Theos-Talk Archives (August 2004 Message tt00528)

Aug 26 2004

Dear Perry:

Re: Linguistic style and persuasion


When considered by experts these are most useful, but they are not
definitive.

But they do not cover the MEANINGS or the CONTENT of what is being said or
transmitted.

May I ask how much of H P B's writings have you studied?  

Excuse this probing question since it is only asked because the depth of
your understanding of THEOSOPHY is important to your ability to compare her
PHILOSOPHY of THEOSOPHY with CWL's meanderings and deviations from "Original
Theosophy."

Briefly:  

HPB was not writing as a woman but as a "messenger" of the Adepts, Elder
Brothers or "Mahatmas" -- the Masters of Wisdom. If this is not perceived
it is useless to proceed.

Her "style" varies. It is the MEANINGS she conveyed that are important.
(see brief essay below, please)

Those who have studied the history of the THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY and of what
CWL and Annie Besant did to the original teachings look at the changes in
MEANINGS.  

THEOSOPHY is said to present definite answers to questions -- not
speculations.  

If we want to know definitely what THEOSOPHY teaches we have as sources the
writings of 

H P Blavatsky;
The Masters of Wisdom -- in Their letters
W Q Judge -- endorsed by H P B


To help us there is such a comparison as you suggest there was made and
published in 1925 by Margaret THOMAS (available at

http://blavatskyarchives.com/thomas/index.htm

the information you may want to consider

On this subject:

James A. Santucci, professor of religious studies at
California State University (Fullerton) and editor of
"Theosophical History," has written the following
about Margaret Thomas' book:

". . . [Annie Besant and Charles W. Leadbeater] were
largely responsible for the introduction of new
teachings that were often in total opposition to the
Theosophy of [Madame H.P.] Blavatsky and her Masters.
These teachings were designated by their opponents as
Neo-Theosophy . . . or less often Pseudo-Theosophy.
The differences between Theosophy and Neo-Theosophy
are too numerous to mention in the context of this
paper. . . . An extensive overview [of the
differences] is given in . . . Theosophy or
Neo-Theosophy by Margaret Thomas. . . . " 

See:

"Theosophy Versus Neo-Theosophy"
compiled by Margaret Thomas
http://blavatskyarchives.com/thomas/index.htm


=====

Daniel H. Caldwell
BLAVATSKY STUDY CENTER/BLAVATSKY ARCHIVES
http://blavatskyarchives.com/introduction.htm

--------------------------------------------------------------
"...Contrast alone can enable us to appreciate things at 
their right value; and unless a judge compares notes and 
hears both sides he can hardly come to a correct decision."
H.P. Blavatsky. The Theosophist, July, 1881, p. 2

--------------------------------------------------------------

To conclude:

The freedom to think examine and probe THEOSOPHY is open to all, but it is
useless to engage in speculations and probables unless ne has acquired a
sound basis in what THEOSOPHY actually teaches.

Differences from "original Teachings" always exist in the writings of anyone
who offers advice or comments (including myself of course). So the only
course for the student is to study and make sure they know what and where
the original teachings make definite statements.

To discuss at large, as you suggest, these two streams of thought invites
speculations -- to what end or benefit?

We all need to be definite and specific.

Best wishes,

Dallas

===============================
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Perry C
Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 2004 9:49 PM
To: 
Subject: Linguistic Style and Persuasion

Hello All,

It strikes me that the writing styles of C.W Leadbeater and H.P.B may 
be worth looking at more closely as a comparison.

C.W.L coming from a paternalistic and hierarchical Victorian English 
mindset sore those in the upper echelons as being more capable and 
competent of making decisions on behalf of the less enlightened 
masses.

Therefore CWL `clairvoyantly confirms' for us this order and 
hierarchy , with all we need to know of nature spirits in their 
little cute outfits with pointy hats, inner planes with the Logos on 
her (oh no sorry) HIS throne and the resultant effects of rituals and 
ceremonial and how priests really do have a special place in the 
order of things, 

Women of course cannot handle these energies so are not able to fill 
this role. ... 

