43 A CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM
It is admirable that throughout the ages there have been so many people who have been excited about the progress of spirituality in the world, but it is also regrettable that there have been others interested only in power and money and who have used the philosophy to fool people. In this article I want to show my opinion about some books without going to assess whether their authors belong to one group or another, but because they give the spiritual world its rightful place, although that does not mean that they are necessarily right in everything that is exposed.
THE URANTIA BOOK
The great value that the author of this book places on spirituality is surprising. This can be deduced from observing how he tries to explain the process of evolution of the cosmos from a different approach than the classical materialist one. But in my opinion, all that enormous effort dedicated to that work is only a way of responding from a spiritual point of view to Darwin's theories, but done without adequate knowledge of science and the evolution of species. Because it seems excellent to me that it emphasizes the existence of other forces than the material ones in the conformation of species or the universe, but its great mistake is to submit to biblical writings taking them literally without understanding that sometimes they only represent symbolic facts or superstitions, and others arise from the memory that primitive but deformed and idealized peoples have of their history. For this reason, the great error of this book is to try to impose the biblical dogma on science, because a science without spirit is so despicable, as a religion without freedom of thought.
An ideal religion has to be flexible so that it can evolve and accept changes that make sense, but when someone tries to impose a literal or rigid model of an ancient writing, they show that they are not trying to find the truth, but to monopolize a totalitarian power, as is common in destructive cults. An example of this submission to the literal approach we have in how the creation of the different human races is presented in this book, when saying that a single couple had two children of each race, which is absurd, because even the most naive scientist knows that the differences in pigmentation are the result of adaptation to the climate of the different continents and not to a natural whim. Or when he proposes that spirits created human bodies from semitransparent forms, but without going through the phases of evolution from lower animal species. They thus intend to propose the existence of two parallel creations of the human being, one of animal origin and the other of divine origin, and all this in order not to question dogma. It is evident that when they pose that, it is because they do not understand that a man can be both animal and divine in origin, therefore, it is absurd to suggest that there are two simultaneous creations. In my opinion, the author of this book made up this story to justify the biblical quote suggesting that angels married human women, because he thought that then there would have to be two different human creations. This biblical quote arises from primitive mythology, in that mythology it is a question of suggesting that in the human being there are two parts, one material that corresponds to our body and the other divine that corresponds to our spirit, which is correct, but it arises from wrong way. The solution to this conflict between matter and spirit is to recognize that man does descend from animals, but it is not true that in the process of evolution only Darwin's theories have existed, because, for the development of each animal species The participation of the spirit is also necessary, which carries out this work and then reincarnates in them. In this book these things are suggested but not properly understood.
Another example of dogmatism is when it comes to resurrection machines, in this case the author again subjects the book to religious dogma, without being able to move towards a more evolved approach such as the reincarnation of spirits in a new body, and suggests the crazy idea in my opinion, to build machines so that, not the spirits, but the personalities of the dead are reincarnated in an artificial body, but only, if the leader in question gives their approval. It is evident that with this he intends to maintain the Christian myth copied from the Egyptians, which proposes the resurrection of the corpses, but, in this case, replaced by mechanical bodies. It does not seem impossible to me that a spirit can reincarnate and take control of a mechanical body, but it will always be better to do it in a human body since this planet has dedicated five billion years of biological evolution for that.
Another great mistake is to propose God as a great universal dictator, because it is true that in every organized system there must be mandatory laws and the universe is no exception, but, in this book, the use of the word is missed democracy, as regards the universal order. In my opinion, God cannot be an old bearded man on a cloud who spends his time giving orders, but rather that which is common to all beings in the cosmos, because in reality, we are all part of it. Because God addresses us but also comes out of us. A just universe is only possible if it is democratic and in this book that word is unknown. As I have said before, those religious leaders who emphasize the immovability of a religion, it is because deep down they expect the unconditional submission of their followers and that is not something divine but diabolical and more typical of evil beings than representatives of superior forces. Because justice does not have to be in contradiction with order, therefore, every law, whether human or universal, must be democratic and respect the right to be able to think and decide freely. That is why God is just, precisely because he is democratic. Despite this, it is admirable how the author tries to convince readers of the existence of a spiritual world beyond the material world, but his determination to submit the truth to religious dogma has deprived him of the possibility of making a book truly splendid.
