The Secret Doctrine (book)

The First Volume of The Secret Doctrine came off the Press on October 20, 1888. The first printing of 500 copies were exhausted before date of publication. The Second Volume came out towards the end of the year.

Writing

In May 1879, soon after moving to India, H. P. Blavatsky started designing a new book on Theosophy that would eventually become The Secret Doctrine.

In January 1884 the Supplement to The Theosophist published an advertising announcing that "a New Version of Isis Unveiled", which was to be published in monthly. Although Mme. Blavatsky had some written material to start the monthly installments, this never came to fruition in the way planned, due to ill-health, her travel to Europe, and the Coulomb affair.

In the fall of 1885, a few months after HPB moved to Wurzburg, Germany, she started working steadily on its writing. The Countess Wachtmeister moved with HPB to help her in this endeavor. As the writing of the book developed with the help of Masters M. and K.H., HPB realized it was much more than a rewriting of Isis Unveiled. In a letter to A. P. Sinnett she said she felt that this could vindicate the Theosophical Society after the unfavorable Report that Hodgson made.

In the spring of 1886 she sent a preliminary manuscript of the first volume to Adyar, where T. Subba Row was supposed to read it and contribute in what had to do with Hindu philosophy. However, he refused to do so. HPB moved to Ostende, Belgium, where she continued working on the book.

By the end of March 1887 she fell gravely ill with a kidney infection. She was not expected to live. Master M. came at night and asked her if she wanted to be freed from the body or live, amidst much suffering, or live and finish The Secret Doctrine. She agreed on finishing the book. On May 1, 1887, she moved to London where a group of earnest students would help her finish and publish her book.

The First Volume of The Secret Doctrine came off the Press on October 20, 1888, while the Second Volume was out towards the end of the year.

Wurzburg manuscript

The Würzburg Manuscript of The Secret Doctrine was finally published in 2014 by David and Nancy Reigle. According to the editors:

It includes H. P. Blavatsky’s first translations of stanzas from the Book of Dzyan with her unrevised commentaries on them. Only the stanzas from the Würzburg manuscript had been published until now, not her unrevised commentaries on them. These comprise cosmogenesis, and a few on anthropogenesis. The Würzburg manuscript also includes a large introductory section, comprising about half the book. Most of the chapters in this introductory section were later published in the 1897 third volume of The Secret Doctrine. As with the commentaries on the stanzas, here we have her unrevised versions.

The so-called Würzburg manuscript is a partial copy of Blavatsky’s early manuscript of The Secret Doctrine, written while she was staying at Würzburg, Germany, and then at Ostende, Belgium, in 1885 and 1886. Her manuscript of the almost completed Secret Doctrine was copied by two or more scribes to send to India for revision by T. Subba Row, which revision did not occur. Only part of this copy has been found. What we have is estimated to be about a fourth or a third of the whole that was sent to India. Fortunately, it includes the whole cosmogenesis section, all seven stanzas and their commentaries.

Editions

• First edition in 2 vol., 1888. The first volume was published on October 20. The second volume was published towards the end of the year. Both volumes have a greyish binding bearing in the usual place the imprint: Theosophical Publishing Co., Ltd., London. They bear the inscriptions: Printed by Allen Scott and Co., 30, Bouverie Street, E.C.—facing the title-page; and facing the dedication: Entered at Stationer’s Hall. All Rights Reserved.

It seems that the sheets of the First Volume, most likely folded, were sent to W. Q. Judge in New York. The American edition was published in a dark brown and a dark blue binding, and bears the inscription: “Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1888, by H.P. Blavatsky, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D.C.”— facing the dedication.

• Second edition in 2 vol., 1888. The 500 copies of the first printing of volume 1 were sold before date of publication to advance subscribers. This was followed by an immediate second impression, erroneously called “second edition”. It was only a second printing from the same plates, with a few minor inaccuracies rectified.

• Third and revised edition in 2 vol., 1893. The text in this edition was considerably revised, mainly by scholar and former secretary of Mme. Blavatsky, G. R. S. Mead, with some involvement of Annie Besant. The corrections involved imperfect English and grammatical errors; transliteration of foreign terms; changes in punctuation, capitalization and italics; some footnotes of the original edition were incorporated to the main text; and any reference to HPB's projected Third or Fourth volumes that never saw the light were eliminated. As a result of this, the pagination in this edition is different from the two previous. This drew criticism in some quarters by students who claimed some changes are not justifiable.

This widely circulated edition was published by The Theosophical Publishing Society, London; The Path Office, New York; and The Theosophist Office, Adyar, and printed by the H.P.B. Press, London.

This edition was reprinted by the Theosophical Society (Adyar) in 1902, 1905, 1908, 1911.