HPB spoke of hierarchy as well but seemed to express this in a way 
far more philosophically expansive and open to interpretation and 
philosophical exploration than CWL's . 

HPB encourages the reader to explore the philosophies of Kant and 
Spinoza or the subtleties of Kabbalah...

The reader by default is exposed to many and various philosophers and 
philosophies in the reading of HPB's works, which to me encourages 
exploration and further study.

While she speaks of the Esoteric doctrine coming from a long line of 
seers, the reader is constantly reminded that only though Selfless 
action , hard work and compassion will Nature ever give the true 
secrets of life, never though blind belief. 

The Mahatma's advise Sinnett "never think what would I do" (KH) the 
Mahatma thus empowering Sinnett to think and act through his own 
volition rather than simply follow someone else's direction.
Also the Mahatma says to Sinnett somewhere else "follow the ideal 
rather than my poor self"...

CWL's emphasis on devotional practice and psychic powers, 
following "authorities" or needing messiah's.

I think tended to promote a blind belief, leader / follower mindset 
rather than the philosophically critical, open and compassionate 
mindset the Mahatmas where hoping the TS would start to promote.(Realization
of Oneness and Universal Brotherhood)

CWL while saying on the one hand not to believe him but to discover 
for ourselves, is but the subtle under current is one of  
disempowerment and re-establishment of old norms. 

HPBs style and insistence is being ever on guard against 
pronouncements of any kind and I think promotes and displays a 
completely different kind of mindset.

Not being an academic I can't really claim any expert knowledge
on this subject of writing styles however I think there's something
to it. 

Perhaps it has been discussed already on these groups but I think it 
is worth looking at in more depth.

What do others think?

Perry

==================================

You may like to consider the following:

-----------------------------


WHO IS H P B ?



In recent posts attempts have been made to trivialize H P B and compare her
work with some more modern pseudo psychological, and pseudo-Theosophical
labeling.  

But the one who advances this label has evidently NOT STUDIED Theosophy.
For if he / she had, then we would be reading some evaluation of the
philosophy and not be having to read a speculative view and evaluation of "H
P B" as a thinker.

Consider this:


H. P. BLAVATSKY died May 8, 1891. Or, 113 years ago.

To some, as a person, she ceased to be on that date. 

All that survives is a name, a memory, one of countless other names and
memories, the remains of a generation almost extinguished and fast fading
into the indistinguishable monument we call "the past. "

She is now a mere episode in written and unwritten History -- the occidental
term for the Skandhas of the human race and the personal human being. As a
body, as a mind, as an actor, she has played her part, passed from the stage
and been replaced. 

But the play goes on. The great drama of life and death, of good and evil
fortune, is not of yesterday and to-day only but of all time, and each new
person, each incoming generation must perforce become both spectator and
actor in the Mysteries. 

Like many another, H. P. Blavatsky was one who purported to speak from
behind the screen of time, to bear witness and to teach of things hidden
from mortal sight, even that of the wisest among us. 

What are the credentials of H. P. Blavatsky, Messenger of the Masters of
Wisdom, Elder Brothers of the human race, to us Their younger brothers in
the School of Life?
 
Nearest to us of all such Messengers, the claims or credentials of H. P. B
are of vital moment to all searchers for truth and are more readily and
searchingly possible of examination. 

To determine between claims and credentials is the prime necessity of the
student of life and action. As matters stand from generation to generation
the average searcher for truth is bewildered by the cloud of witnesses, by
the apparently hopeless contradictions in their testimony, by his own
inability to distinguish the true from the false in witnesses and in their
testimony. 

The experience of the race is that of a continual alteration and alternation
of opinion. 

