Re: Theos-World Leadbeater and the ordination of women
May 25, 2005 02:39 AM
by Cass Silva
Dear Gregory,
Do you honestly believe that priests, male or female, are channels for spiritual energies. I doubt it very much.
The Apostles were assigned the job of "educating" the masses into the new religion. Were any of them able to control nature or see into the hearts of mankind as did the Master Jesus? I do not mean to offend anyone, but I have never met any priest or priestess who was able to channel these forces. If anything, it is the collective unconscious that generates the spiritual experience, prompted by the ritual.
Cass
gregory@zeta.org.au wrote:
In response to Bart's question:
"It is often asked whether a woman could validly be ordained. The ordinary
clerical answer is in the words: 'We have no such custom, neither the Churches
of God,' fortified perhaps by the reminder that the Christ is said to have
chosen His twelve apostles and His seventy preachers exclusively among men.
This is an argument of some merit, but we add to it a further consideration -
that this particular type of force is not adapted to work through the feminine
organism. There are other types of energy which are so arranged, but they are
of quite a different character and are little known to our present
civilization much, I fancy, to its loss. The cult of our Blessed Lady in the
Roman Catholic Church is an unconscious effort to fill a gap which many people
instinctively recognize.
One of the conditions under which we receive this mighty gift of grace is that
it is arranged to flow through the masculine organism. The forces now arranged
for the distribution through the priesthood would not work efficiently through
a feminine body; but it is quite conceivable that the present arrangements may
be altered by the Lord Himself. It would no doubt be easy for Him, if He so
chose, either to revive some form of the old religions in which the feminine
Aspect of the Deity was served by priestesses, or so to modify the physics of
the Catholic scheme of forces that a feminine body could be satisfactorily
employed in the work. Meantime, we have no choice but to administer His Church
along the lines laid down for us."
[C.W. Leadbeater "The Sacraments. An abridged and revised Edition of his
Book 'The Science of the Sacraments'" St Alban Press, Sydney, 1993:241-2 -
edited and revised by Sten von Krustenstierna, former Presiding Bishop of the
Liberal Catholic Church]
It is said that Geoffrey Hodson (a Liberal Catholic priest)
undertook "clairvoyant experiments" in "observing" the purported ordination of
a woman by a Liberal Catholic bishop (it didn't "work"), and in examining
Hosts "consecrated" by a woman priest (they weren't as "powerful" as those
consecrated by a male priest).
Dr Gregory Tillett
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