Conze Edward. The Memoirs of a Modern Gnostic: Life and letters (Part 1)

Sherborne: The Publishing Company, 1979. — 160 p. These Memoirs were begun early in 1977 in response to Professor J. W. de Jong's questions about my life up to 1948, the date when I first met him in Paris through Prof. Demieville. His queries coincided with the almost miraculous emergence of a pleasant and efficient secretary here in Sherborne. To her I first dictated the account up to 1948. Then I stopped because I had my doubts about the project. Encouraged by friends I continued, however, and by July 22nd I had dictated a total of 100,000 words. Prof. de Jong of Canberra in Australia, is therefore the 'you' who is addressed again and again. He has been interested for a long time in the history of Buddhist Scholarship, as shown by his 'A Brief History of Buddhist Studies in Europe and Asia', Varanasi 1976. After consultations with lawyers and friends the material was then split into three parts. The first surveys my intellectual development, including those factors which helped or hindered it. The second fills in some of the details and gives me ample opportunity to comment on many things. The third part contains everything which has been deemed libellous, brutally frank, or politically impermissible. By common consent Part III cannot be published in my lifetime, and must wait for the 21st Century, if ever there should be such a thing. Parts I and II have been nearly devenomized. They exhibit the cobra's shining scales and display her graceful and vigorous movements. In Part III the fangs and venom glands will be revealed. Most of what I have said will interest close friends and colleagues. To the general public much must appear pretty tedious. What I have done so far is to tell my life story in a way which satisfies me. In fact I have quite enjoyed telling these stories, treating them as a kind of end-of-term report to the Almighty, or an account of this incarnation for Yama, Judge of the Dead. When it come to the commercial exploitation of the typescript, it will be a good thing to cut it down to 90,000 words. I myself find it hard to see why anyone should take exception to what I have said. Far from arguing with anyone, I merely record honestly what has happened to me and what I have genuinely thought at a given time. One may deplore that I am a product of my class and my age, but in my seventies I cannot be expected to do much about that. This is a thoroughly honest book and it tells you what I think and not what I ought to think. Some time ago I found in the TLS a remark concerning an Autobiography of a certain Dennis Wheatley, who is described as 'the author of highly successful and abominably written historical novels'. It says: 'Memoirs have a way of being laundered like the proceeds of a Bank Robbery to make the author more acceptable to the new prejudices prevailing in the time of his old age'. I have studiously tried to avoid this.May 25th, 1978