Theos-Talk Archives (December 1994 Message tl00027)

According to Lewis Lucas:
>
> Paul wrote:
> >
> > I would suggest that this kind of thinking about Masters,
> > prevalent outside the TS as well as in it, is fundamentally
> > dangerous because inherently unhealthy.  Delusions of grandeur,
> > persecution, reference, influence-- the whole Pandora's box of
> > paranoid symptoms-- seem to follow in the wake of any such
> > conception of Elder Brethren.
> >
>
> That seems like a rather paranoid statement to me. While I must
> confess ignorance to your reference to "delusions of reference", I
> think I follow you on the others.

Delusions of reference are those in which one presumes falsely
that words or events refer to topics of interest to the paranoid
person.  For example, I knew someone who had been delusional to
the extent of transcribing Johnny Carson's monologues from the
Tonight Show and then "decoding" them to get messages about her
secret role in anti-Communist undercover work.  Finding weird
messages in the Bible is a widespread example of this form of
delusion.

>
> Let me suggest that it is healthy to be able to accept a
> notion that there may be others who have done more, seen more, and
> know more than ourselves. To suggest otherwise seems to me to be
> rather egotistical.

I never "suggested otherwise" than this.  Of course there may be
(and ARE) others who have done more, seen more, and know more
than ourselves.  And on planes other than those we know.  What I
see as unhealthy is the attribution of absolute control of the
world to an organized group of supermen called the Great White
Brotherhood who choose a select few with whom to share their
secrets.  This "secret rulers of the world" stuff is inherently
paranoid; not the ideal of Masters per se.  I not only accept
that ideal, but hope I have proven that in the case of HPB it is
exemplified by several dozen remarkable adept figures from whom
she learned.