A. P. Sinnett's Occult World

Alfred Percy Sinnett

The word ‘occult’ has always been problematic for me as there is the suggestion of spiritual/metaphysical knowledge intentionally hidden or concealed — an implicit contradiction.  Alfred Percy Sinnett (1840-1921) evinced no such mentality in regard to his own life.  Although there were many things he witnessed that he didn’t understand, Sinnett documented and chronicled his experiences of mysterious “occult phenomena.”
 
Sinnett wrote in the Introduction of The Occult World first published in London in 1881: “I have over and over again received ‘direct writing’ produced on paper in sealed envelopes of my own, which was created or precipitated by a living human correspondent.”  He focused his contemplation on ‘adepts,’ whom he perceived as people who had found some unknown way of being in control of natural forces; however, with no comprehension of the ‘natural forces,’ ‘occultism’ would always be a concept intrinsic to his metaphysical philosophy.
 
He referred to these adepts as the ‘Brothers’ or ‘Mahatmas’ and described them as a “wonderful fraternity of occultists.”  He realized Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky to be “the recipient of favours from the Brothers in reference to the greater phenomena” and he relied upon her opinions concerning the less obviously significant manifestations.  Sinnett found Madame Blavatsky to have the ability of “psychological telegraphy” in relation to the Mahatmas.
 
He commented, “She made many friends, and secured some ardent converts to a belief in the reality of occult powers . . . other acquaintances, who, unable to assimilate what they saw in her presence, took up an attitude of disbelief, which deepened into positive enmity as the whole subject became enveloped in a cloud of more or less excited controversy.”
 
Sinnett was Editor of the Pioneer newspaper in India.  An expanded second edition of The Occult World was published in 1882 with there were further additions, including in the 1885 American edition.

 H. P. Blavatsky in 1880 Ceylon (Sri Lanka)
 
 

In the book, Sinnett wrote about Madame Blavatsky:

 

 . . . Madame Blavatsky is a lady of absolutely upright nature, who has sacrificed, not merely rank and fortune, but all thought of personal welfare or comfort in any shape, from enthusiasm for occult studies in the first instance, and latterly for the special task she has taken in hand as an initiate in, if relatively a humble member of, the great occult fraternity—the direction of the Theosophical Society.

 
In December 1879, Madame Blavatsky began a six-week visit at Sinnett’s house at Allahabad.  On December 26, Mr. and Mrs. Sinnett became members of the Theosophical Society with a ceremony officiated by Henry Steele Olcott.
 

Besides the production of the raps one other phenomenon had been conceded to us during Madame Blavatsky’s first visit.  We had gone with her to Benares for a few days, and were staying at a house lent to us by the Maharajah of Vizianagram—a big, bare, comfortless abode as judged by European standards—in the central hall of which we were sitting one evening after dinner.  Suddenly three or four flowers—cut roses—fell in the midst of us—just as such things sometimes fall in the dark at spiritual séances.

 
Sinnett appraised: “ . . . wherever Madame Blavatsky is, there the Brothers, wherever they may be, can and constantly do produce phenomena of the most overwhelming sort, with the production of which she herself has little or nothing to do.”
 
HPB was again the guest of Mr. And Mrs. Sinnett beginning in September 1880, this time at their house in Simla: “. . . in the course of the following six weeks various phenomena occurred, which became the talk of all Anglo-India for a time . . .”  A newly witnessed phenomenon was heard “ . . . in the air, without the intermediation of any solid object whatever, the sound of a silvery bell—sometimes a chime or little run of three or four bells on different notes . . . They were produced for us for the first time one evening after dinner while we were still sitting round the table, several times in succession in the air over our heads, and in one instance instead of the single bell-sound there came one of the chimes of which I speak.”
 
Sinnett hypothesized that the witnessed phenomena “had no other motive except the production of an effect on the minds of people belonging to the outer world; and it seemed to me that under these circumstances they might just as well do something that would leave no room for the imputation even of any trickery.”
 

One day, therefore, I asked Madame Blavatsky whether if I wrote a letter to one of the Brothers explaining my views, she could get it delivered for me.  I hardly thought this was probable, as I knew how very unapproachable the Brothers generally are; but as she said that at any rate she would try, I wrote a letter, addressing it “to the Unknown Brother,” and gave it to her to see if any result would ensue.  It was a happy inspiration that induced me to do this, for out of that small beginning has arisen the most interesting correspondence in which I have ever been privileged to engage—a correspondence which, I am happy to say, still promises to continue, and the existence of which, more than any experiences of phenomena which I have had, though the most wonderful of these are yet to be described, is the raison d’être of this little book.

 
Several days after writing his first letter to the Mahatmas, Sinnett found one evening on his writing-table the first letter sent to him by his new correspondent.  He wrote in The Occult World:
 

My correspondent is known to me as Koot Hoomi Lal Sing.  This is his “Thibetan Mystic Name”—occultists, it would seem, taking new names on initiation—a practice which has no doubt given rise to similar customs which we find perpetuated here and there in ceremonies of the Roman Catholic church.

