Theos-Talk Archives (February 1994 Message tl00000)

Arvind

You wrote:

> In response to your last message, let me propose that we call
> the 'objective' Secret Doctrine as SD and HPB's writing of the
> same title as "HPB's SD".  I am guilty of having used the
> abbreviation SD to refer to both in the past and it is likley
> that we'll be using these for a long time to come, hence the
> need for you to either concur with what I propose or let me
> know what you are comfortable with and we can use that.

     Looking at this from the point of view of laziness on my
part--i.e. to find the easiest way to accomplish a task, I would
propose that we use TSD for HPB's book.  SD for the subject
matter of TSD is fine.


> I was indeed suggesting that the theogonic key is the key that
> AAB has applied to SD (not HPB's SD).  The reasons why I say
> this are several.  If you refer to the 'Foreword' of TCF,p.xii,
>
> review the five objectives for TCF(I am reproducing brief
> portions  below; text within square brackets is mine):
[stuff deleted]

     Then we are back to the problem as to why Foster Bailey
wrote:

     H.P.B. stated that in the 20th century a disciple would come
     who would give the psychological key to her own monumental
     work ~The Secret Doctrine~ on which the writings of the
     Tibetan worked with her...(TCF viii).

     It is clear that Foster Bailey was referring to TSD not the
SD. I suggested three possible solutions to this problem which I
will requote:

     Thus, if AAB is saying that TCF is the "psychological key"
     to ~The Secret Doctrine,~ then, in light of the above, two
     possibilities of her meaning come to mind: 1. She doesn't
     know what she is talking about. 2. She is not referring to
     the seven keys at all, but is really saying that TCF is an
     interpretation of ~The Secret Doctrine~ from a psychological
     context.  I already  discussed this alternative in my Jan
     18th message to you, and unless you have another possibility
     in mind, this seems to be the most feasible.  But if TCF is
     only a psychological commentary, then this is much less
     profound then what most readers assume she means.  As I had
     mentioned in my Jan. 18th message, the text of HPB's
     "prediction" would probably clarify things.  A third
     possibility comes to mind, that the statement was a misprint
     in AAB's books that nobody ever bothered to change, and that
     she was not referring to ~The Secret Doctrine,~ at all, but
     that TCF is the psychological key to the Secret Doctrine.
     The only problem with this alternative, is that HPB does not
     have a "psychological key."

     Therefore it appears that your solution (that TCF is the
"psychological key" to the SD.) follows my third possible
scenario--that Foster Bailey's statement is a misprint (or a
mistake) that nobody ever bothered to change--i.e. that he
misquoted or misunderstood H.P.B.'s prophecy to refer to THE,
when it really referred to the SD.  But until we find the text of
this prophecy, we won't be able to clarify this.  Now regarding
your argument that the Theogonic key is the same as the
psychological key--I will repeat my original response, then your
answer, followed by my response to your answer:

My original response:

     Your suggestion that the Psychological Key is AAB's term for
     the Theogonic Key is inconsistent with the information we
     have.  The term "psychological key" is supposed to have been
     taken from a "prediction" made by HPB; therefore it was
     HPB's term, and AAB is presumably using HPB's meaning. Since
     we can't find the "prediction," we can't verify what HPB
     meant (let alone verify the existence of the prediction).
     If the two terms are synonymous, then why is this yet to be
     found "prediction" the only instance in all of HPB's twenty
     volumes of writings, where she uses the term "psychology" in
     this way?

Your answer:

> See above.  In your mind, do you make a distinction between a
> prediction and a prophecy? If so, it is a prophecy that AAB is
> referring to and not a prediction of HPB.

My response to you:

     In this context, I'm not making a distinction between
prediction and prophecy.  "prediction" is in quotes because I was
using the term you used.  Substitute the word "prophecy" for
"prediction" and my meaning remains exactly the same.  Still, my
issue and question above have not been addressed.

In reply to my statement below:

>> Besant and Leadbeater did throw away many of HPB's terms in
>> favor of their own, and has caused endless confusion among
>> readers who try to make Besant and Leadbeater jive with
>> Blavatsky.

You Wrote:

> Yeah, there is a problem of jiving the various terms; in
> particular it appears that AAB has used the terms coined by
> Leadbeater and Besant, but let us not be hasty to conclude that
> this implies that AAB agreed with what Leadbeater or Besant
> taught (I have reproduced sometime back portions of the AAB
> autobiography which are clearly very critical of Besant and
> Leadbeater).  AAB may have employed the terms used by
> Leadbeater/Besant as they were the ones most familiar to her,
> or most in vogue those days within theosophical circles.

