Theos-Talk Archives (January 2003 Message tt00319)

PL: I did not sat that his writings were not, except for one or two. 
On the whole both CWL and AB's books IMHO are quite sound for 
aspirants.

JHE 
Yes, I understand your position. However, my response was to your remark
that you understood why CWL might be thought of as a pseudo-theosophist,
and gave the example of Man Whence How and Whither which you said "lost
the plot a bit." I'm saying that I know people who find in CWL the
exponent of genuine theosophy, including and especially what he wrote in
Man Whence How and Whither. In other words, perhaps one's pseudo
theosophy is real theosophy to another. My remark is not a criticism of
you--just an observation that there are different strokes for different
folks--so to speak.   


PL: I have already stated this several times. They do not understand 
the politics which led to the anti AAB sentiment over the years. 
Therefore they have never bothered to open up those books and decide 
for themselves because they have taken the word of other biased TS 
members.


JHE
What have you found in the form of source documents?  

PL: None, have not been looking for any.

JHE
But, that is the whole point of my original question. How can one
expect to understand these politics if everything we think we know is
based upon fragments of memories of polarized people who are now dead
anyway? I'm interested in finding the documents. 

JHE: I'm afraid that this is the problem with channeled material.  
Its actual source will always be in question, thus raising questions 
that give rise to criticisms. 

PL: One could say the same about our very mediumistic HPB who had 
several Masters it is said, working through her.


JHE
My point is that HPB's writings, whether channeled, made up, a product
of psychic revelation, mediumship, or hallucinations is checkable
because it is referenced. 

PL
But your immediate 
use of the phrase 'channelled' material conjures up the lower 
psychic medium who works through the astral plane/body only - quite 
often in trance. The quality of the material is usually immediately 
recognizable as of low calibre, for instance Clare Prophet.
AAB worked consciously on the mental plane. She could not have 
possibly known much of what DK gave her, despite the fact that she 
was a solid student of the SD. That material is easily recognisable 
for its *quality* by the intuitive student.

JHE 
I'm sorry. It appears that you have misunderstood what I mean by
"channeled material." I'm using the term in a very general way that
denotes communications received in some telepathic manner. The term
could include communications to AAB, AB, CWL, HPB, Claire Prophet,
Benjamin Crème, the neighborhood psychic, etc. etc. I am using the term
to describe a general phenomena without making any judgments concerning
which principle/plane may be involved or which communications are of
higher or lower caliber.     
 

JHE: This brings me to an observation I made some years ago
> concerning an obvious difference between HPB's writings and those 
based upon a channeled authority (Like AAB's) or through psychic 
revelation (like CWL's). 

PL: Again you are making an assumption that AAB is a 'channel' - 
please define your terms.

JHE
See above for my definition of Channel. As to the distinction between
AAB and CWL I am making here--I am saying that AAB's source is said to
be from an outside source (i.e. DK), where CWL writes from his own
authority, based upon his claimed clairvoyant observations.

JHE: In HPB's books, one would be hard put to find a single point 
she makes, or a single page of her writings that is not referenced 
to some *source* scientific or philosophical work, or religious 
scripture.  

PL: Oh yeah? What about the skeleton of the SD? The stanzas of Dzyan 
are not checkable, unless you have the ear of an abbott of a certain 
monastery. The rest is excellent comparative religion and occultism.

JHE: When I wrote the statement you quoted above, a little voice told me
that I better make a long diversion and write about the Stanzas of Dzyan
and the Chaldean Book of Numbers. Then I said to myself, "Naw, this
isn't an adversarial debate. I don't need to waste time micro-examining
every sentence I write to make sure that my a** is covered on every
possible nuance I make. But OK, here goes...
HPB makes it clear that the Stanzas physically exist (at least
in her time) in several languages, and that she had translated parts of
a physical text for the SD. She points to the book 'Voyage dans la
Tartarie et le Thibet' (which I have copies in the original and in
English translation) as documentation that the Stanzas were commentaries
to the book of Kie-te, known to the writer, who was a very early
European visitor to Tibet. My friend, David Reigle (Who is an Alice
Bailey student) has been, for some years, tracking down those
commentaries. He is skilled in translating Sanskrit and Tibetan, thus
is most suited to this job. By simply following the information that
HPB gave, he was able to identify the group of works that the
commentaries are linked, and is presently looking through them. I refer
you to Blavatsky's Secret Books by David and Nancy Reigle. San Diego:
Wizards Bookshelf, 1999 for more information.  
Yes, I agree with you that reading and, still more,
understanding esoteric Buddhist texts requires special training that few
of us have. I am not suggesting that we should all learn Tibetan and
Sanskrit and check every translation we read. That, of course would not
be feasible. But we can exercise our discrimination--and that exercise
includes being aware of when translations are consistent or inconsistent
with what is known about these things. In the case of the Stanzas, Mr.
Reigle's research connects these stanzas with a body of scriptures that
are known, and that HPB's information in this area is consistent with
current scholarship concerning these scriptures. But please don't
misread me to mean that HPB's teachings are representative of popular
Tibetan Buddhism. They are not, nor were they ever intended or
represented by HPB to be. 
Another friend, Richard Taylor (a ULT Theosophist) began a
doctorial dissertation trying to show that HPB did correctly understand,
perhaps even better than the scholars of her time, the more technical
aspects of Eastern teachings. Happily for him and his students, but
sadly for the world, he got a teaching position and abandoned his
project. However, one of the points that he did bring out in a recent
talk (that I attended), was that we have to begin by cutting through all
of the mis-readings of HPB's writings that theosophists and others have
perpetuated for so many years. I applaud his point. There is a lot of
confusion out there, and he gave several examples. 

JHE: My point is this--whatever one may make of HPB's ideas or how 
she may have acquired them, one is able to compare them to the 
learned literature of the day.  

PL: Yes, and this is precisely it. The Masters through HPB made 
built the foundation of this three-fold teaching, and elaborated 
through DK/AAB at the next phase. There was no need to duplicate the 
work already performed by HPB.

JHE
I agree. There is no need to duplicate HPB's work. We need to expand
upon it, as I believe she wanted us to do. On the other hand, I also
see no need to change her methodology. She used a methodology that is
still being used today and will be into the foreseeable future,
precisely because it is checkable. Why fix it when it aint broke? 

PL
We are told that a third phase is due 
to come through some disciple early this century. I wonder if 
whoever has that unenviable task will be vilified by theosphists and 
Baileyites alike? (grin)

JHE
Such a person will probably get the same treatment as any other
enlightened person--Burned at the stake; condemned as insane.... I'm
sure the theosophists and baileyites with be leading the pack :-)

--j