Theos-Talk Archives (April 2001 Message tt00000)

Dear Tony,

I would by no means call myself an expert upon the Mahatma Letters. However
from my recollection of various Theosophical readings, the Letters were
produced in quite a number of ways; also as I recollect not all were
precipitated - some, a few, were physically delivered by Indian chelas. K.H.
sent at least one by normal mail or telegraph in an attempt to "prove" his
own reality. So there's quite a variety of methods to consider?

More than this, the variety of paper used is so noteworthy: the paper itself
was not "precipitated" in the sense of being created out of the Great Sea of
Light, but rather any parchments, papers, or even receipts and bills to hand
in the "distant" Himalayas were used, and then "teleported" (which is
technically a different thing to "precipitation").

The impression gained is that, understandably enough, paper was not so
readily available there in Nepal / Tibet, and literally any kind that
happened to be to hand was used. There is a great variety, but clearly IMO
the paper itself originated in the physical plane originally.

I was physically in the region in 1975 and then the local paper was still as
some of the Letters today: very coarse and none-too-easy to write upon.

>The letters are coated with some very thin kind of film by the Library, so
>you would not have been touching the actual paper. It is difficult to
>detect this covering.

I really did not know this and indeed did not detect it at all. It's very
well done. In other words, they are hardly laminated (!), but I feel you are
indeed touching the actual paper, for what that is worth.

>THE LETTERS ARE NOT WRITTEN (there is an exception), but rather,
>precipitated. It is easy to overlook this fact.

My understanding is that in a number but not all cases the WRITING was
precipitated, but most (not all) of the Letters were teleported, as stated
above.

It is an error to think
>that pen and ink were used and that it is "the actual paper touched and
used
>by the Master's hands" It is in fact far more.
>
>"I transcribe them with my own hand this once..."(Mahatma Letter 93, 2nd
>ed., as numbered in British Library)

Yes, true.

There has also been discussion, and I cannot recall where, that crayon was
used for some Letters perhaps because at that altitude, in winter, ink would
literally have frozen. In the instances where what APPEARS to be crayon has
been used, the words are necessarily thicker and harder to decipher. I feel
sure that some Letters were truly hand-written, though again I claim no
expertise and cannot offer references. In viewing the Letters, in any case,
the handwriting is exactly as one would expect from something handwritten
i.e. it is imperfect, characteristic, and goes awry here and there.

It wasn't only a "spiritual" experience to view the Letters, by the way. To
be honest it made our heads spin after a few hours since the writing,
Morya's especially, can take considerable concentration to figure out in the
case of many words or phrases. I actually got quite a headache. For studying
the content purely, a printed book is far preferable IMO.

>
>"The same as to the *precipitation* by the chela of the transferred thought
>upon (or rather, *into*) paper..." the Master emphasises "into".
>The words/thoughts are in the paper rather than on the surface.
>And it is "transferred thought."
>
>"The same as to the precipitation by the chela of the transferred thought
>upon (or rather, *into*) paper: if the mental picture received be feeble
his
>visible reproduction of it must correspond. And the more so in proportion
to
>the closeness of attention he gives. He might -- were he but merely a
person
>of the true mediumistic temperament -- be employed by his "Master" as a
sort
>of *psychic printing machine* producing lithographed or psychographed
>impressions of what the operator had in mind; his nerve-system, the
machine,
>his nerve-aura the printing fluid, the colours drawn from that exhaustless
>storehouse of pigments (as of everything else) the Akasa. But the medium
and
>the chela are diametrically dissimilar and the latter acts consciously,
>except under exceptional circumstances during development not necessary to
>dwell upon here." (Letter 93)

There is one type of Letter, in the distinct minority, in which the fact
that they are not physically written is blatently clear. These few Letters
are absolutely distinct from the others. I read many years ago that these
underwent microscopic analysis and indeed no means could be determined for
how the words were placed upon the paper in these cases. Of course I had
heard of these particular Letters but how interesting to see them! The
writing is produced upon the paper in a way I would liken to a cheap or
faulty PC printer of today. It appears simply to have been impressed upon
the paper, evidently not by pen or crayon, and minute parellel streaks of
white (where the "printing" did not "take") go straight across the page and
through the individual letters and words. Fascinating. Very much like an old
printer of mine in "economy" or "high speed" mode!

