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The
Jeff Bowe situation
As
supporters and followers of Tibetan Way may know, Mr. Bowe and
colleagues have launched a series of attacks against Tibetan Way and
our web consultant Chris Farmer. The attacks started on the 24th May
and took place in the Rick Ross Forum and in various blogs published by
Mr. Bowe. The attacks continued until the 3rd June when one of our
advisors had a brief telephone conversation with Mr. Bowe.
The
attacks then stopped until, on the 12th June, they were resumed in the
most extraordinary fashion. Mr. Bowe then repeated in the Rick Ross
Forum facts already set out in Tibetan Way as if he had uncovered some
conspiracy. Even more extraordinary is that Chris Farmer directed Mr.
Bowe to this information via the Rick Ross Forum some 12 days before
the posting in Rick Ross. This means, being charitable, that it has
taken Mr. Bowe 12 days to read 24 half pages. Mr. Farmer has already
demonstrated that Mr. Bowe is illiterate in Tibetan. It seems that he
also struggles with English unless, of course, he deliberately chose to
ignore Mr. Farmer's helpful advice and once again indulge in his
paranoid conspiracy theories.
Mr.
Bowe's attacks are somewhat difficult to understand in that, for
example, he continually demands information he has already been given
but always does so through third parties. At no time has Mr. Bowe
attempted to make direct contact with us. If he had done so we would
have willingly answered his questions. Instead he has chosen to attack
us. One has to ask why. This is simply not normal behaviour
Chris
Farmer explained to Mr. Bowe that nowhere on Tibetan Way do we claim
that any of the products use Tibetan ingredients. Indeed, we explain
that in our view it would be ecologically unsound to do so. If Mr. Bowe
wishes to learn more about the products then we suggest that he reads
the relevant pages on our website.
Further,
Mr. Bowe has demanded that Tibetan Way add a disclaimer confirming that
Christopher Hansard is not involved. This is curious (to put it
politely) because Chris Farmer has already made it crystal clear that
Christopher Hansard is not involved in any way. Again, Mr. Bowe has
chosen to ignore this.
Our
fundamental problem with Mr.Bowe is his genuineness. He appears to be a
fantasist who specialises in dreaming up conspiracies and attacking
people for reasons that can only be described as malevolent. Indeed it
is worth noting that one of his Tibetan Way blogs was taken offline by
Google/Blogger because it was in violation of Bloggers terms of
service. We are confident that the remaining entirely spurious Tibetan
Way blog will be similarly dealt with in the near future.
Mr.
Bowe also seems to feel that he possesses some superior knowledge which
he is unwilling to share with anyone and also believes that he has a
personal claim over Tibet and Tibetan culture, a view not shared by any
of the Tibetan organisations we have spoken to.
We
quote Mr. Bowe from his Padma Gonpo blog, "I happen to believe that
Bon, the native religion of Tibet, is worthy of my concern."
The
degree of arrogance and self-delusion this demonstrates is quite
astonishing. Further, in some of his postings he has insulted
acknowledged and respected experts on Bon.
Mr.
Bowe has attacked people for not being fluent in either modern or
ancient Tibetan. But in one posting Mr. Farmer demonstrated that Mr.
Bowe is not fluent. The net result of that posting was that Mr. Bowe
not only deleted Mr. Farmers replies from the Bowe blog but also
rewrote his own posting in order to remove the comments that had
demonstrated his ignorance of Tibetan.
DORJE
An
assiduous supporter of Mr. Bowes malevolent and unfounded attacks in
the Rick Ross Forum is Dorje who stated on the 3rd June, "I really do
not give a damn what Jeff Bowes credentials may be." A very curious
comment so perhaps we can help to enlighten Dorje.
We
have spoken with a number of Tibetan and Buddhist organisations and
with one exception none of them have heard of Bowe. The one exception
was a gentleman who recalled Bowe's name and was less than
complimentary with regard to Bowe's interference in Tibetan affairs.
Our
advisors have been investigating Bowe's "research" and "knowledge" and
it transpires that others have commented on these matters in the past
few years. Some of the resultant comments were:
"Mr Bowe’s report was speculative"
"Mr Bowe’s assertions were not balanced or objective"
"Mr Bowe was inconsistent regarding the objective evidence and biased"
"We were able to place only limited weight on Mr Bowe’s evidence."
"Mr Bowe’s report does not show clear detachment from the issues."
We
will not at this time detail the source of these quotes as we would
hope that Bowe will admit that the quotes are accurate and will give
his acolytes the relevant information. If he fails to do so then we
will provide details of the full report here.
CONCLUSION
Mr.
Bowe's knowledge of Bon and Tibetan culture is clearly at best deeply
flawed and at worst highly suspect. He also seems incapable of carrying
out any sort of unbiased research. Further his attitude to free speech
and freedom of debate seems to have more in common with the views and
behaviour of the Chinese government than with any Western democratic
traditions.
We
conclude that all of Mr. Bowe's comments and allegations in his
numerous blogs and in the forum must be regarded with a great deal of
suspicion. Consequently we now demand that Mr. Bowe and Dorje remove
all their comments relating to Tibetan Way from their blogs and from
the forum and also issue an apology. If this does not happen within the
next seven days then we will be forced to take further action.
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