In the _Theosophist_ for March, 1922, Mrs. Besant says, in her "Watch-Tower" notes:--
A wild theory has just been started in the U. S. A. that _The Secret Doctrine_, brought out by the London T. P. H. after H.
P. B."s death, was not as H. P. B. wanted it. The _insinuation_ is made that _H. P. B._ was "edited" by those in charge of _the second edition_. The _trustees_ to whom she left _the safeguarding of her printed books and unpublished ma.n.u.scripts_ were all her own pupils who had _lived with her for years_, and they made only _such changes as she had herself directed_, which consist mainly in the correction of verbal and grammatical errors, and the _arrangement of the material of Vol._ III.
I have italicised the statements requiring explanation or correction.
The "second edition," as Mrs. Besant must be well aware, was merely a re-print to meet an unexpected demand, and bears the same date as the original edition, _viz._, 1888. But as Mrs. Besant only joined the T. S.
early in 1889, and was led to seek an interview with H. P. Blavatsky _after_ reviewing _The Secret Doctrine_ for the late Mr. W. T. Stead, then Editor of the _Pall Mall Gazette_, clearly she can know absolutely nothing of the preparation of its first _or_ of its "second edition"! As to the alleged "trustees," I can only say that I never heard of their existence. _Mrs. Besant_ only "lived with" H. P. B. for rather more than eighteen months. H. P. B. left 17, Lansdowne Road, London, W., in the summer of 1889, the Headquarters being moved to Mrs. Besant"s house in Avenue Road, N.W., where she died in May 1891, _while Mrs. Besant was on her way back from a lecture tour in America_.
Take next the alleged "safeguarding" of H. P. B."s "unpublished ma.n.u.scripts." Those who were responsible for the so-called Volume III, had a strange and unusual conception of the meaning of the word "safeguarding." It so happens that while it was being set up I was able actually to peruse one or two of the familiar long foolscap sheets which H. P. B. always covered with her small fine handwriting. They were mutilated almost beyond recognition, few of her sentences remaining intact; and there were "corrections" not only in the handwritings of the editors, Mrs. Besant and Mr. Mead, but also in that of others which I was able to identify. More than this I cannot say without abusing confidence; but the wrong done to my Teacher compels me to say this much.
Those who were H. P. B."s untiring and unfailing helpers in the preparation of _The Secret Doctrine_ for the press in 1887-88, Dr.
Archibald and Mr. Bertram Keightley, have, fortunately for posterity, put on record their experiences of those days. They have made statements of the utmost value in connection with the facts I am here dealing with, which they wrote specially for Countess Wachtmeister"s _Reminiscences of H. P. Blavatsky and "The Secret Doctrine,"_ published in 1893. Moreover, Dr. Keightley wrote an account of H. P. B."s manifold literary activities at this time, which appeared in the _Theosophist_ for July 1889, in which he states that "_the Third Volume of The Secret Doctrine is in MS. ready to be given to the printers_. [Italics mine.--A. L. C.]
It will consist mainly of a series of sketches of the great Occultists of all ages, and is a most wonderful and fascinating work."
In the face of this clear and definite statement, made by one whose word I know to be unimpeachable, and who lived and worked with H. P. B. at that time, what becomes of H. P. B."s alleged "directions" for the "arrangement of the material of Vol. III" which Mrs. Besant speaks of above, and the statement in the Preface to _her_ version of Vol.
III:--"The task of preparing this volume for the press has been a difficult and anxious one.... The papers given to me by H. P. B. were quite unarranged, and had no obvious order...."? This volume, given by Mrs. Besant to the world in 1897, is most certainly _not_ the one Dr.
Keightley speaks of as "ready" for "the printers" in 1889, as I will prove. WHAT THEN BECAME OF THAT VOLUME?
But first I will quote Dr. Stokes, Editor of the _O. E. Critic_, whose most specific charges and plain statements of fact hardly come under the purposely misleading term "insinuations," used by Mrs. Besant! Dr.
Stokes "_insinuates_" nothing; he heads his most damaging accusation as follows:--
"ANNIE BESANT"S CORRUPTION OF THE SECRET DOCTRINE."
In all probability Annie Besant"s "revision" of H. P.
Blavatsky"s original edition of _The Secret Doctrine_ const.i.tutes the most colossal case of corruption of an original text to be found in history. A group of students is comparing the original edition with the "third and revised edition,"
edited by Annie Besant and G. R. S. Mead, after the author"s death.... I am informed by those making the comparison [that]
... the actual changes will be far more than twenty thousand.
