Theos-Talk Archives (April 2003 Message tt00180)

Hi Leslie,

I didn't know you had subscribed to this forum! Good to have you 
here.

Although I think every Blavatsky/Mahatma Letter student should read 
and study what Shearman wrote, it is my personal belief that Shearman 
presents a very one-sided view on the subjects under consideration. 

I will try to find some of my counterpoints that I wrote many years 
ago to some of Shearman's statements and post them on this forum.

Daniel

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, leslie.price@l... wrote:
> Daniel
> 
> 
> Hugh Shearman's views on historical matters are always worthy of 
respect,
> and it is useful to see them being reconsidered. His books and 
articles were
> among the few historical contributions in the Adyar Society after 
the death
> of C.Jinarajadasa.
> 
> But as an adherent( a priest?) of the Liberal Catholic Church, he 
did have
> an interest in minimising those parts of early Theosophy which were 
opposed
> to religion. He also continued to defend Leadbeater quite late in 
the day,
> even when it was apparent that Leadbeater's account of his early 
life would
> have to be considered inoperative.
> 
> The message of " The Secret Doctrine" and of " The Key to 
Theosophy" is
> opposed to theism, that is belief in and worship of a personal God.
> 
> Leslie Price
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Daniel H. Caldwell [mailto:inquire@b...]
> Sent: 26 April 2003 15:38
> To: theos-talk@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Theos-World Belief in God and the Mahatma Letters
> 
> 
> Belief in God and the Mahatma Letters 
> 
> BELIEF IN GOD
> By HUGH SHEARMAN 
> The Theosophist Jan 1965 
> 
> Among some members of the Theosophical Society the
> idea seems to have been current over many years that
> to believe in God is in some fashion to commit an
> impropriety. To believe in a "Divine Plenum" or
> "absolute and abstract Ens" or some other metaphysical
> expression is felt to be permissible, but not a belief
> in "God". The reason for this dismissal of one term in
> favor of another is probably based largely upon
> certain passages which can be found in The Mahatma
> Letters to A.P. Sinnett and elsewhere. 
> 
> In Letter 10 of that volume there appears the
> frequently quoted passage:" Neither our philosophy nor
> ourselves believe in a God, least of all in one whose
> pronoun necessitates a capital H". The letter explains
> clearly the philosophical absurdity of an infinite and
> unchangeable God being at the same time an agent in
> human events. Later the letter refers to evil and
> says, 
> 
> "I will point out the greatest, the chief cause of
> nearly two-thirds of the evils that purpose humanity
> ever since that cause became a power. It is religion
> under what ever form and in whatsoever nation. It is
> the sacerdotal caste, the priesthood and the churches;
> it is in those illusions that man looks upon as
> sacred, that he has to search out the source of that
> multitude of evils which is the great curse of
> humanity and that almost overwhelms mankind. Ignorance
> created Gods and cunning took advantage of the
> opportunity."
> 
> The writer then goes to claim, rather implausibly and,
> some may feel, rather smugly, that the lamas of Tibet
> were altogether an exception to the adversely critical
> things he has to say about the priesthoods of other
> lands and religions, that they never accumulate wealth
> or exploit anybody. 
> 
> Most of this letter was also published by C
> Jinarajadasa in his book The Early Teaching of the
> Master 18981- 1883, which appeared actually slightly
> before Barker's edition of The Mahatma Letters to A.P.
> Sinnett. We have not, of course, got the original
> script of this letter which presumably once existed.
> All we have is a transcript in the handwriting of A.
> P. Sinnett, how accurate we do not know. This
> transcript is moreover healed with the word
> "Abridged".
> 
> Another passage to the same effect is published in The
> Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett as letter 134. It
> contains much the same repudiation of "faith in the
> gods and God and other superstitions," "the gods the
> Hindus and Christians and Mahomed (ans) and all others
> of bigoted religious and sects worship" and appears to
> imply that to earn the writer's approbation one would
> have to become a Buddhist. 
> 
> But Letter 134 is not really a Mahatma Letter at all,
> though sometimes quoted as such. The editors of the
> volume indicate that it is a letter written by Madame
> Blavatsky and never did exist in one of the well-known
> Mahatma scripts. It was first published by WQ Judge in
> 1893, and was repudiated by Colonel Olcott as not
> authentic. In the supplement to The Theosophist for
> April, 1895, Colonel Olcott said that this message was
> "a false one" and one which "grossly violates that
> basic principle of neutrality and eclecticism on which
> the T. S has built itself from the beginning". 
> 
> As against these two passages, which cannot be
> authenticated as coming from holograph Mahatma
> scripts, there are extant at Adyar the original
> Serapis letters addressed to Colonel Olcott; and a
> high proportion of these piously invoke the name of
> God. They also advocate prayer. They are reproduced in
> Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom (Second
> Series), edited by C Jinarajadasa.
> 
> To complete the confusion of anybody who seeks in
> these early writings the authority of a Master of the
> Wisdom for belief or unbelief in God, Madame Blavatsky
> herself repudiated the accuracy and authority of much
> that appeared in the Mahatma letters, because they
> were normally written or precipitated by persons other
> than the Masters whose names were signed to them and
> whose handwriting was reproduced in them. In 1886 she
> wrote about the letters of the Masters M. and K. H, 
> 
> "How many a time was I (no Mahatma ) shocked and
> startled, burning with shame, when shown notes written
> in Their two handwritings - exhibiting mistakes in
> science, grammar and thoughts, expressed in such
> language that it perverted entirely the meaning
> originally intended". 
> 
> What she wrote is reproduced in the introduction to
> The Early Teaching of the Masters, 1881- 1883, and in
> The Theosophist for August, 1931. And in 1888 she
> declared in print in Lucifer (vol.iii, p.93) that
> 
> "It is hardly one out of hundred occult letters that
> is ever written by the hand of the Master in whose
> name and on whose behalf they are sent". 
> 
> . . . All this is not to say that the Mahatma letters do not
> contain illuminating passages on this subject as on
> many others, whatever the real provenance of the
> individual letters may be. . . . 
> 
> ---------------------------------------------- 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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