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BLAVATSKY LIFE NARRATED BY FRANZ HARTMANN

 
 
This article was translated from German to English and published in The Word journal, where the translator wrote the following:
 
Dr. Franz Hartmann is well known as one of the oldest members of the Theosophical Society. He was a good friend of H.P.B., and continues to hold her in high esteem. He never grows tired of speaking in glowing terms of her wonderful work in popularizing some of the profound fundamental principles of the "ancient wisdom" or the "wisdom religion" taught by the sages of the East, as well as by Jesus of Nazareth, Buddha and other religious reformers of the world.
 
The following short sketch of the life and doings of H.P.B. was written by him in German and published In the German monthly called "Theosophischer Wegweiser." from which it was translated. It contains some highly Interesting particulars from the biography of H.P.B. and original comments upon her work which will show to the attentive reader that, with all his admiration for the great teacher of the Theosophical Society, Dr. Hartmann is by no means blind to her shortcomings. But, as a true theosophist, he is fully prepared to broadly distinguish between the personality of the laborer and the grand work accomplished by her labor.
 
So while the biographer captivates the reader's curiosity by telling some striking adventures passed through by H.P.B., he gives the reader considerable information as to the work done by her and obtains his assent to the opinion that any discussion of the personality is quite irrelevant. This impartial platform renders the sketch the more valuable.
 

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MADAME BLAVATSKY LIFE
 
By Franz Hartmann
 
One of the most memorable figures of the last century was Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. She was a Russian by birth, endowed with most remarkable psychic forces, with great will power and superior intelligence. She is entitled to be reckoned among the greatest reformers of the mental life of modern times. For in spite of whatever may be said about her personality by her numerous enemies and detractors, there is not one that was able honestly to deny that the doctrines promulgated by her did teach many thousands of people to see with their own mental eyes, did pull them out of the swamp of materialism and thus enable them to see the bright light of knowledge, and to liberate themselves not only from the worry of doubt but even from downright despair.
 
She was a true champion of light and liberty. Her writings more than any other publications of modern times have tended to put an end to all superstition, scientific as well as religious. Her writings did more than anything else to start that higher conception of the universe which is at the present time moving and spreading throughout the world.
 
The truth promulgated by her is eternal and will be appreciated more and more, though the name of Blavatsky may sink into oblivion. What she taught was not an invention of her own; neither was it essentially new; it was the Ancient Wisdom, which is contained in every system of religion hidden under symbols and allegories. She, however, lifted the veil of these secrets, and displayed in the light of day the spiritual kernel previously concealed within the hard ·shell. She never pretended to have discovered these truths by her own acumen, but asserted to have been led up to and instructed in them by certain Adepts, i.e., men of a superior mental evolution. The names of these Adepts are of no importance to the general public, for they do not demand blind belief in their authority, and they prefer to continue to be unknown.
 
If we consider the sublime and exalted character of the new aspect of the world promulgated by the Adepts through H.P. Blavatsky, a discussion of the personal attributes of this instrument of the masters of wisdom appears to us as meaningless as if we proposed to describe the brush by means of which Rafael painted his Madonna. Yet Blavatsky was not a blind tool of the Adepts; she was not a spiritistic medium in the common sense of that word; she understood what she wrote; she was instructed by the Masters and reproduced the thoughts communicated to her in a suitable form.
 
There are, no doubt, a good many people who would like to learn some particulars about this remarkable person, and as I was intimately acquainted and in mental communication with her for many years I shall here add a few remarks to the reports already published (1), so as to throw some light upon a few misconceptions.
 
 
In 1831 there was at Yekaterinoslaw, in Russia, an old woman. She lived very retired, and was seldom seen anywhere. Her circle of acquaintances was very limited. She was known, however, to be very charitable. Rumors were abroad that she was engaged in occult studies, which caused her to be regarded as a magician by some and shunned as a witch by others. One of her few intimate friends was the wife of the Russian Colonel Peter Hahn. This friend became the mother of H.P. Blavatsky.
 
The old woman one day foretold her acquaintances that she would die on a certain date, which she named, and she added that she would reincarnate immediately. In fact, she died on the day she had named without any indisposition whatever preceding her death: At the same hour Helena Hahn, who lived to become H.P. Blavatsky, was born.
 
Thus we may presume that the soul of this mysterious woman was reincarnated in Helena. This supposition grows more probable owing to the fact that when little Helena had learned to speak she would repeat to her mother certain things which the old woman had confidentially told the mother before she died. Moreover, little Helena had the habit of going to the tomb of the old woman and remaining there for hours, although nobody had ever spoken to her of the existence of this tomb.
 
