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Searchable Full Text of A
Modern Revival of Ancient Wisdom by Alvin Boyd Kuhn
A Modern Revival
Of Ancient Wisdom
by
Alvin Boyd
Kuhn
Searchable
Full Text Version
The
Secret Doctrine by H P Blavatsky
PREFACE
Since this work was
designed to be one of a series of studies in American
religions, the
treatment of the subject was consciously limited to those aspects
of Theosophy which are
in some manner distinctively related to
restriction has been
difficult to enforce for the reason that, though officially
born here, Theosophy
has never since its inception had its headquarters on this
continent. The springs
of the movement have emanated from foreign sources and
influences. Its prime
inspiration has come from ancient Oriental cultures.
conditions of her
native milieu. The main events in American Theosophic history
have been mostly
repercussions of events transpiring in English, Continental, or
Indian Theosophy. It
was thus virtually impossible to segregate American
Theosophy from its
connections with foreign leadership. But the attempt to do so
has made it necessary
to give meagre treatment to some of the major currents of
world-wide Theosophic
development. The book does not purport to be a complete
history of Theosophy,
but it is an attempt to present a unified picture of the
movement in its larger
aspects. No effort has been made to weigh the truth or
falsity of Theosophic
principles, but an effort has been made to understand
their significance in
relation to the historical situation and psychological
disposition of those
who have adopted it.
The author wises to
express his obligation to several persons without whose
assistance the
enterprise would have been more onerous and less successful. His
thanks are due in
largest measure to Professor Roy F. Mitchell of New York
University, and to
Mrs. Mitchell, for placing at his disposal much of their time
and of their wide
knowledge of Theosophical material; to Mr. L. W. Rogers,
President of the
American Theosophical Society,
co-operation in the
matter of the questionnaire, and to the many members of the
Society who took pains
to reply to the questions; to Mr. John Garrigues, of the
United Lodge of
Theosophists,
of Theosophic
information, and to several of the ladies at the U.L.T. Reading
Room for library
assistance; to Professor Louis H. Gray, of
for technical
criticism in Sanskrit terminology; to Mr. Arthur E. Christy, of
philosophy; and to
Professor Herbert W. Schneider, of
his painstaking
criticism of the study throughout.
A. B. K.
September, 1930.3
CONTENTS
------
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THEOSOPHY, AN
ANCIENT TRADITION
..4
II. THE AMERICAN
BACKGROUND OF THEOSOPHY
..12
III. HELENA P.
BLAVATSKY: HER LIFE AND PSYCHIC CAREER
..25
IV. FROM SPIRITUALISM
TO THEOSOPHY
..50
V.
VI. THE MAHATMAS AND
THEIR LETTERS
..83
VII. STORM, WRECK, AND
REBUILDING
..100
VIII. THE SECRET
DOCTRINE
..110
IX. EVOLUTION,
REBIRTH, AND KARMA
..131
X. ESOTERIC WISDOM AND
PHYSICAL SCIENCE
..142
XI. THEOSOPHY IN
ETHICAL PRACTICE
.149
XII. LATER
THEOSOPHICAL HISTORY
..170
XIII. SOME FACTS AND
FIGURES
..190
FOOTNOTES
.198
BIBLIOGRAPHY
.222
INDEX
.237.4
------
CHAPTER I THEOSOPHY
In the mind of the general
public Theosophy is classed with Spiritualism, New
Thought, Unity and
Christian Science, as one of the modern cults. It needs but a
slight acquaintance
with the facts in the case to reveal that Theosophy is
amenable to this
classification only in the most superficial sense. Though the
Theosophical Society
is recent, theosophy, in the sense of an esoteric
philosophic mystic
system of religious thought, must be ranked as one of the
most ancient
traditions. It is not a mere cult, in the sense of being the
expression of a quite
specialized form of devotion, practice, or theory,
propagated by a small
group. It is a summation and synthesis of many cults of
all times. It is as
broad and universal a motif, let us say, as mysticism. It is
one of the most
permanent phases of religion, and as such it has welled up again
and again in the life
of mankind. It is that "wisdom of the divine" which has
been in the world
practically continuously since ancient times. The movement of
today is but another
periodical recurrence of a phenomenon which has marked the
course of history from
classical antiquity. Not always visible in outward
organization-indeed
never formally organized as Theosophy under that name until
now-the thread of
theosophic teaching and temperament can be traced in almost
unbroken course from
ancient times to the present. It has often been
subterranean, inasmuch
as esotericism and secrecy have been essential elements
of its very
constitution. The modern presentation of theosophy differs from all
the past ones chiefly
in that it has lifted the veil that cloaked its teachings
in mystery, and
offered alleged secrets freely to the world. Theosophists tell
us that before the
launching of the latest "drive" to promulgate Theosophy in
the world, the
councils of the Great White Brotherhood of Adepts, or Mahatmas,
long debated whether
the times were ripe for the free propagation of the secret
Gnosis; whether the
modern world, with its Western dominance and with the
prevalence of
materialistic standards, could appropriate the sacred knowledge
without the risk of
serious misuse of high spiritual forces, which might be
diverted into selfish
channels. We are told that in these councils it was the
majority opinion that
broadcasting the Ancient Wisdom over the Occidental areas
would be a veritable
casting of pearls before swine; yet two of the Mahatmas
settled the question
by undertaking to assume all karmic debts for the move, to
take the
responsibility for all possible disturbances and ill effects.
If we look at the
matter through Theosophic eyes, we are led to believe that
when in the fall of
1875 Madame Blavatsky, Col. H. S. Olcott, and Mr. W. Q.
Judge took out the
charter for the Theosophical Society in
was witnessing a
really major event in human history. Not only did it signify
that one more of the
many recurrent waves of esoteric cultism was launched but
that this time
practically the whole body of occult lore, which had been so
sedulously guarded in
mystery schools, brotherhoods, secret societies, religious
orders, and other
varieties of organization, was finally to be given to the.5
world en pleine
lumiθre! At last the lid of antiquity's treasure chest would be
lifted and the
contents exposed to public gaze. There might even be found
therein the solution
to the riddle of the Sphynx! The great Secret Doctrine was
to be taught openly;
To understand the
periodical recurrence of the theosophic tendency in history it
is necessary to note
two cardinal features of the Theosophic theory of
development. The first
is that progress in religion, philosophy, science, or art
is not a direct
advance, but in advance in cyclical swirls. When you view
progress in small
sections, it may appear to be a development in a straight
line; but if your gaze
takes in the whole course of history, you will see the
outline of a quite
different method of progress. You will not see uninterrupted
unfolding of human
life, but advances and retreats, plunges and recessions.
Spring does not emerge
from winter by a steady rise of temperature, but by
successive rushes of
heat, each carrying the season a bit ahead. Movement in
nature is cyclical and
periodic. History progresses through the rise and fall of
nations. The true
symbol of progress is the helix, motion round and round, but
tending upward at each
swirl. But we must have large perspectives if we are to
see the gyrations of
the helix.
The application of
this interpretation of progress to philosophy and religion is
this: the evolution of
ideas apparently repeats itself at intervals time after
time, a closed circuit
of theories running through the same succession at many
points in history.
Scholars have discerned this fact in regard to the various
types of government:
monarchy working over into oligarchy, which shifts to
democracy, out of
which monarchy arises again. The round has also been observed
in the domain of
philosophy, where development starts with revelation and
proceeds through
rationalism to empiricism, and, in revulsion from that, swings
back to authority or
mystic revelation once more. Hegel's theory that progress
was not in a straight
line but in cycles formed by the manifestation of thesis,
antithesis, and then
synthesis, which in turn becomes the ground of a new
thesis, is but a
variation of this general theme.
Theosophists, then,
regard their movement as but the renaissance of the esoteric
and occult aspect of
human thought in this particular swing of the spiral.
The second aspect of
the occult theory of development is a method of
interpretation which
claims to furnish a key to the understanding of religious
history. Briefly, the
theory is that religions never evolve; they always
degenerate. Contrary
to the assumptions of comparative mythology, they do not
originate in crude
primitive feelings or ideas, and then transform themselves
slowly into loftier
and purer ones. They begin lofty and pure, and deteriorate
into crasser forms.
They come forth in the glow of spirituality and living power
and later pass into
empty forms and lifeless practices. From the might of the
spirit they contract
into the materialism of the letter. No religion can rise
above its source, can
surpass its founder; and the more exalted the founder and
his message, the more
certainly is degeneration to be looked for. There is
always gradual change
in the direction of obscuration and loss of primal vision,
initial force.
Religions tend constantly to wane, and need repeated revivals and
reformations. Nowhere
is it possible to discern anything remotely like steady
growth in spiritual
unfolding.
It is the occult
theory that what we find when we search the many religions of
the earth is but the
fragments, the dissociated and distorted units of what were
once profound and
coherent systems. It is difficult to trace in the isolated
remnants the contour
of the original structure. But it is this completed system
which the Theosophist
seeks to reconstruct from the scattered remnants..6
Religion, then, is a
phase of human life which is alleged to operate on a
principle exactly
opposite to evolution, and theosophy believes this key makes
it intelligible.
Religions never claim to have evolved from human society; they
claim to be gifts to
humanity. They come to man with the seal of some divine
authority and the
stamp of supreme perfection. Not only are they born above the
world, but they are
brought to the world by the embodied divinity of a great
Messenger, a Savior, a
World-Teacher, a Prophet, a Sage, a Son of God. These
bring their own
credentials in the form of a divine life. Their words and works
bespeak the glory that
earth can not engender.
The two phases of
theosophic explanation can now be linked into a unified
principle. Religions
come periodically; and they are given to men from high
sources, by supermen.
The theory of growth from crude beginnings to spirituality
tacitly assumes that
man is alone in the universe and left entirely to his own
devices; that he must
learn everything for himself from experience, which
somehow enlarges his
faculties and quickens them for higher conceptions. This
view, says occultism,
does unnatural violence to the fundamental economy of the
universe, wrenching
humanity out of its proper setting and relationship in an
order of harmony and
fitness. Humankind is made to be the sole manipulator of
intelligence, the
favored beneficiary of evolution, and as such is severed from
its natural connection
with the rest of the cosmic scheme. So small and poor a
view does pitiable
injustice to the wealth of the cosmic resources. Bruno,
Copernicus, and modern
science have taught us that man is not the darling of
creation, nor the only
child in the cosmic family, the pampered ward of the
gods. Far from it; he
is one among the order of beings, occupying his proper
place in relation to
vaster hierarchies than he has knowledge of, above and
below him.1
What is the character
of that relationship? It is, says the esoteric teaching,
that of guardian and
ward; of a young race in the tutelage of an older; of
infant humanity being
taught by more highly evolved beings, whose intelligence
is to that of early
man as an adept's to a tyro's. It is the relationship of
children to parents or
guardians. Throughout our history we have been the wards
of an elder race, or
at least of the elder brothers of our own race. The members
of a former
evolutionary school have turned back often, like the guardians in
Plato's cave allegory,
to instruct us in vital knowledge. The wisdom of the
ages, the knowledge of
the very Ancient of Days, has at times been handed down
to us. The human
family has produced some advanced Sages, Seers, Adepts,
Christs, and these
have cared for the less-advanced classes, and have from time
to time given out a
body of deeper wisdom than man's own. Theosophy claims that
it is the traditional
memory of these noble characters, their lives and
messages, which has
left the ancient field strewn with the legends of its Gods,
Kings, Magi, Rishis,
Avatars and its great semi-divine heroes. Such wisdom and
knowledge as they
could wisely and safely impart they have handed down, either
coming themselves to
earth from more ethereal realms, or commissioning competent
representatives. And
thus the world has periodically been given the boon of a
new religion and a new
stimulus from the earthly presence of a savior regarded
as divine. And always
the gospel contained milk for the babes and meat for grown
men. There was both an
exoteric and an esoteric doctrine. The former was
broadcast among the
masses, and did its proper and salutary work for them; the
latter, however, was
imparted only to the fit and disciplined initiates in
secret organizations.
Much real truth was hidden behind the veil of allegory;
myth and symbol were
employed. This aggregate of precious knowledge, this
innermost heart of the
secret teaching of the gods to mankind, is, needless to
say, the Ancient
Wisdom-is Theosophy. Or at least Theosophy claims the key to.7
all this body of
wisdom. It has always been in the world, but never publicly
promulgated until now.
To trace the currents
of esoteric influence in ancient religious literature
would be the work of
volumes. Theosophic or kindred doctrines are to be found in
a large number of the
world's sacred books or bibles. The lore of
Philosophy, not less
than religion, bears the stamp of theosophical ideology.
Traces of the occult
doctrine permeate most of the thought systems of the past.
All histories of
philosophy in the western world begin, with or without brief
apology to the
venerable systems of the Orient, with Thales of Miletus and the
early Greek thinkers
of about the sixth century B.C. In the dim background stand
Homer and Hesiod and
Pindar and the myths of the Olympian pantheon. Contemporary
religious faiths, too,
such as the cult of Pythagoreanism,2 and the Orphic and
Eleusinian Mysteries,
influenced philosophical speculation.
It needs no
extraordinary erudition to trace the stream of esoteric teaching
through the field of
Greek philosophy. What is really surprising is that the
world of modern
scholarship should have so long assumed that Greek speculation
developed without
reference to the wide-spread religious cult systems which
transfused the thought
of the near-Eastern nations. Esotericism was an ingrained
characteristic of the
Oriental mind and
contagion than could
that practically all
of early Greek philosophy dealt with material presented by
the Dionysiac and
Orphic Mysteries and later by the Pythagorean revisions of
these.3
Thales' fragments
contain Theosophical ideas in his identification of the physis
with the soul of the
universe, and in his affirmation that "the materiality of
physis is
supersensible." Thales thought that this physis or natural world was
"full of
gods."4 Both these conceptions of the impersonal and the personal
physis, the latter a
reasoning substance approaching Nous, came out of the
continuum of the group
soul, as a vehicle of magic power.5 Man was believed to
stand in a sympathetic
relation to this nature or physis, and the deepening of
his sympathetic
attitude was supposed to give him nothing less than magical
control over its
elements.
Prominent among the
Orphic tenets was that of reincarnation, possibly a
transference to man of
the annual rebirth in nature. Worship of heavenly bodies
as aiding periodical
harvests found a place here also.6 The conception of the
wheel of Dike and
Moira, the allotted flow and apportionment in time as well as
place, of all things,
nature and man together, was underlying in the ancient
Greek mind. Persian
occult ideas may have influenced the Orphic systems.7
Anaximander added to
the scientific doctrines of Thales the idea of compensatory
retribution for the
transgression of Moira's bounds which suggests Karma. The
sum of Heraclitus'
teaching is the One Soul of the universe, in ever-running
cycles of
expression-"Fire8 lives the death of air, air lives the death of fire;
earth lives the death
of water, water lives the death of earth."9 And interwoven
with it is a sort of
justice which resembles karmic force.10
Dionysiac influence
brought the theme of reincarnation prominently to the fore
in metaphysical
thinking.11
Socrates, in the
Phaedo, speaks of "the ancient doctrine that souls pass out of
this world to the
other, and there exist, and then come back hither from the.8
dead, and are born
again." In Hesiod's Works and Days there is the image of the
Wheel of Life. In the
mystical tradition there was prominent the wide-spread
notion of a fall of
higher forms of life into the human sphere of limitation and
misery. The Orphics
definitely taught that the soul of man fell from the stars
into the prison of
this earthly body, sinking from the upper regions of fire and
light into the misty
darkness of this dismal vale. The fall is ascribed to some
original sin, which
entailed expulsion from the purity and perfection of divine
existence and had to
be expiated by life on earth and by purgation in the nether
world.
The philosophies of
Parmenides, Empedocles, and Plato came directly out of the
Pythagorean movement.13 Aristotle
described Empedocles' poems as "Esoteric," and
it is thought that
Parmenides' poems were similarly so. Parmenides' theory that
the earth is the plane
of life outermost, most remotely descended from God, is
re-echoed in
theosophic schematism. Also his idea-"The downward fall of life
from the heavenly
fires is countered by an upward impulse which 'sends the soul
back from the seen to
the unseen'"-completes the Theosophic picture of outgoing
and return. Parmenides
"was really the 'associate' of a Pythagorean, Ameinias,
son of Diochartas, a
poor but noble man, to whom he afterwards built a shrine,
as to a hero."14 "Strabo
describes Parmenides and Zeno as Pythagoreans."15
Cornford's comment on
the philosophy of Empedocles leaves little doubt as to its
origin in the
Mysteries. 16 Strife causes the fall, love brings the return.
Empedocles was a
member of a Pythagorean society or school, for Diogenes tells
us that he and Plato
were expelled from the organization for having revealed the
secret teachings.17
Of Pythagoras as a
Theosophic type of philosopher there is no need to speak at
any length. What is
known of Pythagoreanism strongly resembles Theosophy.
As to Socrates, it is
interesting to note that Cornford's argument "points to
the conclusion that
Socrates was more familiar with Pythagorean ideas than has
commonly been
supposed."18 Socrates gave utterance to many Pythagorean
sentiments and he was
associated with members of the Pythagorean community at
Phlious, near
R. D. Hicks comments
on Plato's "imaginative sympathy with the whole mass of
floating legend, myth
and dogma, of a partly religious, partly ethical
character, which found
a wide, but not universal acceptance, at an early time in
the Orphic and
Pythagorean associations and brotherhoods."19
"The Platonic
myths afford ample evidence that Plato was perfectly familiar with
all the leading
features of this strange creed. The divine origin of the soul,
its fall from bliss
and the society of the gods, its long pilgrimage of penance
through hundreds of
generations, its task of purification from earthly
pollution, its
reincarnation in successive bodies, its upward and downward
progress, and the law
of retribution for all offences . . ."20
There is evidence
pointing to the fact that Plato was quite familiar with the
Mystery teachings, if
not actually an initiate.21 In the Phaedrus he says:
". . . being
initiated into those Mysteries which it is lawful to call the most
blessed of all
Mysteries . . . we were freed from the molestation of evils which
otherwise await us in
a future period of time. Likewise in consequence of this
divine initiation, we
become spectators of entire, simple, immovable and blessed
visions resident in
the pure light."22.9
And his immersion in
the prevalent esoteric attitude is hinted at in another
passage:
"You say that, in
my former discourse, I have not sufficiently explained to you
the nature of the
First. I purposely spoke enigmatically, for in case the tablet
should have happened
with any accident, either by land or sea, a person, without
some previous
knowledge of the subject, might not be able to understand its
contents."23
Aristotle left the
esoteric tradition, and went in the direction of naturalism
and empiricism. Yet in
him too there are many points of distinctly esoteric
ideology. His
distinction between the vegetative animal soul and the rational
soul, the latter alone
surviving while the former perished; his dualism of
heavenly and
terrestrial life; his belief that the heavenly bodies were great
living beings among
the hierarchies; and his theory that development is the
passing of
potentiality over into actualization, are all items of Theosophic
belief.
Greek philosophy is
said to have ended with Neo-Platonism-which is one of
history's greatest
waves of the esoteric tendency. It would be a long task to
detail the theosophic
ideas of the great Plotinus. He, Origen and Herrennius
were pupils of
Ammonius Saccas, whose teachings they promised never to reveal,
as being occult.
Plotinus' own teachings were given only to initiated circles of
students.24 Proclus25
gives astonishing corroboration to a fragment of
Theosophic doctrine in
any excerpt quoted in Isis Unveiled:
"After death, the
soul (the spirit) continueth to linger in the aerial (astral)
form till it is
entirely purified from all angry and voluptuous passions . . .
then doth it put off
by a second dying the aerial body as it did the earthly
one. Whereupon the
ancients say that there is a celestial body always joined
with the soul, and
which is immortal, luminous and star-like."26
The esotericist feels
that the evidence, a meagre portion of which has been thus
cursorily submitted,
is highly indicative that beneath the surface of ancient
pagan civilization
there were undercurrents of sacred wisdom, esoteric
traditions of high
knowledge, descended from revered sources, and really
cherished in secret.
Presumably the
Christian religion itself drew many of its basic concepts
directly or indirectly
from esoteric sources. It was born amid the various cults
and faiths that then
occupied the field of the Alexandrian East and the Roman
Empire, and it was
unable to escape the influences emanating from these sources.
Its immediate
predecessors were the Mystery-Religions, the Jewish faith, and the
syncretistic blend of
these with Syrian Orientalism and Greek philosophy.
Judaism was itself
deeply tinctured with Hellenistic and oriental influences.
The Mystery cults were
more or less esoteric; Judaism had received a highly
allegorical
formulation at the hands of Philo; the Hermetic Literature was
similar to Theosophy;
the Syrian faiths were saturated with the strain of
"Chaldean"
occultism; and Greek rationalism had yielded that final mysticism
which culminated in
Plotinus. Christianity was indebted to many of these sources
and many scholars
believe that it triumphed only because it was the most
successful syncretism
of many diverse elements. Numerous streams of esoteric
doctrine contributed
to Christianity; we can merely hint at the large body of
evidence available on
this point.
Christianity grew up
in the milieu of the Mysteries, and those early Fathers who
formulated the body of
Christian doctrine did not step drastically outside the.10
traditions of the
prevalent faiths. Their work was rather an incorporation of
some new elements into
the accepted systems of the time. In some cases, as in
Egyptian city were at
the same time connected with the Mystery cult of Serapis,
as many in
the most direct and
prominent product of the two systems is to be seen in St.
Paul, about whose
intimate relation to the Mysteries several volumes have been
written. Much of his
language so strikingly suggests his close contact with
Mystery formulae that
it is a moot question whether or not he was actually an
Initiate.28 At all
events many are of the opinion that he must have been
powerfully influenced
by the cult teachings and practices.29 He mentions some
psychic experiences of
his own, which are cited as savoring strongly of the
character of the
mystical exercises taught in the Mysteries.30
When in the third and
fourth centuries the Church Fathers began the task of
shaping a body of
doctrine for the new movement, the same theosophic tendencies
pressed upon them from
every side. Clement and Origen brought many phases of
theosophic doctrine to
prominence, a fact which tended later to exclude their
writings from the
canon. And when Augustine drew up the dogmatic schematism of
the new religion, he
was tremendously swayed by the work of the Neo-Platonist
Plotinus, who, along
with Ammonius Saccas, Numenius, Porphyry, and Proclus, had
been a member of one
or several of the Mystery bodies.31
The presence of
powerful currents of Neo-Platonic idealism in the early church
is attested by the
effects upon it of Manichaeism, Gnosticism and the
heresy, which
tendencies had to be exterminated before Christianity definitely
took its course of
orthodox development. Occult writers32 have indicated the
forces at work in the
formative period of the church's dogma which eradicated
the theory of
reincarnation and other aspects of esoteric knowledge from the
orthodox canons. The
point remains true, nevertheless, that Christianity took
its rise in an
atmosphere saturated with ideas resembling those of Theosophy.
Theosophy, the Gnosis,
having been to a large extant rejected from Catholic
theology, nevertheless
did not disappear from history. It possessed an
unquenchable vitality
and made its way through more or less submerged channels
down the centuries.
Movements, sects, and individuals that embodied its
cherished principles
could be enumerated at great length. A list would include
Paulicians, the
Bogomiles, the Bulgars, the Paterenes, the Comacines, the
Cathari; Albigensians,
and pietists; Joachim of Floris, Roger Bacon, Robert
Bradwardine, Raymond
Lully; the Alchemists, the Fire Philosophers; Paracelsus,
B. Figulus; the
Friends of God, led by Nicholas of Basle; L'Homme de Cuir, in
in the Tarot; the
great Aldus' Academy at
esoteric meanings in
the literature of the Troubadours, and in such writings as
The Romance of the
Rose, the Holy Grail legends and the Arthurian Cycle, if read
in an esoteric sense;
Gower's Confessio Amantis, Spencer's Faλrie Queen, the
works of Dietrich of
Berne, Wayland Smith, the Peredur Stories, and the
Mabinogian
compilations. German pietism expressed fundamentally Theosophic ideas
through Eckhardt,
Tauler, Suso, and Jacob Boehme. The names of such figures as
Count Rakowczi,
Cagliostro, Count St. Germain, and Francis Bacon have been
linked with the secret
orders. In fact there was hardly a period when the ghosts
of occult wisdom did
not hover in the background of European thought.
Sometimes its
predominant manifestation was mystically religious; again it was
cosmological and
philosophical; never did it quite lose its attachment to the
conceptions of
science, which was at times reduced nearly to magic. And it is.11
upon the implications
of this scientific interest that the occult theorist bases
his claim that
science, along with religion and philosophy, has sprung in the
beginning from
esoteric knowledge. Not overlooking the oldest scientific lore to
be found in the sacred
books of the East, our attention is called to the
astronomical science
of the "Chaldeans"; the similar knowledge among the
Egyptians, such, for
instance, as led them to construct the Pyramids on lines
conformable to
sidereal measurements and movements; the reputed knowledge of the
precession of the
equinoxes among the Persian Magi and the "Chaldeans"; the
later work of the
scientists among the Alexandrian savants, which had so
important a bearing
upon the direction of the nascent science in the minds of
Copernicus, Galileo,
Kepler, and
Robert Grosseteste,
Agrippa von Nettesheim, and Jerome Cardano in incipient
empiricism. It has
always been assumed that the strange mixture of true science
and grotesque magic
found, for instance, in the work of Roger Bacon, justifies
the implication that
the concern with magic operated as a hindrance to the
development of
science. It should not be forgotten that the stimulus to
scientific discovery
sprang from the presuppositions embodied in magical theory.
It is now beyond
dispute that the magnificent achievements of Copernicus,
Kepler, and Galileo
were actuated by their brooding over the significance of the
Pythagorean theories
of number and harmony. Both science and magic aim, each in
its special modus, at
the control of nature. Through the gateway of electricity,
says theosophy,
science has been admitted, part way at least, into the inner
sanctum of nature's
dynamic heart. Magic has sought an entry to the same citadel
by another road.
The Theosophist, then,
believes, on the strength of evidence only a fragment of
which has been touched
upon here, that esotericism has been weaving its web of
influence, powerful
even if subtle and unseen, throughout the religions,
philosophies, and
sciences of the world. It makes little difference what names
have been attached
from time to time to this esoteric tradition; and certainly
no attempt is made
here to prove an underlying unity or continuity in all this
"wisdom
literature." Suffice it to point out that in all ages there have been
movements analogous to
modern Theosophy, and that the modern cult regards itself
as merely a regular
revelation in the periodic resurgence of an ancient
learning..12
------CARDIFF THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN
WALES-------
CHAPTER II THE AMERICAN BACKGROUND
An outline of the
circumstances which may be said to constitute the background
for the American
development of Theosophy should begin with the mass of strange
phenomena which took
place, and were widely reported, in connection with the
religious revivals
from 1740 through the Civil War period. A veritable epidemic
of what were known as
the "barks" and the "jerks" swept over the land. They were
most frequent in evangelical
meetings, but also became common outside. The
phenomena, such as
speaking in strange tongues, a condition of trance and swoon
frequently attendant
upon conversion, occasional illumination and ecstasy,
resembling medieval
mystic sainthood, and the apparently miraculous reformation
of many criminals and
drunkards. These phenomena impressed the general mind with
the sense of a higher
source of power that might be invoked in behalf of human
interests.
During this period,
too, several mathematical prodigies were publicly exhibited
in the performance of
quite unaccountable calculations, giving instantaneously
the correct results of
complicated manipulations of numbers.1 From about 1820,
rumors were beginning
to be heard of exceptional psychic powers possessed by the
Hindus.
But a more notable
stir was occasioned a little later when the country began to
be flooded with
reports of exhibitions of mesmerism and hypnotism. Couιism had
not yet come, but the
work of Mesmer, Janet, Charcot, Bernheim, and others in
apparently supernormal
segment of the human mind. "Healing by faith" had always
been a wide-spread
tradition; but when such people as Quimby and others added to
the cult of healing
the practice of mesmerism, and subjoined both to a set of
metaphysical or
spiritual formulae, the imaginative susceptibilities of the
people were vigorously
stimulated, and the ferment resulted in cults of "mind
healing." Quimby
was active with his public demonstrations throughout New
The cult of
Swedenborgianism, coming in chiefly from
preceding century as a
tremendous contribution to the feeling of mystic
supernaturalism.
Emanuel Swedenborg, who gave up his work as a noted
mineralogist to take
up the writing of his visions and prophecies, had
profoundly impressed
the religious world by the publication of his enormous
works, the Arcana
Coelestia, The Apocalypse Revealed, The Apocalypse Explained,
and others, in which
he claimed that his inner vision had been opened to a view
of celestial verities.
His descriptions of the heavenly spheres, and of the
relation of the life
of the Infinite to our finite existence, and his theory of
the actual
correspondence of every physical fact to some eternal truth,.13
impressed the mystic
sense of many people, who became his followers and
organized his Church
of the New Jerusalem. Though this following was never large
in number, it was
influential in the spread of a type of "arcane wisdom." In the
first place, Swedenborg's
statements that he had been granted direct glimpses of
the angelic worlds
carried a certain impressiveness in view of his detailed
descriptions of what
was there seen. He announced that the causes of all things
are in the Divine
Mind. The end of existence and creation is to bring man into
conjunction with the
higher spirit of the universe, so that he may become the
image of his creator.
The law of correspondence is the key to all the divine
treasures of wisdom.
He declared that he had witnessed the Last Judgment and
that he was told of
the second coming of the Lord. His teachings influenced
among others
Coleridge, Blake, Balzac, and, of course, Emerson and the James
family. Though not so
much of this influence was specifically Theosophic in
character, it all
served to bring much grist to the later Theosophical mill.
