And now she will receive a letter from me which will contain my ultimatum and conditions. She will not accept them, but will complain bitterly to several among you, suggesting new hints and insinuations against one whom she professed to adore. Prepare. A plank of salvation is offered to her but there is very little hope that she will accept it. However, I will try once more; but I have no right to influence her either way. If you will accept my advice, abstain from any serious correspondence with her until some fresh development. Try to save "Man" by looking it over with Mohini, and by erasing from it the alleged inspirations and dictation by "Student." Having had also "an object and a purpose" in view, I had to leave her under her self-delusion that this new book was written with the view of "correcting the mistakes" of Esoteric Buddhism ( — of killing it — was the true thought); and it was only on the eve of her departure that Upasika was ordered to see that Mohini should carefully expunge from it all the objectionable passages. During her stay in England Mrs. H. would have never permitted you to see her book before the final publication. But I would save five months labour of Mohini and will not permit it to remain unpublished.
Much as remains unexplained, the little you may have gathered from this letter will serve its purpose. It will start your thoughts in a new direction and will have unveiled another corner in the domain of psychological Isis.
If you would learn and acquire Occult Knowledge, you have, my friend, to remember that such tuition opens in the stream of chelaship many an unforeseen channel to whose current even a "lay" chela must perforce yield, or else strand upon the shoals; and knowing this to abstain for-ever judging on mere appearance. The ice is broken once more. Profit by it if you may.
K. H.
Letter No. 135 (ML-138) Rec. March 17, 1885
This is a long letter from H.P.B. to Sinnett, written shortly before she left India for her health on March 31, 1885. Mr. Hodgson of the Society for Psychic Research had completed his investigation.
Adyar, March 17th.
My dear Mr. Sinnett,
I am very sorry that the Mahatma should have selected me to fight this new battle. But since there must be concealed wisdom even in the act of choosing a half dead individual who just rises from eight weeks of sick bed and can hardly gather her scattered ideas to say that which had better be left unsaid — I obey.
You cannot have forgotten what I told you repeatedly at Simla and what the Master K.H. wrote to you himself, namely, that the T.S. is first of all a universal Brotherhood, not a Society for phenomena and occultism. The latter must be held secret etc. I know that owing to my great zeal for the cause and your assurances that the Society would never prosper unless the occult element was introduced into it and the Masters proclaimed I am more guilty than any for having listened to this. Still all of you have now to suffer Karma. Well, the phenomena are now all found, on the evidence of padris, and other enemies, frauds (by Mr. Hodgson), from the "brooch" phenomenon downward; and the Masters are dragged before the public and their names desecrated by every rascal in Europe.
The padris have spent thousands for false and other witnesses, and I was not permitted to go to law where at least I could produce my evidence: and now Hodgson, who unto this day seemed most friendly and came nearly daily to us changed front. He went to Bombay and saw Wimbridge and all my enemies. Returning he assured Hume, (who is here, and also coming daily) that in his opinion the evidence of our boys in office and other witnesses is so contradictory that after Bombay he came to the conclusion that all our phenomena were frauds. Amen.
And now what is the use in writing to disabuse Mr. Arthur Gebhard's mind? As soon as the P.R.S. oracle will have proclaimed me a wholesale "fraud" and all of you my dupes (as Hume does here laughingly, and with the greatest unconcern) — your L.L. Society is sure to collapse. Can even you, the true and the faithful, stand this storm? Happy Damodar! He went to the land of Bliss, to Tibet and must now be far away in the regions of our Masters. No one will ever see him now, I expect.
Well, this is where the accursed phenomena led us to. Olcott is returning from Burma in three days and will find nice things. At first Hume was all friendly. Then came the revelations. Hodgson had traced the brooch!!! I had given an identical brooch or pin to mend to Servai before going to Simla, he was told, and it was that brooch. Does Mrs. Sinnett remember that I spoke at that time of having had a pin very like it with pearls that I sent with another I bought at Simla to my sister's children? I spoke of the likeness even to Mr. Hume. I asked Mr. H. to have his pin sent to the jeweller (unknown but to Servai, Wimbridge's partner and my mortal enemy), who will or will not identify it. Most probably he will. Why shouldn't he — for a hundred rupees or so?
Mr. Hume wants to save the Society and has found a means. He called yesterday a Council meeting composed of Ragunath Row, Subba Row, Sreenavas Row, Honourable Subramanya Iyer and Rama Iyer. All leaders of Hindus. Then having selected Rag: Row Chairman and the audience being composed of the two Oakleys, Hartmann and the chelas — he gave him a paper. In it he proposed, to save the Society (he imagines and insists that it is falling to pieces after the "revelations," though not one fellow has yet resigned); to force Colonel Olcott its life-President, Madame Blavatsky, (ditto) Damodar (absent), Bowaji, Bhavani Row, Ananda, Rama Swami, etc. in all 16 persons to resign as they were all frauds and accomplices, since many of them asserted they knew the Masters independently of me and that the Masters did not exist. The Headquarters must be sold and on its place a new Scientifico-Philosophico-Humanitarian Theosophical society raised. I was not present at the meeting, I am confined to my room. But the Councillors came to me in a body after the proceedings. Instead of accepting the proposal though, and proclaiming the phenomena a fraud as Mr. Hume said they all had done to his knowledge — Ragunath Row rejected the paper, throwing it aside with disgust. They all believed in the Mahatmas — he said, and the phenomena they had witnessed personally, but would have no more their names desecrated. Phenomena must be, hereafter, prohibited, and if they did happen independently, must not be talked about under penalty of expulsion. They declined to ask the Founders to resign. They saw no reason for it. Mr. Hume is a queer "Saviour!"