Theos-Talk Archives (April 1996 Message tl00231)

At 12:18 PM 4/10/96 -0500, you wrote:
>Alexis:
>> Pretending it
>>cannot be explained to many people, is, I think, a total ego trip.
>	
Whoa!  I never said it couldn't be explained.  It can, and
>it is, and will continue to be.  But after hearing the message, most
>folks leave the TS and go elsewhere.  Most folks want instant
>enlightenment.  Publishers know this.  My own publisher, for
>example, puts things on the covers of my books that say "easy"
>and "anyone can do it" and "fast results" and so on, which
>makes me squirm.  This is exactly what people want to hear.
>It sells books.  But, alas, it is not the truth.
>
>	Jerry S.
>	Member, TI
>
>Perhaps, after hearing the message as it is given by the "orthodoxy" and
finding it deals primarily with details in which they are totally
disinterested, and by which they are totally confused (i.e. the totally
technical discussions you and Jerry E.H. are having) and finding nothing in
those technicalities that anwers their personal questions, they do, in fact,
go elsewhere and who can blame them? I personally believe theosophy to be an
attitudinal approach to a brioad spectrum of investigation that can, but
never even implies that it does, lead to "enlightenment". I really have
never contemplated the theosophical movement, or as it seems more to me, the
Philalethian Movement to be in the business of purveying "enlightenment".
I,at least prefer to leave that to folks like Elisabeth Clear Profit,

Now as to book covers, does not an author have any in put at all re:
content? Perhaps I am in an enviable position, but I will never permit
anything on the cover of a book I write that is not what I want it to be.
It's sort of like producing a biography of Diocletian and finding naked
women on the cover. Doesn't LLewellyn give their authors any rights of at
least stylistic censorship? They should. I know all authors (and their
publishers) want to sell books, but where does integrity enter the picture?

Perhaps you could "clue me in" on authordom, as an about to be published
author, I totally trust my publisher. I should hate to be "shuffled off into
inconsequentiality" after the contracts were signed.

alexis dolgorukii, MTI, FTSA
a voice crying in the wilderness