Theos-Talk Archives (August 1998 Message tt00175)

Daniel,

You ask why I LEAVE OUT [sic] the next statement from HPB that you
quote.  It's because the question dealt with by Dallas and Kym
was *simply* whether HPB was the first and sole source of these
teachings, or whether they were previously available.  I stopped
quoting when I got HPB's own answer to that question.  Where
she got the small proportion of her SD that isn't found
"scattered" in thousands of other texts is irrelevant to the
question under discussion.  If she derived *some* teachings from more advanced
students, what relevance does this have to the question of
whether she then blended together a wide variety of different
teachings from different "advanced students" past and present, many of which
were in writing-- which is what she seems to be saying?  And by the way, don't
"scientific or other works" include every single work ever published?  And
unpublished?  Thus perhaps leaving the part "given or suggested" as a
rather small proportion of the whole?  The SD has after all a huge number of
citations.

As for the Mars/Mercury controversy, you shout about the
AUTHORITATIVE VERSION!!! mentioned by HPB as if this passage
somehow endorses the entire SD as being such.  She is clearly
talking about *what those particular teachers taught about Mars and
Mercury*, which Sinnett got confused.  You seem to be the one
taking things out of context here.  Of course M. and K.H. could
give an authoritative version of what they themselves had earlier
taught on a specific topic-- and that's just as true if they were secondary
personalities of HPB as if they were honcho occult know it alls.

Your favorite target,
Paul