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MABEL COLLINS EXAMINED BY BASIL CRUMP




Basil Crump was a very learned member of the Theosophical Society and about Mabel Collins, he wrote the following:


« Mrs. Keningale Cook, née Mabel Collins, was the only daughter of Mortimer Collins the poet and novelist, who was my father’s stepfather.

I have an original copy of his book with the following autograph inscription:

« Work done under Sri: Hilarion. Light on the Path, begun October, 1884. Karma written, December 27, 1884. Mabel Cook. »



But because of an error in that book, Blavatsky when she wrote the Voice of the Silence in 1889, she included the following warning (p. 17):

-      “Do not believe that lust can ever be killed out if gratified or satiated, for this is an abomination inspired by Mara.  It is by feeding vice that it expands and waxes strong, like to the worm that fattens on the blossom’s heart.”

This was done in order to counteract the following advice in Light on the Path (verse 20):

-      “Seek it [the way] by testing all experience, by utilizing the senses in order to understand the growth and meaning of individuality. . . .”

“Mistrust thy senses, they are false,” says the Voice, and this is a cardinal doctrine of Raja Yoga (the Buddhist Dhydna).

Blavatsky said that Mabel Collins’ imperfectly controlled psychic organism had misinterpreted her teacher’s thought.

My late step-aunt was well known in the family as a strong spiritualistic medium, and her literary talent inherited from her father made her a useful instrument at that time. She began her occult training under Blavatsky, who placed her under the tutelage of Master Hilarion ("our semi-European Greek brother,” Mahatma Letters, p. 64).

In her Letters to Sinnett, Blavatsky spells the name “Illarion” and says (p.153) that on her way back from India (1870, after her initiation in Tibet) she “first went to Greece and saw Illarion, in what place I cannot and must not say.”

Blavatsky says of her own training that it was only after “a terrible struggle and a supreme effort of will, with the help of initiated friends” (her Teachers in Tibet), that she gained control of her psychic organism.

Mrs. Cook was not so fortunate, and very soon left the movement, subsequently denying that Hilarion had anything to do with her work. »

(The Occult Review, August 1928, p.117-119)






Later, a defender of Mabel Collins sent a letter that unfortunately I could not locate, but I have found the answer that Basil Crump gave:


« One must also agree with Mr. Whitney that Mabel Collins’ works subsequent to Light on the Path are “not altogether dependable, good as they may be, because of her subsequent break with her Master.”

I recall a letter Blavatsky wrote to the spiritualist paper Light at that time, dealing with the Mabel Collins affair in answer to that journal's comments, and expressing a similar opinion concerning Through the Gates of Gold.

Mr. Whitney says, “I do not know what writings Blavatsky refers to when she says that Mabel Collins misinterpreted her Teacher’s thought. ... But it is exceedingly unlikely that any reference was made to Light on the Path, unless some of the commentaries were written or rewritten by Mabel Collins after her Master had withdrawn his control.”

He also speaks of “Mr. Crump’s interpretation” of the passage about utilizing the senses”; but the interpretation was not mine, the passage in my letter reading: “Blavatsky said that Mabel Collins’ imperfectly controlled psychic organism had misinterpreted her Teacher’s thought.”

I also stated that the passage in the Voice, p.17, beginning, “Do not believe that lust can ever be killed out . . .” was included in order to counteract the advice about “utilizing the senses” in Light on the Path.


I am not aware that Blavatsky stated anywhere in writing that Mabel Collins had misinterpreted, but she did speak of it to the other early members of the Esoteric School, one of whom repeated it to me when I joined it in 1893, and I noted it in my copy.

She also explained the way in which Hilarion used Mabel Collins as an “amanuensis,” and why it was possible for such an imperfect transmission to occur. The case was by no means that of the regular relation between a trained and fully pledged chela and his Master, as Mr. Whitney assumes.

Mabel Collins was a novice in Occultism, and her psychic development (like Blavatsky in her girlhood, before her “seven and ten years” training in Tibet) was a hindrance and a danger. She had only been a few days in the Esoteric School when the necessity for Blavatsky’s action arose.

The first seven years is always probationary, during which every sort of test has to be undergone, and M. C. was certainly no exception (see The Mahatma Letters, under “Probation and Chelaship,” for much valuable information on this question).


While on this subject I may say that when my previous letter was reproduced in the August issue of the Canadian Theosophist, Mr. Morgan Pryse followed in the next number with an article on Mabel Collins headed “Greatest of the Exiles,” (a term applied to William Judge by Jasper Niemand).

Mr. Pryse endeavors to convey the impression that Blavatsky and Mabel Collins were more or less on an equality in Occultism, and that the affair was in the nature of a “breach” which “could have been healed.”

