Theos-Talk Archives (March 2006 Message tt01292)

Do we realize how much our upbringings formulate the way that we
think?  People often make generalizations about other people based on
religion, color, politics, etc.  Is this fair?  Undoubtedly not.  What
about making generalizations concerning religions, etc. as a whole? 
Religions,etc. are composed of groups of people and groups can be
statistically generalized.  People who follow a particular belief
system will be shaped by that system.  Frank in his letter below
alludes to the mental box that thesophists find themselves in.

Steven Levey posted the following description of his own upbringing as
a Jew:

>       Of course there is a problem with being a Jew. I was raised as 
>one, and upon encountering thoughtful people and thoughtful texts, in 
>my early twentys, it became clear to me that I had a problem with 
>myself as a Jew. I mean, Jews are as vindictive a people as there is 
>on this globe. So, a youngster either finds the self-riteousness to 
>justify this behavior in himself, or finds his or herself in a deep 
>quandery. One which will lead to philosphical freedom. But this 
>similar to Damodar's thought in "Casts in India", an article I found
>personally very useful.
>   This is obviously a razor's edge, because Judaism has its roots in
>the Kabbala. But this is because all so-called Semitic religions so, 
>based in the 5 books of Moses called the Pentateuch, Old Testiment, 
>or the Torah, as they are. So the problem is not Judaism per say, it 
>is people and the way they lazily interpret it, that, and the way 
>they raise their kids.  Well, that's how they were raised, so they 
>perpetuate a myth within a myth, based in kabbalisitic mysteries.

Steven points out how we are all products of our environment, the way
we are raised.  He points to the parents for their lazy interpretation
of their religious heritage.  But where did the parents get their
interpretation? - Ultimately it is the teachers, the Rabbis, who lead
the average Jew in his understanding of their heritage.  The Rabbis
have their Talmud that they look to for  guidance, a series of books
put together by other Rabbis, some wise, some less than wise.  The
good and the bad is carried on from generation to generation.  It
becomes a box that traps the minds of the faithful.

Ex-Roman Catholic Priest Chas. Chiniquy tells of a meeting he had with
Abraham Lincoln shortly before his assassination.  Chiniquy was trying
to warn Lincoln that the Jesuits were out to assassinate him.  Here is
how Chiniquy said Lincoln responded to that threat (from memory):

"If I were fighting against a Protestant South, as a nation, there
would be no danger of assassination. The nations who read the Bible
fight bravely on the battlefields, but they do not assassinate their
enemies. The Pope and the Jesuits, with their infernal Inquisition,
are the only organised power in the world which have recourse to the
dagger of the asassin to murder those whom they cannot convince with
their arguments, or conquer with the sword.

"Unfortunately, I feel more and more every day that it is not against
the Americans of the South alone I am fighting, it is more against the
Pope of Rome, his perfidious Jesuits and their blind and blood-thirsty
slaves, than against the real American Protestants, that we have to
defend ourselves. Here is the real danger of our position. So long as
they will hope to conquer the North they will spare me; but the day we
will rout their armies (and that day will surely come, with the help
of God), take their cities, and force them to submit, then it is my
impression that the Jesuits, who are the principal rulers of the
South, will do what they have almost invariably done in the past. The
dagger, or the pistol of one of their adepts, will do what the strong
hands of the warriors could not achieve. This civil war seems to be
nothing but a political affair to those who do not see, as I do, the
secret springs of that terrible drama. But it is more a religious than
a civil war. It is Rome who wants to rule and degrade the North, as
she has ruled and degraded the South from the very day of its
discovery. Even the Protestant ministers are under the influence of
the Jesuits without suspecting it. To keep her ascendancy in the
North, as she does in the South, Rome is doing here what she has done
in Mexico, and in all the South American Republics she is paralysing,
by civil war, the arms of the soldiers of Liberty. She divides
our nation in order to weaken, subdue, and rule it.

