Quest Magazine

Printed in the Summer 2015 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Boyd, Tim."A Great Idea" Quest 103.3 (Summer 2015): pg. 88-89.

By Tim Boyd, President

Contemporary poet and philosopher Diane Ackerman has described humanity as "a life form that quests." In many ways this is an apt description of beings who, since appearing on the earth, have turned over rocks to discover what lies beneath, traveled beyond distant hills to find what lies on the other side, sent exploratory vehicles into space, and delved into the minutest corners of the subatomic realm. Throughout time we have been seeking, asking, and exploring.

One reason for the reappearance of the Ageless Wisdom teachings in our time was as an attempt to shift the focus of that questing. This quality of questing is recognized in the Three Objects of the Theosophical Society. It could be said that the Objects taken as a whole define a very specific quest: (1) to form a nucleus of the universal brotherhood of humanity; (2) to encourage the comparative study of religion, philosophy, and science; (3) to investigate unexplained laws of nature and the powers latent in humanity. To form, study, and investigate is the character of this particular quest.

Every quest necessarily begins with a question. Is there a shorter route to India? Where and what is the Grail? Is there life on Mars? Who am I? All of these questions have fueled intense journeys of exploration and have changed the course of our collective lives. The great Sufi mystic Rumi said, "Ask a difficult question and marvelous answers appear."

Recently I was in California for a program. It was a public conversation between Michael Murphy and me. Michael has led a remarkable life and is a brilliant man. Although he is the author of a number of books that have been influential in the field of contemporary spirituality, he is probably best-known for his role in founding California's Esalen Institute. Ever since it was started in 1962, Esalen has been a force in the Western world for developing the teachers and the conversation about human potential and peak states of human experience — what the TS would describe as the "powers latent in humanity." Most of today's prominent teachers of contemporary spirituality have made their way through Esalen's doors at one time or another.

It was a two-hour conversation that could have gone on much longer. One fascinating feature for me was that although the evening was sold out, it was an audience that did not have more than a passing familiarity with Theosophy or the Theosophical Society. As is necessarily the case for anyone exploring contemporary approaches to spirituality, many of them had come across the TS or its literature, but for a variety of reasons felt it was not enough. Some of them had been turned off from their study of Theosophy by the difficult Victorian English that was common in our early literature. Others, who had studied a little more, ran into difficulties correctly understanding the sometimes complex and challenging concepts involved.

During the question-and-answer part of the evening, a gentleman asked me a couple of probing questions. He was a man who clearly had delved into a study of the TS's history and at least some of its teachings. His first question called attention to a number of prominent people who have left the TS to pursue other approaches to the Ageless Wisdom. He pointed to Rudolf Steiner, who left to form the Anthroposophical Society, taking with him most of the German Section of the TS. He brought up the separations of J. Krishnamurti after disbanding the Order of the Star, of William Quan Judge, and others. After outlining some of the history of these highly regarded people, he asked, "For an organization that promotes unity, truth, and brotherhood, how can you explain so many schisms?" From the manner in which the question was framed, it was clear that it was not merely about TS history, but was about the credibility of the TS in advancing some of its high ideals. I got the impression that my questioner had already made up his mind.

My response to that question can be found in the Adyar Theosophist, April 2015, "The River Delta." But in brief, it was that there is no individual or organization that can fully contain the wisdom of the ages. The individuals involved in the various schisms were, like H.P. Blavatsky, subject to the influence of their personalities, but were also sincere and intuitive people who had been affected by some profound insight into the Ageless Wisdom. The fact that they developed their own vision and organizations made it possible for a broader audience to be exposed to different aspects of the wisdom teachings.

The gentleman's first query called into question the TS's credibility as an organization. His second question targeted the teachings. In his introduction to the question he pointed out that the most substantial teachings of Theosophy are credited to the Mahatmas, the Masters of Wisdom. The actual question was, "Since nobody has ever seen or spoken to these Mahatmas, isn't it stretching credulity to present these as authentic teachings?"

As someone who frequently speaks to groups of people, over the years I have found that during question-and-answer sessions often people ask leading questions — those that walk you through the person's beliefs or knowledge, eventually leading you to the answer that confirms those beliefs. These are always wonderful opportunities to "step outside of the box" and see things from a different point of view.

Although my questioner was exaggerating in saying that nobody had seen or spoken to the Mahatmas, it was not a huge departure from the facts. In the history of the TS, approximately twenty-four people received letters from the Mahatmas, and only eight actually saw them physically. Because this was an audience that had limited exposure to the teachings of the Ageless Wisdom, I began by going through a basic description of the idea and process of spiritual evolution which supports the existence of those highly evolved beings described as Mahatmas. I noted that in the normal conception of the chain of being there is a progressive unfoldment of function and consciousness from the mineral kingdom to single-celled organisms to plants, to animals, and then humans. In conventional thought, humanity is where it ends, with the next step beyond us being God, or, for the religious, angels or their equivalent. This gap in the spectrum of consciousness does not accord with the rest of the natural world. From the Theosophical point of view, the Mahatmas are the next stage in the human evolutionary process.

My answer to the questioner went something like this: whether or not someone accepts this view of spiritual evolution does not really matter. What is important is the value of the teachings. H.P. Blavatsky described Theosophy as "the accumulated wisdom of the ages, tested and verified by generations of seers." Individual testing and verification are essential.

Since the founding of the TS, many prominent people have been affected by profound insights resulting from their exposure to the wisdom tradition. These are people in every field of human endeavor whose lives have deeply influenced society. The list is long — Alfred Lord Tennyson, Thomas Edison, Kandinsky, Scriabin, Gandhi, Albert Einstein, William James, Nehru, Henry Wallace (vice-president of the U.S.), Elvis Presley, and many others. Through their lives and vision, countless people have been exposed to some of the nuances of the One Tradition that Theosophy embodies.

Then there are the countless unheralded students and practitioners of the many forms of contemporary spirituality who are unaware that their roots trace back directly to the TS. Groups like the Esalen Institute and the numerous other spiritual groups that comprise the landscape of contemporary spirituality continue to draw on those teachings. One can either believe that these teachings are inspired by Great Ones, such as the Mahatmas, or that they are simply an example of a great idea whose time has come. Given that the ideas of unity, multidimensionality, spiritual evolution, omnipresent intelligence, and self-responsibility that the TS introduced have permeated world culture, the best approach would be to judge the tree by its fruits.

HPB once commented that "the world is man living in his personal nature." The teachings of Theosophy were intended for that world. They were presented in full knowledge that they would not, could not, be fully comprehended or faithfully followed, that their meaning would necessarily be distorted, but that their reintroduction to the current of world thought was the greatest hope for an alternative to the "degrading superstition and still more degrading brutal materialism" that characterized the time.

