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Masters of Wisdom: The Mahatmas, Their Letters, and the Path, by Edward Abdill
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A rigorous historical and philosophical examination of the controversial spiritual Masters who guided Madame H.P. Blavatsky in opening the world to Eastern and esoteric spirituality in the late nineteenth century.
In the late nineteenth century, Russian noblewoman and occult philosopher Madame H.P. Blavatsky enthralled the world with revelations of an ancient “secret doctrine” behind the major faiths and a cosmic theology that united the insights of religion and science.
Blavatsky said she was operating under the guidance of hidden Masters of wisdom, or mahatmas, who led her to reveal forgotten wisdom to modern people.
The mythos of Blavatsky’s Masters left a deep mark on Western culture and spawned more than a century of debate: Were the Masters real? What did they teach? Are they reachable today?
Now, independent scholar of religion Edward Abdill provides an authoritative, historically reliable, and delightfully readable study of the background and ideas of the Masters – in particular highlighting their message and its enduring relevance.
- Sales Rank: #740763 in Books
- Published on: 2015-05-19
- Released on: 2015-05-19
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.22" h x .72" w x 5.45" l, 1.00 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 288 pages
About the Author
Edward Abdill, author of The Secret Gateway: Modern Theosophy and the Ancient Wisdom Tradition, joined the Theosophical Society in 1959. He was twice president of the New York branch and has served on the national board of the Theosophical Society in America. Abdill lives in New York City. His website is www.EdwardAbdill.com
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
Who can say when it all began? The details are sketchy at best. If we are to believe Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, or H.P.B. as she was known to her friends, it began for her when, as a child, she had psychic visions of a tall Indian man she believed to be her protector. About 1845, when H.P.B. was thirteen, she was nearly killed when a horse she was riding “became frightened and bolted—with her foot caught in the stirrup. She felt someone’s arms around her body supporting her until the horse was stopped” (CW 1:xxxiii). She thought her protector had saved her. That is hardly convincing evidence for most, and certainly not convincing for anyone who believes there is no such thing as psychic ability. Yet, as Shakespeare wrote: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy” (Hamlet, Act I, Sc. 5, lines 167–168).
Over time, we all develop a worldview, and we most certainly do not all see the world in the same way. Rare are individuals whose minds are open to possibilities beyond what they believe to be true at any given time. Some set their views so firmly in proverbial stone that facts will never confuse them. In the mid-twentieth century, a college psychology major by the name of John Kunz reported that he assisted in a psychological experiment concerning what has been called “ESP” (extrasensory perception). Thousands of questionnaires concerning ESP were sent to psychologists all across the United States. One of the questions asked was, “Do you believe there is such a thing as ESP?” As was to be expected, many answered yes and many more answered no. There was one response, however, that stunned John Kunz and the professor in charge of the experiment. The respondent wrote, “No. I don’t believe there is any such thing as ESP. There is no evidence to support the claim, and if there were, I wouldn’t believe it.” Unfortunately, that response is more common than we might wish. An inquiring mind is neither gullible nor incredulous. Evidence and eyewitness accounts of phenomena and encounters with Masters presented in this book will undoubtedly challenge the worldview of many. A consideration of Blavatsky’s claims will begin that challenge.
Blavatsky claimed that, as a young adult, she met in the flesh the man of her childhood psychic visions and learned that he went by the name of “Morya.” Later she also met Morya’s close colleague, Koot Hoomi, and several other extraordinary men known as “Mahatmas,” “Adepts,” “Masters” (in the sense of teachers), or simply “the Brothers.” She reported that they had extraordinary powers, but that those powers were latent in everyone and, over many lifetimes, would be developed by all. In 1888, in an article in her magazine, Lucifer, Blavatsky explained that the names “Morya” and “Koot Hoomi” are pseudonyms because none of the Masters ever give out their real names to the public.1
If we had only the word of Blavatsky, we would have only hearsay evidence for the existence of these amazing men. Not only would hearsay evidence be unacceptable in a court of law, but it would not be sufficient evidence for any reasonable person, even an open-minded one. Fortunately, we do have some hard evidence that these men existed. We have letters written by them.
