Copyright Issues, Mohini
Chatterjee’s
Failure, and the
Blending With Nirmanakayas
Helena P.
Blavatsky
Helena P. Blavatsky and William Q. Judge
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A 2011 Editorial Note:
The following
letter from Helena P. Blavatsky
to William Q.
Judge is dated 3 October, 1886. It is
reproduced from
“H.P. Blavatsky Collected Writings”,
T.P.H., volume
VII, pp. 136-138. We also have the
letter as
published by the magazine “Theosophical
Forum” in its
August 1932 edition, pp. 251-153.
We must thank the
Campbell Theosophical Research
Library, in
Australia, for kindly sending us, in
October 2011, a
copy of that edition of the magazine.
The letter is the
natural sequence to LBBJ-5. It
expands an
examination of the same topics, including
editorial and
economical matters and the difficulties with
Mohini. It was
written in the same day as H.P.B.’s answer
to the manifesto
signed by Mohini and Arthur Gebhard.
The text also discusses
the concept of Nirmanakaya
and the idea of a
disciple having one of his principles
“blended” to part
of the consciousness of a much higher being.
We add explanatory
notes to the letter.
(Carlos Cardoso Aveline)
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Ostende
Rue d’Ouest 17.
October 3 1886
My dear W.Q.J. -
Yours received -
Bouton is an old Shylock [1] -
& would skin his own mother. I cannot lose over 500$. I make him an offer
of 400$ in three months instalments - 100$ each - or 300$ down. The
secret is - does he care to have the Secret Doctrine or not - &
whether he still wants to have Isis illustrated as he proposed to me in
a letter. If he does - he will come down. If not, then there is little chance.
But I feel sure you could manage it. You know that the copyright of Isis is
mine - unless he has swindled me in this too. You ought to ascertain it. And if
the copyright in Washington is in my name - then I suppose you could
prevent him to sell even the remainder of the edition I do not know the laws
& you do.
But do try to come to some arrangement with him. If he gives me the 400
by instalment - then I want you to have a $100 out of it - 25$ each time; &
if he gives only 350 down at once then let him send me a cheque for 275$ - &
give you another for $75. I don’t want you to take trouble & bother
yourself for me for the Prussian King. But do try to settle something definite
with the old devil, so as to close accounts for ever in the matter of Isis hitherto
printed. And tell me whether you can copyright for me the S.D. and what I have
to do for it. Take to him my letter & try to mesmerize him & wig on the
right side. I tell you seriously the publisher who will have the
S.D. will make lots even if I myself do little. But I must fence and guarantee
myself, securely in this matter of copyrighting.
And now to other things & far more serious. Arthur is with you now
& you will find Arthur changed. One solitary month with Mohini has altered
him so, that he is no more the same man. And the fruit of all this is - a manifesto
written by Mohini & signed by both himself & Arthur. Anything more
ungrateful, cold, unjust to poor Olcott and cruel I have never read. Nor
did I ever expect such a thing from Mohini, who, if he is now regarded as a
Jesus on wheels & a Saint owes to Olcott’s advertisements of him
& my enthusiastic claims for him. Now Mr. Mohini Babu (he passed 2 weeks
with me) is cold, dignified & reserved with me, friendly and
“patronizing” - but still never showing his little game right before my nose,
but only behind my back. I will give you an example which will show his present
drift. Poor old Dr Bergen who is as devoted as devotion itself to the Master’s
(ideal I call it with all those who do not know Them personally)
- & who went on purpose to London to hear of, & about Them, and went to
see the Arundales, heard to his amazement that the Masters were no longer
regarded as the living actual Adepts, but either white Magicians with grayish
tints, or “fictions” or something he could not make out. The Mahatmas he
was told were unreachable Beings they could neither communicate, nor
take concern in worldly or private affairs could never write letters or send
messages - therefore our Masters could never be MAHATMAS.[2] You see what the consequences of
all this have to be don’t you? Then when Bergen protested & said that he,
