Theos-Talk Archives (April 2003 Message tt00181)

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

Let me give an example or two to illustrate my point. 

Hugh Shearman quotes A.P. Sinnett on THE MAHATMA LETTERS:

"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)"

But the inquiring reader might ask:

How did Sinnett really know that HPB had imported confusion into the 
information given in the Mahatma Letters.

How did Sinnett determine that HPB had distorted the teachings on 
the "after-death conditions"?  

How did he also come to the conclusion that Blavatsky had not 
tampered with other teachings on "Reincarnation, karma , the 
planetary chains, the succession of the root races, the sub-races and 
so on"?

Unfortunately, Shearman does NOT give the reader any background on 
how Sinnett's above views may have developed.

The following information may help to give the reader a wider context 
to Sinnett's remarks.

In 1884, Sinnett came to believe he was in contact with the Master 
K.H., independent of H.P.B. acting as mediator. 

Sinnett wrote in his book The Early Days of Theosophy: 

"About this time [early July 1884] Mrs. Holloway, a wonderfully 
gifted American psychic came to stay with us. . . . .She used to get 
vivid clairvoyant visions of the Master, - could pass on messages to 
me from K.H. and on one occasion he actually made use of her to speak 
to me in the first person." p. 27 

But the Master K.H. (in a letter received July 18, 1884) pronounced 
Sinnett's claim false and untrue:  

"You ask me if you can tell Miss Arundale what I told you thro' Mrs. H
[olloway]. . . . . .[But] I have never . . . communicated with you or 
any one else thro' her. . . . . She is an excellent but quite 
undeveloped clairvoyante. . . . ." The Mahatma Letters, 2nd ed., p. 
355 

In a letter to Laura Holloway herself, KH wrote:

"I have denied — black on white communicating with him [Sinnett]
through you. I have never done so, and this I repeat; but he clings 
to his unwholesome illusion. . . . " Quoted from Letter 17 at:
http://www.blavatskyarchives.com/hollowayml.htmtter 17

Sinnett had such a strong belief that KH had communicated with him 
through Mrs. Holloway that he even doubted KH's letter (quoted above) 
received on July 18, 1884.

Soon thereafter, Blavatsky wrote:

"My dear Mr. Sinnett, 

"It is very strange that you should be ready to deceive yourself so 
willingly. I have seen last night whom I had to see, and getting the 
explanation I wanted I am now settled on points I was not only 
doubtful about but positively averse to accepting. And the words in 
the first line are words I am bound to repeat to you as a warning, 
and because I regard you, after all, as one of my best personal 
friends. Now you have and are deceiving, in vulgar parlance, 
bamboozling yourself about the letter received by me yesterday from 
the Mahatma. The letter is from Him, whether written through a chela 
or not; and -- perplexing as it may seem to you, contradictory 
and 'absurd,' it is the full expression of his feelings and he 
maintains what he said in it. For me it is surpassingly strange that 
you should accept as His only that which dovetails with your own 
feelings, and reject all that contradicts your own notions of the 
fitness of things. . . . you imagine, or rather force yourself to 
imagine that the Mahatma's letter is not wholly orthodox and was 
written by a chela to please me, or something of the sort. . . . If 
you -- the most devoted, the best of all Theosophists -- are ready to 
fall a victim to your own preconceptions and believe in new gods of 
your own fancy dethroning the old ones -- then, notwithstanding all 
and everything Theosophy has come too early in this country. . . . 
Yours, H.P.B."

Sinnett persisted in his "unwholesome illusion."

Notice what happened four years later.

Master K.H. in his August 1888 "S.S. Shannon" letter to Colonel Henry 
Olcott wrote: 

"Since 1885 I have not written, nor caused to be written save thro' 
her [HPB's] agency, direct or remote, a letter or line to anybody in 
Europe or America, nor communicated orally with, or thro' any third 
party. Theosophists should learn it. You will understand later the 
significance of this declaration so keep it in mind. Her [HPB's] 
fidelity to our work being constant, and her sufferings having come 
upon her thro' it, neither I nor either of my Brother associates will 
desert or supplant her. . . . " 

". . . (This letter) . . . is merely given you as a warning and a 
guide; to others as a warning only; for you may use it discreetly if
needs be . . . Prepare, however, to have the authenticity of the 
present denied in certain quarters." Letters from the Masters of the 
Wisdom, Series I,  

Notic KH's words:

"Prepare, however, to have the authenticity of the present denied in 
certain quarters."

When Sinnett was shown the letter in London, he wrote privately to 
C.W. Leadbeater:

"It reads to me very much en suite with the other letters in blue 
handwriting that came during the 1884 crisis, when Mm. B. herself 
admitted to me after wards that during that time the Masters had 
stood aside and left everything to various chelas, including freedom
to use the blue handwriting". (C. Jinarajadasa, The K.H. Letters to 
C.W. Leadbeater, p. 75).

At this same time, Madame Blavatsky wrote an article in LUCIFER which 
is very relevant to Sinnett's views. HPB stated:

"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," . .
. . " Quoted from:
http://www.blavatsky.net/blavatsky/arts/LodgesOfMagic.htm

Much more could be said on this subject.

Daniel H. Caldwell
BLAVATSKY STUDY CENTER/BLAVATSKY ARCHIVES
http://blavatskyarchives.com