Theos-Talk Archives (February 2002 Message tt00330)

Sunday, February 10, 2002

Re: THEOSOPHY as a Universal Philosophy

Source: The Masters of Wisdom, their Messenger:
H P B


Dear Friends,

Inasmuch as questions have arisen on the subject of the relations
of the Masters of wisdom to Theosophy and of H P B being their
agent and messenger, the following was thought to be of interest
and possible value to our readers. "Thus have I heard ----"

Best wishes,

Dallas


==============



H.P.B. ON MESSAGES FROM MASTERS


Some years ago H.P.B. was charged with misuse of Mahatmas names
and handwritings, with
forgery of messages from the Mahatmas, and with humbugging the
public and the T.S. therewith. Those charges had floated vaguely
about for some time and at last came the explosion. Afterward
when
writing on the subject of "Lodges of Magic" in Lucifer 1 the
question of the genuineness or the opposite of such messages was
dealt with, and what she wrote is here presented for
reconsideration. It covers two matters. [ LODGES OF MAGIC --
reproduced below ]

First, it proves out of her own mouth what the PATH not long ago
said that "if one letter has to be doubted then all have" to be
doubted. Hence, if the Letter to some Brahmans is a fraud, as
Col. Olcott and another say, then all the rest are, also.

Second, it applies precisely to the present state of affairs in
respect to messages from Masters, just as if she had so long ago
foreseen the present and left the article so that tyros in
occultism, such as the
present agitators are, might have something to show them how to
use their judgment.

The portion selected from her article reads:

"We have been asked by a correspondent why he should not "be free
to suspect some of the so-called 'precipitated' letters as being
forgeries," giving as his reason for it that while some of them
bear the stamp of (to him) undeniable genuineness, others seem
from their contents and style, to be imitations.

This is equivalent to saying that he has such an unerring
spiritual insight as to be able to detect the false from the
true, though he has never met a Master, nor been given any key by
which to test his alleged communications.

The inevitable consequence of applying his untrained judgment in
such cases, would be to make him as likely as not to declare
false what was genuine and genuine what was false.

Thus what criterion has any one to decide between one
"precipitated" letter, or another such letter? Who except their
authors, or those whom they employ as their amanuenses (the
chelas and disciples) can tell?

For it is hardly one out of a hundred "occult" letters that is
ever written by the hand of the Master, in whose name and whose
behalf they are sent, as the Masters have neither need nor
leisure to write them; and when a Master says "I wrote that
letter" it means only that every word in it was dictated by him
and impressed under his direct supervision.

Generally they make their chela, whether near or far away, write
(or precipitate) them, by impressing upon his mind the ideas they
wish expressed, and if necessary aiding him in the
picture-printing process of precipitation. It depends entirely
upon the chela's state of development, how accurately the ideas
may be transmitted and the writing-model imitated.

Thus the non-adept recipient is left in the dilemma of
uncertainty, whether if one letter is false all may not be, for
as far as intrinsic evidence goes, all come from the same source,
and all are brought by the same mysterious means.

But there is another and far worse condition implied.

All the so-called occult letters being supported by identical
proofs, they have all to stand or fall together. if one is to be
doubted, then all have, and the series of letters in the Occult
World, Esoteric Buddhism, etc., etc., may be, and there is no
reason why they should not be in such a case, - frauds, "clever
impostures," and "forgeries" such as the ingenuous though stupid
agent of the "S.P.R." has made them out to be, in order to raise
in the public estimation the scientific acumen and standard of
his "Principles." .....

Path, July, 1895


==================================


MASTERS, ADEPTS, TEACHERS, AND DISCIPLES


This article is meant for members of the T.S., and chiefly for
those who keep H.P.B. much in mind, whether out of respect and
love or from fear and envy.

Those members who believe that such beings as the Masters may
exist must come to one of two conclusions in regard to H.P.B.:
either that she invented her Masters, who therefore have no real
existence, or that she did not invent them but spoke in the names
and by the orders of such beings.

If we say she invented the Mahatmas, then, of course, as so often
was said by her, all that she has taught and written is the
product of her own brain, from which we would be bound to
conclude that her position on the roll of great and powerful
persons must be higher than people have been willing to place
her. But I take it most of us believe in the truth of her
statement that she had those teachers whom she called Masters and
that they are more perfect beings than ordinary men.

