Theos-Talk Archives (November 1995 Message tl00470)

>RI:
>>Of the things about organized Theosophy which have caused me to shake my
>>head over the years few have produced a wider arc than this: that it begins
>>by calling to the Master-Wisdom in each of us and that it ends by reducing us
>>to the status of lowly students in a study hall.
>
> Interesting dichotomy isn't it?
>
>> We are considered
>>to be on our best best behavior when we simply "study"; on our worst when we
>>speak from personal authority.
>
> Only the historians among us will be able to figure out how
>this sad pass came to be. But JRC had a good point when he said that
>this is a major reason for losing so many good TS members a short
>list of the most famous has already been posted. There is a fear
>almost a paranoia about personal experience within the theosophical
>community probably going all the way back to CWL. And this in
>spite of the work by Dora Kunz and others--which many theosophists
>find appalling simply because these folks dare to present information
>that HPB never wrote about.
>
>>No we all showed up as theosophers but were willing to call ourselves
>>"theosophists" as long as we thought that term included our own spiritual
>>advancement and the unique perspectives and articulations which necessarily
>>flow from it. If we find however that we are more and more being
>>"screened" for orthodoxy and "graded" for book-knowledge *theosophers* some
>>of us shall be again until things change.
>
> This is one reason why I have preferred to remain a member at large.
>
>>In the meantime let us leave the atmosphere of the study hall and meet as
>>kings and queens or not at all. . . .
>>I like Paul's attitude actually.
>
> Me too your Highness.
>
> Jerry S.
Just finished one of the essays in de Purucker's Studies in Occult
Philosohpy and it fits nicely into this discussion.
'A Theosophist likewise is not one who talks about Theosophy nor one
whoknows our exoteric Theosophical books by heart who can converse or
lecture learnedly upon Theosophical topics; but the Theosophist is he who
-does it-. "Theosophist is who Theosophy does" as HPB once so nobly wrote;
and I think that this is the test by which we may know the genuine
Theosophist or indeed the genuine Occultist for the twain are really
one. He practices the doctrine that he preaches.' Page 387
Bee>
>