Theos-Talk Archives (May 2006 Message tt00626)

Carlos Quotes HPB on Socrates: Part 3

(Continued from Part 2)

The Theosophy Company author does not fully explain what he means by 
"the original SECRET DOCTRINE written by H.P.B."

Well, could the following be a reference to the original SECRET 
DOCTRINE?

Bertram Keightley tells us that upon her arrival in London in May, 
1887, Madame Blavatsky "placed the whole of the so far completed 
MSS. [of The Secret Doctrine] in the hands of Dr. [Archibald] 
Keightley and myself....We both read the whole mass of MSS.--a pile 
over three feet high--most carefully through"

This is quoted from Reminiscences of H. P. Blavatsky and The Secret 
Doctrine, by Countess Constance Wachtmeister et al., Quest edition, 
1976, p. 78. 

Bertram goes on to say that this original SD manuscript was divided 
into three parts or volumes:

•  Volume I:     History of some great Occultists
•  Volume II:    Evolution of Cosmos
•  Volume III:   Evolution of Man

Bertram's reference to "the whole of the so-far completed MSS." is 
to the original Secret Doctrine manuscript, written during the 
period 1884 through April, 1887, which was in HPB's own handwriting.

Now this division of the original SD manuscript into the above 3 
volumes is VERIFIED by looking at the so-called Wurzburg manuscript 
of the SD.

What is the Wurzburg manuscript?

In a letter dated September 23, 1886 (only eight months before 
Bertram Keightley read the three volumes in London), HPB wrote to 
Colonel Henry S. Olcott:

"I send you the MSS. of Secret Doctrine.....Now I send only 1st 
volume of Introduct. Section.... " [quoted in de Zirkoff , SD 
Intro., 30-1]

This manuscript to be sent to Colonel Olcott was not the original 
manuscript in HPB's own handwriting but a copy of the original 
transcribed by Countess Constance Wachtmeister and Mrs. Mary Gebhard.
 
This "lst volume" manuscript is part of the "Wurzburg Manuscript" 
now preserved in the Archives of the Theosophical Society, Adyar, 
Madras, India.
 
According to Colonel Olcott's handwritten diaries, this volume was 
received by him in India on Dec. 15, 1886.

Bertram's testimony given above and the even more important witness 
(the Wurzburg manuscript itself) gives us very valuable information 
about the arrangement and the contents of HPB's original manuscript 
of the SD as of the latter part of 1886 and up thru May 1887.

If you look in Volume I of the Wurzburg manuscript which dates from 
1886 you find the whole article titled "What the Occultists and 
Kabalists Have to Say" on pages 159-69.  And in this article in the 
manuscript you will find the HPB  quote on Socrates.

See my previous reference to this article at:  
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/33492

I have a photocopy of these manuscript pages.
  
C. Jinarajadasa published this article or section from the Wurzburg 
manuscript of the SD in the pages of the Theosophist. 

See:

Theosophist, Oct. 1933, 14 - 6; and 
Theosophist, Nov. 1933, 143-6

The Wurzburg manuscript is a witness to the fact that this 
article  "What the Occultists and Kabalists Have to Say" to be found 
in SD, Vol. III (1897) was in fact PART of HPB's original Secret 
Doctrine Manuscript of 1886.

I now transcribe from the photocopy of this manuscript the HPB quote 
on Socrates:

================================================================
Julian died for the same crime as Socrates. Both divulged a portion 
of the Solar Mystery --- the heliocentric system being only a part 
of what was given during the Initiation --- one consciously, the 
other unconsciously, as the Greek Sage had never been initiated. It 
was not the real Solar System that was preserved in such secrecy, 
but the mysteries connected with the Sun's constitution. Socrates 
was sentenced to death by earthly and worldly judges; Julian died a 
violent death because the hitherto protecting hand had been 
withdrawn from him, and no longer shielded by it, he was simply left 
to his destiny or Karma. For the student of Occultism there is a 
suggestive difference between the two kinds of death.
==================================================================
 
(Continued in Part 4)

Daniel
http://hpb.cc