Mirra Alfassa: Western Occultist in India

by Christine Rhone

The last quarter of the nineteenth century and the first of the twentieth saw many fertile cross-seedings between the spiritual and esoteric traditions of Europe and India. A major landmark in this process was the founding in 1875 of the Theosophical Society by Madame Blavatsky. Also pivotal was the role-played by Mirra Alfassa, who is today revered as an avatar or incarnation of the Divine Mother by thousands of people East and West. She spent more than fifty years in India working to realize a synthesis called the Integral Yoga with Sri Aurobindo, who is honored today all over India as an early freedom fighter and a giant in the fields of spirituality and literature. An extraordinary temple, the Matrimandir, stands in south India as a monument to her achievement and as the essence of her dream, crystallized in a piece of visionary architecture that is unique in the world.

Born in Paris in 1878, the daughter of well to do Turkish and Egyptian parents, Mirra had many spontaneous psychic and mystical experiences from early childhood. Her mother, whom Mirra later described as "an iron rod", at one point brought her, quite literally, to have her head examined. As Mirra grew up, she gravitated toward artistic circles and studied music and painting at the Academe Julien and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. At nineteen, she married a painter and fellow student of Gustave Moreau. She exhibited her paintings in the Salons at the turn of the century and became a confidante of Auguste Rodin. From time to time she would discover a book that provided some guidance for her psychic and spiritual development, but she was essentially on her own to cope with her outstanding gifts in those areas. It was not until about 1905 that destiny provided the crucial link, when she met a myterious occultist called Max.

The Western esoteric seeds that Mirra Alfassa brought to India, where they were implanted in Sri Aurobindo's mystic philosophy, came to her through contact with Max and Alma Theon, the moving spirits behind two important occultist groups in Europe, the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor and the Groupe Cosmique. Mirra trained intensively with the Theons during two long stays at their home in Tlemcen, Algeria. The Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, known as the H. B. of L., went public in England in 1884 as a school of practical occultism. In this it differed from the Theosophical Society, whose teachings were more philosophical, and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which was more social and ceremonial. The Groupe Cosmique evolved at the turn of the century as a continuation of the H. B. of L. and had a profound influence especially in France. Through Mirra Alfassa it has left its imprint on the Integral Yoga, whose teachings are closely connected with the Theons' philosophy of the period around 1900.

Max Theon was a shadowy figure, so elusive that the best scholars today remain unable to identify his precise origins or name. Of all the variants that appear on official documents, his original name was most likely Louis Bimstein, probably born in 1847 in Poland or Russia. He himself always said he was Jewish. He is believed to have been the son of a rabbi. It is definitely known that Theon was active in Poland toward the time of the insurrections of 1863, when many Jews were demonstrating against Russian dominance. Theon must have spent much of his life under false names and identity papers to escape Tsarist or Austrian repression, but when exactly he left his country, and whether he had to flee because he was Jewish or else wanted to avoid military conscription is unresolved. His work suggests that he was an initiate of Hassidic circles. It is entirely impregnated with Kaballah. There are important theoretical and practical elements of sex magic in the H. B. of L., whose source was Paschal Beverly Randolphs’ teachings in The Brotherhood of Eulis and more distantly, the Zohar. Theon declared that he had received full initiation at the exceptionally young age of eighteen. Presumably, he traveled widely, although information on this is not explicit and comes from accounts by his successors in the Groupe Cosmique. After Theon's initiations in Europe or in Hassidic circles, he must have received initiation into Indian or Tibetan-Indian wisdom. Mirra Alfassa said that he knew the Rig Veda in depth and Sanskrit and that he claimed to have been the heir to a tradition antedating the Kaballah and the Vedas.

Theon's marriage to Alma, formerly Mary Ware, who was English, took place shortly after the first public notice of the H. B. of L. Alma was a medium, an occultist, and a successful lecturer, whose own Universal Philosophical Society, founded under the pseudonym Una, anticipated the future Philosophie Cosmique. Mirra Alfassa was lavish in her praise of Alma's immense occult powers, which she said were even greater than Maxs’.

The Philosophie Cosmique was thus a synthesis of esoteric streams issuing from Hassidic Kaballism and Indian or Tibetan-Indian sources, blended with knowledge of Western spiritualism that the Theons probably gained primarily from their own explorations of magnetism. So, in moving from the H. B. of L. to the Philosophie Cosmique, the elements of sex magic were dropped, and Indian ingredients were added along with mediumistic activities which Max Theon termed "pathotisme".

