Theos-Talk Archives (April 2005 Message tt00682)

Apl 14 2005

Re: CAGLIOSTRO - TALLEYRAND -- H P BLAVATSKY

Dear Friends:

A few days ago inquiry about CAGLIOSTRO was made. Here is another article
on his work and life.

Similarly, to our annoyance a contributor to these chat postings has several
times stated that the teachings of Mme. H. P. Blavatsky, the originator and
prime communicator of THEOSOPHY, are "hated" by certain members and in
certain divisions of the THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY -- a society which owes its
present existence solely to her knowledge, work and sacrifice.  

It is quite evident that someone has dared to speak for others (with or
without their consent). It may be clear that some so-called "theosophists"
have never read or studied what H.P.B. wrote. This we have protested, and so
have others.

Oh H P B it was said: "...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." 

I would, today issue a challenge:

Open The VOICE OF THE SILENCE, The KEY TO THEOSOPHY, ISIS UNVEILED or The
SECRET DOCTRINE to any page you choose, read a few pages, consider freely,
and see if the insight, knowledge of history, philosophy, science, religion
and wisdom there is not perfectly intelligible and evident. 

The subjoined article gives more information.

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

 
PRINCE TALLEYRAND - CAGLIOSTRO

A good deal for and against Cagliostro has been said since the time when he
disappeared from the scene, and so much has been written against him by his
enemies, especially the members of the order of Jesus, that the ordinary run
of people have come to think of him as no more than an impostor, and a very
cheap one at that. 

This has been pushed so far that his name in the encyclopedias stands for
one of the great charlatans who from time to time are said to appear for the
delusion of mankind and their own profit. 

The same sort of reputation has been given also to our honored fellow
student Helena P. Blavatsky, and for similar reasons, with just as little
basis. Indeed, there seems to be little doubt that in time to come her
enemies, like his, will delight to call her a great impostor, as has been
done already by a little-minded so-called investigator who went all the way
to India to look into matters theosophical.

If Cagliostro was in fact an impostor, it is a strange thing that so much
attention was paid to him by the very best men and women of Europe. That
fact will always call for explanation, and, until it is given due weight,
the unbeliever in encyclopedias will be likely to think a good deal of the
Count. 

There are some persons now of quite bright minds and wide acquaintance with
men who say they believe he is still living, not under his old name but with
another, and that he is engaged in a great work which embraces the whole
human family. This may or may not be true, since it calls for a very great
age on his part, but the student of the occult knows that we are neither old
nor young, but ever immortal.

The great Prince Talleyrand has left us something regarding Cagliostro which
is of weight. It is to be found in a book published in London in 1848,
containing the Memoirs of the Prince by his private secretary M. Colemache,
in chapter four. 

It there appears that the Prince was asked to give the incidents of his
visit to Cagliostro, and did so at some length. He had heard so much about
the Count that he resolved to pay him a visit and see for himself the man
about whom nearly every one was talking. An appointment was made, and at the
time set Talleyrand called and was ushered into the presence, where he found
the strange figure - a woman dressed in black and whose face was veiled --
of whom much has also been said on the ground that she was alleged to be the
confederate of Cagliostro or else a very good sensitive or medium. 

The Count appeared to be busy, and gazed into the eyes of the Prince with
such a peculiar stare that the latter was not able to collect his thoughts,
obliging Cagliostro to remind him of the many people waiting for an audience
who could not be kept waiting if there was nothing to be said. Thereupon, as
the Prince says himself, being utterly confused he failed to recollect the
posers he had prepared, and was forced to ask Cagliostro if he could tell
him anything about a certain Countess. 

The reply he received to this was that she would be at the theatre that
night and would wear a certain dress and certain ornaments. Then Talleyrand
asked if he could have a remedy for headaches she often had, and Cagliostro
reaching down took up a jug and gave the Prince what looked like water. It
was directed to be applied to her forehead, and the strict injunction given
that no one else was under any circumstances to handle the bottle or touch
the water.

Talleyrand then went off, the Countess appeared at the theatre exactly as
was said, and after the play the party, including Talleyrand, went to a
supper. The meal had progressed almost to the coffee when some one asked for
the result of the visit to the supposed impostor. 

The Prince produced the bottle, but, contrary to the directions, allowed
every one of the company to smell it and handle it. It was then proposed to
apply the water to the fair forehead of the Countess, but there was some
hesitation, until at last a quantity of the liquid was poured in the hand of
one of the guests and placed on her forehead. Immediately she screamed with
pain, but the hand could not be easily withdrawn; it had to be pulled off
with violence, and with it came a large patch of the lady's skin. 

The next day the police were sent after Cagliostro, and the jug of liquid
was taken to an official analyst who made report that it was water and
nothing else, just the same as what was in the bottle. 

This could not be explained by the Prince, but on the examination Cagliostro
said it was indeed water which he had strongly magnetised, and that if the
Prince had followed directions no harm would have come; he, however, had
permitted a lot of roysterers to handle and smell it, and they had turned
the immensely strong magnetism into the violent agent it turned out to be. 

Of course the manufacturers of hypotheses will say that it was not water but
"some" acid or the like, not being able, though, to tell what they mean
exactly. The incident is well attested and made a deep impression on the
Prince, who gives evidence thus to facts and not to disputable theories.

J. QUILTER
PATH, October, 1890

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


H P B ON MESSAGES FROM THE MASTERS


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.

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 [Col. H. S. Olcott]. 

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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 [Vol. 1 pp 163-170]. 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. 

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 (S D 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]" [S D I 165]

"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." [S D I 166]


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 Mahâtmâs names and
handwritings, with forgery of messages from the Mahâtmâs, 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 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

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

I hope this will prove to be of help to enquires and students, 

Best wishes,

Dallas