WHAT BLAVATSKY SAID ABOUT ALBERT RAWSON

Albert Leighton Rawson was an American painter, who was mentioned by Blavatsky on one occasion in the second volume of her work Isis Unveiled , and below I transcribe what she said about him:

 

 

Outside the East we have met one initiate (and only one), who, for some reasons best known to himself, does not make a secret of his initiation into the Brotherhood of Lebanon. It is the learned traveller and artist, Professor A. L. Rawson, of New York City.

 

This gentleman has passed many years in the East, four times visited Palestine, and has travelled to Mecca. It is safe to say that he has a priceless store of facts about the beginnings of the Christian Church, which none but one who had had free access to repositories closed against the ordinary traveller could have collected.

 

Professor Rawson, with the true devotion of a man of science, noted down every important discovery he made in the Palestinian libraries, and every precious fact orally communicated to him by the mystics he encountered, and some day they will see the light.

 

He has most obligingly sent us the following communication, which, as the reader will perceive, fully corroborates what is above written from our personal experience about the strange fraternity incorrectly styled the Druzes:

 

“34 Bond St., New York, June 6, 1877.

. . .

Your note, asking me to give you an account of my initiation into a secret order among the people commonly known as Druzes, in Mount Lebanon, was received this morning. I took, as you are fully aware, an obligation at that time to conceal within my own memory the greater part of the ‘mysteries,’ with the most interesting parts of the ‘instructions’; so that what is left may not be of any service to the public. Such information as I can rightfully give, you are welcome to have and use as you may have occasion.

 

The probation in my case was, by special dispensation, made one month, during which time I was ‘shadowed’ by a priest, who served as my cook, guide, interpreter, and general servant, that he might be able to testify to the fact of my having strictly conformed to the rules in diet, ablutions, and other matters. He was also my instructor in the text of the ritual, which we recited from time to time for practice, in dialogue or in song, as it may have been.

 

Whenever we happened to be near a Druze village, on a Thursday, we attended the ‘open’ meetings, where men and women assembled for instruction and worship, and to expose to the world generally their religious practices. I was never present at a Friday ‘close’ meeting before my initiation, nor do I believe any one else, man or woman, ever was, except by collusion with a priest, and that is not probable, for a false priest forfeits his life. The practical jokers among them sometimes ‘fool’ a too curious ‘Frank’ by a sham initiation, especially if such a one is suspected of having some connection with the missionaries at Beirut or elsewhere.

 

The initiates include both women and men, and the ceremonies are of so peculiar a nature that both sexes are required to assist in the ritual and ‘work.’ The ‘furniture’ of the ‘prayer-house’ and of the ‘vision-chamber’ is simple, and except for convenience may consist of but a strip of carpet. In the ‘Gray Hall’ (the place is never named, and is underground, not far from Bayt-ed-Deen) there are some rich decorations and valuable pieces of ancient furniture, the work of Arab silversmiths five or six centuries ago, inscribed and dated.

 

The day of initiation must be a continual fast from daylight to sunset in winter, or six o’clock in summer, and the ceremony is from beginning to end a series of trials and temptations, calculated to test the endurance of the candidate under physical and mental pressure. It is seldom that any but the young man or woman succeeds in ‘winning’ all the ‘prizes,’ since nature will sometimes exert itself in spite of the most stubborn will, and the neophyte fail of passing some of the tests. In such a case the probation is extended another year, when another trial is had.

 

Among other tests of the neophyte’s self-control are the following: Choice pieces of cooked meat, savory soup, pilau, and other appetizing dishes, with sherbet, coffee, wine, and water, are set, as if accidentally, in his way, and he is left alone for a time with the tempting things. To a hungry and fainting soul the trial is severe. But a more difficult ordeal is when the seven priestesses retire, all but one, the youngest and prettiest, and the door is closed and barred on the outside, after warning the candidate that he will be left to his ‘reflections,’ for half an hour.