>
>There is plenty to think about here: e.g. "the colours drawn from...Akasa,"
>rather than from bottles of ink. To what extent were the different shades
>of red and blue, of which there are many, detectable, when you scrutinised
>the letters? Why is it the case that there are these differences in the
>shades of colour?

I did not take notes and rely upon memory. In general any given Letter may
have the same shade throughout, but there are also numerous instances of
shade-changes which would be difficult to account for were they
normally-written letters.

Morya in particular almost always uses red. K.H. not so, but rather blue.
But indeed in some instances - even within the briefest of notes - the
colour does change from, say, blue to red even within a sentence or even in
the middle of a word, then carrying on that way to the end. If the words are
precipitated one could put this down to "psychic error", but looking at such
Letters it could equally be explained by one writing medium having come to
an end and another being taken up. I really don't know the reason for it to
be sure.

>
>You write:
><<<Letters written often in haste, and sometimes without forethought,
>but always with the best will in mind, by men who were still encased within
>bodies they were born into, and hence who were still, if only slightly,
>prone to typical human error (but not much!).>>>
>
>This is how the Master puts it (Letter 93):
>"The letter in question was framed by me while on a journey and on
>horse-back. It was dictated mentally, in the direction of, and
>"precipitated" by, a young chela not yet expert at this branch of Psychic
>chemistry, and who had to transcribe it from the hardly visible imprint.
>Half of it, therefore, was omitted and the other half more or less
distorted
>by the "artist." When asked by him at the time, whether I would look it
over
>and correct I answered, imprudently, I confess -- "anyhow will do, my
boy --
>it is of no great importance if you skip a few words." I was physically
very
>tired by a ride of 48 hours consecutively, and (physically again) -- half
>asleep. Besides this I had very important business to attend to psychically
>and therefore little remained of me to devote to that letter. It was
doomed,
>I suppose. When I woke I found it had already been sent on, and, as I was
>not then anticipating its publication, I never gave it from that time a
>thought."

Yes. While the Letters are a great source of Truth, they can indeed contain
slight errors or, in particular, concepts not explained as clearly as they
might be. They are - literally - letters. Some, in content, are hardly
profound. As I wrote before, it is stated that they were by no means at the
time intended for publication and public use, and hence we may perhaps need
to be wary in conceiving of them as a veritable "Gospel" for the present
era. I'd expect that such more definitive writings were those that came
through HPB and, indeed, whatever immensity of Truth the Brotherhood must
surely have still to release in future.

(For the entire Great White Brotherhood can hardly have shut up shop and
gone silent forevermore! This is another subject altogether, but when They
communicate again, by whatever means, methinks we shall find a dividing of
the way. A dividing between those who understand that the Brotherhood exists
past, present, and future, and have probably only just cleared Their throats
in reference to all they have to release to the world - and between those
who can only accept the communications of over a century ago. One day I
believe we'll face again, if we haven't already, the old problem of
discerning authentic continuing revelation, just as the Jews for example did
not accept the very Messiah for whom they waited. It is often interesting
and indeed enlightening to concentrate one's mind upon what El Morya, Koot
Hoomi, Hilarion, Saint Germain, etc. must be doing TODAY and indeed at this
very moment. They will hardly be inactive!)

