Searchable Theosophical Texts
Theosophy House
Incidents
in the Life
of
Madame Blavatsky
compiled
from information supplied by
her relatives and friends and edited by A P
Sinnett
The Secret Doctrine by H P Blavatsky
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The Theosophical Publishing House,
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
THE first edition of this book, published
in 1886, was issued during
Madame Blavatsky's lifetime as an indirect
protest against the cruel and
slanderous attack on her embodied in the
Report to the Committee of the
Psychical Research Society appointed to
investigate the phenomena connected with
the Theosophical Society. This Report was
very effectually answered at the time,
and the passages in my original book
especially relating to it are hardly worth
reproduction now. But the facts relating to
Madame Blavatsky's life which it
then dealt with are more interesting now
than ever, in view of the gigantic
development of the Theosophical Society; and
the original edition having been
long out of print, the present edition is
prepared to meet a widespread desire.
I need not now reproduce dissertations
which the original edition contained in
deprecation of the incredulity that still
held sway twenty-five years ago in
reference to the reality of occult
phenomena. A great change in this respect has
come over cultivated thinking within that
period, and appeals for tolerance on
behalf of those who give testimony
concerning occult super-psychical phenomena
of which they may have been witness are no
longer necessary.[6]
For the rest, the book is now republished
as written, no attempt having been
made to recast its language to suit the
present time, when the subject of the
memoir is no longer with us; but I have
added some notes where later events or
experience have seemed to claim them.
CONTENTS
Chapter Page
AUTHOR'S PREFACE 5
1CHILDHOOD 9
2MARRIAGE AND TRAVEL 39
3AT HOME IN
4MADAME DE JELIHOWSKY'S NARRATIVE66
5MADAME DE JELIHOWSKY'S NARRATIVE — continued87
6MADAME DE JELIHOWSKY'S NARRATIVE — continued 105
7FROM APPRENTICESHIP TO DUTY 121
8RESIDENCE IN AMERICA132
9ESTABLISHED IN INDIA169
10A VISIT TO EUROPE205
NOTE FOR THE PRESENT EDITION255
MADAME BLAVATSKY
CHAPTER 1
CHILDHOOD
QUOTING the authoritative statement of her
late uncle, General Fadeef,
made at my request in 1881, at a time when
he was Joint-Secretary of State in
the Home Department at
Blavatsky, to give the name at full length)
“ is, from her father's side, the
daughter of Colonel Peter Hahn, and
granddaughter of General Alexis Hahn von
Rottenstern Hahn (a noble family of
and she is, from her mother's side, the
daughter of Helene Fadeef, and
granddaughter of Privy Councillor Andrew
Fadeef and of the Princess Helene
Dolgorouky. She is the widow of the
Councillor of State, Nicephore Blavatsky,
late Vice-Governor of the
Mademoiselle Hahn, to use her family name
in referring to her childhood, was
born at Ekaterinoslaw, in the south of
proper German form of the name, and in
French writing or conversation the name,
as used by Russians, would be De Hahn, but
in its strictly Russian form the
prefix was generally dropped.[10]
For the following particulars concerning
the family I am indebted to some of its
present representatives who have taken an
interest in the preparation of these
memoirs.
“The Von Hahn family is well known in
belong to an old
Countess Ida Hahn-Hahn, the famous
authoress, with whose writings
well acquainted. Settling in
was married to the Countess Proêbstin,
who, after his death, married Nicholas
Wassiltchikof, the brother of the famous
Prince of that name. Mme. Blavatsky's
father left the military service with the
rank of a colonel after the death of
his first wife. He had been married en premières
noces to Mademoiselle H.
Fadeew, known in the literary world between
1830 and 1840 as an authoress — the
first novel-writer that had ever appeared
in
Zenaida R . . . , and who, although dying
before she was twenty-five, left some
dozen novels of the romantic school, most
of which have been translated into the
German language. In 1846 Colonel Hahn
married his second wife — a Baroness Von
Lange, by whom he had a daughter referred
to by Mme. Jelihowsky as ' little
Lisa' in the extracts here given from her
writings, published in St Petersburg.
On her mother's side Mme. Blavatsky is the
granddaughter of Princess Dolgorouky,
with whose death the elder line of that
family became extinct in Russia. Thus
her maternal ancestors belong to the oldest
families of the empire, since they
are the direct descendants of the Prince or
Grand Duke Rurik, the first ruler
called to govern Russia. Several ladies of
that family belonged to the Imperial
house, becoming Czarinas (Czaritiza) by
marriage. For a Princess Dolgorouky
(Maria Nikitishna) had been married to the
grandfather of Peter the Great, the
Czar Michael Fedorovitch, the first
reigning Roman of; another, the Princess
Catherine Alexeévna, was on the
[11] eve of her marriage with Czar Peter
the II when he died suddenly before the
ceremony.
“A strange fatality seems always to have
persecuted this family in connection
with England; and its greatest vicissitudes
have been in some way associated
with that country. Several of its members
died, and others fell into political
disgrace, as they were on their way to
London. The last and most interesting of
all is the tragedy connected with the
Prince Sergeéy Gregoreevitch Dolgorouky,
Mme. Blavatsky's grandmother's grandfather,
who was ambassador in Poland. At the
advent of the Archduchess Anne of Courlang
to the throne of Russia, owing to
their opposition to her favourite of
infamous memory, the Chancellor Biron, many
of the highest families were imprisoned or
exiled; others put to death and their
wealth confiscated. Among these, such fate
befell the Prince Sergèey Dolgorouky.
He was sent in exile to Berezof (Siberia)
without any explanation, and his
private fortune, that consisted of 200,000
serfs, was confiscated. His two
little sons were, the elder placed with a
village smith as an apprentice, the
younger condemned to become a simple
soldier, and sent to Azof. Eight years
later the Empress Anne laxnovna recalled
the exiled father, pardoned him, and
sent him as ambassador to London. Knowing
Biron well, however, the prince sent
to the Bank of England 100,000 roubles to
be left untouched for a century,
capital and accumulated interest, to be
distributed after that period to his
direct descendants. His presentiment proved
correct. He had not yet reached
Novgorod, on his way to England, when he
was seized and put to death by
'quartering' (cut in four). When the Empress
Elizabeth, Peter the Great's
daughter, came to the throne next, her
first care was to undo the great wrongs
perpetrated by her predecessor through her
cruel and crafty favourite Biron.
Among other exiles the two sons and heirs
of Prince Sergeéy were recalled, their
title restored, and their property ordered
to be given back. This, however,
instead of being 200,000 serfs, had
dwindled down to only 8000. The younger son,
after a youth of extreme misery and [12]
hardship, became a monk, and died
young. The elder married a Princess
Romadanovsky; and his son, Prince Paul, Mme.
Blavatsky's great-grandfather, named while
yet in his cradle a Colonel of the
Guards by the Emperor, married a Countess
du Plessy, the daughter of a noble
French Huguenot family, emigrated from
France to Russia. Her father had found
service at the Court of the Empress
Catherine II where her mother was the
favourite dame d'honneur.
“The receipt of the Bank of England for
the sum of 100,000 roubles, a sum that
at the end of the term of one hundred years
had grown to immense proportions,
had been handed by a friend of the
politically murdered prince to the grandson
of the latter, the Prince Paul Dolgorouky.
It was preserved by him with other
family documents at Marfovka, a large
family property in the government of
Penja, where the old prince lived and died
in 1837. But the document was vainly
searched for by the heirs after his death ;
it was nowhere to be found. To their
great horror further research brought to light
the fact that it must have been
burnt, together with the residence, in a
great fire that had some time previous
destroyed nearly the whole village. Having
lost his sight in a paralytic stroke
some years previous to his demise, the
octogenarian prince, old and ill, had
been kept in ignorance of the loss of the
most important of his family
documents. This was a crushing misfortune,
that left the heirs bereft of their
contemplated millions. Many were the
attempts made to come to some compromise
with the bank, but to no purpose. It was
ascertained that the deposit had been
received at the bank, but some mistake in
the name had been made, and then the
bank demanded very naturally the receipt
delivered about the middle of the last
century. In short, the millions disappeared
for the Russian heirs. Mme.
Blavatsky has thus in her veins the blood
of three nations — the Slavonian, the
German, and the French.â€
The year of Mademoiselle Hahn's birth,
1831, was fatal for Russia, as for all
Europe, owing to the first visit of the
cholera, that terrible plague that
decimated from [13] 1830 to 1832 in turn
nearly every town of the
continent, and carried away a large part of
its populations. Her birth was
quickened by several deaths in the house.
She was ushered into the world amid
coffins and desolation. The following
narrative is composed from the family
records :—
“Her father was then in the army,
intervals of peace after Russia's war with
Turkey in 1829 being filled with
preparations for new fights. The baby was born
on the night between July 30 and 31 — weak
and apparently no denizen of this
world. A hurried baptism had to be resorted
to, therefore, lest the child died
with the burden of original sin on her
soul. The ceremony of baptism in
'orthodox' Russia is attended with all the
paraphernalia of lighted tapers, and
'pairs' of godmothers and godfathers, every
one of the spectators and actors
being furnished with consecrated wax
candles during the whole proceedings.
Moreover, everyone has to stand during the
baptismal rite, no one being allowed
to sit in the Greek religion — as they do
in Roman Catholic and Protestant
Churches — during the church and religious
service. The room selected for the
ceremony in the family mansion was large, but
the crowd of devotees eager to
witness it was still larger. Behind the
priest officiating in the centre of the
room, with his assistants, in their golden
robes and long hair, stood the three
pairs of sponsors and the whole household
of vassals and serfs. The child-aunt
of the baby — only a few years older than
her niece aged twenty-four hours, —
placed as ' proxy ' for an absent relative,
was in the first row immediately
behind the venerable protopope. Feeling
nervous and tired of standing still for
nearly an hour, the child settled on the
floor, unperceived by the elders, and
became probably drowsy in the overcrowded
room on that hot July day. The
ceremony was nearing its close. The
sponsors were just in the act of renouncing
the Evil One and his deeds, a renunciation
emphasised in the Greek Church by
thrice spitting upon the invisible enemy,
when the little lady, toying with her
lighted taper at the feet of the crowd,
[14] inadvertently set fire to the
long flowing robes of the priest, no one
remarking the accident until it was too
late. The result was an immediate
conflagration, during which several persons —
chiefly the old priest — were severely
burnt. That was another bad omen,
according to the superstitious beliefs of
orthodox Russia; and the innocent
cause of it — the future Mme. Blavatsky —
was doomed from that day in the eyes
of all the town to an eventful life, full
of vicissitude and trouble.
“Perhaps on account of an unconscious
apprehension to the same effect, the
child became the pet of her grandparents
and aunts, and was greatly spoiled in
her childhood, knowing from her infancy no
other authority than that of her own
whims and will. From her earliest years she
was brought up in an atmosphere of
legends and popular fancy. As far back as
her remembrances go, she was possessed
with a firm belief in the existence of an
invisible world of supermundane and
sub-mundane spirits and beings inextricably
blended with the life of each
mortal. The 'Domovoy' (house goblin) was no
fiction for her, any more than for
her nurses and Russian maids. This
invisible landlord — attached to every house
and building, who watches over the sleeping
household, keeps quiet, and works
hard the whole year round for the family,
cleaning the horses every night,
brushing and plaiting their tails and
manes, protecting the cows and cattle from
the witch, with whom he is at eternal feud
— had the affections of the child
from the first. The Domovoy is to be
dreaded only on March the 30th, the only
day in the year when, owing to some
mysterious reasons, he becomes mischievous
and very nervous, when he teases the
horses, thrashes the cows and disperses
them in terror, and causes the whole
household to be dropping and breaking
everything, stumbling and falling that
whole day — every prevention
notwithstanding. The plates and glasses
smashed, the inexplicable disappearance
of hay and oats from the stables, and every
family unpleasantness in general,
are usually attributed to the fidgetiness
and nervous excitement of the Domovoy.
Alone, those born on the night between July
30th and 31st are exempt from his
freaks. It is from the philosophy [15] of
her Russian nursery that
Mademoiselle Hahn learned the cause of her
being called by the serfs the
Sedmitchka, an untranslatable term, meaning
one connected with number Seven; in
this particular case, referring to the
child having been born on the seventh
month of the year, on the night between the
30th and 31st of July — days so
conspicuous in Russia in the annals of
popular beliefs with regard to witches
and their doings. Thus the mystery of a
certain ceremony enacted in great
secrecy for years during July the 30th, by
the nurses and household, was
divulged to her as soon as her
consciousness could realise the importance of the
initiation. She learned even in her
childhood the reason why, on that day, she
was carried about in her nurse's arms
around the house, stables, and cow-pen,
and made personally to sprinkle the four
corners with water, the nurse repeating
all the while some mystic sentences. These
may be found to this day in the
ponderous volumes of Sacharof's ' Russian
Demonology,' [The Traditions of the
Russian People by J Sacharof in seven
volumes, embracing popular literature,
beliefs, magic, witchcraft, the sub-mundane
spirits, ancient customs and rites,
songs and charms, for the last 1000 years.]
a laborious work that necessitated
over thirty years of incessant travelling
and scientific researches in the old
chronicles of the Slavonian lands, and that
won to the author the appellation of
the Russian Grimm.â€
Born in the very heart of the country which
the Roussalka (the Undine) has
chosen for her abode ever since creation —
reared on the shores of the blue
Dnieper, that no Cossack of Southern
Ukraine ever crosses without preparing
himself for death — the child's belief in
these lovely green-haired nymphs was
developed before she had heard of anything
else. The catechism of her Ukraine
nurses passed wholly into her soul, and she
found all these weird poetical
beliefs corroborated to her by what she
saw, or fancied she saw, herself around
her ever since her earliest babyhood.
Legends seem to have [16] lingered in
her family, preserved by the recollections
of the older servants, of events
connected with such beliefs, and they
inspired the early tyranny she was taught
to exercise, as soon as she understood the
powers that were attributed to her by
her nurses. The sandy shores of the rapid
Dnieper encircling Ekaterinoslaw, with
their vegetation of sallows, were her
favorite rambling place, Once there, she
saw a roussalka in every willow tree,
smiling and beckoning to her; and full of
her own invulnerability, impressed upon her
mind by her nurses, she was the only
one who approached those shores fearless
and daring. The child felt her
superiority and abused it. The little
four-year-old girl demanded that her will
should be implicitly recognized by her
nurse, lest she should escape from her
side, and thus leave her unprotected, to be
tickled to death by the beautiful
and wicked roussalka, who would no longer
be restrained by the presence of one
whom she dared not approach. Of course her parents
knew nothing of this side of
the education of their eldest born, and
learned it too late to allow such
beliefs to be eradicated from her mind. It
is only after a tragic event that
would otherwise have passed hardly noticed
by the family, that a foreign
governess was thought of. In one of her
walks by the river side a boy about
fourteen who was dragging the child's
carriage incurred her displeasure by some
slight disobedience. “I will have you
tickled to death by a roussalka ! â€
she screamed. “There's one coming down
from that tree . . . here she comes . .
. See, see!†Whether the boy saw the dreaded nymph or
not, he took to his
heels, and, the angry commands of the nurse
notwithstanding, disappeared along
the sandy banks leading homeward. After
much grumbling the old nurse was
constrained to return home alone with her
charge, [17] determined to have
“Pavlik†punished. But the poor lad was never seen alive
again. He ran away
to his village, and his body was found several
weeks later by fishermen, who
caught him in their nets. The verdict of
the police was “drowning by
accidentâ€. It was thought that the lad, having sought to cross
some shallow
pools left from the spring inundations, had
got into one of the many sand pits
so easily transformed by the rapid Dnieper
into whirlpools. But the verdict of
the horrified household — of the nurses and
servants — pointed to no accidental
death, but to the one that had occurred in
consequence of the child having
withdrawn from the boy her mighty
protection, thus delivering the victim to some
roussalka on the watch. The displeasure of
the family at this foolish gossip was
enhanced when they found the supposed
culprit gravely corroborating the charge,
and maintaining that it was she herself who
had handed over her disobedient serf
to her faithful servants the water-nymphs.
Then it was that an English governess
was brought upon the scene.
Miss Augusta Sophia Jeffries did not
believe in the roussalkas or the domovoys;
but this negative merit was insufficient to
invest her with a capacity for
managing the intractable pupil consigned to
her care. She gave up her task in
despair, and the child was again left to
her nurses till about six years old,
when she and her still younger sister were
sent to live with their father. For
the next two or three years the little
girls were chiefly taken care of by their
father's orderlies; the elder, at all
events, greatly preferring these to their
female attendants. They were taken about
with the troops to which their father
was attached, and were petted on all sides
as the enfants du régiment.
Her mother died when Mademoiselle Hahn was
still a child, [18] and at about
eleven years of age she was taken charge of
altogether by her grandmother, and
went to live at Saratow, where her
grandfather was civil governor, having
previously exercised similar authority in
Astrachan. She speaks of having at
this time been alternately petted and
punished, spoiled and hardened; but we may
well imagine that she was a difficult child
to manage on any uniform system.
Moreover, her health was always uncertain
in childhood; she was “ever sick and
dyingâ€, as she expresses it herself, a sleep walker, and
remarkable for
various abnormal psychic peculiarities, set
down by her orthodox nurses of the
Greek Church to possession by the devil, so
that she was drenched during
childhood, as she often says, in enough
holy water to have floated a ship, and
exorcised by priests who might as well have
been talking to the wind for all the
effect they produced on her.
Some notes concerning her childhood have
been furnished, for the service of the
present memoir, by her aunt, a lady who, as
well as Madame Jelihowsky, is known
personally to myself and to many others of
Mme. Blavatsky's friends in Europe.
Her strange excitability of temperament,
still one of her most marked
characteristics, was already manifest in
her earliest youth. Even then she was
liable to ungovernable fits of passion, and
showed a deep-rooted disposition to
rebel against every kind of authority or
control. Her warm-hearted impulses of
kindliness and affection, however, endeared
her to her relatives in childhood,
much as they have operated to obliterate
the irritation caused sometimes by her
want of self-control in regard to the minor
affairs of life with the friends of
a later period. It is justly asserted by
the memoranda before me, “she has no
malice in her nature, no lasting resentment
even against those who [19]
have wronged her, and her true kindness of
heart bears no permanent traces of
momentary disturbancesâ€.
“We who know Madame Blavatsky wellâ€, writes her aunt, speaking for herself
and for another relative who had joined
with her in the preparation of the notes
I am now dealing with — “we who know her
now in age can speak of her with
authority, not merely from idle report.
From her earliest childhood she was
unlike any other person. Very lively and
highly gifted, full of humour, and of
most remarkable daring; she struck everyone
with astonishment by her self-willed
and determined actions. Thus in her
earliest youth and hardly married, she
disposed of herself in an angry mood,
abandoning her country, without the
knowledge of her relatives or husband, who,
unfortunately, was a man in every
way unsuited to her, and more than thrice
her age. Those who have known her from
her childhood would — had they been born
thirty years later — have also known
that it was a fatal mistake to regard and
treat her as they would any other
child. Her restless and very nervous
temperament, one that led her into the most
unheard of, un-girlish mischief; her
unaccountable — especially in those days —
attraction to, and at the same time fear
of, the dead; her passionate love and
curiosity for everything unknown and
mysterious, weird and fantastical; and,
foremost of all, her craving for
independence and freedom of action — a craving
that nothing and nobody could control; all
this, combined with an exuberance of
imagination and a wonderful sensitiveness,
ought to have warned her friends that
she was an exceptional creature, to be
dealt with and controlled by means as
exceptional. The slightest contradiction
brought on an outburst of passion,
often a fit of convulsions. Left alone with
no one near her to impede her
liberty of action, no hand to chain her
down or stop her natural impulses, and
thus arouse to fury her inherent combativeness,
she would spend hours and days
quietly whispering, as people thought, to
herself, and narrating, with no one
near her, in some dark corner, marvellous
tales of travels in bright stars and
other worlds, which her governess [20]
described as 'profane gibberish';
but no sooner would the governess give her
a distinct order to do this or the
other thing, than her first impulse was to
disobey. It was enough to forbid her
doing a thing to make her do it, come what
would. Her nurse, as indeed other
members of the family, sincerely believed
the child possessed 'the seven spirits
of rebellion'. Her governesses were martyrs
to their task, and never succeeded
in bending her resolute will, or
influencing by anything but kindness her
indomitable, obstinate, and fearless
nature.
“Spoilt in her childhood by the adulation
of dependents and the devoted
affection of relatives, who forgave all to
' the poor, motherless child' — later
on, in her girlhood, her self-willed temper
made her rebel openly against the
exigencies of society. She would submit to
no sham respect for or fear of the
public opinion. She would ride at fifteen,
as she had at ten, any Cossack horse
on a man's saddle! She would bow to no one,
as she would recede before no
prejudice or established conventionality.
She defied all and everyone. As in her
childhood, all her sympathies and
attractions went out towards people of the
lower class. She had always preferred to
play with her servants' children rather
than with her equals, and as a child had to
be constantly watched for fear she
should escape from the house to make
friends with ragged street boys. So, later
on in life, she continued to be drawn in
sympathy towards those who were in a
humbler station of life than herself, and
showed as pronounced indifference to
the ' nobility ' to which by birth she
belonged.â€
The five years passed in safety with her
grandparents seem to have had an
important influence on her future life.
Miss Jeffries had left the family; the
children had another English governess, a
timid young girl to whom none of her
pupils paid any attention, a Swiss
preceptor, and a French governess, who had
gone through remarkable adventures in her
youth. Madame Henriette Peigneur was a
distinguished beauty in the days of the
[21] first French Revolution. Her
favorite narratives to the children
consisted in the description of those days
of glory and excitement when, chosen by the
“Phrygian red-capsâ€, the
citoyens rouges of Paris to represent in
the public festivals the Goddess of
Liberty, she had been driven in triumph,
day after day, along the streets of the
grande ville in glorious processions. The
narrator herself was now a weird old
woman, bent down by age, and looked more
like the traditional Fée Carabosse than
anything else. But her eloquence was
moving, and the young girls that formed her
willing audience were greatly excited by
the glowing descriptions — most of all
the heroine of these memoirs. She declared
then and there that she meant to be a
“Goddess of Liberty†all her life. The old governess was a
strange mixture
of severe morality and of that brilliant
flippancy that characterises almost
every Parisienne to her deathbed unless she
is a bigot — which Mme. Peigneur was
not. But while her old husband — the
charming, witty, kind-hearted Sieur
Peigneur, ever ready to screen the young
girls from his wife's pénitences and
severity — taught them the merriest songs
of Béranger, his best bons mots and
anecdotes, his wife had no such luck with
her lesson books. The opening of Noël
and Chopsal became generally the signal for
an escape to the wild woods that
surrounded the large villa occupied by
Mademoiselle Hahn's grandparents during
the summer months. It was only when roaming
at leisure in the forest, or riding
some unmanageable horse on a Cossack's
saddle, that the girl felt perfectly
happy.
For the following interesting reminiscence
of this period I am indebted to Mme.
Jelihowsky: —
“The great country mansion (datche)
occupied by us at Saratow was an old and
vast building, full of subterranean
galleries, long abandoned passages, turrets,
[22] and most weird nooks and corners. It
had been built by a family called
Pantchoolidzef, several generations of whom
had been governors at Saratow and
Penja — the richest proprietors and
noblemen of the latter province. It looked
more like a mediaeval ruined castle than a
building of the past century. The man
who took care of the estate for the
proprietors — of a type now happily rare,
who regarded the serfs as something far
lower and less precious than his hounds
— had been known for his cruelty and
tyranny, and his name was a synonym for a
curse. The legends told of his ferocious
and despotic temper, of unfortunate
serfs beaten by him to death, and
imprisoned for months in dark subterranean
dungeons, were many and thrilling. They
were repeated to us mostly by Mme.
Peigneur, who had been for the last
twenty-five years the governess of three
generations of children in the
Pantchoolidzef family. Our heads were full of
stories about the ghosts of the martyred
serfs, seen promenading in chains
during nocturnal hours; of the phantom of a
young girl, tortured to death for
refusing her love to her old master, which
was seen floating in and out of the
little iron-bound door of the subterranean
passage at twilight; and other
stories that left us children and girls in
an agony of fear whenever we had to
cross a dark room or passage. We had been
permitted to explore, under the
protection of half-a-dozen male servants
and a quantity of torches and lanterns,
those awe-inspiring 'Catacombs'. True, we
had found in them more broken wine
bottles than human bones, and had gathered
more cobwebs than iron chains, but
our imagination suggested ghosts in every
flickering shadow on the old damp
walls. Still Helen (Mme. Blavatsky) would
not remain satisfied with one solitary
visit, nor with a second either. She had
selected the uncanny region as a
Liberty Hall, and a safe refuge where she
could avoid her lessons. A long time
passed before her secret was found out, and
whenever she was found missing, a
deputation of strong-bodied servant-men, headed
by the gendarme on service in
the Governor's Hall, was despatched in
search of her, as it required no less
than one who was not a serf and feared her
little to [23] bring her
up-stairs by force. She had erected for
herself a tower out of old broken chairs
and tables in a corner under an iron-barred
window, high up in the ceiling of
the vault, and there she would hide for
hours, reading a book known as Solomon's
Wisdom, in which every kind of popular
legend was taught. Once or twice she
could hardly be found in those damp
subterranean corridors, having in her
endeavours to escape detection lost her way
in the labyrinth. For all this she
was not in the least daunted or repentant,
for, as she assured us, she was never
there alone, but in the company of ' beings
' she used to call her little '
hunch-backs ' and playmates.
“Intensely nervous and sensitive,
speaking loud, and often walking in her
sleep, she used to be found at nights in
the most out-of-way places, and to be
carried back to her bed profoundly asleep.
Thus she was missed from her room one
night when she was hardly twelve, and, the
alarm having been given, she was
searched for and found pacing one of the
long subterranean corridors, evidently
in deep conversation with someone invisible
for all but herself. She was the
strangest girl one has ever seen, one with
a distinct dual nature in her, that
made one think there were two beings in one
and the same body; one mischievous,
combative, and obstinate — everyway
graceless; the other as mystical and
metaphysically inclined as a seeress of
Prevorst. No schoolboy was ever more
uncontrollable or full of the most
unimaginable and daring pranks and
espiègleries than she was. At the
same time, when the paroxysm of
mischief-making had run its course, no old
scholar could be more assiduous in
his study, and she could not be prevailed
to give up her books, which she would
devour night and day as long as the impulse
lasted. The enormous library of her
grandparents seemed then hardly large
enough to satisfy her cravings.
“Attached to the residence there was a
large abandoned garden, a park rather,
full of ruined kiosks, pagodas, and
out-buildings, which, running up hillward,
ended in a virgin forest, whose hardly
visible paths were covered knee-deep with
moss, and with thickets in it which perhaps
no human foot had disturbed for
centuries. [24] It was reputed the
hiding-place for all the runaway
criminals and deserters, and it was there
that Helen used to take refuge, when
the ' catacombs' had ceased to assure her
safety.â€
Her strange temperament and character are
thus described in a work called
Juvenile Recollections Compiled for my
Children, by Mme. Jelihowsky, a thick
volume of charming stories selected by the
author from the diary kept by herself
during her girlhood: —
“Fancy, or that which we all regarded in
these days as fancy, was developed in
the most extraordinary way, and from her
earliest childhood, in my sister Helen.
For hours at times she used to narrate to
us younger children, and even to her
seniors in years, the most incredible
stories with the cool assurance and
conviction of an eye-witness, and one who
knew what she was talking about. When
a child, daring and fearless in everything
else, she got often scared into fits
through her own hallucinations. She felt
certain of being persecuted by what she
called ' the terrible glaring eyes,'
invisible to everyone else, and often
attributed by her to the most inoffensive
inanimate objects; an idea that
appeared quite ridiculous to the
bystanders. As to herself, she would shut her
eyes tight during such visions, and run
away to hide from the ghostly glances
thrown on her by pieces of furniture or
articles of dress, screaming
desperately, and frightening the whole
household. At other times she would be
seized with fits of laughter, explaining
them by the amusing pranks of her
invisible companions. She found these in
every dark corner, in every bush of the
thick park that surrounded our villa during
the summer months ; while in winter,
when all our family emigrated back to town,
she seemed to meet them again in the
vast reception rooms of the first floor,
entirely deserted from midnight till
morning, Every locked door notwithstanding,
Helen was found several times during
the night hours in those dark apartments in
a half-conscious state, sometimes
fast asleep, [25] and unable to say how she
got there from our common
bedroom on the top story. She disappeared
in the same mysterious manner in
daytime also. Searched for, called and
hunted after, she would be often
discovered, with great pains, in the most
unfrequented localities; once it was
in the dark loft, under the very roof, to
which she was traced, amid pigeons'
nests, and surrounded by hundreds of those
birds. She was ' putting them to
sleep ' (according to the rules taught in
Solomon's Wisdom], as she explained.
[And, indeed pigeons were found if not
asleep still unable to move, and as
though stunned in her lap at such times.]
At other times behind the gigantic
cupboards that contained our grandmother's
zoological collection — the old
princess's museum of natural history having
achieved a wide renown in Russia in
those days, — surrounded by relics of
fauna, flora, and historical antiquities,
amid antediluvian bones of stuffed animals
and monstrous birds, the deserter
would be found, after hours of search, in
deep conversations with seals and
stuffed crocodiles. If one could believe
Helen, the pigeons were cooing to her
interesting fairy tales, while birds and
animals, whenever in solitary
tête-à-tête with
her, amused her with interesting stories, presumably from their
own autobiographies. For her all nature seemed
animated with a mysterious life
of its own. She heard the voice of every
object and form, whether organic or
inorganic; and claimed consciousness and
being, not only for some mysterious
powers visible and audible for herself
alone in what was to everyone else empty
space, but even for visible but inanimate
things such as pebbles, mounds, and
pieces of decaying phosphorescent timber.
“With a view of adding specimens to the
remarkable entomological collection of
our grandmother, as much as for our own
instruction and pleasure, diurnal as
well as nocturnal expeditions were often
arranged. We preferred the latter, as
they were more exciting, and had a
mysterious charm to us about them. We knew of
no greater enjoyment. Our delightful
travels in the neighbouring woods would
last from 9 P.M. till I, and often 2, [26]
o'clock A.M. We prepared for
them with an earnestness that the Crusaders
may have experienced when setting
out to fight the infidel and dislodge the
Turk from Palestine. The children of
friends and acquaintances in town were
invited — boys and girls from twelve to
seventeen, and two or three dozen of young
serfs of both sexes, all armed with
gauze nets and lanterns, as we were
ourselves, strengthened our ranks. In the
rear followed a dozen of strong grown-up
servants, cossacks, and even a gendarme
or two, armed with real weapons for our
safety and protection. It was a merry
procession as we set out on it, with
beating hearts, and bent with unconscious
cruelty on the destruction of the beautiful
large night-butterflies for which
the forests of the Volga province are so
famous. The foolish insects, flying in
masses, would soon cover the glasses of our
lanterns, and ended their ephemeral
lives on long pins and cork burial grounds
four inches square. But even in this
my eccentric sister asserted her
independence. She would protect and save from
death all those dark butterflies — known as
sphynxes —whose dark fur-covered
heads and bodies bore the distinct images
of a white human skull. ' Nature
having imprinted on each of them the
portrait of the skull of some great dead
hero, these butterflies are sacred, and
must not be killed,' she said, speaking
like some heathen fetish-worshipper. She
got very angry when we would not listen
to her, but would go on chasing those '
dead heads' as we called them; and
maintained that by so doing we disturbed
the rest of the defunct persons whose
skulls were imprinted on the bodies of the
weird insects.
“No less interesting were our day-travels
into regions more or less distant.
At about ten versts from the Governor's
villa there was a field, an extensive
sandy tract of land, evidently once upon a
time the bottom of a sea or a great
lake, as its soil yielded petrified relics
of fishes, shells, and teeth of some
(to us) unknown monsters. Most of these
relics were broken and mangled by time,
but one could often find whole stones of
various sizes on which were imprinted
figures of fishes and plants and animals of
kinds now wholly extinct, but [
27] which proved their undeniable
antediluvian origin. The marvellous and
sensational stories that we, children and
schoolgirls, heard from Helen during
that epoch were countless. I well remember
when stretched at full length on the
ground, her chin reclining on her two
palms, and her two elbows buried deep in
the soft sand, she used to dream aloud and
tell us of her visions, evidently
clear, vivid, and as palpable as life to
her! . . . How lovely the description
she gave us of the submarine life of all
those beings, the mingled remains of
which were now crumbling to dust around us.
How vividly she described their past
fights and battles on the spot where she
lay, assuring us she saw it all; and
how minutely she drew on the sand with her
finger the fantastic forms of the
long-dead sea-monsters, and made us almost
see the very colours of the fauna and
flora of those dead regions. While
listening eagerly to her descriptions of the
lovely azure waves reflecting the sunbeams
playing in rainbow light on the
golden sands of the sea bottom, of the
coral reefs and stalactite caves, of the
sea-green grass mixed with the delicate
shining anemones, we fancied we felt
ourselves the cool, velvety waters
caressing our bodies, and the latter
transformed into pretty and frisky
sea-monsters; our imagination galloped off
with her fancy to a full oblivion of the
present reality. She never spoke in
later years as she used to speak in her
childhood and early girlhood. The stream
of her eloquence has dried up, and the very
source of her inspiration is now
seemingly lost! She had a strong power of
carrying away her audiences with her,
of making them see actually, if even
vaguely, that which she herself saw. . . .
Once she frightened all of us youngsters
very nearly into fits. We had just been
transported into a fairy world, when
suddenly she changed her narrative from the
past to the present tense, and began to ask
us to imagine that all that which
she had told us of the cool, blue waves
with their dense populations was around
us, only invisible and intangible, so far.
. . . 'Just fancy! A miracle!' she
said ; ' the earth suddenly opening, the
air condensing around us and rebecoming
sea waves.....Look, look there, they begin
already appearing and moving. [
28] We are surrounded with water, we are
right amid the mysteries and the
wonders of a submarine world ! . . .'
“She had started from the sand, and was
speaking with such conviction, her
voice had such a ring of real amazement,
horror, and her childish face wore such
a look of a wild joy and terror at the same
time, that when, suddenly covering
her eyes with both hands, as she used to do
in her excited moments, she fell
down on the sand screaming at the top of
her voice, 'There's the wave . . . it
has come! . . . The sea, the sea, we are
drowning !' . . . Every one of us fell
down on our faces, as desperately screaming
and as fully convinced that the sea
had engulfed us, and that we were no more!
. .
“It was her delight to gather around
herself a party of us younger children at
twilight, and, after taking us into the
large dark museum, to hold us there,
spell-bound, with her weird stories. Then
she narrated to us the most
inconceivable tales about herself; the most
unheard of adventures of which she
was the heroine, every night, as she
explained. Each of the stuffed animals in
the museum had taken her in turn into its
confidence, had divulged to her the
history of its life in previous
incarnations or existences. Where had she heard
of reincarnation, or who could have taught
her anything of the superstitious
mysteries of metempsychosis, in a Christian
family ? Yet she would stretch
herself on her favourite animal, a gigantic
stuffed seal, and caressing its
silvery, soft white skin, she would repeat
to us his adventures, as told to her
by himself, in such glowing colours and
eloquent style, that even grown-up
persons found themselves interested
involuntarily in her narratives. They all
listened to, and were carried away by the
charm of her recitals, the younger
audience believing every word she uttered.
Never can I forget the life and
adventures of a tall white flamingo, who
stood in unbroken contemplation behind
the glass panes of a large cupboard, with
his two scarlet-lined wings widely
opened as though ready to take flight, yet
chained to his prison cell. He had
been ages ago, she told us, no bird, but a
real man. He had committed fearful
crimes and a murder, for which a great
genius had changed him into [29] a
flamingo, a brainless bird, sprinkling his
two wings with the blood of his
victims, and thus condemning him to wander
for ever in deserts and marshes. . .
.
“I dreaded that flamingo fearfully. At
dusk, whenever I chanced to pass
through the museum to say goodnight to our
grandmother, who rarely left her
study, an adjoining room, I tried to avoid
seeing the blood-covered murderer by
shutting my eyes and running quickly by.
“If Helen loved to tell us stories, she
was still more passionately fond of
listening to other people's fairy tales.
There was, among the numerous servants
of the Fadeef family, an old woman, an
under-nurse, who was famous for telling
them. The catalogue of her tales was
endless, and her memory retained every idea
connected with superstition. During the
long summer twilights on the green
grassy lawn under the fruit trees of the
garden, or during the still longer
winter evenings, crowding around the
flaming fire of our nursery-room, we used
to cling to the old woman, and felt
supremely happy whenever she could be
prevailed upon to tell us some of those
popular fairy tales, for which our
northern country is so famous. The
adventures of' Ivan Zarewitch,' of' Kashtey
the Immortal,' of the 'Gray-Wolf', the
wicked magician travelling in the air in
a self-moving seive; or those of
Meletressa, the Fair Princess, shut up in a
dungeon until the Zarevitch unlocks its
prison door with a gold key, and
liberates her — delighted us all. Only,
while all we children forgot those tales
as easily as we had learned them, Helen
never either forgot the stories or
consented to recognise them as fictions.
She thoroughly took to heart all the
troubles of the heroes, and maintained that
all their most wonderful adventures
were quite natural. People could change
into animals and take any form they
liked, if they only knew how; men could
fly, if they only wished so firmly. Such
wise men had existed in all ages, and
existed even in our own days, she assured
us, making themselves known, of course,
only to those who were worthy of knowing
and seeing them, and who believed in,
instead of laughing at, them. . . .
“As a proof of what she said, she pointed
to an old man, a centenarian, who
lived not far from the villa, in [30] a
wild ravine of a neighbouring
forest, known as 'Baranig Bouyrak'. The old
man was a real magician, in the
popular estimation; a sorcerer of a good,
benevolent kind, who cured willingly
all the patients who applied to him, but
who also knew how to punish with
disease those who had sinned. He was
greatly versed in the knowledge of the
occult properties of plants and flowers,
and could read the future, it was said.
He kept beehives in great numbers, his hut
being surrounded by several hundreds
of them. During the long summer afternoons
he could be always found at his post,
slowly walking among his favourites,
covered as with a living cuirass, from head
to foot, with swarms of buzzing bees,
plunging both his hands with impunity into
their dwellings, listening to their
deafening noise, and apparently answering
them — their buzzing almost ceasing
whenever he addressed them in his (to us)
incomprehensible tongue, a kind of chanting
and muttering. Evidently the
golden-winged labourers and their
centenarian master understood each other's
languages. Of the latter, Helen felt quite
sure. ' Baranig Bouyrak' had an
irresistible attraction for her, and she
visited the strange old man whenever
she could find a chance to do so. Once
there, she would put questions and listen
to the old man's replies and explanations
as to how to understand the language
of bees, birds, and animals with a
passionate earnestness. The dark ravine
seemed in her eyes a fairy kingdom. As to
the centenarian ' wise-man', he used
to say of her constantly to us: ' This
little lady is quite different from all
of you. There are great events lying in
wait for her in the future. I feel sorry
in thinking that I will not live to see my
predictions of her verified; but they
will all come to pass! . . .' â€
It would be impossible to write even a
slight sketch of Mme. Blavatsky's life
without alluding continually to the occult
theories on which her own
psychological development turns, and I
think the narrative will be rendered most
intelligible if I frankly explain some of
[31] these at the outset, without
here being supposed to argue the question
as to whether these theories rest upon
a correct appreciation of natural laws
(operating above and within those of
physical existence), or whether they
constitute an exclusive hallucination to
which her mind has been subject. It will be
seen, at all events, that, according
to such a view, the hallucination has been
very protracted and coherent, so much
so that, as I say, the life which has been
entirely subordinate to the career
marked out for it by those to whom Mme.
Blavatsky believes herself, and always
has believed herself, guided and protected,
would be meaningless without
reference to this vitalising thread running
through it. Of course I have no wish
to disguise my own adhesion to the view of
nature on which Mme. Blavatsky's
theory of life rests, nor my own conviction
concerning the real existence of the
living Adepts of occult science with whom I
believe Mme. Blavatsky, throughout
her life, to have been more or less closely
associated. But to argue the matter
would convert this memoir into a
philosophical treatise going over a great deal
of ground more fitly traversed in works of
a purely theosophical character. It
will be enough for my present purpose to
expound the theory on which, as I say,
Mme. Blavatsky's comprehension of her own
life rests, merely for the sake of
rendering the story which has to be set
forth intelligible to the reader.
The primary conception of oriental
occultism, in reference to the human soul,
recognises it as an entity, a moral and
intellectual centre of consciousness,
which not only survives the death of any
physical body in which it may be
functioning at any given time, but has also
enjoyed many periods of both
physical and spiritual existence before its
incarnation in that body. In fact,
[32] the entity — the real individual
according to this view — may be
identified by persons with psychic
faculties sufficiently developed through a
series of lives, and not merely in
reference to one. The view of Nature I am
describing — the Esoteric Doctrine — quite
sufficiently accounts for the fact
that, from the point of view of any given
body, no incarnated person can command
a prospect of the life-series through which
he may have passed. Each
incarnation, each successive life of the
series, is a descent into matter from
the point of view of the real spiritual
entity: a descent into a new organism in
which the entity — which is only altogether
its true or higher self on the
spiritual plane of Nature — may function
with greater or less success according
to the qualifications of the organism. The
organism only remembers, with
specific detail, the incidents of its own
objective life. The true entity
animating that organism may perhaps retain
the capacity of remembering a great
deal more, but not through the organism.
Moreover, until the organism is
complete — that is to say, until the person
concerned is grown up — the true
entity is only immersed in it — if I may
employ a materialistic illustration to
suggest the idea which would be only fully
expressible m metaphysical language
of great elaboration — to a limited extent.
The quite young child, as we
ordinarily phrase it, is not a morally
responsible being: that is to say, the
organism has not attained a development in
which the moral sense of the true
entity can function through the physical
brain and direct physical acts. But the
young child is already marked out as in
process of becoming the efficient
habitat of the entity or soul that has
begun to function through its organism;
and, therefore, if we imagine that there
are in the world living men — adepts in
the direction of forces on the [33] higher
planes of Nature with which
physical science is not yet acquainted — we
shall readily understand the
peculiar relations that exist between them
and a child in process of growing up,
and gradually taking into itself a soul
that such adepts are already in
relations with.
Let me repeat that this mere statement of
the occult science view of human
nature is not put forward as a proof that
things are so; but simply because that
theory of things will be found a continuous
thread upon which the facts of Mme.
Blavatsky's life are strung. It may be
that, as the story goes on, some readers
will develop other theories to account for
them, but all I have to say would
appear disjointed and incoherent without
this brief explanation, while it
becomes, at all events, clearly
intelligible with that clue to its successive
incidents.
In this way I proceed to assume, as a
working hypothesis, that even in childhood
Mademoiselle Hahn was under the protection
of a certain abnormal agency capable
even of producing results on the physical
plane when in extraordinary
emergencies these were called for. For
example, I have more than once heard her
tell a story of her childhood's days about
a great curiosity she entertained in
reference to a certain picture — the
portrait of one of the ancestors of the
family — which hung up in the castle where
her grandfather lived, at Saratow,
with a curtain before it. It hung at a
great height above the ground in a lofty
room, and Mademoiselle Hahn was a small
mite at the time, though very resolute
when her mind was set upon a purpose. She
had been denied permission to see the
picture, so she waited for an opportunity
when the coast was clear, and
proceeded to take her own measures for
compassing [34] her design. She
dragged a table to the wall, and contrived
to set another small table on that,
and a chair on the top of all, and then
gradually succeeded in mounting up on
this unstable edifice. She could just
manage to reach the picture from this
point of vantage, and leaning with one hand
against the dusty wall, contrived
with the other to draw back the curtain.
The effect wrought upon her by the
sight of the picture was startling, and the
momentary movement back upset her
frail platform. But exactly what occurred
she does not know. She lost
consciousness from the moment she staggered
and began to fall, and when she
recovered her senses she was lying quite
unhurt on the floor, the tables and
chair were back again in their usual
places, the curtain had been run back upon
its rings, and she would have imagined the
whole incident some unusual kind of
dream but for the fact that the mark of her
small hand remained imprinted on the
dusty wall high up beside the picture.
On another occasion again her life seems to
have been saved under peculiar
circumstances, at a time when she was
approaching fourteen. A horse bolted with
her — she fell, with her foot entangled in
the stirrup, and before the horse was
stopped she ought, she thinks, to have been
killed outright but for a strange
sustaining power she distinctly felt around
her, which seemed to hold her up in
defiance of gravitation. If anecdotes of
this surprising kind were few and far
between in Mme Blavatsky's life I should
suppress them in attempting to edit her
memoirs, but, as will be seen later, they
form the staple of the narratives
which each person in turn, who has anything
to say about her, comes forward to
tell. The records of her return to Russia
after her first long wanderings are
full of evidence, [35] given by her
relatives, compared to which these
little anecdotes of her childhood told by
herself sink into insignificance as
marvels. I refer to them, moreover, not for
their own sake, but, as I began by
saying, to illustrate the relations which
appear to have existed in her early
childhood between herself and those whom
she speaks of as her “Mastersâ€,
unseen in body, unknown by her at that time
as living men, but not unknown to
the visions with which her child-life was
filled.
In the narrative quoted above, it will have
been seen that she was often noticed
by her friends sitting apart in corners,
when she was not interfered with,
apparently talking to herself. By her own
account she was at this time talking
with playmates of her own size and apparent
age, who to her were as real in
appearance as if they had been flesh and
blood, though they were not visible at
all to anyone else about her. Mademoiselle
Hahn used to be exceedingly annoyed
at the persistent way in which her nurses
and relatives refused to take any
notice whatever of one little hunchback boy
who was her favourite companion at
this time. Nobody else was able to take
notice of him, for nobody else saw him,
but to the abnormally gifted child he was a
visible, audible, and amusing
companion, though one who seems to have led
her into endless mischief. But
amidst the strange double life she thus led
from her earliest recollections, she
would sometimes have visions of a mature
protector, whose imposing appearance
dominated her imagination from a very early
period. This protector was always
the same, his features never changed ; in
after life she met him as a living
man, and knew him as though she had been
brought up in his presence.
Students of spiritualism, of occultism, of
clairvoyance [36] will find this
record strangely confused at the first
glance, but I think, by the light of what
I have said above in reference to the
occult theory of incarnation, people who
hold that theory will be excused for
thinking that they see their way through
the entanglement pretty clearly.
Mademoiselle Hahn was born, of course, with all
the characteristics of what is known in
spiritualism as mediumship in the most
extraordinary degree, also with gifts as a
clairvoyant of an almost equally
unexampled order. And as a child, the time
had not come at which it would have
been possible for the occult protectors of
the entity thus beginning to function
in that organism to set on foot any of
those processes of physical training by
which such natural gifts can be tamed,
disciplined, and utilised. They had to
run wild for a time; thus we find
Mademoiselle Hahn — looking at her childhood's
history from the psychological point of
view — surrounded by all, or a large
number of the usual phenomena of
mediumship, and also visibly under the
observation and occasional guardianship of
the authorities to whose service her
mature faculties were altogether given
over, to the absolute repression in after
life of the casual faculties of mediumship.
Her friends were half-interested,
half-terrified by those of her manifestations
which they could understand sufficiently to
observe. Her aunt says that from the
age of four years “she was a somnambulist
and somniloquent. She would hold, in
her sleep, long conversations with unseen
personages, some of which were
amusing, some edifying, some terrifying for
those who gathered around the
child's bed. On various occasions, while
apparently in the ordinary sleep, she
would answer questions, put by persons who
took hold [37] of her hand,
about lost property or other subjects of
momentary anxiety, as though she were a
sibyl entranced. Sometimes she would be
missing from the nursery, and be found
in some distant room of the mansion, or in
the garden, playing and talking with
companions of her dream-life. For years, in
childish impulse, she would shock
strangers with whom she came in contact,
and visitors to the house, by looking
them intently in the face and telling them
that they would die at such and such
a time, or she would prophesy to them some
accident or misfortune that would
befall them. And since her prognostications
usually came true, she was the
terror, in this respect, of the domestic
circle.â€
In 1844, the middle of the period during
which she was growing up from childhood
to girlhood at Saratow, her father took her
on her first journey abroad. She
accompanied him to Paris and London, a
child of fourteen, but a troublesome
charge even then and even for him, though
in her father's hands she was docile
from the point of view of her demeanour in
any other custody. One object of the
visit to London was to get her some good
music lessons, for she showed great
natural talents as a pianist — which indeed
have lingered about her in later
life, though often in total abeyance for
many years together. She had some
lessons from Moscheles, and even, I
understand, played a duet at a private
concert with a then celebrated professional
pianist. Colonel Hahn and his
daughter went to stay for a week in Bath
during this visit to England, but the
only striking feature of this excursion
that I can hear of had to do with a
little difficulty that arose between
mademoiselle and her father on the subject
of riding. She wanted to go on a man's
saddle, Cossack fashion, as she had been
used [38] to, in face of all protests to
the contrary, in Saratow. The
Colonel would not tolerate this, so there
was a scene, and a fit of hysterics on
the part of the young lady, followed by an
attack of some more serious illness.
