Blavatsky and the Mahatmas (whom she did not call ascended masters nor the great white lodge)

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)