Theosophy - My books by H.P.Blavatsky
ADYAR
PAMPHLET NO.77- ISSUED MAY 1917
MY BOOKS
by H. P. Blavatsky
as
printed in Lucifer, May, 1891 - Volume VIII
Sometime ago, a Theosophist, Mr.
R_____, was travelling by rail with an American gentleman, who told him how
surprised he had been by his visit to our London Headquarters. He said that
he had asked Madame Blavatsky what were the best Theosophical works for him
to read, and had declared his intention of procuring Isis Unveiled,
when to his astonishment she replied, "Don't read it, it is all
trash."
Now I did not say "trash"
so far as I remember; but what I did say in substance was: "Leave it alone;
Isis will not satisfy you. Of all the books I have put my name to, this
particular one is, in literary arrangement, the worst and most confused."
And I might have added with as much truth that, carefully analysed from a strictly
literary and critical standpoint, Isis was full of misprints and misquotations;
that it contained useless repetitions, most irritating digressions, and to the
casual reader unfamiliar with the various aspects of metaphysical ideas and
symbols, as many apparent contradictions; that much of the matter in it ought
not to be there at all; and also that it had some very gross mistakes due to
the many alterations in proof-reading in general, and word corrections in particular.
Finally, that the work, for reasons that will be now explained, has no system
in it; and that it looks in truth, as remarked by a friend, as if a mass of
independent paragraphs having no connection with each other, had been well shaken
up in a waste-basket, and then taken out at random and--published.
Such is also now my sincere opinion.
The full consciousness of this sad truth dawned upon me when, for the first
time after its publication in 1877, I read the work through from the first to
the last page, in India in 1881. And from that date to the present, I have never
ceased to say what I thought of it, and to give my honest opinion of Isis
whenever I had an opportunity for so doing. This was done to the great disgust
of some, who warned me that I was spoiling its sale. But as my chief object
in writing it was neither personal fame nor gain, but something far higher,
I cared little for such warnings. For more than ten years this unfortunate
"master-piece," this "monumental work," as some reviews
have called it, with its hideous metamorphoses of one word into another, thereby
entirely transforming the meaning,[ Witness the word "planet"
for "cycle" as originally written, corrected by some unknown hand,
(Vol. I., page 347, 2nd paragraph), a "correction" which shows Buddha
teaching that there is no rebirth on this planet (!!) when the
contrary is asserted on p. 346, and the Lord Buddha is said to teach how to
"avoid" reincarnation; the use of the word "planet,"
for plane, of "Monas" for Manas; and the
sense of whole ideas sacrificed to the grammatical form, and changed by the
substitution of wrong words and erroneous punctuation, etc., etc., etc. ]
with its misprints and wrong quotation-marks, has given me more anxiety and
trouble than anything else during a long life-time which has ever been more
full of thorns than of roses.
But in spite of
these perhaps too great admissions, I maintain that Isis Unveiled contains a
mass of original and never hitherto divulged information on occult subjects.
That this is so, is proved by the fact that the work has been fully appreciated
by all those who have been intelligent enough to discern the kernel, and pay
little attention to the shell, to give the preference to the idea and not to
the form, regardless of its minor shortcomings. Prepared to take upon myself
-- vicariously as I will show -- the sins of all the external, purely literary
defects of the work, I defend the ideas and teachings in it, with no fear of
being charged with conceit, since neither ideas nor teaching are mine, as I
have always declared; and I maintain that both are of the greatest value to
mystics and students of Theosophy. So true is this, that when Isis was first
published, some of the best American papers were lavish in its praise--even
to exaggeration, as is evidenced by the quotations below.
Isis Unveiled; a master key to the mysteries of ancient and modern
science and theology. By H.P. Blavatsky, Corresponding Secretary of the Theosophical
Society. 2 vols., royal 8vo., about 1,500 pages, cloth, $7.50. Fifth Edition.
"This monumental work . . .
about everything relating to magic, mystery, witchcraft, religion, spiritualism,
which would be valuable in an encyclopedia."--North American Review.
