Nonfiction Books

"In common with many, you blame us for our great secrecy. Yet we know something of human nature for the experience of long centuries—aye, ages—has taught us. And, we know, that so long as science has anything to learn, and a shadow of religious dogmatism lingers in the hearts of the multitudes, the world's prejudices have to be conquered step by step, not at a rush."

"And, as the very existence of those gigantic ancestors of ours is now questioned — though in the Hiniavats, on the very territory belonging to you we have a cave full of the skeletons of these giants — and their huge frames when found are invariably regarded as isolated freaks of nature, so the vril or Akds — as we call it — is looked upon as an impossibility, a myth."

"We doubt not but the men of your science are open to conviction; yet facts must be first demonstrated to them, they must first become their own property, have proved amenable to their own modes of investigation, before you find them ready to admit them as facts. If you but look into the Preface to the "Micrographia" you will find in Hooke's suggestions that the intimate relations of objects were of less account in his eyes than their external operation on the senses —and Newton's fine discoveries found in him their greatest opponent. The modern Hookeses are many. Like this learned but ignorant man of old your modern men of science are less anxious to suggest a physical connexion of facts which might unlock for them many an occult force in nature, as to provide a convenient 'classification of scientific experiments' so that the most essential quality of an hypothesis is not that it should be true but only plausible—in their opinion."

"As hoary antiquity had more than one Socrates so the dim Future will give birth to more than one martyr. Enfranchised science contemptuously turned away her face from the Copernian opinion renewing the theories of Aristarchus Samius—who "affirmeth that the earth moveth circularly about her own centre" years before the Church sought to sacrifice Galileo as a holocaust to the Bible."

"You say — half London would be converted if you could deliver them a Pioneer on its day of publication. I beg to say that if the people believed the thing true they would kill you before you could make the round of Hyde Park; if it were not believed true, — the least that could happen would be the loss of your reputation and good name,—for propagating such ideas."

"Esteemed Brother and Friend, Precisely because the test of the London newspaper would close the mouths of the skeptics — it is unthinkable. See it in what light you will — the world is yet in its first stage of disenthralment if not development, hence—unprepared. Very true, we work by natural not supernatural means and laws. But, as on the one hand Science would find itself unable (in its present state) to account for the wonders given in its name, and on the other the ignorant masses would still be left to view the phenomenon in the light of a miracle; everyone who would thus be made a witness to the occurrence would be thrown off his balance and the results would be deplorable. Believe me, it would be so—especially for yourself who originated the idea, and the devoted woman who so foolishly rushes into the wide open door leading to notoriety. This door, though opened by so friendly a hand as yours, would prove very soon a trap — and a fatal one indeed for her."

"Experimental knowledge does not quite date from 1662, when Bacon, Robert Boyle and the Bishop of Chester transformed under the royal charter their "Invisible College" into a Society for the promotion of experimental science. Ages before the Royal Society found itself becoming a reality upon the plan of the 'Prophetic Scheme' an innate longing for the hidden, a passionate love for and the study of nature had led men in every generation to try and fathom her secrets deeper than their neighbours did."

"Roma ante Romulum fuit — is an axiom taught to us in your English schools. Abstract enquiries into the most puzzling problems did not arise in the brain of Archimedes as a spontaneous and hitherto untouched subject, but rather as a reflection of prior enquiries in the same direction and by men separated from his days by as long a period—and far longer—than the one which separates you from the great Syracusian. The vril of the "Coming Age" was the common property of races now extinct. (Note: Roma ante Romulum fuit is Latin for "Rome existed before Romulus/the founder of Rome)."

"If Master K.H. has said that, the Society can never perish, though Branches and individuals in it may," the words of that other Teacher must also be remembered, that new wine cannot be poured into old bottles and that he who would find his life must first lose it. Be on your guard against hypocrisy, for nothing is hidden that shall not be revealed, and nothing concealed that shall not be made known; and all that has been uttered in darkness shall be heard in the light, and what has been whispered in chambers shall be proclaimed from the house-tops... There are days that are coming when one stone shall not be left upon another without being torn down. Take care that you are not deceived, for many shall come in My Name saying, I am He, and the time is near "—but do not go after them. And when you hear of wars and disturbances, do not be scared. These have to come first, but the end is not yet. There will be signs in the Sun and Moon and Stars, while on Earth there will be dismay and bewilderment at the roar of the sea and the waves, men's hearts failing them for fear and foreboding of what is to befall the universe. For the orbs of the heavens will be shaken, and then they will see the Son of Man coming with power and great glory. When these things begin to happen, look up — for your release is not far distant."

