Book Reviews

The Mystery of the Cross in the Present Planetary Transition

turha71@gmail.com (Super User) — Mon, 23 May 2016 11:08:43 +0000

The Mystery of the Cross in the Present Planetary Transition
By Trigueirinho. 2003 Irdin Editoria Ltd, Brazil. Distributed in the US by SparrowHawk Press.Reviewed by: Alan D. Berkowitz

The cross has provided a powerful symbol for humanity throughout the ages and most recently as an emblem of the Christian faith. This book explores the occult, symbolic, and esoteric significance of the cross and the life of Jesus as they relate to the current phase of planetary evolution. Trigueirinho is a well-known South American spiritual teacher who has written and lectured extensively on the tasks facing humanity in light of the crisis (i.e., crucifixion) currently facing our planet and its inhabitants.

The Mystery of the Cross in the Present Planetary Transition will be of great interest to students of Esoteric Christianity in particular, and to spiritual seekers in general. Topics covered include: the life of Jesus as an inner drama representing humanity’s relationship to the higher, the difference between Jesus as an incarnated human and Christ as a cosmic principle, and what is needed from seekers willing to serve the greater good at this time of “crucifixion” for the planet earth. The book is rich in esoteric and occult information about Jesus, the Christ, and Christianity; the meaning and symbolism of the cross, and the nature of the inner initiations and service required.

While many use the terms “Jesus” and “Christ” interchangeably, Trigueirinho suggests that what is referred to as “Christ” is a cosmic principle of intelligence (or for the Greeks, a “Logos-principle”) that was manifested in the person of Jesus. Jesus had to be transformed and enlarged in order to express more of this evolving universal intelligence and to fulfill his own planetary task, which in turn symbolizes ours. During his lifetime, Jesus experienced successive initiations that allowed him to serve this function that also were linked to deeper initiations occurring within the Christ principle.

If what occurs on the physical plane of reality expresses subtle events and truths, then the inner and outer events of Jesus’ life can be interpreted symbolically to reveal universal truths and provide insights for spiritual seekers.

The book is dedicated to:

“those in the horizontal world of forms who open themselves to the light that descends vertically over them. From the center of their being, and the center of this Cross, may they bring about the redemption of matter – the promise of the coming times. (p. 7)”

This dedication presents us with an image of the Cross as a powerful, transformative symbol picturing the relationship of manifestation to a transcendent divinity.

Trigueirinho’s exposition on the Cross aligns nicely with Paul Tillich’s comment on the function of symbols, which “point beyond themselves, in the power of that to which they point, to open up levels of reality which are otherwise closed, and to open up levels of the human mind of which we are otherwise not aware.”

These functions of a symbol are admirably accomplished by Trigueirinho in The Mystery of the Cross. The only notable flaw in the book is its extensive use of footnotes to explain technical terms that can at times be distracting. Readers who enjoy this book may find additional insights on these themes in Rene Guenon’s Symbolism of the Cross and David Fieldler’s The Cosmic Christ.

During times of planetary transition and crisis teachers come to awaken us and to help us light path for growth and service to others. Trigueirinho accomplishes this in The Mystery of the Cross, which should be of particular interest to members of the Sancta Sophia community.

Alan Berkowitz is a member of Wisdom’s Goldenrod Center for Philosophic Studies and serves on the Board of Directors of the Paul Brunton Philosophic Foundation. He his strongly connected to the work of Trigueirinho and Figueira, which he has visited a number of times. Alan can be reached at: alan@fltg.net

Signs of Blavatsky

turha71@gmail.com (Super User) — Mon, 23 May 2016 10:51:02 +0000

Signs of Blavatsky: An Unusual Encounter for the Present Time
by Jose Trigueirinho Netto, published by Associacao Irdin Editoria

Helene Petrovena Blavatsky initiated a spiritual revolution in the West that still resonates today. Along with her contemporary Ramakrishna (who did something similar for India) she provided an impulse that gave birth to many of today’s spiritual systems and which trained most of the 20 th centuries important spiritual teachers. Among others, Paul Brunton, Rudolf Steiner, Alice Bailey, and Krishnamurti all spent their formative years under the influence of Blavatsky herself and/or Theosophy.

But just how does this legacy of hers resonate today?

In Signs of Blavatsky: An Unusual Encounter for the Present Time author and spiritual philosopher Jose Trigueirinho Netto demonstrates that Blavatsky’s legacy is still relevant and fresh today, and that her writings contain the essentials of a teaching that is valuable two centuries later. In addition, he articulates how Blavatsky’s work provides the foundation for new revelations of spiritual knowledge that are being born today and that require our cooperation to be manifested.

This book masterfully distills Blavatsky’s message and teaching, presenting excerpts from The Secret Doctrine and her other writings in a clear, well-organized and coherent fashion that allows the reader to perceive what Blavatsky was trying to teach us and what it is that we have yet to learn today. This knowledge, if instilled, will in turn provide the foundation for a new “turning of the wheel” which will reveal a new phase of spiritual knowledge that is necessary for humanity’s evolution. But, in order for this to happen, we must receive what she had to offer and do the work on ourselves that will allow us to be the instruments for this new revelation. All of this is clearly and lucidly outlined in this short but powerful book.

The impulse for Signs of Blavatsky is the result of operative group work conducted by the author and his collaborators from Figueira, a contemporary spiritual center in Brazil. These individuals, much like the Neo-Platonists of ancient times, have developed a method of operative spiritual group practice that creates an opening in our three-dimensional space time world for higher beings to appear and reveal their knowledge to us. In fact one of the author’s main messages is that it is through group work – and not individual solitary seeking – that our current generation of spiritual seekers will grow and develop. It is in this context that the spirit that was (and is) Blavatsky appeared to the group and provided the impulse for this book. According to the author great beings like Blavatsky do not disappear when their physical form is released, but continue in new incarnations in more elevated levels of existence, working for the evolution of humanity, the planet, and the cosmos. If this is true, then it could be said that this book provides a living contemporary message from Madame Blavatsky herself.

