Theos-Talk Archives (November 2002 Message tt00742)

Just decided since I have three more days of material left, I will keep my =

web site updated that long, but after that I am going to finish entirely 
with Theosophy related issues. Just received a note from Goswami that 
due to an intensive and long day he feels ill at the moment but writes 
that tomorrow he will write his 4e part to the resonses about the 
Mahatma letters he has send. To me that probably answers the furthe 
questions of the authenticity of the Mahatma letters, and the multiple 
personalitys que Mahatma figures have been covered in The Masters 
Revealed and the lasr three years of discussions with Steve then 
Universal seekers, and finally here. The majority western roots int he 
Mahatma teachings in Blavatsky has been coverred also.

There is just one secre left unsolved mystery, that of "AL-AFGHANI." 
There is the website: 
http://www.geocities.com/aryannews/europe.htm

And I still wonder if here is a hint, why/how Afghani, the Christian-
British raised Dalip Singh, Katkov (besides the Blavatsky "Atlantis/via 
Tibet theory" the most popular theory that time was that the Aryan's 
came from S. Russia and settled in the Indus river valley in the Punjab) 
and Afghani, could find a "common" ground the "Muslim"(otherwise 
enemies of the Punjabi Sikhs) Afghani was indeed "Iranian".

Born in a country that was part of the Aryan myth, so was Dalip, and 
Katkov according to the myth told in the 19th century about this subject  
(and I never wanted to imply they where intended racist that time!) but 
we do find in the SD that same "common ground" like:
"As the comparatively fair Brahmins have come - when invading India 
with its dark-colored Dravidians - from the North, so the Aryan Fifth 
Race must claim its origin from northern regions." (The Secret Doctrine 
Vol. 2, Page 768)

The dwarfed and weakened men of Bengal and the Deccan with Punjab, 
where the lethal influence of Mussulman, and later on of European, 
licentiousness, has hardly touched the orthodox Aryan castes, [and 
there] one ,still finds the finest men - so far as stature and
physical strength go on the whole globe. (Secret Doctrine Vol.II, Adyar 
1979, p.411)
Also in spite of missing evidence to me it seems difficult to accept that =

Henderson would have made such a grand mistake when he staked his 
claim after so many years on this case as an under 
secretary to the government of India , and who also wasthe chief 
investigator of the Dalip Singh revolt in India. 
Convinced he wrote on 15 June 1887 regarding information received 
on "excellent authority," to the Police Commissioner of Madras. " When 
Colonel Olcott was in India in 1882-83, he founded a secret society 
among the Theosophists in Calcutta called‚ "The Aryan League of 
Honour." The purpose of this secret society is said to be to send 
information to Russia, and the headquarters are now said to be in 
Madras. 

An agent of the society was sent to England and is supposed to be the 
medium, or one of the mediums, of transmitting information. (Meaning 
The Mahatma Letters !?)

This man is one Mohini Mohun Chatterji, who worked for some time in 
an attorney`s office at Calcutta. About four years ago he went to
England on the plea of being called to the Bar. He is known to have 
made frequent visits to the continent, and is now in America ostensibly 
engaged on a translation of the Vedas, a task for which I understand he 
possesses no qualifications whatever. I heard from England myself that 
Mohini Mohun was in the habit of seeing a great deal of Duleep Singh. 

There is a prevailing impression, whether right or wrong, that the 
members of the inner circle at any rate of that society have aims and 
objects other than those ordinarily expressed. The information on
this subject, comes from so many sources that it is difficult to disregard =

it. 

