Theos-Talk Archives (May 2006 Message tt00696)

MERE WRITTEN EVIDENCE??

"What the Occultists & Kabalists Have to Say":  Part of the original 
SD

The Theosophy Company states that SD volume III (1897)
"forms NO PART of the original SECRET DOCTRINE written by H.P.B." 
caps added

Unfortunately, the writer of this statement does not
give us either his reasoning or the evidence that would help us
to understand how he arrived at that conclusion.

Thinking about this statement, one might ask:

What does the writer mean by "the original SECRET DOCTRINE written
by H.P.B. "?

Now it is my thesis that the HPB quote on Socrates that Carlos
Aveline cited is actually from "the original SECRET DOCTRINE written 
by H.P.B."

The HPB quote on Socrates is to be found in a section or chapter
or article titled:

"What the Occultists and Kabalists Have to Say"

This article was originally published in 1897 in Volume III of the
SD on pages 211-214.

An online version of this article from SD, Volume III
can be viewed at:

http://www.theosophical.ca/SecDoctrine3B.htm#211

Boris de Zirkoff REPRINTED this article in HPB's Collected Writings,
Volume XIV, pages 220-224.

Now as I said above, it is my thesis that the HPB quote on Socrates
and in fact the whole article "What the Occultists and Kabalists
Have to Say" was "part of the original SECRET DOCTRINE written by
H.P.B."

What was "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." 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.

I have a photocopy of these manuscript pages and 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

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.
==================================================================

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 and was in Volume One of this manuscript.

Daniel H. Caldwell
Blavatsky Study Center
http://blavatskyarchives.com
http://blavatskystudycenter.org