KATINKA HESSELINK AND R. BRUCE MACDONALD
The following is the relevant exchange between Katinka Hesselink and R. Bruce MacDonald.
Katinka wrote (Oct. 25):
No one who appreciates the value of academic research can wish for suppression of material, but on the other hand, some material is best dealt with by giving a good fact for fact refutation.
For the record, I agree fully that these letters were rightly included in this volume, but that a more elaborate treatment in the notes and editorials would have been better. I do hope in future volumes more care will be taken that arguments are given for and against the genuineness of controversial letters so that both well-meaning amatures and general historians don't fall into the trap of taking something for true that more knowledge would have led them to see as untrue.
The Fohat-staff does seem to feel a need to judge motives. Paul Johnson, like everyone who has even a bit of scientific training, feels that even controversial letters shouldn't be suppressed. This does not mean he has a stake in the context of those letters being left out. Scientists are sceptics by training, unable to accept anything that can't be proven. There are obvious limitations to that attitude, but this does not mean that there is a negative motive involved. It is simply a genuine fear of credulity and has grown from centuries of people being fooled by priests and tradition into believing things that are/were untrue. This attitude is quite respectful and there is absolutely no need to read anything other than prudence into it. In some cases this is perhaps mixed with the arrogance of: nothing can be true that I haven't seen proven. Even in such a case though, there is no conscious motive to supress information.
Bruce responded (Oct 27):
You make an excellent point concerning Paul Johnson and it is certainly not the case that I wanted to accuse him of anything other than promoting the academic position. Whereas individuals within a group are capable of the idealized position such as you sketched out with respect to academics, in almost every instance the group falls short of the idealization when personal pride and ambition are factored in. However, if academics are nobly prudent and cautious, then the proper thing to do in this case would be to outline the arguments for and against when presenting these controversial letters. To say nothing is to imprudently take a position. It seems that by promoting a work that lacks this idealized prudence, Paul Johnson is stepping away from the ideal and moving towards the crowd.
If you are further arguing that all academics or even that most academics are naturally virtuous by nature, I am afraid we will have to disagree there. They have their world with its unspoken rules, all Fohat is trying to do, in so much as that world intersects with the theosophical world, is remind them of their own ideals. One way to paraphrase Fohat's argument is that the editorial board fell short of this basic ideal. The ideal is the least that we should expect as the editorial board, at least by name, are theosophists as well. As theosophists, we may have expected them to bring their collective intuitive faculties to bear on the letters and courageously demonstrate even greater insight. There was certainly a range of possibilities. The disappointing thing is that they managed to fall outside that range.
RETURN TO COMMENTS ON LETTERS OF HPB, VOL. I