From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Tue, 5 Jul 1994 12:48:11 -0700 (PDT) From: eldon@netcom.com (Eldon B. Tucker) Subject: speech on de Chardin This is by Brenda Tucker. It is the first part of a three part speech given here in L.A. in 1991. The teachings are taken from a book by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, entitled THE HEART OF MATTER, NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976. It was translated from the French by Rene Hague. The speech covers only Part I of the book, which is the 13th and last of his books, and contains 130 additional pages of short articles on such things as "The Great Monad" and the "Phenomenon of Man." **From the point at which a spark in me was first struck, a point that was built into me congenitally, the world gradually caught fire - burst into flames until it formed a great luminous mass, lit from within, that surrounded me. Within every being and every event there was a progressive extension of a mysterious inner clarity which transfigured them. (Intro., p. 15) Enthralled with the use of these three universal components: cosmic, human, and christic, it took me years to discover them as approximate outlines of one and the same reality. A sense of plenitude is best described as the feeling that one is completely at home and completely happy. By knowledge of the essential nature an operation a random subject is destined to culminate in what is highest being directed toward spirit, even though the operation has started from what is most tangible and concrete in stuff, and by this same process, one later allows the essential nature to make its way into and conquer everything. These thoughts of Teilhard de Chardin are the introduction to a speech given on one of his books. His life story is somewhat inter- twined with his thought processes. At a young age, 6 or 7, Teilhard was drawn toward matter and devoted to the child Jesus, but he remembers his fascination with the existence of an "iron" God. The lockpin of a plow hidden in a corner of a yard, the hexagonal head of a metal bolt protruding above the level of the nursery floor, shell splinters collected on a firing range were all symbols which spelled "higher intelligence," even God. Why Iron? Why thick and massive pieces of Iron? This consistence, this form, in its fullest possible expression was for him the fundamental attribute of being. This initial apprehension of the absolute in the form of the tangible if arrested prematurely in its growth produces the miser or collector. This iron God and the feeling he had toward it were to him plenitude. The seeking for satisfaction in grasping at definite objects, in which the essence of things could be found concentrated, this consistence, this incorruptibleness was not an effect of substance, but of convergence, so that when he found iron could be scratched and chipped he found it necessary to try to replace the infallible iron with other things: a blue flame flickering over the logs, finely colored stone, and fragments of chalcedony that he would pick up for this substance was very hard. The substitution of quartz for iron made him start wondering about the constitution of the planet and nature. Metals kept him attached to objects that were manufactured from which he could acquire pieces, but with an attraction to minerals, he had set himself on the road toward discovering the planetary. The sought for consistence, the stuff of things that he looked for in hard and dense material, finally emerged into one element which permeated all things for it was a universal element. A side point: the fact that he felt a secret joy over each new and different material object, varying with age, as well as his entry into the society of Jesus, although they looked important as he looked back at them, were no more than minor superficial ripples on a fundamental current that was constituted by the awakening to the cosmic sense and the cosmic life. It is difficult for him to work out the complicated story at that time of his life when the various threads were just forming and had begun to be woven together into the stuff of the universe. For de Chardin, a solid permanent core of his system, which provided him with a sense of the whole and increased his contact with the solid and cosmic states, was the science of stones. Increasingly he was attracted toward vegetal and animal nature and later towards physics. These three columns were created: matter in the center, surrounded by columns of life and energy. These three supported his interior visions and felicity. Although he was disappointed with plants and animals because of their apparent lack of consistence, their fragility - things so perishable as a flower or an insect - he created a substitution for the solid and incorruptible, and this substitution was the new and the rare. He could continue with this even into his later studies when he began to look for new species for this was for him an important pivot which provided him with a change of direction. So in avoiding the morass of collecting for his own sake, he was able to continue by nourishing his sense of the universal. Even as he felt a glow of satisfaction in putting his hand on a really treasured specimen - that sense of the universal enabled him to experience a delight in a more intimate contact, a contact with the biosphere. He taught physics for three years as a layman, the pre- quantum, pre-relativity physics. Linking the animal world and the energy world was the common underlying foundation of the rock world. At this point in his life he hit a dead end and he began to drift toward a lower form of spirit - a pantheism or the pantheist spirit - but still continued searching for the heart of matter. Following this line of thought he found a new fascination with the East, not for the people and their history, but for the light, the vegetation, the fauna, and the deserts of the East. He began to find a common substratum for his tangible world, but wasn't satisfied with postulating it philosophically, he had to grasp it, he had to become the other self existing in the substratum, a mystical act, following in the traditions of the Hindu poets and mystics. Finding self-fulfillment was only possible by becoming the intangible. This required elf-surrender. He fostered a new disappearing into the world of the formless. This would have continued had it not been for the germination of a seed. This seed was the idea of evolution. de Chardin could feel this seed growing in him, a consciousness of a deep running ontological and total current, embracing the whole universe as far as tracing the process of the development of consciousness and the stages of this consciousness, and it was difficult for him to do this. The synthesis of matter, life, and energy acquired a new dimension, moving from the fragmented state of static cosmos, to the organic state and dignity of a cosmogenesis. A complete reversal of his sense of plenitude accompanied his moving from the ultra-material toward the ultra-living. This new direction consumed him from that day on. He had always accepted the heterogeneity, a duality of matter and spirit, body and soul, unconscious and conscious, and his divine matter was always the humble servant if not the enemy of the second, the spirit, which to him was no more than a shadow. He had no interest in spirit, until he went further and further into this idea of evolution. The dualism disappeared. There were no longer two things, these were two states of the same cosmic stuff and according to whether it was just looked at or carried further in the direction in which it was becoming itself or vice versa, in the direction in which it was disintegrating, this new development then was characterized by these words: the primacy of spirit or the primacy of the future. Now the barrier separating the within of things from the without of things had disappeared. His evolutionary formula was queer because of course there is a tangible current running from the least conscious in nature to the most conscious in nature, but that wasn't enough to settle the question of the animate having absolute superiority over the inanimate. Why couldn't superiority swing from one pole to the other or settle down in the position of matter? He was still looking for an evolutionary formula. He did solve these questions. This cosmic movement had to be for him irreversible. The universe was falling in the direction of spirit. Matter was not ultra-materialized, but metamorphosed into psyche. Spirit was not the opposite or the enemy of the tangible, it was at its very heart. It took him a whole lifetime to understand and to appreciate the change which had come upon him. His prayer, his action, his thinking, all were to reform when this change in the notion of spirit took place. The state of evolution, directed evolution, meaning genesis, caused him to do an about turn in his pursuit of consistence. Of course, the sense of plenitude was so simplified, that matter could transform into thought-based life became the consequence of Noogenesis. He identified the solidity of things now with an extreme organic complexity. So the question became, how could the most corruptible, through synthesis, become the supremely indestructible? But he no longer doubted that the sense of supreme happiness which he had found in iron was now only to be found in spirit. The stuff of the cosmos was able to consolidate by complexifying. Two living unities of planetary dimensions now became distinguishable. The earth's living envelope, or the biosphere, and total mankind, or the Noosphere. It is true, spirit supplanted the mineral and the atomic by becoming an all-embracing essence of the universe, but spirit vaguely conceived as some sort of opposite pole to the physicist's energy was still without any precise structure. He had two prejudices which prevented him from facing the facts. First, the fact that the physical/chemical instability of the organic substances could actually be of any consistence. The second was that the stream running through him, which spoke to him of the primacy of the cosmos, when contrasted with the unification of the human, the individual, the accidental, the artificial resulted in everything that seemed to him as universal and total becoming plural, or breaking and tearing apart. It took him three stages before he overcame these two prejudices. The first stage made him think of the notion of human planetary, the Noosphere and the details and contours of the Noosphere. The second stage disclosed to his mind the critical transformation that the stuff of the cosmos undergoes at the level of reflection. The third stage was the recognition of the Noosphere's drift toward ultra-human states under the influence of psycho-physical convergence or planetization. Human becomes planetary through a process of recognizing the limitations of the mind. The first feature he noted in regard to the Noosphere is that at the top, the surface is strictly and exclusively self-totalizing. At the bottom, solidarity, but above, organic unity of operation. The oneness or unicity of man stretched like a veil over the confused multitude of living beings - astounding singleness in cohesion fascinated him. At this point he noted three stages in the structure of the Noosphere. Deep down in the substance of the cosmos there is primordial disposition for self-arrangement and self-involution. After a certain degree of matter's physical-chemical arrangement it reaches a critical point of reflection. It is this reflection that releases the whole train of the specific properties of the human. Finally as a result of reflection, we find a germinating principle of complete and final incorruptibility. Although de Chardin was fascinated with gravity, another kind of attraction took its place in his fascination. This field was more to his liking and closer to the axis of cosmogenesis. This attraction was not the attraction of matter for itself, but the attraction which arranges matter in larger, differentiated organic molecules. In place of the concentration curve, he began to realize the importance of the arrangement curve. The irresistible vortex which spins into itself, from the most simple to the most complex, spins ever into more comprehensive and complicated nuclei. The result of this increase in complexity is an increase of consciousness. This man who had for years looked at matter becoming transfigured, developing, simplifying, saw it interfering with his worship and then suddenly, his sight changes and he sees in the human being the very consistency of the world. The way he saw life as an accident changed, so that he saw it in terms of the rarity of living beings in comparison to the amount of space. This rarity is the effect of the difficulties which are presented to the tide inherent in matter as it wells up and becomes human life through the emergence of a complexification force. Once life established a foot-hold somewhere in the world, you could expect to see it not only expand, but to see it reach the highest degree of intensity. Now the persistent and irreversible rise of cerebration and consciousness over the surface of the earth shows the full significance of the hominizing phenomena of reflection. Reflection: the critical point occurring as soon as matter reaches a certain degree of psychic temperature and organization. Reflection: the transition from simple life to life complexified. Reflection: the necessary and sufficient property that explains what we can observe between the Biosphere and the Noosphere. Spirit became clearer to him. The world is not following the direction of obscurity. It falls forward in equilibrium toward the light. The stuff of things gradually concentrates in a pure state and a cosmic peak. This it does in its most stable form, the form that has become most completely irreversible. To elaborate upon this, he doesn't tell of his past, but speaks of his most advanced stage in inner exploration. From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Tue, 5 Jul 1994 20:26:11 EDT From: jem@cybernetics.net (John Meade) Subject: testing cybernetics link... please ignore -- simulating foreign host transmission. jem From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Wed, 6 Jul 1994 15:33:41 -0700 (PDT) From: eldon@netcom.com (Eldon B. Tucker) Subject: passing on a message This is from Eldon Tucker. I received the following message from someone that wants to post a single message to 'theos-l'. Rene sent the message and asked me to post it, not wanting to subscribe to the list in order to post just a single message. ------------- Salue THEOS-L members, I'm searching a FAQ or Intro of Theosophy (ASCII-plain), overview of Ascended Master Activities from Blavatzky until Peter Leach-Lewis. I'm developing the SPIRIT-WWW-SITE http://err.ethz.ch/~kiwi/Spirit.html with several sections ie. (Healing, Channeling, UFO, Veda, Yoga) also Theosophy - I would like to put there some additional infos ie. FAQ or general overview what Theosophy is and who initiated it, maybe also linkages to eastern tradtions (Demi-God vs. Ascended Masters) and so on. Let me know, if you have something you like to share in this way. Thank's listening (reading) to me, Peace and Light to you. , Rene (kiwi@iis.ee.ethz.ch) PS: Please reply me direct by *my* email address, because I don't have subscribed the theos-l, thank's. From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Thu, 7 Jul 1994 15:10:04 -0400 (EDT) From: John Mead Subject: hi from the southern edges of the states hi -- Vnet is still working on the problem. The bug is apparantly very elusive. There seems to be little reason for the failure of some addresses to receive e-mail. I'll try and keep you posted, I have been out of town for over a week (which allows them to ignore the problem). in general.... this is why the problem is so weird. I can send e-mail to you. you can send e-mail to me (and theos-l etc). however the mail sent to your address (the same one I use) seems to get sent .... but you don't receive it. Hopefully ... it'll get fixed soon. I'm usually way too patient when I interact with people. It is time to start really making our problem visible at Vnet. (which I will start doing today!) peace -- John E. Mead p.s. I'll be at Wheaton for the convention this summer. From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Mon, 11 Jul 1994 13:18:56 -0400 From: eldon@netcom.com (Eldon B. Tucker) Subject: part two of Teilhard de Chardin This is by Brenda Tucker. It is part two of three parts taken from THE HEART OF MATTER by Teilhard de Chardin. If you can overcome ingrained intellectual habits and anatomical illusions, you can