WAS BLAVATSKY IN A PREVIOUS LIFE CAGLIOSTRO?

 

Franz Hartmann claimed that Blavatsky in a previous incarnation had been Cagliostro. In an article titled "A Double Personality: Cagliostro and H.P. Blavatsky," he wrote:

« It is usually said that Cagliostro died on August 26th, 1795 in his prison in Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome. The fact is, he disappeared from that prison about this time, but nothing reliable is known about his death.

On the other hand, it is asserted by very reliable sources that Cagliostro stayed in the house of H.P. Blavatsky’s grandparents in Russia for a long time after this alleged day of death, and that strange things took place during his stay there. For example, once in the middle of winter he mysteriously brought out a plate full of strawberries for a sick person who wanted them.

Whether H.P. Blavatsky was actually a reincarnation of Cagliostro, who had previously incarnated in G. Balsamo, every reader may think as he likes. I don’t want to make any assertion here either, but only to mention that when I once asked H.P. Blavatsky for her portrait, she gave me Cagliostro’s portrait instead of hers. I didn’t question her further about it. But it is possible that Cagliostro will soon appear among us again in a new personal appearance and under a new name. Hopefully next time it will be better understood. »

(Sphinx, April 1896, pp. 207-214)

OBSERVATIONS

I am suspicious of this assertion that Blavatsky had previously been Cagliostro, for several reasons.

1) First, because when Blavatsky spoke about Cagliostro in her "Theosophical Glossary," she was somewhat dismissive of Cagliostro, saying:

« His fate was that of every human being who proves that he knows more than do his fellow- creatures; he was “stoned to death” by persecutions, lies, and infamous accusations, and yet he was the friend and adviser of the highest and mightiest of every land he visited.

He was finally tried and sentenced in Rome as a heretic, and was said to have died during his confinement in a State prison.

Yet his end was not utterly undeserved, as he had been untrue to his vows in some respects, had fallen from his state of chastity and yielded to ambition and selfishness. »

(p.72)

I get the impression that if Blavatsky had previously been Cagliostro, she would have been more lenient towards Cagliostro's failings.

2) When Master Kuthumi spoke to Mr. Alfred Sinnett  about Blavatsky , he informed him that:

« After almost a century of fruitless searching, our leaders had to seize the only opportunity they had to send a European body [i.e., Blavatsky] to Western soil to serve as a connecting link between your world and ours. »

(ML 26, p.203)

Blavatsky indicated that Cagliostro was an agent of the trans-Himalayan masters:

« Mesmer was also an initiated member of the Brotherhoods of the Fratres Lucis and of Lukshoor (or Luxor), or the Egyptian Branch of’ the latter. It was the Council of “Luxor” which selected him —according to the orders of the “Great Brotherhood”— to act in the XVIIIth century as their usual pioneer, sent in the last quarter of every century to enlighten a small portion of the Western nations in occult lore.

It was St. Germain who supervised the development of events in this case; and later Cagliostro was commissioned to help, but having made a series of mistakes, more or less fatal, he was recalled.

Of these three men who were at first regarded as quacks, Mesmer is already vindicated. The justification of the two others will follow in the next century. »

(Theosophical Glossary, pp. 213-214)

Therefore, it makes no sense that if the Masters were going to use Cagliostro again as their agent in the 19th century, they would spend almost a century looking for someone else.

Furthermore, Blavatsky specified that Cagliostro made several important mistakes that caused the failure of his mission, and in such a case the Masters would at least have waited for Cagliostro's soul to be perfected before entrusting him with another mission.

And if Cagliostro died in 1795 (and according to Franz Hartmann, Cagliostro would have died years later) that is much less than a century before the appearance of Blavatsky who was born in 1831.

Therefore, the Masters were looking for another soul other than Cagliostro, since Kuthumi specified that they had been searching for almost a century.

PARALLELS BETWEEN CAGLIOSTRO AND BLAVATSKY EXAMINED BY FRANZ HARTMANN

A DOUBLE PERSONALITY: CAGLIOSTRO AND H.P. BLAVATSKY

The greatest riddle which man has to solve is man himself, and among the many human phenomena which we encounter in life, we find from time to time those whose essence appears so completely different from that of the rest, that we must describe them as particularly puzzling.

First of all, we can distinguish between them which have a double nature, consisting of an individuality and a personality, whereby the individuality, i.e., the inner character of a person, is much greater than his personality, and is only imperfectly represented in the latter. The personality presents more or less personal weaknesses; but the genius of individuality so dominates them that personal weaknesses disappear in its light. What do we care if the crowing of a rooster frightens the lion; therefore the lion remains a lion after all.

What do we care if Schiller loved the smell of rotting apples which promoted his poetry; his genius was made of rotten apples. Individuality is the genius, the spirit; the personality is the house in which the genius lives; both can be very different from one another, and this difference becomes ever more apparent the more the genius is revealed and dominates the personality.

