“Mr. B. Keightley: Can you divert Karma in the sense of changing the character of its manifestation? Can you neutralize bad Karma by subsequent action?
Mr. Old: Can an individual take on the Karma of half a dozen people?
Mme. Blavatsky: He cannot. No! Sir.
Mr. Kingsland: But you can make new Karma for half a dozen people.
Mme. Blavatsky: Yes, but you cannot take it any more than you can take the illness of a half a dozen persons. Now, if it is not Karmic, of course you may stop it – this thing which has been produced by someone else – but if it is Karmic, nothing will stop it.
Mr. Old: A person who alleviates suffering only generates good Karma for himself.
Mme. Blavatsky: He does temporary good to the persons, but the Karma must come in some other shape.
Mr. Old: Because I was wondering how far Karma was worked out, or worked off, in physical suffering.
Mme. Blavatsky: Who told you that? I don’t know what you mean.
Mr. Old: Well, you know, some people suffer tremendously in this world, they undergo physical suffering. Well, I presume that is one of the effects comprehended under the law of Karma.
Mme. Blavatsky: Or perhaps the Karma of your parents.
Mr. Old: Well, that is a diversion of Karma.
Mme. Blavatsky: But you can’t take it voluntarily. Your parents have been creating a bad Karma for you in the shape of heredity, disease, and therefore for this you are going to be rewarded in Devachan, and consoled for it, and your parents when they are incarnated will have to pay for it.
For instance, there is one kind of Karma that nobody thinks of; it is for statesmen and kings and all the blessed autocrats. If they wanted to do any good, they ought to do the following: to have the strictest laws not to permit diseased persons, consumptive people, those with anything like insanity or scrofula (a form of Tuberculosis) in them, to get married and to have children, because this is the greatest crime that can be. They have no right to do it, and this is the thing that brings the worst Karma, and changes whole populations.
I know I was forty years ago in England, and I saw every ten men, there were seven or eight who were magnificently and stoutly built. I come here now, if you please, and I see the population altered. Look at the army. You have no more of those men you had forty years ago, there are none, it is changing entirely. You see sometimes tall men, and that is all; but certainly it is not what it used to be.”
H. P. Blavatsky
The Mark Of God: Understanding Your "I AM Presence" 