Madame Blavatsky and
Colonel Olcott spent six weeks in the town of Simla (from early September to
mid-October 1880). They are having been invited by Mr. and Mrs. Sinnett, who
resided there for the summer. In Simla Blavatsky performed numerous phenomena.
In the early days they were small phenomena:
-
she produced sound
blows without touching nothing,
-
she also made chime
sounds,
-
she made several
notes and letters disappear and materialize.
Then she produced a more relevant
phenomenon:
-
she duplicated a
handkerchief with Mr. Sinnett's name in embroidered letters.
But it was on Sunday, October 3,
that she performed (with the help of Master Kuthumi) a series of very
impressive phenomena, which were widely discussed at that time in India:
-
she duplicated an
antique cup of tea with its saucer,
-
she materialized a
diploma from the Theosophical Society and a welcome letter in Colonel Olcott's
handwriting (although he had not written it),
-
she materialized
water into a bottle,
-
she materialized an
ancient brooch that Mrs. Hume had lost.
Colonel Olcott
was so impressed by the phenomena that Blavatsky produced, that the next day he
wrote a letter to Damodar recounting those events, and an excerpt from this
letter was subsequently published in The Theosophist magazine:
«
THE EARLY HISTORY OF
THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY
WITH ANNOTATIONS BY C. JINARAJADASA
(Continued from Vol. XL VI, No.
12, p. 752)
XVIII
THE CUP AND SAUCER PHENOMENON
One of the striking objects in “H.P.B.’s memorial cabinet" at Adyar
has always been the famous cup and saucer of the phenomenon at Simla recorded
by Mr. Sinnett in his The Occult World.
I give reproductions of photographs specially made for The Theosophist.
It is evidently not an ordinary cup, but a chocolate or bouillon cup
with a lid. Its pattern is turquoise blue (not green as Colonel Olcott says)
with fleur-de-lys stamped in gold. The height of cup with lid on and saucer is
6.5 inches, and the diameter of the saucer 6.875 inches. The bottoms of the cup
and saucer bear a red impress: “Paris. Ernie Fils et
Patoneille, Rue Paradis 20. Exposition Univ. 1878. Medaille d'Argent."
(The inscription is in French and indicates the name
and address of the company who made this crockery and specifies that it won the silver medal at the
1878 universal exhibition, meaning that it is a special collection. And below I
put a color photo that I have found of the cup and saucer, and behind appears
the Blavatsky commemorative cabinet with several of the objects that she
materialized.)
The description of the phenomenon I have copied from a printed four page
circular which Colonel Olcott has pasted in his diary of 1880, opposite to the
entry on page of October 3. His description in the diary is the substance of
what he wrote at greater length to Damodar.
Below are the extracts from a private letter of Col. Olcott to Damodar
K. Mavalankar, Assistant Corresponding Secretary, dated, Simla, October 4,
1880.
C. Jinarajadasa.
~ *
~
(Printed for private circulation for the information and encouragement
of our Fellows, who will be glad to learn of the deep impression that has been
created in official circles by the present visit of Madame Blavatsky and
Colonel Olcott to Simla.
The undersigned also congratulates his brother members on the fact that
the Foreign office o f the Government of India has, under date of October 2,
addressed a most friendly letter to President Olcott, assuring him that the
work o f the Society may proceed in India without the slightest interference by
the authorities, since it does not meddle in politics either in India or
elsewhere. On the whole the prospects of
our Society were never brighter than at present. — D. K. M.)
_ _ _
Great day yesterday for Madame’s phenomena. In the morning she, with Mr.
and Mrs. Sinnett, Major Henderson, Mr. Syed Mahmood (District Judge,
Rai-Bareilly), Mrs. Reed of Ajmere, and myself went on a picnic. Although she
had never been at Simla before, she directed us where to go, describing a
certain small mill which the Sinnetts, Major Henderson, and even the jampanis
(palki-wallahs) affirmed, did not exist. She also mentioned a small Tibetan
temple as being near it.
We reached the spot she
had described and found the mill
— at about 10 A.M.; and sat in the shade and had the servants spread a
collation. Mr. Mahmood had joined our party after the baskets were packed and
so when we wanted to have tea we found we were one cup and saucer short.
Somebody asked Madame Blavatsky to produce one by magic. She consented;
and, looking about the ground here and there, finally called Major Henderson to
bring a knife and dig in a spot she pointed to. He found the ground hard and
full of small roots of a young cedar tree near by. These he cut through and
pulled up to a depth of say 6 inches, when something white was seen in the
black soil; it was dug out, and lo! a
cup decorated in green and gold, exactly matching the others Mrs. Sinnett’s
servants had brought.
