Theos-Talk Archives (November 1996 Message tl00056)

Bart Lidofsky wrote:
> I'm not sure if there's a sentence in there;=20
> can you please rephrase the question?

Sorry Bart,

I'm admittedly not the best of writers.
I was just wondering how people on this list who had heard about the
shams of those early days might have dealt with them (if at all). It
seems to me that through their deceptive actions the founders cast
suspicion and doubt on much of what they were trying to do (and that's
the optimistic view).

My question doesn't apply as much to the genuine, historical Hindu or
Buddhist teachings which they helped to bring to the West. These
teachings are more or less verifiable and HPB, et al deserve a lot of
credit for their efforts. But in the cases where their pronouncements
rely on the authority of the "Brotherhood of Masters" and non-historical
texts like the "Stanzas of Dyzan", don't you think that their trickery
throws that whole premise into question? And if it does, what does that
mean? Were such hoaxes necessary if these things were true and how can
you possibly justify or excuse them. If similar things happened in an
organization today what would your response be? We can't just excuse
them for being "Leos". That's too easy. Aren't they accountable for
their actions?

Its bad enough that these deceptions were used in establishing the
"occult authority" of the society in the first place, but they continued
to be used, mainly in the form of "precipitated or psychically received"
letters to try to back up both Annie Besant and Leadbeater's claims for
power after Mme.Blavatsky's death.

If you folks have already discussed these "letters" and concluded that
they were all more or less authentic, I'd really like to see the list
records for that period.

Has anybody read a book called "Madame Blavatsky's Baboon"
(By Peter Washington. =A91993,1995 Schocken Books Inc., New York). It's
well-researched and seems unafraid to look at the history of the
Society, warts and all.=20

I know it's risky to ask questions like this on a list of Theosophy
proponents, advocates, members, etc. (I throw myself in there
somewhere). But doesn't it bother anyone else that this stuff happened?

Sincerely,
Mark