THE FIRST LETTER FROM MASTER KUTHUMI TO ALFRED SINNETT

 

This is the first letter that Master Kuthumi wrote to Alfred Sinnett, who at that time worked as the editor-in-chief of the Indian newspaper Pioneer, which was used by the British government as its means of dissemination.

ANTECEDENT

Sinnett in his book "The Occult World" (pp. 92-95) explained that in the first letter he wrote to Master Kuthumi, he expressed that despite his conviction that the phenomena carried out by Blavatsky (with the help of the masters) during the summer of 1880 in Simla, India, were authentic (see link).

But Sinnett felt that these phenomena lacked the necessary safeguards and that, consequently, any skeptic would question their validity. Therefore, Sinnett longed for a phenomenon that, as he himself put it, "would leave no room for any suspicion of imposture." He proposed a test that, according to him, would be absolutely infallible and would convince even the most ardent skeptic. This consisted of the materialization in London of the Pioneer newspaper published this day in India, and vice versa.

Since at that time London and India were separated by at least a month by any means of communication other than the telegraph, it would obviously have been impossible for the entire contents of the Times to be telegraphed to India before its publication in London and appear in print in India at the same time as in London.

After writing the letter and delivering it to Blavatsky, a day or two passed before Sinnett heard anything about its fate. Finally, Blavatsky informed him that he would receive a reply. This encouraged him so much that he sat down to write a second letter, feeling that perhaps the first had not been convincing enough to persuade his correspondent.

After another day, one afternoon he found on his desk the first letter from Master Kuthumi where he answered both of his letters.

THE ANSWER THAT KUTHUMI GAVE HIM

Sinnett worked in Allahabad but to avoid the midsummer heat, he spent the summer in Simla, and it was there around October 15, 1880 that he received this letter which Master Kuthumi had written from the Toling Monastery, which was located a relatively close distance from Simla, on the other side of the border in Tibet.

I added subtitles to specify the different topics that Kuthumi addresses, and in brackets I added explanatory comments.

--oOo--

Esteemed Brother and Friend,

Precisely because the test of the London newspaper would close the mouths of the skeptics — it is unthinkable. See it in what light you will — the world is yet in its first stage of disenthralment if not development, hence — unprepared.

Very true, we work by natural not supernatural means and laws. But, as on the one hand Science would find itself unable (in its present state) to account for the wonders given in its name, and on the other the ignorant masses would still be left to view the phenomenon in the light of a miracle; everyone who would thus be made a witness to the occurrence would be thrown off his balance and the results would be deplorable.

Believe me, it would be so — especially for yourself who originated the idea, and the devoted woman [Blavatsky] who so foolishly rushes into the wide open door leading to notoriety. This door, though opened by so friendly a hand as yours, would prove very soon a trap — and a fatal one indeed for her. And such is not surely your object?

Madmen are they, who, speculating but upon the present, wilfully shut their eyes to the past when made already to remain naturally blind to the future!

Far be it from me, to number you with the latter — therefore will I endeavour to explain. Were we to accede to your desires know you really what consequences would follow in the trail of success?

The inexorable shadow which follows all human innovations moves on, yet few are they, who are ever conscious of its approach and dangers. What are then to expect they, who would offer the world an innovation which, owing to human ignorance, if believed in, will surely be attributed to those dark agencies the two-thirds of humanity believe in and dread as yet?

You say — half London would be converted [in Theosophists] if you could deliver them a Pioneer on its day of publication. I beg to say that if the people believed the thing true they would kill you before you could make the round of Hyde Park [believing it was the work of the devil]; if it were not believed true, — the least that could happen would be the loss of your reputation and good name, — for propagating such ideas.

The success of an attempt of such a kind as the one you propose, must be calculated and based upon a thorough knowledge of the people around you. It depends entirely upon the social and moral conditions of the people in their bearing on these deepest and most mysterious questions which can stir the human mind — the deific powers in man and the possibilities contained in nature.

How many, even of your best friends, of those who surround you, who are more than superficially interested in these abstruse problems?

