Chapter XX: Preface (10)

THEO. The _Theosophist_ of Madras, alone among the magazines, pays a
profit, and this has regularly been turned over to the Society,
year by year, as the published accounts show. _Lucifer_ is
slowly but steadily ingulfing money, never yet having paid
expenses—thanks to its being boycotted by the pious booksellers
and railway stalls. The _Lotus_, in France—started on the private
and not very large means of a Theosophist, who has devoted to it
his whole time and labour—has ceased to exist, owing to the same
causes, alas! Nor does the New York _Path_ pay its way, while the
_Revue Théosophique_ of Paris has only just been started, also
from the private means of a lady-member. Moreover, whenever any of
the works issued by the Theosophical Publishing Company in London
do pay, the proceeds will be devoted to the service of the Society.

ENQ. And now please tell me all you can about the Mahatmas. So many
absurd and contradictory things are said about them, that one does
not know what to believe, and all sorts of ridiculous stories
become current.

THEO. Well may you call them “ridiculous!”

XIV. THE “THEOSOPHICAL MAHATMAS.”

ARE THEY “SPIRITS OF LIGHT” OR “GOBLINS DAMN’D”?

ENQ. Who are they, finally, those whom you call your “Masters”? Some
say they are “Spirits,” or some other kind of supernatural beings,
while others call them “myths.”

THEO. They are neither. I once heard one outsider say to another that
they were a sort of _male mermaids_, whatever such a creature may
be. But if you listen to what people say, you will never have a
true conception of them. In the first place they are _living men_,
born as we are born, and doomed to die like every other mortal.

ENQ. Yes, but it is rumoured that some of them are a thousand years
old. Is this true?

THEO. As true as the miraculous growth of hair on the head of
Meredith’s Shagpat. Truly, like the “Identical,” no Theosophical
shaving has hitherto been able to crop it. The more we deny them,
the more we try to set people right, the more absurd do the
inventions become. I have heard of Methuselah being 969 years
old; but, not being forced to believe in it, have laughed at
the statement, for which I was forthwith regarded by many as a
blasphemous heretic.

ENQ. Seriously, though, do they outlive the ordinary age of men?

THEO. What do you call the ordinary age? I remember reading in the
_Lancet_ of a Mexican who was almost 190 years old; but I have
never heard of mortal man, layman, or Adept, who could live even
half the years allotted to Methuselah. Some Adepts do exceed, by
a good deal, what you would call the ordinary age; yet there is
nothing miraculous in it, and very few of them care to live very
long.

ENQ. But what does the word “Mahatma” really mean?

THEO. Simply a “great soul,” great through moral elevation and
intellectual attainment. If the title of great is given to a
drunken soldier like Alexander, why should we not call those
“Great” who have achieved far greater conquests in Nature’s
secrets, than Alexander ever did on the field of battle? Besides,
the term is an Indian and a very old word.

ENQ. And why do you call them “Masters”?

THEO. We call them “Masters” because they are our teachers; and because
from them we have derived all the Theosophical truths, however
inadequately some of us may have expressed, and others understood,
them. They are men of great learning, whom we term Initiates,
and still greater holiness of life. They are not ascetics in
the ordinary sense, though they certainly remain apart from the
turmoil and strife of your western world.

ENQ. But is it not selfish thus to isolate themselves?

THEO. Where is the selfishness? Does not the fate of the Theosophical
Society sufficiently prove that the world is neither ready to
recognise them nor to profit by their teaching? Of what use
would Professor Clerk Maxwell have been to instruct a class of
little boys in their multiplication-table? Besides, they isolate
themselves only from the West. In their own country they go about
as publicly as other people do.

ENQ. Don’t you ascribe to them supernatural powers?

THEO. We believe in nothing supernatural, as I have told you already.
Had Edison lived and invented his phonograph two hundred years
ago, he would most probably have been burnt along with it, and the
whole attributed to the devil. The powers which they exercise are
simply the development of potencies lying latent in every man and
woman, and the existence of which even official science begins to
recognise.

ENQ. Is it true that these men _inspire_ some of your writers, and that
many, if not all, of your Theosophical works were written under
their dictation?

THEO. Some have. There are passages entirely dictated by them and
_verbatim_, but in most cases they only inspire the ideas and
leave the literary form to the writers.

ENQ. But this in itself is miraculous; is, in fact, a _miracle_. How
can they do it?

