Theos-Talk Archives (May 2003 Message tt00053)

Unlike most contributors to this forum, I have had the privilege of knowing
Paul Johnson personally for over 15 years. He was an early supporter of the
independent Theosophical History journal, an enterprise that aroused some
opposition in the Adyar society, and a participant in the first history
conferences. His own background was in the TS Pasadena, and far from being
an opponent of Theosophy he was an adherent, seeking to know more about
HPB's Masters. 

He was led ( and "led" I think is the correct word ) to progressively
explore a wide range of HPB's contacts in different parts of the world,
including her political links. Many of these had been largely neglected by
Theosophists, and some were previously unknown. Short Articles, long
papers, book chapters and complete works followed. I published several and
read many others in draft.

We are all familiar with attacks on HPB and Theosophy made by people who
briefly enter the area, write a facetious book, and then exit, having never
got beyond a few secondary sources and previous hostile biographies. Paul
Johnson's work bears no comparison with this. Much of it is straight
historical narrative about people in HPB's environment, and ( in the book "
Initiates" ) about those who came later. Although he was not an academic, a
university press published three of Paul's books. Every one would learn from
studying these; how many of the critics have read them?

As is well known, however, Paul believes that HPB's teachers are in some
cases disguised and placed by her in Tibet to put the British imperial power
off the scent of individuals with radical sympathies actually living in
India. It is this theory that he had adopted to explain some familiar
problems in giving a coherent account of HPB's life and work, problems which
have confronted every HPB biographer since Sinnett " Incidents" in 1886. It
is because of these problems that a well-known authority on esoteric history
such as R.A. Gilbert, who often appears on theosophical platforms, doubts if
HPB was ever in Tibet at all. Some Theosophists do not know of these
problems, just as some Christians do not know there are problems with the
historicity of Jesus. Paul was courageous enough to face them.

As a matter of fact, I believe that Paul has underestimated the Tibetan
input to HPB. But unlike
some Theosophists I am offended by the response to Paul rather by his
theory. 

If you wish to depress yourself, you can read how the Roman Catholic Church
and to a lesser extent the other churches, reacted from 1780 onwards to the
quest of the historical Jesus by scholars ( many of whom were actually
believers). The sackings, the excommunications, the careers blighted, the
silencings, the fear of speaking out and the semi-demonisation among the
faithful of the very names of those scholars.

But you may also recall that at times the theosophical world has ventured
partly along the same path. Books have been re-edited, denied places in
libraries and bookshops, and names also brushed out of theosophical history.


How Theosophists respond to those among them with unorthodox views is of
some importance in determining whether the community remains lively, a place
where ideas and research can circulate freely. What we might call the
Johnson case is a minor example of those famous ones in which dissident
thinkers have collided with the orthodox view, and been castigated by
orthodox believers.

We are all demeaned by the new attack on Paul, of which mention has been
made in this forum, in which he is called a "fraudulent historian".( an
adjective once applied to HPB and to Judge incidentally). Under UK law this
would be libellous, for what more serious charge could be brought against a
historian? Having been a witness in 1982 for a friend in a libel case at the
Royal Courts of Justice that had led to the demise of a publication, and
lived through the weary months of the case, I am perhaps sensitive on this.

But, quite apart from the legal imprudence of the charge, to have a
different interpretation of the data is not to be fraudulent. To believe
differently is not to be fraudulent. All historians, especially in
pioneering areas, will make mistakes, put forward theories that do not stand
up, and use arguments that cannot carry the weight claimed. Scholarship
progresses by giving these a courteous assessment. Abuse like this should
have no place in Theosophy.

I will end by a brief memory. In 1993, Tony Hern and I found in the India
Office Library, London, secret 1879 reports which after an investigation had
dismissed the idea that HPB was a spy. Blavatsky Trust paid for their
transcription and (where needed ) translation. Within months they were
published verbatim by Paul Johnson in " The Masters Revealed". These reports
were one of the most solid pieces of pro-HPB documentation to appear in our
time.

Sadly we were partly trumped almost immediately when Maria Carlson included
in her history of Theosophy in Russia " No religion higher than truth"
extracts from a letter in which HPB offered her services as a spy to the
Russian government in 1872 - they were declined.( The authenticity of this
letter, like those found in the Baghdad archives in 2003, is not always
admitted!)But this does not change the fact that in publishing the British
documents Paul had put into general circulation reliable material that every
historian and every defender of HPB could use.

Paul Johnson is a historian. Denied access to the archives at Adyar, he yet
produced some of the liveliest and most penetrating theosophical
investigations of the nineties. Denied the fellowship of his brother
Theosophists because of his heresy, he will I am sure continue to be greatly
valued among those who put scholarship ahead of orthodoxy.

Leslie Price 








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