Theos-Talk Archives (April 2004 Message tt00119)

Hallo Paul and all,

My views are:

Yes.
And even a number of Alice A. Bailey groups are happy with that HPB
biography version too.
And This just shows us, where Theosophy is today.

from
M. Sufilight with peace and love...

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "kpauljohnson" <kpauljohnson@yahoo.com>
To: <theos-talk@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, April 04, 2004 6:41 PM
Subject: Theos-World Local lodges vs. organizational leaderships


> Dear Mauri,
>
> Everything you say about the attitudes in the Toronto TS reflects
> those local lodges/study centers I visited repeatedly in the 80s and
> 90s: TS in Maryland, D.C. Lodge, Charlotte Study Center. Those I
> visited only once, Oakland, Atlanta, New York, were just as
> hospitable to all kinds of ideas. As they were, for that matter, in
> Paris and London. Nor in any dealings with the Pasadena TS
> headquarters have people been overtly dogmatic or unfriendly in
> reaction to my books. The Pasadena TS had a branch in Hampton Roads
> VA for 10 years that I was involved in founding and we were as
> multiperspectivalist as possible with lots of Cayce folks on board.
> I had plenty of enjoyable visits to Wheaton after my first book on
> the Masters came out. There too one gets an impression of
> multiperspectivalism in their publications and activities.
>
> But there is a category of interrelated ideas on which multiple
> perspectives are regarded as threatening and which therefore must be
> silenced/avoided. #1 on the list might well be Masters and their
> relationship to Theosophy, #2 being the relationship between
> Leadbeater and Krishnamurti (which the Krishnamurti-ites of all
> varieties seem as spooked by as the Leadbeater-did-no-wrong TSers.)
> Resistance to multiperspectivalism in Theosophy is IMO strongest in
> the ES (which has the one true secret path to get to the only real
> Masters, concocted mainly by that poor victim of endless slanders,
> CWL) and the ULT (which has the one authoritative body of scriptures
> which represents the Masters' teaching.) But that small minority of
> dogmatic Theosophists is the tail that wags us multiperspectivalist
> dogs in local lodges and study centers and most of all at-large
> membership. If Adyar local groups' multiperspectivalism is
> superficial, and covers up hidden dogmatism about sacred cow
> subjects at the national and international levels, there's something
> fraudulent about the whole enterprise.
>
> ULT is a tail wagging the Theosophical dog in the sense that
> Cranston's HPB bio was and is treated by both the Adyar and Pasadena
> TSes as the most reliable treatment of their founder, endorsed
> publicly by them for years. Since her book came out in 1993 nothing
> new about HPB has been written in the publications of any of those
> organizations AFAIK so it is as if that biography was canonized
> throughout the movement as the orthodox Theosophical truth about
> HPB. The one thing they can (and DID) all agree on is that new
> ideas or questions about HPB are unwelcome. All that has been
> settled.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Paul
>
> PS-- Bart has repeatedly suggested that I'd be as welcome as ever to
> speak at most local lodges in the US-- if not at Wheaton where I
> never did before anyhow.
>
> --- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, Mauri <mhart@i...> wrote:
> > Paul wrote, partly: <<Maybe someone
> > should start a Multiperspectivalist
> > Society and get back to the original
> > spirit of what HPB was trying to do.
> > Cheers,Paul<<
> >
> > I've been a member of the Toronto TS for
> > some years, and I don't know about other
> > TS's, but I don't see how this one could
> > be any more
> > multiperspectivalistisisistic than it
> > already is, seeing as they seem to be
> > not only studying, but praising,
> > apparently, writings, writers, people
> > that have been getting many critical
> > comments on these lists. They have had
> > special sessions just for such praisings
> > and thanksgivings. I'm tending to
> > refrain from naming names of such
> > authors on the grounds that that might
> > be, in a sense, somewhat too multi of me
> > to do, here, in this context, maybe.
> > While there may be perfectly good enough
> > reasons why lots of people of all kinds
> > might be praised and studied (after all,
> > if "all kinds" of people are real
> > enough, to begin with, well then,
> > obviously enough ...)... In my case, eg,
> > I have read/studied authors that, I
> > suspect, lots of people might consider
> > crazy, dipsy, flapdoodly, delusional,
> > among other things, "basically," in some
> > sense ...
> >
> > Still, I'm tending to wonder if there
> > might be some kind of "relevant-enough
> > but" that might be worth considering in
> > the context of multiness in Theosophy,
> > generally speaking (if not always "more
> > particularly speaking," so much, maybe,
> > in some cases/scenarios ...) ... While
> > "broader" perspectives in general might
> > be seen to be a good thing, wouln't the
> > nature of the "broadness" have something
> > to do with the nature of the goodness or
> > relativity of such broadnesses ... Not
> > that broadnesses in general might not
> > tend to get manipulated in so many ways,
> > but ...
> >
> > So maybe you should try out the Toronto
> > TS, Paul, if you want more multi. While
> > that TS seems a little too multi for my
> > taste, I've been giving them $15 a year
> > so can borrow books from their library.
> > Not that the people there aren't "nice,"
> > and all like that (and I have attented a
> > number of their meetings), but/"but"...
> > In other words, I think I'm trying to
> > say that, while there may be forms of
> > multiness in Theosophic societies that
> > might be seen to promote some kind of
> > progress, seems to me that one might
> > ALSO want to consider whether there
> > might be forms of multiness that might
> > have the effect of tending to dilute and
> > erase the Theosophical Movement as such,
> > possibly tending to replace it with
> > whatever such multiness might promote,
> > whatever that might be per whoever ...
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Mauri
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>