@Los said
"
@Legis said
"
@Los said
"You say that Secret Chiefs are seen through inspiration, but we know that inspiration happens through natural means and through imagination, which is rooted in the brain. Lots of people -- including people with entirely secular worldviews -- experience inspiration, all the time. Nothing about inspiration requires the existence of Secret Chiefs."
No, I didn't. Perhaps you misunderstood.
I said that the experience of the phenomena of Secret Chiefs is reported by those who have written incredibly beneficial and intelligent things, and I suggested that the quality and intelligence of their work lends credibility to their reports"
Well, then the point you were trying to make was even worse than I thought.
That someone has written "incredibly beneficial and intelligent things" tells us nothing about whether their spooky tales of contact with spacemen are true.
You might as well say that William Blake wrote incredibly poetry and claimed to have visions of Jesus and various dead people all the time, so therefore the incredible nature of his poetry suggests that there really is a Jesus and that spirits really do exist.
It's a non-sequitur. That someone writes well is unconnected to the veracity of claims they make.
"But the more interesting example you don't apparently know comes from Paul Foster Case:
"Shortly after Paul Case fully achieved his spiritual linkage with all
the required levels of this Mystery Training, one day the phone rang, and
much to his surprise the same voice which had been inwardly instructing him
in his researches for many years spoke to him on the phone. It was the
Master R. who had come personally to New York for the purpose of preparing
Paul Case to begin the next incarnation of the Qabalistic Way of Return.
Dr. Case (by then having earned his degree as a Doctor of Theology)
resigned from the Golden Dawn (which was being dissolved by the Masters),
and after three weeks of personal instruction with the Master R., Builders
of the Adytum was formed. Paul Case then retired from a successful and
lucrative career in music to devote his full time to the service of
humanity.
www.arcane-archive.org/tarot/paul-foster-case-1.php
"
"
Wow, I'm clearly in the wrong business. I should be selling swamp land in Florida or a bunch of magic beans because there's obviously no shortage of people who fall all over themselves to believe BS."
Actually there is absolutely nowhere ( private notebooks, letters, lessons, etc. ) I have found that Paul Case claims to have physically met a "Master R." He does claim in a couple of places that he met someone in N.Y. that communicated over a period of 2-3 weeks via "impactation" esoteric teachings that he has spent the rest of his life unfolding but he never alludes to this person being 'Master R.". In fact, the so-called "Advanced Communications" (1947) explicitly state that there has been no communication since the death of Michael Whitty (which occurred before the N.Y. meeting happened). I will reproduce the first communication at bottom of this post for your viewing. It is important to note that Case sincerely believed that a "Master R." was communicating to him, Ann, and Harriet on the Ouja board. Of course one could argue that "Master R." was only referring to the Oujia board communications of Whitty and Case in 1919 but the the rest of the "communication/s" do not allude to any such meeting ever occurring ( nor more importantly, does Case ever do so that I have been able to find ).
There are letters between Whitty and Case speculating who the "communicating entity" on the Ouija board was/is ( around 1919 ) but it is not until Case meets Harriet Case for the first time ( he married her twice ) when she was a secretary for Alice Baily that he begins to believe it is someone specifically. This was during the time Baily wrote 'Initiation: Human and Solar' which lists the 'Master of the Seventh Ray' as Master R. It was right around this time that Case began to associate an "Inner Voice" with the "Master R."
Unfortunately, Ann Davies and Harriet Case were a bit more drawn to the glamour side of things ( I often refer to Ann Davies' 'DSP' course as "Ann's miracle tales" ) than Paul Case and perpetuated some ideas that simply cannot be true. For example, there are copies of Atkinson's 'The Kabalion' published in 1907 with only Atkinson's name on it. It is not until 1911 or so that it appears with the authorship credited to 'The Three Initiates'. Ann and Harriet told multiple persons verbally that Michael Whitty was one of the Three Initiates that wrote this ( Case and Atkinson being the others ). This is impossible because Case actually describes when he first met Whitty and this date is around 1917 or 1918 which is almost a decade after this book was written ( Case actually worked as an editor for Atkinson around the time the book was originally authored and it is more likely Atkinson later decided to give Case unanimous credit for (extensively) editing the book. I have no idea who the 3rd Initiate might be but it could even be 'Hermes' as Case did not associate his "inner voice" with "Master R." until almost a decade after 'The Three Initiates' began to appear as the authorship ).
Unfortunately these and similar stories about the "Inner Voice" calling on a physical phone and the physical meeting in a N.Y. hotel with "Master R." cannot be trusted from these two sources. So if anyone finds a source where Case explicitly states he met "Master R." in person I would love to see it.
For the record, I do not believe (nor disbelieve) these communications were from "Master R." There only importance is to note that Paul Case sincerely believed it to be so. ( I personally find Case's lesson material to be far more inspirational and in general much more valuable than any of these "advanced communications"). Note that Gnoscente et Serviente was Whitty's motto in the A.O.
----------------------------------------------------- FIRST COMMUNICATION ---------------------------------------
Sunday, February 16, 1947
11:50 P.M.
In the Name of ADONAI shall all the nations be blessed!
We have waited long, Frater, for another to take up the work interrupted by the advancement to the Third Order of our Very Honored Frater G. et S. (Gnoscente et Serviente). You should have recognized [the initials].
(P.F.C. answered that he did.)
His passing into a higher field of action deprived us for a time, as you reckon time, of a balancing force for yours, Frater Perseverantia.
(Question: Is Ann the balancing force? Answer: Yes.)
It was for this that we began this communication with a phrase that should echo in your recollection.
Not a moment has passed since he sailed for California that we have not kept in mind the unfinished work, begun in the weekly communications of twenty-five years ago. The interval has seemed long to you, and has been packed with incident, but all this, from our point-of-view, has been just a brief interlude. Even then,
this new instrument was in incarnation, and had been brought within range of your auric emanation.
The Second Order work had a more important consequence than you then realized, or have even yet understood. It is tremendously potent in opening a channel for the outpouring of the astral light, and, from then on, you served as the communicating link between us and Ann. This accounts for the sense of familiarity you both felt
at your first meeting. In effect, you have been in communication all this time, although neither of you had any conscious knowledge of the other's identity.
By bodily inheritance Ann is in a direct line of Knowers of the Mysteries of the Reception. You have the same basic knowledge, but you do not enjoy the advantage of the unbroken physical chain.
G. et S., like yourself, had brought over former knowledge, but this instrument, though without conscious [memory? knowledge?] - apart from what she has learned from you - has really been under our instruction, and this has been projected into her finer vehicles through you.
(The hour was very late, and P. and A. were tired, so we stopped at this point.)