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FRANZ HARTMANN’S EXPERIENCES IN INDIA WITH THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY




Franz Hartmann lived in India for sixteen months in the headquarters of the Theosophical Society located in Adyar, Madras.

He arrived on December 4, 1883, and he witnessed many of the paranormal phenomena that occurred there. For example, Hartmann received letters from the masters that materialized in unusual ways. He also saw a silk ribbon materialize before his eyes when he needed it.

He also saw Master Morya with two of his disciples, and he also met a black magician.

And Hartmann also surprised Asians by being one of the first Westerners to officially become a Buddhist.


In February 1884, when Blavatsky and Olcott went on tour in Europe, Hartmann was appointed president of the Control Board, which was responsible for managing the affairs of the Theosophical Society in India in the absence of its founders.

And ones months later, taking advantage that the founders were outside India, began the "Coulumb’s conspiracy". Blavatsky and Olcott had to return to India to deal with the attacks from the Christian missionaries of Madras, who detested that their plans to evangelize the Indians were hampered by the Theosophical Society.

The events that followed, leading President Olcott and Adyar's board to expelling Blavatsky from India.

And in April 1, 1885, Blavatsky accompanied by Hartmann and a small group of other theosophists, left India to Europe.



Photo of Adyar Convention in December 1884, Franz Hartmann appears below Colonel Olcott and to side Blavatsky.





On those events that Franz Hartmann witnessed in India, he wrote two reports:

1) "Report of Observations Made During a Nine Months Stay at the Headquarters of the Theosophical Society at Adyar (Madras) India," written in late 1884 while Hartmann was still in India.

2) "Some Fragments of the Secret History of the Theosophical Society", written shortly after returning to Europe in 1885.

He also related those events in his novel "Talking Image of Urur" written in 1889.

And some people credit also to Hartmann the pamphlet "Truth & Fiction: the Theosophical Society and the Miracle Cabinet of Adyar" written probably after 1907, but a more meticulous analysis shows that this little book is spurious and most likely was elaborated by some adversary of Theosophy.




I have not found yet those documents, but meanwhile I put a summary that Franz Hartmann wrote about it in his autobiography:

« I was immersed in the spiritualism for many years, and while my perplexity was at its highest and I despaired of the possibility of knowing anything certain about phenomenal manifestations, a number of The Theosophist, a journal edited by H.P. Blavatsky and published at Madras, fell into my hands.  It contained an article describing the sevenfold constitution of man and the seven principles in the universe.

This came to me like a revelation, and seemed to furnish the key to those mysteries whose explanation I had sought so long in vain.  I was delighted with this discovery, and my greatest desire now was to become personally acquainted with Madame Blavatsky and to learn from her more of the secrets of life and death.

I wrote to her, and a few weeks afterwards I had a vivid dream. I dreamed I saw a letter with the address written in a to me unknown handwriting and with a strange postage stamp stuck on the wrong side of it.  I went to the Post Office, and there I found that identical letter in my box with the postage stamp on the wrong side.  It was a letter from Adyar, written by Colonel H. S. Olcott, the President of the “Theosophical Society,” who in the name of his "Master” invited me to come to India and to collaborate with him.  A few kind words were added by H.P. Blavatsky.




Travel to India

Of course, after such an invitation I had no desire to remain any longer in the United States of America or to continue the practice of medicine, and in the month of September, 1883, I left Colorado and started for California for the purpose of sailing to India.  I stopped at Salt Lake City on my way to study the life of the Mormons, en route to San Francisco.

It has always been my experience that if a person desires to make a step forward on the way to progress in spirituality some great and unforeseen internal and external obstacles will arise to hinder him.

Thus it also happened to me on that occasion; for while I was staying at San Francisco I fell desperately in love with a young Spanish-American lady.  She was very beautiful and accomplished, and the very creature to tempt an angel from heaven and still more to confound the good sense of a poor sinner like myself.

She appeared to me just the very ideal of a woman, such as I had only met in my dreams.  "Conchita” (for this was her name) and sensuality on one side, with old Madame Blavatsky and spirituality on the other, it was for me a hard struggle to decide; but at last the desire for occult knowledge gained the victory over love; I tore myself away from the object of my passion, and on October 11, 1883, I left California on board of the s.s. Coptic, bound for Hong Kong.

