Benjamin Creme writes about his work

Many people have asked me to relate something of the steps which have led me into the work I am now doing. It will not be a complete account: there are unwritten laws of reticence on some aspects of the Master-disciple relationship, and I am pledged to silence on certain work for and with the Space Brothers; but for whatever interest it may have, and in the hope that it may make more real and believable the fact of the Masters and the fact of the Christ's return at their head, I set down the following:

As a child of four or five, one of my favourite pastimes was to sit at the window and watch the wind; not the effect of the wind on the trees or leaves, but the wind itself. I would watch the movements of the air and try to guess whether it was a north, south, east or west wind blowing. When I went to school, I learned that the air was invisible, the wind likewise, and forgot, I do not remember whether gradually or suddenly, my ability to see what of course was some level of the etheric planes of matter.

Etheric planes

Above the dense physical-solid, liquid, and gaseous are four planes of still finer matter which constitute the etheric envelope of this planet, and of which the dense physical planes are a precipitation. It was not until some 20 years later, through the building and use of Wilhelm Reich's orgone accumulator, that I again became aware of this ocean of energy of which we ourselves are a part, and proved to myself conclusively the existence of the etheric planes.

At the age of 14, I read what was for me an extraordinary book: With Mystics and Magicians in Tibet, by Alexandra David Neel (1868-1969) (see photo). This French woman of indefatigable courage, determination and resource managed, disguised as a Lama, to penetrate the forbidding barriers around that mysterious country, gained permission to stay, and placed herself under the tutorship of a true Lama. She describes various esoteric practices, some of which she learned, including the creation by thought of a "familiar"; in her case of a jovial fat monk who soon got out of her control and had to be de-materialised. These practices obviously involved considerable concentration and mind control, but I found a little success with some of them, including Tumo, a system for creating internal heat in cold weather.

In the late 1940s, through a study of Wilhelm Reich's work (1897-1957) (see photo), and the use of the orgone accumulator, I became consciously aware of, and extremely sensitive to, energy currents; so much so that eventually I could tell when an atomic bomb had been exploded in the Pacific or wherever. Across these thousands of miles, I registered the shift in the etheric currents caused by the explosions. Inevitably, a day or two later, would come the report that America, Russia, or Britain had tested a "device" of such and such a size.
 

The Power of the Mind

In the early 1950s, I happened on a book by Rolf Alexander: The Power of the Mind. The magazine article which drew my attention to it had, of course, concentrated on the most sensational aspect of the book ― "cloud-busting," the breaking up of clouds by the power of thought alone. Rolf Alexander, a Canadian, was called to Tibet and trained by a Tibetan Master of Yoga, and his book outlines a practice to bring the instinctive, subconscious mind under the control of the directive conscious mind. The latter is only too often fragmented and partly submerged in the subconscious computer activity of the former, and a great deal of its available energy is lost. The method used is self-hypnosis. The freeing of the conscious, directing principle from its involvement in the activity of the subconscious mind (which should proceed automatically) releases large stores of mental energy and leads directly to the focus and concentration which precede meditation. And so I began to meditate.

Alice Bailey

I also began to read. I read, among many others, the Theosophical works of H.P. Blavatsky (see photo) and Leadbeater; Gurdjieff, Ouspensky and Nicoll; Paul Brunton; Patanjali; the Alice Bailey and Agni Yoga Teachings; Swamis Vivekananda, Sivananda, Yogananda; Sri Ramana Maharshi (see photo), whose Path of Self-knowledge I sought to follow. Through his meditation on "Who am I?" (and, I know now, through the Grace of my Master), I found myself precipitated into a sense of identity with the whole phenomenal world: the earth, the sky, the houses and people; the trees and birds and clouds, I saw to be myself. I disappeared as a separate being, yet retained full consciousness, a consciousness expanded to include everything.

