2013, The Theosophy Company; 750 pages
First
published in the Netherlands in 2010 and edited by Michael Gomes, the happy
surprising discovery of a lost collection of transcripts of an important study
class on the Secret Doctrine given by H. P. Blavatsky in 1889 by Daniel Caldwell is truly an
amazing event. The resulting book is probably the most important Blavatsky publication
since Trevor Barker’s 1925 Letters of H.P
Blavatsky to A.P. Sinnett.
There are
twenty-two class transcriptions in all – the first ten classes comprise the
contents of the original Transactions of
the Blavatsky Lodge publication, which covered the first four stanzas of
the Secret Doctrine. Classes 11- 17 and part of 21 cover the rest of the Secret Doctrine to the end of Stanza 7.
Class 18 is sadly missing and presumably dealt with early and middle slokas of
Stanza 7. The remaining classes are dedicated to discussing questions to what
eventually became the Key to Theosophy
and it is fascinating to see part of the collaborative process that went into the
writing of that classic work.
The first
thing that one notices is how different the class transcripts of stanzas i-iv
differ are the original published 1890 Transactions
of the Blavatsky Lodge version. It now seems that a considerable amount of
re-writing and editing and additions of new material went into the making of
that valuable work, one of the underappreciated gems in the Blavatskian oeuvre.
The
remaining transcriptions are particularly valuable due to the extremely
difficult nature of the stanzaa of the first volume of the Secret Doctrine. Therefore commentary from the original author
provides much needed and invaluable hints and explanations.
Another
striking aspect to these transcriptions is that one is afforded the opportunity
to be a fly on the wall in a room with Blavatsky having discussions with some
of her closest students and so we get the most up-close and personal glimpse of
Blavatsky yet. Naturally, there are many lively examples of the famous
Blavatskian wit, sarcasm, iconoclasm, temper, etc… and also, more poignantly, occasional
examples of Blavatsky feeling the strain
of her poor health and the heavy public opposition she was faced with. Yet despite
this, and with the added difficulty of having to deal with students much more
accustomed to materialistic science than esoteric philosophy (some of them with
considerable credentials), she patiently soldiered on to cover the entirety of
the first section of the Secret Doctrine.
One also
notices the very informal and casual tone of the classes, much different from
the often very laboured, erudite style
of her writings; but this does not mean that there is a lack of substance in
these texts – there is a refreshing simple kind of wisdom in many of the
explanations, giving them a more accessible quality than the formidable original
text, making them valuable as an introduction to the Secret Doctrine as well as helpful commentary for advanced students
of the text. Moreover, one gets occasional intriguing bits of information not
found in any of her writings, further showing what a fathomless fount of
information this remarkable woman was (although in general, she is quite reticent to expand upon recondite esoteric hints found in the Secret Doctrine).
Meeting 15
of April 18, 1889 is of interest due to the participation of famous
theosophists G.R.S. Mead and A.P. Sinnett as well most likely the famous poet
and Theosophist W.B. Yeats. Annie Besant participated in class 21 of June 6
1889. Moreover, the well-known astrologer Sepharial (Walter Old) is a prominent
and articulate class participant. This is truly an exceptional publication - highly
recommended.
Below is
an extract from class 20 of May 30, 1889, showing Blavatsky's distinctively
eloquent philosophical metaphysical intuition (pp. 553-554):
"This is then the Unknowable, and this contains more than a simple negation. It is the confession of our human ignorance; but also the tacit or virtual admission that within man there is that which feels that energy which is the universal substance"
Mme.
Blavatsky: This is then the Unknowable,
and this contains more than a simple negation. It is the confession of our
human ignorance; but also the tacit or virtual admission that within man there
is that which feels that energy which is the universal substance; it is fabric,
so to speak. Now, Spencer repeats very often that Unknowable is that energy
which manifests itself simultaneously in the universe, and in our
consciousness, and that it is the highest existing reality, only concealed in
the ever-changing progress of physical manifestation; and yet spirit for
Herbert Spencer is simply the invisible cosmic cause of these phenomena. As I
understand him he does not see in spirit anything more. He attributes to this
essence, as we do, unity, homogeneity, and a limitless existence outside space
and time, whose means of activity are universal laws. We say so, too, but we
add that above that essence and plurality of the laws whose manifestations are
only periodical, there is the one eternal law, the causeless cause, as we call
it. Spencer places the Unknowable face to face with the abstract and the cosmic
phenomena, and sees in this Unknowable the cause of the manifestation. The
Positivist, on the other hand, while admitting the existence of a certain
fundamental or basic energy, speaks, nevertheless, of the Unknowable as being simply a negative quantity, which is a contradiction
in terms. Now, you understand the idea. One calls it the Unknowable, and the
other the Unknown. It is positively a contradiction in terms, and both mean
quite a different thing; and yet, the same thing. Because Herbert Spencer calls
that which we would call the First Logos—or the first manifestation, the
radiation from the eternal—he calls it first cause; and then he speaks about
the Unknowable. The other one speaks of the Unknown and wants to make of the
Unknown the Parabrahman. You understand? But the Parabrahman entirely
unconsciousness, that is to say, a negative quantity, as he calls it. Now, what
we Occultists say is that neither Spencer nor Harrison offers anything like a
complete philosophy. The Unknowable or the Unknown could not exist for our
perceptions, nor could our perceptions for it. It is the Unknown, or the
Invisible manifesting the Logos, which we place face to face with every
phenomenon—abstract, physical, psychic, mental, or spiritual—because the
Unknown will always contain in itself some portion of the Unknowable, that is
to say, some of the laws and manifestations which elude our perception for a
time. On the other hand, Unknowable, being the sum of all that which owing to
our finite intellectual organization may elude forever our perceptions, is the
Parabrahman, or the causeless cause. Now, if I have succeeded in making myself
understood, then I say if you study Spencer’s Unknowable, and take Harrison’s
Unknown, instead of accepting either one or the other, seeing the necessary
complements of each one life, then our one abstract Monad, and our one
universal Prâna, whose eternal, immutable, causeless cause, is our Vedântinic
Parabrahman, at one end of the line, and the great being, the human race or
humanity at the other, then you will have the true idea of what the Occultists
mean. You see it is this humanity and each unit in it which are, at one and the
same time, the Unknowable, the Unknown, and the To-Be-Known. This is what
occultism says: as it is impossible for the human mind to know anything
definite even of the unknown essence, so let us turn our whole attention to its
highest manifestation on earth, mankind, and say as is said in John: “In it we
live and move and have our being”—“Illo vivicuus moveuur et sumus”.2
2 [Acts 17:28, “For in him we live, and move, and have our being—in
illa enim vivimus et movemur et sumus.”]
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