Theos-Talk Archives (August 2002 Message tt00002)

August 1 2002

Re S D Vol III -- two letters to you yesterday July 31
2002.

Dear Dan:

I believe I have said all that is necessary.

My views are the result of study over a long period. I made
the comparison many years ago, and do not have my notes at
hand any more. Consequently you are free to call them my
opinions if you wish, and also say therefore, that they have
no value.

My study is of the practice of Theosophy as my letter
yesterday emphasizes. Are you interested in that also?

Similarly in regard to the statement I made concerning the
disposal of the MSS of the 3rd and 4th Volumes of The SECRET
DOCTRINE shortly before her death by H P B -- that is a
reminiscence, a memory of what someone told me --
consequently, I set it forth as I did before -- as a report
I received many years ago -- and, as I said I had no
"proofs" at all beyond that.

Best wishes,

Dallas

----------------------==========--------------------

PS I see I made an error in dating the following letter to
you PLEASE CORRECT:
---------------

July 12 2002 [ Should be July 31 2002 ]

[THIS SHOULD BE JULY 31, 2002 -- DTB Aug 1 2002 -- My left
hand still inaccurate some times. Also, I sent it without
rereading it, and missed this error.]

Many thanks for your good comments Daniel.

I can see some difficulties from the point of view of exact
physical securing of proofs. I have no more access to any
"primary" documents that I know of, or that you do not
already seem to have yourself.

I do a lot of thinking on the nature of certain "reticence "
that H PB and others in those days exercised. Trying to
fill in the blanks at this stage and over 100 years after
the events is not easy at all. Of course there will be
guess work and surmise. The only appeal can be to reason and
to continuity of a train of thought. I sympathise with some
aspects of those.

My methods would not be accepted by "scholars" of today and
their pre-set criteria. But I am not very concerned with
that. Their perception of "gaps" cannot be reconciled if
there are no physical documents -- true.

Here is a for instance:

By chance have you seen a letter from Subba Row reprinted in
THE THEOSOPHICAL FORUM (Point Loma) Vol. VI. No. 7, March
15, 1935, pp 185 ... "Leaves from theosophical History" ?
I find S. Rao gives some reasons for his reticence, and also
gives some of the rather strict interpretations of
discipline in the occult schools. Very curious reading..

Best wishes,


Dallas.
------------------

I ALSO SENT YOU THE FOLLOWING

-----------------

July 31 2002

Re: SECRET DOCTRINE the THIRD VOLUME

Dear Daniel:

Well, I don't recall your asking me about this. And I do
appreciate your putting these statements down in sequence.
For a historian they are most interesting.

They show how the plans for The SECRET DOCTRINE were
changed as time and need altered..

If the 3rd Volume was to contain the " history of certain
great adepts," then, as published it can, in my esteem,
hardly qualify to do that. I find far more sketched in the
THEOSOPHICAL GLOSSARY, under various names, and imagine that
H P B could have expanded that information. But that is
only a speculation of mine.

Scattered through the pages of ISIS UNVEILED, The SECRET
DOCTRINE and her articles we can catch glimpses of certain
great personages, historical and pre-historical -- and even,
we might attempt to string those together.

But that does not seem to be what H P B did, or intended,
does it ?

I assume that in presenting The SECRET DOCTRINE (the 2
volumes published in 1888) she was following the scheme that
the Masters finally laid out : Cosmogenesis, and then
Anthropogenesis.

I would also say in my observation, she expressed her
modesty -- and, she called it a theory or a hypothesis
relating to the generation of the Universe, our Solar System
and Earth. She did this, saying that it (the Theosophical
statement -- which she claimed was condensed HISTORY taken
from the pages of books and records in the libraries and
repositories of the secret Lodges of the Adepts) had as
much right to the public's consideration, as did the
various scientific hypotheses and theories that existed at
her time, and some of which survive into the present. The
modern Scientific theories are based on a speculative study
during the past 3 or 4 centuries of physical relicts and
fragments of monuments that have survived organized attempts
at their obliteration. One wonders why. The Theosophical
statements are based on a study over thousands of years by
the Adepts and their pupils (see S D I 272-3). They have
a far greater antiquity than those of our Science.

