Theos-Talk Archives (February 2000 Message tt00003)

Dear Eldon,

With respect to my published notes on Albert Einstein and the Secret 
Doctrine... Dallas TenBroek may be justified, if his information is correct, 
in assuming that my memory of the conversation with Mrs. Wadia about 25 years 
ago may be a bit twisted.  At the time that I met Mrs. Wadia, and 
participated in the conversation about Albert Einstein and the SD, she was 
with several other women from India who had accompanied her to the ULT 
meeting for her lecture.  Also, at the post lecture group surrounding Mrs. 
Wadia and her friends when we heard the story about Einstein's niece, were 
several other lodge associates and visitors.

Accordingly, having conversed with several others in the group, as well as 
Mrs. Wadia, I may have mistakenly attributed to Mrs. Wadia the story we heard 
then about the niece of Dr. Einstein.  I seem to remember Mrs. Wadia telling 
the anecdote, or at least introducing it, but perhaps it was completed by one 
of the other women (whom I later may have assumed was Mrs. Wadia speaking 
from first hand knowledge).  

Nevertheless, the details of conversation with respect to the questions I 
asked and the answers received is quite clear in my memory.  Admittedly, in 
retrospect, not paying much attention to individual persons speaking at the 
time (since several of the women were wearing similar Indian garb:-) and 
being so caught up in the information about the conditions of the book, I 
could very well have confused Mrs. Wadia with some other lady in her group 
who may have been the eyewitness who answered my questions -- since all the 
visiting ladies seemed to have known about the story before we heard it at 
the NYC Lodge.   

Also, since Sylvia Cranston (Anita Atkins) was also lecturt account for her 
footnote in the HPB biography other than that it referred to a confirmation 
of the story that she obtained several years later in California directly 
from Mrs. Layton.  Also, since I worked, along with Carey Williams (Caren 
Elin -- who was also at the NY Lodge at the time) on some of the scientific 
correlation in the HPB Biography, I had always assumed that the meeting with 
Mrs. Wadia and her associates was the first time any of us heard the Einstein 
story in America.  Could this be the way all historical information gets a 
bit garbled in transmission.:-)  

Nevertheless, I apologize, and take full responsibility for any 
misapprehension this slight twist of memory, if it was so, may have caused 
your readers.

Sincerely,
 
Leon Maurer

 
------------------------------------------------------------- 
In a message dated 2/1/0 2:14:01 PM, dalval@nwc.net writes:

Feb 1st 2000


From:  W. Dallas TenBroeck

    dalval@nwc.net


        Re:     Correction requested on Dr. Einstein's SECRET DOCTRINE

            Mr.  L.  Maurer

            THEOSOPHY WORLD,  Jan 31st 2000 issue.


Dear Eldon:


In regard to the article by Mr. L. Maurer on Dr. Einstein using a

copy of the Secret Doctrine, would you allow me to make a

correction?



One of the statements that Mr. Maurer makes from his memory of a

talk he heard at the UNITED LODGE OF THEOSOPHISTS in New York by

Mrs. Sophia Wadia in the 1970s, implies that Mme. Wadia said she

was in Adyar when Dr. Einstein's niece brought her uncle's copy

of the SECRET DOCTRINE to the TPH or to the Library there.


Mr. Maurer writes from memory.


Allow me to state that to the best of my knowledge, and to the

knowledge of my friends and fellow associates at the United Lodge

of Theosophists in Bombay who lived and worked with her until her

death  [Sunday, April 27 1986]  --  (and with whom I have just

conferred) states that she never visited Adyar during the period

of her life and work in India, a fact well known to me.


It is therefore probable that there is some confusion in memory

operating in this.  If Mme. Wadia never visited Adyar, she would

not have seen or handled Dr. Einstein's SECRET DOCTRINE.  She

would have had no direct knowledge of the incident narrated.


Best wishes,


W. Dallas TenBroeck


dalval@nwc.net


=======================


    REFERENCE:


(Please note that the materials presented in THEOSOPHY WORLD are

the intellectual property of their respective authors and may not

be reposted or otherwise republished without prior permission.)


=================================================================

=

CONTENTS


THEOSOPHY WORLD  Issue for January 31st 2000



"How Did Albert Einstein Intuit E=MC^2?" by Leon Maurer

"There Are No Neo-Theosophists," by Dallas TenBroeck

    ...etc....


    SNIP



-----------------------------------------------------------------

-

HOW DID ALBERT EINSTEIN INTUIT E=M^2?


by Leon Maurer


That's easy. He looked it up in THE SECRET DOCTRINE.


On the 20th Anniversary of Einstein's death (1975), physicist

Richard Feynman was quoted in TIME MAGAZINE as saying:


> I cannot understand how he arrived at the intuition leading to

> E=MC^2, considering the level of scientific knowledge at the

> time [1905].


This equation states that


> ...mass or substance is equivalent to energy and that time and

> space are integral parts of the substance-energy continuum.

>

> -- A. March and I.M Freeman, THE NEW WORLD OF PHYSICS, 1963.


A niece of Einstein reported that a copy of THE SECRET DOCTRINE

was always on his desk.


> Iverson Harris, THE JOURNAL OF SAN DIEGO HISTORY, SAN DIEGO

> (California) HISTORICAL SOCIETY, Summer, 1974, 16. In checking

> this information it was learned that a niece of Einstein's, in

> India during the 1960s, paid a visit to the headquarters of the

> Theosophical Society at Adyar. She explained that she knew

> nothing of theosophy or the society, but had to see the place

> because her uncle always had a copy of Madame Blavatsky's SECRET

> DOCTRINE on his desk. The individual to whom the niece spoke was

> Eunice Layton, a world renowned theosophical lecturer who

> happened to be at the reception desk when she arrived. While in

> Ojai, California, in 1982, Sylvia Cranston met Mrs. Eunice

> Layton, who confirmed the story.

> -- Cranston, S. L., HPB: THE EXTRAORDINARY LIFE AND INFLUENCE

>  OF  HELENA BLAVATSKY, Preface, Note 11, 557)]


Another witness, Jack Brown, reports similarly in an article, "I

visited Professor Einstein." (See OJAI VALLEY NEWS, Ojai,

California, September 28, 1983." (ibid, Notes, Preface, Note 12.,

558.)


---


Here's the story as I got it:


> Sometime, around the mid 1970s, I was attending a lecture by a

> foreign visitor at the United Lodge of Theosophists in New York

> City. After the talk, a group of students and I met the speaker,

> Mrs. Wadia, the elderly British born widow of a well known

> Indian theosophical writer and lecturer.

>

> She told us that when she was at the Theosophical Publishing

> Company in Adyar during the mid 1960s, she met Einstein's niece,

> who said she had come to the TPC headquarters to offer their

> library the book that was at the bedside of her uncle when he

> died. Mrs. Wadia said that she and several others at the Adyar

> Lodge gratefully accepted the worn out and dog-eared copy of

> the first edition of THE SECRET DOCTRINE.

>

> I asked Mrs Wadia whether she actually handled and opened the

> book. She answered that she had. When I specifically asked if

> there were any margin notes, she said that the book was heavily

> notated and underlined, and that the margins were covered with

> scribbles and other markings that none of them could make heads

> nor tails of. (What would we give to get a look at them?) When

> someone else asked what happened to the book, she said, it was

> still in the library of the Lodge in Adyar.

>

> Whether it could still be found there today, is anybody's guess..

> (If anyone gets to read its "scribbles" as a result of this lead,

> please let me know.)

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