Theos-Talk Archives (July 2002 Message tt00141)

dalval14@earthlink.net wrote:
> DUES VS. CONTRIBUTIONS
> 
> In U L T all contributions are anonymous and carry no
> special weight.
> 
> But Bart, do you have any actual reference where H P B said
> she preferred "dues" to "contributions ?"

It is in the Collected Writings, an article explaining why the TS
started charging dues (I believe it was 1 pound a year). I came across
this article about 8 years ago; the New York Lodge was charging
ridiculously low prices for classes, so low that, based on contemporary
American standards, people thought the classes were garbage, and the
only people showing up were those for whom money was the primary
consideration. So I researched the Collected Writings, the Secret
Doctrine, the Mahatma Letters, to demonstrate that there was no problem
with using programs to raise money, and that we need to run the Lodge to
conform with the society around it, not some society which existed on
another continent a century ago. 

I don't have a copy of the Collected Writings handy at the moment, but
I do remember I was looking up in the index things like money, fees, and
Lodges.

> My recollection of the By Laws and Rules of the T S does in
> now way make it appear that "contributors" would have any
> particular force or power when compared with "members." Do
> you have any direct references ?

Consider: A lodge has a bookstore. It carries books on Yoruba. A major
contributor to the Lodge says that, as Yoruba involves animal sacrifice,
books on the subject should not be in the bookshop, and s/he will stop
the contributions if the book remains in the bookshop. What do YOU think
will happen?

Bart Lidofsky