She claimed the Theosophical scheme was entirely under Law
(Karma). It was based on the immutability of the one
spiritual principle which is everywhere. It therefore
related to the reincarnation of worlds. Thereafter, under
the same law, whereby the "spiritual" always stands as the
"progenitor" of the material, our own humanity was
produced -- reincarnated from its earlier evolutionary
vehicle on to our Earth. Here it proceeds under the same
immutable evolutionary laws that take into account three
factors, broadly stated on p. 181 of SECRET DOCTRINE, Vol.
I: 1. the Spiritual, 2. the Intellectual, and, 3. the
physical.

I also assume that the 3rd Volume was held back, destroyed,
reconfigured, etc.... for some good reason known to the
Masters and to H P B. But, I am unable to say more. I do
not
know why. I observe again (concerning this 3rd Volume of
the S D) : she did not edit it, nor did she prepare it for
final publication. I would therefore say it is guess-work
for anyone to say what it would have been like. The
materials may have been collected, in part, read by some,
reported on, but we will never know if they are complete, or
only partial, or only stray MSS available and possibly
rejected by H P B earlier, for some reasons she alone knew..

Annie Besant took responsibility for producing the book
(that she named the 3rd volume of The SECRET DOCTRINE) and
to her we have to look for a final word -- but, again, she
is no longer with us. Her Introduction says what she
desired to place before us. Annie Besant released this book
in 1997 (6 years after the death of H P B's body) and
assumed full responsibility for it. I have compared the
contents with what H P B says will be issued, as described
in her first 2 volumes, to me, they are different.

The "Wurzburg MSS" (copied by Countess Wachmeister, and sent
to Adyar for Subba Row to review, comment on and edit) shows
differences from the book as finally published (S D Vols. I
& II). I believe that H P B says somewhere that the whole
scheme was modified as Mr. S. Rao refused to assist as
originally expected.

In any case, with me, I do not know enough to speculate. I
have the S D Vols I & II and even after some 60, or more
years of study, I cannot say I have in any way "mastered
them." I also agree that it would be very useful to some to
have the next 2 volumes, but apparently we will have to
"wait a while."

I am sure that others in the scientific world have read them
(the first 2 volumes), and interestingly enough, as time
passes in the past 114 years, a number of corroborative
discoveries tend to show that the statements she made then,
are, in part, verifications of the facts she wrote of, and,
that further investigation is uncovering more, almost daily.
In itself that is significant.

As I look at Theosophy, there are aspects that lend
dimensions of understanding to the discoveries and
speculations of Science. [You may say this has no place in
the present exchange, but, I think differently, so please
bear with me.]

It seems to me these might be: 1. the "astral light" (or
plane of electro-magnetic forces that form the lattice work
on which the physical atoms and molecules arrange themselves
to make up material forms. 2. Further, the concept of
Karma as a universal law of cause-effect-cause...
universally and endlessly proceeding; 3. following that,
the concept that there is for every being a "spiritual"
something that remains constant, invariable, undying -- and
is in fact the base for any concept on individuality. The
4th, is the concept of reincarnation -- that every "life"
on Earth is like a day in School for the undying
consciousness of every individual. 5th, there is a
purpose -- a goal -- for evolution which can be partially
expressed as "perfection." The material forms and minds
meld eventually with the spiritual "everything." But in
doing so, they do not lose their identity. This is what I
"get" out of The SECRET DOCTRINE and it appeals to me from
its logic and perceived operation. Science on the other
hand does not seem to be able to extend its purview beyond
this present life we are living in this body. Its cause for
existence is unknown, its fate after death is equally
unknown. The reason for living is unclear. The reason for
variations in human character are searched for, but theories
that relate brain to mind are also variable. The puzzle
deepens instead of being relieved.

