On
September 29, 1880, Mrs. Patience Sinnett, Madame Blavatsky, and
Colonel Olcott went on a picnic to the top of Prospect Hill in Simla,
India.
There,
Mrs. Sinnett received a note on pink paper from a trans-Himalayan
Master, which appeared in a supernatural way. This event is known as
"the pink note phenomenon."
Alfred Sinnett recounted this event in his book 'The Occult World':
« About the end of September my wife went one afternoon with Madame Blavatsky to the top of a neighbouring hill. They were only accompanied by one other friend. I was not present myself on this occasion.
While there Madame Blavatsky asked my wife, in a joking way, what was her heart's desire.
She said at random and on the spur or the moment, " to get a note from one of the Brothers."
Madame Blavatsky took from her pocket a piece of blank pink paper that had been torn off a note received that day. Folding this up into a small compass she took it to the edge of the hill, held it up for a moment or two between her hands and returned saying that it was gone.
She presently, after communicating mentally by her own occult methods with the distant Brother, said he asked where my wife would have the letter. At first she said she should like it to come fluttering down into her lap, but some conversation ensued as to whether this would be the best way to get it, and ultimately it was decided that she should find it in a certain tree.
Here, of course, a mistake was made which opens the door to the suspicions of resolutely disbelieving persons. It will be supposed that Madame Blavatsky had some reasons of her own for wishing the tree chosen. For readers who favour that conjecture after all that has gone before, it is only necessary to repeat that the present story is being told not as a proof, but as an incident.
At first Madame Blavatsky seems to have made a mistake as to the description of the tree ,which the distant Brother was indicating as that in which he was going to put the note, and with some trouble my wife scrambled on to the lower branch of a bare and leafless trunk on which nothing could be found.
Madame then again got into communication with the Brother and ascertained her mistake. Into another tree at a little distance, which neither Madame nor the one other person present had approached.
My wife now climbed a few feet and looked all round among the branches; at first she saw nothing, but then, turning back her head without moving from the position she had taken up, she saw on a twig immediately before her face- where a moment previously there had been nothing but leaves-a little pink note. This was stuck on to the stalk of a leaf that had been quite freshly torn off, for the stalk was still green and moist- not withered as it would have been if the leaf had been torn off for any length of time.
The note was found to contain these few words:
"I have been asked to leave a note here for you. What can I do for you?"
It was signed by some Tibetan characters. The pink paper on which it was written appeared to be the same which Madame Blavatsky had taken blank from her pocket shortly before.
How was it transmitted first to the Brother who wrote upon it and then back again to the top of our hill ? »
(Chapter 4)
Colonel Olcott also recounted this event in his book 'Old Diary Leaves II':
« On 29th September, Mrs. Sinnett, H.P.B., and I went to the top of Prospect Hill.
On the slate-roof of a small Hindu shrine that is there, among the many names of visitors scribbled, I discovered the cryptograph of Mahatma M. :Morya] with my own name written beneath it: but how they got there I cannot say.
As we sat there chatting, H.P.B. asked what our souls would most desire. Mrs. Sinnett said:
- "To have a note from the Brothers drop in my lap."
H.P.B. took a bit of pink note-paper from her pocket-book; traced on it certain invisible signs with her finger; folded it in triangular shape; took it in her hand; walked to the brow of the hill—twenty yards off; faced the West; made some signs in the air; opened her hands, and the paper was gone.
Instead of having the answer dropped in her lap, Mrs. Sinnett got it by climbing into the heart of a tree near by.
It was written on the same pink paper, folded triangularly, and transpierced on a sprig. Inside, in a strange hand, was written:
"I believe I was requested to leave a note here. What do you wish me to do?"
The signature was in Tibetan characters. From the evidential point of view, the weak point about this incident was that the note was not delivered in the way desired. »
(Chapter 15, p.232)
FACSIMILE
The original is held in the British Library:
WHO WROTE IT?
Although
that note contains a signature I hadn't seen before, I believe it was
written by Master Kuthumi because the handwriting resembles Kuthumi's
calligraphy:
And also because Kuthumi later sent a note to Sinnett where, among other things, he said:
« I haven't brought pink paper to write on this time, but I trust that
humble white paper will serve just as well for what I have to say. »
(CM 3a, p.10)
WHY DID BLAVATSKY TEAR OUT THIS PIECE OF PINK PAPER?
In a later letter Kuthumi wrote to Sinnett, he explained that he was in a region where paper was not easy to obtain:
« Being far from home and in a place where air is needed more than
stationery, our correspondence is in danger of ceasing very abruptly,
unless I judiciously manage the reserves I have at hand. »
(CM 8, p.33)
Therefore,
at this moment Kuthumi, finding himself in a similar situation,
Blavatsky phenomenally sent this piece of pink paper to the master so that he
could write that note on this paper.
And then some will ask:
Why didn't Kuthumi get the paper using this same technique?
And
the answer is because Masters are forbidden from using their powers
for matters that are not important, and writing notes and letters was
not considered an important matter, but since Blavatsky was not yet a
Master, she was not governed by this rule and that is why she could use
her power as she wished.
~ * ~
This was the prelude to the correspondence that began between Kuthumi and Alfred Sinnett.
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