Theos-Talk Archives (September 2002 Message tt00160)

Hi Brian. The more we all enquire, the more we will change. (I most
appreciate Leon's message to me on the subject of wonder. It caused me to
ponder very deeply, and there was a big break through that has affected my
whole life. I just read your message this morning, George. It is very
interesting. I also thank Dalval, whose original message from Sept. 5, about
making bread, inspired me to ask the question about wonder. The reason I
haven't responded yet is that I'm still pondering this subject).

Brian, I hope you and everyone got the key point of my message, something
about subjectivity and objectivity. It is subtle, yet it is insidious and
pervasive, the way the institution of Freudian psychology has affected the
way westerners think (handle material). When I choose someone else to help
me interpret or to interpret for me, or when I encourage others to choose me
to interpret for them, this perpetrates both ignorance and authority.

Interpretation relates to discrimination, something we all probably need to
develop to a higher degree. We do this by verifying an objective reality,
not by analyzing material from out of our own conditioning. This means that
if I believe "God" is an old man with a long beard sitting up in the sky, I
will believe many other things also. But once I get a taste of the plain old
sky and myself alone with it, without a movement away from insecurity into
thought (imagery), I become able to discriminate this from that a little
more clearly. For instance I may realize that my own insecurity was
connected to the image of the old man in the sky, or at least to the
willingness to believe what someone else told me, even after I
chronologically passed the age of eight and started to approach the age of
reason.

This race stuff has always turned me off, and it is one of the reasons I
have not delved into theosophy more deeply in the past. How does the
average theosophist deal with it? I would appreciate any honest answers
people can give out here. As far as a universal brotherhood goes, that
seems like an oxymoron. If one develops to the highest possible degree, one
may discover if this is true or not. In the meantime, I do not understand
how the CONCEPT of this performs any function except that of keeping people
from developing. I am curious about what your personal payoff is for
working on this list, but I do not necessarily expect you to answer out
here. That is perhaps between you and your "God", and maybe it should be.

One of the biggest problems most people, including myself, have in handling
material a little more objectively is in learning to break things apart.
When we eat a fish, we do not need to eat the bones also. We can take the
bones out. Same with concepts. Everything is to be verified. But how to do
this? Perhaps we start with a plain house, a plain car, a plain BODY, as if
seen from outside, impartially, without interpretation, AS IT IS. Maybe
later we get to ideas. Madame Blavatsky's material, like anything else, is
grist for the milll of a mature discrimination. We do not need to and
cannot understand everything she was doing way back then. She may have
needed funding to support her work, and, for this reason, designed things
in a certain way. We must remember that from her activities and other
interconnected factors was eventually fruited a KRISHNAMURTI, who, in my
opinion, was one of the greatest spiritual teachers humanity has ever known.
He shucked off theosophy, as a butterfly shucks off a cocoon, but he also
EMERGED from it. But all that was then. This is now. Every action is time
appropriate. The less my movement is correlated to a living now, the less
likely I am to meet "the masters," whatever that may mean to me. -----
Original Message -----
From: "brianmuehlbach" <brianmuehlbach@yahoo.com>
To: <theos-talk@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 24, 2002 5:21 AM
Subject: Theos-World Freud, fraud, and the White Brotherhood.


