Theos-Talk Archives (June 2006 Message tt00114)

HPB's COLLECTED WRITINGS Vol. 14 heavily dependent
on Besant's 3rd Volume (1897) of the SD

In the 1897 edition of Volume III of THE SECRET DOCTRINE,
there are (excluding H.P.B.'s esoteric papers at
the back of this volume), 52 sections (or chapters)
covering 432 pages of text.

40 of these sections or chapters of the SD Vol. III were SIMPLY
transferred by Mr. de Zirkoff into HPB's COLLECTED WRITINGS (most of
them into Vol. XIV).

It should be clearly stated here that the ONLY EXISTING copies of
these 40 sections are the printed version found in SD Vol. III.

Mr. de Zirkoff had NO OTHER versions of these 40 sections to rely on
or work with.

Furthermore, these 40 sections constitute more than 300 pages of the
text of SD III.

For the remaining 12 sections of SD III which have corresponding
text in the EARLIER Wurzburg manuscript, Mr. de Zirkoff and his team
compared the two sets of text, etc. and then decided what to publish
in the COLLECTED WRITINGS.

IN SUMMARY:

Mr. de Zirkoff transferred into the COLLECTED WRITINGS volumes (most
of it into Volume XIV) these hundreds of pages of text DIRECTLY FROM
Annie Besant's Vol. III.

In other words, COLLECTED WRITINGS, Vol. 14 is heavily DEPENDENT on
Annie Besant's 3rd Volume.

Daniel H. Caldwell
Blavatsky Study Center
http://blavatskyarchives.com