Theos-Talk Archives (September 2002 Message tt00171)

Hello Martin, 
 
I'm always delighted to find people who are dedicated to making a
serious study of the Secret Doctrine--following its clues as opposed to
using it as some kind of a Bible. In our SD study group, we meet
quarterly and take turns presenting our research on various aspects of
it. Please see my comments on yours' below:
 
Jerry, thanks for the insight of who are the "some scholars," no doubt
those
are the guys; but also I would like to add that HPB was enthusiastic
about
the way pyramidology and the traslation and interpretation of the
Egyptian
Book of the Dead was evolving (see Pag.I-312) as a way to explain the
Christian Dogmas.
 
 
Jhe: According to my reading, HPB is here taking her typical long trip
around the barn, but not to promote Smyth, Petre, Parker, or
pyramidology. To be more precise, she seems to be throwing doubt upon
Smyth’s and Parker’s conclusions and shifting the focus to Skinner. In
her concluding statements, she writes: “That our author [i.e. Skinner]
has undeniably discovered one and even two of the keys is fully
demonstrated in the work just quoted. One has but to read it [i.e.
Source of Measures] to feel a growing conviction that the hidden meaning
of the allegories and parables of both Testaments is now unveiled. But
that he owes this discovery far more to his own genius than to Parker
and Piazzi Smyth, is as certain, if not more so. (SD I:315).
 
Also I like very much the book Zohar by Nurho de Manhar ,
Wizards Bookshelf. Any more references on who this Nurho de Manhar may
be??
 
Jhe: What do you like about it? Did you find insights unique to this
book? Personally, I prefer the Soncino translation because of its
clarity. We recently held a six-week public seminar on the “Language of
Mythology and Fairy Tales.” For one of the final sessions, I
transcribed part of de Manhar’s work in order to get around having to
get permission to use a later and better translation. However, de
Manhar’s grammar was so poor and his sentence structure so awkward, that
I had to break down and extensively re-edit in order to make it
comprehensible to anyone but the most motivated reader. I don’t know
who Manhar was, except that he was evidently active with Percival’s
Theosophical Society of New York. I’m sure you are aware that Wizard’s
compilation was taken from an unfinished series originally published in
The Word, beginning with the January 1907 issue.   
 
 
Jerry and anyone interested in the Sefer Yetzirah -- Mark, a member of
our
study group (West Los Angeles) moderates a list for the study of the
Sefer
Yetzirah. His email is: veritas00@earthlink.net.
 
Jhe: I would like to hear more about this group. I emailed Mark, but
haven’t heard back from him yet. 
 
Jerry, are you or someone else taking notes of what is being commented
in
your study group? "Transactions of the Turlock Study Group"!!!
 
jhe: Actually, we call ourselves “Alexandria West.” We are an
independent not-for profit corporation, unconnected with any
Theosophical Organization. As far as I know, my wife and I are the only
members with any personal Theosophical affiliation. To your question,
everyone attending our group seems to be taking notes, but no one has
offered to edit them for distribution. If you or anyone else is
interested in our activities, we have an email distribution list where I
send out meeting notices and news. I have also experimented with using
the list to send out study materials etc. but ran into formatting
problems. The email list is open to anyone who cares to subscribe.
Just email me that you would like to be added to the “Alexandria West”
email list. We plan to create an email discussion list some day, but
need the assistance of some knowledgeable computer person to show us how
to go about it. We also plan to produce a newsletter in the near
future. Anyone who would like to be in on the initial mailing should
feel free to request to be on the mailing list we are developing. 
 
Jhe: By the way, we chartered Alexandria West to, among other things,
make scarce esoteric and perennial wisdom works and materials available
to anyone seriously doing research. Through the library we have
available about 15,000 volumes, many of which I have personally
collected over the past forty years. Included are Theosophical books
from all the Theosophical Organizations, in their original editions.
This includes Blavatsky’s writings. We also have complete, or nearly
complete runs of Theosophical journals in several languages, including
LotusBleutin (German), Lotus Bleu (French), and Theofish Maadblad
(Dutch). In English, we have among other things, The Theosophist up to
the 1990’s, The Word (Percival), Theosophy (ULT), Manas (Geiger),
Lucifer (Blavatsky/Besant), The Path (Judge), Theosophical Quarterly,
the Canadian Theosophist (Smythe et al.)etc. Also we have in their
original editions important source works such as Burgess’
Surya-Siddhanta (1860), Book of Manu (1825), Source of Measures (1875),
Dunlap’s Ghebers of Hebron, Maspero’s thirteen volume History of Egypt,
Frazer’s Golden Bough (13 vol.), Muller’s Chips from a German Workshop
(5 vol.), The Zohar (5 vol.), Talmud (34 vols.), the list goes on and
on. The books are not available for loan, of course, but we invite and
encourage all interested parties to visit the library and feel free to
use them. We are located about 90 minutes from the San
Francisco/Oakland area. 
 
-jhe
 


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