He is represented as having been well
satisfied to get her home again, and lodge
her once more in the congenial wilds of
Asia Minor. Her pride in another
accomplishment, her knowledge of the
English language, received a rude shock
during this early visit to London. She had
been taught to speak English by her
first governess, Miss Jeffries, but in
Southern Russia people did not make the
fine distinctions between different sorts
of English which more fastidious
linguists are alive to. The English
governess had been a Yorkshire woman, and as
soon as Mademoiselle Hahn began to open her
lips among friends to whom she was
introduced in London, she found her remarks
productive of much more amusement
than their substance justified. The
combination of accents she employed —
Yorkshire grafted on Ekaterinoslow — must
have had a comical effect, no doubt,
but Mdlle Hahn soon came to the conclusion
that she had done enough for the
entertainment of her friends, and would
give forth her “hollow o's and a'sâ€
no more. With her natural talent for
speaking foreign tongues, however, she set
her conversation in another key by the time
she next visited England in
1851.[39]
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
CHAPTER 2
MARRIAGE AND TRAVEL
THE marriage by which Mdlle Hahn acquired
the name she has since been known by
took place in 1848. She was then, it will
be seen, about seventeen, and General
Blavatsky to whom she was united — as far
as the ceremonies of the Church were
concerned — was, at all events, a man of
advanced age. Madame herself believed
that he was nearer seventy than sixty. He
was himself reluctant to acknowledge
to more than about fifty. Other matrimonial
opportunities of a far more
attractive character were, as I now learn
from her relatives, open to her really
at the time, but these would have rendered
the marriage state, had she entered
it with some of her younger admirers, a
much more serious matter than she
designed it to be in her case. Her
demeanor, therefore, with the most desirable
of her suitors was purposely intolerable.
The actual adventure on which she
launched herself — for in its precipitation
and brevity it may fairly be
described by that phrase — seems to have
been brought about by a combination of
circumstances that could only have
influenced a girl of Mademoiselle Hahn's wild
temper and irregular training. Her aunt
describes the manner in which the
marriage was arranged as follows : —
“She cared not whether she should get
married or not. She had been simply
defied one day by her governess to find any
man who would be her husband, in
view of her [40] temper and disposition.
The governess, to emphasize the
taunt, said that even the old man she had
found so ugly, and had laughed at so
much, calling him 'a plume-less raven' —
that even he would decline her for a
wife! That was enough: three days after she
made him propose, and then,
frightened at what she had done, sought to
escape from her joking acceptance of
his offer. But it was too late. Hence the
fatal step. All she knew and
understood was — when too late — that she
had been accepting, and was now forced
to accept — a master she cared nothing for,
nay, that she hated; that she was
tied to him by the law of the country, hand
and foot. A 'great horror ' crept
upon her, as she explained it later ; one
desire, ardent, unceasing,
irresistible, got hold of her entire being,
led her on, so to say, by the hand,
forcing her to act instinctively, as she
would have done if, in the act of
saving her life, she had been running away
from a mortal danger. There had been
a distinct attempt to impress her with the
solemnity of marriage, with her
future obligations and her duties to her
husband, and married life. A few hours
later, at the altar, she heard the priest
saying to her: 'Thou shalt honour and
obey thy husband', and at this hated word
'shalt,' her young face — for she was
hardly seventeen — was seen to flush
angrily, then to become deadly pale. She
was overheard to mutter in response,
through her set teeth —' Surely, I shall
not.' â€
And surely she has not. Forthwith she
determined to take the law and her future
life into her own hands, and — he left her
' husband ' for ever, without giving
him any opportunity to ever even think of
her as his wife.
“Thus Mme. Blavatsky abandoned her
country at seventeen, and passed ten long
years in strange and out-of-the-way places
— in Central Asia, India, South
America, Africa, and Eastern Europe.â€
At the time the marriage took place,
Mademoiselle Hahn was staying with her
grandmother and some other relatives at
Djellallogly, a mountain retreat
frequented in the summer by the residents
of Tiflis. The young lady herself had
never intended to do more than establish
the [41] fact that General
Blavatsky would be ready to marry her, but
with an engagement regularly set on
foot, announced in the family, proclaimed
to friends, and so forth, with
“congratulations†coming in, and the
bridegroom claiming its fulfilment, a
restoration of the status quo was found by
the reckless heroine of the
complication more easily talked about than
obtained. Her friends protested
against the scandal that would be created
if the engagement were broken off for
no apparent reason. Pressed to go on with
the wedding, she seems to have
consoled herself with the belief that she
would be securing herself increased
liberty of action as a married woman than
ever she could compass as a girl. Her
father was altogether off the scene, far
away with his regiment in Russia, and
though consulted by letter, was not
sufficiently acquainted with the facts of
the case to take up any decided attitude
either way. The ceremony of the
marriage, at all events, duly took place on
the 7th of July 1848.
Of course the theories concerning the
married state entertained by General
Blavatsky and his abnormally natured young
bride differed toto coelo, and came
into violent conflict from the day of the
wedding — a day of unforeseen
revelations, furious indignation, dismay,
and belated repentance. Nothing was
ever imagined in fiction more extravagant
than the progress of the brief and
stormy though imperfect partnership. The
intelligent reader will understand that
a born occultist like Mademoiselle Hahn
could never have plunged into a
relationship so intolerable, so impossible
for her, as that of husband and wife
if she had understood on the ordinary plane
of human affairs what she was about.
The day after the wedding she was conducted
by the General to a place called
Daretchichag, a summer retreat for Erivan
residents. She tried already on this
journey to make [42] her escape towards the
Persian frontier, but the
Cossack she sought to win over as her guide
in this enterprise betrayed her
instead to the General, and she was
carefully guarded. The cavalcade duly
reached the residence of the governor — the
scene of his peculiar honeymoon.
Certainly the position in which he was
placed commands our retrospective
sympathy for some reasons ; but it is
impossible to go into a discussion of
details that might go far to qualify this.
For three months the newly married
couple remained together under the same
roof, each fighting for impossible
concessions, and then at last, in
connection with a quarrel more violent even
than the rest, the young lady took horse on
her own account and rode to Tiflis.
Family councils followed, and it was
settled that the unmanageable bride should
be sent to join her father. He arranged to
meet her at Odessa, and she was
despatched in the care of an old
servant-man and a maid, to catch at Poti a
steamer that would take her to her
destination. But her desperate passion for
adventure, coupled with apprehensions that
her father might endeavour to
refasten the broken links of her nuptial
bond, led her to design in her own mind
an amendment to this programme. She so
contrived matters on the journey through
Georgia, to begin with, that she and her
escort missed the steamer at Poti. But
a small English sailing vessel was lying in
the harbour. Mme. Blavatsky went on
board this vessel — the Commodore she
believes was the name, and, by a liberal
outlay of roubles, persuaded the skipper to
fall in with her plans. The
Commodore was bound first to Kertch, then
to Taganrog in the Sea of Azof, and
ultimately to Constantinople. Mme.
Blavatsky took passage for herself and
servants, ostensibly to Kertch. On arriving
there, she sent the servants ashore
to procure apartments and prepare for her
landing [43] the following
morning. But in the night, having now
shaken herself free of the last restraints
that connected her with her past life, she
sailed away in the Commodore for
Taganrog in the first instance, as the
vessel had business at that port, and
afterwards returning to the Black Sea, for
Constantinople.
The little voyage itself seems to have been
full of adventures, which, in
dealing with a life less crowded with
adventures all through, than Mme.
Blavatsky's one would stop to chronicle.
The harbour police of Taganrog visiting
the Commodore on her arrival, had to be so
managed as not to suspect that an
extra person was on board. The only
available hiding place — amongst the coals —
was found unattractive by the passenger,
and was assigned to the cabin boy,
whose personality she borrowed for the
occasion, being stowed away in a bunk on
pretence of illness. Later on, when the
vessel arrived at Constantinople,
further embarrassments had developed
themselves, and she had to fly ashore
precipitately in a caique with the
connivance of the steward to escape the
persecutions of the skipper. At
Constantinople, however, she had the good
fortune to fall in with a Russian lady of
her acquaintance, the Countess K-----,
with whom she formed a safe intimacy, and
travelled for a time in Egypt, Greece,
and other parts of Eastern Europe.
Unfortunately, it is impossible for me to
do more than sketch the period of her
life that we now approach in the meagrest
outline. For the full details of her
childhood given in the foregoing pages, we
are indebted to her relatives. She
herself, though frequently able to tell
disjointed anecdotes of her childhood,
could never have put together so connected
a narrative as that obtained from
Mme. Jelihowsky, and there was no sister at
hand to keep a record of her
subsequent adventures during her [44]
wanderings all over the world. She
never kept diaries during this period, and
memory at a distance of time is a
very uncertain guide, but if the present
record is uneven in its treatment of
various periods, I can only point in excuse
for this to the obvious
embarrassments of my task.
In Egypt, while travelling with the
Countess K-----, Mme. Blavatsky already
began to pick up some occult teaching,
though of a very different and inferior
order from that she acquired later. At that
time there was an old Copt at Cairo,
a man very well and widely known ; of
considerable property and influence, and
of a great reputation as a magician. The
tales of wonder told about him by
popular report were very thrilling. Mme.
Blavatsky seems to have been a pupil
who readily attracted his interest, and was
enthusiastic in imbibing his
instruction. She fell in with him again in
later years, and spent some time with
him at Boulak, but her acquaintance with
him in the beginning did not last long,
as she was only at that time in Egypt for
about three months. With an English
lady of rank whom she met during this
period she also travelled for a time. Her
relatives at Tiflis had lost all traces of
her from the time the deserted
servants at Kertch reported her
disappearance, but she herself communicated
privately with her father, and secured his
consent to her vague programme of
foreign travel. He realised the
impossibility of inducing her to resume the
broken thread of her married life; and,
indeed, considering all that had passed,
it is not unreasonable to suppose that
General Blavatsky himself was ready to
acquiesce in the separation. He
endeavoured, indeed, to obtain a formal divorce
on the ground that his marriage had never
been more than a form, and that his
wife had run away; but Russian law at the
time was not favourable to divorce,
and the [45] attempt failed. Colonel Hahn,
however, supplied his fugitive
daughter with money, and kept her counsel
in regard to her subsequent movements.
Ten years elapsed before she again saw her
relatives, and her restless eagerness
for travel carried her during this period
to all parts of the world. She kept no
diary, and at this distance of time can
give no very connected story of these
complicated wanderings. Within about a year
of their commencement she seems to
have been in Paris, where she was intimate
with many literary celebrities of the
time, and where a famous mesmerist, still
living as I write, though an old man
now, discovered her wonderful psychic
gifts, and was very eager to retain her
under his control as a sensitive. But the
chains had not yet been forged that
could make her prisoner, and she quitted
Paris precipitately to escape this
influence. She went over to London, and
passed some time in company with an old
Russian lady of her acquaintance, the
Countess B------, at Mivart's Hotel, whom,
however, she out-stayed in London,
remaining there in company with the
Countess's demoiselle de compagnie in a big
hotel, she says, somewhere between
the City and the Strand, “but as to names
or numbers, you might as well ask me
to tell you what was the number of the
house you lived in in your last
incarnation.â€
Connected as she was in Russia, she
naturally met a good many of her own
countrymen abroad with whom she was either
already acquainted, or who were glad
to befriend her. Sometimes, when
circumstances were favourable, she would travel
with companions thus thrown in her way, at
other times altogether alone. Her
craving for adventure and for all strange
and outlandish places and people was
quite unsatiable. Her first long flight
abroad was prompted by a passionate
[46] enthusiasm for the North American
Indians, contracted from the perusal
of Fennimore Cooper's novels. After a
little minor touring about Europe with the
Countess B------ in 1850, she welcomed the
New Year of 1851 at Paris, and in the
July of that year went in pursuit of the
Red Indians of her imagination to
Canada. Fortunately her illusion on the
subject of these heroes was destined to
an early dissipation. At Quebec (she
believes it was) a party of Indians were
introduced to her. She was delighted to
encounter the sons of the forest, and
even the daughters thereof, their squaws.
With some of these she settled down
for a long gossip over the mysterious
doings of the medicine men. Eventually
they disappeared, and with them various
articles of Madame's personal property —
especially a pair of boots that she greatly
prized, and which the resources of
Quebec in those days could not replace. The
Red Indian of actual fact thus
ruined the ideal she had constructed in her
fancy. She gave up her search for
their wigwams, and developed a new
programme. In the first instance, she thought
she would try to come to close quarters
with the Mormons, then beginning to
excite public attention; but their original
city, Nauvoo, in Missouri, had just
been destroyed by the unruly mob of their
less industrious and less prosperous
neighbours, and the survivors of the
massacre in which so many of their people
fell were then streaming across the desert
in search of a new home. Mme.
Blavatsky thought that under these
circumstances Mexico looked an inviting
region in which to risk her life next, and
she made her way, in the meanwhile,
to New Orleans.
This apparently hasty sketch will give the
reader no idea of the difficulty with
which she has, at this long subsequent
period, recalled even so much as is here
set [47] down. It has only been by help of public
events that she can
remember to have heard about at such and
such places that I have been enabled to
construct a skeleton diary of her
wanderings, on which here and there her
recollections enable me to put a little
flesh and blood At New Orleans the
principal interest of her visit centred in
the Voodoos, a sect of negroes,
natives of the West Indies, and
half-castes, addicted to a form of magic
practices that no highly-trained occult
student would have anything to do with,
but which nevertheless presented
attractions to Mme. Blavatsky, not yet far
advanced enough in the knowledge held in
reserve for her, to distinguish
“black†from “white†varieties of
mystic exercise. The Voodoos'
pretensions were of course discredited by the
educated white population of New
Orleans, but they were none the less
shunned and feared. Mme. Blavatsky might
have been drawn dangerously far into
association with them, fascinated as her
imagination was liable to become by occult
mysteries of any kind; but the
strange guardianship that had so often
asserted itself to her advantage during
her childhood — which had by this time
assumed a more definite shape, for she
had now met, as a living man the long
familiar figure of her visions — again
come to her rescue. She was warned in a
vision of the risk she was running with
the Voodoos, and at once moved off to fresh
fields and pastures new.
She went through Texas to Mexico, and
contrived to see a good deal of that
insecure country, protected in these
hazardous travels by her own reckless
daring, and by various people who from time
to time interested themselves in her
welfare. She speaks with special gratitude
of an old Canadian, a man known as
Père Jacques, whom she met in Texas, where
at the time she was quite without
any companionship. He saw her [48] safely
through some perils to which she
was then exposed, and thus by hook or by
crook Madame always managed to scramble
along unscathed; though it seems miraculous
in the retrospect that she should
have been able — young woman at that time
as she was — to lead the wild life on
which she was embarked without actually
incurring disasters. There was no
reliance in her case, as in that of Moore's
heroine, on “Erin's honour and
Erin's prideâ€. She passed through rough
communities of all kinds, savage as
well as civilised, and seems to have been
guarded from harm, as assuredly she
was guarded, by the sheer force of her own
fearlessness, and her fierce scorn
for all considerations however remotely
associated with the “magnetism of
sexâ€.
During her American travels, which for this
period lasted about a year, she was
lucky enough to receive a considerable
legacy bequeathed her by one of her
godmothers. This put her splendidly in
funds for a time, though it is much to be
regretted on her account that the money was
not served out to her in moderate
instalments, for the temperament, which the
facts of her life so far even will
have revealed, may easily be recognised as
one not likely to go with habits of
prudent expenditure. Madame, in the course
of her adventures, has often shown
that she can meet poverty with
indifference, and battle with it in any way that
may be necessary, but with her pockets full
of money, her impulse has always
been to throw it away with both hands. She
is wholly unable to explain how she
ran through her 80,000 roubles, except that
amongst other random purchases she
bought land in America, the very situation
of which she has long since totally
forgotten, besides having, as a matter of
course, lost all the papers that had
any reference to the transaction.
She resolved during her Mexican wanderings
that she [49] would go to India,
fully alive already to the necessity of
seeking beyond the northern frontiers of
that country for the further
acquaintanceship of those great teachers of the
highest mystic science, with whom the
guardian of her visions was associated in
her mind. She wrote, therefore, to a
certain Englishman, whom she had met in
Germany two years before, and whom she knew
to be on the same quest as herself,
to join her in the West Indies, in order
that they might go to the East
together. He duly came, but the party was
further augmented by the addition of a
Hindu whom Mme. Blavatsky met at Copau, in
Mexico, and whom she soon ascertained
to be what is called a “chelaâ€, or
pupil of the Masters, or adepts of
oriental occult science. The three pilgrims
of mysticism went out via the Cape
to Ceylon, and thence in a sailing ship to
Bombay, where, as I make out the
dates, they must have arrived at quite the
end of 1852.
A dispersion of the little party soon
followed, each being bent on somewhat
different ends. Madame would not accept the
guidance of the Chela, and was bent
on an attempt of her own to get into Tibet
through Nepal. For the time her
attempt failed, chiefly, she believes, as
far as external and visible
difficulties were concerned, through the
opposition of the British resident then
in Nepal. Mme. Blavatsky went down to
Southern India, and then on to Java and
Singapore, returning thence to England.
1853, however, was an unfortunate year for
a Russian to visit this country. The
preparations for the Crimean War were
distressing to Mme. Blavatsky's
patriotism, and she passed over at the end
of the year again to America, going
this time to New York, and thence out West,
first to Chicago, then an infant
city compared to the Chicago of the present
day, and afterwards to the Far West,
and across the Rocky Mountains with
emigrants' [50] caravans, till
ultimately she brought up for a time in San
Francisco. Her stay in America was
prolonged on this occasion altogether to
something like two years, and she then
made her way a second time to India via
Japan and the Straits, reaching Calcutta
in the course of 1855.
In reference to her prolonged wanderings
her aunt writes: —
“For the first eight years she gave her
mother's family no sign of life for
fear of being traced by her legitimate
'lord and master', Her father alone knew
of her whereabouts. Knowing, however, that
he would never prevail upon her to
return home, he acquiesced in her absence,
and supplied her with money whenever
she came to places where it could safely
reach her.â€
During her travels in India in 1856 she was
overtaken at Lahore by a German
gentleman known to her father, who, — in
association with two friends, having
laid out a journey in the East on his own
account, with a mystic purpose in
view, in reference to which fate did not
grant him the success that attended
Mme. Blavatsky's efforts — had been asked
by Colonel Hahn to try if he could
find his errant daughter. The four
compatriots travelled together for a time,
and went through Kashmir to Leli in Ladakh
in company with a Tartar Shaman, who
was instrumental in helping them to witness
some psychological wonders wrought
at a Buddhist monastery. Her companions,
Mme. Blavatsky explains, had all formed
what, referring to the incident in Isis
Unveiled, she calls “the unwise plan
of penetrating into Tibet under various
disguises — none of them speaking the
language, although one of them, a Mr
K------, had picked up some Kasan Tartar,
and thought he didâ€. The passage in Isis
rather too long for quotation here.
It begins on page 599, vol. ii of that
book, and describes the [51]
animation of an infant by the psychic
principles of the old Lama, the superior
of the monastery. The passage as given in
his is taken from a narrative written
by Mr K-----, and put by him in Mme.
Blavatsky's hands, and corresponds in
outline to similar marvels related by the
Abbé Huc in the first edition of his
Recollections of Travel in Tartary, Tibet,
and China. In the later editions of
that book the testimony the author gives to
the wonders he witnessed in Tibet is
all cut down and mutilated. His story was
found to be too striking in
recognition of “miracles†that were
not, under the direction of the church,
to be tolerated by the authorities in its
earlier form ; but the first edition
of the book can still be seen at the
British Museum, where I have verified the
accuracy of the quotation given in Isis.
In reference to the journey in the course
of which the Russian travellers
witnessed the transaction at the Buddhist
monastery, Mme. Blavatsky writes: —
“Two of them, the brothers N------, were
very politely brought back to the
frontier before they had walked sixteen
miles into the weird land of Eastern
Bod, and Mr K------, an ex-Lutheran
minister, could not even attempt to leave
his miserable village near Leli, as from
the first days he found himself
prostrated with fever, and had to return to
Lahore via Kashmir.â€
The Tartar Shaman, referred to above,
rendered Mme. Blavatsky more substantial
assistance in her efforts to penetrate into
Tibet than he was able to afford to
her companions. Investing her with an
appropriate disguise, he conducted her
successfully across the frontier, and far
on into the generally inaccessible
country. It was to this journey that she
vaguely refers in a striking passage
occurring in the last chapter of Isis
Unveiled. As the narrative, though given
in Isis without any of [52] the surrounding
circumstances, fits here into
its proper place in these records, I quote
it at full length. Reference has just
been made to certain talismans which each
shaman carries under his left arm,
attached to a string. Mme. Blavatsky goes
on : —
“ ' Of what use is it to you, and what
are its virtues ? ' was the question we
often offered to our guide. To this he
never answered directly, but evaded all
explanation, promising that as soon as an
opportunity was offered and we were
alone, he would ask the stone to answer for
himself. With this very indefinite
hope we were left to the resources of our
own imagination.
“But the day on which the stone 'spoke'
came very soon. It was during the most
critical hours of our life; at a time when
the vagabond nature of a traveller
had carried the writer to far-off lands
where neither civilisation is known nor
security can be guaranteed for one hour.
One afternoon, as every man and woman
had left the yourta (Tartar tent) that had
been our house for over two months,
to witness the ceremony of the Lamaic
exorcism of Tshoutgour, [An elemental
demon, in which every native of Asia
believes.’] accused of breaking and
spiriting away every bit of the poor
furniture and earthenware of a family
living about two miles distant, the Shaman,
who had become our only protector in
those dreary deserts, was reminded of his
promise. He sighed and hesitated, but
after a short silence, left his place on
the sheepskin, and going outside,
placed a dried-up goat's head with its
prominent horns over a wooden peg, and
then dropping down the felt curtain of the
tent, remarked that now no living
person would venture in, for the goat's
head was a sign that he was ' at work.'
“After that, placing his hand in his
bosom, he drew out the little stone,
about the size of a walnut, and, carefully
unwrapping it, proceeded, as it
appeared, to swallow it. In a few moments
his limbs stiffened, his body became
rigid, and he fell, cold and motionless as
a corpse. But for a slight twitching
of his lips at every question asked, the
scene would have been embarrassing, nay
dreadful. [53] The sun was setting, and
were it not that the dying embers
flickered at the centre of the tent,
complete darkness would have been added to
the oppressive silence which reigned. We
have lived in the prairies of the West,
and in the boundless steppes of Southern
Russia; but nothing can be compared
with the silence at sunset on the sandy
deserts of Mongolia; not even the barren
solitudes of the deserts of Africa, though
the former are partially inhabited,
and the latter utterly void of life. Yet,
there was the writer, alone with what
looked no better than a corpse lying on the
ground. Fortunately this state did
not last long.
“ ' Mahaudû !' uttered a voice
which seemed to come from the bowels of the
earth, on which the Shaman was prostrated,
' Peace be with you. What would you
have me do for you ? '
“Startling as the fact seemed, we were
quite prepared for it, for we had seen
other Shamans pass through similar
performances. 'Whoever you are', we
pronounced mentally, 'go to K-----, and try
to bring that person's thought here.
See what that other party does, and tell
----- what we are doing and how
situated.'
“ ' I am there,' announced the same
voice. ' The old lady (kokona) is sitting
in the garden. . . . she is putting on her
spectacles and reading a letter.'
“ 'The contents of it, and hasten', was
the hurried order, while preparing
note-book and pencil. The contents were
given slowly, as if, while dictating,
the invisible presence desired to put down
the words phonetically, for we
recognised the Vallachian language, of
which we knew nothing beyond the ability
to recognise it. In such a way a whole page
was filled.
“ ' Look west . . . toward the third pole
of the yourta,' pronounced the
Tartar in his natural voice, though it
sounded hollow, and as if coming from
afar. 'Her thought is here.'
“Then with a convulsive jerk the upper
portion of the Shaman's body seemed
raised, and his head fell heavily on the
writer's feet, which he clutched with
both his hands. The position was becoming
less and less attractive, but
curiosity proved a good ally to courage.
[54] In the west corner was
standing, life-like, but flickering
unsteady, and mist-like, the form of a dear
old friend, a Roumanian lady of Vallachia,
a mystic by disposition, but a
thorough disbeliever in this kind of occult
phenomena.
“ 'Her thought is here, but her body is
lying unconscious. We could not bring
her here otherwise', said the voice.
“We addressed and supplicated the
apparition to answer, but all in vain. The
features moved and the form gesticulated as
if in fear and agony, but no sound
broke forth from the shadowy lips; only we
imagined — perchance it was a fancy —
hearing, as if from a long distance, the
Roumanian words, 'Non se pote' ('It
cannot be done' ).
“For over two hours the most substantial,
unequivocal proofs that the Shaman's
astral soul was travelling at the bidding
of our unspoken wish were given us.
Ten months later, we received a letter from
a Vallachian friend in response to
ours, in which we had enclosed the page
from the note-book, inquiring of her
what she had been doing on that day, and
describing the scene in full. She was
sitting, she wrote, in the garden on that
morning,[The hour in Bucharest
corresponded perfectly with that of the
country in which the scene had taken
place.] prosaically occupied in boiling
some conserves; the letter sent to her
was word for word the copy of the one
received by her from her brother; all at
once, in consequence of the heat she
thought, she fainted, and remembered
distinctly dreaming she saw the writer in a
desert place, which she accurately
described, and sitting under a gipsy's
tent,' as she expressed it. '
Henceforth,' she added, 'I can doubt no
longer'.
“But our experiment was proved better
still. We had directed the Shaman's
Inner Eye to the same friend heretofore
mentioned in this chapter, the Kutchi of
Lhassa, who travels constantly to British
India and back. We know that he was
apprised of our critical situation in the
desert; for a few hours later came
help, and we were rescued by a party of
twenty-five horsemen, who had been
directed by their chief to find us at the
place where we were, which no living
man endowed with common powers could have
known. The chief of this [55]
escort was a Shaberon, an 'adept' whom we
had never seen before, nor did we
after that, for he never left his soumay
(lamasary), and we could have no access
to it. ... But he was a personal friend of
the Kutchi.â€
This incident put an end for the time to
Mme. Blavatsky's wanderings in Tibet.
She was conducted back to the frontier by
roads and passes of which she had no
previous knowledge, and after further
travels in India, was directed by her
occult guardian to leave the country,
shortly before the troubles which began in
1857.
She went in a Dutch vessel from Madras to
Java, and thence returned to Europe in
1858.
Meanwhile the fate to which she has been so
freely exposed all through her later
life was already asserting itself to her
disadvantage, and without, up to this
time, having challenged the world's
antagonism, by associating her name with
tales of wonder, she, nevertheless, already
found herself — or rather, in her
absence, her friends found her — the mark
for slanders, no less extravagant, in
a different way, than some that have been
aimed at her quite recently by people
claiming to take an interest in psychic
phenomena, but unable to tolerate those
reported to have been brought about by her
agency. Her aunt writes: “ Faint
rumours reached her friends of her having
been met in Japan, China,
Constantinople, and the far East. She
passed through Europe several times, but
never lived in it. Her friends, therefore,
were as much surprised as pained to
read, years afterwards, fragments from her
supposed biography, which spoke of
her as a person well known in the high
life, as well as the low, of Vienna,
Berlin, Warsaw, and Paris, and mixed her
name with events and ancedotes whose
scene was laid in these cities, at various
epochs, when her friends had every
possible proof of her being far [56] away
from Europe. These anecdotes
referred to her indifferently under the
several Christian names of Julie,
Nathalie, etc which were those really of
other persons of the same surname; and
attributed to her various extravagant
adventures. Thus the Neue Freie Presse
spoke of Madame Heloise (?) Blavatsky, a
non-existing personage, who had joined
the Black Hussars — les Huzzards de la Mart
— during the Hungarian revolution,
her sex being found out only in 1849.â€
Similar stories, equally groundless,
were circulated at a later date.
Anticipating this, her aunt goes on : —
“Another journal of Paris narrated the
story of Mme. Blavatsky, 'a Pole from
the Caucasus' (?), a supposed relative of
Baron Hahn of Lemberg, who, after
taking an active part in the Polish
Revolution of 1863 (during the whole of
which time Mme. H. P. Blavatsky was quietly
living with her relatives at
Tiflis), was compelled, from lack of means,
to serve as a female waiter in a '
restaurant du Faubourg St Antoine'. â€
These, and many other infamous stories
circulated by idle gossips, were laid at
the door of Mme. Blavatsky, the heroine of
our narrative.
On her return from India in 1858, Mme.
Blavatsky did not go straight to Russia,
but, after spending some months in France
and Germany, rejoined her own people
at last in the midst of a family
wedding-party at Pskoff, in the north-west of
Russia, about 180 miles from St Petersburg.
Concerning the next few years of Mme.
Blavatsky's life, we are furnished with
ample details by means of narrative written
at the time by her sister, Mme. V.
P.de Jelihowsky, and published in 1881 in a
Russian periodical — the Rebus — as
a series of papers, headed, “The Truth
about H. P. Blavatskyâ€. To this
source of information we may now turn. [57]
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CHAPTER 3
AT HOME IN RUSSIA, 1858
IN the course of certain Personal and
Family Reminiscences, put together by Mme
de Jelihowsky, she explains the attitude of
mind in which she was brought up,
interesting both as bearing on the
narrative she has to relate and also as
connected with the family history of the
subject of this memoir. She writes: —
“I was born and bred in a strictly
orthodox, sincerely religious, yet far from
being mystically-inclined, family. But if
the spirit of mysticism had failed to
influence its members, it was not in
consequence of any predetermined policy of
an a priori denial of everything unknown,
or of a tendency to sneer at the
incomprehensible only because it is far
beyond one's capacities and nature to
take it in; but as ' highly educated and
polished people' can hardly be expected
to confess their mental and intellectual
failings, hence the conscious efforts
of playing at incredulity and esprits
forts. Nothing of the sort was to be found
in our family. Nor was there any great
superstition or bigotry amongst them —
two feelings the best calculated to
generate and develop faith in the
supernatural. But when, at the age of
sixteen, I had to part with my mother's
family, in which I had been brought up
since her death, and went to live with my
father, I met in him a man of quite a
different 'nature. He was an extreme
sceptic, a deist, if anything, and one of a
most practical turn of mind; a
highly intellectual and even a scientific
man, one who [58] knew and had
seen a great deal in life, but whose
erudition and learning had been developed
in full accordance with his own personal
views, and not at all in any spirit of
humility before the truths of Christianity,
or blind belief in man's immortality
and life beyond the grave.â€
In 1858, when Mme. Blavatsky returned to
Russia, her sister, the writer of the
reminiscences from which I have just
quoted, bore the name of Yahontoff — that
of her first husband, who had died shortly
before that date. She was staying at
Pskoff with General N. A. Yahontoff —
Maréchal de Noblesse of that place — her
late husband's father. A wedding-party,
that of her sister-in-law, was in
progress, and Colonel Hahn was amongst the
guests. On Christmas night, Mme. de
Jelihowsky writes, “They were all sitting
at supper, carriages loaded with
guests were arriving one after the other,
and the hall bell kept ringing without
interruption. At the moment when the
bridegroom's best men arose, with glasses
of champagne in their hands, to proclaim
their good wishes for the happy couple
— a solemn moment in Russia — the bell was
again rung impatiently. Mme.
Yahontoff, Mme. Blavatsky's sister, moved
by an irrepressible impulse, and
notwithstanding that the hall was full of
servants, jumped up from her place at
the table, and, to the amazement of all,
rushed herself to open the door. She
felt convinced, she said afterwards, though
why she could not tell, that it was
her long lost sister! â€
For some time this memoir will closely
follow Mme. de Jelihowsky's narrative,
now translated into English for the first
time, but it will be unnecessary to
load every page with quotation marks. Where
the first person is used, it will be
understood that Mme de [59] Jelihowsky is
speaking, although she also
frequently refers to herself in the third
person, as the narrative was
originally published in Russia anonymously.
When I, the present editor, have
occasion to intervene with comments, such
passages will be enclosed in brackets.
Spiritism (or spiritualism) was then just
looming on the horizon of Europe,
During her travels, the psychological
peculiarities of Mme. Blavatsky's
childhood and girlhood had developed, and
she returned already possessed of
occult powers, which were in those days
attributed to mediumship.
These powers asserted themselves in strange
incessant knocks and raps and
sounds, which many hearers mistook for the
esprits frappeurs; in the moving of
furniture without contact, in the increase
and the decrease of the weight of
various objects, in her faculty of seeing
herself (and occasionally of
transferring that faculty to others) things
invisible to ordinary sight, and
living but absent persons who had resided
years ago in the places where she
happened to be, as well as spectral images
of personages dead at various epochs.
Well acquainted with a number of facts of
the most striking character which have
happened at that period of her life (which,
however, has not lasted very long,
as she succeeded very soon in conquering
and even obtaining mastery over the
influence of forces that surrounded her), I
will describe only those phenomena
of which I was an eye-witness.
For this I must return to the night of Mme.
Blavatsky's arrival.
From that time all those who were living in
the house remarked that strange
things were taking place in it. Raps and
whisperings, sounds, mysterious and
[60] unexplained, were now being constantly
heard wherever the newly
arrived inmate went. Not only did they
occur in her presence and near her, but
knocks were heard, and movements of the
furniture perceived nearly in every room
in the house, on the walls, the floor, the
windows, the sofa, cushions, mirrors,
and clocks ; on every piece of furniture,
in short, about the rooms. However
much Mme. Blavatsky tried to conceal these
facts, laughing at them and trying to
turn these manifestations into fun, it was
useless for her to deny the fact or
the occult significance of these sounds. At
last, to the incessant questions of
her sister, she confessed that those
manifestations had never ceased to follow
her everywhere as in the early days of her
infancy and youth. That such raps
could be increased or diminished, and at
times even made to cease altogether, by
the mere force of her will, she also
acknowledged, proving her assertion
generally on the spot. Of course the good
people of Pskoff, like the rest of the
world, knew what was then occurring, and
had heard of spiritualism and its
manifestations. There had been mediums in
Petersburg, but they had not
penetrated as far as Pskoff, and its
guileless inhabitants had never heard the
rappings of the so-called spirit.
[All who have become acquainted with Mme.
Blavatsky in the present phase of her
development will be aware of the eagerness
with which she repudiates the least
trace of mediumship as entering into the
phenomena with which she had been
associated in recent years. In 1858 she appears
to have been in a transition
state, already invested with occult
will-power, which put her in a position to
repress the manifestations of mediumship in
emergencies, but still liable to
their spontaneous occurrence when they were
not thus under repression. [61]
Expressly asked the question, she would
always deny that she was a medium —
which, indeed, she would appear no longer
to have been, in the strict sense of
the term — for she does not seem to have
been controlled by the agencies
recognised in spiritualism, even when
sometimes acquiescing in casual
manifestations on their part. Mme. de
Jelihowsky, questioned on this subject
recently, says: “I remember that when
addressed as a medium, she (Mme.
Blavatsky) used to laugh and assure us she
was no medium, but only a. mediator
between mortals and beings we knew nothing
about. But I could never understand
the difference.â€
This may be the best opportunity for
bringing to the reader's notice some
passages from Mme. Jelihowsky's Personal
and Family Reminiscences which bear on
the point, an important one as regards all
psychic students of Mme. Blavatsky's
phenomena and characteristics.
Her sister says :—
“Although everyone had supposed that the
manifestations occurring in H. P.
Blavatsky's presence were the results of a
mediumistic power pertaining to her,
she herself had always obstinately denied
it. My sister H. P. Blavatsky had
passed most of her time, during her many
years' absence from Russia, travelling
in India, where, as we are now informed,
spiritual theories are held in great
scorn, and the so-called (by us)
mediumistic phenomena are said to be caused by
quite another agency than that of spirits;
mediumship proceeding, they say, from
a source, to draw from which, my sister
thinks it degrading to her human
dignity; in consequence of which ideas she
refuses to acknowledge such a force
in herself. From letters received by me
from my sister, I found she had been
dissatisfied with much that I had said of
her in my ' Truth about H. P.
Blavatsky.' She still maintains, now as
then, that in those days (of 1860) she
was influenced as well as she is now by
quite [62] another kind of power —
namely, that of the Indian sages, the
Raj-Yogis — and that even the shadows
(figures) she sees all her life, are no
phantoms, no ghosts of the deceased, but
only the manifestations of her powerful
friends in their astral envelopes.
However it may be, and whatever the power
that produced her phenomena only,
during the whole time that she lived with
us at the Yahontoff such phenomena
happened constantly before the eyes of all,
believers and unbelievers (relatives
and outsiders) — and they plunged everyone
equally into amazement.â€
As this memoir is a narrative and not an
occult treatise, I refrain from any
minute analysis of the psychological
problem involved, and would only point out
that the condition of things Mme. de
Jelihowsky refers to, chimes in with the
rough explanation I gave in the first
chapter as to the occult theory of Mme.
Blavatsky's development, which would
recognise her natural born, physical
attributes as only coming under control
when the higher faculties of her real
self, entering into union with the bodily
organism as this reached maturity, put
her in a position to be taught how to
eradicate the weed-growth of her
abnormally fertile psychic faculties.]
With the arrival of Mme. Blavatsky at
Pskoff, the news about the extraordinary
phenomena produced by her spread abroad
like lightning, turning the whole town
topsy-turvy.
The fact is, that the sounds were not
simple raps, but something more, as they
showed extraordinary intelligence,
disclosing the past as well as the future to
those who held converse through them with
those Mme. Blavatsky called her
kikimorcy (or spooks). More than that, for
they showed the gift of disclosing
unexpressed thoughts, i.e. penetrating
freely into the most secret recesses of
[63] the human mind, and divulging past
deeds and present intentions.
The relatives of Mme. Blavatsky's sister
were leading a very fashionable life,
and received a good deal of company in
those days. Her presence attracted a
number of visitors, no one of whom ever
left her unsatisfied, for the raps which
she evoked gave answers, composed of long
discourses in several languages, some
of which were unknown to the medium, as she
was called. The poor “mediumâ€
became subjected to every kind of test, to
which she submitted very gracefully,
no matter how absurd the demand, as a proof
that she did not bring about the
phenomena by juggling. It was her usual
habit to sit very quietly and quite
unconcerned on the sofa, or in an
arm-chair, engaged in some embroidery, and
apparently without taking the slightest
interest or active part in the hubbub
which she produced around herself. And the
hubbub was great indeed. One of the
guests would be reciting the alphabet,
another putting down the answers
received, while the mission of the rest was
to offer mental questions, which
were always and promptly answered. It so
happened, however, that the unknown and
invisible things at work favoured some
people more than others, while there were
those who could obtain no answers whatever.
In the latter case, instead of
replying to queries asked aloud, the raps
would answer the unexpressed mental
thought of some other person, first calling
him by name. During that time,
conversations and discussions in a loud
tone were carried on around her.
Mistrust and irony were often shown, and
occasionally even a doubt expressed, in
a very indelicate way, as to the good faith
of Mme. Blavatsky. But she bore it
all very coolly and patiently, a strange
and puzzling smile or an ironical
shrugging of the [64] shoulders being her
only answer to questions of very
doubtful logic offered to her over and over
again.
“But how do you do it, and what is it
that raps ? †people kept on asking.
Or again, “but how can you so well guess
people's thought ? How could you know
that I had thought of this or that ? â€
At first H. P. B. sought very zealously to
prove to people that she did not
produce the phenomena, but very soon she
changed her tactics. She declared
herself tired of such discussions, and
silence and a contemptuous smile became
for some time her only answer. Again she
would change as rapidly; and in moments
of good-humour, when people would be
foolishly and openly expressing the most
insulting doubts of her honesty, instead of
resenting them she used to laugh
aloud in their faces. Indeed, the most
absurd hypotheses were offered by the
sceptics. For instance, it was suggested
that she might produce her loud raps by
the means of a machine in her pocket, or
that she rapped with her nails; the
most ingenious theory being that “when
her hands were visibly occupied with
some work, she did it with her toes.â€
To put an end to all this, she allowed
herself to be subjected to the most
stupid demands ; she was searched, her
hands and feet were tied with string, she
permitted herself to be placed on a soft
sofa, to have her shoes taken off and
her hands and feet held fast against a soft
pillow, so that they should be seen
by all, and then she was asked that the
knocks and rappings should be produced
at the further end of the room. Declaring
that she would try, but would promise
nothing, her orders were, nevertheless,
immediately accomplished, especially
when the people were seriously interested.
These raps were produced at her
command on the ceiling, on the [65] window
sills, on every bit of furniture
in the adjoining room, and in places quite
distant from her.
At times she would wickedly revenge herself
by practical jokes on those who so
doubted her. Thus, for example, the raps
which came one day inside the glasses
of the young Professor M------, while she
was sitting at the other side of the
room, were so strong that they fairly
knocked the spectacles off his nose, and
made him become pale with fright. At
another time, a lady, an esprit fort, very
vain and coquettish, to her ironical
question of what was the best conductor for
the production of such raps, and whether
they could be done everywhere, received
a strange and very puzzling answer. The
word, “Goldâ€, was rapped out, and
then came the words, “We will prove it to
you immediatelyâ€.
The lady kept smiling with her mouth
slightly opened. Hardly had the answer
come, than she became very pale, jumped
from her chair, and covered her mouth
with her hand. Her face was convulsed with
fear and astonishment. Why ? Because
she had felt raps in her mouth, as she
confessed later on. Those present looked
at each other significantly. Previous even
to her own confession all had
understood that the lady had felt a violent
commotion and raps in the gold of
her artificial teeth! And when she rose
from her place and left the room with
precipitation, there was a homeric laugh
among us at her expense.[66]
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CHAPTER 4
MM DE JELIHOWSKY'S NARRATIVE
IT is impossible to give in detail even a
portion of what was produced in the
way of such phenomena during the stay of
Mme. Blavatsky amongst us in the town
of Pskoff. But they may be mentioned under
general classification as follows : —
1. Direct and perfectly clear written and
verbal answers to mental questions —
or “thought-readingâ€.
2. Prescriptions for different diseases, in
Latin, and subsequent cures.
3. Private secrets, unknown to all but the
interested party, divulged,
especially in the case of those persons who
mentioned insulting doubts.
4. Change of weight in furniture and of persons
at will.
5. Letters from unknown correspondents, and
immediate answers written to queries
made, and found in the most out-of-the-way
mysterious places.[Thus a governess,
named Leontine, who wanted to know the fate
of a certain young man she had hoped
to be married to, learnt what had become of
him ; his name, that she had
purposely withheld, being given in full —
from a letter written in an unknown
handwriting she found in one of her locked
boxes, placed inside a trunk equally
locked.]
6. Appearances and apport of objects
unclaimed by any one present. [67]
7. Sounds as of musical notes in the air
wherever Mme. Blavatsky desired they
should resound.
All these surprising and inexplicable
manifestations of an intelligent, and at
times, I should almost say, an omniscient
force, produced a sensation in Pskoff,
where there yet remain many who remember it
well. Truth compels us to remark
that the answers were not always in perfect
accord with the facts, but seemed
purposely distorted as though for the
purpose of making fun, especially of those
querists who expected infallible
prophecies.
Nevertheless, the fact remains of the
manifestation of an intelligent force,
capable of perceiving the thoughts and
feelings of any person; as also of
expressing them by rappings and motions in
inanimate objects. The following two
occurrences took place in the presence of
many eye-witnesses during the stay of
Mme. Blavatsky with us.
As usual, those nearest and dearest to her
were, at the same time, the most
skeptical as to her occult powers. Her
brother Leonide and her father stood out
longer than all against evidence, until at
last the doubts of the former were
greatly shaken by the following fact.
The drawing-room of the Yahontoffs was full
of visitors. Some were occupied with
music, others with cards, but most of us,
as usual, with phenomena. Leonide de
Hahn did not concern himself with anything
in particular, but was leisurely
walking about, watching everybody and
everything. He was a strong, muscular
youth, saturated with the Latin and German
wisdom of the University, and
believed, so far, in no one and nothing. He
stopped behind the back of his
sister's chair, and was listening to her
narratives of how some persons, who
called themselves mediums, made light
objects become so heavy that it was
impossible to lift them; and others which
were naturally heavy became again
remarkably light.[68]
“And you mean to say that you can do it ?
†ironically asked the young man
of his sister.
“Mediums can, and I have done it
occasionally; though I cannot always answer
for its successâ€, coolly replied Mme.
Blavatsky.
“But would you try ? †asked somebody
in the room; and immediately all
joined in requesting her to do so.
“I will tryâ€, she said, “but I beg of
you to remember that I promise
nothing. I will simply fix this chess-table
and try. ... He who wants to make
the experiment, let him lift it now, and
then try again after I shall have fixed
it.â€
“After you shall have fixed it ? †said
a voice, “ and what then ? Do you
mean to say that you will not touch the
table at all ? â€
“Why should I touch it ? †answered
Mme. Blavatsky, with a quiet smile.
Upon hearing the extraordinary assertion,
one of the young men went determinedly
to the small chess-table, and lifted it up
as though it were a feather.
“All rightâ€, she said. “Now kindly
leave it alone, and stand back! â€
The order was at once obeyed, and a great
silence fell upon the company. All,
holding their breath, anxiously watched for
what Mme. Blavatsky would do next.
She apparently, however, did nothing at
all. She merely fixed her large blue
eyes upon the chess-table, and kept looking
at it with an intense gaze. Then,
without removing her gaze, she silently,
with a motion of her hand, invited the
same young man to remove it. He approached,
and grasped the table by its leg
with great assurance. The table could not
be moved !
He then seized it with both his hands. The
table stood as though screwed to the
floor.
Then the young man, crouching down, took
hold of [69] it with both hands,
exerting all his strength to lift it by the
additional means of his broad
shoulders. He grew red with the effort, but
all in vain! The table seemed rooted
to the carpet, and would not be moved.
There was a loud burst of applause. The
young man, looking very much confused,
abandoned his task en désespoir de cause,
and stood aside.
Folding his arms in quite a Napoleonic way,
he only slowly said, “Well, this
is a good joke ! â€
“Indeed, it is a good one ! †echoed
Leonide.
A suspicion had crossed his mind that the
young visitor was acting in secret
confederacy with his sister and was fooling
them.
“May I also try ? †he suddenly asked
her,
“Please do, my dearâ€, was the laughing
response.
Her brother upon this approached, smiling,
and seized, in his turn, the
diminutive table by its leg with his strong
muscular arm. But the smile
instantly vanished, to give place to an
expression of mute amazement. He stepped
back a little and examined again very
carefully the, to him, well-known
chess-table. Then he gave it a tremendous
kick, but the little table did not
even budge.
Suddenly applying to its surface his
powerful chest he enclosed it within his
arms, trying to shake it. The wood cracked,
but would yield to no effort. Its
three feet seemed screwed to the floor.
Then Leonide Hahn lost all hope, and
abandoning the ungrateful task, stepped
aside, and frowning, exclaimed but these
two words, “How strange! †his eyes
turning meanwhile with a wild expression
of astonishment from the table to his
sister.
We all agreed that this exclamation was not
too strong.
The loud debate had meanwhile drawn the
attention of several visitors, and they
came pouring in from the drawing-room into
the large apartment where we were.
[70]
Many of them, old and young, tried to lift
up, or even to impart some slight
motion to, the obstinate little
chess-table. They failed, like the rest of us.
Upon seeing her brother's astonishment, and
perchance desiring finally to
destroy his doubts, Mme. Blavatsky,
addressing him with her usual careless
laugh, said, “Try to lift the table now,
once more I â€
Leonide H. approached the little thing very
irresolutely, grasped it again by
the leg, and, pulling it upwards, came very
near to dislocating his arm owing to
the useless effort: the table was lifted
like a feather this time [Madame
Blavatsky has stated that this phenomenon
could only be produced in two
different ways:
1st.. Through the exercise of her own will
directing the magnetic currents so
that the pressure on the table became such
that no physical force could move it
; and
2nd. Through the action of those beings
with whom she was in constant
communication, and who, although unseen,
were able to hold the table against all
opposition.]
