Theos-Talk Archives (February 1999 Message tt00002)

Who is R A Gilbert?

Does someone have any comments about this?


> Subject: Mahatma Letters (Gilbert)
>
> PREFACE to Reprint of "Koot Hoomi Unveiled"
>
> by R.A.Gilbert
>
> All of the central tenets of Theosophy - as the term is
> understood within the Theosophical Society - are contained in The
> Mahatma Letters, which were transmitted to A.P.  Sinnett and
> others between 1880 and 1884.  Extracts from the letters were
> published by Sinnett in The Occult World (1881) and Esoteric
> Buddhism (1883) but they were not published in their entirety
> until 1923 when A.T.  Barker issued them as The Mahatma Letters
> to A.P.  Sinnett.  The letters provide an effective source-book
> for the doctrines elaborated in H.P.  Blavatsky's The Secret
> Doctrine (1888) and espoused by the great majority of latter-day
> theosophists, but the origin of the letters remains problematic.
>
> Sinnett believed that they were miraculously 'precipitated',
> travelling thousands of miles to reach him in India or England
> from the Mahatmas' home in Tibet.  Others remained sceptical,
> arguing that the letters were not only delivered by Mme.
> Blavatsky but also composed and written by her.  The battle-lines
> are still drawn up, with believers and sceptics hurling a steady
> stream of invective at each other and rarely supporting their
> positions by rational argument.  Perhaps the most sober defence
> has been offered by Geoffrey Barborka in The Mahatmas and their
> Letters (1973), while the most devastating attack upon the
> supernatural origin of both the letters and their authors is Who
> Wrote the Mahatma Letters?, by H.E.  & W.L.  Hare (1936) - a
> critique which has yet to be rationally rebutted.
>
> Arguing over the source of the letters may seem pointless if one
> considers that the real issue is the spiritual merit, or
> otherwise, of their content.  But spiritual truths are not best
> served if they are disseminated by fraud, and it is as well to
> establish the truth about the origin of the letters (insofar as
> it can ever be fully known) if we are to judge the contents on
> their value as spiritual philosophy.  For this reason, if for no
> other, Arthur Lillie's forgotten pamphlet of 1883 deserves to be
> read and studied with care.
>
> At the time of its publication Koot Hoomi Unveiled was attacked
> with vitriolic abuse but with precious little reason, and
> Lillie's strictures have remained largely unanswered.  With
> hindsight it is possible to point out the superficial nature of
> some of his comments on Tibetan Buddhism, but his critics
> necessarily used the same texts and commentaries as were
> available to him and their counter arguments thus carry very
> little weight.
>
> Such ripostes as they did make were fully answered in Lillie's
> long letter justifying his case that appeared in the journal
> Light in August, 1884, and which is reprinted here. 
>
> It should also be borne in mind that Arthur Lillie was neither an
> hysterical defender of the claims of Spiritualism against those
> of Theosophy, nor an unthinking, fundamentalist Christian
> opponent of 'Esoteric Buddhism'.  He was a sound scholar with a
> profound knowledge of, and sympathy for, the Buddhist religion.
> From 1883 to 1912 he produced a series of scholarly works on the
> life of the Buddha and on Buddhist and Vedantist influences upon
> both early Christianity and classical Greece.  He was a Member of
> the Royal Asiatic Society, in whose library his books are still
> to be found.  On a more popular level he wrote brief biographies
> of mystics and other esoteric writers, ranging from Boehme and
> Swedenborg to Stainton Moses and Madame Blavatsky.
>
> While he clearly rejected the ideas of H.P.B.  he remained
> scrupulously objective when he wrote his studies of her, and his
> views on the Mahatma letters deserve careful consideration -
> whether or not we agree with them.
>
> Indeed, it is only by emulating Lillie's meticulous attention to
> detail that we shall be able to arrive at a true understanding of
> the origin and nature of the Mahatma letters, and only then can
> we truly be said to have stood firm by the motto of the
> Theosophical Society: 'There is no Religion higher than Truth.'
>
> R.A. GILBERT
>
> Bristol, September 1995




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