Theos-Talk Archives (August 1997 Message tl00626)

In message <3404FAF4.6F24@globalserve.net>, Annette Rivington
<libidium@globalserve.net> writes

<snip>

>I have dozens of questions for you, because I am
>guessing that you have experience with this "field", but a few will do:
>
>1. Is it possible that Mme B. was influenced by Druidism (as revived in
>the 1800's)?

I think not to any appreciable extent.

>2.  Is it possible that Jesus travelled to Gaul and/or Britain and was
>influenced by the underground (by that time) Druids? 

The Glastonbury legends claim that he went there (Glastonbury) with his
"uncle" Joseph of Arimathea when J was a young lad.  At that time the
Druids were not underground, and probably controlled the place. It's a
complicated, detailed, and much glamorized (and commercialized) story.

The definitive first book to read on this is ~St. Joseph of Arimathea at
Glastonbury~ by L. Smithett-Lewis, the last definitive edition of which
appeared in 1956 or thereabouts. It has seen many editions and more than
one publisher, but should be around somewhere.
> 
>3.  The Druid Circle of Life is EXACTLY like the Native American
>Medicine Wheel.  What other representations of Life are the same? And,
>why are the representations (diagrams) of concepts in Theosophy so
>darned complex?  Why not a simple spiral or rosary for instance, why all
>these levels and names that the average person can't pronounce let alone
>memorize?  (and if you guys tell me that it's because it's for the
>initiated only, that it takes years of discplined study to get there,
>then that's why you're losing members - this is the fast food era, it's
>not a fad it's part of our evolution, we can't go back, we can't sit
>still long enough to take it in, any concept has to be so simple it hits
>people like a ton a bricks and stays with them)

Dear Alan is already one of the "lost" members, as I do not see the
necessity of supporting a power-based structure in order to pursue
Truth.  You might just find the Kabbalist Tree of Life basic diagram
useful, but its only medium, not fast food!  Download my ~Keys to
Kabbalah~ from the website (below) and just stay with Part One for
starters ...

>4.  Is it not evident that, when one strips away all the trappings and
>details of any known set of religous practices and goes back far enough,
>they are all the same in basic content and based on a simple set of
>natural laws of cause and effect, which if you break you become extinct?

The content differs, but it is, I am sure, the *laws* which lie behind
them all, which is why I favor the Kabbalist way, as it is about Law
first, and practices second.  If we don't understand the laws, then how
on earth can we expect to get the practices right?

>5.  Is it correct to say that there are a few natural great energy
>centres on the planet, situated on ley lines I believe.  Do these
>centres feature in Theosophy?

SFAIK they are mentioned in theosophical writings, but no great emphasis
has been placed upon them by mainstream theosophical societies and
writers.  One exception is Dion Fortune, who in ~Avalon of the Heart~
[Glastonbury again] made it clear that she held this view, as, in part,
do I.
>  
>6.  Isn't the medical profession now "discovering" the healing powers of
>"sound", and isn't Stonehenge not only a calendar device, but also built
>so that sound is manipulated - silence within the inner circle for
>meditation and sound producing on the outer with different sounds
>depending on the sun's position caused by the stones vibrating by the
>heat?

I have heard this idea, of course, but as the stones are shut off to
free public access, we cannot try it out any more.

>  Isn't sound a main ingredient of every religious practice,
>including opening and cleansing the Chakras?  Is the sound of our
>possessions killing us?

Yes it is. As for the chakras, we need to be very careful when
attempting to work with them.  A little ignorance can do a lot of
damage.
>
>And, not withstanding the theories of Atlantis and Arcturus and other
>types of what I still call "wierd stuff", have we not been left direct
>evidence that before our recorded history, humans were a race of what we
>would consider "giants", with their architecture having been copied in
>size and grandeur by the Egyptians on down, so that, is it not possible
>to postulate that, in evloutionary terms we are on the second or third
>time around?

In ~From Atlantis to the Sphinx~ Colin Wilson argues that humanity is
far older than current "scientific" theories profess. As for the size of
ancient Egyptian architecture, browse around the website (below) for the
file BAST.TXT (may be in my "personal" folder).
>
<snip some more>

>Re slinging insults:  It's certainly not true to say that words never
>hurt.  They do, sometimes enough to get through that good old protective
>shell, not only of the one to whom the diatribe is being directed, but
>also to those of us are listening and watching.  Then we start to feel
>and think.  (The first thing we feel is the pain of the person doing the
>slinging!)

"Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can break my heart."
Donna Fargo (Country singer).

<more snip>

>Re the postings amorous bits - when do I get to see email consumation?

Oh! Oh! Oh! Arrrrrrr! Was it good for you .... ?
> 
<Megasnip>
>
>Finally, to Alan - you once asked me where I grew up.  I was born in
>Plymouth, we moved to Devizes, and except for a short stay in Suffolk,
>spent most of my youth about 10 minutes from Stonehenge, on a farm near
>Salisbury.  I went to Bristol University (for the physics) and roamed
>around Dorset looking for Hardy's characters.  In the early days (and I
>mean the late 50's) there were four generations of us living in a
>cottage that had no electricity, no inside toilet, and was mostly the
>original wattle and daub.  We killed our own meat and hung it, grew all
>our own vegetables, and lived everyday by first predicting the weather
>and then by homilies.  I could talk to animals, did my homework up a
>tree and spent all of my spare time lying around in a corn field or
>copse talking to invisible people (until I got wind of the opposite sex
>that is).  While I learned Latin and French, my great-grandfather talked
>a diallect so strong with dipthongs and olde words that I couldn't
>understand him half the time, but I was passionately happy and didn't
>know I was any different from "normal" people.  (And I do mean
>passionately happy, no passion in relationships or career or idea has
>ever come close to that absolute feeling that I was surrounded by
>timeless love, eons older and wiser than me, and that everything in
>nature was infinite and pefect and I was too).  Oh how the mighty have
>fallen!  But hey, you Americans, don't think I didn't know how you were
>living, 'cos later we got electricity and a TV and I fell in love with
>Dale Robertson on Wells Fargo and was most disappointed when I visited
>Buffalo, N.Y. just after emigrating and no-one was riding horses!

Thanks for this!  My own early days (esoterically speaking) were late
50's).
>
> When I left England, I slowly lost all
>connection until a few years ago a Hopi trained Indian told me that I
>was totally disconected and lost and that I would have to start the road
>back by hugging a tree everyday.

Trees can get importunate if you let them.  They don't let you hug them
for nothing :-)

<snip again>

>I have been in Canada for nearly thirty years and I still cry like a
>baby when I meditate and go back to the Wiltshire land and the sounds
>and the smells and the magical energy.  But no-one can go back.  The
>Tribe has to go on, taking the truth and the power with it to the "New
>Place", wherever it may be, because the truth and the energy never
>changes and governs all.  I'm finally coming "home again" to that place
>within where we are all the same, there are no barriers of time and
>space, and I haven't missed the boat or wasted my life.

I left Bristol for Cornwall and went back and forward both at once.
Down here near Lands End we can get real close to the source just by
watching and hearing the rough seas crash against the rocks and cliffs
of this still rural and rugged land.

> Theosophy is the only way home.

Sort of, but small 't' theosophy, not the institutionalised kind.
>    
>Love to you All.  Annette.

And you!

Alan