A Commentary on
“The Letters of
H.P. Blavatsky -
vol. I”, Edited by John
Algeo,
TPH-Wheaton, USA, 2003, 632 pp.
Carlos Cardoso
Aveline
Facsimile of the 2004 Letter of Mrs. Burnier saying
she has nothing to do
with the inclusion of the obviously spurious letters in the TPH-USA volume.
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The following text reproduces Chapter
Eighteen of
the book “The Fire and Light of Theosophical
Literature”,
by Carlos Cardoso Aveline, The
Aquarian Theosophist, Portugal, 255
pp., 2013.
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Included in “The
Letters of H.P. Blavatsky - Volume I” we can see some 27 letters which are said
to be written by HPB, but whose originals never appeared. They contain numerous
brutal attacks and disguised slanders against the main founder of the modern
esoteric movement.
In most cases, the false letters ascribed to Helena P.
Blavatsky were obtained exclusively from their publication by Mr. Vsevolod S. Solovyov,
as the editor John Algeo rightfully indicates after the text of each of them.
Mr. John Algeo, who was at the time the international
vice-president of the Adyar Theosophical Society, adopted the Solovyov
documents as “true” or “probably true”. In doing this, he preferred not to take
into consideration the central fact that Solovyov was a well-known slanderer
and an outstanding public enemy of the Theosophical movement and of HPB’s,
personally. Algeo also ignored the fact that there are no indications
suggesting that these texts might be authentic.
No theosophical historian gives credit to Vsevolod
Solovyov. His accusations are utterly false, as Sylvia Cranston demonstrates in
“HPB, The Extraordinary Life & Influence of Helena Blavatsky”.[1]
In another important book - “Blavatsky and Her
Teachers” - Jean Overton Fuller reports that Solovyov forged and published
several letters, which he ascribed to HPB. In one of them, Solovyov makes HPB
“confess” she “invented” the whole idea of the Masters.[2]
In a third well-known biography of the Old Lady, “When
Daylight Comes”, by Howard Murphet, we read - at page 193 - that Solovyov
played the role of “a muckracking journalist looking for a good story at any
cost to truth”.[3] On the same page
193, Howard Murphet quotes H. S. Olcott, the president-founder of the
Theosophical Society. According to HSO, the fact that Solovyov’s texts against
HPB were published only after her death, which “made it safe for him to tell
his falsehoods about her, shows him to be as heartless and contemptible, though
fifty times more talented, than the Coulombs”. [4]
John Algeo, who seemed to be a careful linguist and
scholar, failed to leave these letters unpublished. And he failed even to
mention that Mr. Solovyov, sole source of
these texts, was one of the bitterest enemies of HPB and of the theosophical
movement in all times, and most likely forged these letters, completely or in
part. In fact, Algeo seems to implicitly indicate to the reader that the
letters are authentic. The very name of the Theosophical Publishing House
appearing on the volume, and the fact that it is published as part of the Collected Writings of HPB give even more
weight to the false impression that these letters should be taken as authentic.
Most of the Algeo-Solovyov letters are addressed to
Mr. A. N. Aksakoff. Besides the texts commented below, other letters included
in the U.S.A.-TPH volume were obtained exclusively from Mr. Vsevolod Solovyov’s
book.
Among the false texts published as authentic are Algeo
letters 7, 11, 12, 17, 33, 37, 45, 53, 54, 55, 60, 61, 69, 70, 72, 76, 85, 90
and 94. Some of the most offensive “Letters” in the volume are 7, 12, 17, 33,
37, 53, 69 and 76. But in several other Algeo-Solovyov letters HPB appears as
someone obsessed by money, a mean person, morally and intellectually limited to
subjects of little importance.
Commentaries on some of the texts in the book “Letters
of H.P. Blavatsky - volume I”:
Letter 7 - In this text, famous for
being a collection of absurdities, HPB is made to offer her services to the
Russian Secret Police. A thorough examination of Algeo Letter 7 is presented in the next Chapter, “A Masterpiece of
Editorial Forgery”.
Letter 8 - It serves as a preparation
for reading Algeo Letters 11 and 12.
