The Secret Doctrine Commentaries
Edited by Michael Gomes, these are the stenographic transcripts of the Blavatsky Lodge meetings. When first published as the Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge they were about 100 pages in length and only covered the first 10 or so meetings. This new book shows that those early meetings actually had about 350 pages of discussions. In addition, there were another 10 or so meetings that were never published. So, in total, this book has 650 pages of transcribed discussion between HPB and members of her TS lodge.
All the stanzas of the first volume of the SD are commented on, so this book is a must have, if one is serious about understanding the root ideas of Theosophy.
Here is a review, with a link to the publisher at the bottom of the review:
http://blavatskynews.blogspot.com/2010/08/major-publishing-event-se...
Replies to This Discussion
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ModeratorPermalink Reply by M K Ramadoss on -
While the publication is to be welcomed by every theosophist, I wish that a few things were done in a better way.
As soon as the discovery of the papers was made, an effort could have been made to scan them and made available in Internet so that all interested theosophists could have read them and possibly many would have written about it.
There are many theosophists in the world who are very competent to discuss the commentaries and their contribution would have been very valuable for the entire theosophical community.
For varied reasons, several years’ of valuable time was lost due to the delay in publishing it in the traditional print format.
Once the book was published, it was too pricey for most theosophists, especially from outside the Western countries. So this will be contributing to a very limited distribution which is not good for popularizing theosophy.
Also no attempt seems to have been made to make the book available online. The general experience is that readers do buy hard copies even when the material is available online.
I hope the powers and decision makers look at the possibility of making it available online soon and this will end up with a very wide circulation.
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Permalink Reply by Andrew W. Smith on
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I am skeptical about "popularizing" Theosophy and "The Secret Doctrine." It seems, from looking at several You-Tube sites, as well as comments on Amazon, that people are finding more and more ways to malign the secret doctrines and our message. By its very nature "The Secret Doctrine" is reserved to those, not among the fundamentalists of religions, very few who use their innate manas and intuition to understand it. Are we "casting pearls before swine" so to speak? Yes, online would be great for us, but for "them," not so much. I am sorry to use the terms Us and Them, but that is the way it is for now in the Kali Yuga.
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Permalink Reply by Dan Caldwell on
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Ramadoss,
You wrote about the book SECRET DOCTRINE COMMENTARIES:
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Also no attempt seems to have been made to make the book available online. The general experience is that readers do buy hard copies even when the material is available online.
I hope the powers and decision makers look at the possibility of making it available online soon and this will end up with a very wide circulation.
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Ramadoss, someone apparently took your suggestion to heart and placed these commentaries on line for free.
This was announced on Theos-Talk several days ago. See the announcement at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/55246
Days before on BLAVATSKY NEWS [which apparently according to several contacts is maintained by a well-known Theosophical researcher], certain comments were made about the online version. Read these comments at:
http://blavatskynews.blogspot.com/2010/11/maya-of-imri.html
Today if you go to the link provided for the online edition, you will find this message:
"This content was removed at the request of ISIS."
Ramadoss, it looks like your hope ["I hope the powers and decision makers look at the possibility of making it available online soon and this will end up with a very wide circulation."] will not be fulfilled.
It would be interesting to know exactly who decided to put them online and then what subsequently took place.
Some readers may want to know more about the history of these SECRET DOCTRINE
COMMENTARIES. I discovered them about 15 years ago and it was an uphill battle
to get the custodians to publish them.
For details of the discovery, etc. , see:
http://secretdoctrinecommentary.net
Click on blue link: "how the manuscripts were discovered 15 years
ago."
Daniel H. Caldwell
http://blavatskyarchives.com
http://blavatskynews.blogspot.com/2010/11/maya-of-imri.html
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Permalink Reply by Richard Ihle on
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Nicholas, greetings and good wishes.
[Re: " . . . so this book is a must have, if one is serious about understanding the root ideas of Theosophy."]
What would you think about changing the wording of the above to "understanding the root ideas of Blavatsky"?
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Permalink Reply by Katinka Hesselink on
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I also just did a review: http://www.greatspiritualbooks.com/2010/secret-doctrine-commentarie...
Richard: Nicholas is the kind of theosophists who feels that Blavatskyan theosophy is the only kind worth understanding.
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If that is truly Nicholas's feeling, then I will admit that I join his point of view pretty much. But, I have never rejected anything of a Theosophical nature, in any case. Also, I dislike ad hominem remarks.
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Andrew, greetings and good wishes.
[Re: " Also, I dislike ad hominem remarks."]
Actually, what Katinka said is probably more of a slight mischaracterization (which our admirable brother Nicholas quickly corrected) rather than what is normally defined as an ad hominem argument.
And, since "I will admit that I join [Katinka's] point of view pretty much" all the time,
"Don't Say Nothin' Bad About My Baby (Oh, No)"--The Cookies, 1963
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Permalink Reply by Nicholas Weeks on
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Richard,
Katinka is mistaken (I think) about my view of "Blavatskyan theosophy" - but what do I know. I had better check with her.
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Ramadoss,
You wrote about the book SECRET DOCTRINE COMMENTARIES:
------------------
Also no attempt seems to have been made to make the book available online. The general experience is that readers do buy hard copies even when the material is available online.
I hope the powers and decision makers look at the possibility of making it available online soon and this will end up with a very wide circulation.
-----------------
Ramadoss, someone apparently took your suggestion to heart and placed these commentaries on line for free.
This was announced on Theos-Talk several days ago. See the announcement at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/55246
Days before on BLAVATSKY NEWS [which apparently according to several contacts is maintained by a well-known Theosophical researcher], certain comments were made about the online version. Read these comments at:
http://blavatskynews.blogspot.com/2010/11/maya-of-imri.html
Today if you go to the link provided for the online edition, you will find this message:
"This content was removed at the request of ISIS."
Ramadoss, it looks like your hope ["I hope the powers and decision makers look at the possibility of making it available online soon and this will end up with a very wide circulation."] will not be fulfilled.
It would be interesting to know exactly who decided to put them online and then what subsequently took place.
Some readers may want to know more about the history of these SECRET DOCTRINE
COMMENTARIES. I discovered them about 15 years ago and it was an uphill battle
to get the custodians to publish them.
For details of the discovery, etc. , see:
http://secretdoctrinecommentary.net
Click on blue link: "how the manuscripts were discovered 15 years
ago."
Daniel H. Caldwell
http://blavatskyarchives.com
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ModeratorPermalink Reply by M K Ramadoss on -
I have just posted an offer to get the originals scanned and uploaded to Internet since they are not under copyright anymore. This is at no cost to anyone. Theosophical volunteers are standing by to get this done. You can take the horse to the water. Let us hope and pray it drinks.
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