Julia
Wharton Lewis Campbell Ver Planck, best known for her writings under the
pseudonym Jasper Niemand, was an important American Theosophist, and when Blavatsky died she wrote
the following article in tribute to her.
MADAME BLAVATSKY AT A
DISTANCE
It was in the spring of 1885 that I
first heard the name of H.P. Blavatsky and the word Theosophy. We were at luncheon,
and my hostess began opening her mail. She tossed one pamphlet impatiently
aside, with the remark:
-
"Why
do they send me that? I am not a Theosophist."
-
"What
is a Theosophist?" queried I.
-
"A
follower of Madame Blavatsky's Eastern teachings."
-
"And,
pray, who is this Madame Blavatsky?"
With an exclamation at my ignorance
—an ignorance caused by circumstances which had removed me from all touch with
the world of thought— my friend handed the discarded pamphlet to me, saying:
-
"Read
that, and you will know her."
Prophetic remark! "That"
was the Report of the Society of Psychic Research, and through it I did come to
know her. Read with care, it left two distinct impressions upon my mind.
First. Its amazing weakness as a
verdict. My people on both sides had been lawyers for generations. I was
accustomed to hear testimony discussed. The circumstantial nature of the
evidence; its fragmentary character; the insufficient of testimony; the
inadequacy of proof; the fact that a single witness, sent out for the purpose
of discovering suspected fraud, and a witness whose account of his proceedings
showed credulity and want of equipoise, all combined to fill me with surprise
that any body of men should consent to issue matter so feeble as their
deliberate judgment. The Report bore no evidence to my mind save that of an
immense prejudice, a predetermination to arraign and condemn.
The second impression left upon me
related to Madame Blavatsky herself. I saw trace of her immense activity, her
intellectuality, her work, and her influence. Evidently here was a power,
whether for good, or for evil. Either she was an adventuress far surpassing all
the world had ever known, an original adventuress who slaved for intellectual
progress and rule as others slave for nothing, not even for gold — or she was a
martyr. I could see no mean between. The force of her character took hold upon
my imagination, and caused desire to know what were the teachings for which
this woman braved —not alone obloquy, poverty, and persecution— but also the
laughter of two continents, that laughter which is the deadliest weapon of the
nineteenth century. So great impatience was engendered in me, so intense was my
interest in the problem before me, that I went this same afternoon to hear talk
given by Mr. Arthur Gebhard in a private salon, and all I heard convinced me,
as by illumination, that the Theosophical teachings filled a life-long want of
my nature; that they alone could
reconcile me to Life and to Death.
As these teachings shed their
beneficent light upon my path, I abandoned, so far as conscious thought was
concerned, the fascinating Blavatsky puzzle. The attempt to solve her character
ended. I had started upon an intellectual amusement; I had found a great Truth,
found a hint of the Holy Grail, and all else was forgotten in this.
-
"It
matters not what Blavatsky is," I exclaimed; "Theosophy is the Truth,
and Truth is what avails; its adherents are nothing."
It was only later on, as the
philosophy opened out before me, at once the lode-star and consolation of my
life, that I discovered within myself, quite by chance, as it were, a profound,
a passionate gratitude to that messenger who had dared all things, given all
things, endured all things to bring this priceless and eternal gift to the
Western world. She was my spiritual mother, my benefactor and my guide. In the
light of this thought all lesser ones were swallowed up. The need of
understanding her character disappeared then, to emerge later on. For the moment
she was only, to me, that soul to whom I owed the most. This indebtedness, no
less than knowledge of her untiring and enormous labors, seemed to spur me on
to such imitation as I could compass. For ever the idea that the only possible
return I could make to my benefactress was to give to others that bread of life
which she had given me, urged me to steadfast action. I seemed to feel, across
the intervening distance, the vast surge of her activity, and as a thing to be
sensed in all ways. It was as if what she had given was so vital that it
germinated within me; a life-impulse was imparted by her soul to mine. I never
had the same experience with any other person or teaching. Only those who have
passed through it can know the reality of the "multiplication of energy"
as possessed by certain great souls. That which Keely has demonstrated to
modern science — that the friction of inter-etheric action, and the play of
molecule against molecule, atom against atom, liberates force instead of
decreasing it, was here proven to me, upon the psychic plane and from a
distance, by the energic action of her soul upon mine. It was tangible,
verifiable; it had a pulse, ran through a scale; alternated but never waned.
