Theos-Talk Archives (April 1998 Message tt00382)

Jerry Schueler-->
<< This is the Gnosis of the old Gnostics and I think that HPB was a Gnostic
 at heart. But I have found that even direct perception can change as we
 grow and evolve. At least it does for me. >>

Richard Ihle-->
I agree in regard to both points. On the first, however, whereas I can easily
conceive of how a fair number of individuals with a certain degree of Self-
apprehension could continue to "re-invent" (analogize into more cosmological
content) the doctrines of karma and reincarnation down throughout history, the
super-high, super-subtle degree of "auto-perceptiveness" necessary to do the
same thing (notice one's own stages of psychomaturation etc.) and then
analogize (in this case into the "trans-anthopological) this into the
doctrines of Rounds, Root-races, etc. is still something which astounds me.

Sure, once I learned about about anthropogenesis from HPB, it was a fairly
easy job to start seeing in myself some of the psychological and
psychomaturational phenomena which were very probably the initial "micro" side
of the analogy; however, I doubt if I would have gotten very far without this
Big Pattern pointing the way to the little pattern. I look at HPB's life and
have to ask myself if she seemed like a person whose degree of Self-awareness
was enough to make her an acute-enough observer of her own conditions to
generate such an analogy by means of them.

I am inclined to say no--which, of course, necessarily leaves the door open
for the possibility that she learned it from someone, or some tradition based
upon someone's insights, who had a degree of Self-awareness much higher than
her own--i.e., a "Master." (That's why I have never gotten anywhere in
Theosophy: my last breath is hardly exhausted before my next breath seems to
contradict it.) I cannot but agree that to originate the doctrines of Rounds
and Root-Races from scratch, one would have to be a Master in a certain
psychomaturational sense; however, to be able to transmogrify, precipitate,
teleport etc. in the manner so eagerly believed about HPB's Teachers by many
sectarian Theosophists, the Master would also have to be a god as well.

. . . On the other hand, if the Big Patterns succeed in instructing us enough
about the hidden little patterns and potentialities of our individual lives,
who knows what we will be able to do? . . . (I better quit on this breath.)

By the way, because of the ACT thing, I have made reservations at the Wheaton
Holiday Inn for Friday and Saturday during Summer Convention. How about you?
I am hoping a lot of the "on-line theosophists" show up this year; I will be
interested in seeing what might happen if so much abstruse articulateness
gathers in one place. (Indeed, I'd probably pay Alexis' way just to take a
gander at him. . . .) Best wishes and

Godspeed,

Richard Ihle