Theos-Talk Archives (April 2006 Message tt00802)

Carlos writes:

===================================================
Daniel Caldwell has been denouncing Robert Crosbie, the ULT founder, 
for having NOT  kept a vow of blind obedience to K. Tingley.
===================================================

Now I ask readers of Carlos' words, is this really
true?

Carlos has at least 3 different thoughts all rolled up
in this one statement.

First of all, have I denounced Robert Crosbie?

Last time I checked, I have done no such thing.

I simply raised certain questions.

And did I characterize the vow Robert Crosbie took as 
"a vow of blind obedience to K. Tingley"?

I assume this is Carlos' estimation that Robert Crosbie
took "a vow of blind obedience to K. Tingley."

Exactly what was my focus when dealing with the underlying
issue?

I simply went back to the pledge HPB sent
to all individuals who wanted to join her esoteric school.

See:

http://blavatskyarchives.com/espage3.htm

Especially the part that reads:

"I pledge myself to preserve inviolable secresy as regards the signs
and pass-words of the Section and all confidential documents.

"So help me, my Higher Self."

And focusing in:

"I pledge myself to preserve INVIOLABLE SECRESY as regards . . . all
confidential documents." caps added

And on page 2 of the same document, it reads in part about
preserving:

"The Secrecy of the documents of the Section . . . unless absolved
from such secrecy by the Head of the Section."

Robert Crosbie took this pledge.  And he pledged to preserve
INVIOLABLE SECRESY regarding the E.S. confidential documents.

And as indicated in the document, HPB expected all her E.S. students
to preserve this INVIOLABLE SECRESY "unless absolved from such 
secrecy by the Head of the Section."

So my question was simply when Crosbie decided to distribute copies 
of these confidential documents to new students starting in 1909, 
was he "absolved from such secrecy by the Head of the Section"?

And let me again take an example and ask readers to consider the 
implications, etc.

Let's say Carlos had lived back in 1888 and had taken this pledge
and joined HPB's esoteric school.

And then let us suppose that Carlos at some point in his life gets 
the idea that he wants to share the E.S. documents with a few close 
friends.  

Mind you, Carlos isn't going to publish them publicly, that is, 
print copies and sell them through, let us say, a public bookstore, 
he is just going to circulate them privately to a few friends.  

He may only let them borrow his copy and read the instructions or he 
may write out portions of the whole instruction or even let the 
friend borrow it who then writes out either portions of or the whole 
instruction.

The obvious question is:  

Is Carlos actually preserving "inviolable secresy" regarding these 
documents when he does these things?

Notice in the example I give Carlos is NOT publicly circulating
copies, but only privately circulating his copy or extracts or maybe
even a complete handwritten copy of his printed copy to chosen
individuals.  

But again is he actually preserving "inviolable secresy" by doing 
such things AND furthermore was he "absolved from such secrecy by 
the Head of the Section"?

I give the above example because there are similar cases and
historical material from 1888-1891 relating to this very issue.

As I read the pledge and related material, the pledge is binding FOR 
LIFE. Even HPB says this in several documents.

See also the document titled "Book of Rules", reprinted on pp. 285-
286 of THE ESOTERIC PAPERS OF MADAME BLAVATSKY. See:
http://esotericpapers.net/

Here we find that esoteric students were NOT to COMMUNICATE them
[certain documents] to anyone not already in the esoteric school.

Furthermore, no member was to DISCUSS the teachings given in the
E.S. or DISCUSS any of its confidential documents with outsiders.

So would Carlos have being abiding by his pledge [see above] by
PRIVATELY circulating copies of these E.S. documents to outsiders 
and NEW people?

Food for thought.

Daniel
http://hpb.cc