Theos-Talk Archives (April 1998 Message tt00128)

 KPJ>There was great division in the TS before K's defection: in the
 early 20s with the anti-CWL movement, in the 1890s with the Judge
 issue, and before that with conflicts between HPB and Olcott and
 their respective partisans. All K. did in my opinion was to
 point out the nakedness of an emperor that had been unclothed for
 a very long time. >>

It may be that you, KPJ, are about as important a "Messenger" as the TS has
had in a long time. Your book THE MASTERS REVEALED, in my opinion, did great
service by perhaps even widening the necessary "division"--i.e., between the
story-level Theosophists and the actual theosophists--so that it is now much
easier to see who is who.

Isn't it getting a little late in the day for the TS to wake up and realize
that the basic idea of theosophy is not merely an academic study of HPB and a
few others, but rather the cultivation of the mystical/theosophical
methodology to obtain knowledge not available in any other way? A Seer does
not really need to read; a Seer simply Sees.

Are there really so few who can partially lift the veil of HPB's Cosmogenesis
and Anthropogenesis and perceive that, apart from whatever truth it may
literally contain, it also hides a practical Adept Program for personal
development of the most important kind?

Aldous Huxley once wrote an article called "Visionary Experience" in which he
describes the theosophical methodology quite well: "I think that one can say
that in all the religions, both primitive and developed, light is the sort of
predominant divine symbol, but the interesting fact is that the symbol is
based on a psychological fact, that the light of the world, the inner light,
enlightenment, the clear light of the void in Buddhist literature, all these
are symbols. But they are also psychological facts. Just as the great
metaphysical systems--it it seems to me--take their origin in many cases from
psychological experiences, so again do we see these great primary symbols of
religious life also take their origin from psychological experiences."

The idea here is that those individuals who helped fashion
metaphysical/religious systems positing an all-pervading light first ACTUALLY
EXPERIENCED such a light themselves in a meditative or otherwise "shifted"
state of consciousness.

". . . take their origin in many cases from psychological experiences."
--Take their origin from OBSERVING one's own psychological experiences--and
more importantly--one's own psychomaturational development.

What did HPB or her teachers first observe in her or their psychological
natures or patterns of deluded-ego development which resulted in the
ANALOGICAL CREATION of the grand system of Rounds, Root Races, etc.?

In my opinion. if one wants to be an Adept (rather than just find one to
worship), there is no better place to start than THE SECRET
DOCTRINE--provided, of course, that one has the discipline to withhold the
scientific type of judgement and ANALOGIZE BACKWARDS. Perhaps HPB also wrote
in the " as below, so Above" mode; we, however, it seems to me, must take the
"as Above (HPB version), so below" to start getting some PRACTICAL ADEPT VALUE
out of it.

Whether the grand, theosophical analogical creation, including karma,
reincarnation, and all the rest, is itself "true" is probably really not for
anyone to say and try to prove; rather, it may be for the few remaining on the
non-story-level side of the TS "division" to simply See for themselves. . . .

Thank you, KPJ for helping keep the division in the TS nicely open. Maybe you
should join again just so that there are at least two--you and I--remaining on
the adventurous side of the division. . . .

Godspeed,

Richard Ihle