(This is the third and last part of Chapter 10 of Alfred Sinnett book "Incidents in the Life of Madame Blavatsky", with subheadings for ease of reading.)
The SPR unjustly accused Blavatsky of being a trickster
Two months later her arrival in Europe, Blavatsky moved on from Italy to a quiet little town in Germany, where I visited her last autumn (1885).
In the interim the Psychic Research Society of London (SPR) had held its meetings, at which the committee "appointed to investigate phenomena connected with the Theosophical Society," had reported that the Coulomb letters were really written by Mme. Blavatsky, that the "shrine" at Adyar was elaborately designed to subserve treachery and false manifestations, and that the marvels related of the occult power of the Mahatmas were deliberate deceptions carried out by and at the instigation of Mme. Blavatsky.
Blavatsky was deeply affected by this report
In August she wrote to me:
« Trust and friendship, or distrust and resentment — neither friends nor foes will ever realise the whole truth; so what's the use.
. . .
The only difference between Coulomb-Patterson-Hodgson charges now and those previous to the Adyar scandal is this: Then the newspapers only hinted, now they affirm. Then they were restricted however feebly, by fear of law and a sense of decency; now they have become fearless, and have lost all and every manner of decency.
Look at Professor Sidgwick. He is evidently a gentleman and an honourable man by nature, fair minded, as most Englishmen are. And now tell me, can any outsider (the opinion of the Fathers of S.P.R. is of course valueless) presume to say that his printed opinion of me is either fair, legal, or honest?
If, instead of bogus phenomena, I were charged with picking the pockets of my victims, or of something else, the charging with which, when unproved, is punishable by law, if not wholly demonstrated, would Professor Sidgwick, you think, have a leg to stand upon in a court of justice?
Assuredly not.
Then what right has he to speak publicly (and have his opinion printed) of my deceptions, fraud, dishonesty, and tricks?
Shall you maintain that it is fair of him, or honest, or even legal, to take advantage of his exceptional position and the nature of the question involved to slander me, or, if you prefer, I shall say, to charge me thus and dishonour my name on such wretched evidence as they have through Hodgson?
. . .
Can you blame, after this and other Russian Theosophists for saying that the chief motor of their wrath against me is that I am a Russian?
I know it is not so, but they, the Russians, like, and the Odessa Theosophists, cannot be made to see the cause of such a glaring injustice in any other light.
Please read . . . about their disclaiming any intention of imputing wilful deception to poor Olcott. Following this there comes the question of envelopes in which the Mahatma's writing was found — which might have been previously opened by me or others. Letters from the Masters received at Adyar when I was in Europe 'might' have been in all cases arranged by Damodar.
The disappearance of the Vega packet "can be easily accounted for" by the fact of a venetianed door near Babula's room — a door, by the bye, which was hermetically covered and nailed over (walls and door) with my large carpet, if you remember.
But we shall suppose that the Vega packet was made to evaporate fraudulently at Bombay. How then shall Mr. Hodgson, Myers & Co. account for its immediate instantaneous reappearance at Howrah, Calcutta, in the presence of Mrs and Colonel Gordon and of our Colonel, if the said Colonel is so obviously immaculate that the Dons of S.P.R. felt bound to offer him public excuses.
One thing Is obvious: either Colonel Gordon or Mrs Gordon or Colonel Olcott was, one of them, at that time my confederate, or they, the gods of S.P.R., are making fools of them-selves.
Surely, as says, no sane man with sound reasoning, acquainted with the circumstances of the Vega case, or the broken plaster portrait case, or Hubbe Schleiden's letter, received on the German railway while I was in London, and so many other cases, shall ever dare to write himself down such an ass as to say that while I am a full-blown fraud, and all my phenomena tricks, that the Colonel is to be charged simply with "credulity and inaccuracy in observation and inference". »
In a tone of bitter mockery, after some scornful language concerning the intelligence of the S.P.R. inquirers, she goes on to leave her "scientific friends" "to assume that 'Isis Unveiled,' and all the best articles in the Theosophist, as every letter from both Mahatmas, whether in English, French, Telegu, Sanscrit, or Hindi were written by Mme. H.P. Blavatsky.
She is willing to have it believed, that for more than twenty years she has bamboozled the most intellectual men of the century In Russia, America, India, and especially in England. Why, genuine phenomena, when the author herself of the 1'000 bogus manifestations on record before the world, is such a living incarnated phenomenon as to do all that and much more.
. . .
« Why should I complain? Has not Master left it to my choice to either follow the dictates of Lord Buddha, who enjoins us not to fail to feed even a siarving serpent, scorning all fear lest it should turn round and bite the hand that feeds it; or to face Karma, which is sure to punish him who turns away from the sight of sin and misery, or fails to relieve the sinner or the sufferer.
. . .
Am I greater or in any way better than were St Germain and Cagliostro, Paracelsus, and so many other martyrs whose names appear in the Encyclopaedia of the 19th century over the meritorious title of charlatans and impostors?
It shall be the Karma of the blind and wicked judges, not mine.
. . .
