Sam Harris dishonesty about Helena Blavatsky in “Waking Up”

Sam Harris mentions Helena P. Blavatsky in the first chapter of Waking Up: Guide on Spirituality without Religion (2014), and he committed a poor mistake, with a very inaccurate, and incompetent account. It is rare for such an author to even mention Blavatsky, but it is unfortunate again, as always, that it is a slight, or sneer, and gives the wrong impression.

Sam Harris states the following:

“Everything about Blavatsky seemed to defy earthly logic: She was an enormously fat woman who was said to have wandered alone and undetected for seven years in the mountains of Tibet. She was also thought to have survived shipwrecks, gunshot wounds, and sword fights. Even less persuasively, she claimed to be in psychic contact with members of the “Great White Brotherhood” of ascended masters—a collection of immortals responsible for the evolution and maintenance of the entire cosmos.

Their leader hailed from the planet Venus but lived in the mythical kingdom of Shambhala, which Blavatsky placed somewhere in the vicinity of the Gobi Desert. With the suspiciously bureaucratic name “the Lord of the World,” he supervised the work of other adepts, including the Buddha, Maitreya, Maha Chohan, and one Koot Hoomi, who appears to have had nothing better to do on behalf of the cosmos than to impart its secrets to Blavatsky” (Sam Harris, Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality without Religion, pg. 24.).

This is highly incorrect, and this is in first chapter, and goes entirely unaddressed.

1. The mention of her weight. Why do researchers on Blavatsky like repeatedly mentioning her weight?
2. Harris doubts her travels. Sylvia Cranston has dealt with this in “H. P. B.: The Extraordinary Life and Influence of Helena Blavatsky.”
3. She never called the school of her teachers in the Trans-Himalayas, the “Great White Brotherhood.” Stop it. This was Charles W. Leadbeater (and this is not a racial term).
4. Ascended masters are fake. H.P.B. never mentioned anything about ascended masters. She criticized the idea of her copyists.
   • They were being promoted as Solar adepts by opportunists. K.H. and M. even mock in a letter, the ideas entertained about them. Their roles shift from students to “teachers” naturally, when they begin expounding on their philosophy and instructing the two Englishmen, A.O. Hume and A.P. Sinnett.
   • K.H., M. and the Chohan were flesh-and-bone men, and utterly repudiated being confused to be disembodied spooks.
5. There is no leader from the planet Venus. You are a liar. Shambala is a mythical kingdom in Hindu and Buddhist tradition. What is the point?
6. Sam Harris persists with this “Lord of the World” from Venus.
   • H.P. Blavatsky never mentions such an idea. This is Pseudo-Theosophy.
7. By consequence, and by the choice of those teachers, she became their “agent.”
   • We advise the removal of the idea that this is something messianic.

One cannot defend oneself on air and podcasts about others misconstruing your words, but do the same, and get a freepass. We are different, believing there are ways the Modern Theosophists can be critiqued, but this creates a strawman, that we find too often on the internet.

Take a look at this forum in 2010 on Prison Planet.

1. Eugenics is a great thing to Theosophists. What?
2. The desire of the T.S. is to produce a new messiah or new age. No it is not. It was originally explicitly designed to expose such desires of groups. Unfortunately, some people after H.P.B.’s death had other plans. Alice Bailey makes this claim in her book, and people have quoted that, without even seeing if H.P.B. claimed such a thing. Bailey lied to buttress her claims.
3. Theosophists have a fascination with UFOs. Lies.
4. These people on this forum can’t even differentiate between Benjamin Créme, Alice Bailey, Hubbard and H.P. Blavatsky.
5. Venus (lucifer) is special to Theosophists.
   • Not true, and the Theosophists do not worship Venus.

All their source information is through secondary works, or averse criticisms and cheap websites.