H. P. Blavatsky and the Theosophists
Vera Petrovna Zhelikhovsky about her sister Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
Paris. May 25th (June 6th)
Notre Dame des Champs 46
I’m taking up my pen to describe the most amazing facts of occult power that I have ever had to see, and I think, all those that present. But before I tell about them I should briefly mention under what circumstances and by what kind of person they were produced. The lady is quite well known in Europe and Russia, to describe her. One has only to name her in order to awaken many considerations in the heads of all literate people. But, to the shame of the press, and to its misfortune, these considerations in most cases will be false because most of the accounts published about her in the newspapers are false and quite often malicious. This person is our compatriot, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, who, in recent days, “Novoye Vremya” and many other newspapers report as having come to Paris to destroy Christianity and build a temple to Buddha. She and her associates of the Theosophical Society have never even dreamed of that! Both founders of the said society, Colonel Henry Olcott (its President) and H. P. Blavatsky, respect the freedom of conscience and beliefs of everyone too much to infringe upon them with propaganda of religious principles. One of the first holy statutes of the Society is not to touch religious and political matters. Their cause is purely moral-philosophical-scientific: to seek and achieve the truth in everything; strive to achieve the improvement possible for a person, the expansion of its scientific and philosophical concepts, the refinement of the forces of the soul, all the mental aspects of human existence, so to speak, and strenuously strive for international brotherhood in the broadest meaning of it – the one which implies the utmost ideal, unfortunately, hardly possible on the Earth: the establishment of universal peace and the strengthening of philanthropy and selflessness among all people without all personal feelings and interests. However, it must be said that although the Theosophists grant complete freedom for every member of the Society to remain a Christian, a Muslim, or simply a deist, arguing only against crude materialism, personal beliefs of its founders and closest associates (whose headquarters are in Adyar[1]), like most fellows in other Branches, especially in all European ones,[2] are rooted on the principles of Buddhism – which gave rise to ridiculous rumours about the promotion of Buddhism in Europe. The highest teachers of the Theosophical brotherhood are Hindu Mahatmas – Brahmans-recluses living in the mountains of Tibet – are Buddhists. Few people have access to these sublime, mysterious personalities. Theosophists call them “khozyayeva” (masters). In English they are called Masters, but this name is translated by Madame Blavatsky not as a “uchitel” (teacher), but as “khozyain” (master) – in a broader sense, precisely because these very learned Indian sages, gifted with truly magical, in our simple understanding, occult powers, have great command and influence over them, although the number of the elect, with whom they communicate is more than limited. Their chelas, disciples initiated by them into many mysteries of nature and human latent powers (occult forces) instruct those who are devoted to them, elected persons, and transmit to them their will and desires. However, we cannot ignore the evidence of many people,[3] showing that the orders of their own “Master”, the one of the above mentioned Mahatmas (whom H. P. Blavatsky in her stories about India, signed by Raddha Bai, calls by the fictitious name of Gullab Lal Sing), reach them quite directly, through special messages that they unexpectedly find not only in their rooms, but also while traveling in train carriages and on ships. Messages written in English or French never bear any postal mark or stamp and the envelopes of a very special shape and paper always have the same hieroglyphic pattern of some special, bright red paint. I was shown many such letters; I have never seen them falling out of the sky, but here is what I saw twice with my own eyes. We were all sitting together several days ago, when a certain Mr. Judge, Secretary of the Society, received in his mail a letter from America, which he immediately opened. But having opened, first of all, he paid attention not to its content, but to a few words underlined in red pencil and to a phrase written across the letter with the same paint and signed by the familiar name of the “Master”. It must be taken into account that the letter has never been in India or Tibet. It may be objected that no one prevented Judge's New York correspondent from drawing a red inscription in his letter, as if on behalf of the “Master”. I agree! I confess, I thought to myself the first minute the same, but here's what dissuaded me. Two days after that, at the usual hour again, the postman came in with letters... But first I must mention that at that very time Mrs. Blavatsky listened to the complaints of a very young man visiting her about his mother. Mr. Keightley, if you please, came to Paris on purpose to get to know the figures of the Theosophical Society, the doctrines of which were well known to him from his readings. He turned out to be an ardent theosophist and even completely abstained from meat food and wine (theosophists are all quite sincere and convinced vegetarians because of the belief that blood animals have a bad effect on the spirit, on the higher abilities of man, and they abstain from alcohol drinks) to be more worthy of those whom he held as an example and more likely to be rewarded with a personal manifestation by Tibetan masters. Thus Mr. Keightley complained bitterly about his mother, who demanded that he either returned to her in Liverpool, or immediately proceed with his “journey across the continent”, undertaken for recuperative reasons.
