Theos-Talk Archives (October 2004 Message tt00188)

Oct 7 2004

Dear Friend:

HPB herself wrote about that:

HOW ISIS UNVEILED WAS WRITTEN

H P B

SIR,--"R. P." attempts in the October number of our Magazine to prove that I
have taught in Isis Unveiled substantially the doctrine of Visishtadwaita,
to which view I take exception. 

I am quite aware of the fact that Isis is far from being as complete a work
as, with the same materials, it might have been made by a better scholar;
and that it lacks symmetry, as a literary production, and perhaps here and
there accuracy. But I have some excuse for all that. It was my first book;
it was written in a language foreign to me--in which I had not been
accustomed to write; the language was even more unfamiliar to certain
Asiatic philosophers who rendered assistance; and, finally, Colonel Olcott,
who revised the manuscript and worked with me throughout, was then--in the
years 1875 and 1876--almost entirely ignorant of Aryan Philosophy, and hence
unable to detect and correct such errors as I might so readily fall into
when putting my thoughts into English. Still, despite all this, I think "R.
P.'s" criticism is faulty. 

If I erred in making too little distinction between an Impersonal God, or
Parabrahm, and a Personal God, I scarcely went to the length of confounding
the one with the other completely. The pages (vol. ii. 216-17; and 153; and
pref. p. 2) that he relies upon, represent not my own doctrine but the ideas
of others. 

The first two are quotations from Manu, and show what an educated Brahman
and a Buddhist might answer to Prof. Max Müller's affirmation that Moksha
and Nirvana mean annihilation; while the third (vol. ii. p. 153) is a
defense and explanation of the inner sense of the Bible, as from a Christian
mystic's standpoint. Of course this would resemble Visishtadwaitism, which,
like Christianity, ascribes personal attributes to the Universal Principle. 

As for the reference to the Preface, it seems that even when read in the
dead-letter sense, the paragraph could only be said to reflect my personal
opinion and not the Esoteric Doctrine. …

And see, for proof, my remark about the "omnipotence of man's immortal
spirit"--which would be a logical absurdity upon any theory of egoistic
separation. My mistake was that throughout the whole work I indifferently
employed the words Parabrahm and God to express the same idea: a venial sin
surely, when one knows that the English language is so poor that even at
this moment I am using the Sanskrit word to express one idea and the English
one for the other! Whether it be orthodox Adwaita or not, 

HPB

========================================
	
Here are some passages of importance: (DTB)


HPB wrote:	H P B Art II 264, in ISIS UNVEILED & the
VISHISTADWAITA.  


I maintain as an occultist, on the authority of the Secret Doctrine, that
though merged entirely into Parabrahm, man's spirit while not individual per
se, yet preserves its distinct individuality in Paranirvana, owing to the
accumulation in it of the aggregates, or skandhas that have survived after
each death, from the highest faculties of the Manas. 

The most spiritual--i.e., the highest and divinest aspirations of every
personality follow Buddhi and the Seventh Principle into Devachan (Swarga)
after the death of each personality along the line of rebirths, and become
part and parcel of the Monad.

The personality fades out, disappearing before the occurrence of the
evolution of the new personality (rebirth) out of Devachan: but the
individuality of the spirit-soul [dear, dear, what can be made out of this
English!] is preserved to the end of the great cycle (Maha-Manwantara) when
each Ego enters Paranirvana, or is merged in Parabrahm..the human spirit is
then lost in the One Spirit, as the drop of water thrown into the sea can no
longer be traced out and recovered. But de facto it is not so in the world
of immaterial thought... 

That such Parabrahmic and Paranirvanic "spirits," or units, have and must
preserve their divine (not human) individualities, is shown in the fact
that, however long the "night of Brahma" or even the Universal Pralaya (not
the local Pralaya affecting some one group of worlds) yet, when it ends, the
same individual Divine Monad resumes its majestic path of evolution, though
on a higher, hundredfold perfected and more pure chain of earths than
before, and brings with it all the essence of compound spiritualities from
its previous countless rebirths. 

Spiral evolution, it must be remembered, is dual, and the path of
spirituality turns, corkscrew-like, within and around physical,
semi-physical, and supra-physical evolution. But I am being tempted into
details which had best be left for the full consideration which their
importance merits to my forthcoming work, the Secret Doctrine. 
       
H. P. BLAVATSKY		
Theosophist, January, 1886

----------------------------------------
2  


MY BOOKS

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 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 

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 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 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. 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 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? 

       
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. 

Best wishes,

Dallas