The Great Invocation, Archangels, and QAnon

Joe Szimhart, 2021

Over four decades ago, I purchased and read Alice A. Bailey’s theosophical treatise, The Externalization of the Hierarchy. Anyone who has entered deep into the misty worlds of occultism and channeling should have encountered Alice Bailey. One of Bailey’s prayers called The Great Invocation was read aloud in 1952 to a group after Franklin D. Roosevelt’s reign as president by none other than his wife Eleanor.[1] The purpose of The Great Invocation was to call the power of the Hierarchy of Mahatmas, Angels, and other cosmic forces into action to further the evolution of mankind as well as save it from self-destruction.

Bailey, who lived between 1880 and 1949, in the early 1920s began writing for a spirit called The Tibetan. Also known as Djual Khul or Master DK, he was one of the mysterious Mahatmas or great souls introduced by Helena Blavatsky before 1890. (I regard Bailey’s Djual Khul as an imaginary being or a mind puppet in Theosophy’s theater). Bailey was a student and teacher of Blavatsky’s Theosophical Society branch in southern California until she formed her own group with her second husband, Foster Bailey, around 1920. Known as The New Group of World Servers (NGWS), Bailey’s teaching through that group had some influence among workers at the United Nations, thus its early political connection. Beyond the U.N., the NGWS through Bailey’s esoteric writings helped to spread The Plan for the New Age mentioned often by Bailey throughout her work. Bailey’s ideas have had a significant influence on the blooming of the New Age Movement in the 20th Century. New Ageism is not new as nearly every religion has predicted a new age or spiritual change in human development. The proto-Christians in the First Century awaited the return of Christ before their generation passed away. The Freemasons first published a periodical called The New Age early in the 20th Century: “The New Age began in 1904. No issue or contribution copyright renewals were found for this serial. It was published under this title until 1989, when it was replaced by the Scottish Rite Journal.” (https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/serial?id=newagemason)

The Plan indicated urgency among superior forces that guide human evolution to “exteriorize” or manifest themselves and their ideas through psychics and other means (purportedly, appearing in the flesh to psychics), thus Bailey’s Externalization of the Hierarchy. Bailey claimed in her Unfinished Autobiography (p 35) that at age fifteen in England, she was visited by a properly English-attired man in a turban who she later recognized as the Theosophical Master KH (Koot Hoomi, aka Kuthumi) who guided her to her familiar spirit, The Tibetan, Djual Khul. At the time, Bailey described herself as temperamental and “not a nice child,” and “hating” nearly everyone. From age 5 through age 11, Alice wrote that she attempted suicide three times (p 21). The stranger (KH) who she fancied as an apparition, told her in certain terms that if she learned to behave, he and the Hierarchy had work for her to do. She never told anyone of the visit, fearing that she would be declared “insane,” but at the same time identified with Joan of Arc, her hero at the time, who also had spiritual experiences.

The Externalization of the Hierarchy was first published in 1957 by Lucis Trust (Bailey’s publishing company, initially founded as Lucifer Trust), but it was finished in 1934. The Great Invocation, featured at the beginning of the book, went through several versions as Bailey refined this prayer from 1935 through her (The Hierarchy’s) final version in 1945. In the Externalization, we learn that The Great Invocation “has been used by the Hierarchy ever since the year 1425 A.D. though it is thousands of years older than that.” Its ineffectiveness is excused by “the unreadiness (sic) of humanity to cooperate in its use.” (Externalization of the Hierarchy, 158)

In the earliest version of The Great Invocation written as six sentences, “Let” initiates requests for “Forces of Light” to illuminate mankind. Similarly, on line two, we read, “Let the Spirit of Peace be spread abroad.” Recall, this was 1934 during global struggles to emerge from the Great Depression and global worry about the rise of Fascist and Communist regimes. Bailey also asks for forgiveness among all men on line four. On line five, she invokes power with, “Let power attend the efforts of the Great Ones.” This version ends with, “So let it be, and help us do our part.” The final and popular version released in 1945 substitutes “Masters” for Great Ones, adds “May Christ return to Earth,” invokes the “centre (sic) where the Will of God is known,” and finishes with, “Let Light and Love and Power restore the Plan on Earth.”[2] “The Christ” in Bailey-speak indicates a World Savior that transcends all religions, thus in Hinduism, for example, The Christ would be a last or tenth incarnation or avatar of the God Vishnu; for Jews, the Messiah.  

