Theos-Talk Archives (January 2002 Message tt00163)

--- Blavatsky Archives <blavatskyarchives@yahoo.com>
wrote:
> Why is it that Cranston's book is the only one to be
> "propaganda" or "biased", if that is the contention
> Brigitte is trying to suggest?
> 
> I detect biases and suppositions in the other books
> mentioned by Brigitte.

That is a good point. It seems to me there are three
varieties of books published about
Blavatsky/Theosophy:

(1) Hostile (Meade, Williams, Bechofer-Roberts, etc.)

(2) Apologetic or propagandistic (Cranston, Ryan, et
al.)

(3) Neutral and scholarly (Godwin, Deveney, etc.)

Bechofer-Roberts is the best of the hostile critics. 
His book is absolutely hilarious reading, but grossly
unfair and misleading in my opinion. Meade's book is
the best researched, of course, but still misleading
and often unfair.

Moving from jeers to cheers, Cranston's is probably
the best of the apologetic books. But she discounts
important evidence, such as the research done by
Coleman, and so it is hard for me to see that she is
not also misleading the reader and being unfair. This
type of writer often defends the most preposterous
positions, such as that Blavatsky was a lifelong
virgin, that Olcott was not stoned and Ootan Liatto
really did materialize flowers, and so on.

For those of us who would like to lift the veil and
get a deeper understanding of the matter than the
apologists might have preferred we get, the neutral
writers are much to be preferred to the jeering
section and the cheering section. I would therefore
say (pardon me)Thank God for Godwin. A truly neutral
writer is not apoloogizing for anyone, and is
therefore not going to sweep anything under the rug,
and at the same time he is not out to smear anyone,
and therefore will not automatically credit evidence
he recognizes as questionable but which supports a
smear campaign a la Williams. Even if such a writer
were to erroneously admit questionable evidence, he or
she would be open to re-examining that evidence or
explaining his or her reasons if challenged. If such
a writer is neither worshipper nor enemy, but merely a
truth seeker, he would search out the truth as best he
could and present it as objectively as possible. In
an imperfect world, this would be the best
presentation of the three, IMHO.

The word "neutral" works better here than "objective,"
because Bechofer-Roberts claimed his book was
"objective" and if that is true, I would hate to see
something mean spirited.

Unfortunately, I do not believe the definitive bio of
HPB has yet been written, for which reason it dismays
me if Godwin and others are losing interest in
Theosophical scholarship.

Steve


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