The case I wish to briefly deal with, then, is this: H.P.B. and
her relations to the Masters and to us; her books and teachings;
the general question of disciples or chelas with their grades,
and whether a high chela would appear as almost a Master in
comparison to us, including every member from the President down
to the most recent applicant.

The last point in the inquiry is extremely important, and has
been much overlooked by members in my observation, which has
extended over the larger part of the T.S.

An idea has become quite general that chelas and disciples are
all of one grade, and that therefore one chela is the same as
another in knowledge and wisdom. The contrary, however, is the
case. Chelas and disciples are of many grades, and some of the
Adepts are themselves the chelas of higher Adepts. There is
therefore the greatest difference between the classes of chelas,
since among them has to be counted the very humblest and most
ignorant person who has devoted himself or herself to the service
of mankind and the pursuit of the knowledge of the Self. On the
other hand, there are those chelas high in grade, actual pupils
of the Masters themselves, and these latter have so much
knowledge and power as to seem to us to be Adepts.

Indeed, they are such when one compares them with oneself as a
mere product of the nineteenth century. They have gained through
knowledge and discipline those powers over mind, matter, space,
and time which to us are the glittering prizes of the future. But
yet these persons are not the Masters spoken of by H.P.B.

So much being laid down, we may next ask how we are to look at
H.P.B.

In the first place, every one has the right to place her if he
pleases for himself on the highest plane, because he may not be
able to formulate the qualities and nature of those who are
higher than she was. But taking her own sayings, she was a chela
or disciple of the Masters, and therefore stood in relation to
them as one who might be chided or corrected or reproved.

She called them her Masters, and asseverated a devotion to their
behests and a respect and confidence in and for their utterances
which the chela has always for one who is high enough to be his
Master. But looking at her powers exhibited to the world, and as
to which one of her Masters wrote that they had puzzled and
astonished the brightest minds of the age, we see that compared
with ourselves she was an Adept.

In private as in public she spoke of her Masters much in the same
way as did Subba Row to the writer when he declared in 1884,

"The Mahatmas are in fact some of the great Rishees and Sages of
the past, and people have been too much in the habit of lowering
them to the petty standard of this age."

But with this reverence for her teachers she had for them at the
same time a love and friendship not often found on earth. All
this indicates her chelaship to Them, but in no way lowers her to
us or warrants us in deciding that we are right in a hurried or
modern judgment of her.

Now some Theosophists ask if there are other letters extant from
her Masters in which she is called to account, is called their
chela, and is chided now and then, besides those published.
Perhaps yes. And what of it? Let them be published by all
means, and let us have the full and complete record of all
letters sent during her life; those put forward as dated after
her death will count for naught in respect to any judgment passed
on her, since the Masters do not indulge in any criticisms on the
disciples who have gone from earth.

As she has herself published letters and parts of letters from
the Masters to her in which she is called a chela and is chided,
it certainly cannot matter if we know of others of the same sort.
For over against all such we have common sense, and also the
declarations of her Masters that she was the sole instrument
possible for the work to be done, that They sent her to do it,
and that They approved in general
all she did.

And she was the first direct channel to and from the Lodge, and
the only one up to date through which came the objective presence
of the Adepts.

We cannot ignore the messenger, take the message, and laugh at or
give scorn to the one who brought it to us. There is nothing new
in the idea that letters are still unpublished wherein the
Masters put her below them, and there is no cause for any
apprehension. But it certainly is true that not a single such
letter has anything in it putting her below us; she must ever
remain the greatest of chelas.

There only remains, then, the position taken by some and without
a knowledge of the rules governing these matters, that chelas
sometimes write messages claimed to be from the Masters when they
are not. This is an artificial position not supportable by law or
rule. It is due to ignorance of what is and is not chelaship, and
also to confusion between grades in discipleship. It has been
used as to H.P.B. The false conclusion has first been made that
an accepted chela of high grade may become accustomed to
dictation given by the Master and then may fall into the false
pretense of giving something from himself and pretending it is
from the Master. It is impossible. The bond in her case was not
of such a character to be dealt with thus. One instance of it
would destroy the possibility of any more communication from the
teacher. It may be quite true that probationers now and then have
imagined themselves as ordered to say so and so, but that is not
the case of an accepted and high chela who is irrevocably
pledged, nor anything like it. This idea, then, ought to be
abandoned; it is absurd, contrary to law, to rule, and to what
must be the case when such relations are established as existed
between H.P.B. and her Masters.

