Theos-Talk Archives (November 1995 Message tl00145)

According to Jerry Hejka-Ekins:

quoting PJ as having the goal of--
> Proving the reality of the Masters and thus getting HPB and
> Theosophy some long-overdue respect.
>
> JHE
> You lost me here. Part of your premise As I read it--and
> as everyone else I know who has read the book reads it is that
> HPB created an elaborate fraud concerning the existence of the
> Masters in order to cover the identity of some politically active
> people.
Definitely not a premise. When I first started out I didn't
even intend to get into the mystery of the Masters but was
just trying to fill in some blanks in HPB's biography. When
the first hypotheses about the Masters began to emerge the
political context was not yet very apparent. Remember we're
talking here about my motives for doing the research which are
quite distinct from what I found once the research was
underway. BTW I wouldn't say "HPB created an elaborate fraud"
but rather that "in attempting to conceal the identities of the
Masters while proving their existence HPB became involved in
an elaborate mixture of truth and fiction that developed once
underway in ways that she could not control." I don't think
she deliberately set out to perpetrate fraud but rather than
when asked questions she couldn't safely answer she came up
with diversionary responses blinds that took on a life of
their own.

How does this gain public respect for HPB and the
> Masters?

Before my books there were two extant possible interpretations
of the truth value of the Theosophical literature's claims
about the Masters:
1 They are completely fictional the consensus of virtually
all non-Theosophical writers
2 They are just as HPB described them the consensus of
vitually all Theosophical writers

and I propose
3 They are fictionalized portrayals of real people who were
HPB's spiritual teachers and occult sponsors

The effect of my work on the non-Theosophical reader's view of
HPB and the Masters appears to be to demolish option 01
entirely. I doubt that any serious book on her will blithely
assume the non-existence of the Masters. The evidence that is
rejected by Theosophists as inadequate to prove all my specific
hypotheses conclusively is accepted by non-Theosophists as
quite adequate to establish the plausibility of the general
thesis-- that the Masters existed but were not accurately
described by HPB. To my mind proving that HPB derived her
teachings from genuine adepts e.g. people with recognized
expert knowledge in various traditions Kabbalah
Rosicrucianism Sikhism Tibetan Buddhism etc. is a
considerable step forward from the Meade/Washington etc.
portrayal of her as a demented medium who concocted her
teachings from poorly-understood books.

But as Godwin says in the introduction to your own
> book you were only offering a theory and nothing more. If your
> theory turns out to be fact then you have indeed exposed more
> than one myth and you *will* be deeply respected at least by
> me for it and as far as I'm concerned you will have done a
> great service to the TM. On the other hand if it turns out not
> to be true then you have created a new myth that makes the
> Masters as represented in the Mahatma letters to be fabrications;
> Olcott to be a fool; and HPB to be a fraud. With this second
> scenario how did you ever expect for even a moment that the
> Theosophical Organizations which owe their existence to your so
> called myth created by HPB would ever welcome your book?

You are talking about implications here implications that were
never apparent to me as I was writing the book and which even
now seem to me to be far too harshly stated. Does my work
really imply that the Mahatma letters are fabrications? I
think not; HPB evidently believed herself able to enter into
telepathic communication with adepts she knew and wrote while
in such a state of consciousness. I can't say how real such a
connection was one way or another but don't rule out its
genuineness. Regarding Olcott I don't see him as a fool at
all but as someone who grew wiser and wiser over the years of
his association with HPB and who became in a very important
way an Initiate of the mysteries through his connection with
her. As for HPB being a fraud I think your use of that as a
noun suggests the black-and-white view of the subject. No I
would not say that HPB *was* a fraud and don't think my
hypotheses imply it. Rather she was a person with sincere
motives and genuine wisdom to share who because of
circumstances beyond her control was obliged to package that
wisdom in a misleading way. But it is indeed easy to see why
Theosophists are not embracing such a view.

Thanks for the chance to clarify or confuse further? some
issues.