Theos-Talk Archives (May 2006 Message tt00603)

Dear Friends,
After years dealing with an internet version of Cicero's "De Oficiis" (On Duties, his masterpiece on ETHICS) --  I received yesterday the paper volume from  LOEB's classics, Harvard.
It was funny to see how the translator, in the Preface, puts himself above Cicero. 
Philostratus' translator does the same,   in the same collection.  Present-day scholars think themselves to be far above ancient thinkers. 
This fancy was first stimulated by Vatican scholars.  Its premise is that everything "before Christ" is weak. The best thing some scholars will say of Socrates or Plato is that they "seem to anticipate Christ", when in fact Christian thinkers freely plagiarized ancient thinkers to create out of them their own "theology". 
Jesuits dominate Catholic scholaship. 
In recent decades, theosophists have been giving a -- to me -- undue attention and importance to rank-and-file university researchers, as if having  a  PhD should be enough for someone to be accepted as an intelligent people, or as a person who can to think for himself.   Far from it. Universities titles mean nothing in themselves. In most cases, Universities are but conditioning institutions. 
The correct position of truth-seekers with regard to scholars is probably  the one described thus by Idries Shah:
"We welcome the scholars who want to understand the Path. What of the others? They think that we do not welcome them, but it is they who do not welcome us. They cannot do so while they retain such strange conceptions of the Way" (1) 
Best regards,  Carlos. 
NOTE:
(1) "Wisdom of the Idiots", Idries Shah,The Octagon Press, London, p.49. 


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