Theos-Talk Archives (May 2004 Message tt00071)

Rich Taylor writes in the rough draft of his dissertation on
Blavatsky and Buddhism:

"I merely state here the objective fact that Blavatsky's writings
contain the words and ideas of other Western writers, unacknowledged, 
and that these appropriations sometimes are made to appear as 
emanating from a hidden or occult source like Tibetan Buddhist Tantras."  
See http://www.blavatsky.net/forum/taylor/tibetanSources10.htm

One should be aware that Rich's contention of "appropriation" is
in contradiction to what Anita Atkins (Sylvia Cranston) and 
Michael Gomes have publicly stated in their biographical writings 
on Blavatsky.  
 
See Rich's text for his detailed documentation.

Earlier in the same section, Rich gives more details:

"HPB has altered Schlagintweit's text [in his THE BUDDHISM OF
TIBET] especially the correspondences in the three realms-but 
there is no question that overall she has lifted this passage from 
his book originally. Nota bene Blavatsky's footnote, where she 
claims to be giving out statements from the secret portions of 
the Kålachakra Tantra. However, HPB's statements are
merely rephrasings of Schlagintweit, taken from his chapter on
Kålachakra, where he gives the Tibetan translation Dus Kyi Khorlo-a
technically correct and not a phonetic spelling, which as we have 
seen (at length above) was the habit of HPB. In HPB's ten-page 
chapter entitled 'The Mystery of Buddhism,' which this passage 
is taken from, Blavatsky does not mention even once
Schlagintweit, his book, or any contemporary Western author
except A.P. Sinnett, her student. For all HPB's unique knowledge of
Kålachakra Tantra, as described in the previous section, this 
appropriation of published work (and many others like it) would 
appear to be quite damaging to her claims."

If the unacknowledged appropriations appear damaging, what
appears even worse is that "these appropriations sometimes are 
MADE TO APPEAR as emanating from a hidden or occult source 
like Tibetan Buddhist Tantras."

Why would Blavatsky attribute appropriated material from
Schlagintweit's book to a hidden or occult source?

And I believe there is at least one example of this in HPB's
translation of the VOICE where she appropriates text from 
Schlagintweit and makes it appear to be from a "hidden or occult 
source"!

How many more examples are there of this kind of which we are
absolutely ignorant????!!!

Daniel H. Caldwell
http://hpb.cc
http://theosophy.info










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