"Pathotisme", which Theon said meant magnetism in antiquity, is a practice where two persons, one psychically sensitive or a medium, and the other a protector and guide, work together to obtain occult knowledge. This operation works best when the force of polarity is used, one active and the other receptive, or male and female. The information and visions are chanelled by the sensitive, who speaks in trance while exteriorized from her body. The protector, who also ensures that the sensitive is not endangered by encounters with diabolical forces, and does not lose her way while voyaging in the subtle planes, subjects them to intellectual control. The Theons collaborated in this way for many years and used the material thus obtained to write the texts of the Philosophie Cosmique, which total more than 10,000 pages. Among their contemporaries were other couples who used similar methods, such as S. L. MacGregor Matthews and his wife Moina Bergson, whose collaboration produced the rituals of the Golden Dawn in 1891-92. This was a process that Mirra Alfassa also trained in, according to passages in her transcribed conversations. Sri Aurobindo's epic poem, Savitri, which runs to 800 pages, is, among other things, a description of Mirra's spiritual experiences as she traveled in the subtle realms.

The keystone of the whole system of the Philosophie Cosmique is the concept that physical mortality of the human being is not inevitable. One of its axioms is "Mortality is the result of imbalance: it is accidental and temporary." Nor is immortality something for the far distant future, after a long wait for some form of resurrection of the dead. It is something to be attained right now. Closely associated with this is a concept of evolution, stated in another axiom that says, "The perpetual evolution toward perfection is the eternal and natural means to arrive at earthly Immortality". The "glorious body", which is immortal and made of spiritual light, is our birthright. The Theons supported these concepts with examples taken mainly from the Bible and the Kaballah, since they were writing for people brought up in Judeo-Christian traditions, but they also had recourse to quotations from their translation of the Rig Veda. Marshalled for support were the esoteric currents of Alchemy, Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism, plus Socrates (Theon's name, incidentally, was a reflection of Alma's predeliction for ancient Greece). When Alma unexpectedly passed away from illness in 1908, Max was deeply shaken and never fully recovered. Their Revue cosmique ceased publication that same year. When he reached old age, some of his disciples, perhaps intimidated by the boldness of their leader, must have tried a cover-up, because the words "earthly Immortality" in the aforementioned axiom, meaning physical immortality, were changed to "Immortality of the earthly consciousness", which is much more limited.

Mirra first met the Theons through her brother, whose good friend was a close associate of theirs. The Philosophie Cosmique came as a deep affirmation of her inner experiences, for which she had been starved in her upbringing in a materialistic and rationalistic household. The Theons' occult knowledge and techniques provided her with the tools she needed for her psychic and spiritual development, which proved invaluable in later years. An apt and eager student, within a couple of years Mirra became an editor of the Revue cosmique. While later recognizing that the Theons' philosophy had followed the same lines as Sri Aurobindo's and arrived at the same conclusions by different paths, she also qualified Max Theon as an asura (demon) and incarnation of the Lord of Death.

It was indirectly through the Revue cosmique that she eventually met Sri Aurobindo. Her first marriage with the painter had dissolved after a few years. Her second husband was Paul Richard, a barrister in Paris who had interests in politics and philosophy, and whom she had met through her association with the Revue cosmique. In 1910 Paul Richard made a trip to India. He had two reasons for going: he wanted to meet an authentic Indian yogi, and he had political interests in the elections to be held in the French territories. It was in the sleepy seaside town of Pondicherry, some one hundred miles south of Madras, that his desire to meet a real yogi was satisfied. There he met Aurobindo Ghose, who had already made a name for himself as a fiery revolutionary against the British Raj. In fact Sri Aurobindo was in French territory to get away from the British, who had thrown him in jail for a year, and had already retired from the political field to concentrate solely on his spiritual work.

When Richard returned to France, he spoke highly of Sri Aurobindo to Mirra, and she and Sri Aurobindo began to correspond. In 1911, Alexandra David-Neel, who was a member of Mirra's study group in Paris, paid him a visit on the Richards' recommendation. But it wasn't until 1914, on the eve of World War One, that Mirra was able to meet him personally. She sailed to India with her husband, disembarking in Pondicherry, at that time best known for its smugglers and shady dealings and where the authorities were still keeping a watchful eye on who Sri Aurobindo was mixing with.