And now to our second case. It occurred in
St Petersburg, a few months later,
when Mme. Blavatsky had already left Pskoff
with her father and sister, and when
all three were living in a hotel. They had
come to St Petersburg on business on
their way to Mme. Yahontoff’s property, in
the district of Novorgeff, where they
had decided to pass the summer. All their
forenoons were occupied with business,
their afternoons and evenings with making
and receiving visits, and there was no
time for, or even mention of, phenomena.
One night they received a visit from two
old friends of their father; both were
old gentlemen, one of them a school-fellow
of the Corps des Pages, Baron
M------, the other the well-known K------w.
[ Sceptics who insist upon having
the full names are invited to apply to the
writer of the above, Mme de
Jelihowsky, St Petersburg, Zabalkansky
Prospect, No. 10 house, r.31 apartment’]
Both were much [71] interested in recent
spiritualism, and were, of course,
anxious to see something.
After a few successful phenomena, the
visitors declared themselves positively
delighted, amazed, and quite at a loss what
to make of Mme. Blavatsky's powers.
They could neither understand nor account,
they said, for her father's
indifference in presence of such
manifestations. There he was, coolly laying out
his “grande patience†with cards, while
phenomena of such a wonderful nature
were occurring around him. The old
gentleman, thus taken to task, answered that
it was all bosh, and that he would not hear
of such nonsense; such occupation
being hardly worthy of serious people, he
added. The rebuke left the two old
gentlemen unconcerned. They began, on the
contrary, to insist that Colonel Hahn
should, for old friendship's sake, make an
experiment, before denying the
importance, or even the possibility of his
daughter's phenomena. They offered
him to test the intelligences and their
power by writing a word in another room,
secretly from all of them, and then asking
the raps to repeat it. The old
gentleman, more probably in the hope of a
failure that would afford him the
opportunity of laughing at his two old
friends, than out of a desire to humour
them, finally consented. He left his cards,
and proceeding into an adjoining
room, wrote a word on a bit of paper; after
which, conveying it to his pocket,
he returned to his patience, and waited
silently, laughing behind his grey
moustache.
“Well, our dispute will now be settled in
a few momentsâ€, said K------w.
“What shall you say, however, old friend,
if the word written by you is
correctly repeated? Will you not feel
compelled to believe in such a case ? â€
“What I might say, if the word were
correctly [72] guessed, I could not
tell at presentâ€, he skeptically replied.
“One thing I could answer,
however, from the time I can be made to
believe your alleged spiritism and its
phenomena, I shall be ready to believe in
the existence of the devil, undines,
sorcerers, and witches — in the whole
paraphernalia — in short, of old women's
superstitions; and you may prepare to offer
me as an inmate of a lunatic
asylum.â€
Upon delivering himself thus, he went on
with his patience, and paid no further
attention to the proceedings. He was an old
“Voltarianâ€, as the positivists
who believed in nothing are called in
Russia. But we, who felt deeply interested
in the experiment, began to listen to the
loud and unceasing raps coming from a
plate brought there for the purpose.
The younger sister was repeating the
alphabet; the old general marked the
letters down; while Mme. Blavatsky did
nothing at all — apparently.
She was what would be called, in our days,
a “good writing mediumâ€; that is
to say, she could write out the answers
herself while talking with those around
her upon quite indifferent topics. But
simple and more rapid as this mode of
communication may be, she would never
consent to use it.
She was too afraid to employ it, fearing as
she explained, uncalled-for
suspicion from foolish people who did not
understand the process.
[From the first, that is to say, almost
from her childhood, and certainly in the
days mentioned above, Mme. Blavatsky, as
she tells us, would, in such cases, see
either the actual present thought of the
person putting the questions, or its
paler reflection — still quite distinct for
her — of an event, or a name, or
whatever it was, in the past, as though
hanging in a shadow world around the
[73] person, generally in the vicinity of
the head. She had but to copy it
consciously, or allow her hand to do so
mechanically. At any rate, she never
felt herself helped or led on by an
external power, i.e. no “spirits†helped
her in this process after she returned from
her first voyage, she avers. It
seemed an action entirely confined to her
own will, more or less consciously
exercised by her, more or less premeditated
and put into play.
Whenever the thought of a person had to be
communicated through raps, the
process changed. She had to read, first of
all, sometimes to interpret the
thought of the querist, and having done so,
to remember it well after it had
often disappeared; watch the letters of the
alphabet as they were read or
pointed out, prepare the will-current that
had to produce the rap at the right
letter, and then have it strike at the
right moment the table or any other
object chosen to be the vehicle of sounds
or raps. A most difficult process, and
far less easy than direct writing.']
By the means of raps and alphabet we got
one word, but it proved such a strange
one, so grotesquely absurd as having no
evident relation to anything that might
be supposed to have been written by her
father, that all of us who had been in
the expectation of some complicated
sentence looked at each other, dubious
whether we ought to read it aloud. To our
question, whether it was all, the raps
became more energetic in the affirmative
sounds. We had several triple raps,
which meant in our code — Yes ! . . . yes,
yes, yes !!!
Remarking our agitation and whispering,
Madame Blavatsky's father looked at us
over his spectacles, and asked:
“Well! Have you any answer ? It must be
something very elaborate and profound
indeed! â€
He arose and, laughing in his moustache,
approached [74] us. His youngest
daughter, Mme. Yahontoff, then went to him
and said, with some little confusion
:
“We only got one word.â€
“And what is it?â€
“Zaïtchik! †[Zaïchik
means, literally,”a little hare”, while Zaïtz is the
Russian term for any hare. In the Russian
language every substantive and
adjective may be made to express the same
thing, only in the diminutive. Thus a
house is dom, while small house is
expressed by the word domik, etc.]
It was a sight indeed to witness the
extraordinary change that came over the old
man's face at this one word! He became
deadly pale. Adjusting his spectacles
with a trembling hand, he stretched it out
while hurriedly saying:
“Let me see it! Hand it over. Is it
really so ? â€
He took the slips of paper, and read in a
very agitated voice, — “ 'Zaïtchik'.
Yes, Zaïtchik; so it is. How very
strange!â€
Taking out of his pocket the paper he had
written upon in the adjoining room, he
handed it in silence to his daughter and
guests.
They found on it both the question offered
and the answer that was anticipated.
The words read thus:
“What was the name of my favorite
war-horse which I rode during my first
Turkish campaign ? †and lower down, in
parenthesis (“ Zaïtchik â€).
We felt fully triumphant, and expressed our
feelings accordingly.
This solitary word, Zaïtchik, had
an enormous effect upon the old gentleman. As
it often happens with inveterate sceptics,
once he had found out that there was
indeed something in his eldest daughter's
claims, and that it had nothing to do
whatever with deceit or juggling, [75]
having been convinced of this one
fact, he rushed into the region of
phenomena with all the zeal of an ardent
investigator. As a matter of course, once
he believed he felt no more inclined
to doubt his own reason.
Having received from Mme. Blavatsky one
correct answer, her father became
passionately fond of experimenting with his
daughter's powers. Once he inquired
of the date of a certain event in his
family that had occurred several hundred
of years before. He received it. From that
time he set himself and Mme.
Blavatsky the difficult task of restoring
the family chronology. The
genealogical tree, lost in the night of the
first crusades, had to be restored
from its roots down to his day.
The information was readily promised, and
he set to work from morning to night.
First, the legend of the Count von
Rottenstern, the Knight Crusader, was given
him. The year, the month, and the day on
which a certain battle with the
Saracens had been fought; and how, while
sleeping in his tent, the Knight
Crusader was awakened by the cry of a cock
(Hahn) to find himself in time to
kill, instead of being stealthily killed by
an enemy who had penetrated into his
tent. For this feat the bird, true symbol
of vigilance, was raised to the honor
of being incorporated in the coat of arms
of the Counts of Rottenstern, who
became from that time the Rottenstern von
Rott Hahn; to branch off later into
the Hahn-Hahn family and others.
Then began a regular series of figures,
dates of years and months, of hundreds
of names by connection and side marriages,
and a long line of descent from the
Knight Crusaders down to the Countess Ida
Hahn-Hahn — Mme. Blavatsky's father's
cousin, and her father's family names and
dates, as well as a mass of
contemporary events which had taken place
in connection with that [76]
family's descending line, were given
rapidly and unhesitatingly. The greatest
historian, endowed with the most phenomenal
memory, could never be equal to such
a task. How then could one who had been on
cold terms from her very youth with
simple arithmetic and history be suspected
of deliberate deceit in a work that
necessitated the greatest chronological
precision, the knowledge very often of
the most unimportant historical events,
with their involved names and dates, all
of which upon the most careful verification
were found to be correct to a day.
True, the family immigrants from Germany
since the days of Peter III. had a good
many missing links and blanks in their genealogical
tables, yet the few
documents that had been preserved among the
various branches of the family in
Germany and Russia — whenever consulted,
were found to be the originals of those
very exact copies furnished through Mme.
Blavatsky's raps.
Her uncle, a high official at the General
Post Office at St Petersburg, whose
great ambition in those days was to settle
the title of a Count on his eldest
sons permanently, took the greatest
interest in this mysterious work. Over and
over again he would, in his attempts to
puzzle and catch his niece in some
historical or chronological inaccuracy,
interrupt the regular flow of her raps,
and ask for information about something
which had nothing to do with the
genealogy, but was only some
contemporaneous fact. For instance :
“You say that in the year 1572 Count Carl
von Hahn-Hahn was married to the
Baroness Ottilia, so and so. This was in
June at the castle of — — at
Mecklenburg. Now, who was the reigning
Kurfuerst at that time; what Prince
reigned at ----- (some small German state);
and who was the confessor of the
Pope, and the Pope himself in that year ?
â€[77]
And the answer, always correct, would
invariably come without a moment's pause.
It was often found far more difficult to
verify the correctness of such names
and dates than to receive the information.
Mr J. A. Hahn, then Post Director at
St Petersburg, Mme. Blavatsky's uncle, had
to plunge for days and weeks
sometimes into dusty old archives, write to
Germany, and apply for information
to the most out-of-the-way places, that
were designated to him, when he found
difficulties in his way to obtain the
knowledge he sought for in easily
obtainable books and records.
This lasted for months. Never during that
time were Mme. Blavatsky's invisible
helper or helpers found mistaken in any
single instance. [Indeed not; for it was
neither a “spirit” nor “spirits” but living
men who can draw before their eyes
the picture of any book or manuscript
wherever existing, and in case of need
even that of any long-forgotten and
unrecorded event, who helped “Mme
Blavatsky”, The astral light is the
storehouse and the record book of all
things, and deeds have no secrets for such
men. And the proof of it may be found
in the production of Isis Unveiled.(Note by
H.P. Blavatsky)] They only asked
occasionally for a day or two to get at the
correct information.
Unfortunately, these records, put down on
fly-leaves and then copied into a
book, are probably lost. The papers
remained with Mme. Blavatsky's father, who
treasured them, and with many other far
more valuable documents were stolen or
lost after his death. But his
sister-in-law, Mme. Blavatsky's aunt, has in her
possession letters from him in which he
speaks enthusiastically of his
experiments.
One of the most startling of her phenomena
happened very soon after Mme.
Blavatsky's return, in the early spring of
1858. Both sisters were then living
with [78] their father, in their country
house in a village belonging to
Mme. Yahontoff.
In consequence of a crime committed not far
from the boundaries of my property,
she writes — (a man having been found
killed in a gin shop, the murderers
remaining unknown) — the superintendent of
the district police passed one
afternoon through our village, and stopped
to make some inquiries.
The researches were made very secretly, and
he had not said one word about his
business to anyone in the house, not even
to our father. As he was an
acquaintance who visited our family, and
stopped at our house on his district
tour, no one asked him why he had come, for
he made us very frequent visits, as
to all the other proprietors in the
neighborhood.
It was only on the following morning, after
he had ordered the village serfs to
appear for examination (which proved
useless), that the inmates learned anything
of his mission.
During tea, as they were all sitting around
the table, there came the usual
knocks, raps, and disturbance on the walls,
the ceiling, and about the furniture
of the room.
To our father's question why the
police-superintendent should not try to learn
something of the name and the whereabouts
of the murderer from my sister's
invisible agents, the officer Captain O
only incredulously smiled.
He had heard of the “all-knowingâ€
spirits, but was ready to bet almost
anything that these “horned and hoofed
gentlemen†would prove insufficient
for such a task. “They would hardly
betray and inform against their ownâ€, he
added, with a silly laugh.
This fling at her invisible “powersâ€,
and laugh, as she thought, at her
expense, made Mme. Blavatsky [79] change
color, and feel, as she said, an
irrepressible desire to humble the ignorant
fool, who hardly knew what he was
talking about. She turned fiercely upon the
police-officer.
“And suppose I prove to you the contrary
?†she defiantly asked him.
“Thenâ€, he answered, still laughing,
“I would resign my office, and offer
it to you, Madame ; or, still better, I
would strongly urge the authorities to
place you at the head of the Secret Police
Department.â€
“ Now, look here, Captainâ€, she said,
indignantly, “I do not like meddling
in such a dirty business, and helping you detectives.
Yet, since you defy me,
let my father say over the alphabet, and
you put down the letters, and record
what will be rapped out. My presence is not
needed for this, and with your
permission I will even leave the room.â€
She went away, and taking a book, placed
herself on the balcony, apparently
quite unconcerned with what was going on.
Colonel Hahn, anxious to make a convert,
began repeating the alphabet. The
communication received was far from
complimentary in its adjectives to the
address of the police-superintendent.
The outcome of the message was, that while
he was talking nonsense at Rougodevo
(the name of our new property), the
murderer, whose name was Samoylo Ivanof, had
crossed over before daylight to the next
district, and thus escaped the
officer's clutches.
“At present he is hiding under a bundle
of hay in the loft of a peasant, named
Andrew Vlassof, of the village of
Oreshkino. By going there immediately you will
secure the criminal.â€
The effect upon the man was tremendous! Our
[80] Stanovoy (district
officer) was positively nonplused, and
confessed that Oreshkino was one of the
suspected villages he had on his list.
“But — allow me, however, to inquireâ€,
he asked of the table from which the
raps proceeded, and bending over it with a
suspicious look upon his face, “how
come you — whoever you are — to know
anything of the murderer's name, or of that
of the confederate who hides him in his
loft ? And who is Vlassof, for I know
him not ? â€
The answer came clear and rather
contemptuous.
“Very likely that you should neither know
nor see much beyond your own nose.
We, however, who are now giving you the
information, have the means of knowing
everything we wish to know. Samoylo Ivanof
is an old soldier on leave. He was
drunk, and quarreled with the victim. The
murder was not premeditated; it is a
misfortune, not a crime.â€
Upon hearing these words the superintendent
rushed out of the house like a
madman, and drove off at a furious rate
towards Oreshkino, which was more than
thirty miles distant from Rougodevo. The
information agreeing admirably with
some points he had laboriously collected,
and furnishing the last word to the
mystery of the names given — he had no
doubt in his own mind that the rest would
prove true, as he confessed some time
after.
On the following morning a messenger on
horseback, sent by the Stanovoy, made
his appearance with a letter to her father.
Events in Oreshkino had proved every word
of the information to be correct. The
murderer was found and arrested in his
hiding place at Andrew Vlassofs cottage,
and identified as a soldier on leave named
Samoylo Ivanof.
This event produced a great sensation in
the district, and henceforward the
messages obtained, through the [81] instrumentality
of my sister, were
viewed in a more serious light. [Madame
Blavatsky denies, point blank, any
intervention of spirits in this case. She
tells us she had the picture of the
whole tragedy and its subsequent
developments before her from the moment the
Stanovoy entered the house. She knew the
names of the murderers, the
confederate, and of the village, for she
saw them interested, so to say, with
the visions. Then she guided the raps, and
thus gave the information.] But this
brought, a few weeks after, very
disagreeable complications, for the police of
St Petersburg wanted to know how could one,
and that one a woman who had just
returned from foreign countries, know
anything of the details of a murder.
It cost Colonel Hahn great exertion to
settle the matter and satisfy the
suspicious authorities that there had been
no fouler play in the business than
the intervention of supernatural powers, in
which the police pretended, of
course, to have no faith.
The most successful phenomena took place
during those hours when we were alone,
when no one cared to make experiments or
sought useless tests, and when there
was no one to convince or enlighten.
At such moments the manifestations were
left to produce themselves at their own
impulse and pleasure, none of us — not even
the chief author of the phenomena
under observation, at any rate as far as
those present could see and judge from
appearances — assuming any active part in
trying to guide them.
We very soon arrived at the conviction that
the forces at work, as Mme,
Blavatsky constantly told us, had to be
divided into several distinct
categories. While the lowest on the scale
of invisible beings produced most of
the physical phenomena, the very highest
among the agencies at work condescended
but rarely to a communication or
intercourse with strangers. The [82]
last-named “invisibles†made themselves
manifestly seen, felt, and heard
only during those hours when we were alone
in the family, and when great harmony
and quiet reigned among us.
It is said that harmony helps wonderfully
toward the manifestation of the
so-called mediumistic force, and that the
effects produced in physical
manifestations depend but little on the
volition of the “mediumâ€. Such feats
as that accomplished with the little
chess-table at Pskoff were rare. In the
majority of the cases the phenomena were
sporadic, seemingly quite independent
of her will, apparently never heeding
anyone's suggestion, and generally
appearing in direct contradiction with the
desires expressed by those present.
We used to feel extremely vexed whenever
there was a chance to convince some
highly intellectual investigator, but
through H. P. Blavatsky's obstinacy or
lack of will nothing came out of it. For
instance :
If we asked for one of those highly
intellectual, profound answers we got so
often when alone, we usually received in
answer some impertinent rubbish; when
we begged for the repetition of some
phenomena she had produced for us hundreds
of times before, our wish was only laughed
at.
I well remember how, during a grand evening
party, when several families of
friends had come from afar off, in some
cases from distances of hundreds of
miles on purpose to witness some phenomena,
to “hear with their ears and see
with their eyes†the strange doings of
Mme. Blavatsky, the latter, though
mockingly assuring us she did all she
could, gave them no result to ponder upon.
This lasted for several days. [ She
explains this by describing herself as tired
and disgusted with the ever-growing public
thirst for “miraclesâ€.] [83]
The visitors had left dissatisfied and in a
spirit as skeptical as it was
uncharitable. Hardly, however, had the
gates been closed after them, the bells
of their horses yet merrily tinkling in the
last alley of the entrance park,
when everything in the room seemed to
become endowed with life. The furniture
acted as though every piece of it was
animated and gifted with voice and speech,
and we passed the rest of the evening and
the greater part of the night as
though we were between the enchanted walls
of the magic palace of some
Scheherazade.
It is far easier to enumerate the phenomena
that did not take place during these
forever memorable hours than to describe
those that did. All those weird
manifestations that we had observed at
various times seemed to have been
repeated for our sole benefit during that
night. At one moment as we sat at
supper in the dining-room, there were loud
accords played on the piano which
stood in the adjoining apartment, and which
was closed and locked, and so placed
that we could all of us see it from where
we were through the large open doors.
Then at the first command and look of Mme.
Blavatsky there came rushing to her
through the air her tobacco-pouch, her box
of matches, her pocket-handkerchief,
or anything she asked, or was made to ask
for.
Then, as we were taking our seats, all the
lights in the room were suddenly
extinguished, both lamps and wax candles,
as though a mighty rush of wind had
swept through the whole apartment; and when
a match was instantly struck, there
was all the heavy furniture, sofas,
arm-chairs, tables, cupboards, and large
sideboard standing upside down, as though
turned over noiselessly by some
invisible hands, and not an ornament of the
fragile carved work nor even a plate
broken. Hardly had we gathered [84] our
senses together after this
miraculous performance, when we heard again
someone playing on the piano a loud
and intelligible piece of music, a long
marche de bravoure this time. As we
rushed with lighted candles to the
instrument (I mentally counting the persons
to ascertain that all were present), we
found, as we had anticipated, the piano
locked, the last sounds of the final chords
still vibrating in the air from
beneath the heavy closed lid.
After this, notwithstanding the late hour,
we placed ourselves around our large
dining-table, and had a séance. The huge
family dining-board began to shake
with great force, and then to move, sliding
rapidly about the room in every
direction, even raising itself up to the
height of a man. In short, we had all
those manifestations that never failed when
we were alone, i.e. when only those
nearest and dearest to H. P. B. were
present, and none of the strangers who came
to us attracted by mere curiosity, and
often with a malevolent and hostile
feeling.
Among a mass of various and striking
phenomena that took place on that memorable
night, I will mention but two more.
And here I must notice the following
question made in those days whenever my
sister, Madame B sat, to please us, for
“communications through rapsâ€. We
were asked by her to choose what we would
have. “Shall we have the mediumistic
or spook raps, or the raps by clairvoyant
proxy ? †she asked.
[To make this clearer and intelligible, I
must give her (Mme. Blavatsky's)
explanation of the difference.
She never made a secret that she had been,
ever since her childhood, and until
nearly the age of twenty-five, a very
strong medium; though after that period,
owing to a regular psychological and
physiological training, she [85] was
made to lose this dangerous gift, and every
trace of mediumship outside her
will, or beyond her direct control, was
overcome. She had two distinct methods
of producing communications through raps.
The one consisted almost entirely in
her being passive, and permitting the
influences to act at their will, at which
time the brainless Elementals, (the shells
would rarely, if ever, be allowed to
come, owing to the danger of the
intercourse) chameleon-like, would reflect more
or less characteristically the thoughts of
those present, and follow in a
half-intelligent way the suggestions found
by them in Madame Blavatsky's mind.
The other method, used very rarely for
reasons connected with her intense
dislike to meddle with really departed
entities, or rather to enter into their
“currents of thought†is this: — She
would compose herself, and seeking out,
with eyes shut, in the astral light, that
current that preserved the genuine
impress of some well-known departed entity,
she identified herself for the time
being with it, and guiding the raps made
them to spell out that which she had in
her own mind, as reflected from the astral
current. Thus, if the rapping spirit
pretended to be a Shakespeare, it was not
really that great personality, but
only the echo of the genuine thoughts that
had once upon a time moved in his
brain and crystallized themselves, so to
say, in his astral sphere whence even
his shell had departed long ago — the
imperishable thoughts alone remaining. Not
a sentence, not a word spelt by the raps that
was not formed first in her brain,
in its turn the faithful copier of that
which was found by her spiritual eye in
the luminous Record Book of departed
humanity. The, so to express it,
crystallized essence of the mind of the
once physical brain was there before her
spiritual vision; her living brain
photographed it, and her will dictated its
expression by guiding the raps which thus
became intelligent.]
And though few, if any, of us then
understood clearly [86] what she meant,
yet she would act either one way or the
other, never uniting the two methods.
We chose the former in this instance — the
“spook-raps†— as the easiest to
obtain, and affording us more amusement,
and to her less trouble.
Thus, out of the many invisible and “
distinguished †phantom visitors of
that night, the most active and prominent
among them was the alleged spirit of
Poushkine.
I beg the reader to remember that we never
for a moment believed that spook to
be really the great poet, whose earthly
remains rest in the neighbourhood of our
Rougodevo, in the monk's territory known as
the “holy mountainâ€.
We had been warned by Mme. Blavatsky, and
knew well how much we could trust to
the communications and conversation of such
unseen visitors. But the fact of our
having chosen for that séance the “spook
rapsâ€, does not at all interfere
with the truth of that other assertion of
ours, namely, that, whenever we wanted
something genuine, and resorted to the
method of “clairvoyant proxyâ€, we had
very often communications of great power
and vigor of thought, profoundly
scientific and remarkable in every way;
made not by but in the spirit of the
great defunct personage in whose name they
were given.
It is only when we resorted to the “spook
raps†that, notwithstanding the
world-known names of the eminent personages
in which the goblins of the
séance-room love to parade, we got
answers and discourses that might do honor to
a circus clown, but hardly to a Socrates, a
Cicero, or a Martin Luther. Page 87]
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
CHAPTER 5
MM. DE JELIHOWSKY'S NARRATIVE -CONTINUED-
I REMEMBER that we were deeply interested
in those days in reading aloud in our
little family circle, the Memoirs of
Catherine Romanovna Dashkoff, just then
published. The interest of this remarkable
historical work was greatly enhanced
to us owing to the fact that our reading
was very often interrupted by the
alleged spirit of the authoress herself.
The gaps and hiatuses of a publication,
severely disfigured and curtailed by the
censor's pen and scissors, were
constantly filled up by comparing notes
with her astral records.
By the means of guided raps — Mme. B.
refusing, as usual, to help us by direct
writing, preferring lazily to rest in her
arm-chair — we received, in the name
of the authoress, innumerable remarks,
additions, explanations, and refutations.
In some cases, her apparent and mistaken
views in the days when she wrote her
memoirs were corrected and replaced by more
genuine thoughts. [ The fact that
many of the remarks and notes were
different in their character from the
original memoirs, and that errors and
mistakes were corrected, can easily be
explained. The old thoughts of Catherine
Romanovna were expounded and corrected
in the intellectual sphere of Madame B. The
manner and nature of the expression
would not cease to resemble that of the
author, and, in the astral light, the
original of the work, as conceived in the
brain of the historian, would
certainly be returned in preference to the
mutilated views of the censor; while
the brain of Madame B would supply the
rest.] [88] All such corrections and
additional matter given, fascinated us
deeply by their profundity, their wit and
humor, often, indeed, with the natural
pathos that was one of the prominent
features of this remarkable historical
character.
But I must return to my reminiscences of
that memorable night. Thus, among other
post-mortem visitors, we were entertained
on that evening by A. Poushkine.
The poet seemed to be in one of his
melancholy and dark moments; and to our
queries, what was the matter, what made him
suffer, and what we could do for
him, he obliged us with an extemporary
poem, which I preserved, although its
character and style are beneath criticism.
The substance of it — which is hardly worth
translation — was to the effect that
there was no reason for us to know his
secret sufferings. Why should we try to
know what he may be wishing for ? He had
but one desire: to rest on the bosom of
Death, instead of which he was suffering in
great darkness for his sins,
tortured by devils, and had lost all hope
of ever reaching the bliss of becoming
a winged cherub, etc etc..[ In the
recollection of Mme. Blavatsky, this was a
genuine spirit-manifestation, i.e. a clumsy
personification of the great poet by
passing shells and spooks, allowed to merge
into the circle for a few moments.
The rhymed complaint speaking of hell and
devils was the echo of the feelings
and thoughts of a pious governess present ;
most assuredly it was not any
reflection from Madame Blavatsky's brain,
nor would her admiring respect for the
memory of the greatest Russian poet have
ever allowed her to make such a
blasphemous joke under the cover of his
name.]
“Poor Alexander Sergeïtch!”
exclaimed Colonel Hahn, upon hearing this wretched
production read; and so saying he rose as
though in search of something. [
89] “ What are you looking for? †we
asked. “My long pipe! I have had
enough of these cigars, and I cannot find
my pipe ; where can it be ? â€
“You have just smoked it, after supper,
fatherâ€. I replied.
“I did; and now Helen's spirits must have
walked off with it or hidden it
somewhere.â€
“One, two, three! One, two, three! â€
affirmed triple raps around us, as
though mocking the old gentleman.
“Indeed! Well, this is a foolish joke.
Could not our friend Poushkine tell us
where he has hidden it ? Do let us know,
for life itself would be worthless on
this earth without my old and faithful
pipe.â€
“One, two, three ! One, two, three ! â€
knocked the table.
“Is this you, Alexander Sergei'tch ? â€
we asked.
At this juncture my sister frowned angrily,
and the raps suddenly stopped.
“Noâ€, she said, after a moment's pause,
“it is somebody elseâ€. And
putting her hand upon the table she set the
raps going again.
“Who is it, then ? â€
“It is me; your old orderly, your honor:
Voronof.â€
“Ah, Voronof! very glad to meet you
again, my good fellow. . . . Now, try to
remember old times: bring me my pipe.â€
“I would be very happy to do so, your
honor, but I am not able; somebody holds
me fast. But you can take it yourself, your
honor. See, there it is swinging
over your head on the lamp.â€
We all raised our heads. Verily, where a
minute before there was nothing at all,
there was now the huge Turkish pipe, placed
horizontally on the alabaster shade,
and balancing over it with its two ends
sticking [90] out at both sides of
the lamp which hung over the dining table.
This new physical demonstration filled with
astonishment even those of us who
had been accustomed to live in a world of
marvels for months. Hardly a year
before we would not have believed even in
the possibility of what we now
regarded as perfectly proved facts.
In the early part of the year 1859, as
above stated, soon after her return to
Russia, Mme. Blavatsky went to live with
her father and sister in a country
house of a village belonging to Mme.
Jelihowsky at Rougodevo.[In the district of
Novorgeff, in the Government of Pskoff -
about 200 versts from St Peterburg. It
was at that time a private property, a
village of several hundred serfs, but
soon after emancipation of the land passed
into other hands.]
It had been bought only a year before by my
deceased husband from parties
entirely unknown to us till then, and
through an agent; and therefore no one
knew anything of their antecedents, or even
who they really were. It was quite
unexpectedly that, owing to the sudden
death of M. Yahontoff, I decided to
settle in it for a time, with my two baby
sons, our father, and my two sisters,
H. P. Blavatsky and Lisa, the youngest, our
father's only daughter by another
wife.
I could therefore have no acquaintance with
our neighbors or the landed
proprietors of other villages, or with the
relatives of the late owner of my
property. All I knew was, that Rougodevo
had been bought from a person named
Statkovsky, the husband of the
granddaughter of its late owners — a family named
Shousherin. Who were those Shousherins, the
hereditary proprietors of those
picturesque hills and mountains, of the
dense pine forests, the lovely lakes,
our old park, and nearly as old a mansion,
from the top of which one could take
a [91] sweeping view of the country for 30
versts around, its present
proprietors could have no conception
whatever; least of all, H. P. B., who had
been out of Russia for over ten years, and
had just then returned.
It was on the second or third evening after
our arrival at Rougodevo. We were
two of us walking along the side of the
flower-beds, in front of the house.
The ground-floor windows looked right into
the flower-garden, while those of its
three other sides were surrounded with
large, old, shaded grounds.
We had settled on the first floor, which
consisted of nine or ten large rooms,
while our elderly father occupied a suite
of rooms on the ground floor, on the
right-hand side of the long entrance hall.
The rooms opposite to his, on the
left side, were uninhabited, and in the
expectation of future visitors, stood
empty, with their doors securely locked.
The rooms occupied by the servants were
at the back of the mansion, and could not
be seen from where we were. The
windows of the empty apartment came out in
bright relief, especially the room at
the left angle ; its windows, reflecting
the rays of the setting sun in full
glory, seemed illuminated through and
through with the effulgence of the bright
sunbeams.
We were slowly walking up and down the
gravel walk under the windows, and each
time that we approached the angle of the
house, my sister (H. P. B.) looked into
the windows with a strange searching
glance, and lingered on that spot, a
puzzling expression and smile settling upon
her face.
Remarking at last her furtive glances and
smiles, I wanted to know what it was
that so attracted her attention in the
empty room ?
“Shall I tell ? Well, if you promise not
to be frightened, then I mayâ€, she
answered hesitatingly. [92]
“What reason have I to be frightened !
Thank heaven, I see nothing myself.
Well, and what do you see? Is it, as usual,
visitors from the other world ? â€
“I could not tell you now, Vera, for I do
not know them. But if my conjectures
are right, they do seem, if not quite the
dwellers themselves, at least the
shadows of such dwellers from another, but
certainly not from our, world. I
recognize this by certain signs.â€
“What signs ? Are their faces those of
dead men ? †I asked, very nervously,
I confess.
“Oh, no! †she said; “for in such a
case I should see them as dead people
in their beds, or in their coffins. Such
sights I am familiar with. But these
men are walking about, and look just as if
alive. They have no mortal reason to
remind me of their death, since I do not
know who they are, and never knew them
alive. But they do look so very antiquated.
Their dresses are such as we see
only on old family portraits. One, however,
is an exception.â€
“How does he look ? â€
“ Well, this one looks as though he were
a German student or an artist. He
wears a black velvet blouse, with a wide
leather sash. . . . Long hair hanging
in heavy waves down his back and shoulders.
This one is quite a young man. ...
He stands apart, and seems to look quite in
a different direction from where the
others are.â€
We had now again approached the angle of
the house, and halting, were both
looking into the empty room through the
bright window panes. It was brilliantly
lit up by the sunbeams of the setting sun,
but the room was empty evidently, but
only for one of us. For my sister it was
full of the images probably of its
long-departed late inmates.[93]
Mme. Blavatsky went on looking
thoughtfully, and describing what she saw.
“There, there, he looks in our direction.
See ! †she muttered, “ he looks
as though he is startled at seeing us! Now
he is there no longer. How strange!
he seems to have melted away in that sunbeam
! â€
“Let us call them out to-night, and ask
them who they areâ€, I suggested.
“We may, but what of that ? Can any one
of them be relied upon or believed ? I
would pay any price to be able to command
and control as they, . . . some
personages I might name, do; but I cannot.
I must fail for years to comeâ€, she
added, regretfully.
“Who are they ? Whom do you mean ? â€
“Those who know and can — not mediumsâ€,
she contemptuously added. “But
look, look, what a sight! Oh, see what an
ugly monster! Who can it be ? â€
“Now, what's the use in your telling me '
look, look' and see ? How can I look
when I see nothing, not being a clairvoyant
as you are. . . . Tell me, how does
that other figure appear ? Only if it is
something too dreadful, then you had
better stopâ€, I added, feeling a cold
chill creeping over me. And, seeing she
was going to speak, I cried out, “Now,
pray do not say anything more if it is
too dreadfulâ€.
Don't be afraid, there is nothing dreadful
in it, it only seemed to me so. They
are there now — one, however, I can see
very hazily; it is a woman, and she
seems to be always merging into and again
emerging from that shadow in the
corner. Oh, there's an old, old lady
standing there and looking at me, as though
she were alive. What a nice, kind, fat old
thing she must have been. She has a
white frilled cap on her head, a white
kerchief crossed over her shoulders, a
short grey narrow dress, and a checked
apron.†[94]
“Why, you are painting some fancy
portrait of the Flemish schoolâ€, laughed
I. “Now, look here, I am really afraid
that you are mystifying me.â€
“I swear I am not. But I am so sorry that
you cannot see.â€
“Thanks; but I am not at all sorry. Peace
be upon all those ghosts ! How
horrible ! â€
“Not at all horrible. They are all quite
nice and natural, with the exception,
maybe, of that old man.â€
“Gracious ! what old man ? â€
“A very, very funny old man. Tall, gaunt,
and with such a suffering look upon
his worn-out face. And then it is his
nails, that puzzle me. What terrible long
nails he has, or claws rather; why, they
must be over an inch long!â€
“Heaven help us! †I could not help
shrieking out. “Whom are you
describing? Surely it must be†— I was
going to say, “the devil himselfâ€,
but stopped short, overcome by a shudder.
Unable to control my terror, I hastily left
the place under the window and stood
at a safe distance.
The sun had gone down, but the gold and
crimson flush of its departing rays
lingered still, tinting everything with
gold — the house, the old trees of the
garden, and the pond in the background.
The colors of the flowers seemed doubly
attractive in this brilliant light; and
only the angle of the old house, which cut
the golden hue in two, seemed to cast
a gloomy shadow on the glorious scene. H.
P. Blavatsky remained alone behind
that obscure angle, overshadowed by the
thick foliage of an oak, while I sought
a safe refuge in the glow of the large open
space near the flower-beds, and kept
urging her to come out of her nook and
enjoy instead the lovely panorama, and
look at the [95] far-off wooded hills, with
their tops still glowing in the
golden hue, on the quiet smooth ponds and
the large dormant lake, reflecting in
its mirror-like waters the green chaotic
confusion of its banks, and the ancient
chapel slumbering in its nest of birch.
My sister came out at last, pale and
thoughtful. She was determined, she said,
to learn who it was whom she had just seen.
She felt sure the shadowy figures
were the lingering reflections of people
who had inhabited at some time those
empty rooms. “I am puzzled to know who
the old man can beâ€, she kept saying.
“Why should he have allowed his nails to
grow to such an extraordinary Chinese
length ? And then another peculiarity, he
wears a most strange-looking black
cap, very high, and something similar to
the klobouk of our monks.†[The round
tiara, covered with a long black veil, worn
by the orthodox Greek monks.]
“Do let these horrid phantoms alone. Do
not think of them! â€
“Why ? It is very interesting, the more
so since I now see them so rarely. I
wish I were still a real medium, as the
latter, I am told, are constantly
surrounded by a host of ghosts, and that I
see them now but occasionally, not as
I used to years ago, when a child. . . .
Last night, however, I saw in Lisa's
room a tall gentleman with long whiskers.â€
“What! in the nursery room near the
children ? Oh, please, drive him away from
there, at least. I do hope the ghost has
only followed you there, and has not
made a permanent abode of that place. How
you can keep so cool, and feel no fear
when you see, is something I could never
understand ! â€
“And why should I fear them ? They are
harmless in most cases, unless
encouraged. Then I am too [96] accustomed
to such sights to experience even
a passing uneasiness. If anything, I feel
disgust, and a contemptuous pity for
the poor spooks! In fact, I feel convinced
that all of us mortals are constantly
surrounded by millions of such shadows, the
last mortal image left of themselves
by their ex-proprietors.â€
“Then you think that these ghosts are all
of them the reflection of the dead ?
â€
“I am convinced of it — in fact, / know
it ! â€
“ Why, then, in such a case, are we not
constantly surrounded by those who
were so near and dear to us, by our loved
relatives and friends ? Why are we
allowed to be pestered only by a host of
strangers, to suffer the uninvited
presence of the ghosts of people whom we
never knew, nor do we care for them ?
â€
“A difficult query to answer! How often,
how earnestly, have I tried to see
and recognize among the shadows that
haunted me some one of our dear relatives,
or even a friend! . . . Stray
acquaintances, and distant relatives, for whom I
care little, I have occasionally
recognized, but they never seemed to pay any
attention to me, and whenever I saw them it
was always unexpected and
independently of my will. How I longed from
the bottom of my soul, how I have
tried — all in vain ! As much as I can make
out of it, it is not the living who
attract the dead, but rather the localities
they have inhabited, those places
where they have lived and suffered, and
where their personalities and outward
forms have been most impressed on the
surrounding atmosphere. Say, shall we call
some of your old servants, those who have
been born and lived in this place all
their lives ? I feel sure that, if we
describe to them some of the forms I have
just seen, that they will recognize in them
people they knew, and who have died
here.†[97]
The suggestion was good, and it was
immediately put to the test; we took our
seats on the steps of the entrance door,
and sent a servant to inquire who were
the oldest serfs in the compound. An
ancient tailor, named Timothy, who lived
for years exempt from any obligatory work
on account of his services and old
age, and the chief gardener, Oulyan, a man
about sixty, soon made their
appearance. I felt at first a little
embarrassed, and put some commonplace
questions, asking who it was who built one
of the outhouses near by. Then I put
the direct query, whether there had ever
lived in the house an old man, very
strange to look at, with a high black
head-gear, terribly long nails, wearing
habitually a long grey coat, etc., etc.
No sooner had I given this description than
the two old peasants, interrupting
each other, and with great volubility,
exclaimed affirmatively that they “Knew
well who it was whom the young mistress
described.â€
“Don't we know him ? of course we do —
why, it is our late barrin (master)!
Just as he used to be — our deceased master
Nikolay Mihaylovitch ! â€
“Statkowsky ? â€
“No, no, mistress. Statkowsky was the
young master, and he is not dead; he was
our nominal master only, owing to his
marriage with Natalya Nikolavna — our late
master's, Nikolay Mihaylovitch Shousherin's
granddaughter. And, as you have
described him, it is him, for sure — our
late master, Shousherin.â€
My sister and I interchanged a furtive
glance. “We have heard of himâ€, said
I, unwilling to take the servants into our
confidence, †but did not feel sure
it was he. But why was he wearing such a
strange-looking cap, and, as it seemed,
never cut his nails ? â€
“This was owing to a disease, mistress —
an incurable [98] disease, as we
were told, that the late master caught
while in Lithuania, where he had resided
for years. It is called the Koltoun,[The
“plica polonica”, a terrible skin
complaint, very common in Lithuania, and
contracted only in its climate. The
hair, as is well known, is grievously
diseased, nor can nails on the fingers and
toes be touched, their cutting leading to a
bleeding to death] if you have heard
of it. He could neither cut his hair nor
pare his nails, and had to cover
constantly his head with a tall velvet cap,
like a priest's cap.â€
“Well, and how did your mistress, Mrs
Shousherin, look ? â€
The tailor gave a description in no way
resembling the Dutch-looking old lady
seen by Mme. Blavatsky. Further
cross-examination elicited, however, that the
woman, in her semi-Flemish costume, was
Mina Ivanovna, a German housekeeper, who
had resided in the house for over twenty
years; and the young man, who looked
like a German student in his velvet blouse,
was really such a student who had
come from Göttingen. He was the
youngest brother of Mr Statkowsky, who had died
in Rougodevo, of consumption, about three
years before our arrival. This was not
all, moreover. We found out that the corner
room in which H. P. B. had seen on
that evening, as she has later on, on many
other occasions, the phantoms of all
these deceased personages of Rougodevo, had
been made to serve for every one of
them, either as a death-chamber when they
had breathed their last, or had been
converted for their benefit into a
mortuary-chamber when they had been laid out
awaiting burial. It was from this suite of
apartments, in which their bodies had
invariably passed from three to five days,
that they had been [99] carried
away into yonder old chapel, on the other
side of the lake, that was so well
seen, and had been examined by us from the
windows of our sitting-room.
Since that day, not only H. P. B., but even
her little sister, Lisa, a child of
nine years old, saw more than once strange
forms gliding noiselessly along the
corridors of the old house, so full of
lingering events of the past, and of the
images of those who had passed away from
it. The child, strange to say, feared
the restless ghosts no more than her elder
sister; the former taking them
innocently for living persons, and
concerned but with the interesting problem,
“where they had come from, who they were,
and why no one except her ' old'
sister and herself ever consented to notice
them.â€
She thought this very rude — the little
lady. Luckily for the child, and owing
perhaps to the efforts of her sister, Mme.
Blavatsky, the faculty left her very
soon, never to return during her subsequent
life.[The young lady is now over
thirty, and was saying but last year how
lucky it was for her that she no longer
saw these trans-terrestrial visitors.] As
for Helena Petrovna, it never left her
from her very childhood. So strong is this
weird faculty in her that it is a
rare case when she has to learn of the
death of a relative, a friend, or even an
old servant of the family from a letter. We
have given up advising her of any
such sad events, the dead invariably
precede the news, and tell her themselves
of their demise; and we receive a letter in
which she describes the way she saw
this or that departed person, at the same
time, and often before the post
carrying our notification could have
reached her, as it will be shown further
on.
[The pamphlet already referred to, Personal
and Family Reminiscences, by Mme.
Jelihowsky, may here [100] be laid under
contribution in reference to
incidents taking place at the period we are
now dealing with.]
Having settled in our property at
Rougodevo, we found ourselves as though
suddenly transplanted into an enchanted
world, in which we got gradually so
accustomed to see self-moving furniture,
things transferred from one place to
another, in the most inexplicable way, and
to the strong interference with, and
presence in, our matter-of-fact daily life
of some unknown to us, yet
intelligent power, that we all ended by
paying very little attention to it,
though the phenomenal facts struck everyone
else as being simply miraculous.
Verily, habit becomes second nature with
men! Our father, who had premised by
saying that he gave permission to everyone
to incarcerate him in a lunatic
asylum on that day that he would believe
that a table could move, fly, or become
rooted to the spot at the desire of those
present, now passed his days and parts
of his nights talking with “Helen's
spiritsâ€, as he called it. They informed
him of numerous events and details
pertaining to the lives of his ancestors, the
Counts Hahn von Rottenstern Hahn; offered
to get back for him certain
title-deeds, and told us such interesting
legends and witty anecdotes, that
unbelievers as well as believers could
hardly help feeling interested. It often
happened that my sister, being occupied
with her reading, we — our father, the
governess, and myself — unwilling to
disturb her, communicated with the
invisible power, mentally and in silence,
simply thinking out our questions, and
writing down the letters rapped out either
on the walls or the table near us.
... I remember having had a remarkable
phenomenon of this kind, at a station in
the Swyatee Goree (Holy Mountains), where
the poet A. Poushkine is buried, and
when my sister was fast [101] asleep.
Things were told to me, of which
positively no one in this world could know
anything, I alone being the
depositary of these secrets, together with
an old gentleman living for years on
his far-away property. I had not seen him
for six years; my sister had never
heard of him, as I had made his
acquaintance two years after she had left
Russia. During that mental conversation,
names, dates, and the appellation of
his property were given to me. I had
thought and asked, Where is he who loved me
more than anyone on this earth ? Easy to
know that I had my late husband in my
mind. Instead of that, I received in answer
a name I had long forgotten. First I
felt perplexed, then indignant, and finally
the idea became so comical that I
burst out in a fit of laughter, that awoke
my sister. How can you prove to me
that you do not lie ? I asked my invisible
companions. Remember the second
volume of Byron's poetry, was the answer I
received. I became cold with horror !
No one had ever been told of it, and I
myself had forgotten for years that
circumstance which was now told to me in
all its details, namely, that being in
the habit of sending books, and a series of
English classics for me to read,
that gentleman, old enough to be my
grandfather, had thought of offering
marriage to me, and found no better means
for it than by inserting in Volume II.
of Byron's works a letter to that effect.
... Of course my “informersâ€,
whoever they were, played upon me a wicked
trick by reminding me of these facts,
yet their omniscience had been brilliantly
proven to me by them in this case.
It is most extraordinary that our silent
conversations with that intelligent
force that had ever manifested itself in my
sister's presence were found by us
the most successful during her sleep, or
when she was very ill. [102] Once
a young physician, who visited us for the
first time, got so terribly frightened
at the noises, and the moving about of
things in her room when she was on her
bed lying cold and senseless, that he
nearly fainted himself. Such tragi-comical
scenes happened very often in our house,
but the most remarkable of all such
have already been told in the pages of the
Rebus, in 1883, as having taken place
during her two years' stay with us. As an
eye-witness, I can only once more
testify to all the facts described, without
entering upon the question of the
agency that produced them, or the nature of
the agents. But I may recall some
additional inexplicable phenomena that
occurred at that time, testified to by
other members of our family, though some of
them I have not witnessed myself.
All the persons living on the premises,
with the household members, saw
constantly, often in full noonday, vague
human shadows walking about the rooms,
appearing in the garden, in the flower-beds
in front of the house, and near the
old chapel. My father (once the greatest
sceptic), Mademoiselle Leontine, the
governess of our younger sister, told me
many a time, that they had just met and
seen such figures quite plainly. Moreover,
Leontine found very often in her
locked drawers, and her trunks, some very
mysterious letters, containing family
secrets known to her alone, over which she
wept, reading them incessantly during
whole weeks; and I am forced to confess
that once or twice the events foretold
in them came to pass as they had been
prophesied to us.
[Some comments on various parts of the
foregoing narrative, furnished by Mme.
Blavatsky herself, will here be read with
interest. She says she has tried with
the most famous mediums to evoke and
communicate with those dearest to her, and
whose loss she had deplored, but could
never succeed.“Communications and
messages†[103] she certainly did
receive, and got their signatures, and
on two occasions their materialized forms,
but the communications were couched
in a vague and gushing language quite
unlike the style she knew so well. Their
signatures, as she has ascertained, were
obtained from her own brain; and on no
occasion, when the presence of a relation
was announced and the form described
by the medium, who was ignorant of the fact
that Mme. Blavatsky could see as
well as any of them, has she recognized the
“spirit†of the alleged relative
in the host of spooks and elementaries that
surrounded them (when the medium was
a genuine one of course). Quite the
reverse. For she often saw, to her disgust,
how her own recollections and brain-images
were drawn from her memory and
disfigured in the confused amalgamation
that took place between their reflection
in the medium's brain, which instantly sent
them out, and the shells which
sucked them in like a sponge and
objectivised them — “a hideous shape with a
mask on in my sightâ€, she tells us.
