Theos-Talk Archives (March 2004 Message tt00713)

Mar 30 2004

ISIS UNVEILED and its writing


Dear Friends:


Some of us are re-reading ISIS UNVEILED , and perhaps some maybe doing
it for the first time.

It was issued as 2 volumes: SCIENCE and THEOLOGY in 1877 as an
introduction to THEOSOPHY .  

THEOSOPHY is the wisdom of the ages as a continued science and the
source of all ancient and modern religions.

It also serves as a link between modern esotericism which is Science and
ancient Wisdom, better known as archaic occultism. 

However in writing the book ISIS UNVEILED, certain errors occurred and
here are outlined and corrected by the author: HPB

I hope this may prove to be of help.

Best wishes

Dallas

-------------------------------------------------

MY BOOKS

Article by H. P. Blavatsky


SOME time ago, a Theosophist, Mr. R_____, was travelling by rail with an
American gentleman, who told him how surprised he had been by his visit
to our London Headquarters. He said that he had asked Mdme. Blavatsky
what were the best Theosophical works for him to read, and had declared
his intention of procuring Isis Unveiled, when to his astonishment she
replied, "Don't read it, it is all trash." 


Now I did not say "trash" so far as I remember; but what I did say in
substance was: "Leave it alone; Isis will not satisfy you. Of all the
books I have put my name to, this particular one is, in literary
arrangement, the worst and most confused." 

And I might have added with as much truth that, carefully analysed from
a strictly literary and critical standpoint, Isis was full of misprints
and misquotations; that it contained useless repetitions, most
irritating digressions, and to the casual reader unfamiliar with the
various aspects of metaphysical ideas and symbols, as many apparent
contradictions; that much of the matter in it ought not to be there at
all and also that it had some very gross mistakes due to the many
alterations in proof-reading in general, and word corrections in
particular. 

Finally, that the work, for reasons that will be now explained, has no
system in it; and that it looks in truth, as remarked by a friend, as if
a mass of independent paragraphs having no connection with each other,
had been well shaken up in a waste-basket, and then taken out at random
and--published. 

Such is also now my sincere opinion. The full consciousness of this sad
truth dawned upon me when, for the first time after its publication in
1877, I read the work through from the first to the last page, in India
in 1881. And from that date to the present, I have never ceased to say
what I thought of it, and to give my honest opinion of Isis whenever I
had an opportunity for so doing. 

This was done to the great disgust of some, who warned me that I was
spoiling its sale; but as my chief object in writing it was neither
personal fame nor gain, but something far higher, I cared little for
such warnings. 

For more than ten years this unfortunate "master-piece," this
"monumental work," as some reviews have called it, with its hideous
metamorphoses of one word into another, thereby entirely transforming
the meaning,l with its misprints and wrong quotation-marks, has given me
more anxiety and trouble than anything else during a long life-time
which has ever been more full of thorns than of roses. 

But in spite of these perhaps too great admissions, 

I maintain that Isis Unveiled contains a mass of original and never
hitherto divulged information on occult subjects. That this is so, is
proved by the fact that the work has been fully appreciated by all those
who have been intelligent enough to discern the kernel, and pay little
attention to the shell, to give the preference to the idea and not to
the form, regardless of its minor shortcomings. 

Prepared to take upon myself--vicariously as I will show--the sins of
all the external, purely literary defects of the work, I defend the
ideas and teachings in it, with no fear of being charged with conceit,
since neither ideas nor teaching are mine, as I have always declared;
and I maintain that both are of the greatest value to mystics and
students of Theosophy. So true is this, that when Isis was first
published, some of the best American papers were lavish in its
praise--even to exaggeration, as is evidenced by the quotations below.2
 
The first enemies that my work brought to the front were Spiritualists,
whose fundamental theories as to the spirits of the dead communicating
in propriâ personâ I upset. For the last fifteen years--ever since this
first publication--an incessant shower of ugly accusations has been
poured upon me. Every libellous charge, from immorality and the "Russian
spy" theory down to my acting on false pretences, of being a chronic
fraud and a living lie, an habitual drunkard, an emissary of the Pope,
paid to break down Spiritualism, and Satan incarnate. Every slander that
can be thought of has been brought to bear upon my private and public
life. 

The fact that not a single one of these charges has ever been
substantiated; that from the first day of January to the last of
December, year after year, I have lived surrounded by friends and foes
like as in a glass-house,--nothing could stop these wicked, venomous,
and thoroughly unscrupulous tongues. 