The Great Ones is a direct reference to Helena Blavatsky’s channeled Mahatmas, as the Sanskrit mahatma means great one or great (maha) soul (atma). Bailey extended her meaning of Great One to all who are serving mankind whether they know they are a Great One or not. In other words, in line with Theosophy’s prejudices as representing the perennial Truth of all religions and spiritualities and promoting the “brotherhood” of all mankind, Bailey makes vague references throughout her writings that anyone (Mother Teresa, for example) doing great service to mankind is part of the NGWS. This occult or hidden side of NGWS is in keeping with all the occulture that wants to pretend to spiritual power within a private, schizophrenic reality. In other words, the occultist (or prayerful Christian, for that matter) can smile with satisfaction when reading the news and seeing that their invocations or prayers have been answered. Thus, God’s “Plan” is working, and His devotees are helping it along through prayer, decree, affirmation, casting a spell, or otherwise charming the universe.

The Plan has been a troublesome concept whether it is Bailey’s or any other psychic’s vision of a deity guiding mankind toward a “final cause.” If we go back to Aristotle’s vision of a final cause that every result must have or is willed into (teleology) a final form that pre-exists its development.[3] Simply stated, the final cause of the process of building a sailboat is the sailboat! In this schema, free will appears to be compromised as well as the role of chaos in the development of a life or the universe if a Demiurge has total control over outcomes. Sailboats are readily reproduced, but life forms tend to evolve and change. A final cause in human affairs has a lot to do with destinies. Theologians, (John Calvin, who lived in the 16th Century, comes to mind) have struggled with this final cause thing, and (like Calvin) have come away with many unhappy impositions on scriptures and lives. God, by definition, might know the final outcomes or destinies of men, but John Calvin was never God. One of the worst and dumbest results arose from Jehovah Witness teleology that posits a mere “144,000” saved, heavenly souls in the end times.[4] We can wonder: How in hell do they know? Of course, they do not know, which is at the crux of this entire essay about an invocation to conform humanity with The Plan.

The Plan comes in many variations within ideas like eschatology, end times, and omega point. We all want to know the ending, as if we are sitting in a theater observing a tension-filled drama. We think that the stars above or on screen and a Divine Director put this whole life drama together for us, of course, not entirely—there is some wiggle room called free will—because we must believe that we have some power over how it ends. That is why we yell at the television during a football game. My reference to Divine Director is not a mere pun. It comes from the many Theosophy-inspired cults I was into in the late 1970s. Both the I AM Activity and the Church Universal and Triumphant were among many groups that believed in an Ascended Master called The Great Divine Director. They illustrated the Divine Director’s ascended likeness. Which brings me to another problem, namely the subjective nature of Theosophical entities and who is really channeling the real deals. Bailey had an opinion

Alice Bailey in Externalization (page 8 in my 1982 edition) divides psychic seekers like her into “aspirants and sensitives,” that she employs “to distinguish the awakened seeker after control and mastery from the lower type of psychic, who is “controlled and mastered.” She divides what she calls “psychism” into “higher” with qualities described as “Divine, Controlled, Positive, intelligently applied, and Mediatorship, whereas the “lower” psychism has qualities of “Animal, Uncontrolled, Negative, Automatic, and Mediumship.” Bailey, as I read her, had no love for the rival I AM Activity that she would place in the lesser psychism category, but you will not find specific reference to the I AM cult in her books.