ISIS WITHOUT VEIL
This book by Elena Blavatsky seems like a tourist propaganda book about India more than an impartial philosophy book, because in each and every one of its pages it tries to show us the benefits of her ancient philosophy. But in my opinion, she forgets that science before flourishing in India did it in Mesopotamia thousands of years before, and it was not until the emigration of Aryan peoples from the West that culture reached its maximum expression in India. Although it is also true that later, some of the ideas that were developed in India returned to influence the West. Like the urantia book , this book has the merit of underlining the importance of the spiritual world and denounces the arrogant attitude of materialistic scientists, because it is true that spiritistic phenomena are in many real cases and not just the result of magic tricks , and even if there is evidence of this, classical science refuses to recognize it in an example of pride and sufficiency, because scientists in general refuse to accept everything that is beyond their control, such as the UFO phenomenon or the existence of spirits. But, in my opinion, the great mistake of Elena Blabatsky is to behave in the same way as the scientists she criticizes, because she shows the same stubbornness as they in stating that ancient philosophers knew as much or more knowledge than current scientists. With this behavior he tries to question his own evolution, because the logical thing is to consider that progress goes from the past to the future and not the other way around. It can be understood that she tries to underline the stubbornness of current scientists when they refuse to acknowledge the proofs of spiritual facts that ancient philosophers did acknowledge, but, it is a great mistake to claim that ancient philosophers or religious knew everything, only because in the development of spirituality and philosophy they had made important advances. It is also pathetic when he says that great scientific knowledge was kept secret in ancient temples, because it seems that he wants us to believe that something has to be important just because it is secret. It is true that throughout history there have been numerous persecutions for religious reasons and that has made it frequent that some beliefs have been hidden to avoid reprisals from political or religious leaders when different religions coexist in the same territory, but that does not it means that those beliefs are necessarily true. It is also common for some religious leaders to hide parts of their ideas out of simple arrogance, because they try to retain their followers by making them believe that when they reach the level necessary to access these " secret knowledge" they will find themselves at an intellectual level higher than the rest. However, these alleged knowledge, in most cases are nothing more than simple superstitions or half truths, although in this as in other things there may be exceptions.
It is also striking to see how much of the ancient myths are believed and it is not that I intend to deny that in those myths there is always a part of truth, but in its effort to literally believe those myths in the end it behaves like scientists those he criticizes, only in his case instead of rejecting everything, what he does is accept everything beyond a reasonable criterion. As when she says that the existence in America of beliefs common to other peoples of the world shows that there was a continent in the middle of the Atlantic that according to her served as a bridge before sinking. But, he was not able to deduce that if this knowledge existed there, it is because its first settlers passed through the Bering Strait from Asia during the last ice age 12,000 years ago. This glaciation created an ice bridge that held the Asian continent together with America for thousands of years, making the passage from one continent to another easy during that period. Although some settlers were also able to arrive from the Pacific islands by sea, taking into account that during the glaciation half the planet would be frozen and the sea level would be much lower than the current one, that means that the size of the islands would be greater and consequently the separation between them less.
Another mistake he makes is to relate everything to morality, as for example when he relates the legends about the flood in which he speaks of a supposed divine punishment as a cause, but he does not understand that these legends were a consequence of the increase in rains and the I retreated from the coasts when the last ice age ended.
It is also surprising as it underlines the selfish and manipulative attitude that is prevalent in the power organs of contemporary religions, but at the same time it only has praise for ancient religious, especially Buddhists. Do you think that in the past there were no deceptions and manipulations by religious organizations such as those that occur today? Because if you think that, you prove to be very naive.
With regard to the alleged powers that she attributes to the fakirs of India or the Buddhist priests of Tibet, it must be said that in some cases they are most likely due to simple magic tricks, and in others to the collaboration of the spirits of the dead, be they evil or benign.
However, it must be recognized in his favor that his interest in learning about ancient religious beliefs and rituals is admirable, or how he tried to demonstrate the contradictions of materialistic scientists determined to deny the reality of the spiritual world, but it is difficult to know, if what she wanted was to promote knowledge or rather to show herself as a kind of ambassador of that supposed knowledge from India and with it hope for public recognition. Even so, I consider it advisable to read this book for those who want to have a different version of reality from the official one.
