Theos-Talk Archives (February 1998 Message tl00122)

dport@ozemail.com.au wrote:

> I am a relatively new member of the TS and attended my first lecture on the
> weekend -"Qabbalah - Jewish Mysticism". The first suprise I got upon
> arriving was the age of the other members - I didn't see one person under
> 50.

    That is not uncommon. In the New York Lodge, at least, that trend is
turning around, and we have a number of members in their 20's.

> Then in the lecture I was told that the secrets of the Qabbalah would
> not be revealed to anyone under 40 ( I am 26).

    You misunderstood. According to Jewish tradition, Kabballah (the Q spelling
is usually reserved for the Christian derivation) should only be studied by
someone who is over 40 and married, in other words, a stable person. This is a
tradition, NOT a law, and even if it were a law, it would not be binding on
non-Jews.

> The most disappointing
> aspect of the night was that in no way was Judaism even compared to some of
> the tenets of the Secret Doctrine, in fact it felt as if Dr Zuesse was
> trying to convert everybody to Judaism.

    That was probably just poor presentation. Judaism STRONGLY discourages
converts, especially since they have a simple set of rules under which a
non-Jew would be considered to be a follower of Jewish Law (belief in unity of
God, use of courts to solve disagreements, kindness to animals, not testifying
falsely to hurt someone else, not murdering, not breaking marriage agreements).
Kabballah is, however, the Jewish take on Theosophy. Perhaps the links to the
SD were implied rather than explicit?

> Perhaps I expected too much - I'm going to give the lectures another go
> next week  (a Krishnamurti video)but from what I can already gather is the
> Secret Doctrine is seen as too hard by many lay members or the attacks of
> materialist science has rendered it as irrelevant - There is not one
> programmed lecture for the next 3 months even relating to esoteric wisdom.

    Many Lodges do not follow Blavatsky, but concentrate instead on the "Latter
Day Theosophists." Why don't YOU volunteer to give a talk on the S.D.; you may
be surprised by the level of positive response you receive.

> Enough complaining - I recently saw the film 'Fairy Tale' based on the true
> story of two girls who photographed some fairies near a stream in their
> garden.

    Who CLAIMED to have photographed some fairies.

> The photos were given to a local TS member who had them verified
> and authenticated and then brought Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini
> in to investigate. The photos were then published in The Strand I think.
> What I would like to know is has anybody seen these photo's and do the TS
> records show this event as occuring.

    The photo's have been pretty conclusively proven to be fakes (they were
posed cut-out's, and the original source has been found).

    Two books of special interest are Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's books on
Spiritualism (note especially his comments on HPB), and Harry Houdini's A
MAGICIAN AMONG THE SPIRITS. There was a major difference between Harry Houdini
and modern debunkers such as James Randi: Houdini genuinely believed in the
supernatural, and was searching for genuine examples.

    Bart Lidofsky