I have strictly forbidden my letters or anything connected with my business to ever be given to Fern. Thus Mr. H. and yourself or anyone else at Simla may take my word of honour that Fern will have nothing more to do with my business. But, my dearest friend, you must promise me faithfully, and for my sake, never to breathe one word of what I told you to anyone — least of all to Hume or Fern; unless Fern forces you by his fibs to stop him, in which case you may use what you think proper of it, to force him to shut up, yet, without ever allowing him to know how, and from whom you have learnt it. Apart from this, use of the knowledge at your discretion. Read my letter, registered and sent to your name from Bussawal yesterday — or rather my letter to Hume — carefully and think well over before sending it to him; for this letter may provoke him to a fit of madness and hurt pride and make him quit the Society at once. Better keep it, as means for future emergency to prove to him that at least I am one who will not permit even my enemies to be won over by unfair means. At least, I so regard the means that Mr. Fern seems but too ready to use. But above all, good and faithful friend, do not allow your self to misconceive the real position of our Great Brotherhood. Dark and tortuous as may seem to your Western mind the paths trodden, and the ways by which our candidates are brought to the great Light — you will be the first to approve of them when you know all. Do not judge on appearances — for you may thereby do a great wrong, and lose your own personal chances to learn more. Only be vigilant and — watch. If Mr. Hume but consents to wait he will have more, and far more extraordinary phenomena to silence the critics than he hitherto had. Exercise your influence with him. Remember in November comes the great crisis, and September will be full of dangers. Save at least our personal relations from the great wreck. Fern is the queerest psychological subject I have ever met. The pearl is inside, and truly profoundly hidden by the unattractive oyster-shell. We cannot break it at once; nor can we afford to lose such subjects. While protecting yourself protect him from Hume. Generally I never trust a woman, any more than I would an echo; both are of the female gender because the goddess Echo — like woman — will always have the last word. But with your lady it is otherwise, and I firmly believe that you can trust her with the above — if you think proper. But beware of poor Mrs. Gordon. An excellent lady but would talk Death herself to death. And now I have done.
Yours ever faithfully,
K. H.
Please do not regard it as a compliment — but believe me when I say that your two Letters and especially "The Evolution of Man" is simply SUPERB. Do not fear any contradictions or inconsistencies.
I say again — make notes of them and send them to me and you will see.184
I pray you, kind sir, to lock the foolish letter sent on yesterday to Hume-Sahib into your trunk and leave it there to roost until in demand. I tell you it will create mischief and no better. K.H. is too sensitive by far — he is becoming in your Western Society a regular Miss.
Yours,
M.
Letter No. 76185 (ML-21) Rec. August 22, 1882
There seems some question whether this letter should not have preceded No. 75, but since that letter concerned the matters discussed in the long letter to Hume sent to Sinnett (No. 74) it seemed better to place it following that letter. Both, however, are during the same period of time.
Letter No. 76 concerns some articles, or "letters", which Sinnett had written and sent to Stainton Moses in London for publication in Light, the spiritualist magazine edited by Moses. They were entitled "Letters in Esoteric Theosophy, from an Anglo-Indian to a London Theosophist," and were published in the September 1882 issue of Light. They are not among the letters mentioned in the short addendum to Letter No. 75; these were for publication in The Theosophist. The content was similar, however. It seems that Sinnett usually sent proofs or drafts of his articles to K.H. for review and correction.
Following receipt of the long "Devachan" letter, Sinnett wrote the articles which form the subject of this letter. The Devachan letter had a great deal to say about spiritualism, suicides, accidents, and so on, and Sinnett was apparently sincerely trying to put the teachings in a form which would be comprehensible to Western readers.
Sometime in July 1882, he had proofs of these letters set up and sent to the Mahatma K.H. However, without waiting for the Mahatma's comments, he sent proofs of the first letter to Moses on July 21 and, on August 11, he sent the second set of proofs to him.
On August 12, he received back the set he had sent to the Mahatma K.H. Attached to them was a short letter (No. 71). In that short letter, the Mahatma pointed out what was apparently a discrepancy in what Sinnett had written. This rather "threw" Sinnett, and he wrote immediately to the Mahatma on the same day (August 12) this Letter No. 76. The Mahatma returned the letter with some marginal comments; so, again, we have both sides of this particular interchange of correspondence. Sinnett received it back from the Mahatma on August 22.
The marginal comments are shown in bold type in the book, and there is an added paragraph, also in bold type. When the Mahatma returned this to Sinnett, it was accompanied by a very short transmittal letter which is not found in ML but is Letter 101 in LBS, p. 365. In it the Mahatma says: "I have made a few alterations and caused a footnote to be appended to your 'Letters.' Anyhow, there is always a danger, I see, of finding our ideas substituted by concrete and false images in the minds of your readers. If you but succeed in giving them only relative, not absolute, truth, you will have conferred upon the public a great boon."
Received back 22.8.82
August 12th.
My dear Guardian,
I am afraid the present letters on Theosophy are not worth much, for I have worked on too literal an acceptance of some passages in your long letter about Devachan. The bearing of that seemed to be that the "accidents" as well as the suicides were in danger from the attraction of the séance room. You wrote:—
"But there is another kind of spirit we have lost sight of, — the suicides and those killed by accidents. Both kinds can communicate and both have to pay dearly for such visits. . . ." Correct.
And later on after speaking of the case of the suicides in detail you say: —
"As to the victims of accident these fare still worse . . . unhappy shades . . . cut off in the full flush of earthly passions . . . they are the pisachas etc. . . . They not only ruin their victims etc. . . ." Again correct. Bear in mind that the exceptions enforce the rule.
And if they are neither very good nor very bad the "victims of accident or violence," derive a new set of skandhas from the medium who attracts them. I have explained the situation on the margin of proofs. See note.