MY SISTER H. P. BLAVATSKY

 

 

 

This biography of Blavatsky was written by her sister Vera Petrovna Zhelihovsky, the title in Russian is “Radda-Bai: A Biographical Sketch”.

 

Radda Bai is the pseudonym that Blavatsky used in the publication of some of her articles and books in the Russian Empire.

 

This biography was initially published in the Russian edition of the book “The Mysterious Tribes of the Blue Hills. The Durbar at Lahorem” published in St. Petersburg, Russia, by V.Y. Gubinsky, in 1893.

 

It was later translated into English by Mrs. Lieven and Mrs. Kirk, and published under the title “My Sister H. P. Blavatsky” in the London Forum (which was temporarily the name of the Occult Review), in seven sections:

 

Part 1: December 1934

Part 2: January 1935, p. 44-52

Part 3: March 1935, p. 187-191

Part:4: April 1935, p. 262-266

Part 5: May 1935, p. 326-330

Part 6: June 1935, p. 399-406

Part 7: July 1935

 

Unfortunately I have only found the sixth part, which I transcribe below:

 

 

 

« (These recollections of Madame Blavatsky by her sister, who is not a Theosophist, throw a vivid new light on the personality of one who confessedly was an enigma even to herself. The translation from the Russian of Madame Jelihovsky has been made by Mrs. Lieven, with the assistance of Mrs. Kirk.)

 

 

IX

 

Ill in body and soul, H.P. Blavatsky during her last two years frequently requested to be allowed to resign. She assured her followers that away from the direct work of administration of the affairs of the Theosophical Society she could serve them more and better, having more time for writing. . . . But nobody in England, America, or India would hear of it. On the contrary, the European members of the Society persuaded her to become the exclusive representative for Europe, leaving India to Olcott.

 

From India came pleadings to return to Adyar. This last idea was impossible. H.P.B. moved slowly towards England, afraid to go too quickly because of climatic conditions. From London her followers came more and more frequently for instruction, and, according to her letter to us, they took increasingly energetic measures to persuade her to cross the Channel and edit the New Theosophist.

 

My sister again spent the summer with her friends, the Gebhards, in Elberfeld, where I and my eldest daughter visited her, and from whence we all went afterwards together to spend the end of the season by the sea at Ostend.

 

There she had many visitors from Germany, France, and Switzerland, chiefly on business; and also from London, where the first part of the Secret Doctrine was in the press and where Sinnett was at that time writing his book on H.P. Blavatsky. He came several times to consult her about this matter. Countess Wachtmeister came to spend the winter with her, and from that time she and Mme. Gebhard nursed her alternatively and also helped her with her work until she went to London.

 

She had no difficulty in finding assistance for her scientific work; constantly men of science, doctors, and professors came from London wishing to know beforehand the contents of her book and offering their services and help. There were people from other countries too, such as Switzerland, Sweden, and America.

 

She was now never alone. Thank goodness, there were people who took care of her and nursed her. Just before spring she again had a grave illness. The doctors in Ostend were ready to bury her, but Dr. Ashton Ellis, from London, prevented them from doing so.

 

When he was informed by Countess Wachtmeister's telegram that H.P.B. was very ill, he left everything and immediately crossed the Channel to spend a whole week in attendance on her, an act for which he had to forfeit a splendid position at the Westminster Hospital. He did not hesitate to go from the hospital without obtaining leave, just to help a woman whom he knew only through her work.

 

At the end of April 1887, friends brought H.P.B. to England, surrounding her during the journey with all possible care, carrying her in an armchair to the steamer and the train, and finding for her beforehand a villa in the London suburb of Norwood.

 

Here the intensive work began. They started a new magazine and formed a separate branch of the London Theosophical Society under the name of "Blavatsky Lodge".

 

The president of the London Society was Sinnett, but the local Theosophists considered that their head should be the founder of the Society. Sinnett himself asked her to accept this position, but she resolutely declined it, replying quite reasonably that in such a case she would have to give up work on the Secret Doctrine. Nevertheless, she was soon as fully occupied as she had been at Adyar.

 

She wrote to us apologizing for the shortness of her letters:

 

Only think how much pressing work I have to do every day! To edit my magazine, Lucifer, to write articles in the Parisian Lotus, in the New York Path, in the Madras Theosophist, which, without my articles, loses so many subscribers, as Olcott complains; to continue the second volume of the Secret Doctrine; to make several corrections of the first volume; to receive twenty or thirty callers who come on business and otherwise.

