Theos-Talk Archives (September 1995 Message tl00445)

Rich:<I did refer to the article "Psychic and Noetic Action,"
and found no footnote which suggests what you say. Perhaps
she says this elsewhere? It is curious that if the word
noetic "suggests no definite meaning" to HPB that she would
choose to title her article Psychic and NOETIC Action?>

Sorry about the hostility, but I really thought
you were deliberately trying to agitate me, and was angry
because it was working so well. It is more likely that
we are involved in semantics problems, which Eldon and I
went through awhile back. I don't mind having different
viewpoints, but personally I felt that you were insulting
me first, and don't care to get into emotional battles.

HPB's article Psychic and Noetic Action, that I
was reading, is in STUDIES OF OCCULTISM by TUP. I got it
somewhere in the late 70s (there is no copyright or pub
date). The article has lots of footnotes, on almost every
page. The footnote that I was referring to says: "The
Sanskrit word Manas (Mind) is used by us in preference to
the Greek Nous (noetic) because the latter word having
been so imperfectly understood in philosophy, suggests
no definite meaning." She seems to be saying here
that noetic is a poor word and so theosophy uses manas
instead, but she uses noetic in her article because there
she attributes her own definition to it. I just assumed
that you knew this and were testing me. Sorry. And I
have no objection at all to using the terms psychic and
noetic here on theos-l. But probably kama-manas and
buddhi-manas could do as well. Here is my problem - whatever
termonology we decide on, who is to say if someone's
writing is from the one or the other? If I, for example,
post an article on this list and tell everyone that it was
given to me via the noetic rather than the psychic, will
all of you readers sigh with relief and believe what I say
in the article? Probably not. In other words, HPB's
terminology and fine-line distinctions are all technical
and theoretical. They tell us where information or data
*can* come from - but it is up to each one of us as
readers to make that determination. And I can guarantee
you that some readers will think my article is from
the noetic realms, while others will think it is from the
psychic realms, based on their own understanding and
worldview. There just aren't any easy answers to this
psychic vs noetic business.

 Jerry S.