The Writings of Alfred Percy Sinnett
Alfred
Percy Sinnett
1840
-1921
The Occult World
By
A P Sinett
APPENDIX
LATER acquaintance with the subject has
done much to show me that the reserve hitherto maintained by the masters of
occult science was inevitable. It is useless to offer any man information which
his faculties are not sufficiently expanded to receive. Only a few hundred
years after the physical science that has been absorbed by the last two or
three generations with avidity would have been unwelcome and despised. Till
quite recently the serious contemplation of psychic phenomena would have been
resented as a relapse into superstition. No man can investigate causes till he
is willing to observe facts, and it was only the other day that a disposition
to observe facts lying outside the domain of physical causation would have
alienated any prematurely developed enthusiast from the sympathies of all his
contemporaries. The light of mere worldly wisdom may thus vindicate the
reticence of the few and secluded custodians of the higher knowledge, but with
far greater precision is their policy vindicated when with their own help we
come at last to comprehend the scientific law of human intellectual
development. The progress of the world is not rolling on under the direction of
blind chance. Propelled though it is by the collective impulses of individual
energy, it advances in a defined path, and the knowledge, the discoveries, the
spiritual teaching, which breaks upon the world at each stage of its
advancement, is precisely proportioned to the receptivity of mankind at that
period of its evolution. The revelation of occult truth going on in the world
just now in many ways and under various aspects- though as I most emphatically
believe, under none more unequivocally or satisfactorily than in the case of
the direct teaching of occult science I am instrumental in bringing to public
notice - is the legitimate inheritance of this generation, and the good it may
do in the world now could not have been done only a few decades ago. It is
useless to try to take a photographic picture upon a non-sensitized plate; it
is useless to present the subtle conceptions of spiritual science to minds on
which no psychic collodion has previously been deposited. The Esoteric study in
which some of us connected with the Theosophical Society have been privileged,
during the last two or three years, to engage, has so effectually dispelled the
discontent we first felt at the jealousy that had withheld this teaching from
the world so long, that we recognise the message we are now commissioned to
convey as addressed so far only to the most highly advanced and intuitive minds
of our time. We are but beginning to put forward a doctrine which will only be
appreciated in its full significance later on.
-
It is interesting to observe that, in
accordance with predictions made to me when I began to write on these subjects,
the dawn of psychic truth has begun to brighten our sky from several directions
at once. The psychological telegraphy here referred to was quite unheard of In
the world at large in 1880. But for the last year or two the Psychic Research
Society in
It is too late in the day now, when
several editions of this book have already passed through the press, to affect
any reserve about this name. But in truth I greatly regret now that I ever
permitted it to become public property. All over
been formed, and long contact with the grand conceptions of Esoteric philosophy
has developed on the part of its members a sentiment of reverence for the
Mahatmas only second in intensity to that of the regular oriental initiates. It
would spare all such persons a great deal of indignant distress, if the name I
was unfortunately led to print in this work at full length had never been
disclosed. To most Western readers the matter may seem very unimportant, but
trouble and annoyance which I greatly deplore have ensued from the mistake thus
committed. As a matter of fact, I may here observe that the original manuscript
of my book , was written from end to end without the use of the name, instead
of ,which I had placed a mere initial, " H", but a letter I received
from India shortly before the publication of the book authorised the use of the
name, and I felt at that time that it was absurd to be plus royaliste que le
roi. So the step came to be taken which cannot now be recalled. The name of
the Mahatma here made use of, I may explain, in conclusion of this digression.
The necessity of reprinting this work for
a fourth edition gives me an opportunity of noticing some discussion that has
taken place in the spiritualistic press on the subject of a letter addressed to
Light, of September 1st, 1883, by Mr. Henry Kiddle, an American
spiritualist. The letter was as follows:
To THE EDITOR OF "LIGHT."
Sir,
-In a communication that appeared in your issue of July 21st, '" G. W.,
M.D.," reviewing '" Esoteric Buddhism," says: Regarding this
Koot Hoomi, it is a very remarkable and unsatisfactory fact that Mr. Sinnett,
although in correspondence with him for years, has yet never been permitted to
see him." I agree with your corespondent entirely ; and this is not the
only fact that is unsatisfactory to me. On reading Mr. Sinnett's "Occult
World," more than a year ago, I was very greatly surprised to find in one
of the letters presented by Mr. Sinnett as having been transmitted to him by
Koot Hoomi, in the mysterious manner described, a passage taken almost verbatim
from an address on Spiritualislm by me at Lake Pleasant in August, 1880, and
published the same month by the Banner of Light. As Mr. Sinnett's book
did not appear till a considerable time afterwards (about a year, I think), it
is certain that I did not quote, consciously or unconsciously, from its pages.
How, then, did it get into Koot Hoomi's mysterious letter?
I sent to Mr. Sinnett a letter through his publishers, enclosing the printed
pages of my address, with the part used by Koot Hoomi marked upon it, and asked
for an explanation, for I wondered that so great a sage as Koot Hoomi should
need to borrow anything from so humble a student of spiritual things as
myself. As yet I have received no reply; and the query has been suggested to my
mind -Is Koot Hoomi a myth? or, if not, is he so great an adept as to have
impressed my mind with his thoughts and word while I was preparing my
address?If the latter were the case he could not consistently exclaim: '"
Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerunt."
Perhaps Mr. Sinnett may think it scarcely
worth while to solve this little problem; but the fact that the existence of
the brotherhood has not yet been proved may induce some to raise the question
suggested by "G. W ., M. D". Is there any such secret order ? On this
question, which is not intended to imply anything offensive to Mr. Sinnett,
that other still more important question may depend. Is Mr. Sinnett's recently
published book an exponent of Esoteric Buddhism ? It Is, doubtless, a work of great
ability, and its statements are worthy of deep thought; but the main question
is, are they true, or how can they be verified ?' As this cannot he
accomplished except by the exercise of abnormal or transcendental faculties,
they must be accepted, if at all, upon the ipse dixtt of the
accomplished adept, who has been so kind as to sacrifice his esoteric character
or vow, and make Mr. Sinnett his channel of communication with the outer world,
thus rendering his sacred knowledge exoteric. Hence, if this publication, with
its wonderful doctrine of Shells," overturning the consolatory conclusions
of Spiritualists, is to be accepted, the authority must he established, and the
existence of the adept or adepts -indeed, the facts of adeptship - must be
proved. The first step in affording this proof has hardly yet, I think, been
taken. I trust this book will be very carefully analysed, and the nature of its
inculcations exposed, whether they are Esoteric Buddhism or not,
The following are the passages referred to, printed side by side [ in
the book, but one after the other in this document ]- for the sake of
ready reference. .
