Conclusion

    Geoffrey Hodson took the hard option of being a yogi, a seer and an occultist in the "market place" - out in the world - rather than in an isolated forest or mountain ashram. Because of his highly developed spiritual sensitivity he had to suffer much for doing this and he had to carefully choose his words, because a world riven by dogma and ideology cannot bear to receive too much light. But, he had both the wisdom and the resilience to succeed where others may have failed.

     In trying to piece together how, with his heightened supersensitive faculties, he could stand the strain of such a life there are several factors that come to mind. First, he had a most wonderful childhood with tremendously supportive parents who were both intelligent and artistic, his mother being a music teacher and organist. He was brought up in love and positivity and the “can do" approach and nourished by music, becoming a gifted baritone singer. We now know how those early childhood years are so important to the integrated development of a human being. He had a fine intellect which could reach further than others because even at an early date it had started to be supplemented by his intuitive faculties. He had a magnificent secondary education at both Public (paid private school) and Grammar School and he would have normally gone on to either Oxford or Cambridge University, but his family lost their money and he was thrown out into the hard world of business, where he did very vwell for a while:

    Then, the First World War came along, and although totally opposed to violence and the harming of any other living being, he nevertheless had a big vision where a Great Master (possibly from the description in The Occult Diary this was the Adept regent of Europe known as The Master the Prince Rakoczi or sometimes the Comte de St. Germain) handed him a sword, and he knew his duty in this case was to fight for a noble cause to protect Belgium, which had been invaded by the German military juggernaught. Mr. Hodson had a very strong physical frame coming from a family of yeoman gentleman farmers and had been an active sportsman and horse-rider as well as having a fine intellect. Such men were greatly in demand in the military for leadership roles and he was selected for officer training and found himself on the Western Front in 1918, where he distinguished himself in a breakthrough of enemy lines as a commander of the new secret weapon “the tank”. He was presented to Field Marshal Haig on the battlefield and his name was put forward for the Military Cross, which due to the hierarchical structure was given instead to his company commander, who was not even present on the battlefield during the engagement. His military service did at least three things for him: first, it showed him the horror, suffering, futility and waste of war; secondly, having been to hell and back, nothing else in his life would be quite as horrifying again and could be taken in his stride; and thirdly, it caused him to dedicate his life to trying to prevent wars by spreading and popularizing the teachings of Theosophy, which he did consistently over a seventy year period.

    If we knew absolutely nothing about Geoffrey Hodson and his yogic and spiritual abilities, we would need to do little more than look at the sort of people who acknowledged him and wanted to work with him – people like Dr. E. Lester-Smith who was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society for his contribution to the discovery of vitamin B12, Professor John Robinson D.Sc (a former assistant to the great paleontologist Dr. Robert Broom) and himself one of the world’s leading paleontologists, as well as many other scientists, medical doctors, musicians and artists who all wanted to see and hear his opinions because they knew he could probe areas that they could not reach themselves. He was the confident of great yogis and persons of extended vision across several continents, who saw him as their peer. This sort of scenario happened in various forms and settings wherever he went in the world, and one is bound to ask if he could not deliver insights to these distinguished people, why would they have bothered to put their confidence in him? But, Mr. Hodson not only offered his help to the privileged intellectual and spiritual leaders of society, he  also made himself available to the impecunious and lowly members of it as well. Many was the time I would come home in Perth where we lived in the same building of the Theosophical Society, to find a queue of ordinary folk outside his door waiting to consult him - he instructed Sandra never to turn them away and he never charged any fee. And it all came out of Mr. Hodson’s understanding and application of Theosophy, which enabled him to reach and surpass the spiritual gains that he had made in former incarnations – surely a model of Theosophy that is worthy of emulation?

    And how well he rose to his task! Students of esoteric matters owe him more of a debt than can be adequately expressed, and it is unlikely that we will see a person of his diversity of spiritual and occult (hidden) abilities again within our lifetime. However, he is not lost forever, for his Master advised that in his next incarnation on earth he will take up the profession of an occult historian – an expansion of only one aspect of the work that he dealt with in this life passed. Can we contemplate the history of the world as well as that of individuals rewritten from the imperishable historic (akashic) record rather than merely from the point of view of the dominant culture or those who won the wars? What a revelation, what a challenge for our law courts, universities, political institutions, religions and sciences! - to actually be confronted by factual observation rather than by opinions and arguments - will our institutions ever be able to bear the strain? Let us hope that we are in incarnation at that time so that we may both hear those revelations and see their effects on society.

    When Mr. Hodson died in 1983 aged 96 years a monumental researcher of spiritual truth  and an inspiring teacher disappeared from the world. I feel this event should have been marked by a more substantial declaration of acclaim and appreciation, especially within The Theosophical Society to which he had dedicated his life.  Even though he had been a recipient of the Subba Row medal in 1954, the highest honour that can be awarded by The Theosophical Society, and an attempt was made in the New Zealand and American Sections and amongst his great friends in The Philippines to publish a few reflections (see Appendices for one of these), considering the magnitude of his life's work for The Theosophical Society, these seemed rather inadequate. Admittedly, at that time the full impact of his secret inner Initiate life, which subsequently became available a few years later in the posthumous Trilogy, was not then known, and perhaps even if it had been there may have been some who could not have accepted it. To many of the rest of us however, especially those who studied his inspired writings, it was not  hard to intuit that he was indeed the  pre-eminent spokesperson for the Adept Brotherhood within The Theosophical Society of his time, and his posthumous writings only tended to confirm this. Of course, in another sense entirely, a lack of earthly  appreciation would not have been of much moment to Mr. Hodson; for in his after-death state, he would doubtless have been received home with open arms to his Master’s ashram, after travailing on behalf of the Adept Brotherhood in every way possible during his lifetime. Notwithstanding this, I feel it is a debt of honour that we personally owe to him to rectify the paucity of those earthly tributes that were not given on his death in 1983. I have therefore prepared this revised website on behalf of those who still have fond memories of him and his faithful wife Sandra and his not to be forgotten first wife Jane, through numerous revelations of truth and many acts of compassion and kindness. He truly made a contribution that will become ever more important as the years pass by. Most likely more people will find that his methods turn out to actually be the ones that work best in bringing them to the feet of their own Master, where the really meaningful training and development in the spiritual life actually begins - all the rest having been a preparation for this. So, I say not only for myself, but also on behalf of those other Theosophists, who really understood what Mr. Hodson's glorious life of Theosophical service was about:

"Vale! Geoffrey, thank you for the great light you gave to the world and we hope to have the privilege to meet you again somewhere further along the Path of Holiness."

Bill Keidan, Wellington, New Zealand