Banishing the Demons of Ignorance: Eric Brame’s Ignorance of Gerald Massey

By Devan Evans

Hi, Voice of Reason here; on February 5, 2010 YouTube user ChristianScholarship posted a video entitled Gerald Massey and Theosophy: Theosophical Theology Materialize in the Present. The video is essentially filled with slanderous accusations of a long dead famous poet and Egyptologist. The so-called research that ChristianScholarship has essentially done is taken the already debunked statements made by Keith Thompson in his blog article entitled Critique of Acharya S’ Sun Thesis. These accusations have already been dealt with, yet the statements still persist. Perhaps this will finally be the end of the slandering of a man dead for over a hundred years!

Let us go ahead and investigate what ChristianScholarship has to actually say shall we?

The purpose of this article will be to detail the Theosophic life of Gerald Massey and to present a case which will argue for his influence; which lead to modern witchcraft and later New Age Movements[1]

It is really hard to imagine that Gerald Massey could have any influence on a movement which derives their beliefs from Eastern Indian and Asian philosophical systems such as reincarnation, Monism, Pantheism, etc… beliefs that stem back thousands if not tens of thousands of years before Gerald Massey’s Great Grandfather was even conceived. But let’s see what else ChristianScholarship has to say on the matter shall we?

Gerald Massey was a practicing chief Druid, a self proclaimed Egyptologist and a supporter of Helena Blavatsky.[2]

All statements of which are completely wrong and can only take about twenty-five to forty-five minutes using Google to figure it out. To verify this I contacted the Upper Norwood Joint Library which houses the world’s greatest collection of writings by Gerald Massey which is entitled The Gerald Massey Collection about his involvement with the Most Ancient Order of Druids. They contacted me back with a forwarded e-mail from David Shaw whom of which they state in their own words “can be considered the foremost authority on Massey.”

The position so far as I can ascertain was purely an Honorarium, and required little, if any, work for the Order. He would not have become an actual member of the Druid Order as such, as he was not in favour of ritual.[3]

As one can see from the statement given by David Shaw that not only was Gerald Massey’s position honorary, but he also did not actually favor in the partaking of Rituals. So it would appear that not only is Eric ignorant of the fact just mentioned but he also seems to be poorly equipped for adequate research.

Now the statement about Massey being a supporter of Helena Blavatsky is also poorly researched as well. To demonstrate this, in a letter regarding Gerald Massey; H. P. Blavatsky (that is the same H. P. Blavatsky that according to you Gerald Massey was a supporter of) wrote:

MY DEAR MR. MASSEY,—My respected Guru in Egyptology, your correspondent is, for once (?), and yourself too, at sea, in your conjectures… I quote you constantly, and, for me, you are the only man in Europe and America who understands that symbolism correctly… You differ from us in several important points, such as not accepting the Avatars, or the spirit, of Christos, Buddha, Krishna, (rather Vishnu), & otherwise than as purely subjective manifestations… We, too, claim that our interpretations are 'derived from the facts themselves,' and are not the outcome of our 'own theoretic speculation…' You have laborously acquired it by personal research and thought; you are self-initiate in the Mysteries—of the British Museum; and [have] extracted the essence and the marrow of Esotericism out of the dead letter of Egyptian papyri, and under the conceited nose of Egyptologists, who see no deeper than the surface… And, lastly, forgive me my pigeon-English in favour of my sincerity.— Yours in truth, H. P. B.[4]

This seems pretty much to me to be a letter of absolute praise from the woman herself. However Gerald Massey is less than courteous to her appraisal as in response to the letter Massey writes:

