Theos-Talk Archives (February 1998 Message tt00130)

The following is the contents of a letter of which I have a
photocopy. It pertains to the question regarding why the
Yugoslavia Section split with Adyar. It would be interesting
if anyone else has other information regarding what happened.

What I wonder about when reading the letter is how things
can get so polarized, so fragmented, so driven apart. When
our dark suspicions of others grow to the point that we
portray them as evil, enemies of our work, and when we no
longer talk to them, so there's no "reality check" to naysay
our dark imaginings, we've made each other into monsters
of our own creation.

Just as, in our positive support of others, encouraging them
in their spiritual work, we add brightness and light into
the world, similarly, in our negative *and unsubstantiated*
suspicions about others, we bring darkness and gnawing
hatred into the world. What's important is that we always
keep open lines of communication, brotherliness, and a
spirit of cooperation, and not shun and demonize our fellow
Theosophists.

-- Eldon

----

THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN YUGOSLAVIA
Gen. Sec.: Emilio Trampuz
Proleterskih brig. 226 F
41000 Zagreb
YUGOSLAVIA
Zagreb, 18th March 1984.

All General Secretaries
and other active members
of The Theosophical Society

Dear brother co-workers,

I am writing to inform you that the Theosophical Society in
Yugoslavia is not a Section of the International Society any
more, at least temporarily, even though we are still working for
the original Cause for which the Society was established. The
separation from Adyar which has occurred is only administrative.
You are probably interested to know how and why it happened. It
is useful to know, because the same might happen in your own
Section too.

Like most Sections, we too had a group of conservative and a
group of more liberal and broad-minded members. It was the
latter who did most of the work, whereas the conservatives did
the criticizing. This is not unusual. In spite of the
differences, for many years there was at least a recognition of
the fact that we are all working for the same Cause, each in its
own way. But during the last two or three years there was a
dramatic change for the worse.

The person most responsible for it is Jennifer Krevel, an English
lady married to Leon Krevel, who is a Yugoslav and who has for
many years been president of Lodge "Service" in the town of
Ljubljana. It was Jennifer Krevel who did most harm to our
Section and precipitated its separation from Adyar.

It is interesting to note that earlier in time Jennifer did not
show any interest whatsoever in our Section. She was not even a
member, although her husband was a Lodge president. Then,
suddenly, she decides to join our Section, and soon after that
she takes over the leadership of the Lodge from her husband and
starts with her destructive activity, in which she has steadily
persisted during the last three years.

Naturally, she herself could not do much harm. She never got
much support from our members. But it seems she has strong
connections with some members of the European Federation,
"esoteric" connections, and judging by her sudden involvement in
our work and by the instant support she received from some of the
leaders of the European Federation, it would not seem improbable
that she was instructed from abroad and received a mission to
accomplish, which she did very well, as is seen from the end
results.

For the past three years, Jennifer has engaged in purely
destructive criticism. She has undoubtedly criticized anyone who
contributed actively to the work within our Section. She has
fanatically tried to denigrate most of the leaders of our
Section. She has criticized our Summer School, our publications,
and our work in general, accusing us of being too broad and
universal, not "theosophical" enough. She wanted to impose on

all our members a uniform and rather narrow understanding of
Theosophy.

This is, in fact, our main point of disagreement, which causes
all the other misunderstandings. Most of us define something as
"theosophical" if it helps the spiritual evolution of man, if it
helps his growth and deepens his inner awareness. Jennifer and
her supporters in Lodge "Service", however, see as theosophical
only that which comes from Adyar or from our most prominent
members; everything else is "untheosophical". But there is
another important difference between us. We have never tried to
impose anything on them, whereas Jennifer Krevel has constantly
tried to force her views on everyone else. She herself is unable
to see anything spiritual or valuable outside of our Society, and
she would like to impose the same limited view on all our other
members. She is thus degrading Theosophy into just another
religion with its own dogmas, and with Adyar being a kind of
infallible authority whose judgement is not to be questioned.

We would not blame her for holding such views if she did not try
to impose them on others and if she were not so destructive in
her activity.

