No religious preference
Jul 10, 2012 00:52 AM
by M. Sufilight
Dear friends
My views are:
The following by Abner Doubleday given to all members of the Theosophical Society in 1878:
THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY: Its Origin, Plan and Aims:
"Its Fellowship is divided into three Sections, and each Section into three Degrees. All candidates for active fellowship are required to enter as probationers, in the Third Degree of the Third Section, and no fixed time is specified in which the new Fellow can advance from any lower to a higher degree; all depends upon merit. To be admitted into the highest degree, of the first section, the Theosophist must have become freed of every leaning toward any one form of religion in preference to another. . . . He must be ready to lay down his life, if necessary, for the good of Humanity, and of a brother Fellow of whatever race, color or ostensible creed. . . . Those who have not yet wholly disenthralled themselves from religious prejudice, and other forms of selfishness, but have made a certain progress towards self-mastery and enlightenment, belong in the Second Section. The Third Section is probationary; . . .
The objects of the Society are various. . . . The Society teaches and expects its fellows to personally exemplify the highest morality and religious aspiration; to oppose the materialism of science and every form of dogmatic theology, especially the Christian, which the Chiefs of the Society regard as particularly pernicious; . . . to disseminate a knowledge of the sublime teachings of that pure esoteric system of the archaic period, . . . finally, and chiefly, to aid in the institution of a Brotherhood of Humanity, . . ."
? THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY: Its Origin, Plan and Aims (Circular from Doubleday Notebook, no. 7).
http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/hpb-tm/hpbtm-6.htm
(I cannot find the full circular online. I wonder why it is not online in full?)
What strike me as interesting is the sentence on: No religious preference.
And then the clear emphasis on considering Christianity pernicious and opposing it, as well as materialism.
Later this got changed and now - we have a Liberal Catholic Church on the TS Adyar Compound as well as a few other more or less preferred Shrines, preferred and favoured it seem before other religious branches and organizations.
Wierd, is it not??? Would you join such a shape-shifting organization???
And now people complain about lack of membership...hmmm.
M. Sufilight
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