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The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett - 1923
By A. T. Barker
Letter No LXV
Received London, Summer, 1884.
My friend :
You ask me " to throw lig'ht " upon the " new distressingevent '* arising from Mr. A. Gebhard*s fanciful accusation? Forthe matter of that, dozens of events of a far more distressingcharacter, each of them calculated to crush the hapless womanchosen as victim, are ripe and ready to burst over her head wounding as badly the Society. Again, I should have imagined that,after my signal failure to satisfy your rigorous logicians in the** Billing—Massey " and " Kiddle—Light " incidents, my personalopinions and explanations were held in small honour at the West?You seem, however, to think with Whenell that " every failure is a step to success " and your confidence in me must alarmseriously your friends?
With your permission, I have left the explanation of the ** dis-tressing incidents " to Mad. B. herself. As she wrote to you,however, only simple truth, there is very little chance for her ofbeing believed, save perhaps, by her few immediate friends—if she has any left by the time this reaches you.
You must have understood by this time my friend, that thecontinual attempt made by us to open the eyes of the blind world—has nearly failed : in India—partially, in Europe—^with a fewexceptions—absolutely. There is but one chance of salvationfor those who still believe : to rally together and face the stormbravely. Let the eyes of the most intellectual among the publicbe opened to the foul conspiracy against theosophy that is goingon in the missionary circles and in one year's time you will havegained your footing. In India it is : " either Christ or theFounders ( ! ! ) Let us stone them to death ! " They havenearly finished killing one—they are now attacking the othervictim—Olcott. The padris are as busy as bees. The P.R.S.has given them an excellent opportunity of making capital oftheir ambassador.—Mr. Hodgson fell quite easily a victim tofalse evidence ; and the scientific a priori impossibility of suchphenomena helping the reality of the phenomena he was sent toinvestigate and report upon is utterly and totally discredited.He may plead as an excuse the personal disappointment he felt, which made him turn in a fury against the alleged authors of the*' gigantic swindle " ; but there is no doubt that if the Societycollapses it will be due to him. We may add that the praiseworthy efforts of our mutual friend of Simla (A. O. Hume) whohas not, however, resigned, —and those of Mr. Lane Fox. WhatSociety could withstand in its integrality the effects of two such tongues as those of Messrs. H. and L. F. ! While the former taking- into his confidence every theosophist of note, assures him that since the beginning of the Society not one of the letters alleged to have come from the Masters was genuine, Mr. L. Fox goes about preaching that he is only carrying out the wishes of the Master (M.) in acquainting the theosophists with all the defects of the T.S. and the mistakes of its Founders whose Karma it is to betray the sacred trust they had received from their Gurus.
After this you will, perhaps, blame less our chelas for detesting the Europeans at H.Q., and saying that it is they who have ruined the Society.
Thus, my friend, there comes a forcible end to the projected occult instructions. Everything was settled and prepared. The secret Committee, appointed to receive our letters and teachings and to convey them to the Oriental group, was ready, when a few Europeans—for reasons I prefer not mentioning—^took upon themselves the authority of reversing the decision of the whole Council. They declined (though the reason they gave was another one)—to receive our instructions through Subba Row and Damodar, the latter of whom is hated by Messrs. L, Fox and Hartmann. Subba R. resigned and Damodar went to Tibet. Are our Hindus to be blamed for this?
And now, Hume and Hodgson have goaded Subba Row to fury by telling him, that as a friend and fellow occultist of Madam B.'s he was suspected by the Government of being also a spy. It is the history of the ** Count St. Germain," and Cagliostro told over again. But I may tell to you, who have ever been faithful and true to me that the fruits of your devotion shall not be allowed to decay and crumble down into dust from the tree of action. And now, may I not say a few words that may prove useful?
It is an old truism that none of you have ever formed an accurate idea of either the " Masters " or the laws of Occultism they are guided by. For instance, I, because I had received a bit of Western education—must needs be fancied as the type of a ** gentleman " who strictly conforms his action to the laws of etiquette and regulates his intercourse with Europeans, after the regulations of your world and Society ! Nothing could be more erroneous : the absurd picture of an Indo-Tibetan ascetic playing at Sir C. Grandison need hardly be noticed. Nevertheless, having failed to answer to the said description, I was hung in effigy, and publicly branded and degraded, as Mad. B. would say. What a poor parody ! When shall you realize that I am nothing of the kind? That if, to a certain extent, I may be familiar with your (to me) peculiar notions about the propriety of this thing or another, and the obHgations of a Western gentleman, so areyou, to a degree, acquainted with the manners and customs ofChina and Tibet. For all that, as you would decline to conformyourself to our habits and live according to our customs—so doI, preferring our modes of life to yours, and our ideas to thoseof the West. I am accused of " plagiarism/' We, of Tibet andChina, know not what you mean by the word. / do, but this isno reason, perhaps, why I should accept your literary laws. Anywriter has the privilege of taking out whole sentences from thedictionary of Pai—Wouen—Yen—Fu the greatest in the world,full of quotations from every known writer, and containing allthe phrases ever used—and to frame them to express his thought.This does not apply to the Kiddle case which happened just asI told you. But you may find, perchance throughout my letterstwenty detached sentences which may have been already used inbooks or MSS. When you write upon some subject you sur-round yourself with books of references etc. : when we write uponsomething the Western opinion about which is unknown to us,we surround ourselves with hundreds of paras : upon this particular topic from dozens of different works—impressed upon theAkasa. What wonder then, that not only a chela entrusted withthe work and innocent of any knowledge of the meaningofplagiarism, but even myself—should use occasionally a wholesentence already existent applying it only to another—our ownidea? I have told you of this before and it is no fault of mineif your friends and enemies will not remain satisfied with theexplanation. When I shall undertake to write an original prizeessay I may be more careful. For the Kiddle business it is yourown fault. Why have you printed the Occult World before sending it to me for revision? I would have never allowed thepassage to pass; nor the *' Lai Sing" either foolishly inventedas half a nam de plume by Djwal K. and carelessly allowed by meto take root without thinking of the consequences. We are notinfallible, all-foreseeing " Mahatmas " at every hour of the day,good friend : none of you have even learned to remember somuch. And now for Occultism.
