Theos-Talk Archives (July 1996 Message tl00113)

The following was found on alt.horror.cthulhu.  I thought
students of Theosophy might find it of some interest.

Daniel Caldwell
blafoun <blafoun@azstarnet.com>

> Date: Thu, 04 Jul 96 15:31:55 -700

>> Re: Necronomicon/Book of Dzyan
>> 
>>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
>> From           maskull@usa.pipeline.com(Maskull >)
>> Organization   Pipeline
>> Date           4 Jul 1996 13:49:34 GMT
>> Newsgroups     alt.horror.cthulhu
>> 
>>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
>>      The first person ever to mention the imaginary "Book
>> of Dzyan" was the founder of Theosophy, H. P. Blavatsky.
>> She invented "The Book of Dzyan" in order to give credibility
>> to her massive "The Secret Doctrine"(1888), about which L.
>> Sprague de Camp says the following:
>> 
>>      "This huge work is supposedly based upon "The Book of
>> Dzyan", of which her Mahatmas showed her a manuscript copy,
>> written on palm-leaf pages, in the trances in which she and they
>> visited one another. The book, we are told, was originally composed
>> in Atlantis in the forgotten Senzar language. "The Secret Doctrine"
>> consists of quotations from the "Dzyan" and Mme. Blavatsky's lengthy
>> commentaries thereon, interspread with passages of occult gibberish
>> and diatribes against "materialistic" science and "dogmatic" religion.
>>      "The Secret Doctrine", I grieve to say, is neither so ancient, so
>> erudite, nor so authentic as it pretends to be. For when it appeared,
>> the learned but humorless old William Emette Coleman, outraged by
>> Madame Blavatsky's pretensions to Oriental learning, undertook a
>> complete exegesis of her works. He showed that her main sources
>> were H.H. Wilson's translation of the "Visnu Purana"; Alexander
>> Winchell's "World Life; or, Comparative Geology"; Donnelly's "Atlantis";
>> and other contemporary scientific and occult works, plagiarized
>> without credit and used in a blundering manner that showed but
>> skin-deep acquaintance with the subjects under discussion. She
>> cribbed at least part of her "Stanzas of Dzyan" from the "Hymn of
>> Creation" in the old Sanskrit "Rig-Veda", as a comparison of the two
>> compositions will readily show. Coleman promised a book that should
>> expose all of H.P.B.'s sources, including that of the word "Dzyan".
>> Unfortunately Coleman lost his library and notes in the San Francisco
>> earthquake [1906] and died three years later, his book unwritten."
>>      ("Lost Continents: The Atlantis Theme in History, Science, and
>> Literature" (1954) ISBN 0-486-22668-9)
>> 
>>      I think there is no doubt that H.P.L. was familiar with the teachings
>> 
>> of Theosophy, and that they fueled his imagination. They might also
>> shed some light on his racism in that Theosophy goes on at great length
>> about various "Root Races". According to their teachings, blacks are
>> the degenerate remnant of Atlantis, while Asians are devolved Lemurians.
>> Jews are in passing referred to as "an unnatural and abnormal link" to
>> earlier
>> races. It was then the belief in occult circles that the various European
>> peoples would interbreed to produce the next "Root Race".
>> 
>> Maskull
>> <maskull@usa.pipeline.com>
>> 
>> 
>> "Dry sorrow drinks our blood." -Romeo