Will T. S. Thackara
served on the UCLA Committee on Religious Studies 1970-72 as an Assistant Dean
of Students and, since 1972, has worked full time at the international
headquarters of the Theosophical Society (Pasadena). He is currently Manager of
Theosophical University Press and occasionally writes and lectures on
theosophic and related subjects
GENERAL
APPRAISAL
Written in a witty and engaging style, the book
contains sufficient facts and insights, some quite good, to make it appealing
to a wide readership – beguilingly so, perhaps, for it has been cited as a
source reference in magazines such as the Smithsonian (May 1995), and Peter
Washington has been interviewed on British television as an "authority"
on theosophic history.
On superficial examination the book appears to be
well-researched and objective. But a more careful inspection – especially of
the theosophic section, to which these remarks are limited – discloses serious
errors and omissions.
Aside from fairly obvious use of innuendo and
half-truths to bolster his negative conclusions about H.P. Blavatsky and
Katherine Tingley, the author is frequently inaccurate, misrepresents
theosophic teaching, relies on uncorroborated assertion (often from unfriendly
secondary and tertiary sources), omits rebuttal evidence, garbles dates,
events, and attributions, downgrades, trivializes, and generally gives a
one-sided account. Whatever merit the book may have is defeated by its
unreliability and prejudice.
One would expect any author who writes on
historical subjects to use primary sources as far as possible. We have no
record of Peter Washington contacting the Theosophical Society (Pasadena) and
its considerable historical resources, either to verify facts or to interview
staff members and living witnesses who are perhaps better informed about
Blavatsky, Tingley, Purucker, and theosophical history.
Peter Washington's scholarly competence and
objectivity may be deduced from the following list of errors and omissions. It
is not exhaustive, but representative.
SOME EXAMPLES OF ERRORS AND OMISSIONS
First example
In his book Peter Washington wrote:
« According to
Blavatsky's later description of the Brotherhood, this hierarchy is headed by
the Lord of the World, who lives at Shamballa in the Gobi Desert.
The
Lord of the World came originally from Venus with several helpers and now
inhabits the body of a sixteen-year-old boy. In descending order of authority,
his helpers are the Buddha, the Mahachohan, Manu and Maitreya.
.
. .
Manu's
assistant is Blavatsky's original visitor, Master Morya, often referred to as
Master M or simply M. His special duty in the distribution of cosmic
responsibilities is to preside over the qualities of Power and Strength, with
particular regard to the guidance of nations.
.
. .
Maitreya's
assistant is Master Koot Hoomi . . . whose past incarnations include
Pythagoras. . . . He is a cultured fellow, a linguist and musician whose work
takes in the supervision of Religion, Education and Art. »
(p.34e-35b)
There is a lot of misinformation; misattribution;
evident reliance on secondary or tertiary sources; undocumented (Chapter note
11 is a reference to Shambhala by René Guenon and Marco Pallis).
This misleading description is not to be found in
Blavatsky's writings, but may be traced to a divergent tradition which gained
prominence among some theosophists many years after Blavatsky's death in 1891.
A careful scholar reasonably conversant with
theosophic history and doctrine would not confuse the two. Peter Washington in
fact gives very little description of theosophy as presented by HPB and her
teachers, and what he does mention is often inaccurate or out of context (see note
13 below).
Second example
« Madame
Blavatsky's baboon signaled her own posture in this debate as an adamant
anti-Darwinian. . . . But involved with this lofty dismissal of Darwinism . . .
is the further message that anyone who thinks as Darwin does must be no better
than a baboon, i.e. crude and crafty, foolish, vulgar, greedy, gross, and
deceitful. »
(p.45a)
Inaccurate and misleading. The first statement
could easily, but incorrectly be taken to mean that HPB was anti-evolutionist.
On the contrary, HPB's Secret Doctrine is premised on an evolutionary paradigm,
and she was sufficiently versed in the subject to articulate the difference
between the principle of evolution and the Darwinian model which purports to
explain its mechanism.
Having translated at least a portion of The
Origin of Species in early 1875, she was undoubtedly aware of Darwin's
chapter 6, "Difficulties on the Theory"– fundamental problems which
are unresolved today (fossil gaps, hybrid limits, instinct, etc.).
