Theos-Talk Archives (January 2002 Message tt00340)

Folks,

I've been thinking of the concern expressed by Adelasie that HPB's 
writings speak for themselves, and anyone who writes about HPB is 
thereby attempting to compete with her as a spokesman for spiritual 
truth. (Unless, implicitly, the author in question writes about her 
in the adoring tone of Sylvia Cranston.) Underlying this, and 
various comments of Dallas, would seem to be fear that somehow HPB is 
going to be drowned out by contemporary authors who write about her, 
that somehow people will lose interest in going directly to the 
source.

Amazon.com lists 130 books under the keyword Blavatsky, and a list of 
the top 20 shows quite clearly that HPB is more widely read than 
anyone who writes about her. It also shows that Theosophical books 
about her don't attract as many readers as more skeptical books. But 
both categories are dwarfed by sales of HPB's own writings:

1. Isis Unveiled (unabridged)
2. The Secret Doctrine (paper, TUP)
3. Commentaries on the Holy Books and Other Papers: the Equinox
(Aleister Crowley et al)
4. The Voice of the Silence (hardcover)
5. Madame Blavatsky's Baboon
6. Inspirations from Ancient Wisdom (contains At the Feet of the 
Master, Light on the Path, and the Voice of the Silence)
7. The Secret Doctrine (hardcover, TPH)
8. Isis Unveiled abridged
9. The Millennium Book of Prophecy (Hogue)
10. Spiritualism, Madame Blavatsky, and Theosophy (Steiner)
11. Secret Doctrine Commenary: Stanzas I-IV
12. Madame Blavatsky y su teosofia
13. Millennium Book of Prophecy (paper)
14. Madame Blavatsky: the Woman Behind the Myth (Meade)
15. HPB (Cranston)
16. Blavatsky and the Secret Doctrine (Heindel)
17. H.P. Blavatsky Returns (Leichtman)
18. The Masters Revealed
19. Initiates of Theosophical Masters
20. Esoteric Philosophy of H.P. Blavatsky (cassette, Manly P. Hall)

Now, what can be discerned from this list? First, very good news tor 
fans of HPB's writings. She occupies 6 of the top 10 positions (one 
in part), including the top 2, and this has been the case ever since 
Amazon has been publishing this information. This shows that there 
is nothing to fear regarding the writings of recent scholars causing 
people to miss out on her own writings. I would suggest rather that 
her own sales have been encouraged by the success of books about 
her. Second, it's clear that the reading public is more interested 
in popular books critical of HPB (Washington and Meade) than 
scholarly books trying to give a balanced portrayal (mine being the 
only such to make the list)-- and that the commentary about HPB by 
Rudolf Steiner and Aleister Crowley is more widely regarded than 
secondary literature from her followers (e.g. Cranston.) Third is 
that shallow occultist treatments (e.g. Leichtman communing with HPB 
telepathically, Hogue cataloging prophecies) ride pretty high as well.

So if admirers of the Cranston approach to HPB have anything to worry 
about in terms of competition, it would be the not the scholarly 
works published by university presses, but rather the popular 
critical works by recent authors and the distorted and self-serving 
interpretations by past authors like Steiner and Crowley. But we 
never read on this list any fears or concerns about any of this 
secondary literature; only the scholarly stuff appears to set off 
people's alarm bells. Why would that be? In any case, folks will be 
reading HPB long after all her interpreters and biographers are out 
of print, so her admirers ought to chill their anxieties 
about "materialist attacks."

Paul