Theos-Talk Archives (March 1995 Message tl00112)

I think we need 1 more letter, before Eldon can give us the whole
book to read from.  I've looked at the Letters a little more, &
think a change of subject matter would be better.So I'm going to
follow Nicholas' wishes & copy off Letter #1, instead of the
others dealing with what the Mahatmas thought of God.

First a little background from Virginia & George's study note:
HPB and HSO (Olcott) were visiting the Sinnetts in Simla, the
summer capital of British India, in the foothills of the
Himalayas.  Earlier HPB had produced a number of unusual
phenomena, crediting them to the Masters.  Letter # 1 is in
answer to 2 first letters of Sinnett's.  He had asked the
Masters, to give him a foolproof proof that they weren't
impostors, & to produce in Simla an edition of that day's "The
London Times" at the same time as it was coming out in London.
Letter #1 was written by KH.

Received in Simla about Oct. 15,1880
Esteemed Brother & Friend,

Precisely because the test of the London newspaper would close
the mouths of the skeptics - it is unthinkable.  See it in what
light you will - the world is yet in its first stage of
disenthralment if not development, hence - unprepared.  Very
true, we work by natural not supernatural means & laws.  But, as
on the one hand science would find itself unable (in its present
state) to account for the wonders given in its name, & on the
other the ignorant masses would still be left to view the
phenomenon in the light of a miracle; everyone who would thus be
made a witness to the occurrence would be thrown off his balance
& the results would be deplorable;.  Believe me, it would be so -
especially for yourself who originated the idea, and the devoted
woman who so foolishly rushes into the wide open door leading to
notoriety.  This door, though opened by so friendly a hand as
yours, would prove very soon a trap - & a fatal one indeed for
her.  And such is not surely your object?

Madmen are they, who, speculating but upon the present, wilfully
shut their eyes to the past when made already to remain naturally
blind to the future! Far be it from me, to number you with the
latter - therefore will I endeavor to explain.  Were we to
acceded to your desires know you really what consequences would
follow in the trail of success? The inexorable shadow which
follows all human innvations moves on, yet few are they, who are
ever conscious of its approach and dangers.  What are then to
expect they, who would offer the world an innovation which, owing
to human ignorance, if believed in, will surely be attributed to
those dark agencies the two-thirds of humanity believe in and
dread as yet? You say - half London would be converted if you
could deliver them a Pioneer on its day of publication.  I beg to
say that if the people believed the thing true they would kill
you before you could make the round of Hyde Park; if it were not
believed true,- the least that could happpen would be the loss of
your reputation and good name - for propagating such ideas.

"The success of an attempt of such a kind as the one you propose,
must be calculated and based upon a thorough knowledge of the
people around you.  It depends entirely upon the social; and
moral conditions of the peole in their bearing on these deepest
and most mysterious questions which can stir the human mind - the
deific powers in man and the possibilities contained in nature.
How many, evven of your friends, of those who surround you, who
are more than superficially interested in these abstruse
problems? You could count them upon the fingers of your right
hand.  Your race boasts of having liberated in their century, the
genius so long imprisoned in the narrow vase of dogmatism and
intolerance - the genius of knowledge, wisdom & freethought.  It
says that in their turn ignorant prejudice & religious bigotry,
bottled up like the wicked Jin of old, and sealed up by the
Solomons of science rests at the bottom of the sea and can never,
escaping to the surface again, reign over the world as it did in
days of old; that the public mind is quite free, in short, and
ready to accept any demonstrated truth.  Aye; but is it verily
so, my respected friend? Experimental knowldedge does not quite
date from 1662, when Bacon, Robert Boyle and the Bishop of
Chester transformed under the royal charter their "Invisible
College" into a Society for the promotion of experimental
science.  Ages before the Royal Society found itself becoming a
reality upon the plan of the "Prophetic Scheme" an innate longing
for the hidden, a passionate love for and the study of nature had
led men in every generation to try and fathom her secrets deeper
than their neighbours did.  Rome ante Romulum fuit - is an axiom
taught to us in your English schools.  Abstract enquiries into
the most puzzling problems did not arise in the brain of
Archimedes as a spontaneous and hitherto untouched subject, but
rather as a reflection of prior enquiries in the same direction
and by men separated from his days by as long a period - and far
longer - than the one which separates you from the great
Syracusian.  The vril of the 'Coming race' was the common
property of races now extinct.  And, as the very existence of
those gigantic ancestors of ours is now questioned- though in the
Himava's, on the very territory belonging to you we have a cave
full of the skeletons of these giants - and their huge frames
when found are invariably regarded as isolated freaks of nature,
so the vril or Akas - as we call it - is looked upon as an
impossibility, a myth.  And without a thorough knowledge of Akas,
its combinations and properties, how can Science hope to account
for such phenomena? We doubt not but the men of your science are
open to conviction; yet facts must be first demonstrated to them,
they msut first have become their property, have proved amenable
to their own modes of investigation, before you find them ready
to admit them as facts.; If you but look into the Preface to the
'Micrographia' you will find in Hooke's suggestions that the
intimate relations of objects were of less account in his eyes
than their external operation on the senses - and Newton's fine
discoveries found in him their greatest opponent.  The modern
Hookeses are many.  Like this learned but ignorant man of old
your modern men of science are less anxious to suggest a physical
connexion of facts which might unlock for them many an occult
force of nature, as to provide a convenient 'classification of
scientific experiment s'; so that the most essential quality of
an hypotheses is not that it should be true but only plausible -
in their opinion.