In my conversation with Michael Murphy and the interaction with the audience, it became clear that in the year 2015, 140 years after the founding of the TS, its teachings are not yet understood or fully appreciated, but its influence is growing stronger. Though this is dimly understood by many, the fact is that its ideas and the societal influence it exerts are slowly but surely moving humanity toward a deeper experience of truth. To my optimistic eyes the process is slow, the results are imperfect, but the end is certain.

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Printed in the Summer 2015 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Overweg, Cynthia."Blavatsky and the Battle of Mentana" Quest 103.3 (Summer 2015): pg. 102-105.

By Cynthia Overweg

The soul ripens in tears.

'Gems from the East,
   compiled by H.P. Blavatsky

As an early morning rainstorm pounded the ancient walls of Rome, thousands of soldiers from two opposing armies were preparing for a ferocious battle over the fate of the Eternal City and the future of Italy. On November 3, 1867, they were marching to Mentana, a small and quaint town located sixteen miles northeast of Rome. Mentana was an important battleground in a decades-long struggle by Italian revolutionaries to unify Italy and overthrow a thousand years of a papal theocracy in Rome and in much of the Italian peninsula.

On one side of Mentana's battle line stood the army of Pope Pius IX, who firmly believed in a church-state form of government. Not only was the pope the temporal ruler and bishop of Rome, he was also the ruler of a patchwork of Italian provinces known as the Papal States, and he had no intention of giving them up. On the other side of the confrontation was the all-volunteer army of General Giuseppe Garibaldi, a charismatic, world-famous advocate of universal human rights and the separation of church and state. Garibaldi's army was known as the "Redshirts" because the troops' shirts were made from inexpensive red flannel.

There to witness or participate in the battle were a few journalists, sketch artists, volunteers, and supporters of one side or the other who were brave or foolish enough to be at the front line. As both armies took positions in the hills around Mentana and along embankments on the main road into town, the deafening sound of thousands of muskets firing simultaneously filled the cold air. Clouds of black smoke rose above Mentana, and the foul smell of musket fire mingled with the fierce and anguished cries of war. As with any war, the price either for victory or defeat would be paid by the men and women who were willing to die for it.

By the time the battle was over that afternoon, the dead, the dying, and the wounded were strewn on the blood-soaked ground. Among them was a young and perhaps idealistic Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, who lay bleeding and unconscious in a ditch. She was wearing a red shirt. Left for dead, she was rescued by Italian civilians who helped the wounded and took loved ones home for burial. HPB was thirty-six years old and living in Italy at the time.

It is not known at what point in the battle Blavatsky was wounded, but it must have been a traumatic and life-changing event for her, just as it has been for millions of others down through the centuries who have seen war. Experts on war trauma have long known that the experience often provokes an existential crisis, thrusting an individual headlong into the turbulent question about the meaning of human existence. For some, the vexing contradictions inherent in war can deepen an appreciation for the sacredness of life. Veteran war correspondent Chris Hedges, who covered the Balkan war as well as conflicts in the Middle East and Central America, has written powerfully about the paradox of finding meaning in the meaninglessness of war: "Its destruction and carnage can give us what we long for in life. It can give us purpose, meaning, a reason for living. Only when we are in the midst of conflict does the shallowness and vapidness of much of our lives become apparent."

Is it possible that at Mentana, HPB saw the depths of human suffering for the first time and found a purpose that gave her life meaning? She was still a young woman, and although she had traveled much of the world searching for sacred knowledge, war has a way of challenging everything a person holds dear. We can't know for sure, but for someone who spent her life trying to fathom the unknown and come to terms with the predicament of the human species, Mentana must have contributed greatly to her inner development and worldview.

The battle of Mentana did not end well for Garibaldi's forces. Just as it looked as if his Redshirts might win, 2000 French reinforcements, sent by the emperor Napoleon III, turned the tide of battle. The French troops had been equipped with a brand-new weapon called the Chassepot rifle, named after its inventor, Antoine Chassepot. It had a longer range than muskets, fired at a higher speed, and inflicted more damage to the human body than any comparable weapon before it. It shocked and disoriented Garibaldi's troops. Whether Blavatsky was at Mentana to witness the battle or participate as a volunteer (it was not uncommon for observers and volunteers, including women, to be near the front line), she could easily have been hit several times just trying to get out of the way.

The Redshirts suffered heavy losses, while the pope's army had only a few. Garibaldi was wounded in the leg and lost the battle, one of the few losses of his career. But three years later, in 1870, the Italian army finally took control of Rome and divested the pope of his temporal power. Italy eventually became the united country we know today. In 1929, after a concordat signed with Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, Vatican City became an independent city-state governed by the papacy.

Blavatsky's biographers have found her presence at Mentana to be a source of fascination, disbelief, and awe. Most accept that she was there; others are skeptical. At her first meeting with Henry Steel Olcott in 1874, he reported that she was wearing a Garibaldi red shirt, which predictably got his attention. Later, she told Olcott about being wounded at Mentana. "In proof of her story," he wrote in Old Diary Leaves, "she showed me where her left arm had been broken in two places by a saber stroke, and made me feel in her right shoulder a musket bullet still embedded in the muscle, and another in her leg."

As a veteran of the American Civil War, Olcott could recognize authentic battle wounds, and he not only believed her, he wondered what impact the experience might have had on her: "I suspect that none of us ever knew the normal HPB . . . we just dealt with . . . a perpetual psychic mystery, from which the proper jiva was killed out at the battle of Mentana," he wrote after HPB had died. Olcott seemed to suggest that a radical shift in Blavatsky's spiritual psyche took place as a result of the war experience, a shift in consciousness so powerful that it may have been the turning point in her life.

But why was HPB interested in a battle that appeared to have nothing to do with her? The answer may be in what was happening in nineteenth-century Italy. It was a time when ideas about individual liberty and freedom from oppression, whether religious, economic, or cultural were gaining momentum. Garibaldi, along with Giuseppe Mazzini and other Italian reformers, were leaders in what was known as the Risorgimento, or the rebirth and unification of Italy. The Risorgimento demanded an end to foreign occupation, a government that empowered ordinary people, and the overthrow of papal rule, or the "pope as king."

Given Blavatsky's antipathy to religious dogma and any form of theocracy, it's not surprising that she was interested in, perhaps passionate about, what Garibaldi stood for. He also advocated free public education, equal rights for women, and the emancipation of slaves, and had been doing it well before the American Civil War. Like many others, HPB was aligned with Garibaldi's ideals. But there is another reason they shared common ground: Garibaldi was a Freemason. Since HPB had a lifelong interest in the spiritual principles of Freemasonry, it would have made them kindred spirits, if not good friends.

