Theos-Talk Archives (April 2003 Message tt00149)

Saturday, April 26, 2003


Dear Friends:


Some recent postings raise old questions concerning H P B and her
work as the “messenger” for the Great Lodge of the Masters of
Wisdom.

It is useful here to consider what was written at the time when
these issues were first raised.

As always, the proving of any contention, or the settling of
doubts, has to be done by each individual for themselves. No
amount of arguments presented can do this, only the facts can be
used. The best way I have found out, is to read the documents
concerned.  

No one can accept any ready-made opinions without asking if they,
themselves should not in all fairness be participating in the
necessary research and making up their own minds in an
independent manner.

These three articles set the necessary tone form impartial
investigation.

In addition we have before us, easy of access the whole
philosophy. We can, each of us, without the burden of
pre-judgments, view its scope and rationale.

Is it cohesive? Can it be trusted? Is the Universe a living
whole? Are we immortal participants in a vast educational
endeavor? 

As we read H P B’s contributions on wonders at the extensive
nature of her mind and knowledge -- which scholar after scholar,
and specialist after specialist, in her day, recognized to be of
superior width and depth. Can we take the time to investigate
and prove this for ourselves? Do the narratives in science and
history fill gaps in our knowledge? 

Why are we attracted to Theosophy? Can we learn anything from it
?

Best wishes,
Dallas

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

	
H. P. B.

A LION-HEARTED COLLEAGUE PASSES


On the shore stood Hiawatha,
Turned and waved his hand at parting;
On the clear and luminous water
Launched his birch canoe for sailing,
>From the pebbles of the margin
Shoved it forth into the water;
Whispered to it, "Westward! Westward!"
And with speed it darted forward.
And the evening sun descending
Set the clouds on fire with redness,
Burned the broad sky, like a prairie,
Left upon the level water
One long track and trail of splendor,
Down whose stream, as down a river,
Westward, Westward Hiawatha
Sailed into the fiery sunset,
Sailed into the purple vapors,
Sailed into the dusk of evening.

* * *

Thus departed Hiawatha,
Hiawatha the beloved, . . .
To the Islands of the Blessed

------------


That which men call death is but a change of location for the
Ego, a mere transformation, a forsaking for a time of the mortal
frame, a short period of rest before one reassumes another human
frame in the world of mortals. 

The Lord of this body is nameless; dwelling in numerous tenements
of clay, it appears to come and go; but neither death nor time
can claim it, for it is deathless, unchangeable, and pure, beyond
Time itself, and not to be measured. 

So our old friend and fellow-worker has merely passed for a short
time out of sight, but has not given up the work begun so many
years ago - the uplifting of humanity, the destruction of the
shackles that enslave the human mind.


The THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT 


I met H.P.B. in 1875 in the city of New York where she was living
in Irving Place. There she suggested the formation of the
Theosophical Society, lending to its beginning the power of her
individuality and giving to its President and those who have
stood by it ever since the knowledge of the existence of the
Blessed Masters. 

In 1877 she wrote ISIS UNVEILED in my presence, and helped in the
proof reading by the President of the Society. This book she
declared to me then was intended to aid the cause for the
advancement of which the Theosophical Society was founded. Of
this I speak with knowledge, for I was present and at her request
drew up the contract for its publication between her and her New
York publisher. When that document was signed she said to me in
the street, "Now I must go to India."

In November, 1878, she went to India and continued the work of
helping her colleagues to spread the Society's influence there,
working in that mysterious land until she returned to London in
1887. There was then in London but one Branch of the Society -
the London Lodge - the leaders of which thought it should work
only with the upper and cultured classes. 

The effect of H.P.B.'s coming there was that Branches began to
spring up, so that now they are in many English towns, in
Scotland, and in Ireland. There she founded her magazine Lucifer,
there worked night and day for the Society loved by the core of
her heart, there wrote the SECRET DOCTRINE, the KEY TO THEOSOPHY,
and THE VOICE OF THE SILENCE, and there passed away from a body
that had been worn out by unselfish work for the good of [not
only] the few of our century but of the many in the centuries to
come.


It has been said by detractors that she went to India because she
merely left a barren field here, by sudden impulse and without a
purpose. But the contrary is the fact. In the very beginning of
the Society I drew up with my own hand at her request the
diplomas of some members here and there in India who were in
correspondence and were of different faiths. Some of them were
Parsees. She always said she would have to go to India as soon as
the Society was under way here and Isis should be finished. 