Petty people see in a great person only the personality with its shortcomings and weaknesses; they know nothing of genius because they have none themselves and only like can recognize like; but whoever has spirit himself can also recognize the spirit in others.

Anyone who, because he has a spirit, can distinguish this spirit from his perishable personality with its weaknesses, will also have an awareness of other people’s personal weaknesses, and instead of finding his task in reproaching them, he will rather strive to to let his own personality permeate his immortal spirit so that it becomes a perfect image and value of the spirit which dwells and overshadows him.

Much has been written about man’s “double consciousness”; and perhaps nowhere has this been described more clearly than in Goethe’s “Faust”, where it says:

      “Two souls live, alas! in my chest;

       The one wants to separate from the other;

       One holds in crude lust for love

       To the world with clinging organs;

       The other lifts herself violently from the dust

       To the creatures of high ancestors” etc.

One reads about such outpourings and ignores them; it is viewed as a kind of poetic enthusiasm which has no scientific basis and lacks practical value. And yet this “rapture” has a secure, scientific basis for anyone who knows the laws of “reincarnation” and the practical value of knowing this dual nature is infinitely greater than any other knowledge, which relates to one’s immortal self, while all other knowledge relates to incidental, strange and ephemeral things.

Whoever can distinguish his own higher, eternal and immortal nature from the transitory personality, not in phantasy but in truth, knows that the spiritual individuality does not die, but appears in different successive forms of existence as different personalities.

Thus, how one and the same actor can appear under different masks, may always remain as the same person. The only difference in these comparisons is that an actor’s mask is a lifeless tool with which the actor can do what he wants, while the personality of a person has its own will, its own instincts, its own thinking and opposes the work of the spirit with great obstacles which the spirit or genius often cannot overcome.

Now every earth-born person has a heavenly spirit, but not everyone has expressed great genius, and that means that not every person has achieved such a strong spiritual individuality in his previous reincarnations wherein it has become self-aware and evident in its present existence.

Just as a child only attains a certain personal sense of self and self-consciousness after it has reached a certain age, so too does the mind only acquire spiritual self-consciousness and spiritual self-knowledge when its “spiritual” organization (its astral form) in the course of successive reincarnations, has obtained the necessary training and maturity.

But when man has reached this stage of development, he also can distinguish between his immortal self and his personal “self”; he then knows where he was in his previous and in the previous life. Not that he “imagines” it, but he can remember his previous incarnation as well as we can remember the skirt we wore yesterday.

For the spirit which has become completely self-conscious, the whole series of its incarnations is a spectacle, the events of which it remembers because it played along with it. For example, Gautama Buddha describes this state to us by saying:

« After the rejection of joys and sorrows, Brahmin, after the annihilation of the former happiness and gloom, I establish the consecration of the painless, joyless, indifferent, insightful, completely pure fourth vision. — Such a mind, intimate, purified, cleansed, solid, cleared of slag, supple, pliable, firm, inviolable, I directed the mind to the remembering of knowledge of earlier forms of existence. 

I remembered many different earlier forms of existence, as if like one life, then two lives, then three lives, then four lives, then five lives, then ten lives, then twenty lives, then thirty lives, then to forty lives, then to fifty lives, then to a hundred lives, then to a thousand lives, then to a hundred thousand lives, then to the period during some world emerges, then to the times of some world failure, then to the times during some world formation—world failure.

'There I was, I had that name, I belonged to that family, that was my class, that of my profession, I experienced such weal and woe, that was my end of life; different there, I re-emerged elsewhere. There I was now, I had this name, I belonged to this family, this was my class, this my profession, I have experienced such weal and woe; so was the end of my life; because different, I came back into existence.’

So, I remembered various earlier forms of existence, each with its own peculiar relationships. This knowledge, Brahmin, I had now gained first in the first hours of the night, divided the judicial knowledge, gained the knowledge, divided the darkness, gained the light, as I was there with a serious mind, eager, tireless. » ⁽¹⁾

In order to attain to this level of omniscience, one would have to be a Buddha, i.e., a completely enlightened one. There are few of them; on the other hand there are some who remember all the details of their previous existence just as well as we remember today what we did yesterday.

In this case we have the spectacle of a double personality, or even a multiple one, as we find, for example, in Count Cagliostro, externally known as Giuseppe Balsamo, and in perhaps the same Cagliostro, externally known as H.P. Blavatsky.

To the inexperienced this may sound ridiculous because it is something new, and it cannot be scientifically demonstrated that it is so; philosophically, however, it can be explained, and the author’s conviction that it is so is based on his experience. Whoever has never come out of the house in which he was born and has not lived in another knows only one thing; but whoever has moved from one house to another can provide information about both houses.

For an ordinary person, the long time between the two last reincarnations, averaging 1'500 years, may contribute somewhat to making the memory of the last incarnation more difficult, because the conditions under which the personality appears are so completely different from one another.

For example, it may be difficult for a modern muscle man to familiarize himself with the idea that he died as a Roman gladiator 1'500 years ago, and if the memory of it dawned darkly in him he would probably reject it.

