TANTRA or PSEUDO-BUDDHISM excerpted from Theosophical Notes

(These articles were written between 1958-76, before the explosion of Tibetan Buddhism in the West, and also before the Dalai Lama became a general public figure and his good character known. dig. ed.) Contents: - TANTRA! - Endersby (July, 1974) - TANTRA POSTSCRIPT - Endersby (August, 1974) - TANTRA II - Endersby (August, 1974) - TIBET AND TANTRA III - Endersby (September, 1974) - A FOOTNOTE TO "MADAME BLAVATSKY AND OCCULT TIBET" - Carrithers, Endersby, (Nov.-Dec., 1974) - CONCERNING "MADAME BLAVATSKY AND OCCULT TIBET" - Endersby, (Dec., 1974) - NYINGMAPA AND GELUGPA - Anonymous, (No. 1, 1976) - THE TANTRIC PROGRESS - Endersby, (No. 2, 1976) - ANALYSIS OF ALAN WATTS - Roos (February, 1958) - "MADAME BLAVATSKY & OCCULT TIBET," - Carrithers (July, 1974) - "MAGIC BLACK VERSUS MAGIC WHITE" - Carrithers (July, also Sept., 1974) - NOTE ON THE FOREGOING ADDENDUM ("MAGIC BLACK VERSUS MAGIC WHITE") - Endersby (July, 1974) - BEHIND THE MASK: POISONED PEN & POISONED "POPES" - Carrithers (No. 5, 1975) -------------------TANTRA! This is the generic name of the philosophy pursued by various sects in Tibet and India, which were alluded to in Mme. Blavatsky's book, The Voice of the Silence, Thus: "The Bhons, or Dugpas, the sect of the"Red Caps," are regarded as most versed in sorcery. They inhabit Western and Little Tibet and Bhutan. They are all Tantrikas. It is quite ridiculous to find Orientalists who have visited the borderlands of Tibet, such as Schlagentweit and others, confusing the rites and disgusting practices of these with the religious beliefs of the Eastern Lamas, the 'Yellow caps, and their Narjols or holy men.' Just above this footnote, she refers to them thus, as those who "break away" from the Higher self in the trials preceding Initiation: "Thus do the "Brothers of the Shadow" the murderers of their souls, the dread Dad-Dugpa clan." Farther on she explains that the ancient symbol of power, the Dorje, is a sign of divine power with the "Yellow Caps" like the cross with the Christians, but has been perverted to a weapon of sorcery by the Dugpas. Their Western counterparts, to whom a correspondent mentions me as referring, are an inner circle of Jesuits exposed by Mme. Blavatsky in Isis Unveiled.* Part of the article following is also a

reply to a letter of inquiry. Footnote numbers below refer to notes grouped on p. 11a. We have never had an open drive against us organized by Eastern Tantrikas before, and this one is not Eastern at all, though it pretends to be representing the East. I think it is inspired from there, however. Regarding who is the real enemy: that stands out very clearly in the Mahatma Letters themselves and in a number of H.P.B.'s letters as well as Judge's. The names of in-sight enemies is legion, and they comprise every selfish and exploiting group there is; I am quite sure that Hodgson was subsidized to frame up H.P.B. by British Imperial interests for a starter. But more directly and on the occult line, all the cults appealing to selfishness under pretext of spirituality. Scientology (1) would be a pretty fair example among many others, but probably not consciously to itself. I am sure that many of these cults have been inspired, unknown to themselves, by the real enemy, to divert attention from Theosophy and corrupt the public in general, but most of them would be scared to death if they knew where they really got their ideas from, and so would the Birchers and other right wingers. The real source and driving power is what is referred to in the Voice of the Silence (translation of a very old Buddhist book) as "The dread Dad-dugpa Clan, the murderers of their own souls", known otherwise as the "Brothers of the Shadow", "The Brothers of the Left-hand Path", or more often in the literature, as the "Dugpas" and "Redcaps", in Tibet. ----------* Whenever these repeated and obviously planned an coordinated attacks have appeared, I have referred to them as dugpa-inspired, without regard to whether they came from the East or West - this not being determinable except by psionic (ESP) means. The teachers of Mme. Blavatsky referred to this Jesuit inner group as corresponding to and allied to the Eastern Tantrikas. As further explained, both groups have had a rough time with own alleged co-religionists and the rulers of their countries. But their methods differ. The trouble with the East is sex cultism and in the West, power grabbing. -----------The Theosophical Movement was largely inspired by their incursion into the West via the spiritualist movement, which with no philosophy of its own was wide open to them. The Mahatma K.H. wrote A.P. Sinnett (see Letters) that it was none too soon to start a backfire, because the dugpas (I will use that word to designate that school of thought in general) were already ahead of them in the West. He also said that the dugpas of the East had joined with the dugpas of the West against Theosophy, making it clear that what he meant by the "dugpas of the West" were the Jesuits. Mme. Blavatsky also poured it on the Jesuits heavily both in Isis and many articles and letters. At this point I should clarify that situation a bit. The ordinary Jesuit knows nothing about this; what she was really referring to was a small inner group, whose occult activities were and are unknown to the clergy in general, these latter being merely priests under an unusual type of discipline and particularly trained in the tricky handling of language, presumably to match the cunning of the devil. They are also well trained in meeting the public, and one of their activities is through "lay brothers" who without revealing their affiliation spread ideas among working groups, etc. (I'll write rather fully on this subject and save time by printing some of it - no reference to recipient. You may already know quite a bit of the story.) The Jesuits have a curious history. The order was founded in"the 16th Century by Ignatius Loyola, an ex-soldier and libertine who got "converted" and formed the order as the "Army of God". Its general principle was to fight fire with fire - anything was justified in the fight against the devil. (If you want really interesting details about the results of this form of education, see Isis Unveiled. Their history is also in the Encyclopedias - written by themselves.) Originally they pledged allegiance to the Pope, but later began to work for their own hand, heading for control of the Church themselves. Their political activities in general caused the Bourbon

monarchs to expel them from France violently in the middle of the 17th Century; this was followed later by Pope Clement suppressing them throughout the Church in 1773. However, they hung on in one way or another and finally bit by bit got back, especially through monarchs such as Frederick II and Catherine the Great. In the U.S., religious freedom in Maryland permitted them to establish Georgetown University, which is still their main stronghold here. They led the 19th Century battle against the rise of liberalism, and met with the following expulsions: large parts of Italy 1859-60 (Garibaldi); Venice 1866; Rome 1873; France 1880; Spain 1854 and 1868. H.P.B. thoroughly exposed their tricky practices and the black magic of the "inner circle" and was also politically very active against them; she was wounded while with Garibaldi's troops at the Battle of Mentana, shortly before she went to Tibet preparatory to starting the Theosophical Movement in the West. Both because of these activities and the obvious fact that any real triumph of Theosophy would mean the end for their own, they inspire these unceasing attacks on H.P.B. as they have done for a hundred years, and since it is ingrained in their philosophy that any means are justifiable in the fight with Satan, their output has nothing to do with the truth; just with what they can make people believe about Theosophy. And since they don't want to get Theosophy as such known by attacking its teachings directly, they attack H.P.B. personally instead, using as a basis the propaganda started by Hodgson's frame-up. (Which I thoroughly exposed in my book The Hall of Magic Mirrors, which itself was barred out of circulation and also partly disappeared before circulation could start, by a series of the damndest maneuvers I ever saw. I have between 800 and 900 copies left which I circulate to interested people; I originally paid for 3500. Do you have it, by the way?) They were right behind the attacks of 1968, especially that proven lie that H.P.B. had written a Manual for Revolutionaries. The writer of the worst book against us in '68, John Steinbacher, published that lie at about the same time that the Birchers launched the same thing in The Fresno Guide. Steinbacher is a graduate of a Fundamentalist Baptist seminary in San Francisco and has now become a Catholic, and managing-editor of The Occult Observer, which devotes itself to the destruction of not only everything Theosophy stands for, Theosophy as such, and all the so-called occult groups. This bunch is working for the outlawing of occultism in California and has snagged the otherwise liberal Senator Tunney as a start. Things seem to be working toward a constitutional crunch here, as already it is illegal to teach or practice psychic healing unless you are organized as a church. The "Chief of Research" for the John Birch Society is a Catholic who is a devotee of Tansil, the prominent Georgetown graduate and Catholic historian. From many other angles that picture is clear. (2) In 1968-69 I worked with some non-Theosophical investigators whose trails intersected mine as they were trying to fathom the facts behind the Kennedy murders, and at that point the role of the right wingers widened beyond the Birchers. One of these investigators had noted my contention that Sirhan Sirhan had been hypnotized, and programmed not only to kill Robert Kennedy but to ask for Mme. Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine upon being imprisoned, for the purpose of incriminating the Theosophists. It is more than suspicious that the Bircher attack came immediately afterward, getting its big impetus from that request. (He never showed any interest in it after he got it, just fumbled over the pages a little.) It looks as though the overhead conspirators had the lies all ready to field to the Birchers as cover when the murder was pulled off. The most vicious front of that attack was a booklet by John Steinbacher. (3) In the course of my contacts with these investigators, I got a photocopy of Sirhan's diary leaves pertinent to the murder and during the previous days. (These were later published in a book by Robert Kaiser as evidence to the same effect, but Kaiser has recently recanted under some kind of pressure.) These leaves clearly showed a mind distraught and under some extraneous influence. One of the indications of what was going on were references to "Koot humi," whom he seems to have been seeing in some kind of vision; the writing is too confused to make out whether there is an implication that "Koot Humi" inspired him to the murder, but it would certainly fit into the plot in a very deadly

manner. To tie that up, my co-investigator found that Sirhan had been in contact with two hypnotic enthusiasts, either of whom had had both the opportunity and motive to take part in such a plot on the dugpa right wing side; but other than this there is no solid evidence that they did. Later on, this investigator went underground with his notes; contacted me briefly once since then, and I don't know how to reach him. The right wing involvement became clearer than ever when I recently got a copy of a friendly letter from Nixon to Steinbacher. At this point there is a mysterious split between the Birchers and another group which can hardly be other than Willis Carto's Liberty Lobby, and its junior branch, the Young Americans for Freedom. (4) Several signs of this have shown up; one of the most definite, a vacation meeting in the mountains between a very near relative of mine and his family, and an individual whom my other pals knew to be an extreme right winger, and had under suspicion. This fellow recognized my name but because I had ordered some of his literature some time previously, thought I was on his side; the fact that my relative lived in Orange County and his wife is an ardent conservative Republican worker - but hardly as far as Nixon - caused him to jump to conclusions and as the saying goes, he spilled his guts. (My relatives didn't discourage him from doing so.) He said that he belonged to an organization so far right of the Birchers that they were not in contact. Which would explain why he didn't know about my newspaper battles with the Birchers. He also said that his organization was using the New Left to stir up trouble against Nixon. (That was about two weeks before the big riot at San Jose State when Nixon visited there.) He wouldn't tell the name of his association or the names of other members, however. I think that could explain how in 1968, two of the Bircher American Opinion bookshops were shot up and burned. I am surprised that they didn't try to pin that on the Theosophists, but maybe they knew who it was and had cold feet. Then, when the matter of Nixon's impeachment came up, Newsweek printed a letter from a fanatic which threatened to mobilize "our police", and "our soldiers" and take over the country. This ties in with the Jesuit angle. I have two copies of a Catholic magazine which denounced Nixon's "persecutors" and the Catholic press seems to have been for him all along. Church and State, some time ago, pointed out that although Nixon professes to be a Quaker, his actual "spiritual" advisers from boyhood have been Catholic, and anybody who had followed his continuous efforts toward public financing of Catholic schools can appreciate that. I have warned Theosophists over and over that these periodic epidemics of attack on H.P.B. were no individual crank manifestations; that they were planned, organized, powerfully backed, and by men who knew all the ropes; men whose continued power depended on the destruction of Theosophy before it became a world influence. And that was simply repeating the warnings of H.P.B. and the Mahatmas that the crucial struggle was to come. That time is now. I have a recent letter from another reader who has known me a long time. Among other things it says, regarding a new attack from the Tantric angle, "It reminds me of the comments you have made through the years on Tantric material and vindicates you in the face of whose who thought you were going too far. The situation is far more serious than I realized. Another big attack was in the New York Times Book Review a few weeks ago, in which a fellow by the name of Lingeman knocked the Stanzas of Dzyan as existing only in her (H.P.B.'s) mind. (He mentions Von Daniken, whose books are quoting H.P.B. on lost civilizations; but those quotations are being made without reference to her explanations of those civilizations and are being made to support the idea that they were built by people from the stars - connected with the UFO's - and that humanity had nothing to do with them. In other words, some very fanatical cultism, with which I have had direct collisions locally, which is mutually exclusive with Theosophy, is being supported by quotations out of context from H.P.B. I have protested against this to one of the authors in that propaganda - no reply.) But first I will take up that Tantric angle, which arose at the same time that Loyola founded the "Society of Jesus". Mahatma K.H., when his kind were accused of being "refined tantrikas" by A.O. Hume, wrote to Sinnett that they were not exactly complimented, because the Tantrikas, at least for the past 400 years, had engaged in rites which they would not care to be held responsible for. H.P.B. at

various times was more emphatic than that; in recent renditions of some phases of the Tantra by Tantrikas themselves, one finds the reasons. For instance a "final initiation" in which the candidate, on the foulest part of a city dump, has intercourse during a single night, with a given number of diseased prostitutes. (Height of initiation corresponding to number.) I encountered that sort of thing a few years back, when I found that large numbers of Los Angeles youth had been intrigued into the study of Buddhism by apparently authentic Buddhist authorities, and then had discovered that to pass the final tests of "Buddhism" you had to go through that sort of thing. My informant was enormously relieved to find that nothing of the kind was necessary, and that all real Buddhists loathe the Tantra. The idea of any sane man thinking that such a ritual can lead to any spiritual state of existence is so weird to a normal person that it is hard to convince him that people can think and act that way. But just as there are gradual steps up to a real spiritual existence, there are gradual steps down, under initial false pretenses, to utter degradation and final annihilation of the personality, because by the time death comes, it will be totally unresponsive to the vibrations of the Buddhi, and hence cannot yield any increment to the Higher Triad. In the esoteric parlance the Antaskarana or "Bridge" has been destroyed. Also, the inroads of such practices as Karezza, or suppressed orgasm, which is part of the rituals of perverted sexual intercourse, is damaging in the extreme to the nervous system. (When I first came to California and began to meet with all sorts of frequenters of the "Barbary Coast" in logging and construction camps, I found that the Tantric "Art of Love" was a widely circulated book among the more sophisticated prostitutes; it has in it all the recipes for intensification of sexual pleasure, but at least it isn't hypocritically tied up with "spirituality". When anyone can't be satisfied with just plain normal intercourse, he has a bigger problem than he realizes. Keep on that way and he will wind up, in another life if not this, as a sex murderer and mutilator. People wonder why all this is threatening the existence of civilization today; there is the answer. The turn of the cycle in 1897-98 brought with it a host of influx of people disconnected from the Higher Self, and from no Devachanic period; real demons, and the present is the culmination of that immigration. Before me is a current clipping on Steelman and Gretzler, just sentenced to life imprisonment for 9 of 17 killings in 17 days; for six others they go to Arizona where they may be executed. This started with a little cash rip-off of quite an innocent nature by the standards of the day, but they thoughtlessly collected nine hostages in the process, including children, and naturally all being witnesses, there was nothing for it but to kill them. Perfectly logical. The sex killers nearly all have that same indifference. The Judge commented on their lack of remorse, the press on lack of emotion. These swarming soulless are distinguished by a clodlike impassivity toward what they are doing and even toward their own fate. They have not all followed the sex road but many fulfill the lead of kama by other trails to the same goal.) This downward road begins with subtle arguments which lead the candidate for spiritual wisdom to think that he can have his cake and eat it too. All spiritual disciplines of a real nature, Buddhist, Hindu or otherwise, teach that sex is for a certain purpose and must not be used otherwise if high real spiritual knowledge is to be obtained; that it is for a temporary use in our present deep dive into matter, where it is necessary; and that for the highest achievements of adeptship and spiritual knowledge, that kind of desire must be outgrown entirely. Not just suppressed, sat upon, and brooded over; that's the disastrous course of what the Gita calls "false yogis of deluded mind". It just cannot be made into a road to the spiritual realm, because the vibrations which are inseparable from sensation of this sort cannot be converted into higher action in higher levels of substance. The attempt to do so does introduce to new and novel sexual experiences, some of them powerful enough to cause unconsciousness. They have the same addictive effect as hard drugs and cure is far less possible. The frequent result finally, when all physical lust possibilities are exhausted, with the craving still remaining, is the seeking by the kama of other gratifications, such as sex killings. (If you want the gruesome details of these extreme forms of sex perversion, study Krafft-Ebbing or get chummy with a police reporter who will tell you what the papers don't print.) Try to follow that road, and you may wind up quite quickly as a disgusted wreck; or you may use the arts and devices of self-delusion, and

the precautionary measures taught by Tantric Adepts, and get by physically until death - then meet all your desires unrestricted head-on in a state where there are no means of gratification; then in your next life be still worse off. I have before me a book, The Tantric Mysticism of Tibet, by John Blofeld, obviously a pupil who has been taken through a lot of this ritual but not as far as the garbage dump, which gives the seductive earlier steps in detail. Essential is the idea that love and respect between the two participating must be ideal; and then perform the act in the sense of brotherhood, the feeling that the whole universe is participating. Well, here you have it. Every decent individual is adverse to sexual relations which are not enjoyed equally by the other. And this sort of seduction is accompanied by all the usual mystic right words about Oneness. (Percentage-wise, I would say that about ten percent of the male population have that attitude in reality, and the others range down from mild rape to killing.) Anyway, this is a pretty plausible door to brotherhood plus fun unlimited. The rest comes later. This general principle has some pretty far-reaching applications and extensions. For instance the Vallabacharya sect in India, whose ceremonials, including processions featuring mechanized gods and goddesses on floats in the act of intercourse, escorted by priests intoning all the dirty words in their language, gave India a pretty bad name earlier on, teach that brotherhood with all things is best practiced by sexual intercourse with all things, beginning as early as possible in life, and carried on with all your relatives and the family animals. (I have a friend who spent most of his life in India; asked him how the properly behaved and ostensibly highly moral Indians could stand this sort of thing; he said "Oh, they just ignore it, same as you do the proceedings in the barnyard here".) The worst feature of this universal love-cover is that you can do anything under it. As for instance, one of the girl murder associates of Charles Manson exclaimed in court, "How can it be wrong to kill if you do it with love?" Naturally, these particular scholarly type Tantrikas don't do things like that; they may well practice all the other sorts of love and kindliness they preach with it; but where is the limit in that line? The most eminent practitioners of killing as a sacred deed, were the Thuggee of India, who were mostly suppressed by the British but some of them live on, and so do their ideas. The Thuggee were wanderers who had the habit of camping alongside unsuspecting caravans and strangling the members in the night, as sacrifices to the Goddess of Death, Kali. The retention of their wealth by the Thuggee of course was merely due reward for piety. (The idea of human sacrifices tends to be indigenous in all religions except Buddhism, whose Founder put a stop, so far as his followers are concerned, to even animal sacrifices. Anyway, that sect left us a pretty good souvenir - the word "Thug".) There is a serious trap in the Tantric angle; the stuff originated as a respectable school of philosophy, along with the dozens of others of India and Tibet, most of them highly idealistic but none too well adapted to the evolution of the Western mind. Buddhism, after being forced out of India in a period of reaction, took refuge in Tibet and neighboring states, where some of it became corrupted by the ancient Bhon religion (shamanism), and this was the origin of the left hand Tantra. The trouble now is that the original Tantra still exists and in texts called "Tantra" you find all gradations from right to left. This gives all sorts of chances for chicanery; you never know which you are dealing with without study, and even then they can start you with the Right Hand Tantra and finally initiate you into the garbage dump variety. So far I have not met with any of the stuff imported into the West with any pure Tantra. (6) There is always at least a subtle hint that sex isn't as objectionable as the Buddhist puritans claim. But what most annoys me is the teaching that the Tantra is and always was the real Buddhism, and they put that out with extreme insolence and arrogance. Those poor deceived kids I met with in L.A. had been taught that the real thing which had attracted them led finally through the filth rites and nowhere else. One thing which worries me about the present situation is that some Theosophists are being

pulled into it, and one of these days are going to get caught in the publicity which is sure to break loose. (With something possibly worse than just publicity, in view of the drive to outlaw occultism altogether.) The present drive is especially by Aghehananda Bharati, a Tibetan Lama with a Hindu name whose real name is said to be Fisher and nationality Austrian, and Herbert V. Guenther, who seems to write at all levels on sex. Guenther is head of the Far Eastern Studies department in the University of Saskatchewan, who states that the works of H.P.B. and Judge are "the worst type of obscurantism". In the Tibet Society Bulletin No. 7, issued from Indiana University, Aghehananda Bharati, its new editor, claims that H.P.B. "was a fraud pure and simple" and that "no Tibetologist or Buddhist would touch her with a long pole", that "her Secret Doctrine is such a melee of horrendous hogwash and of fertile inventions of inane esoterics, that any Buddhist or Tibetan scholar is justified to avoid mention of it in any context". These characters also claim that of 300 schools of Buddhism in the West, only two are real; one of these is red-cap and the other dugpa.* H.P.B. wrote of these as synonymous; they do represent the same thing but organizationally are different. You can imagine the devastation these people can wreak on the minds of people totally uninformed about either Theosophy or Buddhism. Of course that doesn't include too many of the public, and only part of the occultly inclined would be interested enough in Tibetan affairs to get that literature. The Blavatsky Foundation has a large collection of data on all this, and is working on a book exposing it, but, whether (a) it can be published before the storm breaks and (b) get any circulation, is a question. ----------* 2/300 is 0.67 percent. If that represents what they think is real Buddhism, H.P.B. has a lot of company in her "Hogwash". The fact is that she has been commended by several authentic Buddhist scholars, including the Teshu Lama (2nd in the Tibetan hierarchy.) The latter in communication with Alice Leighton Cleather. Also commended by the eminent scholar Evans-Wentz. ----------Incidentally, the Foundation has the dossier of a Navajo form of Tantra which goes on the same principles but is even worse, going into cannibalism and ritual murder as well as the rest. This seems to indicate that the Tantra may go clear back to thousands of years ago when the land bridge across the Behring Straits existed; and that the Navajo belong to the North American rather than the South American cultures; which I and most of the Theosophical writers think came from Atlantean, or rather, Poseidonion stocks. On the other hand it also descended directly from Atlantis in the Eastern Hemisphere, so it could be either way. I have no evidence that the Jesuit initiates promote the sex stuff. Their aim is preservation of power and vengeance on H.P.B. for her writings about them. Something curious is happening in Catholicism. Political and religious liberalism has broken out among the Jesuits and the Pope is fighting them. Incidentally no high initiate of either the Black or White Lodges engages in those sex practices himself. He knows better. A black adept has to lead an even purer life in regard to physical matters than the white, because he is terribly vulnerable karmically. He sometimes knows how to string out his life for some incarnations, but it gets him in time. These are the real people behind the attacks on Theosophy. If it ever really gets under way they are finished, and vice versa. What they want is personal power, via religion and politics; the age in which they can exist is passing fast and they are desperate. All this was foreshadowed by H.P.B. and the Mahatmas. Concerning Velikovsky: (7) I have not printed in Notes yet the most forceful arguments against his stuff, derived from the probe findings and from previously known and verified facts. The row stirred up over the San Francisco meeting was reported in a pretty confused way and I don't have any

real details even yet; I want to get the full report before I close on that argument. I have to do it, because his position on Venus is mutually exclusive with the Theosophical teachings. The rather obvious attempt to set up a new pseudo-scientific religion which could go on splitting the public away from the science whose support we desperately need to straighten out the ecology and energy matters in the future, is something we don't need. Meantime, I can comment a little on the points you raise: 1. The water on Mars spends part of the time locked up at the North Pole and part at the South with an interim period of a 50,000 year precessional period where it is available to support life. The implications of it are right along Secret Doctrine lines. I will be printing this and a number of other points. 2. Correcting the date of appearance in next issue. Had caught it. But it makes Velikovsky's case worse. A Venus which from long before 1500 B.C. has been the chief ancient goddess wandering around the solar system would have been minutely recorded by the ancient astronomers and astrologers and would have given rise to massive recorded mythology. 3. The atmosphere of Venus has been resolved by the probes to be mainly carbon dioxide with a surface pressure of about 100 atmospheres, which means heavily loaded with aerosols, presumably dust. Simultaneously, the atmosphere of Jupiter, from which Velikovsky claims she was ejected, was determined by probe to be 85% hydrogen to a depth of thousands of miles. 4. The "greenhouse effect" is a matter of conjecture - no firm data. The matter of around at least 300 F is pretty firmly inferential from the 1.91 ratio of radiation from the sun. It is not likely that a mass of hydrogen exploded from a highly compressed condition but at less than 1000 F temperature, would hang together in space for a few thousand years and wind up with a heavy core like the earth and a dusty very heavy carbon dioxide atmosphere at a higher temperature than it started with. I think myself that the high temperature is due to friction in the atmospheric dust, especially as part of it whirls constantly and turbulently at high velocity. There is a break in the cloud cover right under the sun, through which is pouring up a vertical blast of hot atmosphere from the surface, likely accounting for the presence of dust in the atmosphere. One defender of Velikovsky says that the planet picked up a comet en route which accounts for the core. That would be quite a comet. It would have to be almost the size of the earth and as dense as a planet. No comet of that size or composition has ever been known. In other words, it would have had to pick up a planet about its present size - nearly earth size and that planet would have been a matter of record - very astonished record with miracle trimmings by all the old astrologers. Its advent into the solar system - or its junction with the cloud if already there - would have been the divine event of the millennia. However, I plan to print the case in detail with references in next issue. The social consequences of Velikovsky will be - already are being - pretty complicated. The scientific establishment did need a jolt, all right; if it should soften them up for a little Theosophical infiltration that would be a benefit, but that's quite a question. Later I secured Agehananda Bharati's full discourse on Blavatsky, which includes other subjects, under the title of FICTITIOUS TIBET: THE ORIGIN AND PERSISTENCE OF RAMPAISM. 1. I will quote some pertinent passages and comments "....Lama Lobsang Rampa's, Alias Mr. Hoskins", fantastically fraudulent output beginning with The Third Eye and its sequels. I call this whole phony tradition "Rampaism" after its phony consummator, Rampa-Hoskins, and his all-too-numerous followers in North America and Europe. This depressing crowd of partly well-meaning, totally uninformed, and seemingly uninformable votaries holds something like this as its modal view: that there is, somewhere hidden in the Himalayas (invariably mis-stressed on the penultimate 'a'), a powerful, mystical, initiate brotherhood of lamas or similar guru adepts, who not only know all the mysteries of the world and the superworld, who not only incorporate and transcend the teachings of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Christianity, but who also master all the occult arts - they fly through the air at enormous speeds, they run 400 miles at a stretch without

break, they appear here and there and they are arch-and-core advisers to the wise and the great who hide these ultimate links to supreme wisdom and control. In addition, they know all their previous incarnations, and can tell everyone what his incarnations were and are going to be. Geographically, the area where those supergurus reside is nebulously defined as "Tibet", "Himalaya" and it often includes the Ganges and India. This, very briefly, is the somewhat auto-erotic credo of a large, and unfortunately still growing, crowd of wide-eyed believers in the mysterious East...." Comment: This seems to be a balled-up mishmash of a number of things; overall it is a sort of travesty of some Theosophical statements themselves. The Exposure of Mr. Hoskins-Lobsang Rampa by Mr. Fischer-Agehananda Bharati is quite excellent; even better than [[cont'd after footnotes to this point]] --------------Footnotes: 1. Refers to that cult as a possible enemy. 2. Regarding the present situation: It is a question what is happening now in the Catholic Church, or whether it is still the chief cover. The dugpas themselves are very impartial about religion; they have none of their own and will work through any group - not necessarily confined to churches which serves their purpose. Attacks from the Fundamentalist Protestants throughout the Century have been more persistent and vicious than anything from Catholic circles. A liberal revolt in the Church is being led by Jesuits, and a really vicious quarrel is going on between them and the Vatican. History seems to be repeating itself. 3. We never were able to pin down the actual authorship of that lie, though Steinbacher was finally forced to disavow it. 4. There seem to be two organizations of this name, one sponsored by Senator Goldwater and the other by Carto. Unless there has been a change of leadership. 5. By "Tantric" he seems to mean the secret plotters in general, who, I have alleged, have been behind these attacks. "Super-Tantrikas" would be better. The real instigators are behind the scenes like the inner Jesuits. 6. I do have some passages from the Kalachakra Tantra which are pure Buddhism. Don't know how it ends up. 7. I mention Velikovsky because my correspondent did; it is pertinent in the sense that his cult is becoming an important threat to the Theosophical Movement itself. -------------the one I did myself previously; he gives a great deal more detail on it further on. The "fly-through-the-air-at enormous speeds" seems to derive from a story of Mr. Judge's about an astral flight to Tibet by an Occidental disciple, which appears to be an allegory carrying a moral rather than a narrative of an actual fact; the 400-mile runner bit seems to come from the works of Alexandra David-Neel (Magic and Mystery in Tibet) concerning certain characters who under selfhypnosis are said to be able to soar along over the surface of the ground, with just an occasional propulsive kick at it. They have a special problem in that they can travel only in straight lines, which in Tibet creates a pretty roller-coaster type of effect, and must involve some kind of capable compass orientation at the start; an error of one degree in 400 miles and coming out of the trance at the end of it could put one 6.98 miles off course, which could be especially embarrassing in Tibet. (In fact in spots a foot off course could mean two or three thousand feet error in elevation with regard to the ground, and be deleterious to your health.) Can that be done? I wouldn't rule out the possibility. It has been widely attested to by witnesses - especially of the Tantrika types, Mr. A.B.'s chums, who told Mrs. David-Neel about it. There is certainly solid evidence, known to every psychic researcher, of the reality of levitation, and this would just be another application thereof, investigation of which by our

Post Office Department could result in much-needed improvement of the speed and accuracy of its "swift carriers" on their "appointed rounds". Mr. A.B. then pays attention to Theosophy; it seems that he found a temple in the south of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) which contained a gallery of paintings of the progress of Buddhism: ".... the last one showed a white woman kneeling and bowing down before the image of the Tathagata and two monks administering sil (the five precepts of Theravada Buddhism) to her; behind her, several white men in tropical hats and western suits, one of them bearded. These, so the monk who showed me around informed me, were Mme . Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott embracing Buddhism. This is historically quite correct. The well-meaning American Colonel Olcott and the Russian-born Mme. Blavatsky, founders of the Theosophical Society, did indeed undergo that ceremony of initiation in that shrine in Srilanka. Annie Besant became a convert to Mme. Blavatsky, rather than to Buddhism, about a decade later. Leadbeater and other founding members formed the incipient caucus of the Society which still survives, albeit in highly modified and in a largely reduced form when compared to the initial thrust into the religious ideological world of the 20th century. Now we must distinguish between the genuine and the spurious elements in the movement as it relates to Buddhism. Annie Besant was no doubt a sincere woman; one of the British Empire's most powerful orators, co-founder of the Indian National Congress,* and a fine mind, genuinely annoyed at the inanities perpetuated by and constituted in the missionary scene. Col. Olcott was a genuine person, too, concerned with human affairs, and strongly cognizant of religious options other than those of Christianity. But I think Mme. Blavatsky and Leadbeater were frauds, pure and simple. My definition of a fraud or of a phony does not quite coincide with the usual dictionary meanings of these terms. A phony does not necessarily doubt the theses he or she propounds - in fact, they can be full believers themselves. But what makes them phonies is their basic attitude of refusal of matching their tenets with those of a genuine tradition, and of imitating lifestyles which are alien to them, by doing things that superficially look part of the lifestyle they imitate, or of imitational lifestyles which simply do not exist in any cultural body, except as idiosyncrasies. Leadbeater wrote about the kundalini, the secret serpent power, and a melee of things esoteric and other which he had picked up from Indian sources in early translations. He never learned any of the primary languages - Sanskrit, Pali, Tibetan; neither did Besant, Olcott, and Blavatsky. Leadbeater was an aggressive homosexual, and there is no doubt in my mind that he used his esoteric homiletic to seduce young men - some of them very famous indeed in later days. Now I don't object to homosexuality - I think the Gay Freedom movement is well taken and should succeed. But I do object to utilizing bits of theological or other religious doctrinal material to support one's own aesthetical and sensuous predilections. Hindu Buddhist Tantric texts do indeed use sexual models and analogues in their esoteric tracts, so it is quite in order if scholars and practitioners use these texts in support of their sexual behavior, because the support is objectively there. But no Tantric text implies any but heterosexual relations in its corpus. The most recent authentic presentation of the place of sexuality in Tibetan Tantrism (1) should suffice as a document for the rejection of the esoteric innuendos in Leadbeater's writings. H.V. Guenther, of course, is a valid empire of Buddhist Tibetan studies in and by himself, and it may not even be necessary to quote so exalted a source as his prolific writings in order to dismantle the Blavatsky-to-Rampa type fraudulence; a very average familiarity with Buddhism would do the job." -----------(1) H.V. Guenther, The Tantric View of Life, Los Angeles, Shambala Press, 1972. * Nothing of the sort. A.O. Hume, Secretary to the Anglo-Indian Government, founded the Congress. Besant had been prominent in Socialistic and birth control circles. -----------It is easiest to handle this with a few comments:

1. The joining of the Buddhist church by H.P.B. and Olcott upon arriving in India is described in the latter's Old Diary Leaves and many other places. There was no particular contradiction; the only difference between Theosophy and real Buddhism is the distance to which the former extends knowledge of the Universe in all phases, and ties it in with the tangible facts. The Dzyan themselves, Mme. Blavatsky's instructors, said that they considered themselves Buddhists, because he was the greatest teacher of the ages, but they also made it clear that they were Esoteric Buddhists rather than those generally known. Mr. A.B. also fails to note that one does not take Pansil (why did he drop the first syllable of that ceremony?) without a solid working knowledge of Buddhism being shown. He also fails to note that the Dzyan approved of a healing tour of Olcott's through Ceylon, which turned out to be a real "miracle trip". Too much so, because it nearly ruined his health and was finally shortened for that reason. (Exemplifying one of the possibilities in certain types of healing where the vital fluid (prana) is transferred to the patient. Walt Whitman, the famous American mystic poet, originally a man of fine health and physique devoted himself to helping wounded soldiers in the Civil War in this way, to such an extent that he ended as a paralytic.) Mr. A. B. also does not know that as a result of the Colonel's efforts to revive and clarify the Buddhist tenets, Ceylon holds - or at least up to the accession of the present radical regime - a yearly celebration in honor of Olcott. (His most noted contribution was his Buddhist Catechism, which went a long way toward enlightening the Ceylonese masses as to what Buddhism was really all about.) I suggest that the Blavatsky Buddhism looks such a horrendous mess to Mr. A.B. and pals simply because they can't understand it. And may I ask why he zeroes in on Blavatsky as a fraud, while at the same time his special definition of "fraud" places her in the same category as Olcott and Besant, whom he characterizes as "honest"? Well, I can answer that, from a half-century of observation of the tactics of the "Black Lodge." Blavatsky is the key figure, the real menace to their continued existence, and the foammouthed hatred of her which shows through all their attacks betrays them into all sorts of foolish contradictions, warped narratives, and outright lies. The aping of Asiatic customs which he decries was infinitely more evident in both Olcott and Besant than in Blavatsky, who never did any put-ons in that respect, unless you classify that Pansil ceremony as such - in which Olcott participated. Olcott, as he lived in India became virtually a white Hindu in his habits, and Besant even more so. Bracketing Leadbeater and Blavatsky together is about as near blasphemy as anything I recognize. His "revelations" were drawn from that "lower Iddhi" whose workings I narrated in the February number. His homosexuality was not with young men* but with young boys, and created two different explosions in the Society which cost huge numbers of members. I have the stenographic report of the Committee called by Olcott on the occasion of the first charges; when brought to bay and confronted with the testimony of the boys and certain correspondence. Leadbeater confessed and offered to resign. (The exact nature of the offenses was teaching masturbation to the boys as a preferable alternative to getting mixed up with girls and thus contaminating themselves.) I happen to have known some homosexuals pretty well, and I found that they tend to consider the female sex "contaminating". That, in addition to their arrogant assumptions of superiority over "normals" and their claim that homosexuality is quite "normal", I find infuriating. That predicament, however compulsive in some cases, serves no purpose but personal relief and gratification and Nature doesn't give a damn about that except where it accomplishes something. But their natures otherwise run all the way from highly idealistic to the most degraded you can imagine; and these latter especially try to convert others to their way of life. ---------* I do however know about the young men he refers to. They were a bunch of nonentities famous only in the Society and that for their humble servitude to Besant-Leadbeater.

---------As the result of Leadbeater's confession, the Committee split on whether he should be expelled or permitted to resign. The militant faction claimed that an emphatic expulsion and denunciation would be the only thing which could clear the name of the Society. The resignation faction, which ultimately prevailed, was for "compassion." The expulsion faction turned out to be right, though by this time, 67 years after the hearing, the Society has managed to bury the thing to the extent of practically keeping the younger members from hearing about it. And precisely what I most object to in the whole thing is the lying, camouflage and evasion, which has been engaged in trying to conceal the thing. The upshot was that after a rather short absence, Annie Besant got the fellow back into the Society and finally into the ranks of those "on the threshold of divinity" along with herself. As to his being a founding member - Mr. A.B.'s ignorance again. He came in quite a while after the founding and when in, he was a headache to both Olcott and Blavatsky; they didn't know about the homosexuality and Blavatsky never did, but his background as a curate of the Anglican church laid on overtones - and undertones - of personal god ecclesiasticism, which later resulted in the concocted Liberal Catholic Church which de facto still runs that Society and still sponsors the fellow to the detriment and obscurity of Blavatsky. Mr. Leadbeater, in continuing arguments defending his position, said that if masturbation was bad marriage was worse, because it involved action on another person. In one article he also called the opponents to teaching masturbation to pre-puberty boys, victims of "insane superstition". The curse of sophistry and evasion became widespread. I once received a letter of protest against an article of my own on Leadbeater, which said that as he had lived at Adyar with his door practically open to the public at all times, nothing could have happened, "and besides" such handling of the youthful sexual problems was the latest and most advanced thing in modern psychology. The incidents in question then, did not happen at Adyar; they happened on tour in Australia - the famous charges brought by T.H. Martyn which later resulted in a court decree that L. was unfit to have charge of young boys. But what has all this to do with Blavatsky and the scientific and philosophical validity of her work? In regard to Mr. A.B.'s claim that the tantra sex is strictly heterosexual - well, not quite. A variety I ran into, and which seems widely spread, raises some questions. A Tantrika who wandered into a Theosophical Lodge one afternoon when I was there, probably seeking someone whom he might contaminate, waxed quite enthusiastic about the joys of a particular practice he had learned. By maintaining pressure on a certain nerve point, he said, he could enjoy a prolonged orgasm extending to every cell in his body, including the tip of his nose. Well, I credited that. The details he gave did seem in line with certain physiological possibilities, and his nose did look as though it had had some unusual sort of career. I said: "Look here. It's a law of karma that if you get off the evolutionary track, you get three warnings, one way or another, before you are dropped into oblivion". (On such an occasion I would now say "into recirculation".) "You couldn't have gotten this far without learning that this incarnation ends you if you continue this". "Oh, of course I know that", he said. "But it's worth it". How many times I have warned one idiot or another, of the consequences of some line of action, and had the response "It's worth it", or "I can take it when it comes". They never can. They have built into themselves the inability to, in the course of the action. But I don't think you can class that fellow's Tantra as heterosexual. Hanged if I know what to call it that would be legal to mail. Meanwhile a few quotations from Mr. Guenther's Yuganaddha on the subject of heterosexuality: "'He must not despise a woman, even if all her limbs are attacked by leprosy. Regardless of what standing she is, he may adore any woman when she is in possession of the Vajra

(vajradharinim)."' '"Being in a state where thought-constructions are no longer made (nirvikalpavidhisthitali), for the sake of attaining perfection he may approach a girl who has not yet had her menstruation but who is in possession of the bodhicitta (bodhicittasamanvitam.)' (1) "Both these terms, vajra and bodhicitta, are synonymous. This is borne out by the words of Indrabhuti: 'bodhicitta (enlightenment) accompanied by the infiniteness of Great Compassion (mahakaruna) for all beings is called vajra'." (2) (p. 59) -------(1) Jnanasiddhi, I. 80-81 (2) Jnanasiddhi, p.76: sarvasattvesu mahakaruna-pramananugatam bodhicittam vajra ity arthah." -------Yes, I have heard of that class of women, and in fact met one or two, who have that allembracing divine compassion - for anything male which has the proper equipment in dimensions, accompanied by suitable skill in handling. They usually have another gift accompanying - VD. (But we mustn't sully these highly spiritual things with such vulgar considerations.) The business of being beyond thought-constructions - well, if it makes any sense at all, it seems to be saying that anything you do is fine if you don't think about it. That does not seem to check. The animal has no consciousness of or sense of shame, because he doesn't think about it. He just feels about it. I have known lots of men who have achieved such divine thoughtlessness in rut, without ever having heard of Tibetan Tantra or even Tibet. We find a further revelation on p.120 "Every woman is to be loved and treated with awe, because there is behind her many-sided mystery of feminity from which man through clinging to masculinity has separated himself and become a fragment. From this point of view we are able to understand the words of the Guhyasamajatantra, "'All women that are in the worlds he may enjoy in order to experience the Mahamudra'". (1) "The process of integration is basically an initiation into the mysteries of what lies beyond the domain of consciousness linked up with the physical sex and of the artificially set up individuality. It begins with the personal sphere and then stretches beyond the personal into the superhuman. It is only the personal sphere that involves the incest motive. For in personal life the mother is the central figure and the most important and significant person any of us will ever know." This is embedded in a mess of complicated verbiage which could be equally well rendered as meaning physical sex per se; which is definitely the meaning and practice of certain levels of the Tantra: as per the following: "The contract between man's biological destiny (Karmamudra) and his psychological adjustment to his destiny (Jnanamudra), so to speak in a somewhat cool and abstract manner, should make man realize that he has to cope with most difficult problems. However, this does not mean that man stands between these problems but that he himself is these problems at the same time. But while the fulfilment of man's biological destiny is rather easy, the psychological adjustment is of a more intricate nature. The experience of femininity comprises everything female. The man may experience his femininity through all female members of his family, leading to a multiplicity of projective images. Therefore it is not to be wondered at that this experience so often has an incestuous character. In the Buddhist* texts the incestuous character is explicitly stated and this statement is ample proof of the fact that the authors of the Tantric texts had deep-insight into the nature of man. Thus Anaugavajra states that 'The adept (sadhaka) who has sexual intercourse with his mother, his sister, his daughter, and his sister's daughter, will easily succeed in his striving for the ultimate goal (tattvayoga.)' (2)

----------(1) Guhyasamajatantra, p. 42. (2) Anangavajra, Prajnopayaviniscayasiddhi, V. 25. * Meaning the Tantric texts which these fellows are trying to put over as Buddhistic. ----------"Similarly it has been stated in the Guhyasamajatantra that "'The adept who has sexual intercourse with his mother, his sister, and his daughter, goes toward highest perfection, which is the essence of Mahayana.'" (1) "It is of utmost importance how this incestuous character is conceived, whether man concretizes it and takes it at face value or recognizes it is a vehicle or medium of insight. The very fact that the experience of these contents, whether concretized or taken as symbols for something that cannot be expressed directly, creates blinding-illusions and distorts the relationship between the individuals as well as the one to oneself, is a grave danger. But there are men who will face any danger, because integration has become necessary for them. It is true we feel a kind of repugnance against the incestuous character of these experiences, but we should not forget that under the incest symbol the most subtle, most noble, most delicate, most chaste, but also the most unusual feelings are hidden, - all those feelings which contribute to the perplexing richness of human relationships and even provide them with coercive powers. He who wants integration, the attainment of wholeness, must take into account everything, however repugnant this may appear to him. He has to put up with reality without embellishments. He must become aware of all feminine aspects and must not choose one aspect or other from among the multiple aspects of femininity. Any arbitrary selection he makes leads him away from the attainment of wholeness, because it leads up to a morbid fixation. Since the perception of wholeness is to the Buddhist mind the most joyous of all human experiences, the statement that all women are to be loved suggests that all women are shadows, images, or molds of the one real woman and can be, in a sense, shifted or interchanged for her service." Talk about a horrendous mishmash of Buddhism! The most unforgivable thing in it is the Chutzpah of referring to the Buddhist mind in that sense; as this fellows own endorsement of only 2 out of 300 Buddhist and Hindu schools as being real - i.e. Tantric - shows just how Buddhist all this is. And especially the reference to Mahayana. (I suggest that you look up the Mahayana in any book on Buddhism not written by a Tantrika. Mahayana means "Great Vehicle - " of knowledge.) He then goes into Hoskins-Lobsang at length with a treatise which, if fished out of the enclosing Tantra garbage can and washed off, would be as fine an expose in detail of that fellow, as I ever saw. I will skip this for lack of space, merely remarking that I agree with his low estimate of the intelligence of a public which as he says, goes for that guff in a big way. --------"(1) Guhyasamajatantra (= Gaekwad's Oriental Series, vol. liii), p. 29.* * The lavish adornment of their stuff with Occidentally incomprehensible centipede-jointed words, is not to teach anything but to impress with the great learning of gurus who, it is hoped, will be followed with blind faith. It works. Oh, how it works! ---------"At this time, there are roughly three hundred institutions in North America which claim a Hindu or Buddhist or, to a lesser extent, a Taoist background. Numerically, the Buddhist reference prevails; this is natural, since it includes Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Tibetan sources, or alleged sources. The guru business is good business, and this has been shown in some recent writings. (4) But this does not detract from the fact that Buddhism, Hinduism, and the other genuine traditions of the

East are misrepresented, and that an image of Tibet is created, and perpetuated, which cannot but be harmful to the future interface between Tibetan culture and the West. It is to these misrepresentations which I now turn, in my concluding assessment." ------------"(4) Khushwant Singh, "The Guru Business", in New York Sunday Times Magazine, April 30, 1973; A. Sharati, "Hindus Ignorant of Hinduism and Phony Swamis Abroad", in Illustrated Weekly of India, Bombay, March 18, 1973 --------The schools which he considers authentic are given as follows: "Secondly, and perhaps much more important, there are now in North America at least two, possibly more, authentic Tibetan Buddhist centers, viz. Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche's Karma Dzong in Boulder, Colorado, and his Tail of the Tiger in Barnet, Vt.; and Lama Tarthang's Nyingma center at Berkeley, California. In Britain, there are two, and I understand something of the kind has recently been created in Switzerland, possibly by the Tibetan refugee settlers in that country. Now what the inmates of the Tail of the Tiger, etc., do is authentic - it is tedious, serious, yet perfectly positive Buddhist meditation, and a certain amount of basic Buddhist learning, probably not less than for the lower clergy in Tibetan monasteries before the Chinese invasion. Tarthang in Berkeley even teaches Tibetan language and literature to his students. Now here is the main argument for the augmentation of these centers and institutional sequels: since Literally thousands of Americans, mostly young, keep thronging to spiritual, mystical, quasi-Eastern centers of meditation, and since they do not know the difference between the genuine and the spurious, why not generate more of these genuine centers with a better apparatus of spread, diffusion, and propaganda?" What this means is simply that efforts should be made to convince all and sundry that all authentic Buddhism is Tantric or his variety of Tantra; he is making a subtle campaign to cut the West completely loose from the real Buddhism which antedates his own rubbish by 2000 years, and to take advantage of the unsophistication of American seekers, especially the youth, both to corrupt their morals, and to sever them entirely from the best the Orient has to offer. The method is evident in the following: "We have to investigate the extreme dislike of hard theological, scriptural, commentatorial argument, a dislike that characterizes all followers of the neo-Hindu-Buddhist, and pseudo-Asian movements of a millennial type. In the first place, anti-scholasticism is one of the hallmarks of millenarian movements at any time. Since Tibetan Buddhism is something very different from millenarianism, I do not discount the possibility that the more highly esoteric churches like the Nyingmapa, and minor groups might have been classifiable as millenarian at the time of their inception, not on the top echelon of their scholarly leadership, but more probably in its populistic parameters. But for the last hundred years or more, Tibetan Buddhism, even in its most highly esoteric forms as in the Nyingma, has been very much an ecclesiastical, establishmentarian affair. The Fifth Dalai Lama might have been a maverick in his days, but he is now certainly as canonical as the milder and more domestic figures of Tibetan hagiography. By the same token, many if not most of the religious founder figures in the world were marginal to their co-religionists, on the fringe, rejected by the then establishment. But the process of ascent, plateau formation, and descent as virtually certain consecutive phases in the development of any religious movement, millennial or other, has been studied by anthropologists during the past decade. (3)" ---------"(3) A.F. Wallace, 'Revitalization Movements', in American Anthropologist 58 (1956), 264-81; A. Bharati, 'Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Religion, Ritual, and Belief Systems', in

