Theos-Talk Archives (January 2003 Message tt00641)

BAG,

In reply to my posting at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/10788
you wrote:

"You are assuming the credibility of HPB, Olcott and their inner 
circle of confidential associates. When I had any doubt about them, 
their character, motives, means and goals, I gave them the benefit of 
it. However, after studying them and the genesis and early years of 
their Theosophical Society, all doubt was removed, and I concluded 
that they were all involved in at best a delusion, with pervasive 
elements of deception, and at worst, a complete and out-right fraud. 
They deceived each other, their followers, and the public in general 
as a regular course of action. Such deception, even when engaged in 
for what they clearly believed in as a noble cause, is pathological."

BAG, thanks for your comments.

First of all, it would help your readers on this forum to assess the 
reliability of your statements, if you could give a few concrete 
examples illustrating what you call the delusion, pervasive elements 
of deception and complete and out-right fraud of HPB, Olcott and 
their inner circle.

Now to my second point.

Let's compare and contrast what you write above with what Steve 
Stubbs has written. In two separate postings, Steve has given his 
opinion as follows:

"The Shannon letter and the Gebhard letter are GOOD CANDIDATES for 
evidence that some [Mahatma] letters were delivered by PHENOMENAL 
means."

". . . the only proof we can have of the masters' historical 
existence is testimony from a qualified witness, and we have that 
from Olcott. . . . Olcott's testimony is sufficient in my judgment to 
establish their corporeal existence as legal persons. . . . I cannot 
agree with anyone that they were fictions, fantasies, imagined 
beings, trance personalities, or any such thing as that unless the 
Olcott evidence can be satisfactorily disposed of. I raised that 
question some time ago, and no one has ever addressed it, so for that 
reason I remain stubbornly convinced that the mahatmas were real men 
as they were claimed to be."

It is apparent to me that Steve believes at least some of the 
witnesses were "qualified" witnesses not only to encounters with the 
Mahatmas but to paranormal phenomena. I would agree with Steve.

BAG, please inform us as to why you believe Steve's assessment is 
WRONG. What specific evidence, etc. makes you discount Olcott's 
testimony or the testimony of Rudolf Gebhard?

To use Steve's phraseology, can you satisfactorily dispose of 
Olcott's evidence? 

Daniel H. Caldwell

Visit Blavatsky Archives at:
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"...Contrast alone can enable us to appreciate things at
their right value; and unless a judge compares notes and
hears both sides he can hardly come to a correct decision."
H.P. Blavatsky. The Theosophist, July, 1881, p. 218.