Masonic, Occult and Esoteric Online Library
H.P. Blavatsky As I Knew Her
By Alice Leighton Cleather
Addendum
WHEN Mr. Sinnett's Early Days of Theosophy in Europe was published by the London House of the Adyar T. S. at the end of 1922, I received a letter from a brother journalist and fellow-student of those days, in which he said : " It is the most crisis-provoking thing that has appeared for years. They will all have to take their stand on that. It cannot be explained away, or dodged, or camouflaged in any way, and I cannot imagine what tempted A. B. to publish it [I can B. C] . . . . It has done more to consolidate us here than anything else; It reveals the whole treachery from 1889, and shows who was behind the scenes in all that occurred, [A. B. must have missed this point, which I shall deal with fully. B. C] ,. . . To me it is unspeakable, and if I had attempted to characterize it I would have gibbered. So I thought it wiser to take it dispassionately and draw inferences for the unread." He is referring to the task of reviewing it for the magazine of his Section, and his opinion is the more striking in that he occupies a leading office in the Besant Society. While feeling more free than he, having left that body in 1895, 1 trust I may succeed in being as impartial as is humanly possible for one who accepts H. P. Blavatsky's own account of herself and her Mission, has the highest regard for her personal character, and considers that her books contain teaching and information of unique and inestimable value.
Mrs. Cleather had two years experience of Mr. Sinnett, as a member of his London Lodge, before H. P. B. came to London for good in 1887, and thus was able to form an impartial opinion of his attitude towards her atthat critical period. All that she says about him inthe present reminiscences, and in H. P. Blavatsky : Her Life and Work for Humanity, should be read andcompared with Mr. Sinnett's statements and my analysisof them.
On the one hand we have Mrs. Cleather, as a devotedpupil, finding in H. P. B. the one person in the worldwho was able to give her the key to the problems of life for which she had sought in vain in philosophy andreligion in the West, and taking no interest in psychicphenomena ; on the other we see Mr. Sinnett, eagerlyinterested in phenomena, and treating H. P. B. merelyas a means of securing information with which he mightstartle the Western world. Which of the two was thebetter qualified to estimate the Sphinx known as H. P. B.at her true worth cannot be doubted. In everythingMr. Sinnett has ever written he has shown his lack ofunderstanding, obviously due to his personal limitations ; but his present book goes far beyond anything he ven-tured to put in print during his lifetime, and constitutesone of the most striking examples of self-revelation Ihave come across in a fairly long experience on thePress and in the Law Courts of England.
Mr. Sinnett was eighty years of age when he sethimself to write what he is pleased to call " a plaintruthful narrative " in order to correct the " mythological conceptions of new. adherents," included in whomare Mrs. Cleather and her contemporaries, termed" blind devotees " because they did not hesitate to givetheir preference to the Master mind, rather than to onewho was not even a pupil, but merely a very faulty andrebellious exponent of the few fragments he was permittedto receive and give out. He died in 1931, and the mostcharitable thing one can say is, that in his dotage he must have forgotten what he has not distorted concerning H. P. B. and her work. As the final message of a man prominent for forty years in a Movement professing high ideals, one would have expected a fairly comprehensive and accurate history of that portion, at any rate, in which he was more directly concerned. Colonel Olcott's Old Diary Leaves is far from satisfactory as an avowedly " True History/ 1 especially as regards H. P. B. ; and the account, attempted in the magazine Theosophy, of Los Angeles, is vitiated by the untenable assumption that Mr. Judge was on an occult equality with H. P. B. Only one who thoroughly understood H. P. B. and her Mission, her teaching both exoteric and esoteric, and possessed all the salient facts, could undertake such a task with any hope of success ; and it is unlikely that such a person is now alive. I feel, like my friend, that it is difficult to characterise Mr. Sinnett's book with anything like judicial calmness ; yet the unpleasant, nay revolting, task must be faced for the sake of the revered Teacher here so vilely traduced, misrepresented, and uncomprehended by one to whom she gave perhaps greater opportunities for doing real good than any other in the whole history of the movement.
If it should be thought by some that Mrs. Cleather has been unduly severe on Mr. Sinnett, they must surely feel after reading his book and this review that she is now more than justified out of his own mouth. The best way, I think, will be to group the principal passages that call for comment or explanation under definite headings, in order to bring out clearly certain important points.