Biennial Review of Anthropology , ed. B.J. Siegel, Stanford University Press, 1972, 230-283. ---------This seems to be leading up to the idea that the true Buddhism of a hundred years ago Blavatsky's Buddhism - has now become corrupt and deviate, from previously being correctly Tantric. How sneaky can you get? Incidentally, he tries to contend that the Mahatma Letters are not genuine because of the Western style of writing. I happen to have talked to and corresponded with, a large number of educated Hindus, whose English is totally indistinguishable from that of similarly educated American or Englishmen, as was that of the one, "K.H." who wrote most of the Letters. K.H. attended Heidelberg and what he writes indicates that his special interest was science; he probably roamed around various English as well as German universities in preparation for ultimate communication with the West. This quibble is simply silly. If perchance Mr. A.B. should be an Asiatic himself, he would be as sharp a case in point. There is no Eastern slant to his style whatever. (And why doesn't he use his real name? I see no reason except to appeal to the lure of that "glamor of the East" which he so decries, in the Western public.) Returning to Guenther, who does use his real name, we have an additional evidence of that nervy conspiracy to substitute the Tantra for real Buddhism. The book I quoted from is his Yuganaddha, The Tantric View of Life, published in India 1952. His Tantric View of Life, which is what you get when you ask at the shops here for his book, was published in Berkeley and London in 1972. In the chapter "The Way and the Apparent Eroticism of Tantrism", the sex angle is toned down - away down. Its teeth are practically pulled by the remark that "the unmistakably erotic language must not deceive us. As embodied beings we use symbols derived from the phenomenal world and from fundamental, human experience. Man's sexuality is but one among the many expressions of his Being and of what is 'expressed' in the body which is mind as well". (It is nothing of the sort. It has no life, no sentience of its own, once the kama and the mind are withdrawn, and the total duration of our encasement in it is about 5% of our total evolution.) "As a term for an expressive encounter, the Karmamudra is more a symbol than a sign and does not exclusively point to the woman of the physical world, but to occurrences of which the woman herself and the encounter with her are a symbol". It may not point exclusively to her, but it sure as hell points to her inclusively. This fellow may be a little short on the transcendental aspects of philosophy, but as a Byzantine logothete of misdirection he can't be equaled except by his own kind. The whole core of the Tantra is the theme that mysticism is a matter of sensations only, and those which can be obtained by misuse of the sexual organs especially. Eating and drinking are on exactly the same evolutionary level; indeed the latter constitute a more "spiritual" force, as you would find by offering a starving man his choice between a steak and a nude. The Romans tried the same thing with food that the Tantrikas tried with the physiological extrusion. Toward the end the mansions all had a "Vomitorium" attached to the dining hall, to enable you to disgorge and return to another load. It is not surprising that the Tantrikas tee off on Blavatsky, considering her inclusion of their real status in The Voice of the Silence, and her statement in the Esoteric Instructions that the sexual organs are used in black magic only. (Other than normally.) Madame Blavatsky warned that the boundary between white and black magic is a razor's edge. A point in case rests on a remark in the Theosophical classic, Light on the Path: "The vices of men become steps in the ladder, one by one, as they are surmounted". Some people read that as an injunction to hunt up all those steps you have not surmounted. You don't need to cultivate any of them. You will find enough of them inside already to climb on; and the ones in question were met with and surmounted as far back as Atlantis, by the real people. We are just the failures of that episode with a lot of remedial training ahead. "Do not fancy you can stand aside from the bad man or the foolish man. They are yourself, though in a less degree than your friend or your master. But if you allow the idea of separateness from any evil thing or person to grow up within you, by so doing you create Karma, which will bind you to

that thing or person till your soul recognizes that it cannot be isolated. Remember that the sin and shame of the world are your sin and shame; for you are a part of it; your Karma is inextricably interwoven with the great Karma. And before you can attain knowledge you must have passed through all places, foul and clean alike. Therefore, remember that the soiled garment you shrink from touching may have been yours yesterday, may be yours tomorrow. And if you turn with horror from it, when it is flung upon your shoulders, it will cling the more closely to you. The self-righteous man makes for himself a bed of mire. Abstain because it is right to abstain - not that yourself shall be kept clean." This is a very tricky admonition; but it should be clear that in order to pass through foul places you don't have to wallow in the slime, and least of all do you need to get the idea of living in it. The emphasis is on pass. At this stage of our evolution, a million and a half years past its material cusp, to hang on to the ancient vices and perversions (the episodes of animalism which gave us syphilis and all the diseases which mutated from it) is indeed to play the Biblical part of the dog returning to its vomit. That's not the way to health. Recognizing the evil man as part of ourselves doesn't include hugging and kissing him, and acquiring all his diseases. It means becoming indifferent to him personally since indifference is the only exit from karmic bonds, while recognizing that he is a laggard part of yourself which needs correction and cleaning up for his benefit as well as yours. We are never separate from the Self which is all things; we are not even part of that Self, for it is impartite; we are That. But get clear the difference between Manvantara and Pralaya, manifestation and non-manifestation, Avitchi, and Nirvana. While the One is One on both sides of the veil, as soon as this side is entered, the One becomes violently polarized between spiritual and material, and this gives rise to the pairs of opposites all the way down, which are necessary to perception and thus to sentient existence. It is the cosmic game which we have to play - and pay for - as the price of life as we know it; if we muddy the issue by trying to make the stream of life a nondescript gray, leaving no clear flow down the middle as the prize, we are not playing the game, and we have to pay. Every iota of sensation stolen by the unnatural attempt to force from material form the material organs what is not in them to begin with, must be paid for with an equivalent of agony to fully match the stolen joy. When the finale comes, there are two ways back to union with the Self. One is the way of spirit and a conscious surrender of individuality for something ineffably higher; the other is the way of matter, which also returns to the Unity but by the other pole, after the last bit of sentience and sensation which may have worked against the weal of all beings, has been wrung out in the remorseless mills of personal annihilation. (A period of seemingly interminable agony, ending only in dark and nothingness.) I will end by showing a little of what the Buddha had to say. (The Tantrikas never quote him, though they sometimes recognize that he existed. How could they claim to be the only Buddhists unless there was a Buddha? They also sometimes mention the name of Tsong-Kha-pa, but do not mention what he did, which was to run them off the Tibetan throne five hundred years ago, back to which they have tried to creep ever since, with apparently marked success during the past century. (When I first met with the names of Naropa, Tilopa, and Milarepa, the Tantric patron saints, I wondered why Blavatsky never mentioned them but made much of Tsong-Kha-pa. It became clear later that she was not about to let loose upon the unsophisticated West those names, and that to which they were the key.) After I had written the above, two wonderful books came to hand which leave nothing - at least nothing I can think of - unsaid. One is the Classical Hindu Erotology by Swami Ram Krishnanada; the other is the Ananga Ranga or Hindu Art of Love which goes with the Kama Sutra of which I spoke earlier, and which sometimes appears also under title of The Art of Love. I can't imagine anybody possessed of these books who could be better equipped for the journey to hell. The Ananga Ranga is by the Hindu poet Kalyana Malla. The translators remark - "It was at first our intention, after rendering the 'Kama Shastra' from Sanskrit Into English, to dress it up in Latin, that it might not fall into the hands of the vulgar. But further considerations satisfied us that it contains nothing essentially immoral, and much matter deserving of more consideration than it receives at present. The generation which

prints and reads literal English translations of the debauched Petronius Arbiter, and the witty indecencies of Rabelais, can hardly be prudish enough to complain of the devout and highly moral Kalyana Malla. At least, so think THE TRANSLATORS" We shall look in a minute at these "devout" and "moral" contents, but first I will insert a double page of the contents of the Erotology, and similarly of the two first pages of Chapter 4, at the risk of a copyright suit. (That would be a very interesting proceeding, but I doubt that it is likely to happen.) To this I will add a touching verse from p. 37 "As the Shastra says: A man who is both wise and subtle Assisted by a cunning friend Who knows the secrets of time and place When to speak and when be silent When a woman's heart is open May triumph over all the virtues Of the most chaste and faithful woman." You might think that this introduces one to a fairly complete education in the subject, until you come to the contents of the Ananga Ranga, which must be the grandfather of all the computer matches currently advertised. It lays out in detail the days of (the week, or what?) on which it is propitious to engage in intercourse with [[cont'd after facsimile portion]] -----------[[the following two italicized pages are facsimile from "Ananga Ranga" with some V.E. comments]] PART TWO SEXUAL INTERCOURSE Chapter 1. Diverse kinds of actual union following the classic dimensions; the force of desire; the duration of sexual pleasures, and the different kinds of love . 38page Chapter 2. Embraces and caresses ................ page 43 Chapter 3. The kiss ................. page 47 Chapter 4. Scratches and marks made with the fingers .......... page 51 Chapter 5. Love bites, and techniques to be used on woman from different lands ........ page 53 Chapter 6. The postures and attitudes during intercourse ......... page 59 Chapter 7. The various ways to hit a woman and the accompanying sounds ............ page 63 Chapter 8. Women who play the role of the man ..... page 67 Chapter 9. Auparishtaka, or oral intercourse ...... page ....... 71 Chapter 10. How to begin and how to end sexual union. Different kinds of union and lovers' quarrels ....... page 75 PART THREE THE ACQUISITION OF A WIFE Chapter 1. Observation on betrothal and marriage ...... page 80 Chapter 2. How to win the confidence of a virgin .... page 84 Chapter 3. Courtship, and the revelation of ones feelings by signs and acts ........... page 88 Chapter 4. Things which a man must do alone to assure union. Also things which a girl must do to

acquire domination and control over a man .......... page 92 Chapter 5. Different forms of marriage ....... page 97 PART FOUR THE WIFE Chapter 1. The life of a virtuous woman, and her behaviour during her husband's absence ....... page 101 Chapter 2. Rules of conduct for the first wife towards the other wives of her husband; of the youngest wife towards the older wives; the behaviour of a widowed virgin who has remarried; of a wife rejected by her husband; women of the King's harem; and the conduct of a man who has more than one wife ............. page 106 PART FIVE THE WIVES OF OTHERS Chapter 1. The chief characteristics of men and women, and why women resist the propositions of men. Men who are successful with women, and women who are easy to conquer ........ page 113 Chapter 2. Ways of addressing a woman, and the efforts necessary to conquer her .......... page 119 Chapter 3. A dose examination of women ......... page 123 Chapter 4. The duties of an intermediary or go between .............. page 126 Chapter 5. The love of persons in charge of the wives of others ........... page 133 Chapter 6. The women of the Royal harem, and the protection of ones own wife ........ page 138 PART SIX COURTESANS AND PROSTITUTES Chapter 1. Why courtesans seek men; the ways of attracting a desired person, and the types of men with whom it is advisable to have a relationship ........ page 143 ----------The thing I find most impressive about all this sewage, is the total subordination of woman-kind to the degenerate passions of man, under pretext that all this stuff is the "Road to Nirvana." It is the road to kama loka and avitchi. The outstanding note of the teachings of the real Buddha is compassion for all that lives. After going through many tomes of this sort of thing, plus the works of Bharati and Guenther, I find them utterly cold and indifferent on the problems of human suffering - except the suffering of the male in rut - and those of social responsibility. ----------There are eight different kinds of pressure and they are named after the form and shape of the marks they make on the skin: 1) Sonorous; - 2) Half Moon; - 3) Circle; - 4) Line; - 5) The Tiger's Claw; - 6) The Peacock's Claw; - 7) The Leap of the Hare; - 8) The Leaf of the Blue Lotus. The parts of the body on which these caresses should be perpetrated are: the armpit, the throat, the breast, the lips, the jachana or centre of the body and the thighs. But Suvarnanabha is of the opinion that if a man is intensely passionate, he should not worry where he inflicts the signs of his love. The qualities which distinguish good nails are that they should be brilliant, clean, well set, whole, convex, soft and polished. There are three categories of nails - short, medium and long. Long, oval nails which lend an air of grace to the hand and which attract the desire of women

are typical of the people of Bengal. Short nails, which may be used in diverse ways to procure pleasure, are possessed by the people of the South. Medium-sized nails which possess all the properties of the other two are found among the natives of Maharashtra. 1) When a person presses the lips, the breast, the lower lip or the jaghana of his lover so gently that no mark remains and the hair of the body rises in response to the caress and the fingers make a soft clicking sound, this is known as the Sonorous pressure of the nails. This gentle caress is usually used on a young and inexperienced maiden when her lover massages her body, scratches her head or wishes to arouse her. (52) 2) The curved mark left by a nail on the throat of the breasts is known as the Half Moon . 3) When the Half Moons are imprinted one against the other it is known as the Circle. This mark is usually made around the navel, in the hollows of the buttocks and on the joints of the thighs. 4) A mark in the form of a little line that one can make on any part of the body, is called the line. 5) The same line if it is slightly curved and imprinted on the chest is called the Tiger's Claw. 6) When one traces five curved lines with the fingers of one hand on the chest it is called the Peacock's Claw. This mark on the body is mainly inflicted for the sake of prestige, for it calls for a great deal of finesse to execute this caress artistically and accurately. 7) When marks of the five nails are made one after the other around the nipples, this is known as the Leap of the Hare. 8) A mark on the chest or on the buttock in the shape of a Leaf of the Blue Lotus is known by that name. When a person about to leave for a long journey inflicts a mark on his beloved's thigh or chest, it is known as the Mark of Remembrance. On such occasions it is usually customary to imprint three or four little lines with the fingers. These, however, are not the only marks that can be made with the nails. For, as the ancient authors so wisely observe, an experienced man well versed in the diverse aspects of the science of love will invent innumerable, varied and artistic signs to impose on his mistress' body as symbols of his love. And as these scars depend on the depth and force of a man's passion, it is impossible to enumerate the many varieties that exist or are possible. For, says Vatsyayana, if variety is desirable in love, then love must be aroused by a variety of means. This is (53) ------------------the four different classes of woman. Then to boot we have a tabulation of the most propitious night and day hours for each of the four classes. Then comes a tabulation of manipulations for each side of the body, according to the phase of the moon; the right side is for the light fortnight, the left for the dark fortnight, and these are listed by the most propitious days for manipulation; there are fifteen parts of areas of the body named, left and right each. The directions for manipulations are set forth in explicit detail. Then come the proper days for the manipulations of each of the four classes of woman. I won't even try with a computer to figure out the number of combinations which would have to be figured to find a loophole through this garbage to the optimum, the summum bonum of combinations which lead to Nirvana by this route. That's one saving grace to this rigmarole as far as the West is concerned. Any American lecher, after getting halfway through the labyrinth, would give it up and go get drunk instead.

He might try hard for a while with Woman Type 1, the Padimi, because her specifications are pretty much those of the Houris of the Moslem paradise. He would quit a lot quicker with the fourth class, the Hastini, whose specifications one does now and then meet in the flesh, and who is described in detail. (The first class distinction is the size and depth of the Yoni. If you don't know what that means, use your imagination. Or perhaps better, don't.) This presents a problem; it would seem that even at the start of trying to select your paramour, your acquaintance has to be pretty intimate. In the case of No. 4, the "elephant woman", I'll be damned if I can understand the attraction to start with. "The Karini* has a Yoni twelve fingers in depth. Unclean in her person, she has large breasts; her nose, ears, and throat are long and thick; her cheeks are blown or expanded; her lips are long and bent outwards (bordes); her eyes are fierce and yellow-tinged; her face is broad; her hair is thick and somewhat blackish; her feet, hands, and arms are short and fat; and her teeth are large and sharp as a dog's. She is noisy when eating; her voice is hard and harsh; she is gluttonous in the extreme, and her joints crack with every movement. Of a wicked and utterly shameless disposition, she never hesitates to commit sin. Excited and disquieted by carnal desires, she is not easily satisfied, and requires congress unusually protracted." But maybe that sort of prejudice is just my gross lack of true spirituality. (You could get confirmation on that from quite a few people.) But there are two words in that description which puzzle me; "shameless", and "sin". What on earth could words like that mean to a Tantrika? -------* Hastini -------Turning to the male sex, there are four classes there too, and the initial specification is according to length. (I don't mean height.) These are equally unflattering. Now if you realize that for perfect bliss and consequent salvation, logically the class of the man must be coordinated properly with that of the woman - and I wish them such happiness with each other as they deserve - just consider that, in calculating the route map to the Supreme. There are pages and pages of further details of the same order, and there are pages of recipes for aphrodisiacs, to be compounded by females for males, and vice versa. (After reading the male and female specifications, I can understand the need for these - or a good slug of gin, at least.) As a final thought, it strikes me that here is an answer for much of the misery and poverty of India; how much time would anybody have for anything else? This stuff is certainly widespread there. As an afterthought to all this, I think the fem. lib. had better get into this and quickly. If they object to being "sex objects" they should consider a rapidly growing cult which makes of both sexes sex objects possessing nothing else of importance whatever. And no matter how you artificially prolong lust into old age, there must come a time, long before death, when those rattling old bones refuse to yield any more of the paradisiacal juices. Then what? I know that there are already tantrically-based marriages - or other unions - going on among our youth. And it reminds me of a saying, "There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots; but there are no old, bold pilots". There are enduring marriages and there are tantric marriages, but.... Let us get the taste out of our mouths with some clear cold water of the sayings of the Buddha himself. From The Light of Asia, a poetic but authentic rendition of Mahayana Buddhism; here a description of the Buddha's last initiation - and temptation: "...Next there drew Gallantly nigh a braver Tempter, he, Kama, the King of passions, who hath sway

Over the gods themselves, lord of all loves, Ruler of Pleasure's realm. Laughing he came Unto the Tree, bearing his bow of gold Wreathed with red blooms, and arrows of desire Pointed with five-tongued delicate flame which stings The heart it smites sharper than poisoned barb: And round him came into that lonely place Bands of bright shapes with heavenly eyes and lips Singing in lovely words the praise of Love To music of invisible sweet chords, So witching, that it seemed the night stood still To hear them, and the listening stars and moon, Paused in their orbits while these hymned to Buddh Of lost delights, and how a mortal man Findeth nought dearer in the three wide worlds Than are the yielded loving fragrant breasts Of Beauty and the rose, breast-blossoms, Love's rubies; nay, and toucheth nought more high "Than is that dulcet harmony of form Seen in the lines and charms of loveliness Unspeakable, yet speaking, soul to soul, Owned by the bounding blood, worshiped by will Which leaps to seize it, knowing this is best, This the true heaven where mortals are like gods, Makers and Masters, this the gift of gifts Ever renewed and worth a thousand woes. For who hath grieved when soft arms shut him safe, And all life melted to a happy sigh, And all the world was given in one warm kiss? So sang they with soft float of beckoning hands, Eyes lighted with love-flames, alluring smiles; In dainty dance their supple sides and limbs Revealing and concealing like burst buds Which tell their color, but hide yet their hearts. Never so matchless grace delighted eye As troop by troop these midnight-dancers swept Nearer the Tree, each daintier than the last, Murmuring, 'O great Siddhartha! I am thine, Taste of my mouth and see if youth is sweet!' Also, when nothing moved our Master's mind, Lo! Kama waved his magic bow, and lo! The band of dancers opened, and a shape Fairest and stateliest of the throng came forth Wearing the guise of sweet Yasodhara. Tender the passion of those dark eyes seemed Brimming with tears; yearning those outspread arms Opened towards him; musical that moan Wherewith the beauteous shadow named his name, Sighing: 'My Prince! I die for lack of thee!

What heaven hast thou found like that we knew By bright Rohini in the Pleasure-house, Where all these weary years I weep for thee? Return, Siddhartha! ah return! But touch My lips again, but let me to thy breast Once, and these fruitless dreams will end! Ah, look! Am I not she thou lovedst?' But Buddh said: 'For that sweet sake of her thou playest thus Fair and false Shadow, is thy playing vain; I curse thee not who wear'st a form so dear, Yet as thou art, so are all earthly shows. Melt to thy void again!' Thereat a cry Thrilled through the grove, and all that comely rout Faded with flickering wafts of flame, and trail Of vaporous ropes." (Kama is the principle of animal desire.) I really need not adduce from the Dhammapadha and other authentic Buddhist works; it is all the same as to sex. The Buddha of course did not denounce normal sex and family life: he did show that for a Buddha-aspirant, or a seeker of Nirvana, it must be left behind with all other material desires. (Still a new Tantra book just came to hand - Esoteric Teachings of the Tibetan Tantra, by Muses-Chang, quoting Naropa and Tsong-Kha-pa. It gives the impression of the ethics of true Buddhism, but much involved in the weird, terrifying, and sometimes obviously dangerous types of Yoga ritual which seem representative of the grim Tibetan cast of thought, and is reminiscent of EvansWentz's Tibetan Book of the Dead, which is dugpa-tantric less sexual involvement.) I also have a catalogue of the Tibetan Nyingmapa Meditation Center of Berkeley, it names Tarthang Tulku Rinpoche as its inspiration. It gives a list of books which includes a "Manual" by Guenther and another of his essays. The rest of the list is partly of works known to me to be authentic, some of which seem to be so but with which I am not familiar. It gives a long list of members and donors. I don't know any of the names, except those of Allen Ginsberg and Alan Watts, listed as artists for the organization. In any case, the inclusion of Guenther's work and Bharati's approval of it, indicates that for Theosophists, if it is not an enemy organization it at least is harboring enemies. Any group whatsoever with Tantric associations is holding some part of an animal whose nose may be clean but which has a long dirty tail; it seriously needs to explain itself. I am giving this one an opportunity to do so by sending it this issue, and will print any reply I receive. As a parting thought, why for Gods sake don't all these Buddhist groups just teach the Buddha, instead of turning out volume after volume of Occidentally incomprehensible ritual, yoga, and abstruse disquisitions? I guess it is the same reason as that for the ecclesiastic burial of Jesus under similar cobwebbing, and for the current burial of H.P. Blavatsky by the Theosophical Society, with masses of Quest productions of questionable value to say the least. (They do sell The Secret Doctrine in the mutilated form of the Third and Revised Edition, 6 volumes at $5.00 each, which is about as effective a way of keeping it out of circulation as any, and of blocking from public notice some of the most important remarks which have been deleted from the original) -----------Notice: Walter A. Carrithers, Jr. Founder and current Secretary of the Blavatsky Foundation of which I

am President, has been working around the clock on his own findings on this problem, and it is possible that the next issue may use this material - where it does not coincide with mine and especially if someone tries to argue the point. Sincerely and Fraternally, Victor Endersby ---------------------TANTRA POSTSCRIPT There are two works by Mircea Eliade, on Yoga in general, which confirm what I have said; one is Yoga, Immortality and Freedom. His Patanjali and Yoga is especially comprehensive. Patanjali is the one system considered basic by Theosophists. On page 80 of this he says, for instance "In certain Tantrist schools contempt for asceticism and speculation is accompanied by the complete rejection of all meditative practices: Deliverance is pure spontaneity. Saraha wrote: 'The childish yogis, like so many other ascetics, will never be capable of finding their own nature. There is noneed for mantras or images or dharanis: all are sources of confusion. In vain is deliverance sought through meditation. Everyone is hypnotized by the jhana system (meditation), but no one is interested in achieving his own Self.' Another sahajiya author, Luipa, wrote: 'What is the good of meditation? In spite of meditation one dies in anguish. Abandon all complicated practices and the hope of acquiring siddhi, and accept the 'void' (sunya) as your true nature'. "Viewed from without, then, Tantrism would seem to represent an 'easy way' that leads pleasantly and almost without obstacles to freedom. For the Tantrists of the 'left hand' (vamacari) thought that they could arrive at identification with Siva and Sakti by employing wine, meat and carnal love as ritual instruments. The Kularnava Tantra (VIII, 107 ff.) stipulates indeed that the supreme union with God can be obtained only through sexual union. And the famous Guhyasamaja Tantra summarily states: 'No one succeeds in gaining perfection by means of difficult and wearing exercises; but perfection can be easily won by means of satisfying all one's desires.' (Bhattacharya edition, Baroda, 1931, p. 27) "But the 'easiness' of the Tantrist path is more apparent than real. In fact the Tantrist path presupposes a long and arduous sadhana that is at times reminiscent of the alchemists' opus. The 'void' (sunya) is not merely a 'non-being'; rather it is similar to the Vedanta's brahman, it is adamantine in essence, and that is why it is called vajra ('diamond'). 'Sunyata, which is firm, substantial, indivisible, and impenetrable, immune to fire and imperishable, is called vajra' (Advaya-vajra-samgraha, Gaekwar Oriental Series, p. 37). Now the ideal of the Buddhist Tantrika is to transform himself into a 'being of diamond', in which, on the one hand, his ideal is that of the Indian alchemist and the Hatha-yogi, and, on the other hand, it recalls the famous equation of the Upanishads: atman equals brahman. In Tantrist metaphysics, both Hindu and Buddhist, absolute reality, the Urgrund, contains in itself all dualities and polarities, reunited, reincorporated in a state of absolute unity (advava). The Creation and the process of becoming that derives from it represent the explosion of the primordial unity and the separation of the two principles (Siva-Sakti, etc.); consequently one experiences a state of duality (object-subject, etc.) - and this is suffering, illusion, 'enslavement'. The goal of the Tantrist sadhana is the reunion of the two polar principles in the disciple's soul and body. 'Revealed' through the knowledge of kali yuga, Tantrism is above all a practice, an action, a realization (sadhana)." This passage is quite remarkable in content. What Saraha and Lui-pa wrote is actually almost exclusive of sexual yoga but seems here to be treated as substantiating it, as in the quotes from the Kulavarna Tantra and the Guhyasamaja which follow. Perhaps we have here the "voids' into which the sex yoga originally sneaked its way. The closing passage of these remarks represents the sophistry

which entraps so many sensualists; the idea that the great Polarity of the manifest Universe can be reunited through union on the physical sexual plane. I don't know how pure materialism could go any farther. And it is exactly opposite to the truth. The polarity exists only in the world of sensations. It can be unified only by withdrawing from that world. The progression of sensory vibrations is downward into the darkening labyrinth of matter as we now know it, and those intensifications of that kind of sensation, which is overdone even in "normal" sexual relations, can only drag deeper into that darkness. Nature then sooner or later forces the healing of the polarization after all the possible knowledge of that cycle has been gained from it. (The exact process through which the world is going now.) For those who have placed their being wholly at the disposal of infinitely extended polarization, there can be no fate but personal annihilation and resorption via the road of absolute matter, recycled and purified by the elimination of all organic consciousness - in other words, return to the first of the three elemental states which precede matter on the downward course. This involves almost unimaginable suffering in the septic tank called the "eighth sphere" in Theosophy, where Nature exacts, to bring the balance even, pain equal to the stolen ecstasy. (This is no "divine judgement" in the ecclesiastic sense; it is just cause and effect in the "Cycle of Necessity." Incidentally, that "eighth sphere" is not the moon as many Theosophists suppose. Not many Theosophists do know what it is, because so far as I can discover, Mme. Blavatsky revealed it only to the poet Yeats, who was a very close friend of hers. Perhaps in this period of the revelation of many secrets, that is due for revelation too.) - August, 1974 Theosophical Notes ----------------TANTRA II The subject is not exhausted; a correspondent sent me some reduction of comments on Alice Leighton Cleather's edition of The Voice of the Silence, a translation of an ancient esoteric Buddhist book by Blavatsky, which was vouched for as genuine the Tashi (Panchen) Lama of that day. These references are worth printing, though not all in order. Mrs. Cleather's works detail her visit with colleagues to Tibet and their communications with that Lama, representative of true Mahayana Buddhism. H.P. Blavatsky, A Great Betrayal, Calcutta, 1922 H.P. Blavatsky, As I Knew Her, New York, 1923 H.P. Blavatsky: Her Life and Work for Humanity, Calcutta, 1922 [[Several pages of facsimile from the Crump-Cleather Voice of the Silence follow here.]] There is in my mind no question but that a strong Tantric element took advantage of the Tibetan exile by the Red Chinese, to invade the outer world under the shield of the great respect for Tibetan things in general, held by Theosophists and other occultists. (It amounts almost to blind worship by some, who overlook the insidious and perpetual presence of Tantrikas, and also some odd customs like the polyandry under which a woman could have up to five husbands. We are rapidly adopting such customs here and have been for some time, sans marriage ceremony.) Some years ago I got a report by an apparently impartial Western traveler who got into Tibet after the Chinese invasion; he described the previous condition of the Tibetan peasantry as miserable indeed. That and the obviously bad karma which led to the takeover, has caused me to give some thought to what changes may have taken place in Tibet since H.P.B. was there; also some thought of a

letter written by one of her gurus to Olcott, to the effect that they had not always been in Tibet, and might not always be there in the future. (They had taken refuge in a remote barbaric land when Buddhism was driven from India, and did what they could to pull their unwilling hosts out of the mud with the varying and variable success which Carrithers and I have depicted.) If they are not there now, where are they? There have been many speculations; but I am certain that anyone who alleges that he knows proves thereby that he doesn't know. Also a tradition quoted by H.P.B. to the effect that the Wisdom would remain pure in Tibet only so long as the sacred soil was "trodden by no sinful foot". There was certainly plenty of sinful clumping around there when Major Younghusband's army invaded in 1903, on pretext that the Dalai Lama was getting too friendly with the Russians. At this point it seems fitting to quote from an article by a friend of mine, Camille Svensson, on an interesting aspect of Tibetan history. (American Theosophist, a November issue - year not known. I have a clipping.) She refers to a tradition that the Tashi Lama would reincarnate in the West: "If the Tashi Lama incarnated in the West in order to reform the religions of the world by reestablishing the occult teachings, where is he now? The last Tashi Lama that passed the tests and was approved by the Buddhist hierarchy in Tibet died in 1937. In 1950, after an unusually long time had elapsed, two candidates were discovered in Tibet, and the Chinese put forward another one from a territory they ruled. For obvious political reasons, the Chinese insisted that their incarnation be accepted.* The Tibetan government and the monastic leaders wanted to carry out the traditional tests, but it was impossible at the time. The result was that an untested Tashi Lama came to be accepted as the true incarnation. That leaves us freedom to put forth the idea that the Tashi Lama who died in 1937 could have incarnated in the West to be the successful messenger in 1975 of the Occult Brotherhood to carry out the mandate of Tsong-Kha-pa. Maybe the sons of Europe will listen this time. The unrest evident throughout the world seems to indicate that the time is ripe for spiritual reformation, the only worthwhile revolution. May we have it". -------* They never believed for one minute in any kind of reincarnation. -------That has a lot of interesting angles. People are likely to be looking for a 37-year-old Westerner who will look and/or speak like a Tibetan and will claim to be that Lama, all of which will prove that he isn't. It isn't in 1975 that he will appear either. All the frauds have to show themselves up first. It's also a question how many would-be acolytes will be here to greet him, and where. No crowd in resounding halls. Possibly two or three in a bomb shelter or mountain cave. As to whether this particular Panchen Lama will be the man - that's a pretty open question. I would say quite likely one of the "Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor" group which sponsored H.P.B. when she was in the Occident, located in the Mediterranean area. There are three of their names in the record, any one of whom could still be living, under the rules of life as followed by Adepts. This identification of course would not be exclusive of a younger 37-year-old man. However, another story is found in a book by Tieh-Tsong-Li, Tibet, Today and Yesterday. It is in general pro-Chinese but some of its contentions do check objective history. One of these is to the effect that Tibet is really a Chinese vassal historically and thus the Red takeover was merely the assertion of an existing authority. The factual case is that the first Dalai Lama was Gan-den Trup-pa, nephew and successor of Tsong-Kha-pa, late in the 14th Century. This is a Mongolian title. The 5th Dalai Lama established himself, with Mongol support, became theocratic sovereign of all Tibet in 1641, and was so acknowledged by the Tibetans, Mongols, and Chinese. He built the famous Potala and thus established a united Tibet as we know it, and up to the end of last century Tibet was definitely ruled by the Gelugpa (Yellow Caps), the authentic Buddhists known to H.P.B. The office of the Dalai Lama, outwardly both religious and secular, is religious only exoterically. His establishment in 1641 with Mongolian aid was

to subdue the Redcaps who after Tsong-Kha-pa had again secured control, and in the process also to unite Tibet. Previously to 1641, the secular ruler was a Redcap king. It was this same "Great Fifth" who created the office of the Panchen Lama as second to himself, located at Tashi Lumpo at Shigatse.* (Hence this Lama is called either the "Tashi" or "Panchen" and the one in Blavatsky's time was the head of the real and inner Buddhism while the Dalai stood as the exoteric church head and secular ruler and protector. The Panchen or Tashi, Lama, who endorsed H.P.B. as shown was thus the real religious authority.) -------* There are uncertainties in this story. More information on this is on the way. It includes documentation on the historic forgeries which I deduced had taken place. For use in next issue. -------It is significant at the present that the Fifth Dalai Lama, so soon after the First, had to fight all over again Tsong-Kha-pa's battle against the Tantra, and pretty obvious that the hold of real Buddhism has always been tenuous there. In the forties I became perturbed by reports of Redcaps and Yellowcaps being seen associated together in Monasteries, as that wasn't the case when H.P.B. was there. And a Redcap would not hesitate to wear a Yellow Cap, either there or in exile. At the death of the Sixth Dalai Lama in 1706, the Chinese intervened to prevent the installation of a Dalai Lama sponsored by either Mongols or Tibetans, because they were worried over the increasing influence of the Dalai Lama over northwestern China. They defeated a Mongolian army and installed a Tibetan candidate with two Chinese "advisors" at Lhasa. They did nothing about the Panchen Lama. In 1774 the first British trader representing the East India Company, got into Tibet and was thrown out. (H.P.B. herself made two unsuccessful efforts to enter before she succeeded.) Gurkhas from Nepal invaded in 1788 and were expelled by the Chinese, who then barred out all foreigners. However, the Chinese power declined and in 1855 another Gurkha pirate raid secured an annual payment by Tibet and concessions of trade and extraterritoriality. The Russians and British tried to get into it and the latter finally, in 1890 concluded a treaty with China fixing the Tibet-Sikkim border and, in 1893 a Tibet-India trade agreement. H.P.B. had left Tibet for the last time in 1870. (There are interesting references in The Mahatma Letters to Tibetan conditions in the '80's.) These agreements did not work well because the Tibetans were stubborn about them and the Chinese did not coerce them. The ins and outs of this led to Younghusband's expedition, which forced the Lhasa Convention giving the British special trade privileges. This was recognized by the Chinese in 1906 and refused by the Tibetans. An Anglo-Russian agreement in 1906 accepted Chinese dominance over Tibet, which the Tibetans resented. They threw the Chinese out in 1912. In 1913 Tibet secured autonomy in internal affairs by agreement with the British and Russians, but accepted Chinese suzerainty and British trade. (All this international fuss about a little barren rockbound land seems incongruous unless you realize that Tibet was the potential highway for a Russian takeover of India. You also will not understand the Hodgson-Coulomb frame-up of H.P.B. over the Adyar phenomena until you realize that the British were sure she was a Russian agent softening up the Indians for a Russian takeover, but never could get anything on her because she was nothing of the kind. (See my book The Hall of Magic Mirrors). Well, anyway, there were several ups and downs in Tibet-Chinese-British "concord" until the Red Chinese takeover in 1950. By the Covenant of '51 Tibet retains autonomy internally, but who administers it? Anyway the Chinese do have something of a historical case. Returning to Tieh-Tseng-Li, who is anti-Dalai and pro-Panchen: We have there an interesting story of a feud between the two potentates. The Chinese author claims that it started 50 years or so ago when the Panchen failed to quiet his musicians respectfully when passing the Potala in a state visit. This doesn't look like much of a reason; something more serious could have been behind it, such as the

Dalai Lama having gone Red-cap. Be that as it may, there was a real conflict in Tibet when the Dalai Lama accused the Panchen of corruption and of conspiracy with Communists in Mongolia. The Panchen Lama of Olcott's day allowed Sarat Chandra Das of India to come to Tashi-Lumpo for research on the first Tibetan-Sanskrit-English Dictionary. For this the Dalai Lama seized the Panchen Lama's Prime Minister and executed him! This looks to me very, very much as though the Panchen Lama was trying to counteract a takeover by the Tantrikas, by opening up the true Tibetan history which Messrs. Guenther, Agehananda Bharati and Co. are trying to keep closed! The Dalai Lama of course did not dare execute the Panchen Lama himself, and such an execution was a very peculiar deed for a Yellow-cap potentate! If that was the case, then certainly the Panchen Lama was acting with the Dzyan themselves! At the turn of the century the Dalai Lama had fled to India and from there offered the Panchen the temporal power on condition that he would resist the Chinese, which he refused. When the Dalai Lama returned, he reproached the Panchen for being pro-Chinese and according to this author a quite complicated feud ensued over revenues, respective authority, etc., until the Panchen Lama fled for his life. Then the Lhasa officials moved in and plundered the Tashi-Lumpo monastery and seized its books. Evans-Wentz, the noted scholar of Tibetan affairs, tells of having bought a rare and valuable book of that origin, for which he was unable to get a translation. (This is very significant; EvansWentz's Tibetan associates were Tantrikas, and I find it very unlikely that they couldn't translate that book! I am sure that it would have given away exactly the game they are playing right now. Somebody had better find that book - Evans-Wentz died some years ago.) The Panchen Lama was thus driven out of the country for 30 years. The IXth died on Chinese territory and the Xth returned under Chinese escort in 1950. There is a rumor that he refused to sign certain oppressive Red proclamations and was either executed, imprisoned, or took to the hills. All this of itself puts the status of the current exiled Dalai Lama in grave doubt, and I think it is about clinched by his following statement: "Buddhism, as we have seen, was not brought to Tibet all at once; scriptures were introduced by different scholars at different times. In India during that period, there were great Buddhist institutions, like Nolanda and Vikramasila Universities, which showed slight differences in their style of teaching, although they offered the same fundamental religion and philosophy. Consequently, separate groups grew into separate organizations or sects, all having the same basic tenets. The most prominent of the Tibetan schools are the Nyingma, Kagyud, Sakya, and Geluk. Each of these adheres to all the teachings of Hinayana and Mahayana, including Tantrayana, for the Tibetan Buddhists do not separate these teachings, but pay equal respect to them all."* I can now see no reason to doubt that this is part of the subversion I have tried to expose. ----------* My Land and My People, McGraw-Hill, 1962. The Nyingma and the Kagyud are tantric. Don't know about the Sakya. ----------To put it in other words, the Chinese takeover was utilized as a springboard for an attempt to create a new religious empire in the West, and a necessary part of it was the obliteration of the real history of Buddhism, which was so well-known and established among scholars and mystics of the West at the turn of the century. Now general ignorance and other deficiencies in the Theosophical Movement have laid that area wide open, and these imposters are taking full advantage of it. That thrust has several deadly points: 1. To corrupt the seeking but unsophisticated Western youth. 2. To create animosity against Buddhism among the youth who have rejected the Tantra when they learned its nature, and with it Buddhism, which they had no means of distinguishing from it. 3. To get Tantric practices identified with Theosophy to the disgrace of the latter; the success

of which to date is shown by the fact that John Steinbacher, in his infamous book of 1968, accused the Theosophists of precisely the major Tantric practices - and is still doing that as well as involving all other forms of occultism with it. Foolish Theosophists, in their blind worship of Tibet as the land of the gods, have flocked to the aid and relief of those exiled Tibetans until they are thoroughly entangled with them - especially in the Adyar Society. And for God's sake, Guenther himself is the United Nations' expert on Asiatic studies as well as the director of that section in the University of Saskatchewan! But I wonder why the Tantrikas are using Austrians as spearheads? In the 80's, the Mahatma "K.H." told Sinnett that the Tantrikas "are our most determined - and why not admit it - our most potential enemies". How potential is now being demonstrated. It could go to having this Dalai Lama announce himself - or one of his chums - as the Theosophical "Messenger of 1975". And Theosophists would fall for it like a cascade of bricks. This Dalai Lama's inclusion of "Tantrayana" as just one of a number of respected schools shows either total ignorance of the real nature of the Asiatic situation or - a coverup. Take your choice. Mrs. Svensson quotes Mme. Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine as follows: "Up to the present day none of the attempts (to enlighten the Western world) has been very successful. Failure has followed failure. Have we to explain that by the light of a certain prophecy? It is said that unto the time when the Tashi Lama condescends to be born in the land of the P'helings (Westerners), and, appearing as the Spiritual Conqueror, destroys the errors and ignorance of the ages, it will be of little use to try to uproot the misconceptions of P'heling-pa (Europe): her sons will listen to no one". To date the current effort has been no more successful than the previous ones. She said that unless Theosophy prevails this time, Western civilization will sink in a sea of horror never yet paralleled in history, and this century is named as the critical period - which it obviously is on the face of it now. Also, the Dzyan charting shows a crisis beginning with 1976. It would take something of a miracle for a breakthrough which would turn the tide now. However, there are certain favorable longrange signs. The Watergate affair shows that this is - as such a cycle on the charts always portends heavy retribution for ancient villainies, and men are present to act as its agencies. And there has been the birth of the forerunners of that "new race" foretold by Blavatsky, and much misunderstood by Theosophists as well as others. No matter what happens, the seeds of the future will survive, but it may be a "Noah" type of operation. Things move enormously faster now than in the ancient days; the new Atlantis won't take two-thirds of a million years to sink, and the subcycle itself is much shorter, to match the vastly greater potencies of self-destruction that we have now. If it comes it will come with stunning speed and the psychic levels will be cleared as fast, for a true new age. The super-tantrikas are hoping to help bring on the storm and to ride the dismasted ship into a future "Dark Age" by bringing about the domination of their false religion. It won't work this time. Incidentally there will be no continental sinking, but many local disasters and the devastating weather changes already going on. Meantime, I have a little more garbage to recycle before closing that subject - if I am ever able to close it adequately. - August, 1974 Theosophical Notes ---------------TIBET AND TANTRA III [[Forward to first installment of Carrithers' "Madame Blavatsky & Occult Tibet"]] The narrative which continues here by my colleague Carrithers, is sad enough for me and must be more so for Theosophical friends. Most of us have carried the name of Tibet in our minds as

synonymous with Shangri-La, though that impression with me faded beginning some time ago. (Incidentally a strange thing happened to my copy for last issue, which contains the expression "foolish Theosophists" as applying to those of that group who were falling for the Tantric blandishments. In afterthought I realized that I hadn't been too clever myself. Others had caught this raid before I did, and without them I might have missed it entirely for the present. So I put a paster over the word "foolish" and stuck it on, as I usually do with those, with solidity. But when I got my copy, there the word was. It must have come off by accident, or by intention of some one unseen who felt that I was right in the first place, and that it should be known? After all, on occasion the Dzyan themselves have not been too complimentary to the Theosophists. One of their letters describes them as "Laggards in the morning, time-wasters at night, given over to secret vices in more than one form." Well, coming from a person who at night doesn't go to sleep, just changes mental gears, is a born celibate, and doesn't even eat vegetables, that might not mean what it would to us. Anyway, if the mishap had cost me friends and readers, it was done, and they probably wouldn't be reading this. So I let it stand as fair but include myself in the category.....) What we have here is no heavenly Shangri-La, but a torn land from the beginning, of savages ruled by even worse, where Buddhism came as a refuge from being slowly smothered in India, and there had held a precarious in-and-out foothold ever since. What Madame Blavatsky saw, lived in, was taught in, was really only an enclave, secure for then, but as the Mahatmas told her, only for a while. Thus now what we have is the inheritors of the darkest aspects of post-Atlantean darkness, stealing by advantage of that proximity, the sacred garments of the world's most noble teachings, descending from that stronghold like the wolf on the fold, upon the current Western ignorance and confusion about Asia, from whence has come all the worst as well as all the best that we know. Unfortunately the current Western tendencies in the "occult" assure them a warm welcome. Where then are our teachers? They exist; they know all about it; they knew what would happen even in Mme. Blavatsky's day and their plans are maturing. Not to save this civilization, because powerful as they are, they cannot fight the world's self-made karma; but to preserve the teachings for a new and better breed which is already here, and by its nature enables the means for its own survival, and for its expansion into a world newly swept and clean, where will be little left of what men value today but far better opportunity to enjoy it and flourish. - September, 1974, Theosophical Notes -------------------A FOOTNOTE TO "MADAME BLAVATSKY AND OCCULT TIBET" By Walter A. Carrithers Final preparation of the concluding section of "Madame Blavatsky and Occult Tibet" has been delayed a bit by what can be construed as an assassination attempt upon the life of its author and of another Director of The Blavatsky Foundation. (A copy of an official police document bearing upon the incident is on record with the Editor.) This criminal operation was neither unprecedented nor unexpected, as the third Director (1) will agree. Besides having had an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation with some Black Tantrikas in his own house, (2) the latter himself, prior to this, narrowly - and somewhat miraculously - escaped with his own life from what it certainly appears was meant to be a contrived "accident" elsewhere! (He is too reticent to talk about it much; and the writer mentions it only for the benefit of those readers who - unlike the sentinals of the Dzyan Dzong - think they are audience to no more than an entertaining joust of pens. That there are those today on the Black Path ready to go beyond that is made obvious by the commentary of the late Dr. Evans-Wentz , the learned

Kargyud initiate, given in quotation on page b of our July 1974 "Addendum", that as their Red Hat Guru-to-be-emulated, Padmasambhava, so frequently presumed to demonstrate,", even now "it is right for a Great Yogi to cut short the career of an evil-doer by depriving him of the consciousness principle" - there being, of course, more than one sorcerer who thinks he is "a Great Yogi" and that all those who stand in the way of his sorceries are "evil-doers!) --------(1) Endersby. (2) This "encounter" was not combative. They were attending an "open forum" meeting. The significance to me was the personal verification of what some Tantrikas teach and other Tantrikas deny that Tantrikas teach. --------On November 6th local authorities for the first time erected a Mercury floodlight of some thousand watts on a pole directly across the street from a corner of the writer's residence, providing bright night-time illumination of the two sides of the residence theretofore in the dark. This, we thought with some satisfaction means added discouragement for would-be troublemakers. But one evening, only four days later, the premises were invaded by two nondescript characters, one at the front door and another simultaneously at the rear entrance, a protective fence having been climbed silently and surreptitiously. (Afterwards, a search at once revealed a spy nest with trampled ground and freshly broken shrubbery where a singular opening in the vine-covered fence had afforded a view of the house for possibly a third culprit hidden from passersby.) Discovery (at 6.57 p.m., thwarting a two-way break-in perhaps timed for 7 o'clock), warning and a shouted command to depart the premises, had no effect on their sullen refusal to retreat. Without waiting to see what if anything they held in hand (one, for sure, having his hands deliberately concealed), or what weapons gave them such brazen courage, so that the presence of external floodlighting, our automobiles, household lights and loud television - in short, every evidence of occupancy - had given no pause to their invasion in the first instance), we let a gun barking in .357-magnum basso do our talking, addressing each of the culprits separately - at which first one and then the other quickly disappeared into the darkness, each with his own "close shave", Wild West style! We assume the "senders of evil" got this "message" too (though not the first they will have received either, for we have reason to know another of much greater authority went out from the Dzyan Dzong somewhat earlier). The invading culprits certainly chose the right time and place - for us. And they made all the mistakes. But the strangest part of it all was that during the most critical half-dozen seconds of eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation when the tide of action was in the balance, they did nothing (no matter what they were intending and prepared to do), standing motionless, almost as if paralyzed; glazed eyes suggesting hemp-takers - except that when they did take to their heels, they both exhibited perfect coordination and extraordinary agility, moving like the proverbial bat-out-of-hell. Naturally, we found no Black Tantrik death-sign on our door-posts. No master criminal has his thugs leave his calling-card in cases like this. But during 35 years at this residence, we never previously have had to confront even a lone intruder, nor has there been evidence of any prior intrusion with evil intent (a dilapidated house and two old outworn cars, with a yard-ful of junk overgrown with weeds are simply not inviting to sensible thieves; and we do not brag about hidden gold or buried riches, for there are none - only the land itself is worth anything, and the first and second mortgages had to be renegotiated earlier this year, and with great difficulty, simply to avoid the bankruptcy our attorneys had recommended!) The odds against such an incident occurring by mere chance alone (random coincidence), when once only in 35 years and then falling within the 120 days of the current significant period following in wake of the July debut of our counter-attack on Black Tantrism, are 105-1. This in itself goes far towards confirming the long-held conviction of the sentinels of the Dzyan Dzong that we are in a war not of

words only. Madame Blavatsky, who knew the enemy better than we, supplemented the less-obvious means of protection - that saved her from at least three assassination attempts - by toting a loaded revolver and a butcher knife. "The Gods help those who help themselves" - and who help Humanity. - (sd.) Walter A. Carrithers, Jr. Mme. Blavatsky, despite precautions, did get a stab wound during her travels - I believe in Constantinople - which never quite healed. But then those were rough times and places far different from the placid safety of modern American streets. - V.E. (Space to have been occupied [here] as a curio by photo of police receipt for Carrither's gun, but I can't find it. Don't want to use up time hunting.) Commentary by Endersby I am sorry that Mr. Carrithers did not add some of the colorful details which he gave me over the phone, such as the interest created along the block by flying bullets and a few other things. I imagine that not everybody concerned would agree that all the mistakes were on the parts of the emissaries of evil. The police receipt accompanying is for Mr. Carrithers' temporarily confiscated gun; which however they handed back when they found that his story was quite true. (He added in further communication to me some odd happenings in the neighborhood which featured weird perambulations of two young strangers dressed in khaki, who could have been "casing the joint", and whose khaki dress could mean identification with some paramilitary outfit, of which there are dozens. Fresno County is a hotbed of Bircherism and other right wing militancy, and both Carrithers and I have had our conflicts with that ilk.) When the barriers of "law and order" finally collapse, there will be a big cleanup of "evil forces" by such groups, most of which forces being similar forces. For instance the Birchers have been for years accusing R. Nixon of being the leader of a group engineering "planned starvation" as a means to dictatorship. Certainly Mr. Nixon left no stone unturned to get himself saddled with the charge; and certainly nothing about the present situation contradicts it. On the other hand, there was a group ready to seize the White House and the capital if he had been impeached. However, I claim that the forces behind all this are none of the observable characters or organizations, but something much farther back in the shadows, who are using all these groups, no matter how contradictory among themselves, to bring about the chaos out of which they hope to create a new tyrant theocracy out of anarchy. (What is going to do them in, is the fact that each of the main forces represents a theology totally in conflict with that of the other.) Considering the chronology of events, Mr. Carrithers feeling that the Tantrikas had something to do with the curious attempt on his domicile is natural. But it could have been connected with one or other of the Western extremist groups, or simply some kooky gang like the "Symbionese Army". And of one or other extremist groups, Eastern or Western, from which level? The upper echelons of these things don't always confide in the lower. --------------Mr. Carrithers reference to the "Dzyan Dzong" will probably mystify some readers. Perhaps he will clarify it a little when he submits his final section of the Tantrika study. References to the "third director" (myself) and "protection" might as well be clarified a bit. There have been several attempts to knock me off personally. The first was a try-out of the old voodoo "pin trick" late in 1948. To the "experts" who claim that such tricks only work on people who believe in them, and have reason to think an enemy is preparing one, I can say that they are damn fools. That one was totally unexpected to me - nothing further from my mind - and under certain conditions the psychic "pin" is semi-physical and quite visible. I noted with interest that it was about 3 inches in

diameter, smooth surfaced and black, probably a hat-pin, which seems to be an indication of the size of the doll with my face pinned on it. (My wife and I between us were able to identify the perpetrator a bit later, but never did find out how he got the picture. I expect to discover that in 1976 or '77. He's pretty old too, and may no longer be with us then.) I pass over the time when I came home from a trip with a 22 caliber bullet hole in my rear window. An assassin meaning business would use something bigger. That one was probably a bit of sport by some kid, who among a major part of modern American youth would think that shooting at a moving car is good sport and quite reasonable in cost. (I suppose that many people who see freeway overcrossings with a full arch of wire netting over the footway think that is to keep kids from climbing over and falling on the freeway. Far from it. It is to keep kids from smashing in the windshields of passing cars with rocks. That's also rated good sport, especially if it results in killing a few people.) The next, and most serious incident is one I have been reticent about because it is too hard to prove. It happened about three years ago. I had been working on a survey job near the coast and was coming home via Cotati on the main north-south freeway. It was dark, and about 7 p.m., during the rush hour. I was rolling along with the traffic, in the right-hand southbound lane, going about 65, when I got a terrific blow on the right side of my VW, which spun it across the left-hand southbound lane and across the shallow depression which was the divider there. After two complete 360 turns, I wound up headed north in the left-hand northbound lane, found that my engine was still running, and took off in the direction I was headed, at top pressure on the throttle. But I did note that the nearest northbound headlight approaching me behind was a quarter-mile away. At the moment of impact all four lanes were full of cars, and I recalled that as I spun, the headlights going south were glaring in my face. There had been no warning at all - no horn, no squeal of brakes, no headlight glaring when whatever it was hit me. What it was became clear when I reached the Cotati turnoff and stopped to inspect the damage. The running board had been caved in by a square-edged bumper, such as found on some light trucks, and the rear fender had been dented in by the headlight housing of same vehicle. I had been hit from the right, while driving in the right lane, at an angle of about 30 degrees, by something which must have been going at least 30 mph faster than I was, or around 95 mph. I never saw it at all. The sole evidence of its existence was that terrific blow out of the dark and its tangible evidence left on my car. Without having had time to think it over, I had automatically jumped to the conclusion that some kind of accident happened. I then got back on the freeway and drove again over the route where I had been hit, looking for signs of trouble. Nothing whatever. Traffic was running as usual. No red lights, no sirens, no wreck along the road. Then I drove again north over the route on which I had escaped. Nothing again. So I went home and called up the Santa Rosa police to ask whether any report of an accident had been turned in. Not a word, the man said. Well, it figured. The driver of that car, who must have assumed that I had been killed instantly in that traffic, certainly was not about to report it. And it is well-known that nobody likes to "get involved" in that kind of thing - or anything else serious - so the fact that at least three or four drivers must have seen the impact - and probably one or two barely missed it - would not necessarily mean that it would be reported. The policeman's view was interesting. He hazarded that either I had hit some heavy object dropped off a truck, or had wandered a bit to the right and hit a margin marker. Well, neither some thing dropped from a truck, or a margin marker, is likely to hit you from behind when you are going 65, but I have never found arguing with police a profitable occupation. Especially without witnesses. So the conversation concluded with his promising to let me know if he found out anything, and vice versa. Later, examining the scene in daylight, it was evident what had happened. I had been hit where the ramp from a truck rest stop entered the freeway lane. The distance from that stop to the free way was far too little for some drunk driver who woke up suddenly to get up 90 miles per hour speed, so he must have had a running start from near the entrance, with his lights turned off all the way. That was feasible, because there was enough light from the traffic for a man familiar with the scene to make such

a run. Conclusion: somebody who knew my habit of travel, and who had been tipped off that I was coming, followed me on to the freeway at Cotati, then turned off of it with just enough speed to knock me into the traffic and escape untouched himself. Well within the ability of many of the stunt drivers you see perform on TV, and it may well have been some car hopped up for the purpose. The thing which appalled me was the utter callousness. If it had succeeded, at least one innocent driver would have been killed with me, and it could have been a half-dozen people. It certainly was no drunk driver. That sort of character could never have handled his car in such a manner as to hit me like that without plunging into the traffic himself. Even so, I still find it hard to believe; but if the reader can figure out a better answer, I'd appreciate it. What really capped the climax was that just a few days later a research group from Sonoma State College, which is just a few miles from Cotati, made contact with me because of encountering my work on the Dzyan cycles, and from that meeting stemmed a breakthrough into circles which changed my whole life, which for some years had been penned into Theosophical futility, and now came out into a much wider field. Whoever staged that freeway incident must have been keeping in close touch with the Occult movement, which is strong there, and determined to prevent that meeting. The change is not going to save the Movement in the near future, or the world either. But it has brought the means for my work to survive, along with people who will carry it on when I go, into the new era which will be here when the great planetary storm is over, and the old institutions and the old people are all gone. Make of all this whatever you wish. Put to it any explanation you wish. I don't give a damn; I have done the major part of the job I set out to do when I began in January. The only thing unfinished is the full story of those descendants of Poseidonia now-known as the UFO operators; but I did go far enough into that so that it can be followed up by the right people even if I don't complete it. But I often envision that stunt driver - it couldn't have been anybody else - reporting to his boss that he had done me in - and then reading the morning paper, or listening to TV news, to find out who else had been killed in the process - and finding nothing. I also feel curious as to what happened to him afterward. Oh, well. It will all come out in the wash. And I anticipate coming out of the wash personally in good condition. Here comes in the "protectors" theme. That's pragmatic - a matter of experience. A good many other things, during 1960 and since, have indicated that there is something. (Also for that matter, many escapes from death or serious injury, some of which seemed impossible at the time, over most of my life.) The astrologers say that my horoscope indicates plenty of trouble, but with the Big Fellow, Jupiter, always ready to pull me out in the nick of time. I was born in a dangerous environment, the cattle range of 1891, and I followed dangerous occupations after I left it - logging camps, construction work, mountain surveying over high cliffs, and bridge engineering on the high steel; so on the average I could expect dangerous happenings regardless of astrology or anything else. I did not always get away unscarred, as I did in the freeway incident. But it was in that incident that the "help" showed up most prominently; a sudden half-mile gap in busy traffic into which my escape fitted like a glove. It wasn't due to any influence from traffic lights either. There were none on the freeway and the nearest on a street was five miles away in that direction. Moreover, the southbound traffic, in the lane I first spun across, was right on top of me; I was blinded by oncoming headlights, but nothing touched me. I wasn't even scared. I didn't have time for it; and when the spin stopped I was still busy until I reached Cotati. I was just more intrigued than anything else. Quite a few incidents since then have indicated that there is something special about my house, which is isolated in the woods and mountains. I could have been picked off at any time since I have been here - about 22 years - without anyone seeing the deed or the guilty party. And there is no secret about the location, as I have been in the phone book all that time. Of course it could be argued that anything like that would be too obvious. It is quite possible that anything happening to me would, from their point of view, have to be an accident. On the other hand, you could argue that sudden death is just not in my Karma. The matter is hardly worth speculating about. It's too late now to do anything about

me, except continue to obstruct my work by various nasty little tricks as usual for years, and that's just part of the occupational hazards of anybody who does significant work in this line. The Dzyan cat is out of the bag. It's too soon for the world as it is, but it will be here for the rendevous of the future; the numerous new branches of a new science purged of materialism which logically stem out from it, already have their seeds sprouting, and whatever the disasters of the next few years, the override of the cycle is upwards - as it will be for the rest of our stay on this earth - and nothing can stop it. - Nov.-Dec., 1974, Theosophical Notes -----------------------