"It must be acknowledged that
she is a remarkable woman, who has read more, seen more. and thought more than
most wise men. Her work abounds in quotations from a dozen different languages,
not for the purpose of a vain display of erudition, but to substantiate her
peculiar views . . . her pages are garnished with foot-notes establishing, as
her authorities, some of the profoundest writers of the past. To a large class
of readers, this remarkable work will prove of absorbing interest . . . demands
the earnest attention of thinkers, and merits an analytic reading."--Boston
Evening Transcript.
"The appearance of erudition
is stupendous. Reference to and quotations from the most unknown and obscure
writers in all languages abound, interspersed with allusions to writers of the
highest repute, which have evidently been more than skimmed through."--
N. Y.Independent.
"An extremely readable and
exhaustive essay upon the paramount importance of reestablishing the Hermetic
Philosophy in a world which blindly believes that it has outgrown it."--
N. Y.World.
"Most remarkable book of the
season."--Com. Advertiser.
"[To] Readers who have never
made themselves acquainted with the literature of mysticism and alchemy, the
volume will furnish the materials for an interesting study--a mine of curious
information."--Evening Post.
"They give evidence of much
and multifarious research on the part of the author, and contain a vast number
of interesting stories. Persons fond of the marvellous will find in them an
abundance of entertainment."--New York Sun.
"A marvellous book both in
matter and manner of treatment. Some idea may be formed of the rarity and extent
of its contents when the index alone comprises fifty pages, and we venture nothing
in saying that such an index of subjects was never before compiled by any human
being. . . But the book is a curious one and will no doubt find its way into
libraries because of the unique subject matter it contains . . . will
certainly prove attractive to all who are interested in the history, theology,
and the mysteries of the ancient world."--Daily Graphic.
"The present work is the fruit
of her remarkable course of education, and amply confirms her claims to the
character of an adept in secret science, and even to the rank of a hierophant
in the exposition of its mystic lore."--New York Tribune.
"One who reads the book carefully
through, ought to know everything of the marvellous and mystical, except perhaps,
the passwords. Isis will supplement the Anacalypsis. Whoever
loves to read Godfrey Higgins will be delighted with Mme. Blavatsky. There is
a great resemblance between their works. Both have tried hard to tell everything
apocryphal and apocalyptic. It is easy to forecast the reception of this book.
With its striking peculiarities, its audacity, its versatility, and the prodigious
variety of subjects which it notices and handles, it is one of the remarkable
productions of the century."--New York Herald.
The first enemies
that my work brought to the front were Spiritualists, whose fundamental theories
as to the spirits of the dead communicating in propriâ personâ I
upset. For the last fifteen years -- ever since this first publication--an incessant
shower of ugly accusations has been poured upon me. Every libelous charge, from
immorality and the "Russian spy" theory down to my acting on false
pretences, of being a chronic fraud and a living lie, an habitual drunkard,
an emissary of the Pope, paid to break down Spiritualism, and Satan incarnate.
Every slander that can be thought of has been brought to bear upon my private
and public life. The fact that not a single one of these charges has ever been
substantiated; that from the first day of January to the last of December, year
after year, I have lived surrounded by friends and foes like as in a glass-house,--nothing
could stop these wicked, venomous, and thoroughly unscrupulous tongues. It has
been said at various times by my ever active opponents that (1) Isis Unveiled
was simply a rehash of Eliphas Lévi and a few old alchemists; (2) that
it was written by me under
the dictation of evil Powers and the departed spirits of Jesuits (sic); and
finally (3) that my two volumes had been compiled from MSS, (never before heard
of), which Baron de Palm -- he of the cremation and double-burial fame -- had
left behind him, and which I had found in his trunk! [ This
Austrian nobleman, who was in complete destitution at New York, and to whom
Colonel Olcott had given shelter and food, nursing him during the last weeks
of his life--left nothing in MS. behind him but bills. The only effect of the
baron was an old valise, in which his "executors" found a battered
bronze Cupid, a few foreign Orders (imitations in pinchbeck and paste, as the
gold and diamonds had been sold); and a few shirts of Colonel Olcott's, which
the ex-diplomat had annexed without permission. ] On the other
hand, friends, as unwise as they were kind, spread abroad that which was really
the truth, a little too enthusiastically, about the connection of my Eastern
Teacher and other Occultists with the work; and this was seized upon by the
enemy and exaggerated out of all limits of truth. It was said that the whole
of Isis had been dictated to me from cover to cover and verbatim by these invisible
Adepts. And, as the imperfections of my work were only too glaring, the consequence
of all this idle and malicious talk was, that my enemies and critics inferred--as
well they might--that either these invisible inspirers had no existence, and
were part of my "fraud," or that they lacked the cleverness of even
an average good writer.
