THE QUESTION OF THE MAHĀTMĀS
We left Mme Blavatsky in 1876 at the point where she was thinking of going to India. This departure, which was not to take place before November 18, 1878, seems to have been determined above all, if not exclusively, by the quite justified attacks to which she had been subject. Referring to the publication of Incidents in My Life by Dunglas Home, she wrote:
It is because of this that I am going to India for good. Out of shame and grief, I need to go where nobody knows my name. Home's spitefulness has ruined me forever in Europe.[1]
She always harbored resentment against the medium who, at the instigation of the mysterious M..., whom she called 'the Calvin of Spiritism', had denounced her trickery. Much later, she wrote the following about the dangers of mediumship:
Look back over the life of Dunglas Home, a man whose mind was steeped in gall and bitterness, who never had a good word to say of anyone whom he suspected of possessing psychic powers, and who slandered even other mediums to the bitter end.[2]
At a certain point and for the same reasons, Mme Blavatsky had also thought of 'going to Australia and changing her name for good.'[3]
Then, probably in 1878, having given up this idea, she became a naturalized American citizen; finally, she decided to go to India in accordance with her initial intention. Thus she wished to undertake this journey in her own interest, not in the interest of her society, and despite Olcott's opposition. She ended up taking him along however and he abandoned his family in order to follow her. In fact, three years earlier she had said of Olcott: 'He is far from being rich and has nothing to leave behind except his literary works, and he has to support his wife and many children.[4] We never hear of them again, and Olcott himself does not seem to have been the least bit concerned to know what became of them.
On their arrival in India, Blavatsky and her associate first settled in Bombay, and then in 1882 in Adyar, near Madras, where the headquarters of the Theosophical Society were established and are still to be found today. An 'esoteric section' was founded and the fantastic phenomena multiplied in a prodigious manner: knocking at will, tingling of invisible bells, the carrying and 'materialization' of all sorts of objects, and above all, 'precipitation' of letters sent by 'astral' means. Many such examples can be found in The Occult World by A.P. Sinnett; it seems that this author, who at the beginning probably contributed more than anybody else to make Theosophism known in Europe, was genuinely fooled by all of Mme Blavatsky's tricks. Not only letters were 'precipitated', but also drawings and even paintings; the latter were doubtless produced through the same methods as the so-called mediumistic paintings that Blavatsky formerly devised in Philadelphia and sold at a high price to those she had taken in-among others General Lippitt, who ended up being disillusioned. Furthermore, all these phenomena were not entirely new, 'astral bells' having already been heard in America before Olcott and the Baron of Palmes. Curiously enough, at that time they were also heard in England in the homes of Dr Speer and Stainton Moses; perhaps this is even one of the circumstances that made Olcott later say that 'Stainton Moses and Mme Blavatsky were inspired by the same intelligence,[5] probably the enigmatic Imperator
mentioned earlier. Nevertheless, toward the end of his life, Stainton Moses had written to his friend William Oxley that 'Theosophy is an hallucination.[6]
During this period the Tibetan 'Mahātmās' appeared on the scene, and thenceforth the production of all the phenomena would be attributed to them, the first and foremost being the famous Koot Hoomi Lal Singh, Mme Blavatsky's new 'Master'. It was said that the name under which this personage was known was 'his "Tibetan Mystic name", for occultists, it would seem, take new names on initiation.[7] However, if Koot Hoomi may be a Tibetan or Mongol name, Lal Singh is certainly a Hindu 'kshatriya' or Sikh name, which is not the same thing at all. It is nonetheless true that a change of name is a practice that exists in many secret societies, in the West as well as in the East; thus, in the 1714 statutes of the Golden Rose-Cross, one reads that 'every Brother shall change his first name and surname after he has been accepted, and shall do the same each time he changes countries.' This is only one example among many others, and is the kind of thing which Mme Blavatsky could easily have been aware. Here is what Sinnett has to say of Koot Hoomi in relating how he entered into correspondence with him:
I may here explain, what I learned afterwards, that he was a native of the Punjab who was attracted to occult studies from his earliest boyhood. He was sent to Europe whilst still a youth at the intervention of a relative-himself an occultist-to be educated in Western knowledge, and since then has been fully initiated in the greater knowledge of the East.[8]
Later on, it was held that he had already attained this full initiation in the course of his previous incarnations; but since contrary to the case of ordinary people the 'Masters' preserve the memory of all their existences (and some say that Koot Hoomi had around eight hundred), it seems difficult to reconcile these various assertions.