CONCERNING "MADAME BLAVATSKY AND OCCULT TIBET" The Secretary of The Blavatsky Foundation reports that after more than six months of research and analysis - including the not inconsiderable work of ploughing through some 80 books for factual details on the history and religious background of Tibet, compiling some 120,000 words in longhand notes in the process - this project is now "at the end of the trail". Due to unavoidable distractions (1) and the late arrival of a great mass of new and important documentation, the final installment of "Madame Blavatsky and Occult Tibet" has again had to be delayed. This concluding section will shortly appear as a Supplement to the 1974 volume of Theosophical Notes, and will be mailed to all 1974 subscribers. Thereafter, the whole series (Sections 1 and 2 with Addendum and Table of Contents) will themselves appear as a booklet for public sale. Availability and price will be announced. All for whom the defense of the Right Path is a heart-rooted dedication, will welcome this as a weapon against the current and growing onslaught from the Path Sinister. (2) Among the latest findings reported by the author, Walter Carrithers, are not a few that reinforce our earlier suspicion that 1975 may see the Theosophical Movement itself rocked with the most spectacular events since Krishnamurti was put forth by the Society at Adyar as the returning Christ and the new Messiah. (3) The Gyalwa Karmapa, who has been grabbing headlines in the New York Times and elsewhere, may only be playing John the Baptist to a "greater" who is to come - and, if so, what we are now publishing will be the definitive refutation to the claim. Moreover, the material on this subject that Carrithers and I are putting before the reader and the public constitutes the most comprehensive study yet published on Indo-Tibetan Tantrism (and the history of the Black Tantrikas in particular) viewed from the standpoint of Right Path Occultism. It is quite likely to remain such for a long time to come and is well worth the waiting. Events of recent days have confirmed the gravity of the general picture with its accumulating evidence of the occult plot to capture the West and especially America. The ramifications of this run much wider and deeper than we knew or suspected. In our local area newspaper advertisements have solicited support of endeavors to raise money to establish Red Hat Tantrik retreats in Mendocino, while the BART system transit cars have blossomed out with their first "religious" advertising signs - in which the hundreds of thousands of commuters are being importuned by Red Hat propaganda masquerading as Buddha's Dharma! In my July 1974 number of Notes (p. 9), I thought it important enough to note that, "Incidentally, the Foundation has the dossier of a Navajo form of Tantra which goes on the same principles but is even worse, going into cannibalism and ritual murder as well as the rest. This seems to indicate that the Tantra may go clear back to thousands of years ago when the land bridge across the Bering Strait existed; and that the Navajo belong to the North American rather than the South American cultures; which I and most Theosophical writers think came from Atlantean, or rather,

Poseidonian stocks". Now would you believe it - this prior observation fell into the category of a neat presentiment when, after coming to this country in September (a visit first publicly announced in August, 1974), the Grand Hierarch of the Karmapa Sect of Tibet made a special cross-country journey to Hopi-land in Arizona to hobnob with some of the local medicine-men. One can only guess what else he was up to (Carrithers will furnish some additional clues, including some links to UFO-cult activity of possibly sinister import), since the Navajo long ago migrated southward into that area and it is among the outcast sorcerers of the Navajo that Black Tantrik depravities ("bad medicine") are most prevalent. Before returning to Sikkim via Toronto, "His Holiness" visited Los Angeles and San Francisco (where, at least at the latter, his coming proved inauspicious - the morning of his scheduled performance of the "Black Crown Ceremony", there was a mysterious and yet-unsolved "ritual killing", as newspapers called it, close by in the Bay Area.) (4) We have learned that the Kargyuptas and Nyingmapas have not only penetrated into some of the larger "Aquarian Age" communes across this country, but that Tantrism is being actively pushed onto Theosophists on several fronts by officials of the Theosophical (Adyar) Society in North America. What some will find most disconcerting is that the Theosophical Publishing House at Wheaton (which, so far as we can learn, in 11 years never once took out a single advertisement to sell the public the one book in its stock defending Madame Blavatsky against the Coulomb-missionary-S.P.R. Committee attack) in 1972 published and has expensively advertised a $6.95 hardcover edition of the Dalai Lama's The Opening of the Wisdom-Eye. Mr. Carrithers tells me that even he "flinched somewhat" when he saw that I had called the current Dalai Lama "a tantrika". That judgment of mine was made on what information I then had - to me, enough; but Carrithers writes that, at last having read this book - which I have not seen - he finds its content backs me up "one-hundred percent". He describes The Opening of the Wisdom-Eye and The History of the Advancement of Buddhadharma in Tibet as "nothing less than a bald-faced propaganda vehicle to advertise Vajrayana Tantrik practices that, while not obviously as Black as some, certainly in the end are quite as destructive to spiritual progress". In this book, its author brings his historical summary to a climax by affirming that among Tibetans "there is no separate 'ism' of the lamas apart from Lord Buddha's teachings"; and, "Only on the authority that a statement was made by Lord Buddha, or by the Indian Buddhist teachers, was any teaching considered established and thereby accepted as true" (Ibid., pp.10, 11). The "or by the Indian Buddhist teachers" is a "lower gate" wide enough to admit the Maha-Guru of the Shammars together with his whole devilish retinue! And, accordingly, four pages before this, His Holiness Tenzing Gyatsho numbers Padma-Sambhava among "these great learned teachers", asserting that he came to Tibet in "the year 810 C.E." and "stayed at the Samye Vihara and there translated eighteen books of the Mahasiddhi (Great Accomplishment) Tantric literature dealing with meditation practice". What value one can put upon this high seal of assurance given to the Padmasambhava claim is plain, considering that we now have ascertained that two of the leading authorities on Tibet, Tibetologists Snellgrove and Richardson, specifically recommended by Professor Bharati in his "Fictitious Tibet", have put on record their finding that there is no reliable historical evidence that Padmasambhava wrote or translated anything or that he ever existed on this earth! He seems to be as fictitious as the termoforgeries produced in his name - no more than a fanciful "hero" of Tibetan folk-myth decked out to play the role of founder of Tibetan Tantra, which in reality lacks an historical figure comparable to Sakyamuni Buddha! Unlike the latter this "Guru-to-be-emulated" is venerated by the Bonpas as well as the Red Hat sects of Tibet. (5) After devoting 116 of his 139 pages largely to the "Buddhadharma in Tibet" as embodied in "the Vehicle of the Perfections (paramitayana)", His Holiness introduces "the Adamantine Vehicle (Vajrayana)" saying of it, "This vehicle is far superior to that of the perfections discussed above although the aims of both are the same, that is, the attainment of Buddhahood and in this ultimate attainment there can be no difference." (This value-judgment makes "aim" or motive the final arbiter of

rightness or wrongness, as do the Black Tantrikas - see below). But a great difference is to be found between these two vehicles regarding the skillful means used for the attainment of Buddhahood. "When one considers the two aspects of the Buddha-body resulting from practice of the Adamantine vehicle, this difference becomes clear. These two aspects are called the Dharmakaya (truth-body) and Rupakaya (form-body) and while both vehicles agree as the cause for former, there is some difference regarding the latter. The Dharmakaya has as its specific cause the wisdom found in the bodhicitta which penetrates to voidness, and this is also the supporting cause for the production of the Rupakaya. Regarding the specific cause of the latter, however, there is a fundamental difference since Paramitayana holds that this is simply the result of the bodhicitta and the accumulation of the six perfections, while Vajrayana attributes it to profound skillful means (gambhirupaya). Since there is this difference in the skillful means employed, in Paramitayana the course of practice to the attainment of Buddhahood requires effort applied in an immense number of lives spanning aeons of time and thus, according to this vehicle, it would be impossible to become a Buddha in one lifetime" - not, however, if one were born "on the threshold" of Buddhahood, after having ascended the Path through many past lives! "But in Vajrayana if one has a good teacher and if one's faculties are ripe, one can within a few years of effort, gain Buddhahood. "The specific cause, as we said above, of the Rupakaya is, according to the Vajrayana, the profound skillful means which are accomplished with the aid of devayoga, in the four grades of Tantra". A note to the text defines "devayoga" as "the selection of and practice with the aid of the form of a celestial being - Buddha, bodhisattva or some protector-god". Later, the author adds that "one should pay special attention" in Tantric meditation, to "the mind becoming one-pointed upon the pictured form of the celestial being whose practice one has taken up". Here another note adds, regarding "celestial being" - "Such as upon the many Tibetan painted scrolls, or in the form of images, all of which may be used as an exterior support. Later, the same design is visualized completely internally". Through this, explains the author, "one achieves the Rupakaya of a Buddha". His two remaining chapters are to tell us that the perceptible bodies of a Buddha or two, reduced to one "by combining Sambhogakaya and Nirmanakaya and considering them as Rupakaya (form-body)" (Ibid., p.125), in which "aspect" a "Buddha... has numerable virtues", which thereupon are delineated (Ibid., p. 126 ff.) Professor Alex Wayman of Columbia University, who was present, has reported (The Buddhist Tantras, p. 61) that, "In March, 1970, H. H. the Dalai Lama conferred the Kalacakra Initiation via loud speaker to over 10,000 Tibetans". Wayman himself raised the question with "a learned lama" as to "how His Holiness could possibly initiate so many" in the Kalacakra Tantra "when initiations were usually given to small groups of proven disciples". But then, of course, anything is made possible by a "Living Buddha." All of this "get-spiritually-rich-quick" activity, pandering to human cupidity, is painfully reminiscent of the "rapid initiations" (as one historian has called them) which, 50 years ago, brought "Bishop" Leadbeater and his fellow-"Arhats" to the threshold of Divinity", ushering in the "Return of Christ" and the "New World Teacher"! Ten thousand Buddhas in a single generation! It is all part and parcel of the same inane piffle! (6) As to what kind of "Buddhas" these Adepts of Vajrayanatantra ought to be (at best), there are the Dalai Lamas (or, rather, some) themselves to be examined. This Carrithers does, tracing the decline of the Gelugpa Order from its pristine vigor in the time of its founder, Tsong-Kha-Pa to its sad and sunken state under the latter-day "God-Kings" of Lhasa, in course marking the follies and crimes of some of these latter. In correcting more than a few misconceptions common to Theosophists both high and low, false ideas prevalent among most current observers of Tibetan history and religion, "Madame Blavatsky and Occult Tibet" pays special attention to the career of the 13th Dalai Lama. His war on the Panchen

Lama of Tashilhunpo is found to be only one of many outrages perpetrated by this weird, unstable "Divine Incarnation" who - among other notable achievements - helped to lay the groundwork for the fall of Tibet itself. (For one thing, he waged treacherous war on Nationalist China - and then blamed it upon the Panchen Lama.) In examining the exoteric and esoteric status and origin of the Panchen Lama succession, a little-known Mongolian source is cited to provide independent corroboration of the authenticity of the prophecy of the Panchen Lama in the West, related by Madame Blavatsky. The testimony on record of recognized experts in Mahayana Buddhism and Tibetan Esotericism and Vajrayana Tantra are all given in support of the claims made for H.P.B.'s authoritative knowledge in these fields. Criticism will be directed upon some further remarks on this point made by Bharati in a number of the Tibet Society Bulletin that has appeared containing letters protesting his attack on Madame Blavatsky and her Theosophy. Evidence supporting Madame Blavatsky's travels and time spent in Tibet also will be examined; and we will trigger off a real bomb by exposing for the first time anywhere how the leading Theosophical Society in America is using false evidence that ostensibly discredits her claims! The forthcoming conclusion to the series will show how Madame Blavatsky has furnished the world with keys to the understanding of the psycho-psychic mysteries of: (1) god-worship in all its forms (including the "devayoga" of Vajrayana); (2) Yoga and the mastery of siddhi-powers; and (3) the place of sex in both symbolism and occult reality (together with its relationship to purity - which latter is now mocked and ridiculed at every turn by the so-called sophisticated, enlightened and liberated, no less than by self-styled Satanists, witches and others elbowing the Black Tantrikas on the Path Sinister.) In defense of the ethics of the Right Path, our author challenges the hedonists and scoffers, who reject the ideal of sexual purity as a detestable excrescence of bourgeois fantasy, Victorian hypocrisy and Judeo-Christian prudery, if not simply a Buddhistic relic of masochistic Hindu asceticism. He proves that the code of sexual purity as a prerequisite of Spiritual power was an essential part of the most ancient sacred tradition of civilized man, and is found in the oldest occult book known to anthropologists compiled three thousand years and more before the birth of Sakyamuni Buddha! Explored also from the viewpoint of Dzyan Theosophy are the meaning, origin and reality of good and evil within the planes of matter (transitory in existence and effects, but not illusionary as the "Good and Evil" created by theology). In plainer language than Bharati or Guenther have mustered, native (Black) Tantrik authorities will be quoted in exposing their pretensions of what the "Path of Freedom" is to the Left Hand Adept. (As when it "has been said... that the Yogin of the Vajra-yana should have no fear either of heaven or of hell; for there is neither any vice, nor any virtue; all vice and virtue are spoken of only for the satisfaction of the common people. As everything is by nature nothing but the citta" - mind - "and as the existence of everything is but momentary, who is there to go to hell and who to go to heaven?" Or, again: "... in the yogic practice of Vajra-yana there should be no deliberation as to what... should be adopted and what not; for, through the Yoga, which leads to the realization of the magical nature of the universe, one can safely enjoy everything. Everything having its existence in the ultimate non-dual substance (dharma-dhatu), nothing can be harmful to Yoga; and, therefore, the Yogin should enjoy everything to his heart's content without the least fear of hesitation" thus, "the Yoga performed with this kind of knowledge is always above the range of ordinary codes of morality" - quite beyond "foolish people" who "think of liberation (moksa) as something entirely different from the enjoyment of the world". There is, say these Vajrayana teachers, no moral limitation to the actions of whatever nature by which such a Yogin-Adept may benefit himself and the world, for "If the mental resolution (mano-rathi-sarkalpa) be pure, everything will be beneficial..." After megalomania as grandiose as this, how crazy can one get? Such are the ashes of thought from a brain blackened by the fire of Kundalini-Sakti, misused! From An Introduction to Tantric Buddhism, by L.B. Dasgupta; Shambhala Publications, Inc., Berkeley, CA, 1974. In this closing installment of "Madame Blavatsky and Occult Tibet", her critics, the pretended

champions of Indo-Tibetan Esotericism, are reminded that before Madame Blavatsky the religion and magic of Tibet got no attention whatever from occultists in the West (with the probable exception of a handful (7) of Jesuits privately bent on sorcery), while at the same time Europe's leading occultists scorned India with contempt as being the miasmic hotbed of Black Magic par excellence. The reason for this contempt was that, as today with occult Tibet, its "transcendental secrets" conveyed to the Occident were, for the most part, filtered through the polluting siphon of Black Tantrism. Contrasted with what Madame Blavatsky later accomplished in the cause of eastern Occultism, the most her present-day adversaries will ever do is to once again close the gates of Western learning against the Eastern dawn. (8) -------------More on "Madame Blavatsky and Occult Tibet" - Note by Editor The foregoing was written by Carrithers for my signature, as will be obvious to those familiar with our styles. I am not quite clear as to why, but as time is pressing will leave it at that, merely adding such footnotes as seem desirable. (1) One of which was a serious illness of Carrithers.' (2) The date of which as well as acceptability by the public is as yet unknown. (3) A rather clairvoyant friend of mine who seems to see about the same things of the future that I get by other means, says that the Theosophical Movement is due for disaster next month; details not clear but having to do with dissensions about the "next messenger", which position has now been very definitely claimed by the Tantrikas. The force of the claim they are making is shown by the fact that The American Theosophist, the organ of the Society in America, has featured articles by Guenther and Bharati, who opened the attack on Madame Blavatsky which triggered off this whole series. Long previous to that, through Anagarika Govinda, they had secured virtual control of a major group of Theosophists - not of the Society but another former organization - in South Africa. I have been much puzzled and concerned as to Govinda's real position in the thing; people who have known him for years insist that he is the soul of noble living and benevolence as well as noble precepts. But pretty often when I am stumped on some question, I get unexpected answers from unexpected directions, and I now know exactly what Govinda is, and belongs to a class of people which is quite numerous in occult circles without being recognized as such. I have met quite a few of them. Mme. Blavatsky said there were people who through long experience in many incarnations had become "passion-proof". (Which in practice is hard to distinguish from having defective glands.) This is the stage which it is necessary to reach - without defective glands, before full adeptship can be acquired. However, there are many with more spirituality than wisdom, who reach that stage without making it to full adeptship. (Which requires a lot more than purity and noble thinking.) The drawback in that case is that sexual morals lose their meaning for them. To understand these you have to have some experience of the power of these passions or a very good memory of what they are like plus some experience of what happens when they get out of hand. These people have lost all that, thus to them tantric orgies are a meaningless game, and why all the fuss? This view has prevailed so far into real Buddhism that a local gentleman of that persuasion recently said, "I wouldn't want to go that route myself, but I see nothing wrong in letting the young people do their thing if they want to". It has suddenly become crystal clear that Anagarika Govinda belongs to that class, and what is more important, is being used as a tool and cover by the black tantrikas. This explains a lot of things in the situation into which these foolish Theosophists who lost track of H.P.B.'s warnings have wandered. The outcome looks pretty obvious. The Theosophical Movement in general is pretty well loaded with people who try to keep "straight" on sex matters, especially since certain deviations by the great "Bishop" Leadbeater damned near killed the Society off and caused great losses of membership. But what is on the outside of the

behavior of these people is not exactly what is on the inside and they are ripe to really let loose if they get a good excuse. Steinbacher's infamous attack of 1968 accused the Theosophists of a choice list of practices which they abhor (or which Blavatsky and her teachers certainly abhorred) and those must have come straight out of the Tantric texts which somebody identified to the fellow as "Occult" and hence "Theosophical". The next logical step, and I have warned about this previously, is to get some of those fools involved in a very practical way in Tantric ceremonies, bring about an exposure which the Tantrikas themselves hope will kill the Theosophical Movement finally and completely. And the only defense the Theosophists would have against that would be that Carrithers and I have printed the real Theosophical stand on these things in advance. And we may have some Theosophists who have ignored and even deplored the crudity of our revelations, come to us to help them get their personal reputations - and perhaps their jobs - out of the hole. (4) This "killing with love" bit is essentially from the ideas of early black Tantra and is from the same root which gave rise in the horrible human sacrifices of the Aztecs and other Central American peoples, and of the Carthiginian Moloch worshipers who threw their own children into the fire in the brass belly of that infamous "god". If the police really want to know the wherefore of this mysterious "ritual killing", they should come to us - but who will ever do that? (5) I don't rate Snellgrove or Richardson as real "Tibetologists" either, if they claim that Sambhava doesn't exist. You can take either of two views - that he didn't exist and was forged along with those doctrines, or that he did exist and that Tantric writings were forged in his name. I think this is the case. (6) This "get-rich-quick" motif is also that of modern American civilization which is fated for early death. (That kind of achievement is much easier than sainthood. Some of the speed with which it is being achieved is shown in a current interview with a young couple reduced to the soup-line, who were bewilderdly contemplating the incredible fact that a few weeks before they had been counting on $150,000 year income. That's the sort of meditation habitually indulged in by Americans for generations.) (7) "Handful" is right. As I noted previously, the average Jesuit is just an unusually disciplined priest, who doesn't dream of a thing "occult" in his establishment. But in that sense I now suspect that there are more "jesuits" in certain other churches. (8) It is about to close, but only on this generation. Not forever. - December, 1974, Theosophical Notes ----------------------THE ESSENTIAL DIFFERENCE THE NYINGMAPA AND GELUGPA (A summary of the problem received from a competent student just going to press) The Nyingmapa (or the Red Hats) use sexual intercourse in a controlled way of symbolizing the attainment of non-dual mystical experience. In this so-called controlled use of sexual intercourse the object of the experience is said to disappear.* In other varieties of this controlled use incest and homosexual practices are also used as a controlled way of symbolizing the attainment. Since the energic levels in such sexual practices (or their damages) cannot be comprehended or measured by the average human being, it cannot be stressed enough, by the genuine occultist, the release of such lower high powered magical potencies provide the largest mecca for the vilest crimes, which have been committed in this world.** The Gelugpa (or Yellow Hats) do not use such lower base paltry practices, but concentrate on breaking the taboos built by the Nyingmapas through means of gaining spiritual enlightenment by

practicing, teaching, and learning the esoteric or occult laws, which have no space within them for the practice such synthetic "lower Iddhic" desire of mystical experience.*** The Gelugpa know that life is a constant state or plane of mystical experience or meditation, and they walk on and within all spheres of the physical-metaphysical globes or planes without artificial inducements or meditative controls. Their particular is not to destroy the Nyingmapa order but to teach them even if necessary, along with humanity, that such selfish desire only serves to keep them bound on a very low keyed plane and degree of spiritual evolution in the entire scheme of constantly growing, ever achieving still higher degrees of spirituality within the great bosom of nature herself. -------"This thing has more fortitude than fortitude itself, because it will overcome every subtle thing and penetrate every solid being. By IT the world was formed." - Hermes Trismegistus ----------* I doubt that the Tantra in this form will attract Western women, who too often found that they did, for practical purposes, disappear from the consciousness of the male as soon as the act was over. This incidentally is one of the great causes of the growing marital unhappiness of today; and happiness itself is very insecure if based on only physical sensation. The tantra shows absolutely no regard for a woman as a person. She is just implementary to an attainment of the male, whether such is regarded as physical or "spiritual." ** A The very ultimate of this kind of disregard is found in the vicious and unspeakable crime of rape-murder, which is growing daily. Would it not be logical to suppose that these things are due to former practicers of this form of tantra, who in process of reincarnation have lost the thin blanket of philosophy which covered their perverted desires, but retained the more basic animal instincts? ***The "lower iddhi" is the "hall of learning," the psychic plane as contrasted to the spiritual. The teaching is that is for education only to be fled from as soon as its illusionary nature is learned. Hermes Tismegistus was the Grecian group name of the Dzyan. - No. 1, 1976, Theosophical Notes ----------------------------------THE TANTRIC PROGRESS I have delayed this issue for months in the hope of receiving from Carrithers a few pages of the authentic detailed story of the relationship between the Dalai Lama and the Pachen (Teshu) Lama in Tibet, which relationship the Theosophists have unconsciously reversed, because the Dalai Lama was the head of the secular state, occupying the magnificent palace at Lhasa and better known in the world. The other is the true head of spiritual Tibet, but has nothing to do with the secular government. The Tantric story is that the office of the Panchen Lama was created by that of the Dalai; the opposite is the truth. The situation which existed was about the same as that between the secular sovereign and the church or other spiritual institution through history and everywhere. In the "Holy Roman Empire" the emperor was the secular governing power; the Pope was the spiritual. The emperor at coronation received the crown from the hands of the Pope. Some emperors tried to rule independently of the Pope and lived to regret it; the power of the Church was too great. This was first really broken up when Napoleon, being crowned as Emperor,* seized the crown and set it on his head with his own hands.

And ruled accordingly. (He comes down in Spanish history as a real monster. His conquest of Spain, it is true, was pretty rough; but the reason he is regarded there as such a monster is that he broke - for the time being - the power of the Church and abolished the Inquisition.) But now the twisted version of Tibetan history, which represents the Dalai Lama as the spiritual head of Tibet, has become the foundation of the current Tantric conquest of the Asiatic-American mystic field by the Tantrikas. So far from being "spiritual", none of the Dalai Lama succession were more than fairly average rulers, and some of them were real scoundrels. The position of the Panchen Lama is now no more, and even his headquarters seem to have been destroyed between floods and civil disturbances. The current Dalai Lama was run out of the country by the Red Chinese after the Tantrikas had won the long battle in Tibet,** and reduced the people to a misery which was nothing like the Tibetan social conditions in Blavatsky's time. Tibetan history has now run its course, and will be part of whatever history the Red Chinese "Republic" will be writing. The central spiritual power has gone from there. Where to? The answer to that may be years in coming. Meantime speculation about it can accomplish nothing but create new fables and become the basis for more "occult" rackets. -----------* Of the French, I believe. ** Many years ago I receive news that something had gone wrong in Tibet, and printed news to that effect. -----------But according to the Tantrikas that power has now come to the West in their hands, and it never did exist as Blavatsky described it in the first place. I have a document which I wished to review together with Carrithers' exposures, but I won't get the latter. He has a curious sort of karma. When he gets on the trail of some new investigation, it looks as though his mind, probing about for a ray or two more of light, triggers off a thunderbolt. Data begin to pour in in such masses that it overwhelms him, and that has happened again. He has only just finished studying the new evidence, which can't be capably contained in less than a book of considerable length. Hence the nearest I will ever get to publishing that material is likely to be in the form of reviewing the MSS of a book which may or may not ever be published. (The Tantrikas now essentially dominate the occult publishing field; also most any work now submitted to publishers in that field will be almost sure to be referred to their "experts" and what will happen to it can be guessed from the narrative of my "Hill of Particulars".) Carrithers is a perfectionist who simply cannot let go of an unfinished work, and a finished one to him means one with everything in it. I would hate to be any army commander with him as a scout. You could certainly count on him to spot any enemy force sneaking up a side canyon; but by the time his report, complete with details of the button arrangement on the uniforms, got to my tent, there would be nobody left to read it. * Anyway, I have before me the 1976 summer program of the Naropa Institute. (Tantric Nyingmapa organization.) It pretty well completes the map of their intended route to spiritual predominance in the ignorant and unsophisticated West; the replacement of the Christian Church teachings by theirs, and finally the acquisition of political power through which the crumbling Occident will fall under the domination of this ancient Asian Bhon shamanism. There is a clear trail of this plan, visible from Hitler on down. He was inspired in the first place, according to the French Editors of The Morning of the Magicians** by a Tibetan who seemed to him "the wisest man he had ever met". It is quite possible also that Alice Bailey was telling the truth when she claimed a "Tibetan Teacher" who gave her a whole new set of "Stanzas of Dzyan" which served as a major disruptive force in the shaky T.S. Her teacher and Hitler's could have been the same man, and might be a major figure now in the Tantric hierarchy which has now so firmly established itself.

------------*These Editors certainly get around; they even quote me on a remark I didn't think anybody had particularly noticed. ** The day after I wrote this, I received from Carrithers, not the brief article I wanted, but a four-page closely written description of what he plans to write, which in full should come pretty close to the S.D.'s 1500 pages in length. It is wholly devastating. and thoroughly documented, and it disposes once and for all of any cliam that the Dalai Lama succession ever represented the real spiritual leadership of Tibet. King Richard III is more like it. Conclusive exposure, but who will print it and who will read it? -----------This program is set up just like a regular educational institution, with numbered and catalogued courses in about every branch of Asiatic studies, many of them containing the basic truths common to all these (and nowadays so much exploited as to be a bit boring). The courses given, number about 100 , and come under the following subheads: - Buddhist Studies - Meditation - History, Philosophy and Psychology - Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. (Are the poets also disembodied?) - Languages - Religion - Philosophy and Education Psychology - Martial Arts - Theatre - Music - Visual Arts - Workshops - Dance - Poetry and Literature - (Young Experimenters - (Choreographical - (Workshops A certain number of credits are given for each course. Financially it is all very businesslike. Rental arrangements are made with landlords, with various single room, double room, and dormitory rates running from $70.00 per session up to $640 for a month. (Two sessions in the year, with additional curricula.) Charge for course is $30 to $40 per credit hour, which should add handsomely to the Tantric budget. It is an exact imitation in the general setup, of any orthodox educational institution at college level. The names are given of 19 members of a "visiting faculty" - prominent in which is Aghehananda Bharati, the Austrian "Tibetan" who opened the original attack of Theosophy. The faculty itself comprises 11 names, with academic credentials listed. Most all of them have degrees from bona fide universities and quite a list of literary distinctions. The key men of actual Tantric affiliations, some from Tibet, are listed. The whole impression is that of a respectable, somewhat liberal university manned by the usual kind of academic notables, with high standing as a reliable authority on everything concerning Buddhism. One would expect at least one or two Theosophists from the Society, which devoted a full issue

of its magazine to the writings of these same people. But if there are any of these at all, I don't recognize them. Nor is the name Theosophy anywhere referred to, or any book of Theosophy origin. I note from the press that quite a number of "Buddhist" teachers are appearing around the country. They are invariably "Tibetan Buddhists" which means Tantrikas. And hardly anybody has any knowledge of the difference. Yet the T.S. was founded with a chief objective of spreading education on the differences, among the populace! The Second object of the Society was the comparative study of religions, with emphasis on the Oriental. The Tantrikas are faithfully carrying out that objective - in their own way. When I look at this document, I am looking at the tomb of the Theosophical Society. Some of us expected some kind of announcement of a new "Messenger", either a deluded person in the Theosophical ranks, or by the Tantrikas themselves. Nothing of the sort happened. The Theosophists, however deluded they may have been, have never produced an out and out, conscious fake. The biggest set of illusions was that propagated by Leadbeater, but he did see what he thought he saw. His vanity was too great to imagine the possibility that he was wrong, that his perceptive powers could be taken over by persons unknown and invisible, and used to lead him in any direction but that of truth. Alice Bailey, envious and jealous of her Theosophical bigwigs and overlords in her first experience with Theosophy as a waitress at Krotona (Hollywood), welcomed her "Tibetan" visitor with joy and open arms, and the literary competence of her additional "Stanzas of Dzyan" were far above her personal capacity. I have an interesting sidelight on the tone of her cult. It was popular among businessmen for its apparent financial acumen - for a while. Foster Bailey, who succeeded to the control of this group, stated that the Mahatmas had as a main interest the operations of the stock market, which they controlled for the benefit of mankind. (If so, I wonder what it would have been like without such control?) They raided the Society for members with the most barefaced effrontery. Given the platform for a lecture at the Toronto Lodge, they then move into an adjacent room without asking permission - and set up a registration desk to enlist new members from the Theosophical membership.) The Theosophists not being far enough off the track to produce a fake Messiah, just waited passively for one to appear, and none did. There is undoubtedly great sorrow in their ranks now. But this Tantric educational system has a solidity, a momentum, direction and purpose, of a power which has never appeared in the Movement, and will kill everything else in that line simply by overshadowing it, crowding it out of the public mind. People who find out something about Theosophy - who will be fewer and fewer in number - and consult any member of this organization about it, will be turned off by a charitable sophisticated sneer, and a substantial repetition of the original Bharati sneer about the whole thing being a mishmash of ignorance about Tibet. Their chief objective ever since Buddhism arrived in Tibet has been to prevent the idea of the existence of the Dzyan from reaching the world at large. And there is now nobody with a foot in the door they are closing, except a handful of friends, and myself, with the only published organ among them. The question then, have the Dzyan quit, given up and retired for a thousand or so years into darkness and silence, as they said they might in such a case? Well, let's take a look at the possibilities. - No. 2, 1976, Theosophical Notes -----------------ANALYSIS OF SOME WRITINGS AND RADIO TALKS OF ALLAN W. WATTS - by Willem B. Roos (Editor's Note: The following article, which has also been printed in the Golden Lotus, was submitted to us some months ago, and has been regretably delayed by various circumstances. The

subject is the advocacy of Tantra Yoga by Mr. Watts, which considerably startled students of Oriental philosophy, of whom Mr. Roos is one of the most able known to us. Mr. Roos deals with the subject mainly from the scholarly and philosophical point of view. Following his article, we plan to extend the subject to what may be called the spontaneious and endemic tantricism, tendencies to which are found in all countries, usually under a more frank guise than the tantricism which is peddled in this country as from the Orient, by various wily characters.) Mr. Alan W. Watts is the author of a number of books dealing with Zen and related subjects. He also conducts the series of radio talks over the Berkeley FM stations KPFA and KPFB, under the general title "Philosophy East and West." His latest book, which has just been published, is called The Way of Zen, and is intended as stated by the author in the Preface "both for the general reader and for the more serious student..." (#1, p. xv) When in the following discussion I use the word "Zen" unqualified, it shall always be with reference to the pseudo Zen of the so-called "Sixth Patriarch," Hui-neng, and more especially to the Western version, represented so typically by Watts. For the sake of the real Zen of Bodhidharma and Shen-hsiu I sincerely hope that some day a competent scholar will arise to expose the false pretensions of modern Zen and restore to the world the genuine teachings of Bodhidharma. The purpose of the present analysis is to show the falsity of a number of statements on Western philosophy, made by Watts over the radio as well as in his book The Way of Zen. He has made it a point to put the whole of eastern Philsoophy into his own "Zen straight jacket," using every means at his disposal to achieve this object. While this was bad enough for the good name of Hindu and Budhist philsoophy, he outdid himself in his radio talk over KPFA and KPFB, last Easter Sunday at 8 PM, [1957] when he approvingly spoke on certain, highly demoralizing, left hand tantric practices. A friend of mine has taken down verbatim this talk, and made mimeograph copies, to which I shall refer hereafter as #2. I let now follow a summary of the characteristics of the "Zen straight jacket" which I shall discuss in this paper: 1. The "sudden enlightenment" (satori) of Zen, which Watts equates with the Hindu and Buddhist conception of "liberation" (Moksa, nirvana, etc.), insisting that this is realized without any preparation or means, and is not the result of a specific search. (Note: The key to the reference numbers is given at the end of the paper.) 2. A subtle hostility towards asceticism and even towards general moral laws. This manifests in some of his distorted interpretations of Eastern teachings and mistranslations of Sanskrit words. 3. The taking of rebirth merely in a figurative way, as a process occurring each moment, and not requiring acceptance of a special theory of survival. 4. Rejection of, and animosity towards scholarship, a characteristic which can be traced back to the unlearned rustic Hui-neng, the self-proclaimed successor of Hung-jen. How Watts attempts to fit Hinduism and Buddhism into the above enumerated characteristics will now be shown by quoting his own words: Point 1 "...SAHAJA is the natural state. It lies at the very height of spirituality - at the terminal point past the practice of all types of discipline, ascetic and otherwise; where a person has achieved the final liberation - the state of moksha,... But he realizes it without means - without any special devices without anything in particular that he has to remember to do, he has it absolutely naturally..." (#2, p. 3) "...mystical union is never something which we can experience as the result of a specific search..." (#2, p. 6)

But as Watts is well aware of the existence of an enormous Eastern literature advocating not only this search - but indicating and teaching the very means to reach Moksa, the declared object of the six principal systems of Hindu philosophy (the six darsanas), he very ingeniously continues: "The only reason why, in the various mystical systems of the world, an attitude of searching is sometimes advocated, is that we may in a very concrete way experience the futility of searching..." (#2, p. 6) (Of course all underlining [italicizing] in #2 is mine, while the punctuation is mainly that of my friend.) Note his grossly biased statements, underlined by me, which are clearly calculated to give his listeners a completely false view on this matter. In the East whole libraries are filled with books dealing with this search. The Tibetan Kanjur of 108 volumes and the Tanjur of 225 volumes deal with this, to most of the Northern Buddhists, all important subject of how to obtain liberation. His description of how Gautama attained to enlightenment under the Bodhi tree is typical of his constant belittlement of the achievement itself and of suggesting it to be the same as satori: "...The evening before his awakening he simply 'gave up,' relaxed his ascetic diet, and ate some nourishing food. "Thereupon he felt at once that a profound change was coming over him. He sat beneath the tree, vowing never to rise until he had attained the supreme awakening, and - according to tradition sat all through the night until the first glimpse of the morning star suddenly (sic: WER) provoked a state of perfect clarity and understanding. This was... liberation from Maya and from the everlasting round of birth-and-death (samsara)... " (#!, p. 45) Note the words "he simply 'gave up,'" and "suddenly provoked" and the total omission of his struggle with Mara. But Watts also informs us in his talk over KPFA, entitled "The Head of a Dead Cat" (March 3, 1957), that he himself, has attained this supreme state: "When this first happened to me I expected all kinds of results from it, which is why it went away; I expected it to change my character, to make me better, stronger, wiser and happier. (But, apparently, it did not - WER) ...what I have found so marvelous is that I can not get rid of this Unity, this Tao, even by seeking for it..." Compare this with the following by D.T. Suzuki, quoted by E. Steinilber-Oberlin: "When satori is real (for there are many shams), its effects on moral spiritual life provoke in us a complete revolution capable of elevating our soul, and of purifying us, as well as exacting much of us morally." (The Buddhist Sects of Japan, pp. 153-54) Of course, Watt's perpetual satori is in line with his definition of the state of samadhi as: "... a state of profound peace. This is not the stillness of total inactivity, for, once the mind returns to its natural state, samadhi persists at all times, in walking, standing, sitting, and lying..." (#1, p. 53) Well, I suppose this is news, and good news, for all the Raja-Yogis and Jivanmuktas of the past and present, and also for Patanjali, the celebrated author of the Yoga Sutras. Of course, no use asking Watts to furnish us with references, after he writes: "...Zen is simply inaccessible to the purely literary and scholarly approach..." (#1, p. xii)

And for once I agree with him, but would propose to add that it is also inaccessible to the logical mind. Point 2: His hostility towards asceticism and moral laws is at the basis of most of his talks and writings. It will suffice to discuss some of the passages from his book The Way of Zen. "...Far Eastern Buddhism is more palatable and 'according to nature' than its Indian and Tibetan counterparts, with ideals of life which seem times to be superhuman, more suited to angels than to men. Even so, all forms of Buddhist subscribe to the Middle Way between the extremes of angel (deva) and demon (preta), ascetic and sensualist, and claim that supreme "awakening" or Buddhahood can be attained only from the human state. (#1, p. 30) This is a typical mixture of truth and falsehood, intended to condemn asceticism. Now, in the Samyutta-nikaya the Buddha declares the two extremes to be: "...That conjoined with passions, low, vulgar, common, ignoble and useless, and that conjoined with self-torture, painful, ignoble, and useless. Avoiding these two extremes the Tathagata has gained the knowledge of the Middle Way, which gives sight and knowledge, and tends to calm, to insight, enlightenment, nirvana. "What, O monks, is the Middle Way, which gives sight...? It is the noble Eightfold Path, namely right views, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration..." (#3, p. 274) It will be seen that Watts interprets one of the "extremes" as asceticism, instead of selfmortification or self-torture, as stated by the Buddha. Watt's interpretation would make all ascetic rules superflous, as is indeed his aim. But Buddha teaches the need of a true asceticism, of a real preference for a life of detachment from worldly enjoyments: "Right resolves are the resolve to renouce the world and to do no hurt or harm." (#3, p. 277) "Thus perceiving, monks, the learned noble disciple feels loathing for the body, for feeling, for perception, for the aggregates, for consciousness (i.e. for the five skandhas - WER). Feeling disgust he becomes free from passion, through freedom from passion he is emancipated." (#3, p. 281) The whole Mahayana literature is dedicated to the ideal of the Bodhisattva, who... "must practice the six or ten paramitas (Perfections)... (#4, p. 194) The very important part Paramita is: "Cila (virtuous conduct, morality, righteousness)." (#4, p. 168) Mr. Watts should know that: "...A Buddhist without cila is an impostor, and he can be neither a layman nor a monk." (#4, p. 194) About the "Noble eightfold Path" Watts has his own opinion: "...the Eightfold Path of the Buddha's Dharma... Each section of the path has a name preceded by the word samyak (Pali: samma), which has the meaning of 'perfect' or 'complete'..... We therefore have: "1. Samyak-drishta, or complete view "2. Samyak-samkalpa, or complete understanding "3. Samyak-vak, or complete (i.e. truthful) speech

"4. "5. "6. "7. "8.

Samyak-karmanta, or complete action Samyagajiva, or complete vocation Samyag-vyayama, or complete application Samyak-smritti, or complete recollectedness Samyak-samadhi, or complete contemplation.........." (#1, p. 51)

Sanskrit words generally have more than one meaning, depending upon a number of factors, e.g., the epoch, the school to which the writing belongs, the subject treated, etc. Samyak or samyag has rarely the meaning of "perfect" or "complete." Only in combination with sambodhi is it rendered as "perfect" (enlightenment) by Franklin Edgerton in his Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Dictionary (p. 582), while he gives as general meaning "right, proper" (ibid.) Monier Williams gives the general meaning as "right" (Sanskrit-English Dictionary, p. 1181) and so does Nyanatiloka in his Buddhist Dictionary. (p. 81) Going through my own library I find the following authors using the word "right" to precede the name of the Path: Sir Edwin Arnold, Dwight Goddard, T.W. Rhys Davids, L.D. Barnett, Kurt F. Leidecker, Narada Thera, Paul Carus, Wm. M. McGovern, Edward J. Thomas, Lord Chalmers, Nyanaponika, L. Austine Waddell, Ling-tsit Chan [?], H.S. Olcott, F.L. Woodward [?], W.Y. EvansWentz. I have not found authors using any other expression than "right," except Chu Cha'n, who translates it as "correct." The difference between "complete" and "right" is very great and obvious. The first word does not give to the Path a moral value, while the second clearly makes a moral issue of it. Watts leaves us no doubt as to what he is driving at. On the next page (#1, p. 52) he writes: "The sections dealing with action (he refers to karma, of course. - WER) are often misunderstood because they have a deceptive similarity to a "system of morals." Buddhism does not share the Western view that there is a moral law, enjoinded by God or by nature, which it is man's duty to obey. The Buddha's precepts are voluntarily assumed rules of expediency (sic!)...." We know already that Zen does not encourage the use of logic, but any serious student of Buddhism, not intoxicated by Zen, would agree that Buddha's precepts are not arbitrary rules, but are preceisely expressions of moral laws inherent in Nature, known collectively as KARMA. Point 3: Watt's opinion on rebirth is not his own invention, but is, unfortunately, that held by some later Mahayana sects, as a result of the misunderstood anatman doctrine. Of course, the taking of rebirth in "a more figurative way, as that process of rebirth is from moment to moment, so that one is being reborn so long as one identifies himself with a continuing ego which reincarnates itself afresh at each moment of time" (#1, p. 49) is very convenient for those who claim to have experienced "sudden enlightenment" without having passed through the long and arduous stages of discipline which a Bodhisattva has to pass through and which require a great many successive lives. However only the literal taking of rebirth, as meaning a continuation of the same stream (santana) of causes and effects, associated with the same alaya-vijnana in a new incarnation, is consistent with the other teachings of Buddha, more especially those related to Karma and to the Bodhisattva path. It is also consistent with the Hindu viewpoint and with Hindu teachings on liberation (moksa) and on the "means" (upaya.) It is even held by Hui-neng, who speaking to a large gathering, said: "...Today I have had the honor of meeting Your Highness, and you, officials, monks and nuns, Taoists and laymen, in this great assembly. I must ascribe this good fortune to our happy connection in

previous kalpas, as well as to our common accumulated merits in making offerings to various Buddhas in our past incarnations. Otherwise we would have had no chance of hearing the teachings of the "sudden" School of Cha'an and thereby laying the foundation of our present success in understanding the Dharma." (Sutra spoken by the Sixth Patriarch, #5, p. 507) Point 4: While it is true that certain metaphysical truths can only be expressed in paradoxes, this method has been misapplied to the extreme in Zen. However, I must limit my analysis to the statments made by Watts, which follow faithfully the irrational pattern set by the Zen masters. The following is typical of his extravagant and unscholarly methods: "....I cannot represent myself as a Zenist, or even as a Buddhist, for this seems to me to be like trying to wrap up and label the sky. I cannot represent myself as a scientifically objective academician, for with respect to Zen - this seems to me to be like studying birdsong in a collection of stuffed nightingales. I claim no right to speak of Zen...." (#1, p. xiv) Next he manifests a strange and unexpected animosity towards precision in transliteration from the Devangari script: "Scholarly readers will have to excuse me for not writing absurd diacritical marks in romanized Sanskrit words, since these are merely confusing to the general reader and unnecessary to the Sanskritist..." (#1, p. xvi) But he does not call absurd the diacritical marks he uses to romanize Chinese. (#1, p. xvii) Why this partiality? He does other strange things with Sanskrit. On p. 34 (#1) he translates "Neti" by "No" when neti is a euphonic combination of na plus iti, meaning "not this," or "not in this manner." Furthermore he derives incorrectly the noun Manas (mind) from "...the same root as maya..." (#1, p. 42) and the latter he derives, correctly this time, from "...matr-, 'to measure, form, build..." (#1, p.39) Watts seems to reject the common opinion of scholars that manas is derived from the Sanskrit root man = to think. In Apte's Sanskrit-English Dictionary one can find: "manas n. (manyate 'nena...) 1. The mind..." (p. 739) The sentence in parenthesis says "with this (anena) one thinks (manyate). As a final example of Watt's unsupported statements with which few, if any, scholars will agree, I quote the following: "Zen Buddhism is a way and a view of life... It is not religion or philosophy; it is not a psychology or a type of science. It is an example of what is known in India and China as a 'way of liberation,' and is similar in this respect to Taoism, Vedanta and Yoga..." (#1, p. 3) "Taoism is, then, the original Chinese way of liberation which combined with Indian Mahayana Buddhism to produce Zen. It is a liberation from convention (sic!) and of the creative power of te." (#1, p. 28) The last sentence seems to express more subtly the left-hand Tantric position, discussed by Watts in his radio talk on sex. (#2, which I shall now discuss.)

