Theosophy - The Early Days of Theosophy in Europe by A.P.Sinnett
The
Early DaysofTheosophy
in Europe
by A.P. Sinnett
Theosophical
Publishing House Ltd, London, 1922 ΔΔ
NOTE
[Page 5] Mr. Sinnett's literary Executor in arranging for the publication this
volume is prompted to add a few words of explanation.
There is naturally some diffidence experienced in placing before the public
a posthumous MSS of personal reminiscences dealing in various instances
with people still living.
It would, however, be impossible to use the editorial blue pencil without
destroying the historical value of the MSS.
Mr. Sinnett's position and associations with the Theosophical Society
together with his standing as an author in the Theosophical movement
alike demand that his last writing should be published, and it is left to each
reader to form his own judgment as to the value of the book in the light of
his own study of the questions involved.
CHAPTER
- 1 -
NO
record could truly be called a History of the Theosophical Society if it
concerned itself merely with events taking shape on the physical plane of
life. From the first such events have been the result of activities on a higher
plane; of steps taken by the unseen Powers presiding over human
evolution, whose existence was unknown in the outer world when their
great undertaking — the Theosophical Movement — was originally
set on foot. To those known in the outer world as the Founders of the
Theosophical Society — Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott — the
existence of these higher powers, The Brothers as they were called at
first, was more or less imperfectly comprehended. That some purpose the
Brothers had in view was to be subserved by steps the founders felt
impelled to take in the year 1875 was dimly realised. And in the first volume
of Colonel Olcott's Old Diary Leaves it is possible to trace the growth
of this belief and equally possible to see how remote from any true conception
of that[Page
8] purpose were the ideas which
animated the Founders when they held the meeting, since regarded as the
inauguration of the Theosophical Society, in November, 1875. On the outer
plane the idea of establishing a Society — its name was agreed on later — was
suggested by Colonel Olcott during an informal gathering of persons who
had become interested in Madame Blavatsky, at her rooms in New York, in
September, 1875, the ostensible motive of the gathering being interest
in a lecture to be given by a certain Mr. Felt on Egyptian antiquities
and the magical science of the Egyptian priests, but we soon lose sight
of Mr. Felt as the formation of the Society proceeded.
The
day after this gathering a more formal meeting was held, and those present
resolved to form a Society for "the study and elucidation of
Occultism, the Cabala, etc..".At an adjourned meeting on September the
18th "it was decided that the name of the Society should be TheTheosophical Society . "
Early
in the last century the drift of cultivated opinion in the western world
had been definitely in the direction of pure materialism. The progress of
science had encouraged the belief that all consciousness was the result of
natural laws working through organized matter, satirised at the time in
some verses dictated by a more spiritual faith: "I believe in corn and rice;
not in virtue or in vice". But playful criticisms of that order had very
little effect. The Masters saw the danger of the predominant tendency, and
it was decided that an attempt should be made to ascertain whether the
world was ripe for a partial revelation of the natural laws governing
human evolution. This attempt took the shape of the Theosophical
movement. While the Theosophical movement was still in the experimental
stage the[Page
9] teachings, given as an experiment,
were not systematically designed. It was enough to indicate some broad
truths — the
existence of the Masters, the growth of the Ego under the law of Reincarnation,
itself subject to Karma, and the stupendous magnitude of a planetary scheme
to which we of this Earth belong.
After the publication
of Isis Unveiled Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott
left New York on their way to India. They had already become acquainted
by correspondence with the Swami Dyanand Sarasvati, a Hindoo reformer
at the head of an organization called the Arya Samaj, and became
possessed with a belief, eventually abandoned, that the Theosophical
Society would derive advantage by being connected with that organization,
and it was described for a time as The Theosophical Society of the AryaSamaj, and the name was, for a short period adopted by a branch
established in London. The formation of the first European branch of the
Society was due to the influence and exertions of Mr. Charles Carlton
Massey, who, in the same way that Colonel Olcott is described as the
Founder of the Society in New York, was certainly the Founder of the
Society in Great Britain. He was the son of W. N. Massey, the first Finance
Minister of India and himself a barrister, though private means enabled him
to dispense with the active practice of that profession. He was devoted to
earnest philosophical study, and translated Baron Carl Duprel's book (ThePhilosophy of Mysticism). I made his acquaintance during my first holiday
visit home from India in 1881 and enjoyed his friendship till his death. He
had visited America in 1875, drawn thither by interest in certain remarkable
spiritualistic phenomena then attracting public attention. At the EddyHomestead, the scene of these manifestations, he seems to have made
acquaintance[Page
10] with Colonel Olcott and Madame
Blavatsky. He was present at the inaugural meeting of the Theosophical Society
in New York and on his return to London established in co-operation with friends
the branch above referred to. In his Old Diary Leaves Colonel Olcott
tells us that according to the first circular issued in June, 1878, it was
called TheBritish Theosophical Society of the AryaSamaj of Aryavart.
Its objects were then defined as follows :
1. The British Theosophical Society is founded for the purpose of
discovering the nature and powers of the human soul and spirit by
investigation and experiment.
2. The object of the Society is to increase the amount of human health,
goodness, knowledge, wisdom and happiness.
3. The fellows pledge themselves to endeavour to the best of their
powers, to live a life of temperance, purity and brotherly love. They
believe in a great First Intelligent Cause, and in the Divine Sonship of the
spirit of man, and hence in the immortality of that spirit and in the universal
brotherhood of the human race.
4.
The Society is in connection and sympathy with the Arya Samaj of Aryavart,
one object of which Society is to elevate, by a true spiritual education,
mankind out of degenerate, idolatrous and impure forms of worship, wherever
prevalent.[Vide Old Diary Leaves, vol i, page 399]
The only interest attaching to this earliest attempt to define the purposes of
the Theosophical movement resides in the use of the word Brotherhood.
Mr. Massey was then the first to make use of that expression. Colonel
Olcott adopted it from him.[Page 11]
The circular embodying the British statement of objects was no
doubt in Colonel Olcott's hands when he wrote; but the elaborate name for
the Society, connecting it with the Eastern organization seems to have
been forgotten almost as soon as framed. I have in my possession the
original Minute Book of the British Society and this interesting volume gives
us the actual facts connected with the very earliest beginning of Theosophy
in Europe, due, as I have said above to the efforts of Mr. C. C. Massey.
The
first entry in the Minute Book shows that a meeting was held at 38, Great
Russell Street, London, on the 27th of June, 1878, when those present,
(all the names being recorded) were Mr. J. Storer Cobb, (already with some
of the others named — a member of the New York Society), Mr.
C. C. Massey, Dr. C. Carter Blake, Dr. George Wyld, Dr. H. J. Billing and
Miss E. Kislingbury. Mr. Cobb presided.
The
first resolution passed declared: "That in the opinion of the English
Fellows of the Theosophical Society of New York present at this meeting, it
is desirable to form a Society in England in connection and sympathy with
that body". Mr. C. C. Massey was then, by ballot, elected President of the
new Branch Society and Miss Kislingbury was chosen as its Secretary.
The
meetings of the new Society were not held frequently. The next, after the
inaugural meeting was held on the Ist of October, and then another month
elapsed before there was a third. At that time no one seemed to know what
to do. Many names are added to the list of members. A suggestion is made
that books should be selected and discussed, also that mesmeric experiments
should be tried, but this idea does not seem to have been followed up.
As we can see now the formation of the Societies in[Page
12] New York and London, regarded
from a higher point of view, merely provided a framework to be animated later
on. Resignations of early members soon began to appear on the minutes. Mr. Billing,
a well-known spiritualist medium of the period goes into trance at one meeting,
and gives information — not more definitely recorded. Then
a sudden stir of excitement ensued when Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott
passed through London on their way to India and were present at a meeting
of the British Society on the 5th of January, 1879.The proceedings, on
that occasion, however, were of a formal character relating to Diplomas,
initiation fees, and obligations and only enlivened by an assurance,
from Madame Blavatsky that "the Society might expect the advent of
competent instructors from India with confidence".
The
Colonel and Madame Blavatsky seem to have been disillusioned about the
Arya Samaj even before leaving New York, and "in resuming the
Society's autonomy" — as Colonel Olcott expresses himself — it
seemed desirable to draw up a new declaration of principles. In this we get
for the first time a foreshadowing of the well-known objects of the
Society. As first stated they were: —
1. The study of occult science.
2. The formation of a nucleus of universal brotherhood.
3. The revival of Oriental literature and philosophy.
At various periods in the progress of the Societythe objects were
rearranged and revised until they assumed the shape, familiar to all later
members, with the Brotherhood idea coming first as follows :
I. To form a nucleus of the universal Brotherhood of Humanity without
distinction of race, creed, sex, caste, or color.[Page 13]
2. To encourage the study of Comparative Religions, Philosophy and
Science.
3. To investigate the unexplained laws of Nature and the Powers latent in
Man.
I
think the motive for the record of the objects in this way may be traced
to an anxiety on the part of Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott, while
they dominated the early growth of the Society in India, to attract as
many members as possible without allowing belief in the existence of the
Masters to become a necessary qualification for membership. In reality
the movement had no meaning if it did not serve to lift, in some measure,
the curtain that had previously veiled the actual Divine Hierarchy from
the consciousness of the outer world. But Brotherhood was a simple idea
within the comprehension of the outer world and as stated in the revised
declaration of objects was calculated to attract Indian sympathies — and
Indian rupees ! Looking back to the history of the Society for the three or
four years following the arrival of Colonel Olcott and Madame Blavatsky in
India in the year 1879 we must be careful to avoid the mistake of
supposing that their efforts to establish the Society on a firm financial basis
had any self regarding motive. As the story proceeds it will be seen that the Founders made
many mistakes, which sometimes nearly wrecked their own work, but they were
both utterly free from any personal avarice in this matter. Colonel Olcott
had thrown up occupations in America which had been fairly lucrative in order
to devote his life to the task of promoting an enterprise which he but dimly
understood, but knew to be designed by the Masters whose claim to his reverent
attachment he had learned fully to appreciate. He was not called upon to interpret
their teachings. At the period I am now dealing with he had[Page
14] scarcely glimpsed them. But
he felt that he had to make the Theosophical Society a big solid fact in
the world — especially in India, to which country he was drawn by
sympathies which much later knowledge enables some of us to understand.
In former lives — though in 1879 we none of us knew anything about
former lives —
he had been closely connected with India, and at important periods of its
history had played important parts. In this life he went out with Madame
Blavatsky to India vaguely feeling that for them it was a holy land, and
his practical businesslike aptitude guided his efforts when there, towards
making the Society a business-like success. He was indefatigable in
organising new branches and in collecting the initiation fees without
which the work could not go on. It is undeniable that he lived in India
on the Society's funds, but it is equally true that his personal expenditure
was always kept within the lowest possible limits, his motives of action
pure and unselfish. And as far as Madame Blavatsky was concerned, when my
wife and I first knew her in 1879, she was hard at work earning her living
by writing for Russian periodicals.
This
explanation will show how it came to pass that Brotherhood, in
later years, was regarded as the foremost idea animating the Society, — the
recognition of universal brotherhood the one condition of membership.
Adopted in India to attract natives of that country apt to be sore about the
prestige of the European residents, it assumed a new meaning when
transplanted to Europe. People whose political sympathies took the
colouring of ultra-democracy and socialism imagined that the Society was
mainly inspired with sympathies of that order. The preservation of the word nucleus in the formulation adopted ought to have averted the mistake,
and, as[Page15] the
teaching of the Masters gradually filtered through to the outer world it should
have been seen that the nucleus of a universal brotherhood
consists of the advanced members of the human family in a position to
understand the spiritual unity manifest on the Buddhic plane. In the long
process of ages that comprehension should be universal throughout the
human family but we are far as yet from having reached that sublime
condition.
Some time ago, in July, 1917, I wrote in the Vahan, the magazine
published by the British National branch of the Society, a short article on
this subject, which will bear reproduction now. After explaining how the
word first came to be used, I went on:
From time to time we may usefully review the gradually improving
conceptions we have been enabled to form concerning the grand purposes
underlying the Theosophical Movement. The phrases in which these were
ultimately crystallised do not (though this matters little) reflect the ideas
present to the minds of those who, in 1875, did actually, in a certain sense,
found the Society. At that time it was the result of interest excited among a
small group of persons frequenting Madame Blavatsky's rooms in New
York, by the exhibition of her wonderful occult powers. As Colonel Olcott
explains in his Diary Leaves a lecture was given in September, 1875, at
Madame Blavatsky's rooms by a certain Mr. Felt, of whom we lose sight
afterwards, on the Adept Magic of Egyptian priests. Colonel Olcott then
suggested the formation of a Society to study this subject. That was done,
and though the title Theosophical was adopted (doubtless under occult
guidance) Colonel Olcott at one time proposed to call it a Miracle Club.
The
word Brotherhood does not creep into its records till some years
later. It was first used by Mr. C. C. Massey and his friends in London
when[Page
16] they formed a British branch
of the New York Society. They described its purpose as being, "to discover
the nature and powers of the human soul",
and they went on to declare that they believed in a great intelligent
First Cause and in the divine son-ship of the spirit of Man, and hence
in the immortality of that spirit and in the universal Brotherhood of the
human race". Colonel Olcott took this hint and developed the idea in a
new statement of subjects as follows: " I) The study of Occult Science.
2) The formation of a nucleus of universal brotherhood. 3) The revival
of oriental literature. The word brotherhood was afterwards shifted
into the first place, but it was always accompanied by the qualifying term Nucleus.
It was not used and should never be used by Theosophists with the significance
attached to it by those concerned with mundane politics or social
reconstruction on the physical plane. The word in its theosophical meaning
refers to the Unity of Divine consciousness on lofty planes of Nature,
and to the nucleus for the reflection of that Unity on the physical plane
that may be formed by theosophical students who appreciate the teaching
aright.
The
gross democratic meaning attached to the term Brotherhood is an insult
to Theosophical teaching. The consciousness which expands into perfect
humanity is, no doubt, in a subtle metaphysical sense identical in its
nature with the consciousness, not merely of the humbler classes in civilized
countries, but with that also of the crocodile, the dog, the Australian
savage, and the Master of Wisdom. But this does not mean that all manifested
consciousness, in whatever vehicle we find it is therefore invested with
equal claims on our respect. It is invested with equal claims on our sympathy
and that is how people who do not appreciate subtle distinctions drift
into the misuse of the term brotherhood. If the sheep and the guinea pig
are included in the universal brotherhood, well and good, but we do not
ask the sheep or the guinea pig to contribute their opinions to discussions
of the suffrage question[Page
17] for example. And that thought
is a clue to the fallacy involved in regarding theosophical brotherhood
as leading to political socialism. Theosophical teaching concerning human
evolution shows us the human family at present at very different stages
of development. It rescues us from the old fashioned blunder — arising
from the ignorant delusion that each new child is a new creation — to the effect
that all have equal rights. According to a phrase classical in political
writings, all are equally entitled to "life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness", but with varied claims on the privilege of shaping laws
providing for the fulfilment of that fundamental idea.
Thus to let the formula, in which the objects of the Theosophical Society
are generally expressed, distort the purpose of the movement to suit the
purpose of any mundane theory of social reform is a very grievous blunder.
From the beginning all qualified exponents of the theosophical movement
have warned us to keep clear of all political contamination. The society
includes persons of very varied political opinions but within the society their
only duty is to study, and promote the study, of the super-physical spiritual
science gradually unfolded for our benefit and through us for the benefit of
all mankind. The fulfilment of that duty should be compatible with perfect
harmony of feeling within the society, where it is needless and undesirable
to discuss varied beliefs as to how the physical welfare of the community
may be best promoted. We should not furnish unsympathetic critics of our
real work with an excuse for pretending to regard us as a body of people
entangled with questionable schemes for subversive changes on the
physical plane.
In
reality the main object of the Society — though this was not apparent
to the so-called Founders in the first instance, — was to
set wide open the doors leading to initiation on the Path, and thus to
the early attainment of the conditions towards which evolution is tending, — doors
which had previously[Page
18] been shut against all but
the few struggling with immense difficulty to make their way onwards. But
before elucidating that statement more fully let me carry on the external
narrative towards the period at which my wife and myself began to co-operate.
With
the arrival of the Founders in India the real development of the Society
may be regarded as beginning. The situation at the time was briefly as
follows: —
Madame
Blavatsky is the central figure to be considered. She was the one person
who knew of her own knowledge, that The Brothers, — as
she called them in those days — were Beings, human in aspect, of
flesh and blood, for she had been for a time in company with two of them
in Tibet. She knew they had dazzling powers in dealing with the affairs
of the world. She herself had faculties of a super-physical order that
kept her in touch with them wherever she might be. She knew she had a mission
to fulfil which had for the moment assumed the shape of the Theosophical
Society. She must have been conscious of possessing wonderful powers the
exercise of which was under restriction, to which she submitted in devotion
to the great Brother whom she regarded as her own Master, in a pre-eminent
degree. She had written, Isis Unveiled which, as a matter of fact,
did not do much towards the unveiling of Isis but was full of extraordinarily
suggestive hints, as also of evidences showing that when writing it she
was quite ignorant even of what we came later to regard as the A.B.C. of
Theosophical teaching.
Colonel
Olcott had not yet begun even to think of that. He simply knew that the
Brothers existed; were sublimely entitled to his devotion; that his immediate
business was to run the Theosophical Society, and to endure with all the
stoicism he could muster,[Page
19] the crushing tyranny of
Madame Blavatsky — of which more anon.
The Theosophical Society was still in an embryonic condition. It lingered,
almost extinct, as an inactive nucleus in America. It had just been
established in London and was in flickering existence under the influence
chiefly of Mr. C. C. Massey and Mr. Henry J. Hood, themselves so far
having no defined conception of the task they had undertaken. Certainly
nothing was doing on the physical plane at that time to hint at the
stupendous developments that were in reserve for the great experiment the
Masters had in hand, the preliminary conditions of which had been
provided by the course of events.
I
must now deal — by the light of information obtained at a much later
period — with the super-physical conditions that prevailed at the period
under review, quite unsuspected by the persons who had been guided to
subserve them in the outer world.
As
already explained, as far back as the year 1830 the Brothers — the
Elder Brethren of humanity and those of still loftier spiritual attainment
all merged in the Divine Hierarchy and constituting the sublime organization
that we have drifted into speaking of as The White Lodge — held
their momentous conference. They provided for the establishment of
Spiritualism, and for the later experiment that eventually took the shape of
the Theosophical Society.
The difficulties attending
the task go far to explain what seems at the first glance as we look back
the tedious roundabout methods employed. Agents had to be found on the physical
plane, and the qualifications needed were not easily found in combination.
The first person wanted had to serve as a link between the White Lodge and
the world at large, one able to speak of the Brothers from personal knowledge
and[Page
20] yet attached to the
ordinary world. He or she had to be endowed with the superior senses
which would enable him or her to remain in conscious touch with the
Brothers even while living out in the ordinary world, and beyond this to
be trustworthy as regards the one supreme attribute of loyalty to the Master
he or she might specially belong to. Other attributes were extremely
desirable, but the three just enumerated were essential. And protracted
search all over the world failed to provide a better link than — Madame
Blavatsky!