An occultist, on the other hand, who has achieved a certain degree of spiritual self-awareness and the freedom of action associated with it, can under certain circumstances, as soon as he says goodbye to [one] life, can immediately incarnate again in another personality; be it in a newborn child or in an adult who is dying.

In this case the soul of the occultist takes the place of the soul of the dying person and the revived body comes to life again. A multitude of such examples could be cited here, such as the repeated incarnations of the great Lama in Tibet, as observed and described by well-known world travelers and emissaries from European countries. ⁽²⁾

Then known cases where an “exchange of souls” ⁽³⁾ in the “boldest sense” of the word, namely an exchange of individualities between two persons, has taken place, etc.; but for the unbelieving skeptic such a silly smile, but the mystic familiar with the laws of reincarnation does not need immortal “proofs.”

Let us assume for example, that in my current incarnation I was fully aware of who I was in my previous incarnation, under what circumstances I lived and how I died, there would certainly be no room for me to doubt this; but I couldn’t prove it to anyone else and if he didn’t know anything about these laws, if I let them go, he would at most consider me insane. In such circumstances, silence would be the most sensible thing for me.

Who was Cagliostro?

The Conversation Lexicon ⁽⁴⁾ says that he was a charlatan and a cheat, and all those who are used to drawing their wisdom from the Conversation Lexicon believe it and pray for it. Of all the books which deal with Cagliostro, almost all of them are diatribes about him, and the lies they tell are so obvious that it takes a great deal of ignorance to believe them; but it does show that he was lied to, robbed and deprived by his opponents in the most irresponsible way. ⁽⁵⁾  The “necklace story” is like the story of the ritual murder of the Jews; no matter how often it is refuted, it keeps reappearing.

The books which were written in favor of Cagliostro, such as the defense written by himself, have become extremely rare; the dark men have done their utmost to cast them aside. All that could possibly be rightly said of Cagliostro was that the person in whom he appeared on the stage of life was called Giuseppe Balsamo and was born in Italy, while Cagliostro claimed to be from India and received support from his relatives living there in his youth.

If we assume that the body of Cagliostro was really G. Balsamo, this does not prevent us from recognizing the Cagliostro in him. Balsamo was the house, Cagliostro was the resident; the house was built in Palermo, and Cagliostro, who came from India, moved into it.

But how could Cagliostro have made this understandable to the scribes and pharisees of his time, and how should the learned writers of the Conversation Lexicon know something about the laws of reincarnation, and had they wrote it, who would believe and understand it?

If only the author of these lines would consider to mention the matter if he cared the least about the opinion of the conservatives as to his common sense.

It is not our intention to rehabilitate Cagliostro’s standing before public opinion; he and we do not care at all about this opinion; we only intend here to cite him as an example of a double personality.

The lies which, for example, a certain collaborator of the “Narrator on the Spree” has collected about Cagliostro surpass in impertinence the lies of a Solovyoff in relation to H.P. Blavatsky; the dear public is amused and therefore its purpose is fulfilled.

Such lies are based partly on malice, envy, jealousy, offended vanity, etc., and partly on lack of understanding. If, for example, Cagliostro is accused of “lying terribly” when he said that he “was one of the guests at the wedding of Cana, that he lived before the flood and went into the ark with Noah,” every occultist knows what to make of this statement, especially if he knows the Bhagavad Gita (Chap. II. 12) or the Bible (Psalm 90:2.).

There is no true mystic who was not present at the “Wedding of Cana”; because it is only through this wedding that one can become a mystic. The whole life story of Cagliostro as well as that of H. P. Blavatsky proves nothing else other than that it is dangerous to speak of spiritual things in front of people who have no understanding of spiritual things, and that the desecration of sacred mysteries is self-punishable; as it is written in Matthew VII, verse 6: “You shall not give that which is holy to the dogs, etc.!”

Anyone who is only somewhat familiar with occult phenomena and its causes and all the accusations made against Cagliostro and H.P. Blavatsky in relation to them are glared at by sheer nonsense.

The semi-scholarly public, from which the feature writers of the daily newspapers are recruited, is on the same level of ignorance and narrow-mindedness with regard to these phenomena as the witchseekers and inquisitors of the Middle Ages.

“The most terrible of horrors” among them are those who parade in front of the audience as “experts” and who want to “enlighten” people about things of which they themselves understand next to nothing.

They then imagine that this or that “incomprehensible” thing might have been done one way or another, fall in love with their self-created theory and in the next instant declare with certainty that it was done the way they hatched it out to be. But that which does not fit into their self-invented “explanation” is presented without further ado as an impossibility and therefore a lie. ⁽⁶⁾

If such an ignorant person is even a “scholar,” the dear public imagines that because he is familiar with the initial principles of external natural science, he is also an “expert” in occult matters without even considering that one is can be a very good house painter, for example, without understanding the slightest thing about painting.