“My mother is deadly afraid lest I give up my business and follow you to Madras!” – said he. “This is selfishness and distrust on her part! I told her that as long as she lived, I would not be separated from her; but she knows very well that, in my opinion, the whole meaning of my life is in Theosophy, in your teachings; I eagerly wish to live in the centre where you yourself live and act!..”
At that moment a postman arrived, and among the many letters was one from Liverpool, from Mrs. Keightley to her son. He opened it without much haste, but suddenly an amazed and frightened expression appeared on his face, and he turned purple... In the letter, his mother's words regarding respect and obedience that children owe to their parents were underlined in red with a well-known signature ... One should admit that the mother who opposes her son’s passion for the theosophical society, would not herself convince him of his prophets omnipotence? Nevertheless, Keightley, perhaps, would not have immediately obeyed his mother if the President of the Society, Colonel Olcott, had not returned from London and did not send him away, ordering him to fulfill his parent’s desire. M-me de Morsier, secretary of the Parisian Branch of the Society (where Lady Catness, Duchess de Pomar, famous for her fortune), told me herself that timely letter “du maitre” sent in time – a letter in its original envelope which she found enclosed within another completely unrelated letter – had undoubtedly saved her from suicide and made her wholeheartedly devote herself to the cause of Theosophy. These are facts. Now let's talk on other subjects, no less amazing.
I will not tell what I have heard from others about the natural phenomena produced by adepts, disciples of the Mahatmas, by the power of well developed occult knowledge; I will only tell what I myself was a witness and that will be confirmed by others present. On the evening of May 8th (old style) we all gathered in the living room of a small apartment occupied in Paris by the founders of the Theosophical Society and their associates. As always, third-party visitors were very many, but after midnight only Professor Türman, Ph.D., remained. He sat up very late telling us about his dissatisfaction with the Parisian mediums, about the futility of Leymarie’s spiritualist circle meetings, in which, he said, nothing remarkable had long happened. The most notable manifestation at the meeting of spiritualists, in his opinion, was musical sounds heard in the darkness. H. P. Blavatsky, who was sitting in her chair and calmly playing Russian solitaire, laughed, noticing: “Why was it in the darkness? Where there is no deceit, there is no need for darkness!” And saying this, she put away the cards, raised her hand, as if preparing to throw something into the air, and added: “Listen!”
At the same moment, a harmonic sound, as if of a harp or zither ... It sounded and quietly froze in the air. She raised her hand again waving it in the other direction – the same phenomenon!.. Everyone around her jumped up amazed, holding
their breath. For the third time, she waved her hand, as if thinning the air, this time towards the bronze chandelier that hung in the middle of the ceiling, and at the same moment the chandelier harmoniously responded to her imperious gesture as if on all her horns there were invisible strings on all its brackets... After that evening, Helen Petrovna repeated this phenomenon several times and once, on May 19th, in the presence of several persons belonging to the Parisian press and the scientific world, including Professor Olivier, an inveterate psychologist at the local university.
But this is nothing compared to the further manifestation of her occult power.
So, for example, on the morning of May 23rd, we were again all together in the living room. Madame de Morsier was sitting at a table in the middle of the room, talking with Secretary Judge and Brahmin Mogini (the main preacher of theosophical beliefs, as well as a teacher to those who wished to get acquainted with the doctrines of Buddhism) on the affairs of the Society, signing various papers, diplomas of newly admitted members, etc. To the right of them H. P. Blavatsky was sitting with her sister; and to the left, two paces from the table, Colonel Olcott was talking to our famous writer Vsevolod Sergeevich Solovyov about the effect of magnetism, with which the venerable President of the Theosophists had been treating him for several days now. As usual, at the appointed time mail was brought, and among them one letter was addressed to Madame Blavatsky’s aunt, N.A. Fadeeva, who was staying with her.
Madame Blavatsky took the letter, and naming the person who wrote it (which was not difficult, since the handwriting on the address was rather familiar to her and her sister), said:
“I’d like to know what she writes.”
“Well! It is not difficult for you: read through the envelope”, they told her.
“I'll try!” And with that she pressed the sealed letter to her forehead.
Loud conversations in English and French were going on all around; but in spite of the noise, Mme. Blavatsky at almost the same moment started telling her sister in Russian what she was mentally reading in the letter. Then her sister drew everyone’s attention to what she was doing, and giving her a piece of paper, asked her to write down, briefly, the contents of the letter.
“Aha! You do not believe me!” Helena Petrovna laughed. “Well!”
And putting her left hand on both the sealed letter and the piece of paper handed to her, she with her right hand began to write quickly on the latter with the first coloured pencil that came to hand, blue on one end and red on the other. Of course, everyone paid attention to what was happening, V. S. Solovyov especially, listening to what his compatriot was loudly dictating to herself, reading and copying the Russian letter with a spiritual eye.