Extract from Mr. Kiddle's discourse,
entitled "The Present Outlook of Spiritualism", delivered at Lake
Pleasant Camp Meeting on
"My friends, ideas rule the
world; and as men's minds receive new ideas, laying aside the old and effete,
the world advances. Society rests upon them; mighty revolutions spring from
them ; institutions crumble before their onward march. It is just as impossible
to resist their influx, when the time comes, as to stay the progress of the
tide.
And the agency called Spiritualism is
bringing a new set of ideas into the world - ideas on the most momentous
subjects,touching man's true position in the universe; his origin and destiny;
the relation of the mortal to the immortal; of the temporary to the Eternal; of
the finite to the Infinite; of man's deathless soul to the material universes
in which it now dwells - ideas larger, more general, more comprehensive,
recognising more fully the universal reign of law as the expression of the
Divine will, unchanging and unchangeable in regard to which there is only an Eternal
Now, while to mortals time is past or future, as related to their finite
existence on this material plane; etc., etc., etc.,
Extract from Koot Hoomi's letter to Mr.
Sinnett, in the "Occult World", 3rd Edition, page 102. The first
edition was published in June 1881.
Ideas rule the world; and as men's minds
receive new ideas, laying aside the old and effete, the world will advance,
mighty revolutions will spring from them, creeds and even powers will crumble
before their onward march, crushed by their irresistible force. It will be just
as impossible to resist their influence when the time comes as to stay the
progress of the tide. But all this will come gradually on, before it comes we
have a duty set before us; that of sweeping away as much as possible the dross
left to us by our pious forefathers. New ideas have to be planted on clean
places, for these ideas touch upon the most momentous subjects. It is not
physical phenomena,but these universal ideas that we study, as to comprehend
the former, we have first to understand the latter. They touch man's true position
in the universe in relation to his previous and future births, his origin and
ultimate destiny; the relation of the mortal to the immortal, of the temporary
to the Eternal, of the finite to the Infinite; ideas larger, grander, more
comprehensive, recognising the eternal reign of immutable law, unchanging and
unchangeable, in regards to which there is only an ETERNAL NOW; while to
uninitiated mortals time is past or future as related to their finite existence
on this material speck of dirt, etc., etc., etc.
HENRY KIDDLE.
********************************************
The appearance of this letter puzzled,
without very much disturbing, the equanimity of Theosophical students. If it
had been published immediately after the first publication of the " Occult
World," its effect might have been more serious, but in the interim the
Brothers had by degrees communicated to the public through my agency such a
considerable block of philosophical teaching, then already embodied in my
second book, "
Esoteric Buddhism," and scattered through two or three
volumes of the Theosophist, that appreciative readers had passed beyond
the stage of development in which it might have been possible for them to
suppose that the principal author of this teaching could at any time have been
under any intellectual temptation to borrow thoughts from a spiritualistic
lecture. Various hypotheses were framed to account for the mysterious identity
between the two passages cited, and people to whom the Theosophic teachings
were unacceptable, as overthrowing conceptions to which they were attached,
were greatly enchanted to find my revered instructor convicted, as they
thought, of a commonplace plagiarism. A couple of months necessarily elapsed
before an answer could be obtained from India on the subject, and meanwhile the
" Kiddle incident," as it came to be called, was joyfully treated by
various correspondents writing in the columns of Light, as having dealt
a fatal blow at the authority of the Indian Mahatmas as "' exponents of
esoteric truth.
In due course I received a long and instructive explanation of the mystery from
Mahatma Koot Hoomi himself; but this letter reached me under the seal of the
most absolute confidence. Rigidly adhering to the policy which had all along
restrained within narrow limits the communication of their teaching to the
world at large, the Brothers remained as anxious as ever to leave everybody
full intellectual liberty to disbelieve in them, and reject their revelation if
his spiritual intuitions were not of a kind to be readily kindled. In the same
way that from the first they had refused me the overwhelming and irresistible
proofs of their power, which I had sought for in the beginning as weapons with
which I might successfully combat incredulity, they now shrank from interfering
with the conclusions of any readers who might be found capable, after the rich
assurances of the later teaching, of distrusting the Mahatmas on the strength
of a suspicion which was ill founded in reality, plausible though it might
seem. Debarred myself, however,from making any public use of the Mahatma's
letter, some of the residents and visitors at the Headquarters of the
Theosophical Society at Adyar, Madras, came into possession of the true facts
of the case, and some communications appeared in the society's magazine which
afforded everyone honestly desirous of comprehending the truth of the matter,
all necessary information. In the December number of the Theosophist,
Mr. Subba Row put forward a very cautiously worded article, hinting merely at
the actual explanation of the identity of the passages cited by Mr. KiddIe, and
concerned chiefly with an elaborate analysis of the " plagiarised"
sentences, the object of which was to show that in truth we might have divined
for ourselves, if we had been sharp enough in the beginning, that some mistake
had been made, and that the Mahatma could not have intended to write the
sentences just as they stood. The hint conveyed by Mr. Subba was as follows: -
" Therefore from a careful perusal of the passage and its contents, any
unbiased reader will come to the conclusion that somebody must have greatly
blundered over the said passage, and will not be surprised to hear that it was
unconsciously altered through the carelessness and ignorance of the chela
by whose instrumentality it was 'precipitated.' Such alterations, omissions,
and mistakes sometimes occur in the process of precipitation; and I now assert
I know it for certain, from an inspection of the original precipitation proof,
that such was the case with regard to the passage under discussion."
