Theos-Talk Archives (September 1996 Message tl00181)

M K Ramadoss wrote:
It is very refreshing to read Murray's letters. It confirms what Sages
have been saying for a long time that Occultism is very scientific and
the findings have been verified by repeated checking. I think that he has
brought into focus the fact that in the inner world we are dealing with
totally different world and hence our ideas and opinions don't apply.

Then Chuck wrote:
The Sages know nothing about the scientific method then.  Experiments have
to be repeatable, not the subjective ravings of lunatics like Hodson.  It is
his sort of nonsense that keeps us from making serious headway in getting
funding for real research into this stuff.

and Chuck again later says:
I find it difficult to keep an open mind on things that bring my area of
research into disrepute.  Hodson's diaries reveal the workings of mind that
was fundamentally disfunctional, probably schizophrenic judging by the
symptoms, but clearly ill.

Murray, in response:
Chuck, you won't like this, but you appear to have quite a lot in common
with Hodson, namely a dislike of empty shibboleths and fatuous
misconceptions that have only too readily entwined themselves around the
historical vehicle of modern theosophy as well as more recent "New Age"
developments.

In my experience and dealings with him, he always sought to uncover and
dismiss these elements wherever they occurred. Others who helped him, and
whom I know, would support this.

Now, replying to individual parts of your messages:

>The Sages know nothing about the scientific method then.

An assertion, but rather hollow - a bit like stating "There are no such
things as ghosts." I'd like to know when you discover how to prove this kind
of negation.


>Experiments have to be repeatable

Really? The real world is not always that obliging. Many kinds of experiment
are not exactly repeatable and science is beginning to wake up to the fact
that it has to evolve ways of dealing with the non-repeatable and the
subjective, and so may step into a new phase of maturity.

Hodson worked with scientists and other qualified people throughout his
life, explicitly asking them what areas were worth looking at and asking
them to put the questions he would turn his faculties towards. I know,
Chuck, for I was there for some of it and know others who were involved in
other similar work. It was very challenging for all concerned, but really
interesting.

>, not the subjective ravings of lunatics like Hodson.

This reveals more about the mind it came from than about Hodson's. I'm not
being nasty - that's just how it often is.

"Raving" and "lunatic" are good words for your avowed role of iconoclast, of
course, with large emotional content and nebulous meaning - but this kind of
phrase that you let fly with from time to time does tend to limit you to the
bargain basement of discourse and actually bluntens your iconoclasm.

In any case, this is a strange kind of blunderbuss to let off in a
theosophical forum. In the opinion of many, you could cover the whole of
mysticism, theosophy (general as well as specific) and individual search for
the spiritual way with it! You should be in some kind of fundamentalist
camp. (Yeah, I know how you'd like that!) Maybe you just like bangs and
bullets. Well, I suppose we are all mature and tolerant round here - it just
gets a little tiring at times.


>It is his sort of nonsense that keeps us from making serious headway in
>getting funding for real research into this stuff.

Another blunderbuss, and I wonder what you're talking about. I wonder too
why several scientists decided to have anything to do with him.

 From my observation, certain layers of misunderstanding surround a person
like Hodson and it's there that an element of adulation and almost
superstition can creep in. Look at what surrounded Krishnamurti in the
1920's etc. It's a fairly inevitable result of distance from the person, I
guess.


>I find it difficult to keep an open mind on things that bring my area of
>research into disrepute.

Can you be more explicit? Just about anything in theosophy could bring
disrepute, in some eyes, and probably most of the things I gather you do
research on, would, too.


>Hodson's diaries reveal the workings of mind that
>was fundamentally disfunctional, probably schizophrenic judging by the
>symptoms, but clearly ill.

A professional opinion? I never felt that Hodson was mentally ill. Far from
it. Complex, yes, but ill, no.

I believe that clairvoyants and other sensitives are not well understood on
the whole within the TS. Sure, they're better understood than in general
society, but the roles are reversing in some quarters, now. This
misunderstanding is an inevitable result of having faculties or experiences
that the majority don't have.

To my mind, there has been a tendency to expect perfection from those with
seership etc; a lack of real understanding of the layers of being in a
person, where the imperfect and limited coexist with the large, clear and
universal. Look at Blavatsky, for heaven's sake. You seem to be falling into
one of the traps you generally like to pick out and discover for others.

One of Hodson's greatest hopes, in making his faculties available to
qualified people, was that it would indicate the potential of these
faculties for extending research to new frontiers. He was well aware of his
limitations and always strove to reach nearer the core of whatever he was
investigating. He hoped that others would cover the ground he explored, and
go further.

But which of us here knows what it's like to be a multi-dimensionally aware
being living for a long time in the one body and mind? Would not conventions
of thought and expression develop and be used when convenient? Would it not
be an ongoing strain, perhaps leading to some distortions in the inner
structure of the mind, to know and be aware of realms that most were not
aware of? Things you couldn't share except in highly unsatisfactory and
limiting language, and then only with a very few?

In his day it would have been dynamite to say you communicated with the
Masters - no wonder he chose to keep it secret during his lifetime. It's a
changing story now, of course.

Can we not apply a little bit of intuition - something which is unlikely to
work in the presence of hostility or misunderstanding?

And, as each of us enters the way of self-accelerated becoming, are there
not all sorts of ways that we create layers of what we believe ourselves to
be? Paradoxically, there's a growing complexity alongside the growing
simplification that unfolding spirituality brings. Beware! Psychogenesis is
stalking you! (Karma, really). It little behoves us to sling criticism at
others in this way.

Hodson was a great iconoclast too. He was not afraid of differing from what
other clairvoyants reported. I know, because I saw him do it and be aware
that it could make waves.

Well, Chuck, I have allowed myself to respond to one of your "stirring"
little outbursts, more for the benefit of those who might want to know some
of the things that only somebody who had something to do with Hodson could
know. I have either done you the honour or made the mistake of taking you
seriously for a while - but who knows which but you?

:-)

Murray
Member TI and the TS in NZ