Ergo, no more phenomena, at least here in India. While Mas[kelyne] and Cook produce theirs far better and are paid for it, we come out second best and are kicked for them.
Mr. Hume is more liberal than the Padris. These call Olcott "a credulous fool but undeniably an honest man"; and he declares, that since Olcott swears to have seen the Masters he must be a dishonest man, and since he got his pearl-pin at the pawnbroker's at Bombay he must be (by implication) a thief too, though Hume denies this.
Such is in brief the present situation. It began at Simla opening with the first act and now comes the Prologue that will soon finish with my death. For though, doctors notwithstanding (who proclaimed my four days' agony, and the impossibility of recovery) I suddenly got better, thanks to Master's protecting hand, I carry two mortal diseases in me which are not cured — heart, and kidneys. At any moment the former can have a rupture, and the latter carry me away in a few days. I will not see another year. All this is due to five years of constant anguish, worry and repressed emotion. A Gladstone may be called a "fraud" and laugh at it. I — can't, say what you may, Mr. Sinnett.
And now to your business. I have never, before beginning the service for you and Mr. Hume, transmitted and received letters to and from Masters except for myself. If you had any idea of the difficulties, or the modus operandi you would not have consented to be in my place. And yet I never refused. The shrine was thought of to facilitate the transmission, as now dozens and hundreds come to pray and beg to put their letters inside. As you know, and is proved to all except Mr. Hodgson, who finds contradictions, all received answers without my leaving the room and often in different languages. It is this, that unable to account for, Mr. Hume calls a wholesale collective fraud for, since the Masters in his idea do not exist, and that they have never written one single of the letters ever received — then the logical conclusion is that it is the whole staff — everyone in the Headquarters — Damodar, Bowaji, Subba Row, all, all who helped me to write the letters and passed them through the hole. Even Hodgson finds the idea preposterous.
And now to the "deception" practised on Mr. Arthur Gebhard, of which I learned from the Mahatma and A.G.'s own letter sent to me. This "fraud," coupled to the revelations and hints about others insinuated by kitten-like Mrs. Holloway, must have impressed a figure of H.P.B. of exquisite honourability and honesty on poor, dear Mrs. Gebhard!!
Well, persons who are on the eve of their death do not generally fib and say lies. I hope you will give me credit for speaking the truth. Ar. G. is not the only one to suspect and accuse me of fraud. Say then to the "friends" who may have received letters from the Master through me that I never was a deceiver; that I never played tricks upon them. I have often facilitated phenomena of letter-transmission by easier but still occult means. Only as none of the Theosophists, except occultists, know anything of either difficult or easy means of occult transmission, nor are they acquainted with occult laws, everything is suspicious to them. Take for instance this illustration as an instance: transmission by mechanical thought transference (in contradistinction with the conscious). The former is produced by calling first the attention of a chela or the Mahatma. The letter must be opened and every line of it passed over the forehead, holding the breath and never taking off the part of the letter from the latter until bell notifies it is read and noted. The other mode is to impress every sentence of the letter (consciously of course) still mechanically on the brain, and then send it phrase by phrase to the other person on the other end of the line. This of course if the sender permits you to read it, and believes in your honesty that you read it mechanically, only reproducing the form of the words and lines on your brain — and not the meaning. But in both instances the letter must be open and then burnt with what we call virgin fire (lit neither with matches, brimstone nor any preparation but rubbed with a resinous, transparent little stone, a ball that no naked hand must touch.) This is done for the ashes, which, while the paper burns become immediately invisible, which they should not, if the paper were lit otherwise; because they would remain by their weight and grossness in the surrounding atmosphere, instead of being transferred instantaneously to the receiver. This double process is done for double security: for the words transmitted from one brain to another, or to the akasa near the Mahatma or chela may, some of them be omitted, whole words slip out etc., and the ashes be not perfectly transmitted; and in this way one corrects the other. I cannot do that, and therefore speak of it only as an example how deception can be easily fathered. Fancy A. giving a letter for the Mahatma to B. B. goes in the adjoining room and opening the letter — not one word of which will he remember if he is a true chela and an honest man — transmits it to his brain by one of the two methods, sending one sentence after the other on the current and then proceeds to burn the letter; perhaps — he has forgotten the "virgin stone" in his room. Leaving inadvertently the opened letter on the table, he absents himself for a few minutes. During that time A. impatient and probably suspicious enters the room. He sees his letter opened on the table. He will either take it and make an EXPOSÉ (!!) or leave it and then ask B. after he has burnt it whether he sent his letter. Of course B. will answer he has. Then will come the exposé with consequences you may imagine, or A. will hold his tongue and do as many do: hold for ever B. for a fraud. This is one instance out of many, and a real one, given to me as a caution by Master.
There's a funny thing in Mr. A.G.'s letter, very funny and suggestive. For instance, recounting in it how he gave me the letter and six hours later I had told him "it was gone" he adds: "four days later Colonel wrote to H.P.B. saying that his Master appeared and said that K.H. had said: (see original sent back to you.) But then the good "Colonel must also be a fraud," a confederate of mine, an accomplice? Or is it my Master who mystifies him, Mr. A.G., Arthur Gebhard, or what? And then again: "H.P.B. is a fraud although I will never deny her excellent qualities." The 'excellent qualities' of a fraud is something startling and original at all events.