A certain identity of
aims and characters between Theosophy and Swedenborgianism
is revealed in the
fact that "in December, 1783, a little company of
sympathizers, with
similar aims, met in
Society,' among the
members of which were John Flaxman, the sculptor, William
Sharpe, the engraver,
and F. H. Barthelemon, the composer."2 It was dissolved
about 1788 when the
Swedenborgian churches began to function. Many such
religious
organizations could well be called theosophical associations, as was
the one founded by
Brand in
Another organization
which dealt hardly less with heavenly revelations, and
which must also be
regarded as conducive to theosophical attitudes, was the
"Children of the
Light," the Friends, or Quakers. With a history antedating the
nineteenth century by
more than a hundred and fifty years, these people held a
significant place in
the religious life of
delineating. Their
intense emphasis upon the direct and spontaneous irradiation
of the spirit of God
into the human consciousness strikes a deep note of genuine
mysticism. In fact,
like Methodism, Quakerism was born in the midst of a series
of spiritualistic
occurrences. George Fox heard the heavenly voices and received
inspirational messages
directly from spiritual visitants. The report of his
supernatural
experiences, and of the miracles of healing which he was enabled to
perform through spirit-given
powers, caused hundreds of people to flock to his
banner and gave the
movement its primary impetus. His gospel was essentially one
of spirit
manifestation, and his whole ethical system grew out of his conception
of the rιgime of
personal life, conduct and mentality which was best designed to
induce the visitations
of spirit influence. The spiritistic and mystical
experiences of the
celebrated Madame Guyon, of
Fox's testimony.Not
less inclined than the Friends to transcendental experiences
were the Shakers, who
had settled in eighteen communistic associations or
colonies in the
healing, prophecy,
glossolalia, and the singing of inspired songs. They were led
by the spirit into
deep and holy experiences, and claimed to be inspired by high
spiritual
intelligences with whom they were in hourly communion. One of their
number, F. W. Evans,
wrote to Robert Dale Owen, the Spiritualist, that the
Shakers had predicted
the advent of Spiritualism seven years previously, and
that the Shaker order
was the great medium between this world and the world of
spirits. He asserted
that "Spiritualism originated among the Shakers of America;
that there were
hundreds of mediums in the eighteen Shaker communities, and
that, in fact, nearly
all the Shakers were mediums. Mediumistic manifestations
are as common among us
as gold in
three degrees of
spiritual manifestation, the third of which is the
"ministration of
millennial truths to various nations, tribes, kindred and
people in the spirit
world who were hungering and thirsting after.14
righteousness."4
He further pronounced a panegyric upon Spiritualism, which is
evidence that the
Shakers were in sympathy with any phenomena which seemed to
indicate a connection
with the celestial planes:
"Spiritualism has
banished scepticism and infidelity from the minds of
thousands, comforted
the mourner with angelic consolations, lifted up the
unfortunate, the
outcast, the inebriate, taking away the sting of death, which
has kept mankind under
perpetual bondage through fear-so that death is now, to
its millions of
believers,
The kind and gentle
servant who unlocks,
With noiseless hand,
life's flower-encircled door,
To show us those we
loved."5
Still another movement
which had its origin in alleged supernaturalistic
manifestations and
helped to intensify a general belief in them, was the Church
of the Latter Day
Saints, or Mormons. In 1820, and again in 1823, Joseph Smith
had a vision of an
angel, who revealed to him the repository of certain records
inscribed on plates of
gold, containing the history of the aboriginal peoples of
embodied in these
records, constituted the special attribute of the seers of
antiquity. The
inscriptions on the gold plates were represented as the key to
the understanding of
ancient scriptures, and were said to be in a script known
as Reformed Egyptian.
The Book of Mormon claims to be an English translation of
these plates of gold.
It is not necessary
here to follow the history of Smith and his church, but it
is interesting to
point out the features of the case that touch either
Spiritualism or
Theosophy. We have already noted the origin of Smith's
motivating idea in a
direct message from the spirit world. We have also a
curious resemblance to
Theosophy in the fact that an alleged ancient document
was brought to light
as a book of authority, and that the material therein was
asserted to furnish a
key to the interpretation of the archaic scriptures of the
world. Of the twelve
articles of the Mormon creed, seven sections show a spirit
not incongruous with
the tendency of Theosophic sentiment. Article One professes
belief in the Trinity;
article Two asserts that men will be punished for their
own sins, not for
Adam's; Three refers to the salvation of all without
exception; Seven sets
forth belief in the gift of tongues, prophecy,
revelations, visions,
healing, etc.; Eight questions the Bible's accurate
translation; Nine
expresses the assurance that God will yet reveal many great
and important things
pertaining to his kingdom; and Eleven proclaims freedom of
worship and the
principle of toleration.
Orson Pratt, one of
the leading publicists of the Mormon cult, said that where
there is an end of
manifestation of new phenomena, such as visions, revelations
and inspiration, the
people are lost in blindness. When prophecies fail,
darkness hangs over
the people. In a tract issued by Pratt it is stated that the
Book of Mormon has
been abundantly confirmed by miracles.
"Nearly every
branch of the church has been blessed by miraculous signs and
gifts of the Holy
Ghost, by which they have been confirmed, and by which we know
of a surety that this
is the
lame walk, the deaf
hear, the dumb speak, that lepers are cleansed, that bones
are set, that the
cholera is rebuked, and that the most virulent diseases give
way through faith in
the name of Christ and the power of His gospel."6.15
About 1825, in a
meeting at the home of Josiah Quincy in
movement was launched
which may seem to have had but meagre influence
on the advent of
Theosophy later in the century, but which in its motive and
animating spirit was
probably one of the cult's most immediate precursors. The
Unitarian faith,
courageously agitated from 1812 to 1814 by William E. Channing,
Edward Everett, and
Francis Parkman, flowered into a religious denomination in
1825 and thenceforth
exercised, in a measure out of all proportion to its
numerical strength, a
powerful influence on American religious thought. Under
Emerson and Parker a
little later the principle of free expression of opinion
was carried to such
length that the formulation of an orthodox creed was next to
impossible.
They questioned not
only the Trinitarian doctrine, as pagan rather than
Christian (the
identical position taken by Madame Blavatsky in the volumes of
Isis Unveiled), but
the whole orthodox structure. The Bible was not to be
regarded as God's
infallible and inspired word, but a work of exalted human
agencies. Christ was
no heaven-born savior, but a worthy son of man. If he was
man and anything more,
his life is worthless to mere men. His life was a man's
life, his gospel a
man's gospel-otherwise inapplicable to us. Salvation is
within every person.
Death does not determine the state of the soul for all
eternity; the soul
passes on into spirit with all its earth-won character. In
the life that is to
be, as well as in the life that now is, the soul must reap
what it sows. If there
were a Unitarian creed, it might be summarized as
follows: The
fatherhood of God; the brotherhood of man; the leadership of Jesus;
salvation by
character; the progress of mankind onward and upward forever. All
this, as far it goes,
is strikingly harmonious with the Theosophic position.
That there was an
evident community of interests between the two movements is
indicated by the fact
that Unitarianism, like Theosophy, sought Hindu
connections, and
strangely enough made a sympathetic entente with the Brahmo-Somaj
Society, while
Theosophy later affiliated with the Arya-Somaj.7
No examination of the
American background of Theosophy can fail to take account
of that movement which
carried the minds of
pitch during the early
half of the nineteenth century, Transcendentalism. It has
generally been
attributed to the impact of German Romanticism, transmitted by
way of
really more direct and
dominating, but the powerful effect of Oriental religion
and philosophy on
Emerson, hitherto not considered seriously, should not be
overlooked. "All
of Emerson's notes on Oriental scriptures have been deleted
from Bliss Perry's
Heart of Emerson's Journals."8 No student conversant with the
characteristic marks
of Indian philosophy needs documentary corroboration of the
fact that Emerson's
thought was saturated with typically Eastern conceptions.
The evidence runs
through nearly all his works like a design in a woven cloth.
"Scores upon
scores of passages in his Journals and Essays show that he leaned
often on the Vedas for
inspiration, and paraphrased lines of the Puranas in his
poems."9 But
direct testimony from Emerson himself is not wanting. His Journals
prove that his reading
of the ancient Oriental classics was not sporadic, but
more or less constant.10
He refers to some of them in the lists of each year's
sources. In 1840 he
tells how in the heated days he read nothing but the "Bible
of the tropics, which
I find I come back upon every three or four years. It is
sublime as heat and
night and the breathless ocean. It contains every religious
sentiment. . . . It is
no use to put away the book; if I trust myself in the
woods or in a boat
upon the pond, Nature makes a Brahmin of me presently."11
This was at the age of
twenty-seven. In the Journal of 1845 he writes:
"The Indian
teaching, through its cloud of legends, has yet a simple and grand
religion, like a
queenly countenance seen through a rich veil. It teaches to.16
speak the truth, love
others as yourself, and to despise trifles. The East is
grand-and makes
and foe are of one
stuff . . . Cheerful and noble is the genius of this
cosmogony."12
Lecturing before
graduate classes at Harvard he later said: "Thought has
subsisted for the most
part on one root; the Norse mythology, the Vedas,
Shakespeare have
served the ages." In referring in one passage to the Bible he
says:
"I have used in
the above remarks the Bible for the ethical revelation
considered generally,
including, that is, the Vedas, the sacred writings of
every nation, and not
of the Hebrews alone."13
Elsewhere he says:
"Yes, the
Zoroastrian, the Indian, the Persian scriptures are majestic and more
to our daily purpose
than this year's almanac or this day's newspaper. I owed-my
friend and I owed-a
magnificent day to the Bhagavat-Gita. It was the first of
books; it was as if an
empire spoke to us, nothing small or unworthy, but large,
serene, consistent,
the voice of an old intelligence which in another age and
another climate had
pondered and thus disposed of the same questions which
exercise us. . . . Let
us cherish the venerable oracle."14
The first stanza of
Emerson's poem "Brahma, Song of the Soul," runs as follows:
"If the red
slayer thinks he slays,
Or if the slain thinks
he is slain,
They know not well the
subtle ways
I keep, and pass and
turn again."
Could the strange
ideas and hardly less strange language of this verse have been
drawn elsewhere than
from the 19th verse of the Second Valli, of the Katha
Upanishad,15 which
reads?:
"If the slayer
thinks I slay; if the slain thinks I am slain, then both of them
do not know well. It
(the soul) does not slay nor is it slain."
His poem
"Hamatreya" comes next in importance as showing Hindu influence. In
another poem,
"Celestial Love," the wheel of birth and death is referred to:
"In a region
where the wheel
On which all beings
ride,
Visibly
revolves."
Emerson argues for
reincarnation in the Journal of 1845. "Traveling the path of
life through thousands
of births."
"By the long
rotation of fidelity they meet again in worthy forms." Emerson's
"oversoul"
is synonymous with a Sanskrit term. He regarded matter as the
negative manifestation
of the Universal Spirit. Mind was the expression of the
same Spirit in its
positive power. Man, himself, is nothing but the universal
spirit present in a
material organism. Soul is "part and parcel of God." He says
that "the soul in
man is not an organ, but animates and exercises all organs;
from within and from
behind a light shines through us upon things, and makes us
aware that we are
nothing, that the light is all."16 This is Vedanta philosophy.
In the Journal of 1866
he wrote:.17
"In the history
of intellect, there is no more important fact than the Hindu
theology, teaching
that the beatitude or supreme good is to be attained through
science: namely, by
the perception of the real from the unreal, setting aside
matter, and qualities
or affections or emotions, and persons and actions, as
mayas or illusions, and
thus arriving at the conception of the One eternal Life
and Cause, and a
perpetual approach and assimilation to Him, thus escaping new
births and
transmigrations. . . . Truth is the principle and the moral of Hindu
theology, Truth as
against the Maya which deceives Gods and men; Truth, the
principle, and
Retirement and Self-denial the means of attaining it."17
Mr. Christy18 states
that Emerson's concept of evolution must be thought of in
terms of emanation;
and a detailed examination of his concept of compensation
reduces it to the
doctrine of Karma.
The Journals are full
of quotable passages upon one or another phase of
Hinduism. And there
are his other poems "Illusions" and "Maya," whose names
bespeak Oriental
presentations. But Mr. Christy thinks the following excerpt is
Emerson's supreme
tribute to Orientalism:
"There is no
remedy for musty, self-conceited English life made up of fictitious
hating ideas-like
Orientalism. That astonishes and disconcerts English decorum.
For once there is
thunder he never heard, light he never saw, and power which
trifles with time and
space."19
It may seem ludicrous
to suggest that Emerson was the chief forerunner of Madame
Blavatsky, her John
the Baptist. Yet seriously, without Emerson, Madame
Blavatsky could hardly
have launched her gospel when she did with equal hope of
success. There is
every justification for the assertion that Emerson's
Orientalistic
contribution to the general Transcendental trend of thought was
preparatory to
Theosophy. It must not be forgotten that his advocacy of
Brahmanic ideas and
doctrines came at a time when the expression of a laudatory
opinion of the Asiatic
religions called forth an opprobrium from evangelistic
quarters hardly less
than vicious in its bitterness. Theosophy could not hope to
make headway until the
virulent edge of that orthodox prejudice had been
considerably blunted.
It was Emerson's magnanimous eclecticism which
administered the first
and severest rebuke to that prejudice, and inaugurated
that gradual
mollification of sentiment toward the Orientals which made possible
the welcome which
Hindu Yogis and Swamis received toward the end of the century.
The exposition of
Emerson's orientalism makes it unnecessary to trace the
evidences of a similar
influence running through the philosophical thinking of
Thoreau and Walt
Whitman. The robust cosmopolitanism of these two intellects
lifted them out of the
provincialisms of the current denominations into the
realm of universal
sympathies. We know that Thoreau became the recipient of
forty-four volumes of
the Hindu texts in 1854; but it is evident that he, like
Emerson, had had
contact with Brahmanical literature previous to that. His works
are replete with
references to Eastern ideas and beliefs. He could hardly have
associated so closely
with Emerson as he did and escaped the contagion of the
latter's Oriental
enthusiasm.
Mr. Horace L. Traubel,
one of the three literary executors of Whitman, had in
his possession the
poet's own copy of the Bhagavad Gita. Perry and Binns, in
their biographies of
Whitman, give lists of the literature with which he was
familiar; and many
ancient authors are mentioned. Among them are Confucius, the
Hindu poets, Persian
poets, Zoroaster; portions of the Vedas and Puranas,
Alger's Oriental
Poetry and other Eastern sources. Dr. Richard M. Bucke, another.18
of the three literary
executors, and a close friend and associate of "the good
gray poet," was
one of the prominent early Theosophists, and it is reasonable to
presume that Whitman
was familiar with Theosophic theory through the channel of
this friendship.
Whitman likewise gave form and body to another volume of
sentiment which has
contributed, no one can say how much, to the adoption of
Theosophy. This was
which the traditions
of the supernatural grew robust and realistic.
Attention must now be
directed to that wide-spread movement in
come to be known as
New Thought. It came, as has been hinted at, out of the
spiritualization, or
one might say, doctrinization, of mesmerism. Observation of
the surprising effects
of hypnotic control, indicating the presence of a psychic
energy in man
susceptible to external or self-generated suggestion, led to the
inference that a
linking of spiritual affirmation with the unconscious dynamism
would conduce to
invariably beneficent results, that might be made permanent for
character. If a
jocular suggestion by the stage mesmerist could lead the subject
into a ludicrous
performance; if a suggestion of illness, of pain, of a
headache, could
produce the veritable symptoms; why could not a suggestion of
adequate strength and
authority lead to the actualization of health, of
personality, of
well-being, of spirituality? The task was merely to transform
animal magnetism into
spiritual suggestion. The aim was to indoctrinate the
subconscious mind with
a fixation of spiritual sufficiency and opulence, until
the personality came
to embody and manifest on the physical plane of life the
character of the inner
motivation. Seeing what an obsession of a fixed abnormal
idea had done to the
body and mind in many cases, New Thought tried to
regenerate the life in
a positive and salutary direction by the conscious
implantation of a
higher spiritual concept, until it, too, became obsessive, and
wrought an effect on
the outer life coφrdinate with its own nature. The process
of hypnotic suggestion
became a moral technique, with a potent religious
formula, according to
which spiritual truth functioned in place of personal
magnetic force.
Essentially it reduced itself to the business of self-hypnotization
by a lofty conception.
Thought itself was seen to possess mesmeric
power. "As a man
thinketh in his heart" became the slogan of New Thought, and
the kindred Biblical
adjuration-"Be ye transformed by the renewing of your
mind"-furnished
the needed incentive to positive mental aggression. The world of
today is familiar with
the line of phrases which convey the basic ideology of
the New Thought cults.
One hears much of being in tune with the Infinite, of
making the at-one-ment
with the powers of life, of getting into harmony with the
universe, of making
contact with the reservoir of Eternal Supply, of getting en
rapport with the
Cosmic Consciousness, of keeping ourselves puny and stunted
because we do not ask
more determinedly from the Boundless.
Here is unmistakable
evidence of a somewhat diluted Hinduism. Under the
pioneering of P. P.
Quimby, Horatio W. Dresser, and others, study clubs were
formed and lecture
courses given. Charles Brodie Patterson, W. J. Colville,
James Lane Allen, C.
D. Larson, Orison S. Marden, and a host of others, aided in
the popularization of
these ideas, until in the past few decades there has been
witnessed an almost
endless brood of ramifications from the parent conception,
with associations of
Spiritual Science, Divine Science, Cosmic Truth, Universal
Light and Harmony
carrying the message. So we have been called upon to witness
the odd spectacle of
what was essentially Hindu Yoga philosophy masquerading in
the guise of
commanding personality and forceful salesmanship! But grotesque as
these developments
have been, there is no doubting their importance in the
Theosophical
background. They have served to introduce the thought of the Orient
to thousands, and have
become stepping-stones to its deeper investigation..19
A concomitant episode
in the expansion of New Thought and Transcendentalism was
the direct program of
Hindu propaganda fathered by Hindu spokesmen themselves.
When it became
profitable, numerous Yogis, Swamis, "Adepts," and
"Mahatmas" came
to this country and
lectured on the doctrines and principles of Orientalism to
audiences of ιlite
people with mystical susceptibilities. Some time in the
seventies,
doctrines by the
eloquent P. C. Mazoomdar, author of The Oriental Christ, whose
campaign left its deep
impress. His work, in fact, formed one of the links
between Unitarianism
and Brahmanic thought, already noted. In 1893 Swami
Vivekananda, chosen as
a delegate to the World Congress of Religions at the
Columbian Exposition
at Chicago, and author of Yoga Philosophy, began preaching
the Yoga principles of
thought and discipline, and instituted in
Vedanta Society.
Almost every year since his coming has brought public lectures
and private
instruction courses by native Hindus in the large American cities.
Concomitant with the
evolution of New Thought came the sensational dissemination
of Mrs. Eddy's
Christian Science. Offspring of P. P. Quimby's mesmeric science,
and erected by Mrs.
Eddy's strange enthusiasm into a healing cult based on a
reinterpretation of
Christian doctrines-the allness of Spirit and the
nothingness of
matter-the organization has enjoyed a steady and pronounced
growth and drawn into
its pale thousands of Christian communicants who felt the
need of a more dynamic
or more fruitful gospel. The conception of the impotence
of matter, as
non-being, is as old as Greek and Hindu philosophy. Mrs. Eddy's
contribution in the
matter was her use of the philosophical idea as a
psychological mantram
for healing, and her adroitness in lining up the Christian
scriptures to support
the idea.
It would require a
fairly discerning insight to mark out clearly the inter-connection
of Christian Science
and Theosophy. There is basically little
similarity between the
two schools, or little common ground on which they might
meet. On the contrary
there is much direct antagonism in their views and dogma.
Nevertheless the
along the path toward
occultism. In the first place, like Unitarianism, it had
induced thousands of
sincere seekers for a new and liberal faith to sever the
ties of their former
servile attachment to an uninspiring orthodoxy. Secondly,
Christian Science does
yeoman service in "demonstrating" the spiritual
viewpoint. Its
emphasis on spirit, as opposed to material concepts of reality,
is entirely favorable
to the general theses of Theosophy. Thirdly, the
intellectual
limitations of the system develop the need of a larger philosophy,
which Theosophy stands
ready to supply. Christian Science, being primarily a
Christian healing
cult, with a body of ideas adequate to that function, often
leads the intelligent
and open-minded student in its ranks to become aware that
it falls far short of
offering a comprehensive philosophy of life. It has little
or nothing to say
about man's origin, his present rank in a universal order, or
his destiny. It leaves
the pivotal question of immortality in the same status as
does conventional
Christianity. Many Christian Science adherents have seen that
Theosophy offers a
fuller and more adequate cosmograph, and accordingly adopted
it. Their experience
in the Eddy system brought them to the outer court of the
Occult Temple.20
Among major movements
that paved the way for Theosophy, the one perhaps most
directly conducive to
it is Spiritualism, for the founder of the Theosophical
Society began her
career in the Spiritualistic ranks. On account of this close
relationship it is
necessary to outline the origin and spread of this strange
movement more fully..20
The weird behavior of
two country girls, the
the hamlet of
Hydesville, near
like a spark to power
for the release of religious fancy; for Margaret and Kate
Fox were supposed to
have picked up again the thread of communication between
the world of human
consciousness and the world of disembodied spirits, and thus
to have given fresh
reinforcement to man's assurance of immortality. From this
bizarre beginning the
movement spread rapidly to all parts of
and
manifestations and
fervently invoking the denizens of the unseen worlds. Various
methods and means were
provided whereby the disembodied entities could
communicate with dull
mundane faculties. Many and varied were the types of
response. Besides the
simple "raps," there were tinklings of tiny aerial bells,
flashings of light,
tipping of tables, levitation of furniture and of human
bodies, messages
through the planchette, free voice messages, trumpet speaking,
alphabet rapping,
materialization of the hands and of complete forms, trance
catalepsis and
inspiration, automatic writing, slate writing, glossolalia, and
many other variety of
phenomena. Mediums, clairvoyants, inspirational speakers
sprang forward
plentifully; and each one became the focus of a group activity.
It is somewhat
difficult for us to reconstruct the picture of this flare of
interest and activity,
the scope of this absorbing passion for spirit
manifestation. It
attests the eagerness of the human heart for tangible evidence
of survival. With
periodical ebb and flow it has persisted to the present day,
when its vogue is
hardly less general than at any former time. In the fifties
and sixties the
Spiritualistic agitation was in full flush, with many
extraordinary
occurrences accredited to its exponents.21
Spiritualism
encountered opposition among the clergy and the materialistic
scientists, yet it has
hardly ever been wanting in adherents among the members
of both groups. An
acquaintance with its supporters would reveal a surprising
list of high civil and
government officials, attorneys, clergymen, physicians,
professors, and scientists.22
One of the first
Spiritualistic writers of this country was Robert Dale Owen,
whose Footfalls on the
Boundary of Another World and The Debatable Land were
notable contributions.
Two of the most eminent representatives of the movement
in its earliest days
were Prof. Robert Hare, an eminent scientist and the
inventor of the
oxyhydrogen blow-pipe, and Judge Edmonds, a leading jurist. Both
these men had
approached the subject at first in a skeptical spirit, with the
intention of
disclosing its unsound premises; but they were fair enough to study
the evidence
impartially, with the result that both were convinced of the
genuineness of the
phenomena. Both avowed their convictions courageously in
public, and Judge
Edmonds made extensive lecture tours of the country, the
propaganda effect of
which was great.23 Before the actual launching of the
Theosophical Society
in 1875 at least four prominent later Theosophists had
played more or less
important rτles in the drama of Spiritualism. Madame
Blavatsky, as we shall
see, had identified herself with its activities; Mr. J.
R. Newton was a
vigorous worker; and it was Col. Olcott himself who brought the
manifestations taking
place in 1873 at the Eddy farmhouse near Chittenden,
covering these and
other phenomena in 1874, People From the Other World. The
fourth member was Mrs.
Emma Hardinge Britten, who had served as a medium with
the Bulwer-Lytton
group of psychic investigators in
books to
Spiritualistic literature-Art Magic and Nineteenth Century Miracles.
Col. Olcott, Madame
Blavatsky, and Mrs. Britten made material contributions to
several Spiritualistic
magazines, especially The Spiritual Scientist, edited in
Meantime
Spiritualistic investigation got under way and after the sixties a
stream of reports,
case histories, accounts of phenomena, and books from
prominent advocates
flooded the country. The Seybert Commission on Spiritualism,
composed of leading
officers and professors at the
submitted its report
in 1888. In the same year R. B. Davenport undertook to turn
the world away from
what he considered a delusion with his book Deathblow to
Spiritualism: The True
Story of the Fox Sisters; but he found that Spiritualism
had a strange vitality
that enabled it to survive many a "deathblow." As a
result of studies in
psychic phenomena in
impressive work, The
Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death, in
which the foundations
for the theory of the subliminal or subconscious mind were
laid.
But the work of the
mediums themselves kept public feeling most keenly alert. A
list of some of the
most prominent ones includes Mrs. Hayden, Henry Slade,
Pierre L. O. A.
Keeler, the slate-writer, Robert Houdin (who bequeathed his name
and exploits to the
later Houdini), Ira and William Davenport, Anna Eva Fay,
Charles Slade, Eusapia
Paladino, Mrs. Leonara Piper. Robert Dale Owen, already
mentioned as author,
was a medium of no mean ability. In the same category was
J. M. Peebles, of
Spiritualists? and
whose public lecture tours, rendered him one of the most
prominent of all the
advocates of the cult. A career of inspirational public
speaking was staged by
Cora V. Richmond, who gave lectures on erudite themes
with an uncommon flow
of eloquence. W. J. Colville began where she ended, giving
unprepared addresses
on topics suggested by the audience.
The three most famous
American mediums deserve somewhat more extended treatment.
The first of the trio
is Daniel Dunglas Home, who was a poor Scottish boy
adopted in
his terror and
annoyance. Raps came around him on the table or desk, on the
chairs or walls. The
furniture moved about and was attracted toward him. His
aunt, with whom he
lived was in consternation at these phenomena, and, deeming
him possessed, sent
for three clergymen to exorcise the spirit; when they did
not succeed, she threw
his Sunday suit and linen out the window and pushed him
out-of-doors. He was
thus cast on the world without friends, but the power that
he possessed raised
him friends and sent him forth from
planter of
Spiritualism all over Europe.24
The second of the
triumvirate was Andrew Jackson Davis. His function seemed to
be that of the seer
and the scribe, rather than of the producer of material
operations. He was
born of poor parents, in 1826, in Orange Country,
He seems to have
inherited a clairvoyant faculty. He received only five months'
schooling in the
village, it being "found impossible to teach him anything
there."25 During
his solitary hours in the fields he saw visions and heard
voices. Removing to
lecturer, and in this
capacity began to excite wonder by his revelations. This
was before the
and prescribed for
scores who came to him, surprising both patients and
physicians by his
competence. Then he began to see "into the heart of things,"
to descry the
essential nature of the world and the spiritual constitution of
the universe. He could
see the interior of bodies and the metals hidden in the
earth. Adding his
testimony to that of Fox and Swedenborg, he asserted that
every animal
represented some human quality, some vice or virtue. He gave Greek
and Latin names of
things, without having a knowledge of these languages. In a
vision he beheld The
Magic Staff on which he was urged to learn during life; on
it was written his
life's motto: "Under all circumstances keep an open mind." In
1845 he delivered one
hundred and fifty-seven lectures in
announced a new
philosophy of the universe. They were published under the title,
Nature's Divine
Revelation, a book of eight hundred pages.
voluminous writer.26
Thomas L. Harris, the
third great representative, was much attracted by
The Divine Revelations
of Nature, but developed spiritistic powers along a
somewhat different
line, that of poetic inspiration. In his early exhibitions of
this supernormal faculty
he dictated who epics, containing occasionally
excellent verse, under
the alleged influence of Byron, Shelley, Keats and
others. The
interesting manner in which these poems-a whole volume of three or
four hundred pages at
a time-were created, is more amazing than their poetic
merit. Mr. Brittan, an
English publisher, tells us that Harris dictated and he
wrote down The Lyric
of the Golden Age, a poem of 381 pages, in ninety-four
hours! The Lyric of
the
in a similar manner.
"But," says
William Howitt in his History of the Supernatural, "the progress of
Harris into an
inspirational oratory is still more surprising. He claims, by
opening up his
interior being, to receive influx of divine intuition in such
abundance and power as
to throw off under its influence the most astonishing
strains of eloquence.
This receptive and communicative power he attributes to an
internal spiritual
breathing corresponding to the outer natural breathing. As
the body lungs imbibe
air, so, he contends, the spiritual lungs inspire and
respire the divine
aura, refluent with the highest thought and purest sentiment,
and that without any
labor or trial of brain."27
Spiritualism is one of
the most direct lines of approach to Theosophy, since an
acceptance of the
possibility of spiritistic phenomena is a prerequisite for the
adoption of the larger
scheme of occult truth. Spiritualism covers a portion of
the ground embraced by
the belief in reincarnation, and in so far constitutes an
introduction to it.
Theosophy is further, an endorsement of the primary position
of the Spiritualists
regarding the survival of the soul entity, and thus
commends itself to
their approbation. The Spiritualists have been considerably
vexed by the question
of reincarnation, and their ranks are split over the
subject. Some of the
message seem to endorse it, others evade it, and some
negate the idea. What
is significant at this point is that the Spiritualistic
agitation prepared the
way for Theosophic conceptions. A large percentage of the
first membership came
from the ranks of the Spiritualists.
But Spiritualism is
but one facet of a human interest which has expressed itself
in all ages, embracing
the various forms of mysticism, occultism, esotericism,
magic, healing,
wonder-working, arcane science, and theurgy. The growing
acquaintance with Yoga
practice and Hindu philosophy in this country under the
stimulus of many
eloquent Eastern representatives has already been mentioned.
The demonstrations of
mesmeric power lent much plausibility to Oriental
pretensions to
extraordinary genius for that sort of thing. More than might be
supposed, there was
prevalent in
tradition of magical
art, a survival of Medieval European beliefs in superhuman
activities and powers
both in man and nature. Among the rural and unschooled
populations this
tradition assumed the form of harmless superstitions. Among
more learned peoples
it issued in philosophic speculations dealing with the
spiritual energies of
nature, the hidden faculties of man, such as prophecy,
tongues and ecstatic
vision, and the extent and possibility of man's control
over the external
world through the manipulation of a subtle ether possessing
magnetic quality. The
heritage of Paracelsus, Robert Fludd, Thomas Vaughn and
Roger Bacon, Agrippa
von Nettesheim, the Florentine Platonists and their German,
French, and English
heirs still lingered. The Christian scriptures were.23
themselves replete
with incidents of the supernatural, with necromancy,
witchcraft, miracles,
ghost-walking, spirit messages, symbolical dreams, and the
whole armory of
thaumaturgical exploits. The doctrine of Satan was itself
calculated to enliven
the imagination with ideas of demoniac possession, and was
all the more credible
by reason of the prevalence of insanity which was ascribed
to spirit obsession.
The early nineteenth century was must closer to the Middle
Ages than our own time
is, not only because education was less general, but also
because a far larger
proportion of the population was agrarian instead of
metropolitan. Such
cults were, however, by no means restricted to "backwoods"
sections. They were
astonishingly prevalent in the larger centers. More
enlightened groups
accepted a less crude form of the practices. Where knowledge
ceases superstition
may begin; and the problems of life that press upon us for
solution and that are
still beyond our grasp, lead the mind into every sort of
rationalization or
speculation.
Perhaps more people
than acknowledge God in church pews believe in the existence
of intelligences that
play a part in life, whether in answer to prayer, in
suggestive dreams, in
occasional vision and apparitions, in messages through
mediums, or in
whatever guise; and out of such an unreflective theology arise
many of the types of
superstitious philosophy. To analyze this situation in its
entirety would take us
into extensive fields of folk-lore and involve every sort
of old wives' tale
imaginable. The chief point is that the varieties of chimney-corner
legend and omnipresent
superstition have had their origin in a larger
primitive
interpretation of the facts and forces of nature. They must be
recognized as the
modern progeny of ancient hylozoism and animism. In the
childhood of our
culture, as well as in the childhood of the race and of the
individual, there is a
close sympathy between man and nature which leads him to
ascribe living quality
to the external world. Countryside fables are doubtless
the jejune remnant of
what was once felt to be a vital magnetic relation between
man's spirit and the
spirit of the world. They are the distorted forms of some
of the ancient rites
for effecting magical intercourse between man and nature.
