Theos-Talk Archives (January 2009 Message tt00201)

Paul,
thank you for that important information on Bunsen.
Image, although since many years I try to absorb all lost information esp. 
to theosophical history in Germany (which was more important in quantity and 
quality than many believe), I came across the Bunsen 1870 Berlin book on the 
secret doctrine only recently.

IF Bunsen had direct connentions with Blavatsky then he could be the reason 
for her Berlin visit around 1860 (I am writing from memory).
That would explain why she mentions Bunsen and other titles from him, but 
not this important book.

It seems to have been HPB's custom to paraphrase from important occult 
books, but not to give the exactly source.

For example she gives the higher mahayana teachings and speaks of the 
doctrines of the good law, but she does not explicitly say that she means 
the Lotus Sutra.
Or she helds Nostradamus in high regards, but deals next to nothing with 
this important person, at least in her public books.

Perhaps a situation for Blavatsky students (including myself) to think over 
the Coleman critic on HPB's quotation habits.

Bulwer-Lytton was according to one Mahatma letter involved in a 
pre-Blavatskian try to launch an occult group. The novels seems to be rather 
a try to blaze the trail as they later in 1877 also did with Isis Unveiled.

We also know that Saint Germain was at this time often in Berlin at the tea 
hosue of king Frederick (in Potsdam, to be exactly, a suburb of Berlin).

Frank