The same Theosophist in which this article appeared contained a letter
from General Morgan in reply to various spiritualistic attacks on the
Theosophical position, and in the course of his remarks he referred to the
" Kiddle incident " as follows :-
" Happily we have been permitted, many of us, to look behind the veil of
the parallel passage mystery, and the whole affair is very satisfactorily
explained to us; but all that we are permitted to say is that many a passage
was entirely omitted from the letter received by Mr. Sinnett, its precipitation
from the original dictation to the chela. Would our Great Master but
permit us his humble followers to photograph and publish in the Theosophist
the scraps shown to us, scraps in which whole sentences parenthetical and
quotation marks are defaced and obliterated and consequently omitted in the chela'
clumsy transcription - the public would be treated to a rare sight -something
entirely unknown to modern science- namely, an akasic impression as good
as a photograph of mentally expressed thoughts dictated from a distance."
A month or two after the appearance of these fragmentary hints, I received a
note from the Mahatma relieving me of all restrictions previously imposed on
the full letter of explanation he had previously sent me. The subject, by that
time, however, seemed to have lost its interest for all persons in
Now, however, that this new edition of the
Occult World II is required, there is an obvious propriety in the course I now
take. The new letter from the Mahatma constitutes in itself a correction of the
letter from which I quote on pages 101-102, and apart from the interest of the
explanation it furnishes in regard to the precipitation process, the thoughts
it conveys are in themselves valuable and suggestive.
"The letter in question," writes the Mahatma, referring to the
communication I originally received, "was framed by me while on a journey
and on horseback. It was dictated mentally in the direction of and precipitated
by a young chela not yet expert at this branch of psychic chemistry, and
who had to transcribe it from the hardly visible imprint. Half of it,
therefore, was omitted, and the other half more or less distorted by the
°'artist. ' When asked by him at the time whether I would look over and correct
it, I answered -imprudently, I I confess - "Anyhow will do, my boy; it is
of no great importance if you skip a few words.' I was physically very tired by
a ride of forty-eight hours consecutively, and (physically again) half asleep.
Besides this, I had very important business to attend to psychically, and
therefore little remained of me to devote to that letter. When I awoke I found
it had already been sent on, and as I was not then anticipating its
publication, I never gave it from that time a thought. Now I had never evoked
spiritual Mr. Riddle's physiognomy, never had heard of his existence, was not
aware of his name. Having, owing to our correspondence, and your Simla
surroundings and friends, felt interested in the intellectual progress of the Phenomenalists,
I had directed my attention, some two months previous, to the great annual
camping movement of the American Spiritualists in various directions, among
others to
The recent experiments of the Psychic Research Society will help you greatly to
comprehend the rationale of this mental telegraphy. You have observed in the
journal of that body, how thought transference is cumulatively effected. The
image of the geometrical or other figure which the active brain has had
impressed upon it is gradually imprinted upon the recipient brain of the
passive subject, as the series of reproductions illustrated in the cuts show.
Two factors are needed to produce a perfect and instantaneous mental
telegraphy- close concentration in the operator and complete receptive
passivity in the reader subject. Given a disturbance of either condition, and
the result is proportionately imperfect. The reader does not see the image as
in the telegrapher's brain, but as arising in his own. When the latter's
thought wanders, the psychic current becomes broken, the communication
disjointed and incoherent. In a case such as mine the chela had, as it
were, to pick up what he could from the current I was sending him, and, as
above remarked, patch the broken bits together as best he might. Do not you see
the same thing in ordinary mesmerism -the maya impressed upon the
subject's imagination by the operator becoming now stronger, now feebler, as
the latter keeps the intended illusive image more or less steadily before his
own fancy. And how often the clairvoyants reproach the magnetiser for taking
their thoughts off the subject under consideration. And the mesmeric healer
will always bear you witness that if he permits himself to think of anything
but the vital current he is pouring into his patient, he is at once compelled
to either establish the current afresh or stop the treatment. So I, in this
instance, having at the moment more vividly in my mind the psychic diagnosis of
current spiritualistic thought, of which the
" Well, as soon as I heard of the change, the commotion among my defenders
having reached me across the eternal snows, I ordered an investigation into the
original scraps of the impression. At the first glance I saw that it was I the
only and most guilty party, the poor boy having done hut that which he was
told. Having now restored the characters and the lines omitted and blurred
beyond hope of recognition by anyone but their original evolver, to their
primitive color and places, I now find my letter reading quite differently, as
you will observe. Turning to the' Occult World', the copy sent by you, to the
page cited, I was struck, upon carefully reading it, by the great discrepancy
between the sentences, a gap, so to say, of ideas between part 1 and part 2,
the plagiarised portion so called. There seems no connection at all between the
two; for what has indeed the determination of our chiefs (to prove to a
sceptical world that physical phenomena are as reducible to law as anything
else) to do with Plato's ideas which' rule the world,' or' Practical
Brotherhood of Humanity .' I fear that it is your personal friendship alone for
the writer that has blinded you to the discrepancy and disconnection of ideas
in this abortive precipitation even until now. Otherwise you could not have
failed to perceive that something was wrong on that page, that there was a
glaring defect in the connection. Moreover, I have to plead guilty to another
sin: I have never so much as looked at my letters in print, until the day of
the forced investigation. I had read only your own original matter, feeling it
a loss of time to go over my hurried bits and scraps of thought. But now I have
to ask you to read the passages as they were originally dictated by me, and
make the comparison with the' Occult World ' before you. ..I enclose the copy
verbatim from the restored fragments, underlining in red the omitted sentences
for easier comparison.
" ...Phenomenal elements previously
unthought of. .. will disclose at last the secrets of their mysterious
workings. Plato was right to readmit every element of speculation which
Socrates had discarded. The problems of universal being are not unattainable,
or worthless if attained. But the latter can be solved only by mastering those
elements that are now looming on the horizons of the profane. Even the
Spiritualists, with their mistaken, grotesquely perverted views and notions,
are hazily realising the new situation. They prophecy -and their prophecies are
not always without a point of truth in them -or intuitional prevision, so to
say. Hear some of them reasserting the old, old axiom that' ideas rule the
world,' and as men's minds receive new ideas, laying aside the old and effete,
the world will advance, mighty revolutions will spring from them;
institutions, aye, and even creeds and powers, they may add, will
crumble before their onward march, crushed by their own inherent force,
not the irresistible force of the' new ideas' offered by the Spiritualists.
