I see Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the world-wide web, is calling for a labelling of websites to grade reliability, as a way of controlling cults and conspiracy theories.
Wrong, wrong, wrong on so many levels.
The freedom of speech argument doesn't need rehearsing here.
Who'd be qualified to judge the reliability of sites? Academics?
They have their own theories to promote, on which their career and livelihood depend.
Academic disciplines are increasingly narrow. As i pointed out in a recent post, there's no-one qualified to review a wide-ranging genius like Robert Temple. I doubt there's anyone currently working in academia to match his erudition.
Are most academics the well rounded, spiritually mature, great souls we should trust?
I wrote my book partly to draw attention to what i believe to be a neglected aspect of the human condition - but an aspect that has been a part of esoteric teaching. There are many areas of life where we believe what we do, not because we have carefully considered the arguments for and against and made a reasoned choice, but we have mapped onto very sparse scraps of evidence our widest and deepest beliefs about life and the way the world works.
I think this applies in many areas, but let's just focus on the area Sir Tim is talking about.
How many of us have considered in detail the evidence for and against a cover-up on the assassination of JFK or contact with aliens? There are lots of very long, detailed books on the subject, quite apart from the stuff on the Net.
For most of us, if we have view, I suggest, it's more likely to do with general beliefs about the way the world works.
Let me also take 2 examples from my book, which, almost by definition, operates in areas where the evidence is scrappy.
The death of Pythagoras in a building attacked and set fire to be a mob: this is not a mistake, as has been suggested, but one of the several, varying traditions that have come down to us. I chose the variant i did because it was the one taken up by the initiate Eduard Schure in a book endorsed by Rudolf Steiner, perhaps the greatest initiate of modern times.
Then my excellent German translator questioned a passage I'd written about Atlantean remains on Luneberg heath. She said the only prehistoric remains on the heath were very unimpressive. I had to make a snap decision, as the presses were ready to roll. I decided to keep it in. My source was Blavatsky, the great origin of the whole, historical impulse to make esoteric material exoteric of which my book is a small part. If she said Atlantean remains are there, I decided, they are probably still to be discovered/recognized.
Some cult and conspiracy material is evil. Much of it is anti-Semitic. Some of it wants to believe, for example, that Freemasons secretly worship Satan.
That is why I think the key thing is not to try to control the flow of evidence, but to try as individuals to be conscious of the philosophy of life you are mapping on to evidence. Are you choosing to believe with the best best part of yourself or the worst?
Recent Comments