Theos-Talk Archives (August 2004 Message tt00321)

Katinka:

You're right that a good magazine will try to tell both sides of the story. 
On in complex situations where there are many sides, to give all of them 
some opportunity to be expressed. That's typically done in a "Letters to 
the Editor" section, but sometimes dissenting articles may be included, 
possibly with an editorial note like "this view is that of the author and 
not necessarily that of our organization."

Each theosophical group has a certain viewpoint. It's partly due to the 
specific agenda of the organization, like with the United Lodge of 
Theosophists being focused on continuing to make available the writings of 
Blavatsky and Judge. The leadership of each group has their own collective 
opinion about things. One society may be run by people that think one thing 
about Theosophy; another society may be run by people thinking something 
entirely different.

A better organization would be flexible in its approach and allow different 
views to coexist and allow the fundamental assumptions of the group to also 
be open to review and challenge. Questions like "What is Theosophy?" and 
"Who are the Masters?" and "What was H.P. Blavatsky really like?" would be 
considered and given fair treatment.

Apart from an ideal organization from the standpoint of freedom of thought, 
there's the role of preserve and passing on the existing body of thought. 
The two roles can conflict. Innovation, critical review, and evolution can 
find resistance from people seeking to preserve the status quo from 
corruption and loss. In science, for instance, a radically new idea may be 
initially dismissed as the ravings of a crackpot, but later when winning 
acceptance be considered a fundamental truth. Scientists and scientific 
journals may naturally oppose the radically new simply because there are so 
many things that aren't true that people keep coming up with. The attempt 
to filter out the garbage may sometimes keep out new, evolutionary 
breakthroughs -- at least initially.

Any established group has its politics, so that even the head of a national 
theosophical group, like John Algeo, when President of the Theosophical 
Society in America, does not have complete say over the content of his 
group's magazine, THE QUEST. With politics, no one gets complete say over 
how things are done. That's why we can be much more effective working as 
independent Theosophists, each using our own insight and common sense to 
decide how we will do things.

Organizational politics do not need to hamper editors of independent 
theosophical magazines, mailing lists, or websites. Of the three, the 
mailing lists have the best opportunity to be a true, unbiased forum for an 
exploration of Theosophy, since everyone gets an equal say and no one is 
picking and choosing what will get posted in advanced. (Except if the list 
is moderated, and to the degree that the moderation is done and postings 
are filtered out according to a listowner's idea of what is appropriate, 
the list is more like a theme-oriented magazine.)

-- Eldon