False Messiah or phoney Anti-Christ?

Benjamin Creme is a fascinating character. Dubbed a neo-Theosophist by some of his critics, Creme is a former member of George King's Aetherius Society and a friend of the late George Adamski. He has studied the works of Blavatsky and Alice Bailey extensively, but is not connected to their "official" organizations. Instead, Creme has set up a group of his own, Share International. The book "The Awakening of Humanity" is available free on-line at the author's website.

Two things seem to distinguish Creme's group from other neo- and paleo-Theosophists. One is the heavy emphasis on the imminent appearance of a World Teacher, the Maitreya, sometimes called Maitreya Christ. The other is the political message, which is strongly left-wing. Maitreya will appear when the stock exchanges collapse, world hunger and poverty are important issues and should be solved by sharing the resources equitably, the Palestinian refugees should be allowed to return to Israel, the US war against Iraq was bad, climate change is real, Nelson Mandela is said to have acted under Maitreya's influence, and so on.

The "apocalypse" (known as the Day of Declaration) turns out to be a surprisingly peaceful one: Maitreya will appear on television and "overshadow" humanity telepathically with his message of peace, love and brotherhood. Most of humanity will become his followers and request guidance, at which point Maitreya will introduce other masters, including Jesus. Maitreya will not "rule" the world but serve it, but somehow he will be impossible to kill or overthrow. The World Teacher is already living on Earth as an ordinary human being, and has appeared to reporters several times, but they refuse to acknowledge his presence. Apparently, he lives in London and is of Asian extraction. According to Wikipedia, Creme has denied that Raj Patel is Maitreya. Patel is a left-wing journalist of...well, Asian extraction, born in London!

What struck me when reading Creme's book is that its scenario is eerily similar to that of the Anti-Christ in Christian fundamentalist thinking, especially "dispensationalism". The Anti-Christ will use TV to get his message across, he will preach religious syncretism, bring "peace" to the Middle East, and establish a One World Government (Creme wants the UN to cooperate with Maitreya). It's unclear whether the fundamentalists have read neo-Theosophical material (they do point a finger at Alice Bailey as part of an Anti-Christ One World Government conspiracy), or whether Creme is consciously or subconsciously mimicking their Anti-Christ predictions. He's certainly aware of them, pointing out that many Americans and Christian fundamentalists will look at Maitreya as the Anti-Christ.

The only missing peace is the identity of the Anti-Christ: he will be a Jew of the tribe of Dan. Maitreya, however, is East Indian. Well, we seem to have a conundrum here! ;-)

But when will the World Teacher appear? It seems that human free will can delay Maitreya's glorious coming. Also, various energy currents in the cosmos have to be absolutely right for Maitreya to dare attempting to convert the recalcitrant earthlings. Finally, there is a hierarchy of evil which has stopped Maitreya from appearing several times. Even such a trivial event as the refusal of the BBC to locate Maitreya in London has delayed the Master's coming.

Of course, this enables Creme to postpone the Day of Declaration indefinitely. Judging by the letters to Share International - reprinted in this book - some of the followers are getting restive.

Personally, I don't think there is a Maitreya. Nor is there an Anti-Christ (one Adolf Schicklgruber a.k.a. Hitler came close).

I believe we are stuck indefinitely on psycho planet until we finally grow up and clean up our acts, all by ourselves...