Many of these changes are trivial and one wonders at the impertinence or conceit which inspired them. Some of the changes--those which might have put students on their guard against the so-called Third Volume--can only be construed as deliberate and intentional suppressions and corruptions of the original text. And this in a work of which the Master K. H.
wrote: "Every mistake or erroneous notion corrected and explained by her from the works of other Theosophists was corrected by me or under my instruction." The true t.i.tle of the "third and revised edition" should be "_The Secret Doctrine_, written by H. P. Blavatsky, corrected and approved by the Master K. H., and corrupted by Annie Besant." It is almost impossible to comprehend the colossal conceit, the limitless contempt for common literary decency which could have inspired such an act of vandalism, to say nothing of such disrespect for the Master whom she professes to venerate. And all of this is put forth as the work of H. P. Blavatsky herself, with the mere apology in the preface that "Had H. P. Blavatsky lived to issue the new edition, she would doubtless have corrected and enlarged it to a very considerable extent." What a specious excuse? [Repeated in the preface to the alleged Vol. III.--A.
L. C.] Had H. P. B. "corrected and enlarged it" it would without doubt have been done under the same guidance and authority which directed and corrected the first edition. It is enough to cast suspicion on each and every quotation of original sources made by Mrs. Besant, and her emendation of the Theosophy of H. P. B. as well. (October 12th, 1921.)
As for the third volume, edited and published after the death of H. P. B. from ma.n.u.scripts left by her, n.o.body knows, in the absence of a previous edition issued by her, how much of it is H. P. B."s and how much is not, but there is good evidence that much of it is not, which is the more likely in view of the vandalisms the same editors perpetrated in the first two volumes. In no sense can the "third and revised edition" be said to be a re-print of the original _Secret Doctrine_ of H.
P. Blavatsky. (December 21st, 1921.)
I most fully endorse all that Dr. Stokes so ably demonstrates, and I can quite believe that, in regard to Vol. III, some of the contents are not by H. P. B.-- the style in places is not hers at all. But I can enlighten him as to those portions of the contents of which I have actual knowledge. I may here add that, when my own group of students were checking the "third and revised edition" of the first and second volumes of _The Secret Doctrine_ by the original edition of 1888, they came across no less than four specific references by H. P. B. to Vols.
III and IV as being practically completed, _viz._, Vol. I, Preface, and p. 11; Vol. II, pp. 437, 798, 1st Ed., 1888. Mrs. Besant coolly deleted all these without a word of explanation!
How unnecessary nearly all of this so-called "revision" was, can be realised in the Keightleys" accounts (see Countess Wachtmeister"s book) of the care taken over the proofs of the first edition. Mr. Bertram Keightley says they first "read the whole ma.s.s of MSS.--a pile over three feet high--most carefully through, correcting the English and punctuation where absolutely indispensable." (Contrast this modesty and respect for the author with the spirit that perpetrated the thirty thousand corrections in the "third edition"!) It was then arranged under H. P. B."s supervision in Sections, etc., and professionally typewritten. This first copy was again revised and any obscurities explained. It should be noted here that Mr. Keightley says they laid before H. P. B. "a plan, suggested by the character of the matter itself, _viz._, to make the work consist of four volumes ... to follow the natural order of exposition and begin with the Evolution of Cosmos, to pa.s.s from that to the Evolution of Man, then to deal with the historical part in a third volume treating of the lives of some great Occultists, and of "Practical Occultism" in a fourth." This proves that at least the whole of the material for Vol. III was actually there (Dr.
Keightley elsewhere states that it was _ready for the printer_.) Finally the Keightleys themselves set to work to type out a fair copy of Vols. I and II for the printer. "H. P. B. read and corrected two sets of galley proofs, then a page proof, and finally a revise in sheet, correcting, adding, and altering up to the very last moment."
Dr. A. Keightley says:--" ... no work and no trouble, no suffering or pain could daunt her from her task. Crippled with rheumatism, suffering from a disease which had several times nearly proved fatal, she still worked on unflaggingly, writing at her desk the moment her eyes and fingers could guide the pen.... We had to carry on the general scheme ... to act as watch-dogs and help her to make the meaning as clear as possible. But all the work was hers ... it went through three or four other hands besides H. P. B."s in galley proof, as well as in revise.
She was her own most severe corrector...."
Another able helper was Mr. E. Douglas Fawcett, the well-known author of _The Riddle of the Universe_, of whom both the Keightleys speak in terms of high praise. His profound knowledge of science, philosophy, and metaphysics was invaluable. "He supplied many of the quotations from scientific works, as well as many confirmations of the occult doctrines derived from similar sources."
