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Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett from the Mahatmas M. and K. H.
The Mahatmas whom this book depicts are members of our own evolutionary group, not visitors from the celestial spheres.
They are supermen only in that they have attained knowledge of the laws of life and mastery over its forces with which we are still struggling. They are not Gods come down to earth, but earthly mortals risen to the status of Christ.
They ask from us no reverence, no worship; they demand no allegiance but that which it is expected we shall render to the principles of Truth and Fact, and to the nobility of life.
They are our ""Elder Brothers,"" not distant deities; and will even make their presence known to us and grant us the privilege of cooperating with them when we have shown ourselves capable of working unselfishly for mankind. They are not our Masters in the sense of holding lordship over us; they are the ""Masters of Wisdom and Compassion."" Moved by an infinite sympathy with the whole human race they have renounced their right to go forward to more splendid conquests in the evolution
They are supermen only in that they have attained knowledge of the laws of life and mastery over its forces with which we are still struggling. They are not Gods come down to earth, but earthly mortals risen to the status of Christ.
They ask from us no reverence, no worship; they demand no allegiance but that which it is expected we shall render to the principles of Truth and Fact, and to the nobility of life.
They are our ""Elder Brothers,"" not distant deities; and will even make their presence known to us and grant us the privilege of cooperating with them when we have shown ourselves capable of working unselfishly for mankind. They are not our Masters in the sense of holding lordship over us; they are the ""Masters of Wisdom and Compassion."" Moved by an infinite sympathy with the whole human race they have renounced their right to go forward to more splendid conquests in the evolution
542 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 13, 2008
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About the author
Alfred Percy Sinnett
217 books12 followerssource: Wikipedia
A.P. Sinnett was an English author and Theosophist.
Sinnett's father died while he was young, by 1851 Sinnett is listed as a "Scholar - London University", living with his widowed mother Jane whose occupation is listed as "Periodical Literature", and his older sister Sophia age 22 who is a teacher. Jane's sister Sarah age 48 is also a teacher.[1]
Sinnett married his wife Patience in 1870, probably in the London area. He is listed in the 1871 England Census at age 31, as a Journalist, born in Middlesex. His wife Patience is 27, and her mother Clarissa Edenson a "Landowner", is living with them.
By 1879, Sinnett had moved to India where he was "... the Editor of The Pioneer, the leading English Daily of India..."[2] He relates in his book, The Occult World that: "...on the first occasion of my making Madame Blavatsky's acquaintance she became a guest at my home at Allahabad and remained there for six weeks..." [3]
In 1880 Helena Blavatsky and Henry Steel Olcott visited the Sinnetts at their summer-home in Simla. The Mahatma letters, which generated the controversy that later helped lead to the split of the Theosophical Society, were mostly written to Sinnett or his wife, Patience. The letters started at this time when Sinnett asked Blavatsky whether if he wrote a letter to her Mahatmas, she could arrange to have it delivered.
By 1884, Sinnett was back in England, where that year Constance Wachtmeister states that she met Blavatsky at the home of the Sinnetts in London.[4]
Sinnett asked Charles Webster Leadbeater to come back to England to tutor his son Percy and George Arundale. Leadbeater agreed and brought with him one of his pupils Curuppumullage Jinarajadasa. Using "astral clairvoyance" Leadbeater assisted William Scott-Elliot to write his book The Story of Atlantis, for which Sinnett wrote the preface.
Sinnett was later President of the London Lodge of the Society.
By 1901, Sinnett is listed as an author. His son Percy is also listed as an author and born in India.[5]
A.P. Sinnett was an English author and Theosophist.
Sinnett's father died while he was young, by 1851 Sinnett is listed as a "Scholar - London University", living with his widowed mother Jane whose occupation is listed as "Periodical Literature", and his older sister Sophia age 22 who is a teacher. Jane's sister Sarah age 48 is also a teacher.[1]
Sinnett married his wife Patience in 1870, probably in the London area. He is listed in the 1871 England Census at age 31, as a Journalist, born in Middlesex. His wife Patience is 27, and her mother Clarissa Edenson a "Landowner", is living with them.