In her youth, Mirra had received teachings from guides seen in her dreams. She immediately recognized Sri Aurobindo as the main guide she had long been in contact with. The three had many long conversations and intense discussions, and as a result began to publish a review, Arya, in which Sri Aurobindo laid many of the foundation texts of the Integral Yoga. World War One soon broke out, and the Richards had to return to France. Sri Aurobindo continued Arya, working simultaneously on serializations of what were later to be published as six or seven separate books that comprise a large part of his most important philosophical writings. Mirra and her husband remained in France for only a short time before they left for Japan, where they lived for several years.

When Mirra returned to Pondicherry in 1920, it was for good. It was also the end of her marriage to Paul Richard, who did not want to be Aurobindo's disciple. She lived with Sri Aurobindo and worked closely with him for more than thirty years until his death in 1950. The two contributed the best of their knowledge and experience to their philosophical synthesis and spiritual vision. The Philosophie Cosmique symbol, derived from the Star of David, was adapted in turn for their own use, as was some of Theon's terminology. Sri Aurobindo found little to reject in the teachings of Max Theon, and recognized him as a remarkably intuitive pioneer. Mirra was given increasing responsibility for the spiritual guidance of the growing numbers of people who began to trickle into Pondicherry to be near Sri Aurobindo, and who formed the nucleus of the future Sri Aurobindo Ashram and School. In 1926, Mirra became generally known as the Mother, and Sri Aurobindo said that henceforward he would do all his work through her.

Born in Calcutta in 1872, Sri Aurobindo had a father who was an ardent Anglophile and who sent his sons to be educated at the best schools in England, where Sri Aurobindo proved to be a brilliant student at Saint Paul's and then at Cambridge. Upon his return to India at the age of twenty-one, Sri Aurobindo set about making good his lack of knowledge about his own country and its languages with a vengeance, learning several Indian languages in a short time and devouring the classical texts. He worked as a professor at Baroda College for some time and became increasingly involved in politics, using his pen as his sword. His imprisonment as a revolutionary resulted in a turning within himself. His intense mystical experiences while in jail are described in a well-known speech that has become part of India's literary and historical heritage. In 1910, Sri Aurobindo left the north of India and sailed south to Pondicherry. He threw himself ever deeper into his practice of yoga, living very simply, but always surrounded by books.

Sri Aurobindo wrote prolifically in a complex and rich English style to reinterpret the heritage of Vedanta and Yoga traditions. He rejected the doctrine of maya (illusion), and embraced a concept of the evolution of spirit in nature and history. Other thinkers of his generation also treated the concept of evolution, an influence from science, although classical Indian thought contains similar ideas. Powered by an aspiration that is in-built, humanity is inevitably progressing toward a higher form of consciousness, which will finally result in the divinization of humanity and of matter. The aim of yoga is not liberation for one single individual, but the integration of all people, the Earth, and matter itself with highest consciousness. The race that is evolving will be a new species whose immortal bodies are made of supramental light.

As she entered old age, from at least 1958 on, Mirra concentrated on something she called "the yoga of the body" or "yoga of the cells" and underwent many physical disorders and psychic attacks in the process. From the Integral Yoga perspective, Mirra was working on the spiritual and occult planes for the benefit of all humanity and of matter, to hasten the process of evolution toward the new species. From the perspective of the history of Western esotericism, this phase of her work was an extension and development of the Theons' teaching that the human body can be made immortal. Regardless of Theon, there was enough misunderstanding and confusion among some of her disciples on this issue anyway to cause a wave of disillusionment to ripple through their ranks when she physically died in 1973, at the ripe age of ninety-five. Mirra's biographers often devote some discussion to reconciling the upheavals of this period. The experiences and visions of her last years are recorded in the Mother's Agenda, a collection of conversations transcribed by her disciple Satprem which make fascinating reading.

Unlike other associates of Theon's who tried to found idealistic or utopian communities, such as Peter Davidson's ill-fated "colony" in Georgia (U.S.A.) in 1886, Mirra was successful in establishing an international township, Auroville, which has been growing fitfully but fruitfully since 1968. Its aims include echoes of immortality and an overt evolutionary purpose. "Auroville will be the place of an unending education, of constant progress, and a youth that never ages." "The whole earth must prepare itself for the advent of the new species, and Auroville wants to work consciously to hasten this advent".

More than a century has passed since the heyday of Max and Alma Theon.  The influence of the H. B. of L. on subsequent occultist groups has been profound, both in Europe and in the U.S.A.. Its threads can be traced through the activities of some its leading members, such as the Rev. William Ayton, F.Ch. Barlet, Peter Davidson, and Thomas Henry Burgoyne. Its teachings were part of the esoteric core of French occultism, whose driving force was Papus, head of the Martinist Order. Of all the students of the Philosophie Cosmique the most illustrious is no doubt Mirra Alfassa, who became the Mother of the Integral Yoga: Auroville has achieved much, especially in ecology and architecture, while the Sri Aurobindo Ashrams in Pondicherry and Delhi are thriving.

