Theos-Talk Archives (February 2005 Message tt00421)

The presence of a ringer at a White House press conference is nothing new according to Robert Novak on Capitol Gang on CNN. He remembered John F. Kennedy doing the same at his press conferences and every president since then have following. Times change and things in the past that were overlooked are no longer off limits. Most of the older viewers remember when the politics of personal destruction was unsavory and no one mentioned JFK philandering or senators alcoholic addictions. One should not look on this as something new.

David B.
-------------- Original message -------------- 

> 
> 
> Hey, 
> 
> This post is inspired by the following and also by Adelasie's 
> question about a new paradigm for dissemination. 
> 
> --- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "Perry Coles" 
> wrote: (after other things I don't dispute) 
> > 
> >> 
> > But because in theosophy we are encouraged away from blind belief 
> in any form this tradition of the Adepts is simply there for people 
> to examine at the bar of their own reason and completely free to 
> accept or reject it as they choose. 
> > 
> > Perry 
> > 
> But I see this as including assumptions, probably unexamined and 
> possibly unconscious, that really distort the issue of what is 
> problematic about CWL's legacy. When you refer (as in an earlier 
> post) to "THIS tradition of THE Adepts" which people are completely 
> free "to accept or reject" that very framing destroys the essence of 
> intellectual freedom. 
> 
> As I see it what you are saying is that the doctrines in the 
> writings of HPB and the Mahatmas are univocal, and that Besant and 
> Leadbeater are speaking in a different voice and pretending that it 
> is the same. However, even a cursory examination of the early 
> literature of the TS shows discourse at two levels: 
> 1. There are MANY traditions and MANY different schools of adepts 
> which HPB and the MLs refer to, argue about, promote, etc. The 
> spiritual legacy of humanity is MULTIVOCAL and that is a fact openly 
> acknowledged and clearly understood. 
> 2. But at a deeper level there are common doctrinal and historical 
> threads linking all these various traditions and schools, a 
> perspective which subsequently was called Perennialism. 
> 
> The problem comes IMO when the two levels are conflated. It is fine 
> to acknowledge that HISTORICALLY we have all these diverse and 
> conflicting voices contributing to "wisdom" while saying that 
> METAHISTORICALLY there is something deeper uniting them. It is also 
> fine to be AHISTORICAL in perspective and say it doesn't matter to 
> you what the source is in time and space and context because the 
> bottom line is how the doctrine affects your own spiritual growth 
> and expanding awareness and compassion. What is not fine, IMO, and 
> in fact is the fatal curse of the TM, is to take an ANTIHISTORICAL 
> stance and to say "it doesn't matter what the evidence shows about 
> all the diversity and conflicts within this broad range of human 
> spirituality. It really all came from a single civilization in 
> Atlantis (or Lemuria, or buried in caves in Tibet, etc.) Yes, HPB 
> and MLs talking about cave libraries and Senzar as historical rather 
> than metaphorical. But taking all that as factual puts one in the 
> position of rejecting history. 
> 
> If you closely examine the Theosophical literature in HPB's time it 
> already can be seen to be highly multivocal. Lots of doctrinal 
> changes and evolving perspectives in her own writings and in those 
> of her alleged source. Whoever wrote the Mahatma letters, they 
> fairly clearly are speaking in multiple voices. 
> 
> With CWL, on the other hand, he claims to be speaking on behalf of a 
> bunch of different sources, BUT THEY ALL SOUND EXACTLY LIKE CWL. 
> CWL imposed a univocality that was not present heretofore, making 
> Theosophy an orthodoxy in violation of everything HPB stood for. 
> But many other kinds of Theosophists have perpetrated the 
> univocality myth and used it as a weapon to stifle diversity and 
> intellectual freedom. 
> 
> If there is a new paradigm relevant to all this, to me it is 
> MULTIVOCALITY. Think of how people for so long took "the Bible" to 
> be one single message from one God with one plan for humanity etc. 
> And how now only fundies buy that and everyone with any sense 
> understands that it's many different books written from many 
> different perspectives. Even the gospels are multivocal; the church 
> tried to stifle that by excluding MOST of the diverse voices but 
> even the canonical four are multivocal. 
> 
> Each of the Theosophical organizations tries to impose its own 
> version of univocality, in who speaks for Theosophy, who is a real 
> Theosophist, what questions are and are not relevant to ask. But in 
> the age of the Internet they cannot put the genie back in the 
> bottle. Anyone who does a google search on HPB or Theosophy will 
> immediately become privy to ALL the diverse perspectives that the 
> various organizations want to stifle. 
> 
> I will close by drawing a parallel to what is happening with the 
> news media in the US, which are increasingly distrusted as 
> propaganda tools of the government (say liberals) or the 
> imaginary "liberal establishment" by rightwingers. The blogosphere 
> is a cacaphony of conflicting voices, but out of this comes truths 
> that the univocal "main stream media" would prefer to stifle. For 
> example, it has been bloggers who have uncovered the presence of a 
> male prostitute with zero journalistic credentials or background, 
> working under a pseudonym, welcomed into White House press 
> conferences and used as a ringer who can be relied on to 
> ask "questions" that are ALWAYS attacks on the administration's 
> critics. The main stream media folks have been trying to dismiss 
> this discovery by framing it as "mean liberal bloggers persecuting a 
> conservative journalist." But it doesn't look like they are going 
> to get away with it, not with the guy turning out to have been 
> employed by an outfit created by Texas Republicans and to have been 
> involved in the felonious outing of a CIA agent who was pursuing 
> weapons of mass destruction. Here's a link to a couple of articles 
> on all this and what it says about the "news." 
> 
> http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php? 
> az=view_all&address=102x1241377 
> 
> http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/05/02/16_theories.html 
> 
> Bottom line is univocality=authority is the OLD PARADIGM. 
> Multivocality=truthseeking is the NEW PARADIGM. 
> 
> Cheers, 
> 
> Paul 
> 
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> Yahoo! Groups Links 
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