Theodore Illion: Darkness Over Tibet

thorbiorn · Apr 27, 2007

Theodore Illion: Darkness Over Tibet

Having read the excerpts on the Cassiopaean website, I became interested and ordered a copy. Below follow some reflections including his possible political orientation, religious background, one philosophical influence, the main purpose of the book as I understood it, some points I do not understand or do not agree with, as well a few excerpts from the Cassiopaean transcripts related to passages in the book.

Reading the book
First of all the book is a quick read having only about 195 pages of well spaced text and a good amount of drama. If one has a piece of paper and notes down recurring ideas while reading, one will soon have a list.

Apart from the issues I wish to deal with in this post other subjects he treats are what choices and actions of an individual leads to which side, good or evil, what to look for and how to overcome some of the problems if they arise. There are quite a few on numbers/numerology both explicit and implicit, several on critical thinking and its value on the path as well as some on spiritual dangers, and how to diminish the influence of psychic attacks.

Possible political orientation.
As I went along I began to consider the time of printing which was in Hitler Germany.

The following describes crowd mentality which in this case was created by the lamas, but which to all effects also describe the situation around successful political agitators like Hitler.

T. Illion on pages 49-50 of Darkness over Tibet said:
Crowds easily fuse into one "group soul", and then the individual no longer behaves as he would behave individually. Crowds really are not the sum total of all the individualities present. They seem to be a suddenly formed new entitity actuated by a kind of "group soul". It is man sinking back temporarily into the "group consciousness" from which civilized man is just about to emerge. I think only the greatest of the great, such a Shakespeare or Goethe were fully and definitely individualized and beyond the possibility of lapsing back temporarily into group consciousness.
Mild Tibetans, who would never dream of doing such a thing individually, made a mad rush forward to get near the sungmi, who still swayed to and fro and had just begun to spit out violently in various directions. What an honour for the average Tibetan to be spat at by a sungmi while a god or demon was "riding" the latter! I think he would not forget this supreme distinction while he lived.

(t: sungmi is like an oracle or medium) Try to substitute Tibetan for German and one has a pretty good description of a political rally headed by Hitler. Today Hitler is gone, instead one could insert another country and another name. It would still fit.

That the author may have intended such associations is clear from the following:

T. Illion on pages 58 of Darkness over Tibet said:
"Well, then, what is a sin against one’s soul?"
"Using spiritual things for selfish purposes. Dragging God down on earth. Trying to put one’s self on a level with the Creator."
Dolma was awe-stricken.
"Then many of us here sin like that," she exclaimed.
"Yes, Dolma, but also people in other countries."
"In India?"
"Certainly"
"In Pee-lin-pa?" * She looked at me in a very queer way when she said that.
"Of course, there some people sin against their soul too."
"Pee-lin-pa must resemble Tibet in certain respects," I added after a while.[...]
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*The country of the white people. Peelin really means "a being from a distant island." "Island" is translated ling or lingtbreng in Tibetan.

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There is more evidence that he was not in favour of totalitarian or even authoritarian organizations and systems.

T. Illion on page 90 of Darkness over Tibet said:
A high Tibetan official passed me a few seconds later, [...] but when the door of the reception-room was opened by another servant his attitude of haughty arrogance suddenly gave way to toadlike obsequiousness as he greeted Narbu,

The judgement follows later:

T. Illion on page 126 of Darkness over Tibet said:
The most arrogant ones seemed to be the most sheepish ones [...*]

footnote said:

*Also amongst non-spiritual people the author has often noticed that arrogance and sheepishness go hand in hand.

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In the next excerpt note also the date.

T. Illion on page 129 of Darkness over Tibet said:
At the time when I gave my first broadcast in 1933 I positively detested collars, which I found both unpractical and idiotic, and yet when I went to see the talks executive in a continental country I did put on a collar, [...]

T. Illion on page 138 of Darkness over Tibet said:
He even touched on the problem of politics, dictatorships*, and mass rule, and seemed to be against sport!
As I never touch in my books and lectures on any problem which is directly or indirectly connected with politics, I shall withhold the details.
I thought I had overstepped the time allowed for the audience, and meant to close it by making a few polite remarks about my refusal to put on the ceremonial robe made of black silk.
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footnote said:

* I mentioned Coriolanus by Shakespeare, and found that he knew it very thoroughly, since he expressed his opinion in a very circumstantial way and also gave a considerable number of details showing that he must have read the play several times.

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Anyhow, one notices in the above excerpt that the author is putting attention to “dictatorship" and mentioning it as a problem, while hiding behind an excuse, at the same time bringing up politics, and all this is immediately followed by the colour black used by many Nazis, which he refused to put on.

In the above quote, why is he highlighting sport by putting it in italics? Was the author really into sport and horrified by the opposition to sport. Or was he trying to underline that the Prince of the World, or the Ruler of the Underground City was not a caricature of Hitler, who for what I know promoted sport?

The way sport is used in the book leaves one in doubt whether the Prince and the author understand sport in the same way. Sport has several meanings, it can be a job, a business, entertainment or reality escape, an exercise, or a tool for manipulation. (Those who have read Beelzebub's tale to his grandson will know that he also was not in favour of sport.) In any case taken as a whole, I can only conclude that the remarks in the book were directed to wake up people in Germany not only to the disturbing realities of the spiritual field but also the political.

Religious background
Next I shall try to find something about the author's religious background. In the following notice, how close in the book, the excerpts are to one another thus unmistakeably heightening the effect.

T. Illion on page 141 of Darkness over Tibet said:
A Master of Ceremonies dressed in black silk distributed the ceremonial robes to the templegoers. […] When I looked at these people going in such robes to the service I thought of a requiem said in a Catholic church

Three pages later:

T. Illion on page 144-145 of Darkness over Tibet said:
Towards the end of the service an Initiate who carried a silver receptacle came out from one of the tunnels and handed it to the priest, who put it on the altar, consecrated it with great profusion of sung-pos*(*Magical signs) and then poured out its contents into several hundred small vases, [...]
I strained my eyes a little to find out something about the nature of the liquid while it was being poured out. It was blood red! Narbu told me afterwards that it actually was blood! When I asked him what kind of blood, he said he was not allowed to answer.

Interestingly the author did not use the word lama but priest. And are not some Christians supposed to believe that something happens to the wine and bread at the altar at the time of communion, that these ingredients actually become the blood and the body of Christ?

Two pages later:

T. Illion on page 147 of Darkness over Tibet in a footnote said:
It is a well-known fact that various dogmatic religions, such as the Catholic Church and Lamaistic Buddhism discouraged the practice of bathing for centuries. In the Middle Ages the Catholic Church took up a vigorous stand against the "immoral" practice of bathing, and the lamas up to this day greatly encourage the fear of water entertained by the Tibetan multitude when the use of water is recommended for cleansing the body. One may wonder whether these organized religions took or take such an attitude because they realize that human bodies are "demagnetized" and cleaned of certain occult currents by the practice of bathing, thus making it more difficult for them to maintain control of the multitude. As far as the Catholic Church is concerned, they are much too practical a body to maintain an attitude which would seem too incongruous with the period in which we live. That is why the Catholic Church no longer takes a stand against bathing, but the lamas still do so.

On the basis of the above one can conclude the author is very unlikely to be a Catholic. The following liberal interpretation of the New Testament indicates that he could be a protestant.

T. Illion on page 125 of Darkness over Tibet said:
I had always believed that if I love and honour God, love my neighbour and myself, God would let me do everything I like so long as I respected these three laws.

The book was originally published in Hamburg, which is in northern Germany and well within the area dominated by the protestant Lutheran Evangelic branch of Christianity. Most probable he is having a protestant background.

Philosophical influence
There may be more, but at least he has read a bit of Nietzsche or equivalent:

T. Illion on page VI of Darkness over Tibet said:
Even the fires of hell have their mission. They destroy man if he is weak, but if he is strong they purify by burning the dross away.

T. Illion on page 160 of Darkness over Tibet said:
Great fires, like other turmoils in life, may destroy the weak, but they purify the strong and make him still stronger.

T. Illion on page 191 of Darkness over Tibet said:
Man modifies his environment by his living example, and man in his turn is influenced by his environment. The multitudes are largely a product of this environment continually influenced and modified by dynamic personalities.

Main purpose of the book
His main purpose of the book is expressed in the preface:

T. Illion on page VI of Darkness of Tibet said:
This book supplements "In Secret Tibet" by showing a different side of the picture, a few Demons of Light and many Demons of the Shadow. It will help the reader to realize that spirituality actually is a very stormy ocean. The current of life are interwoven, and Good and Evil, Light and Shadow, are within a hairbreadth from each other.

This point he brings home to the reader throughout the book using various examples and frequent repetitions, (bordering to the style of a manifesto).

T. Illion on page 160 of Darkness of Tibet said:
More and more I began to be aware of the fact that life, including life on the spiritual plane, was not an affair of peaceful contemplation and quiet worship, but a dreadful turmoil, a grim fight, and a bitter struggle.

I have been wondering what he means by a 'Demon of Light'. I have no absolute solution. Perhaps it is just a Christian way of viewing someone who is a 'good' person but not a Christian. Or it can mean someone who pretends to be of the light but really is not.

