The Big Bang and Theosophy
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- Published: Friday, 21 January 2011 03:00
Astrophysicists generally hold that our universe began with a Big Bang, before which nothing existed. That would make our universe a unique event in cosmic history. Now, however, two mathematicians (British Roger Penrose and Armenian V. G. Gurzadyan) have argued that cosmic microwave radiation includes a pattern of concentric circles, which they explain as possibly gravitational waves resulting from the collisions of supersized black holes existing before the Big Bang. In a New York Times report they propose “that our universe may ‘be but one aeon in a (perhaps unending) succession of such aeons.’ What we think of as our ‘universe’ may simply be one link in a chain of universes, each beginning with a big bang and ending in a way that sends detectable gravitational waves into the next universe.” The Times report concludes that our “universe — however we define it — . . . contains more wonders than we can begin to imagine.” That is essentially a Theosophical view of the cosmos.
Follow this link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/01/opinion/01wed4.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=a211
Ms Osborne is unfortunately badly informed about Theosophy and so makes a number of wrong generalizations about it. Those errors have, in the interest of faithful quotation, been left in the following extracts from the book. But readers of Theosophy Forward will know that, pace Ms Osborne, Theosophy is not “a religion,” but a spiritual philosophy; it is not a “cult” (which is a dismissive term for religious bodies one does not like); it is considerably more than a combination of Hinduism and Buddhism; and it certainly has nothing to say about a “God” that one can communicate with. A number of simple factual errors have been omitted from the following quotations or simply passed over to save the need for correcting them. But here, with various of its misconceptions and factual errors, are some of the book’s observations about Theosophy among the flappers of the Jazz age:
Harry's specific quest in this book is to save Sirius, who was James Potter's best friend and is Harry’s godfather. Harry achieves this quest by using the Patronus Charm and by establishing harmony with the hippogriff Buckbeak. The Patronus [Latin for “protector, defender, patron”] is a silvery form projected by a wizard and embodying hope, happiness, and wellbeing to counteract the effects of Dementors, who drain all joy and happiness from others. (Dementia is "mental deterioration and emotional apathy" with no known cure; it includes Alzheimer's and has been called "the greatest medical challenge of the 21st Century.") The Dementors are faceless beings, having only a mouth with which they suck the soul, sense of self, and memory out of their victims, leaving them as the living dead. Harry at first has great difficulty with this very advanced charm, but finally, when he himself is attacked by Dementors, sees a familiar-looking figure in the distance working it perfectly to scatter the threatening Dementors. At first he thinks the figure is his father. But later he realizes the figure was actually himself when he had used the Time-Turner to come back to save Buckbeak and Sirius. As a result, he can use the charm consciously and effectively, having discovered his own positive force.
