Theos-Talk Archives (February 1998 Message tl00241)

M K Ramadoss wrote:

> One well known and well respected member
> once said TS from day one given everything for free and that is how the
> organization was built.

    He may have been well-known and respected, but he doesn't know his
Theosophical history. It is true that fees were considered to be undesirable.
However, they were also considered superior to some other options. In
Micellaneous Notes from Lucifer, Vol II, No. 17, January, 1889 (volume 10, page
295 in the Collected Writings), Blavatsky wrote:

    "Gladly would our Soceity abolish even the small entrance fee, had it any
funds, however small, to carry on the work which increases daily, and many
branches have already done so. For several years no initiation fees were paid;
but our scanty and even joint means were found insufficient to maintain the
Headquarters, pay the stationery, and the ever-increasing postage, and feed and
lodge all those who volunteered to work gratis for theosophy. Thus, the fees
were re-established. Other Societies beg for, and are given, large sums of
money, but the T. S. never does. Nevertheless, the taunt that the Founders sell
Theosophy, creating Theosophists for 1# or twenty shillings, a head, is being
repeatedly thrust into our faces! And yet the poor are never made to pay
anything at all. And if those who have the means will refuse to help us do good
to the disinherited and the suffering, what are those who have given all they
had, and have nothing now to give but their services, to do?"

(the 1# reference is 1 pound, but that symbol is not part of the standard ASCII
character set).

    Bart Lidofsky