One interesting subject is the way he describes the relationship between man/humanity and God:

T. Illion on page 166 of Darkness over Tibet said:
The lamas also spoke of the necessity to believe blindly in the contents of their 333 holy books. Just like the members of the Brotherhood in the City, I thought. There, too, the most sublime gift of man-his intelligence-had to be discarded and transcended.
They continually spoke, too, of "salvation", of "saving" one’s soul by giving it to the Divine. Many, perhaps most, of the conversations at which I had been present in the City -in the dining-building and elsewhere- had a distinct parallel in the sermons of the lamas. The Prince catered for the elect, the lamas for the multitude, I thought but I failed to see any fundamental difference between the two.
And God’s sun shone over the monastery.
I thought of the dreadful tragedy of a world in open revolt against its Creator.

The author mentions blind belief in scripture but is there any religion where this is not to be found, including until recently the Catholic Church.

The last sentence of the previous excerpt is repeated in the last sentence of the following which also marks the end of the main text.

T. Illion on page 191-192 of Darkness over Tibet said:
In this world of matter, which is really the battleground for a formidable struggle of two different spiritualities, the few wise men of Tibet who are great and dynamic personalities intensely personal and yet acting impersonally, represent a kind of bodyguard of the Creator which holds in check the other camp of methodically working "annihilators" and "soul-snatchers".
"Can you perform miracles?" I asked two other wise men who came to see us the following day.
The three “hermits" smiled meaningly.
I could feel their thoughts. They possessed the power to rule over the forces of Nature, but their very nature prevented them from using those powers unless it was absolutely necessary in the service of the Creator.
After a slight pause, one of the wise "hermits" asked me:
"Suppose one of us performed a so-called miracle here before your eyes, would you take this as a proof of a Divine mission?"
"I have seen men flying," I answered, "and I have seen the most dreadful types of sorcerers make dead bodies walk. . . . I should take no miracle on earth as a proof of the Divine will. The Creator has laid down his own wise laws ruling the universe. It is not He or His servants who break them."
When I mentioned the word "Creator" they all had tears in their eyes. Did they think of the dreadful spectacle of a world in open revolt against its Maker?

END

The reader will have realized that the term "hermit" is a very inadequate one in describing the few genuine Tibetan hermits who are not contemplative but dynamic beings. I have chosen the word "hermit" because they isolate themselves voluntarily in a spirit of sacrifice, but apart from this fact the genuine "hermits" have none of the characteristics of devotion, contemplative bliss and meekness which a Westerner is accustomed to associate with the term "hermit".

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The above about hermits is also an elaboration of what is on page 185:

T. Illion in Darkness over Tibet said:
[…]the wise hermits who stand for the Creator and isolate themselves in these districts not in order to get selfish bliss but in spirit of sacrifice to counteract in some measure the dreadful psychical currents set loose by the various Saviours and the host of fallen angels incarnated in the flesh in Tibet
There may be a few such people in Western countries, veritable guardian angels of humanity sometimes incarnated in heroes who counteract the pernicious working of certain Saviours, but no spiritual being has a right to tell people who is a hero and who is the mouthpiece of fallen angles. Each one must discover this for himself.

About his experience of intuition

T. Illion on page 111 of Darkness over Tibet said:
I always felt before I left my room whether the outer door was open or closed, and this vague feeling (it was not what is known as clairvoyance) proved to be correct on all occasions,[...]
The psychical atmosphere of the City seemed to render critical and methodical thinking very difficult. It tended to weaken memory (I had been in the City for less than ten hours and felt as if these hours had been so many years), but it seemed to develop the intuitional nature of man to a remarkable degree.

T. Illion on page 139 of Darkness over Tibet said:
Suddenly I felt that many people were waiting outside as the time allotted to them had arrived. I positively knew they were waiting. As explained before, the atmosphere of the City developed these faculties in a strange manner.

Different surroundings have different effects on a person. Because of all the silence and meditation in the City, and all the people who had developed intuition, I can understand that this may have facilitated more intuition in him also. It is possible that the increased intuition had nothing to do with the weakened memory and reduced capacity for critical thinking, which could have been created by other means, like through a psychic hook, or energy drain from a particular centre.

The author had been on a very strenuous trip which may have opened up something and also it is possible he was helped from above so that he would be better equipped to get out of there:

T. Illion on page 150 of Darkness over Tibet said:
The Ruler recoiled. He then briskly turned and left the library.
I suddenly realized that the penalty for recognizing the real nature of such a being must be death.

The author is very confident of his German analytical intellect, but he seems to be afraid of his intuition and can not help to lump it together with the influence of control he senses in the underground City. Possibly he is not really afraid of his intuition, but just trying to create a dramatic effect in his writing to bring his message through to the reader, as he does in the following which has a lot of relevance to what is going on today in many groups:

T. Illion on page 117 of Darkness over Tibet said:
Human intelligence they only held in mediocre esteem. They seemed to feel that man’s mission was to get past the limited matter-of-fact intelligence of man and soaring to intuitive levels was the best method of becoming more “Divine"

Next are some subjects mentioned in the book and compared with what are in the transcript.
1. Consciousness
How he interpretes what the Gentle Friend is trying to say about consciousness, the concept of which the author prepared for on page 49-50, when he wrote about the group-consciousness created by the people watching the show of the sungmi.

T. Illion on page 177 of Darkness over Tibet said:
He went on discussing (1) I consciousness, (2) group-consciousness, and (3) Divine consciousness, in which all separate consciousness was absent.
He said that in prehistoric times man was not yet individualized. Man then identified himself with the clan to which he happened to belong. Today man had reached the stage of individual I-consciousness and the next step for him was to go from individual I-consciousness to Divine consciousness.
I could not help disagreeing.
How could critically minded people swallow such and idea? Prehistoric man was group-conscious. Modern man is not yet fully I-conscious. Again and again he is drawn back into the clan and family spirit, that is to say, he is alternately group-conscious and I-conscious. So the trend of evolution in modern man is from group-consciousness towards full I-consciousness. And now the Gently Friend proposed that man, whose I-consciousness is just emerging from group-consciousness, should jump back to a state of "total" consciousness which existed prior to group-consciousness!
I again thought of the fact that he recommended people to put themselves on a level with the Creator. Once more I realized a short moment of acute spiritual anguish when I realized that this man, too, served the purpose of the fallen angels, and wondered whether he was a mere tool or whether he himself was conscious of his decidedly destructive mission.

One way of explaining the Gentle Friend is to think of the consciousness of a third density Organic Portal, a third density souled individual, and an individual of the inner circle of mankind as described by Gurdjieff and Ouspensky.

One can also try to explain him using the descriptions of the yogis. What some yogis work for is full wakefulness, 24 hours a day, which includes retaining awareness or wakefulness even during deep sleep. And then that is only a beginning the yogis and the yogic scriptures say. These states are not the same as creating a feeling or a mood. Taking the old man’s statements to point to yogic states of awareness is of course something different than what the author understands them to be, although he may be right that the term Divine consciousness is not adequate.

For comparison, what do the Cassiopaeas say about awareness:

950902 said:
A: As we have told you, there are seven levels of density which involves, among other things, not only state of being physically, spiritually and etherically, and materially, but also, more importantly, state of awareness. You see, state of awareness is the key element to all existence in creation. You have undoubtedly remembered that we have told you that this is, after all, a grand illusion, have you not? So, therefore, if it is a grand illusion, what is more important, physical structure or state of awareness???
Q: (L) State of awareness?
A: Exactly. Now, when we go from the measuring system, which of course has been nicely formulated so that you can understand it, of density levels one through seven, the key concept, of course, is state of awareness. All the way through. So, once you rise to a higher state of awareness, such things as physical limitation evaporate. And, when they evaporate, vast distances, as you perceive them, become non-existent. So, just because you are unable to see and understand has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on what is or is not possible. Except within your own level of density. And this is what almost no one on your current level of density is able to understand. If you can understand it and convey it to them, you will be performing the greatest service that your kind has ever seen. Think about that for a moment. Let it seep into your consciousness. Analyze it. Dissect it. Look at it carefully and then put it back together again.

2. On salvation and enlightenment

T. Illion on page 176 of Darkness over Tibet said:
The only way to salvation, he went on. Was through the disappearance of gti-mug*(*Ignorance, stupidity.) Man must discard his separate spiritual existence, observed the Gentle Friend with great vigour. And this result is reached by introspection, that is to say by giving up what I consider the most Divine thing in man, his Will!