Yes, they are both right and wrong. It will be' just as impossible to resist
their influence when the time comes as to stay the progress of the tide- to be
sure. But what the Spiritualists fail to perceive, I see, and their spirits to
explain (the latter knowing no more than what they can find in the brain of the
former) is that all this will come gradually on, and that before it
comes they, as well us ourselves, have all a duty to perform, a task
set before us -that of sweeping away as much as possible the dross left to
us by our pious forefathers. New ideas have to be planted on clean places, for
these ideas touch upon the most momentous subjects. It is not physical
phenomena, or the agency called Spiritualism, but these universal ideas
that we have precisely to study; the noumenon, not the phenomenon: for
to comprehend the latter we have first to understand the former.
They do touch man's true position in the universe, to be sure, but
only in relation to his future not previous births. It is not
physical phenomena, however wonderful, that can ever explain to man his
origin, let alone his ultimate destiny, or as one of them expresses
it, the relation of the mortal to the immortal, of the temporary to the
eternal, of the finite to the infinite, etc. They talk very glibly of what
they regard as new ideas, ' larger, more general, grander, more
comprehensive,' and at the same time they recognise instead of the
eternal reign of immutable law, the universal reign of law and the
expression of a Divine will. Forgetful of their "earlier beliefs, and
that' it repented the Lord that he had made man,' these would-be philosophers
and reformers would impress upon their hearers that the expression of the said
Divine will ' is unchanging and unchangeable, in regard to which there is
only an Eternal Now, while to mortals [uninitiated ] time is past or future as
related to their finite existence on this material plane,'- of which they
know as little as of their spiritual spheres - a speck of dirt they have made
the latter, like our own earth, a future life that the true philosopher would
rather avoid than court. But I dream with my eyes open. ...At all events, this
is not any privileged teaching of their own. Most of these ideas are taken
piecemeal from Plato and the Alexandrian philosophers. It is what we all
study, and what many have solved, etc. , etc.
" This is the true copy of the original document as now restored- the
'Rosetta stone' of the Kiddle incident. And now, if you have understood my
explanations about the process, as given in a few words further back, you need
not ask me how it came to pass that, though somewhat disconnected, the
sentences transcribed by the chela are mostly those that are now
considered as plagiarised, while the missing links are precisely those phrases
that would have shown the passages were simply reminiscences, if not quotations
-the keynote around which came grouping my own reflections on that morning. For
the first time in my life I had paid a serious attention to the utterances of the
poetical 'media' of the so-called , inspirational' oratory of the
English-American lecturers, its quality and limitations. I was struck with all
this brilliant but empty verbiage, and recognised for the first time fully its
pernicious intellectual tendency. It was their gross and unsavoury materialism,
hiding clumsily under its shadowy spiritual veil, that attracted my thoughts at
the time. While dictating the sentences quoted -a small portion of the many I
have been pondering over for some days -it was those ideas that were thrown out
en relief the most, leaving out my own parenthetical remarks to
disappear in the precipitation."
I need only add a few words of apology to Mr. Kiddle for my accidental neglect
of his original communication on this subject addressed to me in
The relations with the " Occult World " that I have been fortunate
enough to establish have so greatly expanded during the few years that have
elapsed since this volume was written that I must refer my readers to my second
book, " Esoteric Buddhism," for an account of their later
development. It may be worth while, however, as directly connected with the
main purpose of this earlier narrative, to insert here some papers I wrote
quite recently for submission to Theosophical audiences in
All persons who become interested in any of the teachings which have found
their way out into the world through the intermediation of the Theosophical
Society very soon turn to the sanctions on which those teachings rest.
Now the orthodox occult reply hitherto given to inquirers as to the
authenticity of any small statements of occult science that have hitherto been
put forth, has simply been this: -" Ascertain for yourself." That is
to say, lead the pure spiritual life, cultivate the inner faculties, and by
degrees these will be awakened and developed to the extent of enabling you to
probe Nature for yourself. But that advice is not of a kind which great numbers
of people have ever been ready to take, and hence knowledge concerning the
truths of occult science has remained in the hands of a few.
A new departure has now been taken. Certain proficients in occult science have
broken through the old restrictions of their order, and have suddenly let out a
flood of statements into the world, together with some information concerning
the attributes and faculties they have themselves acquired, and by means of which
they have learned what they now tell us.
It, is very widely recognised that the teaching is interesting and coherent and
even supported by analogies, but every new inquirer in turn must ask what
assurance we can have that the persons from whom this teaching emanates are in
a position to ascertain so much. Most people, I think, would be ready to admit
that persons invested, as the Brothers of of Theosophy are said to be invested
with abnormal and extraordinary powers over Nature- even in the departments of
Nature with which we are familiar- may very probably have faculties which
enable them to obtain a deep insight into many of the generally hidden truths
of Nature. But then come the primary question, " What assurance can you
give us that there really are behind the few people who stand forward as the
visible representatives of the Theosophical Society, any such persons as the
Adept Brothers at all ? " This is an old question which is always
recurring, and which must go on recurring as long as new comers continue to
approach the threshold of the Theosophical Society. For many of us it has long
been settled; for some new inquirers the existence of psychological Adepts
seems so probable that the assurances of the leading representatives of the
Society in India are readily accepted but for others again, the existence of
the Brothers must first be established by altogether plain and unequivocal
evidence before it will seem worth while to pay attention to the report some of
us make as to the specific doctrine they teach.
I propose, therefore, to go over the evidence on this main question, which
certainly underlies any with which the Theosophical Society, so far as it is
concerned with the Indian teaching, can be engaged. Of course, I am not going
to trouble you with any repetition of particular incidents already described in
published writings. What I propose to do is briefly to review the whole case as
it now stand, very greatly enlarged and strengthened as it has been during the
last two years. The evidence, to begin with, divides itself into two kinds.
First, we have the general body of current belief, which in India goes to show
that such persons as Mahatmas or Adepts are somewhere in existence;
secondly, the specific evidence which shows that the leaders of the
Theosophical Society are in relation with, and in the confidence of, such
Adepts.
