Theos-Talk Archives (July 2006 Message tt00288)

7/15/2006 5:39 PM

 

                        RE: DANIEL'S SILENT EDITING  (allegation)

 

Friends:

 

In all fairness, if anyone makes accusations, then where is the evidence?

 

Can examples of this “silent editing” be actually advanced for us to make
comparisons with the originals ?

 

Thank you.

 

Dallas

 

======================================

 

 

                                    DANIEL'S SILENT EDITING

 


This, below, is an important contribution. 

I saw that Daniel book was disastrous. But I could not compare it with his
former book and did not think the difference was so great. Thanks for the
clarification. 

The fact that the difference between the two books is for the worse shows in
which direction Daniel Caldwell has evolved in the years between 1991 and
2000. 

As to his making lots of changes and not anouncing them, this is but one
more example of that which Ernest Pelletier, the Canadian author, has
correctly called "silent editting", started in Adyar TS after HPB's death. 

The same "process" happened with Annie Besant's "third volume" of "The
Secret Doctrine". 

Several books by C. W. Leadbeater which are still for sale have been
suffering this process of Silent Editing over the decades -- one major
example being "The Inner Life" (the book which originally described the
imaginary visits of CWL to Mercury and Mars). 

There is much more. The Adyar edition of a small volume under the general
title of "Practical Occultism", by H. P. Blavatsky, includes several texts
which were never written by HPB. 

Not to mention the inclusion of various well-known false "testimonies" in
Caldwell's book on HPB. These texts also happen to be tremendously offensive
to the truth, to HPB, to the movement, and to the Mahatmas. 

Of course the Masters do not care about that, but their 19th century names
and images should deserve respect, as HPB explained most clearly in "The Key
to Theosophy". We ourselves, as humans, are only benefitted by having
respect for the idea of Mahatmas -- an idea which, taken in abstract,
corresponds to the ideas of "Immortals" in Taoism, "Buddhas" and "Arhats" in
Buddhism, "Rishis" of Hinduism, etc. 

Classical Buddhism (and specifically Shin Buddhism) teaches that slandering
masters is a grave mistake; and it certainly is, since true masters are
involved with the growth of our souls.

So Daniel Caldwell's editorial inaccuracy is not an isolated fact. 

There has been a whole editorial policy based in manipulation and distortion
of facts, perhaps with good intentions in some cases. A policy which has
nothing in common with real scholarship and which, I suspect, would not be
acceptable in any University or University Press. 

Best regards, 

 

Carlos Cardoso Aveline.

De:theos-talk@yahoogro <mailto:theos-talk%40yahoogroups.com> ups.com

Para:theos-talk@yahoogro <mailto:theos-talk%40yahoogroups.com> ups.com



=====================================================


Cópia:

Data:Wed, 12 Jul 2006 

Assunto:           Deceptive Publishing

 



            DECEPTIVE PUBLISHING: IT MATTERS
 
 In the front of Caldwell's "The 
 Esoteric World of Madame Blavatsky," 
 "TPH/Quest Edition," 2000 it says on 
 the title page: "Originally published 
 as 'The Occult World of Madame Blavatsky.'" 
 (Impossible Dream Publications, 1991, 
 Tucson, and was presumably privately 
 published.) 

 

This is not true, they are 
 different books, "The Esoteric World of 
 Mme B." having maybe a third or quarter 
 more material than "The Occult World 
 of Mme. B." 
 
 This first book, I liked. It was a 
 great compilation of personal accounts 
 related to Blavatsky which were mostly 
 all sympathetic. The second book has 
 much new editorical material, new 
 antipathetic accounts which reflected 
 the authors new "scholarly" approach and 
 new publisher, TPH at Wheaton. In other 
 words, in order to be acceptable by academic 
 types, you have to have negative biographical 
 material as well as positive - even though at 
 least some of the negative material is known 
 to be untrue. (Otherwise you have the 
 accursed "hagiography.")
 
 Well, why does this matter? - all of 
 "Occult World" is in the latter "Esoteric 
 World," even though its about a third 
 longer. The title page is not truthful for 
 one thing. The second book is editorially 
 changed and marks Caldwell's transition 
 from unrespectable "HPB student" to 
 respectable "HPB scholar," and thus money 
 from a publisher. Also, I (and probably 
 many others) didn't buy the second book 
 because I saw it referred to as a reprint 
 of the same book (not!). The results of this 
 is that probably many serious Blavatsky 
 students bought the first book, but did not 
 buy the second book - thus "Esoteric World 
 of Mme. Blavatsky" did not engender much of 
 the criticism it would have from the new 
 "neutral-towards-Blavatsky" editorial stance. 
 Was the misleading title page for purposes 
 of hiding the book from criticism, or just 
 "unscholarly" and careless and misleading? 
 If such is acceptable practice, it 
 shouldn't be. 
 
 - jake j
 



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