Theos-Talk Archives (May 1998 Message tl00095)

May 6th 1998
                            RE:        DRUGS, etc.
Dallas offers:

In the past few days several opinions have been exchanged
concerning the use of drugs.

Mme.Blavatsky offers the following in THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY, p.
262 :

"Wine and spirit drinking is only slightly less destructive to
the development of inner powers that the habitual use of hashish,
opium. and similar drugs."

In PRACTICAL OCCULTISM [ "Lucifer"April 1888 -- HPB Articles
(ULT),
Vol. II,  p. 95  ]  HPB wrote concerning the rules of occultism
to be followed by
"chelas" who desire to develop their own inner powers :

"No animal food of whatever kind, nothing that has life in it,
should be taken by the disciple.  No wine, no spirits, or opium
should be used;  for these are like the "lamayin" (evil spirits),
who fasten upon the unwary, they devour the understanding."

In LETTERS THAT HAVE HELPED ME, (pp. 177-8) Mr. Wm. Q. Judge
wrote
to a friend :

"Generally speaking, the habit of drinking intoxicants is due to
the desire to get rid of what might be called the present
personal consciousness.  When people drink to try and drown
sorrow, pain, worry, they clearly do it with that motive in view
.. it is an effort to produce by extraneous aids what can only
be done properly and lastingly by interior development ...
Ultimately the race will come to realize that this can only be
done by the identification of the ego with the higher instead of
the lower nature ... [one] should be made to understand that the
desire for drink is now a habit in certain lives in his body
whose very existence depends upon their being fed with alcohol
[or some other drug].  The desire is not in himself unless he is
foolish enough to identify himself with the desire.  Once he
ceases to so identify himself, the desire will lose more than
half its power over him."        LETTERS THAT HAVE HELPED ME,
                                            1946 Centennial
Edition, ULT, p. 177-8

Dallas

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