Notice how quick the author is to explain that introspection is the same as giving up ones will. One can also relate this point to the discussion of Soul further on, but first a bit more on salvation or liberation is which I understand to mean Enlightement, and this is mentioned in the transcripts:

980919 said:
Q: He says: 'I believe that if we do not send love energy to the world that the egocentric STS energy will be dominating.
A: Why would one choose to send this? What is the motivation?
Q: To change it to your idea of what it is supposed to be. To control it to follow your judgment of how things ought to be.
A: Exactly. The students are not expected to be the architects of the school.
Q: So, when you seek to impose or exert influence of any kind, you are, in effect, trying to play God and taking it upon yourself to decide that there is something wrong with the universe that it is up to you to fix, which amounts to judgment.
A: Yes, you see, one can advise, that is okay, but do not attempt to alter the lesson.
Q: He also says: 'I believe that an enlightened being is emanating love where ever that person is, and this is even without being asked. It just happens because that is what they are - love.' Comment, please.
A: An enlightened being is not love. And a refrigerator is not a highway.
Q: What?! Talk about your mixed metaphors! I don't get that one!
A: Why not?
Q: They are completely unrelated!
A: Exactly!!!
Q: What IS an enlightened being?
A: An enlightened being.
Q: What is the criteria for being an enlightened being?
A: Being enlightened!
Q: When one is enlightened, what is the profile?
A: This is going nowhere because you are doing the proverbial round hole, square peg routine.
Q: What I am trying to get to is an understanding of an enlightened being. Eddie and a LOT of other people have the idea that an enlightened being IS LOVE, and that is what they radiate, and that this is a result of being enlightened.
A: No, no, no, no, no. "Enlightened" does not mean good. Just smart.
Q: Okay, so there are STS and STO enlightened beings?
A: Yes, we believe the overall ratio is 50/50.
Q: Okay, what is the profile of an enlightened STO being?
A: An intelligent being who only gives.
Q: Well, since we have dealt with the idea of not giving love to those who don't ask, what do they give and to whom do they give it?
A: All; to those who ask.
Q: He says: 'As you can see, I believe in the power of love. I am open to try to understand that which I have not yet been able to. Perhaps that is why I am here with you guys. So, could we talk more about this subject? Could provide more of what the C's have said about Love?' I collected the excerpts from the text about love and how you had said that Knowledge was love and light was knowledge and all that. Anything further you can add to that?
A: No, because the receiver to this does not wish to receive.
Q: Okay. S responded: 'Eddie thank you for your pointing out the paradox of the concept of the expression of love between the C's and that as some of us think we know, but KNOW what we experience. I feel that it may be very difficult for the C's to deliver adequate understanding into our 3rd density or dimension. [...] My view of the paradox is thus: If one emanates love as a natural course to the Universe it is not consciously limited or directed - at least I, for one, cannot do this; that simply is the way some of us are a lot of the 'time.' To eliminate groups or individuals is beyond my comprehension to constantly define since a lot of this is done unconsciously anyway; and it certainly would compromise my experience of sending love. Unless one is Bodhisattva, love is probably only directed with greater intensity when focused toward an individual; how is one to know whether the intended recipient is not ready/able to receive?' [...] And 'receive,' I think is a clue: the intended recipient can either remain oblivious or ward off the love energy - free agency.
A: Yes.
Q: If it IS 'love energy' is it subsequently corrupted by STS?
A: Maybe.
Q: She then says: 'If one directs love very specifically toward an individual it can be directed freely, judgmentally, subjectively..... One challenge is to direct love freely...'
A: No.
Q: 'Giving love to the Universe may be the best way generally, but if one does focus toward a loved one and it CAN be effective, could the general Universe be JUST as effective?'
A: The universe is about balance. Nuff said!
Q: Next, in regard to this not giving of love when not asked, she says: 'That does not mesh with networking to spread KNOWLEDGE among those who care and love. THAT is directed...'
A: What?
Q: Well, I DID point out that the only reason we have even gotten anything is because we asked for a LONG time, repeatedly and sincerely.
A: The bottom line is this: You are occupying 3rd density. You are by nature, STS. You can be an STO candidate, but you are NOT STO until you are on 4th density. You will NEVER grasp the meaning of these attempted conceptualizations until you are at 4th and above.
Q: She also says: 'And there are soulless ones.' Is this true?
A: No.
Q: I think that what she means by this is that there are those who are STS in their very essence and many people judge this to be a 'soulless' condition, I believe.
A: But STS is not "soulless."
Q: S also asks: 'May there be a time when one is faced with choosing between the lesser of 2 karmas?'
A: No, because karma dictates its own existence.
Q: What do you mean by that?
A: There is no fork in the road, because there is no linear time. That is an illusion and, when you graduate, you will know this.
Q: Okay, she further says regarding the C's views on sex: 'Their view implies very strongly that Humans are conceived in sin after all. That does not mesh with an unvengeful, benevolent Geometry of Divinity, for me.
A: No, sex is not sin. Neither is food. It is simply physiological. Remember what we told you about variable physicality?

3. About souls
The author is under the impression that the STS types do not have souls. According to the transcripts as mentioned above, this is not so. There are other considerations of the relating to the question of the souls.

Theodore Illion on page 175 in Darkness Over Tibet said:
During the lecture enormous rats seemed to play a kind of football match on the roof of the house. They greatly disturbed the talk by doing so, but the Gentle Friend and most of his listeners loved animals-all-animals and did not allow anyone to fight or chase the rats or any other creature. Non-resistance to everything, as I learned a little later, was the keynote of their whole existence, and this non-existence included a passive attitude to animals of any kind.

When the author mentions rats, most readers will, and that was most likely intended, probably make an association to the play in the beginning of the book, where a man offers up his own children to rats, and starves and suffers because of these rats. In the tale about the Gentle Friend it is mentioned that he was a 'trifle too stout', and the author was also offered food and yak dung for cooking it, if he needed, so it appears nobody were short of essential necessities. Therefore what is the problem with the few rats, except making noise. The noise reminds of ISOTM where, Gurdjieff is said to have had the habit in St. Petersburg of inviting Ouspensky to noisy bars to discuss his philosophy, and therefore Ouspensky had to pay a lot of attention, to what was said. And the students of the old man did pay attention, as one can see from the discussion quoted a little further down, but before shifting to that topic, there is are more quotes and discussion about animals and souls:

941209 said:
Q: (L) Now, tell me the name of the beings D*** M*** experienced as preying Mantises in her hypnosis session?
A: Her essence.
Q: (L) But, in that reality don't they have a name?
A: Too complex to answer adequately in this medium.
Q: (L) Well, you said that the beings that V*** encountered were Minturians, aren't they the same?
A: No.
Q: (L) Is there a difference between essence beings and incarnate beings?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) So we have a distinct difference. Okay, who were the ant/fly beings she described?
A: Her essence too.
Q: (L) And what were those snakey, slug-like beings that she saw?
A: Same.
Q: (L) Are you saying that all of this stuff is who she is? All of these horrible creatures and these..
A: In some of the alternate realities.
Q: (L) Do I have creatures like that that are my essence?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) My essence is something that horrible and dark and icky?
A: Subjective.
Q: (L) Well, weren't those horrible icky beings eating little children? Weren't those real human children?
A: How do you think you are viewed by deer, for example?
Q: (L) Well, I can immediately see that. I saw that already. I mean, cows and chickens would have to view us that way. I mean, it's pretty gross.
A: Roaches, too.
Q: (L) Is that why the night before D***'s session, I dreamed of ants that I could have stepped on and smashed, and for some reason I decided I did not want to take the life of even a single ant?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Was that dream preparing me for what I was going to experience in that session?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Well, what do we do about these essence parts of ourselves? I mean, I don't like it that there may be something of the predator in me. I would like to not have it, or get rid or it, or transform it, or whatever.
A: Wait and see.
Q: (L) Well, am I going to have to remember myself doing things like that in order to come to terms with it?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Is that going to happen to me, that I am going to have memories like that surfacing?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Well, I can't even cope with it in someone else, how am I going to deal with it in myself?
A: You will.
Q: (L) Is this something we are all going to have to do?
A: All eligible.
Q: (L) And who is eligible?
A: 4th density candidates.
Q: (L) Is F*** going to have to remember these things, too?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) How does one know that one is a 4 D candidate?
A: You gradually "awaken".

T. Illion on page 175 of Darkness over Tibet said:
Non-resistance to everything, as I learned a little later, was the keynote of their whole existence, and this non-resistance included a passive attitude to animals of any kind.
I respectfully disagreed with the Gentle Friend in this respect. There were obviously two realms of animals in nature. If I was kind to a horse or a dog and in exceptional cases even to a bear or a squirrel, the kindness would be justified. But how about kindness to parasites, to snakes, to crocodiles or sharks? The latter animals belonged to a different branch of life. No amount of love, kindness and non resistance would ever disarm a shark or a louse, I thought.
[...]
Life is a struggle. In this struggle, a just and equitable balance can be kept between man and animals of the non-parasitic type, but the animals belonging to the descending branch of life, such as gnats, mosquitoes, rats, mice, flies, etc., must be fought

I think he is too categorical. Did you read about the man who swam down the Amazon river in Brazil without being attacked by crocodiles and dangerous fish? How did he do it? What about the people who have rats and snakes as pets. How do they do it? In fact I was told that if one is in a house, where rats visit uninvited too frequently, a good remedy is to keep a couple of white Norwegian rats, because rats are territorial and the pet rats will make sure other rats do not settle in, just as small mice probably will stay away too. Also there are many reports of divers who survive close encounters with big white sharks. Just as there are reports that lions, who are supposed according to the author to belong to upward the going trend of life eat people.

The author also does not consider that man could be considered a parasite from the perspective of those species that he consumes, as well as from the perspective of the earth as a whole. 2/3 of all listed or know life forms, close to a million, are said to be parasitic; I read in one issue of National Geographic from around 1998.

