Theos-Talk Archives (April 1996 Message tl00234)

Chuck writes,

> Does the occult meaning of the word "blind" have any meaning to you?

This is a test, this is only a test, of your emergency vocabulary system.
 Please wait while our station conducts this test.
 Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep ...

-- Um, okay.  <pant, pant> I can do this. <thinking aloud>

Perhaps this guy, whom I've never met, assumes I am an idiot.  Perhaps he
assumes correctly.  But even an idiot has heard of the word "blind" if s/he
has picked up a book on occultism. Blind in this sense has three primary
definitions.

(1)  Secrecy.  Veil, cipher, glyph, cover, privileged information, "double
entendre," cryptographic communication, Tibetan "twilight language," code,
anagram, undertone.

(2)  Puzzle to be solved.  Mystery, riddle, quandary, enigma, allusion,
implication, allegory, hint, innuendo.

(3) Deception.  Misinformation, hoax, guile, myth, cunning, pettifoggery,
fraud, trick, artifice, device, sham, chicanery, skulduggery, connivery,
deceit, guile, falsity, misguidance, dupery, bamboozlement, hoodwinking,
flimflammery, fooling, subterfuge, fallacy, illusion, willful misconception.

Now, perhaps it is not clear even to you, let alone me, exactly what the
connotations of your remark were.  But let us proceed, skippingly, carefree
of my idiocy which is hereby manifested for all to see.

How do
> you think the good Victorians would have reacted if Blavatsky had said,
> "Look, the universe is a value-free information system and nothing you do
in
> the physical is going to have the slightest impact on your future
> incarnations.
<a wink and a nod>  Well.  That's tough.  I'm going to have to ask my
imaginary friend Victorian who sometimes helps me type up little posts to the
board.

She says,

"I think most Victorians would say, "Oh really?  Well, being the hypocritical
Christian that I am, here at the 'fin de siecle,' I can protest loudly in
public, but tell you in secret I actually believe the same thing, little
materialist that I am.  I don't even believe in heaven, let alone future
incarnations"

"The clergy would of course had far fewer problems with her, given that HPB's
ethical system was a direct affront and insult to the (pitiful) Christian one
being offered, which rested on blind faith and eternal reward or punishment,
dependent upon the whim of an anthropomorphic God who couldn't give a damn
about theodicy (let alone *The Odyssey*) based upon an average of 65 years on
the planet."

"The scientists would have said "Yeah, whatever, we knew you were a crackpot
to start with."

"And the Orientalists would have said, "Poor HPB, she doesn't even understand
the very Buddhist and Hindu and Sikh and Jain and Taoist systems she purports
to explain, one and all of which rest upon an entirely serious system of
ethics, whose foundation is ahimsa (non-violence) while in the physical body
and devotion to the good of all."  But then, the Orientalists were so
confused last century that they couldn't make heads or tails of their own
fields, let alone an Occultist like HPB."

Thank you Ms. Woolf, couldn't've done it without you.

So in context of the last question, I must assume that you, Chuck, meant
"blind" with the connotation of list number (3) deception.

I.e., HPB was playing with her students, coaxing them constantly to
brotherhood and altruism, and purity in word thought and deed, and drumming
up Mahatmas to mindlessly spew forth the same drivel, when actually physical
life, and all the intentions, senstations and cognitions which go along with
it were perfectly outside the system of cause and effect.

Which is exactly what you write:

> The only thing that matters is intelligence, how effeciently
> you process information, because that is what the Universe is really all
> about, but what you do with that information does not matter in the
slightest.
And if HPB would have taught such a doctrine, which I now hear for the first
time in my short life, from Acharya Chuck, there would be no Theosophical
movement today.  Because HPB never would have passed her own probationary
chelaship, let alone be unleashed by her Buddhist Teachers to the Western
continents.  <woof woof.>

As Greg's post from the *Key to Theosophy* clearly shows, time and time
again, ethics (and yes, MORALITY) are absolutely essential, the "sine qua
non" (for those who only speak Latin and no English) for Theosophical study,
let alone for the Occult study which was predicated upon strenuous
Theosophical work.  HPB accepted no chelas who were not thorough-going
workers for the Cause, who were not willing to sacrifice themselves for their
brothers and sisters in the movement -- yea, behold -- in PHYSICAL bodies.

If one were to cull the "verboten" *Mahatma Letters,* all of HPB's writings,
including books, letters, articles, editorials, notes, MSS, short stories,
newspaper bits, or oral communications, and throw in Mr. Judge's works to
boot, (not to be confused with *Das Boot*) one would find NOT ONCE, NOT ANY
PLACE a single scrap of evidence to indicate that the teaching of ethics in a
physical body were a blind in "true" occult study.

And so Chuckie-Cheese, this is YOUR teaching, and you are welcome to it, and
remain you may the highest and most respected Theosophist in all the world.
 But you speak for yourself and those who think like you, and not for those
whose gift to the world was the modern Theosophical Movement.

There ARE, of course, OTHER meanings of the word "blind," but we need not go
into THAT.  <Rich wanders off, poking around with white-tipped cane>

Gee <giggling> what's on t.v. tonight?