Sally and James Colbert -- USA

James and Sally Colbert with your editor at Olcott, Wheaton during ITC 2012

NOTE: This is the first in a series of articles intended to help Theosophical students or their families deal with some of the major traumas visiting so many of us.  Included will be alcoholism, marijuana addiction, Alzheimer’s, mental illness, suicide, abortion, physical disability, and effects of psychic practices. Some of the common treatment options are  seen as at odds with Theosophical ideas and teachings. It has been asked how Theosophy can offer direction for encountering these circumstances. The series of articles will give direct focus to these areas while drawing from the teachings and placing them in a modern context for practical use. The writers have been contacted by Theosophists over a number of years regarding these concerns related to their connection to the teachings and their background in clinical psychology.

Jan Nicolaas Kind – Brazil

Giordano Bruno

When we look at today’s world we cannot but come to the conclusion that religion, or rather, that what one refers to as ‘religion’, has caused, and is still causing immense tragedies, disgraceful behavior and confusion. Unfortunately, humans, labeled as ‘the thinkers’, most definitely have the greatest difficulties in thinking and therefore in understanding themselves, their fellow-thinkers, and the most elementary concepts that are needed to live a true religious life.

Andrew Rooke – Australia

Over 200,000 people died today and 200,000 will die tomorrow. (1) Sooner or later, we will be amongst them. Spirituality teaches us that death is not to be feared. It is a great teacher from whom we can learn much about the secrets of life. Many spiritual traditions recommend that we can learn a lot by actively contemplating the inevitability of death. This is a challenging but rewarding spiritual practice. It forces us to go beyond any superficial ideas we may have about spirituality, which are inadequate before the enormity of death, and to find something real.

A speech by Yrjö Kallinen in Helsinki on the 18th of May 1935.

Yrjö Kallinen (1886–1976) was a Theosophist, a staunch advocate of peace and non-violence and Finland's only pacifist Minister of Defense from 1946 to 1948. Despite his pacifism and non-partisanship, he was imprisoned and sentenced to death in the Finnish Civil War in 1918. However, he made such a powerful and moving speech before the firing squad that he was pardoned on the spot. His words of compassion from nearly a century ago will hopefully shed some light on the darkness of the present.