"We will be at cross purposes in our correspondence until it has been made entirely plain that occult science has its own methods of research as fixed and arbitrary as the methods of its antithesis physical science are in their way. If the latter has its dicta so also has the former; and he who would cross the boundary of the unseen world can no more prescribe how he will proceed than the traveller who tries to penetrate to the inner subterranean recesses of L'Hassa—the blessed, could show the way to his guide."

"The term "Universal Brotherhood" is no idle phrase. Humanity in the mass has a paramount claim upon us, as I tried to explain in my letter to Mr. Hume, which you had better ask the loan of. It is the only secure foundation for universal morality... it is the aspiration of the true adept."

"There has been an increasing tendency in the Society during the last twelve years, to place an undue reliance on ceremonial, orders, Churches, creeds and their equivalent, thereby sacrificing the virility of individual effort and freedom of thought, which was so noticeable in the early days of the movement."

"The Master K. H. writes in very clear terms on this subject, and it may be well to quote his own words. "And now after making due allowance for evils that are natural and cannot be avoided . . . I will point out the greatest, the chief cause of nearly two-thirds of the evils that pursue humanity ever since that cause became a power. It is religion under whatever form and in whatsoever nation. It is the sacerdotal caste, the priesthood and the Churches; it is in those illusions that man looks upon as sacred, that he has to search out the source of that multitude of evils which is the great curse of humanity, and that almost overwhelms mankind. Ignorance created Gods, and cunning took advantage of the opportunity." (Letter No. X.) And again "Far from our thoughts may it ever be to erect a new hierarchy for the future oppression of a priest ridden world." (Letter No. LXXXVII.) The inference and the message of these words in our own times is sufficiently clear."

"The Masters are what they are; what they have written — they have written, and neither they nor their doctrines need the acclamation or apology of lesser minds. It is almost impossible to arrive at the facts, or even to form a trustworthy opinion upon a subject so far reaching, by studying an edited book of extracts. Therefore, that the members of the Theosophical Society and the world at large, should be enabled to study the truth for themselves concerning The Masters and their doctrines as set forth in these letters signed by their own hands, has been the aim of the compiler. To this end, the whole of the Mahatma Letters left by Mr. Sinnett have been transcribed verbatim from the originals and without omission."

"Many theories which have become the accepted dogmas of modern Theosophical doctrines, are clearly shown to be inaccurate and misleading, and it may therefore be profitable if the principal points of difference are indicated to the reader."

"It is remarkable, more than thirty years after her death, how Madame Blavatsky is justified at almost every point in these letters. Few people have been more unjustly reviled, and even some of those who knew her intimately preferred to believe that she had committed every kind of error rather than admit for an instant that they themselves could be in the wrong."

"It is well known, among students of Theosophy and Occultism, that the philosophical doctrines and ethics which were given to the world through the Theosophical Society during the 16 years immediately following its foundation in 1875, emanated from certain Eastern Teachers said to belong to an Occult Brotherhood living in the trans Himalayan fastnesses of Tibet. H. P. Blavatsky who, together with Colonel Olcott founded the Theosophical Society, acknowledged these Eastern Brothers as her Teachers, stating not only that They existed, but that she herself had received training and instruction at Their hands during her sojourn in Tibet, and was therefore able to speak from her own knowledge and personal experience. It was not until 1880... that... the late A. P. Sinnett, then living in India, was enabled through the agency of Madame Blavatsky, to enter into correspondence with her own Teachers, whom she referred to variously under the terms, The Brothers, The Mahatmas, and later The Masters of the Wisdom."