William Q. Judge


Path, June, 1893

=============================


H P B	LODGES OF MAGIC



When fiction rises pleasing to the eye,
Men will believe, because they love the lie;
But Truth herself, if clouded with a frown,
Must have some solemn proofs to pass her down.
-- CHURCHILL.


One of the most esteemed of our friends in occult research,
propounds the question of the formation of "working Lodges" of
the Theosophical Society, for the development of adeptship. If
the practical impossibility of forcing this process has been
shown once, in the course of the theosophical movement, it has
scores of times. It is hard to check one's natural impatience to
tear aside the veil of the Temple. To gain the divine knowledge,
like the prize in a classical tripos, by a system of coaching and
cramming, is the ideal of the average beginner in occult study.
The refusal of the originators of the Theosophical Society to
encourage such false hopes, has led to the formation of bogus
Brotherhoods of Luxor (and Armley Jail?) as speculations on human
credulity. How enticing the bait for gudgeons in the following
specimen prospectus, which a few years ago caught some of our
most earnest friends and Theosophists.
"Students of the Occult Science, searchers after truth, and
Theosophists who may have been disappointed in their expectations
of Sublime Wisdom being freely dispensed by HINDU MAHATMAS, are
cordially invited to send in their names to ...., when, if found
suitable, they can be admitted, after a short probationary term,
as Members of an Occult Brotherhood, who do not boast of their
knowledge or attainments, but teach freely" (at £1 to £5 per
letter?), "and without reserve" (the nastiest portions of P. B.
Randolph's "Eulis"). "all they find worthy to receive" (read:
teachings on a commercial basis; the cash going to the teachers,
and the extracts from Randolph and other "love-philter" sellers
to the pupils!) 1
If rumor be true, some of the English rural districts, especially
Yorkshire, are overrun with fraudulent astrologers and
fortune-tellers, who pretend to be Theosophists, the better to
swindle a higher class of credulous patrons than their legitimate
prey, the servant-maid and callow youth. If the "lodges of
magic," suggested in the following letter to the Editors of this
Magazine, were founded, without having taken the greatest
precautions to admit only the best candidates to membership, we
should see these vile exploitations of sacred names and things
increase an hundredfold. And in this connection, and before
giving place to our friend's letter, the senior Editor of LUCIFER
begs to inform her friends that she has never had the remotest
connection with the so-called "H (ermetic) B (rotherhood) of L
(uxor)," and that all representations to the contrary are false
and dishonest. There is a secret body--whose diploma, or
Certificate of Membership, is held by Colonel Olcott alone among
modern men of white blood--to which that name was given by the
author of "Isis Unveiled" for convenience of designation, but
which is known among Initiates by quite another one, just as the
personage known to the public under the pseudonym of "Koot
Hoomi," is called by a totally different name among his
acquaintance. What the real name of that society is, it would
puzzle the "Eulian" phallicists of the "H. B. of L." to tell. The
real names of Master Adepts and Occult Schools are never, under
any circumstances, revealed to the profane; and the names of the
personages who have been talked about in connection with modem
Theosophy, are in the possession only of the two chief founders
of the Theosophical Society. And now, having said so much by way
of preface, let us pass on to our correspondent's letter. He
writes:

A friend of mine, a natural mystic, had intended to form, with
others, a Branch T.S. in his town. Surprised at his delay, I
wrote to ask the reason. His reply was that he had heard that the
T.S. only met and talked, and did nothing practical. I always did
think the T.S. ought to have Lodges in which something practical
should be done. Cagliostro Understood well this craving of humans
for something before their eyes, when he instituted the Egyptian
Rite, and put it in practice in various Freemason lodges. There
are many readers of LUCIFER in __________ shire. Perhaps in it
there might be a suggestion for students to form such lodges for
themselves, and to try, by their united wills, to develop certain
powers in one of the number, and then through the whole of them
in succession. I feel sure numbers would enter such lodges, and
create a great interest for Theosophy.

