Theos-Talk Archives (January 2002 Message tt00146)

"K. Paul Johnson's Excessive Speculation"
by Daniel H. Caldwell
http://blavatsky.info

Throughout all three of his books on Madame Blavatsky
and her Masters, K. Paul Johnson indulges in excessive
speculation and constantly violates the historical
rule of "Give evidence." Jacques Barzun and Henry F.
Graff write on this kind of speculation-spinning in
their classic work titled THE MODERN RESEARCHER:

"…the rule of ‘Give evidence’ is not to be violated
without impunity. No matter how possible or plausible
the author’s conjecture, it cannot be accepted as
historical truth if he has only his hunch to support
it. What would be more than adequate for village
gossip does not begin to be enough for history. . . .
The writer. . .[may have] found his hypothesis
consistent with the facts he had gathered, and from
this consistency he deduced confirmation. He may be
imagined as saying: ‘. . . certain facts can be made
to support my view, therefore my view is proved.’ But
proof demands decisive evidence; this means evidence
that confirms one view and excludes its rivals. . . .
[The author’s] facts will fit his view and his
critic’s and several other possible views as well. To
say this is to say that they support none of them in
such a way as to discriminate between truth and
conjecture. In short, mere consistency is not enough,
nor mere plausibility, for both can apply to a wide
variety of hypotheses. The commandment about
furnishing evidence that is decisive leads us,
therefore, to a second fundamental rule: in history,
as in life critically considered, truth rests not on
possibility nor on plausibility but on probability.
Probability is used here in a strict sense. It means
the balance of chances that, given such and such
evidence [italics added], the event it records
happened in a certain way; or, in other cases, that a
supposed event did not in fact take place. . . ."
(Fourth edition, 1985, pp. 174-175.) 

In his THEOSOPHICAL HISTORY review (p. 241), Dr. John
Algeo mentions Johnson’s penchant for speculation
spinning and cites an example. In a single paragraph,
Johnson attempts to make a connection between Ranbir
Singh and Morya using the following
"possibility-plausibility" qualifiers: "it is not
unlikely . . . may have . . . it seems possible that .
. . perhaps . . . would have made . . . could have
found . . . may have made . . . might have been . . ."
(The Masters Revealed, p. 136) 

Algeo’s example reminds me of what William Kingsland
once wrote about Richard Hodgson’s similar
predilection for speculation spinning on HPB and the
Masters:

". . . Hodgson is no doubt entitled to form what
opinions he likes; but where is the proof in all this
mass of suppositions? . . . There is a vast difference
between a might have been and a was. In the one case
we are entitled to reserve our judgment; but we are
certainly not entitled to level accusations of fraud
as if we had definitely proved the case. If we are to
say was we must have very definite proof . . . . One
reads with ever-increasing disgust these conjectural
phrases with which almost every page [of Hodgson’s
Report] is freely besprinkled: ‘it may have
been’---‘there is nothing which might not have
been’---‘it might well have been’---‘it would
appear’---‘it is possible’---‘what seems to have
happened’---‘probably’---‘I think’---‘we may
suppose’---‘she might have’---‘cannot be regarded as
at all unlikely’---‘there might have been’---‘she may
have’---etc. etc. . . .Is it any wonder that in the
end Hodgson succeeded in persuading himself that all
these suppositions were what really happened, . . .
and rejects as ‘unreliable’, or else as ‘deliberate
lies’, every scrap of evidence offered for the genuine
explanation? . . ." (THE REAL H.P. BLAVATSKY, 1928,
pp. 276-277.)

Unfortunately, Johnson’s three books are also
chock-full of such "conjectural" rhetoric. And I fully
agree with Algeo’s statement that:

"The RHETORIC of . . . [Johnson’s] presentation
disguises the WEAKNESS of the evidence, perhaps even
from Johnson himself." (Quoted from The American
Theosophist, Late Spring/Early Summer 1995, p. 12.
Caps added.) 

=====
Daniel H. Caldwell
info@blavatskyarchives.com
BLAVATSKY ARCHIVES
http://blavatskyarchives.com
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