THEO. My dear Sir, you are labouring under a great mistake, and it is
science itself that will refute your arguments at no distant
day. Why should it be a “miracle,” as you call it? A miracle is
supposed to mean some operation which is supernatural, whereas
there is really nothing above or beyond NATURE and Nature’s laws.
Among the many forms of the “miracle” which have come under modern
scientific recognition, there is Hypnotism, and one phase of its
power is known as “Suggestion,” a form of thought transference,
which has been successfully used in combating particular physical
diseases, etc. The time is not far distant when the World of
Science will be forced to acknowledge that there exists as much
interaction between one mind and another, no matter at what
distance, as between one body and another in closest contact.
When two minds are sympathetically related, and the instruments
through which they function are tuned to respond magnetically and
electrically to one another, there is nothing which will prevent
the transmission of thoughts from one to the other, at will;
for since the mind is not of a tangible nature, that distance
can divide it from the subject of its contemplation, it follows
that the only difference that can exist between two minds is a
difference of STATE. So if this latter hindrance is overcome,
where is the “miracle” of _thought transference_, at whatever
distance?

ENQ. But you will admit that Hypnotism does nothing so miraculous or
wonderful as that?

THEO. On the contrary, it is a well-established fact that a Hypnotist
can affect the brain of his subject so far as to produce an
expression of his own thoughts, and even his words, through the
organism of his subject; and although the phenomena attaching to
this method of actual thought transference are as yet few in
number, no one, I presume, will undertake to say how far their
action may extend in the future, when the laws that govern their
production are more scientifically established. And so, if such
results can be produced by the knowledge of the mere rudiments of
Hypnotism, what can prevent the Adept in Psychic and Spiritual
powers from producing results which, with your present limited
knowledge of their laws, you are inclined to call “miraculous”?

ENQ. Then why do not our physicians experiment and try if they could
not do as much?[56]

THEO. Because, first of all, they are not Adepts with a thorough
understanding of the secrets and laws of psychic and spiritual
realms, but materialists, afraid to step outside the narrow groove
of matter; and, secondly, because they _must fail_ at present, and
indeed until they are brought to acknowledge that such powers are
attainable.

ENQ. And could they be taught?

THEO. Not unless they were first of all prepared, by having the
materialistic dross they have accumulated in their brains swept
away to the very last atom.

ENQ. This is very interesting. Tell me, have the Adepts thus inspired
or dictated to many of your Theosophists?

THEO. No, on the contrary, to very few. Such operations require special
conditions. An unscrupulous but skilled Adept of the Black
Brotherhood (“Brothers of the Shadow,” and Dugpas, we call
them) has far less difficulties to labour under. For, having no
laws of the Spiritual kind to trammel his actions, such a Dugpa
“sorcerer” will most unceremoniously obtain control over any
mind, and subject it entirely to his evil powers. But our Masters
will never do that. They have no right, except by falling into
Black Magic, to obtain full mastery over anyone’s immortal Ego,
and can therefore act only on the physical and psychic nature of
the subject, leaving thereby the free will of the latter wholly
undisturbed. Hence, unless a person has been brought into psychic
relationship with the Masters, and is assisted by virtue of his
full faith in, and devotion to, his Teachers, the latter, whenever
transmitting their thoughts to one with whom these conditions
are not fulfilled, experience great difficulties in penetrating
into the cloudy chaos of that person’s sphere. But this is no
place to treat of a subject of this nature. Suffice it to say,
that if the power exists, then there are Intelligences (embodied
or disembodied) which guide this power, and living conscious
instruments through whom it is transmitted and by whom it is
received. We have only to beware of _black_ magic.

ENQ. But what do you really mean by “black magic”?

THEO. Simply _abuse of psychic powers_, or of any _secret of nature_;
the fact of applying to selfish and sinful ends the powers of
Occultism. A hypnotiser, who, taking advantage of his powers of
“suggestion,” forces a subject to steal or murder, would be called
a _black magician_ by us. The famous “rejuvenating system” of Dr.
Brown-Sequard, of Paris, through a loathsome _animal injection_
into human blood—a discovery all the medical papers of Europe are
now discussing—if true, is _unconscious black magic_.

ENQ. But this is mediæval belief in witchcraft and sorcery! Even Law
itself has ceased to believe in such things?

THEO. So much the worse for law, as it has been led, through such a
lack of discrimination, into committing more than one judiciary
mistake and crime. It is the term alone that frightens you with
its “superstitious” ring in it. Would not law punish an abuse of
hypnotic powers, as I just mentioned? Nay, it has so punished it
already in France and Germany; yet it would indignantly deny that
it applied punishment to a crime of evident _sorcery_. You cannot
believe in the efficacy and reality of the _powers of suggestion_
by physicians and mesmerisers (or hypnotisers), and then refuse to
believe in the same powers when used for evil motives. And if you
do, then you believe in _Sorcery_. Yon cannot believe in good and
disbelieve in evil, accept genuine money and refuse to credit such
a thing as false coin. Nothing can exist without its contrast, and
no day, no light, no good could have any representation as such
in your consciousness, were there no night, darkness nor evil to
offset and contrast them.

