Theos-Talk Archives (May 2004 Message tt00098)

May 9th 2004

 

Re Alleged plagiarism in the V O A by H P B - per R.
Taylor (?)

 

 

Dear John:

 

 

I, for on me, I would like to see Mr. R. Taylor’s final THESIS in
which he is made to claim H P B plagiarized (copies without due
acknowledgment) others' texts, and put the forward as her own work.

 

I would expect to have parallel columns placed before me so I could
check these myself and verify his alleged claims. 

 

I would assume the V O A which she claims was copied from the now
extinct and unavailable occult writings named by her the Senzar script
and code were originals.

 

I believe Mr. Règle has spent a number of recent years seeking for
such evidence, and for the original Senzar texts / and / or the
Tibetan or Sanskrit translations – fruitlessly.

 

You have a valid question, but the matter here is of convention and
also of truth. Is the V O A an “:original” or, a “copy,” (part or
whole way) and “unacknowledged.”  

 

The question is not of the “Heart Doctrine,” but of the “Eye
appearance.” Modern scholarship insists on the only tangible ‘proof’
– the physical appearance and sources. They seem little occupied with
the esoteric, occult or moral value of teachings such as are found in
the VB O A – or, they conveniently set them aside.

 

We, the humble and faithful students of H P B and of the Masters of
Wisdom –those, who have so sacrificed (and continue to sacrifice)
greatly in providing us with the “Heart Doctrine” through THEOSOPHY,
we feel aggrieved and hurt that this kind of perception (and reverence
for such an expression of the highest morality) seems so lacking in
the “literalists, and the pedants,” who have only the physical
appearance of the printed text to go by,. They seem , in their small
and short area of focus, to lack the ability to appreciate the
“meaning” and the “intention” of such a work.

 

As to laws and statutes. As a publisher and editor for many years, I
am well aware of the criteria and the conventions to be observed in
quoting. 

  

I am not sure what laws or statutes in England and America were in
force in the period 1975-1900 you refer to. I believe that both
patents and copyright were considered and laws were in force then.
The details are of course a matter of historical record.

 

Today we have a whole set of strict international laws and country
laws covering infringement of copyright and patents on inventions and
improvements.

 

But, as you observe, if is not a question of “law” but of courtesy.
Also one of honesty. Since no one COPIES another’s’ work without some
acknowledgement being given.

 

I do know that H P B herself speaks to the question on the writing of
ISIS UNVEILED in the period before its publication in 1877 as herself
being ignorant of the rules and laws regarding the copying of others
writings, and later putting much effort into giving due
acknowledgements for such as she used in that book and subsequently.

 

I would assume the V O A text, which she claims was copied from the
now extinct and unavailable occult writings named by her the Senzar
script and code were originals.

 

I believe Mr. Règle has spent a number of recent years seeking for
such evidence, and for the original Senzar texts / and / or the
Sanskrit translations – fruitlessly.

 

Here are a few references that seem appropriate:

 

----------------------------------

 

 

AUTHENTICITY

 

 

I offer these as they relate primarily to “precipitated letters,” but
the moral laws relate to anything offered by H P B or others have
relation to Theosophical matters – and t such a book as The VOICE OF
THE SILENCE --DTB

 

----------------------------

 

 

“But there is another, and a far worse condition implied. For all
that the recipient of "occult" letters can possibly know, and on the
simple grounds of probability and common honesty, the unseen
correspondent who would tolerate one single fraudulent line in his
name, would wink at an unlimited repetition of the deception. And
this leads directly to the following. All the so-called occult
letters being supported by identical proofs, they have all to stand of
fall together. If one is to be doubt­ed, then all have, and the
series of letters in the "Occult World," "Esoteric Buddhism," etc.,
etc., may be, and there is no reason why they should not be in such
case--frauds, "clever impostures," and "forgeries," [ see M L, pp.
307, 410, 414, 419-424, 431 ] such as the ingenuous though stupid
agent of the "S.P.R." has made them out to be, in order to raise in
the public estimation the "scientific" acumen and standard of his
"Princi­pals."   

