“Raja Yoga” Education: the Point Loma Theosophical School 1898-1942 (part one) By Ken Small (CONTINUED)
She became an advocate of education and prevention in relationship to crime, which she called the “road of ignorance” requiring “a large toleration for all, and a grand compassion for the erring.” [(13) “California Utopia” p. 83.] She condemned harsh punishment: “I would have the word crime erased from the dictionaries … crime is a disease and calls not for punishment but for cure.” She called for wisely administered “educative and karmic” treatment of the causes of crime and “not prisons, cells and scaffolds.” (7) Her advocacy against the death penalty was constant and impassioned. Perhaps the peak of her public success in this area of reform came during 1914, when she gave direct support to then Gov. Hunt of Arizona, touring the state herself with a group of “Raja Yoga” students performing music along with her speeches countering the death penalty. Gov. Hunt also visited the Theosophical center at Point Loma as well. Tingley was also involved in the advocacy of prison reform and Herbert Coryn, who had been in Blavatsky’s esoteric “Inner Group” edited a Theosophically based periodical called “The New Way”, that was printed monthly at Point Loma and distributed free to those in prison. Tingley’s critique was emphatic: Look at our prisons, those monuments of racial iniquity, and then say that our religion and our politics have lifted the standards of life….Is it not obvious, a truism, that every house of correction should have within itself the means and power to correct and redeem? And yet of what avail are our legal systems and prison systems for the moral correction of the criminal? What feature in them is designed to lift him out of despair? Nothing; and it was never intended that there should be; all that is thought of is this utterly futile idea of punishment, that can serve no good purpose in the world. --The Gods Await, pp. 96-7 Raja Yoga School Development, Curriculum and Day After the founding of Point Loma in 1898, her Raja Yoga “experiment” was begun. The first class began in 1900 with five students and there were 98 residents living, mostly in tents there at the time. Within two years the number of students had reached one hundred and by 1910 for its duration maintained an average of about three hundred students. This was about half of the number of residents living at Point Loma 1910 through 1920”s where the number of residence fluctuated between five and six hundred. (California Utopia p. 79 and Iverson Harris interview with Bob Wright, The Journal of San Diego History, Summer 1974, p. 17). Additionally there were approximately one hundred students coming daily from San Diego. There were more than twenty nationalities represented in this international group. To have a little overview of the activity of Point Loma community at this time, just during September 1915 between seven and eight thousand visitors came to see the Point Loma educational center and community. [(15) p. 227 The Theosophical Path Sept. 1915.] Children were arranged into groups from six to twelve and within an age group of two or maximum three years difference. Each of these groups then lived in a group house with a teacher or what Greenwalt termed “superparent”. [(16) “California Utopia” by Emmett Greenwalt p. 80.] After class hours, students returned to their group homes and also engaged in various kinds of physical activity and work, including gardening, wood working, sports, art, as well as daily orchestral practice and periodic participation in dramatic productions. The total faculty by 1906 numbered more than sixty, most of whom had degrees from various colleges and universities. [(17) Journal of San Diego History, Iverson Harris interview by Robert Wright p. 17. and also Greenwalt p. 79]. The Day of a Raja Yoga Student A typical student day began at 6 am, with the community gathering at the Greek Theater for a time of silent meditation at the Greek theater, where readings were made from “The Voice of the Silence”, “Bhagavad Gita” and other inspirational and devotional classics of Theosophy. Breakfast was at 7 and in silence, much like Buddhist retreat centers of today and classes began by 8. Class instruction alternated with work in the flower gardens for the younger children and work in the vegetable gardens, fruit orchards and forestry department for the older boys. The older girls involved themselves in sewing for what was called the Woman’s Exchange and Mart. After the mid day lunch at noon, there was athletic sports, including baseball, tennis, basketball, volleyball and track etc. Also included was daily group musical practice with both instruments and chorus. The youngest children were in bed by seven and everyone else by nine-thirty. An example of the Raja Yoga method in relationship to learning music is given as follows: Mme. Tingley’s originality was strikingly shown in the method of imparting musical instruction to children between the ages of two and a half and seven years. Each child carried a miniature piano keyboard, which showed the scale and the colors of the rainbow. The