Theos-Talk Archives (March 1995 Message tl00144)

According to MGRAYE@CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU:

> To begin with, I would like to remind everyone on Theos-l that
> almost 2 months ago, I wrote a brief "review" of THE MASTERS
> REVEALED and I belive [correction: believe] I said complimenetary
> things about the book and, in fact, I urged every Theosophist
> reading my words to obtain and read Paul Johnson's book.
> I still stand by what I wrote then.

Thank you.

> In my recent, more critical posting on Paul Johnson's book, I
> pointed out certain weaknesses of the book.  If I seemed to
> attack Paul Johnson as a *person* then I am sorry for that.

Thank you.

> My comments were directed to Paul Johnson as the *author* of the
> book.  It must be remembered that Paul has written this book in
> which he has embodied *his* ideas, *his* hypotheses, *his*
> statements, *his* evaluations , *his* "statements" of facts, etc.
> *His* book is, in reality, his brain child, his mind-born
> creation.  Therefore, it is almost impossible to criticize *his*
> book without in someway referring to the man Paul Johnson.

Well-- it should at least be stated that I have actively
solicited advice and materials from an international cast of
characters.  There are 9 I can name off the top of my head who
definitely know more Theosophical history than I do: Leslie
Price, John Cooper, Joscelyn Godwin, Daniel Caracostea, Michael
Gomes, Greg Tillett, Jim Santucci, Jerry Hejka-Ekins, Daniel
Caldwell.  ALL of these were asked to share their criticisms and
suggestions at various points.  Price, Cooper, Caracostea,
Tillett and Godwin provided voluminous leads to follow or
corrections to make.  Every time I jumped on them like "a duck on
a June bug" and immediately incorporated (or pursued at least)
the suggestion, material, etc.  Santucci and Hejka-Ekins had
offered to make editorial corrections and recommendations when it
was being considered that In Search of the Masters might be
published by Theosophical History Foundation (at my expense).
When that fell through due to time constraints I still asked them
for critiques, but never got them.  Gomes provided a large amount
of material, although no criticisms.  The point is, I have been
absolutely open to all suggestions from those more knowledgable
than myself, (have solicited them) and have used all provided.
With the partial exception of yourself, and for reasons related
to time and relevance.

> Therefore, if I criticize anyone it is Paul Johnson *the writer*
> of the book and NOT Paul Johnson *the human being*.  I believe
> there is a vital distinction here and not merely a play of words!

PJ the human being wishes fervently that somebody else had
written the book!  But alas, he did.

> I said for example: ...Paul Johnson does NOT mention in his
> message and ..he does NOT mention in his book.....I find it
> somewhat misleading that Paul Johnson mentions the Hares' book
> but is silent to the critiques written on the book."

More on this later.  But I only mentioned it (Hare) in a
last-minute insertion into the text in response to your
insistence that I shouldn't totally ignore the topic of
handwritings, etc.  So in the time I had, I wrote a brief
section which is now criticized as shallow and misleading.
Should have left it out.  The topic is irrelevant to my
inquiry, as I will discuss in my next post.

> author is silent about the critiques on the Hare book.  Did Paul
> consciously intend to mislead his readers? I hope not, and am
> relieved to find out that such is not the case.  But when, for
> example, Paul in reply to my criticism writes: "These critiques
> (Stokes) are not widely available.  I've never seen a copy of the
> O.E.  Library Critic....", does this excuse the "author" for not,
> at least mentioning them? Fourteen years before THE MASTERS

Why mention something I've never seen?  If these critiques are
so powerful as to demolish the Hares findings, I guess I should
have read them.  But the whole topic is irrelevant and I
shouldn't have been persuaded by you to touch it at all; my
reward for trying is just to be criticized for the inadequacy
of the effort.

> Now the Bruce Campbell book is listed in the bibliography of Paul
> Johnson's book IN SEARCH OF THE MASTERS (1990) and also in his
> THE MASTERS REVEALED (1994).  So the Stokes citation is not that
> obscure! And as regards the availability of the *O.E.  Library
> Critic*, this journal can be located in a number of locations,
> including Theosophical organizations.

After having been rejected by TUP, TPH and PLP, I didn't feel any
welcome mats awaited me at any Theosophical organization.  But I
continually sought corrections, suggestions, etc.  from ALL those
publishers before their rejections of my work.  NO ONE ever said
"we think you are not looking at the right evidence, and suggest
you investigate X." If they had I would have immediately
complied.

> In research methodology, one is taught to do a literature search
> on the subject one is intending to write on in order to
> familiarize oneself with what others have already discovered ,etc
> about the subject.  I believe I was taught this procedure as an
> undergraduate in college.  One need not be a "scholar" to realize
> the importance of this kind of literature search.

But you are insisting that I should have become familiar with
literature that has nothing to do with my investigation, as I
defined it.  Only because of your belief that I needed to touch
the tar baby of paranormal phenomena did I do so; trying to
please you only opened me up to more criticism from you.