 
The letter and other Mahatma letters were published in The Mahatma Letters To A. P. Sinnett from The Mahatmas M. & K. H. (1923) transcribed and compiled by A. T. Barker.  Other documentation may be read in The Letters of H. P. Blavatsky to A. P. Sinnett and Other Miscellaneous Letters (1925) transcribed, compiled, and with an Introduction by A. T. Barker.
 
Sinnett reported about the Simla experience of 1881: “During the period in question I got into relations with one other of the Brothers, besides Koot Hoomi . . . The change which came over the character of our correspondence when our new master took us in hand was very remarkable.  Every letter that emanated from Koot Hoomi had continued to bear the impress of his gently mellifluous style . . . Our new master treated us very differently: he declared himself almost unacquainted with our language, and wrote a very rugged hand which it was sometimes difficult to decipher.”
 
Although Sinnett did not divulge the name of this “illustrious” master in The Occult World, the master would become known as ‘Morya,’ who often signed his letters with the initial ‘M.’  Sinnett deduced about ‘the Brothers’: “They are simply letting their existence become perceptible to persons with a natural gravitation towards spirituality and mysticism . . . they reveal themselves . . . by signs and hints which are only likely to be comprehended by people with some spiritual insight or affinity.”

One remarkable series of incidents related by Sinnett in The Occult World involved the mediumship of William Eglinton.

 

. . . it had come to pass that many spiritualists in India were inclined to suppose that we who believed in the Brothers were in some way misled by extraordinary mediumship on the part of Madame Blavatsky.  And at first the “spirit guides” who spoke through Mr. Eglinton confirmed this view.  But a very remarkable change came over their utterances at last.  Shortly before Mr. Eglinton’s departure from Calcutta, they declared their full knowledge of the Brotherhood, naming the “illustrious” by that designation, and declaring that they had been appointed to work in concert with the Brothers thenceforth.  On this aspect of affairs, Mr. Eglinton left India in the steamship Vega, sailing from Calcutta, I believe, on the 16th of March.  A few days later, on the morning of the 24th, at Allahabad, I received a letter from Koot Hoomi, in which he told me that he was going to visit Mr. Eglinton on board the Vega at sea . .

The promised visit was actually paid, and not only that but a letter written by Mr. Eglinton at sea on the 24th describing it,— and giving in his adhesion to a belief in the Brothers fully and completely,— was transported instantaneously that same evening to Bombay, where it was dropped (“out of nothing” like the first letter I received on my return to India) before several witnesses; by them identified and tied up with cards written on by them at the time; then taken away again and a few moments later dropped down, cards from Bombay and all, among Mr. Eglinton’s friends at Calcutta! who had been told beforehand to expect a communication from the Brothers at that time.  All the incidents of this series are authenticated by witnesses and documents . . .

 

In the “Teachings of Occult Philosophy” chapter, Sinnett pronounced that he found “the pursuits in which learned men engage now” to be very different from those of “the initiates of ancient psychology” whose “watchword of subjective development has always been secrecy” — “We have belonged to the material progress epoch, and the watchword of material progress has always been publicity.”  In our own time, it is disturbingly obvious that many people casually give their attention to promulgated fantasy (television, movies, video games, commercialized vapid pop music) and seldom find time to research and reflect about metaphysical aspects of life (as this blog encourages).

The American Edition of The Occult World features “the author’s corrections and a new preface.”  A detailed Appendix was included that upon addressing ‘The Kiddle incident' was expanded to answer the question “What assurance can you give us that there really are behind the few people who stand forward as the visible representatives of the Theosophical Society, any such persons as the Adept Brothers at all?”  Here are some excerpts from Sinnett’s commentary on this matter.

 

First, we have the general body of current belief, which in India goes to show that such persons as Mahatmas or Adepts are somewhere in existence; secondly, the specific evidence, which shows that the leaders of the Theosophical Society are in relation with, and in the confidence of, such Adepts.

And next we have the testimony of many modern writers concerning the very remarkable occult feats of Indian yogees and fakirs.

 
Sinnett mentions “the Spiritualists’ hypothesis” equating the Mahatmas with seance room “controls.”  One can easily see the necessity and complexity of evaluating this association on the basis of documented testimonials, including those describing the physicality of materialized people during seances.  (Previous blog posts address these circumstances, including “H. S. Olcott’s Old Diary Leaves (First Volume) — The True Story of the Theosophical Society” and “Some Noteworthy Instances of Seance Room Photography”.)
 
Sinnett pronounced the importance of his letters from the Mahatmas in relation to understanding their reality: “. . . my very voluminous correspondence is, demonstrably as regards portions of it, and therefore by irresistible reference as regards the whole, not the work of Madame Blavatsky, or Colonel Olcott . . . I do not quite understand what hypotheses can be framed by a non-believer in the Brothers about my correspondence.  I can think of none which are not at once negatived by some of the facts about it.”

Readers such as myself who understand the inherent limitations of the Mahatmas' predicament will perceive how appropriate the word ‘occult’ is when used to express the experiences of Sinnett related in The Occult World.