MR. SINNETT'S PERSONAL AMBITION AND DUBIOUS METHODS.
Mrs. Cleather, whom I have known since 1892, when I discarded psychic investigation for H. P. B.'s teaching, has always recognised his personal motives, and in this book I find them revealed all through, but especially in his attempts to get into communication with Master K. H. independently of H. P. B. The lengths to which he went in pursuit of this desire are almost incredible, especially in a man who continually professes his anxiety to do the correct thing according to the European social code, and does not hesitate to express his disapproval of H. P. B/s violations of it. Thus, when H. P. B. first visited the Sinnetts at Simla in December, 1879, and gratified his insatiable thirst for phenomena, he says (p. 27) : "
The manifestations of occult power then freely given had a profound effect on my own mind. I felt that those who exhibited such marvellous power over natural forces unfamiliar to physical science must possess knowledge to correspond." Observe he does not credit H. P. B. with the power to perform them herself by her own trained will, but from the first cannot resist adopting the Spiritualistic theory that she was a medium, albeit a very unusual one, despite her ownstatements and proofs to. the contrary. " I wished," he continues, " to get into communication with one of the ' Brothers/ she talked about. I felt sure they would be more reasonable to deal with than herself. Conversation showed that she thought this might not be impossible, and I wrote a letter addressed to ' A Brother ' and gave it to Madame Blavatsky for transmission. In due course I received a reply, and this was the first of a long series of letters from the Masters K. H. and M. which led to the preparation of ' The Occult World ' and afterwards to ' Esoteric Buddhism/ " He follows this precious avowal with the statement that MadameBlavatsky altered and added to the letters in trans- mission, and that " long after she passed away ' and his methods of communication assumed " new and improved conditions," the Master had told him they were a " travesty " of his meaning. Mrs. Cleather has shown, and I will quote him later to prove, that as early as 1885 he was endeavouring to communicate through other " intermediaries," because the Master had closed the correspondence; and that in 1889, two years before H. P. B.'s death, he was using C. W. Leadbeater for that very purpose. So much for his " truthful narrative " at the very beginning.
Here we see his extraordinary conceit and bad taste, as well as his total inability to see beyond the mere personality and comprehend the status and Mission of the chosen and trained Agent of the Masters. Because to his extremely limited, conventional, and materialistic vision, H. P. B. seemed to show " curious inaptitude," he at once begins to try and go behind her (his own guest, at the time !). Evidently he thought he was much better fitted himself, and practically says so more than once. Yet H. P. B. forthwith put him in direct communication with the Master K. H., a priceless privilege that any of the Indian aspirants of that time would have made any sacrifice to secure. But, as he has to admit, the communications had to pass through H. P. B., for she was the only prepared instrument on the physical plane who was able and willing to do it. (See extracts from the Masters ' Letters quoted by Mrs. Cleather ante, p. 27). That she was willing only shows the nobility and selfless- ness of her character, for she must have foreseen the inevitable consequences in all the years of suffering and obloquy that followed Mr. Sinnett's misuse of his opportunity. As editor of the Pioneer, his journalistic instincts scented a big " scoop," while his abnormal egotism and personal ambition grasped eagerly at the chance of becoming the Avatar of a great religio-scientific revelation to the Western world. This becomes quite plain later in the book, when he goes to England.
It was a little too much, however, even for H. P. B., when, as he relates (p. 36), on hearing of the MahaChohan (the great Initiate at the head of the TransHimalayan Brotherhood, whom he irreverently styles "the Old Chohan"), he and Mr. Hume "determined to try the experiment of addressing a letter to him declaring that if we were to do any good in connexion with the spread of theosophy we must be somehow enabled to work quite independently of Madame Blavatsky. Looking back from my present point of view, I know this was an absurd course to take, but it brought matters to a crisis. Ridiculous as the situation was, the only way of sending the letter was, to give it to the person of whomit complained Madame Blavatsky ; " and he actually handed it to H. P. B. who -M put it in her pocket without looking at it." That it was in the worst possible taste, to use no harsher term, never seems to have occurred to him. Naturally, when H. P. B. came to transmit the letter she became aware of the enormity of the affront, both to the Brotherhood and to herself as Their representative. She had a stormy interview with Messrs. Sinnett and Hume which led to the latter's eventual estrangement; after behaviour which called forth a strong protest from twelve Hindu Chelas of the Brotherhood, two of whom were actually resident with Them in Tibet (See H. P. Blavatsky : Her Life and Work, p. 33, in which it is followed by the magnificent letter of rebuke from the Maha Chohan Himself). Such is the man who presumes to call H. P. B. " impossible to work with," and to criticise her manners she who came of a noble Russian family, and could when she saw fit behave like an Empress, as Mrs. Cleather has often told me.
