De Zirkoff on the Third Volume of the Secret Doctrine

Boris de Zirkoff · Theosophy and Theosophists Series · 21 pages

Twenty-one pages, and *the most pointed piece of bibliography in this section. Its own title states the verdict: the third volume of The Secret Doctrine is an unworthy companion to the first two. The frontispiece is by Stephanie Syjuco, 2017. The text is de Zirkoff's explanatory note from the Collected Writings* volume X, pages 157 to 159.

He begins with the two genuine volumes and dates them precisely, because the whole argument depends on the record. The first volume came off the press on 20 October 1888, evidenced by a set of the original edition in his own archives; on its fly-leaf, in faint blue pencil, Richard Harte wrote that this was the first copy ever issued, got from the printer by special messenger on the morning of 20 October as he was leaving 17 Lansdowne Road with Colonel Olcott for India, and that the second volume followed him out. The physical details are recorded with the same care — the greyish binding, the imprint of the Theosophical Publishing Company in London, the note that both volumes were printed by Allen Scott and Company of 30 Bouverie Street, entered at Stationers' Hall, all rights reserved — and the fact that sheets of the first volume, most likely folded, were sent to W.Q. Judge in New York. That accumulation of evidence is the point: having established exactly what Blavatsky published and when, the file goes on to set the posthumous third volume against it. Anyone who has encountered the third volume and wondered about its standing will find here the documentary case for treating it differently from the two she saw through the press herself.

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