From their letters and from reports from Blavatsky and others, it is clear that the Masters wanted an organization formed that would spread their knowledge around the world. The central purpose of that organization was to form a nucleus of the universal brotherhood of humanity. In one of his letters, Koot Hoomi, who usually signed his name with the initials “K.H.,” wrote, “The Chiefs want a ‘Brotherhood of Humanity,’ a real Universal Fraternity started; an institution which would make itself known throughout the world and arrest the attention of the highest minds” (ML, letter 12, p. 39). That “Fraternity” became the Theosophical Society, whose principal founders were H. P. Blavatsky, Henry Steel Olcott, and William Quan Judge. The organization was officially launched in New York on November 17, 1875, with Olcott as its first president, Blavatsky as its corresponding secretary, and Judge as its legal counsel.
In his inaugural address, Olcott announced that the “declared objects” of the Society were “To collect and diffuse a knowledge of the laws which govern the universe.” Over the years these objectives were modified, but the goal of those original objectives was never fundamentally changed. The founders were convinced that if the laws governing the universe were understood, it would become clear that the universe, including humanity, arises out of a fundamental unity of substance and consciousness. Hence, universal brotherhood would be revealed as a fact in nature rather than simply as an ideal to be realized. Today, the first object of the Society emphasizes brotherhood, and the second and third objects suggest ways of realizing that brotherhood. The objectives of the Society today are:
• To form a nucleus of the universal brotherhood of humanity, without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste, or color.
• To encourage the comparative study of religion, philosophy, and science.
• To investigate unexplained laws of nature and the powers latent in humanity.
In a letter to Alfred Percy Sinnett, K.H. gives an abridged version of the view of his own superior, the Maha Chohan, on the Theosophical Society. In it there is a curious statement about the objectives of the Society. The Chohan points out that “the main objects of the T.S. are misinterpreted by those who are most willing to serve us” (LMW1:6). The objectives as stated seem easy enough to understand, so what might the Chohan have meant? The misunderstanding may have been due to what is meant by “a nucleus of the universal brotherhood of humanity.”
One of the objectives of 1889 read: “To keep alive in man his spiritual intuitions.” Intuition, in the Theosophical sense, means insight, and insight comes from buddhi, an aspect of the inner self of every human being. When we are functioning in the state of consciousness called “buddhi,” we perceive unity. We perceive the whole, which is greater than the sum of its parts. That state of consciousness transcends the personal: it is a state of consciousness in which we perceive humanity as a whole. It is a state wherein the individual senses a unity with all and yet does not lose individuality. By effort, meditation, and an altruistic way of life, we can become one with that inner self from which all insights derive. In deep meditation, we can get a sense of humanity as a whole. When we do, we become aware of the influence streaming from our own inner connections to the One Self, rooted in buddhi. Those who get that sense and identify with it are forming a nucleus of the universal brotherhood of humanity. Individuals even unknown to one another are forming a bond at the deepest level of their being. That bond of unity is a nucleus of the universal brotherhood of humanity.
Those who sense that the consciousness in them is identical with the consciousness in all others are forming that nucleus. Those who sense the divine life in themselves, and sense that same divine life in others, are forming that nucleus. Those who identify with the inner self are forming that nucleus. Those who sense that the Self is one are forming that nucleus. When we sense those inner realities, buddhi itself is being strengthened as its influence extends more and more into our brain consciousness and life. When that happens in the consciousness of even one person, it becomes a powerful influence on others who have not yet sensed it.
The Theosophical Society was meant to be an organization in which members from every culture would unite and work together to help all people realize their underlying unity with humanity as a whole and to experience that unity as the divine spark of life in all of us. We often identify ourselves as Christians, Jews, Hindus, Americans, Asians, Africans, Russians, atheists, and even Theosophists. Yet none of those labels describes who we really are. In fact, we are just basically human beings. The labels do no more than describe our beliefs, cultures, conditioning, places of birth, preferences for one religion or another—or for none. Many recognize the truth of that concept, but few feel with every fiber of their being that they are, at root, one with humanity as a whole.
Even those among us who respect all cultures may not sense the divine spark of life in every person they meet. We are likely to judge others by their appearances. We see only a Polaroid snapshot of those we meet, and we tend to judge them by the tiny bit of information that the photo provides. We human beings are extraordinarily complex. One moment we may appear as saints and in the next moment as devils. It is easy to feel unity with someone who is displaying their saintly side, but not so easy to feel it when they are showing their diabolical side.