In her Secret Doctrine, HPB gave Darwin due
credit for the partial correctness of his theory in regard to variation, as
distinct from speciation. But she criticized it as insufficient to explain the
underlying causes of evolution, and Darwinians as being ethically culpable for
putting: "in the place of a conscious creative force . . . a series of
natural forces working blindly (or we say) without aim, without design"
(SD II, p.652)
(Note: here she quotes Ernst Haeckel so as not to
misrepresent the Darwinist position.)
As for "lofty dismissal," HPB merely
summarized the pertinent criticisms of contemporary scientists such as Darwin's
co-theorist A. R. Wallace and French anthropologist A. de Quatrefages – issues
which are still debated in scientific circles. Her position vis-à-vis Darwinism
is echoed nearly a century later in the 1973 comment of zoologist Pierre-Paul
Grassé (late president of the French Academy of Sciences):
"Through
use and abuse of hidden postulates, of bold, often ill-founded extrapolations,
a pseudoscience has been created. . . . the explanatory doctrines of
[Darwinist] biological evolution do not stand up to an objective, in-depth
criticism. They prove to be either in conflict with reality or else incapable
of solving the major problems involved" (Evolution of Living Organisms,
NY: Academic Press, 1977, pp. 6, 202).
There is a considerable difference between lofty dismissal
and informed criticism.
Third example
« After that [the
closing of Gerry Brown's Spiritual Scientist] Blavatsky established a Miracle
Club, devoted to investigating occult phenomena. »
(p.49c)
Error of fact, evident reliance on faulty secondary
source. Olcott organized the Miracle Club (with HPB's concurrence) in New York
in May 1875, while HPB lived in Philadelphia. The Club failed almost
immediately, but Brown continued publishing the Spiritual Scientist for another
few years.
Peter Washington's source is most likely Vsevolod Solovioff's book
“A Modern Priestess of Isis” (1895, pp. 249, 255) which makes the same
error (see Note 10 below regarding Solovioff's credibility).
Fourth example
« Isis Unveiled is
an exposition of Egyptian occultism and the cult of the Great Mother. »
(p.52b)
Misrepresents and trivializes. This
characterization of Isis Unveiled is novel, but entirely misleading. Peter
Washington amplifies his description in the paragraph which follows, but this,
too, diminishes the scope of the 1’317 page two-volume work enormously.
He cites only negative reviews, omitting several
positive ones.
Fifth example
« Another critic
identified over two thousand unacknowledged quotations [in Isis Unveiled]. »
(p.52e)
Questionable
source; omits rebuttal evidence. The critic – whom Peter Washington fails to
identify (perhaps intentionally so, given his lack of credibility) – is HPB's
long-time adversary, William Emmett Coleman, an ardent spiritualist who was a
clerk in the US Army Quartermaster's Office at Ft. Leavenworth in the 1870s and
later in San Francisco.
In spite of his claim, Coleman never produced
satisfactory documentation. For credentials he listed himself as a member of
several learned societies – including the American Oriental Society, the Royal
Asiatic Society, and the Pali Text Society. According to historian Michael
Gomes, investigation has revealed no contributions from him in these fields.
Gomes also examined Coleman's criticism and, allowing
for errors in manuscript preparation and typesetting, concluded that nearly
every instance of quotation in Isis is acknowledged in one way or another (there
are some 2,400 footnotes).
Moreover, Dr. Graham Hough, Emeritus Professor of
English, University of Cambridge, grudgingly admitted in The Mystery Religion
of W. B. Yeats (1984, p.36) that "when she [HPB] cites an identifiable
authority – a Neoplatonic philosopher, for example – it generally turns out
that she gives a fair representation of what he actually said."
One must also account for the testimony of
Professor Hiram Corson of Cornell University, who was amazed by HPB's ability
to quote "long verbatim paragraphs from dozens of books of which I am
perfectly certain there were no copies at that time in America, translating
easily from several languages, . . ." (see Michael Gomes, Dawning of the
Theosophical Movement, pp. 143-55, 113.)