I can do more good by remaining in the shadow, than by becoming prominent once more in the movement. Let me hide in unknown places, and write, write, write, and teach whoever wants to learn.
Since Master forced me to live, let me live and die now in relative peace. It is evident. He wants me still to work for the Theosophical Society, since He does not allow me to make a contract with [mentioning a foreign publisher, who had offered her very favourable pecuniary terms] to write exclusively for his journal and paper.
He would not permit me to sign such a contract last year in Paris when proposed, and does not sanction it now, for he says my time shall have to be occupied otherwise. Ah the cruel wicked injustice that has been done to me all round.
Fancy the horrid calumny of the C.C.M. [Christian College Magazine], whose statement that I sought to defraud Mr Jacob Sassoon of Rs. 10'000 in that Poona business has been allowed to go uncontradicted even by and, who know as well as they are sure of their own existence that this special charge, at any rate, is the most abominable lying calumny.
Who of the public knows that after having worked for and given my life to the progress of the Society for over ten years, I have been forced to leave India a beggar, depending on the bounty of the Theosophist (my own journal, founded and created with my own money) for my daily support. I made out to be a mercenary impostor, a fraud for the sake of money, when thousands of my own money earned by my Russian articles have been given away, when for five years I have abandoned the price of "Isis Unveiled" and the income of the Theosophist to support the Society.
. . .
Pardon me for saying all this and showing myself to be so selfish, but it is a direct answer to the vile calumny, and it is but right that the Theosophists in London should know of it. »
The elaboration of The Secret Doctrine
The assurances mentioned above that her time would be "otherwise occupied" in her German retreat than in writing stories and social articles for Russian magazines has been very fully vindicated.
Within the last three months of 1885 she began to receive the occult "inspiration," or whatever it may be called by people more or less acquainted with the circumstances of her higher life, required for the production of the long-promised book on "The Secret Doctrine." This book was foreshadowed by notices in the Theosophist as far back as the beginning of February 1884.
It was then proposed that the work should be "a new version of Isis
Unveiled," with a new arrangement of the matter, large and important additions, and copious notes and commentaries;" and Mme. Blavatsky's intention in the first instance had been that it should be issued in monthly parts, beginning in March 1884, or, provided so early a date could not be managed, in June.
Mme. Blavatsky's visit to Europe, however, in the spring of that year interfered with the undertaking, and in Europe the multifarious claims made on her time stood fatally in its way.
Then, in the summer of 1884, the "Coulomb scandal" exploded, and, with all its exasperating consequences, operated to render it impossible for her to begin a task claiming steady and prolonged devotion, concentration of purpose, and something like tranquillity of mind.
The "Secret Doctrine" was still untouched in September 1885, when my wife and I saw her in Germany. We found her settled in an economical way, but in comfort and quietude, cheered just then by the companionship of her aunt, Mme. Fadeef, to whom she is warmly attached.
She was naturally seething with indignation at the wrongs she had suffered at the hands of the S.P.R. committee, even though the cruel and calumnious report by Mr. Hodgson, on which they professed to have based their conclusions, had not been finally perfected.
On the whole, however, she seemed in better health and spirits than we expected, and some premonitory symptoms indicated that the preparation of the "Secret Doctrine" might shortly be set on foot.
A month or so after our return to London in October I received a note from Mme. Blavatsky, in the course of which she wrote:
« I am very busy on the "Secret Dcotrine." The thing at New York [meaning the circumstances under which "Isis Unveiled" was written] is repeated — only far clearer and better. I begin to think it shall vindicate us. Such pictures, panoramas, scenes, antediluvian dramas, with all that ! Never saw or heard better. »
Early in December I received a letter from the Countess Wachtmeister, then staying on a visit with Mme. Blavatsky. The Countess is an English lady, though bearing a foreign title, herself gifted with clairvoyant faculties of a high order, lifting her entirely out of the reach of the clumsy scraps of materialistic evidence with which the denser-minded enemies of the Theosophic cause were so busily assailing her trusted and esteemed friend. She wrote:
« The "Secret Doctrine" contains a translation of [certain occult writings of which the world at large knows nothing]. The public at present will have but a faint idea of its real meaning, but as years roll by it will penetrate deeper into the hearts of men. »
And again, a fortnight later, she wrote:
« I consider it a great privilege to be allowed to witness the marvellous way in which this book is being written. »
Publication of the Hodgson Report
A few days later some indiscreet or wantonly mischievous person sent Mme. Blavatsky a copy of Mr. Hodgson's famous, or, as Theosophists think, infamous, report, published in the "Proceedings of the Psychical Research Society."
The Countess wrote:
« We have had a terrible day, and the [using a familiar name for Mme. Blavatsky] wanted to start off to London at once. I have kept her as quiet as I could, and now she has relieved her feelings in the enclosed letter. »
For a whole fortnight the tumult of Mme. Blavatsky's emotions rendered any further progress with her work impossible. Her volcanic temperament
renders her in all emergencies a very bad exponent of her own case, whatever that may be.
