Dear Daniel
Please forgive me for taking so long to reply to your e-letter dated Sunday 3 October, 2004; but as I told you before I wanted to have Fohat in my hands before doing it. I only got it last October 29.
Your first point is that I want to censor these letters. Well, I think that a definition of the word could help us.
The Webster Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary defines the word censor as follows:
"(noun) An official who examines books, plays, news, reports, motion pictures, radio programs etc. for the purpose of suppressing parts deemed objectionable on moral, political, military or other grounds." "( verb) To delete (a word or passage of a text) in one’s capacity as a censor"
The Larouse Illustrated International Encyclopedia, defines it as : "(noun) A person empowered to suppress publications or excise any matter in them thought to be inmoral, seditious or otherwise undesirable." "(verb) To examine ( letters, literature, etc.) in the capacity of a censor. To delete ( offensive material) from these, or ban ( a work)."
If you read carefully what I wrote, I never said to delete or ban those letters but "that these letters should be taken out of the collection", because they belong to the category clearly defined by Jerome Wheeler of : "1. Known fraudulent letters, 2. Suspected fraudulent letters". (see Fohat, Fall, 2004. Supplement, p. viii)
I agree with you that these fraudulent and suspect letters should be published (in fact, almost all of them are already published), but they should be published apart, either as a separate volume of Apocrypha, or as an Appendix in each volume with an introduction, a thorough assessment of the letters as a whole, and an analysis of each letter by itself, giving a good historical background, comparing the nonsense attributed to HPB with the letters and writings we know to be authentic. In the Supplement of Fohat refered to above, you have a good example of the kind of research that can be done for each letter.
If you want to have a good example of censorship, as the Dictionary defines it, just see the "Facsimile No.16 A photographic reproduction of the continuation of Mahatma KH’s precipitated letter which Annie Besant received in 1900", opposite p. 359 in Geoffrey Barborka’s The Mahatmas and Their Letters, published by the Theosophical Publishing House Adyar, Madras , India, 1973. When Barborka´s book was published in 1973, his Facsimile No. 16 was censored; but the ban dated from 1919 when Mr. C. Jinarajadasa published the letter in question in his Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, First Series (pp.99-100, ed. 1973). But this particular letter was only one of several other letters which were excised in that book, and also in the Second Series.
If you recall, I think it was last year when we talked about these letters and I asked you if you could publish the full text of the Serapis letters on your web site.
Now, coming back to HPB Letters, I.
As far as I can see after reading and examining this book – where a high percentage of the letters do not have any handwritten MS of the author extant – the compelling force guiding their compilation and publication seems to be a desire to find as many letters as possible, or rather pieces of paper in which there are transcriptions of letters allegedly written by HPB, regardless of the existence of any positive proof that she wrote them or not.
You say, or rather your words imply, that this is not a concern of the Editor; that task, of judging the letters authenticity, you leave to the reader. "A reader can then decide whether he/she believes a certain letter is a forgery or not". In Platonic terms you are moving yourself into the realm of opinion, but what we need here is a discursive approach, to arrive at a scientific knowledge (epistēmē), which could allow the readers to exercise their intuitive knowledge or "nous" when confronted with the letters. The Editor has to prepare the ground giving a scientific basis for it.
I don’t see any guidelines or method followed in this book, other than the chronological one; but that is not enough in this delicate matter. A scientific approach has to be adopted, taking into consideration the use of both material and noetic evidence to analyse and classify the letters. We should go beyond the dead-letter content of some of these notes for we are students of Theosophy.
The search for TRUTH is the main concern in the life of any student of Theosophy, and in the final analysis, truth and Nirvana are the same. And Truth should be the main concern of a collector or compiler of letters of any celebrity – HPB holding a preeminent place in this category. But to be truthful to the author we also have to give truth to the readers; it seems to me that both ideas are the same.
I think that none of those who have raised their voices against the manner in which these letters were handled and published want to hide any real trait of HPB’s personality, and least of all want to idolize her. As students of Theosophy we are "nastikas", we reject every idol, " including every anthropomorphic god" (SD,I,279), or goddess. Allow us to discover by ourselves the meaning of this complex personality known as Madame Blavatsky, give us the means to do it with the available genuine material at our disposal, but don’t try to write another and new biography of Blavatsky, reflecting your own views. This is not the task of a Compiler/Editor of letters. Just put before the eyes of the readers genuine documents. Then and only then, the readers will make up their own minds, and create their own personal image of HPB. But mixing up the authentic letters with the suspect or downright fraudulent letters, putting them before the eyes of the common readers, who are not historians or graphological experts – and even if they were, you don`t provide them with any specimen of the letters to verify the truth – is to me, just an emotional argument.