As
deplorable results ensued later on from many characteristics she displayed,
innumerable intelligent members of the Society, as it grew, asked with
indignation — why did the Masters select such an ill qualified
Agent ? The answer simply is: — They could not find a better ! As
the story proceeds it will be seen that the embarrassment they had to face
through Madame Blavatsky's indiscretions — to use a mild term — would
often have been ludicrous if they had not also been so grievous in their
consequences. But Masters of the White Lodge are patient and
persevering. The Society lived through the dangerous ailments of the
cradle, period, has hardly yet as I write in 1918 escaped completely
from the diseases of childhood, but has long since developed a constitution
that robs them of danger to life, and enables the Society to defy the
machinations of invisible foes. But I must now look back at our early
troubles, as they were entangled with the important chapter in the Society's
history which begins with the year 1879.[Page
21]
CHAPTER
- 2 -
EARLY
in the year 1879 Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott arrived in Bombay.
At that time I was, and had been for about eight years, Editor of the Pioneer,
the leading Anglo-Indian daily newspaper. Friends in London had told
me about Madame Blavatsky's book IsisUnveiled, how it opened up new vistas of thought beyond those suggested
by spiritualism, of which my wife and I had seen a good deal before coming
out to India. It seemed to revive old beliefs concerning Magic, long
regarded in the western world as mere superstition. At all events the
authoress of that book was a remarkable person, sufficiently so for public
notice, and I wrote a note in the Pioneer apropos to her arrival in India
suggesting that she might be in search of new varieties of mediumship
among, the people of that country. This prompted Colonel Olcott to write
to me, though at the time, little foreseeing all that was destined to grow out
of the correspondence, I did not keep the letter in question. The Editor
of a daily paper is naturally deluged with correspondence and cannot always
tell what is worth preservation.
But
intuition, as I see now, came to the rescue, intuition not on my own part,
but on that of my wife. I well remember how one evening during our
hawa-khana (the Hindustani phrase, eating the air — i.e.,
driving in the cool (?) of the evening) we talked of the new comers, as probably
connected with the subject of spiritualism in which we had been interested before
leaving England. Then my wife suggested as[Page
22] a daring experiment
that we should invite them to stay with us when they came up country, as
no doubt they would do later on. We both laughed over the notion, feeling
that there was an element of risk in the adventure as the guests we
proposed for ourselves were perfect strangers, but decided to run the risk.
So I duly sent the invitation, and (in view of the influences that were playing
upon us at that time) of course it was eagerly accepted. Long afterwards
Madame Blavatsky told me how emphatic her Master had been in desiring
that this should be done.
I
feel impelled as I write now (1918) — ten years after my wife passed
on from this plane of existence, to a condition of great exaltation in
the White Lodge — an expression which includes many below the Master rank,
as well as many more high above it — to give my readers something
like a fair comprehension of the part she played in our joint work. Throughout
this, of course, external activities, writing and lecturing, fell to my
share, but I cannot exaggerate the extent to which her steadfast loyalty
to the task we had in hand contributed to whatever success we achieved.
Without possessing psychic faculties, in the ordinary sense of the term,
her intuitions were always to be trusted, and her practical influence as
hostess while our house in London, after our final return from India, was
the center of theosophical expansion in this country, had an all-important
effect in attracting sympathy. Amongst those who became our intimate friends
her influence was keenly appreciated, and looking back on the exciting
years beginning in 1883, and ultimately rendered trying by Madame Blavatsky's
presence in London, I realize how I myself was more than helped to
persevere with our work by her unvarying constancy to the lofty purpose.
It will be impossible to[Page
23] reiterate this idea at every
step in the narrative I have to carry on, but throughout it the spiritual energy
behind my public activities was due in very great measure to the stimulating
companionship it was my good fortune to enjoy. We had some terrible
trials to bear in the progress of time. The faintest comprehension of the
way in which the great powers of Evil were in arms from the beginning
against all persons prominent in the theosophical movement, will suggest
the simple truth that very heavy attacks were leveled against ourselves.
During the worst sufferings they occasioned my wife's constancy never
faltered, and though she is now on levels of existence from which all such
troubles may be regarded with composure, or a smile, they were ordeals in
the severest sense of the term at the time. Through these she has passed
now as I say to very beautiful destinies. Of them I know a good deal both
from herself and from others, for I am in touch with that higher world to
which she belongs, but to go into further detail would at all events be
premature for the moment. Apropos to the first instance in which her
intuition prompted us to do the right thing in reference to Madame
Blavatsky, I have gone far ahead of the actual stage I have reached in my
story; but as it proceeds the reader will all the better be able to appreciate
the extent to which my wife participated in all our joint doings during the
early days of the Theosophical movement.
The plans Colonel Olcott and Madame Blavatsky had already made
provided for a long tour in the south of India and Ceylon, and it was not till
nearly the end of the year, that she and Colonel Olcott actually came to us
at Allahabad.
I
vividly remember the circumstances around their arrival. They came by a
train reaching Allahabad at a very early hour in the morning. I went to the
station[Page
24] to meet them and brought them
back. It was still so early that our Chota hazri or first breakfast
was set out in the verandah though my wife had not yet emerged from her
room. Madame Blavatsky sat down with me at the table and asked me if we
had been trying any experiments in spiritualism. I told her that we had
done so sometimes but without any results, "not evenso
much as a rap", ----- "Oh", she said, "raps are theeasiest things to get", and thereupon put
her hand upon the table. At once raps of the genuine spiritualistic order
were heard all about it. My wife almost immediately appeared and received the
visitors cordially. Our first impression of Madame Blavatsky was certainly
pleasant and I find in my wife's Diary for that day — the 4th of December, 1879 — the
following entry concerning Madame Blavatsky. "A most original old lady who
promises great amusement". But though the day passed pleasantly and nothing
occurred to disturb first impressions, we did get something like a shock
a day or two later. We were sitting round the fire in the evening — for
about Christmas time at Allahabad one makes a practice of wanting a fire
to look at — and Colonel Olcott had been talking of some among
Madame Blavatsky's jadoo or magic performances in New York.
It came to be suggested that she should create something for us then
and there, and I proposed a cigar holder as the object to be produced.
Madame Blavatsky went through some preliminaries, rubbing Colonel Olcott's
meerschaum pipe in her hands, and then — simply put her hand into
her pocket and produced a cigar holder. The performance as an exhibition
of magic was so absurd, so grotesquely destitute of any evidential value,
that it was difficult to know what to say. I don't remember how we got
through the rest of the evening, but I do remember how, when my wife
and I were at last alone[Page
25] together, we looked at
one another! No words were needed. Were we really in the hands of a clumsy impostor?
That was the wonder in both our minds as we began to talk. Of course there were
the raps, which Madame Blavatsky had produced for us in all sorts of ways;
they were certainly evidences of something more than even mere
mediumship. They were obviously under her control in a way that is never
the case with mediumship, so we resolved to be patient and not jump to
any premature conclusions.
As
time went on the disagreeable impression faded away and we became cordially
attached to the old Lady as we called her, that name in turn
becoming abbreviated till she was generally known in our intimate circle as
theO.L. The visit originally designed for a few days' duration
was expanded into one lasting about four weeks. The O.L. was a bright talker
at small dinner parties at our house and elsewhere; and we gradually heard
from her a good dealabout the
Brothers and the Theosophical Society
which at last she induced us to join, rather reluctantly at
the time, as a great deal connected with its organization jarred upon our
own taste, but we were led to believe in the Brothers and their interest
in the Society in spite of the fact that the O.L.'s behavior offended good
taste in many ways, especially in her treatment of Colonel Olcott, to whom
she dealt out very rough language from time to time and tyrannized over to
an exasperating degree. "Do
you think" — I
remember he once said to me those words or to that effect — "that I
would stand going about with that mad Frenchwoman, if I did not know what
lies behind her".
On one occasion he lectured at a public hall on some aspect of Theosophy,
with Mr. A. O. Hume in the chair, and not being favourably impressed by his
address the O.L. abused him violently in the course [Page
26] of our drive home. In
a book I wrote long afterwards Incidents in the Life of Madame Blavatsky — I
refer to this occasion, saying: — "To hear her talk on this subject
at intervals during the evening one mig ht have thought the aspirations
of her life compromised". [op.cit. Second Edition,
page 178] There
was another bad outbreak on the evening she and Colonel Olcott left us — the
30th of December. She had forgotten a shawl and threw the blame on the
long suffering Colonel, but I need not go here into further detail of
that kind. I myself as we grew intimate found it difficult to bear with
her tempers, and I see allusions to this in my wife's Diary — a
most valuable record, as it has turned out to be, of the events associated
with the growth of our relations with the Society.
In
spite of somewhat mixed feelings concerning them we invited our guests
to pay us another visit at Simla, where by this time it had become possible
for us to spend the hot weather months. They arrived there on the 8th of
September, 1880. At this time a good many branches of the Society had
been established by Colonel Olcott, but no one had as yet any glimmering
notion even of the ultimate destinies awaiting it, or of the purpose it
was designed by the Masters to fulfil. This is shown — as indeed
in other ways also — by a letter Colonel Olcott wrote while with
us at Simla to the Foreign Secretary asking to be relieved from all suspicion
of political intrigue. The letter is quoted in his Diary Leaves and
in it he describes the Society as organised "for the defined purpose of
studying the religions, philosophies and sciences of ancient Asia".[Old
Diary Leaves, vol ii, p 229]
The events attending the presence of Madame Blavatsky at Simla at
the period above-mentioned are[Page 27] described for the most part in my
book The Occult World, and it will not
be necessary to go over the same story again. The manifestations of occult
power then freely given had a profound effect on my own mind. I felt that
those who exhibited such marvelous power over natural forces unfamiliar to
physical science must possess knowledge to correspond. In regard to the management
of the Society, Madame Blavatsky showed curious inaptitude for the work,
and this led me on one occasion to say that I wished I could get into
communication with one of the Brothers she talked about. I felt sure they
would be more reasonable people to deal with than herself. Conversation
showed that she thought this might not be impossible, and I wrote a letter
addressed to A Brother and gave it to Madame Blavatsky for transmission.
In due course I received a reply, and this was the first of a long series of
letters from the Masters K. H. and M. which led to the preparation of TheOccult World and afterwards to Esoteric Buddhism.
I
may as well at once explain, what I only came to realise myself in the
progress of later years, the true character of this correspondence. The
letters were not, in the beginning what I imagined them to be — letters
actually written by the Master and then forwarded by occult means either to
Madame Blavatsky or deposited somewhere about the house where I
should find them. They were certainly inspired by K. H. (all in the beginning
bore his signature) but for the most part, if not always, were dictations to
a competent clairaudient amanuensis and Madame Blavatsky was generally
the amanuensis in question. They contained passages of great charm and
literary beauty, and making careful selections, I gave some of these in TheOccult World. But from the first[Page
28] Madame Blavatsky seems to have
been possessed with the belief that she could improve on and expand the
Masters' communications. This did not matter so much in the beginning,
but later on when the letters were devoted to the conveyance of teaching in
occult science, and became the material I worked with in writing EsotericBuddhism Madame Blavatsky's expansions, additions and "improvements"
(?) were almost disastrous. Long after she passed away from this life,
as my methods of communication with the Masters assumed new and
Improved conditions, I have discussed this matter with the Master K. H.
and in reference to some passages in the letters of the teaching period
he has frankly told me that as they stand, they are atravesty of
his meaning.
None
the less they contained masses of information concerning the natural truths
that have since become the fundamental ideas underlying Theosophy which
were previously as unknown to Madame Blavatsky as to myself. Reincarnation,
Karma, the planetary chains, the succession of the root races, then sub-races
and so on, were not tampered with. Madame Blavatsky did not know enough
about them at that time to make it possible for her to import confusion
into information on those subjects which passed through her hands. But
unhappily she had contracted — under conditions I will not attempt
to elucidate — a bitter
detestation of spiritualism, and sometimes when the letters touched on
after-death conditions she wove this feeling into them. The result was
dreadfully misleading, and the consequences very deplorable, as this
narrative will show later on.
Reverting
now to the course of events at the Simla period in 1880, I must explain
that Mr. A. O. Hume, the head of one Department of the Government of India,
took a deep interest in the wonderful phenomena[Page 29] then
in progress through the agency of — or by personal power
of — Madame Blavatsky. I showed him the letters I received from
the Master K. H., and he in turn wrote to the Master himself and received
replies. We worked at this time, and later on again in close co-operation. The OccultWorld will show this more in detail.
In December Madame Blavatsky paid us another visit at Allahabad and in
March, 1881, my wife and I went for a second holiday trip to England. I
wrote The Occult World at sea during the voyage home and it was
published soon after our arrival.
Now
for the first time I made the acquaintance of Mr. C. C. Massey and Mr.
Hood, the leading members of the embryonic Theosophical Society in London
where a lively and cordial recollection of Madame Blavatsky's visit was
entertained, but where as yet no progress had been made towards even comprehending
the ultimate purpose of the Theosophical movement. The experiences recorded
in The Occult World, however, gave a great
stimulus to the infant Society. The meetings in Great Russell Street were
tinged with a new interest. Eager expectation prevailed. Nobody knew what
to expect, but everybody expected something. Amongst other uncertainties
was one which gave rise to some ludicrous incidents occasionally. Were
we, or were we not to be a secret society ? Colonel Olcott, inclining to be
attached to form and ceremony, had invented a ceremony of initiation into
the Society, that newly joining members were called upon to go through.
They were taught a form of words to be used in addressing a stranger, if
one desired to ascertain whether he was a member of the Society or not.
These had to be answered, if he were a member, by other forms of words
and there was a rather clumsy hand grip to be learned. I never liked all[Page
30] this affectation of mystery when
we really had nothing to conceal, and contrived a little later on to sweep it
all away, but it was still in operation at the period I am dealing with. And
I remember how at one of the meetings one of the original members more or less
in charge of the arrangements came to me and told me there was a strange lady
outside who said she was a theosophist and wanted to come in, but did notknow
the signs! Was
she to be admitted ? I said yes, and the lady then admitted was no other
than Mrs. Gebhard whom I then saw for the first time. She had actually
come over from Germany for the express purpose of getting into touch with
the new movement in London (and with ourselves) and played a very
important part in the movement later on. If it had not been that I was
already rather contemptuous about the initiation signs she would have
been denied admission to our little meeting and might — had she been
of a different temper — have been disgusted with the whole undertaking,
instead of becoming, as she soon did, one of its most useful allies.
From time to time in later years there has been here and there some
recrudescence of a desire to decorate theosophical membership with
secret signs and passwords of the Freemasonic order. The love of secrecy
for its own sake is a curious human attribute not infrequently encountered,
but is rather undignified really when there is nothing to conceal. For those
in a position to advance along the Path, in full physical consciousness and
to acquire real occult knowledge and power, secrecy of the most inviolable
order is a matter of course, but membership in the Theosophical Society
does not involve that kind of knowledge. It gives us knowledge of priceless
importance; the knowledge that the higher kind of knowledge is obtainable,
but we need not go on to enact a falsehood,[Page 31] the pretense that we
have already in our possession mysteries that must be shielded from
profane eyes.
The
absurdity of such pretence is emphasised when we realise that the whole
purpose of the Theosophical movement as designed by the White Lodge is
to offer the world for public consumption information concerning the laws
governing spiritual progress that show how its acceleration may be accomplished.
I have sometimes ventured to assert that the real purpose of the Theosophical
Movement is to recruit the White Lodge! Not for the sake of the White Lodge
but for the sake of the recruits! And when we deal with more familiar formulas,
it will be seen on close inspection that they are really imbedded in the
simpler one I have suggested. So the notion of putting up fences round
the Society to keep off intruders is ridiculous in a way analogous to a
contradiction in terms.
That does not mean that every theosophical meeting should be open to all
comers. In any lodge where the members are genuine students, they will
gradually become familiar with volumes of information concerning unseen
worlds to which outsiders even of advanced commonplace culture are total
strangers. Meetings of such lodges, where advanced studies are going on,
are manifestly suited to members only but that does not mean that they are
handling mysteries from acquaintance with which non-members must be
excluded.
Real
initiations are so solemn and serious that they are merely caricatured
by such sham solemnities as were at one time adopted as initiations into
the Theosophical Society and will never again, I hope, be operative to jar
the good taste of those who may be drawn towards it by appreciation of the
light it throws on the approach to higher wisdom.[Page
32]
CHAPTER
- 3 -
DURING
our visit to London in 1881, a little incident occurred which has a retrospective
interest. We had become intimate in India with Sir Lewis Pelly, engaged
in some important diplomatic work during Lord Lytton's Vice-royalty, and
he was already settled at home in England in 1881, at I, Eaton Square.
There, Lady Pelly on one occasion said that she would like me to give a
drawing room lecture on the new occult experiences I had been having. At
first the idea rather startled me, as I had never at that time been in
the habit of addressing audiences by word of mouth, however familiar with
the use of the pen. But I duly gave the lecture before a picked and influential
gathering of Sir Lewis' and Lady Pelly's friends. I have no record of what
I said and my knowledge at that time was in such a crudely elementary stage
that I suspect I must have talked a good deal of what I should now think
to be nonsense, however, there were none present qualified to criticise
my utterances which were at all events earnest and sincere. I well remember
Mr. H. R. Haweis, the very broad church clergyman, sitting in the front
row and listening attentively. At a much later date after the publication
of EsotericBuddhism I lectured more than once at his own house in Cheyne Walk,
Chelsea, but the lecture at Sir Lewis Pelly's has some historical interest as
the very first utterance of the kind, addressed to a general audience in
England. I wish I could focus it on the exact date, but for once my wife's
Diary does not help me. The Diary has been exceedingly useful to me in
the preparation[Page
33] of the current narrative. It
was begun shortly after our marriage in 1870, and steadily continued right up
to my wife's final illness in 1908. It is not a record of thoughts and feelings,
but a plain record of events — of our doings and experiences throughout
all those years. But during our visit to England in 1881 my wife was ill a part
of the time, and staying at a residential hotel in Norwood. The Diary records
her own doings there, but at the time I myself was staying at rooms in London,
at Down Street, so my personal doings, except for my constant visits to Norwood,
do not get recorded.
One
circumstance, I remember, connected with the Pelly lecture had to do with
one of my audience, then a young man with a very serious inclination towards
mysticism who actually went out to India shortly afterwards in pursuit
of further knowledge. His father, Sir Lewis told me, said to him on one
occasion: "Do you know you have lost me a son !" alluding to the
lecture, as he supposed the determining factor in his son's course of
action. That was not really the case, for the son in question was a friend
of the little group then the nucleus of the British Theosophical Society, and
in touch with their early activities. The Occult World as I have already
said had given a great stimulus to these activities, but it was after my return
to India in June, 1881, that I began to receive letters from the Master
containing specific teaching concerning human evolution, the origin and
destiny of the human race which eventually, a year or two later, furnished
the information which enabled me to write Esoteric Buddhism.