Now, no one has
any right to hold me responsible for what any one may say, but only for that
which I myself state orally, or in public print over my signature. And what
I say and maintain is this: Save the direct quotations and the many afore specified
and mentioned misprints, errors and misquotations, and the general make-up of
Isis Unveiled, for which I am in no way responsible, (a) every word of information
found in this work or in my later writings, comes from the teachings of our
Eastern Masters; and (b) that many a passage in these works has been written
by me under their dictation. In saying this no supernatural claim is urged,
for no miracle is performed by such a dictation. Any moderately intelligent
person, convinced by this time of the many possibilities of hypnotism (now accepted
by science and under full scientific investigation), and of the phenomena of
thought-transference, will easily concede that if even a hypnotized subject,
a mere irresponsible medium, hears the unexpressed thought of his hypnotizer,
who can thus transfer his thought to him--even to repeating the words read by
the hypnotizer mentally from a book--then my claim has nothing impossible in
it. Space and distance do not exist for thought; and if two persons are in perfect
mutual psycho-magnetic rapport, and of these two, one is a great Adept in Occult
Sciences, then thought-transference and dictation of whole pages, become as
easy and as comprehensible at the distance of ten thousand miles as the transference
of two words across a room.
Hitherto, I have
abstained--except on very rare occasions--from answering any criticism on my
works, and have even left direct slanders and lies unrefuted, because in the
case of Isis I found almost every kind of criticism justifiable, and in that
of "slanders and lies," my contempt for the slanderers was too great
to permit me to notice them. Especially was it the case with regard to the libelous
matter emanating from America. It has all come from one and the same source,
well known to all Theosophists, a person most indefatigable in attacking me
personally for the last twelve years, [ will not name him. There are names which
carry a moral stench about them, unfit for any decent journal or publication.
His words and deeds emanate from the cloaca maxima of the Universe of matter
and have to return to it, without touching me. ]though I have never seen or
met the creature. Neither do I intend to answer him now. But, as Isis is now
attacked for at least the tenth time, the day has come when my perplexed friends
and that portion of the public which may be in sympathy with Theosophy, are
entitled to the whole truth--and nothing but the truth. Not that I seek to excuse
myself in anything even before them or to "explain things." It is
nothing of the kind. What I am determined to do is to give facts, undeniable
and not to be gainsaid, simply by stating the peculiar, well known to many but
now almost forgotten, circumstances, under which I wrote my first English work.
I give them seriatim.
(1) When I came
to America in 1873, I had not spoken English--which I had learned in my childhood
colloquially--for over thirty years. I could understand when I read it, but
could hardly speak the language.
(2) I had never
been at any college, and what I knew I had taught myself; I have never pretended
to any scholarship in the sense of modern research; I had then hardly read any
scientific European works, knew little of Western philosophy and sciences. The
little which I had studied and learned of these, disgusted me with its materialism,
its limitations, narrow cut-and-dried spirit of dogmatism, and its air of superiority
over the philosophies and sciences of antiquity.
(3) Until 1874 I
had never written one word in English, nor had I published any work in any language.
Therefore--
(4) I had not the
least idea of literary rules. The art of writing books, of preparing them for
print and publication, reading and correcting proofs, were so many closed secrets
to me.
