Theos-Talk Archives (November 2006 Message tt00201)

In April, 1878, HPB and Colonel Olcott discussed this possibility, and
concluded that it would serve to restore ?the vital element of Oriental
Mysticism? to the higher degrees.  But there were objections from Indian
members of the TS, and the scheme was abandoned.  However, both HPB and
Olcott were made Honorary Members of the Sat B?hai, on August 9, 1877. 
HPB was made a member of the sixth degree, level one, Arch Auditor; the
name of this degree and level was Rad, and, like the fifth and seventh
degrees, was open both non-Masons and to women.  HSO was made a member of
the second degree, sixth level.  Arch Courier; the name of this degree was
Garuda, and it was open only to Master Masons (as was the first degree). 
In Sat B?hai the first degree was the highest, and the seventh the lowest.

The Royal Oriental Order of Sikha (Apex) and the Sat B?hai seems to have
been founded by an Anglo-Indian, Captain James Henry Lawrence Archer of
the Indian Army, but the organization of the Order was largely of the work
of Kenneth Robert Henderson Mackenzie (1833-86), author of the "Royal
Masonic Cyclopaedia" (1877), and a member of the TS.  The first public
statements about the Order appeared in correspondence in "The Freemason"
in early 1871, however although great claims were made for its antiquity
and importance, and despite Mackenzie?s efforts to establish it as a
working organization, it does not seem to have moved much beyond being a
plan.  By January, 1879, Mackenzie had concluded that the Order had
finished.

The Sat B?hai was never adopted for use within the TS.

Information on the membership of HPB and HSO in Sat B'hai comes from the
archives of the Order which were (and, I believe, still are) in the Yarker
archives in London, where I had access to them.

Dr Gregory Tillett