Theos-Talk Archives (April 1996 Message tl01126)

 JHE writes to Bee:

>>       This is Olcott's version.  Obviously he didn't know anything
>> about reincarnation, and since HPB didn't discuss the subject
>> with him, he assumed she was ignorant of the subject also.
>>       Historically, ~Isis~ was published in 1877.  The after-death
>> states and reincarnation were not introduced until after the
>> introduction of the seven principle schema, which was in turn
>> introduced in 1880.  I think the significant question here is how
>> could HPB have made her teachings concerning after-death states
>> and reincarnation comprehensible without first giving a
>> foundation of the seven principles?  Personally, I don't see how
>> it could have been done.  Therefore, I would suggest an alternate
>> interpretation that HPB was indeed familiar with the later
>> reincarnation teaching, but could not broach that subject until
>> the seven principle schema was first given out.

Bee replies to JHE's comments:

>This is where Olcott gives the impression that HPB was not a learned
>person, very psychic and in most unusual ways but she could see the
>astral books that the Masters showed her but in reality she (Helena) had
>not physically read them. I get the impression that HPB's psychic
>abilities and her special constitution was what caused the Masters to
>bring her to Tibet and streamline her so that they could use her to
>enlighten the West. At times it was only 'M' who was strongwilled enough
>to do battle with her when she was being difficult. All this gives the
>impression that HPB provided the physical body, (certainly to begin
>with) and only later in the piece had she become familiar with the
>Masters teachings. She was bright and curious person so it probably
>didn't take long to become familiar with what the Masters were teaching
>through her.
>These are just some impressions I have gained and I appreciate your
>thoughts and corrections as I know of your interest in the history of
>Theosophy.


Daniel comments as follows:

Olcott's views on reincarnation as given in ODL, I are very one-sided.  To
get at
the complete picture, one would have to read what HPB said over many years in
her own writings and one should also see what the Masters say on this very
subject in THE MAHATMA LETTERS.

Bee, I would suggest that you read Boris de Zirkoff's "Historical
Introduction" to the
COLLECTED WRITINGS edition of ISIS UNVEILED.  See especially pp. [46]-[50].

Now the controversial section in ISIS on reincarnation consists of pp.
345-352, Vol. I
It amazes me how people will superfically read this text and never ask
themselves
relevant questions.  For example, on p. 345, HPB writes:  "...the
Reincarnationists.... "
and on p. 351, she writes:  "We will now present a few fragments of this
mysterious doctrine of reincarnation---as distinct from
metempsychosis---which we have from an authority.  Reincarnation,i.e., the
appearance of the same individual, or rather of his astral monad, twice on
the same planet, is not a rule in nature; it is an exception....If reason
has been so
far developed as to become active and discriminative, there is no
reincarnation [of the
individual's astral monad ?] on this earth....."

I have left out a great deal as indicated with the ......

Who are the Reincarnationists?  What is this mysterious doctrine of
Reincarnation?
What is metempsychosis? What is the astral monad?  Is the individual
different from his astral monad?  etc. etc.

These are just a few of the questions the attentive reader should be asking
and trying to
answer as he /she reads these pages.

In 1889 in THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY, a question is asked:  "But does not the author
of 'Isis Unveiled' stand accused of having preached against re-incarnation?"

And HPB replies (p. 191):
"By those who have misunderstood what was said, yes.  At the time that work
was written,
re-incarnation was not believed in by any Spiritualists, either English or
American, and
what is said there of *re-incarnation* was directed against the French
Spiritists,  whose
theory is...unphilosophical and absurd...The Re-incarnationists of the Allan
Kardec School believe in an arbitrary and immediate reincarnation.  With
them, the dead father can
incarnate in his own unborn daughter....They have neither Devachan, Karma....."

This is called "quickie" rebirth by Victor Endersby and is what I believe
Edgar Cayce more or less taught.  In fact, even today, most
reincarnationists believe that people  when dead return quickly to earth in
new physical bodies.

Now skeptics of HPB and even some Theosophists have been willing to believe that
HPB was making this all up after the fact to try to explain away the
apparent inconsistency.
But in a letter dated April 12, 1875 (months before she had even started
writing ISIS), she mentions "Allan Kardec" and writes:  "...though I do not
believe in reincarnation in the same sense as the French spiritists...."
This seems to me to be consistent with what she
writes later as in 1889.

Again in a letter (1875-1876 I don't have the letter before me) to Professor
Hiram Corson,
HPB speaks of and disagrees with the view of the French spiritists on
reincarnation.

And in a Mahatma Letter (No. 13, p. 76, 3rd ed.), Master Morya (Olcott's own
guru)
wrote to Sinnett:

"By-the-bye, I'll re-write for you pages 345 to 357, Vol. I. , of
ISIS---much jumbled, and confused by Olcott, who thought he was improving
it!"  Morya's exclamation point!  This Mahatma Letter was received by
Sinnett in Jan. 1882 more than a decade before Olcott
wrote the chapter in ODL on reincarnation.

These pp. 345 to 357 mentioned by Morya are the pages on reincarnation in
ISIS that Olcott writes about in ODL, I.

Now, Olcott had no doubt of the existence of Morya and had even been visited
by this Master in the New York days.  Had Olcott been given the chance to
see this Mahatma Letter, and also what KH says in other Mahatma Lettes to
Sinnett, would Olcott have changed his mind and wrote a different account in
ODL?

There are many other historical documents that need to be read and
understood in order to
understand this "reincarnation controversy."  So far, no writer has ever
tried to do a detailed
analysis of all the relevant historical material and write this up in an
article or pamphlet.

Daniel Caldwell