Theos-Talk Archives (February 1998 Message tt00084)

Feb 13 1998            Dallas offers :

Dear Peter Calvert:

Your questions on the TS and its "mandate" are solvable, if you read a
documentary history of the Theosophical Movement covering the last 125 years
or so since the T S was launched.

There is an impartial and comprehensive history based on actual documents
available under the title THE THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT : 1875 -1950,
published by Cunningham Press, Los Angeles, and available through Theosophy
Company, 245 W. 33rd St., Los Angeles, Ca., 90007, USA

The TS was made the "vehicle" for communicating "Eastern (Aryan) esoteric
works"  ( SD I 226) into the English language.  Up until the publication by
HPB of articles and books on behalf of the Masters of Wisdom, such
information had not been gathered together and offered to the Western world
as  comprehensive and systematic evidence of Eastern Wisdom down the ages,
and as the source of every great religious philosophy during the past 5 to
15,000 years (as an abbreviated view of the recent beginnings and
engraftings of one faith to the older ones -- in reality Theosophy as fact
and history is as old as thinking man).

But the TS was not given a monopoly.  As I recently posted in a note on
"Brotherhood" HPB set the principles of individual adherence to the TS --
"the vehicle of Theosophy" in full view.  I suggested that her article in
the form of an open letter addressed to the Temporary Editor of the
THEOSOPHIST, Mr. Harte, (who edited the magazine temporarily, while Col.
Olcott, the President Founder of the TS was on tour)

HPB had to draw the attention of the Editor (temporary) of the THEOSOPHIST
to the fundamental facts of Theosophy as a philosophy based on universal
truths.  She did this openly in her article entitled "A Puzzle From Adyar."
This was published in THEOSOPHIST, Vol 10, August 1889  [ 14 years after the
TS was launched in New York ].  If you desire a copy of this article I can
make a Xerox and send it to you.  It has been reprinted in recent years in
such magazines as THEOSOPHY (monthly magazine published by Theosophy
Company, Los Angeles for the past 85 years) or THE THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT
(Bombay, India).

If you read and study THE MAHATMA LETTERS, you will soon realize that they
wrote Mr. Sinnett and others on matter of principle.  Any organization is
useful to THEOSOPHY if it adopts pursues and maintains as pure as possible
the PRINCIPLES which are an integral part of THEOSOPHY -- the
"Wisdom-Religion" of antiquity.  So, to answer your 2nd question,
"authority" lies in the principles advanced, and it is expected that every
student or person who is touched by Theosophical philosophy and ethics, will
work to verify those principles independently of anything else, including
the TS or any organization which claims to provide and represent Theosophy
to its members.

Theosophy, as logic and doctrine expects individuals to independently study
and arrive at conclusions on their own, and not follow a "party line."

Brotherhood is the direct result of the vast Unity of our all living
together, and of the Single Source from which all comes.  The first 25 pages
of the Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 illustrates this well.  It is worth careful
study.

I hope this is of some help. and will be glad to add information to these
views of mine if desired.

Dallas