Theos-Talk Archives (August 1999 Message tt00046)

Dear Dallas
I shall reply only briefly now, and in more detail tomorrow, as it is quite
late and I have spent the day pounding over the Yorkshire Dales with the
hiking club I belong to, looking at waterfall which in Japan would be Folk
Shinto shrines.
What interested me especially was your reference to tribal or 'primitive'
peoples.  A few years ago, I worked as press officer for an organisation
which defended such peoples against multinationals, commercial exploitation,
government-imposed conformity and other symptoms of globalisation, including
liberal do-gooders who tried to stop them from hunting game.  I found that
many of these peoples have a wisdom and virility denied to urban
civilisations, rooted in attachment to land and cultural identity.  For
insights into 'primitive' religion I recommend Mircea Eliade's 'Shamanism:
Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy', which emphasises the overlaps of belief and
practice between, for instance, Altaic peoples and South American Indians.
More later.
Best Wishes.
Aidan



-----Original Message-----
From: W. Dallas TenBroeck <dalval@nwc.net>
To: Blavatsky-N-Study <study@blavatsky.net>
Date: Tuesday, August 24, 1999 02:43
Subject: Theos-World RE: Scientific discoveries and their interpretation --
Academic restrictions. etc...


>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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>theos-talk@theosophy.com
>
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