Theos-Talk Archives (August 1998 Message tt00074)

<< PJ wrote:
 >It's hard not to notice, upon returning to this list after being
 >away for a time, that there's a continuing presence, in
 >Theosophical discourse, of expressions of emphatic disrespect for
 >others with different views.

 gschueler@netgsi.com writes:
>I have noticed that Theos-World is getting more and more like
> Theos-l was before I left it.  Maybe its a Theosophical thing and all
> nets will eventually go this way?  Maybe its time for me to go back
>to Theos-l for awhile where things have quieted down?

Hi, Jerry.

I read Paul's and your posts about "dissing" etc. with interest and 100%
agreement.  One of the amazing things to me as primarily a reader of these
lists is the unusual number of at least superficially unpleasant people who
have seemed to show up over the years.  I mean, one doesn't generally run into
so many of such types in one's daily life, does one?  (At least I don't seem
to.)  One of the reasons I was hoping to attend the TS convention this year
was the chance of meeting a few of the more sarcastic/ridiculing/insulting
people ("Pauly," "Paul-baby" etc.) and see if they still tend to act the same
way once their verbal targets were right in front of them and no longer have
to jump into their modems and crawl perhaps a thousand miles through phone
line in order to kick their bad-mannered behinds. . . .

Actually, I have concluded that most of these people (and I have no problem
whatever with those who merely but fairly fight tooth-and-nail for their
positions) must use different personalities in order to get along in daily
life.  Otherwise, of course, their all-to-quickly-resorted-to strategy of
trying to take away the basic dignity of those they contend with wouldn't make
them so popular with friends, families, and co-workers, would it?

Naturally, since in my latter years I seem to have only one subject I ever
feel inclined to talk about any more, I blame everything on the corrupt
definition of ~Theosophy~ which seems to be ever-increasingly supplanting the
general meaning (according to ENCARTA):  ". . . Any religio-philosophical
system purporting to furnish knowledge of God, and of the universe in relation
to God, by means of direct mystical intuition, philosophical inquiry, or
both."

By condoning the "common usage" definition of ~Theosophy~ as a synonym for
HPB's Cosmogenesis and Anthropogenesis, it may be that we now have created
little more than a super-artifact which even the Spiritually impoverished and
grossly unSelf-realized can easily fight for or against, by fair method or
foul.  In other times, perhaps Theosophists honored one another to a greater
degree simply because there was more of a mutual understanding about the
profoundness of the Mysteries being approached . . . and how nascent and blunt
the personal tools for approaching those Mysteries still were in most
individuals, including oneself.

Thus, a person who has perhaps spent much of his or her lifetime aspiring,
struggling, making mistakes, trying again, etc.--all with the goal of
developing mystical intuition and utilizing Spiritual consciousness--may be a
little more tolerant of another struggler who may seem seriously off-track at
the moment.  Conversely, a ready-willingness to degrade another person by
means of contumelious flippancy and safe-distance familiarity perhaps
indicates that one has not yet really spotted the True Theosophical adventurer
either in oneself or the in other person.

 Anyway, I hope you and Paul don't abandon theos-talk for a more genteel forum
without telling me where you are going first. . . .

Best wishes and Godspeed,

Richard Ihle