Theos-Talk Archives (July 2002 Message tt00278)

Dallas, you write:

"H.P.Blavatsky sent the original draft to Subba Row in Madras
to review. He found that too many of the Brahmanical
esoteric secrets were to be revealed. He could not stand
that, and that is what set him against H.P.Blavatsky see
The THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT (1875-1925) pp. 51, 137, 150, 235,
570. That draft has been retained in the Adyar library. H
P B then rewrote those pages and we have that version in the
"original 1888 Edition" of the S D."

Dallas, there are a number of confusions and misstatements in what 
you write above. And I see that your key idea in what you write 
above apparently originates from what is given on page 570 of THE 
THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT, 1925 edition.

It would also appear that this material on p. 570 can be found 
online. I now quote the main portion of this material as found on 
the WWW:

------------------------------------
The utter disappearance without a trace left behind, of the genuine 
Third and Fourth Volumes of the Secret Doctrine remains to this day 
an unrevealed mystery. And as to Mrs. Besant's spurious "Third 
Volume," her own Preface alone is ample to convince any careful 
student, able to sift statements, that it is nothing more than a 
hodge-podge of rejected manuscripts, "literary remains," private 
papers originally issued to the E.S.T. during the life-time of 
H.P.B., and largely rejected manuscript of the first volume of the 
Original Edition. For it is, or should be, well known to every 
Theosophical student that, as repeatedly announced in the earlier 
volumes of "The Theosophist," H.P.B.'s original intention was that 
the "Secret Doctrine" should be a revised edition of "Isis Unveiled," 
and in pursuance of that intention she wrote one entire volume, prior 
to 1886, when returning confidence and trust in her by the mass of 
members of the T.S. enabled her to enlarge her plan and write an 
entirely new work. A copy of that early first volume was sent by 
H.P.B. to Subba Row for criticism and comment. Followed his breach 
with H.P.B.(6) as already narrated. He refused to do anything with 
it, but kept the manuscript. It is matter from that rejected 
manuscript which is incorporated in Mrs. Besant's "Third Volume." 
And, -- notable phenomenon -- the fact is admitted by Mrs. Besant 
herself in "The Theosophist" for March, 1922 -- twenty-five years 
after the event. Why did she concoct this spurious "Third Volume" in 
the first instance? And why did she in 1922 let slip the truth which 
in 1897 she not only suppressed, but replaced by a deliberate untruth?
-----------------------

[Extracted from:
http://www.wisdomworld.org/additional/TheTheosophicalMovement-
Series/Chapter-31.html ]

To view this extract online the reader will have to carefully paste 
all of the link into the address field of one's browser.

SOME OF MY COMMENTS:

A number of general assertions are made in the quoted text on the WWW 
but the reader is NOT given access (or even citations) to the primary 
sources from which these generalized statements are made.

And I call attention to the following statement in the above-quoted 
text:

--------------------------
And as to Mrs. Besant's spurious "Third Volume," her own Preface 
alone is ample to convince any careful student, able to sift 
statements, that it is nothing more than a hodge-podge of rejected 
manuscripts, "literary remains," private papers originally issued to 
the E.S.T. during the life-time of H.P.B., and largely rejected 
manuscript of the first volume of the Original Edition.
-------------------------------------

Please pay special attention to the wording that reads:

". . . largely REJECTED manuscript of the first volume of the 
Original Edition. . . ."

Rejected by whom? By HPB???

What are the anonymous writers trying to convey to us?

That HPB wrote "one entire volume, prior to 1886" that was 
later "rejected" [by whom?] and completely set aside and that 
subsequently HPB wrote a SD manuscript completely new???

Dallas, can you specify in some understandable detail what the 
contentions of the anonymous authors are in the above quoted extracts 
from page 570 of THE THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT (1925 ed.)?

If not, can you expand on the statement you made that is quoted at 
the very beginning of this posting?

I am seriously trying to understand what is being stated in both your 
quote and from the quote from page 570 of the TM book. 

Daniel H. Caldwell
BLAVATSKY ARCHIVES
http://blavatskyarchives.com/introduction.htm