This article was printed in the newspaper The New York Times, January 6, 1889, p.10:
Blavatsky
Still Lives and Theosophy is in a Flourishing Condition
The Very Latest News
From the World of Occultism:
Blavatsky and her Mahatmas
Mr.
W. Q. Judge, who is the head of the theosophical organizations of the United
States, as well as President of the local Aryan Theosophical Society of New
York, and editor of the theosophical magazine, the Path.
He
has just returned from a trip to England and Germany in the interest of the
organizations in which he holds such prominence. In London, of course, his
principal business was with Mme. H. P. Blavatsky, who is justly considered the
head of all theosophic teaching and organization outside India and Thibet, or,
as she modestly prefers to be regarded, the mouthpiece and representative of
the masters, or Mahatmas, who systematically seclude themselves somewhere in the
Orient from public knowledge.
« Mme. Blavatsky –said
Mr. Judge, in a conversation since his return– is living with the Countess
Wachtmeister - widow of a Swedish Count, who was an Ambassador to the Court of
St. James - in Holland Park, London, and is devoting herself to the most
arduous labors in the cause of theosophy. She scarcely ever leaves the house,
and from 6:30 o’clock in the morning until evening is constantly engaged in
writing articles for her magazine, Lucifer, or other theosophic publications,
replying to correspondents, and preparing the matter for further forthcoming
volumes of her gigantic work, ‘The Secret
Doctrine’.
In
the evening she has many visitors of all sorts - inquirers, critics, skeptics,
curiosity seekers, friends - and all are welcomed with such charming grace,
friendliness, and simplicity that every one is made to feel at home with her.
By
10 o’clock generally all but intimate friends have retired, but they remain an
hour or two later.
Notwithstanding
that Mme. Blavatsky is beyond the vigor of middle age and for nearly three
years past has been living in defiance of the leading London physicians, who
gave her up long ago as hopelessly incurable of a deadly kidney disease that
was liable to kill her at any moment, she never seems weary, but is the
animated leader of conversation, speaking with equal ease in English, French,
Italian, and Russian, or dropping into Sanskrit and Hindoostanee as occasion
requires.
Whether
working or talking, she seems to be constantly rolling, lighting, and smoking
cigarettes of Turkish tobacco. As for her personal appearance, she hardly seems
changed at all from what she was when in this country several years ago, except
that she has grown somewhat stouter perhaps.
The
characteristics that are apparent in her countenance are in equal blending,
energy, and great kindness. Looking at her, one can realize readily that she is
just the sort of a woman who would do what she did a dozen years ago when she
was coming over here from France.
She
reached Havre with a first-class ticket to New York and only $2 or $3 over, for
she never carries much money. Just as she was going aboard the steamer she saw
a poor woman, accompanied by two little children, who was sitting on the pier
weeping bitterly.
-
“Why
are you crying?”, she asked.
The
woman replied that her husband had sent to her from America money to enable her
and the children to join him. She had expended it all in the purchase of
steerage tickets that turned out to be utterly valueless counterfeits. Where to
find the swindler who had so heartlessly defrauded her she did not know, and
she was quite penniless in a strange city.
-
“Come
with me”, said Mme. Blavatsky.
They
straightway went to the agent of the steamship company and induced him to
exchange her first-class ticket for steerage tickets for herself, the poor
woman, and the children.
Anybody
who has ever crossed the ocean in the steerage among a crowd of emigrants will
appreciate the magnitude of such a sacrifice to a woman of refined
sensibilities, and there are few but Mme. Blavatsky who would have been capable
of it.
As
I said, she has been condemned to death for three years, but no fear is
entertained of her dying before her mission is accomplished.
Twice
before, when in India, she was given up by the doctors, who on each occasion
set a time limit of only a few days upon her existence, and her recoveries were
looked upon as simply marvelous.
At
the time when she was worst and seemed likely to die on the road she set out
for Northern India, and as it was generally understood that she was going to
the Mahatmas for succor, several persons who had a strong desire to see those
mysterious adepts followed and watched her.
