Theos-Talk Archives (September 2004 Message tt00602)

Folks,

The recent mention by David Blankenship of discussions of scientific
disconfirmation of aspects of the HPB/ML teachings reminds me of what
is going on at the ARE. As some of you may know, the Cayce readings
echo a fair amount of the SD on Atlantis etc. The ARE has an annual
conference on ancient Egypt and Atlantis which features mainly authors
who agree with the Cayce readings. But they also invite those who do
not; e.g. Mark Lehner who started out a Caycean but after becoming an
Egyptologist concluded that the readings were wrong historically. 
Lehner was recently featured in a newspaper story about an ARE
conference; another skeptic about Atlantis etc. who was recently a
speaker at ARE is Stephan Schwartz, a parapsychologist and specialist
on remote viewing.

I had an exchange in 2000 on Whitherare with Schwartz about these
matters which relates to the issues mentioned by David Blankenship. 
I'm impressed that these issues are addressed at some length in the
current issue of Theosophy in Australia. Here are links to some posts
by Schartz:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/whitherare/message/595
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/whitherare/message/599
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/whitherare/message/604

anyone interested can see other related posts, including some furious
ones from true believers, on the same yahoo group. Impressed by their
hosting Lehner and Schwartz (and by word from Mark Thurston that my
book is required reading for a class he teaches at Atlantic
University) I recently renewed ARE membership after a hiatus of a
couple of years. (But only halfheartedly since their governing board
seems to have no more interest in transparency and accountability than
they did during the Jesus wars of 1998-2001.)

Cheers,

Paul