Mr. Sinnett omits to mention that H. P. B. and Colonel Olcott visited Simla primarily to lay their papers before the Government in order to be relieved of espionage. In a letter dated Simla, October, 1880, to a native gentleman, she says they had come " at a great expenditure of time and money to plead our cause with the English," and quotes one of the officials as saying : " You have done that in eighteen months which we English have not been able to achieve in years. You are creating a better understanding between the two races and gradually filling up the gap between them." This was part of the real work planned for India, which was defeated by the craze for phenomena and the resultant charges of fraud and trickery ; but with this aspect of the matter I will deal in detail further on.
The next step taken by Mr. Sinnett to realise his ambition is related at p. 38. The Pioneer having dispensed with his services, " both my wife and I had grown tired of the Indian life and wished to be back in England." Such a feeling might seem strange in one who was enjoying a unique opportunity of being so near the Masters as he then was, for at that time They were only just the other side of the Himalayas in the Karakoram range (see The Occult World, p. 82), and Their Representative wasjon the spot and ready to help him in every way. I could name a dozen Orientals and some Europeans who would have given anything for such a privilege. But Messrs. Sinnett and Hume were typical European intellectuals without the least glimmering of the sacred relation between Guru and Chela (Master and Pupil) in Eastern Occultism. Mr. Sinnett is self- revealed as desiring above all to go to England with the information he had so far obtained, establish a society there on his own lines, and pose as the bearer of the new message in place of the " impossible " H. P. B.
Hence we find him, in 1883, established in the West-Endof London, lecturing to the " upper levels of Society,"and receiving the following encomium from Mr. Myersof the Society for Psychical Research, which exactlyexpresses what he was aiming at : " We gratefully recognise the very acceptable choice which the Adeptshave made in selecting Mr. Sinnett as the intermediarybetween us and them. They could hardly have chosenanyone more congenial to our Western minds." (p. 50.)
One might ask on what authority he was thusaccepted as " intermediary " for the West ? H. P. B.certainly never gave it, and the evidence from the AdeptsThemselves is quite to the contrary. (See letter quotedante, p. 27.) In view of this alluring prospect he is naturally filled with " dismay " on hearing early in 1884that H. P. B. is on her way to England with Colonel Olcott, and an Indian Chela of the Master K. H., MohiniChatterji (translator of Sankaracharya's " Crest Jewel of Wisdom," who collaborated during his stay in Englandwith Mrs. Laura Holloway, an American Chela of the same Master, in Man; Fragments of Forgotten History}. Mr. Sinnett relates how H. P. B. arrived, unexpectedly, one evening in the middle of a lodge meeting, and offered explanations of obscure passages in Isis Unveiled ; but the company was not interested in the philosophy, and asked for information about " astral apparitions of the Mahatmas." This is a typical example of the misconception of H. P. B/s real mission, and the persistent demands for phenomena that led to the subsequent troubles.
Mr. Sinnett's snobbery and fear of social discredit through H. P. B. and Colonel Olcott comes out again andagain. For instance, on p. 47 he says his plan was that the new teaching should take root in " the upper levels of Society and filter downwards with social authority behind it, instead of beginning on lower levels and trusted to filter upwards as it could. Unhappily this programme was defeated by Madame Blavatsky's return to England." He even makes the preposterous and abominable asser- tion (p. 63) that " she came to Europe to bathe in a flood of adulation," but Mr. Judge, who came over from America at this time to meet her in Paris, wrote from there to a friend that she had been suddenly ordered by her Master to go to London to try and adjust certain serious difficulties which had arisen in the London Lodge. The .letter was printed with others of that period in The Word, of New York, March 1912. Mr, Sinnett adds that Colonel Olcott's tactless behaviour . in a lecture he gave before the S. P. R. made " the leaders of that Society anxious to shake themselves free from theosophical associates liable to bring social discredit on their undertaking." In fact, if Mr. Sinnett is correct in this case, the changed attitude of the S. P. R., which led to the infamous Report of 1885, after a favourable and sympathetic preliminary one (see H. P. Blavatsky : Her Life and Work, Chap. VI), was dictated entirely by this ignoble motive, and reveals them in an even more despicable light than hitherto seemed possible.
