Theos-Talk Archives (September 2002 Message tt00095)

"The Mahatma Letters" in India apparently were initially produced to 
attract two prominent Englishmen into the T.S., Alfred Sinnett, the 
editor of a leading newspaper in India, and A.O. Hume who had a 
position with the British Government. 

Much of Blavatsky`s fame among the Anglo-Indians and the re-start
of the T.S. after its demise in New York (where almost all of the former 
founders and members left) were the result of attracting Hume and 
Sinnet. 

Hume and Sinnett at first didn`t feel that the letters met with
the standards of a Master. In the place of answers to their metaphysical 
questions they received constant injunctions to be kind and 
understanding to HPB. "You can hardly be too indulgent with her," 
Mahatma Koot Hoomi told them, and for a while they obeyed him. The 
Mahatma Letters played with notions of their own fictitiousness in 
sophisticated ways, calling attention to the Mahatmas` status as 
inventive inventions: having been "`invented` ourselves," the
Masters noted, they "repay the inventors by inventing" increasingly 
complicated "imaginary" doctrines as a way of avoiding accusations of 
inconsistency or internal contradiction in their teachings. (KH to
Sinnet, Letter No. 24B) 

Distressed by Blavatskys intermediary role in the communications, the 
men decided to send a letter to the "Maha Chohan," another Master, 
asking to correspond directly without the meddling hand of Blavatsky. 
Unfortunately, there was then no option but to give the sealed letter
to Blavatsky for forwarding as usual. She retired to her room with it, 
supposedly intending to play the piano while magically precipitating
the envelope to its destination, but a very different kind of music was
heard from the room a few minutes later, when she emerged screaming 
betrayal and treason, having opened the letter and read it. 

Another incident occurred after Sinnett published some of "Koot 
Hoomi`s" letters in his first book, The Occult World (1881). The 
American, Henry Kiddle, was upset to find in one of Koot Hoomi`s
letters a passage lifted almost verbatim from a speech he had published 
in the spiritualist journal, Light. He contacted Sinnett, did not receive a=


reply, and charged him with plagiarism. Blavatsky took offense and 
countered disdainfully: 

Koot Hoomi plagiarized from Kiddle! Ye gods and little fishes ... 
Plagiarize from the BANNER OF LIGHT!!-that sweet spirits` slop
basin! 

Surrounded by controversy and the focus of accusations, H.P.
Blavatsky was forced to rationalize the existence of the copied text. She
explained that Koot Hoomi had somehow picked up Kiddle`s speech on 
the astral radio waves and then forgotten about it, in the way that one
reproduces phrases without thinking. 

In a letter to Sinnett, Blavatsky as Koot Hoomi, spent pages
rationalizing the "very puzzling psychological mystery" explaining 
that "he" had been tired and had let slip the inaccurate work of a chela 
who "transcribed" his letter for him. "Koot Hoomi" rationalized that he 
was trying to make a very different point than the original Kiddle speech. =



So, even though he admitted borrowing Mddle`s words, K.H. changed 
the meaning by the few "extra" words he added to the original speech 
(Barker, Mahatma Letters no. 93). 

In another attempt to rationalize plagiarism, "Koot Hoomi," answered
a question posed by Sinnett about the origin of one of his statements: 
"Quotation from Tennyson? Really cannot say. Some stray lines picked 
up in the astral light or in somebody`s brain and remembered" The 
Mahatma Letters are revered and studied by believers all over the
world as first communications from the elusive Masters. Along with 
assorted pseudoscientific and metaphysical stream of consciousness 
ramblings, the legendary letters contain chatty gossip and mundane 
banalities. 
Some letters contain Theosophical teachings; others are rants against 
people, situations, and perceived persecutions. 

It is common for mediums to employ a different handwritings as their 
own in so called "spirit writing" just as they will speak in foreign
accents and so called "foreign languages" without their "conscious" 
doing. Theéodore Flournoy already made a study about this one hundred
years before Blavatsky called "From India to the Planet Mars" (
re-published by Princeton University Press.) 

Blavatskys hand is all too obvious in the writings, which uses much
of her language and many of her unique, colorful expressions. There are 
too many similarities in syntax and usage to say they came from
Masters or any source outside of Blavatsky. Observations and comments 
on actions of Theosophical members-of which she had intimate 
knowledge, the blatant support of her positions in which she had a 
vestedinterest, and lack of scientific knowledge-which should have been 
available to a real Master, point to Blavatsky as the author. Either the 
letters came from Masters or from the very earthy woman, Blavatsky.  
Their content and means of arrival. 

In "The Letters of H.P. Blavatsky to A.P. Sinnett" p.306, Blavatsky 
dismissed the Masters herself as "selfish Asiatics." 
The concepts of "the Monad" as frequently mentioned in "the Mahatma 
letters from Tibet" were published in countless books in 18th and
19th century Europe, so are the Ideas of "planetary cycles" suddenly
showing up in the "materialized" letters from the "Masters in Tibet." 