The actual truth was that Mabel Collins, as an early member of the Esoteric School, had to be dealt with very severely by Blavatsky in her capacity as Outer Head of the school under her own Master.

Her reasons for being compelled to act as she did are given in very strong and unmistakable terms in her long Preliminary Explanations to Instructions No. Ill, dealing with the causes of the series of crises in 1889-1890, striking a fresh keynote, and giving directions for closing up the ranks.

The passage I refer to was one of several which were omitted when the Instructions were reprinted in 1890-1891 under the editorship of Mrs. Besant and Mr. Mead, on the ground that they were of a personal nature.  In restoring them to the American reprint Mr. Judge said:

-      This was done when Blavatsky was too ill to supervise, without her sanction and, as she afterwards said, much against her wishes.”

Blavatsky also refers to Mabel Collins associating herself with a campaign of “calumnies and falsehoods.”


Mr. Pryse, like Mr. Whitney, deprecates the condemnation of the “utilization of the senses” passage; but, as I have shown, the condemnation is Blavatsky’s, and in this she is entirely in line with accepted Buddhist doctrine.

The Voice of the Silence is unequivocal on the point. Nothing is more emphasized in Buddhism and Esoteric doctrine generally, than the danger of trying to learn through the senses, because they are essentially delusive and misleading.


Mr. Pryse emphatically disputes my statement that Mabel Collins was well known in our family as a strong spiritualistic medium.  I was alluding to a period long before she came in contact with Blavatsky and Occultism in 1884.  My aunt, Mrs. Tighe Hopkins (my father’s sister and Mabel Collins’ half-sister), told me many remarkable things about Mabel Collins’ development as a medium.

As Mr. Pryse is recorded as coming to London in September, 1890, he would naturally know little or nothing of her years of mediumship prior to 1884, the effects of which she had been trying to overcome under Blavatsky But the facts relating to her being deprived of membership in the Esoteric School are well known to the original surviving members.

My aunt was extremely fond of Mabel Collins and often spoke to me of her generosity and kind-heartedness; but she never uttered a word against Blavatsky for the action she took, as she knew that the cause for it existed.  She also told me that a novel Mabel Collins wrote, in which she caricatured Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine, and the Theosophical Society (I forget its title), was due to “pique.”


Mr. Pryse says that she was able to overcome “the terrible karmic drawbacks against which she had to contend” because “she had a heart of gold.” Unfortunately, she was not able to overcome them, if we are to believe Blavatsky and her fellow-members in the Esoteric School to whom the circumstances were known and explained by her.

Both Blavatsky and the Masters have told us enough about probation and chelaship to show that much more than personal qualities and virtues are necessary. Of the hundreds of aspirants in the history of the Theosophical Society we are told that only one achieved a full success — Damodar K. Mavalankar, who was called to Tibet by his Master in 1885.“ If the Society had never given to India but that one future Adept who has now the prospect of becoming one day a Mahatma, Kali Yuga notwithstanding, that alone would be proof that it was not founded at New York and transplanted to India in vain ” (Letter to the Hindus by Blavatsky, 1890).

The words “transplanted to India” evidently refer to the little-known reorganization at Benares in 1879, when Universal Brotherhood was added to the title and objects, and a school for the training of future Adepts outlined (see H. P. Blavatsky: Her Life and Work for Humanity, by Alice L. Cleather, Chap. II).


Mr. Whitney concludes his letter with the somewhat startling dictum that the Hilarion who inspired Light on the Path is “not the Greek Hilarion. This one [he declares] is the Regent of the Red Ray, and his line comes into the West out of Egypt. He is the Manu of the Fifth Root Race, and amongst the Egyptian kings was Ramses II. He holds the cosmic office of Annunciator of the Coming One. He is the Preparer-of-the-Way, the John-the-Baptist of the incarnating Christ at the dawn of each Avataric Age.”

This reads like a passage from the Besant-Leadbeater or Bailey literature. Blavatsky never spoke or wrote of more than one Hilarion, and certainly never made such statements or used such language as the above typical specimen. Her Hilarion (Illarion) is “our semi-European Greek brother” of the Mahatma Letters, p. 64, of whom she speaks in her Letters to Sinnett as having met in Greece (p. 153) and Egypt (p. 189).

Yours faithfully,
BASIL CRUMP. »

(The Occult Review, April 1929, p.262-264)





MY OPINION

I recommend you to pay attention to what Basil Crump said, because he was a great erudite in Theosophy and Buddhism, and he was very involved in the Theosophical Society, therefore he knew very well what he was talking about. Besides my own research has led me to the same conclusions.












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