We reach a decision one day, one generation, only to reverse it the next,
though all men are aware that the essential facts of life never vary, that
Truth must be in its own nature changeless. 

Unless we are prepared to admit, and to ourselves act upon the admission,
not only that Truth exists but that we are capable of discerning the truth
in all things, we but stultify our Self in giving any attention at all to
the search for Truth as reflected in such mighty subjects as philosophy,
religion, ethics, science. 

If we contradict the terms of our own inmost Being, if we render our Self
foolish, incompetent to prove all things and to hold fast to that which is
true, if we allege our Self insane and incapable of determining Truth, who
or what can validate the Truth to us, can make us reasonable?


But, granting that we are "open to reason," it must follow that we are
bewildered, that we err and wander in our search for Truth, not because
credentials and evidences are lacking to us, but because we do not examine
them in the light of reason and experience.
 
The all-inclusive credential of H.P.B. as messenger and witness is that she
addressed herself exclusively to the intelligence of mankind -- that is to
say, to the universal experience, the common sense, the innate reason of all
men, therefore of every man. Her teachings were put forward as in no sense a
revelation. 

She appealed to the Truth in us, to the truth as known to us, to our
capacity to assimilate additional truth -- to what the Masters have in
common with us, to what all men have in common with the Masters, as the
bridge of progress, the Antaskarana -thread- of spiritual, as of all other
evolution. 

What she knew (that is to us unknown), she put forward as a theory, as a
working hypothesis which everyone is invited to examine, test, verify, step
by step, proceeding from the known to the unknown. 

Compare and contrast this credential with those submitted by the revealers,
the prophets, the priests of every religion and of every sect. 

Always it is a revelation of one sort or another from a higher to a lower
being -- a revelation which demands belief, which in its very nature is
impossible of proof or disproof by the ones to whom it is offered, and which
promises rewards, or threatens penalties, to those who do or do not accept
it out of hand on the ipse dixit of the revealer. 

Compare and contrast the credential of H.P.B. with the "working hypotheses"
so freely offered and accepted in modern "exact" science -- working
hypotheses which do not "work," and of which there is not a single one
submitted by any scientist that other equally eminent scientists have not
exposed as faulty, incomplete, contradicted by known facts. 

Not a theory or hypothesis propounded by H. P. B. has ever been upset
philosophically, logically, historically or evidentially. 

Hundreds and thousands have tried it, as invited first and foremost by
H.P.B. herself. The most that any have achieved has been a : "Not proven." 

This is an admission of her impregnability; a confession of their own
inability to impeach her testimony after rigid cross-examination. 

Invariably the religious or scientific investigator of the credential of
H.P.B. has tested her theories in the light of his own. If her propositions
agreed with his, well and good; if not, they must be false or erroneous,
"not proved," -- that is, "not approved." 

Assume for one moment that her theories are true, and the inverted logic of
these investigators is instantly self-evident. They did not, and they do
not, compare and contrast theory with theory, hypothesis with hypothesis,
for relative consistency and synthesis, for relative accord with known
facts. 

It stands to-day as from the beginning; no known fact conflicts with or
discredits a single theorem advanced by H.P.B., while her propositions do
shed the light of reason on all the problems of life, all the missing links
in science and religion; do bring into order and relation, into ethical and
moral purposiveness, all the otherwise bewildering and confused mass of the
facts which constitute the experience of the race and the individual; do
point out the causes of those failures and miseries which our religions and
our sciences seek in vain to explain or alleviate. 

The individual and personal credential of H. P. B. to every sincere
searcher for truth is the spiritual fact that her mission is educative. 

She was and is a Teacher of truth. 

It is through the Hall of Learning alone that we can hope to arrive at
Wisdom on our own account. 

No miracle, no prayer, no revelation, not even the usually blind devotion of
implicit faith can ever bring any of us one step nearer to the Masters of
Wisdom, to Their real Knowledge of Nature, and, to their Historical account
of our past.. 

