A woman who, for one reason or
another, has kept the world — first her little child world and afterward two
hemispheres — talking of her, disputing about her, defending or assailing her character
and motives, joining her enterprise or opposing it might and main, and in her
death being as much telegraphed about between two continents as an emperor,
must have been a remarkable person.
Such was Mme. Helena Petrovna
Blavatsky, born under the power of the holy Tzar, in the family of the Hahns,
descended on one side from the famous crusader, Count Rottenstern, who added
Hahn, a cock, to his name because that bird saved his life from a wily Saracen
who had come into his tent to murder him.
Hardly any circumstance or epoch in
Mme. Blavatsky's career was prosaic. She chose to be born into this life at
Ekaterinoslaw Russia, in the year 1831, when coffins and desolation were
everywhere from the plague of cholera.
The child was so delicate that the family
decided upon immediate baptism under the rites of the Greek Catholic Church.
This was in itself not common, but the ceremony was — under the luck that ever
was with Helena — more remarkable and startling still.
At this ceremony all the relatives
are present and stand holding lighted candles. As one was absent, a young
child, aunt of the infant Helena, was made proxy for the absentee, and given a
candle like the rest. Tired out by the effort, this young proxy sank down to
the floor unnoticed by the others, and, just as the sponsors were renouncing
the evil one on the babe's behalf, by three times spitting on the floor, the
sitting witness with her candle accidentally set fire to the robes of the
officiating priest, and instantly there was a small conflagration, in which
many of those present were seriously burned.
Thus amid the scourge of death in
the land was Mme. Blavatsky ushered into our world, and in the flames baptized
by the priests of a Church whose fallacious dogmas she did much in her life to
expose.
She was connected with the rulers of
Russia. Speaking in 1881, her uncle, Gen. Fadeef, joint Councillor of State of
Russia, said that, as daughter of Col. Peter Hahn, she was grand-daughter of
Gen. Alexis Hahn von Rottenstern Hahn of old Mecklenburg stock, settled in
Russia, and on her mother's side, daughter of Helene Fadeef and granddaughter
of Princess Helena Dolgorouky.
Her maternal ancestors were of the
oldest families in Russia and direct descendants of the Prince or Grand Duke
Rurik, the first ruler of Russia. Several ladies of the family belonged to the
imperial house, becoming Czarinas by marriage. One of them, a Dolgorouky,
married the grandfather of Peter the Great, and another was betrothed to Czar
Peter II.
Through these connections it
naturally resulted that Mme. Blavatsky was acquainted personally with many
noble Russians. In Paris I met three princes of Russia and one well-known
General, who told of her youth and the wonderful things related about her then;
and in Germany I met the Prince Emil de Wittgenstein of one of the many
Russo-German families, and himself cousin to the Empress of Russia, and
aide-de-camp to the Czar, who told me he was an old family friend of hers, who
heard much about her in early years, but, to his regret, had never had the
fortune to see her again after a brief visit made with her father to his house.
But he joined her famous
Theosophical Society by correspondence, and wrote, after the war with Turkey,
that he had been told in a letter from her that no hurt would come to him
during the campaign, and such turned out to be the fact.
As a child she was the wonder of the
neighborhood and the terror of the simpler serfs. Russia teems with
superstitions and omens, and as Helena was born on the seventh month and
between the 30th and 31st day (1), she was supposed by the nurses and servants to have
powers and virtues possessed by no one else. And these supposed powers made her
the cynosure of all in her early youth.
She was allowed liberties given none
others, and as soon as she could understand she was given by her nurses the
chief part in a mystic Russian ceremony performed about the house and grounds
on the 30th of July with the object of propitiating the house demon.
The education she got was
fragmentary, and in itself so inadequate as to be one more cause among many for
the belief of her friends in later life that she was endowed with abnormal
psychic powers, or else in verity assisted by those unseen beings who she
asserted were her helpers and who were men living on the earth, but possessed
of developed senses that laughed at time and space.