She has criticized and slandered even things she knows nothing
about, or even when she had no real arguments. For example, she
has criticized us for doing Sufi Dancing / a type of devotional
practice with music / at our Summer Camp, but she has never said
what is so "untheosophical" about it. Sufi Dancing has been done
at numerous Summer Schools in America, New Zealand, in Belgium /
in Spa /, in Huizen, and in Adyar / when John Coats was
President / . Similarly, Jennifer has criticized us for teaching
people the principles of positive thinking, and for teaching
concentration, relaxation and visualization exercises which
cannot be found in books published by T.P.H. She has criticized
the work of Lodge "Phoenix" without ever having seen it and
without ever attending any of its meetings. She has criticized
our whole Executive Committee for changing its own decisions in
accordance with the changing circumstances. With her constant
criticism at the meetings she has almost paralyzed the work of
the Executive Committee. She has made the work of Lodge
"Brotherhood", which shared the same premises with her own Lodge,
very difficult, by trying to control all its activities, behaving
in a very autocratic manner. She has even acted directly against
our General Secretary, preventing a meeting of his with members
of Lodge "Brotherhood", at which he was supposed to give a talk
on the Evolution of Man. On that occasion, she wanted to impose
a different theme for the meeting, and gave us an ultimatum: if
we do not accept her own topic, we must leave the premises --
which we did. Jennifer has similarly tried to control all the
activities within our Section. She has broken the basic
principles of the Theosophical Society, the principles of
brotherhood, tolerance and the freedom of thought in the Society.

Due to her constant destructive criticism, she has greatly
damaged the reputation of our Society in the public because her
activities are the reverse of what a theosophist should be doing,

and her own example repels people from our Society.

Finally, Jennifer has done all that was within her power to
destroy the reputation of our Section abroad, by writing
slanderous letters and giving a totally distorted picture of our
work.

As a result of this kind of activity, Radha Burnier, our
international President simply canceled the Charters of five of
our Lodges, which constitute 80% of our Section, and also
canceled the membership of 8 of the most active workers and
leaders of our Section, including our General Secretary, our Vice
president, our Secretary, and the Lodge presidents. In other
words, it was an attempt to destroy our Section as such.

At the same time, Radha gave her full support to Jennifer Krevel
and her Lodge "Service", as well as to two other small Lodges
which have sided with Jennifer. Radha now considers these three
Lodges to be the only representatives of the Adyar Theosophical
Society in Yugoslavia. Needless to say, our members, especially
the older ones are very distressed at this, disillusioned, and
disappointed in Adyar. Some can hardly believe that such a
decision can come from Adyar.

To satisfy the form, before making the above decision, Radha has
sent someone from the European Federation to investigate the
situation in oar Section. However, this investigator was
obviously biased. She / a lady / spent A WHOLE WEEK in the town
of Ljubljana, with Jennifer and her supporters, planning their
moves, and then spent only two days in Zagreb, where the
headquarters of our Section is located, excusing herself that she
did not have more time. In Ljubljana she talked to everyone; in
Zagreb she met only three people and REFUSED to talk to the
others, saying that it is not important what the others may have
to say, as they can say nothing new. In this way she did not
give our members an opportunity to present to her the real state
of affairs.

Radha Burnier explains her decision to cancel the Lodges and
expel our members giving as the main reason / and ONLY reason /
the fact that we have allowed a certain Lodge to be formed, a
Lodge which is being led by a person whose theosophical knowledge
has been gathered outside the limits of our Society, but who has
been working very devotedly for our Section for the past three
years. The decision to form the new Lodge was made by our
Executive Committee, with 9 votes in favor of it, 3 withheld from
voting, and no one was against it -- not even Jennifer Krevel.
Now, the interesting thing is that the list of the 8 expelled
members does not correspond to the list of the 9 members who have
voted for the formation of the new Lodge. In fact, it is quite
different. Our Treasurer, for example, has voted for the new
Lodge but was not expelled. Jasna Zubcic, president of another
Lodge, voted for, but was not expelled. On the other hand, Igor
Jerman, former Vice-president, had no voting power at that
meeting, but was nevertheless expelled by Rahda Burnier.

Upon further analysis, it soon becomes clear that the list of
expelled members matches exactly the list of people who have
signed a petition against Jennifer Wrevel in August 1983, asking

that disciplinary action be taken against her. So, it is obvious
that the reason Radha Burnier quotes is not the real one. It is
obvious that Radha has simply sided with the most conservative,
dogmatic and destructive elements in our Section, and has
expelled all those who have opposed it.

But, let us return to our Section.

Not content with all the harm already done to the theosophical
movement here, Jennifer and her supporters are now claiming the
Society for themselves, even though they are only a small
minority in fact. We could not just give up and hand over to
them the results of years and years of our work. If we allowed
them to take over the Society, who would carry on the work? Who
would continue all the publishing projects? Who would take care
of the large distribution of our books through bookstores around
the country? Who would continue the public lectures and courses
we organized? Who would organize the Summer Schools? All this
work has been done by us alone. Jennifer and her Lodge never
showed any interest in continuing the work. They only criticized
it, and even diminished the activity of their own Lodge by
closing their library to non-members.