Conditions
of health had rendered it necessary for my wife to remain in England longer
than it was possible for me to do so, and I stayed for a time, during the
remaining hot months, at Mr. Hume's house in[Page
34]
Simla, during part of which time
Madame Blavatsky was a fellow guest. This was a very stormy period, associated,
it is true, with some phenomenal occurrences of interest but chiefly with
the development of profound discontent on Mr. Hume's part — a discontent
which I shared — with Madame Blavatsky as a collaborator in the work
we now felt ourselves to be concerned with, the disclosure for the benefit
of the world at large, of the knowledge (or some part of it) previously
in the exclusive possession of the White Lodge. The situation was curiously
embarrassing. Madame Blavatsky in spite of all her shortcomings was our
only channel of communication with the occult world. At first, crediting
her with more knowledge than she actually possessed we endeavoured to extract
specific teaching from her. We appointed times each day for these efforts
and I still have the M.S. book in which I recorded the results, of a very
unsatisfactory character. Some extracts from the volume will show the way
we struggled with our difficulties. My notes as they stand are put in the
form of question and answer, the questions being rather the outcome of
previous conversation than deliberately formulated by ourselves. For example
we ask :—
"What
are the different kinds of knowledge ? The answer is: — Dgyu, and
the unreal — Dgyu–mi."
Much
time was spent — or wasted — on endeavours to pronounce these
words in a satisfactory manner. Inquiring further we were told: — "Real
knowledge deals with eternal verities and primal causes. The unreal only
with illusory effects".
The
Lhas or Adepts, we were told, alone possess the real knowledge — "The
Khas has made the perfect junction of his soul with the universal mind
. . . The profane cannot become a Dang-ma (purified soul)[Page 35] for
he lacks means of perceiving Chhag, genesis or the beginning of things".
A
little further on: — "Everything in the occult universe, which embraces
all the primal causes, is based upon the principles — Kosmic energy
(Fohat, or breath of wisdom, and Kosmic idealism Thyam-kam (the knowledge
of bringing about) giving the impulse to Kosmic energy in the right direction".
At
every step we get new words, some I believe of Sanscrit origin, some Tibetan,
and our attempts to attach definite meaning to them were not very successful.
The word purush is introduced. We ask "Are we to understand
purush as another name for space, or as a different thing occupying every
part of space?" Answer: — "Swayambu occupies every part of space ?
which itself is boundless and eternal. Swayambu becomes purush when
coming in contact with matter".
All
this was very unsatisfactory and did not help us towards investing theosophy
with claims to the attention of the cultured Europeans. Some letters which
came through from the Master helped us much better; but meanwhile friction
between Mr. Hume and Madame Blavatsky became more and more serious. Looking
back to private conversations I had with Mr. Hume at this period it seems
to me that he was deeply in earnest and genuinely desirous of devoting
himself to the great work of illuminating the outer world with the splendid
vision our opportunities, imperfect as they were, had enabled us to form
of the occult world and its concern with human progress. But no two natures
could have been more entirely out of tune with another than his and Madame
Blavatsky's. Without losing patience with her to the same extent, I felt
with him that she was an impossible person to work with in double harness
in the western world. We had heard[Page
36] by this time of a super-master
over the Master K. H. whom we knew of as the Old Chohan. We determined
to try the experiment of addressing a letter to him declaring that if we
were to do any good in connection with the spread of theosophy we must
be somehow enabled to work quite independently of Madame Blavatsky. Looking
back from my present point of view, I know that this was an absurd course
to take, but it brought matters to a crisis. Ridiculous as the situation
was the only way of sending the letter was, to give it to the person of
whom it complained —
Madame Blavatsky. I remember going in search of her; finding her at the
piano in the ball room of Mr. Hume's house, giving her the letter which she
put in her pocket without even looking at it. I went away to the room in
which I did my work and in a very few minutes Madame Blavatsky burst in.
She was pale to whiteness with excitement. " What had I been doing ?" she
almost screamed. I said the matter could not be talked over by us alone.
I must fetch Mr. Hume. He came and a terrible scene ensued. He was
scrupulously polite, but freezingly cold. Madame Blavatsky in one of her
most flaming tempers.
This
incident was one of the many crises or turning points in the early history
of — I will not say the Theosophical Society, for at that time nothing
worth calling by that name had yet come into existence — but of the early
work undertaken with the view of building a Theosophical Society on the ill
designed foundation laid down some years previously. What would have
happened had the breach with Mr. Hume been averted ? He was certainly
an important force in any undertaking he was concerned with. Madame
Blavatsky used to maintain that he was of too domineering nature to work
under even the Master's guidance. I think she was mistaken, and anyhow
the mere fact[Page
37] that he was led to separate
himself from the theosophical movement was no proof that he was eliminated
by the Master's intention. Their plans continually go wrong, through the
fallibility of the human agents they have to work with, and probably no one
connected with their work has disconcerted more plans than has been done
by Madame Blavatsky herself.
Before the final crisis just described a good many letters had been received
from the Master K. H., some addressed to myself, some to Mr. Hume, and I
had begun to get information leading up to the accumulation which
ultimately enabled me to write Esoteric Buddhism. Some of this teaching
was published in the Theosophist under the heading Fragments of OccultTruth. Most of these were contributed by myself on the basis of the
information obtained at the period I have been describing and a little later
on. When Mr. Hume detached himself from Madame Blavatsky my own
intimacy with him faded gradually away, but my correspondence with the
Masters grew more and more important and the Master Morya wrote to me
at length during a period when the Master K. H. was preoccupied in other
ways.
My
wife got back to India in the beginning of January, 1882. In March that
year Madame Blavatsky was with us for a few days at Allahabad, but not
during the later months at Simla. She was again with us at Allahabad in
November, and during that visit I obtained a profile sketch of the Master K.
H. under perfect conditions guaranteeing its occult origin. I had been
expressing a wish for a portrait of him : had been directed to leave a piece
of blank paper about the drawing room: had done so, putting it in a large
book on the table and had looked at it frequently for some days without
finding it changed. One morning on going in to our midday breakfast in the
dining room,[Page
38] from which the drawing room en
suite with it was plainly visible, my wife looked at the paper and it was still
blank. During breakfast Madame Blavatsky then with us, became aware that an astral
visitor was in the drawing room and directly we had finished breakfast we
went to look at the paper, and it bore the portrait still in my possession and
with which scores of theosophical friends in later years have become
familiar.
Another
important incident of the period, on the physical plane entirely, was an
intimation from Mr. Rattigan who (by purchase from Mr. Allen) had become
the principal proprietor of the Pioneer, that he no longer needed
my services as Editor. He had been from the first intensely unsympathetic
with my interest in the occult development, but as this is not a personal
biography — even though the early history of the Society is linked so
closely with my wife and myself, so that some personal explanations have been
necessary — I need only say a few more words on the subject, but for
my connection with Theosophy it would have been unlikely that my connection
with the Pioneer would have been disturbed at this period. There
was some friction between myself and the new proprietors, but my success as
writer had become fairly conspicuous and the friction such as
it was would not have been enough to break the tie. But again both my
wife and I had grown tired of the Indian life and wished to be back in
England. It seemed just possible that the savings of our time in India, plus
journalistic work at home, would enable us to live there in moderate
comfort, so that we contemplated my resignation of the Pioneer
editorship as a step we might be inclined to take. The parting therefore
was neither strained nor unfriendly, and for many years after my return to[Page 39] England
I continued to write articles of various kinds for the paper in India.
We left Allahabad finally in February, 1883, and on our way home stayed
for a few days with Madame Blavatsky at Adyar. Colonel Olcott in his DiaryLeaves describes how he came into possession of the building at that
place which has ever since been the headquarters of the Theosophical
Society, already well established in India, though so far merely an embryo
in the Western world. The purchase was effected on very easy terms,
equivalent to about £600 of English money. This was partly provided for
as a gift by a wealthy Indian friend, the rest by a loan guaranteed by the
same friend and another and paid off within a year by the proceeds of a
subscription. When we arrived in March we found the Old Lady very
comfortably established there, and with her usual emphatic language she
assured us that she meant to stay there for the rest of her life. Europeans,
she declared, would never understand Theosophy. Her work lay in India.
I had already begun to write Esoteric Buddhism and went on with the work
during our stay at Adyar. And though no longer especially in search of
occult phenomena some were brought about by circumstances, the most
striking in a way I will describe. I was writing in a room available for that
purpose, and as I went on I made notes of questions for the Master. My
wife one morning came in; I asked her to take up the paper of notes then
ready and give them to the O.L. for transmission. She did so and told me
afterwards what happened. The O.L. was at her writing table. On the
opposite wall of the room a small cupboard two or three feet long each
way, the gift of an Indian admirer, was hanging up. It was an ornamental
little bit of furniture. Madame Blavatsky[Page 40] had already made use of it
to hold some relics of her stay with the Masters in Tibet and she or others
about the house had got into the habit of calling it The Shrine.
When
my wife offered Madame Blavatsky my paper of notes she simply said — without
getting up — "Put it in the Shrine". This my wife did, and sat
down on a sofa near Madame Blavatsky's table and went on talking with
her, for five or ten minutes. Then Madame Blavatsky said, "I think he has
sent you the answer." My wife went over to the Shrine; opened it and found
lying on my paper of notes, — the Master's answer. The little incident
was not surprising to us at the time. We had by then had large experience of
similar phenomena, but much later on The Shrine was accused — so
to speak — of being a conjuring device used by Madame Blavatsky for the
purpose of trickery, so the experience just described, one of many others of
a similar kind, will help to dissipate that delusion.[Page
41]
CHAPTER
- 4 -
MY
wife and I arrived in London in April, 1883, and events began to move rapidly
in connection with the young Theosophical Society. I had for some time
been in correspondence with Mr. Massey and had sent him the
Fragments as they appeared and the new outburst of teaching and
information was not alone interesting to him, but also to the group of his
friends then concerned with the establishment of the Society for Psychical
Research. I was at once made acquainted with this group, namely with Mr.
Frederic Myers, Mr. Gurney and Professor Sidgewick and was received by
them and others with great cordiality. By this time Dr. Anna Kingsford and
Mr. E. Maitland had joined the Theosophical Society, and at a meeting held
on January 7th, 1883, Mrs. Kingsford was elected President and fresh
names were added to the list of members at every meeting.
Miss
Francesca Arundale now plays a conspicuous part in the work. She and her
mother were residing at 77, Elgin Crescent, Notting Hill, and while my
wife and I were still unsettled that house became the scene of continual
informal meetings of the most eager members of the young society. Wherever
we went, rapidly making new acquaintances in London, interested inquirers
gathered round us. By this time the Society had a Council and its meetings
are recorded in the minute book. On the 6th of May I appear to have been
present at such a meeting, and I presided apparently at a subsequent meeting
of the[Page
42] Fellows on the same
day, giving an address on the origin and prospects of the Society.
Hitherto the custom had been at all meetings for the members present to
sign the minute book, but as numbers increase this custom is apparently
found too inconvenient and is dropped.
An
important meeting was held on the 3rd of June at Mr. Massey's rooms, 1
Albert Mansions, Victoria Street, when among many others Mr. Frederic Myers
is duly elected a member. By Mrs. Kingsford's wish it was decided "
that this branch of the Society be in future called the London Lodge of the
Theosophical Society, and that the secretary be requested to write to the
President, Colonel Olcott, intimating this decision and suggesting it as a
precedent for the adoption of other branches."
On
or about the11th of June Esoteric Buddhism was published and
at once became the subject of study at the meetings of the Society.
Introduced by Mr. Myers I was a frequent visitor at Mrs. Tennant's
(Richmond Terrace, Whitehall) from which centre interest in the
Theosophical development radiated into London society at large to a very
remarkable extent.
Mr.
Sam Ward — known by his intimate friends, who were very numerous,
as Uncle Sam — had joined the Society and was a zealous worker
in the cause besides being a very kind friend to ourselves.
In
August we went abroad for a long continental tour and in the course of
it made the acquaintance of the Gebhard family at Elberfeld. They played
so important a part in later events that I must explain this development
more fully. Mrs. Gebhard — English by birth though married to a German — had
long been deeply interested in occultism. She had made the acquaintance
of Eliphas Levi, whom long before[Page
43] she knew us, she had entertained
at Elberfeld. She came over to London on hearing of our arrival in 1883
to make our acquaintance and joined the Society. She urgently invited us
to visit her at Elberfeld but we were disinclined to do this not knowing
the other members of her large family. But as in any case we were passing
through Cologne in the course of the tour I have just referred to we consented
to diverge from our route and pay a visit to Elberfeld under conditions
which would easily enable us to cut it very short if we so desired. As
matters turned out we enjoyed the visit exceedingly, found Mr. Gebhard and
his grown up sons courteous and agreeable, soon interested in our theosophical
talk, and although before we went there — as we learned afterwards — Mrs.
Gebhard's interest in occultism was the subject of good humoured chaff
by her husband and sons, under our influence the whole family eventually
became ardent Theosophists, and our experimental visit, besides being a
good deal protracted, was the forerunner of many others in later years,
of some associated with Madame Blavatsky's appearance in Europe I shall
have to speak later.
Early
in October we returned to London, and soon afterwards trouble began to
affect the Society. At a meeting held on the 21st Mr. Maitland read an
address from the President, Mrs. Kingsford unable for some reason to be
present herself, and the tone of it gave deep offence to most of those
who were present. It seems to have been partly an attack on my book Esoteric
Buddhism and generally an unfavourable review of the
Eastern teaching. An animated discussion ensued and finally a resolution
"that the meeting hears with regret the terms in which the President refers
to the Brothers in her opening address" was carried by 15 to 4. Mrs.
Kingsford[Page
44] seems to have sent a more or
less apologetic message in reply. This was read at a meeting held on the 4th
of November, and the trouble blew over for the time.
On
the 15th of December, I see, "the Rev. Charles Webster Leadbeater"
was proposed by myself and elected a member amongst others. He had
already made our acquaintance, having called on me at the house where
we were then staying in Royal Crescent, Notting Hill, before having taken
7, Ladbroke Gardens, whither we moved shortly afterwards. He had read Esoteric Buddhism and had at once become inflamed with a desire to
become a regular chela. Both my wife and I were agreeably impressed by
him and he became our frequent guest.
About
this time (or sooner; I cannot fix the exact date) I received news from
India — to my dismay — that Madame Blavatsky having changed
her mind in regard to her intention declared to us when we saw her at Adyar,
of staying there for the rest of her life, was coming to England, accompanied
by Colonel Olcott. I felt that such an arrangement would be disastrous,
though I failed to foresee the exact character of the disaster
which ultimately ensued. I knew that the Theosophical movement had now taken
root in London on a social level that would be quite out of tune with
the personalities of the two founders, especially with that of Colonel
Olcott. Madame Blavatsky's manners were very rough, but everyone of
quick perception would see that her roughness was deliberately
assumed — that she was not ignorant of refined ways and customs, even
while aggressively flouting them. Moreover she had tact in emergencies
and was conscious of influences that would guard her from giving
needless offence to English people of the kind now becoming interested
in theosophy. Still even so far as she was concerned[Page
45] her coming
would be a serious danger. Our experience in introducing her to Anglo-Indian
friends had not been encouraging. One had to know her very thoroughly to be able
to ignore characteristics that were repellent rather than attractive. Even as
regards her powers, which rendered her the object, in consequence of my description
of them in The Occult World of excited
interest among the most earnest members of the growing society, I knew
how easily their exhibition by some clumsiness on her part, would provoke
suspicion rather than trust. It was supremely desirable in the interests
of the movement that she should remain away from England. For any persons
whose ardour was sufficiently intense to take them to India on a pilgrimage
to see her — well and good. By the hypothesis their zeal would stand
the strain. But Madame Blavatsky in London amidst the flood of people mostly
belonging to the upper strata of society; I knew that trouble must ensue.
As
regarded Colonel Olcott anxieties of that order were intensified to a terrible
extent. I myself had cause to respect Colonel Olcott's character very sincerely.
I knew him to be irrevocably devoted to the cause which was ever assuming
more and more commanding importance in my own sight — but — the
superficial aspects of his personality were of a kind quite certain to
set the teeth on edge with Englishmen of the type of those who were leading
the Psychic Research movement, and already in the most intimate and cordial
relations with ourselves — the importers of theosophy
into this country—and with those who had already allied themselves with
us as exponents of the new revelation.
I
could only protest. I did so in the letter addressed to the Master K. H.
(which of course had to pass through Madame Blavatsky's hands) and I got
back[Page
46] an answer which later experience
makes me now feel pretty sure was Madame's own composition. She was resolved
to come — to take
part in or enjoy what Colonel Olcott at the time described as the boom of
theosophy in Europe.
On
the 3Ist January, 1884, we moved into our new house, 7, Ladbroke Gardens.
For some time past our most interesting theosophical gatherings had taken
place at Miss Arundale's in Elgin Crescent, where the most earnest members
of the Society constituted a special group, though without any elaborate
formalities — Mabel Collins (otherwise Mrs. Kenningale
Cook) was one of us and very helpful at that time in our studies as she was
intensely sensitive and under the direct influence — as I came to know
later—of the Master Hilarion. On one occasion — arising out of
conversations on Karma and the Path, she received from him a clairaudient
dictation on those subjects. We were all so much impressed by this paper
that we felt it was not one to be kept merely for our private edification,
so we made arrangements to have it printed and it was published under the
title originally given to the group paper by its unseen author — Light
on thePath. Few probably of the multitudes who have come to reverence that little
book very profoundly have any idea of the circumstances under which it
was produced.
Light
on the Path was not the only dictation emanating from the Master
Hilarion. About this time, or rather some time previously, Mabel Collins had
been living in chambers on the Adelphi Terrace overlooking the river and
near where Cleopatra's Needle had then recently been set up. Her natural
gift of clairvoyance enabled her to see the great stone surrounded
frequently with Egyptian Spirits, as she would have called them then,
and processions[Page
47] of them used sometimes to pass
through her room. One in particular attracted her attention as she sat writing,
for she was already a novelist and then engaged on some collection of short stories.
Hardly aware of the change as she went on writing she found afterwards
that she had begun an entirely new story. From time to time the inspiration
was renewed and that is the way in which the book now familiar to
Theosophical readers, The Idyll of the White Lotus, came into existence.
Interesting circumstances attended its production. After it was half finished
the inspiration suddenly stopped. Mrs. Cook could not recover it, and so
eventually, in order that the work done might not be wasted, finished it
out of her own head. But when the Theosophical movement was set on foot,
and she became attached to the group meeting at Miss Arundale's, the
inspiration was renewed and the story completed by the original author
in his own way. Anyhow the Idyll as it was completed by the Master
Hilarion — for it was he who managed the whole matter — is
probably based upon some very remote experience of his own in an early
Egyptian incarnation.
Settled now in Ladbroke Gardens, with a large drawing room, our house
was soon frequented by our friends, and friends of our friends, who were
becoming interested in the new development of thought and knowledge.
