Theos-Talk Archives (August 1998 Message tt00350)

Paul,

Thanks again for your post (below).  I was hoping that I would have more
time in order to adequately reply to your various points.  At this time
I cannot go over everything I would like to, so I will give comments but
on two of your statements.  I still have not responded to Jerry
Schueler's comments on the Adept Brotherhood that he posted last week.
I hope to also do that sometime later this week.

Paul, at two places in your post you refer to "scholars" and
"scholarship":

#1 reference:

> *Not* OK, there's no credible evidence for this and the
> overwhelming judgment of scholarship would be that such a thing
> is not just unproven but extremely implausible.

#2 reference:

> So talk
> of a "universal freemasonry of science and philosophy" can have a
> certain symbolic inner truth even though it refers to historical
> circumstances that never existed-- or at least cannot be shown to
> have existed by evidence that would persuade scholars.

Let us look at the possible background assumptions that you hold in
regard to your references to scholars and scholarship:

What "scholars" in particular are you referring to?  Are you referring
to such "scholars" like Paul Edwards or Gordon Melton or ?  I have found
that far too many of these scholars have biases, etc. of their own by
which they prejudge occult/theosophical ideas and claims.  And most of
these so-called scholars/scientists also have a profound ignorance of
these paranormal/occult/theosophical subjects.

Please read  what Dean Radin says about the "skepticism" of such
scholars/scientists in his 1997 book THE CONSCIOUS UNIVERSE.

Also read two books put out by your own publisher SUNY:

(1) Parapsychology, Philosophy and Spirituality by David Ray Griffin.
This is an excellent book and shows some of the biases of the socalled
scholarly community.

(2) Paranormal Experience and Survival of Death by Carl B. Becker
Especially chapters 4 and 5.

Also cosnult Stephen Braude's book THE LIMITS OF INFLUENCE, especially
his first chapter on "The importance of non-experimental evidence."

And please do not forget the harsh assessment of the
scientific/scholarly community by Ray Hyman (who BTW is skeptical of the
paranormal).  Dr. Hyman ADMITS the following:

". . . members of the scientific community often judge the
parapsychological claims WITHOUT FIRSTHAND KNOWLEDGE OF THE EXPERIMENTAL
EVIDENCE.

"VERY FEW of the scientific critics have examined even one of the many
experimental reports on psychic phenomena.

"Even FEWER, IF ANY, have examined the bulk of the parapsychological
literature. . . .

"Consequently, parapsychologists have justification for their complaint
that the scientific community is dismissing their claims WITHOUT A FAIR
HEARING."


The books (mentioned above) document in detail Hyman's assessment.

And I believe Hyman's remarks can be extended from the strictly
parapsychogical to the broader areas of the
occult/theosophical/paranormal that we are discussing.

So when you write about HPB's claim of an organized Adept Brotherhood
as  follows:

> *Not* OK, there's no credible evidence for this and the
> overwhelming judgment of scholarship would be that such a thing
> is not just unproven but extremely implausible,

are you making an "appeal" to the "OVERWHELMING judgment of
scholarship"?  By referring to this "overwhelming judgment of
scholarship", what are you hoping your readers here on Theos-Talk will
accept?

And if you are making such an appeal, why?  And just what constitutes
this "scholarship"?  And how reliable is this scholarship? AND WHY
SHOULD WE BE SO IMPRESSED WITH THIS SCHOLARSHIP AND ITS JUDGMENT?

And what kind of evidence are you referring to in the above statement?
And what evidence would be credible?  And credible to whom?

Credible to these scholars/scientists who prejudge all of this and who
know little if anything about the subject?

Paul, I'm not asking you these questions with the expectation that you
will answer all of them.  But I am hoping that you and others reading
this will do some hard thinking on the various points raised in my
questions.

According to the skeptical scientific/scholarly community (as described
in the various books mentioned above), all the evidence for ESP,
telepathy, life after death, reincarnation, etc. etc. is not considered
credible and is rejected. This community probably rejects all the major
tenets of Theosophy.  Not to mention Cayce and his teachings.

And how would this same "scholarship" and these same "scholars" deal
with some of your own statements/beliefs?

For example, you wrote in TMR:

"The names Ooton Liatto and Hilarion Smerdis have been equally
impossible to find in biographical and historical reference books.
While both may be pseudonyms, there is little doubt that two real adepts
visited Olcott in New York."

What would be the assessment by "scholars" of this statement of yours?
Especially when they learned that the only evidence you have about these
2 adepts was provided by Blavatky and Olcott.

What would the "overwhelming judgment of scholarship" be?

Or consider one of your possibilities regarding Agardi Metrovitch:

"A third alternative is that Metrovitch was indeed dead but was working
with HPB from the 'other side'."  (TMR, p. 37)

I don't know how serious you were in mentioning this "possibility" nor
do I know whether you seriously believe in some kind of life after
bodily death.  But I do know that the scientific/scholarly community (as
described by Hyman, Radin, Braude, Griffen, etc.) would probably just
GRIN AND SMIRK when reading such a statement from your pen.

There are other examples in your 3 books which I could cite and then ask
similar questions.

WHAT AM I GETTING OUT?  WHAT'S MY POINT?

