Theos-Talk Archives (August 2004 Message tt00408)

>From H.P. Blavatsky's LUCIFER magazine:

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Free discussion, temperate, candid, undefiled 
by personalities and animosity, is, we think, 
the most efficacious means of getting rid of 
error and bringing out the underlying truth; 
and this applies to publications as well as 
to persons. It is open to a magazine to be 
tolerant or intolerant; it is open to it to 
err in almost every way in which an individual 
can err; and since every publication of the 
kind has a responsibility such as falls to 
the lot of few individuals, it behooves it 
to be ever on its guard, so that it may 
advance without fear and without reproach. 
All this is true in a special degree in 
the case of a theosophical publication, 
and Lucifer feels that it would be unworthy 
of that designation were it not true to 
the profession of the broadest tolerance 
and catholicity, even while pointing out 
to its brothers and neighbours the errors 
which they indulge in and follow. While 
thus keeping strictly, in its editorials, 
and in articles by its individual editors, to the spirit and 
teachings of pure theosophy, it nevertheless frequently gives room to 
articles and letters which diverge widely from the esoteric teachings 
accepted by the editors, as also by the majority of theosophists. 
Readers, therefore, who are accustomed to find in magazines and party 
publications only such opinions and arguments as the editor believes 
to be unmistakably orthodox--from his peculiar standpoint-must not 
condemn any article in Lucifer with which they are not entirely in 
accord, or in which expressions are used that may be offensive from a 
sectarian or a prudish point of view, on the ground that such are 
unfitted for a theosophical magazine. They should remember that 
precisely because Lucifer is a theosophical magazine, it opens its 
columns to writers whose views of life and things may not only 
slightly differ from its own, but even be diametrically opposed to 
the opinion of the editors. The object of the latter is to elicit 
truth, not to advance the interest of any particular ism, or to 
pander to any hobbies, likes or dislikes, of any class of readers. It 
is only snobs and prigs who, disregarding the truth or error of the 
idea, cavil and strain merely over the expressions and words it is 
couched in. 

Theosophy, if meaning anything, means truth; and truth has to deal 
indiscriminately and in the same spirit of impartiality with vessels 
of honour and of dishonour alike. . . . 

Justice demands that when the reader comes across an article in this 
magazine which does not immediately approve itself to his mind by 
chiming in with his own peculiar ideas, he should regard it as a 
problem to solve rather than as a mere subject of criticism. Let him 
endeavour to learn the lesson which only opinions differing from his 
own can teach him. Let him be tolerant, if not actually charitable, 
and postpone his judgment till he extracts from the article the truth 
it must contain, adding this new acquisition to his store. One ever 
learns more from one's enemies than from one's friends; and it is 
only when the reader has credited this hidden truth to Lucifer, that 
he can fairly presume to put what he believes to be the efforts of 
the article he does not like to the debit account.

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LUCFIER, January 1888, pp. 342-343