 

If day and night consisted of 124 hours instead of twentyfour I should still be short of time. . . . Do not worry; if I don't write it means I feel comparatively well! If not, the others will write immediately. Have you seen on the cover of the magazine, Le Lotus, a sensational announcement that it is edited "sous l'inspira tion de Mme. H. P. Blavatsky"

 

What kind of inspiration is it when sometimes I haven't time to write even one word in it .? By the way, do you get it? I subscribed to it for both of you and took a third subscription for Katkoff. Let him at least see it.

 

I just adore Katkoff; that is, for his patriotism! What a fine fellow! He is so outright. His articles are an honour to Russia. I am sure if our own uncle were alive he would find in them the reflex of his own thoughts.

 

 

She writes in another letter:

 

Why do you attack me for calling my magazine Lucifer? That is a beautiful name! Lux, Lucis-Light; ferreto bear; the Bearer of Light; what can be better? It is only since Milton's Paradise Lost that Lucifer began to be the synonym for "fallen angel".

 

The first worthy work of my magazine will be removing blame from that name which the early Christians used for Christ, "Theos-phor-os" in Greek; and "Lucifer" in Latin, means "Star of the Morning". A forerunn er of the bright sunlight. Did not Christ himself say "I am Jesus, the morning star"? (Revelations of St. John. xxii. 16).

 

Let, then, our magazine be like the pure star of the morning and be prophetic of the bright dawn of Truth-the union of all diversity of opinion, of all literary interpretation of the spirit.

 

 

In the autumn of the same year they opened a Theosophical printing press and a separate office in the centre of the City of London; they began to print, besides a monthly magazine, a weekly brochure, T.P.S.

 

This undertaking on such a large scale attracted even the attention of the London press and public which is used to demonstrations of different social activities.

 

The success of the new teaching and the quick growth of the Theosophical Society in England claimed the attention of the clergy. But it is only fair to say that the English clergy did not allow themselves to go to the extremes which the Inda-Scotch Jesuits in Madras found possible.

 

There were a few stormy meetings arranged by representatives of the Church of England; but a beautiful and fully Christian letter of H.P.B. in Lucifer, under the title of "Lucifer to the Archbishop of Canterbury", stopped the argument. It gained for her in an announcement of the Primate of England his full sympathy and esteem, "if not for the teachings of Theosophy, at least for its protagonist" . . , ,

 

The crowded meetings of the Theosophical Society were sometimes visited by the clergy and even by the wife of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

 

 

H.P.B.'s clairvoyance continued.

 

1) At the beginning of July 1886 we were surprised by her letter (from Ostend) in which she asked us to give her particulars of the death of A. M. Butleroff. This letter arrived at the same time as the newspapers printed the obituary notices.

 

It was written on the day of his death, which had happened in his (the professor's) estate in the province of Kazan.

 

 

2) Next June, while staying in Petersburg, I received the following letter from my sister:

 

"I had a strange dream. Somebody brought me the newspapers, I opened them and saw only one line: 'Now Katkoff is really dead'. Perhaps he is ill? Please enquire about it and write. God have mercy on us!"

 

M. N. Katkoff was in Petersburg at that time, but his health was not mentioned. Within two or three weeks all the newspapers were repeating his name. He got worse and worse till the catastrophe occurred: Katkoff was really dead as was written in Blavatsky's prophetic letter.

 

 

It is worth while to repeat her letter to N. A. Fadeef. Here it is with some abbreviations:

 

"Maycot",

Crown Hill,

Upper Norwood.

August 5th, 1887.

 

I am terribly grieved, my dear friend. The death of Katkoff plunged me into a cloud of gloom. I think and think and cannot come to any conclusion. What was he to me? I never saw him, he was a complete stranger to me. And still I have the feeling as if his death is also the death of Russia.

 

Yes, the death of. this great patriot and brave defender of my beloved Russia has disturbed the tenor of my life. Is it not a terrifi.c pity that no sooner does an extraordinary Russian like Skobeleff, or Aksakoff and others appear, than death takes him away just at the moment when he is very much needed? Why don't Bismarck, Battenburg, Bulgarian Regents or Salisbury and tutti-quanti die instead of our leaders?

 

Only now can we grasp and see what Katkoff was to Russia: the whole foreign press is howling joyfully. Only two of them, the Pall Mall and St. James's Gazette, wrote nobly about him. They wrote that "even if his death takes a burden from England's shoulders, they wished England had a few patriots like Katkoff. ... Give us Katkoffs too, and England will progress further."