While it is not to be
inferred that Theosophy itself was built on the material
embodied in
countryside credulity, it will be seen that the native inclination
toward an animistic
interpretation of phenomena was in a measure true to the
deeper theses which
the new cult presented. Madame Blavatsky herself says in
Isis Unveiled that the
spontaneous responsiveness of the peasant mind is likely
to lead to a closer
apprehension of the living spirit of Nature than can be
attained by the
sophistications of reason.
The major tendencies
in the direction of Theosophy have now been enumerated. It
remains only to
mention the scattering of American students before 1875 whose
researches were taking
them into the realm where the fundamentals of Theosophy
itself were to be
found. We refer to the Rosicrucians, the Freemasons, the
Kabalists,
Hermeticists, Egyptologists, Assyriologists, students of the
Mysteries, of the
Christian origins, of the pagan cults, and the small but
gradually increasing
number of Comparative Religionists and Philologists.28
There were men of
intelligence both in
track of ancient and
medieval esotericism, and the opening up of Sanskrit
literature gave a
decided impetus to a renaissance of research in those realms.
The material that went
into Frazer's Golden Bough, Ignatius Donnelley's
Atlantis: the
Antediluvian World, Hargrave Jennings' The Rosicrucians,and many
other compendious
works of the sort, was being collated out of the flotsam and
jetsam of ancient
survival and assembled into a picture beginning to assume
definite outline and
more than haphazard meaning. The great system of Neo-Platonism,
the Gnostics, with
Apollonius of Tyana, and Philo Judaeus were coming
under inspection. The
universality of religious myths and rites was being noted..24
In short, the large
body of ancient thought, so deeply imbued with the occult,
was beginning to be
scrutinized by the scholars of the nineteenth century.
It was into this
situation that Madame Blavatsky came. Her office, she said, was
that of a clavigera;
she bore a key which would provide students with a
principle of
integration for the loose material which would enable them to piece
together the scattered
stones and glittering jewels picked up here and there
into a structure of
surpassing grandeur and priceless worth. She would show that
the gems of
literature, whose mystic profundity astonished and perplexed the
savants, were but the
fragments of a once-glorious spiritual Gnosis..25
------CARDIFF THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN
WALES-------
CHAPTER III
HELENA P. BLAVATSKY:
HER LIFE AND
PSYCHIC CAREER
Who was Madame Blavatsky?
Every new rιgime of belief or of social organization
must be studied with a
view to determining as far as possible how much of the
movement is a
contribution of the individuality of the founder and how much
represents a
traditional deposit. This inquiry is of first importance in a
consideration of the
Theosophical Society, because, more than in most systems,
the personal endowment
of its founder gave it its specific coloring, character
and form. It should be
said at this point that the career of Madame Blavatsky as
outlined here does not
purport to be a complete or authoritative biography. It
was obviously
impossible to undertake such an investigation of her life, as the
difficulties of
obscure research in three or four continents were practically
prohibitive. We have
been forced to base our study upon the body of biographical
material that has been
assembled around her name, emanating, first, from her
relatives, secondly,
from her followers and admirers, and thirdly, from her
critics. Her life, up
to the age of forty-two, narrowly escaped consignment to
the realm of
mythology, if not total oblivion, but was at least partially
redeemed to the status
of history by the exertions of Mr. A. P. Sinnett, who
procured information
from members of her own family in
Incidents in the Life
of Madame Blavatsky, has been our chief source of
information about her
youth and early career. The Countess Wachtmeister's
Reminiscences, Col.
Olcott's Old Diary Leaves, V. Solovyoff's A Modern Priestess
of Isis and William
Kingsland's The Real Helena P. Blavatsky, together with
Madame Blavatsky's own
letters, especially those to Mr. And Mrs. A. P. Sinnett,
are the main works
relied upon to guide our story. If the eventful life of our
subject is to be
further redeemed from mystery and sheer tradition into which it
already seems to be
fading, a more thorough critical study of it should be
undertaken, based upon
authentic data collected from first-hand sources as far
as this is possible.
It is to be
understood, then, that the aim in this treatise is to present her
career as it is told
and believed by Theosophists, although it is admittedly
already partly
legendary. The precise extent it is to be regarded as
mythological must be
left to the individual reader, and to future study, to
determine.
Helena Petrovna
Blavatsky was born in the Ukrainian city of
night between the 30th
and 31st of July, 1831. Her father was Col. Peter Hahn,
and her mother
previous to her marriage, Helene Fadeef. The father was the son
of Gen. Alexis Hahn
von Rottenstern Hahn, from a noble family of Mecklenberg,
Fadeef and the
Princess Helene Dolgorouky. Madame Blavatsky's grandfather was a
cousin of Countess Ida
Hahn-Hahn, the authoress. Her own mother was known in the
literary world between
1830 and 1840 under the nom de plume of Zenaοda R.-the.26
first novel writer
that had ever appeared in
she died before her
twenty-fifth year, she left some dozen novels of the
romantic school, most
of which have been translated into German. The theory of
heredity would thus
give us, apparently, abundant background for whatever
literary propensities
the daughter was later to display. On her mother's side
she was a scion of the
noble lineage of the Dolgorouky's, who could trace direct
connections with
Madame Blavatsky came
on to the Russian scene during a year fatal to the Slavic
nation, as to all
visitation of the
cholera. Her own birth was quickened by several deaths in the
household. She was
ushered into the world amid coffins and sorrowing. The infant
was so sickly that a
hurried baptism was resorted to in the effort to anticipate
death. During the
ceremony, which was signalized with elaborate Greek Catholic
paraphernalia of
lighted tapers, the child-aunt of the baby accidentally set
fire to the long robes
of the priest, who was severely burned. This incident was
interpreted as a bad
omen, and in the eyes of the townsfolk the infant was
doomed to a life of
trouble.
From the very date of
her birth, a peculiar tradition operated to invest the
life of the growing
child with an odor of superstition and mystic awe. In
each household was
supposed to be under the tutelary supervision of a Domovoy,
or house goblin, whose
guardianship was propitious, except on March 30th, when,
for mysterious
reasons, he became mischievous. But the tradition strangely
excepted from this
malevolent spell of the Domovoy those born on the night of
July 30-31, a time
closely associated in the annals of popular belief with
witches and their
doings. The child came early to learn why it was that, on
every recurring March
30th, she was carried around the house, stables and cowpen
and made personally to
sprinkle the four corners with water, while the nurse
repeated some mystic
incantation. Her first conscious recognition of herself
must thus have been
tinged with a feeling that she was in some particular
fashion set apart,
that she was somehow the object of special care and attention
from invisible powers.
The
Cossack of Southern
Ukraine ever crosses it without preparing himself for death.
Along its banks, where
the child strolled with her nurses, the Rusalky (undines,
nymphs) haunted the
willow trees and the rushes. She was told that she was
impervious to their
influences, and in this sense of superiority she alone dared
to approach those
sandy shores. She had heard the servants' tales of these
nymphs. Filled with
this realization of her favored standing with the Rusalky,
she one day threatened
a youngster who had roused her displeasure that she would
have the nymphs tickle
him to death, whereupon the lad ran wildly away and was
found dead on the
sands-whether from fright or from having stumbled into one of
the treacherous
sandpits which the swirling waters quickly turn into whirlpools.
Her mother died when
Mlle. Hahn was still a child. She and her younger sister
were taken to live
with her father, in barracks with his regiment, and until the
age of eleven, they
were entertained, amused and spoiled as les enfants du
rιgiment. After that
they went to live at Saratow with their grandmother, where
their grandfather was
civil governor. The child was "alternately petted and
punished, spoiled and
hardened," and was difficult to manage. She was of
uncertain health,
"ever sick and dying," a sleep walker, and given to abnormal
psychic peculiarities,
ascribed by her orthodox nurses to possession by the
devil; so that, as she
afterwards said, "she was drenched with enough holy water
to float a ship,"
and exorcised by priests. She was a born rebel against
restraint, and went
into ungovernable fits of passion, which left her violently.27
shaken; but at the
opposite apogee of her disposition she was filled with
impulses of the
extremest kindliness and affection. Through life she had this
dual temper. Those who
knew her better nature tolerated the irascible element.
She was lively,
highly-gifted, full of humor, and of remarkable doing. She had a
passionate curiosity
for everything savoring of the weird, the uncanny, the
mysterious; she was
strangely attracted by the theme of death. Her imagination,
wildly roaming,
appeared to create about her a world of fairy or elfish
creatures with whom
she held converse in whispers by the hour. She defied all
and everything. She
had to be watched lest she escape from the house and mingle
with ragged urchins.
She preferred to listen to the tales of Madame Peigneur
(her governess) than
do her lessons. She would openly rebel against her text-books
and run off to the
woods or hide in the dusky corridors of the basement of
the great house where
her grandfather lived. In a secluded dark recess in the
"Catacombs"
she had erected a barrier of old broken chairs and tables, and
there, up near the
ceiling under an iron-barred window, she would secrete
herself for hours,
reading a book of popular legends known as Solomon's Wisdom.
At times she bent to
her books in a spasm of scholarly devotion to amend for
mischief making. Her
grandparents' enormous library was then the object of her
constant interest. No
less passionately would she drink in the wonders of
narratives given in
her presence. Every fairy-tale became a living event to her.
She would be found
speaking to the stuffed animals and birds in the museum in
the old house. She
said the pigeons were cooing fairy-tales to her. She heard a
voice in every natural
object; nature was animate and, to her, articulate. She
seemed to know the inner
life and secrets of every species of insect, bird, and
reptile found about
the place. She would recreate their past and describe
vividly their
feelings. At this early date she detailed the events of the past
incarnations of the
stuffed animals in the museum.
Times without number
the little girl was heard conversing with playmates of her
own age, invisible to
others. There was in particular a little hunchback boy, a
favorite phantom
companion of her solitude, for whose neglect by the servants
and nurses she was
often excited to resentment.
"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."1
In the neighborhood of
the residence was an old man, a magician, whose doings
filled the mind of the
young seeress with wonder. The old man, a centenarian,
learned to know the
young girl and he used to say of her: "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!"
Her whole career is
dotted with miraculous escapes from danger and still more
miraculous recoveries
from wounds, sicknesses and fevers. One of the first
appearances of a
protective hand in her life came far back in her childhood. She
had always entertained
a marked curiosity about a curtained portrait in her
grandfather's castle
at Saratow. It was hung so high that it was far beyond her
reach. Denied
permission to see it, she awaited her opportunity to catch a
glimpse of it by
stealth; and when left alone on one occasion she dragged a
table to the wall, set
another table on that, and a chair on top, and managed to
clamber up. On tiptoe
she just contrived to pull back the curtain. The sight of.28
the picture was so
startling that she made an involuntary movement backwards,
lost her balance and
toppled with her pyramid to the floor. In falling she lost
consciousness; but
when she came to her senses some moments afterwards, she was
amazed to see the
tables, chairs, and everything in proper order in the room.
The curtain was
slipped back again on the rings, and no mark of the episode was
left except the
imprint of her small hand on the wall high up beside the
picture.
At another time, when
she was nearing the age of fourteen, her riding horse
bolted and flung her,
with her foot caught in the stirrup. As the animal plunged
forward she expected
to be dragged to death, but felt herself buoyed up by a
strange force, and
escaped without a scratch.
It was not many years
more until the young girl's possession of gifts and
extraordinary
faculties, commonly classed as mediumistic, became an admitted
fact among her
relatives and close associates. She would answer questions
locating lost
property, or solving other perplexities of the household. She
sometimes blurted out
to visitors that they would die, or meet with misfortune
or accident; and her
prophecies usually came true.
In 1844 the father,
Col. Hahn, took
went with him to
Her youthful marriage
deserves narration with some fulness, if only because it
precipitated the lady
out of her home and into that phase of her career which
has been referred to
as her period of preparation and apprenticeship. As her
aunt, Madame Fadeef,
describes her marriage:
"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 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
'plumeless raven,' that
even he would decline her for his wife. That was enough;
three days afterwards
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. All she knew and
understood was-when too late-that she 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 honor 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.'
"And surely she
has not. Forthwith she determined to take the law and her future
life into her own
hands, and-she left her husband forever, without giving him an
opportunity to ever
even think of her as his wife.
"Thus Madame
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."2.29
True, before taking
this drastic step she acceded to her father's plea to do the
conventional thing;
and she let the old General take her, though even then not
without attempts to
escape, on what may by courtesy of language be called a
honeymoon, which
drawled out, amid bickerings, to a length of three months, and
was terminated after a
bitter quarrel by the bride's dash for freedom on
horseback. Gen.
Blavatsky by this time saw the impossibility of the situation
and acceded to the
inevitable.
Tracing the life of
Madame Blavatsky from this event through her personally-conducted
globe-roaming becomes
difficult, owing to the meagreness of
information. Her
relatives and her later Theosophic associates have done their
best to piece together
the crazy-quilt design of her wanderings and attendant
events of any
significance. She herself kept no chronicle of her journeys, and
it was only at long intervals,
when she emerged out of the deserts or jungles of
a country to visit its
metropolis, or when she needed to write for money, that
she sent letters back
home. The family was at first alarmed by her defection
from the fireside, but
were constrained to acquiesce in the situation by their
recognition of her
immitigable distaste for her veteran husband. If no other tie
kept her attached to
the home circle, her need of funds obliged her to keep in
touch with her father,
who supplied her with money without betraying her
confidences as to her
successive destinations. He acceded to her plans because
he had tried in vain
to secure a Russian divorce; and he felt that a few years
of travel for his
daughter might best ease the family situation. Ten years
elapsed before the
fugitive saw her relatives again.
Her first emergence
after her disappearance was in Egypt. She seems to have
traveled there with a
Countess K------, and at that time began to pick up some
occult teaching of a
poorer sort. She encountered an old Copt, a man with a
great reputation as a
magician. She proved an apt pupil, and the instructor
became so much
interested in her that when she revisited Egypt years later, the
special attention he
(then a retired ascetic) showed her, attracted the notice
of the populace at
Bulak.
After her appearance
in Egypt she seems to have bobbed up in Paris, where she
made the acquaintance
of many literary people, and where a famous mesmerist,
struck with her
psychic gifts, was eager to put her to work as a sensitive. To
escape his
importunities she appears to have gone to London. There she stayed
for a time with an old
Russian lady, a Countess B., at Mivart's Hotel. She
remained for some time
after her friend's departure, but could not afterwards
recall where she
resided.
Occasionally in her
travels she fell in with fellow Russians who were glad to
accompany her and
sometimes to befriend her. She indulged in a tour about Europe
in 1850 with the
Countess B., but was again in Paris when the New Year of 1851
was acclaimed. Her
next move was actuated by a passionate interest in the North
American Indians,
which she had acquired from a perusal of Fenimore Cooper's
Leatherstocking Tales.
Her zeal in this pursuit took her to Canada in July of
1851. At Quebec her
idealizations suffered a rude shock, when, being introduced
to a party of Indians,
both the noble Redskins and some articles of her property
disappeared while she
was trying to pry from the squaws a recital of the secret
powers of their
medicine men. Dropping the Indians, she turned her interest to
the rising sect of the
Mormons, being attracted doubtless by their possession of
an alleged Hermetic
document obtained through psychic revelation. But the
destruction of the
original Mormon city of Nauvoo, Missouri, by a mob, scattered
the sect across the
plains, and Madame Blavatsky thought the time propitious for
exploring the
traditions and arcana of Mexico. She came to New Orleans. Here the
Voodoo practices of a
settlement of Negroes from the West Indies engaged her.30
interest, and her
reckless curiosity might have led her into dangerous contact
with these magicians;
but her protective power reappeared to warn her in a
vision of the risk she
was running, and she hastened on to new experiences.
Through Texas she
reached Mexico, protected only by her own reckless daring and
by the occasional
intercession of some chance companion. She seems to have owed
much in this way to an
old Canadian, Pθre Jacques, who steered her safely
through many perils.
At Copau in Mexico she chanced to meet a Hindu, who styled
himself a
"chela" of the Masters (or adepts in Oriental occult science), and
she
resolved to seek that
land of mystic enchantment and penetrate northward into
the very lairs of the
mystic Brotherhood. She wrote to an Englishman, whom she
had met two years
before in Germany, and who shared her interest, to join them
in the West Indies.
Upon his arrival the three pilgrims took boat for India. The
party arrived at Bombay,
via the Cape to Ceylon, near the end of 1852. Madame's
own headstrong bent to
enter Tibet via Nepal in search of her Mahatmas broke up
the trio. She made the
hazardous attempt to enter the Forbidden Land of the
Lamas, but was
prevented, she always believed, by the opposition of a British
resident then in
Nepal. Baffled, she returned to Southern India, thence to Java
and Singapore and
thence back to England.
But that country's
embroilment in the Crimean War distressed her sense of
patriotism, and about
the end of the year 1853 she passed over again to America,
going to New York,
thence west to Chicago and on to the Far West across the
Rockies with emigrant
caravans. She halted a while at San Francisco. Her stay in
America this time
lengthened to nearly two years. She then once more made her
way to India, via
Japan and the Straits. She reached Calcutta in 1855.
In India, in 1856, she
was joined at Lahore by a German gentleman who had been
requested by Col. Hahn
to find his errant daughter. With him and his two
companions Madame
Blavatsky traveled through Kashmir to Leli in Ladakh in
company with a Tatar
Shaman, who was instrumental in procuring for the party the
favor of witnessing
some magic rites performed at a Buddhist monastery. Her
experiences there she
afterwards described in Isis,3 and they are too long for
recital here. One of
the exploits of the old priest was the psychic vivification
of the body of an
infant who (not yet of walking age) arose and spoke eloquently
of spiritual things
and prophesied, while dominated by a magnetic current from
the operator.4 The
psychic feat performed by her Shaman guide was even more
wonderful. Yielding to
Madame's importunities at a time when she was herself in
grave danger, he
released himself from his body as he lay in a tent, and carried
a message to a friend
of the young woman residing in Wallachia, from whom he
brought back an
answer.5 Shortly after this incident, perceiving their danger,
the Shaman, by mental
telepathy apprised a friendly tribal ruler of their
situation, and a band
of twenty-five horsemen was sent to rescue the two
travelers, finding
them in a locality to which they had been directed by their
chief, yet of which
the two had had no possible earthly means of informing him.
Safely out of the
Tibetan wilds-and she came out by roads and passes of which
she had no previous
knowledge-she was directed by her occult guardian to leave
the country, shortly
before the troubles which began in 1857. In 1858 she was
once more in Europe.
By this time her name
had accumulated some renown, and it was freely mentioned
in connection with
both the low and the high life of Vienna, Berlin, Warsaw, and
Paris. Her alleged
absence from these places at the times throws doubt on the
accuracy of these
reports. After spending some months in France and Germany upon
her return from India,
she finally ended her self-imposed exile and rejoined her
own people in Russia,
arriving at Pskoff, about 180 miles from St. Petersburg,.31
in the midst of a
family wedding party on Christmas night. Her reason for going
to Pskoff was that her
sister Vera-then Madame Yahontoff-was at the time
residing there with
the family of her late husband, son of the General N. A.
Yahontoff, Marechal de
Noblesse of the place.
Soon afterwards, early
in 1859, Madame Blavatsky and her sister went to reside
with their father in a
country house belonging to Madame Yahontoff. This was at
Rougodevo, about 200
versts from St. Petersburg. About a year later, in the
spring of 1860, both
sisters left Rougodevo for the Caucasus on a visit to their
grandparents, whom
they had not seen for years. It was a three weeks' journey
from Moscow to Tiflis,
in coach with post horses. Madame Blavatsky remained in
Tiflis less than two
years, adding another year of roaming about in Imeretia,
Georgia, and
Mingrelia, exciting the superstitious sensibilities of the
inhabitants of the
Mingrelia region to an inordinate degree and gaining a
reputation for
witchcraft and sorcery. She was there taken down with a wasting
fever, which an old
army surgeon could make nothing of; but he had the good
sense to send her off
to Tiflis to her friends. Recovering after a time, she
left the Caucasus and
went to Italy. Here, the legend goes, she, with some other
European women,
volunteered to serve with Garibaldi and was under severe fire in
the battle of
Mentana.6
The four years
intervening between 1863 and 1867 seem to have been spent in
European travel,
though the records are barren of accurate detail. But the three
from 1867 to 1870 were
passed in the East,7 and were quite fruitful and
eventful.
In 1870 she returned
from the Orient, coming through the newly opened Suez
Canal, spent a short
time in Piraeus, and from there took passage for Spezzia on
board a Greek vessel.
On this voyage she was one of the very few saved from
death in a terrible
catastrophe, the vessel being blown to bits by an explosion
of gunpowder and
fireworks in the cargo. Rescued with only the clothes they
wore, the survivors
were looked after by the Greek government, which forwarded
them to various
destinations. Madame Blavatsky went to Alexandria and to Cairo,
tarrying at the latter
place until money reached her from Russia.
While awaiting the
arrival of funds, the energetic woman determined to found a
Sociιtι Spirite, for
the investigation of mediums and manifestations according
to the theories and
philosophy of Allen Kardec. The latter was an outstanding
advocate of
Spiritualistic philosophy on the Continent. He had correlated the
commonly reported
spiritistic exploits to a more profound and involved theory of
cosmic evolution and a
higher spirituality in man. His work, Life and Destiny,
written under the
pseudonym of Leon Denis, unfolded a comprehensive system of
spiritual truth
identical in its main features with Theosophy itself. His
interests were not
primarily in spiritistic phenomena for themselves, but for
what they revealed of
the inner spiritual capacities and potentialities of our
evolving Psyche.
It required but a few
weeks to disgust Madame Blavatsky with her fruitless
undertaking. Some
French female spiritists, whom she had drafted for service as
mediums, in lack of
better, proved to be adventuresses following in the wake of
M. de Lesseps' army of
engineers and workmen, and they concluded by stealing the
Society's funds. She
wrote home:
"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 sιances we held, and got possessed I
suppose, by some vile
spook."8.32
She terminated the
affairs of her Sociιtι and went to Bulak, where she renewed
her previous
acquaintance with the old Copt. His unconcealed interest in his
visitor aroused some
slanderous talk about her. Disgusted with the growing
gossip, she went home
by way of Palestine, making a side voyage to Palmyra and
other ruins, and
meeting there some Russian friends. At the end of 1872 she
returned without warning
to her family, then at Odessa.
In 1873 she again
abandoned her home, and Paris was her first objective. She
stayed there with a
cousin, Nicholas Hahn, for two months. While in Paris she
was directed by her
"spiritual overseers" to visit the United States, "where she
would meet a man by
the name of Olcott," with whom she was to undertake an
important enterprise.
Obedient to her orders she arrived at New York on July
7th, 1873.9 She was
for a time practically without funds; actually, as Col.
Olcott avers, "in
the most dismal want, having . . . to boil her coffee-dregs
over and over again
for lack of pence for buying a fresh supply; and to keep off
starvation, at last
had to work with her needle for a maker of cravats."10
During this interval
she was lodged in a wretched tenement house in the East
Side, and made cravats
for a kindly old Jew, whose help at this time she never
forgot.11 In her
squalid quarters she was sought out by a veteran journalist,
Miss Anna Ballard, in
search of copy for a Russian story. She received, in late
October, a legacy from
the estate of her father, who had died early in that
month. A draft of one
thousand rubles was first sent her, and later the entire
sum bequeathed to her.
Then in affluence she moved to better quarters, first to
Union Square, then to
East 16th Street, then to Irving Place. But her money did
not abide in her
keeping long. In regard to the sources of her income after her
patrimony had been
flung generously to the winds, we are told, upon Col.
Olcott's pledged
honor, that both his and her wants, after the organization of
the Theosophical
Society, were frequently provided for by the occult
ministrations of the
Masters. He claims that during the many years of their
joint campaigns for
Theosophy, especially in India, the treasure-chest at
headquarters, after
having been depleted, would be found supplied with funds
from unknown sources.
Shopping one day in New York with Colonel, she made
purchases to the
amount of about fifty dollars. He paid the bills. On returning
home she thrust some
banknotes into his hand, saying: "There are your fifty
dollars." He is
certain she had no money of her own, and no visitor had come in
from whom she could
have borrowed. Once during this period she created the
duplicate of a
thousand dollar note while it was held in the hand of the Hon.
John L. O'Sullivan,
formerly Ambassador to Portugal; but it faded away during
the two following
days. Its serial number was identical with that of its
prototype. The
knowledge that financial help would come at need, however, did
not dispose Madame
Blavatsky to relax her effort toward her own sustenance.12
During this time, and
for nearly all the remainder of her life, the Russian
noblewoman spent large
stretches of her time in writing occult, mystic, and
scientific articles
for Russian periodicals. This constituted her main source of
income. Col. Olcott
states that her Russian articles were so highly prized that
"the conductor of
the most important of their reviews actually besought her to
write constantly for
it, on terms as high as they gave Turgenev."13
A chronicle of her
life during this epoch may not omit her second marriage,
which proved ill-fated
at the first. It came about as follows: A Mr. B., a
Russian subject,
learning of her psychic gifts through Col. Olcott, asked the
Colonel to arrange for
him a meeting with his countrywoman. He proceeded to fall
into a profound state
of admiration for Madame Blavatsky, which deepened though
he was persistently
rebuffed, and he finally threatened to take his life unless
she would relent. He
proclaimed his motives to be only protective, and expressly
waived a husband's
claims to the privileges of married life. In what appears to
have been madness or
some sort of desperation, she agreed finally, on these.33
terms, to be his wife.
Even then it was specified that she retain her own name
and be free from all
restraint, for the sake of her work. A Unitarian clergyman
married them in Philadelphia,
and they lived for some few months in a house on
Sansom Street. When
taken to task by her friend Olcott, she explained that it
was a misfortune to
which she was doomed by an inexorable Karma; that it was a
punishment to her for
a streak of pride which was hindering her spiritual
development; but that
it would result in no harm to the young man. The husband
forgot his earlier
protestations of Platonic detachment, and became an
importunate lover.
Madame Blavatsky developed a dangerous illness at this time
as a result of a fall
upon an icy sidewalk in New York the previous winter, and
her knee became so
violently inflamed that a partial mortification of the leg
set in. The physician
declared that nothing but instant amputation could save
her life; but she
discarded his advice, called upon that source of help which
had come to her in a
number of exigencies, recovered immediately and left her
husband's "bed
and board." He, after some months of waiting, saw her obduracy
and procured a divorce
on the ground of desertion.14
During the latter part
of her stay in New York she and Col. Olcott took an
apartment of seven
rooms at the corner of 47th Street and 8th Avenue, which came
to be called "The
Lamasery," in jocular reference to her Tibetan connections.
"The
Lamasery" became a social and intellectual center during her residence
there. Col. Olcott
says:
". . . her
mirthfulness, epigrammatic wit, brilliance of conversation, careless
friendliness to those
she liked . . ., her fund of anecdote, and, chiefest
attraction to most of
her callers, her amazing psychical phenomena, made the
'Lamasery' the most
attractive salon of the metropolis from 1876 to the close of
1878."15
Madame spent her
day-hours in writing, her custom for years; and held open house
for visitors in the
evening. There was always discussion of one or another
aspect of occult
philosophy, in which she naturally took the commanding part.
She would pour out an
endless flow of argument and supporting data, augmented at
favorable times by a sudden
exhibition of magical power. She seemed tireless in
her psychic energy.
Several persons have
left good word-pictures of her. Col. Olcott graphically
describes her
appearance upon the occasion of their first meeting in the old
Eddy farmhouse, in
Vermont, where they both came in '74 to study the "spooks."
Col. Olcott had been
on the scene for some time, as a representative of the New
York Daily Graphic,
when Madame Blavatsky arrived. He was struck by her general
appearance, and he
contrived to introduce himself to her through the medium of a
gallant offer of a
light for her cigarette.
"It was a massive
Kalmuc face," he writes, "contrasting in its suggestion of
power, culture and
impressiveness, as strangely with the commonplace visages
about the room, as her
red garment did with the gray and white tones of the wall
and the woodwork, and
the dull costumes of the rest of the guests. All sorts of
cranky people were
continually coming and going at Eddy's, and it only struck
me, on seeing this
eccentric lady, that this was but one more of the sort.
Pausing on the
doorstep I whispered to Kappes, 'Good Gracious! Look at that
specimen, will
you!'"16
In her autobiography
the Princess Helene von Racowitza makes some interesting
references to Madame
Blavatsky, whom she knew intimately..34
"I discovered in
her the most remarkable being (for one hardly dare designate
her with the simple
name of woman). She gave me new life; . . . she brought new
interest into my
existence. Regarding her personal appearance, the head, which
rose from the dark
flowing garments, was immensely characteristic, although far
more ugly than
beautiful. A true Russian type, a short thick nose, prominent
cheek bones, a small
clever mobile mouth, with little fine teeth, brown and very
curly hair, and almost
like that of a negro's; a sallow complexion, but a pair
of eyes the like of
which I had never seen; pale blue, grey as water, but with a
glance deep and
penetrating, and as compelling as if it beheld the inner heart
of things. Sometimes
they held an expression as though fixed on something afar,
high and immeasurably
above all earthly things. She always wore long dark
flowing garments and
had ideally beautiful hands.
"But how shall I
attempt to describe . . . her being, her power, her abilities
and her character? She
was a combination of the most heterogeneous qualities. By
all she was considered
as a sort of Cagliostro or St. Germain. She conversed
with equal facility in
Russian, English, French, German, Italian and certain
dialects of
Hindustani; yet she lacked all positive knowledge-even the most
superficial European
school training.
"In matters of
social life she . . . joined an irresistible charm in
conversation, that
comprised chiefly an intense comprehension of everything
noble and great, with
the most original and often coarse humor, a mode of
expression which was
the comical despair of prudish Anglo-Saxons.
"Her contempt for
and rebellion against all social conventions made her appear
sometimes even coarser
than was her wont, and she hated and fought conventional
lying with real Don
Quixotic courage. But whoever approached her in poverty or
rags, hungry and
needing comfort, could be sure to find in her a warm heart and
an open hand. . . . No
drop of wine, beer or fermented liquors ever passed her
lips, and she had a
most fanatical hatred of everything intoxicating. Her
hospitality was
genuinely Oriental. She placed everything she possessed at the
disposal of her
friends."17
Mr. J. Ranson Bridges,
a none too kindly critic, who had considerable
correspondence with
her from 1888 till her death, says:
"Whatever may be
the ultimate verdict upon the life and work of this woman, her
place in history will
be unique. There was a Titanic display of strength in
everything she did.
The storms that raged within her were cyclones. Those
exposed to them often
felt, with Solovyoff, that if there were holy and sage
Mahatmas, they could
not remain holy and sage and have anything to do with
Helena Petrovna
Blavatsky. Yet she could be as tender and sympathetic as any
mother. Her mastery of
some natures seemed complete. . . . To these disciples
she was the greatest
thaumaturgist known to the world since the time of
Christ."18
In a moment of gayety
she once dashed off the following description of herself:
"An old woman,
whether 40, 50, 60 or 90 years old, it matters not; an old woman
whose
Kalmuco-Buddhisto-Tartaric features, even in youth, never made her appear
pretty; a woman whose
ungainly garb, uncouth manners, and masculine habits are
enough to frighten any
bustled and corseted fine lady of fashionable society out
of her wits."19
For all her psychic
insight, she seemed unable to protect herself against those
who fawned upon her,
cultivated her society, and then repaid her by desertion or.35
slander. She was open
to any one who professed occult interest, and she readily
took up with many such
persons who later became bitter critics.
