Theos-Talk Archives (September 1995 Message tl00515)

At 10:47 AM 9/13/95, K. Paul Johnson wrote:
>Since reading the exchange yesterday between Rich and Liesel
>about change and Theosophy, I've been pondering. Let me
>admit up front that there's something about Rich's point of
>view that just doesn't sit right with me intuitively. I
>perceive a meaning in all the claims about Masters' changeless
>eternal wisdom that perhaps he misses in taking it literally.

Art: I agree but it is disconcerting when Blavatsky herself talks about
Eternal Truth in ways that at least at first sound very similar to what you
are feeling strange about. I believe in the fact of some Eternal truth that
knows me but I will not ever reverse the equation to say that I know
Eternal Truth. It is like when Daniel asks "Do you know Jesus?" Well, yes I
have had several encounters with what I take to be at least the spirit of
Christ but to say I know Jesus is in my estimate arrogant. But to say that
The Christ knows me that's another matter. I am willing by sheer hope and
faith to say that. So the same holds with the Masters or whatever they
point to.

>
>Those Theosophists (most in the ULT, some in Pasadena and
>Adyar) who take literally the idea of a single brotherhood
>preserving a single Gnosis/Theosophia/Gupta Vidya would locate
>said brotherhood and Gnosis right here on earth. Somewhere, we
>know not where, there are underground libraries in caves.

Art: That reminds me of what happened to Christians when the Nag Hammadi
and the Gnostic gospels were found. Most of us would have said before this
find,"Boy I wish we could have access to some primary documents closer to
the events in the life of Jesus. We got them and they said things that
burned many orthodox opinions. This is especially true of material like the
Gospel of Thomas which advocates that salvation is about a change of
consciousness. (See Stephan Hoeller. Jung and the Lost Gospels. Quest.
1989.)

So much for wanting historical authenticity it screws up our myths too
much. We want the historical evidence when it confirms our mythology but if
it contradicts it well you know what happens.

Living the Myth

Art