Anyone who has some experience of his own and knows how to read between the lines from the books written against Cagliostro and H.P. Blavatsky will find that these books prove exactly the opposite of what the authors intended to prove.

One cannot read the files of the trial of Cagliostro in front of the inquisition tribunal without marveling at the incredible stupidity of the inquisitors, and one can also easily see how V.S. Solovyoff refutes himself on every page in his book directed against H.P. Blavatsky, and turns out to be partly a villain and a cheat, and partly a fool. ⁽⁷⁾

How petty and pathetic do all these suspicions and accusations appear as soon as one realizes what is behind them; but just as in order to recognize this, one must have solved the human riddle, it is a riddle which anyone is able to solve for himself.

And precisely because the possibility of justifying these people is based on the solution of this human riddle, these suspicions and defamations cannot be refuted, since the refutation is not understandable even for those for whom the dual nature of man is an inexplicable riddle.

The life story of Cagliostro and that of H.P. Blavatsky are parallel in many respects. We encounter one and the same character in two different personalities.

In both people we find the aforementioned dual nature. Both persons do not find what they seem outwardly to be; both lead an eventful life and travel to countries which Europeans rarely set foot on; both claim to have their true home in India and their “master” there; both are persecuted and slandered by ignorance in the guise of scholarship; both make bitter enemies of the semi-scholars because they perform occult phenomena for which the semi-scholars have no understanding; both are declared “charlatans” and “cheaters” because they are too high above the level of everyday life.

Cagliostro is convicted by the inquisition tribunal for being a Freemason (nothing else could be proven against him); H. P. Blavatsky narrowly escaped a modern inquisition tribunal in Madras, which would not have had any competence to judge the origin of occult phenomena.

Had H.P. Blavatsky faced a report whose task it was to judge whether or not the “occult phenomena” produced by her were sleight of hand, she would have been condemned before the inquisitorial tribunal just as surely as Cagliostro, because English law knows as little of occult phenomena as the Inquisition knew of the nature of Freemasonry, and because the mere occurrence of such things was taken as self-evident proof of fraud.

The wisdom of the world holds such things, when there is no cheating involved, to be “supernatural” and anything “supernatural” does not exist under the law.

Consequently, anything “unexplained” is nothing but fraud. — Finally, we find an approach to similar personal weaknesses in H.P. Blavatsky and in Giuseppe Balsamo. Both take personal insults to heart more than necessary. Both speak more than when it would have been better to remain silent. Both make mistakes as to their choice of friends and thereby suffer disappointments and inconveniences. Both proclaim to the world a science for which the world is not yet ripe and are therefore mocked. Both are idolized in a superstitious way by their followers and pelted with filth by envious and incomprehensible people. Both are misunderstood and the most false things are told about both of them.

It is usually said that Cagliostro died on August 26th, 1795 in his prison in Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome. The fact is, he disappeared from that prison about this time, but nothing reliable is known about his death.

On the other hand, it is asserted by very reliable sources that Cagliostro stayed in the house of H.P. Blavatsky’s grandparents in Russia for a long time after this alleged day of death, and that strange things took place during his stay there. For example, once in the middle of winter he mysteriously brought out a plate full of strawberries for a sick person who wanted them.

Whether H.P. Blavatsky was actually a reincarnation of Cagliostro, who had previously incarnated in G. Balsamo, every reader may think as he likes. I don’t want to make any assertion here either, but only to mention that when I once asked H.P. Blavatsky for her portrait, she gave me Cagliostro’s portrait instead of hers. I didn’t question her further about it. But it is possible that Cagliostro will soon appear among us again in a new personal appearance and under a new name.

Hopefully next time it will be better understood.

NOTES

1. “The speeches of Gautama Buddha”, translated by Karl Engen Neumann. Part I, page 33. (Leipzig, W. Friedrich. 1896.)

2. See: Abbé Huc [Évariste Régis Huc], “Voyages en Tibet”.

{R.H. — See: La Mission du Tibet, de 1855 à 1870, comprenant l’exposé des Affaires religieuses et divers documents sur ce pays, d’après les lettres de l’abbé [Auguste] Desgodins, Verdun, Ch. Laurent (1872) and Souvenirs d’un voyage dans la Tartarie, le Thibet, et la Chine pendant les années 1844, 1845 et 1846, 2 vols., Paris, A. LeClère & Co. (1850)}

3. “Lucifer”, February 1895. “Two Houses”.

4. {R.H. — A German Encyclopaedia, begun in 1796 by Renatus Gotthelf Löbel and C.W. Franke.}

5. Memorial for the Count of Cagliostro. 1786.

6. See the infamous “Report” by Dr. Hodgson to the Soc. for Psychic Research. London.

7. A side piece to this are the attacks against Wm. Q. Judge. You only need to read for yourself the one against the so-called “Prayag Letter” and do not read anything else into it other than what is written there, then everything which is written against it will collapse into nothing.

(This article was first published in Sphinx, no. 122, April 1896, pp. 207-14; translate from German by Robert Hutwohl.)

