Theos-Talk Archives (November 1997 Message tt00114)

At 03:45 PM 4/11/97 PST, you wrote:
>
>
>----------
>> I vote to let Rich Taylor resign.
>>
>> I used to be a member of theos-l, but when I tried to censor him and Jerry
>> Ekins from what I considered to be slander about Leadbeater, they refused
>> to stop, so I resigned. I would like this list to be free from that
>threat.
>> I like having somewhere special where I can write and "live" freely.
>>
>> Brenda
>
>Would you consider it slandering if I`d like to talk about Leadbeater and
>his practice of teaching masturbation to young boys(which he admitted
>himself)and would you try to censor my writing and free "living"?
>
>Mika
>
>
>
Dear me!!!!!
Here we have PERSONALITIES
Here we have HISTORICAL DISTORTION BY OMMISION.

May this totally insignificant person appeal to all participants in this
'PUBLIC talk show' to refrain from descending to personalities in these
exchanges. It must be very hurtful and counter-productive as well. The
trouble with this medium is it is so facile in use that there is danger of
sending less than charitable material over it on the impulse of the moment
and then possibly repenting at leasure.

Regarding the Leadbeater business. It is a pity that this has to be brought
up again and again in this day and age. In my some thirty years of public
work for the T.S. I will wager that I have made numerous mistakes and I am
always gratefull to those individuals who have taken me aside and privately
pointed them out in a kindly fashion. I would not welcome the thought that
these mistakes are going to be paraded in public long after I have shuffled
off this mortal coil.

Leadbeater suggested this masterbation thing to a small number of boys who
were having trouble conforming to the rigid celibate regime he damanded of
them on the Path. In the prevailing climate of almost total sexual
inhibition it was an unwise thing to have done and 'grievously has he
answered it'.

A few readers might like to know about my request to the writer of the CWL
article for the T.E. I used as an example the E.B. article on Tchaikovsky.
Tchaikovsky is in that work because he was a musical composer of the first
rank. The writer concentrated largely and correctly on an outline of his
life and work in music; his homsexuality was mentioned but takes up only a
few lines. Likewise I asked that the article concentrate on CWL's
biographical details and his work for theosophy, with factual references to
the sex controversy and his virtual dismissal from the T.S. I also wanted
critical mention made of some of his wilder 'flights of fancy'. He worked
for theosophy for half a century- he must surely have been of some benefit
to the cause!

Philip Harris