 

Just now I wrote a letter to the editor of his paper. I had to do it!

 

For seven years I worked for Moskovskya Vedomosky and Russki Vestnik. ... Perhaps they will not believe in the sincerity of my grief, but I wrote what I felt. He who does not admit that this loss is irrep arable, in these days so grave for Russia, is no patriot! Russia has many "rulers" and candidates for this post; but she has not another so faithful a guard of her national interests, no! And probably she will not have any for a long time.

 

My God, what misfortune seems to be Russia's fate? As if she were implicated in the unseen nets of some dark powers ... and no one there now to destroy these meshes with the mighty truthful word of a far-seeing patriot!

 

For me who have lost all hope of ever seeing my beloved Russia again, all my love for her and all the strong wishes of my heart to see her triumphant over her enemies were concentrated and reflected in the editorials of Katko:ff. Who else will write as he wrote?

 

Who else, now that he and Uncle and Akaskoff and all of them have gone — who will expose and publish as he did all the intrigues against her?

 

Russia is lost! She has lost her best defender and guide, her leader in the field of politics. Yes, it is true that "the watchful eye of the patriot is closed for ever", like a dragon guarding the interests of the nation, and only now will the people realize what Katkoff was to Russia and to the Czar.

 

He must have been dangerous and aimed well, for the foreign diplomats and press trembled at the sound of his name as they tremble now with joy at having got rid of him. Now is their opportunity to dope Russia. ...

 

Fortunate are orthodox Christians who are able sincerely to wish the dead "everlasting life in Heaven". For you, great patriot. I can only wish him from the depths of my soul, "everlasting memory in the hearts of all patroitic Russians".

 

Russia, our mother country, builds monuments to her poets, musicians and writers. Will Moscow build a monument to him who, as I think, did for Russia with his mighty word not less than Minin and Pojarsky with their swords.

 

It would be better if, instead of all the theatrical effects of a funeral, with wreaths from the National League of Republican France, Russia would see to it that the "trail to his grave" will never become green in the hearts of her faithful sons; let our diplomats not forget his teachings but prove in their work that his lessons are not wasted, rather they have opened their eyes.

 

They must not allow Russia to be ridiculed by Europe on account of the swineherd regents and Milan's Austrian slaves. It will be a shame if Russia ever forgets him! That is what I wrote to them... perhaps they will call me a fool. Well, let me be a fool. But I am sincere, and have said everything from my heart.

 

Yours always, as long as I live ... and if I am allowed "there", so after Nirvana, yours just the same.

H. P. B.

 

 

 

 

X

 

H.P. Blavatsky was much annoyed at false information printed about her in the Russian press. Sometimes this information was very extraordinary and went so far as to accuse her of murder and other capital crimes. She never felt like answering such offensive charges, but her followers more than once protested against such calumnies from her native country, but without result, the editors probably putting them into the waste-paper basket.

 

Once or twice her relatives, indignant at absurd calumnies, had to interfere, but their just protests were not recognized by the organ which had previously printed these accusations.

 

Exactly as did Russki Vestnik, in which, after printing twenty-nine chapters of Mr. Solovieff's insults, refused to print my refutation which I therefore had to publish separately and independently.

 

Once H.P.B. herself wrote a protest, but this was again declined by the very newspaper which had defamed her. She was much distressed about it, and this is what she wrote:

 

What is this lie about me? Where did they get the idea that I intend to abolish Christianity and to preach Buddhism? If they in Russia would read what we write they would know that we preach pure, Christianlike Theosophy-the knowledge of God and the ethics of living, as Christ Himself understood it.

 

In the third number (Nov. 1887) of Lucifer is my article (The Esoteric Character of the Gospels) where I exalt Christ's teachings as only a real Christian, not infected by Papism or Protestant nonsense, can do. What do they know about Blavatsky's teachings?

 

They state, "She built a pagoda in London and put the Buddha idol in it!"

 

What nonsense, they are idols themselves, and if their reporters write such rubbish they (the editors) should have the courage to print the protests. It seems to me that I have written quite a good-humour ed, friendly letter, yet still N-- was not conscientious enough to print it! God save you, my dear countryman.

 

 

Every day the work of the London Theosophical Society increased, and the Society itself grew rapidly. Very soon it was no longer possible for them to remain in their second quarters; quite a large house in Lansdowne Road, near Kensington Gardens, which was taken for two years.

