H. P. Blavatsky; A Great Betrayal

by Alice Leighton Cleather

In all probability Annie Besant's "revision" of H. P. Blavatsky's original edition of The Secret Doctrine constitutes 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 title 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 manuscripts left by her, nobody 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 mass 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 pass 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 pass 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 entitled "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 pronouncements 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 analysis 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 naïve 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.