We were at home, always, on Tuesday afternoons and my wife's Diary is
filled every week with long lists of our Tuesday visitors. The movement in
this way spread at first in what may in a broad sense be called the upper
levels of society, and it appeared to me desirable that it should take root
that way to begin with, its influence being left to filter downwards with social
authority behind it, instead of beginning on lower levels and trusted to filter
upwards[Page 48] if it could. Unhappily this programme was defeated by
Madame Blavatsky's return to England, as the record of later events will
show.
An
important event in connection with the earlier progress of the work took
place in advance of the period dealt with above when our house in
Ladbroke Gardens had become the vortex of the whole movement. A
conversazione in our honour was organised by the Society and was held at
Prince's Hall in Piccadilly on the 17th of July, 1883. About 300 people were
present. Mrs. Kingsford and I delivered addresses. The audience was
cordial and sympathetic and the evening may fairly be described as having
been brilliantly successful.
Dating
from this demonstration, the next six or eight months may be regarded as
the high water period in the early life of the Society in England. Troubles
arose within it, but its relations with the outer world were untinged by
these. Of course, playing the conspicuous part in its programme that fell
to my share, I was the object of more or less good-humoured comment in
the newspapers, and the Saturday Review, I remember, then in the zenith
of its glory, had an article about me entitled The Mahdi in Society (the
Mahdi in Egypt being at that time the false Prophet of the Soudan) — but
all that badinage only kept the subject before the public mind, and
failed entirely to check the growth of interest in Theosophy, among cultured
people. And my own relations with the leaders of the Psychic Research
Society, then in its promising infancy, were so cordial that the two
movements seemed almost destined to coalesce. Mr. Myers — signing
himself An English F.T.S. — drew up a series of questions arising
out of the contents of Esoteric Buddhism and these were published in
the
Theosophist together[Page
49] with very long answers written
I believe by Subba Rao — a distinguished Indian theosophist and chela of
the Masters. He, I may parenthetically remark, had been instructed by
his occult chief (or Guru ) to give me help in the preparation of
that book, and I made his acquaintance during our stay in Madras on our
way home. But all the Indian occult students of that period were intensely
jealous of western inquirers. They resented the idea that the arcane knowledge
of the East should overflow into the western world. They were doubly wrong
of course, first in supposing that occult wisdom was eastern in its origin.
For that origin we have to go back to Atlantean times and further still;
secondly in failing to realise that India was honoured and not hurt by
becoming a channel, in a certain sense, of the new revelation. But anyhow
the Indian chelas were jealous, and much trouble arose later on from this
attitude on their part. Subba Rao shared the jealousy, and while pretending
to act on the Master's instructions, did not really give me any help
whatever. At a later period the Master K. H. in a letter to me, referred
to the two teachers I had been in touch with at Madras — Subba
Rao and Madame Blavatsky — "one of whom would not and the other could
not" give
me any help. Madame Blavatsky at that time would have been willing
enough to help me, but wonderful as were her powers she possessed
none of the detailed knowledge we now call theosophical teaching. She picked
it up as the letters from the Masters addressed to me passed through her
hands and was able to expand it a good deal in the light of her general
occult knowledge.
Coming
back to Mr. Myers' sympathetic criticism of Esoteric Buddhism I
must quote one or two passages as showing — what it seems important to[Page 50] establish
at this stage of the narrative—that the leaders of the
S.P.R. were not alone friendly with the new development, but really cordial.
Mr. Myers begins: — "The object of the following paper is to submit
certain questions which have occurred to some English readers of EsotericBuddhism. We have had the great advantage of hearing Mr. Sinnett
himself explain many points which perplexed us, and it is with his
sanction that we now venture to ask that such light as permissible
may be thrown upon some difficulties which, so far as we can discover,
remain as yet unsolved."
The
last paragraph of the paper in question is one that I feel embarrassed
in quoting, but it is obviously important, in the interests of a true appreciation
of the story I have to tell, that the mental attitude of the S.P.R. leaders
at the time I have now reached should be rightly apprehended. Mr. Myers
winds up his inquiries as follows: —
"We
gratefully recognise the very acceptable choice which the Adepts have made
in selecting Mr. Sinnett as the intermediary between us and them. They
could hardly have chosen anyone more congenial to our Western minds, whether
we consider the clearness of his written style, the urbanity of his verbal
exposition or the earnest sincerity of his convictions."
Mr. Myers' paper and
the elaborate answers of Subba Rao will be found by any readers who wish
to consult them in a volume entitled Five years ofTheosophy, consisting of various extracts from the monthly Theosophist
published during that period.[Page 51]
CHAPTER
- 5 -
THE troubles within
the Society to which I referred above arose from the attitude adopted by
Mrs. Kingsford. She had already published her very remarkable volume The
Perfect Way. It was deeply tinged with occult
truth and in co-operation with Mr. Maitland, Mrs. Kingsford had, I believe,
organized a society called the Hermetic Society for the study of spiritual
mysteries along the lines marked out by her own book. In joining the
Theosophical Society shortly before our return from India, it seems to
me — looking back at that time in the light of later events — that
she aimed rather at absorbing it into the Hermetic Society than at following
up the promise of further teaching to be derived from an Eastern source. However
that may be she began in the early months of 1884 to make unfavorable
comments on Esoteric Buddhism.
Already
the Society had passed a resolution (on the 3rd of June, 1883), "That this
Lodge for the present devotes itself chiefly to the study of occult philosophy
as taught by the Adepts of India with whom Mr. Sinnett has been in communication". The
minutes do not show, nor does my recollection show precisely what words or
action on Mrs. Kingsford's part prompted this declaration, but at a meeting
on the 21st of October Mr. Maitland read an address from Mrs Kingsford, not
present herself on that occasion, that began serious disturbances of the Society's
previously perfect harmony. The minutes of the meeting do not include the address
but merely state that Mr. Maitland read it, and go on as follows: —
"Mr.
Sinnett protested against the language of the address, expressing regret
and indignation at the terms in which she referred to the Brothers. He
saw that it would be necessary for him to bring a resolution on the subject
before the Society, but before doing so would wait to hear some expression
of opinion on the subject from the members.
"Mr.
Finch expressed great regret at the language of the address and in order
that the discussion might assume a regular form moved that ' the meeting
heard with regret the President's address.' "
A prolonged discussion ensued, Mr. Maitland urging delay, but Mr. Finch's
resolution was in the end carried by 15 to 4.
Figures of this kind, I may remark in passing, afford no indication of the
numerical strength of the Society at that time. New members in ever
increasing number were elected at every meeting but comparatively few
seem to have attended the meetings regularly, perhaps from an impression
that they were generally concerned rather with the business of the Society
than with the progress of our teaching, at that time indeed rather in a
stagnant condition. Sometimes when some expectations lent special
interest to a meeting the numbers present suddenly expanded, and at a
meeting in April, 1884, to be described directly, the minute book records
the presence of about 80 members.
At
a meeting of the Society on November 4th an attempt was made by Mr.
Maitland (again in Mrs. Kingsford's absence) to calm down the feelings
excited by her address. He read a letter from her "disclaiming any intention
of unfriendliness or disparagement in regard to the Brothers". The
patronizing tone adopted has a grotesquely absurd flavour from the point of
view of current knowledge and shows how[Page
53] completely Mrs.
Kingsford failed to understand the movement in which she was presuming
to take a part. However at the time the actual plan of the Brothers in
the Divine hierarchy was very imperfectly understood, and the trouble started
by Mrs. Kingsford's address to the Lodge spread over various pamphlets
issued afterwards. One by Mrs. Kingsford was entitled "A letter to the
Fellows of the London Lodge of the Theosophical Society, by the President
and Vice-President of the Lodge". This is an elaborate, and highly
unfavourable criticism (in 39 pages) of my book Esoteric Buddhism.
It is not worth while at this later date to examine these criticisms in
detail. They gave rise to much further pamphleteering at the time. I published
one answer and the well-known Indian theosophist Mr. T. Subba Rao issued
another dealing elaborately with Mrs. Kingsford's attack and she followed
this up with another pamphlet, a "Reply to the observation of Mr. T. Subba
Rao". Her attitude of mind may be sufficiently understood if I quote one
short passage at the beginning of her first letter. She says: — "At
the time when the appeal to accept office in the Society was made to me
I was not one of the Fellows but an independent worker in and contributor
to esoteric religious science. My labours in this direction, in regard
especially to the production of The Perfect Way, had attracted the
attention of the leaders of the Indian Theosophical movement, and it was
moreover believed that my special qualifications as a student of physical
science added to certain natural gifts of seership would prove helpful
to the conduct and control of the British branch". We need not feel surprise
that at the time she wrote Mrs. Kingsford honestly believed herself to
be the real leader of the spiritual revelation beginning to flow[Page
54] into
the world. Considering the beautiful fruits of her seership given out
in the book to which she refers, and in other writings, our surprise
relates rather to the comparative insignificance of the effect they had
on public thought, than to the expectation she had of their ultimate
results. If she had been able to comprehend Theosophy as the greater
revelation following the forecast of which she had been the channel,
she might have played a magnificently important part in its subsequent
development. I am glad to say that the sore feelings engendered at the
time I have been dealing with were smoothed over eventually, and we were
quite good friends towards the close of her life, though she never realised
the true character of the Theosophical movement. Deeply impressed, as
was quite natural, with the interest of her own touch with higher wisdom,
she could not see other developments in their true proportions. At the
beginning of the illness which proved her last, I remember she said to
me (or in words to that effect) "I
cannot be going to die because my work is not yet finished". She failed
to realise that the work in question is far greater than can be identified
with any transient personality.
In the beginning of April, 1884, Colonel Olcott arrived in London, Madame
Blavatsky remaining behind at Nice and Paris. Colonel Olcott was
accompanied by a young Indian Theosophist, Mohini by name, who
became for a time a very conspicuous person in theosophical activities. He
was introduced to us as a chela of the Master K. H. and was made cordially
welcome.
The 7th was the occasion of the important meeting of the Society referred
to above. It was held at Mr. Finch's Chambers in Lincoln's Inn, and its
purpose was the election of a new President. Mrs. Kingsford's attitude as
already described had deeply[Page 55] offended most of the members. She
seems to have failed to understand the feelings engendered and to have
expected her re-election. Many of the members wished me to become
President but I had taken an active part in the pamphlet controversy and
shrank from allowing this to assume the shape of a personal rivalry
between Mrs. Kingsford and myself in regard to the Presidency. So I had
arranged to nominate Mr. Finch for the office.
The proceedings at the meeting are imperfectly recorded in the old minute
book, but are fairly fresh in my memory. I duly proposed Mr. Finch and I
think that Mr. Maitland went through the form of proposing Mrs. Kingsford.
Anyhow, when the show of hands was taken (Colonel Olcott being in the
chair) the vote was practically unanimous in favour of Mr. Finch. Indeed my
impression is that Mr. Maitland was the only person present who voted for
Mrs. Kingsford, who was present herself and showed no little irritation.
Mr. Finch, I should explain, was a barrister who had been senior wrangler
in his time at Cambridge. He was a quiet, earnest student of the occult
teaching we had so far received, and one of the group that used to
assemble at Miss Arundale's. He it was, I remember, who first moved in the
matter and arranged for the publication of Light on the Path. That little book
went through many editions and was largely expanded with notes and
comments by Mabel Collins herself. I suppose copies of the first edition still
exist but it is many years since I have seen one.
The excitements of the meeting on the 7th were by no means confined to
the circumstances of the election. After this was over I was in the midst of
an address to the meeting when a disturbance at the door interrupted me
and in a moment the whole room was[Page 56] aware that Madame
Blavatsky had arrived. I broke off and went to meet her. A little crowd
collected round her and one of the ladies present actually sank on her
knees before the illustrious visitor, who was then conducted to the upper
end of the room and formally introduced to the meeting.
The
minutes relating to this meeting after recording Madame Blavatsky's arrival
go on as follows :— She "intimated that if any members would
communicate to her any inquiries they might like to make in regard to the
meaning of obscure passages in Isis Unveiled such inquiries would
receive attention and would be made the subject of explanations in the new
version of that book which under the title The Secret Doctrine she
proposed to bring out.
"Mr.
Myers inquired whether documentary evidence could be obtained from India
for the service of the Psychic Research Society in reference to cases in
which the astral apparitions of the Mahatmas had been seen at various times
and places.
" Madame
Blavatsky called on Mr. Mohini to give some information on the subject
and Mr. Mohini described the recent appearance of the astral figure of
one of the Mahatmas at the Headquarters of the Society at Madras.
“Colonel
Olcott expressed the heartiest sympathy with the labours of the Psychic
Research Society."
After
the meeting was over Madame Blavatsky returned with us to Ladbroke Gardens,
where she stayed with us for a week. Colonel Olcott and Mohini moving over
to Miss Arundale's where they remained her guests for a time. At this time
however Madame Blavatsky only stayed for the week and then — as I learn
from my wife's Diary — returned
to Paris. The week was a busy one, and visitors flocked to our house in
greater numbers than ever. Amongst those constantly [Page
57] coming I ought specially
to mention the Countess Wachtmeister and the two Keightleys, one ofwhom
especially, Mr. Bertram Keightley continued for many years to play an
important part in all theosophical activities.[Page
58]
CHAPTER
- 6 -
SOME
months passed without noteworthy incidents except that we made the acquaintance
of an American lady who was for a time very conspicuous amongst us — Mrs.
Holloway — a
remarkable clairvoyant and pupil of the Master K. H. Her coming from America
had been heralded by impressive stories concerning her psychic gifts and
relationship with the Higher world and we found her an extremely attractive
personality. She was a guest of Miss Arundale's in the first instance and
in June came over to stay with us. Eventually she became, quite unintentionally,
the cause of some temporary misunderstandings between Miss Arundale and
ourselves, but that developed and passed away much later. At first while
staying with us she was to some extent a link between ourselves and the
Master K. H.. Madame Blavatsky returned to London (and to the Arundale's
house) at the end of June and by degrees some troublesome friction ensued
between her and ourselves, but in advance of this something much more than
friction disturbed the course of theosophical work in this country, and
completely changed the character of our relations with the Psychic
Research Society.
The
30th of June was the day of the disaster and Colonel Olcott its unfortunate
author. My wife's Diary for that date enables me to fix the date and does
more than this for it shows by how narrow a chance she — my
wife — was prevented from doing something which might, for the time at
least, have averted the disaster. Colonel Olcott had become possessed of
an[Page
59] absurd
little Indian toy consisting of a figure of Buddha, and made of tin if I
remember rightly, mounted on little wheels. By moving it about it was supposed
to represent some idea connected with the Buddhic faith, but at best it was
a very childish symbol. When the toy attained a ghastly celebrity it was
referred to by Madame Blavatsky as Olcott's "
Buddha on wheels." Evidently my wife intended to warn her about it that
she might stop Olcott from showing it to people who would be alive to the
bad taste of it. In her Diary, I read: — "I went in the afternoon
to Arundale's to try and speak to the O.L, (short for Old Lady, the long
familiar nick-name of Madame Blavatsky) about Colonel Olcott and his image
of Buddha, but could not get a chance. Mr. Finch, Mother Mary and Dido (another
nick-name). In the afternoon Mrs. H. (Mrs. Holloway) told my mother's
fortune out of a tea cup". So my wife came away without giving the
warning. Had she been able to do that the O.L. would have forbidden
Olcott, whom she domineered over absolutely, to play any more with his
toy, and the trouble I am about to describe would have been avoided,
though probably only put off for a while. As I have said already neither
Madame Blavatsky nor Olcott were in tune with people of the kind who
were now taking interest in the theosophical movement. Colonel Olcott
especially, was out of tune with them to a deplorable extent, and sooner
or later this must have given rise to trouble. However, as events turned
out we all went that evening to a meeting of the Psychic Research Society
where in the course of the proceedings Colonel Olcott got up, uninvited,
and made a speech in his worst style, exhibiting and making much of
his grotesque "Buddha on wheels".
Of course he set everybody's teeth on edge. Madame Blavatsky with her
quick psychic perceptions[Page 60] felt that something dreadful had
happened. As a matter of fact the chill suffered by the Psychic
Research leaders owing to Colonel Olcott's clumsiness on this occasion
led up step by step to the famous Hodgson report which denounced
Madame Blavatsky as an impostor. I must trace the course of events
more fully as I go on, but the feeling which engendered among
the S.P.R. leaders dislike, however unreasonably, for theosophy actually
took root in the irritation they felt at Olcott's behaviour on the melancholy
evening just described.
To
say that Madame Blavatsky was furious, is to give a mere faint suggestion
of her condition. Though neither she nor Colonel Olcott were staying with
us at this time she insisted on coming back with us after the meeting with
Olcott, of course to give free play to her wrath. We four went into the
library. Madame Blavatsky was bleached white from the intensity of her
feelings. In tones rising even higher as she went on she denounced her
unhappy colleague in language so violent that I was really afraid it would
penetrate the next house, and had to use strong language myself in the
attempt to make her slacken off in her fury, with which none the less I
could not but sympathise. I do not think Olcott ever understood the essence
and nature of his offence. He moved about the room making futile remarks
from time to time. "What do you want me to do? "
he asked, "Do you want me to commit suicide? "
The biggest conflagrations die out eventually. At last our unhappy visitors
went away.
Some deadly poisons, even, may be slow in taking effect. For a time after
this sensation just dealt with events took their usual course. I gave lectures
at various places, and we had large evening receptions at our own house
with addresses from Mohini and[Page 61] others. Mr. Leadbeater was a
frequent visitor at this time. He had made, our acquaintance long before
and joined the Society in 1883. He was at that time in clerical costume,
being a curate at some parish in Hampshire. I warned him that if he came
amongst us he would be liable to hear discussions at which a clergyman
might be startled, but he put that difficulty aside, and became at once a
frequent visitor.
By a pathetic coincidence just about the time of Olcott's unfortunate
performance at the S.P.R. meeting the Society was planning a new
conversazione in honour of himself and Madame Blavatsky.
On the evening of the 6th July we had an interview with the Master K.H.
through Mrs. Holloway. On this occasion he actually took possession of her
and spoke to us in the first person. Previously she had merely a
consciousness and repeated whatever he said. I well remember the
conversation, through finding its date in the Diary. I think the idea was to
console us and keep up our spirits in the difficulties then seen to be
impending. And the situation became entangled by a new development of
fury, according to the Diary, on the part of the O.L. Outbreaks of the kind
became so frequent as time went on that my recollections of each are
confused, but evidently she had become angrily jealous of the way in which
Mrs. Holloway was becoming a link between ourselves and the Master
independently of her. She insisted on Mrs. Holloway leaving us and coming
back to the Arundales. And I was disinclined to take an active part in the
coming conversazione, which gave rise to what pretended to be letters to
me from the Master warning me in almost threatening terms (utterly unlike
his usual attitude) not to fail in supporting Madame Blavatsky. I distrusted
the bona fides of the letter at the time and soon became quite[Page 62]
convinced that it was a fabrication by the O.L. She got her way for the time
being however. Mrs. Holloway was frightened into obedience and returned
to the Arundales. She had received a (spurious) letter apparently from K.
H. ordering her to remain there, and declaring that we were deceived, that
she was merely a medium and saw falsely.