children, one by one, wrote on the blackboard on the stage each one of the seven notes of the scale in its proper place on the staff. Each note was written in a different color of chalk, and the class altogether did the following: Called the note by its name, corresponded it with a color, named and spelled and wrote the color, pointed out the note on the miniature keyboard, and while one played it on a real piano the rest sang it at a pitch to correspond. In this way the children were not being taught music in a separate watertight compartment, but were having their eyes, ears, voices, fingers and minds trained and attuned at one and the same time. It was explained that this was one of the essential characteristics of the Raja Yoga system …. where all branches are related to one another, but also to the physical, mental and moral life. -- The Theosophical Path p. 377, Nov. 1915 Early on for the Lotus schools in New York in the late 1890”s Katherine Tingley would write: “Children of Light, let us go forth into the world and render noble service to all that live!” (Wisdom of the Heart p. 114 and originally in her Mysteries of the Heart Doctrine published in 1902) This inspirational keynote was often recited by children at the Raja Yoga school. It is a curious fact that this phrase was also used in the Pathfinder youth groups of the United Lodge of Theosophists, undoubtedly the inspirational phrase was printed without Tingley’s name ascribed to it in the literature of early Lotus Circle Groups in New York and Boston in the late 1890”s. This was during the time when the United Lodge founder, Robert Crosbie was living at Point Loma and still a member of the Point Loma group until 1904. [(20) verbal communication from various ULT members of Pathfinders and various documents on Robert Crosbie in the Point Loma Archives.] Raja Yoga: Ideals and Practice In the ideal of the Raja Yoga educational “system” there were core elements that Katherine Tingley viewed as essential. She would describe her educational “system” as “Raja Yoga, “royal union” or as she expressed it: “the perfect balance of all the faculties, physical, mental, and physical --The Voice of the Soul by Katherine Tingley p. 81 How this broad generalization was described, will be briefly outlined with some quotations from her own writings and those of some of the teachers at Point Loma: Raja Yoga is an ancient term meaning simply “royal” or “kingly union”. I selected it as best expressing the aim and object of true education, namely, the perfect balance of all the faculties, physical, mental and spiritual—in a word, character…Our work is distinctively international, and this has its effect upon the children. Students come here, both young and old, from all parts of the world, and each is encouraged to be, in the deeper sense, a national expression, standing for all that is best and highest in his own national life. Children are taught to regard themselves as integral and responsible parts of the nation to which they belong. They are taught to aspire to the position of national benefactors, teachers and helpers, and so to become exponents of the truest and wisest patriotism. In the nurseries and schools of the world the principle of selfishness seems often to be exalted into a virtue. “Preparation for life” seems all too often to consist in the cultivation of those aspects of nature which have already done so much to create the misery which we see. The habit of self-interest, the “duty” of competition, are taught from the earliest and most impressionable days… and children so taught, being left in ignorance of their own nature, its complexities and its intricacies, are unable to discriminate between the Higher Self and the lower, between the true and the false in life.”.” -- The Wisdom of the Heart, pp. 94, 95 “Discipline is always necessary; but it should always be made clear that the ultimate source of discipline is the child’s own higher nature and will. The guardian and teacher simply interpret and guide. A child makes to his guardians a double appeal – from the lower nature and from the higher. If the appeal of the lower nature alone is responded to, the indulgence ensues and the child’s nature is spoilt and the seeds of future sorrow are sown. The teacher must be able to recognize the appeal of the child’s higher nature and to respond to it; thus manifesting true kindness, earning real gratitude, and sowing the seeds of future weal. Such are some of the principle of Raja Yoga education….” -- Henry T. Edge, “The Theosophical Path” p. 24, January 1920 “We must teach the child that it is an immortal Soul incarnate in a body. We must who it the difference between selfish instincts and care for others. “Oh, if only I had been taught, as a child, to pass the plate around, instead of helping myself first, what a difference it would make to me now !” Raja Yoga children are taught to pass the plate around first. The problem in a nutshell again, and unromantically simple, as before. We commend the solution to all educational writers. But remember: unless there is behind this moral teaching the rational intellectual teaching, the