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Annie Besant - H.P. Blavatsky and The Masters of The Wisdom (1907)
Annie Besant - H.P. Blavatsky and The Masters of The Wisdom (1907)
\o
THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
H. P. BLAVATSKY
AND
THE MASTERS
OF THE WISDOM
BY
ANNIE BESANT,
President of the Theoiophical Society.
ISSUED AS A TRANSACTION
OF THE LODGE, LONDON.
H.P.B.
1907.
H. P. BLAVATSKY
H. P. BLAVATSKY
AND
THE MASTERS
OF THE WISDOM
BY
ANNIE BESANT,
PRESIDENT OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.
ISSUED AS A TRANSACTION
OF THE HJ».B. LODGE, LONDON.
H. P. BLAVATSKY,
Sixteen years and a halt" have gone since Helena Petrovna
Blavatsky passed away from this mortal world. Yet attacks
are still made upon her veracity, upon her character, and good
and sympathetic men still turn away from the Theosophical
Society with :
" Oh ! I do not care to belong to it; it was
835291
Andre Fadeeff and the
Fadeeff, daughter of Privy-Councillor
Princess Helena Dolgorouki. The following letter trans- —
lated from the French original, which lies before me by —
Lieut. -Major-General R. Fadeeff, to A. P. Sinnett, Esq.,
c/o H. H. the Viceroy's Private Secretary, through the
Prince Dondoukoff-Horsanoff, Governor-General of the
Caucasus, testifies to her identity " I certify by these
:
—
character loyal, straightforward, frank, energetic these gave
her such an unusual superiority, raised her so high above the
ordinary level of the insipid majority of human societies, that
she could never avoid attracting general attention, and the
consequent envy and animosity of all those who, in their
trivial inferiority, felt wounded by the splendor of the
faculties and talents of marvellous woman.
this really
You ask what languages she has studied. From child-
hood, in addition to Russian, her native tongue, she knew only
French and English, Long afterwards, during her travels in
Europe, she picked up a little Italian. The last time that I
saw her, four years from that time, that was all she khew in
the way of languages ;of that I am positively certain, I can
assure you. As to the unfathomable depths of her erudition,
at the time I speak of, four years after, as I say, there was no
shadow of it, not even the least promise thereof. She was
well brought up, well educated as a woman of the world, that
is to say, very superficially. But as to serious and abstract
studies, the religious mysteries of antiquity, Alexandrian
Theurgy, ancient philosophies and philologies, the science of
hieroglyphs, Hebrew, Samskrit, Greek, Latin, etc., she never
saw them even in a dream. I can swear to it. She had not
the least idea of the very alphabet of such things."
To return Helena Petrovna was married, as a girl of seven-
:
teen, to an old man, and promptly took flight from her husband,
on discovering what marriage meant, and roamed about the
world in search of knowledge. In August, 1851, we find her in
London, and there, on a moonlight night, as her diary tells us,
beside the Serpentine, " I met the Master of my dreams." He
then told her that he had chosen her to work in a society, and
some time afterwards, with her father's permission, she went
into training for her future mission, passing through seven and
ten years of probation, trial and hard work. Mme. FadeefF may
again help us. She writes from Paris, under date June 26th,
1884 " I wrote to Mr. Sinnett two or three years ago, in
:
answer to one of his letters, and I think that I told him what
occurred in connection with a letter received by me phenom-
enally, when my niece was on the other side of the world, or
when, to speak the fact, no one knew where she was— which
was exactly the thing that troubled us. All our enquiries had
ended in nothing. We were ready to believe her dead, when
— I think in the year 1870, or soon after— I received a letter
paper, " backed with the glassy hand-made paper one sees in
Kashmir and the Panjab, and enclosed in an envelope of the
same paper. The address is :To the Honourable, Very
'
^Hints on Esoteric Philosophy. P. 105. ^Report 0/ the Result, etc. Pp. 76, 77.
