Theos-Talk Archives (June 1998 Message tt00019)

W. Dallas TenBroeck wrote on Theos-Talk:

> In "The Negators of Science"  [ LUCIFER, April 1891,  Part 1,
> ULT Edition of HPB Articles, Vol. 2, p. 80-1) ]  HPB gives a
> survey of what was intended in Vol. 3.  [ HPB was evidently not
> able to complete this as she died May 8th, 1891, shortly after
> this article was issued. Because she foresaw this, is the
> probable reason, I think, for the destruction of the manuscripts
> making up the 3rd and part of the 4th Volumes of the S D -- as
> she could not edit them for publication. I was given to
> understand, many years ago by an old student of HPB, that very
> shortly before her death, she called in Archibald Keightley and
> G.R.S.Mead and asked where the manuscripts for the 3rd and 4th
> Volumes were.  They showed her a large pile all typed and ready.
> She then said that she had received "instructions" to have them
> destroyed. They all three set to work and tore them up. This is a
> reminiscence, and I have not been able to secure independent
> verification of this statement made to me.]

Then a few paragraphs later Dallas wrote:

>  Annie Besant, after Mr. Judge's death in 1896, issued in 1897 a
> "Third Volume of the S D;"  and the material included there seems
> to be some of the unedited Manuscripts HPB was working on at the
> time of her death.


Daniel Caldwell replies:

Dallas, in the latter paragragh, you write of "some of the unedited
Manuscripts."  Which ones??  SD manuscripts?  The destroyed ones?
Dallas, please tell me what MSS you are speaking about?

Dallas, reread what you just wrote concerning Archibald Keightley
and G.R.S. Mead.

Then COMPARE that with what they ACTUALLY WROTE in the following:

"October 29, 1891---Dr. Archibald Keightley wrote in a
letter to Bertram Keightley (cited by C. Jinarajadasa
in "Dr. Besant and Mutilation of the Secret Doctrine,"
Messenger, January 1926, 166):

'There is some talk of entirely reprinting Secret Doctrine
[Volumes I and II] and of correcting errors
when the Third Volume is issued.' "

Why would Archibald write this on Oct. 29, 1891,
if he knew firsthand that
HPB, Mead and he had already destroyed the Mss of
vol. III???!!!

Concerning Mead, Robert Gilbert writes the following
with a quote by Mead:

"Many years later there were persistent allegations that the
   supposed third and fourth volumes had been suppressed by vested
   interests within the Society. The evidence for this was simply
   Madame Blavatsky's claims at various times to have completed, or
   nearly completed, the extra volumes - but no-one ever saw any
   finished text and none was ever found. Mead's comment on the
   allegations was uncompromising: 'On H.P.B.'s decease there
   remained over no manuscript or typescript S.D. material other
   than is now found in Vol. III. These pieces, or chapters, were
   omitted from the two volumes of the first edition, either
   because they were thought, by Mme. Blavatsky herself, not good
   enough or not sufficiently appropriate to be included.'

Notice Mead's own words.  Mead's words contradict this
annoynmous story that HPB, Archibald K. and Mead had destroyed
the SD III MSS.

Note:  In what was quoted above by Gilbert, he makes a statement
which is misleading:  ". . . no-one ever saw any finished text
and none was ever found. . . ."

FINISHED text??  What does Gilbert mean by "finished"?  "No-one
every saw."  When?  Before HPB's death?  After her death?

COMPARE what Gilbert wrote with what Annie Besant testified to
on May 4, 1891:

"There is one other work of hers [HPB's], which I have seen in
manuscript,
still unpublished; a third volume of "The Secret Doctrine" which is now
being got ready for the press under my own eyes."

This is the manuscript HPB writes about in "The Negators of Science",
LUCIFER, April 1891.

Was the manuscript "finished" or "completed" at this time-period?

Here is what I wrote in my paper concerning Boris de Zirkoff's comments
on
a "completed" SD Vol III manuscript:

". . . . it is difficult to understand what Boris
de Zirkoff meant when he wrote (in SD Intro., 71)
that 'no outright positive or negative answer can be made to
the oft-repeated question whether a completed Manuscript
of Volumes III and IV ever existed.' "

"Setting aside de Zirkoff's reference to Volume IV, there
is no reason to doubt that a manuscript of Volume III existed
during the last years of HPB's life. Furthermore, had she
lived, HPB would probably have added and deleted material
from the manuscript; she would probably have rewritten
and reedited the material even more. But at the time of her
death, this manuscript was as 'complete' as HPB could make it.
What more could be expected?"

And Annie Besant testifies BEFORE HPB'S DEATH that she had
SEEN this manuscript.

Does anyone ever consult and compare original sources of information?

Dallas, who was this "old student of HPB"?  Who told him/her this
story about HPB, Keightley and Mead destroying the MSS of Volume III SD?
Was it HPB or Keightley or Mead who told him/her the story?  Did he/she
get the story 2nd hand or even 3rd hand?

I prefer to consult the original source materials of which we have
an abundance INCLUDING THE ORIGINAL WURZBURG MSS.  The contents of the
Wurzburg mss should be compared with the contents of Vol III.

See my article on third volume of SD at
http://www.azstarnet.com/~blafoun/sdiiimyt.htm  for more details.