Theos-Talk Archives (January 1997 Message tl00704)

Gregg, I don't think the average Theosophist in the Adyar TS
has the same kind of inner fragmentation or fixation or
whatever it is that characterizes the lead figures.  But know
of no sociological study about what kinds of people join.  My
observation of Adyar members is that they are a very
hang-loose, diverse, eclectic, tolerant bunch quite comfortable
with feeling as well as thinking.  It's just the elite that is
repressed, weird, acting out negative feelings while pretending
they're acting on noble principles, etc.-- but that's armchair
psychology.

Oh--- sorry not to refer to this one in the header, but the
hostility between HPB and Olcott is documented most recently in
the current issue of Theosophical History which has letters
from HPB to Judge running down Olcott.  Other sources for this
would be Campbell's Ancient Wisdom Revived, Prothero's The
White Buddhist, the ULT histories of the Theosophical movement,
for starters.  Basically HPB felt, with some justification,
that HSO left her twisting in the breeze after the SPR
investigation.  HSO felt, with some justification, that a
person he trusted totally who bragged to others about being able to
manipulate him as a "psychologized baby" --deserved to be left
twisting in the breeze.  In ODL he says the worst moment of his
life was when he read what HPB said about him in a letter that
Hodgson obtained. 

Liesel, I agree with you that the TPH books by people like Jean
Houston or Serge King are worthwhile, and that they're
theosophical in the general sense.  But so are a bunch of books
that are published by many other people.  As for Theosophical
in the narrower sense, they publish those too-- but there's
nothing fresh or stimulating about them.  What I'm saying is
that there should be a blending of the two; things that relate
HPB and Theosophical teachings to the broader spectrum of
theosophical currents.  And that is hardly happening, with a
few exceptions like Shirley Nicholson's Ancient Wisdom, Modern
Insight-- ten years old now.  You should know that I of all
people am not advocating recycling the same old HPB
orthodoxies!  But if HPB is to be at all relevant she needs to
be *made* relevant.