result will probably be only a subtle hypocrisy. ….Teach the child that the soul is his real self; that he is immortal; that he lived before he was born, and will continue to live after the change called death. Teach him the perfect and benign justice of the great law of Karma. Teach him these things, and you will give him a sure basis for moral training that will make him a self-disciplined man. And these sublime truths do not have to be taught like maxims out of a book or catechism. The intuition of the unspoilt child is able to perceive and grasp than to teach them. We have far more need to refrain from unteaching children than to teach them. All this is illustrated by the results obtained in the Raja Yoga teaching. It is this that will solve the problem of education, by producing self-disciplined people…..” -- Henry T. Edge, The Theosophical Path, Sept. 1919 p. 228 “Raja Yoga” Education: the Point Loma Theosophical School 1898-1942 (part two) Music: The Harmony Within “Music is one of the cornerstones of the Raja Yoga system of education. The world has not yet awakened to its value as a factor in refining and purifying the character, especially during the early and more plastic years of life. It is a part of the daily life under the Raja Yoga system, not merely as an exercise which occupies its stated times and seasons, but as a principle which animates all the activities. The soul-power which is called forth by a harmony well delivered and well received does not die away with the conclusion of the piece. It has elicited a response from within the nature, the whole being has been keyed to a higher pitch of activity, and even the smallest of the daily duties, those which are usually called menial, will be performed in a different way.” “There is a science of consciousness, and into that science music can enter more largely than is usually supposed. A knowledge of the laws of life can be neither profound nor wide which thus neglects one of the most effective of all forces. Let us bring our children, therefore, close, to the refining influences of the best in art and music. In doing so ... let us realize that the power of beautiful expression in these things in not an affair of the intellect alone, nor of custom or convention. Nor can it be learned from books. It comes from the awakening of the inner powers of the soul, those qualities of the nature which are in sympathy with whatever is high and pure.” p. 96-7 “The Wisdom of the Heart” “Do we realize that even now we witness the small beginnings of the great and lofty future era? Do we notice the marvelous music, the wonderful harmony in it? Open your inner ear and listen to it! Every being creating constantly his own melody, which is in absolute harmony with those of all his fellow men! Do we realize what tremendous forces would originate from such a unity? A foretaste of such spiritual delights can be enjoyed even now when seeing and hearing the children at Point Loma. Listen to their voices and watch the expression of their faces in “the Little Philosophers” they say: “Let us as warriors stand.” It is the same when we hear the steps of their little feet, marching in unison. Together with all the other great lessons in their young lives, and with all that tends to draw their attention to the divine in man, they are learning music. And if it is asked what all this means, the answer is that man is divine in essence, and that he can only be developed by self-directed evolution; and, applying this to music, we find that it is only in creating his own music that man can learn to understand himself, and afterwards his fellow-men and their music.” Thoughts on Music” first published in “The Theosophical Path” 1915 by Daniel deLange, quoted from “Thoughts on Music” published by ISIS, the Hague 2003, p. 109 Drama, Its Rightful Place “The drama, like music, is regarded by the world as one of the relaxations of life because it is supposed to deal with unrealities. True drama points away from unrealities to the real life of the soul. As such it should lead and guide the public taste, providing it with ideals towards which it can aspire. It is made to enter largely into the instruction of the students under the Raja Yoga system, and nowhere are the advantages of this system more strikingly illustrated than in the dramatic power which can be called forth wherever there is an absence of self-consciousness and vanity.” The Wisdom of the Heart p. 97 . “Men cannot be preached into compassion, nor sermonized into brotherly love, nor talked into love of justice. The virtues will not grow in the nature until the heart is touched, and the mystery drama is the teacher’s magic wand. For all dramas which give us a true picture of the soul’s experiences and a true interpretation of the Higher Law and of life’s diviner aspects are mystery-dramas, whether written by Aeschylus, or Shakespeare, or some unknown dramatist past or to come. Life is the great mystery, and in unveiling it, in the light of knowledge, the true drama has ever been and will ever be man’s great instructor.” The Wisdom of the Heart p. 99 A “Raja Yoga” Spelling and Math Lesson “In the