The Theosophical Society has no required beliefs. No matter what a person believes, anyone in sympathy with its three objectives is welcome to join the Society. Members are not required to believe even in the existence of the Masters. It must be pointed out, however, that there is a huge difference between being a member of the Society and being a true Theosophist. The number of members is always greater than the number of true Theosophists, and many who have never heard of the Society are Theosophists in spirit. Blavatsky pointed out that
Any person of average intellectual capacities, and a leaning toward the meta-physical; of pure, unselfish life, who finds more joy in helping his neighbour than in receiving help himself; one who is ever ready to sacrifice his own pleasures for the sake of other people; and who loves Truth, Goodness and Wisdom for their own sake, not for the benefit they may confer—is a Theosophist. (CW 9:155)
According to the Masters and H.P.B., that kind of life leads to wisdom and eventually to adeptship.
In 1879, H.P.B. and Olcott moved the headquarters of the Society from New York to Bombay (now Mumbai), India. At that time, A. P. Sinnett, a well-educated and prominent Englishman living in India, was editor of The Pioneer, a leading English-language newspaper published in Allahabad. Sinnett was intrigued by Theosophical philosophy and the phenomena reportedly produced by Blavatsky, so he wrote to Olcott to invite him and Blavatsky to visit him and his wife. In December 1879, Olcott and Blavatsky accepted the invitation and spent some time with the Sinnetts in Allahabad. During that visit, the Sinnetts joined the Theosophical Society.
Like many other well-placed Englishmen in India at that time, the Sinnetts had a summer home in Simla (a city north of Delhi and the summer capital of India at the time of the Raj). In 1880, the founders paid a second visit to the Sinnetts at their summer home there. It was in Simla that H.P.B. performed some amazing phenomena that she attributed to the Masters. Sinnett was duly impressed and accepted the phenomena as valid. Later he wrote a book, The Occult World, in which he emphasized the authenticity of the phenomena H.P.B. performed.
Sinnett was a practical man with a scientific mind. He wanted to know more about the laws that governed the amazing phenomena he had witnessed, and he wanted to know more about the Masters who, according to H.P.B., had produced the phenomena. In fact, it was not the Masters who produced most of the phenomena, but H.P.B. herself. In her zeal and admiration for her Teachers, she attributed the most amazing phenomena to them. K.H. told Sinnett that, by attributing the phenomena to the Masters, H.P.B. thought she was adding to their glory, but K.H. said:
by attributing to us very often phenomena of the most childish nature, she but lowered us in the public estimation and sanctioned the claim of her enemies that she was “but a medium”! But it was of no use. In accordance with our rules, M. was not permitted to forbid her such a course. . . . She had to be allowed full and entire freedom of action, the liberty of creating causes that became in due course of time her scourge, her public pillory. He could at best forbid her producing phenomena, and to this last extremity he resorted as often as he could, to her friends’ and theosophists’ great dissatisfaction. . . . The stereotyped phrase: “It is not I; I can do nothing by myself . . . it is all they—the Brothers . . . I am but their humble and devoted slave and instrument” is a downright fib. She can and did produce phenomena, owing to her natural powers combined with several long years of regular training, and her phenomena are sometimes better, more wonderful and far more perfect than those of some high, initiated chelas [students], whom she surpasses in artistic taste and purely Western appreciation of art. (ML, letter 92, pp. 295–296)
Having witnessed the amazing phenomena that he believed the Brothers had produced and being desirous of getting in touch with those Brothers and learning about the laws that enabled such phenomena to be produced, Sinnett asked Blavatsky if she thought they would respond to him if he wrote them a letter. She doubted that any of them would consent to that, but she promised Sinnett she would try, and she did.
First, she went to her own teacher, the Mahatma Morya, often known as the Master M. He flat out refused, even though later he did engage in some correspondence with Sinnett. Blavatsky tried several other adepts and finally got one to say he would take up the challenge. That was the Mahatma Koot Hoomi, known usually as K.H. Although the names of Morya and Koot Hoomi are anonyms, they used those names in their letters and have been known by them ever since.
Sinnett wrote his first letter “To the Unknown Brother” and gave it to H.P.B. to deliver. He was so anxious to get answers to his questions that he wrote a second letter before getting a reply to his first. He did finally get a reply, however, and the correspondence between him and K.H. went on for several years. Sinnett kept all the letters from K.H. and Morya, and after Sinnett’s death the letters were edited in 1921 by the English Theosophist A. Trevor Barker. They were published in 1923 as The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett. Since that date there have been several editions of the letters, the most recent being the Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett from the Mahatmas M. and K.H. in Chronological Sequence, edited by Vicente Hao Chin, Jr. Earlier editions of the letters attempted to group them by subject matter. That was a noble attempt to gather together letters on a given topic, but it presented a serious problem. Individual letters cover more than one topic. So a large part of one letter may deal with the spiritual life, but it may also include comments about science or philosophy.