Where are the means that you are giving to the reader to be able to decide if "he/she believes a certain letter is a forgery or not" ? Only the bare words?
"Do not do unto others what you
would not wish others to do unto you"
Confucius (CW,XI,282)
The first approach that I would like to propose, in order to try to arrive at the truth in this matter, is to classify the sources of the material at our disposal, thus:
1. Letters extant in original hand written MSS.
2. Letters not extant. The original handwritten MSS preserved in microfilms, photostates or photocopies
3. Letters not extant, but their contents published in magazines, books, newspapers, etc., during HPB’s lifetime.
3.1 Letters which during HPB’s lifetime she acknowledged to have written herself.
3.2 Letters which during her lifetime HPB considered to be forgeries.
4. Letters not extant, but their contents published after Blavatsky’s death in magazines, books, newspapers, ets.
4.1 Letters published by pupils or friends in Theosophical magazines.
4.2 Letters published in neutral media.
4.3 Letters published by enemies of HPB or having a hostile source.
1. LETTERS EXTANT IN ORIGINAL HANDWRITTEN MSS.
As we are concerned with letters, material objects (in our times) made of paper to convey mental messages, the only way we have to determine the authorship of a letter is to have a piece of paper handwritten or signed by the person. As HPB didn’t used a typewriter, that possibility is not considered.
Thus to say that a letter was written by HPB, it has to exhibit at first sight the characteristics and peculiarities of her handwriting. In case of doubt, a graphological examination of the letter by several experts should be carried out to determine its authorship. As far as I know, this is the only legal procedure in our physical world to prove the authenticity and the authorship of a letter in a Court of Law.
Now, to have a piece of paper which at first view seems to have been written by HPB is one thing, but to have a scientific proof that it was written by her is another. (That would be the case of the Dondoukoff-Korsakoff collection which is suspected by an expert.)
It is time we compare, analyse, study and put together the different collections of letters said to have been written by HPB, and which are extant and preserved in different archives around the world. This should be part of this project. It is upon this groundwork that the publication of the letters should have been based, something which is completely lacking in this first volume.
SOME ELEMENTS TO EVALUATE THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE LETTERS
(Preliminary Suggestions)
(a) Source of the letter. If it belongs to a collection:source of the collection. Assessment of circunstances surrounding its discovery.
(b) Addressee. Historical background of the addressee, type of connection with HPB.
(c) Characteristics of the paper and ink.
(d) Graphological study in which we are to expect variations of style in time, etc.
(e) Statistical study. Analysis of frequency of words, technical terms, traits of writing and expressions.
(f) Grammar, syntax, etc. Degree of mastery of the language, style, etc, expressed in the letter, compared with recognized genuine letters or writings.
(g) Historical and geographical context, chronology. Congruity with proven facts.
(h) Background of the magazine, book, etc. in which was published.
(i) Background of the author that published the letter.
(j) Elements of thought: ideas, teachings, concepts which the text conveys, and its congruity with the same, expressed by her in her known writings.
A study like this could give us quite a different view of the matter, more free from emotions, I hope.
This approach has to be applied to the 4 categories in which I have classified the letters. Points (c) and (d) being only pertinent for: 1. Letters extant in MSS. Point (d) for microfilms.
2. LETTERS NOT EXTANT. THE ORIGINAL HANDWRITTEN MSS PRESERVED IN MICROFILMS, PHOTOSTATS, OR PHOTOCOPIES.
In this case the medium in which the image of the letter is preserved needs a proper examination to detect possible tampering.
3. LETTERS NOT EXTANT, BUT THE CONTENTS PUBLISHED IN MAGAZINES, BOOKS, NEWSPAPERS, ETC. DURING HPB’S LIFETIME.
3.1 Letters which during HPB’s lifetime she acknowledged to have written herself.
- She accepted the letters as hers, or she never said anything denying their authorship.
- In this latter event we can assume the authenticity of the letter.
3.2 Letters which during her lifetime HPB considered to be forgeries.
- She didn’t accept the letters as hers, and she denied their authorship.
- In this category are the letters forged by the Coulombs, whom she wanted to sue, but was prevented from it by Col. Olcott and the General Council at Adyar.