We were expected to allow the Occult forces to be treated inthe same manner as their rind—physical forces in nature. Weare taken to task for not giving out to every man of learning whohad joined the T.S. the fruits of the researches of generations ofoccultists who had all devoted their lives to it, and who had asoften lost them in the great struggle of wrenching her secretsfrom the heart of Nature. Unless we did that—Occultism wouldnot be recognised : —it has to remain within the limbo of magicand superstition, spiritualism—in the sight of some—fraud in theopinion of others. Who thought for one instant that an occult law revealed ceased to be occult to become public property, unless it was given to an Occultist who dies before he betrays the secret.
What grumbling-s, what criticisms on Devachan and kindred subjects for their incompleteness and many a seeming contradiction ! Oh blind fools ! They forget—or never knew that he who holds the keys to the secrets of Death is possessed of the keys of Life? That could everyone become a creative God in this race, acquiring knowledge so easily that there would be no necessity for a 6th and 7th races? And that we, we should have perverted the programme of Being, garbled the accounts in the Book of Life, defeated in a word the Eternal Will !
My Friend, I have little if anything more to say. I regret deeply my inability to satisfy the honest, sincere aspirations of a few chosen ones among your group—at least, for the present. Could but your L.L. understand, or so much as suspect, that the present crisis that is shaking the T.S. to its foundation is a question of perdition or salvation to thousands ; a question of the pro- gress of the Human Race or its retrogression, of its glory or dishonour, and for the majority of this race—of being or not being of annihilation, in fact—perchance many of you would look into the very root of evil, and instead of being guided by false appear- ances and scientific decisions, you would set to work and save the situation by disclosing the dishonourable doings of your missionary world.
Meanwhile—accept my best wishes.
K. H.
I believe I had better tell you once more what I would have you remember always. I should be glad if every question could be answered as easily as your query about the " distressing event." Why is it that doubts and foul suspicions seem to be-set every aspirant for chelaship? My friend in the Masonic Lodges of old times the neophyte was subjected to a series of frightful tests of his constancy, courage and presence of mind. By psychological impressions supplemented by machinery and chemicals, he was made to believe himself falling down precipices, crushed by rocks, walking spider-web bridges in mid-air, passing through fire, drowned in water and attacked by wild beasts. This was a reminiscence of and a programme borrowed from the Egyptian Mysteries. The West having lost the secrets of the East had, as I say, to resort to artifice. But in these days the vulgarization of science has rendered such trifling tests obsolete. The aspirant is now assailed entirely on the psychological side of his nature. His course of testing—in Europe and India—is that of Raj-yog and its result is—as frequently explained—to develop every germ good and bad in him in his temperament. The rule is inflexible, and not one escapes whether he but writes to us a letter, or in theprivacy of his own heart's thought formulates a strong- desire foroccult communication and knowledge. As the shower cannotfructify the rock, so the occult teaching has no effect upon theunreceptive mind ; and as the water develops the heat of causticlime so does the teaching bring into fierce action every unsuspectedpotentiality latent in him.
Few Europeans have stood this test. Suspicion followed by self-woven conviction of fraud seems to have become the order of theday. I tell you with a very few exceptions—we have failed inEurope. Henceforth, the policy of absolute neutrality of the T.S.in occult teachings and phenomena will be rigidly enforced: whatever is imparted will be to individual members fromindividuals. For inst : if Mad. B. finds the necessary strengthto live (and this depends entirely on her will and its powersofexertion) and is willing under the guidance of her guru or evenmyself to serve us as an amanuensis for you, (Sinnett not forthe group) she can, if she likes, send you weekly or monthlyin-structions. Mohini could do the same—^but under the pledgethat neither our names, or that of the sender will be ever madepublic; nor shall the T.S. be made responsible for these teachings. If the Oriental group survives, something could be yetdone for it. But never, henceforth, shall the Society in Indiabeallowed to be compromised again by phenomena, that are de-nounced wholesale as fraud. The good ship is sinking, friend,because its precious cargo has been offered to the public at large;because some of its contents have been desecrated by profanehandling and its gold—received as brass. Henceforth, I say, nosuch profane eye will see its treasures and its outer decks andrigging, must be cleansed of the impurity and dross that wasaccumulated on them by the indiscretion of its own members.Try to remedy the evil done. Every step made by one in ourdirection will force us to make one toward him. But it is notbygoing to Ladak that one shall find us, as Mr. Lane Fox imagines.Once more, accept my blessing and parting greeting if theyhave to be my last.
K. H.