OBSERVATIONS

It is curious how the esotericists, who most likely were agents of the trans-Himalayan masters, resemble each other in their hidden aspect.

For example, William Judge recounted that he was actually an Eastern disciple of the trans-Himalayan masters, but that in order to help Blavatsky in her work, he entered the body of an Irish child who had just died from an illness.

And from what Franz Hartmann mentions, it seems that Cagliostro's soul was also an oriental disciple of the trans-Himalayan masters, but that in order to help Mesmer in his work (who was the messenger of the trans-Himalayan masters in the 18th century, just as Blavatsky was the messenger of those masters in the 19th century), he entered the body of an Italian boy named Giuseppe Balsamo.

And Blavatsky herself seems to have been, in a previous incarnation, an Eastern disciple of the Trans-Himalayan masters. But I don't know if in her previous life she was Cagliostro, as Franz Hartmann asserts, because when Blavatsky spoke about Cagliostro in her "Theosophical Glossary," she was somewhat dismissive of him, saying:

« His fate was that of every human being who demonstrates that he knows more than his fellows; he was 'stoned to death' by persecutions, lies and infamous accusations, and yet he was a friend and advisor to the highest and most powerful in all the countries he visited." 

He was eventually tried and sentenced in Rome as a heretic, and is said to have died during his confinement in a state prison.

However, his end was not entirely undeserved, since he had been unfaithful to his vows in some respects: he had fallen from his state of chastity and yielded to ambition and selfishness. »

(p.72)

I get the impression that if Blavatsky had previously been Cagliostro, she would have been more lenient towards Cagliostro's failings.

And there are other esotericists, such as James Morgan Pryse, who was one of Blavatsky's closest students, who asserts that Blavatsky in her previous life was actually Paracelsus (who was also accused of charlatanism).

And Blavatsky herself seems to have been, in a previous incarnation, an Eastern disciple of the trans-Himalayan masters. In another article, Franz Hartmann wrote:

"  We are told that the soul that inhabited Blavatsky's body had lived in one of its previous incarnations in the body of a disciple (chela) of these Adepts in Tibet, and that this soul had incarnated in Blavatsky in order to assume the responsibility of bringing the knowledge of the ancient wisdom of the East to the nations of the West .  "

(Theosophischer Wegweiser)

But I am skeptical that Blavatsky was Cagliostro in one of his previous incarnations for the reasons I detail in this other article (see link).

Who was Blavatsky before?

It's a mystery, but sadly all the messengers of the masters have been slandered as being fraudulent.

LEADBEATER AND BESANT DESCRIBED BY SADHGURU

In the following video, from minute 2:40 to minute 6:00, Sadhguru spoke about Charles Leadbeater and Annie Besant, and although he said little about them, I find that most of what he said is incorrect:

CORRECTIONS

1. Sadhguru said "Leadbeater and Besant are brilliant intellects, there is no doubt about that."

But this asseveration is false because Charles Leadbeater was a huge charlatan and Annie Besant let herself be completely manipulated by him.

Both claimed to have highly developed clairvoyance, but all their clairvoyant investigations have turned out to be tremendously wrong.

And they also developed a pseudo-theosophy which is full of lies.

2. Sadhguru said, "For some reason and at some point, Leadbeater and Besant believed that with all the esoteric information they had gathered and through their intelligence, they could recreate the perfect man and chose Jiddu Krishnamurti."

But this asseveration is also false because Leadbeater and Besant were not seeking to create the perfect man, but rather Leadbeater wanted to further deceive people, and to achieve this he invented the lie that "The Lord Christ-Maitreya, the World Teacher" would soon come.

And Annie Besant completely believed this lie.

3. Sadhguru said, "When Krishnamurti was about 27 or 28 years old, Leadbeater and Besant decided to announce to the world that he was the ascended master, that the perfect master had arrived."

But this asseveration is also false.

First, Leadbeater and Besant announced Krishnamurti's existence to the world when he was 14 years old, not when he was 27 or 28 years old.

Then they claimed that Krishnamurti would be the messenger of Lord Christ-Maitreya, not that he was the perfect master.

And finally, theosophists never spoke of "ascended masters," this was a lie invented in 1930 by the fraudster Guy Ballard.

CONCLUSION

Sadhguru did not study Leadbeater, Besant, or the Masters well.

  

THE RECEPTION BLAVATSKY RECEIVED IN INDIA AFTER HER TOUR OF EUROPE IN 1884

(The following article was published in The Madras Mail newspaper, December 23, 1884, p. 5.)

ARRIVAL OF THEOSOPHISTS

After an absence of over ten months in Europe, Madame Blavatsky, Founder and Corresponding Secretary of the Theosophical Society, returned to Madras Sunday afternoon, by the s.s. Navarino.

She was accompanied by Colonel Olcott (who had gone to Ceylon to report to the Sinhalese the result of his mission for them to Europe), Dr. F. Hartmann, Mrs. Cooper Oakley (a graduate of the Cambridge University), Rev. Mr. Ledbeater (from the London Lodge) and three delegates from Ceylon.