And yet in one of the "Lectures," that on "The Seven Souls," I had written of Theosophy, or "Esoteric Buddhism," as it was then called, as follows:—They are blind guides who seek to set up the past as superior to the present, because they may have a little more than ordinary knowledge of some special phase of it!  There were no other facts or faculties in nature for the Hindu Mahatmas or Egyptian Rekhi than there are for us, although they may have brooded for ages and ages over those of a supra-normal kind… Much of the wisdom of the past depends on its being held secret and esoteric—on being 'kept dark,' as we say.  It is like the corals, that live while they are covered over and concealed in the waters, but die on reaching day! Moreover, it is a delusion to suppose there is anything in the experience or wisdom of the past, the ascertained results of which can only be communicated from beneath the cloak and mask of mystery, by a teacher who personates the unknown, accompanied by rites and ceremonies belonging to the pantomime and paraphernalia of the ancient medicine men.  They are the cultivators of the mystery in which they seek to enshroud themselves, and live the other life as already dead men in this; whereas, we are seeking to explore and pluck out the heart of the mystery.  Explanation is the soul of science.  They will tell you we cannot have their knowledge without living their life.  But we may not all retire into a solitude to live the existence of ecstatic dreamers.  Personally, I do not want the knowledge for myself.  These treasures I am in search of I need for others.  I want to utilise both tongue and pen and printer's type; and, if there are secrets of the purer and profounder life, we cannot afford them to be kept secret; they ask to be made universally known.  I do not want to find out that I am a god in my inner consciousness.  I do not seek the eternal soul of self.  I want the ignorant to know, the benighted to become enlightened, the abject and degraded to be raised and humanised; and would have all means to that end proclaimed world-wide, not patented for the individual few, and kept strictly private from the many.  That is only a survival of priestcraft, under whatsoever name.  I cannot join in the new masquerade and simulation of ancient mysteries manufactured in our time by Theosophists, Hermeneutists, pseudo-Esoterics, and Occultists of various orders, howsoever profound their pretensions.  The very essence of all such mysteries as are got up from the refuse leavings of the past is pretence, imposition, and imposture.  The only interest I take in the ancient mysteries is in ascertaining how they originated, in verifying their alleged phenomena, in knowing what they meant, on purpose to publish the knowledge as soon and as widely as possible.  Public experimental research, the printing-press, and a Freethought platform have abolished the need of mystery.  It is no longer necessary for Science to take the veil, as she was forced to do for security in times past.[5]

As one can see; Gerald Massey was not a supporter of Blavatsky based on this apparent scolding he gives her in response to the letter addressed to him. This essentially shows that your research, ChristianScholarship, is shotty, poorly done and taken from previous accusations, which have been debunked before and have been now.

Furthermore to put this statement of him being a practicing Druid to rest; a site which is dedicated to Gerald Massey states the following:

A misconception about Massey's religious beliefs stems from his connection with the Most Ancient Order of Druids to which he was elected Chosen Chief, an honorary position that he held from 1880 until 1906.  The position might have involved some minor administrative duties, but it required no formal membership.  To Massey, at least, it was not a religion and did not involve forms of initiation, ceremonial dress or attendance at active meetings at megalithic sites; indeed, Massey did not believe in such pagan ceremony and made his interest in the Druids plain.[6]

I hope these contentions and slanderous statements towards the freethinker Gerald Massey will finally cease… or not.

Akin to the Theosophist Helena Blavatsky was also a Luciferian. In his poem Lady of Light he states: With the Flame of flame of thy radiance, the clouds that are veiling, of a woman’s millennial mission, Lucifer Lady of Light![7]

Ah quote mining, the favorite ploy of the Fundamentalist Christian Conspiracy Theorist[8] to convince the gullible and uneducated that “it’s too coincidental that he says this, so therefore it must be a conspiracy!” The quote is actually taken from the book My Lyrical Life: Poems Old and New where Massey gives the following poetic statement:

STAR of the Day and the Night! Star of the Dark that is dying; Star of the Dawn that is nighing, Lucifer, Lady of Light! Still with the purest in white, still art thou Queen of the Seven; Thou hast not fallen from Heaven, Lucifer, Lady of Light! How large in thy lustre, how bright the beauty of promise thou wearest! The message of Morning thou bearest, Lucifer, Lady of Light! Aid us in putting to flight The Shadows that darken about us, Illumine within, as without, us, Lucifer, Lady of Light! Shine through the thick of our fight; Open the eyes of the sleeping; Dry up the tears of the weeping, Lucifer, Lady of Light! Purge with thy pureness our sight, Thou light of the lost ones who love us, Thou lamp of the Leader above us, Lucifer, Lady of Light! Shine with transfiguring might, till earth shall reflect back as human Thy Likeness, Celestial Woman, Lucifer, Lady of Light! With the flame of thy radiance smite the clouds that are veiling the vision Of Woman's millennial mission, Lucifer, Lady of Light! Shine in the Depth and the Height, and show us the treasuries olden Of Wisdom, the hidden, the golden, Lucifer, Lady of Light![9]

So what are the problems with this statement? Well according to ChristianScholarship we can say that Edgar Alan Poe worshipped the Grim Reaper simply by picking on a few words in his poem The Raven, playing on semantics and using old symbolism of how the native tribes once conveyed that the Raven was considered a symbol of death while ignoring all of the other cultures that used the very same animal for different meanings.

Also let us not forget that this is a poem we are talking about; which is clearly of the beauty of a woman in Massey’s life, like all other poetry in, before and after his time that usually speak about women. Furthermore I find it hard to believe that ChristianScholarship is actually a literary major as this is supposed to be one of the many subjects in which he has to have learned about. If he made this assessment of Massey’s poetic writing, he would have undoubtedly been given an F and be forced to do the course all over again.