By 1879, Sinnett had moved to India where he was "... the Editor of The Pioneer, the leading English Daily of India..."[2] He relates in his book, The Occult World that: "...on the first occasion of my making Madame Blavatsky's acquaintance she became a guest at my home at Allahabad and remained there for six weeks..." [3]
In 1880 Helena Blavatsky and Henry Steel Olcott visited the Sinnetts at their summer-home in Simla. The Mahatma letters, which generated the controversy that later helped lead to the split of the Theosophical Society, were mostly written to Sinnett or his wife, Patience. The letters started at this time when Sinnett asked Blavatsky whether if he wrote a letter to her Mahatmas, she could arrange to have it delivered.
By 1884, Sinnett was back in England, where that year Constance Wachtmeister states that she met Blavatsky at the home of the Sinnetts in London.[4]
Sinnett asked Charles Webster Leadbeater to come back to England to tutor his son Percy and George Arundale. Leadbeater agreed and brought with him one of his pupils Curuppumullage Jinarajadasa. Using "astral clairvoyance" Leadbeater assisted William Scott-Elliot to write his book The Story of Atlantis, for which Sinnett wrote the preface.
Sinnett was later President of the London Lodge of the Society.
By 1901, Sinnett is listed as an author. His son Percy is also listed as an author and born in India.[5]
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September 14, 2024
A SERIES OF LETTERS PURPORTING TO COME FROM THE "MASTERS"
Alfred Percy Sinnett (18 January 1840, London – 26 June 1921) was an English author and theosophist. He wrote other books such as 'Esoteric Buddhism' and 'Occult World.' [NOTE: The page numbers below refer to the 493-page hardcover edition.]
The Introduction to this book [the letters were written between 1880-1884, but not published until 1924] by then-Theosophist Fellow A. Trevor Barker states, "the philosophical doctrines and ethics which were given to the world through the Theosophical Society during the 16 years immediately following its foundation in 1875, emanated from certain Eastern Teachers said to belong to an Occult Brotherhood living in ... Tibet. H.P. Blavatsky ... acknowledged these Eastern Brothers as her Teachers, stating... that she herself had received training and instruction at their hands during her sojourn in Tibet...
"It was not until 1880 that further testimony became available. In that year the late A.P. Sinnett... was enabled through the agency of Madame Blavatsky, to enter into correspondence with her own Teachers... During the course of this correspondence which extended over the years 1880 to 1884 Mr. Sinnett received many letters from The Mahatmas M. and K.H. [Koot Humi]... and it is these original communications which are published in the present volume under the title of 'The Mahatma Letters.' The circumstances regarding their receipt were fully dealt with by Mr. Sinnett in his 'Occult World' and they need not therefore be restated here."
Letter II states, "The mysteries never were, never can be, put within the reach of the general public, not, at least, until that longed for day when our religious philosophy becomes universal." (Pg. 6) Letter V suggests, "The best of the British Spiritualists could, with proper management, be converted into Theosophists. But neither Dr. Wyld, not Mr. Massey, seem to have the requisite force." (Pg. 21)
Yet letter XVI adds, "you may understand why we oppose so strongly Spiritualism and mediumship." (Pg. 113) Letter X says, "Pantheistic we may be called---agnostic NEVER. If people are willing to accept and to regard as God our ONE LIFE immutable and unconscious in its eternity they may do so and thus keep to one more gigantic misnomer." (Pg. 53)
It adds, "Evil has no existence per se and is but the absence of good and exists but for him who is made its victim." (Pg. 56) Letter XXIII suggests, "Why not admit---true no one of them has ever thought of it---that our PRESENT continents, have---like 'Lemuria' and 'Atlantis'---been several times already, submerged and had the time to reappear again, and bear their new groups of mankind and civilization; and that, at the first great geological upheaval, at the next cataclysm---in the series of periodical cataclysms that occur from the beginning to the end of every Round---our already autopsied continents will go down, and the Lemurias and Atlantises come up again." (Pg. 151)