And this monumental work, produced with such meticulous care and precautions against errors, is subjected to some thirty thousand corrections by its subsequent "editors"! In all my study of the original edition I have never found more than a few errors that matter in the least, and these are mostly typographical and quite obvious to any person of average intelligence. The marvel is that there are so few in a work of such magnitude and scope. Those of my students who possess only the "third and revised edition" (the first and second now being scarce), have re-corrected it to agree with the first; and to look at the pages covered with these re-corrections brings home to one, as nothing else can, the force and justice of Dr. Stokes"s indictment. Let us hope that when H. P. B."s great work is understood and accepted seriously at its true worth, an indignant posterity will pa.s.s judgment on one of the worst examples of literary vandalism in the nineteenth century.
In her Preface to Vol. III, Mrs. Besant boldly states that, in regard to the Sections ent.i.tled "The Mystery of Buddha," there are "very numerous errors of fact, and many statements based on exoteric writings, not on esoteric knowledge"! If her own statement with which I have dealt, regarding the Pratyeka Buddha is to be taken as the measure of her capacity to judge of the merit or demerit of H. P. B."s work, all that Mrs. Besant says, or skilfully suggests, in this Preface can be dismissed as absolutely worthless. But in view of the fact that she then believed herself to be acting under the direction of "a Master in the flesh" (see Mr. Martyn"s letter, _ante_ pp. 18-19 and footnote p. 56), who happened to be _an orthodox Brahmin_, these unfounded p.r.o.nouncements which I quote with regard to the Sections on the Lord Buddha are perhaps not so surprising. I use the word "unfounded" advisedly, for she makes two separate statements as to the way in which she obtained the material for this so-called Vol. III. She opens the Preface with the first one:--"The task of preparing this volume for the press has been a difficult and anxious one, and it is necessary to state clearly what has been done." This is one of her usual formulas, after which she proceeds to do the exact opposite. She thus continues, in fact:--"The papers given to me by H. P. B...." But Mrs. Besant was not in England when H.
P. B. died, _quite unexpectedly_, and with only three of her pupils present, namely, Mr. Claude Wright, Mr. Walter Old and Miss Laura Cooper (now Mrs. G. R. S. Mead.) We were all summoned by telegram, and I was at Avenue Road within a few hours. I never heard of any evidence that she gave Mrs. Besant papers, or directions about papers, before the latter left for America on a lecture tour; and most certainly H. P. B. never formally "appointed" her, or anyone else, as her "successor," for the very good reason that I have given elsewhere--that the movement had definitely failed, and she was "recalled." (see _ante_ p. 2.)
To return to Mrs. Besant"s Preface. Her second statement is that the papers for the Sections on "The Mystery of the Buddha" were "given into my hands to publish, as part of the Third Volume of _The Secret Doctrine_...." _By whom_ were they "given"? Certainly not by H. P. B.; and why does Mrs. Besant speak of these Sections on the Buddha as if they were something apart from the "papers" she alleges she received _from H. P. B._? Clearly any further a.n.a.lysis is useless, for in all probability the truth about what really happened to all H. P. B."s MSS.
after her death _will never be known_, since the few who do know will, naturally, never speak.
Brushing aside, therefore, Mrs. Besant"s "explanatory" Preface, Volume III, as given to the public in 1897, appears to be simply a collection of fugitive articles which, as I have shown, were obviously freely edited. To pad out the volume (the MSS. spoken of by H. P. B. in Vols. I and II, as already existing, having mysteriously vanished) Mrs. Besant prints both the _E. S. T._ and the _Inner Group Instructions_, despite the pledge of secrecy taken by her and all other recipients of these teachings. In justification of this she states--_six years after H. P.
B."s death_--that H. P. B. instructed her to do so! The worthlessness of such "instructions" is palpable in the light of her nave belief in the alleged reincarnation of her Teacher in Mr. ----"s little daughter.
(Needless to add that, under Leadbeater, she has another version of this idea!) We have the usual misleading and disingenuous statement in a "Note" which is prefixed to these Instructions. Mrs. Besant says:--"Papers I, II and III ... were written by H. P. B. and were circulated privately during her lifetime"
_These "Papers" are the E. S. Instructions._ She calls those given to the Inner Group "Notes of some Oral Teaching." But, with two exceptions, almost _every word of both E. S. and I. G. Instructions are given intact_, just as we received them; I possess them all. The two exceptions are, first, the practical teachings, given at the first meeting of the _I. G._, for Yoga development, which even Mrs. Besant had not the hardihood to publish; and, second, a very long "Preliminary Memorandum" to Instructions III.
FOOTNOTES:
[19] See also _An Introduction to Mahayana Buddhism_, by W. M. McGovern, 1922. Kegan Paul. He confirms H. P. B."s definition.
[20] It was ... during the highest point of civilisation and knowledge, as also of human intellectuality, of ... the Atlantean Race that ...
humanity branched off into its two diametrically opposite paths; the Right and the Left-hand paths of knowledge or of Vidya. "_Thus were the germs of the White and the Black Magic sown in those days. The seeds lay latent for some time, to sprout only during the early period of the Fifth (our Race)._" (_Commentary_).--_The Secret Doctrine._ First Edition, Vol. I, p. 192.
