Theos-Talk Archives (August 1998 Message tt00069)

One thing that I've heard from modern astrology is that
when mercury is retrograde, that communications come undone
and than snafus, mixups, and a comedy of errors readily
ensue. We could be buying a computer part, planning a
meeting, trying to call a friend, arranging a party, and
mixup after mixup arises, until we're almost expecting
everything to go wrong about us.

I've noticed this effect in dozens of things happening
in my life the past week. (Mercury went retrograde on
July 30, and goes direct 3:29 PM PST on August 23rd.)
There may be some effect on the discussions on the list
too, where well-intentioned communications lead to
compounding misunderstandings, mistrust, and anger.

I think that I'll hold off any major writing projects
or other projects regarding important communications
for a couple of weeks until this blows over. I have
lots of other stuff to do; now may be a good time to
give important communications a rest.

At some point, it would be valuable to discuss what are
the central theosophical doctrines, so that we can
understand just what Blavatsky was trying to teach.
We might say, "this is the basic idea, as taught in
Theosophy," and go on and say, "and I agree or disagree
and think this other idea is more appealing."

We'd make a distinct between our talking about the basic
theosophical ideas and our own interpretations or
personal views. Why? So it's possible for new people
to have some change of finding out something of the
theosophical ideas we sometimes like to study, and not
merely get a statistical sampling of an odd assortment
of diverse views on metaphysics, views ranging from the
inane to the most brilliant, but on the average being
a little disappointing at times.

Now, given that mercury is retrograde, I'll be waiting
to be misunderstood in creative and unexpected ways ...

-- Eldon