Letters 11 and 12 - The “HPB”
fabricated by the enemies of the esoteric movement writes as if she were morally guilty of all kinds of undignified
behavior. One of the sentences in Algeo Letter 12, at page 49, says: “These are
the bitter fruits of my youth devoted to Satan, his pomps and works!”
At page 47,
Letter 12, she writes: “Though you have the right, like any honorable man, to
despise me for my sad reputation in the past, you are so condescending and
magnanimous as to write to me. .... If I
have any hope for the future, it is only beyond the grave, when bright spirits
shall help me to free myself from my sinful and impure envelope.”
There are many other sentences ascribed to HPB which
are extremely hard to take as true if not ridiculously false.
Algeo Letters 11, 12, 17 and others may be entire
forgeries. Other possibility is that false interpolations have been included in
their “transcriptions” made by Mr. Solovyov. Both from inner evidence and from
the source of these letters, it is easy to see that they include many false
sentences.
In the book “Blavatsky and Her Teachers”, Jean Overton
Fuller correctly identifies the false letter which Algeo published as authentic
and included in his volume as Letter 11. Here “HPB” is made to talk about free
love and to say that “there is no salvation” for her “but death”.
In 1999, I heard that such a letter would be published
as part of the “Collected Writings”. Mr. Pedro Oliveira, the former
International Secretary of the T.S. Adyar, told me that. At the time, I wrote
to the USA-TPH asking about any continuation of the “Collected Writings” after
the Volume XV - Cumulative Index. I had a response saying that no other volume
was in preparation. In the year 2000, when I detected rumours in the Brazilian
Section of the T.S. questioning HPB’s purity of life, I wrote to Pedro Oliveira
for clarification and he avoided the subject.
Letter 17 - In this text the false “HPB”, an astral voodoo
doll created to cause harm to the
mission of the real
Monad who once worked under the
name of HPB, is made to say: “If you hear
that the Blavatsky of many sins has perished, not in the bloom of years and beauty, by some curious death, and
that she has dematerialized forever...” (page 71). And then she attacks her own
family (page 72).
Letter 33 - These words are ascribed to
her: “... yet, there is only one thing I am seeking and struggling for - that
people should forget the former Blavatsky, and leave the new one alone. But it seems hard to achieve.” And the text goes on along similar lines.
Letter 37 - This Algeo letter says: “In
a detailed account (…..), Olcott makes of me something mysteriously
terrible, and almost leads the public to suspect that I have either sold my soul
to the devil or am the direct heiress of Count de Saint-Germain or Cagliostro.
Do not believe it (.....).” In the same page, a few lines below: “Moreover the
spirit of John King is very fond of me, and I am fonder of him than of anything
on earth. He is my only friend, and if I am indebted to anyone for the radical
change in my ideas of life, my yearnings, and so forth, it is to him alone.”
Later on, we can read:
“This is why I have laid down the rule never in any
case to permit outsiders to utilize my mediumistic powers.” (pp. 141-142)
Letter 53 - “I am ready to sell my soul
for spiritualism, but nobody will buy it, and I am living from hand to mouth
...” (page 194)
Letter 69 - “I really cannot, just
because the devil got me into trouble in my youth, go and rip up my stomach now
like a Japanese suicide...” And also:
“My position is cheerless - simply helpless. There is nothing left but to start
for Australia and change my name forever.”
(page 260)
Letter 76 - Among other Algeotic absurdities, the founder of the
theosophical movement is made to describe a scene in which she and other people
torture a cat and cause the death of the animal by electrification (page 288),
during “an occult experience”.
In the preface of this volume with “Letters of HPB”,
John Algeo carefully reveals minor aspects of his “Editorial Principles” on
issues like References, Transliteration, Translations and Order. He does not
say that he includes a whole collection of slanders against HPB.
The very title of Algeo’s volume - “The Letters of
H.P. Blavatsky” - invites the reader to take for granted that all the Letters
have been authentically written by HPB. Any fair editorial approach would at
the very least mention that they cannot be ascribed to HPB, and that many of
them have been forged or distorted by Mr. Solovyov.