Much ado was made by
delicate ladies in her day of her cigarette addiction. Her
evident masculinity,
her lack of many of the niceties which ladies commonly
affect, her scorn of
conventions, her failure to put on the airs of a woman of
noble rank, her
occasional coarse language, and her violence of temper over
petty things, have led
many people to infer that the message that she brought
could not have been
pure and lofty.
Theosophists put
forward an explanation of her irascibility and nervous
instability, in a
theory which must sound exotic to the uninitiated. They state
that when she studied
in Tibet under her Masters, and was initiated into the
mysteries of their
occult knowledge, they extricated, by processes in which they
are alleged to be
adepts, one of her astral bodies and retained it so as to be
able to maintain,
through an etheric radio vibration, a constant line of
communication with her
in any part of the world. This left her in a state of
unstable equilibrium
nervously, and rendered her subject to a greater degree of
irritation than would
normally have been the case.
Madame Blavatsky's
life story, covered now in its outward phases, is not
complete without
consideration of that remarkable series of psychic phenomena
which give inner
meaning to her career. In and of themselves they form a
narrative of great
interest, on a par with the legendary lives of many other
saints. The story is a
long one; a complete record of all her wonder-working, as
told in the Theosophic
accounts, would alone fill the space of this volume. A
digest of this
material must be made here, though a critical examination is, as
said above, not
attempted.
When, in 1858, she
returned home from her first exile of ten years, Spiritualism
was just looming on
the horizon of Europe. Nothing seems to be mentioned in the
several biographical
sketches, of her coming in contact with the sweep of the
Spiritualistic wave
that was at full height in the United States during the
early fifties, when
she passed through that country. However the case may be,
she returned home in
1858 with her occult powers already fully developed, and
proceeded to make
frequent display of them.
At Pskoff, with her
sister's husband's family, the Yahontoff's, raps, knocks,
and other sounds
occurred incessantly; furniture moved without any contact;
particles changed
their weight; and either absent living folk or the dead were
seen both by herself
and her relatives many times. Wherever the young woman went
"things"
happened. Laughing at the continued recurrence of these mysterious
activities, she
averred to her sisters that she could make them cease or
redouble their
frequency and power, by the sheer force of her own will.20 The
psychic demonstrations
supposedly took place in entire independence of her
coφperation, but she
could, if she chose, interject her will and assume control.
Her sister, Madame de
Jelihowsky, remembers Helena's laughing when addressed as
a medium, and assuring
her friends that "she was no medium, but only a mediator
between mortals and
beings we know nothing about."21 The reports of her
wonderful exploits
following her arrival at Pskoff in 1858 threw that town into
a swirl of excited
gossip. There was a great deal of fashionable company at the
Yahontoff home in
those days. Madame's presence itself attracted many. Seldom
did any of the numerous
callers go away unsatisfied, for to their inquiries the
raps gave answer,
often long ones in different languages, some of which were not
in Madame Blavatsky's
repertoire. The willing "medium" was subjected to every
kind of test, to which
she submitted gracefully..36
An instance of her
power was her mystification of her own brother, Leonide de
Hahn. A company was
gathered in the drawing room, and Leonide was walking
leisurely about,
unconcerned with the stunts which his gifted sister was
producing for the
diversion of the visitors. He stopped behind the girl's chair
just as some one was
telling how magicians change the avoirdupois of objects.
"And you mean to
say that you can do it?" he asked his sister ironically.
"Mediums can, and
I have done it occasionally," was the reply. "But would you
try?" some one
asked. "I will try, but promise nothing." Hereupon one of the
young men advanced and
lifted a light chess table with great ease. Madame then
told them to leave it
alone and stand back. She was not near it herself. In the
expectant silence that
ensued she merely looked intently at the table. Then she
invited the same young
man who had just lifted it to do so again. He tried, with
great assurance of his
ability, but could not stir the table an inch. He grew
red with the effort,
but without avail. The brother, thinking that his sister
had arranged the play
with his friend as a little joke on him, now advanced.
"May I also
try?" he asked her. "Please do, my dear," she laughed. He seized
the
table and struggled;
whereat his smile vanished. Try as he would, his effort was
futile. Others tried
it with the same result. After a while Helena urged Leonide
to try it once more.
He lifted it now with no effort.
A few months later,
Madame Blavatsky, her father and sister, having left Pskoff
and lodging at a hotel
in St. Petersburg, were visited by two old friends of
Col. Hahn, both now
much interested in Spiritualism. After witnessing some of
Helena's performances,
the two guests expressed great surprise at the father's
continued apathy
toward his daughter's abilities. After some bantering they
began to insist that
he should at least consent to an experiment, before denying
the importance of the
phenomena. They suggested that he retire to an adjoining
room, write a word on
a slip of paper, conceal it and see if his daughter could
persuade the raps to
reveal it. The old gentleman consented, believing he could
discredit the foolish
nonsense, as he termed it, once for all. He retired, wrote
the word and returned,
venturing in his confidence the assertion that if this
experiment were
successful, he "would believe in the devil, undines, sorcerers,
and witches, in the
whole paraphernalia, in short, of old woman's superstitions;
and you may prepare to
offer me as an inmate of a lunatic asylum."22 He went on
with his solitaire in
a corner, while the friends took note of the raps now
beginning. The younger
sister was repeating the alphabet, the raps sounding at
the desired letter;
one of the visitors marked it down. Madame Blavatsky did
nothing apparently. By
this means one single word was got, but it seemed so
grotesque and
meaningless that a sense of failure filled the minds of the
experimenters.
Questioning whether that one word was the entire message, the
raps sounded
"Yes-yes-yes!" The younger girl then turned to her father and told
them that they had got
but one word. "Well what is it?" he demanded.
"Zaοchik."23
It was a sight indeed to witness the change that came over the old
man's face at hearing
this one word. He became deadly pale. Adjusting his
spectacles with a
trembling hand, he stretched it out, saying, "Let me see it!
Hand it over. Is it
really so?" He took the slips of paper and read in a very
agitated voice
"Zaοchik." Yes; Zaοchik; so it is. How very strange!" Taking out
of his pocket the
paper he had written on in the next room, he handed it in
silence to his
daughter and guests. On it they found he had written: "What was
the name of my
favorite horse which I rode during my first Turkish campaign?"
And lower down, in parenthesis,
the answer,--" Zaοchik."
The old Colonel, now
assured there was more than child's play in his daughter's
pretensions, rushed
into the region of phenomena with great zeal. He did not
matriculate at an
asylum; instead he set Helena to work investigating his family
tree. He was
stimulated to this inquiry by having received the date of a certain
event in his ancestral
history of several hundred years before, which he.37
verified by reference
to old documents. Scores of historical events connected
with his family were
now given him; names unheard of, relationships unknown,
positions held,
marriages, deaths; and all were found on painstaking research to
have been correct in
every item! All this information was given rapidly and
unhesitatingly. The
investigation lasted for months.
In the spring of 1858
both sisters were living with their father in the country-house
in a village belonging
to Mme. Yahontoff. In consequence of a murder
committed near their
property, the Superintendent of the District Police passed
through the villages
and stopped at their house to make some inquiries. No one
in the village knew
who had committed the crime. During tea, as all were sitting
around the table, the
raps came, and there were the usual disturbances around
the room. Col. Hahn
suggested to the Superintendent that he had better try his
daughter's invisible
helpers for information. He laughed incredulously. He had
heard of
"spirits," he said, but was derisive of their ability to give
information in "a
real case." This scorn of her powers caused the young girl to
desire to humble the
arrogant officer. She turned fiercely upon him. "And
suppose I prove to you
the contrary?" she defiantly asked him. "Then," he
answered, "I
would resign my office and offer it to you, Madame, or, better
still, I would
strongly urge the authorities to place you at the head of the
Secret Police
Department." "Now look here, Captain," she said indignantly.
"I do
not like meddling in
such 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
shall even leave the room." She went out, with a book, to
read. The inquiry in
the next room produced the name of the murderer, the fact
that he had crossed
over into the next district and was then hiding in the hay
in the loft of a
peasant, Andrew Vlassof, in the village of Oreshkino. Further
information was
elicited to the effect that the murderer was an old soldier on
leave; he was drunk
and had quarreled with his victim. The murder was not
premeditated; rather a
misfortune than a crime. The Superintendent rushed
precipitately out of
the house and drove off to Oreshkino, more than 30 miles
distant. A letter came
by courier the following morning saying that everything
given by the raps had
proved absolutely correct. This incident produced a great
uproar in the district
and Madame's work was viewed in a more serious light. Her
family, however, had
some difficulty convincing the more distant authorities
that they had no
natural means of being familiar with the crime.
One evening while all
sat in the dining room, loud chords of music were struck
on the closed piano in
the next room, visible to all through the open door. On
another occasion
Madame's tobacco pouch, her box of matches and her handkerchief
came rushing to her
through the air, upon a mere look from her. Many visitors to
her apartment in later
years witnessed this same procedure. Again, one evening,
all lights were
suddenly extinguished, an amazing noise was heard, and though a
match was struck in a
moment, all the heavy furniture was found overturned on
the floor. The locked
piano played a loud march. The manifestations taking place
when the home circle
was unmixed with visitors were usually of the most
pronounced character.
Sometimes there were
alleged communications from the spirits of historical
personages, not the
inevitable Napoleon and Cleopatra, but Socrates, Cicero and
Martin Luther, and
they ranged from great power and vigor of thought to almost
flippant silliness.
Some from the shade of the Russian poet Pushkin were quite
beautiful..38
While the family read
aloud the Memoirs of Catherine Romanovna Dashkoff, they
were interrupted many
times by the alleged spirit of the authoress herself,
interjecting remarks,
making additions, offering explanations and refutations.
In the early part of
1859 the sister, Madame Jelihowsky, inherited a country
village from the
estate of her late husband at Rougodevo, and there the family,
including Helena, went
to reside for a period. No one in the party had ever
known any of the
previous occupants of the estate. Soon after settling down in
the old mansion,
Madame discerned the shades of half a dozen of the former
inhabitants in one of
the unoccupied wings and described them to her sister.
Seeking out several
old servants, she found that every one of the wraiths could
be identified and
named by the aged domestics. The young woman's description of
one man was that he
had long finger nails, like a Chinaman's. The servant stated
that one of the former
residents had contracted a disease in Lithuania, which
renders cutting of the
nails a certain road to death through bleeding.
Sometimes the other
members of the family would converse with the rapping forces
without disturbing
Helena at all. The forces played more strongly than every, it
seemed, when Madame
was asleep or sick. A physician once attending her illness
was almost frightened
away by the noises and moving furniture in the bedroom.
A terrible illness
befell her near the end of the stay at Rougodevo. Years
before, her relatives
believed during her solitary travels over the steppes of
Asia, she had received
a wound. This wound reopened occasionally, and then she
suffered intense
agony, which lasted three or four days and then the wound would
heal as suddenly as it
had opened, and her illness would vanish. On one occasion
a physician was
called; but he proved of little use, because the prodigious
phenomena which he
witnessed left him almost powerless to act. Having examined
the wound, the patient
being prostrated and unconscious, he saw a large dark
hand between his own
and the wound he was about to dress. The wound was near the
heart, and the hand
moved back and forth between the neck and the waist. To make
the apparition worse,
there came in the room a terrific noise, from ceiling,
floor, windows, and
furniture, so that the poor man begged not to be left alone
in the room with the
patient.
In the spring of 1860
the two sisters left Rougodevo for a visit to their
grandparents in the
south of Russia, and during the long slow journey many
incidents took place.
At one station, where a surly, half-drunken station-master
refused to lend them a
fresh relay of horses, and there was no fit room for
their accommodation
over the night, Helena terrified him into sense and reason
by whispering into his
ear some strange secret of his, which he believed no one
knew and which it was
to his interest to keep hidden.
At Jadonsk, where a
halt was made, they attended a church service, where the
prelate, the famous
and learned Isidore, who had known them in childhood,
recognized them and
invited them to visit him at the Metropolitan's house. He
received them when
they came with great kindliness; but hardly had they entered
the drawing room than
a terrible hubbub of noise and raps burst forth in every
direction. Every piece
of furniture strained and cracked, rocked and thumped.
The women were
confused by this demoniacal demonstration in the presence of the
amazed Churchman,
though the culprit in the case was hardly able to repress her
sense of humor. But
the priest saw the embarrassment of his guests and
understood the cause
of it. He inquired which of the two women possessed such
strange potencies. He
was told. Then he asked permission to put to her invisible
guide a mental
question. She assented. His query, a serious one, received an
instant reply, precise
and to the point; and he was so struck with it all that
he detained his
visitors for over three hours. He continued his conversation.39
with the unseen
presences and paid unstinted tribute to their seeming all-knowledge.
His farewell words to
his gifted guest were:
"As for you, let
not your heart be troubled by the gift you are possessed of . .
. 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."
Her occult powers grew
at this period to their full development, and she seemed
to have completed the
subjection of every phase of manifestation to her own
volitional control.
Her fame throughout the Caucasus increased, breeding both
hostility and
admiration. She had risen above the necessity of resorting to the
slow process of raps,
and read people's states and gave them answers through her
own clairvoyance. She
seemed able, she said, to see a cloud around people in
whose luminous
substance their thoughts took visible form. The purely sporadic
phenomena were dying
away.
Her illness at the end
of her stay in Mingrelia has already been noted. A
psychic experience of
unusual nature even for her, through which she passed
during this severe
sickness, seems to have marked a definite epoch in her occult
development. She
apparently acquired the ability from that time to step out of
her physical body, investigate
distant scenes or events, and bring back reports
to her normal
consciousness. Sometimes she felt herself as now one person, H. P.
Blavatsky, and again
some one else. Returning to her own personality she could
remember herself as
the other character, but while functioning as the other
person she could not
remember herself as Madame Blavatsky. She later wrote of
these experiences:
"I was in another far-off country, a totally different
individuality from
myself, and had no connection at all with my actual life."24
The sickness,
prostrated her and appears to have brought a crisis in her inner
life. She herself felt
that she had barely escaped the fate that she afterwards
spoke of as befalling
so many mediums. She wrote in a letter to a relative:
"The last vestige
of my psycho-physical weakness is gone, to return no more. 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
life." (Her Guardians in Tibet.)25
Madame Jelihowsky
writes too:
"After her
extraordinary and protracted illness at Tiflis she seemed to defy and
subject the
manifestations entirely to her will. In short, 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 had ever
refused the name of
'spirits' and souls-to her own control."26
As a sequel to this
experience her conception of a great and definite mission in
the world formulated
itself before her vision. It is seen to provide the motive
for her abortive
enterprise in Cairo in 1871; it is again seen to be operative
in her propagation of
Theosophy in 1875. It will be considered more at length in
the discussion of her
connection with American Spiritualism.
By 1871 her power in
certain phases had been greatly enhanced. She was able,
merely by looking
fixedly at objects, to set them in motion. In an illustrated
paper of the time
there was a story of her by a gentleman, who met her with some
friends in a hotel at
Alexandria. After dinner he engaged her in a long
discussion. Before
them stood a little tea tray, on which the waiter had placed.40
a bottle of liquor,
some wine, a wine glass and a tumbler. As the gentleman
raised the glass to
his lips it broke to pieces in his hands. Madame Blavatsky
laughed at the
occurrence, remarking that she hated liquor and could hardly
tolerate those who drank.
He knew the glass was thick and strong, but, to draw
her out, declared it
must have been an accidental crumbling of a thin glass in
his grasp. "What
do you bet I do not do it again?" she flashed at him. He then
half-filled another
tumbler. In his own words:
"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 of
grasping the tumbler
together when I felt myself losing hold of it."
"Entre les lθvres
et la coupe, il y a quelquefois une grande distance," she
observed, and left the
room, laughing in his face "most outrageously."27
Another gentleman, a
Russian, who encountered her in Egypt, sent the most
enthusiastic letters
to his friends about her wonders.
"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
Madame Blavatsky a woman
who beats all the Boscos and Robert Houdin's of the
country by her
address. . . . Once I showed her a closed medallion containing a
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
knew, 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. How could she know?"28
At Cairo she wrote her
sister Vera that she had seen the astral forms of two of
the family's domestics
and chided her sister for not having written her about
their death during her
absence. She described the hospital in which one of them
had passed away, and
other circumstances connected with their history since she
had last been in touch
with them. It was only afterwards that she learned that
when her letter from
Egypt was received by Madame Jelihowsky, the latter was
herself not aware of
the death of the two servants. Upon inquiry she found every
circumstance in
relation to their late years and their death precisely as Helena
had depicted it.
Upon Madame
Blavatsky's arrival in America her open espousal of the cause of
Theosophy was prefaced
by much work done in and for the Spiritualistic movement.
Col. Olcott has
brought out the fact that the phenomena taking place at the Eddy
farmhouse in Vermont
in 1873 changed character quite decidedly the day she
entered the household.
Up to the time of her appearance on the scene the figures
that had shown
themselves were either Red Indians or Americans or Europeans
related to some one
present. But on the first evening of her stay spirits of
other nationalities
came up. A Georgian servant body from the Caucasus, a
Mussulman merchant
from Tiflis, a Russian peasant girl, and others, appeared.
Later a Kurdish
cavalier and a devilish-looking Negro sorcerer from Africa
joined the motley
group.
From the Vermont
homestead Madame Blavatsky went to New York, where Col. Olcott
joined her shortly
afterwards. Rappings and messages were much in evidence
during this sojourn in
the metropolis, the disembodied intelligence in the
background purporting
to be one "John King," a name familiar to all spiritists
for many years before.
The spirit finally declared itself to be the earth-haunting
soul of Sir Henry
Morgan, famous buccaneer, and so showed itself to the.41
sight of Col. Olcott
during the sιances with the Holmes mediums some months
later in Philadelphia.
From him as ostensible source came many messages both
grave and gay.
All the while Madame
Blavatsky posed as a Spiritualist and mingled in the Holmes
sιances in
Philadelphia for the purpose of lending some of her own power to the
rather feeble
demonstrations effected by Mr. and Mrs. Holmes to bolster their
reputation in the face
of Robert Dale Owen's public denunciation of them as
cheats. She says that
on one occasion Mrs. Holmes was herself frightened at the
real appearance of
spirits summoned by herself.
One of the first
indications Col. Olcott was to have of the interest of her
distant sages in his
own career was shown during the time that Madame Blavatsky
was in Philadelphia.
At her urgent invitation the Colonel determined quite
suddenly to run over
and spend a few days with her. On the evening of the same
day on which he left
his address at the Philadelphia Post Office the postman
brought him several
letters from widely distant places, all bearing the stamp of
the sending station,
but none that of the receiving station, New York. They were
addressed to him at
his New York office address, yet had come straight to him at
Philadelphia without
passing through the New York office. And nobody in New York
knew his Philadelphia
address. He took them himself from the postman's hand; so
they could not have
been tampered with by his occult friend. But the marvel did
not end there. Upon
opening them he found inside each something written in the
same handwriting as
that in letters he had received in New York from the
Masters, the writing
having been made either in the margins or on any other
space left blank by
the writers.
"These were the
precursors of a whole series of those phenomenal surprises
during the fortnight
or so that I spent in Philadelphia. I had many, and no
letter of the lot bore
the New York stamp, though all were addressed to me at my
office in that
city."29
The series of vivid
phenomena which took place during the Philadelphia visit may
be listed briefly as
follows:
1.-Col. Olcott
purchased a note-book in which to record the rap messages. On
taking it out of the
store wrapper he found inside the first cover: "John King,
Henry de Morgan, his
book, 4th of the fourth month in A.D. 1875." And underneath
this was a whole
pictorial design of Rosicrucian symbols, the word Fate, the
name Helen, the phrase
"Way of Providence," a monogram, a pair of compasses, and
various letters and
signs. No one had touched it since its purchase at the
stationary shop.
2.-Madame Blavatsky
caused a photograph on the wall to disappear suddenly from
its frame and give
place to a sketch portrait of "John King" while a spectator
was looking at it.
3.-Col. Olcott had
bought a dozen unhemmed towels. As his companion was no
seamstress, he
bantered her to let an elemental do the hemstitching on the lot.
She told him to put
the towels, needle and thread inside a bookcase, which had
glass doors curtained
with green silk. He did so. After twenty minutes she
announced that the job
was finished. He found them actually, if crudely, hemmed.
It was four P.M., and
no other persons were in the room.
4.-Madame Blavatsky
once suddenly disappeared from the Colonel's sight, could
not be seen for a
period, and then as suddenly reappeared. She could not explain
to him how she did
it..42
5.-The increase
overnight in the length of her hair, of about four to five
inches, and its later
recession to its normal length.
6.-The projection of a
drawing of a man's head on the ceiling above the
Colonel's head, where
he had seen nothing a minute before.
7.-The precipitation
by "John King," in answer to the Colonel's challenge to
duplicate a letter he
had in his pocket, of the said duplicate, correct in every
word.
8.-The precipitation
of a letter into the traveling bag of a Mr. B. while on the
train, the letter not
having been packed there originally.
9.-The same Mr. B.
begged Madame Blavatsky to create for him a portrait of his
deceased grandmother.
She went to the window, put a blank piece of paper against
the pane, and handed
it to him in a moment with the portrait of a little old
woman with many
wrinkles and a large wart, which Mr. B. declared a perfect
likeness of his
ancestor.
10.-The actual
production by an Italian artist, through "his control of the
spirits of the
air," during one evening of entirely clear sky, of a small shower
of rain, sufficient to
wet the sidewalks. Previously Madame Blavatsky had
created a butterfly,
following a similar production by the Italian visitor.
11.-The
materialization by Madame Blavatsky of a heavy gold ring in the heart of
a rose which had been
"created" shortly before by Mrs. Thayer, a medium whom
Col. Olcott was
testing with a view to sending her to Russia for experimentation
at a university there.
12.-The Colonel's own
beard grew in one night from his chin down to his chest.30
After the return from
Philadelphia psychic events continued with great frequency
at the apartments in
New York. In December of 1875, Madame Blavatsky, having
invited a challenge to
reproduce the portrait of the Chevalier Louis, reputed
Adept author of Mrs.
Emma Hardinge Britten's Art Magic, rubbed her hand over a
sheet of paper and the
desired photograph appeared on the under side. She had
laid the bare sheet on
the surface of the table. Col. Olcott had the opportunity
nine years later of
comparing this reproduction with the original photograph of
the Chevalier Louis,
and found the likeness perfect, yet the lines would not
meet precisely when
the one was superimposed on the other. It could not have
been a lithographic
reproduction.
Early in 1878, Mr.
O'Sullivan asked Madame Blavatsky for one of a chaplet of
large wooden beads
which she was wearing. She placed one in a bowl and produced
the bowlful of them.
For the same gentleman
in plain sight of several people, she triplicated a
beautiful handkerchief
which he had admired.
To amuse the child of
a caller, an English Spiritualist, one day she produced a
large toy sheep
mounted on wheels. Col. Olcott claimed it had not been there a
moment before.
On Christmas eve of
that year when she and the Colonel, went to his sister's
apartment, Madame
expressed regret that she had brought nothing for the
youngsters. But
saying, "Wait a minute," she took her bunch of keys from her.43
pocket, clutched three
of them together in one hand, and a moment later showed
the party a large iron
whistle hanging on the ring instead of the three keys.
Col. Olcott had to get
three new keys from a locksmith.
Another time to
placate a little girl Madame promised her "a nice present," and
indicated to Col.
Olcott that he should take it out of their luggage bag in the
hall. He unlocked the
already stuffed bag and immediately on top was a
harmonica, or glass
piano, about fifteen inches by four in size, with its cork
mallet beside it.
Colonel had himself packed the bag, having to use all his
strength to close it, had
reopened it on the train, and there was not a moment
when his friend could
have slipped an object of such size into it.
It was in New York at
this epoch that she took Col. Olcott's large signet ring,
rubbed it in her hands
and presently handed him his original and another like it
except that the new
one was mounted with a dark green bloodstone, whereas the
original was set with
a red carnelian. That ring she wore till her death, and it
has since been the
valued possession of Mrs. Annie Besant.
Once, in Boston,
Madame walked through the streets in a pelting rain and reached
her lodgings without
the trace of dampness or mud on her dress or shoes.
Similarly the Colonel
found a handsome velvet-covered chair entirely dry, not
even damp, after being
left out all night in a driving rain.
One time when the two
were talking about three members of the Colonel's family,
a crash was heard in
the next room. Rushing in he found that the photograph of
one of the three had
been turned face inward, the large water-color picture of
another lay smashed on
the floor, while the photograph of the third was
unmolested.
Madame once made
instantly a copy of a scurrilous letter received by the Colonel
from a person who had
done him an injustice. Again she duplicated a five-page
letter from the
eminent Spiritualist, W. Stainton Moses. There was not time for
the receipt of the
letter until its duplication for any one to have copied it.
The second sheets were
copies, but not strictly duplicate, as the lines would
not match when the two
were placed together and held before the light.
At "The
Lamasery" she produced an entire set of watercolors, which Mr. W. Q.
Judge needed in making
an Egyptian drawing. Next he needed some gold paint,
whereupon she took a
brass key, scraped it over the bottom of an empty saucer,
and found the required
paint instantly. The brass key was not consumed in the
process, but was
needed, she explained, to help aggregate the atomic material
for the gold color.
When Olcott stated one
evening that he would like to hear from one of the Adepts
(in India) upon a
certain subject, Madame told him to write his questions, seal
them in an envelope,
and place it where he could watch it. He did so, putting it
behind the clock on
the mantel, with one end projecting in plain view. The two
went on talking for an
hour, when she announced that the answer had come. He
drew out his own
envelope, the seal unbroken, found inside it his own letter,
and inside that the Mahatma's
answer in the script familiar to him, written on a
sheet of green paper,
such as he had not had in the house.
Through her agency the
portrait of the Rev. W. Stainton Moses was precipitated
on satin. It was a
distinct likeness, and the head was rayed around with
spiculae of light. It
was surrounded with rolling clouds of vapor, his astral
vehicle..44
Olcott, Judge and a
Dr. Marquette one evening asked her to produce the portrait
of a particular Hindu
Yogi on some stationery of the Lotus Club that the Colonel
had brought home that
same evening. She scraped some lead from a pencil on a
half sheet of the
paper, laid the other half-sheet over it, placed them between
her hands, and showed
the result. The likeness to the original could not be
verified, but it was
pronounced by Le Clear, the noted portrait painter, to be
one "that no
living artist within his knowledge could have produced."
Once Col. Olcott
desired a picture of his Guru, or Hindu teacher, as yet unseen
by him, and Madame
essayed to have it painted through the hand of a French
artist, M. Herisse.
The artist's only instructions were that his subject was a
Hindu. Madame
concentrated, and he painted. The features, finished in an hour,
were afterwards
vouched for by Col. Olcott as being the likeness of his Guru,
whom he met years
later.
The Colonel testified
to having seen Madame Blavatsky's astral form in a New
York street while she
was in Philadelphia; also that of a friend of his then in
the South; again that
of one of the Adepts, then in Asia, in an American railway
train and on a
steamboat. He stated that he took from the hand of another
Mahatma at Jummu a
telegram from H.P.B.31 who was in Madras, the messenger
vanishing a moment
later; and that he, H.P.B. and Damodar, a young Hindu devotee
of hers, were greeted
by one of these Teachers one evening in India. But the
occurrence of this
kind which he regarded as the most striking, affecting as it
did his whole future
career, happened at the close of one of his busy days, when
his evening's toil
with the composition of Isis was finished. He had retired to
his own room and was
reading, the room door locked. Suddenly he perceived a
white radiance at his
side and turning saw towering above him the great stature
of an Oriental, clad
in white garments and wearing a head-cloth of amber-striped
fabric,
hand-embroidered in yellow floss silk.
"Long raven hair
hung from under his turban to the shoulders; his black beard,
parted vertically on
the chin in the Rajput fashion, was twisted up at the ends
and carried over the
ears; his eyes were alive with soul-fire; eyes which were
at once benignant and
piercing in glance; the eyes of a mentor and judge, but
softened by the love
of a father who gazes on a son needing counsel and
guidance. He was so
grand a man, so imbued with the majesty of moral strength,
so luminously
spiritual, so evidently above average humanity, that I felt
abashed in his
presence, and bowed my head and bent my knee as one does before a
god or a god-like personage.
A hand was laid lightly on my head, a sweet though
strong voice bade me
be seated, and when I raised my eyes the Presence was
seated in the other
chair beyond the table. He told me that he had come at the
crisis when I needed
him; that my actions had brought me to this point; that it
lay with me alone
whether he and I should meet often in this life as coworkers
for the good of
mankind; that a great work was to be done for humanity and I had
the right to share in
it if I wished; that a mysterious tie, not now to be
explained to me, had
drawn my colleague and myself together; a tie which could
not be broken, however
strained it might be at times."32
Then he arose and
reading the Colonel's sudden but unexpressed wish that he
might leave behind him
some token of his visit, he untwisted the fehta from his
head, laid it on the
table, saluted benignantly and was gone.
Many a time, according
to the Colonel's version, they were regaled with most
exquisite music, or
single bell sounds, coming from anywhere in the room and
softly dying away..45
Olcott tells of the
deposit of one thousand dollars to his bank account by a
person described by
the bank clerk as a Hindu, while he (Olcott) was absent from
the city for two
months on business which he had undertaken at the behest of the
Master through H.P.B.
He had told her that his errand would cost him about five
hundred dollars per
month through his neglect of his business for the time.
In 1878 the Countess
Paschkoff brought to light an adventure which she had had
years before while
traveling with Madame Blavatsky in the Libanus. The two women
encountered each other
in the desert and camped together one night near the
river Orontes. Nearby
stood a great monument on the border of the village. The
Countess asked Madame
to tell her the history of the monument. At night the
thaumaturgist built a
fire, drew a circle about it and repeated several
"spells."
Soon balls of white flame appeared on the monument, then from a cloud
of vapor emerged the
spirit of the person to whom it had been dedicated. "Who
are you?" asked
the woman. "I am Hiero, one of the priests of the temple," said
the voice of the
spirit.
He then showed them
the temple in the midst of a vast city. Then the image
vanished and the
priest with it.
To round out the story
of her phenomena it is necessary to relate with the
utmost brevity the
incidents of the kind that transpired from the time of the
departure from America
to India at the end of 1878 until the latter days of her
life. This narrative
will include occurrences taking place in India, France,
Germany, and England.
It was in India that
the so-called Mahatma Letters were precipitated, upon which
the basic structure of
Theosophy is seen to rest. Mr. A. P. Sinnett, British
journalist, editor of
"The Pioneer," living in India, is the main authority for
the events of the
Indian period in Madame Blavatsky's life.