ENQ. Indeed, I have known men, who, while thoroughly believing in that
which you call great psychic, or magic powers, laughed at the very
mention of Witchcraft and Sorcery.

THEO. What does it prove? Simply that they are illogical. So much the
worse for them, again. And we, knowing as we do of the existence
of good and holy Adepts, believe as thoroughly in the existence of
bad and unholy Adepts, or—Dugpas.

ENQ. But if the Masters exist, why don’t they come out before all men
and refute once for all the many charges which are made against
Mdme. Blavatsky and the Society?

THEO. What charges?

ENQ. That _they_ do not exist, and that she has invented them. That
they are men of straw, “Mahatmas of muslin and bladders.” Does not
all this injure her reputation?

THEO. In what way can such an accusation injure her in reality? Did she
ever make money on their presumed existence, or derive benefit,
or fame, therefrom? I answer that she has gained only insults,
abuse, and calumnies, which would have been very painful had she
not learned long ago to remain perfectly indifferent to such
false charges. For what does it amount to, after all? Why, to an
_implied compliment_, which, if the fools, her accusers, were not
carried away by their blind hatred, they would have thought twice
before uttering. To say that she has invented the Masters comes
to this: She must have invented every bit of philosophy that has
ever been given out in Theosophical literature. She must be the
author of the letters from which “Esoteric Buddhism” was written;
the sole inventor of every tenet found in the “Secret Doctrine,”
which, if the world were just, would be recognised as supplying
many of the missing links of science, as will be discovered a
hundred years hence. By saying what they do, they are also giving
her the credit of being far cleverer than the hundreds of men,
(many _very_ clever and not a few scientific men,) who believe in
what she says—inasmuch as she must have fooled them all! If they
speak the truth, then she must be several Mahatmas rolled into one
like a nest of Chinese boxes; since among the so-called “Mahatma
letters” are many in totally different and distinct styles, all of
which her accusers declare that she has written.

ENQ. It is just what they say. But is it not very painful to her to be
publicly denounced as “the most accomplished impostor of the age,
whose name deserves to pass to posterity,” as is done in the
Report of the “Society for Psychical Research”?

THEO. It might be painful if it were true, or came from people less
rabidly materialistic and prejudiced. As it is, personally she
treats the whole matter with contempt, while the Mahatmas simply
laugh at it. In truth, it is the greatest compliment that could be
paid to her. I say so, again.

ENQ. But her enemies claim to have proved their case.

THEO. Aye, it is easy enough to make such a claim when you have
constituted yourself judge, jury, and prosecuting counsel at
once, as they did. But who, except their direct followers and our
enemies, believe in it?

ENQ. But they sent a representative to India to investigate the matter,
didn’t they?

THEO. They did, and their final conclusion rests entirely on the
unchecked statements and unverified assertions of this young
gentleman. A lawyer who read through his report told a friend
of mine that in all his experience he had never seen “such a
_ridiculous_ and self-condemnatory document.” It was found to be
full of suppositions and “_working_ hypotheses” which mutually
destroy each other. Is this a serious charge?

ENQ. Yet it has done the Society great harm. Why, then, did she not
vindicate her own character, at least, before a Court of Law?

THEO. Firstly, because as a Theosophist, it is her duty to leave
unheeded all personal insults. Secondly, because neither the
Society nor Mdme. Blavatsky had any money to waste over such a
law-suit. And lastly, because it would have been ridiculous for
both to be untrue to their principles, because of an attack made
on them by a flock of stupid old British wethers, who had been led
to butt at them by an over frolicksome lambkin from Australia.

ENQ. This is complimentary. But do you not think that it would have
done real good to the cause of Theosophy, if she had
authoritatively disproved the whole thing once for all?

THEO. Perhaps. But do you believe that any English jury or judge would
have ever admitted the reality of psychic phenomena, even if
entirely unprejudiced beforehand? And when you remember that
they would have been set against us already by the “Russian Spy”
scare, the charge of _Atheism and infidelity_, and all the other
calumnies that have been circulated against us, you cannot fail to
see that such an attempt to obtain justice in a Court of Law would
have been worse than fruitless! All this the Psychic Researchers
knew well, and they took a base and mean advantage of their
position to raise themselves above our heads and save themselves
at our expense.

