The following
text is a letter that Blavatsky wrote to the editor of The Bombay Gazette
newspaper:
OCCULT PHENOMENA
« Sir,
In the issue of the 19th instant of your worthy contemporary, I find
over two columns devoted to the doubtful glorification, but mostly to the
abuse, of my humble individuality. There is a long confidential letter from
Colonel Olcott to an officer of our Society, obtained surreptitiously by
somebody, and marked “private” —a word showing in itself that the document was
never meant for the public eye— and an editorial, principally filled with cheap
abuse, and venomous, though common-place, suggestions. The latter was to be
expected, but I would like information upon the following points:
1)
How did the editor
come into possession of a document stolen from the desk of the President of the
Bombay Branch of the Theosophical Society?
2)
And having got it,
what right had he to publish it at all, without first obtaining consent from
the writer or addressee — a consent which he could never have obtained?
3)
And how is such an
action to be characterized?
If the law affords no redress for a wrong like this I am content, at
least, to abide the verdict of every well-bred man or woman who shall read the
letter and comments thereon.
(Cid's observation: here Blavatsky is referring to a
letter that Colonel Olcott wrote to Damodar Mavalankar recounting the phenomena
that she had produced in Simla, and that Damodar printed in a document reserved
for private circulation among members of the Theosophical Society, that you can
read here. But the newspaper The Times of
India also had knowledge and improperly printed in its publication of October
19, 1880, with the title "A day with Madame Blavatsky".)
This private letter having been written about, but not by me, I abandon
this special question to be settled between the offended and the offender, and
touch but upon the one which concerns me directly.
I have lived long enough in this world of incessant strife, in which the
“survival of the fittest” seems to mean the triumph of the most unprincipled,
to have learned that when I have once allowed my name to appear in the light of
a benevolent genius, for the production of “cups,” “saucers” and “brooches,” I
must bear the penalty; especially when the people are so foolish as to take the
word “Magic” either in its popular superstitious sense —that of the work of the
devil— or in that of jugglery.
Therefore and precisely because I am an “elderly lady from Russia via
America,” that the latter country of unlimited freedom especially in newspaper
personal abuse — has toughened me to the extent of being indifferent as to the
sneering and jeering of newspapers upon questions they do not understand at
all; provided they are witty and remain in the limits of propriety and do no
harm but to myself.
Being neither a professional medium nor a professional anything, and
making my experiments in “Occult phenomena” but in the presence of a few
friends —rarely before anyone who is not a member of our Society— I have a
right to claim from the public a little more fairness and politeness than are
usually accorded to paid jugglers and even alleged Thaumaturgists. And if my
friends will insist upon publishing about “Occult phenomena” taking place in
their presence, they should at least preface their narratives with the
following warning:
“Pukka Theosophy believes in no miracle, whether divine or devilish;
recognizes nothing as supernatural; believes only in facts and Science; studies
the laws of Nature, both Occult and patent; and gives attention particularly to
the former, just because exact Science will have nothing to do with them.”
Such laws are those of Magnetism in all its branches. Mesmerism,
Psychology, etc. More than once in the history of its past has Science been
made the victim of its own delusions as to its professed infallibility; and the
time must come when the perfection of Asiatic Psychology and its knowledge of
the forces of the invisible world will be recognized, as were the circulation
of the blood, electricity, and so forth, after the first sneers and lampoons
died away.
The “silly attempts to hoodwink individuals” will then be viewed as
honest attempts at proving to this generation of Spiritualists and believers in
past “miracle-mongers,” that there is naught miraculous in this world of Matter
and Spirit, of visible results and invisible causes; naught — but the great
wickedness of a world of Christians and Pagans, alike ridiculously
superstitious in one direction, that of their respective religions, and
malicious whenever a purely disinterested and philanthropic effort is made to
open their eyes to the truth.
I beg leave to further remark that personally I never bragged of
anything I might have done, nor do I offer any explanation of the phenomena,
except to utterly disclaim the possession of any miraculous or supernatural
powers, or the performing of anything by jugglery — i.e., with the usual help
of confederates and machinery. That’s all. And surely, if there is anything
like a sense of justice left in society, I am amenable to neither statutory nor
social laws for gratifying the interest of members of our Society, and the
wishes of my personal friends, by exhibiting to them in privacy various
phenomena, in which I believe far more firmly than any of them, since I know
the laws by which they are produced, and am ready to stand any amount of
personal newspaper abuse whenever these results are told to the public.
The “official circles at Simla” was an incorrect and foolish phrase to
use. I never produced anything in the “official circles”; but I certainly hope
to have impressed a few persons belonging to such “official circles” with the
sense that I was neither an impostor nor “a hoodwinker of official personages,”
for whom, moreover, so long as I live up to the law of the country, and respect
it (especially considering my natural democratic feelings, strengthened by my
American naturalization), I am not bound to have any more respect than each of
them personally deserves in his individual capacity.
I must add, for the personal gratification of the Editor of your
contemporary, and in the hope that this will soothe his irate feelings, that of
the five eye-witnesses to the “cup” production, three (two of these of the
“official circle”) utterly disbelieve the genuineness of the phenomenon, though
I would be pleased to know how, with all their scepticism, they would be able
to account for it. I do not imitate the indiscretion of the Editor and mention
names, but leave the public to draw such inferences as they please.
I am a private individual, and no one has a right to call upon me to
rise and explain. Therefore, by causing Colonel Olcott’s stolen letter to be
followed by a paragraph entitled “The way they treat ‘occult phenomena’ in
England,” giving an account of the arrest of Miss Houghton, a medium who
obtained money under false pretenses, the Editor, by the implied innuendo which
likens my case to hers, became guilty of one more unprovoked and ungentlemanly
insult towards me, who obtains neither money nor favours of any sort for my
“phenomena,” and lays himself open to very hard reprisals.
The only benefit I have ever derived from my experiments, when made
public, is newspaper abuse and more or less unfavourable comments upon my
unfortunate self all over the country. This, unless my convictions were strong
indeed, would amount to obtaining Billingsgate and martyrdom under false
pretenses, and begging a reputation for insanity. The game would hardly be
worth the candle, I think.
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
Amritsar.
October 25th, 1880. »
(This letter
was first published in The Bombay Gazette, October 29, 1880, p.3; later CW 2,
p.489-492)
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