In the above note of our venerable and learned friend is the echo
of the voices of ninety-nine hundredths of the members of the
Theosophical Society: one-hundredth only have the correct idea of
the function and scope of our Branches. The glaring mistake
generally made is in the conception of adeptship and the path
thereunto. Of all thinkable undertakings that of trying for
adeptship is the most difficult. Instead of being obtainable
within a few years or one lifetime, it exacts the unremittent
struggles of a series of lives, save in cases so rare as to be
hardly worth regarding as exceptions to the general rule. The
records certainly show that a number of the most revered Indian
adepts became so despite their births in the lowest, and
seemingly most unlikely, castes. Yet it is well understood that
they had been progressing in the upward direction throughout many
previous incarnations, and, when they took birth for the last
time, there was left but the merest trifle of spiritual evolution
to be accomplished, before they became great living adepts. Of
course, no one can say that one or all of the possible members of
our friend "A." 's ideal Cagliostrian lodge might not also be
ready for adeptship, but the chance is not good enough to
speculate upon: Western civilization seems to develop fighters
rather than philosophers, military butchers rather than Buddhas.
The plan "A." proposes would be far more likely to end in
mediumship than adeptship. Two to one there would not be a member
of the lodge who was chaste from boyhood and altogether untainted
by the use of intoxicants. This is to say nothing of the
candidates' freedom from the polluting effects of the evil
influences of the average social environment. Among the
indispensable pre-requisites for psychic development, noted in
the mystical Manuals of all Eastern religious systems, are a pure
place, pure diet, pure companionship, and a pure mind. Could "A."
guarantee these? It is certainly desirable that there should be
some school of instruction for members of our Society; and had
the purely exoteric work and duties of the Founders been less
absorbing, probably one such would have been established long
ago. Yet not for practical instruction, on the plan of
Cagliostro, which, by-the-bye, brought direful suffering upon his
head, and has left no marked traces behind to encourage a
repetition in our days. "When the pupil is ready, the teacher
will be found waiting," says an Eastern maxim. The Masters do not
have to hunt up recruits in special __________ shire lodges, nor
drill them through mystical non-commissioned officers: time and
space are no barriers between them and the aspirant; where
thought can pass they can come. Why did an old and learned
Kabalist like "A." forget this fact? And let him also remember
that the potential adept may exist in the White chapels and Five
Points of Europe and America, as well as in the cleaner and more
"cultured" quarters; that some poor ragged wretch, begging a
crust, may be "whiter-souled" and more attractive to the adept
than the average bishop in his robe, or a cultured citizen in his
costly dress. For the extension of the theosophical movement, a
useful channel for the irrigation of the dry fields of
contemporary thought with the water of life, Branches are needed
everywhere; not mere groups of passive sympathisers, such as the
slumbering army of churchgoers, whose eyes are shut while the
"devil" sweeps the field; no, not such. Active, wide-awake,
earnest, unselfish Branches are Deeded, whose members shall not
be constantly unmasking their selfishness by asking "What will it
profit us to join the Theosophical Society, and how much will it
harm us?" but be putting to themselves the question "Can we not
do substantial good to mankind by working in this good cause with
all our hearts, our minds, and our strength?" If "A." would only
bring his __________ shire friends, who pretend to occult
leanings, to view the question from this side, he would be doing
them a real kindness. The Society can get on without them, but
they cannot afford to let it do so.

Is it profitable, moreover, to discuss the question of a Lodge
receiving even theoretical instruction, until we can be sure that
all the members will accept the teachings as coming from the
alleged source? Occult truth cannot be absorbed by a mind that is
filled with preconception, prejudice, or suspicion. It is
something to be perceived by the intuition rather than by the
reason; being by nature spiritual, not material. Some are so
constituted as to be incapable of acquiring knowledge by the
exercise of the spiritual faculty; e.g. the great majority of
physicists. Such are slow, if not wholly incapable of grasping
the ultimate truths behind the phenomena of existence. There are
many such in the Society; and the body of the discontented are
recruited from their ranks. Such persons readily persuade
themselves that later teachings, received from exactly the same
source as earlier ones, are either false or have been tampered
with by chelas, or even third parties. Suspicion and in harmony
are the natural result, the psychic atmosphere, so to say, is
thrown into confusion, and the reaction, even upon the stauncher
students, is very harmful. Sometimes vanity blinds what was at
first strong intuition, the mind is effectually closed against
the admission of new truth, and the aspiring student is thrown
back to the point where he began. having jumped at some
particular conclusion of his own without full study of the
subject, and before the teaching had been fully expounded, his
tendency, when proved wrong, is to listen only to the voice of
his self-adulation, and cling to his views, whether right or
wrong. The Lord Buddha particularly warned his hearers against
forming beliefs upon tradition or authority, and before having
thoroughly inquired into the subject.

