Theos-Talk Archives (June 1996 Message tt00046)

The following was found on alt.horror.cthulhu. I thought
students of Theosophy might find it of some interest.

Daniel Caldwell

> Re: Necronomicon/Book of Dzyan
>
> From           maskull@usa.pipeline.com (Maskull)
> Organization   Pipeline
> Date           4 Jul 1996 13:49:34 GMT
> Newsgroups     alt.horror.cthulhu
>
> The first person ever to mention the imaginary "Book of Dzyan"
> was the founder of Theosophy, H. P. Blavatsky. She invented
> "The Book of Dzyan" in order to give credibility to her massive
> "The Secret Doctrine"(1888), about which L. Sprague de Camp says
> the following:
>
> "This huge work is supposedly based upon "The Book of Dzyan", of
> which her Mahatmas showed her a manuscript copy, written on
> palm-leaf pages, in the trances in which she and they visited one
> another. The book, we are told, was originally composed in
> Atlantis in the forgotten Senzar language. "The Secret Doctrine"
> consists of quotations from the "Dzyan" and Mme. Blavatsky's
> lengthy commentaries thereon, interspread with passages of occult
> gibberish and diatribes against "materialistic" science and
> "dogmatic" religion.
>
> "The Secret Doctrine", I grieve to say, is neither so ancient, so
> erudite, nor so authentic as it pretends to be. For when it
> appeared, the learned but humorless old William Emette Coleman,
> outraged by Madame Blavatsky's pretensions to Oriental learning,
> undertook a complete exegesis of her works. He showed that her
> main sources were H.H. Wilson's translation of the "Visnu
> Purana"; Alexander Winchell's "World Life; or, Comparative
> Geology"; Donnelly's "Atlantis"; and other contemporary
> scientific and occult works, plagiarized without credit and used
> in a blundering manner that showed but skin-deep acquaintance
> with the subjects under discussion. She cribbed at least part of
> her "Stanzas of Dzyan" from the "Hymn of Creation" in the old
> Sanskrit "Rig-Veda", as a comparison of the two compositions will
> readily show. Coleman promised a book that should expose all of
> H.P.B.'s sources, including that of the word "Dzyan".
> Unfortunately Coleman lost his library and notes in the San
> Francisco earthquake [1906] and died three years later, his book
> unwritten."
>
> ("Lost Continents: The Atlantis Theme in History, Science, and
> Literature" (1954) ISBN 0-486-22668-9)
>
> I think there is no doubt that H.P.L. was familiar with the
> teachings of Theosophy, and that they fueled his imagination.
> They might also shed some light on his racism in that Theosophy
> goes on at great length about various "Root Races". According to
> their teachings, blacks are the degenerate remnant of Atlantis,
> while Asians are devolved Lemurians. Jews are in passing
> referred to as "an unnatural and abnormal link" to earlier races.
> It was then the belief in occult circles that the various
> European peoples would interbreed to produce the next "Root
> Race".