 
A good-sized volume might be filled with tales regarding the clairvoyant power of Helena and the occult phenomena occurring in her presence. But these things are hardly worth mentioning at a time when anybody acquainted with spiritism knows all about such facts. However, it is of importance to know that Helena often had visions of living people appearing to her in their astral bodies, among which, it is claimed, were two Adepts, who were said to live in Tibet. These Adepts she met at a more advanced age on the physical plane, namely, in Tibet and the East Indies, and they were her instructors and taught her day by day to the end of her life on earth; and they did this even while their abiding place was located at a distance of thousands of miles from where she was living.
 
No doubt this assertion sounds very strange to those who are as yet quite ignorant of those psychic forces which have not yet been developed in everyone; but the fact that a practical acquaintance with so-called telepathy enables a man to transfer his thought to another man at any considerable distance is well known to-day, and we also know that a greater or lesser amount of miles intervening between two people is of as little importance in thought transference as it is in wireless telegraphy. The power which will carry thought to any distance whatever is the will. Remembering that force and matter are essentially the same thing, and looking at the phenomena of thought transference in this light, the fact that a man may be able to transfer his thoughts to another man with whom he is mentally connected by mutual sympathy, or even that he may appear to the other in person, does no longer appear· supernatural at all. It seems to be entirely within the range of natural law.
 
Helena's mind was in connection with the minds of her teachers. We are told that the soul which dwelt within the body of Helena had in one of its preceding incarnations lived in the body of a disciple (chela) of these Adepts in Tibet, and that this soul had incarnated in Helena in order to be able to take upon herself the charge of carrying the knowledge of the ancient wisdom of the East to the nations of the West.
 
Helena's organism was especially adapted to this purpose, although by no means owing to any particular holiness or ethical perfection on her part, but rather on account of her psychical and physiological development or accomplishments acquired during her previous incarnation; and, furthermore, by virtue of her remarkable intellectual faculties and physical constitution, all of which enabled her to live on the physical plane and in the super-sensuous world, as it were, at the same time. The spiritual connection established with her Masters in a previous earth-life continued in this life. Her own intellect enabled her to reproduce in a suitable form whatever the Adepts taught her. In this way her writings, "Isis Unveiled," "The Secret Doctrine," and numerous other books and articles were produced.
 
 
I am fully convinced that H.P. Blavatsky was an Initiate —that is, that her spiritual consciousness was awakened— and that was the very reason why she was understood by but few people, and why she was called the "Sphinx of the nineteenth century." There is a deep sense in this simile. The upper part of the body of the Sphinx of old and her head represented a woman, a human shape, but the lower part of the body was like that of a lioness, with the addition of an eagle's wings. Madame Blavatsky was not only possessed of the spirit and mind of man, but also of the animal properties of humanity very strongly accentuated, coupled with an iron power of will and an imagination soaring to great heights. With such a constitution she could not be otherwise than of an excitable temper, very sensitive and easily: aroused, willful and not free from vanity.
 
This she showed at an early age when she felt offended at her governess telling her she was such a bad girl that she would never get married; that even the old and ugly General Blavatsky would never think of marrying her. That was too humiliating for proud Helena, and she determined to prove her governess wrong. So she flirted with the old General, who was at that time Governor of Caucasia, and after a short courtship Helena, hardly seventeen years old, was married to him. But short as the courtship had been, the actual state of marriage was shorter still.
 
Helena, now Madame Blavatsky, of whom we shall hereafter speak as H.P.B., ran away and began traveling through the world. Dressed up as a cabin boy and hidden away in the hold of a steamer, she went from Odessa to Constantinople, where she met with Countess K____, a former acquaintance of hers, with whom she traveled in Egypt, Greece and other parts.
 
In Egypt H.P.B. met an old Copt, said to be a magician, who gave her instructions in occult matters. Her relatives at Tiflis, in Caucasia, did not know where she was staying, but she corresponded with her father, who paid her traveling expenses.
 
In 1851 she went to Canada and lived for some time with an Indian tribe. Thence she went to New Orleans and witnessed the feats of sorcery performed by black men and called “voodoo.” Then she wended her way through Texas, Mexico and the West Indies. In 1853 she arrived in Bombay, India. Her attempt to reach Tibet in the company of an Englishman and a Hindu chela, by way of Nepaul, did not succeed. So she went to South India, and thence to England and again to America, where she lived at New York, Chicago and San Francisco. In 1855 she sailed again, by way of Japan and China, to the East Indies, landing at Calcutta.
 
