Adepts & hierarchyRebrandedDefined by Blavatsky

Brotherhood of Adepts

Also: Great White Lodge · Great White Brotherhood · Hierarchy of Adepts · Trans-Himalayan Brotherhood

Theosophical English; ‘white’ here meant the light of the lodge, not a race

Blavatsky

Original sense

A hidden fraternity of living adepts of various nations who watch the karmic development of humanity and occasionally sponsor a public movement (the Theosophical Society being one such attempt). The first object of her Society was a nucleus of the Universal Brotherhood of Humanity — an ethical, exoteric counterpart of that inner lodge.

The first object of the Theosophical Society is to form a nucleus of the Universal Brotherhood of Humanity, without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste, or color.
Theosophical Society objects; Key to Theosophy

‘Great White Brotherhood’ is more Alice Bailey and the I AM movement than Blavatsky’s usual phrasing. She spoke of a Brotherhood or Lodge of Adepts. The later ‘white’ was spiritual, then was easily racialized by audiences she could not control.

New Age

Later sense

An inner-plane government of Ascended Masters, often headquartered at Shamballa, Darjeeling, or Mount Shasta, issuing decrees and overlighting workshops. Sometimes fused with UFO ‘space brothers.’

Typical use. Channelled ‘bulletins from the Brotherhood,’ I AM decrees, and conspiracy-adjacent lists of hidden rulers.

The drift

A new name was built on her concept.

Two brotherhoods were collapsed: the ethical, public ‘universal brotherhood of humanity’ and the secret lodge of adepts. New Age kept the secret government and often dropped the anti-caste, anti-racist first object that Blavatsky put on the Society’s door.

Related terms

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