Theos-Talk Archives (March 2002 Message tt00562)

Sunday, March 31, 2002

Friends:

Let me again make absolutely clear:

I HAVE QUOTED THAT WHICH H P B WROTE.

She did not write about the conventional theological construct of
a "devil" as an opponent of an omnipresent but impotent "God."
That is a laughable impossibility in strict philosophy and no one
seriously thinks such a thing with such great and overwhelming
powers actually opposes the whole might of EVOLUTION and PROGRESS
as represented by Nature's PRESENCE. NATURE IS GOD OMNIPRESENT,
OMNISCIENT AND OMNIPOTENT. There is no "Personal God" of any
kind to be found anywhere.

The use of the word "devil" has to do with individuals (human
minds) who have freely chosen to do deliberate and, malicious
harm to others. They are entities and may live on our gross
physical plane or in the more subtle plane of astral substances.

No expression is "outdated." if it is true. The lamentable lack
of scholarship in our schools is actively responsible for trying
to "dumb" us all down to a level of rural or factory level use of
simple English usage, one that deliberately restricts and
conceals or derides a knowledge of words of precision and
meaning. It is ridiculous to "pan" anything because of its
"age," or because modern readers are uneducated and inept. Are
we to reject Shakespeare, Descartes, Plato, the Buddha because of
the age or the language in which they taught and spoke ?

The ability to distinguish between the wisdom of "esotericism"
and the crudities of "exotericism" is fortunately not a
prerogative of any one of us.

We can all learn from H P B's writings a wisdom that seriously
ante-dates our 3 to 400 advances in science and orientalism.

We "stand on the shoulders of GIANTS" of wisdom and thought, and
because we do, is no reason to demean or refuse to pay tribute to
their efforts; and, in the case of THEOSOPHY, to that Wisdom
which is, ETERNAL. What was true 120 years ago is not superceded
because of its age or because of the superiority (in comparison
with the paucity of our age) of the expressions used in
description.

At best we may say we disagree. At the very best we can invite
others to examine and test it. At no point can any one of us set
themselves up as some kind of authority figure, or barrier beyond
whom no one may adventure. That is, when manifest, it would
seem, to be a combination of envy and pride. And those invite
error. The ability to ridicule is not a sign of any great
wisdom.

best wishes,

Dallas

-----Original Message-----
From: Gerald Schueler [mailto:gschueler@earthlink.net]
Sent: Saturday, March 30, 2002 7:05 AM
To: Theosophy Study List
Subject: Re to Brigitte - Obsession

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

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.


<<<The reason I asked you for feedback is because I do not feel
my experience/knowledge in these areas of mental abnormalities is
that specialized. Although now that I come to think of it is
interesting because it fits in again with the "undestructable"
monad theory that
spiritualism of course also claims in some way by saying the body
remains with the same clothes as before and so on.>>>

Dallas still thinks that the atom is indestructable, and is
apparently not aware of the latest ideas of modern thermodynamics
where information has been added to matter and energy.
Information has entropy, and can change matter just like energy
can. Matter, energy, and information are all factors of the same
thing. The law of conservation of energy, for example, is today
considered to be a "local conservation law" and does not apply in
non-local situations. Of course, we also now know that our world
is non-local. In Vajrayana Buddhism, the vajra is a symbol for
indestructability, and one works to obtain a vajra-body and so
on. But in Dzogchen this is taught to be a relative
indestructability.


<<<Dallas in posting the "MAGNETIC IMPRESSION" article below
referred to it as "psychology"("Psychology and the Astral Body of
Man", and the article proceeds then to state "and the obsessing
devil was driven out and has
been kept out ever since.")>>>

The article is sadly outdated in its terminology. Obsession
should be possession, and the ideas expressed about psychology
are 19th century.



<<<MAGNETIC IMPRESSION
Keeping the present case in view, we see a man highly susceptible
to magnetic impressions, ignorant of the nature of the
"materializations" and, therefore, unable to protect himself
against bad influences, brought in contact with promiscuous
circles where the impressionable medium has long been the
unwitting nucleus of evil magnetisms, his system, saturated with
the emanations of the surviving thoughts and desires of those who
are living and those who are dead.>>>

This reminds me of the "animal magnetism" of Christian Science
(Mrs Eddy is also out of date). It smacks of sterotypical
witchcraft and sorcery, which exists only in people's minds. The
whole thrust of this argument is to blame some external
"magnetism" on our problems instead of blaming ourself. Jung said
that modern man replaced evil spirits with germs, changing the
name but continuing on with the same idea.


<<<<What is there to surprise us in the fact that a negatively
polarized man, a man of a susceptible temperament, being suddenly
brought into a current of foul emanations from some vicious
person, perhaps still living or perhaps dead, absorbs the
insidious poison as rapidly as quicklime does moisture, until he
is saturated with it? Thus, a susceptible body will absorb the
virus of small-pox, or cholera, or typhus, and we need only
recall this to draw the analogy which Occult Science affirms to
be warranted.>>>

I can see HPB laughing away at this one. This para begs the issue
of karma and on the surface is silly.


<<<Near the Earth's surface there hangs over us--to use a
convenient simile--a steamy moral fog, composed of the
undispersed exhalations of human vice and passion. This fog
penetrates the sensitive to the very soul's core; his psychic
self absorbs it as the sponge does water, or as fresh milk
effluvia. It benumbs his moral sense, spurs his baser instincts
into activity, overpowers his good resolutions. As the fumes of a
wine-vault make the brain reel, or as the choke-damp stifles
one's breath in a mine, so this heavy cloud of immoral influences
carries away the sensitive beyond the limits of self-control, and
he becomes "obsessed," like our English patient.>>>

Obsessed should be possessed. Again, all of this is childish
exotericism. Just as such a "steamy moral fog" exists, so too
does love and compassion and spirit. It is our choice which one
we see and allow to influence us.


<<<What remedy is there to suggest? Does not our very diagnosis
indicate that? The sensitive must have his sensitiveness
destroyed; the negative polarity must be changed to a positive;
he must become active instead of passive. He can be helped by a
magnetizer who understands the nature of the obsession, ...>>>

This is pure nonsense. Going to a mesmerizer is no better or
worse than going to a witchdoctor, (or a medical doctor?). Where
is karma in all of this? She is pulling our leg here. This kind
of thing breeds fear, and Theosophists seem to have more than
their share, perhaps because HPB overdid this kind of stuff (the
devil made her do it ...).

Jerry S.

--



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