Theos-Talk Archives (July 2005 Message tt00210)

It is well known fact that students for Ph.D. do research and write 
thesis mostly to get Ph.D. degree and to prove their ability to do 
scholarly research. Gregory also did some research and wrote thesis. 
He earned doctorate because he did some research mostly related to 
rumors in Leadbeater's life. Till this point what Gregory did was 
logical and sensible from viewpoint of the candidate for Ph.D.

But Gregory made big mistake later. His research on rumors - which 
formed very small part of the life of Mr. Leadbeater - was published 
by Gregory as his full biography. In Adyar TS there are large number 
of members who have Ph.D. or master's degree. Most of these scholars 
rejected this biography considering it completely misleading as it 
focused on small part of his life and was published by Gregory as 
full biography of Mr. Leadbeater. These scholars in Adyar TS and 
many outside TS also considered this biography as most unscholarly 
biography. It formed opinion that Gregory does not have capacity to 
do any objective, scholarly research and his character is not pure 
enough to place before world accurate facts in balanced manner. 

So whatever credit Gregory had earned by getting Ph.D. was lost by 
printing thesis as biography. 

If he was wise enough, after taking Ph.D. he could have said " thesis 
is written to get Ph.D, I wrote it and earned doctoral degree. Matter 
is over, I don't want to discuss that subject" If he had said so, 
nobody would have ridiculed Gregory or questioned his capacity to do 
research. But after getting doctoral degree also he published that 
small part of Leadbeater's life as biography. Result was hundreds of 
scholars in Theosophical circles and outside ridiculed Gregory, 
considered his work as unscholarly and came to conclusion that 
Gregory lacks capacity to do research and he can't present correct 
picture. So what Gregory earned by getting Ph.D. was lost by 
publishing thesis as biography. 

Anand Gholap