Theos-Talk Archives (September 1998 Message tt00107)

Eldon Tucker wrote:

> > Second is the accuracy in citations and in cited materials. It's
> > a matter of scholarship, not one of altering an author's words,
> > to go back to source materials, completing citations and correcting
> > quotes. There's a degree of human error in setting up a book, and
> > this helps eliminate the part than we can check up on.


Paul Bazzer commented:

> We can expect, under usual circumstances, a degree of "human error".  The
> question is: was the publication/production of SD "usual"?  No. Was it
> subject to "human error"?  Let us examine:
>
> It is said that Masters 'corrected' MSS during the night etc..  Do we think
> They were any less capable, would have been any less active, during the
> typographic settings for the original print run?  Would They have wasted
> valuable time/energy/occult power 'correcting' hand written/precipitated MSS
> only to allow failings/errors to creep in during the type set?  Hardly makes
> sense.

Daniel Caldwell replies:

Paul, thanks for your interesting observations.  But concerning your
comments about the typesetting of the SD, does this also apply to HPB's
other works too?  HPB writes in a number of places about simple typos
appearing in Isis Unveiled. Why are there typos in Isis?  Also see
the Mahatma Letters where KH mentions mistakes in the 1877 edition of
Isis?  Why didn't the Masters correct these typos and other mistakes
before Isis was published?

Printer typos also appear in HPB's articles in The Theosophist and
Lucifer.  HPB from time to time even points these printing mistakes out
in later issues.  Why didn't the Masters correct these before
publication?

And are you saying that there are no printer typos in the 1888 edition
of The Secret Doctrine?  Are you suggesting that all alleged typos are
really part of the occult code embedded in the S.D.?

And what about the Key to Theosophy and the Voice of the Silence?

Consult the original edition or a facsimile of the Voice. On p.
80 HPB wrote:

"These . . . count Dhasena, Dhyana and Samadhi and embraces the three
under the generic name of SANNYAMA."

Dr. H.J. Spierenburg in his THE BUDDHISM OF H.P. BLAVATSKY quotes this
and then comments (p. 166 fn):

"I have not found the terms Dhasena and SANNAYAMA."

Are these real words?  Or terms only used by HPB and her Masters? Or
do we have some occult code here?  Please get out your occult code book
and tell us what is going on here?

I would suggest that we have simply two typos.  I'll elucidate on this
suggestion in a later email.