Theos-Talk Archives (December 2001 Message tt00539)

--- In theos-talk@y..., "Morten Sufilight" <teosophy@m...> wrote:
Hi Morten,

Thanks for your efforts to uplift the atmosphere here. You provide 
me an opening to make a point that, I think, needs emphasis. You 
wrote:

> To do an effort - and do ones best - that - I think is allright - 
and I guess God (ParaBrahman) smiles in heaven.
> But to reject wisdom - while emaling, that is not so good.

There has been a theme, sometimes explicit but usually implicit, in 
the remarks of Theosophists discomfited by historical investigation 
of HPB and Masters that does not privilege them in some special, 
elevated category. Discourse that treats them as people like any 
others, subject to the same motivations and circumstances-- which is 
standard historical discourse. The theme (accusation if you will) is 
this: "You can't approach Theosophy historically without destroying 
it spiritually." That is, there is a perception that anyone who 
takes a skeptical, historical view of a spiritual leader or movement 
is thereby a traitor. This is the same thing that infuriates some 
Christians about the Jesus Seminar, infuriates some Muslims about 
textual criticism of the Quran, etc. Baha'is and Mormons are this 
way about their scriptures too. The relationship between academic 
history and spiritual teachings is perceived to be like that between 
matter and anti-matter: mutually destructive. Many remarks here 
lately have stressed this theme.

But what is funny about this to me is that the perception that 
scholarly history and spiritual teachings cannot coexist in harmony 
is entirely on the part of those who denigrate the former and exalt 
the latter. No historical scholars on spiritual movements insist 
that their research invalidates the spiritual teachings involved; as 
a general rule it is made very clear that no such thing is intended 
or even possible. My own books frankly exalt HPB as a teacher of 
wisdom, to the point that they have been ridiculed for it.

As Steve and Eldon have both pointed out recently, the value or 
validity of the spiritual teachings in HPB's writings stand quite 
independent of the truth or falsity of the specific claims she made 
about her own life history or her sponsors. Just as the wisdom of 
the Bible is independent of the fairy tales contained therein. 

So, Morten, I point out to you that neither I nor Steve nor Brigitte 
nor anyone else has rejected wisdom in general, or the wisdom of 
HPB's teachings in particular. To look at history objectively and 
skeptically is not at all to deny the value or validity of any or all 
spiritual teachings. The people who are always accusing others of 
trying to destroy and invalidate *Theosophy* are in fact the ones 
really out to destroy and invalidate *scholarly history* as an 
approach to Theosophy.

But like it or not, there are a thousand valid angles from which to 
approach HPB and Theosophy, and those trying to silence or shame 
others for taking a different angle from their own are not the 
historians but the dogmatists. 

Cheers,

Paul