13
you in the flesh look, and assure yourself that it is I,' and
:
shall not here dwell upon the fact of His having been
corporeally seen by both Colonel Olcott and Mr. Brown
separately, for two nights at Lahore, as they can do so better,
each for himself, if they so choose. At Jammu again, where
we proceeded from Lahore, Mr. Brown saw Him on the
evening of the third day of our arrival there, and from Him
received a letter in His famihar handwriting, not to speak of
His visits to me almost every day, and what happened the
next morning almost everyone in Jammu is aware of. The
fact is, that I had the good fortune of being sent for, and
permitted to visit a sacred Ashrama, where I remained for a
few days in the blessed company of several of the Mahatmas
of Himavat and Their disciples. There I met not only my
beloved Gurudeva and Colonel Olcott's Master, but several
others of the Fraternity, including one of the highest. I
it, are satisfied that the stitching had never been disturbed.
At first I was inclined to think that it had come back just as
it went, but on cutting it open, what was the astonishment of
I enclosed the note to INI., and I am very grateful to him for it.
I am encouraged to enclose another note for him in the hope
of getting a reply, but I do not make it any test. I wish only
with our received notions of matter this affair of the note may
be so designated) I shall be intensely pleased. I am more
than ever sorry that I did not stay with you a week longer,
that I might have had a chance of seeing M., and perhaps
becoming personally acquainted with him. When you
mention the disappearance of my note to M., you add :
'To
all my questions I received one reply: " Mind your business,"
etc' In what way were the questions made ? By mental
impressions simply ? Or in actual conversations with M.'s
double or projection ? And do you know Avhy M. took away
my letter to you as well as the note to himself ? (that is,
supposing he did take it), for by so doing your answer to me
and his own communication to me, were greatly delayed. . . .
read over to myself the questions that I had written out, and
laid the paper upon the table. In a few minutes, while I was
talking to Damodar, the paper disappeared, and I silently
'remarked this, but I kept on talking, and in a short while an
envelope was found lying upon the floor. It was addressed to
me, and, on opening it, I found my own sheet of questions
written over in blue pencil. The answers to my questions
were full, and had been written close to each of the questions
on my own paper. The handwriting was that of Mahatma
K. H. Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott were then not
at A(;lyar, but had proceeded to Europe, and were probably in
Paris."3
Says Mr. R. Casava Pillai " In the year 1882, while I
:
yet she thought it would remove the least occasion for suspicion were it
bricked up, and so had it done. The wall then presented a fine, highly
polished, white surface. This wall I shortly afterwards saw papered, as
I superintended the hanging of the paper." Report of the Result, etc
Pp. 99, 100.
21
the shrine, as also the walls in its vicinity, most carefully and
minutely, and found no cause to suspect fraud."
3
C. Sambiah —
Chetty.
The value of the evidence of the Editor of the Philosophic
Mr. P. Ruthnavelu, is great, because he examined the
Inquirer,
shrine and its surroundings before and after the missionary
attack. He writes " I witnessed a phenomenon (on ist
:
the shrine with two sceptical friends of mine, and the doors
were opened for me to inspect closely. I carefully examined
everything, touching the several parts with my hand. There
was no opening or hole on this side of the cupboard. I was
then led into the adjoining room to see the other side of the
wall to which the shrine is attached. There was a large
almirah-^ standing against this wall, but it was removed at my
request, that I might see the wall from that side. I tapped it
Anglice, wardrobe.
23
article, I again went to see the room at 8 a.m., and was met
facts are important, as the first part of the Coulomb plot, and
of Mr. Hodgson's Report, centred in and round the Shrine.
A few phenomena, out of the many connected with it,
may be put on record here, though it may be remarked that
the Shrine was in existence but a short time, and played no
part in the great majority of the phenomena connected with
Madame Blavatsky.
Of oneof these. General Morgan has written an account.
