Theos-Talk Archives (August 2004 Message tt00371)

Hi Paul,

A reason for the difference could be that your book, though dismissive
of the myth around HPB and her Mahatmas, only portrayed HPB as a lier
who had good reason to lie (the safety of the Mahatmas). Leadbeater on
the other hand was accused of pedofilia which is something that has to
be untrue for him to even stand a chance of being taken seriously as a
spiritual teacher. I mean lying for political or safety reasons or
child-abuse. It is pretty clear which is a harder pill to swallow.
Also - your style of writing includes so many qualifiers that it is
difficult to find out what the actual implications are (which is also
I think why the protests over your book took so long to start - and
this again explains why your book was reviewed positively in a few
theosophical magazines). 

But wouldn't it be nice to have an official theosophical magazine with
an actual correspondence collumn? And the Theosophist would be so much
nicer with actual book-reviews - most other theosophical magazines doe
have that at least. (they solved the HPB-Letters book by letting Algeo
write a history of HPB in which he mentioned the Letters in passing)

Katinka
--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "kpauljohnson" <kpauljohnson@y...>
wrote:
> --- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "Katinka Hesselink" <mail@k...>
wrote:
> 
> > up to problems and giving both sides of the story? How the work of
> > Paul Johnson was dealt with is in this case a good example. The
> > Theosophist didn't even report on it (I've been told). It could have
> > just given both sides of the story and told the theosophists: hey,
> > there is a new theory on HPB out there. This is what we think is wrong
> > with it, this is what the author says. Judge for yourselves. 
> 
> Dear Katinka,
> 
> 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. My book had at least gotten favorably reviewed in The
> Quest, Le Lotus Bleu, Theosophy in Australia, and the UK section
> journal (Theosophical Journal IIRC). So even though Radha chose to
> run an article called "The Masters Revealed" by Dara Eklund that
> pointedly avoided acknowedging that there was a recent book by that
> title which was being dismissed, that wasn't nearly as bad as what
> happened with The Elder Brother. Dara's point was that the only way
> to reach the Masters was by devotion to them, and any historical
> investigation was inherently misguided-- echoing John Algeo's
> judgment. 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.
> 
> In both cases there was a combination of attack, dismissiveness, and
> avoidance. In both cases readers who were otherwise uninformed of the
> books in question would have no idea what was being written about. 
> But I've seen a degree of outright personal hatred of Tillett from
> Adyar quarters that far exceeds anything directed my way. The fact
> that the Adyar TS has generally behaved in a nuttier and meaner way
> towards The Elder Brother than towards my books suggests that it is
> more invested in CWL than in HPB as a figure who MUST NEVER BE
> CRITICIZED OR QUESTIONED. I see this as indirectly supported by a
> belief in Krishnamurti as a Messiah figure who must not be admitted to
> have had any association with a pedophile mentor. 
> 
> Paul