(5) When I started
to write that which developed later into Isis Unveiled, I had no more idea than
the man in the moon what would come of it. I had no plan; did not know whether
it would be an essay, a pamphlet, a book, or an article. I knew that I had to
write it, that was all. I began the work before I knew Colonel Olcott well,
and some months before the formation of the Theosophical Society.
Thus, the conditions
for becoming the author of an English theosophical and scientific work were
hopeful, as everyone will see. Nevertheless, I had written enough to fill four
such volumes as Isis, before I submitted my work to Colonel Olcott. Of course
he said that everything save the pages dictated--had to be rewritten. Then we
started on our literary labours and worked together every evening. Some pages
the English of which he had corrected, I copied: others which would yield to
no mortal correction, he used to read aloud from my pages, Englishing them verbally
as he went on, dictating to me from my almost undecipherable MSS. It is to him
that I am indebted for the English in Isis. It is he again who suggested that
the work should be divided into chapters, and the first volume devoted to SCIENCE
and the second to THEOLOGY. To do this, the matter had to be re-shifted, and
many of the chapters also; repetitions had to be erased, and the literary connection
of subjects attended to. When the work was ready, we submitted it to Professor
Alexander Wilder, the well-known scholar and Platonist of New York, who after
reading the matter, recommended it to Mr. Bouton for publication. Next to Colonel
Olcott, it is Professor Wilder who did the most for me. It is he who made the
excellent Index, who corrected the Greek, Latin and Hebrew words, suggested
quotations and wrote the greater part of the Introduction "Before the Veil."
If this was not acknowledged in the work, the fault is not mine, but because
it was Dr. Wilder's express wish that his name should not appear except in footnotes.
I have never made a secret of it, and every one of my numerous acquaintances
in New York knew it. When ready the work went to press.
From that moment
the real difficulty began. I had no idea of correcting galley proofs; Colonel
Olcott had little leisure to do so; and the result was that I made a mess of
it from the beginning. Before we were through with the first three chapters,
there was a bill for six hundred dollars for corrections and alterations, and
I had to give up the proof-reading. Pressed by the publisher, Colonel Olcott
doing all that he possibly could do, but having no time except in the evenings,
and Dr. Wilder far away at Jersey City, the result was that the proofs and pages
of Isis passed through a number of willing but not very careful hands, and were
finally left to the tender mercies of the publisher's proof-reader. Can one
wonder after this if "Vaivaswata" (Manu) became transformed in the
published volumes into "Viswamitra," that thirty-six pages of the
Index were irretrievably lost, and quotation-marks placed where none were needed
(as in some of my own sentences!), and left out entirely in many a passage cited
from various authors? If asked why these fatal mistakes have not been corrected
in a subsequent edition, my answer is simple: the plates were stereotyped; and
notwithstanding all my desire to do so, I could not put it into practice, as
the plates were the property of the publisher; I had no money to pay for the
expenses, and finally the firm was quite satisfied to let things be as they
are, since, notwithstanding all its glaring defects, the work--which has now
reached its seventh or eighth edition, is still in demand.
And now--and perhaps
in consequence of all this--comes a new accusation: I am charged with wholesale
plagiarism in the Introductory Chapter "Before the Veil"!
Well, had I committed
plagiarism, I should not feel the slightest hesitation in admitting the "borrowing."
But all "parallel passages" to the contrary, as I have not done so,
I do not see why I should confess it; even though "thought transference"
as the Pall Mall Gazette wittily calls it, is in fashion, and at a premium just
now. Since the day when the American press raised a howl against Longfellow,
who, borrowing from some (then) unknown German translation of the Finnish epic,
the Kalevala, published it as his own superb poem, Hiawatha, and forgot to acknowledge
the source of his inspiration, the Continental press has repeatedly brought
out other like accusations. The present year is especially fruitful in such
"thought transferences." Here we have the Lord Mayor of the City of
London, repeating word for word an old forgotten sermon by Mr. Spurgeon and
swearing he had never read or heard of it. The Rev. Robert Bradlaugh writes
a book, and forthwith the Pall Mall Gazette denounces it as a verbal copy from
somebody else's work. Mr. Harry de Windt, the Oriental traveller, and a F.R.G.S.