Her life, her labor, her writings, constitute a School of Life, into which
may enter whosoever will to acquire instruction in the mysteries of Self;
instruction in Self-knowledge, Self-discipline, Self-control -- and prove
out to himself and for himself the same credential of The Wisdom. [So wrote
a student in THEOSOPHY, many years ago}.


One of her contemporaries wrote:

"...in 1875 she told me that she was then embarking on a work that would
draw upon her unmerited slander, implacable malice, uninterrupted
misunderstanding, constant work, and no worldly reward. Yet in the face of
this her lion heart carried her on...

Much has been said of her "phenomena," some denying them, others alleging
trick and device. Knowing her for so many years so well, and having seen at
her hands in private the production of more and more varied phenomena that
it has been the good fortune of all others of her friends put together to
seem I know for myself that she had control of hidden powerful laws of
nature not known to our science, and I also know that she never boasted of
her powers, never advertised their possession, never publicly advised anyone
to attempt their acquirement, but always turned the eyes of those who could
understand her to a life of altruism based on a knowledge of true
philosophy.

If the world thinks that her days were spent in deluding her followers by
pretended phenomena, it is solely because her injudicious friends, against
her expressed wish, gave out wonderful stories of her "miracles" which can
not be proved to a skeptical public and which are not the aim of the Society
nor were ever more than mere incidents in the life of H.P.Blavatsky.

Her aim was to elevate the race.  

Her method was to deal with the mind of the century as she found it, by
trying to lead it on step by step; to seek out and educate a few who,
appreciating the majesty of the Secret Science and devoted to "the great
orphan Humanity," could carry on her work with zeal and wisdom; to found a
Society whose efforts--however small itself might be--would inject into the
thought of the day the ideas, the doctrines, the nomenclature of the Wisdom
Religion, so that when the next century shall have seen its 75th years the
new messenger coming again into the world would find the Society still at
work, the ideas sown broadcast, the nomenclature ready to give expression
and body to the immutable truth, and thus to make easy the task which for
her since 1875 was so difficult and so encompassed with obstacles in the
very paucity of the language--obstacles harder than all else to work
against." [So wrote H
P B's colleague and friend : W. Q. Judge in his article: "H.P.B.-A
Lion-hearted Colleague Passes" ]


Again he wrote:


"In 1875, in the city of New York, I first met H.P.B. in this life...It was
her eye that attracted me, the eye of one whom I must have known in lives
long passed away.  

She looked at me in recognition at that first hour, and never since has that
look changed...Not as a questioner of philosophies did I come before
her...but as one, wandering many periods through the corridors of life, was
seeking the friends who could show where the designs for the work had been
hidden. And true to the call she responded, revealing the plans once again,
and speaking no words to explain, simply pointed then out and went on with
the task. It was as if but the evening before we had parted, leaving yet to
be done some detail of a task taken up with one common end; it was teacher
and pupil, elder brother and younger, both bent on the one single end, but
she with the power and the knowledge that belong but to lions and sages.

Others I know have looked with suspicion on an appearance they could not
fathom, and though it is true they adduce many proofs which hugged to the
breast, would damn sages and gods, yet it is only through blindness they
failed to see the lion's glance, the diamond heart of H.P.B...she was laying
down the lines of force all over the land...

The explanation has been offered by some too anxious friends that the
earlier phenomena were mistakes in judgment, attempted to be rectified in
later years by confining their area and limiting their number, but...I shall
hold to her own explanation made in advance and never changed. That I have
given above. For it is easier to take refuge behind a charge of bad
judgment than to understand the strange and powerful laws which control in
matters such as these.

Amid all the turmoil of her life, above all the din produced by those who
charged her with deceit and fraud and others who defended, while month after
month, and year after year, witnessed men and women entering the
theosophical movement only to leave it soon with malignant phrases for
H.P.B., there stands a fact we all might consider--devotion absolute to her
Master. "It was He," she writes, "who told me to devote myself to this, and
I will never disobey and never turn back."...