“Even the materialized form of my uncle
at the Eddys' was the picture; it was I who
sent it out from my own mind, as I
had come out to make experiments without
telling it to anyone. It was like an
empty outer envelope of my uncle that I
seemed to throw on the medium's astral
body. I saw and followed the process, I
knew Will Eddy was a genuine medium, and
the phenomenon as real as it could be, and
therefore, when days of trouble came
for him, I defended him in the papers. In
short, for all the years of experience
in America, I never succeeded in
identifying, in one single instance, those I
wanted to see. It is only in my dreams and
personal visions that I was brought
in direct contact with my own blood
relatives and friends, those between whom
and myself there had been a strong mutual
spiritual loveâ€. Her conviction
[104] therefore, based as much on her
personal experience as on that of the
teachings of the occult doctrine, is as
follows: — “For certain
psycho-magnetic reasons, too long to be
explained here, the shells of those
spirits who loved us best will not, with a
very few exceptions, approach us.
They have no need of it since, unless they
were irretrievably wicked, they have
us with them in Devachan, that state of
bliss in which the monads are surrounded
with all those, and that, which they have
loved — objects of spiritual
aspirations as well as human entities. '
Shells ' once separated from their
higher principles have nought in common
with the latter. They are not drawn to
their relatives and friends, but rather to
those with whom their terrestrial,
sensuous affinities are the strongest. Thus
the shell of a drunkard will be
drawn to one who is either a drunkard
already or has a germ of this passion in
him, in which case they will develop it by
using his organs to satisfy their
craving; one who died full of sexual
passion for a still living partner will
have its shell drawn to him or her, etc..
We Theosophists, and especially
occultists, must never lose sight of the
profound axiom of the Esoteric Doctrine
which teaches us that it is we, the living,
who are drawn towards the spirits —
but that the latter can never, even though
they would, descend to us, or rather
into our sphere.â€] [105]
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
CHAPTER 6
MM. DE JELIHOWSKY'S NARRATIVE - (CONTINUED)
THE quiet life of the sisters at Rougodevo
was brought to an end by a terrible
illness which befell Mme. Blavatsky. Years
before, perhaps during her solitary
travels in the steppes of Asia, she had
received a remarkable wound. We could
never learn how she had met with it.
Suffice to say that the profound wound
reopened occasionally, and during that time
she suffered intense agony, often
bringing on convulsions and a death-like
trance. The sickness used to last from
three to four days, and then the wound
would heal as suddenly as it had
reopened, as though an invisible hand had
closed it, and there would remain no
trace of her illness. But the affrighted
family was ignorant at first of this
strange peculiarity, and their despair and
fear were great indeed. A physician
was sent for to the neighboring town; but
he proved of little use, not so much
indeed through his ignorance of surgery, as
owing to a remarkable phenomenon
which left him almost powerless to act
through sheer terror at what he had
witnessed. He had hardly examined the wound
of the patient prostrated before him
in complete unconsciousness, when suddenly
he saw a large, dark hand between his
own and the wound he was going to anoint.
The gaping wound was near the heart,
and the hand kept slowly moving at several
intervals [106] from the neck
down to the waist. To make his terror
worse, there began suddenly in the room
such a terrific noise, such a chaos of
noises and sounds from the ceiling, the
floor, window-panes, and every bit of
furniture in the apartment, that he begged
he might not be left alone in the room with
the insensible patient.
In the spring of 1860 both sisters left
Rougodevo for the Caucasus, on a visit
to their grandparents, whom they had not
seen for long years.
During the three weeks' journey from Moscow
to Tiflis, performed in a coach with
post horses, there occurred many a strange
manifestation.
At Zadonsk — the territory of the Cossack
army of the Don, a place of pilgrimage
in Russia, where the holy relics of St
Tihon are preserved — we halted for rest,
and I prevailed upon my lazy sister to
accompany me to the church to hear the
mass. We had learned that on that day
church service would be conducted near the
said relics by the then Metropolitan [One
of the three “Popes” of Russia, so to
say, the highest of the ecclesiastical
hierarchy of the Orthodox Greek Church]
of Kiew (at present, in 1884, the
Metropolitan of St Petersburg), the famous and
learned Isidore, [Now a man past ninety
years of age] whom both of us had well
known in our childhood and youth at Tiflis,
where he was for so many years the
Exarch [The spiritual chief of all the
archbishops, and the head of the Church
in Georgia] of Georgia (Caucasus). He had
been a friend of our family for years,
and had often visited us. During service
the venerable old man recognized us,
and immediately dispatched a monk after us,
with an invitation to visit him at
the Lord Archbishop's house. He received us
with great kindness. But hardly had
we taken our seats in the drawing-room of
the Holy [107] Metropolitan than
a terrible hubbub, noises, and loud raps in
every conceivable direction burst
suddenly upon us with a force to which even
we were hardly accustomed; every bit
of furniture in the big audience room
cracked and thumped — from the huge
chandelier under the ceiling, every one of
whose crystal drops seemed to become
endowed with self-motion, down to the
table, and under the very elbows of his
holiness who was leaning on it.
Useless to say how confused and embarrassed
we looked — though truth compels me
to say that my irreverent sister's
embarrassment was tempered with a greater
expression of fun than I would have wished
for. The Metropolitan Isidore saw at
a glance our confusion, and understood,
with his habitual sagacity, the true
cause of it. He had read a good deal about
the so-called “spiritualâ€
manifestations, and on seeing a huge
armchair gliding toward him, laughed, and
felt a good deal interested in this
phenomenon. He inquired which of us two
sisters had such a strange power, and wanted
to know when and how it had begun
to manifest itself. We explained to him all
the particulars as well as we could,
and after listening very attentively, he
suddenly asked Mme. Blavatsky if she
would permit him to offer her
“invisible†a mental question. Of course, his
holiness was welcome to it, she answered.
We do not feel at liberty to publish
what the question was. But when his very
serious query had received an immediate
answer — precise and to the very point he
wanted it to be — his holiness was so
struck with amazement, and felt so anxious
and interested in the phenomenon,
that he would not let us go, and detained
us with him for over three hours. He
had even forgotten his dinner. Giving
orders not to be interrupted, the
venerable gentleman continued to hold
conversation with [108] his unseen
visitors, expressing all the while his
profound astonishment at their
“all-knowledgeâ€. [Vseznaïstvo
- the word used can hardly be translated by
the term omniscience; it is an attribute of
a less absolute character, and
refers to the things of the earth.]
When bidding good-bye to us, the venerable
old man blessed the travelers, and,
turning to Mme. Blavatsky, addressed to her
these parting words: —
“As for you, let not your heart be
troubled by the gift you are possessed of,
nor let it become a source of misery to you
hereafter, for it was surely given
to you for some purpose, and you could not
be held responsible for it. Quite the
reverse ! for if you but use it with
discrimination, you will be enabled to do
much good to your fellow-creatures.â€
These are the authentic words of His
Holiness, Isidore, the Metropolitan of our
Orthodox Greek Church of Russia, addressed
by him in my presence to my sister
Mme. Blavatsky. [The Russian Censor has not
allowed this letter to appear in the
Rebus in the original.]
At one of the stations where we had to
change horses, the station-master told us
very brutally that there were no fresh
horses for us, and that we had to wait.
The sun had not yet gone down, it was full
moon, the roads were good, and with
all this, we were made to lose several
hours ! This was provoking. Nevertheless
there was nothing to be done, the more so
as the station-master, who was too
drunk to be reasoned with, had found fit to
disappear, and refused to come and
talk with us. We had to take the little
unpleasantness as easily as we could,
and settle ourselves as best we knew how
for the night; but even here we found
an impediment. The small station-house had
but one room for the travelers [
109] near a hot and dirty kitchen, and even
that one was locked and bolted, and
no one would open the door for us without
special orders. Mme. Blavatsky was
beginning to lose patience.
“Well, this is fine ! †she went on.
“We are refused horses, and even the
room we are entitled to is shut for us !
Why is it shut ? Now, I want to know
and insist upon itâ€. But there was no one
to tell us the reason why, for the
station-house seemed utterly empty, and
there was not a soul to be seen about.
H. P. B. approached the little low windows
of the locked room, and flattened her
face against the window panes. “A-ha!â€
she suddenly exclaimed; “that's
what it is ! Very well, then, and now I can
force the drunken brute to give us
horses in five minutes.â€
And she started off in search of the
station-master. Curious to know what secret
there was in the mysterious room, I
approached the window in my turn, and tried
to fathom its unknown regions. But although
the inside of the room was perfectly
visible through the window, yet my
uninitiated eyes could see nothing in it save
the ordinary furniture of a dirty
station-house, dirty as they all are.
Nevertheless, to my delight and surprise,
ten minutes had not passed when three
excellent and strong post-horses were
brought out, under the supervision of the
station-master himself, who, pale and
confused, had become, as though by magic,
polite and full of obsequiousness. In a few
minutes our carriage was ready, and
we continued our journey.
To my question what sorcery had helped her
to achieve such change in the drunken
station-master, who but a moment before
would pay no attention to us, Mme.
Blavatsky only laughed. [110]
“Profit, and ask no questions!†she
said. “Why should you be so
inquisitive ? †It was but on the
following day that she condescended to tell
me that the wretched station-master must
have most certainly taken her for a
witch. It appears that upon finding him in
a back-yard, she had shouted to him
that the person whose body had been just
standing in a coffin in the
“travelers' room†was there again, and
asked him not to detain us, for we
would otherwise insist upon our right to
enter into the room, and would disturb
her spirit thereby. And when the man upon
hearing this opened his eyes, without
appearing to understand what she was
referring to, Mme. Blavatsky hastened then
to tell him that she was speaking of his
deceased wife, whom he had just buried,
and who was there, and would be there, in
that room until we had gone away. She
then proceeded to describe the ghost in
such a minute way that the unfortunate
widower became as pale as death itself, and
hurried away to order fresh horses !
Some interesting details concerning Mme.
Blavatsky's family home at Tiflis have
been published quite lately in a Russian
memoir, “Reminiscences of Prince A.
T. Bariatinskyâ€, by General P. S.
Nikolaeff, formerly his aide-de-camp at
Tiflis. This memoir appears in the
Historical Vyestnick (Messenger], a Russian
magazine of high repute, dedicated, as its
name shows, to historical Notes,
Memoirs, and Biographies. Referring to the
family of the Fadeefs, General
Nikolaeff, writing of a period coincident
with that of Mme. Blavatsky's visit to
Tiflis, says: —
“They were living in those years in the
ancient mansion of the Princes
Tchavtchavadze, the great building itself
carrying the imprint of something
weird or peculiar about it — something that
carried one back to the epoch of
Catherine the Great. A long, lofty, and
[111] gloomy hall was hung with the
family portraits of the Fadeefs and the
Princes Dolgorouky. Further on was a
drawing-room, its walls covered with
Gobelin tapestry, a present from the
Empress Catherine, and near at hand was the
apartment of Mademoiselle N. A.
Fadeef — in itself one of the most
remarkable of private museums. The collection
gathered into this museum attracted
attention by their great variety. There were
brought together the arms and weapons from
all the countries of the world;
ancient crockery, cups, and goblets,
archaic house utensils, Chinese and
Japanese idols, mosaics and images of the
Byzantine epoch, Persian and Turkish
carpets, and fabrics worked with gold and
silver, statues, pictures, paintings,
petrified fossils, and, finally, a very
rare and most precious library.
“The emancipation of the serfs had
altered in no way the daily life of the
Fadeefs. The whole enormous host of their
valetaille (ex-serfs), [Forty men and
women; and this for twenty-two years in
Tiflis, where old General Fadeef was one
of the three Imperial Councillors on the
council under the Viceroys from Prince
Porontzoff to the Grand Duke Michael]
having remained with the family as before
their freedom, only now receiving wages ;
and all went on as before with the
members of that family — that is to say,
luxuriously and plentifully (it means
in their usual hospitable and open way of
living). I loved to pass my evenings
in that home. At precisely a quarter to
eleven o'clock, the old general,
brushing along the parquets with his warmly
muffled-up feet, retired to his
apartments. At that same moment, hurriedly
and in silence, the supper was
brought in on trays, and served in the
interior rooms; and immediately after
this the drawing-room doors would be
closely shut, and an animated conversation
take place on every topic. Modern
literature was reviewed and criticized,
contemporary social questions from Russian
life discussed; at one time it was
the narratives of some visitor, a foreign
traveler, or an account given of a
recent skirmish by one of its heroes, some
sunburnt officer just returned from
the battlefield (in the Caucasian
Mountains), would be [112] eagerly
listened to; at another time the antiquated
old Spanish-mason (then an officer
in the Russian army), Quartano, would drop
in and give us thrilling stories from
the wars of Napoleon the Great. Or, again,
'Radda Bay' — H. P. Blavatsky, the
granddaughter of General A. M. Fadeef —
would put in an appearance, and was made
to call forth from her past some stormy
episode of her American life and travels
; when the conversation would be sure to
turn suddenly upon the mystic subjects,
and she herself commence to ' evoke
spirits.' And then the tall candles would
begin to burn low, hardly flickering toward
the end, the human figures on the
Gobelin tapestry would seem to awaken and
move, and each of us feel queer from
an involuntary creeping sensation; and this
generally lasted until the eastern
portion of the sky began itself to pale, on
the dark face of the southern
night.â€
Mme. Blavatsky resided at Tiflis less than
two years, and not more than three in
the Caucasus. The last year she passed
roaming about in Imeretia, Georgia, and
Mingrelia. Throughout the Trans-Caucasian
country, and all along the coasts of
the Black Sea, the various peoples,
notwithstanding that their Christian
persuasion dates from the fourth century
A.D., are as superstitious as any
Pagan, especially the half-savage, warlike
Apkhasians, the Imeretenes, and the
Mingrelians — the descendants, perhaps, of
those ancient Greeks who came with
Jason in search of the Golden Fleece; for,
according to historical legend, it is
the site of the archaic Colchide, and the
river Rion (Pharsis) rolled once upon
a time its rapid waves upon golden sand and
ore instead of the modern gravel and
stones. Therefore it was but natural that
the princes and the landed
“noblemenâ€, who live in their
“castles†scattered through, and stuck
like nests in thick foliage, in the dense
woods and forests of Mingrelia and
Imeretia, and who, hardly half a century
back, were nearly all [113]
half-brigands when not full-blown
highwaymen, who are fanatical as Neapolitan
monks, and ignorant as Italian noblemen —
that they should, we say, have viewed
such a character as was then Mme. Blavatsky
in the light of a witch, when not in
that of a beneficent magician. As, later in
life, wherever she went, her friends
in those days were many, but her enemies
still more numerous. If she cured and
helped those who believed themselves
sincerely bewitched, it was only to make
herself cruel enemies of those who were
supposed to have bewitched and spoiled
the victims. Refusing the presents and
“thanks†of those she relieved of the
“evil eye†— she rejected, at the same
time, with equal contempt, the bribes
offered by their enemies. No one, at any
rate, and whatever her other faults may
be, has succeeded in showing her a
mercenary character, or one bent upon
money-making for any motive. Thus, while
people of the class of the Princes
Gouriel, and of the Princes Dadiani and
Abashedsé, were ranked among her best
friends, some others — all those who had a
family hatred for the above named —
were, of course, her sworn enemies. In
those days, we believe even now, these
countries — especially Mingrelia and
Imeretia — were regular hot-beds of titled
paupers; of princes, descendants of deposed
and conquered sovereigns, and feud
raged among them as during the Middle Ages.
These were and have remained her
enemies., Some years later, to these were
added all the bigots, church-goers,
missionaries, to say nothing of American
and English spiritualists, French
spiritists, and their host of mediums.
Stories after stories were invented of
her, circulated and accepted by all, except
those who knew her well — as facts.
Calumny was rife, and her enemies now
hesitate at no falsehood that can injure
her character.[114]
She defied them all, and would submit to no
restraint; would stoop to adopt no
worldly method of propitiating public
opinion. She avoided society, showing her
scorn of its idols, and was therefore
treated as a dangerous iconoclast. All her
sympathies went toward, and with, that
tabooed portion of humanity which society
pretends to ignore and avoid, while
secretly running after its more or less
renowned members — the necromancers, the
obsessed, the possessed, and such like
mysterious personages. The native Koodiani
(magicians, sorcerers), Persian
thaumaturgists, and old Armenian hags —
healers and fortune-tellers — were the
first she generally sought out and took
under her protection. Finally public
opinion became furious, and society — that
mysterious somebody in general, and
nobody in particular — made an open levee
of arms against one of its own members
who dared to defy its time-hallowed laws,
and act as no respectable person would
— namely, roaming in the forests alone, on
horseback, and preferring smoky huts
and their dirty inmates to brilliant
drawing-rooms and their frivolous denizens.
Her occult powers all this while, instead
of weakening, became every day
stronger, and she seemed finally to subject
to her direct will every kind of
manifestation. The whole country was
talking of her. The superstitious Gooriel
and Mingrelian nobility began very soon to
regard her as a magician, and people
came from afar off to consult her about
their private affairs. She had long
since given up communication through raps,
and preferred — what was a far more
rapid and satisfactory method — to answer
people either verbally or by means of
direct writing. [This was done always in
full consciousness, and simply, as she
explained, watching people's thoughts as
they evolved out of their head in
spiral luminous smoke, sometimes in jets of
what might be taken for some radiant
material, and settled in distinct pictures
and images around them. Often such
thoughts and answers to them would find
themselves impressed in her own brain,
couched in words and sentences in the same
way as original thoughts do. But, so
far as we are all able to understand, the
former visions are always more
trustworthy, as they are independent and
distinct from the seer’s own
impressions, belonging to pure
clairvoyance, not “thought transference”, which
is a process always liable to get mixed up
with one’s own more vivid mental
impressions.] At times, during such process,
Mme [115] Blavatsky seemed to
fall into a kind of coma, or magnetic
sleep, with eyes wide open, though even
then her hand never ceased to move, and
continued its writing.[“Very naturally”,
she explains, “since it was neither
magnetic sleep", nor coma, but simply a
state of intense concentration, an
attention only too necessary during such
concentration, when the least distraction
leads to a mistake. People knowing but
of mediumistic clairvoyance, and not of our
philosophy and mode of operation,
often fall into such error”.] When thus
answering mental questions, the answers
were rarely unsatisfactory. Generally they
astonished the querists — friends and
enemies.
Meanwhile sporadic phenomena were gradually
dying away in her presence. They
still occurred, but very rarely, though
they were always very remarkable. We
give one.
It must, however, be explained that, some
months previous to that event, Mme.
Blavatsky was taken very ill. From the
verbal statements of her relatives,
recorded under their dictation, we learn
that no doctor could understand her
illness. It was one of those mysterious
nervous diseases that baffle science,
and elude the grasp of everyone but a very
expert psychologist. Soon after the
commencement of that illness, she began —
as she repeatedly told her friends —
“to lead a double lifeâ€. What she meant
by it, no one of [116] the good
people of Mingrelia could understand, of
course. But this is how she herself
describes that state: —
“Whenever I was called by name, I opened
my eyes upon hearing it, and was
myself, my own personality in every
particular. As soon as I was left alone,
however, I relapsed into my usual,
half-dreamy condition, and became somebody
else (who, namely, Madame. B. will not
tell). I had simply a mild fever that
consumed me slowly but surely, day after
day, with entire loss of appetite, and
finally of hunger, as I would feel none for
days, and often went a week without
touching any food whatever, except a little
water, so that in four months I was
reduced to a living skeleton. In cases when
I was interrupted, when in my other
self, by the sound of my present name being
pronounced, and while I was
conversing in my dream life — say at half a
sentence either spoken by me or
those who were with my second me at the
time — and opened my eyes to answer the
call, I used to answer very rationally, and
understood all, for I was never
delirious. But no sooner had I closed my
eyes again than the sentence which had
been interrupted was completed by my other
self, continued from the word, or
even half the word, it had stopped at. When
awake, and myself, I remembered well
who I was in my second capacity, and what I
had been and was doing. When
somebody else, i.e. the personage I had
become, I know I had no idea of who was
H. P. Blavatsky! I was in another far-off
country, a totally different
individuality from myself, and had no
connection at all with my actual life.â€
Such is Mme. Blavatsky's analysis of her
state at that time. She was residing
then at Ozoorgetty, a military settlement
in Mingrelia, where she had bought a
house. It is a little town, lost among the
old forests and woods, which, in
those days, had neither roads nor
conveyances, save of the most primitive kind,
and [117] which, to the very time of the
last Russo-Turkish war, was
unknown outside of Caucasus. The only
physician of the place, the army surgeon,
could make nothing of her symptoms; but as
she was visibly and rapidly
declining, he packed her off to Tiflis to
her friends. Unable to go on
horseback, owing to her great weakness, and
a journey in a cart being deemed
dangerous, she was sent off in a large
native boat along the river — a journey
of four days to Kutais — with four native
servants only to take care of her.
What took place during that journey we are
unable to state precisely; nor is
Mme. Blavatsky herself certain of it, since
her weakness was so great that she
lay like one apparently dead until her
arrival. In that solitary boat, on a
narrow river, hedged on both sides by
centenarian forests, her position must
have been precarious.
The little stream they were sailing along
was, though navigable, rarely, if
ever, used as a means of transit, at any
rate not before the war. Hence the
information we have got came solely from
her servants and was very confused. It
appears, however, that as they were gliding
slowly along the narrow stream,
cutting its way between two steep and woody
banks, the servants were several
times during three consecutive nights
frightened out of their senses by seeing,
what they swore was their mistress, gliding
off from the boat, and across the
water in the direction of the forests,
while the body of that same mistress was
lying prostrate on her bed at the bottom of
the boat. Twice the man who towed
the canoe, upon seeing the “formâ€, ran
away shrieking, and in great terror.
Had it not been for a faithful old servant
who was taking care of her, the boat
and the patient would have been abandoned
[118] in the middle of the
stream. On the last evening, the servant
swore he saw two figures, while the
third — his mistress, in flesh and bone —
was sleeping before his eyes. No
sooner had they arrived at Koutaïs, where
Mme. Blavatsky had a distant relative
residing, than all the servants, with the
exception of the old butler, left her,
and returned no more.
It was with great difficulty that she was
transported to Tiflis. A carriage and
a friend of the family were sent to meet
her; and she was brought into the house
of her friends apparently dying.
She never talked upon that subject with
anyone. But, as soon as she was restored
to life and health, she left the Caucasus,
and went to Italy. Yet it was before
her departure from the country in 1863 that
the nature of her powers seems to
have entirely changed.
One afternoon, very weak and delicate
still, after the illness just described,
Mme. Blavatsky came in to her aunt's, N. A.
Fadeef's, room. After a few words of
conversation, remarking that she felt tired
and sleepy, she was offered to rest
upon a sofa. Hardly had her head touched
her cushion when she fell into a
profound sleep. Her aunt had quietly
resumed some writing she had interrupted to
talk with her niece, when suddenly soft but
quite audible steps in the room
behind her chair made her rapidly turn her
head to see who was the intruder, as
she was anxious that Mme. Blavatsky should
not be disturbed. The room was empty!
there was no other living person in it but
herself and her sleeping niece, yet
the steps continued audibly, as though of a
heavy person treading softly, the
floor creaking all the while. They approached
the sofa, and suddenly ceased.
Then she heard stronger sounds, as though
someone was whispering near Mme.
Blavatsky, and [119] presently a book
placed on a table near the sofa was
seen by N. A. Padeef to open, and its pages
kept turning to and fro, as if an
invisible hand were busy at it. Another
book was snatched from the library
shelves, and flew in that same direction.
More astonished than frightened — for
everyone in the house had been trained in
and become quite familiar with such
manifestations — N. A. Fadeef arose from her
arm-chair to awaken her niece, hoping
thereby to put a stop to the phenomena;
but at the same moment a heavy arm-chair
moved at the other end of the room, and
rattling on the floor, glided toward the
sofa. The noise it made awoke Mme.
Blavatsky, who, upon opening her eyes,
inquired of the invisible presence what
was the matter. A few more whisperings, and
all relapsed into quietness and
silence, and there was nothing more of the
sort during the rest of the evening.
At the date at which we write, every
phenomenon independent of her will, except
such as the one described, and that Mme.
Blavatsky attributes to quite a
different cause than spiritual
manifestations, has for more than twenty years
entirely ceased. At what time this complete
change in her occult powers was
wrought we are unable to say, as she was
far away from our observation, and
spoke of it but rarely — never unless
distinctly asked in our correspondence to
answer the question. From her letters we
learnt that she was always traveling,
rarely settling for any length of time in
one place. And we believe her
statements with regard to her powers to
have been entirely true when she wrote
to tell us, “Now (in 1866) I shall never
be subjected to external
influences.†It is not H. P. B. who was
from that time forth victim to “
influences†which would have without
doubt triumphed over a less strong nature
than was hers; [120] but, on the contrary,
it is she who subjected these
influences — whatever they may be — to her
will.
“The last vestige of my psycho-physical
weakness is gone, to return no
moreâ€, writes Mme. Blavatsky in a letter
to a relation. “I am cleansed and
purified of that dreadful attraction to
myself of stray spooks and ethereal
affinities. I am free, free, thanks to
THOSE whom I now bless at every hour of
my lifeâ€. “I believe in this
statementâ€, said, in a conversation in May
1884 at Paris, her sister, Mme. Jelihowsky,
“ the more so as for nearly five
years we had a personal opportunity of
following the various and gradual phases
in the transformations of that force. At
Pskoff and Rougodevo it happened very
often that she could not control, nor even
stop, its manifestations. After that
she appeared to master it more fully every
day, until after her extraordinary
and protracted illness at Tiflis she seemed
to defy and subject it entirely to
her will. This was proved by her stopping
any such phenomena at her will, and by
previous arrangement for days and weeks at
a time. Then, when the term was over,
she could produce them at her command, and
leaving the choice of what should
happen to those present. In short, as
already said, it is the firm belief of all
that there, where a less strong nature
would have been surely wrecked in the
struggle, her indomitable will found
somehow or other the means of subjecting
the world of the invisibles — to the
denizens of which she has ever refused the
name of “spirits†and souls — to her
own control. Let it be clearly
understood, however, that H. P. B. has
never pretended to be able to control
real spirits, i.e. the spiritual monads,
but only Elementals; as also to be able
to keep at bay the shells of the dead.â€]
[121]
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CHAPTER 7
FROM APPRENTICESHIP TO DUTY
PROBABLY the years 1867 to 1870, if the
story of these could be properly told,
would be found by far the most interesting
of Mme. Blavatsky's eventful life,
but it is impossible for me to do more at
present than indicate that they were
associated with great progress in the
expansion of her occult knowledge, and
passed in the East. The two or three years
intervening between her residence at
Tiflis and the period I have named were
spent indeed in European travel, and
there would be no necessity for holding
back any information concerning these —
the latest of her relatively aimless
wanderings — of which I might have gained
possession, but no watchful relatives were
with her to record what passed, and
her own recollections give us none but bare
outlines of her adventures.
In 1870 she came back from the East by a
steamer via the then newly-opened Suez
Canal, and after spending a short time in
Piraeus took passage for Spezzia on
board a Greek vessel, which met with a
terrible catastrophe, and was blown up by
an explosion of gunpowder and fireworks
forming part of the cargo. Mme.
Blavatsky was one of a very small number of
passengers whose lives were saved.
The castaways were rescued with no more
than the clothes they wore when picked
out of the [122] water, and were
momentarily provided for by the Greek
Government, who forwarded them to various
destinations. Mme. Blavatsky went to
Alexandria and to Cairo, where, amid much
temporary inconvenience, she waited
till supplies of money reached her from
Russia. I have headed this chapter
“From Apprenticeship to Dutyâ€, because
that is the great transition marked
by the date of Mme. Blavatsky's return to
Europe in 1870. Till that period her
life had altogether been spent in the
passionate search for occult knowledge, on
which her inborn instincts impelled her
from her earliest youth. This had now
come upon her in ample measure. The
natural-born faculties of mediumship which
had surrounded her earlier years with a
coruscation of wonders had given place
now to attributes for which Western
students of psychic mysteries at that date
had no name. The time had not come for even
the partial revelations concerning
the great system of occult initiation as
practised in the East, which has been
embodied in books published within the last
few years. Mme. Blavatsky already
knew that she had a task before her — the
task of introducing some knowledge
concerning these mysteries to the world, —
but she was sorely puzzled to decide
how she should begin it. She had to do the
best she could in making the world
acquainted with the idea that the latent
potentialities in human nature — in
connection with which psychic phenomena of
various kinds were already attracting
the attention of large classes in both
hemispheres — were of a kind which,
properly directed, would lead to the
infinite spiritual exaltation of their
possessors, while wrongly directed they
were capable of leading downward towards
disastrous results of almost commensurate
extent. She alone, at the period I
refer to, appreciated the magnitude of her
mission, and if she [123] did
not adequately appreciate the difficulties
in her way, she had at all events no
companion to share her sense of the fact
that these difficulties were very
great.
Probably she would be among those most
willing to recognise, looking back now
upon the steps she took in the beginning, that
she went to work the wrong way,
but very few people who have had a long and
arduous battle in life to fight —
especially when that fight has been chiefly
waged against such moral antagonists
as bigotry and ignorance — would be in a
position at the close of their efforts
to regard their earliest measures with
satisfied complacency.
The only lever which, as the matter
presented itself in the beginning to Mme.
Blavatsky's mind, seemed available for her
to work with, was the widespread and
growing belief of large numbers of
civilized people in the phenomena and
somewhat too hastily formed theories of
spiritualism. She set to work in Egypt —
finding herself there for the moment — to
found a society which should have the
investigation of spiritualistic phenomena
for its purpose, and which she
designed to lead through paths of higher
knowledge in the end. Some, among the
many misrepresentations which have made her
life one long struggle with calumny
from this time onward, arose from this
innocently intended measure. Because she
set on foot her quasi-spiritualistic
society, she has been regarded as having
been committed at that date to an
acceptance of the theory of psychic phenomena
which spiritualists hold. It will have been
seen, however, from the quotations I
have given from her sister's narrative
that, even on her first return from the
East in 1858, she was emphatic in
repudiating this view.
One of the persons who sought Mme.
Blavatsky's acquaintance in connection with
this abortive society [124] was the
subsequently notorious Mme. Coulomb,
attached at that time to the personnel of a
small hotel at Cairo, who afterwards
finding her way with her husband, in a
state of painful destitution, to India,
fastened herself but too securely on Mme.
Blavatsky's hospitality at Bombay —
only to repay this in the end by rendering
herself the tool of an infamous
attack made upon the Theosophical Society
in the person of its Founder by a
missionary magazine at Madras. Of this I
shall have occasion to speak again
later on.The narrative of the period
beginning in 1871, on which I am now
entering, has been prepared, with a good
deal of assistance from Mme. Blavatsky
herself, from writings by relatives and
intimate friends of her later years. It
would be tedious to the reader if this were
divided into separate fragments of
testimony, and I shall therefore prefer —
except in some special cases later on
— to weld these narratives into one, and
the use of the plural pronoun “weâ€
will hereafter sufficiently identify
passages which have a composite authorship.
In 1871 Mme. Blavatsky wrote from Cairo to
tell her friends that she had just
returned from India, and had been wrecked
somewhere en passant (near Spezzia).
She had to wait in Egypt for some time
before she returned home, meanwhile she
determined to establish a
Société Spirite for the investigation of mediums and
phenomena according to Allen Kardec's
theories and philosophy, since there was
no other way to give people a chance to see
for themselves how mistaken they
were. She would first give free play to an
already established and accepted
teaching and then, when the public would
see that nothing was coming out of it,
she would offer her own explanations. To
accomplish this object, she said, she
was ready to go to any amount of trouble —
[125] even to allowing herself
to be regarded for a time as a helpless
medium. “They know no better, and it
does me no harm — for I will very soon show
them the difference between a
passive medium and an active doerâ€. she
explains.
A few weeks later a new letter was
received. In this one she showed herself full
of disgust for the enterprise, which had
proved a perfect failure. She had
written, it seems, to England and France
for a medium, but without success. En
désespoir de cause, she had
surrounded herself with amateur mediums — French
female spiritists, mostly beggarly tramps,
when not adventuresses in the rear of
M. de Lesseps' army of engineers and
workmen on the canal of Suez.
“They steal the Society's moneyâ€, she
wrote, “ they drink like sponges,
and I now caught them cheating most
shamefully our members, who come to
investigate the phenomena, by bogus
manifestations. I had very disagreeable
scenes with several persons who held me
alone responsible for all this. So I
ordered them out. . . . The
Société Spirite has not lasted a fortnight — it is a
heap of ruins, majestic, but as suggestive
as those of the Pharaoh's tombs. ...
To wind up the comedy with a drama, I got
nearly shot by a madman — a Greek, who
had been present at the only two public
séances we held, and got possessed I
suppose by some vile spook.†[This
literal translation of a letter written by
Mme Blavatsky to her aunt fourteen years
back shows that she never changed her
way of viewing communication with “spirits”
for physical phenomena, as she was
accused of doing when in America.]
She broke off all connection with the
“mediumsâ€, shut up her Société, and
went to live in Boulak near the Museum.
Then it seems, she came again in contact
with her old friend the Copt of mysterious
fame, of whom [126] mention has
been made in connection with her earliest
visit to Egypt, at the outset of her
travels. For several weeks he was her only
visitor. He had a strange reputation
in Egypt, and the masses regarded him as a
magician. One gentleman, who knew him
at this time, declared that he had outlined
and predicted for him for
twenty-five years to come nearly all his
(the narrator's) daily life, even to
the day of his death. The Egyptian high
officials pretending to laugh at him
behind his back, dreaded and visited him
secretly. Ismail Pasha, the Khedive,
had consulted him more than once, and later
on would not consent to follow his
advice to resign. These visits of an old
man, who was reputed hardly ever to
stir from his house (situated at about ten
miles from town), to a foreigner were
much commented upon. New slanders and
scandals were set on foot. The sceptics
who had, moved by idle curiosity, visited
the Société and witnessed the whole
failure, made capital of the thing.
Ridiculing the idea of phenomena, they had
as a natural result declared such claims to
be fraud and charlatanry all round.
Conveniently inverting the facts of the
case, they even went the length of
maintaining that instead of paying the
mediums and the expenses of the Society,
it was Mme. Blavatsky who had herself been
paid, and had attempted to palm off
juggler tricks as genuine phenomena. The
groundless inventions and rumors thus
set on foot by her enemies, mostly the
discharged “French-women mediumsâ€,
did not prevent Mme. Blavatsky from
pursuing her studies, and proving to every
honest investigator that her extraordinary
powers of clairvoyance and
clairaudience were facts, and independent
of mere physical manifestations, over
which she possessed an undeniable control.
Also that her power, by simply
looking at them, of setting objects in
motion and vibration [127] without
any direct contact with them, and sometimes
at a great distance, instead of
deserting her or even diminishing, had
increased with years. A Russian
gentleman, an acquaintance of Mme. B., who
happened to visit Egypt at that time,
sent his friends the most enthusiastic
letters about Mme. Blavatsky. Thus he
wrote to a brother-officer in the same
regiment a letter now in the possession
of her relatives, and from which we
translate: “She is a marvel, an
unfathomable mystery. That which she
produces is simply phenomenal; and without
believing any more in spirits than I ever
did, I am ready to believe in
witchcraft. If it is after all but
jugglery, then we have in Mme. Blavatsky a
woman who beats all the Boscos and Robert
Houdin's of the century by her
address. . . . Once I showed her a closed
medallion containing the portrait of
one person and the hair of another, an
object which I had had in my possession
but a few months, which was made at Moscow,
and of which very few know, and she
told me without touching it, ' Oh ! it is
your godmother's portrait and your
cousin's hair. Both are dead,' and she
proceeded forthwith to describe them, as
though she had both before her eyes. Now,
godmother, as you know, who left my
eldest daughter her fortune, is dead
fifteen years ago. How could she know ! â€
etc..
In an illustrated paper of the time there
is a story told of Mme. Blavatsky by
another gentleman. He met her at a table
d'hôte with some friends in a hotel of
Alexandria. Refusing to go with these to
the theatre after dinner, they remained
alone, sitting on a sofa and talking.
Before the sofa there stood a little
tea-tray, on which the waiter had placed
for Mr N----- a bottle of liqueur, some
wine, a wine-glass, and a tumbler. As he
was carrying the glass with its
contents to his mouth, without any visible
cause, it broke in his hand into many
pieces. She [128] laughed, appearing
overjoyed, and made the remark that
she hated liqueurs and wine and could
hardly tolerate those who used them too
freely. The story goes on ...
“ ' You do not mean to infer that it is
you who broke my wine-glass . . . ? It
is simply an accident. . . . The glass is
very thin ; it was perhaps cracked,
and I squeezed it too strongly . . .!' I
lied purposely, for I had just made the
mental remark that it seemed very strange
and incomprehensible, the glass being
very thick and strong, just as a verre
à liqueur would be.â€
But I wanted to draw her out.“
She looked at me very seriously, and her
eyes flashed. ' What will you bet,' she
asked, ' that I do not do it again ?'
â€' Well, we will try on the spot. If you
do, I will be the first to proclaim
you a true magician. If not, we will have a
good laugh at you or your spirits
to-morrow at the Consulate. . . .' And
saying so, I half-filled the tumbler with
wine and prepared to drink it. But no
sooner had the glass touched my lips than
I felt it shattered between my fingers, and
my hand bled, wounded by a broken
piece in my instinctive act at grasping the
tumbler together when I felt myself
losing hold of it.“
"Entre les lèvres et la
coupe, il y a quelquefois une grande distance,'' she
observed sententiously, and left the room,
laughing in my face most
outrageouslyâ€.
“ During the latter yearsâ€, Mme. de
Jelihowsky states, “many were the
changes that had taken place in our family:
our grandfather and our aunt's
husband, who had both occupied very high
official positions in Tiflis, had died,
and the whole family had left the Caucasus
to settle permanently in Odessa. H.
P. Blavatsky had not visited the country
for years, and there remained in Tiflis
but myself with my family and a number of
old servants, formerly serfs of the
family, who, once liberated, could not be
kept without wages in the house they
had been born in, and were gradually being
sent away. These people, some of whom
owing to old age were unable to work for
their living, came constantly to me
[129] for help. Unable to pension so many,
I did what I could for them ;
among other things I had obtained a
permanent home at the City Refuge House for
two old men, late servants of the family: a
cook called Maxim and his brother
Piotre — once upon a time a very decent
footman, but at the time of the event I
refer to an incorrigible drunkard, who had
lost his arm in consequence.â€
That summer we had gone to reside during
the hot months of the year at Manglis —
the headquarters of the regiment of Erivan
— some thirty miles from town, and
Mme. Blavatsky was in Egypt. I had just
received the news that my sister had
returned from India, and was going to
remain for some time at Cairo. We
corresponded very rarely, at long
intervals, and our letters were generally
short. But after a prolonged silence I
received from H. P. B. a very long and
interesting letter.“
A portion of it consisted of fly-sheets
torn out from a note-book, and these
were all covered with pencil-writing. The
strange events they recorded had been
all put down on the spot — some under the
shadow of the great Pyramid of Cheops,
and some of them inside Pharaoh's Chamber.
It appears that Mme. B. had gone
there several times, once with a large
company, some of whom were
spiritualists.[Some most wonderful phenomena
were described by some of her
companions as having taken place in broad
daylight in the desert when they were
sitting under a rock; whilst other notes in
Mme Blavatsky’s writing recorded the
strange sight she saw in the Cimmerian
darkness of the King’s Chamber, when she
has passed a night alone comfortable
settled inside a sarcophagus.]â€
'Let me know, Vera', she wrote, 'whether it
is true that the old Pietro is dead
? He must have died last night or at some
time yesterday' (the date on the stamp
of the envelope showed that it had left
Egypt ten days previous to the day on
which it was received). 'Just fancy what
happened ! A friend of mine, a young
English [130] lady, and a medium, stood
writing mechanically on bits of
paper, leaning upon an old Egyptian tomb.
The pencil had begun tracing perfect
gibberish — in characters that had never
existed here, as a philologist told us
— when suddenly, and as I was looking from
behind her back, they changed into
what I thought were Russian letters. My
attention having been called elsewhere,
I had just left her, when I heard people
saying that what she had written was
now evidently in some existing characters,
but that neither she nor anyone else
could read them. I came back just in time
to prevent her from destroying that
slip of paper as she had done with the
rest, and was rewarded. Possessing myself
of the rejected slip, fancy my astonishment
on finding it contained in Russian
an evident apostrophe to myself!â€
' “Barishnya (little or' young miss '),
dear baryshnya! †said the writer,
“help, oh help me, miserable sinner! ...
I suffer: drink, drink, give me a
drink! . . . I suffer, I suffer!†From
this term baryshnya — a title our old
servants will, I see, use with us two even
after our hair will have grown white
with age — I understood immediately that
the appeal came from one of our old
servants, and took therefore the matter in
hand by arming myself with a pencil
to record what I could myself see. I found
the name Piotre Koutcherof echoed in
my mind quite distinctly, and I saw before
me an indistinguishable mass of grey
smoke — a formless pillar — and thought I
heard it repeat the same words.
Furthermore, I saw that he had died in Dr
Gorolevitch's hospital attached to the
City Refuge, the Tiflis workhouse where you
had placed them both. Moreover, as I
made out, it is you who placed him there in
company with his brother, our old
Maxim, who had died a few days before him.
You had never written about poor
Maxim's death. Do tell me whether it is so
or not. . . .'
Further on followed her description of the
whole vision as she had it, later on,
in the evening when alone, and the
authentic words pronounced by ' Piotre's
spook' as she called it. The ' spirit' (?)
was bitterly complaining of thirst
and was becoming quite desperate. It was
punishment, it said — and the spook
seemed to know it [131] well, — for his
drunkenness during the lifetime of
that personality ! . . . 'An agony of
thirst that nothing could quench — an ever
living fire,' as she explained it.â€
Mme. Blavatsky's letter ended with a
postscript, in which she notified her
sister that her doubts had been all
settled. She saw the astral spooks of both
the brothers — one harmless and passive,
the other active and dangerous. [How
dangerous is the latter kind was proved on
the spot. Miss O - , the medium, a
young lady of hardly twenty, governess in a
rich family of bankers, an extremely
modest and gentle girl, had hardly written
the Russian words addressed to Mme
Blavatsky, when she was seized with a
trembling, and asked to drink. When water
was brought she threw it away, and went on
asking for a drink. Wine was offered
her - she greedily drank it, and began
drinking one glass after another until,
to the horror of all, she fell into
convulsions, and cried for “wine-a drink!”
till she fainted away, and was carried home
in a carriage. She had an illness
after this that lasted several weeks. -
[H.P.B.]Upon the receipt of this letter,
her sister was struck with surprise.
Ignorant herself of the death of the
parties mentioned, she telegraphed
immediately to town, and the answer received
from Dr Gorolevitch corroborated the news
announced by Mme. Blavatsky in every
particular. Piotre had died on the very
same day and date as given in H. P.
Blavatsky's letter, and his brother two
days earlier.
Disgusted with the failure of her spiritist
society and the gossip it provoked,
Mme. Blavatsky soon went home via
Palestine, and lingered for some months
longer, making a voyage to Palmyra and
other ruins, whither she went with
Russian friends. Accounts of some of the
incidents of her journey found their
way into the French and even American
papers. At the end of 1872 she returned in
her usual way without warning, and
surprised her family at Odessa.[132]
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CHAPTER 8
RESIDENCE IN AMERICA
[132] IN the beginning of 1873 Mme.
Blavatsky left Russia and went in the
first instance to Paris. By this time the
psychic relationship between herself
and her occult teachers in the East was
already established on that intimate
footing which has rendered her whole
subsequent life subject to its practical
direction. It is unnecessary to inquire why
she adopted this or that course; we
shall rarely discover commonplace motives
for her action, and frequently she
herself would be no better able to say
“why” she might be at any given moment
arranging to go here or there than the
merest stranger present. The immediate
motive of her proceedings would be the
direction she would receive through
occult channels of perception, and for
herself, rebellious and uncontrollable
though she had been in earlier life, “an
order” from “her master” was now enough
to send her forward on the most uninviting
errand, in patient confidence that
good results would ensue, and that whatever
might be thus ordered, would
assuredly prove for the best.
The position is so unlike any which the
experience of ordinary mundane life
supplies that I may usefully endeavor to
explain the relationship which exists
in connection with, and arising out of,
occult initiation in the East between a
pupil, or chela, of the esoteric or [133]
occult doctrine and his teacher,
master, or guru. I have known many chelas
within the last few years, and I can
speak on the subject from information that
is not exclusively derived even from
that source.
The primary motive which governs people who
become chelas is the desire to
achieve moral and spiritual exaltation that
may lead directly to a higher state
of being than can be hoped for by the unassisted
operation of the normal law of
nature. Referring back to the esoteric view
of the human soul's progress, it
will be seen that people may often be
impelled, as Mme. Blavatsky was, for
instance, from childhood, by an inborn
craving for occult instruction and
psychic development. Such people seek
initiation under the guidance, as it were,
of a commanding instinct, which is unlike
the intellectually formed purpose to
accomplish a spiritual achievement that I
have assigned above to chelas as their
primary motive. But in truth the motive
would be regarded by occultists as the
same at different stages of development.
For the normal law of Nature is that a
soul having accomplished a certain amount
of progress — along the path of
spiritual evolution — in one physical life
(one incarnation), will be reborn
without losing the attributes thus
acquired. All these constitute what are
loosely spoken of as inborn tendencies,
natural tastes, inclinations, and so
forth. And thus, whether a chela is then,
for the first time, seeking initiation
or watched over by a guru from his last
birth, the primary motive of his effort
is the same.
And this being his own spiritual
advancement, it may be, that if circumstances
do not require him to play an active part
in any work in the world, his duty
will, to a large extent, be concentrated on
his own interior life. Such a man's
chief obligation towards the public at
large, therefore, will be to conceal the
fact that he is a chela, [134] for he has
not yet, by the hypothesis,
attained the right to choose who shall and
who shall not be introduced to the
“mysteries”. He merely has to keep the
secrets entrusted to him as such. On the
other hand, the exigencies of his service
may require him to perform tasks in
the world which involve the partial
explanation of his relationship with his
masters, and then a very much more
embarrassing career lies before him. For such
a chela — however perfect his occult
communications may be, through the channel
of his own psychic faculties, between
himself and his masters — is never allowed
to regard himself for an instant as a blind
automaton in their hands. He is, on
the contrary, a responsible agent who is
left to perform his task by the light
of his own sagacity, and he will never
receive “orders” which seriously conflict
with that principle. These will be only of
a general character, or, where they
refer to details, will be of a kind that do
not, in occult phrase, interfere
with Karma; that is to say, that do not
supersede the agent's moral
responsibility.
Finally, it should be understood in regard
to “orders” among initiates in
occultism, that the order of an occult guru
to his chela differs in a very
important respect from the order of an
officer to his soldier. It is a direction
that in the nature of things would never be
enforced, for the disregard of which
there could be no positive or prescribed
penalty, and which is only imposed upon
the chela by the consideration that if he
gets an order and does not obey it, he
is unlikely to get any more. It is to be
regarded as an order because of the
ardor of obedience on the side of the
chela, whose aspirations, by the
hypothesis, are wholly centered on the
masters. The service thus rendered is
especially of the kind which has been
described as perfect freedom. [135]
All this must be borne in mind by any
reader who would understand Mme. Blavatsky
and the foundation of the Theosophical
Society, and must be rigorously applied
to the narrative of her later life. A
constant perplexity arises, for people who
are slightly acquainted with the
circumstances of her career, from the
indiscretions in connection with the
management of the Theosophical Society
which she has frequently fallen into. How
can it be that the Mahatmas — her
occult teachers and masters, whose insight
is represented as being so great,
whose interest in the theosophical movement
is said to be so keen, whose wisdom
is vaunted so enthusiastically by their
adherents — permit their agent Mme.
Blavatsky, with whom it is alleged they are
in constant communication, to make
mistakes which most people in her place
would have avoided, to trust persons
almost obviously unworthy of her
confidence, to associate herself with
proceedings that tend to lower the dignity
of her enterprise, to lose temper and
time with assailants who might be calmly
ignored, and to spend her psychic
energy in the wrong places, with the wrong
people, and at the wrong moments. The
solution of the puzzle is to be found
entirely in the higher spiritual aspects
of the undertaking. The Theosophical
Society is by a great way not the only
instrument through which the Mahatmas are
working in the world to foster the
growth of spirituality among mankind, but
it is the one enterprise that has been
confided, in a large measure, to Mme.
Blavatsky. If she were to fail with it,
the Mahatma energy concerned would be spent
not in trying to bolster up her
failure, but in some quite different direction.