And when she had been in India some time, her many letters to me
expressed her intention to return to England so as to open the
movement actively and outwardly there in order that the three
great points on the world's surface -- India, England, and
America -- should have active centres of Theosophical work. 

This determination was expressed to me before the attempt made by
the Psychical Research Society on her reputation, - of which also
I know a good deal to be used at a future time, as I was present
in India before and after the alleged exposé - and she returned
to England to carry out her purpose even in the face of charges
that she could not stay in India. But to disprove these she went
back to Madras, and then again rejourneyed to London.


ATTACKS ON Theosophy AND H P B

That she always knew what would be done by the world in the way
of slander and abuse I also know, for in 1875 she told me that
she was then embarking on a work that would draw upon her
unmerited slander, implacable malice, uninterrupted
misunderstanding, constant work, and no worldly reward. 

Yet in the face of this her lion heart carried her on. Nor was
she unaware of the future of the Society. In 1876 she told me in
detail the course of the Society's growth for future years, of
its infancy, of its struggles, of its rise into the "luminous
zone" of the public mind; and these prophecies are being all
fulfilled.


PHENOMENA

Much has been said about her "phenomena," some denying them,
others alleging trick and device. Knowing her for so many years
so well, and having seen at her hands in private the production
of more and more varied phenomena than it has been the good
fortune of all others of her friends put together to see, I know
for myself that she had control of hidden powerful laws of nature
not known to our science, and I also know that she never boasted
of her powers, never advertised their possession, never publicly
advised anyone to attempt their acquirement, but always turned
the eyes of those who could understand her to a life of altruism
based on a knowledge of true philosophy. 

If the world thinks that her days were spent in deluding her
followers by pretended phenomena, it is solely because her
injudicious friends, against her expressed wish, gave out
wonderful stories of "miracles" which can not be proved to a
skeptical public and which are not the aim of the Society nor
were ever more than mere incidents in the life of H. P.
Blavatsky.


H. P. B.’s WORK AND AIM

Her aim was to elevate the race. Her method was to deal with the
mind of the century as she found it, by trying to lead it on step
by step; to seek out and educate a few who, appreciating the
majesty of the Secret Science and devoted to "the great orphan
Humanity," could carry on her work with zeal and wisdom; to found
a Society whose efforts - however small itself might be - would
inject into the thought of the day the ideas, the doctrines, the
nomenclature of the Wisdom Religion, so that when the next
century shall have seen its 75th year the new messenger coming
again into the world would find the Society still at work, the
ideas sown broadcast, the nomenclature ready to give expression
and body to the immutable truth, and thus to make easy the task
which for her since 1875 was so difficult and so encompassed with
obstacles in the very paucity of the language, -- obstacles
harder than all else to work against.

WILLIAM Q. JUDGE

PATH, June, 1891


------------------------------------------------

H.P.B. WAS NOT DESERTED BY THE MASTERS



THERE are certain things connected with the personality of the
great leader which have to be referred to and explained every now
and again even in a Society whose effort is as much as possible
to avoid the discussion of personalities. Sometimes they are
disagreeable, especially when, as in the present instance, some
other persons have to be brought in. And when the great leader is
H.P. Blavatsky, a whole host of principles and postulates as to
certain laws of nature cluster around her name. 

For not only was she one who brought to us from the wiser
brothers of the human family a consistent philosophy of the solar
system, but in herself she illustrated practically the existence
of the supersensuous world and of the powers of the inner and
astral man. 

Hence any theory or assertion touching on her relations with the
unseen and with the Masters she spoke for inevitably opens up the
discussion of some law or principle. This of course would not be
the case if we were dealing with a mere ordinary person.

Many things were said about H.P.B. in her lifetime by those who
tried to understand her, some of them being silly and some
positively pernicious. The most pernicious was that made by Mr.
A.P. Sinnett in London in the lifetime of H.P.B., and before the
writing of the SECRET DOCTRINE, that she was deserted by the
Masters and was the prey of elementals and elemental forces. He
was courageous about it, for he said it to her face, just as he
had often told her he thought she was a fraud in other
directions.

This theory was far-reaching, as can be seen at a glance. For if
true, then anything she might say as from the Masters which did
not agree with the opinion of the one addressed could be disposed
of as being only the vaporing of some elementals. And that very
use was made of it. 

It was not discussed only in the charmed seclusion of the London
Lodge, but was talked of by nearly all of the many disciples and
would-be disciples crowding around H.P.B. It has left its mark
even unto this day. 