One must take into consideration the fact that these
letters are all dated after 1870, when a letter from the Mahatmas, delivered to
HPB’s aunt, made it clear that HPB was already in full touch with them and a
full disciple.[5] Therefore no one
could say that when HPB wrote these letters she was naive, had not been taken
into discipleship properly, etc.
Of course, the members of the “Editorial Committee for
the Letters of HPB” - Dara Eklund, Daniel Caldwell, R. Elwood, Joy Mills,
Nicholas Weeks - have a degree of responsibility with regard to the publication
of these slanders. In a letter to me dated June 6th 2004, Mr. Algeo says that
each member of the Editorial Committee “was sent all materials as they were
prepared”, and every member “responded to those materials, without mentioning
the matters of your concern.”
This, however, is not true, as Ms. Dara Eklund told me
in a letter dated 17 May 2004:
“My husband Nicholas Weeks had cautioned Algeo about
the Solovyov letters, but he made the final decision...”
Dara sent me copy of an e-mail from John Algeo to her,
written in May 2004 after receiving my first letter to him and to Dara. In the
e-mail Algeo states:
“The question of the reliability of Solovyov has
already been broached to me by Leslie Price, so I have it in mind. I’ll see
whether I can get some general caveat into the next printing, and more
particular notes on his particular failings into the next edition. I was of
course aware that Solovyov (like others who have quoted or extracted HPB’s letters)
cannot be taken at face value, and there is a general statement about that in
the volume. But because Boris included those letters in his collection, I was
not as critical about them as I probably should have been.”
In this paragraph John Algeo mentions Solovyov’s
“particular failings”.
According to the Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary,
“failing” means “the act or state of one who or that which fails”. Therefore failings is not the word for what
Solovyov did. He tried to do harm and
happened to have a considerable success indeed. Even now his lies are
publicized.
One could argue that most of these letters were
translated by Boris de Zirkoff, who included them in his personal files decades
ago.
But this does not mean that Zirkoff thought they were
authentic. Boris published other false accusations and forged letters against
HPB in the volume VI of her Collected
Writings. He did so clearly identifying the texts as forgeries, from their
very titles, and included frank commentaries by HPB herself on such libels. No
ambiguity was possible. No reader could possibly think those forged texts were
true. Whereas Algeo silently adopted as true the attacks against HPB. It is
clear, therefore, that there is an oceanic distance between the two editorial
treatments with regard to the attacks against the Old Lady.
In a letter to Algeo dated 25th May 2004, I submitted
to him 12 technical questions:
1) What proofs do you have that the Solovyov letters,
whose originals never appeared, are true?
2) Why do you implicitly believe, as an editor, that
Solovyov is a reliable historical source?
3) Who made the historical discovery that Henry S.
Olcott, Jean Overton Fuller, Howard Murphet, Sylvia Cranston and so many other
students are wrong, and Mr. Solovyov is, after all, a reliable source of
documents concerning H.P. Blavatsky?
4) What are the scientific evidences that corroborate
such a powerful discovery?
5) Or do you accept the evidences that Solovyov is a
liar and a traitor to Truth?
6) But then, why publish his stuff as true with no
warning?
7) Or rather, why to publish it at all?
8) Who gave the letter ascribed to H.P.B. and
published as number 7, to the Russian Public Archives where it is now?
9) You must have proofs or evidences that the
originals of Letter 7, now in these Public Archives, were not forged either by
Mr. Solovyov or by Mr. and Mrs. Coulomb.
10) What are these proofs and evidences, please?
11) Has any expert in forgeries examined these
“originals”?
12) Please remember that the last time an expert
examined the so-called “proofs” against HPB, the Old Lady was found not guilty.
HPB was found a victim of forgery, and the SPR, Society for Psychic Research,
honestly made a public apology in April 1986, one hundred years after
condemning HPB on false evidence. Why not to try a good expert in forgeries for
the Letter 7, if it has not been done yet?
