Theos-Talk Archives (May 2008 Message tt00682)

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "Morten Nymann Olesen" 
<global-theosophy@...> wrote:

> "Nevertheless, some students of HPB's writings have voiced concern
> about how much Besant and her assistants may have edited the
> manuscript. 

I don't think that it was edited substantionally. Besant clearly 
marked her own interpolation where were missing pages which were found 
later. Though reconstruction of Besant much differed frim an original 
Blavatsky text which was discovered, Besant emphasized that it is her 
interpolation.
The second point is that most of the students study SD3 by BCW. While 
if we look to an original edition, we may find there comments by 
Besant where she expresses some disagrement with the text. 
Nevertheless, she didn't dare to change it according to her likes.
Here follows her note to the famous sections on Buddha:

"It is with some hesitation that I include the following Sections in 
the Secret Doctrine. Together with some most suggestive thought, they 
contain very numerous errors of fact, and many statements based on 
exoteric writings, not on esoteric knowledge. They were given into my 
hands to publish, as part of the Third Volume of the Secret Doctrine, 
and I therefore do not feel justified in coming between the author and 
the public, either by altering the statements, to make them consistent 
with fact, or by suppressing the Sections. She says she is acting 
entirely on her own authority, and it will be obvious to any 
instructed reader that she makes-possibly deliberately-many statements 
so confused that they are merely blinds, and other statements-probably 
inadvertently-that are nothing more than the exoteric 
misunderstandings of esoteric truths. The reader must here, as 
everywhere, use his own judgment, but, feeling bound to publish these 
Sections, I cannot let them go to the public without a warning that 
much in them is certainly erroneous."