"During the course of this correspondence which extended over the years 1880 to 1884 Mr. Sinnett received many letters from The Mahatmas M. and K.H., the Teachers in question, and it is these original communications which are published in the present volume under the title of " The Mahatma Letters." The circumstances attending their receipt were fully dealt with by Mr. Sinnett in his Occult World and they need not therefore be restated here."

"How far she was ever the deceiver depicted by Mr. Sinnett in his posthumous publication "The Early Days of Theosophy in Europe," may be judged by the reader if he will study the letter from Master K.H. in which he gives his own opinion on her delinquencies. Those who love the memory of H. P. Blavatsky for her work and the gifts she gave them, cannot but feel after reading that letter that after all she was worthy of their high regard; and those who have tried to blacken that memory and minimise the value of the work she did, will rise to heights indeed if the prayer be granted — that they may never deserve worse condemnation."

"In nothing is Madame Blavatsky more completely vindicated than in the explanation and refutation she gave in The Secret Doctrine, of the misconceived theory in regard to Mars and Mercury, which was originally published in Esoteric Buddhism."

"My dear, good friend, you must not bear me a grudge for what I say to him of the English in general. They are haughty. To us especially, so that we regard it as a natural feature. And, you must not confound your own private views—especially those you have now—with those of your countrymen in general."

"The prejudice of race is intense, and even in free England we are regarded as an inferior race. And this same tone vibrates in your own remark about a man of the people unused to refined ways and a foreigner but a gentleman," the latter being the man to be preferred."

"Plato was right: ideas rule the world, and, as men's minds will receive new ideas, laying aside the old and effete, the world will advance: mighty revolutions will spring from them; creeds and even powers will crumble before their onward march crushed by the irresistible force. It will be just as impossible to resist their influx, when the time comes, as to stay the progress of the tide. But all this will come gradually on, and before it comes we have a duty set before us; that of sweeping away as much as possible the dross left to us by our pious forefathers."

"I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people’s dream died there. It was a beautiful dream … the nation’s hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead."

"When the madness ended, Big Foot and more than half of his people were dead or seriously wounded; 153 were known dead, but many of the wounded crawled away to die afterward. One estimate placed the final total of dead at very nearly three hundred of the original 350 men, women, and children. The soldiers lost twenty-five dead and thirty-nine wounded, most of them struck by their own bullets or shrapnel."

"In the first seconds of violence, the firing of carbines was deafening, filling the air with powder smoke. Among the dying who lay sprawled on the frozen ground was Big Foot. Then there was a brief lull in the rattle of arms, with small groups of Indians and soldiers grappling at close quarters, using knives, clubs, and pistols. As few of the Indians had arms, they soon had to flee, and then the big Hotchkiss guns on the hill opened up on them, firing almost a shell a second, raking the Indian camp, shredding the tepees with flying shrapnel, killing men, women, and children."

"If a man loses anything and goes back and looks carefully for it he will find it, and that is what the Indians are doing now when they ask you to give them the things that were promised them in the past; and I do not consider that they should be treated like beasts, and that is the reason I have grown up with the feelings I have.... I feel that my country has gotten a bad name, and I want it to have a good name; it used to have a good name; and I sit sometimes and wonder who it is that has given it a bad name."

"And so, in the summer of 1885, Sitting Bull joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, traveling throughout the United States and into Canada. He drew tremendous crowds. Boos and catcalls sometimes sounded for the “Killer of Custer,” but after each show these same people pressed coins upon him for copies of his signed photograph. Sitting Bull gave most of the money away to the band of ragged, hungry boys who seemed to surround him wherever he went. He once told Annie Oakley, another one of the Wild West Show’s stars, that he could not understand how white men could be so unmindful of their own poor. “The white man knows how to make everything,” he said, “but he does not know how to distribute it.”"

"At this moment, Catch-the-Bear threw off his blanket and brought up a rifle. He fired at Bull Head, wounding him in the side. As Bull Head fell, he tried to shoot his assailant, but the bullet struck Sitting Bull instead. Almost simultaneously, Red Tomahawk shot Sitting Bull through the head and killed him. During the firing, the old show horse that Buffalo Bill had presented to Sitting Bull began to go through his tricks. He sat upright, raised one hoof, and it seemed to those who watched that he was performing the Dance of the Ghosts."