During the first visit
of six weeks to Mr. Sinnett's home at Allahabad there
were comparatively few
incidents, apart from raps. A convincing exploit of her
power was granted,
however, for one evening while the party was sitting in the
large hall of the
house of the Maharajah of Vizianagaram at Benares, three or
four large cut roses
fell from the ceiling. The ceiling was bare and the room
well lighted.
About the beginning of
September 1880 she visited the Sinnetts at their home in
Simla. Here some more
striking incidents took place. During an evening walk with
Mrs. Sinnett to a
neighboring hilltop, Madame, in response to a suddenly-expressed
wish of her companion,
obtained for her a little note from one of the
"Brothers."
Madame had torn off a blank corner of a sheet of a letter received
that day and held it
in her hand for the Master's use. It disappeared. Then Mrs.
Sinnett was asked
where she would like the paper to reappear. She whimsically
pointed up into a tree
a little to one side. Clambering up into the branches she
found the same little
corner of pink paper sticking on a sharp twig, now
containing a brief
message and signed by some Tibetan characters.
A little later the
most spectacular of the marvels said to have been performed
by the "Messenger
of the Great White Brotherhood" took place. A picnic party to
the woods some miles
distant was planned one morning and six persons prepared to
set off. Lunches were
packed for six, but a seventh person unexpectedly joined
the group at the
moment of departure. As the luncheon was unpacked for the
noontide meal, there
was a shortage of a coffee cup and saucer. Some one
laughingly suggested
that Madame should materialize an extra set. Madame
Blavatsky held a
moment's mental communication with one of her distant Brothers.46
and then indicated a
particular spot, covered with grass, weeds, and shrubbery.
A gentleman of the
party, with a knife, undertook to dig at the spot. A little
persistence brought
him shortly to the rim of a white object, which proved to be
a cup, and close to it
was a saucer, both of the design matching the other six
brought along from the
Sinnett cupboard. The plant roots around the China pieces
were manifestly
undisturbed by recent digging such as would have been necessary
if they had been
"planted" in anticipation of their being needed. Moreover, when
the party reached home
and Mrs. Sinnett counted their supply of cups and saucers
of that design, the
new ones were found to be additional to their previous
stock. And none of
that design could have been purchased in Simla.33
Before this same party
had disbanded it was permitted to witness another feat of
equal strangeness. The
gentleman who had dug up the buried pottery was so
impressed that he
decided then and there to join the Theosophical Society. As
Col. Olcott, President
of the Society, was in the party, all that was needed was
the usual parchment
diploma. Madame Blavatsky agreed to ask the Master to
produce such a
document for them. In a moment all were told to search in the
underbrush. It was
soon found and used in the induction ceremony.
This eventful picnic
brought forth still another wonder.
Every one of the water
bottles brought along had been emptied when the need for
more coffee arose. The
water in a neighborhood stream was unfit. A servant, sent
across the fields to
obtain some at a brewery, stupidly returned without any. In
the dilemma Madame
Blavatsky took one of the empty bottles, placed it in one of
the baskets, and in a
moment took it out filled with good water.
Some days later the
famous "brooch" incident occurred. The Sinnett party had
gone up the hill to
spend an evening with Mr. and Mrs. A. O. Hume, who were
likewise much
interested in the Blavatskian theories. Eleven persons were seated
around the table and
some one hinted at the possibility of a psychic exploit.
Madame appeared
disinclined, but suddenly gave a sign that the Master was
himself present. Then
she asked Mrs. Hume if there was anything in particular
that she wished to
have. Mrs. Hume thought of an old brooch which her mother had
given her long ago and
which had been lost. Neither she nor Mr. Hume had thought
of it for years. She
described it, saying it contained a lock of hair. The party
was told to search for
it in the garden at a certain spot; and there it was
found. Mrs. Hume
testified that it was the lost brooch, or one indistinguishable
from it.
According to the statements
of Alice Gordon, a visitor at the Sinnett home,
Madame Blavatsky
rolled a cigarette, and projected it ethereally to the house of
a Mrs. O'Meara in
another part of Simla, in advance of Miss Gordon's going
thither. To identify
it she tore off a small corner of the wrapper jaggedly, and
gave it to Miss
Gordon. The latter found it at the other home and the corner
piece matched.
Captain P. J. Maitland
recites a "cigarette" incident which occurred in Mr.
Sinnett's drawing
room. Madame took two cigarette papers, with a pencil drew
several parallel lines
clear across the face of both, then tore off across these
lines a piece of the
end of each paper and handed the short end pieces to
Captain Maitland; then
she rolled cigarettes out of the two larger portions,
moistened them on her
tongue, and caused them to disappear from her hands. The
Captain was told he
would find one on the piano and the other on a bracket. He
found them there,
still moist along the "seam," and unrolling them found that
the ragged edges of
the torn sections and the pencil lines exactly matched..47
Some days later came
the "pillow incident." Mr. Sinnett had the impression that
he had been in
communication with the Master one night. During the course of an
outing to a nearby
hill the following day, Madame Blavatsky turned to him (he
had not mentioned his
experience to her) and asked him where he would like some
evidence of the
Master's visit to him to appear. Thinking to choose a most
unlikely place, he
thought of the inside of a cushion against which one of the
ladies was leaning.
Then he changed to another. Cutting the latter open, they
found among the
feathers, inside two cloth casings, a little note in the now
familiar Mahatma
script, in the writing on which were the phrases-"the
difficulty you spoke
of last night" and "corresponding through-pillows!" While
he was reading this
his wife discovered a brooch in the feathers. It was one
which she had left at
home.
Perhaps it was these
cigarette feats which assured Madame Blavatsky that she now
had sufficient power
to dispatch a long letter to her Mahatma mentors. Mr.
Sinnett first
suggested the idea to her, and her success in that first attempt
was the beginning of
one of the most eventful and unique correspondences in the
world's history. It
began his exchange of letters with the Master Koot Hoomi Lal
Singh (abbreviated
usually to K.H.), on which Theosophy so largely rests.
On several telegrams
received by Mr. Sinnett were snatches of writing in K.H.'s
hand speaking of
events that transpired after the telegram had been sent.
Replies were received
a number of times in less time than it would have taken
Madame Blavatsky to
write them (instantaneously in a few cases), yet they dealt
in specific detail
with the material in his own missives. More than once his
unexpressed doubts and
queries were treated. In many cases his own letter in a
sealed envelope would
remain in sight and within a very short interval (thirty
seconds in one
instance) be found to contain the distant Master's reply, folded
inside his own sheets,
with an appropriate answer,--the seal not even having
been broken. Sometimes
he would place his letter in plain view on the table, and
shortly it would be
gone. For a time when the Master K.H. was called away to
other business, Mr.
Sinnett continued to receive communications from the brother
Adept, Master Morya,
while Madame Blavatsky was hundreds of miles away. They
continued in the
distant absence of both H.P.B. and Col. Olcott. And not only
were such letters
received by Mr. Sinnett, and Mr. Hume, but by other persons as
well. The list
includes Damodar K. Mavalankar; Ramaswamy, an educated English-speaking
native of Southern
India in Government service; Dharbagiri Nath; Mohini
Chatterji; and Bhavani
Rao. Dr. Hόbbe-Schleiden received a missive of the kind
later on a railway
train in Germany. Mr. Sinnett would frequently find the
letters on the inside
of his locked desk drawers or would see them drop upon his
desk. Their production
was attended with all manner of remarkable circumstances.
Then there was the
notable episode of the transmission by the Master of a mental
message to a Mr.
Eglinton, a Spiritualist, on board a vessel, the Vega, far out
at sea, and the
instantaneous transmission of the letter's response, written on
board ship, to some of
his friends in India, the whole thing done in accordance
with an arrangement
made by letter to Mr. Sinnett by the Adept two days before.
This incident has a
certain importance from the fact that the Master had said in
the preliminary letter
that he would visit Mr. Eglinton on the ship on a certain
night, impress him
with the untenability of the general Spiritualistic
hypothesis regarding
communications, and if possible lead him to a change of
mind on the point. Mr.
Eglinton's reply recorded the visit of the Mahatma on the
ship and admitted the
desirability of a change to the Theosophic theory of the
existence of the
Brothers.
An interesting
------CARDIFF THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN
WALES-------
CHAPTER of events in the sojourn of the two Theosophic leaders in
India is that of the
thousands of healings made by Col. Olcott, who states that.48
he was given the power
by the Overlords of his activities for a limited time
with a special object
in view. He is said to have cured some eight thousand
Hindus of various
ailments by a sort of "laying on of hands." Like Christ he
felt
"virtue" go out of his body until exhaustion ensued; and he stated
that he
was instructed to
recharge his nervous depletion by sitting with his back
against the base of a
pine tree.
In 1885 Madame
Blavatsky herself experienced the healing touch of her Masters
when she was ordered
to meet them in the flesh north of Darjeeling. Going north
on this errand, she
was in the utmost despondency and near the point of death.
After two days spent
with the Adepts she emerged with physical health and morale
restored, her dynamic
self once more.
The last sheaf of
"miracles" takes us from India to France, Germany, Belgium,
and England. In Paris,
in 1884, her rooms were the resort of many people who
came if haply they
might get sight of a marvel, her thaumaturgic fame being now
world-wide. A Prof.
Thurmann reported that in his presence she filled the air of
the room with musical
sounds, from a variety of instruments. She demonstrated
that darkness was not
necessary for such manifestations.
Madame Jelihowsky is
authority for the account of the appearance and
disappearance of her
sister's picture in a medallion containing only the small
photograph of K.H.
A most baffling
display of Madame's gifts took place in the reception room of
the Paris Theosophical
Society on the morning of June 11th, 1884. Madame
Jelihowsky, Col.
Olcott, W. Q. Judge, V. Solovyoff and two others were present
and attested the bona
fide nature of the incident in a public letter. In sight
of all a servant took
a letter from the postman and brought it directly to
Madame Jelihowsky. It
was addressed to a lady, a relative of Madame Blavatsky,
who was then visiting
her, and came from another relative in Russia. Madame
Blavatsky, seeing that
it was a family letter, remarked that she would like to
know its contents. Her
sister ventured the suggestion that she read it before it
was opened. Helena
held the letter against her forehead and proceeded to read
aloud and then write
down what she said were the contents. Then, to demonstrate
her power further, she
declared that she would underscore her own name, wherever
it occurred within the
letter, in red crayon, and would precipitate in red a
double interlaced
triangle, or "Solomon's Seal," beneath the signature. When the
addressee opened the
letter, not only was H.P.B.'s version of its contents
correct to the word,
but the underscoring of her name and the monogram in red
were found, and oddly
enough, the wavering in several of the straight lines in
the triangle, as drawn
first by Madame Blavatsky outside the letter, were
precisely matched by
the red triangle inside. Postmarks indicated it had
actually come from
Russia.34
While at Elberfeld,
Germany, with her hospitable benefactress, Madame Gebhard,
some of the usual
manifestations were in evidence. Mr. Rudolph Gebhard, a son,
recounts several of
them. One was the receipt of a letter from one of the
Masters, giving
intelligence about an absent member of the household, found to
be correct.
The Countess Constance
Wachtmeister, who became Madame Blavatsky's guardian
angel, domestically
speaking, during the years of the composition of The Secret
Doctrine in Germany
and Belgium, has printed her account of a number of
extraordinary
occurrences of the period. She speaks of a succession of raps in
H.P.B.'s sleeping room
when there was special need of her Guardians' care. She
also tells of the
thrice-relighted lamp at the sleeper's bedside, she herself.49
having twice
extinguished it. She tells of her receiving a letter from the
Master, inside the
store-wrapper of a bar of soap which she had just purchased
at a drug store.
It was under the
Countess Wachtmeister's notice that there occurred the last of
Madame Blavatsky's
"miraculous" restorations to health. She had suffered for
years from a dropsical
or renal affection, which in those latter days had
progressed to such an
alarming stage that her highly competent physicians at one
crisis were convinced
that she could not survive a certain night. The great work
she was writing was
far from completed; the Countess was heart-broken to think
that, after all, that
heroic career was to be cut off just before the
consummation of its
labors for humanity; and she spent the night in grief and
despair. Arising in
the morning she found Madame at her desk, busy as before at
her task. She had been
revivified and restored during the night, and would not
say how.
The Countess records
the occasion of an intercession of the Masters in her own
affairs, on behalf of
their messenger. At her home in Sweden, while she was
packing her trunks in
preparation for a journey to some relatives in Italy, she
clairaudiently heard a
voice, which told her to place in her trunk a certain
note-book of her
containing notes on the Bohemian Tarot and the Kabala. It was
not a printed volume
but a collection of quotations from the above works in her
own hand. Surprised,
and not knowing the possible significance of the order, she
nevertheless complied.
Before reaching Italy she suddenly changed her plans, and
postponed the trip to
Italy and visited Madame Blavatsky in Belgium instead.
Upon arriving and
shortly after greeting her beloved friend, she was startled to
hear Madame say to her
that her Master had informed her that her guest was
bringing her a book
dealing with the Tarot and the Kabala, of which she was to
make use in the
writing of The Secret Doctrine.
This must end, but
does not by any means complete, the chronicle of "the
Blavatsky
phenomena." The list, long as it has become, is but a fragment of the
whole. Without the
narration of these phenomena an adequate impression of the
personality and the
legend back of them could not be given. Moreover they belong
in any study of
Theosophy, and their significance in relation to the principles
of the cult is perhaps
far other than casual or incidental. If her own display
of such powers was
made as a demonstration of what man is destined to become
capable of achieving
in his interior evolution, these things are to be regarded
as an integral part of
her message. They became, apparently in spite of herself,
a part of her program
and furnished a considerable impetus toward its
advancement. Theosophy
itself re-publishes the theory of man's inherent theurgic
capacity. It can
hardly be taken as an anomaly or as an irrelevant circumstance,
then, that its founder
should have been regarded as exemplifying the possession
of that capacity in
her own person..50
------CARDIFF THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN
WALES-------
CHAPTER IV
FROM SPIRITUALISM TO
THEOSOPHY
Nothing seems more
certain than that Madame Blavatsky had no definite idea of
what the finished
product was to be when she gave the initial impulse to the
movement. She knew the
general direction in which it would have to move and also
many objectives which
it would have to seek. In her mind there had been
assembled a body of
material of a unique sort. She had spent many years of her
novitiate in moving
from continent to continent1 in search of data having to do
with a widespread
tradition as to the existence of a hidden knowledge and secret
cultivation of man's
higher psychic and spiritual capabilities. Supposedly the
wielder of unusual
abilities in this line, she was driven by the very character
of her endowment to
seek for the deeper science which pertained to the evolution
of such gifts, and at
the same time a philosophy of life in general which would
explain their hidden
significance. To establish, first, the reality of such
phenomena, and then to
construct a system that would furnish the possibility of
understanding this
mystifying segment of experience, was unquestionably the main
drive of her mental
interests in early middle life. Already well equipped to be
the exponent of the
higher psychological and theurgic science, she aimed to
become its philosophic
expounder.
But the philosophy
Madame Blavatsky was to give forth could not be oriented with
the science of the
universe as then generally conceived. To make her message
intelligible she was
forced to reconstruct the whole picture of the cosmos. She
had to frame a
universe in which her doctrine would be seen to have relevance
and into whose total
order it would fall with perfect articulation. She felt
sure that she had in
her possession an array of vital facts, but she could not
at once discern the
total implication of those facts for the cosmos which
explained them, and
which in turn they tended to explain. We may feel certain
that her ideas grow
more systematic from stage to stage, whether indeed they
were the product of
her own unaided intellect, or whether she but transcribed
the knowledge and
wisdom of more learned living men, the Mahatmas, as the
Theosophic legend has
it.
Guided by the
character of the situation in which she found herself, and also,
it seems, by the
advice of her Master, she chose to ride into her new venture
upon the crest of the
Spiritualist waves. America was chosen to be the hatching
center of Theosophy because
it was at the time the heart and center of the
Spiritualist movement.
It was felt that Theosophy would elicit a quick response
from persons already
imbued with spiritistic ideas. It cannot be disputed that
Madame Blavatsky and
Col. Olcott worked with the Spiritualists for a brief
period and launched
the Society from within the ranks of the cult. As a matter
of fact it was the
work of this pair of Theosophists that gave Spiritualism a
fresh impetus in this
country after a period of waning interest about 1874. Col.
Olcott's letters in
the Daily Graphic about the Eddy phenomena, and his book,.51
People From the Other
World, did much to revive popular discussion, and his
colleague's show of
new manifestations was giving encouragement to
Spiritualists. But the
Russian noblewoman suddenly disappointed the expectations
thus engendered by
assigning a different interpretation and much lower value to
the phenomena. Before
this she and Col. Olcott not only lent moral support to a
leading Spiritualist
journal, The Spiritual Scientist, of Boston, edited by Mr.
E. Gerry Brown, but
contributed its leading editorials and even advanced it
funds.
The motive behind
their participation in a movement which they so soon abandoned
has been misconstrued.
Spiritualists, and the
public generally, assumed that of course their activity
indicated that they
subscribed to the usual tenets of the sect; that they
accepted the phenomena
for what they purported to be, i.e., actual
communications in all
cases from the spirits of former human beings. However
true this estimate may
have been as appertaining to Col. Olcott-and even to him
it had a fast
diminishing applicability after his meeting with H.P.B.-it was
certainly not true of her.
Madame Blavatsky shortly became the mark of
Spiritualistic attack
for the falsification of her original attitude toward the
movement and her
presumed betrayal of the cause.
Her ill-timed attempt
to launch her Sociιtι Spirite at Cairo in 1871
foreshadowed her true
spirit and motive in this activity. It is evident to the
student of her life
that she felt a contempt for the banal type of sιance
phenomena. She so
expressed herself in writing from Cairo at the time. She felt
that while these
things were real and largely genuine, they were insignificant
in the view that took
in a larger field of psychic power. But the higher
phenomena of that more
important science were known to few, whereas she was
constantly
encountering interest in the other type. If she was to introduce a
nobler psychism to the
world, she seemed driven to resort to the method of
picking up people who
were absorbed in the lower modes of the spiritual science
and leading them on
into the higher. She would gather a nucleus of the best
Spiritualists and go
forward with them to the higher Spiritualism. To win their
confidence in herself,
it was necessary for her to start at their level, to make
a gesture of
friendliness toward their work and a show of interest in it.
Her own words may
bring light to the situation:
"As it is I have
only done my duty; first, toward Spiritualism, that I have
defended as well as I
could from the attacks of imposture under the too
transparent mask of
science; then towards two helpless slandered mediums [the
Holmeses]. . . . But I
am obliged to confess that I really do not believe in
having done any
good-to Spiritualism itself. . . . It is with a profound sadness
in my heart that I
acknowledge this fact, for I begin to think there is no help
for it. For over
fifteen years have I fought my battle for the blessed truth;
have traveled and
preached it-though I never was born for a lecturer-from the
snow-covered tops of
the Caucasian Mountains, as well as from the sandy valleys
of the Nile. I have
proved the truth of it practically and by persuasion. For
the sake of
Spiritualism2 I have left my home, an easy life amongst a civilized
society, and have
become a wanderer upon the face of the earth. I had already
seen my hopes realized,
beyond my most sanguine expectations, when my unlucky
star brought me to
America. Knowing this country to be the cradle of modern
Spiritualism, I came
over here from France with feelings not unlike those of a
Mohammedan approaching
the birthplace of his Prophet."3.52
After her death Col.
Olcott found among her papers a memorandum in her hand
entitled
"Important Note." In it she wrote:
"Yes, I am sorry
to say that I had to identify myself, during that shameful
exposure of the Holmes
mediums, with the Spiritualists. I had to save the
situation, for I was
sent from Paris to America on purpose to prove the
phenomena and their
reality, and show the fallacy of the spiritualistic theory
of spirits. But how
could I do it best? I did not want people at large to know
that I could produce
the same thing at will. I had received orders to the
contrary, and yet I
had to keep alive the reality, the genuineness and the
possibility of such
phenomena in the hearts of those who from Materialists had
turned Spiritualists,
but now, owing to the exposure of several mediums, fell
back again and
returned to their scepticism. . . . Did I do wrong? The world is
not prepared yet to
understand the philosophy of Occult Science; let them first
assure themselves that
there are beings in an invisible world, whether 'spirits'
of the dead or
elementals; and that there are hidden powers in man which are
capable of making a
god of him on earth."
"When I am dead
and gone people will, perhaps, appreciate my disinterested
motives. I have
pledged my word to help people on to Truth while living and I
will keep my word. Let
them abuse and revile me; let some call me a medium and a
Spiritualist, others
an impostor. The day will come when posterity will learn to
know me better."4
As long as it was a
question of the actuality of the phenomena, she was alert in
defence of
Spiritualism. In the Daily Graphic of November. 13, 1874, she printed
one of her very first
newspaper contributions in America, replying to an attack
of a Dr. George M.
Beard, an electropathic physician of New York, on the
validity of the Eddy
phenomena. She went so far in this article as to wager five
hundred dollars that
he could not make good his boast that he could imitate the
form-apparitions
"with three dollars' worth of drapery." She refers to herself
as a Spiritualist. In
her first letter to Co. Olcott after leaving Vermont she
wrote as follows:
"I speak to you
as a true friend to yourself and as a Spiritualist anxious to
save Spiritualism from
a danger."5
A little later she
even mentioned to her friend that the outburst of mediumistic
phenomena had been
caused by the Brotherhood of Adepts as an evolutionary
agency. She could, of
course, not believe the whole trend maleficent if it was
in the slightest
degree engineered by her trusted Confederates. She added later,
however, that the
Master soon realized the impracticability of using the
Spiritualistic
movement as a channel for the dissemination of the deeper occult
science and instructed
her to cease her advocacy of it.
Along with her reply
and challenge to Beard in the Graphic there was printed an
outline of her
biography from notes furnished by herself. In it she says:
"In 1858 I
returned to Paris and made the acquaintance of Daniel Home, the
Spiritualist. . . .
Home converted me to Spiritualism. . . . After this I went
to Russia. I converted
my father to Spiritualism."
Elsewhere she speaks
of Spiritualism as "our belief" and "our cause." In an
article in the
Spiritual Scientist of March eighth she uses the phrases "the
divine truth of our
faith (Spiritualism) and the teachings of our invisible
guardians (the spirits
of the circles).".53
Madame Blavatsky's
apparently double-faced attitude toward Spiritualism is
reflected in the
posture of most Theosophists toward the same subject today.
When Spiritualism, as
a demonstration of the possibility and actuality of
spiritistic phenomena,
is attacked by materialists or unbelievers, they at once
bristle in its
defense; when it is a question of the reliability and value of
the messages, or the
dignity and wholesomeness of the sιance procedure, they
respond negatively.
It is the opinion of
some Theosophic leaders, like Sinnett and Olcott, that
Madame Blavatsky made
a mistake in affiliating herself actively with
Spiritualism, inasmuch
as the early group of Spiritualistic members of her
Theosophic Society, as
soon as they were apprised of her true attitude, fell
away, and the
incipient movement was beset with much ill-feeling.
The controversy
between the two schools is important, since Madame Blavatsky's
dissent from
Spiritualistic theory gave rise to her first attempts to formulate
Theosophy. To justify
her defection from the movement she was led to enunciate
at least some of the
major postulates and principles of her higher science.
Theosophy was born in
this labor. It is necessary, therefore, to go into the
issues involved in the
perennial controversy.
To Spiritualists the
phenomena which purported to be communications from the
still-living spirits
of former human beings with those on the earth plane, were
assumed to be
genuinely what they seemed. As such they were believed to be far
the most significant
data in man's religious life, as furnishing a practically
irrefutable demonstration
of the truth of the soul's immortality. They were
regarded as the
central fact in any attempt to formulate an adequate religious
philosophy.
Spiritualists therefore elevated this assumption to the place of
supreme importance and
made everything else secondary.
Not so Madame
Blavatsky. To her the Spiritistic phenomena were but a meagre part
of a larger whole.
Furthermore-and this was her chief point of divergence,--she
vigorously protested
their being what Spiritualists asserted them to be. They
were not at all
genuine messages from genuine spirits of earth people-or were
not so in the vast
majority of cases. And besides, they were not any more
"divine" or
"spiritual" than ordinary human utterances, and were even in large
part impish and elfin,
when not downright demoniacal. They were mostly, she
said, the mere
"shells" or wraiths of the dead, animated not by their former
souls but by sprightly
roving nature-spirits or elementals, if nothing worse,--
such, for instance, as
the lowest and most besotted type of human spirit that
was held close to
earth by fiendish sensuality or hate. There were plenty of
these, she affirmed,
in the lower astral plane watching for opportunities to
vampirize negative
human beings. The souls of average well-meaning or of saintly
people are not within
human reach in the sιance. They have gone on into realms
of higher purity, more
etherealized being, and can not easily descend into the
heavy atmosphere of
the near-earth plane to give messages about that investment
or that journey
westward or that health condition that needs attention. At best
it is only on rare and
exceptional occasions that the real intelligence of a
disembodied mortal
comes "through." There are many types of living entities in
various realms of
nature, other than human souls. Certain of these rove the
astral plane and take
pleasure in playing upon gullible people who sit gravely
in the dark. Most of
the occurrences at circles are so much astral plane
rubbish; and, besides,
sιance-mongering is dangerous to all concerned and
eventually ruinous to
the medium. If the mediums, she bantered, were really in
the hands of
benevolent "guides" and "controls," why do not the latter
shield
their protιgιs from
the wrecked health and insanity so frequent among them? She.54
affirmed that she had
never seen a medium who had not developed scrofula or a
phthisical affection.6
Inevitably the
Spiritualists were stunned by their one-time champion's sudden
and amazed reversal of
her position. A campaign of abuse and condemnation began
in their ranks, echoes
of which are still heard at times.
What Madame Blavatsky
aimed to do was to teach that the phenomena of true
Spiritualism bore not
the faintest resemblance to those of table-tipping. True
Spiritualism should
envisage the phenomena of the divine spirit of man in their
higher manifestations,
the cultivation of which by the ancients and the East has
given man his most
sacred science and most vital knowledge. She wrote in a
letter to her sister
about 1875 that one of the purposes of her new Society was
"to show certain
fallacies of the Spiritualist. If we are anything we are
Spiritualists, only
not in the modern American fashion, but in that of the
ancient Alexandria
with its Theodidaktoi, Hypatias and Porphyries."7 In one of
the letters of Mahatma
K.H. to A. P. Sinnett the Master writes:
"It was H.P.B.
who, acting under the orders of Atrya (one whom you do not know)
was the first to
explain in the 'Spiritualist' the difference between psyche and
nous, nefesh and
ruach-Soul and Spirit. She had to bring the whole arsenal of
proofs with her
quotations from Paul to Plato, from Plutarch and James before
the Spiritualists
admitted that the Theosophists were right."8
In 1879 she wrote in
the magazine which she had just founded in India:
"We can never
know how much of the mediumistic phenomena we must attribute to
the disembodied until
it is settled how much can be done by the embodied human
soul, and to blind but
active powers at work within those regions which are yet
unexplored by
science."9
In other words
Spiritualism should be a culture of the spirits of the living,
not a commerce with
the souls of the dead. To live the life of the immortal
spirit while here in
the body is true Spiritualism. We can readily see that with
such a purpose in mind
she would not be long in discerning that the
Spiritualistic
enterprise could not be used to promulgate the type of spiritual
philosophy that she
had learned in the East.
When this conclusion
had fully ripened in her mind, she began the undisguised
formulation of her own
independent teaching. Her new philosophy was in effect
tantamount to an
attack on Spiritualism, and that from a quarter from which
Spiritualism was not
prepared to repulse an assault. It came not from the old
arch-enemy,
materialistic scepticism, but from a source which admitted the
authenticity of the
phenomena.
Her first aim was to
set forth the misconceptions under which the Spiritualists
labored. She says:
"We believe that
few of those physical phenomena which are genuine are caused by
disembodied human
spirits."10
Again she
"ventures the prediction that unless Spiritualists set about the study
of ancient philosophy
so as to learn to discriminate between spirits and to
guard themselves
against the baser sort, twenty-five years will not elapse
before they will have
to fly to the Romish communion to escape these 'guides'
and 'controls' that
they have fondled so long. The signs of this catastrophe
already exhibit
themselves."11.55
Again she declares
that
"it is not
mediums, real, true and genuine mediums, that we would ever blame,
but their patrons, the
Spiritualists."12
In Isis Unveiled she
rebukes Spiritualists for claiming that the Bible is full
of phenomena just like
those of modern mediums. She asserts that there were
Spiritualistic
phenomena in the Bible, but not mediumistic,--a distinction of
great import to her.
She declares that the ancients could tell the difference
between mediums who
harbored good spirits and those haunted by evil ones, and
branded the latter
type unclean, while reverencing the former. She positively
asserts that
"pure spirits will not and cannot show themselves objectively;
those that do are not
pure spirits, but elementary and impure. Woe to the medium
that falls a prey to
such!"13
Col. Olcott quotes her
as writing:
"Spiritualism in
the hands of an Adept becomes Magic, for he is learned in the
art of blending
together the laws of the universe without breaking any of them.
. . . In the hands of
an inexperienced medium Spiritualism becomes unconscious
sorcery, for . . . he
opens, unknown to himself, a door of communication between
the two worlds through
which emerges the blind forces of nature lurking in the
Astral Light, as well
as good and bad spirits."14
In The Key to
Theosophy15 written near the end of her life, she states what may
be assumed to be the
official Theosophic attitude on the subject:
"We assert that
the spirits of the dead cannot return to earth-save in rare and
exceptional cases-nor
do they communicate with men except by entirely subjective
means. That which does
appear objectively is often the phantom of the ex-physical
man. But in psychic
and, so to say, 'spiritual' Spiritualism we do
believe most
decidedly."16
One of her most
vigorous expressions upon this issue occurs toward the end of
Isis.
According to Olcott
the Hon. A. Aksakoff, eminent Russian Professor, states that
"Prince A.
Dolgorouki, the great authority on mesmerism, has written me that he
has ascertained that
spirits which play the most prominent part at sιances are
elementaries,--gnomes,
etc. His clairvoyants have seen them and describe them
thus."
"The totally
insufficient theory of the constant agency of disembodied human
spirits in the
production of Spiritualistic phenomena has been the bane of the
Cause. A thousand
mortifying rebuffs have failed to open their reason or
intuition to the
truth. Ignoring the teachings of the past, they have discovered
no substitute. We
offer them philosophical deduction instead of unverifiable
hypothesis, scientific
analysis and demonstration instead of indiscriminating
faith. Occult
philosophy gives them the means of meeting the reasonable
requirements of
science, and frees them from the humiliating necessity to accept
the oracular teachings
of 'intelligences' which, as a rule, have less
intelligence than a
child at school. So based and so strengthened, modern
phenomena would be in
a position to command the attention and enforce the
respect of those who
carry with them public opinion. Without invoking such help
Spiritualism must
continue to vegetate, equally repulsed-not without cause-both.56
by science and
theologians. In its modern aspect it is neither science, a
religion nor a
philosophy."17
In 1876, the writing
of Isis was committing her to a stand which made further
compromise with
Spiritualism impossible. Her statement reveals what she would
ostensibly have
labored to do for that movement had it shown itself more plastic
in her hands. She would
have striven to buttress the phenomena with a more
historical
interpretation and a more respectable rationale.
