Theos-Talk Archives (January 2002 Message tt00239)

Jerry, I haven't been visiting theos l for some days because last 
time I was there something didn't function properly in fact Mauri via 
Dallas, who placed Mauri's post on theos-talk, mentioned theos l 
would be "out of business". I'm glad I looked now and notice there 
is an answer to one of my earlier mails, thanks, and I will try to 
clarify my remark about Monads a bit. 

Brigitte: However there is a third possibility, there is an extensive 
18th century "Monadic" theory/literary tradition, in 18th century 
esoteric Masonry, wich I suspect is the source of Blavatsky's 
original ideas on this subject.

Jerry: I am not familiar with this, but I suppose its possible. 
Brigitte: Yes that's an interesting story and in fact I like to know 
what you have gotten on the background of John Dee's version also, 
because John Dee's most famous book is THE HIEROGLYPHIC "MONAD", 
published in Antwerp, 1564. See: 

http://www.esotericarchives.com/dee/monad.htm

But regarding Leibniz who for some reason ended up more mainstream, 
the alternative to that was a version appreciated and distributed in 
esoteric circles that stems from the flemish Franz Mercurius van 
Helmont. Well known as an Alchemist, Hermetist and his theory about 
reincarnation, van Helmont in fact was just as much a budding 
scientist as Leibniz. And if in the US you might not have heared so 
much about van Helmont, for shure you must be aware of Anne Conway 
one of Helmont's benefactors who wrote severral books including on 
van Helmont's theories about reincarnation.
Leibnitz and van Helmont where very well aware of each other 
theories because Leibnitz traveled all the way and spent a whole 
month with van Helmont to disscus these matters in a place in 
Southern Germany , where soon there after the first seeds for the 
famous secret society developed that later Blavatsky's granfather 
became a member of. But even if it was not in the library of her 
grandfather there where countles of other ways Blavatsky would have 
come in contact with this version of the Monad. 
Details about the conversations between Leibnitz and van Helmont 
you'l find in Anne Besco's: "Leibniz et Francois Mercure van Helmont. 
Bagatelle pour les Monades." 1978.

But the most striking is of course that they both used the same 
source where they developed their theories of the "Monad" from, that 
is the Lurian Cabalah, and I think you are one those along with 
Steve Stubb, and myself that pointed out how the whole of 
Blavatsky's system is really the cabalistic tree of life put in a 
circular fashion called "rounds". 

For details on the Lurian Cabalah later used by Blavatsky (you are 
aware that we are dealing with the misunderstanding called 
the "Christian" Cabalah, and then developed a new misunderstanding 
that moving with the fashion of the time in the 19th century called 
the "Oriental Cabalah" ) , and Leibniz see Allison Coudert "Leibniz 
and the Kabbalah", Dordrecht 1995. 

http://www.nd.edu/~dharley/HistIdeas/FMvanHelmont.html

Jerry: "Can't the same idea crop up in different cultures and 
countries?"

Maybe, but maybe one should also be careful to not only take the easy 
way out. Afterall there are also differences between Chinese and 
English and its not the same, for example Tibetan and German are 
also not the same, and so on and so on. In fact people who really 
want to read and write fluent the languages of other regions on earth 
( I only studied one, of the many Chinese languages just Mandarin, 
and only that already took me a lot of work) can't just do it by 
saying its all the same. The same is with religions, cultural 
customs, and beliefs, anybody who studies these in earnest (ask 
anybody who has a degree in say Hinduism, Tibetology, or/and 
expecially comparative religion, like James Santucci who not a 
theosophist himself is indeed sympathetic towards it) will tell you 
its "not" all the same. 
But maybe particularly theosophists, who first like to trow 
everything in one pot, and then say its all "ours", have to be very 
careful with that if they don't want to be looked at as fools by the 
rest of the world.
Brigitte.