Theos-Talk Archives (March 2009 Message tt00290)

Examining One Example of De Zirkoff's Thesis on HPB's Theosophical
Glossary

Morten, 

I quote below some of what I wrote in 1999 and have expanded some  of
my text.  See if you understand what I am "getting at" in this
example.

Daniel
---------------------------------------------------------

Boris de Zirkoff writes that "the definitions of the Days and Nights
of Brahma are entirely wrong [in THE THEOSOPHICAL GLOSSARY]."

Are we to conclude therefore that HPB could not have written those
definitions?  Is that what Mr. de Zirkoff is asking us to do?  I
assume this is his line of thinking.  Apparently he is suggesting
that after HPB's death, Mead or some other person changed the
definition because HPB could not have written what was published

But these SAME definitions appear in the 60-page glossary appended to
the second edition of THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.  This second edition of
the KEY was published in late 1890 while HPB was still alive.  And in
the Preface to this second edition, HPB herself writes:

"I have added a copious 'Glossary' of all the technical terms. . . "

Or take the original edition of THE VOICE OF THE SILENCE.  H.P.B.
writes in a note to the main text:

"Eternity with the Orientals has quite another signification than it
has with us.  It stands generally for the 100 years or 'age' of
Brahma, the duration of a Kalpa or a period of 4,320,000,000 years."  pp. 74-75.

Yet the ULT student Dr. Jean-Louis Siemons considers the time-period
given in THE VOICE as "a palpable error."  And in the Theosophy
Company's edition of THE VOICE OF THE SILENCE, the error has also been
silently "corrected."

Would Mr. de Zirkoff and students of similar mind maintain that
these "errors" in texts published DURING HPB's lifetime were ALSO
made by G.R.S. Mead or some other unnamed Theosophist?

There's more to this example but I will save that for later.

Daniel
http://hpb.cc