Authorship of the Alice Bailey books

Who authored the books?

Although Alice A.Bailey is the published author of all her books, the majority of her 24 books were in fact dictated to Alice Bailey by a Tibetan teacher – a spiritual Adept or Master of the Wisdom, Who is referred to mostly in the books as “The Tibetan”, but is sometimes given His name, Djwhal Khul.

Some books were written by Alice Bailey alone:

• From Bethlehem to Calvary
• From Intellect to Intuition
• The Unfinished Autobiography
• The Soul and Its Mechanism.

Two books were a collaborative effort between Alice Bailey and The Tibetan:-

• The Light of The Soul
• The Labours of Hercules

The remainder of the 24 books were dictated to Alice Bailey by The Tibetan and were published verbatim as dictated, without editing amendments by Alice Bailey.  So in the majority of Alice Bailey’s books, you are reading the words of The Tibetan Master, Djwhal Khul, and not those of Alice Bailey.

While Alice Bailey was an advanced disciple, and was very knowledgeable in spiritual matters, she was not a Master of the Wisdom. Many readers find that there is a change in tone between the books written by Alice A. Bailey and those by The Tibetan.

The Tibetan required no personal acknowledgement of authorship, and writes in His preface to the books:

The books that I have written are sent out with no claim for their acceptance. They may, or may not, be correct, true and useful. It is for you to ascertain their truth by right practice and by the exercise of the intuition. Neither I nor A.A.B. is the least interested in having them acclaimed as inspired writing, or in having anyone speak of them (with bated breath) as being the work of one of the Masters. If they present truth in such a way that it follows sequentially upon that already offered in the world teachings, if the information given raises the aspiration and the will-to-serve from the plane of the emotions to that of the mind (the plane whereon the Masters can be found) then they will have served their purpose. If the teaching conveyed calls forth a response from the illumined mind of the worker in the world, and brings a flashing forth of the intuition, then let that teaching be accepted. But not otherwise. If the statements meet with eventual corroboration, or are deemed true under the test of the Law of Correspondences, then that is well and good. But should this not be so, let not the student accept what is said.