If she succeeds with it, the
principles of moral responsibility are best
vindicated by leaving her to
struggle through with her work in her own
way. A general on a campaign sending
[136] an officer to perform a specific duty
is mainly concerned with the
result to be gained. If he thinks he can
promote this by interfering with fresh
orders, he does so. But by the hypothesis,
a Mahatma interfering with his
officer is throwing into confusion the
operation of the laws of Nature which
have to do with the causes — efficient on a
plane above this of physical
incarnation — that are generated by what we
call moral responsibility. Of course
it is open to people who know nothing of
Eastern occultism, nor of superior
planes in Nature and so forth, to put all
this aside and judge Mme. Blavatsky's
action by commonplace prosaic standards;
but it is not reasonable for the
considerable number of people who in
various ways are quite ready to profess
belief in the Mahatmas, and in the reality
of that occult world in which Mme.
Blavatsky is regarded by most theosophists
as having been initiated, to say, in
spite of these beliefs, that the action of
the Mahatmas in leaving Mme.
Blavatsky to make mistakes and trust the
wrong people and so forth is
unintelligible. It is not unintelligible in
principle, even though, as I have
indicated a page or two back, Mme.
Blavatsky will sometimes receive orders the
immediate motive of which she does not
understand, but obeys none the less. This
condition of things does not violate the
rule about not converting a responsible
chela into a blind automaton. Such
interferences would never be found to take
place under conditions which would
discharge the agent of moral responsibility
for the manner in which he might resume the
guidance of his enterprise from the
point to which obedience to the order
received might have carried on or diverted
him.
No special interest attaches to Mme.
Blavatsky's brief residence in Paris in
1873, where she stayed with a cousin of
hers, Nicolas Hahn, Rue de I'Université,
for [137] two months. She was directed to
visit the United States, and make
that place for a time the scene of her
operations.
She arrived at New York on 7th July 1873,
and resided in that city — with the
exception of a few weeks and months when
she had to visit other cities and
places — for over six years, after which
time she got her naturalization papers.
Although, as will have been seen from Mme.
de Jelihowsky's testimony, she was
emphatic, even in 1858, in claiming for
most of the phenomena that took place in
her presence a very different origin from
that usually assigned to such
phenomena by spiritualists, the experience
of spiritualism and mediumship that
she acquired in America greatly enlarged
her views on this subject. In 1875 she
wrote home: —
“The more I see of mediums — for the United
States are a true nursery, the most
prolific hot-bed for mediums and sensitives
of all kinds, genuine and artificial
— the more I see the danger humanity is
surrounded with. Poets speak of the thin
partition between this world and the other.
They are blind: there is no
partition at all except the difference of
states in which the living and the
dead exist, and the grossness of the
physical senses of the majority of mankind.
Yet, these senses are our salvation. They
were given to us by a wise and
sagacious mother and nurse — Nature; for,
otherwise, individuality and even
personality would have become impossible:
the dead would be ever merging into
the living, and the latter assimilating the
former. Were there around us but one
variety of 'spirits' — as well call the
dregs of wine, spirits — the reliquae of
those mortals who are dead and gone, one
could reconcile oneself with it. We
cannot avoid, in some way or other,
assimilating our dead, and little by little,
and unconsciously to ourselves, we become
they — even physically, especially in
the unwise West, where cremation is
unknown. We breathe and devour the dead —
men and animals — with every [138] breath
we draw in, as every human breath
that goes out makes up the bodies and feeds
the formless creatures in the air
that will be men some day. So much for the
physical process; for the mental and
the intellectual, and also the spiritual,
it is just the same; we interchange
gradually our brain-molecules, our
intellectual and even spiritual auras, hence
— our thoughts, desires, and aspirations,
with those who preceded us. This
process is common to humanity in general.
It is a natural one, and follows the
economy and laws of nature, insomuch that
one's son may become gradually his own
grandfather, and his aunt to boot, imbibing
their combined atoms, and thus
partially accounting for the possible
resemblance, or atavism. But there is
another law, an exceptional one, and which
manifests itself among mankind
sporadically and periodically: the law of
forced post-mortem assimilation,
during the prevalence of which epidemic the
dead invade the domain of the living
from their respective spheres — though,
fortunately, only within the limits of
the regions they lived in, and in which
they are buried. In such cases, the
duration and intensity of the epidemic
depends upon the welcome they receive,
upon whether they find the doors opening
widely to receive them or not, and
whether the necromantic plague is increased
by magnetic attraction, the desire
of the mediums, sensitives, and the curious
themselves; or whether, again, the
danger being signaled, the epidemic is
wisely repressed.
“Such a periodical visitation is now
occurring in America. It began with
innocent children — the little Misses Fox —
playing unconsciously with this
terrible weapon. And, welcomed and
passionately invited to ' come in,' the whole
of the dead community seemed to have rushed
in, and got a more or less strong
hold of the living. I went on purpose to a
family of strong mediums — the Eddys
— and watched for over a fortnight, making
experiments, which, of course, I kept
to myself. . . . You remember, Vera, how I
made experiments for you at
Rougodevo, how often I saw the ghosts of
those who had been living in the house,
and described them to you, for you could
never see them. . . . Well, it was the
[139] same daily and nightly in Vermont. I
saw and watched these soulless
creatures, the shadows of their terrestrial
bodies, from which in most cases
soul and spirit had fled long ago, but
which throve and preserved their
semi-material shadows at the expense of the
hundreds of visitors that came and
went, as well as of the mediums. And I
remarked, under the advice and guidance
of my Master, that (I) those apparitions
which were genuine were produced by the
' ghosts' of those who had lived and died
within a certain area of those
mountains; (2) those who had died far away
were less entire, a mixture of the
real shadow and of that which lingered in
the personal aura of the visitor for
whom it purported to come; and (3) the
purely fictitious ones, or as I call
them, the reflections of the genuine ghosts
or shadows of the deceased
personality. To explain myself more
clearly, it was not the spooks that
assimilated the medium, but the medium, W.
Eddy, who assimilated unconsciously
to himself the pictures of the dead
relatives and friends from the aura of the
sitters. . . .
“It was ghastly to watch the process! It
made me often sick and giddy; but I had
to look at it, and the most I could do was
to hold the disgusting creatures at
arm's length. But it was a sight to see the
welcome given to these umbroe by the
spiritualists! They wept and rejoiced
around the medium, clothed in these empty
materialized shadows; rejoiced and wept
again, sometimes broken down with an
emotion, a sincere joy and happiness that
made my heart bleed for them. 'If they
could but see what I see', I often wished.
If they only knew that these
simulacra of men and women are made up
wholly of the terrestrial passions,
vices, and worldly thoughts, of the
residuum of the personality that was; for
these are only such dregs that could not
follow the liberated soul and spirit,
and are left for a second death in the
terrestrial atmosphere, that can be seen
by the average medium and the public. At
times I used to see one of such
phantoms, quitting the medium's astral
body, pouncing upon one of the sitters,
expanding so as to envelop him or her
entirely, and then slowly disappearing
within the living body as though sucked in
by its every pore.[140]
Under the influence of such ideas and
thoughts, Mme. Blavatsky came out finally
quite openly with her protest against being
called a medium. She stoutly
rejected the application of
"Spiritist" that was being forced upon her by her
foreign correspondents. Thus in 1877 she
says in one of her letters:
"What kind of Spiritist can you see
in, or make of me, pray? I I have worked to
join the Theosohical Society, in alliance
offensive and defensive with the Arya
Samaj of India (of which we are now forming
a section within the parent
Theosophical Society), it is because in
India all the Brahmins, whether orthodox
or otherwise, are terribly against the
bhoots, [The simulacra or ghost of a
deceased person, - an
"Elementary", or spook. ] the mediums, or any necromantic
evocations or dealings with the dead in any
way or shape. That we have
established our Society in order to combat,
under the banner of Truth and
Science, every kind of superstitious and
preconceived hobbies. That we mean to
fight the prejudices of the Sceptics, as
well as the abuse of power of the false
prophets, ancient or modern, to put down
the high priests, the Calchases, with
their false Jupiterean thunders, and to
show certain fallacies of the
Spiritists. If we are anything, we are
Spiritualists, only not on the modern
American fashion, but on that of ancient
Alexandria, with its Theodadiktoi,
Hypatias, and Porphyries...."
[For the new edition of this book I must
here interpolate a note warning the
reader against too submissive an acceptance
of the views set forth in the letter
quoted above. I do not think Mme. Blavatsky
would have endorsed them at a later
stage of her occult education. However
frequently it may happen that
communication from the astral world may be
confused and corrupted by the
unconscious influence of imperfectly
developed mediums, it does not by any means
follow that in all cases the “spirits” of
the seance room are “empty
materialized shadows” or “simulacra of men
and women made up of terrestrial
passions and vices, etc..“It was not till
long after the date of the letter
quoted that Mme. Blavatsky shared with
myself in India the fuller teaching
concerning life on the astral and higher
planes of consciousness which put an
intelligible face on the variegated and
often bewildering experiences of
spiritualism. That great movement was as
definitely designed by higher wisdom
for the illumination of civilized mankind,
as the far greater movement that has
since put us in touch with the mysteries of
the higher occultism — that it was
simply designed to break down the
materialistic drift of thinking that was
prevalent in the middle of the last
century. It; was designed simply to show us
that there was another life for human
beings after the death of the physical!
body. Those who had passed on, and were
living on the astral plane, were
furnished with a means of making their
continued existence known to friends
still in incarnation. Of course these
opportunities were available for great
numbers of astral entities surviving from
the ignoble varieties of mankind, and
many of these may have flocked in during
Mme. Blavatsky's investigations of
current spiritualism, confirming
impressions she had acquired concerning the
characteristics of the astral plane life;
[141] but multitudes of
spiritualists knew perfectly well that they
often had touch with departed
friends still maintaining the personalities
of the earth life, and in this way
it unfortunately happened that Mme.
Blavatsky's sweeping condemnation of all
spiritualism as delusive and unwholesome
alienated large numbers of people who
ought to have been the most ardent
sympathizers with the Theosophical movement.
All later students of occultism know now
that the astral plane plays a much more
important part in the future life of most
people “passing on” than the
misleading old “shell” theory led us to
suppose in the beginning.]
The Theosophical Society was founded in
October 1875 at New York, with Colonel
Olcott as life president — Mme. Blavatsky
preferring to invest herself with the
relatively insignificant title of
corresponding secretary.
Colonel Olcott's acquaintance with Mme.
Blavatsky was formed at a farmhouse in
Vermont — the house of two brothers,
spiritualist mediums named Eddy, famous in
the annals of American spiritualism — in
October 1874. Referring to her in his
book, called People from the other World ,
published in 1875, he says: —
“This lady has led a very eventful life. .
. .
The adventures she has encountered, the
strange people she has seen, the perils
by sea and land she has passed through
would make one of the most romantic
stories ever told by a biographer. In the
whole course of my experience I never
met so interesting and, if I may say it
without offence, eccentric a character.”
In the year that elapsed between his first
introduction to Mme. Blavatsky and
the inauguration of their joint enterprise,
his intercourse with her was
intimate and his personal experiences
remarkable. These need not be reviewed
here in detail, except so far as some of
them [142] will throw light upon
the circumstances of Mme. Blavatsky's life
at this period, and for the moment it
is enough to say that they induced him to
throw up his professional career as a
“lawyer” (the distinctions between the
different branches of the profession in
England, it will be remembered, do not hold
good in America) and devote his life
to the pursuit of occult development as a
“chela” of the same master to whom
Mme. Blavatsky's allegiance is owing, and to
the service of the theosophical
movement.
As Colonel Olcott has shared some of the
obloquy directed against Mme. Blavatsky
in recent years, it may be worth while to
add a paragraph concerning him written
by Mr A. O. Hume, C.B., late Secretary to
the Government of India in the
Agricultural Department. This passage
occurs in a letter by Mr Hume addressed to
an English paper, and is quoted in the
preface to The Occult World: —
As regards Colonel Olcott's title, the
printed papers which I send by this same
mail will prove to you that this gentleman
is an officer of the American army,
who rendered good service during the war
(as will be seen from the letter of the
Judge Advocate-General, the Secretary of
the Navy, and the Assistant Secretaries
of War and of the Treasury), and who was
sufficiently well known and esteemed in
his own country to induce the President of
the United States to furnish him with
an autograph letter of introduction and
recommendation to all Ministers and
Consuls of the United States on the
occasion of his leaving America for the East
at the close of 1878.”
In introducing some notes put together for
the service of the present memoir,
Colonel Olcott writes :—
“A strange concatenation of events brought
us together, and united our lives for
this work, under the superior [143]
direction of a group of Masters,
especially of One, whose wise teaching,
noble example, benevolent patience, and
paternal solicitude have made us regard him
with the reverence and love that a
true Father inspires in his children. I am
indebted to H. P. Blavatsky for
making me know of the existence of these
Masters and their Esoteric Philosophy;
and later, for acting as my mediator before
I had come into direct personal
intercourse with them.”
The earliest records of the Theosophical
Society reveal the motives for its
formation which the fuller information
since made public concerning the
character of Mme. Blavatsky's mission show
to have been present in her mind from
the first, though the means by which she
should work them out lay before her
then in a very nebulous and hazy condition.
She seems to have been embarrassed
by the difficulty of making her position
intelligible to people who knew nothing
of the existence even, still less of the
nature and powers, of those proficients
in occult science since so widely talked
about — the Adepts and Mahatmas. Her
policy seems to have been to imitate, by
means of the occult powers which she
either possessed herself or could borrow
from her masters from time to time, the
phenomena of spiritualism which then seemed
to absorb the attention of all
persons in America having any natural
leanings towards mysticism, trusting to
the sagacity of observers to show them that
the circumstances with which she
would surround such phenomena were quite
unlike those to which they were used.
In this way she seems to have aimed at
cutting the ground from under the feet of
people inclined to theorize too hastily on
the basis of spiritualistic
observation — at persuading them that the
evidence on which they relied for the
maintenance of their opinions did not
afford adequate justification for these,
and at leading them into the path [144] of
a more legitimate philosophical
or theosophical research. The policy was
undeniably a bad one, and was carried
out with little discretion and with a waste
of psychic energy which cannot but
be deplored in the retrospect by occult
students who realize the consequences of
such waste. However, I merely wish to be
sufficiently critical of Mme.
Blavatsky's proceedings, as this narrative
advances, to elucidate the operations
in which we find her engaged, and I refrain
from the consideration here of the
policies that might have been more
triumphant.
A vast array of unattainable purposes was
set before themselves by the little
group of friends who organized the new
society in 1875. These were enumerated in
one of the earlier codes of rules as
follows:—
(a) To keep alive in man his spiritual
intuitions.
(b) To oppose and counteract — after due
investigation and proof of its
irrational nature — bigotry in every form,
whether as an intolerant religious
sectarianism or belief in miracles or
anything supernatural.
(c) To promote a feeling of brotherhood
among nations, and assist in the
international exchange of useful arts and
products, by advice, information, and
co-operation with all worthy individuals
and associations; provided, however,
that no benefit or percentage shall be
taken by the Society for its corporate
services.
(d) To seek to obtain knowledge of all the
laws of Nature, and aid in diffusing
it; and especially to encourage the study
of those laws least understood by
modern people, and so termed the occult
sciences. Popular superstition and
folk-lore, however fantastical when sifted,
may lead to the discovery of
long-lost but important secrets of Nature.
The Society, therefore, aims to
pursue this line of inquiry in the hope to
widen the field of scientific and
philosophical observation.
(e) To gather for the Society's library and
put into written forms correct
information upon the various ancient
philosophic traditions and legends, and, as
the [145] council shall decide it
permissible, disseminate the same in such
practicable ways as the translation and
publication of original works of value,
and extracts from and commentaries upon the
same, or the oral instruction of
persons learned in their respective
departments.
(f) To promote in every practicable way in
countries where needed the spread of
non-sectarian education.
(g) Finally and chiefly, to encourage and
assist individual fellows in
self-improvement, intellectual, moral, and
spiritual. But no fellow shall put to
his selfish use any knowledge communicated
to him by any member of the First
Section: violation of this rule being
punished by expulsion. And before any such
knowledge can be imparted, the person shall
bind himself by a solemn oath not to
use it to selfish purposes, nor to reveal
it except with the permission of the
teacher.
One can readily discern in this formidable
array of objects the inarticulate
purpose which Mme. Blavatsky had really in
view — the communication to the world
at large of some ideas concerning the
Esoteric Doctrine or great “Wisdom
Religion” of the East, shining obscurely
through the too ambitious programme of
her new disciples, which might be summed up
as contemplating the reformation and
guidance of all nations generally — a
programme which could hardly have been
floated in sober earnest elsewhere than in
America, where the mere magnitude of
undertakings seems neither to daunt the
courage of their promoters nor touch
their sense of the ludicrous.
This volume is indebted to Mr W. Q. Judge,
one of the friends Mme. Blavatsky
made in the early part of her residence in
America, for an account of the
miscellaneous marvels of which he was a
witness during the period with which we
are now dealing. He writes: —
“My first acquaintance with H. P. Blavatsky
began in the winter of the year
1874. She was then living in [146]
apartments in Irving Place, New York
City, United States. She had several rooms
en suite. The front rooms looked out
on Irving Place, and the back upon the
garden. My first visit was made in the
evening, and I saw her there among a large
number of persons who were always
attracted to her presence. Several
languages were to be heard among them, and
Mme. Blavatsky, while conversing volubly in
Russian, apparently quite absorbed,
would suddenly turn round and interject an
observation in English into a
discussion between other persons upon a
different topic to the one she was
engaged with. This never disturbed her, for
she at once returned to her Russian
talk, taking it up just where it had been
dropped.
“Very much was said on the first evening
that arrested my attention and
enchained my imagination. I found my secret
thoughts read, my private affairs
known to her. Unasked, and certainly
without any possibility of her having
inquired about me, she referred to several
private and peculiar circumstances in
a way that showed at once that she had a
perfect knowledge of my family, my
history, my surroundings, and my
idiosyncrasies. On that first evening I brought
with me a friend, a perfect stranger to
her. He was a native of the Sandwich
Islands, who was studying law in New York,
and who had formed all his plans for
a lifelong stay in that city. He was a
young man, and had then no intention of
marrying. But she carelessly told him,
before we left for home, that before six
months he would cross the continent of
America, then make a long voyage, and,
stranger yet to him, that before all of
this he would marry. Of course, the idea
was pooh-poohed by him. Still fate was too
much for him. In a few months he was
invited to fill an official position in his
native land, and before leaving for
that country he married a lady who was not
in America at the time the prophecy
was uttered.
“The next day I thought I would try an
experiment with Mme. Blavatsky. I took an
ancient scarabaeus that she had never seen,
had it wrapped up and sent to her
through the mails by a clerk in the
employment of a [147] friend. My hand
did not touch the package, nor did I know
where it was posted. But when I called
on her at the end of the week the second
time, she greeted me with thanks for
the scarabaeus. I pretended ignorance. But
she said it was useless to pretend,
and then informed me how I had sent it, and
where the clerk had posted it.
During the time that elapsed between my
seeing her and the sending of the
package no one had heard from me a word
about the matter.
“Very soon after I met her, she moved to
34th Street, and while there I visited
her very often. In those rooms I used to
hear the raps in furniture, in glasses,
mirrors, windows, and walls, which are
usually the accompaniment of dark
'spiritist' séances. But with her
they occurred in the light, and never except
when ordered by her. Nor could they be
induced to continue once that she ordered
them to stop. They exhibited intelligence
also, and would at her request change
from weak to strong, or from many to few at
a time.
“She remained in 34th Street only a few
months, and then removed to 47th Street,
where she stayed until her departure to
India in December 1878. I was a constant
visitor, and know, as all others do who
were as intimate with her as I was, that
the suspicions which had been breathed
about her, and the open charges that have
from time to time been made, are the
foulest injustice or the basest
ingratitude. At times she has been incensed
by these things, and declared that
one more such incident would forever close
the door against all phenomena. But
over and over again she has relented and
forgiven her enemies.
“After she had comfortably settled herself
in 47th Street, where, as usual, she
was from morning till night surrounded by
all sorts of visitors, mysterious
events, extraordinary sights and sounds, continued
to occur. I have sat there
many an evening, and seen in broad gas
light, large luminous balls creeping over
the furniture, or playfully jumping from
point to point, while the most
beautiful liquid bell sounds now and again
burst out from the air of the room.
These sounds often imitated either the
piano or a gamut of sounds whistled by
either myself [148] or some other person.
While all this was going on, H.
P. Blavatsky sat unconcernedly reading or
writing at Isis Unveiled.
“It should be remarked here that Madame.
Blavatsky never exhibited either
hysteria or the slightest appearance of
trance. She was always in the full
possession of all her faculties — and
apparently of more than those of average
people — whenever she was producing any
phenomena.
“In the month of November or the beginning
of December of the same winter, a
photograph was received from a
correspondent at Boston by Colonel Olcott, which
was the occasion of two very striking
phenomena. It purported to be the portrait
of a person said to have written the books
called Art Magic and Ghost Land. The
sender required Colonel Olcott to return it
almost immediately; which he did on
the following evening, and I myself, being
there as a caller, posted it in the
nearest post-box. Two or three days later a
demand was made upon Mme. Blavatsky
for a duplicate of the picture, in the
belief that it would be beyond even her
powers, since she had no model to copy
from. But she actually did it; the
process consisting merely in her cutting a
piece of cardboard to the requisite
size, laying it under a blotting-paper,
placing her hand upon it, and in a
moment producing the copy demanded. Colonel
Olcott took possession of this
picture, and laid it away in a book that he
was then reading, and which he took
to bed with him. The next morning the
portrait had entirely faded out, and only
the name, written in pencil, was left. A
week or two later, seeing this blank
card lying in Colonel Olcott's room, I took
it to Mme. Blavatsky, and requested
her to cause the portrait to reappear.
Complying, she again laid the card under
another sheet of paper, placed her hand
upon it, and presently the face of the
man had come back as before; this time
indelibly imprinted.
“In the front room where she wrote, there
was a bookcase that stood for some
time directly opposite her writing-desk.
Upon its top stood a stuffed owl, whose
glassy, never - closing eye frequently
seemed to follow your [149]
movements. Indeed, I could relate things a
propos of that same defunct bird, but
— in the words of Jacolliot — ' We have
seen things such as one does not relate
for fear of making his readers doubt his
sanity. . . . Still we have seen them.'
Well, over the top of the doors of the
bookcase was a blank space, about three
inches wide, and running the breadth of the
case. One evening we were sitting
talking of magic as usual, and of 'the
Brothers', when Madame said, 'Look at the
bookcase!'
“We looked up at once, and as we did so, we
could see appear, upon the blank
space I have described, several letters
apparently in gold, that came out upon
the surface of the wood. They covered
nearly all of the space. Examination
showed that they were in gold, and in a
character that I had often seen upon
some of her papers.
This precipitation of messages or sentences
occurred very frequently, and I will
relate one which took place under my own
hand and eyes, in such a way as to be
unimpeachable for me.
“I was one day, about four o'clock, reading
a book by P. B. Randolph, that had
just been brought in by a friend of Colonel
Olcott. I was sitting some six feet
distant from H. P. Blavatsky, who was busy
writing. I had carefully read the
title-page of the book, but had forgotten
the exact title. But I knew that there
was not one word of writing upon it. As I
began to read the first paragraph I
heard a bell sound in the air, and looking
saw that Mme. Blavatsky was intently
regarding me.
“ 'What book do you read ? ' said she.
“Turning back to the title-page, I was
about to read aloud the name, when my eye
was arrested by a message written in ink
across the top of the page which, a few
minutes before, I had looked at and found
clear. It was a message in about seven
lines, and the fluid had not yet quite dried
on the page — its contents were a
warning about the book. I am positive that
when I took the volume in my hand,
not one word was written in it.
“On one occasion the address of a business
firm in Philadelphia was needed for
the purpose of sending a [150] letter
through the mail, and no one present
could remember the street or number, nor
could any directory of Philadelphia be
found in the neighborhood. The business
being very urgent, it was proposed that
one of us should go down nearly four miles to
the General Post Office, so as to
see a Philadelphia directory. But H. P. B.
said: ' Wait a moment, and perhaps we
can get the address some other way.' She
then waved her hand, and instantly we
heard a signal bell in the air over our
heads. We expected no less than that a
heavy directory would rush at our heads
from the empty space, but no such thing
took place. She sat down, took up a flat
tin paper-cutter japanned black on both
sides and without having any painting on
it. Holding this in her left hand, she
gently stroked it with her right, all the
while looking at us with an intense
expression. After she had rubbed thus for a
few moments, faint outlines of
letters began to show themselves upon the
black, shining surface, and presently
the complete advertisement of the firm
whose address we desired was plainly
imprinted upon the paper-cutter in gilt
letters, just as they had had it done on
slips of blotting paper such as are widely
distributed as advertising media in
America — a fact I afterwards found out. On
a close examination, we saw that the
street and number, which were the doubtful
points in our memories, were
precipitated with great brilliancy, the
other words and figures being rather
dimmer. Mme. Blavatsky said that this was
because the mind of the operator was
directed almost entirely to the street and
number, so that their reproduction
was brought about with much greater
distinctness than the rest of the
advertisement, which was, so to speak,
dragged in in a rather accidental way.
“About any object that might be transported
mysteriously around her room, or
that came into it through the air by
supermundane means, there always lingered
for a greater or less space of time, a very
peculiar though pleasant odour. It
was not always the same. At one time it was
sandal-wood mixed with what I
thought was otto of roses; at another time
some unknown Eastern perfume, and
again it came like the incense burnt in
temples. [151]
“One day she asked me if I would care to
smell again the perfume. Upon my
replying affirmatively, she took my
handkerchief in her hand, held it for a few
moments, and when she gave it back to me it
was heavy with the well-known odour.
Then, in order to show me that her hand was
not covered with something that
would come off upon the handkerchief, she
permitted me to examine both hands.
They were without perfume. But after I had
convinced myself that there was no
perfumery or odoriferous objects concealed
in her hands, I found from one hand
beginning to exhale one peculiar strong
perfume, while from the other there
rolled out strong waves of the incense.
“On the table at which Isis Unveiled was
written stood a little Chinese cabinet
with many small drawers. A few of the
drawers contained some trifles, but there
were several that were always kept empty.
The cabinet was an ordinary one of its
class, and repeated examination showed that
there were no devices or mechanical
arrangements in it, or connected with it;
but many a time has one of those empty
drawers become the vanishing point of
various articles, and as often, on the
other hand, was the birthplace of some
object which had not before been seen in
the rooms. I have often seen her put small
coins or a ring or amulet, and have
put things in there myself, closed the
drawer, almost instantly reopening it,
and nothing was visible. It had disappeared
from sight Clever conjurers have
been known to produce such illusions, but
they always require some confederacy,
or else they delude you into believing that
they had put the object in, when in
reality they did not. With H. P. B. there
was no preparation. I repeatedly
examined the cabinet, and positively say
that there was no means by which things
could be dropped out of sight or out of the
drawer ; it stood on four small
legs, elevated about two inches above the
desk, which was quite clear and
unbroken underneath. Several times I have
seen her put a ring into one of the
drawers and then leave the room. I then
looked in the drawer, saw the ring in
it, and closed it again. She then returned,
and without coming near the cabinet
showed me the same ring on her finger. I
then [152] looked again in the
drawer before she again came near it, and
the ring was gone.
“One day Mrs Elizabeth Thompson, the
philanthropist, who had a great regard for
H. P. B., called to see her. I was present.
When about to leave, the visitor
asked Madame to lend her some object which
she had worn, as a reminder and as a
talisman. The request being acceded to, the
choice was left to the lady, who
hesitated a moment; Madame then said, '
Take this ring,' immediately drawing it
off and handing it to her friend, who
placed it upon her finger, absorbed in
admiring the stones. But I was looking at
H. P. B.'s fingers, and saw that the
ring was yet on her hand. Hardly believing
my eyes, I looked at the other. There
was no mistake. There were now two rings;
but the lady did not observe this, and
went off satisfied she had the right one.
In a few days she returned it to
Madame, who then told me that one of the
rings was an illusion, leaving it to me
to guess which one. I could not decide, for
she pushed the returned ring up
along her finger against the old one, and
both merged into one.
“One evening several persons were present
after dinner, all, of course, talking
about theosophy and occultism. H. P. B. was
sitting at her desk. While we were
all engaged in conversation somebody said
that he heard music, and went out into
the hall where he thought it came from.
While he was examining the hall, the
person sitting near the fireplace said that
instead of being in the hall, the
music, which was that of a musical box, was
playing up in the chimney. The
gentleman who had gone into the passage
then returned and said that he had lost
the music, but at once was thoroughly
amazed to find us all listening at the
fireplace, when he in turn heard the music
plainly. Just as he began to listen,
the music floated out into the room, and
very distinctly finished the tune in
the air over our heads. I have on various
occasions heard this music in many
ways, and always when there was not any
instrument to produce it.
“On this evening, a little while after the
music, Madame opened one of the
drawers of the Chinese [153] cabinet and
took from it an Oriental necklace
of curious beads. This she gave to a lady
present. One of the gentlemen allowed
to escape him an expression of regret that
he had not received such a
testimonial. Thereupon H. P. B. reached
over and grasped one of the beads of the
necklace which the lady was still holding
in her hands, and the bead at once
came off in Madame's hand. She then passed
it to the gentleman, who exclaimed
that it was not merely a bead but was now a
breast-pin, as there was a gold pin
fastened securely in it. The necklace
meanwhile remained intact, and its
recipient was examining it in wonder that
one of its beads could have been thus
pulled off without breaking it.
“I have heard it said that when H. P. B.
was a young woman, after coming back to
her family for the first time in many
years, everyone in her company was amazed
and affrighted to see material objects such
as cups, books, her tobacco pouch
and match-box, and so forth, come flying
through the air into her hand, merely
when she gazed intently at them. The
stories of her early days can be readily
credited by those who saw similar things
done at the New York headquarters. Such
aerial flights were many times performed by
objects at her command in my
presence. One evening I was in a hurry to
copy a drawing I had made, and looked
about on the table for a paper-cutter with
which to rub the back of the drawing
so as to transfer the surplus carbon to a
clean sheet.
“As I searched, it was suggested by someone
that the round smooth back of a
spoon bowl would be the best means, and I
arose to go to the kitchen at the end
of the hall for a spoon. But Mme. Blavatsky
said, 'Stop, you need not go there;
wait a moment.' I stopped at the door, and
she, sitting in her chair, held up
her left hand. At that instant a large
table-spoon flew through the air across
the room from out of the opposite wall and
into her hand. No one was there to
throw it to her, and the dining-room from
which it had been transported was
about thirty feet distant; two brick walls
separating it from the front room.
“In the next room — the wall between being
solid — [154] there hung near
the window a water-color portrait in a
frame with glass. I had just gone into
that room and looked at the picture. No one
was in the room but myself, and no
one went there afterwards until I returned
there. When I came into the place
where H. P. B. was sitting, and after I had
been sitting down a few moments, she
took up a piece of paper and wrote upon it
a few words, handing it over to me to
put away without looking at it. This I did.
She then asked me to return to the
other room. I went there, and at once saw
that the picture which, a few moments
before, I had looked at, had in some way
been either moved or broken. On
examining it I found that the glass was
smashed, and that the securely fastened
back had been opened, allowing the picture
within to fall to the floor. Looking
down I saw it lying there. Going back to
the other room I opened and read what
had been written on the slip of paper, it
was :—
“ ' The picture of ------ in the
dining-room has just been opened; the glass is
smashed and the painting is on the floor.'
“One day, while she was talking with me,
she suddenly stopped and said,
'So-and-so is now talking of me to -----,
and says, etc.' I made a note of the
hour, and on the first opportunity
discovered that she had actually heard the
person named saying just what she told me
had been said at the very time noted.
“My office was at least three miles away
from her rooms”: One day, at about 2
P.M., I was sitting in my office engaged in
reading a legal document, my mind
intent on the subject of the paper. No one
else was in the office, and in fact
the nearest room was separated from me by a
wide opening, or well, in the
building, made to let light into the inner
chambers. Suddenly I felt on my hand
a peculiar tingling sensation that always
preceded any strange thing to happen
in the presence of H. P. B., and at that
moment there fell from the ceiling upon
the edge of my desk, and from there to the
floor, a triangularly-folded note
from Madame to myself. It was written upon
the clean back of a printed Jain
sutra or text. The message was in her
handwriting, [155] and was addressed
to me in her writing across the printed
face.
“I remember one phenomenon in connection
with the making of a water-color
drawing of an Egyptian subject for her,
which also illustrates what the
Spiritualists call apport, or the bringing
phenomenally of objects from some
distant place. I was in want of certain dry
colors which she could not furnish
me from her collection, and as the drawing
must be finished at that sitting, and
there was no shop nearby where I could
purchase them, it seemed a dilemma until
she stepped towards the cottage piano, and,
holding up the skirt of her robe de
chambre with both hands, received into it
seventeen bottles of Winsor & Newton
dry colors, among them those I required. I
still wanted some gold-paint, so she
caused me to bring her a saucer from the
dining-room, and to give her the brass
key of the door. She rubbed the key upon
the bottom of the saucer for a minute
or two, and then, returning them to me, I
found a supply of the paint I required
coating the porcelain.”
I should hardly venture to communicate the
foregoing narrative to the public if
it were not for the obvious impossibility,
in editing memoirs of Mme. Blavatsky,
of keeping the various experiences recorded
of her within the limits of that
which is generally held to be credible.
Certainly no one person of those who
have had opportunities of observing the
phenomena occurring in her presence
could hope to be regarded by the world at
large as both sane and truthful in
relating his experience. But fortified as
each witness is in turn by the
testimony of all the others, the situation
must be recognised as involving
difficulties for critics who contend that
one and all, near relations, old
friends, casual acquaintances, or intimates
of her later years, are all
possessed with a mania for trumping up
fictitious stories about Mme. Blavatsky,
or all in different parts of the world, and
at [156] widely different
periods, sharing in an epidemic
hallucination in regard to her, while in no
other respects exhibiting abnormal
conditions of mind.
The first incident during her stay in
America which seems to have drawn the
attention of the newspapers to Mme.
Blavatsky was the death and cremation, under
the auspices of the Theosophical Society,
of an eccentric personage known in New
York as “the Baron de Palm”. Among other
eccentricities that he committed, he
made a will shortly before his death
professing to bequeath a considerable
fortune to the Theosophical Society, but on
inquiry it turned out that the
property referred to in this document
existed in his imagination alone. The
newspapers credited the Society with having
acquired great wealth by seducing
the sympathies of this guileless
millionaire, when in reality his effects did
not meet the cost of the ceremonies
connected with burning his body. However,
the Society and Mme. Blavatsky suddenly
sprang into local notoriety.
“Fancy my surprise . . .” she wrote about this
time to her sister.
“I am — heaven help us ! — becoming
fashionable, as it seems I am writing
articles on Esotericism and Nirvana, and
paid for them more than I could have
ever expected, though I have hardly any
time for writing for money. . . .
Believe me, and you will, for you know me,
I cannot make myself realize that I
have ever been able to write decently. ...
If I were unknown, no publisher or
editor would have ever paid any attention
to me. . . . It's all vanity and
fashion. . . . Luckily for the publishers,
I have never been vain.”
In the course of another family letter she
writes: —
“Upon my word, I can hardly understand why
you and people generally should make
such a fuss over my [157] writings, whether
Russian or English! True,
during the long years of my absence from
home, I have constantly studied and
have learned certain things. But when I
wrote "/sis", I wrote it so easily that
it was certainly no labor, but a real
pleasure. Why should I be praised for it?
Whenever I am told to write, I sit down and
obey, and then I can write easily
upon almost anything — metaphysics,
psychology, philosophy, ancient religions,
zoology, natural sciences, or what not. I
never put myself the question: ' Can I
write on this subject? . . .' or, ' Am I
equal to the task ?' but I simply sit
down and write. Why ? Because somebody who
knows all dictates to me. . . . My
MASTER, and occasionally others whom I knew
in my travels years ago. . . .
Please do not imagine that I have lost my
senses. I have hinted to you before
now about them . . . and I tell you
candidly, that whenever I write upon a
subject I know little or nothing of, I
address myself to Them, and one of Them
inspires me, i.e. He allows me to simply
copy what I write from manuscripts, and
even printed matter that pass before my
eyes, in the air, during which process I
have never been unconscious one single
instant. ... It is that knowledge of His
protection and faith in His power that have
enabled me to become mentally and
spiritually so strong . . . and even He
(the Master) is not always required;
for, during His absence on some other
occupation, He awakens in me His
substitute in knowledge. At such times it
is no more / who write, but my inner
Ego, my ' luminous self,' who thinks and
writes for me. Only see . . . you who
know me. When was I ever so learned as to
write such things? . . . Whence all
this knowledge? . . .”
On another occasion again she wrote also to
her sister: —
“You may disbelieve me, but I tell you that
in saying this I speak but the
truth; I am solely occupied, not with
writing Isis, but with "Isis" herself. I
live in a kind of permanent enchantment, a
life of visions and sights with open
eyes, and no trance whatever to deceive my
senses! I sit and watch the fair
goddess constantly.[158] And as she
displays before me the secret meaning
of her long lost secrets, and the veil,
becoming with every hour thinner and
more transparent, gradually falls off
before my eyes, I hold my breath and can
hardly trust to my senses! . . . For
several years, in order not to forget what
I have learned elsewhere, I have been made
to have permanently before my eyes
all that I need to see. Thus night and day,
the images of the past are ever
marshaled before my inner eye. Slowly, and
gliding silently like images in an
enchanted panorama, centuries after
centuries appear before me, . . . and I am
made to connect these epochs with certain
historical events, and I know there
can be no mistake. Races and nations,
countries and cities, emerge during some
former century, then fade out and disappear
during some other one, the precise
date of which I am then told by ... Hoary
antiquity gives room to historical
periods; myths are explained by real events
and personages who have really
existed ; and every important, and often
unimportant event, every revolution, a
new leaf turned in the book of life of
nations — with its incipient course and
subsequent natural results — remains
photographed in my mind as though impressed
in indelible colours. . . . When I think
and watch my thoughts, they appear to
me as though they were like those little
bits of wood of various shapes and
colors in the game known as the casse
tête: I pick them up one by one, and try
to make them fit each other, first taking
one, then putting it aside, until I
find its match, and finally there always
comes out in the end something
geometrically correct. ... I certainly
refuse point-blank to attribute it to my
own knowledge or memory, for I could never
arrive alone at either such premises
or conclusions. ... I tell you seriously I
am helped. And He who helps me is my
GURU. . . .”
As belonging to the period of Mme.
Blavatsky's residence in America, mention may
here be made of a remarkable incident with
which she was closely concerned,
though it was not accomplished by the
exercise of her own abnormal powers.[
159]
Prince Emile Wittgenstein, a Russian
officer, and an old friend who had known
her from childhood, was in correspondence
with her at the time of the formation
of the Theosophical Society. In consequence
of certain warnings addressed to him
at spiritual seances concerning fatalities
which would menace him if he took
part in the war on the Danube then
impending, Mme. Blavatsky was instructed by
her unseen spiritual chief to inform him
that on the contrary he would be
specially taken care of during the
campaign, and that the spiritualistic warning
would be confuted. The course of subsequent
events will best be described by the
quotation of a letter afterwards addressed
by the Prince to an English journal
devoted to spiritualism. This was as
follows: —
“
TO THE EDITOR OF THE ' SPIRITUALIST'.
“Allow me, for the sake of those who believe in spirit predictions, to
tell
you
a story about incidents which happened to me last year, and about which I,
for
months past, have wished to talk to you, without, till now, finding time
to
do so. The narrative may perhaps be a warning to some of the too credulous
persons to whom every medial message is a gospel, and who too often
accept as
true what are perhaps the lies of some light spirit, or even the
reflection of
their own thoughts or wishes. I believe that the fulfilment of a
prediction is
such an exceptional thing that in general one ought to set no faith in
such
prophecies, but should avoid them as much as possible, lest they have
undue
influence upon our mind, faith, and free-will.
“A
year and some months ago, while getting ready to join our army on the
Danube, I received first one letter, and afterwards a few more, from a
very
kind friend of mine and a powerful medium in America, beseeching me, in
very
anxious words, not to go to the war — a spirit had predicted that the
campaign
would be fatal to me, and having ordered my correspondent to write to me
the
[160] following words, ' Beware of the war saddle ! It will be your
death, or worse still!'
“I
confess that these reiterated warnings were not agreeable, especially when
received at the moment of starting upon such a journey; but I forced
myself to
disbelieve them. My cousin, the Baroness Adelina von Vay, to whom I had
written about the matter, encouraged me in doing so, and I started.
“Now it seems that this prediction became known also to some of my
theosophical friends at New York, who were indignant at it, and decided
to do
their utmost to make it of no avail. And especially one of the leading
brethren of the Society, and residing far away from America, promised by
the
force of his will to shield me from every danger.
“The fact is, that during the whole campaign, I did not see one shot
explode
near me, and that, so far as danger was concerned, I could just as well
have
remained at Vevey. I was quite ashamed of myself, and sought occasion
now and
then, to hear at least once the familiar roar and whistle which, in my
younger
years, were such usual music to me. All in vain I Whenever I was near a
scene
of
action, the enemy's fire ceased. I remember having once, during the third
bloody storming of Plevna, with my friend, your Colonel Wellesley,
stolen away
from the Emperor's staff, in order to ride down to a battery of ours
which was
exchanging a tremendous fire with the redoubt of Grivitsa. As soon as
we,
after abandoning our horses further back in the brushwood, arrived at
the
battery, the Turkish fire ceased as by enchantment, to begin again only
when
we
left it half-an-hour later, although our guns kept on blazing away at them
without interruption. I also tried twice to see some of the bombarding
of
Guirgiewo, where all the windows were broken, doors torn out, roofs
broken
down at the Railway Station by the daily firing from Rustchuk. I stopped
there
once a whole night, and another time half a day, always in the hope of
seeing
something. As long as I was there, the scene was quiet as in the times
of
peace, and the firing recommenced as soon as I had left the place. Some
days
after my last visit to Guirgiewo, [161] Colonel Wellesley passed it, and
had
part of his luggage destroyed by a shell, which, breaking through the roof
into the gallery, tore to pieces two soldiers who were standing near.
"I cannot believe all this to be the sole result of chance. It was
too
regular, too positive to be explained thus. It is, I am sure of it,
magic —
the
more so as the person who protected me thus efficaciously is one of the
most powerful masters of the occult science professed by the
theosophists. I
can
relate, by way of contrast, the following fact, which happened during the
war
on the Danube, in 1854, at the siege of Silistria. A very distinguished
Engineer General of ours, who led our approaches, was a faithful
spiritualist,
and
believed every word which he wrote down by the help of a psychograph as a
genuine revelation from superior spirits. Now these spirits had
predicted to
him
that he would return from the war unhurt, and covered with fame and glory.
The
result of this was that he exposed himself openly, madly, to the enemy's
fire, till at last a shot tore off his leg, and he died some weeks
later. This
is
the faith we ought to have in predictions, and I hope my narrative may be
welcome to you, as a warning to many.—
Truly yours,
“(PRINCE) E. WITTGENSTEIN (F.T.S.).
“VEVEY, SWITZERLAND, ”
18th June 1878.”
Apart from the intrinsic interest of this
narrative it is important as showing
definitely — what indeed is notorious for
all who knew Mme. Blavatsky at the
period to which it refers — that she had
already, while the Theosophical Society
was still in its infancy in New York,
declared the existence of “the Brothers”,
whom she has been so absurdly accused by
her recent critics of inventing at a
far later date.
The Countess Wachtmeister, whose name will
reappear in this narrative later on,
sends me another independent account of
Mme. Blavatsky's doings in America,
communicated [162] to her by the gentleman
concerned. She writes: —
“Mr Felix Cunningham, a young American of
large fortune, describes a scene which
took place one evening when visiting Mme.
Blavatsky in America. For some time
past he had been terribly annoyed by
certain manifestations which took place in
his own presence : chairs would suddenly
begin to hop about the room, knives and
forks would dance upon the tables, and
bells would ring all over the house; in
fact, such a carillon would sometimes be
set going that the landlord would
politely request him to depart, and he
would have to go in quest of another
apartment, where, after a few days'
sojourn, the same comedy would be repeated,
until he felt like a wandering Jew, nearly
driven wild by his invisible foes.
Having heard of Mme. Blavatsky's great
abnormal powers, he hoped through her to
get a relief to his sufferings, and it was
with a feeling of intense curiosity
that, having been fortunate in obtaining an
introduction to that lady, he one
evening entered her drawing-room, to find
her surrounded by a circle of admiring
friends. When at last he was able to
approach her, she invited him to sit on the
sofa near her, and patiently listened to
the long recital of his misfortunes.
Mme. Blavatsky then explained to him that these
phenomena were the result partly
of his own psychic force and partly the
work of elementals, and she explained to
him the process through which he might
either rid himself of such disturbances
for the future, or else how he could obtain
complete control over these powers
of nature, and produce phenomena at will.
This seemed, to Mr Cunningham as so
utterly incredible that, though he kept his
feelings to himself, he classed Mme.
Blavatsky in his own mind as either a
charlatan or a victim to her delusions.
What was his astonishment, then, when a few
moments later she turned to him in
the midst of an animated discourse she was
holding with some professor on '
Darwin's System of Evolution,' and said, '
Well, Mr Cunningham, so you think it
is all a sham ? I will give you a proof
that it is not, if you like. Tell me,
what would you like to have ? [163] Desire
something without mentioning it
aloud, and you shall have it.” He thought
of a rose, there being no flowers in
the room, and as the thought fastened
itself on his mind, his gaze was directed
upwards, and there to his astonishment he
saw a large full-blown rose suddenly
appear near the ceiling; it descended
swiftly but surely towards him, the stalk
going right through his buttonhole, and
when he took out the rose to examine it,
he found that it had been freshly plucked,
and that the dew was hanging to the
petals and leaves. Mme. Blavatsky, who had
never moved from her corner of the
sofa, looked at his bewilderment with
amusement, and explained to him that when
once man has obtained control over the
elementals, such a phenomenon is simple
as child's play.”
Some interesting reminiscences of Mme.
Blavatsky's New York residence are
contained in an article published recently
by the New York Times in its issue of
2nd January 1885. The writer, noticing some
then current news illustrating the
progress in India of the Theosophical
Society, says: —
““This intelligence is interesting to the general
reader, mainly as it serves to
recall a most curious phase of modern
thought. Its development nearly ten years
ago in New York attracted much attention.
The doings of the strange society
mentioned in the French flat at Eighth
Avenue and Forty-seventh Street, where
they had their headquarters, were widely
noticed by the press, and some
influence on the thought of certain classes
of men and women undoubtedly
emanated from the small circle who gathered
there.
“This influence was beyond a question the
result of the strange personal power
of Mme. Blavatsky — a woman of as
remarkable characteristics as Cagliostro
himself, and one who is today as
differently judged by different people as the
renowned Count was in his day. The Pall
Mall Gazette recently devoted a
half-column to the lady. By those who knew
her only slightly in this country she
[164] was invariably termed a charlatan. A
somewhat better acquaintance
developed the thought that she was a learned,
but deluded enthusiast. And those
who knew her intimately and enjoyed her
friendship were either carried away into
a belief in her powers or profoundly
puzzled, and the longer and more intimate
the friendship was, the firmer the faith or
the deeper their perplexity became.
The writer was one of the last class. The
closest study of a trained New York
reporter failed for over two years to
convince him that she was either a fraud
or self-deluded, or that her seeming powers
were genuine. That she wrought
miracles will be denied flatly, of course,
by all persons whom the world calls
sober-minded, yet there are scores of
people who will swear today that she did
work them in New York.
“A lady whose brother was an enthusiastic
believer in the wonderful Russian, but
who was herself a devout Methodist and
thoroughly antagonistic to Theosophy (as
the new system of thought was then
beginning to be called), was induced to make
Mme. Blavatsky's acquaintance. They became
friends, though they continued widely
opposed in belief. One day Mme. Blavatsky
gave the other lady a necklace of
beautifully carved beads of some strange
substance that looked like, but was
not, hard wood. 'Wear them yourself', she
said. ' If you let anyone else have
them, they will disappear'. The lady wore
them constantly for over a year.
Meantime she moved out of the city. One day
her little child, who was sick? and
fretful, cried for the beads. She gave them
to him, half laughing at herself for
hesitating. The child put them around his
neck and seemed pleased with his new
toy, while the mother turned away to attend
to some domestic duty. In a few
minutes the child began crying, and the
mother found him trying to take the
beads off. She removed them herself and
found that they were nearly one-third
melted away and were hot, while the child's
neck showed marks of being burned.