Also interesting is the research he did to demonstrate how the Catholic Church appropriated the symbols of other religions and then added them to its own and once this was done it tried to destroy them to hide the fact. It is also interesting to observe how he continually resorts to defending his ideas with quotes from others, what is not very clear is whether he does it to demonstrate his claims or because he tries to rely on them, taking into account that at that time most writers were mens.
In my opinion, she shows so much devotion to India that when it comes to biblical facts it seems that instead of investigating what she is trying to do is to discredit the Bible in order to justify her interest in Indian philosophy. With that attitude, he questions the objectivity of his conclusions. Like when he suggests that the Egyptians or the Hebrews came from India, which is in contradiction with most of the historical evidence.
It cannot be denied that his research on ancient books and beliefs is useful to those who research history, because it provides a lot of interesting data, but his excessive effort to propose Indian philosophy as the only universal truth limits considerably the usefulness of his research. For this reason, the phrase "sometimes the trees do not let us see the forest" is perfectly applicable to him, because by believing in such a blind way in ancient myths, or putting India as the only focus of culture, in the end it ends losing perspective of reality.
It is possible that all this is due to the fact that he could try to use Indian philosophy as an excuse to gain prominence in the West, because first he exaggerates the benefits of this philosophy, then he tries to show the defects of the Bible or Christianity, and then it shows itself and its supposed knowledge as the solution that can free us from our ignorance. In other words, although her interest in this philosophy cannot be denied, it is also true that behind all this could hide a desire for power, let's not forget that she participated in the founding of the New York theosophical society.
It is true that the great merit of ancient philosophers or religious was to have an open mind when it came to the world of the paranormal, but, like contemporary men, they were also influenced by ignorance and superstition. Unfortunately, today's scientists have more knowledge, but it is precisely for this reason that they have become more arrogant and less predisposed to admit everything that is beyond their sphere of influence.
Another mistake that in my opinion Elena Blabatsky made, like other followers of the metaphysical, was to propose that the stay of the spirit in the human form would only be temporary, supposedly until reaching higher levels of spiritual evolution. This error is the consequence of equating the ugliness and backwardness of human society with our material body, but it is forgotten that the human body is in its essence perfect, except in those cases in which diseases do not allow it to be seen. This means that it is not the human body, but the human civilization that is backward and should change, therefore, when this process of evolution achieves that the level of technology reaches the same evolutionary level that our body already has, then the world will reach perfection. Because happiness is not achieved by abandoning the material world, but by making human life in line with spiritual values. When that happens, spirits will be able to reincarnate in this world and be happy until the end of time, because this is the true reason for all natural evolution. In my opinion, she underestimates human life, because she does not understand that this body that we now have from birth is not something that arises out of nowhere, because the world has needed many millions of years of biological evolution to be able to have it and therefore, it is reasonable to think that its use should not be limited to being something temporary, because the human body is not a means but an end in itself to achieve happiness.
What does not make sense is to believe in a spiritual life, but imitating human life in everything, which is what those who believe in these hypotheses propose, because it will always be better to have a real human body rather than an imitation one. Because in reality the spirit is nothing more than a simple sphere of energy that is housed in the brain when reincarnation occurs, but it takes the form of a ghost or phantom because in that way the passage from a life to life is less traumatic other. Therefore, it does not make sense to pose it as a final form of life, since that spectrum is a simple imitation of the real human form. Therefore, the solution to evolve is not to abandon the human form to live in the spiritual world, but to make human life in line with spiritual values. Energy without matter or matter without energy cannot generate force by themselves, only when they are properly combined do they do so, this means that to be happy it is necessary that matter and spirit participate in the same proportion.
It is surprising how some ancient philosophers managed to achieve a high degree in the metaphysical understanding of the universe without having complex technical devices, however, this was possible because they had the most complex device that nature could create, which is the human brain. Because, in order to meditate, a philosopher only needs tranquility and meditation as tools, since his research is based on looking for those universal truths that always exist, and therefore are the same in all times and places. But, sadly, many of his discoveries ended up being ignored because of the mental confusion caused by ignorance and superstition in society. Because it is one thing for them to be able to see the light and quite another to get others to understand them when they try to explain what they have discovered.
There is no denying the great research work carried out by Elena Blabatski to unravel the origin of religions and the connections they have with each other. We must also recognize its value in terms of considering it perfectly plausible that religious or ancient mediums had contacts with spiritual entities, however, it is regrettable that this audacity did not also include the possibility of contact with beings from other worlds, since Everything seems to indicate that they have been among us for a long time.