The letters, memoranda, and protests on which she wasted her energies during this miserable fortnight were few, if any, of a kind that would have helped a cold and unsympathetic public to understand the truth of things, and it is not worth while to resuscitate them here.
I induced her to tone down one protest into a presentable shape for insertion in a pamphlet I issued in the latter part of January, and for the rest, few but her most intimate friends would correctly appreciate their fire and fury.
Her language, when she is in fits of excitement, would lead a stranger to suppose her thirsting for revenge, beside herself with passion, ready to exact savage vengeance on her enemies if she had the power.
It is only those who know her as intimately as half-a-dozen of her closest friends may, who are quite aware through all this effervescence of feeling that if her enemies were really put suddenly in her power, her rage against them would collapse like a broken soap bubble.
Mr. Hodgson's report was not actually published till December 1885 — having in the interim apparently undergone additions and amendments. This delay and subsequent preparation of the document on which the committee of inquiry based their decision was deeply resented by Mme. Blavatsky's friends as showing a disposition to make out a case against her.
When at last it appeared, it occupied 200 pages of small print, and a minute criticism of its contents would naturally require a considerably greater space.
To attempt that here, therefore, is out of the question. The report consists mainly of circumstantial evidence calculated to throw suspicion on the phenomena Mr. Hodgson endeavoured to investigate, and of a very elaborate comparison of various handwritings designed to show that the letters I had received in India during my acquaintance with Mme. Blavatsky — as I believed (and believe still) from two of the "Mahatmas" or secluded proficients of occult science spoken of in this volume as "the Masters" exercising spiritual authority over Mme. Blavatsky — were really written by her and one other person in the ordinary way and passed off on me for what I supposed them.
Hodgson was unable to investigate and the SPR inappropriately accepted his report
I shall most conveniently indicate the character of the report by quoting the introductory passages of a pamphlet f in reply that I issued very soon after its appearance.
« The Report which has been addressed by Mr R. Hodgson to the Committee of the Psychical Research Society, "appointed to investigate phenomena connected with the Theosophical Society," is published for the first time in the December number of the Proceedings of that Society, — six months after the meetings were held at which the Committee concerned announced its general adhesion to the conclusions Mr. Hodgson had reached.
In a letter addressed to Light on the 12th of October, I protested against the action thus taken by the Psychical Research Society in publicly stigmatising Mme. Blavatsky as having been guilty of "a long-continued combination with other persons to produce, by ordinary means, a series of apparent marvels for the support of the Theosophic movement," while holding back the documentary evidence on the strength of which their opinion had been formed.
In a note to the present Report (page 276) Mr. Hodgson says:
"I have now in my hands numerous documents which are concerned with the experiences of Mr Hume and others in connection with Mme. Blavatsky and the Theosophical Society. These documents, including the K.H. MSS. above referred to, did not reach me till August, and my examination of them, particularly of the K.H. MSS., has involved a considerable delay in the production of this Report."
In other words, Mr. Hodgson has employed the time during which his Report has been improperly withheld in endeavouring to amend and strengthen it so as to render it better able to bear out the committee's hasty endorsement of the conclusions he reached before he obtained the evidence he now puts forward.
But even if the committee had been in possession —which it was not— of the Report as it now stands, its action in promulgating the conclusions it announced on the 24th of June, would have been no less unwarrantable and premature. The committee has not at any stage of its proceedings behaved in accordance with the judicial character it has arrogated to itself. It appointed as its agent to inquire, in India, into the authenticity of statements relating to occurrences extending over several years — alleged to have taken place at various parts of India, and in which many persons, including natives of India and devotees of occult science in that country were mixed up — a gentleman of great, of perhaps too great, confidence in his own abilities, but, at all events, wholly unfamiliar with the characteristics of Indian life and the complicated play of feeling in connection with which the Theosophical movement has been developed in India during recent years.
Nothing in his Report, even as it now stands — amended with the protracted assistance of more experienced persons unfriendly to the Theosophical movement — suggests that even yet he has begun to understand the primary conditions of the mysteries he set himself to unravel.
He has naively supposed that every one in India visibly devoted to the work of the Theosophical Society might be assumed, on that account, desirous of securing his good opinion and of persuading him that the alleged phenomena were genuine. He shows himself to have been watching their demeanour and stray phrases to catch admissions that might be turned against the Theosophical case.
He seems never to have suspected what any more experienced inquirer would have been aware of from the beginning, that the Theosophical movement, in so far as it has been concerned with making known to the world at large the existence in India of persons called Mahatmas —very far advanced in the comprehension of occult science— and of the philosophical views they hold, has been one which many of the native devotees of these Mahatmas and many among the most ardent disciples and students of their occult teaching, have regarded with profound irritation.
The traditional attitude of mind in which Indian occultists regard their treasures of knowledge, is one in which devotion is largely tinged with jealousy of all who would endeavour to penetrate the secrecy in which these treasures have hitherto been shrouded.
These have been regarded as only the rightful acquirement of persons passing through the usual ordeals and probations. The Theosophical movement in India, however, involved a breach of this secrecy. The old rules were infringed under an authority so great that occultists who found themselves entangled with the work could not but submit. But in many cases such submission has been no more than superficial.