ENQ. The S.P.R. now denies completely the existence of the Mahatmas.
They say that from beginning to end they were a romance which
Madame Blavatsky has woven from her own brain?

THEO. Well, she might have done many things less clever than this. At
any rate, we have not the slightest objection to this theory. As
she always says now, she almost prefers that people should not
believe in the Masters. She declares openly that she would rather
people should seriously think that the only Mahatmaland is the
grey matter of her brain, and that, in short, she has evolved them
out of the depths of her own inner consciousness, than that their
names and grand ideal should be so infamously desecrated as they
are at present. At first she used to protest indignantly against
any doubts as to their existence. Now she never goes out of her
way to prove or disprove it. Let people think what they like.

ENQ. But, of course, these Masters _do_ exist?

THEO. We affirm _they do_. Nevertheless, this does not help much. Many
people, even some Theosophists and ex-Theosophists, say that
they have never had any proof of their existence. Very well;
then Mme. Blavatsky replies with this alternative:—If she has
invented them, then she has also invented their philosophy and
the practical knowledge which some few have acquired; and if
so, what does it matter whether they do exist or not, since she
herself is here, and _her own existence_, at any rate, can hardly
be denied? If the knowledge supposed to have been imparted by
them is good intrinsically, and it is accepted as such by many
persons of more than average intelligence, why should there be
such a _hullabaloo_ made over that question? The fact of her
being an impostor _has never been proved_, and will always remain
_sub judice_; whereas it is a certain and undeniable fact that,
by whomsoever invented, the philosophy preached by the “Masters”
is one of the grandest and most beneficent philosophies once it
is properly understood. Thus the slanderers, while moved by the
lowest and meanest feelings—those of hatred, revenge, malice,
wounded vanity, or disappointed ambition,—seem quite unaware
that they are paying the greatest tribute to her intellectual
powers. So be it, if the poor fools will have it so. Really, Mme.
Blavatsky has not the slightest objection to being represented by
her enemies as a _triple_ Adept, and a “Mahatma” to boot. It is
only her unwillingness to pose in her own sight as a crow parading
in peacock’s feathers that compels her to this day to insist upon
the truth.

ENQ. But if you have such wise and good men to guide the Society, how
is it that so many mistakes have been made?

THEO. The Masters do _not_ guide the Society, not even the Founders;
and no one has ever asserted that they did: they only watch
over and protect it. This is amply proved by the fact that no
mistakes have been able to cripple it, and no scandals from
within, nor the most damaging attacks from without, have been
able to overthrow it. The Masters look at the future, not at the
present, and every mistake is so much more accumulated wisdom for
days to come. That other “Master” who sent the man with the five
talents did not tell him how to double them, nor did he prevent
the foolish servant from burying his one talent in the earth.
Each must acquire wisdom by his own experience and merits. The
Christian Churches, who claim a far higher “Master,” the very
Holy Ghost itself, have ever been and are still guilty not only
of “mistakes,” but of a series of bloody crimes throughout the
ages. Yet, no Christian would deny, for all that, his belief in
_that_ “Master,” I suppose? although his existence is far more
_hypothetical_ than that of the Mahatmas; as no one has ever seen
the Holy Ghost, and _his_ guidance of the Church, moreover, their
own ecclesiastical history distinctly contradicts. _Errare humanum
est._ Let us return to our subject.

THE ABUSE OF SACRED NAMES AND TERMS.

ENQ. Then, what I have heard, namely, that many of your Theosophical
writers claim to have been inspired by these Masters, or to have
seen and conversed with them, is not true?

THEO. It may or it may not be true. How can I tell? The burden of proof
rests with them. Some of them, a few—very few, indeed—have
distinctly either _lied_ or were hallucinated when boasting of
such inspiration; others were truly inspired by great Adepts.
The tree is known by its fruits; and as all Theosophists have to
be judged by their deeds and not by what they write or say, so
_all_ Theosophical books must be accepted on their merits, and not
according to any claim to authority which they may put forward.

ENQ. But would Mdme. Blavatsky apply this to her own works—the _Secret
Doctrine_, for instance?

