Theos-Talk Archives (January 2002 Message tt00198)

SUBJECT: "On what Johnson and Schueler have written
about/or to me"

I'm away for a day or so from theos-talk and theos-l
and miss all of these postings! I see Paul Johnson
has written an email on my "motivations" and Jerry
Schueler mentions indirectly Alexis D.'s
"identifications" of the Masters.

When I find the time in the next week or two I will
comment in more detail on Johnson's analysis of my
motives/motivations. 

In the meantime as I was proofreading web versions of
rare articles for Blavatksy Archives, I accidentally
stumbled across a posting I wrote to theos-l in Dec.
1996. Since it covers (to some extent) both what Paul
and Jerry bring up, I give BELOW my posting from 5
years ago.

Daniel H. Caldwell
http://hpb.cc

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

Jerry Schueler writes (on theos-l):

> Paul, as I read your book, I too thought that your
thesis was
> that HPB used a combination of fact and fiction,
rather than your
> revealing any exact personalities. You left this in
terms of
> probabilities rather than definites. I agree with
you. BTW,
> what is your feeling on the identities given to us
by Alexis? I
> do not recall Dan ever rebutting Alexis' identities
of M and KH.
> I presume that he would be opposed to *any* attempt
to equate
> human personalities. Dan, did you ever write a
rebuttal of Alexis' revelations?

Jerry, I would be most happy to write on Alexis'
identities of the Masters M and KH. BUT he never
provided me with enough information other than to say
that Master M was really the Maharaja of Benares and
KH was really Ranbir Singh, Maharaja of Kashmir. He
did provide one other detail that he believed KH
appearing at Lahore in Nov. 1883 was really Ranbir
Singh. Compare this with what KP Johnson says: KH
appearing at Lahore was really Thakar Singh. I would
assume that most of us would agree that at least one
of these hypotheses on KH is flat wrong!

Alexis never provided his reasoning, his evidence or
his sources for these bare statements. When I asked
him for such, he simply became negative with me and
threw insults my way. If you, Jerry, can get him to
provide us with more details, evidence, reasoning,
etc., I will undertake a historical analysis of his
hypotheses. My analysis may turn out to be a rebuttal
of his hypotheses. Maybe not. I am somewhat intrigued
with his hypothesis that Morya was really the Maharaja
of Benares.

> I presume that he [Dan?] would be opposed to *any* 
> attempt to equate human personalities...

I am assuming that you mean that I would be opposed to
any attempt by Johnson or anyone else to identify the
Masters Morya and Koot Hoomi with any "human
personalities". If this is what you mean, then I will
definitely say you are wrong in your presumption. 
>From my study of the original source documents of
HPB's time, I am inclined to believe that Morya and
Koot Hoomi were physical human beings [like Ooton
Liatto?] with human personalities and therefore, they
had names and addresses, etc. In theory, I see no
reason why one could not identify who Morya and Koot
Hoomi were. It's a matter of looking at the evidence
and seeing if one can make a positive identification
or not. I simply believe in light of what I present
in my HOUSE OF CARDS that Johnson is barking up the
WRONG tree. JRC in a recent post says that one
Theosophical organization wants to keep the Masters
mysterious.

Well, this may be true. I don't know if such a broad
generalization is true but I do know that a number of
students of Blavatsky have told me that one should not
delve into the personalities of the Masters and that
to do so would be like snooping. But I try to
approach the subject like a historican. What is the
evidence? In what direction does the preponderance of
evidence lead us in our conclusions?

A number of attempts have been undertaken before
Johnson's books were written to name the Masters. 
Mary K. Neff in the 1940s wrote one or two articles
in which she attempted to identify M and KH. As
recently as the 1970s, Geoffrey Barborka, George
Linton and Virginia Hanson attempted to identify Koot
Hoomi as Nisi Kanta Chattopadhyaya. From my own
unpublished research on Chattopadhyaya, I am convinced
that he is not Master K.H. for a number of very good
reasons. Steve Richards in the American Theosophist
several years ago tried to identify what Tibetan
Buddhist sect Morya and Koot Hoomi belonged to. I
believe that Johnson in his books does not mention any
of this prior study and information. IMO, Johnson is
as far off in his identifications of these two Masters
as Barborka, Hanson and Linton were off in their
identification of Koot Hoomi. All of these authors do
not consider various information that throws grave
doubt on their speculations.

JRC, Richard I. and others on Theos-l are always
being skeptical of what HP Blavatsky and other
Theosophists (including Algeo) have written or said. 
That's fine and good with me. Certainly ask
questions. But I have been equally critical and
skeptical of Johnson's assumptions and statements. 
What's wrong with that?