Any one more intimately acquainted, than the agent of the S.P.R., with the history and growth of the Theosophical Society would have been able to indicate many persons among its most faithful native members, whose fidelity was owing entirely to the Masters they served, and not to the idea on which they were employed — at all events not so far as it was connected with the demonstration of the fact that abnormal physical phenomena could be produced by Indian proficients in occult science.
Now for such persons the notion that European outsiders, who had, as they conceived, so undeservedly been admitted to the inner arcana of Eastern occultism, were blundering into the belief that they had been deceived, — that there was no such thing as Indian occultism, that the Theosophical movement was a sham and a delusion with which they would no more concern themselves — was enchanting in its attractions.
And the arrival in their midst of an exceedingly self reHant young man from England attempting the investigation of occult mysteries by the methods of a Scotland Yard detective, and laid open by total unfamiliarity with the tone and temper of modern occultism to every sort of misapprehension, was naturally to them a source of intense satisfaction.
Does the committee of the S.P.R. imagine that the native occultists of the Theosophical Society in India are writhing at this moment under the judgment it has passed?
I am quite certain, on the contrary, that for the most part they are chuckling over it with delight. They may find the situation complicated as regards their relations with their Masters in so far as they have consciously contributed to the easy misdirection of Mr. Hodgson's mind, but the ludicrous spectacle of himself which Mr. Hodgson furnishes in his Report — where we see him catching up unfinished sentences and pointing out weak places in the evidence of some among the Indian chelas, against whom, if he had better understood the task before him, he ought to have been most on his guard — is, at all events, one which we can understand them to find amusing.
I regard the committee of the S.P.R. —Messrs E. Gurney, F.W.H. Myers, F. Podmore, H. Sidgwick, and J.H. Stack— much more to blame for presuming to pass judgment by the light of their own unaided reflections on the raw and misleading report supplied to them by Mr. Hodgson, than he for his part is to blame, even for misunderstanding so lamentably the problems he set out naturally ill-qualified to investigate.
It would have been easy for them to have called in any of several people in London, qualified to do so by long experience of the Theosophical movement, to report in their turn on the prima facie case, so made out against the authenticity of the Theosophical phenomena, before proceeding to pass judgment on the whole accusation in the hearing of the public at large.
We have all heard of cases in which judges think it unnecessary to call on the defence; but these have generally been cases in which the judges have decided against the theory of the prosecution.
The committee of the S.P.R. furnish us with what is probably an unprecedented example of a judicial refusal to hear a defence on the ground that the ex parte statement of the prosecutor has been convincing by itself The committee brooded, however, in secret over the report of their agent, consulted no one in a position to open their eyes as to the erroneous method on which Mr. Hodgson had gone to work, and concluded their but too independent investigation by denouncing as one of the most remarkable impostors in history — a lady held in the highest honour by a considerable body of persons, including old friends and relations of unblemished character, and who has undeniably given up station and comfort to struggle for long years in the service of the Theosophical cause amidst obloquy and privation.
She is witnessed against chiefly for Mr. Hodgson, as any one who will read his report will see, in spite of his affected indifference to their testimony, by two persons who endeavour to blacken her character by first exhibiting themselves as engaged in fraud and deception, and by then accusing her of having been base enough to make such people as themselves her confederates.
These are the persons whom his report shows Mr. Hodgson to have made the principal allies of his inquiry. It is on the strength of writings obtained from such persons that the committee of the S.P.R. chiefly proceeds in coming to the conclusion that Mme. Blavatsky is an impostor.
And this course is pursued by a body of men who, in reference to psychical phenomena at large (which the designation of their society would suggest that they are concerned with), decline all testimony, however apparently overwhelming, which comes from spiritualistic mediums tainted by receiving money for the display of their characteristics.
I am not suggesting that they ought to be careless in accepting such testimony, but merely that they have violated the principles they profess —when the repression of unacceptable evidence is at stake— in a case in which, by their disregard, it was possible to frame an indictment against persons — whom I am not justified in assuming that they were prejudiced against from the first, but whom, at all events, they finished by condemning unheard.
And going further than this, they have not hesitated to publish, with all the authority their proceedings can confer, a groundless and monstrous invention concerning Mme. Blavatsky, which Mr. Hodgson puts forward at the conclusion of his report to prop up its obvious weakness as regards the whole hypothesis on which it rests.
For it is evident that there is a powerful presumption against any theory that imputes conscious imposture and vulgar trickery to a person who, on the face of things, has devoted her life to a philanthropic idea, at the manifest sacrifice of all the considerations which generally supply motives of action to mankind. Mr. Hodgson is alive to the necessity of furnishing Mme. Blavatsky with a motive as degraded as the conduct he has been taught by M. and Mme. Coulomb to believe her guilty of, and he triumphs over the difficulty by suggesting that she may be a Russian political agent, working in India to foster disloyalty to the British Government.
