Theos-Talk Archives (November 1997 Message tt00383)

NOTE THAT I AM NOT DIRECTLY QUOTING ANYBODY HERE. ALTHOUGH I HAVE SOME
INSIDE KNOWLEDGE, ANYTHING I WRITE HERE SHOULD NOT BE PRESUMED TO HAVE
ANYTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING THAT MICHAEL GOMES, JOHN ALGEO, OR, FOR
THAT MATTER, ANYBODY BUT MYSELF HAS SAID (except, of course, the
quotes from Nicholas to which I am responding).

Nicholas Weeks wrote:
>
> Sometime back I was able to dip into the MS of Michael Gomes' abridgment
> of ISIS UNVEILED. Now the actual book is in my hands. The hope is that
> this popularized version will reach people that the full 1200 page
> edition did not. It will I am sure. May they also pursue HPB's writings
> much further.

 It is my impression that the volume was created in the hope that it
would serve as an introduction to the real thing. From those at the NYTS
who have read it (we just put in an order for 30 more copies, as the
first order sold out almost immediately), it gives the concepts from the
original with great clarity.

> Since I still have only dipped into the book, my first impression may be way
> off the mark -- I do hope so. But the publisher, John Algeo,

 John Algeo was the publisher's rep, not the publisher, which was the
Theosophical Publishing House.

> was rather
> too much involved in the actual editing of Gomes' work. Or perhaps there
> was not enough cooperation between the two. At any rate, one example
> of, at least, poor communication, may embarrass Gomes or Algeo or both.
> Perhaps a future printing could resolve it.
>
> The second volume of ISIS was titled THEOLOGY. In Gomes' MS it was so
> given.

 You had access to Michael's original manuscript? I am surprised, but as
the whole thing was done in Microsoft Word, it certainly is not
impossible.

 From my understanding (and, once again, I am not quoting anybody
specifically here, and nothing I am writing should be attributed to
anybody other than myself), Michael did a literal abridgement; everyword
in his original manuscript was directly from Blavatsky. As far as I can
tell, all John Algeo did was, in a few cases, modernize some of the
language used. As John Algeo is recognized secularly as one of the
world's foremost experts on the English language, we would have been
hard-pressed to find anybody more qualified to do so. I, myself, have
found a few spots where I had to look up in the original to see if they
matched up, and am not 100% sure that what John Algeo did was a good
idea. On the other hand, I have read 19th century English literature
extensively, as well as occult writings of the time, and am therefore
more familiar with the language of the time than most.

 Bart Lidofsky