Clearly, we could not permit our Society and our work to fall
apart just like that. But, as long as we were a Section of the
International Society, Jennifer could claim the right to take
over our Society, on the basis of Radha Burnier's official order,
which states that the Yugoslav Section is now being represented
only by Jennifer's Lodge. Therefore, we HAD TO separate
ourselves from the international Society, IN ORDER TO SAVE THE
WORK.

Our decision to proclaim the Yugoslav Section independent from
Adyar was made at a special Convention, which had been announced
to discuss the situation even before we received Radha Burnier's
order. Our decision was made UNANIMOUSLY, because Jennifer and
her few supporters boycotted the Convention by not comming. I
would like to stress that it is only an administrative move to
protect our Society and our work.

We would be only too happy to return to the International Society
if it stopped supporting those who would like to make a religion
out of Theosophy, and who so deliberately undermined all positive
activity in our Section for years now.

But we feel we do not have many friends left in Adyar. John
Coats, Jean Raymond, B. R. Mullik are all dead now. They have
been very much in support of our work. Brother Mullik, who was
the last one of them to visit us, said that he sees great
potential in our country and forsees a bright future for the
theosophical movement here. In fact, he even intimated that he
believes Yugoslavia may play an important role in the future
development of the Theosophical Society, for he saw a lot of life
and energy here.

Radha Burnier, on the other hand, has never been very
sympathetic. She has never been here, but she has some negative
feelings about Yugoslavia. Is it, perhaps, because Yugoslavia
was one of the few countries which gave more votes to Rukmini in
the last elections? Or is it because she knows our General
Secretary from the time he worked with John Coats in Adyar,

editing the magazine PHONIX RISING which was not to her liking?

Our Section was never involved or interested in the internal
politics within the Society. All we wanted was to be able to
concentrate on the work of spreading Theosophy, making people
more aware of spiritual values, helping them to deepen their
understanding and their awareness. But we were constantly
subjected to pressure from the dogmatic conservatives, and
constantly had to justify our work and prove its correctness. We
wasted so much time and energy in this, because they were deaf
and blind to all our arguments. It is impossible to reason with
someone whose mind works on one track only.

We were hoping that we shall finally have some peace now.
Jennifer Krevel has reached her goal to a certain extent. She
had written to Adyar more than a year ago expressing a desire to
form an independent Branch within Yugoslavia, separate from the
Yugoslav Section. Radha Burnier has now, in fact, given her
blessing, and Lodge "Service" can now easily register themselves
in Ljubljana under the name of "The ADYAR Theosophical Society in
Yugoslavia", whereas we would remain simply "The YUGOSLAV
Theosophical Society", registered in Zagreb. In fact, we have
already submitted our decision to the authorities in Zagreb. It
would be only natural to expect that they will do the same in
Ljubljana. Then we could both concentrate on the work, each in
their own way.

But no! Jennifer wants to keep on fighting us. She has told us
openly that she intends to keep on fighting us "even if it takes
until she dies". She and her husband / who is a retired lawyer /
have already been in Zagreb a couple of times to talk to the
local authorities to warn them against us! Is this theosophical
brotherhood? Is this the result of a lifetime of theosophical
studies? Has her action anything to do with real Theosophy /
divine wisdom / ?

It is difficult for you, who have not experienced it, to imagine
the extent of Jennifer's destructiveness, or even to believe that
a member of our Society could act in this way. But it is all
true, and Radha Burnier supports it.

Our authorities, fortunately, are not blinded by dogmatism, and
they see clearly that there is nothing wrong with our work. So,
we carry on, as active as ever, bringing forward LIGHT ON THE
PATH as our next publication, and a translation of THE VOICE OF
THE SILENCE soon to follow.

In the meantime, Jennifer has spread a lot of slanders and
untruths about us. If you have heard any of it and would like to
hear our explanation of it, we have prepared a longer exposition
of all points of disagreement. So, if you are interested to hear
it all more in detail, we can send you a copy.

We are enclosing here a copy of a letter sent to Radha
Burnier from our Convention in January 1984. This will also tell you a
bit more about all the work we are doing here. We are now tired
of justifying our work and explaining how it really is. This
letter is only to inform you of what is going on. We hope it is
the last such letter, and that we shall finally be free to
concentrate on the work itself.

Wishing you all the best in your work!

-- Emilio Trampuz, Gen. Sec.