Mice, rats, flies, and mosquitoes are food for other animals and birds which along with numerous other life forms and the physical environment they live in make up ecosystems. Many times it has been found that an excess amount of one of these animals is due to an imbalance in the system. If one has a number of mice too much it can be the owl got killed on the road or the viper and the weasel do not have access to where the mice live in a modern city as easily as they would have in the forest.

The authors would be surprised if he heard that all souls may be advanced:

941107 said:
Q: (L) Are there any other physical creatures on planet earth which have souls?
A: All do.
Q: (L) Is the human soul different from, say, animal souls?
A: Of course.
Q: (L) Are there any other physical creatures on the earth which have souls like human souls? On the same level, so to speak?
A: No.
Q: (L) Well, I have heard that dolphins, porpoises and whales have very advanced souls. Is that true?
A: All souls are advanced.
Q: (L) But are whales sentient, thinking, self-aware as humans are?
A: Apples and oranges.
Q: (L) Well, since whales are so big, do they have bigger souls?
A: Irrelevant.

Continued in section two

thorbiorn · Apr 27, 2007

Section two:

4. Souls and spiritual mistakes

T. Illion on page 137 of Darkness over Tibet said:
We then talked about spiritual mistakes. He said that "they did not matter". If a man stumbles and falls, he seemed to imply, he would rise again.
It occurred to me that there was at least "one" dreadful mistake in the spiritual realm. If man throws his soul away he cannot make amends for it. He cannot take it back afterwards. There are mistakes which are fatal for all eternity!

The author writes about the mistake of throwing away one's soul, but if one cannot throw it away, where is the mistake?

951007 said:
Q: (L) How could a baby have infinite knowledge, it only has imprint of its past life experiences. (V) You have heard that also...
A: That is nonsense.
Q: (V) That's fine... I was just... I'm sure you've heard that...
A: Souls are not "born" into this planet. Souls were never born! And, will never die!
Q: (V) I understand, my question was loose; I'm sorry. (D) Are there any new souls being created?
A: Just answered if you use your head. D*** does not know the real concept of "time."

950812 said:
A: All difficulties in personal life are karmic in one way or another. Especially those involving interactions with other soul beings. And the closer the interactions, the more karmic they are. This you already know.
Q: (L) Well, the difficult thing is to know what is the best thing to do.
A: Learning images is the process that is ongoing throughout all existence, and is achieved by one action or another. Any and all actions, any and all possible actions, any and all directions of actions facilitate continued learning. Therefore, it is not possible in the ultimate sense, to make mistakes. But, one must experience whatever is karmic to its full extent. The choices made reflect choices made prior to entering the physical plane of third density, combined with the opportunities that present themselves with the variability of reality in its fluid state. Therefore, the decisions to be made will present themselves when they are to be made, and it is only one's ability to accept interpretation objectively that determines whether the learning process will deliver greater or lesser degrees of pain.
Q: (L) Why does learning have to be painful?
A: It doesn't.
Q: (L) Well, it seems that it invariably is for me.
A: That is according to the perceptions of the experiencer, not according to any absolute criteria.
Q: (L) We would like to know a bit more on the subject of rituals, which you have warned us are restricting on many levels. Why is this? A: If one believes in one's activities sincerely, to the greatest extent, they certainly will produce SOME benefit, at SOME level. But, merely following patterns for the sake of following patterns, does not produce sincerity and faith necessary for ultimate benefits to result. So, therefore, as always, one must search from within, rather than from without, to answer that question. Do you understand? To give you an example, to be certain, you meet this all the time. If you read material in the pages of a book that advises one form of ritual or another, and you follow that form of ritual because you have read words printed on the pages, does that really give you the true sense of satisfaction and accomplishment within yourself to the greatest extent possible? Whereas, if you, yourself, were to develop an activity which one or another could interpret or define as a ritual, but it comes from within you, it feels RIGHT to you, and you have a sincere and complete faith in it, whatever it may be, does that feel right to you?
Q: (L) Yes.
A: Have we answered the question, then?
Q: (L) Yes, thank you.

In the above excerpt karma was mentioned. One can wonder why they accepted author into the underground city in the first place, could they not see it would fail, with all their intuitive powers or was it an agreement between Dolma, Narbu and the author to expose them at any cost? From the point of view of the ruler it was probably wishful thinking:

950225 said:
Q: (BP) What is the Lizard's Achilles heel?
A: STS. As in "wishful thinking" which blocks knowledge.
Q: (J) Their singular preoccupation with service to self blocks them from being able to move from 4th level.
A: Yes.
Q: (TM) Do they want to... (J) No they are happy there... they want to stay there forever and control, and consume, and have a good time. (BP) It is like finding a place with really good food, a great place to live, great sex, everything you like, you would want to stay there. (TM) Don't a lot of us like the idea of staying in the 3rd level forever?
A: Yes.
Q: (BP) Under the control of the Lizards! (F) But, you only want to stay in 3rd level forever if you are focused on STS. (TM) Yeah, but there are a lot of people on this earth who want the physical world. (J) It's physicality. (L) They like to consume, because that is the essence of this 3rd density reality, consumption. By being here you must consume. (GB) Is this message given to us tonight, from 6th density beings?
A: Yes.
Q: (GB) Do you have power over 4th density Lizard beings?
A: That is not the issue. We choose STO.
Q: (L) STO beings do not exert power over anyone, they only serve all. When STS beings call for knowledge and have raised their frequency levels, which can be done while still remaining STS, the only place in the universe they will obtain knowledge is from STO beings, even though they may use this knowledge to serve themselves. STS beings won't GIVE knowledge, because that is STO. (GB) Do the Lizzies have souls?
A: Yes.

5. Putting oneself on the level of the Creator
Considering that Theodore Illion repeatedly mentions putting oneself on the level of the Creator as a serious illness, and generously blames his characters for committing this crime, what would he say or write, if he could somehow read the introduction to the Essays of Life published by Red Pill Press which has the following from the Cassiopaean transcripts:

951212 said:
A: Source? There is no such thing.
Q: (L) You mean there is no Prime Creator, no origin or source of our existence?
A: You are Prime Creator.
Q: (L) But that is so esoteric... I am talking about...
A: The point is: stop filling your consciousness with monotheistic philosophies planted long ago to imprison your being. Can't you see it by now, after all you have learned, that there is no source, there is no leader, there is no basis, there is no overseer, etc... You literally possess, within your consciousness profile, all the power that exists within all of creation!?! You absolutely have all that exists, ever has, or ever will, contained within your mind. All you have to do is learn how to use it, and at that moment, you will literally, literally, be all that is, was, and ever will be!!!!!!!!

But while we are in third density we both ARE and are not 7th density or so I understand the following:

941116 said:
A: Molecules, atomic matter. Light is first density and unifies all densities.
Q: (L) Does that mean that by us moving from 3rd density into 4th density that we are getting farther away from unification with the source?
A: No. Light and darkness unify all densities.
Q: (L) How many levels of density are there?
A: 7
Q: (L) When you reach the seventh level, how would you describe that if 1st level is light?
A: 7th is core of existence.
Q: (L) Well, if seventh density is the core of existence, would that mean that 1st density is the outer edge of existence?
A: Base.
Q: (L) When one has reached 7th density, then what does one do?
A: When one reaches 7th all do.
Q: (L) Are there any beings on 7th level?
A: Time does not exist.
Q: (L) When light is transferred to electrical energy, does it actually change density?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Is it from 1st to 3rd when it becomes electricity?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Once again, are there any beings on 7th level?
A: Big bang.
Q: (L) Big bang is at 7th level?
A: Close enough.
Q: (L) So, when we all reach 7th level we will all blow up? We will all become one and it will all start all over again?
A: Close.
Q: (L) Well, that's not a pleasant thought!
A: Why? There is no time, you dwell there eternally. 7th is the light you see at death of the body.
Q: (L) So, when you die and leave the body, do you go to seventh level?
A: See it.

The Mani Rimpotche, The Exalted Jewel, The Ruler etc. made an offer to the author to become all powerful.

T. Illion on page 137 of Darkness over Tibet said:
"You could become all-powerful," he observed meaningly.
"At what price?" I asked.
"That you must discover for yourself," he answered.

If one assumes that the Ruler offered himself up as the means for reaching that possibility, then the Ruler of the City would be the one source to total power but is that possible?

941005 said:
Q: (L) What was the fruit of the tree of life?
A: Limitation.
Q: (L) How can the fruit of the tree of eternal life be limitation?
A: Conceptually limited.
Q: (L) I want you to know that this does not make a whole lot of sense.
A: Yes it does. Think carefully.
Q: (L) Was the god who walked in the garden who warned Adam and Eve not to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, was that the original creator god? i.e. the good guy?
A: No.
Q: (L) Who was that god who ordered them not to eat of this tree?
A: Complicated. Laura you are missing the obvious.
Q: (L) In what sense would the fruit of the tree of life be limiting? A: Believing that one source contains all knowledge is contradicting reality.