• Index to the "Third and revised edition", 1895. This large and comprehensive Index prepared by Mr. A. J. Faulding was published as a separate volume, substantially expanding the "Index to v. 1 & 2" in the first and second editions. A Concordance of pagination with the previous editions was included. The publishers were The Theosophical Publishing Society, London; The Path Office, New York; The Theosophical Publishing Society, Benares; and The Theosophist Office, Adyar.

Theosophical Publishing House

• First edition of Volume 3, 1897.

• Three-volume edition, 1911. Reprinted in 1913, 1918, 1921, and 1928.

• Fourth (Adyar) edition, 6 vol., 1938. Volume five of this edition contains the text of the 1897 Volume 3, and volume six is an Index. Many of the footnotes introduced into the text in 1893 were restored as footnotes, and the few left in the text were enclosed in square brackets. This edition was reprinted in London in 1950.

• Fifth (Wheaton) edition, 6 vol., 1946. (By the Theosophical Press in Wheaton, Ill.)

• Sixth (Wheaton) edition, 6 vol., 1952. (By the Theosophical Press in Wheaton, Ill.)

• Fifth (Adyar) edition, 6 vol., 1962.

• Sixth (Adyar) edition, 6 vol., 1971. With orange & white book jackets.

• Centenary Edition, 1988. Edited by Boris de Zirkoff in two volumes and Index, it follows the text and pagination of the original edition.

Theosophical University Press

In 1909 a new edition of Volumes I and II of The Secret Doctrine was produced by the Aryan Theosophical Press, Point Loma, California (since then moved to Covina, California, and known as the Theosophical University Press) under the direction of Katherine Tingley. This is virtually a reprint of the original 1888 edition with a scholarly transliteration of Sanskrit words according to an accepted standard, some corrections of faulty Greek and Latin and of obvious typographical errors, and the occasional substitution of square brackets in place of parentheses for clearness. No changes were made in H. P. Blavatsky's language and no passages were eliminated. This is the standard edition still being published by the Theosophical University Press, Covina.

The 1909 edition was reprinted in 1917 as Second Point Loma edition, bound in four volumes, and a Third Point Lome edition took place in 1925 (bound in two and four volumes), all published by the Aryan Theosophical Press.

The Fourth edition was published by the Theosophical University Press, Covina, California, in 1947, as a reprint of the 1925 edition. The edition of 1952 is verbatim with the original 1888 edition. This was reprinted in The Netherlands in 1963 and 1970, and in the united States in 1974.

The Theosophy Company

The Theosophy Company of Los Angeles published in 1925 a photographic facsimile of the two volumes of The Secret Doctrine, bound in one volume. This edition provides the opportunity to study this work in exactly the way the author wrote it, although this edition perpetuates many typographical errors. Several printings of this were issued in subsequent years.

Translations

The Secret Doctrine has been translated into numerous languages.

Spanish

• Don José Xifré of Spain, a personal pupil of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, published a Spanish translation in 1895-98, but almost every copy was destroyed by the Roman Catholic Church, according to Boris de Zirkoff.

Online resources

Articles and pamphlets

• The Secret Doctrine as a Contribution to World Thought by Sri Madhava Ashish
• Second book Review of The Secret Doctrine by Annie Besant
• Mistaken Notions on the Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky
• Authorship of Secret Doctrine by William Q. Judge
• Hidden Hints in the Secret Doctrine - Part I and Part II by William Q. Judge
• The Secret Doctrine by Alvin Boyd Kuhn
• Study Course on The Secret Doctrine by Pablo Sender
• Book of Dzyan Studies by various contributors on Theosophy.net

Books

• Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge at ULT Phoenix's website
• The Secret Doctrine Dialogues at ULT Phoenix's website
• The Secret Doctrine Commentaries at Point Loma Blavatsky House Website
• Reminiscences of H.P. Blavatsky and The Secret Doctrine by Countess Constance Wachtmeister

Audio

• Introduction to the Study of The Secret Doctrine - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6 by Ed Abdill
• Secrets of The Secret Doctrine W. Doss McDavid
• Important Principles in The Secret Doctrine - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 by Joy Mills

Video

• Foundations of the Ageless Wisdom (5 Parts) by Ed Abdill
• The Secret Doctrine: Esoteric Insights and Spiritual Practice (8 Parts) by Pablo Sender

Other resoruces

• Compilation of articles related to the First Fundamental Proposition, Second Fundamental Proposition, and Third Fundamental Proposition at Philaletheians.co.uk

Additional resources

• Bibliography on The Secret Doctrine from the Henry S. Olcott Memorial Library.
• About The Secret Doctrine Compilation of material at Blavatsky Net