The 'Mahātmās' or 'Masters of Wisdom' are the highest-ranking members of the 'Great White Lodge', that is to say of the occult hierarchy which according to Theosophists secretly governs the world. At the beginning, it was conceded that they themselves were subordinates of a single supreme head;[9] now, it seems that the heads are seven in number, like the 'seven adepts' of the Rose-Cross who possess the 'elixir of long life' (an extraordinary longevity being also one of the qualities attributed to the 'Mahātmās'), and that these seven heads represent 'the seven centers of the Heavenly Man' whose 'brain and heart are formed respectively by the Manu and the Bodhisattva who guide every human race.[10] The union of the two concepts of the Manu and the Bodhisattva-who do not belong to the same tradition, since the first is Brahmanic and the second Buddhist-gives quite a remarkable example of the 'eclectic' fashion in which Theosophism makes up its so-called doctrine. Initially the 'Mahātmās' were sometimes also called by the simple name of 'Brothers'; today, the term 'Adepts' is preferred, a term borrowed by Theosophists from Rosicrucian language in which in fact it properly designates initiates who have attained the highest grades of the hierarchy. Dr Ferrand, in the article we have already mentioned, thought it appropriate to make a distinction between the 'Mahātmās' and 'the masters or adepts', and he believes that the latter are the only real heads of the Theosophical Society;[11] but this is a mistake, for the latter, on the contrary, modestly affect to call themselves mere 'students'. For the Theosophists, the 'Mahātmās' and the 'Adepts' are one and the same thing, this identification having already been suggested by Dr Franz Hartmann.[12] It was also to them that the title of 'Masters' was applied,[13] at first generally, and later with a restriction: for Leadbeater, 'all the Adepts are not Masters, because all do not accept students,' and strictly speaking one should
call Masters only those who, like Koot Hoomi and some others, 'agree, under certain conditions, to accept as students those who prove themselves worthy of this honor.[14]
The question of the 'Mahātmās', which occupies a considerable place in the history of the Theosophical Society and even in its teachings, can be greatly clarified by everything we have summarized earlier. Indeed, this question is more complex than one would normally think, and it is not enough to say that the 'Mahātmās' existed merely in the imagination of Mme Blavatsky and her associates; no doubt the name Koot Hoomi, for example, may be a mere invention, but like those of the 'spiritual guides' who were his predecessors, it may very well have served as a mask for a real influence. However, it is certain that Mme Blavatsky's true inspirers, whoever they may have been, did not fit the description she gives of them; and from another point of view, in Sanskrit, the very word 'Mahātmā' never had the meaning she attributed to it, for in reality this word indicates a metaphysical principle and cannot be applied to human beings. Perhaps it is even because this mistake was noticed that the use of the term was almost completely abandoned. As for the phenomena that were allegedly produced by the intervention of the 'Masters', they were of exactly the same nature as those of the 'miracles clubs' of Cairo, Philadelphia, and New York. This was largely confirmed by Dr Richard Hodgson's enquiry, as we shall see further on. The 'precipitated messages' were fabricated by Mme Blavatsky with the complicity of Damodar K. Mavalankar (a Brahmin who had publicly forsaken his caste) and some others, as was stated as early as 1883 by Allen O. Hume, who after having started his collaboration with Sinnett in editing Esoteric Buddhism withdrew when he discovered the numerous contradictions contained in Koot Hoomi's so-called correspondence, which was to serve as the basis for this book. Moreover, Sinnett himself admitted that
the more my readers will be acquainted with India, the less they will be willing to believe, except on the most positive testimony,
that the letters from Koot Hoomi... have been written by a native of India![15]
Already at the very time of the split with the Arya Samäj, it was discovered that one of the letters in question, reproduced in the June 1881 issue of the Occult World,[16] was for the most part quite simply the copy of a lecture given at Lake Pleasant in August 1880 by Professor Henry Kiddle from New York, and published the same month in the spiritist review Banner of Light. Kiddle wrote to Sinnett asking for an explanation; Sinnett did not even deign to reply, and meanwhile branches of the Theosophical Society were founded in London and Paris. However it was not long before the scandal broke: in 1883, his patience exhausted, Kiddle decided to go public with his protest,[17] which immediately caused numerous and sensational resignations, particularly in the London branch. Among others were those of C.C. Massey, the then President (replaced by Sinnett), Stainton Moses, F. W. Percival, and Mabel Collins, author of Light on the Path[18] and Golden Gates. Dr George Wyld, who had been the first President of the same London branch, had already withdrawn in May 1882 because Mme Blavatsky had said in an article in the Theosophist that 'there is no personal or impersonal God,' to which he had quite logically retorted, 'If there is no God, there cannot be a Theo-sophical teaching.' Furthermore, everywhere and at all times, large numbers of people who had imprudently entered the Theosophical Society also withdrew when they were sufficiently informed about its leaders or the worth of its teachings.
