Theos-Talk Archives (March 2002 Message tt00556)

When I first joined the Theosophical Society, I emailed Olcott headquarters
about the problem I had with the theosophical belief in Atlantis and other
lost continents which science makes extremely unlikely. John Algeo emailed
me back saying perhaps Blavatsky was wrong. Perhaps she was wrong the human
race being closed.

The great vision of theosophy was reconciling science, philosophy and
religion and that others who would come later would amend or correct their
work. Both she and Leadbeater, for all his faults, believed they could be
wrong and in this vision. When I took the time to put forth what science
has to say about modern geology, it wasn't dismissed totally by those
theosophist who believe HPB was Allah and Judge his prophet. There is hope
for the society. Wheaton even put me onto a site of scientist who believe
in theosophy and attempt to reconcile it with what modern science has to
say. Too often in posts science is a short third leg, which can be
dismissed when it disagrees with what HPB had to say about something.

I too have every read a convincing book on astral projection as proof, but I
have heard of anyone every isolating a quark. Yet a quark is accepted as
extremely likely to have existed in the first few moments of the existence
of the continuum.

David Blankenship


----- Original Message -----
From: "bri_mue" <bri_mue@yahoo.com>
To: <theos-talk@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, March 30, 2002 8:51 AM
Subject: Theos-World Re: P.8:The reincarnation astral "body" falacy.


<<<Bri.: I was trying to refer to the "obsession" from Dallas
reg. driving out the Devil from a person.>>>

Jerry: "What is meant in the article is not obsession but rather
possession. One is possessed by the devil, not obsessed (although
seeing the devil behind every bad event could be an obsession). In
possession, a spirit of some kind is thought to enter into your body
and take it over, and so it is rather like an unconscious invocation (an
invocation is a conscious magical ritual whose goal is to induce a
spirit of some kind into you). An invocation is conscious and deliberate, a=

possession is unconscious."

It is just a mental fantasy of Dallas/Daniel/Leon, a non verifiable
construct, although it could be used for meditiative purposes.

The problem is not the fantasy itself, but that these fantaies are
used to claim "FACTS of NATURE" and "SCIENCE" which they are not.
These are just religious beliefs, and after me asking for 4 days
about this, still NO proof by either Dallas, Daniel, or Leon, have
been presented.

It seems from the above that some of the greatest misconceptions
about Theosophy are held by theosophists themselves.

Already Renaisance "theosophists" like John Dee and others
practiced what they called "natural" magic, to influence the
spiritual "forces" that "operate" this "universe," that wasn't
any
worser or better then Theosophy today, that uses about the same
terms as these Renaisance magicians and hermetists did.

Exept Theosophists are not even practicing anything (least of all
their first concept, they don't have the means for it, but also
not
the 3e) and use terms like "forces" "Vril" "universe" "Magnetic" and
so on without a sence for reality other then symbolic.

=
bri.