Two of the leading Theosophists went to meet the party on board the steamer, and when the boat containing the party reached the companion ladder, a band of Tanjore minstrels stationed on the pier, commenced to play, and there was a round of applause.

After shaking hands and briefly conversing with a few of the gentlemen present, Madame Blavatsky was conveyed, with her party, in one of the pier carriages to the shore and of the pier. They drove to Pacheappah’s Hall, where Madame Blavatsky met with an ovation. A large crowd of gentlemen and students had assembled there.

Mr. C. Ramiah, Tahsildar, welcomed Madame Blavatsky and her friends on behalf of the Madras Branch. Mr. P. Streenevasa Row said that the students of all the Colleges of Madras, and of the Christian College in particular, were very desirous of presenting the Founder with an address of welcome.

Her permission being granted, A. G. Krishnasawmy Iyer, a student of the Christian College, read the following address, which was received with loud applause:

« Dear and Reverend Madame,

In according to you this our heartiest of welcomes on your return from the intellectual campaigns which you have so successfully waged in the West, we are conscious we are giving but a feeble expression to the “debt immense of endless gratitude” which India lies under to you.

You have dedicated your very valuable life to the eminently disinterested services of disseminating the truths of Occult Philosophy. Upon the sacred mysteries of our hoary religion and philosophies you have thrown such a flood of light by sending into the world that marvellous production of yours, the “Isis Unveiled.”

By your exposition, has our beloved Colonel been induced to undertake that gigantic labour of love — the vivifying on the altars of Aryavarta the dying flames of religion and spirituality.

Your labours have so grandly supplemented the researches of comparative philology by establishing the community of mankind upon a commonality of religious beliefs.

The very breath of life animating that colossal parent of incalculable good —the Theosophical Society— has been breathed into its nostrils by your much honored self. And now, you have increased a thousand fold the weight of those blessings by your recent personal exertions in Europe, whereby you have demonstrated to the West that the true tree of knowledge flourishes but in the East.

You have procured for oriental metaphysics a reverential hearing and acceptation in Germany — the nursery ground of philosophy.

You have introduced the torch of eastern wisdom into the West End of London, and in the stream of its radiance shown to the pick and flower of English society, that the philosophy they were content to look upon as the crown and consummation of grandeur, should “hide its diminished head” in view of that of another hemisphere.

Flippant France has thrown open to you her grandest saloons, and even the usually apathetic savants of Paris have been persuaded to receive at your hands the cup of oriental wisdom.

While at one quarter of the globe you had been with all your heart and soul addressing yourself to the work of propagating eternal truth, your enemies on this side have been equally industrious in the shameless cause of suffocating the same. We allude to the recent scandalous events at Madras, in which an expelled domestic of yours has been made a convenient cat’s paw of.

While looking upon such futilities with the indignant scorn which they certainly deserve, we beg to assure you that our affection and admiration, earned by the loftiness of your soul, the nobility of your aspirations and the matchless sacrifices you have made, have become too deeply rooted to be shaken off their ground by the rude blasts of spite, spleen and slander, which however, are no uncommon occurrences in the history of Theosophy.

That the revered masters whose hearts are overflowing with love for humanity will continue as ever to help you and our esteemed Colonel in the discovery of truth and the dissemination of the same, is the earnest prayer of, dear and revered Madame, your affectionate servants, students of the College of Madras. »

Madame Blavatsky replied that, unaccustomed as she was to public speaking, she could not make a speech like any of Colonel Olcott’s.

With regard to the amiable conspiracy which had been going on here during her absence, she would only say that of all the letters published, not a single one, as it stood, had been written by her. She would deny them all in toto.

A man might, in an unguarded and mad moment suddenly become a thief, a forger, or any other sort of criminal; but that he should become such a fool as to send letters to others and put his signature to them, —letters such as would convict him of fraud— was a thing which one would find it very difficult to conceive.

She would be the greatest fool in the world to commit herself so that she might be fairly accused of such vile, disgusting and stupid things. She had been a good deal accustomed to calumny, persecution and slanders, and was therefore much hardened by them. She did not care much for the opinions of Europeans or Anglo-Indians; what she really cared for was the good opinion of her Hindu brothers.

And what was the greatest crime she had committed to merit all that persecution?

It was her caring more for India than for any other country in the world, and more earnestly for Heathendom than for the so-called Christendom.

She next referred to her accusers, the Coulombs. She stated that the Colonel [and] herself had treated them with all possible kindness, and what could she say of their going over to the enemies’ camp, when her back was turned, and selling her like Judas Iscariot?

In conclusion, she hoped to spend every moment of her life for the benefit of India, and to deserve the confidence which they so generously reposed in her. She had not done anything against India of which she should be ashamed, and she was determined to work for India while there was health in her.

(Loud applause.)

Mr. Ramiah rose once more and welcomed the delegates on behalf of the Madras Branch.

