Theos-Talk Archives (May 2005 Message tt00652)

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, Drpsionic@a... wrote:

snip
> 
> I'm not sure if the analysis is totally translateable to the TS. 
After all, Theosophists may attack authors but they rarely advocate 
killing them and I know of few incidents where those of us who 
depart from the party line have been physically assaulted though the 
arguments can get rather noisy causing the neighbors to call the 
police.
> 

The Adyar TS is so explicitly committed to universalism, in theory 
and practice, that exclusivistic attitudes are only implicit by and 
large. The same tension exists as in Baha'i, but with a big 
difference. Baha'i puts on its universalist mask to appeal to 
converts but the *moment* one joins one is initiated into a 
profoundly exclusivistic set of norms. Whereas a person can be a 
Theosophist for decades, and as long as s/he doesn't get in the way 
of the power structure the exclusivistic attitudes of the inner 
circle won't be noticed.

However, the TS President is also the OH of the ES, a profoundly 
exclusivistic organization. It's so tiny that the sheep vs. goats 
division it creates in the TS is generally invisible except to those 
unfortunate enough to get on the wrong side of the ES.

> Still, on the whole, a very good little article. Thanks. It made 
me almost 
> wish I had been a Bahai. Being a heretic in that bunch would have 
had some 
> meaning.
> 
Hanging out with the Baha'is in cyberspace in the mid-90s was 
certainly an awakening for me. The exodus of scholars in the wake 
of inquisitions about Internet discussion still reverberates in the 
Baha'i community.

Cheers,

Paul