Theos-Talk Archives (October 1993 Message tl00022)

Nancy:

I should say that I'm not trying to get on a crusade to change anyone's
views on psychic things. You can't really tell someone what to do,
expecially with something as fascinating as psychic phenomena. Some
people like A.P. Sinnett, though, became so interested in phenomena
that their theosophical studies and perhaps spiritual practices were
neglected. There's something that might be called "astral intoxication"
which could be psychologically addicting ...

For someone naturally psychic, it is part of their personal karma, and
part of the makeup of their current personality. It is not a sign of
spiritual development. There will be an occasional person born with
characteristics of an upcoming subrace, but this is not related to the
"dual track of evolution" which is called the Path.

As one shifts one's awareness to the Individuality within, above and
beyond the personality, the tendence would be to naturally lose
interest in experiences of the senses--be they physical or psychical
senses--as the attention becomes seated in something deeper within.

It is not necessary to tell naturally psychic people that it is bad or
hinders their spiritual development. The hinderance is not really
there, in the sense that it is their personal karma to work off in the
persent lifetime. The only time that it becomes important to downplay
the psychic is when one is undergoing a special process of development,
of directed spiritual training. When one has engaged this training,
even if not directed to do so, I would say that one would just
naturally lose interest in the paranormal, and dwell on the process of
self-directed evolution.

I do not personally think that psychic development is a necessary
intermediate stage of development between the start of things and
chelaship. It does not provide a bridge between ordinary awareness
and the spiritual/divine nature of man. It provides access to the
globe D personality to senses of coming subraces, but is unrelated
to the hastened spiritual development possible by stepping beyond
the grand sweep of evolution of the human lifewave. The hastened
evolution is not through enhancements of the personality, although
it is refined and enobled through the effort. The hastened evolution
comes about by a shift of consciouss and experience away from the
personality.

----

You are right that people would be turned off where they are talked to
in a manner that sounds like preaching from textbooks. Textbooks
attempt to give dead-letter expressions to truths that, in the case of
Theosophy, cannot be contained in the words used ... The Teachings
contain fragements of knowledge and wisdom of the Masters, and we
can certainly benefit from their experience. It is not helpful to talk
of the requirements of spiritual training with people far removed from
an interest in or readiness to participate. What we talk about needs to
be adjusted to take into account the person we are communcating with.

In the case of this discussion group, "theos-l", though, I'm assuming
a general understanding of Theosophy, and feel that I can write more
freely here than in most places. And I hope that we all feel free to
contribute! We can benefit as much from writing here as reading what
is written. And we are not limited to a single thread of thought, to
a single person "talking" at a time, like in a in-person discussion
group.

                                 Eldon Tucker
                                 eldon@netcom.com