The first I saw of The Secret Doctrine manuscript
was on a visit paid to H.P.B. at Ostend, at the very
beginning of the year 1887. I had gone over to urge
upon H.P.B. the advisability of, coming to settle in
London for the purpose of forming a centre for
active work in the cause of Theosophy. There were
six of us in all who felt profoundly dissatisfied
with the deadness which seemed to pervade the
Society in England, and we had come to the
conclusion that only H.P.B. could give efficient aid
in restoring the suspended animation of the
movement, and initiating active and wisely directed
work. Of these six - with H.P.B. the original
founders of the first Blavatsky Lodge - two only,
alas! now remain active workers in the Society.
During the few days I then spent at Ostend with
H.P.B., she asked me to look over parts of the MSS.
of her new work, which I gladly consented to do.
Before I had read much it grew plain that The Secret
Doctrine was destined to be by far the most
important contribution of this century to the
literature of Occultism; though even then the
inchoate and fragmentary character of much of the
work led me to think that careful revision and much
re-arrangement would be needed before the manuscript
would be fit for publication.
On a second visit a week or two later, this
impression was confirmed by further examination; but
as H.P.B. then consented to come and settle in or
near London as soon as arrangements could be made
for her reception, nothing further was done about it
at the time.
Not long after my return to England we learnt that
H.P.B. was seriously ill, in fact that her life was
despaired of by the physicians in attendance. But,
as usual, she disappointed the medical prophets and
recovered with such marvellous rapidity that soon
after we were able to make arrangements for her
coming to England, to Upper Norwood, where a
cottage, called Maycot, had been taken for her
temporary residence.
The move was effected without any untoward event,
though the packing up of her books, papers, MSS.,
etc., was a truly terrible undertaking, for she went
on writing till the very last moment, and as sure as
any book, paper, or portion of MSS. had been
carefully packed away at the bottom of some box, so
surely would she urgently need it, and insist upon
its being disinterred at all costs. However, we did
get packed at last, reached Maycot, and before we
had been two hours in the house, H.P.B. had her
writing materials out and was hard at work again.
Hr power of work was amazing ; from early morning
till late in the evening she sat at her desk, and
even when so ill that most people would have been
lying helpless in bed, she toiled resolutely away at
the task she had undertaken.
A day or two after our arrival at Maycot, H.P.B.
placed the whole of. the so-far completed MSS. in
the hands of.Dr. Keightley and myself, instructing
us to read, punctuate, correct the English, alter,
and generally treat it as if it were our own - which
we naturally did not do, having far too high an
opinion of her knowledge to take any liberties with
so important a work.
But we both read the whole mass of MSS. - a pile
over three feet high - most carefully through,
correcting the English and punctuation where
absolutely indispensable, and then, after prolonged
consultation, faced the author in her den - in my
case with sore trembling, I remember - with the
solemn opinion that the whole of the matter must be
re-arranged on some definite plan, since as it stood
the book was another Isis Unveiled, only far worse,
so far as absence of plan and consecutiveness were
concerned.
After some talk, H.P.B. told us to go to Tophet and
do what we liked. She had had more than enough of
the blessed thing, had given it over to.us, washed
her hands thereof entirely, and we might get out of
it as best we could.
We retired and consulted. Finally we laid before her
a plan, suggested by the character of the matter
itself, viz., to make the work consist of four
volumes, each divided into three parts: (1) the
Stanzas and Commentaries thereon; (2) Symbolism; (3)
Science. Further, instead of making the first volume
to consist, as she had intended, of the history of
some great Occultists, we advised her to follow the
natural order of exposition, and begin with the
Evolution of Cosmos, to pass from that to the
Evolution of Man, then to deal with the historical
part in a third volume treating of the lives of some
great Occultists; and finally, to speak of Practical
Occultism in a fourth volume should she ever be able
to write it.
This plan we laid before H.P.B., and it was duly
sanctioned by her.