 

They planned to take a house where there would be facilities for building a separate hall for meetings, with seating capacity of three or four hundred, and a pavilion in the garden with one door, no windows, and a cupola of blue glass instead of a roof.

 

It was intended for the occult work of the members of the Esoteric Section-a special sectionafter the opening of which H.P.B. gave out teaching twice a week. She gave lessons to the present esotericists in maps and figures, and supervised the correct writing down of those lessons and figures for distant members who joined the section.

 

At the beginning of the winter of 1889 H.P.B. wrote very little and very seldom to her relatives. I rebuked her for that, asking, "What are you so terribly busy about that you do not write us a single word." Here is a characteristic answer of Helena Petrovna:

 

My sister and friend, your imprudent question dumbfounded us, showng as it did such complete ignorance of the activities of a Theosophist's life! After reading your denunciations I called my staff together and translated it into Shakespeare's language.

 

As I translated it, Bart, Arch, Wright, Mead (her secretaries), the Countess, and all the others fell aghast at your defamatory questions. ... What am I so busy about? I?

 

If there is in this world a victim of overwork it is your poor sister. Please enumerate my occupations, you heartless creature; every month I write from forty to fifty pages of esoteric instructions-instructions in secret knowledge which may not be printed, and five or six poor esoterists, volunteer-martyrs, must sit at night and draw, write and lithograph them, 320 copies altogether. ... I again must check them up, so that there shall be no mistakes and my knowledge of the occult disgraced. My pupils are grey-headed men of science, Cabalists and Freemasons, as you yourself have seen. Then the editing of Lucifer is my work; from the editorial (a heartreaching article written under my own name) to the final correction of proofs. Revue Theosophique is sent to me also by Countess Adhemar; I have to help her, too!

 

Besides, I myself must eat, so I have to write pot-boilers for outside magazines. Then every Saturday we hold a reception and every Thursday a meeting, with all its scientific questions, with shorthand writers at my back, and with a couple of reporters in corners. Does not all this take time?

 

I have to prepare myself for every Thursday, because the people who attend the meetings are not ignoramuses, but such men as Kingsland, the worker in electricity, as Dr. William Bennett, and the naturalist, Carter Blake. I have to be ready to defend the theories of occultism against those of applied sciences so that it will be possible to print them straight away from the shorthand reports in our new special monthly magazine under the title of Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge.

 

My Theosophists have just suddenly realized the situation and have sent a circular around the whole world: "H.P.B. is old and ill, H.P.B. will not stay long with us. When H.P.B. dies no one can teach us this secret knowledge. Let us therefore raise money for expenses... "

 

And they have. One shorthand writer and the editing of my works cost them £40 sterling a month. And H.P.B. out at elbow and without a penny, must work for all and teach them. Of course I would not accept a single penny for this kind of work. "Thy money perish· with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money." That is what I quote to the people who think they can buy for pounds, shillings and pence the divine knowledge of the ages.

 

 

 

The heart-searching articles of H.P.B., as she herself called them, were very often about Russia and Russians, and it is a pity there was no one to translate them. Her countrymen would have a better picture of her had they read her thundering article concerning the stupid British "meetings of indignation", about our "cruelties in Siberia", and our "persecution of the Jews". This article was printed in her magazine, Lucifer, June r890, under the title: "The Mote and the Beam". There was another article written after the catastrophe of October r7th, --'

 

Even the last printed word of H.P.B., which appeared in the May number of Lucifer, 1891, after her death, was about the Russian Royal family. There, on page r86, sh~ writes the following short note under the caption "True Nobility":

 

The funeral of Mrs. Streeter, an Englishwoman, one time nurse of the children of the late Emperor Alexander II, which occurred a couple of days ago, made a great impression on the inhabitants of Petersburg.

 

The Emperor Alexander III, the Duchess of Edinburgh and all their brothers, the Grand Dukes of the Imperial House of Russia, followed the coffin of this humble woman on foot, and the Empress in the mourning carriage. ...

 

This is a beautiful lesson and example of heartfelt attention, which the Court of Queen Victoria, a soulless slave of formalism and etiquette, should take to heart and muse over. It is remarkable that side by side with these last words from the pen of H.P.B., is pasted the first hurried announcement of

her death. . . .

 

This mourning announcement strikes one the more forcibly because in the same number, and even on the same page, is the completion of an article under her initials, H.P.B., "Civilization is the death of Beauty and Art", and another article with which the number opened, "My Books", in which she criticizes her books far more severely than do any other of the critics. »