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Re: Rich Taylor on Blavatsky's "appropriations" of text from other authors

May 09, 2004 07:17 AM
by netemara888


--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "Daniel H. Caldwell" 
<danielhcaldwell@y...> wrote:
> 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
> 

I know she was loose with the pen and the lips. There was also a 
controversy that JFK did not write "Profiles in COurage" and it had 
to be proven in court that he was the writer but someone helped him 
and they were trying to give full credit to that someone. 

This time I have to again quote spiritual and scientific sources, 
but in addition I have the personal experience to help illuminate 
the physics.

She was not a scholar in the truest sense but there is no excuse for 
not giving credit each and every time. Where were her editors?

Netemara
> 
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> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]




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