"The climax of the case came when Standing Bear was given permission to speak for his people: “I am now with the soldiers and officers. I want to go back to my old place north. I want to save myself and my tribe. My brothers, it seems to me as if I stood in front of a great prairie fire. I would take up my children and run to save their lives; or if I stood on the bank of an overflowing river, I would take my people and fly to higher ground. Oh, my brothers, the Almighty looks down on me, and knows what I am, and hears my words. May the Almighty send a good spirit to brood over you, my brothers, to move you to help me. If a white man had land, and someone should swindle him, that man would try to get it back, and you would not blame him. Look on me. Take pity on me, and help me to save the lives of the women and children. My brothers, a power, which I cannot resist, crowds me down to the ground. I need help. I have done.”"

"When the land-hungry politicians tried to put him on the defensive, Ouray was sophisticated enough to present the Utes’ case to newspaper reporters. “The agreement an Indian makes to a United States treaty,” he said, “is like the agreement a buffalo makes with his hunters when pierced with arrows. All he can do is lie down and give in.”"

"When Crook went to see the Poncas in the guardhouse at Fort Omaha, he was appalled by the pitiable conditions of the Indians. He was impressed by Standing Bear’s simple statements of why he had come back north, his stoic acceptance of conditions over which he had lost control. “I thought God intended us to live,” Standing Bear told Crook, “but I was mistaken. God intends to give the country to the white people, and we are to die. It may be well; it may be well.”"

"A Ponca named Buffalo Track went berserk and tried to kill Chief White Eagle, blaming him for the tribe’s miseries. Agent Howard banished Buffalo Track from the caravan and sent him back north to the Omaha reservation. The Poncas envied him for his punishment."

"For more than a decade Three Stars had been fighting Indians, meeting them in councils, making them promises which he could not keep. Grudgingly at first, he admitted admiration for Indian courage; since the surrenders of 1877 he was beginning to feel both respect and sympathy for his old enemies. The treatment of Cheyennes at Fort Robinson during the last few weeks had outraged him. “A very unnecessary act of power to insist upon this particular portion of the band going back to their former reservation,” he bluntly stated in his official report."

"Jack rode north to Bear River and met the troops there. “What is the matter?” he asked them.“What are you coming for? We do not want to fight with the soldiers. We have the same father over us. We do not want to fight them.”"

"For most of them it was too late. The force was gone out of the Cheyennes. In the years since Sand Creek, doom had stalked the Beautiful People. The seed of the tribe was scattered with the wind. “We will go north at all hazards,” a young warrior had said, “and if we die in battle our names will be remembered and cherished by all our people.” Soon there would be no one left who could care enough to remember, no one to speak their names now that they were gone."

"I have heard talk and talk, but nothing is done. Good words do not last long unless they amount to something. Words do not pay for my dead people. They do not pay for my country, now overrun by white men. … Good words will not give my people good health and stop them from dying. Good words will not get my people a home where they can live in peace and take care of themselves. I am tired of talk that comes to nothing. It makes my heart sick when I remember all the good words and broken promises. … You might as well expect the rivers to run backward as that any man who was born a free man should be contented when penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases. … I have asked some of the great white chiefs where they get their authority to say to the Indian that he shall stay in one place, while he sees white men going where they please. They cannot tell me."

"In the days when the Cheyennes numbered in the thousands, they had more horses than any of the Plains tribes. They were called the Beautiful People, but fate had turned against them both in the south and in the north. After twenty years of decimation they were closer to obliteration than the buffalo."

"Through the crisp dry autumn of 1877, long lines of exiled Indians driven by soldiers marched northeastward toward the barren land. Along the way, several bands slipped away from the column and turned northwestward, determined to escape to Canada and join Sitting Bull. With them went the father and mother of Crazy Horse, carrying the heart and bones of their son. At a place known only to them they buried Crazy Horse somewhere near Chankpe Opi Wakpala, the creek called Wounded Knee."

"One does not sell the earth upon which the people walk."