I saw that this was the true Reality, that one's normal waking consciousness simply covers this, keeps it hidden, through wrong identification with oneself as this body. I also saw this phenomenal world as a kind of ritual, a ritualised shadow-play, acting out a dream or desire of That which alone existed, alone was Real, which was also myself.

How did I come into this work? In late 1958, I was told by a fellow disciple who had the "connection," that I was receiving "messages." This surprised me and I had no sense that it was true. I was told that the messages "bounced off" me, but if I did such and such, in time I would receive correctly.

The start of the work

I must have done the right thing, because one night, early in January 1959, so clearly there was no mistaking, I heard inwardly the instruction: Go to so and so (a place in London) on such and such a date and time, some three weeks ahead. On the night, there were people waiting there to meet me.

That was the start of a flow of messages which came in gathering momentum. Some, apparently, I missed (I was told later when I missed one) and I became so afraid of missing them that I gave them to myself. I sent myself on several rendezvous, where nothing happened and no one came, but gradually I settled down; I did not miss them and I stopped making them up.

I was told to get a tape-recorder and received many long dictations of various kinds. Some contained advice, guidance, or spiritual instruction. I was not told the identity of the Master (or Masters) who spoke thus, telepathically, to me, and I think I was too shy to ask, although I was told I could ask questions. It was not until years later that I learned his name and also that I would have been told had I asked long ago.

"Affirm his coming"

One night, early in 1959, during such a transmission, I was told to turn off the tape-recorder. There followed a discourse on his Reappearance by Maitreya, the Christ, Head of our planetary Hierarchy. He said also that I would have a part in the Plan. At that time I believed that the World Teacher would come from one of the higher planets, probably from Venus, and this information from Maitreya caused a complete upset to my thinking. In a transmission soon after this event, my Master, referring to this new-found knowledge, added: "The time is coming when you will be expected to act upon it." And in another: "Affirm his coming!"

I cannot claim that I took these exhortations to heart and that that is why I am engaged in this work of preparation for the Christ. On instruction, I put these tapes away for 17 years and I am afraid I needed a rather strong push from the Master to launch me into this work.

De-glamorisation

Towards the end of 1972, when I was rather in the doldrums and least expecting it, that wise and wily one whom I have the privilege to call Master, pounced. He took me in hand, and subjected me to the most intensive period of de-glamorisation, disillusioning, training and preparation. For months we worked together, 20 hours a day, deepening and strengthening the telepathic link until it was two-way with equal ease requiring the minimum of his attention and energy. He forged in this period an instrument through whom he could work, and which would be responsive to his slightest impression (of course, with my complete cooperation and without the slightest infringement of my free will). Everything I see and hear, he sees and hears. When he wishes, a look from me can be a look from him; my touch, his. So, with the minimum expenditure of energy he has a window on the world, an outpost of his consciousness; he can heal and teach. He himself remains, in a fully physical body, thousands of miles away. I am not suggesting that I am his only "window on the world." I do not know how rare this is, but I am sure that it is not unique. It constitutes a definite stage in the Master-disciple relationship. He has asked me not to reveal his identity for the time being ― not even to the members of the group with which I work, and through which he works. I know of two reasons (there may be others) for his request, and respect them, but I may say that he is one of the senior Members of the Hierarchy, a Master of the Wisdom, whose name is well-known to esotericists in the West. His inspiration has heightened tremendously the conceptual power and intensity of my paintings.

Two small episodes, among many which illustrate the loving concern of the Great Ones, and their lively sense of humour, as well as the ability to use their powers at long distance:

The first occurred early in 1973, during the period of most intense preparation and training. For some time I had been smoking small cigars, and the Master frequently urged me to stop smoking these "filthy weeds" as he called them. His technique of discouraging me was to assign some meditation or exercise every time I made to light one.

