Theos-Talk Archives (December 2005 Message tt00052)

People are easily misled by others by psychological tactics.
Commissioned salespeople use these tricks to increase their sales.

Anyone could easily misdirect an ignorant person who has little
opinion and a handful of prejudices regarding a topic. All you have to
do is play with that person's preconceived notions of the said
subject. A skeptic will do the same thing, except he may be
self-deluded as well, often referencing things that they improperly
perceived.

For instance, see some of the definitions at www.skepdic.com

-Mark H.

On 12/9/05, W.Dallas TenBroeck <dalval14@earthlink.net> wrote:
> December 9, 2005
>
> Dear Sveinn Freyr and Friends:
>
> Let me quote from a recent letter:
>
> "       One of the stimulating factors we can take into consideration when
> we think of defending HPB and her work is that she is not  really dead.
> There is no death for a soul like the one who was once born under the name
> of Helena Petrovna von Hahn.
>
> Another practical reason is that the work and life-example of such a soul is
> now, as it will be in the future, of great importance as an occult and
> magnetic bridge between mankind and the Elder Brothers."
>
>
> You ask:  "Can you please tell me, why has "HPB has fallen in discredit" ...
> and what is the meaning of the word: "neotheosophy"?"
>
>
> It would be better to ask directly the author of those questions to explain,
> than for any of us to speculate --
>
> Lets get some ideas clear:
>
>
> A       HPB is alive and not "dead."
>
> B       The Mahatmas exist.
>
> C       THEOSOPHY is the continuous record of the laws, processes and
> history of manifestation.
>
> D       The trace of its age-old presence is shown to us in ISIS UNVEILED
> and the SECRET DOCTRINE  and in HPB's many articles.
>
>                                         ---------------
>
>
> 1       HPB will always be in "discredit" among the materialists and those
> who desire to argue white is black.
>
> 2       "neo" (new ?) theosophy" has nothing to do with ancient and
> immemorial THEOSOPHY
>
>
>         Consider this:
>
> From the prefaces of ISIS UNVEILED and SECRET DOCTRINE :
>
>
> ISIS UNVEILED [1877]    "It was while most anxious to solve these perplexing
> problems ...
>
> ["      We believe in no Magic which transcends the scope and capacity of
> the human mind, nor in "miracle," whether divine or diabolical, if such
> imply a transgression of the laws of nature instituted from all eternity.
> Nevertheless, we accept the saying of the gifted author of Festus, that the
> human heart has not yet fully uttered itself, and that we have never
> attained or even understood the extent of its powers. Is it too much to
> believe that man should be developing new sensibilities and a closer
> relation with nature? The logic of evolution must teach as much, if carried
> to its legitimate conclusions. If, somewhere, in the line of ascent from
> vegetable or ascidian to the noblest man a soul was evolved, gifted with
> intellectual qualities, it cannot be unreasonable to infer and believe that
> a faculty of perception is also growing in man, enabling him to descry facts
> and truths even beyond our ordinary ken. Yet we do not hesitate to accept
> the assertion of Biffé, that "the essential is forever the same. Whether we
> cut away the marble inward that hides the statue in the block, or pile stone
> upon stone outward till the temple is completed, our NEW result is only an
> old idea. The latest of all the eternities will find its destined other
> half-soul in the earliest."  When, years ago, we first travelled over the
> East, exploring the penetralia of its deserted sanctuaries, two saddening
> and ever-recurring questions oppressed our thoughts: Where, WHO, WHAT is
> GOD? Who ever saw the  IMMORTAL SPIRIT of man, so as to be able to assure
> himself of man's immortality? ] ...
> that we came into contact with certain men, endowed with such mysterious
> powers and such profound knowledge that we may truly designate them as the
> sages of the Orient. To their instructions we lent a ready ear.
>
> They showed us that by combining science with religion, the existence of God
> and immortality of man's spirit may be demonstrated like a problem of
> Euclid. For the first time we received the assurance that the Oriental
> philosophy has room for no other faith than an absolute and immovable faith
> in the omnipotence of man's own immortal self.
>
> We were taught that this omnipotence comes from the kinship of man's spirit
> with the Universal Soul — God! The latter, they said, can never be
> demonstrated but by the former. Man-spirit proves God-spirit, as the one
> drop of water proves a source from which it must have come. Tell one who had
> never seen water, that there is an ocean of water, and he must accept it on
> faith or reject it altogether. But let one drop fall upon his hand, and he
> then has the fact from which all the rest may be inferred. After that he
> could by degrees understand that a boundless and fathomless ocean of water
> existed. Blind faith would no longer be necessary; he would have supplanted
> it with KNOWLEDGE. When one sees mortal man displaying tremendous
> capabilities, controlling the forces of nature and opening up to view the