It has been said at various times by my ever active opponents that 

(1) Isis Unveiled was simply a rehash of Eliphas Lévi and a few old
alchemists; 

(2) that it was written by me under the dictation of Evil Powers and the
departed spirits of Jesuits (sic); and finally 

(3) that my two volumes had been compiled from MSS, (never before heard
of), which Baron de Palm--he of the cremation and double-burial
fame--had left behind him, and which I had found in his trunk!3 

On the other hand, friends, as unwise as they were kind, spread abroad
that which was really the truth, a little too enthusiastically, about
the connection of my Eastern Teacher and other Occultists with the work;
and this was seized upon by the enemy and exaggerated out of all limits
of truth. 

It was said that the whole of Isis had been dictated to me from cover to
cover and verbatim by these invisible Adepts. And, as the imperfections
of my work were only too glaring, the consequence of all this idle and
malicious talk was, that my enemies and critics inferred--as well they
might--that either these invisible inspirers had no existence, and were
part of my "fraud," or that they lacked the cleverness of even an
average good writer
. 
Now, no one has any right to hold me responsible for what any one may
say, but only for that which I myself state orally, or in public print
over my signature. And what I say and maintain is this: Save the direct
quotations and the many afore specified and mentioned misprints, errors
and misquotations, and the general make-up of Isis Unveiled, for which I
am in no way responsible, 

(a) every word of information found in this work or in my later
writings, comes from the teachings of our Eastern Masters; and 

(b) that many a passage in these works has been written by me under
their dictation. In saying this no supernatural claim is urged, for no
miracle is performed by such a dictation. Any moderately intelligent
person, convinced by this time of the many possibilities of hypnotism
(now accepted by science and under full scientific investigation), and
of the phenomena of thought-transference, will easily concede that if
even a hypnotized subject, a mere irresponsible medium, hears the
unexpressed thought of his hypnotizer, who can thus transfer his thought
to him--even to repeating the words read by the hypnotizer mentally from
a book--then my claim has nothing impossible in it. 

Space and distance do not exist for thought; and if two persons are in
perfect mutual psycho-magnetic rapport, and of these two, one is a great
Adept in Occult Sciences, then thought-transference and dictation of
whole pages, become as easy and as comprehensible at the distance of ten
thousand miles as the transference of two words across a room. 

Hitherto, I have abstained--except on very rare occasions--from
answering any criticism on my works, and have even left direct slanders
and lies unrefuted, because in the case of Isis I found almost every
kind of criticism justifiable, and in that of "slanders and lies," my
contempt for the slanderers was too great to permit me to notice them.
Especially was it the case with regard to the libellous matter emanating
from America. It has all come from one and the same source, well known
to all Theosophists, a person most indefatigable in attacking me
personally for the last twelve years,4 though I have never seen or met
the creature. Neither do I intend to answer him now. 

But, as Isis is now attacked for at least the tenth time, the day has
come when my perplexed friends and that portion of the public which may
be in sympathy with Theosophy, are entitled to the whole truth--and
nothing but the truth. Not that I seek to excuse myself in anything even
before them or to "explain things." It is nothing of the kind. What I am
determined to do is to give facts, undeniable and not to be gainsaid,
simply by stating the peculiar, well known to many but now almost
forgotten, circumstances, under which I wrote my first English work. I
give them seriatim. 

(1) When I came to America in 1873, I had not spoken English--which I
had learned in my childhood colloquially--for over thirty years. I could
understand when I read it, but could hardly speak the language. 

(2) I had never been at any college, and what I knew I had taught
myself; I have never pretended to any scholarship in the sense of modern
research; I had then hardly read any scientific European works, knew
little of Western philosophy and sciences. The little which I had
studied and learned of these, disgusted me with its materialism, its
limitations, narrow cut-and-dried spirit of dogmatism, and its air of
superiority over the philosophies and sciences of antiquity. 

(3) Until 1874 I had never written one word in English, nor had I
published any work in any language. Therefore-- 

(4) I had not the least idea of literary rules. The art of writing
books, of preparing them for print and publication, reading and
correcting proofs, were so many close[d] secrets to me. 

(5) When I started to write that which developed later into Isis
Unveiled, I had no more idea than the man in the moon what would come of
it. I had no plan; did not know whether it would be an essay, a
pamphlet, a book, or an article. I knew that I had to write it, that was
all. I began the work before I knew Colonel Olcott well, and some months
before the formation of the Theosophical Society. 