And the path is problematic, it is a lie, because in wanting to become all powerful a person would end up serving others who of course would be more powerful than himself:

951111 said:
A: Look: 353535.
Q: (L) What is the 35 sequence?
A: 5 minus 3.
Q: (L) Okay, we have strange math. But, you can do anything with numbers because they correspond to the universe at deep levels...
A: Is code.
Q: (L) What does this code relate to? Is it letters or some written work?
A: Infinite power.
Q: (L) How is infinite power acquired by knowing this code? If you don't know the correspondences, how can you use a numerical code?
]A: Lord of Serpent promises its followers infinite power which they must seek infinite knowledge to gain, for which they pledge allegiance infinitely for which they possess for all eternity, so long as they find infinite wisdom, for which they search for all infinity.
Q: (L) Well, that is a round robin... a circle you can't get out of!
A: And therein you have the deception! Remember, those who seek to serve self with supreme power, are doomed only to serve others who seek to serve self, and can only see that which they want to see.
Q: (L) The thought that occurs to me, as we are talking here, is that the STS pathway consists of an individual who wants to serve themselves - they are selfish and egocentric -they want to impel others to serve them; they want to enslave others; and they find ways to manipulate others to serve them. But, they end up being impelled by some higher being than they are. Because they have been tricked into believing that by so doing, they are actually drawing power to themselves through the teachings, including the popular religions which promote being "saved" by simply believing and giving up your power. And, then, you have a whole pyramid of people TAKING by trickery and deception, from others. The taker gets taken from in the end. A pyramid where all those on the bottom, the majority, have no one to take from, so they get absorbed into the next level higher, until you get to the apex and everything disappears. In the STO mode, you have those who only give. And, if they are involved with other STO persons, everyone has and no one is at the bottom or at the top, in a void. In the end, it seems like everyone ends up serving someone else anyway, and the principle is the INTENT. But in STO, it is more like a circle, a balance, no one is left without.
A: Balance, yin-yang.
Q: (L) Obviously the 33 represents the Serpent, the Medusa, and so forth...
A: You mentioned pyramid, interesting... And what is the geometric one-dimensional figure that corresponds?
Q: (L) Well, the triangle. And, if you have a triangle point up you have 3, joined to a triangle pointing down, you have 3, you have a 33. Is that something like what we are getting at here?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Is there a connection between the number 33 and the Great Pyramid in Egypt?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) And what is that connection? Is it that the builders of the pyramid participated in this secret society activity?
A: Yes. And what symbol did you see in "Matrix," for Serpents and Grays?
Q: (L) You are talking about the triangle with the Serpent's head in it?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Are we talking in terms of this 33 relating to a group of "aliens," or a group of humans with advanced knowledge and abilities? A: Either/or.
Q: (L) Is this what has been referred to in the Bramley book as the Brotherhood of the Serpent or Snake?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Is this also what you have referred to as the Quorum?
A: Close.
Q: (L) So, we have a bunch of people who are playing with mathematics, and playing with higher knowledge, basically as a keep busy activity to distract them at the human level from the fact that they are being manipulated at a higher level. Is this what is going on? Or, do they consciously know what they are doing? Is it a distraction or a conscious choice?
A: Both.

In the book the author discovered what the price of accepting the offer of the Prince would be:

T. Illion on page 148-149 of Darkness over Tibet said:
I walked around the circular library building, brilliantly lit by the daylight flooding in through the ceiling. I examined the pictures on the walls. There were reproductions of various "Soul Saviours" and "Redeemers" of past ages; there were pictures which seemed to be enlarged reproductions of the "Supreme Jewel" and his foremost lieutenants.
I looked into their eyes. They were beautifully but gloomy. All was there, intelligence, power, but no-soul! Everything in me cried out in one wild agony, I sat down and put my hands before my face. I had recognized the nature of all these saviours of souls. They were - fallen angels!

I have been wondering if this perception of no souls, means that the artist of the paintings did not know how to represent them, or was it that these beings had a low resonance frequency vibration corresponding to the STS orientation.

Fallen angles makes one think of Hell, which he also mentions somewhere. This leads to the following question.

951021 said:
Q: (L) Is there a Hell?
A: No.

950111 said:
Q: (L) If you think about it, propagating belief in the "old time religions" which include belief in hell or purgatory tend to put a person in a very vulnerable position because then they are open to thoughts of guilt, sin, and are therefore susceptible to thought control and terror. A: Yes.

So he does have several beliefs or programs that can be traced back to his religious background.

6. The question of truth

T. Illion on page 178 of Darkness over Tibet said:
How beautiful had been most of these two lectures! There had been so much truth in them, and yet they were only nearly true. The word "almost" in spiritual matter is an ominous one. The Evil One himself is "almost" god, and in this little word "almost" lies all the dreadful difference.

Does this mean, that if I can find a small something in his book, that I then should discard it all? Anyhow, the way I understand it is that one should try to find as much of truth as one can, and revise what one holds for true, as one goes along and learns more. If the author had been around today he probably would have written it differently.

7. Good and evil

Theodore Illion on page 173 in Darkness Over Tibet said:
For them it seemed that good and evil did not exist at all. There was no such thing as “bad", one of them observed and all the others agreed to it. Everything was a mere reflection of ourselves.
I inwardly disagreed. I thought of the dreadful City I had left a few days before. I knew for a fact that such a thing as evil existed in itself existed. No amount of philosophy could discuss the devil away and the obvious polarity of nature.

Both of the above assertions can be considered as reasonable depending on who one is, whether one is at 4th density or higher, an average 3rd density or a 3rd density who is seeking, Below are some excerpts that can serve as illustration of the problems of establishing what is good and what is evil.

941223 said:
Q: (D) Is he a good guy? (L) They are not going to tell you that.
A: Subjective.
Q: (L) I guess it depends on your point of view. I'm sure Hitler thought he was a good man. That is subjective. Good and evil are subjective. […]

941112 said:
Q: (L) Are the Lizzies what we would consider to be evil?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Are the Cassiopaeans what we would consider to be good?
A: Yes.
[…]
Q: (L) The Lizzies work independently and in opposition to the Cassiopaeans?
A: Independently, not in opposition.
Q: (L) Well then, is there somebody over and above this whole project...
A: We serve others therefore there is no opposition. Careful now. Step by step. If you do not fully understand answer ask another.
Q: (L) Part of a whole. Part of a circle.
A: Blend.
Q: (L) Does this mean...
A: Picture a blending colored circle image.
Q: (L) Are you saying that at some levels the two halves overlap?
A: Close.
Q: (L) Are you saying that some of the Quorum are good guys and bad guys and the same for the Illuminati because the two are on opposing sides of the circle but at the point of blending one is weighted more to one side and the other to the other side? And these organizations are where the interactions come together?
A: Closer.
Q: (L) Let's leave it for the time being.
A: No. Now please.
Q: (L) Okay. So it is a blending. Does it have something to do with ... in your case service to others means that you even serve those who serve self, is that correct?
A: Yes; we serve you and the Lizards have programmed your race to self service remember.
Q: (L) Well, I am down a notch or two. So, I am still a service to self individual to some extent, is that correct?
A: But moving slowly toward service to others. Not all humans are.

Gurdjieff/Ouspensky: In Search of the Miraculous page 158 said:
"One may say that evil does not exist for subjective man at all, that there exist only different conceptions of good. Nobody ever does anything deliberately in the interest of evil, for the sake of evil. Everybody acts in the interest of good, as he understands it. But everybody understands it in a different way. Consequently men drown, slay, and kill one another in the interest of good. The reason is again just the same, men’s ignorance and the deep sleep in which they live."
[...]
"But do not good and evil exist in themselves apart from man?" asked someone present.
"They do," said G. "only this is very far away from us and it is not worth your while even to try to understand this at present. Simply remember one think. The only possible permanent idea of good and evil for man is connected with the idea of evolution; not with mechanical evolution, of course, but with the idea of man’s development through conscious efforts, the change of his being, the creation of unity in him and the formation of a permanent I."
[...]
People are accustomed to think that good and evil must be the same for everyone, and above all, that good and evil exist for everyone. In reality, however, good and evil exist only for a few, for those who have an aim and who pursue that aim. Then what hinders the pursuit of that aim is evil and what helps is good.

To apply this to the situations in the book means, that the author is evil for the ruler of he City, because he does not comply with his wishes. Similarly the ruler is evil to the author because the Supreme Jewel acts contrary to the aim of the author, which is to maintain individual sovereignty.

And if one takes the tale and relates it to the densities, then the ruler can represent the STS forces, the author a 3rd density moving toward STO, or a seeker of 3rd density with a goal, and the students of the Gentle Friend are like 3rd density philosopher who have found out that morality is not what it is portrayed to be.

All in all I think the author is too sure in his judgement about good and evil. He passes by the dwelling of the Gently Friend, who does have his own obsession, for just a few days like any spiritual tourist, and pronounces his statements with great impetus, but really he has much less contact with the person than with the Ruler of the City. The authors knows or reports nothing about the background of he Gently Friend, who may have had a very active life in his younger days, or have had a long life experience just like the old fakir in “Meetings with Remarkable Men", who also lived a secluded life surrounded by a few people. Perhaps the author hopes that he will find the immutable truth on this planet, but that is not realistic, is it?