As to the general body of belief, it would hardly be too much to say that the
whole mass of the sacred literature of
In Jaccolliot's books about his experiences in
Thus, in
~Now the evidence n this point divides itself as follows:
- First,
We have the primary evidence of witnesses who have personally seen certain
of these Adepts, both in the flesh and out of the flesh, who have seen
their powers exercised, and who have obtained certain knowledge as to
their existence and attributes.
- Secondly.
The evidence of those who have seen them in the astral form, identifying them
in various ways with the living men others have seen.
- Thirdly.
The testimony of those who have acquired circumstantial evidence as to
their existence.
Foremost among the witnesses of the first
group stand Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott themselves. For those who see
reason to trust Madame Blavatsky , her testimony is, of course ample and
precise, and altogether satisfactory. She has lived among the Adepts for many
years. She has been in almost daily communication with them ever since. She has
returned to them, and they have visited her in their natural bodies on several
occasions since she emerged from
Difficult as the hypothesis of her
imposture thus becomes, we next find it in flagrant incompatibility with all
the facts of Colonel Olcott's life. As undeniably as in the case of Madame
Blavatsky, he has forsaken a life of worldly prosperity to lead the
theosophical life, under circumstances of great physical self-denial, in India.
And he also tells us that he has seen the Brothers, both in the flesh and in
the astral form. By a long series of the most astounding thaumaturgic displays
when he was first introduced to the subject in America, he was made acquainted
with their powers. He has been visited at Bombay by the living man, his own
special master, with whom he had first become acquainted by seeing him in the
astral form in America. His life, for years, has been surrounded with the
abnormal occurrences which Spiritualists again will sometimes conjecture - so
wildly - to be Spiritualism, but which all hinge on to that continuous chain of
relationship with the Brothers, which for Colonel Olcott has been partly a
matter of occult phenomena, and partly a matter of waking intercourse between
man and man. Again, in reference to Colonel Olcott, as in reference to Madame
Blavatsky, I assert, fearlessly, that there is no compromises possible between
the extravagant assumption that he is consciously lying in all he says about
the Brothers, and the assumption that what he says establishes the existence of
the Brothers as a broad fact, for remember that Colonel Olcott has now been a
co-worker of Madame Blavatsky's and in constant intimate association with her
for eight years. The notion the she has been able to deceive him all this while
by fraudulent tricks, apart from its monstrosity in other ways, is too unreasonable
to be entertained. Colonel Olcott, at all events, knows whether Madame
Blavatsky is fraudulent or genuine, and he has given up his whole life to the
service of the cause she represents in testimony of his conviction that she is
genuine. Again the spiritualistic hypothesis comes into play. Madame Blavatsky
may be a medium whose presence surrounds Colonel Olcott with phenomena ; but
then she is herself deceived by astral influences as to the true nature of the
Brothers who are the head and front of the whole phenomenal display, and we
have a!ready seen reason, I think, to reject that hypothesis as absurd. There
is logical escape from the conclusion that things are broadly as she and
Colonel Olcott say, or they are both conscious impostors, rival champions of
the age in this respect, both sacrificing everything that worldly-minded people
live for, to revel in this lifelong imposture which brings them nothing but
hard living and hard words.
But the case for the authenticity of their statement, far from ending here, may
in one sense be said to begin here. Our native Indian witnesses now come to the
front. First, Damodar of whom the well known writer of " Hints on Esoteric
Theosophy speaks as follows in that pamphlet:-
" You specially in a former letter referred to Damodar, and you asked how
it could be believed that the Brothers would waste time with a half-educated
slip of a boy like him, and yet absolutely refuse to visit and convince men
like------ and ------, Europeans of the highest education and marked abilities.
But do you know that this slip of a boy has deliberately given up high caste,
family and friends, and an ample fortune, all in pursuit of the truth. That be
has for years lived that pure, unworldly self-denying life which we are told is
essential to direct intercourse with the Brothers? 'Oh, a monomaniac,' you say
; 'of course he sees anything and everything. But do not you see whither this
leads you ? Men who do not lead the life do not obtain direct proof of the
existence of the Brothers. A man does lead the life and avers that he has
obtained such proof, and you straightaway call him a monomaniac, and refuse his
testimony,.... quite a " heads I win, tails you lose,' sort of
position."
Damodar has seen some of the Brothers visit the headquarters of the Society in
the flesh. He has repeatedly been visited by them in the astral shape. He has
himself gone through certain initiations; he has acquired very considerable
powers, for he has been rapidly developed as regards these, expressly that he
might be an additional link of connection, independently of Madame Blavatsky,
between the Brothers, his masters, and the Theosophical Society. The whole life
be leads is impressive testimony to the fact that he also knows the
reality of the Brothers. On another hypothesis we must include Damodar in the
conscious imposture supposed to be carried on by Madame Blavatsky, for he has
been her intimate associate and devoted assistant, sharing her meals, doing her
work, living under her roof at Bombay for several years.
Shall we, then, rather than believe in the Brothers accept the hypothesis that
Madame Blavatsky, Colonel Olcott, and Damodar are a band of conscious
impostors? In that case Ramaswamy has to he accounted for. Ramaswamy is a very
respectable, educated, English-speaking native of Southern India, in government
service as a registrar of a court in Tinnevelly, I believe. I have met him
several times. First, to indicate the course of his experience in a few words,
-he sees the astral form of Madame Blavatsky's Guru, at Bombay; then he gets
clairaudient communication with him,while many hundred miles away from all the
Theosophists, at his own home in the South of India. Then he travels in
obedience to that voice to Darjeeling; then be plunges wildly into the Sikkim
jungles in search of the Guru, whom he has reason to believe in that
neighbourhood, and after various adventures meets him, -the same man be has
seen before in astral shape, the same man whose portrait Colonel Olcott has,
and whom be has seen, the living speaker of the voice that has been leading him
on from Southern India- He has a long interview with him, a waking, open-air,
daylight interview,with a living man, and returns his devoted chela, as
he is at this moment, and assuredly ever will be. Yet his master, who called
him from Tinnevelly and received him in Sikkim, is of those who on the
spiritualistic hypothesis are Madame Blavatsky's spirit controls.
