Theos-Talk Archives (August 2004 Message tt00347)

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "kpauljohnson" <kpauljohnson@y...> 
wrote:
> Irked though I was by the way The Theosophist `dealt'
> with The Masters Revealed, it doesn't compare with the
> snarky way it `dealt' with The Elder Brother. ... But
> what happened with Tillett's book was that both Radha
> and Dora Kunz in editorials made vague mentions of
> some nasty unnamed book out there that said terrible
> things about CWL that no Theosophist ought to worry
> himself/herself about because CWL couldn't possibly
> have ever done anything bad because people who knew him
> knew that this was impossible.

I am not unsympathetic, but realistically that is what you sign on 
for when you go beyond merely uncovering new facts about someone's 
religion, and rip it to shreds. There is some historical evidence 
that nine of the Twelve Apostles were homosexuals, but the Catholic 
Church probably would not give a book examining the evidence a 
favorable review in any of its publications. The prophet of another 
major religion had four wives, some of whom would be considered 
legally underaged by modern standards, but insisting that a seventh 
century merchant be judged by modern standards (or judged at all) in 
a mass media outlet would probably get your throat cut. In both 
cases one would be stating the truth but it might be a truth that 
would have to be handled delicately to avoid grievous offense. 
Stating the truth that Leadbeater was a degenerate, a pedophile, an 
opportunist, and a pathological liar could not be handled delicately 
enough to leave any pieces of theosophical driftwood for his admirers 
to cling to while waiting for The Titanic to come by and rescue 
them. I think we discussed one time a Seventh Day Adventist scholar 
who proved that Ellen White plagiarized some hokey preachers of her 
time and claimed their words were received in visions or some such 
claptrap as that. He proved the case beyond reasonable doubt, but 
swiftly found himself excommunicated from a church which considers 
truth to be the first casualty of faith.

Regardless of what Dora thinks of L personally, there is plenty of 
internal evidence in his books to suggest that he was not "on the 
threshold of divinity" as he claimed he was. The simple solution to 
that problem is of course to dump Leadbeater and Besant and either go 
back to Blavatsky or become an agnostic.

As for TMR, I see it as a completely different type of book, inasmuch 
as it addresses difficult questions which can never be settled 
finally, whereas there is little doubt about Leadbeater. There is 
not much to argue about where TEB is concerned, but TMR raises 
interesting issues which remain open questions and implicitly invites 
discussion and even controversy. Accepting that invitation should 
not irk the author so long as it is the evidence and not the author 
himself which is being discussed.