Colyn Boyce (Essex)

Phone: 07503 919 807
Email: cboyce2534@sky.com
Location: Essex

Prefer in-person, but also available to do Zoom / online talks

Colyn Boyce was born in Canada and in the 1970s he was a radio journalist. A member of the Theosophical Society since 1969, he worked for the London HQ of the TS in England from 1981 to 2018. For 25 years he was engaged full-time as Publicist and for the latter 10 years, he held the post of Office Administrator with a remit to organise and promote the London programme of the Society. From 1990 to 2015 he was Assistant Editor of Insight magazine and its predecessor, The Theosophical Journal. His responsibility extended to designing and illustrating the magazines. A member of the National Lecturers Scheme, Colyn has spoken at English Summer Schools, in London and at a number of premises throughout the UK, Canada and the USA. Additionally, he has presented zoom lectures internationally - including for the Ukraine, the Philippines and the European School of Theosophy. He also contributes article regularly to esoteric magazines.

 

Theosophy: The Utopian Ideal
“Unity is a fact of nature” so we are told in core theosophical teaching. In the human realm, this manifests as the ideal of universal brotherhood, where every man is my brother and every woman is my sister. In view of recent disturbing terrorist atrocities, one might question how such a brotherhood is ever possible. It might be helpful to take to the heart the observation by the famous Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn that ‘as long as man is at war with himself, there will not be peace in the world’.

Atlantis: The Greatest Riddle of Mankind?
There have been perhaps more books, in the realm of Esotericism, written on Atlantis than any other subject, with the possible exception of ancient Egypt. Some claim that it was an island, others speculate that it occupied a continent. And one view is that Atlantis was an entire global landmass. More to the point, we were all there and probably spent several lifetimes in the Atlantean world, which occupied a very long time-span. This talk examines many of the theories concerning the rise and fall of Atlantis and what lessons it holds for our future incarnations.

Reincarnation: Life After Life
Do we have just one earthly life, or do we return . . . time and again? Even in the last 25 years an increasing number in the western world have come around to the view that this is not our only life. For millennia, mystics, artists and scientists and some of the greatest thinkers have accepted reincarnation as a central tenet of human existence. If as some suggest that justice rules the universe, rebirth is the only logical explanation for dealing with apparent inequalities: why some are wealthy and others are poor, while others have good health and yet others are dealt are a rotten set of ‘health’ cards. Our speaker examines what the Ageless Wisdom has to say on the subject.

Death: The Final Frontier?
Does our life end at death . . . or is this just a beginning – where one moves from this
largely illusory material world to a place of greater reality? A study of the ‘constitution of man’ as he is in life is a necessary preliminary to the understanding of death and the process of dying. In particular, a study of man as a ‘three-fold’, is directly relevant. The term ‘soul’ designates the thinking-feeling self of everyday experience, housed in the physical body, and is mortal like that body. This is the personality. Spirit alone, described as a spark or ray of the Divine Life, is immortal, the enduring individuality. This talk outlines the various post-mortem states contained in the theosophical ‘teaching’ before the return of the ‘individual’ to a new physical incarnation.

H.P. Blavatsky: Priestess of Isis
Even if she never wrote a word – on spiritual or other topics – the life of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky makes for truly fascinating reading and deserves a full-length motion picture film. A natural psychic from an early age growing up in Russia, HPB travelled widely throughout Europe, Asia and the Americas – sometimes on horseback. A professional concert pianist, she also had various entrepreneurial skills – a one point owning an ink factory and selling lumber. Her life changed forever when investigating spiritualist phenomena in Vermont, she met Henry Steel Olcott and together along with William Quan Judge they became principal founders of the modern Theosophical movement in 1975. This talk looks at the life of Blavatsky and summarizes the main tenets of the Ageless Wisdom encapsulated in her major works.

Henry Steel Olcott & the Search for Truth
Long before becoming founding President of the Theosophical Society in 1975, Olcott had gained international acclaim for his work in agriculture and was awarded two medals of honour. A reporter for the New York Tribune, he was present at the hanging of John Brown in 1859 and for a while fought for the Northern Army in the Civil War. Between 1868 and 1878 he practised law – specializing in customs, revenue and insurance cases. Interested in Spiritualism from the age of 19, he reported the psychic phenomena in Vermont in 1874 for the New York Sun and New York
Graphic. It was here that he met his future spiritual compatriot H. P. Blavatsky. As President of the T.S., he championed in India, Ceylon, Japan and other oriental countries the revival of Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Islam and other faiths. He stimulated the Sanskrit revival. A mesmeric healer in one year he treated 6,000 cripples, deaf, dumb, blind and insane with phenomenal success. Olcott lectured and travelled for the T.S. many thousands of miles yearly by land and sea. He is best remembered for his Buddhist Catechism which has been translated into 20 languages and Old Diary Leaves – a six volume history of the Theosophical Society.

Annie Besant: The Diamond Soul
Described as a ‘Diamond Soul’ for her many brilliant facets, Annie Besant was Second International President of the Theosophical Society from 1907 – 1933. During her tenure, the Society attained its highest ever membership of about 40,000. She was a champion of human freedom, educationist, philanthropist, and author with more than three hundred books and pamphlets to her credit. Prior to joining the Theosophical Society, she was a member of the National Secular Society and wasprominent in the Labour and Socialist movements, and took an active part in Trade Union work among unskilled labourers. Her life changed forever in 1889, upon meeting H. P. Blavatsky whose magnum opus, The Secret Doctrine, she had been commissioned to review. Besant soon became the most brilliant exponent of Theosophy, both as orator and author. Explanations of the many enigmas of life and the universe were presented in her outstanding books such as A Study in Consciousness, and Esoteric Christianity, the latter which has helped to revive true knowledge of Christianity.

Beyond Illusion: To Know Thyself
Ever since Man crawled out of the primordial slime countless millennia ago, the greatest minds have searched for a definitive explanation of the Nature of Reality. Various schools of thought have proposed that the phenomenal world is ‘maya’ - a magic show, an illusion where things appear to be present but are not what they seem. The Ancients have told us that the goal of human existence is to ‘know thyself’ -which is to identify with one’s Divine Nature: a ‘place’ that is ever pure, ever perfect, ever unchangeable.

Yeats, Mondrian and Edison – The Influence of Theosophy & Theosophists in the Modern Age
The Theosophical Society has for over a century influenced, strongly, many fields of endeavours – Science and the Arts, in particular. In its early days, such household names as the Nobel Prize winning author William Butler Yeats, the Dutch abstract painter Piet Mondrian and one of the world’s most prolific inventors, American Thomas Alva Edison, were all members of the Society. As were prominent English scientists Sir William Crookes and Alfred Russel Wallace. This talk looks at what attracted the aforementioned and other high profile figures to join an organisation whose motto is ‘There is No Religion Higher than Truth’ and examines the legacy they left behind - helping all us to live more insightful, productive lives.