Two more witnesses who personally know the
Brothers next come to me at Simla, in the persons of two regular chelas
who have been sent across the mountains on some business, and are ordered en
passant to visit me and tell me about their master, my Adept correspondent.
These men had just come, when I first saw them, from living with the Adepts.
One of them, Dhabagiri Nath, visited me several days running, talked to me for
hours about Koot Hoomi- with whom he had been living for ten years, and
impressed me and one or two others who saw him as a very earnest, devoted, and
trustworthy person. Later on, during his visit to India, he was associated with
many striking occult phenomena directed to the satisfaction of native
inquirers. He, of course, must be a false witness, invented to prop up Madame
Blavatsky's vast imposture, if he is anything else than the chela of
Koot Hoomi that he declares himself to be.
Another native, Mohini, soon after this,
begins to get direct communication from Koot Hoomi independently altogether of
Madame Blavatsky, and when hundreds of miles away from her. He also becomes a
devoted adherent to the Theosophical cause; but Mohini must, as far as I am
aware, be ranked in the second group of our witnesses, those who have had
personal astral communication with the Brothers, but have not yet seen them in
the flesh.
Bhavani Rao, a young native candidate for chelaship,
who came once in company with Colonel Olcott, but at a time when Madame
Blavatsky was in another part of India, to see me at Allahabad, and spent two
nights under our roof there, is another witness who has had independent communication
with Koot Hoomi, and more than that, who is able himself to act as a link of
communication between Koot Hoomi and the outer world, For during the visit I
speak of, he was enabled to pass a letter of mine to the master, to receive
back his reply, to get off a second note of mine, and to receive back a little
note of a few words in reply again. I do not mean that he did all this of his
own power, but that his magnetism was such as to enable Koot Hoomi to do it
through him. The experience is valuable because it affords a striking
illustration of the fact that Madame Blavatsky is not an essential intermediary
in the correspondence between myself and my revered friend. Other illustrations
are afforded by the frequent passage of letters between Koot Hoomi and myself
through the mediation of Damodar at Bombay, at a time when both Madame
Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott were away at Madras, travelling about on a
Theosophical tour, in the course of which their presence at various places was
constantly mentioned in the local papers, I was at AIlahabad, and I used,
during that time, to send my letters for Koot Hoomi to Damodar at Bombay, and
occasionally receive replies so promptly that it would have been impossible for
these to have been furnished by Madame Blavatsky, then four or more days
further from me in the course of post than Bombay.
In this way, my very voluminous correspondence is, demonstrably as regards
portions of it, and therefore by irresistible inference as regards the whole, not
the work of Madame Blavatsky, or Colonel Olcott, which, if the Brothers are not
a reality, it must be, The correspondence is visible on paper, a considerable
mass of it, How has it come into existence; reaching me at different places and
times, and in different countries, and through different people? I do not quite
understand what hypotheses can be framed by a nonbeliever in the Brothers about
my correspondence. I can think of none which are not at once negatived by some
of the facts about It.
It would be useless to copy out from
statements that from time to time have been published in the Theosophist
the names of native witnesses who have seen the astral forms of the Brothers
-spectral shapes which they were informed were such- about the headquarters of
the Society at Bombay. Quite a cloud of witnesses would testify to such
experiences, and I myself, I may add, saw such an appearance on one occasion at
the Society's present headquarters in Madras. But, of course, it might be
suggested of such appearances that they were spiritualistic. On the other hand,
in that case the argument travels back to the considerations already pointed
out, which show that the occult phenomena surrounding Madame Blavatsky cannot
be Spiritualism. They can be, in fact, nothing but what we who know her intimately
and are now closely identified with the Society believe them to be with all
conviction- viz., manifestations of the abnormal psychological powers of those
whom we speak of as the Brothers.
As I write, Colonel Olcott and Mr. Mohini
Mohun Chatterjee, mentioned above, are in London on a short visit, and many
people have heard from their own lips the verification of what I have here
stated- as far as it concerns them-and a great deal more besides. For during
his recent tour in Northern India, Colonel Olcott had an opportunity of meeting
the Mahatma Koot Hoomi personally in the flesh, and thus identifying his
previous "astral " visitor. At the same time that this meeting took
place, Mr. W. T. Brown, a young Scotchman who has recently become a devoted adherent
to the Theosophical cause, also saw the Mahatma, and Mr. Lane Fox, who has gone
out to India to follow up the clue afforded by the Theosophical Society, has
been in receipt in India, by abnormal methods, of correspondence from Koot
Hoomi, while Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott have been in Europe. Taking
into account, in fact, over and above the evidence collected in these pages,
the abundant information connected with the adepts which has latterly been
poured out through the pages of the Theosophist, the magazine of the
Theosophical Society now published at Madras, the argument in the form in which
it is here presented is really out of date. Anyone who may still think with Mr.
Kiddle, if he remains of the opinion expressed in his letter to Light, that
the allegations of my book concerning the existence of the adepts and the facts
of adeptship still remain to be proved, must be inaccessible to the force of
reason, or still unacquainted with the literature of the subject.
The second of the papers I wish to insert here, read like the first to a
meeting of the Theosophists in London, dealt with the considerations which,
after the existence of the Brothers is established, lead us to put
confidence in the teaching they convey to us in regard to the origin and
destinies of man and the whole problem of Nature. It is as follows: -
Many people who approach the consideration of occult philosophy are inclined to
lay great emphasis on the difference between believing in the existence of
those whom we call "the Brothers," and believing in the vast and
complicated body of teaching which has now been accumulated by their recent
pupils. I think it can really be shown that there is no halting place at which
a man who sets out on this enquiry can rationally pause and say, '" Thus
far will I go, and no farther". The chain of considerations which will
lead anyone who has once realised the existence of the Adepts to feel sure that
there can be no great error in a conception of nature obtained with their help,
consists of many links, but is really unbroken in its continuity, and equally
capable of bearing a strain at any point.