> world of spirit, the reflective mind is overwhelmed with the conviction that
> if one man's spiritual Ego can do this much, the capabilities of the FATHER
> SPIRIT must be relatively as much vaster as the whole ocean surpasses the
> single drop in volume and potency.
>
> Ex nihilo nihil fit; prove the soul of man by its wondrous powers — you have
> proved God! In our studies, mysteries were shown to be no mysteries. Names
> and places that to the Western mind have only a significance derived from
> Eastern fable, were shown to be realities. Reverently we stepped in spirit
> within the temple of Isis; to lift aside the veil of "the one that is and
> was and shall be" at Saïs; to look through the rent curtain of the Sanctum
> Sanctorum at Jerusalem; and even to interrogate within the crypts which once
> existed beneath the sacred edifice, the mysterious Bath-Kol. The Filia Vocis
> — the daughter of the divine voice —
> responded from the mercy-seat within the veil,* and science, theology, every
> human hypothesis and conception born of imperfect knowledge, lost forever
> their authoritative character in our sight. The one-living God had spoken
> through his oracle —man, and we were satisfied. Such knowledge is priceless;
> and it has been hidden only from those who overlooked it, derided it, or
> denied its existence.
>
>
> 1        From such as these we apprehend criticism, censure, and perhaps
> hostility, although the obstacles in our way neither spring from the
> validity of proof, the authenticated facts of history, nor the lack of
> common sense among the public whom we address.
>
> 2       The drift of modern thought is palpably in the direction of
> liberalism in religion as well as science. Each day brings the reactionists
> nearer to the point where they must surrender the despotic authority over
> the public conscience, which they have so long enjoyed and exercised. ...
>
>     Centuries of subjection have not quite congealed the life-blood of men
> into crystals around the nucleus of blind faith; and the nineteenth is
> witnessing the struggles of the giant as he shakes off the Liliputian
> cordage and rises to his feet. Even the Protestant communion of England and
> America, now engaged in the revision of the text of its Oracles, will be
> compelled to show the origin and merits of the text itself. The day of
> domineering over men with dogmas has reached its gloaming.
>
>
> 3       Our work, then, is a plea for the recognition of the Hermetic
> philosophy, the anciently universal Wisdom-Religion, as the only possible
> key to the Absolute in science and theology. To show that we do not at all
> conceal from ourselves the gravity of our undertaking, we may say in advance
> that it would not be strange if the following classes should array
> themselves against us:
> ——————— FOOTNOTE        ————————————
>
> * Lightfoot assures us that this voice, which had been used in times past
> for a testimony from heaven, "was indeed performed by magic art" (vol. ii.,
> p. 128). This latter term is used as a supercilious expression, just because
> it was and is still misunderstood. It is the object of this work to correct
> the erroneous opinions concerning "magic art." ...
>
> 4             The Christians, who will see that we question the evidences of
> the genuineness of their faith.
>
> 5            The Scientists, who will find their pretensions placed in the
> same bundle with those of the Roman Catholic Church for infallibility, and,
> in certain particulars, the sages and philosophers of the ancient world
> classed higher than they. Pseudo-Scientists will, of course, denounce us
> furiously.
>
> 6            Broad Churchmen and Freethinkers will find that we do not
> accept what they do, but demand the recognition of the whole truth.
> Men of letters and various authorities, who hide their real belief in
> deference to popular prejudices.
>
> 7            The mercenaries and parasites of the Press, who prostitute its
> more than royal power, and dishonor a noble profession, will find it easy to
> mock at things too wonderful for them to understand; for to them the price
> of a paragraph is more than the value of sincerity. From many will come
> honest criticism; from many — cant. But we look to the future.
>
> 8          The contest now going on between the party of public conscience
> and the party of reaction, has already developed a healthier tone of
> thought. It will hardly fail to result ultimately in the overthrow of error
> and the triumph of Truth. We repeat again — we are laboring for the brighter
> morrow.
>
> 9           And yet, when we consider the bitter opposition that we are
> called upon to face, who is better entitled than we upon entering the arena
> to write upon our shield the hail of the Roman gladiator to Cæsar:
>
>                                                         MORITURUS TE
> SALUTÂT!
> New York, September, 1877.
>
> =========================
>
>
>         From SECRET DOCTRINE [ 1888 ]  Preface
>
>     This scheme, it must be added, was not in contemplation when the
> preparation of the work was first announced. As originally announced, it was
> intended that the "Secret Doctrine" should be an amended and enlarged
> version of "Isis Unveiled." It was, however, soon found that the
