Theos-Talk Archives (March 2006 Message tt00524)

Bart
   
       The problem, as I see it, re: Tacoma and the TSA, is that the TSA has become so politcally motivated that this is what determines their action regarding the existence of other Lodges. This really corporate behavior on the part of TSA, to me, is the problem. Theosophy as a philosophy and movement, standing for Brotherhood as it was intended by definition, is therefore being tarnished in this kind of trial. In other words, if Tacoma, as an entity in itself wants to do and be what they are, this should have nothing to do with TSA. Even if the Tacoma Lodge became a foolish and non-theosophically  oriented group of anti-HPB folks, they still have the right afforded to all human beings to be that. Yes, the TSA can write them off as no longer under the TSA umbrella, so to speak. But so what and how hypocrital. The TSA has shown itself to be run by particularly non-theosophically minded folks, and in that sense no longer represent theosophical thought in their own actions. Yes, this
 is the thought of one student, but it is how I feel, after following this from the beginning.
   
  Steve

Bart Lidofsky <bartl@sprynet.com> wrote:
  krsanna wrote:
> If you are interested in more information about this case, I suggest 
> you do what the "Aquarian Theosophist" did. Make written 
> inquirities. It saves much speculation.

Except that I am very much aware of the history that Rodolpho Don has 
with the Theosophical Society in America. He published an early web page 
(which, by the way, I frequently used as an example of an excellent web 
site). John Algeo had two major problems with it, however. The first was 
that it represented itself as the official website of the Theosophical 
Society in America. The second was that it revealed rather publicly 
certain information about the TSA which could be used to help in a 
hostile takeover. He requested that Rodolpho put in a statement that his 
site was not the official site of the TSA, and also pointed out that 
posting the fiscal information was probably a bad idea, but did not go 
as far as requesting its removal. Rodolpho was furious, and contended 
that any member of the TSA was entitled to speak for the entire 
organization, and posted John's rather polite letter in lieu of putting 
in the simple disclaimer that John asked for. As such, I find Rodolpho 
to be a highly prejudiced source.

According to Wheaton, the lawsuit has to do with financial 
improprieties, and violation of the organization's publicly filed bylaws 
on the part of its officers.

One thing that I find interesting is Rodolpho's accusation that Wheaton 
intends to keep the resources for itself. I recall a time when Wheaton 
had published a new version of the bylaws which would have property of a 
dissolved lodge revert to Wheaton. It was pointed out that the key 
language that required that the resources stay in the area of the Lodge, 
and not be moved, was no longer there. All sorts of conspiracies were 
imagined. As then chairman of the bylaws committee of the New York 
Theosophical Society I gave John Algeo a call. According to him, this 
was the first he had heard of this, that it was entirely unintentional, 
and that had I called 48 hours later, there would not have been enough 
time to fix the wording. As it was, there was enough time, and the 
wording was changed. But what impressed me was that, for all the 
complaining, there was so much faith that the leadership of the TSA was 
the embodiment of evil that nobody thought to actually try to fix the 
problem.

This is not to say that the TSA board has not taken numerous actions 
over the years to keep its oligarchical status (notably taking the 6 
regional districts and combining them into 3, as well as de-emphasizing 
individual lodge membership in favor of member-at-large membership, as 
well as setting up a pseudo "National Lodge"). But it is to say that I 
will take any representation of them as the embodiment of evil with a 
grain of salt.

Bart




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