On the subject of "The Controversy Begins"
As a member of the editorial board for the letters [The Letters of H.P. Blavatsky], I could not disagree more with the view of these writers [Roos, Smith, & Sordo Letters, see Fohat VIII, 3] to, in effect, censor these specific letters and not publish them.
Readers should have easy access to these letters. A reader can then decide whether he/she believes a certain letter is a forgery or not.
As far as I know, all of the Blavatsky-Coulomb letters will be included in future volumes, and IF they were excluded I would not want to be a member of the editorial team.
Jean Overton-Fuller in her Blavatsky biography believes OTHER Blavatsky letters are forgeries. Should we therefore exclude those too from future volumes???
I also strongly disagree with the following editorial comments:
"One could conclude...that the powers of Wheaton and Adyar are trying to introduce a perverted understanding of Blavatsky into the world...."
"There are very good political reasons for including those letters. Adyar and Wheaton embrace a brand of 'theosophy' that is built upon the work of Annie Besant, Charles Leadbeater, and their worshipping followers."
"Adyar and Wheaton have to believe, and they have to ensure that their members believe in the sainthood of at least Besant. This sainthood cannot be guaranteed if Blavatsky, Judge and their interpretations of the Masters are not made suspect. The easiest way to accomplish this is to attack the reputations of these two founders of the society and attribute to them base, political motives, to make them as ethical as a Jesuit. Adyar and Wheaton obviously want these letters included in these collections and you can be sure that they will not be the last of their type. There will be other letters of the same ilk in future volumes. If you are members of these organizations, do not let your leadership get away with this."
All I can say is "Flapdoodle"!
In light of this kind of "reasoning", I ask the editor of FOHAT: do you therefore ascribe the same base motives to the late John Cooper? I ask you this question because Cooper ALSO included these "fraudulent" letters in his "edition" of the letters. See Cooper's dissertation for proof of my statement.
And I must also have the same base motive since I agreed with both Algeo and Cooper that these letters should be included in the published volume.
Daniel Caldwell
From Theos-talk:
[All] I can say is "Sophistry!". These letters, and especially the editorial comments, are as perfect an illustration of sophistry as one could ever find. They are also IMO [in my opinion] an example of projection. Because the evidence does not fit with the "beliefs, convictions, axioms, and expectations" of Fohat's readers and editors, it must be suppressed or discredited. It is too late to suppress the evidence now that it has been published, hence discrediting it is the only option available. Notice that not one iota of genuine evidence or reasoning is brought to bear in the effort to discredit these letters. Mere speculation about base motives of the editorial committee suffices. This is Theosophistry at its nastiest, utterly blind to its own political nature while pointing the finger at others with accusations of political motive. I salute the editorial committee for making a choice which was evidently NOT in their political interest within the Theosophical movement. The "must have been fabricated" construction in one letter is extremely telling. "Must" by what standard? Sounds like the standard of sophistry-- "if you want something to be true, you can certainly prove to yourself that it is true."
Paul Johnson
More Debate:
"There are very good political reasons . . . [as above]
"Adyar and Wheaton . . ." [as above]
This is a serious charge and one must assume you direct it specifically at Dr. John Algeo, the editor of the volume.
I would point out that both John Cooper and Boris de Zirkoff wanted the "Solovyoff" letters (mentioned by the 3 readers) published. Dara Eklund can confirm this about BdZ.
And John Cooper published these "Solovyoff" letters as well as Letter No 7 as part of his dissertation and as part of the manuscript he sent to Wheaton. Gregory Tillett can verify for you my statement about Cooper's dissertation.
Therefore if you want to ascribe base/negative motives to John Algeo and Wheaton/Adyar in this matter, then in fairness one could ascribe the SAME motivation to both de Zirkoff and Cooper.
Do you believe John Cooper included these letters for the same reason you give for Dr. Algeo including them?
As I said this is a serious matter and I would like to know your thinking on the above facts that I have given you.
I hope that you will seriously reconsider this matter, retract those statements and offer a public apology.
Daniel Caldwell
Another View:
Having two appendices:
1. Of known fraudulent letters
2. Of suspected fraudulent letters
is one thing, MIXING THEM IN WITH LETTERS KNOWN TO BE GENUINE IS DISHONEST.Even now I am puzzled at such an approach. If you were collecting the letters of George Washington, would you include items that are known to be fraudulent???!!!
What canon of editorial ethics are you following Daniel???
Jerome Wheeler
RETURN TO COMMENTS ON LETTERS OF HPB, VOL. I