Blavatsky H.P. - Going To and Fro in the Earth: Difference between revisions

But now comes the comical side of the situation. The good Christian editor quotes from the “Hodgson Report” a sentence which makes of Madame Blavatsky “an accomplished forger of ''other people’s'' handwriting.” This looks ominous as it stands. It might have led the writer of it four {{Page aside|404}}years ago to the dock of slanderers, wherein he would have to make good his calumny before jury and public, and it contains a libel gross enough to place the reverend editor of the Methodist Times in the same predicament now. But when one analyses the “terrible indictment,” what does one find? Why, that those “other people,” whose handwriting Madame Blavatsky is accused of having forged, are not people at all, according to the “Report.” They are not even materialized spooks, or astral forms, but simply “fictitious personages,” and “supposed” astral forms. How in the world, then, can one be accused of forging a non-existing handwriting?—the handwriting of something which does not exist, and has, therefore, no hand to write with? This is something that passes our comprehension.

Reverend satirists! Don’t you think that for the family honour of your caste you should invent something new, some fresh slander and accusation a little less stale and improbable? The famous Report, upon the willows of which you hang your Aeolian harps, made to groan by every passing wind—cannot be all true on strictly logical grounds. For, the wicked “Jezebel” of the T.S. has either invented the “Mahatmas,” in which case she had also to invent their supposed handwritings, and thus committed no forgery, or she has not, and in the latter case the Report falls to pieces. If she has fabricated these “Beings,” and written letters in their names, then she did not forge “other people’s handwriting.” As you have to catch a hare before you can make a soup of it, so a “handwriting” has to exist as well as the hand to which it belongs before it can be imitated. One may fabricate a bogus letter, but then it is not the handwriting of “other people.” At best, if true—which it is not—she would have followed the pious example of numerous Church fathers and ecclesiastics of the “divine miracle” kind throughout these 18 centuries.

Fantastic proofs of Mdme. B.’s fabricating genius have been, so far, furnished but by one man with the help of revengeful missionaries. Proofs of the fabrication of the Gospels and Christian dogmas are advanced on all sides. Does the latter shake your robust faith, O Methodists? Have the nine reasons of Bishop Lardner, adduced by him to show {{Page aside|405}}that the only and solitary proof that Christ was an actual living man, known in his day to people outside his followers’ fancy, was a clumsy forgery by Eusebius—who did forge the handwriting of Josephus—have they weakened your faith in Jesus?

And here comes the suppresio veri and suggestio falsi. The Methodist Times is careful to quote from the Report of the S.P.R. that the “communications from a being named Koot Hoomi . . . are undoubtedly written by Mdme.

Blavatsky,” and they (the S.P.R.) give the emphatic testimony to this effect of Mr. Netherclift, “the well-known expert in handwriting,” who, by the by, was at first of a different opinion. But they are as careful to conceal the as “emphatic testimony TO THE CONTRARY, given under oath, by Ernst Schütze, “an expert in handwriting,” as well known in Berlin as Mr. Netherclift is in London. And the latter having made his examination (first from two letters, respectively written by Mdme. B. and “Koot Hoomi”) as “complete as possible,” writes to Mr. Gebhard, of Elberfeld, who had submitted to him the letters, to assure him “most positively” that if he “believed that both letters came from one and the same hand,” he has “laboured under a complete mistake.” And here we quote from Mr. Sinnett’s pamphlet.<ref>See also Incidents in the Life of Madame Blavatsky, by A. P. Sinnett [London: Geo. Redway, and New York: J. W. Bouton, 1886], pp. 323-24.</ref>

“The letter A [from Madame Blavatsky], which is written in ink, has not the remotest resemblance with the letter B [from Koot Hoomi], according to the standpoint of a {{Page aside|406}}caligraphist, and they are of different handwritings. This, my expert testimony, I give on the oath, taken by me, once for all, as an expert in handwriting.”

{{Style P-Signature|(Signed) Ernst Schütze.

