Theos-Talk Archives (April 2006 Message tt00850)

A question about the Secret Doctrine 1886 manuscript
Feb 16, 2001 08:50 AM
by Daniel Caldwell

Just today I received an email asking: 
"What does the 1886 [Secret Doctrine] manuscript consist of exactly?"

My answer is as follows:
 
If you look at pp. 471 and 472 in HPB's COLLECTED WRITINGS, Vol. 14, 
you will get an overview of contents.
 
The 1886 manuscript is NOT in HPB's handwriting but in
the handwriting of Countess Wachtmeister, Mary Gebhard
and (I believe) Mary Bates. In other words, these persons
helped to make a copy of HPB's original handwritten manuscript and 
this copy H.P.B. then sent to India. This copy is the so-called 
Wurzburg manuscript.
 
Basically the EXTANT MS is divided into three "parts" or "volumes".
 
I. Introduction or Introductory (consisting of historical material 
like articles in SD III, 1897)

II. Cosmogonic consisting of 7 stanzas and HPB commentaries

III. Angthopogonic 
 
See the following web page for my "expanded" chart of Volume I:
 
http://blavatskyarchives.com/sdiiitab.htm

MOST of the material in Part I or Volume I of the MS is material that
finally ended up in the published SD Volume III of 1897.  See chart 
at: http://blavatskyarchives.com/sdiiitab.htm
 
Part II or Volume II of the MS consists (as said above)
of the translated Stanzas of Dzyan & HPB's commentaries.
This material in Part II finally ended up in the published SD Volume 
One of 1888.

I have taken a printed Vol. One (1888) edition and have underlined in
red the text that also occurrs in the Wurzburg MSS. This would cover
pp. 1-268 of the published version.  
 
Looking at the red underlined text, I would estimate that about 1/3 
to 1/2 of the complete text (pp. 1-268) in the published
volume one is ALSO in the earlier Wurzburg Vol. two version. 
 
Part III of the Wurzburg MSS is on the Anthropogonic material.
This section is very fragmentary consisting of (if I recall 
correctly)of only a dozen pages or so of manuscript pages. You can 
find this material in Vol. 2 of the published 1888 edition.
 
In both Parts I and II of the Wurzburg manuscript there are 
references to various appendices to both parts. The only extant 
appendice in Vol. I of the Wurzburg MSS is "Star- Angel Worship" 
which HPB apparently decided at a later date to take out
and publish in Lucifer, July 1888. All the other appendices 
mentioned in the Wurzburg manuscript (and also mentioned in HPB's 
letters of 1885, 1886 and 1887) are MISSING from the EXTANT Wurzburg 
manuscript. Evidence indicates these appendices were sent to India 
attached to the rest of the manuscript but somehow --- in the 
intervening years before Jinarajadasa discovered
at Benares the extant MS --- the appendices were "unattached" and 
lost. My research indicates that many of these "lost" appendices can 
be found in SD Vol III (1897).
 
For more on the background of this manuscript see:
 
"The Myth of the "Missing" Third Volume of The Secret Doctrine."
http://blavatskyarchives.com/sdiiipt1.htm
 
See especially Bertram Keightley's remarks about the RE-arrangment 
of the THREE volumes. THIS IS THE KEY TO EVERYTHING.
 
Hope this helps.
 
Daniel

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Daniel H. Caldwell
danielhcaldwell@yahoo.com
BLAVATSKY ARCHIVES
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