Theos-Talk Archives (January 2002 Message tt00297)

Brigitte: "Yes, this is from the end of her life in
London where she had access to all kinds of things.
The question I would have is particularly if she maybe
developed the idea for the circular tree of life (her
basic structure for the rounds) by lets say mirror
gazing under influence possible of drugs, or was this
already a pathway meditation formula in a particular
secret society that time where she would have had some
inside knowledge 0f, and if so, wich ?"

Since this idea came to light during the London
period, it is worthwhile to say that she knew Wynn
Westcott personally, read and cited Mathers' book in
her opus, the SD, had William Butler Yeats as a
personal student, and is believed by Ellic Howe at
least to have founded her "esoteric section" to keep
losing members to the GD.

GS might want to reconsider his decision to abandon
Blavatsky's original diagram in favor of Purucker's
stuff. But his & her idea that the sephiroth might
well be considered as a ring instead of a tree makes
perfect sense. You probably know that the "tree of
life" symbol cannot be traced back further than the
middle ages. But the sephiroth are hinted at in some
of the Gnostic texts cited by Irenaeus, which means
they were known at least 1,000 years earlier. (This
fact is noted in the footnotes to the translation of
Irenaeus which is found in the ANTE-NICENE FATHERS.) 
It is therefore fairly certain that the idea of
sephiroth developed long before the idea of the "tree
of life" and that a ring structure similar to the one
she describes could be as valid an interpretation of
the original concept as the more orthodox model.

I was thinking about one of the distractions someone
posted to try to cover up something he did not want
discussed. He went into a long lecture on how the TS
was founded in 1875, which had nothing to do with the
matter he was contesting. Then it suddenly occurred
to me that old mahatma P.B. Randolph shot his brains
out at just about the same time the TS was founded. 
That may be a mere coincidence, but consider this: if
Randolph's organization was falling apart or in
process of changing hands in 1875, then the founding
of a new organization composed of previous members of
the old one would have made sense,

Also notice the "meditation diagram" article briefly
recommends the practice of Mindfulness, which is
peculiar to Buddhism.

Brigitte: "W. Q. Judge interesting to note reported
that 
Blavatsky in contrast to other members in the early TS
had a difficult time to learn and ?see? Planetary
Spirits.

Which could be why she discouraged further
experimentation after the end of the New York period.

Brigitte: "I think you mentioned you wonderred one
time what or if she herself believed in the
possibility of materialisation.)

I think you can distinguish three strata in this
stuff, although of course that statement will be
anathema to some who wish to keep the discussion
superficial.

The first and oldest is the part of the theory which
is supposed to provide a model for understanding
psychological, psychical, and mystical phenomena. 
This is the part which is the best thought out.

The second has to do with the origin of the universe. 
This clearly comes from Blavatsky's belief that spirit
mediums really could materialize objects out of thin
air, and that that phenomenon, once explained, could
provide insight into the origins of the universe
itself. Bear in mind here that there are three
distinct issues to be considered:

(1) Blavatsky's belief that this could be done,
whether right or not,

(2) whether or not she personally could do it, and

(3) whether or not it is a physical possibility.

If (3) is false, then (2) must also be false. But (1)
is independent of (2) and (3). She might have taken
the idea quite seriously whether or not she personally
could do it. Her modern devotees do not have a clue
as to how it could be done, and yet many of them take
it quite seriously as we have seen from previous
posts. (3) could also be true, whether or not (1) and
(2) are true. I mention this because somebody is
going to recycle the tired argument which goes:
"Believe everything I believe and believe it exactly
the way I prefer to believe it, or everything falls to
the ground and we might as well find something more
worthwhile to do with our time. Nobody wants that so
be warned!" That argument is garbage. It is almost
as bad as the "dead woman" defense which says only
Sylvia Cranston can comment on a "dead woman."

This second strata, which brings in Kapila's theories
and more modern ideas such as the nebular hypothesis,
strikes me as extremely interesting, and yet less well
grounded in fact that the first strata. I am not
saying it is not true, but I am saying that it is
relatively much more speculative. The probability
that it is true is much smaller, in other words. The
problem is of course whether (2) and especially (3)
above are true or not. If they are not, then the
theory is pure speculation. If they are, then the
theory deserves to be taken seriously as a hypothesis.

The third strata would be the anthropological theory,
and here it seems the ideas presented are the weakest
in the sense of being well grounded in fact. This is
obviously a form of "scientific creationism" in which
Eastern and Greek myths are substituted for the Hebrew
myth of Adam and Eve. I'd have to agree that
"Theosophy is not about history" because this theory
is unlikely to be found to be historically true. It
is interesting, but highly speculative and
contradicted by the fossil record. It seems to me
that the value of these ideas diminishes as we proceed
from the first stratum to the third stratum, and that
it is in the first stratum that we are most likely to
find the ideas of her original teachers. The third is
probably her own concept, especially since the
sequence of events which led her to it can be easily
traced.

Brigitte: "There was also an Indian meditation teacher
G.N.Chakravarti that time in London that Bertram
Keightley and Annie Beant became students of for a
duration of eleven years.

Yes, he was bumped from his throne by Leadbeater.

Jerry: "Dallas has the notion that by establishing his
"self" as an outsider observer of a duality, by
creating a third or triad, he has somehow solved the
whole duality problem.

This is known as a meta position and is used in NLP
for various purposes. The duality spoken of is not an
intellectual construct.

Brigitte: "HOW COULD RELAXATION OR FOCUSING THE MIND,
WHICH REQUIRES AN ,,1" TO FOCUS OR A FOCUSER, HAVE
ANYTHING TO DO WITH FINDING OUT WHO YOU ARE

Don't know that mantra yoga or the other systems you
describe do. In Zen one begins with the question,
which can better be stated for the Westerner as "Who
am I?" One then cultivates "the Great Doubt" as the
Zen masters call it, by focusing on this question
intently, then boiling it down to the single word
"Who?", which is not used as a mantra to calm oneself
down, but as a battering ram as it were to crash
through built up delusions which keep us from seeing
our True Nature. (In Japan one would ask "Mu?" which
means "no" instead of "Who?") The relevant metaphor
is that of a mosquito stinging an iron bull. All
intellectual insights are rejected, and one keeps
battering at the iron bull, using the question which
is repeated mentally, until the moment of
enlightenment. Yasutani roshi says it is important
during this provcess to avoid even the slightest
tendency toward intellectual analysis, since what we
are aiming at here is direct experience and not
thinking about experience. When the answer comes, it
is not such that it can be spelled out in words on an
email list or written in a pamphlet. So members of
the Read Only school will be forever outside the pale.
There are, it is true, more complex methods for
reaching awareness of one's True Nature, but this is
reputed to be the most effective.

Brigitte: "A new book that I just received two days
ago exposes the role of the Catholic Church in the
promotion of the protocols.

They may be on their way out. Yet another of their
priests was exposed recently as a homosexual pederast,
which means he gets jailed and the church gets sued. 
Apparently people would rather get rich off a lawsuit
than worship the Virgin Mary. He is just the latest
in a long and ongoing series. A spectacular lawsuit
in this area a few years ago led to a $100,000,000+
judgement against the church, and they have a lot of
priests left. The bishops are afraid to get rid of
them because they themselves are at risk of exposure. 
Without commenting in any way on the validity or non
validity of their theological system, realistically,
at $100,000,000 a priest, how long can they remain a
profitable business? Or even a solvent one? They
better hope the Virgin Mary is real. They may need a
miracle to get out of this one.

Steve



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