Theosophy Adyar 2014 Election:- Representation is not Representing

The Future? of the Adyar Theosophical Society

Elected Representation

Not

Representing

Silence is Killing the Adyar Theosophical Society

The presidential candidates are as much victims of the

General Council’s silence rule as are the members.

The silence rule also seeks to establish General Council

control over the future president.

Dave Marsland

You are probably reading this and other independent sites because you are looking for information about the Adyar Theosophical Society presidential election, and the General council is failing to provide any as a matter of policy. CVK Maithreya has boldly discarded the spuriously imposed silence rule, and the wisdom of retaining the current General Council now comes into question. The General Council is exceeding its authority by imposing a silence rule during the electoral process and rendering it undemocratic. The reasons for this outrageous abuse of power remain hidden.

The incoming president cannot be expected to run things hindered by a group which only acts in its own interest and functions as a separate organisation, unaccountable to members. It should be noted that by imposing a silence rule on the presidential candidates, the General Council is establishing the principle of control over the president. Will the president in future be confronted by a wall of silence by a closed group with something to hide? The members have experienced the silence stunt worked on them, and it is almost certain that the General Council will work this stunt on the President when it suits them.

The attempt to cheat the members out of their right to vote in 2008 was an attempt to appoint a compliant, controllable president to serve the interests of the General Council. The 2014 imposition of silence is an attempt to establish a gate keeping and monitoring system which will be used to control both the president and the members. The interests of the Theosophical Society are only secondary to preserving what power the General Council still has, and increasing it while dispensing with accountability to the electorate. It cannot be assumed that the silence policy will end after the election and it is probably here to stay.

Despite being in theory a governing body, the General Council has clearly lost control of the Adyar Headquarters to unelected vested interests and now seeks to conceal the extent of this loss of control by attempting to stifle discussion. It is possible that the new president will have so little power that he will only be allowed to set foot on the Adyar Estate at the pleasure of unelected controllers. Reform of the Adyar Estate may prove an impossible objective.

Silence is killing the Society although it is obvious to most that the organisational structure is on its last legs anyway, and the General Council lost credibility even before the news blackout began. A much reduced shadow of the current centralised Adyar Society will no doubt continue but we are on the verge of seeing a number of new independent Theosophical organisations emerge from the ruins of a once great organisation. The General council may come eventually out of retreat to find that the society they abandoned no longer exists.

Silence by the leadership indicates that it is not only afraid of conflict but also can’t manage agreement. In fact, it may be the case that such issues have arisen in the Society that it will be impossible to obtain any agreement by members on dealing with the arising situation, when the facts come to light. And make no mistake, any uncomfortable facts will come to light and it is better for the General Council to come clean now rather than hide in its bunker waiting for the end. A future president may be able to sort this out providing the General Council don’t strip him of his power by closing ranks to control him.

The Society cannot address what does not get acknowledged and brought out into the open and suppression of information only serves to generate anger and resentment amongst those cheated out of proper information. A growing proportion of the members no longer trust the General Council either as a governing body, or to provide honest reliable information. The General Council is supposed to be an elected representative body and it is simply not representing those who elected it.

Members did not elect the leadership to adopt a policy of telling them nothing and although there may not be a blanket procedure for dismissing the General Council as not fit for purpose, each section with direct representation is justified in calling its respective General Council member to account. In cases where the General Council member is non-contactable, sections could dismiss the representative in their absence as an emergency measure, and elect a new representative with a one point agenda of obtaining full information about the Society’s affairs and in particular, the precise status of the Adyar Headquarters.

Another option would be for sections to elect an information officer with a remit of obtaining information from the General Council. This would be a particularly suitable course of action for any section with no direct representation on the General Council. Even lodges could elect their own information officer as a response to their alienation from leadership. The response of the General Council to approaches by these newly elected officials would in itself reveal a great deal about its true attitude to the general membership.

Electing group representatives, with the remit

to obtain information, may not elicit much or any

response from the General Council but it will provide

the basis for an alternative management structure

as the existing structure fails.

The General Council will no doubt claim that any newly elected representatives, at this time, are unacceptable because their election and/or role does not conform to procedure. In response it should be stated that the members of the Theosophical Society do not now have any representation at executive decision making level, and have no alternative but to create a new structure which enables them either to be represented directly, or to call their existing representatives to account.