Yet, despite Mr. Sinnett's " social " scruples at that time, we find him, in the face of the Leadbeater scandals of 1906, resuming the office of Vice-President of the Adyar T. S., and holding it until his death (p. 117). Here and elsewhere he asserts that it was he who " had the privilege of launching the theosophical movement in Europe," and but for the coming of H. P. B. (when finally driven from Adyar by the fears of Colonel Olcott and the Council in 1885, as she relates in her letter " To My Brothers of Aryavarta" in 1890, quoted in the Life and Work, Chap. V) he would certainly have developed the English branch of the movement entirely on his own lines of intellectual psychic investigation. For,as the Master K. H. wrote to him and Mr. Hume, inresponse to their request for independent instruction inOccult Science ; the Simla Eclectic must be a branchof the parent body, and promote its " leading idea of aUniversal Brotherhood, and in other practicable ways. . . Yet you have ever discussed, but to put down,the idea of a Universal Brotherhood, questioned itsusefulness, and advised to remodel the TheosophicalSociety on the principle of a college for the special studyof occultism." (Life and Work of H. P. B., Chap. III.)Both in -this and the esoterie foundation of the movementembodied in the Benares Constitution of 1879 (which, likeOlcott, he ignores) he ran directly counter to the Masters'plans from the very beginning, evidently justifyingthis course by regarding them as interpolations byH. P. B.
TRAINED OCCULTIST OR IRRESPONSIBLE MEDIUM?
One of the most astonishing features of this bookis, that, although the author has always admittedthat H. P. B. underwent several years of the strictestoccult training in Tibet under the Masters, neverthelessagain and again in actual practice he acts as if she werejust an ordinary untrained person, full of glaring faults,continually making serious mistakes, and often little better than an irresponsible medium capable of thecrudest and most contemptible lying, deception, andtrickery. On the very first page he brackets her withColonel Olcott in stating that in 1875 the intentions ofthe Masters were " imperfectly comprehended " and" dimly realised " ; although, as she states in morethan one place, Colonel Olcott, Mr. Judge, and one otherEuropean were taught by her in America before IsisUnveiled was written. Mr. Sinnett's confused ideas about H. P. B. are strikingly revealed in the following statements, on page 18 :
(1) Madame Blavatsky " knew of her own knowledge " that the Masters were beings of flesh and blood, for she had been in Tibet with two of them.
(2) " She herself had faculties of a super-physical order that kept her in touch with them wherever she might be."
(3) "She knew she had a mission to fulfil ..."
(4) " She must have been conscious of possessing wonderful powers." Yet, after recognising all this, he ends the paragraph with the absurd and wholly gratuitous assertion that in Isis Unveiled she showed that
(5) " she was quite ignorant even of what we came later to regard as the A. B. C. of Theosophical teaching."
Her own explanation that she was not permitted t give out then to the public much that she was teaching privately (under the usual pledge of secrecy) he of course ignores ; just as, later, he treats her magnum opus, The Secret Doctrine, as if it were of rather less importance than one of his own productions. That she actually possessed, or had direct access to, all the extraordinary wealth of learning and occult knowledge which are exhibited in her later books (vide evidence of the learned Mason Dr. Buck, and the Scientist Dr. Carter Blake, cited in the Life and Work, p. 79 et seq.), and in her Instructions and oral teachings for her students of the Esoteric School, appears to be unthinkable for him. In his view she is merely " a link," and had to be put up with because the Masters " oould not find a better."
