Darkening the image
Ok, did that get your attention?
We hear it over and over again, "Why aren't more people interested in Theosophy?" And we all have the same answers that we give over and over again, but I think it can be put rather simply. Theosophy comes across as spiritual prune juice. It's boring!
Well, that is not exactly true. Theosophy can be anything but boring but Theosophists can be deadly bores. It does not mean that they are not nice people and fun to be around, after all, look at me, but let us be honest and realize that rounds and chains really do not hold much interest even for the most dedicated of us and no one is going to be around to see the end of the Manvantara so who cares?
Even our cherished Three Objects are really dated. I mean, outside of the Westboro Baptist Church and some gathering of the Taliban, you are not going to find many people who would even think of disagreeing with them.
We need to be more interesting but at the same we really need to get rid of the 19th century do-gooderism that still permeates our stuff. Let us be honest, no one gives a damn about crazy old Annie Besant and her damned match girls. What we need are more dugpas and fewer mahatmas. In short, we need to stop fighting the battles of 1890.
We need to emphasize the darker strain of Theosophy, not in the spiritual sense, but in the way Theosophy related and relates to the broader world. (And I use the word darker in a very specific way here so please bear with me.)
We do not like established order and we really hate the idea of spiritual authority. Theosophists, whether they admit it or not, tend to be bull-headed spiritual anarchists. That is why we fight among ourselves so much. No Theosophist worth his membership dues is going to let someone else tell him how to think. Now, in a world where there is a Westboro Baptist Church and the Taliban, spiritual anarchy is something that can be very unattractive to people we do not like but very attractive to people who not like them, to people who really value their spiritual autonomy.
So, with all due humor, let us be the Great Conspiracy. Let us be the enemies of the enemies of human freedom. Let us be the villains in the fundamentalists' dramas because the villain gets all the good lines. Let us be the underground of thoughtcrime, the doubleplus ungood badthinkers, Let us charge in where their angels dare not look much less tread.
We'll shock people. We'll scare the living daylights out of people, including some of our own people. But we will show that Theosophy is not boring nonsense.
We hear it over and over again, "Why aren't more people interested in Theosophy?" And we all have the same answers that we give over and over again, but I think it can be put rather simply. Theosophy comes across as spiritual prune juice. It's boring!
Well, that is not exactly true. Theosophy can be anything but boring but Theosophists can be deadly bores. It does not mean that they are not nice people and fun to be around, after all, look at me, but let us be honest and realize that rounds and chains really do not hold much interest even for the most dedicated of us and no one is going to be around to see the end of the Manvantara so who cares?
Even our cherished Three Objects are really dated. I mean, outside of the Westboro Baptist Church and some gathering of the Taliban, you are not going to find many people who would even think of disagreeing with them.
We need to be more interesting but at the same we really need to get rid of the 19th century do-gooderism that still permeates our stuff. Let us be honest, no one gives a damn about crazy old Annie Besant and her damned match girls. What we need are more dugpas and fewer mahatmas. In short, we need to stop fighting the battles of 1890.
We need to emphasize the darker strain of Theosophy, not in the spiritual sense, but in the way Theosophy related and relates to the broader world. (And I use the word darker in a very specific way here so please bear with me.)
We do not like established order and we really hate the idea of spiritual authority. Theosophists, whether they admit it or not, tend to be bull-headed spiritual anarchists. That is why we fight among ourselves so much. No Theosophist worth his membership dues is going to let someone else tell him how to think. Now, in a world where there is a Westboro Baptist Church and the Taliban, spiritual anarchy is something that can be very unattractive to people we do not like but very attractive to people who not like them, to people who really value their spiritual autonomy.
So, with all due humor, let us be the Great Conspiracy. Let us be the enemies of the enemies of human freedom. Let us be the villains in the fundamentalists' dramas because the villain gets all the good lines. Let us be the underground of thoughtcrime, the doubleplus ungood badthinkers, Let us charge in where their angels dare not look much less tread.
We'll shock people. We'll scare the living daylights out of people, including some of our own people. But we will show that Theosophy is not boring nonsense.