As
days went on the situation became worse instead of better. Letters passed
to and fro between ourselves and the Arundales, now pretty completely under
Madame Blavatsky's influence. The name and handwriting of the Master were
taken in vain more than once and I find in my wife's Diary for the 16th
that we felt "our theosophical career was
approaching its end". Certainly at this period Madame Blavatsky very
nearly wrecked it.
The
following morning Mrs. Holloway called on us and said "she meant to
give up the whole business in disgust", but nevertheless allowed events to
drift and the O.L. had succeeded for the time in dominating the situation.
The conversazione duly took place on the 21st and the gathering was
very large and socially brilliant. Much against my inclination I had been
driven to take part in it, and am not surprised to read in my wife's Diary
that "Percy did not speak up to his usual level". This celebration
was the climax of Madame Blavatsky's success, the result of deplorable behaviour
on her part at the time, but looking back upon it in these later years with
the knowledge that her great catastrophe was rapidly approaching, one is
chiefly impressed by the sadness of it all. Had she only been content to
remain quietly at Adyar, satisfied to know that the great work she had
played such an important part in starting was going on well, the plot which
brought about her downfall would never have been set on foot. To the[Page 63] end
she would have been crowned with the halo of her fame as a great occultist
and magician and enthusiasts making pilgrimages to visit her in India would
never have been disillusioned. But she came to Europe to bathe in a flood of
adulation and the awful karma of that mistake has left her memory for the world
at large stained with undeserved disgrace. New generations of theosophists
it is true have arisen in the thirty years and more that have elapsed since
her downfall, and by the vast majority of these her memory has been so entirely
re-gilded that the investigation and conclusion of the Psychic Research Society
respecting her, are simply forgotten or ignored, as in the main they deserve
to be, but it now becomes my task in recording the actual facts connected with
the early history of the Theosophical Society in this country, to trace the
course of the S.P.R. proceedings, when the leaders of that society after Colonel
Olcott's fauxpas seem to have grown anxious to shake themselves free from
theosophical associates liable to bring social discredit upon their
undertaking. Already, while still friendly, the S.P.R. leaders had in
May — a
month before the meeting of June 20th — appointed a committee " to
investigate the evidence of marvelous phenomena offered by certain
members of the Theosophical Society". The sittings of this committee
are not recorded in the published journal of the S.P.R. but were circulated
privately. At first the Committee must have been learning a belief in
the bona fides of the phenomena, as the witnesses examined were
Colonel Olcott, myself, Mohini and one or two others, all deeply impressed
with belief themselves. But before long the records reflect a changed
feeling on the part of the Committee. In the review of its report published
at a later date in the Proceedings of the Society we read :—" On
the whole[Page
64]
(though with some serious reserves)
it seems undeniable that there is a
prima facie case for some part at least of the claim made which,
at the point which the investigations of the Society for Psychical Research
have now reached cannot with consistency be ignored. And it seems plain
that an actual residence for some months in India by some trusted observer
is an almost necessary pre-requisite of any more definite judgment". As
a result of this decision Mr. Richard Hodgson proceeded to India in
November, 1884, and returned in April, 1885.
The results of this
visit are mentioned in the Journal for
April, 1885. A note in that issue says:— " . . . He is now we believe
on his way back. He has already sent home a considerable mass of documents.
. . . The additional evidence for the most part unfavourable to the genuineness
of the phenomena, and Mr. Hodgson inclines we believe to the conclusion
that the alleged marvels are altogether to be attributed to fraud".
As Mr. Hodgson's stay
in India covered several months it is evident that the original appointment
of the committee to which he belongs must have been designed soon after the
meeting at which Colonel Olcott spoke, but he seems to have been quite unsuspicious
of the feeling which gave rise to it. In the Third Volume of his Old Diary
Leaves he makes no mention of the
stormy scene with Madame Blavatsky, though his narrative covers the
period, but shows an almost pathetic unconsciousness of the change of
feeling on the part of the S.P.R. leaders which led to the important change
in their attitude. He writes: — "There had been the making of acquaintance
between us and the S.P.R., entire cordiality and unsuspicious friendship on
our part: an equally apparent sympathy on theirs, agreeable[Page
65] social
meetings at the houses of their leaders and finally a consent on my part
to be examined by a committee of the S.P.R. The sky was purely blue without
the tiniest cloud to indicate the hurricane in preparation for us".
A
general meeting of the S.P.R. (of which I, and many of my Theosophical
friends had already become members), was held on the 29th of May, 1885,
and Mr. Hodgson was present on that occasion. His full report on the
results of his mission to India was not yet published, but he gave the
meeting a summary of his conclusions, which were broadly to the effect "that
the theosophical phenomena formed part of a system of fraud worked by Madame
Blavatsky with the assistance of the Coulombs and several other confederates
and that none of the phenomena were genuine".
I was myself abroad at the time but an animated discussion followed, and
soon after the famous Report made its appearance. This voluminous
document is concerned with lines of inquiry and especially with certain
letters ostensibly addressed by Madame Blavatsky to Madame Coulomb
(some of them to M. Coulomb) who gave them (or sold them) to the
Madras Christian College Magazine. They were published in the issue of
that periodical for September, 1884. If they were really written by Madame
Blavatsky they proved beyond question that she was guilty of arranging
with M. and Madame Coulomb for the production of sham phenomena. The
handwriting was declared by experts to be that of Madame Blavatsky. She
declared that they were forgeries as far as their incriminating passages
were concerned. Mr. Hodgson's report also goes at length into the history
of, and allegations concerning, the so-called Shrine to which I made some
reference[Page 66] when
dealing with the visit my wife and I paid to Adyar on our way home from India.
The report also discusses statements by myself in the evidence I gave to the
S.P.R. Committee and in my book TheOccult World, and goes on to deal with statements made by other writers
with reference to their experiences of occult phenomena.
To criticise the report
in detail would burden this narrative with a separate volume devoted to that
task. At the time of its publication it gave rise to floods of controversy.
I answered those parts of it which related to my own writings and statements
in a pamphlet still available for reference. This was entitled The Occult
World Phenomena and the Society for PsychicalResearch. It provoked counter replies from Mr. Hodgson and the final
result was to leave opinion on the whole subject sharply divided. Theosophists
in general accepted Madame Blavatsky's assurance that the letters were
partly forgeries, and laughed at the conclusions of Mr. Hodgson based on
hypotheses to the effect that unlimited skill in organising conjuring devices
and in legerdemain might account for some of the phenomena. The leaders
of the S.P.R. on the other hand accepted Mr. Hodgson's view of these as
final, and the original committee of May, 1884, commenting on his report,
conclude by saying: — "For our own part we regard her (Madame
Blavatsky) neither as the mouthpiece of hidden seers nor as a mere vulgar
adventuress; we think that she has achieved a title to permanent
remembrance as one of the most accomplished, ingenious and interesting
impostors in history".
Writing now in 1918,
more than thirty years after the stormy controversy that raged round the
Hodgson report, I realise how profound was the misunderstanding which distinguished
that controversy on both[Page
67]
sides at the time. No true pen
portrait of that marvelously diversified personality we called Madame Blavatsky
has ever yet been published, I cannot even claim that what I am about to
say is an exhaustively complete portrait. To frame anything approximately
resembling such a portrait would involve the acceptance as plain matters
of fact, of mysterious possibilities in human life that none but those
deeply engaged in super-physical study would be able to comprehend. I am
engaged in writing a history of the external events connected with the origin
and progress of the Theosophical Society, and not at this moment, with the
occult science of life, of incarnate and supercarnate consciousness, of obsession,
psychic faculty, and the complexities of the struggle about belief in the
spiritual representation of good and evil, or in other words between Divine
and Satanic agencies. But leaving that whole range of thought entirely
out of account and contemplating Madame Blavatsky's doings on the ordinary
plane of physical life, we who knew her best were most bewildered by the
extraordinary contrasts of her behaviour at different periods. In connection
with occult phenomena the experiences I have partly recorded in TheOccult World made me absolutely sure that she possessed powers
over matter entirely eclipsing those possessed by ordinary mankind, no
matter how deeply versed in science. But in process of time I became equally
certain that she sometimes stooped to simple cheating in such matters.
That is how Mr. Hodgson came to be so grievously misled. That she
sometimes employed the Coulombs, husband and wife, as confederates in
trickery is the painful though hardly intelligible state of the facts.
Even with me she has done this. For example on my return to India after
having published The Occult World, — after she[Page
68] knew
that I was rooted in a personal conviction not only that she possessed
magic powers, but that I was in touch with the Masters and devoted
to the theosophical cause, she employed M. Coulomb to drop a letter from
the Master intended for me through a crack in the rafters above, trying
to make me believe that it had been dropped by the Master himself — materialised
then and there after transmission by occult means from Tibet. M. Coulomb
told Mr. Hodgson that he had been so employed on this occasion, and
his statement fits in with the minor circumstances of the incident.
I have no doubt in the matter.
For
the benefit of those among my readers who may be able partially to understand
the intricacies of super-physical life, I may here give what I have reason
to believe is Madame Blavatsky's interpretation of this ridiculous incident.
She herself — the real Ego — was away out of the body at
the time, and she had neglected to take measures which lay within her
power, to prevent the intrusion of alien personalities. In this way her body
was actually being run at the time by an evil entity, who designed the sham
phenomenon to bring discredit on her and possibly to disgust myself. At the
first blush this may seem an explanation of what occurred but no excuse.
Her neglect to take proper precautions against such intrusion seems
unpardonable. On the other hand she was at this time and very often,
conscious, via her psychic faculties, of the storm of force raging around
her; black attacks being incessant, and the White Lodge resisting them In
this whirlwind of contending forces she was in a measure to be excused for
sometimes losing her head — to use a familiar and fairly appropriate
phrase.
In the course of the
Hodgson controversy one of [Page
69] the S.P.R. writers
remarks that no one who really possessed the wonderful powers imputed
to Madame Blavatsky could ever stoop to commonplace fraud. Madame
Blavatsky certainly had done this sometimes, therefore she could not have
been a real magician. Hence all her doings must have been fraudulent.
Q.E.D. The psychology of the argument is at fault. Madame Blavatsky
behaved as though at one time she were one person; at another, another!
One cannot explain her by any commonplace process of reasoning.
If Mr. Hodgson had not conclusively ascertained that she sometimes
cheated, he could never have satisfied his own mind with the
extravagantly improbable hypotheses, involving conjuring apparatus and
sleight of hand, which he invoked to discredit what were really genuine
phenomena. Nobody could arrive at sound conclusions about her by
collecting evidence about her. Only by the extreme intimacy with her that
my wife and I acquired during, her frequent and protracted visits to us at
Allahabad and Simla, and afterwards by painful experiences of her
behaviour in London, in 1884 and 5 could we have reached that
understanding of her complex nature which made us remain her
champions through the S.P.R. attack and ultimately disgusted us to that
extent that her blind devotees grew cold to us in turn.
In
further elucidation of the painful truth that Madame Blavatsky would sometimes
stoop to trickery even when circumstances did not involve any real temptation
to do so, I must here record an incident antedating by a few months the
publication of the Hodgson report and not provoked in any way by that report.
From the Society's minute book I find that at a meeting held in July, 1884,
the President (then Mr. Finch) announced with regret, that [Page 70] Mr
C C Massey had resigned his membership of the Theosophical Society. He explained
his reasons to me at the time, and I find a record of them in the Proceedings of
the S.P.R. (page 397, Vol. III.). In 1879 when Madame Blavatsky
passed through London on her way to India he urgently represented
to her the desire he felt for proof of the existence of the Adepts.
Later on, after Madame Blavatsky had reached India he found in the Minute
book of the Society a letter addressed to him and purporting to come
from one of the Adept Brothers. At the time he fully believed that the
letter had been deposited where he found it by the writer and by occult
means. Later on again he was shown a letter that had been addressed by
Madame Blavatsky from India to a member of the Society — well known
to be a medium. This letter and others relating to the same subject,
are given in full in the Proceedings, but are too long for entire
quotation here. In the first Madame Blavatsky encloses the letter from
the Brother and begs her friend the medium to convey it somehow in a
mysterious manner to Mr. Massey. "Put it into M's pocket or in some other
still more mysterious place". Warnings follow to the effect that the lady
addressed must be careful that Massey should not suspect either her or her
husband (referred to by an initial in the published letter, but Massey
told me who was meant) of complicity in the disposal of the letter. Massey
was deeply disgusted but brooded over the incident for some time without
speaking of it. Ultimately he wrote to Madame Blavatsky on the
subject, and received a long letter from her in reply (printed in the Proceedings ).
She admits that she planned the arrangement described, but asserts that the
letter from the Master was genuine, so what did the rest matter![Page
71] "That
I saw nothing in it then as I do not see now of so dreadful is only a
proof that I have not received my education in London and that our notions
of the honourable and dishonourable differ".
That
Mr. Massey should have allowed his disillusionment concerning Madame Blavatsky
to drive him into his resignation from the Society is greatly to be deplored.
Madame Blavatsky's shortcomings or defects of character did not alter the
fact that through her intermediation the Veil had been lifted (more or
less) from the Occult World previously so totally concealed from view — so
far as the world at large was concerned. My wife and I had long been alive
to her strangely diversified nature but had attained to a condition of
mind and knowledge that enabled us to look behind her at those who for
want of a better agent had accepted her with all her disqualifications,
as the intermediary who should make their existence known to us. Later
on, as far as we were concerned intermediaries of a more satisfactory order
took on the work but none of them would have been able to do what Madame
Blavatsky did in thebeginning.
As
the great movement spread, a great many people have continually asked — why
did the Masters select such an unsatisfactory representative as Madame Blavatsky
? It is only fair in the same breath to recognise that a great many also, impressed
by the fine elements in her character, look upon her still with a feeling resembling
worship, but the answer to the question put by those who were not thus impressed,
is simply that — no
better intermediary could be found. Certain qualifications were essential.
The person needed to be personally acquainted with some of the Masters
in order to be a link between them and the outer world. He or she had to be
possessed[Page
72] of psychic faculties that would
keep him or her in touch with the Masters wherever he or she might be in the
outer world. And absolute loyalty to the Divine Hierarchy was a sine qua
non. Furthermore
the person required must have powers, as well as faculty that would
meet the emergencies foreseen. To find all these qualifications united
was no easy task. I have learned in later years that a search all over
the world failed to find them combined in any Ego willing to undertake
the work — except in the case of the Ego known to us as Madame Blavatsky.
In her case they were unhappily combined with characteristics sadly
out of tune with those of the loftier order, so that — as I often used
to tell her — she would go about doing good, and undoing 90 per cent,
of it by some deplorable blundering. I have sometimes looked back at my
own theosophical career, wondering how, in view of our intimacy with
Madame Blavatsky, my wife and I were not thrown off the rails at an early
stage altogether, as this grievously happened in the case of C. C. Massey.
We were sorely tried by an incident that preceded the exposure of the
Hodgson report by a few months. Our intimacy with the Gebhard family at
Elberfeld had ripened very pleasantly. Some of them had visited
London making the acquaintance of Madame Blavatsky, the Arundales,
Mrs. Holloway, and others of the central theosophical group, and
quite a large party, including Madame Blavatsky and Mrs.
Holloway, were invited to stay at Elberfeld for the August holiday time of
1884. It had become almost a matter of course that we, my wife and I,
should visit Elberfeld during the continental tour with which at this
period we indulged ourselves each year. Much to our surprise and deeply
to her own distress, Mrs. Gebhard had on this occasion to[Page 73]
inform us that Madame Blavatsky
had given orders that we were not to be invited that year. At this period
Madame Blavatsky was staying with the
Arundales, who were among those whom her powerful personality had
most completely conquered. I need not attempt to analyse the motives
that made Madame Blavatsky desirous of keeping us away from the
Gebhards during her visit. They may easily be guessed. We were
somewhat annoyed but not to any extent that prevented us from enjoying
a tour in Switzerland. Towards the close of this we got a telegram
from Mrs. Holloway at Elberfeld begging us to come on there after all.
We did not feel at all disposed to do so under the circumstances and replied
accordingly. Telegrams poured in upon us both from Mrs. Holloway
and Mrs. Gebhard. We were assured they were acting by the Master's
wish in begging us to come. Ultimately we gave way and did so. A
curious situation had developed, though I never could understand it fully.
Madame Blavatsky I gathered had been in one of her very worst moods, and
must have somehow got into disgrace with the higher powers, for the Masters
sent communications over her head, without her knowledge, through Mrs. Holloway,
whose psychic condition enabled them to deal with her in this way. A letter
for me quite without Madame Blavatsky's knowledge had come this way, and
it showed that I was definitely wanted, though it failed to clear up the
situation fully. I imagine that Madame Blavatsky had somehow come under the
bad influences that sometimes prevailed with her (through her own careless
neglect of precautions that would have guarded against them) and that my
presence might obviate some risks, but, as I have said, the entanglement
remained obscure.
Anyhow Madame Blavatsky had certainly outstayed[Page 74] her
welcome, and when, a day or two after our arrival she, accompanied by
Mrs. Holloway and escorted by Rudolph, one of the Gebhard sons, left us
on her way to Flushing, an atmosphere of great relief pervaded the house,
and was associated with one amusing incident. Accompanying Mrs.
Gebhard we went over the deserted guest rooms after the O.L.'s departure.
To our surprise we found in her room (left in rather a terrible state of
disorder) a good sized despatch box belonging to her that had been
forgotten. We then were convulsed with laughter in thinking of the storm
the O.L. would make when she discovered what had been forgotten. Mrs.
Gebhard exercised heroic self-control in refraining from an examination of
the contents of that despatch box. By this time she was gravely suspicious
of the O.L.'s bona fides. She took a reasonable view of the situation. For
many reasons she, like ourselves, knew that the mighty fraternity we now
call The White Lodge was really behind the Theosophical Society, and that
Madame Blavatsky was their agent. But her shortcomings as their agent
had become painfully apparent. She certainly was to be suspected of
playing tricks, of using Tibetan envelopes, of which she was suspected of
keeping a store, to cover letters from the Master really written by herself.
Anyhow I am glad to say, the despatch box was left untouched.
The
morning wore away, and we with Mrs. Gebhard were sitting at lunch when
the door opened and Rudolph entered with a solemn smile full of meaning
that we appreciated. "If you think", he said, with a keen sense of
the humorous aspect of the situation, "that we are going on any further
without that box, you are quite mistaken". It seemed that the box had been
missed in the train. Measures[Page
75] had
to be taken instantly or sooner. At the first available station Madame
Blavatsky insisted on their all getting out. She and Mrs. Holloway would
wait there at the station. Rudolph must return to Elberfeld and retrieve
the missing box. He and Mrs. Holloway submitted. Olcott, luckily for him,
was not on the scene. If he had been he would certainly have had a rough
time, but he, Mohini, and Bertram Keightley, who had all been of the Elberfeld
party (distributed among the houses of the Gebhard family) had gone away — for
London and Paris — two
days previously. I do not remember to have heard how long the journey to
Flushing actually took.