She tells the story herself, and in the
same breath denies that she believes in
'any such things'.
“Such stories could be repeated by dozens,
and for each one a reputable witness
could be produced to swear to [165] the
truth of it. It was not, however,
by the working of tricks or miracles,
whichever the reader may choose to regard
them, that Mme. Blavatsky made the impress
she certainly made on the thought of
the day. It was by the power of her own
personality, vigor of her intellect,
freedom and breadth of her thought, and the
fluency and clearness of her powers
of expression. Her mental characteristics
were as remarkable as her appearance.
A more impetuous or impulsive person than
she never lived. She was generous and
hospitable to a fault. To her intimate
friends her house was Liberty Hall, and
while there was nothing sumptuous or
pretentious about her mode of life, she
lived well and entertained constantly. She
seemed physically indolent, but this
was on account of her size, which made
bodily exertion onerous. Nothing like
mental indolence could be noticed in her
conversation, and if such a trait had
ever been attributed to her, the
publication of Isis Unveiled, her work on
Eastern mysteries and religions, would have
exonerated her from the charge.
Without discussing the merits of the book,
it may be asserted that the labor
involved in its production was very great.
“As a friend Mme. Blavatsky was steadfast
and devoted to an unusual degree.
Credulous by nature, she had been imposed
upon by so many that she learned to
limit her circle, but up to the time she
left America she was always liable to
imposition on the part of any designing
person.
“She was unconventional, and prided herself
on carrying her unconventionally to
the utmost extremes. She would swear like a
dragoon when in anger, and often
used in pure levity expressions which
served no other purpose than to emphasize
her contempt for common usages. Born, so it
is said, of the best lineage in
Russia, she had been bred and educated not
only as a lady but as an aristocrat.
Discarding, as she did, the traditional
belief of her family, she discarded at
the same time the entire system of European
civilization. During her residence
in America at least, for the writer claims
to know no more about her than was
developed here, she protested against our
civilization vigorously. . . . The
criticism she [166] drew on herself by this
course was merciless, and from
a civilized standpoint was certainly
deserved.
“Those who knew her best believe her to
have been entirely incapable of a mean
act or a dishonest one.”
The writer goes on to quote the views which
Mme. Blavatsky was in the habit of
expressing on the subject of spiritualism.
“ 'The phenomena that are presented are
perhaps often frauds. Perhaps not one in
a hundred is a genuine communication of
spirits, but that one cannot be judged
by the others. It is entitled to scientific
examination, and the reason the
scientists don't examine it is because they
are afraid. The mediums cannot
deceive me. I know more about it than they
do. I have lived for years in
different parts of the East and have seen
far more wonderful things than they
can do. The whole universe is filled with
spirits. It is nonsense to suppose
that we are the only intelligent beings in
the world. I believe there is latent
spirit in all matter. I believe almost in
the spirits of the elements. But all
is governed by natural laws. Even in cases
of apparent violation of these laws
the appearance comes from a
misunderstanding of the laws. In cases of certain
nervous diseases it is recorded of some
patients that they have been raised from
their beds by some undiscoverable power,
and it has been impossible to force
them down. In such cases It has been
noticed that they float feet first with any
current of air that may be passing through
the room. The wonder of this ceases
when you come to consider that there is no
such thing as the law of gravitation
as it is generally understood. The law of
gravitation is only to be rationally
explained in accordance with magnetic laws as
Newton tried to explain it, but
the world would not accept it.
“ 'The world is fast coming to know many
things that were known centuries ago,
and were discarded through the superstition
of theologians,' she continued. '
The church professes to reprobate
divination, and yet they chose their four
canonical Gospels of Matthew, Mark, [167]
Luke, and John by divination.
They took some hundred or so of books at
the Nicene Council, and set them up,
and those that fell down they threw aside
as false, and those that stood being
those four, they accepted as true, being
unable to decide the question in any
other way. And out of the 318 members of
the Council only two — Eusebius, the
great forger, and the Emperor Constantine —
were able to read.'
“Talking thus by hours together, when the
right listener was present, and
speaking always 'as one having authority',
it is small wonder that Mme.
Blavatsky made her modest apartments a
common meeting-ground for as strange a
group of original thinkers as New York ever
held. Not all who visited her agreed
with her. Indeed, there were only a few who
followed her teachings with implicit
faith. Many of her friends, and many who
joined the Theosophical Society which
she formed, were individuals who affirmed
little and denied nothing.
“The marvels which were discussed and
manifested in Mme. Blavatsky's rooms were
to the most of them merely food for
thought. If the bell-tones of the invisible
'attendant sprite' Pou Dhi where heard, as
they were heard by scores of
different persons, this phenomenon, so
minutely described by Mr Sinnett in The
Occult World, was as likely to be chaffed
good-naturedly by an obstinate sceptic
as it was to be wondered at by a believer.
But even the sceptic would shrug his
shoulders and say, when hard pushed, ' It
may be a spirit. I can't tell what it
is.' If the discussion turned on some
marvel of Eastern magic, or some fanciful
doctrine of Eastern mythology, there was
always a witness to the magic and a
believer in the mythology present, and
there was no one bold enough to deny what
was affirmed, however much it might be
laughed at. Sensitive as Mme. Blavatsky
was to personal ridicule and to slander,
she was truly liberal in matters of
opinion, and allowed us as great latitude
in the discussion of her beliefs as
she took in discussing the beliefs of
others.
“The apartment she occupied was a modest
flat of seven or eight rooms in West
Forty-seventh Street. It was furnished
plainly but comfortably, but of the
furniture [168] properly so called, it was
hard to get an exact idea, for
the rooms, especially the parlors, were
littered and strewn with curios of most
varied description. Huge palm leaves,
stuffed apes, and tigers' heads, Oriental
pipes and vases, idols and cigarettes,
Javanese sparrows, manuscripts and cuckoo
clocks were items only in a confusing
catalogue of things not to be looked for
ordinarily in a lady's parlor.”[169]
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
CHAPTER 9
ESTABLISHED IN INDIA
JUDGED by ordinary standards of common
sense, Mme. Blavatsky's long stay in
America was not a good preparation for her
residence in India. And yet her
Theosophic mission appears to have had
India as its objective point from the
outset. It is just possible, therefore,
that her alienation from the English
population of India in the first instance,
due to the unreasonable prejudices
against them which she came possessed with,
may have served the cause she had in
view in one way more than it told
unfavorably in another. Unhappily there is no
good understanding widely diffused as yet
amongst the two races in India. Each
sees the worst features in the character of
the other, and ill appreciates the
best. The responsibility for this state of
things would, I think, be found very
equally divided, but at all events it is
possible, that in wishing to secure the
hearty good-will of the natives, Mme.
Blavatsky did not find herself really so
much impeded as I have sometimes been
inclined to think, by starting on terms
which may almost be said to have cultivated
the ill-will of the Europeans. The
too readily enlisted sentiment of race
antagonism may thus have put the natives
all the more on her side, when it was seen
that she was not on intimate or
friendly relations with the Anglo-Indian
community.[170]
However this may be, Mme. Blavatsky came to
India to plant the Theosophical
Society in the soil where she believed, not
quite correctly as subsequent events
proved, that it was destined chiefly to
flourish, armed for her task (for good
or evil as we like to look at the matter)
with a flourishing stock of
misconceptions concerning the social
conditions of the country. She was
guiltless of any inclination to concern
herself practically with politics, and
indeed, on the subject of politics, though
greatly misconceiving the true
character of the English government at that
time, was less prejudiced than in
other ways, for at any rate she
consistently recognized the theory that, bad
though it might be, the English Government
was immeasurably the best India could
acquire in the present state of her
degeneration, as compared with the era of
ancient Aryan grandeur. But her sympathies
were always ready to flame up on
behalf of individual native wrongs, and
since the organs of native interests are
apt in India to circulate stories too
hastily, if they seem to be flavored with
native wrongs, Mme. Blavatsky, living
almost entirely at first in native
society, imbibed a good many ideas, on her
first establishment in the country,
which used to be the subject of warm
argument between her and myself, when I
first made her acquaintance.
This acquaintance was formed at the close
of the year 1879, during the earlier
part of which she reached Bombay,
accompanied by Colonel Olcott and two persons
who were supposed to be Theosophists in the
beginning, but fell off from the
Society at an early date, under
circumstances which constituted the first of the
long series of troubles that have attended
the progress of the Theosophical
movement. I never knew either of them, but
they do not appear to have been
persons whom [171] anyone of soberer
judgment, in Mme. Blavatsky's place,
would have brought over as companions in an
enterprise like that she had in
hand. The four strangely assorted travelers
settled down in one of the native
quarters of Bombay, and were very naturally
objects of some suspicion with the
authorities. Their movements about the
country and into the neighboring native
states were not of a kind that the ordinary
habits of Europeans would account
for, and as a matter of course, in a
country where great interests have to be
guarded from possible foreign intrigue,
they were put under surveillance.
But Englishmen are not clever at the tricks
of police surveillance — no more so
in India than elsewhere — and the watch set
upon the movements of Mme. Blavatsky
and Colonel Olcott was absurdly apparent to
the persons who — if it had been
really required — should never have been
allowed to suspect it. Mme. Blavatsky
fretted under the sense of insult this
espionage inflicted on her, with the
intensity of feeling she carries into
everything. For my own part, I used often
to tell her, when we laughed over the
narrative of her adventures afterwards, I
pitied the unhappy police officer, her spy,
a great deal more than herself. She
pursued this officer with sarcasms all the
while that he, in the performance of
his irksome duty, pursued her in her vague
and erratic wanderings. She would
offer him bags or letters to examine, and
address him condolences on the
miserable fate that condemned him to play
the part of a mouchard. I suspect from
what I heard at Simla at the time, that the
Bombay Government must have been
treated by the superior authorities to
remarks that were anything but
complimentary on the manner in which they
conducted this business. At any rate,
the mistake concerning the objects of the
Theosophists was speedily seen
through, [172] and the local government
instructed to trouble itself no
more about them.
I had been in correspondence with Colonel
Olcott and Mine. Blavatsky, partly
about this business, during the summer.
Their arrival in India had been heralded
with a few newspaper paragraphs dimly
indicating that Mme. Blavatsky was a
marvelous person, associated with a modern
development of “magic”, and I had
seen her great book, Isis Unveiled, which
naturally provoked interest on my part
in the authoress. From some remarks
published in the Pioneer, of which I was at
that time the editor, the first
communications between us arose. In accordance
with arrangements made by letter during the
summer, she came to Allahabad to
visit my wife and myself at our cold
weather home at that station in December
1879.
I well remember the morning of her arrival,
when I went down to the railway
station to meet her. The trains from Bombay
used to come into Allahabad in those
days at an early hour in the morning, and
it was still but just time for chota
hazree, or early breakfast, when I brought
our guests home. She had evidently
been apprehensive, to judge from her latest
letters, lest we might have formed
some ideal conception of her that the
reality would shatter, and had recklessly
painted herself as a rough, old,
“hippopotamus” of a woman, unfit for civilized
society; but she did this with so lively a
humor that the betrayal of her bright
intelligence this involved more than undid
the effect of her warnings. Her rough
manners, of which we had been told so much,
did not prove very alarming, though
I remember going into fits of laughter at
the time when Colonel Olcott, after
the visit had lasted a week or two, gravely
informed us that Madame was under
“great self-restraint” so far. This had not
[173] been the impression my
wife and I had formed about her, though we
had learned already to find her
conversation more than interesting.
I would not venture to say that our new
friends made a favorable impression all
round, upon our old ones, at Allahabad.
Anglo-Indian society is strongly colored
with conventional views, and Mme. Blavatsky
was too violent a departure from
accepted standards in a great variety of
ways to be assimilated in Anglo-Indian
circles with readiness. At the same time,
the friends she made among our
acquaintances while under our roof were the
best worth having, and all who came
to know her, and were gifted with the
faculty of appreciating bright and
versatile talk, sparkling anecdote, and
first-rate dinner-table qualifications,
were loud in her praises and eager for her
society. Her dinner-table
qualifications it will, of course, be
understood did not include those of the
bon vivant, for her dislike of alcohol in
all forms amounted to a kind of mania,
and led her to be vexatious sometimes in
her attack on even the most moderate
wine-drinking on the part of others. An
illustration, by-the-by, of the manner
in which Mme. Blavatsky is constantly made
the subject of the most extravagant
falsehoods is afforded by a statement which
has, I hear, been made quite
recently in London by some ex-Anglo-Indian.
He or she — I am glad to say I do
not know who the he or she is, and do not
seek to know — told my informant that
he or she had actually seen Mine. Blavatsky
intoxicated at Simla. As I know her
to be a total abstainer, not merely on
principle (in connection with her occult
training), but by predilection as well — by
virtue indeed, as I have described,
of an absolute horror of alcohol — and as
she has never resided at Simla under
any roof but my own and one other, beneath
which I was myself at the same [
174] time a guest — the statement is for me
exactly as if it asserted that,
during her Simla visit, Mme. Blavatsky was
double-headed like the famous
“Nightingale”.
I want to give my readers an idea of Mme.
Blavatsky, as I have known her, that
shall be as nearly complete as I can make
it, and I shall not hesitate to put in
the shadows of the picture. The first visit
she paid us was not an unqualified
success in all respects. Her excitability,
sometimes amusing, would sometimes
take an irritating shape, and she would
vent her impatience, if anything annoyed
her, by vehement tirades in a loud voice
directed against Colonel Olcott, at
that time in an early stage of his
apprenticeship to what she would sometimes
irreverently speak of as the “occult
business”. No one with the least
discernment could ever fail to see that her
rugged manners and disregard of all
conventionalities were the result of a
deliberate rebellion against, not of
ignorance or unfamiliarity with, the
customs of refined society. Still the
rebellion was often very determined, and
she would sometimes color her language
with expletives of all sorts, some witty
and amusing, some unnecessarily
violent, that we should all have preferred
her not to make use of. She certainly
had none of the superficial attributes one
might have expected in a spiritual
teacher ; and how she could at the same
time be philosopher enough to have given
up the world for the sake of spiritual
advancement, and yet be capable of going
into frenzies of passion about trivial
annoyances, was a profound mystery to us
for a long while, and is only now partially
explainable, indeed, within my own
mind, by some information I have received
relating to curious psychological laws
under which initiates in occult mysteries,
circumstanced as she is, inevitably
come. By slow degrees only, and in spite of
herself — in spite of [175]
injudicious proceedings on her part that
long kept alive suspicions she might
easily have allayed, if she could have kept
calm enough to understand them, —
did we come to appreciate the reality of
the occult forces and unseen agencies
behind her.
It is unnecessary for me to give an
elaborate account here of occult wonders
performed by Mme. Blavatsky during her
various visits to us at Allahabad and
Simla. These are, most of them, recorded in
The Occult World. Those which took
place during her first visit were not of
great importance, and some of them were
so little protected by the conditions that
would have been required to guarantee
their bona fide character that they were
worse than useless. My wife and I were
patient observers, and by not jumping to
any conclusions too precipitately, were
enabled in the long run to obtain the
satisfaction we desired; but guests,
especially if they happened to be of a very
materialistic temperament, would
regard anything Mme. Blavatsky might do of
an apparently abnormal character as
so much juggling, and hardly disguise these
impressions from her. The result in
such cases would be a stormy end to our
evening after such guests had gone. To
be suspected as an impostor deluding her
friends with trickery, would sting her
at any time with a scorpion smart, and
bring forth a flood of passionate
argument as to the cruelty and
groundlessness of such an imputation, the
violence of which would really have tended
with most hearers to confirm
suspicions rather than to allay them.
Recollection of this time supplies me with
a very varied assortment of memory
portraits of Madame, taken during different
conditions of her nerves and temper.
Some recall her flushed and voluble, too
loudly declaiming against some person
or other who had misjudged her or [176] her
Society; some show her quiet
and companionable, pouring out a flood of
interesting talk about Mexican
antiquities, or Egypt, or Peru, showing a
knowledge of the most varied and
far-reaching kind, and a memory for names
and places and archaeological theories
she would be dealing with, that was fairly
fascinating to her hearers. Then,
again, I remember her telling anecdotes of
her own earlier life, mysterious bits
of adventure, or stories of Russian
society, with so much point, vivacity, and
finish, that she would simply be the
delight for the time being of everyone
present.
I never could clearly make out her age at
this time, and was led partly by the
look of things, for the hard life she has
led has told upon her complexion and
features, and partly by her own vague
reference to remote periods in the past,
to overestimate it by several years. She
has always had a dislike to telling her
age with exactitude, which does not spring
in her case from the vanity which
operates with some ladies, but has to do
with occult embarrassment. The age of
the body in which a given human entity may
reside or function, is held by occult
initiates to be sometimes a very misleading
fact, and chelas under strict rules
are, I believe, forbidden to tell their
ages. In Mme. Blavatsky's case the
problem was somewhat complicated by the
fact that she had, within the few years
previous to my first knowledge of her,
grown to somewhat unwieldy proportions.
Mr A. O. Hume, whose name has been a good
deal mixed up in very different ways,
both with the early beginnings of the
Theosophical movement in India and with
some of its latest phases, was at Allahabad
when Mme. Blavatsky first came
there, holding an appointment for the time
on the Board of Revenue in the N. W.
P., and he took great interest in our
remarkable guest. He [177] presided
one afternoon at a public meeting which was
held at the Mayo Hall to give
Colonel Olcott an opportunity of delivering
an address on Theosophy, and a
passage from his brief speech on that
occasion may fitly find a place here as
showing in graceful language the manner in
which, at that time, the subject was
opening up: —
“This much I have gathered about the
Society, viz. that one primary and
fundamental object of its existence is the
institution of a sort of brotherhood
in which, sinking all distinction of race
and nationality, caste and creed, all
good and earnest men, all who love science,
all who love truth, all who love
their fellowmen, may meet as brethren, and
labor hand in hand in the cause of
enlightenment and progress. Whether this
noble ideal is ever likely to germinate
and grow into practical fruition ; whether
this glorious dream, shared in by so
many of the greatest minds in all ages, is
ever destined to emerge from the
shadowy realms of Utopia into the broad
sunlight of the regions of reality, let
no one now pretend to decide. Many and
marvelous are the changes and
developments that the past has witnessed;
the impossibilities of one age have
become the truisms of the next; and who
shall venture to predict that the future
may not have as many surprises for mankind
as has had the past, and that this
may not be one amongst them. Be the
success, however, great or little of those
who strive after this grand ideal, one
thing we know, that no honest efforts for
the good of our fellowmen are ever wholly
fruitless. It may be long before that
fruit ripens ; the workers may have passed
away long ere the world discerns the
harvest for which they wrought; nay, the
world at large may never realize what
has been done for it, but the good work
itself remains, imperishable,
everlasting. They who wrought it have necessarily
been by such efforts purified
and exalted, the community in which they
lived and toiled has inevitably
benefitted directly or indirectly, and
through it, the world at large. On this
ground, if on no other, we must necessarily
sympathize with the Theosophists.
[178]
The Theosophists in those days had all
their troubles before them in an
unsuspected future, and the movement seemed
to be advancing gaily with many
friendly hands stretching out to aid it,
and nothing but petty squabbling among
the members at the Bombay headquarters to
disturb the peace of its chiefs. But
Mme. Blavatsky's temperament always
magnified the annoyance of the moment,
whatever it might be, till it overshadowed
her whole sky. Colonel Olcott spoke
at the meeting which Mr Hume opened with
the remarks just quoted, but one of his
hearers, at all events — his distinguished
colleague, — was not altogether
pleased with his address, and no sooner
were we clear of the Hall compound on
our drive back than she opened fire upon
him with exceeding bitterness. To hear
her talk on this subject at intervals
during the evening one might have thought
the aspirations of her life compromised,
though the meeting and the speech —
about which I do not remember that there
was anything amiss — were not important
to the progress of the Society in any
serious degree. Colonel Olcott bore all
these tantrums with wonderful fortitude,
taking them as all so much probation to
be set down to the account of his occult
chelaship; and with all this
exasperating behavior Mme. Blavatsky
nevertheless had a strange faculty of
winning affection. Her own nature was
exceedingly warm-hearted and affectionate,
as it is still, and must remain as long as
she lives, in spite of the cruel
disappointments and trials, the sickness
and suffering of later years, the
poignant regret she has spent over
irremediable mistakes that have compromised
the success of her cause, and the
passionate sense of wrong under which she
fumes, as the unteachable world
complacently listens to the tales of her
traducers, or as flippant newspapers make
fun of the wonderful stories told
about her, [179] as though she were a
mountebank or impostor. Thus the
prestige of her occult power, uncertain and
capricious though it has latterly
become, invests her with so much interest
for people who have emerged from the
bog of mere materialistic incredulity about
her, that anyone with a tendency
towards mysticism is apt to become
possessed with something like reverence for
her attributes, in spite of the strangely
unattractive shell with which she
sometimes surrounds them. Thus, in one way
and another, large numbers of people
in India, who came to know her through
ourselves, learned to regard her with a
very friendly feeling, rugged manners and
stormy temperature notwithstanding.
Mme. Blavatsky visited us again at Simla in
the autumn of 1880, when most of the
phenomena described in The Occult World
took place. She was much better inclined
now than on her first arrival in India to
conciliate European sympathy and
support for the movement on which she was
engaged. She had learned the lesson
which the best friends of native interests
in India must always learn sooner or
later, if they come in contact with the
realities of the situation, that for any
practical work to be done, the natives want
a European lead. Even when the task
in hand has to do with the revival of
Indian philosophy, its administration
languishes when confided too exclusively to
native direction. Mme. Blavatsky
therefore came to Simla prepared for
society. She would protest against the
“flap-doodle” of “Mrs Grundy” — favorite
phrases often on her lips, — but to
serve her cause she would even condescend
to put off occasionally the red
flannel dressing-gown in which she
preferred to robe herself, and sit down in
black silk amid the uncongenial odors of
champagne and sherry. Of course, beyond
a very narrow circle, the wonders she [180]
wrought were quite ineffective
in kindling that zeal for intelligent
inquiry into the higher psychic laws of
nature by virtue of which they were
accomplished, which it was the intention of
their promoters to awaken. No one could
understand Mme. Blavatsky without
studying her by the light of the hypothesis
— even if it were only regarded as
such — that she was the visible agent of
unknown occult superiors. There was
much in her character on the surface as I
have described it, which repelled the
idea that she was an exalted moralist
trying to lead people upward towards a
higher spiritual life. The internal
excitement, superinduced by the effort to
accomplish any of her occult feats, would,
moreover, render her too passionate
in repudiating suspicions which could not
but be stimulated by such protests on
her part. Conscious of her failure very
often to do more than leave people about
her puzzled and vaguely wondering how she
did her “tricks”, she would constantly
abjure the whole attempt, profess violent
resolutions to produce no more
phenomena under any circumstances for a
sneering, undiscerning, materialistic
generation; and as often be impelled by her
love of wielding the strange forces
at her command to fall into her old
mistakes, to hurriedly rush into the
performance of some new feat as she felt
the power upon her, without stopping to
think of the careful conditions by which it
ought to be surrounded, if she meant
to do more than aggravate the mistrust
which drove her into frenzies of
suffering and wrath. Once, however,
recognize her as the flighty and defective,
though loyal and brilliantly-gifted
representative of occult superiors in the
background, making through her an
experiment on the spiritual intuitions of the
world in which she moved, and the whole
situation was solved, the apparent
incoherence of her character [181] and acts
explained, and the best
attributes of her own nature properly
appreciated.
So much exasperation and trouble have been
brought about in recent years by the
disputes which have arisen concerning the
authenticity of Mme. Blavatsky's
phenomena, that the general opinion of
Theosophists has been apt to condemn the
whole policy under which such displays have
been associated with the attempt to
recommend the exalted spiritual philosophy
of the “Esoteric Doctrine” to the
outer world. It is easy to be wise after
the event; it is easy now to see that
in Europe, at all events, where sympathy
with new or unfamiliar ideas can best
be courted by purely intellectual methods,
the Theosophical position, as now
understood by its most devoted
representatives, would be stronger without, than
with the record of Mme. Blavatsky's
phenomena behind it. Still I am very far
myself from thinking that the idea of
awakening the attention of the world in
regard to the possibilities for all men of
greatly elevating and expanding their
own inner nature and capabilities along the
lines of occult study, by the
display of some of the powers which such
study was capable of bringing about,
was in itself an injudicious idea. It is
plain, of course, that Mme. Blavatsky
has to bear the responsibility of having
often misapplied that idea; that she is
suffering from the prompt retribution of
circumstances in the ignominy that has
been heaped upon her of late, is also
apparent. But cool observation of the
whole position will show that, with all her
mistakes, she has infused into the
current of the world's thinking a flood of
ideas connected with the
possibilities of man's spiritual evolution,
that many thinkers are at work with
now in profound disregard of, not to say
ingratitude for, the source from which
they have come. Mme. Blavatsky's [182]
failures and mistakes are glaring in
the sight of us all; trumpeted in every
newspaper that mocks her as an impostor,
and proclaimed (by the irony of fate) in
the proceedings of a Society that has
stultified its own name by investigating an
episode in her career, as if
psychical developments were so much
ironmongery, and the depth of nature's
mysteries could be expressed — by a
sufficiently acute observer — in decimals of
an inch. But her successes are only
apparent to those who have eyes to see, and
an enlightened understanding to comprehend.
And just as the history of Mme. Blavatsky's
work is a party-colored page, so her
personality, her external character, is
equally variegated. I have said a good
deal of her impetuosity and indiscretions
of speech and manner and of the way in
which she will rage for hours, if allowed,
over trifles which a more phlegmatic,
not to speak of a more philosophical
temperament would barely care to notice.
But it must be understood that, almost at
any time, an appeal to her
philosophical intellect will turn her right
off into another channel of
thinking, and then, equally for hours, may
any appreciative companion draw forth
the stores of her information concerning
Eastern religions and mythology, the
subtle metaphysics of Hindu and Buddhist
symbolism, or the esoteric doctrine
itself, so far as in later years some
regions of this have been opened out for
public treatment. Even in the midst of
passionate lamentations — appropriate in
vehemence to a catastrophe that might have
wrecked the fruits of a life-time —
over some offensive sneer in a newspaper
article or letter, an allusion to some
unsolved problem in esoteric cosmogony, or
misinterpretation by a European
orientalist of some Eastern doctrine, will
divert the flow of her intense mental
activity, and sweep all recollection of the
current annoyance, for the moment,
from her mind. [183]
The record of Mme. Blavatsky's residence in
India is, of course, intimately
blended with the history of the
Theosophical Society, on which all her energies
are spent, directly or indirectly, and
indirectly in so far only as she was
obliged during this period to do what
literary work she could for Russian
magazines to earn her livelihood, and
supplement the narrow resources on which
the headquarters of the Society were kept
up. The Theosophist, the monthly
magazine devoted to occult research, which
she set on foot in the autumn of her
first year in India, paid its way from the
beginning, and gradually came to
earning a small profit, subject to the fact
that its management was altogether
gratuitous, and all its work, in all
departments, performed by the little band
of Theosophists at the headquarters ; but
all the while that sneering critics of
the movement in the papers would be
suggesting, from time to time, that the
founders of the Society were doing a very
good business with “initiation fees”,
and living on the tribute of the faithful,
Mme. Blavatsky was really at her desk
from morning till night, slaving at Russian
articles, which she wrote solely for
the sake of the little income she was able
to make in this way, and on which, in
a far greater degree than on the proper
resources of the Society, the
headquarters were supported, and the movement
kept on foot.
Thus energetically promoted, the Society
continued to make steady progress.
Colonel Olcott travelled about the country
with indefatigable perseverance,
founding new branches in all directions,
and Mme. Blavatsky herself went with
him and some others to Ceylon during the
cold weather, 1880-81, where the
theosophical party was fêted by
large and enthusiastic native audiences. The
movement took firm root in the island at
once, and flourished with wonderful
vigor. [184]
Here, of course, Madame Blavatsky's open
profession of Buddhism as her religion
was all in her favour, though it had been
rather against her in India, as
exoteric Hindus and Buddhists are not at
all in sympathy, though the esoteric
docrines of the initiates of both schools
are practically identical. The
Singalese welcomed, with delight, a lead
which showed them how to set up schools
in which their children could be taught the
essentials of secular education
without coming into contact with European
missionaries.
During the autumn of 1881 I returned to
India from a visit to England, and on
landing at Bombay spent a few days with
Madame Blavatsky at the headquarters of
the Theosophical Society, then established
at Breach Candy, in a bungalow called
the Crow's Nest, perched up on a little
eminence above the road. It had been
unoccupied for some time I heard,
discredited by a reputation for snakes and
ghosts, neither of which encumbrances
greatly alarmed the new tenants. The
building was divided into two portions —
the lower given over to the Society
service and to Colonel Olcott's Spartan
accommodation ; the upper part, reached
by a covered stairway, corresponding to the
slope of the hill, to Mme. Blavatsky
and the office work of the Theosophist.
There was also a spare room in this
upper portion, all the rooms of which were
on one level, and opening on to a
broad covered-in verandah, which
constituted Mme. Blavatsky's sitting, eating,
and reception room all in one. Opening out
of it at the further end she had a
small writing-room. On the whole she was
more comfortably housed than, knowing
her wild contempt for the luxuries of
European civilisation, I had expected to
find her ; but the establishment was more
native than Anglo-Indian in its
organisation, and the covered verandah was
all day long, and up [185] to
late hours in the evening, visited by an
ebb and flow of native guests, admiring
Theosophists who came to pay their respects
to Madame. She used to like to get
half a dozen or more of them round her
talking on any topic connected with the
affairs of the Society that might arise in
a desultory, aimless way, that used
to be found rather trying by her European
friends. The latest embarrassment or
little difficulty or annoyance, whatever it
might be, that had presented itself,
used to fill her horizon for the moment,
and give her fretful anxiety out of
keeping with its importance, and there has
rarely been a period during the five
or six years I have had to do with the
Society when there has not been some
situation to be saved — in Mme. Blavatsky's
estimation, — some enemy to be
guarded against, some possible supporter to
be conciliated. How it was possible
for any nervous system to stand the wear
and tear of the perpetual agitation and
worry in which — largely in consequence of
the peculiarities of her own
temperament, of course — Mme. Blavatsky
spent her life, persons of calmer nature
could never understand. But she would
generally be up at an early hour writing
at her Russian articles or translations, or
at the endless letters she sent off
in all directions in the interest of the
Society, or at articles for the
Theosophist; then during the day she would
spend a large part of her time
talking with native visitors in her
verandah room, or hunting them away and
getting back to her work with wild protests
against the constant interruption
she was subject to, and in the same breath
calling for her faithful “Babula”,
her servant, in a voice that rang all over
the house, and sending for some one
or other of the visitors she knew to be
waiting about below and wanting to see
her. Then in the midst of some fiery
argument with a pundit about a point of
[186] modern Hindu belief that she might
protest against as inconsistent
with the real meaning of the Vedas, or a
passionate remonstrance with one of her
aides of the Theosophist about something
done amiss that would for the time
overspread the whole sky of her imagination
with a thundercloud, she would
perhaps suddenly “hear the voice they did
not hear” — the astral call of her
distant Master, or one of the other
“Brothers”, as by that time we had all
learned to call them, — and forgetting
everything else in an instant, she would
hurry off to the seclusion of any room
where she could be alone for a few
moments, and hear whatever message or
orders she had to receive.
She never wanted to go to bed when night
came. She would sit on smoking
cigarettes and talking — talking with a
tireless energy that was wonderful to
watch — on Eastern philosophy of any sort,
on the mistakes of theological
writers, on questions raised (but not
settled) in Isis, or, with just as much
intensity and excitement, on some wretched
matter connected with the
administration of the Society, or some
foolish sarcasm levelled against herself
and the attributes imputed to her in one of
the local newspapers. To say that
she never would learn to, estimate
occurrences at their proper relative value,
is to express the truth so inadequately
that the phrase does not seem to express
it at all. Her mind seemed always like the
exhausted receiver of an air-pump, in
which a feather or a guinea let fall, drop
with apparently the same momentum.
Of society in the European sense of the
term she had absolutely none at Bombay.
She never paid visits, and as the custom of
the English communities in the East
requires the new-comer to make the first
calls, she, ignoring this necessity,
was left almost absolutely without [187]
acquaintances of her own kind in
that station of India where she was
supposed to be most at home. I often
wondered that none of the English residents
at Bombay had the curiosity to break
through the conventionalities of the
situation and take advantage of the
opportunity lying within reach of their
hands for making friends with one of, at
all events, the most remarkable and
intellectually-gifted women in the whole
country — rugged eccentricities and
cigarettes notwithstanding. But certainly at
first the quarters where Madame Blavatsky
established herself, and the habits of
her heterogeneous native household, and the
wild tales which I have no doubt
from the first were circulated about her,
may have intimidated any but the most
adventurous of the English ladies
accustomed to the decorous routine of
Anglo-Indian etiquette. She herself may
have fretted occasionally against her
isolation, but at all events did not regret
the loss of European “society” in
the special sense of the word; she would
have found it a terrible burden to go
out to formal parties of any kind, to
forego the ease of the nondescript
costumes — loose wrappers — that she wore,
to put herself in any position in
which her fingers would be restrained from
reaching, whenever the impulse
prompted them to do so, for her tobacco
pouch and cigarette papers. Rebel as she
had been in her childhood against the
customs of civilized life, so equally was
she a rebel against the usages of English
society in India; and the strange
discipline of her occult training that had
rendered her spirit devoted and
submissive to the one kind of control she
had learned to reverence, left the
fierce independence of her outer nature
quite unaltered.
She joined me at Allahabad a few months
after my return to India in 1881, and
went up to Simla with me [188] to be the
guest for the remainder of that
season of Mr A. O. Hume. She was far from
well at the time, and the latter part
of the journey — a trying one for the most
robust passenger — was an ordeal that
brought out the peculiar characteristics of
her excitable temper in an amusing
way, I remember; for the “tongas” in which
the eight-hours' drive up the
mountain roads from Kalka at the foot of
the hills to the elevated sanatorium is
accomplished, are not luxurious
conveyances. They are low two-wheeled carts hung
on a crank axle, so that the foot-boards
are only about a foot above the road,
with seats for four persons, including the
driver, two and two back to back —
just accommodation enough in each for one
passenger with his portmanteau
(equivalent, if he has one with him, to a
passenger), and a servant. We had two
tongas between us, putting our servants
with some of the luggage in one, while
Madame Blavatsky and I occupied the back
seat of the other with a porte manteau
on the seat beside the driver. The only
recommendation of a tonga is that it
gets over the ground rapidly, and the
ponies, frequently changed, trot or canter
up all but the steepest gradients. The
traveler is jolted frightfully, but he is
not likely to be capsized, though even that
happens sometimes, for the mountain
roads are very rough, and the ponies apt to
be troublesome. The general
character of the tonga pony may be
appreciated from the fact that I have known a
driver apologize to a passenger for a
particularly flighty pair, on the ground
that they had never been in harness before.
The animals are attached to the
vehicle by a strong cross-bar resting in
sockets on saddles they carry for the
purpose, and though on this system ponies
and cart are as firmly united as a
bunch of keys by its steel ring, still they
are no less loosely linked together,
and n nervous passenger is liable to be
disturbed by the extraordinary positions
into which they get during any little
disagreement between the team and the
driver. One such disagreement arose soon
after our start on the journey of which
I am speaking, and Madame's impassioned
anathemas directed against the whole
service of the tonga dak and the
civilization of which it formed a part, ought
not, I remember thinking at the time, to
have had their comicality wasted upon
an audience of one. Then, as the day and
the dreary drive wore on, Madame's
indignation at the annoyance of the
situation only waxed more vehement, instead
of settling down into the dogged despair
with which the more phlegmatic Briton
as a rule accepts the disagreeables of a
tonga drive. Especially she used to be
incensed whenever the driver sounded his
ear-piercing horn close behind us. She
would break off whatever she was talking
about to launch invectives at this
unfortunate “trumpet” whenever it was
blown, and as often, up to the end of the
journey; and, seeing that a tonga driver
for self-preservation's sake must blow
his horn whenever he approaches a turn in
the road (which may conceal another
tonga coming the other way); also that the
road from Kalka to Simla, the whole
fifty or sixty miles of it, consists
chiefly of turns all the way up, the
trumpet was more effectually cursed by the
time we got to our destination than
the jackdaw of Rheims himself.
I do not think it worth while to add to the
wonderful records of Mme.
Blavatsky's “phenomena”, contained in other
portions of this volume, any
description of the relatively insignificant
incidents of that kind, which were
all that occurred at the period to which I
have now come. The manifestations of
abnormal occult power which had been
displayed so freely in the summer of 1880
had given rise to a good deal of
acrimonious [190] discussion. Whatever
policy had been under trial, by the
mysterious authorities whom Madame Blavatsky
spoke of as her Masters, when she was
freely permitted to exercise whatever
abnormal gifts she possessed, and even
helped to achieve results beyond her own
reach, had now fallen into discredit. The
days of phenomena working were all but
over. All that occurred now were concerned
merely with the despatch and receipt
of letters, or in some way incidental to
the work of the Theosophic movement. It
would rarely happen that even these
presented themselves under conditions that
rendered the transaction complete enough to
be described as a wonder; though
with the experience of Madame Blavatsky
that most of us about her at this time
had had on other occasions, incidents that
were incomplete as tests of occult
power, would necessarily share the
retrospective credit attaching to other
similar incidents that had been complete in
the past. However, the mot d'ordre
in the Theosophical Society was now coming
to be unfavorable to the craving for
phenomena as such, that each new set of
acquaintances Madame Blavatsky might
make would necessarily feel at first. Mr Hume
— who at that time was greatly
interested in the information I had begun
to obtain shortly before in reference
to the views of Nature entertained by the
adepts of Indian occultism — and I,
were far more intent now on enlarging our
comprehension of this “Esoteric
Doctrine” than on witnessing further
displays of a mysterious power of which we
could not fathom the secrets. We used to
spend long hours together, day after
day, in trying to develop the unmanageable
hints we obtained in the form of
written answers to questions, with the help
of Mme. Blavatsky; but the task she
had to perform in endeavoring to elucidate
these hints, was almost hopelessly
embarrassing; [191] for though her own
knowledge was very great, it had not
been originally implanted in her own mind
on European methods; it was not
readily recast in a European mould, and
above all, she had no clear idea as to
what she was at liberty to tell us, and how
far her general obligations of
secrecy still applied. It was an uphill and
not very profitable beginning that
was made at this time with an enterprise
that assumed considerable proportions
in the end, and it was not till a later
period, when I had returned to my own
house at Allahabad, that my instruction in
occult philosophy, leading up to the
subsequent development of the book called
Esoteric Buddhism, began to make real
progress. By that time, to my lasting
regret, Mr Hume's sympathies had been
alienated from the undertaking.
It has been, in this way, Mme. Blavatsky's
fate, throughout her work on the
Theosophical Society, to make and lose many
friends. The peculiarities of her
character, which these memoirs will have
disclosed, sufficiently account for
this checkered record of success and
failure. No personal demeanor could be
imagined worse calculated than hers to
retain the confidence of people earnestly
pursuing exalted spiritual ideas, during
that intermediate stage of
acquaintanceship intervening between the
first kindling of an interest in her
general theories of occultism, and the
establishment of a profound intimacy. It
is only people who know her hardly at all,
or only through her writings, and, at
the other end of the scale, those who knew
her so thoroughly that she herself
cannot mislead them, by external roughness
and indiscretion, into distrusting
the foundations of her character, who do
her justice. People who are familiar
with her without being closely intimate and
long acquainted with the conflicting
elements of her nature, [192] can hardly
escape some shock to their
confidence, sooner or later, some
uncomfortable suspicion about her code of
truthfulness, of right or wrong, which once
planted in their minds, and not
immediately brought forward and frankly
discussed with her, will be sure to
rankle and grow. It is easy for people
whose work lies altogether on the
physical plane of existence, who deal with
one another by the light of
principles which are perfectly well
understood all round, to remain beyond the
reach of all moral reproach, to regulate
their conduct so that all men recognize
the purity of their intentions, and the
high standards of right by which they
are governed. The course of life before an
occult chela endeavoring to carry out
a work of spiritual philanthropy amongst
people on the “physical plane” — “in
the world” — (as the occult phrase would
express it, distinguishing between the
normal community of human kind at large,
and the secluded organization in
contact with other modes of human
existence, besides those of ordinary living
flesh) is immeasurably more embarrassing.
Such a person is entangled, to begin
with, in a network of reserve. He cannot
but be cognizant of a great many facts
connected with the occult life which he is
not at liberty to disclose, which,
indeed, he is bound to guard even from the
betrayal which an indiscreet silence
in face of indiscreet questioning might
sometimes bring about. There would be no
difficulty in his way if he were simply a
chela of the ordinary kind concerned
as such merely with his own spiritual and
psychic development ; but when he has
to make some disclosures, and must not go
too far with these — when he is not
allowed, withal, to be judge of what
information he shall communicate and what
keep back, — his task may often be one that
is replete with the most serious
embarrassment. [193]
These embarrassments would, of course, be
least for a person of naturally cool
and taciturn temperament, but amongst
occultists, as amongst people “in the
world”, temperaments vary. Of course Mme.
Blavatsky's excitable and passionate
disposition has been a frightful
stumbling-block in her way: but what is the use
in an orchard of the most gracefully shaped
tree that bears no fruit ? She might
have been born with the manners of Mme.
Récamier, and the sedate discretion of
an English judge, and have been perfectly
useless in her generation. Whereas,
with all her defects, the possession of her
splendid psychic gifts, of her
indomitable courage — which carried her through
the ordeals of initiation in the
mysteries of occult knowledge, and again
held her up against the protracted
antagonism of materialistic opinion when
she came back into the world with an
onerous mission to discharge, — and of her
spiritual enthusiasm, which made all
suffering and toil as dust in the balance
compared with her allegiance to her
unseen “Masters”, the possession, in short,
of her occult attributes has
rendered her an influence in the world of
great potency. The tree may not have
assumed a shape that passing strangers
would admire, but the fruit it has borne
has been a stupendous harvest.
When I say that suffering and toil have
been with Mme. Blavatsky as dust in the
balance compared to her duty, I say that
with deliberate conviction; but, of
course, the phrase must not be taken to
mean that she bears suffering and
privation with philosophical calm or
equanimity. She is not capable of bearing
the annoyance of a pin-prick with equanimity.
She cannot help fuming and
fretting over every annoyance, great or
small, and when, as so often happens
inevitably, considering the stories told of
her wonder working, and the
occasional [194] manifestation of her
powers in this respect up to a recent
date, she is suspected of trickery, her
indignation and misery and incoherent
protests are so vehement and unwise in
their expression that they only serve to
strengthen unjust conclusions to her
disadvantage.
During the Simla visit of 1881, we established
the Simla Eclectic Theosophical
Society — a branch which it was hoped at
the time would attract Anglo-Indian
members. Mr Hume was its president for the
first year, and I myself for its
second; but the movement never took root
firmly in Anglo-Indian society, and
indeed at that time there was nothing
before the world that could give the
movement an adequate raison d'être
for Europeans at large.
The record of Mme. Blavatsky's life in
India for the next year or two would be
mainly a narrative of tiresome episodes
connected with attacks of one kind or
another on the Theosophical Society. A
Calcutta newspaper called the Statesman
made her and her Society the object of
frequent sarcasms, and sometimes of grave
misrepresentation, so that in December 1881
it was driven under a threat of
legal proceedings to publish a letter from
solicitors on Mme. Blavatsky's
behalf. This may be usefully reproduced
here as illustrating at once the
offensive nature and the groundlessness of
the attacks of which she was the
object.
“CALCUTTA, December 16, 1881.
“SIR, —
In
the Statesman of Tuesday, the 6th instant, there appears an article having
reference, among other matters, to Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott,
the
founders of the Theosophical Society. In the course of that article it
is
stated: —
“
'It is now asserted not only that the resources of both (Madame Blavatsky
and
Colonel Olcott) are exhausted, but that they are largely in debt, on
account, it is alleged, [195] of the expenses of the Society. It is not
difficult for any one to arrive at the conclusion that it would be
highly
desirable and expedient for the founders of the Theosophical Society to
have
these debts paid off. This is a simple and not unpraiseworthy instinct.
The
question that remains is, as regards the means by which this
consummation is
to
be effected.'
“The remainder of the article, which we need not quote at length, is an
elaborate insinuation that Madame Blavatsky is endeavoring to procure
from a
gentleman named, by spurious representations, the payment of her debts.
“Now, the allegation about Madame Blavatsky being in debt is, we are
instructed, absolutely false to begin with ; nor is the Society which
she
helped to found in debt, unless, indeed, it be to herself. The accounts
of the
Society, published in the THEOSOPHIST for last May, show that the outlay
incurred on behalf of the Society up to that date had exceeded the
receipts
(consisting of ' initiation fees ' Rs. 3900, and a few donations) by a
sum of
Rs.
19,846, but this deficit was supplied from the private resources of Madame
Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott.
“We
may further explain that Madame Blavatsky is a Russian lady of high rank
by
birth (though since naturalized in the United States), and has never been
in
the penniless condition your article insultingly ascribes to her — whatever
mistakes may have arisen from the improper publication of a private
letter by
Colonel Olcott to a friend in America, the careless exaggerations of
which,
designed merely for a correspondent familiar with the real state of the
affairs to which these referred, have given you occasion for some
offensive
remarks.
“We
therefore, duly instructed on behalf of Madame Blavatsky and Colonel
Olcott, now require of you that you should publish this letter together
with
an
apology for the scandalous libel to which you have been misled into giving
currency.
“We
also require that in further refutation of these, and in general reply to
the
insulting language of your article, you should publish the enclosed
explanations extracted from the Pioneer of the 10th instant.[196]
“In
the event of your failure forthwith to comply with our request, or to give
up
the name of the writer of the article in question, we are instructed to
proceed against you in the High Court for recovery of damages for the
libelous
attacks of which our clients complain. —
Yours faithfully,
SANDERSON & Co.”
The publication of this letter was
accompanied by a quasi-apology, and the
matter dropped. But next month the
Theosophists were engaged in another war of
words with a Mr Joseph Cook, a missionary
preacher, who attacked the Society in
certain lectures he gave at Poona. All
standards of European good sense applied
to such a matter would, of course, have
required Mme. Blavatsky to remain
perfectly quiescent in face of such
assailants, but her temperament forbade
this, and possibly the native Indian
feeling on such subjects, very unlike the
European feeling in corresponding cases,
may have made it impossible for the
leaders of the Theosophical Society to
refuse an answer to any charges made
against them. At all events, poor Mme.
Blavatsky was never dragged out of one
pool of hot water without forthwith finding
herself in another.
In the autumn of 1882, of which she spent
the greater part at Bombay, she became
seriously ill, and was at length summoned
to an interview with her occult
superiors across the Sikkim frontier, near
Darjeeling. In a note I had from her
shortly before her departure from Bombay,
written in the middle of September,
she bade my wife and myself good-bye, in
the expectation, apparently, that the
term of her physical life was nearly over.
The note is so characteristic that I
give it here with only a few private
allusions suppressed.
“MY
DEAR FRIENDS, MRS AND MR SINNETT,
I
am afraid you will have soon to bid me good-bye. This time [197] I have
it
well and good. Bright's disease of the kidneys, and the whole blood turned
into water, ulcers breaking out in the most unexpected spots, blood, or
whatever it may be, forming into bags à la kangaroo, and other
pretty extras
and
et ceteras. This all, primo, brought on by Bombay dampness and heat; and,
secundo, by fretting and bothering. I have become so stupidly nervous
that the
unexpected tread of Babula's naked foot near me makes me start with the
most
violent palpitations of the heart. Dudley says — I forced him to tell me
this
—
that I can last a year or two, and perhaps but a few days, for I can die at
any
time in consequence of an emotion. Ye lords of creation ! of such emotions
I
have twenty a day. How can I last then ? I give all the business over to
-----; ----- (meaning her Master) wants me to prepare and go somewhere
for a
month or so toward end of September. He sent a chela here from Nilgerri
Hills,
and
he is to take me off, where, I don't know, but, of course, somewhere in
the
Himalayas.
“
... I can hardly write, I am really too weak. Yesterday they drove me down
to
the Fort to the doctor. I got up with both my ears swollen thrice their
natural size, and I met Mrs ------ and sister, her carriage crossing
mine
slowly. She did not salute nor make a sign of recognition, but looked
very
proud and disdainful. Well, I was fool enough to resent it. I tell you I
am
very sick. Yes, I wish I could see you once more, and dear ------ and
-----.
