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PROFESSOR ELLIOTT COUES AND KOOT HOOMI
To the Editor of Light.
SIR,
In answer to Prof. Elliott Coues’ reference to me, in his letter upon psychometry, in your issue of May 11th, which he closes with the appeal, “Will not Madame Blavatsky kindly come to the rescue?” I briefly answer:— To my certain knowledge Professor Coues has never received any letter from the individual known as Koot Hoomi, not through me, at any rate. And, as the said “K.H.,” in a letter to Colonel Olcott, extracts from which were published in Lucifer, No. 14, of October last, expressly says that “since 1885 I have not written, nor caused to be written, save through her [H.P.B.’s] agency, direct or remote, a letter or a line to anybody in Europe or America, nor have I communicated orally with, or through, any third party”—the following becomes evident. The letters which Professor Coues claims to have received, if they purport to come from Mahatma “K.H.” must be of the same stamp as the clumsy forgery which was published in the Chicago Tribune last 211year over the signature of “K.H.” and has caused to many Theosophists and myself extreme annoyance. This bogus production Professor Coues himself describes in a recent letter as a silly joke of a newspaper man, with which he assures me he had nothing to do. Strange to say, however, the Tribune letter bore the facsimile of a seal on a ring I have worn for over fifteen years, and with which Professor Coues is well acquainted.
This is all I have to say in the matter. The names of two living men, great in learning and wisdom, for whom the majority of Theosophists have the greatest reverence, have been sufficiently desecrated by the outside public, and the foolish, though sincere, exaggerations of some would-be Chelas. Was it necessary that Professor Coues, who aspires to become the President of the American Section of the Theosophical Society, should so wantonly and flippantly drag in the mire of his irony a name which, if it says nothing to him, is loved and respected by so many of his brother Theosophists?
H. P. BLAVATSKY.