Caligrapher to the Court of

H.M. the Emperor of Germany.}}

Nothing more comical than to read the wild jubilations in clerical papers over Annie Besant’s alleged secession from “infidelity” and her “conversion” to Theosophy. From Satanism, the latter has suddenly bloomed into “a belief in God” and become almost respectable in the sight of some Christian Sectaries. Yet, it is a matter of great doubt whether such rejoicings—in Christian organs, at all events—are not due more to the supposed discomfiture, occasioned by that “conversion” to the hated Secularists and Freethinkers than to an honest feeling of satisfaction at finding one of the most intellectual women of this age publicly announcing her failure to find truth in the current materialism of the day. The fact is, that the odium theologicum felt by the Churchmen and Dogmatists towards Mr. C. Bradlaugh’s Secularism and the “Foote-Wheeler” Freethought, so called, had led our traditional enemies and persecutors to suddenly discover in theosophical Pantheism beauties hitherto branded by them as heathenish falsehoods and Satanic snares!

But for the present moment all is changed. Cautiously as it is worded, yet the glorification of Theosophy over the head of Freethought—fondly imagined as prostrate and in the dust—appears prominently in several Christian papers, and chief among them is the miniature but aggressive organ {{Page aside|407}}of the Rev. Z. B. Woffendale. The Light of the World, published “for the spread of Christianity and the cure of Infidelity” (sic)—(esoterically, “cure” should read “abuse”)—sends to the “Light of Asia,” like Jacob to Esau after having deprived him of his birthright, “presents for his brother,” she-goats and rams, “ewes and milch camels,” in the shape of rather forced preference for theosophy over freethought. Pious Jacob bows seven times to his injured brother. Shall Esau run to meet him and weep, falling on his neck? Alas, no; Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes! The Light of the World may exhaust its capitals to print as it has done in its August issue in inch-long letters about “MRS. ANNIE BESANT’S CONVERSION FROM ATHEISM TO GOD” (?!); withal, it fails to hoodwink anyone but those who find it convenient to remain blind. If Theosophy were no better than “Satanism” only yesterday, it cannot have suddenly become “theism” and even “God,” today—and this owing only to the said and so-called “conversion.” Nor does the pious editor of this little monthly believe anything of the kind in his heart of hearts; he must know as well as we do that Mrs. Besant is, as a Theosophist, as far from the God of the Theist and the dogmatic Churches of today, as she ever was, when a Secularist. Nay, the reverend editor ought to be told something more. He has to be informed without one moment’s loss of time that Annie Besant is much more of a Freethinker now, than she ever had a chance of being, before she joined our ranks. And the reason for it is this: because Modern Freethought shows itself in the person of some of its chief public representatives in England—we exclude, of course, Mr. Bradlaugh from this group—as stubborn in its fossilized views, as bigoted in its special ideas, and as ferociously vindictive and unscrupulous, as any Church sectarians can be. And Theosophy, kind enemies, is the reverse of all this.<ref>The difference that exists between the policy of the editors of theosophical magazines and that of the conductors of the London Freethinker is clearly marked by the respective attitudes of their editors and the contents of their journals. The Theosophist and Lucifer for instance, are ever ready to publish a well-written philosophical article or even a skit against the Society if it contains some truth—as witnessed by the (August) Theosophist in the article called “About the Kabbalah” and our serial story “The Talking Image of Urur.” But it remains to be seen whether the Freethinker would ever insert one line against the personal views of its editors. We invite anyone to try. Again, neither Lucifer nor The Theosophist has ever breathed one word against the extreme views of the editor of the Freethinker, and our Madras journal has ever defended and expressed sympathy with him in his great trouble when “Blasphemy Law” had, like the car of Juggernaut, almost crushed him. But, if anyone would find scurrilous abuse of Theosophy and especially slander of, and brutal insults offered to, H. P. Blavatsky, caused by Mrs. Besant’s joining our ranks—let him open the Freethinker and learn what Freethought is like in its columns.</ref>