Tantra as Conceived by Alan W. Watts: My attention was first drawn when Watts said: "...it prompts me to introduce some insights from Eastern philosophy about the very nature of sexuality, regarded as itself a process of growth..." (#2, p. 2) The general expression "Eastern Philosophy" is typical of the "straight jacket" method by which Watts misleads his audience. The most important "Eastern philosophies" preach celibacy before marriage and continence during married life. The expresion "process of growth" he repeats, slightly modified as follows: "...in both the Tantric and Taoist conceptions of the relationship between man and woman, both love at the emotional and spiritual level, and sexuality at the physical level... are looked upon emphatically as activities of growth, if they are to be genuine and real..." (#2, p.5) Well, if this is true, it is too bad for both Tantricism and Taoism, and to call this "natural" (#2, p. 3) is perverting the true meaning of the word. The Tantric rituals are wholly unnatural, and their effects upon the deluded devotees are so pernicious, as to lead gradually to idiocy if persisted in for a long time. Compare Watts' enthusiasm for this Tantric business with Ananda's answer to Buddha, when he was asked by the latter "...what was it that... most influenced you to forsake all worldly pleasures and enabled you to cut asunder your youthful sexual cravings?" Ananda replied "...when anyone becomes inflamed by sexual passion, his mind becomes disturbed and confused, he loses self-control and becomes reckless and crude. Besides, in sexual intercourse, the blood becomes inflamed and impure and adulterated with impure secretions. Naturally from such a source, there can never originate an aureole of such transcendentally pure and golden brightness as I have seen emanating from the person of my Lord. It was because of this that I admired my Lord and it was this that influenced me to become one of thy true followers." (The Surangama Sutra, pp. 111-112) Watts has still more to say about sexual activity: "The Tantra is a movement in Indian philosophy which was very greatly concerned with sexuality, which, in fact, used sexual activity as a form of Yoga, as a form of spiritual development, Tantra towards liberation." (#2, p. 3) This is not only contrary to the Surangama Sutra, but is even inconsistent with Watts' claim that a person realizes liberation "...without means - without any special devices - withough anything particular..." (#2, p. 3) Now let us examine what is known about the Tantras. In the Encyclopedia of Religions (Edited by Fermi, Philosophical Library) it says under Tantras: "Relatively late sacred writings of Hinduism... They are used particularly by the Shivaite sects, especially the Shaktas who worship the female principle of the universe... The practices of the lefthand saktis are abhorrent to the moral sense of most Hindus today..." (p. 761) "... The worship of the lefthand shaktas is held in secret and is orgiastic in character." (p. 707)

And the Encyclopedia Brittanica (11th Edition) says: "...the Saktas divide themselves into two distinct groups, according to whether they attach the greater importance to the male or female principle; viz. the Dakshinacharis, or 'right-hand-observers' (also called Dakshina-marvis, or followers 'of the right-hand path') and the Vamacharis, or 'of the left path')... "The principal seat of Sakta worship is the north-eastern part of India - Bengal, Assam and Behar. The great majority of its adherents profess to follow the right-hand practice... amongst the adherents of the left-hand mode of worship... only an extreme section - the so-called Kaulas or Kulinas, persist in carrying on the mystic and licentious rites taught in many of the Tantras. But strict secrecy being enjoined in the performance of these rites, it is not easy to check any statement made on this point..." (Vol. XIII, p. 511) But Watts knows and approves of these rites, and adduces the most absurd arguments to sustain his point: "...People who followed tantric practices were anything but promiscuous. Their relationship was, if not with their legal wives, with a special partner with whom they had an essentially monogamous (sic!) spiritual relationship..." (#2, p. 3) "...the sexual relationship... in Tantra... refers to a style... which we would say is natural... In contradistinction to artificial or contrived..." (#2, p. 3) "Well now, in both the Tantric and Taoist conceptions of the relationship between man and woman, both love at the emotional and spiritual level, and sexuality at the physical level... are looked upon emphatically as activities of growth, if they are to be genuine and real." In other words, one would not and could not go out with the specific intention of seeking a love partner in this type of relationship - one would simply have to come to you - as a matter of surprise... (#2, p. 5) Notice that Watts does not explain how the "love partner" can come to one without having "the specific intention of seeking"! Or is the blessed "naturalness" only limited to one of the partners? Nor does he explain in what consists the special virtue of not seeking for something - but letting it happen and thereby regress to the level of animal consciousness: "... the sexual process, the sexual rhythm.... shall not be something forced, shall not be sought after, but shall simply happen in its own way..." (#2, p. 5) This whole idea is an obsession which makes Watts look at everything in one single monochromatic color. For sexual activity to moksa, everything must yield to his single formula: Not to seek for it - not to make any effort. Watts' reference to the "Yab-Yum" statues in support of his arguments, induces me to quote from the Tibetan Book of the Dead, by Dr. W.Y. Evans-Wentz: "...The Tantrics - like the ancient Egyptians - exalt right knowled of the reproductive processes, as no doubt it should be exalted, to the level of a religious science; and in this science... the union of the male and female principles of nature, in what is called in Tibetan the yab (Skt. deva) - yum (Skt. Shakti) attitude, symbolizes completeness, or at-one-ment. Power, symbolized by the male... and Wisdom, symbolized by the female... are said, esoterically, to be ever in union.

"It is much to be regretted that actual abuse of Tantric doctrines due either to wilful perversion or, as is commonly the case, to misunderstanding, resulting in practices (like those of certain decadent sects of individuals in India) improperly called Tantric, by non-initiates in America and Europe, in some instances under the aegis of organized societies, have brought upon Tantricism undeserved odium..." (footnote p. 218) What is most surprising in Watts' talk is that he starts out with a point well taken, viz., the fact that in the West the idea of sin is connected with the sexual act - which idea he rightly condemns. But then, he immediately proceeds advocating a sexual activity, which in the eyes of the East - at least - is considered unnatural and unlawful - namely its performance not for the purpose of procreation of offsprings, as intended by NATURE, but for the mere gratification of delights and pleasures by methods "...where the sexual relationship between man and woman was raised to heights which have rarely been found elsewhere, except perhaps among the Taoists in China..." (#2, p. 3) It is my opinion that it is exactly the abuse of the sexual act, its mere use for enjoyment, which is responsible for the stigma it carries - a stigma dating at least as far back as Sodom and Gomorra. The Hindus have always regulated in a wise manner the sexual relations betwen husband and wife, advocating a continence unacceptable in the West. The well-known authority on the Tantras, Sir John Woodroffe (Arthur Avalon) writes: "...Brahmacharya, or continency, is not as is sometimes supposed, a requisite of the student ashrama only, but is a rule which governs the married householder (grihasta) also. According to Vaidika injunctions, union of man and wife must take place once a month on the fifth day after the cessation of the menses, and then only..." (#6, p. 115) The above must suffice to show how Alan W. Watts has misled his readers and his audience with nearly everything he has stated with respect to "Eastern Philosophy" in general, and how he is obsessed by an irrational and unnatural "naturalness," a formula which he applies to all and everything. ---------REFERENCES 1. The Way of Zen, by Alan Watts, Pantheon 2. Radio Talk on Sex, given by Alan W. Watts on April 21, 1957, over KPFA and KPFB. Pages refer to a mimeographed version copy. 3. A Source Book in Indian Philosophy, edited by Radakrishnan and Moore, Princeton University Press 4. The Bodhisattva Doctrine in Buddhist Sanskrit Literature, by Har Dyal, Kegan Paul, Trubner, Trench & Co., Ltd. 5. A Buddhist Bible, edited by Dwight Goddard, 2nd edition 6. Introduction to Tantra Shastra, by Sir John Woodroffe, Ganesh * Co., Madras --------------Berkeley, Calif. May 1957 Editor's Note:

Mr. Roose has not missed much, but there are a few points that we will add in a future article. A thing that amazes us is this: although no student of Oriental literature in Mr. Roos' sense, we have read enough to be confronted with the enormous masses of writing, little of it quoted by Mr. Roos, inculcating: (a) the intense effort necessary to attain real spiritual liberation, (b) the necessity of the complete abnegation of sex in pursuit of the same object. These themes occur so often that one gets tired of them. How does it happen that Mr. Watts bases his whole case on a tiny section of that teaching going in the opposite direction? Did he work through this mass - and there is so much of it that a man will be old and gray before he could adequately study all of it - casting all else aside until he uncovered this golden nugget of attainment by doing nothing - except as to sex, and doing that to extremes. It hardly seems likely. It would also cast reflections on Mr. Watts' personal tastes that we would hardly like to make. It seems more likely that he found a "guru" who revealed this interesting "inwardness" of the Orient for his benefit. And that Mr. Watts, whose upbringing and former professional career were puritanical, being in a state of reaction therefrom, found the novelty and "unconventionality" of the doctrines a "natural." They certainly are a "natural" for intriguing a radio audience. ---------The extreme asceticism inculcated by the real Oriental teachings is likely to frighten Westerns, who know that they cannot live up to it. But it was never intended to the "normal" man. If one lives as cleanly and unselfishly as he can, looking foward to the day when matter will be outgrown, not trying to make the leap all at once, but moving ahead a little every day, he will be climbing the same mountain by a longer path; and the time of crucial struggle which all will meet in some life, will find him better prepared than some mad effort at prematurely becoming a yogi-ascetic. Such efforts are more likely to lead him to tantra of one kind or another in later lives, by reaction, than to liberation. [ - Victor Endersby] - Theosophical Notes, Feb., 1958 ------------------------[[ Theosophical Notes pagination retained below]] MADAME BLAVATSKY AND OCCULT TIBET (A Critique on the History and Menace of Black Tantrism) [[Walter Carrithers]] "To unlock the gates of the mystery you must not only lead a life of the strictest probity, but learn to discriminate truth from falsehood." - Mahatma Koot Hoomi HISTORY, it has been said, is what historians agree it is. Fortunately for truth, agreement does not readily prevail among "experts" contesting for "authority"; and from the clash of conflicting opinions, new facts frequently erupt which overturn previously accepted "history." Professor Agehananda Bharati appears to believe that the followers of Madame Blavatsky suffer from "a dislike that characterizes all followers of," what he chooses to deride as, "the neo-Hindu-Buddhist, and the pseudo-Asian movements of a millennial type" ("Fictitious Tibet: The Origin and Persistence of Rampaism," p. 8). [[ by Agehandanda Bharati (English name, Fisher) Spring 1974 bulletin of the Tibet Society]] He can say this only because his audience - if not he himself, also - is ignorant of the work of the real defenders of H.P. Blavatsky and her teachings. For these, however few within the greater

number of those who shy even from a battle of words and ideas, such conflict is never barren or unproductive, but always a fertile field from which can emerge new and amplified understanding. Both the writer and the Editor, for many years now, have been diligently occupied with re-appraising key historical incidents in the early life of the Theosophical Movement. Our occupation has received a lot of unmerited criticism from those who fail to comprehend that the importance of history is but one degree removed from the importance of philosophy itself. History - or the only history that all the facts will support - is the reflection or record of actual situations and real events. As such, history is the representation of event-making action, while philosophy is the representation of action-making thought. Madame Blavatsky's greatest books, Isis Unveiled and The Secret Doctrine are compendiums of history as much as of philosophy. To be rightly appreciated, her writings and the claims they make, no less than her phenomenal wonders (including the delivery of these teachings ) must be seen equally in the light of philosophy and in that of history itself. Ideally, history encompasses a faithful reflection of what happens on this earth. So, history devoid of fact is myth; just as philosophy divorced from action and unjustified by history is no better than myth. When denied the supportive evidence that only physical events and their record (history) can provide, philosophical theory, opinion, or belief, is of no more account in this world than thought without action. A decisive test for any belief is in the effects its adoption has upon acts of its believers. From this realistic perspective, it becomes more apparent than ever what the enemies of Dzyan Theosophy hope to do to the philosophy by alternately ignoring and manipulating the history of the rise of the Movement and especially of the career of its inspirer, H.P.B. herself. (In their nefarious subversion of truth, these "historians" have had precious little to contend with from the major Theosophical centers, none of whom has introduced a new book - nor kept in print any book - on the life of Mme. Blavatsky, with the new discoveries thereon, since her last biography from any one of them - in 1938!) Professor Bharati describes "Mme. Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine" as "a melee of horrendous hogwash and of fertile inventions of inane esoterica"; but in more than ten pages he is careful not to quote so much as a word, neither from her other books nor from it (a work in which he has read little or nothing, to judge by his allusions thereto). Instead, he professes to "present an historical sketch of the increasing ingress of pseudo-Orientalia, and specifically of pseudo-Buddhica and pseudo-Tibetica into Europe and America" (op. cit., p. 1). More than 25 years of tracking the literary assassins of Mme. Blavatsky, have shown us they want no more to do with the real facts concerning her life than with the philosophy with which she was concerned. For them, her action too well supports her thought! His is now but another example of this evasiveness. He begins his "historical sketch" with illustration of an "ingress" - into Asia. Obviously, Bharati was disturbed when, "During my research into ideological change in the Buddhist clergy in Srilanka in 1971, I marveled at a painting in a temple in the southernmost part of the island. In a long subterranean corridor, some two hundred vignettes depicting the phases of the dharma from its inception under the Bodhi-tree in Buddhagaya to the foundation of the particular temple, the last one showed a white woman kneeling and bowing down before the image of Tathagata and two monks administering sil (the five precepts of Theravada Buddhism) to her; behind her several white men in tropical hats and western suits, one bearded. These, so the monk who showed me around informed me, were Mme. Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott embracing Buddhism. This is historically quite correct. The well-meaning American Colonel Olcott and the Russian-born Mme. Blavatsky, founders of the Theosophical Society, did indeed undergo that ceremony of initiation in that shrine in Srilanka" (op. cit., pp. 1-2. Due to typographical considerations, in this and other quotations that follow, our text will purposely omit all diacritical marks, which contribute nothing essential to word-recognition.) Here, at the first opportunity to add something from real history to his "historical sketch," and which, if admitted, would explain why Sinhalese Buddhists thought it important to so commemorate this particular incident, Bharati studiously avoids the objective record and, instead, plunges quickly into

his own peculiar and subjective value-judgments: "Now we must distinguish between the genuine and spurious elements in the movement as it relates to Buddhism.'' He finds "Col. Olcott was a genuine person" who was "concerned with human affairs, and strongly cognizant of religious options other than those of Christianity." But, though failing to show she was any less "concerned with human affairs'' or not as "strongly cognizant of religious options," Bharati "thinks" Mme. Blavatsky was one of the "frauds, pure and simple." He decides she was "phony" because, so he says, she was one of those guilty of not "matching their tenets with those of a genuine tradition, and of imitating lifestyles which are alien to them, by doing things that superficially look part of the lifestyle they imitate, or of imitational lifestyles which simply do not exist in any cultural body, except as idiosyncrasies." Since H.P.B. wrote several thousand pages of exposition now in print showing the continuity of her Dzyan Theosophy with a "genuine tradition," whereas her critic has not set down so much as a single line towards proving the contrary, we may pass over this fatuous criterion for "phoniness" as something unevidenced even by his own showing. As for the phony "lifestyle," it is beyond us to imagine what silly misconception may be at root of the criticism, seeing that H.P.B. never so much as affected a sari nor adopted a religious cognomen - though Col. Olcott "went native" in dress, while Annie Besant did both, and Bharati finds these two to have been, not phonies but, presumably unlike H.P.B., both a "genuine person"! ---------(1) The modern loss of history is incredible. Today there are hundreds of cults and thousands of individuals in a goggle-eyed daze over the feats of Uri Geller; but in those times there were done by Madame Blavatsky and even by "spirit" mediums things to which even those described above were child's play. - V.E. ------------ 2 Personally, we think the Buddhists of Ceylon were better qualified than the latest critic to "distinguish" between "genuine and spurious elements" as related "to Buddhism," in anything that came before them. Col. Olcott reports that in 1880, he and H.P.B., in company with other Theosophists, embarked from Bombay on a visit to Ceylon "long urgently requested by the leading priests and laity of the Buddhist community" (Old Diary Leaves, II, p. 151). There they were met by "the famed Megittuwatte" (Mohattiwatte Gunananda), "for many years.... the boldest, most brilliant, and powerful champion of Sinhalese Buddhism, the leader (originator) of the present revival," who had read Isis Unveiled and translated portions therefrom, and had joined its author's Society even before the departure from New York in 1879 (Ibid., p. 157). After him, came other Buddhist ecclesiastics, the monks having "read Megittuwatte's excerpts from H.P.B.'s hook, pressed her to exhibit her powers...." In the presence of the High Priest Bulatgama Sumanatissa, she obliged, "rang bells in the air (one a booming explosion like the striking of a large steel bar), made spirit raps, caused the great dining-table to tremble and move, etc., to the amazement of her select audience" (Ibid., p. 161). (1) Numerous Buddhist leaders and scholars of the Southern (Hinayana) Order were admitted into membership in Mme. Blavatsky's Society, among them at that time: Sir Weligama, the Pali. Sanskrit and Elu scholar, Waskaduwe Subhuti, "a monk better known among Western Orientalists than any other save Sumangala, who of course, is the representative and embodiment of Pali scholarship" (Sumangala himself being elevated to an Honorary Vice-Presidency in the Society), and "E.R. Gooneratne, of Galle, the most influential native official of Southern Ceylon and the local representative of Professor Rhys Davids' Pali Text Society" (Ibid., p. 200). The Theosophical leaders received ceremonial visits and special favors "from the Chief Priests of Asgiriva and Malwatte Temples, the ranking bhikkus of the island, a sort of Archbishops of Canterbury" (Ibid., 174 ff.). It was during this tour, on May 25, 1880 that the Colonel and H.P.B. "'took pansil' from the venerable Bulatgama, at a temple of the Ramanya

Nikaya,'' the Wijananda Vihara, "and were formally acknowledged as Buddhists." Col. Olcott writes, "We had previously declared ourselves Buddhists long before, in America, both privately and publicly, so that this was but a formal confirmation of our previous professions.... Our Buddhism was that of the Master Adept Gautama Buddha, which was identically the Wisdom Religion of the Aryan Upanishads, and the soul of all ancient world-faiths. Our Buddhism was, in a word, a philosophy, not a creed" (Ibid., pp. 167-70). It is significant that the commemorative vignette, as described by Bharati, pictures the "two monks administering" pansil to Mme. Blavatsky, who, "kneeling and bowing down before the image of Tathagata," is placed in the forefront of the party in European dress. But it was Col. Olcott who, acting as President of her Society, returned to the island on subsequent occasions to further the Buddhist National Educational Fund they had helped found for establishment of native Buddhist schools, etc. His Buddhist Catechism, prepared in consultation with the Sinhalese high priests and bearing their imprimatur, has been translated into more than 30 languages. It was Olcott who assisted in the design of the Buddhist Flag. And in 1884, upon his representation as agent of a Buddhist Defence Committee organized the same year at his instigation at Columbo, Ceylon, H.M. Government, through its Colonial Office at London and its Governor at Kandy, began a series of concessions in law and practice upholding the religious rights of the native Buddhists. For the first time recognition was given to the observance of the Birthday of Lord Buddha as a full holiday; Buddhist Registrars of Marriages were appointed; and reformations were made insuring better management of the estate and displinaries of the Virharas and their incumbencies (Ibid., III, p. 134). The beginning for this had been laid on Easter Day of 1883 when "a procession of peaceful, unarmed Buddhist worshipers .... passing through the streets of Columbo to .... one of their most revered temples .... to make the customary offerings of flowers, fruits, and other things at the shrine .... were assaulted ....To quote from the Petition laid before the Governor: '.... were murderously assaulted by a mob of Roman Catholics and other evilly-disposed rioters.... armed with bludgeons, sharp weapons and .... in the affray which followed .... great bodily harm was done to a number of Buddhists, five head of cattle drawing their carts were slaughtered in the Queen's highway, and the carts themselves, with their valuable contents, were consumed by fire.' It goes on to state that a Buddhist named Juan Naide was murdered, the Police looking on without interfering; that a mob was collected by the ringing of tocsins on the bells of the Catholic churches, and .... no action was taken by authorities .... " (Ibid., III, p. 115). Mrs. Gertrude Marvin Williams, in her notorious Priestess of the Occult: Madame Blavatsky (a long-discredited book still recognized as the definitive biography of H.P.B. by encyclopedia editors and other authorities equally ignorant of the facts concerning the subject), dismisses all of this in a single sentence: "Olcott was in Ceylon; the Sinhalese were paying his expenses in return for his presenting their petition on religio-political grievances to the Foreign Office in London" (p. 214). Thus she effectively contrived to conceal from her readers that what was involved here was persecution and oppression of the Sinhalese Buddhists by Roman Catholic instigators and hooligans, the latter protected by sympathizers in the police and in the Local government whose antecedents went back to the Portuguese who first conquered the island in the name of Europe's Christian God, thereby loosing their black-robed priests upon the native population. Here, we have seen one critic ignore history when it does not serve his purpose, when it demonstrates both that his "phony" or fraud "pure and simple," together with what he implies were her "spurious elements" of "pseudo-Buddhica," her works, written and phenomenal, received respect and welcome by the highest authorities of the Southern School of Buddhism, while this reception and productive mutual association led to remarkable advances in the subsequent progress of Buddhism. Our second critic, to accomplish much the same devious purpose, while serving the cause of Jesuit Romanism (that is apparent throughout her book), reduces these historical events almost to the vanishing point by slyly gutting the facts of their true heart and meaning. By contrast, however, the people of Srilanka - like the Buddhist monks of Wijananda Vihara - have not forgotten; and in 1967

their Government issued a special commemorative postage stamp portraying Colonel Olcott and the Buddhist flag he helped to design. "How" - asks Bharati - "can the millions of intellectually inert, but good-willed seekers after the mysterious East be informed about the actual traditions of Buddhism, about the actual Tibet? The answer is that the reading agents - libraries, booksellers, and publishers - have to put in some additional effort to market authentic works on these topics....." And, for a "basic library, in English, of works on Tibetan and other Buddhism..." --- 3 - besides the books on Tantra by himself, Herbert V. Guenther and Snellgrove, and a history by Helmut Hoffman - Bharati recommends "E. Conze's paperback introductions to Buddhism...." ("Fictitious Tibet," p. 9). Dr. Edward Conze is the author of Buddhism: Its Essence and Development (Harper's Torchbook edition, 1959). Professor Mircea Eliade (formerly lecturer in the Ecole des Hautes-Etudes of the Sorbonne, now holding the chair of the Department of the History of Religions at the University of Chicago, together with the Sewell L. Avery Distinguished Service Professorship; and author of numerous noteworthy books in the field) describes this by Conze as "perhaps the best book on the subject published so far in a European language .... a brilliant piece of work...." In its chronology, "The main dates of Buddhist History", the author has entered only four events representing the progress of Buddhism in the English-speaking countries (as well as India since 1500 A.D.). These are: "1875 Theosophical Society founded" - "1879 E. Arnold's Light of Asia" - "1891 Mahabodhi Society founded" - and "1926 English Buddhist Society founded" Under "European Buddhism," Dr. Conze writes, "The year 1875 marks an event of great importance. Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott founded the 'Theosophical Society.' Its activities accelerated the influx of knowledge about Asiatic religions, and restored self-confidence in the wavering minds of the Asiatics themselves.... A growing number of educated men in India and Ceylon felt, as the Japanese did about the same time, that they had no alternative but to adopt the Western system with all that it entails. The Christian missionaries looked forward to speedy mass conversions. But then the tide turned, rather suddenly and unexpectedly. A few members of the dominant race, white men and women from Russia, America and England, Theosophists, appeared among the Hindus and Ceylonese to proclaim their admiration for the ancient wisdom of the East. Mme. Blavatsky spoke about Buddhism in terms of the highest praise, Colonel Olcott wrote a 'Buddhist Catechism,' and A.P. Sinnett published a very successful book in which all kinds of mysterious, but fascinating, ideas were presented as 'Esoteric Buddhism.' .... By its timely intervention, the Theosophical Society has done a great service to the Buddhist cause. Although later on it became, as an organization, corrupted by wealth and charlatanism, it has continued to be an impetus to Buddhist studies .... To the ranks of the Theosophists belonged also Edwin Arnold, whose poem, 'The Light of Asia,' has led many hearts to love and admire the Buddha for the purity of his life, and his devotion to the welfare of mankind. "After 1900, a few missionaries were sent from Asia, who laboured, in London and elsewhere, without much success.... In England 'The Buddhist Society' has, under the able leadership of Christmas Humphreys, shown a great deal of initiative in 'beating the drum of the Dharma."' (Ibid., pp. 211-12. The Buddhist Society was originally founded as the Buddhist Lodge of the Theosophical Society, by members of the latter.) In March 1924, upon his election to membership in The Blavatsky Association, the Venerable the Anagarika Dharmapala, "one of the most eminent Buddhists of Ceylon.... Editor of The MahaBodhi Journal which is the organ of the Maha-Bodhi Society," of which he was the Inspirer and chief founder, sent to the Association a statement titled, "My Association with H.P.B.," extracts from which follow: "The visit to Ceylon of H.P.B. and Colonel Olcott in 1880 was a great event in the history of

modern Buddhism.... India, the home of Buddhism, was invaded by the followers of Islam, about a thousand years ago, and the old Aryan civilization with its representative cult of Buddhism was extinguished from the native soil. In India, Buddhism underwent great changes from time to time, and by the end of the tenth century of the European era, a new religion had come into existence under the name of Tantra, which enunciated certain principles based on sexual contact and bacchanalian orgism. The religion of personal purity and individual effort based on Karma and rebirth promulgated by the Lord Buddha disappeared from India, and Islam with Tantric religion took its place.... To revive the old teachings of the Lord Buddha, came H.P.B. to India, in 1879. For the first time in the history of modern Buddhism the echo was heard that in Tibet were living adepts who had learnt to control the forces of Nature, and that they were devoted followers of Gautama Buddha. In 1880, H.P.B. came to Ceylon with Colonel Olcott and the Buddhists gave them a royal welcome.... The Masters about whom Sinnett wrote in the Occult World, were to me real living beings, and I surrendered my life to them and silently pledged to lead the chela life. H.P.B. helped me much in my effort .... I went with her to Adyar, and one day in her room, when I was sitting by her, alone, she advised me to study Pali and to work for Humanity .... Until the day of her departure H.P.B. took care of me. She wrote me to follow the light that is within me. I have strictly followed her advice, and am glad to testify to her wonderful powers of mystic illumination. ... the wonderful personality of H.P.B." (Proceedings of The Blavatsky Association, No. 1, pp. 52-5). It was through the unprecedented efforts of the Maha-Bodhi Society that Buddhagaya, together with other old Buddhist holy places, was secured from private ownership and is now preserved as a National Religious Shrine, under the protection of the Indian Government and a joint committee of Buddhists and Hindu representatives. It was at Buddhagaya in 1956, upon invitation of the King of Sikkim, as President of the Maha-Bodhi Society, that Their Holinesses, the Panchen Lama and the Dalai Lama, with Prime Minister Nehru of India (himself a Theosophist in his youth) celebrated the 2,500th Birthday of Gautama Buddha. Like Col. Olcott, Dharmapala (in 1964) received national honor when the Government of Ceylon published a special postage stamp commemorating the 100th anniversary of his birth. (1) Years prior to visiting Ceylon in 1880, Mme Blavatsky, in private communication with Professor Alexander Wilder during the writing of Isis Unveiled, revealed that her Guru (Mahatma M., a Rajput) was a member of an ancient Buddhist sect of Nepal, and that he had a secret retreat on the island of Ceylon. In that, her first book, she affirms that "the practical blending of the visible and invisible world" has found its "refuge" in "the chief lamaseries of Mongolia and Thibet," and that there it "is practiced to the utmost limits of intercourse allowed between man and 'spirit."' She urges the "pretended authorities of the West" to "go to the Brahmans and Lamaists of the far Orient, and respectfully ask them to impart the alphabet of true science." This, she says on the second page of her book, she herself has done: "It was while most anxious to solve these perplexing problems that we came into contact with certain men, endowed with such mysterious powers and such profound knowledge that we may truly designate them as the sages of the Orient. To their instructions we lent a ready ear." Taking a cue from Mrs Williams, whose book is its authority as the "modern critical biography of the central figure in the movement" of Theosophy, the new (1974) Encyclopaedia Britannica alleges that the "original inspiration" of her Theosophical Society "was Kabbala... Gnosticism ... and other forms of Western occultism" - but that, "When Madame Blavatsky came to India in 1879, her doctrines quickly took on an Indian char------(1) More lost history! - V.E. --------- 4

acter...." (For this statement the encyclopedia is indebted to its "expert" on Theosophy, an Arthur L. Basham, Professor of Medieval History at the University of Pavia Italia, who has published nothing previously on Theosophy, so far as we can learn, and who obviously is out of his field but who, we suspect, is writing in service of the same cause as was Mrs. Williams). (1) Gertrude Marvin Williams "having tampered with much of her source material" - (to re-direct the false accusation she hurled at her literary victim), deliberately ignores the pre-eminent role given to her "sages of the Orient" by H.P.B. in her book of 1877, and in Priestess of the Occult (Chapter X, "Enter the Mahatmas") contrives to make it appear that no Hindu Mahatma appeared on the stage until some time after the arrival in India. And to protect this gross falsehood from discovery, Williams (Ibid., p. 133 ) further deliberately falsifies her record by substituting "an Egyptian Brother" and "a cryptic message from another Egyptian Brother" for the "dark and mysterious Hindu" seen by Olcott (and so described ) and at the same time by two others, "walking down Cannon Street" in London during the stop-over on the way to India (not seen by "Olcott and Wimbridge" only, as Williams puts it to reduce the number of witnesses), and for what Olcott had described as the "note to myself from a certain Personage" (the only thing "cryptic" here being the non-identification of the note-writer and the latter's nationality (O.D.L.. II, pp. 4-6). Another dupe, hoodwinked and led astray at this point by Mrs Williams' literary legerdemain, is the critic Liljegren who came to believe that when she wrote Isis Unveiled, H.P.B. fantasized Lord Bulwer Lytton as her Mahatma-Guru! Although her first book does not name these "sages of the Orient," her Teachers, it does introduce to its readers "a Buddhist friend, a mystical gentleman born at Kashmir, of Katchi parents, but a Buddha-Lamaist by conversion.... who generally resides at Lha-Ssa," and whom we can take only for the later-identified Kashmiri Mahatma, Koot Hoomi (natives of Kashmir having had exceptional travel and residential privileges in Tibet proper at that time). Professor Bharati nowhere better betrays ignorance of the subject he seeks to criticize than when, attacking claims for communications from a living Mahatma Koot Hoomi, he writes: "I am just not sure whether Mme. Blavatsky read the serious Hindu and Buddhist literature in translation and commentary available in her days .... One of the most annoying features in the 'M Letters' (M for Master) is her use of semi-fictitious names, like 'H Master K' (Koot Humi). There is, of course, no such name in as Indian language or in Tibetan. But in the Upanishads, there is a minor rishi mentioned, by the obviously non-Indo-European name Kuthumi. Just where she picked it up I don't know, but I suspect she might have seen R.E. Hume's Twelve Principal Upanishads, which was first published by Oxford University Press in the late 80's of the 19th century. The silly spelling 'Koot Hoomi' was probably due to the occidental mystery peddlers' desire to make words sound more interesting by splitting them into a quasi-Chinese series of letters. The Master letters signed 'K' are quite clearly Blavatsky's own invention; no Indian or Tibetan recluse talks or writes like the European feuilleton writer of the early 20th century" (Op. cit.. pp. 4-5). All of this is on par with Bharati's attempt (his two pages back) - certainly parallel with his purpose of discreditation - to make C.W. Leadbeater one of the "founding members" of H.P.B.'s Theosophical Society! He obviously does not know even (1) when the Society was founded, nor (2) when the train body of published Mahatma Letters were received, despite his etymological expertise that tells him the language of those from Mahatma K.H. belongs to "the early 20th century"! Hence (3 ), he is oblivious to the fact that H.P.B. could not have "picked" from a book "first published... in the late 80's of the 19th century" a name for signature to a series of letters begun in 1880. (Bereft of this quaint notion, Bharati now is free to adopt the old suspicion that "Koot Hoomi" was a joker's take-off on Olcott-Hume - which ought to appeal to his appreciation of punning, if nothing else!) (4) In The Theosophist of December, 1883, a writer called attention to the fact that, "In Chapter VI, Book III of Vishnu Purana, a Rishi called Koothumi is mentioned" - and Mme. Blavatsky, as Editor, responded with notice that, "The name of Rishi Koothumi is mentioned in more than one Purana; and his Code is among the 18 Codes written by the various Rishis and preserved at Calcutta in the library of the Asiatic

Society. But we have not been told whether there is any connection between our Mahatma of that name and the Rishi, and we do not feel justified in speculating upon the subject. All we know is, that both are Northern Brahmans...." (Collected Writings, vi, pp. 40-1). Elsewhere, we are told that "Knot Hoomi" is only the Mahatma's assumed and "mystical" name; and, whatever its Anglicized rendition, it is the name given to a Rishi in the Puranas of the Hindus (then sometimes written "Hindoos"), and as such must surely be fitting for any Brahmana. Like Bharati, Arthur Lillie, an earlier Orientalist-critic to quote H.P.B. - "tells us that 'Koot Hoomi' Is not a Tibetan name" ... to which she replied: "....we never claimed it to be one. Everyone knows that the Master is a Punjabi whose family was settled for years in Kashmir. But if he tells us that an 'expert at the British Museum ransacked the Tibetan dictionary' and found no such words, then I say, 'buy a better dictionary' or 'replace the expert by a more expert one.' Let Mr. Lillie try the glossaries of the Moravian Brothers, and their alphabets. I am afraid he is ruining terribly his reputation as an Orientalist" (Ibid., p. 277). (2) (5) Had there been, as Bharati supposes, the "occidental mystery peddlers' desire" to split this name "into a quasi-Chinese series of letters," we would read "Kut-hu-mi" (as some latter-day mysterypeddlers do, indeed, make it). But (6), in the Mahatma Letters (abbreviated "M.L.," not "M Letters' (M for Master)'", this latter designating the Letters from the Mahatma M.), what we do not find anywhere is: (7) "use" of the "semi-fictitious" name "'H Master K'" or (8 ) letters "signed 'K'" - these last appellations being quite clearly of Bharati's own invention, despite his use of quotation marks as camouflage! As for how Bharati may suppose "no Indian or Tibetan recluse talks or writes," it is beside the point. As Mme. Blavatsky answered a similar criticism brought by Lillie in her day, no informed person ever claimed that Mahatma K.H. was an "Indian or Tibetan recluse" - : "neither of the Mahatmas, whose names are known in the West are monks .... neither 'Hermits' (now), for they have done with their 'practice' of Yoga; nor 'Wanderers' nor 'Monks,' they tolerate, but would never practice, exoteric, or popular Buddhist rites" (C.W., vi, p. 293 ). In fact, the Mahatma K.H. is shown as a worldtraveler with something of a European university education. If the critics find the foregoing hard to believe - knowing no more than they do of the manners and ways of the highest Guru-Adepts of Asiatic Occultism - here is something more down-to-earth for them to digest: Besides bearing its own proof that its author-critic did not take care even to scan a book of the letters before he gravely --------(1) Those mysterious "experts" on Theosophy who were John Symond's informants were equally unknown to Theosophists - and obviously serving that same cause. -V.E (2) No Adept of either the right hand or left hand path uses his real family name. Bharati, whose name is Fisher. - V.E. ----------- 5 pronounces them "clearly Blavatsky's own invention," the foregoing conglomerate of gauche fabrications leads us to suspect that what Bharati next gives might also be of his own making. He continues: "In a passage, 'K' (for Koot Hoomi ) criticizes a writer for saying that 'the sacred man wants the gods to be properly worshiped, a healthy life lived, and women loved.' 'K' comments, 'the sacred person wants no such thing, unless he is a Frenchman.' The inane stupidity that must have gone into the early converts actually believing that an Indian or Tibet guru would use these stereo-gibes, is puzzling. Yet again mundus vult decipi, and if the average Western alien feels she or he can get the esoteric goods, she or he tends to lower the level of skepticism to a virtual zero." Professor Bharati's own comprehension of the problems facing him is down to about this indicated level if he imagines that there is any question of authenticity attached to the Mahatma Letters

that can be answered by an opinion on "stereo-gibes," real or imagined, without taking notice of the matters of calligraphy, major content, and circumstances incident to text and delivery, of the K.H. letters! More importantly, our estimation of his honesty as a critic and of his reliability as a reporter and word-handler approaches the same vanishing point when we encounter the following. (1) There are seven books in which may be found - with extremely few exceptions - all of the known and published letters and written communications from the Mahatma-Brothers of Madame Blavatsky. Six of these volumes are in print; the seventh, least known and containing the least amount of such matter, was first published as a (now extremely rare) pamphlet in 1883 and reprinted in 1922 by the T.P.H. at Adyar, India, under title, The Paradoxes of the Highest Science, "By Eliphas Levi, With Footnotes by A Master of the Wisdom" (Mahatma K.H.). Over the years, we have read all of these, a total of some 1,500 pages; and the "passage" given above by Bharati immediately struck us as being nothing we had ever read. Now it is a serious thing to accuse any man of forgery, even literary forgery, and, especially a pundit-Professor and an academician who claims expertship in the art of dealing with words - even on a multi-lingual level - , someone who pretends to be one of the two top authorities in his field in all of North America. Undaunted, we set to work, for two days re-reading this massive material. Only near the end, when we had 83 pages to go, did we discern the source of this so-called "passage...." Whether or not by deliberate design, so as to render discovery and refutation well-nigh impossible, Bharati here has borrowed from the most obscure and scarce of these seven volumes. On pages 88-9 of The Paradoxes of the Highest Science, we read - : "Magic ought to will whatever the Mage wants. "He wants the beauty of nature, which he enjoys in its fullness, because he never abuses it. He wants the springs to come flower laden, the roses to bloom in their beauty, the children to be happy and the women beloved!" (Eliphas Levi, as translated by A.O. Hume). At which point, the following footnote appears: "I beg to demur to this latter. 'Le Mage' wants nothing of the kind - unless, indeed, he be a Frenchman. - E.O." (E.O. being for "Eminent Orientalist," Mahatma K.H. not being otherwise identified in the main text and its footnotes; see Ibid., pp. vii, xi.) As Madame Blavatsky said of another Orientalist-critic (Lillie), this is "a case of not merely misquotation but positive misrepresentation.'' (1) It is not, as implied by Bharati, from "The Master Letters signed 'K..." Nor (2), does it anywhere show that a "'K' comments", nor is anything signed "'K' (for Koot Hoomi)" - it is signed "E.O." (3) Bharati misrepresents that the Mahatma in his comment "criticizes" the preceding writer for the whole of what the latter is represented as saying about worship of "the gods," living "a healthy life," and "women loved," whereas the critical comment is confined solely to the last of these - a distinction that is suppressed, and the suppression concealed by Bharati's omission of that initial portion of comment in which the Mahatma defines the area of his criticism. (4) The original says nothing of "the sacred person" wanting "the gods to be properly worshiped" and (5) nothing of "a healthy life lived...." (6) By suppressing notice that the author of the passage criticized was, indeed, himself "a Frenchman" (and one whom, as the translator Hume observed in his Preface, "was a true Frenchman, often aiming more at felicity of expression and neatness of antithesis than at the simple truth, and even ready to jump from the sublimest spiritual truth to some cynical mundane jest by no means always in the best possible taste"), the "jibe" was not in stereotype, but immediately a propos for the target of the occasion. As the Mahatma himself observed in an earlier footnote to the same text (pp. 22-3), "Behold a Frenchman! cynical and witty, even in the midst of the arduous discussion of esoteric philosophy. France has had several renowned alchemists, she never had one true Adept. - E.O." What is one to think of such gross literary butchery as this, sanctified by quotation marks and used to fortify an accusation of "invention" brought against its would be victim (leaving aside the victimized reading audience of Bharati's university-based Tibet Society's publication!)? Even without the first sentence of the original passage, identifying "the Mage," forty-two of the words and punctuation marks in Levi's passage are omitted and only four appear within Bharati's quotes. Of the

Mahatma's comments thereon, 19 of the same are omitted, and only 5 included in the pretended quotation. As for the two passages offered by Bharati in ostensible quotation (which the reader, by presentation, is misled to suppose are entirely from a "'K"' letter), the one of 19 words-and-orpunctuation marks purporting to give within quotes the criticized viewpoint, contains only 4 words ("wants the" and "and women") from the original translation from Levi; while the one of 13 wordsand-or-punctuation marks purporting to give the "'K' comments", contains only 5 from the original by Mahatma K.H. (leaving apart the "E.O." which, if given by Bharati, would have given the game away). In summary, of the 32 words-and-or-punctuation marks put within quotation marks and thus used by Bharati to demonstrate "quite clearly" both "Blavatsky's own invention" and the "inane stupidity" of her "early converts," 23 are fabrications falsely interpolated to take the place of 61 omitted from the original of 70, the 70 which obviously served to suggest this chicanery to someone's ingenious mind. If, in dismantling this fraudulence (to borrow a term), we do not label this "weird, fake, and fakish" pseudo-Theosophica as "quite clearly Bharati's own invention," it is only because, knowing, as we do, something of the proclivities of some of those Black Tantrik "Adept"-types, we choose to leave open the question whether he himself has been victimized by what can only be called phony "source"material of which 23 parts in 32, or 72 percent, are the product of literary forgery. If our judgment is not too lenient, this only goes to prove that when the --------(1) See the complete vindication on the basis of the best modern expertise of this handwriting thing in my Hall of Magic Mirrors, - which has bee suppressed and ignored in so many ways. - V.E. ----------- 6 "average" (or should we say, "the best" Orientalist?) critic of Mme. Blavatsky "feels" he can "get the goods" on her, "he tends to lower the level of skepticism to a virtual zero." In other words, there is, as Frank Podmore admitted, a "superstition of incredulity'' and it rots brains as thoroughly as any superstition. Forgery as a ready tool in the arsenal to extend their domination over men's minds, has been for centuries a preoccupation with some among the ranks of Indo-Tibetan Tantrikas on the Left-Hand Path. Prophetically, the Mahatma K.H. observed, "Tenfold greater pains than heretofore will be taken to cover you with ridicule for your credulity, your belief in me - especially, and to refute your arguments in support of the esoteric teaching. They may try to shake still more than they already have your confidence with pretended letters alleged to have come from H.P.B.'s laboratory, and others, or with forged documents.... It has ever been thus" (The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett, p. 317). The literature of Black Tantrikas south of the Himalayas is notorious for its apocryphal texts to which are appended, as authors, the names of great Teachers and Gurus revered from antiquity, such as Sankaracharya (1) of the Vedantins. The aim is obvious, to lend to the spurious Tantrashastras and their sorcery, in the mind of the duped, that aura of sanctity and authority that only Great Names can give. In Tibet the origin of like activity has been traced back to the aboriginal shamans, the Bon-pa. Thubten Jigme Norbu, elder brother of the present Dalai Lama, and himself, as Tagtshel Rinpoche, formerly Chief Abbot off the great Gelukpa monastery of Kumbum, built on the site of Tsong-Kha-Pa's birthplace, is author ("with Colin M. Turnbull") of Tibet (Simon and Schuster, 1968). This valuable and authoritative work on Tibetan Buddhism relates that, some two-hundred and thirty years after Padmasambhava left Tibet, the great Indian pandit, known in Tibet as Atisha, left his post at the Buddhist University of Vikramashila and came to their country, dying there 17 years later. "On arrival at Tholing, the monastic center of Western Tibet, Atisha.... saw the terrible state of degeneration that had come about through a misunderstanding of the tantras, but he refused to give in to those who counseled that they should be abolished. He set about teaching the tantras as only a philosopher of his

stature could, elevating them to the highest spiritual level, removing them from any but symbolic connection with physical action. He himself, however, advised that only two of the four tantric initiations should generally be considered since the other two could mislead the aspirant.... At the same time that he supported the tantras, however, Atisha also taught the pure Theg Chen doctrine, free of all tantric elements. One of his greatest contributions to Tibetan Buddhist literature is a discourse in pure Theg Chen tradition upon the different goals that man may set for himself and their relative value.... Here he clearly said that the tantras should only be followed by those who had passed through the previous stages of ethical (Theg Men) and philosophical reflection (Theg Chen), and that the actual practice of tantra was a purely spiritual affair, in no way calling for a female counterpart or the use of intoxicants, and in no way permissible for the selfish goal of self-advancement" (Ibid., pp. 181-2 ). (2) Before Atisha died, in the middle of the eleventh century A.D., Buddhism in Tibet had experienced a great resurgence, though the temporal power remain predominantly in the hands of the Bon nobility. Atisha and his chief disciple founded the Kadampa sect, which, at the second great reformation led by Tsong-Kha-Pa five centuries later, was converted into the incipient Gelukpa Order. But two disciples of Atisha, "finding the severe discipline not to their taste," continues Thubten Norbu, "and wishing to reintroduce at least some of the old familiar deities, founded the Kargyupa and Sakyapa sects. Those who had not been convinced at all by the teachings of Atisha and followed the old belief became known as the Nyingmapa, the Old Sect. The Bon beliefs and practices found a ready home there, for this Old Sect was weakened by the number and quality of all those who had followed Atisha's teachings. The Nyingmapa strengthened their position from time to time by 'discovering' still further scriptures, or Terma, hidden in remote places, allegedly writings of Lopon Rinpoche" (Padmasambhava). "In this way they reintroduced, as Buddhism, many old Bon rites, and the Bon of today consider themselves closer to the Nyingmapa than to any other Buddhist sect" (Ibid., p. 183). One of Atisha's students, Marpa, differing with his master on the teaching of Tantra, paid visits to India, where he studied under various Tantrik masters, including Naropa (see below). The followers of Marpa and his devoted pupil Milarepa, became known as the Kargyud Order, though some, soon fell away finding even its "asceticism too much, and moving back toward the old Nyingmapa sect they founded subdivisions of the Kargyupa known as Karmapa, Dikungpa, and Dugpa" (Ibid., p. 189). As L. Austine Waddell, in his book, The Buddhism of Tibet (W. Heffer and Sons, Ltd., 1895; reprinted 1958), reports, the Kargyud and Nyingma Lamas who have professed to "discover new gospels, in caves or elsewhere," these "so-called 'revealers,' but really composers of these Ter-ma treatises," allege they are hidden "gospels of the Guru, Saint Padma." And, "These 'Revelations' treat mainly of Shamanist Bon-pa and other demoniacal rites which are permissible in Lamaist practice and they prescribe the forms of such worship.... These 'Revelations,' relaxing still further the Lamaist obligations, were eagerly accepted by most Lamas, and they play an important part in the schisms which subsequently occurred in both old and reformed sects. Indeed, many of the sub-sects differ from their parent sects merely in having adopted a different Ter-ma work as an ordinary code of demoniacal worship" (Ibid., pp. 56-8). Appropriately, the story of Padmasambhava, as put together by Waddell from his study of Tibetan biographies, shows that the Guru-to-be-emulated and "God of the Corpses," on arriving in Tibet, "vanquished all the chief devils of the land, sparing most of them on their consenting to become defenders of his religion, while he on his part guaranteed that in return for such services they would be duly worshiped and fed" (Ibid., p. 27). What better bait could be provided than this to ensnare an ambitious sorcerer or a whole flock of apprentice sorcerers bent on improving their temporal state or "spiritual" status, when presented with an appropriately "discovered" Termo instruction (a Nyingma or Kargyud manual) on the worship and feeding of wish-granting "devils" and "chief devils"? Furthermore, Waddle (p. 152) shows that "only in the last, or Anuttara Tantra" (one of the two Atisha advised should not be generally considered since it could "mislead the aspirant") "have the tutelary demons spouses" and the "directions" for Anuttara Tantra "are found chiefly in the Nin-ma 'revelations'