distinguish a Noosphere which is like a halo around the Biosphere. The question, among those who acknowledge a Noosphere, is whether or not this corona of reflective, pari-terrestrial substance has or has not finished its planetary evolution. de Chardin proved in a former work, HOW I BELIEVE, how clearly mankind is involved in some state of higher unification. However, not to suggest completion, we could say that hominization is still going on. TDC is definitive on this. He has taken a decisive attitude where prior his thoughts were at a standstill on this question. If we were to believe others in the field, we might think that human evolution or involution was at a standstill since thousands of years ago. How can we make anything superior to Plato or Beethoven? On the contrary, convergence is continuing to envelope us, grip us, under the folds of a gigantic planetary contraction. The cementing of a thinking mass of mankind is becoming more compressed on itself by simultaneous multiplication and expansion of its individual elements. Surely you can feel this in the very fiber of your being. We can all see the fantastic anatomical structure of a vast phylum whose branches, instead of diverging as they normally do, are ceaselessly folding in upon one another, ever more closely like some monstrous inflorescence. The global physiology within the organism, in the legacy of heredity, builds up to planetary dimensions. It is impossible to obtain economic and intellectual self-sufficiency. We are blind to the cosmogenesic significance of phenomena. We do not recognize the accelerating totalization against which we are struggling, but recognize that we are simply the normal continuation at a level above ourselves of a process which generates thought on earth. This is a continuing process of cerebration. With the belief that 30 or 40,000 years ago the individual power to feel and think reached its peak as a possibility, and with that belief that hominization, in its essence concentration upon itself of global terrestrial psychism, should now come to a final halt. In my mind, this is formally contradicted by the fantastic spectacle of a rapidly rising collective reflection moving in step with an increasingly unitary organization. Look around and you'll see how complexity, under compression, and psychic temperature are still rising, not on the scale of the individual, but on that of the planet. I can say that the evolution of my inner vision culminates in the acceptance of this relevant fact: that there is a creative urge carrying the human metamolecules towards an almost unbelievable quasi- monomolecular state and in that state as the biological laws of union demand, each ego is destined to be forced convulsively beyond itself into some mysterious superego. (Comment by BT: I'm glad this is written so threateningly because one of my new fears is in regard to the theory of morphogenetic fields, which you can read about in THE AMERICAN THEOSOPHIST magazine in a four-part article by Dora Kunz and Eric Peper, published from 1982-1984. The reason that the concept suddenly became scary was that the field theory could be misused. It is written about in a beneficial manner, of course, that learning becomes easier as more people become acquainted with the ideas, and also a warning is given as in the example where anger directed by parents at each other unknowingly(?) affects the child, but in the long run if we are being directed to learning instead of making original gains, we are in a sense under hypnotic control by stronger intellects.) Ever since TDC saw the balance of the world reverse from what lies behind to what lies ahead, he has had a feeling that at the head of the cosmogenesis is a pole, not of attraction, not of arrangement, but of consolidation, a pole which imparts the quality of irreversibility. This mysterious focal point demanded by man's maturing, that cannot biodynamically reach its final critical point of ultra-reflection unless there is a hope of immortality. This focal point of Noogenesis became real as a result of convergence, the incorruptible was simultaneously becoming universalized and personalized. A piece of iron was forgotten and in its place was found consistence of the universe, the omega point. All held concentrated into one single indestructible center which he could love. The cosmic properties of omega, the complex unit in which the organic sum of the reflective elements of the world becomes irreversible within a transcendent superego, would have led TDC to recognize in an incarnate God the true reflection on the Noosphere of the ultimate nucleus of totalization and consolidation that is biopsychologically demanded by the evolution of a reflective living mass. The cosmic sense and the christic sense, two axis, which through and beyond the human were linked together, converged upon one and another, were in fact, one and the same. The omega point always lay just outside his grasp because of a logical reconstruction which presented him with a deduced and conjectural entity rather than one entered into and experienced; one thought of and studied versus one entered into, ultimately becoming and being one with as far as the knowledge that experience can convey. TDC finds it easy, in contrast to many great thinkers, to conceive of the super hominized love. He wonders if the Noosphere is sensitive to the influences of omega in the vicinity of the christian axis. He never found it difficult to address God, he had a love of the invisible. Whatever it was, it went through a process of universalization, in two phases, 1) materialization of divine love and 2) energizing of divine love. A conflict in TDC's development is the sense of the divine and the sense of plenitude. He is unable to worship anything except from a starting point in the tangible. He had to make an adjustment, therefore the supernatural had to be assimilated by the natural. The heart of Jesus was a symbol for which he felt great devotion. Within this heart, there was an effect of convergence and concentration on the whole spiritual and physical reality of Christ. There is a definite resemblance of this new milieu with the metallic or mineral, which still at the same time was dominant in the child TDC. The more he tried to pray, the more deeply did God materialize in a reality spiritual and tangible. The great synthesis was taking place, the synthesis of the above with the ahead. By immersing the divine in the corporeal, the transfiguration of the corporeal was one of an incredible energy of radiation. The solids lit up and exploded from within. The divine was able to insinuate itself everywhere, to be metamorphosed into no matter what. And so in the future the divine could force its way into and so amorize the cosmic milieu in which he was engaged: the making of his home. On one side there was a universe becoming personalized through convergence, on the other side there was a person, Christ, who was becoming universalized through radiation. All the life around him was becoming one, the Biosphere heading for the Noosphere, and in the other sense, this Christ or this God was making itself felt in every particle of matter and in every object in his existence. A struggle between the God of the above and a certain new God of the ahead was being produced by the coexistence and meeting in his heart of the cosmic sense and the christic sense. God is in heaven as we all know. He is only more or less indirectly found here below. As a junior in college, he even thought of giving up geology to devote himself entirely to supernatural activities. Pere T, the novice master, showed him that while the God of the Cross was looking deeper into him, what he was looking for was the natural expansion of his being as well as its sanctification. He writes that he is still learning of the dangers involved in the seeking in the direction of heaven for a road where matter and flesh are directed to spirit by synthesis. Suppose a man makes up his mind to seek for wholeness and he allows the ascensional faith in God and the forward driving faith in the ultra-human, to react freely upon one another in the depths of his being. At times he will not be able to shake off a feeling of terror. He will find paradoxical potentialities of attitudes within himself, such as: obtain heaven by bringing earth to its fulfillment. The Christifying of matter is so powerful that the force with which the levels of the universal and personal come together, closed up over his head to form one single vault. Now the heart of Christ could spread unchecked. It was becoming rapidly important by sense of the will of God to establish fidelity to the divine will. By divine will he means a directed and realized omnipresence, both directed and realized: his love of Christ and his love of things. This will can be apprehended in every element of the world and in all its events. If he were to mold and experience Christ in all things, all he had at hand for this purpose were the details of events and beings. His mind came to understand one vast psychogenic involution of the whole of matter upon itself, giving solidity to the divine ascendancy and being helpful to him in making him more tangibly conscious of its grasp. There were two tendencies that might cause progress to deviate. If TDC followed the eastern and pagan line, he might allow his being to relax and dissolve into the universal sphere. Or the opposite extreme could delay progress: trying to escape from the sphere of unity, tearing himself away or making a sharp cleavage. He managed to avoid them both. It was because he saw that a world, which had already been recognized as essentially convergent, offered a third road and the right road for him. Reach the mysterious double point at the heart of the cosmic sphere, where the multiple is reflected upon itself and emerges from within itself into a transcendent being. Here remarkably, the cosmic, the human, and the christic meet and open up a new domain, the centric domain. There, the oppositions which constitute anxiety and unhappiness in our life begin to disappear. Under the pressure of a planet that is contracting upon itself there is heightening of antagonism between the tangential forces that make us dependent upon one another and the radial aspirations that urge us toward obtaining the incommunicable core of our own person. Totalization threatens to imprison us in a sort of secondary matter. Mechanization may bring an end that is as much to be dreaded as death through disintegration and return to prime matter. It does not dissolve nor subordinate the elements, but the centric personalizes them. The rays of a universal center of convergence and attraction, the bonds that make us one whole reach the upper limit of their complexity and tend to merge into the magnetic force that pulls our ego into what lies ahead. At these high latitudes of the universe and the center, totalization reduces the multiple to the one by synthesis and acts as a liberating agent. In other words, matter becomes spirit at just the same pace that love begins to spread universally. The effect of total amorization is dazzling, because at the peak of evolution you merely note the appearance of the personal and the universe is something that loved and could be loved. From the point of view of convergent evolution, the whole cosmic event may be reduced to one single vast process of arrangement. At every moment it releases a given quantity of events that cause distress, failures, disintegration, death and in this attraction of things, it draws us out of our own centers to Christ. Christ installed at the omega point, two sides by flood of unitive force. On the other side, the things that it adds, centrify us for Christ. Through this a current of love is released to spread over the whole breadth and length of the world. If God metamorphized the world from the depths of matter to the peaks of spirit, so the world must inevitably and to the same degree endomorphize God. From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Mon, 11 Jul 1994 13:21:02 -0400 From: eldon@netcom.com (Eldon B. Tucker) Subject: comment on previous submission This is by Brenda Tucker. The thought I just had regarding morphogenetic learning is related to the work by Teilhard de Chardin. Instead of the emphasis that the morpho- genetic theory gives to the nature of human beings, shouldn't we be looking at the nature of thoughts. The life of the thought is benefitted by its finding lower and lower planes to manifest on. In this case, while a thought or theory may seem to begin in the highest minds, its goal is not to stay so isolated, but to reach into the minds of all men. How does the thought go about doing this? Does my encouraging good "seed thoughts" actually cause me certain difficulties in attaining a station of high esteem. Is my gratitude to the thoughts themselves apparent in my stumbling among the masses or lower planes (which has occurred)? Here's a closing thought. Kind hearts are the gardens. Kind thoughts are the roots. Kind words are the blossoms. Kind deeds are the fruits. From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Tue, 12 Jul 1994 12:35:06 -0400 From: John Mead Subject: hmmmmmm..... it is working??? hi -- could the following please respond (to me) if they get this e-mail: Lewis L Osmar Eldon Mike G jerry he (at the internet addresses) thanks -- peace - john e. mead From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Tue, 12 Jul 1994 12:50:54 -0400 From: ab463@lafn.org (Denis Titchenell) Subject: Re: hmmmmmm..... it is working??? John, though not one of the recipents listed, I am responding. I am putting together a piece on theosphical networking for a newsletter and would like to be sure that theos-l is functional. What have the problems been? Is it working now? K. Titchenell (ab463@lafn.org) From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Wed, 13 Jul 1994 05:14:31 -0400 From: OSMAR DE CARVALHO Subject: Re:hmmmmm JEM> could the following please respond (to me) if they get this e-mail: JEM> Lewis L JEM> Osmar JEM> Eldon JEM> Mike G JEM> jerry he (at the internet addresses) Yes!! The messages are back!! Thanks to you, John!! Our GHOSTbugBUSTER!! __---__ _- _--______ __--( / \ )XXXXXXXXXXXXX_ --XXX( O O )XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX- /XXX( U ) XXXXXXX\ /XXXXX( )--_ XXXXXXXXXXX\ /XXXXX/ ( O ) XXXXXX \XXXXX\ XXXXX/ / XXXXXX \__ \XXXXX---- XXXXXX__/ XXXXXX \__---- - ---___ XXX__/ XXXXXX \__ --- -- --__/ ___/\ XXXXXX / ___---= -_ ___/ XXXXXX '--- XXXXXX --\/XXX\ XXXXXX Charlotte /XXXXX \XXXXXXXXX THEOS-L /XXXXX/ \XXXXXX TEAM! _/XXXXX/ \XXXXX--__/ __-- XXXX/ --XXXXXXX--------------- XXXXX-- \XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX- --XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX- I was very sad without the THEOS-L messages... JEM> thanks -- JEM> peace - Hugs from Brazil!! Osmar *|) osmar.carvalho%sti@ax.apc.org osmardc@bra000.canal-vip.onsp.br .. If life's a trip, then where's my ticket? From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Thu, 14 Jul 1994 20:09:03 -0400 From: John Mead Subject: ts summer convention hi -- in case anyone wants to know -- Louise and I will be at the TS convention over the weekend only. after that we will head for a week on Minneapolis! (visiting my sister (+family) and brother (+family). if we're close to anyone please hail... we may be able to meet with you! peace -- john mead p.s. Mike Grenier will be in wheaton too. From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Fri, 15 Jul 1994 09:10:38 -0400 From: "K. Paul Johnson" Subject: Re: ts summer convention I'll be there for the weekend only as well. See you there. From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Mon, 18 Jul 1994 00:10:21 -0400 From: eldon@netcom.com (Eldon B. Tucker) Subject: tdc - part 3 This is by Brenda Tucker. It is the last part of three parts on THE HEART OF MATTER by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. I had previously referred to him by the name Teilhard de Chardin or just de Chardin. I don't think this is correct. I think my reference to his last name should be 'Teilhard', for de Chardin refers to his place of residence, I believe. I apologize for not mentioning his first name, Pierre, previously. As God is revealed to us, a direct consequence of the unitive process, He in some way transforms Himself as he incorporates us. It is no longer a matter of seeing Him and allowing oneself to be enveloped by Him. We have to do more. We have to disclose him, ever more fully, to complete him. All around us and within our own selves, God is in process of changing, as a result of the coincidence of His magnetic power and our own