In this context,
however, the following passage from Isis is a bit difficult to
understand. It seems
to make a gesture of conciliation toward the Spiritualistic
hypothesis after all.
She says:
"We are far from
believing that all the spirits that communicate at circles are
of the classes called
'Elemental' and 'Elementary.' Many-especially among those
who control the medium
subjectively to speak, write and otherwise act in various
ways-are human
disembodied spirits. Whether the majority of such spirits are
good or bad, largely
depends on the private morality of the medium, much on the
circle present, and a
good deal on the intensity and object of their purpose. .
. . But in any case,
human spirits can never materialize themselves in propria
persona."18
If this seems a
recession from her consistent position elsewhere assumed, it
must be remembered
that she never, before or after, denied the possibility of
the occasional descent
of genuinely human spirits "in rare and exceptional
cases."
Before 1875 she wrote
to her sister that there was a law that sporadically,
though periodically,
the souls of the dead invade the realms of the living in an
epidemic, and the
intensity of the epidemic depends on the welcome they receive.
She called it
"the law of forced post-mortem assimilation." She elsewhere
clarified this idea by
the statement that our spirits here and now, being of
kindred nature with
the totality of spirit energy about us, unconsciously draw
certain vibrations or
currents from the life of the supermundane entities,
whether we know it or
not. Through this wireless circuit we sometimes drink in
emanations,
radiations, thought effluvia, so to speak, from the disembodied
lives. The veil, she
affirmed, between the two worlds is so thin that
unsuspected messages
are constantly passing across the divide, which is not
spatial but only a
discrepancy in receiving sets. And both she and the Master
K.H. stated that
during normal sleep we are en rapport with our loved ones as
much as our hearts
could desire. The reason we do not ordinarily know it is that
the rate and wave
length of that celestial communication can not be registered
on the clumsy apparatus
of our brains. It takes place through our astral or
spiritual brains and
can not arouse the coarser physical brain to synchronous
vibration.
Her critique of the
Spiritualistic thesis in general would be that something
like ninety per cent
of all ordinary "spirit" messages contain nothing to which
the quality of
spirituality, as we understand that term in its best
significance, can in
any measure be ascribed.
In rebuttal,
Spiritualists point to many previsions, admonitory dreams, verified
prophecies and other
messages of great beauty and lofty spirituality, some of
them leading to
genuine reform of character, and they advance the claim, that
genuine transference
of intelligence from the spirit realms to earth is vastly
more general than that
fraction of experience which could be subsumed under her
"rare and
exceptional cases of "spirituality.".57
In one of the last
works issued by Mr. Sinnett19 he deplores the unfortunate
clash that has come
between the two cults, points out that it is foolish and
unfounded, and reminds
both parties of the broad bases of agreement which are
found in the two
systems. He feels that there can be no insurmountable points of
antagonism, inasmuch
as Spiritualism, too, he asserts, is under the watch and
ward of a member of
the Great White Brotherhood, the Master known as Hilarion;
and that it would be
illogical to assume that members of that same spiritual
Fraternity could
foster movements among mankind that work at cross purposes with
each other. But Mr.
Sinnett does not give any authority for his statement as to
Hilarion's regency
over Spiritualism, and many Theosophists are inclined to
doubt it. He feels
that there is every good reason why Spiritualism should go
forward with Theosophy
in such a unity of purpose as would render their combined
influence the most
potent force in the world today against the menace of
materialism. Whenever
Spiritualists display an interest in the formulation of
some scheme of life or
cosmology in which their phenomena may find a meaningful
allocation, they can
hardly go in any other direction than straight into
Theosophy. This is
shown by their Articles of Faith, in which the idea of Karma,
the divine nature of
man, his spiritual constitution and other conceptions
equally theosophic
have found a place.
Perhaps Theosophists
and Spiritualists alike may discern the bases of harmony
between their opposing
faiths in a singular passage from The Mahatma Letters, an
utterance of the
Master K.H.
"It is this
[sweet blissful dream of devachanic Maya] during such a condition of
complete Maya that the
Souls or actual Egos of pure loving sensitivities,
laboring under the
same illusion, think their loved ones come down to them on
earth, while it is
their own Spirits that are raised towards those in the
Devachan. Many of the
subjective spiritual communications-most of them when the
sensitives are
pure-minded-are real; but it is most difficult for the
uninitiated medium to
fix in his mind the true and correct pictures of what he
sees and hears. Some
of the phenomena called psychography (though more rarely)
are also real. The
spirit of the sensitive getting idylized, so to say, by the
aura of the Spirit in
the Devachan, becomes for a few minutes that departed
personality, and
writes in the handwriting of the latter, in his language and in
his thoughts, as they
were during his life-time. The two spirits become blended
in one; and, the
preponderance of one over the other during such phenomena
determines the preponderance
of personality in the characteristics exhibited in
such writings and
'trance-speaking.' What you call 'rapport' is in plain fact an
identity of molecular
vibration between the astral part of the incarnate medium
and the astral part of
the discarnate personality . . . there is rapport between
medium and 'control'
when their astral molecules move in accord. And the
question whether the
communication shall reflect more of the one personal
idiosyncrasy or the
other, is determined by the relative intensity of the two
sets of vibrations in
the compound wave of Akasha. The less identical the
vibratory impulses the
more mediumistic and less spiritual will be the message.
So then measure your
medium's moral state by that of the alleged 'controlling'
Intelligence, and your
tests of genuineness leave nothing to be desired."20
This plank in the
Theosophic platform not having been laid down in 1875 to
bridge the chasm
between the two movements, Madame Blavatsky drew away from her
Spiritualistic
associates, and it became but a matter of time until some
propitious
circumstance should give to her divergent tendency a body and a name.
The break with
Spiritualism and the launching of the Theosophical Society were
practically contemporary.
The actual formation of the new organization does not.58
on the surface appear
to have been a deliberate act of Madame Blavatsky. While
it would never have
been organized without her presence and her influence, still
she was not the prime
mover in the steps which brought it into being. She seems
merely to have gone
along while others led. However her Society grew out of the
stimulus that had gone
forth from her.
It was Col. Henry
Steele Olcott who assumed the rτle of outward leader in the
young movement. He
gave over (eventually) a lucrative profession as a
corporation lawyer, an
agricultural expert, and an official of the government,
to expend all his
energies in this enterprise. He had acquired the title of
colonel during the
Civil War in the Union army's manoeuvres in North Carolina.
At the close of the
war he had been chosen by the government to conduct some
investigations into
conditions relative to army contracts in the Quartermaster's
Department and had
discharged his duties with great efficiency, receiving the
approbation of higher
officials. He was regarded as an authority on agriculture
and lectured before
representative bodies on that subject. He had established a
successful practice as
a corporation counsel, numbering the Metropolitan Life
Insurance Company
among his clients. In addition to these activities he had done
much reportorial work
for the press, notably in connection with his
Spiritualistic
researches. His authorship of several works on the phenomena has
already been
mentioned. His career had achieved for him a record of high
intelligence, great
ability, and a character of probity and integrity.
It is the belief of
Theosophists that he was expressly chosen by the Mahatmas to
share with Madame
Blavatsky the honor and the labor of spreading her message in
the world. A passage
from the Mahatma Letters puts this in clear light. The
Master K.H. there
says:
"So, casting
about, we found in America the man to stand as leader-a man of
great moral courage,
unselfish, and having other good qualities. He was far from
being the best, but-he
was the best one available. . . . We sent her to America,
brought them
together-and the trial began. From the first both she and he were
given to understand
that the issue lay entirely with themselves."
In spite of
difficulties, caused by the clash of temperaments and policies, this
odd,
"divinely-constituted" partnership held firmly together until the
end.
Their relationship was
one of a loyal camaraderie, both being actuated by an
uncommon devotion to
the same cause.
As early as May, 1875,
the Colonel had suggested the formation of a "Miracle
Club," to
continue spiritistic investigation. His proposal was made in the
interest of psychic
research. It was not taken up. But Madame Blavatsky's
sprightly evening chatter
and her reported magical feats continued to draw
groups of intelligent
people to her rooms. Among those thus attracted was Mr.
George H. Felt, who
had made some careful studies in phases of Egyptology. He
was asked to lecture
on these subjects and on the 7th of September, 1875, a
score of people had
gathered in H.P.B.'s parlors to hear his address on "The
Lost Canon of
Proportion of the Egyptians." Dr. Seth Pancoast, a most erudite
Kabbalist was present,
and after the lecture he led the discussion to the
subject of the occult
powers of the ancient magicians. Mr. Felt said he had
proven those powers
and had with them evoked elemental creatures and "hundreds
of shadowy
forms." As the tense debate proceeded, acting on an impulse, Col.
Olcott wrote on a
scrap of paper, which he passed over to Madame Blavatsky
through the hands of
Mr. W. Q. Judge, the following: "Would it not be a good
thing to form a
Society for this kind of study?" She read it and indicated
assent..59
Col. Olcott arose and
"after briefly sketching the present condition of the
Spiritualistic
movement; the attitude of its antagonists, the Materialists; the
irrepressible conflict
between science and the religious sectaries; the
philosophical
character of the ancient theosophies and their sufficiency to
reconcile all existing
antagonisms; . . . he proposed to form a nucleus around
which might gather all
the enlightened and brave souls who are willing to work
together for the
collection and diffusion of knowledge. His plan was to organize
a Society of
Occultists and begin at once to collect a library; and to diffuse
information concerning
those secret laws of Nature which were so familiar to the
Chaldeans and
Egyptians, but are totally unknown to our modern world of
science."21
It was a plain
proposal to organize for occult research, for the extension of
human knowledge of the
esoteric sciences, and for a study of the psychic
possibilities in man's
nature. No religious or ethical or even philosophical
interest can be
detected in the first aims. The Brotherhood plank was a later
development, and the
philosophy was an outgrowth of the necessity of
rationalizing the
scientific data brought to light. The very nature of the
movement committed it,
of course, to an anti-materialistic view. Col. Olcott was
still predominantly
concerned to get demonstrative psychic displays. He was made
Chairman, and Mr.
Judge, Secretary.
It is interesting to
note the personnel of this first gathering of Theosophists.
"The company
included several persons of great learning and some of wide
personal influence.
The Managing Editors of two religious papers; the co-editors
of two literary
magazines; an Oxford LL.D.; a venerable Jewish scholar and
traveler of repute; an
editorial writer of one of the New York morning dailies;
the President of the
New York Society of Spiritualists; Mr. C. C. Massey an
English barrister at
law; Mrs. Emma Hardinge Britten and Dr. Britten; two New
York lawyers besides
Col. Olcott; a partner in a Philadelphia publishing house;
a well-known
physician; and . . . Madame Blavatsky herself."22
At a late hour the
meeting adjourned until the following evening, when
organization could be
more fully effected. Those who were present at the Sept.
8th meeting, and who
thus became the actual formers (Col. Olcott insists on the
word instead of
Founders, reserving that title to Madame Blavatsky and himself)
of the Theosophical
Society, were: Col. Olcott, H. P. Blavatsky, Chas. Sotheran,
Dr. Chas. E. Simmons,
H. D. Monachesi, C. C. Massey, of London, W. L. Alden, G.
H. Felt, D. E. deLara,
Dr. W. Britten, Mrs. E. H. Britten, Henry J. Newton, John
Storer Cobb, J.
Hyslop. W. Q. Judge, H. M. Stevens. A By-Law Committee was
named, other routine
business attended to, a general discussion held and
adjournment taken to
Sept. 13th. Mr. Felt gave another lecture on Sept. 18th,
after which several
additional members were nominated, the name, "The
Theosophical
Society," proposed, and a committee on rooms chosen. Several
October meetings were
held in furtherance of the Society; and on the 17th of
November, 1875, the
movement reached the final stage of constitutional
organization. Its
President was Col. Henry Olcott; Vice-Presidents, Dr. Seth
Pancoast and G. H.
Felt; Corresponding Secretary, Madame H. P. Blavatsky;
Recording Secretary,
John S. Cobb; Treasurer, Henry J. Newton; Librarian, Chas.
Sotheran; Councillors,
Rev. H. Wiggin, R. P. Westbrook, LL. D., Mrs. E. H.
Britten, C. E.
Simmons, and Herbert D. Monachesi; Counsel to the Society, W. Q.
Judge. Mr. John W.
Lovell, the New York publisher, has the distinction of having
paid the first five
dollars (initiation fee) into the treasury, and is at the
present writing the
only surviving member of the founding group. At the November
17th meeting the
President delivered his inaugural address. It was an
amplification of his
remarks made at the meeting of Sept. 7th, with some.60
prognostications of
what the work of the Society was destined to mean in the
changing conceptions
of modern thought.
The infant Society did
not at once proceed to grow and expand. The chief reason
for this was that Mr.
Felt, whose theories had been the immediate object of
strongest interest,
and who was expected to be the leader and teacher in their
quest of the secrets
of ancient magic, for some unaccountable reason failed them
utterly. His promised
lectures were never scheduled, his demonstrations of
spirit-evocation never
shown. This disappointment weighed heavily upon some of
the members. Mrs.
Britten, Mr. Newton, and the other Spiritualists in the group,
finding that Madame
Blavatsky was not disposed to investigate mediums in the
conventional fashion,
or in any way to make the Society an adjunct of the
Spiritualistic
movement, suffered another disappointment and became inactive or
openly withdrew. Mr.
Judge and Col. Olcott were busy with their professional
labors, and Madame
Blavatsky had plunged into the writing of Isis Unveiled. The
Society fell into the
state of "innocuous desuetude," and was domiciled solely
in the hearts of three
persons, Olcott, Judge, and Madame Blavatsky. However
dead it might be to
all outward appearance, it still lived in the deep
convictions of this
trio. True, an occasional new recruit was admitted, two
names in particular
being worthy of remark. On April 5th, 1878, Col. Olcott
received the signed
application for membership from a young inventor, one Thomas
Alva Edison, and near
the same time General Abner W. Doubleday, veteran Major-General
in the Union Army,
united with the Society. Edison had been attracted by
the objects of the
Society, largely because of certain experiences he had had in
connection with the
genesis of some of his ideas for inventions. They had seemed
to come to him from an
inner intelligence independent of his voluntary thought
control. Also he had
experimented to determine the possibility of moving
physical objects by
exertion of the will. He was doubtless in close sympathy
with the purposes of
the Society, but the main currents of his mechanical
interests drew him
away from active coφperation with it. As for Major-General
Doubleday, Theosophy
gave articulate voice to theories as to life, death, and
human destiny which he
had long cherished without a formal label. He stated that
it was the Theosophic
idea of Karma which had maintained his courage throughout
the ordeals of the
Civil War and he testified that his understanding of this
doctrine nerved him to
pass with entire fearlessness through those crises in
which he was exposed
to fire.23 When Theosophy was brought to his notice he cast
in his lot with the
movement and was a devoted student and worker while he
lived. When the two
Founders left America at the end of 1878 for India, Col.
Olcott constituted
General Doubleday the President of the American body.24
Concerning Mr. W. Q.
Judge, there is only to be said that he was a young
barrister at the time,
practicing in New York and making his home in Brooklyn,
where until about 1928
a brother, John Judge, survived him. He was a man of
upright character and
had always manifested a quick interest in such matters as
Theosophy brought to
his attention. It is reported among Theosophists that
Madame Blavatsky
immediately saw in him a pupil upon whose entire sympathy with
her own deeper aims
and understanding of her esoteric situation she could rely
implicitly. He is
believed always to have stood closer to her in a spiritual
sense than Col.
Olcott; in fact it is hinted that there was a secret
understanding between
them as to the inner motivations behind the Society. Later
developments in the
history of the movement seem to give weight to this theory.
Mr. Judge and General
Doubleday were the captains of the frail Theosophic craft
in America during
something like four years, from 1878 to 1882, following the
sailing of the two
Founders for India. If little activity was displayed by the
Society during this
period, it was not in any measure the fault of those left in
charge. They were not
lacking in zeal for the cause. It is to be attributed.61
chiefly to a state of
suspended animation in which it was left by the departure
of the official heads.
This condition itself was brought about by the long
protracted delay in
carrying out a measure which in 1878 Col. Olcott had
designed to adopt for
the future expansion of the Society. Madame Blavatsky's
work in Isis had
disclosed the fact that there was an almost complete sympathy
of aims in certain
respects between the new Society and the Masonic Fraternity;
that the latter had
been the recipient and custodian down the ages of much of
the ancient esoteric
tradition which it was the purpose of Theosophy to revive.
The idea of converting
the Theosophical Society into a Masonic body with ritual
and degrees had been
under contemplation for some time, and overtures toward
that end had been made
to persons in the Masonic order. In fact the plan had
been so favorably
regarded that on his departure Col. Olcott left Mr. Judge and
General Doubleday
under instructions to hold all other activities in abeyance
until he should
prepare a form of ritual that would properly express the
Society's spiritual
motif and aims. It happened, however, that on reaching India
both his and his
colleague's time was so occupied with other work and other
interests that for
three years they never could give attention to the matter of
the ritual. By that
time they found the Society beginning to grow so rapidly
without the support
they had intended for it in the union with an old and
respected secret
order, that the project was abandoned. But it was this
tentative plan that
was responsible for the apparent lifelessness of the
American organization
during those years. A number of times the two American
leaders telegraphed
Olcott in India to hasten the ritual and hinted that its
non-appearance forced
them to keep the Society here embalmed in an aggravated
condition of status
quo. When the scheme was definitely abandoned,
straightforward
Theosophic propaganda was initiated and a period of healthy
expansion began.
It is of interest in
this connection to note that on March 8, 1876, on Madame
Blavatsky's own
motion, it was "resolved, that the Society adopt one or more
signs of recognition,
to be used among the Fellows of the Society or for
admissions to the
meetings." This might indicate her steady allegiance to the
principle of
esotericism. The practice fell into disuse after a time. Yet it was
this idea of secrecy
always lurking in the background of her mind that
eventually led to the
formation of a graded hierarchy in the Theosophical
Society when the
Esoteric School was formally organized.
Another development
that Col. Olcott says "I should prefer to omit altogether if
I could" from the
early history of the Society was the affiliation of the
organization with a
movement then being inaugurated in India toward the
resuscitation of pure
Vedic religion. This proceeded further than the
contemplated union
with Masonry, and it led to the necessity of a more succinct
pronouncement of their
creed by Col. Olcott and Madame Blavatsky.
Naturally Madame
Blavatsky's accounts of the existence of the great secret
Brotherhood of Adepts
in North India and her glorification of "Aryavarta" as the
home of the purest
occult knowledge, had served to engender a sort of nostalgia
in the hearts of the
two Founders for "Mother India." It seemed quite plausible
that, once the aims of
the Theosophical Society were broadcast in Hindustan, its
friendly attitude
toward the ancient religions of that country would act as an
open sesame to a quick
response on the part of thousands of native Hindus. It
was not illogical to
believe that the young Theosophical Society would advance
shortly to a position
of great influence among the Orientals, whose psychology,
ideals, and religious
conceptions it had undertaken to exalt, particularly in
the eyes of the
Western nations. India thus came to be looked upon as the land
of promise, and the
"return home," as Madame Blavatsky termed it, became more
and more a consummation
devoutly to be wished. With Isis completed and published.62
the call to India rang
ever louder, and finally in November, 1878, came the
Master's orders to
make ready. It was not until the 18th of December that the
ship bearing the two
pilgrims passed out of the Narrows.
There had seemed to be
no way opened for them to make an effective start in
India, no appropriate
channel of introduction to their work there, until 1878.
Then Col. Olcott
chanced to learn of a movement recently launched in India,
whose aims and ideals,
he was given to believe, were identical with those of his
own Society. It was
the Arya Samaj, founded by one Swami Dhyanand, who was
reputed to be a member
of the same occult Brotherhood as that to which their own
Masters, K.H. and M.,
belonged. This latter allegation was enough to win the
immediate interest of
the two devotees in its mission, and through
intermediaries Col.
Olcott was put in touch with the Swami, to whom he made
overtures to join
forces. The Arya Samaj was represented to the Colonel as
world-wide in its
eclecticism, devoted to a revival of the ancient purity of
Vedantism and pledged
to a conception of God as an eternal impersonal principle
which, under whatever
name, all people alike worshipped. An official linking of
the two bodies was
formally made in May, 1878, and the title of the Theosophical
Society was amended to
"The Theosophical Society of the Arya Samaj." But before
long the Colonel
received a translation of the rules and doctrines of the Arya
Samaj, which gave him
a great shock. Swami Dhyanand's views had either radically
changed or had
originally been misrepresented. His cult was found to be
drastically
sectarian-merely a new sect of Hinduism-and quite narrow in certain
lines. Even then the
Colonel endeavored to bridge the gap, drawing up a new
definition of the aims
of his Society in such an open fashion that the way was
left clear for any
Theosophists to associate with the Samaj if they should so
desire. It was not
until several years after the arrival in India that final
disruption of all
connection between the two Societies was made, the Founders
having received what
Col. Olcott calls "much evil treatment" from the learned
Swami.
When the first
discovery of the real character of the Arya Samaj was made in
1878, it was deemed
necessary to issue a circular defining the Theosophical
Society in more
explicit terms than had yet been done. Olcott does not quote
from this circular of
his own, but gives the language of the circular issued by
the British
Theosophical Society, then just organized, as embodying the
essentials of his own
statement. This enables us to discern how far the
originally vague
Theosophical ideals had come on their way to explicit
enunciation.
1. The British
Theosophical Society is founded for the purpose of discovering
the nature and powers
of the human soul and spirit by investigation and
experiment.
2. The object of the
Society is to increase the amount of human health,
goodness, knowledge, wisdom,
and happiness.
3. The Fellows pledge
themselves to endeavor, to the best of their powers, to
live a life of
temperance, purity, and brotherly love. They believe in a Great
First Intelligent
Cause, and in the Divine Sonship of the spirit of man, and
hence in the
immortality of that spirit, and in the universal brotherhood of the
human race.
4. The Society is in
connection and sympathy with the Arya Samaj of Aryavarta,
one object of which
Society is to elevate, by a true spiritual education,
mankind out of
degenerate, idolatrous and impure forms of worship wherever
prevalent.25.63
In his own circular,
Olcott, with the concurrence of H.P.B., made the first
official statement of
the threefold hierarchical constitution of the
Theosophical Society.
This grouping naturally arose out of the basic facts in
the situation itself.
There were, first, at the summit of the movement, the
Brothers or Adepts;
then there were persons, like H.P.B., Olcott himself and
Judge, with perhaps a
few others, who were classified in the category of
"chelas" or
accepted pupils of the Masters; then there were just plain members
of the Society, having
no personal link as yet with the great Teachers. A
knowledge of this
graduation is essential to an understanding of much in the
later history of the
Society.
In the same circular
the President said:
"The objects of
the Society are various. It influences its Fellows to acquire an
intimate knowledge of
natural law, especially its occult manifestations."
Then follow some
sentences penned by Madame Blavatsky:
"As the highest
development, physically and spiritually, on earth of the
creative cause, man
should aim to solve the mystery of his being. He is the
procreator of his
species, physically, and having inherited the nature of the
unknown but palpable
cause of his own creation, must possess in his inner
psychical self this
creative power in lesser degree. He should, therefore, study
to develop his latent
powers, and inform himself respecting the laws of
magnetism, electricity
and all other forms of force, whether of the seen or
unseen
universes."
The President
proceeds:
"The Society
teaches and expects its Fellows to personally exemplify the highest
morality and religious
aspirations; to oppose the materialism of science and
every form of dogmatic
theology . . .; to make known, among Western nations, the
long-suppressed facts
about Oriental religious philosophies, their ethics,
chronology,
esotericism, symbolism . . . ; to disseminate a knowledge of the
sublime teachings of
the pure esoteric system of the archaic period which are
mirrored in the oldest
Vedas and in the philosophy of Gautauma Buddha,
Zoroaster, and
Confucius; finally and chiefly, to aid in the institution of a
Brotherhood of
Humanity, wherein all good and pure men of every race shall
recognize each other
as the equal effects (upon this planet) of one Uncreate,
Universal, Infinite
and Everlasting Cause."26
He sums up the central
ideas as being:
1. The study of occult
science.
2. The formation of a
nucleus of universal brotherhood.
3. The revival of
Oriental literature and philosophy.
And these three became
later substantially the permanent platform of the
Society. In their
final and present form they stand:
1. To form a nucleus
of the Universal Brotherhood of Humanity without
distinction of race,
creed, sex, caste, or color.
2. To encourage the
study of Comparative Religion, Philosophy, and Science..64
3. To investigate the
unexplained laws of nature and the powers latent in man.
The inclusion of a
moral program to accompany occult research and comparative
religion was seen to
be necessary. Madame Blavatsky's disapprobation of
Spiritualism had as
its prime motivation that movement's lack of any moral bases
for psychic progress.
Therefore the ethical implications which she saw as
fundamental in any
true occult system were embodied in the Theosophic platform
in the Universal
Brotherhood plank. Brotherhood, a somewhat vague general term,
was made the only
creedal or ethical requirement for fellowship in the Society.
At that it is, as a
moral obligation, a matter of the individual's own
interpretation, and it
is the Society's only link with the ethical side of
religion. Not even the
member's clear violation of accepted or prevalent social
codes can disqualify
him from good standing. The Society refuses to be a judge
of what constitutes
morality or its breach, leaving that determination to the
member himself. At the
same time through its literature it declares that no
progress into genuine
spirituality is possible "without clean hands and a pure
heart." It
adheres to the principle that morality without freedom is not
morality. Thus the
movement which began with an impulse to investigate the
occult powers of
ancient magicians, was moulded by circumstances into a moral
discipline, which
placed little store in magic feats..65
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CHAPTER V
ISIS UNVEILED
One morning in the
summer of 1875 Madame Blavatsky showed her colleague some
sheets of manuscript
which she had written. She explained: "I wrote this last
night 'by order,' but
what the deuce it is to be I don't know. Perhaps it is for
a newspaper article,
perhaps for a book, perhaps for nothing: anyhow I did as I
was ordered."
She put it away in a
drawer and nothing more was said about it for some months.
In September of that
year she went to Syracuse on a visit to Prof. and Mrs.
Hiram Corson, of
Cornell University, and while there she began to expand the few
original pages. She
wrote back to Olcott in New York that "she was writing about
things she had never
studied and making quotations from books she had never read
in all her life; that,
to test her accuracy Prof. Corson had compared her
quotations with
classical works in the University Library and had found her to
be right."1
She had never
undertaken any extensive literary production in her life and her
unfamiliarity with
English at this time was a real handicap. When she returned
to the city Olcott
took two suites of rooms at 433 West 34th Street, and there
she set to work to
expound the rudiments of her great science. From 1875 to 1877
she worked with
unremitting energy, sitting from morning until night at her
desk. In the evenings,
after his day's professional labors, Olcott came to her
help, aiding her with
the English and with the systematic arrangement of the
heterogeneous mass of
material that poured forth. Later Dr. Alexander Wilder,
the Neo-Platonic
scholar, helped her with the spelling of the hundreds of
classical philological
terms she employed. But Madame Blavatsky wrote the book,
Isis Unveiled.
After the first flush
of its popularity it has been forgotten, outside of
Theosophic circles.
Even among Theosophists, or at any rate in the largest
organic group of the
Theosophical Society, the book is hardly better known than
in the world at large.
During the last twenty-five years there has been a
tendency in the
Society to read expositions of Madame Blavatsky's ponderous
volumes rather than
the original presentation; neophytes in the organization
have been urged to
pass up these books as being too recondite and abstruse. It
has even been hinted
that many things are better understood now than when the
Founder wrote, and
that certain crudities of dogma and inadequacies of
presentation can be
avoided by perusing the commentary literature. As a result
of this policy the
percentage of Theosophic students who know exactly what
Madame Blavatsky wrote
over fifty years ago is quite small. Thousands of members
of the Theosophical
Society have grown old in the cult's activities and have
never read the volumes
that launched the cult ideas..66
Isis must not,
however, be regarded as a text-book on Theosophy. The Secret
Doctrine, issued ten
years later, has a better claim to that title. Isis makes
no formulation,
certainly not a systematic one, of the creed of occultism. It is
far from being an
elucidation or exegesis of the basic principles of what is now
known as Theosophy.
Isis makes no attempt to organize the whole field of human
and divine knowledge,
as does The Secret Doctrine. It merely points to the
evidence for the
existence of that knowledge, and only dimly suggests the
outlines of the cosmic
scheme in which it must be made to fit. It is in a sense
a panoramic survey of
the world literature out of which she essayed in part to
draw the system of
Theosophy. If Theosophy is to be found in Isis, it is there
in seminal form, not
in organic expression. Perhaps it were better to say that
the book prepared the
soil for the planting of Madame Blavatsky's later
teaching. Her
impelling thought was to reveal the traces, in ancient and
medieval history and
literature, of a secret science whose principles had been
lost to view. She
aimed to show that the most vital science mankind had ever
controlled had sunk
further below general recognition now than in any former
times. She would
relight the lamp of that archaic wisdom, which would illuminate
the darkness of modern
scientific pride.
Her work, then, was to
make a restatement of the occult doctrine with its
ancient attestations.
This was a gigantic task. It meant little short of a
thorough search in the
entire field of ancient religion, philosophy, and
science, with an eye
to the discernment of the mystery tradition, teachings, and
practices wherever
manifested; and then the collation, correlation, and
systematic
presentation of this multifarious material in something like a
structural unity. The
many legends of mystic power, the hundreds of myths and
fables, were to be
traced to ancient rites, whose far-off symbolism threw light
on their significance.
It would be not merely an encyclopedia of the whole
mythical life of the
race, but a digest and codification, so to speak, of the
entire mass into a
system breathing intelligible meaning and common sense. Her
task, in a word, was
to redeem the whole ancient world from the modern stigma of
superstition, crude
ignorance, and childish imagination.
In view of the
immensity of her undertaking we are forced to wonder whence came
the self-assurance
that led her to believe she could successfully achieve it.
She was sadly
deficient in formal education; her opportunities for scholarship
and research had been
limited; her command of the English language was
imperfect. Yet her
actual accomplishment pointed to her possession of capital
and resources the
existence of which has furnished the ground for much of the
mystery now
enshrouding her life. There seems to be an obvious discrepancy
between her
qualifications and her product, to account for which diverse
theories have been
adduced.