Frankly I do not agree with your conclusion concerning the
3rd Volume. I see therein some of H P B's posthumously
published articles ( from "Lucifer" and elsewhere), but I am
also keenly aware that I am not equipped to provide you with
the kind of proofs you seem to want. I think I have said as
much as I can on this subject. I hope it is of help, even
if it appears to be a statement in an area different from
what you may have in mind.

Best wishes, as always,

Dallas
---------------------------

Aug 1 2002 (continued)

You asked me about changes made to The SECRET DOCTRINE MSS
by H P B

May I quote your recent posting -- this is exactly what I
had in mind when thinking of the difference between the
"Wurzburg MSS" and the final issue in 1888 of The SECRET
DOCTRINE

---------

You write

In October, 1886, HPB in Ostende wrote to A. P. Sinnett in
London:

"Well today Dj. Khool put in an appearance. . . . he told me
that
Master sent in a word for you, and me to tell you:

'Sinnett has evidently forgotten what he had read in the
Comm. on the
7 Stanzas (Book II Archaic period). . . . '

". . . . Well, D. Kh. said before parting company that I
better write
and tell you all; that there was a chance for me that either
you, or
Mr. Crookes would refuse to read over that which you had
already
read, and Mr. C. something that he is sure to find stupid,
unless he
reads the Comm. on Stanza VI with great attention. Well I am
ready to
do my duty. But I do hope Mr. Crookes will refuse."

"It is true that ever since you left [Ostende in July],
Master has
made me add some thing daily to the old MSS. so that much of
it is
new and much more that I do not understand myself. So that
with God's
help you may find in it something to attract the attention
of even
such an eminent man as Mr. Crookes. . . . " Quoted from:
http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/hpb-aps/bl-103.htm

Notice at THIS POINT in time that the Seven Stanzas of Dzyan
on
Cosmogony and HPB's Commentaries thereon were in the
manuscript of
Book II or Volume II on the Archaic Period, as it was
described.
COMPARE this arrangement to what Bertram Keightley wrote
about the
arrangement of the volumes when he first read the SD
manuscript in
London in the summer of 1887.

Daniel H. Caldwell


--------

Dont you think this covers the question of continual changes
being made ?

Best wishes,

D.








-----Original Message-----
From: danielhcaldwell
[mailto:comments@blavatskyarchives.com]
Sent:	Wednesday, July 31, 2002 8:53 PM
To:	Blavatsky_Study@yahoogroups.com
Subject:	[Blavatsky_Study] Dallas' Latest Reply about SD III

Dallas,

Thanks for your comments which can be read at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/7586

I will focus solely on your comments about SD III.

I ask for clarification about the following. You write:

"The 'Wurzburg MSS' (copied by Countess Wachmeister, and
sent
to Adyar for Subba Row to review, comment on and edit) shows
differences from the book as finally published (S D Vols. I
& II). I believe that H P B says somewhere that the whole
scheme was modified as Mr. S. Rao refused to assist as
originally expected."

First of all, where does HPB say, in effect, that the "the
whole
scheme was modified as Mr. S. Rao refused to assist as
originally
expected"? I am very interested in finding this statement
by HPB.

Secondly, what are the major DIFFERENCES between the
"Wurzburg MSS"
and what was published in SD Vols. I and II. I would like
to read
your observations about these differences. Also what are
your
sources upon which you base these observations?

I have a few more questions but will save them for a later
posting.

Daniel H. Caldwell
BLAVATSKY ARCHIVES
http://blavatskyarchives.com/introduction.htm


------------------------ Yahoo! Groups
Sponsor ---------------------~-->
Will You Find True Love?
Will You Meet the One?
Free Love Reading by phone!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/7dY7FD/R_ZEAA/Ey.GAA/UlWolB/TM
------------------------------------------------------------
---------~->

To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
Blavatsky_Study-unsubscribe@egroups.com



Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/