Theosophical Society ~ Richard Smoley

Biography:
Richard Smoley is one of the world's most distinguished authorities on the mystical and esoteric teachings of Western civilization. After taking a bachelor's degree magna cum laude in classics at Harvard in 1978, Richard went on to the University of Oxford in the U.K., where he edited The Pelican, the magazine of Corpus Christi College. He took another B.A. in the Honour School of Literae Humaniores (classics and philosophy) in 1980, and received his M.A. from Oxford in 1985.

The most important part of his stay at Oxford came from his contact with a small group that was studying the Kabbalah, one of the mainstays of the Western esoteric tradition. It was here that he was first introduced to many of the ideas he has discussed in his books and articles. In 1986, Richard started writing for a new magazine called Gnosis: A Journal of the Western Inner Traditions. After four years of writing for Gnosis and a brief stint as managing editor, he came on board as editor in November 1990. In 1998 Gnosis won Utne Reader's award for best spiritual coverage. In May 1999, Richard's book, Hidden Wisdom: A Guide to the Western Inner Traditions, coauthored with Jay Kinney, was published by Penguin Arkana. He presently lives in western Massachusetts, where he teaches philosophy as an adjunct professor at Holyoke Community College. He is also editor of Quest Books, operated by the Theosophical Society in America.

Highly regarded writer on esoterica, Richard Smoley, discussed various occult traditions, including such topics as prophecy, Nostradamus, and prayer. He detailed his interest in the influential Theosophical Society, begun in 1875, which set out to study the occult, and unknown abilities in humans. A number of concepts first promulgated by the Society like karma, reincarnation, and Eastern spirituality have become widely known or accepted today, he pointed out. One of the founders of the Theosophical Society, Madame Blavatsky, was a Russian mystic who had an enormous passion for the paranormal and occult wisdom. She claimed to be in contact with certain hidden Masters, who were said to have powers far beyond normal human beings. "The more spiritually advanced someone is, the less he or she wants publicity," Smoley commented.

One reason people often feel fear of the occult is because it gives them a kind of reassurance that there is another reality beyond the physical, he suggested. Regarding the prophecies of Nostradamus, a lot of what he was saying probably had to do with his own time period-- the 16th century, rather than the centuries that followed, Smoley noted. Prophecies of doom and end times made by various seers could be a kind of "displacement" for fears regarding our own mortality, he added.

Miracles, seemingly supernatural occurrences, can play out in ways in people's lives that don't necessarily violate the laws of physics, while the power of prayer points to the mind not being confined to the physical brain, he stated. Defying the conventional models of reality, he remarked that the "mind is not quite as isolated and independent as one probably thinks." Smoley also talked about how consciousness (the capacity to relate self and other) creates the universe, as well as how the Ouija board has positive aspects-- the poet James Merrill and his partner David Jackson transcribed the epic poem "The Changing Light at Sandover" via the Ouija board.