It is nothing to Mr. Hodgson that she has notoriously been doing the reverse; that she has frequently assured the natives orally, by writings, at public meetings, and in letters that can be produced, that with all its faults the British Government is the best available for India, and repeatedly from the point of view of one speaking en connaisance de cause she has declared that the Russian would be immeasurably worse.
It is nothing to Mr. Hodgson that her life has been passed coram populo to an almost ludicrous extent ever since she has been in India, that her whole energies and work have been employed on the Theosophic cause, or that the Government of India, after looking into the matter with the help of its police when she first came to the country, soon read the riddle aright, and abandoned all suspicion of her motives.
Mr. Hodgson is careless of the fact that every one who has known her for any length of time laughs at the absurdity of his hypothesis. He has obtained from his guide and counsellor —Mme. Coulomb— a fragment of Mme. Blavatsky's handwriting, picked up, it would seem, some years ago, and cherished for any use that might ultimately be made of it — which refers to Russian politics, and reads like part of an argument in favour of the Russian advance in Central Asia.
This is enough for the Psychical Researcher, and the text of this document appears in his Report in support of his scandalous insinuation against Mme. Blavatsky's integrity.
The simple explanation of the paper is, that it is evidently a discarded fragment from a long translation of Colonel Grodekoff's Travels in Central Asia (or whatever title the series bore) which Mme. Blavatsky made at my request for the Pioneer (the Indian Government organ), of which I was at that time editor.
I will not delay this pamphlet to write to India and get the dates at which the Grodekoff series of articles appeared in the Pioneer. They ran for some weeks, and must have appeared in one of the latter years of the last decade, or possibly in 1880.
By applying to the Pioneer printers, Mr. Hodgson could perhaps obtain, if the MS. of this translation has been preserved, several hundred pages of Mme. Blavatsky's writing, blazing with sentiments of the most ardent Anglo-phobia.
It is most likely, as I say, that the pilfered slip of which he is so proud, was some rejected page from that translation, unless, indeed, which would be more amusing still, it should happen to have fallen from some other Russian translations which Mme. Blavatsky, to my certain knowledge, once made for the Indian Foreign Office during one of her visits to Simla, when she made the acquaintance of some of the officials in that department, and was employed to do some work in its service.
I venture to think that if Mme. Blavatsky had not been known to be too ill-supplied with money to claim redress at the costly bar of British justice — if she had not been steeped to the lips in the flavour, so ungrateful to British law courts, of Psychic mystery, the committee of the S.P.R. would hardly have thought it well to accuse her, in a published document, of infamous conduct, which, if she were really guilty of it, would render her a public foe in the land of her adoption and an object of scorn to honourable men — at the flippant suggestion of their private agent in desperate need of an explanation for conclusions which no amount of pedantically ordered circumstances could render, without it, otherwise than incredible. »
Blavatsky's letter of protest against the SPR
Mme. Blavatsky contributed to this pamphlet a Protest in her own name, which ran as follows:
« The Society for Psychical Research have now published the Report made to one of their Committees by Mr. Hodgson, the agent sent out to India to investigate the character of certain phenomena, described as having taken place at the head-quarters of the Theosophical Society in India and elsewhere, and with the production of some of which I have been directly or indirectly concerned.
This Report imputes to me a conspiracy with the Coulombs and several Hindus to impose on the credulity of various persons around me by fraudulent devices, and declares to be genuine, a series of letters alleged to be written by me to Mme. Coulomb in connection with the supposed conspiracy, which letters I have already myself declared to be in large part fabrications.
Strange to say, from the time the investigation was begun, fourteen months ago, and to this day, when I am declared guilty by my self-instituted judges, I was never permitted to see those incriminating letters.
I draw the attention of every fair-minded and honourable Englishman to this fact.
Without at present going into a minute examination of the errors, inconsistencies, and bad reasoning of this Report, I wish to make as publicly as possible my indignant and emphatic protest against the gross aspersions thus put upon me by the Committee of the Psychic Research Society at the instigation of the single, incompetent, and unfair inquirer whose conclusions they have accepted.
There is no charge against me in the whole of the present Report that could stand the test of an impartial inquiry on the spot, where my own explanations could be checked by the examination of witnesses.
They have been developed in Mr. Hodgson's own mind, and kept back from my friends and colleagues while he remained at Madras abusing the hospitality and unrestrained assistance in his inquiries supplied to him at the head-quarters of the Society at Adyar, where he took up the attitude of a friend, though he now represents the persons with whom he thus associated — as cheats and liars.
These charges are now brought forward supported by the one-sided evidence collected by him, and when the time has gone by at which even he could be confronted with antagonistic evidence and with arguments which his very limited knowledge of the subject he attempted to deal with do not supply him.
Mr. Hodgson having thus constituted himself prosecutor and advocate in the first instance, and having dispensed with a defence in the complicated transactions he was investigating, finds me guilty of all the offences he has imputed to me in his capacity as judge, and declares that I am proved to be an arch-impostor.
