Theos-Talk Archives (November 2006 Message tt01035)

In answer to Carlos? question: ?But would Tillett approve of REMOVING 27
letters from the HPB Letters Volume I as apparently you and Jerome Wheeler
and others are advocating????

As I have previously written, I am not an authority on Blavatsky or her
writings, so I can only answer in the abstract.

If a letter, in whole or part, has been previously published or claimed as
a letter of HPB, it should be included but with critical commentary as to
questions about whether or not it is genuine. It may be that an appendix
of ?Controversial Letters? could be used to deal with this problem.

Letters should not be omitted on the grounds of content alone ? that HPB
couldn?t or wouldn?t have written this?. - but of provenance and
historicity. The fact that someone hostile to HPB originally published a
letter tells us nothing necessarily about whether the letter is genuine.

Openness, transparency and honesty should be the guidelines ? if there are
questions or doubts, these should be specified, rather than just leaving a
letter out.

If any letters are left out, these should be listed (e.g. in an appendix)
with an explanation as to why they are not included (and I, as argued
above, would prefer to see them included with commentary) with reference
to their sources so readers could find them if they wanted to make their
own assessments.

All editorial decisions ? including minor matters like changes of
spelling, punctuation, etc. ? should be clearly specified, as should
decisions about variations of texts where several versions of a letter
exist.

Dr Gregory Tillett