Theos-Talk Archives (April 1997 Message tl00010)

by Charles Forsythe

REDMOND -- Microsoft Corporation has announced plans to acquire the Website
and Internet development corporation Higher Source for an undisclosed fee.
"Higher Source has proven its commitment to strange mind-control cults and
UFO religions," said Microsoft spokeswoman, Anita Klue,"Their willingness
to kill themselves for the sake of their technology is the kind of dynamic
that Microsoft wants to promote."

In conjunction with the acquisition, Microsoft announced a new program
called "Active Cult 97", which is expected to be in place by late 1998.
Active Cult aims to make the use of Microsoft technology more of a
religion-driven decision as opposed to a technology-driven decision.  "This
isn't expected to be a big change for Microsoft's customer base," explained
Ms. Klue.  Details of Active Cult were not disclosed, but it was suggested
that instead of crashing with the infamous "blue screen of death" or
"General Protection Fault", Microsoft's operating systems would merely
display the message "Windows died for your sins."

Mike S. Brown, who writes about the industry in his PC Weak column "M.S.
Brown Knows" responded enthusiastically to the announcement.  "This really
raises the stakes for Internet development.  IBM may be content to kill its
own products, like OS/2, but Microsoft is willing to kill its own
developers and maybe even some customers.  That's the kind of bold
difference that will make UNIX, OS/2 and the Mac completely irrelavent by
the end of 1996!"  When is was pointed out that 1996 was already over, Mr.
Brown retorted,"No it's not!  If it was, then Microsoft would be behind
schedule on Windows 97 -- which it isn't."

An IBM employee, who asked to remain anonymous due to the fact that the
whole issue was "extremely silly," said that "IBM is committed to the
future of network computing and OS/2 is an important part of that future."
He added that,"IBM is not interested in promoting suicide.  If you want to
talk about promoting suicide, talk to Microsoft's ISVs.  Can you say
`Citrix'?"

Reaction amongst Windows users was generally positive.  Ben de Miover, CIO
for a large company which recently switched its operations from the Apple
MacIntosh to Windows 95, explained,"Windows is really cool because you can
play Quake in, like, a window and stuff."  He also cited a complete lack of
Windows 95 applications for the MacIntosh.  "How can modern business
function without Windows 95 applications.  Y'know, like Quake?"  In
addition, he was pretty sure that OS/2 and UNIX were "new wave bands from
L.A."

Linus Torvalds was unavailable for comment.

> Date: Wed, 02 Apr 1997 16:04:50 -0500
> From: liesel@dreamscape.com (liesel f. deutsch)
> Subject: Re: Theosophy Redefined (longish)
> Message-ID: <199704022120.QAA22404@ultra1.dreamscape.com>

OK, I bite. That's a subject worth talking about. 

Most of what you state I agree with. I would like to go a little deeper into
this business of the inner goverment of the world which is said to be
hierarchical. I don't particularly cotton to hierarchical governments, of
which there are many in today's world. How else could it be laid out, or do
we discard it as oldfashioned? Or what?

I don't object to Jinarjadasa saying 'God's plan, which is evolution".
According to our tenets he can or cannot believe in God as he chooses. I
also think Evolution is an idea accepted by most Theosophists. Since one of
our beliefs is that everything originates in God, then so why not evolution?
It *is* a plan of some sort. You can see plans right away if you look at
human anatomy, or the cycles a tree goes through, or anything else in this
world, to see that there is some sort of a plan. Whose is it? I don't know,
so I call It God ... There seems also to be a plan which we understand under
the concept of evolution, which originates from something beyond us.
Evolution seems to be there. We can note certain parts of it unfolding. We
are told that it will unfold further. Which is a Theosophical tenet we may
or may not accept. I call that something beyond us which seems to me to be
planning evolution, whatever it is, "God" because it's the accepted
nomenclature ... and so I'm not offended by J. calling it that.. What I
myself understand by the term is some Consciousness, much more sophisticated
than my own, which lives & breathes in universes and all their components,
all of which it has dreamt up out of its own stuff. That's a Theosophical
concept, I think. I like to conform to convention when I can, so I call it
God, instead of Logos or whatever? *I* know what I mean. Besides, anyone
hearing the word "God" has their own image of what that is anyway,
Theosophist or civilian. And doesn't it seem logical that whatever dreamt up
this world, and its order, also dreamt up evolution? Then why not call it God?

I don't understand what you mean by that the founding of the TS brings God
into the occult arena. Barring that you imagine God as the man on a cloud
with the white beard, whom I'd rather not have in the TS either, (but that's
my personal choice) what makes you think that the Creator of the World isn't
already in the occult arena? By this I guess you mean the arena thought of
as occult by human beings. As I envision that point of view, to God those
things are known and not occult.