Just how, when and
where Madame Blavatsky gained her acquaintance with
practically the entire
field of ancient religions, philosophies, and science, is
a query which probably
can never be satisfactorily answered. The history of many
portions of her life
before 1873 is unrecorded. We do not know when or where she
studied ancient
literature. Books from which she quoted were not within her
reach when she wrote
Isis. Can her knowledge be attributed to a phenomenal
memory? Olcott does
say:
"She constantly
drew upon a memory stored with a wealth of recollections of
personal perils and
adventures and of knowledge of occult science, not merely
unparalleled, but not
even approached by any other person who had ever appeared
in America, so far as
I have heard."2.67
Throughout the two
volumes of Isis there are frequent allusions to or actual
passages from ancient
writings, a list of which includes the following: The
Codex Nazareus; the
Zohar, the great Kabbalistic work of the Jews; Chaldean3
Oracles; Chaldean Book
of Numbers; Psellus' Works; Zoroastrian Oracles; Magical
and Philosophical
Precepts of Zoroaster; Egyptian Book of the Dead; Books of
Hermes; Quichι
Cosmogony; Book of Jasher; Kabala of the Tanaim; Sepher Jezira;
Book of Wisdom of
Schlomah (Solomon); Secret Treatise on Mukta and Badha; The
Stangyour of the
Tibetans; Desatir (pseudo-Persian4); Orphic Hymns; Sepher
Toldos Jeshu (Hebrew
MSS. of great antiquity); Laws of Manu; Book of Keys
(Hermetic Work);
Gospel of Nicodemus; The Shepherd of Hermas; (Spurious) Gospel
of the Infancy; Gospel
of St. Thomas; Book of Enoch; The History of Baarlam and
Josaphat; Book of
Evocations(of the Pagodas); Golden Verses of Pythagoras;
various Kabbalas;
Tarot of the Bohemians.
In the realm of more
widely-known literature, she uses material from Plato and
to a minor extent,
Aristotle; quotes the early Greek philosophers, Thales,
Heraclitus,
Parmenides, Empedocles, Democritus; is conversant with the Neo-Platonist
representatives,
Ammonius Saccas, Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus and
Proclus; shows
familiarity with Plutarch, Philo, Apollonius of Tyana, the
Gnostics, Basilides,
Bardesanes, Marcion, and Valentinus. She had examined the
Church Fathers, from
Augustine to Justin Martyr, and was especially familiar
with Irenaeus,
Tertullian and Eusebius, whom she charged with having wrecked the
true ancient wisdom.
Beside this array she draws on the enormous Vedic,
Brahmanic, Vedantic,
and Buddhistic literatures; likewise the Chinese, Persian,
Babylonian,
"Chaldean," Syrian, and Egyptian. Nor does she neglect the ancient
American
contributions, such as the Popul Vuh. Her acquaintance also with the
vast literature of
occult magic and philosophy of the Middle Ages seems hardly
less inclusive. She
levies upon Averroλs, Maimonides, Paracelsus, Van Helmont,
Robert Fludd, Eugenius
Philalethes, Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim, Roger
Bacon, Bruno, Pletho,
Mirandolo, Henry More and many a lesser-known expounder of
mysticism and magic
art. She quotes incessantly from scores of compendious
modern works.
Because of this show
of prodigious learning some students later alleged that
Isis was not the work
of Madame Blavatsky, but of Dr. Alexander Wilder; others
declared that Col.
Olcott had written it.5
There are three main
sources of testimony bearing on the composition of the
books: (1) Statements
of her immediate associates and co-workers in the writing;
(2) Her own version;
(3) The evidence of critics who have traced the sources of
her materials.
First, there is the
testimony of her colleague, Olcott, who for two years
collaborated almost
daily with her in the work. He says:
"Whence, then,
did H.P.B. draw the materials which comprise Isis and which
cannot be traced to
accessible literary sources of quotation? From the Astral
Light, and by her
soul-senses, from her Teachers-the 'Brothers,' 'Adepts,'
'Sages,' 'Masters,' as
they have been variously called. How do I know it? By
working two years with
her on Isis and many more years on other literary work."6
He goes on:
"To watch her at
work was a rare and never-to-be-forgotten experience. We sat at
opposite sides of one
big table usually, and I could see her every movement. Her
pen would be flying
over the page; when she would suddenly stop, look out into
space with the vacant
eye of the clairvoyant seer, shorten her vision as though.68
to look at something
held invisibly in the air before her, and begin copying on
the paper what she
saw. The quotation finished, her eyes would resume their
natural expression,
and she would go on writing until again stopped by a similar
interruption."7
Still more remarkable
is the following:
"Most perfect of
all were the manuscripts which were written for her while she
was sleeping. The
beginning of the
------CARDIFF THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN
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CHAPTER on the civilization of ancient Egypt
(Vol. I.,
------CARDIFF THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN
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CHAPTER XIV) is an illustration. We had stopped work the evening
before at about 2 A.M.
as usual, both too tired to stop for our usual smoke and
chat before parting;
she almost fell asleep in her chair, while I was bidding
her goodnight; so I
hurried off to my bed room. The next morning, when I came
down after my
breakfast, she showed me a pile of at least thirty or forty pages
of beautifully written
H.P.B. manuscript, which, she said, she had had written
for her by-------, a
Master . . . It was perfect in every respect and went to
the printers without
revision."8
It is the theory of
Olcott that the mind of H.P.B. was receptive to the
impressions of three
or four intelligent entities-other persons living or dead-who
overshadowed her
mentally, and wrote through her brain. These personages
seemed to cast their
sentences upon an imperceptible screen in her mind. They
sometimes talked to
Olcott as themselves, not as Madame Blavatsky. Their
intermittent tenancy of
her mind he takes as accounting for the higgledy-piggledy
manner in which the
book was constructed. Each had his favorite themes
and the Colonel
learned what kind of material to expect when one gave place to
another. There was in
particular, in addition to several of the Oriental
"Sages," a
collaborator in the person of an old Platonist-"the pure soul of one
of the wisest
philosophers of modern times, one who was an ornament to our race,
a glory to his
country." He was so engrossed in his favorite earthly pursuits of
philosophy that he
projected his mind into the work of Madame Blavatsky and gave
her abundant aid.
"He did not
materialize and sit with us, nor obsess H.P.B. medium-fashion, he
would simply talk with
her-psychically, by the hour together, dictating copy,
telling her what
references to hunt up; answering my questions about details,
instructing me as to
principles; and, in fact, playing the part of a third
person in our literary
symposium. He gave me his portrait once-a rough sketch in
colored crayons on
flimsy paper . . . from first to last his relation to us both
was that of a mild,
kind, extremely learned teacher and elder friend."9
The medieval occultist
Paracelsus manifested his presence for a brief time one
evening.10 At another
time Madame produced two volumes necessary to verify
questions which Olcott
doubted.
"I went and found
the two volumes wanted, which, to my knowledge, had not been
in the house until
that very moment. I compared the texts with H.P.B.'s
quotation, showed her
that I was right in my suspicions as to the error, made
the proof correction,
and then . . . returned the two volumes to the place on
the ιtagθre from which
I had taken them. I resumed my seat and work, and when,
after while, I looked
again in that direction, the books had disappeared."11
As Olcott states, when
one or another of these unseen monitors was in evidence,
the work went on in
fine fashion. But, he notes, when Madame was left entirely
to her own devices,
she floundered in more or less helpless ineptitude. She
would write haltingly,
scratch it over, make a fresh start, work herself into a
fret and get nowhere..69
Olcott's testimony, as
that of Dr. Wilder, Mr. Judge, Dr. Corson, the Countess
Wachtmeister, the two
Keightleys, Mr. Fawcett and all the others who at one time
or another were in a
position to observe Madame Blavatsky at work, must be
accepted as sincere.
But if anybody could be supposed to know unmistakably what
was happening in her
mind, that person would be the subject herself. What has
she to say? She states
decisively that she was not the author, only the writer
of her books. In one
of her home letters she says, speaking of Isis:
"since neither
ideas nor teachings are mine."
In another letter to
Madame Jelihowsky she writes:
"Well, Vera,
whether you believe me or not, something miraculous is happening to
me. You cannot imagine
in what a charmed world of pictures and vision I live. I
am writing Isis; not
writing, rather copying out and drawing that which She
personally shows to
me. Upon my word, sometimes it seems to me that the ancient
goddess of Beauty in
person leads me through all the countries of past centuries
which I have to
describe. I sit with my eyes open and to all appearances see and
hear everything real
and actual around me, and yet at the same time I see and
hear that which I
write. I feel short of breath; I am afraid to make the
slightest movement for
fear the spell might be broken. Slowly century after
century, image after
image, float out of the distance and pass before me as if
in a magic panorama;
and meanwhile I put them together in my mind, fitting in
epochs and dates, and
know for sure that there can be no mistake. Races and
nations, countries and
cities, which have long disappeared in the darkness of
the prehistoric past,
emerge and then vanish, giving place to others; and then I
am told the
consecutive dates. Hoary antiquity makes way for historical periods;
myths are explained to
me with events and people who have really existed, and
every event which is
at all remarkable, every newly-turned page of this many-colored
book of life,
impresses itself on my brain with photographic exactitude.
My own reckonings and
calculations appear to me later on as separate colored
pieces of different
shapes in the game which is called casse-tκte (puzzles). I
gather them together
and try to match them one after the other, and at the end
there always comes out
a geometrical whole. . . . Most assuredly it is not I who
do it all, but my Ego,
the highest principle that lives in me. And even this
with the help of my
Guru and teacher who helps me in everything. If I happen to
forget something I
have just to address him, and another of the same kind in my
thought as what I have
forgotten rises once more before my eyes-sometimes whole
tables of numbers
passing before me, long inventories of events. They remember
everything. They know
everything. Without them, from whence could I gather my
knowledge? 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."12
In another letter to
the same sister Helena assures her relative about her
mental condition:
"Do not be afraid
that I am off my head; all I can say is that someone
positively inspires
me. . . . More than this; someone enters me. It is not I who
talk and write; it is
something within me; my higher and luminous Self; that
thinks and writes for
me. Do not ask me, my friend, what I experience, because I
could not explain it
to you clearly. I do not know myself! The one thing I know
is that now, when I am
about to reach old age, I have become a sort of
storehouse of somebody
else's knowledge. . . . Someone comes and envelops me as
a misty cloud and all
at once pushes me out of myself, and then I am not 'I' any
more-Helena P.
Blavatsky-but somebody else. Someone strong and powerful, born in.70
a totally different
region of the world; and as to myself it is almost as if I
were asleep, or lying
by not quite conscious-not in my own body, but close by,
held only by a thread
which ties me to it. However at times I see and hear
everything quite
clearly; I am perfectly conscious of what my body is saying and
doing-or at least its
new possessor. I can understand and remember it all so
well that afterwards I
can repeat it, and even write down his words. . . . At
such a time I see awe
and fear on the faces of Olcott and others, and follow
with interest the way
in which he half-pityingly regards them out of my own
eyes, and teaches them
with my physical tongue. Yet not with my mind, but his
own, which enwraps my
brain like a cloud. . . . Ah, but I really cannot explain
everything!"13
Again writing to her
relatives, she states:
"When I wrote
Isis 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, zoφlogy, 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 someone
who knows all dictates
to me. My Master and occasionally others whom I knew on
my travels years ago.
. . . 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."14
To her aunt she wrote:
"At such times it
is no more I 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 was all this knowledge?"
Whatever the actual
authorship of the two volumes may have been, their
publication stirred
such wide-spread interest that the first editions were swept
up at once, and
Bouton, the publisher, was taken off guard, there being some
delay before
succeeding editions of the bulky tomes could be issued.
Professional reviewers
were not so generous; but the press critics were frankly
intrigued into
something like praise.15
Years after the
publication of Isis, Mr. Emmette Coleman, a former Theosophist
and contributor to
current magazines, stated that he spent three years upon a
critical and
exhaustive examination of the sources used by Madame Blavatsky in
her various works. He
attempted to discredit the whole Theosophic movement by
casting doubt upon the
genuineness of her knowledge. He accused her of outright
plagiarism and went to
great pains to collect and present his evidence. In 1893
he published his data.
We quote the following passage from his statement:
"In Isis
Unveiled, published in 1877, I discovered some 2,000 passages copied
from other books
without proper credit. By careful analysis I found that in
compiling Isis about
100 books were used. About 1,400 books are quoted from and
referred to in this
work; but, from the 100 books which its author possessed,
she copied everything
in Isis taken from and relating to the other 1,300. There
are in Isis about
2,100 quotations from and references to books that were
copied, at
second-hand, from books other than the originals; and of this number
only about 140 are
credited to the books from which Madame Blavatsky copied them
at second-hand. The
others are quoted in such a manner as to lead the reader to.71
think that Madame
Blavatsky had read and utilized the original works, and had
quoted from them at
first-hand,--the truth being that these originals had
evidently never been
read by Madame Blavatsky. By this means many readers of
Isis . . . have been
misled into thinking Madame Blavatsky an enormous reader,
possessed of vast
erudition; while the fact is her reading was very limited, and
her ignorance was
profound in all branches of knowledge."16
Coleman went on to
assert that "not a line of the quotations" made by H.P.B.
ostensibly from the
Kabala, from the old-time mystics at the time of Paracelsus,
from the classical
authors, Homer, Livy, Ovid, Virgil, Pliny, and others, from
the Church Fathers,
from the Neo-Platonists, was taken from the originals, but
all from second-hand
usage. He charged her with having picked all these passages
out of modern books
scattered throughout which she found the material from a
wide range of ancient
authorship. The reader of Isis will readily find her many
references to modern
authors. Coleman mentioned a half dozen standard works that
she used; it is well
worth while glancing at a fuller list. She had read, or was
more or less familiar
with: King's Gnostics; Jennings' Rosicrucians; Dunlop's
Sod, and Spirit
History of Man; Moor's Hindu Pantheon; Ennemoser's History of
Magic; Howitt's
History of the Supernatural; Salverte's Philosophy of Magic;
Barrett's Magus; Col.
H. Yule's The Book of Ser Marco Polo; Inman's Pagan and
Modern Christian
Symbolism and Ancient Faiths and Modern; the anonymous The
Unseen Universe and
Supernatural Religion; Bunsen's Egypt's Place in Universal
History; Lundy's
Monumental Christianity; Horst's Zauber-Bibliothek; Cardinal
Wiseman's Lectures on
Science and Religion; Draper's The Conflict of Science
with Religion; Dupuis'
Origin of All the Cults; Bailly's Ancient and Modern
Astronomy; Gibbon's
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; Des Mousseaux's Roman
Catholic writings on
Magic, Mesmerism, Spiritualism; Eliphas Levi's works;
Jacolliot's
twenty-seven volumes on Oriental systems; Max Mόller's, Huxley's,
Tyndall's, and
Spencer's works.
It is hardly to be
doubted that Madame Blavatsky culled many of her ancient gems
from these works, and
she probably felt that it was a matter of minor importance
how she came by them.
What she was bent on saying was that the ancients had said
these things and that
they were confirmatory of her general theses. Yet
Coleman's findings
must not be disregarded. His work brought into clearer light
the meagreness of her
resources and her lack of scholarly preparation for so
pretentious a study.
We have adduced the
several hypotheses that have been advanced to account for
the writing of Isis
Unveiled. It must be left for the reader to arrive at what
conclusion he can on
the basis of the material presented. We pass on to an
examination of the
contents.
A hint as to the aim
of the work, is given in the sub-title: A Master-key to the
Mysteries of Ancient
and Modern Science and Theology. She says:
"The work now
submitted to the public judgment is the fruit of a somewhat
intimate acquaintance
with Eastern Adepts and study of their science. It is a
work on
magico-spiritual philosophy and occult science. It is an attempt to aid
the student to detect
the vital principles which underlie the philosophical
systems of
old."17
She affirms it to be
her aim "to show that the pretended authorities of the West
must go to the
Brahmans and Lamaists of the far Orient and respectfully ask them
to impart the alphabet
of true science."18.72
Isis, then, is a
glorification of the ancient Orientals. Their knowledge was so
profound that we are
incredulous when told about it. If we have "harnessed the
forces of Nature to do
our work," they had subjugated the world to their will.
They knew things we
have not yet dreamed of. She states:
"It is rather a
brief summary of the religions, philosophies and universal
traditions in the
spirit of those secret doctrines of which none,--thanks to
prejudice and
bigotry-have reached Christendom in so unmutilated a form as to
secure it a fair
judgment. Since the days of the unlucky Mediaeval philosophers,
the last to write upon
these secret doctrines of which they were the
depositaries, few men
have dared to brave persecution and prejudice by placing
their knowledge on
record. And these few have never, as a rule, written for the
public, but only for
those of their own and succeeding times who possessed the
key to their jargon. The
multitude, not understanding them or their doctrines,
have been accustomed
to regard them en masse as either charlatans or dreamers.
Hence the unmerited
contempt into which the study of the noblest of sciences-that
of the spiritual
man-has gradually fallen."19
She plans to restore
this lost and fairest of the sciences. Materialism is
menacing man's higher
spiritual unfoldment.
"To prevent the
crushing of these spiritual aspirations, the blighting of these
hopes, and the
deadening of that intuition which teaches us of a God and a
hereafter, we must
show our false theologies in their naked deformity and
distinguish between
divine religion and human dogmas. Our voice is raised for
spiritual freedom and
our plea made for the enfranchisement from all tyranny,
whether of Science or
Theology."20
She here sets forth
her attitude toward orthodox religionism as well as toward
materialistic science.
She intimates that since the days of the true esoteric
wisdom, mankind has
been thrown back and forth between the systems of an
unenlightening
theology and an equally erroneous science, both stultifying in
their influence on
spiritual aspiration, both blighting the delicate culture of
beauty and joyousness.
"It was while most
anxious to solve these perplexing problems [Who, where, what
is God? What is the
spirit in man?] that we came into contact with certain men,
endowed with such
mysterious powers and such profound knowledge that we may
truly designate them
as the Sages of the Orient. To their instruction we lent a
ready ear. They showed
us that by combining science with religion, the existence
of God and the
immortality of man's spirit may be demonstrated like a problem of
Euclid."
She adds:
"Such knowledge
is priceless; and it has been hidden only from those who
overlooked it, derided
it or denied its existence."21
The soul within
escapes their view, and the Divine Mother has no message for
them. To become
conversant with the powers of the soul we must develop the
higher faculties of
intuition and spiritual vision.22
She says that there
were colleges in the days of old for the teaching of
prophecy and occultism
in general. Samuel and Elisha were heads of such
academies, she
affirms. The study of magic or wisdom included every branch of
science, the
metaphysical as well as the physical, psychology and physiology, in
their common and
occult phases; and the study of alchemy was universal, for it.73
was both a physical
and a spiritual science. The ancients studied nature under
its double aspect and
the claim is that they discovered secrets which the modern
physicist, who studies
but the dead forms of things, can not unlock. There are
regions of nature
which will never yield their mysteries to the scientist armed
only with mechanical
apparatus. The ancients studied the outer forms of nature,
but in relation to the
inner life. Hence they saw more than we and were better
able to read meaning
in what they saw. They regarded everything in nature as the
materialization of
spirit. Thus they were able to find an adequate ground for
the harmonization of
science and religion. They saw spirit begetting force, and
force matter; spirit
and matter were but the two aspects of the one essence.
Matter is nothing
other than the crystallization of spirit on the outer
periphery of its
emanative range. The ancients worshipped, not nature, but the
power behind nature.
Madame Blavatsky
contrasts this fulness of the ancient wisdom with the
barrenness of modern
knowledge. She characterizes the eighteenth century as a
"barren
period," during which "the malignant fever of scepticism" has
spread
through the thought of
the age and transmitted "unbelief as an hereditary
disease on the
nineteenth." She challenges science to explain some of the
commonest phenomena of
nature; why, for instance, the moon affects insane
people, why the crises
of certain diseases correspond to lunar changes, why
certain flowers
alternately open and close their petals as clouds flit across
the face of the moon.
She says that science has not yet learned to look outside
this ball of dirt for
hidden influences which are affecting us day by day. The
ancients, she
declares, postulated reciprocal relations between the planetary
bodies as perfect as
those between the organs of the body and the corpuscles of
the blood. There is
not a plant or mineral which has disclosed the last of its
properties to the
scientist. She declares that theurgical magic is the last
expression of occult
psychological science; and denies the "Academicians" "the
right of expressing
their opinion on a subject which they have never
investigated."
"Their incompetence to determine the value of magic and
Spiritualism is as
demonstrable as that of the Fiji Islander to evaluate the
labors of Faraday or
Agassiz." There was no missing link in the ancient
knowledge, no hiatus
to be filled "with volumes of materialistic speculation
made necessary by the
absurd attempt to solve an equation with but one set of
quantities." She
runs on:
"Our 'ignorant'
ancestors traced the law of evolution throughout the whole
universe. As by
gradual progression from the star-cloudlet to the development of
the physical body of
man, the rule holds good, so from the universal ether to
the incarnate human
spirit, they traced one uninterrupted series of entities.
These evolutions were
from the world of spirit into the world of gross matter;
and through that back
again to the source of all things. The 'descent of
species' was to them a
descent from the spirit, primal source of all, to the
'degradation of
matter.' In this complete chain of unfoldings the elementary,
spiritual beings had
as distinct a place, midway between the extremes, as
Darwin's missing link
between the ape and man."23
Modern knowledge
posits only evolution; the old science held that evolution was
neither conceivable
nor understandable without a previous involution.
The existence of
myriads of orders of beings not human in a realm of nature to
which our senses do
not normally give us access, and of which science knows
nothing at all, is
posited in her arcane systems. She catches at Milton's lines
to bolster this
theory:
"Millions of
spiritual creatures walk this earth,.74
Unseen both when we
sleep and when we wake."
She says that if the
spiritual faculties of the soul are sharpened by intense
enthusiasm and
purified from earthly desire, man may learn to see some of these
denizens of the
illimitable air.
The physical world was
fashioned on the model of divine ideas, which, like the
unseen lines of force
radiated by the magnet, to throw the iron-filings into
determinate shape,
give form and nature to the physical manifestation. If man's
essential nature partakes
of this universal life, then it, too, must partake of
all the attributes of
the demiurgic power. As the Creator, breaking up the
chaotic mass of dead
inactive matter, shaped it into form, so man, if he knew
his powers, could to a
degree do the same.
To redeem the ancient
world from modern scorn Madame Blavatsky had to vindicate
magic-with all its
incubus of disrepute and ridicule-and lift its practitioners
to a lofty place in
the ranks of true science. She had to demonstrate that
genuine magic was a veritable
fact, an undeniable part of the history of man;
and not only true, but
the highest evidence of man's kinship with nature, the
topmost manifestation
of his power, the royal science among all sciences! To her
view the dearth of
magic in modern philosophies was at once the cause and the
effect of their
barrenness. If they are to be vitalized again, magic must be
revived. "That
magic is indeed possible is the moral of this book."24
And along with magic
she had to champion its aboriginal bed-fellows, astrology,
alchemy, healing,
mesmerism, trance subjection, and the whole brood of
"pseudo-science."
"It is an insult
to human nature to brand magic and the occult sciences with the
name of imposture. To
believe that for so many thousands of years one half of
mankind practiced
deception and fraud on the other half is equivalent to saying
that the human race is
composed only of knaves and incurable idiots. Where is
the country in which
magic was not practiced? At what age was it wholly
forgotten?"25
She explains magic as
based on a reciprocal sympathy between celestial and
terrestrial natures.
It is based on the mysterious affinities existing between
organic and inorganic
bodies, between the visible and the invisible powers of
the universe.
"That which science calls gravitation the ancient and the medieval
hermeticists called
magnetism, attraction, affinity." She continues:
"A thorough
familiarity with the occult faculties of everything existing in
Nature, visible as
well as invisible; their mutual relations, attractions and
repulsions; the cause
of these traced to the spiritual principle which pervades
and animates all
things; the ability to furnish the best conditions for this
principle to manifest
itself, in other words a profound and exhaustive knowledge
of natural law-this
was and is the basis of magic."26
Out of man's kinship
with nature, his identity of constitution with it, she
argues to his magical
powers:
"As God creates,
so man can create. Given a certain intensity of will, and the
shapes created by the
mind become subjective. Hallucinations they are called,
although to their
creator they are real as any visible object is to any one
else. Given a more
intense and intelligent concentration of this will, and the
forms become concrete,
visible, objective; the man has learned the secret of
secrets; he is a
Magician."27.75
She makes it clear
that this power is built on the conscious control of the
substrate of the
material universe. She states that the key to all magic is the
formula: "Every
insignificant atom is moved by spirit." Magic is thus
conditioned upon the
postulation of an omnipresent vital ether, electro-spiritual
in composition, to
which man has an affinity by virtue of his being
identical in essence
with it. Over it he can learn to exercise a voluntary
control by the
exploitation of his own psycho-dynamic faculties. If he can lay
his hand on the
elemental substance of the universe, if he can radiate from his
ganglionic batteries
currents of force equivalent to gamma rays, of course he
can step into the
cosmic scene with something of a magician's powers. That such
an ether exists she
states in a hundred places. She calls it the elementary
substance, the Astral
Light, the Alkahest, the Akasha. It is the universal
principle of all life,
the vehicle or battery of cosmic energy. She says Newton
knew of it and called
it "the soul of the world," the "divine sensorium." It is
the Book of Life; the
memory of God,--since it never gives up an impression.
Human memory is but a
looking into pictures on this ether. Clairvoyants and
psychometers but draw
upon its resources through synchronous vibrations.
"According to the
Kabalistic doctrine the future exits in the astral light in
embryo as the present
existed in embryo in the past . . . and our memories are
but the glimpses that
we catch of the reflections of this past in the currents
of the astral light,
as the psychometer catches them from the astral emanations
of the object held by
him."28
Madame Blavatsky goes
so far as to link the control of these properties with the
tiny pulsations of the
magnetic currents emanating from our brains, under the
impelling power of
will. Thus she attempts to unite magic with the most subtle
conceptions of our own
advanced physics and chemistry. She thus weds the most
arrant of
superstitions with the most respected of sciences.
The magnetic nature of
gravitation is set forth in more than one passage. She
wrote:
"The ethereal
spiritual fire, the soul and the spirit of the all-pervading
mysterious ether; the
despair and puzzle of the materialists, who will some day
find out that that
which causes the numberless forces to manifest themselves in
eternal correlation is
but a divine electricity, or rather galvanism, and that
the sun is one of the
myriad magnets disseminated through space. . . . There is
no gravitation in the
Newtonian sense, but only magnetic attraction and
repulsion; and it is
only by their magnetism that the planets of the solar
system have their motions
regulated in their respective orbits by the still more
powerful magnetism of
the sun; not by their weight or gravitation. . . . The
passage of light
through this (cosmic ether) must produce enormous friction.
Friction generates
electricity and it is this electricity and its correlative
magnetism which forms
those tremendous forces of nature. . . . It is not at all
to the sun that we are
indebted for light and heat; light is a creation sui
generis, which springs
into existence at the instant when the deity willed." She
"laughs at the
current theory of the incandescence of the sun and its gaseous
substance. . . . The
sun, planets, stars and nebulae are all magnets. . . .
There is but One
Magnet in the universe and from it proceeds the magnetization
of everything
existing."29
It is this same
universal ether and its inherent magnetic dynamism that sets the
field for astrology,
as a cosmic science. Of this she says that astrology is a
science as infallible
as astronomy itself, provided its interpreters are as
infallible as the
mathematicians. She carries the law of the instantaneous.76
interrelation of
everything in the cosmos to such an extent that, quoting
Eliphas Levi,
"even so small a thing as the birth of one child upon our
insignificant planet
has its effect upon the universe, as the whole universe has
its reflective
influence upon him." The bodies of the entire universe are bound
together by
attractions which hold them in equilibrium, and these magnetic
influences are the
bases of astrology.
With so much cosmic
power at his behest, man has done wonders; and we are asked
to accept the truth of
an amazing series of the most phenomenal occurrences ever
seriously given forth.
They range over so varied a field that any attempt at
classification is
impossible. Of physical phenomena she says that the ancients
could make marble
statues sweat, and even speak and leap! They had gold lamps
which burned in tombs
continuously for seven hundred to one thousand years
without refueling! One
hundred and seventy-three authorities are said to have
testified to the
existence of such lamps. Even "Aladdin's magical lamp has also
certain claims to
reality." There was an asbestos oil whose properties, when it
was rubbed on the
skin, made the body impervious to the action of fire.
Witnesses are quoted
as stating that they observed natives in Africa who
permitted themselves
to be fired at point blank with a revolver, having first
precipitated around
them an impervious layer of astral or akashic substance.
Cardinal de Rohan's testimony
is adduced to the effect that he had seen
Cagliostro make gold
and diamonds. The power of the evil eye is enlarged upon
and instances
recounted of persons hypnotizing, "charming," or even killing
birds and animals with
a look. She avers that she herself had seen Eastern
Adepts turn water into
blood. Observers are quoted who reported a rope-climbing
feat in China and
Batavia, in which the human climbers disappeared overhead,
their members fell in
portions on the ground, and shortly thereafter reunited to
form the original
living bodies! Stories are narrated of fakirs disemboweling
and re-embowling
themselves. She herself saw whirling dancers at Petrovsk in
1865, who cut
themselves in frenzy and evoked by the magical powers of blood the
spirits of the dead,
with whom they then danced. Twice she was nearly bitten by
poisonous snakes, but
was saved by a word of control from a Shaman or conjurer.
The close affinity
between man and nature is illustrated by the statement that
in one case a tree
died following the death of its human twin. Speaking of
magical trees, she
several times tells of the great tree Kumboum, of Tibet, over
whose leaves and bark
nature had imprinted ten thousand spiritual maxims. The
magical significance
of birthmarks is brought out, with remarkable instances.
She dwells at length
on the inability of medical men to tell definitely whether
the human body is dead
or not, and cites a dozen gruesome tales of reawakening
in the grave. This takes
her into vampirism, which she establishes on the basis
of numerous cases
taken mostly from Russian folklore. It is stated that the
Hindu pantheon claimed
330,000,000 types of spirits. Moses was familiar with
electricity; the
Egyptians had a high order of music and chess over five
thousand years ago;
and anaesthesia was known to the ancients. Perpetual motion,
the Elixer of Life,
the Fountain of Youth and the Philosopher's Stone are
declared to be real.
She adduces in every case a formidable show of testimony
other than her own.
And back of it all is her persistent assertion that purity
of life and thought is
a requisite for high magical performance.
"A man free from
worldly incentives and sensuality may cure in such a way the
most 'incurable'
diseases, and his vision may become clear and prophetic."30
"The magic power
is never possessed by those addicted to vicious indulgences."31
Phenomena come, she
feels, rather easily; spiritual life is harder won and
worthier..77
"With expectancy,
supplemented by faith, one can cure himself of almost any
morbific condition.
The tomb of a saint; a holy relic; a talisman; a bit of
paper or a garment
that has been handled by a supposed healer; a nostrum, a
penance; a ceremonial;
a laying on of hands; or a few words impressively
pronounced-will do. It
is a question of temperament, imagination, self-cure."32
"While phenomena
of a physical nature may have their value as a means of
arousing the interest
of materialists, and confirming, if not wholly, at least
inferentially, our
belief in the survival of our souls, it is questionable
whether, under their
present aspect, the modern phenomena are not doing more
harm than
good."33
Theosophists
themselves often quarrel with Isis because it seems to overstress
bizarre phenomena.
They should see that Volume I of the book aims to show the
traces of magic in
ancient science, in order to offset the Spiritualist claims
to new discoveries,
and to attract attention to the more philosophic ideas
underlying classic
magic. Volume II labors to reveal the presence of a vast
occultism behind the
religions and theologies of the world. Again the contention
is that the ancient
priests knew more than the modern expositor, that they kept
more concealed than
the present-day theologian has revealed. Modern theology has
lost its savor of
early truth and power, as modern technology no longer
possesses the
"lost arts." Paganism was to be vindicated as against
ecclesiastical
orthodoxies.