My adventures and experiences on the voyage and during my stay in India have been described, to a certain extent, in my novel The Talking Image of Urur, a humorous story which appeared first in H. P. Blavatsky’s paper Lucifer and was afterwards published as a book.  This book, however, is now out of print. It was written for the purpose of showing that “from the sublime to the ridiculous there is only one step.”

On December 4, 1883, we arrived at Madras, and I went to Adyar, where I was welcomed by Madame Blavatsky “to my future home,” as she expressed it: The headquarters of the Theosophical Society, where she lived, were beautifully located near the Adyar River and only a short distance from the sea.  They consisted of a bungalow with some outbuildings and were surrounded by a park, containing palms, mango, and other trees. The lower part of the two-story house was for the use of the members of the Theosophical Society; the upper story was occupied by Madame Blavatsky.


Besides myself there were present at the headquarters Colonel H. S. Olcott, the president of the Theosophical Society, a very serious-looking Scotchman by the name of W. T. Brown, some Hindu “chelas” (Damodar K. Mavalankar, Bavadjee, Ananda, etc.), supposed to be in possession of extraordinary psychic faculties, and last, but not least, a Frenchman and his wife, Monsieur and Madame Coulomb, who were the managers and housekeepers of the place.

Later on there arrived other visitors, Mr. St. George Lane Fox, W. Q. Judge, Mr. Leadbeater, Mrs. Cooper-Oakley, and others.

We also had frequent visits from Mr. Subba Row, a great occultist and teacher of Madame Blavatsky; but as I am not writing a history of the Theosophical Society of those times, and as Colonel Olcott has considered it prudent not to refer in his Diary Leaves to that period of my activity at Adyar, I will not enter into details, but merely mention the above-named persons as witnesses of certain important events which took place at that time.




Paranormal phenomena

This was the time of “occult letters” supposed to have been written or sent by the Mahatmas of the Himalayas.  Such letters were seen to form themselves suddenly in the air, or they were found unexpectedly upon the table or in closed drawers, and they contained orders and directions for the management of affairs.

I, as well as others, received numerous letters of that kind, some written in red ink, others in blue, and some in green.  They usually appeared when some advice was needed.  The following extracts may serve as an example. The subjoined letter was found in my desk on February 5, 1884, while Colonel Olcott and H. P. Blavatsky were about to sail on a visit to Europe:

« Friend!  You seem to me the only fully rational being among the Pelengs [Occidentals] now left at headquarters.  Therefore with an eye to a variety of unexpected emergencies in future which I foresee, I must ask you to show practically your devotion to the cause of truth by accepting the rudder of the theosophical course.  If I know anything, I know you to be entirely free from those prejudices and predilections that are generally in the way of a calm and dispassionate pursuit of the chief aim of the Society, full equality among men as brothers and an entire unconcern with the childish fairy tales they call their religion, whether exoteric or esoteric.

If you kindly consent to take care of theosophical interests during the absence of Henry Olcott and Upasika (Blavatsky), I will cause him to write you an official letter, investing you with more official power than any other “assistant,” so as to give you a firmer hold of the rod of authority than you would otherwise have with an informal title shared by so many others. . . . Your pucca authority I ask you to make the best of it in the interests of Truth, Justice and Charity. . . .— M. C. »


This letter was not received under test conditions, but, as stated above, it was found in my desk, and it may have been put there surreptitiously by Madame Coulomb; but if I had any doubts in regard to the possibility of the “precipitation” of such letters from the astral plane or the formation of physical objects by magical powers, the following incident served to destroy my suspicions.

H. P. Blavatsky started on her voyage to Europe and I accompanied her to Bombay.  I went with her on board the steamship and afterwards returned to my room.  Before leaving Adyar she had given me a keepsake as coming from the “Mahatma,” a sort of amulet in the shape of a coin with inscriptions in Tibetan letters.