> explanations which could be added to those already put before the world in
> the last-named and other works dealing with esoteric science, were such as
> to require a different method of treatment: and consequently the present
> volumes do not contain, in all, twenty pages extracted from "Isis Unveiled."
>
>
>     The author does not feel it necessary to ask the indulgence of her
> readers and critics for the many defects of literary style, and the
> imperfect English which may be found in these pages. She is a foreigner, and
> her knowledge of the language was acquired late in life. The English tongue
> is employed because it offers the most widely-diffused medium for conveying
> the truths which it had become her duty to place before the world.
>
>     These truths are in no sense put forward as a revelation; nor does the
> author claim the position of a revealer of mystic lore, now made public for
> the first time in the world's history. For what is contained in this work is
> to be found scattered throughout thousands of volumes embodying the
> scriptures of the great Asiatic and early European religions, hidden under
> glyph and symbol, and hitherto left unnoticed because of this veil. What is
> now attempted is to gather the oldest tenets together and to make of them
> one harmonious and unbroken whole. The sole advantage which the writer has
> over her predecessors, is that she need not resort to personal speculations
> and theories. For this work is a partial statement of what she herself has
> been taught by more advanced students, supplemented, in a few details only,
> by the results of her
>  viii
> own study and observation. The publication of many of the facts herein
> stated has been rendered necessary by the wild and fanciful speculations in
> which many Theosophists and students of mysticism have indulged, during the
> last few years, in their endeavour to, as they imagined, work out a complete
> system of thought from the few facts previously communicated to them.
>
>     It is needless to explain that this book is not the Secret Doctrine in
> its entirety, but a select number of fragments of its fundamental tenets,
> special attention being paid to some facts which have been seized upon by
> various writers, and distorted out of all resemblance to the truth.
>
>     But it is perhaps desirable to state unequivocally that the teachings,
> however fragmentary and incomplete, contained in these volumes, belong
> neither to the Hindu, the Zoroastrian, the Chaldean, nor the Egyptian
> religion, neither to Buddhism, Islam, Judaism nor Christianity exclusively.
> The Secret Doctrine is the essence of all these. Sprung from it in their
> origins, the various religious schemes are now made to merge back into their
> original element, out of which every mystery and dogma has grown, developed,
> and become materialised.
>
>     It is more than probable that the book will be regarded by a large
> section of the public as a romance of the wildest kind; for who has ever
> even heard of the book of Dzyan?
>
>     The writer, therefore, is fully prepared to take all the responsibility
> for what is contained in this work, and even to face the charge of having
> invented the whole of it. That it has many shortcomings she is fully aware;
> all that she claims for it is that, romantic as it may seem to many, its
> logical coherence and consistency entitle this new Genesis to rank, at any
> rate, on a level with the "working hypotheses" so freely accepted by modern
> science. Further, it claims consideration, not by reason of any appeal to
> dogmatic authority, but because it closely adheres to Nature, and follows
> the laws of uniformity and analogy.
>
>     The aim of this work may be thus stated: to show that Nature is not "a
> fortuitous concurrence of atoms," and to assign to man his rightful place in
> the scheme of the Universe; to rescue from degradation the archaic truths
> which are the basis of all religions; and to uncover, to some extent, the
> fundamental unity from which they all spring; finally, to show that the
> occult side of Nature has never been approached by the Science of modern
> civilization.
>
>     If this is in any degree accomplished, the writer is content. It is
> written in the service of humanity, and by humanity and the future
> generations it must be judged. Its author recognises no inferior court of
> appeal. Abuse she is accustomed to; calumny she is daily acquainted with; at
> slander she smiles in silent contempt.
>
> De minimis non curat lex.
>                                         H.P.B.
> London, October, 1888.
>
>
>
>
> =============================
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Dallas
>
> ======================================
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: On Behalf Of Sveinn Freyr
> Sent: Friday, December 09, 2005 10:28 AM
> To:
> Subject: Can you please tell me ? someone on the mail list.
>
> Can you please tell me, why has "HPB has fallen in discredit" ...
> and
>
> what is the meaning of the word: "neotheosophy"?
>
>         Sveinn Freyr
> _________________
>
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> Yahoo! Groups Links
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--
Mark Hamilton Jr.
waking.adept@gmail.com