HPB--"Lodges of Magic" HPB Art. I. p. 291-2

 

 

 

"Some years ago H.P.B. was charged [ by A.P.Sinnett ] with misuse of
Mahatmas' names and handwritings, with forgery of mes­sages from the
Mahatmas, and with humbugging the public and the T.S. therewith.
Those charges had floated vaguely about for sometime...afterwards,
writing on the subject in "Lodges of Magic" [ HPB Articles 1, p. 291
] in Lucifer [ Vol. 3, p. 92-3 ] the question of genuineness or the
opposite of such messages was dealt with, and what she wrote is here
presented for reconsidera­tion. It covers two matters.

 

First, it proves out of her own mouth what the Path not long ago said
that "if one letter has to be doubted then all have" to be doubted.
Hence if the Letter to some Brahmins ["Prayag Let­ter" -- Mahatma
Letters, p. 461-3 --] is a fraud, as Col. Olcott and another say, then
all the rest are, also.

 

Second, it applies precisely to the present state of affairs in
respect to messages from Masters, just as if she had so long ago
foreseen the present and left the article so that tyros in occultism,
such as the present agitators are, might have someth­ing to show them
how to use their judgment. The portion selected from her article
reads:

 

We have been asked by a correspondent why he should not "be free to
suspect some of the so-called 'pre­cipitated' letters as being
forgeries," giving as his reason for it that while some of them bear
the stamp of (to him) undeniable genuineness, others seem from their
contents and style, to be imitations. This is equivalent of saying
that he had such an unerring spiritual insight as to be able to detect
the false from the true, though he has never met a Master, nor been
given any key by which to test his alleged communications.  

 

The inevitable consequence of applying his untrained judgment in such
cases, would be to make his as likely as not to declare false what was
genuine and genuine what was false. Thus what criterion has any one
to decide between one "precipitated" letter, or another such letter?  

 

Who except their authors, or those whom they employ as their
amanuenses (the chelas and disciples) can tell? For if hardly one out
of a hundred "occult" letters that is ever written in the hand of the
Master, in whose name and on whose behalf they are sent, as the
Masters have neither need nor leisure to write them; and when a
Master says: "I wrote that letter" it means only that every word in
it was dictated by him and impressed under his direct supervision.  

 

Generally they make their chela, whether near or far away, write (or
precipitate) them, by impressing upon his mind the ideas they wish
expressed, and if necessary aiding him in the picture printing process
of precipitation. It depends entirely upon the chela's state of
development, how accu­rately the ideas may be transmitted and the
writing-model imitated. Thus the non-adept recipient is left in the
di­lemma of uncertainty, whether if one letter is false all may not
be, for as far as intrinsic evidence goes, all come from the same
source, and all are brought by the same mysterious means.  

 

But there is another and far worse condition im­plied. All the
so-called occult letters being supported by identical proofs, they
have all to stand or fall together. If one is to be doubted, then all
have, and the series of letters in the Occult World, Esoteric
Buddhism, etc., etc., may be, and there is no reason why they should
not be in such a case,--frauds, "clever impostures," and "forgeries"
such as the ingenuous though stupid agent of the "S.P.R." has made
them out to be, in order to raise in the public estimation the
scientific acumen and standard of his "Prin­cipals"... [H.P.B.]
WQJ Articles I 55

 

 

PLAGIARISM

 

 

