Theos-Talk Archives (March 1998 Message tt00292)

Govert Schuller wrote:

> So far in the discussion on this list I have not found any compelling
> reasons to change my conclusion about Ballard and prophet. On the contrary,
> I found some extra
> reasons to strengthen my belief in their authenticity. For example it was
> mentioned that the Masters used HPB's body sometimes to convey a message to
> someone by taking over her vocal cords. This same technique the Masters use
> in giving dictations, where They overshadow Their messenger and use his or
> her vocal cords . The difference being that dictations are public events and
> require some preparation beforehand.
>

This is new to me.  I understand Barborka's use of the word Tulku in application
to HPB, but even here, I have seen nothing in HPB's writings, Olcott's
observations,  or the Mahatma letters that suggests that they ever took over her
vocal cords.  Can you give an instance where such a thing happened?

> Another point relevant to this discussion concerns the corporeality of the
> Masters, which I addressed in my pamphlet "The Masters and Their Emissaries:
> >From H.P.B. to Guru Ma" (at http://pages.prodigy.net/schuller/story.htm ):
>
> "Both Masters [M. and K.H.] took their fifth initiation, the Ascension, at
> the close of the last century, thereby becoming incorporeal Ascended
> Masters.  And as Blavatsky has written--referring to other saints, that,
> when “unburthened of their terrestrial tabernacles, their freed souls,
> henceforth united forever with their spirits, rejoin the whole shining host,
> which is bound together in one spiritual solidarity of thought and deed, and
> called the ‘anointed,’ ”--the same glad tidings could be told, not only
> about these two illustrious Masters, but also about many other brave souls
> who followed them. [H.P. Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled (Pasadena CA: Theosophical
> University Press, 1976), II, p. 159].  For practical purposes the difference
> between an Unascended Master and an Ascended one is not very great. Both can
> work in the physical as well as in the spiritual realm and both have a wide
> array of occult powers at their command to guide Their pupils and help
> mankind.  The difference is that an Unascended Master has its base of
> operations in a physical body and an Ascended Master in a spiritual.  To
> dismiss the latter as spooks, because the they do not conform to one’s idea
> of flesh-and-blood Masters, is to deny oneself the great wisdom coming from
> the 'anointed.' ”
>

Since ( as you suggest here)  the I AM doctrines teach that the Masters Ascended
at the turn of the century, they are in a very different state than what HPB
experienced concerning them.   Therefore, I can understand that given their own
contexts,  the Ballards would then become "channelers" of the Masters, where HPB
worked with them as physical people.  On the other hand, how the above
quote from ISIS helps your (their) case escapes me.  At best its reading is
ambiguous.  Consequently, I reread the passage from the book in context with the
rest of the paragraph.  This way, the meaning is much clearer to me:

The main thought from which the paragraph unfolds concerns the Christos as "an
abstraction."  I and other Blavatsky students I know, understand HPB's
consistent use of this term in the sense of the Gnostics: "the impersonal
principal. the Atman of the Universe, and the Atma within every man's soul--not
Jesus...(SD I: 132fn).  Are you then suggesting that the Ballards are conversing
with their Atmas, and that Atma took control of their vocal cords?   As for the
specific portion of this paragraph you chose to quote, she gives examples of
past "demigods" and "leaders of mankind" as examples of this "one spiritual
solidarity" of their spirits, e.g. Moses, Pythagoras, Apollonius, Plotinus,
Confucius, Plato, Iamblicus and some Christian Saints (ISIS I: 159).  HPB here
calls them "the anointed"  and returns to her point at the beginning of the
paragraph when she says "hence the meaning of the Gnostics, who, by saying that
"Christos" suffered spiritually for humanity implied that his Divine Spirit
suffered mostly."

You write: "my personal experience is that my understanding of the Secret
Doctrine has considerably deepened  since I have read many of the works coming
through the Ballards and Prophet. And other way around."  I'm sure it has.
However, the deepening would depend upon the extent to which the two systems are
in philosophical agreement.  Conversely, the extent to which they are not in
agreement, would lead to misunderstandings and confusions between the two
systems.  The Neo Platonists believed that they were in perfect agreement with
Plato, and their understanding (misunderstanding) was deepened by comparative
readings of the Platonists and neo-Platonists writings.  This is the process of
syncretism from which new philosophies evolve from the blending together of old
ones.   A better approach would be to first gain a mastery of Blavatsky's
writings without comparing them to later theosophies.  Then, use those writings
as a test to determine the compatibility of the later theosophies to
Blavatsky's.

Peace
jhe