Willing in the service of the cause to offer up hope, money, reputation,
life itself, provided the Society might be saved from every hurt, whether
small or great. And thus bound body and soul to this entity called the T.
S., bound to protect it at all hazards, and in the face of every loss, she
often incurred the resentment of many who became her friends but would not
always care for the infant organization as she had sworn to do. And when
they acted as it opposed to the Society, her instant opposition seemed to
them to nullify professions of friendship. Thus she had but few friends, for
it required a keen insight, untinged with personal feeling, to see even a
small part of the real H.P.Blavatsky...

She worked under directors who, operating from behind the scene, knew that
the T. S. was, and was to be, the nucleus from which help might be spread to
all the people of the day, without thanks and without acknowledgment...I
asked her what was the chance of drawing people into the Society...she
said:--"When you consider those days in 1875 and after, in which you could
not find any people interested in your thoughts, and now look at the
wide-spreading influence of theosophical ideas--however labeled--it is not
so bad. We are not working that people may call themselves Theosophists,
but that the doctrines we cherish may affect and leaven the whole mind of
this century. This alone can be accomplished by a small earnest band of
workers, who work for no human reward, no earthly recognition, but who,
supported and sustained by a belief in that Universal Brotherhood of which
our Masters are a part, work steadily, faithfully, in understanding and
putting forth for consideration the doctrines of life and duty that have
come down to us from immemorial time. Falter not so long as a few devoted
ones will work to keep the nucleus existing. You were not directed to found
and realise a Universal Brotherhood, but to form the nucleus for one; for
it is only when the nucleus it formed that the accumulations can begin that
will end in future years, however far, in the formation of that body which
we have in view."

H.P.B. had a lion heart, and on the work traced out for her she had a lion's
grasp, let us...sustain ourselves in carrying out the designs laid down on
the trestle-board, by the memory of her devotion and the consciousness that
behind her task stood, and still remain, those Elder Brothers who, above the
clatter and the din of our battle, ever see the end and direct the forces
distributed in array for the salvation of "that great orphan--Humanity."

[W. Q. Judge	-- "Yours till Death and After, H.P.B..." ]


To close students of Theosophy and to students and friends of H P B, Mr.
Judge wrote:

"The case I wish to deal with...is this: H.P.B. and her relations to the
Masters and to us; her books and teachings; the general question of
disciples and chelas...Chelas and disciples are of many grades, and some of
the Adepts are themselves the chelas of higher Adepts...[they are those who
have] devoted himself or herself to the service of mankind and the pursuit
of knowledge of the Self...[Some] have gained through knowledge and
discipline those powers over mind, matter, space, and time which to us are
the glittering prizes of the future...So much being laid down, we may next
ask how we are to look at H.P.B..

But taking her own sayings, she was a chela or disciple of the Masters, and
therefore stood in relation to them as one who might be chided or corrected
or reproved. She called them her Masters, and asseverated a devotion to
their behests and a respect and confidence in and for their utterances which
the chelas has always for one who is high enough to be his Master.

But looking at her powers exhibited to the world, and as to which one of her
Masters wrote that they had puzzled and astonished the brightest minds of
the age, we see that compared with ourselves she was an Adept...are in fact
some of the great Rishis and Sages of the past, and people have been too
much in the habit of lowering them to the petty standard of this age." But
with this reverence for her teachers she had for them at the same time a
love and friendship not often found on earth. All this indicates her
chelaship to Them, but in no way lowers her to us or warrants us in deciding
that we are right in a hurried or modern judgment of her.

Now some Theosophist ask if there are other letters extant from her Masters
in which she is called to account, is called their chela, and is chided now
and then, besides those published. Perhaps yes. And what of it ? Let them
be published by all means, and let us have the full and complete record of
all letters sent during her life; those put forward as dated after her
death will count for naught...since the Masters do not indulge in any
criticisms on the disciples who have gone from earth. As she has herself
published letters and parts of letters from the Masters to her in which she
is called a chela and is chided, it certainly matte if we know of others of
the same sort.

