We often learn of a theosophical society through .through someone who is already
a friend -- a friend who has become curious. At this point our buddy or girl pal does not yet seriously believe that humans are rank ordered in terms of planes of realization.
Again, the varieties theosophy are numerous - some theosophical societies are open, inclusive, the doctrine is open book, available to all. Others speak the language of inclusiveness but give one set of answers to the general public, new members and potential recruits, with a quite different set of rules disclosed only to those already emotionally and socially invested.)
If at some point in friendship your pal becomes a potential recruit for a secretive lodge, he or she is shown the best side of the lodge and its members. The ones in disgrace will be kept well away from her.
Later, as your friend comes to believe in levels of realization and has been told or given hints that he or she is at X level of realization and that all non initiates are lower, your pal may decide to keep this secret from you. Repeat, in your friends new value system, after initiation, your friend has risen in rank,
while you unknowingly are lower on the scale --- a scale of values that was not in effect when you two first became buddies. It feels delicious to be told one is superior and have the company of the Elite. The cost of this is a changed attitude
toward outside friends. The convert's superior spiritual status is something
to be kept a secret from all outsiders.
It is one thing to keep some things in confidence. But to be an American citizen
and covert to a belief system that rank orders non members as lower and inferior
--that is an awkward new knowledge that would expose the convert -- and the lodge -to derision and ridicule from the outside.
As one rises in rank and is told more and more secrets and more about the special mission to savf
Whoever is mentoring your friend may, through your friend's disclosures, learn
a lot about YOU.
Meanwhile, you may have financial good fortune, you then may be knocked off
balance by a trauma or a series of traumas and mention this to your friend.
Without even realizing it, your friend may babble this to his or her lodge
member while being monitored for potential initiation.
You may become an object of interest to the lodge without your friend understanding this - when we are grateful and happy in a new group, recruitment
is the very last thing that crosses our minds.
Think this unlikely? A group in New York has done this espionage like
recruitment for YEARS.
[culteducation.com]
[culteducation.com]
(for entire history of this particular lodge, go here)
[culteducation.com]
Later, if your friend becomes a member of a secretive lodge or tariqa, he or she may be required to give personal confessions to an authority figure. The lodge may learn enough about you to invest resources to retain you and keep you close, as a long term potential recruit.
Even though your friend may have been trustworthy when you befriended them years before, your friend's induction into a bad lodge will have changed them.
The lodge leader, the center of all hopes and worst, all fears, has become the center of the member's lives.
In extreme cases when things go bad, a needy and adroit lodge master becomes more important than than one's spouse, more important than the universal ethical guidelines under girding citizenship in a participatory democracy.
Anyone not a member of the lodge is an inferior being. A friend of a newly initated
member of an arrogant lodge is viewed by a new set of values -- rank ordering
of spiritual worth, with outsiders as less evolved than members.
This also conflicts with any belief system that posits equal status of all
humans before divinity. Say an intiate is told he or she is high up the scale of attainment. Your friend can freely discuss this only with other members of the lodge.
Estrangement from outside friendships begins in this way, without anyone even having to tell initiates to drop outside friendships.
When you are given proof you are of superior status, that becomes something to keep mum about, like being a close relative to a mega celebrity.
Repeat, once your friend becomes a member of a badly run lodge, this is not like your friend becoming convert to (say)Unitarianism.
Unitarianism is grounded in the equal inherent dignity of the ordinary human person, regardless of that person's beliefs or lack of them. If your friend converts to any of these, he or she will still see you as a human being.
At first, initiates may not comprehend that their core values have shifted to a new set of values that will set them up for a life of secrecy and estrangement from mainstream society. If you're joyous and kept busy on lodge projects, you'll not have time to sit down like Rodin's The Thinker and ponder implications.
As one loses outside friends and gains more friends inside the lodge, the new
values are reinforced and re-affirmed. Echo chamber.
Without realizing it, your friend will have put the welfare of the guru and lodge ahead of everything else, because they'd never have been initiated had they not already been so changed that they depend on the lodge for their sense of self and emotional survival.
