The Necessity of Doubt

[Molly Brogan]

Doubt is the subjective condition that belongs to mind which judges the facts, where the mind is suspended between two or more propositions and is not able to assent to any of them. Is doubt necessary to our attainment of knowledge and aspiration to a higher consciousness? Or is it a limitation to these, leaving us in mistrust, suspicion or uncertainty and without belief? Is doubt necessary? Does it exclude faith?

Aristotle believed doubt to be preliminary to philosophical inquiry and the only means by which the necessary removal of prejudice may be effected. Bacon believed that the scholastic proof of a proposition or thesis begins by the statement of doubts or contrary arguments.

Thomas Huxley gave the name agnosticism to the state: “of being strictly doubtful towards all that lies beyond sense-experience.” Pragmatism regards all reality as doubtful, and truth as perpetually changing with the progress of human thought.

What do YOU think?

[Robert Edward Fahey]

I hope you and I can connect in ways that can soothe y/our heart/s into meaning and bright fruition.

[Molly Brogan]

I do not doubt the possibility.

[Robert Edward Fahey]

How may I hand you my email address? And when can we discuss how each of our stories may have re-enforced the other? I am trying to tell my life story of searching for God, and theosophy, one naked truth at a time. (as massage teacher and therapist to celebrities, I was able to tap into all manner of creativity, joy, caring, and spirit. I show love and wisdom coming out even in areas of life that would never make it into a theosophical text.
I'd like us to touch new people open to theosophy who still have severe doubts, wild sex, and even right in the middle of a divorce, theosophy should shine clearly.
If everything can be an expression of theosophy, then everyone should still be reachable, whatever kind of life s/he lives. Maybe our books can help them find new joy, grace, and meaning in anything they ordinarily do in extraordinary ways.

[Robert Edward Fahey]

Sorry, everybody; that sure made no sense!

I've been working an overnight shift and was dosed up on sleeping pills when I wrote this most recent gibberish. I just read it again and even I couldn't make any sense out of it. Here's what I was trying to say:

When Dora first became National President and invited me to live at Olcott, John Coats had become International President. They were both dear, loving gentle people I will always be fond of, and rumor had it this was a time of major shift in the TS more toward youth. Old folks were leaving Olcott to make room for younger energies, or so these rumors went.
Then these two lovely souls left and we got all anchored in our heads again.

This opened me up to wondering whether or not the American TS was so totally focussed on intellectual discussions, interpretations, and dissertations that there was no room for novels where people lose themselves in angst, suicidal depressions, divorce, sex, politics; anything that truly touches most people's lives in the real world. I have wondered if the only books, talks, or classes considered theosophical were those offering commentary from a safe mental distance, bled dry of any deep and troubling emotions.

It seems to me if we live and express ourselves through all of our seven bodies; and if spirit energies flow through all and everything; then each and all of our parts and levels can be refined and can reach for spirit. It also seems there are a lot more people in that big, untidy, uncontrollable world out there who are lost to day-to-day drudgeries, pleasures, and pains than are looking to research what Plato might have said about Harry Potter.
But I don't think that we who may have picked up a few clues that could help such folks should abandon them until they are ready to grow up and stop feeling so much.
I write novels where people divorce, rage over politics, have sex, and suffer. I draw readers into the characters and scenes through shared emotions and experiences, then let it all lead in toward theosophy, growth, and understanding.
I've been reading Jinarajadasa's intro to the Masters' letters to CWL, and he stresses how the original dire challenge for HPB et all was to break these "new [ancient] ideas" into a world stuck in other conceptual loops while the keepers of Christianity fought against new ideas in every way. But CJ points out that those challenges are now past. Ideas of reincarnation, cremation, and whatever all can be found now in genre lit and on sitcoms.
For us to stay vital, perhaps we should be looking for that next challenge.

Might that be to see that people can try to battle through divorces and politics while trying to see how theosophical principles apply there? Can they quit their jobs over theosophical ethics? Choose or lose sexual partners as they battle for higher motivations?

Why can't we reach out to all life with theosophy, and meet them wherever they live?

That's what I was TRYING to say, anyway.