The Culture of Stelle A lady asked what is required of a person who becomes a Member of The Stelle Group. Self development is our chief requirement, Richard answered. “Many people, particularly those unable to adjust readily, could be ruined by entering Stelle. Those who cannot cope with the heavy demands of character development may be wiser to keep themselves out of this line of fire.” If things are difficult for an individual in the world outside, they will be more so in The Stelle Group, because here the prize is dearer and the tests correspondingly more severe. Here the Black Mentalists more actively present us with temptations and induce thoughts designed to mislead and confound us, and it is by our responses to these tests that the Brothers continually measure, sift, and weigh our capabilities. Rigorous tests may stimulate us to improve ourselves. Determined application of The Great Virtues, with a daily period of self-examination in light of one Virtue each week, probably provides the best system for balanced and fairly rapid Egoic growth. We can hardly guess what kind of persons we will be after a year of steady effort to incorporate the Great Virtues into our own character. We have all lived many incarnations in Lemuria when civilization was at its height, and we have a subconscious remembrance of that time which tells us that we are falling short of what is possible for Mankind. The civilization we are creating will not be Western in nature but Lemurian, and it will require all the imagination and Egoic memory of that great civilization we can muster in order to recreate it. Immersed in our present Western civilization we engage in the many perversions which our culture has come to accept. It Is our task to sort out these perversions from our behavior and learn better ways of responding. Members of our generation seem always to regress initially to the old, perverse ways, even though we may learn to not express them overtly, but we can shift through conscious effort to the newly-learned, better way. Thus it is only through much struggle that we overlay old, ingrained responses with ones which produce a more serene atmosphere around us. If our children can grow up seeing only the better ways expressed, then they will not have to expend such great effort to correct old, negative behavior patterns. Their first responses will be peaceful and constructive ones. Obviously, they will be much happier, more effective people than we are. If we stand tall, our children may rise to greater heights. If we fall down, our children’s struggle is harder, and their achievements are less. The Brothers’ hope for Stelle is that we will provide an environment protected from harmful outside influences, where our children may mature and surpass us to start building the greatest civilization this world has ever known. We are all In the process of becoming the people capable of fulfilling this vision. Stelle is a workshop, not a utopia. (10-1970)
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