Theos-Talk Archives (May 2012 Message tt00106)

Dr N C Ramanujachary

Light on the Path

This is a short treatise coming from Mabel Collins (1851-1927) whose real name was Mrs. Kunningale Cook.

Isabelle de Seiger in her book  Memorabilia(Pub: Rider & Co, London) states: She (Mabel Collins) described to me as having been written psychically but not automatically, as was the custom at that time of several mediums, which ended by the writers being put into asylum as people unfitted to be at large. --- She told me that she wrote it in a wide-awake state, within some large library, which was called by some one, herself or another, the Hall of Learning.                     (Adyar Lib. 921-493 Ste-a)

Light on the path was first published in Banner of Light, a monthly magazine. MC brought the printed text to HPB's  notice, who instantly said it was written by Master Hilarian.

MC was devoted to HPB. She was separated from her husband, who died shortly afterwards. MC parted from HPB, also from Annie Besant and left the Theosophical Society. She was earlier the co-editor of Lucifer, the monthly magazine started by HPB while in London. 

Suggestive Enquiries by Atweed, LOP by MC and Perfect Way by Mrs Anna Kingsford, were separate books, for altogether different reasons, intended to `import the Hidden Wisdom to mankind.' Isabelle received guidance from Rudolf Steiner. 

Master Hilarian is the head of the Fifth Ray.  He gave The Voice of the Silence through Madame Blavatsky and the Light on the path  through MC. The Venitian Master translated LOP from Sanskrit to Greek language.  Master Hilarian was his disciple in Alexandria.  He gave them in English thro' MC, for the members of the Theosophical Society.  Master Hilarian was Iamblichus in his former life. He is also known as  Cyrian Adept. He also helped her write some occult stories like The Ensouled Violin.

LOP was first published in 1885. In 1887, HPB was taken to London and sheltered  at Maycot, Upper Norwood, the house of MC. 

As reported in The Path( Aug. 1890), MC brought a suit against HPB and later withdrew that.
The other prominent works of MC were: The Idyll of the White Lotus  (which is the tragic story of a past life of the Master Hilarian), When the Sun moves Northward. The other works are: Loves Chaplet (London TPH 1905), Our Glorius Future (Edinburgh, 1928), One Life One Law (1938, USA), Pleasure and Pain (1896)- an essay on practical occultism, First Steps in Occultism(London TPH 1895), Fragments of Thought and Life, The 
Crucible (1914), The Builders (1910), The awakening (1906).


The Inner title of the publication in 1896 appears this way:


Light on the Path
 
Karma

Green Leaves
A Treatise
Written for the personal use of those
Who are ignorant of the Eastern
Wisdom and who desire to enter
Within its influence.


By
Mabel Collins



London
George Redway
1896
_____________________________________________________________
Note: The current editions of the text do not carry Green Leaves portion. Sometimes, the comments on the Rules are also omitted.