The French esotericist René Guénon, one of HPB's most vociferous critics, admits that a high-ranking Mason named John Yarker was "the friend of Mazzini and Garibaldi and, in their entourage, had known Mme Blavatsky." While it seems most likely that Blavatsky met Garibaldi and Mazzini as a result of their mutual interest in Freemasonry, she also could have met Garibaldi simply by attending a speech he gave.

Although a link between Garibaldi and Blavatsky can be made, and her biographers agree that she was living in Italy in 1867, none of them has been able to independently verify that she was at Mentana the day of the battle. For some, this is what puts her presence there in question.

The supposition is that someone would have noticed her and there would be a record of it. But it is important to consider that when the battle took place, Blavatsky was unknown outside of Russia. There were no journalists eager to write about her and her adventures. She was not a published writer, and very few people even knew where she was.

It may be difficult to imagine, but at that stage of her life Blavatsky was an obscure spiritual seeker, still ripening in maturity and searching for her purpose in life. There was no reason she would have been singled out as a casualty, or written about by a journalist or other witnesses to a chaotic battle that involved thousands of soldiers and volunteers from both sides. Thus there will probably never be independent confirmation that HPB was at Mentana, but that certainly doesn't mean she wasn't there.

When she was pestered by an unfriendly inquirer who demanded to know more, she wrote: "Whether I was sent there or found myself there by accident are questions that pertain to my private life." In one brusque sentence, she offered two different possibilities: If she was "sent" there, we are left to guess by whom; or if there by "accident," she may have been traveling near Mentana, and was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It seems like a deliberate effort to keep us in the dark. On the other hand, for those who have been in war, it is a raw and highly personal experience that cannot be fully understood by someone who has not been there. It's conceivable that Blavatsky preferred to sow confusion rather than answer questions from people who did not have the capacity to understand.

In 1886, when A.P. Sinnett was writing a biography about her and asked her about Mentana, she refused to elaborate, writing in a letter: "The Garibaldi's (the sons) are alone to know the whole truth and a few more Garibaldians with them. What I did you know partially, but you do not know all." With that statement, she deepens the mystery and raises more questions: What is the "whole truth" she referred to? She indicates that she knew Garibaldi's sons. How did she come to know them?

Garibaldi's two oldest sons, Menotti and Ricciotti, actively promoted the philosophy espoused by their father. In fact, Ricciotti fought at the battle of Mentana himself. It is reasonable to suggest that HPB met Garibaldi's sons in the same way she met him'at public or private meetings where like-minded people gathered to discuss philosophical ideas and current affairs.

But the question remains: why would she put her life in jeopardy at Mentana? One answer is that like many others, she expected Garibaldi to win and wanted to be part of a historic event that championed the right to self-determination, religious freedom, and human dignity. Another possibility is that she went to Mentana to help care for the wounded. Garibaldi did not have a traditional medical corps, and volunteers were very important in saving lives. HPB may have felt an inner calling to do what she could to mitigate suffering on the battlefield. But she did not want to talk about Mentana, at least not publicly. And that would not be unusual for a war survivor; most do not want to revisit such powerful memories.

The larger question is: how might the experience of war have shaped Blavatsky's life from that point forward? She told Sinnett that after she recovered from her wounds, she left Italy and traveled to northern India and eventually crossed into Tibet, where she spent time with her spiritual teacher. While her physical wounds were not life-threatening, what about emotional and spiritual wounds? The deep distress of having witnessed the brutality of a battlefield must have placed a great strain on her highly sensitive nature. Did she need time in the peaceful atmosphere of a retreat to heal the shock and sorrow that accompanies the experience of war? Did she get help from her teacher in integrating the inner turmoil that she must have felt? Did Mentana, as Olcott suggested, transform her in some way?

It is worth noting that the haunting and transformative effects of war are well-documented. There is a tremendous body of literature written over the centuries by war veterans, war correspondents, and poets like Walt Whitman and Lord Byron or nurses like Clara Barton (founder of the American Red Cross and a medic during the Civil War), which illustrate the inner turbulence experienced in war. For example, on an evening before a battle, when she knew that hundreds of soldiers would die, Barton wrote that she thought she could hear "the slow flap of the grim messenger's wings, as one by one, he sought and selected his victims for the morning." The Pulitzer Prize–winning World War II journalist Ernie Pyle put it this way: "My spirit is wobbly and my mind is confused . . . You feel small in the presence of dead men."

Unfortunately, HPB never wrote a memoir about her war experience, so we are left to hypothesize, surmise, and wonder about how it may have shaped her understanding of what is at stake for a world in perpetual combat. Yet it would not be exaggerating to suggest that the battle of Mentana may have greatly influenced her determination to bring a form of spiritual education to the West that could nurture an expansion of consciousness.

One very interesting glimpse into what HPB may have experienced at Mentana (and then later used as a basis for a philosophical point she wanted to make), is a little-known but provocative short story that she published in her journal Lucifer in 1888. In "Karmic Visions," she describes the insanity of war in the compelling imagery of someone who has been there: "Thousands of mangled corpses covered the ground, torn and cut to shreds by the murderous weapons devised by science and civilization, blessed to success by the servants of his God. Not a wife or mother, but is haunted in her dreams by the black and ominous storm-cloud that over-hangs the whole of Europe. The cloud is approaching . . . It comes nearer and nearer . . . I foresee once more for earth the suffering I have already witnessed."

"Karmic Visions" is set during the Franco-Prussian War, which broke out three years after Mentana, and in which the Chassepot rifle was used as well. The story chronicles the various incarnations of a soldier and emperor-king who cannot turn away from the destructive impulse of war. But that is only one component of a story which portrays the utter uselessness of war and the blindness of those who glorify it or who use it as a means to achieve power over others. Her story also seems to foretell the repetition of warfare in the twentieth century. Just twenty-three years after HPB's death, World War I began, followed of course by World War II, and the many regional wars since then, which now cast a shadow over the twenty-first century.

To sign "Karmic Visions," Blavatsky used the pen name "Sanjna" for the first and only time. According to Boris de Zirkoff, the compiler of Blavatsky's Collected Writings, Sanjna can mean "perception" or "consciousness" in Sanskrit. It also means "creator" or "unity." Exactly how HPB intended the word to be understood is unknown. But the underlying theme, perhaps informed by her experience at Mentana, is that war will be humanity's ongoing nightmare until we wake up from the dream of separation and transform how we understand ourselves and our relationship with each other and with the rest of creation.

While we may never know the whole truth of her experience at the battle of Mentana, there are enough enticing indicators to provide food for thought and reflection. Perhaps it can be said that at Mentana, Blavatsky saw the horrible waste of war and then looked for an antidote. Near the end of her life, she wrote what is arguably her most beloved work, The Voice of the Silence, in which she offers a vision for a world without war. In it, she depicts a very different kind of battle'the battle that takes place within the heart and mind of every sincere spiritual seeker who yearns to become a fully realized human being.