Letter LV states [perhaps answering charges of plagiarism], "There is always that danger if one has neglected to ascertain whether the words and sentences rushing into the mind have come all from WITHIN or whether some may have been impressed from WITHOUT. I feel sorry to have brought you into such a false position before your many enemies and even your friends. That was ONE of the reasons why, I had hesitated to give my consent to print my private letters and specifically excluded their contents---nor have I now. I have a habit of often quoting, MINUS quotation marks, from the maze of what I get in the countless folios of our Akashic libraries, so to say---with eyes shut. Sometimes I may give out thoughts... what an orator, a Cicero may have pronounced ages earlier, and at others, what was not only pronounced by modern lips but already either written or printed... All this I do... without the smallest concern as to where the sentences and strings of words may have come from, so long as they serve to express, and fit in with my own thoughts." (Pg. 324)
Letter LIX says, "Yes; you are right about the Society for Psychical Research: its work is of a kind to tell upon public opinion by experimentally demonstrating the elementary phases of Occult Science. H.S. Olcott has been trying to convert each of the Indian Branches into such a school of research, but the capacity for sustained independent study for knowledge's sake is lacking, and must be developed. The success of the S.P.R. will greatly aid in this direction and we wish it well." (Pg. 342)
Letter LXXXIII admonishes, "Be more careful as to what you say upon forbidden topics. The 'eighth sphere' mystery is a very confidential subject, and you are far from understanding even its general aspect. You were repeatedly warned and should not have mentioned it. You have unintentionally brought ridicule upon a solemn matter." (Pg. 396)
Letter CXXXVIII laments, "It is useless, Mr. Sinnett. The Theosophical Society shall live here, in India, for ever---it seems doomed in Europe, because I am doomed... And if Mahatmas are myths, I---the author of all those letters, a proclaimed FRAUD and worse---by the P.S.R. how can the London Lodge live? I told you... this investigation of Mr. [Richard] Hodgson will be fatal... how can he recognize truth from lie when there is a thick net of conspiracy around him?" (Pg. 472-473)
Letter XCIII responds directly to the charge of plagiarism: "if I had any desire to argue out the question I might answer that of what constitutes plagiarism, being a borrowing of IDEAS rather than of words and sentences, there was none in point of fact, and I stand acquitted by my own accusers... Having DISTORTED the ideas 'appropriated,' and, as now published---diverted them from their original intention to suit my own 'very different purpose,' on such grounds my literary LARCENY does not appear very formidable at all?... the most that could be said is, that owing to the poverty of words at the command of Mr. Sinnett's correspondent... he has adapted a few of innocent Mr. Kiddle's effusions... to express his own contrary ideas." (Pg. 421)
H.P. Blavatsky, in an Appendix, also deals with the accusation that her own handwriting resembles that of the Mahatmas: "Now if there is such a marked difference between letters written by the same person mechanically, (as the case with me for instance who has never had a STEADY handwriting), how much more in precipitation, which is the photographic reproduction from one's head, and I bet anything that no chela ... is capable of precipitating his own handwriting twice over in precisely the same way---a difference and a marked one there shall always be." (Pg. 480)
This book is perhaps of lesser current interest than many other Theosophical books, but is still an important resource for anyone studying the Theosophical movement.
Alfred Percy Sinnett (18 January 1840, London – 26 June 1921) was an English author and theosophist. He wrote other books such as 'Esoteric Buddhism' and 'Occult World.' [NOTE: The page numbers below refer to the 493-page hardcover edition.]
The Introduction to this book [the letters were written between 1880-1884, but not published until 1924] by then-Theosophist Fellow A. Trevor Barker states, "the philosophical doctrines and ethics which were given to the world through the Theosophical Society during the 16 years immediately following its foundation in 1875, emanated from certain Eastern Teachers said to belong to an Occult Brotherhood living in ... Tibet. H.P. Blavatsky ... acknowledged these Eastern Brothers as her Teachers, stating... that she herself had received training and instruction at their hands during her sojourn in Tibet...
"It was not until 1880 that further testimony became available. In that year the late A.P. Sinnett... was enabled through the agency of Madame Blavatsky, to enter into correspondence with her own Teachers... During the course of this correspondence which extended over the years 1880 to 1884 Mr. Sinnett received many letters from The Mahatmas M. and K.H. [Koot Humi]... and it is these original communications which are published in the present volume under the title of 'The Mahatma Letters.' The circumstances regarding their receipt were fully dealt with by Mr. Sinnett in his 'Occult World' and they need not therefore be restated here."
