HPB-SB-14-36

H. P. Blavatsky Scrapbooks

from Adyar archives of the International Theosophical Society

T i

vol. 14, p. 36	volume 14, page 36 vol. title: vol. period: 1882 pages in vol.: 174 Blue angular marks stand beside the beginnings of the three letters. A red curved line runs beneath the Far Sight clipping. The writer has not been identified.
Legend HPB note HPB highlighted HPB underlined HPB crossed out <Editors note> <Archivist note> Lost or unclear SBT, DT Restored

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eng • рус

<October 28>

LIGHT.

[November 4, 1882.

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MADAME BLAVATSKY AND THE HIMALAYAN BROTHERS.

To the Editor of “Light.”

Sir,—In your issue of the 9th inst. just to hand, I find the following sentence in a letter from Mr. Frank Podmore:—

“Have Madame Blavatsky and those direful Brothers so far corrupted our Western simplicity that we must say the same of English Spiritualists?”

This sentence is immediately preceded by another:—

“They say that there is no surer way of deceiving the subtle Oriental mind than to tell the direct truth.”

I regret that Mr. Podmore should have gone out of his way to thus utter a gross libel upon the Oriental character, and identify that imaginary character with Madame Blavatsky and the Brothers. Either Mr. Podmore has in the present case drawn entirely upon his imagination, or takes as authorities persons who have special interest in misrepresenting facts. We unfortunate heathens have always had the honour of being placed in a false light before the “enlightened West.” We had begun to congratulate ourselves upon the turn which Dame Fortune was beginning to take in our favour through the indefatigable labours of the much abused, because very little understood, Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott, the founders of the Theosophical Society. They have really been working to form the nucleus of a true brotherhood of humanity upon the basis of mutual toleration and mutual intellectual sympathy. With the spread of the influence of their work religious antagonism was gradually dying away and race prejudice was tottering. Natives had begun to shake off the distrust which they had for the Europeans. These latter, in their turn, perceived the natives in their true light and began to substitute respect for contempt for them. While this good work of a grand union is being accomplished here in India, it is distressing to see some people in England reviving “old scandals.” Some Englishmen, whom I could name, will tell you that not more than fifty years ago the natives carried on all business without any written contracts. Their simple word was a sufficient guarantee. It is the increase of the courts and barristers that has been the cause of the increase in litigation. Does this shew that “there is no surer way of deceiving the subtle Oriental mind than to tell the direct truth”? And to endeavour to paint Madame Blavatsky and the Brothers in that colour is the greatest insult that could ever be offered to the natives of this country at least. We do not believe in the existence of these “Brothers.” We know them to exist. And to have a talk with or look at them is a blessing for which most of us work. The instinctive reverence we feel for them is great. We do not blindly believe, but we know personally our revered “Mahatmas.” They—who are, by self-abnegation, great learning, wondrous powers, and especially, above all, their great purity of life, trying to elevate humanity from the ditch in which it is groping—they, “the great souls,” to be classed with ordinary people whose minds can be deceived by telling the “direct truth”—the very idea is revolting and preposterous! With these few remarks, however, I leave it to the sense of justice of English gentlemen whether to sympathise or not with

A Hindu.

27th September, 1882.

P.S.—I enclose my card for your personal satisfaction.

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<Untitled> (Sir,—I am very sorry that any words of mine…)

To the Editor of “Light.”

Sir,—I am very sorry that any words of mine should have given pain to your correspondent, “A Hindu.” But, indeed, his own letter is the best refutation of the calumny which he supposes me to have uttered. The sophisticated European intellect need not, assuredly, dread corruption from such tutors as these. To anyone of less native simplicity than your correspondent, it must, I think, have been obvious that my allusion to Madame Blavatsky and the Brothers was a harmless jest; and my remarks upon Oriental subtlety a reminiscence of trivial newspaper comment upon the ruse by which the Egyptians were hoodwinked in the late war, and the Suez Canal secured. That my light words should be construed into a serious imputation upon Madame Blavatsky and the Hindoo Theosophists never occurred to me. Still less did I intend to sneer at the Brothers, for whom I entertain a respect which is quite independent of any belief in their existence. As history, it is fine: as fiction, it is magnificent.

