AUTHENTICITY OF THE NOTEBOOKS
The first seven volumes of Satprem’s Notebooks of an Apocalypse were published from 1999 to 2007, under the direct supervision of the Author. Seven volumes in eight years is the regular pace Satprem himself had envisaged for this Work (which should contain 24 volumes in total).
After Satprem’s and Sujata’s departure (in 2007), many of us, who fervently read these Notebooks, don’t have the same feeling of total confidence as when they were published by Satprem. Those posthumous Notebooks (hardly five volumes in nine years! – 2008-2016) are revised by people who don’t have the needed ability and specific skills (see, as an example, the mountain of errors that we found and pointed out in volumes VIII, IX and X). And most of all, those people have neither transparency nor sufficient credibility. Quite the contrary, on several occasions they showed evidence of twisted minds, and gave the impression that they had too many things to hide (on this subject, see the reproduction of our letter exchange with the IRE1 and their elusive and ambiguous response; many other people have noticed – and reported to us the same behavior from the people in charge of the IRE, prone to hiding behind roundabout speeches, without ever answering to the sincere questions that are asked of them) and, what’s more, a tendency to regard as “hostile” whoever dares to expose their most obvious failures.
To find mistakes and errors in the Notebooks published after Satprem’s departure (though there are much fewer mistakes in volume 12) is already annoying and embarrassing, but the worst part is that it is not the most serious problem, far from it! It is only a little sign (the external sign and most obvious) of a far more terrible and unacceptable lack of respect. The errors affect the form, while the lack of respect mainly concerns the substance. The form has its indubitable importance, but the substance is directly connected to the Work of transformation!
Since nobody, except the publisher, has access to the originals, how can we know if the recently published Notebooks give us the Notes left by Satprem in their entirety? How can we be sure that there are no deletions, alterations, or even simple misreadings? As we may recall, Satprem’s writing has never been easily decipherable, especially in the last years. To this are added all the problems of preservation, as the originals are likely to be still stored in India: dampness, insects, ravages of time… Have the texts at least been scanned or photographed? No answer.
The subtle vibration that we can perceive while reading the twelfth volume of the Notebooks (that is, the latest volume published thus far), creates a sense of unease in us. In those pages, it seems to us that we are in contact with a Satprem reduced to pieces, perhaps even torn up, if not mutilated.
At the end of the volume, we have the impression that a guillotine has fallen on his pages, with the determination of a pitiless executioner.
After Satprem’s departure, wouldn’t it have been conceivable to appoint, perhaps in India, a kind of Foundation composed of disinterested and honest members, who would have had at least the right to control and make sure that the works of Satprem are published as faithfully as possible, in their entirety and at an acceptable rate? The present publishers wrap themselves in a coat of silence and don’t answer any questions, no matter how legitimate, considering that they are not accountable to anyone. But Satprem does not belong to them! It is not to a few “happy ones” that he left his written work, these notes painfully wrested from him page after page, but to all those who, one day, would want to “follow” in his tracks. It cannot be said often enough that Satprem’s work belongs to the whole of humanity. This is why we felt the need to write this article, in the hope of lifting a corner of the veil on the mystery the publication of the Notebooks is shrouded in, perhaps even, let’s hope, of shaking the soiled consciousnesses into the clutches of which Satprem’s manuscripts have fallen.
If some people want to give their impressions on this subject, we will publish them here (anonymously, of course, if they so wish). One never knows what can have an effect, in the end.
For years now we have been trying to produce that impossible miracle of forcing the liars to acknowledge their lies and the silly ones to admit their silliness…
After all, the word “impossible” does not exist in French!
May 5, 2016