< The Occult World (continued from page 11-114) >
life than that supplied by a residence of some years in the United States. This sent her out to India unfurnished with the recommendations "which she could readily have obtained in England, and poisoned her mind with an absolutely erroneous and prejudiced conception of the character of the British ruling classes of India and their relations with the people. India and the United States are a good way apart geographically, but they are even more completely separated in other ways. The consequence Was that Madame Blavatsky on her first arrival in India, adopted an attitude of obtrusive sympathy with the natives of the soil as compared with the Europeans, seeking their society in a manner which, coupled with the fact that she made none of the usual advances to European society, and with her manifestly Russian name, had the effect, not unnaturally, of rendering her suspecte to the rather clumsy organization, which in India attempts to combine, With sundry others, the functions of a political Police. These suspicions, it is true, were allayed almost as soon as they were conceived, but not before Madame Blavatsky had been made for a short time the object of an espionage so awkward that it became grossly obvious to herself and roused her indignation to fever heat. To a more phlegmatic nature the incident would have been little more than amusing, but all accidents combined to develope trouble.”
Mr. Sinnett adds that
“Nothing can be done in India without a European impulse in the beginning; at all events, it handicaps any enterprise frightfully to be without such an impulse if native cooperation is required. Not that the Theosophical Society failed to get members. The natives were flattered at the attitude towards them taken up by their new ‘European’ friends, as Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott were no doubt generally regarded, in spite of their American nationality, and showed a shallow eagerness to become Theosophists. But their ardour did not always prove durable, and in some few cases they showed a lamentable want of earnestness by breaking away from the Society altogether.”
He further says that she had subsequently gained more acquaintances among Europeans:—
“She made many friends, and secured some ardent converts to a belief in the reality of object lowers; but she became the innocent other animosity on the part of occult powers; but she became the innocent object of bitter animosity on the part of some other acquaintances, who, unable to assimilate what they saw in her presence, took up an attitude of disbelief, which deepened into positive enmity as the whole subject became enveloped in a cloud of more or less excited controversy.
“And it is needless to say that many of the newspapers made great capital out of the whole situation, ridiculing Madame Blavatsky’s dupes, and twisting every bit of information that came out about her phenomena into the most ludicrous shape it could be made to assume. Mockery of that sort was naturally expected by English friends who avowed their belief in the reality of Madame Blavatsky’s powers, and probably never gave one of them a moment’s serious annoyance. But for the over sensitive and excitable person chiefly concerned they were indescribably tormenting, and eventually it grew doubtful whether her patience would stand the strain put upon it; whether she would not relinquish altogether the ungrateful task of inducing the world at large to accept the good gifts which she had devoted her life to offering them. Happily, so far, no catastrophe had ensued; but no history of Columbus in chains for discovering a new world, or Galileo in prison for announcing the true principles of astronomy, is more remarkable for those who know all the bearings of the situation in India, as regards the Theosophical Society, than the sight of Madame Blavatsky, slandered and ridiculed by most of the Anglo-Indian papers, and spoken of as a charlatan by the common place crowd, in return for having freely offered them some of the wonderful fruits—as much as the rules of the great occult association permit her to offer—of the life-long struggle in which she has conquered her extraordinary knowledge.”
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Editor's notes
- ↑ .... by unknown author, Sarasavi Sandaresa