Bailey's creations have powerful influences

Lucis Trust began as Lucifer Trust, but was later changed because of a controversy over the name. Lucis comes directly from the name Lucifer, which means “the one who brings light,” or, “light bearer.” The purpose of Lucis Trust is the establishing of a “New World Order.” Their teachings have been translated into 50 languages. Under the facade of love and goodwill, this dangerous New Age organization lures many people to the philosophy and doctrines of the occult. It has over 6,000 active members, with headquarters located in the U.S., Germany, Great Britain, Holland and Switzerland. The trust provides financial support for the Arcane School, World Goodwill, Triangles, Lucis Publishing, Lucis Productions, Lucis Trust Libraries, and the New Group of World Servers. It also maintains a meditation room in the United Nations building.

The worldwide activities of the Lucis Trust, are dedicated to establishing right human relations. The motivating impulse supposidly is the love of God, expressed through love of humanity and service of the human race. Lucis Trust promotes the education of the human mind towards recognition and practice of the spiritual principles and values upon which a stable and interdependent world society may be based.

Bailey described the Arcane School as “non-sectarian, non-political, but deeply international in its thinking. The school provides correspondence courses in meditation and the occult from its branches in New York, Geneva, London and Buenos Aires. Its graduates frequently become leaders in the New Age Movement and form a part of what they call The New Group of World Servers. These young men and women work in all walks of life, preparing the world for the New Age. Service is its keynote: its members can work in any sect and any political party provided they remember that all paths lead to God and that the welfare of the one humanity governs all their thinking. Above all, a student is taught that the souls of men are one. True occult obedience is also developed at the school.

World Goodwill claims to be preparing the way for a one-world religion and a one-world government. It is recognized by the United Nations (UN) as a non-governmental organization (NGO). Powerful NGO’s with deep pockets, who are neither elected nor accountable, are received as the voice of “civil society.” Those NGO’s, which the UN selectively elevates to “consultative status,” are called upon by the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ICOSOC) as advisors representative of civil society. Both World Goodwill and Lucis Trust are engaged in Earth Charter advocacy.

There is an inner government of the planet known under such different names as the spiritual Hierarchy, the society of Illumined Minds, or Christ and his Church, according to various religious traditions. Humanity is never left without spiritual guidance or direction under The Plan. The widespread expectation that we approach the “age of Maitreya,” as it is known in the East, when the World Teacher and present head of the spiritual Hierarchy, the Christ, will reappear among humanity to usher in the new age.... There are millions of mentally alert men and women in all parts of the world who are on rapport with the Plan and work to give it expression. They are people in whom the consciousness of humanity as one interdependent unit is alive and active... These beliefs give a new dimension to spiritual reality ... They provide opportunity for cooperation with the spiritual evolution of humanity... there is no group so likely to ensure that humanity achieves this most difficult goal as the men and women of Goodwill.... requiring only courage... to initiate action to prepare for the New World Order.”

Blavatsky’s utopian vision may be unique in many of its details, but it illustrates two typical points: the commonly held view that each age has its avatar, and the equally prevalent view that Jesus of Nazareth was simply the avatar of His age. And that last point raises another: Western occultism and Oriental religions universally reject Christianity, but they frequently assimilate its terminology and its founder. The terminology is invariable infused with meanings that are foreign to its biblical sense. Jesus is presented as a guru who dispensed nuggets of hidden wisdom directing humanity to the god within.

Psychoanalysis and the occult

Psychoanalysis came on the scene at the end of the nineteenth century. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) and Carl Jung (1875-1961) were acquainted with occult literature and influenced by it.

Freud’s antireligious sentiments are common knowledge: in fact he is best known among believers for his attacks on religion. Psychoanalysis, being an agnostic or atheistic system, treats religion as an illusion. Genuine religious motivation and the spiritual life are ignored completely or treated negatively. The essence of Freud’s theory is that believers, either in adolescence or adulthood, come face-to-face with a world so cold, so ambiguous and threatening that isolation, annihilation, or just meaningless are seen as likely happenings. This creates overwhelming anxiety, of course. In a move to protect self, we create a security blanket, a comforting illusion to shield ourselves from the coming disaster. Our blanket is interwoven with chords from real or distorted memories of our childhood years. We may have really been weak and vulnerable, but in our mind we remember feeling nurtured and protected by what we perceived to be loving parents, specifically a father.

In order to manage adulthood and to maintain a sense of security and well-being we embrace some form of religion, creating an imaginary deity, a divine father-figure. Freud said religion fulfilled three needs: “[The gods people believe in] must exorcise the terrors of nature, they must reconcile men to the cruelty of Fate, and . . . they must compensate them for the sufferings which a civilized life in common has imposed upon them” [A. Storr, Freud (Oxford, 1989)]. Events in Freud’s own life could have contributed to his attitude towards religion. The traumatic loss of a nanny who may have been a devout Catholic believer could have complicated Freud’s feelings at an early age.

The occult was a major interest of Freud. This aspect of Freud’s personality was described in Ernest Jones’s biography. Freud was convinced that mental telepathy, or “thought transference” as he called it, was possible. Jones records an attempt by Freud to prove the validity of telepathy with Anna, Freud’s daughter. Jones referred to their relationship as “a quite peculiarly intimate relationship." Freud also periodically consulted “soothsayers” alleged to have telepathic powers. A shared interest in the occult was fundamental to Freud’s initial attraction to Carl Jung. Freud picked those he would associate with from the ones who were sympathetic to his work. His interest in the occult was well known to his friends and peers.

Freud’s use of cocaine was another important influence on his thinking during the formulation of his theory. Several experiments he did with cocaine between 1884 and 1886 were well-documented, including four papers he wrote reporting the effects of the drug on various physical and mental functions.

Freud wanted to be famous for this work. According to Sulloway, “Freud was continually preoccupied with the hope of making an important scientific discovery—one that would bring him early fame and the promise of a large private practice . . .” He didn’t care about the money, he just wanted fame as the fulfillment of his persoanl destiny.[Sulloway, Freud, Biologist of the Mind, p. 25]

Sulloway describes Freud as desperate to show others “that he was fulfilling a heroic destiny.” He was drawn to the historical figure of Moses sometime during the 1890s. In a letter written to Carl Jung in 1909, Freud clearly identifies with Moses, “We are certainly getting ahead. If I am Moses, then you are Joshua and we will take possession of the promised land of psychiatry, which I shall only be able to glimpse from afar.”

Reuben Fine contends that “there can be little doubt that Freud had a strong personal identification with Moses. . .”, that his obsession with Moses lasted over 40 years. Freud was the prophet who would lead mankind out of the land of Id and into the Promised Land—a contemporary Moses with a couch.

According to E. Fuller Torrey, the fact that Freudian theory evolved simultaneously with a sense of destiny, an interest in the occult, and the use of cocaine does not diminish the validity of his theory. It does, however, cast a shadow over its scientific foundation.