I'm not trying to be difficult with you; just asking you (and others) to
examine your OWN statements and background assumptions.  Just as it is
good for Blavatsky/Theosophical students to question their own
assumptions, etc., it is good for you, Jerry Schueler and the rest of us
to do the same.

So when you refer to

"evidence that would persuade scholars"

and to

"the overwhelming judgment of scholarship"

SHOULD ANY OF US THEOSOPHISTS READING YOUR STATEMENTS BE IMPRESSED BY
YOUR APPEAL TO THESE SCHOLARS AND THEIR SCHOLARSHIP???

I am not against "scholarship".  Of course, it depends on what your
definition of the term is.  But I am not impressed by this "scholarship"
in general which prejudges many things based on almost total ignorance
of the subject matter. Of course, there may be individual scholars who
are exceptions to what Hyman describes in his statement.  Paul, if you
want to cite their particular judgments, etc., please do.  Then we can
grapple with those judgments and go through the points made one by one.

I have written this in a rush.  I hope a few readers will understand my
points.

I will deal later with the rest of Paul's comments.

Daniel Caldwell



K. Paul Johnson wrote:
>
> Daniel, your post allows plenty of material to discuss in the
> effort to clarify what I mean by "full doctrine on a silver
> platter"-- which is the naive interpretation of how HPB received
> her ideas from her adept teachers.  Whether or not you would
> adhere to such an interpretation is a litmus test of Theosophical
> fundamentalism.  Perhaps my explanation of the issue of eclectism
> vs. pure transmission of a unitary body of doctrine will help you
> define your own position.  Retracing our steps: I quoted a passage
> in which HPB states that the doctrines of the SD are found
> scattered in many other texts.  You blamed me for not appending
> the next part:  "The sole advantage which the writer has over her
> predecessors, is that she need not resort to personal
> speculations and theories.  For this work is a partial statement
> if what she herself has been taught by more advanced students,
> supplemented, in a few details only, by the results of her own
> study and observation."  You say this conveys the "whole message
> conveyed in the entire paragraph" but what you take that message
> to be does not coincide with what I see there.
>
> HPB could be entirely eclectic, that is building up a systematic
> body of doctrines out of multiple traditional sources, without
> its contradicting the above passage in the slightest.  All she is
> saying above is that almost every doctrine taught in the book was
> not original with her, but came from "more advanced students" who
> taught her.  There is no claim in this passage that these more advanced
> students were all part of one outward organization, all knew one another,
> all taught and learned the same identical body of doctrines.
> Elsewhere you may find passages that imply such a claim, but I
> can counter with at least an equal number that present HPB's
> relationships with her living teachers in a different light-- as
> connections with different traditions exemplified by people in
> different parts of the world who did not know one another.  So
> let's not resort to "proof texts" as that leads nowhere.  Suffice
> it to observe that there are two levels of claims in the
> literature, one of which I find confirmable in history, the other
> of which looks highly suspicious to anyone with knowledge of
> religious history and occult legends.  Level #1:  "I learned
> virtually everything from experts in occult doctrines, and have
> done little innovating or modification."  OK, not hard to accept
> in light of how many experts she can be seen to have known.
> Level #2: "and all these elements in my writings are in fact part
> of a single occult tradition which is preserved secretly in
> various places around the globe but which is a unitary body of
> knowledge that has existed as such for very long periods of
> time."  Attached to this are claims about Senzar, cave libraries,
> international telepathic communication networks, etc.
> *Not* OK, there's no credible evidence for this and the
> overwhelming judgment of scholarship would be that such a thing
> is not just unproven but extremely implausible.
>
> When you refer to "isolated" adepts she may have known, that
> misrepresents my thought, since the adept mentors I write about
> are linked in various kinds of "lodges"-- Masonic, Hindu, Sikh--
> and HPB is getting *traditions* through them, not just the ideas
> of individuals.  But she is getting *separate traditions*, with
> whatever commentary on their interconnections her sources might
> have provided, and integrating them herself.
>
> You may be right that "full doctrine on a silver platter" is a
> caricature of what HPB and the adepts claimed.  But it is a naive
> view that is widely assumed in the Theosophical movement and
> clearly underlies the things Dallas was saying in his discussion
> with Kym.
>
> Some of your quotes are irrelevant to the issue at hand.  That
> HPB knew "Eastern adepts" and studied "their science" does not
> necessarily mean that all their knowledge was a single science.
> If she said she had known "philosophers" and studied "their
> discipline" would that mean there was only one philosophy to be
> studied rather than an eclectic assortment?  When you talk about
> the fundamental truths of all that we are permitted to know on
> earth (quoting from Isis) and "one unbroken chain around the
> globe" which was a "universal freemasonry of science and
> philosophy" I think it important to note that at one level a
> historical claim is being made here.  That should be subject to
> all the same criteria of evidence that any such claim would be,
> and comes up mighty short as a literal thing.  But at a mythical
> level, whatever we humans deeply know because it is inherent in
> our being does give a certain consistency and coherence to the
> widest range of spiritual teachings in diverse places.  So talk
> of a "universal freemasonry of science and philosophy" can have a
> certain symbolic inner truth even though it refers to historical
> circumstances that never existed-- or at least cannot be shown to
> have existed by evidence that would persuade scholars.
>
> Cheers,
> PJ