or terma books." Dr Evans-Wentz reveals that the text of the life and teachings of Padmasambhava which forms the main body of his work from which we quoted previously (our pp. b-c ), is from manuscripts similarly "hidden" and "recovered" - significantly, "like the whole of the Bardo Thodol Cycle.... hidden texts, all more or less of an ----------(1) Sankaracharya plays an important part in the strange mystery of the Buddha, which I would probably have revealed in this issue except for these important matters coming up. - V.E. (2) This is actually the goal of almost all the modern "spiritual" cults and renders modern society tragically vulnerable to schemers. - V.E ------------- 7 occult or esoteric character." These and many other such teachings, adds Evans-Wentz, are "believed by the Tibetans to have been among these texts thus written and hidden by Padma" himself, the latter, in his course of writing and teaching, "taking over" certain of the "pre-Buddhist... Bon... teachings and incorporating them in his Tantric Buddhism," (Op. cit., pp. 239, 178, 179). In his most celebrated compendium, The Tibetan Book of the Dead (p. 68, 75-77), Evans-Wentz reveals that the text which served as a guide for that book was also a "termo" manuscript, one from the "Kargyutpa Sect of the Red Hat School...." He adds that, although the Gelugpa or Yellow Hat School has "its own version of the Bardo Thodol," it is "most altered, with all references to Padma Sambhava.... as well as the names of deities peculiar to the Red-Hats, expurgated" (Ibid., p. 72) - but then how does he know that this last text is not the original, to which the "expurgated" details were later added by "tertons" or masters of forgery on the Black Path of Left-Hand Tantrism. Indeed, the last seems ever to go hand-in-hand with lying, deception and forgery - for are not all one in Maha-maya? In charging that "Blavatsky's work has had signal importance in the genesis and the perpetuation of a widespread, weird, fake, and fakish pseudo-Tibetica and pseudo-Buddhica," Bharati argues that she "never learned any of the primary languages - Sanskrit, Pali, Tibetan...." ("Fictitious Tibet," pp. 3, 2). But what does this mean? To the reader perusing, let us say, The Secret Doctrine, the proof of whether the author had "learned" Sanskrit or Pali or Tibetan is as elusive and unimportant as it would be to anyone reading The Tantric Tradition. Bi-lingual dictionaries, translations and translators do exist; and although H.P.B. may have had access to the first two in less measure and quality than has Bharati, we believe she had a better grade of the last kind of help. Moreover, as we have just witnessed in his own case, mastery of a language is neither a prerequisite for, nor a guarantee of, mastery of truth, much less of occult (esoteric ) truth. Assuredly, Mme. Blavatsky would not escape this hail even if she were a recognized scholar of Pali and Sanskrit and a lecturer at Oxford University. One of the latter is Dr Edward Conze, Professor of Indian Studies at the University of Wisconsin. This distinguished author of some 15 books on Buddhism in English alone, and as many more in German, French and Spanish, whom, we are told, reads and writes most modern languages as well as Hebrew, Chinese and archaic scripts such as ancient Phoenician, is picked for the sharpest barb fashioned by H.V. Guenther in the 1969 edition of the latter's book, Ygananddha: The Tantric View of Life, ( p. 61): "Prajna is a key term of Buddhist philosophy and has been grossly mistranslated in lexical translations.... The translation of this term by 'wisdom' is hardly justified. This wrong translation does not become correct by defamation and vilification which is Dr. Conze's conception of scholarliness. The less is said about his puerile 'translations' the better it is." While Guenther translates "prajna" as "value cognition" (p. 61) and "cognition" (p. 125) and "appreciations" (p. 38), he, like Bharati, also sees it (p. 169) as "the female aspect" joined to "Upaya" as "the male aspect," together "represented or 'pictured' in anthropomorphic shape" as "touching at all points of contact" when "they embrace each other...." Despite all this, on page 171 of the same book, Guenther himself "mis-

translates" - : "'wisdom' (prajna)...." From Bharati's Tantric Tradition (p. 133), we gather that a better translation for "Prajna" might be that used in Black Tantrism: "a Buddhist Prajna, Yogini, or Dakini." His Index (p. 340) helps by giving a good, down-to-earth definition of the last term: "demons, see dakini, yaksa" (which is not too far off from that of Mme Blavatsky; see our p. c). Since, in the final analysis, it is not a problem of words but of the meaning of words, nor one of symbols but of the ideas said to be those of which the symbols are representative, the differences between the Right-Hand Tantrika and the Left-Hand Tantrika emerges clearly in their conflicting wordevaluations. The former sees the rude, anthropomorphic images as symbolic of non-physical aspects of mental and spiritual powers and activity. The latter takes the physical symbol for the reality and follows the "dead letter" of the language or, if the language is too exalted for his purpose, "translates" it "esoterically" into an "occult meaning" compatible with that lowest anthropomorphic level on which Black Tantrism operates. Consequently, the Black Tantrika - who must be a master of semantic legerdemain, whether or not bi-lingual - translates his holy scriptures into four-letter words, for, as reported by Eliade (Yoga, p. 343 ), those "of the cult of Sakti" teach "that Sakti delights in hearing obscene words." This is what Bharati calls "sandha-terminology." Apart from terms which, if taken "literally" - to quote one of his authorities - lead to "perverse practice." Exalted philosophic terms are given new, uniquely perverse meanings by these Black Tantrik word-jugglers, as we have seen in one instance. Some few other such "translations" obligingly provided us by Bharati (op. cit., p. 175) are: padma (lotus ) meaning "vulva"; vajra (thunderbolt), meaning "phallus"; bodhicitta (the bodhi mind), meaning "semen virile"; taruni (a young damsel), meaning "the consecrated female partner"; surya (the Sun), meaning "the menstrual fluid". With a little imagination, this list of working-tools affords ample insight into the kind of occult labor that occupies the Vamacari Tantrika. As for his Red Hat brother on the Black Path, Bharati (p. 174) gives from the Tibetan the scriptural language and the meaning attached to it for Left-Hand practice: "unconditioned," meaning "one who wears ornaments of bone"; "the universe," meaning "a human skull"; "'musk'; an ingredient for worship," meaning "urine"; "'camphor,' another ingredient for worship in tantric ritual," meaning "semen virile"; one of the "mystical vowels," meaning "'human meat"', etc. We think it hardly likely that this exhausts their inventory. But it is amusing to see Professor Bharati reversing this "translation" technique when up against some of the same practices brought down to date and found in the ritual manuals of modern Hindu Vamacaris. "Left-handed practice.... enjoins what is real inversion of the imagination from right-handed practice: '....The rosary should be made of human teeth, the bowl (or plate) of a man's skull; the seat of siddha-skin; the bracelet of woman's hair. The sacrificial ingredients, saturated with wine, meat, etc., are to be eaten, o beloved.... Ritual intercourse is held with a woman who is not one's wife (the literal translation, 'another's wife...' ), and women of all castes are equally eligible. This is left-handed practice described, which bestows all siddhis, o Benign Goddess" (Op. cit., p. 230). By footnote, our critic falls into that "apologetic" mode he elsewhere so fiercely abhors: "siddha-carma may literally mean the skin of a siddha, but it probably means just the skin which the siddha uses for his asana: i.e., a tiger skin or the hide --- 8 of another animal." Why not then, instead - tiger teeth, a tiger's skull, monkey's hair, etc.?! Surely Guru Bharati is whistling in the dark here - perhaps he hopes to leave his body to Science (Western version)! An early exposure of this "secret" vocabulary used in Tibet is mentioned by Bharati (p. 172) when he refers to "the indignant words ascribed to Queen Tse spon bza, who is said to have been a sworn enemy of Buddhism and an ardent votary of the Bon tradition..." - "'what they call 'kapila,' that is a human skull placed on a rack; what they call 'basuta,' that is human entrails spread out; what they

tail a 'bone trumpet,' that is a human bone; what they call 'sanctuary of the great field'...., that is a human skin spread out; what they call 'rakta,' that is blood sprinkled over sacrificial altars.... this is not religion (viz., chos dharma), this is the evil India has taught Tibet.'" What Bharati conceals from his readers at this point is the historical contest within which this denunciation was made. Thubten Norbu recounts that one of the first seven Tibetans initiated as Buddhist monks, upon returning from India later where he'd been sent to gather Buddhist scriptures for the growing monastic community, "fell under criticism from all directions" when he professed himself to be a follower of Padmasambhava and a teacher of trantra. His fellow-monks expelled him as a 'heretic', but the King, himself a convert of Padmasambhava, only "exiled" the tantric teacher to eastern Tibet "where he could continue his work unopposed." Eventually, four more students, on returning from a like-mission to India, revealed to the king their "initiation into the occult lore of the tantras." Upon this, the King Trisong Ditsan "was delighted... and he would shut himself up with them in order to learn from them more of the tantric practice. Once again it was his wife who exposed him. She did not believe his assertions that he and the monks were merely engaged in deep meditation and that was the reason for locking themselves in. She contrived to spy on them and reported on all that she had seen, human skulls and thighbones, human skins and entrails, and a sea of blood" (Tibet, pp. 168-9). It was this exposure of Black Magic masquerading as Buddhism that triggered a series of events which eventually led to the suppression of early Buddhism in Tibet (revealing the state in which Atisa found it when he arrived). Professor Bharati purports to see "authenticity" only in schools and teachers "matching their tenets with those of a genuine tradition..." Certainly one has no difficulty in tracing back the "genuine tradition" of Black Tantrism, its track of orgies and human sacrifices merging with the dark and bloody demon-haunted mists of primordial savagery. What is not so easy to discover anywhere in their writings, is when, where, in what and why the latter-day, and current crop of, Black Tantrikas or their guru forbears departed, if at all, from this venerable tradition. Their literature is replete with citations from ancient authorities whose explicit commands, if taken as written, pursued to logical conclusion and acted upon - in absence of the missing contrary guidance - can lead only to the pits of hell. (1) In Tibet, as Thubten Jigme Norbu relates, "Bon rites have been characterized by blood sacrifices described in some detail by Chinese observers. Sheep, dogs and monkeys were the victims in the lesser sacrifices, but in the great sacrifices held every three years horses, donkeys and human beings were offered to the Gods in the three regions. The rites involved disemboweling and the scattering of blood in the air. Details of those rites survive and they are still practiced though with symbolic sacrifice, even within the Buddhism that fought so hard to suppress them" (Tibet, p. 124). Among the Redcapped Shammars, this effort at suppression seems not always to have succeeded. "In a cave at Tunhuang, an ancient Buddhist cult place on Chinese soil, the remains of an old library were found containing amongst other things a quantity of Tibetan books. The translation of these writings, which is rendered extremely difficult by the archaic style, is far from complete.... The faded characters of the Tunhuang books tell of sacrificial rites in which hecatombs of animals were slaughtered, and of mysterious ceremonies of the death cult" (von Nebesky-Wojkowitz, op. cit., p. 50). Bringing it down to modern times, one can cite the discovery of "sacred human meat" found with Termo books of the Kargyud sect, as related to Dr. Evans-Wentz by Sir Bahadur Laden La, the distinguished Tibetan scholar and diplomat (see our previous p. c). Charlotte Y. Salisbury (Mountain Kingdom: Sikkim, published by W.W. Norton and Co., Inc., New York, p. 29), in observing the public rites of the Nyingmapas and their subsect of Kargyudpas in that land, found the "Lama Dance performed at the end of each year," to be "the most exciting of all.... It is complicated and intricate; its symbolism is concerned with casting out evil and with murdering, cutting up, and burning enemies in effigy." For a trumpet, the Kargyud lamas much prefer the "thigh bone of a 17-year old virgin," especially one of the Brahman caste, "or from a man or woman, who died a violent death" (Ibid., p. 28). L. Austin Waddell, who observed the "devil dance" by Red Hat Lamas in Sikkim also, extensively analyzes this "Mystery-Play of Tibet," or, as it is called by many

Tibetans, the "Dance of the Red-Tiger," a deity of the Bonpas. Waddell concludes that originally, before the Buddhist era, "it appears to have been a devil-dance cult for exorcizing malignant demons and human enemies.... and to propitiate with human sacrifice and probably cannibalism the war-god and the guardian spirits, most of whom are demonified kings and heroes...." (Op. cit., p. 316). (1) But then, what does it mean even now to those left-hand tantrikists who, themselves "beyond good and evil," make no distinction between the two and cannot be concerned with "casting out evil," since for them evil does not exist? Andre Mignot, who was himself initiated by a Karmapa Red Hat Lama in the Kham district of Eastern Tibet, tells in his book, Tibetan Marches, (E. P. Dutton and Co.) of witnessing such a spectacle, and seeing aprons of human bones worn it Jyekundo, while the dancers performed to the beating of a drum made of human skin and the skulls of two small children. (Unlike the "siddha seat," it cannot be said that these children passed on their remains for the purpose of being used for magic - one wonders how much the fear of similar postmortem misappropriation by sorcerers has contributed to the Tibetans' adoption of cremation or consigning the corpses to the jackals and vultures, having professional "cutters-of-corpses" grind to powder the remaining bones which, mixed with dough, are to the last grain and sliver fed to the scavengers.) Apart from what has been "preserved in the mystery-play," Waddell also sees "vestiges of cannibalism" - and by no means symbolic - in "the common practice of eating a portion of the human skin covering the thigh-bone in preparing the bone trumpets" (Op. cit., pp. 517-18. Since skin doesn't grow on bone, what becomes of the intervening "sacred meat"?). This cannibalistic ritual, accompanied by "an elaborate incantation" over the thighbone during its preparation for use as a khangling, "is done otherwise its blast would not be sufficiently powerful to summon the demons" during "worship of the inferior gods and demons," writes Waddell (Op. cit., p. 300) in ---------(1) It should now be clear where the Manson cult type of obsession with murder and mutilated body parts came from. And there will be a lot more of that sort of thing before we are through the current world crisis of both spirit and body. - V.E. ------------ 9 describing the altar and its objects in a "typical temple," his description being accompanied by the ground-plan of "A Temple in Sikkim" and the photograph of the altar of a Nyingmapa (Red Cap) Lama. Waddell adds that, besides victims of violent death, "criminals" too are cherished for their bones choices which, from the occult standpoint, are significant as indicating the sorcerer's desire to establish intercourse with "souls" which are the most 'earthbound' and more readily perceptible through mediumship. In the course of discussing the subject, Waddell observes further that, "Actual cannibalism is, indeed, attributed to the early Tibetans, and the survival of certain customs lends strong color to the probability of such a practice having been current up till about the middle ages. The Tibetans themselves claim descent from a man eating ancestry, and they credit their wilder kinsmen and neighbors of the lower Tsong-po valley with anthophagous habits even up to the present day." As a great teacher of ethics, Tsong-Khapa introduced a series of vows, "taken by monks as they pass from one grade to another, each grade demanding a higher level of renunciation"; the "four mainvows" being "to refrain from killing, stealing, having sexual intercourse, and lying." He also "stressed the highest academic standards as an absolute prerequisite to advanced spiritual practice, involving the use of meditation for personal spiritual development...." To give his reformation maximum influence among the Tibetan clergy and lay peoples, then enmeshed in a degenerated quasi-Buddhism, he "took the old Gods and demons, images and paintings of which filled the temples and monasteries of the day and nearly all of which had non-Buddhist origins, and he taught the symbolic meaning of each."

Similarly, in dealing with the practices, and with the objects employed in the practices he now proscribed, the Great Reformer gave them symbolic meaning, converting their image to spiritual rather than the physical use to which the unconverted remained addicted still. This conversion is in contradistinction to the Black Tantric interpretations which physicalize even the most spiritual and abstract symbolism, as we have seen. In Tsong-Khapa's studies, the Tantric symbols and practices were transmuted for use simply as symbols "with a view to right understanding" on higher planes of mentation. "In this way the symbol of sexual union was emphatically declared to be a symbol of the union of knowledge and activity, leading to the right application of knowledge, or power. It in no way licensed sexual activity as a practice leading to spiritual advancement, as some of the old sects now taught." Similarly, "The use of liquor and narcotics was equally forbidden to all Gelukpa, and once again Tsong Khapa saw that it was best to stress the symbolic meaning of intoxication and of meat eating - (another practice which some old sects said had spiritual power). To simply deny them... would only achieve a limited end within his own following. By offering a symbolic interpretation he hoped to be able to slowly introduce reform into the other sects," i.e., into the whole of Tibetan life in general. (Tibet, pp. 201-02). The above reference to "narcotics" being "forbidden" by Tsong-Khapa and the Gelugpa rules, contrasts with the conduct of the Black Tantrikas. Bharati (Op. cit., p. 287) declares that "the tantric adept uses hemp each time before he undergoes the main observance" in his ritual. This, he alleges, is to release the drug-taker from social inhibitions; but the noted Austrian anthropologist, von NebeskyWojkowitz was told by his Red Hat teacher Nyima, in Sikkim, that among the Kargyud lamas, some use hashish to facilitate trance-possession (Where the Mountains are Gods, pp. 225-6, 255-6). Professor Mircea Eliade's Yoga: Immortality and Freedom, (Bollingen Paperback, 1970, 2nd Ed., published by Princeton University Press) is praised by Agehananda Bharati as "The most outstanding critical survey of yogic and tantric traditions." (See The Tantric Tradition, p. 313.) Eliade finds that the "degradation of an ideology" ensues "through failure to comprehend the symbolism that forms its vehicle." Tsong-Kha-pa came, finding a vehicle inextricably embedded in the Tibetan psyche already; and, since it was an admixture of Buddhist and non-Buddhist images, rather than futilely strive to uproot the whole within one life-time, he bound his followers to refrain from the debilitating practices and transformed the images of these practices - images too deeply ingrained to be soon eradicated, even when undesirable - into symbols of the Good Doctrine, its Way of Enlightenment and of progress on the Path thereof. Even today there are those within the broad field denoted Mahayana Buddhism who employ the same Buddhist and non-Buddhist symbols (even to the point of borrowing Tsong-Khapa's spiritual interpretations when they find it expedient to placate public mores) but without abandoning the proscribed practices. Among the Tantrikas of India, Eliade finds the same division. Extremist cults "in which nihilism vied with turpitude... cynics... the libertines, and the adepts of the 'terrible schools'," all sought to prove their "literal interpretations of transcending the human condition were justified by respectable ideologies, both Hinduistic and Mahavanic." (As he rightly adds with some irony, "all excesses and all aberrations" are "effective methods of abolishing the human condition" - permanently, of course.) Such excesses, Eliade continues, "adopted in the name of a doctrine of salvation, opened the way to almost inevitable syncretisms with rites relegated to the lower levels of spirituality.... tantrism finally incorporates the major and minor magic of the people.... Like every Gnosticism and every mysticism that spread and triumph, tantric Yoga does not succeed in avoiding degradation as it penetrates increasingly broad and eccentric social strata. Those who cannot practice a full Yoga will content themselves with imitating certain external aspects of it, will interpret certain technical details literally. This is the risk run by every spiritual message that is assimilated and lived by masses lacking a preliminary initiation" - or an initiation grounded in the bedrock of a high ethic and a truly spiritual philosophy (which, of course, many will always reject). "From the Indian point of view, this phenomenon of degradation corresponds to the movement of accelerated descent typical of the end of

the cycle; during a kali-yuga, truth is buried in the darkness of ignorance. This is why new masters continually appear and re-adapt the timeless doctrine to the slender aptitudes of a fallen humanity" (Ibid., p. 295). It is also why the greatest of the latter-day masters, H.P.B., did not join her ethical and philosophic teachings to a technically complete instruction in Yoga and meditation. In place of this power-giving instruction, which to every proficient student thereof, as well as to every siddhi-seeker, would, by its perfection, alone have given her rightful place as a --- 10 Yogini-Adept for ethico-philosophic guidance, she left us the record of her occult phenomena - as Magic, for its variety and measure, unparalleled in modern times; for its volume of detailed authentication, Magic unsurpassed in all of history. By so doing, she avoided peopling the world with a new wave of sorcerers (since, with very few exceptions, all neophyte magicians and yogis are, she warned, on the road to Black Magic); and, by the same precaution, she insured that her teachings would remain as an enduring ethico-philosophic standard for all in the West entering Occultism, a heritage free of the stain that otherwise would be cast upon them by those who, misapplying practical teachings of Magic and Yoga, bring only contempt and discredit upon their school and its teachings. (1) As Eliade adds, "....the constantly renewed message of these new masters undergoes the erosive action of the masses (for the appearances of the masses is the characteristic note of the kali-yuga) and ends by being degraded and forgotten...." Unfortunately, what the advocates of Black Tantrism, like Bharati, Guenther, Evans-Wentz, Woodroffe, Govinda, Blofeld, Chogyam Trungpa and Tarthang Tulku, are offering the public in their teachings and books is not the "renewed message of these new masters" (whether of Tsong-Khapa - whom they universally disregard - or of Mme Blavatsky, whom they generally despise) but a mixed-bag of dubious works of unknown, uncertain or fraudulent authorship, fictitious authority, termo books and other folk-forgeries, together with fragments from authentic Occultism that have been subjected to centuries of "erosion" and "degradation" thru repeated miscopying and mis-interpretation by generations of cunning "licentious maniacs" (to borrow a term from Eliade) of every school of sorcery, now finally palmed off on an unsuspecting, spiritually-hungry public - without benefit of intrinsic ethics or philosophy but with a great show of pedantic mastery and semantic jugglery! "In this spiritual process," continues Eliade, "we find one point important. It is the degradation of an ideology through failure to comprehend the symbolism that forms its vehicle. We shall give an example. The role that the cemetery (smasana), together with meditations while sitting on corpses, plays in a number of Indian ascetic schools is well known. The symbolism is frequently emphasized in the texts: the cemetery represents the totality of phenomenal life, fed by consciousness of the 'I'; the corpses symbolize the various sensory and mental activities. Seated at the center of his profane experience the yogin 'burns' the activities that feed them, just as corpses are burned in the cemetery. By meditating in a smasana he more directly achieves the combustion of egotistic experiences; at the same time, he frees himself from fear, he evokes the terrible demons and obtains mastery over them. "Now there is a class of Sivaist ascetics, the Aghoris or Aghorapanthis, who have at times interpreted this symbolism of the 'cemetery' and 'corpses' materially.... The connections with tantrism are patent. These Aghoris eat from human skulls, haunt cemeteries, and still practiced cannibalism at the end of the nineteenth century; Crooke cites the case of an Aghori from Ujjain who, in 1887, ate a corpse from the pile at the burning ghat. They eat all sorts of refuse and any kind of meat except horse meat. They justify these practices by saying that all of man's natural inclinations and tastes should be destroyed, that there is neither good nor evil, pleasant nor unpleasant, etc. Even as human excrement fertilizes a sterile soil, so assimilating every kind of filth makes the mind capable of any and every meditation." Eliade adds, "These Aghoris are the only successors to a much older and more widespread ascetic order, the Kapalikas, or 'wearers of skulls'.... They resemble the tantric Vamacaris, but they

carry orgiastic practices and ritual cruelty to the extreme. From the sixth century on, references become more frequent... Bhavabhuti (eighth century)... in his play Malati-Madhava, represents a Kapalika named Aghoraghanta on the point of sacrificing the virgin Malati to the goddess Camunda. There is a similar episode in the Prabodha Chandrodaya, which was performed in 1065; the author is a sannyasi named Krsnamisra, who seems to have known the Kapalikas well. He makes one of them say: 'My necklace and ornaments are of human bones; I dwell among the ashes of the dead and eat my food in human skulls.... We drink liquor out of the skulls of Brahmans; our sacred fires are fed with the brains and lungs of men mixed up with their flesh, and human victims covered with fresh blood gushing from the dreadful wound in their throats, are the offerings by which we appease the terrible god.... The might of our religion is such that I control Hari-Hara and the greatest and most ancient of the gods; I stop the course of the planets in the heavens; I submerge the earth in water, with its mountains and cities, and I again drink up the waters in a moment.... He who resembles the gods, whose crest is the lunar orb, and who with delight embraces women as beautiful as Parvati, feels supreme bliss....' There is no possible doubt about the licentious rites practiced by the Kapalikas; 'without renouncing the pleasures derived through the organs of sense, the eight great siddhis may be obtained.'" (Ibid., pp. 297-8) From the Dabistan; or School of Manners, compiled by Muhsin-i-Fani, of the 17th century, the description is taken of the Kapalikas and Aghoris, that "could not be more vivid," comments Eliade, quoting (p. 299) from the translation of Shea and Trover: "There are some of this sect, who, having mixed their excretions and filtered them through a piece of cloth, drink them and say, that such an act renders a man capable of great affairs, and they pretend to know strange things. They call the performer of this act Atilia and also Akhori." We must presume that among the Red Hat Buddhists of Tibet, whom Tsong-Khapa sought to reform, there were Black Tantrikas addicted to something quite as degenerate, for "in the Bodhisattva section of his Steps of the Path to Enlightenment, the Lam rim chen mo," the Great Reformer "speaks of the impropriety of certain gifts.... the Bodhisattva must not give food and drink polluted with excrement and urine, spittle, vomit, pus and blood; or give forbidden flesh" (Tashilunpo edition, folio 230a ; see The Buddhist Tantras, by Alex Wayman, S. Weiser, 1973). "Further on," writes Eliade, "the author of the Dabistan - probably confuses the Kapalikas with some Vamacari sect.... he says: 'In many places and among a great number of Hindus, this worship exists: a great many follow the Agama, in which wine drinking is approved, and if, instead of a common cup, a man's skull (which they call kapala) he used, the beverage is much more agreeable. They hold the killing of all animals, even of man, to be permitted and call it bala [daring]. At night they go to the places which they call smasana [cemetery], and where the dead bodies are burnt there they intoxicate themselves, eat the flesh of the corpses burnt, and copulate before the eyes of others with women, whom they name sakti puja.' The information given by the author of the Dabistan is substantially correct. He says that these tantrics prefer incest to the ordinary union. He knows that lulis (public women) are prized.... He knows, too, that in the sexual act the woman personifies the goddess. The author had seen a Kapalika meditating on a corpse, and in Gujarat he came upon a certain Mahadeo who spent his nights seated on a corpse" (Op. cit., p. 299). ----------(1) It is exactly this which "turns off" from Theosophy most of the modern "seekers" - we have no "practices" for sale and for that reason. But that did not save us from being accused of them by the scurrilous writer John Steinbacher. - V.E. ------------- 11 In the spring and autumn, the Kapalikas celebrated "seasonal collective orgies, in which all the members of the sect participated," joined by "materialists" and also "cynics", those "who rejected the

Vedic tradition and all the values of Hinduism... here festivals of vegetation, tantric origies, and the eccentric practices of 'materialists,' cannibals and wearers of skulls are merged in a single system. This detail shows us the direction of the future coalescence between the tantric yoga and the aboriginal spiritual values." Eliade sees "phenomena of pseudomorphism and devalorization" in which, from "the level of the highest Indian spirituality," in which "an ascetico-mystical symbolism" of "cemetery, corpses and skeletons... to meditate seated on a corpse, to wear a skull, etc., now represented spiritual exercises that pursued a wholly different order of values from those, let us say, of the head-hunters," is eventually subverted by literal interpretations on part of the practitioner who "forgets the yogic meaning of the 'corpse' and the 'skeleton' and becomes a head-hunter, thus reverting to cannibal behavior." This regressive movement to an "archaic ideology, connected with a particular lunar symbolism... human sacrifice and skull hunting" arose when "the prodigious advance of tantric Saktism (whose center was none other than Assam-Kamarupa)" brought it "into contact" with "prehistoric customs entailing human sacrifices and the cult of skulls... - whether in the frontier regions (Assam, Himalayas), or in the districts of inner India in which the elements of archaic culture had been best preserved...." (This is what Eliade calls "symbolic confusionism" - though for us that does not signify that all the confusion was inadvertent, for its end-result has enabled the disciples of devalorization to parade their gruesome wares, disguised as "Esoteric Buddhism, Buddhist Meditation, Tibetan Yoga" and even "Raja-Yoga", before an unsuspecting audience.) See Yoga, pp. 300-01. "Assam (: Kamarupa)," Eliade notes, "was the tantric country par excellence" (from whence "tantrism, or, more precisely, the new 'revelation' of the Siddhas and Nathas" was "brought to... Nepal"), where "human sacrifices" were "performed... at the annual festival of the goddess, and the Kalika Purana even devotes a chanter to the details of their decapitation," etc. (Ibid., pp. 305-06, 311) Professor Eliade finds "the cruelties and crimes of the Kapalikas and the Aghoris," with other "excesses and aberrations" of "cannibal magicians... echoes in the legends of the Vamacaris," India's present-day left-hand Tantrikas on the Black Path. While admitting that the reference, "Aghori," is "very frequent in Hindu tantric literature," Bharati defines this to be "an epithet of Siva" ("the-not-soterrible-One"); and, as if to defuse ammunition for potential critics, declares "the Aghori cult" to be only "an extremist tantric group..." (Op. cit., p. 305). The response to this is three-fold: (1) At what point do the doctrines and practices taught and followed by Bharati and his brother-Tantrikas on the Left-Hand Path stop from becoming (or from being) "extremist," and in what, if anything, do they depart from those of the "genuine tradition," of those we have named, whose "connections with tantrism are patent" and whose evil practices find "echoes in the legends of the Vamacaris...."? (2) How can it be said by anyone not a "phony" on the Black Path, that the Aghori "cult" is "extremist"? The writings of Herbert Guenther, to Bharati "so exalted a source," make very, very plain that such piffling discriminative judgments as good and bad, moral and immoral, moderation vs. extremism, have no part in the thinking of the advanced adept on the Left-Hand Path! In his Yuganaddha: The Tantric View of Life (vol. III, The Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series), 2nd edition revised, 1969; the Chowkhanda Sanskrit Series Office, Varanasi -1, India (1st edition, 1952 ), the latter writes: P. 132 "The only total error in the world is the belief in total truth, or what is the same, in our prejudices and ideals as eternal values.... The world will continue to be a mess as long as we think in rigid categories of good and evil." P. 136 - "....the clearing off of all conceptual scaffolds as unnatural fetters of the mind is imperative...." P. 144 - "Sin and virtue, good and evil, are fateful delusions of a half-baked mind and have nothing to do with reality... such obsessional ideas... weaken mere man and strike him with a mortal disease." Pp. 142-3 - Intellectual thought "unceasingly breeds distress and irresponsibility. It destroys true moral sense, for what we call morality is but an application of our intellect to our life in the outside world.... The silly rigamarole of sin and virtue, of good and evil, is a scourge of this dualistic mode of intellectual thinking." P. 39 - "When we are conscious of any purpose in our movements we are fettered and we become moral and intellectual people at best. We cease to be religious. Freedom means purposelessness... immediateness of response." P. 148 - "The calm stream

of life, beyond discriminating reason, has nothing to do with any calculations we make as to the effect of our doings on others or on ourselves. It is not concerned either with thoughts of gain, merit or consequence. Such ideas are something we read into certain forms of movement and by which we become wretched slaves to the outer conditions of life." P. 132 - "'Radiant by nature are all phenomena, pure from the very beginning, and uncontaminated. There is no enlightenment, no Buddhahood, no individual self as any kind of value, no life."' (1) (3) On the best authorities, the Kapalikas and Aghoris are not separate, isolated and obscure cults on the extremist fringe of Vamacari tantrism, as Bharati apparently would have us believe. Eliade notes that, "A considerable number of yogins claim to be followers of Goraksanatha (Gorakhnath) and call themselves 'Gorakhnathis,' or 'Kanphata Yogis'.... Hatha Yoga also claims that its founder was Gorakhnath, the supposed author of the school's first treatise (now lost). In any case, the connections between Gorakhanath, the Kanphatas, and Hatha Yoga are beyond question; the Kanphatas call themselves simply 'yogis,' and their literature contains a number of Hatha-yogic texts, among them the most famous treatise...." - at which point we must interject that Mme. Blavatsky condemned the practice of Hatha-Yoga. Eliade describes "this ascetic order," going "far beyond the limits of the Hatha-yogic ideology and disciplines," as "a movement of considerable importance" and as one which has been "the point of convergence for a large number of religious, magical, and alchemical traditions and practices, most of the Sivaistic, but some of the Buddhist" (Op. cit., pp. 301-02). He also notes that in practising "the rites of 'left-hand' tantrism," the Goraknathis "continue" in "some respects" such "sects" as the "Kapalikas" (p. 303). Adhering "to the tradition of extremist Sivaism," the "order of Kanphata Yogis," Eliade reports, "serve as pujaris (officiants) in the temples of Bhairon, Sakti, and Siva. Many of them make pilgrimages to the Vamacara temple of Hinglaj, in Baluchistan.... In fact, the first European to mention the Kanphatas... saw resemblances between them and the Vamacaris. Their relations with the Aghoris are quite close; after his first initiation, the Kanphata receives the name of Aughar, and occasionally an Aughar becomes an Aghori. Some Aghoris serve in the temple of Kamakhya (: Durga) in Assam. Now this temple was famous for the human sacrifices that were per-------(1) This "no good, no evil" cultism has penetrated deeply into our whole society and is actually the conscious basis of our highly intelligent leaders of organized crime and of many other leading lights of our sinking society. No safe, orderly, or secure life can exist in places of its dominance. - V.E. ---------- 12 formed there into the nineteenth century (they were suppressed by the English Government in 1832 )." One wonders if this was as successful (?) as another suppression of "religion," that of Mormon polygamy by the American Government in the last century! "In 1565, 140 victims were beheaded in the course of a single sacrifice" (op. cit., pp. 303, 305). Finally, Arthur Avalon (Sir John Woodroffe, an English judge in India, Tagore Professor at the University of Calcutta, and himself an authority on, and initiate into, Vamacara Tantrism), reveals that the Aghori are not a particular "cult" but a particular grade (one might say, initiates of a particular degree) found among "divisions of worshipers" according to a native Tantrik authority. Of the "seven, or as some say, nine, divisions," ranked next to the highest are the Aghoracharis, to which Woodroffe adds, "Aghora means it is said one who is liberated from the terrible (ghora) sangsara" - a "liberation" of which Guenther's Yuganadda tells us much (in the Black Tantric meaning), - to which the author adds this very significant admission: "...but in any case, many worshipers for want of instruction by a siddha-guru have degenerated into mere eaters of corpses." (See, Tantra of the Great Liberation, Dover Publications Inc., 1972, p. lxxix.) Thus bereft of ethics and of the philosophy which alone can provide the foundation for ethical

conduct, these tantrik aspirants are left hopelessly adrift on maya's sea, with neither compass nor means to discern the true from the false hands that would seize the rudder, lacking that guidance and purpose by which alone discriminating thought can distinguish the Real from the Unreal and so choose between those actions which lead to Liberation and those which lead to Destruction (and in their blindness, crying there is no difference!), they are swept down into black maelstroms of annihilation. But where is the siddha-guru among the Black Tantrikas on the Left-Hand Path of Indo-Tibetan Magic and "Esotericism"? If possession of the siddhis (the "occult powers") is a stamp of approval and a seal of perfection by which anyone thinks the teacher of the true practice (the siddha or possessor of these powers) is to be known, the whole of the lot of them have never produced a wonder-working Teacher like Helena Petrovna Blavatsky outside of myth and ancient legend! She is the one occultist in history, a practitioner of Taraka-Raja-Yoga, not Hatha-Yoga, and an Adept without "benefit" of the Black Tantrism of the Left-Hand practice, who welcomed investigation by a Committee of skeptical, hard-headed Western Parapsychologists of recognized standing. Distinguished members of this Committee (including F.W.H. Myers who coined the word 'telepathy,' and Sir William Barrett, who initiated the founding of the first Society for Psychical Research) witnessed repeated phenomena in her presence which they could not explain to their own satisfaction, as the writer discovered from their own records suppressed for 77 years and despite the most intense and comprehensive investigation of the phenomena connected with her, the Committee could publish no proof that so much as a single demonstration of "siddhi'"powers was anything but genuine, as we - Editor and writer - have proved in our books as long ago as 1963, books yet to be challenged by any contrary documentation from the critics of Mme Blavatsky. Nowhere in the annals of human history do we find a more complete record, replete with first-hand evidence of phenomenal occult powers and, with it also as never before, the very words of a Great Teaching, in the Teacher's own writing, uneroded by time and untampered by transmission! By contrast, we look at those who follow "the left-hand practice... which bestows all siddhis," those "whose crest is the lunar orb," who themselves believe they resemble "the gods... and who with delight embrace women," feeling, they say, "supreme bliss." Professor Jacob Needleman, in his book, The New Religions, (Pocket Books, 1974, p. 175) cites a "recent book (Omar V. Garrison, Tantra: the Yoga of Sex, Julian Press, Inc., New York, 1964 ), which provides an elaborate set of instructions for Westerners on how to place the body and sex organs, how to breathe during the sex act, how to retain the semen, contract various sphincters and open various vital centers - all while contemplating an assortment of holy scriptures and profound Sanskrit phrases...." Needleman then quotes "an esteemed scholar," the Indian expert on tantrikas and tantrism, Benjamin Walker, who in his Hindu World, (Allen and Unwin, Ltd., London, 1968, vol. ii, p. 486), "sums up his discussion of Tantrism by writing: "(The tantrik adepts') 'worship' takes the form of sexual activity of tremendous proportions and the whole purpose of it is to achieve supernatural powers. In spite of these cosmic feats, the tantrik adept rarely reaps a greater reward on the earthly plane than such siddhis (powers ) as the ability to live on a snowy mountain summit without clothes, or draw water through the anus." (1) Clearly, to do more than this, and to escape the charge of being "phony," the present-day crop of aspirants on the Black Path of Indo-Tibetan Tantra must match "their tenets" with those of the "genuine tradition" provided for them by the Red Cap termo tales of Padmasambhava (see our pp. c, d) and by those Kapalika and Aghori Guru-Adepts. Of course, we cannot say whether Bharati, Guenther, et al., and their fellow-initiates, follow the practices of the latter - nor even whether they aspire to the practice - : but, at any rate, they must prepare to do so if they hope to emulate these great masters on the LeftHand Path! "Among the commandments of Tsong-Kha-pa," taught Mme. Blavatsky, "there is one that enjoins the Rahats (Arhats) to make an attempt to enlighten the world, including the 'white barbarians,' every century, at a certain specified period of the cycle." Also, "The Adepts... send forth a messenger to try to teach the world in the last quarter of each century, and the Theosophical Society represents

their work for this epoch" (The Secret Doctrine, vol. III, p. 413, C.W., vol. 8, p. 402). But, as the convergence of "many cycles will make a major," so Mahatma K.H. said, the arrival of Mme. Blavatsky in America in 1873 marked also the beginning of the peak period when, in the West, scientific inquiry reached its highest pitch of interest in the phenomena of Spiritualism, the latter in its turn, helped on by the greatest wave of mediumship in modern times (the confluence of these crestwaves giving birth to Parapsychology with the founding of the British S.P.R. in 1882 ). (2) It is no mere coincidence that the "'Messenger" of this 19th Century "Effort," H.P.B., first appeared within the ranks of the Spiritualists - though not herself one - , beginning and directing her work in that arena. The reason for this is clear: it was the purpose to throw herself as defender and saviour into the breach that then was the greatest immediate and potential source of occult (psychological) danger threatening mankind, the gate, opened by widespread mediumship, that threatened to let in upon the human race a hellish flood-tide of superstition, "spirit"-worship and possession and so set mankind back a thousand years. "We feel that the time is -------(1) Now what could be a greater sign of high spirituality than that? - V.E. (2) Which unfortunately was set up as a rival to the T.S. under Tantric influence, and the psychic movement. It was through them that Hodgson was able to engineer the Adyar frame-up. See Hall of Magic Mirrors. - V.E. ----------- 13 approaching," wrote Mahatma K.H., "and that we are bound to choose between the triumph of Truth or the Reign of Error and - Terror. We have to let... a few chosen ones into the great secret, or - allow the infamous Shammars to lead Europe's best minds into the most insane and fatal of superstitions Spiritualism; and we do feel as if we were delivering a whole cargo of dynamite into the hands of those we are anxious to see defending themselves against the Red Capped Brothers of the Shadow" (M.L. to A.P.S., p. 280). Now, as then, these latter Adepts on the Black Path, whose mastery of sorceries compensates for their rarity in number, seek to "inspire" (obsess), when they cannot possess, the minds and souls of those (especially aspirants in occultism) who can be used as tools, consciously or unconsciously to the latter, in the machinations to thwart the progress of human evolution on this planet. Mahatma M. gave warning to ".... look out, sharp: the Dugpas and Gelukpas are not fighting but in Tibet alone: see their vile work in England among the 'Occultists and seers'! Hear your acquaintance Wallace preaching like a true 'Hierophant' of the /left hand' the marriage of 'soul with the spirit' and getting the true definition topsy-turvy, seeking to prove that every practicing Hierophant must at least be spiritually married - if for some reason he cannot do so physically - there being otherwise a great danger of Adulteration of God and Devil! I tell you the Shammars are there already and their pernicious work is everywhere in our way. Do not regard this as a metaphysical but as a real fact, which may be demonstrated to you some day" (Ibid., pp. 268-9). To those who look with the eye of discernment, this menace today is at least as great as it was a century ago; in place of Spiritualism (which itself has, to some degree, felt the uplifting influence of Dzyan Theosophy), the West is now enjoying the unprecedented "renaissance" of Witchcraft and Satanism, riddled with "covens" openly practicing "left hand" rites under the protection of society's new-found "sexual freedom", ready to welcome and serve masters of their own kind coming with pomp and pretended authority. Sadly enough, this critical state of affairs - which, after some few more public and bloody outrages committed against society in the name of "occultism," will precipitate an irresistible backlash of legal and police repression that will proscribe all occultism in this land! - seems to be lost upon Theosophists in general, contemplating their navels in the back rooms of Lodges, holding in one hand the writings of H.P.B. they have never digested and listening with one ear for a knock on the door announcing the arrival of

the "New Messenger," who they anticipate is coming to them with an updated edition of The Secret Doctrine - ! (Our guess is there will never be a knock on that door, but that the "Effort" for the 20th Century will begin and be fought out "where the action is" - on the battleground where the stakes are highest, as in H.P.B.'s day, where the Shammars threaten to claim the soul of Western civilization.) A few days ago there came to our mail box a 6-page brochure outlining "Seminars and Retreats in Tibetan Buddhist Practices, with Tarthang Tulku," together with covering letter from the "Nyingma Institute" at Berkeley, California, of which the above Lama is "Founder." It appeals to us to "make mention of these activities" in our "posting information or a newsletter"; and offers "more information if you're interested...." Classes, it is said, are offered "to earn Masters degrees and to anyone interested in Tibetan psychology, philosophy or Buddhist meditation practice" and "yoga exercises," etc. It adds that "hundreds of people have benefitted from the experience and continuing practice of the techniques offered to them by Rinpoche," who "is a reincarnate lama of the Tarthang Monastery in Eastern Tibet," who fled before the Communist invasion to Sikkim in 1959, from there to India where he "served as professor of Buddhist philosophy at the Sanskrit University in Benares for six and one-half years" before coming to Berkeley in 1965. For the average recipient, the letterhead of the Nyingma Institute boasts an impressive list of "Advisors" (five M.D.'s and seven Ph.D.'s), including such well-known names as Joseph Campbell (author of The Masks of God, etc.), R. Buckminster Fuller, Lowell Thomas (Tibet's best known guest), Alan Watts, and - as one might expect - Kargyud Lama Anagarika Govina and Professor Herbert Guenther. Identified are eight university professors, a college president and a vice president, a former president of the International Association of Analytical Psychology, the Director of the National Commission on Resources for Youth, Inc., etc., etc. We doubt that any Theosophical center could muster a comparable roster; certainly not one with anyone like the two who by no means are the least among these: Bishop C. Kilmer Myer, Episcopal Director of California; and Angelo D'Agostino, M.D., Director of the Center for Religion and Psychiatry at Washington, D.C., who is a member of the Society of Jesus. The last citation brings to mind the following significant observation by the Mahatma K.H. - : "The air is full of the pestilence of treachery; unmerited opprobrium is showering upon the Society, and falsehood and forgery have been used to overthrow it. Ecclesiastic England and official AngloIndia have secretly joined hands to have their worst suspicions verified if possible, and at the first plausible pretext to crush the movement." (A prophecy or, rather, knowledge that was corroborated by the infamous missionary-sponsored Coulomb criminal plot of 1884, official documents to refute which were then in the hands of Anglo-India officials, but never released. Mme. Coulomb, an admitted Roman Catholic, and H.P.B.'s housekeeper, was busy paying visits to the Episcopal Bishop of Madras, at the very time.) "Every infamous device is to be employed in the future as it has in the present to discredit us as its promoters," K.H. continued, "and yourselves as its supporters. For the opposition represents enormous vested interests, and they have enthusiastic help from the Dugpas - in Bhootan and the Vatican!" (M.L. to A.P.S., p. 317). (1) What is not so widely known or realized is the intimate historical connection established between certain chief Red Hat sorcerers of Tibet and agents of the Society of Jesus. (2) In the 13th century when the great Mongol Emperor of Tibet and all Cathay was "searching about for a religion to weld together the more uncivilized portions of his mighty empire he called to his court the most powerful of the Lamaist hierarchs, namely the Saskya Grand Lama, as well as representatives of the Christian and several other faiths.... He is said to have demanded from the Christian missionaries, who had been sent to him by the pope, the performance of a miracle as a proof to him of the superiority of the Christian religion, while if they failed and the Lamas succeeded in showing him a miracle, then he would adopt Buddhism. In the presence of the missionaries, who were unable to comply with Khubilai's demands, the Lamas caused the emperor's wine-cup to rise miraculously to his lips, whereat the emperor adopted Buddhism; and the discomfited missionaries declared that the cup had been lifted by the devil himself, into whose clutches the king now had fallen" (Waddell, op. cit., p. 37).

The bitter memory of this stunning defeat to Vatican designs on the Orient, coupled with the amazing tales of magical feats beyond the Himalayas, reaching the ears of Jesuit missionaries stationed later in India, could only -------(1) Referring to that same Hodgson-S.P.R. frame-up, due to the fear of British imperialists that H.P.B. was in India to promote revolution - a true ancestor of the Watergate affair. Again, see Hall of Magic Mirrors. - V.E. (2) It should be remembered that the Jesuits referred to are as unknown to the rank and file of Jesuits and the Catholics in general as the real natures of the Tantric adepts are to rank and file people of Bhutan and Sikkhim. - V.E. ----------- 14 have excited the envy of the latter, now themselves bent on world-empire and ever and always alert to seize for themselves any device of power over the "heathen." Under the fanciful pretext of penetrating the Snowy Land of the magicians in search of lost colonies of primitive Christians, they persuaded King Philip III of Spain and the Pope in 1601 to endorse the first Jesuit mission to Tibet. After a preliminary probing exploration by Jesuit Fr. de Goes, Jesuits Andrade and Marques in 1624, disguised as Hindu pilgrims, joined a caravan to "the holy shrine of Badrinath in south-western Tibet"; and, after being discovered, left the caravan and "with the assistance of a party of Tibetans.... crossed the Himalayan crest and entered Tibet, the first Europeans to do so...." Under the protection of the King of Guge, they centered their mission at Tsaparang, where they were joined by other Jesuit priests and built a permanent church at the king's own expense, afterwards opening another mission at Shigatse, capitol of what was then the combined provinces of U and Tsang (Utsang). In 1627 still other Jesuit missionaries from India "crossed into Bhutan - the first Europeans ever to enter this remote Himalayan kingdom." After a sojourn in the chief district of the Red Hat sub-sect of the Dugpas, they journeyed to Shigatse, where, our authority, John MacGregor, advises, "the older 'Red Hat' ... was predominant," and the Kings of Tsang and Guge, Sakyapa princes related by marriage, "provided the entree... needed for evangelical expansion." (Tibet: A Chronicle of Exploration, by John MacGregor, "pseudonym of a diplomat in the U.S. State Department.... for some time ... concerned with South and Central Asian affairs. ...his last period of service in India"; Praeger Publishers; New York; 1970.) In his book, Tibet (p. 221), Thubten Norbu recalls that, "the Tsangpa kings... were the most powerful of any of the Tibetan petty chiefs at that time. The Tsangpa were of lowly origin and ardent supporters of the Karmapa (Black Hat) sect. For both religious and political reasons they were bitterly opposed to the Gelukpa. They even entertained Christian missionaries, probably in the hope of finding a religious force to combat that of the Gelukpa...." (italic added). The Jesuit mission at Shigatse never having prospered, that at Tsaparang too was shut down in 1635 and "everyone was evacuated." In view of the fact that, during "ten years no more than a hundred baptisms had been made and many of these were retainers of the mission whose motives were questionable" (MacGregor, Tibet, p. 47), one must speculate on what profit the Jesuit superiors saw in this decade of close association between their agents and the Red Hat Lamas in Tibet. In 1661 Jesuits Grueber and d'Orville "became the first Occidentals to give a reliable report on Lhasa." Approaching Lhasa, the first took "rest briefly at Reting monastery, some forty-five miles north of Lhasa.... where "the lamas wore white coats and red girdles with red caps to match" (Ibid., n. 52). More than 40 years later, MacGregor writes, "An optimistic belief that after seventy years there may still remain some of Andrade's original converts in Tsaparang, prompted the Jesuits to approve the re-opening of a western Tibet mission" - something that even then did not get underway until 7 years

later in 1712. Suspicion that something besides the welfare of imaginary "original converts" motivated this undertaking is indicated in the statement of its leader, Desideri, when he writes of being one who "brings new and rare fruits from a foreign land...." Although Desideri's approved goal was "in western Tibet," he "pushed on to Lhasa" with little delay; and, although it was "to make converts to Roman Catholicism," when he eventually departed Tibet, this record fails to show Fr. Desideri, S.J. having made a single convert (or anything of a regret for having failed to do so) during his five-year stay! On their way to Lhasa, the Jesuits stopped along the way with monks whom they described as wearing "a hat... the whole... in red"; and who, though supposed to remain celibate, actually "have no shame about sexual intercourse, nor even hid it" (Ibid., p. 69). The Head Lama of the Red Hat Monastery of Tashigong "was the soul of help and hospitality.... arranging onward escort for the Jesuit fathers"; even to Lhasa itself (Ibid., pp. 70, 74) - which can only give rise to wonderment at such prompt and extraordinary relations between the Red Hatted and black-robbed priests! At Lhasa, Fr. Desideri soon was introduced to the court of Utsang Khan, the Mongol King of Tibet who was in conflict with the Yellow Hats of Tsong-Khapa, they being "resentful that the King had deprived the clergy of much of its traditional authority and had established his own supremacy over the Dalai Lama...." (Ibid., p. 77). The Jesuit, Desideri, lost no time ingratiating himself into the good favor of the King - only to see the oppressor of the Gelugpas killed when their monasteries arose in revolt, welcoming the invading warriors of the Dzungars, hereditary enemies of Latsang's Mongol supporters. In the fighting, the "Red Hat Head Lama of Lungar monastery who escaped through a rear exit of the monastery just moments ahead of a Yellow Hat lynch mob.... sought out his friend, Desideri, for help and protection. At considerable risk to himself, Desideri gave money to the unfortunate abbot and made possible his escape from the city" (Ibid., pp. 88-9). The Jesuit himself then donned the attire of a lama, fled Lhasa, scene of the Gelugpa victory, and went into hiding, not emerging until the Dzungars whose looting and excesses quickly reversed their relations with the Gelugpa priesthood and the populace - were, in turn, driven off by Chinese invaders. In 1721, Desideri received orders from the Jesuit General to return, the Pope in 1718 having awarded "the Tibet parish to the Capuchins" who had meanwhile returned to their own deserted mission at Lhasa. Afterwards, the "Lhasa mission was chronically troubled by financial worries which the Capuchins were inclined to blame on Jesuit intrigues in Rome" (Ibid., p. 104). If the Society of Jesus (which is credited with having the world's largest collection of mss. and books on Western, if not Eastern, sorcery) thereafter undertook to send emissaries to Tibet, they must have done so subrosa (though it was hardly more than a generation later that their Order was proscribed by the Pope Himself), their agents traveling incognito. Needless to say, the record is as bare of Gelugpa-Jesuit relations as it is of Blavatsky-Jesuit cooperation. For sheer incongruity, matching this record of support and protection given the Jesuit invaders by high Red Hat Lamas of Tibet, is a strange saga of "cooperation" now on the current scene. Mr. Gerald Yorke, one of John Symonds' consultants and first among the helpers on the name-list in the latter's much-criticized 1959 biography of Mme. Blavatsky, has described occultism as "an anachronistic survival of pre-Christian thought. It is both simpler and safer to put your trust in Christ and his Church" (Man, Myth, Magic, p. 1133). It was Yorke who supplied "useful suggestions... most helpful" to the author of The Satanic Mass (Rider, 1954) in writing his "Criminological Study" that traces "inspiration" for the "Black Mass" to massacred Cathars and martyred Knights Templar whose confessions-under-torture (during which many of the latter succumbed) he takes as truthful. (1) This author holds the Protestant Reformation "responsible" for the "thought that Everyman had direct access --------(1) The refers to the various groups which flourished and were destroyed at the time of the Renaissance in Europe, which were founded by Mani from Bulgaria and called Manichaeans. Their chief group were the Albigenses who prospered in southern France and were finally destroyed by a hired army of the Inquisition led by Simon de Montfort. They were the Theosophists of their time.