These facts led, at least temporarily, to the replacement of Koot Hoomi by another 'Mahātmā' named Morya, the very same whom Mme Blavatsky later claimed to have met in London in 1851, and with whom Mrs Besant was also to communicate a few years later. If
we are to believe Leadbeater, there were very close and very old ties between Morya, Mme Blavatsky, and Colonel Olcott. In this connection, he recounts something supposed to have taken place a few thousand years ago in Atlantis, where these three characters were already together![19] Morya, whom Sinnett called 'the Illustrious' and whom Mme Blavatsky, more familiarly, called 'the general', is never referred to other that by his initial in the appendices of the new editions of the Occult World (there was as yet no mention of him in the first edition). Here is the reason given:
It is difficult sometimes to know what to call the Brothers, even when one knows their real names. The less these are promiscuously handled the better, for various reasons, among which is the profound annoyance which it gives their real disciples if such names get into frequent and disrespectful use among scoffers.[20]
Mme Blavatsky also said: '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.[21] This is why the custom that prevailed was to speak only of the 'Masters' K.H. (Koot Hoomi), M. (Morya) and D.K. (Djwal Khūl). This last named, presented as the reincarnation of Aryasanga, a disciple of Buddha, is a newcomer among the 'Mahātmās'; he has attained 'Adepthood' only very recently, since Leadbeater says that he had not yet reached that stage when he appeared before him for the first time.[22]
Koot Hoomi and Morya are still considered the two main guides of the Theosophical Society, and it appears that they are destined to a still more elevated position than the present one. It is Leadbeater again who informs us of this:
Many of our students know that Master M., the Great Adept to whom our two founders are especially connected, was chosen to be the Manu of the sixth root-race (the one that is to follow
ours), and that his inseparable friend the Master K. H. is to be its religious teacher,[23]
that is to say the Bodhisattva. In the Lives of Alcyone which we shall discuss later, Morya is designated under the name of Mars and Koot Hoomi under that of Mercury. Djwal Khūl is called Uranus and the present Bodhisattva is called Sürya, the Sanskrit name for the sun. According to Theosophical teachings, Mars and Mercury are among the physical planets of the solar system belonging to the same 'chain' as the earth, terrestrial humanity having previously been incarnated on Mars, and in future to be incarnated on Mercury. The choice of these two names of the planets to designate respectively the future Manu and the Bodhisattva seems to have been determined by the following passage from the Voice of Silence:
See Migmar (Mars) whilst through its crimson veils its 'Eye' caresses the sleepy earth. See the flamboyant aura of the 'Hand' of Lhagpa (Mercury) stretched with protective love upon the head of its ascetics.[24]
Here, the eye corresponds to the brain and the hand to the heart; on the other hand, in the order of faculties, these two main centers of 'Celestial Man' represent memory and intuition, of which the first refers to the past of mankind, and the second to its future. For the sake of curiosity, as well as for information, it is interesting to mention these concordances, and in addition that the Sanskrit name for the planet Mercury is Budha. In connection with Mercury, it is worth noting a story from the serial Lives of Alcyone, where the latter appears in the form of a Greek fisherman whose body he had taken over after having been killed by barbarians. Let us take advantage of the occasion to quote a passage from Fénelon,[25] where it is said that
the philosopher Pythagoras had formerly been the fisherman Pyrrhus and that he was said to be the son of Mercury, with the added comment that 'it is an interesting parallel.[26] It must indeed be so for Theosophists, who have a firm belief that their 'Master' Koot Hoomi is the reincarnation of Pythagoras.
