Theos-Talk Archives (May 2004 Message tt00126)

May 15, 2004



Re: PLAGIARISM, by H P B and Masters, alleged



Dear friends:



Recently some accusations of plagiarism were launched again at H P B
and her method of presenting THEOSOPHY to the world. :



These few quotations may prove to be of help in understanding the
question.



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



I would assume The VOICE OF THE SILENCE , which she claims was copied
from the now extinct and unavailable occult writings named by her the
Senzar script and code, [S D I 21-4] were originals.



I believe Mr. Reigle 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.



The matter here is (in my opinion) one of convention and also of
truth. Is the V O A an "original," or a "copy," (part, or whole, and
does it contain "unacknowledged. 'Copy?' " 



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 - or, they
conveniently set them aside.



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. I believe that both patents
and copyright were considered PROPERTY, and laws were in force then.


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



It is (in this case) not a question of "law" but of courtesy. Also
one of honesty. Since no honest author COPIES another's' work (and
claims it is their own independent production) without some
acknowledgement being given.



H P B herself speaks to these questions 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, of putting much effort into giving due
acknowledgements in that book and subsequently.



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





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



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



Extracts from


MY BOOKS by H P B 


".Isis Unveiled, .. Of all the books I have put my name to, this
particular one is, in literary arrangement, the worst and most
confused." .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.. 

. 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, 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. 

. 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, .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..

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. .

When I started to write that which developed later into Isis
Unveiled.. 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. 

... 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 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 ... 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. .. 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.. 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. 

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. .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." 

H.P. BLAVATSKY Lucifer, May, 1891 



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





Dallas





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