spelling lesson a boy and girl, each two years old, spelled the word “attention” and identified the letters on the blackboard The object of the demonstration, it was explained, was not to show superiority, but to give evidence that under a system of education which harmoniously developed all the faculties – body, mind and soul – the intellect became quickened naturally and without strain. The children did only a limited amount of brain studying. …Mme. Tingley said that one object of establishing the Raja-Yoga system of education was to bridge the gap between the home-life and the school. It was not a system that could be laid down in writing. It was a system for evolving each child as an individual, teaching him from the start that to realize the duality of his nature. They were taught the difference between instinct and intuition. ….It required teachers who believed in the divinity of man, who lived the Theosophical life, who understood the duality, and who loved their work. Anyone but a specially trained teacher and one living the life would not be able to make a success of attempting to teach the Raja-Yoga system. The Screen of time p. 225 Sept. 1915 The San Diego Union, August 16, 1915 Raja Yoga Educational Centers: Cuba, Sweden, Germany, England and Japan There were several efforts to establish Raja Yoga Schools in Europe, including England, German, Holland and the largest being the summer school at Visingso in Sweden. Tingley’s vision was to carry “Raja Yoga” education across the globe, but financial and human resources were insufficient. The effort to establish Raja Yoga schools in Cuba was the most successful, though it too, fell short of the envisioned outcome, due to financial constraints. The Cuban Raja Yoga School Katherine Tingley’s educational work in Cuba began in 1902. The initial establishment of the school was supported by Walter Hanson who was executive of a large Georgia cotton concern. Nan Herbert from England, the only sister of Britain’s Lord Lucas, and thus had her own income, became the director of the school. The Raja Yoga school opened in the city of Santiago and by the end of summer had more than 200 students. Mayor Bacardi donated 20 acres with a large house nearby. Later in 1908 she would purchase the historic battlefield site of San Juan Hill where she envisioned a Raja Yoga school for all of Latin America. With Catholic church officials not participating, Masonic officials from Bacardi’s Lodge supported the project and attended the ceremonial event and Bacardi’s support had been crucial. She had relied on Bacardi’s help and insight, nearly a decade earlier when beginning Point Loma. Then, in 1899, upon returning from India by boat, she had made a special point to stop and see him, saying she had been directed to seek him out for help, during her mysterious encounter with Blavatsky’s Teacher in Darjeeling. [(31) p. 155 “The Gods Await” and PL Archives]. The popularity of the raja Yoga school in Santiago, followed with the opening of another school in Santa Clara in the center of the island by January 1909. However, while the schools were very successful on the educational side, they were entirely supported by funds from the Point Loma community to the sum of about fifty thousand dollars per year, and more than three hundred thousand in total, which could not be sustained. (the equivalent today would be approximately six million dollars) and was draining the support needed to maintain Point Loma. Another school had been opened in Pinar del Rio but was also closed by 1912. However Cuban children were still being educated at Point Loma for a few more years, with more than one hundred seventy five attending at various times. Mayor Bacardi sent his children to be educated at Point Loma as well. Japan: Raja Yoga influence in the educational system Professor Edward S. Stephenson was born in England, came to the Theosophical community and then went on to Japan to teach in the Imperial University following Lafcadio Hearn’s teaching position there when he had retired. Stephenson’s wife was Japanese and their two adopted children were sent to be educated at the Raja Yoga school at Point Loma. Prof. S. Yoshida, chair of ethics at Tokyo University visited Point Loma in 1921. Yoshida was the “successor” to Prof. Nakajima who had visited Point Loma earlier around 1906-7. In the development of the educational system in Japan, Nakajima was very influential and compared by some to John Dewey’s influence in the United States. Stephenson writes about Nakajima visiting the Raja Yoga school that he “…had been particularly impressed by their poise and self control, shown in the way they sat and conducted themselves” Speaking of his own early education in Japan: “he told me he was taught by ..a Japanese deeply versed in the Tao philosophy and the works of the Chinese sages ..who always insisted on self discipline as a basis for education….Dr. Nakajima told me he found nothing resembling this discipline in any western school he visited except at Point Loma. Dr Yoshida also said that the Raja Yoga school was nearest to the ideal school.” [(32) p. 492 “The Theosophical