It caused quite a stir across the world on Sunday 25th April, 1982 as huge, whole-page advertisements appeared in leading broadsheet newspapers, proclaiming that
THE CHRIST IS HERE
The message went on to say that “Throughout history, humanity’s evolution has been guided by a group of enlightened men, the Masters of Wisdom. . . . At the centre of this “Spiritual Hierarchy” stands the World Teacher, Lord Maitreya, known by Christians as the Christ. And as Christians await the Second Coming, so the Jews await the Messiah, the Buddhists the fifth Buddha, the Moslems the Imam Mahdi, and the Hindus await Krishna. These are all names for one individual.”
There was a flurry of editorial comment in the Media, together with an attempt to obtain further information from the man who seemed to be the co-ordinator of this activity, and who operated from various “Tara Centres” in the world. It emerged from these investigations that the man was Benjamin Crème, and the funding for this advertising extravaganza came mainly from well-off Americans in Hollywood. The cost of placing the material in no less than 15 major newspapers across the world, was of the order of $260,000. That in itself indicated the size and the influence of a movement, hitherto largely unknown by most people. It was disclosed that Tara Centres existed in Hollywood, New York, London, and Amsterdam, as well as others in France,Belgium, Spain, and Canada. What was it all about?
Benjamin Crème appeared on British T.V. at 2 p.m. on May 12th 1982. We learned that he was 59 years of age, born in Glasgow in 1923 to a Jewish father and Roman Catholic mother. In 1982 he worked in London as an artist. His wife Phyllis lectured at the North London Polytechnic. They had three children. Julian, born in 1948 was a musician.
He said that “the Christ” had been emerging since July 1977, and is one of the 63 Masters of wisdom, though central to them all, and he is known as The Lord Maitreya. His true status had thus far not been declared, and only a very few disciples knew who he was, and where he lives. But “within two months he will speak to all mankind on T.V. No one will hear his voice, but all will “hear” his message telepathically in their own language. . . . On Friday 14th May I will reveal the identity of the Christ.” And so we waited.
On that Friday Crème appeared on American T.V. at a press conference in Los Angeles. He had this to say – “The country is England, that emerald isle, the town is London, and the Christ has been working in the Pakistani-Indian Community in South London.” That was all. The identity was NOT revealed, but promised on T.V. before June 21st.
Nothing of interest transpired by the Summer Solstice, though from another angle the arrival, on May 28th, of the Pope on English soil for the first time since the Reformation caused ripples throughout churches, both positive and negative.
When people are unable to “deliver the goods” interest wanes. However, Crème has always maintained his belief in the Maitreya, and the following extracts from a long interview in 1997 revealed the deeper teaching of the movement.
“Well, the fact is that my job is to create the climate of hope, of expectancy, for the coming of the World Teacher, Maitreya, embodying the Christ Principle into the world with His group of His disciples, from our point of view, the Masters of Wisdom, who are a group of extraordinarily advanced men, men without fault, men who have gone ahead of us in evolution, who need no further incarnation on this planet but who nevertheless stay on the planet – to oversee the evolution of the rest of us. They have lived for thousands of years in the Himalayas, in the Andes, in the Rockies, and various other mountain and desert areas. From there they have overseen the evolution of humanity. But mainly, over these thousands of years, through their disciples, people like Leonardo da Vinci, or Einstein, or Mozart or Abraham Lincoln, in all the different departments of life their disciples have, by the expansion of human consciousness, brought us steadily forward in evolution from early animal man up to the point where we are today.
Now the Masters have a plan to return to the world and it’s in connection with that plan of their returning that I was contacted by one of the Masters in 1959, although He attempted in 1958, but He achieved it in 1959.”
“I knew about the Masters. I had read the Theosophical teachings, some of the Alice Bailey teachings, the Agni Yoga teachings and so on. So I knew theoretically about the Masters and I believed in their existence. But, I confess, I didn’t expect any contact. . . . Then I had the most extraordinary experience of my life (and I have had some really strange experiences which I have not talked about to anybody). So I knelt down, I’m not good at kneeling, my knees don’t like it, I was very uncomfortable. Suddenly I was overshadowed, as it’s called, by Maitreya.
Maitreya the Master of all the Masters. The one awaited by Christians as the Christ, because He embodies the Christ principle. They await the Christ as Jesus, but in fact, He overshadowed Jesus. His consciousness entered into that of Jesus at the baptism and from the baptism to the crucifixion He worked through Jesus. Jesus, who was a disciple of Maitreya became, from being the disciple Jesus, He became Jesus the Messiah, or The Christ, for those three years. While that overshadowing was going on Jesus was, to all intents and purposes, the vehicle through which Maitreya, who embodies the Christ principle, could demonstrate that to the world. So when Jesus talked it was Maitreya talking.”
