Theos-Talk Archives (February 1994 Message tl00020)

Arvind

>>   In other words you are suggesting that Foster Bailey didn't
>> know what he was talking about and he got away with it because
>> most people reading the book are not informed enough to make a
>> distinction between the SD and TSD.

> No I am not suggesting this.  I am suggesting that the
> distinction between SD and TSD appears to be a 'big deal' for
> you, but it is not such a big deal for others.  If Foster was
> alive today, you could have gotten an answer to your very
> specific question.  Perhaps he would have shown you some
> reference or papers where HPB wrote this.  I donot know the
> answer to your question and have previously offered to include
> it in a formal request to Lucis.

     There is a Jewish joke once told by Sigmund Freud
demonstrating that when the relation of the signifier (word) is
deprived of its relationship to the signified (what the word
refers to), the dialogue comes to a close:

     "Yes, why are you lying to me?" one character shouts
     breathlessly. "Yes, why do you lie to me saying you're going
     to Cracow so I should believe you're going to Lemberg, when
     in reality you are going to Cracow?"

     So I would ask: Why does Foster Bailey lie to me referring
to TSD, so I should believe he is referring to the SD, when in
reality he is referring to TSD?  Perhaps FB would have shown me
some "reference or papers where HPB wrote this"  but we don't
know if he would have, and we don't know if such "reference or
papers" exists.  We can however check his statement against what
is available in print, and here we find him in contradiction to
what evidence we have.

     Yes, it is a big deal to me when someone refers to the title
of a book when the subject matter is meant, or visa versa,
because it makes it difficult for me to decode what they are
talking about, and also leave me to wonder whether they know what
they are talking about.  It was a big enough deal for HPB that
she made the distinction in her introductory chapter, and
continued to make that distinction all through TSD.  For those
who never read TSD, it would not be a big deal--it would probably
be meaningless.  It appears that students in the AS are so used
to this kind of slippage between the word and its meaning that
these kind of statements go un-noticed.

> I already stated that I have never come across the word
> 'theogonic' in my reading of AAB material, but I will look up the
> index to AAB writings and see if there is any reference to it,
> and if there is one, I'll let you know.  Yes, it is confusing
> that different authors have used different words to refer to
> the same thing;  in general I'd grant anyone the right to use
> any words they use provided they explain somewhere what they
> mean by them.

     Agreed.

> Psychology in the human context is in fact the same
> as psychology in the cosmological context.  This is the true
> basis of brotherhood, everything is interrelated!  There is but
> ONE SOUL!!  See for example, p. 233 of TCF "The manifesting
> Units of Consciousness".

     This as apparently being so in AAB's teachings, considering
her dual meaning of the word "psychology."  In HPB's teachings,
to say that "psychology in the human context is in fact the same
as psychology in the cosmological context"  would be a nonsense
statement, because she doesn't use the word "psychology" in a
cosmological context.

>>> Remember that all references to the 'psychological key' that
>>> we have seen so far have come from either the autobiography
>>> or Foster Bailey's introduction to TCF, both of which were
>>> written after 1945, by which time AAB had finished writing
>>> her major works dealing with psychology.

>>      I don't follow your point here.

> I was making the point that by 1945 AAB's books had treated
> enough of psychology to enable AAB and FB to use the 'true
> psychology' as a commonplace term, without referring to
> 'theogony' or having to put a footnote or explanation (as HPB
> has done at several places) to indicate that by psychology,
> 'the science of the soul' was meant and not the materialistic
> definition of it.

     Since the "materialistic definition" is not in question
here, but the substitution of the word "psychological" for
"theogonic", I still don't follow your point.

> Yes, we have uncovered this problem about the relationships
> betwe