Best wishes
Liesel
..............................................................................



>                        THEOSOPHY REDEFINED (I)
>
>Theosophical textbooks and introductory articles almost alsways tell us
>that the word "theosophy' derives from the Greek words for 'God' (theos)
>and 'Wisdom' (sophia) respectively.  Having done this, it is not
>uncommon that any suggestion of the involvement of a/any actual form of
>deity is dispensed with, and terms such as 'ancient wisdom" or
>'perrenial philosophy' are used.
>
>This is hardly surprising in literature deriving from an organisation
>which by its own rules admits followers of any religion or none.  To
>mention a specific kind of god would be certain to offend some.
>
>At one period, particularly the Annie Besant/Charles Leadbeater era of
>the nineteen-thirties, God was mentioned on a regular basis by such
>stalwarts asishop] Leadbeater andishop] Arundale and even the
>Indian theosophist C. Jinarajadasa.  I know - I have their spoken
>recordings which contain this usage.
>
>This god is a male god, described as 'He' and has a 'plan' for humanity
>described by Jinarajadasa in ~First Principles of Theosophy~ as "God's
>Plan, Which is Evolution."hapter XVI].
>
>These theosophists, in their writings, suggest that there is a kind of
>'dogmatic' theology laid down by various 'masters' and held in trust by
>them in a kind of 'Great White Lodge' (Not Black or Pink) in some sort
>of association with an 'Inner Government of the World' which is clearly
>hierarchical, non-democtracic, and therefore liable, I would suggest, to
>be autocratic, oligarchical, and accountable to - ?
>
>God?
>
>Claim is laid by similar purveyors of the theosophical message to the
>life and work of one of the Theosophical Society's founders, Madame H.P
>Blavatsky, whose introduction the the 'Masters' first appeared in
>letters written by them (but as Mahatmas, which is not quite the same
>thing as Masters) in a large number of letters written by them and often
>transported by miraculous means, using involving Mme. Blavatsky, to ab
>occult researcher called A.P.Sinnett in the latter quarter of the
>nineteenth century.
>
>Much has been made of the Mathatmic Masters and their authority, but one
>major problem from the letters arises in the originally published letter
>number ten which begins:
>
>"Neither our philosophy nor ourselves believe in a God, least of all in
>one whose pronoun necessitates a capital H."
>
>Oh Dear.  If Master Koot Hoomi and his fellow Mahatmas or Masters take
>this view, and they are also held up as the examplars who would-be
>theosophists should follow, so much so that some literature, when
>mentioning them, elevates 'them' to 'Them' and 'their' to 'Their,' thus
>lending a suggestion of divinity to the Mahatmas/Masters themselves.
>
>At the very least, one is inclined to the view that there must be some
>mistake, not least because of the fact that following the excitement at
>the time which surrounded these gentlemen and the famous madame, a
>number of occultists, including the three most often named, Blavatsky,
>Oclott, and Judge, decided to form the ~Theosophical~ Society in 1875,
>thus bringing (a) God firmly into the occult arena.
>
>>From thence, confusion has heaped itself upon confusion, and splinter
>groups and societies developed very early in the life of what is
>sometimes called the 'Theosophical Movement' - including one led by
>Judge, and original co-founder, and later by others such as Steiner,
>Purucker, Alice Bailey, and a number of less well-known luminaries in
>their own fields.
>
>So is there a consistent body of teaching which we may confidently
>describe as "theosophy" in a general sense?  Not from the Mahatmic
>source it would seem, as the term is ruled out by them by definition.
>
>And yet, thousands of occult students have put their feet, less than
>firmly perhaps, upon the path to the knowledge of higher things,
>whatever such higher things may be.  I am one of them, and *I* began,
>not by reading the words of the Mahatmas, nor of Blavatsky, but with the
>one-time International President of the Theosophical Society,
>Jinarajadasa, mentioned above.
>
>Now the difficulty is, as I look back over some forty years of study,
>practice, and research, that although the entire body of literature
>emanating from theosophical sources is riddled with inconsistencies and
>contradictions, there is a great deal of truth to be discovered within
>it, though it is necessary to sort the wheat from the chaff, as the
>saying goes - and deciding for oneself which is which is not always
>simple.
>
>So, before I continue further with this article (if indeed I continue at
>all) I think it is necessary, in attempting to reach the spirit of the
>original founders' intent, to redefine the basic definition.  In other
>words, if we are to talk and discuss something we wish to call
>'theosophy,' we must begin by deciding what we understand by 'theos'
>[God] and 'sophia' [Wisdom].
>
>Any offers?
>
>Alan