Theos-Talk Archives (May 1997 Message tl00485)

At 10:13 AM 5/29/97 -0400, K. Paul Johnson wrote:
>
>Having found that readers sometimes make wild assumptions about
>where an author is coming from (e.g. TMR a vicious attack on
>HPB, TMR a sappy idealization of HPB) I thought with the Cayce
>book to put something up front explaining my approach.  Perhaps
>to forestall the more extreme misreadings.
>
>Have seen another author get raked over the coals for not
>disclosing his own background relative to the material he was
>discussing.  But what I wrote so far for the Cayce book
>(3-4pp.) has been found wanting or irrelevant by a couple of
>readers.
>
>I decided to condense it to a single para, and then decide if
>it was worthwhile including same.  So I'm asking theos-l
>readers to evaluate it.  But more generally:
>
>1. Do you want or need some explanation from an author of his
>own affiliations or biases?
>2. Does an author owe this to readers, or is it none of their
>business?
>
>Here's the para:
>
>The overall intention of this book is to provide a sympathetic
>but objective introduction to the readings.  In practice, this
>means to attempt first to understand them in their own terms,
>rather than through the lens of an antagonistic or indifferent
>approach.  My own sympathy was derived from years of positive
>impressions growing up in Tidewater Virginia in a family
>favorable inclined to Cayce and the A.R.E.  As an adult I have
>been strongly influenced by the readings' guidelines on health
>and meditation, and have participated in Search for God groups
>on several occasions.  But balancing sympathy with objectivity
>entails a refusal to allow one's perceptions of facts to be
>clouded by the value one perceives (or denies) in the person or
>movement under consideration.  I have tried to evaluate the
>accuracy of the readings and their similarity to other sources
>without allowing my liking for Cayce to distort the process.
>
>-----
>
>Still sounds goofy, and maybe should be left out completely.
>No matter what I say, true believers will say I'm attacking
>Cayce and arch-skeptics will say I'm a credulous fool.  Like the
>experiment of putting one hand in cold water and the other in
>hot, then taking both and putting them in lukewarm water.  The
>hot hand perceives the lukewarm water as cold, the cold hand as
>hot.  And I have the curse or blessing of being lukewarm
>compared to most people, about the "paranormal" as well as
>about specific figures.  Recently someone in the New York Times Book
>Review said that ambivalence is a sure sign of truth.  Maybe so; at
>least it's a sign of openness to both sides of an issue.
>
>Comments?
>

Dear Paul:

What you have written is ok and go ahead.

In all these things I think what each one has to look at is the simple
question, "am I being honest to myself." If the answer is yes, I would not
worry about who agrees or attacks.

In addition, it has been my experience that anyone touched and affected by
T/theosophy does produce a change in their approach to everything however
not noticeable in many cases. The very fact that in spite of the attacks on
you and may be differences we may have on individual issues, you still
continue to participate on theos-l and speaks very loudly for you.

Godspeed.

.............doss