“It’s like this. The events of the appearance of the Christ have already taken place. The events that Maitreya forecast, like the end of the Cold War, the break up of the Soviet Union, the release of Nelson Mandela, the transformation of South Africa, the demise of Mr. Gorbachov, the retirement of Mrs Thatcher, the release of the hostages such as Terry Waite. All of those extraordinary predictions which Maitreya made, years ahead of the events, which we published in our magazine, years ahead of the events, there has never been a body of predictions of such a quality in the history of the world. How does Maitreya know they are going to happen? Because He sees them, they are already happening. They happen on the subtle level and then they precipitate on to the physical plane. When we as humanity take certain actions the precipitation takes place. Now as far as Maitreya is concerned, and as far as my experience on that March 1959 is concerned, the appearance of Maitreya had already taken place. I could see it. He was showing me that event and its results. The thousands of people in the street, the people calling for Maitreya, for the Masters. They were real events which I saw.”
“If the Masters see events, they can predict the events because they know it’s going to happen. But there are sequences of events and variety of events and they won’t all precipitate. Depending on our actions, that or that, or that, will precipitate. So there are potential events but not all these potential events will take place on the physical plane. That depends on the action of humanity. Because we have free will. We set in motion those events or they are set in motion as a kind of destiny. But the actual precipitation, yes or no, of which event and the timing of these, depends on us and our free will. We have the free will which determines that event, already happening on the inner plane, will precipitate on to the physical plane. Then we call it “such and such” event. But the event began much earlier on the higher plane. Now the appearance of Maitreya, on the higher level, has already taken place. But the actual timing of it has not been fixed on the physical plane and become an event because of our inaction for one thing. Because of the action of the media for another reason.”
“Before the overshadowing, my Master said “Our Master, Maitreya Himself, has something important to tell you.” So, as I have said, I knelt down, I was filled with love, I was in this sphere of light, I saw the past and the future happening, and then Maitreya’s voice came into my head, just like my Master’s voice had done, and then again completely clearly, but very different from my Master’s. He said very simply, “I, Myself am coming.” Now I had a completely different view of the coming myself. I didn’t think the Christ would come again. He had done itonce, He wouldn’t do it again, even though I know that Christians expect the return of Christ. I thought He would come, probably in a flying saucer from Venus. That was my generalised expectation. When this would happen I had no idea. But He said, “I, Myself, am coming. Sooner than anyone thinks possible. It will be in about twenty years.” (In the event it was about eighteen years) He continued, “You will have a role to play, in my coming, if you accept it.””
“How many journalists do you think have ever opened one page of the esoteric teachings, which have been given openly since 1875, by H. P. Blavatsky and Alice A. Bailey? They are totally unprepared to look at these events, and those taking part in those events, as “events” in themselves. It is like the blind speaking and leading the blind. As far as the events themselves are concerned, and the underlying purpose and meaning of them for humanity, the media of the world are as ignorant as any peasant. They are intellectually more sophisticated but they do believe they can judge these events. The only people today that the media really respect and are humble enough to listen to are the so called scientists who are called on to illuminate, or give a scientific explanation for, the myriad of miracles which are taking place all over the world and have been doing so for years. They are called to show that these miracles are normal; that they are not really miracles; that we don’t have to take them seriously as miracles; that the miracles are obviously events but the meaning and purpose of them we don’t need to know. The media think that we have to know the mechanism of the miracles and so they bring in those pseudo-scientists who explain them away.
If there is a Madonna weeping tears, real tears, real blood then there is something fishy going on, there is somebody with the heart of a pig who has deposited the blood on the Madonna.
If the Madonna moves then it is just a fiction, just an hallucination on the part of 2000 people who saw this Madonna move.
They see a huge Madonna, in brilliant colours, 35 ft high, on the windows of a bank inClearwater, Florida. It doesn’t go away. There are all sorts of so called scientific explanations like – it is an oily deposit which somehow gives this colour. Well how did it happen? Why didn’t it happen before? Because it is there day after day. People have tried to rub it off – it doesn’t rub off.
Recently some vandals threw some chemicals on to it to get rid of it. They stained the image but it has now begun to clarify itself and is back now to its original state.
What about Crosses of light! In 1988 April my Master said that very soon Maitreya will create crosses of light all over the world, so many that people will not be able to ignore them but nobody will know where they come from and what makes them.
The first was seen a few weeks later in May at a place called El Monte, a suburb of Los Angeles. In that suburb, in a poor Hispanic home a cross of light appeared in the bathroom window. It wasn’t there before, suddenly it was. When it appeared they prayed to God. It wasn’t God it was Maitreya, but they thought it was a sign from God. The mother in the house was suffering from cancer of the breast. She had an almost immediate cessation of the cancer; she was pronounced cured. Her daughter was several months pregnant and, before the cross arrived, the doctors were ready to abort the pregnancy because of complications. After the cross came the doctors told her there was no need. The doctors didn’t know what had happened but the daughter was cured.
That repeated throughout the community until there were about thirty crosses in the community.
It was a very run down, tough area. There was a lot of drug dealing and hard people but gradually it began to be transformed.
Families were brought together, people who were suicidal became the opposite they began to serve the community. There was less crime. The “hard eggs” disappeared or reformed.Extraordinary events. These crosses then spread all over the world.
