Masonic, Occult and Esoteric Online Library
The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett - 1923
By A. T. Barker
Appendix-Mars and Mercury
Mr. Sinnett in his posthumous work *' The Early Days of Theosophy in Europe " reopens this old controversy, and in the course of his remarks he makes many insinuations of a personal nature against Madame Blavatsky which are as untrue of her, as they are unworthy of her old colleague. In Chapter IX p. 92 of that work after saying that Madame Blavatsky had stated in The Secret Doctrine that he had made a great mistake in repre- senting Mars, Mercury, and the Earth as belonging to the same planetary chain, he continues on the same page— : . . . . ** The letter from the Master from which she (H.P.B.) professed to give extract was not what she represents it, an answer to enquiries of her own, but a garbled version of a letter originally addressed to me."
In other words he clearly implies that Madame Blavatsky had not only perverted the facts, but misquoted the letter referred to, in order to gain support for her own explanation.
On page 94 of the same work appears the following : — *' Eventually when Mrs. Besant by the expansion of her own knowledge had ascertained definitely that Mars and Mercury did belong to our chain with functions in evolution as I had originally described them, she did publish a statement to that effect in Lucifer' vol. XVII. p. 271.
For the convenience of those not having access to the volumes of Lucifer the passage referred to is here quoted in full together with a former statement by Mrs. Besant on the same subject : — Extract from Lucifer for November, 1893, Vol. XIII., p. 203.
Mars and the Earth. *
The apparent contradiction between the teaching of The Masters as put forward by their direct messenger H. P. Blavatsky, and as understood by Mr. Sinnett is capable of very easy explanation. The solution turns on the words * Solar System.' If that term be held to denote the Solar System known to Western Science, the sentence given by Mr. Sinnett is meaningless ; but reference to the series of letters from which the isolated passage respecting Mars is quoted, at once shows the meaning attached to the ' Solar System ' in the correspondence. I naturally turned to the letters themselves—copies of which I have—to solve the puzzle, and I found that Master K.H. used the term in a special and quite definite sense.
" He explains three kinds of Manvantaras, Pralayas etc., universal, solar, and minor. A minor Manvantara is composed of seven Rounds i.e. the circuit seven times of a Planetary Chain of seven Globes. To such a chain, our Earth belongs. A Solar Period consists of seven of such sevenfold Rounds i.e. forty-nine; seven such Planetary Chains compose a * Solar System ' ; in three of such chains, our Earth, Mars, and Mercury, form theD. Globe. Globe D. of the Mars Chain, Globe D. of the MercuryChain are visible to us, because those chains are sufficiently nearour own in evolution, one behind us and one ahead of us, for theirmatter to affect our senses, while the remaining four chains aretoo far away in evolution to have enough in common with us forvisibility.
Mars and Mercury bear a special relation to our Earth in thewhole evolution of the Solar System, though not part of theEarth Chain. The other four Planetary Chains belonging to ourSolar System are too far behind us or in front of us for eventheir Globes D. to be seen.
" Other planets in the Solar System of Science as arrangedinthe West do not belong to the Solar System of the EsotericPhilosophy ; and it is the ignoring of this which led to the confusion. A western reader naturally gives the term his own sensenot knowing that in the teachings it was used in quite a differentone. And so, once more we find the Masters' doctrines self-consistent."
Annie Besant.
Extract from Lucifer for December, 1895, Vol. XVIL, p. 271
** The old Mars and Mercury discussion has been lately revivedto some extent in Theosophical circles, and an appeal has beenmade to me to say if any further light has been thrown upon thesubject. In Lucifer vol. XIII. p. 206, I wrote an explanationwhich seemed satisfactory so far as the documents then in myhands were concerned. I was leaving for India when I wrote theparagraph and Mr. Sinnett kept silence, in his generous way,during my absence ; but on my return he showed me the originalletter on which the statement in Esoteric Buddhism was founded,the letter partially quoted in the Secret Doctrine vol. I p. 187 ; thisletter was one of those received in the early days and was notamong those of which I had copies. This original letter left nodoubt as to the Master's statement on this point, for it saidcategorically, that Mars and Mercury made part of the chain ofwhich our Earth is the fourth Globe. As the Society was thendisturbed over Mr. Judge's affair, Mr. Sinnett did not wish thequestion to be revived merely to justify himself, but there is noreason now why the matter should not be put straight.