8. The discussion of the students of the Gentle Friend raises the issues of happiness, pain and suffering

Theodore Illion on page 181 in Darkness Over Tibet said:
The Gentle Friend had left that room and I listened to the discussion that followed.
"Is not the search for happiness in itself a selfish thing?" asked one of the hearer. He seemed to have taken up the objection I had mentally raised during the lecture. "Yes," said another one. "It is."
"Then there is a contradiction in all this," again observed the other. “We want to be unselfish, and yet we are selfish in wanting to be unselfish"
The other one hesitated for a while and then remarked: "But I feel that my soul does not want it. I want happiness, but my soul does not want it."
This remark strikingly illustrated the nature of the type of soul-snatching business carried on the Mountain of Simplicity, and how man’s totalitarian consciousness can be split up by "introspection" and his soul subtly separated.

The second and the third paragraphs exemplify the difficulty when one unexpectedly realizes that one is living in a Service To Self world; and that even if one tries not to, one can not be completely unselfish. And The fourth paragraph could indicate that there are traces of more than one I in ones personality, but is that discovery related to soul-snatching or to awakening?

Although most people do not have just one I, it is possible that the author has one only, though not since long:

Theodore Illion on page 150 in Darkness Over Tibet said:
"Step back-in the name of the Creator!" I shouted in a mighty voice. I think never before had I heard my own voice so full of vigour and soul-power. My whole being fused into one indissoluble unit, and my whole self lay in that voice.

The student who mentioned that his souls did not want happiness possible understood somehow:

980725 said:
A: You seem to be under the impression that only "good experiences are acceptable.
[...]
A: It is the lesson. Do you not understand still? The lesson, the lessons, that is all there is. They are all immeasurably valuable.
[...]
A: All there is is lessons!!
[...]
A: Your experiences never end, only transform. No bodycentrics need apply.

And there are more comments in the book about suffering:

T. Illion on page 180 of Darkness over Tibet said:
Not a word about the intense suffering of a man who feels one with all the joys and sorrows of the world. All he recommended was an escape from life, "nothingness", and subsequent happiness, viz. The very height of selfishness.

The above is not an uncommon way for some Christians to argue with someone who spends a little time to meditate. They say that helping others physically and feeling one with all their pain and suffering is so much more useful. But is this so?

990828 said:
A: No, in STS, which is your realm do not forget, one gives because of the pleasant sensation which results.
[...]
Q: What I am saying is: if a person can simply BE, in the doing and being of who and what they are, in simplicity; to become involved in doing everything as a meditation, or as a consecration, whether they are walking down the street and being at one with the air, the sunshine, the birds and trees and other people; in this state of oneness, doesn't that constitute a giving to the universe as giving oneself up as a channel for the universe to experience all these things?
A: Not if one is "feeling this oneness."

Although I knew the book is mentioned in the transcripts I did not review that section immediately when I got the book. I looked there after having read it and done a fair amount of analysis. Here it is:

020504 said:
Q: [Laughter from all] (L) I want to ask about this book I was reading earlier by T. Illion. He claims that he traveled to Tibet and found this underground city and interacted with these strange people. Was this an actual trip this guy made in a traditional 3rd density sense?
A: It is a disguise for conveying truths of a spiritual nature as well as a depiction of 4th Density realities.
Q: (L) Did he physically travel to Tibet?
A: No.
Q: (B) Sounds like he gained some inner awareness and used a story to convey it. (L) Did he travel anywhere?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Did he travel somewhere else and get this information and then accurately portray it as being centered in Tibet?
A: Yes.
Q: (B) Were his other travels in 3rd density?
A: Yes.
Q: (B) Is it important where he traveled?
A: Yes.
Q: (B) Well you know what the next question is (laughter). What would be his destination? Where did he travel?
A: Siberia.
Q: (B) Does it have anything to do with the spot in Siberia or Russian mountains that has the electromagnetic labs or whatever it was that they were discussing before?
A: Close.
Q: (A) Well still the question is: in the book he said he knew the Tibetan language.
A: He did.
Q: (A) In Siberia they don't use Tibetan language. (L) He didn't have to be using the Tibetan language. (A) What language is he using in Siberia, probably Russian. (L) I don't know. I've never been there. Well they didn't say he didn't know Russian. (A) That's true. (L) Was the place that he really traveled to a place that was positive that was telling about a place that was negative?
A: Yes.
Q: (B) When you answered 'close' to my question about the electromagnetic thing did you mean close physically or close in concept?
A: Both.
Q: (B) Both are linked then, are you saying there is a link between the two?
A: Vague.
Q: (B) I was thinking why Stone [word indecipherable] Does it have anything to do with the grid?
A: Partly.

Alright if he went to Siberia in the thirties how did he move around if Stalin was on the killing spree, he most have had connections in both Russia and Germany.

I did look for underground cities in that area of Tibet and also found something that was interesting, only this post is already quite long. Some excerpts from the transcripts about underground habitation one can find in section six of
http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=4151

Before signing off there is some other kind of problem ;)

T. Illion on page 102 of Darkness over Tibet said:
I then threw down the heavy stone and listened through the earphone with the greatest attention.[...]After about thirty-five seconds I heard the sound of the heavy stone as it savagely tore along the wall of the shaft. The brushing against the wall continued for several seconds, but by the fortieth second it had not yet struck the bottom. I listened through my earphone for another minute but did not hear the faintest sound.

Interestingly enough the author does not take any trouble whatsoever to calculate the minimum depth of the shaft, nor wonders how it and the whole complex could have been built.

So leaving the problem of the construction aside, the calculations of the minimum depth are up to us. Therefore if one applies average school physics, what depth had the stone reached when it brushed against the wall, assuming that the stone was not perceptibly influenced by the friction of air?

I tried to find out and hope some of the readers will be able to understand it and rectify possible errors and inaccuracies:
Let T be the time between dropping the stone and hearing the sound,
Let T1 be the time that the stone hits the wall after having left the surface,
Let T2 be the time that the sound needs to travel to the surface after having hit the wall of the shaft in the depth,
Let V be the speed of sound travelling through the medium to his earphone, here I am in doubt whether he is picking it up through the wall or though the air in the shaft. In principle, if it is through the air in the shaft one has to consider at least temperature, and air pressure, but I have decided to assume that it is not in the mountains, but near sea level and at about zero degrees Celsius.
Let g be the gravity constant.
Let S be the path that the stone had travelled when it hit the wall, it is given by the formula S = 1/2g.T1Sq
Since the sound must travel the same distance to reach the author one can also write S = V.T2
One can now make the following relationships:
0) S - S = 0 which means by using the expressions explained,
1) 1/2g.T1Sq - V.T2 = 0, so
2) T2 = 1/2g.T1Sq / V and
3) T1 + T2 = T, so
4) T1 = T - T2,
By inserting the expression equation 2) into 4):
5) T1 = T - 1/2g.T1Sq / V
After multiplying by V on both sides of the equation sign in 5:
6) V.T1 = V.T - 1/2g.T1Sq
which can be written as
7) 1/2 g.T1Sq + V.T1 - V.T = 0
which is a quadratic equation of the type a.xSq + b.x + c = 0
and which has the following possible solutions:
x = (-b +- the square root of(bSq - 4ac))/2a
by inserting the values in equation 7) into the formular we get:
8) T1 = (-V +-the sq root of (VSq -4.1/2g.-V.T))/2.1/2g
Since T1 can not be negative, we only consider one option that is + instead of +-, so
9) T1 = (-V + the sq root of (VSq +2g.V.T))/g
Let us try now and insert g as 9,81m/sSq, V as 330m/s and T as 35 seconds, that is when it was first heard and we get:
10) T1 = (-330m/s + the sq root of(330m/sSq+2.9,81m/sSq.330m/s.35s))/9.81m/sSq, which means:
11) T1 = (-330m/s + the sq root of (108900mSq/sSq + 226611mSq/sSq)/9.81m/sSq, which is:
12) T1 = (-330m/s + 579,233m/s)/9,81m/sSq = 25,406 s
We had above that from 3) that T1 + T2 = T therefore
13) T2 = T - T1
By inserting the value for T1 = 25,406 s and T = 35 s we have,
14) T2 = 35s - 25,406s = 9,594 s
For confirmation inserting the values in 1) one gets:
15) 1/2.9,81m/sSq.(25,406s)Sq - 330m/s.9,594s = 3166m - 3166m = 0m

In other words the stone had dropped more than 3 km or almost 2 miles when it first struck the wall of the shaft. Ok, we did not consider the influence of the air friction, or if the sound moved slower or faster in the shaft, but still it must have fallen a pretty long way. The author does not wonder, and I wonder why.
All in all it is an interesting book, the style of the writer inspires one to think. It took more time to go trough it than I had estimated at first, but I also discovered that it is a work that is relevant today and in more than in a strictly spiritual sense.

Thorbiorn

GRiM · Apr 27, 2007

Thanks for the great review! Really good layout and pace.
Makes me want to read it myself.

kenlee · Apr 28, 2007

thorbiorn said:
Section two:

4. Souls and spiritual mistakes

T. Illion on page 137 of Darkness over Tibet said:

We then talked about spiritual mistakes. He said that “they did not matter" . If a man stumbles and falls, he seemed to imply, he would rise again.
It occurred to me that there was at least “one" dreadful mistake in the spiritual in the spiritual realm. If man throws his soul away he cannot make amends for it. He cannot take it back afterwards. There are mistakes which are fatal for all eternity!

