certainly the Theosophists and H.P. Blavatsky.

In a footnote in A Few Questions to Hiraf about the Rosicrucians, Illuminati, and Kabbalists, H.P. Blavatsky connected the “political cataclysms” of the time with the Carbonari, who were responsible for the establishment of new constitutional governments in some states in Italy, and fighting for Greek independence, before the European powers united to overthrow these governments. She stated of them:

“For those who are able to understand intuitionally what I am about to say, my words will be but the echo of their own thoughts. I draw the attention of such only, to a long series of inexplicable events which have taken place in our present century; to the mysterious influence directing political cataclysms; the doing and undoing of crowned heads; the tumbling down of thrones; the thorough metamorphosis of nearly the whole of the European map, beginning with the French Revolution of ’93, predicted in every detail by the Count de St.-Germain, in an autograph MS., now in possession of the descendants of the Russian nobleman to whom he gave it, and coming down to the Franco-Prussian War of the latter days. This mysterious influence called “chance” by the skeptic and Providence by Christians, may have a right to some other name. Of all these degenerated children of Chaldaean Occultism, including the numerous societies of Freemasons, only one of them in the present century is worth mentioning in relation to Occultism, namely, the “Carbonari.” Let some one study all he can of that secret society, let him think, combine, deduce. If Raymond Lully, a Rosicrucian, a Cabalist, could so easily supply King Edward I of England with six millions sterling to carry on war with the Turks in that distant epoch, why could not some secret lodge in our day furnish, as well, nearly the same amount of millions to France, to pay their national debt — this same France, which was so wonderfully, quickly defeated, and as wonderfully set on her legs again. Idle talk! — people will say. Very well, but even an hypothesis may be worth the trouble to consider sometimes.”

-- (H.P. Blavatsky, A Few Questions to Hiraf)

Re: Helena Blavatsky, by Wikipedia

PostPosted: Thu Jan 17, 2019 4:24 am
by admin
Hypatia interview (Greek Theosophical Journal)
by Erica Georgiades
http://adepts.light.org/2012/01/24/586/
http://adepts.light.org/2012/02/03/hypa ... ntinued-2/
Posted on January 24, 2012 and February 3, 2012
by adepts.light.org

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Q. In a letter sent by H.P.B. to the President of the Ionian branch of the Theosophical Society she expresses interest in knowing what is the situation regarding Mazzini bust. Why H.P.B. was interested in Giuseppe Mazzini? What was the connection of HP.Blavatsky with the Carbonari?

A. Blavatsky claimed to have fought and been injured in the 1867 battle of Mentana, and speaks of knowing the Garibaldis who could vouch for her. Admiring references to Mazzini are found in other TS founders sources like Charles Sotheran and Herbert Monachesi, and of course Olcott. Later Rene Guenon described HPB as having been involved in the Jeune Europe movement which had been established by Mazzini. He was passionately anti-clerical and promoted a spirituality that would be more liberal and inclusive than that of the Catholic Church. Hence Blavatsky’s resonance with Mazzini’s ideas could have been equally political and spiritual. Likewise her admiration for Cagliostro and his “Egyptian Masonry” which also seems to have been common among the several TS founders.

Re: Helena Blavatsky, by Wikipedia

PostPosted: Thu Jan 17, 2019 4:40 am
by admin
The Extraordinary Life and Influence of Helena Blavatsky: Founder of the Modern Theosophical Movement [EXCERPT]
by Sylvia Cranston
Carey Williams, Research Assistant
© 1993 by Sylvia Cranston

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Chapter 5: Travels Resumed

As when she left Tiflis more than a decade previously, HPB says she again fled ‘‘because I was sick at heart and my soul needed space.’’ It was the boredom of conventional life in Russia and the absence of real freedom that drove her away. [30] She went to Odessa for a while. Thereafter one cannot speak with certainty as to the sequence of her travels, but besides Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and Jerusalem, HPB appears to have been more than once in Egypt, Greece, and Italy. It may be during this time that she studied the Kabbalah under a learned rabbi. She corresponded with him until he died, and his portrait was always a treasured relic.

In 1867, HPB spent several months traveling through Hungary and the Balkans. The towns visited were recorded in a travel diary that still exists. [31] Her last stops were in Venice, Florence, and Mentana. [32] A small town northeast of Rome, Mentana has special historic significance: In Italy's long struggle for freedom, on November 3, 1867 it was the site of an important battle waged between the forces of the Italian liberator, Garibaldi, and those of the papists and the French.

When eight years later HPB was in New York, a reporter heard about her participation in this battle. He wrote under the caption ‘‘Heroic Women’’:

Her life has been one of many vicissitudes, and the area of her experiences is bounded only by the world. . . . in the struggle for liberty [she] fought under the victorious standard of Garibaldi. She won renown for unflinching bravery in many hard-fought battles, and was elevated to a high position on the staff of the great general. She still bears the scars of many wounds she received in the conflict. Twice her horse was shot under her, and she escaped hasty death only by her coolness and matchless skill.

Altogether Madame Blavatsky is

AN ASTONISHING WOMAN


When HPB included the clipping in her scrapbook she inked in these words: ‘‘Every word is a lie. Never was on ‘Garibaldi’s staff’. . . .’’

To Sinnett, she wrote: ‘‘The Garibaldis (the sons) are alone to know the whole truth; and [a] few more Garibaldians with them. What I did, you know partially; you do not know all.’’ [33] On another occasion she remarked, ‘‘[W]hether I was sent there, or found myself there by accident, are questions that pertain to my private life.’’ [34] One of Blavatsky’s inveterate critics, René Guenon, admits that a high-ranking Mason, John Yarker (whose writings HPB commends in Isis), was ‘‘a friend of Mazzini and Garibaldi’’ and ‘‘had once seen Madame Blavatsky in their entourage.’’ [35]

HPB told Olcott she was at Mentana as a volunteer with a number of other European ladies. He recalls ‘‘In proof of her story she showed me where her left arm had been broken in two places by a sabre stroke, and made me feel in her right shoulder a musket bullet, still embedded in the muscle, and another in her leg.’’ In all, five wounds were received and she was picked up out of a ditch for dead. Olcott is of the opinion that this near-death was a critical stage in her development, wherein she was able to use her personal self more effectively as a vehicle for the higher self within.


In the early part of 1868, apparently recovered from her wounds, HPB was in Florence. Then via northern Italy she crossed over to the Balkans, according to her account spending some time there awaiting orders from her teacher. Finally word came to proceed to Constantinople and then on to India, [36] after which she journeyed to eastern Tibet. This trip is said to mark her first prolonged stay in that mysterious realm.

_______________

Notes:

31. Blavatsky, H. P. Blavatsky Collected Writings, 1:xlvii, 11–25

32. Blavatsky, The Letters of H. P. Blavatsky to A. P. Sinnett, 144

33. Blavatsky, The Letters of H. P. Blavatsky to A. P. Sinnett, 144; H. P. Blavatsky Collected Writings, 1:54–55

34. H. P. Blavatsky, ‘‘Mr. A. Lillie’s Delusions,’’ Light, London, England, Aug. 9, 1884, 323–24; Blavatsky, H. P. Blavatsky Collected Writings, 4:277–78

35. René Guenon, Le Théosophisme: Histoire d’une pseudo-religion, Paris, France, 43

36. Olcott, Old Diary Leaves, 1:9, 264; Blavatsky, The Letters of H. P. Blavatsky to A. P. Sinnett, 151–52