Theos-Talk Archives (June 2005 Message tt00113)

Gregory,

> I agree with Anand that Leadbeaterian theosophy is more likely to 
be of 
> popular interest than is Blavatsky's theosophy. An examination of 
sales 
> figures for books on theosophy confirms this.

Thanks for truthful and honest assessment which I always appreciate 
in messages.

But the reason is fairly simple: 
> Blavatsky's writing is sophisticated, intellectually challenging 
and complex. 
> It's not her English language - it's the concepts she's seeking to 
convey. 
> However, that something is popular hardly demonstrates that it has 
quality. 
> More Big Macs are sold than gourmet dinners. Check out 
the "quality" of the 
> vastly popular "New Age" books on sale. Who was it who said 
something like "No-
> one ever lost money by underestimating the taste of the American 
[for which 
> can be substituted any nationality!] public"? 

I have studied management and I can tell with confidence that 
generally only good quality products sell in market for long time and 
only those companies survive which give consistently give high 
quality products and services. Low quality products and companies who 
provide them have short life. 
Leadbeater and Besant wrote very high quality books and that is why 
it is consistently selling for more than hundred years. Adyar TS has 
very large number of qualified members, many having Ph.D. or master's 
degree. And these qualified, intelligent people also respect writings 
of Annie Besant and Leadbeater.

Blavatsky is too hard for the 
> generally lazy would-be occultists who find Leadbeater exciting. It 
is 
> interesting to note that post-Blavatsky the membership of the TS 
and the 
> number of pages in "The Theosophist" both rose dramatically, and 
the 
> intellectual standards of both declined drastically.

Quality of writing of AB and Leadbeater is much higher then that of 
Blavatsky's writing. AB, CWL explained most abstract concepts and 
also gave details of various topics. At the time of Besant best 
people in the world were attracted to TS because of high quality.


> As a simple, yet related question to Anand: on what basis should 
anyone 
> believe anything Leadbeater writes about on the "hidden side" when 
he 
> manifestly cannot be trusted to speak truthfully about his own life 
in 
> this "visible world"?

You are probably saying that he did not tell correct birth date, then 
why should we trust things he tells about higher planes. 
Here there are minimum three possibilities. First is birth date 
Leadbeater gave was accurate and government records were false. At 
that time record keeping was poor. Even now it is poor in many 
countries. 
Second possibility is Leadbeater made mistake so even if he wanted to 
give true information by mistake he gave wrong birth date. These two 
are most probable cases. Even Masters also make mistakes of this kind 
and they have written so.
Third possibility is he lied. Person intentionally lies when he has 
some gain from lying. By telling wrong birth date there was nothing 
which Leadbeater could get. On the contrary there was huge risk of 
being proven wrong without any gain. So this possibility of 
intentionally lying is almost nil.

Anand Gholap