Bailey, like most Theosophists, rarely strayed into testable territory, remaining vague and even opaque when it came to evidence to test. Bailey had a habit of moving the goal posts into a misty future that her Tibetan entity coyly held in secret as The Plan while teasing the seeker to keep looking based on his clues. On pages 638 to 640 in Externalization of the Hierarchy, Bailey as “The Tibetan” (who is the purported author) expressed concern over rising totalitarianism and how the world would look if Russian communism ruled. Second, is concern over “a world in which all nations live in an armed armistice, in which distrust is forever rampant and in which science is prostituted to the art of destruction.” Thirdly, we can consider a world in which “the United States proves itself to be the deciding factor, after wiping out Russia, which she can do if she acts now.” The concern over U.S. dominance would be capitalism ruled by greed, though the U.S. is a “mixed” bag producing a “very confused world, one in which it will be found that humanity has learned very little as to the result of the World War (1914-1945) …” Fourthly, the divine entity looks at a “world divided into blocs for mutual aid and economic sharing.” The concern here is for blocs to form economic and military antagonism against other blocs, like Russia against the western bloc, for example. “Along this line, and with this attitude of antagonistic groupings, only disaster can lie.” Finally, the entity, The Tibetan, speculates that blocs night be good if they maintain “cultural distinctions” but do not strive for military and economic control. The Tibetan goes on to imply that humanity is “not ready for some super-government, nor can it yet provide the unselfish and trained statesmen that such a government would require.”

So, we turn to page 640 that reveals Bailey’s NGWS association with the United Nations as “still the hope of the world and can remain so: it is a great field of experimentation but is suffering today from initial error. That error was admitting a totalitarian Power (sic) into its nations.” That Power, of course, was Soviet Russia with its Godless philosophy of Marxism. Had the U.N. not invited Russia, the other nations would have forced the USSR to “conform, for her very existence would have been at stake.” Now, in 2021 it is easy to say that Bailey was prophetic, especially after an economic strategy that included an arms race, brought the USSR to its knees. The soviet system collapsed after 1989. Thus, NGWS sympathizers will see “The Plan” yet in action. However, and this is the kicker DK, who I mentioned above, that knows the goal (posts): “I have here given you the possibilities with which the work is challenged and confronted, and again I must refuse to foretell what will happen. It is not permitted.”  

Not permitted? By whom? Well, whomever the Hierarchy bows to, that is Whom, that “point of Light” from which all the universe externalizes. With this in mind, we can easily extrapolate that The Plan is a kind of fascist enterprise with all its bells and whistles including those who speak (the psychics) for the Hierarchy. If you want confusion in your life, try examining the hundreds of channelers and psychics that I have thus far. I am not saying that someday, one of these new religions will come up with a more viable way for all of humanity to behave and worship, but I am saying that I have seen nothing remotely like that yet among psychics like Bailey. But fear not, because The Tibetan tells us on page 640 that though “he” will no longer, after Bailey dies, be channeling “objectively,” there will be many who “subjectively” will be responding to The Plan. There will be many in the world who “know the means of reaching me.”

Indeed, I have run across dozens of Baileyites who claim to represent The Tibetan’s Plan. The most famous lately has been Benjamin Crème whose prophetic if bizarre announcements in 1982 that “The Christ is Now Here!” caused quite a sensation in the world press.[5] Crème got this idea from Bailey and her Tibetan who states on page 640 in Externalization: “The Christ, Whom I serve as a disciple, and the spiritual Hierarchy, of which I am a member, are drawing steadily nearer to humanity; in the past I have used the statement to reassure you, ‘The Hierarchy stands’; today I say to you, The Hierarchy is near.” If that was written before 1949, we are still waiting. Creme’s Christ as Maitreya never re-appeared, despite rationalizations by devotees to this day. The I AM Activity said that the Ascended Masters (Hierarchy) would appear in their visible, tangible bodies after the Messengers passed. Edna Ballard died in 1971 or so, three decades after her husband, the other Messenger. A half a century has come and gone and yet we find no “visible and tangible” Ascended Master among us. By Ascended Master, the I AM cult founded by the Ballards meant someone who can transcend space and time, is superhuman in wisdom and psychic powers, and who can bilocate, if necessary, to influence human affairs. Only the most narcissistic or delusional cult leader would ever make such a claim without submitting to rigorous testing.

