Theos-Talk Archives (January 2002 Message tt00142)

--- In theos-talk@y..., Steve Stubbs <stevestubbs@y...> wrote:
> > It is unfortunate, and I wonder why, an initial
> > impuls fueled by a 
> > series of Theosophical History conferrences seems to
> > have stopped 
> > cold in its tracks. Paul, Godwin, and Deveney have
> > largely 
> > discontinued, ore extremely slowed down their
> > research
> 
> Probably because there is nothing in it. Nobody is
> going to win an academic chair and a lifetime sinecure
> for writing a book on Theosophy. 

I don't think this reason applies. Godwin already has earned his 
academic stripes; a lawyer and a librarian aren't going to do so no 
matter what subject they write about!

They can win the
> undying enmity of fundamentalists, which surely
> surprises and dismays every one of them. I susspect
> they just had an unpleasant collision with reality.
> 

Maybe Jocelyn and Pat were subjected to the kind of hate mail and 
email etc. that I've been, but I don't think so. Not being 
Theosophists, they wouldn't have been in the line of fire. More to 
the point, though, of "what went wrong with Theosophical history?" 
would be the testimony of James Santucci and Leslie Price, current 
and former heads of the Theosophical History Centre/Foundation and 
the conferences they sponsored. Both of them mentioned, IIRC, in 
interviews with me and Brigitte, that they'd been seriously 
disappointed by the indifference/opposition of Theosophical 
organizations to historical research and conferences.

PJ