In Hansen`s History of the Theosophical Movement, there is a
revealing comment by Annie Besant. During the, "Judge Affair", she 
made reference to the handwriting adopted by H.P. Blavatsky in the
"Mahatma Letters" and said W.Q Judge (President of the USA T.S. ) had 
stolen it for his own Mahatma letters. 

Olcott challenged Judge, in what became a public controversy in the 
Theosophical Society with accusations of fraud. An investigation into 
Judge`s conduct and the letters was instigated. 

Annie Besant tried to soothe matters by saying that Judge had
received the messages psychically and had erred by writing them down 
in Blavatskys hand in imitation of the Masters. 

This is in line with Harrison who wrote that the Master script was 
different from HPB's handwriting. But if Judge could fake this, why not 
Blavatsky herself ?

K. Paul Johnson when asked it mentioned in an interview ; 
Harrison is quite explicit in saying that he does not claim 
to "demonstrate from an analysis of Madame Blavatsky's 'ordinary' 
writing that she could not have been responsible for the KH letters." 
Nevertheless, I get the distinct impression that his study is being 
put to polemical use by Theosophists overinterpreting Harrison 
as "vindicating" HPB -- which he explicitly told me, in person, that 
he has not done.
Harrison allows for the possibility that in altered 
states of consciousness HPB wrote in handwritings so different from 
that of her normal waking personality that they could not be 
recognized as coming from the same hand, even by experts. Given 
Olcott's testimony to this effect, and abundant references to HPB 
as "amanuensis" of the Masters, it seems to me the most plausible 
explanation of the physical origin of most of the Mahatma letters. 
There are two particular logical problems I find in Harrison's study, 
specifically in his Replies to Criticism. First, he distinguishes 
between Hodgson's thesis that HPB was "an ingenious but common 
fraudster and impostor having no supernatural powers whatever" who 
produced the KH letters with intent to deceive and the alternative 
that the writing was "received automatically, in trance, sleep, etc., 
unknown to the conscious personality until he or she reads it." These 
are presented as mutually exclusive alternatives that exhaust the 
possibilities. I think the evidence leads us rather to consider that 
different letters were produced in different circumstances, and that 
no one-size-fits-all assumptions about those circumstances can be 
stretched to accommodate the various instances of questionable 
authorship. 

Second, Harrison asks "if we accept Olcott's testimony as evidence 
that HPB could write in altered states of consciousness, do we accept 
his further testimony" about a specific paranormal event he 
witnessed, and "if not, why not? I do not see how you can select or 
reject evidence to suit your argument. Olcott's testimony is that HPB 
possessed psychic powers in abundance. You cannot accept both Olcott 
and Hodgson." My response to this is to say that we can accept 
Olcott's testimony as evidence of what he believed he had witnessed 
without accepting that his interpretation of his experience was 
accurate. That HPB appeared to be writing in a trance state from 
which she emerged with no memory, that she behaved as if this were 
the case, can be accepted as fact based on Olcott's testimony and 
others from the period. That she "possessed psychic powers in 
abundance" is Olcott's inference and not at all in the same category 
of evidence. Contemporary scholars cannot accept either Hodgson or 
Olcott as infallible interpreters of evidence, nor as unbiased 
reporters of that evidence. But each is a crucial primary source, and 
the testimony of each must be included in the process of sifting and 
weighing evidence for and against HPB's claims. Each deserves full, 
skeptical scrutiny. Neither can be assumed to be always right or 
always wrong. But the gist of Harrison's study, as I see it 
being "spun" by Theosophists, is to dismiss Hodgson across the board 
and allow continued acceptance of Olcott's and HPB's claims as 
entirely reliable. 

In the same interview Paul Johnson mentioneed; The only plausible 
explanation to my mind is that they are a collaboration between HPB
and Indian associates who are feeding her information. As to how they
were physically produced, I consider that a blind alley and waste of time.

No one will ever know. Damodar could have been helpful as a source 
drawn on by HPB for his inside knowledge of Indian religion, as were 
Subba Row and Mohini. 

The volume of the letters does not require a large network of fellow 
conspirators, or a small one, or in fact any at all. Given what we 
know of HPB's ability to produce a large volume of writing in a short 
time, composing the Mahatma letters in the time period in which they 
appeared is quite within her abilities. The circumstances of the 
letters' delivery would, in a few cases, require some conspirators. 
Among those suggested by other writers have been Damodar and the 
servant Babula; in the case of the Coulombs two witnesses confessed 
to having been part of a conspiracy. 

Sotheran co-founder of the TS who worked verry 
closely with Blavatsky made it clear that the "confident interpretations of=

 
the Society are fallacious" and that hPB was totally without occult 
power. "Afther intimate knowledge of her for a considerable period. I 
can affirm that in my humble opinion she possesses NONE WHATEVER, 
notwithstanding she may have psychlologized herself and her champions 
into believing so"

(Sotheran, "To the Editor of the Banner of Light" 
28/26, Januari 15,1876)

See also: http://mailbox.univie.ac.at/~muehleb9/ascendedm.html