“I am accused of "plagiarism." We, of Tibet and China, know not what
you mean by the word. I do, but this is no reason, perhaps, why I
should accept your literary laws. Any writer has the privilege of
taking out whole sentences from the dictionary of Pai -- Wouen -- Yen
-- Fu the greatest in the world, full of quotations from every known
writer, and containing all the phrases ever used -- and to frame them
to express his thought. This does not apply to the Kiddle case which
happened just as I told you. But you may find, perchance throughout my
letters twenty detached sentences which may have been already used in
books or MSS. When you write upon some subject you surround yourself
with books of references etc.: when we write upon something the
Western opinion about which is unknown to us, we surround ourselves
with hundreds of paras: upon this particular topic from dozens of
different works -- impressed upon the Akasa. What wonder then, that
not only a chela entrusted with the work and innocent of any knowledge
of the meaning of plagiarism, but even myself -- should use
occasionally a whole sentence already existent applying it only to
another -- our own idea? I have told you of this before and it is no
fault of mine if your friends and enemies will not remain satisfied
with the explanation. When I shall undertake to write an original
prize-essay I may be more careful. For the Kiddle business it is your
own fault. Why have you printed the Occult World before sending it to
me for revision? I would have never allowed the passage to pass; nor
the "Lal Sing" either foolishly invented as half a nom de plume by
Djwal K. and carelessly allowed by me to take root without thinking of
the consequences. We are not infallible, all-foreseeing "Mahatmas" at
every hour of the day, good friend: none of you have even learned to
remember so much.” MAHATMA LETTERS pp. 364

 

 

“From the right point of view, if you will know, it is only the
expression of another person’s original ideas, some independent
sentence, a thought, which in its brief completeness is capable of
being constructed into a wise motto or maxim that could be constituted
into what is regarded as plagiarism — the pilfering of another
person’s ‘brain property’. There is not a book but is the shadow of
some other book, the concrete image, very often, of the astral body of
it in some other work upon the same or approximate subject. I agree
entirely with Dr Cromwell when he says that ‘true talent will become
original in the very act of engaging itself with the ideas of
another;’ nay will often convert the dross of previous authors into
the golden ore that shines forth to the world as its own peculiar
creation. ‘From a series of extravagant and weak Italian romances,
Shakespeare took the plots, the characters, and the major part of the
incidents of those dramatic works which have exalted his name, as an
original writer, above that of every other in the annals of
literature.’

LETTERS FROM THE MASTERS OF WISDOM, Series I, pp 105-6

 

 

 

“Having been called repeatedly a "sophist," a "myth," a "Mrs. Harris"
and a "lower intelligence" by the enemies, I rather not be regarded as
a deliberate artificer and a liar by bogus friends -- I mean those who
would accept me reluctantly even were I to rise to their own ideal in
their estimation instead of the reverse -- as at present. Personally,
I am indifferent, of course, to the issue. 

 

But for your sake and that of the Society I may make one more effort
to clear the horizon of one of its "blackest" clouds. Let us then
recapitulate the situation and see what your Western sages say of it.
"K.H." -- it is settled -- is a plagiarist -- if it be, after all a
question of K.H. and not of the "two Occidental Humourists." In the
former case, an alleged "adept" unable to evolve out of his "small
oriental brain" any idea or words worthy of Plato turned to that deep
tank of profound philosophy, the Banner of Light, and drew therefrom
the sentences best fitted to express his rather entangled ideas, which
had fallen from the inspired lips of Mr. Henry Kiddle! In the other
alternative, the case becomes still more difficult to comprehend --
save on the theory of the irresponsible mediumship of the pair of
Western jokers. However startling and impracticable the theory, that
two persons who have been clever enough to carry on undetected the
fraud of personating for five years several adepts -- not one of whom
resembles the other; -- two persons, of whom one, at any rate, is a
fair master of English and can hardly be suspected of paucity of
original ideas, should turn for a bit of plagiarism to a journal as
the Banner, widely known and read by most English knowing
Spiritualists; and above all, pilfer their borrowed sentences from the
discourse of a conspicuous new convert, whose public utterances were
at the very time being read and welcomed by every medium and
Spiritualist; however improbable all this and much more, yet any
alternative seems more welcome than simple truth. The decree is
pronounced; "K.H.," whoever he is, has stolen passages from Mr.
Kiddle. Not only this, but as shewn by "a Perplexed Reader" -- he has
omitted inconvenient words and has so distorted the ideas he has
borrowed as to divert them from their original intention to suit his
own very different purpose." 