In girlhood she was bound by no
restraint of conventionality, but rode any Cossack horse in a man's saddle, and
later on spent a long time with her father with his regiment in the field,
where, with her sister, she became the pet of the soldiers.
In 1844, when fourteen, her father
took her to London and Paris, where some progress was made in music, and before
1848 she returned home.
Her marriage in 1848 to Gen. Nicephore
Blavatsky, the Governor of Erivan in the Caucasus, gave her the name of
Blavatsky, borne till her death. This marriage, like all other events in her
life, was full of pyrotechnics. Her abrupt style had led her female friends to
say that she could not make the old Blavatsky marry her, and out of sheer
bravado she declared she could, and, sure enough, he did propose and was
accepted.
Then the awful fact obtruded itself
on Helena's mind that this could not — in Russia — be undone. They were
married, but the affair was signalized by Mme. Blavatsky's breaking a
candlestick over his head and precipitately leaving the house, never to see him
again. After her determination was evident, her father assisted her in a life
of travel which began from that date, and not until 1858 did she return to
Russia. Meanwhile her steps led her to America in 1851, to Canada, to New
Orleans, to Mexico, off to India, and back again in 1853 to the United States.
Then her relatives lost sight of her
once more until 1858, when her coming back was like other events in her
history. It was a wintry night, and a wedding party was on at the home in
Russia. Guests had arrived, and suddenly, interrupting the meal, the bell rang
violently, and there, unannounced, was Mme. Blavatsky at the door.
From this point the family and many
friends testify, both by letter and by articles in the Rebus, a
well-known journal in Russia, and in other papers, a constant series of marvels
wholly unexplainable on the theory of jugglery was constantly occurring. They
were of such a character that hundreds of friends from great distances were
constantly visiting the house to see the wonderful Mme. Blavatsky.
Many were incredulous, many believed
it was magic, and others started charges of fraud. The superstitious Gooriel
and Mingrelian nobility came in crowds and talked incessantly after, calling
her a magician. They came to see the marvels others reported, to see her
sitting quietly reading while tables and chairs moved of themselves and low
raps in every direction seemed to reply to questions.
Among many testified to was one done
for her brother, who doubted her powers. A small chess table stood on the
floor. Very light — a child could lift it and a man break it. One asked if Mme.
Blavatsky could fasten it by will to the floor. She then said to examine it,
and they found it loose.
After that, and being some distance
off, she said, "Try again." They then found that no power of theirs
could stir it, and her brother, supposing from his great strength that this
"trick" could easily be exposed, embraced the little table and shook
and pulled it without effect, except to make it groan and creak.
So with wall and furniture rapping,
objects moving, messages about distant happenings arriving by aerial post, the
whole family and neighborhood were in a constant state of excitement. Mme.
Blavatsky said herself that this was a period when she was letting her psychic
forces play, and learning fully to understand and control them.
But the spirit of unrest came
freshly again, and she started out once more to find, as she wrote to me,
"the men and women whom I want to prepare for the work of a great
philosophical and ethical movement that I expect to start in a later
time."
Going to Spezzia in a Greek vessel,
the usual display of natural circumstances took place, and the boat was blown
up by an explosion of gun-powder in the cargo. Only a few of those on board
were saved, she among them.
This led her to Cairo, in Egypt,
where, in 1871, she started a society with the object of investigating
spiritualism so as to expose its fallacies, if any, and to put its facts on a
firm, scientific, and reasonable basis, if possible. But it only lasted
fourteen days, and she wrote about it then: "It is a heap of ruins —
majestic, but as suggestive as those of the Pharaohs" tombs."
It was, however, in the United
States that she really began the work that has made her name well known in
Europe, Asia, and America: made her notorious in the eyes of those who dislike
all reformers, but great and famous for those who say her works have benefited
them.
Prior to 1875 she was again
investigating the claims of spiritualism in this country, and wrote home then,
analyzing it, declaring false its assertion that the dead were heard from, and
showing that, on the other hand, the phenomena exhibited a great
psycho-physiological change going on here, which, if allowed to go on in our
present merely material civilization, would bring about great disaster, morally
and physically.