“Well, good-bye all, and when I am gone, if I go before seeing you, do
not
think of me too much as an 'impostor', for I swear I told you the truth,
however much I have concealed of it from you. I hope Mrs ----- will not
dishonor by evoking me with some medium. Let her rest assured that it
will
never be my spirit, nor anything of me — not even my shell, since this
is gone
long ago.
Yours in life yet,
H.
P. B.”
Some particulars of her journey up to
Darjeeling, made shortly after this, are
given in a narrative by an enthusiastic
candidate for chelaship, Mr S.
Ramaswamier, [198] who endeavored to
accompany Mme. Blavatsky, scenting the
probability that she was really going to
meet one of the higher adepts or
“Mahatmas”. I take a portion of this
narrative from the Theosophist of December
1882. It took the form of a letter
addressed by the writer to a brother
Theosophist.
“... When we met last at Bombay I told you what had happened to me at
Tinnevelly. My health having been disturbed by official work and worry,
I
applied for leave on medical certificate, and it was duly granted. One
day in
September last, while I was reading in my room, I was ordered by the
audible
voice of my blessed Guru, M ------, to leave all and proceed immediately
to
Bombay, whence I had to go in search of Mme. Blavatsky wherever I could
find
her
and follow her wherever she went. Without losing a moment, I closed up all
my
affairs and left the station. For the tones of that voice are to me the
divinest sound in nature; its commands imperative. I travelled in my
ascetic
robes. Arrived at Bombay, I found Mme. Blavatsky gone, and learned
through you
that she had left a few days before; that she was very ill ; and that,
beyond
the
fact that she had left the place very suddenly with a Chela, you knew
nothing of her whereabouts. And now, I must tell you what happened to me
after
I
had left you.
“Really not knowing whither I had best go, I took a through ticket to
Calcutta; but, on reaching Allahabad, I heard
the same well-known voice
directing me to go to Berhampore. At Azimgunge, in the train, I met,
most
providentially I may say, with some Babus (I did not then know they were
also
Theosophists, since I had never seen any of them), who were also in
search of
Mme. Blavatsky. Some had traced her to Dinapore, but lost her track and
went
back to Berhampore. They knew, they said, she was going to Tibet, and
wanted
to
throw themselves at the feet of the Mahatmas to permit them to accompany
her. At last, as I was told, they received from her a note, informing
them to
come if they so desired it, but that she herself was prohibited from [
199] going to Tibet just now. She was to remain, she said, in the
vicinity of
Darjeeling, and would see the BROTHERS on the Sikkim Territory, where
they
would not be allowed to follow her. . . . Brother Nobin, the President
of the
Adhi Bhoutic Bhratru Theosophical Society, would not tell me where Mme.
Blavatsky
was, or perhaps did not then know it himself. Yet he and others had
risked all in the hope of seeing the Mahatmas. On the 23rd, at last, I
was
brought by Nobin Babu from Calcutta to Chandernagore, where I found Mme.
Blavatsky,
ready to start, five minutes after, with the train. A tall,
dark-looking hairy Chela (not Chunder Cusho), but a Tibetan I suppose by
his
dress, whom I met after I had crossed the river with her in a boat, told
me
that I had come too late, that Mme. Blavatsky had already seen the
Mahatmas,
and
that he had brought her back. He would not listen to my supplications to
take me with him, saying he had no other orders than what he had already
executed, namely — to take her about 25 miles beyond a certain place he
named
to
me, and that he was now going to see her safe to the station, and return.
The
Bengalee brother-Theosophists had also traced and followed her, arriving
at
the station half-an-hour later. They crossed the river from Chandernagore
to
a small railway station on the opposite side. When the train arrived, she
got
into the carriage, upon entering which I found the Chela! And, before even
her
own things could be placed in the van, the train — against all regulations
and
before the bell was rung — started off, leaving Nobin Babu, the Bengalees,
and
her servant behind. Only one Babu and the wife and daughter of another —
all
Theosophists and candidates for Chelaship — had time to get in. I myself
had
barely the time to jump in, into the last carriage. All her things — with
the
exception of her box containing the Theosophical correspondence — were
left behind, together with her servant. Yet, even the persons that went
by the
same train with her did not reach Darjeeling. Babu Nobin Banerjee, with
the
servant, arrived five days later; and they who had time to take their
seats
were left five or six stations behind owing to another unforeseen
accident (?)
at
another further [200] place, reaching Darjeeling also a few days
later! It requires no great stretch of imagination to know that Mme.
Blavatsky
had
been, or was perhaps, being again taken to the BROTHERS, who, for some
good reasons best known to them, did not want us to be following and
watching
her. Two of the Mahatmas, I had learned for a certainty, were in the
neighborhood of British territory, and one of them was seen and
recognized, by
a
person I need not name here, as a high chutuku of Tibet.”
Mme. Blavatsky was only two or three days
across the frontier with her occult
superiors, but she returned practically
well again, and cured for the time of
the formidable diseases by which her life
had been menaced.On the 16th of
December 1882, a farewell entertainment was
given by native friends to the
founders of the Theosophical Society, just
before their departure from Bombay to
take up their residence at Adyar, Madras,
where a house had been purchased for
the Society by subscription. At this
entertainment an address was read as
follows:—
“On
the eve of your departure for Madras, we, the members of the Bombay
Branch, beg most respectfully to convey to you our heartfelt and sincere
acknowledgment for the benefit which the people of this Presidency in
general,
and
we in particular, have derived from your exposition of the Eastern
philosophies and religions during the past four years. Although the
exigencies
of
the Society's growing business make it necessary to remove the headquarters
to
Madras, we assure you that the enthusiasm for Theosophical studies and
universal Brotherhood which you have awakened in us will not die out,
but will
be
productive of much good in future. By your editorial efforts and public
lectures, you have done much to awaken in the hearts of the educated
sons of
India a fervent desire for the study of their ancient literature, which
has so
long been neglected; and though you have never undervalued the system of
Western [201] education for the people of India, which to a certain
extent is necessary for the material and political advancement of the
country,
you
have often justly impressed upon the minds of young men the necessity of
making investigations into the boundless treasures of Eastern learning
as the
only means of checking that materialistic and atheistic tendency
engendered by
an
educational system unaccompanied by any moral or religious instruction.
“You have preached throughout the country temperance and universal
brotherhood, and how far your attempts in that direction have been
successful
during the brief period of four years was perfectly manifest at the last
anniversary of the Parent Society, just held in Bombay, when on one
common
platform
brave hearts from Lahore and Simla to Ceylon, from Calcutta to
Kattiawar, from Gujerat and Allahabad — Parsees, Hindus, Buddhists,
Jews,
Mahomedans, and Europeans — assembled under the banner of Theosophy, and
advocated the regeneration of India, under the benign influence of the
British
rule. Such a union of different communities, with all the prejudices of
sects,
castes, and creeds set aside, the formation of one harmonious whole, and
the
combining together for any national object, in short, a grand national
union,
are
indispensable for the moral resuscitation of Hindustan.”
Your endeavors have been purely unselfish and disinterested, and they
therefore entitle you to our warmest sympathy and best respects. We
shall most
anxiously watch your successful progress, and take an earnest delight in
the
accomplishment of the objects of your mission, throughout the Aryawart.
“As
a humble token of our sense of appreciation of your labours of love, and
as
a keepsake from us, we beg most respectfully to offer for your acceptance,
on
behalf of our Branch, an article of Indian make, with a suitable
inscription.”
Thus by words as well as by deeds the
native Theosophists of India were showing
their appreciation of the good work done by
Mme. Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott
[202] in spite of the perpetually renewed
slights they received all the
while from the Anglo-Indian newspapers.
The house at Madras in which Mme. Blavatsky
was next established was a great
improvement on the cramped and comfortless
bungalow at Bombay from which she
removed. Madras is a station of enormous
extent, straggling along seven or eight
miles of the sea-shore. Adyar is a suburb
at the southern extremity, through
which a small stream finds its way to the
sea, and just before it reaches the
beach spreads out into a broad shallow
expanse of water, beside which the
Theosophical House stands in extensive
grounds. Here we found Mme. Blavatsky and
her heterogeneous household comfortably
installed when my wife and I visited her
on our way home from India in March 1883.
She was looking forward to final rest
there, and was hoping she had at last found
the tranquil retreat in which she
would spend the remainder of her life. Her
occult gifts have not included the
power of forecasting the vicissitudes of
her own career, and she was very far at
that time from suspecting the renewed
disturbance of her destinies, which the
next two or three years were preparing to
bring forth. The upper rooms of the
house were her own private domain. These
did not cover the whole area of the
lower storey, but even with an addition
that had just been made, stood on the
roof like the poop of a ship upon its deck.
The new room just built had been
hurried forward that we might see it
complete, and was destined by Madame to be
her “occult room”, her own specially
private sanctum, where she would be visited
by none but her most intimate friends. It
came to be sadly desecrated by her
worst enemies a year or two later. In her
ardor of affection for all that
concerned the “Masters”, she had especially
devoted herself to decorating a
certain hanging cupboard to be [203] kept
exclusively sacred to the
communications passing between these
Masters and herself, and already bestowed
upon it the designation under which it
became so sadly celebrated subsequently —
the shrine. Here she had established some
simple occult treasures — relics of
her stay in Tibet — two small portraits she
possessed of the Mahatmas, and some
other trifles associated with them in her
imagination. The purpose of this
special receptacle was, of course,
perfectly intelligible to everyone familiar
with the theory of occult phenomena — held
by Theosophists to be as rigidly
subject to natural laws as the behavior of
steam or electricity. A place kept
pure of all “magnetism” but that connected
with the work of integrating and
disintegrating letters, would facilitate
the process, and the “shrine” was used
a dozen times for the transaction of
business between the Masters and the chelas
connected with the Society for every once
it was made to subserve the purpose of
any show phenomenon.
At Madras Mme. Blavatsky was not quite so
much neglected by the European society
of the place, in the beginning of her
residence there at all events, as she had
been at Bombay. Some of the leading
Anglo-Indian residents went to see her and
became her fast friends. With some of these
she spent part of the autumn at
Ootacamund, the hill station of Madras. An
incident which took place during this
visit excited much local interest at the
time, and is described by the lady
chiefly concerned, Mrs Carmichael, as follows:
—
“I
went to see Mme. Blavatsky, who was at that time on a visit to General and
Mrs
Morgan, who live at Ootacamund. After some interesting conversation with
her
I left, expressing a desire to see her again soon, and on my third visit
the
following incident occurred.
“It
was about four o'clock in the afternoon when I [204] called on Mme.
Blavatsky, and was received by her in the drawing-room. I sat beside her
on
the
sofa, and took off my driving gloves.”
I
had already several times expressed to Madame Blavatsky my great desire to
see
some occult phenomenon, and also to be convinced by some token of the
presence of the Mahatmas.“
After a short time spent in conversation on this and other subjects, in
course
of
which I said how much I should like to have a ring duplicated in the same
way
that Mrs Sinnett had, Mme. Blavatsky took my hand, and withdrawing from
her
hand a ring which she called her occult ring, took off also two rings from
my
hand, one a blue sapphire, single stone. She held the three rings for a
short time in her right hand, and then returned me one saying — ' I can
do
nothing with this; it has not your influence' (it was a ring of my
husband's
which I had put on accidentally that day). She then proceeded to
manipulate in
her
right hand my blue sapphire and her own occult ring, at the same time
holding my right hand with her left."
After an interval of a minute or two she extended her right hand saying
—“
'Here
is your ring' — showing me at the same instant two sapphire rings, my
own
and another identical in every respect, except that the second was larger
and
a better cut stone than my own. ' Why do you give me this? ' I asked in
surprise.“
' I
have not done it; it is a gift from the Mahatmas,' answered Mme.
Blavatsky. ' Why should I be so favored ?' I asked. ' Because,' said
Mme.
Blavatsky, ' the Mahatmas have allowed you to have this as a token that
they
recognize and thank you and your husband for the deep interest you have
always
shown to the natives.' ”
About two months after, on my return to Madras, I took the duplicated
sapphire
ring to Messrs Orr & Son, jewelers, and I was told by them that they
valued
the
stone at 150 rupees, calling it a party-colored sapphire.
(Signed) “ Sara M. CARMICHAEL.
“LONDON, August 14th, 1884.” [205]
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
CHAPTER 10
A VISIT TO EUROPE
At the Convention of the Theosophical
Society, held in December, it was stated
that there were then seventy-seven branches
in India and eight in Ceylon. The
anniversary celebration went off with
éclat as usual, in spite of some sparring
in print between the President and the
Bishop of Madras, foreshadowing a fiercer
conflict between the Society and the local
missionaries at a later date; and
early in the spring the leaders of the
movement came on a visit to Europe.
Colonel Olcott had arranged to come some
time previously on some business
connected with a case before the Colonial
Office, in which the interests of the
Ceylon Buddhists were involved, and at the
last moment it was decided that Mme.
Blavatsky should accompany him. Her rescue,
during the visit to the Sikkim
frontier, from the death that seemed
awaiting her during the autumn of 1882, had
not done more than patch up physical
machinery that was thoroughly out of order.
She was again falling into very bad health,
and it was supposed that the sea
voyage to Europe and a few months' change
would do her good. It was not
contemplated, in the beginning, that she
should come as far as London, and on
her arrival at Nice, where she had friends,
in the beginning of March she wrote,
in reply to various invitations from
London: — [206] “
I have received the kind invitations of
yourselves, of ------, and ------, and
others. I am deeply touched by this proof
of the desire to see my unworthy self,
but see no use to kick against fate and try
to make the realisable out of the
unrealisable. I am sick, and feel worse
than I felt when leaving Bombay. At sea
I had felt better, and on land I feel
worse. I was laid up for the whole day on
first landing at Marseilles, and am laid up
now. At the former place it was, I
suppose, the vile emanations of a European
civilised first-class hotel, with its
pigs and beef, and here — well, anyhow I am
falling to pieces, crumbling away
like an old sea biscuit, and the most I
will be able to do, will be to pick up
and join together my voluminous fragments,
and gluing them together, carry the
ruin to Paris. What's the use asking me to
go to London? What shall I, what can
I, do amidst your eternal fogs and the
emanations of the highest civilisation ?
I left Madras à mon corps
défendant. I did not want to go — would return this
minute if I could. Had not ------ ordered
it, I would not have stirred from my
rooms and old surroundings. I feel ill,
miserable, cross, unhappy. ... I would
not have come to Nice but for Madame
------, our dear Theosophist from Odessa.
Lady C ------ is the embodiment of
kindness. She does everything in creation to
humor me. I came for two days, but I
reckoned without my host, the mistral of
Provence, and the cold winds of Nice. As
soon as I am better, we mean to join
the 'secretaries' in Paris, only to begin
fidgeting as soon as I am there, and
wishing myself sooner in Jericho than
Paris. What kind of company am I to
civilized beings like yourselves ? . . . I
would become obnoxious to them in
seven minutes and a quarter were I to
accept it and land my disagreeable, bulky
self in England. Distance lends its charms,
and in my case my presence would
surely ruin every vestige of it.
“The London Lodge is in its sharpest
crisis. ... I could not (especially in my
present state of nervousness) stand by and
listen calmly to the astounding news
that Sankaracharya was a theist, and Sabba
Row knows not what he is talking
about, without kicking myself to [207] death;
or that other still more
astounding declaration that Masters are
evidently ' Swabhavikas.' And shall I
begin contending against the Goughs and
Hodgsons who have disfigured Buddhism
and Adwaiticism even in their exoteric
sense, and risk bursting a blood-vessel
in London upon hearing their arguments
reiterated ? . . . Let me die in peace if
I have to die, or return to my Lares and
Penates in Adyar, if I am ever doomed
to see them again.”
In spite of the reluctance thus expressed,
she ultimately came to London and
stayed for several months, but meanwhile
she remained in Paris for a few weeks
and was there joined by some of her Russian
relatives and friends. Mme. de
Jelihowsky, whose writings have been quoted
so largely in the earlier chapters
of this memoir, again took pen in hand to
describe some phenomena that occurred
during this period.
In an article contributed to a Russian
newspaper, she says: — “When, about the
middle of May, we arrived in Paris for an
interview with Mme. Blavatsky, we
found her surrounded by a regular staff of
members of their Society who had
gathered at Paris, coming from Germany,
Russia, and even America, to see her
after her five years' absence in India ;
and by a crowd of the curious who had
heard of the thaumaturgic atmosphere always
around her, and were anxious to
become eye-witnesses to her occult powers.
Truth compels me to say that H. P.
Blavatsky was very reluctant to satisfy
idle curiosity. She has her own way of
looking very contemptuously at any physical
phenomena, hates to waste her powers
in a profitless manner, and was, moreover,
at the time quite ill. Every
phenomenon produced at her will invariably
costs her several days of sickness.“
I say ' at her will,' for phenomena,
independent of her, took place far more
frequently in their midst than those
produced by herself. She attributes them to
that [208] mysterious being whom they all
call their ' Master.' Such
manifestations of forces (to us) unknown
leave her unhurt. Every time that an
accord or arpeggio of some invisible chords
resounded in the air, wherever she
was, and with whatever occupied, she used
to hasten to her room, from whence she
emerged with some order or news. Most of
the ' secretaries' of the Society
received very often such summons quite
independently of her. ... I give one
instance. On May the 18th, Colonel Olcott
returned from London and showed to us
a curious Chinese envelope with a similar
paper in it, a letter he had received
personally, as he tells us, from one of the
Masters on April 6th, in a railway
carriage, in the presence of witnesses. The
letter had dropped on his knees, and
warned him of a grave treason that was
being prepared for them all at Adyar
(their Madras headquarters) by persons whom
they had trusted, and who owed to
them all during their five years' long stay
in their house. Every detail in the
letter was corroborated two months after.
Mme. Blavatsky paid little attention
to it at the time. But when the news
corroborative of the prophecy arrived, she
felt extremely hurt. . . .“
As to phenomena produced at will, this is
what Professor Thurmann heard in
company of several persons, myself
included.”
He was telling us one night of some musical
sounds he had heard at a spiritual
séance in the dark. H. P.
Blavatsky, who was sitting in her arm-chair, quietly
laying out a Russian patience with cards,
laughed at the narrative, and
remarked, ' Why should darkness be
necessary for such manifestations ? When
there is no deception there is no need of
darkness. . . . ' And upon saying
this, with one hand upon the table, she
lifted the other in the air as though
throwing off some current, and said: ' Now,
listen !'”
At the same instant we heard, in that
corner of the room towards which she had
waved her hand, the harmonious sound as
though of a harp or zither. . . . The
scale of melody resounded clear and sharp,
and then died away in the air. Again
she lifted her hand, moving it in an opposite
direction, and the same phenomenon
was [209] produced! . . . We all started
from our seats, struck with
amazement. For the third time she moved her
hand in a third direction, as though
cutting the air through with her arm — this
time toward a large bronze
chandelier over our heads — and, at the
same instant, the chandelier emitted a
sound, as if in every one of its jets lay
concealed a musical chord, which had
vibrated in response to her command. ...”
Mme. de Jelihowsky also recounts the following
incident: — “
We were, four of us, at Rue Notre Dame des
Champs, 46 — Mme. N. A. Fadeeff, Mme.
Blavatsky, the eminent Russian author, M.
Soloviof, and I, — having tea at the
same table of the little drawing-room,
about 11 P.M. . Mme. B. was asked to
narrate something of her ' Master,' and how
she had acquired from him her occult
talents. While telling us many things which
would be out of place in public
print, she offered us to see a portrait of
his in a gold medallion she wore on a
chain round her neck, and opened it. It is
a perfectly flat locket, made to
contain but one miniature and no more. It
passed from hand to hand, and we all
saw the handsome Hindu face in it, painted
in India."
Suddenly our little party felt disturbed by
something very strange, a sensation
which it is hardly possible to describe. It
was as though the air had suddenly
changed, was rarefied, the atmosphere
became positively oppressive, and we three
could hardly breathe. . . . H. P. B.
covered her eyes with her hand and
whispered:—
“ 'Attention !'...! feel that something is
going to happen. . . . Some
phenomenon. . . . He is preparing to do it.
. . .' ”
She meant by 'He', her guru-master, whom
she considers so powerful. . . .
" At that moment M. Soloviof fixed his
eyes on a corner of the room, saying that
he saw something like a ball of fire, of
oval form, looking like a radiant
golden and bluish egg. ... He had hardly
pronounced these words when we heard,
coming from the farthest end of the [210]
corridor, a long melodious sound,
as if some one had brushed the chords of a
harp — a melody far fuller and more
definite than any of the musical sounds we
had previously heard.
" Once more the clear notes were
repeated, and then died away. Silence reigned
again in the rooms." I left my seat
and went into the passage hall, brightly
lighted with a lamp. Useless to say that
all was quiet, and that it was empty.
When I returned to the drawing-room I found
H. P. Blavatsky sitting quietly as
before at the table between Mme. Fadeeff
and M. Soloviof. At the same time, I
saw as distinctly as can be, the figure of
a man, a greyish, yet quite clear
form, standing near my sister, and who,
upon my looking at him, receded from
her, paled, and disappeared in the opposite
wall. This man — or perhaps his
astral form — was of a slight build, and of
middle size, wrapped in a kind of
mantle, and with a white turban on his
head. The vision did not last more than a
few seconds, but I had all the time to
examine it, and to tell everyone what I
distinctly saw, though, as soon as it had
disappeared I felt terribly frightened
and nervous. . . . Hardly come back to our
senses, we were startled with another
wonder, this one palpable and objective. H.
P. B. suddenly opened her locket,
and instead of one portrait of a Master,
there were two — her own facing his!
“ Firmly set inside the other half of the
medallion, under its oval glass, there
was her own miniature likeness, which she
had just casually mentioned."
The locket was once more carefully examined
by the three witnesses, and passed
from hand to hand.
” This was not the finale. A quarter of an
hour later the magical locket, from
which we three literally never took off our
eyes for one second, was opened at
the desire of one of us — her portrait was
no more to be found in it. . . . It
had disappeared.”The statement that
follows, relating to another incident of
Mme. Blavatsky's stay in Paris, was
published in Light for July 12, 1884: —
[211]
“The undersigned attest the following
phenomenon:
"On the morning of the IIth of June,
instant, we were present in the reception
room of the Theosophical Society at Paris,
46 Rue Notre Dame des Champs, when a
letter was delivered by the postman. The
door of the room in which we were
sitting was open, so that we could see into
the hall; and the servant who
answered the bell was seen to take the
letter from the postman and bring it to
us at once, placing it in the hands of Mme.
Jelihowsky, who threw it before her
on the table round which we were sitting.
The letter was addressed to a lady, a
relative of Mme. Blavatsky's, who was then
visiting her, and came from another
relative in Russia. There were present in
the room, Mme. de Morsier,
secretary-general of the '
Société Théosophique d'Orient et d'Occident'; M.
Soloviof, son of the distinguished Russian
historian, and attaché of the
Imperial Court, himself well known as a
writer; Colonel Olcott, Mr W. Q. Judge,
Mohini-Babu, and several other persons.
Mme. Blavatsky was also sitting at the
table. Mme. Jelihowsky, upon her sister
(Mme. Blavatsky) remarking that she
would like to know what was in the letter,
asked her, on the spur of the moment,
to read its contents before its seal was
broken, since she professed to be able
so to do.
"Thus challenged, Mme. Blavatsky at
once took up the closed letter, held it
against her forehead, and read aloud what
she professed to be its contents.
These alleged contents she further wrote
down on a blank page of an old letter
that lay on a table. Then she said she
would give those present, since her
sister still laughed at and challenged her
power, even a clearer proof that she
was able to exercise her psychic power
within the closed envelope. Remarking
that her own name occurred in the course of
the letter, she said that she would
underline this through the envelope in red
crayon. In order to effect this she
wrote her name on the old letter (on which
the alleged copy of the contents of
the sealed letter had been written),
together with an interlaced double triangle
or ' Solomon's seal' below the signature,
which she had copied as well as the
body of the letter. This was done in spite
of her sister remarking that her
correspondent hardly ever signed her [212]
name in full when writing to
relatives, and that in this at least Mme.
Blavatsky would find herself mistaken.
'Nevertheless,'she replied,'I will cause
these two red marks to appear in the
corresponding places within the letter.'”
She next laid the closed letter beside
the open one upon the table, and placed her
hand upon both, so as to make (as
she said) a bridge, along which a current
of psychic force might pass. Then,
with her features settled into an
expression of intense mental concentration,
she kept her hand quietly thus for a few
moments, after which, tossing the
closed letter across the table to her sister,
she said, 'Tiens, c'est fait.'
('The experiment is successfully
finished.') Here it may be well to add, to show
that the letter could not have been
tampered with in transit — unless by a
Government official, — that the stamps were
fixed on the flap of the envelope,
where a seal is usually placed."
Upon the envelope being opened by the lady
to whom it was addressed, it was
found that Mme. Blavatsky had actually
written out its contents ; that her name
was there; that she had really underlined it
in red, as she had promised; and
that the double triangle was reproduced
below the writer's signature, which was
in full, as Mme. Blavatsky had described
it.”
Another fact of exceptional interest we
noted. A slight defect in formation of
one of the two interlaced triangles, as
drawn by Mme. Blavatsky, had been
faithfully reproduced within the closed
letter." This experiment was doubly
valuable, as at once an illustration of
clairvoyant perception, by which Mme.
Blavatsky correctly read the contents of a
sealed letter, and of the phenomenon
of precipitation, or the deposit of
pigmentary matter in the form of figures and
lines previously drawn by the operator in
the presence of observers.
(Signed)
“ VERA JELIHOWSKY.
VSEVOLOD SOLOVIOF.
NADEJDA A. FADÉEFF.
EMILIE DE MORSIER.
WILLIAM Q. JUDGE.
H. S. OLCOTT. PARIS,
Paris, June 2lst, 1884.” [213]
In the St Petersburg Rebus (a periodical of
psychological sciences) of July 1,
1884, No. 26, the same account appeared
over the signature of V. Soloviof, an
eye-witness to the above fact, under the
title of
INTERESTING PHENOMENON
[Since then the author, between whom and
Mme Blavatsky there have been personal
differences, tried to throw a doubt over
the genuineness of this phenomenon,
saying it may have been due to
psychological glamour thrown over the witnesses.
On that hypothesis, the bare fact of Mme
Blavatsky possessing the power of
collectively mesmerizing a group of people
in full daylight, so that they
thought they saw a series of occurrences
that they did not see, is to say the
least, sufficiently astonishing.]
A
LETTER TO THE EDITOR.
“Several persons, among that number myself, met casually H. P. Blavatsky
(the
founder of the Theosophical Society, then on a visit to Paris) about 10
A.M.
in
the forenoon. A postman entered and brought, among others, a letter for a
relative of Mme. B., then on a visit to the latter, but owing to the
early
morning hour still absent in her bedroom. From the hands of the postman
the
letter
passed on, in the presence of all present, upon the table in the
parlour, where we were all gathered. Glancing at the postmark and the
address
of
that particular letter, both Mme. Blavatsky and her sister, Mme.
Jelihowsky, remarked that it came from a mutual relative then at Odessa.
The
envelope was not only completely closed on all its flaps, but the
post-stamp
itself was glued on the place where the seal is habitually placed — as I
got
convinced by carefully examining it myself. H. P. Blavatsky, who was on
that
morning, as I had remarked, in very high spirits, undertook,
unexpectedly for
all
of us, with the exception of her sister, who was the first one to propose
it
and to defy Mme. B. to do it, to read the letter in its closed envelope.
After this she placed it on her forehead, and with visible efforts began
to
read it out, writing down the pronounced sentences on a sheet of [214]
paper. When she finished, her sister expressed her doubts as to the
success of
the
experiment, remarking that several of the expressions read out and written
down by Mme. B. could hardly be found in a letter from the person who
had
written it. Then H. P. B. became visibly irritated by this, and declared
that
in
such case she would do still more. Taking the sheet of paper again she
traced upon it with red pencil, at the foot of the sentences supposed to
be
contained in the closed letter, noted down by her, a sign, then she
underlined
a
word, after which, with a visible effort on her face, she said : ' This sign
that I make must pass into the envelope at the end of the letter, and
this
word in it be found underlined, as I have done it here.' . .
.“
When the letter was opened, its contents were found identical with what
Mme. Blavatsky had written down, and, at the end of it, we all saw the
sign in
red
pencil correctly repeated, and the word underlined by her on her paper was
not
only there, but equally underlined in red pencil."
After that an exact description of the phenomenon was drawn up, and all
of us,
the
witnesses present, signed our names under it.”
The
circumstances under which the phenomenon occurred in its smallest details,
carefully checked by myself, do not leave in me the smallest doubt as to
its
genuineness and reality. Deception or fraud in this particular case are
entirely out of question.
Vs.
SOLOVIOF.
PARIS, 10 (22) June 1884.
The Theosophical movement in London, when
Mme. Blavatsky ultimately came over
from Paris on the 7th of April — arriving
unexpectedly on the evening of a
meeting of the “London Lodge”, — was
already established on a footing which was
leading many of its most prominent
representatives to look with no sympathetic
eye on such “phenomena” as have just been
described, illustrative of occult
power operating on the physical plane of
Nature. [215]And no one acquainted
in any degree with the course that movement
has taken — ever since a sufficient
volume of philosophical teaching has been
given out by the “adepts” to show how
very elevated a purpose lies in reality
before the students of Esoteric
Theosophy — will make the mistake of
imagining that the London Society consists
of people attracted to it by the mere rumor
of Mme. Blavatsky's wonder-working
power. But wherever Mme. Blavatsky may be,
abnormal occurrences, even in recent
years, when they have been practically
suppressed as compared with the abundance
of the manifestation at an earlier period
of her life, have been more or less
frequently observed. And the present
volume, concerned as it is with her own
personal history in a greater degree than
with that of the movement with which
the latter part of her career has been so
ultimately blended, must maintain its
character to the end. Mme. Blavatsky and
her most attached friends in the
Theosophical movement have, as I have just
said, come to feel a very great
distaste for all phenomenal stories, owing
to the strife of words they have
evoked and the hostile incredulity they
have excited. They are now in a position
to rely entirely in recommending Theosophic
study to the world, on the
intrinsic, intellectual, and philosophical
claims of the esoteric doctrine, and
it cannot be too strongly or frequently
emphasized that the final purpose of
Mme. Blavatsky's life, since her return
from India in 1870, has been to convey
something of this doctrine, of this
spiritual philosophy, to the world, and not
to dazzle the narrow circle of people
immediately around her at any given time
with displays of occult power.
Still, partly owing to the principle on
which, as the reader will have seen, she
has endeavoured all along to carry out her
task — partly because her love of
exercising [216] her abnormal faculties
continually overcomes her
irritation at the annoyances for her to
which their exercise has often given
rise — she has displayed these from time to
time up to a recent period.
She stayed with us for a week only on her
first arrival in London and then
returned to Paris. She came over to London
again on the 29th of June, and stayed
with friends in Elgin Crescent, Notting
Hill, where she remained till early in
August, going over then to Germany with a
party of Theosophists on a visit to
friends in Elberfeld. Her presence in
London during the period referred to
became rather widely known, and large
numbers of people contrived to make her
acquaintance. Streams of visitors were
constantly pouring in to see her, and
with her usual abandon of manner she would
receive her callers in any costume,
in any room which happened to be convenient
to her for the moment — in her
bedroom, which she also made her
writing-room and study, or in her friends'
drawing-room thick with the smoke of her
innumerable cigarettes, and of those
which she hospitably offered to all who
cared to accept them.
Occasionally it happened that some
manifestations of her occult powers would be
given on these occasions, as, for example,
on the evening referred to in the
following letter: —
HOLLOWAY'S HOTEL,
48
DOVER STREET, PICCADILLY, LONDON,
August 9, 1884.“
MY
DEAR MR-----,—
I
see no difficulty whatever in telling you what happened in my presence a few
days ago at Mrs Arundale's house, where I had been dining with Mme.
Blavatsky.
”In
the midst of the conversation, referring to various subjects, Mme.
Blavatsky became silent, and we all [217] distinctly heard a sound that
might be compared to that produced by a small silver bell."
The
same phenomenon was produced later on in the drawing-room, adjoining the
dining-room.
" I was naturally surprised at this manifestation, but still more
by the
following incident. I had been singing a Russian song that I had brought
with
me
that evening, and which seemed to give much pleasure to my audience. After
the
last chord of the accompaniment had died away, Mme. Blavatsky said, '
Listen!' and held up her hand, and we distinctly heard the last full
chord,
composed of five notes, repeated in our midst.”
I
have, of course, not the slightest means for giving any kind of explanation,
but
the facts were such as I have stated.
(Signed)
“
OLGA NOVIKOFF, née KIRÉEF.”
The “phenomena” wrought during this period,
however, were not of an important
character, and are scarcely worth recording
after those that have been already
described; but for obvious reasons it is
worth while to include mention of one
incident which, though quite disconnected
from Mme. Blavatsky's influence, is
all the more worth notice on that account,
as throwing light upon the assurance
she constantly gives that a great many of
the wonders worked in her presence are
really performed by the agency of her
“Masters”. Dr Hübbe Schleiden, who writes
the following letter, became president of
the branch of the Theosophical Society
which was formed in Germany. He says,
addressing Mme. Blavatsky: —
“ELBERFELD, August, 1884.
“
DEAR MADAM,
You
requested me to state to you the particular circumstances under which I
received my first communication from Mahatma K. H.. I have much pleasure
in
doing so.
“On
the morning of the first of this month Colonel [218] Olcott and I
were travelling by an express train from here to Dresden. A few days
before I
had
written a letter to the Mahatmas, which Colonel Olcott had addressed and
enclosed to you, which, however, as I now hear, never reached you, but
was
taken by the Masters while it was in the hands of the post officials. At
the
time mentioned I was not thinking of this letter, but was relating to
Colonel
Olcott some events of my life, expressing also the fact that since my
sixth or
seventh year I had never known peace nor joy, and asking Colonel
Olcott's
opinion on the meaning of some striking hardships I have gone through.
“In
this conversation we were interrupted by the railway guard demanding our
tickets. When I moved forward and raised myself partly from the seat, in
order
to
hand over the tickets, Colonel Olcott noticed something white lying behind
my
back on that side of me which was opposite to the one where he was sitting.
When I took up that which had appeared there, it turned out to be a
Tibetan
envelope,
in which I found a letter from Mahatma K. H., written with blue
pencil in his well-known and unmistakable handwriting. As there were
several
other persons unacquainted with us in the compartment, I suppose the
Master
chose this place for depositing the letter near me where it was the
least
likely to attract the unwelcome attention and curiosity of outsiders.
“The envelope was plainly addressed to me, and the communication
contained in
the
letter was a consoling reflection on the opinion which I had five or ten
minutes ago given on the dreary events of my past life. The Mahatma
explained
that such events and the mental misery attached to it were beyond the
ordinary
sum
of life, but that hardships of all kinds would be the lot of one striving
for
higher spiritual development. He very kindly expressed his opinion that I
had
already achieved some philanthropic work for the good of the world.
“In
this letter were also answered some of the questions which I had put in my
first-mentioned letter, and an assurance was given me that I was to
receive
assistance and advice when I should be in need of it.
“I
dare say it would be unnecessary for me to ask you [219] to inform the
Mahatma of the devoted thankfulness which I feel towards him for the
great
kindness shown to me, for the Master will know of my sentiments without
my
forming them into more or less inadequate words.
“I
am, dear Madam, in due respect, yours faithfully,
(Signed) " Dr HUBBE SCHLEIDEN.
“To
MM. BLAVATSKY,
ELBERFELD.”
At Elberfeld, Mme. Blavatsky was the guest
of Mr and Mrs Gebhard, and one of
their sons, Mr Rudolph Gebhard writes as
follows:—
“I
have always taken a great interest in conjuring tricks. When in London I
had
an opportunity of taking lessons from Professor Field, a most skilful
sleight-of-hand conjurer, who very soon made me quite proficient in his
art.
From that time forward I have given performances wherever I went (as an
amateur, of course), and made the acquaintance of nearly all our
renowned '
wizards,' with whom I exchanged tricks. As every conjurer has some
favourite
sleight in which he excels, I was bound to be very careful in watching
them in
order to make myself perfect in all the different lines of card or coin
conjuring, or the famous mediumistic feats. This, of course, made me in
good
time a pretty close observer as far as tricks are concerned; and I feel
justified in giving here an opinion on the phenomena which came under my
observation.
“Two of them occurred in our house in Elberfeld, during the stay in it
of Mme.
Blavatsky, Colonel Olcott, and a small party of friends and
Theosophists.
“The first one was a letter from Mahatma K. H. to my father, and took place
one
evening in the presence of a number of witnesses, partly members of our
Society, and of Major-General D. O. Howard, of the U.S. Army. It was
about
nine P.M. We were sitting in the drawing-room discussing different
topics,
when Mme. Blavatsky's attention was suddenly attracted by something
unusual
taking place in the room. After a while she said that she [220] felt the
presence of the 'Masters'. That they had, perhaps, the intention of
doing
something for us, and so she asked us to think of what we should like to
occur. Then a little discussion took place as to what would be the best
thing,
and
finally it was unanimously resolved that a letter should be asked for,
addressed to my father, Mr G. Gebhard, on a subject on which he should
mentally decide himself.
“Now my father had, at the time being, great anxiety about a son in
America,
my
elder brother, and was very eager to get advice from the Master concerning
him.
“Meanwhile, Mme. B., who, on account of her recent illness, was resting
on a
sofa, and had been looking around the room, suddenly exclaimed that
there was
something going on with a large oil painting hanging over the piano in
the
same room, she having seen like a ray of light shooting in the direction
of
the
picture. This statement was immediately corroborated by Mrs H-----, and
then by my mother also, who, sitting opposite a looking-glass and
turning her
back to the picture, had also observed in the mirror like a faint light
going
towards the painting. Mme. B. then required Mrs H----- to see, and say
what
was
going on, when Mrs H-----said that she saw something forming over the
picture, but could not distinctly make out what it was.
“Everybody's attention was now fixed in the direction of the wall high
above
and
under the ceiling, where so many saw bright lights. But, I must confess,
that for my part, not being clairvoyant, I could neither see lights nor
any
other thing except what I had always seen on that wall. And when Mme.
Blavatsky said she now felt absolutely sure that there was something
going on.
I
got up (we had kept our seats all this while) and climbing on the piano
lifted the picture right off the wall, but not off the hook, shook it
well and
looked behind it — nothing! The room was well lit up, and there was not
an
inch of the picture which I could not see. I dropped the frame, saying
that I
could see nothing; but Mme. Blavatsky told me that she felt sure that
there
must be something, so up I climbed once more and tried again.
“The picture in question was a large oil painting, [221] suspended from
the
wall by a hook and a rope, which made it hang over at the top, so that
when the lower part of the frame was lifted off the wall, there was a
space of
fully six inches between the wall and the back of the picture, the
latter
being virtually entirely off the wall. There being a wall gas-bracket
fixed on
each side of the painting, the space between the latter and the wall was
well
lit
up. But the second time, no better than the first, was I able to detect
anything, though I looked very close. It was in order to make perfectly
sure
that I got up on the piano, and passed my hand twice very carefully
along the
frame, which is about three inches thick, up and down — nothing. Letting
the
picture drop back, I then turned round to Mme. Blavatsky to ask her what
was
to
be done further, when she exclaimed: ' I see the letter; there it is !' I
turned quickly back to the picture, and saw at that moment a letter
dropping
from behind it on to the piano. I picked it up. It was addressed to '
Herrn
Consul G. Gebhard,' and contained the information he had just asked for.
I
must have made rather a perplexed face, for the company laughed merrily
at the
'
family juggler.'
“Now for me this is a most completely demonstrated phenomenon. Nobody
had
handled the picture but myself ; I was careful to examine it very
closely, and
as
I was searching for a letter, such a thing could not have escaped my
attention, as perhaps would have been the case if I had been looking for
some
other object; as then I might not have paid any attention to a slip of
paper.
The
letter was fully four by two inches, so by no means a small object.
“Moreover, it was the company that had decided upon Mr G. Gebhard as the
person who should be the recipient of a letter; and as I knew what was
weighing on my father's mind at the time, it was I myself who had
suggested
that he should ask for an answer on that special object, when he said he
would.
“Let us consider this phenomenon from a sleight-of-hand point of view.
“Suppose several letters had been prepared beforehand, addressed to
different
persons,
treating of different [222] subjects. Is it possible to get a
letter to an appointed place by a sleight-of-hand trick ? Quite possible
; it
only depends what place it is, and if our attention is drawn beforehand
to
such
a place or not. To get that letter behind that picture would have been
very difficult, but might have been managed if our attention had for a
moment
been directed to another place, the letter being thrown behind the
picture in
the
meantime. What is sleight-of-hand ? Nothing else but the execution of a
movement more or less swift, in a moment when you are not observed. I
draw
your attention for a short while to a certain spot, say, for instance,
my left
hand, my right is then free to make certain movements unobserved ; as to
' the
quickness of the hand deceives the eye' theory, it is entirely
erroneous. You
cannot make a movement with your hand so quickly that the eye would not
follow
and
detect it, the only thing you can do is either to conceal the necessary
movement by another one which has nothing to do with what you are about,
or to
draw the attention of the looker-on to another point, and then quickly
do what
is
required.
“Now, in this instance all our attention had been drawn to the picture,
before
ever the question was put as to what we should like to have, and was
kept
there all the while; it would have been impossible for anyone to throw a
letter without being observed. As for the letter having been concealed
behind
the
picture beforehand, this, is out of the question altogether, it could not
have escaped my attention while I repeatedly searched for it. Suppose
the
letter had been placed on the top of the frame, and my hand had
disturbed it
passing along without my knowing it, this
would have caused the letter to drop
down instantly, whereas, about thirty seconds passed before it put in an
appearance. Taking all circumstances together, it seems to me an
impossibility
to
have worked this phenomenon by a trick.
“The day after this had occurred, I went into Madame's room about noon ;
but
seeing that she was engaged I retired to the drawing-room, where we had
been
sitting the night before, and just then the idea struck me to try that
picture
again, in order to make perfectly sure that [223] the letter could not
have been concealed somewhere behind it, without being detected. I was
alone
in
the room, and during my examination of the painting nobody entered it; I
fully
satisfied myself that a letter could not have escaped my attention, had
it
been concealed behind the picture. I then went back to Madame's room, where
I
found her still engaged with the same woman. In the evening we were again
sitting together.
“
'The Masters watched you today, and were highly amused with your
experiments. How you did try to find out if that letter could not have
been
concealed behind the picture.'
“Now I am positively certain, first, that nobody was in the room at the
time I
tried the picture ; and secondly, that I had told no one in the house of
my
experiment. It is impossible for me to explain how Madame could have
found out
my
movements, except through her clairvoyance. . . .
RUDOLPH GEBHARD.
“ELBERFELD(Cologne), September, 1884.”
More than a year later, when a report was
issued by the Society for Psychical
Research, in which discredit was cast on a
great many phenomena recorded in
connection with Mme. Blavatsky, but for the
most part not mentioned in the
course of this memoir, it was suggested in
regard to Mr Gebhard's story, of
which the Society had received a somewhat
briefer account than that given above,
that Mr Gebhard did not seem to have
contemplated the possibility of a
confederate having been present who might
have thrown the letter without being
observed — not a very forcible suggestion
in regard to an incident occurring in
the presence of several persons all
watching for its occurrence, and in a
private room with only members of the
family and intimate guests present.
However, on that subject, Mr Gebhard writes
to me under date 18th January 1886,
as follows:— [224]
“ELBERFELD, I8th January 1886.
“MY DEAR MR SINNETT, —
Many thanks for your kind letter, with
enclosures, which I received yesterday
morning. Considering the very weak way the
S.P.R. report has met my letter to
Hodgson regarding the letter phenomenon in
Elberfeld, I think it may be some use
to point out that (I) an account of the
phenomenon was written by me a very few
days after the occurrence, a copy of which
I found this morning; (2) in this
first account I have very seriously
considered the possibility of the letter
having been thrown by a confederate; but
having, I think, conclusively shown
that such a thing was out of the question,
I never came back to it in later
reports. The two reports absolutely tally
in the main points, the only two
differences being that in the first report
I give the space between picture and
wall as 6 in., in the second as 8 in.
Secondly, the size of the letter is given
in the first instance as 4 in. x 2 in in
the second report as 5 in. x 2½ in.
(the latter is the right size, as I have
taken exact measure of the letter
today). The second report is even somewhat
more detailed than the first one,
owing, as I think, to questions which I was
repeatedly asked by people to whom I
related the incident, and which I wanted to
guard against from the outset.
“I made this morning rather a curious
discovery, and am only sorry that I did
not make the same trial before. Taking the
identical letter, I got up on the
piano, and threw it behind the picture, but
the letter stuck between the picture
and the wall, and repeated trials showed me
that the picture, being very heavy,
rests with the bottom part so closely to
the wall that not even a letter can
fall between it and the wall. I lifted up
the picture several times and let it
fall back again, but the effect was always
the same. I am more than ever at a
loss to explain, because, to my best
knowledge, the letter fluttered from behind
the picture on to the piano.”
The close of Mme. Blavatsky's European
visit was overshadowed by a disagreeable
incident which gave rise to widely
ramifying results. [225]
A magazine at Madras — an organ of the
Christian missionaries at that place —
the Christian College Magazine by name,
published a series of letters purporting
to have been written by Mme. Blavatsky to a
certain Mme. Coulomb, who had lived
with her in India for some years, first at
Bombay and then at Madras. Mme.
Coulomb and her husband formerly kept a
hotel at Cairo, where Mme. Blavatsky had
made their acquaintance, to her sorrow, in
the days of her abortive Société
Spirite. Years afterwards, the Coulombs
turned up in India in great straits, and
were hospitably sheltered by Mme. Blavatsky
at Bombay. They eventually settled
down as members of her household, Mme.
Coulomb looking after the housekeeping in
return for her board and lodging, and her
husband being supposed for a long time
to be looking out for work. The arrangement
was altogether of a very informal
kind, but it continued longer than many
such arrangements established to begin
with on a more permanent basis. In progress
of time, however, the kindly
feelings on both sides, out of which it may
be supposed the arrangement took its
rise, gave place, on Mme. Coulomb's part at
all events, to sentiments of a very
different sort. The whole matter but for
its after consequences would be too
ignominious to discuss, but without even
now going into details, which could
only be treated, if at all, at a length
altogether disproportionate to their
importance, it may be explained that Mme.
Coulomb supplied the editor of the
magazine with a series of letters
apparently from Mme. Blavatsky to herself,
some of which, if genuine, would have shown
her to have employed Mme. Coulomb
and her husband as confederates in a long
succession of fraudulent phenomena.
When the magazine containing the letters
was received [226] in Europe, Mme.
Blavatsky wrote the following letter on the
subject to the Times. It appeared on
October the 9th :—
Sir, —
With reference to the alleged exposure at Madras of a dishonorable
conspiracy
between myself and two persons of the name of Coulomb to deceive the
public
with occult phenomena, I have to say that the letters purporting to have
been
written by me are certainly not mine. Sentences here and there I
recognize,
taken
from old notes of mine on different matters, but they are mingled with
interpolations that entirely pervert their meaning. With these
exceptions the
whole of the letters are a fabrication.
“The fabricators must have been grossly ignorant of Indian affairs,
since they
make me speak of a 'Maharajah of Lahore', when every Indian schoolboy
knows
that no such person exists.”
With regard to the suggestion that I attempted to promote the 'financial
prosperity' of the Theosophical Society by means of occult phenomena, I
say
that I have never at any time received, or attempted to obtain, from any
person any money either for myself or for the Society by any such means.
I
defy anyone to come forward and prove the contrary. Such money as I have
received has been earned by literary work of my own, and these earnings,
and
what remained of my inherited property when I went to India, have been
devoted
to
the Theosophical Society. I am a poorer woman today than I was when, with
others,
I founded the Society. —
Your obedient Servant,
H.
P. BLAVATSKY.
“77
ELGIN CRESCENT, NOTTING HILL, W.,
“
October 7.”
The same paper also contained on the same
date a letter from Mr St George Lane
Fox:—
“Sir,
In
the Times of September 20 and September 29 you publish telegrams from your
Calcutta correspondent referring to the Theosophical Society. As I have
just
[227] returned from India, and am a member of the board of control
appointed to manage the affairs of the Society during the absence from
India
of
Colonel Olcott and Madame Blavatsky, I hope you will allow me through your
columns to add a few words to the news you publish. First, then, these
Coulombs, who, in conjunction with certain missionaries, are now trying
to
throw discredit on the Theosophical Society, were employed at the
Society's
headquarters at Adyar as housekeepers, and the board of control, finding
that
they were thoroughly unprincipled, always trying to extort money from
members
of
the Society, discharged them. They had meanwhile been constructing all
sorts of trap-doors and sliding panels in the private rooms of Madame
Blavatsky, who had very indiscreetly given over these rooms to their
charge.
