Theos-Talk Archives (March 2005 Message tt00685)

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "stevestubbs" <stevestubbs@y...> 
wrote:
> 
> What intrigues me is that people persist in believing every word 
> which fell from Leadbeater's lips even though he has been shown to 
be a liar, a cheat, and a pedophile. How can we explain this?
> 
"Showing" something to be true has no effect to those who refuse to 
be shown. Have you ever seen a CWL devotee even acknowledge reading 
The Elder Brother, let alone offer a substantive criticism? No, 
it's all fingers-in-the-ears I-can't-hear-you la-la-la. E.g. 
Radha's non-response to Perry.
> 
>is to compare it to 
> the gold standard, i.e., to Blavstsky's writing. The fact that he 
> contradicts her constantly therefore seems to be germane.
> 
I would say the gold standard is truth, not HPB, and CWL has been 
found wanting on that score in this devastating critique of Occult 
Chemistry which shows it to be not just mistaken but fraudulent. 
Here's a link with some quotes:

http://ursula.chem.yale.edu/~chem125/125/history99/8Occult/OccultAtom
s.html
The number of hits reported (10) exceeds the number expected (60 x 
0.0238 = 1.43) by 8.57 / 1.18 = 7.26 standard deviations. The random 
chance of having 10 hits in 60 tries is less than 1 in 
10,000,000,000,000 (ten trillion). The obvious conclusion, with a 
degree of confidence tantamount to certainty, is that consciously or 
subconsciously at least some of the Occult Chemists tailored the 
number of anu they "observed" to 18 times the atomic weight in the 
textbook they consulted. Manufacturing the data did not require 
difficult mathematics, but, especially for the complicated atoms, it 
is not plausible that it could have been carried out subconsciously.
[4b] It thus seems certain that at least some of the Occult Chemists 
must have been cynically intending to deceive when in their joint 
publication they wrote,

"it was impossible for us to know how the various numbers would 
result on addition, multiplication and division, and the exciting 
moment came when we waited to see if our results endorsed or 
approached any accepted weight."[OC2 p. 19]


> > an ever-present challenge. His admirers are a minority
> 
> Is that statement a typo or is that the actual case? I have not 
been to a local TS meeting in decades but my understanding is, 
Leadbeater rules absolutely in this area.

Not in my observation, but since most of the meetings I attended 
were ones at which I was the speaker, that would tend to limit my 
exposure to CWL. Still, I kept up with the schedules of the 
Baltimore and Washington lodges, and got to know the folks at the 
Charlotte Study Center, and never saw signs that CWL was especially 
popular.

Cheers,

Paul