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| author = Olcott, H. S. | | author = Olcott, H. S. | ||
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| subtitle = He Explains the Symposium of Himself and Mme. Blavatsky | | subtitle = He Explains the Symposium of Himself and Mme. Blavatsky | ||
| untitled = | | untitled = | ||
| source title =Telegram, The | | source title = Evening Telegram, The | ||
| source details = | | source details = v. 11, No. 3918, March 26, 1878, p. 3 | ||
| publication date =1878-03-26 | | publication date = 1878-03-26 | ||
| original date = 1878-03-22 | | original date = 1878-03-22 | ||
| notes = | | notes = | ||
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}} | }} | ||
... | {{Style P-No indent|{{Style S-Small capitals|To the Editor of the Telegram:—}}}} | ||
I am sorry to spoil your fun at all, but, as much out regard for your own reputation as a veracious chronicler of the times as for my personal motive, I must possess you of certain facts. | |||
In au editorial of Saturday upon “Old Shep’s Ghost” you make it appear that Mme. Blavatsky and I of our own motion went hunting after the floating corpse light of the defunct night watchman in a spirit of inquiry after the supernatural. You also speak of us as “two of the principal lights of Spiritualism.” Now, neither of these assumptions are correct. We did not go to find the mystical kerosene essence, nor are we lights greater or lesser of Spiritualism. A certain individual came and begged us to go for the lark of the thing and see, not the light, but the very phantom of the submerged inebriate, which he assured us, walked its nightly rounds and frightened the neighborhood into his. He circumstantially narrated to us the pretended adventure of Officer Kilbride and the determination of the Captain of the precinct to fathom the mystery that very night. Well, sir, we listened to the voice of the siren, and as it was a beautiful moonlight went to see what to see what the police would accomplish. | |||
We found on the ground a dozen reporters, of whom one at least was equipped with fireballs to fling at the expected eidolon. Captain Murphy, of that precinct, and some subordinate officers garnered about Mrs. Blavatsky and beguiled her into a philosophical disquisition on specires, which, if the reporters had but known how to handle, might have been worked up into a capital column. I sat by and smoked. When everybody’s marrow had congealed to the point of crystallization the party dispersed and the result fully verified the prediction we made to the reporter before starting from the house, that mothing would come of the adventure. | |||
Now so far from our being lights of Spiritualism, Mme. Blavatsky and I have been carrying on a fight for some two years against the ablest champions of orthodox Spiritualism here and in England. There are two organs of this movement in this country, and one leading journal in London. It you will take the trouble to examine the files of these newspapers you will find that my learned friend and I have been abused and our views denounced in the most unsparing manner by the editors and a host of correspondents and essayists. In England our antagonists are Oxford and Cambridge wranglers, divines and scholars of various other professions, who are professed Spiritualists, and who look upon the Theosophical Society as a veritable source of peril to the “causo.” Not even Tyndall has been more written against since last December than we, and to call as “lights of Spiritualism” is as comically inaccurate as though you were to style Bob lugersoll a leading minister of the Methodist Church! | |||
{{Style P-Signature in capitals|Henry S. Olcott.}} | |||
{{Style P-No indent|New York, March 22, 1878.}} | |||
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I will proceed to relate an incident in my own somewhat uncommon “experiences,” in the hope that this communication of mine may be instrumental either in diffusing, or confirming, or kindling faith and confidence in the blessed intelligences who unquestionably surround us, in one of whom my trust is absolute, not solely on account of the high moral character—nay, holiness—of his teachings, but because of the incontestable proofs that have been furnished us, of his prescience, prevision, and power. With all becoming deference to the high intellectual attainments and unquestionable sincerity of those gentlemen who are examining spiritual phenomena, with minds apparently made up as to the results of investigations that they have only half way completed, I beg to affirm that the spirit who gave the communication to which I refer was not my spirit, neither was he that of my daughter, and I know, and can as conscientiously affirm this, as I can affirm that my conscious, personal life is my own life, and that any power of will or intelligence exercised by me is conceived and resides in my own brain, and not in that of another. I know I am expressing myself in a very obscure and unsatisfactory manner, but— | I will proceed to relate an incident in my own somewhat uncommon “experiences,” in the hope that this communication of mine may be instrumental either in diffusing, or confirming, or kindling faith and confidence in the blessed intelligences who unquestionably surround us, in one of whom my trust is absolute, not solely on account of the high moral character—nay, holiness—of his teachings, but because of the incontestable proofs that have been furnished us, of his prescience, prevision, and power. With all becoming deference to the high intellectual attainments and unquestionable sincerity of those gentlemen who are examining spiritual phenomena, with minds apparently made up as to the results of investigations that they have only half way completed, I beg to affirm that the spirit who gave the communication to which I refer was not my spirit, neither was he that of my daughter, and I know, and can as conscientiously affirm this, as I can affirm that my conscious, personal life is my own life, and that any power of will or intelligence exercised by me is conceived and resides in my own brain, and not in that of another. I know I am expressing myself in a very obscure and unsatisfactory manner, but— | ||
{{Style P-Poem|poem=''Was kein Verstand der Verstandige sieht,'' | |||
''Das ubet in Einfalt em kindlich Gemuth.''}} | |||
''Das ubet in Einfalt em kindlich Gemuth.''}} | |||
This quotation, by the way, is not altogether appropriate here, but, no matter, it will do to express what I mean. | This quotation, by the way, is not altogether appropriate here, but, no matter, it will do to express what I mean. | ||
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<gallery widths=300px heights=300px> | <gallery widths=300px heights=300px> | ||
london_spiritualist_n.290_1878-03-15.pdf|page=3|London Spiritualist, No. 290, March 15, 1878, p. 121 | london_spiritualist_n.290_1878-03-15.pdf|page=3|London Spiritualist, No. 290, March 15, 1878, p. 121 | ||
evening_telegram_v.11_n.3918_1878-03-26.pdf|page=3|Evening Telegram, v. 11, No. 3918, March 26, 1878, p. 3 | |||
</gallery> | </gallery> | ||