Theos-Talk Archives (May 2005 Message tt00747)

On the subject of "The Controversy Begins"

As a member of the editorial board for the 
letters [The Letters of H.P. Blavatsky], I 
could not disagree more with the view of 
these writers [Roos, Smith, & Sordo Letters, 
see Fohat VIII, 3] to, in effect, censor these 
specific letters and not publish them.

Readers should have easy access to these 
letters. A reader can then decide whether 
he/she believes a certain letter is a forgery 
or not.

As far as I know, all of the Blavatsky-Coulomb letters will be 
included in future volumes, and IF they were excluded I would not 
want to be a member of the editorial team.

Jean Overton-Fuller in her Blavatsky biography believes OTHER 
Blavatsky letters are forgeries. Should we therefore exclude those 
too from future volumes??? 

I also strongly disagree with the following editorial comments:

"One could conclude...that the powers of Wheaton and Adyar are 
trying to introduce a perverted understanding of Blavatsky into the 
world...."

"There are very good political reasons for including those letters. 
Adyar and Wheaton embrace a brand of 'theosophy' that is built upon 
the work of Annie Besant, Charles Leadbeater, and their worshipping 
followers."

"Adyar and Wheaton have to believe, and they have to ensure that 
their members believe in the sainthood of at least Besant. This 
sainthood cannot be guaranteed if Blavatsky, Judge and their 
interpretations of the Masters are not made suspect. The easiest way 
to accomplish this is to attack the reputations of these two 
founders of the society and attribute to them base, political 
motives, to make them as ethical as a Jesuit. Adyar and Wheaton 
obviously want these letters included in these collections and you 
can be sure that they will not be the last of their type. There will 
be other letters of the same ilk in future volumes. If you are 
members of these organizations, do not let your leadership get away 
with this." 

All I can say is "Flapdoodle"! 

In light of this kind of "reasoning", I ask the editor of FOHAT: do 
you therefore ascribe the same base motives to the late John Cooper? 
I ask you this question because Cooper ALSO included 
these "fraudulent" letters in his "edition" of the letters. See 
Cooper's dissertation for proof of my statement. 

And I must also have the same base motive since I agreed with both 
Algeo and Cooper that these letters should be included in the 
published volume.

Daniel Caldwell