While these 12 questions to John Algeo had no answers,
the international president of the Theosophical Society (Adyar) honestly wrote
to me about the issue. In order to understand what was going on with the Adyar
Society’s editorial policies, I had asked an explanation from Ms. Radha
Burnier. Upon receiving my evaluation of Algeo’s editorial work, she answered
in a letter dated 24 June 2004:
“I agree about the wisdom of including in ‘The Letters
of HPB’ published by TPH Wheaton the obviously spurious ones. You must
ask an explanation, not from me (who have nothing to do with it, and have not
been consulted) but from the Editorial Committee in the U.S.”
It is a significant fact that Mrs. Burnier stays away
from these attacks against HPB.
In a personal letter to me dated 5 May 2004, Jean
Overton Fuller admitted:
“It is very strange, Algeo being a Theosophist and
indeed Vice-President.” In the same letter Jean says that the publication of
the Solovyov letters as if they were authentic is something “really very
damaging”.
Algeo did partially accept he made a mistake in
publishing the Solovyov letters. But his confession was made privately, and
such a public mistake must be corrected in a public way, as I requested from
him in a letter dated 19 June 2004:
“It would be
obviously not fair that the misinformation would go to the many, and that the
honest admission of the mistake would be made to one or two people only.
You know that modern newspapers use to admit their mistakes. When any
publication makes a mistake, the rule goes (and in most cases the law says)
that the acknowledgment and correction should be as public as the
misinformation publicized. As to the religious world, even the Pope John Paul
II has admitted publically several of Vatican’s past crimes against the Jews,
the native peoples, during the Inquisition, etc.”
“Therefore I would like to make a suggestion. Would
you please make a public note or statement (in ‘Quest’ magazine, for instance),
visible enough to be noticed, admitting that the Solovyov letters - once fully examined the evidences available -
cannot be considered authentic, but quite the opposite, as they have been
likely forged?”
“If you do that, I will not feel obliged to try to
build an amount of general critical consciousness about the issue, so that in
the second edition the wrongs are corrected.”
“I do not have the option of doing nothing about the
issue, unless someone proves to me that Solovyov is a reliable source on
theosophical history and on the life of HPB. The reason I can’t remain inert is
that I have a heartfelt ethical duty to practice a valiant defence of those who
are unjustly attacked. (I believe you are familiar with this particular step of
the Golden Stairs.) ”
Algeo wrote about making corrections in the next
edition. There is no need for such a long delay in correcting the mistake
done. Such a future correction would
leave the whole first edition in error. On the other hand, there is no
guarantee that a second edition will appear any time soon, as Ms. Joy Mills,
member of the Editorial Committee, acknowledged in a letter to me dated August
5th, 2004:
“We appreciate your concern over any letters in the
published work, ‘The Letters of H.P. Blavatsky’, that may be spurious.
Corrections can only be made if and when there is a further edition of this
first volume of the letters. Meanwhile, I assure you that we will take into
consideration your several comments and objections.”
It is a rather difficult-to-solve mathematical problem
for me to understand why Ms. Joy Mills (an ex-international vice-president of
the Adyar Society) should come to the conclusion that “nothing can be done”
before the “if and when” of a new edition occurs. The real question is: “even if there would be
another edition soon, why wait to make the correction?” I wrote on 9 July 2004
to Dara Eklund, with copy to Mr. Algeo:
“Why waiting? Why should we circulate (.....)
falsehoods - by action or by omission - to the two or three thousand readers of
the first edition (….). Why not making an errata,
a leaf with a rectification, which would circulate with each new volume to be
sold? (…..) It would be an (…..) adequate and professional attitude on the part
of Mr. John Algeo and his Committee.”
And I added in the same letter:
“...Once Mr. Algeo has a clear perception of the
injustice made to HPB, he will be happy to acknowledge the mistake as soon as
possible, as every able and experienced editor does worldwide nowadays. In
previous letters I have already mentioned the apologies of the Vatican with
regard to several of its crimes. I also mentioned the wise tradition of errata and editorial apologies which
editors openly do whenever needed. (….) But I believe you will agree with me
that a public mistake cannot be
corrected with a secret amendment.”
