Theos-Talk Archives (August 1999 Message tt00043)

Aug 24th 1999

Dear Dr. Aidan:

Your comments are noted with interest.

I would say that regardless of how information concerning the
past, whether religious or factual derived from ancient MSS,
artifacts, fossils, monuments, etc... is currently interpreted or
debated, the main point is that we are now seeking among the
scattered shards of the largely effaced past for evidence that
will enable us to reconstruct a reasonable view of what happened
when.

This effort has only been in place for about 250 to 350 years in
a well organized way, and is being refined constantly by new
discoveries and the changes that they force on our older views
and theories.  It is like discovering the new dating techniques
for archaeological periods and buried fossils and artifacts --
which have forced a far wider and deeper view of antiquity,
geologically and otherwise in the perspectives Science adopts
concerning our Earth in the past 70 years.  Or like the present
evidence of the Hubble telescope which has so widened our
astro-physical view of the Cosmos, and,  a new sense of time,
Space and causality -- that involves possible, enormously remote
beginnings and endings.

I speak most broadly.  I see this happening in the past 200 to
350 years, (historically) and of course, in the past 75 there has
been an enormous blooming of information (some of which has been
obscured, suppressed, destroyed -- because it did/does not fit
preconceptions and old hypotheses of either respected past
"authorities," or of those who are currently developing
"authorities" in various areas and find themselves still bound by
the limitations of the past and their learning limitation).

I would say that in many cases the advancing of information and
views that would force the revision of current academic criteria
and assumptions, in all disciplines, could cause academic suicide
for those newcomers who aspire to acquire recognition if they
were to pursue them under present academic methods of review and
criticism.

In other words the purity and honesty of reporting is found in
many cases to have been tainted.  We need very strict codes to
ensure that all evidence is fully displayed, even if it
contradicts old theories or those that are currently used to
establish dating and relationship bases.

If (as an example) you go through the 3 recently published books
by A. Cremo on FORBIDDEN ARCHAEOLOGY, this jumps to confront us.
If historically, again, we review the writings of Emmanuel
Velikovsky, or Charles Fort, of even Von Danegan one is led to
wonder, as a non-expert -- as a "generalist" -- as to why it is
that the academics are not considering these matters that relate
somehow to our past.  They are the questionables.  Ten years or
so ago, we had not heard of fractiles -- now they are seen
universally.

A Jurist with no academic training can still evaluate the
honesty, fairness and accuracy of any evidence that is submitted
to him.  It is that kind of accuracy and honesty that I am making
a plea for.  I want to know everything.  Who is there to deny me
access or to claim because of prejudice that I am unable to
review, and make good judgments on what is offered ?  That is as
an attitude most presumptuous.

This is not advanced in any way to demean honest academic work.
But it is to focus on acts and views that tend to obscure awkward
facts as and when discovered.

Why should matters that are moot be hidden, and, forgotten?  They
ought to be out in front of all, so that their anomaly may be
settled one way or the other.  In general in some of our Sciences
we find that broad theories are founded on a small number of
facts.  As new facts that challenge old conclusions arise, they
deserve their place in the bright light of the sun of
consideration.

We ought to have a catalog of anomalies in all disciplines,  so
that incoming students can cut their milk teeth (using what they
have been taught in terms of techniques) on trying to prove them
either right or wrong.  Also, so that the public will realise
that many so called facts and truths that are currently taught as
though they were incontrovertible, are but theories that stand
only as a temporary framework on which to handle those facts that
seem likely to be valid.  The strange and anomalous ones  deserve
their framework or place in the great framework, as well.

If one were trying to represent graphically the probability curve
of discovery, dating, etc... one would find that there were
scattered many of such anomalies, but that there would be an
average line that could be drawn through them.

Where do those anomalies belong?  What kind of a theory will
encompass them?  How are they to be recorded and then compared
not only within the confines of a single or of sister
disciplines, but in a wider arena, where help may be available

What Mme. Blavatsky did was, as a precursor to Fort, Velikovsky
Van Danegan, Cremo, etc...was to provide us with one of the
broadest of canvases on which are sketched a record of
antiquity -- every discipline is covered or mentioned, and the
significant records of antiquity that relate to those are then
displayed for consideration.  Today, for all our newly discovered
data, we need such a record for reference, if only so that
intelligent inquirers who are not yet "authorities" may apply
their minds to seeking to solve the problems but so that more
evidence does not get "lost.".

We have one more great bias to overcome, a certain pride in our
present achievements.  Much of the record of the past has been
obliterated -- libraries burned, buildings destroyed,
and the achievements of the ancients which surpass still our
present abilities to duplicate are not given the prominence that
they deserve.  Why should technical and scientific achievements
be limited to the few generations that have so recently shaken
off the yoke of ignorance imposed by theology?

Theosophy shows how the Past had knowledge, and that
civilizations rise and fall in sequence.  These periods of
wisdom, can be traced and contrasted with periods of ignorance
and savagery.  The situation even today is one in which we
witness such a mixture.  We exist in a situation that shows the
interspersion of highly developed technology with a conflicting
group of still savage and ignorant cultures ( as we see savage
tribes are still in the Amazon, Congo, Borneo, Laos, Polynesia,
Central Asia, etc...).

Sociologically we put many children through school and they
graduate into the trades or office work levels, but a great deal
of the knowledge they acquire remains unused, and in time is
forgotten.  Comparatively few actively use the knowledge of
chemistry, physics and mathematics in practical daily affairs.
Fewer still continue the educational process on their own
initiative.

