Blavatsky's Open Letter to Fellow Theosophists

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Boris de Zirkoff · Theosophy and Theosophists Series · 8 pages

Eight pages, of which a good half is Boris de Zirkoff's introductory note, taken from the Collected Writings volume VI, pages 412 to 413. *The note is the reason to read the file*, because it establishes what the letter is and why it matters.

The statement exists in manuscript in the Adyar archives. The main body is in a hand not definitely identified, possibly that of Bawajee — a probationary chela of Mahatma K.H., also known as Babaji — while the title, the words Gentlemen and Brothers, a notation reading in Correspondence, the closing Fraternally yours, the signature and the date are all in Blavatsky's own hand. It may have been intended for the correspondence section of The Theosophist, but was not published there and, so far as is known, has never appeared in print since. Its subject is the book Man: Fragments of Forgotten History. By Two Chelas, published by Reeves and Turner in 1885 with a second edition in 1887, written by Mohini Mohun Chatterji, the Eastern Chela, and Mrs Laura Langford Holloway, the Western Chela, apparently at the Arundales' house in London. De Zirkoff's note assembles the evidence that Blavatsky had nothing to do with writing it and was opposed to the whole venture, citing her letters to William Quan Judge of January 1887 and to Colonel Olcott of July 1886. It adds a detail that gives the letter its edge: she made copious notes embodying a large number of corrections to be incorporated in the second edition, the manuscript of which was in A.P. Sinnett's hands and is transcribed in her published letters to him — and careful comparison of the text plainly shows that those corrections never made it into the second edition.

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