Theos-Talk Archives (June 2004 Message tt00218)

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "Katinka Hesselink" <mail@k...> 
wrote:
> The sceptics have enough explanations to satisfy them.
> The believers have enough evidence to satisfy them.
> Debate won't change much about this.

Yes, that is true of people whose minds are made up on each and every 
subject. I have been compelled to change my mind on numerous things 
after reading the remarks of K. Paul Johnson and Bart Lidofsky and 
have benefited from that. So for me at least this has not been at 
all fruitless. Perhaps others have benefited as well. Sometimes I 
wish I were a simple believer like our fundamentalists.

I was reminded of your comment when I looked at THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY 
(online). There is an article in it called "I Agree With Me" about 
how people like to see their own preconceived notions parroted but 
have no intention of learning anything new.

KH:
> Ultimately, for me, probably for you as well, I believe
> the evidence of the phenomena, because HPB's philosophy
> is 'proof' of her genuineness.

Yes, I agree, except that I see the philosophy as evidence and not 
proof. (The difference being one of degree.) I have a hard time 
getting around the fact that such an ingenious theory was constructed 
to explain a phenomenon which Bart insists was a mere squalid hoax 
and still have not figured out what to make of that.

KH:
> Historical intricacies don't change much about this,
> because the Mahatmas left open many places for us to
> doubt. I feel they did that on purpose. They wanted us
> to doubt

There is an incident in the mahatma letters in which Sinnett asked 
that a copy of THE TIMES be teleported from London to India 
instantly. In those days it wouuld have taken weeks for it to be 
brought there by boat. The mahatma refused on the grounds that such 
a phenomenon could not be performed by fraud and that people would 
therefore be convinced. Unfortunately, that raises grave doubts in 
the mind of an objective observer, since only phenomena which could 
be produced by fraud were produced. They would have done better to 
argue that precipitation was at an end (which they said to explain 
the later letters being palmed off on people and not materialized). 
Then they could have said "If you had only asked last week."

Interestingly, there are several ways of fraudulently teleporting a 
newspaper instantly from London to India as well [in 1880 without 
aircraft], so strict controls would have had to be put on the 
experiment for it to satisfy anyone. We could quite easily pick that 
phenomenon apart had it been done.

KH:
> Phenomena are ultimately child's play. They aren't very
> significant either philosophically

Blavatsky's argyment was that her theory was an scientific theory of 
mystical and psychical phenomena, which means psychical and other 
phenomena constituted the data for the theory. Without data it is 
mere theorizing in the dark. So whether these phenomena occur or not 
is of great importance. So it seems to me.

KH:
> Krishnamurti for instance (obviously not THE messenger

Yes, he did not show up in 1975

KH:
> Blavatsky had the impossible job of trying to teach some
> philosophy

Difficult, yes. Had it been impossible Locke, Hume, Descartes, Kant, 
Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, More, and others would not have left a 
mark.

KH:
> Buddhism and Hinduism have renewed vigour in their respective
> native countries.

Hindu fundamentalism is on the rise. (Witness the frequent roastings 
of people with light skin in India who are suspected of the crime of 
Christianity.) But Buddhism is regrettably dying out everywhere. 
This is the Age of the Disappearance of the Dharma, according to 
ancient prophecy, during or after which will come the Maitreya to 
restore it if the prophecy is true.