Dear Erica,
Thank you for your comments. Here I am at work at 5 AM, having
awakened at 2 worrying about theos-talk. There is a kind of psychic
vampirism involved in a situation where one listmember's personal
attacks on another result in a dozen or more posts in a single day
with the target's name in the header in insulting context. On
several occasions Daniel would post five to ten hostile posts in a
single day about me whenever anyone showed "too much" sympathetic
interest in my books. That was harassment pure and simple, and there
were always enablers who refused to admit there was anything improper
about such behavior. (Of which I was by no means the only target.)
Now he is "gone" (?), and one constantly enraged partisan
cyberstalker has taken the place of another. Carlos seems to be
trying to outdo Daniel in his destructive obsession with one "K. Paul
Johnson" who is imaginary, a creation of his own fantasy. Anything I
have told him about the falsity of his accusations only increases
their frequency and intensity. Perhaps Pedro is right that the list
should be shut down entirely for a while. But unless there is
moderation or rules, the same dynamic would reappear whenever theos-
talk was reopened. Some people *feed* on causing annoyance to
others.
I use the word cyberstalker with care, because before erupting into
multiple personal attacks online yesterday, Carlos had subjected me
to an escalating series of personal insults and attacks in private
email. Every attempt to show patience, to provide explanations, to
defuse the escalating antagonism, only stirred him to greater
sectarian fury. That's EXACTLY what I experienced with Daniel. I
told Carlos night before last that I intended to come back here just
for a day to announce that my "hiatus" from the list would be
permanent and not temporary. I presume that explains the recent
flurry of hostile posts-- a last chance to get in some public licks
knowing I would read them. An unmoderated list provides an open
invitation for dogmatic, aggressive, relentless attackers of anyone
who doesn't follow the party line favored by the self-
appointed "thought police." How long were we free from one before
another took over that role? You wrote:
snip
The e-mail below is very provocative, I could say cruel! Please
try to focus on ideas and not on personal attacks! At the end of your
post you claim you wish a sincere debate, here in Greece we avoid
debates and try to have dialogues. For in debates every kind of
argument, specially those centred in the personality is allowed,
while a dialogue is centred on ideas.
Precisely. In private email Carlos "challenged" me to a "debate" on
the Masters, while proudly refusing to even consider reading any of
my books on the subject. I told him I was not available for debate,
which is a win/lose proposition, but only for friendly discussion.
Clearly the last thing he is interested in with me or anyone he
considers tainted with lack of loyalty to HPB.
I don't have time or energy to answer every lie-- but will at least
enumerate them:
LIE NUMBER ONE:
Paul Johnson has been trying to explain HPB as a semifraudulent
woman and to describe the Masters as non-Adepts.
LIE NUMBER TWO:
To his mind, there are no metaphysical or spiritual mysteries to be
solved.
LIE NUMBER THREE:
It is always a question of who's who. He invented the "People's
magazine" Theosophy, as if the facts of Adepthood were a fiction --
false facts used perhaps to cover frauds and a "market for tricks",
as he suggests in his 1987 text on HPB's 'Veiled Years'.
LIE NUMBER FOUR:
He does not perceive that also Jesus, as described in the New
Testament, had his "veiled years".
snip
HUMONGOUS LIE-- NUMBER FIVE:
Well, Paul Johnson did come to the theosophical movement with this
kind of theory, putting himself much above HPB,
LIE NUMBER SIX:
purporting to unveil the "Masters",
etc., and he had a John Algeo to receive him, and other pseudo-
theosophical leaders to open room to his ideas.
LIE NUMBER SEVEN:
And, just because Paul cannot "see" or experiment Theosophy,
LIE NUMBER EIGHT:
he has to saythat it is "perhaps a fraud", "perhaps semi-fraud".
I might go on. But the bottom line here is quite perplexing.
Feeling sorry for Carlos because he had come here after being
attacked behind his back repeatedly by Daniel, I warned him privately
that he was dealing with someone with a apparently longstanding
interest in promoting antagonism here between different approaches to
Theosophy or Theosophical organizations. My intention was to try to
stifle the emerging flamewar between him and Daniel. Instead, my
intervention only poured gasoline on the flames, after I was induced
to make public my evidence about Green and Hobbes. Evidently Carlos
hates Adyar as much as/more than Daniel hates ULT, and their hatred
of me is running neck and neck. Now someone else is promoting an
atmosphere of constant antagonism here. My experiment in
intervention results in the conclusion that the new bully is the same
as the old.
Bill has shown himself to be quite the true prophet, seeing well in
advance that Carlos would promote me to public enemy number one here
as soon as Daniel was out of the picture.
If you or anyone can see any alternative to my unsubscribing
permanently, I'd appreciate knowing it. The situation looks as
hopeless now as it did when Daniel was on one of his crusading
rampages.
Paul
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