People always graduate to their level of potential incompetence,
once said a cynic.  Fortunately there are individuals who give
that adage the lie.

Best wishes,

Dallas
dalval@nwc.net 


-----Original Message-----
From:  Dr Aidan Rankin
Sent: Tuesday, August 24, 1999

Subject: Re: Scientific discoveries


Art Gregory writes:

"I think some utopianism wouldn't hurt either. Some of our
Athroposophic
friends have been working at social service experiments for a
long time
and deserve credit!"

As a new member of this list, I beg to disagree somewhat, whilst
sharing
Art's dislike of 'sectarian' Theosophy based around personalities
and
obscure disagreements.

However I have come to be suspicious of socially engaged
religion, whether
it be the censorious, crusading populism of the fundamentalists
(including the 'creationist' School Boards cited by Dallas)
or the equally censorious and in many ways more insidious
'liberal'
theology - I say more insidious because it uses the language of
'inclusiveness' and sickly sentimentality to impose the tyranny
of 'correct'
opinions.

In the Anglican (Episcopal) tradition, certainly, 'liberalism'
has destroyed
beautiful language in the name of 'equal opportuinities'. The
more 'liberal'
the Churches become the more empty they are.   Jewish friends
tell me that
liberalism has done the same to their literature.  Socially
engaged Buddhism
is the spiritual equaivalent of mushy peas, as is New Age
greenery, with
which it is allied.

Recently His Excellency the Dalai Lama told 'The Daily Telegraph'
that westerners should strive to understand their Christian
roots before studying Buddhism.  He also said that two men could
love each
other spiritually, and that this was a very high form of love,
but that to
express it sexually was against the Tibetan Buddhist ethos.
'Socially
concerned' people in the West tend to project their liberlaism
and cultural
reliativism onto Eastern traditions, which means they learn
nothing of
value.  They do the same with American Indian traditions, to the
fury of
some tribal elders.

I fear that, given the current intellectual climate in the
English-speaking
world especially, the bias of such 'utopian' consciousness would
be towards
liberal-left sentimentalism and the culture of 'rights'.

Theosophy is not compatible with egalitarianism, because
throughout
history it has assumed that there are men (and women,
occasionally,
like HPB) who have special powers of spiritual insight
unavailable to the
mass.  I therefore conclude that Theosophy itself cannot be
utopian.
Indeed it points in the other direction, for utopianism assumes
the
perfectability of man and places worldly considerations before
things
of the spirit.

==========================

DALLAS

I would disagree with this as Theosophy considers "man and woman"
to be essentially a Soul/Mind = which is essentially spiritual
and "sexless."  Since it looks on all humans as potentially if
not actually divine in their essence, it does not limit itself
with concepts that are material or restrictions that are
arbitrary and cannot be applied universally to all regardless of
race, caste, creed, color, or any other "external" distinctions
of birth or education or adopted religion.

It Theosophy is "Egalitarian" in that respect.  Every human is
free to choose to raise his level of living and education.  To
fee or further bind his mind in preconception and ignorance.  The
freedom of knowledge and wisdom is available for all who may
aspire and work for them.
Dallas

========================

Aidan:

At a personal level, I am very interested in politics and scour
the
newspapers voraiciously every dday for obscure pieces of
information about
obscure states or peoples.

I can see that some Theosophists can be called
to political action, but I cannot see that Theosophy can itself
be
political, because it must transcend privately held political
beliefs.

If anything, it is conservative in a cultural (rather than
political) sense,
because it is about the study of ancient cultures, and because it
empahsises
tradition and continuity, and because it appeals to explicitly to
the few
and not the many.  It is explicitly anti-utopian, because it
realises that
there is no such thing as 'equality' and that attempts to create
it always
lead to levelling-down.  It recognises too that ancient wisdom is
a
privilege not a right.

===========================

What Theosophy does do is eliminate the fear of "sin."  It holds
that the deific aspect (SPIRIT) is Universal and all share
equally in that.  The spirit in man is deemed to be immortal and
reincarnates body after body from an incredible past to the
present and will so continue.

The purely physical restrictions of evolution are widened to
include the evolution of the psyche which is considered to be
dual:  1.  Intellectual, and 2.  Emotional.

Emotion is manly concerned with the present self and is therefore
selfish as it dwells in the "past" and seeks to perpetuate its
own entitative integrity.

The Intellect is wide and seeks to know the future.  It may use
memory to assist in projecting as potential possible futures.
There upon it exercises (within limits) the power to choose its
course of action.

Theosophy shows that there exists within the physical universe a
causative one, which moves according to moral laws of justice,
fairness and equity for all living things -- they being of that
same Unitary Source.  It therefore asks us to be more acutely
aware of the great universal law that adjusts the moral effect of
choice.

The whole of evolution operates of the intertwining of 3 great
streams: 1st.  the physical,
2nd.  the intellectual and emotionally sensitive, and 3rd. the
moral (or, causative, perceptual and spiritual).

I do hope this gives you an idea of the purview of Theosophy.  It
looks at the physical and then asks Why is this structure here.
What does it do?  How is it related to others ?  How do they
interact ?  What causes them to arise?  What laws inhere in them
and interplay with the rest of the evolutionary environment?  --
and so on.  It encourages a constant search for causative and
perceptual relationships, which add to our understanding and
wisdom.

At no point does it envision rest or ease as the sum total (or
goal - Nirvana - Moksha) of life-efforts.  Such a concept
militates against the reality of an ever evolving, ever dynamic
plenum.

Best wishes,

Dallas


Best Wishes.
Aidan



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