Path” Nov. 1921.] Raja Yoga Education Continues The Barton School – Topanga 1932 – 1948, Hildor Barton and Marguerite Lemke Barton Hildor Barton and Marguerite Lemke Barton had grown up through the “Raja Yoga” educational system at Point Loma. In 1932 the Barton School opened in Topanga, California near Los Angeles. This school was the direct outgrowth of their experience at Point Loma, where Marguerite had also contributed to the children’s magazine, “The Raja Yoga Messenger”. Hildor had been one of the printers there and participated in many of the earlier dramatic productions. From 1932 to 1948 they created a progressive, “Raja Yoga” inspired rural environment with a curriculum that included the multi leveled spectrum of subjects and activities of the Point Loma period. Among the teachers there was during the alter 1940”s Gordon Plummer who also had grown up in the Raja Yoga school at Point Loma. Earlier in the 1930”s Tetsuo Stephenson who grew up at Point Loma also worked at the Barton school in Topanga. Their school activities would also inspire Hildor later in supporting and teaching at “SCICON” beginning in the late 1950”s, near Porterville, in Tulare County, California, a “science-conservation” school teaching the ecological balance of the environment, which still continues today. The Barton Memorial Amphitheatre was built in 1984 honoring he and his wife’s work there. Other examples include the “East West Cultural Center” founded by Judith Tyberg in the mid 1950”s. Judith had grown up at Point Loma and had taught and lived there until its move in 1942. She taught a small group of students at her Los Angeles center, instructing them in all subjects: language, mathematics, English, literature, science, and all grades from elementary through high school, where the students then continued on successfully to area universities. Related Educational Views: Rudolf Steiner, Maria Montessori, and J. Krishnamurti It is beyond the scope of this lecture to go into any detail of the similarities and differences between the educational ideas between the various educational systems and schools that have their roots in theosophy. The most notable include Maria Montessori, who wrote one of her most important books during her time at the Adyar Theosophical Center in India during world war two, Rudolf Steiner, the founder of Anthroposophy and the Waldorf method of education, and J. Krishnamurti, who authored “Education and the Significance of Life” A few quotations will illustrate some of the similarities of broad view and purpose with Katherine Tingley’s “Raja Yoga” education, from these authors: “Freedom comes with self-knowledge, when the mind goes above and beyond the hindrances it has created for itself …. It is the function of education to help each individual to discover all these psychological hindrances, and not merely impose upon him new patterns of conduct, new modes of thought. ….It is only when we begin to understand the deep significance of human life that there can be true education; but to understand, the mind must intelligently free itself from the desire for reward which breeds fear and conformity.” J. Krishnamurti Education and the Significance of Life p. 83 “It is only by understanding the ways of our own thought and feeling that we can truly help the child to be a free human being; and if the educator is vitally concerned with this, he will be keenly aware, not only of the child, but also of himself.” J. Krishnamurti Education and the Significance of Life p. 104 “We must feel when we observe child life how necessary it is to have a spiritual insight, a spiritual vision if we are adequately to follow what takes place in the child day by day, what takes place in his soul, in his spirit. We should consider how child life in its very earliest days and weeks differs totally from later childhood, let alone adulthood. ……. The spiritual view which we are here representing does not say: Here are limits of human knowledge, of human cognition. It says: We must bring forth from the depths of human nature powers of cognition equal to observing man’s complete nature, body, soul and spirit……. just as we can observe the arrangement of the human eye or the human ear in physiology. ……..We look at a child. If our view is merely external we cannot actually find any definite points of development from birth on to about the twentieth year. We look upon everything as a continuous development. ……How does the soul and spirit work upon the child when we have to educate and teach him in the elementary or primary school? How must we ourselves co-operate here with the soul and spirit?” -- Rudolf Steiner, Spiritual Ground of Education, lecture at Oxford, Aug.16-25, 1922 “An education capable of saving humanity is no small undertaking; it involves the spiritual development of man, the enhancement of his value as an individual, and the preparation of young people to understand the times in which they live.” Education and Peace by Maria Montessori pp. 34-5 Here is a quote from Katherine Tingley on “children” followed by one from Maria Montessori. The truth in each, echoes the other: “I have looked into