Because we do not have the original letters that Sinnett sent to the Brothers, we must rely solely on the letters that Sinnett received. From those letters we can only infer what questions Sinnett asked and what comments he may have made. It is much like hearing one side of a telephone conversation. Also, the letters contain much that was pertinent at the time but that is irrelevant now. The adept may have been warning Sinnett about someone whose motives were impure and who might have harmed the Theosophical movement. That was important then but not now. Some letters are primarily about individuals who were either useful or harmful to the movement. Yet in the same letter we may find a line of priceless advice for us today.
The advantage of the chronological edition of the letters is twofold. First, it avoids the inevitable confusion that comes from reading things out of sequence. Second, the chronological edition provides a wealth of historical information for most of the letters. It helps the reader to understand what was going on at the time the letter was written, and it gives some background information on the people mentioned in the letters. The letters themselves are basically the same in all editions, so one need not be concerned that one edition or another is missing any of them.
The original letters were donated to the British Museum in London, but are now housed in the British Library there. The museum accepted the letters for three basic reasons: First of all, they were of historical interest. The British ruled India at the time, and the Theosophical Society was big news in India of the 1880s. Before the Mahatma Letters were published, Annie Besant, a British citizen of Irish descent, became the second international president of the Society. She worked with Mohandas Gandhi to get home rule for India, and while she did not always agree with Gandhi, she became the first president of the home-rule Congress Party. Second, handwriting experts from the museum determined that whoever wrote the Mahatma Letters, they were not written by Blavatsky. Third, many of the letters that were allegedly “precipitated,” that is, delivered by phenomenal means rather than by post, have a curious look to them. It appears as though the ink is embedded in the paper, as though the writing and the paper were produced at the same time, and each individual word of every letter looks as though it had been produced by a dot matrix printer, except that instead of dots, each letter consists of tiny dashes. The museum authorities had no explanation for these strange facts. The original letters can be seen in the British Library, where these curious conditions can be personally observed. An enlarged fragment from Mahatma letter 86 showing the peculiar dashes is reproduced here.
There is also a DVD on the Mahatma Letters available from the Theosophical Society in America that shows photographs of the original letters, including those that were phenomenally produced.
There will always be those who say the whole idea of Masters was fabricated by Blavatsky. Yet, as any detective knows, one must look for motive as well as means and opportunity. H.P.B. may have had the means and the opportunity, but what could possibly have been her motive? She got no money for passing the letters on; she was called a fraud and liar; she was betrayed more than once; and her personal fame was more one of infamy than praise. In addition to all that, the letters seem to have one main purpose, that of helping humanity. The Masters often stressed the need for a universal brotherhood. They asked for and received nothing for themselves. On the contrary, they had to put up with slander and verbal attacks from many who thought themselves vastly superior to dark-skinned Indians.
By allowing the Masters to speak for themselves through their letters, they may become living men to the reader. In this book, you will also find much of what they taught through the words of their direct agent, H. P. Blavatsky. By no means was everything written by her authorized by the Masters, but what is quoted from her is almost certainly what she learned from them. Only a small portion of what the Masters taught is presented in this book, and that, according to them, is but a fragment of what they know to be true about our universe and us who inhabit it. I hope that those who read this book will give Blavatsky and the Mahatmas a fair hearing and read what they had to say with an open and unprejudiced mind.
