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A BUDGET OF GOOD NEWS
[The organization of Col. Olcott’s ‘Miracle Club’ is progressing satisfactorily. Applications are daily received from those wishing to join, but few selections have been positively made; as it is desired that the Club should be composed of men of such standing, and scientific, and other attainments, as shall afford to the public a perfect guarantee of the trustworthiness of any conclusions they may reach.
The medium who is to sit with the investigators, being actively interested in certain business operations, has been temporarily called from New York. Meanwhile in anticipation of the commencement of his report of the séances of the Miracle Club, Col. Olcott authorises the announcement that he will contribute to the Scientist some of the results of his winter’s reading, in the form of a series of articles entitled “What the Ancients knew, and what the Moderns think they know.” This popular author in addition to what he gleaned in his researches among the splendid collections of the “Watkinson Library of Reference,” in Hartford, has recently had access to some ancient manuscripts, furnished him by “one who knows when and how,” as the phrase goes; and our readers may count upon 89 both entertainment and instruction in the papers which will appear in this Journal.
We shall also begin at once the publication of a most important paper contributed by N. Wagner, Professor of Zoology in the University of St. Petersburg, and the Huxley of Russia; it gives the results of recent séances held with a French medium, named Brédif, by Prof. Wagner and two other professors of equal eminence. The document, which will appear in three successive chapters, has been translated from the Russian language for this paper by Madame Blavatsky, the accomplished lady, to whose trenchant pen several American journals are indebted for recent contributions which have elicited the highest praise for the elegance of their style and the vigour of their argument.
At the end of this cutting, H.P.B. wrote the following in pen and ink:]
An attempt in consequence of orders received from T*** B*** through P*** personating J.K. [symbol]. Ordered to
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begin telling the public the truth about the phenomena & their mediums. And now my martyrdom will begin! I will have all the Spiritualists against me in addition to the Christians & the Skeptics! Thy Will, oh M . . . be done!
H.P.B.
[In H.P.B.’s Scrapbook, Vol. I, p. 36, may be found another cutting from the Spiritual Scientist of May 27, 1875, the text of which is as follows:]
“It is rumoured that one or more Oriental Spiritualists of high rank have just arrived in this country. They are said to possess a profound knowledge of the mysteries of illumination, and it is not impossible that they will establish relations with those whom we are accustomed to regard as the leaders in Spiritualistic affairs. If the report be true, their coming may be regarded as a great blessing; for after a quarter century of phenomena, we are almost without a philosophy to account for them or control their occurrence. Welcome to the Wise Men of the East, if they have really come to worship at the cradle of our new Truth.”
[H.P.B. underlined in red pencil the word “Spiritualist,” and wrote on the margin, lengthwise up the page, also in red pencil:]
At . . . & Ill. . . . passed thro’ New York & Boston; thence thro’ California & Japan back. M . . . appearing in Kama-Rupa daily.
[The abbreviations most likely stand for Atrya and Illarion (or Hilarion), two of the Adept-Brothers.]