Theos-Talk Archives (November 2006 Message tt00696)

The late Dallas TenBroeck once wrote on Theos-Talk:

===========================================
The only valid reason for using the ORIGINAL [by Blavatsky], without 
the interposition of a commentator, editor, "filter," is that the
student need not try to double-guess the changes in meaning that
such an intermediary might impose in terms of his/her own
understanding. In fact those alterations might be precisely
those that today no longer agree with the original terms H.P.B.
used.

The DIRECT CONTACT with the original enables the students to make
his own mistakes, if he does. Then they are his, only, and he
cannot blame an intermediary....

Personally, I have a great pity for those who have made
alterations and invisible editing in such an important work. I
include all who may have done this in my mind. On the opposite
hand: I feel gratitude for those who have offered "corrections
needed in the ORIGINAL" and that they think will be helpful to
students, but who have been careful to IDENTIFY and FOOTNOTE
their changes so that the said student has a choice.

By what amounts to "concealing" those changes made in the
ORIGINAL (yet using the Original Title) and thus tacitly
attributing those new and interposed changes to the Author - who
has had no chance to agree to them -- they may have blurred or
obscured some meanings. Just how important those altered
meanings and changes are, need not be a subject for restudy if
one deals with the ORIGINALS to begin with....
===========================================

Would these comments also apply to the Theosophy Company's
"edited" version of THE VOICE OF THE SILENCE?

For more details, see my postings at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/37395
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/37407
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/37410

Daniel
http://hpb.cc