Theos-Talk Archives (July 1996 Message tl00780)

Alan and Paul,

I appreciate your thoughts concerning my last postings.
The entire train of thought was stimulated by Paul's suggestion that the ML
might be subjected to textual critisicm.

Well  -- How about it? 

Caould one put out (in installments) a red letter edition of the ML,
analagous to the red letter edition of the Bible put out by the Jesus
seminar. One could assign each paragraph a category:

RED- We can say with some certainty that a Mahatma or his Chela is the
author of this part.

PINK -- It might have been a Master, but could just as easily have
originated from HPB. However it does sound like a Master speaking

BROWN -- HPB for sure/ conscious or channeled from some inferior entity.

BLACK  --- Total BS. HPB must have been drunk when she wrote this one.It
definitely was not a Master or Chela who wrote this.

Of course - I understand the obstacles to carrying out such a plan. First --
you need a fairly unbiased group of people who are willing to lay down
ground rules for such an investigation -- standards of textual critisism,
and then to abide by these standards regardless of which Theosophical
persuasion they come from. The toughest part might be to agree to those
standards.  But -- maybe it can be done.

Examples of such standards would be -- can the paragraph be traced to HPB,
things that were written and discussed in the late 19th century by other
writers. Does the paragraph appear really at odds with what HPB might have
thought or written about? This might make a paragraph appear more authentic.

Let each person cast their vote. (There's the rub!) 

Such analysis would undoubtly tend to place a lot of material in the brown
and black categories that -- could belong in the red or pink, but can't be
proved to belong there.

And then another problem, who would thank such people for their efforts?
Adyar Theosophists? Point Loma? Sceptics?  

Anyone want to (or have time) for such an endeavor ?

Paul K.