Theos-Talk Archives (February 2005 Message tt00081)

Dear Pedro,

Interestingly, and germane to HPB's comments, the 1880s marked the 
beginning of this war between those who sought to preserve the 
separation between church and state when a well organized Christian 
lobby sought to amend the Constitution to acknowledge Christ and the 
Bible. This battle re-surfaces about every forty years and is now in 
its fourth re-occurance. I fear that they might win this time.  

--j


prmoliveira wrote:

>--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, Jerry Hejka-Ekins <jjhe@c...> 
>wrote:
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>>Clearly, the Bush agenda is out to 
>>destroy the fundamental principle of the separation of church and 
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>state 
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>>so carefully established by our founders. This "Theocracy Watch" 
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>video 
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>>does a great job in documenting how this "Christian 
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>Reconstructionism" 
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>>came about, who are the players in and out of Government, their 
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>game 
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>>plan, how they rally support to their cause, and what bills they 
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>are 
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>>passing through Congress. 
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>>Behind all of this political manipulation is the clever use of 
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>rhetoric 
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>>in order to re-establish modernist values of blind obedience to 
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>the 
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>>political and social hierarchies and destroy the postmodernist 
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>advances 
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>>of the last forty years: i.e. racial equality, women's rights, 
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>etc. 
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>> Unfortunately, those who have been apathetic to politics either 
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>through 
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>>discouragement, or just feel that politics is beneath them, or are 
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>in a 
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>>state of denial and dismiss all of this as "conspiracy theories" 
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>part of 
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>>the problem, because their apathy (and consequential ignorance) 
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>are now 
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>>inadvertently instrumental in enabling the Christian 
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>Reconstructionists 
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>>to turn this country into a theocracy and take away the human 
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>rights we 
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>>have fought so long for.  
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>Thanks for your comments Jerry. After seeing the video and reading 
>the posts commenting on it here, I am left with a (probably) naive 
>question in my mind: what happened to the legacy of Martin Luther 
>King, Jr and the Civil Rights Movement, the strong Feminist 
>Movement, the Fist Amendment, the Counterculture, among others?
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>How come a nation that with fierce and courageous struggle enshrined 
>the fundamental principle of individual freedom under the law, has 
>now become exposed to the rule of a political, economic and 
>religious oligarchy that is out to destroy everything America has 
>stood for? 
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>Can you identify the historical turning point that has led to this? 
>Or has Christian ultra-fundamentalism always been that strong and 
>influential in America? 
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>It seems virtually impossible for two other traditional democracies 
>in the world - England and France, for example - to undergo a 
>similar process: a theocratic domination. People would be out in the 
>streets in their millions at the very first sign of it and there 
>could civil wars. On the other hand, a civil war in the US today is 
>unthinkable as a Christian ultra-fundamentalist already has his 
>hands on the WMDs codes and controls.
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>Is it possible that HPB could have foreseen this developments, as 
>early as 1889? The following are excerpts from her article "The New 
>Cycle" (for the full article see:
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>http://www.austheos.org.au/topics/thenewcycle.htm)
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>"We have already said elsewhere, in The Theosophist, that "born in 
>the United States of America the Theosophical Society was 
>constituted on the model of its Mother Land." The latter, as we 
>know, has omitted the name of God from its Constitution, for fear, 
>said the Fathers of the Republic, that the word might one day become 
>the pretext for a State religion; for they desired to grant absolute 
>equality to all religions under the law, so that each form would 
>support the State, which in its turn would protect them all."
>
>"We must prepare and study truth under every aspect, endeavoring to 
>ignore nothing, if we do not wish to fall into the abyss of the 
>unknown when the hour shall strike. It is useless to leave it to 
>chance and await the intellectual and psychic crisis which is 
>preparing, with indifference, if not with crass disbelief, saying 
>that at the worst the rising tide will carry us naturally towards 
>the shore; for it is very likely that the tidal wave will cast up 
>nothing but a corpse. The strife will be terrible in any case 
>between brutal materialism and blind fanaticism on the one hand, and 
>philosophy and mysticism on the other - mysticism, that veil of more 
>or less translucency which hides the eternal Truth."
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>"But although the man of today may be a fanatic, a skeptic, or a 
>mystic, he must become thoroughly convinced that it is useless for 
>him to struggle against the two moral forces today unleashed and in 
>supreme contest. He is at the mercy of these two adversaries, and no 
>intermediary force is capable of protecting him. It is but a 
>question of choice, whether to let himself be carried along without 
>a struggle on the wave of mystical evolution, or to writhe against 
>the reaction of moral and psychic evolution, and so find himself 
>engulfed in the Maelström of the new tide. At the present time, the 
>whole world, with its centres of high intelligence and human 
>culture, its focal points of political, artistic, literary, and 
>commercial life, is in turmoil; everything is shaking and crumbling 
>in its movement towards reform. It is useless to remain blind, it is 
>useless to hope that anyone can remain neutral between the two 
>contending forces; one has to choose either the one or the other, or 
>be crushed between them. The man who imagines he has chosen freedom, 
>but remains submerged in that boiling caldron, foaming with foul 
>matter called social life, most terribly betrays his own divine 
>Self, a betrayal which will blind that Self in the course of a long 
>series of future incarnations. All of you who hesitate on the path 
>of Theosophy and the occult sciences, who are trembling on the 
>golden threshold of truth -- the only one within your grasp, for all 
>the others have failed you, one after another -- squarely face the 
>great Reality which is offered you. It is to mystics only that these 
>words are addressed, for them alone have they any importance; for 
>those who have already made their choice they are vain and useless. 
>But you, Occultists, Kabbalists and Theosophists, you well know that 
>a Word, old as the world, though new to you, has been sounded at the 
>beginning of this cycle, and the potentiality of which, unperceived 
>by others, lies hidden in the sum of the digits of the years 1 8 8 
>9; you well know that a note has just been struck which has never 
>been heard by mankind of this era; and that a New Idea is revealed, 
>ripened by the forces of evolution. This Idea differs from 
>everything that has been produced in the nineteen century; it is 
>identical, however, with the thought that has been the dominant tone 
>and the keynote of every century, especially the last -- absolute 
>freedom of thought for humanity."
>
>"For all the past centuries our nineteenth has been the most 
>criminal. It is criminal in its frightful selfishness, in its 
>skepticism which grimaces at the very idea of anything beyond the 
>material; in its idiotic indifference to all that does not pertain 
>to the personal self, more than any of the previous centuries of 
>ignorant barbarism and intellectual darkness. Our century must be 
>saved from itself before its last hour strikes. For all those who 
>see the sterility and folly of an existence blinded by materialism 
>and ferociously indifferent to the fate of their neighbour, this is 
>the moment to act; now is the time for them to devote all their 
>energies, all their courage and all their efforts to a great 
>intellectual reform. This reform can only be accomplished by 
>Theosophy, and, let us add, by Occultism or the wisdom of the 
>Orient. The paths that lead to it are many; but the wisdom is one." 
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>I am afraid.
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>Pedro 
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>Yahoo! Groups Links
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