Your friend will look and seem the same to you, but because a bad lodge is secretive, your friend will have hidden large parts of herself from you.
a friend -- a friend who has become curious. At this point our buddy or girl pal does not yet seriously believe that humans are rank ordered in terms of planes of realization.
Again, the varieties theosophy are numerous - some theosophical societies are open, inclusive, the doctrine is open book, available to all. Others speak the language of inclusiveness but give one set of answers to the general public, new members and potential recruits, with a quite different set of rules disclosed only to those already emotionally and socially invested.)
If at some point in friendship your pal becomes a potential recruit for a secretive lodge, he or she is shown the best side of the lodge and its members. The ones in disgrace will be kept well away from her.
Later, as your friend comes to believe in levels of realization and has been told or given hints that he or she is at X level of realization and that all non initiates are lower, your pal may decide to keep this secret from you. Repeat, in your friends new value system, after initiation, your friend has risen in rank,
while you unknowingly are lower on the scale --- a scale of values that was not in effect when you two first became buddies. It feels delicious to be told one is superior and have the company of the Elite. The cost of this is a changed attitude
toward outside friends. The convert's superior spiritual status is something
to be kept a secret from all outsiders.
It is one thing to keep some things in confidence. But to be an American citizen
and covert to a belief system that rank orders non members as lower and inferior
--that is an awkward new knowledge that would expose the convert -- and the lodge -to derision and ridicule from the outside.
As one rises in rank and is told more and more secrets and more about the special mission to savf
Whoever is mentoring your friend may, through your friend's disclosures, learn
a lot about YOU.
Meanwhile, you may have financial good fortune, you then may be knocked off
balance by a trauma or a series of traumas and mention this to your friend.
Without even realizing it, your friend may babble this to his or her lodge
member while being monitored for potential initiation.
You may become an object of interest to the lodge without your friend understanding this - when we are grateful and happy in a new group, recruitment
is the very last thing that crosses our minds.
Think this unlikely? A group in New York has done this espionage like
recruitment for YEARS.
[culteducation.com]
[culteducation.com]
(for entire history of this particular lodge, go here)
[culteducation.com]
Later, if your friend becomes a member of a secretive lodge or tariqa, he or she may be required to give personal confessions to an authority figure. The lodge may learn enough about you to invest resources to retain you and keep you close, as a long term potential recruit.
Even though your friend may have been trustworthy when you befriended them years before, your friend's induction into a bad lodge will have changed them.
The lodge leader, the center of all hopes and worst, all fears, has become the center of the member's lives.
In extreme cases when things go bad, a needy and adroit lodge master becomes more important than than one's spouse, more important than the universal ethical guidelines under girding citizenship in a participatory democracy.
Anyone not a member of the lodge is an inferior being. A friend of a newly initated
member of an arrogant lodge is viewed by a new set of values -- rank ordering
of spiritual worth, with outsiders as less evolved than members.
This also conflicts with any belief system that posits equal status of all
humans before divinity. Say an intiate is told he or she is high up the scale of attainment. Your friend can freely discuss this only with other members of the lodge.
Estrangement from outside friendships begins in this way, without anyone even having to tell initiates to drop outside friendships.
When you are given proof you are of superior status, that becomes something to keep mum about, like being a close relative to a mega celebrity.
Repeat, once your friend becomes a member of a badly run lodge, this is not like your friend becoming convert to (say)Unitarianism.
Unitarianism is grounded in the equal inherent dignity of the ordinary human person, regardless of that person's beliefs or lack of them. If your friend converts to any of these, he or she will still see you as a human being.
At first, initiates may not comprehend that their core values have shifted to a new set of values that will set them up for a life of secrecy and estrangement from mainstream society. If you're joyous and kept busy on lodge projects, you'll not have time to sit down like Rodin's The Thinker and ponder implications.
As one loses outside friends and gains more friends inside the lodge, the new
values are reinforced and re-affirmed. Echo chamber.
Without realizing it, your friend will have put the welfare of the guru and lodge ahead of everything else, because they'd never have been initiated had they not already been so changed that they depend on the lodge for their sense of self and emotional survival.
Your friend will look and seem the same to you, but because a bad lodge is secretive, your friend will have hidden large parts of herself from you.