By this time a German
Lodge of the T.S. had been set on foot, under Gebhard auspices, and Dr. Hübbe-Schleiden
was its President, and remained so I believe for many years; but it would
be hopeless for me to attempt to trace the course of the Society's evolution
beyond the limits of this country in which I have been personally cognisant
of its progress.[Page 76]
CHAPTER
- 7 -
NOW
I must revert to the period antedating the appearance of the Hodgson report.
On our return to London we found Madame Blavatsky re-established at the Arundales,
but she was preparing for a return to India. We gave an evening reception
in her honour as a farewell compliment. News of the attack made upon her
at Madras by the Christian CollegeMagazine was already floating about London and was beginning to take
effect with the S.P.R. people, but was looked upon as a nefarious plot by
the Theosophical group — many of whom assembled at Euston Square on
the Ist of November to see H. P. B. off on her way to Liverpool en route to
India. She was accompanied, amongst others, by Mr. Leadbeater, who had
come to the conclusion that he would get on along the Path by going to
India and putting his further services at the disposal of H. P. B. and Colonel
Olcott.
The next few months,
so far as we in England were concerned, gave no indication, on the surface
of events, of the approaching storm. The meetings of our inner study group
went off pleasantly, and on two occasions, in December and January, we held
open meetings to include the friends of the members, in a large room or hall
at Queen Anne's Mansions. These were crowded and brilliant gatherings. The
growing antagonism of the S.P.R. had not yet permeated society at large,
and the wave of interest in the Theosophical development, seemed increasing
in amplitude. The storm centre had accompanied Madame Blavatsky to India
and I must turn to Colonel Olcott's Diary Leaves to trace its further
course there.[Page
77]
Madame Blavatsky on
her return to India in December came fully resolved to prosecute the Coulombs
and the Missionaries in reference to the articles in the Christian College
Magazine. On
her way back she had picked up information at Cairo, (where the Coulombs had
formerly kept an hotel), much to their discredit, and imagined that this
would ensure her a victory in the law courts. Colonel Olcott appears to
have thought differently: insisted on waiting till the approaching Convention
should meet when a special committee could consider the matter and decide on
a course of action. He writes: — "She fretted and
stormed and insisted, but I would not stir from my position, and when she
threatened to go by herself and ' wipe the stain off her character ' I said
that I should in that case resign my office and let the Convention decide
between us. ... She then yielded". Soon afterwards the proposed
Committee was duly formed and decided against legal proceedings as the
publication of the letters was "only a pretext to injure the cause of
Theosophy". It was held that the letters would "necessarily appear
absurd to those who are acquainted with our philosophy and facts, and
those who are not acquainted with those facts could not have their opinion
changed even by a judicial verdict given in favour of Madame
Blavatsky". [Old Diary Leaves, vol iii, page 192] The
argument is not very convincing but no doubt it was wise to abstain from the
course Madame Blavatsky proposed to take. It could only have led to an unfavourable
result. Madame Blavatsky certainly always maintained that the
letters were forgeries, as regards their incriminating passages, but she
had no means of proving this, and the letters seemed to be obviously in
her handwriting. To this day the mystery remains unsolved — except
for those[Page
78] who rely on clairvoyant testimony
which is in Madame Blavatsky's favor.
Her friends soon began
to be seriously alarmed for her safety.
She might abstain from legal proceedings herself but might be the object
of legal attack by others. The Coulomb party — those who represented
the Christian College Magazine — were eager to be prosecuted,
feeling sure with good reason no doubt, that they would secure a sensational
victory. At the Convention one fact, writes Colonel Olcott, "reported
confidentially by a very respected colleague of ours made a deep impression
on the minds of the Committee. He had overheard a conversation between
two influential Madras civilians about Madame Blavatsky and the charges
against her. In reply to a question by one of them as to what would be
likely to happen, the other said, ' I hope she will bring anaction
for -------- who must try it, is determined togive
the greatest latitude for cross-examination so that this damned fraud my be
shown up, and it is not at all impossible that she may be sent to the Andaman
Islands".
[Old Diary Leaves, vol iii, pages 194-5]
Disappointed
in their hopes that Madame Blavatsky would bring an action, the hostile
party endeavoured to get the case before the Courts in another way. They
caused Madame Coulomb to begin an action for libel against General Morgan — one
of Madame Blavatsky's European friends — intending to call Madame Blavatsky
as a witness and so get her under the desired cross-examination. The situation
was undoubtedly serious. Her health was made the ostensible motive for arranging
her return to Europe. The lady doctor who attended her gave a certificate to
the effect that the excitement and worry to which she was exposed in[Page
79]
Madras rendered her departure
necessary and she was hustled off at very short notice, accompanied by a
maid and her doctor, and put on board a Messageries steamer bound for Naples.
In her absence the action against General Morgan lost its motive and was
dropped.
She
arrived in Naples some time in April, 1885, and went to a hotel at Torre
del Greco, near by. From there she wrote my wife a long letter in a very
gloomy vein. This period may be regarded as the climax of her trouble in
connection with the Hodgson report. Of course, as I have said, the report
was grossly unfair in many ways, and actually stupid in much of its reasoning,
but the world at large took it at its face value, and at first Madame Blavatsky
failed to realise how strong a body of adherents she retained in spite
of the conclusions reached by the S.P.R.
The
long letter is still in my possession together with a large number of others
written most of them from Wurzburg, whither she went on from Torre Del
Greco. Her industry with the pen, whether writing for the press or for
private correspondence, was marvelous. Without reproducing it in extenso I will quote from it enough to show the characteristic attitude of mind
in which she confronted the Hodgson attack and its reception by the S.P.R.
"Do
not fight for me, my kind dear Mrs. Sinnett, do not defend me. You will
lose your time and only be called a confederate if not worse. You would
hurt yourself, perhaps the Cause and do me no good. The iron
has entered too deeply into the hapless individual known as H.P.B. The chemicals
used for the Dye of slander were, or rather are too strong and death herself,
I am afraid, shall never wash away in the eyes of those who do not know me,
the dirt that has been thrown at and has stuck on the personality of[Page
80] the
dear Old Lady. Ah yes! the Old Lady is a clean thing to look at now,
an honour to her friends, an ornament to the Society, if anything. Alone
the
Occult World has the key to the situation and the truth. But the Occult
World is at a discount now even at the Headquarters. The poor Colonel has
it securely locked up for the present under a triple key at the very bottom
of his poor weak heart, and does not for the time being have it on his tongue.
A reaction and an exaggeration with him as usual. He has stuffed the
S.P.R. with what could not but appear to the majority cock and bull stories
and had fights with me for asking him not to take them as arbitrators, not
to have anything to do with the Dons, and now when their arbitration
had such a glorious end for us he got frightened out of his wits".
A
good deal more follows to the same effect together with a reference to
the occasion I have fully dealt with when Colonel Olcott thrust the Lord
Buddha on his wheels before the intuitional gathering at the Psychic
Research meeting". The letter then reverts to the public attitude of mind
about herself.
"Of course you all
who believe and respect the Masters cannot without losing every belief in
them think me guilty. Those who feel no discrepancy in the idea of filthy
lying and fraud — even for the good of the cause — being
associated with work done for the Masters are congenital idiots. One
capable of believing that such pure and holy hands can touch and handle
with no sense of squeamishness such a filthy instrument as I am now
represented to be — are natural born fools or capable themselves of
working on the principle that 'the end justifies the means' . . . . Had I
written even one of those idiotic and at bottom infamous interpolations
now made to appear in the said letter; had I been guilty once only of a
deliberate[Page
81] purposely
concocted fraud, especially when those deceived were my best, my truest friends — no
love for such a one as I. At best but pity or eternal contempt. . . . Many
are the things I have been obliged to conceal by holding my tongue — many
although fewer those I have allowed to go uncorrected before the world and
the belief of my friends, but these were no phenomena of ours but only the
mistakes and hallucinations, the exaggerations of other people quite sincere
too. And if I did so it was only because I was ever afraid of injuring the
cause."
These quotations do
not amount to more than a fourth part of the whole letter, but the rest is
mainly an amplification of the parts quoted. The bitter language directed
against Olcott was, of course, the expression of a transient feeling, and
must not be regarded as representing her final opinion. Dealing with the
period in his Diary Leaves, Olcott describes
her as
"chafing like a caged lioness" and upbraiding him in letter after letter "for
what she called our cowardice, and our haste to sacrifice her as our scape-goat.
She was utterly wrong of course, but argumentation was useless — I
was called all the harsh names conceivable."
She
was especially exasperated by some changes in the form of the magazine The
Theosophist,
the idea of which she had misapprehended at first. When the new issue reached
her, Olcott writes: — "She then wrote —'
Well, I knew that the accusation of your taking off my name from the
Theosophist was all bosh. . . . Let us forgive each other, be indulgent to
each other's failings and cease fighting and backbiting like Christian
sectarians' ". Considering how one-sided the backbiting had been, the
lofty tone adopted is sufficiently amusing.[Old Diary Leaves.
vol ii, page 312 et seq.]. [Page
82]
Before
the actual publication of the Hodgson report the activities of the London
Lodge were hardly checked. Open meetings were several times held at Queen
Anne's Mansions and that of March 4th, 1885, is referred to in my wife's
Diary as having been very fully attended, but although the Minute book
continues to record the names of new members joining the Society it also
begun to include ominous hints in the shape of resignations. These became
more numerous as time goes on, but are balanced by the election of many
new members. The proceedings of the Lodge at its closed meetings (distinguished
from the open meetings held at Queen Anne's Mansions) were largely concerned
with discussion arising from the Hodgson Report — when that at last was
published — and with
some trouble that ensued from charges against Mr. Mohini. Clouds were
settling down on the London Society and its meetings became less
frequent than previously. Nevertheless we took a room on the first floor of
No. 15, York Street, Covent Garden, to be permanently available for the
use of members and collected a few books there. The ground floor was
occupied by the shop and office of Mr. Redway, a publisher in a small way
of business whom I — at that time in possession of means — subsidised
with a view of stimulating his attention to publications of a theosophical
character. But nothing could effectually check the disintegration of the
Society when the Hodgson report gave the general public the impression
that the whole theosophical movement was somehow a fraudulent
enterprise on the part of Madame Blavatsky. A small group around
ourselves remained untouched by the unpleasant influence of the Report,
but for a time we had to abandon all hope of progress and could only mark
time.[Page 83]
CHAPTER
- 8 -
MADAME Blavatsky only
stayed a few months at Torre Del Greco and then went on to Wurzburg. She
was never left alone, and her principal reliance during the period that followed,
was on the Countess Wachtmeister, whose devoted care of her never slackened.
My wife and I went to see her at Wurzburg in the course of our autumn tour
in 1885. She was staying at 6, Ludwigstrasse. We, of course, went to a
hotel though after a day or two my wife went to stay with the O.L. at Ludwigstrasse
while I engaged a single room for myself somewhere else. Madame Fadeef
(Madame Blavatsky's aunt) was staying with her at the time and also theSolovioffs — as I find from the Diary. The O.L. then regarded
Solovioff as a friend, though he turned into an enemy later on. Considering
what her psychic faculties were in some ways, Madame Blavatsky in a great many
cases showed herself a deplorably bad judge of character — both ways.
During
our visit to Wurzburg I had to get from her, as well as I could, explanations
that would clear up inconsistencies in various stories of her adventurous
life that she had told us from time to time in the interests of the book,
then in preparation, which ultimately appeared under the title
Incidents in the Life of Mme. Blavatsky. [Second Edition
- Theosophical Publishing House] Much correspondence on this project
had already preceded our visit. She was eager that I should do something in
her defence when the Hodgson report appeared. The only practical course I could
take seemed the publication of her Memoirs. We had long been vaguely assuming
that after her[Page
84]
death, whenever that might take
place, I should write her Memoirs and I had suggested that by doing this.
in advance I might effectually dispose of the absurd idea that she was
an adventuress concocting the whole theosophical enterprise for her own personal
advantage. I could easily obtain from her Russian relations guarantees
concerning her birth and social position. In consultation we decided that Memoirs would
be too comprehensive a title for the book and agreed on the word Incidents instead.
But the trouble was that in our long intimacy she had told us innumerable
tales of adventure which I now had to try and fit in with one another in
a connected series, with some attention to time and place. They would not
fit. Directly I began to handle dates the difficulties became desperate.
She had originally told us, when she first made our acquaintance at Allahabad,
that she had spent three years with the Masters in Tibet; other episodes
taken into account, no three years could anyhow be identified as those
so spent. I had good reason to feel sure that she really had been — at
some period — with
the Masters in Tibet, but eventually the three years became condensed into
about eleven months. So on with other dates, and my wife's Diary makes
mention of days spent with Mme. Blavatsky during our Wurzburg visit in
trying to clear up the confusion.
I find in a box full
of her letters from Wurzburg one which relates to the
Incidents and exhibits her attitude of mind towards ourselves, which
was perfectly sincere, I feel sure, at the moment, though later events put
a totally different complexion upon it. She wrote: —
MY DEAREST MR. SINNETT,
May They bless
and reward you — I can only feel as deeply as it is in my nature
to feel that you are[Page
85] the best friends I have
left in the world and that you may dispose of me to the hour of my death.
Do whatever you like.
Publish the Memoirs, write what you think best and proper. I subscribe
to it beforehand and hereby give you carte blanche and full authority to
act and do in my name whatever you will. I am sure you will defend the
cause and myself better than I ever can.
[After going on at
some length with indignant protests against being taken for a Russian spy,
she winds up by saying she is making her will.]
" I want you to take
care of my papers and of a box on which I will write your name. It contains
all the Mahatma papers and many letters I have received from Mahatma K.
H., orders from Master, blowing up, and so on. I hope they will
fall in no one's hands but yours. Publish, write, tell me what to do and
I will do so. I am a paralysed body — dead heart and body. I have
lost the faculty of suffering even.
Yours to the last,
H. P. BLAVATSKY."
I never heard any more
of the box in question or of the will and, though at the time she was always
hinting at the probability of an early death, six more years of life lay
before her during which her Wurzburg attitude of mind underwent considerable
changes. Even as regards the Incidents she grew more than dissatisfied.
As its purpose in accordance with her wish had been to dissipate the suspicion
that she was a Russian spy I had emphasized the loyal tone she really had
always adopted in speaking to Indian natives about the British rule. She
warned them of the folly of wishing to exchange this for Russian rule, which
she plainly told them would be a dismal change for the worse. When the book
was published[Page
86] her Russian relations were
deeply offended with her for taking this tone. Her sister, Mme. Jelihovsky,
was staying with her at Ostend, and no doubt took her to task on the subject
to her great annoyance. Anyhow she generally afterwards referred to my book
as those damned Memoirs. As I had only written it at her earnest desire
this was a somewhat ludicrous result, but it will be unnecessary for me to
refer to the matter again.
All through the spring
of 1886 my wife and I continued to keep the Society alive and our house at
Ladbroke Gardens continued the centre of a great deal of social activity — though
the prestige of the movement had been severely shaken. The Minutes of the
Society at this period refer to attacks on the Society in the Sunday Times and
the World directed especially against Mr. Mohini, whose relations
with a certain lady gave rise to some legal proceedings that gave us great
annoyance at the time but proved abortive in the end. None the less we were
enabled to hold another open meeting at Queen Anne's Mansions on the 3Oth
June which, I see from my wife's Diary, was largely attended. The ordinary
meetings meanwhile were almost suspended during the following few years.
The last entry in the Minute Book records a meeting held in January, 1893,
but by that time the movement in this country had attained an entirely new
aspect, as I must now endeavour to explain.
Early in 1886 Mme.
Blavatsky migrated from Wurzburg to Ostende under the guidance and with the
help of the Gebhard family. Mrs. Gebhard had long before this, got over her
distrust of the O.L. as engendered by the visit to Elberfeld which
I have described. I visited her at Ostende in August, 1886, and found her
very busy writing the Secret Doctrine on which work she had been engaged
during the[Page
87] greater part of her stay
at Wurzburg. I have no recollections of special interest in connection with
this visit, except that I met Mme. Jelihovsky, Mme. Blavatsky's sister, who
afterwards I think had a good deal to do with the widening of the breach
between Mme. Blavatsky and myself. But the visit, looking back on it from
a later period, may be regarded as the last stage of Mme. Blavatsky's close
attachment to and reliance on ourselves. Soon afterwards she was brought
over to London and a new era dawned for the Theosophical Movement in England.
A group of the London
Lodge members, of which the two Keightleys and Mr. Harbottle were especially
active in the matter, had conceived the idea of inviting Mme. Blavatsky to
return to London. Although the ultimate results as regards the progress of
the movement were important and beneficial I did not welcome the idea at
the time. Deeply impressed by the disasters that had ensued from her return
in 1884, I shrank from the possibility that her presence might give rise,
in some way, to further trouble. The Keightleys consulted me on the subject,
but were not turned from their purpose by my disapproval. We had a special
conference on the proposed invitation — taking the respectful form
of a petition to Mme. Blavatsky — at the house where Mr. Archibald
Keightley was then living in Elgin Crescent, and my reluctance to join in
with it began to create an estrangement between myself and its promoters.
Thus I have no personal knowledge of the arrangements made for carrying out
the plan. I believe that some of the group concerned went over to Ostende
to see Mme. Blavatsky and obviously they financed the whole undertaking.
The scheme seems to have hung fire for a little owing to some temporary illness,
but Mme. Blavatsky actually came over under careful escort in May, 1887,
and was[Page
88] established at first in a
house at Norwood, Maycot by name, lent to the group in charge of her. The
first reference to the new situation that I find in my wife's Diary shows
that we had news on the 2nd May that H.P.B. would arrive at Norwood in the
afternoon. The following morning I went to see her and my wife went the following
day and had "nearly three hours with her". We both went again, two or three
times during the month, and on the 23rd my wife records a visit in the course
of which she found the O.L. "very full of the new notion of turning
the English Theosophists into groups each under its own President". The Keightley
group had apparently by this time determined to create a new Lodge to be
independent of the London Lodge, till then the only recognised Theosophical
organisation in Great Britain — the only one in Europe except for the
German branch established at Elberfeld. The plan was quickly carried out
and The Blavatsky Lodge as it was called came into existence. I cannot
describe the course of events more minutely as I was not consulted in the
matter, but Colonel Olcott's diary records the receipt of a letter from Mme.
Blavatsky dated 25th May, 1887 (from Maycot), in which she writes:— "We
have fourteen of the best of the members who have now formed a new Lodge,
and, my protests notwithstanding, have called it the Blavatsky Lodge of the
T.S.". [Old Diary Leaves, vol iv, page 25]
The protests can hardly
have been very determined for the founders of the new Lodge were too completely
devoted to her to have resisted any real wish on her part. In one sense the Early
Days of the Society, those in which its history was identified with that
of the London Lodge, had come to an end. A new Theosophical era had ben inaugurated,
in which[Page
89] great progress was made,
and in which storms raged from time to time in a way that was not unusual
in connection with activities revolving round H.P.B.. One such storm — this
time in a tea-cup — had to do with some trouble that had arisen in
Paris in connection with a branch of the Society established there by a certain
M. Louis Dramard who died soon afterwards. His survivors seem to have disagreed
as to the management of the branch. Madame Blavatsky took the part of one
combatant and wrote such excited letters to India on the subject that the
Executive Council — Colonel Olcott tells us — "was alarmed for
the stability of the movement in the West". [Old Diary Leaves vol
iv, page 56] So he thought it necessary to come himself to Europe,
torestore order.