She believed that her
instruction under the Lamas or Adepts in Tibet had given
her this key, and that
therefore the whole vast territory of ancient religion
lay unfruitful for
modern understanding until she should come forward and put
the key to the lock.
The "key" makes her in a sense the exponent and depository
of "the essential
veracities of all the religions and philosophies that are or
ever were."
"Myth was the
favorite and universal method of teaching in archaic times."34
We can not be
oblivious of the use made by Plato of myths in his theoretical
constructions.
"Fairy tales do
not exclusively belong to nurseries; all mankind-except those
few who in all ages
have comprehended their hidden meaning, and tried to open
the eyes of the
superstitious-have listened to such tales in one shape or other,
and, after
transforming them into sacred symbols, called the product
Religion."35
"There are a few
myths in any religious system but have an historical as well as
a scientific foundation.
Myths, as Pococke ably expresses it, 'are now found to
be fables just in
proportion as we misunderstand them; truths, in proportion as
they were once
understood.'"36
The esotericism of the
teachings of Christ and the Buddha is manifest to anyone
who can reason, she
declares. Neither can be supposed to have given out all that
a divine being would
know.
"It is a poor
compliment paid the Supreme, this forcing upon him four gospels,
in which,
contradictory as they often are, there is not a single narrative,
sentence or peculiar
expression, whose parallel may not be found in some older
doctrine of
philosophy. Surely the Almighty-were it but to spare future
generations their
present perplexity-might have brought down with Him, at His
first and only
incarnation on earth, something original-something that would.78
trace a distinct line
of demarcation between Himself and the score or so of
incarnate Pagan gods,
who had been born of virgins, had all been saviors, and
were either killed or
were otherwise sacrificed for humanity."37
She says that not she
but the Christian Fathers and their successors in the
church have put their
divine Son of God in the position of a poor religious
plagiarist!
Ancient secret wisdom
was seldom written down at all; it was taught orally, and
imparted as a
priceless tradition by one set of students to their qualified
successors. Those
receiving it regarded themselves as its custodians and they
accepted their
stewardship conscientiously.
To understand the
reason for esotericism in science and religion in earlier
times, Madame
Blavatsky urges us to recall that freedom of speech invited
persecution.
"The Rosicrucian,
Hermetic and Theosophical Western writers, producing their
books in epochs of
religious ignorance and cruel bigotry, wrote, so to say, with
the headman's axe
suspended over their necks, or the executioner's fagots laid
under their chairs,
and hid their divine knowledge under quaint symbols and
misleading
metaphors."38
To give lesser people
what they could not appropriate, to stir complacent
conservatism with that
threat of disturbing old established habitudes which
higher knowledge
always brings, was unsafe in a world still actuated by codes of
arbitrary physical
power. High knowledge had to be esoteric until the progress
of general
enlightenment brought the masses to a point where the worst that
could happen to the
originator of revolutionary ideas would be the reputation of
an idiot, instead of
the doom of a Bruno or a Joan. Madame Blavatsky was willing
to be regarded as an
idiot, but her Masters could not send her forth until
autos-da-fι had gone
out of vogue.
We have seen in an
earlier
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CHAPTER that the Mystery Religions of the Eastern
Mediterranean world
harbored an esotericism that presumably influenced the
formulation of later
systems, notably Judaism and Christianity. In recent
decades more attention
has been given to the claims of these old secret
societies. St. Paul's
affiliation with them is claimed by Theosophists, and his
obvious indebtedness
to them is acknowledged by some students of early
Christianity. It is
impossible for Madame Blavatsky to understand the Church's
indifference to its
origins, and she arrays startling columns of evidence to
show that this neglect
may be fatal. The Mystery Schools, she proclaims, were
not shallow cults, but
the guardians of a deep lore already venerable.
"The Mysteries
are as old as the world, and one well versed in the esoteric
mythologies of various
nations, can trace them back to the days of the Ante-Vedic
period in
India."39
She does not soften
her animosity against those influences and agencies that she
charges with
culpability for smothering out the Gnosis. The culprit in the case
is Christianity.
"For over fifteen
centuries, thanks to the blindly-brutal persecution of those
great vandals of early
Christian history, Constantine and Justinian, ancient
wisdom slowly
degenerated until it gradually sank into the deepest mire of
monkish superstition
and ignorance. The Pythagorean 'knowledge of things that
are'; the profound
erudition of the Gnostics; the world- and time-honored.79
teachings of the great
philosophers; all were rejected as doctrines of
Antichrist and
Paganism and committed to the flames. With the last seven Wise
Men of the Orient, the
remnant group of Neo-Platonists, Hermias, Priscianus,
Diogenes, Eulalius,
Damaskius, Simplicius and Isodorus, who fled from the
fanatical persecutions
of Justinian to Persia, the reign of wisdom closed. The
books of Thoth . . .
containing within their sacred pages the spiritual and
physical history of
the creation and progress of our world, were left to mould
in oblivion and
contempt for ages. They found no interpreters in Christian
Europe; the Philalethians,
or wise 'lovers of truth' were no more; they were
replaced by the
light-fleers, the tonsured and hooded monks of Papal Rome, who
dread truth, in
whatever shape and from whatever quarter it appears, if it but
clashes in the least
with their dogmas."40
She speaks of the
"Jesuitical and
crafty spirit which prompted the Christian Church of the late
third century to
combat the expiring Neo-Platonic and Eclectic Schools. The
Church was afraid of
the Aristotelian dialectic and wished to conceal the true
meaning of the word
daemon, Rasit, asdt (emanations); for if the truth of the
emanations were
rightly understood, the whole structure of the new religion
would have crumbled
along with the Mysteries."41
This motive is
stressed again when she says that the Fathers had borrowed so
much from Paganism
that they had to obliterate the traces of their
appropriations or be
recognized by all as merely Neo-Platonists! She is keen to
point out the value of
the riches thus thrown away or blindly overlooked, and to
show how Christianity
has been placed at the mercy of hostile disrupting forces
because of its want of
a true Gnosis. She avers that atheists and materialists
now gnaw at the heart
of Christianity because it is helpless, lacking the
esoteric knowledge of
the spiritual constitution of the universe, to combat or
placate them.
Gnosticism taught man that he could attain the fulness of the
stature of his innate
divinity; Christianity substituted a weakling's reliance
upon a higher power.
Had Christianity held onto the Gnosis and Kabbalism, it
would not have had to
graft itself onto Judaism and thus tie itself down to many
of the developments of
a merely tribal religion. Had it not accepted the Jehovah
of Moses, she says, it
would not have been forced to look upon the Gnostic ideas
as heresies, and the
world would now have had a religion richly based on pure
Platonic philosophy
and "surely something would then have been gained." Rome
itself, Christianized,
paid a heavy penalty for spurning the wisdom of old:
"In burning the
works of the theurgists; in proscribing those who affected their
study; in affixing the
stigma of demonolatry to magic in general; Rome has left
her exoteric worship
and Bible to be helplessly riddled by every free-thinker,
her sexual emblems to
be identified with coarseness, and her priests to
unwittingly turn
magicians and sorcerers in their exorcisms. Thus retribution,
by the exquisite
adjustment of divine law, is made to overtake this scheme of
cruelty, injustice and
bigotry, through her own suicidal acts."42
Yet Christianity drew
heavily from paganism. It erected almost no novel
formulations.
Christian canonical books are hardly more than plagiarisms of
older literatures, she
affirms, compiled, deleted, revised, and twisted. She
believed that the
first
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CHAPTERs of Genesis were based on the "Chaldean" Kabbala
and an old Brahmanical
book of prophecies (really later than Genesis). The
doctrine of the
Trinity as purely Platonic, she says. It was Irenaeus who
identified Jesus with
the "mask of the Logos or Second Person of the Trinity."
The doctrine of the
Atonement came from the Gnostics. The Eucharist was common
before Christ's time.
Some Neo-Platonist, not John, is alleged to have written.80
the Fourth Gospel. The
Sermon on the Mount is an echo of the essential
principles of monastic
Buddhism.
Jesus is torn away
from allegiance to the Jewish system and stands neither as
its product nor its
Messiah. Wresting him away from Judaism, and likewise from
the emanational
Trinity, both of which rτles were thrust upon him gratuitously
by the Christian
Fathers, she declares him to have been a Nazarene, i.e., a
member of the mystic
cult of Essenes of Nazars, which perpetuated Oriental
systems of the Gnosis
on the shores of the Jordan.
"One Nazarene
sect is known to have existed some 150 years B.C. and to have
lived on the banks of
the Jordan, and on the eastern shore of the Dead Sea,
according to Pliny and
Josephus. But in King's 'Gnostics' we find quoted another
statement by Josephus
from verse 13 which says that the Essenes had been
established on the
shores of the Dead Sea 'for thousands of ages' before Pliny's
time."43
Jesus, one of this
cult, had become adept in the occult philosophies of Egypt
and Israel, and
endeavored to make of the two a synthesis, drawing at times on
more ancient knowledge
from the old Hindu doctrines. He was simply a devout
occultist and taught
among the people what they could receive of the esoteric
knowledge, reserving
his deeper teachings for his fellows in the Essene
monasteries. He had
learned in the East and in Egypt the high science of
theurgy, casting out
of demons, and control of nature's finer forces, and he
used these powers upon
occasion. He posed as no Messiah or Incarnation of the
Logos, but preached
the message of the anointing (Christos) of the human spirit
by its baptismal union
with the higher principles of our divine nature.44
In short, Madame Blavatsky
leaves to Christianity little but the very precarious
distinction of having
"copied all its rites, dogmas and ceremonies from
paganism" save
two that can be claimed as original inventions-the doctrine of
eternal damnation
(with the fiction of the Devil) "and the one custom, that of
the anathema."
"The Bible of the
Christian Church is the latest receptacle of this scheme of
disfigured allegories
which have been erected into an edifice of superstition,
such as never entered
into the conceptions of those from whom the Church
obtained her
knowledge. The abstract fictions of antiquity, which for ages had
filled the popular
fancy with but flickering shadows and uncertain images, have
in Christianity
assumed the shapes of real personages and become historical
facts. Allegory
metamorphosed, becomes sacred history, and Pagan myth is taught
to the people as a
revealed narrative of God's intercourse with His chosen
people."45
The final proposition
which Isis labors to establish is that the one source of
all the wisdom of the
past is India. Pythagoreanism, she says, is identical with
Buddhistic teachings.
"The laws of Manu are the doctrines of Plato, Philo,
Zoroaster, Pythagoras
and the Kabala." She quotes Jacolliot, the French writer:
"This philosophy,
the traces of which we find among the Magians, the Chaldeans,
the Egyptians, the
Hebrew Kabalists, and the Christians, is none other than that
of the Hindu Brahmans,
the sectarians of the pitris, or the spirits of the
invisible worlds which
surround us."46
She, with the key in
her hand, sees the solution of the problem of comparative
religion as an easy
one..81
"While we see the
few translators of the Kabala, the Nazarene Codex and other
abstruse works,
hopelessly floundering amid the interminable pantheon of names,
unable to agree as to
a system in which to classify them, for the one hypothesis
contradicts and
overturns the other, we can but wonder at all this trouble,
which could be so
easily overcome. But even now, when the translation and even
the perusal of the
ancient Sanskrit has become so easy as a point of comparison,
they would never think
it possible that every philosophy-whether Semitic,
Hamitic or Turanian,
as they call it, has its key in the Hindu sacred works.
Still, facts are there
and facts are not easily destroyed."47
"What has been
contemptuously termed Paganism was ancient Wisdom replete with
Deity. . . . Pre-Vedic
Brahmanism and Buddhism are the double source from which
all religions spring;
Nirvana is the ocean to which all tend."48
She says there are
many parallelisms between references to Buddha and to Christ.
Many points of
identity also exist between Lamaico-Buddhistic and Roman Catholic
ceremonies. The idea
here hinted at is the underlying thesis of the whole
Theosophic position.
Successive members of the great Oriental Brotherhood have
been incarnated at
intervals in the history of mankind, each giving out portions
of the one central
doctrine, which therefore must have a common base. The
puzzling identities
found in the study ofComparative Religion thus find an
explanation in the
identity of their authorship.
Mrs. Annie Besant
later elaborated this view in the early pages of her work,
Esoteric Christianity.
She contrasts it with the commonly accepted explanation
of religious origins
of the academicians of our day. Summing up this position
she writes:
"The Comparative
Mythologists contend that the common origin is a common
ignorance, and that
the loftiest religious doctrines are simply refined
expressions of the
crude and barbarous guesses of savages, of primitive men,
regarding themselves
and their surroundings. Animism, fetishism, nature-worship-these
are the constituents
of the primitive mud out of which has grown the
splendid lily of
religion. A Krishna, a Buddha, a Lao-Tze, a Jesus, are the
highly civilized, but
lineal descendants of the whirling medicine-men of the
savage. God is a
composite photograph of the innumerable gods who are the
personifications of
the forces of nature. It is all summed up in the phrase:
Religions are branches
from a common trunk-human ignorance.
"The Comparative
Religionists consider, on the other hand, that all religions
originated from the
teachings of Divine Men, who gave out to the different
nations, from time to
time, such parts of the verities of religion as the people
are capable of
receiving, teaching ever the same morality, inculcating the use
of similar means,
employing the same significant symbols. The savage religions-animism
and the rest-are
degenerations, the results of decadence, distorted and
dwarfed descendants of
true religious beliefs. Sun-worship and pure forms of
nature worship were,
in their day, noble religions, highly allegorical, but full
of profound truth and
knowledge. The great Teachers . . . form an enduring
Brotherhood of men,
who have risen beyond humanity, who appear at certain
periods to enlighten
the world, and who are the spiritual guardians of the human
race. This view may be
summed up in the phrase: Religions are branches from a
common trunk-Divine
Wisdom."49
This is the view of
religions which Madame Blavatsky presented in Isis.
Religions, it would
say, never rise; they only degenerate. Theosophic writers50
are at pains to point
out that once a pure high religious impulse is given by a
Master-Teacher, it
tends before long to gather about it the incrustations of the.82
human materializing
tendency, under which the spiritual truths are obscured and
finally lost amid the
crudities of literalism. Then after the world has
blundered on through a
period of darkness the time grows ripe for a new
revelation, and
another member of the Spiritual Fraternity comes into
terrestrial life.
Madame Blavatsky says:
"The very
corner-stone of their (Brahmans' and Buddhists') religious systems is
periodical
incarnations of the Deity. Whenever humanity is about merging into
materialism and moral
degradation, a Supreme Being incarnates himself in his
creature selected for
the purpose, . . . Christna saying to Arjuna (in the
Bhagavad Gita): 'As
often as virtue declines in the world, I make myself
manifest to save
it.'"51
Madame Blavatsky
stated that she was in contact with several of these supermen,
who sent her forth as
their messenger to impart, in new form, the old knowledge..83
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CHAPTER VI
THE MAHATMAS AND THEIR
LETTERS
The Masters whom
Theosophy presents to us are simply high-ranking students in
life's school of
experience. They are members of our own evolutionary group, not
visitants from the
celestial spheres. They are supermen only in that they have
attained knowledge of
the laws of life and mastery over its forces with which we
are still struggling.
They are also termed by Theosophists the "just men made
perfect," the
finished products of our terrene experience, those more earnest
souls of our own race
who have pressed forward to attain the fulness of the
stature of Christ, the
prize of the high calling of God in Christhood. They are
not Gods come down to
earth, but earthly mortals risen to the status of Christs.
They ask from us no
reverence, no worship; they demand no allegiance but that
which it is expected
we shall render to the principles of Truth and Fact, and to
the nobility of life.
They are our "Elder Brothers," not distant deities; and
will even make their
presence known to us and grant us the privilege of
coφperating with them
when we have shown ourselves capable of working
unselfishly for
mankind. They are not our Masters in the sense of holding
lordship over us; they
are the "Masters of Wisdom and Compassion." Moved by an
infinite sympathy with
the whole human race they have renounced their right to
go forward to more
splendid conquests in the evolutionary field, and have
remained in touch with
man in order to throw the weight of their personal force
on the side of progress.
But the rank of the
Mahatmas must not be underrated because they still fall
under the category of
human beings. They have accumulated vast stores of
knowledge about the
life of man and the universe; about the meaning and purpose
of evolution; the methods
of progress; the rationale of the expansion of the
powers latent in the
Ego; the choice and attainment of ends and values in life;
and the achievement of
beauty and grandeur in individual development. Upon all
these questions which
affect the life and happiness of mortals they possess
competent knowledge
which they are willing to impart to qualified students. They
have by virtue of
their own force of character mastered every human problem,
perfected their growth
in beauty, gained control over all the natural forces of
life. They stand at
the culmination of all human endeavor. They have lifted
mortality up to
immortality, have carried humanity aloft to divinity. Through
the mediatorship of
the Christos, or spiritual principle in them, they have
reconciled the carnal
nature of man, his animal soul, with the essential
divinity of his higher
Self. And they, if they have been lifted up, stand
patiently eager to
draw all men unto them.
Madame Blavatsky's
exploitation of the Adepts (or their exploitation of her) is
a startling event in
the modern religious drama. It was a unique procedure and
took the world by
surprise. To be sure, India and Tibet, even China, were
familiar with the idea
of supermen. India had its Buddhas, Boddhisatvas, and
Rishis. But what not
even India was prepared to view without suspicion was that.84
several of the
hierarchical Brotherhood should carry on a clandestine
intercourse with a
nondescript group, made up of a Russian, an American, and
several Englishmen,
and issue to them fragments of the ancient lore for
broadcasting to the
incredulous West, which would mock it, scorn it, and trample
it underfoot.
It was only justified,
according to Madame Blavatsky, by certain considerations
which influenced the
final decision of the Great White Brotherhood Council.
Majority opinion was
against the move; but the minority urged that two reasons
rendered it advisable.
The guillotine and the fagot pile had been eliminated
from the historical
forms of martyrdom; and, secondly, the esotericism of the
doctrines was, in a
manner, an automatic safety device. The teachings would
appeal to those who
were "ready" for them; their meaning would soar over the
heads of those for
whom they were not suited.
The matter was decided
affirmatively, we are informed, by the assumption of full
karmic responsibility
for the launching of the crusade by the two Adepts, Morya
and Koot Hoomi Lal
Singh. The latter, in the early portion of his present
incarnation, had been
a student at an English University and felt that he had
found sufficient
reliability on the part of intelligent Europeans to make them
worthy to receive the
great knowledge. Morya, we are told, had taken on Madame
Blavatsky as his personal
attachι, pupil or chela. She had earned in former
situations the right
to the high commission of carrying the old truth to the
world at large in the
last quarter of the nineteenth century.
It is hinted that
Madame Blavatsky had formed a close link with the Master Morya
in former births, when
she was known to him as a great personage. It is also
said that she was
herself kept from full admission to the Brotherhood only by
some special
"Karma" which needed to be "worked out" in a comparatively
humble
station and
personality during this life. She said the Masters knew what she was
accountable for,
though it was not the charlatanism the world at large charged
her with. We are led
to assume that the Master Morya exercised a guardianship
over her in early life,
and later, that he occasionally manifested himself to
her, giving her
suggestions and encouragement. One or two of these encounters
with her Master are
recorded. She met him in his physical body in London in
1851. In one of her
old note-books, which her aunt Madame Fadeef sent to her in
Wόrzburg in 1885,
there is a memorandum of her meeting with Morya in London. The
entry is as follows:
"Nuit mιmorable.
Certaine nuit par un clair de lune que se couchait ΰ-Ramsgate--
12 aoϋt,
1851,--lorsque je rencontrai le Maξtre de mes rκves."
Hints are thrown out
as to other meetings on her travels, and we are told that
she studied ancient
philosophy and science under the Master's direct tutelage in
Tibet covering periods
aggregating at least seven years of her life. The
testimony of Col.
Olcott is no less precise. He says:
"I had ocular
proof that at least some of those who worked with us were living
men, from having seen
them in the flesh in India, after having seen them in the
astral body in America
and in Europe; from having touched and talked with them.
Instead of telling me
that they were spirits, they told me they were as much
alive as myself, and
that each of them had his own peculiarities and
capabilities, in
short, his complete individuality. They told me that what they
had attained to I
should one day myself acquire, how soon would depend entirely
on myself; and that I
might not anticipate anything whatever from favor, but,
like them, must gain
every step, every inch, of progress by my own exertions."1.85
The fact that the
Masters were living human beings made their revelations of
cosmic and spiritual
truth, say the Theosophists, more valuable than alleged
revelations from
hypothetical Gods in other systems of belief. That their
knowledge is, in a
manner of speaking, human instead of heavenly or "divine"
should give it greater
validity for us. The Mahatmas were, it is said, in direct
contact with the next
higher grades of intelligent beings standing above them in
the hierarchical
order, so that their teachings have the double worth of high
human and supernal
authority. This, occultists believe, affords the most
trustworthy type of
revelation.
It was not until the
two Theosophic Founders had reached India, in whose
northernmost
vastnesses the members of the Great White Brotherhood were said to
maintain their earthly
residence, that continuous evidence of their reality and
their leadership was
vouchsafed. The Theosophic case for Adept revelation rests
upon a long-continued
correspondence between persons (Mr. A. P. Sinnett, mainly,
Mr. A. O. Hume,
Damodar and others in minor degree) of good intelligence, but
claiming no mystical
or psychical illumination, and the two Mahatmas, K.H. and
M. Sinnett, Editor of
The Pioneer, at Simla in northern India, was an English
journalist of
distinction and ability. Although he had manifested no special
temperamental
disposition toward the mystical or occult, he was the particular
recipient of the
attention and favors of the Mahatmas over a space of three or
four years, beginning
about 1879. It was at his own home in Simla, later at
Allahabad, that most
of the letters were received, addressed to him personally.
Most, if not all, were
in answer to the queries which he was permitted, if not
invited, to ask his
respected teachers.
Mr. Sinnett's book,
The Occult World, was the first direct statement to the West
of the existence of
the Masters and their activity as sponsors for the
Theosophical Society.
He undertook the onerous task of vindicating, as far as
argument and the
phenomenal material in his hands could, the title of these
supermen to the
possession of surpassing knowledge and sublime wisdom. His work
supplemented that of
Madame Blavatsky in Isis, yet it went beyond the latter in
asserting the
connection of the Theosophical Society with an alleged association
of perfected
individuals. It put the Theosophical Society squarely on record as
an organization, not
merely for the purpose of eclectic research, but standing
for the promulgation of
a body of basic truths of an esoteric sort and
arrogating to itself a
position of unique eminence in a spiritual world order.
In the Introduction to
The Occult World Mr. Sinnett elaborates his apologetic
for the general theory
of Mahatmic existence and knowledge. Fundamental for his
argument is, of
course, the theory of reincarnational continuity of development
which would enable
individual humans, through long experience, to attain degrees
of learning far in
advance of the majority of the race. But his "proofs" of both
the existence and the
superior knowledge of these exceptional beings are offered
in the book itself, in
which his experience with them, and the material of some
of their letters to
him, are presented. His introductory dissertation is a
justification of the
Mahatmic policy of maintaining their priceless knowledge in
futile obscurity
within the narrow confines of their exclusive Brotherhood. He
then attempts to
rectify our scornful point of view as regards esotericism. Of
the superlative wisdom
of the Masters he posits his own direct knowledge. The
Brothers are to him
empirically real. But the logical justification of their
attitude of seclusion
and aloofness, or worse, of their selfish appropriation of
knowledge which it
must be assumed would be of immense social value if
disseminated, is the
point upon which he chiefly labors.
"There is a
school of philosophy," he says, "still in existence of which modern
culture has lost sight
. . . modern metaphysics, and to a large extent modern.86
physical science, have
been groping for centuries blindly after knowledge which
occult philosophy has
enjoyed in full measure all the while. Owing to a train of
fortunate
circumstances I have come to know that this is the case; I have come
into contact with
persons who are heirs of a greater knowledge concerning the
mysteries of Nature
and humanity than modern culture has yet evolved. . . .
Modern science has
accomplished grand results by the open method of
investigation, and is
very impatient of the theory that persons who have
attained to real
knowledge, either in science or metaphysics, could have been
content to hide their
light under a bushel. . . . But there is no need to
construct hypotheses
in the matter. The facts are accessible if they are sought
for in the right
way."2
Spiritual science is
foremost with the Adepts; physical science being of
secondary importance.
The main strength of occultism has been devoted to the
science of
metaphysical energy and to the development of faculties in man, not
instruments outside
him, which will yield him actual experimental knowledge of
the subtle powers in
nature. It aims to gain actual and exact knowledge of
spiritual things
which, under all other systems, remain the subject of
speculation or blind
religious faith.
Summing up the
extraordinary powers which Adeptship gives its practitioners, he
says they are chiefly
the ability to dissociate consciousness from the body, to
put it instantaneously
in rapport with other minds anywhere on the earth, and to
exert magical control
over the sublimated energies of matter. Occultism
postulates a basic
differentiation between the principles of mind, soul, and
spirit, and gives a
formal technique for their interrelated development. It has
evolved a practique,
also, based on the spiritual constitution of matter, which,
it alleges, vastly
facilitates human growth. The skilled occultist is able to
shift his
consciousness from one to another plane of manifestation. In short,
his control over the
vibrational energies of the Akasha makes him veritably lord
of all the physical
creation.
The members of the
Brotherhood remain in more or less complete seclusion among
the Himalayas because,
as they have said, they find contact with the coarse
heavy currents of
ordinary human emotionalism-violent feeling, material
grasping, and base
ambitions-painful to their sensitive organization. This great
fraternity is at once
the least and most exclusive body in the world; it is
composed of the world's
very elect, yet any human being is eligible. He must
have demonstrated his
possession of the required qualifications, which are so
high that the average
mortal must figure on aeons of education before he can
knock at the portals
of their spiritual society. The road thither is beset with
many real perils,
which no one can safely pass till he has proven his mastery
over his own nature
and that of the world.
"The ultimate
development of the adept requires amongst other things a life of
absolute physical
purity, and the candidate must, from the beginning, give
practical evidence of
his willingness to adopt this. He must . . . for all the
years of his
probation, be perfectly chaste, perfectly abstemious, and
indifferent to
physical luxury of every sort. This regimen does not involve any
fantastic discipline
or obtrusive ascetism, nor withdrawal from the world. There
would be nothing to
prevent a gentleman in ordinary society from being in some
of the preliminary
stages of training without anybody about him being the wiser.
For true occultism,
the sublime achievement of the real adept, is not attained
through the loathsome
ascetism of the ordinary Indian fakeer, the yogi of the
woods and wilds, whose
dirt accumulates with his sanctity-of the fanatic who
fastens iron hooks
into his flesh or holds up an arm till it withers."3.87
How did the Mahatmas
impart their teaching? Mr. Sinnett was the channel of
transmission, and to
him the two Masters sent a long series of letters on
philosophical and
other subjects, they themselves remaining in the background.
The Mahatma Letters
themselves, as originally received by Mr. Sinnett, were not
published until 1925.4
Sinnett, early in his acquaintance with the Masters,
asked K.H. for the
privilege of a personal interview with him. The Master
declined. His messages
came in the form of long letters which dropped into his
possession by facile
means that would render the Post Office authorities of any
nation both envious
and sceptical. The correspondence began when Madame
Blavatsky suggested
that Mr. Sinnett write certain questions which were on his
mind in a letter
addressed to K.H., saying she would dispatch it to him, several
hundred miles distant,
by the exercise of her magnetic powers. She would
accompany it with the
request for a reply. The idea in Mr. Sinnett's mind was
one which he thought,
could the Adept actually carry it out, would demonstrate
at one stroke the
central theses of occultism and practically revolutionize the
whole trend of human
thinking. His suggestion to K.H. in that first letter was
that the Mahatma
should use his superior power to reproduce in far-off India, on
the same morning on
which it issued from the press, a full copy of the London
Times. Madame
Blavatsky disintegrated the missive and wafted its particles to
the hermit in the
mountains. The answer came in two days. The test of the London
newspaper, he wrote,
was inadmissible precisely because "it would close the
mouths of the
sceptics." The world is unprepared for so convincing a
demonstration of
supernormal powers, he argued, because, on the one hand the
event would throw the
principles and formulae of science into chaos, and on the
other, it would
demolish the structure of the concepts of natural law by the
restoration of the belief
in "miracle." The result would thus be disastrous for
both science and
faith. Incompetent as the thesis of mechanistic naturalism is
to provide mortals
with the ground of understanding of the deeper phenomena of
life and mind, it does
less harm on the whole than would a return to arrant
superstition such as
must follow in the wake of the wonder Sinnett had proposed.
The Master asked his
correspondent if the modern world had really thrown off the
shackles of ignorant
prejudice and religious bigotry to a sufficient extent to
enable it to withstand
the shock that such an occurrence would bring to its
fixed ideas. If this
one test were furnished, he went on, Western incredulity
would in a moment ask
for others and still others; shrewd ingenuity would devise
ever more bizarre
performances; and since not all the millions of sceptics could
be given ocular
demonstrations, the net outcome of the whole procedure would be
confusion and
unhappiness. The mass of humanity must feel its way slowly toward
these high powers, and
the premature exhibition of future capacity would but
overwhelm the mind and
unsettle the poise of people everywhere.
Mr. Sinnett replied,
venturing to believe "that the European mind was less
hopelessly intractable
than Koot Hoomi had represented it." The Master's second
letter continued his
protestations:
"The Mysteries
never were, never can be, put within reach of the general public,
not, at least, until
the longed-for day when our religious philosophy becomes
universal. At no time
have more than a scarcely appreciable minority of men
possessed Nature's
secret, though multitudes have witnessed the practical
evidences of the
possibility of their possession."
Letters followed on
both sides, Mr. Sinnett taking advantage of many
opportunities afforded
by varying circumstances in each case to fortify his
assurance that Madame
Blavatsky herself was not inditing the replies in the name
of the Adept.
Frequently replies came, containing specific reference to detailed
matters in his
missives, when she had not been out of his sight during the
interim between the
despatch and the return. The letters came and went as well.88
when she was hundreds
of miles away. The answers would often be found in his
locked desk drawer,
sometimes inside his own letter, the seal of which had not
been broken. On
occasion the Mahatma's reply dropped from the open air upon his
desk while he was
watching.
Madame Blavatsky and
the Master both explained the method by which the letters
were written.
Theoretically, they were not written at all, but "precipitated."
Among the Adept's
occult or "magical" powers is that of impressing upon the
surface of some
material, as paper, the images which he holds vividly before his
mind. He may thus
impress or imprint a photograph, a scene, or a word, or
sentence, upon
parchment. He uses materials, of course, paper, ink or pencil
graphite. But in his
ability to disintegrate atomic combinations of matter, he
can seize upon the
material present, or even at a distance, and "precipitate" or
reintegrate it, in
conformity with the lines of his strong thought-energies. He
can thus image a
sentence, word for word, in his mind, and then pour the current
of atomic material into the given form of the letters, upon the plane of the