Bailey claimed to offer a higher psychism. Indeed, hers tended to attract an elite seeker who likes to read and ponder truth in an armchair, whereas the I AM, by contrast, was all about theater, channeling masters or the Hierarchy to large audiences and challenging them to take up decreeing or chanting to motivate the Hierarchy to act on mankind’s behalf. We might compare Bailey’s follower to a staid Episcopalian and the I AM devotee to a charismatic Pentecostal. In any case, it does not take a theologian to see that both the I AM devotee and the Bailey world server rely on the same practice: Using prayer, invocations, or decrees to motivate the gods and forces of nature. Despite all claims to humility among Theosophical and occult groups, I find a persistent elitism in every group and leader who believes that their version is more inspired and according to The Plan. But we could say that about every religion.

Fast forward to the present day. We have myriads of examples in the occulture of psychics, channels, and mediums who would further knowledge of The Plan. Elements of this occulture have had a strong influence over the QAnon movement as part of the rabid pro-Trump phenomenon and as a bizarre form of American populism. Lately, I saw a video of a QAnon supporter, retired Lt. General Michael Flynn, giving an address on September 17, 2021 at Kenneth Copeland’s Lord of Hosts Church in which Flynn invoked the “Sevenfold Rays and Archangels” to come forth to guide humanity and the mission (read, The Plan, by any other name). Flynn’s decree to archangels was lifted almost verbatim from the same “prayer” voiced by my old cult leader Elizabeth Prophet over 30 years ago. Lately, Flynn appears to back off from public support of QAnon. No matter. Copeland’s ministry is just as creepy as QAnonism. Copeland, like Elizabeth Prophet, has long been part of the Name It, Claim It cult in Christianity.[6] Alice Bailey wrote about the Seven Rays, as had so many other occultists, that are perceived as angelic powers.[7] The Christian Book of Revelation mentions seven archangels before the throne of God. The ancient Book of Enoch may be a source for this seven angels as the reference, but the occulture has a way of cross-referencing the Truth in keeping with the perennialism touted by groups like Theosophy, the Order of the Golden Dawn, and the New Age as inspired by Alice A. Bailey.[8] In other words, self-references and grabbing mystical ideas form world religions do not offer proof of ancient wisdom or a Plan any more than saying, If you don’t believe me, just ask me. So, if you are one of the New Group of World Servers reciting The Great Invocation, remember that The Plan may not go according to plan, because it is mainly in your head and the universe may not be listening. And if you are like Michael Flynn at a Copeland church service, invoking the heavenly powers or “Sevenfold Rays and Archangels” to do your bidding, you act as if you have God on a leash, then turn Him loose to gather the flock or chase the wolves. All you have to do is invoke or command God’s energy. The specious scripture most used to validate Name it, Claim It and I AM prosperity Gospel cults comes from Isaiah 45:11, but only with the Old King James translation taken out of context:

“Thus saith the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker, Ask me of things to come concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands command ye me”! (OKJV)

The I AM Activity and related Prosperity Gospel cults rely on the OKJV of Isaiah 45:11 to justify decrees, affirmations, and other ways to “command” God to do human bidding. Cute maneuver, if only it were true. The Great Invocation follows this same misinterpretation. The proper translation of Isaiah 45:11 goes more like this:

This is what the LORD says--the Holy One of Israel and your Creator: "Do you question what I do for my children? Do you give me orders about the work of my hands?” (New Living Translation)