Moreover, by reason of lack of training and anaturally materialistic mentality, Mr. Sinnett misunderstood some of the information he was -permitted to publish,and H. P. B. had to correct certain points in her" Introductory " to Vol. I of The Secret Doctrine. Onestriking misconception was in regard to Mars andMercury, which he always persisted in calling two of theplanets of our Earth's Septenary Chain. This isobviously impossible if we accept the statement in theS. D. that " Everything in the Universe follows analogy,"for only the physical or lowest aspect of any septenarychain can be visible to our earthly vision, just as we canonly see our physical bodies, and not the astral, or thestill .more ethereal vehicles. As H. P. B. states, indealing with Mr. Sinnett's error in the S. D., p. 164(ist Edn.) : " Neither Mars nor Mercury belong to ourchain. They are, along with the other planets, septenaryUnits in the great host of ' chains ' of our system, and allare as visible as their upper globes are invisible." ThatMr. Sinnett was unable to see this obvious and fundamental principle, that everything is septenary, and thatonly the physical aspect of any septenary can be visibleon the physical plane, conclusively shows what a profoundly stupid man he .was, and how entirely unfittedfor the study of the Esoteric Philosophy. He repeatsthe error in the present book (Chap. IX), also in hisprevious one, Collected Fruits of Occult Teaching (1920),in which he presumes to put forward an astonishingcollection oi totally unsupported and disconnectedassertions as " expanded knowledge," superior to theS. D., which he dismisses as an " earlier book " subjectto " correction " and " enlargement." If, as H. P. B.states in her " Introductory," only " the outline of a fewfundamental truths from the Secret Doctrine of theArchaic Ages is now permitted to see the light, after long millenniums of the most profound silence and secrecy," it is entirely improbable that a mere student like Mr. Sinnett would be permitted, especially by means of " intermediaries " like Leadbeater, to discover and give out an^ more. In any case it was the great importance of the cycle ending about 1897-8 that . permitted the Masters to reveal as much as They did through H. P. B. ; and the fact that she was withdrawn six years before that date shows, as Mrs. Cleather demonstrates, that no more could be given until 1975.*
Again, on page 49, Mr. Sinnett has the supreme effrontery to say that, in 1883, when he was seeking further teaching, H. P. E. could not help him because " wonderful as were her powers, she possessed none of the detailed knowledge we now call theosophical teaching.[Presumably the " Neo-Theosophy " of the AdyarSociety. B. C.]. She picked it up as the letters fromthe Masters addressed to me passed through her hands,and was able to expand it a good deal in the light of hergeneral occult knowledge/'
Yet the marvellous sweep of knowledge displayed inthe S. D. was poured forth in a steady stream during thenext five years, most of it while moving from place toplace on the Continent, with no access to libraries, andconstantly harassed and worried by the troubles causedby the follies and misconceptions of her followers. ThePsychical Research attack was a direct result of theundue prominence given to phenomena, at the expenseof the philosophy and ethics, by foolish enthusiasts, and Mr. Sinnett was one of the chief offenders in this respect. The contents of the S. D. were certainly not" picked up " from anything Mr. Sinnett got, and his attempt here and elsewhere to put himself on the samelevel in this respect, and to claim that he got further andgreater knowledge than she possessed, through his later " intermediaries " (i.e., ordinary psychics and mediums),is not only grotesque but downright dishonest. I say soadvisedly, because he misled the public for years byletting it be inferred that he had found better "intermediaries " than H. P. B., through whom he was getting" expanded occult knowledge " independently, and evenwithout her cognisance.
INCEPTION OF THE GREAT BETRAYAL.
One of these " intermediaries " was evidently thenow notorious C. W. Leadbeater (see Mrs. Cleather's exposure in A Great Betrayal), for Mr. Sinnett brings anew fact to light of the first importance in the history of the degeneration of the T. S. since H. P. B.'s death. He relates quite accurately that Leadbeater joined in 1883 and went to India in 1884 with H. P. B.'s party on their return from England. He remained for a year or two at Adyar as Secretary, and was then sent to Ceylon by Colonel Olcott to look after his Buddhist schools. And now we come to a very significant sentence (p. 94) : " Mr. Leadbeater kept up a correspondence with me, and many of his letters showed plainly that he was very miserable in this uncongenial employment, although, as I learned afterwards, the period was associated with the great development of his psychic faculties and with consciousness in the physical brain of his relations with the Master K. H."
