Theos-Talk Archives (May 2005 Message tt00769)

A few views
I think one of the Mahatma Letters states that
Blavatsky would lie if she had to - to secure the theosophical cause.
The below is in one way or the other such an example.

Sometimes it is better to lie little than tell the whole truth.
But most often we don't do it, because we do not need to.
Compassion is always important.


from
M. Sufilight

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Daniel H. Caldwell" <danielhcaldwell@yahoo.com>
To: <theos-talk@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, May 28, 2005 7:53 PM
Subject: Theos-World More on the HPB letters


> ------,
>
> Thanks for your comments below.
>
> Concerning the Coulomb/missionary criminal 
> forgeries, I have discovered in my own research 
> that portions of some of these letters are 
> genuine and even HPB writes (BCW VI, 295-297. ) 
> that certain portions are genuine. If the text 
> of these forged letters were included by 
> Boris de Zirkoff in Col. Writings, Vol. VI, 
> I see no good reason for excluding them from
> a future Volume of the Letters. But one 
> could add commentary and refer students to 
> rebuttals of these forged letters by Hastings, 
> Vania, Fuller, and others. Let the reader 
> have access to all the material and let the 
> reader decide what is what.
>
> I remember many years ago when I was first collecting material on 
> Blavatsky and Theosophy that some Theosophists chided me for 
> collecting the negative hostile material on HPB & Theosophy. I 
> remember one student telling me, "We all know none of that is 
> true." I said that at that point in time, I didn't know what was 
> what. When I asked if he had studied the hostile material, he 
> said "No."
>
> From day one I wanted to know everything about Blavatsky and her 
> Theosophical mission and I wanted to study first hand all the 
> primary souce documents (including the negative ones) and not rely 
> on some other student or writer who might filter it through his/her 
> point of view. Was it always comfortable to read all the negative 
> stuff about HPB? No, but it made me dig deeper and as a result I 
> came to many important discoveries including documents like the 
> complete text of THE INNER GROUP INSTRUCTIONS, etc.
>
> I see in your letter you mention "scholars" and ------ in a previous 
> letter brings up that subject, too. Some Theosophical students 
> have even criticized me and described me as a "scholar". Apparently 
> that is a "put-down". Well, all I can say is I am a librarian but 
> years before I ever got a degree in librarianship or any other 
> academic or scholarly degree, I was seeking for "truth", more light, 
> etc. on these matters concerning HPB and Theosophy. Therefore, I 
> continue to view myself as a seeker of truth.
>
> Concerning the Solovyoff letters, we are actually talking about the 
> letters from HPB to Aksakoff. Are these letters forgeries? I don't 
> really know. Some parts of the letters seem quite genuine, other 
> parts possibly tampered with. But why completely exclude them from 
> Volume I as the 3 readers in FOHAT and and FOHAT editor intitially 
> wanted?
>
> Yes, one could add commentary on some of these letters and that 
> would be helpful. But allow readers access to all this material and 
> let each reader make up his/her own mind.
>
> These letters were published in Russia in 1893 and Aksakoff did not 
> die until 1903. During this 10 year period, I have never 
> discovered any communication from Aksakoff declaring that Solovyoff 
> had forged or tampered with the letters he had received from HPB. I 
> guess you could assume Aksakoff was in league with Solovyoff to 
> sully HPB's name but I find no evidence in support of that 
> contention either. 
> Maybe one day the originals of these HPB letters to Aksakoff will be 
> discovered.
>
> Do we also exclude the letters HPB supposedly wrote to Dondoukoff-
> Korsakoff??
>
> Jean Overton Fuller in her biography of HPB has an appendix 
> titled "The 'Bolt' or Dondoukoff-Korsakoff letters." She believes 
> these letters also were forgeries. But the original handwritten 
> Russian letters are at Adyar, and I have seen the microfilm of these 
> originals. I am not a "handwriting expert" but from reading and 
> transcripting hundreds of pages of HPB's original handwritten 
> letters, they appear to be in HPB's characteristic
> handwriting.
>
> In regards to John Cooper, I again repeat that John included the 
> letters in question in his dissertation and also in his manuscript 
> for the first volume of letters that he had contracted with the the 
> Theosophical Publishing House, Wheaton to edit. He certainly did 
> not exclude the specific letters mentioned in the last issue of 
> FOHAT. And in many phone conversations with him, I never once 
> gained the impression that it was ever his intent to exclude these 
> HPB letter in the series of volumes. I believe he would have 
> opposed any attempt to such exclusion as recommended in the last 
> issue of FOHAT. 
> I've rambled too much so will close....
>
> Daniel H. Caldwell
> Blavatsky Study Center
> http://blavatskystudycenter.org
> danielhcaldwell@yahoo.com
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links