One day, preparing to keep an appointment somewhere, I laid this small box of cigars on the corner of my bed while I changed clothes. When I was ready to leave, it had, literally, disappeared. I asked the Master, of course, if he had done something to it. He claimed complete ignorance of, or interest in, the "filthy weeds." I was certain of where I had left them, but nevertheless made a thorough search, without result. "Are you sure you didn't hide them?" I repeated. He swore his innocence: he had better things to do with his time and energy. At last I said: "All right, I'll just get some more on the way out." Immediately, they lay on the bed-corner where I had left them.

The second episode concerns a bird and occurred about two and a half years ago. Each year, we are visited by large numbers of swifts who dive and wheel outside our windows all day long and nest under the eaves.

Early one hot summer morning, one of these marvellous birds flew through an open bedroom window, straight through the closed venetian blind. It dropped with a thud on to a large tin of floor varnish which stood under the window, bending the handle and top of the tin with the impact. It lay there panting, its eyes staring and its enormous wings lying awry, one on, and one over the side of, the tin. The Master asked me to look closely and carefully over the bird and I felt his energy pouring through my eyes. At once, it relaxed and closed its eyes.

The Master assured me that there were no bones broken, but that it was severely bruised and shocked. He told me to open the window at the bottom and to go down and have breakfast. Half an hour later, I returned to find the bird gone, healed and restored to the morning air.

These two little episodes may surprise those students who remember the Master Djwhal Khul's statement that the Masters are not interested in, and do not concern themselves with, the personality lives of disciples. While I am sure that, in general, this is true, I am equally certain that there are exceptions to this rule. It depends entirely on the type of relationship the Master is seeking to build, the degree of trust he seeks to elicit, and the karmic relationship existing between himself and the disciple.

Transmission Meditation

In March 1974, he gave me a list of 14 names of people to invite to a talk at my home on "meditation and allied subjects." They all came.

I talked about the Hierarchy of Masters, about meditation, and its role in bringing about soul contact. Under instruction, I presented them with the following offer: I invited them to take part in a group work in which their occult meditation would proceed under the guidance of a Master of the Wisdom, in exchange for which they would act as transmitters of the Hierarchical energies, thus forming a bridging group between Hierarchy and the disciples in the field.

The Master arranged a short transmission to show them what was involved. Twelve of the fourteen agreed, two feeling that they were not ready for this kind of work.

The group was formed in March 1974 to channel the spiritual potencies. We met twice weekly, at first, for about one and a half to two hours. The question of a name for the group came up, but the Master's instruction was, and still is, that no name should be used; no organisation built; no officers appointed; no fence erected around ourselves and our ideas; the maximum openness maintained.

The Tetrahedron

At the same time, the Master gave me the blueprint for building the transmitter-transformer instrument which we use in this work, and which I also use in healing. It is a tetrahedron in form and is based on the principle that certain shapes have inherent energetic properties.

Tetrahedron

A great study is going on today into the nature and energetic properties of the pyramid. The Great Pyramid at Giza is really an Atlantean instrument, based on the power of shape. The aim of Atlantean man was to perfect the astral-emotional vehicle, or body. Just by being the shape it is, the pyramid, when aligned with the north and south poles, draws energy from the etheric and astral planes. This was transmitted for the benefit of the population of the great city which lies buried beneath the sands around the Pyramid and the Sphinx.

The aim of our present, fifth, root race, the Aryan, (nothing to do with Hitler's notion of Aryan man) is to perfect the mental vehicle. When aligned north and south, the Tetrahedron automatically draws to itself and transmits energy from the mental planes. This principle is behind our use of the instrument. The instrumentation ― quartz crystal, magnets, gold and silver discs and wires, focuses and potentises all the energies channelled through us by Hierarchy; the shape itself transforming them downwards on to the lower mental planes where they can be more readily absorbed by many people. Without this transforming work, which the instrument carries further, the Hierarchical energies, streaming as they do in the main from the Buddhic level (the level of the Spiritual Intuition), would "bounce off" the masses of people, and their effect would be limited. This is behind the need of Hierarchy for Transmission groups, using some form of meditation or prayer.