Itoccurred in August, 1883. Madame Blavatsky, then at
Ootacamund, had asked him to look at the picture in the
Shrine, as it was a very peculiar work. Madame Coulomb
took him upstairs, and they went into the Occult Room. "On
entering the room she hurriedly approached the shrine or cup-
board, and quickly opened the double doors. As she did so, a
China saucer, which appeared to have been placed leaning
against the door, fell down on to the chunam floor, and was
1 Ibid. Pp. 97, 98.
2 Ibid,. Pp. 102, 103.
24
door of the shrine, and took down the silver bowl (in which
the letters are generally found), and sure enough there was a
note, which, on opening, contained the following lines :
"
To the small audience present as witnesses. Now,
'
shortly after. Coulomb returned with the glue in his hand. If,
he could have gone all round the upper rooms, got behind the
shrine, removed the broken saucer, tied up the parcel, having
placed a whole one in its stead and written the note regarding
the repair of the saucer (my remark about which he had not
heard), then, I say, his feat rivalled that of the Masters.
W' hen I spoke to the woman about the wonderful manner in
which the saucer had been restored, she replied: It must be '
the work of the devil.' " And, in fact, she wrote to Madame
Blavatsky (13th Aug., 1883), that " I verily believe I shall go
silly if I stay with you." She then gives an account of what
had happened, and concludes " I say you have dealings with
:
old Nick." 1
^ Reply to a Report 0/ an Examination by J. D. B. Gribble. By H. R.
Morgan, Major-General. Pp. 14-17.
25
and the Skrine was locked. ^Ve did not, however, move from
the place, and within half a minute, Madame Blavatsky told
us to open it. We
did so ourselves, and found the whole
—
cupboard where there was nothing when we looked at it half
—
a minute before filled with fresh flowers. and leaves. Each
of us took a number of them, and we found that there were
also some peculiar kind of leaves which could not be found in
any part of Mac^ras, to our knowledge. We made a careful
she could tell many things if she only wanted to do so.' She
would tell the aspirant for Theosophical honours kindly and
confidentially that Colonel Olcott was a fool, who was led by
the nose by Madame Blavatsky. If asked to explain herself she
v/ould say My mouth is shut up, I cannot talk against the
:
'
people whose bread I eat,' and when she was told that occult
phenomena occurred when Madame Blavatsky was a thousand
2"
miles away, she would say that She knew what she knew.'
'
'
Ibid. Pp. 68, G9.
'
1 shall be revenged on your mistress for preventing me from
—
Hartmann to the Coulombs still hoping to get rid of them
—
quietly that they should leave Adyar was met with a flat
refusal Madame Blavatsky wrote that she would not return
;
were frauds, and works of the devil that she had attempted
;
Society's funds that she had been guilty of lying and back-
;
the side of the Occult Room was still intact, but it was evident
that the aperture was to have been repeated in the second
partition, and presumably the back of the Shrine was to have
been made removable, so as to take out and put in objects. In
consequence of the Master's warning, however, Dr. Hartmann
had "acted without delay," and had stopped the nefarious work
before it was completed. The hole in the partition in Madame
Blavatsky's bed-room measured 14 inches wide and 27 high,
" sufficiently large," says Dr. Hartmann caustically, " for a
little boy (who was not afraid of suffocation) to crawl in." A
heavy wardrobe covered this hole, and a sliding panel had been
made in the back of this wardrobe the panel was new and
;
—
which was not— and is not clear. " M. Coulomb confessed
to having made all these tricks, holes and trap-doors with his
own hand, but excused himself by saying that they were made
by H. P. Blavatsky's order. He denied having any secret
understanding with Missionaries for the purpose of injuring
the Society. He then turned over the keys to Mr. Damot.lar
K. Mavalankar, who took possession of the rooms, and it was
decided to leave all the holes and sliding panels unrepaired
until further decision. It is evident that with very little labor
those traps could have been finished and be made to look very
suspicious, and we have reason to believe that it was M.
Coulomb's intention to finish them before Madame
Blavatsky's return from Europe."^
In the before-quoted letter of Damodar to Mme.
