Theos-Talk Archives (December 2002 Message tt00595)

DEAR THEOS-TALK READERS, PLEASE NOTE THAT THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH IN 
MY PREVIOUS POST IS MINE, NOT MR. JOHNSON'S. I APOLOGIZE TO MR. 
JOHNSON AND YOU FOR THE ACCIDENTAL OMISSION OF THE > TO INDICATE THAT 
THE PARAGRAPH WAS MINE AND NOT HIS. 

Bhakti Ananda Goswami


>Controversy does not kill intellectual endeavors. It is the silent 
treatment that consigns ideas to the unmarked potters-field of 
history. If able, the operative knowledge-filter of a dominant 
culture / thought system screens-out intolerable ideas by ignoring, 
censuring or suppressing them. Ignoring them is the best option. 
Humans are good at denial of their personal and collective character 
defects, mistakes and sins. So when someone comes along to prick 
them and challenge their conscience, denial and the knowledge-filter 
come into play. You have experienced this denial as a reaction to 
you book coming from Theosophists, but in India, your book is up 
against a force of denial generated by a national sense of Aryan 
historical identity and its veneration of HPB, Annie Besant and other 
Theosophical leaders of Indian Nationalism. Your analysis of the 
genealogy of Theosophical thought may be an uncomfortably too-close 
and too-honest look at the origins of revered Annie Besant's 
Society.