It consists of many links, partly because no one at present among those who are
in our position as students- who are living, that is to say, an ordinary
worldly life all the while that they are intellectually studying Occultism -can
ever obtain in his own person a complete knowledge of the Adepts. He cannot,
that is to say, come to know of his own personal knowledge all about even any
one Adept. The full elucidation of this difficulty leads to a proper
comprehension of the principle on which the Adepts shroud themselves in a
partial seclusion, a seclusion which has only become partial within a very
recent period, and was so complete until then that the world at large was
hardly aware of the existence of any esoteric knowledge from which it could be
shut out. This is a matter that is all the more important because experience
has shown how the world at large has been quick to take offence at the hesitating
and imperfect manner in which the Adepts have hitherto dealt with those who
have sought spiritual instruction at their hands. Judging the occult policy
pursued by comparison with inquiries on the plane of physical knowledge, the
impatience of inquirers is very natural, but none the less does even a limited
acquaintance with the conditions of mystic research show the occult policy to
be reasonable likewise.
Of course, everyone will admit that Adepts
are justified in exercising great caution in regard to communicating any
peculiar scientific knowledge which would put what are commonly called magical
powers within the reach of persons not morally qualified for their exercise.
But the considerations that prescribe this caution do not seem to operate also
in reference to the communication of knowledge concerning the spiritual
progress of man or the grander processes of evolution. And in truth the Adepts
have come to that very conclusion; they have undertaken the communication to
the general public of their safe theoretical knowledge, and the effort they are
making merely hangs fire, or may seem to do so to some observers, by reason of
the magnitude of the task in hand, and the novel aspect it wears, as well for
the teachers as for the students. For remember, if there has been that change
of policy on the part of the Adepts to which I have just referred, it has been
a change of such recent origin that it may almost be described as only just
coming on. And if the question be then asked, Why has this safe theoretical
knowledge not been communicated sooner, it seems reasonable to find a reply to
that question in the actual state of the intellectual world around us at this
moment. The freedom of thought of which English writers often boast is not very
widely diffused over the world as yet; and hardly, at all events, in any
generation before this, could the free promulgation of quite revolutionary
tenets in religious matters have been safely undertaken in any country.
Communities in which such an undertaking would still be fraught with peril are
even now more numerous than those in which it could be set on foot with any
practical advantage. One can thus readily understand how in the occult world
the question has been one of debate up to our own time, whether it was desirable
as yet to promote the dissemination of esoteric philosophy in the world at
large at the risk of provoking the acrimonious controversies, and even more
serious disturbances, liable to arise from the premature disclosure of truths
which only a small minority would really be ready to accept. Keeping this in
view, the mystery of the Adepts' reserve, up till recently, can hardly be
thought so astounding as to drive us on violent alternative hypotheses at
variance with all the plain evidence concerning their present action. There is
manifest reason why they should be careful in launching a body of newly-won
disciples on to their general stream of human progress; and added to this, the
force of their own training is such as to make them habitually cautious to a
far greater extent than the utmost prudence of ordinary life would render
ordinary men. "But," it will be argued, " granting all this, but
assuming, that at last some of the Adepts, at all events, have come to the
conclusion that some of their knowledge is ripe for presentation to the world,
why do they not present as much as they do present, under guarantees of a more
striking, irresistible, and conclusive kind than those which have actually been
furnished ? " I think the answer may be easily drawn from the
consideration of the way in which it would be natural to expect that a change
of policy amongst the Adepts in a matter of this kind would gradually be
introduced. By the hypothesis we conceive them but just coming to the
conclusion that it is desirable to teach mankind at large some portions of that
spiritual science hitherto conveyed exclusively to those who give tremendous
pledges in justification of their claim to acquire it. They will naturally
advance, in dealing with the world at large, along the same lines they have
learned to trust in dealing with aspirants for regular initiation. Never in the
history of the world have they sought out such aspirants, courted them or
advertised for them in any way whatever. It has been found an invariable law of
human progress that some small percentage of mankind will always come into the
world invested by Nature with some of the attributes proper to adeptship, and
with minds so constituted as to catch conviction as to the possibilities of the
occult life, from the least little sparks of evidence on the subject that may
be floating about. Of persons so constituted some have always been found to
press forward into the ranks of chelaship, to resort, that is to say, to
any devices or opportunities that circumstances may afford them for fathoming
occult knowledge. When thus besieged by the aspirant the Adept has always,
sooner or later, disclosed himself. The change of policy now introduced
prescribes that the Adept shall make one step towards the disclosure of himself
in advance of the aspirant's demand upon him, but we can easily understand how
the Adept, in first making this change, would argue that if many chelas
have hitherto come forward in the absence of any spontaneous action from his
side, it might be that an almost dangerous rush of ill qualified aspirants
would be invited by any manifestation from him that should be more than a very
slight one. At any rate, the Adept would say it would be premature to begin by
too sensational a display of faculties inherent in advanced spiritual knowledge
with which the world at large is as yet unfamiliar. It will be better at first
to make such an offer as will only be calculated to inflame the imagination of
persons only one step removed beyond those whose natural instincts would lead
them into the occult life. This appears actually to have been the reasoning on
which the Adepts have proceeded so far, and this may help us to understand how
it is that, as I began by saying, no one person amongst those outer students,
who have been called lay-chelas, has yet been enabled to say that of his
own personal knowledge he knows all about any of the Adepts.