     I think you have made a very important point when you write
that AAB may have employed terms used by Leadbeater/Besant.  The
critical question is whether or not her meanings of the terms are
consistent with Besant/Leadbeater or with Blavatsky.  If she uses
a term used exclusively by Besant/Leadbeater, and not by
Blavatsky, then we have to assume that she is also appropriating
Besant/Leadbeater's meaning of the term, unless we can prove
otherwise.

>>      I think a clarification is in order here.  By E.S.
>> materials, I was not referring to HPB's, but to Besant and
>> Leadbeater's E.S. material.  This material is entirely
>> different from HPB's.

> Well, I am back to square one on this one.  And I am afraid
> that I cannot comment further on this until I see what Besant
> and Leadbeater's ES material looks like.  I have seen a lot of
> the AS material and that jives perfectly in my opinion with
> what I have  learnt from HPB's books.  Can you tell me in which
> published books of AAB this Leadbeater/Besant ES material may
> have appeared (your conjectures will be fine)?  Also, I have to
> point out that HPB in 'Key to Theosophy' has talked very highly
> about Besant, and in fact has quoted from Besant ('Study in
> Consciousness') so unless you point out something specific in
> these ES teachings that is against what HPB taught, it may be
> that there is validity in these ES materials as well.

     Your request puts me into a bit of a bind.  Though I am not
bound by any pledges not to reveal this material, nor did my
source break any pledges, I still have come concern about raising
the ire of pledged members who believe that this material should
be kept secret.  I'm willing to risk their anger, and reveal the
contents of some of this material, if any real good were to come
out of it.  So I will have to put the question back to you by
asking: If by revealing the contents of the E.S. materials, I
show that key teachings in AAB's writings are in previously
published E.S. writings that she had seen, then what would this
mean to you?

     Regarding your allusion to the KEY TO THEOSOPHY, the Clara
Codd version you are using is less than half the size of the
original, and the material has been completely rearranged into
the editor's own agenda as to what she wants to address--so that
the questions no longer follow in the same context as the
original, and half the book was edited out.  I hope someday you
get and read the original version of the KEY TO THEOSOPHY, as
Blavatsky intended it to be--not Clara Codd's abortion.  Also:
how Clara Codd got Blavatsky to quote from Besant's A STUDY IN
CONSCIOUSNESS (1902) in the KEY TO THEOSOPHY (1889), when the
former was published thirteen years after the latter, and
Blavatsky was long dead (1891), strikes me as miraculous.  Either
you mis-read this, or else this is an example of Miss Codd
rewriting history.

     Your point that H.P.B. had talked very highly about Besant
is true.  But you need to keep in mind that Besant joined the
Theosophical Society in 1889, and Blavatsky died in 1891-so they
knew each other for less than two years.  Besant's book, A STUDY
IN CONSCIOUSNESS was published about 1902, and may be consistent
with Blavatsky--or may be it is not--I would have to make a
comparative study.  Besant began her collaboration with
Leadbeater, and neo-theosophy was born as early as 1895.

> Best Wishes on your academic studies (one day I hope you will
> write some more about what exactly you are covering in school).

     I'm an English major in a masters program.  At the moment we
are concentrating on what I have dubbed as "psycho-linguistic-
postmodernism"  The class I'm winding up right now is a critical
study in Poe's short story "The Purloined Letter"  from the point
of view of the Lacan School of psychoanalysis.  The Lacanian
school is based in linguistics and anthropology, and was very
influenced by Heidegger, Hegel, Nietzsche, Freud, de Saussure,
Levi-Strauss etc. instead of the biological sciences as in the
Freudian School.  This approach to the nature of reality is
called "postmodern," and plays a very large part in shaping the
upcoming major paradigm shift of thinking that the western world
is on the verge of experiencing.  Tomorrow, I'm supposed to give
an hour oral presentation on the common grounds of thinking
between Hegel and Lacan, concerning how the latter used and
reinterpreted the former's ideas on the nature of reality and
consciousness.  It's very complex stuff--I find myself spending
one or two hours on a single page working through it just to
grasp the ideas.  Even our Professor is still struggling to
understand much of it.  Much of it is very Zen-like in that much
of it cannot be intellectually grasped--it has to be understood
through other faculties of perception--not the conscious mind.

Jerry Hejka-Ekins