Theos-Talk Archives (April 2003 Message tt00144)

Hugh Shearman on The Mahatma Letters.

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. . . Here is how A. P. Sinnett, to whom the bulk of
the still surviving Mahatma Letters were addressed,
assessed the descriptive material that was in them and
Madame Blavatsky's influence upon it. He said:

"They contained masses of information concerning the
natural truths that have since become the fundamental
ideas underlying Theosophy, which were previously as
unknown to Madame Blavatsky as to myself.
Reincarnation, karma , the planetary chains, the
succession of the root races, the sub-races and so on,
were not tampered with. Madame Blavatsky did not know
enough about them at that time to make it possible for
her to import confusion into information on these
subjects which passed through her hands. But unhappily
she had contracted - under conditions I will not
attempt to elucidate - a bitter detestation of
spiritualism, and sometimes when the letters touched
on after-death conditions she wove this feeling into
them. The result was dreadfully misleading and the
consequences very deplorable". (A.P Sinnett, The Early
Days of Theosophy in Europe , p.28)

This view of the Mahatma Letters, held by the chief
recipient of them, was in harmony with the view of
them held by others close to clearly events in the
Society's history. (THE THEOSOPHIST, June 1967, p.152
et seq.) It agrees indeed with Madame Blavatsky's own
statement that "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", (Lucifer, iii, 93) and she said to Frau Gebhard
that she had "used Master's name when I thought my
authority would go for nought" and that some letters
contained "ideas and expressions out of my head". (C.
Jinarajadasa,The Early Teaching of the Masters,
foreword, p.x)

In value judgments, Madame Blavatsky's emotional
nature was swept and tossed by many vehemently held
prejudices. Some of her views about her contemporaries
in the scientific world were very much less than just;
and her strong prejudice against the Catholic Church
is well known. So strong was this that in one of her
letters to Sinnett she not only ascribed the troubles
in Ireland at that time to the Jesuits but seemed
ready to believe the absurd rumor that Mr. Gladstone,
the British Prime Minister, had been received into the
Roman Catholic Church by the Pope in person. (The
Letters of H.P. Blavatsky to A.P. Sinnett, letter
106). . . . 

Some of these unbalanced attitudes also entered the
Mahatma Letters. It is interesting that two of the
letters in which such prejudice is most clearly
expressed are of dubious authority and provenance. One
is Letter 10 which exists only in the handwriting of
Mr. Sinnett and is not actually a letter but consists
of notes on something written by A. O. Hume. It is
headed with the word "abridged". The other is Letter
134, in which Madame Blavatsky claimed to "translate"
the meaning of the Master M. The authenticity of this
letter was later denied by Colonel Olcott. (THE
THEOSOPHIST, April 1895). In other respects, also, the
material which Madame Blavatsky gave to the world is
conditioned by her temperament, her personality, her
expectations and the inevitable limits of her very
extensive knowledge and experience. In general terms
she was always ready to admit that this was so.
. . . 
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Excerpted from:

Theosophical Ontologies
by Hugh Shearman
The Theosophist Oct 1971