Then in 1875, in New York, she
started the Theosophical Society, aided by Col. H. S. Olcott and others,
declaring its objects to be the making of a nucleus for a universal
brotherhood, the study of ancient and other religions and sciences, and the
investigation of the psychical and recondite laws affecting man and nature.
There certainly was no selfish
object in this, nor any desire to raise money. She was in receipt of funds from
sources in Russia and other places until they were cut off by reason of her
becoming an American citizen, and also because her unremunerated labors for the
society prevented her doing literary work on Russian magazines, where all her
writings would be taken eagerly.
As soon as the Theosophical Society
was started she said to the writer that a book had to be written for its use.
"Isis Unveiled" was then
begun, and unremittingly she worked at it night and day until the moment when a
publisher was secured for it.
Meanwhile crowds of visitors were
constantly calling at her rooms in Irving place, later in Thirty-fourth street,
and last in Forty-seventh street and Eighth avenue. The newspapers were full of
her supposed powers or of laughter at the possibilities in man that she and her
society asserted.
A prominent New York daily wrote of
her thus:
A woman of as remarkable
characteristics as Cagliostro himself, and one who is every day as differently
judged by different people as the renowned Count was in his day. By those who
knew her slightly she is called a charlatan; better acquaintance made you think
she was learned; and those who were intimate with her were either carried away
with belief in her power or completely puzzled.
"Isis Unveiled" attracted wide attention, and all the New York
papers reviewed it, each saying that it exhibited immense research. The strange
part of this is, as I and many others can testify as eyewitnesses to the
production of the book, that the writer had no library in which to make
researches and possessed no notes of investigation or reading previously done.
All was written straight out of
hand. And yet it is full of references to books in the British Museum and other
great libraries. Either, then, we have, as to that book, a woman who was
capable of storing in her memory a mass of facts, dates, numbers, titles, and
subjects such as no other human being ever was capable of, or her claim to help
from unseen beings is just.
In 1878, "Isis Unveiled" having been published, Mme. Blavatsky informed
her friends that she must go to India and start there the same movement of the
Theosophical Society. So in December of that year she and Col. Olcott and two
more went out to India, stopping at London for a while.
Arriving in Bombay, they found three
or four Hindus to meet them who had heard from afar of the matter. A place was
hired in the native part of the town, and soon she and Col. Olcott started the Theosophist,
a magazine that became at once well known there and was widely bought in the
West.
There in Bombay and later in Adyar,
Madras, Mme. Blavatsky worked day after day in all seasons, editing her
magazine and carrying on an immense correspondence with people in every part of
the world interested in Theosophy, and also daily disputing and discussing with
learned Hindus who constantly called.
Phenomena occurred there also very
often, and later the society for discovering nothing about the psychic world
investigated these, and came to the conclusion that this woman of no fortune,
who was never before publicly heard of in India, had managed, in some way they
could not explain, to get up a vast conspiracy that ramified all over India,
including men of all ranks, by means of which she was enabled to produce
pretended phenomena. I give this conclusion as one adopted by many.
For any one
who knew her and who knows India, with its hundreds of different languages,
none of which she knew, the conclusion is absurd. The Hindus believed in her,
said always that she could explain to them their own scriptures and
philosophies where the Brahmins had lost or concealed the key, and that by her
efforts and the work of the society founded through her, India's young men were
being saved from the blank materialism which is the only religion the West can
ever give a Hindoo.
In 1887 Mme. Blavatsky returned to
England, and there started another theosophical magazine, called “Lucifer,” and immediately stirred up the
movement in Europe. Day and night there, as in New York and India, she wrote
and spoke, incessantly corresponding with people everywhere, editing Lucifer
and making more books for her beloved society, and never possessed of means,
never getting from the world at large anything save abuse wholly undeserved.
