Theos-Talk Archives (April 2005 Message tt01690)

>From H.P. Blavatsky's LUCIFER magazine:

"Free discussion, temperate, candid, undefiled 
by personalities and animosity, is, we think, 
the most efficacious means of getting rid of 
error and bringing out the underlying truth; 
and this applies to publications as well as 
to persons. It is open to a magazine to be 
tolerant or intolerant; it is open to it to 
err in almost every way in which an individual 
can err; and since every publication of the 
kind has a responsibility such as falls to 
the lot of few individuals, it behooves it 
to be ever on its guard, so that it may 
advance without fear and without reproach. 
All this is true in a special degree in 
the case of a theosophical publication, 
and Lucifer feels that it would be unworthy 
of that designation were it not true to 
the profession of the broadest tolerance 
and catholicity, even while pointing out 
to its brothers and neighbours the errors 
which they indulge in and follow. While 
thus keeping strictly, in its editorials, 
and in articles by its individual editors, to the spirit and 
teachings of pure theosophy, it nevertheless frequently gives room 
to articles and letters which diverge widely from the esoteric 
teachings accepted by the editors, as also by the majority of 
theosophists. Readers, therefore, who are accustomed to find in 
magazines and party publications only such opinions and arguments as 
the editor believes to be unmistakably orthodox--from his peculiar 
standpoint-must not condemn any article in Lucifer with which they 
are not entirely in accord, or in which expressions are used that 
may be offensive from a sectarian or a prudish point of view, on the 
ground that such are unfitted for a theosophical magazine. They 
should remember that precisely because Lucifer is a theosophical 
magazine, it opens its columns to writers whose views of life and 
things may not only slightly differ from its own, but even be 
diametrically opposed to the opinion of the editors. The object of 
the latter is to elicit truth, not to advance the interest of any 
particular ism, or to pander to any hobbies, likes or dislikes, of 
any class of readers. It is only snobs and prigs who, disregarding 
the truth or error of the idea, cavil and strain merely over the 
expressions and words it is couched in. 

Theosophy, if meaning anything, means truth; and truth has to deal 
indiscriminately and in the same spirit of impartiality with vessels 
of honour and of dishonour alike. . . . 

Justice demands that when the reader comes across an article in this 
magazine which does not immediately approve itself to his mind by 
chiming in with his own peculiar ideas, he should regard it as a 
problem to solve rather than as a mere subject of criticism. Let him 
endeavour to learn the lesson which only opinions differing from his 
own can teach him. Let him be tolerant, if not actually charitable, 
and postpone his judgment till he extracts from the article the 
truth it must contain, adding this new acquisition to his store. One 
ever learns more from one's enemies than from one's friends; and it 
is only when the reader has credited this hidden truth to Lucifer, 
that he can fairly presume to put what he believes to be the efforts 
of the article he does not like to the debit account."

LUCFIER, January 1888, pp. 342-343