Mercy Cuthbert in Beliefs

Great White Brotherhood | History, The Masters and More

Brotherhood Of Great Masters

In belief systems akin to Theosophy and New Age, the Great White Brotherhood are said to be perfected beings of great power who spread spiritual teachings through selected humans.

Mention of the Great Masters, evokes images of highly evolved beings, visiting the Earth to help man in his struggling attempts to realize his spiritual nature.

The members of the Brotherhood may be known as the Masters of the Ancient Wisdom, the Ascended Masters, the Church Invisible, or simply as the Hierarchy.

The first person to talk about them in the West was Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (Theosophy) after she and other people claimed to have received messages from them. These included Helena Roerich, Aleister Crowley, Alice A. Bailey, Guy Ballard, Geraldine Innocente (The Bridge to Freedom), Elizabeth Clare Prophet, Bob Sanders, and Benjamin Creme.

The Brotherhood goes by many names and is chronicled by such diverse authors as Alice Bailey (referring to them as the seven Kumaras), Baird Spalding (calling them the White Brotherhood and the Thirteenth School); Dane Rudhyar (the seven Avatars); Omraam M. Aivanhov (the Universal White Brotherhood); Madame Blavatsky (the Dhyan Chohans, Great White Lodge); and of course, the ancient authors of the Rig Veda who referred to them as the seven Sapta Rishis (teachers). Gurdjieff also makes indirect references to the Brotherhood.

The History of the Great White Brotherhood:

The idea of a secret organization of enlightened mystics, guiding the spiritual development of the human race, was pioneered in the late eighteenth century by Karl von Eckartshausen (1752-1803) in his book The Cloud upon the Sanctuary; Eckartshausen called this body of mystics, who remained active after their physical deaths on earth, the Council of Light. Eckartshausen’s proposed communion of living and dead mystics, in turn, drew partially on Christian ideas such as the Communion of the Saints, and partially on previously circulating European ideas about secret societies of enlightened, mystical, or magic adepts typified by the Rosicrucians and the Illuminati.

The Mahatma Letters began publication in 1881 with information purportedly revealed by “Koot Hoomi” to Alfred Percy Sinnett, and were also influential on the early development of the tradition. Koot Hoomi, through Sinnett, told that high-ranking members of mystic organizations in India and Tibet were able to maintain regular telepathic contact with one another, and thus were able to communicate to each other, and also to Sinnett, without the need for either written or oral communications, and in a manner similar to the way that spirit mediums claimed to communicate with the spirits of the dead. The letters published by Sinnett, which proposed the controversial doctrine of reincarnation, were said to have been revealed through this means.

Is There A racial Bias In The Term, The Great White Brotherhood?

The Masters of the Ancient Wisdom are believed by Theosophists to be joined together in service to the Earth under the name of the Great White Brotherhood. The use of the term “white” refers to their use of white magic, as opposed to black, and is unrelated to race besides common psychological relation and its implications.

This concern is well addressed by Frater Achad: “…reference to the word ‘white’ has nothing to do with the color of the skin or to any race. It does indicate the radiance of the spiritual color of the soul (its aura)… The Divine wears many colored bodies.”

The actual phrase “Great White Brotherhood” was used extensively in Leadbeater’s 1925 book The Masters and the Path. Alice A. Bailey also claimed to have received numerous revelations from the Great White Brotherhood between 1920 and 1949, which are compiled in her books known collectively by her followers as the Alice A. Bailey Material. Since the introduction of the phrase, the term “Great White Brotherhood” is in some circles used generically to refer to any concept of an enlightened community of adepts, on Earth or in the hereafter, with benevolent aims toward the spiritual development of the human race, and without strict regard to the names used within the tradition. Dion Fortune adopts the name to refer to the community of living and dead adepts.

Who Are The Masters Of the Great White Brotherhood?

The Great White Brotherhood, also known as the Great Brotherhood of Light or the Spiritual Hierarchy of Earth, is perceived as a spiritual organization composed of those Ascended Masters who have risen from the Earth into immortality but still maintain an active watch over the world. C.W. Leadbeater said, “The Great White Brotherhood also includes members of the Heavenly Host (the Spiritual Hierarchy directly concerned with the evolution of our world), Beneficent Members from other planets that are interested in our welfare, as well as certain unascended chelas”.

The later versions of Blavatsky described the masters as ethnically Tibetan or Indian (Hindu), not European. Recent skeptical research indicates, however, that this description was used by Blavatsky to hide the real identity of her teachers, some of whom are said to have really been well-known Indian rulers or personalities of her time.

Most occult groups assign a high level of importance to the Great White Brotherhood, but some make interaction with the Ascended Masters of the Brotherhood a major focus of their existence. Of these several, the most prominent is the “I AM” Activity, founded in the 1930s, The Bridge to Freedom, the Church Universal and Triumphant, and The Temple of The Presence.

Belief in the Brotherhood and the Masters is an essential part of the syncretistic teachings of various organizations that have continued and expanded the Theosophical philosophical concepts.

Information given by the Summit Lighthouse and the I AM movement is suspect since none of the writers of these groups are Masters of any Brotherhood. Examples of those believed to be Ascended Masters would be, according to different unconfirmed sources the Master Jesus, Confucius, Gautama Buddha, Mary the Mother of Jesus, Hilarion, Enoch, Paul the Venetian, Kwan Yin, Saint Germain, and Kuthumi.

These sources say that all these peoples put aside any differences they might have had in their Earthly careers, and unite instead to advance the spiritual well-being of humanity.

World Religions

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