Theos-Talk Archives (January 2003 Message tt00122)

In posting http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/9049
Robert Newman wrote:

"There are many credible people who have testified to the personal 
experience of a supreme personality at the pinnacle of conscious 
experience." 

And in another posting, Newman wrote of "those who have experienced 
and described the supreme personality. . . . " 

Again Newman wrote:

"I'm speaking of direct experience of God. You may accept or not 
accept the testimony of witnesses, but such testimony is 
categorically different from speculation."

See the various postings by Newman for his reasoning and arguments:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/9049
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/9061
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/9064
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/9081
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/9124 

But has Newman and other theists considered that these personal 
experiences referred to above might include an element 
of "hallucination" or "delusion"?

BELOW are five excerpts from THE MAHATMA LETTERS
http://mahatmaletters.net presenting what looks like this point of 
view: 

Excerpt 1:

". . . every thought of man upon being evolved passes into the inner 
world and becomes an active entity by associating itself - 
coalescing, we might term it -- with an elemental; that is to say 
with one of the semi-intelligent forces of the kingdoms. It survives 
as an active intelligence, a creature of the mind's begetting, for a 
longer or shorter period proportionate with the original intensity of 
the cerebral action which generated it. Thus, a good thought is 
perpetuated as an active beneficent power; an evil one as a 
maleficent demon. And so man is continually peopling his current in 
space with a world of his own, crowded with the offsprings of his 
fancies, desires, impulses, and passions. . . ." Koot Hoomi

Excerpt 2:

"Faith in the Gods and God, and other superstitions attracts 
millions of foreign influences, living entities and powerful agents 
[elementals?] around them [the devotees of various religions]. . . . 
The unprogressed Planetaries [elementals?]. . . delight in 
personating gods and sometimes well known characters who have lived 
on earth. There are Dhyan-Chohans and 'Chohans of Darkness,' not what 
they term devils but imperfect 'Intelligences' who have never been 
born on this or any other earth or sphere no more than the 'Dhyan 
Chohans' have and who will never belong to the 'builders of the 
Universe,' the pure Planetary Intelligences, who preside at every 
Manvantara while the Dark Chohans preside at the Pralayas. . . . As 
all in this universe is contrast . . . so the light of the Dhyan 
Chohans and their pure intelligence is contrasted by the 'Ma-Mo 
Chohans' -- and their destructive intelligence. These are the gods 
the Hindus and Christians and Mahomed and all others of bigoted 
religions and sects worship. . . . " Morya

Excerpt 3:

"Vainly do your modern seers and their prophetesses, creep into every 
cleft and crevice without outlet or continuity they chance to see; 
and still more vainly, when once within do they lift up their voices 
and loudly cry: 'Eureka! We have gotten a Revelation from the Lord!' -
- for verily have they nothing of the kind. They have disturbed but 
bats [elementals, unprogressed Planetaries?], less blind than their 
intruders; who, feeling them flying about, mistake them as often for 
angels -- as they too, have wings! Doubt not, my friend: it is but 
from the very top of those 'adamantine rocks' of ours, not at their 
foot, that one is ever enabled to perceive the whole Truth, by 
embracing the whole limitless horizon." Koot Hoomi 

Excerpt 4:

Stainton Moses, a "seer" and medium of the 1880s wrote:

". . . my inner spirit-sense is opened. Only yesterday . . . Imper
[ator] . . . was clearly visible and audible to me. . . . "

To this comment by Stainton Moses [S.M.], Koot Hoomi wrote:

". . . So is Jesus and John the Baptist [clearly visible and audible] 
to Edward Maitland; [who is] as true and as honest and sincere as 
S.M. . . . And does not E. Maitland see Hermes the first and second 
and Elijah, etc. Finally does not Mrs. [Anna] Kingsford feel as sure 
as S.M. with regard to + [Imperator] that she saw and conversed with 
God!! . . . And who purer or more truthful than that woman or 
Maitland! Mystery, mystery will you exclaim. IGNORANCE we answer; the 
creation of that we believe in and want to see. . . . "

Excerpt 5:

"[Salig Ram is] -- a truly good man -- yet a devotee of another 
error. Not his guru's voice -- his own. The voice of a pure, 
unselfish, earnest soul, absorbed in misguided, misdirected 
mysticism. Add to it a chronic disorder in that portion of the brain 
which responds to clear vision and the secret is soon told: that 
disorder was developed by forced visions; by hatha yog and prolonged 
asceticism. S. Ram is the chief medium and at same time the principal 
magnetic factor, who spreads his disease by infection -- 
unconsciously to himself; who innoculates with his vision all the 
other disciples. There is one general law of vision (physical and 
mental or spiritual) but there is a qualifying special law proving 
that all vision must be determined by the quality or grade of man's 
spirit and soul, and also by the ability to translate divers 
qualities of waves of astral light into consciousness. There is but 
one general law of life, but innumerable laws qualify and determine 
the myriads of forms perceived and of sounds heard. There are those 
who are willingly and others who are unwillingly -- blind. Mediums 
belong to the former, sensitives to the latter. Unless regularly 
initiated and trained -- concerning the spiritual insight of things 
and the supposed revelations made unto man in all ages from Socrates 
down to Swedenborg . . . no self-tutored seer or clairaudient ever 
saw or heard quite correctly."

". . .[Salig Ram and the other disciples] say and affirm that the one 
and only God of the Universe was incarnated in their [deceased] guru, 
and were such an individual to exist he would certainly be higher 
than any 'planetary' [spirit]. But they are idolators. . . . Their 
guru was no initiate only a man of extraordinary purity of life and 
powers of endurance. He had never consented to give up his notions of 
a personal god and even gods. . . . He was born an orthodox Hindu 
and died a self-reformed Hindu. . . . with no ambition to taint his 
bright soul. Many of us have regretted his self-delusion. . . . " 
Morya 

See also my posting titled: "Theism compared to A-Theism and Pan-
theism in the Mahatma Letters" for other relevant material. This 
posting is at: 

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/8773

Some food for thought.

Daniel H. Caldwell
BLAVATSKY ARCHIVES
http://hpb.cc