The "Key to Theosophy" was written in London, and also "The Secret Doctrine," which is the
great textbook for Theosophists. "The Voice of the Silence" was
written there too, and is meant for devotional Theosophists. Writing, writing,
writing from morn till night was her fate here. Yet although scandalized and
abused here as elsewhere, she made many devoted friends, for there never was
anything half way in her history. Those who met her or heard of her were always
either staunch friends or bitter enemies.
The "Secret Doctrine" led to the coming into the Society of Mrs.
Annie Besant, and then Mme. Blavatsky began to say that her labors were coming
to an end, for here was a woman who had the courage of the ancient reformers
and who would help carry on the movement in England unflinchingly.
The "Secret Doctrine" was sent to Mr. Stead of the Pall Mall
Gazette to review, but none of his usual reviewers felt equal to it and he
asked Mrs. Besant if she could review it. She accepted the task, reviewed, and
then wanted an introduction to the writer.
Soon after that she joined the
society, first fully investigating Mme. Blavatsky's character, and threw in her
entire forces with the Theosophists. Then a permanent London headquarters was
started and still exists. And there Mme. Blavatsky passed away, with the
knowledge that the society she had striven so hard for at any cost was at last
an entity able to struggle for itself.
In her dying moment she showed that
her life had been spent for an idea, with full consciousness that in the eyes
of the world it was Utopian, but in her own necessary for the race. She
implored her friends not to allow her then ending incarnation to become a
failure by the failure of the movement started and carried on with so much of
suffering. She never in all her life made money or asked for it.
Venal writers and spiteful men and
women have said she strove to get money from so-called dupes, but all her
intimate friends know that over and over again she has refused money; that
always she has had friends who would give her all they had if she would take
it, but she never took any nor asked it.
On the other hand, her philosophy
and her high ideals have caused others to try to help all those in need.
Impelled by such incentive, one rich Theosophist gave her $5,000 to found a
working girl's club at Bow, in London, and one day, after Mrs. Besant had made
the arrangements for the house and the rest, Mme. Blavatsky, although sick and
old, went down there herself and opened the club in the name of the society.
The aim and object of her life were
to strike off the shackles forged by priest craft for the mind of man. She
wished all men to know that they are God in fact, and that as men they must
bear the burden of their own sins, for no one else can do it.
Hence she brought forward to the
West the old Eastern doctrines of Karma and reincarnation. Under the first, the
law of justice, she said each must answer for himself, and under the second
make answer on the earth where all his acts were done.
She also desired that science should
be brought back to the true ground where life and intelligence are admitted to
be within and acting on and through every atom in the universe. Hence her
object was to make religion scientific and science religious, so that the
dogmatism of each might disappear.
Her life since 1875 was spent in the
unremitting endeavor to draw within the Theosophical Society those who could
work unselfishly to propagate an ethics and philosophy tending to realize the
brotherhood of man by showing the real unity and essential non-separateness of
every being. And her books were written with the declared object of furnishing
the material for intellectual and scientific progress on those lines.
The theory of man's origin, powers
and destiny brought forward by her, drawn from ancient Indian sources, places
us upon a higher pedestal than that given by either religion or science, for it
gives to each the possibility of developing the godlike powers within and of at
last becoming a co-worker with nature.
As every one must die at last, we
will not say her demise was a loss; but if she had not lived and done what she
did, humanity would not have had the impulse and the ideas toward the good
which it was her mission to give and to proclaim.
And there are to-day scores, nay,
hundreds, of devout, earnest men and women intent on purifying their own lives
and sweetening the lives of others, who trace their hopes and aspirations to
the wisdom-religion revived in the West through her efforts, and who gratefully
avow that their dearest possessions are the results of her toilsome and
self-sacrificing life. If they, in turn, live aright and do good, they will be
but illustrating the doctrine which she daily taught and hourly practiced.
Footnote:
1. [That is, between the 30th and 31st of July, according to the Old
Style Calendar used in Russia at that penod, and which correspond to the 11th
and 12th of August of our Calendar. — Eds.]
(This text was first published in
the New York Sun, September 26th,
1892; and later in The Theosophical Forum,
August 1950)
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