But
at Dharjeeling she mysteriously disappeared. She had been carried there, and it
was inconceivable how she could, by herself, have slipped away, but she was
gone and that was all that anybody could say about it. In three days she
returned, apparently as well as she ever was. The most that any one is told
about how the transformation in her condition was effected is given by her in ‘The Secret Doctrine,’ when she says:
"Sound generates, or rather attracts
together, the elements that produce an ozone, the fabrication of which is beyond
chemistry, but within the limits of alchemy. It may even resurrect a man
or an animal whose astral "vital body" has not been irreparably
separated from the physical body by the severance of the magnetic or odic
chord. As one saved thrice from death by that power, the writer ought to be
credited with knowing personally something about it."
People
who do not believe there is any ‘astral body’ or any ‘ozone’ of that sort may
question her averment, but occultists and all who know how truthful a woman she
is will believe her.
That
she recovered health with astounding suddenness is a fact that cannot be
denied. Since she has been in London the physicians have been amazed by her
living. First, they say the astounding quantity of uric acid in her blood should
have killed her long ago, and if that was not enough to do it, the deadly
poisons given her in enormous doses in treatment to which she has lately been
subjecting herself ought to have finished her. But she seems to be getting
better, and doubtless, if all else fails and her work continues to be
necessary, she will be saved again as she was before.
Mme.
Blavatsky now very seldom gives any manifestation of her occult powers, except
to intimate friends; but I had, while over there, several evidences that she
can do things quite inexplicable by any laws of ‘exact’ science.
Two
years ago I lost, here in New York, a paper that was of considerable interest
to me. I do not think anybody but myself knew that I had it, and I certainly
mentioned to no one that I had lost it. One evening, a little over a fortnight
ago, while I was sitting in Mme. Blavatsky’s parlor with Mr. B. Keightley and
several other persons, I happened to think of that paper.
Then
Madame got up, went into the next room, and returning almost immediately,
handed to me a sheet of paper. I opened it and found it an exact duplicate of
the paper that I had lost two years before. It was actually a fac simile
copy, as I recognized at once. I thanked her and she said:
-
“Well,
I saw it in your head that you wanted it.”
It
was not a thing to astonish any one acquainted with the laws of nature as
comprehended by occultists, who understand clearly how consciousness of my
thought was possible, how the reproduction of a thing once within my knowledge
was necessarily fac simile, and how that reproduction could be effected by a
simple act of volition on her part, but it would puzzle materialists to explain
it in accordance with the facts.
One
night when I talked very late with a gentleman at a house distant from Mme.
Blavatsky’s he expressed a wish that I would, if I had an opportunity, get her
views, without mentioning his name, upon a subject that was under discussion
between us.
The
next day, when I was talking with her, the subject came up and I began offering
his suggestions, when she interrupted me, saying:
-
“You
needn’t tell me that, I was there last night and heard you”, and went on to
repeat all that had been said.
Of
course it can be said that he had informed her with a view to deceiving me, but
I am well assured that there was nothing of the sort, and that under certain
existing circumstances that would have been practically impossible. I know that
she very often reads people’s thoughts and replies to them in words.
The
silvery bell sounds in the astral current that were heard over her head by so
many persons when she was here in New York still continue to follow her, and it
is beyond question to those familiar with her life and work that she is in
constant receipt of the most potent aid from the adepts, particularly her
teacher, the Mahatma Morya, whose portrait hangs in her study and shows a dark
and beautiful Indian face, full of sweetness, wisdom, and majesty.
Of
course it does not seem possible that he in Thibet instantaneously responds
either by a mental impression or a "precipitated" note to a mental
interrogatory put by her in London, but it happens to be the fact that he does
so all the same.
Her
most intimate friends in London are the Countess Wachtmeister, the Keightleys,
Mable Collins –who is associated with her in the literary work on Lucifer– and Dr. Ashton Ellis.
Mr.
A. P. Sinnett drops in occasionally, and not with standing the corrections she
has felt called upon to make in her ‘Secret
Doctrine’ of some things in his ‘Esoteric
Buddhism,’ there seems to be cordial good feeling between him and Mme.
