Theos-Talk Archives (November 1996 Message tl00216)

In message <199611072157.OAA15464@mailhost.azstarnet.com>, Blavatsky
Foundation <blafoun@azstarnet.com> writes
>
>Robert Gilbert writes:
>
>> the most devastating attack upon the supernatural origin
>>of both the letters and their authors is Who Wrote the Mahatma Letters?,
>>by H.E. & W.L. Hare (1936) - a critique which has yet to be rationally
>>rebutted.
>
>In my opinion, this book by the Hare brothers was rationally rebutted in
>a series of 12 articles or so by Dr. H.N. Stokes.

I cannot help but note from your bibliography that a very large number
of your citations are from very obviously "theosophical establishment"
sources.  I also note from your web site notice that you are looking
explicitly for PRO-HPB material.

What is clear from your list is that the controvery was long-lived, and
is still far from dead so far as historical research is concerned.  It
will probably remain so, because people will continue to take up the
theosophical position on its own statement, "There is no Religion Higher
than Truth."

I could post (and have been offered) a great many quotes - not just
citations - concerning this argument, but doubt this would be of much
value.  What I *would* be interested to know is how Kiddle's suspicion
is to be rebutted when it is clear from the evidence as he presents it
that his own lecture was given *before* the date given by Sinnet for the
receipt of the Letter in question and *before* the date of the "Occult
World" item.

I should imagine this show will run and run and run.  The reason I offer
is that what has sadly become the remnant of a once-great Society has
become for all too many of its adherents a "Religion of the Book"
complete with its own version of "Saints" and "Messiahs."

Perhaps the most important offering given to us in the Mahatma Letters
is not to take anything they tell us as "gospel" simply because they say
it.

Alan
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