Theos-Talk Archives (April 1996 Message tl00482)

Rich Taylor:
>Yet who are these amorphous "Gnostics"?  Are they opposed to moral teachings
>and karma?  HPB mentions the Ophites, the Marconites, and quite a few others.
	They were a very diverse bunch, rather like Christians.  Many practiced
magic.  Some practiced sexual magic.  Others were repulsed by sexual magic.
Its hard to say "the Gnostics taught that ..."  without a qualifier, just like
you and
I agreed was necessary for Buddhism.

>What better way to undermine threatening esoteric teachers than by maiming
>them morally during their lives, or preferably after they are dead when they
>can't argue anymore?
	While I have no great love for Christians per se, I don't think their
intention was to deliberately distort the Gnostics in order to discredit them.
There are very real differences in Gnostic moral values and Christian ones.
Christians love Jehovah.  The Gnostics consider Jehovah (the creator)
 to be Satan and hate him, and so on.  The Christians were appalled at
the Gnostic practice of magic, especially in its sexual forms.  Well, they
really did practice these things.  Possibly the only real aggreement they
had, was that Earth was a kind of hell, and Heaven was where one wanted
to escape to.  There are several passages in the Nag Hammadi texts
to suggest they believed in reincarnation and karma, and that even those
who practiced magic had a strong sense of ethics and morals.  But, alas,
the real kicker was that they did not teach Jesus was the only son of God,
nor did he die for our sins, etc.  This very real difference in teaching was
enough for the Christians to argue against them.

>Why, we see this taking place in Theos-L daily, where people who want to
>think their own way find it necessary to slash and burn HPB in order to
>clear-cut a path for themselves.  If one cannot assault the philosophy of HPB
>or the Gnostics, slander them morally, make them hypocritical demons, and
>then the difficult philosophy can be backgrounded.  It is an old and
>time-honored tradition of the black-hearted.
	Rich, your fundamentalism is showing.  Would you like to
tie us to the stake, and really show us your zeal for the Truth?

>It is probably true, however, that some Gnostics, in their contempt of the
>worldly laws and the Creator who ordained them, became sexually quite giddy
>and imagined themselves free of karma.
	Here is exactly why HPB liked the Gnostics, Rich, and it is
a shame that you don't see it.  They taught that personal direct experience
or samadhi results in Gnosis, or a Seer of Truth.  This frees them from the
karmic restrictions of past lives.  This is, I would point out, exactly the
teaching of several schools of Tibetan Buddhism even today and is
probably the chief diffference between esoteric and exoteric teaching on
karma.

>...grotesquely misinterpreting its Founders as "materialistic determinists".
	But they were, at least in the sense of followers of Newton's
determinism.  The TS founders all believed that if a person
could only gain more knowledge, they would eventually understand the
world and how it works (G de P, I think, says exactly this somewhere).
Adepts were people with more knowledge.  HPB hints that this is so, that
by gaining esoteric knowledge, all things are possible.  Today we know
that this kind of determinism simply isn't true.  However, they obviously were
not "materialsitic" in the sense of only believing in matter and the physical
plane.  The teaching that the law of karma is a remorseless unending
chain of cause and effect is pure determinism.  Alexis says that he doesn't
believe in karma this way.  Neither do I.  If I am "grotesquely misinterpreting"
HPB here, then so be it.  However, I see HPB as teaching out of two sides
of her mouth, so to speak: exoterically to the masses, and esoterically to
"those who have ears to hear."  When I first joined theos-l, I had expected
that theosophists would all be in the second group.  They aren't.  Thats
ok, but I still feel the need to tell others how I feel, and why.  If you don't
agree with me, thats ok too.  But please don't use the excuse "HPB said"
as your justification.  Sometimes what she hints at is much more important
than what she actually says.

>Please document, if you will, the assertions that (1) HPB or her Teachers
>were materialistic determinists (2) that HPB ever quotes approvingly from
>supporters of anti-ethical or amoral philosophies or behaviors.
	They were, in the sense that I mention above--that they believed
our physical world was largely determinable if one had the knowledge.
This was the spirit of the day back then.  HPB argued against this scientific
attitude only in the sense that she felt esoteric or spiritual knowledge (i.e.,
Gnosis) was needed rather than more mathematics.  IMHO even Gnosis
won't help, because our world is not deterministic.  Karma is not an
unbreakable chain going on forever, nor will it ever come to an end by
doing good deeds and cultivating moralistic attitudes (and you can
call me black-hearted for this if you want to, but I am convinced that
it is true).
	As to the second part of your paragraph, HPB quoted only
those who she wanted to quote--those that would support her aim.
Her aim was to establish a world-wide fellowship, and such a thing
must have a strong sense of ethics in order for its members to survive.
Today the TSs are in pieces and membership is decreasing to
worrisome proportions, and members even in TI argue and bicker.
Was she right to have emphasized ethics so much?  I think we must
wait another hundred years or so to tell, but she may have made
a mistake because religions are founded on ethics, and her
beloved Theosophy is slowly becomming a religion, albeit a small
one.

	Jerry S.
	Member, TI