The last previous predecessors were Druidic, destroyed at Bibractis and Alesia by Caesar. - V.E. ------------ 15 to his God without the intervention of visible church or material sacraments"; and says that while this "doctrine'' may at first "seem a little remote from Satanism of this or any other period... it is not so in fact." Drawing generously upon the notorious Taxil hoax, this book (considered as a classic by the new witch-hunters who, oddly enough, have had nothing to say as yet about the dangers of Black Tantrism, concentrating on H.P.B. as a menace instead) excoriates Freemasonry as the enduring vehicle of "Satanism," charging the fraternity with taking Lucifer" as its "God" and with "resurrecting this old deity with a new look." This "new look": "The unorthodox Satan got rid of his goat skin and took on a more respectable appearance. Lucifer the Light-bringer becomes an athletic young man with picturesque wings and well-developed muscles...." One suspects the author - in the course of receiving numerous "useful suggestions" - was shown the cover art of H.P.B.'s last magazine. It was Yorke who prepared the Introduction to a recent book (The Magicians of the Golden Dawn, by Ellic Howe) which "purports to be a documentary history of the Golden Dawn." Reviewer Israel Regardie, the recognized authority on this history and on the Order's teachings (in his review, Gnostica News, January 1974), finds Howe indulges so liberally in sneers, guesses, inference, suppositions, sarcasms, assumptions, etc. as to wholly invalidate its claim to be a history.... His thesis is that after Mme Blavatsky founded the Theosophical Society in 1875 to disseminate the Eastern Wisdom Religion under orders from her Masters, Dr. William Wynn Westcott, a high grade Mason, decided to go her one better. He is alleged to have forged documents to prove he was under authority from 'Secret Chiefs' to form an order to teach the Western magical tradition" (see H.P.B.'s Theosophical Glossary, pp. 279-80 and Preface). "It is only in Yorke's introduction that we find the word 'hoax' used outright..." against the Hermetic Order. Dr. Regardie shows how Yorke has manipulated evidence to serve his ulterior purpose, e.g., "In the Neophyte Ritual there is an Obligation which, so Yorke says, omits any reference to the purpose to which the powers resulting from the successful practice of magic should be put. Nonsense!'' - and, in refutation, book and page are cited from the printed, official documents of the G.D. Order, first published by Dr. Regardie himself. Yorke, who, surprisingly, "was a disciple of Aleister Crowley over 40 years ago," in his "damning foreword," which Regardie finds "wholly without basis, being rooted in his misunderstanding or lack of direct knowledge of Golden Dawn teaching," dismisses the Golden Dawn Order as having "given birth to its first pseudo-Messiah," Yorke's one-time guru: "No more need be said." But, as Regardie knowingly observes, "There is a vast difference" between the teachings and methods of Crowley (himself a practitioner of left-hand tantrism) and the "Golden Dawn teaching.... even though Crowley is in direct line of descent from the Golden Dawn." Authorities are generally agreed that it was in this latter Order that Western Occultism reached the zenith of its known development in the Magical Tradition. (1) While thus dividing his help between those laboring to destroy or denigrate Theosophy, Western Occultism, Freemasonry and Protestantism, Gerald Yorke also generously is assisting the advocates of Black Tantrism (see acknowledgments by Francis King, and in H.V. Guenther's preface to his Royal Song of Saraha; and, also the "Acknowledgments," p. 15 of Born in Tibet, where the author, the Ven. Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche expresses "grateful thanks to Mr. Gerald Yorke... for the great help... given us to bring the book to completion. Mr. Yorke saw the script in its early shape, and not only introduced it to the publishers, but made very many useful suggestions." The current (September 1974 ) number of The East West Journal gives the better of 8 columns to an illustrated lead-story on what is called "'the newly formed Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado" ("Naropa: The University of "Wholeness"). Tibetologist Waddell tells us that, although "the Kah-dam-pa Lama, Dvag-po lha-reje" (Gampo-pa) was "the real organizer" of the Kargyudpa sect "in the latter-half of the eleventh century," its

founder was the Lama Marpa who, on a visit to India, studied under Naropa, "the janitor of Nalanda University...." (Op. cit., pp. 63-4). In The Life and Teachings of Naropa (UNESCO Collection of Representative Works, Tibetan Series, Oxford University Press, 1963), "translated by Dr. Guenther from hitherto unknown sources" ("an old Tibetan edition" in the library of a gompa "in Lahoul," India, reports the author), and accompanied by commentaries "from the rare bKa'-brgyud-pa works, some of them... existing only in manuscripts" - of, obviously, doubtful dating and unproven authorship) - , the life of this "scholar-saint" of Tibet is "held up as an example to anyone who aspires after spiritual values...." Of "Naropa's experiences on the path of freedom," or his "twelve great acts of self-denial" and "severe spiritual exercises" undertaken to "obtain the instructions in full and so attune his mind" to his Guru Tilopa's "spirituality," the tenth was this: "Tilopa said: 'Get a girl.' ... and he gave him the instruction on eternal delight, 'the Lower Gate,' which is the most excellent way of the Vajrayana discipline." But after a few days, Tilopa returned "and said: 'Naropa, how is it that you who have renounced the world according to the teaching of the Buddha, as a Bhiksu are living with a girl? This is not a proper thing, punish yourself.' Naropa said: 'This is not my fault, but that of this,' and he hit his erected penis with a stone. When through excessive pain he was near death, Tilopa asked: 'Naropa, is something wrong with you? And Naropa answered: I suffer from having hit my penis In answer to desire which is the root of evil. "Tilopa said: Listen to my words, listen, Vimala (prabha). You should beat yourself Naropa, To realize that pain and pleasure are the same. Look into the mirror of your mind where values are as one, The mysterious home of the Dakini. "He then touched him with his hand so that he could at least urinate again, gave him the name Naropa, and instructed him in the sixfold sameness of value." (Ibid., pp. 76-9.) The commentary attributed to Gam-po-pa best explains this "sameness of values" or "where values are as one," according to the Kargyudpas: (the world of birth and death) "Samsara is Nirvana and there can be no wishful thinking as to attainment of Nirvana apart from Samsara, and by understanding that Nirvana is Samsara, there can be no despair as to falling into Samsara as -------(1) Regardie is one of my readers. However, the "Magical Tradition" of the G.D. was not quite the tradition of H.P.B. As to Crowley, who designated himself as the "worst man in the world," he was a good example of the Western tantrist. He could have been a great writer, because he had talent; but the outcome of his life was summed up in his dying words "I am confused." Such in the end is the fate par excellence of all who fall for the Black Tantra. - V.E. ----------- 16 something evil." Again, Gam-po-pa: Only "...the inferior type develops an interest for higher things." Or, as author Herbert V. Guenther puts it, "Heaven or paradise" is only a notion in the head of "the negative mystic," corresponding to no state or condition nor provision of Nature - : "Heaven or paradise is an escapist notion." Since it is taught that heaven and hell as well as good and evil are one and the same for the man who accepts them to be so, here and now, the author inevitably slips into this kind of glib nihilism: "... there is no standard by which to gauge that which is 'socially acceptable' for what is 'acceptable' on one level is 'unacceptable' on another. But above all that which is 'socially

acceptable' ignores the disposition and the requirements of the individual." (See Ibid., pp. 74, 230.) As for any thought that the "disposition" of "the individual" might be such as to justify denial of these "requirements," Guenther's reasoning would subvert the laws of natural science as easily as those of society: "normality and abnormality are culturally defined concepts" (Yuganaddha, p. 9). For his eleventh lesson, Naropa returned to Tilona, his Guru, after a year "and asked for instruction." The teacher replied, "If you want instruction, give me your girl!" - and, receiving her, "Tilopa beat her and said 'You do not care for me, you only care for Naropa.' Naropa did not lose faith in the propriety of his Guru's action, and when he sat there happily without a girl, Tilopa asked him: 'Are you happy, Naropa?' And Naropa answered: Bliss is to offer the Mudra as fee To the Guru who is Buddha himself unhesitatingly. "Tilopa said: You are worthy of bliss eternal, Naropa, On the path of infinite Reality.... "And he gave him instruction on the illuminating Mahamudra transcending awareness" - by which "the whole of reality, all that appears to be the six forms of perceptiveness, remains the play of co-emergent delight" (Ibid., p. 80). After his twelfth lesson, in which he gave up the blood of his arteries and his very flesh as offering to his Guru, Naropa "had received all... instructions in full" so that he then "defeated the pandits who were preaching their doctrines." Tilopa cautioned him that "what books have to say are mere words, as bad as adulterated milk you buy in the bazaar." Whereupon Naropa "asked Tilopa whether he should meditate in the East, in the cremation ground of Kamarupa (Assam). Tilopa gave him a skull filled to the brim with an impure and stinking mess and said 'Eat this.' When, dejectedly, but powerless, he swallowed the contents, the uneatable mess turned out to be delicious." Naropa concluded that, "Similarly, if one does not meditate, emotivity seems to be the cause of Samsara, but if one meditates, it is the bliss of Nirvana." At this stage the scholar-saint of the Kargyudpas appears to have ascended to the level of the Kapalikas and the Aghori adepts, for, so it is said, he was able to transform "the various ways of conduct into ultimately valid norms" - whatever the conduct, presumably (Ibid., pp. 84-5). Among other things, he found that, "Killing others without premeditation... Helped me, Naropa, to act properly." (Ibid., p. 88) To which, Guenther. like Bharati when confronted with the "siddha-seat", adds a surely arbitrary opinion that here "'Killing others' is a metaphorical term...." Elsewhere, however, concerning Naropa, he admits that "None of his contemporaries or successors in India can compare with him in depth of experiences" - which, as we have seen, among the Black Tantrikas has to go a lot beyond symbological metaphors! But are we left with no guide save one, our Guru, to tell us what is "real" and what is "unreal"? Naropa's 10th instruction on "'The Lower Gate'" as "an index of the experience of eternal delight by using sex as a means towards transcending awareness," as Guenther shows (pp. 77, 157), certainly was not metaphorical but required a concrete object, "a real woman" real enough to be "free from the four defects of the padma (genital organs): not having the menstrual flow, not smell foul, not being diseased, and when inebriated by sexual desire not knowing any shame or restraint..." (This leads us to believe that while Naropa may have taught that there is no difference between Nirvana and Samsara, his disciples are not yet ready to deny that there are differences within Samsara! Moreover, it seems to us these provisions go against other Tantras of "Great Compassion" that make no distinction against diseased and leprous saktis of the lowest class - see Yuganaddha, Guenther, p. 59.) At any rate, Naropa's own student, Marpa, who, as founder of the Kargyud sect, merits at least as much attention as H.V. Guenther, seems to have taken killing others in a literal not a metaphorical sense, for Marpa "even made" his favorite disciple, the blessed Milarepa, "use the sorcery he had

learned to kill some people that Marpa said were his enemies." (Tibet, T.J. Norbu, p. 187.) He even improved on Naropa by broadening the act beyond spontaneity. But our guide's interpretive powers finally fail him when confronted with an authoritative statement, against which he can find "no reason to doubt," "and that would suggest that Naropa himself still dabbled with black magic," indulging in a corpse-rite the "detailed account" of which is, he confesses, "nothing short of black magic." Since, we are informed, in deference to "emphasis on the spiritual side of Buddhist Tantrism" in the Kargyud scriptures, "any reference to black magic was banned," so that "Tantrism became a positive discipline again" (?), we learn no more of Naropa's return to Black Magic, nor - probably for the same reason (Op. cit., pp. 201-02) - do we hear anything else of the adventures of "Killing others without premeditation...." by the namesake of the Naropa Institute. The Institute itself (whether promising metaphors or literal practice) already has, we are told, "almost overnight... drawn about 1,300 students...." Next year it will offer degree programs and application is being made to the North Central Association of Colleges and Universities "for accreditation status of its B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degree programs." Among those reported as teaching at Naropa Institute are Dr H.V. Guenther ("History and Development of the Kagyupa School"), and Dr. Agehananda Bharati. The "founder and president of Naropa Institute" (and who is "giving two courses this first session: Tibetan Buddhist Meditation and The Tibetan Buddhist Path") is the Venerable Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche (Tulku). One easily can envision the implications of all of this - thousands of zealous, energetic, youthful initiates indoctrinated in Black Tantrism, fanning out over the continent, knocking on doors of a hundred other institutions of learning, swarming into youth-help-and-guidance programs under government auspices, degree-diplomas-in-hand, ready to convert upcoming generations into "Esoteric Buddhists" of their own kind! Is this to be the "Centennial --- 17 Effort" that will set the course for Western Occultism in the last quarter of the 20th Century? If so, who is to be its "Messenger from the Masters" - of the Black Lodge? [[transcript below of facsimile of an advertising flyer:]] ------------HIS HOLINESS GYALWA KARMAPA SPIRITUAL HEAD OF THE KAGYU ORDER OF TIBETAN BUDDHISM WILL PERFORM THE CEREMONY OF THE BLACK CROWN ON SEPTEMBER 23 [????] NEW YORK CITY The present Karmapa, the sixteenth incarnation of the eleventh century Tibetan saint Tusum Khyenpa is the highest ranking living lama after his holiness the Dalai Lama. The Kagyu order of which he is head emphasizes the practice of meditation as the basis for the development of understanding and appreciation of the totality of experience. His holiness the Gyalwa Karmapa's visit to the United States, sponsored by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, will be his first journey outside of the Asian continent. The public is invited to attend the ceremony of the Black Crown, which he alone can perform and through which the blessings of his lineage are conferred.

ARRANGEMENTS TO ATTEND MUST BE MADE IN ADVANCE. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CALL NEW YORK DHARMADHATU 989-4792 ------------------Thirty-three days ago, on August 19th, we received a photocopy of an advertisement that had appeared in the New York City "underground press" newspaper, The Village Voice, four days before that, mailed to us by an alert HPB-dedicated correspondent in that city. We reproduce it here. "His Holiness Gyalwa Karmapa," "who will perform the ceremony of the Black Crown on September 21 in New York City," is said to be the "Spiritual Head of the Kagyu Order" (of the Red Capped Kargyudpas) and also "the sixteenth incarnation of the eleventh century Tibetan saint Tusum Khyenpa...." Either "His Holiness" has been pulling someone's leg - or he ought to get a better copy-writer on his PR staff! In agreement with other authorities, the eminent Tibetologist, L. Austine Waddell reveals (The Buddhism of Tibet or Lamaism, pp. 66-9 that Tusum Khyenpa did not found nor head the "Kagyu" Order. As we have seen in connection with Naropa, it was founded by Naropa's pupil Marpa and organized by his pupil Gom-po-pa who died in 1152. Finding the "hermit-feature of this sect... unattractive," several "sub-sects soon arose which dispensed with the necessity for hermitage"; the Karmapa, founded by Tusum Khyenpa, being one of these latter "which differ from each ocher mainly in having each adopted a different revelation from the Nin-ma sect as a code of demoniacal worship, and so relaxing the purity of the former Kar-gyu-pa practice," writes Waddell, who (on his p. 207) states that "the Vin-ma-pa, or 'old (i.e., unreformed) school' of Lamas" is "also called the S'a-mar or 'red-hat sect."' The Karmapa, he reports, "differs from its parent sect in having retrograded towards the Nin-mapa practices by adopting the Nin-ma revelation found in Kong-bo" - fraudulent tantrik treatises, or "discovered" Termo forgeries - "and entitled Le-to Lin-pa, or 'the locally revealed merit,' and some also have 'Jab-ts'on-pa. Few of the Kar-ma Lamas are celibate, and Marpa, the founder of the parent sect (Kar-gyu-pa ) was married." Waddell adds, "The Kar-ma-pa sub-sect was founded in the middle of the twelfth century by Karma-pa Ran-ch'un Dor-je, also named Du-sum K'yen-po," a pupil of Gompo-pa. "His monastery of S'u-Ts'ur Lha-lun, built in 1154, at Ts' ur-pu, about one day's journey to the north of Lhasa beyond Sera," was (until Communist domination of Tibet) "still the headquarters" of the Karma-pa order. (1) Although "the most powerful of all the Kar-gyu-pa sub-sects" (and "zealously patronized" by "'a King of Western Tibet, with his capitol at Shigatse"), the Karmapa is, nevertheless, only one of seven or more such sub-sects. In absence of anything to the contrary, the claim that "His Holiness Gyalwa Karmapa" is "Spiritual Head of the Kagyu Order" simply appears to be a boastful claim without historical foundation, particularly in view of the predominance of the rival Kargyud subsect of the Dugpas which "possess the temporal as well as the spiritual power" as official State Church of Bhutan where "it has suppressed all other sects there." (2) This paper-claim pushes back the Karmapa lineage to "saint Tusum Khyenpa" in "the eleventh century," whereas his guru, Gam-po-pa, died in 1152 and "Du-sum K'yen-po" himself was not born until the 12th century: "born 1109, ordained 1124, died 1192" (loc. pit). (3) From 1109 until 1725, when, Waddell states, its head Lama was seen by the then Raja of Sikkim who "visited him in Tibet," the Karmapas had nine successive hierarchs, so that if, as here claimed, its "sixteenth incarnation" reigns, the vitality of the lineage has suffered a remarkable diminution in the last two centuries. (4) As for the promise of "the ceremony of the Black Crown, which he alone can perform" - we feel somewhat unimpressed. Perhaps it is that the idea of a "Black Crown" in a Black Tantrik ceremony reminds us too much of a word-picture painted by that modern master of supernatural horror, H.P. Lovecraft, inspired, we believe, by something by H.P.B. - : the dark "shadows more grotesque"

than can be told, which "came out and squatted on the heads" of the audience who gathered in "the great... city" to see a Black Adept who had arrived from the East. Likewise, it brings to attention the emblematic seal (?) of the Naropa Institute (illustrated on page 14 of the aforesaid journal). It pictures what appears to be one of the "wrathful deities" of the Kargyudpas, a grotesque figure who - to the uninitiated eye, aided even by a glass over the not-too-clear print - appears to be clutching before it what looks like an enormous scrotum, the fore-end of the organ disappearing into the demon's snout, while from the crown of his head erupts a black Vajra (or, in Bharati's language of left-hand Tantrik double-talk, a "phallus"). This pious symbolism has, no doubt, the highest "spiritual" context within the Kargyudpa. -------(1) The "arrangements" consisted of being somewhat prominent in the occult field and of possessing $40, which qualified about 1000 people and certainly put the great man beyond expense account worries. I got an invitation myself and I did have a not very dispensable $40. But I was too busy building a bridge - in more senses than one. One of them is bridge to the new generation, which is this work. - V.E. ---------- 18 range; and we take it to relate to an holy, alleged phenomenon remarked upon by Guenther in his discussion of "The Theoretical Content of Naropa's Training" (in the biographical work cited; pp. 199201). The "technique, much practiced today" aims for the "highest... to transfer oneself to the realm of radiant light" at "the exact moment of death," and is known as the "forceful means." The practice "is not without its dangers and under no circumstances can it be performed when there is any deformation in the bones of the skull or in the spinal cord." John Blofeld, a Red Hat initiate, in his book, The Tantric Mysticism of Tibet (E.P. Dutton and Co., Inc., 1970; pp. 234-5), describes it succinctly as a yoga that "is practiced for a time by nearly all initiates. At death, in accordance with their skill, they will be able to transfer themselves to realms of radiant light, into an apparitional existence or at least into a desirable incarnation. For, if they are fully successful in working this yoga, they will succeed in transferring the consciousness through an aperture which can be opened in the crown of the head at the sagittal suture where the two parietal bones come together, or, if less skillful, from various other parts of the body, of which the mouth, anus and penis are the least desirable. The practice is performed daily until success is signaled by lymph or blood oozing from the crown of the head at the spot just mentioned. That this indeed occurs and that a small hole spontaneously opens there as a result of the yoga has been attested by numbers of reliable witnesses in China and in the Indo-Tibetan border regions.... the yoga is dangerous and should not be attempted except under the guidance of a fully experienced Guru. (1) "The yoga takes the form of a sadhana in which a certain deity is visualized above the head; psychic force is gathered from the chakras (psychic centres) on the lower, middle and upper parts of the body and driven to the top of the head." Blofeld notes that this "psychic force" gathered up from "the chakras which are situated at the base of the spine, at the centre of the sex organs," etc., "coalesces in the form of a fluffy ball about the size of a pea and can be made to ascend and descend rapidly time after time." According to Guenther, "The driving force in this shift is the mantric syllable hik which in actual practice is uttered twenty-one times," discontinued when "lymph or blood appears at the fontanel opening.... and only repeated once at the exact moment of physical death." Our observations on this are that: (i) The motivational premise is in error, first of all, in supposing that any yoga but the power of Right Discrimination, when perfected in Raja-Yoga, can bring one "into a desirable incarnation." The Kargyudpa anticipation here elevates the delusional practice high above the Lords of Karma - besides

which, according to the "oneness of values," as taught by the Kargyudpa Guru-forbear, Naropa, no incarnation should be preferred over another! (ii) The "radiant light" answers simply to Earth's "Astral Light," which, in its lowest levels, is the abode of many kinds of supersensuous existence, including those of dire malignancy; and, itself being seen, signifies nothing, most "spirit mediums" getting "flashes" of it on entering or leaving trance. (iii) It requires no great or "dangerous" yogic effort to be able to transfer oneself "into an apparitional existence" either at death or before - Nature does the latter for all in Kama-loka (is this the Black Tantrik goal?). (iv) The phenomenal effect of oozing blood or lymph, resulting from this technique with "its dangers," signifies nothing more than that visualization through mental concentration can effect psychosomatic results (even fatal ones by what are, in truth, suicidal practices). (v) Guenther states that, "While the lower end of the central pathway relates man to his biological field of action... the upper end connects him with cosmic spheres" (op. cit., p. 162). The idea that the entrance of man's consciousness into these "cosmic spheres" at death or even before death, can be blocked by a thin shell of tissues and skull-bone is as quite a positive proof of stunted, mechano-materialistic thinking as is the notion of "skyclad" votaries of witchcraft that the fabric of clothing impedes the flow of occult life forces! (vi) It is on par with, and obviously a relic from, the superstitious ages of prehistoric man who bored holes in the skulls of his dead to "let the spirit out." (vii) It is on all fours with - and probably the paradigm for - the corkscrew "Third Eye" surgery of what Bharati berates as the "cretinistic confabulations" of "Rampaism" (though the lamas of the latter who "fly through the air at enormous speeds... run four hundred miles at a stretch without a break", together with "Monks and neophytes flying through the mysterious breeze on enormous kites; golden images in hidden cells, representing earlier incarnations of the man who views them" correlate with Tibet's "genuine tradition," as anyone may discover on reading a few authentic works by recognized Tibetologists - despite Bharati's denial thereof and whatever the motive for his ridicule heaped thereon). (5) From The Area Handbook for Nepal, Bhutan, and Sikkim (George L. Harris, et. al., Foreign Area Studies, The American University, Washington, D.C., published by the United States Government Printing Office; 1973), we learn that today, "The Buddhist clergy of Sikkim belong to the `Red Hat' orders of monks who are followers of Padmasambhava.... Of the three orders of Red Hat monks, the Kagyutpa, Nyingmapa and Sakyapa, the Kagyutpa has the largest representation in Sikkim; its principal, the Gyalwa Karmapa, fled Tibet after the 1950 invasion by the Chinese Communists and now lives at a monastery near Gangtok" (p. 391). In a book first published in England in 1966, Born in Tibet (by Chogyam Trungpa, the eleventh Trungpa TuIku, as told to Esme Cramer Roberts, with a Foreword by Marco Pallis; published at New York, 1968, by Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc.), the author reveals that as Chief Abbot of the Karmapa monastery of Surmang in Eastern Tibet (Chinese-administered), before his escape from the Communists, his teachers were Nyingmapas (Shammar Gurus, one of whom was made "director of the seminary" of Chogyam Trungpa's own monastery), while his ecclesiastical superior was and is "Gyalwa Karmapa, the Supreme Lama of the Order," the Kargyudpa sub-sect of Karmapas. The latter "left his monastery some weeks before the fall of Lhasa" in 1959 and, with "a newly found incarnation" and with "many abbots and lamas," fled from central Tibet "through Bhutan to India," taking "possessions with them." By advertisement, we are told that "His Holiness the Gyalwa Karmapa's visit to the United States, sponsored by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, will be his first journey outside of the Asian continent." In our July "Addendum" to Theosophical Notes (see our pages a-d), we saw Professor Bharati's article, "Fictitious Tibet" as primarily an attack against Mme. Blavatsky and all her works, as his rallying "cry to Vamacara-Tantriks, Red Capped Lamas and sundry other companions on the Left-Hand Path.... to the unholy task of throttling an old enemy on the eve of its 100th birthday." Lacking anything from the record to give substance to his charges against her, and thus forced to rely on the

fictitious and fraudulent evidence we have here unmasked, -------(1) Could this be the origin of our modern expression regarding the mentally questionable, "he has a hole in his head"? In one of Evans-Wentz' translations we note that it is not merely a death rite but regular practice. The actual opening of the hole is verified by sticking a straw in it. This seems a little unsanitary considering the flying yak-dung in the breezy Tibetan air. It could explain a lot about Tibet. - V.E. ----------- 19 Bharati, in his article, attempted to couple her Dzyan Theosophy with "Rampaism," thereby allowing him to picture himself as an all-wise exposer of pseudo-Tibetan hoaxes, and at the same time to introduce enough "weird, fake, and fakish" details to befuddle his readers and camouflage his real purpose. In light of subsequent information and events, even more importance must be attached to that attack. Consider its significance in respect to the following extraordinary "coincidences" of association and timing: (i) From the first we thought it unusual that, in "Fictitious Tibet," its author endorsed as "authentic" only two groups of the "roughly three hundred institutions in North America which claim a Hindu or Buddhist or, to a lesser degree, a Taoist background," viz., two Shammar (Red Hat) outfits, one Nyingmapa, the other Kargyudpa. It now transpires that he himself is allied with at least one of these, while his colleague, Guenther, the "so exalted a source" for which Bharati reserves the highest plaudits for scholarly authority on Indo-Tibetan-esotericism, is allied with both. Finally, the Kargyudpa centers which receive Bharati's chief support are guided by the Nyingmapa-trained Karmapa Rinpoche, Chogyam Trungpa; and it is the latter that brings to America his superior and Grand Lama of the Karmapa Order, H.H. Gyalwa Karmapa. (ii) Thus, Bharati's attack on Madame Blavatsky, by appearing in the Spring 1974 bulletin of the Tibet Society (of which, we are informed, Professor Bharati himself is now the editor), goes down as the first in a remarkable series of incidents marking an unprecedented expansion and invasion of Black Tantrism into America - the first session of Chogyam Trungpa's Naropa Institute, in the early summer, at which Professors Bharati and Guenther both arrive to teach, soon followed by the arrival in this country of "the Spiritual Head of the Kagyud Order", reputed to be the highest-ranked Red Hat Tantrik of all. In view of the associations indicated, one has no doubt that the whole represents an aggressive, carefully pre-planned sequence of events, the culmination of which, by its perfect timing, can be taken - after its own fashion - as the signal opening a new "occult effort" in the West, from beyond the Himalayas. Having taken refuge in Sikkim for 15 years or more, this present emissary of "Tibetan Esoteric Buddhism" chooses to make "his first journey outside of the Asian continent" only one year before the beginning of the last quarter of this century. What Mme. Blavatsky had to say concerning a cyclic "effort" to enlighten mankind, including the "white barbarians" of the West, during the last quarter of each century, is now commonly known far beyond the ranks of Theosophists only. It can be found - with no connection to her name or to her Adept-Brothers in what is commonly called "the White Lodge" - in books on the "Western Magical Tradition" and also as far afield of Theosophy as a published history of Tibet. There is no reason to suppose that the cited commandment of Tsong-Khapa, initiating these "efforts," nor that the "efforts" themselves in the past or in prospect, remains unknown to that counterpart, "the Black Lodge." Neither can we imagine that those whose allegiance is to the latter, have failed to consider the one source in the West of potentially major opposition to their own plans of exploiting every opportunity to widen their own "spiritual" dominion. (iv) Until these most recent events, the Black Tantric invasion of the Occident has been low-

key and confined to areas outside the public spotlight, thus failing to alert Theosophical attention. But with the expansion planned for 1974, its leadership could no longer hope to escape the possibility of hostile scrutiny from those forewarned by H.P.B.'s own well-known record of criticism and adamant opposition. We can only believe that Professor Bharati's article was prepared beforehand to forestall and cushion such anticipated criticism. It has served its purpose of pre-conditioning and prejudicing his reading followers and as many others as it has reached against Mme. Blavatsky and her students, with its view to discrediting the latter as reliable critics of the kind of teachings and practices Bharati and Co. are now preparing to propagate on a national scale. (Nevertheless, it would be prudent for Theosophists, Buddhists and others everywhere on the White Path to make what use they can of this antidote.) There also was the prospect that its author could use his attack, "Fictitious Tibet," to do even more than that, to, in fact, spike the guns of the enemy beforehand. By, at some length, dwelling upon and even amplifying - the discreditable vagaries of C.W. Leadbeater, falsely represented to his readers as a "founder" of Mme. Blavatsky's Society, the attacking critic apparently hoped to head-off any criticism from that best known Theosophical center at Wheaton. Illinois - and, indeed, we have seen nothing in print directed against him, or against his fellow-initiates and their activities, from that quarter (nor, indeed, from anywhere else!). As chief stronghold of American support for Leadbeater's teachings and as publisher and promoter of his books, this center seems quickly to have realized that Bharati defused their arsenal at a time when, because of resources and size of following, they of any were otherwise best-equipped to reach the largest national audience with corrective counterinformation. Unfortunately for his own cause, however, Professor Bharati overlooked the important fact that, for true followers of H.P.B., Leadbeater is considered no Theosophical authority, one not on her line at all - thus depriving Bharati's contrived attack of any power to extort silence from the sentinels of the Dzyan Dzong, who are ever ready, able and willing to wield, upon any and every desirable specimen for dissection, the penetrating scalpel of Truth. (6) Some (even some "Theosophists" lacking the benefit of our findings) will be impressed by the boast that "His Holiness" Gyalwa Karmapa "is the highest ranking living lama after his holiness the Dalai Lama." In our next section, we will examine this claim and look at what Mme. Blavatsky and others have had to say about the spiritual rank of H.H. the Dalai Lama. ----------N.B. - In some copies of "Addendum" the page folios have been changed to "a, b, c, d," and are so referred to in the foregoing text. ---------------------------MAGIC BLACK VERSUS MAGIC WHITE [[Carrithers]] A first reading of Agehananda Bharati's "Fictitious Tibet: The Origin and Persistence of Rampaism," immediately gave rise to certain deductions: 1. That its author is one of that growing number of scholarly types sympathetic towards, or devoted to, Indo-Tibetan Tantrism of the left-hand Path, one of those who have been reported to us as currently invading European and North American university ranks and moving steadily into greater prominence and "authority" via preferred academic appointments. 2. That, by her adamantine opposition to the left-hand Path of Occultism, whether exemplified in the "Red Hat" sects of exoteric Northern Buddhism (Nyingmapa, Sakyapa, and Kargyudpa, of which latter the official Dugpa Church of Bhutan is the best-known) or in the Vamacara Tantrik cults of India, Mme. Blavatsky left their followers no grounds for compromise and no alternative but to bray angrily,

as does Bharati today, at her "horrendous hogwash." In her Theosophical Glossary (p. 319), she wrote of "Tantra": "Certain mystical and magical works, whose chief peculiarity is the worship of the female power, personified in Sakti. Devi or Durga (Kali, Siva's wife) is the special energy connected with sexual rites and magical powers - the worst form of black magic and sorcery. (1) "Tantrika (Sk.) Ceremonies connected with the above worship. Sakti having a two-fold nature, white and black, good and bad, the Saktas are divided into two classes, the Dakshinacharis and the Vamacharis, or the right-hand and the left-hand Saktas, i.e., 'white' and 'black' magicians. The worship of the latter is most licentious and immoral." By her persistent condemnation, in words like these, of the amoral beliefs and immoral practices of her occult opposition, HPB - more than 80 years ago sketched-out today's arena for conflict. 3. That as an obvious leader of this aggressive opposition, Professor Bharati well knows that the presence of the Great Work of Mme. Blavatsky in the Occident is the most formidable barrier separating the Left-Hand Tantriks from their goal of dominating Occultism in the West. Thus, as if to breach this barrier, his paper makes her and her teachings its primary target of attack, behind its pretense of exploiting the "Lama Lobsang Rampa" exposure. Before Bharati and his cadres can realize their brazen aim of expropriating for their own exclusive use such terms as "Esoteric Buddhism," "Tantra," and "Indo-Tibetan Esotericism," thereby making these, in the popular mind, synonymous with left-hand Tantrism, Blavatskianism will first have to be swept out of the way! Hence, Bharati's attack though it will not be recognized as such by most of his readers - is simply a battle-cry to rally Vamacara-Tantriks, Red-Capped Lamas and sundry companions on the Left-Hand Path (not to speak of their collective dupes and dopes) to the unholy task of throttling an old enemy on the eve of its 100th birthday! Extensive research has now confirmed the full truth of these initial deductions. First of all, there is Bharati s extraordinarily odd evaluation that, though "there are roughly three hundred institutions in North America which claim a Hindu or Buddhist or, to a lesser extent, a Taoist background" (op. cit., p. 9), there are only two of these fit to receive in his paper (p. 10), his endorsement as "authentic." These two are described as "authentic Tibetan Buddhist centers, viz. Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche's Karma Dzong in Boulder, Colorado, and his Tail of the Tiger in Barnet, Vt.; and Lama Tarthang's Nyingma center at Berkeley, California." For more on "the Incarnate Lama Tarthang Tulku," see The New Religions, by Professor Jacob Needleman (Pocket Book, 1974). Janice Dean Willis, in her book, The Diamond Light of the Eastern Dawn (Simon and Schuster, 1972), a collection of Tantras translated from the Tibetan of Gelugpa ("Yellow Hat") and Nyingma and Kargyud ("Red Hat") schools, refers to one of these last texts, "As translated by the Ven. Chogyam Trungpa Tulku, Rinpoche of the Kargyudpa Sect" (footnote 10, page 90, Ibid. Her glossary, p. 90, defines "Tulku" as "Tibetan for Nirmanakaya" - ! See below). Bharati was formerly on the faculty of Washington State University (Seattle), which, he says, "now owns the best collection of Tantric material, both Indian and Tibetan, in the western hemisphere." He mentions consulting with "Tibetan Tantric adepts," Red Hat Lamas, "Dezhung Rinpoche and Phrin las Rinpoche of the Sakya monks in Seattle" (The Tantric Tradition, p. 263). In her Key to Theosophy (pp. 13-15), Mme. Blavatsky, in discussing Gautama Buddha, observed that "the schools of the Northern Buddhist Church, established in those countries to which his initiated Arhats retired after the Master's death, teach all that is now called Theosophical doctrines, because they form part of the knowledge of the initiates...." (In her E. S. Instructions, she defined her use of the word: "an Initiate - of course an Adept of the right-hand Path alone is meant.") When approaching the climax of her first book, Isis Unveiled, HPB wrote: "Within the cloisters of Dshashi Lumbo and Si-Dzong," - Tashi-Lhunpo and Shigatze - "these powers inherent in every man, called out by so few, are cultivated to their utmost perfection. Who in India, has not heard of the Banda-Chen Ramoutchi, the Houtouktou of the capital of Higher Tibet? His brotherhood of Khe-lap was famous throughout the land...." Her Theosophical Glossary identifies Panchen Rimpoche, the Tashi Lama then

at Shigatze, as "an Avatar of Tsong-Kha-pa" and "the successor of Tsong-Kha-pa at the golden monastery founded by the latter Reformer and established by the Gelukpa sect (yellow caps), who created the Dalai Lamas at Lhassa, and was the first of the dynasty of the 'Panchen Rimpoche.'" Tsong-Kha-Pa, she describes as the "famous Tibetan reformer of the fourteenth century, who introduced purified Buddhism into his country. He was a great Adept, who being unable to witness any longer the desecration of Buddhist philosophy by the false priests - who made of it a marketable commodity, put a forcible stop thereto by a timely revolution and the exile of 40,000 sham monks and lamas from the country. He is regarded as an Avatar of Buddha; and is the founder of the Gelukpa ("yellow cap") Sect, and of the mystic brotherhood connected with its Chiefs." (ibid.) In an editorial addendum to the Peking edition of The Voice of the Silence (having as frontispiece, a holographic inscription, "Written especially by H.H. The Tashi Lama for this Reprint"), the publishers, Cleather and Crump, recount: "In a letter to a German occultist H.P.B. wrote: 'There is in the Himalayas a nucleus of Adepts of various nationalities, and the Tashi Lama knows them, and they act together; and some of them are with him and yet remain unknown in their true character, even to the average lamas. My Master (M.) and K.H., and several others I know personally are there, coming and going.'" (In her Theo. Glossary, HPB writes that the Panchen Lamas of the "Yellow Hat" order "are high Initiates.") The "Book of Dzyan - from the Sanskrit word 'Dhyan' (mystic meditation)," together with "seven secret ----------(1) There are various explanations of why the fourth yuga of a cycle is called "Kali." (The Black or Iron Age.) Possibly one of them is that it is ruled by the spirit of this "goddess - " as we are about to learn, the full force of retribution for it, the present age, being about to be felt. (2) In the word "Avatar" H.P.B. was repeating the Buddhist belief. The then Tashi Lama was not necessarily an incarnation of the Buddha, but Tsong-Kah-Pa was - in a certain sense. This brings in that "mystery of the Buddha" again. - V.E. ------------ b folios of Kiu-Te" and esoteric "commentaries" and glossary thereon "by the initiated Teachers... worked out from the small archaic folio, the Book of the Secret Wisdom of the World," - containing "a digest of all the Occult Sciences" - were (at her writing) "in possession of Gelukpa lamas" and "kept secret and apart in the charge of the Teschu Lama of Tzi-gad-je" (Shigatze). (Note to Editor: The Theosophical Movement is on the threshold of great things, and the time is ripe for important changes - for the better! Your innovative use of the term "Dzyan Theosophy," to distinguish the original teachings of HPB and her "Brother-Adepts" from the various neo-theosophies, or degenerate offshoots, is very good and fully warranted, and I hope it "takes"!) (1) As Dr. Peter Purdue (formerly of the Columbia University faculty and, as author, Associate Professor of Religion - working with the Department of Asian Studies - at (Bharati's) Indiana University) shows in his book Buddhism, the reformation by Tsong-Kha-Pa was met with vicious resistance on the part of a recalcitrant minority, resulting even in bloodshed. Afterwards, "the victory of the Yellow Church and its values" was celebrated in public dramas "which visually depict the defeat of the Red Church and the Bon priests" of the aboriginal Tibetan shamanism. To those of the Nyingma sect (the "Red Hats" of the "Red Church") - as to Dr Evans-Wentz in his work, The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation (pp. xv, xvi ), their founder, Padmasambhava, is "the Great Guru representing on Earth the Tantric, or Esoteric, Emanation of the Buddha" and Padma's "Doctrine of the Great Perfection is the most aspiring, noblest, and loftiest of spiritual doctrines." The latter, they say, was named in a prophecy they allege to have been uttered by Gautama Buddha, when dying, describing Padma as one who was to come after Him, and, indeed, was to be an even greater one

by whom "the Esoteric Doctrine will be established." Janice Willis, who seems to have begun her studies under Gelugpa Lamas and then passed to Red Hat tutors, in her book (p. 89) writes, "Padma Sambhava is venerated as the most high of the Nirmanakayas." All of this, from the Red Hats and their "Esoteric" doctrines, if believed, would put in the shade Gautama Buddha, Tsong-Kha-Pa and his line of Panchen Lamas, together with the Dalai Lama and all Gelugpas (who built and controlled the famed Potala at Lhasa and the country's five largest monasteries), as well as their genuine Right Path Esoteric teachings. It directly contradicts HPB's statement (see The Voice of the Silence) "that Gautama Buddha with several of his Arhats" is "a Nirmanakaya, higher than whom, on account of the great renunciation and sacrifice to mankind, there is none known." (2) ---------To pass from "horrendous hogwash" (Bharati) to the really sublime, an edifying example of Padmasambhava's spiritual feats is here taken from Evans-Wentz' above-named book: Upon learning a "petty king" of his own native country had "become inimical to religion, and his subjects, following his example, likewise, Padma went there in the guise of one of the Wrathful Deities and deprived the king and all his men among the unbelievers of their bodies, or means of sowing further evil karma; and, magically transmuting the bodies, he drank the blood and ate the flesh.... Every woman whom he met he took to himself, in order to purify her spiritually, and fit her to become the mother of religiouslyminded offspring." To which, Evans-Wentz, himself an initiate of a line of Kargyud lamas of the Dugpa Church of Bhutan, adds: "This legend, in the eyes of Tibetans" - which Tibetans? (Evans-Wentz himself never having entered Tibet) - "shows that it is right for a Great Yogi to cut short the career of an evil-doer by depriving him of his consciousness principle... in such manner that it will be reborn in a religious environment. But to take life without the Yogic power so to direct the consciousness principle is a most henious sin." And also, "Like many other Culture Heroes, Padma-Sambhava makes natural use of his masculinity, as in this instance, for eugenic good. It is pointed out in our General Introduction that conventional concepts of sex morality are completely ignored by him" - and by those who follow his "path", too, we might add. On the principle of the chela emulating the guru, one discerns suspicious parallels between the "magical" feats of Padmasambhava and the sorceries of some of the more-daring among his Red Hat followers. Thus, firstly, Evans-Wentz (op. cit., pp. xvi, 142-4, 166, 161) gives us the traditional Nyingma-Kargyud-Dugpa story of the yogini, Mandarava, Padma's "most faithful and blessed disciple," born of his own magical "light-ray" sent into the womb of the Queen of Urgyan. While Mandarava herself, for food, "went to the cemetery to eat the flesh of corpses," her mother, the Queen, sent her to market to buy meat; but one day, finding none there for sale, Manarava "cut off flesh from a child's corpse which she discovered on her way back to the palace, and gave it to her mother, who ordered her to make a stew of it, and Mandarava did so. Upon partaking of the stew, the King was levitated from his seat and felt as though he could fly; and taking the meat to be that of a Brahmin seven times born, sent Mandarava to fetch the remainder of the corpse. The king took the corpse, had it turned into magical pills, and had these buried in a box in a cemetery under the guardianship of the dakinis." Padma, revered by the Red Caps as the "God of the Corpses," having himself "become a Buddha at Bodh-Gaya," afterwards transformed his appearance "into the son of a Brahmin... and made obeisance before a Brahmin possessed of divine prescience. 'Why dost thou make obeisance to me?' asked the Brahmin. And Padma replied, 'in order that I may aid the creatures of the world, I require the flesh of one who hath been born a Brahmin seven times successively. If thou canst not provide me with any now, please do it at the hour of thy decease."' The Brahmin, not anxious to give up any portion of his living body for Padma to work magic with, promised only that, "as soon as I am dead then thou mayst have my flesh...." The celebrated traveler and Buddhist, Mme. Alexandra David-Neel, who lived for some time in

Tibet among lamas of different sects, recounts in her book, Magic and Mystery in Tibet, "certain information" given "with great reserve" by some Red Hat "anchorites" (pp. 133, 164): "There exist, so they said, certain human beings who have attained such a high degree of spiritual perfection that the original substance of their bodies has become transmuted into a more subtle one which possesses special qualities. "Few people can discern the change which has come over these exceptional men. A morsel of their transformed flesh, when eaten, will produce a special kind of ecstasy and bestow knowledge and supernormal powers upon the person partaking of it. "A hermit told me that when a naljorpa, through his clairvoyance has discovered one of these wonderful beings, he sometimes begs from him the favour of being informed of his death in order that he may obtain a small ------(1) I thank Mr. Carrithers. However, the "great things" will not come immediately. There is a deep dark river for all of us to cross in the coming reaction of Nature as well as man. But things move fast now; it will not take the million years of Atlantean disaster or the ages of others since. Modern tempo permits more sins per minute than ever before, and the results, once unleashed, will come as fast. - V.E. (2) A Nirmanakaya is an Adept minus body, qualified for Nirvana but staying with us to help guide us away from the Tantric limbo, among other things. - V.E. ---------- c portion of his precious body. "Might fervent candidates for this gruesome communion not sometimes grow too impatient and refuse to wait for the natural death of the holy one? - Might they not hurry it forward? "One of those who disclosed this secret rite to me almost seemed to confess that the thing had happened. However, he was careful to mention the attenuating circumstance that the victim consented to the sacrifice." Dr. Evans-Wentz, in a footnote to Padmasambhava's like-desire for "sacred meat," adds that his Tibetan translator told him of "seeing, as a boy, a dried bit of such flesh brought to his mother and described as having been found... amidst a cache of hidden books in Tibet." (1) Dr. Evans-Wentz himself alludes to "the traditional anatagonism existing between the 'Reformed' Yellow Caps and the 'Old-Style' Red Cap Sects of Padma-Sambhava...." Calling the latter the "Shammrs," Mme. Blavatsky wrote (Collected Writings, iv p. 15): "The Shammar sect is not, as wrongly supposed, a kind of corrupted Buddhism, but an offshoot of the Bon religion - itself a degenerate remnant of the Chaldean mysteries of old, now a religion entirely based upon necromancy, sorcery and soothsaying. The introduction of Buddha's name into it means nothing." Professor Pardue describes the Bon pantheon as one of "very archaic Indo-Iranian and central Asian traditions elevated to an apotheosis of horrors: the walking dead, vampires, hundreds of malevolent spirits, each with a specialized talent to inflict sickness, torture and death" (op. cit., pp. 10001). The whole of the lot were, it is claimed by his devotees, "subdued" and "converted" into Padmasambhava's occult retinue. The tiger, invited into the tent, soon became, it seems, indistinguishable from the host! The author of Sexuality, Magic and Perversion (Citadel Press, 1972), Francis King, while carelessly belittling Mme. Blavatsky, and looking "forward" to "a westernized version of Tantricism" attracting "a following," finds even Evans-Wentz "displayed an extremely puritantical attitude towards Tantricism" when he "so far forgot that moral detachment which is so integral a part of the equipment

of Scholarship, as to refer to 'those hypocrites who follow the left hand path in Bengal and elsewhere'" (ref. not given). King is disturbed that, "Even Lama Anagarika Govinda has claimed that physical sexuality plays no part in Tibetan Buddhism - a statement that, in its literal meaning, is quite simply untrue. Agehananda Bharati has made the ingenious suggestion that by 'physical' the Lama meant 'consciousness of physical,' in which case the statement is probably correct, for there is some evidence to show that the advanced Tantric adept engaged in copulation is more or less unaware of what is happening on the physical plane" (Ibid., p. 34). (2) King finds Bharati's Tantric Tradition simply "brilliant." The "sexual magic," whether of the left-hand Tantriks of the Bonpa and Nyingmapa (of which, as Evans-Wentz shows, the Dugpas of Bhutan and Sikkim comprise "sub-sects"), or of the VamacaraTantriks of India, takes two forms, though sometimes doubtless interchanged in practice by some. In one, the Dakini (or "the presiding "Goddess") "possesses" the female partner who acts as a medium and copulates with the yogi-devotee. In the other, the yogi-devotee himself is sufficiently mediumistic to copulate directly with the object of his "spiritual desire" during his "meditation" (or, one might say, ''in the astral world"). In the presence of a really "good" medium, either method might effect an "appearance" and result in "materialization" and provide still a second type of physical union. One sees here a parallel to the depraved practices of certain 19th century spiritualists, giving emphasis to HPB's warning that "the Dugpas" were then attempting to take over that movement. Similarly, today the sexrites or orgies of certain left-hand "covens" of the "Witchcraft renaissance" are, as over-ripe fruit, ready for the plucking by those whom HPB described as "Tantrik witches of present-day "Bengal" and their Red Cap counterparts. As Dr. Evans-Wentz shows (loc. cit.), besides his rapings, bastardies, murders and cannibalistic forays - for the "good of religion" - , the Great Guru Ideal of the Red Hat Tantriks also set examples to be emulated by his "dalliance" - to use the Doctor's euphemism - "with females, both human and of the dakini order ....regarded by the Nyingmapas as being one of his many religious acts which has esoteric significance and results in benefit to the religion" (op. cit., p. 120). Mme David-Neel, a personal friend of Evans-Wentz' Dugpa guru, writes that the latter "sought for secret intercourse with the Dakinis and the dreadful gods hoping to gain supernormal powers." Of the "dakinis," she writes: "Their Tibetan name is ... pronounced Kadoma. They are often styled 'mothers' and are said to impart esoteric profound doctrines to their devotees." Madame Blavatsky better describes these as "Female demons, vampires and blood-drinkers.... In the Puranas they attend upon the goddess Kali and fed on human flesh. A species of evil 'elementals"' (Theosophical Glossary, p. 95). In his Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism, Lama Anagarika Govinda (a German scholar, an initiate of the Kargyud Red Hat school, who has made his home with his wife at Almora, India), teaches that we are to emulate the Buddha in order to again experience our first divine estate. The key to such "transformation," he avows, is a "turning-about in the deepest seat of consciousness" during meditation. Govinda writes that to this end the principle aid and impetus for the Sadhaka (Tantric practitioner) is "the inspiring muse," Dorje Naljorma, who, when she appears, is seen as a Dakini, "a Khadoma of brilliant red color, surrounded by a halo of flames." This, he says, is one of those beings which "according to popular conception, are divine or demoniacal". The final stage is realized when the devotee in meditation "becomes one with the divine form of the Khadoma" (see my review in FATE, 1961). Of such practices, Mme. Blavatsky wrote ("Thoughts on the Elementals," Lucifer, May, 1890): "Many of the preliminary rules and conditions to enter societies of adepts, whether of the Right or the Left Path, are also identical in many things. Thus Gabalis says to the author: 'The Sages will never admit you into their society if you do not renounce from the very present a Thing which cannot stand in competition with Wisdom. You must renounce all carnal Commerce with Women' (p. 27). "This is a sine qua non with practical Occultists -Rosicrucians or Yogis, Europeans or Asiatics.