thought. Every since Teilhard's childhood there was a force in conflict with the supernatural compelling him toward some ultra-human existence. In trying to pin this down he used to regard it as emanating not from God, but from some rival star. All he had to do then was to bring that star into conjunction with God and into dependence upon Him. As he looked back on these thoughts, it appeared that the Ultra-human was the God of the ahead who had suddenly appeared athwart the traditional God of the above. So henceforth we can no longer worship fully unless we superimpose those two images so that they form one. The absolute being is no longer a participated being of extraposition and divergence, but a participated being of pleromization and convergence. It is the effect no longer of creative causality, but of creative union. It is Christ who makes himself cosmic and then in some way makes himself absolute. Have you ever heard the argument that throught the interpositioning of Jesus between man and God, we have become atrophied in our development and that we no longer can stimulate the need to worship, but only paralyze it? It is as though Christ diminished the Stature of God. In this universe there is an inflexible law that says nothing is produced or appears except by way of birth. That's why we needed an historically incarnate God. Remember, in a system of creative union, it is not only the universe, but God himself who is necessarily Christifed in Omega at the upper limits of cosmogenesis. In other words, evolved monotheism, springing up from all that is best in the earth's religious energies, seems to be concentrating and is moving to its logical and biological fulfillment in the direction of some pan-Christicism. The most important, though unvoiced, concern of modern man is much less a struggle for the possession of the world than a search for a way of escaping it. The agony of feeling that one is imprisoned in the cosmic bubble stimulates a fretful hunt for a way out for evolution. In the modern world that is the sorrow and the price to be paid for a growing planetary reflection that lies heavy on the soul of both Christian and gentile. It seems to be indisputable, both logically and factually, that there can be for man, even if he is devoted to the service of a cause or of God, no matter how great their devotion, no road to spiritual maturity or plenitude except through emotional influence, whose function it is to sensitize his understanding and stimulate at least initially his capacity for love. No man can dispense with the feminine any more than he can dispense with oxygen or light or vitamins. We have a marriage that is always polarized socially towards reproduction and a religious perfection that is always represented theologically in terms of separation. There can be no doubt that we lack a third road between the two. I do not mean a middle road, but a higher road: the spirit that comes from dematerialization can be substituted for the spirit that comes from synthesis. We are not retreating from the unfathomable spiritual powers by abstinence. These powers lie dormant under the mutual attraction of the sexes. We are not retreating from them, but conquering them by sublimation. Dematerialization, TDC is convinced, is the human essence of chastity. The emphasis of the phenomena of supercentration is that which causes the consciousness of the corpuscular to fold back upon itself and thence rebound in the form of thought. The great cosmic event of reflection takes the form of what we might call the breakthrough into amorization. Even after the great flash of illumination in which the individual is suddenly revealed to himself, man would remain but half complete if he did not come into contact with the other sex and so under the centric attraction of person to person, explode into flame. First we have a reflective monad and then to complete it an ineffective dyad. After that, only after that, the gradual and majestic development of a neocosmic, of an ultra- human, and of a pan-christic, all three illuminated in their very roots by intelligence, but also impregnated throughout their entire mass as though bounded by cement to the universal feminine. Two months before his death, Teilhard put on paper "The Christic," an essay that had been maturing for five years. TDC attempts to present proof, objective evidence, regarding an unfolding and an interpersonal experience. First there are two fundamental psychic movements arising in him as a human being. 1) the convergence of individual thought with other thinking, including the arranging in time and space of the other life, and 2) an individualization in ego that nothing can stop, some sort of an "other" that seems to be more than himself. He has named these two the cosmic convergence and the christic emergence. In the cosmic convergence, the totality of the stuff of things folds in on itself, to the point where it is made to coreflect itself. The presence that he feels within himself is by nature universal or it couldn't satisfy the requirements. He questioned whether the two streams have any effect on each other. What he decided is that when the two spiritual themes are brought together they react endlessly on one another in a flash of brilliance releasing light so intense that it transfigured his entire world. He was able to see the universe as amorized and personalized in its own evolution. Through Darwin's work, we are all evolutionists so we all act and think as if the world is changing. There are two processes worthy of note: the process of arrangement producing infinite variety, and the process of disarrangement or entropy, bringing energy back into its simplest forms. The picture looks like this, a river of amorphous streams for the entropy side, containing countless eddies which are individualized by a countercurrent. He asks: is it true that the universe comes to rest in the direction of the non-arranged unconscious which is the material solution, or does it rest in the direction of the arranged consciousness which is the spiritual solution. Science refuses to decide and says that it must be answered philosophically or personally. TDC answers that it is soluble by techniques provided we are open to the biocosmic significance of a phenomena so enormous and so close that we become completely swamped by it and resultingly do not see it. This is human co-reflection. It is not only natural to think by ourselves, but also natural to think with all other persons. We are led to believe that any time we lift a finger we are involved in the construction of a total human act. Evolution, in its aspect that is oriented toward the improbable, extends with increasing speed beyond our insignificant individual centers in the direction of a complex consciousness of planetary dimensions. He says to correctly interpret terrestrial coreflection, we have to see that the drift of arrangement is to the form depicting centration of the hominized portion of the stuff of things which at the same time differentiates and fosters a common unanimous mind and spirit. The most advanced areas in the universe, the ones reaching toward the improbable, converge upon themselves. That this is where the universe takes on consistence and value where it folds in upon itself and not in the opposite direction. A universal flux both unifying and irreversifying appears and transfigures the world. This is the higher dynamism, controlling all the other dynamisms from within. Without this vision, anthropogenesis might lose its vision and if we have this vision, we can see that there is no further forward limit to the forces of ultra-hominization. So we have a mental concept of this human phenomena of co- reflection that transforms the world. Let's also consider the reversal of the idea to see if it too can enact a metamorphosis of our intellectual and emotional outlook: the Christian phenomenon of worship. All we need to restore human to primacy is reflection. So Christianity placed in the primacy would give weight to its power of pan-amorization. Other religions express love for God and for the world, so what in Christianity is different and stronger than anywhere else. TDC says that this faith has a higher degree of warmth and a more intense dynamism of unification than any other in history. He notes these three characteristics, tangibility by the historical entry of Jesus Christ through birth, expansibility by the Christian center in the operative power of resurrection, and assimilative power, the integration of the totality of the human race in one body. This faith, Christianity, is more consciously identified with a Christogenesis, the rise of a universal presence which is immortalizing and unifying. In THE PHENOMENA OF MAN, TDC discusses the human state, where we reach a sphere going deeper and deeper and we need a center, in this case, in Christian explanation, we reach an expanding center and are trying to find a sphere. It is like these two belong together. First it seems like we are in a world where the two halves, the physical and the mystical are closing in with planetary force upon mankind, who is born of their approach to one another. Then it looks like we are moving into a hyper-milieu of life, produced by the coincidence of an emergent Christ and a convergent universe. Here is the description. First the universe in Christ, by fulfillment in their conjunction, one on one side, one on the other side. Second, from their conjunction a third thing appears. In that third thing, there is a cessation of conflict between our activity and our understanding. Conflict ceases and the fullest expression is felt. With this new evidence from science, that man belongs to a convergent type universe, man is developing a cosmic sense. TDC is convinced that the great spiritual edifices of tomorrow can be constructed and will in fact be constructed only if we start from this new element and use it as our foundation, the sense of evolution. However he doesn't think it is going in the direction of Julian Huxley's explanation of a evolutionary humanism and this is why he says that two things may convince us that a higher pole of completion and consolidation awaits us at the higher term of hominization: 1) the specific curve followed by the cosmic milieu in which we are involved, 2) the necessity of being irreversible which is inherent in the reflective action. Even if this omega is guaranteed we can only envision its features in a vague and mystic way. On the other hand, if we embrace both neoChristianity and neohumanism, and then accept as proof that the Christ in revelation is none other than the omega of evolution, TDC feels we will see that the universe is once and for all activized and plenified. Now we can distinguish the highest point in the future. The peak certainly opens out in Christ Jesus. Breathe a sigh of relief. It is not only the air for our lungs, but it is the radiance of love. You can not only breathe, but you can look into the future with the power. So he says that Christ intervenes at exactly the right moment to save man from revolt against life, prompted by the threat of a total life. So Christ has in truth saved, and should we also add that Christ is saved by evolution. Christian tradition is unanimous that there is more to Christ than man and God. There is a third aspect or cosmic aspect in which he gathers up the whole of creation, however, it hasn't drawn much attention. The universe is growing along all the lines known to us. Christianity is faced with a new challenge of being more precise in consciousness. So if Christ is universal, we hope that our expanding knowledge will reveal Christ as much greater than we used to think, and he won't lose his personality. So the picture shows harmony between a religion that is Christic and an evolution that is convergent. If in a static world (or again if it were divergent), the only way to say Christ is ruler of creation is by proclaiming it, and not ever through reliance on any organic relationship. With that way of thinking, you couldn't honestly speak of a Christian cosmicity. If it is a fact that the universe has a biological vortex that is dynamically centered upon itself, then we cannot fail to see where Christ is pantocrator. So with Christ standing at the evolutive omega it is possible to perceive of Christ as radiating physically over the totality of things. So Christ is the one who is penetrating through the evolutive movement. He is prime mover, the transformer. So cosmogenesis reveals itself along the lines of its main axis, versus biogenesis and then noogenesis, and finally culminates in the Christogenesis, which every Christian venerates. So the words of the Eucharist regarding the bread and wine can gather together the whole mass of joys and sufferings of the world. Before this there were two roads through which man tried to unite himself to the divine, the first was to escape from the world into the beyond, the second was to allow himself to dissolve into things and be united with them monistically. What else could man try if he wished to escape what was tormenting him? However when the universe is directed upon a Christic omega and assumes the shape of a convergent whole, a third road to unity opens up. Since the sphere of the world is precisely a center, the process of centration has it working upon itself. The road lies where it is possible to get one's strength and one's heart to coincide with the focus of universal unification. A unification diffuse but nevertheless already in existence. With the Christified universe or the universalized Christ, a divine milieu emerges and it is essential for everyone to understand specifically what that milieu means. The properties of the milieu are linked with the emergence of completely new psychic dimensions. In the mystifying milieu, there is a dynamic reality in which all opposition between universal and personal is being wiped out, but not by confusion of the two. The multiple reflective elements of the world obtain their fulfillment in their ego by integrant ascension to the Christic ego towards which all participating things gravitate, and in consumating itself, it consumates that Christic ego. By virtue of this interlinking of convergence, no ego can move closer to the Christic center without causing the entire global sphere to be compressed more tightly. The Christic center cannot begin to communicate to the least of its elements without causing itself to be contained more strictly within the entire integument of concrete realities. Every operation because of the curvature of space is either pan-humanizing or pan-christifying at the same time. It is ultimately pan-humanizing AND pan-christifying. All opposition is blurred between attachment and detachment, action and prayer, centration upon self and centration upon the other. And this because God can be experienced and apprehended, even completed by the whole ambient totality with what we call evolution in Christ Jesus. It is still Christianity, but Christianity reincarnated or squared in the spiritual energies of matter. The Religion of Tomorrow A key question, in progress of presenting itself to mankind, is the problem of spiritual activation. We have mastered the atomic which is like reaching the primordial source of the energy of evolution. However the victory can not be complete unless you match it with one at the other pole: a way to increase the drive of evolution within the Noosphere. New powers call for new aspirations. If mankind is to use its new access of physical power with balanced control it cannot do without a rebound of intensity in its eagerness to act, to seek, to create. So a new religion is dawning, a religion of evolution. The value of a religious creed may be measured by its respective power of evolutive activation. This religion of tomorrow, this faith, is not satisfactorily found in anything presently in existence. It is neither present in the religions of the Ahead, including Marxism and other humanisms, nor in the religions of the Above, theisms and pantheisms. He qualifies what he means by humanisms as the religions of the Ahead, which don't admit of a biological convergence of mankind on itself. Also they don't see the rise of interest in the psyche as anything more than a temporary phenomena, and in this way they are incapable of advancing man toward the goal. He says humanism becomes too icy. They depersonalize in order to socialize and there is a threat of total death. Within the religions of the Above, the advances of knowledge and technology aren't presented as a primary accompanying condition of spiritualization. They are just an extra. Failure in technology would be regarded in the same way as success in technology. The atmosphere is one of coming catastrophe or coming fulfillment. The religions like Christianity have come to exist in too rarified of an atmosphere - too lofty are their skies - while religions closed to cosmogenesis, don't really feel with the earth. It is within our consciousness that a progressive coming together has been going on between the forces of heaven and the forces of earth, with an exact conjunction occurring between the old god of the above and the new god of the ahead. TDC feels that we could move Christianity from isolation into a movement to become the world in motion and there it could regain its original power to activate and attract. He sees Christianity as the only religion that can display the astonishing power of energizing to the full by amorizing and that through its double power of the cross and resurrection, it is capable of becoming a religion whose specific property provides the driving force in evolution. So then man becomes a loving being, and recognizes all the past, present, and future of the universe as the process of concentration upon itself. It seems there would be an explosion if a single ray of this light were to fall on the Noosphere. (Noosphere is total mankind. Biosphere is total earth.) When he doubts his revelations, there are three waves of evolution which arise in him. 1) A coherence of the ineffable element or milieu that is introduced in the depths of his mind and heart. 