182 @ The Secret Lije fe Nature
Hoomi was described as riding a large bay horse, occasionally accom-
panied by Master Morya when both went together to visit monaster-
ies, the latter on a magnificent white stallion.
Paul Jackson maintains that all these descriptions were invented in
order to disguise the physical identity of the actual masters and guar-
antee their privacy. But either one believes in magic or one doesn't,
and though Leadbeater is inclined to stretch his magic, it is reasonable
to assume that both he and his fellow theosophists, including Madame
Blavatsky, may have subtly prevaricated on certain aspects of their oc-
cult doings just to keep within the limits of what a highly closed-
mindedvictorian society might have been capable of accepting.
More fantastic is Leadbeater's description of a narrow aperture in
the rock by the bridge at the bottom of the ravine leading into a vast
system of subterranean halls "containing an occult museum of which
the Master Koot Hoomi is guardian on behalf of the Great White
Brotherhood."There are said to be stored original manuscripts of in-
credible antiquity and priceless value, "manuscripts written by the
hand of the Lord Buddha in his final life as Prince Siddartha and an-
other written by the Lord Christ during his life in Palestine."That Jesus
of Nazareth, an Essene, could have left writings may seem far-fetched,
yet the discovered Dead Sea Scrolls can hardly have been the sole prod-
uct of that intensely religious period. Here, says Leadbeater, continuing
his description of the caves, is kept the marvelous original of the Book
of Dzyan described by Madame Blavatsky in The Secret Doctrine. "And
there are stored models of all the kinds of machinery which the differ-
ent civilizations evolved, and elaborate illustrations of the types of
magic in use in various periods of history."
To Steiner, whose concepts can be stunning, none of this appeared
to be far-fetched; his own readings from the Akashic Record often
sound more fabulous.Yet Steiner broke with the theosophists, to some
extent on the very question of their limiting human freedom by blind
reliance on the tutelage of the mahatmas. Although, according to
Leviton, Steiner had direct access to the hierarchy of mahatmas, incar-
nate and disembodied, he claimed that the occult lodges and the ma-
hatmas had schemed to compromise nineteenth-century theosophy