Theos-Talk Archives (December 2001 Message tt00451)

SUBJECT: Value in COMPARING & CONTRASTING the different 
interpretations/conjectures about Blavatsky's Masters

There are a good many points that I still need to reply to in Steve 
Stubbs' various postings on Olcott's encounter with Ooton Liatto.

As I work through all of that material, I think it is important to 
step back and COMPARE how different persons "view" or "interpret" the 
various encounters with the Masters, especially of Olcott's numerous 
encounters with the Masters.

A little more than one year ago, I wrote and posted on Theos-Talk the 
following article:

"Art Gregory, Paul Johnson and Richard Hodgson on Blavatsky's Masters"
by Daniel H. Caldwell
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/451

In this post I tried to COMPARE & CONTRAST how Hodgson, Johnson and 
Gregory interpreted differently Olcott's encounters. I won't try to 
summarize what I wrote at this time. I hope some readers will peruse 
the above link. What follows will make more sense in light of what I 
said in the above article.

A number of followup posts on Art Gregory's interpretation of the 
Masters can be found as follows:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/472
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/479
http://blavatskyarchives.com/Mastersasspiritguides.htm
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/507
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/559

Since last year Brigitte Muehlegger has started posting on Theos-Talk 
and she has made various remarks about Blavatsky's Masters and 
Olcott's encounters with those Masters. 

Let us briefly look at what Muehlegger wrote about the encounter of 
Master Morya coming to Bombay to visit Olcott. First Olcott's 
account:

"MORYA COMES ON HORSEBACK TO BOMBAY IN JULY, 1879"

" 'This same Brother once visited me in the flesh at Bombay,
coming in full day light, and on horseback. He had me called
by a servant into the front room of H.P.B.'s bungalow
(she being at the time in the other bungalow talking with those
who were there). He [Morya] came to scold me roundly
for something I had done in T.S. matters, and as H.P.B. was
also to blame, he telegraphed to her to come, that is to say,
he turned his face and extended his finger in the direction of
the place she was in. She came over at once with a rush,
and seeing him dropped to her knees and paid him reverence.
My voice and his had been heard by those in the other
bungalow, but only H.P.B. and I, and the servant saw him.'
(Extract from a letter written by Colonel Olcott to A.O. Hume
on Sept. 30, 1881. Quoted in Hints On Esoteric Theosophy,
No. 1, 1882, p. 80.)"

On a different Yahoo! forum Muehlegger gave her view and 
interpretation of Olcott's above encounter:

". . . Marina [Sisson] found out I didn't want to take Olcott's 
letter to a prospective convert on face value."

"Who could [accept Olcott's letter at face value], after reading 
[Olcott's] 'People of the other world' and finding out what this man 
was all CAPABLE OF BELIEVING." Caps added.

"And unfortunately for Olcott Blavatsky did't either, she clearly
wrote about Olcott's Master fantasies to Hartmann: 'Where you speek
of the army of deluded-and the imaginary Mahatmas of Olcott-you are
absolutly and sadly right. Have I not strugled and fought against
Olcott's ardent and gushing imagination, and tried to stop him every
day of my life?' (Blavatsky,"The Path" March 1896,p.368)"
See also: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/3390

On a number of occasions since she posted the above, I have tried to 
get Muehlegger to give her views on the Ooton Liatto case. I asked 
her hoping that she would give her interpretation of the Ooton Liatto 
case so that we might COMPARE that interpretation with what she wrote 
about Olcott's encounter with the Master in Bombay as well as 
COMPARING & CONTRASTING her opinion with Paul Johnson's assessment 
about the Ooton Liatto case. I wrote a number of times to Brigitte 
asking her for her opinion. I wanted to know the following:

"I am curious to know what you think about this account. Do you agree 
with Paul Johnson's opinion that 'two REAL adepts visited Olcott in 
New York'? . . . "

"Or is this Ootoo Liatto account by Olcott just another GOOD EXAMPLE 
of Olcott's 'fantasies' about the Masters/Adepts? In other words, 
did Olcott's GUSHING IMAGINATION [which you must assume he had before 
he even met Blavatsky] give rise to this "encounter" with Ooton 
Liatto?"

Since then, we have had Steve Stubbs giving his own opinion about the 
Ootton Liatto case.

Stubbs has written a good number of posts in which he has expressed 
his opinion. Here is one of his statements:

"What we know is that Olcott described an experience
(the Ootan Liatto matter) which was CLEARLY DRUG
INDUCED, and described other experiences also clearly
drug induced. There are also references to drugs in
various early Blavatsky writings whoch are not in the
same spirit as the 1889 reference. There are
furthermore statements by eye witnesses that drugs
were involved." Caps added.

Elsewhere Stubbs states that on a number of occasions Olcott 
was "stoned" either by smoking a cigar or from the secondary smoke 
from Blavatsky's "hashish" cigarettes. In regards to the Ooton 
Liatto case, I understand that Stubbs believes the cigar smoking was 
the source of the "stoning". 

Was the entire Ooton Liatto encounter some kind of drug-induced 
hallucination? According to Stubbs' speculation, Olcott was daily 
subjected to the fumes from HPB's hashish cigarettes. Under these 
conditions, would it not be suspected that Olcott could have had this 
hallucination of meeting the two adepts?

I don't believe Stubbs has addressed this most important implication. 

In summary, it would appear that we have at least FIVE different 
interpretations of the encounters with Blavatsky's Masters/Adepts: 
i.e., the conjectures of Richard Hodgson, Art Gregory, Paul Johnson, 
Brigitte Muehlegger and Steve Stubbs.

Which conjecture is right? What is the most probable and reasonable 
interpretation? Can one or more or even all five "explanations" be 
true? Etc. etc. 

As other interested readers ponder on this subject, I would suggest 
that we keep in mind the words of the historians Barzun and Graffe:

"No matter how possible or plausible the author's conjecture it 
cannot be accepted as truth if he has only his hunch to support 
it. Truth rests not on possibility or plausibility but on 
probability. Probability means the balance of chances that, *given 
such and such evidence*, the event it records happened in a certain 
way; or, in other cases, that a supposed event did not in fact take 
place."

So one important question is: What is the evidence that will help us 
to understand these various encounters with the Masters? What kind 
of evidence will rule out one or more of the above conjectures? What 
kind of evidence will tip the scales in favor of one of the possible 
explanations?

For more on the concepts of possible/plausible and probable, see:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/4215

Daniel H. Caldwell
BLAVATSKY ARCHIVES
http://hpb.cc