Theos-Talk Archives (December 1994 Message tl00094)

hi -

the listserver crashed briefly this morning.  In cleaning things
up I found this message which was not delivered (I think).  Hence
I'm forwarding it.

jem

(from Liesel D.)

Dear Paul,

I really want to tell you that I haven't communicated with any of
my Leadbeater friends lately.I also have no idea who of them is
on this net.  I want it to be very clearly understood that this
is a correspondence between you & me, & whoever happens to be
tuning in to this network.  (They're probably tuning us both out,
because who wants to read all this nonesense.) I'm part of the
CWL contigent, for sure, but I'm writing these things to you,
they're not coming from a group of some friends I don't know
about.

In the middle of your post you say "I'd rather see healthy
dialogue on this than avoidance." You for sure aren't avoiding
anything in what you wrote, but I for one wouldn't call it a
"healthy" dialogue.  That's only my opinion ...others may differ.

About the contradictions between HPB & CWL's teachings.  I really
don't know what they are,.  not having studied the matter, but
I'll take your word for it that they exist.  If they've been
creating differences between various TS factions, then I think
it's about time that these differences be bridged.  I don't think
we can accomplish that by shouting accusations at each other, but
maybe if we observed what I know under the name of "The Freedom
of the Society", we'd get somewhere.  I understand "The Freedom
of The Society" to mean that every Theosophist is entitled to
his/her opinion, is entitled to espouse those phases of Theosophy
which he/she deems to be right & fitting for him/her, which make
sense to him/her.  The only exception to that is the belief in
Universal Brotherhood.  We're all to believe in that, and I'd
really be interested in finding out what your own concept of
Universal Brotherhood is..  Other than Brotherhood, everyone is
free to believe that part of our heritage which sounds right to
him/her, and _no one else has the right to tell him or her what
he/she must believe_.  From that very tolerant point of view,
Theosophists are free to believe that HPB was right, or that CWL
was right, or whatever mixture of the 2 each person decides on.
It is the individual's belief system, that is to be respected.
There is no collective belief of the Theosophical Society.  One
member does not impose his/her beliefs on another member, nor one
group on another group.  I bet ULT, Pasadena, & Adyar could do
that, if we all tried a little harder.

On to your second point ...masturbation ...  a biiig boogey man
at the turn of the century, when the incident happened.  At that
time people thought masturbating was a very evil thing to do, and
so they said that Leadbeater was a very evil man to advocate such
a dirty thing .  Right? Lots of people said that; lots of people
wrote about it.  Right? Riiiight.  Well, let me tell you about
something I learned recently in my American Women's History
class, At that era.people also thought that male nocturnal
emissions were an illness, & men had themselves castrated to stop
having nocturnal emissions.  That's just 1 example of what people
believed back then.  We learned of others.  Knowing how skewed
was that era's perception of sex matters, just imagine what kind
of credence one can give to the "large volumes of documentary
evidence" you mention that was piled up against CWL.  When you
come right down to it, if _I_ were taking care of a group of
prepubescent boys today, and I saw that they were having sexual
problems I'd tell them to do the same thing ...  masturbate.  If
present day pubescent boys were taught to do this, there wouldn't
be so many 14 year old mothers running around with kids they
don't know how to take care of.  And that would most probably
decrease the violence these kids often express lateron, because
of their poor upbringing.  Matter of fact, I once asked a
competent present-day psychologist about masturbation & was told
it was completely harmless.  .  I don't want to say too much
about Gregory Tillett.  I once bought his book, started to read
it, & made the book store give me back my money.  The only thing
I still remember reading is that Tillett was very annoyed because
no one from the ES would talk to him while he was researching.
And since it was apparently his belief that ESers knew at least
part of the story, & since he had no access to that part, how do
you figure that he was able to tell the whole story ?

Now we come to your belief that Adyar is dominated by the dark
brotherhood.  Mamma mi! You're free to believe in any boogey man
your imagination desires.  That's your problem.  I hope you don't
mind if I don't take it for real from my side.

I will close by quoting you again "...the attitudes & behavior of
each side tend to further alienate the other.  " After what you
just sent me, please be so kind as to tell me whether you think
you are alienating, or whether you are you furthering
"spins-ins'" to use your nomenclature ...  "in which people
gradually get closer by a step by step process based on finding
points of agreement." Tell me, K Paul Johnson, what is it you're
trying to accomplish? Universal Brotherhood?

I think I've wasted enough time on this useless back & forth with
you, so I probably won't answer any future communications from
you on this subject.  I'll do what CWL did.  Go about my
business, & never mind all this fruitless banter.

With all the sisterliness I can muster, since I'm not yet a
Bodhisattva, and with a Hindu invocation "Holy Cow"!

Liesel