William Emmette Coleman

William Emmette Coleman (June 19, 1843 – April 4, 1909), also known as W. E. Coleman, was an American clerk, Orientalist, spiritualist and writer.

William Emmette Coleman
Born(1843-06-19)June 19, 1843
Shadwell, Virginia
DiedApril 4, 1909(1909-04-04) (aged 65)
Alameda, California
Occupation(s)Clerk, Orientalist, writer
Signature

Biography

Coleman was born in Shadwell, Virginia.[1] He was an assistant librarian of Richmond Public Library (1854–1857).[2] He became a spiritualist at age sixteen. He married Wilmot Bouton in 1871; she died in 1882. In 1869 he became assistant chief clerk for General Canby. He was made chief clerk in the Quartermaster office at the Presidio of San Francisco in 1883.[3]

Coleman is best remembered for his criticism of Helena Blavatsky and the claims of Theosophy. He argued in his writings that Blavatsky had plagiarized her ideas from other sources and had stolen quotations.[4][5][6] His article "The Sources of Madame Blavatsky's Writings" was published in an appendix to Vsevolod Solovyov's A Modern Priestess of Isis (1895). He also claimed he was working on a book that would expose Blavatsky's sources for her Book of Dzyan but his notes were destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and the book was never published.[7]

Coleman has been described as a "radical non-Christian spiritualist". He opposed slavery and supported the separation of church and state.[8] He was a member of the American Oriental Society and the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland.[9]

He died in Alameda, California on April 4, 1909.[10]

Publications

Articles

Booklets
  • The Bible God Disproved by Nature (Truthseeker Tracts, no. 55)
  • One Hundred and One Reasons Why I am not a Christian Spiritualist (Truthseeker Tracts no. 79)

See also

References
  1. The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. Vol. V. James T. White & Company. 1907. pp. 20–21. Retrieved March 4, 2021 – via Google Books.
  2. Herringshaw, Thomas William (1901). Herringshaw's Encyclopedia of American Biography of the Nineteenth Century. American Publishers' Association. p. 236
  3. Putnam, Samuel Porter. (1894). 400 Years of Freethought. New York: The Truth Seeker Company. pp. 706-708
  4. Camp, L. Sprague de. (1964). Ancient Ruins and Archaeology. Doubleday. p. 231. "The Secret Doctrine, alas, is neither so ancient, so erudite, nor so authentic as it pretends to be. When it appeared, an elderly Californian scholar named William Emmette Coleman, outraged by Mme. Blavatsky's false pretensions to oriental learning, made an exegesis of her works. He showed that her main sources were H. H. Wilson's translation of the ancient Indian Vishnu Purana; Alexander Winchell's World Life; or, Comparative Geology; Donnelly's Atlantis; and other contemporary scientific, pseudo-scientific, and occult works, plagiarized without credit and used in a blundering manner that showed but skin-deep acquaintance with the matters discussed."
  5. Meade, Marion. (1980). Madame Blavatsky: The Woman Behind the Myth. Putnam. p. 158. ISBN 978-0399123764
  6. Lavoie, Jeffrey D. (2012). The Theosophical Society: The History of a Spiritualist Movement. BrownWalker Press. pp. 262-264. ISBN 1-61233-553-5
  7. Camp, L. Sprague de. (1970). Lost Continents. Dover Publications. pp. 57-58. ISBN 0-486-22668-9
  8. Smith, Warren Allen. (2000). Who's Who in Hell: A Handbook and International Directory for Humanists, Freethinkers, Naturalists, Rationalists, and Non-Theists. Barricade Books. p. 229. ISBN 978-1569801581
  9. Clarke-Goodrick, Nicholas. Western Esoteric Traditions and Theosophy. In Olav Hammer, Mikael Rothstein. (2013). Handbook of the Theosophical Current. Brill. p. 288. ISBN 978-90-04-23596-0
  10. "Births, Marriages and Deaths". San Francisco Call. Vol. 105, no. 128. April 7, 1909. p. 4. Retrieved March 4, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
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