Theos-Talk Archives (October 1999 Message tl00258)

>>Are you not a bit unkind here? Frank's English is clearly
not so good, so why put salt on every snail here? (Dutch
proverb) It does seem to me that you are fighting so hard
against any negative feeling, that that fighting itself
seems to come from some frustration of your own. >>

I was trying to respond with a minimal emotional level.
Sorry. My frustration level is actually pretty low. I have
nothing against Frank at all, only with his view of the
Pasadena TS (which many others share although they
are not so emotionally entangled). I promise to do better
in future responses. I thought I was doing pretty well
(I only said bullshit and flapdoodle once each while
sitting on my hands!)... As far as I am concerned,
Frank is just the messenger, and I am trying very
hard to shoot at the message without hitting the
messenger. My apologies. I will do better in future.

I am one of the original members of this list. It has
been pretty clear to me by observing things that there
are two possible outcomes here. A person will
either leave the list with hard feelings (or out of boredom)
or will soon develop a thick skin in the sense of learning
how to ignore apparent attacks on their ego. My skin has
thickened a lot over the years. In some ways, this
list is a good test of our Theosophy because we can
use it to learn ways to get over our normal human
urge to attack in revenge and to return flames
with yet more flames.

Anyone who knows a little psychology can read the
emotional undertones of someone's postings. On a
Theosophy list, I would hope that these would be
minimal. But we all have hurts and sore subjects
and these are usually revealed in our choice of
words. For some reason, Frank appears to me to have
been hurt badly by events that happened in the
past. I would like to help him, but how? Encouraging
him in his distorted (from my perspective) history
is no real help. Logic and reason won't work. All I
can really do is to offer an alternative viewpoint so
that others know such a viewpoint exists. I can't
just sit back and let fellow Theosophists think that
Pasadena is a nest of black magicians (as far as
I know, only Chuck and I could come under that
label since we have both written books on magic).

Jerry S.