THEO. Certainly; she says expressly in the PREFACE that she gives out
the doctrines that she has learnt from the Masters, but claims no
inspiration whatever for what she has lately written. As for our
best Theosophists, they would also in this case far rather that
the names of the Masters had never been mixed up with our books
in any way. With few exceptions, most of such works are not only
imperfect, but positively erroneous and misleading. Great are
the desecrations to which the names of two of the Masters have
been subjected. There is hardly a medium who has not claimed to
have seen them. Every bogus swindling Society, for commercial
purposes, now claims to be guided and directed by “Masters,” often
supposed to be far higher than ours! Many and heavy are the sins
of those who advanced these claims, prompted either by desire for
lucre, vanity, or irresponsible mediumship. Many persons have been
plundered of their money by such societies, which offer to sell
the secrets of power, knowledge, and spiritual truth for worthless
gold. Worst of all, the sacred names of Occultism and the holy
keepers thereof have been dragged in this filthy mire, polluted
by being associated with sordid motives and immoral practices,
while thousands of men have been held back from the path of truth
and light through the discredit and evil report which such shams,
swindles, and frauds have brought upon the whole subject. I say
again, every earnest Theosophist regrets to-day, from the bottom
of his heart, that these sacred names and things have ever been
mentioned before the public, and fervently wishes that they had
been kept secret within a small circle of trusted and devoted
friends.

ENQ. The names certainly do occur very frequently now-a-days, and I
never remember hearing of such persons as “Masters” till quite
recently.

THEO. It is so; and had we acted on the wise principle of silence,
instead of rushing into notoriety and publishing all we knew and
heard, such desecration would never have occurred. Behold, only
fourteen years ago, before the Theosophical Society was founded,
all the talk was of “Spirits.” They were everywhere, in everyone’s
mouth; and no one by any chance even dreamt of talking about
living “Adepts,” “Mahatmas,” or “Masters.” One hardly heard even
the name of the Rosicrucians, while the existence of such a thing
as “Occultism” was suspected even but by very few. Now all that
is changed. We Theosophists were, unfortunately, the first to
talk of these things, to make the fact of the existence in the
East of “Adepts” and “Masters” and Occult knowledge known; and
now the name has become common property. It is on us, now, that
the Karma, the consequences of the resulting desecration of holy
names and things, has fallen. All that you now find about such
matters in current literature—and there is not a little of it—all
is to be traced back to the impulse given in this direction by
the Theosophical Society and its Founders. Our enemies profit to
this day by our mistake. The most recent book directed against
our teachings is alleged to have been written _by an Adept of
twenty years’ standing_. Now, it is a _palpable lie_. We know the
amanuensis and his _inspirers_ (as he is himself too ignorant to
have written anything of the sort). These “inspirers” are living
persons, revengeful and unscrupulous in proportion to their
intellectual powers; and these _bogus_ Adepts are not one, but
several. The cycle of “Adepts,” used as sledge-hammers to break
the theosophical heads with, began twelve years ago, with Mrs.
Emma Hardinge Britten’s “Louis” of _Art Magic_ and _Ghost-Land_,
and now ends with the “Adept” and “Author” of _The Light of
Egypt_, a work written by Spiritualists against Theosophy and its
teachings. But it is useless to grieve over what is done, and we
can only suffer in the hope that our indiscretions may have made
it a little easier for others to find the way to these Masters,
whose names are now everywhere taken in vain, and under cover of
which so many iniquities have already been perpetrated.

ENQ. Do you reject “Louis” as an Adept?

THEO. We denounce no one, leaving this noble task to our enemies. The
spiritualistic author of _Art Magic_, etc., may or may not have
been acquainted with such an Adept—and saying this, I say far
less than what that lady has said and written about us and
Theosophy for the last several years—that is her own business.
Only when, in a solemn scene of mystic vision, an alleged “Adept”
sees “spirits” presumably at Greenwich, England, through Lord
Rosse’s telescope, which was built in, and never moved from,
Parsonstown, Ireland,[57] I may well be permitted to wonder at the
ignorance of that “Adept” in matters of science. This beats all
the mistakes and blunders committed at times by the _chelas_ of
our Teachers! And it is this “Adept” that is used now to break the
teachings of our Masters!

ENQ. I quite understand your feeling in this matter, and think it only
natural. And now, in view of all that you have said and explained
to me, there is one subject on which I should like to ask you a
few questions.

THEO. If I can answer them I will. What is that?

FOOTNOTES:

[56] Such, for instance, as Prof. Bernheim and Dr. C. Lloyd Tuckey of England; Professors Beaunis and Liégeois, of Nancy; Delbœuf of Liège; Burot and Bourru, of Rochefort; Fontain and Sigard, of Bordeaux; Forel, of Zurich; and Drs. Despine, of Marseilles; Van Renterghem and Van Eeden, of Amsterdam; Wetterstrand, of Stockholm; Schrenck-Notzing, of Leipzig, and many other physicians and writers of eminence.

[57] Vide “Ghost Land,” Part I., p. 133, _et seq._