Thus, the conditions for becoming the author of an English theosophical
and scientific work were hopeful, as everyone will see. Nevertheless, I
had written enough to fill four such volumes as Isis, before I submitted
my work to Colonel Olcott. Of course he said that everything save the
pages dictated--had to be rewritten. 

Then we started on our literary labours and worked together every
evening. Some pages the English of which he had corrected, I copied:
others which would yield to no mortal correction, he used to read aloud
from my pages, Englishing them verbally as he went on, dictating to me
from my almost undecipherable MSS. It is to him that I am indebted for
the English in Isis. 

It is he again who suggested that the work should be divided into
chapters, and the first volume devoted to SCIENCE and the second to
THEOLOGY. 

To do this, the matter had to be re-shifted, and many of the chapters
also; repetitions had to be erased, and the literary connection of
subjects attended to.

When the work was ready, we submitted it to Professor Alexander Wilder,
the well-known scholar and Platonist of New York, who after reading the
matter, recommended it to Mr. Bouton for publication. 

Next to Colonel Olcott, it is Professor Wilder who did the most for me.
It is he who made the excellent Index, who corrected the Greek, Latin
and Hebrew words, suggested quotations and wrote the greater part of the
Introduction "Before the Veil." If this was not acknowledged in the
work, the fault is not mine, but because it was Dr. Wilder's express
wish that his name should not appear except in footnotes. I have never
made a secret of it, and every one of my numerous acquaintances in New
York knew it. 

When ready the work went to press. 

>From that moment the real difficulty began. I had no idea of correcting
galley proofs; Colonel Olcott had little leisure to do so; and the
result was that I made a mess of it from the beginning. Before we were
through with the first three chapters, there was a bill for six hundred
dollars for corrections and alterations, and I had to give up the
proof-reading. Pressed by the publisher, Colonel Olcott doing all that
he possibly could do, but having no time except in the evenings, and Dr.
Wilder far away at Jersey City, the result was that the proofs and pages
of Isis passed through a number of willing but not very careful hands,
and were finally left to the tender mercies of the publisher's
proof-reader. 

Can one wonder after this if "Vaivaswata" (Manu) became transformed in
the published volumes into "Viswamitra," that thirty-six pages of the
Index were irretrievably lost, and quotation-marks placed where none
were needed (as in some of my own sentences!), and left out entirely in
many a passage cited from various authors? 

If asked why these fatal mistakes have not been corrected in a
subsequent edition, my answer is simple: the plates were stereotyped;
and notwithstanding all my desire to do so, I could not put it into
practice, as the plates were the property of the publisher; I had no
money to pay for the expenses, and finally the firm was quite satisfied
to let things be as they are, since, notwithstanding all its glaring
defects, the work--which has now reached its seventh or eighth edition,
is still in demand. 

And now--and perhaps in consequence of all this--comes a new accusation:
I am charged with wholesale plagiarism in the Introductory Chapter
"Before the Veil"! 

Well, had I committed plagiarism, I should not feel the slightest
hesitation in admitting the "borrowing." But all "parallel passages" to
the contrary, as I have not done so, I do not see why I should confess
it; even though "thought transference" as the Pall Mall Gazette wittily
calls it, is in fashion, and at a premium just now. Since the day when
the American press raised a howl against Longfellow, who, borrowing from
some (then) unknown German translation of the Finnish epic, the
Kalevala, published it as his own superb poem, Hiawatha, and forgot to
acknowledge the source of his inspiration, the Continental press has
repeatedly brought out other like accusations. 

The present year is especially fruitful in such "thought transferences."
Here we have the Lord Mayor of the City of London, repeating word for
word an old forgotten sermon by Mr. Spurgeon and swearing he had never
read or heard of it. The Rev. Robert Bradlaugh writes a book, and
forthwith the Pall Mall Gazette denounces it as a verbal copy from
somebody else's work. Mr. Harry de Windt, the Oriental traveller, and a
F.R.G.S. to boot, finds several pages out of his just published A Ride
to India, across Persia and Beluchistan, in the London Academy
paralleled with extracts from The Country of Belochistan, by A. W.
Hughes, which are identical verbatim et literatim. Mrs. Parr denies in
the British Weekly that her novel Sally was borrowed consciously or
unconsciously from Miss Wilkins' Sally, and states that she had never
read the said story, nor even heard the author's name, and so on.
Finally, every one who has read La Vie de Jésus, by Renan, will find
that he has plagiarised by anticipation, some descriptive passages
rendered in flowing verse in the Light of the World. Yet even Sir Edwin
Arnold, whose versatile and recognised genius needs no borrowed imagery,
has failed to thank the French Academician for his pictures of Mount
Tabor and Galilee in prose, which he has so elegantly versified in his
last poem. 

