Bertram Keightley was a prominent English
theosophist graduated in Master of Arts by the Cambridge Trinity College, and
was also a close friend and collaborator of Blavatsky when she resided in
England.
And about the elaboration of The
Secret Doctrine, he wrote the following:
« The first I saw of The Secret
Doctrine manuscript was on a visit paid to H.P.B. at Ostend, at the very
beginning of the year 1887. I have gone over to urge upon H.P.B. the
advisability of coming to settle in London for the purpose of forming a centre
for active work in the cause of Theosophy.
There were six of us in all who felt
profoundly dissatisfied with the deadness which seemed to pervade the Theosophical
Society in England, and we had come to the conclusion that only H.P.B. could
give efficient aid in restoring the suspended animation of the movement, and
initiating active and wisely directed work.
Of these six — with H.P.B. the
original founders of the first Blavatsky Lodge — two only, alas! Now remain
active workers in the Society.
During the few days I then spent at
Ostend with H.P.B., she asked me to look over parts of the MSS. of her new
work, which I gladly consented to do. Before I had read much it grew plain that
The Secret Doctrine was destined to be by far the most important contribution
of this century to the literature of Occultism; though even then the in choate
and fragmentary character of much of the work led me to think that careful
revision and much re-arrangement would be needed before the manuscript would be
fit for publication.
On a second visit a week or two
later, this impression was confirmed by further examination; but as H.P.B. then
consented to come and settle 'in or near London as soon as arrangements could
be made for her reception, nothing further was done about it at the time.
Not long after my return to England
we learnt that H.P.B. was seriously ill, in fact that her life was despaired of
by the physicians in attendance. But, as usual, she disappointed the medical
prophets and recovered with such marvelous rapidity that soon after we were
able to make arrangements for her coming to England, to Upper Norwood, where a
cottage, called Maycot, had been taken for her temporary residence.
The move was effected without any
untoward event, though the packing up of her books, papers, MSS., etc., was a
truly terrible undertaking, for she went on writing till the very last moment;,
and as sure as any book, paper, or portion of MSS. had been carefully packed
away at the bottom of some box, so surely would she urgently need it, and insist
upon its being disinterred at all costs.
However, we did get packed at last,
reached Maycot, and before we had been two hours in the house, H.P.B. had her
writing materials out and was hard at work again. Her power of work was amazing;
from early morning till late in the evening she sat at her desk, and even when
so ill that most people would have been lying helpless in bed, she toiled
resolutely away at the task she had undertaken.
A day or two after our arrival at
Maycot, H.P.B. placed the whole of the so-far completed MSS. in the hands of
Dr. Keightley and myself, instructing us to read, punctuate, correct the
English, alter, and generally treat it as if it were our own — which we
naturally did not do, having far too high an opinion of her knowledge to take
any liberties with so important a work.
But we both read the whole mass of
MSS. — a pile over three feet high — most carefully through, correcting the
English and punctuation where absolutely indispensable, and then, after
prolonged consultation, faced the author in her den — in my case with sore
trembling, I remember — with the solemn opinion that the whole of the matter
must be re-arranged on some definite plan, since as it stood the book was
another Isis Unveiled [her first
book], only far worse, so far as absence of plan and consecutiveness were
concerned.
After some talk, H.P.B. told us to
go to Tophet and do what we liked. She had had more than enough of the blessed
thing, had given it over to us, washed her hands thereof entirely, and we might
get out of it as best we could.
We retired and consulted. Finally we
laid before her a plan, suggested by the character of the matter itself, viz.,
to make the work consist of four volumes, each divided into three parts:
1) The Stanzas and Commentaries thereon
2) Symbolism
3) Science
Further, instead of making the first
volume to consist, as she had intended, of the history of some great
Occultists, we advised her to follow the natural order of exposition, and begin
with the Evolution of Cosmos, to pass from that to the Evolution of Man, then
to deal with the historical part in a third volume treating of the lives of
some great Occultists; and finally, to speak of Practical Occultism in a fourth
volume should she ever be able to write it.
This plan we laid before H.P.B., and
it was duly sanctioned by her.
The next step was to read the MSS.
through again and make a general re-arrangement of the matter pertaining to the
subjects coming under the heads of Cosmogony and Anthropology, which were to
form the first two volumes of the work. When this had been completed, and
H.P.B. duly consulted, and her approval of what had been done obtained, the
whole of the MSS. so arranged was typewritten out by professional hands, then
re-read, corrected, compared with the original MSS., and all Greek, Hebrew, and
Sanskrit quotations inserted by us.