"The facts are these; the planetary chain consists of GlobesA., B., Mars, Earth, Mercury, P., and G., and round these thegreat life-wave has swept three and a half times, reaching Earthfor the fourth time ; the mass of humanity passed from Marstothe Earth, and will pass from the Earth to Mercury. But theleading class of humanity—and here is a fact that throws somelight on the opposing statements—did not share in this generalevolution. It came directly to the Earth from another region ata much later period in evolution, and had never been on Marsatall. Another fact, which H.P.B. evidently had in mind, whenwriting on this question, is that Mars is also concerned in an entirely different evolution, as to which nothing can be publicly said. It is therefore impossible to clear the matter up to the satisfaction of exoteric students, but it is just that it should be publicly stated that Mr. Sinnett's statement is entirely borne out by the original letter."
It will be at once seen that in the first of the above statements Lucifer Vol. XIII, Mrs. Besant in the main supports the explanation g-iven in the Secret Doctrine, while in the second. Vol. XVII she says, " that the letter partially quoted on page 187 of Secret Doctrine Vol. I., categorically states that Mars and Mercury made part of the chain of which our Earth is the fourth Globe."
The letter referred to was among those left by Mr. Sinnett and it is therefore possible to examine the facts in the light of the original document. The passage quoted will be found on page 176 of this volume in the paragraph numbered (23). If the reader will now turn to page 187 Vol. I of the Secret Doctrine and compare the passage there quoted with the original as given in this volume, it will be seen that the letter was correctly quoted in every detail by Madame Blavatsky, and that moreover she quoted the whole of the relevant passage. As there is only one such letter quoted on that page of the Secret Doctrine there is no possible room for mistake, and with due deference to Mrs. Besant, it must be pointed out that there is nothing in that paragraph or the remainder of the letter, which can be construed into a " cate- gorical statement that Mars and Mercury made part of the chain of which our Earth is 4th Globe."
As stated over and over again and from every point of yiew in these pages of the Secret Doctrine^ . . . ** neither Mars nor Mercury belong to our chain. They are along with other planets, Septenary Units in the Great host of Chains of our System and all are as visible as their upper Globes are in- visible. "^ And again *' The one Eternal Law unfolds everything in the to be manifested Nature, on a sevenfold principle; among the rest, the countless chains of worlds composed of 7 globes, graduated on the 4 lower planes of the World of Formation, the 3 others belonging to the Archetypal Universe. Out of these 7 only one, the lowest and the most material of these Globes, is within our plane or means of perception, the 6 others lying outside it and being therefore invisible to the terrestrial eye. ... To make it clearer ; we are told that each of the planets, of which seven only were called sacred, as being ruled by the highest Regents or Gods, ... is a septenary, as also is the chain to which the Earth belongs ; . . . while the superior fellow globes of these planets are on other planes quite outside that of our terrestrial senses. . . . These invisible companions correspond curiously to that which we call the " principles " in man. The seven areon three material planes and one spiritual plane "^ . . . andagain ..." but it may be stated that our satellite isonly the gross body of its invisible principles. Seeing then thatthere are seven Earths, so there are seven Moons, the last alonebeing visible. The same for the Sun, whose visible body is calleda Maya a reflection, just as man's body is. The real Sun andthe real Moon are as invisible as the real man."^ Says an occultaxiom.
Could words be plainer? Hardly—and yet for over thirty yearsthe Theosophical Society has permitted itself to spread this misleading superstition, preferring to assume that it was MadameBlavatsky who did not understand what she was writing about.The mystery is after all as clear as it well nigh can be. Theseptenary chains of Globes about which Theosophical Text Bookstalk so much, are seven principled Units, each having a physicalbody and six higher or subtler principles invisible to the ordinarysenses, but co-existing and inter-penetrating each other.
Students of Astrology at least are able to prove for themselvesthat the correspondence between man and a planet is exact ; forjust as the six invisible principles of a planet correspond to thesix invisible principles in man, so do the seven sacred Planets cor-respond to the whole of the seven principles of our Earth andtherefore of man. How then is it possible that the theory, whichcredits the Earth Chain with three physical planets, can be correct from any point of view. It is manifestly ridiculous, becauseif it were true, it would mean by the occult law of correspondence,that man also must have three physical bodies which is anabsurdity, and proves the whole theory false from beginningtoend.
The publication of these letters gives to the student an opportunity to examine the whole range of Theosophic teaching in theirlight—while adding thereto the faculty of criticism—the highestand most discriminative of which he is capable. That faculty isan impersonal one ; it is neither critic nor respecter of persons—for to it persons are without significance. But with ideas—withdoctrines, it has everything to do, and if it is inevitable that theuse of that faculty by students the world over will reveal manydiscrepancies in the accepted Theosophical doctrines of the day,it is equally certain that a large part of that teaching will receivea confirmation which cannot be gainsaid.
A. T. B