Signs of Blavatsky book will be of great value not only to Theosophists, but to all spiritual seekers who want to understand the legacy of the great being who was Blavatsky, and – more importantly – who want to understand the spiritual task facing humanity at this stage of its evolution.

Jose Trigueirinho Netto is the author of 77 books with more than two million copies in circulation, primarily in his native Portuguese and Spanish, but also now in French, German, and English. Although he is arguably one of the great spiritual messengers alive on the planet today, his work is relatively unknown in North American and Europe. Thus, this book is worthwhile even if only for the purpose of learning about this important contemporary spiritual teacher and his message.

Five of Trigueirinho’s books have also been translated into English: Noah’s Vessel, Beyond Karma, Calling Humanity (an anthology of his works), The Mystery of the Cross in the Present Planetary Transition, and Beyond Karma, along with a small “pocketbook” collection of his writings. These books, information about the author, and recordings of some of his lectures translated into English are available from www.irdin.org.br, or www.trigueirinho.org.

Micha-El (Alan Berkowitz)

Micha-El is a student of Trigueirinho’s work, the co-director of the Calling Humanity Network (which is diffusing Trigueirinho’s teachings in North America), and a member of the translation team that is working to bring his books to an English-speaking audience.

Noah’s Vessel

turha71@gmail.com (Super User) — Mon, 23 May 2016 10:43:47 +0000

Jose Trigueirinho Neto. (2007) Noah’s Vessel. Associacao Irdin Editora.
Carmo de Cachoeira, Brazil. (www.irdin.org or info@irdin.org)

The sinking of the Titanic has become a metaphor for a culture out of touch with external reality. In the ship’s ballroom, members of high society danced the night away while unbeknownst to them, their supposedly “unsinkable ship” was heading towards an untimely end. In Noah’s Vessel, Brazilian author and spiritual teacher Jose Trigueirinho Neto makes the argument that our current culture is similarly out of touch and heading for a disaster. The goal of this book is to help us prepare ourselves spiritually for the transformations that await us and our planet as the forces of change bear down upon us. It is the fifth to be translated into English from Trigueirinho’s voluminous opus of 76 books that are currently available in Spanish and Portuguese.

Evidence is mounting that humanity is facing a crisis of global proportions in this moment of planetary evolution, an ecological and moral crisis that threatens the existence of our home earth, our spiritual mother upon whom we depend on for the essentials of life. This situation has aptly been called “an inconvenient truth” – one whose inconvenience we choose to ignore despite the evidence in front of us, would we only look. Like the socialites on the Titanic, we persist in our lives of superficial comfort, inequitable distribution of resources, and injustice towards other forms of life, “dancing the night away” and willfully ignoring the fact that the very ship we live on, our mother earth, is in danger.

This is not the first time that humanity has faced such a crisis and an impending global transformation. Trigueirinho reminds us of the Biblical Noah, facing the deluge in Noah’s Vessel Review (Berkowitz), p. 2 a society that has lost touch with its spiritual roots, and also the sinking of the continent of Atlantis, which over centuries experienced a decline in its advanced civilization that resulted in a culture of moral degradation and selfishness. He explains these two events in the light of esoteric knowledge and draws lessons from them in order to helps us understand what is happening to humanity now. Trigueirinho explains how in both cases higher forces intervened to prevent humanity from destroying itself and the planet,
preparing a special group of people to survive a deluge that would destroy the majority of humanity, to become the pioneers of a new phase of human evolution that would live closer to its spiritual roots.

It will be clear to the reader of this book that the “stories” of Atlantis and of the deluge at the time of Noah are accepted as historical events rather than as mythological creations. In fact, it is our very desire to reduce spiritual truths to psychological facts that is evidence of the spiritual alienation that Trigueirinho is helping us to understand.

How might we approach this crisis spiritually, as a critical moment in humanity’s and in the planet’s evolution and prepare ourselves for the changes on the horizon?

If the crisis is due to our being out of touch and out of alignment with inner realities and overly focused on the material dimensions, then the solution must be to reconnect ourselves with inner, subtle realities that can be intuitively known and inwardly perceived. If we pursue such a course of development then we will obtain the guidance we need in these difficult times and be in a position to cooperate with the forces which are guiding the planet’s evolution. According to Trigueirinho, those who have prepared themselves will transition into an energetic field where they will be transformed and prepared to continue humanity’s journey on earth. This energetic field is the true Noah’s Vessel Review (Berkowitz), p. 3 “vessel” or “ark” and, while it can manifest itself materially as extraterrestrial phenomena, it is more truly experienced as a non-physical, subtle reality which can “rescue” us from impending disaster.

Reader’s familiar with Rudolph Steiner and Helena Blavatsky will find similarities in Trigueirinho’s analysis of planetary evolution and its crises. Noah’s Vessel is full of esoteric knowledge and understandings, including insights into the true nature of Christianity, our relation with higher beings on other levels of reality and here on earth, the Divine Mother, books and how to read them spiritually, UFO’s, and much more. This book is in a sense prophetic, as it is based on an understanding of the present and the possibilities in the future that is not accessible to most people. As with all true prophecy, it serves its purpose when enough people take corrective action to avert an upcoming catastrophe. It is highly recommended for its insights on contemporary dilemmas and its advice for spiritual attunement.

Alan Berkowitz
Carmo de Cachoeira
March, 2008