Theos-Talk Archives (February 2004 Message tt00178)

Hey,

Neither of Daniel's links worked for me but I googled and came upon 
Katinka's site which did:
http://www.katinkahesselink.net/other/m_wolff.html

I must say I was disappointed by M-W's logic and assumptions at the 
beginning, although not by all the analysis that followed. Having 
heard only good things about him from people whose judgment I 
respect, I wasn't prepared for this simplistic statement:

"the hypothesis that it was a massive but honest self-deception 
seems well nigh unthinkable. It would seem that we must either view 
the whole Theosophical conception as a fraud or else that it is just 
what it claims to be."

I've seen the same assumption and argument from Baha'is about 
Baha'u'llah, Christians about Jesus, ad nauseum. The person, or the 
belief system can ONLY be either exactly what it claims to be, or 
totally fraudulent. (M-W raises a third alternative of self-
deception only to swat it down as "well nigh unthinkable." People 
who describe an alternative as unthinkable are saying more about 
their conceptual limitations than about reality.) 

Well, moving from theory to practice, has anyone ever OBSERVED a 
person or belief system that was either totally fraudulent or 
exactly what it claims to be? Even L. Ron Hubbard made one or two 
true statements in his career, and even the most enlightened person 
or system of ideas inevitably has a trace of misunderstanding 
*somewhere.* Based on observation rather than speculation, I would 
say that any teacher or teaching can and should be approached at 
many levels and understood as a complicated mixture, if 
understanding is our aim.

Merrell-Wolff's logical fallacy here is variously known as false 
dilemma, excluded middle, etc. The first description of it I 
googled upon was this:

http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/skepticism/blfaq_fall_falsedile
mma.htm

A logical fallacy usually has negative consequences of some kind, 
and here is where I see Merrell-Wolff going with his:

"The typical attacks that are based mainly, if not wholly, on the 
argumentum ad hominem are contemptible and should be received with 
scorn."

So we go from HPB either is exactly what and who she presented 
herself to be or a complete fraud, no other choices allowed, to 
anyone who criticizes her as a fraud is an object of my contempt and 
everyone else ought to share that contempt. That's a not very 
subtle form of bullying. Have seen that dozens of times from all 
manner of true believers about various teachers, but didn't expect 
it from this source.

Paul