> Wry: We have learned, in the last twenty years, that childhood sexual
> abuse is really quite common, not an oddity.
>
>
> Brian: Giving Freud's faking the "Oedipus Complex," by continuing
> to attribute it to his patients it did the opposite of helping.
>
> That is where Masson's publication of the Freud/Fliess letters
> deserve credit. It uncovered a scientific fraud on the cost of one of the
> most important assets in the world we have, children.
>
> And yes true, and even when even more fraudulant then Freuds fraud,
> many people indeed firmly believe that Blavatsky materialized cups
> and saucers and that the "Mahatmas" are right when they claim that
> about 80% of the world population today belong to "fallen degraded
> semblances" :
>
> "The highest race physical intellectuality is the last sub-race of
> the fifth - yourselves the white conquerors.
> The majority of mankind belongs to the fallen, degraded semblances of
> humanity", and belongs to the fourth Root race, the degenerated
> Chinaman, Malayans, Mongolians, Tibetans, Javanese, , etc., etc.,
> etc."
> K.H. (The Mahatma
Letters)
>
> Wry: Believers will believe unless you give them something to replace
> it with.
>
> Brian: Can you demonstrate it ?
>
> My suggestion is that coupled with its claimed "Atlantean" or
> even "Lemurian" antiqity, the idea that these teachings are mediated
> by a Brotherhood of perfected men wich has watched over the unfolding
> of human evolution "from its inception," maybe has something to do with
> the belief.
>
>
>
Brian
>
> --- In theos-talk@y..., "wry" <wry1111@e...> wrote:
> > Hi Brian and Everyone. Sorry, but I sent a messed-up and incomplete
> draft by mistake, so here is a better copy.
> >
> > I mentioned Jeffrey Masson in a particular CONTEXT, to illustrate
> a
> point, so, to go into the subject a little further: For those of you
> who
> missed out on the huge flap (stink) that Masson, one little person,
> caused for an institution, that, in his opinion (and mine) had had
> and
> was continuing to have a subtle, pervasive detrimental effect on
> human
> society. Let me go into it a little. It has been many years since I
> examined this material, but I think my memory is pretty clear. I do
> not
> know if, as you say, the institution of Freudian psychology
> "withstood the
> attack from Masson." I personally believe his actions greatly
> weakened
> this institution. As a direct result of an association with him, the
> works of
> the German psychoanalyst, Alice Miller, such as "The Drama of the
> Gifted Child." and "Thou Shall Not Be Aware, Society's Betrayal of
> the
> Child," as well as her many other books were translated into English
> and became wildly popular in the United States, which radically
> affected
> people's attitudes toward child abuse and led to the taking of
> responsibility by adults. Also as a result of this flap, Masson's
> intelligent,
> well written anti-therapy books, "Against Therapy," which has become
> a
> classic, as well as "Final Analysis, The making and the Unmaking of a
> Psychoanalyst," "A Dark Science, Women, Sexuality, and Psychoanalysis
> in the 19th Century," as well as "The Assault on Truth, Freud's
> Suppression of the Seduction Theory," achieved great popularity and
> were read by many. I have all these books, as well as many Alice
> Miller
> books in my library and recommend "Against Therapy" and "The Drama
> of the Gifted Child" as worth purchasing. "My Father's Guru" was, in
> my
> opinion, an insignificant work, and I have not read his series of
> books
> about animals, which followed this.
> >
> > I get the feeling you have read the assessment you give of Masson
> in
> a book and are simply parroting someone else's words. Maybe there is
> some truth to what Daniel has suggested. I come to this conclusion
> because there seems to be no original ideas in your message to me,
> and I also do not see what point you are attempting to make that is
> of
> any generative value. I used the example of Masson to illustrate
> something about true debunking and the possibility of changing
> society.
> Also, my assessment and understanding of Masson is not copied from
> someone. It is my own. (I still like your posts, though, as they are
> sort of
> interesting).
> >
> > "Against Therapy" received a lot of publicity due to a very
> lengthy,
> much publicized trial, in which Masson sued a popular writer, Janet
> Malcolm, for some misquotes in an article she wrote about him for the
> New Yorker, which was also published in book form, "In the Freud
> Archives." This book I also own and I recommend it as an interesting
> and fun, though perhaps somewhat inaccurate read. This story, which
> tells what happened when Masson became friends with Anna Freud and
> was appointed as secretary of the Freud Archives, took place way back
> when, in the early 1980's, 1981 I believe, and you will read here
> about a
> most interesting character, Peter Swales, a "follower" of the
> teachings
> of Gurdjieff, and the pivotal role he played in the unfolding of this
> whole
> saga by prematurely leaking to the New York Times (at what turned out
> to be perhaps exactly the right moment) Jeffrey Masson's plan to
> expose
> Freud.
> >
> > The teaching of Gurdjieff is in RADICAL contradiction to the
> teaching
> of psychoanalysis, as Gurdjieff emphasized objective physical reality
> to
> be the basis of sane, intelligent human experience, and this is a
> non-
> analytical model, whereas psychoanalysis emphasizes individual
> subjective interpretation to be the basis, and is an analytical
> model. The
> difference between these two is the difference between building a
> house
> on sheer rock and building a house on shifting sand.
> >
> > I became interested in Masson at the time of the lawsuit and
> subsequently researched the story for a recreational pastime, but the
> reason I have chosen to put this material out here is to illustrate a
> point.
> This was a situation where a disillusioned person, possibly with some
> kind of bug up his - - - - , (but(t) so what?) saw and seized an
> opportunity to do something which could potentially have a major
> effect
> upon society. There is no point in going into Freud's abandonment of
> the
> seduction theory here, but some of his letters relating to this were
> deliberately suppressed. This was dishonest. Some might say, "but who
> cares? Most of us are dishonest much of the time, anyway." The point
> is
> that this institution was affecting human society and human
> relationship
> in a way that decreased the potential for the average person to
> become
> honest and perpetrated authority based on a view of reality that was
> false, as it did not connect the adult, who was physically abusing
> the
> child, to the child. The onus to adjust was on the child, and this
> did not
> lead to the transformation of the individual and therefore of society.
> >
> > We have learned, in the last twenty years, that childhood sexual
> abuse is really quite common, not an oddity. There is now an emphasis
> on the taking of responsibility by the adult. IT IS NOT SO MUCH ABOUT
> INTERPRETATION BUT ABOUT REALITY. This shift in viewpoint has
> affected all aspects of society. This is a direct result of the work
> of
> Jeffrey Masson, interconnected with some other factors, but none the
> less incremental to the shift. Psychiatry as an institution is
> weakened.
> People do not place as much trust in it as previously. Therapists are
> not
> respected to the degree they once were. The point is that Masson (and
> Swales) entered at a juncture that was critical. I cannot see any
> real
> point in trying to debunk Madame Blavatsky. If you believe
> theosophists
> have a wrong view, there are other approaches you can take, such as
> enquiry, that are more intelligent. It will not make the presses that
> Madame Blavatsky faked a psychic incident over 100 years ago. It will
> not change anything on this list either.
> >
> > Believers will believe unless you give them something to replace it
> with, but if you tell them another way is true without showing them,
> this
> is the same as authority perpetrating belief. Madame Blavatsky did
> not
> cause this belief, though she may have contributed to it. There is a
> dynamic within the individual person. Unless this is explored through
> an
> enquiry that is interesting to such person, there is no learning. It
> is not
> about what happened before, but about what is happening within each
> of us now. Your habit of so-called debunking, in my opinion,
> discourages
> the establishment of any real method by which people might come to
> verify physical reality. Such verification would take place in
> present time,
> and cannot be done by looking back. Sincerely, Wry
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>
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