Treasure Trove of Stolen Art Discovered in L.A.

Just the latest remarkable event associated with the late artist Benjamin Creme — who also brought a profound message of hope to the world.

The recovery of stolen art is always good news, and the better the art, the better the news. In this case, the recent recovery in Los Angeles of nearly 1,300 signed prints by the late Scottish painter Benjamin Creme made headlines in a number of major news outlets, including the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and the BBC.

The prints were stolen in 2012 from a storage locker in the L.A. area. In September 2019, a woman showed up at an L.A. police station with the prints in her car, wanting to turn them over to law enforcement authorities. “This is not normal,” a Los Angeles Police Department detective told The New York Times, in reference to the recovery.

Indeed, in today’s world, such a retrieval might almost be seen as miraculous given the value of the stolen art, estimated at $800,000. 

Yet this was only the latest remarkable event associated with the life of Benjamin Creme.

Born in Scotland in 1922, Creme was drawn to painting early in life. He quit school at 16 and, as he said, “painted day and night.” By the age of 20, he was already turning out works of uncommon vision and accomplishment. From the late 1940s through the 1950s, he produced many paintings, mainly portraits and landscapes.

A Momentous Development

Thereafter, a major shift in the stylistic direction of his art corresponded to a new and momentous development in his life. Creme began to be contacted in 1959, telepathically, by a great spiritual teacher known as a Master of Wisdom. 

The existence of the Masters was first made known in the late 1800s by Helena Blavatsky, who lived with a group of these great teachers in the Himalayas for three years and wrote several books based on their teachings.

Known as the Ageless Wisdom Teachings, they go back aeons of time and underlie all the world’s religions and philosophies. But they were largely hidden, esoteric, until Blavatsky began making them known to the public.

Some years later, between 1919 and 1949, an English woman named Alice Bailey presented to the world more of the teachings of the Masters of Wisdom through a series of books dictated to her by one of the Masters.

According to the Ageless Wisdom Teachings, the Masters have lived in the remote mountains and deserts of the world for countless millennia, inspiring, protecting and guiding humanity from behind the scenes.

Long a student of these teachings, Benjamin Creme nonetheless was not expecting any contact from a Master of Wisdom. Yet when such a contact began in 1959 — a contact that would continue for the rest of his life — it completely transformed his art, as well as his life’s work. 

From 1964 on, Creme’s art became abstractly symbolic. He sought to give visual expression to the spiritual truths underlying the esoteric teachings.

In the 1970s, Creme began an arduous training process with his spiritual Master, a Master of Wisdom, which would prepare him for the work that years before he had agreed to undertake — making known as widely as possible a momentous event that was then beginning to unfold: the public emergence into the everyday world of the Masters of Wisdom, as well as their head and leader — Maitreya, the World Teacher.

The Emergence of the Great Teachers

Creme’s spiritual training allowed him to develop a moment-to-moment telepathic contact with his spiritual Master. Whatever information Creme needed to carry out his work, he could access from his Master.

In 1974, Creme began speaking publicly about the imminent public emergence of these great teachers. And in 1977, he announced that Maitreya, the World Teacher had entered the modern world. Creme said his work essentially was to help raise the climate of hope and expectancy in the world, which would allow Maitreya to come forward publicly without infringing humanity’s free will.

In an effort to help make this story known, a worldwide group of volunteers drawn to Creme’s message soon formed to work with him, and the nonprofit group Share International was created. To better disseminate his information, Creme founded a magazine in 1982, also called Share International, serving as editor-in-chief until his passing in 2016. Creme was also the author of 14 books, and lectured widely around the world. For all these efforts, he received no financial remuneration of any kind and supported himself from proceeds of the sale of his art and from his wife’s work as an educator.

Maitreya, the World Teacher

Maitreya fulfils the expectations of the various religious groups for their expected Teacher — whether they call him the Christ, the Messiah, the Imam Mahdi, Krishna or Maitreya Buddha. But Maitreya is not a religious teacher or leader. He comes as a teacher for all people, religious and non-religious alike, and, at this critical time for humanity and the planet, to show us how to live together in peace.

Maitreya’s message, one that Creme worked tirelessly to make known, is that sharing — alone — will lead us to a world of economic justice and therefore peace. A just and equitable redistribution of the food and the resources of the world is essential so that none need go without. 

Sharing thus implemented will increase trust and reduce tensions between nations. Cooperation, rather than competition, will then characterize the interactions between peoples, and humanity will begin to see itself as it truly is — one family, sharing its common, sacred home, the Earth.

Should humanity heed this message, we will create — under the direct inspiration and guidance of Maitreya and the Masters — a planetary culture more brilliant and beautiful than any we have ever imagined. Creme said that Maitreya knows the heart of humanity is sound, and that we will make the correct choices — for sharing, cooperation and peace.

Creme continued painting until nearly the end of his life, when his failing eyesight made it no longer possible. His legacy, even more than his many remarkable paintings, is the ongoing work of Share International volunteers worldwide, who continue the mission he dedicated his life to — making known the presence in the world of Maitreya, the World Teacher, and his group, the Masters of Wisdom, and their coming emergence into the public arena.

More information: BenjaminCremeMuseum.org

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