Theos-Talk Archives (September 1998 Message tt00170)

Paul,

So I would conclude from the words in your last email (quoted below)
that you *actually do maintain* that:

There are no mistakes/errors/typos in HPB's 1888 edition of THE SECRET
DOCTRINE.

If this conclusion is correct, then how do you reconcile that belief
with what HPB herself wrote (& Nicholas just posted)?? Here is the quote
from Nicholas:

>In addition, here is another HPB quote, published in Nov. 1888, >LUCIFER.
>Also in CW 10, 181fn.

>"Very likely errors... will be found in THE SECRET DOCTRINE. Why should
>any of us... pose for infallibility?

On reflection, it puzzles me profoundly why some Blavatsky students
would attempt to claim such infallibility for THE SECRET DOCTRINE when
even HPB doesn't do that!!!!

AN ASIDE:   Paul, when HPB writes:  "There are more secrets of
initiation given out in the *Introductory* Chapt. than in *all* Isis.":

exactly what "*Introductory* Chapt." is she referring to? Is this
material in SD, 1888 edition? Volume I or where?

Yes, Paul, "people on the list are free to decide/think as they wish. .
. ." But this "issue" should NOT be confused with the other separate
issue:  What does the evidence tell us, show us?  What does the evidence
prove? Let me illustrate what I am attempting to convey with some
examples:

K. Paul Johnson is certainly "free to decide/think" that William T.
Brown's pamphlet "Some Experiences in India" (on HPB and the Mahatmas)
was never published until the 1990s.  But the evidence shows that the
pamphlet was published in the 1880s.  Again, Marion Meade is "free to
decide/think" that "in all, about nine or ten persons testified to
having seen the Mahatmas."  But the evidence shows that more than 25
persons testified to having seen HPB's Masters.  I could give numerous
examples. These two issues are constantly confused and obscured in our
Theosophical discussions.

Daniel Caldwell


Bazzer wrote:
>
> Daniel,
>
> Consider the following extract from "The Letters of H P Blavatsky to A P
> Sinnett":
>
> "There are more secrets of initiation given out in the *Introductory* Chapt.
> than in *all* Isis.  And what comes after is still more interesting.  But I
> am utterly miserable about its *mechanical* arrangement.  I have written and
> re-written about twenty times this blessed Chapt.  I have cut off and
> shifted the paras: and passages and sections and sub-sections until I am
> sick of it".
>
> Why the MECHANICAL arrangement?  Why put poor HPB through such painstaking,
> "utterly miserable", until she is "sick of it", work cutting, shifting,
> arranging paragraphs/passages/sections? Why so? Why is the *mechanical*
> arrangement so important?  Why?
>
> > Paul, you even suggest that the Mahatmas were watching, supervising and
> > correcting the typesetting of THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
>
> This is exactly what was said (cut 'n paste):
>
> "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."
>
> > Thanking you in advance for your explicit replies.
>
> There is really nothing much else to add (explicit or otherwise).  People on
> the list are free to decide/think as they wish - which is how it should be.
>
> Let us drop the matter and move on.
>
> Kindest regards,
> Paul.