Theos-Talk Archives (March 2002 Message tt00533)

Jerry: "I wrote a short article on the rising population rate vs 
reincarnation some years ago. Needless to say, it was met with total 
silence, just as your argument here will be. There simply is no way
to explain it and still keep the Theosophical reincarnation scheme as 
outlined in the SD. Your argument, and mine also, causes cognitive 
dissonance, and will simply be ignored. The Buddhist scheme allows
for the crossing over of animals, and we know that the animal population
is decreasing, which would explain the increasing human population. But 
Theosophy maintains that a "door" was shut some milion years ago and 
animals cannot be human nor can humans come back as animals, and 
so Theosophy has a problem on its hands today".

Looking at the devellopment of these TS beliefs of Dallas, 
the reiricarnationists of the 1850s to 1880s relied heavily on the 
strategy of pointing to the existence of revealed teachings. Kardec 
and Caithness had their spirit sources; Kingsford's book claimed to 
be the result of divine revelation; Blavatsky relied on the wisdom 
of "the Masters."

Blavatsky's reincarnation doc­trine builds on elements deriving
from several different sources. Due to the inherent difficulties in 
harmonizing historically distinct traditions, her reincarnation 
doctrine is not free from contradictions. At times, she seems to draw 
on the purported roots of the "ancient wis­dom religion" in a 
generalized Buddhism. Thus, Blavatsky can refer to "the great truth 
that reincarnation is to be dreaded, as existence in this world only 
entails upon man suffering, misery and pain"." Nevertheless, 
following a view that could be either Hindu or Platonic, but 
certainly not Buddhist in any orthodox sense, she claims that there 
is a unique individuality that incarnates again and again. In a 
reminiscence of an earlier Western esoteric tradition, the
individ­ual is said to reincarnate after a stay in the astral plane .4' 
Another echo of the frequent esoteric preoccupation with the number 
seven, the individual is said to be composed of an aggregate of seven
entities that part ways at physical death." A quote such as the
following is closer to a Lurianic kabbalistic view than to the "Esoteric 
Buddhism" that Sinnett wrote of:

The Monad emerges from its state of spiritual and intellectual
unconsciousness; and [ ... ] gets directly into the plane of Mentality. 
But there is no place in the whole universe with a wider margin, or a 
wider field of action in its almost endless gradations of perceptive 
and apper­ceptive qualities, than this plane, which has in its
turn an appropri­ate smaller plane for every "form", from the "mineral"
monad up to the time when that monad blossoms forth by evolution into 
the 
DIVINE moNAD. But all the time it is still one and the same Monad, 
differing only in its incarnations, throughout its ever succeeding 
cycles of partial or total obscuration of spirit, or the partial
or total obscuration of matter-two polar antitheses-as it ascends into 
the realms of mental spirituality, or descends into the depths of 
materiality." (SD)

But this dualism at best and therefore materialism, and apart that 
notting of it is true, it is not even spiritual.
 
=
Bri.