> When I mention Dr.  Paul Kirk and Paul Johnson replies: "...I
> don't know of him", I am even more surprised! I guess that Paul
> has never read Victor Endersby's THE HALL OF MAGIC MIRRORS (1969)
> where Dr.  Kirk's important letter is published.

Read ten to fifteen years ago, and the last thing anyone could
accuse me of is a photographic memory.

> 1960s.  But what suprises me even more is that Dr.  Kirk and his
> handwritng analysis of certain Mahatma Letters is written about
> by Cylvia Cranston in her 1993 biography of HPB and Paul listed
> this Cranston bio.  in his book THE MASTERS REVEALED and even at
> least twice from the Cranston bio.

CONSIDER some chronology here.  THE MASTERS REVEALED went in
its first draft to SUNY Press in February 1993.  The contract
to publish was signed in late June.  My final manuscript draft
was delivered in September.  Now, I don't recall exactly when I
received my copy of the Cranston bio, but it was in 1993.  In
other words, every citation from Cranston you find in TMR was
inserted late in the game to a manuscript that had already been
submitted to a publisher.  These circumstances meant that I
incorporated only material that related directly to topics
already included.  I was certainly in no position to go off
pursuing a tangent of questionable relevance that was found in
a book appearing at such a late stage in my own writing.

> Again, when I wrote: "Unfortunately, Paul Johnson in THE MASTERS
> REVEALED does NOT allow his readers to know about this study by
> [Charles] Marshall." , Paul replies: "Gee, Dan, it sure seems
> like you are saying I am familiar with the study, or had some
> kind of access to the journal in which it appears.  How can I not
> allow something when I'm ignorant of it? It never has been
> reported on or discussed in TH [Theosophical History] or among
> theosophical historians in my presence."
>
> So Paul admits he is ignorant of the existence of this article?

No.  Ignorant of the contents or value.  I had heard of it.
Again, this is all irrelevant to my inquiry and you can only
use it as a weapon against me because of my abortive attempt to
satisfy your demands to delve into the whole paranormal side of
the story.

Yet in

> the same Cranston biography of HPB, p.  274, a whole paragraph is
> devoted to summarizing the findings of Marshall.  And in the
> index to the Cranston biography, under the entry "Mahatma
> Letters..." the title of this article is given plus the page
> number.

see above about Cranston timing.  I read the whole book, but
just don't recall the Marshall description.

> All I am suggesting is that the author of THE MASTERS REVEALED
> when writing the section on "Who Wrote the Mahatma Letters?" (see
> pp.  174-175) would have done himself a favor and certainly a
> favor to his readers if he had followed up the sources mentioned
> in Cranston's biography of HPB.  Instead, readers of that section
> will not be well informed and in fact will be given a very
> one-sided, incomplete treatment concerning the Mahatma Letters.

Which would not have been there at all unless...  The biggest
favor I could have done myself and readers would be to stick to
my guns and say "this is irrelevant and I'm not getting into
it"-- 20-20 hindsight.

> My reply is: I cannot get inside your mind and see the workings
> of your minds.  I am glad to know that you are not consciously
> and with an "active effort" attempting to suppress information,
> but at the same time the fact remains that you quote only that
> evidence which you feel supports your speculations on the
> identities of Koot Hoomi and Morya.

This is not at all true.  I quote only evidence that I feel is
RELEVANT to the identities of KH and M, some of which is
ambiguous and some of which conflicts with my identifications.
See all the description of conflicting stories about M, for
example-- which obviously don't support my identification of
him-- in the Mazzini chapter.

> In my two letters to you in 1993 (letters which you solicited
> from me), I quoted pages after page of evidence which would
> suggest that your speculations on KH and Morya were as inadequate
> to explain the facts concerning the Masters as Richard Hodgsonn's
> "explanations" were in 1885- 1886.

The whole sad story of my effort to cooperate with you and
utilize your input probably needs to be told eventually, but
suffice it to say that the timing, relevance and unfriendly
tone of your correspondence were all factors inhibiting my
ability to incorporate your suggestions.  Yet I tried, by
writing as much as seemed appropriate with as much new research
as I had time to do.  Then, when you pretty much massively
rejected my effort, the publisher and I decided to delete all
the "answers to criticism" material for reasons I explained at
the time.

> I thank you for mentioning me in your Acknowledgments page as
> follows:
>
> "Daniel Caldwell provided helpful criticisms of my
> identifications of Morya and Koot Hoomi."
>
> Unfortunately, your readers will not have access to my "helpful
> criticisms."

But-- you're about to take care of that problem.

> And only a well versed student of early Theosophical history will
> be aware of the testimonies that refute your "House of Cards"
> speculations on the two Theosophical Masters.

Well, it looks like you are the man chosen by destiny to refute
the Johnsonian heresy before it claims any victims.