Theos-Talk Archives (August 1994 Message tl00016)

Hi Gang--

I can see the pros and cons of both sides of this one.  Don is, I
think completely right about the psychological dangers of
fixation on Masters.  Every sort of paranoid delusion can be
attached to the concept, and I for one would rather see us stay
small than grow by attracting those who would otherwise fall into
the embrace of Elizabeth Clare.  We will probably promote
psychological balance and health by deemphasizing the
father-figure aspects of it.

Richard, I don't think there's any kind of unanimity on the
subject of Masters in this TS or any of the other groups.  Even
at the top, we have an international president who on the one
hand is a Krishnamurti disciple, and therefore should reject the
whole paraphernalia, yet who makes a worshipful appeal to the
Masters in a recent piece in the AT.  Lots of ambivalence from
the top all the way down through the membership.

On the other hand, any group is strengthened by a unifying mythos
about its origins, and in the case of the TS there is abundant
historical evidence that it really was secretly sponsored by a
number of adepts in various traditions who wanted to promote the
objectives proclaimed by the founders.

The challenge-- how can we be strengthened by the knowledge that
there really was a kind of sacred intervention in the course of
history going on behind the scenes of the early TS, without
getting all tied up in the need to have such intervention at
every moment and in every detail of our lives and the world at
large?

Guess what I'm arguing for is a deistic approach.  Not "there are
no Masters" (atheism) or "there are Masters and they run the
world" (theism) but "the Masters were here and started our
movement but now they're gone and we need to get on with it using
our own inner resources" (deism).