Theos-Talk Archives (April 2004 Message tt00567)

stevestubbs wrote:
> It was Bart Lidofsky and not I who said she used magic tricks. 
I believe that what I said was that some of the reports of her magic 
had details that were consistent with magic tricks, and odd if it were 
the real thing. In any case, I conclude from that, and her tendency to 
exaggerate, that she used trickery to attract attention, but I also 
notice that, according to all reports, she was careful to point out that 
these abilities were not to be taken as a sign of spiritual development 
(which differentiates her from a lot of others who claim their 
demonstrations of phenomena are proof of their spiritual advancement).

In other words, in my opinion, at the very worst, she used magic tricks 
to attract attention, and it was a mistake to do so. I am sorry if those 
who hold the doublethink belief that Blavatsky was infallible (I call it 
doublethink because she, herself admitted her fallibility, so to hold 
her to be infallible is to hold two mutually exclusive ideas in one's 
mind at the same time, and holding them both to be true).

Bart