Madame told the Major to dig more; he did so, and at last found a saucer
to match the cup! They were embedded in the ground like stones naturally there,
and the cedar roots grew all around them like a net work, and one root as large
as your little finger had to be cut away to get at the saucer.
Then Major Henderson asked her to explain the science of it, but she
said she could not, as he was not yet a Theosophist. He said he meant to be one.
- “When?” said she.
- “Tomorrow” he
replied.
-
Mrs. Sinnett said
“Why not today?”
-
“So I will,” said the
Major;“ come Madame produce me a diploma on the spot!”
-
”If I do, will you
really join us?”
- “I will“
-
“Then you shall have
it.”
She looked here and there and walked about near us a few moments, then
sat down on the edge of a little bank.
-
"If you want the
diploma, you must hunt for it yourself; the ‘Brother’ who is helping me says it
is rolled up tied with about 50 feet of blue twine and covered with creeping
vines,” she said to the Major.
The party all went to searching and presently Major Henderson, raising
the low branches of a deodar shrub and parting the grass said “I have it!”
He really had — one of our diplomas filled out to Major Philip D.
Henderson as Corresponding Fellow, and an official letter on my Headquarters letter-paper,
WRITTEN IN MY OWN HANDWRITING and signed:
“Faithfully yours— (the name in Tibetan characters) for H.S. Olcott,
President of the Theosophical Society”
Fancy my astonishment!
The letter was dated October 2/3 — that is at the point (or night) between
the two days and it referred, to a conversation that had taken place between
Major Henderson and Madame Blavatsky on the preceding evening.
As Mr. Mahmood and Mrs. Reed were with us at the Sinnetts’ until
midnight, and at 3 A.M. Madame sent Babula to enquire what Mr. Sinnett was
calling a servant for and waking her up, you see that not even an enemy could
suspect her of any fraud: the more so as it was the Major who asked for the
diploma in the wild woods, 3 or 4 miles from home, and got it himself from
beneath a small tree which Madame had not even approached.
Later in the day, stopping on the way home at the Tibetan temple (which
by the way, you will see the very image of in a coloured painting on silk that
lies on my bureau in my bed-room, and that was magically produced by her for me
in New York one day), and wanting a cup of tea we found we were out of water.
Servants were sent in various directions but could get none. While
Babula was off on a second search Madame quietly went on to the lunch baskets,
took an empty water-bottle, put it in the loose sleeve of her gown, and came
straight to where we were sitting on the grass. The bottle was full of clearest
and softest water, of which we all partook.
At 8 P.M. yesterday we, with the Sinnetts and other ladies and gentlemen
dined at Mr. Hume’s as usual. While at the table Madame asked if anybody wished
for anything. Mrs. Hume said she did. Madame told her to fix in her mind a very
clear and definite image of the thing. Mrs. Hume said it was a breastpin set in
pearls and that she had a perfectly clear idea of it.
-
“It has just come to
me like a flash!” she said.
Madame Blavatsky looked at her fixedly, took a blank card and pencil,
and drew the representation of a round pin set with stones of some kind. She
said after musing a while, “It will not be brought into this house but into the
garden — I am told by a Brother.”
After a pause she asked Mr. Hume if in his garden there was somewhere a
flower bed shaped like a star. Mr. Hume said there were several. Madame pointed
in a certain direction and said she meant over there. Mr. Hume said there were
two such beds there. Madame then told him to come with her and get it himself
as she had seen it drop like a bright point of light into a certain bed.
Thereupon Mr. Hume and all the rest of us accompanied her into the
garden (a place she had never entered or seen before as she had always been to
Mr. Hume’s by night, to dinner at 8 o’clock, and always was carried in the
jampan).
Searching about here and there with lanterns we found the star-shaped
bed she wanted, and, after we had all pulled up a lot of nasturtium and dahlia
vines and plants that made a perfect mat of verdure there, Mrs. Sinnett and Captain
Maitland (Deputy Assistant Quartermaster-General) at the same moment saw a
small white package. Mrs. Sinnett took it, Mr. Hume opened it, and it was then
identified by Mrs. Hume as the lost brooch, that she had not seen since long
before she ever heard of Madame Blavatsky.
Every one present was so amazed and delighted that Mr. Sinnett and Mr.
Hume after consulting together decided that an account of the affair should at
once be drawn up and signed by all present (except, of course, Madame and myself)
and published in the Pioneer journal.
So those two gentlemen retired to another room, drew up the paper, and
you will see it in the Pioneer shortly. A scientific ornithologist present —Mr.
Davidson— and a young officer of the 11th Bengal Cavalry, Mr. Beatson, at once
applied for admission, as they said that the Theosophists revue alone knew the science of nature and the powers
of man. »
(Theosophist, October
1935, p.69-74)
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