Theos-Talk Archives (February 1997 Message tl00288)

Dear Paul:

Thanks for the info. I also saw your excellent write up on the historical
conference that took place I believe in 1989. May be it is time to post it here.

The regarding the Seven Virgins is one of fact. Has anyone come up with any
evidence -- not just opinion or conjecture -- to dispute what Tillett has
written in his book. It is not a question of *personal* like or dislike.
Again this ritual issue becomes important in another context. TS has
*always* maintained that it has *nothing* to do with *any* other
organization. But on the other hand, if you consider activities of most of
the elected leaders -- past and present -- around the world, you get a
totally different picture. In business parlance it is called substance over
form.

Do you still have a copy of Gregory Tillett's paper. May be it is time to
post it here. If you can mail me a copy, I can try to post an excerpt.

If anyone has information on the ritual and the Seven Virgins, it would be
very interesting to know.

MKR




At 06:53 AM 2/12/97 -0500, you wrote:
>At the Theosophical History Conference in 1992, Gregory Tillett
>presented a paper on esoteric groups in Theosophy, and devoted
>particular attention to the Seven Virgins of Java.  A couple of
>weeks after the conference, its organizer got a blistering
>letter from John Algeo, expressing extreme dislike of Tillett's
>paper and some others.  Also complaining that Grace Knoche got
>too much attention (this for an event held at Point Loma!)  The
>clincher was that his language conveyed an implicit threat to
>prevent any TSA support or involvement in Theosophical History
>Foundation events in the future, unless assurances were given
>that obnoxious papers like Tillett's wouldn't ever again be
>presented.

>My source for this, among others, is Tillett, who showed me the
>letter involved and wrote his own response.


     May be we should get hold of Algeo's letter and post it for all of us
to see, if Tillett would consent to it. As it appears that the letter was
from TSA, it would be appropriate to post it in public. Do you know if
Tillett has an e-mail address? If you can check with him, we all would be
grateful.


>
>Just goes to show that the effort to exclude history they don't
>like from consideration by the membership is an ever-recurring
>feature of this organization with the motto "No religion higher
>than truth."
>
>It felt *so* good to throw the membership renewal form in the
>garbage this week.