Theos-Talk Archives (February 2002 Message tt00044)

Bruce MacDonald wrote the following on Theos-L in response to 
Brigitte's "The re-inventions of the TS". He has given me permission 
to post it here on Theos-Talk.

Daniel
-------------------------------------

Brigitte,

At 09:11 AM 2/1/02 -0500, you wrote:
>In earlier mails I described the re-invention of the TS after the
>founders moved to India, from a psuedo-spiritualist organisation
>involved with drugs, astral travel, and the search for "magicians",
>to the second re-invention after Blavatsky moved from Oostende to
>London, with the support of members from the "Blavatsky Lodge"that
>helped the promotion of the form of Theosophy considerred today
>as "traditional" Blavatskyan Theosophy, although it really was a re-
>invention again.

Bruce: I am not sure if you are familiar with the colloquialism, 
"hatchet job." It means that you try to hack your opponent to pieces 
with innuendo and half-truths and with, as in your case, a long list 
of supposed evidence which is merely a list of possible references 
and associations without the evidence really being of the sort which 
is definite and which supports your conclusions (or more accurately, 
implications and innuendo, because you are not really drawing 
conclusions in most of what you submit here). Thus you condemn by 
innuendo rather than by actual evidence.

Of course any organization "reinvents" itself over and over 
again as the membership and the experiences of the members change. 
That is inevitable. One might even imply through innuendo that the 
kind of judgements you are involved in are a direct line of descent 
from the Inquisition and its methods which judged with incomplete 
information and tried to destroy through implication and rumour. Are 
we therefore to say that your arguments are merely the 
Inquisition "re-inventing itself"? That is the kind of argument you 
are using here.

Of course the TS has been mistaken in its emphasis at various 
times in its life, as have all organizations. But you seem to imply 
in your other writings that because of some errors in judgement, 
therefore the whole of Theosophy is a lot of "shit" (Pardon my 
Greek). If we follow the same line of argument in relation to your 
presentations we would have to conclude that everything YOU say would 
be brought into condemnation because you also make errors in 
judgement at quite a number of points. There is a saying in 
India, "The strainer said to the needle, 'You have a hole in your 
tail.'" That means, in case it is not obvious, that the one who 
condemns, the strainer with many "holes" or faults in it, should not 
always be condemning the needle which has only one "hole" or fault in 
it.

I find your kind of uncritical blanket condemnation quite 
tiring since it does not bring up any real evidence or valid logical 
consideration of evidence, but merely implies and condemns through 
implication. And you do not present any alternative. What are you 
proposing as an alternative to Theosophy? There are obviously many 
alternatives, but what is yours? Don't you have anything positive to 
say about anything? What are your motives in all of this? Are you 
stuck only in the "destroy, destroy, destroy" mode of thinking? Or 
as my Trinidad relatives say, "Why you so angry about everyting, 
man? My fada kill you fada?"

In frustration at reading a long litany of unsupported innuendo and 
half-truths with no alternatives offered. But perhaps I should take 
my own advice and just not read what you have to say?

Peace, Bruce