Atrya

Atrya is the name of one of the Masters belonging to the Egyptian Brotherhood. The name is rarely mentioned in Theosophical literature, except for certain Mahatma Letters.

The most important reference to Atrya appears in Letter 81 in The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett (This is Letter 52 in the Barker numbering scheme.)

If you had time to refer to the spiritualistic literature of that day, you would find that with the phenomenalists as with the Christians, Soul and Spirit were synonymous. It was H.P.B., who, acting under the orders of Atrya (one whom you do not know) was the first to explain in the Spiritualist the difference there was between psyche and nous, nefesh and ruach — Soul and Spirit. She had to bring the whole arsenal of proofs with her, quotations from Paul and Plato, from Plutarch and James, etc. before the Spiritualists admitted that the theosophists were right. It was then that she was ordered to write Isis — just a year after the Society had been founded.

Letter 16 of Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom First Series begins:

Since the commencement of your probationary term in America, you have had much to do with me, tho’ your imperfect development has often made you mistake me for Atrya, and often to fancy your own mind at work when it was mine trying to influence and to talk with yours.