Theosophy

A place to discuss casual topics amongst spiritual friends.
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Nicholas Weeks
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Re: Theosophy

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Kim OHara wrote: Fri Apr 23, 2021 6:55 am :juggling:
That would seem to depend very much on how one conceptualises "person" and "soul".

Do we know enough about Blavatsky's thought to know whether what she meant was eternalism or not?

:coffee:
Kim
Not everything theosophical was written by HPB. The Three Truths from The Idyll of the White Lotus is an example.
Good and evil have no fixed form. It's as easy to turn from doing bad to doing good as it is to flip over the hand from the back to the palm. It's simply up to us to do it. Master Hsuan Hua.
GnosticMind
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Re: Theosophy

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Last edited by GnosticMind on Fri Apr 23, 2021 6:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Nicholas Weeks
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Re: Theosophy

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GnosticMind wrote: Fri Apr 23, 2021 5:16 pm Theosophy is clouded in so much controversy and charges of fakery...
Obvious approach is to go beyond or see thru the clouds by studying original sources like HPB or WQ Judge.
Good and evil have no fixed form. It's as easy to turn from doing bad to doing good as it is to flip over the hand from the back to the palm. It's simply up to us to do it. Master Hsuan Hua.
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Kim OHara
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Re: Theosophy

Post by Kim OHara »

Nicholas Weeks wrote: Fri Apr 23, 2021 2:36 pm
Kim OHara wrote: Fri Apr 23, 2021 6:55 am :juggling:
That would seem to depend very much on how one conceptualises "person" and "soul".

Do we know enough about Blavatsky's thought to know whether what she meant was eternalism or not?

:coffee:
Kim
Not everything theosophical was written by HPB. The Three Truths from The Idyll of the White Lotus is an example.
Okay ... same question re Mabel Collins, "a writer of popular occult novels, a fashion writer and an anti-vivisection campaigner. She was a theosophist and author of over 46 books," according to her blurb on Amazon.
Do we know enough about her thought to know whether what she meant was eternalism or not?

:coffee:
Kim
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Nicholas Weeks
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Re: Theosophy

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Kim OHara wrote: Sat Apr 24, 2021 10:48 pm
Okay ... same question re Mabel Collins, "a writer of popular occult novels, a fashion writer and an anti-vivisection campaigner. She was a theosophist and author of over 46 books," according to her blurb on Amazon.
Do we know enough about her thought to know whether what she meant was eternalism or not?

:coffee:
Kim
Not me - Mabel being dead. You have just 50? of her books to go.
Good and evil have no fixed form. It's as easy to turn from doing bad to doing good as it is to flip over the hand from the back to the palm. It's simply up to us to do it. Master Hsuan Hua.
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cappuccino
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Re: Theosophy

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Kim OHara wrote: Sat Apr 24, 2021 10:48 pm Do we know enough about her thought to know whether what she meant was eternalism or not?
eternalism is the idea… that we are the same


the same as we ever were


which I think people assume
Last edited by cappuccino on Sat Apr 24, 2021 11:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Kim OHara
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Re: Theosophy

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Nicholas Weeks wrote: Sat Apr 24, 2021 10:58 pm
Kim OHara wrote: Sat Apr 24, 2021 10:48 pm
Okay ... same question re Mabel Collins, "a writer of popular occult novels, a fashion writer and an anti-vivisection campaigner. She was a theosophist and author of over 46 books," according to her blurb on Amazon.
Do we know enough about her thought to know whether what she meant was eternalism or not?

:coffee:
Kim
Not me - Mabel being dead. You have just 50? of her books to go.
:rofl:

Not me. Life is too short.
At this distance she looks like an eternalist and one of the mushiest woo-woo New Age authors to have been published, and I will save my time and energy for more worthwhile writers.

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Kim
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Kim OHara
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Re: Theosophy

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cappuccino wrote: Sat Apr 24, 2021 11:03 pm
Kim OHara wrote: Sat Apr 24, 2021 10:48 pm Do we know enough about her thought to know whether what she meant was eternalism or not?
eternalism is the idea… that we are the same


the same as we ever were


which I think people assume
I'm a good enough Buddhist not to assume that at all.

:namaste:
Kim
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cappuccino
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Re: Theosophy

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Kim OHara wrote: Sat Apr 24, 2021 11:06 pm I'm a good enough Buddhist not to assume that at all.
the assumption is subtle


people say they feel 16…… at 70
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Re: Theosophy

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Kim OHara wrote: Sat Apr 24, 2021 11:04 pm
At this distance she looks like an eternalist and one of the mushiest woo-woo New Age authors to have been published, and I will save my time and energy for more worthwhile writers.

:coffee:
Kim
Just to add to your indifferent befuddlement, Mabel only held the pen for Idyll of the White Lotus. A Greek Sage called Illarion dictated the allegorical adventure to her. Here is Blavatsky mentioning that:
When I met her [late 1884] she had just completed the Idyll of the White Lotus, which, as she stated to Colonel Olcott, had been dictated to her by some “mysterious person.” Guided by her description, we both recognized an old friend of ours, a Greek, and no Mahatma, though an Adept; further developments proving we were right.
Good and evil have no fixed form. It's as easy to turn from doing bad to doing good as it is to flip over the hand from the back to the palm. It's simply up to us to do it. Master Hsuan Hua.
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Nicholas Weeks
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Re: Theosophy