 

Wearied by the long-continued ceremonial, weak with hunger, parched with thirst, and a sweet reaction coming after the tremendous strain to keep his animal nature in subjection, this moment of privacy and of temptation is brimful of peril. The beautiful young vestal, timidly approaching, and with glances which lend a double magnetic allurement to her words, begs him in low tones to ‘bless her.’ Woe to him if he does! A hundred eyes see him from secret peep-holes, and only to the ignorant neophyte is there the appearance of concealment and opportunity.

 

There is no infidelity, idolatry, or other really bad feature in the system. They have the relics of what was once a grand form of nature-worship, which has been contracted under a despotism into a secret order, hidden from the light of day, and exposed only in the smoky glare of a few burning lamps, in some damp cave or chapel under ground. The chief tenets of their religious teachings are comprised in seven ‘tablets,’ which are these, to state them in general terms:

 

1. The unity of God, or the infinite oneness of deity.

2. The essential excellence of truth.

3. The law of toleration as to all men and women in opinion.

4. Respect for all men and women as to character and conduct.

5. Entire submission to God’s decrees as to fate.

6. Chastity of body and mind and soul.

7. Mutual help under all conditions.

 

These tenets are not printed or written. Another set is printed or written to mislead the unwary, but with these we are not concerned.

 

The chief results of the initiation seemed to be a kind of mental illusion or sleep-waking, in which the neophyte saw, or thought he saw, the images of people who were known to be absent, and in some cases thousands of miles away. I thought (or perhaps it was my mind at work) I saw friends and relatives that I knew at the time were in New York State, while I was then in Lebanon. How these results were produced I cannot say.

 

They appeared in a dark room, when the ‘guide’ was talking, the ‘company’ singing in the next ‘chamber,’ and near the close of the day, when I was tired out with fasting, walking, talking, singing, robing, unrobing, seeing a great many people in various conditions as to dress and undress, and with great mental strain in resisting certain physical manifestations that result from the appetites when they overcome the will, and in paying close attention to the passing scenes, hoping to remember them—so that I may have been unfit to judge of any new and surprising phenomena, and more especially of those apparently magical appearances which have always excited my suspicion and distrust.

 

I know the various uses of the magic-lantern, and other apparatus, and took care to examine the room where the ‘visions’ appeared to me the same evening, and the next day, and several times afterwards, and knew that, in my case, there was no use made of any machinery or other means besides the voice of the ‘guide and instructor.’ On several occasions afterward, when at a great distance from the ‘chamber,’ the same or similar visions were produced, as, for instance, in Hornstein’s Hotel at Jerusalem. A daughter-in-law of a well-known Jewish merchant in Jerusalem is an initiated ‘sister,’ and can produce the visions almost at will on any one who will live strictly according to the rules of the Order for a few weeks, more or less, according to their nature, as gross or refined, etc.

 

I am quite safe in saying that the initiation is so peculiar that it could not be printed so as to instruct one who had not been ‘worked’ through the ‘chamber.’ So it would be even more impossible to make an expose of them than of the Freemasons. The real secrets are acted and not spoken, and require several initiated persons to assist in the work.

 

It is not necessary for me to say how some of the notions of that people seem to perpetuate certain beliefs of the ancient Greeks—as, for instance, the idea that a man has two souls, and many others—for you probably were made familiar with them in your passage through the ‘upper’ and ‘lower chamber.’

 

If I am mistaken in supposing you an ‘initiate,’ please excuse me. I am aware that the closest friends often conceal that ‘sacred secret’ from each other; and even husband and wife may live—as I was informed in Dayr-el-Kamar was the fact in one family there—for twenty years together and yet neither know anything of the initiation of the other. You, undoubtedly, have good reasons for keeping your own counsel,

 

Yours truly,

 

A. L. Rawson.”

 

(p.312-315)

 

 

 

 

 

 

OBSERVATIONS

 

Investigator John Patrick Deveney showed that Rawson was a very unethical liar man who was even in prison for robbery (see link).

 

And therefore the claim that he was an initiate of the Brotherhood of Lebanon is most likely false.

 

What is not clear to me is whether Blavatsky believed this lie, or whether she knew that it was false and still presented him as such. I lean more towards the first option because Blavatsky never mentioned again this individual in her works.