It will thus be seen that even at that early date, as soon as he got away by himself, Mr. Leadbeater began to make capital out of certain psychic facilities of a quite ordinary character, and to persuade Mr. Sinnett that he was able to communicate direct with the Master from whom he was so eager to get further information for his work in England. The question immediately presents itself here : If he were being specially trained by H. P. B. for the future work, as Mrs. Besant has recently asserted (Theosophist, March 1922), why did he not stay with her and follow her back to England and work under her there with her other pupils ? Instead of that, he goes to Ceylon, and from there writes constantly to Mr. Sinnett, of all people, until he persuades him to engage him as "resident tutor " for his son, the real bait being the chance of securing a good " intermediary " as we shall see presently. Mr. Sinnett was evidently not then aware of that dominant feature in Mr. Leadbeater's character which subsequently produced a series of storms in the T. S. the latest being now in progress in Australia : viz., adopting certain boys and training them according to his own peculiar ideas, which are fully dealt withinA Great Betrayal. "
The Master," writes Mr. Sinnett, " had specially directed him to take care of a certain native boy in whom he the Master for reasons of his own, wasinterested. Leadbeater could not leave Ceylon andcome to England without bringing that boy with him ! "Of course the Master was invoked simply to ensure notparting with the boy, whose name was Jinarajadasa. So he . was brought to London, grew up under Leadbeater's tutelage, and finally succeeded Mr. Sinnett as Vice-President of the Adyar T. S. Mr. Sinnett omitsto mention that in 1906, when the first Leadbeater scan- dal arose, Colonel Olcott " expelled C. Jinarajadasa fromthe T. S. because of his campaign in defence of Leadbeater's sex ' teaching ' " (see Dawn, May i, 1923, p. 14). A worthy pupil of such a master, together with whom hewas evidently reinstated by Mrs. Besant when she suc- ceeded Colonel Olcott in 1907.
An eminent Sinhalese who was well acquainted withLeadbeater's true character, even at that time, in Ceylon, told me he was in the house when the boy's father camewith a revolver, intending to shoot Leadbeater unless hegave up his son. My informant, being a devout Buddhist, feared violence, and persuaded him to desist, with the result that he lost his son, who was removed to a ship byhis determined mentor. Another of the Leadbeaterboys, J. Krishnamurti, was kept from his father despite the ruling of Mr. Justice Bakewell, of the Madras HighCourt, in 1913, that he and his brother should be restored to him, and that Mr. Leadbeater was "certainly animmoral person and highly unfit to be in charge of the boys." Mrs. Besant contrived to evade the order, because Mr. Leadbeater had designated Krishnamurtias the chosen vehicle in which the coming " World- Teacher " of the Neo-Theosophists would incarnate. Thus he and the new Vice-President are direct products of the Leadbeater training ! What hope, then, can there be of reforming a Society thus carefully prepared and officered? Only the late Lord Fisher's celebrated advice " Sack the lot ! " would be of any avail.
It will hence be seen that Leadbeater had begun to lay the foundations of his elaborate scheme several years before H. P. B.'s death, and Mr. Sinnett here reveals for the first time that it was he who gave him the opening he was looking for. Established in the house as tutor, what more natural than that he should become a psychic "intermediary" for Mr. Sinnett's circle! One can see from all that has happened since what use he made of the opportunity, and how, with his low order of psychism, his fertile invention, and the unhealthy imagination of his type, he played to the full on the credulity of Mr. Sinnett and his students.
In fact, from this date (1889) would seem to have begun the fatal and treacherous process which led, after H. P. B.'s death, first to the Besant-Judge " Split " in the T. S., in 1895, and then to the steady alteration, perversion, and degradation of her teachings by the leaders of both factions, especially on the Besant side under the guidance, first of Chakravarti, and then of Leadbeater. A notable fact in this connection is revealed here by Mr. Sinnett, which supplies the key to Mrs. Besant's subsequent policy and close association with Leadbeater. He relates that, after Mrs. Besant's first visit to India in 1893, where with Chakravarti and Olcott the Case against W. Q. Judge was formulated, she joined his circle, having " realised the importance " of his " private methods of communicating with the Master K. H." then " in full progress." Through Leadbeater, of course, who was fooling Sinnett to the top of his bent ; and Mrs. Besant, seeking with like eagerness for the " communication " she could not obtain direct (as every real chelamust do before he can qualify as such), joined the groupwhich forthwith " became the real vortex of the theosophic teaching of the period." What this teaching was,and how completely it departed from what H. P. B. wasempowered to give out, is evident to anyone who hashad the patience to dip into the mass of material, mainlyconsisting of irresponsible psychic twaddle, poured forth from this tainted and disloyal source ever since.