To paraphrase, the Torah states that G-d asks, How dare you command or question Me of the works of my hands. I made you, like the Potter that made the pot. Does the pot dare to question or command the Potter? (https://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/21527/command-ye-me-what-is-the-proper-context-and-interpretation-for-isaiah-4511)

So, Bailey, Copeland, and Flynn are on unholy ground from a Biblical perspective, let alone that it just sounds crazy to believe you can command the universe and its energies with words, like a common New Age witch. The problem comes not so much with fake prayer energy as it does with influence over cults and crowds who believe in that same power. Armies can be deployed with specious nonsense about weapons of mass destruction and the enemy is Satan narratives.

The Tibetan was Alice Bailey’s Theosophy-inspired imaginary being, therefore the author of The Great Invocation (TGI) was Alice, in my view. Recall, Bailey’s Tibetan developed TGI over a period of ten years, tweaking it to its final form, its “final cause.” At the same time, old DK (Djual Khul—Theosophists love to use initials: Blavatsky was HPB, Bailey was AAB, Morya was the Master M.) claimed that TGI was “thousands of years older than that.” If Master DK were truly a Great One with superhuman wisdom and esp about the future of The Plan, why did he not spout out the perfect form of TGI from the get go in 1935?

One answer to this is better explained in another blog I wrote on “Psychosis and Spirituality:” https://www.jszimhart.com/blog/psychosis-and-spirituality

Of course, none of this matters to a believer. The Great Invocation serves belief and personal spirituality as well as most other spiritual systems that offer social constructs and a plausible purpose to the believers. The intent is world peace and the betterment of the human condition. TGI offers hope that spiritual forces will work with the believer, but in the end it is the believer’s conduct among his peers and in society that really matters as really real. Jesus, who was the Theosophical Christ for his age, said as much: By their fruits shall you know them.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dt61ZSduoR4 (Eleanor Roosevelt was likely familiar with The Great Invocation during the war years in the White House.)

[2] https://www.lucistrust.org/store/item/the_externalisation_the_hierarchy (the early versions of The Great Invocation appear at the beginning of this book)

[3] https://www.britannica.com/topic/teleology

[4] https://www.jw.org/en/bible-teachings/questions/go-to-heaven/

[5] https://www.jszimhart.com/blog/benjamin-crme-and-maitreya

[6] https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Name_it_and_claim_it

[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_rays

[8] https://readingacts.com/2020/04/06/who-are-the-seven-angels-in-revelation-82/ Other Second Temple Period literature refer to seven archangels, Michael and Gabriel being among them. For example, in Tobit 12:15, the angel Raphael says, “I am Raphael, one of the seven holy angels who present the prayers of the saints and enter into the presence of the glory of the Holy One” (RSV). The tradition of seven archangels is present in the apocryphal book of Tobit. In Testament of Levi 8, Levi sees seven men clothed in white who prepare him to be a priest.

In 1 Enoch 20, the Greek text has seven angels: Uriel, Raphael, Raguel, Michael, Sariel, Gabriel, and Remeiel (missing in the Ethiopic text, see OTP 1:23–24).

• Suruʾel, one of the holy angels—for (he is) of eternity and of trembling.

• Raphael, one of the holy angels, for (he is) of the spirits of man.

• Raguel, one of the holy angels who take vengeance for the world and for the luminaries.

• Michael, one of the holy angels, for (he is) obedient in his benevolence over the people and the nations.

• Saraqaʾel, one of the holy angels who are (set) over the spirits of mankind who sin in the spirit. 7

• Gabriel, one of the holy angels who oversee the garden of Eden, and the serpents, and the cherubim.

3 Enoch 17 says “There are seven great, beautiful, wonderful, and honored princes who are in charge of the seven heavens. They are, Michael, Gabriel, Šatqiʾel, Šaḥaqiʾel, Baradiʾel, Baraqiʾel, and Sidriʾel.: