Theos-Talk Archives (September 2006 Message tt00260)

Carlos writes:

"Out of the 136 'letters' published by Mr. John Algeo, at least 27 
documents are certainly false.(1) That makes 20 percent of the 
total. One out of five letters of the volume is false. Nearly all 
the 27 forged documents are deeply offensive to H .P. Blavatsky, and 
more treacherously so since they are presented as if signed by HPB 
herself."

But the question to ask:

Who is to determine which letters are false and which letters are 
true?

For example, Michael Gomes in his book THE DAWNING OF THE 
THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT quotes from two of these letters claimed by 
Mr. Aveline to be false.

In each instance, Mr. Gomes attributes what is said in these two 
letters to H.P.B.  

For example, Mr. Gomes writes (p. 185):

"She wrote to Alexander Aksakov in October 1877..."

and goes on to give a quote from one of the letters Mr. Aveline 
believes is false.  

Nowhere when quoting H.P.B.'s words from this letter, does Mr. Gomes 
warn the reader of his book that he is quoting from false letters!!

Boris de Zirkoff in his writings does the same thing.  He quotes 
H.P.B.'s words from various letters to Askakoff.  The very letters 
Mr. Aveline considers false. And no where does Mr. de Zirkoff in 
these instances warn the reader that he is quoting fake HPB!!!

So maybe both Michael Gomes and Boris de Zirkoff believed the 
letters in question were true!

[I believe Sylvia Cranston also quotes from one of these false 
letters in her HPB biography.  She quotes as though the words in the 
letter are HPB's.  And nowhere does she warn the reader to beware of 
this letter or the similar letters from Aksakoff as being false.  I 
will doublecheck this since I quote from memory.]

Previously on Theos-Talk, Mr. Aveline has stated that Patrick 
Deveney  is now a member of the HPB Letters Commmittee and has 
indicated that hopefully Mr. Deveney will improve the scholarship of 
the volumes published.  

But does Mr. Aveline know whether Mr. Deveney agrees with his 
opinion that at least 27 letters are false?  Furthermore, would Mr. 
Deveney be wanting to REMOVE these letters from a revised edition 
volume I?

My impression is that Mr. Deveney does NOT agree with Mr. Aveline's 
assessment of the letters in question.  

I suggest that Mr. Aveline might write to Mr. Deveney and ask him 
pointblank if he considers the said letters false and does he favor 
REMOVING them as they will be removed, for example, in the 
expurgated volume (edited by Mr. Jerome Wheeler?).

Food for thought.

Daniel
http://hpb.cc