And at the present time the necessity for vigilance to intrigues
going on in India has been impressed on the Government of India." (end
quote Colonel Hendorsen's letter ) 

On 18 June, three days later, the deputy Police Commissioner of 
Madras confirmed base on his own sources that such a secret
"Aryan League of Honour" really existed and wrote to Henderson: 
" only a few selected men were admitted, amongst these were
Narendo Nath Sen, the Editor of The India Mirror. Mohini Mohun is one 
of their means of transmitting information, and his brother, Romoni, also 
sends him news." (India Office Records, British Library, London:
R/1/1/162)
And if one puts everything together that is known today (2002)of the 
Katkov/French/Dalip/ and Afghani who during his stay in London 
(certainly just like some of the Masonic lodge members in Cairo he 
was "British")lived in the house of the person close to Viceroy in India 
that time who he was leter to visit.
If you ad that to "The Master Revealed":
IN JANUARY 1886, OLCOTT PROPOSED to HPB that she 
assist in establishing a collaboration between the Brahmin
Theosophist T. Subba Row and some Masters of the Egyptian 
brotherhood. This never came to fruition, but Olcott's letter is 
fascinating:
Subba Row is getting keen on a collation of Indian and Egyptian
esoteric philosophy and symbolism .... He keeps coming here and 
always asks for books which deal with Egyptian Mythology etc. Now do 
this:
through Borj, or Twitit B: or III: or someone, arrange to organize at 
Cairo a couple like Subba Row and Oakley, who would keep in regular 
correspondence with these two, and exchange ideas, questions and 
answers .... Maspero is anxious to make just such a correspondence, 
but he is too thundering busy. If there were an Oakley there to go at 
him, hunt up the books he would indicate, and write the letters, 
enormously good results would follow all around, for Maspero would
put it all in his books and Reports, and we would put it into the Th. and 
books. Would Gregoire d'Elias be any good? I think not. Would
Isurenus B. help you?'

This passage gives three new names to investigate in the search for
the Masters. It is interesting in itself that Olcott refers to Hilarion III=
:), 
Tuitit Bey, and Isurenus Bey (who signed Olcott's first letter from the 
Masters as Polydorus Isurenus) in such matter of fact terms. 3ut far 
more useful to researchers are the names of Borj, Maspero, 
and ,regoire d'Elias.

A search through the Theosophical literature uncovered no Borj,
Olcott's handwriting deceived the letters' compiler Trevor Barker on 
more than one occasion. For example, he takes an obvious reference .o 
the Sinhalese Buddhist priest Sumangala as "Samanyala," which implies
that Olcott's g's are not readily identifiable. A Borg appears in one the 
most important of all Mahatma communications, the one K. H. made 
materialize in Olcott's hand when he appeared in his tent outside
Lcihore in November 1883. It accuses Olcott of being overly 
suspicious, "sometimes cruelly so-of Upasika, of Borg, of Djual-K.,
even of Damodar and D. Nath, whom you love as sons.",
In the diary she kept in New York, HPB referred to someone whose 
name is transcribed as "Boag" from whom she had received mail. The 
entry for 6 December reads, "A letter from Richard and Boag informing 
of the arrival from Russia of a parcel.", Again, questions of
handwriting confuse the issue, giving three spellings of what would 
seem to be the same name. But of the variant spellings it becomes 
apparent that Borg is correct when we examine Nikki Keddie's biography 
of Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani. She writes that "Afghani and a group of his 
followers first joined an Italian lodge in Alexandria, but were influenced=
 
by EnglishVice-Consul Ralph Borg to join an English lodge, whose 
numbers reached 300, including many leaders of the nationalist 
movement of 1878-1882 .

The case that HPB's Egyptian Brotherhood was the circle 
surrounding Afghani is considerably strengthened by these fragments
of evidence concerning Borg. Who Was Who gives his first name as 
Raphael; Keddie's error is due to reliance on Muhammad Sabry, whose 
information came from oral testimony of eyewitnesses years after 
Afghani's departure. Who Was Who also summarizes Borg's career, 
spent almost entirely in Egypt. Beginning as a supernumary clerk to
the consular court in Alexandria in 1863, he became chief clerk there the 
same year. In 1865 he was appointed cancellaria clerk in Cairo, where 
he was later acting consul for various periods from 1868 to 1875.
After serving as acting vice-consul in Cairo in 1875-76 he became
viceconsul in 1880. In 1884 he was appointed consul there which he 
remained for the rest of his career except for an interval as acting
consul-general in 1895. He died 24 January 1903. 