to boot, finds several pages out of his just published A Ride to India, across
Persia and Beluchistan, in the London Academy paralleled with extracts from
The Country of Belochistan, by A. W. Hughes, which are identical verbatim et
literatim. Mrs. Parr denies in the British Weekly that her novel Sally was borrowed
consciously or unconsciously from Miss Wilkins' Sally, and states that she had
never read the said story, nor even heard the author's name, and so on. Finally,
every one who has read La Vie de Jésus, by Renan, will find that he has
plagiarised by anticipation, some descriptive passages rendered in flowing verse
in the Light of the World. Yet even Sir Edwin Arnold, whose versatile and recognised
genius needs no borrowed imagery, has failed to thank the French Academician
for his pictures of Mount Tabor and Galilee in prose, which he has so elegantly
versified in his last poem. Indeed, at this stage of our civilisation and fin
de siècle, one should feel highly honoured to be placed in such good
and numerous company, even as a--plagiarist. But I cannot claim such a privilege,
and simply for the reason already told that out of the whole Introductory chapter
"Before the Veil," I can claim as my own only certain passages in
the Glossary appended to it, the Platonic portion of it, that which is now denounced
as "a bare-faced plagiarism" having been written by Professor A. Wilder.
The gentleman is
still living in or near New York, and can be asked whether my statement is true
or not. He is too honorable, too great a scholar, to deny or fear anything.
He insisted upon a kind of Glossary, explaining the Greek and Sanskrit names
and words with which the work abounds, being appended to an Introduction, and
furnished a few himself. I begged him to give me a short summary of the Platonic
philosophers, which he kindly did. Thus from p. 11 down to 22 the text is his,
save a few interpolated passages which break the Platonic narrative, to show
the identity of ideas in the Hindu Scriptures. Now who of those who know Dr.
A. Wilder personally, or by name, who are aware of the great scholarship of
that eminent Platonist, the editor of so many learned works, would [A.
Wilder, M.D., the editor of Serpent and Siva Worship, by Hyde Clarke and C.
Staniland Wake; of Ancient Art and Mythology, by Richard Payne Knight, to which
the editor has appended an Introduction, Notes translated into English and a
new and complete Index; of Ancient Symbol Worship, by Hodder M. Westropp and
C. Staniland Wake, with an Introduction, additional Notes and Appendix by the
editor; and finally, of The Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries; "A Dissertation,
by Thomas Taylor, translator of 'Plato,' 'Plotinus,' 'Porphyry,' 'Jamblichus,'
'Proclus,' 'Aristotle,' etc., etc., etc.," edited with Introduction, Notes,
Emendations, and Glossary, by Alexander Wilder, M.D.; and the author of various
learned works, pamphlets and articles for which we have no space here. Also
the editor of the "Older Academy," a quarterly journal of New York,
and the translator of the Mysteries, by Jamblichus. ] be insane enough to accuse
him of "plagiarising" from any author's work! I give in the footnote
the names of a few of the Platonic and other works which he has edited. The
charge would be simply preposterous!
The fact is that
Dr. Wilder must have either forgotten to place quotes before and after the passages
copied by him from various authors in his Summary; or else, owing to his very
difficult handwriting, he has failed to mark them with sufficient clearness.
It is impossible, after the lapse of almost fifteen years, to remember or verify
the facts. To this day I had imagined that this disquisition on Platonists was
his, and never gave a further thought to it. But now enemies have ferreted out
unquoted passages and proclaim louder than ever "the author of Isis Unveiled,"
to be a plagiarist and a fraud. Very likely more may be found, as that work
is an inexhaustible mine of misquotations, errors and blunders, to which it
is impossible for me to plead "guilty" in the ordinary sense. Let
then the slanderers go on, only to find in another fifteen years as they have
found in the preceding period, that whatever they do, they cannot ruin Theosophy,
nor even hurt me. I have no author's vanity; and years of unjust persecution
and abuse have made me entirely callous to what the public may think of me--personally.