Echoing the teaching of Mahayana Buddhism, HPB describes the one battle that is worth fighting: the arduous inner struggle to transcend an egoic mind which is possessed by an endless stream of thoughts, unbridled desire, greed, anger, and fear. These are the human weaknesses that kill millions of people in war century after century. Without confronting the root cause of war from within, HPB suggests, there can be no escape from the repetition of the outer war. It could be said that "Karmic Visions" portrays the outer war which manifests from ignorance and hate, while The Voice of the Silence reveals what is necessary to end war entirely. In a way, they are two sides of the same coin, though written in a very different style and tone.

The inner battle described in The Voice of the Silence is of course a spiritual journey filled with the land mines of self-interest that, once transformed, can become the path of wisdom and compassion. It culminates in a state of being where the end of war can be realized one person at a time. HPB wrote that once that path is fully embraced, "the last great fight, the final war between the Higher and the Lower Self, hath taken place. Behold, the very battlefield is now engulfed in the great war, and is no more."

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Sources

Aronson, Marc, and Patty Campbell, eds. War Is: Soldiers, Survivors and Storytellers Talk about War. Somerville, Mass.: Candlewick Press, 2009.

Barker, A.T., ed. The Letters of H.P. Blavatsky to A.P. Sinnett. Pasadena, Calif.: Theosophical University Press, 1973.

Blavatsky, H.P. Collected Writings. 15 vols. Edited by Boris de Zirkoff. Wheaton: Theosophical Publishing House, 1966–91.

'''. The Letters of H.P. Blavatsky, vol. 1, 1861–79. Edited by John Algeo. Wheaton: Quest, 2003.

'''. The Voice of the Silence. Pasadena, Calif.: Theosophical University Press, 1992.

Coulombe, Charles. The Pope's Legion. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.

Cranston, Sylvia. HPB: The Extraordinary Life and Influence of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Founder of the Modern Theosophical Movement. Los Angeles: Jeremy P. Tarcher, 1993.

Garibaldi, Giuseppe. My Life. Translated by Stephen Parkin. London: Hesperus, 2004.

Guénon, René. Theosophy: History of a Pseudo-Religion. Translated by Alvin Moore Jr. et al. Hillsdale, N.Y.: Sophia Perennis et Universalis, 2001.

Hedges, Chris. War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning. New York: Anchor House, 2003.

Hibbert, Christopher. Garibaldi: Hero of Italian Unification. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.

Mead, Marion. Madame Blavatsky: The Woman behind the Myth. Lincoln: iUniverse.com, 2001. Originally published by G.P. Putnam's Sons.

Olcott, Henry Steel. Old Diary Leaves. Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House, 1974.

Riall, Lucy. Garibaldi: Invention of a Hero. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2007.

Smith, Denis Mack. Garibaldi: A Great Life in Brief. New York: Knopf, 1970.

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Cynthia Overweg is a writer and educator who presents programs at the Krotona School of Theosophy in Ojai, California. Her study has focused on H.P. Blavatsky, Ramana Maharshi, and Christian mystics. During the Balkan war, she traveled as a photojournalist with United Nations relief organizations. Her images of war-traumatized children won awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and the American Film Institute. Recent articles for Quest include profiles of Joy Mills, Ravi Ravindra, and Milarepa.

 

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Printed in the Summer 2015 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Smoley, Richard. "From the Editor's Desk: Was H.P. Blavatsky a Nazi?" Quest 103.3 (Summer 2015): pg. 82.

By Richard Smoley

It's probably time to revisit an old and touchy issue: did H.P. Blavatsky's ideas about race inspire the Nazis?

If you pore through the Internet, you may go away thinking so. Here's one example: "[HPB's] saddest and most horrifying accomplishment was being the spiritual impetus for the Nazi regime, decades after her death. . . . Many German occultists and racists embraced Blavatsky's idea of being descended from Aryan god-men and her anti-Semeticism" [sic].

So let's take another look at this controversy.

In the eighteenth century, scholars began to see that Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit, among other languages, shared so many common roots that they all had to be descended from the same language. Modern linguists call it Proto-Indo-European, or simply Indo-European. In the nineteenth century, however, this ancestral language was given another name, from the Sanskrit word arya, meaning "noble." This language started to be called "Aryan."

Scholars then concluded that the people who spoke this language were a distinct race, from which Europeans, Iranians, and Indians were descended. (This may or may not have been the case, and cannot be proved with the evidence we now have.)

The next step was to assume that this "noble" Aryan race was superior to all the others. Particularly in Germany, this took the form of claiming that the pure Aryans were the white, blond, blue-eyed specimens. These were superior to the darker peoples, as well as to the Jews — who, as Semites, were thought to come from a different stock. In the resurgent nationalism of late nineteenth-century Germany, this theory inspired a cult of a pure-blooded race, free from the taint of weaker humans. From this ideology, Nazism was born.

How did Blavatsky come to be identified with this movement? She and her teachers did speak of an Aryan Root Race, the Fifth Root Race, a primordial stock that goes back a million years. The Mahatma Koot Hoomi writes: "The highest people now on earth (spiritually) belong to the first sub-race of the fifth root Race, and those are the Aryan Asiatics [i.e., the Indians]; the highest race (physical intellectuality) is the last sub-race of the fifth — yourselves the white conquerors" (Mahatma Letters, chronological edition, 312; emphasis in the original here and in other quotes).

It sounds as if the Aryan Root Race, "born and developed in the far north" (Secret Doctrine, 2:768), is the Caucasian race, which would include most of the Indians of Asia as well as white Europeans and their descendants. It's probably no coincidence that these peoples mostly speak Indo-European languages.

The concept of Root Races does include views that today seem uncomfortable — for example, the idea that certain races are "fallen, degraded specimens of humanity," as Koot Hoomi puts it (Mahatma Letters, 312). But then all of us are products of our time. This was true of HPB, it was true of the Mahatmas, and it is true of us today. And in that period — the late nineteenth century — most of the world was ruled by a few European powers. So the white race may have seemed superior, at least in material achievement.

Today it looks different. The twentieth century showed the consequences of racism all too brutally. Furthermore, intellectual opinion today now inclines toward relativism — meaning that no race or culture is inherently superior to another, if only because there is no absolute or objective way to determine what this superiority might consist of. In any case, the Europeans are no longer in the ascendant worldwide.

Actually, according to Theosophical teaching, the Fifth Root Race will in its turn suffer decay and decline. Eventually it will be replaced by the Sixth Root Race, supposedly evolving in America. In fact, whatever people or nation or race is on top at present, it too will decay. "Thus," HPB concludes, "the reason given for dividing humanity into superior and inferior races falls to the ground" (Secret Doctrine, 2:425). This process of rise and fall takes place in a larger cycle of evolution that includes a descent into matter followed by an ascent out of it.