--- In theos-talk@y..., "bri_mue" <bri_mue@y...> wrote:
> Jerry: "I wrote a short article on the rising population rate vs
> reincarnation some years ago. Needless to say, it was met with
total
> silence, just as your argument here will be. There simply is no way
> to explain it and still keep the Theosophical reincarnation scheme
as
> outlined in the SD. Your argument, and mine also, causes cognitive
> dissonance, and will simply be ignored. The Buddhist scheme allows
> for the crossing over of animals, and we know that the animal
population
> is decreasing, which would explain the increasing human population.
But
> Theosophy maintains that a "door" was shut some milion years ago
and
> animals cannot be human nor can humans come back as animals, and
> so Theosophy has a problem on its hands today".
>
> Looking at the devellopment of these TS beliefs of Dallas,
> the reiricarnationists of the 1850s to 1880s relied heavily on the
> strategy of pointing to the existence of revealed teachings. Kardec
> and Caithness had their spirit sources; Kingsford's book claimed to
> be the result of divine revelation; Blavatsky relied on the wisdom
> of "the Masters."
>
> Blavatsky's reincarnation doc­trine builds on elements deriving
> from several different sources. Due to the inherent difficulties in
> harmonizing historically distinct traditions, her reincarnation
> doctrine is not free from contradictions. At times, she seems to
draw
> on the purported roots of the "ancient wis­dom religion" in a
> generalized Buddhism. Thus, Blavatsky can refer to "the great truth
> that reincarnation is to be dreaded, as existence in this world
only
> entails upon man suffering, misery and pain"." Nevertheless,
> following a view that could be either Hindu or Platonic, but
> certainly not Buddhist in any orthodox sense, she claims that there
> is a unique individuality that incarnates again and again. In a
> reminiscence of an earlier Western esoteric tradition, the
> individ­ual is said to reincarnate after a stay in the astral
plane .4'
> Another echo of the frequent esoteric preoccupation with the number
> seven, the individual is said to be composed of an aggregate of
seven
> entities that part ways at physical death." A quote such as the
> following is closer to a Lurianic kabbalistic view than to the
"Esoteric
> Buddhism" that Sinnett wrote of:
>
> The Monad emerges from its state of spiritual and intellectual
> unconsciousness; and [ ... ] gets directly into the plane of
Mentality.
> But there is no place in the whole universe with a wider margin, or
a
> wider field of action in its almost endless gradations of
perceptive
> and apper­ceptive qualities, than this plane, which has in its
> turn an appropri­ate smaller plane for every "form", from
the "mineral"
> monad up to the time when that monad blossoms forth by evolution
into
> the
> DIVINE moNAD. But all the time it is still one and the same Monad,
> differing only in its incarnations, throughout its ever succeeding
> cycles of partial or total obscuration of spirit, or the partial
> or total obscuration of matter-two polar antitheses-as it ascends
into
> the realms of mental spirituality, or descends into the depths of
> materiality." (SD)
>
> But this dualism at best and therefore materialism, and apart that
> notting of it is true, it is not even spiritual.
>

