Vol 15 Page ix

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

It has now been nearly five years since a computerized index was first discussed at Theosophical Society headquarters (Wheaton, Illinois) with Dora Kunz, former American Section President, Eldon Tucker, our programmer, and Virginia Ross, a fellow student. Following this planning session, Virginia kindly donated her IBM computer for our use in setting up the Collected Writings Index.
We are especially indebted to fellow students whose knowledge of languages exceeds by far our own. Basil Jenkins transliterated the Greek terms and helped us identify the Aramaic entries. We followed the accents established in B.C.W. Volume XIV, by John Drais of San Diego, for all Hebrew terms. Above all, we appreciate the hours of selfless labor given by our friends at the Eastern School Press, David and Nancy Reigle, with the help of Robert Hütwohl, to establish the correct Sanskrit and Tibetan entries. This involved checking many individual passages so that the accents would reflect shades of meaning according to H.P.B.’s text.
In the above paragraphs the reader will note the editorial term “we” employed. It is a fact that this Index would have fallen gravely behind schedule, if it had not been for the dedicated labors of the editor’s husband, Nicholas C. Weeks.
For good, sound editorial advice we thank our friends Emmett Small of Point Loma Publications, and Shirley Nicholson of the Theosophical Publishing House, Wheaton, Illinois. John Cooper, during his lecture tour in the U.S. and Canada, perused the entire document before its final revision was sent to the printer. We thank him for his valuable suggestions and corrections.
From time to time we have had the benefit of consulting the archives of the Theosophical Society, Pasadena, California. We gratefully acknowledge the help of Kirby and John Van Mater, Manuel Oderberg and William Thackera in researching these archives.
We are indebted to William D. Rittenhouse and Jeanne Sims for proofreading the early printouts of the separate index volumes. Jeanne has helped us to correct page references to French passages, and designate the geographical locations of numerous place names. The Point Loma Study Center of Chicago, under the direction of Vonda Urban, checked through the entire final manuscript for page-number accuracy. These students, including Michael De Joy, Anne Redlich, Susan Redfield, Bonnie Kaplan, Rodger D. George and JoAnne T. Arduini, have given hours of labor to this project.
Librarians Daniel Caldwell and Michelle Graye not only helped compile our Serials List, but searched a number of biographical data bases to augment the information at hand for the main Index. I wish also to mention Sandra Knapp's patient help in locating data for our Serials List. Our Illustrations List was entered by Virginia Ross with the help of Anne Redlich. We are grateful to all of these fellow Theosophists for their patient support, and especially to Mr. Tucker for helping to devise the initial word processing format.