Theos-Talk Archives (March 1999 Message tt00073)

In a message dated 3/10/99 2:47:47 PM, you wrote:

Peter reminds us that David Green has sent the list a host of allegations
against Theosophy.  One of these was the following article, which Mr. Green
was kind enough to lead me to in its entirety:

<<4.  The Post on Fictitious Tibet & Madame Blavatsky, a "pique" of mockery on

Theosophy and its founders, wherein it accused:

- Madame Blavatsky of being a phoney and self deluded fraud

- The Secret Doctrine as being "horrendous hogwash"

- The Esoteric Schools and Brotherhood as being a pure fiction

- The Masters of being a silly fiction of HPB's imagination

.. and casted Madame Blavatsky in the same light as the "aggressive

homsosexual" Leadbeater and Lobsang Rampa.>>

I have just finished the first two chapters of the Ph.D. dissertation that I
wrote the list about a few months ago, and I am happy to say I was able to
DEMOLISH the arguments made by Agehananda Bharati in this article "Fictitious
Tibet."  Using old and new dictionaries of Tibetan, Sanskrit, Chinese and
Mongolian, and studying HPB's work in the context of her contemporaries, it
can CONCLUSIVELY be shown that HPB was using words (that turn out to be REAL
Buddhist words) that no one else had access to.  She quotes texts (that turn
out to be REAL Buddist texts) that no one else had access to.

One of the sadder parts of this research paper so far has been to find also
that HPB has done quite a lot of plagiarism too -- using someone else's works
for pages and pages without citation.  Frequently she has done this only to
question what was written or add to it a more esoteric character, like her
Theosophical Glossary.  Possibly last century there would have been no
objection to this.  But it looks bad today.  

This issue is not a major one, I think, in light of the masses of things I was
able to prove were utterly unique to HPB, her relationship with the Buddhist
KALACHAKRA TANTRA and other important texts that are indeed *exactly* what she
said they were: "Esoteric Buddhism."  

I have hard copies of this 110 page paper for those who want hard copy, and it
will be up on the web, at the site Blavatsky Net, hopefully in about a week or
so.  As for the next two chapters of it, those probably won't be done for six
months or more.

As for Theosophical research in general, and my particular projects, I would
like to say that it should be impersonal.  You will rarely if ever find that
my research takes me into areas about people's personal lives.  I would rather
study ideas, terms, concepts, the history of teachings, etc.  All of this
tends to vindicate rather than condemn, even when (as above) a few unfortunate
things turn up too.  That's because it's objective, and not subjective.  What
kind of private studies students may carry on, whether Mr. Judge thought he
was channeling HPB (and maybe he was), etc. etc. -- these things are (1) None
of my business and (2)  Of no help in validating our movement before a
skeptical public.  

None of this is to condemn Mr. Green, who has been taken a few (legitimate)
hits lately.  It may be possible for Mr. Green to reformulate his research,
explain it better to the list, and make offers of confidentiality, that will
allow long-time Theosophists to offer up help and comments.  

Meanwhile, I have never said, nor do I believe, that academic-style research
replaces legitimate spiritual work.  I fully expect now that about 10 people
will write how all of this is a distraction, a corruption, yadda yadda yadda.
In fact, this kind of research is merely one part of the movement.  It's a
part that I like, others may not, and that's fine.

Rich

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