Theos-Talk Archives (June 2003 Message tt00014)

Dear [name deleted],

Thanks for your PRIVATE reply to my posting at
Theos-Talk but you would have been enlightening more
people with your answer if you had had it posted
directly on . . . Theos-Talk.

In my posting, I had written:

"In a recent issue of the `Aquarian Theosophist', I
noticed an article titled `How the Masters approach an
Aspirant'. See page 7 at the following URL:
http://www.teosofia.com/Docs/vol-3-6-supplement.pdf

". . . Nowhere in the main text or the footnotes do I
find where these two extracts from the Master KH are
taken from. To paraphrase Dr. Stokes, the article 
does NOT `afford the slightest clue to the source [for
the Master's words], not the slightest possibility of
the student locating it without laborious search'!!" 

"Could some ULT associate shed some light on this
`strange' ULT practice?"

..........................................

[I paraphrase the part of the private answer which is relevant to the 
issue under discussion:

". . . A person who asks for the reference will get it. If
people don't ask, they won't get it in sacred matters."]

......................................

You bring up the phrase "sacred matters" so I assume
that "sacred matters" MUST have something to do with
withholding the "reference." ??

In other words, you SEEM to be saying that the
"reference" was NOT given in the AT article because
that somehow involves "sacred matters". 

. . .............................. 

You seem to be saying that it does NOT involve sacred
matters or it is not improper, it is not
"sacrilegious" to QUOTE KH's personal letter to H.S.
Olcott.

BUT YOU ALSO SEEM TO BE SAYING that to give the reader
the exact "reference" to where the author of the above
AT article obtained the transcription of the letter is
somehow improper, somehow inappropriate, even
sacrilegious and broaches "sacred matters". 

It would appear that the author of the above AT
article transcribed KH's letter to Olcott from
Jinarajadasa's LETTERS FROM THE MASTERS OF THE WISDOM,
First Series, Letter 16. Said author even added an AT
footnote which was actually written by Jinarajadasa in
his notes to Letter 16 in LMW, Vol. I.

. . . are you contending that nothing was wrong,
nothing was improper or inappropriate in transcribing
the letter from that source and ALSO publishing it in
the pages of AT? 

BUT are you ALSO contending that to have given the
actual source, the reference so that readers would
know that this letter was previously published as
Letter 16 in LETTERS FROM THE MASTERS OF THE WISDOM,
First Series SOMEHOW crosses the line into "sacred
matters" and that is why the reference was NOT given?

If the above is not what you are in effect TRYING TO
COMMUNICATE, I would truly appreciate a clear
explanation in your own words.

I'm curious. Did the AT author have permission from
the Master KH to publish his personal letter in that
issue of AT? 

I ask this question because IF you are one of those
persons who really believes KH did not want any of his
personal correspondence published . . . then without
KH's permission, how could one . . . in good
conscience publish the letter in the pages of AT?

Withholding the "reference" from AT readers seems
almost trivial in light of what I just wrote in the
last paragraph.
...........................

Thanks again for your reply.

Daniel