As for Blavatsky's alleged anti-Semitism, it's true that she criticizes Judaism, particularly for its claim that its one God is the supreme power in the universe rather than, as she insisted, merely one of the heavenly hierarchy. She writes: "Admit that your Jehovah is one of the Elohim [gods], and we are ready to recognize him. Make of him, as you do, the Infinite, the ONE and the eternal God, and we will never accept him in this character" (Secret Doctrine 1:492n). Present-day scholarship is coming to see some truth in this picture. (See my article "God and the Great Angel" in Quest, Winter 2011.)

Nevertheless, Blavatsky generally speaks of the esoteric line of Judaism — the Kabbalah — with the highest respect, and she often makes use of its insights. Her pokes at Judaism are aimed as much, if not more, at mainstream Christianity. As for the Jews as a people, unlike the Nazis, she claims that they are an "Aryan race" (Secret Doctrine, 2:471).

In any event, neither HPB nor her followers have ever, to my knowledge, taught or practiced racial discrimination. As we've just seen, she herself rejected the notion of superior and inferior races. And the Society's First Object is "to form a nucleus of the universal brotherhood of humanity, without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste, or color" — an ideal that Theosophy, as far I can see, has always tried to fulfill.

Neither Blavatsky nor Theosophy is above criticism. No one is. But they are entitled to an appraisal that is fair and honest. To call them racist is neither.

 

 

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Printed in the Summer 2015 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Reigle, David."Isis Unveiled: A Perspective" Quest 103.3 (Summer 2015): pg. 95-.101 

By David Reigle

H.P. Blavatsky's work Isis Unveiled, published in 1877, was never intended to unveil Isis, the Egyptian goddess who represents the mysteries of nature. Blavatsky had given this book to the printer with the title The Veil of Isis. But after printing had commenced, it was found that this title had already been used elsewhere. So a new title had to be found quickly. The publisher suggested Isis Unveiled, and Blavatsky had little choice but to agree (Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled, introduction, 1:43).

The book that came out as Isis Unveiled was intended not to unveil the mysteries of nature, but to make known to the world the existence of a once universal Wisdom Religion, now hidden from view. The symbolical Isis, the Wisdom Religion, is indeed veiled, since it had been lost to the world for long ages, but it exists! This startling news caused so much excitement that the first printing of 1000 copies sold out in ten days (Olcott, 294).

What is the Wisdom Religion? It is described by Blavatsky in her later book, The Secret Doctrine, as the universally diffused religion of the ancient and prehistoric world (Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine, 1:xxxiv). Further, all the presently existing religions and philosophies originate from it. When this is recognized, the divisive walls that separate one group of people from another crumble. The fact of the existence of the Wisdom Religion was brought out to help achieve this, in keeping with the first object of Blavatsky's Theosophical Society, to promote universal brotherhood.

In making known to the modern world for the first time the existence of the once universal Wisdom Religion, Blavatsky had a twofold task. She had first to show that science did not have all the answers, that the ancients had knowledge of things not yet discovered by science. This she did in volume 1 of Isis Unveiled. She had also to show that religion in its separativism had ceased to meet humanity's needs, but that these separate pieces come together in the one archaic Wisdom Religion. This she did in volume 2.

Throughout both volumes of Isis Unveiled she cited book after book written by ancient authors from all over the world, showing on their part a knowledge of the teachings of the now lost Wisdom Religion. In this way she showed that although this knowledge had become lost, partly through the religious fervor of followers of separative religions, and partly through being withdrawn by its custodians to safeguard it from such sectarians, it was once common knowledge. But it had for many centuries been carefully hidden away.

So how did Blavatsky learn of the existence of the once universal Wisdom Religion, hidden so well for so long? She had gone to the East in search of wisdom and found certain individuals who were its custodians. But Blavatsky was not the only person to travel to the East in search of wisdom. Why did she find the Wisdom Religion when others did not? It would seem rather that its custodians found her.

The custodians of the Wisdom Religion make up a secret brotherhood centered in Tibet and India. Two members of the Tibetan brotherhood were Blavatsky's primary teachers, called in Theosophical writings the Mahatmas K.H. (Koot Hoomi) and M. (Morya). The great fourteenth-century Tibetan teacher Tsong-kha-pa, who reformed Tibetan Buddhism and founded the Gelugpa order, is said to have also reformed the secret Tibetan brotherhood who are the custodians of the Wisdom Religion. Among his reforms of the latter is an injunction to make an attempt to enlighten the Western barbarians during the last quarter of each century (CW 14:431). Hitherto, we are told, each such attempt had failed. Then came the attempt in 1875. The Mahatma K.H. writes about the choice of Blavatsky as the agent for this in a letter now preserved in the British Library:

After nearly a century of fruitless search, our chiefs had to avail themselves of the only opportunity to send out a European body upon European soil to serve as a connecting link between that country and our own. (Barker, 201) 

Thus it was the custodians of the Wisdom Religion who found her, and then allowed her to find them.

After receiving instruction from them, Blavatsky founded the Theosophical Society in 1875. She then wrote Isis Unveiled, which was published in 1877. In this way she made known to the modern Western world for the first time the existence of the Wisdom Religion, still preserved in the East. She was entrusted with the task of bringing out a portion of its teachings, for which she used the term "Theosophy." The first installment of these teachings is found in Isis Unveiled. It is thus a pioneering work, a work which paved the way for the much fuller installment given in her later work, The Secret Doctrine.

In bringing out something altogether new, Isis Unveiled had to devote much space to tearing down and clearing away existing beliefs that stood in the way of the acceptance of the new teachings. The existing beliefs, as said before, were, first, that modern science had all the answers, when in fact it was limited to physical reality alone; and, second, that religion had the whole truth, when in fact it had only pieces. Thus much of Isis Unveiled was devoted to showing the inadequacies of science and religion, and comparatively little of it was devoted to giving out new teachings, other than the very fact of their existence. An exposition of the new teachings as such was to come later. Those who have studied The Secret Doctrine should therefore not expect to find in Isis Unveiled the same kinds of things they found in The Secret Doctrine. Isis Unveiled is quite different.

In order to get a perspective on what one will find in Isis Unveiled, it may be useful to review some of the comments on it made by the author and her teachers. Blavatsky writes: "It was the first cautious attempt to let into the West a faint streak of Eastern esoteric light" (CW 5:221). She also observed, "While writing Isis, we were not permitted to enter into details; hence — the vague generalities" (CW 4:184).

