📚 PREFÁCIO DO VOLUME UM

FOREWORD TO VOLUME ONE

Most of the material in the present Volume appeared in print in collected form for the first time in 1933, when it was published by Rider & Co. in London, under the title of the The Complete Works of H. P. Blavatsky. A considerable portion of the stock of that Volume perished in the London "blitz" during the second World War. As a result of this, these earlier Volumes have been unobtainable for many years.

The material originally published in Volume I has been thoroughly revised; the text has been checked in almost every instance wit the original sources of publication, and most of the quoted matter compared with the originals and corrected whenever necessary. Substantial additions have been incorporated in the present Volume, such as H.P.B.'s characteristic marginal pen-and-ink Notes and Comments in her Scrapbooks now in the Archives at Adyar, her Travel-Impressions of 1867 jotted down in one of her Notebooks, her revealing entries in Col. Olcott's Diaries of 1878, and a few articles and brief items from her pen discovered during the last few years. Many explanatory notes and comments have been added by the Compiler to clarify points of Theosophical history. A comprehensive yet succinct outline of H.P.B.'s family background and early life and travels has been prepared especially for this Volume. Biographical and Bibliographical information has been collected in the Appendix with regard to a number of individuals associated with H.P.B. in the formative years of the Theosophical Movement, especially the Co-founders of the Society, and other personalities she refers to or quotes from. All in all, the present Volume, far from being merely a second edition of the earlier one, is de facto an entirely new Volume, and is intended to set the stage and sound the key-note for the entire Series of the Collected Writings. The Compiler wishes to express his gratitude to all those who have helped in the preparation of this Volume, especially the following friends and associates: Irene R. Ponsonby who checked all the editorial material and read the page proofs, and whose thorough knowledge of literary style and

xxiv BLAVATSKY: COLLECTED WRITINGS

Methods was of inestimable help; Zoltán de álgya-Pap, of the Adyar Archives, whose willing assitance and painstaking checking of original sources provided a major contribution to the completeness of this Volume; Dara R. Eklund who was responsible for the checking of innumerable quotations in various out of the way publications; Frances Ziegenmeyer who helped with the transcription of microfilm; and Margaret Chamberlain Rathbun who proofread the text of the entire Volume in manuscript.

BORIS DE ZIRKOFF,
Compiler.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A.
JANUARY 4TH, 1966.

Collected Writings VOLUME I

HELENA PETROVNA BLAVATSKY xxv

HELENA PETROVNA BLAVATSKY

GENERAL OUTLINE OF HER LIFE PRIOR TO HER PUBLIC WORK.

A definitive edition of the Collected Writings of H. P. Blavatsky calls for a brief survey of her early life and her family background, in order to acquaint the reader with the many vicissitudes during that early period when, as far as we know at present, H.P.B. had not yet embarked upon her literary career.

The source material with regard to that period is very fragmentary and uncertain. Her own statements are often contradictory and therefore unreliable, and those of her friends and relatives are often equally confused, with the exception of her sister Vera Petrovna de Zhelihovsky who kept a Diary and was a particularly careful writer.

For some curious reason, many of the uncertainties which could have been at least partially eliminated during the lifetime of various contemporaries, were allowed to remain unchallenged, until too late to do so, owing to the passing of these individuals, or the destruction of documents known to have existed at one time.

All in all, the best that any modern writer can do is to present a fragmentary account with a number of obvious lacunae or a choice of possible alternatives, supported by references to early sources of information, leaving the reader to draw his own conclusions as to the most probable course of events.

This, perhaps, is not a unique situation, especially when the occult nature of H. P. Blavatsky's career is taken into account. The lives of genuine Occultists throughout the ages are for the most part but little known, and their various moves are, as a rule, uncertain. No complete biographical sketch of any degree of authenticity can be produced in the case of Count de Saint-Germain or Count de Cagliostro, except for certain brief periods in their careers; nor would a biographer fare any better in the case of Apollonius of Tyana, Śamkarâchârya, Simon Magus, Zoroaster or Pythagoras.

As time passes, and the constant shifting of scenery on the karmic stage takes its usual course, details are forgotten, individuals vanish into the distant background of historical perspective, and witnesses depart from their former scenes of action, until much is left to mere conjecture and speculation, against the backdrop of a rapidly receding era. It is even more so in the case of those strange and

xxvi BLAVATSKY: COLLECTED WRITINGS

mysterious characters whose lives are woven on a unique pattern, whose mission is devoted to the liberation of men from the thraldom of the senses, and who appear in our midst from time to time as symbols of spiritual freedom, and as living witnesses to the

hidden powers of man.

For the "initiates are as hard to catch as the sun-sparkle which flecks the dancing wave on a summer-day. One generation of man may know them under one name in a certain country, and the next, or a succeeding one, see them as someone else in a remote land.

"They live in each place as long as they are needed and then—pass away 'like a breath' leaving no trace behind." —————

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky was born at Ekaterinoslav, a town on the river Dnieper, in Southern Russia, on the 31st of July, 1831, according to the Julian or so-called "Old Style" Calendar, then current in Russia. According to the Gregorian Calendar the date would have been August 12th. Although no official record has ever been produced of the exact time of her birth, it has been determined with sufficient accuracy by astrological rectification, based on various important events in H.P.B.'s life, to have been 1:42 A.M., local time, which, equated for Greenwich, would be 11:22 P.M., on August 11th, 1831.¹

The year 1831 was a very bad one in Russia; a widespread epidemic of cholera raged and several members of her parents' household had been victims of the disease. As Helena was born prematurely, and there was fear for the infant's life, an immediate baptism took place. A child who held a candle in the first row behind the officiating priest, set fire to his robes during the ceremony.²

Helena's mother was Helena Andreyevna (1814-42), eldest daughter of Andrey Mihailovich de Fadeyev (Dec. 31, 1789-Aug. 28, 1867 o.s.) and Helena Pavlovna, née Princess Dolgorukova (Oct. 11, 1789-Aug. 12, 1860 o.s.).

A. M. de Fadeyev, Helena's maternal grandfather, a Privy Councillor, was at one time Civil Governor of the Province of Saratov and later, for many years (1846-67), Director of the Department of State Lands in the Caucasus, and member of the Council of the Viceroy of the Caucasus, Count Mihail Semyonovich Vorontzov. His

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1 The Theosophist, Vol. XV, October, 1893, pp. 12-17.
2 Ibid., Vol. XXX, April, 1909, p. 85.

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HELENA PETROVNA BLAVATSKY xxvii

Reminiscences, 1790-1867³ is an extremely valuable work giving the entire family background of the de Fadeyevs and much information concerning the various sojourns of H.P.B.'s mother and father, and Helena as a child. The work is also of great importance as a description of Russian life and of many historical personalities of the 19th century.

Helena Pavlovna, Helena's maternal grandmother, whom A. M. de Fadeyev had married in 1813, was the daughter of Prince Paul Vassilyevich Dolgorukov (1755-1837) and Henrietta Adolfovna de Bandré-du-Plessis (d. 1812) who was of French descent.⁴

She had married against the wishes of her parents, who objected to her marriage with a

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