This he seems to have
accomplished by issuing a charter for a new lodge to be independent
of that in which the tea-cup storm had arisen. In doing this he displeased
the disputant whom Madame Blavatsky had been disposed to patronise and this "led
to a pitched battle between H.P.B. and myself on my return to London". The
mutual relations of theFounders were by no means always so
harmonious as later generations of Theosophists have generally imagined. Quarreling would
hardly be the word to use in reference to these disagreements, as the anger
involved was always shown by Madame Blavatsky. Olcott's tone in writing about
such troubles was always good tempered and restrained, as for example, in
reference to the formation of the Esoteric Section which Madame Blavatsky
designed, as she practically admitted in conversation at the time, to neutralise
Colonel Olcott's autocratic supremacy in the Society.
Colonel Olcott gives
a picturesque account in his[Page
90] Diary Leaves of the
ferocious attitude she took up in her correspondence with him in reference
to the Esoteric Section set on foot soon after her establishment in
comfort at the house in the Lansdowne Road taken for her accommodation by
the Keightley group. The stay at Norwood had never been regarded as more
than a provisional arrangement. The DiaryLeaves will always
be available for reference by any of my readers who wish to realize the extent
to which the Founders were sometimes at variance, so I need only quote
a few significant passages. Colonel Olcott writes. —
The formation of the Esoteric Section as
I have said was arranged for soon after Madame Blavatsky's establishment at Lansdowne
Road. The net was thrown out very widely, and members joined it, attracted by
the promise of some mysterious teaching not given to the rank and file of the
Theosophical[Page
91] Society. As persons quite unknown
to Madame Blavatsky were taken into it by correspondence, my wife once asked
her if she really meant to give esoteric teaching to persons whom she
did not even personally know. "Oh no". she replied, or in words to that effect, "I
shall only give teaching to the few immediately around me". She did not seem
to feel that the others were then beguiled into the organisation on false pretences.
They were required all the same to give pledges; I find among my papers a draft
of these pledges in a form that appears to have been used in the beginning, and
the most important one binds the applicant, or probationer "to support
before the world the Theosophical movement, its leaders and its members, and
in particular to obey without cavil or delay the orders of the Head of the Esoteric
Section in all that concerns my relation with the Theosophical movement".The
probationer was also required to pledge himself "never to listen without protest
to any evil thing spoken of a brother theosophist and to abstain from condemning
others",and again "to give what support I can to the Theosophical movement in
time, money, and work".
I declined participation
in the undertaking — though offered personal exemption from all the
pledges, if only I seemed to accept things — as it sinned, in
my opinion, against fundamental principles of Theosophy as I understood it.
The breach between Madame Blavatsky and myself then gradually widened.
Colonel Olcott — as
the result of his pitched battle apparently — consented to issue
an Order in Council — (he was always fond of investing his doings
as President with the dignity of such phrases), "forming an Esoteric Section
with Madame Blavatsky as its responsible head".[Page
92]
CHAPTER
- 9 -
THIS same year, 1888,
the Secret Doctrine was published. To our surprise we found in its
earlier pages an attack on Esoteric Buddhism. I was represented as
having misunderstood the Master's letter in reference to the association
of the planets Mars and Mercury with our Earth in the planetary chain to
which we belong. I had clearly explained that they did belong to our chain,
Mars behind us in evolution, Mercury in advance. But now Madame Blavatsky
declared that this was a great mistake.
I refrain from a minute
analysis of the elaborate attempt to justify her position that Madame Blavatsky
makes in the protracted explanation that follows. It affords one of the most,
or the most, painful examples of the terribly evil influences under which
she sometimes fell as a consequence of the confusing war of hostile and protective
powers continually raging around her. The letter from the Master from which
she professed to give extract was not what she represents it, an answer to
enquiries of her own, but a garbled version of a letter originally addressed
to me, a copy of which came into her possession under circumstances deeply
to be deplored.
Though printed in the
earlier chapters of the Secret Doctrine the whole passage was of course
added during the Lansdowne Road period when she was surrounded by impassioned
devotees, some of whom no doubt resented my reluctance to be one of them.
On them she threw the whole blame when my wife indignantly addressed her
(I forget whether by[Page
93] letter or word of mouth)
in reference to the attack on me, so comically at variance with her former
attitude of mind when we were almost her only champions during the Wurzburg
period. They had made her write as she did !
Our equanimity as regards
the accuracy of the statements made in Esoteric Buddhism relating
to Mars and Mercury was not in the least disturbed by Madame Blavatsky's
attempted refutation. At this period and for many later years we were enjoying
opportunities of frequent conversation with the Master K. H. in a way carefully
concealed from Madame Blavatsky's knowledge, as well on the higher plane
by the Master's arrangements as on the lower by our own scrupulous secrecy
on the subject. We had been told that if she came to know of our private
privilege her occult powers would enable her to interfere in a way which
would imperil its continuance. Her jealousy of anyone else acting as an intermediary
between the Masters and people on the physical plane was so intense (it had
been productive of trouble in the case of Mrs. Holloway as I have shown)
that she would hesitate at nothing if her displeasure in this way was roused.
Privately the Master assured us that I had not made any mistake in
the matter dealt with, and although the attack directed against me was annoying
we must be content with knowing we were really in the right. Thus while sorely
tempted to create an open scandal by disclosing the true facts about the
alleged letter as given in the Secret Doctrine I did not do so, and
even now am passing lightly over the details of the episode. The annoyance
it gave us increased rather than diminishing as time went on, and as I began
to receive letters from all over the world asking me how I came to be so
stupid as to misunderstand the Master's teaching,[Page
94]
it was not easy to
remain silent. Eventually when Madame Blavatsky had passed away and Mrs.
Besant, by the expansion of her own knowledge had ascertained definitely
that Mars and Mercury did belong to our chain with functions in evolution
as I had originally described them, she did publish a statement to that effect
in Lucifer — the magazine started by Madame Blavatsky and which
she, Mrs. Besant, continued to edit under that name for a time. [See Lucifer vol
xvii, page 271]
This note may have
had the effect of reconciling some theosophical students with the true teaching
in reference to the planetary chain, but it is not easy to kill falsehood
outright when it once gets a good start. Up to the time at which I am writing
(1919) the echoes of Madame Blavatsky's attack on my book are still reverberating.
In an American magazine called Azoth a review of a pamphlet I recently
published deplores the fact that I am "still guilty of the heresy which H.
P. B. condemned of believing that this humanity came from Mars and is going
to Mercury".
The year 1889 was associated
with many events of importance in connection with the growth of the Society,
and at its extreme close with one that led to very important consequences — the
return to Europe of Mr. Leadbeater, accompanied by a Singalese boy, who in
later years became a very prominent figure in the Theosophical world, as
C. Jinarajadasa. The story of his introduction to this country is, at the
time I write, unknown to his admirers at large, but is worth record here.
When Mr. Leadbeater
went to India with Madame Blavatsky he was sent by Colonel Olcott to Ceylon
to take charge of certain Buddhist Schools that he, Colonel Olcott, had established
there. Mr. Leadbeater kept up a correspondence with me and many of[Page
95] his letters showed plainly
that he was very miserable in this uncongenial employment, although, as I
learned afterwards, the period was associated with great development of his
psychic faculties and with consciousness in the physical brain of his relations
on higher planes with the Master K. H.
Our son was, in 1889,
a boy of 12 years old. The period was one in which we seemed to be very well
off, in worldly possessions (our total ruin planned by the black powers came
on later). It occurred to us that it would be better for our son to be educated
by a Theosophical tutor instead of being sent to a commonplace school, especially
as he was thought to be of delicate constitution. Mr. Leadbeater seemed to
be exactly qualified to fit the part. We knew and liked him personally. We
wrote to him offering him the appointment with us as resident tutor. The
grateful letters he wrote back were touching in their exuberant delight at
the prospect of emancipation from the wretched life he was leading in Ceylon,
but there was a great difficulty in the way! The Master had specially directed
him to take care of a certain native boy in whom he — the Master — for
reasons of his own, was interested. Leadbeater could not leave Ceylon and
come to England without bringing that boy with him !
Of course this was
a most unattractive proposal, but we came to the conclusion that by falling
in with it we should be helping to realise some plans the Master had in view,
and after much consideration agreed. My wife and I had gone to South sea
to spend Christmas that year, but a telegram announced Leadbeater's arrival
in England, and I went back to town a few days sooner than I intended to
meet him. I found him and the Ceylon boy already established at our house
in Ladbroke Gardens. I may as well deal[Page
96] at once with later developments
in reference to the boy. From the beginning he behaved nicely in all ways,
during the year or two he stayed in our house. The arrangement was only broken
up when our total ruin, to which I must refer again later, rendered its continuance
impracticable. I contrived eventually to secure employment for Leadbeater
in the London office of the Pioneer, the paper I formerly edited in
India, and "Raja, as we called him, grew up in his care. In my belief
he failed to carry out the astral plan the Master had in view. This was to
let the boy have the benefit of a Western education, but to let him return
to Ceylon and by joining the Buddhist priesthood do something to reform that
very decadent body. But Leadbeater grew too much attached to the boy to carry
out this plan. By degrees he became well known to many of our friends, some
of them willing and in a position to give the pecuniary help he needed to
keep Raja in England and even at a University. By the time his education
was complete and he had emerged from boyhood he had almost forgotten his
native language and regarded the notion of going back to live the ordinary
native life in Ceylon with unconquerable reluctance. So he drifted into the
career that has made him well known in many parts of the world as a theosophical
lecturer and writer.
In compiling a narrative
of this kind it is almost impossible to maintain a chronological sequence
in dealing with events that have to be recorded. So many separate threads
are interwoven with each other that in following out each in turn it is necessary
to go back to pick up others. The development of the Society from 1889 onwards
was assuming a new character which left that of its early days in the background.
Colonel Olcott paid another visit to Europe in that year, traveled about
England, Scotland and[Page
97] Ireland and founded many
lodges. The British Section was now definitely constituted, and the
London Lodge denuded of many members drawn off into Madame Blavatsky's entourage
shrank to relatively small proportions. We made a present to the British
Section of the furniture and books we had accumulated at the York Street
room, and the really important work we did was carried out at our private
meetings first at Ladbroke Gardens, and afterwards at Leinster Gardens, whither
we moved in the beginning of 1890. Our financial crisis was approaching,
but we continued to hold meetings in the evenings of the most faithful members
of the London Lodge in which the teaching I — or rather we (my wife
and I) — were then getting from the Master via the private channel
of communication that had been available for the previous five years was
talked over and assimilated. Thus I had been enabled in 1885 to issue a Transaction of
the London Lodge on The Higher Self, an expression which together
with the important ideas clinging round it, was then introduced into Theosophical
literature for the first time. The whole subject has so long now been a familiar
commonplace of theosophical thinking that it seems strange, looking back,
that it should have been received with grudging distaste by the large circle
of devotees round Madame Blavatsky. But she could never tolerate the notion
of fresh teaching coming through any channel independent of herself. So she
endeavoured to pick holes in the new theory of the Higher Self, resting her
objections on the use of the word Self in some Eastern writing as
identical with the Divine principle in all consciousness.
At this date it seems
hardly worth while to follow in detail the controversy that ensued. Obedient
to the hint that my view of the matter was distasteful to[Page
98] Madame Blavatsky, the American
publication The Path, conducted by Mr. Judge, attacked my pamphlet
and, outside the narrow circle of London Lodge students, it was for a time
regarded as deplorably heterodox, though by degrees the teaching it passed
on came to be regarded as among the familiar and rudimentary commonplaces
of theosophical knowledge, and theosophical students are now so used to the
idea that they will hardly realise that it dawned upon us first on the occasion
I refer to. But in spite of its truth and simplicity it did not, as I have
said, meet with a cordial reception from Madame Blavatsky, who as I have
shown in other cases did not readily welcome occult information coming through
other channels. Later on, when I endeavoured in a book called The Rationale
of Mesmerism to interpret some of the higher phenomena of mesmerism,
I had to make use of the information I had acquired in reference to the Higher
Self, and criticism of the book emanating from devout followers of Madame
Blavatsky denounced the theory as at variance with her teaching. I only refer
to the matter now because it gives me an opportunity of showing how beautifully
my wife and I were in collaboration in all that concerned our work in the
interests of Theosophy. As I have said before my wife's help and sympathy
in connection with my more conspicuous share in the work was of supreme value
throughout the whole undertaking, but it did not often assume a public manifestation.
On the occasion I am dealing with however, it did. Reviews of my Mesmerism
book appeared in Madame Blavatsky's magazine Lucifer and in Mr. Judge's
magazine published in America The Path ; my interpretation of some
among the subtle phenomena of Mesmerism involved reference to the Higher
Self and was scornfully dealt with[Page
99] accordingly. My wife took
up the defence of my position and wrote an article for Lucifer of
August, 1892, so well reasoned and representing such careful preparation
that I reprint it here in order that the reader may realise in some measure
her mental grasp of the teaching it was our task to pass on.
After a few introductory
words relating to the reviews of my book she goes on: —
"For some years past
there has been a considerable amount of misapprehension on the subject of
the Higher Self, as originally elucidated by Mr. Sinnett in a Transaction
of the London Lodge, published in 1885. He was the first of the modern
writers on Theosophy to make use of that expression; and to that extent coined
the word which has since then been so much used and misused, to convey his
meaning in regard to that particular aspect of the human soul.
The words, the Self,
the Highest Self, and the Supreme, are to be found in many
of the English translations of the Sanskrit writings, more particularly in
the Upanishads, but the expression Higher Self, as a definition
of the individualised Ego, had never, until the publication of the Transaction referred
to, been used in recent Occult teaching. At the time of writing the above-mentioned
paper the term "Higher Self appeared to Mr. Sinnett to be the best
description available of the re-incarnating principles in their relation
to the lower quaternary, and the reasons for thus using the term prevail
as strongly now as they did then. Therefore in criticizing his present book
it would perhaps be more instructive to the reader, as it would undoubtedly
be fairer to the author, if the reviewer accepted his meaning, even though
objecting to his terminology. It is moreover difficult to understand how
the Higher Self, as spoken of in the Rationale ofMesmerism,[Page
100] could be considered
as the equivalent of Atmâ, or the Universal Spirit, especially
when taken in conjunction with the two previous Transactions on the
subject which are referred to, and consequently may be supposed to have been
read, by the writer of the notice in The Path.
Madame Blavatsky, in
dealing with these two papers in the Key toTheosophy, does
not fall into this error, but fully appreciates that in speaking of the Higher
Self Mr. Sinnett is referring to the Spiritual or re-incarnating Ego,
and not to either Atmâ, or Parabrahman, the Divine and Universal
Spirit.
Language and words
in themselves are of no value unless they can be utilised to convey ideas,
and in support of the use of the expression HigherSelf as
a suitable definition of the human Spiritual Ego, many quotations taken from
writings, ancient and modern, may be brought forward.
In the English translations
of Sanskrit works mentioned above, Atmâ, Paramâtma, Brahma, or the
Universal Spirit, are almost invariably spoken of as the Self, the
Highest Self or the Supreme, but never as the HigherSelf.
In Telang's rendering
of the Bhagavad Gitâ we find these words: —
There
are two beings in the world, the destructible and the indestructible.
The destructible (includes) all things. The unconcerned one is (what
is) called the indestructible. But the being Supreme is yet another
called the Highest Self, who as the inexhaustible lord pervading the
three worlds supports (them) . . .
Davies, in his translation
of the same verses, gives the idea in very similar terms.
In this world there are two existences, the Perishable and Imperishable.
The Perishable consists of [Page
101] all living things, the Imperishable
is called the Lord on high. But there is another, the highest existence, called
the Supreme Spirit. . . .
Turning to the Upanishads, in the last
section ofthe Mundaka we read: " —
He that knows that Highest Self, becomes that Highest Self only.
There is none in his family ignorant of the Self. He passes beyond misery,
he passes beyond the taint of good and evil works, he is released from
his heart's ties and becomes immortal.
Again: —
. . . And we also know the undecaying Highest Self, the farther
shore beyond all fear for those that will to cross the sea of metempsychosis.
Mr. Gough further says: —
[Philosophy
of the Upanishads]
This Self, this Highest Self, Atman, Brahman, Paramâtman, is
being, thought, and bliss undifferenced.
Professor M. Muller,
in describing the Self, says: —
[What Can India
Teach Us]
Atman, the Self far more abstract than our Ego— the Self of
all things, the Self of the old mythological gods . . . the Self in which each
individual self must find rest, must come to himself, must find his own true
self.
Further on page 251: —
But that Self, that Highest Self, the Paramâtman, could be
discerned after a severe moral and intellectual discipline only, and those
who knew the other gods to be but names or persons . . . knew also that those
who worshipped these names or persons, worshipped in truth the Highest Self,
though ignorantly.
Again page 253: —
The Self within (Pratyagâtman) was drawn towards the Highest
Self (the Paramâtman); it found its true Self in the Highest Self, and
the oneness of the subjective with the objective Self was recognised as underlying
all reality........[Page
102]
These extracts are not given for any intrinsic
value in themselves, although they contain much of the essence of the Vedantin
philosophy. For the purpose of illustration, however, they show that Mr. Sinnett
had some authority to go upon, outside of the reasonableness of the wording,
in speaking of the individual Ego as Higher Self in contra-distinction
to the Highest. In its capacity as a re-incarnating force it cannot be considered
the Highest, although in development it becomes more and more glorified and illuminated
by its spiritual aspiration towards that Highest, and may finally blossom into
liberation and unity. Atmâ as representing pure Spirit should not be confounded
with the divine human Ego, as the latter, while in a state of differentiation
and liable to re-incarnation, must contain the higher fifth principle, of Manas.
It is this very individual Self in humanity which contains the potential elements
of future unity with the Supreme and Universal Self; and which — sometimes
retarded in its upward path of evolution, and sometimes helped onward by the
experience gained through its alliance with its series of personal selves — was
appropriately termed by Mr. Sinnett The Higher Self.
Madame Blavatsky,
in much that she has written, appears to support the idea, and in some
cases uses even the same nomenclature. In her comments on Stanza V. she
says: —
This fire is the Higher Self, the Spiritual Ego, or that which
is eternally re-incarnating under the influence of its lower personal Selves.
[Secret Doctrines,
Vol. II. Stanza V.]
Further on in the
same chapter: —
Unless the Higher Self
or Ego gravitates towards its sun[Page
103]
The
reader will find all through this commentary that the writer uses the term Higher
Self as the equivalent of the re-incarnating Ego.
Again in her remarks
on Stanza X., page 230: —
. . . This is the human terrestrial form of Initiates, and also because
the Logos is Christos, that principle of our inner nature which develops in
us into the Spiritual Ego — the Higher Self — being formed of the
indissoluble union of Buddhi, the sixth, and the spiritual efflorescence of
Manas, the fifth principle.
