Madame Blavatsky taught that “the Masters” are certain sages, several hundred years old or so, who by steeping themselves in the immemorial lore of the East have attained powers transcending time, space, and the other puny limits of Western science. By profound solitary meditation on Things in General, these old gentlemen have arrived at a sort of Fourth Dimension, in which a Soul and a Saucer come to very much the same thing. Their residence was shrouded in a judicious mystery, which Madame declared herself under a solemn oath to preserve. She at first located them in the recesses of the Himalayas; but one of her most zealous disciples lately stated in the Daily Chronicle that “the two principal Mahatmas now reside in an oasis of the Desert of Gobi.” At any rate, these “adepts” prefer a sequestered spot, and remain occult in the strictest sense of the word.
But on some points Madame was unequivocal about them. She declared that she had sat at the feet of one of them as his chela (pupil); that the Theosophical Society was founded under his distinct inspiration; and that he and his brothers continued to intervene in its affairs. The original draft of the Society’s constitution, in fact, like a more authentic Veda straight from heaven, had been “precipitated” in New York by an exertion of the Masters’ psychic force from Tibet. Hesitating converts and dubious subscribers were determined by the same form of interposition; and somebody or other has taken steps, at all times of the society’s history, to ensure that the more faithful of the “chelas” should be comforted and encouraged as need arose, by missives from their invisible “guru.” (A good, imposing word, “guru.” Do you remember the terrible old man by the road in “David Copperfield,” who scared David almost out of his wits by running out on him, and shouting “Guroo, guroo, guroo”?) Mrs. Besant herself has admitted that Theosophy is to be regarded in the light of a “revelation” from these exalted beings, as well as in that of a science or philosophy which can be arrived at by more ordinary means.
In a word, Theosophy without Mahatmas would be “Hamlet” without the Prince of Denmark. “Isis Unveiled” and “The Secret Doctrine” are works which few would be found to wade through
