Theos-Talk Archives (August 2004 Message tt00335)

Dear Perry,

Thanks for your story and congratulations for escaping the Watchtower
folks. My point of comparison is the Baha'is, with whom I was
affiliated from age 15 to 20. Many years later I participated in
Internet discussions with Baha'i scholars, and witnessed the
repercussions from their extremely theocratic organization. The JWs
outdo even the Baha'is in terms of denying intellectual freedom for
their members.

Despite some unpleasant experiences I've had with the TS, I'd answer
your question with a resounding yes. There is a huge difference
between the TS and the JWs or the Baha'is. JWs, Mormons, Baha'is, and
many other groups are overtly dogmatic and authoritarian and make no
effort to deny it. The Adyar TS is explicitly and overtly
anti-dogmatic and anti-authoritarian. Its dogmatism and
authoritarianism are implicit, sneaking in through the back door of
the ES and hidden control mechanisms. But local lodges and study
centers have a lot of autonomy and in years of regular speaking
engagements I never picked up any clues that Adyar or Wheaton were
trying to control members' thinking at the local level. It's only
where the levers of national and international power are concerned
that dogmatic and authoritarian tendencies are observable. (This is
only one man's opinion and others' mileage may vary.)

You wrote:

> I told my father about the Ray Franz book and asked if he'd read 
> it ,he said something to me that burned into my memory and that 
> was `Perry your mother and I have been in this religion for the past 
> 40 years and your telling us its all been wasted".

People are amazingly frank about their cognitive dissonance. "This
evidence has implications that are challenging to my comfort level,
therefore I won't look at it." I fail to see what kind of
psychological security people can derive from that stance.

> Its not an easy call to make all those years all those friends that 
> reputation of being a "strong witness" 
> What do you say? How do you respond?
> The lesson has been a huge one for me, a life's work and association 
> and you find out much of it, if not all of it was fantasy!
> 
> You can imagine my amazement to find the TS no different to the JWs 
> once the rubber hit the road.
> Platitudes are great but if they are not backed up by action….
> There's no dharma higher than truth ….what an ask !
> 
I'll end with what for me was a startling discovery. Amazon.com has
in recent months introduced an indexing feature, so now you can search
a name and find out where the person is mentioned in books that have
been indexed in the database. I've learned of many books in which my
own are cited or mentioned-- which total more than 50 at last count. 
These vary tremendously, from very serious scholarship (most recently
Mark Sedgwick's Against the Modern World, a study of the
Traditionalists just out from Oxford University Press) to really flaky
New Age books (most recently one about a guy who claims to be the
reincarnation of Cayce.) What is completely missing is any citation
in Theosophical publications save a brief mention in Sanat's
Krishnamurti book. When I delved deeper I found no other original
work in Theosophical history published since 1995 by any Theosophical
publisher (or by any Theosophist author as best I can tell) in
English. There have been compilations, reprints, and one study of the
Hodgson report, but no histories or biographies. Compared to the
previous decade, this is a huge change.

I suspect that Theosophical history itself, and not any particular
work of history, has become anathema to the powers that be. The
controversy about the handling of the HPB letters (see Deveney's
interesting review in the latest TH) publication is very interesting
as a symptom of the historyphobia of Adyar/Wheaton. More on that later.

Cheers,

Paul