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Soon after starting her Lucifer magazine in 1887, Helena Blavatsky published a long open letter to the head of the English church, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Here are some excerpts:
Your Grace is no doubt aware that Theosophy is not a religion, but a
philosophy at once religious and scientific; and that the chief work, so
far, of the Theosophical Society has been to revive in each religion its
own animating spirit, by encouraging and helping enquiry into the true
significance of its doctrines and observances. Theosophists know that
the deeper one penetrates into the meaning of the dogmas and
ceremonies of all religions, the greater becomes their apparent
underlying similarity, until finally a perception of their fundamental
unity is reached. This common ground is no other than Theosophy—the
Secret Doctrine of the ages; which, diluted and disguised to suit
the capacity of the multitude, and the requirements of the time, has
formed the living kernel of all religions.
[...]
We Theosophists believe that a religion is a natural incident in the life
of man in his present stage of development; and that although, in rare
cases, individuals may be born without the religious sentiment, a
community must have a religion, that is to say, a uniting bond—under
penalty of social decay and material annihilation. We believe that no
religious doctrine can be more than an attempt to picture to our present
limited understandings, in the terms of our terrestrial experiences, great
cosmical and spiritual truths, which in our normal state of
consciousness we vaguely sense, rather than actually perceive and
comprehend; and a revelation, if it is to reveal anything, must
necessarily conform to the same earthbound requirements of the human
intellect. In our estimation, therefore, no religion can be absolutely true,
and none can be absolutely false. A religion is true in proportion as it
supplies the spiritual, moral and intellectual needs of the time, and helps
the development of mankind in these respects. It is false in proportion
as it hinders that development, and offends the spiritual, moral and
intellectual portion of man’s nature.
Good and evil have no fixed form. It's as easy to turn from doing bad to doing good as it is to flip over the hand from the back to the palm. It's simply up to us to do it. Master Hsuan Hua.
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Nicholas Weeks
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Re: Theosophy

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Theosophists, therefore, are respecters of all the religions, and for the
religious ethics of Jesus they have profound admiration. It could not be
otherwise, for these teachings which have come down to us are the same
as those of Theosophy. So far, therefore, as modern Christianity makes
good its claim to be the practical religion taught by Jesus, Theosophists
are with it heart and hand. So far as it goes contrary to those ethics, pure
and simple, Theosophists are its opponents. Any Christian can, if he will,
compare the Sermon on the Mount with the dogmas of his church, and
the spirit that breathes in it, with the principles that animate this
Christian civilisation and govern his own life; and then he will be able to
judge for himself how far the religion of Jesus enters into his
Christianity, and how far, therefore, he and Theosophists are agreed.
[...]
The Church claims that Christianity is the only true religion, and this
claim involves two distinct propositions, namely, that Christianity is true
religion, and that there is no true religion except Christianity. It never
seems to strike Christians that God and Spirit could possibly exist in any
other form than that under which they are presented in the doctrines of
their church. The savage calls the missionary an Atheist, because he
does not carry an idol in his trunk; and the missionary, in his turn, calls
everyone an Atheist who does not carry about a fetish in his mind; and
neither savage nor Christian ever seem to suspect that there may
be a higher idea than their own of the great hidden power that governs
the Universe, to which the name of “God” is much more applicable.

It is doubtful whether the churches take more pains to prove Christianity
“true,” or to prove that any other kind of religion is necessarily “false”;
and the evil consequences of this, their teaching, are terrible. When
people discard dogma they fancy that they have discarded the religious
sentiment also, and they conclude that religion is a superfluity in human
life—a rendering to the clouds of things that belong to earth, a waste of
energy which could be more profitably expended in the struggle for
existence. The materialism of this age is, therefore, the direct
consequence of the Christian doctrine that there is no ruling power in
the Universe, and no immortal Spirit in man except those made known
in Christian dogmas. The Atheist, my Lord Primate, is the bastard son of
the Church.
Good and evil have no fixed form. It's as easy to turn from doing bad to doing good as it is to flip over the hand from the back to the palm. It's simply up to us to do it. Master Hsuan Hua.
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Nicholas Weeks
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Re: Theosophy

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What is the meaning of the reaction against materialism, the signs of
which fill the air today? It means that the world has become mortally
sick of the dogmatism, the arrogance, the self-sufficiency, and the
spiritual blindness of modern science---of that same Modern Science
which men but yesterday hailed as their deliverer from religious bigotry
and Christian superstition, but which, like the Devil of the monkish
legends, requires, as the price of its services, the sacrifice of man’s
immortal soul. And meanwhile, what are the Churches doing? The
Churches are sleeping the sweet sleep of endowments, of social and
political influence, while the world, the flesh, and the devil, are appropriating
their watchwords, their miracles, their arguments, and their blind faith.
Good and evil have no fixed form. It's as easy to turn from doing bad to doing good as it is to flip over the hand from the back to the palm. It's simply up to us to do it. Master Hsuan Hua.
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Nicholas Weeks
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Re: Theosophy

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The entire letter from "Lucifer" to the Archbishop is here:

http://www.katinkahesselink.net/blavats ... 87_039.htm
Good and evil have no fixed form. It's as easy to turn from doing bad to doing good as it is to flip over the hand from the back to the palm. It's simply up to us to do it. Master Hsuan Hua.
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Nicholas Weeks
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Re: Theosophy

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The newly revamped Universal Theosophy site:

https://universaltheosophy.com/
Good and evil have no fixed form. It's as easy to turn from doing bad to doing good as it is to flip over the hand from the back to the palm. It's simply up to us to do it. Master Hsuan Hua.
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