But it is also one with the Dugpas and Jadoos of Bhutan and India, one with the Voodoos and Nagals of New Orleans and Mexico, with an additional clause to it, however, in the statutes of the latter. And this is to have carnal commerce with male and female Djins, Elementals, or Demons, call them whatever you will." To which she adds in foot-------(1) The telesmatic effect of this human jerky is on a par with the splinters of the "true cross" which were sold by the cord in the Middle Ages. It's not surprising because it is a form of the suggestive power, "faith", which brought the tangible Universe into birth. It is like the "lingam," stone emblem of the penis, carried and fondled by the orthodox Hindus as an emblem of the creative power. Do the Tantrikas carry a dried - ?? - V.E. (2) This compares with Wilhelm Reich's contention that the sex act is not complete unless the motions become involuntary. - V.E. ----------- d note: "The Jewish Kabalist of Poland and Galacia calls the female spirit of Nergal, - of red "NergalMars, 'the shedder-of-blood"' - "when bent on revenge to his help and to infuse into him power. The Mussulman Sorcerer, a female Djini; a Russian Kaldoon, a deceased Witch (Vyedma). The Chinese malefficer has a female Houen in his house at his command. The above intercourse is said to give magic powers and a Supernatural Force." Following which, she writes: "What the Occultists and Kabalists said all along, and which the Theosophists now repeat is, that holy Spirits will not visit promiscuous seance-rooms, nor will they intermarry with living men and women." But, of the Black Adepts, accomplished in their practice of these depraved rites, she calls them by the term, "Brothers of the Shadow"; "A name given by Occultists to Sorcerers, and especially to the Tibetan Dugpas, of whom there are many in the Bon sect of the Red Caps (Dugpas). The word is applied to all practitioners of black and left hand magic" (Theos. Glossary, p. 64). Such "Brothers of the Shadow" are known in the East, she declares (C.W., pp. 197-8), "living men possessed by the earthbound elementaries; at times their masters, but ever in the long run falling victims to these terrible beings. In Sikkim and Tibet they are called Dug-pas (red-caps), in contradistinction to the Gelup-pas (yellow caps), to whom latter most of the adepts belong. And here we must beg the reader not to misunderstand us. For though the whole of Bhutan and Sikkim belongs to the old religion of the Bhons, now known generally as Dug-pas, we do not mean to have it understood that the whole of the populations is possessed, en masse, or that they are all sorcerers. Among them are found as good men as anywhere else, and we speak only of the elite of their Lamaseries, of a nucleus of priests, 'devildancers,' and fetish worshipers whose dreadful and mysterious rites are utterly unknown to the greater part of the population." (1) Additional insight into the rites of the Tibetan sorcerers is provided by von NebeskyWojkowitz, who spent three years in "Tibet and the neighboring mountain countries." In his chapter, "The Masters of Black Magic" (Where the Mountains are Gods, Reynal and Co.), he writes: "According to Tibetan belief, the many evil spirits and half-tamed demons are only too willing to aid sorcerers in the destruction of human life - subject to receiving offerings of a special sort. The socalled 'inner offerings' presented to them in these cases consist of a cake of dark flour and blood, five kinds of flesh (including human flesh), and the skull of an incestuously begotten child filled with blood and white mustard seeds." (The "hidden meaning" of the latter ingredient in this devil's recipe will be obvious to the reader who knows the demons prefer human substance above all.) To these are added "'outer offerings' - bowls of blood and brains, a lamp fed with human fat and having a wick of human hair, a doughy mass of gall, brains and human entrails - must be spread on the flayed skin of a child. In addition to this, poisonous thorn apple blossoms and human flesh are to be burnt as incense. In the

third, so-called 'secret offering,' the deities are supplied with symbolic partners for ritual sexual intercourse" - "symbolic," one might add, only if the "deities" cannot "materialize" or make astral appearance before the sorcerer. "It was because, among other reforms, Tsong-Kha-Pa forbade necromancy (which is practiced to this day with the most disgusting rites by the Bons - the aborigines of Tibet - with whom the Red Caps, or Shammars, had always fraternized), that the latter resisted his authority" (H.P.B., C.W., iv, p. 12). How can a medium desert his "spirit-controls"? In concert with the measure of will and concentration of mind and body, with which he worships and makes "offerings" to them (whether they be Tibet's "Mamo She-Demons" or India's "Goddess Kali"), he will be bound to them in this life and in the next. "Where the carrion is, there also shall the vultures be gathered." Gathered unto dark entities of pure evil, bottomless vortices that are the cesspool-traps of Earth's Astral Fluid, repositories of unimaginable filth discharged from generations of blackened brains. Vampires persisting in the astral worlds for centuries, it may be, sucking up the "souls" of generation-after-generation of sorcerers devotees whose "offerings" and "mantras" (held secret with their lines of Black Tantrik Gurus) rouse the demon to the feast and put it on their heels like the call to a responsive beast. (2) Astral vehicles (elementals) infilled by the still-lingering will of elementaries, Black and Red Gurus whose "consciousness principles" have long since been forever divorced from their bodies and from Divine Spirit, and now infesting these psychic "sumps" where are assimilated the decaying and disintegrating Karmarupic remains of what once were men and devotees of the "Dakini-Goddess," empty shells deserted by egos lucky enough to have died before their "final initiation." For, despite the apparent brainless idiocy of ail the moral outrages and acts of depravity taken by the left-hand Tantriks as signs of attainment "beyond good and evil," their chosen "Path to Renunciation" is a deliberately-designed training which prepares the Black Adept to become an elementary after his death, a ghastly parody of "Nirvanic escape from the Wheel of Life, one which, though it truly gives "no return" - leads not to Moksha (Liberation) but to Avitchi ("uninterrupted hell," a hell whose only "bliss" is the gain of another sanguinary "offering" or another human victim). In the quotations we have given, Mme. Blavatsky places her teachings squarely and irrevocably on the side of the Great Reformer of Tibetan Buddhism, Tsong-Kha-Pa, and of his line of Gelugpa Arhats, and she leaves no quarter to their opposition, the Bons and neo-Bons (Nyingmapas, Kargyudpas, Dugpas and Red Hats of whatever school, together with their Left-hand counterparts, the Vamachari-Tantrikas of India) - no choice for them but to reject and vilify her teachings if their own are to prevail. And their opposition must be commensurate with their allegiance to their respective schools. How then can it be otherwise than that Professor Bharati - who, "As an ordained monk of the Dasanami Order of Sannyasi ... received full Tantrik initiation" into the Vamachari practices (see J. Marques-Riviere, Tantrik Yoga, Samuel Weiser, 1973); so that, together with his allies on the same path, ambitious to sow the black seed of their vile teachings into the hearts and minds of the new generations of the now occult-aware West, after failing to conquer the East (see his Tantric Tradition, pp. 11, 297-9) - should conspire to destroy the public heritage of That One Who stands between them and their goal? "The yellow sunflower, preparing to release its treasure of a thousand seeds, thrives on the golden nectar of the Solar Orb; but the scarlet weed of midnight withers under the bright light of highnoon, and its black poison harms neither man nor beast." - Walter A. Carrithers, Jr. ----------------(1) P.B. Randolph in the 19th Century headed a colony of homegrown Tantrikas at Santa Rosa, California, which claimed that to avoid physical depletion they could rise in the astral out of the

physical and perform the act there. So far I have not heard this described as one of the many current "out-of-body" stunts. (2) Refers to the "succubus" of Middle Age fame - also the "spirit bride" of the spiritualism of the Randolph type, which actually could materialize in seance. In her magazine H.P.B. printed an article by Solovioff, who later became her worst enemy, describing his own adventures with one of these ladies. He claimed that she ruined his health. Obviously not merely physically. - V.E. - From Theosophical Notes, September, 1974 ------------NOTE ON THE FOREGOING ADDENDUM ("MAGIC BLACK VERSUS MAGIC WHITE") This is by the Founder and present Secretary of The Blavatsky Foundation, of which I am President. I will now show Exhibit C, the true story of Tibetan Buddhism, by the well-known authority, Lowell Thomas, who made contact with Tibet via the real Buddhists, the Gelukpas or Yellow Caps, who controlled Tibet in the days of H.P. Blavatsky. (Encyclopedia Americana, 1958 Edition.) "Lamaism represents a fusion of the Buddhist faith, which came from India in the 7th century A.D., with the indigenous animistic cult known as the Bon religion. Bon is a barbarous superstition, a polytheism abounding in demon worship, sorcery, and magic, including the rite of human sacrifice. The older religion still exists. But its temples and its priests have been absorbed by the faith of the majority; its horrible and sinister elements have largely disappeared under the impact of the nobler doctrine of Buddha. "....the most important propagator of Lamaism, Padma Sambhava, who attracted disciples, founded monasteries, and ensured the dominance in Tibet of Indian rather than Chinese interpretations of Buddhist doctrine. His efforts were only partially successful, because the shamans or priests of Bon opposed the new religion and were able to contaminate it with their superstitions. This was made easier by the fact that Mahayana Buddhism is polytheistic and can be reconciled with the native polytheism of Bon (unlike the other great branch of Buddhism, monotheistic Hinayana, the "Lesser Vehicle".)* To this day Lamaism is partially Bon, although predominantly Buddhist. ---------* Somewhat distorted on Mahayana. Its "polytheism" does have anthropomorphic aspects but basically is a recognition of the various evolutionary forces of nature. ---------"The latter history of Lamaism shows an increasing debasement under the influence of Bon demonism, magic, and sex worship, until in the 11th century another great Indian teacher, Atisha, began the reforms that caused the balance to decline sharply against the local cult and in favor of a purer Buddhism. After Atisha the movement continued until Tibet became the cornerstone of Northern (Mahayana) Buddhism, just as Ceylon is the center of Southern (or Hinayana) Buddhism. ........... "The Lamaist hierarchy is divided into two main sects: The Red Hats and Yellow Hats. The former are older and more lenient. They marry, drink, and are less strict in their monasteries. The Yellow Hats are a reformed sect which dates from the early 14th century, when Tsong-kha-pa, the great reformer, introduced a more stringent system, insisting on celibacy, abstinence from alcoholic liquors, and rigid obedience to discipline. Tsong-kha-pa's system became predominant, and for three centuries the Yellow Hats have constituted the "established church" in Tibet. No one can challenge them today, because at their head stand the Dalai Lama himself in Lhasa and the Panchen Lama, whose

headquarters is at the great monastery of Tashi Lumpo in Shigatse." Hence the Blavatsky story of the real Tibet is as accurate as are her accounts of its religion, and the Tantric attempt to make a "horrible mishmash of bogus Buddhism" of her works, is proven part of what must be the biggest hoax in history. The motive thereof is crystal clear. She is a deadly danger to these creatures; she has to be wiped off the map before she exposes them, as soon would be the case if her teachings ever get a free public run; the breakthrough I have been trying to make against their machinations for several desperate years, against every kind of obstruction and trickery, from both Eastern and Western Tantrikas. (A part of which I plan to reveal in next issue.) They are not only trying to put her off the map, but the whole real history of Buddhism for its first two thousand years, which is embodied in countless authoritative works by Tibetan and other Buddhists, and Western writers like Max Muller and others, quoted by Blavatsky. How could they succeed? Simply by the ignorance of the public. I doubt that even many of my readers understand all that, and in these days who reads anything but a newspaper or current magazine anyway? We have here the evidence of two major failures: that of the Christian churches, whose wooden, stilted, barbaric and bob-tailed dogma turned off the younger generation which is equipped with the "Aquarian Age" mind; and The Theosophical Society, which failed almost wholly to carry out its "Second Object" of teaching comparative religions, with emphasis on the Eastern. As it is with this profound ignorance prevailing and sexual corruption running wild in the theatres, wife-swapping, bisexual practices and all the other whoredoms rife, the Tantrikas had reason to think they could take over the whole country, by substituting Buddhism, Hinduism, and Christianity. Carrithers tells me that these people are now claiming a mass of ancient MSS being dug up in Tibet to substantiate their claim of being the real Buddhas. I have no doubt at all that this is true; those forgeries of Padma Sambhava may well have begun in the 7th century, and it is there that the tongue of "the serpent of wisdom" split. There must be two versions of the works of Padma Sambhava, both of them beginning with the same authentic texts, one winding up with the Tantra. My forebodings of Tantric infiltration of Theosophical groups has proven true; it has been going on, and already spotted, by devoted and puzzled Theosophists. It was the tip-off from them which triggered my own entrance into the matter; Carrithers had noted it some time previously. -------- September, 1974, Theosophical Notes ------------------------------[[ This is Addendum II to Carrither's "Madame Blavatsky and Occult Tibet" was published in No. 5, 1975 Theosophical Notes]] BEHIND THE MASK: POISONED PEN & POISONED "POPES" By Walter A. Carrithers, Jr. "'Dugpa' is a Tibetan word, derived from a root gdug, meaning poison; hence gDug-pa signifies generally anything harmful.... it is also applied to a person who makes mischief and does harm." - Geoffrey Barborka IN A PUBLISHED REPLY to criticism by the pretended Orientalist, Arthur Lillie, later her first hostile biographer, Madame H.P. Blavatsky wrote (in part): "I have lived at different periods in Little Tibet as in Great Tibet, and these combined periods form more than seven years. Yet, I have never stated either verbally or over my signature that I had passed seven consecutive years in a convent. What I have said and repeat now is, that I have visited Tzi-gadze, the Tdashoo-Hlum-po territory and

its neighborhood, and that I have been farther in, and in such places of Tibet as have never been visited by other Europeans...." "Nor have I ever received any instruction 'under the roof' of the monks; nor has anyone ever claimed such a thing on my behalf, or to my knowledge. I might have lived in male lamaseries, as thousands of lay men and women do; and I might have received my 'instruction' there. Anyone can go to Darjeeling and receive, a few miles from there, teaching from Tibetan monks, and 'under their roofs.' But I have never so claimed, for the simple reason that neither of the Mahatmas whose names are known in the West are monks.... "I close by informing Mr. Lillie that years before he had an idea of Buddhists and Thibetans, I was quite familiar with the Lamaism of Thibetan Buddhists. I passed months and years of my childhood among the Lamaist Calmucks of Astrakhan, and with their great priest. However 'heretical' in their religious vocabulary, the Calmucks have still the same identical terms as the other Lamaists of Thibet (from whence they came). As, however, I had visited Semipalntinsck and the Ural Mountains with an uncle of mine, who has possessions in Siberia, on the very borderland of the Mongolian countries where the 'Terachan Lama' resides, and had made numerous excursions beyond the frontiers, and knew all about Lamas and Thibetans before I was fifteen; therefore I could hardly have ever thought 'that Chinese was the language of Thibet'.... "But possibly this does not count; I should have learned my Buddhism and Lamaism in Mr. Lillie's school, rather than in Astrakhan, Mongolia or Thibet, if I thought of setting up as an authority for such critics.... Well, so be it. I leave them to feed their censers with their own incense. I shall waste no more time in trying to correct their hydra-headed 'mistakes,' for when one is slain ten more spring up from the dead carcass." (See Mary K. Neff, Personal Memoirs of H.P. Blavatsky, E.P. Dutton and Co., Inc., 1937, pp. 136-7.) To discredit her claim of having resided in "Little Tibet as in Great Tibet," has been from the start one of the chief ambitions of the long line of persistent critics seeking to discredit HPB and her works. The dishonesty of their methods is illustrated by the author of The Mysterious Madame, published in 1931 on the centenary of her birth as "the first fully documented biography of her...." C.E. Bechofer-Roberts complains (p. 26) that she told of one attempt at entering Tibet and of being "turned back by a British officer from the frontier of Nepal. In later years, she hinted that this officer would come forward to corroborate her story; but, despite the eagerness of herself and others to find such evidence, this witness was not produced." --- II-ii Now, as a matter of record, she never "hinted that this officer would come forward" - though, replying to Lillie, she wrote: "As to my being in Tibet, at Master Koot Hoomi's house, I have better proof in store - when I believe it needed ...." What Bechofer-Roberts' readers would last suspect is that he had simply served them this false diversion in place of the knowledge that one of his primary sources of information, Col. H.S. Olcott's Old Diary Leaves (vol. I, p. 265), states, "How easy it would have been for her for example to have told Mr. Sinnett that, when trying to enter Tibet in 1854 (via Bhutan or Nepal), she was turned back by Capt. (now Maj.-Genl.) Murray, the military commandment of that part of the frontier, and kept in his house in his wife's company a whole month. Yet she never did, nor did any of her friends ever hear of the circumstance until Mr. Edge and I got the story from Major-General Murray himself, on the 3rd March last, in the train between Nalhati and Calcutta, and I had printed it." The Colonel's report, published at the time in The Theosophist, identifies Murray as "(retired), late of the 70th Bengal Infantry, now Chairman of the Monghyr Municipality, who met H.P.B. in 1854 or '55, at Punkabaree, at the feet of the Darjeeling Hills. He was then a Captain, commanding the Sebundy Sappers and Miners. She was trying to get into Tibet via Nepal 'to write a book'; and to do it,

she wished to cross the Rungit river. Captain Murray had it reported to him by the guard that a European lady had crossed that way, so he went after her and brought her back. She was very angry, but in vain.... "The above facts were so interesting that I wrote them out in the railway carriage and got General Murray to append his certificate as follows: 'The above memo is correct. C. Murray, MajorGeneral.'..." "I got another trace of her Tibetan attempts from a Hindu gentleman living at Bareilly, while on one of my North India official tours. The first time H.P.B. came to that station after our arrival in India, this gentleman recognized her as the European lady who had been his guest years before, when she was going northward to try and enter Tibet via Kashmir. They had much pleasant chats about old times" (See Neff, op. cit., pp. 58-9). This daring exploit shows where her interest lay even then; and, after its manner, it confirms what she had told her first biographer, A.P. Sinnett, viz., that at one time she had been "bent on an attempt of her own to get into Tibet through Nepal", but that, "For the time her attempt failed, chiefly, she believes as far as external and visible difficulties were concerned, through the opposition of the British Resident then in Nepal" (Incidents in the Life of Madame Blavatsky, 1886, p. 66). This was a generation before "Miss Taylor, a solitary Englishwoman came to within 150 miles of Lhasa," the first white woman historians generally recognize as having penetrated Tibet - one year after HPB's death (see the Encyclopaedia Brittanica, 1944 edition, vol. xx, p. 184). One would think that someone desirous of reporting the facts for Madame Blavatsky could do nothing less than give a fair account of Major-General Murray's signed testimony, the best documented evidence available of her early ambition to enter Tibet. But in his "General Outline of Her Life Prior to Her Public Work," a biographical sketch of some 28 pages, following the Foreword to Volume One of his H.P. Blavatsky: Collected Writings, the Compiler, Boris de Zirkoff, while referring to Sinnett and Olcott as sources, says no more of this than that, "H.P.B. was bent on an attempt to get into Tibet through Nepal alone. This first attempt failed through what she believed to be the opposition of the British Resident. When she tried to cross the Rungit river, she was reported by a guard to Captain C. Murray, who went after her and brought her back. She stayed with Captain and Mrs. Murray for about a month, then left...." (op. cit., p. xl). This slighting reference to the encounter with "Captain" Murray (and no hint as to its proof) becomes even more curious when one knows - as does this writer - that de Zirkoff is here holding back his knowledge of Major-General Murray's military record in British Government files, documenting the soldier's service as Captain of Her Majesty's Sebundy Sappers and Miners, at Punkabaree, beyond Darjeeling, on the borders of Nepal. --- II-iii In their attacks on Mme Blavatsky's bona-fides, the brothers Hare, in Who Wrote the Mahatma Letters, go Roberts one better by omitting all allusion to HPB being "turned back by a British officer from the frontier of Nepal." Instead, they declare (p. 211), "Apart from a reference by Madame Blavatsky in Isis Unveiled to her Tibetan experiences, all the records we have are second-hand...." Mrs. Gertrude Marvin Williams, in her discredited book, Priestess of the Occult, definitive compilation of charges against HPB, writes of the same "reference by Madame Blavatsky in Isis Unveiled...." Williams alleges (pp. 26, 28), "...after her creation of Theosophy, she was determined to establish several years' residence in Tibet as pupil of the Mahatmas, and this required juggling previously told stories of her adventures. She carried this confusion policy so far that her apologists explain that she was ordered by her Masters to conceal the facts..." - "An exception to this nebulous style was an incident tucked into the last pages of Isis Unveiled, almost as an afterthought. It is important because it is one of the very few stories that even vaguely suggest H.P.B.'s claim of training with the Mahatmas in Tibet. Her vows of secrecy would apply to anything inconvenient to discuss, and she was as elusive as

a will-o'-the-wisp about places, routes, dates and names." Here Williams appears totally ignorant that a Tibetan - even one of the highest of Tibetan officials - in HPB's day could lose his life (see below) because he helped a 'peling' to enter Tibet without approval from Lhasa. As for the author's sneers at "juggling", "confusion policy" and "this nebulous style," these ill-become someone who, as Williams, in her book, fails to put right even the day of month of HPB's birth (see her p. 15 and cf. footnote, p. 275), while giving two different years as the year of HPB's nativity (pp. 15 and 76)! Like other skeptics - real or pretended - Mrs. Williams has disparaged even the possibility of Madame Blavatsky ever having entered Tibet proper. She argues (p. 28), "When Helena learned that they were planning to enter Tibet, she joined what must have been a singularly unsophisticated party." But there is no indication HPB "joined" Mr K---'s "party" mentioned in Isis Unveiled. "Tibet," Mrs. Williams continues, "is subject to China's influence and the general policy has been, and still is, to refuse passports. This policy of Tibetan isolation had been assisted by the country's inaccessibility, its elevation, arctic climate, and natural mountain barriers. No army has ever crossed Tibet, and only a handful of explorers had then penetrated its borders. As no reprovisioning would be possible, a traveler would require elaborate and expensive equipment: pack team, coolies, interpreter, tents, bedding, stoves, enough consumable supplies for a return trip - food, water, and fuel." It is Williams who here appears, indeed, "unsophisticated." She seems ignorant of the two-way traffic of pilgrims from India and the borderlands who, since time immemorial - until stopped by Red China - entered Tibet from the south, going to Mt. Kailas and Lake Mansarovara, and visiting other holy places of pilgrimage. And did not the Jesuits Andrade and Marques, white men disguised as Hindu pilgrims, - and how many more, of which we have not heard? - join a caravan going to "the holy shrine of Badrinath in south-western Tibet," and (after being unmasked) "with the assistance of a party of Tibetans, cross the Himalayan crest and enter Tibet"? (See "Madame Blavatsky and Occult Tibet," p. 14). If the Jesuits had Tibetan friends ready to help them, why might not HPB? And, beyond that prospect even, as a last resort, with her talisman from the venerable high-priest of a tribe of Kalmucks (see her account), and her friendship with a Kalmuck prince, could she not have joined one of the many Kalmuck caravans on pilgrimage to Shigatse and Tashilhunpo? ( See the works on Tibet by Snellgrove, Richardson, Woodcock and MacGregor; and, especially L.A. Waddell, The Buddhism of Tibet, p. 42.) That she mentions no such association is an indication she had better assistance. While Mr de Zirkoff has seen fit to include in the "Acknowledgments" uniform to his eleven volumes, our name as one who "has been of very great assistance" by reason of a "thorough knowledge of the historical documents connected with the --- II-iv Theosophical Movement," we think it is now time to make it known that we are in no way responsible for more than a very few things found amid the great mass of material he has thought fit to put over his own name as notes and sections of miscellaneous information additional to the actual writings of HPB. More than this, it must be said that he has not consulted us for several years, and has never subjected so much as a page of his manuscripts to our scrutiny for evaluation or correction. After what here follows, the leadership of the Theosophical Movement, which is sponsoring, subsidizing and publishing these products of his pen, may see good reason to regret not having undertaken a more orderly project to republish HPB's writings, one that would have subjected all editorial work to careful, close and constant examination by a committee of competent scholars. It is but one more example of the flippant, short-handed manner of attention given to HPB and to her works and writings; and the result is that it has been left to one man, untested and unsupervised, to prepare these important volumes books which, it is boasted, are being purchased and re-ordered in increasing numbers by university and public librarians. After reading what here follows, let Theosophists ask themselves whether they really

want to see what we reveal and more of the Compiler's own peculiar handiwork enshrined cheek-byjowl with the writings of HPB for the edification of coming generations! Mr. de Zirkoff, we have been told, has spread about the uncalled-for observation that, any day in the week, anyone can find something better to do for Madame Blavatsky than what The Blavatsky Foundation and its FounderSecretary is doing. Without denying a record of financial help we personally received from or through Mr. de Zirkoff many years ago, help that purchased time for us to put together the articles that prompted the late Sri Ram to invite the writing of our well-received book in HPB's defence, it is to us axiomatic that personal considerations carry no weight for one seriously in search of Truth if they threaten to bar the way to Truth or its revelation. Indeed, where the good name of Madame Blavatsky is at stake together with the truth about her and her teachings, and where menaced by gross, inexcusable public misrepresentations, no one and no friendship will deter any real Theosophist from righting the wrong and bringing the wrong-doer before the public bar of justice, when it can be done with proofs in hand. Moreover, an urgency is added to this when the transgressor speaks as one "having authority," sheltered by a mantle of misplaced esteem thrown over him by organized Theosophy, ever leading more and more others unwittingly into deeper error. So, we make no apologies when we ask in all candor, What has Boris de Zirkoff been doing for Madame Blavatsky? In Isis Unveiled (pp. 626-8 of vol. ii), its author recounts an experience involving her remarkable rescue brought about by the 'mystical gentleman' from Kashmir and Tibet. Preliminary to this, she writes (pp. 598-9 of the same book): "Years ago a small party of travelers were painfully journeying from Kashmir to Leh, a city of Ladakh (Central Thibet). Among our guides we had a Tartar Shaman, a very mysterious personage, who spoke Russian a little and English not at all, and yet who managed, nevertheless, to converse with us, and proved of great service. Having learned that some of our party were Russians, he had imagined that our protection was all-powerful, and might enable him to safely find his way back to his Siberian home, from which, for reasons unknown, some twenty years before, he had fled, as he told us, via Kiachta and the great Gobi Desert, to the land of the Tcha-gars.... With such an interested object in view, we believed ourselves safe under his guard. To explain the situation briefly: Our companions had formed the unwise plan of penetrating Thibet under various disguises, none of them speaking the language, although one, a Mr. K---, had picked up some Kasan Tartar, and thought he did. As we mention this only incidentally, we may as well say at once that two of them, the brothers ---, were very politely brought back to the frontier before they had walked sixteen miles into the weird land of Eastern Bod; and Mr K---, an ex-Lutheran minister, could not even attempt to leave his miserable village near Leh, as ---II-v from the first days he found himself prostrated with fever, and had to return to Lahore via Kashmere. But one sight seen by him was as good as if he had witnessed the reincarnation of Buddha itself. Having heard of this 'miracle' from some old Russian missionary in whom he thought he could have more faith than in Abbe Huc, it had been for years his desire to expose the 'great heathen' jugglery, as he expressed it." This "desire," she relates, was fulfilled at "a temporary Vihara" in "an old cave-temple" situated "About four days journey from Islamabad, at an insignificant mud village," where the small party of travelers had rejoined after being "temporarily separated...." The "miracle" looked-for was "the phenomenon of the 'incarnation'" (in which the live body of an infant is apparently animated by the soul or psychic principles of an adept); but this "the Chief" of the "large party of Lamaic 'Saints' on pilgrimage to various shrines", abiding in the Vihara, "declined to exhibit.... until a certain talisman in possession of the writer was exhibited." Concerning this talisman that so impressed this Tibetan adept,

"who was Pase-Budhu (an ascetic of great sanctity)," HPB writes: "The talisman is a simple agate or carnelian known among the Thibetans and others as A-vu, and naturally possessed, or had been endowed with very mysterious properties. It has a triangle engraved upon it, within which are contained a few mystical words." By footnote, she adds: "These stones are highly venerated among Lamaists and Buddhists; the throne and sceptre of Buddha are ornamented with them, and the Taley Lama wears one on the fourth finger of the right hand. They are found in the Altai Mountains, and near the river Yarkuh. Our talisman was a gift from a venerable high-priest, a Heiloung, of a Kalmuck tribe. Though treated as apostates from their primitive Lamaism, these apostates maintain friendly intercourse with their brother Kalmucks, the Chokhots of Eastern Thibet and Kokonor, but even with the Lamaists of Lha-Ssa. The ecclesiastical authorities however, will have no relations with them. We have had abundant opportunities to become acquainted with this interesting people of the Astrakhan Steppes, having lived in their Kibitkas in our early years, and partaken of the lavish hospitality of the Prince Tumene, their late chief, and his Princess. In their religious ceremonies, the Kalmucks employ trumpets made from the thigh and arm bones of deceased rulers and high priests." Beginning 24 pages after the close of the earlier narrative of events at the lamas' Vihara "four days journey from Islamabad," this "striking passage," written by HPB, concerns an incident "during the most critical hours of our life; at a time when the vagabond nature of a traveler had carried the writer to far-off lands, where neither civilization is known, nor security can be guaranteed for one hour." A "Tartar tent," she writes, "had been our home for over two months," when "the Shaman, who had become our only protector in these dreary deserts," was persuaded to fulfill a "promise." Bringing forth a talisman, which every Shaman "wears attached to a string, and carries under his left arm," he "proceeded, as it appeared, to swallow it. In a few moments, his limbs stiffened, his body became rigid, and he fell, cold and motionless as a corpse. But for a slight twitching of his lips at every question asked, the scene would have been embarrassing, nay - dreadful. The sun was setting, and were it not that the dying embers flickered at the center of the tent, complete darkness would have added to the oppressive silence which reigned. We have lived in the prairies of the West, and in the boundless steppes of Southern Russia; but nothing can be compared with the silence at sunset on the sandy deserts of Mongolia; not even the barren solitudes of the deserts of Africa, though the former are partly inhabited, and the latter utterly devoid of life. Yet, there was the writer alone with what looked no better than a corpse lying on the ground." Without indicating what danger made these hours "the most critical," HPB says that she "directed the Shaman's inner ego to the same friend heretofore mentioned in this chapter, the Kutchi of Lha-Ssa, who travels constantly to British India and back. We know that he was apprised of our critical situation in the desert; for a few hours later came help, and we were rescued by a party of twenty-five horsemen --- II-vi who had been directed by their chief to find us at the place where we were, which no living man endowed with common powers could have known. The chief of this escort was a Shaberon, an 'adept' whom we had never seen before, nor did we after that, for he never left his soumav (lamasery), and we could have no access to it. But he was a personal friend of the Kutchi." Having given but three lines to the incident remembered by Major-General Murray, Mme. Blavatsky's latest Compiler, two pages further on in his "General Outline of Her Life," etc., devotes the better part of two pages to discussion of the above episodes from Isis Unveiled - if for no more obvious purpose than he thinks he sees an opportunity to demolish them! He writes (our counter-criticisms corresponding to our inserted numbers shown in parentheses): "H.P.B. engaged in widespread travel throughout India. At Lahore she met a German ex-

Lutheran minister by the name of Kuhlwein, known to her father (possibly a relative of their governess), and his two companions, the Brothers --, all of whom had formed the plan to penetrate Tibet under various disguises. They went together through Kashmir to Leh, the chief city of Ladak, at least part of the time accompanied by a Tartar Shaman who was on his way home to Siberia. According to Sinnett, H.P.B. crossed into Tibetan territory, with the help of this Shaman, while the others were prevented from carrying out their plan. (87) Finding herself in a critical situation, she was rescued by some Lamaist horsemen apprized of the situation by the Shaman's thought. (88) (1) "These adventures have been connected by A.P. Sinnett and other writers with those described in Isis Unveiled. (89) (2) The latter narrative concerns the exhibition of psychological powers by a Shaman. (3) This description mentions the neighborhood of Islamabad (Anantnag) which is considerably West of Leh, in the Kashmir Valley, or away from Tibetan territory, (4) and curiously enough, the sandy deserts of Mongolia, which geographically are thousands of miles away. (5) Moreover Ladak is spoken of as Central Tibet. (6) All this gives rise to much confusion so that no definite picture can be outlined. (7) "Moreover, we are confronted by various additional difficulties, (8) some of them geographical. Ladak (or Ladakh) and Baltistan are provinces of Kashmir, (9) and the name of Ladak belongs primarily to the broad valley of the upper Indus...." (10) -------(1) Here, the last passage of the Compiler's first paragraph is certainly untrue. For one thing, HPB's "mystical gentleman... who generally resides at Lha-Ssa" (in 1877), traveling "constantly to British India and back," here has been deprived unfairly of his just due by Mr. de Zirkoff. For the original narrative plainly shows it was "the Kutchi of Lha-Ssa" and not the Shaman who had summoned the help (not of twenty-five "horsemen apprized of the situation by the Shaman's thought" - ! - but) of the "chief" of the rescue "party of twenty-five horsemen...." And if the critic's clairvoyance is not as good as "the mystical gentleman's", how can he know they were lamas or "Lamaist horsemen"? And if at Lhasa or in British India (and how except by the same means can our critic determine where the Kutchi then was?), how other than by his own adeptic powers, would the Kutchi have passed word to the "chief of the escort"? - as Lhasa is more than "a few hours" ride from "the deserts of Mongolia"! (2) Why should they not be so connected, since, as the Compiler himself is aware, according to his footnote (89: "Vol. II, pp. 598-602, 626-28"), the rescue and the earlier adventures in Ladak repeated by Sinnett were recounted in HPB's book. (3) Unless the reader is careful to verify footnote "89" and to follow it to its sources, he will be misled by de Zirkoff's discussion into thinking that the "adventures... described in Isis Unveiled" comprise only a single "narrative" concerning an "exhibition of psychological powers by a Shaman" in "the neighborhood of Islamabad," whereas we have shown two different narratives therein appear. One of these (the first) is placed by its author near Islamabad, being the psychological exhibition of the "incarnation" by the "Pase-Budhu (an ascetic of great sanctity)" - whom de Zirkoff, to the confusion of the uninformed reader, prefers to call "a Shaman" (thereby mistaking two wonder-workers as the one "Tartar Shaman" of de Zir--- II-vii koff's telling. The other (the second exhibition), which its author places in "the Mongolian desert" is the first alluded to by the Compiler-critic, and the only one involving display of the Shaman's occult faculties. (4) When did anyone but Boris de Zirkoff conjure up the queer notion that HPB or "A.P. Sinnett and other writers" did not know that Islamabad "is considerably West of Leh, in the Kashmir

Valley, or away from Tibetan territory"? But does not this same conjuring act induce his readers to wrongfully imagine that HPB and/or her biographer had made the absurd claim that "the exhibition of psychological powers by a Shaman", near Islamabad, had occurred after "H.P.B. crossed into Tibetan territory, with the help of this Shaman...."? What de Zirkoff calls "the exhibition of psychological powers by a Shaman" in "the neighborhood of Islamabad", is shown by Mme. Blavatsky's narrative (op. cit., pp. 598-9) also as not to be confused with any incident following the failure of the other three Europeans to penetrate Greater Tibet after reaching Leh. The Buddhist-ascetic's "incarnation," she shows, took place while they "were painfully journeying from Kashmir to Leh" (p. 598) and when "About four days journey from Islamabad" in Kashmir (p. 599). Unfortunately, de Zirkoff's deceptive summary, taken alone, paves the way for his introduction of even more confusion. (5) As if to reinforce such misapprehension in the minds of those who may have read of this rescue in the desert, de Zirkoff adds that "the sandy deserts of Mongolia... geographically are thousands of miles away" - from Islamabad, Kashmir, of course! So then, our critic implies, how can "the exhibition of psychological powers by a Shaman" in the desert-rescue, square with "the neighborhood of Islamabad"? It must be admitted that this association is confusing, but the most confusing thing to it is that Mme. Blavatsky's Compiler should think it was of her not his own making! (6) Ladak, as "Central Tibet"? Not improbably so if one is thinking of Southern, Central and Northern Tibet - as when moving in a north-oriented travel route as (we deduce) was HPB. The southern border of Ladak lies in a latitude north of Lhasa and south of what was formerly considered the northern limits of Tibetan territory. The Encyclopaedia Britannica (1944 edition, vol. 22, p. 177) observes that "the doubtful limits between Tibet and Sinkiang prevent any calculation of the area of Tibet...." Describing the "Physical Geography" of Sinkiang (now Chinese territory, after long and recent rivalry between China and Russia for local dominion), this authority, continuing, states: "Almost all of the country from the south of the Takla-makan to the Himalayas was formerly included under the name of Tibet in general usage. The Kuenlun mountains were, under this scheme, the northern mountains of Tibet; they are in any case the oldest of the great mountain-systems of the Tibetan highlands." This mountain range, now shown in China's Sinkiang, lies about 100 miles beyond the much-shrunken, northern boundary of 20th-Century Tibet. (7) We certainly do agree that "All this gives rise to much confusion," if the term "All" is meant to denote what the Compiler only has set forth. But that this "confusion" means that "no definite picture can be outlined" would only be true if we would let Mr. Boris de Zirkoff brainwash us! While brothers Hare and Mrs. Williams grudgingly give ground before these narratives of Tibetan adventures related in Isis Unveiled, these, her bitterest critics, have left it to "her grand-nephew and last living relative," her "Compiler," to reduce the accounts to a jigsaw puzzle with his adept knife of literary butchery. If Sinnett placed HPB's "deserts of Mongolia" in Tibet, or, as the Compiler puts it, in "Tibetan territory," that may not be so far wrong - not nearly as wrong as the latter trying to make his "greataunt" locate "deserts of Mongolia" in Kashmir! Ella K. Maillart, in her book, Forbidden Journey (Henry Holt and Co., 1937), describes her journey from Lake Koko-Nor (now in China) westward along the trade-routes north of Tibet's northernmost borders today, through Chenghai and Sinkiang down to Leh in Ladak. Coming out of a pass through the Altyn Tagh mountain chain, she and her fellow-explorer "quite suddenly emerged into brilliant sunshine and on to the desert of great Takla Makan, the sea of sand which extends for some five --- II-viii hundred miles of Eastern Turkestan" (p. 168). Here they were met by "a weird silence as of a cemetery" and a "curious terracing of the ground caused by wind erosion. I felt as if I were visiting the

crypts of the long-buried temples just beginning to appear under the shovels of excavators" (p. 193). She found that "south Sinkiang consists for the most part of the Takla Makan desert with the Tarim and its tributaries flowing through it - the fertile oases extending over less than one-sixtieth of the surface" (p. 207). Their Turkish guide "knew all the Kuen Lun passes as far distant as Khotan" to the north of Ladak (p. 168); and "Torhut Mongols going on pilgrimages to Lhasa sometimes used a trail... over a ramification of Kuen Lun, and through a desert like the one we were crossing" - in the Issik region lying north of Tibet and south-east of the Takla Makan (pp. 157-8). Though not in Mongolia by our current mode of reckoning political boundaries, the whole area, formerly dominated by Mongol armies and (prior to recent immigration from China) largely inhabited by Moslem Turkis, was formerly called Tartary for its Tartars, "a name derived from the Ta-ta Mongols, who in the 5th century inhabited the north-eastern Gobi, and, after subjugation in the 9th century by the Khitans, migrated southward... founding the Mongol empire" (Encyclopaedia Britannica, v. 21, p. 832). Now as the Compiler knowingly remarks, the "Tartar Shaman" who accompanied HPB and her companions in Kashmir and Ladak, "was on his way home to Siberia." But what the critic here neither recognizes nor tells his readers is that the safest and easiest "way home to Siberia" from there was not from Leh eastward across the border into Greater Tibet but northward. Our encyclopaedia authority (vol. 21, p. 759) describes the Takla Makan desert as "the major division of that portion of the Tarim basin which stretches westward from the lower courses of the Tarim river to the Pamirs." Its vol. 22, p. 178, reveals that from Leh in Ladak, "there are routes to Kashmir and to the Tarim basin." The main route is reached westward from Leh by way of Gurais, north of Srinigar, capital of Kashmir. Through passes "from Indus River valleys," the travel moves across mountains between the Hindu Kush and the Karakorum ranges, "across into the Tarim basin" and to Shufu (Kashgar) in Sinkiang. From thence, via the great trade center of Khotan, "the caravan travel across Asia" strikes northward and eastward, at one point skirting the Takla Makan desert before turning to the east and on to Siberia and Mongolia and China proper. On the way, north of Tibet, the route links up with another entering Tibet and reaching Lhasa via Nag-ch-ku. Though this last trail, and the Torhut Mongol pilgrimage routes southward into Tibet from Sinkiang are not shown, the main routes mentioned (from Leh to Siberia) are clearly marked on pertinent maps, pages 54 and 55 of volume 24 of the 1944 edition of this work. It is to be noted that Madame Blavatsky's narration gives no indication that she or her Tartar Shaman friend actually joined with the brothers -- in the latters' abortive attempt to enter Tibet east of Leh. For by taking the caravan route from Gurais, not only was the Shaman on his surest'way back to his Siberian home,' but HPB too could attempt to enter Tibet proper (as did the Red Chinese invaders later, taking Lhasa by surprise even with armies) by "the back door" and least inconspicuously to Lhasa authorities and outposts, via either trade or pilgrimage routes moving southward from Sinkiang. What the writer finds most reprehensible in Boris de Zirkoff's attempt here to convict HPB of so "much confusion" that "no definite picture" remains of what she has recounted, is the amazing fact, years ago, long before the Compiler's "Volume One" was put into print, he personally communicated to de Zirkoff the above readily-available findings, recommending to the latter the 1944 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica in particular for its pertinent information, and expressing a conclusion we now repeat, viz., that after leaving the others behind in Ladak or perhaps Kashmir, HPB and her Shaman companion pushed northward along the long-established trade-route from Gurais, west of Leh - and that, in fact, the "desert of Mon--- II-ix golia" was simply the great Takla Makan to where this route took them while on their way. At the same time we recall having shown him, in connection with our study of this subject, a fanciful sketch we drew showing HPB in the Tartar tent looking down upon the entranced Shaman. Upon first reading his

1966 rendition of HPB's given accounts, "all muddled up," the writer quite spontaneously penciled on the adjoining margin the rather jocular observation: "Ye gods! I told B de Z all this - and he ignores it! Why?! Dugpas must have control of his head!" That the recipient of the information we so happily imparted long ago was indeed provoked by it to make some use of his own of the 1944 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (which was then already some ten years or so out of date) is as indisputable as is the existence of the wholesale mutilations by which he has thrown HPB's accounts into "much confusion." Resuming his discussion (op. cit., p. xlii), we read: "Moreover, we are confronted by various additional difficulties, some of them geographical. Ladak (or Ladakh) and Baltistan are provinces of Kashmir, and the name of Ladak belongs primarily to the broad valley of the upper Indus, but includes also several surrounding districts in political connection with it. It is bounded North by the Kuenlun range and the slopes of the Karakorum, Northwest and West by Baltistan which has been known as Little Tibet, South-West by Kashmir proper, South by what used to be British Himalayan territory, and East by the Tibetan provinces of Ngari and Rudog. The entire region is very high, the valleys of Rupshu and the South-East being 15,000 feet, and the Indus near Leh some 11,000 feet, while the average height of the surrounding ranges is some 20,000 feet. "Leh (11,550 feet) is the capital of Ladak, and the road to Leh from Srinagar lies up the lovely Sind valley to the sources of the river at the Pass of Zoji La (11,580 ft.) in the Zaskar range. From Leh there are several routes into Tibet, the best known being that from the Indus valley to the Tibetan plateau, by the Chang La, to Lake Pangong and Rudog (14,900 ft)" (pp. xlii-xliii). (8) What these "various additional difficulties" are, the reader is left only to surmise. In absence of any demonstration of evidence supporting the denigrating claim, this raising of unknown "difficulties" strongly suggests nothing more than a mischievous try to heap on more and more distrust of the author of Isis Unveiled. (9) Our authority, Encyclopaedia Britannica, states that Ladak and Baltistan together constitute "a province of Kashmir, India," the latter of the two being "a dependency...." (10) The same authority states that the "name Ladak... belongs primarily to the broad valley of the upper Indus in West Tibet..." (cf. HPB's use of the term "Eastern Bod" - which has led another "Theosophical authority on Tibet" to the amusing suggestion that, where the brothers failed, HPB herself made it over the border into Kham or Eastern Tibet...) The Compiler's assertions (9) that represent Ladak as no more than a province of Kashmir, and a province separate from another containing "Little Tibet," and also (10) as not being "in West Tibet," would seem to suggest part of a studied design to: (a) becloud still further the issue under discussion, while (b) also denying opportunity for it to be said that time HPB spent in Ladak can be counted towards her claim of a total of "seven years" in "Little Tibet as in Great Tibet." One could cite abundant authoritative information that in HPB's day, Ladak was part of what was called "Little Tibet" (the school geography of the writer's mother so designates it); but on his page xlviii, Compiler de Zirkoff seems to have suffered a change of heart and admits, "Ladakh used to be known as Little Tibet...." To prove that our critic is no more to be trusted with facts found in an encyclopaedia than with those set forth in the writings of Mme. Blavatsky, we quote the following long passages from pages 581-2 of Volume 13 of the Encyclopaedia --- II-x Britannica, the edition or printing being that of 1944: "LADAKH AND BALTISTAN, a province of Kashmir, India. The name Ladak, commonly but less correctly spelt Ladakh, and sometimes Ladag, belongs primarily to the broad valley of the upper

