The following four paragraphs are taken from the home page of the Henry T Laurency Publishing Foundation - www.laurency.com

"Henry T. Laurency is the pseudonym of an esoteric philosopher who lived and worked in Sweden. He was a prolific writer; it is estimated that his collected works run to some four thousand pages.

The name of Laurency is inseparably connected with Pythagoras’ esoteric teaching, which is called hylozoics. Laurency considered that in the new world-epoch now dawning, esoteric knowledge formerly reserved for certain secret schools will be widely diffused, popularized, and so distorted. Nevertheless, the need for such knowledge will be more intensely felt as traditional religion is dying out and the physicalist outlook based on natural science proves increasingly untenable as a world view.

In Laurency’s opinion, the presentations of esoteric knowledge made hitherto (by Blavatsky, Leadbeater, and Bailey, to mention the three most important ones) are not very well suited to Westerners with a philosophic and scientific education. They present some difficulties in the matter of systematic presentation as well as in the terminology and symbolism used.

Laurency thought the presentation of a Western school better suited to Westerners, and that was why he started from Pythagorean hylozoics. He scrapped the symbols and put a modern, lucid terminology in their stead. Most notably, he introduced a mathematical nomenclature, numbering things rather than naming them. He can be somewhat severe in his criticism of things that he thought obstruct clear understanding and human progress."

I believe that Laurency's books clarify and build upon the body of esoteric knowledge that we call Theosophy. Laurency didn't label himself as theosophist and was not affiliated to any of the theosophical societies, which probaly explains why not many people have heard of him. If you have not read any of his books I recommend that you do - you will not be disappointed. Besides, this will be dead end thread if no one does!!

All the books are available for FREE in pdf format from www.laurency.com

Ed

PS: In case you are wondering, I am not linked to the Laurency website or organisation in any way; I am just a grateful fan of his work.

Ed,

Thanks for the information on Laurency's works. I will be interested to hear how his ideas compare and contrast with Theosophical concepts.

I have already answered this question (as best I could) in the Introductions section of this forum.

I started this thread to discuss Laurency's ideas not teach people about them, and I am certainly not trying to "convert" anyone to Laurency. I am a great believer in synchronicity and that people will discover information when they are ready for it. A discussion forum will not work if only one person knows anything about the subject of discussion, so I will check back here periodically to see if anyone is ready to discuss things.

Incidentally, I have just ordered a new book called "The Science of Spirituality" from www.esotericscience.org that looks like it might answer your question better than I can. The author claims to have been influenced by Theosophy and Laurency. It has not arrived yet, but I will update you when I have read it.

Ed

Ed,

You said,

"I started this thread to discuss Laurency's ideas not teach people about them, and I am certainly not trying to "convert" anyone to Laurency."

--> In the end, it is about the ideas, not the person who said the ideas. You wish to discuss the ideas, and that is good.

In the other thread you said,

"One thing that really springs to mind is the confusion in Theosophy about the monad. The prefix "mon" implies that it is a single unit whereas theosophy states that it is three units (the 3 permanent atoms that make up the "higher self")."

--> I would not say three, I would say two. Geoffrey Barborka, in his book The Divine Plan, shows how the Monad is a duality, a combination of the Atma and Buddhi. Here is a graphic I put together. (DP refers to The Divine Plan, SD refers to The Secret Doctrine, and the i-1-1 numbers refer to specific Stanzas of Dzyan



Many people think the Monad includes a third principle, Manas, but it cannot. If you read the Theosophical history of the beginning of the human race, a big part of the story is the repeated failures of creating human Manas. While all of this failing was going on, each of our Monads was still there, waiting for our Manas to be created.

"Laurency identifies the monad as the "self" (the source of our individual consciousness and identity) not the "higher self"."

--> I would agree with that. The Atma is the Higher self, so if we wish to give the Monad a title, Self (not Higher Self) would work.

"Laurency states that the purpose of life is the evolution of consciousness and as the monad/self evolves it rises up through the chain of permanent atoms (over the course of thousands of incarnations)."

--> This statement agrees and disagrees with Theosophy.

"In regular human beings the monad/self is centred in one of the three permanent of the lower self (physical, astral or mental)."

--> I would disagree with this statement. The Monad has its own "center", which is co-located with the astral body center, etc. The Monad cannot exist on the astral plane, physical plane. etc.

"The monads of the spiritual masters that the early theosophists learnt from (DK, KH, etc) were centred in the higher self, which is where the confusion about the monad arose."

--> I feel your statement does not make sense. A Monad cannot be centered in a Higher Self. (I am assuming by Higher Self you mean Atma.)

"Incidentally some of Laurency's information came from an earlier version of Theosophy called Hylozoics which was devised by Pythagoras (an incarnation of KH)."

--> Even Hylozoics is merely a re-issue of an earlier version of the Ancient Wisdom.

