We were expected to allow the Occult forces to be treated in the same manner as their rind — physical forces in nature. We are taken to task for not giving out to every man of learning who had joined the T.S. the fruits of the researches of generations of occultists who had all devoted their lives to it, and who had as often lost them in the great struggle of wrenching her secrets from the heart of Nature. Unless we did that — Occultism could not be recognised: it has to remain within the limbo of magic and superstition, spiritualism — in the sight of some — fraud in the opinion of others. Who thought for one instant that an occult law revealed ceased to be occult to become public property, unless it was given to an Occultist who dies before he betrays the secret?
What grumblings, what criticism on Devachan and kindred subjects for their incompleteness and many a seeming contradiction! Oh blind fools! They forget — or never knew that he who holds the keys to the secrets of Death is possessed of the keys of Life. That could everyone become a creative God in this race, acquiring knowledge so easily that there would be no necessity for a 6th and 7th races? And that we, we should have perverted the programme of BEING, garbled the accounts in the Book of Life, defeated in a word the ETERNAL WILL!
My friend, I have little if anything more to say. I regret deeply my inability to satisfy the honest, sincere aspirations of a few chosen ones among your group — not, at least, for the present. Could but your L.L. understand, or so much as suspect, that the present crisis that is shaking the T.S. to its foundations is a question of perdition or salvation to thousands; a question of the progress of the human race or its retrogression, of its glory or dishonour, and for the majority of this race — of being or not being, of annihilation, in fact — perchance many of you would look into the very root of evil, and instead of being guided by false appearances and scientific decisions, you would set to work and save the situation by disclosing the dishonourable doings of your missionary world.
Meanwhile — accept my best wishes.
K. H.
I believe I [had] better tell you once more what I would have you remember always. I should be glad if every question could be answered as easily as your query about the "distressing event." Why is it that doubts and foul suspicions seem to beset every aspirant for chelaship? My friend, in the Masonic Lodges of old times the neophyte was subjected to a series of frightful tests of his constancy, courage and presence of mind. By psychological impressions supplemented by machinery and chemicals, he was made to believe himself falling down precipices, crushed by rocks, walking spider-web bridges in mid-air, passing through fire, drowned in water and attacked by wild beasts. This was a reminiscence of and a programme borrowed from the Egyptian Mysteries. The West having lost the secrets of the East, had, as I say, to resort to artifice. But in these days the vulgarization of science has rendered such trifling tests obsolete. The aspirant is now assailed entirely on the psychological side of his nature. His course of testing — in Europe and India — is that of Raj-yog and its result is — as frequently explained — to develop every germ good and bad in him in his temperament. The rule is inflexible, and not one escapes whether he but writes to us a letter, or in the privacy of his own heart's thought formulates a strong desire for occult communication and knowledge. As the shower cannot fructify the rock, so the occult teaching has no effect upon the unreceptive mind; and as the water develops the heat of caustic lime so does the teaching bring into fierce action every unsuspected potentiality latent in him.
Few Europeans have stood this test. Suspicion, followed by self-woven conviction of fraud seems to have become the order of the day. I tell you with a very few exceptions — we have failed in Europe. Henceforth, the policy of absolute neutrality of the T.S. in occult teachings and phenomena will be rigidly enforced: whatever is imparted will be to individual members from individuals. For inst: if Mad. B. finds the necessary strength to live (and this depends entirely on her will and its powers of exertion) and is willing under the guidance of her guru, or even myself, to serve us as an amanuensis for you, (Sinnett, not for the group) she can, if she likes, send you weekly or monthly instructions. Mohini could do the same — but under the pledge that neither our names, nor that of the sender will be ever made public; nor shall the T.S. be made responsible for these teachings. If the Oriental group survives, something could be yet done for it. But never, henceforth, shall the Society in India be allowed to be compromised again by phenomena that are denounced wholesale as fraud. The good ship is sinking, friend, because its precious cargo has been offered to the public at large; because some of its contents have been desecrated by profane handling, and its gold — received as brass. Henceforth, I say, no such profane eye will see its treasures, and its outer decks and rigging must be cleansed of the impurity and dross that was accumulated on them by the indiscretion of its own members. Try to remedy the evil done. Every step made by one in our direction will force us to make one toward him. But it is not by going to Ladakh that one shall find us, as Mr. Lane-Fox imagines.
Once more, accept my blessing and parting greeting if they have to be my last.
K. H.
Letter No. 137 (ML-97) Rec. Fall 1885
There had been no letters for some time, and the last one from the Mahatma K.H. had not been a very encouraging one. At the time this letter was received, H.P.B. had left Adyar for the last time in March and had gone to Germany, where she was working on The Secret Doctrine. Another Indian chela, Babaji or Bawajee, had come over with her from India, and apparently Mohini had come to meet them.
Sinnett had just published an occult novel entitled Karma, using H.P.B. as the central figure.
The question in this letter: "Are you not man of the world enough to bear the small defects of young disciples?" concerned the behavior of Babaji and Mohini. Babaji, it developed, was an epileptic and subject to occasional outbursts of erratic and rather wild behavior which included bitter denunciations of his benefactress, H.P.B. Mohini, bound by ties of nationality to the younger chela, was inclined to take his part in several controversies which arose. Moreover, Mohini had met with such adulation on the part of some of the European members that it was beginning to go to his head and he was showing evidence of rather poor judgment in his relations with a number of them.