" Surely we have some brave and reliable Roman Catholic officers and
soldiers in our armies, but they form an insignificant minority when
compared with the Roman Catholic traitors against whom we have to
guard ourselves day and night. The fact is that the immense majority
of Roman Catholic bishops, priests, and laymen, are rebels at heart
when they cannot be in fact ; for, with very few exceptions, they are
in favour of slavery. For it is a fact, which is now evident to me,
that, with very few exceptions, every priest and every Roman Catholic
is a determined enemy of Liberty. Their extermination, in France, was
one of those terrible necessities which no human wisdom could avoid;
it looks to me now as an order from heaven to save France. May God
grant that the same terrible necessity be never felt in the United
States. But there is a thing which is very certain -it is, that if the
American people could learn what I know of the fierce hatred of the
generality of the priests of Rome against our institutions, our
schools, our most sacred rights, and our dearly bought liberties, they
would drive them away to-morrow from among us, or they would shoot
them as traitors. But I keep those sad secrets in my heart; you are
the only one to whom I reveal them, for I know that you learned them
before me." (Fifty Years in the Church of Rome, pp. 386 - 87)

In Canada, the French, educated by the Jesuits, saw themselves as
victims in a sea of English Protestants.  When they started leaving
the Catholic Church en masse in the 1960's those feelings of
separatism and alienation stayed with them in the form of a Political
Separtist Movement.  Whether they realized it or not, the Church and
its thought patterns were still with them.

This is the generality, but as Lincoln points out there are good
people within the body of unthinking followers.  Theosophists cannot
rescue everyone from their entrenched thought patterns, but we can
appeal to the better men from all religions and theosophical groups to
start dismantling the boxes of thought that trap us all to some extent
or another.  Generally this means exposing the traps for what they
are.  The alternative is to live through more wars and the death of
millions of more people of every race and religion.  Of course we will
not have the moral authority to request it of others if we can't
succeed in doing it with our own various Theosophical Societies.  

Carlos Aveline's Open Letter outlines a path to the healing of the
Movement.  For those that want to do something to further
understanding among the various theosophical traditions, read the
letter at:

http://www.theosophycanada.com/fohat_justice.htm

and request of Adyar that it open up.

Bruce

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "Frank Reitemeyer"
<ringding777@...> wrote:
>
> =>For instance, I would like to see Adyar TS, our 
> own small theosophical
> Vatican, honestly saying:
> 
> 
> Carlos, basicly a good idea, but without hope of 
> become real, at least with the present people 
> leading Adyar (with some exceptions here and 
> then).
> What is needed is people in leading positions of 
> the character of a John Coats, one who respects 
> Truth and Brotherhood more that his own sect.
> 
> =>*Sorry, we made a persecution against W. Judge 
> in the 1890s and he was
> innocent".
> 
> The spiritual decline began with the lies against 
> Judge. To justify this lies Adyar invented myriads 
> of new lies. A whole card house.
> 
> =>*Sorry, we recently adopted the Coulomb and 
> Soloviof lies in our books, we
> will not go on with that".
> 
> My point is not so much that they print it, but 
> that they present it in a misleading form make 
> them appear as if they were authentic.
> 
> =>*Sorry, we declared Krishnamurti was the vehicle 
> for the Lord Christ and he
> would reform the world and extinguish all wars in 
> the 20th century, we were
> wrong."
> 
> K for himself said in 1921 regarding the break of 
> promises of US President Wilson via Germany and 
> her unjust plundering, that they prepare for a new 
> World War and he wonders how to stop it.
> I write this from memory, have read it elsewhere 
> in K literature and have the source not at hand.
> 
> It was also Wilson who promised that the USA would 
> enter the war to end all wars. But they did not 
> end to plunder other nations.
> Later on Roosevelt promised, too, to lead the USA 
> into WW II (the Pearl Harbor trick) to end all 
> wars forever.
> But in 1945 the wars did not stop. They did not 
> stop to plunder other nations (Korea, Vietnam, 
> Panama, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan), over 200 wars 
> since 1945 and most were initiated by the CIA.
> 
> At the 100th German Section Anniversary in Berlin 
> Dr. Peter Michel's chela Miss Manuela Oetinger 
> confirmed unchallenged on the authority of the 
> Masters - she named to me KH, M, Dwjual Khool, St. 
> Germain, Krishnamurti, Blavatsky (sic) - which she 
> channels and which she saw flying around in the 
> hall, nodding benevolent, that the present wars of 
> Bush must be supported by all Theosophists and 
> that wer must do as much evil things as possible 
> to combat the evil and that Bush now makes forever 
> an end with all wars.
> We are near the paradise! Hooray!
> Peter Michel later on confirmed that the history 
> of the Adyar TS is an unparalleled success story 
> and based on this bif successes their future will 
> be glorious!
> Hallelujah!
> 
> OTOH, level-headed theosophists, esp. those who 
> have studied the material of Adyar's political 
> intrigues in both World Wars, could come to the 
> conclusion that those who talk of wars to end the 
> wars suffer from shizophrenia and TALK quite the 
> opposite of what they DO!
> 
> Frank
>