There are several ways in which consciousness might, arguably, be 
> involved in the ganzfeld, but there appears to be no direct
evidence 
> that it is. For example, even in a very successful experiment the 
> hits are mixed with many misses and the subjects themselves cannot 
> say which is which (if they could the successful trials could be 
> separated out and even better results obtained). In other words,
the 
> subject is unaware of the ESP even when it is occurring.
> 
> Our ordinary view of ourselves, as conscious, active agents 
experiencing 
> a real external world, is wrong. In other words we live in the
illusion 
> that we are a separate self. In mystical experiences this separate
self 
> dissolves and the world is experienced as one - actions happen but 
> there is no separate actor who acts. Long practice at meditation or 
> mindfulness can also dispel the illusion. Now science seems to be 
> coming to the same conclusion - that the idea of a separate
conscious 
> self is false.
> 
> Some old fashioned Parapsychologists however are still going the 
other 
> way, and still are trying to prove that consciousness really does
have 
> power that our minds can reach out and "do" things. In this sense
it is 
> deeply dualist, and as I called, materialistic, even while making 
> reference to interconnectedness.
> 
> Theosophical version about what happens "between death and re-
birth" 
> the never dying "monad" and so on, this is a fallacy. Even 
> many "spiritual people say that including in fact new devellopments
> inmodern science , yet is moving further and further away from the 
> outdated 19th century "Theosophy" version, that is bassicly
dualistic
> and concealed materialism.
> 
> In fact it was precisely becouse of the Theosophical ideas
regarding 
> living men project their doubles that the S.P.R. undertook the
study 
> of the T.S. at all !
> 
> In the First Report of the Committee of the Society for Psychical 
> Research on Phenomena in Connection with the TS, it states:
> "if-real evidence can be adduced for a separability of principles
in 
> living men,-for voluntary projection of the double, or
manifestation 
> of aspects of the same identity in discrete places at the same 
> moment,-then though the superstructure of occult doctrine will
remain 
> unproved, there will be a sufficient presumption of the existence
of 
> real psychical knowledge in the East (and they already practiced it 
> based on Emma Brittens info in New York !) to make it our duty to 
> track out such knowledge through every accessible avenue with 
> pertinacious care."
> 
> In the Theosophist in Dec. 1883, it is says with a note by
Blavatsky 
> that " Damodar was a chela of but four years standing and that 
> whenever the phenomenon of the separation of the astral from the 
> physical body takes place, we are told,he falls invariable asleep
or 
> into a trance before."
> 
> In the "First Report" of the SPR above it also states
> however that; 
> the evidence available rendered it impossible to avoid one or the 
> other of two alternative conclusions: "Either that some of the 
> phenomea recorded are genuine , or that other persons of good 
> standing in society , and with charcters to lose, have taken part
in 
> deliberate imposture."
> In the event , such gentlemen were cleared from charges of 
dishonesty 
> in the SPR report, but only at the expense of their dignity. 
> According to Hodgson, the theosophical witnesses were "as a
> whole excessively credulous, excessively deficient in the powers of 
> common observation; and to many of them prone to supplement that 
> deficiency by culpable exaggeration"
> 
> The phenomenon of projection was a common explanation also of 
many 
> of the appearances of the Brothers/Masters in New York, and of 
> Blavatsky's "double" counsciousness as their agent.
> J.P. Deveney, along with the other books and authors I have
reffered 
> to, describes in "Astral Projection or Liberating of the Double
> and the work of the early Theosophical Society"(1997)
> And wrote: "But the ability to project the astral double, and 
> act through it at a distance was not reserved to the Brothers
alone, 
> and was held up to the members as the `verry last and highest
> possible achievement of magic,'a goal actively to be pursued and
> achieved."
> 
> In her letters to Elliot Coues Blavatsky wrote; "My dear
> nocturnal visitor, You are very clever in paying visits & in
feeling 
> my presence in your bones"
> "Let us go on with our attempts to communicate & see each other 
> astrally."
> 
> 
> Bilocations is a myth, but out-of-body experiences or OBE's are
> "real" and there not the slightest reason why a person who rejects
> the theory of the astral body should deny their reality. And the
same 
> counts for "remote" viewing. And just also visualisations people
make
> in past life theraphy about themselves are "real" in the symbolic
sense
> of the word, they have also real "meaning" but don't proof "past
lives"
> as such.
> 
> However it is not "something" going "out there," and if Daniel 
> understood something about the Ganzfeld theorie in spite that he
> name drops that term, he would understand the above, but obviously 
he 
> doesn't.
> Even the Mahatma letters played with notions of their own 
> fictitiousness, calling attention to the Mahatma's status as 
> inventive inventions: having been "'invented' ourselves," the
Masters 
> noted, they "repay the inventors by inventing" increasingly 
> complicated "imaginary" doctrines as a way of avoiding accusations
of 
> inconsistency or internal contradiction in their teachings.(KH to 
> Sinnet , letter No.24B, in "Mahatma Letters".)
> 
> Theosophical "principles", wich could be printed, published, 
> annotated , and debated (including "Atma and 
Parabrahman"),replaced 
> the occult and became the public emphasis of the society. The 
> formation of the Blavatsky Lodge in 1887 was partly the result of 
> this emphasis on propaganda and theosophical principles. According 
to 
> Bertram Keightley, one of its founding members, the Blavatsky Lodge 
> was intended to rescue the TA from the "diletante class or high 
> society men", Keightley argued, was not for the "kid gloves and 
> swallow-tail coats," but for earnest and dedicated students of 
> spiritual mysteries. (Keighley, "The Adyar Convention Lectures: 
> Theosophy in the West", The Theosophist .,July 1891,585.) 
> 
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/6474
> 
>  
Bri.