I know a doctor in the Philippines whose patients were getting well in half the normal time. Then he discovered he had twelve crosses of light in the windows around his surgery, which he hadn’t had, and they were the source of the healing power.
Wherever those crosses are, and they are now all over the world, there is this healing energy.
Now when the first cross appeared thousands of people came to see it and the police had to manage the traffic. The local Catholic priest told the family that it would be better if they cut out the pane of glass and put it in the church, people would be able to see it at the church and the family wouldn’t be disturbed. They were a nice family, agreed with the priest and put the cross in the church. But when the window was displayed in the church the cross disappeared and nothing they could do in that church would bring the cross back into the glass. So they had to give up, take the cross back to the house and the cross promptly returned.”
“And these are the signs. The crosses are the signs, as well as the weeping Madonnas; the icons of Jesus that weep tears and blood; the wooden icons such as in Sydney, Australia, which doesn’t weep. It leaks litres of pure olive oil every single day. They have a trough were the olive oil is gathered up from this simple cross with Jesus on it. These are miracles which are taking place throughout the world. The four day Hindu milk miracle in September 1995, when the whole of the Hindu world experienced this miracle of the statues of the Gods. Statues of the Gods Ganesha and Shiva, made of copper, brass, wood, stone bronze, some silver which began to lap up the milk that was offered. That milk had been offered every day for thousands of years. It never happened that the Gods actually drank it. Normally it was offered and the Gods symbolically drank it and it was given to the people as prasad. But this time the Gods, for four days, lapped up the milk. This has never happened in the world before. They had to close the parliament in Deli because everyone had gone off to the temple. Temples were filled as they had never been filled before. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of milk were offered to the Gods and that milk disappeared. It happened here in London, in America, and in some places continued long after the “four days” of the miracle. People from the media went and saw this happening. They tried it themselves and the milk disappeared. Of course the statues did not drink the milk but the milk disappeared nevertheless. That milk was made to disappear by Maitreya and a group of Masters, who specialise in this type of miracle.”
“Generally people will experience love. Maitreya is the Lord of Love, and that energy of love will throw out in enormous potency, so they will feel that love. Some powerfully and some not so; a few will dismiss it. People are on different levels and they are conditioned for or against this. Mainly against.
All the fundamentalist religious groups are already conditioned to reject this event. All the teaching, all the scriptures, which they don’t actually understand themselves, they misinterpret. Their interpretation of their own scriptures is telling them something different from the reality that is actually happening on that Day of Declaration. And so there will be very mixed reaction.
The simpler, more heart orientated people will probably find it not too difficult. They will have such a heart experience, such a love experience, they’ll say “You can say what you like but I’ve never felt so good in all my life while that was happening”. And if they are honest they will go along with that experience. That will be the touchstone of their accounting of this event.
There will be some who will think they have seen The Christ but they will look to the Bible to see what it says and it will not be the same and that will automatically turn them against accepting it. So there will be a whole range of reactions.”
“For the fundamentalists, Maitreya will be the anti-Christ. They cannot see Him as the Christ because He has not come down on a cloud into Jerusalem, which is what they are expecting. So He must be the anti-Christ. But that feeling, that love, is hardly the feeling of the anti Christ and many will feel that love, fundamentalist or not. They will be in two minds. You can’t win in this situation.
If Maitreya says, “I am the anti-Christ, follow me because I am the Devil,” or something like that, then of course that’s what they expect. But if He says “I am the Lord of Love” or “Through me you can experience the love of God” they are not going to believe that, they are not going to accept that because, they will say, “That’s what the anti-Christ would say.” With them you cannot win. They are going to have to make up their own minds over a long period of time.
“When they see the transformation of the world, so many people responding to Maitreya, so many people setting into motion the political, social and economic transformations which Maitreya will advocate, which are so commonsensical, that the majority of people in the end will see it’s the only possible way forward and then even the fundamentalists will come round and say “Well, it looks like He’s an OK guy.” The tree is known by its fruit and when people see the fruit of Maitreya, when they see His love, hear His wisdom, insight, His extraordinary simplicity, that He is so humble, never putting Himself above them…. He will say “Don’t worship Me, I don’t want you to worship me.” As He has said in His own teachings, “If you worship Me you put Me above you. I am not above you. I am at exactly the same point. There is only one divinity and we each share that divinity.”
And so we end these extracts from a very long interview which Crème gave on 11thAugust 1997. It hardly needs any further comment. It speaks for itself. It stems from the teachings of Madame Blavatsky, the Theosophist of the latter years of the 19th century. All the many and varied outlets of the New Age movement stem from her teaching, and today it is extremely widespread throughout the world. What amazes us is that Christians are still awaiting the coming of the Antichrist, when with a little digging they should find more than adequate evidence of his devilish influence in the world. And our own research has thrown up the fact that the new and subtle phase of this influence began around the time of the great darkness in theUnited States in May 1780.
In the next chapter we shall have more to say about these developments.
