Theos-Talk Archives (January 2005 Message tt00977)

I have never been in New Zealand, but did hear Hodson lecture on several 
occasions when he was in the US. Also, a close friend of mine is from 
NZ and was a close friend of the Hodson family. 

I do recall an early book of Hodson's with a foreword by CWL, but can't 
remember the title. I do recall that CWL in this foreword mentioned 
that he did not see the things that Hodson saw. There is quite a lot of 
interesting politics concerning GH and CWL. The GH was quite the hero 
in NZ but got cooler receptions elsewhere.

--j 


Murray Stentiford wrote:

>Pedro wrote:
>
> 
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>>Perhaps the list members who are in New Zealand could comment of
>>Geoffrey Hodson and his work as a clairvoyant.
>> 
>>
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>and Paul Johnson wrote:
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>> In what sense can Adyar Theosophists whose clairvoyant
>>investigations confirmed CWL's be considered "three independent
>>investigators"? Not in any meaningful sense I can think of.
>>Suggestibility plays far too large a role in such "perceptions" for
>>me to accept any of these three as independent of CWL. Don't know
>>anything about Bendit but surely Kunz and Hodson were as
>>Leadbeaterian as any modern Theosophist could be. They saw what
>>they were looking for.
>> 
>>
>
>It's not that simple, Paul. In the clairvoyant research on aspects of 
>Occult Chemistry that I assisted Hodson with between 1978 and 1980, it 
>would have been all over in half an hour if he'd short-circuited into the 
>pre-existing CWL images of benzene molecules. In fact, the work spread over 
>about 10 sessions of more than an hour each, revealing all sorts of 
>structural features, but, to my recollection, he never once saw the benzene 
>shapes that CWL saw in all that time. He certainly had, previously, seen 
>some of the forms like the oxygen spiral, that CWL had described; it's not 
>as if he couldn't see these things. He has seen stuff that CWL hadn't 
>recorded, like spiral forces around the electrons travelling in a cathode 
>ray tube - a relative of the ones used in TV and computer monitors. Such 
>spiral forces are quite consonant with the ideas of electromagnetism.
>
>Hodson would get quite vague about previous knowledge when he was focused 
>in his research state, not more aware of it, as you'd expect if it had been 
>the source of his perceptions. He had a practice of creating a "blank 
>white sheet of the mind" before he began, and it certainly looked as if he 
>had succeeded in doing it, from all his responses. He worked hard to 
>maintain independence, and didn't want to be told what previous 
>theosophists had found, before or during the work.
>
>This research revealed the huge variety and complexity of reality when you 
>open up other senses. Far from seeing what he was looking for, Hodson would 
>ask his co-investigator what to look for, to the extent of what direction 
>to take the search.
>
>In any case, Hodson was no kid in this matter; he was totally aware of the 
>tendency for the brain-mind to put pre-existing images around the primary 
>hyper-sensory input, and I recall taking part in a 3-way discussion that 
>Hodson had with his doctor and research assistant, David Lyness, about the 
>role of the brain-mind in clairvoyance, about this very phenomenon.
>
>In short, the dominant impressions I got of Hodson were:
>
>1 Well aware of his own limitations and not claiming infallibility.
>2 Relentless integrity, well beyond the point where most would be 
>satisfied.
>3 Total dedication to finding, as best as possible, the truth of a 
>matter.
>4 Willingness to admit being wrong and having another go.
>5 A great funneling or reduction of the primary information in its path
> first into the brain, then into language.
>6 Caution in stating his findings, because experience had shown him
> how the theosophical mob can both put a person with extended abilities
> up on a pedestal, and pull them down - both far from the truth.
> Reminds me of some of the discussions on this list.
>
>I certainly revised my ideas about him, on spending time with him. It's 
>inevitable.
>
>Murray 
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>Yahoo! Groups Links
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