>
=
> Bri.
>
> There are several ways in which consciousness might, arguably, be
> > involved in the ganzfeld, but there appears to be no direct
> evidence
> > that it is. For example, even in a very successful experiment the
> > hits are mixed with many misses and the subjects themselves
cannot
> > say which is which (if they could the successful trials could be
> > separated out and even better results obtained). In other words,
> the
> > subject is unaware of the ESP even when it is occurring.
> >
> > Our ordinary view of ourselves, as conscious, active agents
> experiencing
> > a real external world, is wrong. In other words we live in the
> illusion
> > that we are a separate self. In mystical experiences this separate
> self
> > dissolves and the world is experienced as one - actions happen
but
> > there is no separate actor who acts. Long practice at meditation
or
> > mindfulness can also dispel the illusion. Now science seems to be
> > coming to the same conclusion - that the idea of a separate
> conscious
> > self is false.
> >
> > Some old fashioned Parapsychologists however are still going the
> other
> > way, and still are trying to prove that consciousness really does
> have
> > power that our minds can reach out and "do" things. In this sense
> it is
> > deeply dualist, and as I called, materialistic, even while making
> > reference to interconnectedness.
> >
> > Theosophical version about what happens "between death and re-
> birth"
> > the never dying "monad" and so on, this is a fallacy. Even
> > many "spiritual people say that including in fact new
devellopments
> > inmodern science , yet is moving further and further away from
the
> > outdated 19th century "Theosophy" version, that is bassicly
> dualistic
> > and concealed materialism.
> >
> > In fact it was precisely becouse of the Theosophical ideas
> regarding
> > living men project their doubles that the S.P.R. undertook the
> study
> > of the T.S. at all !
> >
> > In the First Report of the Committee of the Society for Psychical
> > Research on Phenomena in Connection with the TS, it states:
> > "if-real evidence can be adduced for a separability of principles
> in
> > living men,-for voluntary projection of the double, or
> manifestation
> > of aspects of the same identity in discrete places at the same
> > moment,-then though the superstructure of occult doctrine will
> remain
> > unproved, there will be a sufficient presumption of the existence
> of
> > real psychical knowledge in the East (and they already practiced
it
> > based on Emma Brittens info in New York !) to make it our duty to
> > track out such knowledge through every accessible avenue with
> > pertinacious care."
> >
> > In the Theosophist in Dec. 1883, it is says with a note by
> Blavatsky
> > that " Damodar was a chela of but four years standing and that
> > whenever the phenomenon of the separation of the astral from the
> > physical body takes place, we are told,he falls invariable asleep
> or
> > into a trance before."
> >
> > In the "First Report" of the SPR above it also states
> > however that;
> > the evidence available rendered it impossible to avoid one or the
> > other of two alternative conclusions: "Either that some of the
> > phenomea recorded are genuine , or that other persons of good
> > standing in society , and with charcters to lose, have taken part
> in
> > deliberate imposture."
> > In the event , such gentlemen were cleared from charges of
> dishonesty
> > in the SPR report, but only at the expense of their dignity.
> > According to Hodgson, the theosophical witnesses were "as a
> > whole excessively credulous, excessively deficient in the powers
of
> > common observation; and to many of them prone to supplement
that
> > deficiency by culpable exaggeration"
> >
> > The phenomenon of projection was a common explanation also of
> many
> > of the appearances of the Brothers/Masters in New York, and of
> > Blavatsky's "double" counsciousness as their agent.
> > J.P. Deveney, along with the other books and authors I have
> reffered
> > to, describes in "Astral Projection or Liberating of the Double
> > and the work of the early Theosophical Society"(1997)
> > And wrote: "But the ability to project the astral double, and
> > act through it at a distance was not reserved to the Brothers
> alone,
> > and was held up to the members as the `verry last and highest
> > possible achievement of magic,'a goal actively to be pursued and
> > achieved."
> >
> > In her letters to Elliot Coues Blavatsky wrote; "My dear
> > nocturnal visitor, You are very clever in paying visits & in
> feeling
> > my presence in your bones"
> > "Let us go on with our attempts to communicate & see each other
> > astrally."
> >
> >
> > Bilocations is a myth, but out-of-body experiences or OBE's are
> > "real" and there not the slightest reason why a person who rejects
> > the theory of the astral body should deny their reality. And the
> same
> > counts for "remote" viewing. And just also visualisations people
> make
> > in past life theraphy about themselves are "real" in the symbolic
> sense
> > of the word, they have also real "meaning" but don't proof "past
> lives"
> > as such.
> >
> > However it is not "something" going "out there," and if Daniel
> > understood something about the Ganzfeld theorie in spite that he
> > name drops that term, he would understand the above, but
obviously
> he
> > doesn't.
> > Even the Mahatma letters played with notions of their own
> > fictitiousness, calling attention to the Mahatma's status as
> > inventive inventions: having been "'invented' ourselves," the
> Masters
> > noted, they "repay the inventors by inventing" increasingly
> > complicated "imaginary" doctrines as a way of avoiding accusations
> of
> > inconsistency or internal contradiction in their teachings.(KH to
> > Sinnet , letter No.24B, in "Mahatma Letters".)
> >
> > Theosophical "principles", wich could be printed, published,
> > annotated , and debated (including "Atma and
> Parabrahman"),replaced
> > the occult and became the public emphasis of the society. The
> > formation of the Blavatsky Lodge in 1887 was partly the result of
> > this emphasis on propaganda and theosophical principles.
According
> to
> > Bertram Keightley, one of its founding members, the Blavatsky
Lodge
> > was intended to rescue the TA from the "diletante class or high
> > society men", Keightley argued, was not for the "kid gloves and
> > swallow-tail coats," but for earnest and dedicated students of
> > spiritual mysteries. (Keighley, "The Adyar Convention Lectures:
> > Theosophy in the West", The Theosophist .,July 1891,585.)
> >
> > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/6474
> >
> >

> Bri.




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