Dr. Wilhelm Hübbe-Schleiden was a prominent German scholar who
contributed greatly to the formation of the Theosophical Society in Germany,
and about the experiences he had with Blavatsky, he mentioned the following:
« Before I made Madame
Blavatsky’s personal acquaintance I received the letter from one of the Masters
via Colonel Olcott about which a good deal has been written, both in reports of
the S.P.R. and elsewhere.
The principal parts of this letter
have also been repeatedly printed, thus I need not go back to it here. But I
will say in regard to the S.P.R. report, that I do not care in the least
whether that letter was written in Tibet or in London, by Blavatsky herself
automatically, or even consciously inspired.
Anyone who knows something of
spiritual matters will never judge the value of such a letter from the way it
is conveyed to him, or even how and where it is put on paper, but from its
contents and from the power it has and exercises.
In the same way I do not estimate
the value of Blavatsky from the phenomena she produced (and I saw many of them)
but from her teachings, and these I consider to be of the greatest importance,
almost inestimable.
Four or five times I have spent
periods of different lengths with her. The first time from September to
December, 1884 (about three months) when she stayed with the Gebhards in
Elberfeld, where I had before met her for a few days in August of the same
year.
After that I remained with her in Würzburg about a week or ten days in
October, 1885, and I saw her last, one afternoon and night, early in January,
1886. Thus I had many opportunities to learn a good deal from her and about
her, all the more so as she was always exceedingly kind to me and very seldom grew
tired of my many questions.
I saw almost all the phenomena that
she did at the Gebhard’s mansion, most of which have often been told and
printed. One of them, however, I believe is but little known.
Mr. Schmiechen had made duplicate
copies of those two Mahatma portraits which were afterwards sent to Adyar. These
duplicates were given to Madame Mary Gebhard. The copies were so much like the
originals that it was often disputed which were which. Only Blavatsky, Olcott,
and Mr. Schmiechen were never in doubt; and in order to stop these doubts one
evening Blavatsky said:
- "Just wait, now leave
those pictures alone!"
And at the same time evidently
concentrating all her powers on them. Not many seconds afterwards she said:
- "Now turn them
round."
We did so, and found on the back of
each portrait the well-known corresponding signatures of the Masters, one in
blue, the other in red. But there would be no end were I to speak of all the
phenomena. I will only add that I heard her produce the "knocks" and
the "astral bells," still in the autumn of 1885 at Würzburg.
Once she felt too weak to do it
alone; she required the assistance of one of the ladies present as her "medium,"
to supply astral force. I believe it was Mrs. Schmiechen then who willingly
served her as one. Then we heard the knocks, as many as we wished and wherever
we wished; in the table, on the looking-glass, in the cupboard, etc.
Several times I noticed that she could evidently read other people's
thoughts; whether she could do so always I do not know. I should think that
would depend on the power of that mind which she had to read, or perhaps on its
spirituality.
About The
Secret Doctrine, when I visited Madame Blavatsky in October,
1885, she had just begun to write it, and in January, 1886, she had finished
about a dozen chapters.
While I occupied myself chiefly with Babaji, who was then living with
her, she was writing at her manuscript almost all day, from the early morning
until the afternoon and even until night, unless she had guests. At that time
she wrote articles for The Theosophist as well.
(And this despite the fact that Colonel Olcott had expelled her from Adyar.)
But she had scarcely any books, not half a dozen, and I had to procure
for her an English Bible, either to quote some text correctly or to control the
correctness of some quotation.
In many respects her work was then carried on in a very similar way to
that which Col. Olcott describes in Chapter XIII of his "Old Diary Leaves," in the April
number of The Theosophist. I also saw her write down sentences as if she were
copying them from something before her, where, however, I saw nothing.
I did not pay much attention to the manner of her work from the
standpoint of a hunter of phenomena, and did not control it for that purpose;
but I know that I saw a good deal of the well-known blue Kuthumi handwriting as
corrections and annotations on her manuscripts as well as in books that lay
occasionally on her desk. And I noticed this principally in the morning before
she had commenced to work.
I slept on the couch in her study after she had withdrawn for the night,
and the couch stood only a few feet from her desk. I remember well my
astonishment one morning when I got up to find a great many pages of foolscap
covered with that blue pencil handwriting lying on her own manuscript, at her
place on her desk.
How these pages got there I do not know, but I did not see them before I
went to sleep and no person had been bodily in the room during the night, for I
am a light sleeper.
I must say though that the view I took then was the same that I hold
now. I never did and never shall judge of the value or the origin of any mental
product from the way and manner in which it is produced. And for this reason I
withheld my opinion then, thinking and saying:
-
"I shall wait until The Secret Doctrine is
finished and then I can read it quietly; that will be the test for me, the only
one that will be any good."
This is the reason why on the night of my last parting from Blavatsky,
the two certificates, which were printed for the first time in the last April
number of The Path, page 2, were given tome.
At least I found them in my copy of Hodgson's S.P.R. Report after I had
left her. I am the person who showed them to Mr. Judge in London last August.
From the advice given me in the one signed K.H. I was not to publish them, but
Mr. Judge was authorized to do so by the instructions which he received.
In concluding I will repeat that I consider The Secret Doctrine to be a book of the utmost importance, for I
have not the least doubt that it really does contain the Secret Doctrine, the
sacred wisdom of all sages and of all ages. In it are given the only true and
useful (expedient) keys which can solve the riddles of existence as well of the
macrocosm as of the microcosm.
I find it, however, very desirable, if not necessary, that explanatory
abstracts should be written to it, in order to turn the contents to better use
for present readers. That is the reason that I wrote my abstract from it in
1891, which I called "Lusty Leid und
Liebe," which confined itself to the language and to the terms of
Darwin, Haeckel and modern philosophy, with the purpose of putting a key to The
Secret Doctrine into the hands of the leading scientists. My effort found no
grace with the English public, but some in Germany.
Finally, I think it is an absolutely useless question, who wrote Blavatsky’s
Secret Doctrine. It was written with her pen: but whether she was the adept
herself, or some other adept or adepts wrote it through her and with her, is
quite immaterial for the work itself and its indisputable value. »
(Reminiscences of H. P. Blavatsky
and The Secret Doctrine by the Countess Constance Wachtmeister, appendix 6, p.110-114)
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