Theos-Talk Archives (July 2004 Message tt00126)

The following words of HPB (I think) are very
relevant to what Bart alludes to when he writes:

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The problem is that, if you base your belief in the 
concepts that have been promulgated in Blavatsky's works 
and the Mahatma letters on the genuity of the phenomena, 
then any fakery in the latter implies falsehood of the 
former. Except that gets one into a conundrum, as the
former emphasize that acceptance of the concepts 
should NOT be based on the authority of the writers, but 
on their own merits.

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But as I have pointed out before, many of the concepts
in Blavatsky's works and the Mahatma Letters deal with
the occult/inner rationale of the phenomena. If phenomena
were faked, does that also indicate that the teaching or
concept about the phenomena and related concepts were also faked or 
madeup or simply borrowed?

I give below some of HPB's own comments on similar
themes. One of those "persons" not named was probably
A.P. Sinnett himself. And notice that HPB is not only
dealing with the phenomena of the occult letters but also
with the teachings.

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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 inharmony 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., [and THE SECRET DOCTRINE] 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." [Richard Hodgson] has made them out to be....

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.

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

And ALL OF US might ponder on the last statement given by
Blavatsky above. Does it apply to any of us? Maybe all of us!

Daniel
http://hpb.cc
http://theosophy.info