Massey is cited in numerous instances throughout Zeitgeist: The Movie; this leaves the Zeitgeist Movement highly suspect, a major reason for this issue is that Massey cites very few sources. Scholastically this is equivalent to not using a source.[10]

This accusation is taken directly from Keith Thompson’s Critique of Acharya S’ Sun Thesis which quotes:

Gerald Massey was an Egypotoligist who didn't cite his sources regarding these issues properly. I read the citation and was not impressed. To use him as an "early" source for objective information is not conducive to the viewer.[11]

The ignorant and slanderous statement’s given by Keith and Eric seem to demonstrate the absolute willful ignorance these two have in regards to the work of Gerald Massey. As a prime example of this ignorance in his book Natural Genesis Vol. 1 Massey states:

After reading the first two volumes, Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace expressed the fear lest there might not be a score of people in England who were prepared by their previous education to under-stand the book… In the preceding part of the work the author took very extended views of Egypt’s enormous past and the age of her pre-monumental mythology. Some of the conclusions set forth therein were characterized by Samuel Birch as interesting and ingenious… The German Egyptologist, Herr Pietschmann, who reviewed the “BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS,” was startled at the many “unheard-of suggestions” which is contained, and thought the work was “inspired by an unrestricted thirst for discovery,” but he adduced no evidence whatever to rebut the conclusions, and gave no hint of the author’s being wrong in his derivation of facts from the monuments which those conclusions in a great measure depend. The writer has taken the precaution of all through getting his fundamental facts in Egyptology verified by one of the foremost of living authorities, Dr. Samuel Birch, to whom he returns his heartiest acknowledgements. He also sincerely thanks Captain R. F. Burton and Mr. George St. Clair, F. G. S. for their helpful hints and for the time and labor they have kindly given during the progress of this work. As a matter of course, the author will have blundered in manifold details. Discoveries are not to be made without mistakes, especially by those who do not cultivate the language of non-committal.[12]

As one can see from Massey’s own words, the man was very keen on making sure he had his fundamental facts verified by the most leading authorities of his time and he was also keen to make sure that he was correct in all of his assessments as the last sentence of the quote indicates. Another such statement is given from the man himself in a documented lecture:

Although I am able to read the hieroglyphics, nothing offered to you is based on my translation.  I work too warily for that!  The transcription and literal rendering of the hieroglyphic texts herein employed are by scholars of indisputable authority.  There is no loop-hole of escape that way.[13]

To state that Gerald Massey never cites his sources or hardly does, one has to answer these quotes and take into consideration that the man went to great lengths to discover as to whether or not he really had any of his fundamental facts straight, by contacting personally or through letter’s in order to attain the truth of his findings through well known Egyptologists. In evaluating these significant statement’s one can verifiably conclude that Gerald Massey was not a supporter of the Theosophical Society, that he is not a Luciferian nor did he cite his sources poorly or having any citations at all. This profound ignorance, the slanderous statements and many other instances show that Eric Brame is completely intellectually dishonest when it comes to the subject of Gerald Massey.

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[1]The Statement is taken directly from Eric Brame’s video entitled Gerald Massey and Theosophy: Theosophical Theology Materialize in the Present at timeline 0:14-0:28. The video can be found on YouTube or at his page http://www.youtube.com/user/ChristianScholarship

[2]Gerald Massey and Theosophy: Theosophical Theology Materialize in the Present by Eric Brame taken from timeline 0:57-1:08

[3]The Upper Norwood Joint Library can be contacted via e-mail at info@uppernorwoodlibrary.org about the involvement of Gerald Massey with the Most Ancient Order of Druids.

[4]The Agnostic Journal Oct. 3^rd 1891 Madame Blavatsky on Gerald Massey’s “Lectures” and “Natural Genesis;” this statement is taken from an online source at http://gerald-massey.org.uk/massey/cmc_miscellanea_1.htm#91_10_03

[5]vide Massey's response to the Blavatsky letter, Agnostic Journal, 1891

[6] http://gerald-massey.org.uk/massey/index.htm

[7] Gerald Massey and Theosophy: Theosophical Theology Materialize in the Present by Eric Brame taken from timeline 1:08-1:33

[8] The term Fundamentalist Christian Conspiracy Theorist is utilized normally to convey a Fundamentalist Christian who believes in the New Age Movement Conspiracy Theory, anti-Masonic Conspiracy Theories and One World Religion Conspiracy Theory.

[9] My Lyrical Life: Poems Old and New by Gerald Massey, First Series pp. 37-39 1889

[10] Gerald Massey and Theosophy: Theosophical Theology Materialize in the Present by Eric Brame taken from timeline 1:37-1:54

[11] Critique of Acharya S’ Sun Thesis by Keith Thompson May 29, 2009 - http://tinyurl.com/ycwvroa

[12] The Natural Genesis Vol. I by Gerald Massey pp. ix-x

[13] Gerald Massey Lecture: The Historical Jesus and the Mythical Christ by Gerald Massey p. 1