 

Well, to this, if I had any desire to argue out the question I might
answer that of what constitutes plagiarism, being a borrowing of ideas
rather than of words and sentences, there was none in point of fact,
and I stand acquitted by my own accusers. As Milton says -- "such kind
of borrowing as this, if it be not bettered by the borrower is
accounted plagiary." Having distorted the ideas "appropriated," and,
as now published -- diverted them from their original intention to
suit my own "very different purpose," on such grounds my literary
larceny does not appear very formidable after all? And even, were
there no other explanation offered, the most that could be said is,
that owing to the poverty of words at the command of Mr. Sinnett's
correspondent, and his ignorance of the art of English composition, he
has adapted a few of innocent Mr. Kiddle's effusions, some of his
excellently constructed sentences -- to express his own contrary
ideas. The above is the only line of argument I have given to, and
permitted to be used in, an editorial by the "gifted editor" of the
Theosophist, who has been off her head since the accusation. Verily
woman -- is a dreadful calamity in this fifth race! However, to you
and some few, whom you have permission to select among your most
trusted theosophists, taking first care to pledge them by word of
honour to keep the little revelation to themselves, I will now explain
the real facts of this "very puzzling" psychological mystery. The
solution is so simple, and the circumstances so amusing, that I
confess I laughed when my attention was drawn to it, some time since.
Nay, it is calculated to make me smile even now, were it not the
knowledge of the pain it gives to some true friends. 

 

The letter in question was framed by me while on a journey and on
horse-back. It was dictated mentally, in the direction of, and
"precipitated" by, a young chela not yet expert at this branch of
Psychic chemistry, and who had to transcribe it from the hardly
visible imprint. Half of it, therefore, was omitted and the other half
more or less distorted by the "artist." When asked by him at the time,
whether I would look it over and correct I answered, imprudently, I
confess -- "anyhow will do, my boy -- it is of no great importance if
you skip a few words." I was physically very tired by a ride of 48
hours consecutively, and (physically again) -- half asleep. Besides
this I had very important business to attend to psychically and
therefore little remained of me to devote to that letter. It was
doomed, I suppose. 

 

When I woke I found it had already been sent on, and, as I was not
then anticipating its publication, I never gave it from that time a
thought. -- Now, I had never evoked spiritual Mr. Kiddle's
physiognomy, never had heard of his existence, was not aware of his
name. Having -- owing to our correspondence and your Simla
surroundings and friends -- felt interested in the intellectual
progress of the Phenomenalists which progress by the bye, I found
rather moving backward in the case of American Spiritualists -- I had
directed my attention some two months previous to the great annual
camping movement of the latter, in various directions, among others to
Lake or Mount Pleasant.

 

Some of the curious ideas and sentences representing the general hopes
and aspirations of the American Spiritualists remained impressed on my
memory, and I remembered only these ideas and detached sentences quite
apart from the personalities of those who harboured or pronounced
them. Hence, my entire ignorance of the lecturer whom I have
innocently defrauded as it would appear, and who now raises the hue
and cry. Yet, had I dictated my letter in the form it now appears in
print, it would certainly look suspicious, and, however far from what
is generally called plagiarism, yet in the absence of any inverted
commas, it would lay a foundation for censure. But I did nothing of
the kind, as the original impression now before me clearly shows. 

 

And before I proceed any further, I must give you some explanation of
this mode of precipitation. [ MAHATMA LETTERS 265, 342, 471, 480]
The recent experiments of the Psychic Research Society will help you
greatly to comprehend the rationale of this "mental telegraphy." You
have observed in the Journal of that body how thought transference is
cumulatively affected. The image of the geometrical or other figure
which the active brain has had impressed upon it, is gradually
imprinted upon the recipient brain of the passive subject -- as the
series of reproductions illustrated in the cuts show. Two factors are
needed to produce a perfect and instantaneous mental telegraphy --
close concentration in the operator, and complete receptive passivity
in the "reader" -- subject. Given a disturbance of either condition,
and the result is proportionately imperfect. The "reader" does not see
the image as in the "telegrapher's" brain, but as arising in his own.
When the latter's thought wanders, the psychic current becomes broken,
the communication disjointed and incoherent. In a case such as mine,
the chela had, as it were, to pick up what he could from the current I
was sending him and, as above remarked, patch the broken bits together
as best he might. 