Blavatsky (June 14th, 1884), he relates these occurrences, and
says "
: We
have purposely left the hole and the sliding
panels untouched. They bear on their very face the mark of
your innocence. The passage behind the Shrine is so small
that it is enough to kill a man of suffocation if he were to be
two minutes inside. Moreover, it does not communicate with
the Shrine. The sliding panels are so new that they can
be worked but with force and difficulty, and moreover make a
terrible noise. This proves that they could never have been
used before."
The Coulombs left Adyar on May 25th, 1884, the first
part of the plot having failed by its too prompt discovery. It
was, however, to be revived in the future by the agent of the
Psychical Research Society, and, owing to his misrepresentation
of the facts, few people know that, admittedly at the time,
none of these arrangements existed while Mme. Blavatsky was
at Adyar, and while the phenomena were occurring, and that
all traces of them had been removed before she returned.
They were new in May, 1884, and still incomplete, the wooden
hack of the Shrine and the wall on which it hung being still intact,
so that there was no communication between Mme. Blavatsky s room
and the Occult Room. All was shown to the numerous visitors
at Headquarters during the summer of 1884, the wall and
panels being left for a time as they were found. Mr. Judge,
who came to Adyar on May 26th, thus describes the hole
" It was a rough, unfinished hole in the wall, opening into the
space left when the old door had been bricked up. . This
. .
a " thin coolie " finally, " a small boy about ten years of
;
age " squeezed in, but found that he could not stand upright,
for there were large pieces of hard mortar projecting from the
sides. Mr. Judge then sent for a man, who " in my presence
bricked up the aperture, re-plastered it, and then re-papered
the whole space." And this was done, be it remembered, in
the autumn of 1884, before the return of Mme. Blavatsky.
In vain did Madame Coulomb try to make mischief out-
side. She went to accuse the Society to the Collector of the
district— her charge that the T.S. was against British rule was
really dangerous —
but he told Mr. Lane-Fox that the woman
talked such incoherent nonsense that he did not believe a word
she said she was crazy, and he refused to see her when she
:
but I swear on all that is sacred for me that I never said fraud,
secret passages, traps, nor that my husband had helped you in
any way. If my mouth has uttered these words, I pray to the
Almighty to shower on my head the worst maledictions in
nature." Foiled for the moment, the Coulombs were not
disheartened, and their second attempt was fated to be more
successful than the first. M. Coulomb's writing was
curiously like that of Madame Blavatsky, Major-General
Morgan tells us,^ and the forged letter sent to London,
significantly termed by the Master " a pioneer," indicated the
line of the coming attack. In London, the Psychical Research
Society, to some extent, apparently, impressed by what they
had heard and seen in connexion with Madame Blavatsky
Mr. F. W. Myers having himself seen some phenomena which,
—
he enthusiastically declared, he could never doubt appointed
a Committee to take "such evidence as to the alleged phenom-
ena connected with the Theosophical Society as might be
offered by members of that body at the time in England, or as
could be collected elsewhere," and this Committee after-
wards sent one of their number, Mr. Hodgson, to India to
investigate matters on the spot. Meanwhile the Coulombs had
been busy casting about for some way of improving their
;
Sir, —
I have seen an article in the Times of India, referring
to certain letters alleged to have been written by Madame
Blavatsky to Madame Coulomb, and your brief notice of the
same. I desire to warn your readers and the public generally
against accepting these supposed letters as altogether genuine.
