Theos-Talk Archives (March 2006 Message tt00615)

[I have done some searching around in my database and managed to pull
out some of the files in question.  I cannot guarantee that they are
clean of any errors, but I believe them to be close.  Because of the
length of this post, it is a cut and paste jod.  Therefore, some of
the WordProcessing Coding may slip in.  Please try to ignore it.
Naturally these are just pieces in a much larger puzzle and are
consequently not substitutes for our own researches into the history
of the movement.  Perhaps Krsanna is on the right track and what would
be really valuable would be to take everyone who is interested through
the early history of the movement.

In "The Path" of March 1895, W.Q. Judge provided the following]:

A MAHATMA'S MESSAGE TO SOME BRAHMANS.

A copy of the letter hereunder printed was sent me in 1893 by the
Brahman gentleman mentioned therein, whose full name is Benee Madhab
Battacharya and who was at one time president of the Prayag T.S. at
Allahabad.  He sent it to me after the publication of my "Letter to
the Brahmans" in order to try and show me that the T. S. was in fact a
Buddhist propaganda. The original is in the possession of Mr.Sinnett,
who informed me not long ago that he thought he had it among his
papers but had no leisure to look for it.  I print it now for reasons
which will appear.  It reads:
             
"Message which Mr. Sinnett is directed by one of the Brothers, writing
through Madame B[lavatsky], to convey to the native members of the
Prayag Branch of the Theosophical Society.

The Brothers desire me to inform one and all of you natives that
unless a man is prepared to become a thorough Theosophist, i.e. to do
what D. Mavalankar did—give up entirely caste, his old superstitions,
and show himself a true reformer (especially in the case of child-
marriage), he will remain simply a member of the Society, with no hope
whatever of ever hearing from us.  The Society, acting in this
directly in accord with our orders, forces no one to become a
Theosophist of the Second Section.  It is left with himself at his
choice.  It is useless for a member to argue `I am one of a pure life,
I am a teetotaller and an abstainer from meat and vice, all my
aspirations are for good, etc.', and he at the same time building by
his acts and deeds an impassible barrier on the road between himself
and us.  What have we, the disciples of the Arhats of Esoteric Budhism
and of Sang-gyas, to do with the Shasters and orthodox Brahmanism? 
There are 100 of thousands of Fakirs, Sannyasis, or Sadhus leading the
most pure lives and yet being, as they are, on the path of error,
never having had an opportunity to meet, see, or even hear of us. 
Their forefathers have driven the followers of the only true
philosophy upon earth away from India, and now it is not for the
latter to come to them, but for them to come to us, if they want us. 
Which of them is ready to become a Budhist, a Nastika, as they call
us?  None.  Those who have believed and followed us have had their
reward.  Mr. Sinnett and Hume are exceptions.  Their beliefs are no
barriers to us, for they have none.  They may have bad influences
around them, bad magnetic emanations, the result of drink, society,
and promiscuous physical associations (resulting even from shaking
hands with impure men), but all this is physical and material
impediments which with a little effort we could counteract, and even
clear away, without much detriment to ourselves.  Not so with the  
magnetic and invisible results proceeding from erroneous and sincere
beliefs.  Faith in the gods or god and other superstition attracts
millions of foreign influences, living entities and powerful Agents
round them, with which we would have to use more than ordinary
exercise of power to drive them away.  We do not choose to do so.  We
do not find it either necessary or profitable to lose our time waging
war on the unprogressed planetaries who delight in personating gods
and sometimes well-known characters who have lived on earth.  There
are Dhyan Chohans and Chohans of darkness.  Not what they term devils,
but imperfect intelligences who have never been born on this or any
other earth or sphere no more than the Dhyan Chohans have, and who
will never belong to the `Children of the Universe', the pure
planetary intelligences who preside at every Manvantara, while the
Dark Chohans preside at the Pralaya."

Now this is a genuine message from the Master, allowing, of course,
for any minor errors in copying.  Its philosophical and occult
references are furthermore confirmed by the manuscript of part of the
third volume of the Secret Doctrine, not yet printed.  We know also
that Master K. H. informed Mr. Sinnett and others that he was an
esoteric Budhist; H.P.B. declared herself a Buddhist; on my asking her
in 1875 what could the Masters' belief be called she told me they
might be designated "pre-Vedic Budhists", but that no one would now
admit there was any Buddhism before the Vedas, so I had best think of
them as Esoteric Buddhists.