The most likely Richard to whom HPB refers seems to be Charles Louis 
Florentin Richard, French Orientalist and author of Scenes of Arab Life, 
Mysteries of the Arab People, Inevitable Revolutions in the World and 
Humanity, and other books.
A source of information on Borg's links with Afghani and Sanua is 
Juan R. I. Cole's Colonialism and Revolution in the Middle East. Cole 
surveys Egyptian history from 1858 through the British occupation of 
1882, emphasizing the origins of the nationalist movement. His
research made extensive use of the Egyptian National Archives, 
manuscript collections in Egypt and the United States, and published 
literaturein Arabic and English. Borg is frequently cited as an eyewitness =

to events. 

Most often, he is quoted to document expressions of unrest among the 
peasantry, military and intelligentsia. Identified by Cole as a
"Maltese fluent in Arabic," Borg is a central figure in the chapter entitle=
d
"Political Clubs and the Ideology of Dissent.", The most fruit ful source o=
f 
information on his Masonic links with Afghani and Sanua is a
collection of documents confiscated from Jamal ad-Din at the time of his
expulsion from Egypt.

Sanua's relationship with Isma'il had gone through several phases by 
the time he joined the Star of the East lodge which Borg had
established in Cairo. After a period as tutor in the home of Isma'il's
predecessor Sa'id, Sanua taught at the Cairo Polytechnic Institute for 
most of the 1860s. From 1870 through 1872 he served as 
Isma'il's "court playwright", until he lost his position after offending th=
e 
Khedive and the British. In 1874 and 1875 he founded two political 
organizations which were quickly proscribed by Isma'il, the Circle of 
Progress and the Society of the Lovers of Knowledge.,,

Afghani joined the Star of the East lodge around the same time as 
Sanua, and from December 1877 through July 1879 he served as 
president of lodge 1355. It is unclear how many Star of the East
lodges existed in Cairo at the time, and to which group Borg and Sanua 
belonged. Cole explains the circumstances surrounding the closing of 
lodge 1355:

The leaders of the Star of the East closed down Cairo lodge 1355 on 1 
July 1879 and forbade its leader from engaging in any further masonic 
activity until the order's highest leadership (in Europe?) could be 
consulted, citing Sayyid Jarnalu'd-Din's political agitation in
Egypt. According to Sayyid Jamalu'd Din's answers during police
interrogation after his arrest, however, the main issue over which he 
and the Star of the East leadership quarreled had rather to do with 
which successor to Isma'il each supported. Sayyid Jamalu'd-Din and his 
followers wanted Isma'il's son Tawfiq, whereas Raphael Borg and other 
leaders of the Star of the East favored Isma'il's uncle, 'Abdu'l-Halim.'

That Sanua sided with Borg against Afghani is clear from his Abou 
Naddara, which promoted the cause of 'Abdu'l-Halim. Jamal ad-Din soon 
had cause to regret his support for Tawfiq, who had him arrested 21 
August 1879 "as head of a secret society of youth that formed a
menace both to religion and to the state" and had him deported soon 
thereafter. Jamal ad-Din's friendship with Sanua clearly survived
the collapse of lodge 1355. In 1884, when Afghani went to Paris, he was
on cordial terms with Sanua, who taught him French. The status of 
Borg's relations with Sanua and Jamal ad-Din after 1879 is unknown.
No trace of Borg as the author or subject of a book was found in the -
ourse of research, but Gregoire d'Elias appears to have been the
author of a play published in Seville in 1871. Entitled Lo Que Tiene Mi
Mujer, it is listed as a comic one-act play in verse by Gregorio Esteban de=

Elias.

Gaston Maspero (1846-1916) was a French Egyptologist and author of 
many books on Egypt. Born in Paxis of Italian parents, he became 
Professor of Egyptology at the college de France in 1874.

According to Isabel Cooper-Oakley-', During her stay in Egypt 1885,
HPB was received as a distinguished guest by the Russian consul and the 
Khedive.(end quote)

There just seem to be to many correlations here to forget about Jamal 
ad-Din. Who in the late 1850s was already reported to have
been in India. And left again for India around the same time Olcott and 
HPB (both traveling on US diplomatic passports) did.

Doesn't the puzzle regarding al afghani seems to fit ?
=
Bri.