MARS and MERCURY and our EARTH

And when the total disagreement arose between H.P.B. and Mr.
Sinnett as to the relation of Mars and Mercury to this earth, and
as to the metaphysical character of the universe - H.P.B. having
produced an explanation from the Master - then the pernicious
theory and others like it were brought forward to show she was
wrong, did not have word from the Master, and that Mr. Sinnett's
narrow and materialistic views of the Master's statement - which
had been made before the alleged desertion and elemental
possession - were the correct ones. 

The dispute is imbedded in the Secret Doctrine. The whole
philosophy hangs upon it. The disagreement came about because Mr.
Sinnett held that his view of one of the letters from the Master
received in India - through the hand of H.P.B. - was the correct
view, whereas she said it was not. 

He kept rigidly to his position, and she asked the Master for
further explanation. When this was received by her and shown to
Mr. Sinnett he denied its authenticity, and then the desertion
theory would explain the rest.

He seemed to forget that she was the channel and he was not.

Although wide publicity was not given to the charge then, it was
fully discussed by the many visitors to both camps, and its
effect remains to this day among those who of late have turned in
private against H.P.B. Among themselves they explain away very
easily, and in public they oppose those who adhere firmly to her
memory, her honor, and the truth of her statements about the
Masters and their communications to her. 

They think that by dragging her down to the mediocre level on
which they stand they may pretend to understand her, and look
wise as they tell when she was and when she was not obsessed. 

This effort will, of course, be unsuccessful; and some will think
the matter need not be brought forward. There are many reasons
why it should be discussed and left no longer as a secret poison:
because it leads to a negation of brotherhood; to an upholding of
ingratitude, one of the blackest crimes; and, if believed, will
inevitably lead to the destruction of the great philosophy
broadly outlined by the Masters through H.P.B.

If, as claimed by Mr. Sinnett, H.P.B. was deserted by the Masters
after they had used her for many years as their agent and channel
of communication, such desertion would be evidence of
unimaginable disloyalty on their part, utterly opposed to their
principles as stated by themselves. 


H P B IS OUR “MESSENGER”

For when the advisability of similar desertion was in Mr.
Sinnett's mind many years before, when he did not approve of
H.P.B.'s methods of conducting the movement in India, Master K.H.
emphatically wrote him that "ingratitude is not among our vices,"
asking him if he would consider it just, "supposing you were thus
to come," as H.P.B. did, and were to "abandon all for the truth;
to toil wearily for years up the hard, steep road, not daunted by
obstacles, firm under every temptation; were to faithfully keep
within your heart the secrets entrusted to you as a trial; had
worked with all your energies, and unselfishly to spread the
truth and provoke men to correct thinking and a correct life -
would you consider it just, if, after all your efforts," you were
to be treated as you propose Mdme. Blavatsky should be treated? 

But this warning evidently produced only a transient effect, for
in a few years' time, as stated, Mr. Sinnett came to the
conclusion that his suggestion had been acted upon to an even
greater extent than he had originally intended. 

At first he had only wished that H.P.B. should be put on one side
as a channel between himself and the Master, leaving a newly
organized T.S. to his own management under those conditions; but
he afterwards thought that H.P.B. had been put on one side as a
channel of any sort so far as the Masters were concerned. 

This wholesale later desertion would mean that in the meantime
Master K.H. had entirely changed in character and had become
capable of gross ingratitude, which is absurd. Masters are above
all things loyal to those who serve them and who sacrifice
health, position and their entire lives to the work which is the
Master's; and H.P.B did all this and more, as the Master wrote. 

To take the other view and imagine that after years of such
service as is described in the above quotation, H.P.B. was left
to be figuratively devoured by elementals, would prove Masters to
be merely monsters of selfishness, using a tool not made of iron
but of a wonderful human heart and soul, and throwing this tool
away without protection the moment they had done with it.

And how about the members and more faithful disciples who were
left in ignorance of this alleged desertion? Would it have been
loyal to them? They had been taught for years to look with
respect upon H.P.B. and the teachings she gave out, and to regard
her as the Masters' channel. They received no warning that the
plan Mr. Sinnett had for so long carried in his mind could
possibly be carried out, but on the contrary often received
personally from the Masters endorsements of H.P.B.'s actions and
teachings.

Those who harbored constant doubts of her veracity were reproved;
and yet it would seem for no other apparent reason than a
necessary correction by her of Mr. Sinnett's wrong interpretation
of earlier teachings she was abandoned by her old teachers and
friends who had spent years in training her for just this work!

So the whole of this far-fetched supposition is alike contrary to
brotherhood and to occultism. It violates every law of true
ethics and of the Lodge, and to crown its absurdity would make
the Secret Doctrine in large measure the work of elementals.
Deserted before the explanation of Mr. Sinnett's mistakes
appeared in that book, H. P. B. was obsessed to some advantage,
it may be thought! 