On the other hand, putting together the various scattered revelations
concerning the Brothers which have been distributed amongst various people in
India belonging to the Theosophical Society, so much can be learned about the
Adepts as to put us in a very strong position in regard to estimating their
qualifications for speaking with confidence as they do about the actual facts
of Nature on the superphysical plane. These scattered revelations -if my
reasoning in what has gone before may be accepted -have been broken up and
thrown about in fragments designedly, in order that as yet it should only be
possible to arrive at a full conviction concerning Adeptship after a certain
amount of trouble spent in piecing together the disjointed proofs. But when
this process is accomplished we are provided with a certain block of knowledge
concerning the Adepts, out of which large inferences must necessarily grow. We
find, to begin with, that they do unequivocally possess the power of cognizing
event and facts on the physical plane of knowledge with which we are familiar,
by other means than those connected with the five senses. We find also that they
unequivocally possess the power of emerging from their proper bodies and
appearing at distant places in more or less ethereal counterparts thereof which
are not only agencies for producing impressions on others but habitations for
the time being of the Adepts' own thinking principles, and thus in themselves,
if the proof went no further, demonstration of the fact that a human soul is
something quite independent of brain matter and nerve centres. I do not stop
now to enumerate instances. The record of evidence must be dissociated from its
manipulation in arguments like the present, but the records are abundant and
accessible for all who will take the trouble of examining them. Now, if we know
that the Adept's soul can pass at his own discretion into that state in which
its perceptive faculties are independent of corporeal machinery, it is not
surprising that he should be enabled to make, of his own knowledge, a great
many statements concerning processes of Nature, reaching far beyond any
knowledge that can be obtained by mere physical observation. Take for example,
the Adepts' statement that certain other planets besides this earth, are
concerned with the growth of the great crop of humanity of which we form a
part. This is not advanced as a conjecture or inference. The Adepts tell us
that once out of the body they find they can cognize events on some other
planets as well as in distant parts of our own. This is not the exceptional
belief of an exceptional!y organised individual, who may be regarded by doubters
as hallucinated; there is no room for doubting the fact that it is the
concurrent testimony' of a considerable body of men engaged in the constant
experimental exercise of similar faculties. In this way the fact becomes as
much a fact of true science, as the fact that the great nebula Orion, for
instance, exhibits a gaseous spectrum, and is therefore a true nebula. All of
us who have star spectroscope can ascertain that fact for ourselves, if we make
use of a clear night when the conditions of observation are possible. To doubt
it, would not be to show greater caution than is exercised by those who believe
it, but merely an imperfect appreciation of the evidence. It is true that in
regard to the condition of the other planets our acceptance of the Adepts' statement
must be governed by our impressions concerning the bona fides of their
intention in telling us that they have made such and such observations. So far
it is a matter of inference with us whether the Adepts are saying what they
believe to be true-when they speak of the septenary chain of planets to
which the earth belongs -or consciously deluding us with a rigmarole of
statements which they know to be false. I think it can be shown in a variety of
ways, that the latter supposition is absurd. But an exhaustive examination of
its absurdity would be a considerable task in itself. For the moment the
position I am endeavouring to establish is one which does not depend upon the
question whether the Adepts are telling us, in reference to the planets, what they
know to be true, or something which they know to be untrue. My present position
is that at all events the Adepts themselves know what is true In the matter,
and that position, it will be observed, is not vitiated by the fact that, as
yet, we, their most recent pupils, are unable to follow In their footsteps and
repeat the experiments on which their teaching rests.
The same train of reasoning may be applied to the whole body of teaching which
the Theosophical Society is now concerned in endeavouring to assimilate. As
offered now to the uninitiated world, it can only take the form of a set of
statement on authority. And that sort of statement is not one which is most
agreeable to our methods or to the Adepts' habitual methods of teaching. For
there is no chemical laboratory in England where the system of teaching Is more
rigidly confined to the direction of the learner's own experiments, than that
same system is adopted with occult chelas following the regular course
of initiation. Step by step, as the regular chela is told that such and
such is the fact in regard to the inner mysteries of Nature, he is shown how to
apply his own developing faculties to the direct observation of such facts, But
those developing faculties carry with them, as pointed out a while ago, fresh
powers over Nature which can only be entrusted to those from whom the Adepts
take the recognised pledges. In teaching outsiders as they are trying to do
now, the Adepts must depart from their own habitual methods,- we must
depart, if we wish to understand what they are willing to teach, from our
habitual methods of inquiry. We must suspend our usual demand for proof of each
statement made, in turn as it is advanced. We must rest our provisional trust
in each statement on our broad general conviction which can be satisfied along
familiar lines of demonstration, -that such men as the Adepts certainly exist,
even though we cannot visit them at pleasure, that they must understand an
enormous block of Nature's laws outside the range of those which the physical
senses cognize, that in any statement they make to us they must be in a
position to know absolutely whether that statement is or is not true.
This much fully realised-, the truth is
that each inquirer in turn becomes satisfied, pari passu with his
realisation of the case so far, that reason revolts against the notion that the
Adepts can be engaged in their present attempt to convey some of their own
knowledge to the world at large in any other than the purest good faith. It may
be concluded that we who have come to the conclusion that their teaching is
altogether to be accepted, are rearing a large inverted pyramid upon a small
base. But the logical strength of our position is not impaired by this
objection. In every branch of human knowledge, inferences far transcend the
observed facts out of which they grow. And even in the most exact science of
all, a theorem is held to be proved if any alternative hypothesis is found, on
examination to be irrational. Moreover, the doctrine even of legal testimony
recognises the value of secondary evidence where in the nature of the case It
is impossible that primary evidence can be forthcoming. That is exactly the
state of the case in regard to the present attempt to bridge the gulf that
separates the school of physical research from the from the school of spiritual
knowledge. As long as we of this side were justified in doubting whether there
was anywhere on earth such a thing as a school of spiritual knowledge, it may
have been hardly worth while to worry ourselves with the stray fragments of its
teaching which now and then broke loose in barely intelligible shapes. But to
doubt the existence of such a school now is equivalent, really to doubting the
statement about the nebula in Orion, according to the illustration I adduced
just now. It can only arise from inattention to the facts of the whole case as
these now stand, -from reluctance to take that trouble to examine these
thoroughly, which still, as a sort of hedge, separates the Theosophical Society
from the general community in the midst of which it is planted. Regarded in the
light of an occult barrier, -as an obstacle which corresponds, in the case of
the lay-chela to the really serious ordeals which have to be crossed by
the regular chela, - the necessity of taking this trouble can hardly be
regarded as a hedge that it is difficult to traverse. And on the other side
there lies a wealth of information concerning the mysteries of Nature which
clearly lights up vast regions of the past and future hitherto shrouded in
total darkness for critical intelligences, and the prey for others of
untrustworthy conjecture. For those who once thoroughly go into the matter, and
obtain a complete mastery over all the considerations I have put forward, -who
thus obtain full conviction the Brothers certainly exist, that they must be
acquainted with the actual facts about Nature behind and beyond this life, that
they are now ready to convey a considerable block of their knowledge to us, and
that it is ridiculous to distrust their bona fides in doing this, -for
all such true Theosophists of the Theosophical Society, nothing, at present,
connected with spiritual success is comparable in importance with the study of
the vast doctrine now in process of delivery Into our hands.
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