An instance. We have been asked by a correspondent why he should
not "be free to suspect some of the so-called 'precipitated'
letters as being forgeries," giving as his reason for it that
while some of them bear the stamp of (to him) undeniable
genuineness, others seem from their contents and style, to be
imitations. This is equivalent to saying that he has such an
unerring spiritual insight as to be able to detect the false from
the true, though he has never met a Master, nor been given any
key by which to test his alleged communications. The inevitable
consequence of applying his untrained judgment in such cases,
would be to make him as likely as not to declare false what was
genuine, and genuine what was false. Thus what criterion has any
one to decide between one "precipitated" letter, or another such
letter? Who except their authors, or those whom they employ as
their amanuenses (the chelas and disciples), can tell? For it is
hardly one out of a hundred "occult" letters that is ever written
by the hand of the Master, in whose name and on whose behalf they
are sent, as the Masters have neither need nor leisure to write
them; and that when a Master says, "I wrote that letter," it
means only that every word in it was dictated by him and
impressed under his direct supervision. Generally they make their
chela, whether near or far away, write (or precipitate) them, by
impressing upon his mind the ideas they wish expressed, and if
necessary aiding him in the picture-printing process of
precipitation. It depends entirely upon the chela's state of
development, how accurately the ideas may be transmitted and the
writing-model imitated. Thus the non-adept recipient is left in
the dilemma of uncertainty, whether, if one letter is false, all
may not be; for, as far as intrinsic evidence goes, all come from
the same source, and an are brought by the same mysterious means.
But there is another, and a far worse condition implied. For all
that the recipient of "occult" letters can possibly know, and on
the simple grounds of probability and common honesty, the unseen
correspondent who would tolerate one single fraudulent line in
his name, would wink at an unlimited repetition of the deception.
And this leads directly to the following. All the so-called
occult letters being supported by identical proofs, they have all
to stand or fall together. If one is to be doubted, then all
have, and the series of letters in the "Occult World," "Esoteric
Buddhism," etc., etc., may be, and there is no reason why they
should not be in such a case-frauds, "clever impostures," and
"forgeries," such as the ingenuous though stupid agent of the
"S.P.R." has made them out to be, in order to raise in the public
estimation the "scientific" acumen and standard of his
"Principals."

Hence, not a step in advance would be made by a group of students
given over to such an unimpressible state of mind, and without
any guide from the occult side to open their eyes to the esoteric
pitfalls. And where are such guides, so far, in our Society?
"They be blind leaders of the blind," both falling into the ditch
of vanity and self-sufficiency. The whole difficulty springs from
the common tendency to draw conclusions from insufficient
premises, and play the oracle before ridding oneself of that most
stupefying of all psychic anæsthetics--IGNORANCE.

Lucifer, October, 1888

l Documents on view at LUCIFER Office, viz., Secret MSS. written
in the handwriting of--(name suppressed for past considerations),
"Provincial Grand Master of the Northern Section." One of these
documents bears the heading, "A brief Key to the Eulian
Mysteries," i.e. Tantric black magic on a phallic basis. NO; the
members of this Occult Brotherhood "do not boast of their
knowledge." Very sensible on their part: least said soonest
mended.

2 in "Isis Unveiled," vol. ii, p. 308. It may be added that the
"Brotherhood of Luxor" mentioned by Kenneth Mackenzie (vide his
Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia) as having its seat in America, had,
after all, nothing to do with the Brotherhood mentioned by, and
known to us, as was ascertained after the publication of "Isis"
from a letter written by this late Masonic author to a friend in
New York. The Brotherhood Mackenzie knew of was simply a Masonic
Society on a rather more secret basis, and, as he stated in the
letter, he had heard of, but knew nothing of our Brotherhood,
which having had a branch at Luxor (Egypt), was thus purposely
referred to by us under this name alone. This led some schemers
to infer that there was a regular Lodge of Adepts of that name,
and to assure some credulous friends and Theosophists that the
"H. B. of L." was either identical or a branch Of the same,
supposed to be near Lahore! !-which was the most flagrant
untruth.

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D T B