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The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett - 1923

By A. T. Barker

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Letter No CXXXIII

My dear Mr. Sinnett, 

It is very strange that you should be ready to deceive yourself sowillingly. I have seen last night whom I had to see, and gettingthe explanation I wanted I am now settled on points I was notonly doubtful about but positively adverse to accepting. Andthe words in the first line are words I am bound to repeat to youas a warning, and because I regard you, after all, as one of mybest personal friends. Now you have and are deceiving, in vulgarparlance bamboozling yourself about the letter received by meyesterday from the Mahatma. The letter is from Him, whetherwritten through a chela or not ; and—perplexing as it may seemto you, contradictory and " absurd " it is the full expression ofhis feelings and He maintains what he said in it. For me it issurpassingly strange that you should accept as His only that whichdovetails with your own feelings, and reject all that contradictsyour own notions of the fitness of things. Olcott has behavedlike an ass, utterly devoid of tact ; he confesses it and is ready toconfess it and—say mea culpa before all the Theosophists—anditis more than any Englishman would be willing to do. Thisisperhaps, why, with all his lack of tact, and his frequent freaksthat justly shock your susceptibilities and mine too, heaven knows! going as he does against every conventionality—he is still so likedby the Masters, who care not for the flowers of European civiliza-tion. Had I known last night what I have learnt since—i.e. that you imagine, or rather force yourself to imagine that the Mahatma's letter is not wholly orthodox and was written by a chela to please me, or something of the sort, I would not have rushed to you as the only plank of salvation. Things are getting dark and hazy. I have managed last night to get the Psychic Research Society rid of its nightmare, Olcott, I may manage to get England rid of its bugbear—Theosophy. If you—the most devoted, the best of all Theosophists—are all ready to fall a victim to your own preconceptions and believe in new gods of your own fancy dethroning the old ones—^then, notwithstanding all and everything Theosophy has come too early in this country. Let your L.L.T.S. go on as it does—I cannot help it, and what I mean I will tell you when I see you. BiU I will have nothing to do with the new arrangement and—retire from it altogether unless we agree to disagree no more.

Yours, 
H.P.B.