the eyes of a little innocent child, and at such times I have felt that if I could have been entirely true to myself in other lives, and if I had had even the knowledge that I have now, that child could, without a word, without a sermon, but just by its presence and in its eyes or its manners, reveal to me many of the secrets of life. I believe many of these children come prepared to give us our life’s message, but we do not hear them. Instead, we commence to train them just as grandfather or great-grandfather did, according to a certain system. We do not give them any chance at all.” -- The Travail of the Soul by Katherine Tingley p. 19 “If we wish to discover a pure being, a being who has neither philosophical ideas nor a political ideology and is equally moved by both, we will find this neutral being in the child. And if we think that men are different because they speak different languages, we will recognize in the child a being who speaks no language and who is ready to learn to speak any language at all. This child must therefore be our central focus when we seek ways to peace. ….If we truly yearn of the source of the knowledge that interests us most of all. If we truly yearn for brotherhood and understanding among men, there must also be brotherhood and understanding between the adult and the child!” -- Education and Peace by Maria Montessori p.142 CONCLUSION This may be so, but from the vantage point of today in 2010, it is more clear that the “Raja Yoga” educational system reflects more clearly the most progressive forms of education offered today. However, Prof. Ashcraft’s considered conclusion gives us pause for some careful reflection on the nature the whole of the Point Loma Theosophical experience. If one considers the Point Loma Theosophical community and educational system only from the point of view of external and historical forces and influences of the time, then only conclusions dependent on that time are possible. However, it is in both our experience and study that there is another factor at work, in what one could call, using a concept borrowed from Carl Jung, the deeper or hidden “archetype” underlying the Point Loma “Raja Yoga” School and Theosophical community. From this internal viewpoint, it could be looked at that “Point Loma” embodied, in a sense, the multi-layered principles of a greater archetype hidden from view and transcending history. Yes, it developed in “time and space,” had its beginning, peak and conclusion, ups and downs, even discord and also creative bursts. Yet, from the deeper view, its innate center could be considered to have been a kind of modern day “mystery school,” the heart of which was the school for children. Clothed in the garments and layers of life, from the deepest hidden mystery of delving into the nature of the spirit, consciousness and the universe itself to the architecture of the buildings embodying the principles of sacred geometry, the vital realm of growing of organic vegetables and fruits, Point Loma was a full spectrum of qualities and energies. It integrated the tenets of Theosophy’s deep inner spiritual forces, combining with the currents of the time, the core driving energy-center of which was “Raja Yoga Education.” This “experiment” of Katherine Tingley’s, to embody her vision to make Theosophy “intensely practical,” had significant transforming influence in the people who participated and lived there as well as in the surrounding world. It was an example of how the perennial Wisdom Tradition continues on from century to century seeking new form and place for its growth and activity. This deeper center is reflected in Katherine Tingley’s words of aspiration for humanity: Each one of us, with all our difficulties, our trials and heartaches and disappointments, even the injustices we suffer, can fashion ourselves to such an ideal of living, that there can be no fear, no timidity, no real restlessness, and no doubt. The whole mass of humanity must be brought to a point where they can conceive of a vision of life so broad, so far-reaching, so forceful, that they cannot move away from it. Then they will awaken and rally being to live. Then shall we be responding to the cry, “Let there be light!” For, according to the teachings of Theosophy, man himself holds the key of his divinity, of his soul-life, of his progress, of his self-directed evolution, and of the superb possibilities of stepping out, moving on, and climbing ever upwards into higher realms of thought. Let us use our minds as it was intended we should use them: to look upon the grandeur of human life, and the beauty of its duties and its responsibilities, and then to find that love our souls have longed for within ourselves. When we find this, then we shall realize that others have the same; we shall realize our universal kinship, and our separateness will cease. What I am saying to you did not originate with me; nor is it original with the Theosophical Society or H.P.Blavatsky, its foundress; but it is the teaching of the ancient Wisdom Religion The Travail of the Soul p. 141-42 by Katherine Tingley
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