It then appeared that the whole of
the Commentary on the Stanzas did not amount to more than some twenty pages of
the present work, as H.P.B. had not stuck closely to her text in writing. So we
seriously interviewed her, and suggested that she should write a proper
commentary, as in her opening words she had promised her readers to do. Her reply
was characteristic:
- “What on earth am I to say? What do
you want to know? Why it's all as plain as the nose on your face!!!"
We could not see it; she didn't — or
made out she didn't — so we retired to reflect.
As an interpolation, I had better
state here that in the autumn of 1887 — October, if I remember aright — we all
moved into London, to 17, Lansdowne Road, Notting Hill, where the Countess
Wachtmeister, who had been on a visit to Sweden ever since H.P.B. left Ostend,
joined us in establishing the first Theosophical Society Headquarters in
London.
During our stay at Maycot, Lucifer magazine
was founded, being published originally by Mr. G. Redway, H.P.B. keeping on all
the while writing her articles, and also turning out further MSS. for The
Secret Doctrine, These and other Theosophical Society’s work had to be, attended
to, and as sub-editor of Lucifer.
I found my hands pretty full, so
that many weeks were consumed, and I think the removal to Lansdowne Road
effected, before the problem of the Commentary on the Stanzas was finally
solved.
The solution was this: each sloka of
the stanzas was written (or cut out from the type-written copy) and pasted at
the head of a sheet of paper, and then on a loose sheet pinned thereto were
written all the questions we could find time to devise upon that sloka. In this
task Mr. Richard Harte helped us very considerably, a large proportion of the
questions put being of his devising. H.P.B. struck out large numbers of them,
made us write fuller explanations, or our own ideas — such as they were — of
what her readers expected her to say, wrote more herself, incorporated the
little she had already written on that particular sloka, and so the work was
done.
But when we came to think of sending
the MSS. to the printers, the result was found to be such that the most
experienced compositor would tear his hair in blank dismay. Therefore Dr.
Keightley and myself set to work with a type-writer, and alternately dictating
and writing, made a clean copy of the first parts of volumes I and II.
Then work was continued till parts
II and III of each volume were in a fairly advanced condition, and we could
think of sending the work to press.
It had originally been arranged that
Mr. George Redway should publish the work, but his proposals not being
financially satisfactory, the needful money was offered by a friend of H.P.B.’s,
and it was resolved to take the publication of Lucifer into our own hands. So
the Duke Street office was taken, and business begun there, the primary object
being to enable the Theosophical Society to derive the utmost possible benefit
from H.P.B.’s writings.
Of the further history of The
Secret Doctrine there is not much more to say — though there were months of
hard work before us. H.P.B. read and corrected two sets of galley proofs, then
a page proof, and finally a revise in sheet, correcting, adding, and altering
up to the very last moment — result: printer's bill for corrections alone over
£ 300.
Of phenomena in connection with The
Secret Doctrine, I have very little indeed to say. Quotations with full
references, from books which were never in the house — quotations verified
after hours of search, sometimes, at the British Museum for a rare book — of
such I saw and verified not a few.
In verifying them I found
occasionally the curious fact that the numerical references were reversed, e.g.,
p. 321 for p. 123, illustrating the reversal of objects when seen in the astral
light. But beyond such instances of clairvoyant vision, I have no further
phenomena directly bearing upon the production of The Secret Doctrine to
record.
Finally I must not omit the valuable
assistance which was rendered by Mr. E. D. Fawcett. Before I went to Ostend he
had been in correspondence with H.P.B., and later on he also worked with and
for her on the book at Lansdowne Road. He supplied many of the quotations from
scientific works, as well as many confirmations of the occult doctrines derived
from similar sources. It would not be right in giving any account of how The
Secret Doctrine was written to omit to mention his name, and as I have not done
so in the proper chronological sequence, I repair the omission now.
Of the value of the work, posterity
must judge finally. Personally I can only place on record my profound
conviction that when studied thoroughly but not treated as a revelation, when
understood and assimilated but not made a text for dogma, H.P.B.’s Secret
Doctrine will be found of incalculable value, and will furnish suggestions,
clues, and threads of guidance, for the study of Nature and Man, such as no other
existing work can supply. »
(“Reminiscences
of H.P. Blavatsky and “The Secret Doctrine” by Countess Wachtmeister and others,
appendix I-1, p.89-95)
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