Blavatsky ended with the words:
“Best regards to Helena Petrovna!!”
“Nonsense! interrupted her sister. – “There cannot be such a ceremonious greeting to you!”
“Yes, there is! And to prove to you that I am not reading the meaning, but the true phrases of the letter, I have written down several phrases literally in the same words,” Mme. Blavatsky replied firmly. She signed her writing with the name of the person who wrote the actual letter, turned the pencil over with the red end down, underlined her name in the words “Best regards to Helena” and at the same second drew at the bottom on her piece of paper under the name of the writer of this letter a theosophical, hexagonal, star, adding loudly with all the strength of her unshakable will:
“I want these red signs from here to be transferred to the letter to the same places in it!”
And energetically striking the sealed message with her hand, she tossed it back to her sister with the words: – Tiens! C’est fait!.. (Take it! Done!) ...
Everything that happened, as well as the content of what Helena Petrovna wrote, was translated to those who did not understand Russian. The letter was immediately handed over to the addressee, and when Madame Fadeeva opened it, its contents turned out to be exactly the same as Madame Blavatsky had put them down, some phrases even in the same expressions; and with the words:
“Best regards to Helena Petrovna” her name was underlined in red pencil, and below the signature there was a red hexagonal star! And even a stroke from her pencil on a piece of paper was reproduced with photographic accuracy...
This amazing fact was immediately stated in writing, attested by signatures of all those present, and is in the hands of the writer of these lines. The next no less striking phenomenon, unfortunately, occurred without many witnesses, in the presence of only those close to Madame Blavatsky, and Mr. Solovyov, in the same way attested by his signature, and also sent, together with the previous document, to the editor of the “Odesskiy Vestnik”.
It was the next day in the evening, May 24th (old style). On this day H. P. Blavatsky was unwell, and therefore could not go to the meeting of the Theosophical Society, which took place at the Comte de Barro’s hotel (51 rue de Varenne). She asked her sister testify to her ill health, which she did, going to a meeting with the President of the Society. But as soon as the conference began, Madame Blavatsky’s sister felt a strong headache and at the same time an incomprehensible, but very definite desire to return home. She quietly announced this to V. S. Solovyov, who was sitting next to her, and met in him complete sympathy in her desire to spend the evening with her sick sister. He suggested to take her home in the fiacre waiting for him; they slipped away unnoticed and ten minutes later were already on the Rue Notre Dame des Champs 46, where Vsevolod Sergeyevich Solovyov entered at the invitation of Madame Blavatsky. The four of them immediately seated themselves (N. A. Fadeeva was also there) at the tea table in the same “miraculous” living room, and the conversation, as, of course, was to be expected, soon turned to mystical subjects. All of them had in their lives a lot of things that “are not dreamt by wise men”, especially in the life of Helena Petrovna, whom they asked to tell as much as possible about how she acquired her amazing occult powers and who exactly her amazing “gurus”, teachers were. Telling things about which this is not the place to repeat, Helena Petrovna invited her interlocutors to look at the portrait of her teacher, a Brahmin sage, whose name she does not want to give in print. She opened a large, flat, perfectly smooth medallion she always wore as a pendant. Everyone examined, touched and weighed this medallion with a painted portrait of a handsome man with a Roman profile, jet-black beard, and white turban. This one-sided or, rather, one-portrait medallion (and this is how it is now) without the slightest sign of the place for another portrait in its flat lid. It was examined, and Helena Petrovna, again putting it on, began to tell that she had left her own portrait in Madras, which was drawn by her Master. Suddenly something strange happened in a small group, which is very difficult to convey in words. As if the air had become thinner or suffocating, I don’t know!.. Something positively took our breath away. Helena Petrovna covered her eyes with her hand and said: “You know! I feel that something will happen to us now ... There will be some kind of phenomenon! He will do it!”
She meant her teacher, “master”, who, in her opinion, is omnipotent, and then she began to suggest her aunt, N.A. Fadeeva, wishing something: that he would bring her something, he would appear in person... But we were all so confused that no one could figure anything out, and everyone began to say: let him do or bring whatever he wishes...
At that moment Mr. Solovyov fixed his gaze at one point in the room, saying that he saw, as it were, an oval-shaped fireball, like a radiant, bluish-fiery egg ... Before he could pronounce these words a musical sound was heard as from afar, from the anteroom, into which the door was open for the sake of coolness, as if someone were quietly running a hand along the strings of a harp – exactly the same sound, as everyone present had already heard before, only more sonorous.
Once and again the chord was repeated and then froze ...