"It is now morally certain that the originals of the incriminating Blavatsky-Coulomb letters have been destroyed.... 'The last known recipient of the HPB-Coulomb letters was Professor Elliott Coues...who turned against HPB and gave a ferociously slanderous 7 column interview on her in the New York Sun in 1890. HPB sued for libel...During this period Coues...bought the Coulomb letters...to obtain evidence for his defence of HPB’s suit, to prove her a fraud...if these letters were genuine. However, complete silence -- he never mentioned he had them. He either destroyed them during his life, or left instructions for his heir to destroy them'". (Anita Atkins, in Vernon Harrison, p7. See more proofs in Cranston’s The Extraordinary Life...etc.)
- Professor Elliott Coues, a Smithsonian scientist, and at the same time one of the most ferocious enemies of HPB, having the letters in his hands, and needing weapons to defend himself, didn’t used them. He gave us the best proof that the letters were palpable frauds.
4. LETTERS NOT EXTANT, BUT THEIR CONTENTS PUBLISHED AFTER BLAVATSKY’S DEATH, IN MAGAZINES, BOOKS, NEWSPAPERS, ETC.
4.1 Letters published by pupils and friends of HPB in Theosophical magazines.
- One can assume that if the letter was published in a well known Theosophical magazine like the Path, which was highly prized by HPB, the letter should be genuine, and in a certain degree the same can be said if it was published in another Theosophical magazine, consonant with her teachings.
But being a posthumous publication it should be subjected to the same kind of analysis proposed above.
4.2 Letters published in neutral media.
- Same as last paragraph above.
4.3 Letters published by enemies of HPB, or having a hostile source.
- To this category belongs the Solovyov collection, and the so called Letter #7 in the Archives of the October Revolution, for which: (a) we don’t have a handwritten MS; (b) we don’t have a typewritten piece of paper,(c) access to the document is not available, (d) the inner contents go against the philosophy of the alleged author, (e)the historical background makes no sense.
Having done this analysis, the letters should be classified as:
I. Genuine letters.
1. Original MSS extant
2. In microfilms, etc.
3. Printed in magazines accepted by HPB as genuine.
4. Posthumously printed, and authenticated.
-------------------
II. Suspected fraudulent letters.
III. Fraudulent letters.
1. Original MSS extant
2. In microfilms, etc.
3. Printed in magazines. Considered as forgeries by HPB.
4. Posthumously printed by hostile enemies of HPB. Authenticated forgeries.
Category I. Genuine Letters, should be collected and printed together. Categories II & III of Suspected and Fraudulent Letters, should be printed at the back of the volumes, or much better in a separate volume(s).
In either case, immediately underneath the number of the letter, the source of the letter should be clearly indicated, and to which category it belongs, as proposed above. The reader should know this before reading the letter, and not as it is now at the end in a very succint and small print.
SUMMING UP
"A man is innocent until proven guilty".
In the case of the so called letter #7, all that you have is a piece of paper said to be written by HPB, in the archives of the KGB.
Where is the proof?
As you want to publish the Coulomb Letters, together with the genuine letters of HPB, does this mean that you think they are genuine?
And if you do; as HPB herself said she didn’t write them, and that she was innocent, you will have to prove that she wrote them.
Do you have the proof?
You say "Readers should have easy accesss to these letters. A reader can then decide whether he/she believes a certain letter is a forgery or not."
Yes by all means give access to the forged letters, it is up to you. The reader’s final decision is personal, yes. But to mix the forged letters with the genuine ones is not truthful, neither to the author nor to the reader. You should not forget that most of the readers know nothing about the history of the Theosophical Movement, and the mere fact of having numbered and mixed together the genuine with the forged letters, is a perversion of truth, which will be very difficult to detect by the average reader, trusting as she/he does in the "imprimatur" of the Theosophical Publishing House, Wheaton, Adyar.
My experience shows me that many good and sincere theosophists or sympathizers think that the only original Society, is the Adyar Society, this being part of the prevalent mythology among us. Very few people know that the Adyar Society is only one among several other Societies and Lodges that emanated from the Parent Theosophical Society formed at N.Y. on September 7, 1875 and formally established the next day. (See Echoes of the Orient, II, 199)
"Thus we see, that truth perverted, is more
pernicious than downright falsehood".
S.A. Mackey,p.13.
ADDENDA
"To unlock the gates of the mystery you most not only lead a life of the strrictest probity, but learn to discriminate truth from falsehood."
