The Voice of the Silence

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (A+T), Bomanji Pestonji Wadia, Boris de Zirkoff · Higher Ethics and Devotion Series · 59 pages

The Voice of the Silence complete at fifty-nine pages — the three treatises Blavatsky translated from the Book of the Golden Precepts — with her own preface, a foreword by the series editor, and commentaries comparing four pivotal editions of 1889, 1927, 1939 and 1991, together with annotations and paragraph numbering added for reference. Tributes by eminent Theosophists close the volume. The seven mystic sounds from Part 1 are treated at length in a separate file in this section.

The three parts are given in order: The Voice of the Silence, The Two Paths, and The Seven Portals, each followed by its own glossary — three glossaries in all, occupying the last third of the file, which indicates how much of the text depends on terms a reader will not otherwise have. The editorial apparatus is the distinguishing feature of this presentation. Four editions are compared, so that where they differ a reader can see the variant rather than take one on trust, and the paragraphs are numbered so that any passage can be cited exactly. The closing section, headed “Thus have we heard,” sets out the two antithetical courses of conduct that the whole work turns on — the Eye Doctrine and the Heart Doctrine — which are the subject of two further files in this same section, so the distinction can be followed from the primary text into the commentary on it.

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