Theos-Talk Archives (November 1996 Message tl00071)

My point was (apart that the publications of TPH have been proved to be
invariably favorable to the TS establishment, which is natural) that I
wanted to know Doss's reasons and opinions, not Barborka's, even if he
based his view on the latter's findings.

*I am still none the wiser* and I cannot, for a number of reasons,
borrow the book, buy the book, or read the book.  I do not want to read
the book.  I want to know what theos-l subscribers' *own considered
opinions* are.

There are, I know, some serious people who have also made careful and
exacting studies of TS history, and that they have come to quite
different conclusions.  I am unable to read their books either.  There
are clearly conflicting points of view and differing conclusions.  Why,
and upon what basis?  Clearly from recent postings on theos-l there is
at least one person who takes it as given that they at least might have
been fraudulent, or misrepresented.  Why?

In message <3.0b23.32.19961103114232.006a1a18@mail.deltanet.com>, "Eldon
B. Tucker" <eldon@theosophy.com> writes
>Geoffrey Barborka was one of an exceptional group of people that grew
>up on the Point Loma theosophical property, getting raised from pre-school
>through a college education under theosophical principles. As a young
>man, he setup THE SECRET DOCTRINE and many other books on a linotype
>machine. At a later age, he did an exhaustive study of THE SECRET DOCTRINE
>and produced an exceptional commentary on it, THE DIVINE PLAN.
>
>While it's true that his books were published by Theosophical Publishing
>House, they are books in the same class as the Collected Writings of HPB,
>also published by TPH. They represent a careful, exacting study of the
>history and doctrines of Theosophy, from someone with a life-long training
>in the subject. I'd put Geoffrey Barborka in the same class of writers as
>Boris de Zirkoff, L. Gordon Plummer, W. Emmett Small, Elise Benjamin,
>Judith Tyberg, Helen Todd, and others raised or having studied and worked
>at Point Loma.
>
>You may be too quick to assume that just because something is published
>by TPH that it's immediately suspect.

I don't think so.  Their track record leaves something to be desired.  I
asked earlier this year why Jinarajada's ~First Principles of Theosophy~
(another TPH publication) had not been reprinted, and was told that it
would not be, because it "contained a large number of errors."

Alan
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