K.H., LMW, II, 7
Now that the lid of Pandora’s Box has been opened by the publication of HPB Letters, vol. I, allow me to make a brief review of some editorial facts, mainly concerning the Adyar Society:
(1) 1892 THE THEOSOPHICAL GLOSSARY, edited by George Mead. According to its Preface this work was "almost entirely posthumous". It has many mistakes, especially the spelling and definition of Sanskrit terms.(See the article by Boris de Zirkoff, "Who Played that trick on HPB?”, in The Dream that Never Dies, Point Loma Pub., pp.82-85).
(2) 1893 THE SECRET DOCTRINE, 3rd. revised edition. Edited by Annie Besant and George Mead. (See Preface 3rd. ed.)
This so called "revised edition" has thousands of alterations, deletions and errors introduced into the text by the editors. (According to the ULT, about 40,000).
Most of the translations of the SD into other languages were made from this edition.
This experience shows that the readers, and in this case, traslators, were not able to distinguish truth from error, being as they were, mixed up together.
(3) 1897 THE SECRET DOCTRINE, 3RD. VOLUME.
Let us forget for a moment whether this text does or does not belong to the genuine 3rd. vol. of the SD.
I know that you think it does, at least in part, I think it doesn’t.
The main point on which I want to concentrate attention is in the Preface, in which Annie Besant, a pupil of HPB of only 2 years standing (May 1889-May 1891) referring to the writings of her former Teacher says that, "They contain very numurous errors of fact, and many statements based on exoteric writings not on esoteric knowledge" (p.xix). "The reader must here...use his own judgement...but I cannot let them go to the public without a warning that much in them is certainly erroneous" (p.xx)
So much for a pupil of HPB.
In the same Preface she says that "With the exception of the correction of grammatical errors and the elimination of obviously un-English idioms, the papers are as HPB left them..." (ibid. p. xix).
That is what she said, but with the publication in your blavatskyarchives of a facsimile of the E.S. Instruction I, we know that her assertion is not true.
(4) 1892-97 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY, edited by George Mead. Parts of the text deleted.
(5) 1892-97 THE VOICE OF THE SILENCE, edited by Annie Besant. Parts of the text concerning the Pratyeka Buddhas deleted.
N.B. I don’t have the precise date of publication of these editions.
(6) 1919 LETTERS FROM THE MASTERS OF THE WISDOM, First Series, ed. C. Jinarajadasa. Several letters censored, or printed incomplete.
(7) 1925 LETTERS FROM THE MASTERS OF THE WISDOM, Second Series, ed. C Jinarajadasa. Serapis Letters, censored.
(8) 1931 ESOTERIC WRITINGS OF T. SUBBA ROW, 2nd. revised and enlarged ed., by C. Jinarajadasa.
In 1895 Tukaram Tatya published all the known writings of T. Subba Row under the title: Collection of Esoteric Writings of T.Subba Row.
In his edition of the same work, Mr Jinarajadasa added to it a section by the title: “Esoteric Teachings (Unpublished)". These "teachings", according to Mr Jinarajadasa "were given to three Europeans and one Hindu after playing tennis at the Cosmopolitan Club": (p.525). In the same page, Mr Jinarajadasa says that "the first draft of the SD was sent to him by her [HPB]for correction and revision", but he fails to add that Subba Row refused to do the revision and was against the publication of the SD. He was an orthodox Brahmin, and was against giving the esoteric teachings to the Mlechchhas: us, the Westerners. In addition, because of the publication of the SD, he resigned from the T.S.
In this connection HPB says in a letter:
"Such as Subba Row--uncompromising initiated Brahmins, will never reveal--even that which thay are permited to. They hate to much Europeans for it...You have been guilty [he said to HPB] of the most terrible of crimes. You have given out secrets of Occultism...Rather that you should be sacrificed than that which was never meant for European minds. People had too much faith in you. It was time to throw doubt into their minds...And he is now acting on that principle" (Letters of HPB to APS, pp.95-96)
Having in mind the above quotation, and after studying the so called "Esoteric Teachings", in my view they are the most exoteric teachings that Subba Row ever gave out. In this Section lurk some seeds of pseudotheosophy, developed later on by one of the European listeners.
