Theos-Talk Archives (January 1995 Message tl00158)

Jerry--

No one seems ready to take this one up! I go into some detail
about female initiates in my new book, but won't get into it
here.  Suffice it to say that Theosophy is chock full of
impressive role models for independent women, yet it seems to
lack any illuminating theoretical discussions of gender.  The
idea that male incarnations are better spiritually than female
ones deserves to fade into oblivion.  But in HPB's defense, I'm
doubtful that she really believed this.  I think she tended to
mythologize herself as a submissive obedient instrument of male
Masters partly because in the Victorian era no one would have
listened to her otherwise.  But I see her more as a partner than
a servant of her adept sponsors.

One must admire HPB for her audacity in trying to explain
everything according to a paradigm of spiritual evolution.  But
when it comes to applying this template to race, I just wish she
hadn't.  Deductive thinking has its place, and may work in
cosmology, but in talking about ethnicity we should stick to
empirical approaches.

Just an opinion, no flames please.