Theos-Talk Archives (December 1999 Message tl00241)

> What I realized is that the only difference between what happened to
> Alan and what happened to John Algeo is that John had a strong,
> organized body of support and was willing to use it.

There are many, many differences between what happened to Alan and John
Algeo. Since you are part of John Algeo's "strong body of support" you
naturally are trying to portray him as just a guiltless officer and hard
worker for Theosophy unjustly attacked ... by people using methods
"honorable or not" to try to "stop" him. It is an outright insult to
Alan to compare the two - Alan's mentality was one of trying to open
Theosophy to as many people as possible, make full use of the internet,
and *facilitate* a wide range of views, not control either ideas or
their distribution - John Algeo has the same mentality as those that
managed to blacklist Alan and boot him out.

The "and willing to use it" is interesting. A group of theosophists -
all of whom were dues-paying members, who were *WORKERS* (as Bart says),
most of them also past and present *OFFICERS*, having become
increasingly concerned with the extreme centralization of power *JOHN
ALGEO* has been orchestrating through total control of publications,
alterations in bylaws, concerned over the increasing imposition of an
"approved" form of theosophy, over a dramatic decline in membership (the
American TS has lost over a third of its membership), and an autocratic
governance of Headquarters staff - this group began a campaign designed
to inform the membership of a lot of these issues, and call for changes
in the way the TS operated. They raised their own funds, paid out of
their own pockets - since the ideas would never have been permitted
within any TS publications. John Algeo has shown over and over that he
is willing to completely suppress anything he doesn't like. It wasn't
until this campaign, however, that the full lengths he is willing to go
to do so became apparent. This group sent out two mailings to the
membership, newsletters outlining both what was wrong, and suggestions
for change - every bit of which had supporting evidence to back it up
(the research uncovered far more situations and events, some *truly*
ugly stuff going on behind the scenes, but specifically did not publish
anything without several forms of corroborating evidence).

I realized how "willing to use it" John Algeo really was when I received
two letters, on TS stationary, mailed to the membership, from National
Board Members (with the full knowledge of John Algeo), and *USING THE TS
BULK MAIL PERMIT* (i.e., funds that came from the *dues* paid by the
very people the letters they were meant to silence) - letters attacking
this group, full of subtle and not so subtle charges and implications.
Tell me about "honorable and not so honorable" - no one holds a *candle*
to the current little leadership clique when it comes to using
dishonorable methods. More succinctly, John Algeo was fully willing to
use the resources, the *MONEY* of *Theosophy*, against Theosophists in
goods standing, to fight his own *political* battles.

And yet Bart continues to portray Algeo as a poor victim that was forced
to use his "strong body of support", against unjust attacks (ask Paul
about "unjust attacks" ... he experienced the delights of John Algeo -
in his role as TPH decision maker - refusing to publish Paul's
controversial book, and then, when it *was* published by another house,
and started to make waves outside of Theosophical circles, seeing John
Algeo again, this time in his role as editor of TS publications, writing
a review trashing the book ... and you *dare* compare Algeo to *Alan*?)

No - Algeo is not some poor helpless victim, fortunate to have a strong
body of support he is "willing to use". He is an autocratic personality,
appalled that anyone would dare question him, has slowly but surely
gained complete control of all publications, use of funds, and now even
can seize the assets of any Lodge (according to his new bylaws anyway -
he'd probably have problems in *civil* courts - since America, at least,
is a democracy). He has centralized power until it is now almost all in
the hands of a small group of people (his "strong body of support"), and
has shown himself willing to use any methods necessary - "honorable, and
not so honorable" to control the American section. Of course, lost in
all this is the fact that by all objective measures, the TS as a formal
organization is doing very poorly, is out of touch with the current
world, and may not last more than a couple of more decades.

Of course, Bart himself will try to claim that this is just another
example of his own "demonization" - in fact the best tactic used by John
Algeo and his supporters is to play the victim ... which works unless
one happens to notice that these poor victims have complete control over
the "official" TS publications, and its entire treasury. If *they* are
victims, it appears as though the word "victim" has been completely
redefined. -JRC