"It is not possible to answer your question any better than that because as I said earlier, Theosophy is like high school and laurency is like college."

--> Oh, you would be surprised. We mere high schools students may be capable of more than you give us credit for. You sound like you are withholding a more detailed answer. Please feel free to share this higher information.

"When you were at high school you thought you had a pretty good grasp of the subject matter, but when you got to college you realised there was a whole new level to learn about. But no one can tell you about it - you need to go to college and discover it for yourself."

--> You have repeatedly said your philosophy is superior to mine. Show me.

Nick,

No, the monad is not Atma (5th plane up). The monad is actually a single "atom" that exists on the highest cosmic plane. At the start of its evolutionary journey the monad embeds itself in a physical permanent atom then over the course of thousands of incarnations it gradually climbs the chain of permanent atoms.

The monads of a spiritual master is centred in Atma, which is where the confusion originated. Most human monads are centred in the astral permanent atom, which is evident from their emotionality, black and white thinking, ego, pride, vanity, etc. More advanced human monads (such as people who are interested in theosophy and esoterics) are centred in the mental molecule. Enlightened human monads are centred in the mental atom (causal plane), etc...

This relates to a rest period between cycles of activity. Just as our monad/self sleeps in our causal body between each incarnation, we sleep in our atmic body between larger cycles of activity. When this new cycle of activity began we had to wait for more advanced beings to design and create our bodies of incarnation.

Of course, advanced beings have been teaching humanity for millions of years. Hylozoics was just the version they taught in ancient Greece.

I know you are very interested in the Stanzas of Dzyan but they are very ancient texts and there are newer texts that explain things much more clearly (e.g. Leadbeater and Laurency). It would be unwise to consider a document "gospel truth" just because it is ancient - look where that has got the Christians!

The informatuion is freely available from www.laurency.com.

The only way to discover the whole truth is to read a variety of different subjects and perspectives (which I am sure you do). Theosophy seems to be the bedrock of your philosophical views, which is fine because it is a very comprehensive and informative system, but it does have a few flaws. For example, when Einstein and co first started investigating subatomic physics they made few mistakes. Mistakes that were rectified by the next generation of physicists. Information evolves -nothing is set in stone. Esoteric information is realsed gradually so that we can build up our understanding gradually. i.e. you have to go to high school before you go to college.

I have said nothing of the sort. I would not say that a college student is more superior to a high school student - they are just at different points on the path.

I suspect that you are a college student but feel more comfortable in high school. Maybe you prefer to be a senior at high school than a freshman at college?

Ed

Ah...laurency; a knowing nod to you, Ed - you are not alone in having read much of laurency's work, and thus perhaps we shall have some discussions in due time, but for the moment...I might attempt to "resolve" the current issue through a manner of mediation, for there indeed is a bit of a problem here - a tension of sorts.

This, of course, is a tension born of laurency's tendency towards a (mind you relative) "elitism" and the fact that it is coming through here; this idea of the superior/inferior. This bias is the one thing I watch for in laurency's work as it tends to contradict the work of "brotherhood", of "unity" if we are not on-guard to this tendency. Remember always: brotherhood; unity - forget this "elitism", for it will only come to harm.

Now, that out of the way - the problem between the the works is simply enough that both of them are, indeed, quite different in their manners; true, they concern the same thing...however, they are both approach it in a unique fashion. For example, laurency tackles things in a more systematic and formalized fashion, using numbers instead of names (something I find quite useful myself for such a study) - not to mention he tends to focus on working from the matter aspect(occidental), whereas Blavatsky and many others are more in favor of the manners of the east - of symbols, words, and beings representing principles and working from the consciousness aspect (oriental). Fact of the matter is that neither system is wrong to work with...and, perhaps more importantly, neither of them are completely right yet, either. The real trouble comes in (and I emphasize this point) comparing notes between laurency and Blavatsky...or for that matter, almost any system the world over; one needs to be able to "interpret" correctly to cross multiple knowledge systems - ie: intuition.

It is a fact that laurency and Blavatsky do not say "exactly" the same thing - however, when do we ever say the same thing?

Lastly, I'd like to point this line of thought out and pose my own question:

"In regular human beings the monad/self is centred in one of the three permanent of the lower self (physical, astral or mental)."

--> I would disagree with this statement. The Monad has its own "center", which is co-located with the astral body center, etc. The Monad cannot exist on the astral plane, physical plane. etc

...I ask, can either of you prove your assertations besides resorting to your "paper popes"; have either of you ascertained these things to be fact? If not...then perhaps arguing over the nature of the monad is moot.

I find it interesting indeed how people can go from studying the physics of world 49:5-7 all the way to debating world 1:1 - the monad.

Hopefully what I have said makes some sense. We can carry this speculation on further, if it is wished (obviously) or we can call it a day and realize we are not about to get anywhere here, as of yet.

No harm intended to either of you.

QaZsE

1