I can do this with the better grace that all connection between
myself, Madame Blavatsky, Col. Olcott, Mr. Damodar, has long since
ceased. I was unable to approve of many things in the conduct
of the Society and of its journal, and hence, though still
warmly sympathizing in its avowed objects, I have, for
the last two years or more, been only a nominal member of
the Theosopiaical Society. It is wholly without bias therefore
that' I advise all persons interested in the question to suspend
their judgments as to the authenticity of these supposed
letters. I will not now raise the question as to whether
Madame Blavatsky is capable of participating in foolish
frauds, such as these letters would make her appear to have
directed. All I desire to point out is this Madame Blavatsky
:
quite different from that in which I see that the Times of India
accepts it, but believe me, Madame Blavatsky is far too
37
or the fear of them. You may publish this letter now, or when
I am dead, to let them know." Again " If you or any one of
:
who saw the letters that they were manifest forgeries (see
Report, 1885); the testimony of Mr. G. Row, 'from my
experience as a judicial officer of twenty-five years' standing,'
'
I came to the conclusion that every one of the letters was a
—
top of his bent it may have been more his misfortune than
—
his fault but I blame him for the prejudice which made him
welcome every unproved suspicion or charge made by known
enemies of the Theosophical Society, and ignore all evidence
tendered by friends. His attitude throughout was not the
attitude of the investigator, but that of the sceptic, searching
only for proofs of fraud. Mr. Sinnett put the position well,
after the issue of Mr. Hodgson's Report. He writes
" 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 per-
suading him that the alleged phenomena were genuine. He
shows himself to have been watching their demeanor 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 endeavor to
penetrate the secrecy in which these treasures have hitherto
42
—
hearing at the same time two voices Madame Blavatsky's
—
and another while sitting with her alone in her room in the
house of the late Mr. Nobin K. Bannerji at Darjiling. Con-'
the reader of the hollow in the wall which was near the corner
of iMadame Blavatsky's room. The confederate may have
44
evening of his arrival] and more carefully afterwards, and found it like
any other cupboard provided with slielves, and a solid unmovable back,
hung upon an apparently solid and plastered wall. However, as a door
had been in that wall before, which, as Madame Blavatsky told me, had
been walled up, and as a wall without any adequate support from below
would be so very heavy that the joists upon which it rested might give
way, the interior of the wall was not filled up with bricks, but was left
hollow, leaving a space between the bricks of some twelve inches in
depth." (Report 0/ Observations, etc, 1\ 12).
45
—
thought of utilising the Shrine with its already high reputa-
tion — for phenomena of their own, with the view of increasing
their slender resources for Madame Blavatsky tells how
;
for the few months during which she was staying there, and
its presence cannot explain the phenomena which are borne
witness to by reputable American, European and Indian
gentlemen, from 1874 ^^ 1882. Moreover, the phenomena in
connection with the Shrine also occurred after she had left
A(,lyar for Europe. It is necessary, if the S.P.R. Report is to
be credited, not only to condemn Madame Blavatsky as a
fraud, but to condemn also the honorable gentlemen
associated with her during all these years, as her fellow-
conspirators and cheats. Even if they were her dupes while
she was present, they must have become active participants
in fraud when she was absent.
Mr. Hodgson's second charge consists of the forged
letters produced by Madame Coulomb, and alleged by her to
have come from Madame Blavatsky. The only evidence for
their genuineness is the word of Madame Coulomb, and the
opinion of two experts, Messrs. Netherclift & Sims. This
opinion is much discounted by the fact that Mr. Netherclift
—
and Mr. Sims in this matter of the recognition of Madame
—
Blavatsky's writing x'aried and contradicted themselves Mr.;
Russian agent, and "her ultimate object has been the further-
ance of Russian interests." This sapient conclusion is,
perhaps, the best criterion of Mr. Hodgson's ability, the more
so as it is partly based on a " fragmentary script which forms
—
one of the Blavatsky-Coulomb documents " in plain English,
a torn scrap picked out of Madame Blavatsky's waste-paper
basket by Madame Coulomb.
Mr. Sinnett cruelly strikes down this great discovery in
an indignant protest against the S.P.R. for publishing, "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
50
without fear of its bite,' said the Lord Buddha. Help the
'
things explains the shameless attack that has been rhade upon
an almost defenceless woman, and the inaction in face of it to
which I am so cruelly condemned.
Jan. 14, 1886. H. P. Blavatsky."
There was one policy with regard to the Masters, the
phenomena worked by her, and Their communications, which
she would not tolerate the attempts to separate the occult
:
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