Theos-Talk Archives (September 2009 Message tt00106)

I recently came upon a very interesting letter sent by Annie Besant to every
member of ES in June 1923. In it, she states:

Anyone in the ES who takes part in any movement in the TS which tends to
cause trouble or stir up unfriendly feelings towards any member of the TS,
will be expelled from the School as soon as the fact comes to my notice; I
shall accept no excuse as to good intentions. Anyone who wants to attack
another member, feeling it to be his duty, must resign from the School
before making such attack.

(pp. 53; Krotona Vol IV by Joseph Ross)

In the 21st century, with the advent of Internet, we have seen some
interesting pattern of action from theosophists to hide their hand from
their  actions. With Besant's statement as the backdrop, let us look at
them.

1.    A pattern of keeping silent, while surrogates do the work of making
statements or raising issues with no substantive factual evidence.
2.    Use others as a front and distribute statements, which they themselves
dare not to make. Those who end up as fronts feel good because they are made
to appear scholarly, important and smart to the public.
3.    A pattern of using pseudonyms to hide their real identity as well as
avoid taking personal responsibility. Once the pseudonym users are
questioned further about their identity, they get cold feet and disappear.
These pseudonym users may be acting on their own and/or acting as catâs paws
of their controllers.
4.    Use Wiki as a shield to protect anonymity. Post a statement or a
comment on Wiki and extract it to distribute it and then go and delete it
from Wiki. Wiki has open access for editing and also allows anonymity of the
editors. To the gullible, this may appear as a legit statement of facts.

Another issue we have seen is that long term leaders, members and elders
keep silent perhaps because of the political and other consequences of
speaking their minds publicly. (Some times, it takes a great courage and
risk to speak the Truth. Many in the past have given their lives to speak
truth.) In today's TS, this may be as serious as losing their comfortable
room and board.

So when there are serious issues and problems, such as those we have seen in
the recent past, it falls on the lap of the ordinary novice members to wake
up and speak up.

Whatever anyone thinks of the above issues, one thing is for sure. But for
the Internet and a few dedicated ordinary members, TS today would be far
different from what it is now and perhaps much dismembered.

MKR


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