Theos-Talk Archives (November 1996 Message tl00142)

>Have you ever heard of Dr. Vernon Harrison?  He is the handwriting expert
>who examined the original MSS of the Mahatma Letters and stated in 1986
>that in his professional opinion, HPB did not write the Mahatma Letters.

I have reviewed Harrison's article. It contains numerous
misrepresentations of Hodgson's case, repeats old charges that Hodgson
responded to more than a century ago, ignores inconvenient facts about
the handwriting analysis, ignores the bulk of Hodgson's case (most of
which does not rest on handwriting analysis), does no independent
research into anomalies in the record (such as the letter reported by
Boris de Zirkoff in "Rebirth of the Occult Tradition" in which a letter
from one master was written in the other's writing), and indulges
repeatedly in personal attack and snide imprecations in lieu of argument.
It really winds up contributing nothing.

The apperarance of the Harrison article on the SPR Journal has been
misrepresented by the likes of Sylvia Cranston as an official turnabout
by the SPR, when in fact, the editors of the journal felt the need to
explicitly distance themselves from Harrison's piece in a foreword,
insisting strongly that the Journal does not express corporate opinions
and that the editors have decided to run a piece critical of Hodgson
simply in order that defenders of Theosophy can have their say.

Tim Maroney