But I am informed that Mrs. Besant has several times privately stated
that in her opinion the letter first above printed was a "forgery or
humbug" gotten up by H.P.B.  I know that Mr. Chakravarti has said the
same thing, because he said it to me in New York.  It is for Mrs.
Besant to deny the correctness of my information as to what she said:
she can affirm her belief in the genuineness of the letter.  If she
does so, we shall all be glad to know.  If she merely denies that she
ever impugned it, then it will be necessary for her to say
affirmatively what is her belief, for silence will be assent to its
genuineness.  I affirm that it is from one of the Masters, and that,
if it be shown to be a fraud, then all of H.P.B.'s claims of
connection with and teaching from the Master must fall to the ground.
 It is now time that this important point be cleared up.
                               William Q. Judge. (TJC, Pt.2, 138-39)

[Pelletier, in "The Judge Case" traces this dialogue back further, but
it is this publication that drew H.S. Olcott to answer as follows]:

POSTSCRIPT.

We stop the press to make room for some needed comments on an article
by Mr. Judge in the March number of the Path, of which advanced proofs
have been kindly sent us from New York.  Under the title "A Mahatma's
Message to some Brahmans," the author quotes an alleged "message which
Mr. Sinnett is directed by one of the Brothers, writing through Madame
Blavatsky, to convey to the Native Members of the Prayag [Allahabad]
Branch of the Theosophical Society." It was written, if I remember
aright, about 1881, and a copy was sent to Mr. Judge, he tells us, in
1893 by a Brahman Theosophist‒‒an old and respected friend of ours, to
whom the original was shown and a copy furnished by Mr. Sinnett at the
time of its issue.  The message is one of the most transparently
unconvincing in the history of Mahatmic literature.  It bears upon its
face the seal of its condemnation.  It is an ill-tempered attack upon
the Brahman gentleman's orthodoxy, under the guise of a general threat
that none of his caste can approach the Masters save by "giving up
entirely caste,". . . "old superstitions" . . "faith in the gods or
god," etc.; it repudiates all interest by the Adepts in "Shasters and
orthodox Brahmanism," and asks "which of them is ready to become a
Buddhist, a Nastika, as they call us." Mr. Judge asserts that "this is
a genuine message from the Masters, allowing, of course, for any minor
errors in copying;" and concludes his comments on the document by saying:

"But I am informed that Mrs. Besant has several times privately stated
that in her opinion the letter first above printed was a `forgery or
humbug' gotten up by H. P. B. I know that Mr. Chakravarti has said the
same thing because he said it to me in New York.  It is for Mrs.
Besant to deny the correctness of my information as to what she said:
she can affirm her belief in the genuineness of the letter.  If she
does so, we shall all be glad to know.  If she merely denies that she
ever impugned it, then it will be necessary for her to say
affirmatively what is her belief, for silence will be assent to its
genuineness.  I affirm that it is from one of the Masters, and that,
if it be shown to be a fraud, then all of H. P. B.'s claims of
connection with and teaching from the Master must fall to the ground.
 It is now time that this important point be cleared up."

It certainly is time; and, since this does not bear upon the pending
issues which the undersigned will shortly have to judicially dispose
of in London, he will help towards the clearing up so far as he can. 
He picks up the gauntlet for the honor of the Masters and the benefit
of the Society.

In so many words, then, he pronounces the message a false one, and if
this is likely to shatter H. P. B.'s oft-declared infallibility as the
transmitter of only genuine messages from the Masters, so let it be:
the sooner the monstrous pretence is upset the better for her memory
and for a noble cause.  For many years past, the writer has been
battling for this principle, and though rewarded for his good motive
and true loyalty to his old colleague, with secret hatred and public
protest, he reiterates, for the hundredth time, that H. P. B. was as
human and fallible as either one of us, and that what she wrote and
taught, and what was written through her, should be judged strictly on
its intrinsic merits and by no standard of presumed authority.  If the
message be really fictitious, it does not follow that H. P. B.
consciously falsified; the simple theory of mediumship has explained
many equally deceptive and even more exasperating messages from the
invisible world: and she herself has written and said to the spy
Solovioff, that at times she was possessed by evil influences.  We
know all the weight that such a suggestion carries, and yet repeat it
in the full conviction that the discoveries of hypnotic science have
already furnished proof of its entire reasonableness.

