Theos-Talk Archives (June 1995 Message tl00105)

Very well put Daniel, just a few comments,

Belief is never an answer to proving anything.  However I do not
think that something of a non physical nature can be proved by
physical means.  As Buddha stated (this is not an exact quote)
"Believe nothing, if you feel it to be true keep it as a theory,
accept it only after experiencing it." The experiences of life
like the rituals of initiation change us through the process of
experience (information on initiation taken from a tape by John
Algeo on "The Mysteries").  I think that blind belief leads us to
a dead end, like structured religion.  However proving many of
the topics we are trying to examine is no more then an enfleshing
process that creates a personality that can be seen and hides the
reality behind it.  As John Algeo said in the above mentioned
tape, the mysteries were kept secret and could not be repeated to
the uninitiated.  John felt that this was not so much because of
the actual act of keeping it secret but that the initiation
consisted of an experience that could not be put into words
(since over the 1000 years that the Eleusian Mysteries were
around it seems that a great number of people were initiated but
no detailed account of the initiation is available) and the lower
versus higher mysteries were not so much a different set of
experiences but the difference between how it was received like a
ceremony versus a ritual.  An example is someone attending a
marriage who wants it to be over so that the food will be served,
to him this is a ceremony where the people getting married are
hopefully experiencing a ritual that will change them through
realization through experience, etc.

Another example is in the movie superman when after something
that arch villain Lex Luther says is not understood by his
underling Otis Lex says, " Otis some people can read the whole
works of Shakespeare and not get anything out of it and some else
can read the comic strip from a chewing gum wrapper and unfold
the mysteries of the universe." I guess what I long windedly am
trying to say that nonphysical REALITY can never be proven
conclusively for the uninitiated through the process of physical
illusion.

We can only prove things to ourselves as we experience them
through the initiations of life, and can only have experiences or
initiations when we have been changed enough by previous
initiations(experiences) when we are ready to see instead of just
look.  Other people can only give us hints, ideas but never
proofs otherwise you have nothing more than a belief system.

I do not believe you can equate Theosophy directly to science as
it is today, unless you redefine science to include the esoteric.
Science only perceives itself and nothing beyond.  When it has
developed finer perception then it perceives a little more and
the definition of the exoteric can be expanded, as the veil of
Isis is lifted a little more.  But the esoteric will always be
outside of the realms of science since it is based on that which
can not be proved and (as I think CWL said) the esoteric when
proved becomes the exoteric.

Don't believe me,
Nick