Now while I was alone in my room at Bombay, I paced the floor, thinking of buying a gold chain or something with which to wear that amulet around my neck.  Just then the thought struck me that a silk ribbon would answer the same purpose, and as I meditated upon it, something fluttered through the air and fell to the floor before my feet.  It was a rose-colored silk ribbon of exactly the required length, with the ends twisted and ready for use.  It was not a “phantasm” and did not disappear; for I wore it for many months.

I may, perhaps, here mention some occult phenomena witnessed on this voyage.  On one occasion two Yogis came and recited some mantrams.  Their singing seemed to set the spiritual part of the atmosphere in vibration, and the room was soon full of entities of a curious kind, floating through the air like fishes swimming in water.  Their forms were indistinct to my view but sufficiently defined to see them change and assume different shapes of animals, such as are not to be found in the natural history of our globe.

On another occasion a fakir took two trumpets and, putting them each on one side of his neck, he gave us a concert.  Needless to say, there were no holes in his neck; it must have been a "spiritual breath” from which the sounding originated.

Again, on another occasion I was invited with Mr. St. George Lane Fox and a Mr. Ezekiel to the house of Judge Khandalavala, a Parsee at Poona, to see the performance of a fakir.  The room was large and in the middle of it there was a censer for burning incense, in front of which the fakir took his seat.  Before the ceremonies began, the judge asked the fakir whether he would permit him to bring his ladies in the room to see the exhibition.

This the fakir refused, saying that the presence of women would hinder the production of the phenomena.  The judge, however, perhaps supposing this to be a mere prejudice on the part of the fakir, only partly obeyed the injunction, for he placed the ladies in an adjoining room, at a window from which they could see all that was going on without being seen by the fakir, whose back was turned that way.

The fakir began his incantations.  He seemed to be unusually excited and was perspiring freely.  At last he took a knife and pulling his tongue with his fingers out of his mouth, lie cut off a large portion of it.  This portion he held over the burning coals, so as to keep it warm, while we examined carefully the remaining stump of his tongue.

There was not a drop of blood, but the tongue was certainly cut.  After the examination he replaced the cut piece and all was as sound as before, but he refused to proceed with other phenomena, saying that a certain influence was present which abstracted his power to such an extent that he dared not attempt any more.

Now it seems to me that this circumstance is even more satisfactory to prove the genuineness of those phenomena than the examination of the fakir’s mouth, for we all know that women are attractive to men and what they attract from them seem to be the very elements necessary for the production of magic arts.

Of other phenomena which occurred on this voyage, I will only mention that while I was travelling on the railway with Madame Blavatsky she asked me to show her a manuscript which I had written that morning and which was locked up in my satchel.  I took it out and handed it to her.  She looked it over without moving her hands, but when she returned it to me, I saw that some remarks in black writing ink had been added to it in some mysterious way.




Conspiracy against the Theosophical Society

I returned to Adyar in company with Mr. Lane Fox, and now dark clouds began to gather over the Theosophical Society. Madame Blavatsky had quarreled with Madame Coulomb and wished to send her away.

To this the latter would not submit, and she took sides with the clergy, who made an onslaught upon Madame Blavatsky, accusing her of producing her phenomena by sleight of hand tricks, and as the accused person was absent the duty to defend her and the Theosophical Society fell upon me, which was the more difficult as newly made trapdoors and hidden recesses evidently constructed by Monsieur Coulomb for the purpose of producing bogus phenomena were actually found, although the newness of these constructions went to show that they had never been used; and to cap the climax, Mr. Richard Hodgson was at that time sent to Adyar by the “Society for Psychical Research ” for the purpose of investigating these phenomena and convincing himself of the existence of the “Mahatmas,” if there were any in existence.

He was, at that time, a great sceptic and unbeliever, although some years afterwards he became a leader of the spiritists in America and a defender of their faith; but at that time he believed nothing except what he was told by Madame Coulomb, who accused Madame Blavatsky of trickery, in which she claimed to have participated herself.