Comment
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Comment by Susan Thomas on June 12, 2009 at 8:26pm
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William is making sense here. Where was the Theosophical Order of Service in Hurricane Katrina? Where is the Theosophical Order of Service in the US? When I was with them for 12 years, the only mantra was "We don't have any money for anything but mailing requests for more money." A few people in a few local groups are able to do a service project here and there, but they are pitiful at fundraising. It seems that not enough people can focus on doing any one specific thing that would help people to ask the questions that theosophy answers.
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Comment by william bradley crawford on June 12, 2009 at 2:08pm
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What has been done , of late,by theosophists to further the original goals? Also, we do not simply go back
to modern theosophy alone,but to those ongoing traditions which HPB referenced. Like Qabalistic schools, HPB spoke so highly of and which continue to this day. Also while theosophists sit about thinking of the
work done by thier founders ,masons are still influencing thought and shriners raising vast sums of money
for sick and needy children.Be careful taking credit for work done by others while so much remains undone.
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Comment by Charles Cosimano on June 11, 2009 at 1:01pm
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You're welcome.
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That makes more sense. so in addition to my quiet one on ones with people who have questions, I can do this, I too speak Pentecostal and several other fundamentalist languages. (Including, Baptist, can i get an Amen?) Actually, I can preach a really fair sermon that will make you come to Cheeses. Thus, I can soundly and logically rebutt same sermons. I actually get it now, thank you.
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Ok, I have a personal story. 19 years ago (damn I'm getting old!) on the Chicago Christian television station a televangelist was being interviewed and he held up a copy of my book Psionic Power which had just been released. And as he did so, he said, "If the author of the this book is not an agent of the Antichrist I don't know who is!"
Well, book sales soared. It got around that a televangelist did not like me and the folks who did not like him ran out and bought my book.
Now, there are a lot Christian paranoids out there. Most of them are just crazy but some are downright evil. And they all have an audience. What folks do not realize is that about a third of their audience tends to be people who just find them funny and another quarter follow them just to get mad at them. Those groups are our target. All we have to do is hit their hot buttons and they will do all our work for us.
Think of it this way. You have a megachurch down the road. In that congregation are lots of families with young people about to go off to college and get away from that environment. On Sunday, they don't want to be there. They don't like what they see and hear and all they need is something else, something the old farts don't like. Right now Wicca is filling that role. Every time they bring in a speaker to warn of the terrible dangers of Wicca, the local covens get new members and Llewellyn makes money.
Now, there is a line from the Old Testament they love to quote, "Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft." Well, of course all they do when they use that line is to make young folks want to be witches.
I propose that we make Theosophy replace all the other groups those folk don't like at the top of their pantheon of damnation. Theosophists are hidden, they are everywhere. Your neighbor might be a Theosophist and who would know, spreading their dark vision of humanity free from the dogmas of the Pale Galilean. Your children might be being exposed to Theosophical thought and you might not even know it.
Those damned Theosophists are sending everyone to Hell!
That's why I actively encourage Dizdar, though he is totally confused about the witty Uncle Chuckie on his chatboard during his internet radio show because I speak fluent Christian having sojourned among Pentecostals in my misspent, pre-Theosophy, youth. The more he damns Blavatsky on his podcasts, the more chance there will be people who will want to read Blavatsky and he and his type do not understand that.
So, when they talk about Alice Bailey, we simply put out the question, "And who is behind the Baileyites?" And when they rant about Bohemian Grove, we put the question in their mind, "Who controls the people who control Bohemian grove?" And the Illuminati? "Who really controls the Illuminati?" And when they go back to the Ascended Masters, then we put the thought in their mind, "And who has been in closest contact with them?"
And we get them all going back to Theosophy, to Theosophists, to US!
We are the great spider behind it all, spinning our web of subtle dominance over all the world, causing people to question THE TRUTH and leading them into all unrighteousness.
They'll fall for it. And it will only be the bad ones, the ones who really want to control everyone else, who will fall for it. And when they do, the folks who really do question will come looking for answers.
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Amen, brother. I will pass the plate at our next non-meeting. But, how can I be a doubleplus ungood badthinker when I am seriously a goodie two shoes. I am true to my non-beliefs, but can't resist letting people pray if it makes them feel better. They are deluded, but I feel no burden for them. Seriously, I could use a little guidance on experiences that relate to what you have said. Give me an example from your own life. I like the idea, and a part of my Pluto on the ascendant likes the words, but be more specific.
ST
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