You could count them upon the fingers of your right hand. Your race boasts of having liberated in their century, the genius so long imprisoned in the narrow vase of dogmatism and intolerance — the genius of knowledge, wisdom and freethought.

It says that in their turn ignorant prejudice and religious bigotry, bottled up like the wicked Jin [genie] of old, and sealed by the "Solomons of Science" rests at the bottom of the sea and can never, escaping to the surface again, reign over the world as it did in days of old; that the public mind is quite free, in short, and ready to accept any demonstrated truth.

Aye; but is it verily so, my respected friend?

Science itself has attacked scientists who have questioned its dogmas

Experimental knowledge does not quite date from 1662, when Bacon, Robert Boyle and the Bishop of Chester transformed under the royal charter their "Invisible College" into a Society for the promotion of Experimental Science.

Ages before the Royal Society found itself becoming a reality upon the plan of the "Prophetic Scheme" an innate longing for the hidden, a passionate love for and the study of nature had led men in every generation to try and fathom her secrets deeper than their neighbours did.

"Roma ante Romulum fuit" [Rome existed before Romulus (the founder of Rome)] is an axiom taught to us in your English schools. Abstract enquiries into the most puzzling problems did not arise in the brain of Archimedes as a spontaneous and hitherto untouched subject, but rather as a reflection of prior enquiries in the same direction and by men separated from his days by as long a period — and far longer — than the one which separates you from the great Syracusian.

The vril of the "Coming Race" was the common property of races now extinct. And, as the very existence of those gigantic ancestors of ours is now questioned — though in the Himavats [Himalayan Mountains], on the very territory belonging to you we have a cave full of the skeletons of these giants — and their huge frames when found are invariably regarded as isolated freaks of nature, so the vril or Akas — as we call it — is looked upon as an impossibility, a myth.

And, without a thorough knowledge of Akas, its combinations and properties, how can Science hope to account for such phenomena?

We doubt not but the men of your Science are open to conviction; yet facts must be first demonstrated to them, they must first have become their own property, have proved amenable to their own modes of investigation, before you find them ready to admit them as facts.

If you but look into the Preface to the "Micrographia" you will find in Robert Hooke's suggestions [who wrote this book] that the intimate relations of objects were of less account in his eyes than their external operation on the senses — and Newton's fine discoveries found in him their greatest opponent.

The modern Hookeses are many. Like this learned but ignorant man of old your modern men of science are less anxious to suggest a physical connexion of facts which might unlock for them many an occult force in nature, as to provide a convenient "classification of scientific experiments"; so that the most essential quality of an hypothesis is not that it should be true but only plausible — in their opinion.

So far for Science — as much as we know of it. As for human nature in general, it is the same now as it was a million of years ago: Prejudice based upon selfishness; a general unwillingness to give up an established order of things for new modes of life and thought — and occult study requires all that and much more —; pride and stubborn resistance to Truth if it but upsets their previous notions of things.

Such are the characteristics of your age, and especially of the middle and lower classes. What then would be the results of the most astounding phenomena, supposing we consented to have them produced?

However successful, danger would be growing proportionately with success. No choice would soon remain but to go on, ever crescendo, or to fall in this endless struggle with prejudice and ignorance killed by your own weapons. Test after test would be required and would have to be furnished; every subsequent phenomenon expected to be more marvellous than the preceding one.

Your daily remark is, that one cannot be expected to believe unless he becomes an eye-witness. Would the lifetime of a man suffice to satisfy the whole world of skeptics?

It may be an easy matter to increase the original number of believers at Simla to hundreds and thousands. But what of the hundreds of millions of those who could not be made eye-witnesses?

The ignorant — unable to grapple with the invisible operators — might some day vent their rage on the visible agents at work; the higher and educated classes would go on disbelieving as ever, tearing you to shreds as before. In common with many, you blame us for our great secrecy.