 

Do not you see the same thing in ordinary mesmerism -- the maya
impressed upon the subject's imagination by the operator becoming, now
stronger, now feebler, as the latter keeps the intended illusive image
more or less steadily before his own fancy? 

 

And how often the clairvoyants reproach the magnetiser for taking
their thoughts off the subject under consideration? 

 

And the mesmeric healer will always bear you witness that if he
permits himself to think of anything but the vital current he is
pouring into his patient, he is at once compelled to either establish
the current afresh or stop the treatment. 

 

So I, in this instance, having at the moment more vividly in my mind
the psychic diagnosis of current Spiritualistic thought, of which the
Lake Pleasant speech was one marked symptom, unwittingly transferred
that reminiscence more vividly than my own remarks upon it and
deductions therefrom. 

 

So to say, (the "despoiled victim's" -- Mr. Kiddle's -- utterances)
came out as a "high light" and were more sharply photographed (first
in the chela's brain and thence on the paper before him, a double
process and one far more difficult than "thought reading" simply)
while the rest, -- my remarks thereupon and arguments -- as I now
find, are hardly visible and quite blurred on the original scraps
before me. 

 

Put into a mesmeric subject's hand a sheet of blank paper, tell him it
contains a certain chapter of some book that you have read,
concentrate your thoughts upon the words, and see how -- provided that
he has himself not read the chapter, but only takes it from your
memory -- his reading will reflect your own more or less vivid
successive recollections of your author's language. The same as to the
precipitation by the chela of the transferred thought upon (or rather,
into) paper: if the mental picture received be feeble his visible
reproduction of it must correspond. And the more so in proportion to
the closeness of attention he gives. He might -- were he but merely a
person of the true mediumistic temperament -- be employed by his
"Master" as a sort of psychic printing machine producing lithographed
or psychographed impressions of what the operator had in mind; his
nerve-system, the machine, his nerve-aura the printing fluid, the
colours drawn from that exhaustless storehouse of pigments (as of
everything else) the Akasa. But the medium and the chela are
diametrically dissimilar and the latter acts consciously, except under
exceptional circumstances during development not necessary to dwell
upon here. 

 

Well, as soon as I heard of the charge -- the commotion among my
defenders having reached me across the eternal snows -- I ordered an
investigation into the original scraps of the impression. At the first
glance I saw that it was I, the only and most guilty party, -- the
poor little boy having done but that which he was told. Having now
restored the characters and the lines -- omitted and blurred beyond
hope of recognition by anyone but their original evolver -- to their
primitive colour and places, I now find my letter reading quite
differently as you will observe. 

 

Turning to the Occult World -- the copy sent by you -- to the page
cited, (namely p. 149 in the first edition) I was struck, upon
carefully reading it, by the great discrepancy between the sentences.
A gap, so to say, of ideas between part 1 (from line 1 to line 25) and
part 2 -- the plagiarized portion so-called.

 

There seems no connection at all between the two; for what has,
indeed, the determination of our chiefs (to prove to a skeptical world
that physical phenomena are as reducible to law as anything else) to
do with Plato's ideas which "rule the world" or "practical Brotherhood
of Humanity?" I fear that it is your personal friendship alone for the
writer that has blinded you to the discrepancy and disconnection of
ideas in this abortive "precipitation," even until now. Otherwise you
could not have failed to perceive that something was wrong on that
page; that there was a glaring defect in the connection. Moreover, I
have to plead guilty to another sin: I have never so much as looked at
my letters in print -- until the day of the forced investigation. I
had read only your own original matter, feeling it a loss of time to
go over my hurried bits and scraps of thought. But now, I have to ask
you to read the passages as they were originally dictated by me, and
make the comparison with the Occult World before you. 