The Theosophists regard the 'Adepts' as living men, but men who have developed faculties and powers that may seem superhuman. Such for example is the possibility of knowing the thoughts of others and of communicating directly and instantly through 'psychic telegraphy' with other 'Adepts' or their disciples, wherever they may be, and the power of traveling in their 'astral' form, not only from one end of the earth to the other, but even to other planets. However, knowing what the Theosophists mean by 'Mahātmās' is not enough; in fact, it is not even what matters most. Above all, we must also know what all of this corresponds to in reality. Indeed, even having taken account of the very large measure of fraud and trickery-and we have shown that this must be done-not everything has yet been said about these fantastic personages, for it is quite rare that impostures are not based on imitation or deformation of reality. When cleverly done, moreover, it is the mixture of truth and falsehood which makes them more dangerous and more difficult to unmask. The famous hoax of Léo Taxil provides a good series of instructive examples in this connection; and this parallel comes quite naturally to mind[27] because, just as Taxil finally admitted that he had made everything up, so also did Mme Blavatsky in certain moments of anger and discouragement, although less publicly. Not only did she write in one of her last books that far from harming her, the accusation that she had invented the 'Mahātmās' and their teachings was an excessive honor to her intelligencewhich by the way is questionable-but also that 'she almost prefers that people should not believe in the Masters.[28] Furthermore, regarding 'phenomena', there is a very clear statement by Olcott:
On certain days, her state of mind was such that she would start denying the very powers of which she had given us the most proof, under our careful control; she would then contend that she had fooled the public.[29]
In this connection, Olcott wonders 'whether she sometimes wanted to make fun of her own friends.' This is certainly possible; but was she mocking them when she displayed 'phenomena' or when she claimed that they were false? In any case, Mme Blavatsky's denials almost ended up spreading beyond her familiar circle, for one day she wrote to her compatriot Solovioff:
I shall say and publish in the Times and in all the papers that the 'Master' [Morya] and the 'Mahātmā Koot Hoomi' are solely the product of my own imagination-that I invented them-that the phenomena are more or less spiritualist apparitions, and I shall have twenty million spiritualists behind me.[30]
If this threat had not been enough to produce the intended effect on certain circles through the recipient of this letter, Mme Blavatsky would doubtless not have hesitated to carry it out, with the result that her venture would have met the same end as that of Taxil. However, one who has deceived by claiming that all that was said was true can deceive again in claiming that it was declared false in order to escape probing questions, or for some completely different reason. In any case, it is quite obvious that one can imitate only what exists; this can be noted especially in connection with so-called 'psychic' phenomena, the imitation of which presumes that at least some real phenomena exist in this domain. Similarly, if the so-called 'Mahātmās' were invented-which for us is not in doubt-not only was it for the sake of masking the influences that were really at work behind Mme Blavatsky, but this invention was conceived according to a preexisting model. The Theosophists like to present the 'Mahātmās' as the successors of the Vedic Rishis of India and the Arhats of
original Buddhism.[31] In fact they know little about either, but the distorted ideas they have formed may very well have been the source of some of the features they claim for their 'Masters'. However, the essential aspect has come from elsewhere, somewhere much closer: almost all initiatic organizations, even Western ones, have always invoked certain 'Masters', whom they call by different names. Such were the Rosicrucian 'Adepts' as well as the 'Unknown Superiors' of eighteenth-century high Masonry. Here also we have living men who possess certain transcendental or supranormal faculties; and although she certainly never had the least connection with 'Masters' of this kind, Mme Blavatsky was able to gather more information on them than on the Rishis and Arhats, who, never having been regarded in any way as the heads of some organization, could not be used as a model for the 'Mahātmās'.