Both here and elsewhere Mr. Sinnett states thatthese " private methods " of communication were withoutH. P. B.'s knowledge, and with the Master's connivanceand consent. Mrs. Cleather has related a striking instance of his absolute lack of belief in H. P. B.'s ability to readanything she wanted in the Astral Light (ante', p. n),preferring to believe that Mrs. Cleather had deliberately made mischief, which in itself showed a complete misunderstanding of her attitude to her Teacher, and hersense of honour towards her friends. And this in theface of all that he has written about H. P. B.'s wonderfuloccult powers. No less does he misunderstand thenature of a Master, whom he can believe capable of con^niving with him in secret communications behind theback of His own Agent, and in the face of the MasterK. H.'s statement in a letter of rebuke to Colonel Olcottin 1888 for his attitude to H. P. B; : "Since 1885 I havenot written, nor caused to be written save through heragency, direct or remote, a letter or line to anybodyin Europe or America, nor communicated with, or thro* any third party. Theosophists should learn it. Youwill understand later the significance of this declaration, so keep it in mind. Her fidelity to our work beingconstant, and her sufferings having come upon her thro'it, neither I nor either of my Brother Associates will desert or supplant her. As I once before remarked, ingratitude is not among our vices But this you must tell to all : With occult matters she has every- thing to do. We have not abandoned her. She is not given over to chelas. She is our direct agent."
Even the most ordinary notions of rectitude and loyalty, as between principal and agent, would revolt at such underhanded double-dealing, and in such an exalted being as a Master it is simply unthinkable. Mr. Sinnett's book is full of these inconsistencies and contradictions which completely invalidate his case for occasional fraud and trickery. In fact, it is difficult to account for them on any other hypothesis than that someone desiring to discredit H. P. B. has tampered with his manuscript ; for never during his lifetime did he suggest deception of any kind, and only in later years, after her death, regarded her more as a medium than as a trained Occultist, due no doubt to the warping of his judgment by the associations of that period.
To anyone in the least familiar with the various phenomena of Spiritualism and Hypnotism, and the wide difference between the medium, or sensitive, and the trained Occultist, it is clear enough that nothing obtained by the methods employed in the Sinnett circle was reliable, since they could in no case penetrate beyond the delusive lower levels of the astral realm. "
When Mrs. Besant joined our group," proceeds Mr. Sinnett, "she became intimately acquainted for the first time with Mr. Leadbeater, whose wonderful clair- voyant faculties were of immense importance in our studies." As this first meeting took place some three years after H. P. B.'s death, Mrs. Besant's recent state- ment that they were both specially trained by her (Theosophist, March, 1922) clearly has no foundation, as Mrs. Cleather rightly contends in A Great Betrayal.
Otherwise, Why was he 'sent to Ceylon soon after hereached Adyar, Why was he so eager to return to England,and Why did he carefully avoid the London Headquartersas long as H. P. B. was alive and devote himself " exclusively " (p. in) to the Sinnett group ? Obviously hebelieved in her no more than Mr. Sinnett did, and, like him, was scheming for his own hand, and only waitinguntil she was out of the way to secure a dominant position. In Mrs. Besant he found as easy a dupe as Mr.Sinnett, and we find her losing no time in giving him
It should here be made quite clear that from the very first, in seeking to get into direct communicationwith the Masters independently of their accredited Agent,Mi. Sinnett broke one of the cardinal rules of Occultism. Thereafter he found himself involved in a network of deception in his attempts to continue communicationby means of untrained psychics, hypnotised sensitives, and even charlatans of the Leadbeater type. All her life H. P. B. warned her pupils of the danger and delusion involved in such methods ; and I realised this fully from my own experience of Spiritualism before I read her books. The Master K. H. had to terminate communicationwith Mr. Sinnett in 1885, and make the definite statement to that effect already quoted. No doubt Mr Sinnett regarded it as a fraud by H. P. B. due to her " jealousy," although this particular letter was received direct byColonel Olcott on his voyage to England in 1888, whenH. P. B. was in London. Mrs. Cleather has shown(ante, p. 31) how easily Mr. Sinnett was deceived byany medium good at personation, or by " masqueradingentities " so common in mediumistic phenomena.
