De Zirkoff on Edward Douglas Fawcett

Boris de Zirkoff · Theosophy and Theosophists Series · 8 pages

Eight pages, de Zirkoff's bio-bibliography of Edward Douglas Fawcett from the Collected Writings volume IX, pages 415 to 416. *It is the most quietly sceptical of these short lives, and the reason is a disputed claim about The Secret Doctrine*.

Fawcett was an English philosopher and man of letters, born at Hove, Brighton in 1866 and died in London on 14 April 1960 — so he outlived nearly everyone else in this section by half a century. He was educated at Newton College in South Devon, where he won a scholarship, and at Westminster School, where he was a Queen's Scholar and won many prizes; four years of philosophical study followed, after which he joined the staff of the Daily Telegraph as assistant sub-editor. Metaphysical study, de Zirkoff says, was the one absorbing interest of his life. He came into contact with theosophy in London and for a time was greatly interested in the movement's activities. When Blavatsky was at Ostend in 1887 he went to see her and gave her some assistance in the writing of The Secret Doctrine, mostly on points of Western philosophy and science — and here de Zirkoff's judgement is careful and pointed: the extent of that help is difficult to determine, and at a later time Fawcett made some rather pretentious claims about it. In 1890 he resigned his position and went to Adyar, serving for a while on the editorial staff of The Theosophist, delivering scholarly lectures in Madras and at Adyar, and becoming a Buddhist while in Ceylon. He did not stay long, returned to England, and thereafter seems to have had no connection with the movement. The closing observation is the one that lands: Blavatsky herself was by no means certain how serious his interest in occult matters was, writing to Sinnett from Ostend that she hoped his enthusiasm would not evaporate — which, de Zirkoff notes drily, apparently it did.

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