The Mahatma K.H. writes in his letters:

The author was made to hint and point out in the true direction, to say what things are not, not what they are. (Barker, 45; emphasis here and in other quotes is from the original)

Many are the subjects treated upon in Isis that even H.P.B. was not allowed to become thoroughly acquainted with. (Barker, 179)

Don't you see that everything you find in Isis is delineated, hardly sketched—nothing completed or fully revealed. (Barker, 127)

"Isis" was not unveiled but rents sufficiently large were made to afford flitting glances to be completed by the student's own intuition. (Barker, 118)

Not only was Blavatsky not permitted to give clear details, she had to express what she could give out in a language that was foreign to her. She informs us:

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. . . . Until 1874 I had never written one word in English. (CW 13:197; cf. Barker, 472) 

Therefore she submitted the manuscript of Isis Unveiled to her coworker Colonel Olcott to correct her English. They worked together on this, rewriting all but the passages which had been dictated to her by her teachers. Thus she says:

It is to him [Olcott] that I am indebted for the English in Isis. . . . 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. (CW 13:198, 201) 

However, Olcott was not then in a position to correct errors of doctrine that Blavatsky was oblivious to because of her lack of fluency with English.

It was my first book; it was written in a language foreign to me — in which I had not been accustomed to write; the language was even more unfamiliar to certain Asiatic philosophers who rendered assistance; and, finally, Colonel Olcott, who revised the manuscript and worked with me throughout, was then — in the years 1875 and 1876 — almost entirely ignorant of Aryan Philosophy, and hence unable to detect and correct such errors as I might so readily fall into when putting my thoughts into English. (CW 7:50) 

Indeed, Olcott could not correct what he did not understand, and Blavatsky could not express what she understood.

I am [at] 47th St. New York writing Isis and His voice dictating to me. In that dream or retrospective vision I once more rewrote all Isis and could now point out all the pages and sentences Mah. K.H. dictated — as those that Master did — in my bad English, when Olcott tore his hair out by handfuls in despair to ever make out the meaning of what was intended. (Barker, 472) 

This situation necessarily led to mistakes in Isis Unveiled. One that was soon to catch up with her was her usage of the term "God." Blavatsky writes in the preface to Isis Unveiled:

When, years ago, we first travelled over the East, exploring the penetralia of its deserted sanctuaries, two saddening and ever-recurring questions oppressed our thoughts: Where, WHO, WHAT is GOD? Who ever saw the IMMORTAL SPIRIT of man, so as to be able to assure himself of man's immortality?

It was while most anxious to solve these perplexing problems that we came into contact with certain men, endowed with such mysterious powers and such profound knowledge that we may truly designate them as sages of the Orient. To their instructions we lent a ready ear. They showed us that by combining science with religion, the existence of God and immortality of man's spirit may be demonstrated like a problem of Euclid. For the first time we received the assurance that the Oriental philosophy has room for no other faith than an absolute and immovable faith in the omnipotence of man's own immortal self. We were taught that this omnipotence comes from the kinship of man's spirit with the Universal Soul — God! The latter, they said, can never be demonstrated but by the former. Man-spirit proves God-spirit, as the one drop of water proves a source from which it must have come. . . . prove the soul of man by its wondrous powers — you have proved God!" (Isis Unveiled, 1:vi) 

When writing Isis Unveiled, Blavatsky was unaware of the connotations of the word "God," and therefore used it when she actually meant the impersonal and universal principle known in Hinduism among Advaiti Vedantins as Parabrahman.

A sceptic in my early life, I had sought and obtained through the Masters the full assurance of the existence of a principle (not Personal God) — "a boundless and fathomless ocean" of which my "soul" was a drop. Like the Adwaitis, I made no difference between my Seventh Principle and the Universal Spirit, or Parabrahm; . . . My mistake was that throughout the whole work [Isis Unveiled] I indifferently employed the words Parabrahm and God to express the same idea. (CW 7:51)

A few years later the problem with the use of the term "God" emerged. In 1880 two Englishmen living in India, A.P. Sinnett and A.O. Hume, had begun a correspondence with Blavatsky's two teachers, the Mahatmas M. and K.H. The two Englishmen then wrote about the heretofore hidden or occult teachings of the Mahatmas based on these letters. Hume had in 1882 written a "Preliminary Chapter" headed "God" intended to preface an exposition of occult philosophy. The Mahatma K.H. responded clearly and unmistakably:

Neither our philosophy nor ourselves believe in a God, least of all in one whose pronoun necessitates a capital H. . . . Our doctrine knows no compromises. It either affirms or it denies, for it never teaches but that which it knows to be the truth. Therefore, we deny God both as philosophers and as Buddhists. We know there are planetary and other spiritual lives, and we know there is in our system no such thing as God, either personal or impersonal. Parabrahm is not a God, but absolute immutable law. (Barker, 52) 

Hume's chapter had added "God" to their philosophy, which the Mahatma regarded as a very serious problem, saying:

If he publishes what I read, I will have H.P.B. or Djual Khool deny the whole thing; as I cannot permit our sacred philosophy to be so disfigured. (Barker, 300)

A different kind of problem arose because, as noted above, Blavatsky could not give out Theosophical doctrines in their completeness in 1877 when Isis Unveiled was published.

In this book she taught the threefold constitution of a human being: body, soul, and spirit. When the Theosophical teaching on the sevenfold constitution of a human being was brought out four years later, she was accused of contradiction. But as the Mahatma K.H. explained in a letter to Sinnett:

In reality, there is no contradiction between that passage in Isis and our later teaching; to anyone who never heard of the seven principles — constantly referred to in Isis as a trinity, without any more explanation — there certainly appeared to be as good a contradiction as could be. "You will write so and so, give so far, and no more" — she was constantly told by us, when writing her book. It was at the very beginning of a new cycle, in days when neither Christians nor Spiritualists ever thought of, let alone mentioned, more than two principles in man — body and Soul, which they called Spirit. If you had time to refer to the spiritualistic literature of that day, you would find that with the phenomenalists as with the Christians, Soul and Spirit were synonymous. It was H.P.B., who, acting under the orders of Atrya (one whom you do not know) was the first to explain in the Spiritualist the difference there was between psyche and nous, nefesh and ruach — Soul and Spirit. She had to bring the whole arsenal of proofs with her, quotations from Paul and Plato, from Plutarch and James, etc., before the Spiritualists admitted that the theosophists were right. It was then that she was ordered to write Isis — just a year after the Society had been founded. And, as there happened such a war over it, endless polemics and objections to the effect that there could not be in man two souls — we thought it was premature to give the public more than they could possibly assimilate, and before they had digested the "two souls"; — and thus, the further sub-division of the trinity into 7 principles was left unmentioned in Isis. (Barker, 285; cf. CW 7:288) 

For reasons such as this the Mahatma M. told Sinnett to beware trusting Isis Unveiled too implicitly (Barker, 179), and the Mahatma K.H. told him the same thing:

By-the-bye you must not trust Isis literally. The book is but a tentative effort to divert the attention of the Spiritualists from their preconceptions to the true state of things. (Barker, 45) 

The Mahatma K.H. is not referring to the question of two versus three human principles, but to the teaching of spiritualism that the spirits of the dead can return and communicate with the living through mediums. Theosophy opposed this strongly, teaching that such activity causes serious harm to the departed, and usually to the medium as well. What can return is not the spirit of the departed, but only a "shell," made up of his or her disintegrating lower principles. This shell may retain memories of the life of the recently departed, but it is devoid of the actual spirit or higher principles of that person. So communication with it is of little value to the living; but this positively harms the departed and seriously hinders his or her passage to the next world.