Indeed, at this stage of our civilisation and fin de siècle, one should
feel highly honoured to be placed in such good and numerous company,
even as a--plagiarist. But I cannot claim such a privilege and, simply
for the reason already told that out of the whole Introductory chapter
"Before the Veil," I can claim as my own only certain passages in the
Glossary appended to it, the Platonic portion of it, that which is now
denounced as "a bare-faced plagiarism" having been written by Professor
A. Wilder.
 
That gentleman is still living in or near New York, and can be asked
whether my statement is true or not. He is too honourable, too great a
scholar, to deny or fear anything. He insisted upon a kind of Glossary,
explaining the Greek and Sanskrit names and words with which the work
abounds, being appended to an Introduction, and furnished a few himself.
I begged him to give me a short summary of the Platonic philosophers,
which he kindly did. 

Thus from p. 11 down to 22 the text is his, save a few intercalated
passages which break the Platonic narrative, to show the identity of
ideas in the Hindu Scriptures. Now who of those who know Dr. A. Wilder
personally, or by name, who are aware of the great scholarship of that
eminent Platonist, the editor of so many learned works,5 would be insane
enough to accuse him of "plagiarising" from any author's work! I give in
the footnote the names of a few of the Platonic and other works he has
edited. The charge would be simply preposterous! 
The fact is that Dr. Wilder must have either forgotten to place quotes
before and after the passages copied by him from various authors in his
Summary; or else, owing to his very difficult handwriting, he has failed
to mark them with sufficient clearness. It is impossible, after the
lapse of almost fifteen years, to remember or verify the facts. To this
day I had imagined that this disquisition on Platonists was his, and
never gave a further thought to it. But now enemies have ferretted out
unquoted passages and proclaim louder than ever "the author of Isis
Unveiled," to be a plagiarist and a fraud. Very likely more may be
found, as that work is an inexhaustible mine of misquotations, errors
and blunders, to which it is impossible for me to plead "guilty" in the
ordinary sense. Let then the slanderers go on, only to find in another
fifteen years as they have found in the preceding period, that whatever
they do, they cannot ruin Theosophy, nor even hurt me. I have no
author's vanity; and years of unjust persecution and abuse have made me
entirely callous to what the public may think of me--personally. 

But in view of the facts as given above; and considering that-- 

(a) The language in Isis is not mine; but (with the exception of that
portion of the work which, as I claim, was dictated), may be called only
a sort of translation of my facts and ideas into English; 

(b) It was not written for the public,--the latter having always been
only a secondary consideration with me--but for the use of Theosophists
and members of the Theosophical Society to which Isis is dedicated; 

(c) Though I have since learned sufficient English to have been enabled
to edit two magazines--the Theosophist and LUCIFER--yet, to the present
hour I never write an article, an editorial or even a simple paragraph,
without submitting its English to close scrutiny and correction. 

Considering all this and much more, I ask now every impartial and honest
man and woman whether it is just or even fair to criticize my
works--Isis, above all others--as one would the writings of a born
American or English author! What I claim in them as my own is only the
fruit of my learning and studies in a department, hitherto left
uninvestigated by Science, and almost unknown to the European world. I
am perfectly willing to leave the honour of the English grammar in them,
the glory of the quotations from scientific works brought occasionally
to me to be used as passages for comparison with, or refutation by, the
old Science, and finally the general make-up of the volumes, to every
one of those who have helped me. Even for the Secret Doctrine there are
about half-a-dozen Theosophists who have been busy in editing it, who
have helped me to arrange the matter, correct the imperfect English, and
prepare it for print. But that which none of them will ever claim from
first to last, is the fundamental doctrine, the philosophical
conclusions and teachings. 

Nothing of that have I invented, but simply given it out as I have been
taught; or as quoted by me in the Secret Doctrine (Vol. I, p. 46 [xlvi])
from Montaigne: "I have here made only a nosegay of culled (Eastern)
flowers, and have brought nothing of my own but the string that ties
them." 

