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:
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. »
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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