HPB-SB-4-200

T i

vol. 4, p. 200

H. P. Blavatsky Scrapbooks

from Adyar archives of the International Theosophical Society

vol. 4 (1875-1878)

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< Space and Time (continued from page 4-199) >

I, a Spiritualist, am absurd enough to confess that I do believe that the material living body of Mrs. Guppy was transported from one point to another in an instant of time, and I do not know any fact on record which is better attested. (See Spiritualist oi June 15, 1871.) I perhaps do not clearly comprehend what Mr. Massey means, as his admissions and denials appear to me contradictory, and I should have hesitated to comment upon them had I not met with a similar statement in that wonderful book Isis Unveiled, where Madame Blavatsky plainly asserts that no living body can pass through stone walls, Vol. II., p. 589. Her words are—“Hence we discredit all stories of the aerial flight of mediums in the body, for such would be miracle, and miracle we repudiate. Inert matter may be in certain cases, and under certain conditions, disintegrated, passed through walls and recombined, but living animal organisms cannot.” I am obliged to tell this excellent lady, who has herself performed a miracle in literature, that this is an erroneous statement. I assert that in my own experience living animals have been brought to me from a distance in compliance with an unexpressed wish, and, therefore, unknown to the medium, through brick walls, in an instant of time (see The Spiritualist, July 15, 1871), and Mrs. Guppy’s flight, which, from other circumstances, I predicted would happen, is an absolute fact, to which thirteen witnesses testify, and corroborate in the most complete manner.

Benjn. Coleman.

Upper Norwood, February 2nd, 1878.

To "Inspired Evangelist of Naught"

Sir,— I am a plain man, of limited capacity. Till lately, however, I, in my egregious vanity, fancied that I knew, more or less, what Spiritualism was, and that I was a Spiritualist. But, sir, what with occultism, which, with its elementals, robs me of my belief in the humanity of the vast majority of the Spiritual agencies at work, without, so far as I can see, any sufficient evidence to counterbalance that which supported my belief; what with the medium’s-own-spirit-does-it-ism, which, on an even slenderer basis of probability, not to say on a basis of self-evident impossibility, seeks to do the same; what with metaphysics, which weave phantom ropes to tie into gordian knots; and what with the various other isms and ics too numerous to mention and too abstruse to explain, I am beginning to doubt, not only what Spiritulism is, but whether there is, or ever was, or ought to be, any such thing as Spiritualism, and am forcibly reminded of the lines in Rejected Addresses—

Thinking is but an idle waste of thought, And naught is everything, and everything is

Naught.

Junior U.S. Club, 4th February, 1878.

The Raven

“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil! By that Heaven that bends above us—by that God we both adore— Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn, It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore— Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.” Quoth the Raven “Never more.” “Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting— “Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore! Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken! Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door! Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!” Quoth the Raven “Never more!”

Spirit Photography in the Dark – Manifestations with Mme. Blavatsky

Sir,—We have again had fine photographs of “Angela” and “Alexandrine.” At the outset we requested that “Angela” should show her hand in the picture, which had not been done in the recent ones. The result was a fine success, with not only the hand (holding the rose mentioned in my last), but a beautifully modelled arm bare to the elbow.

We were told to bring next day some new flower, and not to mention beforehand what kind of flower it should be. Two natural roses were accordingly brought, the one much more full blown than the other. The result was that both flowers appear in the photographic picture, the one in her hair, the other in her hand; the pose of the arm, and the length of it exposed, being varied from the preceding photograph.