Sixth example
« Where nudism and
dietary reform linked arms with universal brotherhood and occult wisdom. »
(p.53c)
False
association, innuendo. Theosophy may recommend sensible dietary
reform, but to my knowledge says nothing about nudism.
Seventh
example
« Mr J. G. Felt. »
(p.53d)
Carelessness, probable reliance on secondary or
tertiary source. John Symonds (1960, p.75) and Gertrude M. Williams, Priestess
of the Occult (1946, p.101) both give it as J. H. Felt. Should be G. H. [George
Henry] Felt.
Eighth example
« William Judge,
the lawyer's clerk, proposed the colonel for President [of the Theosophical Society]. »
(p.54c)
Downgrades; relies on secondary or tertiary source.
Omits that Judge was a lawyer in his own right, specializing in commercial law.
(John Symond's biography of HPB, frequently cited by Peter Washington, says
"lawyer's clerk," as does Gertrude Marvin Williams, an earlier
negative biographer, whom Symonds appears to rely heavily upon.
Primary source is probably Olcott's "Old Diary
Leaves" article in The Theosophist, Nov. 1892, where he states that Judge
was "a lawyer's clerk" at the time – clerking was and is often the lot
of young attorneys. But Olcott also mentioned in the same article that Judge
had been admitted to the Bar in 1872).
Nineth example
« The Theosophical
Society proper thus came into being on 13 September, though it didn't hold its
first official meeting until the 17th. »
(p.54e)
Inaccurate date: first "official" meeting
of the Theosophical Society was held November 17th.
Tenth example
Peter Washington quotes the conclusion of the 1885
Hodgson Report of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), which branded HPB
"as one of most accomplished, ingenious, and interesting impostors in
history." (p.83)
Omits rebuttal evidence. Although Peter Washington
points out that Hodgson withdrew his "conclusion" that HPB was a
Russian spy, he fails to mention the SPR Journal's April 1986 publication of
"J'Accuse" by Dr. Vernon Harrison, an expert in detecting forgery and
a senior SPR member. From his analysis, Harrison concluded that:
"Whereas
Hodgson was prepared to use any evidence, however trivial or questionable, to
implicate HPB, he ignored all evidence that could be used in her favour. His
report is riddled with slanted statements, conjecture advanced as fact or
probable fact, uncorroborated testimony of unnamed witnesses, selection of
evidence and downright falsity." (p.309)
"The
Hodgson Report is a highly partisan document forfeiting all claim to scientific
impartiality . . . the case against Madame Blavatsky is NOT PROVEN – in the
Scots sense." (p.287)
Though not published at the time, Harrison's later
study, H.P. Blavatsky and the SPR (TUP, 1997), condemns the Hodgson Report as
being:
"Worse than
I had thought. . . . It is the work of a man who has reached his conclusions
early on in his investigation and thereafter, selecting and distorting
evidence, did not hesitate to adopt flawed arguments to support his thesis."
(p.viii).
Like Hodgson, Peter Washington does not challenge
the unsubstantiated accusations of the Coulombs, whom he admits were seeking
revenge, but allows their allegations of fraud to stand, evidently because they
support his own conclusions.
Similarly, he states (p.90) that HPB confessed to
Vsevolod Solovioff that her phenomena were fraudulent, a statement from
Solovioff or possibly imported from John Symond's frequently cited biography, but
omitting Symond's question:
"To what
extent can one believe Vsevolod Solovyoff? There is only his word for it"
(Symonds, Madame Blavatsky, p.220).
Absent here also is Vera Jelihovsky's reply to
Solovioff that her sister (HPB) sometimes "falsely accused" herself
to escape annoyance, but had said to her that she (HPB) "was sure that she
had never made any admission of the sort" (Solovioff, A Modern Priestess
of Isis, p.318).
Throughout these chapters Peter Washington asserts
trickery, sham, lying, and deceit on the part of HPB but, when not giving
garbled information, never establishes anything more than hearsay, much if not
all of it from hostile or prejudiced witnesses.
Eleventh
example
« Purucker, a
suave, scholarly and ascetic fellow almost thirty years younger than Tingley,
soon became her surrogate son and right-hand man (7). »
(p.110b)
Misleading innuendo. Gottfried de Purucker (GdeP),
a lifelong bachelor, was ascetic and scholarly, but not "suave" by
most definitions. As a student of and the successor to Katherine Tingley, he
may be considered her "son" only in the sense of spiritual and
intellectual mentorship.
