Theos-Talk Archives (April 2004 Message tt00070)

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "kpauljohnson" <kpauljohnson@y...> 
wrote:

> Non-theosophists had no trouble at all understanding my 
> position (real Masters, mythologized portrayals) and the first half-
> dozen or so Theosophical reviewers understood it. At some point, 
> the real Theosophist-of-many-years Paul Johnson got completely 
> displaced by a straw man thanks to a handful of antagonistic 
> Theosophists and there was not a damn thing I could do about it. 
> Except move on to write about a subject not cursed by decades of 
> antagonism.

Dear Paul,

Thank you very much for your reply and for the link to your article. 
I did read some of the violent and unjustified attacks against you 
years ago. Probably those who cannot remain civil while expressing 
different opinions in theosophical matters do so because they 
consider Theosophy a religion. 

Personally, I don't regard theosophical history as sacrosanct. What 
appears to me as unfair is the partiality, the onesidedness, of some 
historical appraisals of the theosophical movement. 

Although differing from you in your conclusion about the identity of 
M. and K.H., I feel your books on the Masters, and the reactions to 
them, served to bring to light a phenomenon that could be called "the 
Blavatskyan Theology". 

As I see it, the original impulse in the TS, mostly coming from HPB 
herself but also from others, like T. Subba Row, was that the TS was 
supposed be an enquiry-based organisation, and not a belief-based 
one. History may have dealt a severe blow at that original impulse 
for as the decades passed, Theosophy became, more and more, an author-
centred teaching instead of the passionate exploration it was 
originally.

Even when she was alive, HPB made it very clear that the only 
meaningful loyalty in the TS was loyalty to the Cause she served, 
namely, Universal Brotherhood without distinction, and not to her 
personally. She suggested in the "Bowen Notes", for example, 
that "The Secret Doctrine" "is not meant to give any such final 
verdict on existence, but to LEAD TOWARDS THE TRUTH." All this seems 
to imply the that the spirit of Theosophy is one of continuous 
enquiry. Sadly, many students after she passed away made of her 
teachings a hard and fast theology which cannot be questioned.

There were very specific and strong warnings in HPB's writings and in 
the letters of her Teachers against orthodoxy and dogmatism in 
theosophical studies. This does not mean to say that "everything is 
Theosophy". Perhaps your books helped to expose such dogmatism and 
orthodoxy, at a great cost to yourself. But students of Theosophy 
should be grateful to you for challenging their accepted notions and 
by causing them to look afresh. 

Warm good wishes,

Pedro