And I would say to JRC, RI, JS and others if you are
going to be skeptical of "orthodox" commentators on
Theosophy, be equally critical and skeptical of
"unorthodox" versions as well. Also if you want to be
a "zetetic skeptic" be just as critical of your
own assumptions and beliefs. I dare say that our
greatest blind spot is our OWN assumptions and
background beliefs. [I include myself in this
statement!]

And in the past I have noticed that a number of people
posting on Theos-l/Theos- roots have given the
impression that I was some sort of orthodox
Theosophist or that I was "working" for the various
Societies in maintaining the status quo and combatting
"heresies".

Let me expand on this. Yes, I do agree with Dr. 
Algeo, for example, on many of his criticisms of
Johnson's books. But this agreement, as far as I am
consciously aware of it, is based upon my own
understanding and research of the subject for almost
30
years. I do not naively accept or reject what Dr. 
Algeo writes because he is a PhD or because he is the
president of the Wheaton T.S. My very good friend,
the late Walter A. Carrithers, Jr., to whom I will
ever be indebted, held many views about Blavatsky
and her contemporaries which I totally disagree with.
And my disagreement is based upon various evidence
which I believe Carrithers did not, for whatever
reasons, consider. A number of years ago, I published
in Theosophical History a critique of Jean Overton
Fuller's biography of HPB. Miss Fuller was not too
pleased with my listing of dozens of her mistakes and
misstatements. And as far as I know she has a fairly
"orthodox" view of Blavatsky and her Masters. Take
another example.

I had published in The American Theosophist two years
ago, my article on the origins of the "third volume"
of the Secret Doctrine. My conclusions run contrary
to the opinions of more than a dozen deep students of
the SD including Carrithers, Barborka, de Zirkoff,
Cleather, Ryan and others. Three current
day students and friends of mine (Richard Robb, Dara
Eklund and Ted G. Davy) still disagree with these
conclusions of mine.

I have listened to whatever input they have given me,
but I still believe that my conclusions are clearly
supported by the evidence.

I write all of this to show that I don't approach this
subject of HPB and her Masters with a rigid belief
system or with a priori assumptions. I have gone out
of my way since 1968 to collect everything ever
written about Madame Blavatksy. WHY? So that I
could read and decide for MYSELF what is what about
HPB and her Masters; so that I would not naively
believe or disbelieve based on second hand
information. I try to look at the evidence(whatever
it may be) and try to come to conclusions based on the
preponderance of that evidence instead of letting my a
prior assumptions determine my conclusions. And I am
also aware of how little I sometimes really know! And
I realize that after years of hard work and thinking
through these complicated, complex issues, I may still
be sadly mistaken on many of these subjects!! And I
am always open to input from other people. Tell me
I'm wrong but also please tell me how I am wrong, what
I am not considering, what evidence I should look at. 
What assumption I should or should not be making. 
Etc. Etc.

If Johnson thinks I have picked on him and have been
unduly harsh with his speculations, he should read
some of my unpublished material critiquing what
various authors (including Marion Meade, Carrithers,
de Zirkoff, Endersby and others) have written on HPB,
the Masters and Theosophy. I say that one should
cross off the name of the author of a book or an
article and judge the contents on its own merits. Who
cares who wrote the material! Is the text factual,
accurate, fair, etc.? Has relevant material and
evidence been ignored? Has the author carefully
researched the material? What sources have been used
and relied upon? Etc. Etc.

I have even used this approach in researching the
writings of Blavatsky and the Masters. This is a
laborious job and very time consuming but the benefits
of this approach are overwhelming. An example: Alan
Bain has mentioned on theos-l within the last few
months the Henry Kiddle speech from which Koot Hoomi
allegedly plagiarized. Years ago, I went and found
the original publication in which Henry Kiddle's
speech was published. Then I went and studied
chronologically every article, etc. that was
written (pro, con and neutral) on the "Kiddle
Incident." Including looking at the handwriting of
the Mahatma Letter in which Koot Hoomi incorporates
portions of Kiddle's speech. Maybe one of these days
I will get around to writing an article on my
discoveries. Of course, most Theosophists or critics
of Theosophy could care less about doing this kind of
indepth research. They might consider such research
boring or they already have an opinion and evidence
might get in the way!

The same technique can be used in the study of HPB's
writings and the the teachings contained therein. 
Some will say this is a very intellectual process but
it is amazing how often after going through this
laborious process (which can be sometimes very boring
and exhausting) that various "intuitions" and
"insights" enter one's mind.

Daniel Caldwell



=====
Daniel H. Caldwell
info@blavatskyarchives.com
BLAVATSKY ARCHIVES
http://blavatskyarchives.com
You can always access BLAVATSKY ARCHIVES 
by simply typing into the URL address bar 
the following 6 characters: hpb.cc

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