2) Evidence of the contagious power of charity which is present when all your body, soul, and love for God becomes the universe in evolution and 3) the superiority of the vision, compared to what he had been taught, even though there is some of the same identity in each. In harmony with the Christic, in this century the divine reaches its summit of adorability and the evolutionary reaches the limit of its activation. This is where the human must find unity. Men of God and faith in the world are everywhere in the air, created by the appearance of the idea of evolution. They have appeared at this time, to combine in one and the same subject. From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Tue, 19 Jul 1994 00:16:35 -0400 From: John Mead Subject: meyer baba has anyone read meyer baba's works. esp. regarding the differences between Avatar vs. Perfected Master? curious.. john e. m. From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Wed, 20 Jul 1994 10:05:47 -0400 From: Subject: Re: ts summer convention Paul...wondering if the 22nd is still an important date for your book?...and sending 'all the best' if it is.. Paddy From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Wed, 20 Jul 1994 11:59:09 -0400 From: "K. Paul Johnson" Subject: Re: ts summer convention Dear Paddy, I have just been pondering that question. Initially SUNY told me that the date it was due to be shipped from the printer to their distributor was the 22nd, and this makes that the official pub date. When I told them that the TS convention started that day, after checking things out SUNY said they would be able to get some books to me by the 21st. But then last night on my answering machine, I had a message from the production editor saying they had been sent on Friday the 15th. Even if the 22nd is the official pub date, I think if they were all printed by last Friday that should be the day I use for the chart. It will probably end up with a moon in Libra rather than Capricorn, which is OK by me. I'll post comments on the convention and responses to the book after I get back. Thanks for remembering my big event-- this is the fulfillment of many years of work. Namaste Paul From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Sat, 23 Jul 1994 13:42:40 -0400 From: "LEWIS LUCAS" Subject: Re: Electronic Theosophical Lits Hi Mike, When I worked at Olcott there was a project given to Bing Escudero to index all of Annie Besant's works. I know he was using a computer to do it, but I don't know what happen to the files. I think the Index to the Secret Doctrine was done on a computer, so there should be files for it somewhere. All the Quest magazine articles should be in computer files somewhere, as well. Putting these resources on the Internet should be possible. What I would like to see is the Secret Doctrine on CDROM. Lewis From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Sat, 23 Jul 1994 17:56:55 -0400 From: John Mead Subject: ongoing computer stuff.. might as well bring everyone in on theos-l > > I dug into the Microsoft MediaViewer Program.... > > >I want to initially be able to query the text to find all > >occurances (e.g.) of "Master", "India", where there is no mention > >of the word "Adept" or "England" except when occuring along with > >"Egypt" .(this is simply an example) > > > >I do not think anyone has found a available package to do this ?? > > With MediaViewer, you would use a search query like: > > ((Master OR India) NOT (Adapt OR England)) OR > ((Master OR India) AND (Adapt OR England) AND Egypt) > > One could probably make a simpler query but my brain quit working. > Anyway, I've got an SDK for the MediaViewer (which is like a > Help Compiler) so we'll see how it works on a Theosophical > document. It also uses RTF files. > > -Mike Grenier > mike@planet8.sp.paramax.com > ---- > Michael W. Grenier mike@planet8.sp.paramax.com > 612-456-7869 Unisys - Air Traffic Control From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Sat, 23 Jul 1994 18:12:09 -0400 From: John Mead Subject: rtf? mike -- could you refresh my memory on RTF?? how much does the package cost, and can we distribute it?? peace -- john e. m. p.s. still in charlotte due to flu (Louise). From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Sun, 24 Jul 1994 04:17:02 -0400 From: 91484615@uwwvax.uww.edu Subject: Re: test again Hello This is Jay Amundson, your Nuclear Engineer from Madison Wis. I've been a bit preoccupied for a few months but I'm with you. Keep up the great work John, and thanks to everyone for keeping the discourse alive. Take Care From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Sun, 24 Jul 1994 17:51:04 -0400 From: Tom Griffin <73277.3724@compuserve.com> Subject: THEOS-L digest 10 I'm a little hesitant to speak up in an assembly of theosophists who have worked closely with the Society, but I would cast a vote for making some of the theosophical resources available via Internet. I make that apology because I have been an "at-large" member of the Theosophical Society for a number of years -- since 1968, I believe -- and I haven't attended local meetings (except for a short period years ago). My association with the Society, I'm afraid, has been a rather self-centered one, i.e., study to enlarge my understanding and conscious absorption of its truths for my own growth. And I found this growth better following the dictates of my own needs for study than attending group meetings. I just wanted to cast my vote here. I would be interested in a number of things, especially the index to Annie Besant's writings that was mentioned here. Also, I can't help but feel that Theosophy could reach an increasingly wider audience through such Internet availability. From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Sun, 24 Jul 1994 19:16:00 -0400 From: "M. Chenery" Subject: Re: ongoing computer stuff .. might as well bring everyone in on theos-l Hi! I've come in new to the conversation, so forgive me if this has been discussed before. I, too, am interested in electronic access to theosophical literature. Regarding searching, there's a program, at least here in Australia and usually they come to us from the States, called Isys which searches text files in the way you have described. It could be of value to explore. Cheers from down under, Mary-Faeth Mary-Faeth Chenery (Chenery@redgum.ucnv.edu.au) Department of Outdoor Education La Trobe University Bendigo PO Box 199 Bendigo 3550 AUSTRALIA Phone 61 54 447969 Fax 61 54 447777 From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Mon, 25 Jul 1994 16:07:11 -0400 From: theos@netcom.com (Theosophical Society) Subject: Re: rtf? >mike -- could you refresh my memory on RTF?? > >how much does the package cost, and can we distribute it?? RTF stands for Rich Text Format. It is a standard which is described in a document I don't have handy at the moment (though you can find it on ftp.microsoft.com). Actually, the format looks alot like TeX in that it is an ASCII format which directives to turn on and off various formating. For instance: The {\b big} {\i bad} fox. would print the word big in bold and bad in italics. Normally, you would simply use a package like Word for Windows which can output this format directly. Thus you would not normally see the RTF itself. RTF format is used for the Microsoft Help Compiler and other text rendering systems. -Mike Grenier P.S. we're here at the headquarters this week setting up the internet access. ---- Theosophical Society in America theos@netcom.com National Headquarters From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Mon, 25 Jul 1994 20:24:33 -0400 From: John Mead Subject: Re: rtf? > The RTF is a *specification*, NOT a product. I realize that. Mike also was also referring to a specific media package though (in addition). > TF files are ascii text files that define formating information. > Most decent word processors support the RTF format. I'd assume > that the idea behind rtf is to allow for specifiying formating > information independant of any particular word prossesor. It is > similar to the TeX format that is found on UNIX machines. Also, > Windows Help files are derived from RTF formated files. I've seen TeX but used it very little. extremely cryptic to work with (unless you have some product that builds and manipulates the files for you). is RTF a Microsoft standard or an International standard?? > > Also, I found a product that might be of interest to us. I'll write > more tommorrow. Great! maybe there is hope yet! peace -- john e. m. From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Mon, 25 Jul 1994 20:40:33 -0400 From: John Mead Subject: computer standards and search packages (ongoing) > Hi! I've come in new to the conversation, so forgive me if this has > been discussed before. I, too, am interested in electronic access to > theosophical literature. Regarding searching, there's a program, at > least here in Australia and usually they come to us from the States, > called Isys which searches text files in the way you have described. > It could be of value to explore. Cheers from down under, Mary-Faeth > ... > Mary-Faeth Chenery (Chenery@redgum.ucnv.edu.au) we accept any help we can get!! do you have the Company address or phone number for Isys?? the main problem seems to be an agreeable standard and if we can purchase a package with unlimited distribution license. did everyone get Eldon's comments?? perhaps it was not sent out for general distribution (??). Maybe Eldon could repost?? he had ideas on some standardizations too. Peace -- john e. mead From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Mon, 25 Jul 1994 22:05:54 -0400 From: eldon@netcom.com (Eldon B. Tucker) Subject: Internet book index (reposting) This is by Eldon Tucker: ---- The following appeared on the Project Gutenberg mailing list (GUTENBERG%UIUCVMD.bitnet@vm42.cso.uiuc.edu) ---- Alex: A Catalogue of Electronic Texts on the Internet July 23, 1994 This is to announce the available of a new service, "Alex: A Catalogue of Electronic Texts on the Internet." Alex can be found at gopher://rsl.ox.ac.uk:70/1/lib-corn/hunter, or by pointing at gopher.ox.ac.uk, choosing "The World", then "Gopherspace", and then "Alex". Alex allows users to find and retrieve the full-text of documents on the Internet. It currently indexes over 700 books and shorter texts by author and title, incorporating texts from Project Gutenberg, Wiretap, the On-line Book Initiative, the Eris system at Virginia Tech, the English Server at Carnegie Mellon University, and the on-line portion of the Oxford Text Archive. For now it includes no serials. Alex does include an entry for itself. New publications at the sites above will be detected automatically. However, pointers to other sites, specific suggestions for additions to the catalogue, and notifications of errors are welcome, particularly those with full bibliographic information and URLs. The email address for Alex is alex@rsl.ox.ac.uk. Gopher space for Alex is graciously provided by the Radcliffe Science Library of Oxford University, which bears no responsibility for its content. World-Wide Web and WAIS interfaces for Alex are forthcoming, as are tools to identify bad URLs and to sort copy records in reverse order of server response time. The Alex database is copyright 994 and released for noncommercial use. No claims are made concerning the copyright status or quality of texts referenced in the database. Hunter Monroe From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Mon, 25 Jul 1994 22:07:42 -0400 From: eldon@netcom.com (Eldon B. Tucker) Subject: comments regarding theosophical lit. on internet This is by Eldon Tucker ---- Here are some miscellaneous comments regarding computerized theosophical materials. Regarding the indexes that Bing did at Wheaton a few years ago, he did that work as a paid employe of the TS, and there may be some question as to ownership of the material. The copyright might belong to the TS, if it is considered a "work for hire." I've seen a copy of the indexes, but permission from both Bing and John Alego would probably be necessary for any electronic posting of them. There is no electronic index to The Secret Doctrine that I know of, but there is one to the Blavatsky Collected Writings. This was done in Wordperfect 5.1 by Dara Elkund and Nicholas Weeks (I helped a little with some computer assistence). Copyright on that index belongs to TPH Wheaton. I called John Algeo and suggested that he look into getting TPH Wheaton, London, and Adyar to release their copyrights on theosophical classics--at least in electronic form. If the literatuare could be put into the public domain, as far as its electronic format goes, then the materials could be computerized and go out on the Internet, etc. He mentioned that he would bring the matter up at the July board meeting. I then wrote up several pages of notes for him to review, and sent a copy to Don, Mike, and John Mead. The work of putting the theosophical works into computer format has a lot of editorial detail to it, that goes beyond computer issues of what software to use and how to retrieve and access it. The basic materials need to be captured in a generic word-processor format, and corrected and reviewed. After that, multiple ways of formatting the materials for distribution can be done, including Braille, large-print listings, Adobe Acrobat electronic books, Wordperfect files, hypertext, etc. I'd estimate that the time to scan and correct the text of a book to the printed page to be about 20 percent of the total time to prepare it in electronic form, and this before any working on indexing it! I'm currently working on Esoteric Budhism by A.P. Sinnett as an experiment. I'm correcting spellings and standardizing theosophical terms, and coming up with a spelling and capitalization list. When I get a copy of Adobe Distiller, in a few months, I'll see how it looks as an electronic book. The advantage of distribution using Adobe Acrobat is that it is computer and display independent. It provides an electronic book with images that will take on any resolution. The $50/unit retail cost would drop a lot if we distributed electronic books, and got a quantity discount on pricing for copies of Acrobat that we distributed with the books. Regarding indexing, the simplist form is a concondance. A file of words and phrases are build, and the wordprocesser generates an index based upon it. The next form is where phrases are individually marked, and take you to the index (like in hypertext links). The most comprehensive form is a conceptual index. A knowledgable theosophical scholar reads each page and writes phrases that represent the concepts represented on that page. Those concepts are assembled into an index. The index is sorted and considerable editorial work is done to identify and consolidate entries that use different words but mean the same thing. This form of index is what was used with the Blavatsky Collected Writings. We could really use some grant money to pay someone like Dara Eklund or Nicholas Weeks to spend a couple of years going through the rest of Blavatsky's works and the classics to create an overall index. A final comment on idexes is that you might not only want to go to a particular page, but also to see