Three days ago the Countess de Bullet came to our seance (who had not attended for a longtime). “John King” had said that when she should come he meant to give her a “surprise.” The surprise proved to consist in this: he came forth with his light, and placed in her hand two beautiful fresh roses. He then requested her to spread out her lap, and there was poured into it a considerable quantity of the most delicate and delicious bon-bons and cakes that the unrivalled confectionery of Paris can furnish. He said that this was his “new-year’s offering” to her. Five of us partook of them with high relish, and a quantity remained over for her to carry home in a handkerchief. We had some talk over this matter, in which I expressed the idea that he had taken them probably from Sirandin’s, in the Rue de la Paix (the great shop of Paris), and the flowers from some florists or hothouse. When he came to write afterwards, as he usually does, through Firman’s hand, he said; “I do not thank John O’Sullivan for making me out a robber. I did not procure the things in the way he suggests.” I said aloud that I had not meant that he had taken them dishonestly, and that I supposed he had fairly compensated for what he took, either in money or in some other way. The next day, when he was again there to talk and be talked to, I asked him about his “spiritual bakery,” and how he had produced those delicious things which we had all found to be so thoroughly real. “I reproduced them from the essences of the things,” was his reply. Now this was a very curious and suggestive statement to me who had witnessed some remarkable fact-phenomena at Madame Blavatsky’s (that great and wonderful woman, whom all the world can now judge of from her book, which I have not yet seen) last February. She had been toying with an oriental chaplet, in a lacquer cup or bowl, the aromatic wooden beads of which, strung together, were of about the size of a large marble, and copiously carved all round. A gentleman present took the chaplet in his hands, admired the beads, and asked if she would not give him one of them: “Oh, I hardly like to break it,” she observed. But she took it presently, and resumed her playing with it in the lacquer bowl. My eyes were fixed upon them, under the full blaze of a large lamp just above her table. It soon became manifest that they were growing in number under her fingers as she handled them, till the bowl became nearly full. She presently lifted out of it the chaplet, leaving a considerable number of loose beads, from which she said he might take what he wanted. I have ever since regretted that I had not the presence of mind, or the venturesomeness, to ask for some for myself. I am sure she would have given them freely, for she is all kindness, as well as, apparently, a woman of all knowledge. My presumption about the beads thus created under our eyes was that they were “apports,” brought in by spirits, in compliance with her wish or will. I believe (though not quite certain) that her idea, and Olcott’s, is that these phenomena are produced in some way by a great brother “adept” in Thibet—the same one from whose old spinnet I was made to hear in the air overhead (as, I have before mentioned, and as many of her friends had done before) the faint, but clear tinkling music which I was told came, borne on a current of “astral fluid,” from Thibet; to which home of her heart Madame Blavatsky said she was going back (never again to leave it), after she should have completed her mission-task and business, which was chiefly that of publishing her book.

Another case of the fabrication of material objects out of, apparently, nothing. Coming in late one afternoon to her little parlour, where she usually spent seventeen hours out of the twenty-four at her writing table, I found Colonel Olcott with her, occupied in correcting her earlier proof-sheets. I had by this time become somewhat intimate with her and Olcott, to both of whom I shall always retain a strong attachment as well as profound respect. He told me how there had taken place that afternoon one of those “little incidents” (as he calls them) which were of constant occurrence there. There had been a group of visitors, and an animated discussion on the comparative civilisation of the ancient Orient and the modern West. The subject came up of the tissues fabricated in the one and the other. Madame Blavatsky is an enthusiast on the Orient side of this dispute. She suddenly put her hand to her neck and drew forth from her ample bosom (from beneath the old dressing-gown, which is the only garb in which I have seen her), a handkerchief of silk crape, with a striped border, very like what is called “carton crape,” and asked whether occidental looms produced anything superior to that. They assured me (and I have ample warrant for believing them) that it had not been there before that moment. It was in smooth fresh folds, and the conversation had arisen accidentally. I admired it, recognised in time the peculiar sickly-sweet and pungent odour which attends all those “apports” from far Cathay (including the beads above mentioned), and observed the peculiar signature on one edge of the handkerchief, which I had seen on various objects, and which I was told was the name (in pre-sanskrit characters) of a great brother “adept” in Thibet—to whom, by the way, she says she is very far inferior. When we were afterwards summoned to their very simple repast (to which had been added a hospitable bottle of wine for me, though they never touch it), she remarked that she felt chilly, and asked Olcott for something to put round her neck—“Give me that handkerchief.” He gave it to her, out of the sheet of <... continues on page 4-201 >

Editor's notes

Sources

• 

  London Spiritualist, No. 285, February 8, 1878, p. 70