Madame Blavatsky’s sister got up and went out into the hall, brightly lit by a lamp. It goes without saying that everything was quiet there and it was empty. A servant boy, brought from India, who alone was at home, had been long sleeping in the kitchen behind a tightly closed door. Now believe it or not this true story, but here’s what happened next. When Helena Petrovna’s sister came back into the living room, she found her sister sitting in her former place between her aunt and Mr. Solovyov, but at the same time she clearly saw a shadow or, as it were, a monochromatic gray image of a man moving away from her towards the wall and suddenly disappearing there ... This person or his incorporeal image was of small stature in some kind of robe and turban. The vision lasted only a second, but she saw it clearly and immediately announced it, being herself very frightened. Barely calmed down from these strange phenomena, all those present were again puzzled by a phenomenon that was completely obvious and material. Madame Blavatsky, opening her medallion again, feeling, as she said, something strange about it, she herself looked around at everyone with an astonished look...
The medallion contained not one, but two portraits!
One was the same, but opposite it, firmly fixed under the glass in the oval of its lid,
there was her own portrait, which she was now talking about.
The medallion was passed around again. It was examined, felt, weighed ... There could be no doubt: it is unthinkable for four people to have a hallucination of vision at the same time. The Indian servant was awakened and Madame Blavatsky asked him where her portrait, painted in Adyar, by the teacher (by the Master) was? “It was left in Adyar, in a bronze casket in your glass cabinet,” answered the boy without hesitation.
Helena Petrovna silently opened the medallion. The Indian almost cried out in astonishment, but immediately without hesitation he said:
“It’s Master who brought it!”
But the marvelous incidents of the evening did not end there. When in a quarter of an hour the magic medallion, which literally everyone kept an eye on, was at the request of her sister again opened by Helena Petrovna, her portrait was gone ... It disappeared without a trace, with a frame and glass, nobody knows how and in what way ... The only sign of the presence of someone invisible, who so freely arranged the content of the closed medallion, being all the time in front of everyone, was that there were all the same harmonious sounds, chords or scales, at times heard from different directions. I have to tell everything, although I confess that I personally dislike the conclusion because it is somewhat reminiscent of the final tricks of the prestidigitators. Late in the evening, when Colonel Olcott, with his secretaries and the Brahmin, returned from the meeting and everyone began to tell them everything that had happened, and V. S. Soloviev got up to say goodbye and was about to leave – the portrait was at the bottom of his hat ... He took it with him, as it was unanimously decided that the guru (teacher), or mahatma (sage), or “Master-khozyain”, – whoever he was – had presented it to Mr. Solovyev.[4]
This incident, which for mere mortals has a positively miraculous character, is supposedly explained by Theosophists deeply believing in the Buddhist teachings, by the undoubted ability of the astral body of each person to separate from its flesh; and because of this, so to speak, subtle gaseous shell of a human being (a shell that is preserved, according to them, by a man for some time after death), there is, as for the soul, neither time nor distances, and it can freely be transferred at a given moment to where thought or desire attracts it and produce all sorts of so-called phenomena ... One way or another, we will not discuss this, but state only facts that could not be fraud (for they took place openly, with the careful observation of the three present), much less simultaneous delusion, an illusion of feelings and thoughts, which in this case would be too close to insanity.
As for the first phenomenon – the transmission of the content of the letter and signs in red pencil, then Theosophical teaching explains it in the most natural way, in a simple manifestation of a human will, acting on the magnetic currents hidden in every human body. Here is the explanation given on this subject by Mr. Olcott.
In these cases, the full acting force is duly developed human will, which principle, according to the teachings of the occultists, is inherent in the divine ego, immortal soul or spirit. In order to analyze this phenomenon, we need to understand that among the hidden, almost unknown and unexplored forces of human existence, there is a force of attraction and transference or movement of atoms. So Madame Blavatsky, in this case, attracted, without separating them, the atoms of paint from her pencil; merged them with her nervous or vital force; made them penetrate, run in a semicircle like an electric current, through her body, from the right hand to pour out at the tip of the left; work their way through microscopic holes, which are necessary part in each paper, and lie precisely at the places indicated in advance by her concentrated will.
Here are the explanations given to us by the President of the Theosophical Society, which I pass on, of course, without taking responsibility for them. As for the correct transmission of the letter content, this is such an ordinary phenomenon of clairvoyance that there is no need to explain.
Footnotes
- ↑ Near Madras, India.
- ↑ The Society comprises 125 Branches all in all.
- ↑ Laying aside the founders of the Society I shall name but a few: Mr. Judge from Ireland; Mohini–the Brahman; Mme. de Morsier from Paris; Mr. B. Keightley–a lawyer from England, etc. who have all spoken about this and demonstrated these letters and notes.
- ↑ I was told that after their return Mohini, the Brahman, immediately fixed his eyes upon the mantelpiece where Mr. Solovyev’s hat was and said several times that he saw a hand appearing there for a moment – but I was not there at that time. I entered when Mr. Solovyev was already saying good bye.