Theos-Talk Archives (August 2004 Message tt00653)

Hallo Daniel and all,

My views are:

So I can conclude from the below, that
disfigured teachings like the ones comming from Leadbeater, should not be
sold in the theosophical bookshops?
Do you not agree Daniel?
(Try for instance reading the Mahatma and Blavatsky quotes in the below
again.)

Because if Leadbeaters disfigured teachings should be sold, then the Alice
A. Bailey books could just as easily be
said to be allright to sell. - Is it rather a matter of policy, than really
listening to what the Masters and Blavatsky have being saying all the time?


from
M. Sufilight with peace and love...

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Daniel H. Caldwell" <danielhcaldwell@y...>
To: <theos-talk@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, August 29, 2004 6:01 PM
Subject: Theos-World Pedro on "ORIGINAL TEACHINGS"


> Pedro, you wrote in part to Dallas:
>
> =====================================================
>
> In your postings on this list you have used
> frequently the expression "ORIGINAL TEACHINGS", and
> linked the expression specifically to the writings of
> HPB, the Mahatmas and W. Q. Judge. To a newcomer such
> usage may indicate that the original teachings of
> Theosophy are limited to the three sources just
> mentioned. Did HPB or the Mahatmas or William Judge
> include in their writings a caveat to the effect that
> theirs were the original teachings or was this done by
> subsequent generations of students of their works?
>
> =====================================================
>
> I believe that both HPB and the Mahatmas indicated
> that there were deviations from their original teachings.
>
> For example, Blavatsky wrote:
>
> "The publication of many of the facts herein stated has been rendered
> necessary by the wild and fanciful speculation in which many
> Theosophists and students of mysticism have indulged, during the last
> few years, in their endeavour to, as they imagined, work out a
> complete system of thought from the few facts previously communicated
> to them." S.D., original edition, Vol I, p. viii
>
> Pedro, notice the phrase: "wild and fanciful speculation."
>
> Doesn't this suggest that there was an original teaching
> and these wild and fanciful speculations were deviations from the
> original?
>
> Even the Mahatma KH wrote to Col. Olcott
>
> "Be assured that what she [HPB] has not annotated from scientific and
> other works, we have given or suggested to her. Every mistake or
> erroneous notion, corrected and explained by her from the works of
> other theosophists was corrected by me, or under my instruction."
>
> Every mistake or erroneous notion was corrected by me.....
>
> So the Master is surely saying there are correct notions of
> Theosophy and then what can be called deviations --- erroneous
> notions.
>
> Take again what HPB wrote to her esoteric students:
>
> ". . . A new and rapidly growing danger. . . is threatening . . . the
> spread of the pure Esoteric Philosophy and knowledge. . . . I
> allude to those charlatanesque imitations of Occultism and
> Theosophy. . . . By pandering to the prejudices of people, and
> especially by adopting the false ideas of a personal God and a
> personal, carnalized Saviour, as the groundwork of their teaching,
> the leaders of this 'swindle' (for such it is) are endeavoring to
> draw men to them and in particular to turn Theosophists from the true
> path."
>
> ". . . A close examination will assuredly reveal. . . materials
> largely stolen . . . from Theosophical writings. . . [and] distorted
> and falsified so as to be palmed off on the unwary as revelations of
> new and undreamed of truths. But many will neither have the time nor
> the opportunity for such a thorough investigation; and before they
> become aware of the imposture they may be led far from the
> Truth. . . . Nothing is more dangerous to Esoteric Truth than the
> garbled and distorted versions disfigured to suit the prejudices and
> tastes of men in general."
>
> She is contrasting "PURE Esoteric philosophy" with "charlatanesque
> IMITATIONS of Occultism and Theosophy." caps added.
>
> And notice Pedro she writes of "the FALSE ideas of a personal God and
> a personal, carnalized Saviour."
>
> Therefore the original teaching given in her writings are a touchstone
> against such "false ideas."
>
> Again notice:
>
> "Nothing is more dangerous to Esoteric Truth than the garbled and
> distorted versions disfigured to suit the prejudices and tastes of
> men in general."
>
> Here we have a reference to the original teachings [Esoteric Truth]
> and also a reference that there can be "garbled and distorted
> versions" of the Esoteric Truth.
>
> Also read the following:
>
> "I dread the appearance in print of our philosophy as expounded by
> Mr. H[ume]. I read his three essays or chapters on God (?) cosmogony
> and glimpses of the origin of things in general, and had to cross out
> nearly all. He makes of us Agnostics!! We do not believe in God
> because so far, we have no proof, etc. This is preposterously
> ridiculous: if he publishes what I read, I will have H.P.B. or Djual
> Khool deny the whole thing; as I cannot permit our sacred philosophy
> to be so disfigured. He says that people will not accept the whole
> truth; that unless we humour them with a hope that there may be
> a 'loving Father and creator of all in heaven' our philosophy will be
> rejected a priori. In such a case the less such idiots hear of our
> doctrines the better for both. If they do not want the whole truth
> and nothing but the truth, they are welcome. But never will they find
> us -- (at any rate) -- compromising with, and pandering to public
> prejudices."
> Master Koot Hoomi, The Mahatma Letters, 2nd ed., Letter 54
>
> Surely "our sacred philosophy" must refer to the true teachings of
> the Mahatmas, the original teachings given out by HPB and the
> Mahatmas.
>
> And here we see the Master referring to expositions of their
> teachings which can DISFIGURE key tenets of the Esoteric or