This teaching, however, was not quite clear in Isis Unveiled. An 1882 article called "Fragments of Occult Truth," published in The Theosophist, included the clear statement: "No departed SPIRIT can visit us" (CW 4:119, 120). A letter to the editor asked if this contradicted what was taught in Isis Unveiled, where it said: "many . . . among those who control the medium subjectively . . . are human, disembodied spirits" (Isis Unveiled, 1:67; CW 4:120). Blavatsky replied that it did not; that here the term "disembodied spirit" refers to the "reliquiae of the personal EGO," not to the spiritual Ego. She explained that "the term "spirit" had to be often used in the sense given to it by the Spiritualists, as well as other similar conventional terms, as, otherwise, a still greater confusion would have been caused" (CW 4:120).

She concluded her article:

We may well be taxed with too loose and careless a mode of expression, with a misuse of the foreign language in which we write, with leaving too much unsaid and depending unwarrantably upon the imperfectly developed intuition of the reader. But there never was, nor can there be, any radical discrepancy between the teachings in Isis and those of the later period, as both proceed from one and the same source — the ADEPT BROTHERS. (CW 4:122) 

The next month another writer in another journal quoted this concluding sentence, and then brought up what appeared to be, indeed, a "radical discrepancy" between the teachings given in Isis Unveiled and those given out later (CW 4:182). Reincarnation seems to be denied in Isis Unveiled, which says:

Reincarnation, i.e., the appearance of the same individual, or rather of his astral monad, twice on the same planet, is not a rule in nature; it is an exception, like the teratological phenomenon of a two-headed infant. (Isis Unveiled, 1:351)

Blavatsky responded in The Theosophist the following month that "the 'astral' monad is not the 'Spiritual' monad and vice versa" (CW 4:184). In other words, the same individual personality, a Mr. Smith, does not reincarnate; only the immortal spiritual monad that gave rise to Mr. Smith will again give rise to another personality, perhaps a Mrs. Jones. Therefore, there is no discrepancy. She remarks here, in the same vein she had earlier:

The most that can be said of the passage quoted from Isis is, that it is incomplete, chaotic, vague perhaps — clumsy, as many more passages in that work, the first literary production of a foreigner, who even now can hardly boast of her knowledge of the English language. (CW 4:184) 

On this reincarnation question, the Mahatma K.H. says about "the confused and tortured explanations" in Isis Unveiled: "For its incompleteness no one but we, her inspirers are responsible" (Barker, 169).

This same reincarnation question on this same passage in Isis Unveiled was to arise again and again. Four years after her first brief reply, Blavatsky gave a detailed response, providing a description of the reincarnation process. She again showed that "there is no 'discrepancy,' but only incompleteness" in what was given out earlier (CW 7:181). She adds, however, that there are important mistakes in Isis Unveiled, resulting from being edited by others, that should be corrected. The sentence saying that the Hindu dreads transmigration and reincarnation "only on other and inferior planets, never on this one" (Isis Unveiled, 1:346) should be corrected to: "The Hindu dreads transmigration in other inferior forms, on this planet" (CW 7:183). Similarly, in the sentence saying that "this former life believed in by the Buddhists, is not a life on this planet" (Isis Unveiled, 1:347), the phrase "life on this planet" should be corrected to "life in the same cycle" (CW 7:184).

Just over two years later, these same two sentences were again corrected in a similar manner: "Hindus dread reincarnation in other and inferior bodies, of brutes and animals or transmigration"; and the "former life believed in by Buddhists is not a life in the same cycle and personality" (CW 10:215-216). But here she also added a correction to the sentence cited above: "Reincarnation, i.e., the appearance of the same individual, or rather of his astral monad, twice on the same planet, is not a rule in nature." She here said that the word "planet" was a mistake and that "cycle" was meant, i.e., the "cycle of Devachanic rest" (CW 10:215). She had already explained, more than once, that the "astral monad" is only the personality; therefore the doctrine of the reincarnation of the immortal spiritual monad is not being denied. In this article she explained further:

The paragraph quoted meant to upset the theory of the French Reincarnationists who maintain that the same personality is reincarnated, often a few days after death, so that a grandfather can be reborn as his own grand-daughter. (CW 10:215) 

Errors such as "planet" for "cycle" were permitted to remain in Isis Unveiled, she repeats, because its stereotyped plates were owned by the publisher and not by her. She then says:

The work was written under exceptional circumstances, and no doubt more than one great error may be discovered in Isis Unveiled. (CW 10:215-16)

The "great error" discovered in Isis Unveiled pertaining to reincarnation was due, then, to two causes. First, as with the problem of wrong usage of the term "God," Blavatsky had to write in a language that was foreign to her. Second, as with the problem of three human principles versus seven given later, the teachings found in Isis Unveiled are incomplete. The teaching that the personality does not reincarnate, without stating that the immortal spiritual monad does, led to the misconception that reincarnation is denied in the Wisdom Religion. Blavatsky could maintain that there is no radical discrepancy between the earlier and later teachings because they come from the same source, her teachers. Thus, this would be true irrespective of whether or not she herself knew the whole teaching from the beginning. Colonel Olcott, who worked with her throughout on correcting the English in Isis Unveiled, writes in his Old Diary Leaves about the reincarnation teaching:

When we worked on Isis it was neither taught us by the Mahatmas or supported by her in literary controversies or private discussions of those earlier days. She held to, and defended, the theory that human souls, after death, passed on by a course of purificatory evolution to other and more spiritualised planets. (Olcott, 278)

Besides errors due to faulty expression and those arising from incompleteness, others were added by proofreaders when Isis Unveiled went to press. As Blavatsky describes it: "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" (CW 13:199).

This resulted in other serious mistakes, such as on its opening page. About this the Mahatma K.H. writes:

Proof reader helping, a few real mistakes have crept in as on page 1, chapter 1, volume 1, where divine Essence is made emanating from Adam instead of the reverse. (Barker, 45)

There is yet another kind of error in Isis Unveiled that for obvious reasons was not noted during Blavatsky's lifetime. This kind arises from the fact that Blavatsky used the then current knowledge and books to support the teachings given to her by her teachers. For example, while writing about the Jains, she adds that Gautama Buddha was the pupil of the Tirthamkara, the great Jain teacher, who is called Mahavira:

It is clear that Gautama Buddha, the son of the King of Kapilavastu, and the descendant of the first Sakya, . . . did not invent his philosophy. Philanthropist by nature, his ideas were developed and matured while under the tuition of Tirthamkara, the famous guru of the Jaina sect. (Isis Unveiled, 1:322) 

Professor C.P. Tiele wrote in his book, Outlines of the History of Religion, at that same time: "According to the Jainas, Gautama (Buddha) was a disciple of their great saint, Mahavira" (Tiele, 141–42).

