Theos-Talk Archives (April 2005 Message tt00289)

Anand,

Perhaps, the best way to, at least, partially answer your question is 
from an historical perspective. When Krishnamurti closed the Order of 
the Star and left the Theosophical Society (1930), the leadership was, 
for a time left "flat footed" so to speak. Jinarajadasa's comments in 
the ES material published at that time is quite revealing. CJ was quite 
incredulous that after pretty much growing up with K. and with Nitya and 
George Arundale forming sort of an inner group under CWL, Krishnamurti 
was throwing all of that aside. K's early public talks after leaving 
the TS were very discounting of the Teachings and of the Masters. 
When George Arundale became President in 1934, he took the tack of 
ignoring Krishnamurti and tried to put the TS on a different tract. 
Basically Arundale took the public stand that Theosophy is everything 
and anything that the public wanted it to be. If the public was 
interested in the arts, he made the arts Theosophy. If they were 
interested in politics, he made politics Theosophy. It was a very busy 
time of printing tens of thousands of pamphlets and flyers all devoid of 
meningful content. It was also the beginning of the editing of 
Theosophical texts so as to remove references to K. and others 
embarrassments to the TS. While all of this reforming Theosophy for 
the public was going on, the ES was still very strong and maintained 
their own traditions. So, there became two Theosophies. One for the 
public, and one for the insiders. In other words, for the public, 
Theosophy was anything they wanted it to be. The problem is that when 
Theosophy became everything, it did not escape the attention of most 
enquirers that Theosophy is then--nothing. By the time Arundale died in 
1945, the membership of the TS had fallen to the lowest level, and has 
never really recovered.

When I joined TSA in 1963, Theosophy was not a popular subject. The TS 
members were all very elderly, and the Lodges were filled with Victorian 
furniture. Most of the members who were the active workers 20s and 30s 
were still alive and made up most of the membership. I remember 
Catherine Mays, Dora and Fritz Kunz, the Layton's etc. Everyone was 
excited when I joined because I was "fresh blood" as they said. But I 
was also of a very different generation than theirs. I would knock them 
off balance by asking probing questions, challenged the status quo. I 
saw nothing wrong with modern music and modern culture, while on the 
other hand, members believed that Jazz was created by Black Magicians. 
You could imagine what they though of Rock n Roll. As the 60's 
progressed into the psychedelic age, with hippies, Tim Leary, Alan 
Watts, and the Beatles, more people closer to my age began to drift into 
TS, but the TSA leadership did not know how to deal with them.

I remember those early Lodge lectures. Old timers would give talks 
throwing out phrases like "the inner government of the world" and "the 
path to the Masters" and "the Great White Brotherhood" but they were 
singing to the choir. They did not bother to explain to newbys what 
they were talking about. There was no viable educational program then. 
By the late 60's Headquarters responded by devising a series of monthly 
letters for new members. By that time, I already was well into my own 
reading and consequently found their letters, like their pamphlets 
rather devoid of meaningful content. 
When Dora Kunz became President in the late 70s she began to initiate a 
policy to built up the Lodges and broke a long standing tradition by 
inviting young members who were talented but not ES members to volunteer 
to work at Olcott. The membership under her approached to nearly 8,000 
at one point. When she left in 1986, the new management began to 
dismantle and undermine everything she accomplished. The new tactic was 
centralization. There was a lot of in-fighting and some nasty 
marginalization of some active members who did not agree with the new 
program. A lot of people left the TS in disgust, and at the same time, 
members from the Arundale days were passing away. When John Algeo 
became President, TSA membership dropped to under 4,000 at one 
point--about 1/2 of the maximum membership under Dora Kunz. 
So, what you have now in TSA is a general public, most of whom do not 
belong to a Lodge and do not have the support of a study group for the 
study of Theosophy. The classic texts are available, but they are in 
an edited form. For those interested in history, there is a "party 
line" history that is taught, but it is not very comprehensive--and very 
misleading. While TSA is beginning to promote Study Courses, what they 
teach is a very sanitized version of Theosophy. It is what they want 
the members to know, and nothing more. 
This is not a complete answer, but I hope it gives you a direction. 
Perhaps, in future discussions, we can develop some of the themes which 
I only hinted at here.

Best
Jerry



Anand Gholap wrote:

> Jerry,
> What could be the reasons according to you for members not having 
> much knowledge of Theosophy?
> Anand Gholap
>
> --- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, Jerry Hejka-Ekins <jjhe@c...> 
> wrote:
>
>
> > Anand,
> >
> > He we agree. I also believed that books should be reprinted as 
> they 
>
> > were left by the authors. I would not even bother to change the 
> English 
>
> > spellings. However, I don't have any occult reasons for this 
> opinion. 
>
> > I simply believe that authors ought to be allowed to stand or fall 
> based 
>
> > upon what they actually wrote. I have to hand it to ULT for 
> being the 
>
> > only Theosophical organization which reprinted Blavatsky's and 
> Judge's 
>
> > writing in their original form, while other organizations were 
> changing 
>
> > them or allowing them to go out of print. Of course, ULT did not 
> > reprint Besant and Leadbeater's writings, but that would have been 
> > outside of their mission statement to have done so. 
> > There was an excellent article done a few years ago by Gregory 
> Tillett 
>
> > for the Theosophical History journal which reviewed the changes the 
> > Adyar TS had made in Besant's and Leadbeater's books over the 
> years. 
>
> > The article was reprinted in the ACT newsletter. It would be nice 
> if 
>
> > Drs Tillett and Santucci would permit this article to be put 
> online. I 
>
> > think it is a very important article, because, people who buy 
> current 
>
> > editions of their books are rarely aware that they have been edited 
> in 
>
> > any significant way. 
> > Jerry
> >
> >
> >
> > Anand Gholap wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > > Jerry,
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > > As you see, I did not say that this material *contains* writings 
> of AB 
>
> > > > and CWL, but is based upon their ideas and uses their terminology.
> > > My opinion on this is books should be printed exactly as they 
> > > originally appeared without abridgement. For printing largest 
> edition 
>
> > > of the book should be taken. e.g. Masters and the Path was 
> enlarged by 
>
> > > Mr. Leadbeater himself and so for printing this largest edition 
> should 
>
> > > be taken. Only spelling may be changed to suit current US English. 
> > > e.g. realisation (old British) would become realization. I am 
> totally 
>
> > > against making more changes. 
> > > For making study course also original books of Annie Besant and 
> > > Leadbeater, written in their own language, should be recommended. 
> Not 
>
> > > only English of AB and CWL is among the best even by today's 
> standard 
>
> > > but there are occult reasons for recommending their original 
> writing. 
>
> > > Anand Gholap
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links