Theos-Talk Archives (January 1997 Message tl00151)

Due to some karmic law, the minute I left the list there were
a couple dozen posts with my name in them.  Back from Florida
vacation, and temporarily prevented from progressing on
literary matters due to hardware problems, I resubscribed and
got the archived posts from the last week of the year.  Thanks
to everyone for being so interested in the issues raised by TS
reactions to my work.  At the risk of confirming JHE's judgment
that I only post about that topic, I have a few comments.

To Jerry Schueler-- I wish I'd noticed the name similarity
Alexis discovered regarding the Maharaja of Benares.  (That is,
"Maurya" was part of his name which suggests some possible
connection to Master M.)  Haven't gone any deeper into it, but
hope to read whatever Alexis has come up with.  Generally, I
think there's been a lot of confusion about the issue of
composite identities.  *No one* will ever be found who meets in
*every* detail HPB's descriptions of M. and K.H. (prove me wrong
if you can!) but *parts* of those descriptions correspond quite
exactly to various people she can be shown or plausibly hypothesized to
have known, learned from, worked with.  So it's not a matter of
Benares *rather* than Kashmir being M., but rather Benares *in
addition to* Kashmir, Mazzini and who knows how many others
*contributing* to HPB's portrayal of him.  Since this appears
to have been done with the approval of the people involved,
it's not morally the same as if she were doing it for selfish
reasons rather than to protect her sponsors.

To Tom Robertson-- historically, the term theosophist has been
used almost entirely by Christians, so I don't see how you can
use them as mutually exclusive categories.  Personally, I
consider myself a Christian theosophist, and HPB welcomed such
as members despite her own preference for Eastern religions.
As for the wisdom of TPH rejecting my work, that is a much
deeper and more confusing issue than you seem to recognize.
They took an entire year to decide to reject it, but *never*
gave me an *iota* of feedback on the research or the literary
quality.  Seven out of eight Theosophical reviewers were
favorable (at various levels of strength) so it is quite wrong
to depict the book as having been widely rejected by the
Theosophical membership.  It was rejected intensely and
emphatically, but only by a small number of self-appointed
thought police out to "protect Theosophists from being misled."

I find it interesting that Daniel Caldwell denies that he is
motivated by a rigid belief system in his attacks on my work.
This theme is a significant part of my reply to his "House of
Cards" which has been completed weeks ago but awaits a techie
to help Dr. Lane upload it onto his website.  That rigid belief
system is quite apparent in his writings, although I accept his
statement as evidence that he is not aware of his own dogmatism.

More later, gotta run.