Under the Master's instruction, I built also a Spiritual Energy Battery which can be attached to the transmitter. So far we have used it only once, to demonstrate, I suppose, the principle.

The group's personnel has changed many times, only four of the original group remaining. Its numbers have grown and fallen, but always seem to stabilise at around 12 fully active members, with many less active or regular participants, and a great many offshoots, both here and abroad. Nowadays, we meet regularly three times weekly to transmit the energies from Hierarchy for anything from four to seven or eight hours on end. Only the most dedicated and committed people, of course, can maintain that intensity of rhythm, so numbers are, necessarily, kept low. In addition, we hold a regular weekly public meeting at the Friends' Meeting House, Euston Road, London, in which the audience is invited to share in the transmission of the energies which are sent then.

Messages by Maitreya

In June 1974 began a series of overshadowing and transmitted messages by Maitreya, inspiring us, and keeping us informed of the progress of his externalisation. We were privileged also to become aware of the gradual creation and perfectionment of his body of manifestation ― the Mayavirupa. In the period from March 1976 to September 1977, these communications from Maitreya became very frequent indeed.

During the first year of the group's life, we held an open meeting at each full moon where interested friends of the members could join in the transmission. At these full-moon meetings, I would give a short talk, usually about the reappearance of the Christ and the Hierarchy of Masters, or, on occasion, on the significance, from an esoteric astrological point of view, of the particular full-moon energies.

Lecturing

Towards the end of 1974, the Master said, several times: "You know, you must take all this to the public. It is of little use giving this information to the 20 or so people, only, who are here."  The pantomime began: I would remonstrate, plead not to have to "go public,"  he would assure me that he was only joking: "I have other plans for you," he would say, and I would relax again.  But in January 1975, he finally said: "I mean it. Give this information (he had dictated a mass of information on how the Plan would work out) to the groups, of all backgrounds and teachings. Tell them what you know. The hope is that from the more focused minds of the groups will go out a telepathic interplay with the general public, so that when you go to them, they will be somewhat prepared.

I didn't like it. I didn't like it at all. I liked what I was doing. I liked working quietly, esoterically, knowing I was doing something useful, but neither too strenuous nor making too great psychological demands on me. I did nothing about the groups until several firm pushes from the Master at last got me moving. In March or April I wrote hopefully to 40 or so groups working along spiritual lines, offering my services as a speaker on: "The Reappearance of the Christ and the Masters of the Wisdom." The response, not surprisingly, for I was quite unknown, was not altogether overwhelming. I had, I think, about six or seven replies. Three of these groups were interested to know more ― all newish groups run by young people ― Centre House, Gentle Ghost and the Franklin School, and I gave a talk at each, the first at Centre House, on May 30th 1975.

I was very nervous. Although I knew my material, I did not have it in any sort of order. The Master, in his kindness, dictated for me a list of headings which I could glance at, and, in fact, so overshadowed me throughout the talk, that he practically gave it. Just before the end, I was suddenly overshadowed by Maitreya himself, my heart melted, and I had the greatest difficulty in keeping my voice steady. The following words were put into my mind:

"When the Christ returns, he will not at first reveal his Presence, nor will the Masters who precede him; but gradually, steps will be taken which will reveal to men that there lives among them now a man of outstanding, extraordinary potency, capacity for love and service, and with a breadth of view, far beyond the ordinary. Men and women, all over the world, will find themselves drawn into the awareness of the point in the modern world wherein this man will live; and from that centre of force will flow the True Spirit of the Christ, which will gradually reveal to men that he is with us. Those who can respond to his presence and his teaching will find themselves somewhat reflecting this love, this potency, this breadth of vision, and will go into the world and spread abroad the fact that the Christ is in the world, and that men should look to that country from which a certain teaching is emanating. This will take place in a very, relatively, short period of time, and will lead to conclusive evidence that the Christ is in our midst.