Click to expand...

The author writes the mistake of throwing away one's soul, but if one cannot throw it away, where is the mistake?

I think what Illion means is soul potential. So you must differentiate between 'soul' and 'soul potential.' If a potentially souled being "sins against his soul" by using it for selfish purposes then, as I understand it, he has chosen the direction of Non-Being via non-existence.

At some point that soul potential will simply be made available to another being at another point in the evolutionary process... perhaps in another 'eternity' or cycle.

Thus, the (potentially souled) being , or the 'true ego' or 'I', is not actualized from the potential state of Pure Being. Therefore, the potential being, or as I stated, the true ego, or 'I', is not realized in the dimension of temporal actualization. Then it eventually 'dies' by spiraling into non existence because it has chosen to vector itself in the direction of Non Being. But its soul potential still exists as a reality within the dimension of eternity and will be available for future beings in a future 'eternal' cycle. At least, this is how I understand it so far.

The 'dreadful mistake' is not realizing this potential. This is 'throwing away one's soul.'

Also, you did not speak of Organic Portals in your observations. So you might want to
research this topic to see how it 'fits' into your observations.

thorbiorn said:
Considering that Theodore Illion repeatedly mentions putting oneself on the level of the Creator as a serious illness, and generously blames his characters for committing this crime, what would he say or write, if he could somehow read the introduction to the Essays of Life published by Red Pill Press which has the following from the Cassiopaean transcripts:

A: Source? There is no such thing.
Q: (L) You mean there is no Prime Creator, no origin or source of our existence?
A: You are Prime Creator.
Q: (L) But that is so esoteric... I am talking about...
A: The point is: stop filling your consciousness with monotheistic philosophies planted long ago to imprison your being. Can't you see it by now, after all you have learned, that there is no source, there is no leader, there is no basis, there is no overseer, etc... You literally possess, within your consciousness profile, all the power that exists within all of creation!?! You absolutely have all that exists, ever has, or ever will, contained within your mind. All you have to do is learn how to use it, and at that moment, you will literally, literally, be all that is, was, and ever will be!!!!!!!!

Now, Illion said:

"Shall man be selfish, then? Is it wrong to try to be good?"

"No, but it is wrong to try to be like God."

"But God is good. Trying to be like God leads to goodness."

"The creature must not overstep its limits by trying to be like God. If he does so, he acts like the angels who revolted against the Creator. There are two different types of impersonality - name, Be-ing and Be- ness. The former is an attribute of the Creature, the latter an attribute of the Creator.

"Be-ness is absolute impersonality where all division between the "I" and the "non-I" ceases. It is beyond the reach of the creature.

"What happens to a man who wants to attain this state?" asked Dolma.

"He commits the greatest and most deadly sin against the Creator."

You did not make a proper distinction between Be-ness and Be-ing. You see, you do not see "third force," which is the.force that reconciles the creature (Be-ing) with it's archetype (Be-ness). This force of reconciliation is the 'I,' which is the 'individual will'. This 'individual will' is, as I understand it according to Mouravieff, only potential in eternity and must be actualized in time for it's realization.

So you overlook this third thing, the 'I' with reconciles Illion's Be-ness with Be-ing. The conscious 'I,' the human will, brings the higher and lower worlds together and makes the connection.

To equate the being with its archetype is to negate the human 'I' which links the two. This is probably what Illion meant concerning 'sinning against the creator.' George Bush, who 'talks with god', would be a good example of this 'perfect equating' of the being with its higher archetype without considering this third force which should relate the two so that they can be properly directed to a specific, concrete, situation.

Similarly, when we speak of good and evil there is also this third thing, or the specific situation to which it applies.

http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/Laura-Knight-Jadczyk/article-lkj-04-03-06-k.htm

There is another way to consider the "three forces." This brings us to "perspicacity" which is a function of knowledge. The ability to "assimilate B influences" as Mouravieff describes it, depends upon the evaluation of the Impression in the specific context in which it is experienced. A very simple way of putting it is: is it Truth or is it a Lie and if either, which has more affinity to the world of the spirit, or Love?

There are those who think that truth or lies are always static, that a lie is a lie is a lie and that to be "good," one must ALWAYS tell the "truth." However, it is not always that easy. For example, consider France during the Nazi occupation. Undoubtedly, many of those involved in the resistance lied daily and regularly about their plans and activities. What was different about their lies was the INTENT and the SPECIFIC SITUATION. In such a situation, speaking the truth to a Nazi soldier who would use that truth to destroy one's fellow resistance fighters would be "evil," so to say, and lying would be "good." The greater truth that the lie served was Freedom from Tyranny. The "observer" of the situation knew the objective truth that revealing his plans or betraying his brothers would bring their deaths. The reality of the Nazis was based on subjective lies, and by responding to these lies leading to tyranny with an opposite lie that led to freedom was then an effective cancelling of the subjectivity leaving the field clear for objectivity. This simple example ought to give the reader much to think about in terms of the socialized belief in a "black and white" exposition of "truth or lies" and "good and evil."

Using an example of baking bread: in some cases, the flour could be "truth" and the water could be "lies" and the fire could be the specific situation in which the two meet and interact. Too little water and the bread will be dry and hard; too little flour and the bread will be soggy; too hot a fire, and the bread will burn; too cold a fire and the bread will never bake.

Tenten · Apr 28, 2007

Thorbiorn,
Many thanks for this parallel.

thorbiorn · Apr 28, 2007

Thanks kenlee for your input and balancing the post, I am going to contemplate.

thorbiorn

kenlee · Apr 29, 2007

thorbiorn said:
Thanks kenlee for your input and balancing the post, I am going to contemplate.

It's very important to have a critical mind and I think you did a good job at critiquing Illion's work but it's essential to think in terms of levels and categories otherwise things become simple and monotheistic where everything becomes either 'yes' or 'no'. Gurdjieff spoke of 'The principle of relativity' where new standards are set within the language structure so as to establish the proper points of reference for the correct understanding of different concepts with respect to different levels of meaning. Gurdjieff sees this principle as a necessity to prevent misunderstandings arising from mixing one level of meaning with another resulting in what I think QFG calls the cross conceptualization of ideas.

Many of our misunderstandings and arguments are due to this "mixing of levels," that is, we are mixing up the experiences of different worlds. For proper understanding of any given concept a new language is necessary.

An example given by Gurdjieff is the word 'man' which has different meanings depending on the category and level to which this term fits. We think we understand what the word 'man' means but if we don't have a point of reference within a specific context when we use this word then we will all have a different understanding and the end result is a confusion of tonges. The same applies to the word 'God' (that Illion used) or any other word that can have different meanings depending upon the level and category to which the word is contexually referenced to (although, objectively speaking, all these levels and categories are "progressively connected" into a larger whole). If the word has only one meaning divorced of context and level then the meaning of the terms becomes 'one,' subjective (emotional thinking) , and monotheistic, that will be used by the control system for dominance and control.

Concerning this new language, Gurdjieff says in Ouspenskys book In Search Of The Miraculous page 70:

"For exact understanding exact language is necessary. And the study of systems of ancient knowledge begins with the study of a language which will make it possible to establish at once exactly what is being said, from what point of view, and in what connection. This new language contains hardly any new terms or new nomenclature, but it bases the construction of speech upon a new principle, namely the principle of relativity, that is to say, it introduces relativity into all concepts and thus makes possible an accurate determination of the angle of thought, for what precisely ordinary language lacks are expressions of relativity.

"The fundamental property of the new language is that all ideas in it are concentrated round one idea, that is, they are taken to their mutual relationship from the point of view of one idea. This idea is the idea of evolution [or from the point of view of QFS terminology - Ascension]. Of course, not evolution in the sense of mechanical evolution, because such an evolution does not exist, but in the sense of a conscious and volitional evolution, which alone is possible.

"When a man has mastered this language, then, with its help, there can be transmitted and communicated to him a great deal of knowledge and information which cannot be transmitted in ordinary language even by using all possible and philosophical terms.

"Everything in the world, from solar system to man, and from man to atom, either rises or descends, either evolves or degenerates, either develops or decays. But nothing evolves mechanically. Only degeneration or destruction proceed mechanically. That which cannot evolve consciously - degenerates. Help from outside is possible only in so far as it is valued and accepted, even if it is by feeling in the beginning."

"The language which understanding is possible is constructed upon the indication of the relation of the object under examination to the evolution possible for it; upon the indication of its PLACE in the evolutionary ladder."

"For this reason many of our usual ideas are divided according to the steps of this evolution."

Thus, if there are different gradations of evolutionary levels to the existing universe then, correspondingly, there are different levels of meanings ascribed to any idea or concept with respect to this gradation. The word "man" may mean one thing at one level but may mean quite another thing at another level and so on. For example, lets look at the word man. If there is a stratification of the existing world comprising 7 different levels of density or, to put it another way, if there are 7 levels of "worlds" that make up the universe, as the Gurdjieffian cosmology proposes, then there are also seven different meanings ascribed to word "man." There are now 7 different meanings for the term "man" and each meaning has specific relevance with respect to the world above it and the world below it. This perspective now puts the meaning of this term within proper context. This is but one example.

shijing · Apr 20, 2010

I just finished reading this book, and I wanted to make my own recommendation. I had the same reaction that I did to The Sufi Path of Knowledge -- I had always appreciated the excerpts that people had quoted, but it wasn't until I actually read it that I fully appreciated the connection to the Fourth Way teaching that occurs in Illion's writing. He strikes me as a slightly earthier Ouspensky -- since it is a novel and doesn't include a bibliography, there is no way to know if he had read any Fourth Way material himself, but if not, he has done a great job of figuring things out for himself. Although not couched in such terms, he does a really nice job of explicating the opposing poles of STO and STS, explaining that they do battle through the medium of matter (3D).

