Theos-Talk Archives (April 2005 Message tt00295)

Jerry,

You wrote:

"A careful analysis of reprinted ULT
material will reveal quite a lot of examples of
differences from the originals. For the most part,
these were errors of ignorance. The point is that
they, unlike other organizations, were not trying
to 'improve' on the original writings." 

Are you contending that the changes
and corrections to Theosophy Company's 1928 edition
of THE VOICE were "errors of ignorance"?

Notice what the Theosophy Company wrote in their
two letters in 1928:

In a letter dated March 30, 1928 and signed by THE
THEOSOPHY COMPANY, the anonymous writer informed Dr.
H.N. Stokes:

"The Theosophy Company is just bringing out an
entirely new edition of *The Voice of the Silence.* .
. .. Sometime ago the Theosophy Company came into
possession of a copy of the original London edition of
*The Voice of the Silence* with the typographical
changes and corrections made by Mr. Judge in his own
hand, and it is this text which is followed in the
edition just being issued by the Theosophy Company. .
. ." [quoted in O.E. LIBRARY CRITIC, July 1928.]

In a follow-up letter dated May 1, 1928, THE THEOSOPHY
COMPANY again stated to Dr. Stokes the following:

"This new [TC 1928] edition . . . is set up *verbatim
et literatim* from a copy of the original edition of
*The Voice of the Silence* as corrected by Mr. Judge
in his own handwriting. This copy we have in our
possession. . . ." [quoted in O.E. LIBRARY CRITIC,
July 1928.]

Notice the words:

"....changes and corrections made by Mr. Judge...." 

"...as corrected by Mr. Judge...."

These letters show that The Theosophy Company KNEW 
that changes and corrections had been made in the 
edition that they published in 1928.

And neither on the title page or elsewhere in this
edition did the Theosophy Company tell readers that
"changes" and "corrections" had been incorporated
into this edition of HPB's work.

Several years ago when I first wrote about this
1928 edition and the changes, a good number of
ULT students wrote me either not believing that
there were such changes or wrote shocked that
such changes were in the T.C. edition. 

So the further question comes to mind:

Why didn't the Theosophy Company in their 1928
edition inform readers that this edition contains
changes and corrections by W.Q. Judge? 

And are you contending that the Theosophy Company
in 1928 was NOT "trying to 'improve' on the original"
VOICE when they published such changes and corrections??

And yes I agree that we should be thankful to the
Theosophy Company's efforts to preserve the original writings.

Daniel
Blavatsky Study Center
http://blavatskyarchives.com