highlighted the passage referred to. This requires that the beginning and ending of a passage referred to is maked with each index entry, and that the indexing software support such a scheme. Regarding theosophical texts that are computerized, I have some. Vic Hao Chin, the head of the TS in the Phillipines is working on some. He just publisted The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett in chronological order; that is a wordprocessor file that he might be asked to release. Theosophical University Press has many books in electronic form; these could be formatted for release as well, when they get to it. I'm trying to see that Point Loma Publications will get their works in computerized form, someday to be available over the Internet as well. Until computer technology gets a bit better, though, I don't see a computer file replacing a good book to read... It's just not the same sort of experience. But in a few years the computer screen will have the same quality of appearance as a book's printed page, and if the laptop's not too heavy, I may change my mind. I have a computerized Secret Doctrine, in Wordperfect 5.1, with most of the symbols as EPS graphics. Only the first few hundred pages of each volume are cleaned up; there is a lot of scanning errors. When I scanned it, Omnipage was not as good, and it was very difficult to correct scanning mistakes. There was a lot of effort spent on it that could have been saved! It's nice, though, bad as it is, to go a search on some term, and see a number of passages with what I am looking for... It's important again to state that most of the work ahead in the computerizing of Theosophy is editorial, and requires coming up with and working with a style guide to materials. I'll post my list of terms and corrections that I came up with in working on Esoteric Budhism in a few days as an example. ---- If there's someone out there who's good with Coreldraw, I have a set of EPS graphics that came from symbols in The Secret Doctrine. I did some work in Coreldraw, but they need additional work, and it would be very helpful if we could get them into our own postscript font. (We could add astrological symbols and other glyphs to the font and distribute it with our electronic texts.) ---- There's a lot most to write about, but I'm running out of time... From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Mon, 25 Jul 1994 22:10:33 -0400 From: eldon@netcom.com (Eldon B. Tucker) Subject: raw notes on computerized theos. This is from Eldon Tucker. Following are the raw notes that I quickly wrote down on computerizing Theosophy, and sent a copy directly to Don, Mike, and John, last week. ---- Following are some raw notes that I sent on to John. I'll have more time to write them up in a week or two. They're just keywords of significant ideas ... There was too much to put down to take the time to carefully write them out. Please excuse the spelling, etc. It was hastily written... ---- ascii edition can read on apples, ataris, z80's, mac, unix, mainframe easier for foreign computers smaller files to distribute via floppy/cdrom a step towards Braille edition bold/italics/underline/smallcaps to allcaps only top 1 percent of population concerned re bold/italics/accents need rules to transliterate Skt. into ascii can be put into Project Gutenberg? 1 hard return after each line of text 2 hard returns after normal paragraph 3 hard returns after section break 4 hard returns after chapter 5 hard returns after title and book parts include name,adr,phone,email adr of person homogenized wp edition include title page, (c) info... style for start of chpt page break style for start of chpt hdg. make symbol font from eps figures from SD etc. line-art illustrations cleaned up in corel draw, as eps pictures scanned at 150 dpi, 256 shades of grey only pagebreaks at beg. of book at start of chapters none within chapters easy to read easy for programs to read and search no bold, use italics in std. fashion most selections of emphasis by editor w/o author consultation correct accents re current Skt. etc. transliteration rules smallcaps for mss, b.c., a.d., m.d. -- keep list of what done use macron "-" accents instead of "^" older books styled according to customs & practices of their times break out of paragraphs quotes of 3-or-more lines ? American vs English spellings -- standarize spellings, use modern standarrize capitalization of Theosophical terms make WP51 spelling dictionary of accepted terms ? correct mistakes & authoritative edition vs preserve mistakes high accuracy for general readers rather than exacting perfection correct both body text and quotes in book go for general public, most bang for buck, not few scholars general wp entry extreme minimum of formatting on text lines ending with "-", decide if hyphenated word or "-" must remain on books keeping paganation add "[PN]12[pn]" at page breaks e.g. if page 192 ends "manvan-" and next starts with "tara", enter "manvan[PN]192[pn]tara" into the text list of accents can use, and macros to make underdots sentences end with single space no spaces around en or em dashes put punctuation inside quotes (e.g. >,"< >.'<) change '--' to en or em dashes (^Vn or ^Vm) ital for i.e. et seq. viz. vide vide infra vide supra etc... never two returns in a row, or two spaces in a row don't redefine tabs and use for positioning don't use codes: small/fine/large/verylarge/extralarge/font no underline/doubleunderline/outline/shadow/redline/strikeout no l/r margins, tabset, t/b margins, line just check for ' !', ' .', ' ?' etc. -- disconnected punct. change double quotes to typo. quotes change single quotes to typo. quotes (take care regarding 's) smallcaps, subscript, superscript, ital ok italics not include trailing space put footnotes into WP51 footnotes -- no final return in fn text each para ends with single return leave tables/figures for final setup, mark as [TABLE], [FIGURE] end last line surround nexted quote blocks with [QT1] ... [qt1], then if 3rd level [QT2] etc. surround added text with [AD] ... [ad] (e.g. if take from TOC in SD a title and put into body like: STANZA 1.[AD]The Night of the Universe[ad] have in BOLD, only text in materials in boldface is added surround foreign words (non-latin characters) in codes to indicate (e.g. [GK] ... [gk] for Greek, [HB] ... [hb] for Hebrew, [SK] ... [sk] for Sanskrit, [TB] ... [tb] for Tibetan, etc drop quote marks on quote text in quote blocks use ^V4,56 for elipses (always space ... space, using simple form) no margin set codes, indexes sort order for accents list of transparent words (not affect sort order) list of abbreviation expansions (sorted as though was expanded word) list of alternate expansions (sorted as though different word, e.g. 'first round', 'second round', 'third round' as though 'round 01', 'round 02', 'round 03') coordinating site/center/repository make standards for editing setting up coordinate work - avoid duplicatoin point of contact for public nonprofit status? to accept funds use trademark with distribution to protect from secretly altered materials site for master, official copies of materials provide general publicity on what has internet account and ftp site for materials internet mailing list for workers on the assoc. projects coordinate editors, proofreaders, scanning raise funds for expenses, legal fees, printing, distribution costs but *not* salaries or paid time for volunteers purchase needed software for workers (e.g. Adobe Distiller) restriction that materials not-for-profit, no charge for redistribution over nonimal copying fee deliverables large printing for hard-of-seeing braille edition authoritative edition of HPB's works allowed alterations: mismatched quotes, missing periods, single Contents for both vols of SD, homogenized edition of HPB's works with optional redlining investigate how Arcane School, ARE index their materials goals disseminate theos. to larger audience reach hard-of-seeing and blind allow new means of study (via computer indexing to desired passages) promote sell of printed books (interest from reading electronic ed.) put classic theosophy in public domain for widest dissemination deliverables ascii edition verbatim WP51 edition (for HPB only) homogenized WP51 edition adobe acrobat edition braille edition BCW Cumulative Index (in WP51 file already) pronounciation guide to Theos. terms, with sound (.wav files) for each term (made by Sanskrit, Tibetan, etc. experts) consolidated database/encyclopadia of terms from Theos. Glossary, Occult Glossary, etc. -- would TUP release their Encyclopedic Theos. Glossary (entire filing cabinet of materials prepared by Geoffrey Barborka et al in 1940's, never printed) various stages of index into adobe acrobat edition: (1) every word, (2) concordance of specific terms/phrases, (3) conceptual index with marked passages (start and end of cited text marked and assoc. with phrase and search ability against contents of conceptual index) brief bio sketch and picture of people referenced with hypertext links (click on name to learn about person) support deliverables make list of first titles to do and start (c) research impossible to predict when book in P.D., need legal research get new Mahatma Letters ed. in WP51 from Vic Hao Chin for dist. ask Pasadena re electronic books that they will release raise money and find volunteer workers obtain ok Sanskrit, Tibetan, Greek, Hebrew, ..., fonts to distribute make symbol font from SD symbols, have expert cleanup of it database of citations/bibliography (use materials from Gomes?) style guides for WP51 entry, ascii conversion rules for transliteration into ascii compiled list of Sanskrit ligature rules public domain Palatino postscript font with all accents added that we want including underdots value of using Adobe Acrobat current cost for read-only copy will drop by few years when we go out the door want truly electronic book, with book-like pages and illustrations computer hardware will support electronic books better in few years (greater storage capacity, faster processing speed, better resolution displays) want to distribute single verion of book across multiplatforms (e.g. mac, pc, ...) allows navigation of electronic book, personal annotations can print sections as desire Adobe Acrobat - read/print only, Adobe Distiller - annotate and originate new versions of books have text, graphics, images in device & resolution indep. format can add annotations, hypertext links, bookmarks could accommodate popular search-engine software to locate word or entry in doc, or cross-ref dif subjects in doc or set of docs can click on photo to get more detailed view From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Mon, 25 Jul 1994 20:57:27 -0700 (PDT) From: eldon@netcom.com (Eldon B. Tucker) Subject: Buddhism and Tibet This is by Brenda Tucker. Dear Jerry: After reading your comments regarding Wesak coming from "Tibetan Buddhism," I was really curious about what extent you had researched any history of Wesak. I finally ran across some interesting history of Buddhism (although no mention of Wesak) and thought a quick review might be useful if you were ever in a position to dive further into the question of Wesak's origination. I've been sent to bed for a month by the doctor's so that the baby won't be born in the sixth month before it might be able to breathe successfully, so have been reading mainly Renaissance European biographies: Bacon, Carlyle, and Voltaire. A book I received from my parents for my birthday is interestingly enough "tooted" as a companion reader to LITTLE BUDDHA, the film. Its title is ENTERING THE STREAM. It is edited by Samuel Bercholz and Sherab Chodzin Kohn, Boston: Shambhala, 1993. Sherab Kohn is also the author of the first two chapters: "The Life of the Buddha" and "A Short History of Buddhism." His account of the spread of Buddhism is what I am using when I repeat the following. Four assemblies took place. At the first assembly of five hundred arhats and held at Rajagriha under the patronage of King Ajatashatru of Magadhan immediately after the Buddha's parinirvana (and death), three extensive recitations became the Tripitaka. Ananda told of the Buddha's sutras and the place and circumstances regarding his actual spoken teachings. Upali recited the rules for living a monastic life. Mahakash- yapa recited the matrika, or terms and analytical synopses of the teachings in the sutras. One hundred years later the Second Council in Vaishali of 700 arhats met to discuss their differences. As a result and in the following century, 18 schools developed. Especially of interest are: Sthaviravada (way of the elders) held firmly to the Tripitaka; Mahasanghikas asserted the fallibility of arhats in hopes of weakening the authority of the monks and opening the way for the laymen, and Sarvastivadins ("all exists") taught that the divergent view from past, present, and future realities all exist. The third assembly (according to the Sthaviravadin tradition (known in Pali as the Theravada)) took place under King Ashoka. He declared the Sthaviravadin teachings the standard and the other teachings deviations. Therefore Sarvastivadins migrated to the west, including Kashmir and Central Asia. "Today a Sarvastivadin Vinaya lineage still survives in all the schools of Tibetan Buddhism." p.47 (Vinaya means discipline.) Under King Kanishka reigning over a Kushan empire (Northern India and large parts of Central Asia) in the first-second centuries, a Fourth Council added major new commentaries on the Tripitaka mainly under Sarvastivadin influence. At this time the way of the bodhisattva or Mahayana Buddhism appeared. The ideal of the arhat was replaced with that of the bodhisattva. The arhat sought to escape samsara, but bodhisattvas vowed to remain in samsara to liberate all beings. Likewise, "buddha" came to mean more than a series of historical personages, but referred to a self-existing principle of enlightenment. Those who held exclusively to the old Tripitaka became known as the Hinayana. Two great masters created further schools in the second-fourth centuries. Nagarjuna's PRAJNAPARAMITA sutras (foundational Mahayana scriptures), his commentaries and treatises became the teachings of Madhyamaka (Middle Way). Asanga founded the Yogachara school which focused on experience. Buddhism suffered a blow in the sixth century by invading Huns. Dharma revived although Hinayana largely vanished from India by the seventh century and another form became dominant - Tantra. Tantra also known as Vajrayana (Diamond Vehicle) or Mantrayana became known through scriptures known as Tantras. Its leap was even further than Mahayana's leap past the Hinayana school, emphasizing liturgical meditation and replacing the bodhisattva with the siddha, the tantric master. The thirteenth century brought suppression again of the Budhha Dharma by Islamic conquerors, but Hinayana forms remained in Southeast Asia and Mahayana and Vajrayana in most of the rest of Asia. -------------- The Buddha Dharma of Tibet depended on Vajrayana tradition and joined it to the Sarvastivadin monastic rule. King Detsen (755-797) invited two great teachers from whose teachings the Nyingma school stems. An eleventh century spreading after years of persecution resulted in the Kagyu and Shakya schools. The Tibetan canon was formed, including a major part of Indian Buddhist writings and tantric scriptures, preserving many texts otherwise lost. Gelukpa school became a reform movement in the fourteenth century and was the fourth of the principal Tibetan Buddhist schools. "By the late twentieth century, as a result of Chinese repression Buddhism in Tibet was reduced to a vestige, but it remained in Sikkim and Bhutan. Centers of Tibetan Buddhism also developed in northern India and Nepal as well as in Europe, Australia, and North America." p. 52 My comments: Tibetan Buddhism includes the "past, present, and future existent reality" idea of the Sarvastivadin school as well as four principle schools inherent to Tibet which survived by migrating to the western world. No other locale where Buddhism flourished has been able to make this boast. The only further mention in the book of Buddhism in the West is written in the sense that our intellectuals became drawn to the study and became influenced by Buddhist thought, spreading it around. To quote Kohn once again, "Theravada Buddhism has had a significant impact since the 1930s, Zen since the 1950s, and the tantric Buddhism of Tibet since the 1970s." p. 54 I just wasn't sure if your research had included this vast of an arena when speaking of Tibetan Buddhism, whether meaning Sarvastivadin principles, Tibetan canon, several schools once indigenous to Tibet, or the migration