Secret Doctrine Commentaries - An Offer
Fifteen years ago, due to the good fortune of theosophists, the record of the discussions that HPB had in London Lodge in 1889 was discovered. The transcriptions were professionally made and edited and typewritten and the document was in a good shape.
It was this year the commentaries were edited and published in Europe. Not only enormous amount of time lost, when published, it was too pricey for most theosophists. We should remember, traditionally theosophists are not fat cats, and especially most theosophists outside the West cannot afford to buy it.
The commentaries themselves are out of copyright. The book is copyrighted
since it has a preface, footnotes, and index. Many theosophists who have
seen the published material feel that the added value is very minimal
indeed.
Today, technology has made scanning of documents easy and cheap. In
addition, once scanned material is uploaded to Internet, it is available
around the globe for free.
Now is the time to make the original commentaries available to theosophical
world. If the current custodians can make a photocopy of the documents
available, they can be scanned and uploaded to Internet at no cost to them.
There are many theosophists who can get this done in quick order.
Once the originals are in Internet, theosophists around the world can
collaborate and discuss them in Wiki style and this would benefit for the
posterity.
Once one has access to the original material on Internet, will surely buy
the book for its added on value and perhaps to adorn their bookshelves.
Who can deny the above offer? Hope the current custodians respond to it
quickly.
It was this year the commentaries were edited and published in Europe. Not only enormous amount of time lost, when published, it was too pricey for most theosophists. We should remember, traditionally theosophists are not fat cats, and especially most theosophists outside the West cannot afford to buy it.
The commentaries themselves are out of copyright. The book is copyrighted
since it has a preface, footnotes, and index. Many theosophists who have
seen the published material feel that the added value is very minimal
indeed.
Today, technology has made scanning of documents easy and cheap. In
addition, once scanned material is uploaded to Internet, it is available
around the globe for free.
Now is the time to make the original commentaries available to theosophical
world. If the current custodians can make a photocopy of the documents
available, they can be scanned and uploaded to Internet at no cost to them.
There are many theosophists who can get this done in quick order.
Once the originals are in Internet, theosophists around the world can
collaborate and discuss them in Wiki style and this would benefit for the
posterity.
Once one has access to the original material on Internet, will surely buy
the book for its added on value and perhaps to adorn their bookshelves.
Who can deny the above offer? Hope the current custodians respond to it
quickly.
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Nicholas Weeks on
-
Ramadoss: "The transcriptions were professionally made and edited and typewritten and the document was in a good shape."
Not so re: the underlined part. The stenographic reports were handwritten in the 19th century. Michael Gomes and a few other present-day workers transcribed the reports into typescript. Gomes & the publisher certainly did the ordinary thing and copyrighted the manuscript as well as the published book.
-
ModeratorPermalink Reply by M K Ramadoss on -
Thanks for the clarification. So the stenographic reports were handwritten. So the steno reports are not copyrighted. They can be scanned and uploaded to Internet and we all can join and convert it to a word processor. A worthwhile project while waiting for the electronic version is available.
-
-
Ramadoss: "So the steno reports are not copyrighted." I would not count on them being free of legal restrictions either.
-
ModeratorPermalink Reply by M K Ramadoss on -
Let us wait and see how the current custodians want to handle the issue. It is a pity that the custodians, for what ever reason, withheld valuable information from the theosophical world for a very long time. I think it is the duty of every theosophist to disseminate whatever theosophical information that is available to our brothers and sisters unless it is material given to them under pledge of secrecy not to distribute them. In this case, the current custodians came to possess it by their good luck.
Current bottom line is that a determined theosophist wanting to get hold of the commentaries will do so sooner or later. The channel used will be the choice of the theosophist. The fact is that already there exists for sure one scanned version of the book and the likely hood is that there may be others we do not know of. In today's world, scanners are cheap and does not take much time or effort for anyone to scan couple of hundred pages.
-
Permalink Reply by Dan Caldwell on
-
15 years ago when I first discovered the SECRET DOCTRINE COMMENTARIES, they were in the keeping of the late Dallas Tenbroeck who was a member of the board of directors of the Theosophy Company and also acted as the keeper of the ULT/Theosophy Co. archives. He did not realize at first that much of this material had never been published. I encouraged him to have these unpublished commentaries published. Several years ago when I was last in contact with the President of the Theosophy Company, the plan was to have the Theosophy Co. publish a reasonably priced edition. At that time the original notesbooks of these commentaries were in the safekeeping of the Theosophy Co. officials. I assume they still are the keepers of these notebooks.
Interested students should write directly to the Theosophy Company and to each member of the board of directors of the Theosophy Company and express their concerns and urge them to make these available to the public. I wrote to them in late August or September of this year and urged them to do so.
Daniel
http://blavatskyarchives.com
-
ModeratorPermalink Reply by M K Ramadoss on -
Very good idea.
The genii is out of box and can never be put back.
Now that someone has scanned the book and had uploaded it to scribd.com, many would have downloaded it. Hence the circulation has started and will go on whether one likes it or not.
This is the natural progression to software, videos, audios, movies. The poor man or woman who cannot afford to buy an expensive item is going to bite the Karmic bullet and use it.
Now is an opportunity for theosophy company to make the electronic copy available free to download. After all, all books are first prepared in electronic form and then sent to the printer to print and bind it. Hence, all one has to do is to upload it to a server on Internet.
It would be a good idea for each one of us to write to Theosophy Company which is the custodian of the Commentaries. I suggest that the letter/email be sent to Wes Amerman, President of Theosophy Company. According to the publicly available information, the email addresses are wes_at_blavatsky.net and thesoco_at_sbcglobal.net. The mailing address of Theosophy company is:
The Theosophy Company
245 West 33rd Street
Los Angeles CA 9007
Hopefully we can expect a positive response since those on the board of directors are long time dedicated theosophists who understand the need to get the theosophical information to theosophical students as efficiently as possible. The Karmic reward in making the material available free on Internet would indeed be very great.
© 2024 Created by Theosophy Network.
Powered by