PART I
Chapter 1
Blavatsky claims that she first met Morya in London in 1851 at the time of the Great Exhibition, which was what we would call a “world fair.” She was observing a parade of delegates from the British colonies and suddenly recognized her “protector” in the Nepal delegation. She rushed out to greet him, but he waved her back. She told Countess Constance Wachtmeister that the next day she met Morya in Hyde Park. While she may have met him there, it is possible that Morya asked her to meet him elsewhere for a private talk. Hyde Park had been covered over by a glass dome called the Crystal Palace, and the entire park was filled with visitors from all over the world. There would have been little space for privacy. Evidence for a private meeting elsewhere comes from a diary found in an old trunk that Blavatsky’s Aunt Nadyezhda sent to the countess shortly after H.P.B. had told the countess of her encounter with Morya. The countess reports that in a diary entry written in French on August 12, 1851, Blavatsky wrote, “Memorable night . . . when I met the Master of my dreams” in Ramsgate. She added that the meeting occurred on her twentieth birthday, July 31 by the Russian calendar. The countess asked Blavatsky why she had written “Ramsgate” rather than “London,” and H.P.B. responded that Ramsgate was “a blind.” It is strange that she would have said she met Morya in London and then said it was in Ramsgate, stranger still that she claimed Ramsgate was a blind. The riddle may be solved if we consider the possibility that Ramsgate was a blind for Margate, which is adjacent to Ramsgate. In Margate there is a grotto called “the Shell Grotto.” It has walls covered with shells depicting suns, flowers, trees, animals, and something that appears to be an altar. The grotto was discovered by accident in 1835, and to this day no one knows who covered the walls with shell designs or why. It would have been an extremely private place to meet, and one might conjecture that the atmosphere was spiritually charged and undisturbed from the day the cave was made into a temple. Perhaps Blavatsky used the blind of Ramsgate because she did not want the atmosphere in the Shell Grotto in Margate to be polluted by curiosity seekers.
No matter where Morya and Blavatsky met, their conversation was almost certainly about a mission the Masters wanted H.P.B. to carry out. Morya told H.P.B. that for years he and his colleagues had been looking for someone who might help Westerners learn something of their philosophy and their understanding of our universe and the human condition, especially the spiritual nature of humanity. He told her that she was far from perfect, but she was the best available spokesperson for them at the time. While they did not say why she was the best, it is not unreasonable to suppose that there were several reasons she was chosen.
Without doubt, H.P.B. was one of the greatest psychics of modern times. Her paranormal ability has been attested to by many reliable witnesses, from her relatives in Russia when she was a child, to friends, associates, and acquaintances throughout her life. For the Masters to communicate easily with anyone requires what might be called a “clear psychic link.” Master M. or K.H. could send a thought telepathically to H.P.B. with the certain knowledge that she would get it. The adepts say they never waste energy, so they needed a spokesperson who would not require much effort to impress from afar.
H.P.B. was so good that she could clairvoyantly access documents in libraries she had never visited and accurately quote from pages of books there, translating them into English if necessary. Her explanation for this amazing achievement was that she read the passages “on another plane of existence.” She would occasionally ask Olcott to check on a reference she had obtained clairvoyantly, and when he checked, he would discover that the page numbers were incorrect. If he reversed the numbers, however, he discovered that the reversed numbers gave the correct page. When he asked H.P.B. about it, she explained that when looking at something clairvoyantly it was similar to looking into a mirror. Everything was reversed. Because of that, she had to learn to read backward and then reverse the numbers. As might be expected, she occasionally forgot to reverse the numbers. Some years later, the same problem was noticed by associates who helped Blavatsky write The Secret Doctrine.
The second reason that H.P.B. may have been chosen as the Masters’ agent is that she was thoroughly unselfish. Even her greatest enemies and those who regarded her as a fraud have never been able to charge her with selfishness. K.H. wrote to Sinnett that Blavatsky and Olcott “have that in them . . . which we have but too rarely found elsewhere—UNSELFISHNESS, and an eager readiness for self-sacrifice for the good of others; what a ‘multitude of sins’ does not this cover!” (ML, letter 131, p. 437). Examples of that unselfishness abound.
On January 6, 1889, the New York Times published an interview with William Q. Judge, a co-founder of the Theosophical Society. Judge had just returned from visiting H.P.B. in London. During the interview, Judge remarked that two prominent characteristics of Blavatsky were her energy and her great kindness. He said that some twelve years earlier, H.P.B. was traveling to New York from France. As she was about to board the ship, she noticed a woman with two small children. The woman was crying, so H.P.B. asked her why. Apparently the woman’s husband had sent her money to pay for her and the children to sail to New York to join him there. Unfortunately, she had used all her money to buy a steerage class ticket for herself and children, only to discover that she had been swindled. The tickets were counterfeit. H.P.B. immediately exchanged her own first-class ticket for two steerage-class tickets, one for the woman and one for herself, so that the woman would not be left penniless and stranded in France (Olcott, Old Diary Leaves 1:28–29). Steerage passage at the time was a horror. There was almost no ventilation. It was overcrowded, and sanitary facilities were lacking. Moreover, one had to climb down a ladder to enter the steerage-class rooms. That alone was no small task for H.P.B. because she was overweight and not physically fit. One wonders how many people would have sacrificed their personal comfort just to do something so kind for a total stranger and suffered passage in steerage class rather than going first class. On another occasion while H.P.B was still in New York, Olcott reports that a Russian Orthodox priest came to the door to ask for alms for the poor. Blavatsky pointed to a drawer where she kept her money and said, “The money is in there. Take what you need.”