I can only express my regret that my sorry jests should have given occasion for such grievous misinterpretation.—I am, &c.,

London, 31st October, 1882.

Frank Podmore,

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MADAME BLAVATSKY AND THE HIMALAYAN BROTHERS.

To the Editor of “Light.”

Sir,—Perhaps the expression of a sister’s sympathy with the Hindu gentleman whose letter appears in “Light” of October 28th may not come amiss. I, also a believer in, and reverential admirer, of the Himalayan Brothers, was pained by the flippant expression he quotes, in regard to those he appropriately terms “great souls.” I beg to assure him there are some English gentlemen, as well as ladies, of whom I am one, who are deeply interested in the noble work of Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott, and would join with them did they feel qualified for the great work they, under the direction of the Brothers, are endeavouring to carry out—the elevation of humanity. Surely it is time for the “enlightened West” (?) to cease expressing doubts as to the existence of these disciples of a pure spiritual life, from whose calm and wise retreat from a lower disturbing world emanates a power which Spiritualists, at least, already feel, and in some instances respond to; a power which is destined to uplift Spiritualism to the place it should hold, and to which it is surely advancing, following out its most natural and inevitable unfoldment. This, Mr. Editor, is not merely the opinion of one individual, but is a conviction shared by many of your readers.

I would ask if the term “heathen” is applicable from us to the followers of a faith quite as noble as our own, and so similar in its fundamental teachings as to prove that the basis of the two forms of religion is the same. Surely our Lord Jesus Himself would rebuke us for our want of brotherly love, to say nothing of lack of justice. Is not the age too far advanced for such sectarian bigotry?

Vera.

October 30th, 1882.

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FAR SIGHT AND FORE SIGHT.

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Fragments from Zöllner and Fechner.

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The perusal of Fechner’s “Life after Death” led me to look up some unpublished parts of my translation of Zöllner’s “Transcendentale Physik,” which I remembered to have reference to Fechner’s speculations. The following fragments may interest the readers of “Light”:—

“Fechner in his third volume* discusses in detail the “Relations of the Spirits of the other world to the higher Spirits and to each other” (p. 44), and then (pp. 79-82) gives circumstantial reports from Swedenborg’s “Heaven and Hell.”

Then the so-called Far-Seeing (Clairvoyance) of somnambulists is treated of; and Fechner himself remarks here (p. 95) as follows:—

“As far-sight, so also fore-sight, seems sometimes abnormally to overstep the boundary of the other world into this, so far as credit is given to what is related of presentiments, prophetic dreams, and the prevision of clairvoyant somnambulists. The connection of far-sight with fore-sight, which, according to the above, is incident to the other world, is found also in these phenomena of this world, which can be related therewith . . . . Here is an example, how the faculty of foresight is conceived by a somnambulist himself.

“The above-mentioned Richard Görwitz† said of a new-born child, whose birth he had made known from a distance, that in twenty-three years its fate would take a very serious turn.

“Question: What do you mean by fate, Richard?

“Answer: It is the consequence of the past. The least thing, happening even before our birth, has a consequence for and a relation to us—a consequence which is always widening, and at last will be, or is, fate. You know the fate, but cannot trace it back, as I can, and you think now it is accident. But that it is not. For the foundation of what you now suffer or enjoy has long been laid. As a flower, as a tree, grows from the smallest seed that we scarcely discern, so grows the fate of man from the deepest concealment, from the bosom of necessity. For all that happens there are sufficient causes. No accident! And when I, in my present (magnetic) condition, see into the future, I see the continuing causes all at once, and the spirit of fate stands before me! Only you call it fore-seeing; it is seen, however, not at all in the future, but it is already now.

“At p. 135 Richard says: ‘The future is a quite peculiar light!’

“Question: What does that mean?

“Answer: It is clear and also not clear; dark and also not dark. It cannot be expressed in your words. The human eye—the spiritual—cannot bear this light.

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Editor's notes

Sources

• 

  Light, v. 2, No. 95, October 28, 1882, p. 487

• 

  Light, v. 2, No. 96, November 4, 1882, pp. 490, 497