Theos-Talk Archives (September 1999 Message tt00041)

Response to Peter:

Largely Peter what I was directing my attention to are the approved
materials for group formation that the TSA has promulgated .... in case you
are unaware there are certain approved materials that a group must offer in
the course of its first year of existence if it is to be considered a bona
fide Theosophical Study Group...

What I base some of my experience in this area is from past years attending
thesophical study groups in the San Diego area in the late sixties...
attending theosophical group in the Riverside area in the late sixties...
attending a group in Redlands in the late fifties... and my latest
experience in trying to form a bone fide theosophical group in Redlands,
Ca.  All this has shown me that the recommended material is amazingly
stereotyped and consistent with itself... prompting yawns from me
personally and simple rejection by seekers I had observed in past years...
So the direction I've found which seems to work better is applying to the
participants themselves a degree of choice and allowing them or helping
them to find what they are indeed after... having that flexibility is
deeply essential I think if you want a group to be viable.

As deeply as I appreciate Dallas eloquence, I have to depart from his path
and find another... that path as I have asked the list before should I
think include more openess and flexibility for groups .... freedom to study
what the group decides... and usually their wisdom is pretty good... we
just studied David Fideler's Jesus Christ Sun of God.....We will be meeting
again this month to discuss possibly a new direction... about a dozen of us
... some members of the TSA but the majority not members... Hindus, members
of SRF and individualists...

The deeper question I have is what direction the TSA should take in the
future... and what I gather from the past responses in the past week or so,
is a TSA that may be without HPB and the body of Theosophic literature that
has grown around her writings... One that is still sensible to the central
issue of the Ancient Wisdom found in a variety of religions and ancient
documents, but sans the Masters and HPB...except as a nodding histortical
note...

But the thrust of the organization would be vegetarian, non-violent, and
experimenting with new social forms to present an alternative to the
current mass society, an experiment that would foster deeper study of the
Ancient Wisdom as well as a nonviolent and more cooperative, and ecological
model of society.

- Art Gregory


lgregory@discover.net




















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