Theos-Talk Archives (May 1996 Message tl00619)

JHE:

[commenting to Virginia B]

>>What a better way to bury what has been revealed than to
>>lead the leaders into a confusion and mish-mash of ideas.

>Yes, the submersion of deeper teachings brings attention to
>them. But the confusion of those teachings by changing the
>terminology and then putting it into another context works very
>well.  I think most people in the TS (and probably on this board)
>honestly believe that the teachings of HPB, TSR, APS, AB, CWL
>etc. are really consistent.

I can say that I've found by personal experience that there
is a difference. When I first started reading theosophical
books as a teenager, it was CWL's and some of AB's that I
primarily read. They tell us that they are consistent, and
I believed it at the time, although I tried to interpret
anything that I'd read from HPB or Judge in light of the
Besant/Leadbeater model. I know how the world looks like
from that point of view, and can appreciate how someone
with that background sees things.

I feel fortunate to have met Lina Psaltis and Ken Small at
Far Horizons Theosophical Camp one summer, and to have
been introduced to Purucker's works. In reading them, I
came to appreciate a different theosophical model, one that
is basically consistent with Blavatsky's. I also found
Purucker to outline and present things in a way that aids
a development of the intuition and a flexibility in thinking
that is necessary to get far with deeper studies.

As I progressed in these new studies, I could see how
different the two models were on many points. But I
could also see how I was previously unaware that such
differences could exist.

It would be highly helpful if we could come up with a
standardized terminology for theosophical textbooks. This
would help clear up some of the language problems. (As
I write this I recall recently coming across something
Jerry Schueler wrote as a proposed project along these
lines, something written for the former Theosophical
Network several years ago.)

The problem with any attempt to standardize terms and
arrange the ideas in some systematic manner is that
many could call the effort the *death* of the philosophy,
since it would be making a clearcut word-formulation
of the theosophical doctrines.

Would this be good or bad? Good in the sense that it
would help do away with the loss of the ideas through
continual changing of terminologies and context. Bad
in the sense that someone might actually thing that
Theosophy *was only* the words that were written in
this effort.

>Yes. Two things will really make me impatient with an
>occult or a non fiction work: when there are no citations, and
>when there is no index.  Occasionally a book without an index
>turns out to be worth while, so I usually end up indexing it
>myself.  But a book without citations....&%@*#$!!  :-)

Sounds like you won't like the book that Alexis mentioned
that he's writing, 500 pages without citations or index.

(In the future, indexing will become less important. With
ebooks, one can eventually let the computer index the book,
and one can create and organize personalized bookmarks.)

As to writing without citations, it depends on the type of
work. Sometimes an academic paper may be written and given
a ritual number of citations merely for the purposes of
appearing scholarly, although the citations add little to
the work.

One use of citations is to "prove" something, by showing
that it is authoritative. In a legal document, someone
may cite case law in order to show that previous court
decisions support what one asserts. In a theosophical
discussion, someone may cite HPB to "prove" a point that
is being argued.

Besides their use as an appeal to authority, citations can
be used as a reference to further reading on a subject
that is only touched on in passing. One may mention the
seven rounds, for instance, then cite an excellent chapter
describing the rounds. This is for purposes of illustration,
of education, rather than purposes of proving and showing
one's work to be authoritative.

When one is writing about Theosophy using the first
approach, attempting to prove whatever one is saying
by using quotes from the source literature, one would
write a book that was mostly a string of quotations,
with some commentary weaving the quotes together. Several
theosophical books have been written in this manner, and
they are good.

One can, though, write about Theosophy using the second
approach, writing based upon one's best understanding of
the subject, putting in new ideas and personal insights
along with what one as learned from others. In this sort
of book, there may be references to other writings that
may be of interest. There would, though, be far less
reliance on citations, since one is writing from one's
understanding as a primary source, rather than writing
from the writings of others as the primary source.

If the second approach is not done right, or if the
writer has only a partial grasp of the theosophical
doctrines, and throws in other unrelated and
contradictory materials, the resultant text will be
misleading at best. But the same person could take the
first approach and still end up with an equally
misleading book. One has to understand the materials,
or one only reflects the same internal confusion in
a book of quotes and commentary.

As the years go on, I may make a try at each kind
of book, and hope that some good will come of them.

-- Eldon