Theos-Talk Archives (August 1996 Message tl00394)

Hi gang ...
     Been rather a tad busy of late, but thought I'd weigh in on
the "Nucleus" question with maybe a slightly different point of
view.
     I actually think the word "nucleus" is appropriate, and
should *not* be changed, for the same reason I believed the word
"brotherhood" *needed* to be changed: Precision of expression.
     While I am a (sometimes probably overly) vocal critic of the
elitist attitudes that run through the TS like putrid rivers
through fresh meadows, and see those attitudes even when they are
deeply buried, it has never occured to me to think the word
"nucleus" elitist - because *the entire First Object must be
taken as a whole*. It contains a very direct, declarative
statement ("To form the nucleus of the Universal Family of
Humanity ...."), and a modifying clause that further articulates
the idea ("...without regard to etc..."). In my view, there is
nothing *absolute* about the statement ... i.e., we are not
forming the nucleus of the "one true world religion" (though some
a few people seem to act like that's how it reads (-:) - we are,
in essence, engaged in a *very* specific act of, well, magic, on
behalf of those who generated the original current. Dig this ...
     It seems that if one looks throughout history, one can
believe that numerous different social, political, religious,
scientific, artistic, and other movements found their originating
source in what might be called the "spiritual kingdom". There has
also been numerous traditions that have, to varying degrees (and
with widely different vocabularies) claimed contact with or
connection to an inner order of wisdom. While many of these did
release teaching of some sort to the specific people that were
drawn to participate, they all seem to have had a larger project
*that the teaching was given to further*. None of these schools
seemed interested solely in providing a nice little school for
people to pursue their own personal growth - ultimately an
inherently *selfish* act - but rather, with introducing some
current, some set of ideas, with launching some impulse into
humanity *as a whole* in some specific realm of human endeavor,
and giving teaching to the *agents within the human kingdom* that
agreed to play a part in the *particular piece of work*.
     That is, I believe the spiritual kingdom to be *extremely*
goal/project-oriented ... in fact, in the case of the TS, the
Adepts almost continuously resisted attempts to turn the thing
into nothing but a school of occultism (i.e., the focus
collapsing into the "teaching" instead of the *purpose* for which
it was delivered) - finally (with great reservations) permitting
HPB to begin her own small circle, but even at that *insisting*
that membership in the TS, and committment to the larger ideals
of the Society was a *requirement*.
     More succinctly, the goal was *not* to wind up with a tiny
group of people that took the opportunity of contact with the
inner kingdom to further their own growth, but rather to
significantly affect civilization as a whole by germinating the
seed of a specific idea into it. The creation of the TS was *an
act of magic, designed by beings working at a very large scale,
extremely well-defined and focussed in intention (as all good
magic is), with the creation of a particular pattern of
relationships ("Universal Family") as the goal of the magic,
human civilization as the medium and field of manifestation, *and
the TS membership as the manifesting agent of the act**.
     Now the success of magic depends upon a number of things,
but high on the list is the degree to which the energy and form
are harmonious, and the precision with which form is held.
Because in this case language was used, to *maintain* the form
language must adjust to intention (hence, if the word
"brotherhood" begins to mean precisely the opposite of what it
did 100 years ago, it must be adjusted for the form to remain
precise).
     "Nucleus", however, is still (IMO) the perfect word. The
*way* "civilizational magic" has always worked is by the
formulation of evolutionary ideation at the spiritual levels, the
crystallization of it into denser and denser form, until finally
some *point of access* into the densest layers of day to day life
is found - a point of access through which the *energy* of the
ideation may move as electricity through our race. And this is
why (again, IMO) "nucleus" is the correct word - better than
"network" or the others I've heard over the years. If you want
power, electricity, in your house, you do not lay an entire power
grid over the house and attempt to suck the electricity in by
osmosis, you find a single point in the house that will be the
connection to the grid ... the point of access into the house ...
put a circuit breaker or fuse at the juncture, and wire the rest
of the house from that source.
     Nuclei are being (IMO) created *all over the place* - in is
simply the standard operating procedure. For the inner kingdom to
manifest *anything* they need to find some focal point of entry
.. but its easy to see the formation of a "nucleus" of new ideas
in the political realm, in healing and other scientific fields,
in artistic circles, etc., etc.
     With the TS I believe the inner kingdom simply got a bit
more overt about what it was doing and simply stated it outright:
It intended to form a nucleus for a specific idea, and desired
the Society to function as both the point of access and the
"wiring" through the human house through which a specific energy
could move.
     It never occurred to me this was "elitist", because it never
occured to me that it was anything other than one of hundreds of
"nuclei" being formed at any given time - and in fact I believe
many of them are being formed within the context of a *much*
larger picture (for instance, the sudden explosion of online
computing certainly did come from what could be called a
"nucleus", is expanding quickly all over the world, and is
*extremely* complimentary with the idea of "Universal Family"
..).

     I believe that we who call ourselves "Theosophists" are the
current players in a multigenerational project, generated by the
spiritual kingdom, and meant to unfold in harmony with numerous
other projects - as a string in a woven blanket. That our
"project" is by no means special or elevated above any others
(and may well be a rather minor player) ... but that the
precision with we introduce the ideal *we* have taken
responsibility for may have affects on many *other* projects of
which we know nothing ... that forming the "nucleus" of a
specific ideal by no means means that we are elevated above
anyone else, nor that our ideal is anything other than a small
piece of a huge picture, but rather, is a simple and precise
statement of what we have voluntarily chosen to *do* and the
means by which we will do it.
     In fact, I believe what is really *wrong* with the TS is
that it has not *taken responsibility* for the formation of that
nucleus ... but has instead become little more than a roomful of
people fighting over table scraps tossed by the "Masters",
mistaking them for the actual meal, and completely forgetting the
reason they were tossed at us in the first place.
                                                  Giggles, -JRC