The Truth about the E. S. Council, and the Inner Group.
The E. S. Instructions were written by H. P. B. during the winter of 1888-89. The I. G. Teachings were given orally by H. P. B. at its meetings in 1890-91. It was the duty of the two secretaries, Mrs. Besant and Mr. Mead, to write these Teachings up, from notes sent in by _all of us_, after each meeting, and record them in a book. This record was dealt with at each succeeding meeting, corrected and often amplified by H. P. B. All these _might_, therefore, have been included in Vol. IV of _The Secret Doctrine_, according to the general plan of the work adopted by H. P. B., if she had lived and had permitted it. Mrs. Besant"s statement that they were written with that in view is incorrect, and was obviously made to justify her action in using them for her version of Vol. III.
In the _Theosophist_ for March, 1922, Mrs. Besant published an article in which several false statements are made concerning the history of the E. S. The writer, a Mr. Fritz Kunz, quotes Colonel Olcott"s _Old Diary Leaves_ as authority for saying that "the first move towards founding the E. S. was made in 1881," that it was "organised steadily through the trials of 1884-85," and merely "announced" in 1888. The actual facts (see _Theosophist_, April, 1880) are, that when H. P. B. established the real THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OR UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD at Benares in 1879 (the T. S. founded at New York in 1875 was only a "Miracle Club," as Colonel Olcott says, with no "brotherhood plank"), it was on a purely esoteric basis. It was under the direct guidance of the Trans-Himalayan Brotherhood, Who formed the First Section; the second and third being for "accepted" and "probationary" _chelas_ respectively. When I joined the T. S. in 1885, these rules were still in force in the London Lodge.
But Colonel Olcott insisted on an exoteric organisation with "the occultism more in the background"; and the crisis of 1884-85, which drove H. P. B. from India (see her letter of 1890, _ante_ p. 2), was the natural result of this policy. Far from the E. S. being "organised steadily" at that time, as Mr. Kunz a.s.serts, H. P. B. makes it clear in her letter that the Master"s influence was "virtually banished" from Adyar through lack of faith in Them, and failure to support her, and that she had been ordered to "establish the Esoteric Section," at London, which she did in 1888, because the necessary faith in the Masters still existed there and in America.
Mr. Kunz then makes the astonishing a.s.sertion that the E. S. was "transferred to Mrs. Annie Besant in due course by H. P. B. in 1891." As I was a member of H. P. B."s Inner Council which was responsible for what was done after her death, I am in a position to state the true facts as known to me, and as they appear in the E. S. doc.u.ments in my possession. These _facts_ are:--When H. P. B. died--suddenly and unexpectedly, on May 8th, 1891[21]., Mr. Judge at once came over from New York, and after much consultation and informal meetings of the E. S.
Council (composed of the I. G. members) and two others, Mr. Wm.
Kingsland and Dr. W. Wynn Westcott), a formal and "full meeting of the Council" was held at Headquarters on May 27th, 1891, when "Bro. Wm. Q.
Judge attended _as the representative of H. P. B._ under a general power given as below." (Italics mine.--A. L. C.)
"As Head of the Esoteric Section of the Theosophical Society, I hereby declare that William Q. Judge, of New York, U.S., in virtue of his character as a _chela_ of thirteen years" standing, and of the trust and confidence reposed in him, is my only representative for said Section in America, and he is the sole channel through whom will be sent and received all communications between the members of said Section and myself, and to him full faith, confidence and credit in that regard are to be given, ? Done at London this fourteenth day of December, 1888, and in the fourteenth year of the Theosophical Society.
[Seal] H. P. Blavatsky,
" ... The Council pa.s.sed the following minute....
That it was resolved and recorded that the highest officials in the School for the present are Annie Besant and William Q. Judge, in accordance with the above-quoted order to William Q. Judge of December, 1888, and with the order of April 1st, 1891, to Annie Besant, as well as with the written declaration of H. P. B. in a letter to William Q. Judge dated March 27th, 1891, which we now here have read, in which she wrote that Annie Besant should be so considered. The order of April 1st, 1891, is as follows:--
I hereby appoint, in the name of the Master, Annie Besant Chief Secretary of the Inner Group of the Esoteric Section and Recorder of the Teachings.[22]
H. P. B., ?
Finally, we--the Council--declared over our signatures that "from henceforth with Annie Besant and William Q. Judge rest the full charge and management of the School."
Thus did _the Council_ establish the "Dual Headship," and until her meeting with Mr. ----, two years later, and her subsequent visit to India, Mrs. Besant continued to work harmoniously with Mr. Judge in the management of the School.