Ernest Thompson Seton (1860-1946) was one of the founding pioneers in 1910 of the Boy Scouts of America. He always felt a strong connection with “Red Indian” or rather Native American beliefs and practices and endeavoured to incorporate some into his Scouts movement, as well as into his other endeavours.

In 1937 he and his wife published a book titled “The Gospel of the Red Man” and in the Foreword, his wife Julia related the following, which was also included by Theosophist Sylvia Cranston in the book “Reincarnation: A New Horizon in Science, Religion, and Society.” He is referred to in this extract as “The Chief,” a name by which he became known after starting the Boy Scouts of America.

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In March, 1905, we were in Los Angeles on a lecture tour. The morning after the lecture, we were met at the Van Nuys Hotel by some Eastern friends who, addressing the Chief, said:

“We have a message for you. There is a strange woman in the Hills who wishes to see you.”

Accordingly, we took the tram to the end of the track, then set out on foot to climb what, I think, are now called the Beverly Hills. On the green slope higher up was a small white cottage; in front of this, a woman dressed like a farmer’s wife. She waved her apron as we approached.

She was introduced to us as a Mahatma from India, although born in Iowa. She had left her home as a small child, had spent many years studying under the Great Masters, and was now back on a mission to America.

She was a strange-looking person. We could not tell whether she was thirty or a hundred and thirty years old. Her skin was like yellow parchment, and covered with thousands of faint lines not deep enough to be wrinkles. Her eyes had the faraway veiled look of a mystic. Her talk was commonplace as she served coffee and cakes. We wondered why she had sent the summons.

Finally, after an hour, we rose to leave.

Then, suddenly, she turned on the Chief with a total change of look and demeanour. Her eyes blazed as she said, in tones of authority: “Don’t you know who you are?”

We were all shocked into silence as she continued: “You are a Red Indian Chief, reincarnated to give the message of the Redman to the White race, so much in need of it. Why don’t you get busy? Why don’t you set about your job?”

The Chief was moved like one conscience-stricken. He talked not at all on the road back, and the incident was not mentioned for long after. But I know that the strange woman had focussed his thoughts on the mission he had been vaguely working on for some years. He never during his long life ceased to concentrate on what she had termed “his job.”

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While such an account will sound bizarre and fantastical to many people, it harmonises perfectly with what Theosophy explains about the nature, role, and work of those “Masters of Wisdom” or “Mahatmas” who it maintains are part of a hidden, esoteric Brotherhood which guides and watches over the spiritual evolution and advancement of humanity. That Great Brotherhood is in reality the Brotherhood of Shambhala and its initiated members and emissaries may at times visit or even live in any country, in order to undertake work which will aid the beneficent and altruistic aims of that Brotherhood, its aims really being the true aims of the whole of the human race and the right fulfilment of human destiny.

It is true that if Seton had not previously known of Theosophy or the Mahatmas, this experience might carry much more weight with the sceptically inclined. As it happens, his first wife Grace was a Theosophist and his own writings and work show some distinct Theosophical influence. But this does not mitigate against the reality of his experience.

Unfortunately no-one seems to have researched it further or tried to follow up the details, details which could have led to knowing more about the mysterious woman. We suspect, however, that even if someone had tried, they would not have found very much – just as academics and scholars who set out to try to uncover exactly who the Theosophical Mahatmas of H. P. Blavatsky actually were, what they were actually named, and where they actually lived, never find anything truly substantial, concrete, or satisfactory – since such beings know that the work and activities of their Brotherhood can only thrive and succeed when extensive measures are consistently undertaken to deter, keep away, and evade the prying and snooping gaze of the curious, the selfish, and the ill-intentioned.

The Trans-Himalayan Mahatma known as “K.H.” wrote in his very first “Mahatma Letter” to the Indian-based English Theosophist A. O. Hume in 1880:

“How could your world collect proofs of the doings of men who have sedulously kept closed every possible door of approach by which the inquisitive could spy upon them? The prime condition of their success was that they should never be supervised or obstructed. What they have done they know; all that those outside their circle could perceive was results, the causes of which were masked from view. To account for these results, men have, in different ages, invented theories of the interposition of gods, special providences, fates, the benign or hostile influence of the stars. There never was a time within or before the so-called historical period when our predecessors were not moulding events and “making history,” the facts of which were subsequently and invariably distorted by historians to suit contemporary prejudices. Are you quite sure that the visible heroic figures in the successive dramas were not often but their puppets?” (“A Master’s Letter,” ULT Pamphlet #29, p. 7, also in “Theosophical Articles and Notes”)

The same Adept wrote on another occasion, to A. P. Sinnett:

“If you care anything about our future relations, then, you better try to make your friend and colleague Mr. Hume give up his insane idea of going to Tibet. . . . Those whom we desire to know us will find us at the very frontiers. Those who have set against themselves the Chohans [i.e. the highest Adepts or Masters] as he has – would not find us were they to go [to] L’hassa [i.e. Lhasa, the capital city of Tibet] with an army.” (“The Mahatma Letters” p. 438)

What we can safely deduce is that the mysterious woman in Beverly Hills would not have gone to live there merely for the sake of that one meeting with Ernest Thompson Seton and his wife. She would presumably have been influencing and aiding numerous – perhaps even many – people, both in person and at a distance.

There may be such individuals – the truest friends, greatest helpers, and most effective servers, of the human race – living in, near, or passing through your city or town right now. Robert Crosbie, the founder of the United Lodge of Theosophists, once wrote in his series of articles titled “Masters and Their Message”: “Now, as always, they have their representatives and agents among men, who cannot be found out by any but those who have earned the right to know them. In all Societies and in all religions are earnest, sincere and devoted men, not seeking to find the Masters except by doing Their work, and all these are helped unknown to themselves, and to them only, when they are ready, the Master will appear.”

To learn more about the nature, role, and work of the Masters and Their Brotherhood, you may like to read The Masters and Madame Blavatsky, The Great Sacrifice & The Mystery-Land of Shambhala, Masters of Wisdom: Outwardly Mortal, Inwardly Immortal, The REAL Esoteric Buddhism, Who was Saint Germain?, Damodar and The Hall of Initiation, Kuthumpas not Kadampas, and Assimilation To The Masters.

~ BlavatskyTheosophy.com ~