The putative `message,' moreover, grossly violates that basic
principle of neutrality and eclecticism on which the Theosophical
Society has built itself up from the beginning ; and which the
self-sacrificing action of the Judicial Committee, at London last
summer, vindicated, to the satisfaction of all the Sections.  Is it
not absurd, then, to imagine that any Master, in even the most casual
relations with the Society, would indulge in this insulting attack
upon Brahmanic philosophy‒‒the embodied quintessence of his own Secret
Doctrine‒‒and demand, as the price of intercourse with the Lodge, that
the Brahman should repudiate his religious beliefs, cast aside his
splendid Scriptures and turn Buddhist?  How Mr. Judge could have
overlooked this palpable proof of fraudulency is incomprehensible.  It
was a cruel disservice to the dead to revive the letter.  Can it be
that his imagined `loyalty' to H. P. B. has ended in making him as
blind to her human weaknesses as certain most honorable and
well-meaning Spiritualists are to the staring falsity of many
pretended spirit photographs, drawings and letters?  Be this as it
may, the moment that the dogma is established that the genuineness of
H. P. B.'s, series of Mahatmic letters depends upon the acceptance of
such a fraud as the above, the Society will have to find another
President, for it would soon become the game-preserve of rogues.
                              H. S. Olcott. (TJC, Pt.2, 140-41)

[As this post is already getting too long, I am going to inclue Franz
Hartmanns comments on this incident rather than the lengthier one by
Basil Crump.  Hartmann has the added advantage of having spent some
time at Adyar thereby coming to know many of the players. Again in
"The Path" of June 1895 Hartmann provides the following]:

CORRESPONDENCE.
DR. HARTMANN READS THE "POSTSCRIPT."

"My dear Judge:‒‒What is the matter?  Has the world become struck with
blindness, and does the President of the T. S. not know what Theosophy
is?  Have all the lectures of Mrs. Besant been after all nothing but
eloquence mixed with gush?  Do our own Theosophical writers only
repeat parrot-like what they hear, but without understanding?

"I ask these questions because I received a letter from Col. Olcott,
in which he calls my attention to a certain presidential "postscript"
in the April number of the Theosophist, and having at last sent for
that journal, I find that the "postscript" refers to the well-known
"Mahâtmâ Message to some Brahmans" published in the Path.  It seems
almost incredible how anybody, to say nothing of a president-founder,
could misconstrue and confound that message so as to understand it to
mean that the Brahmans should "repudiate their religious beliefs, cast
aside their splendid scriptures, and turn Buddhists!" in other words,
that they should give up one orthodox creed for the purpose of
assuming another.  I never imagined it possible that anybody could not
see the plain meaning of that letter to some Brahmans, in which the
Master asks them to strive to outgrow their orthodox beliefs and
superstitions, faith in gods or a (separate) god, and to attain real
knowledge.

"Great must be the power of Mr. Chakravarti and his orthodox
colleagues, if they can spread so much darkness over Adyar.  The very
air in that place seems to be reeking with envy, jealousy, conceit and
above all ingratitude.  Persons (such as Hübbe Schleiden) who for many
years have been making a living by huckstering the truths they learned
from H. P. Blavatsky and trading them off as their own inventions,
now turn upon their benefactors like wolves.

"For years it has been preached and written in all theosophical
papers, that blind belief in a doctrine (based upon the supposed
respectability of the person who teaches it), is not self knowledge;
that we should neither reject a doctrine nor blindly believe it, but
strive to attain to the true understanding of it. And now after these
many years the cry is heard among the "prominent" members of the T.
S.: `Where, oh where is a person whose respectability is so much
assured, that we may blindly believe what he says and save ourselves
the trouble of thinking for ourselves?'

"It seems to me, that the present row in the T. S. is an absolutely
necessary test, to show who are and who are not capable of grasping
the spirit and essence of theosophy, and to purify the T.S. of those
elements incapable of receiving the truth.  Let those who need
doctrines, be they brahminical or otherwise, depart in peace.  Let
them rejoice in the conviction of their own superior morality, which
is the product of the delusion of self.  The true theosophist knows
that the condition necessary for the interior revelation of truth is
neither the acceptance nor the repudiation of doctrines, nor the
belief in the respectability of Peter or John, but the sacrifice of
self and that love of the Master which alone forms the link of
sympathy between the Master and the disciple, and whose purity
consists in being unselfish.
									Yours very sincerely,
			 F. H." (TJC, pt.2, 152)

[I hope this helps all those unable to access the information through
local archives/libraries.  What do you make of it?  If there is
anything about the context that is unclear, please ask.

Sincerely, Bruce]