Theos-Talk Archives (March 2006 Message tt00904)

In light of recent postings, this article written in 1991 and 
subsequently published in The Canadian Theosophist might be of 
interest. It was sent to me whilst involved in personal 
correspondence with the author during my early stages of 
disenthrallment and disillusionment with the Adyar T.S.

IN MEMORY OF H P. BLAVATSKY
BY  D. J. BUXEY

"We cannot exaggerate the debt we owe to H.P.B. She brought us the 
Light...and we can best carry on her work by remembering the 
gratitude that we owe her.
-	Dr. Annie Besant.
H.P.B. resigned ("in utter disgust." as she called it) from the 
Theosophical Society on the New Day of Spring, March 21, 1985.
She ended her words on the matter with:
I leave with, one and all, to every one of my friends and 
sympathizers, my loving farewell. I would implore you all to be true 
to the Society (this essay is being written only "to be true to the 
Society", as she puts it. - D.J.B.) and not to permit it to be over-
thrown by the enemy.
Fraternally and ever yours - in life or death.
H.P. Blavatsky.
Adyar was happy to see her go. As she put it later, there was hatred 
from every department in Adyar towards her.
Why did the Council of the T.S. accept her resignation? Perhaps, as 
she put it, (I am quoting from The Canadian Theosophist. Sept.-Oct. 
1982, p.80. Vol.63, No. 4):
"Mankind -  the majority at any rate - hates to think for itself. It 
resents as an insult the humblest invitation to step for a moment 
outside the old well-beaten track, and, judging for itself, to enter 
into a new path in some fresh direction."
This essay is being written, in her memory, precisely for the T.S. to 
move "in some fresh direction" in the second century of its existence.
As I was writing my paper for the International Conference, as 
invited, and came to this point, the biographer of H.P.B., my 
neighbour, came in I asked him why he ended his book on H.P.B. with 
her resignation and did not go further. His answer shook me. He said, 
as invited, he speaks to the lodges, but never became a member -(this 
surprised me) - "as so sordid is the history of the T.S. that I want 
no part of it."
I then remonstrated. "You are then presenting only part of the 
picture."
His reply was, "Be it so. but I cannot wash dirty linen in public." 
After her resignation, H.P.B. then left India on March 30, 1885, 
against her will as she put it later to friends. As she saw the 
shores of her beloved India recede, she wept like a baby. She was 
carried on board ship without a change of clothes, and, in her own 
words, "...indecent haste." 
And now, with her out of the way Adyar started playing games. It 
started "manufacturing" Masters in their factory, - not merely 
manufacture, but commercializing and selling "Them" also, much as the 
Christian missionaries sell Jesus - their American TV. programs earn 
at least a 100 million dollars.
In the last bulletin of Convention No. 4 that a friend sent to me 
from Adyar, it mentioned that a property in Holland reverted to 
Adyar. But I happened to read Dr. Besant's Watch Tower notes in The 
Theosophist of how the property was made to be donated. The donor 
said that she was made a member or pupil of the Great White 
Brotherhood (Annie Besant's eyes widened at this stage) and she was 
put on probation by the Master K.H. This was Bishop Wedgewood's 
mischief - when I went to see him in Camberley in 1950 he had already 
gone mad (from tertiary syphilis. -Ed.). Dr. Besant said that she had 
never heard of such a thing (that the property was being donated), - 
all sorts of things happened behind her back - but she was accepting 
the property nevertheless. This is just an example to illustrate the 
point. The property, Huizen has now come to belong to Adyar.
H.P. Blavatsky now declared:
a.	I cannot now live at Headquarters from which the Masters and 
Their Spirit are virtually banished.
b.	The Presence of Their portraits will not help. They are a 
dead letter.
(These portraits are now in the E.S.Shrine Room.)
c.	No advice of mine on occult lines seems likely to be accepted.
d.	The fact of my relations with the Masters is doubted, even 
totally denied by some, and I myself having no right to the 
Headquarters, what reason is there, therefore, for me to live at 
Adyar?
