Having just read in the London Spiritualist a review of Mr. Sinnett’s book “The Occult World,” I find in it more than a doubt expressed as to the reality of the “Brothers,” that body of mystics to which the personage known as “Koot Hoomi Lal Singh” belongs. The Editor of that paper would have his readers believe that the said person is a creation of Madame Blavatsky’s fancy. “Mr. Sinnett” he says “has never seen Koot Hoomi, nor does he mention that any other Theosophist in India has had that privilege.”
As some other persons may express the same doubts, and also some, while admitting their genuine character, may attribute them to agency other than that to which Madame Blavatsky refers them (the so-called “Brothers” &c.,) I hereby declare that not only have I within the last few days seen one of the persons so designated at the Headquarters of the Society at Bombay, but that I have very good reasons (which I cannot go into more fully now) to know that the said persons are not “spirits” but real human beings exercising powers out of the ordinary. Both before and after my connection with the Theosophical Society I have known and conversed with them personally and witnessed the most wonderful results (which would ordinarily be described as miraculous), but I must emphasise my declaration that I do not regard them as supernatural and am altogether materialistic (or rather naturalistic) in my conceptions of the agency producing them. Further I testify that I have the strongest conviction based on reasons which, though authoritative, are purely natural and physical, that the said “Brothers” are a mysterious fraternity the ordinary location of which is the regions north of the Himalayas.
Mirza Moorad Alee Beg, F. T. S.,
Acting President of the “Saorashtr Theosophical Society” at Bhaunagar.
The criticisms upon Mr. Sinnett’s book “The Occult World” force upon me the duty of testifying from personal experience and knowledge to the fact that those whom we call our “Brothers of the First Section” of whom “Koot Hoomi Lal Singh” is one, and who possess the so-called “miraculous” powers, are real and living beings and not disembodied spirits as the Editor of the Spiritualist would have his readers think. It is but by a long course of study and training that such can be attained. It is not belief with me but knowledge, for, if I have seen one of them, I have at least seen about half a dozen on various occasions, in broad daylight, in open places, and have talked to them, not only when Madame Blavatsky was in Bombay but even when she was far away and I here. I have also seen them at times when I was travelling. I was taken to the residences of some of them and once when Col. Olcott and Mme. Blavatsky were with me. Further than that I cannot say, and shall not give any more information either about them or the places they reside in, for I am under a solemn obligation of secrecy and the subject is too sacred for me to be trifled with. I may, however, mention that I know “Koot Hoomi Lal Singh” personally and have seen and conversed with him when Mme. Blavatsky was here as also when she was far away. But under what circumstances I am not at liberty to disclose.
We Hindus who know the “Brothers” think it equally absurd and ridiculous to insinuate that either Madame Blavatsky is a lunatic or an impostor, or that persons like Mr. Sinnett could have ever become her dupes. Neither is she a medium, nor are the “Brothers” “disembodied Spirits.”
DAMODAR K. MAVALANKAR, F. T. S.