> Theosophical philosophy.
>
> Again any student who believes in the Mahatmas and HPB's claims
> should take heed of the following warnings:
>
> "Great are the desecrations to which the names of two of the Masters
> have been subjected. There is hardly a medium who has not claimed to
> have seen them. Every BOGUS swindling Society, for commercial
> purposes, now claims to be guided and directed by 'Masters' often
> supposed to be far higher than ours!" Caps added.
>
> Even in HPB's own time, there were false claims of contact with HPB's
> teachers.
>
> And in 1884 A.P. Sinnett, the Theosophist, believed he was in
> contact with the Master KH via Mrs. Laura Holloway.
>
> Yet the Master KH wrote him:
>
> "You ask me if you can tell Miss Arundale what I told you thro' Mrs. H
> [olloway]. . . . . .[But] I have never . . . communicated with you or
> any one else thro' her. . . . . She is an excellent but quite
> undeveloped clairvoyante. . . . ." The Mahatma Letters, 2nd ed., p.
> 355
>
> Notice the Master KH said Mrs. Holloway was an excellent clairvoyant
> yet "quite undeveloped."
>
> And notice what Master KH told Mrs. Holloway:
>
> "Your vivid creative fancy [imagination] evokes illusive Gurus and
> chelas, and puts into their mouths words coined the instant before in
> the mint of your mind, unknown to yourself. The false appear as real,
> as the true, and you have no exact method of detection since you are
> yet prone to force your communications to agree with your
> preconceptions. . . . "
>
> But Sinnett refused to believe the Mahatma. Read now what happened
> starting in 1886.
>
> In The Autobiography of Alfred Percy Sinnett, he wrote:
>
> "On the 26th of April 1886. . . we went . . . to the Albemarle
> Club . . . to meet a lady who was . . . desirous of making my
> acquaintance . . . . . I will give her a fictitious name and call her
> Mary. . . . shortly afterwards I tried a mesmeric experiment with her
> (in accordance with her wish) and obtained remarkable results - she
> went very easily into a trance in which she became unequivocally
> clairvoyant. . . .I became convinced that she clairvoyantly saw the
> mountain region in Tibet where the Master K.H. resided. . . . . It
> became obvious that Mary might become a link between myself and the
> Master. . . . . Mary came to stay with us . . . in February 1888 and
> our regular mesmeric sittings were resumed almost every evening, the
> Master [KH] talking to me through her in most cases. In this way I
> gathered a great deal of miscellaneous occult information. . . . .
> Mary left us to go to her own home in May 1888 having had mesmeric
> sitting almost every evening while she was with us, at most of which
> the Master spoke to me, - or rather dictated to her what he wished to
> say. She would pass into a higher condition in which she could be in
> touch with him and be enabled to repeat his words to her in reply to
> my questions or remarks." pp 33 & 38-39
>
> But Master KH in a letter (dated August 22, 1888) to Colonel Henry S.
> Olcott denied Sinnett's claim:
>
> "Since 1885 I have not written, nor caused to be written save thro'
> her [HPB's] agency, direct or remote, a letter or line to anybody in
> Europe or America, nor communicated orally with, or thro' any third
> party. Theosophists should learn it. You will understand later the
> significance of this declaration so keep it in mind. Her [HPB's]
> fidelity to our work being constant, and her sufferings having come
> upon her thro' it, neither I nor either of my Brother associates will
> desert or supplant her." Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom,
> Series I, 1973
>
> All of these statements by HPB and KH should cause students
> SERIOUS pause and reflection.
>
> Pedro, we find that after HPB's death in 1891, NUMEROUS individuals
> have claimed to be in contact with her Adept Teachers and have stated
> that they were new "messengers" of the Masters conveying even more
> esoteric teachings.
>
> In light of the "wild and fanciful speculations" made during H.P.B.'s
> own lifetime, how many MORE "wild and fanciful speculations" about
> Theosophy have been published since H.P.B.'s death when she was no
> longer around to correct or refute them?
>
> How many of the claims of these NUMEROUS individuals would Madame
> Blavatsky have labeled "bogus"?
>
> I close with the following condensed statement from the Secret
> Doctrine:
>
> "The Secret Doctrine is the accumulated Wisdom of the Ages, and its
> cosmogony alone is the most stupendous and elaborate system. The
> facts have actually occupied countless generations of initiated seers
> and prophets to marshal, to set down and explain. The flashing gaze
> of those seers has penetrated into the very kernel of matter, and
> recorded the soul of things there. The [Esoteric] system is no fancy
> of one or several isolated individuals. It is the uninterrupted
> record covering thousands of generations of Seers whose respective
> experiences were made to test and to verify the teachings of higher
> and exalted beings, who watched over the childhood of Humanity. For
> long ages, the 'Wise Men' of the Fifth Race had passed their lives in
> learning by checking, testing, and verifying in every department of
> nature the traditions of old by the independent visions of great
> adepts; i.e., men who have developed and perfected their physical,
> mental, psychic, and spiritual organisations to the utmost possible
> degree. No vision of one adept was accepted till it was checked and
> confirmed by the visions --- so obtained as to stand as independent
> evidence --- of other adepts, and by centuries of experiences."
> H.P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine, Vol. I, pp. 273-274. [These
> extracts have been transcribed from the original source but material
> not relevant to the subject has been silently deleted.]
>
> Pedro, I hope you will respond to the basic issues I have presented
> here for your thoughtful consideration and feedback.
>
> Daniel
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