Theos-Talk Archives (August 2006 Message tt00026)

Dear Friends, 
 
 
Years ago, Walter Carrithers, Jr., a long-standing member of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), examined details in HPB’s life in order to get the real facts – and he proved her innocent.  
 
Carrithers’ efforts later received the support of another influential member of the SPR, historian Leslie Price.  Soon the S.P.R. confessed its frauds against HPB and admitted she was innocent.  
 
Daniel Caldwell, John Algeo and a few others are going precisely the other way around.  They are walking against the facts in order to keep the proven lies circulating.   
 
Now, should we get personally angry at the new versions of the old Soloviof and the Coulombs? 
 
Not at all.  
 
Those of us who may be tempted by feelings of anger should meditate on the Stoic philosophy of Epictetus, a  freed slave and sage  in the Roman Empire. 
 
Epictetus taught: 
 
“The untrained response to robbers and thugs and to those who otherwise err is outrage and retribution. Wrongdoers need to be rightly understood to form the correct response to their behaviour. The appropriate response to bad deeds is pity for the perpetrators, since they have adopted unsound beliefs and are deprived of the most valuable human capacity : the ability to differentiate between what is  truly good and bad for them. Their original moral intuitions have been distorted, so they have no chance at inner serenity. Whenever someone does something foolish, pity him rather than yield to hatred and anger as so many do.”  (1) 
 
 
Best regards, Carlos Cardoso Aveline 
 
 
 
NOTE: 
 
(1) The Art of Living, the Manual  by Epictetus, a new interpretation by Sharon Lebell, HarperSanFrancisco, HarperCollins,  USA, 1994, 113 pp., see p. 102. 
 
 


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