Theos-Talk Archives (January 2005 Message tt00916)

CWL also made this comment on Swedenborg:

"The statements of clairvoyants may and must be coloured by opinions
already formed, as was clearly the case with Swedenborg, who used a
very narrow Christian terminology to describe the facts of the astral
plane, and unquestionably saw many things through strong thought forms
which he had made in previous years. He started with certain definite
preconceptions and he made everything that he saw fit into those
pre-conceptions.

The Inner life, vol.II p.155



Perry




--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "Daniel H. Caldwell"
<danielhcaldwell@y...> wrote:
> 
> Perry wrote:
> 
> ==============================================
> He [CWL] may have said you can believe this or not, 
> but that is quite a different thing from not 
> pointing out to his readers and followers how
> his teachings clashed with those of the Adept 
> teachers of Blavatsky he claimed to be a Chela 
> and student of.
> =============================================
> 
> Pedro replies:
> 
> ============================================
> Why should he do this? He [CWL] was presenting the 
> results of HIS OWN studies. And
> 
> "The fact is, that to the last and supreme 
> initiation every chela -(and even some adepts) - 
> is left to his own device and counsel." (ML
> 92, chronological)
> ============================================
> caps added
> 
> It is interesting to compare and contrast what
> Pedro says Leadbeater was doing with what Madame Blavatsky
> said about the Esoteric System:
> 
> She wrote:
> 
> ===========================================
> 
> From Swedenborg onwards there have been many
> seers who profess to gather their knowledge
> of other worlds from actual observation, but
> such persons are isolated, and subject to
> the delusions of isolation. Any intelligent
> man will have an intuitive perception of this,
> expressing itself in a reluctance on his part
> to surrender himself entirely to the assurances
> of any such clairvoyants. But in the case of
> regularly initiated seers it must be remembered
> that we are dealing with a long — an extraordinarily
> long — series of persons who, warned of the
> confusing circumstances into which they pass
> when their spiritual perceptions are trained
> to range beyond material limits, are so enabled
> to penetrate to the actual realities of things,
> and who constitute a vast organized body of seers, who check
> each other's conclusions, test each other's discoveries and
> formulate their visions into a science of spirit as precise
> and entirely trustworthy as, in their humble way, are the
> conclusions, as far as they go, of any branch of physical
> science. Such initiates are in the position, as regards
> spiritual knowledge, that the regularly taught professor
> of a great university is in, as regards literary knowledge,
> and anyone can appreciate the superior claims of instruction
> which might be received from him, as compared with the
> crude and imperfect instruction which might be offered
> by the merely self- taught man. The initiate's speculations,
> in fact, are not spun at all; they are laid out before
> him by the accumulated wisdom of ages, and he has merely
> followed, verified and assimilated them.
> 
> ===========================================================
> 
> Here Madame Blavatsky tells her readers that the
> Adepts "check each other's conclusions . . . [and] test each 
> other's discoveries."
> 
> This is repeated in THE SECRET DOCTRINE where she wrote
> [I abridge the text]:
> 
> =======================================================
> The [Esoteric] system is no fancy of one or several isolated 
> individuals. It is the uninterrupted record covering thousands of 
> generations of Seers. 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.
> =========================================================
> 
> This is the claim put forward by Blavatsky. One may choose
> to doubt it if they so choose.
> 
> But the method as described by Blavatsky is a collorabative effort of 
> comparing, contrasting and checking.
> 
> Is Pedro suggesting that Leadbeater did his studies on his
> own and without consultation with the Adepts Morya, Koot Hoomi and 
> others?
> 
> If so, then Leadbeater would be in the same boat as Swedenborg:
> 
> =================================================
> From Swedenborg onwards there have been many
> seers who profess to gather their knowledge
> of other worlds from actual observation, but
> such persons are isolated, and subject to
> the DELUSIONS OF ISOLATION.
> ===============================================
> caps added
> 
> In other words, did Leadbeater suffer from the DELUSIONS OF ISOLATION?
> 
> Daniel