Yet we know something of human nature for the experience of long centuries — aye, ages — has taught us. And, we know, that so long as Science has anything to learn, and a shadow of religious dogmatism lingers in the hearts of the multitudes, the world's prejudices have to be conquered step by step, not at a rush. As hoary antiquity had more than one Socrates so the dim Future will give birth to more than one martyr.

Enfranchised Science contemptuously turned away her face from the Copernican opinion renewing the theories of Aristarchus Samius — who "affirmeth that the Earth moveth circularly about her own centre" years before the Church sought to sacrifice Galileo as a holocaust to the Bible.

The ablest mathematician at the Court of Edward VI — Robert Recorde — was left to starve in jail by his colleagues, who laughed at his Castle of Knowledge, declaring his discoveries "vain phantasies."

William Gilbert of Colchester — Queen Elisabeth's physician — died poisoned, only because — this real founder of Experimental Science in England — has had the audacity of anticipating Galileo; of pointing out Copernican's fallacy as to the "third movement," which was gravely alleged to account for the parallelism of the Earth's axis of rotation!

The enormous learning of the Paracelsi, of the Agrippas and the Dees was ever doubted. It was science which laid her sacrilegious hand upon the great work "De Magnete" — "The Heavenly White Virgin" (Akas) and others. And it was the illustrious "Chancellor of England and of Nature" — Lord Verulam-Bacon — who having won the name of the Father of Inductive Philosophy, permitted himself to speak of such men as the above-named as the "Alchemicians of the Fantastic philosophy."

All this is old history, you will think. Verily so; but the chronicles of our modern days do not differ very essentially from their predecessors. And we have but to bear in mind the recent persecutions of mediums in England, the burning of supposed witches, and sorcerers in South America, Russia and the frontiers of Spain — to assure ourselves that the only salvation of the genuine proficients in occult sciences lies in the skepticism of the public: the charlatans and the jugglers are the natural shields of the "adepts."

The public safety is only ensured by our keeping secret the terrible weapons which might otherwise be used against it, and which, as you have been told became deadly in the hands of the wicked and selfish.

I conclude by reminding you that such phenomena as you crave, have ever been reserved as a reward for those who have devoted their lives to serve the goddess Saraswati [in Hinduism, she is the goddess of wisdom] — our Aryan Isis. Were they given to the profanes what would remain for our faithful ones?

Many of your suggestions are highly reasonable and will be attended to. I listened attentively to the conversation which took place at Mr. Hume's. His arguments are perfect from the standpoint of exoteric wisdom.

But, when the time comes and he is allowed to have a full glimpse into the world of esoterism, with its laws based upon mathematically correct calculations of the future — the necessary results of the causes which we are always at liberty to create and shape at our will but are as unable to control their consequences which thus become our masters — then only will, both you and he understand why to the uninitiated our acts must seem often unwise, if not actually foolish.

Regarding the phenomena that Blavatsky had recently produced

Your forthcoming letter I will not be able to fully answer without taking the advice of those [among our adepts] who generally deal with the European mystics. Moreover the present letter must satisfy you on many points you have better defined in your last; but it will no doubt disappoint you as well.

In regard to the production of newly devised and still more startling phenomena demanded of her [Blavatsky] with our help, as a man well acquainted with the strategy, you must remain satisfied with the reflection that there is little use in acquiring new positions until those that you have already reached are secured, and your Enemies full aware of your right to their possession.

In other words, you had a greater variety of phenomena produced for yourself and friends than many a regular neophyte has seen in several years. First, notify the public of the production of the note, the cup and the sundry experiments with the cigarette papers, and let them digest these. Get them to work for an explanation.

(Master Kuthumi is referring to the phenomena that occurred through Blavatsky when she visited Mr. Sinnett in Simla.)

And as except upon the direct and absurd accusation of deceit they will never be able to account for some of these, while the skeptics are quite satisfied with their present hypothesis for the production of the brooch — you will then have done real good to the cause of truth and justice to the woman [Blavatsky] who is made to suffer for it.

Isolated as it is, the case under notice in the Pioneer becomes less than worthless — it is positively injurious for all of you — for yourself as the Editor of that paper as much as for anyone else, if you pardon me for offering you that which looks like advice.