Indus in West Tibet, but includes several surrounding districts in political connection with it: the present limits are between 75o 40' and 80o 30' E., and between 32o 25' and 36' N. It is bounded north by the Kuenlun range and the slopes of the Karakoram, north-west and west by the dependency of Baltistan or Little Tibet, south-west by Kashmir proper, south by British Himalayan territory, and east by the Tibetan provinces of Neari and Rudok. The whole region lies very high, the valleys of Rupshu in the south-east being 15,000 ft., and the Indus near Leh 11,000 ft., while the average height of the surrounding ranges is 19,000 ft." "Leh (q.v.) is the capital of Ladakh, and the road to Leh from Srinagar lies up the lovely Sind valley to the sources of the river at the Zoji La Pass (11,300 ft.) in the Zaskar range." "From Leh there are many routes into Tibet, the best-known being that from the Indus valley to the Tibetan plateau, by the Chang La, to Lake Pang-kong and Rudok (14,000 ft.)." It will at once be apparent to the observant reader that the words and passages underlined in this quotation from the encyclopaedia, a total of something like one-hundred-and-seventy words, including most of two paragraphs, practically the whole of several sentences (about 6), and many coherent passages, have been incorporated, without acknowledgment and without quotation marks, and with no hint as to the real source of origin and previous publication, into pages xlii and xliii of Volume One of H.P. Blavatsky: Collected Writings. Some slight changes here and there are evident; but apart from the alterations already noted ("province" to "provinces"; and omission of the words "in West Tibet," "the dependency of," and "many" from "many routes into Tibet" from Leh - an omission calculated to discourage the thought that there might be a route northward by "the sandy deserts of Mongolia"), the changes would appear to serve no intelligent purpose except as substitutions of phraseology suggesting nothing more profound than an attempt to escape the law of criminal plagiarism. The present writer has discovered that, in the Compiler's own writings made to accompany those of Mme. Blavatsky in all the now-published 11 volumes of her Collected Writings, the above is not the only instance of this kind. In each and every volume one can find additional passages of varying length, put forward as the Compiler's own, but without acknowledgment or hint of their real origin and previous source of publication. Someone has suggested that Theosophists organize a protest to demand correction of the stupid and juvenile biographical sketch of Mme. Blavatsky appearing in the new Encyclopaedia Britannica III (which has dropped from its pages the very excellent and comprehensive article done by William Kingsland for the Blavatsky Association). If a miracle were to occur in organized Theosophy, and that were to happen, one can be sure that for leader of the parade - so to say - the unanimous choice would be, guess who? Now that would really be appropriate, would it not? -------Next to Madame Blavatsky's adventures in company with her Shaman protector, and her earlier detainment at Punkabaree, the period most widely accepted as marking time spent by her in Tibet (and in Tibet proper) is one beginning in 1867 or 1868. Having, for some reason, badly fumbled the evidence of one (giving it only 3 sentences as against almost half-a-page stolen from the encyclopaedia to describe Ladak) and having buried the other under a cloud of confusion of his own making, Mr. de Zirkoff, two pages further on, proceeds to demonstrate for his unsuspecting readers still another mode of literary legerdemain to - as it were - eliminate this last period from serious consideration. After these "vanishing acts," what is left - using the Compiler's own words - "to counter any unfriendly critic --- II-xi who may attempt to deny the fact that she was ever in Tibet..."? Why, a "specific statement" that has come "from her own pen" - essentially what we have quoted in the opening paragraph of this study. Marvelous! Having contrived to ditch all the substantive and supporting evidence, he purports to leave

us with nothing but her bare claim! But while noting this spectacular diminution in the storehouse of support for HPB, see by what means the last period of residence in Tibet is ostensibly eliminated. Mr. de Zirkoff writes (op. cit., p. xlviii): "It is presumed that H.P.B. went via India to some parts of Tibet, and that this was sometime in 1868; mention has been made of her crossing the Kuenlun Mountains and going via Lake Palti (Yamdok-Tso), (122) although geographically this is inconsistent. It is on this journey to Tibet that she met Master K.H. for the first time, and lived in the house of his sister at Shigadze." (123) To the above are added the designated footnotes, referring to "A.P. Sinnett, The Letters of H.P. Blavatsky to A.P. Sinnett, New York, Frederick A. Stokes, 1924" (see op. cit., p. xxx) "122 Sinnett, Letters. etc., p. 215." "123 Ibid., pp. 153, 215." The presence of source-references and cross-source-references (as it were) cannot but serve to convince all except the most analytically meticulous reader that the references de Zirkoff has here made in his remarks concerning "this journey" of "crossing the Kuenlun Mountains and going via Lake Palti" were certainly to claims made by HPB herself in letters to A.P. Sinnett - for how could these attached footnotes mean otherwise? - ; yet claims which her Compiler represents as self-defeating and to her discredit ("geographically ...inconsistent"). But the plain, simple truth is that Madame Blavatsky nowhere made reference to "crossing the Kuenlun Mountains" or "going via Lake Palti (Yamdok-Tso)"; neither did she anywhere make mention of "this journey to Tibet...." (this journey being related to the Kuenlun Mts. and Lake Palti, together or separately). Madame Blavatsky's altogether mischievous "grand-nephew" has taken this reference from a "Table" that appears on pages 299-302 of Mary K. Neff's aforementioned book (the "Table" being described as one of "Dates on a 'scrap of paper,' found at Adyar by Annie Besant 'in writing I do not recognise, and unsigned. I give them for what they are worth - A.B.'"), a reference reading (op. cit., p. 301), "1866... Kuenlun Mts., Lake Palti and Tibet." Mr. Boris de Zirkoff has proceeded to make the inscription "geographically ...inconsistent" by altering its form from places visited to a special sequence and then, by suppressing the original date, he has misled his readers to take it for "sometime in 1868" so as to apply to the approximate beginning of HPB's last period of residence in Tibet (which he is going to pretend to discredit). Finally, and worst of all, he has attached to this altered and misrepresented matter of altogether uncreditable provenance, two different footnotes, containing a total of three references ostensibly to book and page. THOUGH NONE OF THE THREE PAGES INDICATED HAVE ANY REFERENCE BY CONTENT WHATSOEVER TO THE SUBJECT MATTER UNDER CONSIDERATION! The whole of this damnable concoction has been so contrived and fabricated as to hoodwink the reader into believing that the disreputable thing originated with Madame Blavatsky herself - instead of in Mr. de Zirkoff's head and on a scrap of paper in unknown handwriting found at an unspecified date by Mrs. Besant at Adyar, India (she having never been there during HPB's lifetime)! After this, it must be apparent to all but the most obtuse - blinded by their faith in the man - that nothing Boris de Zirkoff says or writes can be accepted or believed by any prudent person until first it has been independently verified. How much additional rot of this sort the Compiler has engrafted onto H.P. Blavatsky: Collected Writings, we cannot guess, nor will we waste our time trying to determine. We leave that to future generations who, unlike some of this, may even feel bold enough to question the genealogical claims of "Madame Blavatsky's grandnephew and last living relative" - all the while they will be trying to decide who ---II-xii was the more mediumistic: Madame Coulomb, Gertrude Marvin Williams, or Boris de Zirkoff. In any

case, the identity of the "communicators" seems pretty obvious - to us anyway. ------"HAVING HEARD THIS TRANQUIL DOCTRINE, they say: 'This is not the word of the Victorious One. I had a teacher, an ocean of learning, very learned, the best of narrators, and he has denied this: "This is not at all the word of the Buddha." Moreover, he also had an old master, who had conquered the flood of virtues, and he too did not accept this: "Do not apply yourselves to this; it is wrong."...' "Fables, which people with wicked thoughts, heterodox thoughts, invented themselves! Never will the Victorious One say this word, which is only the discourse of (degenerate) bhiksus. Deprived of shame and good conduct, impudent like crows, haughty and impetuous, the bhiksus of my Doctrine will be, aflame with jealousy, self-conceit and presumption. Waving their hands, swinging their legs, shaking the lappets of their robes..., they go about... intoxicated by liquor and presumption. Having seized the banner of Buddha, they do services to the people..., always they carry a scripture with them, having abandoned the mass of virtues, which gives teaching.... Nothing vulgar is blameable to them and there is nothing which (according to them) ought not to be done.... And, having seen bhiksus who are rich in virtues, they speak ill even of them. And, having entered, those ill-beloved, crafty deceivers, those most hideous men, ruin the women. "....For the sake of services... they impart their favour...: 'Surrounded by hosts of my own pupils, I always will obtain homage among men.' And they tell the people: 'This favour I grant them out of compassion; I never ask attendance from these hosts of pupils.' "Greatly stricken with diseases, leprous, with stained limbs, very deformed, they will enter into the hells, coming again and again, always abject. Without regulations and restraints, they always forsake the virtues of the bhiksu... they go unbound, at their own will, like kings of elephants escaped from the hook.... Having forgotten all buddha-virtues, the teaching, the moral precepts and the expedients, full of presumption, self-conceit and arrogance, they fall in the dreadful Avici." "And from all sides my true sons are threatened in the last epoch. And then, remembering my words, they live in the woods of the border country. Ah, teaching of the excellent Virtuous One, your destruction must be faced in a short time, when there will have appeared many bhiksus who are overcome by desire of gain and hate the virtues. And always in the last epoch those who have good conduct and virtues will be despised and, abandoning the villages and the capital cities, they live in jungles. Always honoured, destitute of virtues, disastrous slanderers, loving quarrels, the others will be considered teachers by the people and they will be aflame with self-conceit and presumption. "This, my most lovely teaching, store of virtues, mine of all virtues, will come to ruin by corruption of morality and the vices of jealousy and presumption. Like a ruined mine of jewels it will stand, like a dried-up lotus-pond, like a sacrificial post of excellent jewels broken down, the teaching will be ruined in the last epoch. Thus in the most dreadful, last epoch the destruction of the Doctrine takes place and those unrestrained bhiksus will be the destroyers of this, my teaching." - The Questions of Rastrapala (translated by Jacob Ensink, Zwolle: N.V. Drukkerij en Uitgeverij van de Erven J.J. Tijil, n.d. Cr. Buddhism, by Richard Gard, pp. 210-13). ------IN "THE DOCTRINE OF AVATARAS" (Section XLI, The Secret Doctrine, v. iii, ---II-xiii London, 1897), H.P. Blavatsky writes: "A STRANGE story - a legend rather - is persistently current among the disciples of some great Himalayan Gurus, and even among laymen, to the effect that Gautama, the Prince of Kapilavastu, has

never left the terrestrial regions, though his body died and was burnt, and its relics are preserved to this day.... It is the Arhats who have set forth and allowed this tradition to take root in the people's mind, and it is the basis, also, of the later dogma of Lamaic reincarnation or the succession of human Buddhas." "Truly, 'for the salvation of the good and the destruction of wickedness,' the personalities known as Gautama, Shankara, Jesus and a few others were born each in his age, as declared - 'I am born in every Yuga' - and they were all born through the same Power. "There is a great mystery in such incarnations and they are outside and beyond the cycle of general re-births." "Of the voluntary and conscious incarnations of Adepts there are two types - those of Nirmanakayas, and those undertaken by the probationary chelas who are on their trial. "The greatest, as the most puzzling mystery of the first type lies in the fact, that such re-birth in a human body of the personal Ego of some particular Adept - when it has been dwelling in the Mayavi or the Kama Rupa, and remaining in the Kama Loka - may happen even when his 'Higher Principles' are in the state of Nirvana." "Having said so much, the statement still will and must appear incomprehensible, if not absurd, to many. Firstly, to all those who are unfamiliar with the doctrine of the manifold nature and various aspects of the human Monad; and secondly to those who view the septenary division of the human entity from a too materialistic standpoint. Yet the intuitional Occultist, who has studied thoroughly the mysteries of Nirvana - who knows it to be identical with Parabrahman, and hence unchangeable, eternal and no Thing but the Absolute All - will seize the possibility of the fact. They know that while a Dharmakaya - a Nirvani 'without remains,' as our Orientalists have translated it, being absorbed into that Nothingness, which is the one real, because Absolute, Consciousness - cannot be said to return to incarnation on Earth, the Nirvani being no longer a he, a she, or even an it, the Nirmanakaya - or he who has obtained Nirvana 'with remains,' i.e., who is clothed in a subtle body, which makes him impervious to all outward impressions and to every mental feeling, and in whom the notion of his Ego has not entirely ceased - can do so.... It may be objected that the Dharmakaya, being a Nirvani or Jivanmukta, can have no 'remains' left behind him after death, for having attained that state from which no further incarnations are possible, there is no need for him of a subtle body, or of the individual Ego that reincarnates from one birth to another, and that therefore the latter disappears of logical necessity; to this it is answered: it is so for all exoteric purposes and as a general law. But the case with which we are dealing is an exceptional one, and its realization lies within the Occult powers of the high Initiate, who, before entering into the state of Nirvana, can cause his 'remains' (sometimes, though not very well, called his Mayavi Rupa), to remain behind, whether he is to become a Nirvani, or to find himself in a lower state of bliss." Quoting "the opinions of the Venerable Chohan-Lama - the chief of the Archive-registrars of the libraries containing manuscripts on esoteric doctrines belonging to the Ta-loi and Ta-shuhlumpo Lamas Rim-boche of Tibet," Mme. Blavatsky wrote in part, "...when Asoka, the great supporter of our religion, had left the world, the Arhat initiates, owing to the secret but steady opposition of the Brahmans to their system, had to drop out of the country one by one and seek safety beyond the Himalayas. Thus, though popular Buddhism did not spread in Tibet before the seventh century, the Buddhist initiates of the mysteries and esoteric system of the Aryan Twice-born, leaving their motherland, India, sought refuge with the pre-Buddhistic ---II-xiv ascetics; those who had the Good Doctrine even before the days of Sakya-Muni. These ascetics had dwelt beyond the Himalayan ranges from time immemorial. They are the direct successors of those

Aryan sages who, instead of accompanying their Brahman brothers in the pre-historical emigration from Lake Manasasarovara across the Snowy Range into the hot plains of the Seven Rivers, had preferred to remain in their inaccessible and unknown fastnesses" (Collected Writings, vi, p. 99). "There is generally a hopeless confusion about Eastern dates among European scholars, but nowhere is this so great as in the case of Tibetan Buddhism. Thus, while some, correctly enough, accept the seventh century as the date of the introduction of Buddhism, there are others - such as Lassen and Koeppung, for instance - who show on good authority, the one, the construction of a Buddhist monastery on the slopes of the Kailas Range so far back as the year 137 B.C., and the other, Buddhism established in and north of the Punjab, as early as the year 292 B.C. The difference though trifling - only just one thousand years - is nevertheless puzzling. But even this is easily explained on Esoteric grounds. Buddhism - the veiled Esotericism of Buddha - was established and took root in the seventh century of the Christian era; while true Esoteric Buddhism, or the kernel, the very spirit of Tathagata's doctrines, was brought to the place of its birth, the cradle of humanity, by the chosen Arhats of Buddha, who were sent to find for it a secure refuge, as: "'The Sage had perceived the dangers ever since he had entered upon Thonglam ("the Path of seeing," or clairvoyance).' "Amidst populations deeply steeped in Sorcery the attempt proved a failure; and it was not until the School of the 'Doctrine of the Heart', had merged with its predecessor, established ages earlier on the slope facing Western Tibet, that Buddhism was finally engrafted, with its two distinct Schools the Esoteric and the esoteric divisions - in the land of the Bhon-pa" (Secret Doctrine, iii, pp. 422-3). As Madame Blavatsky observed (Collected Writings, iii, p. 185) that in the "policy" of the "system" of "Lamaic hierarchy," the Dalai Lama of Lhasa is "the incarnation of the 'Spiritual' 'passive wisdom,' - which proceeds from Gautama or Siddartha Buddha, or Fo"; and is ranked Number One; while the Tashi Lama, as Second, is "'the active earthly wisdom."' These two, with three other "Incarnations," are said to represent on earth the five Bodhisattvas created by Buddha after his Supreme Enlightenment. But, if so, they would all "proceed from Gautama" - and, accordingly, as she elsewhere declares, the esoteric truth of their respective spiritual status is quite different from what is commonly accepted. In her article, "Reincarnations in Tibet," published in The Theosophist, March 1882, HPB, promising to "give a more correct view of the situation than has hitherto been had from books," mentions that she was writing on "the authority of direct information received at our Headquarters" from "firstly - some very learned lamas; secondly - a European gentleman and traveler, who prefers not to give his name; and thirdly - a highly educated young Chinaman, brought up in America, who has since preferred to the luxuries of worldly life and the pleasures of Western Civilization, the comparative privations of a religious and contemplative life in Tibet." (See Collected Writings, iv, pp. 8-18) "The regular system of the Lamaic incarnations of 'Sang-gyas' (or Buddha) began with TsongKha-pa. This reformer is not the incarnation of one of the five celestial Dhyanis, or heavenly Buddhas, as is generally supposed, said to have been created by Sakya Muni after he had risen to Nirvana, but that of 'Amita,' one of the Chinese names for Buddha. The records preserved in the Gompa (lamasery) of 'Tashi-Lhunpo' (spelt by the English Teshu Lumbo) show that Sang-gyas incarnated himself in Tsong-Kha-pa in consequence of the great degradation his doctrines had fallen into. Until then, there had been no other incarnations than those of the five celestial Buddhas and of their Bodhisattvas, each of the former having created (read, overshadowed with his spiritual wisdom) five of the last-named there were, and now are in all but thirty incarnations - five Dhyanis and twenty-five Bodhis---II-xv

attvas.... The Tashi-Lamas were always more powerful and more highly considered than the TaleyLamas. The latter are the creation of the Tashi-Lama, Nabang-Lob Sang, the sixth incarnation of Tsong-Kha-pa - himself an incarnation of Amitabha, or Buddha. This hierarchy was regularly installed at Lhasa, but it originated only in the latter half of the seventeenth century." To the above she adds, by footnote: "Says Mr. Markham in Tibet (Preface, p. xlvii): 'Geduntubpa, another great reformer, was contemporary with Tsong-Kha-pa, having been born in 1339, and dying in 1474. He built the monastery at Teshu Lumbo in 1445, and it was in the person of this perfect Lama, as he was called, that the system of perpetual incarnation commenced. He was himself the incarnation of Padma Pani, and on his death he relinquished the attainment of Buddhahood that he might be born again and again for the benefit of mankind. When he died, his successor was found as an infant, by the possession of certain divine marks.'" All well and good, but at this important juncture, we find Compiler de Zirkoff interpolating some peculiar observations of his own - ostensibly "had from books...." He takes special notice that if "born in 1339, and dying in 1474," Lama "Ganden Truppa" (another Anglicized rendition from Tibetan that philologists have yet to agree upon as to spelling) would have "lived 135 years"; and he comments, "Ganden Truppa was the grandnephew of Tsong-Kha-pa and the first Taley-Lama; the Official List of the Taley-Lamas state that his birth took place in 1391 and his death in 1475" (in footnote, Ibid., p. 13). The only authority de Zirkoff cites in this connection (on the page opposite) is "The Buddhism of Tibet, or Lamaism, by L. A. Waddell, pp. 233-36." Lest someone discern a mystical parallel here between Tsong-Khapa and his "grandnephew" and Mme. Blavatsky and "her grandnephew," it should be noted that the Compiler's own authority, Waddell (op. cit., p. 230) says plainly that, Ganden-Truppa was Tsong-Khapa's nephew: "The first authentic instance of re-incarnate Lamas which I can find is the first of the Grand Lamas of the Ge-lug-pa, namely Ge-den-dub.... Tson-K'apa's successor, namely, his nephew and pupil, Ge-den-dub aforesaid; and for this epoch the accession to the Ge-lug-pa Grand Lamaship has gone on according to this theory." Here we have to rack up error (I) against B. de Z. The last British Representative at Lhasa, H.E. Richardson, in his book, A Short History of Tibet (E.P. Dutton and Co., 1962, p. 40 and p. 41), confirms Waddell: "One of Tsong-Khapa's leading disciples was his nephew, a monk called Gedun Truppa, whose learning and vigorous propagation of his Masters' doctrine won many followers for the new sect. He founded one of the greatest of the Gelugpa monasteries at Tashilhunpo near Shigatse, and he was abbot at time of his death. Some years later it was recognized that his spirit had undergone reincarnation in a young monk named Gedun Gyatso, and he too, in due course, was similarly succeeded by a child, Sonam Gyatso, who was recognized as the third incarnation of Gedun Truppa. Sonam Gyatso was a brilliant scholar and zealous missionary. He visited Mongolia and in 1578 converted the leading prince, Altan Khan of the Tumed, together with large numbers of his followers. The Khan gave Gyatso the title of Tale (Dalai), meaning 'Ocean,' and that title was later applied retrospectively to his predecessors." Thus (II), we see that, contrary to the implication left by the Compiler that "the first TaleyLama" died "in 1475" as against HPB's assertion that the Dalai Lama hierarchy, regularly installed at Lhasa, "originated only in the latter half of the seventeenth century," the truth is that Ganden Truppa and his immediate successor never held that title and that the fourth hierarch of the Gelugpas, from Tsong-Khapa, was not installed at Lhasa as the God-King of the Tibetans, their Dalai Lama, but received the epithet only as an honorific title bestowed upon him in Mongolia! (III) Mr de Zirkoff is also in error when he writes that "the Official List of the Taley-Lamas state" (sic) that Ganden Truppa's "birth took place in 1391...." His authority in the reference cited, in sentence immediately prior to what he gives --- II-xvi

as "List of Grand (Dalai) Lamas or Popes" (whether "Official" or not, Waddell omits to say) expressly states: "The birth-dates are given upon the authority of a reliable, trustworthy Lamaist calculator," one, "Lama S's-rab-Gya-tso of the Gelugpa monastery, Darjeeling," who apparently worked out the dates to please Waddell privately, there being no indication of need to "calculate" the deaths given on the "list." Stranger than all this, de Zirkoff undertakes to explain the "confusion" he professes to see in HPB's assertion (above) that, "The Tashi-Lamas were always more powerful and more highly considered than the Taley Lamas. The latter are the creation of the Tashi-Lama Nabang-Lob Sang, the sixth incarnation of Tsong-Kha-pa - himself an incarnation of Amitabha, or Buddha." De Zirkoff's footnote at this point, contradicting HPB, her very learned lamas, the unnamed European and her "Brother," reads as follows: "The official lists of the Taley-Lamas and the Tashi-Lamas, printed and published by the TashiLhunpo monastery in Tibet, record that the first Taley-Lama was instituted in 1419, following the passing of Tsong-Kha-pa. Furthermore, Nabang-Lob-Sang (in Tibetan spelling Nag-dbang-bLo-bSang; underlined letters not being pronounced) was the fifth Taley-Lama (he may be termed the sixth when Tsong-Kha-pa is included, although the latter is not included in the Tashi-Lhunpo printing). Moreover, it was the Taley-Lama Nabang-Lob-Sang who instituted his revered teacher, bLo-bsang ch'os-kyi rhyalmts'an (1569-1662) as the first Grand Lama of Tashi-Lhunpo, thus establishing the Tashi Lama Hierarchy, according to the official listing. Since both Grand Lamas had the name of Lob-Sang, the confusion is easily accounted for. (Cf. The Buddhism of Tibet, or Lamaism, by L.A. Waddell, pp. 23336.)" (IV) What de Zirkoff here represents as (a) the "official list" of the Taley Lamas (b) "printed and published at the Tashi-Lhunpo monastery" is introduced by Waddell on p. 233 of his book as neither "official" nor "printed and published at the Tashi-Lhunpo monastery," but simply as part of "the printed list" (from whatever source) titled by Waddell himself "List of Grand (Dalai) Lamas or Popes." Waddell on the same page admits that all "personages" prior to "dGe-'dun-grub-pa" on the original have been omitted, therefore his figure "No. 1" is of his own making; the "birth-dates" too have been later added at his own discretion. (V) In place of showing "the first Taley-Lama was established in 1419"; that date nowhere appears in Waddell's "List." Instead, the "First 'Dalai"' is therein correctly indicated to be Nabang-Lob Sang "1617" to "1682." (VI) While he came to be called "the Great Vth" (Dalai Lama) after his death, that was not his living title. Nor would it help matters if he were termed "the sixth when Tsong-Kha-pa is included..." for HPB clearly states that Nabang-Lob Sang was "the sixth incarnation of Tsong-Kha-pa" - not the sixth incarnation of Amitabha, or Buddha, of whom "Tsong-Kha-pa" was "himself an incarnation...." (VII) De Zirkoff finds "the confusion" he professes to see "easily accounted for" by having it believed that Mme. Blavatsky and her "Brother" and her Tibetan lama "informants" simply fastened upon "Lob Sang" to the exclusion of other identifying facts and through an error of verbal confusion, arrived at the false notion that Nabang-Lob Sang resided at Tashilunpo not in the Potala Palace at Lhasa as its builder, "the Great Vth"! If this were true, one easily could be persuaded to forget all about the defunct "Agent of the Masters" of the 19th Century, and pay pilgrimage to Los Angeles, to sit at the feet of a much-wiser Slavonic Mahatma! Something is wrong, of course. What is it? And who is dishing out the "baloney," HPB or her Compiler-critic? No sophistry about the spelling of names can obfuscate so great an issue as that which Madame Blavatsky's statement here poses in definite terms: whether the Dalai Lamas, the "Priestly Kings" of Lhasa have been "incarnations of Tsong-Kha-pa", himself "an incarnation of Amitabha, or Buddha" - or whether Tashi Lamas, the "Kingly Priests" of Tibetan Buddhism have served as mortal vehicles of Je Rinpoche, the Great Reformer, Avatar of Sakyamuni. --- II-xvii

Now what her Compiler is here seeking to perpetuate by displacing Madame Blavatsky's esoteric teaching on the status of the Panchen or Tashi Lamas, is nothing more or less than the esoteric notion commonly accepted in Tibetan "polity." It is reflected in the view expressed by Thubten Norbu, eldest brother of the present Dalai Lama, Executive-Director of The Tibet Society, and - before his resignation, chief Abbot of Kum-bum Monastery and an "incarnation" (which he never seems to have found too convincing), Tagster Rinpoche, Tulku. In his book, Tibet (p. 271), when referring to what he calls "a struggle for power" that, early on, was "beginning between the two high Rinpoche of the Gelukpa sect" (the Panchen Rinpoche and the Dalai Lama or "Gyalwa Rinpoche"), the author writes: "This rivalry was quickly exploited by the Chinese and has been used by them to this day to try to split our country. Yet the office of Panchen Rinpoche was brought into being by one of the Gyalwa Rinpoche and owes everything, including its wealth, to him. But again foreigners have failed to understand what to us is so clear, and their attempts to create a political rivalry have failed because the Panchen Rinpoche was never accorded any political authority, and as a spiritual authority is one of many, all equally under the leadership of the Gyalwa Rinpoche. "The office came into being because the fifth Gyalwa Rinpoche wished to show his gratitude to his teacher, Losang Chogyan, a highly influential and venerated incarnation of Opagme. It was claimed that the great teacher was in fact a reincarnation of Kha-drub, Tsong Khapa's disciple, further enhancing his prestige; and the fifth Gyalwa Rinpoche gave him land and farms near Shigatse, where the monastery of Tashi Lunpo was founded." This, of course, reflects the official protocol of the Dalai Lama's court at Lhasa (or in exile), the ecclesiastical and bureaucratic tentacles of which formerly extended throughout Tibet. Thus, His Holiness himself speaks of "the Panchen Lama" as "among the lamas second only to the Dalai Lamas in religious authority in Tibet, but they have never held any secular authority.... In most generations, the younger had become the pupil of the older" (My Land and My People, p. 102). The last statement - put forward as a pretext to exact subordination in all things from the Panchen Lamas - is perfectly true, but only because the majority of the Dalai Lamas of Lhasa died in immaturity, whereas the Panchen Lamas often reached ripe old age. Physical seniority as the criteria for this "tutor-pupil" relationship is a late invention of the XIIIth Dalai Lama, who found himself six years older than the Grand Lama of Tashilunpo, whom he sought to humiliate. (VIII) But even the XIVth Dalai Lama himself today gives the lie to de Zirkoff's assertion that it was "the fifth Taley-Lama" who "instituted his revered teacher, bLo-bsang Ch'os-kyi rhyal-mts'an (1569-1662) as the first Grand Lama of Tashi-Lunpo, thus establishing the Tashi-Lama hierarchy...." The current "Pope" of the Gelugpa Church begins his paragraph from which we have quoted, by saying: "The Panchen Lamas, like the Dalai Lamas, are high incarnates. The first incarnation of both took place in the fourteenth Christian century." (It seems the Executive-Director of The Tibet Society and his younger brother ought to have gotten together on this one - "what to us is so clear..."!) Likewise, the XIIIth Dalai Lama, in written reply to a series of questions officially submitted to him by the Kuomintung Government of China in the fall of 1930, stated, in reference to "the Tashi-lhunpo monastery," that "the fifth Dalai Lama awarded this monastery to the fourth Panchen Lama." (see Tibet, Today and Yesterday, by Tieh-Tsong Li, Bookman Associates, 1960, p. 154). (IX) Finally - what is more surprising - is that de Zirkoff's own chosen expert, Waddell, whom the Compiler-critic would set up as a counter-authority on Tibet and Occult Tibet against Madame Blavatsky, is still a third source ready-at hand to show that the Grand Lamas of Tashilhunpo antedate the Dalai Lamas at Lhasa by hundreds of years. And Waddell demonstrates this on one of the very pages de Zirkoff has given by reference, viz., the former's page 236. There, Waddell states --- II-xviii

that "The official list" ("taken from that printed at the monastery itself" and re-numbered and re-titled by him, "List of 'Tashi' Grand Lamas") "ends with No. 3 of my list as above, and extends the list backwards... including... the following six Tibetans, the fourth of which is usually held to be the first of the Tashilhumpo Grand Lamas." This "fourth" is "mK'as-sgrub dGe-legs-dpal zang-po (1385-1439)." Against this designation, Waddell himself raises an objection that, because "Tashi-lhumpo was only built in 1445," the one "usually held to be the first of the Tashi-lhumpo Grand Lamas" could not have been "contemporary with it...." But what the historian here overlooks is that the great monastery was "built on the lower slope of a steep hill" (Ibid., p. 270); and that on this holy ground, it was "given the name Tashi Lhunpo, Mountain of Blessings" (T.J. Norbu, Tibet, p. 215). Madame Blavatsky affirms it "was built in 1445" and "by order of Tson-kha-pa" (Theosophical Glossary, p. 327). Elsewhere in her same volume (pp. 364-5), it is explained that a "Vihara" or "place inhabited by Buddhist priests or ascetics; a Buddhist temple.... in days of yore... was to be met with only in unfrequented places, wild jungles, on mountain tops," etc. From these facts it is no strain on anyone's rationality to accept the following conclusions, logically deduced from the above, indisputable facts: (a) That one of the favorite gathering-places of Tsong-Kha-pa and his disciples was at an open vihara on the "steep hill" they called the "Mountain of Blessings," overlooking Shigatse. (b) That there the new-born Gelugpa Order was instructed by its founder and leader, before his death, to build on the spot a special monastery and temple. ) That after his departure, but before the monastery could be erected, the one who succeeded to leadership of the "Yellow Hats" and who himself became the chief among the monks of the Tashilunpo ("Mountain of Blessings") Vihara, became also known as the "Tashi Lama", the first of the Spiritual Hierarchs so designated. Thus, truly, we find that after Tsong Kha-Pa's death, "his place... as leader of the reformed sect, the Gelugpas, was taken... by Khadrub.... Khadrub was almost as great a scholar as Tsong Khapa himself, and was given the job of teaching the reformer's youngest disciple, Gendundrub... Tsong Khapa himself taught Gedundrub, but he came mainly under the teaching of Khadrub. When the latter died and young Gedundrub became leader of the reformed sect, one of his first acts was to set about building a monastery in honor of his late teacher.... In five years the great new monastery was completed and given the name Tashi Lhunpo...." (T. Norbu, op. cit., p. 215). Or, as Snelling and Richardson (in A Cultural History of Tibet, p. 182) relate it: After the "famous mKhas-grub-rje," it was "dGe-'dun-grub (1391-1475)" whose "energy and ability... was mainly responsible for building up Tsong-kha-pa's school into an active, expansive order ready and anxious to compete with the others on an equal footing.... he founded in 1445 another monastery, bKras-shis-lhun-po (Tashilhunpo) near Shigatse on the very edge of the territory dominated by the powerful princes of Rin-sungs who had the militant support of the Karma-pa Red Hat hierarch." Sir Charles Bell notes (in The Religion of Tibet, p. 161) that "Ge-dun Trup-pa has his tomb in Ta-shi Lhun-po, the monastery that he founded. Those of the second, third and fourth" ("Dalai Lamas") "appear to be unknown. None is in the Potala until that of the Great Fifth," (Nabang Lob-Sang) "who founded it on its present lines...." (Thus we learn that Thubten Norbu's claim that "the office of Panchen Lama... owes everything, including its wealth," to the Vth Dalai Lama, is as untrue as that it "was brought into being" by him. Likewise, this author's use of the term "was founded" is unfortunate, especially as juxtaposing "the monastery of Tashi Lunpo" with "lands and farms near Shigatse" which, it is said, the Dalai Lama "gave him," Losang Chogyan. What Nabang Lob-Sang gave to Losang Chogyan and his successors was no more than the office of Tashi Lama, which the former thereby vacated, himself and all his successors, together with all the wealth, monastery, lands and farms to which that office had acquired title during its two centuries of previous existence!) --- II-xix

(X) Thus, with Khas-grub as the First "Tashi Lama" and, after Tsong-Kha-Pa, (esoterically) the first Spiritual Hierarch of the Gelugpa School and Teacher of Gedan-Truppa (exoterically the first "Dalai Lama" but esoterically the second Tashi Lama and Spiritual Hierarch, following on Khras-grub), Nag-dbang-bLo-bSang, commonly called "the Great Vth," and the first Dalai Lama to be enthroned at Lhasa, is seen to have been - as HPB rightly observed - "the sixth incarnation of TsongKha-pa...." Withal, it is little wonder that the latter-day court at Lhasa, bent on displacing the Tashi Lamas as the Spiritual Hierarchs of Tibetan Buddhism (this spiritual superiority being openly acknowledged by Nabang Lob-Sang when he passed title to his teacher, Losang Chogyan; see Waddell, p. 232, and Bell, p. 190), counts their "Dalai Lamas" only from Gedan-Truppa. To go back to Khras-grub would expose their game by revealing the Dalai Lama succession came from what really was the first Tashi Lama! So, whether the "Dalai Lamas" are counted from the first enthronement at Lhasa, or from the first that was given the honorific title by Altan Khan, or the first so posthumously named (Geduntruppa), all were preceded in time by, and succeeded from, the first Tashi Lama! But, someone may ask, how can Khras-grub be counted as an "incarnation" of Tsong-Kha-Pa when he was a living contemporary of the latter? The same, of course, may be said of Gedan-Truppa, whose first teacher was the Great Reformer, Je Rinpoche himself. It is here that the Lhasa ecclesiastics, as a sop to exoteric appearances and as an accommodation to popular acceptance of "lamaic succession," have severed a "Gordian Knot." Their approved accounting of hierarchal "incarnation" goes back no further than Gedan-truppa's successor, "Gedun Gyatso, the IInd Dalai Lama," born in 1475 some months after the death of Gedan-Truppa and said to have been informed by the same "Chenresi or Avalokitesvara" that had passed from the body of his predecessor upon its death. But in so doing, they admit no line of incarnation from Gedun-truppa's teachers, Khas-grub and TsongKha-Pa. The Secret Doctrine of Dzyan Theosophy (Esoteric Budhism) has no such difficulty. Even the esoteric teachings of debased Tantrism, preserving as they do some mangled fragments of genuine Occultism, can reconcile the problem with no violence. Rev. Chogyam Trungpa, in his book, Born in Tibet (Appendix II) speaks of "high Incarnates" as being "Tulkus of various kinds." In one "kind of incarnation... known as a 'Tulku of benediction' - when a certain well-beloved Lama dies, his disciples will ask another Lama who has been closely associated with the deceased (the latter, as often as not, will be the presiding Lama of their school) to locate his spirit; as a result of this, the Lama, though he does not return in person, confers his blessing upon the one who is to carry on his teaching; the person thus designated for the task will then reincarnate the departed Master in the sense of perpetuating his spiritual influence." In the Dzyan School of Arhats, there is no need to "locate his spirit" - neither "the disciples" nor a chosen agent are required to furnish either the "impulse" nor the "guidance" to facilitate such an "incarnation." In the portion quoted above from HPB's "Reincarnations in Tibet," she alludes to belief "the five celestial Buddhas... have created (read, overshadowed with spiritual wisdom) five" "Bodhisattvas...." In the (posthumously published) volume of (fragments from) The Secret Doctrine (III* "Occultism," p. 367), she says: "Every man has an Inner, or 'Higher Self,' and also an Astral Body. But few are those who, outside the higher degrees of Adeptship, can guide the latter, or any of the principles that animate it, when once death has closed their short terrestrial life." That, of course, is why the (inferior) "Incarnates" of the schools spoken of by Kagyu Lama Chogyam Trungpa, require help, someone to "locate" and guide his spirit. As HPB observes, for the highest Adepts, there are "hardly any limits in the exercise of that wonderful faculty" which, among other accomplishments, makes possible "guidance, or their transference from the dead to a living body...." Further on, in Chapter, "'Reincarnations' of Buddha," she translates (p. 390) from a "secret book" (presumably, with --------

* See my closing notes. - VAE ---------- II-xx others mentioned, then in care of the Panchen Rinpoche of Tashilhunpo), disclosing that after "Sugata became Tsong-Kha-pa.... the blessed 'remains' since then have overshadowed and rested in many a holy body of human Bodhisattvas." Mahatma K.H. writes, "When our great Buddha, - the patron of all the adepts, the reformer and codifier of the occult system, reached first Nirvana on earth... - his spirit could at one and the same time rove the interstellar spaces in full consciousness, and continue at will on Earth in his original and individual body. For the divine Self had so completely disfranchised itself from matter that it could create at will an inner substitute for itself, and leaving it in the human form for days, weeks, sometimes years, affect in no wise by the change either the vital principle or the physical mind of its body. By the way, that is the highest form of adeptship man can hope for on our planet. But it is as rare as the Buddhas themselves...." It was by means of this awesome Occult (Spiritual) power of creating "at will an inner substitute" that Sakyamuni ("the remains") could "overshadow" first Khrasgrub and then Gedun-truppa while "resting" within the (discarnate or, as the case might be, re-incarnate) form of Tsong-Kha-Pa (who, on leaving his disciples, told them "he" was next to re-imbody "in the land of his birth," which they took to mean China - though history reveals no evidence of that). And it was by this same singular power of God-like creation, pertaining to "the highest form of adeptship," that Tsong-Kha-Pa both was himself born "an avatar of Buddha" (Theosophical Glossary, p. 305) and gave spiritual birth to "an Avatar of Tsong-Kha-pa" (Ibid., p. 247) successively re-imbodied as "our Teschu Lamas" who, with a "few exceptional additional cases" among "the initiated such as... the Bodhisattvas and a few others," are "reincarnated" before an "appointed cycle" (M.L., p. 173). For, as the Mahatma adds - in the passage quoted from before, "...the last Khobilgan who reached it" (possession of the creative power ascribed to Sakyamuni Buddha) "being Tsong-ka-pa of Kokonor (XIV Century), the reformer of esoteric as well as of vulgar Lamaism." Thus - as Madame Blavatsky rightly affirmed - it was the sixth "incarnation of Tsong-Kha-Pa, the sixth Spiritual Hierarch (Tashi Lama) of the Gelugpa Order, Nabang Lob-Sang, who, being crowned as "Dalai Lama" on the Golden Throne at Lhasa, thereby began and created the temporal and ecclesiastical office of Tibet's so-called "God-Kings," of whom Tenzing Gyatso is currently the tenth. Though remaining the Spiritual Hierarch of the Order until his death, a position not bestowed nor relinquished but one inherent in only the Avataras of Tsong-Kha-Pa, Nabang Lob-Sang transferred that title to his initiator and teacher, Losang Chogyan, so that by passing on to the latter the office and rights of Tashi Lama, it would be recognized after his own death that the incarnations of Tsong-Kha-Pa (with the powers of spiritual hierarchship in Tsong-Kha-Pa's order) would not be found at Lhasa but at Tashilhunpo in the person of Panchen Rimpoche. When Losang Chogyan died in 1662 at Shigatse, the Dalai Lama at Lhasa (to use the phraseology of Waddell, p. 232) "promptly reincarnated him, and also made him out to be his own spiritual father, even as regards the divine emanation theory. Thus the new-born babe was alleged to be an incarnation of Avalokita's spiritual father, Amitabha, the Buddha of Boundless Light...." This identification could have been for no less reason than to impress upon the popular mind, to signify to all laymen and lama alike, that the succession of Dalai Lamas who in the future were to reign at Lhasa would be spiritually the inferiors of the Panchen Lamas at Tashilhunpo. Thus, to understand her statement, given at the conclusion of "Reincarnations in Tibet," in which HPB states that "the great incarnations of equal rank - the Taley and the Teschu-Lamas" are both "incarnations of Buddha," one must correlate her accompanying allusions to "Avalokiteswara" and "Amita-Buddha." "For him who understands the puzzling mystery by having obtained a key to it, the Gordian Knot of these successive incarnations is easy to untie." It was 1882 and she promised that

what "little" could be "given out" would be concerning "the mystic doctrine" taught by "the initiated 'Phag-pa' or 'saintly men' (Adepts)" upon "this subject." --- II-xxi She later supplied that key in passages we have cited and put together (and in others), including one which declares: "While popular fancy claims for Avalokiteswara many incarnations on earth" - (a book arriving just today, written by Kagyu Lama Chogyam Trungpa and with a complimentary letter of introduction under official letterhead, signed by H.H. the Dalai Lama, claims both the "Dalai Lama and the Karmapa" are "said to be... incarnations of Avalokiteswara." (Visual Dharma, Shambhala, 1975, p. 56) - "and sees in him, not very wrongly, the spiritual guide of every believer, the esoteric interpretation sees in him the Logos, both celestial and human," as human, "the Higher Self" (Theosophical Glossary, p. 44). Thus, "while Gautama Buddha... merged in Nirvana ever since his death," is one with the "celestial" Logos, the universal, cosmic "Buddha," Avalokiteswara, and so rightly may be said to "incarnate" in the Dalai Lama as in every human being, the Nirmanakaya, "Gautama Sakyamuni," who only can "reincarnate" as the still-human "remains" of that great "dual inner personality" shown by HPB to be "one of the greatest mysteries of Esoteric psychism" (The Secret Doctrine, iii, p. 392), is not a universal principle but the "Adept of Adepts" who "lives to this day in his spiritual entity as a mysterious, unseen, but overpowering presence among the Brotherhood of Shamballa, beyond, far beyond, the snow-capped Himalayas" (Ibid., p. 385) - the "Great Lord" of our epoch, whose Avataras in the last century dwelt still embodied, one at Tashilhunpo and another elsewhere in the world of men (but not at Lhasa, Tibet). -------If what we have said is true concerning the "creation" of a line of Dalai Lamas at Lhasa by "the sixth incarnation of Tsong-Kha-Pa," why then do not her Adept-Brothers or HPB herself somewhere, anywhere, designate the Dalai Lamas, subsequent to Nabang Lob-Sang, as being even "high Initiates" (which they do in the case of the Panchen Lamas)? Thus, in the Theosophical Glossary (a book that her "Compiler" finds so full of "plagiarisms" that he refuses to count it among her works at all!), HPB writes: "De Jure the Teschu Lama is second after the Dalai Lama; de facto, he is higher...." There is a mystery here too, but its explanation is fairly obvious, after a bit of thought taken in light of Dzyan Theosophy - which alone can (dares to) supply the answer. The concluding part to ADDENDUM II will show how the attempt of the Tashi (Dalai) Lama, Nabang Lob-Sang, to establish a kingly and enduring succession of highly-advanced "incarnations" for the Golden Throne in the Potala at Lhasa, a hierarch to serve as a temporal (political) buffer of authority to protect the heritage of Tsong-Kha-Pa, and to leave the Spiritual Hierarch situated at Tashilhunpo unencumbered with civil and military difficulties and duties, was completely thwarted at its very beginning, fatally arrested in its first attempt at being manifest following "the Great Vth's" death. And we will show how there has emerged from the ruins of this absolute failure a nightmare or holocaust (accurately prophesied more than 90 years ago in what is perhaps the least-known of all Mahatma letters, one rediscovered only by Victor Endersby in 1963), an ensuing whirlwind of darkness that has blotted out both the Tashi Lama line of Avatara-incarnations and the Tibetan outpost of the Mahatmas' Brotherhood itself, while at the same time bringing ruination on the people of Tibet and letting loose on the face of the Western World an unprecedented invasion of dugpas! What follows hereon will cite numerous non-Theosophical authorities - whom the critics of Madame Blavatsky cannot reject - to prove these assertions, and to show the many crimes and follies which, down to the present from the time of the disappearance from public life of Dalai Lama Nabang

Lob-Sang exactly 300 years ago this year (Waddell, p.377), have emanated from more than one of Tibet's "God-Kings" or "Living Buddhas" of Lhasa and their retinue of "men of black heart" (as the father of a later Tashi Lama characterized the Lhasan elite). ------------ II-xxii With the foregoing, our study at least proves three things: (1) That Mme Blavatsky knew far more about Tibet and Occult Tibet than her presumptuous (or less-than-honest) critics - and more even than has heretofore been suspected or acknowledged for her by even the most studious of her followers. (2) That in tying the Theosophical wagon to the Dalai Lama's skirts, leaders of organized Theosophy will eventually find themselves not star-bourne but irrevocably hell-bound, imprisoned by a jostling entourage of Red Hats, Black Hats and others, among whom may be found sorcerers and demonizers of every kind and description - none of them endorsed by HPB, and not a few of the stripe she condemned without hesitation, hiatus or humility. (3) Not only by these findings can we better guard our path, avoiding deceptive pits and traps we might otherwise not detect or even suspect, but once our illusions have been shaken off, we can arm ourselves the better to defend HPB, her Adept-Brothers and their teachings. Thus, the present writer is the first to confess, humbly, that this research has wrought a great change in his thinking, a 180o turnabout from where it was (as then expressed in letters to correspondents) less than two years ago. Then he was optimistically looking forward to (hopefully) seeing the Dalai Lama emerge as "the new torch-bearer of 1975" because, it was thought - a false "recollection," indeed - that Mme Blavatsky had once endorsed both the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama as "High Initiates." At the same time, it was the writer's anticipation that an endorsement by the Tibetan Pontiff of Madame Blavatsky or of her Theosophy would give rise to "the new impulse" for this century, by its reverberation throughout the globe (that, in fact; since it was imagined that she had already stipulated the spiritual rank of His Holiness beyond question, he could at once be recognized by all in 1975 as the looked-for "Messenger from Shamballa"). Not until the research was well underway for "Madame Blavatsky and Occult Tibet," did we realize the error of it all! We now know - and this study tells why - there will never be this kind of endorsement given to HPB, her teachings or her Adept-Brothers whose outpost was at Shigatse, Tibet, in the shadow of Tashilhunpo. The plain facts when all are set out to full view, make abundantly clear why few if any "experts on Tibet" or "Tibetan Buddhist authorities" will ever concede to acknowledge the truth of anything in the writings of HPB and her "Aryan exiles in... snowy retreats." "Polity" and their "obligations" or "connections" - when not their ignorance or doctrinal, ethical or occult antipathy forbid it. We now know, too, that a "blessing" put publicly upon HPB and all her works, and coming from "the highest living Lama," would be little better than how she described the benediction of the Vatican's Pontiff, a "curse." For in what we have seen in print of the replies of His Holiness to the most simple questions about Theosophy and Mahatmas, there is not the least expression of any knowledgeable insight nor even common understanding of such matters. We also grant the possibility that one thing may be said at one time and quite something different, regarding the same subject, on another occasion. But no real student of Dzyan Theosophy, having in heart the welfare of a movement founded thereon - and knowing even as much about recent Tibetan history as latter-day Tibetans know of Madame Blavatsky and her works - would for one moment consider as trustworthy, uplifting or advantageous anything His Holiness might have to say concerning HPB, so long as the XIVth Dalai Lama persists in treading the path of his late predecessor. Thus, who among her followers would place any value on or credence in the judgement of him who writes of the Nyingma-initiated, Kargyud Red Hat Rinpoche, Chogyam Trungpa, who founded and heads the Naropa Institute (where "the personal physician of the Dalai Lama" lectures, cheek-by-jowl with Professor Bharati) - : "...the guidance of Trungpa Tulku would certainly help to clear many of the misconceptions about Buddhism as practiced

in Tibet, and particularly about the Tantric practices" (see Visual Dharma, p. ix)? --- II-xxiii If His Holiness from Tibet has not a Red Cap under his Yellow Hat, why does he not do something to spread the doctrines of Tsong-Kha-Pa, as a counterweight to those of Padmasambhava* being diligently disseminated wholesale by his Red Cap friends in the Western World? In The New Age Journal (whose publishers and editors are inordinate in their promotion of Chogyam Trungpa's enterprises), we find "a newly compiled listing of all the Tibetan Buddhist centers in North America" (1975, n.d., pp. 60-1), titled "Four Schools of Tibetan Buddhism" (see below for excerpts from the accompanying introduction, "From Tibetans in Exile, 1959-1969"). "The four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism are well-represented in the U.S.," it is said, "giving Americans ample opportunity to study this way of life." First on the list are centers of the Kargyudpa school, (30 in all), chiefly those founded and directed by "Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche, 24, with "Dharmadhatu" centers in New York, Boston, Toronto, Montreal, Chicago, San Francisco, Berkeley, Los Angeles, Seattle, Houston, Washington, D.C., Austin, San Antonio, Bloomington, Palo Alto, Santa Barbara, Ann Arbor, and new ones "forming" in 10 other cities. The Sakyapa Red Hat school is represented by 4 centers; the Nyingmapa by five. But the Gelugpa, the erstwhile State Church of Tibet, of which the Dalai Lama is the ecclesiastical head, having by far the most powerful authority, and greatest prestige and numbers among the Tibetan people, has only three listed centers, plus "The Tibet Society" - whom we have to thank for the savage, malicious and ignorant falsifying attack by A. Bharati, Black Tantrika! In the face of all this, will organized Theosophy, or the larger part of it, eventually find itself someday being married to Black Tantrism, with His Holiness, the Tibetan Pontiff, presiding at the nuptials? Has the latter already (in "conferences" behind the screen) initiated this "love-match"? If so, will not a few Theosophists have to renounce their "first-love," HPB - if they have not done so already? And how best may one do that, on the authority of Gyalwa Rinpoche, or on the word of L. Austine Waddell, Tibetologist (who saw in the "esoteric Buddhism" of Theosophy only what "would better be termed exoteric... for it is foreign to the principles of Buddha" though, he suggested, akin to "charlatanism...." - (op. cit., pp. 128-9)? How will it be found possible to make way for the "invasion from Lhasa" without first bringing down the bulwarks raised by HPB herself? To this quandary, we have an answer from Mr. de Zirkoff, clearly enough. And one can have no doubt that all but a few within organized Theosophy bow before his authority. Should then someone ask His Holiness, the Dalai Lama Himself? The last letter we received from a certain President of the largest center of organized Theosophy in this country, informed us that she had "gone to Tibet to meet the Dalai Lama." Perhaps, after coming back, she can tell us? But would He say? Professor Agehananda Bharati - who got us started on this study - , speaking at the 1973 International Conference on Parapsychology and Anthropology in London, sponsored by The Parapsychology Foundation, ridiculed "that ghastly welter of sheer nonsense and the phony output of pseudo-Tibetan and pseudoIndian exotericists, from Madame Blavatsky to...." He too seems to have the ear of His Holiness from Lhasa, for he added that, "the many learned Tibetan ecclesiastics with whom I talked over the past two decades, including His Highness the Dalai Lama, laughed at these things when they first heard about them; but by now, unfortunately, the Tibetan scholars in the diaspora in India and the West so disdain the genre that they regard it beneath their dignity to talk about it." Bharati, wrong as he has shown to be, here may be right for once. But who are these "learned Tibetan ecclesiastics" and "scholars" aside from Red Hat Tantrikas and Gelugpas beholden to "His Highness"? But has Bharati talked to the Panchen Lama of Tashilunpo?, someone may ask. In Tibetans in Exile 1959-1969, official publication of the Bureau of H.H. the Dalai Lama, Dharamsala, India, the statement is made that, "There are many Buddhist schools of thought in Tibet"

and "four are outstanding. The first of ---------* In my opinion the Padmasambhava of the Tantrikas is a forgery of the real disciple of the Buddha, a series of forgeries dating clear back to the 7th Century. - VAE ------------ II-xxiv these is in the category of the ancient teachings and is known as Nyingma-pa. The other three are from the new teachings and are known as Kargyut-pa, Sakya-pa and Gelugpa." The "Head" of each is named: Dudjom Rinpoche, Sakya Trechen, Karmapa, and the Dalai Lama "(Nominal Head)." It is added that the teachings of these schools can be used without any contradiction whether one practices the way of the Sutra or that of the Tantra, or with both together." It is the official bureau, controlled by H.H. the Dalai Lama that represents, "Though there are many schools of Buddhist thought in Tibet, the differences between them are only superficial, and there is no schism within the system as is to be found in Christianity." This must only be since the destruction of the great monastery of Tashiihunpo (already in 1962, the ranks of its 4,000 monks having been reduced - through Red Chinese slavery or execution, according to the eldest brother of the present Dalai Lama - to 200), inasmuch as in Waddell's day, as he tells us in his book cited (p. 270) "not even Lamas other than of the established church can stay there overnight." But if the "schism" between the Shammars and the latter-day "pupils" of TsongKha-pa has been "healed" since HPB lived, who has accomplished so amazing a feat - and how? And what can be its significance for tomorrow? As for "differences... only superficial" between the words and ways of the neo-Bon-pas and the Gelugpas - does this evaluation sound like Tsong-Kh-Pa? Can these be the words of Sakyamuni? All of it leaves one wondering whether the only real differences within the area of Tibetan Buddhism have been those between the Panchen (Tashi) Lama and the Dalai Lama and His retinue! -------NOTE: Due to severe restrictions of time and circumstance, no delivery was made of advance (xeroxed) copies planned for distribution to selected parties attending the Theosophical Society's Centenary World Congress in New York City for the anniversary November 17th. Without means to determine that more than nine of those selected as recipients were certainly present and with no way to get the copies from Kennedy International Airport to the Statler-Hilton Hotel before Tuesday or even Wednesday the 19th - though our Fresno air-cargo-"take-off" time (and a double-charge cost) promised airport arrival on the 16th - , the effort began to look somewhat extravagant the closer it approached its time deadline. Finally, when the typescript was at last finished and ready for duplicating and send-off, and after a call to the photocopy concern (20 minutes before their closing time) had verified they would remain open an extra hour to accommodate (at extra charge) our $40 job, the climax came when, on arrival, we found this shop closed (the only local copy shop open even half-day on Saturdays, and the one whose prices per copy are less than half that of its nearest competitor)! At that point we stopped and tallied up the cost we would have paid (The Blavatsky Foundation having then less than $150 in cash assets, less now) for the delivery two days late of 9 or more copies of the foregoing - : $108.00! If we were a typical Theosophist, we might attribute the unexpected, last-minute defeat to Karma - but whether good Karma or evil, we have yet to decide! --------------------------------