Theos-Talk Archives (May 1994 Message tl00043)

According to Donald DeGracia:
>
> John:

> Re: the posting spiritual truth verses historical truth, it sounds
> like Paul was upset by his bad review.  This is definately a part of
> writing that anyone making things public needs to get used to.
> Still, i don't know about his comments putting spiritual and
> historical thinking opposite each other.  Spirtual insight will give
> one a great advantage in studying history.  And history always
> illuminates any isee, for all issues have a history.  Of course, when
> one is studying history one has to always be careful for distortions
> that arise with time (i.e.  the phone game that kids play).  But,
> taking such factors into account, historical understanding is
> invaluable.

> Furthermore, spirtual truth doesn not get caught up in conflicts and
> dualisms as does the lower mind of rationality.  So, it seems kind of
> silly comapring spirtual insight to historical understanding as they
> each stem from very different levels of comprehnsion.

> Just wanted to say this.
>
> Don
>
> About being upset-- yes, but not because the review was bad.

No amount of criticism of my research or writing would have been as
disturbing as the kind of personal attack made by MJ.  Because his
resistance is so high to the facts uncovered by my research, his
strategy to avoid thinking through their implications is to "blame the
messenger." This goes so far as to impute fiendish manipulation of the
evidence on behalf of an unconscious wish to destroy Theosophy.  No one
who knew me as I was writing the book would give any credence to this
accusation.  But no matter who presented this evidence, or how, the
facts speak for themselves.  About comparing the two kinds of truth--
this comment seems to miss the point I was making.  People committed to
spiritual movements are notoriously unwilling to examine the history of
those movements objectively.  This is because they perceive historical
truth as opposed to spiritual truth; my whole point was that the two
are not indeed opposed, but complementary.