Theos-Talk Archives (May 1996 Message tl01034)

Alan:

>>But I don't think "beast" was meant to indicate savage,
>>cruel, monstrous. It meant more "in the wild" or
>>uncultured, or uncivilized in human terms.

>Maybe not, but this is not how very many people understand the word
>*today*.  Once again we are faced with not just the problem, but the
>*fact* that the time to update the language and terminology is long
>overdue.  Like Alexis, I grit my teeth in such examples; in others I
>feel very sad.

You're right that some of the terminology is out-of-date and can
be considered offensive by modern standards. And some of the later
writers may not properly understood the theosophical idea and actually
understood and passed on ideas of a racist nature. But the original
idea of Root Races does not say that the status of an individual can
be judged by that person's body, or outer form.

>As you point out earlier on in your posting, once we get *behind* the
>actual words, the teaching is often powerful and noble.  However, it is
>the words that people meet first.  If their understanding of the words
>is different, their interpretation will be different, and the original
>underlying teaching will *not be there for them*.  And so the
>theosophical teachings find smaller and smaller audiences.

We'll need newer books written in a different manner. They will need
to explain the older terminology, to allow students to go back to the
original books with understanding. But they can use, perhaps, some
revised terms that are more suitable. How decides what the new terms
will be, and when they will be used? We'll just have to wait and see
how the evolve over time. Perhaps in places like theos-l we'll
pioneer this sort of effort.

-- Eldon