As
to the letters purporting to have been written by Madame Blavatsky, which
have recently been published in an Indian 'Christian' paper, I, in
common with
all
who are acquainted with the circumstances of the case, have no doubt
whatever that, whoever wrote them, they are not written by Madame
Blavatsky. I
myself attach very little importance to this new scandal, as I do not
believe
that the true Theosophic cause suffers in the slightest degree.
“The Theosophical movement is now well launched, and must go ahead, in
spite
of
obstacles. Already hundreds, if not thousands, have been led through it to
perceive that, for scientific and not merely sentimental reasons, purity
of
life is advisable, and that honesty of purpose and unselfish activity
are
necessary for true human progress and the attainment of real happiness.
—
Your obedient Servant,
ST
G. LANE FOX, F.T.S.
“
LONDON, October 5.”
A good deal of anxiety was nevertheless
felt among some persons who had been
greatly interested in the reports of Mme.
Blavatsky's occult achievements in
India, as to how far the letters might be
genuine, and, finally, the Society for
Psychical Research decided to [228] send
out to Madras one of their own
members willing to undertake the
investigation on the spot of all the
transactions to which the letters referred.
Mr Richard Hodgson, the gentleman in
question, went out to India in November
1884, and stayed there till the
following April. On his return he gave his
Society a report that was altogether
unfavorable to Mme. Blavatsky, and the
committee of the Society appointed to
inquire into the character of the phenomena
“connected with the Theosophical
Society” reported in their turn to a
meeting of the Society held on the 24th of
June, that the letters were genuine in the
opinion of the experts, and that they
sufficed to prove that Mme. Blavatsky “has
been engaged in a long-continued
combination with other persons to produce
by ordinary means a series of apparent
marvels for the support of the Theosophical
movement.”
Meanwhile Mme. Blavatsky had returned to
India. On the arrival at Madras of the
steamer in which she came, a delegation of
native students of the Madras
colleges went on board to welcome her. The
meaning of the demonstration turned
upon the fact that the current charges
against her had originated in the letters
alleged to be written by her, and published
in a magazine professedly identified
with one of the colleges. Conducted to a
public hall where a large number of
natives were assembled, the student
delegates read her the following address:—
“In
according to you this our heartiest of welcomes on your return from the
intellectual campaigns which you have so successfully waged in the West,
we
are
conscious we are giving but a feeble expression to the ' debt immense of
endless gratitude' which India lies under to you. [229]
“You have dedicated your life to the disinterested services of
disseminating
the
truths of Occult Philosophy. Upon the sacred mysteries of our hoary
Religion and Philosophies you have thrown such a flood of light by
sending
into the world that marvelous production of yours, the "Isis
Unveiled". By
your exposition has our beloved Colonel been induced to undertake that
gigantic labor of love — the vivifying on the altars of Aryavarta the
dying
flames of religion and spirituality.
"While at one quarter of the globe you had been with all your heart
and soul
addressing yourself to the work of propagating eternal Truth, your
enemies on
this side have been equally industrious. We allude to the recent
scandalous
events at Madras, in which an expelled domestic of yours has been made a
convenient cat's-paw of. While looking upon such futilities with the indignant
scorn which they certainly deserve, we beg to assure you that our
affection
and
admiration, earned by the loftiness of your soul, the nobility of your
aspirations, and the sacrifices you have made, have become too deeply
rooted
to
be shaken by the rude blasts of spite, spleen, and slander, which, however,
are
no uncommon occurrences in the history of Theosophy.”
That the revered Masters whose hearts are overflowing with love for
Humanity
will continue as ever to help you and our esteemed Colonel in the
discovery of
Truth and the dissemination of the same, is the earnest prayer of, —
Dear and Revered Madame, your affectionate Servants,
“
STUDENTS OF THE COLLEGES OF MADRAS.”
The address was signed by more than three
hundred students.
During a great part of the time spent by Mr
Hodgson at Madras, Mme. Blavatsky
lay on a sick-bed, dying as her friends
believed, and as she herself supposed,
her restoration to comparative health in
the end constituting in itself one of
the not least surprising “phenomena”
connected with the story of her life. She
wrote to me towards the close of this
period: — [230]
“I
am compelled to write to you once more. My own reputation and honor I have
made a sacrifice of, and for the few months I have yet to live, I care
little
what becomes of me. But I cannot leave the reputation of poor Olcott to
be
attacked as it is by Hume and Mr Hodgson, who have become suddenly mad
with
their hypotheses of fraud more phenomenal than phenomena themselves. I,
with a
thousand other Theosophists, protest against the manner and way the
investigations are carried on by Mr Hodgson. He examines only our
greatest
enemies, thieves and robbers like ------, and being shown by him some
letters
received by him, as he assures Hodgson, seven
years ago from America, Hodgson
copies some paragraphs from them that he believes the most damaging, and
builds on that the theory of my being a Russian spy. . . . You know how
I
tried to conciliate the Hindus with the English. How I did all in my
power to
make them realize that this government, bad as it seemed to them, was
the best
they could ever have. I defy to find a respectable, trustworthy Hindu
who will
say
that I ever breathed a disloyal word to them. And yet because of a certain
paper stolen from me by ------, and that the missionaries have shown to
him a
paper, partially or wholly written in cipher, Mr Hodgson has publicly
proclaimed me a Russian spy.”
Recurring to this a little further on she
says:—
“They (meaning the missionaries) took it to
the Police Commissioner, had the
best experts examine it, sent it to
Calcutta for five months, moved heaven and
earth to find out what the cipher meant,
and now gave it up in despair. It is
one of my Zenzar MSS. I am perfectly
confident of it, for one of the sheets of
my book, with numbered pages, is missing.”
Zenzar is a mystic language, with a
peculiar character of its own, used by the
initiated occultists of Tibet.
Mme. Blavatsky remained for a time at a
hotel near Naples, when she reached
Europe on her return after her illness, and
thence wrote to my wife on the 21st
of June, in reply to a letter of sympathy.
“The sight of your familiar handwriting was
a welcome one indeed, and the
contents of your letter still more so. No.
. . . I never thought that you could
have believed that I played the tricks I am
now accused of, neither you nor any
one of those who have Masters in their
hearts, not on their brains.
Nevertheless, here I am, and stand accused
without any means to prove the
contrary, of the most dirty villainous
deceptions ever practised by a
half-starved medium. What can I do, and
what shall I do ? Useless to either
write to persuade, or try to argue with people
who are bound to believe me
guilty, to change their opinions. Let it
be. The fuel in my heart is burnt to
the last atom. Henceforth, nothing is to be
found in it but cold ashes. I have
so suffered that I can suffer no more. I
simply laugh at every new accusation.
“'Notwithstanding the experts,' you say.
Ah! they must be famous those experts
who found all the Coulombs' letters
genuine. The whole world may bow before
their decision and acuteness, but there is
one person at least in this wide
world whom they can never convince that
those stupid letters were written by me,
and it is H. P. Blavatsky.
“Now, look here, and I want you to know
these facts. To this day I have never
been allowed to see one single line of
those letters. Why could not Mr Hodgson
come and show me one of them at least ? . .
. Pray, tell me, is it the legal
thing in England to accuse publicly even a
street sweeper in his absence without
giving him the chance of saying one single
word in his defense ; without letting
him know even of what he is precisely
accused, and who it is who accuses him,
and is brought forward as chief evidence ?
For I do not know the first word of
all this. Hodgson came to Adyar, was
received as a friend, examined and
cross-examined all whom he wanted to; the
boys (the Hindus) at Adyar gave him
all the information he needed. If he now
finds discrepancies and contradictions
in their statements, it only shows that,
feeling as they all did, that it was
(in their sight) pure tomfoolery to doubt
the phenomena of the Masters, they had
not prepared themselves for the scientific
cross-examination, may have forgotten
many of the circumstances. . . .
“Here I am. Where I shall go next, I know
no more than the man in the moon. Why
they should want to keep me still in life,
is something too strange for me to
comprehend; but their ways are, and always
have been, incomprehensible. What
good am I now for the cause ? Doubted and
suspected by the whole creation except
a few, would I not do more good to the T.S.
by dying than by living ? ”
Two months later she moved on from Italy to
a quiet little town in Germany,
where I visited her last autumn (1885). In
the interim the Psychic Research
Society had held its meetings, at which the
Committee “appointed to investigate
phenomena connected with the Theosophical
Society”, had reported that the
Coulomb letters were really written by Mme.
Blavatsky, that the “shrine” at
Adyar was elaborately designed to subserve
treachery and false manifestations,
and that the marvels related of the occult
power of the Mahatmas were deliberate
deceptions carried out by and at the
instigation of Mme. Blavatsky. In August
she wrote to me: —
“... Trust and friendship, or distrust and
resentment — neither friends nor foes
will ever realise the whole truth; so
what's the use. . . . The only difference
between Coulomb-Patterson-Hodgson charges
now and those previous to the Adyar
scandal is this: Then the newspapers only
hinted, now they affirm. Then they
were restricted, however feebly, by fear of
law and a sense of decency; now they
have become fearless, and have lost all and
every manner of decency. Look at
Prof. Sidgwick. He is evidently a gentleman
and an honourable man by nature,
fair minded, as most Englishmen are. And
now tell me, can any outsider (the
opinion of the Fathers of S.P.R. is of
course valueless) presume to say that his
printed opinion of me is either fair,
legal, or honest ? If, instead of bogus
phenomena, I were charged with picking the
pockets of my victims, or of
something else, the charging with which,
when unproved, is punishable by [
233] law, if not wholly demonstrated, would
Prof. Sidgwick, you think, have a
leg to stand upon in a court of justice ? Assuredly
not. Then what right has he
to speak publicly (and have his opinion
printed) of my deceptions, fraud,
dishonesty, and tricks ? Shall you maintain
that it is fair of him, or honest,
or even legal, to take advantage of his
exceptional position and the nature of
the question involved to slander me, or, if
you prefer, I shall say, to charge
me thus and dishonor my name on such
wretched evidence as they have through
Hodgson ? . . . Can you blame, after this
----- and other Russian Theosophists
for saying that the chief motive of their
wrath against me is that I am a
Russian ? I know it is not so, but they,
the Russians, like------, and the
Odessa Theosophists, cannot be made to see
the cause of such a glaring injustice
in any other light.
“Please read . . . about their disclaiming
any intention of imputing wilful
deception to poor Olcott. Following this
there comes the question of envelopes
in which the Mahatma's writing was found —
which might have been previously
opened by me or others. Letters from the
Masters received at Adyar when I was in
Europe ' might' have been in all cases
arranged by Damodar. The disappearance of
the Vega packet ' can be easily accounted
for ' by the fact of a venetianed door
near Babula's room — a door, by-the-by,
which was hermetically covered and
nailed over (walls and door) with my large
carpet, if you remember. But we shall
suppose that the Vega packet was made to
evaporate fraudulently at Bombay. How
then shall Mr Hodgson, Myers & Co.
account for its immediate instantaneous
reappearance at Howrah, Calcutta, in the
presence of Mrs and Colonel Gordon and
of our Colonel, if the said Colonel is so
obviously immaculate that the Dons of
S.P.R. felt bound to offer him public
excuses. One thing is obvious : either
Colonel Gordon or Mrs Gordon or Colonel
Olcott was, one of them, at that time my
confederate, or they, the gods of S.P.R.,
are making fools of themselves.
Surely, as ------says, no sane man with
sound reasoning, acquainted with the
circumstances of the Vega case, or the
broken plaster portrait case, or Hübbe
Schleiden's letter, received [234] on the
German railway while I was in
London, and so many other cases, shall ever
dare to write himself down such an
ass as to say that while I am a full-blown
fraud, and all my phenomena tricks,
that the Colonel is to be charged simply
with ' credulity and inaccuracy in
observation and inference.' ”
In a tone of bitter mockery, after some
scornful language concerning the
intelligence of the S.P.R. inquirers, she
goes on to leave her “scientific
friends” to assume that Isis Unveiled, and
all the best articles in the
Theosophist, as every letter from both
Mahatmas, whether in English, French,
Telegu, Sanscrit, or Hindi were written by
Mme. H. P. Blavatsky. She is willing
to have it believed, that for more than
twenty years she has bamboozled the most
intellectual men of the century in Russia,
America, India, and especially in
England. Why, genuine phenomena, when the
author herself of the one thousand
bogus manifestations on record before the
world, is such a living incarnated
phenomenon as to do all that and much more.
. . .
“Why should I complain ? Has not Master
left it to my choice to either follow
the dictates of Lord Buddha, who enjoins us
not to fail to feed even a starving
serpent, scorning all fear lest it should
turn round and bite the hand that
feeds it; or to face Karma, which is sure
to punish him who turns away from the
sight of sin and misery, or fails to
relieve the sinner or the sufferer. . . .
Am I greater or in any way better than were
St Germain and Cagliostro,
Paracelsus, and so many other martyrs whose
names appear in the Encyclopedia of
the nineteenth century over the meritorious
title of charlatans and impostors?
It shall be the Karma of the blind and
wicked judges, not mine.
“... I can do more good by remaining in the
shadow, than by becoming prominent
once more in the movement. Let me hide in
unknown places, and write, write,
write, [235] and teach whoever wants to
learn. Since Master forced me to
live, let me live and die now in relative
peace. It is evident He wants me still
to work for the T.S., since He does not
allow me to make a contract with -----
[mentioning a foreign publisher, who had
offered her very favourable pecuniary
terms] to write exclusively for his journal
and paper. He would not permit me to
sign such a contract last year in Paris
when proposed, and does not sanction it
now, for He says my time shall have to be
occupied otherwise. Ah ! the cruel
wicked injustice that has been done to me
all round. Fancy the horrid calumny of
the C.C.M. [Christian College Magazine],
whose statement that I sought to
defraud Mr Jacob Sassoon of Rs. 10,000 in
that Poona business has been allowed
to go uncontradicted even by ----- and
-----, who know as well as they are sure
of their own existence that this special
charge, at any rate, is the most
abominable lying calumny.
“Who of the public knows that after having
worked for and given my life to the
progress of the Society for over ten years,
I have been forced to leave India a
beggar depending on the bounty of the
Theosophist (my own journal, founded and
created with my own money) for my daily
support. I made out to be a mercenary
impostor, a fraud for the sake of money,
when thousands of my own money earned
by my Russian articles have been given
away, when for five years I have
abandoned the price of "Isis" and
the income of the Theosophist to support the
Society. . . . Pardon me for saying all
this and showing myself to be so
selfish, but it is a direct answer to the
vile calumny, and it is but right that
the Theosophists in London should know of
it.”
The assurances mentioned above that her
time would be “otherwise occupied” in
her German retreat than in writing stories
and social articles for Russian
magazines has been very fully vindicated.
Within the last three months of 1885
she began to receive the occult
“inspiration”, or whatever it may be called by
people more or less acquainted with the
circumstances of her higher life, [
236] required for the production of the
long-promised book on "The Secret
Doctrine". This book was foreshadowed
by notices in the Theosophist as far back
as the beginning of February 1884. It was
then proposed that the work should be
“a new version of "Isis
Unveiled", with a new arrangement of the matter, large
and important additions, and copious notes
and commentaries” ; and Mme.
Blavatsky's intention in the first instance
had been that it should be issued in
monthly parts, beginning in March 1884, or,
provided so early a date could not
be managed, in June. Mme. Blavatsky's visit
to Europe, however, in the spring of
that year interfered with the undertaking,
and in Europe the multifarious claims
made on her time stood fatally in its way.
Then, in the summer of 1884, the
“Coulomb scandal” exploded, and, with all
its exasperating consequences,
operated to render it impossible for her to
begin a task claiming steady and
prolonged devotion, concentration of
purpose, and something like tranquillity of
mind.
"The Secret Doctrine" was still
untouched in September 1885, when my wife and I
saw her in Germany. We found her settled in
an economical way, but in comfort
and quietude, cheered just then by the
companionship of her aunt, Mme. Fadeef,
to whom she is warmly attached. She was
naturally seething with indignation at
the wrongs she had suffered at the hands of
the S.P.R. committee, even though
the cruel and calumnious report by Mr
Hodgson, on which they professed to have
based their conclusions, had not been
finally perfected. On the whole, however,
she seemed in better health and spirits
than we expected, and some premonitory
symptoms indicated that the preparation of
"The Secret Doctrine" might shortly
be set on foot.
A month or so after our return to London in
October [237] I received a note
from Mme. Blavatsky, in the course of which
she wrote: —
“I am very busy on Secret D. The thing at
New York [meaning the circumstances
under which "Isis Unveiled" was
written] is repeated — only far clearer and
better. I begin to think it shall vindicate
us. Such pictures, panoramas,
scenes, antediluvian dramas, with all that!
Never saw or heard better.”
Early in December I received a letter from
the Countess Wachtmeister, then
staying on a visit with Mme. Blavatsky. The
Countess is an English lady, though
bearing a foreign title, herself gifted
with clairvoyant faculties of a high
order, lifting her entirely out of the
reach of the clumsy scraps of
materialistic evidence with which the
denser-minded enemies of the Theosophic
cause were so busily assailing her trusted
and esteemed friend. She wrote: —
“The Secret Doctrine contains a translation
of ------ [certain occult writings
of which the world at large knows nothing].
The public at present will have but
a faint idea of its real meaning, but as
years roll by it will penetrate deeper
into the hearts of men.”
And again, a fortnight later, she wrote: —
“I consider it a great privilege to be
allowed to witness the marvelous way in
which this book is being written.”
A few day later some indiscreet or wantonly
mischievous person sent Mme.
Blavatsky a copy of Mr Hodgson's famous,
or, as Theosophists think, infamous,
report, published in the Proceedings of the
Psychical Research Society. The
Countess wrote: —
“We have had a terrible day, and the ------
[using a familiar name for Mme.
Blavatsky] wanted to start off [238] to
London at once. I have kept her as
quiet as I could, and now she has relieved
her feelings in the enclosed letter.”
For a whole fortnight the tumult of Mine.
Blavatsky's emotions rendered any
further progress with her work impossible.
Her volcanic temperament renders her
in all emergencies a very bad exponent of
her own case, whatever that may be.
The letters, memoranda, and protests on
which she wasted her energies during
this miserable fortnight were few, if any,
of a kind that would have helped a
cold and unsympathetic public to understand
the truth of things, and it is not
worth while to resuscitate them here. I
induced her to tone down one protest
into a presentable shape for insertion in a
pamphlet I issued in the latter part
of January, and for the rest, few but her
most intimate friends would correctly
appreciate their fire and fury. Her
language, when she is in fits of excitement,
would lead a stranger to suppose her
thirsting for revenge, beside herself with
passion, ready to exact savage vengeance on
her enemies if she had the power. It
is only those who know her as intimately as
half-a-dozen of her closest friends
may, who are quite aware through all this
effervescence of feelmg that if her
enemies were really put suddenly in her
power, her rage against them would
collapse like a broken soap-bubble.
Mr Hodgson's report was not actually
published till December 1885 — having in
the interim apparently undergone additions
and amendments. This delay and
subsequent preparation of the document on
which the committee of inquiry based
their decision was deeply resented by Mme.
Blavatsky's friends as showing a
disposition to make out a case against her.
When at last it appeared, it
occupied 200 pages of small print, and a
[239] minute criticism of its
contents would naturally require a
considerably greater space. To attempt that
here, therefore, is out of the question.
The report consists mainly of
circumstantial evidence calculated to throw
suspicion on the phenomena Mr
Hodgson endeavored to investigate, and of a
very elaborate comparison of various
handwriting designed to show that the
letters I had received in India during my
acquaintance with Mme. Blavatsky — as I
believed (and believe still) from two of
the “Mahatmas” or secluded proficients of
occult science spoken of in this
volume as “the Masters” exercising
spiritual authority over Mme. Blavatsky —
were really written by her and one other
person in the ordinary way and passed
off on me for what I supposed them. I shall
most conveniently indicate the
character of the report by quoting the
introductory passages of a pamphlet [The
Occult World Phenomena, and the Society for
Psychical Research; George Redway,
15 York Street, Covent Garden.]
The Report which has been addressed by Mr
R. Hodgson to the Committee of the
Psychical Research Society, ' appointed to
investigate phenomena connected with
the Theosophical Society,' is published for
the first time in the December
number of the Proceedings of that Society —
six months after the meetings were
held at which the Committee concerned
announced its general adhesion to the
conclusions Mr Hodgson had reached. In a
letter addressed to Light on the 12th
of October, I protested against the action
thus taken by the Psychical Research
Society in publicly stigmatizing Mme.
Blavatsky as having been guilty of ' a
long-continued combination with other
persons to produce, by ordinary means, a
series of apparent marvels for the support
of the Theosophic movement,' while
holding back the documentary evidence on
the strength of which their opinion had
been formed.
“In a note to the present Report (page 276)
Mr Hodgson [240] says: " I have
now in my hands numerous documents which
are concerned with the experiences of
Mr Hume and others in connection with Mine.
Blavatsky and the Theosophical
Society. These documents, including the
K.H. MSS. above referred to, did not
reach me till August, and my examination of
them, particularly of the K.H. MSS.,
has involved a considerable delay in the
production of this Report.' In other
words, Mr Hodgson has employed the time
during which his Report has been
improperly withheld in endeavoring to amend
and strengthen it so as to render it
better able to bear out the committee's
hasty endorsement of the conclusions he
reached before he obtained the evidence he
now puts forward.
“But even if the committee had been in
possession — which it was not — of the
Report as it now stands, its action in
promulgating the conclusions it announced
on the 24th of June, would have been no
less unwarrantable and premature. The
committee has not at any stage of its
proceedings behaved in accordance with the
judicial character it has arrogated to
itself. It appointed as its agent to
inquire, in India, into the authenticity of
statements relating to occurrences
extending over several years — alleged to
have taken place at various parts of
India, and in which many persons, including
natives of India and devotees of
occult science in that country were mixed
up — a gentleman of great, of perhaps
too great, confidence in his own abilities,
but at all events wholly unfamiliar
with the characteristics of Indian life and
the complicated play of feeling in
connection with which the Theosophical
movement has been developed in India
during recent years.
" Nothing in his Report even as it now
stands — amended with the protracted
assistance of more experienced persons
unfriendly to the Theosophical movement —
suggests that even yet he has begun to
understand the primary conditions of the
mysteries he set himself to unravel. He has
naively supposed that everyone in
India visibly devoted to the work of the
Theosophical Society might be assumed,
on that account, desirous of securing his
good opinion and of persuading him
that the alleged phenomena were genuine. He
shows himself to have been watching
their demeanor [241] and stray phrases to
catch admissions that might be
turned against the Theosophical case. He
seems never to have suspected what any
more experienced inquirer would have been
aware of from the beginning, that the
Theosophical movement, in so far as it has
been concerned with making known to
the world at large the existence in India
of persons called Mahatmas — very far
advanced in the comprehension of occult
science — and of the philosophical views
they hold, has been one which many of the
native devotees of these Mahatmas and
many among the most ardent disciples and
students of their occult teaching, have
regarded with profound irritation.
" The traditional attitude of mind in
which Indian occultists regard their
treasures of knowledge, is one in which
devotion is largely tinged with jealousy
of all who would endeavor to penetrate the
secrecy in which these treasures have
hitherto been shrouded. These have been
regarded as only the rightful
acquirement of persons passing through the
usual ordeals and probations. The
Theosophical movement in India, however,
involved a breach of this secrecy. The
old rules were infringed under an authority
so great that occultists who found
themselves entangled with the work could
not but submit. But in many cases such
submission has been no more than
superficial. Anyone more intimately acquainted
than the agent of the S.P.R. with the
history and growth of the Theosophical
Society would have been able to indicate
many persons among its most faithful
native members, whose fidelity was owing
entirely to the Masters they served,
and not to the idea on which they were
employed — at all events not so far as it
was connected with the demonstration of the
fact that abnormal physical
phenomena could be produced by Indian
proficients in occult science.
" Now for such persons the notion that
European outsiders, who had, as they
conceived, so undeservedly been admitted to
the inner arcana of Eastern
occultism, were blundering into the belief
that they had been deceived — that
there was no such thing as Indian
occultism, that the Theosophical movement was
a sham and a delusion with which they would
no more concern themselves — was
enchanting in its attractions ; and the
arrival in their [242] midst of an
exceedingly self-reliant young man from
England attempting the investigation of
occult mysteries by the methods of a
Scotland Yard detective, and laid open by
total unfamiliarity with the tone and
temper of modern occultism to every sort
of misapprehension, was naturally to them a
source of intense satisfaction. Does
the committee of the S.P.R. imagine that the
native occultists of the
Theosophical Society in India are writhing
at this moment under the judgment it
has passed? I am quite certain, on the
contrary, that for the most part they are
chuckling over it with delight. They may
find the situation complicated as
regards their relations with their Masters
in so far as they have consciously
contributed to the easy misdirection of Mr
Hodgson's mind, but the ludicrous
spectacle of himself which Mr Hodgson
furnishes in his Report — where we see him
catching up unfinished sentences and
pointing out weak places in the evidence of
some among the Indian chelas, against whom,
if he had better understood the task
before him, he ought to have been most on
his guard — is, at all events, one
which we can understand them to find
amusing.
" I regard the committee of the S.P.R.
— Messrs E. Gurney, F. VV. H. Myers, F.
Podmore, H. Sidgwick, and J. H. Stack —
much more to blame for presuming to pass
judgment by the light of their own unaided
reflections on the raw and misleading
report supplied to them by Mr Hodgson, than
he for his part is to blame, even
for misunderstanding so lamentably the
problems he set out naturally
ill-qualified to investigate. It would have
been easy for them to have called in
any of several people in London, qualified
to do so by long experience of the
Theosophical movement, to report in their
turn on the prirna facie case, so made
out against the authenticity of the
Theosophical phenomena, before proceeding to
pass judgment on the whole accusation in
the hearing of the public at large. We
have all heard of cases in which judges
think it unnecessary to call on the
defense ; but these have generally been
cases in which the judges have decided
against the theory of the prosecution. The
committee of the S.P.R. furnish us
with what is probably an unprecedented
example of a judicial refusal [243]
to hear a defense on the ground that the ex
parte statement of the prosecutor
has been convincing by itself. The
committee brooded, however, in secret over
the Report of their agent, consulted no one
in a position to open their eyes as
to the erroneous method on which Mr Hodgson
had gone to work, and concluded
their but too independent investigation by
denouncing as one of the most
remarkable impostors in history — a lady
held in the highest honour by a
considerable body of persons, including old
friends and relations of unblemished
character, and who has undeniably given up
station and comfort to struggle for
long years in the service of the
Theosophical cause amidst obloquy and
privation.
” She is witnessed against chiefly for Mr
Hodgson, as anyone who will read his
Report will see, in spite of his affected
indifference to their testimony, by
two persons who endeavour to blacken her
character by first exhibiting
themselves as engaged in fraud and
deception, and by then accusing her of having
been base enough to make such people as
themselves her confederates. These are
the persons whom his Report shows Mr
Hodgson to have made principal allies of
his inquiry. It is on the strength of
writings obtained from such persons that
the committee of the S.P.R. chiefly
proceeds in coming to the conclusion that
Mine. Blavatsky is an impostor. And this
course is pursued by a body of men who,
in reference to psychical phenomena at
large (which the designation of their
Society would suggest that they are
concerned with), decline all testimony,
however apparently overwhelming, which
comes from spiritualistic mediums tainted
by receiving money for the display of their
characteristics. I am not suggesting
that they ought to be careless in accepting
such testimony, but merely that they
have violated the principles they profess —
when the repression of unacceptable
evidence is at stake — in a case in which,
by their disregard, it was possible
to frame an indictment against persons —
whom I am not justified in assuming
that they were prejudiced against from the
first, but whom, at all events, they
finished by condemning unheard.
" And going further than this, they
have not hesitated [244] to publish,
with all the authority their proceedings
can confer, a groundless and monstrous
invention concerning Mme. Blavatsky, which
Mr Hodgson puts forward at the
conclusion of his report to prop up its
obvious weakness as regards the whole
hypothesis on which it rests. For it is
evident that there is a powerful
presumption against any theory that imputes
conscious imposture and vulgar
trickery to a person who, on the face of
things, has devoted her life to a
philanthropic idea, at the manifest
sacrifice of all the considerations which
generally supply motives of action to
mankind. Mr Hodgson is alive to the
necessity of furnishing Mme. Blavatsky with
a motive as degraded as the conduct
he has been taught by M. and Mme. Coulomb
to believe her guilty of, and he
triumphs over the difficulty by suggesting
that she may be a Russian political
agent, working in India to foster
disloyalty to the British Government. It is
nothing to Mr Hodgson that she has
notoriously been doing the reverse; that she
has frequently assured the natives orally,
by writings, at public meetings, and
in letters that can be produced, that with
all its faults the British Government
is the best available for India, and
repeatedly from the point of view of one
speaking en connaissance de cause she has
declared that the Russian would be
immeasurably worse. It is nothing to Mr
Hodgson that her life has been passed
coram populo to an almost ludicrous extent
ever since she has been in India,
that her whole energies and work have been
employed on the Theosophic cause, or
that the Government of India, after looking
into the matter with the help of its
police when she first came to the country,
soon read the riddle aright, and
abandoned all suspicion of her motives. Mr
Hodgson is careless of the fact that
everyone who has known her for any length
of time laughs at the absurdity of his
hypothesis. He has obtained from his guide
and counsellor — Mme. Coulomb — a
fragment of Mme. Blavatsky's handwriting,
picked up, it would seem, some years
ago, and cherished for any use that might
ultimately be made of it — which
refers to Russian politics, and reads like
part of an argument in favor of the
Russian advance in Central [245] Asia. This
is enough for the Psychical
Researcher, and the text of this document
appears in his Report in support of
his scandalous insinuation against Mme.
Blavatsky's integrity. The simple
explanation of the paper is, that it is
evidently a discarded fragment from a
long translation of Colonel Grodekoffs
Travels in Central Asia (or whatever
title the series bore) which Mme. Blavatsky
made at my request for the Pioneer
(the Indian Government organ), of which I
was at that time editor. I will not
delay this pamphlet to write to India and
get the dates at which the Grodekoff
series of articles appeared in the Pioneer.
They ran for some weeks, and must
have appeared in one of the latter years of
the last decade, or possibly in
1880. By applying to the Pioneer printers,
Mr Hodgson could perhaps obtain, if
the MS. of this translation has been
preserved, several hundred pages of Mme.
Blavatsky's writing, blazing with
sentiments of the most ardent Anglophobia. It
is most likely, as I say, that the pilfered
slip of which he is so proud, was
some rejected page from that translation;
unless, indeed, which would be more
amusing still, it should happen to have
fallen from some other Russian
translations which Mme. Blavatsky, to my
certain knowledge, once made for the
Indian Foreign Office during one of her
visits to Simla, when she made the
acquaintance of some of the officials in
that department, and was employed to do
some work in its service.
” I venture to think that if Mme. Blavatsky
had not been known to be too
ill-supplied with money to claim redress at
the costly bar of British justice —
if she had not been steeped to the lips in
the flavor, so ungrateful to British
law courts, of Psychic mystery, the
committee of the S.P.R. would hardly have
thought it well to accuse her, in a
published document, of infamous conduct
which, if she were really guilty of it,
would render her a public foe in the
land of her adoption and an object of scorn
to honorable men — at the flippant
suggestion of their private agent in
desperate need of an explanation for
conclusions which no amount of pedantically
ordered circumstances could render,
without it, otherwise than incredible.”
[246]
Mme. Blavatsky contributed to this pamphlet
a Protest in her own name, which ran
as follows:—
“The 'Society for Psychical Research' have now published the Report made
to
one
of their Committees by Mr Hodgson, the agent sent out to India to
investigate the character of certain phenomena, described as having
taken
place at the headquarters of the Theosophical Society in India and
elsewhere,
and
with the production of some of which I have been directly or indirectly
concerned. This Report imputes to me a conspiracy with the Coulombs and
several Hindus to impose on the credulity of various persons around me
by
fraudulent devices, and declares to be genuine, a series of letters
alleged to
be
written by me to Mme. Coulomb in connection with the supposed conspiracy,
which letters I have already myself declared to be in large part
fabrications.
Strange to say, from the time the investigation was begun, fourteen
months
ago, and to this day, when I am declared guilty by my self-instituted
judges,
I
was never permitted to see those incriminating letters. I draw the attention
of
every fair-minded and honorable Englishman to this fact.
“Without at present going into a minute examination of the errors,
inconsistencies, and bad reasoning of this Report, I wish to make as
publicly
as
possible my indignant and emphatic protest against the gross aspersions
thus put upon me by the Committee of the Psychic Research Society at the
instigation of the single, incompetent, and unfair inquirer whose
conclusions
they have accepted. There is no charge against me in the whole of the
present
Report that could stand the test of an impartial inquiry on the spot,
where my
own
explanations could be checked by the examination of witnesses. They have
been developed in Mr Hodgson's own mind, and kept back from my friends
and
colleagues while he remained at Madras abusing the hospitality and
unrestrained assistance in his inquiries supplied to him at the
headquarters
of
the Society at Adyar, where he took up the attitude of a friend, though he
now
represents [247] the persons with whom he thus associated — as cheats
and
liars. These charges are now brought forward supported by the one-sided
evidence collected by him, and when the time has gone by at which even
he
could be confronted with antagonistic evidence and with arguments which
his
very limited knowledge of the subject he attempted to deal with do not
supply
him. Mr Hodgson having thus constituted himself prosecutor and advocate
in the
first instance, and having dispensed with a defense in the complicated
transactions he was investigating, finds me guilty of all the offences
he has
imputed
to me in his capacity as judge, and declares that I am proved to be an
arch-impostor.
”
The Committee of the S.P.R. have not hesitated to accept the general
substance of the judgment which Mr Hodgson thus pronounces, and have
insulted
me
publicly by giving their opinion in favor of their agent's conclusions — an
opinion which rests wholly and solely on the Report of their single
deputy.
" Wherever the principles of fairness and honorable care for the
reputation of
slandered persons may be understood, I think the conduct of the
Committee will
be
regarded with some feeling resembling the profound indignation of which I
am
sensible. That Mr Hodgson's elaborate but misdirected inquiries, his
affected precision, which spends infinite patience over trifles and is
blind
to
facts of importance, his contradictory reasoning and his manifold
incapacity to deal with such problems as those he endeavored to solve,
will be
exposed by other writers in due course — I make no doubt. Many friends
who
know me better than the Committee of the S.P.R. will remain unaffected
by the
opinions of that body, and in their hands I must leave my much-abused
reputation. But one passage in this monstrous Report I must, at all
events,
answer in my own name.
“
Plainly alive to the comprehensive absurdity of his own conclusions about
me,
as long as they remained totally unsupported by any theory of a motive
which could account for my life-long devotion to my Theosophical work at
the
sacrifice of my natural place in society in my own country, Mr Hodgson
has
been base [248] enough to concoct the assumption that I am a Russian
political agent, inventing a sham religious movement for the sake of
undermining the British Government in India! Availing himself, to give
color
to
this hypothesis, of an old bit of my writing, apparently supplied to him by
Mme. Coulomb, but which he did not know to be, as it was, a fragment of
an old
translation
I made for the Pioneer, from some Russian travels in Central Asia,
Mr
Hodgson has promulgated this theory about me in the Report, which the
gentlemen of the S.P.R. have not been ashamed to publish. Seeing that I
was
naturalized nearly eight years ago a citizen of the United States, which
led
to
my losing every right to my pension of 5000 roubles yearly as the widow of
a
high official in Russia; that my voice has been invariably raised in India
to
answer all native friends that bad as I think the English Government in
some respects — by reason of its unsympathetic character — the Russian
would
be
a thousand times worse; that I wrote letters to that effect to Indian
friends before I left America on my way to India, in 1879; that everyone
familiar with my pursuits and habits and very undisguised life in India,
is
aware that I have no taste for or affinity with politics whatever, but
an
intense dislike to them; that the Government of India, which suspected
me as a
spy
because I was a Russian when I first went to India, soon abandoned its
needless espionage, and has never, to my knowledge, had the smallest
inclination to suspect me since — the Russian spy theory about me which
Mr
Hodgson has thus resuscitated from the grave, where it had been buried
with
ridicule for years, will merely help to render his extravagant
conclusions
about me more stupid even than they would have been otherwise in the
estimation of my friends and of all who really know me. But looking upon
the
character of a spy with the disgust which only a Russian who is not one
can
feel, I am impelled irresistibly to repudiate Mr Hodgson's groundless
and
infamous calumny with a concentration of the general contempt his method
of
procedure in this inquiry seems to me to merit, and to be equally
deserved by
the
Committee of the Society he has served. They have shown themselves, [
249] by their wholesale adoption of his blunders, a group of persons
less
fitted to explore the mysteries of psychic phenomena than I should have
thought — in the present day, after all that has been written and
published on
the
subject of late years — could have been found among educated men in
England.
" Mr Hodgson knows, and the committee doubtless share his
knowledge, that he
is
safe from actions for libel at my hands, because I have no money to conduct
costly proceedings (having given all I ever had to the cause I serve),
and
also because my vindication would involve the examination into psychic
mysteries which cannot be dealt fairly with in a court of law; and
again,
because there are questions which I am solemnly pledged never to answer,
but
which a legal investigation of these slanders would inevitably bring to
the
front, while my silence and refusal to answer certain queries would be
misconstrued into ' contempt of court.' This condition of things
explains the
shameless attack that has been made upon an almost defenseless woman,
and the
inaction in face of it to which I am so cruelly condemned.”
H.
P. BLAVATSKY.
“Jan. 14, 1886.”
I am glad to be permitted to insert here
the following letter from the Countess
Wachtmeister, summing up the general
impressions of her long visit to Mme.
Blavatsky at Würzburg:—
“
DEAR MR SINNETT,—
Last autumn, having left Sweden to spend the winter in a more congenial
climate, and hearing that Madame Blavatsky was suffering, ill and lonely
at
Wurzburg, I offered to spend some time with her, and do what I could to
render
her
position more comfortable, and to cheer her in her solitude. My
acquaintance with H. P. Blavatsky was a very slight one. I had met her
casually in London and Paris, but had no real knowledge or experience in
regard to herself or her character. I had been told a great deal against
her,
and
[250] I can honestly say that I was prejudiced in her disfavour, and
it
was only a sense of duty and gratitude (such as all true students of
theosophy
should feel towards the founder of a society, which, notwithstanding
all
its drawbacks, has been of great benefit and service to numbers of
individuals), which caused me to take upon myself the task of
alleviating her
troubles and sorrows to the best of my ability.
”Having heard the absurd rumors circulating against her, and by which
she was
accused of practicing black magic, fraud and deception, I was on my
guard, and
went to her in a calm and tranquil frame of mind, determined to accept
nothing
of
an occult character and coming from her without sufficient proof; to make
myself positive, to keep my eyes open, and to be just and true in my
conclusions. Common sense would not permit me to believe in her guilt
without
proof,
but if that proof had been furnished, my sense of honor would have made
it
impossible for me to remain in a society, the founder of which committed
cheating and trickery, therefore my frame of mind was bent on
investigation,
and
I was anxious to find out the truth.
" I have now spent a few months with Madame Blavatsky. I have
shared her room,
and
been with her morning, noon, and night. I have had access to all her boxes
and
drawers, have read the letters which she received and those which she
wrote, and I now openly and honestly declare that I am ashamed of myself
for
having ever suspected her, for I believe her to be an honest and true
woman,
faithful to death to her Masters and to the cause for which she has
sacrificed
position,
fortune, and health. There is no doubt in my mind that she made
these sacrifices, for I have seen the proofs of them, some of which
consisted
of
documents whose genuineness is above all suspicion.
”
From a worldly point of view Madame Blavatsky is an unhappy woman,
slandered, doubted, and abused by many; but looked at from a higher
point of
view, she has extraordinary gifts, and no amount of vilification can
deprive
her
of the privileges which she enjoys, and which consist in a knowledge of
many things that are known [251] only to a few mortals, and in a
personal
intercourse with certain Eastern adepts.
”
On account of the extensive knowledge which she possesses and which extends
far
into the invisible part of nature, it is very much to be regretted that
all
her troubles and trials prevent her giving to the world a great deal of
information which she would be willing to impart if she were permitted
to
remain undisturbed and in peace. Even the great work in which she is now
engaged, The Secret Doctrine, has been greatly impeded by all the
persecutions, offensive letters, and other petty annoyances to which she
has
been subjected this winter; for it should be remembered that H. P.
Blavatsky
is
not herself a full-grown adept, nor does she claim to be one; and that,
therefore, in spite of all her knowledge, she is as painfully sensitive
to
insult and suspicion as any lady of refinement in her position could be
expected to be.
“The Secret Doctrine will be indeed a great and grand work. I have had
the
privilege of watching its progress, of reading the manuscripts, and of
witnessing the occult way in which she derived her information. I have
latterly heard among people who style themselves 'Theosophists',
expressions
which surprised and pained me. Some such persons said that ' if it were
proven
that the Mahatmas did not exist, it would not matter,' that theosophy
was
nevertheless a truth, etc., etc. Such and similar statements have come
into
circulation in Germany, England, and America; but to my understanding
they are
very erroneous, for, in the first place, if there were no Mahatmas or
Adepts —
that is to say, persons who have progressed so far in the scale of human
evolution,
as to be able to unite their personality with the sixth principle
of
the universe (the universal Christ), then the teachings of that system
which has been called ' Theosophy,' would be false; because there would
be a
break in the scale of progression, which would be more difficult to be
accounted for than the absence of the ' missing link' of Darwin. But if
these
persons refer merely to those Adepts who are said to have been active in
the
foundation of the ' Theosophical Society,' they seem to [252] forget
that
without these Adepts we would never have had that society, nor would
Isis
Unveiled, the Esoteric Buddhism, the Light on the Path, the Theosophist,
and
other valuable theosophical publications ever have been written ; and if
in
the
future we should shut ourselves out from the influence of the Mahatmas and
be
left entirely to our own resources, we should soon become lost in a
labyrinth of metaphysical speculation. It must be left to science and
speculative philosophy to confine themselves to theories and to the
obtaining
of
such information as is contained in books. Theosophy goes farther, and
acquires knowledge by direct interior perception. The study of theosophy
means, therefore, practical development, and to attain this development
a
guide is necessary who knows that which he teaches, and who must have
attained
himself that state by the process of spiritual regeneration.
“After all that has been said in these ' Memoirs' about the occult
phenomena
taking place in the presence of Madame Blavatsky, and how such phenomena
have
been a part and parcel of her life, occurring at all times both with and
without her knowledge, I need only add that during my stay with her, I
have
frequently witnessed such genuine phenomena. Here, as in every other
department of life, the main point is to learn to discriminate properly
and to
estimate everything at its true value. —
Yours sincerely,
“
CONSTANCE WACHTMEISTER, F.T.S.”
This letter has already been printed in an
American newspaper devoted to
Theosophy, where it appears with the
following remarks appended to it by Dr
Franz Hartmann:—
“ KEMPTEN, BAVARIA, May 10, 1886 —
I have read the above statement written by
the Countess Wachtmeister, and I
fully agree with every sentence contained
therein. I myself, like my friend the
Countess, have passed through a state of
incredulity and doubt before I arrived
at knowledge. I have often been perplexed,
and had to [253] grope in the
dark, but I can now say without any
hesitation, sincerely and truthfully, that
those who desire an explanation of the
great commotion that has taken place
within the sphere of the ' Theosophical
Society' will have to look for it deeper
than in any desire of deception on the part
of Madame Blavatsky. The accusations
of Mr Hodgson and others are only based
upon external appearances and upon
superficial reasoning. To recognize, then,
the truth requires not only sharpness
and wit, but the power of intuition, which
a scientist who reasons merely from
the plane of illusions cannot be expected
to possess, and which he would not be
permitted to use, even if he possessed it,
because by doing so he would act in
contravention to the laws upon which material
science is based. This power of
intuition is ' the corner-stone,' which the
(material) builders have rejected so
often, and which they will continue to
reject. It is the power whose possession
is required to arrive at spiritual
knowledge, which is the highest of all
sciences, and its development is the first
law on which progress in practical
occultism depends. Let those who desire to
arrive at the truth develop this
power and make it alive in their hearts,
and they will obtain a guide and a
Master whose voice they will know and whose
words they will not doubt, and whose
hand will lead them out of the illusions of
the senses and out of the meshes of
theoretical speculation into the bright
sunlight of the eternal truth. Let the
members of the Theosophical Society stop
and think before they spit on the way
that has led them up higher and brought
them nearer to the God that is
slumbering in the paradise of their souls,
and let us all be thankful to those
Children of Light who have awakened us from
our sleep and called our attention
to the fact that the morning is dawning.
Let us listen to their teachings, grasp
their doctrines with our understanding, and
test them upon the touchstone of
reason, and as we assimilate them we will
ourselves grow stronger and greater.
When the Paraclete arrives he will be
attracted to those temples on whose altars
he finds his own fire burning; but the
unfaithful, the sceptic, and the
distorter of the truth will see nothing but
the smoke that rises [254] from
his own brain. The owl loves the darkness,
but the eagle mounts towards the
sun.”
The mental suffering Mme. Blavatsky went
through while the insults of the S.P.R.
Report were still recent outrages, need not
be displayed in too minute detail to
unsympathetic observation, and all the more
is it unnecessary here to go step by
step over the stories to Mme. Blavatsky's
prejudice told to Mr Hodgson by the
Coulombs and absurdly accepted as evidence
by the committee of the S.P.R.
Certainly the appearance of these Memoirs
has been precipitated by the attack on
Mme. Blavatsky instituted by the S.P.R. I
should have preferred to have kept
them back until, by the accumulation of
more information, the story of her life
could have been told more completely. But
even as that story is here told, I
look forward with very great confidence to
its recognition by all thoughtful
readers as an indirect refutation, more
effective than any wrangling over the
circumstances which clouded Mr Hodgson's
understanding at Adyar, of the
monstrous and unprincipled assertion put
forward by the Psychic Research
Committee that she is an “impostor”. The
Society which that committee represents
is probably not destined to a very
prolonged existence. It rose like a rocket on
a brilliant stream of fire that might have
carried it high into the heavens, but
a misdirection of its course turned it back
to earth almost instantly, and the
force which should have borne it aloft now
buries its head more deeply in the
sand. But the literary fruits of Mme.
Blavatsky's life will long survive the
recollection which this generation will
retain, of the efforts made to disparage
the interest of those physical wonders she
has so often been concerned in
working and which really constitute the
least important circumstances of her
career. For the tales of wonder with which
Mme. [255] Blavatsky has thus
been associated, though they have filled
this volume so largely, are really no
more than the foam on the surface of the
current that has been set flowing
through human thought, in our time, under
her auspices.
NOTE FOR THE PRESENT EDITION
THIS imperfect biography was originally
published in 1886, several years before
Mme. Blavatsky's laborious life came to an
end. The Countess Wachtmeister, who
spent a great deal of time with her during
her stay at Wurzburg and afterwards
at Ostend has left an interesting record
relating to this period. The
Theosophical Society was then in a state of
obscuration, the consequence of the
attack described in the preceding pages;
but Mme. Blavatsky continued to work
steadily at her great book, The Secret
Doctrine, and in the year 1887, at the
request of many friends, came to London,
staying for a time at Norwood, and
afterwards at 17 Lansdowne Road, Notting
Hill. Here she soon found herself
almost overwhelmed by crowds of visitors,
and it was at this period that Mrs
Besant made her acquaintance. Eventually
she moved to a house in the Avenue
Road, St John's Wood, and there she used to
be present at large meetings of the
“Blavatsky Lodge” of the Theosophical
Society, founded in her honor soon after
her arrival in London. She died there on
the 8th of May 1891, surrounded by
loving friends. The end came rather
suddenly as she was sitting in a chair by
her bedside. Her doctor had [256] left her
that morning under the
impression that she was not any longer in
immediate danger.
Those who are desirous of learning more
about the later years of her life will
find abundant information in the Countess
Wachtmeister's book entitled
Reminiscences of H. P. Blavatsky, and in a
collection of papers by many of her
friends and pupils, put together shortly
after her passing. [ In Memory of
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. By some of her pupils.
With portrait. Theosophical
Publishing Society.]
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