Dr. Carter Blake was an eminent zoologist and he
stated that Blavatsky, despite her few studies, surpassed him in her knowledge
of paleontology, and she even knew aspects that few experts in this scientific
branch knew.
A PROMINENT SCIENTIST CORROBORATES THE IMPRESSIVE KNOWLEDGE THAT MADAME
BLAVATSKY POSSESSED
Curriculum Vitae of Dr. Carter Blake
Dr. Carter Blake, to whom we are indebted for the
following remarks, was in 1863 of the secretaries of Section E (British
Association for the Advancement of Science). He was born in London in 1840, and
has pursued the study of zoology from an early age.
His connection with the periodical literature of the
scientific world has existed for many years. He was early connected with Her
Majesty's Civil Service in the War Office of London and, during the period
which succeeded the invasion of Morocco by the Spanish forces in 1859, and the
negotiations which were on foot to procure the ransom agreed on for the capture
of Tetuan, was secretary to the Moorish Envoys in England.
For a long time he was a pupil of and assistant to
Professor, afterwards Sir Richard Owen, under whom his geological and
paleontological studies were carried on. In 1862 he delivered to the London
Institution a series of lectures on The
Elementary Principies of Zoology.
In the same year he was appointed to aid the
celebrated Dr. Robert Knox in the classification of the Museum of the now
defunct Ethnological Society of London.
He is the author of many detached papers in scientific
works and periodicals: Modem Thought Medico-chirurgical Review Edinburgh Review
Morning Chronicle Pall Mall Gazette Reader Parthenon Geological Magazine
Medical Times, Geologist, Food Journal, Annals of Natural History
Anthropological Review, Transactions of Philological Society, Brande's
Dictionary of Science, Literature, and Arty Alpine Guide, and others, as well
as the editor of Knox’: Manual of Zoology, a second edition of which has been
recently published.
He was one of the original members of the
Anthropological Society of London, of which he was honorary secretary at its
establishment, and now lives to see it a successful and prosperous institution.
In 1866 he was during a lengthened period investigating the geological features
of the districts of south-eastern Belgium.
He is the editor of Broca's important work on Hybridity in the Genus Homo.
In 1867 gave up his official connection with the
Anthropological Society, and resided in Nicaragua for nearly a year, where he
had opportunities for studying the life and languages of the Indian aborigines
in their own homes, and on his return visited New York. He was from 1868 to 1881
Lecturer on Comparative Anatomy at Westminster Hospital, and in 1871
reconstructed the Museum of the Hull Literary and Philosophical Society
according to modern scientific principles.
In 1875 he published a work Zoology for Students to which a preface was written by Professor Owen.
In 1881 he was translator of Fau's
Artistic Anatomy in 1883 author of a Guide
to the Fisheries Exhibition, in 1884 Guide
to the Health Exhibition and a translation of Rochet's work on The Natural Proportions of Both Sexes,
and in 1885 a translation of Dusart's work on Phosphate of Lime.
Many translations of Spanish, French, Latin and German
works are from his pen; and he has several times lectured in the Natural
History Department of the British Museum, under the auspices of Sir Richard
Owen. His attainments and his close connection with H.P.B. give value to his
opinion on the points with which he deals, and special interest to the
following communication. — (Ed.)
His opinion on Blavatsky
On ordinary lines it is strange that an old, sickly
woman, not consulting a library and having no books of her own of consequence,
should possess the unusual knowledge that Madame Blavatsky undoubtedly did.
Indeed, it is incomprehensible, unless she were of an extraordinary mental
capacity, and had spent her whole life in study. On the contrary, from many
sources we gain undoubted evidence that Madame Blavatsky's education had not
even been carried as far as that of a High School student of the present day.
But it is a fact that she knew more than I did on my
own particular lines of anthropology.
1) For instance, her information was superior to my
own on the subject of the Naulette Jaw.
2) On page 744 in the second volume of The Secret Doctrine refers to facts
which she could not easily have gathered from any published book.
3) On page 754, also of the second volume of The Secret Doctrine, the sentence
beginning: "If we turn to the new world," and speaking of the
existence of "pliocene mammalia and the occurrence of pliocene raised
beaches".
I remember in conversation with her in 1888, in
Lansdowne Road, at the time she was engaged on The Secret Doctrine, how Madame Blavatsky, to my great
astonishment, sprung upon me the fact that the raised beaches of Tarija were
pliocene. I had always thought them pleistocene — following the line of
reasoning of Darwin and Spotswood Wilson.
The fact that these beaches are pliocene has been
proven to me since from the works of Gay, Istoria
Fiscia de Chile Castlenaw's book on Chile, and other works, though these
out-of-the-way books had never then come into my hands, in spite of the fact
that I had made a specialité of the
subject; and not until Madame Blavatsky put me on the track of the pliocene did
I hear of them.
4) On page 755 in the second volume of The Secret Doctrine, her mention of the
fossil footprints from Carson, Indiana, U.S., is again interesting as a proof
that she did not obtain her information by thought-reading. When Madame
Blavatsky spoke of the footprints to me I did not know of their existence, and
Mr. G. W. Bloxam, Assistant Secretary of the Anthropological Institute,
afterwards told me that a pamphlet on the subject in their library had never
been out.
~
* ~
My conlusion is that Madame Blavatsky certainly had original sources of
information (I don't say what) transcending the knowledge of experts on their
own lines.
C. Carter Blake.
28, Townshend Road, N.W.
January 27th, 1893.
(“Reminiscences of H.P. Blavatsky and the Secret
Doctrine” by Countess Constance Wachtmeister, appendix I-7, p.117-120)
OBSERVATION
This is one more testimony that shows that Blavatsky through her
telepathy was advised by the Masters of Wisdom when she conversed with the
great scientists of her time, and also when she wrote.
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