We have seen that Blavatsky was in touch with Rosicrucian organizations which, although in all respects very distant from the original Brotherhood of the Rose-Cross, had nevertheless preserved certain notions related to the 'Adepts'. Moreover, she knew of various works containing information on this question; thus, among the books she studied with Olcott in America, of which we shall speak again, there is mention of L'Etoile Flamboyante by the baron of Tschoudy and Magia Adamica by Eugenius Philalethes.[32] The first of these two books, published in 1766, the author of which was the creator of several high Masonic grades, contains a 'Catechism of the Unknown Philosophers,[33] of which the major part is drawn from the writings of the Rosicrucian Sendivogius, also called the Cosmopolitan, and who some believe to be Michael Maier.[34] The author of the second book, dating from 1650, is another Rosicrucian
whose real name was said to be Thomas Vaughan even though he was known under other names in various countries: Childe in England, Zheil in America, Carnobius in Holland;[35] he is in any case a very mysterious character, and what is most curious is 'the tradition that claims he has not yet left this world.[36] Stories of this kind are not so rare as one might think, and one hears of 'Adepts' said to have lived for many centuries and who, appearing at different times, always seem to be the same age. As examples we may mention the affair of the Count of Saint-Germain, which is certainly the most famous, and that of Gualdi, the alchemist from Venice. The Theosophists say exactly the same things about the 'Mahātmās',[37] and there is thus no reason to look elsewhere for their origin. The very idea of locating their abode in India or in Central Asia comes from the same sources; indeed, a work published in 1714 by Sincerus Renatus, the founder of the 'Golden Rose-Cross', states that the Masters of the Rose-Cross left for India some time since and that none were left in Europe. The same thing had been announced earlier by Henri Neuhaus, who added that this departure took place after the declaration of the Thirty Years War. Whatever one thinks of these assertions (which should be compared with Swedenborg's claim that from now on one must look for the 'lost Word'-that is, the secrets of initiation-among the sages of Tibet and Tartary), it is certain that the Rose-Cross had links with Eastern organizations, especially Islamic ones. Apart from their own affirmations, there are some remarkable parallels: the traveler Paul Lucas, who traveled through Greece and Asia Minor during the reign of Louis XIV, recalls meeting four dervishes in Brousse, one of whom seemed to speak all the languages of the world (a faculty
also attributed to the Brothers of the Rose-Cross), and said that he belonged to a group of seven people who meet every twenty years in a town chosen in advance. This dervish assured him that the philosopher's stone enabled one to live a thousand years, and told him the story of Nicolas Flamel, who was believed dead but who in fact lived in India with his wife.[38]
Our purpose here is not to give an opinion on the existence of the 'Masters' and the reality of their extraordinary faculties, although we may have the opportunity to reconsider this question one day. In order to adequately address this subject, which is one of crucial importance for all those interested in the study of questions related to Masonry-particularly the controversial issue of 'occult powers'-we would have to go into a lengthy exposition. Our sole intention was to show that Mme Blavatsky simply attributed to the 'Mahātmās' what she knew or thought she knew about the 'Masters', and that in doing so she committed certain mistakes and took literally accounts that were above all symbolic. However, it did not take too much effort of imagination to compose the portrait of these personages whom she finally relegated to an inaccessible region of Tibet in order to make verification impossible. But she went too far when she wrote the above-mentioned sentence to Solovioff, for the model according to which she had conceived the 'Mahātmās' was in no way her own invention. She had merely distorted it through her imperfect understanding, and because her attention was primarily focused on 'phenomena' which serious initiatic associations on the contrary have always regarded as something quite negligible. Besides, she would more or less deliberately confuse these 'Mahātmās' with her real hidden inspirers, who certainly did not possess any of the characteristics she so baselessly attributed to them. Subsequently, whenever Theosophists came across any references to 'Masters', in Rosicrucianism or elsewhere, and whenever they could find anything similar in the scanty knowledge they managed to gather on Eastern traditions, they contended that it concerned the 'Mahātmās' and their 'Great White Lodge'. This is really a reversal of
the natural order of things, since it is obvious that the copy cannot be prior to the model. Similarly, these same Theosophists tried to make use of elements of most diverse and sometimes unexpected provenance. Thus they sought to take advantage of the visions of Anne-Catherine Emmerich by identifying the place-perhaps symbolic-described by the Westphalian nun as the 'Mount of the Prophets', with the mysterious abode of their 'Masters of Wisdom'.[39]