"Early in the Moon of Making Fat, the Hunkpapas had their annual sun dance. For three days Sitting Bull danced, bled himself, and stared at the sun until he fell into a trance. When he rose again, he spoke to his people. In his vision he had heard a voice crying: “I give you these because they have no ears.” When he looked into the sky he saw soldiers falling like grasshoppers, with their heads down and their hats falling off. They were falling right into the Indian camp. Because the white men had no ears and would not listen, Wakantanka the Great Spirit was giving these soldiers to the Indians to be killed."

"The Cheyennes drank whiskey from boredom and despair; it made the white traders rich, and it destroyed what was left of the leadership in the tribe. It destroyed Little Wolf."

"To bring order out of chaos, the Army again called on General George Crook—quite a different man from the one who had left Arizona ten years earlier to go north to fight the Sioux and Cheyennes. He had learned from them and from the Poncas during the trial of Standing Bear that Indians were human beings, a viewpoint that most of his fellow officers had not yet accepted."

"When the white men in the East heard of the Long Hair’s defeat, they called it a massacre and went crazy with anger. They wanted to punish all the Indians in the West. Because they could not punish Sitting Bull and the war chiefs, the Great Council in Washington decided to punish the Indians they could find—those who remained on the reservations and had taken no part in the fighting."

"After the discovery of gold in 1848, white men from all over the world poured into California by the thousands, taking what they wanted from the submissive Indians, debasing those whom the Spaniards had not already debased, and then systematically exterminating whole populations now long forgotten. No one remembers the Chilulas, Chimarikos, Urebures, Nipewais, Alonas, or a hundred other bands whose bones have been sealed under a million miles of freeways, parking lots, and slabs of tract housing."

"The day was springlike, the sun quickly burning away the night fog. “My heart tells me I had just as well talk to the clouds and wind,” he said, “but I want to say that life is sweet, love is strong; man fights to save his life; man also kills to win his heart’s desire; that is love. Death is mighty bad. Death will come to us soon enough.”"

"When they came within sight of the camp, Mangas and his party waited for the capitán to show himself. A miner who spoke Spanish came out to escort Mangas into the camp, but the Apache guards would not let their chief go in until Captain Shirland mounted a truce flag. As soon as the white banner was raised, Mangas ordered his warriors to turn back; he would go in alone. He was protected by a truce, and would be perfectly safe. Mangas rode on toward the soldier camp, but his warriors had scarcely disappeared from view when a dozen soldiers sprang from the underbrush behind him, with rifles cocked and ready. He was a prisoner."

"Red Cloud responded by shaking hands with Secretary Cox and the other officials. “Look at me,” he said. “I was raised on this land where the sun rises—now I come from where the sun sets. Whose voice was first sounded on this land? The voice of the red people who had but bows and arrows. The Great Father says he is good and kind to us. I don’t think so. I am good to his white people. From the word sent me I have come all the way to his house. My face is red; yours is white. The Great Spirit has made you to read and write, but not me. I have not learned. I come here to tell my Great Father what I do not like in my country. You are all close to the Great Father, and are a great many chiefs. The men the Great Father sends to us have no sense—no heart.""

"If it had not been for the massacre, there would have been a great many more people here now; but after that massacre who could have stood it? When I made peace with Lieutenant Whitman my heart was very big and happy. The people of Tucson and San Xavier must be crazy. They acted as though they had neither heads nor hearts … they must have a thirst for our blood. … These Tucson people write for the papers and tell their own story. The Apaches have no one to tell their story."

"“You are no better than coyotes that run in the valleys,” Jack answered them. “You come here riding soldiers’ horses, armed with government guns. You intend to buy your liberty and freedom by running me to earth and delivering me to the soldiers. You realize that life is sweet, but you did not think so when you forced me to promise that I would kill that man, Canby. I knew life was sweet all the time; that is the reason I did not want to fight the white people. I thought we would stand side by side if we did fight, and die fighting. I see now I am the only one to forfeit my life for killing Canby, perhaps one or two others. You and all the others that gave themselves up are getting along fine, and plenty to eat, you say. Oh, you bird-hearted men, you turned against me. …”"