Theos-Talk Archives (May 2007 Message tt00042)

This controversial letter "No. 88"?  Is by my 
opinion not a letter written by an adept. It is a note scrap
that should not have been issued and designated 
to master K.H. This scrap note has done much harm.

Sveinn Freyr

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Now we come to what is probably the most 
controversial letter ... it is not a letter but some notes ...

These ?Notes? have caused some people to reject 
the whole occult philosophy because of the denial
of the traditional concept of God.

The student is therefore asked to withhold judgment."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Letter No. 88 
1                              (ML-10) Copied by APS Sept. 28, 1882

Now we come to what is probably the most 
controversial letter in the volume. Actually, it 
is not a letter but some notes made by the 
Mahatma K.H. on what Hume called a ?Preliminary 
Chapter on God,? intended as a preface to a book 
he was writing on Occult Philosophy. The copy in 
the British Museum is in Sinnett?s handwriting.
These ?Notes? have caused some people to reject 
the whole occult philosophy because of the denial 
of the traditional concept of God. The student is 
therefore asked to withhold judgment.

NOTES BY K.H. ON A ?PRELIMINARY CHAPTER? HEADED 
?GOD? BY HUME, INTENDED TO PREFACE AN EXPOSITION 
OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY (ABRIDGED).

Received at Simla, Sept. 1882.

Neither our philosophy nor ourselves believe in a God, ...

  least of all in one whose pronoun necessitates 
a capital H. Our philosophy falls under the 
definition of Hobbes. It is preeminently the 
science of effects by their causes and of causes 
by their effects, and since it is also the 
science of things deduced from first principle, 
as Bacon defines it, before we admit any such 
principle we must know it, and have no right to 
admit even its possibility. Your whole 
explanation is based upon one solitary admission 
made simply for argument?s sake in October last.

You were told that our knowledge was limited to 
this our solar system: ergo as philosophers who 
desired to remain worthy of the name we could not 
either deny or affirm the existence of what you 
termed a supreme, omnipotent, intelligent being 
of some sort beyond the limits of that solar 
system. But if such an existence is not absolutely impossible, ...

yet unless the uniformity of nature?s law breaks 
at those limits we maintain that it is highly 
improbable. Nevertheless we deny most 
emphatically the position of agnosticism in this 
direction, and as regards the solar system. Our 
doctrine knows no compromises. It either affirms 
or denies, for it never teaches but that which it 
knows to be the truth. Therefore, we deny God 
both as philosophers and as Buddhists.

  We know there are planetary and other spiritual 
lives, and we know there is in our system no such 
thing as God, either personal or impersonal. 
Parabrahm is not a God, but absolute immutable 
law, and Iswar is the effect of Avidya and Maya, 
ignorance based upon the great delusion.

The word ?God? was invented to designate the 
unknown cause of those effects which man has 
either admired or dreaded without understanding 
them, and since we claim and that we are able to 
prove what we claim  i.e. the knowledge of that 
cause and causes  we are in a position to 
maintain there is no God or Gods behind them. ...


Copied out Simla, Sept. 28, 1882.

1 Transcribed from a copy in Mr. Sinnett?s handwriting. ? ED.





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]