Al Smith wrote:
>> LOL - she said they came from Venus? OH my lord - I never got that
>> far in her book. I honestly tried to read it - and it was hell to
>> read.
>
> Blavatsky is fine in small doses, but her books are too diffuse and
> random. There is no chance to achieve an overview or a gestalt
> comprehension. They are just little bits and pieces, endless bits and
> pieces. I also tried and failed to read "Isis Unveiled" and "The
> Secret Doctrine" although I managed to read a large chunk of each.
> They are as near to unreadable as books ever get.
I can understand that, though I've read them through more than once.
Like I said before, I don't wish to get into a debate about Blavatsky.
But I do think that one should remember to take into account the
following: (1) there are differing traditions, and what looks like an
inaccuracy might be a correct account of a varying tradition; (2)
Blavatsky didn't have a physical text to work from, instead using her
memory (there's a lot of eyewitness testimony that she had an eidetic
memory and could quote chunks of books as desired, and that when checked
against a copy they would be largely accurate, but this would still have
to introduce some inaccuracy); (3) Blavatsky's syncretistic way of
understanding the material would distort it to some degree. I think that
considerations like these will account for most apparent problems here.
The David-Neel book is certainly a good work on the subject.
Unlike Blavatsky, I think that Churchward was a plain and simple fraud.
--
Dan Clore
My collected fiction, _The Unspeakable and Others_:
http://tinyurl.com/3akhhr
Lord We˙rdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://www.geocities.com/clorebeast/
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
Strange pleasures are known to him who flaunts the
immarcescible purple of poetry before the color-blind.
-- Clark Ashton Smith, "Epigrams and Apothegms"
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