The synthesis of Yoga philosophy that the Mother developed with Sri Aurobindo produced enough books to fill a small library. His collected works run to some thirty volumes, while the Mother's Agenda alone is another thirteen. Their approach, however, was not systematized. Nowhere in his writings, nor in the Mother's sayings, are there prescriptions as to specific forms that yoga practice should take. It is essential that each person find his or her own way. As Sri Aurobindo succinctly put it, "All life is yoga."

Their followers today in the Pondicherry area fall into two broad groups: those who are more connected to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, which is in Pondicherry itself, and those more connected with Auroville, located some six kilometers north of Pondicherry. The Ashram is predominantly Indian and is run along more or less traditional lines. The tomb (or samadhi) of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo is always thickly covered with flowers, and incense is burnt continually. People walk about silently and come to meditate. The rooms where Sri Aurobindo and the Mother lived and received visitors are considered sacrosanct. Being allowed to see these rooms is regarded as a great privilege.

Auroville is a quite different animal. The building of Auroville and contributing to its development on a day-to-day basis is the way many Aurovilians, and friends of Auroville, practice their Integral Yoga. Contrary to what the name suggests, Auroville is not a town, but a township, a series of very small settlements spread over a twenty square kilometer area, with about 1500 permanent residents. The population is predominantly Western, a rich blend of nationalities from Europe, Asia, North and South America. About one-third of the population is Indian, mainly Tamils, the local people. Tamil villages are interspersed in and around the Auroville zone. This, from a barren stretch of nearly treeless land has been completely transformed, densely planted and greened over the past thirty years. Organic methods and alternative technologies are encouraged. Township facilities include many small clusters of houses, farms, a few schools, a couple of shops, lots of crafts workshops and small businesses, a large auditorium, a community dining hall and bakeries, health and therapy buildings, libraries, computer buildings, a cafe or two, and the Matrimandir. Young architects from all over India are eager to gain work experience in Auroville because of its opportunities and freedom. There is no emphasis or insistence on any religious or ritual observances. On the whole, the atmosphere is relaxed, friendly, and open. Recognized by the government of India and endorsed by UNESCO, Auroville, whose name means City of Dawn, has many supporters all over the world who share its aspiration to human unity.

Many years ago a good friend of mine who had recently been to Auroville told me about it. Circumstances did not allow me to go there until recently, and I have now been to Auroville twice. The highlight of my second visit was a visit to the inner chamber of the Matrimandir on the eve of the new millenium. It was  followed by a ceremony for world peace with the lighting of a thousand candles in the Tibetan Pavilion in Auroville and a meditation on the Pavilion roof in the warm night under the stars.  It was an unforgettable experience.

The inner chamber of the Matrimandir, the Temple of the Mother, has been finished since 1991, while the outer skin of the building is still under construction. The building as a whole is a slightly flattened sphere, to represent the rising sun. One reaches the inner chamber by walking up a long ramp that spirals along the inside skin to a point mid-way up the building. There is only one entrance to the inner chamber. This is a very wide circular space with a domed roof. No gods, goddesses, or deities are depicted, because this is meant to be a place for meditation and concentration that goes beyond religion, a gateway to forces beyond the realm of the gods. The walls are lined with white marble. The floor is padded so that the silence is unbroken. Twelve freestanding columns define an inner circle, and in the centre of the chamber, as a focal point, rests the largest crystal ball in the world. The clarity and mirroring qualities of the crystal ball spring to life by a single shaft of sunlight that illuminates it from a small opening in the top of the domed roof. The Matrimandir is much visited by Indians from all over the subcontinent, to which Sri Aurobindo is a household name mentioned in the same breath as Mahatma Ghandi. As dawn melted into early daylight on New Year's Day 2000, the lines to get a glimpse of the inner chamber in the Temple of the Mother were already long.

Bibliography

Christian Chanel, "De la 'Fraternité de Louxor' au 'Mouvement cosmique': l'oeuvre de Max Théon...", Doctorat d'Etat, E.P.H.E., Section Ve, 1994. J. Godwin, C. Chanel and J. P. Deveney, The Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, Samuel Weiser, 1995.

Georges van Vrekhem, Beyond Man, HarperCollins, New Delhi, 1997.