Colonel Olcott, in replying on behalf of the delegates, said that Mrs. Cooper Oakley and Mr. Ledbeater came to Madras to labour on behalf of Theosophy. He felt called upon to assure the meeting that they were highly pleased with the reception, and that they hoped to become better acquainted with the Hindus.

The Colonel then remarked that in Mr. Ledbeater they had a gentleman of the Christian Ministry who came to work here in the cause of Theosophy. The speaker said that there were padris in India who worked against themselves and against the Hindus; but there was one who had thrown aside his cassock and gown that he might devote his entire energies to the cause of Theosophy.

The Theosophical movement, the Colonel said, had the soul of the Rishis in it, and its current, he would assure them, would spread itself over the face of the whole world.

Mrs. Cooper Oakley and her sister were graduates of the Girton College, Cambridge (the celebrated College for the higher education of women,) and the former had made herself conspicuous in the agitation set on foot to extend the Franchise to females.

He concluded by saying that she was going to learn the vernaculars of this country, and would bring into the families of the Hindus all the comforts which Theosophy held out. This, he hoped, would be the beginning of the real Zenana mission for India.

(Loud applause)

Mrs. Oakley expressed her inability to describe adequately how deeply gratified she felt at the hearty welcome given to her respected friend and sister, Madame Blavatsky. As coming from the London Lodge, she would assure them that the recent calumnies had not produced the slightest effect there; on the contrary, Madame Blavatsky was respected and loved all the more.

(Applause)

Garlands of flowers and bouquets were then presented to Madame Blavatsky and others, and the assembly dispersed.

THE TALK GIVEN BY EMMA COULOMB AGAINST BLAVATSKY AT THE CHRISTIAN COLLEGE OF MADRAS

(This article was published in The Madras Mail newspaper, October 20, 1884, page 5; and I added my comments in purple.)

MADAME COULOMB AT THE COLLEGE HALL

On Saturday night the College Hall, Madras, was half filled by an audience comprised of all classes of the community, including many natives, on the occasion of an “entertainment” given by Madame Coulomb, formerly on the staff of the Theosophical Society.  As an entertainment it can hardly be said to have been successful, and as an exposure of Madame Blavatsky we know that many of the audience were rather disappointed. 

The Rev. Mr. Goudie presided, and introduced Madame Coulomb, who, he said, had no quarrel with occult science.  Her motive was, in the interest of truth, the exposure of certain false phenomena which had been displayed as belonging to the occult world, and used spiritually.

This was her first appearance as a lecturer.

Madame Coulomb now commenced her “entertainment,” which mainly consisted of a lecture directed chiefly, in a sarcastic vein throughout, against Madame Blavatsky.  It was partially inaudible, even to reserved-seat holders.

She said that necessity compelled her to take the course she was now pursuing.  The fable of Koot Hoomi was not suitable for the nineteenth century.  Reason should accompany our researches after truth.  We should see whether these phenomena of the Mahatmas were possible.

Was there a law in chemistry, or any other branch of science, by which a letter could be written by a Mahatma, and then travel instantly hundreds of miles to Madras, appearing here on ordinary paper and exactly as written in the Himalayas?

(Science has not yet discovered all the mysteries of nature.)

The Mahatmas had been described by Mr. Srinavassa Row, a Judge of Madras.  (Here the Chairman read Mr. Srinavassa Row’s description.)

The Mahatmas, as believed in by the Hindus, said Madame Coulomb, were real flesh and blood; Madame Blavatsky’s Mahatmas were made of bladders and masks.  To the sham Mahatmas the Hindus bowed their heads to the ground.  Blind faith had even made them confess their weaknesses, and state their wants.

The Hindus, she admitted, entered into the matter bona fide and did not suppose they were being made dupes of.  How much better would it have been for them to look into the matter scientifically.

Why did those blessed Masters, the Mahatmas, who had left aside all worldly cares to contemplate the Supreme Being, select a Russian lady and an American gentleman, as their means of communication with the outer world?  Why were not the natives of the country given the preference?

(Because, as Master Morya indicated: Blavatsky and Olcott, despite their faults, were the best prospects they had found to lead the Theosophical Society.)

If the Mahatmas had such power as was claimed for them, why need Madame Blavatsky have recourse to masks and bladders, paper and sliding panels?

(Those contraptions are a lie invented by Mrs. Coulomb.)

One real phenomenon recently would have convinced a whole audience of the truth of Theosophy; but immediately that was demanded, of course it was found that the Mahatmas would not work.

She appealed to her Hindu friends not to be misled.  The Hindus had accepted the Theosophical doctrine blindly.  They had no idea of where they were going; and because a few of their community joined the Theosophists hundreds followed.

Who were these Mahatmas?  Would a Mahatma, who had given up all worldly things to the contemplation of the Supreme Being, descend to such nonsense as boring holes in coins just to please Rajahs and other dupes of Madame Blavatsky?

(The Mahatmas had to produce these phenomena to draw people's attention to theosophy.)

