Theos-Talk Archives (September 1995 Message tl00733)

Rich writes to Alan:

>Alan,
>
>Why is it that your CWL and Mars post was put on Theosophy
>roots? Are we afraid to discuss it on the regular list? Was
>some decision made that CWL was not to be discussed, and
>therefore a separate list was made to discuss him?
>
>It strikes me as odd that if the answer to the last 2 questions
>is "yes," that a decision was reached some time ago without the
>discussion of the current members of the list. I assume that
>the list has grown CONSIDERABLY in the past year or so, and I
>wonder if everyone on the list agree now that we may not discuss
>CWL?
>
>This sounds like censorship. No?
>
>Rich

 I think Alan was just joining this list when all of this
came down, so assuming that nobody minds, I'll chime in on this
one, since I was in a sense part of the circumstances that
brought about the situation.

 Originally Liesel, who had just joined the list, went after
Paul for writing something that she seemed to feel reflected upon
CWL negatively. At first I tried to mediate the situation but
eventually found myself being challenged to offer documentation
for the accuracy of Paul's statement. I did, which in turn
resulted in both Paul and I being flamed. Two or three others
also made comments expressing a non-interest in theosophical
history discussions of any kind and/or feeling offended about
anything negative being said about CWL. John Mead intervened by
suggesting that since theos-roots was originally set up for
historical discussions, that it might be best to move all of them
there. It seemed like a good solution at the time, since those
who have no interest in theosophical history could just not
subscribe to theos-roots.

 I feel that it is a fair compromise, and everyone expressed
satisfaction with the decision at the time--even Liesel announced
that she canceled theos-roots. Other historical discussions
might do well to move to theos-roots also. Personally, I don't
feel that it is censorship to have historical discussions on
theos-roots any more than it is censorship for one to post
announcements and reports of meetings and events on theos-news,
which I do occasionally. These four boards were set up for this
purpose long before the CWL issue ever arose.

 This way Paul, Dan, Alan, Eldon, you and I and all of the
other history buffs can all talk theosophical history to our
hearts content without offending or boring anyone on theos-l. So
lets go for it!

 Maybe, John can set up a theos-christ for Daniel :-)

Jerry Hejka-Ekins
Please reply to: jhe@toto.csustan.edu