Theos-Talk Archives (August 2002 Message tt00205)

Dallas, you write:

"In another interview in 1926, Oct. 25 with a reporter W.
Mulliss ( Mullies ?) we find her [Annie Besant] declaring she had 
never read or encountered the manuscripts of THE SECRET DOCTRINE,
Vols 3 and 4 during H P B's life time. . . . "

But compare the above with the following. 

On May 4, 1891, Annie Besant gave testimony in HPB's case against 
Elliott Coues and the New York Sun. Notice what Mrs. Besant says 
about the third volume of THE SECRET DOCTRINE:

"There is one other work of hers [Blavatsky'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manuscript, still unpublished; a third volume of 'The Secret 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. Madame Blavatsky has also in preparation a glossary of Sanscrit 
and Eastern tongues; those are both in preparation. . . . " [Quoted 
from Michael Gomes, ed., Witness for the Prosecution: Annie Besant's 
Testimony on Behalf of H. P. Blavatsky in the N. Y. Sun/Coues Law 
Case, 1993, page 23.]

>From other sources that confirm Mrs. Besant's above account, we know 
that HPB in early 1891 was actually working on the third volume of 
the SD. For example on January 7, 1891, Claude Falls Wright wrote:

"H.P.B. has within the last week or so begun to get together the MSS. 
(long ago written) for the Third Volume of The Secret Doctrine; it 
will however, take a good twelve months to prepare for publication."
[Quoted from The Path, February 1891, 354]

[Also see: http://www.blavatskyarchives.com/sdiiipt5.htm for other 
relevant testimony from the year 1891.]

Daniel H. Caldwell
BLAVATSKY ARCHIVES
http://hpb.cc