Adventure Magazine Cover — page 184: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

182 for humanity’s benefit—but not too much of it at a time, because men have a way of using knowledge for their own destruction (as the Lama in my story points out frequently). They keep themselves to themselves, hardly ever revealing their identity and almost never letting their whereabouts be known, because humanity (that is to say, the rest of us) is much too prone either to deify or to murder whoever appears to possess unusual powers; and it is said that the natural powers of a Mahatma, due entirely to his higher spiritual development, are such as would appear quite unnatural and even superhuman to the average man in the street. There are some who says Jesus of Nazareth was a Mahatma; they offer what they say is proof. I HAVE read everything I can find on the subject of the Mahatmas, both for and against, and have found nothing that even vaguely resembles proof that they do not exist; whereas there is a very great deal of testimony that they do exist, at the present time somewhere in Tibet or that neighborhood. Practically all the statements (they are hardly to be dignified by the name of arguments) that there are no such persons emanate from two sources: (1) the Christian missionaries and (2) the sort of so- called natural scientist who believes that Jenner was inspired, and who helps to prosecute and vilify whoever dares to disagree with him or stray outside the fold of scientific orthodoxy. As for the latter, since their theories change with every passing year, they need not be taken too seriously, and certainly not at their word. Since I was a boy there seems to have been hardly one so-called scientific fact that has not been reversed and re-reversed two or three times; and while all of us respect the bold adventurer into unexplored realms of nature, as well as the careful analyst of ascertained facts, there are probably few of us left who waste much sympathy on the “scientific” pundits who try to limit knowledge and discovery within the compass of their own peculiarly narrow vision. There are plenty of them left, but they are fortunately losing influence, and the word of a dry- as-dust biologist to the effect that Mahatmas do or do not exist hardly adds confusion nowadays to the already existing noise of rival theories. "THE Christian missionaries naturally deny the Mahatmas. The two teachings are incom- patible, and whichever shall stand, the other must crumble. It is necessary to dwell on. this point for a moment, because, as I have said, it is from Christian missionary sources that a great part of the “anti-Mahatma” propaganda emanates. One should observe in passing, that the Christian mis- sionaries, in all lands, at all times, have always done their utmost to destroy the reputation and, if possible, the records of whatever cult preceded them. PERHAPS one reason the Mahatmas are ’ assailed is that they and their chelas teach, or are said to teach, that it is wicked to accept money in return for spiritual services. No teacher of the true eastern esoteric doctrine would demean him- self, or stultify himself, by accepting a cent or a favor of any kind from any one whom he saw fit to help or to teach. Like St. Paul of Tarsus, if he needed money he would go to work for it, at what- Adventure ever trade he knew. The Lama in my story does not claim to be a Mahatma (no true Mahatma would ever claim to be one), but it will be noticed that he does not invite the public to contribute money for his expenses. All signs point to an ancient Mother-religion. The Mahatmas are declared, by those who say they know, to be the men who preserve that an- cient Mother-religion (they call it the Ancient Wisdom) and whose duty is to keep it in the world until such time as it can safely be brought to light again. It is said to include all science, and in fact all knowledge that the human mind is capable of understanding. HERE is another side to it. An awful lot of nonsense has been written and told about Mahatmas, Swamis, Masters and Gurus, and the source of it is chiefly those East Indians who come to England and America to pocket the dollars of gullible ignoramuses, chiefly by means of fake miracles and mistranslations from the Vedas. They are easy to detect, because they accept money for their teaching, which establishes them at once as frauds; they usually end by falling into difficulties with the police, due to free-love tendencies and the flattery of over-fed and under-witted women. And they provide a fine income for “professors” and “investigators” who “expose” them and duplicate their pretended miracles at so much per exposure— money in advance. T IS impossible within the limits of one edition of a magazine to refer to a hundredth part of the information on which I have based this story, but I will be very glad to answer questions and to give such references as will enable those who are inter- ested to follow up the subject for themselves. Personally, I have found it fascinating; and I have been careful throughout the story to make no statement as to which I have not definite confirma- tion at least as convincing to me as any argument that can be brought against it. For the rest, there are several books that deal with Indian drama, but I have found none that gives any account whatever of the actor’s life in India. Maitraya is an entirely fictitious character; but I have met actors here and there whose brief acquaintance helped me to imagine this one. One or two friends, who have read the manuscript, have criticized the dog Diana, as being altogether too wise for a dog, and too well trained. But my friend Larry Trimble, who trained Strongheart, and who certainly knows as much about dogs as any man in the United States, assures me she is not overdrawn; and I myself have seen Larry Trimble do with dogs and wolves things that are much more wonderful than any that Ommony does with Diana in the story. QM MONY is simply a tired Englishman, who has spent his life toiling in India, for India, without any self-consideration, and who has awakened after twenty years to a realization that the whole theory of empire is wrong. (There are plenty like him.) He does not know what to do, or what to think. He only knows that he has meant well and has dealt honestly according to his lights with all who have been subject to him. It bewilders him, almost to stupidity and speechlessness, to discover that all that work was done, apparently, in vain. When Co DOO C@