This letter has been kept secret from Adyar-ites to this day. Only 
when a Parsee judge objected was it partially repeated in The 
Theosophist of 1929. By then Annie Besant was losing her memory (she 
asked Krishnamurti if they had ever met!), and was nearly dying, so 
they (Adyar officials) felt it was of no harm then. But all 
derogatory references to Adyar, even until then (1929) were removed.
After H.P. Blavatsky's departure from Adyar, the Masters 
became "alive" at the Adyar Convention.Who was to stop them? A 
member, Franz Hartman, astonished at all these goings on, wrote to 
H.P.B. and I quote from her very long letter of April 1885:
"As to ... that portion of your letter where you speak of the "army" 
of the deluded (viz. T.S. members at the Convention) and 
the "imaginary" Mahatmas of Olcott - you are absolutely and sadly 
right". (Note "sadly right" and "imaginary
Mahatmas, Olcott's Old Diary Leaves is pure fantasy and imagination - 
D.J.B.)
"Have I not seen the thing for nearly 8 years? Have I not struggled 
and fought against Olcott's ardent and gushing imagination and tried 
to stop him every day of my life?" (Note her words, "his gushing 
imagination" on Masters. - DJ.B.)
"Was he not told by me that if he did not see the Masters in their 
true light and did not cease speaking and inflaming people's 
imagination, that he would be held responsible for all the evil the 
Society might come to?" ("Note the words, "inflaming people's 
imagination" by tall stories about Masters. - D.J.B.)
Who started inventing all this? To the German theosophist, (Hartman) 
H.P.B. explained:
Then came Damodar and several other fanatics (note this word, - 
D.J.B.) calling them "Mahatmas" and little by little, the Adepts were 
transformed into Gods on earth.
They...were becoming with every day more legendary and miraculous.
The idea that Masters were motal men never crossed anyone's mind, 
though They wrote themselves repeatedly"
Why did she not stop all this? As she put it at the end:
"I was always occupied with The Theosophist, and ever in my room. All 
were left to Olcott and Damodar, two fanatics." (The word "fanatics" 
appears again. D.J.B.) "How I protested and tried to swim against the 
current, only Mr. Sinnett knows, and the Masters."
The Masters (made, as H.P.B. says, omniscient, omnipotent and 
omnipresent) leave the Society. We will quote only three phrases of 
what the Masters said, from Their numerous statements:
1. `The Society has liberated itself from our grasp and influence,and 
we have let it go."
2.	"This policy (Olcott's) has done more harm to the spirit of 
the Society than several Coulombs can do." (What a strong and 
damaging statement to make, "more than what several Coulombs can 
do." - DJB.)
3. "He (Olcott) saved his body (organization)but the T.S.is now a 
soulless corpse." (Or, he saved the body but killed the soul. - D.J.B)
Now with the Master K.H. saying "the T.S, has failed", H.P.B. is 
asked to start a new movement. Her words:
"Acting under the Master's orders. I began a new movement in the West 
on the original lines ... I founded (the magazine) Lucifer."
Now the Lucifer was founded to attack The Theosophist, otherwise why 
two magazines? How else would her voice be heard? How else could she 
crusade, a brave and lone warrior against falsehood? With this we 
must slowly end her story.
History continues, as the story of others begins, and it is with her 
memory that we are more concerned about here. Just as Krishnamurti 
told me many a time, once with tears in his eyes, how he was thrown 
out of Adyar at a moment's notice (he came to continue H.P.B.'s 
work), just as I saw, year after year, the pain in his eyes and 
words, we find from her letters the pain coming, as in this sentence:
"...those for whom I had the deepest affection, regarding them as a 
mother would her own sons ... have turned against me..."
At this point we must stop; her story is over. What about her 
successor? His story would start. H.P.B. had told Wm.Q. Judge in July 
1886 (and a number of times thereafter), "Take my place, Judge, ... 
replace me at Adyar."
But Annie Besant played politics. "Politics" means fighting for 
power. She need not have, for Judge was to die in a year, but she did 
not know this. She would have come to power in any case, and later 
confessed to many people, such as B.P. Wadia that she was misled.
