Theos-Talk Archives (November 2002 Message tt00082)

Wry: Joseph Smith, or whatever his name was, found the Book
of Mormon on tablets of pure gold which he dug up in the ground. To 
me this is ridiculous.

Brian: There are indeed many more believing Mormons then people 
believe the "Mahatma Letters" have been created out of tin air, as Daniel 
Caldwell and Dallas/Dalval keep suggesting.

Like Smith and the Golden Tablets, Blavatsky did not provide 
documentary or other real evidence for her sources. Including that there 
are no reliable reports of someone for example having seen any of the 
so called "Mahatmas" while writing any of these letters.

Instead we do have reports like that 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, Hume 
and Sinnet decided to send a letter to the "Maha Chohan," another 
Master, asking to correspond directly without the meddling hand of 
Blavatsky. Giving 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. 

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

Brian