H.P. Blavatsky's Unique Occult Status & Mission
H.P. Blavatsky (1831-1891)
H.P. Blavatsky (1831-1891) was the first person in modern times to write about the Theosophical Adepts, especially the Masters Morya and Koot Hoomi. She also affirmed that in her writings she was giving out the teachings of an age-old Adept Brotherhood.
In 1877 in Volume I of Isis Unveiled, Madame Blavatsky told her readers about these Adepts and her role in giving out the fundamentals of the Esoteric Science:". . .we came into contact with certain men, endowed with such mysterious powers and such profound knowledge that we may truly designate them as the sages of the Orient. To their instructions we lent a ready ear." p. vi
"The work now submitted to public judgment is the fruit of a somewhat intimate acquaintance with Eastern adepts and study of their science." p. v
Madame Blavatsky also wrote:
" . . . I was the first in the United States to bring the existence of our Masters into publicity; and . . . exposed the holy names of two members of a Brotherhood hitherto unknown to Europe and America (save to a few mystics and Initiates of every age), yet sacred and revered throughout the East, and especially India . . . . " "The Theosophical Mahatmas." The Path, December, 1886.
In April, 1891, H.P. Blavatsky (H.P.B.) wrote:
". . . every word of [esoteric] information found in this work [Isis Unveiled] or in my later writings, comes from the teachings of our Eastern Masters; and . . . many a passage in these works has been written by me under their dictation. In saying this no supernatural claim is urged, for no miracle is performed by such a dictation. . . . Space and distance do not exist for thought; and if two persons are in perfect mutual psycho-magnetic rapport, and of these two, one is a great Adept in Occult Sciences, then thought-transference and dictation of whole pages, become as easy and as comprehensible at the distance of ten thousand miles as the transference of two words across a room. . . . " "My Books," Lucifer, May, 1891
Concerning H.P.B.'s special position in relation to the Eastern adepts, the following quotes from letters of the Mahatmas K.H. and M. indicate her unique status: "... imperfect as may be our visible agent — and often most unsatisfactory and imperfect she is — yet she is the best available at present. . . . " The Mahatma Letters, 2nd edition, Letter 2. Italics added.
"This state of hers is [H.P.B.'s] intimately connected with her occult training in Tibet, and due to her being sent out alone into the world to gradually prepare the way for others. After nearly a century of fruitless search, our chiefs had to avail themselves of the only opportunity to send out a European body. . . . " The Mahatma Letters, 2nd edition, Letter 26. Italics added.
"[H.P.B. is] . . . a woman of most exceptional and wonderful endowments. Combined with them she had strong personal defects, but just as she was, there was no second to her living fit for this work. We sent her to America. . . . " The Mahatma Letters, 2nd edition, Letter 45. Italics added.
". . . we employ agents — the best available. Of these for the past thirty years the chief has been the personality known as H.P.B. to the world (but otherwise to us). Imperfect and very troublesome, no doubt, she proves to some, nevertheless, there is no likelihood of our finding a better one for years to come — and your theosophists should be made to understand it. Since 1885 I have not written, nor caused to be written save thro’ her agency, direct and remote, a letter or line to anybody in Europe or America, nor communicated orally with, or thro’ any third party. Theosophists should learn it. You will understand later the significance of this declaration so keep it in mind. Her fidelity to our work being constant, and her sufferings having come upon her thro’ it, neither I nor either of my Brother associates will desert or supplant her. . . . This you must tell to all: — With occult matters she has everything to do. . . . She is our direct agent. . . . " Letters from the Masters of Wisdom, Series 1, Letter 19. Italics added.
"[Modern] Theosophy is no new candidate for the world's attention, but only the restatement of principles which have been recognised from the very infancy of mankind." Master K.H., The Mahatma Letters, Letter 8. Italics added. ". . . We have broken the silence of centuries . . . . " Master K.H., Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, Series One, Letter 4. Italics added.
". . . Our [esoteric] doctrine . . . is now being partially taught to Europeans for the first time." Master K.H., The Mahatma Letters, Letter 18.
"Our [modern] knowledge of this Wisdom called Theosophy sprang from two sources, . . . [The Mahatma Letters] and the writings of H.P. Blavatsky. From these Letters A.P. Sinnett wrote The Occult World and Esoteric Buddhism; from the knowledge gained from these Masters, H.P. Blavatsky gave the world Isis Unveiled, The Secret Doctrine, The Key to Theosophy, The Voice of the Silence, and much besides. . . . 'H.P.B.' ... was the Founder of the Theosophical Movement, and the Masters' chosen and beloved pupil, agent and scribe. . . . " Christmas Humphreys and Elsie Benjamin, The Mahatma Letters (Preface to 3rd Ed.)
And Master Koot Hoomi (K.H.) in his August 1888 letter to Colonel Henry S. Olcott wrote on H.P.B.'s most famous work The Secret Doctrine:
"I have also noted, your thoughts about the 'Secret Doctrine.' Be assured that what she [HPB] has not annotated from scientific and other works, we have given or suggested to her. Every mistake or erroneous notion, corrected and explained by her from the works of other theosophists was corrected by me, or under my instruction. It is a more valuable work than its predecessor, an epitome of occult truths that will make it a source of information and instruction for the earnest student for long years to come. . . ." Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, Series I, p. 47
One should also consider the following significant passages from Madame Blavatsky's pen.
H.P.B. wrote to members of her Esoteric School:
"Let every member know . . . that the time for such priceless acquisition is limited. The writer of the present is old; her life is well-nigh worn out, and she may be summoned 'home' any day and almost any hour. And if her place is even filled up, perchance by another worthier and more learned than herself, still there remain but twelve years to the last hour of the term - namely, till December the 31st, 1899. Those who will not have profited by the opportunity (given to the world in every last quarter of a century), those who will not have reached a certain point of psychic and spiritual development, or that point from which begins the cycle of adeptship, by that day - those will advance no further than the knowledge already acquired. No Master of Wisdom from the East will appear or send any one to Europe or America after that period, and the sluggards will have to renounce every chance of advancement in their present incarnation - until the year 1975. Such is the LAW, for we are in Kali Yuga - the Black Age - and the restrictions in this cycle, the first 5,000 years of which will expire in 1897, are great and almost insuperable." HPB's Collected Writings, Vol XII, pp. 491-492. Italics added.
H.P.B. in Volume I of The Secret Doctrine told her readers:
"In Century the Twentieth some disciple more informed, and far better fitted [than H.P.B. herself], may be sent by the Masters of Wisdom to give final and irrefutable proofs that there exists a Science called Gupta-Vidya; and that . . . the source of all religions and philosophies . . . has been for many ages forgotten and lost to men, but is at last found."
". . . the SECRET DOCTRINE is not a treatise, or a series of vague theories, but contains all that can be given out to the world in this century." The Secret Doctrine, 1888, Vol I, p. xxxviii (original edition) Italics added.
And a few lines above these two paragraphs, one reads:
". . . But it will take centuries before much more is given from it [the Secret Archaic Doctrine]. . . . " Italics added.
See also:
• Various Theosophical Traditions and New Students of Theosophy
• H.P.B.'s Occult Status & the Claims of Latter-Day Messengers of the Masters
• The Fountain Source of Modern Theosophy
• On Pseudo-Theosophy & Pseudo-Adepts
• Psychic versus Initiate Visions & Knowledge
