Theos-Talk Archives (June 2007 Message tt00120)

Jake,

In one of your postings from last year, you wrote:

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(Note: there is no "concentration-letter," but only his [Dan's]
compilation from various sources which he [Dan] _calls_ a letter!)
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Well, readers should be aware that I am not the only one TO CALL it
a letter!

Turn to page 696 of Volume XII of HPB's COLLECTED WRITINGS
edited by Boris de Zirkoff.

In the text of ES Instruction # 5, the quotes on concentrating "on
the Master as a Living Man within you", etc. are said to be from a
LETTER.

"The above-quoted letter says:...."

Among Mrs. Alice Cleather's papers is a document titled:

"From a Paper of Notes made from a Master's Letter."

This document includes the three KH quotes from ES Instruction #5
PLUS more KH attributed passages on concentration and meditation.

Basil Crump, Mrs. Cleather's trusted colleague, in an article in THE
CANADIAN THEOSOPHIST, August 1942 writes:

"The Master K.H., in a LETTER on the difference between the 'White
Gelugpas' and the 'Black Dugpas', says : 'It is impossible to
worship both sides of Nature at once..... '" caps added.

This quote given by Crump is from the same "letter" that we have
been discussing!!

C. J. Ryan, who wrote the book "HP Blavatsky and the Theosophical
Movement - Historical Sketch" (published in different editions by
both Theosophical University Press and Point Loma Publications) had
a copy of this KH material and at the end of Ryan's copy, one reads:

"(Copied from a letter of [triangle of 3 dots] K.H. in the
possession of W.Q.J."

In my various postings, I have ALSO called this "letter" a document,
or a manuscript.

So Jake if you want to quibble and call it something else other than
a letter, okay with me!

But if in fact you are quibbling about whether "letter" is the
appropriate term to use, then see Dr. Hugh Shearman's similar [???]
attempt to do the same in regards to "Letter" 10 (in the first 3
editions of the Mahatma Letters).

In an article in THE THEOSOPHIST, Shearman writes:

"Some of these unbalanced attitudes also entered the Mahatma
Letters. It is interesting that two of the letters in which such
prejudice is most clearly expressed are of dubious authority and
provenance. One is Letter 10 which exists only in the handwriting of
Mr. Sinnett and is not actually a letter but consists of notes on
something written by A. O. Hume. It is headed with the
word 'abridged'." Quoted from <http://tinyurl.com/kj4g4>

So is Letter 10 [as numbered in the first 3 editions of the Mahatma 
Letters; it is numbered as 88 in the chrono. ed.] not actually a 
letter but only notes?

And does that somehow make Letter No. 10 [No. 88] of "dubious 
authority and provenance" as Dr. Shearman wants readers to believe?

So is the KH Concentration Letter not actually a letter but only
notes?  And does that really make a difference?

Daniel
http://hpb.cc