 The very word "ashtar" appears in Helena Blavatsky's "The Secret Doctrine" (1888).However, this reference is to the Sanskrit term ashtar-vidya, meaning the technology of advanced warfare of the type mentioned in the Mahabharata.According to Helland, the initial account of the Ashtar message as channeled through Van Tassel was not a spiritual message as such but "an early contact account between extraterrestrials and humankind."