into the West from Tibet. From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Tue, 26 Jul 1994 13:39:11 EDT From: RIhle@aol.com Subject: Masters? Here is a general summary and a thought or two regarding last Sunday's Founders' Day Lecture and related discussion: Ed Abdil did a fine job describing the "Occult Brotherhood" which HPB and other early Theosophists said they were in communication with. Ed seemed to be on the side which accepted the existence of these exalted personages, the authenticity of their "precipitated" correspondences etc.; however, he was careful to emphasize that such a belief was certainly not a Theosophical requirement of any kind. A video program on the same subject followed. It was well done, offered some scientific/scholarly analysis of the writings etc. and was only just a little bit tendentious. The program not only added support for the idea that Koot-Humi and other Masters were real, living individuals, but also that they had all of the advanced powers which have been attributed to them. Our discussion group was divided on the subject, but everyone presented his or her views in a polite way. I told the group about the real estate practice of "burying St. Joseph" in order to sell your house. Many people swear that actually digging a hole and burying a little statue of this figure in your back yard will produce a buyer in a short period of time. Many successful sellers remain absolutely convinced about the efficacy of the method, and no amount of "scientific" animadversion seems to be able to change their opinion. As a theosophist, of course, I can "sort of" believe it also--but naturally in my typically unstraightforward theosophical way. That is, I doubt whether an actual St. Joseph is selling the house; rather, it may be that the "content-containing" psyches of the individuals who planted him provide the operative power. I mean, the people are going around day after day with a vague, SUBTLE sense that the old saint is out there in the back yard taking care of real estate business. This sounds like reasonable magical operating procedure to me. Anyway, this all may relate to the subject of the existence and UTILITY of the Masters in the following way: Is it not true that when the bulk of the membership was nurturing the concept of the actual existence of the Occult Brotherhood that the Society enjoyed its greatest growth and successes? Was this the power of combined psyches "contaminated" with the same content working in an inexplicable yet indisputably puissant way? All true magic begins with a psychic con, perhaps. . . . Unfortunately, whether they were fact or fiction, I believe too much time has separated us from Theosophy's original cast of Adept Characters to ever reach "critical occult mass" again by means of them. On the other hand, I firmly believe that the Theosophical Society has a special place in Preternatural History and Destiny. Perhaps this simple unromantic notion--combined with some PRACTICAL psychological interpretations and applications of HPB's work--can provide the aggregation of esoteric power necessary for Theosophy's future. Warm regards from Madison, Wisconsin. Richard Ihle From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Wed, 27 Jul 1994 9:20:55 EDT From: "K. Paul Johnson" Subject: TS Annual Meeting This annual meeting was the third I have attended, and I'm happy to report that the section seems more united and healthy than it has been in the past. John Algeo inspires great confidence; there's more of a sense of harmony and shared enthusiasm than I've seen before in the TS. Admittedly this is based on a small sample of experiences, and I don't mean to denigrate previous leaders, but there's something infectious about his good humor. The staff seems energized and the chemistry among the members, staff and board was good. My own pilgrimage to Wheaton was determined mainly by the fact that the pub date for The Masters Revealed was last Friday, and I wanted to celebrate among Theosophists. My own sense of the discussion of Masters was a bit different from Richard's, and I guess each discussion group had its own flavor. Although Ed was considerably more conservative in his view of the subject than I am, his emphasis was often on the need to humanize our view of the Masters and avoid making a fetish of them. This of course is something I hope my work helps accomplish. The theme of the Masters was followed up with Stephan Hoeller's historical explorations of adeptship in the West. A self-proclaimed revisionist, Stephan subtly stressed the need to have a more balanced and universal view of adeptship rather than to see the Masters as somehow the exclusive property of the TS. In the post-Founder's lecture discussion group I was in, by common consent the focus was on my book. There and in other settings, I never felt rejected or ignored. Although there was some evident discomfort and unease with the demythologizing aspects of the research, people seemed to accept the book as a positive development. Some were quite enthusiastic about it. One staff member told me that the staff were quite familiar with my Gnosis piece of last summer, and that he had heard nothing negative about it. Generally, the TS seems to be adopting a more educational model now, with the new Olcott Institute, the Messenger, and the participation of scholars like Robert Ellwood in the annual meeting. This is quite encouraging as a sign of greater objectivity and open-mindedness in the approach to our history. So I am looking forward to my Theosophical reviews with somewhat less trepidation than before. If anyone in the newsgroup wants to do a review, let me know and I will get SUNY to send you a copy. Namaste From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Wed, 27 Jul 1994 10:49:37 EDT From: "K. Paul Johnson" Subject: Re: Masters? There is another side to the fact that the TS enjoyed its greatest growth and "successes" when faith in the Masters was at its zenith-- I assume you mean in the 20s with the Krishnamurti cult since that is by far the highest membership level. It can be argued that the TS experienced its greatest FAILURES under the leadership of Besant, inspired by Leadbeater, in terms of violating the original programme of the Society. The kind of faith in the Masters she encouraged was not at all what HPB, Olcott or the Masters themselves wanted, judging by their writings. Sensationalism and emotional devotion to them was exactly what she was warned against in the 1900 letter. Even if this is not genuine, there is ample evidence in the writings of the Founders and the Mahatmas to make the same point. What I'd hope to see in the future is a TS revivified somewhat by the knowledge that the existence of HPB's Masters is firmly established, but cautious about making them the object of the kind of attention that prevailed in the early 20th century. BTW I'm not referring to just my own research in this regard; Joscelyn Godwin's forthcoming The Theosophical Enlightenment approaches the subject of the Masters in much the same way, and other scholars will do so in the future. From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: 27 Jul 1994 10:11:26 EDT From: Donald DeGracia Subject: FrameMaker4 for EDoc project? To all interested parties (Mike, Eldon, John Mead, etc.): I saw an ad in PC Magazine for a program called FrameMaker4 that looks like what we might be interested in for distributing electronic theosophy literature. According to the ad, the program has multiplatform capabilities (PC, Mac, UNix), supports graphics, text and charts and has hypertext capabilities. Apparently this FrameMaker4 is designed for making on-line distributable documents. I don't know if it does indexing. Does anyone know anything about this program? I am going to browse in CompuServe to see if I can get more info. If anyone wants to call and talk to the company (Frame Technology Corp.) the number is 1-800-U4-FRAME ext 604. Please post if anyone finds out more info or knows anything about this program. Don From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: 27 Jul 1994 10:52:36 EDT From: Donald DeGracia <72662.1335@compuserve.com> Subject: About FrameMaker4 Hi Everyone: I went diggin in compuserve and dug up some info about FM4. It has about everything we need: 1. Multiplatform (PC, Unix, Mac) 2. Can embedd graphics and multimedia 3. Can do complex formatting 4. Reads RTF, word for windows, and WP files 5. Creates stand-alone documents for electronic distribution. 6. Has open architecture. Nuber 6 is useful if we want to write our own code and interface it to the program. There is a developers kit available. I don't know about royalties but it sounds like the viewer can be freely distributed. The only thing at this point I don't know about is indexing. I don't know if makes searchable indexes like what we need or if it only has an indexing feature like Word For Windows. I posted a msg in compuserve about this and will let you know ASAP. I got a blurb about FM4 for you all to check out and its at the end of this letter. So, we might want to seriously consider using this product. It looks like exactly what we need. Let me know your thoughts about this. The following blurb has phone numbers so if anyone calls the company post what you find out here. Thanks all! Don FM4 blurb: FRAME TECHNOLOGY INTRODUCES FRAMEMAKER 4 FOR UNIX, WINDOWS, AND MACINTOSH PLATFORMS More Than 100 New Features Add Power and Ease-of-Use to Award-Winning FrameMaker SAN JOSE, CA, September 13, 1993 - Frame Technology(R) announced today the release of FrameMaker(R) 4, its next-generation writing and publishing software for UNIX, Windows, and Macintosh platforms. FrameMaker 4 includes over 100 new features and enhancements designed to increase users' productivity for producing demanding business and technical documents. FrameMaker 4 provides a complete solution for companies that can no longer meet their publishing needs using traditional word processing and desktop publishing products. FrameMaker 4's new features are designed to add more flexibility, power, and ease-of-use to the product. Specifically, these new features fall into five major categories: * Improved user interface * More powerful formatting tools * Advanced color and graphics support * Improved information management capabilities * Extensible architecture FrameMaker 4 is targeted at business and technical professionals who create, manage, and distribute "demanding" documents. "Demanding" documents typically have a long lifecycle, are frequently revised and updated, and contain complex document content and formatting. Important elements of these documents include multiple chapters, automatically numbered sections, tables and illustrations, cross-references, footnotes, indexes, and multi-level tables of contents. Examples of demanding documents range from business plans and financial reports to books, manuals, and procedure guides. Increasingly, these documents are being written and published in a collaborative, multiplatform environment. Often they require constant revision and updating, and are distributed electronically to save time and money. The single-user desktop publishing and word processing models of the 1980s can no longer adequately address the complex publishing requirements of these documents. But FrameMaker 4's publishing model enables multiple authors to collaborate on demanding documents in a networked, cross-platform environment and distribute these documents electronically for cost-effective on-line viewing. SIMULTANEOUS MULTIPLATFORM AVAILABILITY ============================================= The introduction of FrameMaker 4 marks the first time Frame has simultaneously released a product on leading UNIX and desktop platforms including Sun and HP workstations running X/Motif, the Apple Macintosh, and PCs running Microsoft Windows. Unlike any other writing or publishing application, FrameMaker 4 files can be shared transparently across all these platforms, with no file conversion. FrameMaker conforms to the native user interface on which it runs so users can work with familiar menus and commands. In addition, FrameMaker takes advantage of the unique capabilities of each platform by supporting platform-specific features. NEW FEATURES =============== FrameMaker 4 provides a rich writing and editing environment, advanced color capabilities, automated page layout, long document handling, and the ability to easily incorporate complex graphics and multimedia elements into documents. FrameMaker 4 also includes a context-sensitive Help feature that uses hypertext links to guide users through its on-line Help system. Frame has redesigned the FrameMaker 4 user interface to improve access to frequently-used features, making the product easier to learn and use. For example, FrameMaker's menus can be customized to support different styles of working. Users can view complete menus, quick menus (a subset of the complete menus), or even customized menus. By adding flexible menus to FrameMaker 4, VARs (Value Added Resellers) and system administrators can customize FrameMaker to meet specific user needs. A new C-based Applications Programming Interface (API) enables corporate in-house development organizations, systems integrators, and third-party software developers to create powerful application extensions to FrameMaker 4. Details regarding a Frame Developer's Kit (FDK) and Frame's new API certification program for VARs will be announced at a later date. Other new features of FrameMaker 4 include: * A document comparison feature that provides a detailed comparison report on the differences between two versions of a document * Enhanced color support for PANTONE(R), CMYK, RGB, and HLS color models * The ability to easily prepare and print spot and process color separations, including process color separations of Encapsulated PostScript and DCS color images * An easy-access Formatting ruler to quickly select paragraph alignment settings such as left-, center-, or right-alignment, line spacing, and tab settings * Styles by example, a method that enables users to design paragraph formats visually and store them in a catalog for future use * Automatic placement of side- and run-in heads * A Quick Access bar that provides single-click access to the most commonly used commands (Mac and Windows only) * Arbitrary rotation of text and graphics * A built-in Thesaurus * Eight different dashed-line patterns * Improved hypertext commands and automatic generation of hypertext links As with previous versions, FrameMaker 4 incorporates timesaving features such as intelligent tables, FrameMath(TM), conditional text, and electronic distribution of documents using FrameViewer(R). Files created in FrameMaker 3.0 are directly usable with FrameMaker 4; all formatting is completely preserved. UPGRADE INFORMATION ======================= FrameMaker 4 will be available in U.S. and International English, French, German, and Swedish versions. The product is available through authorized U.S. dealers, value-added resellers, and international distributors. FrameMaker 3.0 customers with a currently active FrameMaker Support Subscription (FSS) will automatically receive the FrameMaker 4 upgrade at no cost. Customers who purchased FrameMaker 3.0 after August 15, 1993 are eligible to receive a no-cost upgrade to FrameMaker 4. NORTH AMERICAN PRICING & AVAILABILITY ========================================= FrameMaker 4 will be available in late September for PCs running Windows and Apple Macintoshes at a suggested retail price of $895. FrameMaker 4 will also be available in late September for Sun SPARCs and compatibles, and Hewlett- Packard computers running X/Motif at a suggested retail price of $1495 for a personal license, and $2595 for a shared license. Upgrade pricing for Macintosh and Windows platforms is $199. UNIX Personal license upgrades including 1 year of technical support and upgrades are $895($695 through 12/31/93). UNIX Shared license upgrades including 1 year of technical support and upgrades are $1295($995 through 12/31/93). For international pricing and distribution information, please contact Frame International Ltd. (011) 353-1- 8429-566. FRAME TECHNOLOGY CORPORATION ================================== Frame Technology provides award-winning writing and publishing software for the creation and distribution of demanding business and technical documents. Frame's products are compatible across PC, Macintosh, and UNIX platforms, enabling companies to increase productivity by leveraging valuable corporate data. Frame Technology is a publicly-traded company (NASDAQ:FRAM) located at 1010 Rincon Circle, San Jose, California 95131 USA. FOR MORE INFORMATION ======================== Frame Technology Carol Kaplan (408) 428-6143 Copithorne & Bellows Steve Jursa (415) 966-8700 Frame Technology, FrameMaker, FrameViewer, and Frame are registered trademarks, and FrameBuilder, FrameMath, and Frame Developer's Kit are trademarks of Frame Technology Corporation. All other product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Wed, 27 Jul 1994 15:50:18 -0700 (PDT) From: eldon (Eldon B. Tucker) Subject: framemaker Framemaker is a DTP program like Pagemaker, Ventura Publisher, or QuarkExpress. It costs several hundreds of dollars, and its feature set for the distribution of electronic documents is much less that Adobe Acrobat or some similar program. The fonts do not come with it. It has a learning curve for people to use it.. It costs hundreds of dollars vs perhaps $10-$20 (est.) for the quantity pricing for Acrobat if we order 100 at a time for a theosophical distribution project. It does not support device-independent, compressed documents (including zoomable fractal-compressed pictures). The most-quickly available format for electronic documents is (a) in generic wordprocessor format (like Wordperfect 5.1 which can be imported into almost any DOS or Windows wordprocessor), (b) ascii format for easy reading by people without access to word procesors, and (c) Adobe Acrobat format, for electronic books with illustrations that can be read online like a paper book is read... Indexing software and further types of computer editions comes later. From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Thu, 28 Jul 1994 12:23:40 -0400 From: eldon@netcom.com (Eldon B. Tucker) Subject: framemaker comments I may have been too critical of Framemaker. I haven't reviewed it and just remember various magazine reviews... It might be a good idea for Don to go ahead and set up a book using Framemaker, (assuming he can get a copy), and I'll try Adobe Acrobat, and Mike or John yet another program. It would be useful for us to gain experience with various programs and approaches, each using a single title, in order to see what way would be best. Our first try at a book could be considered as alternate prototypes at the same goal: electronic publishing of theosophical literature. From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Thu, 28 Jul 1994 12:24:42 -0400 From: RIhle@aol.com Subject: Re: Masters? Hi, Paul. Now, I really regret not bumping into you at the convention. Congratulations on your new book. I look forward to reading it. I wonder if you could clarify a statement of yours for me. In what sense did you mean, ". . . a TS revivified somewhat by the knowledge that the existence of HPB's Masters is firmly established"? (Who firmly established it etc.?) Thanks. Best wishes, Richard Ihle From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Thu, 28 Jul 1994 12:25:10 -0400 From: OSMAR DE CARVALHO Subject: White Brotherhood This is from Osmar to Richard: RI> Here is a general summary and a thought or two regarding last RI> Sunday's Founders' Day Lecture and related discussion: Thanks for the account, Richard! RI> Ed Abdil did a fine job describing the "Occult Brotherhood" which RI> HPB and other early Theosophists said they were in communication RI> with. .Ed seemed to be on the side which accepted the existence of RI> these exhalted personages, the authenticity of their RI> "precipitated" correspondences etc.; RI> however, he was careful to emphasize that such a belief was RI> certainly not a Theosophical requirement of any kind. Reading your messages I remembered one point which I don't understood in the theosophical literature. The question is the existence of many sections of the white brotherhood throughout the world. In some place I read that Blavatsky was in contact with the Luxor brotherhood of Egypt, and three masters of wisdom, Serapis Bei, Tuiti Bei and Polidorus helped Olcott and Blavatsky to open the Theosophical Society. At same time, and everywhere, we hear that the master Morya and Koot-Hoomi were the "occult" founders of our society. Somebody can give me some light on this matter? There exists some "Pan-American" section of the occult hierarchy? RI> Warm regards from Madison, Wisconsin. Hugs from Sao Paulo, Brazil. .. You can't learn about yourself except in experience. From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Thu, 28 Jul 1994 12:26:22 -0400 From: mike@planet8.sp.paramax.com (Michael W. Grenier) Subject: Scanning books I was reading Computer Shopper last night (July '94) about a new optical Character Recognition (OCR) program from Caere called omnipage. One of its claims is that it outputs word processing formats as well as ASCII where the word processing formats will include formating information and imbedded graphics. This might eliminate the need for converting the graphics and unusual ofonts to EPS and other formats. Eldon, what portion of the time is spent in this formating effort? -Mike Grenier ---- Michael W. Grenier mike@planet8.sp.paramax.com 612-456-7869 Unisys - Air Traffic Control From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Thu, 28 Jul 1994 13:51:51 -0400 From: "K. Paul Johnson" Subject: Re: Masters? Hi Richard-- If I'd seen your name on a badge I'd have introduced myself-- I've enjoyed your AT pieces. In answer to your question, I was referring to a hope for the future, not a fait accompli. My book and Joscelyn Godwin's forthcoming one are the beginning of what I hope to be a revolution in the way HPB and the Masters are seen. But it will take several more scholars getting on the same wavelength to bring about what I hope for-- a consensus that the existence of HPB's Masters cannot be seriously doubted. It is best left to others to evaluate how far my own work goes toward that goal. My opinion is that no objective reader could finish the book without being convinced of my thesis. But that thesis-- that HPB derived her teachings and mission from a series of genuine adepts in authentic spiritual traditions whose historical identities are to various degrees established-- falls far short of Theosophical dogma about Masters. There isn't a trace of evidence in my book for claims about paranormal phenomena, which for many are the distinguishing characteristic of adepts. Hope this helps clarify. Namaste From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Thu, 28 Jul 1994 13:52:30 -0400 From: "K. Paul Johnson" Subject: Re: White Brotherhood Dear Osmar, My research indicates that although HPB had established contacts with Indian adepts prior to coming to America, her main influences from 1873-1879 were adepts in Egypt, Europe and America. The characters I identify in this context include Freemasons, Rosicrucians, Sufis, etc. But after going to India she was predominantly influenced by Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist adepts. That they were all part of one big occult brotherhood is something for which I have found no evidence, and which seems most improbable. Best wishes From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Fri, 29 Jul 1994 02:06:57 -0400 From: OSMAR DE CARVALHO Subject: White Brotherhood To Paul: > Dear Osmar, > My research indicates that although HPB had established > contacts with Indian adepts prior to coming to America, her > main influences from 1873-1879 were adepts in Egypt, Europe and > America. The characters I identify in this context include > Freemasons, Rosicrucians, Sufis, etc. But after going to India > she was predominantly influenced by Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist > adepts. When you say "adepts" you mean something as the "asekha" level or just high members of those traditions? I would like to know, Paul, what was the strongest evidence you have found which indicates a "real" existence of such kind of adepts of distinct traditions? There exists positive and direct clues such as pictures, writings, etc? > That they were all part of one big occult brotherhood > is something for which I have found no evidence, and which > seems most improbable. From a historical point of view I do believe your conclusion is very reasonable, but I can't figure out how deep this perspective can elucidate an esoteric reality Blavatsky and others talked about in his writings. > Best wishes Shanti! P.S. Excuse some problem on my grammar. English is my third language... From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Fri, 29 Jul 1994 09:08:14 -0400 From: "K. Paul Johnson" Subject: Re: White Brotherhood Dear Osmar, I'm not sure what you mean by the "asekha" level (pardon if I misspell). Most of the characters in TMR can be shown in historical writings to have been leaders in various occult or Eastern traditions. The evidence is of the sort one finds in any history book; contemporary sources and recent scholarship, combined with some unpublished material. An obvious example is Swami Dayananda Sarasvati, with whom Theosophists have been familiar for a century. Since HPB and Olcott fell out with him, it has been conveniently forgotten that initially they both regarded him as a Mahatma of the Great White Brotherhood. See Old Diary Leaves for more info. I use Dayananda's letters, published in India, to unravel the story from his side of the conflict. As for the esoteric reality behind the historical events, I have an open mind but little inclination to speculate. My objective is simply to establish as clearly as possible what happened in history; others are welcome to theorize as to metahistorical forces acting through the characters and events. Namaste From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Fri, 29 Jul 1994 14:59:35 -0400 From: "LEWIS LUCAS" Subject: Re: framemaker comments I have access to a HP full color page scanner. It hasn't been setup yet, so I don't know much about it. We also use Aldus Pagemaker for our newsletters here at the library, and I was wondering if we could scan books into it from the HP scanner. I realize that still leaves the editing and copyright issues unresolved. One more point...I have been asked to refrain from speaking on behalf of the Theosophical Society in America on the Internet. I want to apologize publicly if I have misled anyone in this forum into thinking I had the authority to speak on the national sections behalf. Speculation on my part about the availability of files for materials produced by (or for) them is nothing more than that ..speculation. The spread of theosophical ideas via the publication of texts from newspapers, magazines, or books in electronic format is all that I was trying to encourage and support...but only with the full knowledge and cooperation of the legal copyright holders. Sincerely, Lewis Lucas From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Fri, 29 Jul 1994 15:14:15 -0400 From: "LEWIS LUCAS" Subject: Re: White Brotherhood > ...That they were all part of one big occult brotherhood > is something for which I have found no evidence, and which > seems most improbable. I am surprised to read this. It strikes me as rather materialistic. Blavatsky spent a great deal of time and energy trying to establish the fact that there is much more to this world than what meets the eye (ie. physical senses). Why does it seem "most improbable" to you? Lewis From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Fri, 29 Jul 1994 15:58:43 -0400 From: BOB MURDIC 8-451-3133 Subject: Re: framemaker comments I am interested in the idea of getting some of the TS material out on the Net for public access. I have an Apple OneScanner (B&W) that I use for OCR work. The program I use allows a document to be saved in a number of different formats. I currently have a number of articles by WQJ and HPB already in electronic form. Once the copyright issued are resolved I would be willing to contribute them to the group. I am also willing to be involved in any effort to scan materials for distribution. Finally, I have a demo copy of FrameMaker v 3.0 for the Mac if anyone is interested, just let me know and I can mail it to you. I am really enjoying mailings and I look forward to each days newmail. Thanks to all of you that have made it possible and PLEASE let me know if there is anything I can do to HELP. Bob Murdic Delaware Study Center PEACE From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Fri, 29 Jul 1994 17:11:07 -0400 From: "K. Paul Johnson" Subject: Re: White Brotherhood According to LEWIS LUCAS: > > > ...That they were all part of one big occult brotherhood > > is something for which I have found no evidence, and which > > seems most improbable. > > I am surprised to read this. It strikes me as rather materialistic. > Blavatsky spent a great deal of time and energy trying to establish > the fact that there is much more to this world than what meets the > eye (ie. physical senses). Why does it seem "most improbable" to you? > > Lewis Materialistic? How-- I don't see the connection. What makes it seem to you that I am denying the reality of everything non-physical? That is by no means a position I take, either privately or in my writings. What is improbable is that the characters I was talking about-- HPB's adept acquaintances in Europe, Asia and America-- all knew one another. (Something that she, by the way, never specifically asserted as far as I recall). There are some who overlap various categories. For example, James Sanua, an Egyptian Sufi Freemason of Italian Jewish parentage who spent most of his life in exile in Paris-- and who was fluent in 12 languages. He was acquainted with a wide range of adepts in various traditions. But they weren't all acquainted with one another. Other adepts stayed pretty much within the confines of their own cultures-- e.g. Swami Sankaracharya in South India, Abdelkader in the Middle East, Sengchen Tulku in Tibet-- so there was no way they could have ever met. And while many of them were highly advanced in their native traditions, very few of them were cosmopolitan in the way that HPB was. If you are suggesting that people who had never met and who shared no common languages could nevertheless all know one another on the inner planes and be in conscious communication-- if there were evidence that any of them had claimed such a thing I'd be more inclined to take it seriously. As to why I think it's improbable-- there's a rule of evidence that states "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof." I hope you will at least grant that an international telepathic network of people who showed no outward evidence of knowing one other and had no common language would be quite out of the ordinary; I will in return grant that it is not impossible. (Only had I said "impossible" rather than "improbable" would you have a basis for the charge of materialism.) This isn't the first time I've been faced with the inexplicable (to me) suggestion that my portrayal of the adepts reduces everything to physical reality. No historian or biographer would focus at that level-- what is of importance to historical explanation is the mental, emotional, spiritual, social, political, etc. etc. realities of the persons being discussed. None of which "meets the eye." In closing, perhaps I should clarify the point that I was referring only to those individuals identified by my research; I won't extend any generalizations to those who remain unknown. Hope this helps. Namaste From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Fri, 29 Jul 1994 18:25:32 -0400 From: mike@planet8.sp.paramax.com (Michael W. Grenier) Subject: Re: framemaker comments Sorry about that last message. >I currently have a number of articles by WQJ and HPB already in >electronic >form. Once the copyright issued are resolved I would be willing to >contribute them to the group. I am also willing to be involved in any >effort to scan materials for distribution. Bob, I talked to John Algeo earlier this week and he felt there was no problem with copyrights on the earlier texts. Isn't there a limit on the age of copyrights anyway (30 or 50 years?). Perhaps, Ruben C., who is hopefully able to read this list now, can get a specific ruling from John A. on books published by TPH prior to some date. Let me check on copyrights in general. -Mike G. ---- Michael W. Grenier mike@planet8.sp.paramax.com 612-456-7869 Unisys - Air Traffic Control From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Fri, 29 Jul 1994 19:08:50 -0400 From: John Mead Subject: Re: White Brotherhood (excerpt from Paul Johnson's reply to Lewis L.) > Materialistic? How-- I don't see the connection. What makes > it seem to you that I am denying the reality of everything > non-physical? That is by no means a position I take, > either privately or in my writings. It is materialistic in that you are requiring material proof. (In My Humble Opinion). Of course, a