The Committee of the S.P.R. have not hesitated to accept the general substance of the judgment which Mr. Hodgson thus pronounces, and have insulted me publicly by giving their opinion in favour of their agent's conclusions — an opinion which rests wholly and solely on the Report of their single deputy.
Wherever the principles of fairness and honourable care for the reputation of slandered persons may be understood, I think the conduct of the Committee will be regarded with some feeling resembling the profound indignation of which I am sensible.
That Mr. Hodgson's elaborate but misdirected inquiries, his affected precision, which spends infinite patience over trifles and is blind to facts of importance, his contradictory reasoning and his manifold incapacity to deal with such problems as those he endeavoured to solve, will be exposed by other writers in due course — I make no doubt.
Many friends who know me better than the Committee of the S.P.R. will remain unaffected by the opinions of that body, and in their hands I must leave my much-abused reputation. But one passage in this monstrous Report I must, at all events, answer in my own name.
Plainly alive to the comprehensive absurdity of his own conclusions about me, as long as they remained totally unsupported by any theory of a motive which could account for my life-long devotion to my Theosophical work at the sacrifice of my natural place in society in my own country, Mr. Hodgson has been base enough to concoct the assumption that I am a Russian political agent, inventing a sham religious movement for the sake of undermining the British Government in India!
Availing himself, to give colour to this hypothesis, of an old bit of my writing, apparently supplied to him by Mme. Coulomb, but which he did not know to be, as it was, a fragment of an old translation I made for the Pioneer, from some Russian travels in Central Asia, Mr. Hodgson has promulgated this theory about me in the Report, which the gentlemen of the S.P.R. have not been ashamed to publish.
Seeing that I was naturalised nearly eight years ago a citizen of the United States, which led to my losing every right to my pension of 5'000 roubles yearly as the widow of a high ofificial in Russia; that my voice has been invariably raised in India to answer all native friends that bad as I think the English Government in some respects —by reason of its unsympathetic character— the Russian would be a thousand times worse; that I wrote letters to that effect to Indian friends before I left America on my way to India, in 1879; that every one familiar with my pursuits and habits and very undisguised life in India, is aware that I have no taste for or affinity with politics whatever, but an intense dislike to them; that the Government of India, which suspected me as a spy because I was a Russian when I first went to India, soon abandoned its needless espionage, and has never, to my knowledge, had the smallest inclination to suspect me since — the Russian spy theory about me which Mr. Hodgson has thus resuscitated from the grave, where it had been buried with ridicule for years, will merely help to render his extravagant conclusions about me more stupid even than they would have been otherwise in the estimation of my friends and of all who really know me.
But looking upon the character of a spy with the disgust which only a Russian who is not one can feel, I am impelled irresistibly to repudiate Mr. Hodgson's groundless and infamous calumny with a concentration of the general contempt his method of procedure in this inquiry seems to me to merit, and to be equally deserved by the Committee of the Society he has served.
They have shown themselves, by their wholesale adoption of his blunders, a group of persons less fitted to explore the mysteries of psychic phenomena than I should have thought —in the present day, after all that has been written and published on the subject of late years— could have been found among educated men in England.
Mr. Hodgson knows, and the committee doubtless share his knowledge, that he is safe from actions for libel at my hands, because I have no money to conduct costly proceedings (having given all I ever had to the cause I serve), and also because my vindication would involve the examination into psychic mysteries which cannot be dealt fairly with in a court of law; and again because there are questions which I am solemnly pledged never to answer, but which a legal investigation of these slanders would inevitably bring to the front, while my silence and refusal to answer certain queries would be misconstrued into 'contempt of court.'
This condition of things explains the shameless attack that has been made upon an almost defenceless woman, and the inaction in face of it to which I am so cruelly condemned.
H. P. Blavatsky.
January 14, 1886. »
Testimony of Countess Wachtmeister
I am glad to be permitted to insert here the following letter from the Countess Wachtmeister, summing up the general impressions of her long visit to Mme. Blavatsky at Wurzburg:
« Dear Mr Sinnett,
Last autumn, having left Sweden to spend the winter in a more congenial climate, and hearing that Madame Blavatsky was suffering, ill and lonely at Wurzburg, I offered to spend some time with her, and do what I could to render her position more comfortable, and to cheer her in her solitude.
My acquaintance with H. P. Blavatsky was a very slight one. I had met her casually in London and Paris, but had no real knowledge or experience in regard to herself or her character.
I had been told a great deal against her, and I can honestly say that I was prejudiced in her disfavour, and it was only a sense of duty and gratitude (such as all true students of theosophy should feel towards the founder of a society, which, notwithstanding all its drawbacks, has been of great benefit and service to numbers of individuals), which caused me to take upon myself the task of alleviating her troubles and sorrows to the best
of my ability.
Having heard the absurd rumours circulating against her, and by which she was accused of practising black magic, fraud, and deception, I was on my guard, and went to her in a calm and tranquil frame of mind, determined to accept nothing of an occult character and coming from her without sufficient proof; to make myself positive, to keep my eyes open, and to be just and true in my conclusions.