Blavatsky.
The
magazine, Lucifer, I do not think is
paying expenses yet. It is a very costly thing to get up, and its circulation
has necessarily slow growth. But the ‘Secret
Doctrine’ has been an enormous success. Its first edition was exhausted as
quickly as it came from the binders, and, a second edition is already nearly
all gone.
Such
a demand for a work so erudite, metaphysical, and in all respects overwhelming,
demonstrates that those interested most deeply in theosophy belong to the most
cultured and intelligent class of society.
It
requires a person to have a good education to understandingly read that book.
Nevertheless, abstruse, metaphysical, erudite, and brilliant as it is, almost
the whole of that gigantic work has been either dictated by Mme. Blavatsky to a
shorthand writer or spoken by her into a phonograph from which it has been
directly reproduced with very little if any subsequent emendation or alteration.
It
is, in fact, just her talk, and reading it gives a good idea of her
conversation on any topic upon which she ‘turns herself loose.’ If at times she
is in momentary doubt or question as to an authority or quotation, it is at
once supplied to her by the Mahatmas with whom she is in constant
communication.
Theosophy
is gaining ground solidly in England, and with a degree of rapidity that is
surprising in view of the conservatism of English thought and feeling.
There
are already flourishing theosophical societies in London, Edinburgh, Liverpool,
Cambridge, Dublin, and several other places. One was just about to be started
in Glasgow when I left. And among those interesting themselves most in it are
scientists, leading educators, prominent men in governmental departments and
gentlemen of fortune and education.
Of
course, the clergy do not take kindly to it. A religious paper in London,
called The Christian, picked up a little description in an American paper of
the decorations in one of the rooms of the office of The Path –which was made to appear as a Buddhist temple– and
editorially expressed its horror at such a demonstration of ‘paganism’ in the
Christian city of New York.
Col.
Olcott left London just before my arrival there. It is not at all probable now
that he will be able to give this year the series of lectures through the
United States, as had been planned for him. His work in Japan and India will
preclude his doing so.
In
Germany I called upon Mr. G. Gebhard, in Elberfeld, who is one of the leading
theosophists of the "Vaterland." Incidently he is a large velvet and
lace manufacturer, Commerzien-Rath of the town and a very highly-accomplished
gentleman.
It
will be remembered that it was in his house that the famous materialization of
the letter behind the picture, the sounding of the astral bells and other
strange occurrences took place at the time Mme. Blavatsky was stopping there.
Mme.
G. Gebhard is as advanced an occultist as her husband, having been during a
number of years a pupil of the famous Eliphas Levy.
Dr.
F. Eckstein is the other great theosophical leader of Germany.
Dr.
Franz Hartmann is not so much of a theosophist as a mystic. I learned from him
that he has a new book almost ready for issue, which I fancy will show his position
rather more clearly than anything previously put forth by him.
Theosophy
is gaining ground in Germany, but more slowly than in France. The one magazine
published in its interest there, the Sphinx,
is rather weak. Its editor, Herr Huebe-Schleiden, is doubtless a good man and a
theosophist from conviction, but lacks the courage of his convictions in
promulgating the doctrine, seeming to be afraid of getting beyond the
established bounds of materialistic science.
Nevertheless,
his journal has done some good in awakening thought in new lines, and in its
conservatism commands at least tolerant respect. I learned that not long since
in one of the German courts a lawyer set up a plea of hypnotic influence as a
defense for a client accused of some offense, and when it was rejected by the
court cited as demonstrations and proofs of the correctness of the scientific
basis of his theory articles published in the
Sphinx, which convinced the court and won the case.
Several
theosophic societies are flourishing in France and the doctrine is already
strong and gaining strength very rapidly in Paris, where a new magazine in its
interest, Hermes, has just been
established, in addition to that of M. Arnand, Le Lotus, which is probably the most prosperous of the theosophic
periodicals next to Col. Olcott’s Theosophist in India. »
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