During all this time “occult letters” arrived; they dropped from the ceiling or were found in locked drawers and desks, and in one of these letters dated April 27, 1884, and before any suspicion regarding the genuineness of the phenomena arose, it was said:

« For some time the woman (Coulomb) has opened a communication with the enemies of the cause.  Hence hints as to trapdoors and tricks.  Moreover when needed trapdoors will be found, as they have been forth­coming for some time.  They (the Coulombs) have full entrance to and control of the premises.  Monsieur is clever and cunning at every handicraft, a good mechanic and carpenter and good at walls likewise. . . .— M. C. »


It seems strange that if Madame Blavatsky (although absent in Europe) should have had anything to do with the writing of this letter and with the making of traps, she would have thus led us upon the scent, but I cannot shake off the conviction that they were made by order of somebody at the headquarters and for the purpose of being used after Colonel Olcott’s return.

Upon receipt of the above letter a search was made and the trapdoors were found and thus the “great exposure” took place, which caused a scandal and made the existence of the Theosophical Society and the theosophical teachings known all over the world, and the consequence was that thousands procured and read the books of Madame Blavatsky and made themselves acquainted with her views, while otherwise they might have remained in ignorance of these things all their life.

On December 17, 1884, Colonel Olcott and Madame Blavatsky returned from Europe.  The attacks upon the latter continued, and she fell very ill.  Towards the end of March her condition became so serious that a consultation of doctors from Madras was called, and they decided that she could not live until the next day.  Upon this Mr. Cooper-Oakley went to Madras the same night to obtain a permit for the cremation of her body, but the next morning Madame Blavatsky arose, feeling quite well.  She said that during the night the Master had visited her and given her a new lease of life.

The missionaries all the time were desirous of finding charges against H.P.B., so as to bring her into a Court of Justice, but finding none, they brought charges of calumny against a prominent member of the Theosophical Society (General Morgan), hoping thus to drag Madame Blavatsky as a witness before the Court, in which case she would, undoubtedly, have been fined for contempt, because in view of her uncontrollable temper she would be sure to have given just occasion for it.




Travel to Europe

To avoid such an unpleasant affair it was considered wise to send her to Europe, and I was asked to take charge of her.  We therefore took passage on board the Tibre of the Messageries Maritimes, and on April 1, I started with her on a voyage to Naples, accompanied by Mr. Bavadjee and Miss Mary Flynn.

During our voyage there was a continuation of occult phenomena.  Frequently piles of sheets with notes referring to H. P. Blavatsky’s writing of The Secret Doctrine were found in the mornings upon her table.  Whether she wrote them herself in a somnambulic state or whether they were brought to her by some occult means from Tibet, I am unable to say.

On October 23, 1885 we arrived at Naples, where a “drummer” took us to the Hotel.  Madame Blavatsky, not feeling quite well, did not wish to ascend many stairs and asked for a room on the ground floor or on the first (meaning only one story higher). Such a one was not to be had, but the manager said he could give us two rooms on the second floor for fifteen francs a day. We made the bargain, and then the ascent began.

First the “Parterre,” next came the “High Parterre,” then the “Mezzanin,” next the “first” and afterwards the “second” floor, which was actually the fifth.  When I went to pay the bill next morning, I found that I had forgotten to make the stipulation with “tutto compreso” (everything included), for they charged us not only the fifteen francs for the rooms, but also a price for every piece of furniture contained therein, so that the bill amounted to eighty-five francs, not including the meal. Of course there was nothing else to be done, but to grumble and pay.

We immediately left Naples and found more hospitable quarters at the Hotel Vesuvio at Torre del Greco, where we remained for one month. Madame Blavatsky’s temper during that time was not of the sweetest; she was continually irritated by letters concerning the scandals, she scolded the servants, and abused her friends or praised them according to her changeable moods.

The weather was cold, and to see the fires of Vesuvius, that was in eruption, glow at a distance while we had no stoves was somewhat provoking.  After some weeks had passed away Madame Blavatsky went to Wurzburg and I to Kempten (Bavaria) to visit my relatives and have a look at the place where I spent my youth.

For my friends and acquaintances there of old I looked in vain, but I found their names in great numbers inscribed upon the tombstones of the cemetery.  Subsequently I visited Madame Blavatsky repeatedly at Wurzburg and in London, where she died on May 8, 1891, after a short illness and half an hour after her physician had declared her to be out of danger. She remained a riddle to everybody up to the last»

(The Occult Review, January 1908, pp. 17-33)









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