 

I transcribe them with my own hand this once, whereas the letter in
your possession was written by the chela. I ask you also to compare
this hand-writing with that of some of the earlier letters you
received from me. Bear in mind, also the "O.L.'s" emphatic denial at
Simla that my first letter had ever been written by myself. I felt
annoyed at her gossip and remarks then; it may serve a good purpose
now. Alas! by no means are we all "gods"; especially when you remember
that since the palmy days of the "impressions" and "precipitations" --
"K.H." has been born into a new and higher light, and even that one,
in no wise the most dazzling to be acquired on this earth. Verily the
Light of Omniscience and infallible Prevision on this earth -- that
shines only for the highest CHOHAN alone is yet far away from me! 

 

I enclose the copy verbatim from the restored fragments underlining in
red [these passages are printed in italics. -- ED.] the omitted
sentences for easier comparison. (Page 149. -- First Edition.) …..”

 

MAHATMA LETTERS pp 420-425

 

-------------------------------------

 


MY BOOKS


Article by H. P. Blavatsky


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 Mdme.
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 analysed 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, l
<http://www.blavatsky.net/blavatsky/arts/#FNT1> 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.
2 <http://www.blavatsky.net/blavatsky/arts/#FNT2>  

 

The first enemies that my work brought to the front were
Spiritualists, whose fundamental theories as to the spirits of the
dead communicating in propriâ personâ I upset. For the last fifteen
years--ever since this first publication--an incessant shower of ugly
accusations has been poured upon me. Every libellous 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 !3 <http://www.blavatsky.net/blavatsky/arts/#FNT3> 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
libellous 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, 4
<http://www.blavatsky.net/blavatsky/arts/#FNT4> 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. Therefore—

 

(4) 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 labours 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. 

 

[ on PLAGIARISM]

 

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 verbatim
et literatim. 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 La
Vie de Jésus, by Renan, will find that he has plagiarised by
anticipation, some descriptive passages rendered in flowing verse in
the Light of the World. Yet even Sir Edwin Arnold, whose versatile and
recognised 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 civilisation and fin de siècle, one should feel
highly honoured 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 honourable, 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, 5
<http://www.blavatsky.net/blavatsky/arts/#FNT5> would be insane
enough to accuse him of "plagiarising" 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
ferretted 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 honour 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? 

 

April 27, 1891 

       
 
H.P. BLAVATSKY
 

Lucifer, May, 1891 

 

_____  

 

1 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. 
 

2 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."--N.Y.
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."--N.Y. 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 marvellous will find in them an abundance of
entertainment."--New York Sun.

 

"A marvellous 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 marvellous 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. 
 

3 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. 
 

=================================================

 

 

 

 

Dallas

 

 

========================================

 

-----Original Message-----


From: samb
Sent: Sunday, May 09, 2004 10:22 AM
To: 
Subject: Re: Rich Taylor on Blavatsky's "appropriations" of text from
...

 

Netemara, Daniel, and all,

 

This issue of alleged plagiarizm seems to be perpetual and periodic 

since Blavatsky first authored her works. 

 

A few years ago I asked of all the Authors, Scholars, on this list the
question: 

 

What was the existent Statute of LAW in England and the USA for the 

period of 1875-91 that established the Legal Obligation of "citing
Source and Author Credits 

exhaustively." " 

 

The reason being that I not having personal knowledge of any Statute
in either 

country and the specific wording thereof, wanted to know and, if
possible read those Statutes 

that mediate and Govern published works by any Author or User of
extant resources. Since it 

is possible that there was not a Legal Statute that forced Citation at
the time I wanted to clear 

this up, relying on the ability of the Authors and Scholars on this
list to enlighten us all by providing 

that analytical proof. To this day after asking the question there has
been only the deafening silence of 

the wolves. 

 

No one responded, none posted the extant Statute of either the USA or
England. So if 

Blavatsky was not Obligated by Statute to cite author and source by
being bound over under the 

compulsion of a Statute of LAW, then what remains is only the
convention of an "understood" courtesy 

out of respect of a class of Peers and no legal requirement to do so.
New Laws are made on a 

regular basis here and in England, and all Laws did not appear on the
Seventh Day of Creation and 

that includes Author Citation.

 

So if the Authors and Scholars remain silent and provide not the proof
what right Legally do they have 

to persist in acting so outraged?

 

John

 

 

 

 



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