Case of the Masters, their Disciples and Sponsors behind the Theosophical Movement

Dominique Johnson September 1, 2020 Leave a Comment

Introduction

THIS WILL PROVIDE A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF THE ROLE AND HISTORY about the “Theosophical Mahatmas” and their associates and disciples who were sponsors and guides behind the Theosophical Movement with activities in Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, America and Western Europe. It examines the cases of K. Paul Johnson and Daniel H. Caldwell.

Of your own accord, somehow you stumbled into this complex library and perhaps confusing history of “Theosophy.” You have numerously come across the names “Morya” and “Koot Hoomi,” and the term “Adepts” or “Initiates.”

One of their letters read that:

“There have been times when “a considerable portion of enlightened minds” were taught in our schools. Such times there were in India, Persia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. But, as I remarked (…) the adept is the efflorescence of his age, and comparatively few ever appear in a single century. Earth is the battle-ground of moral no less than physical forces, and the boisterousness of animal passion (…) always tends to quench spirituality.”

There is a long history of the existence of such minds, reformers, heroes, students, their teachers and schools, of legends and myth of semi-history and literature. You may have been introduced to the names Koot Hoomi, Morya or St. Germain in Theosophy through ideas and organizations in the last century under the “New Age” movement, but these differ from the original Theosophy that was introduced to the world. In Theosophy, these adept-initiates are mortals, not spirits, even though they are claimed to possess super-human and para-natural abilities.

H.P. Blavatsky’s letter of July 14, 1886 to Olcott asserts the undeniable existence of adepts before and after the Christian period, and that the early Christian Fathers admitted of a double esoteric meaning to the Testament. The real source of every Christian dogma are to be sought not in Judaism, but in the oldest Mysteries of Egypt, and in India during the Vedic period, and late Vedic period in the development of Brahmanism.

The entire story of the Crucifixion, the trials and Jesus descent into Hades are based on ancient rites, “all Aryan,” found exactly in the Puranas, Brahamanas, and their esoteric explanations. In a March 3, 1886 letter, Blavatsky argues, that the existence of a universal secret doctrine was known to early Christian Fathers, the existence of which can be proven in the writings of ancient philosophers and classics of every age, and through the efforts of many World-adepts, initiated poets, and writers.

Blavatsky explained, that she was ordered to demonstrate it by the Initiates that were her masters, that the public must be made acquainted with the history, and this work is to preserve the records of the existence of such a philosophy, and its tenets.

We must distinguish “New Age” and later “neo-Theosophy” influences from what the early Theosophists are explaining, or you will become confused. This is in regards to the systematic body of philosophy provided and explained by those “Adepts” or “mahatmas” to whom Helena P. Blavatsky and themselves in The Mahatma Letters asserted were mortals of flesh and blood, and not the mere fictitious creations of H.P.B.’s multiple personalities, or attempts to conceal the identities of religious and political figures during the time under a political conspiracy.

K. Paul Johnson and his Research

This was the hypotheses and interpretations made by historian and esotericist K. Paul Johnson in his effort to unveil the real identities of the “Theosophical Masters.” K. Paul Johnson is a former member of the Theosophical Society who joined the Church of Light in 2005 and retired from his position as head librarian at the Halifax County-South Boston Regional Library in 2008. For many years the author has encountered numerous persons not Theosophists who through some means were introduced to K. Paul Johnson’s claims identifying the Masters as either fictitious inventions of H.P. Blavatsky, or fictitious inventions but based on the real historical identities of political figures. A while back, I had wrote, that besides Dr. Wernekke of Germany, the Casebook of Encounters with the Theosophical Mahatmas, and Ramalingam Pillai’s insight, Charles J. Ryan and famous Russian philosopher Vladimir Solovyov defended the existence of such masters in ‘H.P.B. did not invent the Tibetan Brotherhood and Chelas’.

In K. Paul Johnson’s research, he argued that H.P.B.’s portrayal of Master Morya and Koot Hoomi was designed to mislead in order to protect the privacy of the real identities; that the personae of the Masters are covers for other people. I will deal with some misunderstandings in the minds of others that resulted from his research, and expand the scope on the influences underlying the Theosophical Movement.

A number of researchers like the case study of Daniel H. Caldwell demonstrated, that K. Paul Johnson contradicts his suspicions, and the logic of his arguments were not consistent. To read K. Paul Johnson’s theories about the Theosophical masters, and then adopt them as conclusive ignores this issue and other testimony when it disagrees with K. Paul Johnson’s speculations.

Some researchers I have read, that prefer K. Paul Johnson’s theories adopt them on no criteria besides pure skepticism. K. Paul Johnson seemed only to believe testimonies when they agreed with his speculations, and among scholars, this subject has been considered too outré (weird or far-out) to be satisfyingly solved. The issue about the existences of the mahatmas has remained unsatisfactorily closed to both Theosophists and scholars, but precisely since this brotherhood never wanted to be found. It is because it seems far-out, that K. Paul Johnson despite his theories, attempted to ground and trace these unknown superiors in that history as the controversial but important figures H.P. Blavatsky’s association and travel dovetailed with, but this created problems.

Theosophy and the Colonial Mind

Other researchers have tried to interpret the history of the Theosophical Movement through a racial lens believing, that (1) these masters were inventions of these Europeans through their romantic and colonial imaginings about the Orient; and (2) maintaining that the introduction of the concepts “Black and White Magic” linked to light and dark by European esotericists is rooted in racism, and were developed in the context of the justification for slavery, “an example of intentional and explicit white supremacy” (Brandy Williams, White Light, Black Magic: Racism in Esoteric Thought).

In one sense, the proponents of the second position are partially correct, given that the concept has been used by a certain number of esotericists to connect to their racialist doctrines. These positions hold, so long as its defendant continues to assert, that the “mahatmas” are the fictitious inventions and romanticizations of these Europeans. However, it ought to be noted, that these “adepts” as said are of various nationalities and ethnicity, and they are not inventions of a colonial imagination. It is rather a story of real and difficult interactions and communication obstacles, both physically and culturally during the colonial periods.