One interesting aside is that at one point, he is led to an underground Tibetan city which houses a particular spiritual order that plays a prominent role in the latter half of the book. He mentions in a footnote that it is constructed in such a way, that he wonders if it was designed for the eventuality of a flood. With our knowledge of cataclysms past and future, I thought this was kind of interesting.

obyvatel · Apr 21, 2010

Shijing said:
He strikes me as a slightly earthier Ouspensky

That is interesting. My impression after reading the book was that Illion had all his 3 lower centers well developed. The way he handled physical hardships indicated a strong moving center. He seemed to have very good control over his lower emotions. Even at times of great stress,when he was fleeing for his life and soul in that underground city, he did not indulge in "unnecessary harshness" (pg 151-152). His intellect was also quite well developed given his theoretical knowledge of esoteric matters. Regarding Ouspensky, my impression was that he had a highly developed intellectual center but his emotions were largely under-developed. So I am thinking perhaps Illion had a much higher level of Being than Ouspensky and so he could access higher esoteric realities with a penetrating clarity. Illion's level of Being and earthiness kind of reminds me more of Gurdjieff than Ouspensky.

[quote author=Shijing]
One interesting aside is that at one point, he is led to an underground Tibetan city which houses a particular spiritual order that plays a prominent role in the latter half of the book. He mentions in a footnote that it is constructed in such a way, that he wonders if it was designed for the eventuality of a flood. With our knowledge of cataclysms past and future, I thought this was kind of interesting.
[/quote]
That is an interesting aside - I had missed the reference to flood completely when I read the book. I kind of thought about underground bases in connection with that underground city.

anart · Apr 21, 2010

obyvatel said:
Shijing said:

He strikes me as a slightly earthier Ouspensky

Click to expand...

That is interesting. My impression after reading the book was that Illion had all his 3 lower centers well developed. The way he handled physical hardships indicated a strong moving center. He seemed to have very good control over his lower emotions. Even at times of great stress,when he was fleeing for his life and soul in that underground city, he did not indulge in "unnecessary harshness" (pg 151-152). His intellect was also quite well developed given his theoretical knowledge of esoteric matters. Regarding Ouspensky, my impression was that he had a highly developed intellectual center but his emotions were largely under-developed. So I am thinking perhaps Illion had a much higher level of Being than Ouspensky and so he could access higher esoteric realities with a penetrating clarity. Illion's level of Being and earthiness kind of reminds me more of Gurdjieff than Ouspensky.

It's my understanding that Darkness Over Tibet is a work of fiction; that Illion did not actually make the journey in real life, so that's something to keep in mind, regarding conclusions about his surviving the physical hardships. fwiw.

Z... · Apr 21, 2010

anart said:
It's my understanding that Darkness Over Tibet is a work of fiction; that Illion did not actually make the journey in real life, so that's something to keep in mind, regarding conclusions about his surviving the physical hardships. fwiw.

Ah I didn't know this. I never read the book, just the bits on cassiopea web site. What he wrote was so powerful that I took it for granted it was first hand experience.

shijing · Apr 21, 2010

anart said:
It's my understanding that Darkness Over Tibet is a work of fiction; that Illion did not actually make the journey in real life, so that's something to keep in mind, regarding conclusions about his surviving the physical hardships. fwiw.

Yes, I don't think I realized that either -- that means all the data about the underground city, and some of the more bizarre practices within it, probably have to be taken with a grain of salt.

obyvatel said:
Shijing said:

He strikes me as a slightly earthier Ouspensky

Click to expand...

That is interesting. My impression after reading the book was that Illion had all his 3 lower centers well developed. The way he handled physical hardships indicated a strong moving center. He seemed to have very good control over his lower emotions. Even at times of great stress,when he was fleeing for his life and soul in that underground city, he did not indulge in "unnecessary harshness" (pg 151-152). His intellect was also quite well developed given his theoretical knowledge of esoteric matters. Regarding Ouspensky, my impression was that he had a highly developed intellectual center but his emotions were largely under-developed. So I am thinking perhaps Illion had a much higher level of Being than Ouspensky and so he could access higher esoteric realities with a penetrating clarity. Illion's level of Being and earthiness kind of reminds me more of Gurdjieff than Ouspensky.

I think that you are probably right about the difference between Illion's and Ouspensky's emotional centers. What I feel that he had in common with Ouspensky is a certain analytic way of coming to conclusions about the reality that surrounded him. Based on his book, I don't get the impression that he had the same depth of knowledge or Being as Gurdjieff, although he certainly did have a lot going on. That being said, if the two would have known each other, it's not difficult for me to think that Illion may have been a highly valued student of Gurdjieff's, on the level of Ouspensky and Orage, perhaps even more. Thinking of it this way, it almost seems a shame that they never met and worked together, as I can only imagine their association would have been quite fruitful. This is just my subjective impression through the lens of the book, though.

obyvatel said:
[quote author=Shijing]
One interesting aside is that at one point, he is led to an underground Tibetan city which houses a particular spiritual order that plays a prominent role in the latter half of the book. He mentions in a footnote that it is constructed in such a way, that he wonders if it was designed for the eventuality of a flood. With our knowledge of cataclysms past and future, I thought this was kind of interesting.

That is an interesting aside - I had missed the reference to flood completely when I read the book. I kind of thought about underground bases in connection with that underground city.
[/quote]

That crossed my mind also, in view of what the C's have described about the robust civilization that supposedly exists below us. The part about the apparent reanimation of corpses to serve as worker drones begs the question of what was really going on there in terms of high strangeness. It's possible that this could have been some sort of upper-level internode between the surface and the mysterious subterranean civilization mentioned by the C's -- on the other hand, it may have been the response to some sort of secret knowledge about cataclysms that had been transmitted through the secret society that Illion describes. However, in light of what anart mentioned about it being a work of fiction (as noted above), this part of the book could be entirely spurious; or, it could be based on something Illion had real knowledge of -- I don't think we could know based on the book alone.

anart · Apr 21, 2010

Stormy Knight said:
Ah I didn't know this. I never read the book, just the bits on cassiopea web site. What he wrote was so powerful that I took it for granted it was first hand experience.

Well, I think the C's mentioned it in an early session - I don't have access to the sessions at the moment, but I'll try to find it later.

ana · Apr 21, 2010

anart said:
Stormy Knight said:

Ah I didn't know this. I never read the book, just the bits on cassiopea web site. What he wrote was so powerful that I took it for granted it was first hand experience.

Click to expand...

Well, I think the C's mentioned it in an early session - I don't have access to the sessions at the moment, but I'll try to find it later.

Yes on 020504 :)

Q: [Laughter from all] (L) I want to ask about this book I was reading earlier by T. Illion. He claims that he traveled to Tibet and found this underground city and interacted with these strange people. Was this an actual trip this guy made in a traditional 3rd density sense?
A: It is a disguise for conveying truths of a spiritual nature as well as a depiction of 4th Density realities.
Q: (L) Did he physically travel to Tibet?
A: No.
Q: (B) Sounds like he gained some inner awareness and used a story to convey it. (L) Did he travel anywhere?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Did he travel somewhere else and get this information and then accurately portray it as being centered in Tibet?
A: Yes.
Q: (B) Were his other travels in 3rd density?
A: Yes.
Q: (B) Is it important where he traveled?
A: Yes.
Q: (B) Well you know what the next question is (laughter). What would be his destination? Where did he travel?
A: Siberia.

Edit: bolded

shijing · Apr 21, 2010

Ana said:
Q: [Laughter from all] (L) I want to ask about this book I was reading earlier by T. Illion. He claims that he traveled to Tibet and found this underground city and interacted with these strange people. Was this an actual trip this guy made in a traditional 3rd density sense?
A: It is a disguise for conveying truths of a spiritual nature as well as a depiction of 4th Density realities.
Q: (L) Did he physically travel to Tibet?
A: No.
Q: (B) Sounds like he gained some inner awareness and used a story to convey it. (L) Did he travel anywhere?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Did he travel somewhere else and get this information and then accurately portray it as being centered in Tibet?
A: Yes.
Q: (B) Were his other travels in 3rd density?
A: Yes.
Q: (B) Is it important where he traveled?
A: Yes.
Q: (B) Well you know what the next question is (laughter). What would be his destination? Where did he travel?
A: Siberia.

Click to expand...

Thanks, Ana -- I do remember reading this awhile back now, but I had forgotten about it. He really did his research, then, because as far as I can tell the Tibetan that he uses in the book is accurate -- something that he could have accomplished with a good dictionary, I suppose.

Theodore Illion: Darkness Over Tibet

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