But in fact a great depth of ignorance is shown by those who
assert that she was deserted and who add that elementals
controlled her, doing the work for her. They do not know the
limitations of the elemental: an elemental can only copy what
already exists, cannot originate or invent, can only carry out
the exact impulse or order given, which if incomplete will cause
the result to be similarly incomplete, and will not start work
unless pushed on by a human mind and will. In no case is this
elemental supposition tenable.

The ignorance shown on this point is an example of the mental
standing of most of H.P.B.'s critics. 

Materialists in their bias, they were unable to understand her
teachings, methods or character, and after badly assimilating and
materializing the ideas they got originally from her, they
proceeded to apply the result to an explanation of everything
about her that they could not understand, as if they were fitting
together the wooden blocks of several different puzzles. 

But if in spite of all reason this view of desertion were to be
accepted, it would certainly lead in the end, as I have said, to
the destruction of the Theosophical philosophy. Its indirect
effect would be as detrimental as the direct effect of degrading
the ideal of Masters. This is clearly shown in the SECRET
DOCTRINE.

After pointing out in her "Introductory" to the Secret Doctrine
(p. xviii) the preliminary mistake made by the author of Esoteric
Buddhism in claiming that "two years ago (i.e., 1883) neither I
nor any other European living knew the alphabet of the Science,
here for the first time put into scientific shape," when as a
matter of fact not only H.P.B. had known all that and much more
years before, but two other Europeans and an American as well; --
she proceeds to give the Master's own explanation of his earlier
letters in regard to the Earth Chain of Globes and the relation
of Mars and Mercury thereto (vol. i, pp. 160-170, o.e.). 

Mr Sinnett himself confesses that he had "an untrained mind" in
Occultism when he received the letters through H.P.B. on which
Esoteric Buddhism was based. He had a better knowledge of modern
astronomical speculations than of the occult doctrines, and so it
was not to be wondered at, as H.P.B. remarks, that he formed a
materialistic view of a metaphysical subject. 

But these are the Master's own words in reply to an application
from H.P.B. for an explanation of what she well knew was a
mistake on Mr. Sinnett's part - the inclusion of Mars and Mercury
as globes of the Earth Chain:


"Both (Mars and Mercury) are septenary chains, as independent of
the earth's sidereal lords and superiors and as you are
independent of the 'principles' of Daumling. [Tom Thumb]" 

"Unless less trouble is taken to reconcile the irreconcilable -
that is to say, the metaphysical and spiritual sciences with
physical or natural philosophy, 'natural' being a synonym to them
(men of science) of that matter which falls under the perception
of their corporal senses - no progress can be really achieved. 

Our Globe, as taught from the first, is at the bottom of the arc
of descent, where the matter of our perceptions exhibits itself
in its grossest form... Hence it only stands to reason that the
globes which overshadow our Earth must be on different and
superior planes. In short, as Globes, they are in coadunition but
not in consubstantiality with our Earth, and thus pertain to
quite another state of consciousness."


Unless this be accepted as the correct explanation, the entire
philosophy becomes materialistic and contradictory, analogy
ceases to be of any value, and both the base and superstructure
of Theosophy must be swept away as useless rubbish. But there is
no fear of this, for the Master's explanation will continue to be
accepted by the large majority of Theosophists.

And as to H.P.B. personally, these words might possibly be
remembered with advantage: "Masters say that Nature's laws have
set apart woe for those who spit back in the face of their
teacher, for those who try to belittle her work and make her out
to be part good and part fraud; those who have started on the
path through her must not try to belittle her work and aim. They
do not ask for slavish idolatry of a person, but loyalty is
required. They say that the Ego of that body she uses was and is
a great and brave servant of the Lodge, sent to the West for a
mission with full knowledge of the insult and obloquy to be
surely heaped upon that devoted head; and they add; 'Those who
cannot understand her had best not try to explain her; those who
do not find themselves strong enough for the task she outlined
from the very first had best not attempt it'."

William Q. Judge

Theosophy [PATH], April, 1896


-------------------------------------------------------



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 sometime and at last came the
explosion. 

Afterward when writing on the subject of "Lodges of Magic" in
Lucifer 1 <http://www.blavatsky.net/theosophy/judge/articles/>
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. 

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” [MAHATMA
LETTERS, pp. 461-2] is a fraud, as Col. Olcott and another says,
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:


PRECIPITATION OF LETTERS

“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

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D T B


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