Theos-Talk Archives (January 2005 Message tt00254)

Hey,

Cass wrote that the "marrow" of discussion of Masters is the meaning 
of the term "perfected men." One man's marrow is another's poison; 
I think that this term in particular has had a poisonous effect on 
the Theosophical Movement.

Meaning is descriptive, not prescriptive; that is, the meaning of a 
word or phrase is determined by its use. Multiple uses point to 
multiple meanings. Jerry wrote:

I know of students who will suggest that HPB and the 
> Masters were somehow divinely protected against making such 
errors. That argument, like any other profession of faith, can only 
be answered in silence. 
> 
> Even when the writer is satisfied that the sentence or paragraph 
carries its intended meaning, that is no guarantee that the sentence 
will not have a very different meaning to the reader. Those 
differences of 
> interpretation may arise because of differences of culture, 
education, personal experiences, changes of meaning of words over 
time, being influenced by someone else's interpretation, unconscious 
associations etc. etc.


I googled the term "perfected men" as a quick and dirty method of 
measuring what it means to different users. Although it was used in 
the MLs and writings of HPB, it was one among many roughly 
synonymous terms and was surrounded by disclaimers and qualifiers 
that make it clear HPB never meant "infallible" or "omniscient" 
or "omnipotent." She said that a person encountering a Mahatma 
would have no way of knowing the spiritual status of the person; 
hence that Mahatmas can move freely unrecognized. But 
googling "perfected men" comes up with many hits by Judge, who had 
an entirely different understanding. He wrote that Masters were so 
totally different from ordinary men that their physical bodies were 
unimaginably glorious and regular folks couldn't bear the experience 
of seeing them. Later, Leadbeater and Bailey and the Prophets and a 
host of others were off and running with "perfected men" as ever 
more glorious and inaccessible and authoritative. I don't think HPB 
and Olcott intended to give birth to such occult authoritarianism.

Paul