MY BOOKS
Some time 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 analyzed
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., p. 347, 2nd par.), 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 encyclopædia."
(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."
(New York 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."
(New York 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 marvelous will find in them an abundance of entertainment."
(New York Sun)
"A marvelous 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 marvelous 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 for
one's self 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.
I 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 greatest sewer 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.
4) Therefore 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 close[d] 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
labors 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 word
for word and letter for letter.
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 Life of
Jesus by Renan, will find that he has plagiarized by anticipation, some
descriptive passages rendered in flowing verse in the Light of the World. Yet
even Sir Edwin Arnold, whose versatile and recognized 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 civilization and end of the century, one
should feel highly honored 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.
That 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 intercalated 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. 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.
Would be insane enough to accuse him of "plagiarizing" from
any author's work! I give in the footnote the names of a few of the Platonic
and other works 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 honor 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?
H.P. BLAVATSKY
April 27, 1891.
(Observation: to facilitate reading, I incorporated the footnotes in the text, and below
this article several Blavatsky students added the following notification)
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 honor 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, recopied 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
pretension 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 intimate acquaintance with H.P. Blavatsky, we have
invariably found her laboring 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 instruction
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 intend in future to waste our time in
useless refutations, or allow 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.
(Lucifer, Mai 1891, p.241-247)
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