An enigmatic woman
There are nearly as many Madame Blavatskys as you please.
There is, for example, the Madame Blavatsky of the Psychical Research Society, which, if I remember rightly, has in one . of its oracular reports assigned her a distinguished place on the roll of the world's impostors.
There is the Madame Blavatsky of popular repute and report, who looks large and uncertain. Monstrum informe ingens horrendum in the imagination of Europe — a sort of female Cagliostro, or wonder worker, who is wafted through stone walls like Mrs. Guppy, and bodily up into the heavens like the just Enoch.
There is then the Madame Blavatsky (known to the Brotherhood as H. P. B.) of her own Theosophical Society, the members of which look upon her as a searcher after and teacher of truths not known to, or not understood of the many, as the foremost exponent (in Europe at any rate) of the socalled occult science, and as a depository in some measure of that so-called Secret Doctrine which is supposed to contain the essential veracities of all the religions and philosophies that are or ever were.
Once more there is the Madame Blavatsky whom strangers from the outer darkness are permitted to see at her house in Holland Park, and to whom she reveals herself as a lady of exceptional charm of manner, wonderful variety of information, and powers of conversation which recall the giant talkers of a bygone literary age.
My visit
It was as one from the outer darkness that I visited her a day or so ago. I had a delight-fully humorous little note in my pocket, inviting me to tea, and warning me that I should find the writer "as easy to interview as a sacred crocodile of old Nile."
The envelope of this note bore a mystic symbol, and the unimpeachable motto that there is no religion higher than truth.
I was led into a little snug room on the ground floor of a substantial house, where two lamps and a gas stove glowed like a triple star. I smelt Turkish tobacco strongly, and behind the red disk of a cigarette I saw the broad and impressive countenance of Madame Blavatsky. Short and redundant, and swathed rather than fitted in black silk, she is a very remarkable figure. The dark almost swarthy face looks a little heavy at first (my immediate impression was of a feminine reincarnation of Cagliostro), with its wide nostrils, large soft eyes, and full and weighty lips.
But by and by it shows itself a mobile and expressive face, very sympathetic and very intellectual. And whilst on this gross subject of personal description (a liberty for which the interviewer should always apologise sincerely to the interviewed) let me note the delicate plumpness of the hands.
A circular box of carved wood at her elbow furnishes Madame Blavatsky with the tobacco for the cigarettes which she smokes incessantly, from six in the morning, when she commences work, until she puts out her lamp for the night.
Her master
Besides the tobacco box, there is only one other notable object in her sanctum, the portrait of the Mahatmi Morya (a descendant, she says, of the old dynasty of the Moryas), whom she calls her Master, a dark and beautiful Indian face, full of sweetness and wisdom.
This seer Madame Blavatsky has seen, she says, at various times in the flesh: in England once, in India on many occasions, and some years ago she went to seek him in the fastnesses of Tibet, a romantic pilgrimage by no means free from peril, during which she penetrated some of the Buddhist monasteries or Lamaseries, and had converse with the recluses there.
But Madame Blavatsky*s disciples have many stories to tell of the extraordinary way in which her Mah^tm^ communicates with her. Letters that never paid postage, nor passed through St. Martin's-le- Grand, are seen to flutter down into her lap. Literary quotations that she is sometimes bothered to find are put into her hand written out upon strips of paper. The manuscript that she leaves on her desk over night is often found by her in the morning with passages corrected, expunged, or re-written, marginal notes inserted, and so on, in the handwriting of the Mahatma Morya.
Her powers
Sufficiently surprising too, are the powers with which her Theosophical associates credit Madame herself. Those who live with her in Lansdowne Road see wonders daily, and have left off being surprised.
Once accept the theory that the psychic faculties latent within us are capable, under certain conditions, of being developed to any extent, and magical doings of all sorts become easy of credence, and belief in what is called the astral is, I believe, a cardinal article of belief with the Theosophists.
Here is a funny little circumstance that one of the Blavatsky household — an intelligent American gentleman — related gravely and in evident good faith.
Madame Blavatsky rolled a cigarette and was going to light it, but found that her matchbox was empty. Over her head was a swinging lamp, so high that she could not have reached it had she mounted on her chair to do so.
The American gentleman, who was sitting with her at the time, declares that he saw her gradually elongate herself — so it appeared to him — until she could lean over the lamp, when she lighted her cigarette, then sank back in her chair and resumed her writing.
(Cid's observation: I suspect that what this witness saw lengthen was Blavatsky's astral body and not her physical body.)
But these phenomena are not witnessed by everybody, and perhaps I need scarcely add that Madame Blavatsky (though freely offering me the contents of her tobacco box) declined to work a miracle for me. Doubtless her refusal was wise, for if I had seen one of these uncanny sights With my own eyes, which of you would have believed my report of it?
The religions
We talked of many things.
"What is Theosophy, Madame?" I asked. "Do you call it a religion?"
"Most distinctly not," she replied, "there are too many religions in the world already. I don't propose to add to the number."
"What, may I ask, is the Theosophical attitude towards these too numerous religions?"
Madame Blavatsky thereupon entered upon a long and interesting explanation on this subject, from which I gathered that Theosophy looks upon all religions as good in one sense, and all religions as bad in another sense.
She commented:
"There are truths underlying all, and there are falsities overlying all. Most faiths are good at the core, all are more or less wrong in their external manifestations ; and all the trappings of religions, all their shows and ceremonies, are entirely repudiated by the Theosophists.
The conditions under which aspirants become members of the Theosophical Society are few and simple. Merely to join the Society it is sufficient to profess oneself in sympathy with its objects, of which there are three in chief — the promotion of a universal brotherhood amongst men, the study of religions, and the development of the psychic faculties latent in man.
The last-named object is for the attainment of advanced members, who have gained admittance to the esoteric section of the society. It is only in the esoteric section for example that you can expect to learn how to elongate yourself. "
Madame herself, in her vigorous intellectual way, is quite as dogmatic as the most dogmatic professor of what (under Theosophical favour) are called the exact sciences; and, indeed, dogmatism, both in affirmation and denial, seems the badge of all the Theosophical tribe.
Her assistants and students
It was seven o'clock before Madame Blavatsky had exhausted my interest, or I, as I hoped, her patience; and at seven the members of the household assembled for dinner.
The household consists of six or seven persons, including a young doctor of medicine, a student of law and a Frenchman, an American (the friend of Edison who was mentioned in the Star the other day), and a Swedish Countess.
These are all particular disciples, who receive constant instructions from the lips of the priestess, and who may be regarded as well on the way towards the attainment of the elongating principle. The flourishing prospects of Madame's new work, The Secret Doctrine, the first edition of which is already disposed of, though the volumes are scarcely out of the printer's hands, were discussed during the meal.
Madame's years — she is bordering on the sixties — and her occasional difficulties with the language — she is a Russian by birth — do not prevent her from being the most energetic and entertaining talker at her table.
It was the evening on which the Blavatsky Lodge holds its weekly meeting, and by half-past eight the sanctum, whither we adjourned after dinner, was filled with a little gathering of would-be elongators of both sexes.
The subject for discussion was dreams. The circular tobacco box having been replenished by Madame's little maid, and the president in evening dress having taken his place by Madame's side, the secretary of the lodge began to ask questions from a paper.
(This article was published in the London newspaper "Star" on December 18, 1888. And later was reprinted in “Reminiscences of H.P. Blavatsky and The Secret Doctrine” by Countess Wachtmeister and others, appendix II-12, p.151-155,)
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