It is most unfortunate that our friend and scholar Henk Spiernburg did not reproduce in his valuable T.Subba Row Collected Writings, the important Preface of the original compiler, Tukaram Tatya, in which at the end he says:
"Besides these articles, we are in possession of several notes of miscellaneous character, regarding the private instructions given by Mr. T. Subba Row to the 'chosen few' which had the good fortune to be in close contact with him. But we are sorry to say that...were given by him under the pledge of secrecy"(Esoteric Writigs, pp.vii-viii). This piece of information given by one of his disciples, provides another perspective to the so called "Esoteric Teachings" and emphasizes their exoteric character, despite their title.
(9) 1962 THE MAHATMA LETTERS TO A. P . SINNETT, 3rd. ed.
- Alteration of the original pagination.
- In the Index. Suppression of the reference to the Prayag Letter (which in this ed. is in p. 454).
(10) 1980 HPB COLLECTED WRITINGS, VOL. XII: E.S.ISTRUCTIONS, pp.513-713.
In the Foreword to vol.XII we read:
"...In addition to that, the student will find in its pages the complete, unaltered and unedited text of HPB’s Esoteric Instructions.
The continued interest and helpful assistance of our collaborators...Dara Eklund, Nicholas Curtis Weeks, Shelley von Struckel and Peter S. Ryan...Our grateful recognition is extended to Grace F. Knoche and Kirby van Mater for special help and serious interest they exhibited in connection with the text of the Esoteric Instructions.
May, 23, 1980 Boris de Zirkoff,Compiler. (CW, XII, xxi)
Dear Daniel, you were the first one in more than 20 years to point out, that despite the assurances in the Foreword quoted above, the text printewd in CW,XII is not the original one published by HPB herself in her Aryan Press in London.
Since the publication of a facsimile of the original Instruction I, in your blavatskyarchives, anyone can see the fact that the text published in CW, XII, is a patchwork of corrupted texts, built upon the altered and incomplete text published by Annie Besant in 1897 as part of her 3rd. vol. of the SD. The 1980 edition of the Instructions in CW, XII, perpetuated the alterations made in 1897, and reintegrated only some but not all the paragraphs missing since 1897. In its turn new alterations were made in the wording of several sentences. To make things even more entangled, some explanations taken from the writings of G. de Purucker were added – which are very valuable in their own context, but properly speaking, they don’t belong to the Collected Writings of HPB.
Publishing the facsimile of Instruction I , you took the first step towards the truth in this matter. I hope that you complete the task, publishing the full text of the other Instructions. I am only one of many students throughout the world, that will be very grateful to you, if you do that.
The next thing on the agenda will be to press for the truth about Volume XII, and invite the persons involved to speak up.
Volume XII of HPB Collected Writings has been invalidated in its present form and in the future, it will have to be recast with the original Instructions.
In addition, the very valuable Commentaries to the ES Instructions by William Q. Judge, "Suggestions and Aids, Answers to Correspondence, etc." published in Echoes of the Orient, vol. III, will have to be revised in connection with quotations and references to the ES Instructions.
(11) 1993 THE MAHATMA LETTERS TO A.P. SINNETT IN CHRONOLOGICAL SEQUENCE, TPH, Manila, Philippines.
- It is a very valuable publication, except for the Introductory Note by Virginia Hanson, in which she makes Mahatma KH "a monk of the Gelugpa or 'Yellow Hat'" (p.xviii).
- As in the 3rd. ed. and in this 4th. ed.; in the Index there is no mention of the Prayag Letter.
As you know, there is a long history behind the Prayag Letter and the "Prayag Psychic Theosophical Society of Allahabad", and the Adyar Society has very good reasons for not mentioning it. But all that goes beyond the size of a letter.
Suffice to say that it is closely related to the spurious "Mahatma Letters" kept in the Archives of the ES/TS Adyar in several parts of the world; especially in Adyar, Crotona, Wheaton, Sydney and London. These "letters", or rather pamphlets and leaflets, fill several dozens of feet of bookshelves and they could keep very good company with the Coulomb forgeries.
They were mainly issued during the Besant administration and would not bear any comparison with the Mahatma Letters deposited in the British Library, neither in the way they were written nor in their level of mentality and least of all in their content.
This is part of the "make believe" that Geoffrey Farthing was refering to in his "Manifesto".
The day the TS Adyar comes to terms with its own history, the whole Movement will benefit from its courageous and bold action, in the name of TRUTH.
"O Truth! one sweep of thy BESOM
purifies the corruption of ages!
S.A. Mackey, 24.
Well Daniel, I think this letter became a bit too long.
My best wishes to you.
Your friend as ever
Ramon
RETURN TO COMMENTS ON LETTERS OF HPB, VOL. I