Madame Coulomb then proceeded to explain the “phenomena,” confining herself, she said, to the truth.

She first called upon the Chairman to read, from a Theosophical pamphlet, some reasons why so many precautions were taken in selecting houses for the head quarters of the Theosophists.

Madame Blavatsky and her servants were necessary for all the phenomena, and there was another person in the secret ready at hand.

I was requisite to “specially magnetise the house” all persons being sent out excepting Madame Blavatsky and her servant; of course Madame Blavatsky, as priestess, must be present, as there were certain arrangements to be made in fixing up the panels and masks, etc.

(This aseveration is a lie, and the proof is that Mrs. Coulomb could not demonstrate that she could magnetize.)

Allusion was next made to Mr. Sinnett’s conversion to Theosophy, and an extract was read from his book giving a description of the phenomena of the falling of a letter from a Mahatma on to his table at Bombay.

This phenomenon, said Madame Coulomb, was performed by means of an ingenious trap fixed in the ceiling of the room in which Mr. Sinnett sat.

(Mr. Sinnett replied that the letter did not fall from the ceiling but that he clearly saw it materialize in mid-air, and this was also confirmed by other people who received letters in this manner.)

Then followed an account of Mr. Ramaswamy’s interview with a Mahatma in Sikkim, “the same as he had seen on the balcony of the head quarters at Bombay.”

The Bombay Mahatma, Madame Coulomb averred, was none other than M. Coulomb.

(Mr. Ramaswamy stated that Mahatma Morya spoke to him in Tamil, but Mr. Coulomb did not know Tamil. And in her pamphlet, Mrs. Coulomb also asserted that the Mahatma Kuthumi who appeared to the Hindu Keshava Pillai was Mr. Coulomb, but Mr. Pillai pointed out that the Mahatma spoke to him in Telugu, and Mr. Coulomb did not know Telugu.)

The incident of the two vases of flowers which appeared in an almirah on it being opened by Colonel Olcott, was explained.  The vases had been bought for Madame Blavatsky by Madame Coulomb for Rs. 13, and were introduced into the almirah through an otherwise unused window at the back of the almirah.

The whole business was one of panels, and traps and confederates.

(Historical documentation indicates that these phenomena were most likely authentic.)

Koot Hoomi had just come. (Here some amusement was caused by the appearance on the stage of a tall figure, with a mask well surrounded with hirsute appendages, and wearing a long white robe. About 6 1/2 feet high, it slowly passed across the stage and disappeared.)

This was Koot Hoomi, who had been shown on the roof of the bungalow at head quarters.  The mask and dress formed the identical Koot Hoomi which Mr. Sinnett had done poojah to.

Madame Coulomb next produced the mask and dress, after it had been taken off the person who had worn it on the stage, pointing out that the head was made up of bullock’s bladder, while two sheep’s bladders served the Master for chest and shoulders.

She had herself helped to make it.

(In this blog I have compiled nearly a half hundred people who claimed to have met, spoken to, and even touched the masters Kuthumi and Morya, so it is grotesque that Mrs. Coulomb claims that these apparitions were made by an accomplice of Blavatsky wearing a mask made up of bullock's bladder.)

The next phenomenon was that of the musical box, which had been worked to the great wonder of credulous natives.

Madame Coulomb had her lecture written, but here departed from her notes to converse with the audience rather than lecture.

She had been blamed she said, because she did not believe all this business.  How was she to “believe” in things she made with her own hand?  How could she pretend to believe in a sort of god she sewed up herself?

(Laughter.)

The Hindus would go back a thousand centuries if they went on believing what the Theosophists told them.  The Hindus should raise themselves by education and not superstition.  She could not understand how B. A.’s and B. L.’s, and people with all the letters of the alphabet after their names, could believe in Theosophy.

She did not believe in it, and was turned out of the Society in consequence.

(This aseceration is false, the Coulombs were expelled because they built passageways to frame Blavatsky for fraud.)

The Hindus ought to be horsewhipped for being so foolish.  She apologised for the non-performance of some of the “phenomena” she had intended to include in the entertainment, as she was not so used to it as Madame Blavatsky, and some of the apparatus did not work properly.

She had hoped to show a “shrine,” but she might be able to do so on the occasion of another entertainment.

After a few words from the Chairman, the audience dispersed at 10:15 pm.

OBSERVATIONS

Madras College Hall is a Christian college that was founded by missionaries in 1837 and where they educate young people but also seek to indoctrinate them into Christianity.

This school is located in the same city as the headquarters of the Theosophical Society, which promotes Eastern teachings, and consequently spoiled the missionaries' plan to evangelize the Indians.

Therefore, the "Christian" missionaries organized this meeting so that Mrs. Coulomb, who was Blavatsky's former housekeeper, could slander her former employer, accusing her of being a liar.

But as I have detailed in this blog, there is much more evidence that indicates the contrary and shows that the Coulombs and the missionaries acted with bad intentions.