ve she invented everything, that she did everything
by herself and on her own initiative, are as much mistaken as those who,
on the contrary, believe her affirmations concerning her relations with
the pretended Mahatmas."[701]

There is some reason to believe that the people under whom Madame
Blavatsky was working at this date in Paris were Serapis Bey and Tuiti
Bey, who belonged to "the Egyptian Brothers." This might answer M.
Guenon's question: "By whom was she sent to America?" But another
passage from Madame Blavatsky's writings, on the person of Christ, that
M. Guenon quotes later, indicates a further source of inspiration: "For
me, Jesus Christ, that is to say the Man-God of the Christians, copy of
the Avatars of all countries, of the Hindu Chrishna as of the Egyptian
Horus, was never a _historical_ personage." Hence the story of His life
was merely an allegory founded on the existence of "a personage named
Jehoshua born at Lud." But elsewhere she asserted that Jesus may have
lived during the Christian era or a century earlier "_as the Sepher
Toldoth Jehoshua indicates_" (my italics). And Madame Blavatsky went on
to say of the savants who deny the historical value of this legend, that
they--

either lie or talk nonsense. _It is our Masters who affirm it_ [my
italics]. If the history of Jehoshua or Jesus Ben Pandera is false,
then the whole of the Talmud, the whole of the Jewish canon law, is
false. It was the disciple of Jehoshua Ben Parachia, the fifth
President of the Sanhedrim since Ezra, who re-wrote the Bible....
This story is much truer than that of the New Testament, of which
history does not say a word.[702]

Who were the Masters whose authority Madame Blavatsky here invokes?
Clearly not the Trans-Himalayan Brotherhood to whom she habitually
refers by this term, and who can certainly not be suspected of affirming
the authenticity of the Toldoth Yeshu. It is evident, then, that there
were other "Masters" from whom Madame Blavatsky received this teaching,
and that those other masters were Cabalists.

The same Judaic influence appears more strongly in a book published by
the Theosophical Society in 1903, where the Talmud and the Toledot Yeshu
are quoted at great length and the Christians are derided for resenting
the attacks on their faith contained in these books, whilst the Jews are
represented as innocent, persecuted victims. One passage will suffice to
give an idea o