"From that time onwards, the changes which will take place in the world will proceed with a speed unprecedented in the whole history of the planet. The next 25 years will show such changes, changes so radical, so fundamental, that the world will be entirely changed for the better."

No one was more surprised than I was to hear this statement. Not until I heard it back on tape was I sure, even, that it made sense.

Maitreya's manifestion was complete

On July 7th 1977, Maitreya himself informed us that his body of manifestation ― the Mayavirupa ― was totally complete, that he had "donned" it, and that his Body of Light (his Ascended Body) was now at rest in his mountain Centre in the Himalayas. On July 8th, we were told, the Descent had begun. On Tuesday, July 19th, my Master told me that Maitreya had now arrived in his "point of focus," a well-known modern country. I had a lecture meeting that night at Friends' House, but was told to keep the information to myself, as yet. During our Friday Transmission session, the Master told me that Maitreya had been resting, acclimatising himself, for three days, and that on that day, July 22nd, his Mission had begun. This information I could share with the group.

About midnight, the transmission ended and we congregated as usual for tea before dispersing. My wife turned on the television, where the late-night film featured some family drama with Bette Davis in the leading role. Some of the group watched, but understandably, my thoughts were elsewhere. I made some sarcastic remarks about the film and its actors (usually I admire Bette Davis as an actress very much). When I could bear it no longer, I said I had some rather more important news to tell them ― that the Christ was now in the everyday world in full, physical presence, and beginning his mission.

Many, many times since, to scores of audiences, I have made this announcement, but never again with the sense of having, even in a small way, shared in a great planetary event. The tears of joy on the faces of the group around the table showed that they, too, felt the same.

Maitreya's public messages

At the beginning of September 1977, I was asked if I would take the messages from Maitreya publicly. On September 6th 1977, the first public message was given, at Friends' House, Euston Road, "experimentally," to find out, I suppose, how I stood up to the demonstration of this kind of overshadowing and telepathy in public ― a very different thing from the privacy of one's own group. These have continued until now. At the moment of going to press (1980) we have received 85 messages. These are conveyed by me to the audience; no trance or mediumship is involved, and the voice is mine, very obviously strengthened in power and altered in pitch by the overshadowing energy of Maitreya. They are transmitted simultaneously on all the astral and mental planes, while I supply the basic etheric-physical vibration for this to take place. From these subtle levels, the messages impress the minds and hearts of countless people, who are gradually made aware of the thoughts and the presence of the Christ. He releases in this way fragments of his teaching, to prepare the climate of hope and expectancy which will ensure his being accepted and followed, quickly and gladly.

It is an enormous, and embarrassing, claim to have to make ― that the Christ is giving messages through oneself. But if people can rid their minds of the idea of the Christ as some sort of spirit, sitting in "heaven" at God's right hand; if they can begin to see him as indeed he is, as a real and living man (albeit a divine man) who has never left the world; who descended, not from "heaven," but from his ancient retreat in the Himalayas, to complete the task he began in Palestine; as a great Master; an Adept and Yogi; as the chief actor in a Gospel Story which is essentially true, but much simpler than hitherto presented; if people can accept that possibility, then the claim to receive telepathic communications from such a closer and more knowable Being is also, perhaps, more acceptable. In any case, I leave it to a study of the quality of the messages themselves to convince or otherwise. For many people, the energies, which flow during the overshadowing, convince. Many who come to these meetings are clairvoyant in various degrees, and their visions of the overshadowing as it takes place is for them the most convincing evidence of all.

Perhaps the above will help to explain why I speak of the Masters and the Christ and their reappearance with conviction. For me, their existence is a fact, known through my direct experience and contact. It is in the hope of awakening others to the reality of that fact, and to the further, momentous, fact of their return now to the everyday world to lead us into the Aquarian Age, that this book is written.

Benjamin Creme
London 1980

(From the book: The Reappearance of the Christ and the Masters of Wisdom, by Benjamin Creme)