As we have said, most of the 'Masters' are supposed to abide in Tibet. Such is the case for those mentioned so far, and these Tibetan 'Masters' are the actual 'Mahātmās', although as has been pointed out this term is somewhat obsolete. However according to the Theosophists there are some others who reside not so far away, at least since the 'Mahātmās' have been undoubtedly identified with the 'Adepts' in the Rosicrucian sense of the word. One of them in particular is said to reside customarily in the Balkans, although it is true that his supposed role is related more to Rosicrucianism in the strict sense than to ordinary Theosophy.[40] We have a personal recollection of this 'Master', who seems to be one of the 'seven adepts' mentioned by Count MacGregor: a few years ago, in 1913 if we remember correctly, it was proposed that we meet him (the matter in question had in principle nothing to do with Theosophy). Since it did not commit us to anything we accepted readily, without any illusion regarding the probable result. On the day of our meeting
(which was not supposed to take place 'in the astral'), only a single influential member of the Theosophical Society showed up; one who, coming from London, where the 'Master' was supposed to be, claimed that the latter had been unable to accompany him on the journey, and found some pretext as an excuse. Since then there has been no further news of any kind, except that we learned that the correspondence addressed to the 'Master' was intercepted by Mrs Besant. Of course this does not prove the non-existence of the 'Master' in question, and we will not draw the least conclusion from this story in which the name of the mysterious Imperator was involved as if by chance.
Faith in the 'Masters'-we mean 'Masters' strictly in the sense defined by Mme Blavatsky and her successors-is in a way the very basis for the whole of Theosophy, of whose teachings they are the sole guarantee: either these teachings express knowledge acquired and communicated by the 'Masters', or they are a mass of worthless fantasies. This is why Countess Wachtmeister said that 'if there were no Mahātmās or Adepts . . . the teachings of that system which has been called "Theosophy" would be false,[41] while for her part Mrs Besant formally declared: 'Without the Mahātmās, the Society is an absurdity.[42] On the contrary, with the Mahātmās the Society is endowed with a unique character, an exceptional importance: 'it occupies a very special place in modern life, for its origin is entirely different from that of all existing institutions,[43] 'it is one of the great monuments of world history,[44] and 'the fact of joining the Theosophical Society amounts to placing oneself under the direct protection of the supreme guides of mankind.[45] Thus, if the 'Masters' seemed at certain moments to retreat from view, it is nevertheless true that they never disappeared, and in fact they could not disappear from Theosophy; they may not manifest themselves through such striking 'phenomena' as at the beginning, but in the
Society one speaks of them as much today as during Blavatsky's own time.
In spite of this, ordinary members of the Theosophical Society transfer to their visible leaders the veneration originally reserved to the 'Masters', a veneration amounting to a real idolatry. Is it because they find the 'Masters' too distant and inaccessible, or because the prestige of these extraordinary beings is reflected on those who are believed to be constantly in touch with them? Perhaps both these reasons play a part. The 'student' who desires to get in touch with the 'Masters' is advised first to contact them through the intermediary of their disciples, and above all through the President of the Theosophical Society. Mr Wedgwood says:
He will be able to unite his mind with hers-that is, Mrs Besant's-by means of her works, her writings, or her lectures. With the help of her image, he will reach her in his meditation. Every day, at regular intervals, he will fix her image in his mind and will send her thoughts of love, devotion, gratitude, and strength.[46]
One should not believe that there is the least exaggeration on our part when we speak of idolatry; in addition to the preceding text, where the use of the word 'devotion' is already quite significant, one may judge by these two examples. A few years ago, in a confidential letter sent to his colleagues in a critical circumstance, George S. Arundale, principal of the 'Central Hindu College' of Benares, called Mrs Besant 'the future leader of gods and men,' and more recently, in a town in southern France during the 'White Lotus' festival (commemorating Mme Blavatsky's death), a delegate from the 'Apostolic Center' cried out in front of the founder's portrait: 'Adore her, as I myself adore her!' This needs no further comment, and we will only add a word in this connection: however absurd such things may be, it is not all that surprising, for when one knows on what ground the 'Mahātmās' stand, one is allowed, by Mrs Besant's own declaration, to conclude that Theosophy is nothing but an 'absurdity'.