To
this is added a footnote: —
It is not correct to refer to Christ, as some Theosophists do — as
the sixth principle in man, Buddhi. The latter per se is a passive and
latent principle, the spiritual vehicle of Atman, inseparable from the manifested
universal soul. It is only in union in conjunction with self-consciousness that
Buddhi becomes the Higher Self and the divine discriminating soul.
Further on in the same volume (ch. XXIII. p. 563):
Now when the Rabbi Jesus is requested (in Pistis Sophia by
his disciples to reveal to them the mysteries of the Light of thy (his)
Father (i.e of the Higher Self enlightened by Initiation and Divine
Knowledge), Jesus answers, . . . etc.
Obviously pure Atman cannot be initiated either
in Divine or any other kind of knowledge, therefore the Higher Self here, as
in the other quotations, can only refer to the re-incarnating Ego.
One more extract from
the same author may be taken out of that most beautiful little book, The
Voice of the Silence (page 38): —
Restrain by thy Divine
thy Lower Self.
Restrain by the Eternal
the Divine.
Aye, great is he who
is the slayer of desire.
Still greater he in
whom the Self Divine has slain the very knowledge of desire.
Guard thou the Lower
lest it soil the Higher.
[Page 104] Clearly
nothing can soil or pollute pure spirit, or Atmâ, and the Higher and
Lower alluded to can refer only to the Higher and Lower Selves.
The word higher predicates
an intermediate condition between that which is above and that which is below.
If pure spirit, Atmâ, or the Supreme, is to be called the Higher Self,
where are we to look for what must be, if language has any meaning, the Highest
?
A few words may now
be said about some other points raised in the afore-mentioned notices. The
most important is that which touches upon the question as to which of the
principles of the sensitive in trance come under the control of the mesmerist.
There would certainly be no difference of opinion between Mr. Sinnett and
his critics in regard to one point, and that is, that pure Atmâ, or
pure Spirit, alone does not fall under the power of the operator. If, however,
the human Ego is to be described as being either the one or the other, then
the experience of Mr. Sinnett, or any other Occult student who has had any
practical knowledge concerning the higher aspects of Mesmerism, will not
be in accord with that view. A long and close study of this branch of Occultism
goes to prove most decisively that it is the enormously varying character
of the Manas principle in the human race, due to greater or less spiritual
development and the ever-changing Karmic necessities, which over and over
again find expression in the psychical forms of incarnation. These variations
in the Higher Self are never more clearly illustrated than when it is set
free under the mesmeric trance, whether such be functioning on the astral
or spiritual plane. Each Ego under such conditions differs in some striking
way from another under like circumstances, quite as much as do their physical
bodies in ordinary life.[Page
105] Moreover, it would be impossible
for an operator of this pure and more spiritual form of mesmerism to be deceived
as to the state of consciousness of any special sensitive when in the trance
condition. Such a one might at one moment be functioning on one plane and
the next on another, but there would be no confusion as to the fact in the
mind of the trained observer, for the sensitive has not the same comprehensive
power of acquiring real knowledge on the astral as when upon the spiritual
plane. When the true Ego, by the effort or assistance of the mesmerist, is
really cleared of close connection with the lower principles, it is still
of course in close magnetic touch with the operator, though it can no longer
be accurately spoken of as under his control, for it has then passed into
a condition or state of consciousness which renders it absolutely free from
all influence from this plane.
In the mesmerism of
the stage, or in the ordinary drawing-room experiments, it is undoubtedly
true that only the astral principles are brought into operation. The physical
senses are rendered inoperative and the astral ones take their place. To
drink noxious liquids, suck tallow candles, or to have the flesh pierced
with pins and needles does not require the intervention of the victim's Higher
Self, and for such performances the stronger physically and the more material
the operator probably the greater the anaesthetic results. But where it is
a question of the higher regions of the Art, something quite outside of a
merely strong physique is necessary.
The practice of this
more spiritual kind of mesmerism as here discussed, is hardly open to the
ordinary run of people. It requires one who is an Occult student, one who
knows something of the conditions and influences that connect humanity with
the unseen universe, continued patience, great [Page
106] self-denial, and certain
other facilities that need not be here mentioned.
Almost the first thing
the Occult student of mesmerism, who is also in search of spiritual truth,
sets himself to do, is to try and separate the higher triad of the sensitive's
principles from the lower quaternary. This he may succeed in doing more or
less quickly or slowly according to the possibilities of the subject. Let
this result once be effected and what happens is, that the Ego or Higher
Self immediately touches that state of consciousness to which its freedom
from the lower quaternary entitles it, viz., that of the spiritual plane.
Just as in case of death, whether the complete separation of the three higher
principles from the lower ones takes a longer or shorter period, when the
liberation has taken place then the Ego's consciousness enters upon its Devachanic
bliss. But while that separation is not complete, whether the body is dead
or only entranced, while the Higher Manas is too much held back by the claims
of the lower, the Ego is unable to touch the state of consciousness beyond
that of the Astral plane, but even in that condition it is the true Ego that
is communicating with the magnetizer, and there is no question of a skilled
and experienced student mistaking the independent intelligence of the Higher
Self for the utterances of the lower astral principles more or less reflecting
his own thoughts.
There are undoubtedly
certain centres of vital and magnetic force in the human body. These are
of the greatest importance as connecting the physical body with the astral.
The potentialities of these in their full significance are known only to
those who have passed certain initiations and cannot be explained. It is
much better therefore that they should not be mentioned at all in books intended
for the public at large, and for[Page
107] the reason that there are
already sufficient dangers in the widespread use of mesmerism and hypnotism
among curious and unscrupulous experimenters, without starting these on new
lines of research, the further possibilities of which, if only partially
discovered, would render mesmerism a hundred times more insidious and dangerous
to the sensitives than is at present the case". [Page
108]
Mrs. Besant takes
care to add: " The proof of the reality of her mission from those whom
she spoke of as Masters lay not in these comparatively trivial physical
and mental phenomena, but in the splendour of her heroic endurance, the
depths of her knowledge, the selflessness of her character, the lofty spirituality
of her teaching, the untiring passion of her devotion, the incessant ardour
of her work for the enlightening of men".[Ibid page354]
The view of her that
some of us derive from experience of the Early Days renders some
part of this glowing eulogy almost more amusing than impressive, but though
my plain narrative of actual happenings may sometimes cast light on the
less alluring aspects of Madame Blavatsky's very varied character, I can
easily understand how, with them entirely in suppression, and a strong
motive in operation, she gave rise to the impressions in Mrs. Besant's
mind set forth in the glowing language above quoted. Her character would
not have been varied as I have described it, if it had not included
some very fine aspects — as well as the others.[Page
110]
During the period of Mrs. Besant's residence with her — the last
two years of her life — neither my wife nor I saw anything of her.
We were in close touch with the Master K. H. himself by our own private
arrangements and, as I have already explained, were emphatically warned
by him to guard them from any possible interference by Madame Blavatsky.
So the result of it was a complete extinction of our former intimate
relations. I have never known exactly what strange tales she invented
in order to keep Mrs. Besant from making acquaintance with us, as she
might naturally have wished to do when becoming attached to the theosophical
movement. In her autobiography she describes how long before becoming
acquainted with Madame Blavatsky and when investigating occult ideas
of all kinds — "Into the darkness shot a ray of light — A.
P. Sinnett's Occult World with its
wonderfully suggestive letters". When the illumination had expanded and
Occultism in its loftiest aspects became the main purpose of Mrs. Besant's
life it must have required some inventive ingenuity on Madame Blavatsky's
part to restrain her from coming into touch with us. But the ingenuity
was effective, and it was only after Madame Blavatsky's death, only after
Mrs. Besant had gone to India, had been in touch with the Master Morya
on her own account and had come back to London that the mysterious barrier
set up between us was broken down. In a manner as touching to me as it
was simple and straightforward Mrs. Besant told me that she had misjudged
me altogether at first and was sorry for it. We became good friends at
once and I have never striven to penetrate the mystery which lay in the
background.
In 1890 Madame Blavatsky
moved from the Lansdowne Road to 19, Avenue Road, St. John's Wood,[Page
111] a house over which Mrs.
Besant had control, and there she died in May, 1891. A little later on
Mrs. Besant paid her first visit to India, and on her return established
friendly relations with ourselves in the manner I have already described.
We were then in the middle of the period during which our private methods
of communicating with the Master K. H. were in full progress, and it was
no longer necessary to maintain the secrecy that had at first been used
to shield them from Madame Blavatsky's jealousy. Mrs. Besant quickly appreciated
their importance, and applied for admission to the London Lodge, which
we cordially welcomed. Of course she at once began to take part in the
work of the inner group which without any formal organization as such,
or affectation of masonic ceremonial, became the real vortex of the theosophic
teaching of the period. The long series of London Lodge Transactions which
were due to that teaching constitute, as we look back upon them, so many
mile-stones on the road leading gradually to the later developments of
theosophical knowledge.
When Mrs. Besant
joined our group she became intimately acquainted for the first time with
Mr. Leadbeater, whose wonderful clairvoyant faculties were of immense assistance
to us in our studies. Up to that time he had been exclusively devoted to
co-operation with us. I had, as I have already mentioned, procured him
remunerative employment in the London Office of the Pioneer, but
eventually, as Mrs. Besant came to appreciate his value she became desirous
of enlisting him on the theosophical staff at Avenue Road. She was surrounded
there with a group of young men identified with the Blavatsky Lodge, some
of whom were well off, in possession of plentiful means. An offer was[Page
112] made to Mr. Leadbeater
to the effect that if he would give up his Pioneer work, come and
live at the Avenue Road house, and devote himself to assisting the group
there in their studies, he should be provided with an adequate income — I
forget what was the precise amount to be guaranteed to him. To do him only
justice I should say that his answer at first was that he would leave the
decision to me, and if I had refused to sanction the arrangement I believe
he would loyally have accepted that decision. But I felt that I could only
give one answer. I was sure that he would prefer the Avenue Road plan beyond
all comparison with the other course of life, and I agreed. I knew that
the change would mean a great loss to us of the London Lodge but that had
to be borne. The first idea was that Mr. Leadbeater would still be able
to attend our group meetings, but naturally that interest for him slackened
as time went on. I cannot find the exact date of the change but it occurred
somewhere in the 1890's.
During those years
our activities at Leinster Gardens were very energetic. I find their records
in my wife's Diary very interesting. We continually held meetings of the
London Lodge to which friends of the members came in large numbers, the
attendance mounting up sometimes to as many as sixty, and the weekly group
meetings were going on all the time. These sometimes seemed to have been
kept up till very late hours. At some evening meetings Mrs. Besant lectured,
more often that duty fell to me. The diffusion of interest in Theosophy
as a consequence of these proceedings must have been very important, and
this is partly evidenced by the record of our regular weekly afternoon
receptions. The Diary generally records the names of Tuesday visitors,
or many of them, and the lists are significant of the[Page
112] wide-spread interest in
our work felt in various strata of London society.
This was all going
on in spite of the fact that financial ruin had overwhelmed us. This is
not an autobiography so I need not go into detail, but our ruin owing to
the failure of certain companies in which during the previous nine or ten
years of their great prosperity I had become deeply involved was very complete,
obliging me to work harder than ever and to accept help from some sympathetic
friends. The whole course of events as I have since learned lay outside
the normal Karma of our lives. All was arranged by the black powers with
the idea that we should be so angry with our own Masters for not warding
off the catastrophe that we should throw up all theosophical work in disgust.
Though we suffered very severely we remained faithful to the theosophical
cause, thus what was intended to be spiritual disaster for us proved an
ordeal successfully passed, and productive of great spiritual advancement.
In spite of financial
embarrassment we continued to keep on living at Leinster Gardens for some
years and the lodge meetings arid group meetings were held there, but eventually
in 1905 were obliged to move into a smaller and cheaper house, in a less
desirable neighbourhood, 14 Westbourne Terrace Road. None the less our
theosophical friends found their way there, and we continued our Tuesday
afternoon receptions.
Serious troubles
began soon afterwards to affect the Society. They cannot be regarded as
belonging to the Early Days, so it will be only necessary for me
to sketch their course very lightly. For some years Mr. Leadbeater had
been traveling and lecturing in America and Australia. From America painful
stories reached this country to the effect that he[Page
114] had been guilty of serious
misconduct with boys entrusted to him as pupils. The accusations pointed
especially to instruction he gave them more or less secretly in practice
designed to quench their desire for sexual intercourse of the ordinary
kind. Those inclined to take the worst view of their significance imagined
that they pointed to still more shocking offences. Colonel Olcott, then
in Paris, came over to London to investigate the charges and called a meeting
of representative theosophists to advise him as to the course to be pursued.
Mr. Leadbeater himself was present, not denying that he had given the instruction
above referred to to the boys in question, but treating the other insinuation
with scornful contempt. The proceedings were of a painful character and
some of the members present contended eagerly that Mr. Leadbeater should
be expelled from the Society. He had already offered his resignation to
Colonel Olcott and I moved that it should be accepted. On a division the
advocates of expulsion were defeated and my advice carried. Mr. Leadbeater
retired after this into obscurity and only a few of his personal friends
knew of his address; so the storm, for the moment, quieted down.
Its most serious
consequences, as far as the Society was concerned, developed later. Colonel
Olcott died at Adyar, Madras, in the year 1907. The clairvoyant testimony
of one lady staying at Adyar at the time indicated that some of the Masters
had been present in astral body when the fatal result of Colonel Olcott's
illness approached. The details of the story which got afloat were believed
or discredited in the Society according to the various attitudes of mind
which they encountered. It was alleged that the Masters had plainly declared
that Mrs. Besant should be the next President. Some rather embarrassing
functions in[Page
115] the meanwhile devolved
upon myself. By the rules of the Society where a President should die or
resign, the authority of the Presidency pending the election of a new President,
was to be exercised by the Vice-President. I was holding that office at
the time of Colonel Olcott's death, but I was living in London, and all
the machinery of the Society's administration was focused on Adyar. Current
expenditure even required Presidential authority. It was obvious that I
had to delegate my suddenly acquired power to someone at Adyar. Various
cable messages were sent back and forward and it seemed that either Mrs.
Besant or Mr. Bertram Keightley, then on the spot, might be selected. They,
however, I understood to be very much at variance and I had no means of
forming an independent opinion as to the merits of the situation, so I
appointed the Treasurer of the Society, a man who appeared to be neutral
between the more or less antagonistic groups and generally respected, as
my Deputy. In the course of time Mrs. Besant was duly elected, and the
excitements of the period I have been dealing with were soon forgotten,
though the Leadbeater scandal was destined to a formidable revival before
long.
In November, 1908,
I was subject to a terrible misfortune, the loss of my wife who died on
the 9th of that month after a long and fearfully painful illness due to
cancer. For the benefit of theosophical readers who may not unnaturally
regard such an end to such a life with surprise approaching bewilderment
I think it well to explain what I have learned since, that her severe sufferings
were not Karmic in any way, nor, in this case, the result of any attack
by Satanic enemies. By her own decision on the higher plane, though not
conscious of this in the incarnate self, she chose the frightfully
distressing conditions of her departure[Page
116] from this life — for
which the natural period had arrived — in order to accomplish a great
spiritual purpose. To explain this more fully would necessitate an elaborate
survey of occult mysteries with which it is not the purpose of this book
to deal. Nor is it necessary for me to dwell on the effect the loss had
on myself for a time, till in the later progress of my own development
I came to understand the whole situation aright, to comprehend the sublime
conditions in the Occult World to which my wife attained partly in consequence
of her great sacrifice, to enjoy opportunities of communication with her
and to realise the wisdom underlying the course she had pursued.
Mrs.
Besant soon after her election as President saw reason to modify her first
impression concerning Mr. Leadbeater and arranged for his return to Adyar
and his resumption of his work as a leading member of the Society. This
gave rise to much excited feeling in the Society and especially in the
London Lodge. At a meeting of the Lodge held in February, 1909, the Lodge
by a practically unanimous vote detached itself from the Society altogether.
I was not myself entirely in sympathy with the course, but in view of the
strong feeling of the Lodge generally, it was useless to attempt any opposition
to the separation proposal. It seemed absurd that I should disconnect myself
from the Society which I had been mainly instrumental in establishing — so
far as the western world was concerned — but at all events, by agreement
to the separation it seemed possible to keep the London Lodge together and
make a new departure in touch with Theosophy if not with the Theosophical Society.
So a Committee was appointed to carry out the idea and the members of the
former London Lodge became, almost all, members of a new body to which
we gave a new name —The Eleusinian Society.[Page
117]
Under this designation
we used to meet, for about two years, at the rooms of the Royal Asiatic
Society in Albemarle Street. I remained all the time in touch with the
Masters, through a very efficient channel of communication, and a time
came when I was enabled to see that the anomalous arrangement prevailing
might as well come to an end. I determined to resume my connection with
the regular Theosophical Society. I was re-established in my former position
as Vice-President and I endeavoured to persuade the Eleusinian Society
to resume its old character as the London Lodge of the T.S. Some agreed
and others refused. The London Lodge was re-constituted under a special
Charter issued by the governing body at Adyar and by degrees the whole
Eleusinian episode has been almost forgotten, except as regards some broken
friendships of the earlier period that are a sad memento for me of the great
crisis of 1906.
So, writing now in
the course of the eightieth year of my life on this physical plane, I feel
that it is needless to attempt to carry the record any further. The object
I have had in view has been to leave behind me for the benefit of future
theosophical generations a plain, truthful narrative of the circumstances
under which the great movement was inaugurated in the Western world, in
order to correct, as far as need be, mythological conceptions of those
Early Days which are apt to arise in later days among new adherents of
the movement who have no personal knowledge of the human agency employed
in the beginning by the real Founders of the theosophical movement who
work on super-physical planes of activity. The blundering of human agency
has over and over again threatened to wreck the whole undertaking. Few
of us concerned with its beginning have avoided mistakes altogether, but
in bringing to a close this sketchy[Page
118] review of mistakes and
successes, the story will introduce the reader to one person at all events
quite unknown to the theosophical world at large whose important share
in the early work seems to me, looking back, unblemished by mistake — my
Wife. The story I have had to tell will show how we together — my
wife and I — had the privilege of launching the theosophical movement
in Europe, for nothing done before 1883 bore any promise of permanent vitality.
I — and perhaps hardly anyone else still living — can appreciate
the value of her influence while our house was the centre around which
all theosophical activities of the period revolved. And that influence
was so effective, as I seem to see now, because it was untainted by the
faintest desire for recognition. There was no self-regarding germ in my
wife's nature on which evil influences could play to bring about misdirected
action, while if there were germs of the right kind in people with whom
she might be dealing, these were nourished or brought out by her influence
in a remarkable manner, as I have learned to understand in these later
years since she has passed on. As an underlying attribute which conduced
to the results I refer to, she was the most absolutely truthful person
I have ever known, incapable of deception in any form, and that is an attribute
which is impressive to others in a greater degree than perhaps they always
understand.