Theos-Talk Archives (December 1998 Message tt00204)

Dec 17th 1998

Dear Leon:

Please - do not cherish the idea that the THEOSOPHICAL GLOSSARY
by HPB is so very inaccurate as to be useless.  Far from it, it
is a valuable tool, and in some cases when HPB has added
definitions attributing them to the "Esoteric Philosophy, or
Occultism" you will come across statements not made elsewhere in
the Philosophy - and they are consistent with it.

I have used it and rechecked almost every entry with some
statement or explanation made by HPB in one or other of her books
or articles.

Yes there are some errors, but none are very serious, and may
have been the result of proof-reading.  [  Rich Taylor has
pointed to some of those, and I have also answered him - but
claiming he was pressed for time, he mentioned about 4 or 5 none
of which are as I said, serious. ]

Since I was 18 I used the Glossary with SD and Isis, and as I
said in another post on this subject recently, my objective was
to assure myself of consistency.

De Zircov is not totally accurate in his sweeping accusation that
HPB's "name" was being "used" by others  (Mead) in the writing of
the Glossary.  I interleaved the copy of the T. Glossary that I
own and have about doubled the number of words referenced.  Also
I have verified the definitions made.

Please, do not adopt another's views without having made a
thorough investigation of your own.  De Zircov in my esteem did
not devote adequate time to the T. Glossary - if he were alive we
would be having some lively talks over that subject, he and I.

I really ought to make a Xerox of my Glossary, as those notes may
prove valuable to some scholar sometime.

Dallas

> From: "Leon Maurer" <leonmaurer@aol.com>
> Sent:	Wednesday, December 16, 1998 8:05 PM
> Subject: Re: Re: Theosophical Glossary by H.P. Blavatsky

In a message dated 12/16/98 1:01:33 AM, Rich wrote:

>Again, I have no wish to proclaim that the Glossary is utterly
useless as a
>research tool or as an aid to understanding HPB and Theosophy.
What I wrote
>is that it is untrustworthy, and I stand by that.  Numerous
entries are
>troublesome and need to be checked.  Unfortunately, as stated,
none of us
have
>the education and development of HPB.  So we each have our
little fields of
>expertise, and we investigate.

You are right that the Glossary supposedly written by HPB is
untrustworthy.
(Check the corroborative note appended to the Theosophical
Glossary included
in the compendium of Glossaries posted on the
<A HREF="http://www.blavatsky.net/";>http://www.blavatsky.net/</A>
site.

The fact is that HPB died before she had finished one third of
the TG.  The
unedited manuscript was picked up by other much less informed
theosophists who
added to it and produced the present inconsistent and garbled
version.
Therefore, there's not much point in doing anything more than
correcting the
errors when valid references are found, and compiling our own
addendums.

In any event, researchers can refer to the many other glossaries
that are
published in the Blavatsky net compendium plus the many Buddhist
dictionaries,
with additional reference to any other definitions they may find
in other
works by HPB plus other knowledgeable experts==and judge
accordingly.

LHM

theos-talk@theosophy.com

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