at any rate, would never give up the living Masters; would always remain devoted
to Them etc. Miss Arundale arose & looking him straight in the face,
said: “I thought once as you do; it took me six months to
come to Mohini’s views; BUT NOW I THINK AS HE DOES.” Plain this: Mohini is then
exercising for over six months his influence over Miss Arundale to make her
lose faith & belief even in the Masters. To me Mohini never said it
so openly; but so many points more for him in wiliness & cunning. To me he
said he was not of Bowaji’s way of thinking; that he blamed him
etc. and his policy seems to be identical. Both are determined, I see, to
gradually destroy the Society. They are undermining it slowly but surely; hence
the “Manifesto,” the sense of which is “Society useless; Brotherhood a
flapdoodle; President - a vain, worldly, conceited, untheosophical &
unbrotherly & pernicious fool. Down then, with President,
Head-Quarters, Society & all.” You will see it, because I answered it,
& Sinnett will answer it too and we are going to print it to distribute
among Fellows. Such was Mohini’s influence on Arthur that he who was all
devotion when he arrived, now said to Sinnett in going away, “What matters it,
so long you do good that you work within or outside the T.S. Why
should there be any connection with it for us theosophists. Now keep
this letter private and confidential don’t say anything to him
but watch & see. But then I should not wonder in these days of Libra,
Dugpas & universal reckoning if even you found yourself
influenced by Arthur, Mohini and Co - Well, when I lose YOU - then will I say -
Goodbye Society - “Gone to join her grandmother”. Your friend of the “Libra” is right in many
ways; but of this later on. Ah, my poor dear Judge, do not be wiled away,
for pity sake. Things will change & then everyone will be rewarded or -
DAMNED. See if it don’t.
Olcott is a conceited ass, but there is no one more faithful
& true than he is to the Masters & the original ideal & no
one is more devoted to the Society planned & established under Their Orders
- than he is. I must, & will defend him publicly, & admit his
shortcomings as sincerely in print. I tell you we are on the eve of a crisis
brought by Mohini and Bowaji and he who will remain true will be saved while
all others will go to the Devil. The trouble with you is that you do not
know the great change that came to pass in you a few years ago. Others have
occasionally their astrals changed and replaced by those of Adepts (as
of Elementaries) & they influence the outer, & the higher
man. With you, it is the NIRMANAKAYA not the “astral” that blended with
your astral. Hence the dual nature & fighting. Fakir? Fakir be damned. The
man knows not the difference between a Nirmanakaya of an Adept & his
astral.
Do write to me, for mercy sake, I am sending you on the Reincarnation
as you asked, extracts from the S.D. & a full answer, I believe.
Your ever truly & faithfully (who?!) well, your friend anyhow
HPB
I am not coming just now to the U.S. who is the humbug who
invented it?
NOTES:
[1] Shylock - the rich and
unmerciful money-lender in William Shakespeare’s play “The Merchant of Venice”.
(CCA)
[2] The function of memory implies
an ability to be in tune with something at some definite level, or
levels, of consciousness. Mohini had been a disciple; but discipleship occurs mainly
at buddhic and buddhi-manasic level. Once the disciple loses access to the
buddhi-manasic consciousness, he loses the actual substance of memory
pertaining to that level. Hence an ex- disciple, having lost his main buddhic
and buddhi-manasic focus, will often lose every actual memory of the process of
discipleship and the sense that Masters are real beings. A similar process
seems to have happened to Ms. Mabel Collins. The loss of buddhi-manasic
consciousness provokes an exaggeration of skepticism, separative views and
cunning, as shown by H.P.B. in the following lines. (CCA)
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On the role of the esoteric movement in the
ethical awakening of mankind during the 21st century, see the book “The Fire and Light of Theosophical Literature”, by
Carlos Cardoso Aveline.
Published in
2013 by The Aquarian Theosophist,
the volume has 255 pages and can be obtained through Amazon Books.
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