An Australian, Mouni Sadhu, in his In Days of Great Peace, says on 
p.49:
"On my enquiry late in 1926, Mrs. Besant wrote to me:
`It is true that after the death of Col. Olcott in 1907, the Masters 
withdrew their direct guidance of the T.S.' "
Besant died broken-hearted, and as Krishnamurti was to tell me and 
others later, she nevertheless was sincere, but the others were not.
Olcott also realized this. In his biography, Hammer on the Mountain a
conversation appears on page 299- 300:
Olcott - "I have learned more, particularly as regards Judge -
"Yes, Henry," I (Laura Langford - Holloway) said eagerly,
Olcott - "I know now and it will comfort you to hear it, that I 
wronged Judge - not willfully or in malice; nevertheless I have done 
this and I regret it."
"God bless you", I said and then thanked him for his brave 
recantation.
H.P.B. tells her Masters she wants to start a new movement in her 
beloved India, the home of the Mahat mas, "of whom every Hindu school 
boy knows". (Mahatmas being true sanyasins etc.), but not in Europe.
Master K.H. asks her to go to pondicherry, but Adyar threatens arrest 
(as its existence is at stake), and in utter disgust, Master K.H. 
asks Aurobindo to go to Pondicherry. Was there any way to save the 
situation then? Yes, by recalling her, as the Master told her "most 
plainly":
"Master told me most plainly that if the Society did not recall me 
before 1886 (which it did not -	D.J.B.) They would retire entirely 
from any connection with it, signify it to the London Lodge and other 
European and American Societies, and break every connection with 
every member."
Conclusion:
H.P.B. asks, "Whom do I blame?" (for this mess). She 
answers, "Certainly not I."
Obviously blame goes to Olcott, as the Masters pinned the blame on 
him, but she is so noble, so chivalrous, that she puts it this 
way, "Loaded and heavy is his karma, poor man...", but she does not 
blame him. Then whom? "To human nature, demanding money."	-
All this was done for money - for organization, not teachings. So far 
as teachings were concerned, she had said, as J. Krishnamurti had 
told in practically the same words:
"I saw with terror and anger the false track they (the T.S.) were all 
pursuing."
When Judge started his magazine The Path, she had said, so far as the 
mas, "of whom every Hindu school boy knows". (Mahatmas being true
sanyasins etc.), but not in Europe.
Master K.H. asks her to go to pondicherry, but Adyar threatens arrest 
(as its existence is at stake), and in utter disgust, Master K.H. 
asks Aurobindo to go to Pondicherry. Was there any way to save the 
situation then? Yes, by recalling her, as the Master told her "most 
plainly":
"Master told me most plainly that if the Society did not recall me 
before 1886 (which it did not -	D.J.B.) They would retire entirely 
from any connection with it, signify it to the London Lodge and other 
European and American Societies, and break every connection with 
every member."
Conclusion:
H.P.B. asks, "Whom do I blame?" (for this mess). She 
answers, "Certainly not I."
Obviously blame goes to Olcott, as the Masters pinned the blame on 
him, but she is so noble, so chivalrous, that she puts it this 
way, "Loaded and heavy is his karma, poor man...", but she does not 
blame him. Then whom? "To human nature, demanding money."	-
All this was done for money - for organization, not teachings. So far 
as teachings were concerned, she had said, as J. Krishnamurti had 
told in practically the same words:
"I saw with terror and anger the false track they (the T.S.) were all 
pursuing."
When Judge started his magazine The Path, she had said, so far as the 
teachings are concerned:
"Bravo! Judge, ... your Path outclasses my Lucifer any day." While 
for Adyar she said,
"Adyar is the laughing-stock of the theosophists themselves, let 
alone their enemies.
Even Swami Vivekananda had said, "God knows what happened. But Judge 
was the best representative the theosophists ever had."
Post Mortem
Is there a post mortem? Possibly yes.
Annie Besant died. She possibly saw things in a better light, and as 
reported in The Theosophist Dec.1941. P.232, told Arundale. "The 
Lodges have become confused ... they have forgotten what theosophy 
is. Their members run here, there, and everywhere, everywhere but 
towards Theosophy."
"...everywhere but towards Theosophy". This is why this paper is 
being written. May there be a new turn of direction by 1991.* 

* The approximate time of writing of this essay. Add a prayer for a 
belated new turn of direction in 1996. -Ed.