Theos-Talk Archives (March 2002 Message tt00569)

Steve: "There have been reports of someone
producing a visible image of himself at a distance and
the image looking like someone else, presumably what
the projector looked like in a previous lifetime. 
Sorry but I do not remember the source after too many
years."

Sorry to say Steve but your arguments only help to confuse an already 
confused issue more so.

For early hermeticists or magicians such as Giordano Bruno, Cornelius 
Agrippa or Robert Fludd, there was no perceived entity "science" that 
needed to be confronted. By contrast, numerous proponents of post-
enlightenment esotericism, from Mesmer, via the spiritualists, 
Theosophy and its offshoots have actively positioned themselves in 
relation to science. 

By the second half of the 18th century, F.C. Oetinger (1702-1782) 
constructed a first form of esoteric scienticism by adapting Boehme's 
Theosophy to the scientific worldview. Next came F.A. Mesmer, who is 
generally known for his contribution to hypnosis, the discovery of
the unconscious. (see Crabtree, "From Mesmer to Freud" and 
Pattie "Mesmer and animal magnetism")- A focus on his scientistic 
reinterpretation of hermeticism and construction of ritual healing in 
scientific terms also reveals Mesmer as the successful originator of
a kind of secular religion. 

In 1785, the marquis de Puysegur finally formulated a theory of 
mesmerism largely stripped of its hermetic cosmology, as he started 
mentioning somnambulism and clairvoyance. The societe de l'Harmony, 
a quasi Masonic organization which had served as a focal point for
the mesmerists, split in two. The orthodox mesmerists remained in one 
camp, while the reformists who followed Pusysegur founded their own 
branch based in Strasbourg. An event that might be the source of 
later "hidden hand" theories. 

Blavatsky considered a positioning vis-à-vis science of
importance, so that Book I and II of the SD are devoted to it. Devas and 
genii are declared to be the same entities that science calls forces. (SD I=
:
478.) 
Chemicals terms like molecules, atom and particle refer to realities 
named Hosts, Monads and Devas. (SD: I: 548.) The periodic table of 
Mendeleeff is explained as consisting of seven families of elements
plus an eight, said to correspond to the Hindu allegory of Aditi, the
mother or infinite space who accepted seven of her sons and rejected 
the eight. (SD: I: 553.) 

The founding of the Theosophical Society can in itself be interpreted
as an apogee of 19th century pseudo-scientism as seen in my previous 
posting.
Blavatsky insists that the knowledge of the ancients and contemporary 
science are the same thing. That ancient cultures knew more of
science than contemporary scientists. (IU p. 25, 35) The Secret Doctrine 
can be seen as a paradigmatic example of how both attitudes to 
science, negative as well as positive, can be articulated. The Secret 
Doctrine mentions dozens of works by contemporary scientists. No part 
of science plays as crucial a role as evolutionism. 
Post Theosophical spokespersons partly look to other branches of 
science in order to structure and delimit their arguments. 

Books presenting the doctrines of Theosophy itself are, with a few 
exception, apologetic. The overwhelming majority of these works 
present Theosophy as a fixed set of coherent doctrines, largely
eschew discussions of historical changes, and aim to presenting 
Theosophical doctrines in an easily understandable format for potential 
converts. 


 
=
Bri.