Common sense would not permit me to believe in her guilt without proof, but if that proof had been furnished, my sense of honour would have made it impossible for me to remain in a society, the founder of which committed cheating and trickery, therefore my frame of mind was bent on investigation, and I was anxious to find out the truth.
I have now spent a few months with Madame Blavatsky. I have shared her room, and been with her morning, noon, and night. I have had access to all her boxes and drawers, have read the letters which she received and those which she wrote, and I now openly and honestly declare that I am ashamed of myself for having ever suspected her, for I believe her to be an honest and true woman, faithful to death to her masters and to the cause for which she has sacrificed position, fortune, and health.
There is no doubt in my mind that she made these sacrifices, for I have seen the proofs of them, some of which consisted of documents whose genuineness is above all suspicion.
From a worldly point of view Madame Blavatsky is an unhappy woman, slandered, doubted, and abused by many; but looked at from a higher point of view, she has extraordinary gifts, and no amount of vilification can deprive her of the privileges which she enjoys, and which consist in a knowledge of many things that are known only to a few mortals, and in a personal intercourse with certain Eastern adepts.
On account of the extensive knowledge which she possesses and which extends far into the invisible part of nature, it is very much to be regretted that all her troubles and trials prevent her giving to the world a great deal of information, which she would be willing to impart if she were permitted to remain undisturbed and in peace.
Even the great work in which she is now engaged, "The Secret Doctrine," has been greatly impeded by all the persecutions, offensive letters, and other petty annoyances to which she has been subjected this winter; for it should be remembered that H.P. Blavatsky is not herself a full-grown adept, nor does she claim to be one; and that, therefore, in spite of all her knowledge she is as painfully sensitive to insult and suspicion as any lady of refinement in her position could be expected to be.
The "Secret Doctrine" will be indeed a great and grand work. I have had the privilege of watching its progress, of reading the manuscripts, and of witnessing the occult way in which she derived her information.
I have latterly heard among people who style themselves "Theosophists," expressions which surprised and pained me. Some such persons said that ' if it were proven that the Mahatmas did not exist, it would not matter,' that theosophy were nevertheless a truth, etc., etc.
Such and similar statements have come into circulation in Germany, England, and America; but to my understanding they are very erroneous, for, in the first place, if there were no Mahatmas or Adepts — that is so say, persons who have progressed so far in the scale of human evolution, as to be able to unite their personality with the sixth principle of the universe (the universal Christ), then the teachings of that system which has been called 'Theosophy' would be false; because there would be a break in the scale of progression, which would be more difficult to be accounted for than the absence of the 'missing link' of Darwin.
But if these persons refer merely to those Adepts who are said to have been active in the foundation of the Theosophical Society, they seem to forget that without these Adepts we would never have had that society, nor would "Isis Unveiled," the "Esoteric Buddhism," the "Light on the Path," the "Theosophist," and other valuable theosophical publications ever have been written; and if in the future we should shut ourselves out from the influence of the Mahatmas and be left entirely to our own resources, we should soon become lost in a labyrinth of metaphysical speculation.
It must be left to science and speculative philosophy to confine themselves to theories and to the obtaining of such information as is contained in books.
Theosophy goes farther, and acquires knowledge by direct interior perception. The study of theosophy means therefore practical development, and to attain this development a guide is necessary who knows that which he teaches, and who must have attained himself that state by the process of spiritual regeneration.
After all that has been said in these 'Memoirs' about the occult phenomena taking place in the presence of Madame Blavatsky, and how such phenomena have been a part and parcel of her life, occurring at all times both with and without her knowledge, I need only add that during my stay with her, I have frequently witnessed such genuine phenomena. Here, as in every other department of life, the main point is to learn to discriminate properly and to estimate everything at its true value.
Yours sincerely,
Constance Wachtmeister, F.T.S. »
Testimony of Dr. Franz Hartmann
This letter has already been printed in an American newspaper devoted to Theosophy, where it appears with the following remarks appended to it by Dr Franz Hartmann:
« Kempten, Bavaria,
May lo, 1886.
I have read the above statement written by the Countess Wachtmeister, and I fully agree with every sentence contained therein. I myself, like my friend the Countess, have passed through a state of creduhty and doubt before I arrived at knowledge.
i have often been perplexed, and had to grope in the dark, but I can now say without any hesitation, sincerely and truthfully, that those who desire an explanation of the great commotion that has taken place within the sphere of the ' Theosophical Society ' will have to look for it deeper than in any desire of deception on the part of Madame Blavatsky.
The accusations of Mr. Hodgson and others are only based upon external appearances and upon superficial reasoning.
To recognize, then, the truth, requires not only sharpness and wit, but the power of intuition, which a scientist, who reasons merely from the plane of illusions, cannot be expected to possess, and which he would not be permitted to use, even if he possessed it, because by doing so he would act in contravention to the laws upon which material science is based.
This power of intuition is ' the corner-stone,' which the (material) builders have rejected so often, and which they will continue to reject. It is the power whose possession is required to arrive at spiritual knowledge, which is the highest of all sciences, and its development is the first law on which progress in practical occultism depends.