The Psychoanalysis
of an Editorial Policy
In a handwritten postcard dated 19 July 2004, Dara
Eklund reiterated to me that in her view all editorial responsibility belongs
to Mr. John Algeo, and said that indeed “he would not need to wait ten years to do that” [i.e., the amendments]. [6]
Patience should be practiced in esoteric philosophy,
along with firmness. Several years after Dara’s commentary, the January 2013
edition of The Aquarian Theosophist
made the same suggestion in the article entitled “H.P.B. Defense Project -
2013, an Opportunity to Change for the Better” (pp. 3-4). There was
still no positive reaction.
In an article published in the July 2005 edition of
the Adyar magazine “The Theosophist”, Algeo had confessed: “It may be the case
that those letters are indeed forgeries.” [7] But he did not admit that they are evidently fraudulent, and that he had no
proof whatsoever to the contrary.
How could Algeo’s actions be rationally explained?
What is the conscious or unconscious purpose of belittling HPB? There may be
deep psychological processes involved.
Recognizing the basic fact of HPB’s purity of life has implications
which make it a challenging task for
some. If you have a spiritual leader who led a pure life, you try to purify
yourself, your emotions and motives, as much as you can. For those who are not
interested in this difficult but central task, it may be a false cause of relief
and comfort to imagine HPB as having led an impure life. Solovyov’s lies may
then help these people along the initially wide and nice path of self-justification, self-indulgence and self-illusion.
The purity of life of HPB has little to do with conventional
or popular moralism, which is normally attached to some degree of hypocrisy.
Self-discipline and purity of life for true aspirants to wisdom have to do with
Yoga as science.
The reason for theosophists to follow HPB’s example
and try to lead pure lives has to do with Occult Science and with the process
of cause and effect. It is essential, along 21st century and afterwards, that
people have the chance to understand that the Mahatmas’ Teachings came through
a decent person, a Jnana Yogi, an Upasika,
a female disciple.
Sacred knowledge is attached - not for religious
reasons, but for scientific ones - to a clean life, an open mind, a pure heart,
a loyal sense of duty to the Teacher, a brave declaration of principles and a
valiant defence of those who are unjustly attacked. These are but some of the
main steps indicated by the Mahatmas to those who want to be true aspirants for
lay discipleship. [8]
NOTES:
[1] “HPB, The Extraordinary Life & Influence of
Helena Blavatsky”, by Sylvia Cranston, published by Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam
Books, N.Y., USA, 1994, 648 pp. See
Chapter 2 in Part 6, pp. 298-310.
[2] “Blavatsky and Her Teachers”, by Ms. Jean
Overton Fuller, East-West Publications, 1988, 270 pp., see Chapter 67, pp.
186-188.
[3] “When Daylight Comes”, by Howard Murphet, TPH,
Quest Books, USA, copyright 1975, 277 pp.
See Chapter 22, pp. 191-194.
[4] The sentence comes from H.S. Olcott’s “Old Diary
Leaves”, TPH-India, 1972, volume III, p. 185.
[5] See “Letters From the Masters of the
Wisdom”, edited by C. Jinarajadasa, TPH, 1973, Second Series, Letter 1, by
Mahatma K.H.
[6] The present Chapter examines but a few
fundamental mistakes and forms of disrespect for truth and ethics in Algeo’s
volume. For other faults in the editorial work of “The Letters of H.P.
Blavatsky - Vol. I”, see the review by John Patrick Deveney, from New York, in
the magazine “Theosophical History”, July 2004, pp. 31-36. “Theosophical
History” was published by Mr. James Santucci, Department of Comparative
Religion, California State University, USA.
[7] “Discord is the Harmony of the Universe”, an article
by John Algeo in “The Theosophist”, a monthly magazine, Adyar, India, July
2005, see p. 371.
[8] The above Chapter is an enlarged and updated version
of a text published under the same title by “Fohat” magazine in its Winter 2004
edition. It was also published in “The Aquarian Theosophist”, September 2005,
pp. 1-9. A Portuguese language translation of its initial version was published
in Portugal by the magazine “Biosofia” in the edition of Winter 2004-2005.
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In September 2016, after a careful analysis of the state of the
esoteric movement worldwide, a group of students decided to form the Independent Lodge of Theosophists,
whose priorities include the building of a better future in the different
dimensions of life.
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