< The Occult World (continued from page 11-117) >
phenomena were permitted to be exhibited freely. She was allowed to show that raps, “like those which Spiritualists attribute to spirit agency, could be produced at will.” He then describes how raps were produced on a table, window pane, glass clockshade, and in every imaginable way, until at last he comes to the point, thus:—
“But the fact that the raps were obedient to the will was readily put beyond dispute, in this way amongst others: working with the window-pane or the clockshade, I would ask to have a name spelled out, mentioning one at random. Then I would call over the alphabet, and at the right letters the raps would come, Or I would ask for a definite number of raps, and they would come. Or for series of raps in some defined rhythmical progression, and they would come. Nor was this all. Madame Blavatsky would sometimes put her hands, or one only, on someone else’s head, and make the raps come, audibly to an attentive listener and preceptibly to the person touched, who would feel each little shock exactly as if he were taking sparks off the conductor of an electrical machine.”
Probably all the phenomena here described could be obtained with case through the mediumship of Mrs. Kate Fox-Joncken, under exactly the same conditions, and as she says that they are not produced by her will, how can the phenomena themselves negative the assertion, for if they prove the matter “beyond dispute” in the ono case, they must do so in the other.
Mr. Sinnett found it “mortifying” to be able to approach no nearer than he did, to the absolute certitude whether “there did not indeed exist men with the wonderful powers ascribed to the adepts.” On page 64 is a description of an out-door expedition after a Brother, a slippery individual who could not be found; but on page 73 Mr. Sinnett tells us how he saw a little Thibetan temple, in which Madame Blavatsky told them that a Brother “had passed the previous night,” and this is the nearest, though somewhat aggravating, approach which Mr. Sinnett ever had, to a sight of ono of these mysterious beings. Not being able to catch sight of a Brother, Mr. Sinnett asked if Madame Blavatsky would deliver a letter from him to one of them. There was a slight hitch at first, no Brother at the outset being found who was willing to receive the communication, but after a time one of them, Koot Hoomi Lal Singh, to whom the book is dedicated, began
to receive and answer Mr. Sinnott’s letters. Is Koot Hoomi Lal Singh one of the John King fraternity, communicating through a medium of more than the average education and intelligence? Like John King, he does not give his real name, but his “Thibetan mystic name,” taken by him on initiation.
Mr. Sinnett has never seen Koot Hoomi, nor does he mention that any other Theosophical probationer in India has had that privilege, but one day he received a telegram from him, Mr. Sinnett says:—
“And if it is urged that the authoress of Isis Unveiled has certainly a command of language which renders it difficult to say what she could not write, the answer is simple. I11 the production of this book she was so largely helped by the Brothers, that great portions of it are not really her work at all. She never makes any disguise of this fact, though it is one of a kind which it is useless for her to proclaim to the world at large, as it would be perfectly unintelligible except to persons who knew something of the external facts, at all events, of occultism. Koot Hoomi’s letters, as I say, are perfectly unlike her own style. But, in reference to some of them, receiving them as I did, while she was in the house with me, it was not mechanically possible that she might have been the writer. Now, the telegram I received at Allahabad, which was wired to me from Jhelum, was in reply specially to a letter I addressed to Koot Hoomi just before leaving Simla, and enclosed to Madame Blavatsky, who had started some days previously, and was then at Amritsur. She received the letter, with its enclosure, at Amritsur on the 27th of October, as I came to know, not merely from knowing when I sent it, but positively by means of the envelope which she returned to me at Allahabad by direction of Koot Hoomi, not in the least knowing why he wished it sent to me. I did not at first see what on earth was the use of the old envelope to me, but I put it away and afterwards obtained the clue to the idea in Koot Hoomi’s mind, when Madame Blavatsky wrote me word that he wanted me to obtain the original of the Jhelum telegram.
“Through the agency of a friend connected with the administration of the telegraph department, I was enabled eventually to obtain a sight of the original of the telegram—a message of about twenty words; and then I saw the meaning of the envelope. The message was in Koot Hoomi’s own handwriting, and it was an answer from Jhelum to a letter which the delivery post-mark on the envelope showed to <... continues on page 11-119 >