Theos-Talk Archives (April 2005 Message tt00297)

Daniel,

The first time I became of aware that there were inconsistencies in ULT 
reprints was in the early 70s. At that time, Dara Eklund was working on 
the first volume of the Judge Collected writings, Echoes of the Orient. 
Dara had asked me to help her locate some source material for the 
volume. I lived in the area at the time, and had the occasion to see 
quite a lot of her. Anyway, I do recall managing to locate a couple of 
things for her, but was not nearly as successful as I would have liked 
to have been. Anyway, in the course of her compiling the material for 
the volumes, she would have in front of her copies of the same articles 
etc. from several different sources, including the original printings 
and ULT reprints. At the time she mentioned that she had found a lot of 
discrepancies between the originals and the ULT reprints. She went on 
to comment that this was quite a surprise to her because she had grown 
up in the ULT tradition and was always told that only ULT publications 
were dependable reproductions of the originals. From that time on, I 
took her discovery to heart and kept my eyes open. Over the years I 
also stumbled across little things of my own, but have not actively 
looked for them, or even bothered to keep a record. This is because I 
pretty much have in the original form everything ULT reprinted anyway. 
Therefore, I don't have to rely on ULT reprints, and I'm not engaged in 
the reprinting of Blavatsky and Judge writings. I suggest that Dara 
would be a much better person for you to inquire about discrepancies, at 
least in Judge's writings. Perhaps she kept a record of the incidences 
she found.

Since I managed to stumble across discrepancies without even actively 
looking for them, I would think that you, who seems to make a full time 
job of this kind of sleuthing, have already created a list of your own. 
I can't speak for "other ULT students", but I know from past 
conversations with Wes Amerman that he is aware that there are 
differences, as are several other associates who I have known over the 
years. I never spoke to Dallas about this matter, but I would be very 
surprised if he were not aware of it. Now that I think about it, I 
believe that the more vintage students are certainly aware that 
differences exist, or at least, would not be surprised to learn that 
they do. This kind of issue came up at a ULT networking conference I 
attended a couple of years ago where Richard Taylor, during his 
presentation, brought up a discrepancy concerning a Mahatma letter. 
That issue concerned a ULT insistence that the Master, in a letter, 
referred to himself as a "budhist," and not a "Buddhist" as Trevor 
Barker had transcribed it. Taylor confirmed Barker's transcription was 
correct. 
We all make mistakes. That is part of the human condition. The ULT 
founders did not perfectly accomplish their goal. I would add that like 
their sister organizations, ULT was not above leaving unpublished 
documents which would be uncomplimentary to their own position. So, 
what else is new? Nevertheless, I still applaud the ULT founders for 
their noble effort to preserve the writings in what they believed to be 
their original form. 
Jerry




Daniel H. Caldwell wrote:

> Jerry, 
> You wrote:
>
> "If you want to get into it, there is even more to 
> it than that. 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." caps added.
>
> Can you provide us with a few examples to illustrate
> your statement that "A careful analysis of reprinted ULT 
> material will reveal QUITE A LOT of examples of 
> differences from the originals"? caps added.
>
> I'm sure Dallas and other ULT students on this
> Theos-Talk forum would want to know about these differences.
>
> Daniel
> Blavatsky Study Center
> http://blavatskyarchives.com
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