Is any one of my helpers prepared to say that I have not paid the full
price for the string? 


April 27, 1891 
       
H.P. BLAVATSKY
	
LUCIFER, May, 1891 

--------------------------------------------------
 
1 Witness the word "planet" for "cycle" as originally written, corrected
by some unknown hand, (Vol. I., p. 347, 2nd par.), a "correction" which
shows Buddha teaching that there is no rebirth on this planet (!!) when
the contrary is asserted on p. 346, and the Lord Buddha is said to teach
how to "avoid" reincarnation; the use of the word "planet," for plane,
of "Monas" for Manas; and the sense of whole ideas sacrificed to the
grammatical form, and changed by the substitution of wrong words and
erroneous punctuation, etc., etc., etc. 


2 Isis Unveiled; a master key to the mysteries of ancient and modern
science and theology. By H.P. Blavatsky, Corresponding Secretary of the
Theosophical Society. 2 vols., royal 8vo., about 1,500 pages, cloth,
$7.50. Fifth Edition. 


REVIEWS:  


"This monumental work . . . about everything relating to magic, mystery,
witchcraft, religion, spiritualism, which would be valuable in an
encyclopædia."--North American Review. 
"It must be acknowledged that she is a remarkable woman, who has read
more, seen more. and thought more than most wise men. Her work abounds
in quotations from a dozen different languages, not for the purpose of a
vain display of erudition, but to substantiate her peculiar views . . .
her pages are garnished with foot-notes establishing, as her
authorities, some of the profoundest writers of the past. To a large
class of readers, this remarkable work will prove of absorbing interest
. . . demands the earnest attention of thinkers, and merits an analytic
reading."--	BOSTON EVENING TRANSCRIPT. 


"The appearance of erudition is stupendous. Reference to and quotations
from the most unknown and obscure writers in all languages abound,
interspersed with allusions to writers of the highest repute, which have
evidently been more than skimmed through."--	N.Y.
INDEPENDENT. 

"An extremely readable and exhaustive essay upon the paramount
importance of reestablishing the Hermetic Philosophy in a world which
blindly believes that it has outgrown it."--	N.Y. WORLD. 

"Most remarkable book of the season."--	COM. ADVERTISER. 

"[To] Readers who have never made themselves acquainted with the
literature of mysticism and alchemy, the volume will furnish the
materials for an interesting study--a mine of curious information."--
EVENING POST
. 
"They give evidence of much and multifarious research on the part of the
author, and contain a vast number of interesting stories. Persons fond
of the marvellous will find in them an abundance of entertainment."--
NEW YORK SUN
. 
"A marvellous book both in matter and manner of treatment. Some idea may
be formed of the rarity and extent of its contents when the index alone
comprises fifty pages, and we venture nothing in saying that such an
index of subjects was never before compiled by any human being. . . But
the book is a curious one and will no doubt find its way into libraries
because of the unique subject matter it contains . . . will certainly
prove attractive to all who are interested in the history, theology, and
the mysteries of the ancient world."--	DAILY GRAPHIC. 

"The present work is the fruit of her remarkable course of education,
and amply confirms her claims to the character of an adept in secret
science, and even to the rank of a hierophant in the exposition of its
mystic lore."--	NEW YORK TRIBUNE. 

"One who reads the book carefully through, ought to know everything of
the marvellous and mystical, except perhaps, the passwords. Isis will
supplement the Anacalypsis. Whoever loves to read Godfrey Higgins will
be delighted with Mme. Blavatsky. There is a great resemblance between
their works. Both have tried hard to tell everything apocryphal and
apocalyptic. It is easy to forecast the reception of this book. With its
striking peculiarities, its audacity, its versatility, and the
prodigious variety of subjects which it notices and handles, it is one
of the remarkable productions of the century."--	NEW YORK HERALD.



3 This Austrian nobleman, who was in complete destitution at New York,
and to whom Colonel Olcott had given shelter and food, nursing him
during the last weeks of his life--left nothing in MS. behind him but
bills. The only effect of the baron was an old valise, in which his
"executors" found a battered bronze Cupid, a few foreign Orders
(imitations in pinchbeck and paste, as the gold and diamonds had been
sold); and a few shirts of Colonel Olcott's, which the ex-diplomat had
annexed without permission.