In 1856 she met three Germans traveling in pursuit of mystic studies at Lahore, and traveled with them and a Tartar Shaman to Cashmere and Leli, in Ladakh, where she witnessed most astonishing occult feats, described in "Isis Unveiled," Vol. II., pp. 599-626. The Shaman led her into certain regions visited by few Europeans. She left India in 1857, a short time before the rebellion.
 
In 1858 she traveled through France and Germany to Russia. In 1866 she went again to India and succeeded in reaching Tibet. Thence she went again to New York, in 1871. During her stay in Tibet she is reported to have lived with the Adepts and to have been personally instructed by them. (2)
 
In traveling in America, in Mexico, Egypt, India and many other parts of Asia, such as are still little known, H.P.B. had in view the main object of obtaining information on occult subjects. In 1875 the Theosophical Society was founded at New York. A few years later the headquarters were transferred to India, first to Bombay, then to Adyar, near Urur, a village at Madras, where Colonel H.S. Olcott was the manager. There H.P.B. lived and wrote until 1885, when she left for Italy accompanied by the author of this sketch. We remained a month at Torre del Greco, near Naples. She then moved to Wuerzburg, Germany; afterwards to Ostend, Belgium, and finally to London, where she died May 8th, 1891.
 
 
The adulation offered to the personality of H.P.B. by her devotees is just as foolish as the vilifications uttered against her by certain self-conceited models of virtue, unable to discriminate between the tool and the Master workman. She was in the habit of speaking her opinion straightforwardly, and sometimes her remarks, hitting some sore spots, used to offend most seriously those to whom they were best applicable. Her most implacable enemies, however, were always found among certain would-be disciples, inflated with the vainglory of their own greatness, who had been disappointed in their expectations of being made into Adepts, and who turned the brunt of their wounded ambition against her.
 
If the end of H.P.B.'s aspirations had been nothing but the satisfaction of amazing the world by occult phenomena, and if it had been the mission of the Theosophical Society to investigate the genuineness of such phenomena, or if there had been ·an intention to make money by exhibiting to the public bogus phenomena; if such had been the intention of H.P.B., then a searching investigation into the nature of the phenomena produced by her might be of importance. But such was not the case. The phenomena were for H.P.B. no more than a means to attain her end, namely, that of enticing mankind to forsake the dark caves of materialism and superstition, and of inducing men to investigate their own systems of religion and to seek first after that wisdom which is not to be found either in books or in any phenomena whatever, whether genuine or fraudulent, and which is not to be found anywhere else than within the man's own Higher Self.
 
 
Such was the aim and object which H.P.B. had in view. Her intention was to lead man to think for himself, independent of any belief in authority; to descend into the temple of God within his own inward self, where is the abiding place of the Spirit of Truth. The doctrine which she held forth was none else than that which every sage in the world, Socrates included, has ever taught, and which is this: "Man know thyself!" Within our own self salvation is to be found.
 
Whosoever truly finds himself, does find God and immortality. And whosoever teaches men to tread the right way leading to this higher self-knowledge, or who induces them to seek it out for themselves, is a savior of mankind. Looked at in this light, H.P.B. appears to me as a savior, a benefactor of the human race, in presence of whose great spirit all the defects and weaknesses of her personality vanish into insignificance.
 
The Theosophical Society may cease to exist, there being few people sufficiently matured to realize the ideals held up as the goal of Theosophy; and the name of "Blavatsky" may sink into oblivion; but the mists which H.P.B. scattered in order to clear the way for the light of Truth will never again bar the way of progress toward that light.
 
Many of the discoveries described in H.P.B.'s work, "The Secret Doctrine'' have been corroborated by academical science since her death, and many prophecies of hers have been fulfilled. It was she who enlarged the scientific horizon of the world; it was she who raised religion to a higher mental platform, and thereby established a connection between real science and the spirit of true religion.
 
Let her Manas rest forever in peace!
 
 
 
 
Notes
  1. See "Lotusbluethen," 1893, Vol. 1
  2. These events the author has gleaned partly from H.P.B.'s own narrative and partly from reports made by Mrs. Jelihovsky, a sister of H.P.B.'s.
 
 
(The Word, November 1906, p.96-102)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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