Masonic, Occult and Esoteric Online Library
The Letters of H. P. Blavatsky to A. P. Sinnett - 1925
By A. T. Barker
Letter No. 43
Torre del Greco,
Sunday, 17 May.
Mr dearest Mohini,
You may show this, or simply tell Mr. Sinnett about the following. Gaboriau had intensely begged me to offer him as a chela to Mahatma K. H. or my Master, and the former had accepted him on a trial. Thus he was a chela and no lie can be implied to me in saying to Mr. Sinnett that "Masters had chelas everywhere." At the time, as many a time before and after that I had determined not to mix myself any more in the transmission of letters from Mahatmas. Had MASTER permitted me to carry out this resolution I would not, perhaps, be now here an exile and dying far away from India! But He did not so permit, telling me however I could send the Mahatma K. H.'s letters through some other chela if I was so cowardly. D. K. was then trying an experiment on Mr. Sinnett to see whether he could succeed in suggesting the idea into his head to go through France and had said: "I want to see if I can bring the two together, (meaning S. and G.) Gaboriau is extremely sensitive and mediumistic and I may succeed in training him for something, though I am afraid he is a fool."
This gave me the idea (1) that Mr. Sinnett might be induced by suggestion to stop at Nantes, and (2) that anyhow I would ask him to forward the letter to London and so find myself clear of at least one letter, and I sent it on through Gaboriau.
The experiment failed. Mr. Sinnett is not very sensitive and went through some other road. I have not tried to mislead him, neither then, nor at any time. I simply kept silent, as I have in many other cases phenomenal and semi-phenomenal, with regard to letters received by him. But he, measuring occultism upon the standard of daily life and rules makes no difference between a deliberate lie and the desire or rather sad necessity of concealing things. When he told me that he had received a letter from Nantes (this laughing) I felt very much embarrassed, and understood that D. Khool had failed, which he had not told me. I simply said "Have you?" and the words he correctly stated to you, about chelas everywhere, unless I wrote them using them in a letter of which I am not certain. The proof that I had no desire to mislead him is found in the fact that I have never asked Gaboriau to make a secret of it. He was a "chela" and dropped only when preparing to sail for Adyar and prevented from going there as he had been found a perfect fool. If Mr. Sinnett will see guilt and dishonesty in every such circumstance, then, since I now tell him plainly that there are a hundred things I have had to conceal from him, he is at liberty to drop me and even my existence from his life altogether. I have never deceived him, never tried to mislead, never lied to him. I have tried my best to serve him and my present misfortune and the quasi-ruin of the T.S. are due primarily to his independent way of thinking, of thrusting occultism, and its mysteries into the teeth of a prejudiced unprepared public by publishing his two books. Had phenomena and the Masters been sacredly preserved among and only for Theosophists, all this would not have happened. But it is my own fault as much as his. In my zeal and devotion to the Cause I have permitted publicity and as Subba Row truly says "committed the crime of divulging things most sacred and holy that had never been known to the profane before" and now comes my Karma. I had always seen in Mr. Sinnett the most devoted and useful member of our Society, I have told to him things I never said even to Olcott, but I could not divulge all even to him. Since Mahatma K. H. tells him that he has not dropped him and has the same regard for him as ever, what more does he want? They can, if They like, find other channels of communication with him besides myself. Let him drop me out of his life like a bad penny, and give me up like so many others have, now that I am dying from the effects of the Simla causes. I have done my best, I can serve him no longer, and I ask and pray but for one thing, to be left to die like a mangy dog, quietly and alone in my corner. May the Masters bless and protect you all — and may my martyrdom and sufferings known perhaps to the Masters alone — do some good to the Society and help it turning a new leaf. But if even those sufferings will prove to have been sent and accepted in vain, then is the T.S. doomed and it has indeed been started prematurely.
Yours to the last
H. P. B.
