Theos-Talk Archives (February 2002 Message tt00502)

Brigitte M. quotes Paul J.:

"That is the crucial conceit of fundamentalism. 'Our body of revealed 
wisdom cannot be approached with the tools of the critical intellect.'
If you look at any new historical inquiry as possibly a tool 
of 'opposition that has tried to do this since the beginning,' you're 
(impersonal you) going to be paranoid in your attitude toward 
historical scholarship.I find that people who post to decry 
historical and intellectual debates on various lists usually offer no 
alternative. If you don't like the other participants and the kind of 
discourse they engage in, isn't it more constructive to provide an 
example of an alternative approach, rather than just put people down?"

Brigitte, thank you for quoting Paul on this matter.

Let me set the record straight. Although what Paul writes may apply 
to SOME Theosophists, it certainly doesn't apply to me and, I'm sure, 
many other theosophists. I do NOT "decry historical and intellectual 
debates" on these theosophical discussion lists. And I believe that 
the "tools of the critical intellect" can be used to try to 
understand the historical events surrounding Blavatsky and her 
Masters. 

Therefore I will start writing a small essay trying to use the "tools 
of the critical intellect" in comparing and contrasting Brigitte's 
views about Olcott's encounters with the Masters with Paul's and 
Steve's views on the same subject.

And I hope Brigitte will not decry such an analysis.

More later.

Daniel H. Caldwell
BLAVATSKY ARCHIVES
http://blavatskyarchives.com/introduction.htm