For over against all such we have common sense, and also the declarations of
her Masters that she was the sole instrument possible for the work to be
done, that They sent her to do it, and that They approved in general all she
did. And she was the first direct channel to and from the Lodge, and the
only one to date through which came the objective presence of the Adepts.  

We cannot ignore the messenger, take the message, and laugh at or give scorn
to the one who brought it to us. There is nothing new in the idea that
letters are still unpublished wherein the Masters put her below them, and
there is no cause for any apprehension. But it certainly is true that not a
single such letter has anything in it putting her below us; she must ever
remain the greatest of the chelas...

There only remains...the position taken by some and without a knowledge of
the rules governing these matters, that chelas sometimes write messages
claimed to be from the Masters when they are not. this is an artificial
position not supportable by law or rule.  

It is due to ignorance of what is and is not chelaship, and also to
confusion between grades in discipleship. It has been used as to H.P.B. The
false conclusion has first been made that an accepted chela of high grade
may become accustomed to dictation by the Master and then may fall into the
false pretense of giving something from himself and pretending it is from
the Master. It is impossible. The bond in her case was not of such a
character to be dealt with thus. One instance of it would destroy the
possibility of any more communication from the teacher. It may be quite
true that probationers now and then have imagined themselves as ordered to
say so and so, but that is not the case of an accepted and high chela who is
irrevocably pledged...This idea, then, ought to be abandoned; it is absurd,
contrary to law, to rule, and to what must be the case when such relations
are established as existed
between H.P.B. and her Masters."	[W. Q. Judge -- "Masters,
Adepts, Teachers and Disciples" ]


A fragment concerning her life and relations with the THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY
reads:


".....in 1875, in New York, she started the Theosophical Society, aided by
Col. H. S. Olcott and others, declaring its objects to be the making of a
nucleus for a universal brotherhood, the study of ancient and other
religions and sciences, and the investigation of the psychical and recondite
laws affecting man and nature. 

There certainly was no selfish object in this, nor any desire to raise
money. She was in receipt of funds from sources in Russia and other places
until they were cut off by reason of her becoming an American citizen, and
also because her unremunerated labors for the society prevented her doing
literary work on Russian magazines, where all her writings would be taken
eagerly. 

As soon as the Theosophical Society was started she said to the writer that
a book had to be written for its use. Isis Unveiled was then begun, and
unremittingly she worked at it night and day until the moment when a
publisher was secured for it.

Meanwhile crowds of visitors were constantly calling at her rooms in Irving
Place, later in Thirty-fourth street, and last in Forty-seventh street and
Eighth avenue. The newspapers were full of her supposed powers or of
laughter at the possibilities in man that she and her society asserted. 

A prominent New York daily wrote of her thus:

"A woman of as remarkable characteristics as Cagliostro himself, and one who
is every day as differently judged by different people as the renowned Count
was in his day. By those who know her slightly she is called a charlatan;
better acquaintance made you think she was learned; and those who were
intimate with her were either carried away with belief in her power or
completely puzzled." 

In 1877 ISIS UNVEILED attracted wide attention, and all the New York papers
reviewed it, each saying that it exhibited immense research. 

The strange part of this is, as I and many others can testify as
eyewitnesses to the production of the book, that the writer had no library
in which to make researches and possessed no notes of investigation or
reading previously done. 

All was written straight out of hand. And yet it is full of references to
books in the British Museum and other great libraries, and every reference
is correct. Either, then, we have, as to that book, a woman who was capable
of storing in her memory a mass of facts, dates, numbers, titles, and
subjects such as no other human being ever was capable of, or her claim to
help from unseen beings is just.

=================================

DTB