But in view of the
facts as given above; and considering that--
(a) The language
in Isis is not mine; but (with the exception of that portion of the work which,
as I claim, was dictated), may be called only a sort of translation of my facts
and ideas into English;
(b) It was not written
for the public,--the latter having always been only a secondary consideration
with me--but for the use of Theosophists and members of the Theosophical Society
to which Isis is dedicated;
(c) Though I have
since learned sufficient English to have been enabled to edit two magazines--the
Theosophist and LUCIFER--yet, to the present hour I never write an article,
an editorial or even a simple paragraph, without submitting its English to close
scrutiny and correction; considering
all this and much more, I ask now every impartial and honest man and woman whether
it is just or even fair to criticize my works--Isis, above all others--as one
would the writings of a born American or English author! What I claim in them
as my own is only the fruit of my learning and studies in a department, hitherto
left uninvestigated by Science, and almost unknown to the European world. I
am perfectly willing to leave the honour of the English grammar in them, the
glory of the quotations from scientific works brought occasionally to me to
be used as passages for comparison with, or refutation by, the old Science,
and finally the general make-up of the volumes, to every one of those who have
helped me. Even for the Secret Doctrine there are about half-a-dozen Theosophists
who have been busy in editing it, who have helped me to arrange the matter,
correct the imperfect English, and prepare it for print. But that which none
of them will ever claim from first to last, is the fundamental doctrine, the
philosophical conclusions and teachings. Nothing of that have I invented, but
simply given it out as I have been taught; or as quoted by me in the Secret
Doctrine (Vol. I, p. 46 [xlvi]) from Montaigne: "I have here made only
a nosegay of culled (Eastern) flowers, and have brought nothing of my own but
the string that ties them."
Is any one of my
helpers prepared to say that I have not paid the full price for the string?
April 27, 1891
A DECLARATION
We, the undersigned
Fellows of the Theosophical Society (and members of the Inner Group of the E.S.),
at the stake of our personal honour and reputation, hereby declare:
That we have
fully investigated all the accusations and attacks which have been made against
the personal character and bona fides of H.P.Blavatsky, and have found
them in the vast majority of cases to be entirely false, and in the few remaining
instances the grossest possible distortions of the simple facts.
Knowing, moreover,
that accusations of plagiarism, want of method and inaccuracy, are now being
made and will in the future be brought against her literary work, we make the
following statement for the benefit of all Fellows of the Theosophical Society
and for the information of others:
H.P.Blavatsky's
writings, owing to her imperfect knowledge of English and literary methods,
have been invariably revised, re-copied or arranged in MS., and the proofs corrected
by the nearest "friends" available for the time being (a few of whom
have occasionally supplied her with references, quotations, and advice). Many
mistakes, omissions, inaccuracies, etc., have consequently crept into them.
These works,
however, have been put forward purely with the intention of bringing certain
ideas to the notice of the Western world, and with no pretention on
her part to scholarship or literary finish.
In order to
support these views, innumerable quotations and references had to be made (in
many cases without the possibility of verification by her) and for these she
has never claimed any originality or profound research whatever.
After long
and inmate acquaintance with H.P.Blavatsky, we have invariably found her labouring
for the benefit and instruction of the Theosophical Society and others, and
not for herself, and that she is the first to make little of what others may
consider her "learning". From further instructions, however, which
we have received, we know for a fact that H.P.Blavatsky is the possessor of
far deeper "knowledge" than even that which she has been able to give
out in her public writings.
From all of
which considerations it logically follows that no accusations can possibly shake
our confidence in H.P.Blavatsky's personal character and bona fides
as a teacher. We do not therefore intent in future to waste our time in useless
refutations, or allows ourselves to be distracted from our work by any attacks,
further than to repeat our present statement.
We, however,
reserve to ourselves the right of appeal to the law, when necessary.
G.R.S.Mead,
W.R.Old, Laura M.Cooper, Emily Kislingbury, E.T.Sturdy, H.A.W.Coryn, Constance
Watchtmeister, Alice Leighton Cleather, Claude F.Wright, Archibald Keightley,
Isabel Cooper-Oakley, Annie Besant.
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