In addition to Blavatsky’s psychic ability and her unselfishness, she was loyal to her Teacher. Sometimes she would not be pleased with what he asked her to do, but she always carried out his directives. The adepts could count on her to follow through, no matter how difficult or unpleasant the task might be. During Blavatsky’s talk with M. in 1851, she was told that she would get no personal benefit from the work she was asked to do. Her health was not particularly good and would not improve. She had little money and would get none from the work. Friends would betray her and she would be attacked by religious leaders of her day, and even by scientists who were convinced that reality consisted of little billiard-ball atoms with hard stuff as a nucleus. Nevertheless, Morya assured her that if she accepted the mission, she might be able to help people better understand themselves and the world in which they lived and, by using that knowledge, to relieve much of the suffering that is produced by actions taken in ignorance. She accepted the mission, and everything that Morya told her came true. She suffered from a kidney disorder; at her death she did not have enough money to pay for her funeral; friends betrayed her, causing her insufferable pain; and religious and scientific men attacked her as a devil worshiper or as a fraud.
One might wonder why the adepts chose the late 1800s to bring their ideas to the West and why they chose New York to launch their experiment. No one can say with certainty, but there are several compelling reasons that suggest the time was right. The first reason is that, in the early nineteenth century, western and central New York State was a hotbed of religious revival and new social ideas. A Protestant movement known as the Second Great Awakening was converting thousands of people, often at revival meetings. One aspect of the movement was to cure the ills of society before the second coming of Christ.
In addition to the Protestant revival, the area hosted a variety of new religious movements. One was the well-known Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly referred to as the Mormon Church. It began in the area with Joseph Smith, Jr., who believed that an angel led him to discover the Book of Mormon. Other movements were the Shakers and the Oneida Community, the latter promoting group marriage. Charles Grandison Finney, an abolitionist and a revivalist who favored social reforms to help African-Americans and women, called the whole area the “burned-over district” because there were hardly any unconverted people (fuel) to be converted (burned). In addition to the advent of new religious movements in the area, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, instrumental in establishing the Seneca Falls convention devoted to women’s rights, suffrage among them, lived in Seneca Falls. Among the more liberal clergy, there were those who espoused the ideas in what came to be called the “Social Gospel,” a movement that fought to overcome social ills such as alcoholism, crime, racial problems, child labor, and more.
Perhaps one of the greatest reasons the area was selected was because it was where Spiritualism began with the Fox sisters of Hydesville, New York. In the spring of 1848, the Fox sisters heard inexplicable knocks and rapping sounds around their home and tried to locate the source. To determine if a ghost was in the house and if that ghost could communicate with the living, their mother asked, “If you are a spirit, knock twice.” In response, two loud knocks followed her question. Later investigation revealed that a man had been murdered in the house and his bones were discovered in the basement. The discovery led many in the country and in Europe to believe that the living could communicate with the dead. The popularity of the phenomena soon produced the Spiritualist Church, which taught that communion with the dead is possible. As might be expected, the possibility that life after death was provable excited a great many people who became convinced that they could communicate with deceased loved ones at séances. The craze spread rapidly, and soon New York City was overflowing with mediums, both real and fake, who promised they could contact deceased loved ones.
This new evidence for life beyond the grave contradicted materialistic nineteenth-century science, as well as religions that taught the dead were in purgatory, heaven, or hell. Apparently, although the dead were no longer in a physical body, they were here and could be reached through mediums. It was into this milieu of religious revival, new religious movements, social reform organizations, and Spiritualism that H. P. Blavatsky arrived in New York City in 1873.
In addition to this fertile ground for new thought and spiritual rebirth, New York City was fast becoming the fabled melting pot of humanity. People from every part of the globe and from every culture were already rubbing shoulders with one another in the city. Then as now, one could not walk more than a few blocks in the city without hearing at least two or three different languages. The adepts wanted their agents to encourage a realization of universal brotherhood, and there was probably no other place on earth where so many people from so many different traditions were living so close together on a relatively small island, the island of Manhattan. It was a promising place to begin the work.