>
>This is another rather longer quote taken from "The Theosophist" vol. V,
>p.64, December/January 1883/4. "Precipitation" by H.P.Blavatsky:
>
>"OF all phenomena produced by occult agency in connection with our Society,
>none have been witnessed by a more extended circle of spectators or more
>widely known and commented on through recent Theosophical publications than
>the mysterious production of letters. The phenomenon itself has been so
well
>described in the *Occult World* and elsewhere, that it would be useless to
>repeat the description here. Our present purpose is more connected with the
>process than the phenomenon of the mysterious formation of letters. Mr.
>Sinnett sought for an explanation of the process and elicited the following
>reply from the revered Mahatma, who corresponds with him:
>
>*. . . Bear in mind these letters are not written but impressed, or
>precipitated, and then all mistakes corrected. . . . I have to think it
>over, to photograph every word and sentence carefully in my brain before it
>can be repeated by precipitation. As the fixing on chemically prepared
>surfaces of the images formed by the camera requires a previous arrangement
>within the focus of the object to be represented, for, otherwise--as often
>found in bad photographs--the legs of the sitter might appear out of all
>proportion with the head, and so on--some have to first arrange our
>sentences and impress every letter to appear on paper in our minds before
it
>becomes fit to be read. For the present, it is all I can tell you.*
>
>Since the above was written, the Masters have been pleased to permit the
>veil to be drawn aside a little more, and the *modus operandi* can thus be
>explained now more fully to the outsider.
>
>Those having even a superficial knowledge of the science of mesmerism know
>how the thoughts of the mesmeriser, though silently formulated in his mind
>are instantly transferred to that of the subject. It is not necessary for
>the operator, if he is sufficiently powerful, to be present near the
subject
>to produce the above result. Some celebrated practitioners in this Science
>are known to have been able to put their subjects to sleep even from a
>distance of several days' journey. This known fact will serve us as a guide
>in comprehending the comparatively unknown subject now under discussion.
The
>work of writing the letters in question is carried on by a sort of
>psychological telegraphy; the Mahatmas very rarely write their letters in
>the ordinary way. An electromagnetic connection, so to say, exists on the
>psychological plane between a Mahatma and his chelas, one of whom acts as
>his amanuensis. When the Master wants a letter to be written in this way,
he
>draws the attention of the chela, whom he selects for the task, by causing
>an astral bell (heard by so many of our Fellows and others) to be rung near
>him, just as the despatching telegraph office signals to the receiving
>office before wiring the message. The thoughts arising in the mind of the
>Mahatma are then clothed in word, pronounced mentally, and forced along the
>astral currents he sends towards the pupil to impinge on the brain of the
>latter. Thence they are borne by the nerve-currents to the palms of his
>hands and the tips of his fingers, which rest on a piece of magnetically
>prepared paper. As the thought-waves are thus impressed on the tissue,
>materials are drawn to it from the ocean of *ákas*, (permeating every atom
>of the sensuous universe) by an occult process, out of place here to
>describe, and permanent marks are left. . ."

Thank you for adding these details, Tony. In writing my previous post my
intent was actually not to get so technical, though this has been
interesting, but rather simply to declare how wonderful an experience it is
to view the Letters themselves - a kind of a "wow" or pilgrimage experience,
and that it brings the Masters in to a more tangible reality within our
minds should we need that. To read the Letters in the actual handwriting,
and to take in the personality or character of the Master - for example the
way Morya so-confidently 'writes' across entire page after page on a 45
degree angle - seems to convey more of Their meaning and certainly more of
Their personalities that can be gleaned from the printed text.

I had actually lived very near the Letters for a number of years without
making the time previously!

I'll close with an anecdote. While it's not difficult to get permission to
view the Letters, one does nevertheless have to apply in person, give some
fairly good reason, and have a brief interview by the Library staff. The
gentleman who interviewed me recognised the items (the Letters) I had
requested on the form you fill in among the many thousands of manuscripts
held there. "Oh, we had several people asking to see these a couple of
months ago," he said. "What is it now? Isn't it that while you're reading
them they float up off the table nearer to your eyes?" (A garbled version of
the fact they were precipitated, obviously!) "Tell me about them," he
invited.

I did my best to explain what they are and who wrote them, and regarding
their "floating up off the table" I promised not to let them follow me out
the door and into the street!

David T