Note 7 is more serious. Here Peter Washington
states that:
-
"H. N. Stokes wittily dismissed
Purucker's extensive writings as 'Theosophical Jabberwock'." (p.415)
Peter Washington in fact garbles a statement in
Emmett Greenwalt's California Utopia: Point Loma 1897-1914, where Greenwalt
writes:
"One of
[GdeP's] critics, the independent theosophical editor H. N. Stokes, called
Purucker's vocabulary innovations 'Sanskrit Jabberwock'." (p.118)
Peter Washington misrepresents both Stokes and
GdeP. In the May-June 1935 issue of his OE Library Critic ("The Sanskrit
Jabberwock"), Stokes criticized what seemed to him to be a "fad"
in Sanskrit education at Point Loma.
He does not mention GdeP by name in the article
and, to my knowledge, never accused GdeP of "Theosophical Jabberwock"
elsewhere, disagreeing only with GdeP's scholarly preference for Sanskrit
precision (correct spelling can hardly be considered an "innovation").
On the contrary, Stokes was impressed with GdeP's
teaching and his clarity in writing and speaking. He eventually joined the Theosophical
Society under GdeP's leadership, remaining an active member until his death on
September 30, 1942, three days after GdeP died (Theosophical Forum, January
1943, p.42).
Had Peter Washington gone to the primary source, he
might also have found there Stokes's description of his first meeting with GdeP
in 1931 at a theosophical meeting in Washington, DC:
"Naturally
there were questions and answers, and to my mind the most impressive was his
[GdeP's] reply to a lady who had been sorely perplexed by reading Mahatma K.H.'s
letter to A. O. Hume on God.
. . .
His reply, which
I cannot attempt to abstract, was one of the most lucid expositions of this
topic which I have ever listened to, and was something not to be forgotten.
. . .
Clearly, too,
did he speak on the subject of non-resistance in relation to the different
stages of chelaship [discipleship]. Many, of course, have read The Voice of
the Silence and have realized the truth of its precepts in a sort of
fashion.
Let G. de
Purucker quote one of these precepts and make a few comments on it, as he did
on this occasion, and it ceases to be a rule or a dictum and stands out before
one's mental eye an indisputable and eternal truth. With no great skill in
speaking, yet in some way he makes one feel in a new fashion the truth of what
one has long known.
. . .
It has been
years since I have felt the tremendous significance of these precepts so
forcibly; and it was all done so modestly and simply!
. . .
His second,
semi-public lecture, intended especially for theosophists, on ‘The Theosophical
Movement,’ was the most brilliant and convincing theosophical talk I have ever
listened to. He is a true genius in exposition and, as stated above, carries
conviction with a power which it is rarely the good fortune of a mere reader to
experience.
. . .
All in all,
then, I have felt myself more than rewarded. I have seen or heard nothing to
which the most straight-laced theosophist of the old school could object and I
have found an earnestness backed by power of expression which is only too rare
and which, I think, places him in the very front rank of present day
theosophists and teachers." (OE Library Critic, July 1931)
Twelfth
example
« By the outbreak
of World War One things were already on the slide. . . . The Purple Mother
[Katherine Tingley] staggered on for another fifteen years, . . . but within a
very few years of her death the community had been forced to close."
(p.114c)
Inaccurate and denigrating. The historical record
reads otherwise, including the chartering of Theosophical University in 1919
and a resurgence of membership in the 1930s under the leadership of G. de
Purucker (1929-1942).
The Depression forced cutbacks at Point Loma,
exacerbated by new taxes and other financial burdens; but it was not until
1942, when San Diego became a staging area for the Pacific Theater in WW2, that
GdeP moved the international headquarters – virtually debt-free – to Covina (Theosophical
Forum, December 1942, pp. 573-4), from where it was moved in 1951 to its
present location in Pasadena/Altadena.