(Mr. Sinnett published in the Pioneer an account of these phenomena that he and his friends witnessed.)

It is neither fair to yourself nor to her, that, because the number of eye-witnesses does not seem sufficient to warrant the public attention, your and your lady's testimony should go for nothing. Several cases combining to fortify your position as truthful and intelligent witness to the various occurrences, each of these gives you an additional right to assert what you know. It imposes upon you the sacred duty to instruct the public and prepare them for future possibilities by gradually opening their eyes to the truth.

The opportunity should not be lost through a lack of as great confidence in your own individual right of assertion as that of Sir Donald Stewart. One witness of well known character outweighs the evidence of ten strangers; and if, there is anyone in India who is respected for his trustworthiness it is — the Editor of the Pioneer.

Remember that there was but one hysterical woman alleged to have been present at the pretended ascension, and that the phenomenon has never been corroborated by repetition. Yet for nearly 2,000 years countless milliards have pinned their faith upon the testimony of that one woman — and she not over trustworthy.

Try — and first work upon the material you have and then we will be the first to help you to get further evidence. Until then, believe me, always your sincere friend,

Koot' Hoomi Lal Singh.

SUMMARY OF THE LETTER

In summary, Master Kuthumi told Mr. Sinnett that the phenomenon he proposed Blavatsky should produce in London should not be carried out because the world (both people and scientists) was not yet ready to deal with it; and that if he wanted to help the cause, he should begin by progressively publicizing the phenomena he had already witnessed.

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT

To satisfy Sinnett's desire to see an irrefutable phenomenon, Master Kuthumi performed another phenomenon which I detail in this other chapter (see link).

HISTORY OF THE PUBLICATION OF THIS LETTER

1) Alfred Sinnett published part of this letter in his book "The Occult World" (1881).

2) Alfred Trevor Barker published it in full in the book "The Mahatma Letters" (1923), it is letter no. 1, p.1-6.

3) Currently the original letter is located on folio 1 of the British Library.

FACSIMILE

You can see the color photos of the twelve pages that make up this letter on the Theosophy Wiki website (see link).

Below I've only put the last page:

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION OF THIS CARD

George Linton and Virginia Hanson, in their book "A Guide to Reading Mahatma's Letters to A.P. Sinnett," say the following about this letter:

« It is written in dull black ink, on both sides of white paper. There are some smudges and cross-outs, and in some cases, words are crossed out. In the lower right corner of the first page there are three fairly large red dots in the shape of a triangle with a small ink mark underneath that looks like an initial. The signature is written in a slightly darker ink than the text, and the handwriting is not exactly the same. This characteristic is observed in several of the earlier letters. »

(p.35)

Geoffrey Barborka describes this letter in his book "The Mahatmas and Their Letters" as follows:

« Looking at the original document, now held in the British Museum, the first thing that strikes you is the quality of the paper: thin, almost transparent; it is rice paper. At that time, it was only available in the East. The size of the rice paper is eight and a half inches by ten and a half inches.

As for the handwriting, it could be described as a fluid script, with large, well-formed letters that are easy to read.

The front and back of the first two sheets of paper show evidence of carefully crafted calligraphy. The third sheet appears to have been prepared in haste; the front of the fourth, even more so. But when the fourth sheet is turned over, the last seven lines of the page stand out clearly... There is a noticeable change; it is as if another scribe has taken over. This is evident, first of all, because the color of what appears to be ink on the paper is darker, blacker than the dark brown of the previous sheets.

But an even more striking feature is this: although the phrase at the bottom of the page was not finished... the first six lines of the next sheet of paper are written in a different type of calligraphy!

The signature at the end of this letter is noteworthy. It is written in a completely different handwriting.

Where corrections have been made, a slight stain is visible on the reverse side, resulting from the removal of a word or even a letter from the paper and its subsequent replacement over the discoloration. This is because Mahatma's Letters were not handwritten, but printed or engraved directly onto the paper. »

(pp. 87-90 and 124, extracts)