Theos-Talk Archives (September 1995 Message tl00123)

Art Patterson writes:

>Here is an example of one of the difficulties I find. Group
>soul, assume hypothetically -it is not in source documents.
>Does that make is untrue? Are there things that point to it in
>the source documents. Do the source documents contain exhaustive
>spiritual truth? In what sense are they true. That is the
>central question. How can these writings be honored and utilized
>without being worshipped?

 First, please understand that I read HPB in the same way
that I would read Nietzsche's or Hegel's works--as a
philosophical exposition designed to give insight into our nature
and the nature of the universe around us. I believe that this is
the spirit that HPB intended to be read. At any rate, I'm very
clear that she did not intend for her writings to be canonized.
 Now, to address your question concerning group souls: as far
as I know, this concept is not used in Blavatsky's writings,
though it is an important concept in CWL's. I have heard it
argued that HPB's writings do not contradict the group soul idea,
but have never seen any supportive evidence offered to back this
claim up. The problem is that the group soul idea would concern
HPB's concepts of the individualization of the "soul" as it
transmigrates through the kingdoms of nature. This is a very
abstruse aspect of HPB's teachings, and I suspect that there are
only a very small handful of people who have an understanding of
it in the first place. When a teaching is as abstruse and
obscure as the "individualization of the soul," lots of
different misreadings will come out of it. Some will support the
group soul idea and some will not. Personally, I would be
interested in seeing, or even participating in a serious
discussion and analysis of this idea, if there are three or four
people willing to put in the hours of research and preparation
required to intelligently discuss this controversy.

Jerry Hejka-Ekins
Please reply to: jhe@toto.csustan.edu