"Staggering," moreover, implies senility
and incompetence. Colonel Arthur L. Conger (whom General George C. Marshall
regarded as "one of the best minds in the army") wrote
to H. N. Stokes on August 8,1932, as follows:
"I have
received your letter of the 6th in which you quote a correspondent as having
alleged: 'It is on unimpeachable authority I have that Mrs. Tingley was by no
means "the brilliant head" to the day of her passing. She suffered
from brain affection for several years prior to her death.
. . .
In reply I wish
to deny most emphatically that your correspondent has any such 'authority' –
'unimpeachable' or otherwise – for any such ridiculous assertion. I have known
Mrs. Tingley intimately since 1896. In 1926 I was her guest at Nurnberg. In
1927 she was my guest at Berlin [where he was the US Military Attaché]. In 1928
I joined her at Visingsö and was with her until April 1929.
. . .
Based on the
above contacts I assert that there was . . . no lessening of Katherine
Tingley's brilliant intellectual powers up to the very end of her life [on July
11, 1929]" (OE Library Critic, August 1932).
Thirteenth
example
« Note
3: HPB's
great-nephew, Boris de Zirko. »
(p.406)
Inaccurate. "de Zirko" should be spelled
de Zirkoff. This could be a typesetting error, but more likely the author's
inattention to detail. More importantly, I have found only this one mention of
de Zirkoff – nothing in the index or bibliography.
It is curious that there is no reference to the
monumental 15-volume H.P. Blavatsky: Collected Writings, edited by de Zirkoff,
in the bibliography – as any competent author relying on primary source
material would surely include. One can only wonder how much of Blavatsky's
writings Peter Washington has actually read or comprehended.
Fourteenth
example
On the Dust jacket of the English edition appears:
« In 1875 the Theosophical Society was
founded in New York by a renegade Russian aristocrat and a superannuated
American colonel. Its stated objectives were to promote the brotherhood of man
and encourage the study of comparative religion and psychic phenomena, but it
was really the vehicle whereby one of the founders, Madame Blavatsky, could
exercise her occult powers. »
(front flyleaf)
Misrepresentation; insinuation of motive. Although
probably written by the publisher's advertising staff, this passage reflects
the author's style and conclusions.
The publisher represented the book to TUP as
"undoubtedly skeptical, but it is an objective study of the theosophical
movement."
In its March 24, 1994, reply to them, TUP requested
an explanation as to:
"Why in the
very first sentence of the book's flyleaf, Colonel Olcott should be considered
'superannuated' at age 43 – when, for example, he subsequently received a
personally-signed [U.S.] Presidential letter and special passport recommending
him to all US Ministers and Consuls abroad, with a commission to report 'upon
the practicability of extending the commercial interests of our country in
Asia.'"
The statement regarding HPB needs no comment.
Fifteenth
example
Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS), autumn 1995, resource
listing:
« An itinerant Russian expatriot [sic] of dubious
nobility (Helena Blavatsky)." [HPB's aristocratic heritage is well
documented on both sides of her family: von Hahn and de Fadeyev].
. . .
With incisive wit, this book enlightens on many
levels – as intellectual history, as a panorama of human fancy and folly, as an
exercise in how to separate fiction from fact, message from messenger."
(p.11)
Snide and inaccurate – a further example of how
easily a reviewer/copywriter can be misled. Were he more conversant with the
actual historical record, he might better characterize the book as an
intellectual deception – one which infuses fact with half-truths and separates
the message only by ignoring or misrepresenting it.
An earlier draft of these Notes was sent October
25, 1995, to the late Dr. Willis Harman, then president of IONS, who replied on
November 6th:
"We had no
intention to denigrate H. P. Blavatsky. . . . We are removing Washington's book
from future catalogs. Thank you for calling this to our attention."
CONCLUSION
I have only given you
fifteen examples here, but there are many more that show that Peter
Washington's treatment
of theosophical history is seen to be heavily biased as well as dependent on
faulty sources, raising legitimate doubts about his accuracy and objectivity in
the rest of the book. Vernon Harrison's criticisms of the Hodgson Report (Note
10 above) could justifiably be applied to Mr. Washington's Baboon.
(Source:
www.theosophy-nw.org/theosnw/theos/baboon.htm)
No comments:
Post a Comment