Letter II states, "The mysteries never were, never can be, put within the reach of the general public, not, at least, until that longed for day when our religious philosophy becomes universal." (Pg. 6) Letter V suggests, "The best of the British Spiritualists could, with proper management, be converted into Theosophists. But neither Dr. Wyld, not Mr. Massey, seem to have the requisite force." (Pg. 21)
Yet letter XVI adds, "you may understand why we oppose so strongly Spiritualism and mediumship." (Pg. 113) Letter X says, "Pantheistic we may be called---agnostic NEVER. If people are willing to accept and to regard as God our ONE LIFE immutable and unconscious in its eternity they may do so and thus keep to one more gigantic misnomer." (Pg. 53)
It adds, "Evil has no existence per se and is but the absence of good and exists but for him who is made its victim." (Pg. 56) Letter XXIII suggests, "Why not admit---true no one of them has ever thought of it---that our PRESENT continents, have---like 'Lemuria' and 'Atlantis'---been several times already, submerged and had the time to reappear again, and bear their new groups of mankind and civilization; and that, at the first great geological upheaval, at the next cataclysm---in the series of periodical cataclysms that occur from the beginning to the end of every Round---our already autopsied continents will go down, and the Lemurias and Atlantises come up again." (Pg. 151)
Letter LV states [perhaps answering charges of plagiarism], "There is always that danger if one has neglected to ascertain whether the words and sentences rushing into the mind have come all from WITHIN or whether some may have been impressed from WITHOUT. I feel sorry to have brought you into such a false position before your many enemies and even your friends. That was ONE of the reasons why, I had hesitated to give my consent to print my private letters and specifically excluded their contents---nor have I now. I have a habit of often quoting, MINUS quotation marks, from the maze of what I get in the countless folios of our Akashic libraries, so to say---with eyes shut. Sometimes I may give out thoughts... what an orator, a Cicero may have pronounced ages earlier, and at others, what was not only pronounced by modern lips but already either written or printed... All this I do... without the smallest concern as to where the sentences and strings of words may have come from, so long as they serve to express, and fit in with my own thoughts." (Pg. 324)
Letter LIX says, "Yes; you are right about the Society for Psychical Research: its work is of a kind to tell upon public opinion by experimentally demonstrating the elementary phases of Occult Science. H.S. Olcott has been trying to convert each of the Indian Branches into such a school of research, but the capacity for sustained independent study for knowledge's sake is lacking, and must be developed. The success of the S.P.R. will greatly aid in this direction and we wish it well." (Pg. 342)
Letter LXXXIII admonishes, "Be more careful as to what you say upon forbidden topics. The 'eighth sphere' mystery is a very confidential subject, and you are far from understanding even its general aspect. You were repeatedly warned and should not have mentioned it. You have unintentionally brought ridicule upon a solemn matter." (Pg. 396)
Letter CXXXVIII laments, "It is useless, Mr. Sinnett. The Theosophical Society shall live here, in India, for ever---it seems doomed in Europe, because I am doomed... And if Mahatmas are myths, I---the author of all those letters, a proclaimed FRAUD and worse---by the P.S.R. how can the London Lodge live? I told you... this investigation of Mr. [Richard] Hodgson will be fatal... how can he recognize truth from lie when there is a thick net of conspiracy around him?" (Pg. 472-473)
Letter XCIII responds directly to the charge of plagiarism: "if I had any desire to argue out the question I might answer that of what constitutes plagiarism, being a borrowing of IDEAS rather than of words and sentences, there was none in point of fact, and I stand acquitted by my own accusers... Having DISTORTED the ideas 'appropriated,' and, as now published---diverted them from their original intention to suit my own 'very different purpose,' on such grounds my literary LARCENY does not appear very formidable at all?... the most that could be said is, that owing to the poverty of words at the command of Mr. Sinnett's correspondent... he has adapted a few of innocent Mr. Kiddle's effusions... to express his own contrary ideas." (Pg. 421)
H.P. Blavatsky, in an Appendix, also deals with the accusation that her own handwriting resembles that of the Mahatmas: "Now if there is such a marked difference between letters written by the same person mechanically, (as the case with me for instance who has never had a STEADY handwriting), how much more in precipitation, which is the photographic reproduction from one's head, and I bet anything that no chela ... is capable of precipitating his own handwriting twice over in precisely the same way---a difference and a marked one there shall always be." (Pg. 480)
This book is perhaps of lesser current interest than many other Theosophical books, but is still an important resource for anyone studying the Theosophical movement.
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