Theos-Talk Archives (November 2006 Message tt00492)

Friends, 

Below,  a important contribution by Jake,  in Theos-talk, 
and dated July 2006.  

Carlos. 

oooooooooooooooo


 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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