One more important feature on the world stage in the late nineteenth century was the fact that religion and science were becoming more and more polar opposites. Science was entrenched in materialism, and despite new religious movements, the bulk of Protestant Christians were fundamentalists who believed that the Bible was literally the word of God. Those who could not accept a literal interpretation of scripture and who yet yearned for spiritual meaning were turning to Spiritualism by the thousands. There were mediums on practically every corner of major cities, just as today we might find tarot readers. The Masters wanted to counter the materialism of science and the superstition of religion.
In a letter to A. P. Sinnett, K.H. included an abridgement of a letter from the Chohan (Koot Hoomi’s “boss”). That letter broached the Chohan’s concern about the direction in which European society was headed. He wrote:
The intellectual portions of mankind seem to be fast drifting into two classes, the one unconsciously preparing for itself long periods of temporary annihilation or states of non-consciousness, owing to the deliberate surrender of their intellect, its imprisonment in the narrow grooves of bigotry and superstition, a process which cannot fail to lead to the utter deformation of the intellectual principle; the other unrestrainedly indulging its animal propensities. . . . Between degrading superstition and still more degrading brutal materialism, the white dove of truth has hardly room where to rest her weary unwelcome foot. (LMW1:3–4)
By bringing their knowledge into the West, the Masters believed they could stem the tide of human degeneration, but they knew they could not do it instantly. In the same letter just quoted, the Chohan acknowledged the fact that “no prophet has ever achieved during his lifetime a complete triumph, not even Buddha.” Yet, the Masters believed that they could supply spiritual meaning to those in search of it and that they could begin to bridge the gap between science and religion. As pointed out by the Chohan, the West was at a crossroad, one road leading to the suffocation of the human spirit through a materialist philosophy and the other road to superstition and religious bigotry. That being the case, the Masters stepped in to help. They searched for and found two individuals they thought could act as their agents in the West: H. P. Blavatsky, a Russian woman, and Henry Steel Olcott, an American. Morya wrote to Sinnett:
Most helpful customer reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
An easy and important read for mid-level students of theosophy
By Robert Jamison-fahey
Books on The Mahatma Letters have often interspersed bits of commentary among full quotes. In this book the author pops tiny quotes from the letters in amid the commentary. This turns out to be a very effective presentation. If you have studied theosophy and the masters at all you probably shouldn’t expect to find any new insights here after all these years since the letters were written, all the books, articles, lectures and classes on the subject; and my guess is you probably won’t, but that does not mean this is a book to be ignored. Separating their teachings into subjects like Life after Death, and the various ways HPB predicted what science would discover in the following century, Mr. Abdill manages to make the subject interesting for even the long term researcher into these matters.
The chapter on the seven sheaths left me in a state of confusion even though I was already thoroughly familiar with the subject, but for the most part this is an easy to read presentation for those who already know a bit about this area of thought and history, but not a great deal. And for those of us who can never get enough on the subject, here we may find a few more hours of pleasant reading on one of our favorite subjects.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
Difficult but rewarding
By LyndieLou
When I first became interested in Theosophy I immediately started to read ‘The Secret Doctrine’. Had I not been re-directed to a more simple text I would have given up on the philosophy there and then. I eagerly started to read Edward Abdill’s book hoping this would be a more straightforward guide to this ‘religion’ and the first few chapters enthralled me. However when it came to the chapter on the seven principles I was lost again. This book seems to waver between being suitable for beginners (me) and only for those with not only advanced theosophical knowledge but also a much higher intellect than mine. I particularly found the use of so many unfamiliar words offputting. But having said that Masters of Wisdom is a comparatively easy book to read, well organised and in the main offers a good grounding for the Seeker who is prepared to work at understanding the concepts and as far as I can gather that is one of the basic requirements for Theosophy.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
... Abdill's strengths is his ability to explain difficult concepts like theosophy so that even people like me can understand ..
By wt
One of Ed Abdill's strengths is his ability to explain difficult concepts like theosophy so that even people like me can understand them. The Mahatma Letters, like all material that makes up what we call 'ancient wisdom', is only made more accessible when Ed Abdill lends his insights. Updated, contemporary interpretations are both necessary and welcome.
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