The next step was to read the MSS. through again and
make a general re-arrangement of the matter
pertaining to the subjects coming under the heads of
Cosmogony and Anthropology, which were to form the
first two volumes of the work. When this had been
completed, and H.P.B. duly consulted, and her
approval of what had been done obtained, the whole
of the MSS. so arranged was typewritten out by
professional hands, then re-read, corrected,
compared with the original MSS., and all Greek,
Hebrew, and Sanskrit quotations inserted by us. It
then appeared that the whole of the Commentary on
the Stanzas did not amount to more than some twenty
pages of the present work, as H.P.B. had not stuck
closely to her text in writing. So we seriously
interviewed her, and suggested that she should write
a proper commentary, as in her opening words she had
promised her readers to do. Her reply was
characteristic: "What on earth am I to say ? What do
you want to know? Why it's all as plain as the nose
on your face! ! !" We could not see it; she didn't -
or made out she didn't - so we retired to reflect.
As an interpolation, I had better state here that in
the autumn of 1887 - October, if I remember aright -
we all moved into London, to 17, Lansdowne Road,
Notting Hill, where the Countess Wachtmeister, who
had been on a visit to Sweden ever since H..P.B.
left Ostend, joined us in establishing the first T.
S. Headquarters in London. During our stay at
Maycot, Lucifer was founded, being published
originally by Mr. G. Redway, H.P.B. keeping on all
the while writing her articles, and also turning out
further MSS. for The Secret Doctrine., These and
other T.S. work had to be attended to, and as
sub-editor of Lucifer I found my hands pretty full,
so that many weeks were consumed, and I think the
removal to Lansdowne Road effected, before the
problem of the Commentary on the Stanzas was finally
solved.
The solution was this: - Each sloka of the stanzas
was written (or cut out from the type-written copy)
and pasted at the head of a sheet of paper, and then
on a loose sheet pinned thereto were written all the
questions we could find time to devise upon that
sloka. In this task Mr. Richard. Harte helped us
very considerably, a large proportion of the
questions put being of his devising. H.P.B. struck
out large numbers of them, made us write fuller
explanations, or our own ideas - such as they were -
of what her readers expected her to say, wrote more
herself, incorporated the little she had already
written on that particular sloka, and so the work
was done.
But when we came to think of sending the MSS. to the
printers, the result was found to be such that the
most experienced compositor would tear his hair in
blank dismay. Therefore Dr. Keightley and myself set
to work with a type-writer, and alternately
dictating and writing, made a clean copy of the
first parts of volumes I. and II.
Then work was continued till parts II. and III. of
each volume were in a fairly advanced condition, and
we could think of sending the work to press.
It had originally been arranged that Mr. George
Redway should publish the work, but his proposals
not being financially satisfactory, the needful
money was offered by a friend of H.P.B.'s, and it
was resolved to take the publication of Lucifer into
our own hands. So the Duke Street office was taken,
and business begun there, the primary object being
to enable the T, S. to derive the utmost possible
benefit from H.P.B.'s writings.
Of the further history of The Secret Doctrine there
is not much more to say - though there were months
of hard work before us. H.P.B. read and corrected
two sets of galley proofs, then a page proof, and
finally a revise in sheet, correcting, adding, and
altering up to the very last moment: - result:
printer's bill for corrections alone over 300
[pounds].
Of phenomena in connection with The Secret Doctrine,
I have very little indeed to say. Quotations with
full references, from books which were never in the
house - quotations verified after hours of search,
sometimes, at the British Museum for a rare book -
of such I saw and verified not a few.
In verifying them I found occasionally the curious
fact that the numerical references were reversed,
e.g., p. 321 for p. 123, illustrating the reversal
of objects when seen in the astral light. But beyond
such instances of clairvoyant vision, I have no
further phenomena directly bearing upon the
production of The Secret Doctrine to record.
Finally I must not omit the valuable assistance
which was rendered by Mr. E. D. Fawcett. Before I
went to Ostend he had been in correspondence with
H.P.B., and later on he also worked with and for her
on the book at Lansdowne Road. He supplied many of
the quotations from scientific works, as well as
many confirmations of the occult doctrines derived
from similar sources. It would not be right in
giving any account of how The Secret Doctrine was
written to omit to mention his name, and as I have
not done so in the proper chronological sequence, I
repair the omission now.
Of the value of the work, posterity must judge
finally. Personally I can only place on record my
profound conviction that when studied thoroughly but
not treated as a revelation, when understood and
assimilated but not made a text for dogma, H.P.B.'s
Secret Doctrine will be found of incalculable value,
and will furnish suggestions, clues, and threads of
guidance, for the study of Nature and Man, such as
no other existing work can supply.
B.K
