Theos-Talk Archives (September 1995 Message tl00307)

Rich:

>The Founders of the Theosophical Society gave out the core teachings.
> That's why they founded the Society in the first place, to give out the
>basic teachings.

>Those Founders were, principally, two Masters of Wisdom, who worked with
>three volunteers, H.P. Blavatsky, H.S. Olcott, and the young William Q.
>Judge. Those three were the principal Founders, inspired by the Masters, on
>November 17, 1875.

>All other Theosophical writers came later, thus they are "secondary" just
>like we today are "secondary."

This is only true from the model that the Theosophical Movement was a single,
initial impulse of the Masters, where the core teachings are what was given
in that one-time revelation. With that view, all later writers are just
fellow students of these materials that have been given us.

Another standpoint would suggest that the Masters are always at work, and
are not limited to that one chance of giving out Teachings to the materialistic
western world. We could say that the Masters themselves are the primary
source, and that any representative of theirs, authorized to publically
teach, is a primary source. Secondary sources would be people who write
from their personal studies and psychical investigations, people speaking
for themselves rather than passing on knowledge given to them from the
Treasury of knowledge safeguarded by the Masters.

For myself, at least, I'd consider Purucker as a primary source in exactly
the same sense as someone else may consider Blavatsky one.

Why do we limit things to Blavatsky and "The Mahatma Letters"? For the
sake of polite discussion, to avoid arguing competing claims of others.
Since we all tend to agree that our favorite teachers are in the same
lineage as Blavatsky's, we have her and her writings as an area of
commonality, a source of materials which we can all agree to study.

-- Eldon