scholarly work must require that. > What is improbable is that the characters I was talking about-- > HPB's adept acquaintances in Europe, Asia and America-- all > knew one another. (Something that she, by the way, never > specifically asserted as far as I recall). ..... > If you are suggesting that people who had never met and who shared no > common languages could nevertheless all know one another on the inner > planes and be in conscious communication-- if there were evidence that > any of them had claimed such a thing I'd be more inclined to take it > seriously. .... some stuff deleted ... > As to why I think it's improbable-- there's a rule of evidence that > states "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof." I hope you > will at least grant that an international telepathic network of people > who showed no outward evidence of knowing one other and had no common > language would be quite out of the ordinary; I will in return grant > that it is not impossible. (Only had I said "impossible" rather than > "improbable" would you have a basis for the charge of materialism.) There are many examples of the physical reality of this hierarchy WITNESSED by people who lived around Meher Baba during his lifetime. Also he did much work with the Indian Musts (spelling??) who brought him information (via spiritual contacts) during the War (WW II) etc. Most accounts were written by the eyewitnesses themselves, and some are still living (a few are in Myrtle Beach, SC) of course one can declare that extraordinary proof be required. The Skeptical Inquirer's slogan I think it is?? A fine group of Scientific atheists. do subordinary claims require subordinary proof?? the world is clearly flat you know.... e.g. :-) (The Skeptical Inquirer is one of my pet peeves to dislike! you struck a nerve on that one !! :-) peace -- John E. Mead p.s. I do support your work by the way!! I want to get a copy of your book... do I just order it? Want to come to Charlotte and give a talk??? we would love to have you visit. Our house is full of cats, dogs, and Parrots; other than that it is rather peaceful! From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Sat, 30 Jul 1994 08:57:20 -0400 From: "K. Paul Johnson" Subject: Re: White Brotherhood At this point, I wouldn't ask for proof, only explanation. What do you mean that there is physical proof by eyewitnesses? Proof of what? That MB's masts were identical to HPB's Mahatmas? I'm lost. Sure, I'll be glad to come to Charlotte. I'm long overdue anyway. Will get back to you on dates when I find out when the mid-Atlantic gathering in Md. is. Namaste PJ From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Sat, 30 Jul 1994 14:20:44 -0400 From: John Mead Subject: Re: White Brotherhood > At this point, I wouldn't ask for proof, only explanation. > What do you mean that there is physical proof by eyewitnesses? > Proof of what? that there was a sizable network of people who knew each other, worked together, but never meet on the physical plane. sometimes they did meet though. these meetings can be verified. the bizarre circumstances leading up to them etc. > That MB's masts were identical to HPB's > Mahatmas? I'm lost. good grief, no. they are a very different sort. Look at "God Speaks" to see how the Musts, Mahatma's, and higher beings etc, are networked together. The level(s) they communicate through are all spelled out in detail. I think the HPB Mahatmas were on a lower level and probably you are right that they needed more physical contact to work together. This can never be "proved" in the scientific sense though. But there is alot of first hand evidence. Has NASA "proved" they went to the Moon. Only the Astraunauts themselves REALLY know. (and one could argue that they too may have been duped!). proof is very bound within a persons' own philosophy. it is just a matter of how skeptical you choose to be. My only point is that you should examine other's claims too, before dismissing HPB's. She never created the White Brotherhood. It has existed in literature (various forms) for eternity. Meher Baba is only mentioned as a "recent" example, which has not been too destoyed by temporal distance. just a suggestion. peace -- john e. mead From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Sat, 30 Jul 1994 15:04:10 -0400 From: eldon@netcom.com (Eldon B. Tucker) Subject: more info on Adobe Acrobat This is by Eldon Tucker. I called Adobe and got some additional information regarding Adobe Acrobat. They will come out with a new release of the product line in September, version 2.0, a major upgrade. Information on pricing and what the new features will be is not available. Since it's only a month away, I'm not going to put any effort into acquiring and looking into software until then. The current pricing for Acrobat reader is $1750 for 50 ($35 per unit with a quantity purchase). The pricing, though, will be different soon, and it would not be advisable to acquire the product now, only to have to upgrade it in a month. Hope everything is going well with the other work regarding the computerization project, and in other theosophical areas as well. From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Sat, 30 Jul 1994 15:19:26 -0400 From: eldon@netcom.com (Eldon B. Tucker) Subject: computerization project comments Books have to have been copyrighted 1918 or earlier to be in the public domain--there's an automatic extension of their copyrights to 75 years. That is, unless, they were put in the public domain. Unpublished manuscripts, even older than that, are still protected for many years to come. The copyright law is complex. The Mahatma Letters, for instance, although it appeared later than 1918, is in the public domain, because they were published and the Mahatmas themselves did not challenge the violation of their copyright of their letters within a certain number of years. ---- Regarding "omnipage", I have the program, and have used it to setup a number of books. It is still, though, only useful for initial raw input... Taking "Esoteric Budhism", which I recently setup, the time involved was: 6 hours - initial scan in Omnipage 6 hours - check recognition in Omnipage 4 hours - initial compare of formatting, italics, and insertion of simple styles in WP 15 hours - read book and compare to initial computer printout for corrections 10 hours - formatting cleanup and enter initial corrections 15 hours - check spellings against modern standards and correct as needed 5 hours - enter corrections and next printout 10 hours - make table of terms used, including capitalization and hypenation standards for theosopical terms Note that I wasn't carefully keeping track of the time, and these are estimates made in retrospect. And there is still more work to do... From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Sat, 30 Jul 1994 15:52:05 -0400 From: eldon@netcom.com (Eldon B. Tucker) Subject: Vic Hao Chin is online This is by Eldon Tucker. ---- I just heard from Vic Hao Chin, who is now online and trying to join 'theos-l'. I hope he doesn't mind my posting his note to me--it's of interest to all of us... > Date: 27 Jul 1994 23:43:34 +010 > From: vhc@philtap.tool.nl (Vic Hao Chin > Subject: Connection with Interne > > Dear Eldon > > Finally, after trying to look for ways and means, I finally got > into Internet (through Toolnet in Amsterdam which has a server here > in the Philippines). My number is . > > Just to keep you updated on the Secret Doctrine project. We have > entered the entire work into the disk, and we are now in the > process of proofreading it. I have already found a commercial > search program which is unsophisticated by good enough for the > moment for searching. And it's fast. I shall let you know > developments on this matter. > > Meantime, I would appreciate knowing the Internet address of our > other friends. I only know yours and that of Wheaton. > > I have been told how to get into conference. I have sent > an e-mail to listserv@char.vnet.net to subsribe to . I > hope that I am able to link up soon. Is this the only conference > on theosophy? From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Sat, 30 Jul 1994 18:55:34 -0400 From: RIhle@aol.com Subject: BARE-FACED MESSIAH Here're a few thoughts on BARE-FACED MESSIAH: Subtitled "The True Story of L. Ron Hubbard," this 390-page volume by Russell Miller [Holt, 1987, and now widely available in Half-Price Books-type bookstores for around $5.00] reads better than most novels. I think it might interest the type of theosophist who has never really cared whether HPB was "guilty" of the deceptions etc. which she was accused of--i.e., those who can recognize that her contributions were so singular and enormous that she certainly doesn't need to be placed on any supposed pedestal of personal probity in order to be appreciated. Although the founder of Dianetics and Scientology was not, at least in my opinion, even close to being in the same league as HPB, reading this biography left me with a renewed respect for his pioneering work in practical psychological techniques etc. LRH was tapping into something powerful, no doubt about it. But naturally, much of my interest in the book was in learning about his behind-the-scenes shenanigans etc. Some personal interest, I suppose, also comes from the fact that Ron actually wrote me a letter one time. It happened like this: I had heard about E-meters, so naturally in my role as the "Gimmick Master" among high school English teachers I had to have one in order to let my talented-and-gifted class fool around with it. I put a classified ad in the Madison newspaper, and soon a Scientologist came along and sold me his older, semi-functioning model. All well and good. Except for one thing. It seems that the Scientolgist put my name on his organization's many mailing lists. What followed was a paper blizzard that lasted two years or more. I kept writing different branches, sub-branches, and sub-sub-branches asking to get off their mailing lists. They would write back saying nothing more would come to me. But more did come. Much, much more. I was about to give up until I happened to notice that one piece of literature had a statement by L. Ron Hubbard to the effect that "all mail addressed to me shall be read by me personally." Hey, what did I have to lose? So anyway, I wrote "Ron" a creative letter explaining that I didn't mind an occasional advertisement for the Sea Org etc., but that the volume was getting to be such that I feared that the only way I would be found in the future was by means of some archeological dig--down through the different Scientological strata etc. A few weeks passed. Then an important-looking letter arrived. It contained one line, written (don't disabuse me, please) in Ron's own handwriting: "Who are you?" the great man queried. From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Sat, 30 Jul 1994 22:40:51 -0400 From: mike@planet8.sp.paramax.com (Michael W. Grenier) Subject: Re: computerization project comments >Books have to have been copyrighted 1918 or earlier to be in the >public domain--there's an automatic extension of their copyrights >to 75 years. That is, unless, they were put in the public domain. The following info comes from "The Writer's Law Primer" written by Linda Pinkerton, an attorney with the J. Paul Getty Trust in LA.. There is the case of books published after 1909 and books published after 1978. In the former case, "the term of a properly noticed and registered copyright under the old Copyright Act was 28 years after first publication with a right to renew the term for a second 28 year period. Under the new law (1978), the second 28 year term becomes 47 years if the first copyright was in effect as of 1/1/78 and the renewal was properly filed. If the renewal term was already in effect as of 1/1/78, the revised law added the same 19 years to it." For books originally published after 1/1/78, the copyright is good for the authors lifetime plus 50 years or 75 years, which ever is larger. I hope this frees up lots of Theosophical Literature. As Eldon says, the law is complicated - I recommended this book for starters. It also has a chapter on Computer Programming Copyrights. Eldon, thanks for the information on what it takes to prepare an electronic copy of a book. -Mike Grenier mike@planet8.sp.paramax.com ------ Michael W. Grenier 612-464-7382 mike@planet8.sp.paramax.com From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Sun, 31 Jul 1994 02:01:54 -0400 From: jhe@bobo.csustan.edu (Jerry Hejka-Ekins) Subject: Wesak Dear Brenda, I don't recall ever saying that Wesak came from Tibetan Buddhism, In fact, I believe that I had expressed doubts as to the authenticity of the festival, and doubts as to its originating in Tibetan or any other form of classical Buddhism. As I understand it, the description of the Wesak festival was first introduced into the E.S. by Annie Besant, no earlier than 1908, and was finally made public in C.W.L.'s book ~Masters and the Path~. Alice Bailey's description of Wesak is essentially the same as C.W.L./Besant's E.S. description, so I asserted the opinion that Bailey got the information concerning Wesak from her E.S. studies during the time she lived at Krotona in Hollywood. Any connection that I had made between Wesak and Tibet, would have been because C.W.L. himself places the ceremony in there. As for whether or not Wesak's origination can be found in texts of Buddhist history, I have not seen anything either. However, I would be very interested in learning of any evidence that would prove its existence. My reading of Buddhist history is limited to a few books- certainly I have not read everything on Wesak in any of them. But, my own collection of books on Buddhism is a little less than 200 volumes, and subscription to only one journal devoted to the subject. This is a drop in the bucket compared to what is available these days. However, if Wesak is treated historically (assuming it really has a historical existence outside of C.W.L.'s invention), it must be a very obscure subject, since it is not covered in the general histories that I have seen, and even his Holiness the Dali Lama denies its existence. Good luck on your baby making project. When my daughter was in the making, we went to a doctor in Glendale who was big on diet. That was 21 years ago now, so he is probably retired, but I think the concepts concerning diet are worth considering. Suggest you check around for someone who really knows nutrition. Best Jerry From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Sun, 31 Jul 1994 12:34:24 -0400 From: RIhle@aol.com Subject: BARE-FACED--LAST TRY (Well, here is probably my last attempt at finishing my L. Ron Hubbard anecdote. If it gets posted, I will know that one should try putting anything in brackets at the beginning, since that is the only unconventional thing I did in the previous attempts. Here goes:) From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Sun, 31 Jul 1994 13:18:00 -0400 From: mlevin@Jade.Tufts.EDU Subject: anyone know of theosophical journals which take philosophical papers? Hi Everyone - I am looking for names (and if possible, addresses) of theosophical journals and magazines which accept papers of a scientific or philosophical bend (philosophical in the Western sense of "philosophy" - logical argument based on reason etc.). Please email to mlevin@jade.tufts.edu. Thanks! Mike Levin From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Sun, 31 Jul 1994 18:13:44 -0400 From: RIhle@aol.com Subject: BARE-FACED--It's Got to Work Now [Well, here is my first attempt after my last attempt to finish the BARE-FACED MESSIAH book review/thoughts. If this gets posted, I will have probably learned that PERHAPS NO PARAGRAPH SHOULD BEGIN WITH THE LETTER "F." (Can that be right?) At this juncture, unfortunately, the forthcoming ending to the anecdote will seem like a random fragment--oh, well, all my over-attention to style and structure is probably just a Libra's semi-Self aggrandizement anyway. Here goes:] "WHO ARE YOU?" the great man queried. After that, I didn't care about all the bad stuff I heard concerning L. Ron Hubbard: He had asked me the one question which conclusively proved he was a theosophist too. . . . Warm regards, Richard Ihle From ???@??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000 Date: Sun, 31 Jul 1994 18:42:17 -0400 From: John Mead Subject: Re: BARE-FACED--It's Got to Work Now Richard -- it seemed to worked! you have now lost your theos-l viginity! to all: avoid the word "from" as the first word in any sentence. on the brighter side --- we may get a new version of Listerv which has this bug fixed! >>from vnet with hope --- peace -- john e. mead