This was the current view in 1877, when almost nothing was known about the Jains, and very little about Buddhism. It is based on the fact that Mahavira's closest disciple was named Gautama. But it has long since been known that this Gautama was not Gautama Buddha, and that the latter was not a disciple of the Jain Tirthamkara Mahavira.

Errors of this kind in regard to Buddhism are frequent in Isis Unveiled, attributing to Buddhism both the teaching of God and of an immortal soul, or atma. These teachings, of course, are not found in Buddhism. Some of these errors, such as the ones regarding God, may have been due to Blavatsky's lack of fluency with English, while others were apparently due to the fact that she drew from then available sources to back up the material given to her by her teachers.

Despite Blavatsky's repeated statements that Isis Unveiled was far from perfect, some of her followers regarded the whole book as infallible truth. Because some of it was dictated to her by her Mahatma teachers, they thought every word of it was. These "friends, as unwise as they were kind," writes Blavatsky, spread this idea, "and this was seized upon by the enemy and exaggerated out of all limits of truth." She continues:

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 they well 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. (CW 13:195-96)

The idea of writing by dictation from unseen teachers was so supernatural-sounding that such rumors about Isis Unveiled easily arose. Blavatsky points out, however, that there is nothing supernatural about it. She affirms that the teachings come from her Eastern Masters, and "that many a passage in these works has been written by me under their dictation." She explains:

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. (CW 13:196)

Blavatsky stresses repeatedly that her teachers are living men, not disembodied spirits. She, while living in New York, could easily receive dictation from them, living in Tibet, since distance is no barrier to this. She also received dictation from other teachers, living in other places, for use in Isis Unveiled. As described by her coworker, Colonel Olcott, their ability with English varied greatly, so that sometimes he had to make several corrections per line, and other times hardly any. The unique work of one of these teachers is described by Olcott as follows:

Most perfect of all were the manuscripts which were written for her while she was sleeping. The beginning of the chapter on the civilisation of Ancient Egypt (vol. i, chap. xiv) is an illustration. We had stopped work the evening before at about 2 a.m. as usual, both too tired to stop for our usual smoke and chat before parting; she almost fell asleep in her chair while I was bidding her good-night, so I hurried off to my bedroom. The next morning, when I came down after my breakfast, she showed me a pile of at least thirty or forty pages of beautifully written H.P.B. manuscript, which, she said, she had had written for her by — well, a Master, whose name has never yet been degraded like some others. It was perfect in every respect, and went to the printers without revision. (Olcott, 211) 

The material for Isis Unveiled was thus given to Blavatsky piece by piece, without system. When it began, she had no idea that it would eventually become a book. The material was later arranged and rearranged. She often commented on its lack of system, saying about the resulting book:

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. (CW, 13:192)

According to the Mahatma K.H., her own contributions to Isis Unveiled were similarly unsystematic, and her explanations were unclear.

She . . . is unable to write with anything like system and calmness, or to remember that the general public needs all the lucid explanations that to her may seem superfluous. (Barker, 126; cf. 103, 111, 127)

For these reasons, and the several reasons given above that errors entered Isis Unveiled, the Mahatma K.H. remarked: "It really ought to be re-written for the sake of the family honour" (Barker, 127).

Blavatsky in fact did start to rewrite it in the mid-1880s, and announced as much. But this was soon transformed into an altogether new book, The Secret Doctrine, because she was able to give out so many more truths in clear terms. Already in 1882, the situation had changed significantly. She then says:

When Isis was written, it was conceived by those from whom the impulse, which directed its preparation, came, that the time was not ripe for the explicit declaration of a great many truths which they are now willing to impart in plain language. So the readers of that book, were supplied rather with hints, sketches, and adumbrations of the philosophy to which it related, than with methodical expositions. (CW 4:253) 

By 1886, the situation had changed greatly. She writes:

And I tell you that the Secret Doctrine will be 20 times as learned, philosophical and better than Isis which will be killed by it. Now there are hundreds of things I am permitted to say and explain. (Barker, 473-74)

So Isis Unveiled was never rewritten; instead it was replaced by The Secret Doctrine. But these two books cover very different ground, and much of the material given in Isis Unveiled is still to this day found nowhere else. We are therefore fortunate that a new edition of Isis Unveiled was prepared by Boris de Zirkoff, who spent countless hours correcting references, quotations, spellings, etc. We are also fortunate that an abridgement of Isis Unveiled was prepared by Michael Gomes, which eliminated most of the dated or erroneous explanatory material. For as Blavatsky said about this book of hers just eleven days before she died:

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 teachings are mine, as I have always declared; and I maintain that both are of the greatest value to mystics and students of Theosophy. (CW 13:193) 

As Olcott, her coworker on this book, summed up:

The truest thing ever said about Isis was the expression of an American author [Alexander Wilder] that it is "a book with a revolution in it." (Olcott, 297; cf. Isis Unveiled, introduction, 51)

SOURCES

Barker, A.T., ed. The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett. 3d rev. ed. Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House, 1962.

Blavatsky, H.P. Collected Writings. Edited by Boris de Zirkoff. Fifteen vols. Wheaton: Theosophical Publishing House, 1977–91. (Abbreviated in this article as CW.)

———. Isis Unveiled. Edited by Boris de Zirkoff. Wheaton: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972 [1877].

———. The Secret Doctrine. Edited by Boris de Zirkoff. Two volumes. Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House, 1978 [1888].

Gomes, Michael, ed. Isis Unveiled: Secrets of the Ancient Wisdom Tradition, Madame Blavatsky's First Work. Wheaton: Theosophical Publishing House, 1997.

Olcott, Henry Steel. Old Diary Leaves, vol. 1. 2d ed. Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House, 1974.

Tiele, C.P. Outlines of the History of Religion. London: Trübner, 1877.

David Reigle, along with his wife, Nancy, is coauthor of Blavatsky's Secret Books: Twenty Years' Research, 1999. Subsequent research may be found on their Web site: easterntradition.org. Most recently he has been posting material at the Book of Dzyan blog: prajnaquest.fr/blog (or dzyan.net).

This article was written for the German study edition of Isis Unveiled and was published in German translation as the "Einführung," or Introduction, in Isis Entschleiert, edited by Hank Troemel, 2003, pp. 25-46. It was also published in the original English in The High Country Theosophist 18:5, Sept.-Oct. 2003, 2-15. Reproduced with permission.

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