Adyar Leaders
Denied the Veracity
of the ‘Prayag
Letter’ from a Mahatma
Jean Overton
Fuller
Ms. Jean Overton Fuller (photo) was born on 7 March
1915 and lived up to 2009
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000
A 2017 Editorial Note:
The following
text reproduces chapter 37 in
the book “Blavatsky and Her Teachers”, by
Jean Overton
Fuller (East-West Publications,
in Association
with TPH-London, 1988, 270
pp., see p. 86).
Here Jean O. Fuller discusses
the Letter from
a Mahatma of the Himalayas
which is
published in our associated websites
or CXXXIV, in
the non-Chronological Editions
of “The Mahatma Letters”, and to Letter 30,
in the
Chronological Edition (TPH, Philippines).
(Carlos Cardoso
Aveline)
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
There had been formed
at Allahabad an all-Brahmin Lodge, the only Lodge of the Theosophical Society
to omit from its objects the following: ‘To form a nucleus of the Universal
Brotherhood of Mankind’, presumably because a Brahmin, unable even to sit at
table with a non-Brahmin, could not call a non-Brahmin ‘brother’.
Now they had protested to Sinnett that they had not
received messages from the Masters and did not understand why not, seeing that
‘beef-eating, wine-drinking Englishmen’ had been so favoured. It was in these
circumstances that Madame Blavatsky wrote to Sinnett from ‘Dehra Dun. Friday
14th’ (no year) [1], ‘Saw at last M.
and showed him your last… I wrote this under his dictation and now copy it’.
Morya announced, somewhat roughly, that because Koot
Hoomi and he had opened a correspondence with two men it did not give everybody
else a claim to hear from them, especially such as had ‘never given up caste…
their exclusive selfishness’, and none of that group would hear from them.
H.P.B.’s letter continues: [2]
“…Unless he is prepared to do as D. Mavalankar did, -
give up entirely caste, his old superstitions and show himself a true reformer
- (especially in the case of child marriage)… It is useless for a member to
argue ‘I am one of a pure life, I am a total teetotaller and an abstainer from
meat and vice…’ There are 100 of thousands of Fakhirs, Sannyasis and Saddhus
leading the most pure lives, and yet being as they are, on the path of error, never having had an opportunity
to meet, see or even hear from us… Mr Sinnett and Hume are exceptions. Their
beliefs are no barriers to us for they have none.
They may have had influence around them, bad magnetic emanations the result of
drink, Society and promiscuous physical associations (resulting even from shaking
hands with impure men)… which with a little effort we could counteract… Not so
with the magnetism… proceeding from erroneous and sincere beliefs. Faith in the
Gods and God and other superstitions attracts millions of foreign influences,
living entities… we would have to use more than ordinary exercise of power to
drive them away… unprogressed planetaries who delight in personating gods.
There are… ‘Chohans of Darkness’, who have never been born on this or any other
sphere…”
There seems to be a warning here that the polytheistic
religions, unless their symbols are kept very pure, risk degenerating into the
cult of nameless entities which, when not indeed demons, can, by inhabiting the
thought-forms engendered, form distracting company. I knew a Catholic lady
once, who was convinced that all hits at religion in the Mahatma Letters, including it seemed this one, were at the Christian
Church. Well, if the cap is felt to fit there may be no harm in anybody’s
wearing it, but it was not for her Church this was intended. Perhaps the
Muslims, who forbid all personifications of deity, keep to the safe side. [3]
After Madame Blavatsky’s death, G.N. Chakravarti, who
had influence with Annie Besant, complained about this letter and she, and
Olcott (to whom she passed the complaint although he did not see the letter),
averred that it could not be genuine. [4]
Yet it is now in the British Museum and it is in Madame Blavatsky’s
handwriting. Annie Besant and Olcott misunderstood the letter to be an attack
on the Hindus, whereas it was the Brahmins’ contempt for others that called
forth the Master’s rebuke. In any case, neither seems to have taken the point
that the Moryas or Mauryas were the historic and legendary enemies of the
Brahmin caste.
Damodar had, by breaking caste in sitting at table
with Theosophists, forfeited his inheritance; his father made an alteration to
his will. [5]
NOTES:
[1] “The Theosophical Movement”, Anon. - i.e. Robert
Crosbie and other members of the United Lodge of Theosophists (Dutton, New
York, 1925), pp. 624-625.
[2] British Museum, Additional MSS.45286, CXXXIV: “Mahatma
Letters”, pp. 461-462.
[3] Note from
the Editor: At this point J. Overton
Fuller got the facts wrong. Islam is probably the most aggressive and fanatic
of all monotheisms. She probably was thinking of the Sufis. (CCA)
[4] Crosbie, ibid., pp. 627-628.
[5] Here lies the origin of an erroneous footnote by
Jinarajadasa to “The Early Teachings of the Masters”, p. 65, that “the
Disinherited” was Damodar K. Mavalankar - which error has generated passages of
scorn from the Hare brothers in their book “Who Wrote the Mahatma Letters?”.
They accuse the Mahatmas, where they refer to Damodar and the Disinherited as
being in correspondence with each other, as trying to make two persons out of
Damodar. But Damodar and the Disinherited are two persons. Damodar is a
Maratha of Brahmin caste living in Bombay, disinherited by his father. The
Disinherited (whose real name we never learn) was disinherited by his grandfather
long before our story opens, and lives in Tibet, as is evident from his giving
to Koot Hoomi a stock of note-paper he had no occasion to use, and from his
suffering a nasty accident on a path above a ravine through setting foot on a
magnetised rag set by Dugpas. Damodar had not at that date been to Tibet.
000
In September 2016, after a careful analysis of the state of the
esoteric movement worldwide, a group of students decided to form the Independent Lodge of Theosophists,
whose priorities include the building of a better future in the different
dimensions of life.
000