Let those who desire to arrive at the truth develop this power and make it alive in their hearts, and they will obtain a guide and a Master whose voice they will know and whose words they will not doubt and whose hand will lead them out of the illusions of the senses and out of the meshes of theoretical speculation into the bright sunlight of the eternal truth.
Let the members of the Theosophical Society stop and think before they spit on the way that has led them up higher and brought them nearer to the God that is slumbering in the paradise of their souls, and let us all be thankful to those Children of Light who have awakened us from our sleep and called our attention to the fact that the morning is dawning.
Let us listen to their teachings, grasp their doctrines with our understanding, and test them upon the touch-stone of reason, and as we assimilate them we will ourselves grow stronger and greater.
When the Paraclet arrives he will be attracted to those temples on whose altars he finds his own fire burning; but the unfaithful, the sceptic and the distorter of the truth will see nothing but the smoke that rises from his own brain. The owl loves the darkness, but the eagle mounts towards the sun. »
Conclusion
The mental suffering Mme. Blavatsky went through while the insults of the S.P.R. report were still recent outrages, need not be displayed in too minute detail to unsympathetic observation, and all the more is it unnecessary here to go step by step over the stories to Mme. Blavatsky's prejudice told to Mr. Hodgson by the Coulombs, and absurdly accepted as evidence by the committee of the S.P.R.
Certainly the appearance of these memoirs has been precipitated by the attack on Mme. Blavatsky instituted by the S.P.R. I should have preferred to have kept them back until, by the accumulation of more information, the story of her life could have been told more completely.
But even as that story is here told, I look forward with very great confidence to its recognition by all thoughtful readers as an indirect refutation, more effective than any wrangling over the circumstances which clouded Mr. Hodgson's understanding at Adyar, of the monstrous and unprincipled assertion put forward by the Psychic Research Committee that she is an "impostor."
The Society which that committee represents is probably not destined to a very prolonged existence. It rose like a rocket on a brilliant stream of fire that might have carried it high into the heavens, but a misdirection of its course turned it back to earth almost instantly, and the force which should have borne it aloft now buries its head more deeply in the sand.
But the literary fruits of Mme. Blavatsky's life will long survive the recollection which this generation will retain, of the efforts made to disparage the interest of those physical wonders she has so often been concerned in working and which really constitute the least important circumstances of her career.
For the tales of wonder with which Mme. Blavatsky has thus been associated, though they have filled this volume so largely, are really no more than the foam on the surface of the current that has been set flowing through human thought, in our time, under her auspices.
APPENDIX
It may serve to caution readers of the S.P.R. report from attaching too much importance to the opinion of the "experts" consulted by the committee of that Society, if I here reprint some correspondence which passed between Mr G. Gebhard and the foremost German expert in handwriting, in reference to the authorship of the writing attributed to the Mahatma K.H., and (absurdly as I conceive) supposed by the S.P.R. committee and their expert to have been produced by Mme. Blavatsky.
Mr Gebhard sent to the Expert a long letter (marked A) from Mme. Blavatsky, received by him in October 1885, and the letter (marked B) which fell from behind the picture at Elberfeld, under circumstances described in the text, and which all persons concerned believe to have come from the Mahatma K.H.
The Expert replied to the inquiry, whether these letters might not perhaps be really by the same hand, as follows. His letter is of course in German, but is translated here with close exactitude:
« Berlin, 7th Februry 1886.
To Commerzienrath Gebhard, Elberfeld.
You will kindly excuse me, that I only to-day send the desired testimony, as I was very busy with other affairs. I have made it as complete as possible, but I must assure you most positively that if you have believed that both letters came from one and the same hand, you have laboured under a complete mistake, — I am, etc,
Ernst Schutze,
Caligraphist to the Court of H.M. the Emperor of Germany.
II KOCHSTRASSE. »
After receiving this report, Mr Gebhard sent to the Expert another letter (marked C) in the hand-writing of the Mahatma, and asked whether, on an examination of this, he, the Expert, would adhere to his opinion. The reply was as follows:
« Berlin, 16th February 1886.
To Commerzienrath Gebhard, Elberfeld.
I have the honour to enclose the desired testimony on the second letter. This letter was written by the same hand as the letter B; and there is not the remotest similarity between A and C.
In furnishing this, I remain, etc.,
Ernst Schutze,
Caligrapher to the Court of H.M. the Emperor of Germany. »
The testimony enclosed could not be reproduced in ordinary print, as it includes a great number of letters copied from the documents under examination, with their peculiarities of formation. It concludes by affirming that:
« The letter A, which is written in ink, has not the remotest resemblance with the letter B, according to the standpoint of a caligraphist, and they are of different handwritings. This, my expert testimony, I give on the oath, taken by me, once for all, as an expert in handwriting.
(Signed as before.) »
CID NOTE
I have done my own research and I agree with what is written in the above text, and on this subject Mr. Sinnett also wrote the book entitled "The Phenomena of the Occult World and the Society for Psychical Research" where he refutes several of the statements made by Mr. Hodgson, and you can read that book in Spanish at this link.
