Theos-Talk Archives (May 2008 Message tt00585)

Dear Pedro,

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "prmoliveira" <prmoliveira@...> 
wrote:

> number of incorrections in what you have written above by quoting
> the Rules of the TS and adding my own comments, which are marked PO.

I think Anand knows the Rules as well as you but the problem is that 
the Rules are not always strictly followed. The Rules themselves were 
hard to fetch, I could get them from Canada only.
In the USA and Canada, as I understood, they follow the rules, there 
were even cases of admission of prisoners. On the Canadian site there 
is an application form in French; anyone can download it, print out, 
fill and send to the secretary.

> I also remember that someone in Russia decided to register the
> rules of the old Russian TS (pre-1917) without due consultation
> with the International Headquarters at Adyar. As a result that 
> society was not recognised as part of the international TS.

It is quite right. The president of that self-styled society proved to 
be not very scrupulous man, but anyway this society attracted most of 
the ernest theosophists, including those who worked underground, at 
least one of them was a member officially joined in 1918 and some 
others were acquainted with Sofia Gerie, president of Moscow branch 
before 1917 and unofficial head of Russian theosophical movement until 
her death in 1956. The last old lady who knew her and still attended 
theosophical meetings till 2006 died this month.
The solution which was worked out was that the leading members of that 
Russian Theosophical Society would join individually and then could be 
united into the lodges. They filled application forms and handed them 
to representatives of EFTS but were not admitted. Moreover, most 
people who were somehow connected with that society had problems with 
joining TS Adyar. For admission, as they say, conditions were spoken 
out, inconsistent with Rules and spirit of the Theosophical Society, 
as to denounce ceitain teachings; also they were demanded to return 
portraits of the Masters which belonged to the old Russian Section and 
were kept secretly all this time. In memoirs of Pisareva you can read 
how they miraculously avoided confiscation. All this was insulting to 
people who were seriosly risking doing theosophical work during soviet 
times.
(The curious ones can look the photos of visit of EFTS officials to 
RTS HQ in 1992 and of some later seminars here: 
http://hpb.narod.ru/berg.htm & http://hpb.narod.ru/sem.htm )
I understand that they afraid to admit the wrong people, as they could 
discredit the Society, but it lead to situation that there is nothing 
to discredit, as there's no Society.
EFTS has really conducted several seminars of attendants of which new 
members were enrolled, but (with some few exceptions) interest of 
these people to theosophy wasn't serious and died out soon. The 
presidential representative was appointed who was reluctant to admit 
new members, while all those who wrote to Adyar were redirected to 
her. (For example, I wrote to Adyar for membership in 1993 and finally 
could join in 2005 only). Later she was dismissed, I think, after Mary 
Anderson understood what kind of women she is, and only to this I 
attribute some growth of the membership during the last two years.
In Ukraine the situation is slighly better, mostly due the organizing 
talents of S. Gavrilenko, who recently started the lodge in Kiev, yet 
she also had problems with registering it, until she came to Adyar and 
talked personally with the President.

Fraternally, Konstantin.