The question of hidden adepts has always been a major source of controversy for Blavatsky, especially in Western societies. Her claims have been met with much doubt and disbelief, but perhaps the greater problem is too much credulity. In many ways, belief in the Mahatmas has been too successful. The amount of writings and teachings that claim to be inspired by Mahatmas claiming connection with Blavatsky is mind-boggling and hence, much confusion has resulted. In looking at her chapter on the question from the Key to Theosophy from 1889, one can see that most of the problems that exist today were already present in her time, and unfortunately, all too often, her statements on the problem have gone unheeded.
Section 14
The
"Theosophical Mahatmas"
ARE THEY "SPIRITS OF LIGHT" OR
"GOBLINS DAMN'D"?
Mahatmas are human beings
In the first place they are living men, born
as we are born, and doomed to die like every other mortal.
They are not 1000 years old
The more we deny them, the more we try to set people
right, the more absurd do the inventions become.
Some live longer, but less than 500 years, if they care to
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.
Mahatma simply means Great Soul
Besides, the term is an Indian and a very old word.
Masters are men of great learning, Initiates
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.
They isolate themselves in the West not in the East, world
not ready for their teachings
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? In their own country they go about as publicly as
other people do.
They have developed powers latent in everyone
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.
Sometimes inspire verbatim passages in writers, but mostly
just general ideas
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.
Thought transmission is a natural possibility
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.
The powers of hypnotism demonstrate the possibility of
thought transmission
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"?
Unbelief in psychic powers hinders research into them
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.
Materialism hinders the acquisition of such powers
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.
Dictating teachings to people is not easy for adepts and
rarely occurs. It is easier for malevolent adepts.
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 (1)) 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.
Psychic powers and magic can be used for selfish and harmful
purposes
Simply abuse of psychic powers, or of any secret
of nature; the fact of applying to selfish and sinful ends the powers of
Occultism.
Use of magic and psychic powers entails a great ethical
responsibility
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. You cannot believe in good and disbelieve
in evil, accept genuine money and refuse to credit such a thing as false coin.
Such is the nature of life that there exist malevolent adepts as
well as good ones
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
Blavatsky never benefited from her claims about Mahatmas,
she considers it a compliment if all of her writings are credited to her and
not to various adepts
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.
The Mahatmas find the Hodgson report funny
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.
Blavatsky denies the validity of the Hodgson report
They did, and their final conclusion rests entirely on
the unchecked statements and unverified assertions of this young gentleman.
Blavatsky did not sue Coulomb or Hodgson because it was
against her principles to heed personal insults
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.
She did not pursue a lawsuit also because it would have been
too complicated and she didn’t think she’d get a fair trial
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!
Blavatsky prefers unbelief in Mahatmas than misuse of their
names
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.
The teachings ascribed to the Mahatmas should be judged on
their own merits
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.
The Mahatmas do not guide the society, they only protect it
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.
THE ABUSE OF SACRED NAMES AND TERMS
Some writings have been inspired by adepts, but all
theosophical writings should be judged on their own merits
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.
Blavatsky regrets that identities of certain Mahatmas have
been made public. She attests to the numerous fake Mahatmas even in her own
time
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.
The notion of Mahatmas became quite popular in
Blavatsky’s time, which she regrets
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.
Much
deception, fraud had been done in the name of the Mahatmas, a desecration which
the TS is partly responsible; Spiritualist have used adepts to
discredit the TS
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.
Notes
(1) There are about a half a dozen concepts in Blavatskyan Theosophy that I avoid discussing, because I feel that they are too touchy, too controversial, mainly because they have been too misconstrued and misused. I plan on posting some comments on these tough questions eventually. This notion of 'Adept of the Black
Brotherhood' or 'Brothers of the Shadow' is certainly a major one. Personally, I feel that it is culturally inappropriate to use the term 'dugpa' nowadays. Moreover, I think that more research on the topic needs to be done. For now, I would simply posit that the notion does seem to exist in Tibetan and Hindu traditions. See for example:
Thupten Jinpa in”The Wheel of Sharp Weapons” gives an account that
conveys a Tibetan attitude toward the Bon religion -(Essential Mind
Training, Wisdom Publications, Somervillie, MA, 2011, p. 139) “The
Tibetan terms I have translated here as “divination” and “shamanism” are
mo and bon. Although the term bon later became established as the name
of Tibet’s pre-Buddhist religion, the term can also simply refer to some
form of village shamanism or animism. This idea of not relying on mo
and bon appears to be an important theme in the early Kadam writings.
For to do so is, according to the Kadam masters, to contradict the
Buddhist practice of seeking refuge only in the Three Jewels.”
Here’s Geoffrey Samuel’s take on the question in his recent “The
Subtle Body in Indian and Beyond” in Religion and the Subtle Body in
Asia and the West: Between Mind and Body (Routledge UK 2013):
“The reforms associated with Samkara and his successors propagated a
primarily devotional form of religion for the masses, while reserving a
cleaned up version of what were seen as dangerous Tantric practices for
the elite. This led to a split between so-called “right hand” and “left
hand” approaches to Tantra, terms that are heavily loaded in India
because of the polluting associations of the left hand with its
association with defecation and bodily impurities. The “right hand”
approaches avoided polluting and transgressive practices, and could and
were to be carried out by respectable members of high castes. “Left hand
approaches retained transgressive elements, and their practice was for
the most part confined to ascetics who were beyond the restrictions of
the caste systems, or lay practioners, such as the Bauls in Bengal, who
were willing to accept the low status that went along with such
practices. In parts of India, however, the practice of “left hand”
approaches to Tantra, involving ritual sexuality, the consumption of
meat and alcohol, and other problematic aspects, continued in secret
among members of some high-caste groups.” (37)