It was only at a later stage that
the desire to understand Madame Blavatsky returned. The immediate cause of this
emergence was attack made upon her. I felt a need to justify her, not alone to
the world, but to myself. That is, I believed in her. But I wanted to be able
to put the ground for that belief very clearly, to give reason (as well as
intuition) for it. I found myself amply able to do this, and for a very simple
reason. It became at once evident to me that the explanation of the personality
of Madame Blavatsky was to be found in the philosophy taught by her. Message
and messenger are one and the same thing in the laws of the supra-natural,
where, as Drummond puts it, cohesion is the law of laws.
A person may teach a truth and yet
may not be that truth, by virtue of living it. But he cannot impart a truth in
its vitality, so that it fructifies —an energetic impulse of power— in other lives,
unless he possesses that life-impulse by reason of his having become it. He
cannot give what he has not. For example: after deducting, as unproven, a
number of reports concerning H.P.B. —reports which time has abundantly
disproven— I found that those hints of magnetico-etheric laws given by the
Eastern school, would explain many of her words or ways, as endeavors to set
up, alter, contract or expand given vibrations in the nerve-aura, or in the
ether, both of which are dynamic agents of vast power when acted upon by
certain sound-combinations known to the Adept. It was not, for instance, the
philological meaning of the word she spoke which she intended to take effect upon
the hearer, but its tone, or its sound, or its vibratory ratio, which set up
effects upon the inner planes and met conditions therein existing which she
alone could see and use to helpful ends. She always acted from the plane of the
Real, and we had only physical senses where with to gauge her spiritual action;
hence our failure. The fact that soul is independent of body, and may absent
itself from the body, leaving only a residuum of force and reflected
consciousness to run the body, accounted for other peculiarities; and so on
through the list. Nowhere could I find incongruity when I studied her from the
stand-point of the inner and less unreal planes, and when I could not follow
her mighty nature, I could still discern that, being what it was, it could only
exist by virtue of going with the Law and not against it. When, in addition, I
allowed for my own ignorance of Law and of those sub-rays called nature's laws
or forces, the problem was answered. The fact of her existence thus became the
most powerful factor of mine. Where I did well, she inspired me; she, and what
she gave forth. Where I did ill was where I departed from the philosophy and
from her example.
I never met her, I never looked into
her eyes. Words cannot picture regret. But after a time she wrote to me, of her
own precedent and motion, as one w-ho responds from afar to the longing of a
friend. Prompt to reply if I asked help for another, silent only to the
personal call; full of pity and anguish for the mistaken, the deserter, the suffering;
solicitous only for the Cause, the Work, so I found her always. Although she
had a lion heart, it bled; but it never broke. The subtle aroma of her courage
spread over seas, invigorated and rejoiced every synchronous heart, set us to
doing and to daring. Knowing thus her effect upon our lives, in its daily incentive
to altruistic endeavor, truth and virtue, we can smile at all alien testimony.
Only from kindred virtues do these virtues spring. She could never have
strengthened us in these things if she had not been possessed of them in
abundant measure.
To quote the words of one who lived
in the house with her: "They may say what they please about her
personality. I never knew a better one. It had the sturdiness and dignity of
the druidic oak, and she was well expressed by the druidic motto: ‘The Truth against the World’."
Although in the flesh she remained
unknown to me, she alone of all the world's Leaders gave me Truth, taught me
how to find it, and to hold it "against the world". The soul that can
work such a miracle at a distance is no minor ray; it is one of the great Solar
Centres that die not, even though for a time we miscall it Helena Blavatsky.
(This
article was published in Lucifer
magazine, July 1891, p.382-385; and later in the book HPB: in memory of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, 1891, p.75-78)
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