Theos-Talk Archives (May 2006 Message tt00610)

This whole question about the 3rd volume ought to be put into some sort
of context.  What HPB originally wrote down on paper and what was
eventually edited and published may not be identical according to some
theosophists.  Much of what HPB put to paper she did not entirely
understand.  However, she was the best mediator through which the adepts
could work.  The question then becomes did the Adepts overshadow the
Keightlys during their editing process, and HPB again during any final
editing.  One theosophist along with his students, Rex Dutta, developed
what he called a Concentric Key method to studying the SD.  He found he
could use page numbers, lines on which words or ideas appeared, etc. to
develop clues as to what other pages and lines to look to in order to
get a deeper understanding of the ideas he was studying.  In a sense the
book had been constructed in a way that made everything relevant to its
study.  Now whether this is the case or not, editing the SD has become a
problem for some students where keys and nuance are lost as the book is
filtered through someone else's understanding.

The 3rd volume may or may not have received a similar overshadowing
during its editing process, possibly making it unlike the other volumes.

For some students of Theosophy, the 3rd volume is approached more
cautiously ensuring that its content does not differ in principle from
the first two volumes and the Student's own intuitions.  In the larger
sense, of course, as the theosophist is not supposed to take anything on
authority, whether he is reading vols I & II, or vol III, or works by de
Purucker, he should be using his faculties of discrimination and his
intuition to try and understand what he is reading and determine its
veracity.  It is the development of the individual student that is the
bigger issue and if some students want to approach the 3rd volume with
great caution then so what?  There seem to be arguments for this.

Bruce
--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "danielhcaldwell"
<danielhcaldwell@...> wrote:
>
> Carlos,
>
> In your posting at:
>
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/33473
>
> you wrote:
>
> "So what? Your point is? Nobody said A. Besant's SD is entirely
> false."
>
> Well, there are some students of Blavatsky who ENTIRELY reject
> this Third Volume and who will NOT use any material from the
> volume since they believe Mrs. Besant mutilated the text.
>
> As one student once said to me, how do you know what is HPB's and
> what Mrs. Besant added, changed or deleted from HPB's text.
>
> So Carlos I'm glad that you apparently do not accept this extreme
> view and you see worth in the HPB material in this third volume.
>
> This is one of my points.
>
> Now to another point.
>
> In my previous posting on this subject, I quoted the publisher's
> note from the Theosophy Company that said that the Third Volume of
> the SD that was published in 1897 "forms no part of the original
> SECRET DOCTRINE written by H.P.B."
>
> Notice the words:  NO PART
>
> Now I ask:  how does the writer of this statement know this?
> Unfortunately, the writer does not give us any details whatsoever so
> we are not in a position to understand the reasoning or the evidence
> that may have led him to that conclusion.
>
> But focusing on NO PART, I would like to take the "part" that you
> quote, that is, the HPB quote on Socrates, look at that part and see
> if we can determine if that material was actually "A PART of the
> original SECRET DOCTRINE written by H.P.B."
>
> I will do this in my next posting.
>
> Daniel
> Blavatsky Study Center
> http://blavatskyarchives.com
> http://blavatskystudycenter.org
> http://theosophy.info
>