Blavatsky H.P. - Madame Blavatsky Explains: Difference between revisions

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{{Style P-Subtitle|A RAP AT THE “LUTHER”-ANS—HER OPINION OF THE

EDDYS—MEDIUMS CRITICIZED.}}

Dear Sir,—For the last three months one has hardly been able to open a number of the Banner, or the other papers, without finding one or more proofs of the fecundity of the human imagination in the condition of hallucination. The Spiritualist camp is in an uproar, and the clans are gathering to fight imaginary foes. The toxin is sounded; danger signals shoot, like flaming rockets, across the hitherto serene sky, and warning cries are uttered by vigilant sentries posted at the four corners of the “angel-girt world.” The reverberations of this din resound even in the daily press.

Why all this disturbance? Simply because two humble individuals have spoken a few wholesome truths. If the grand beast of the Apocalypse with its seven heads, and the word “Blasphemy” written upon each, had appeared in heaven, there would hardly have been so much commotion there, as this; and there seems to be a concerted effort to pitch Colonel Olcott and myself, coupled like a pair of Hermetic Siamese twins, into the school of the Diakka.<ref>{{HPB-CW-comment|[When the cutting of this article was pasted in H.P.B.’s {{SB-page|v=1|p=108|text=Scrapbook, Vol. I, p. 108}}, she corrected the word “school” to read “Scheol” and added the following footnote in pen and ink:}}<br>

To begin, I wish to unhook my name from that of Col. Olcott, if you please, and declare that as he is not responsible for my views or actions, neither am I for his. He is bold enough and strong enough to defend himself under all circumstances, and has never allowed his adversaries to strike without knocking out two teeth to their one. If our views on Spiritualism are in some degree identical, and our work in the Theosophical Society pursued in common, we are, notwithstanding, two very distinct entities and mean to remain such. I highly esteem Colonel Olcott, as every one does who knows him. He is a gentleman; but what is more in my eyes, he is an honest and true man, and an unselfish Spiritualist, in the proper sense of that word. If he now sees Spiritualism in another light than Orthodox Spiritualists would prefer, they themselves are only to blame. He strikes at the rotten places of their philosophy, and they do all they can to cover up the ulcers, instead of trying to cure them. He is one of the truest and most unselfish friends that the cause has today in America, and yet he is treated with an intolerance that could hardly be expected of anybody above the level of the rabid Moodys and Sankeys. Surely, facts speak for themselves, and a faith so pure, angelic and unadulterated as American Spiritualism is claimed to be, can have nothing to fear from Heresiarchs. A house built on the rock stands unshaken by any storm. If the New Luther-an Church can prove all its “controls, guides and visitors from behind the Shining River,” to be disembodied spirits, why all this row? That’s just where the trouble lies; they cannot prove it. They have tasted these fruits of Paradise, and while finding some of them sweet and refreshing because gathered and brought by real angel friends, so many others have proved sour and rotten to the core, that to escape an uncurable dyspepsia, many of the best and most sincere Spiritualists have left the communion without asking for a letter of dismissal.

This is not Spiritualism; it is as I say, a New Luther-an Church, and really, though the late Oracle of the Banner of Light was evidently a pure and true woman—for the breath of calumny, this raging demon of America, has {{Page aside|189}} never been able to soil her reputation, and though certainly she was a wonderful medium—still I don’t see why a Spiritualist should be ostracized, only, because after having given up St. Paul, he or she does not strictly adhere to the doctrines of St. Conant.

The last number of the Banner contained a letter from a Mr. Saxon, criticizing some expressions in a recent letter of Colonel Olcott, to the New York Sun, in defence of the Eddys. The only part which concerned me is this:

Surely, some magician with his or her Cabalistic Presto! Change! has worked sudden and singular revolutions in the mind of this disciple of Occultism, this gentleman who “is” and “is not” a Spiritualist.

As I am the only she-Cabalist in America, I cannot be mistaken as to the author’s meaning; so I cheerfully pick up the glove. While I am not responsible for the changes in the barometer of Col. Olcott’s spirituality (which, I notice, usually presage a storm), I am for the following facts: Since I left Chittenden, I have constantly and fearlessly maintained against every one, beginning with Dr. Beard, that their apparitions are genuine and powerful. Whether they are “spirits of hell or goblins damned,” is a question quite separate from that of their mediumship. Col. Olcott will not deny that when we met at Chittenden for the first time, and afterwards—and that more than once—when he expressed suspicions about the genuineness of May-Flower and George Dix, the spirits of Horatio’s dark séances, I insisted that so far as I could judge, they were genuine spirits.<ref>{{HPB-CW-comment|[In her {{SB-page|v=1|p=108|text=Scrapbook, Vol. I, p. 108}}, H.P.B. corrected the word “spirits” to read “phenomena.”—Compiler.]}}</ref> He will also no doubt admit, since he is an eminently truthful man, that when the ungrateful behaviour of the Eddys, towards whom every visitor at the Homestead will testify that he was kinder than a brother—had made him ready to express his indignation, I interfered in their behalf, and begged that he would never confound mediums with other people as to their responsibility. Mediums have tried to shake my opinions of the Eddy boys, offering in two cases that I can recall, to go to Chittenden with me {{Page aside|190}} and expose the fraud. I acted the same with them that I did with the Colonel. Mediums have tried likewise to convince me that Mr. Crookes’ Katie King was but Miss F. Cook walking about, while a wax-bust, fabricated in her likeness and covered with her clothes, lay in the cabinet, representing her as entranced. Other mediums, regarding me as a fanatical Spiritualist, who would even be ready to connive at fraud rather than see the cause hurt by an exposure, have let, or pretended to let, me into the secrets of the mediumship of their fellow mediums, and sometimes incautiously into their own. My experience shows that the worst enemies of mediums are mediums. Not content with slandering each other, they assail and traduce their warmest and most unselfish friends.

{{Style P-Signature|H. P. BLAVATSKY.}}

And Mr. Felt has done it in the presence of nine persons in all.

{{HPB-CW-comment|[In H.P.B.’s {{SB-page|v=1|p=112|text=Scrapbook, Vol. I, p. 112}}, there is pasted a cutting from the Banner of Light, of January 15, 1876, which is a Letter of Charles Sotheran to the Editor, in which he explains the reasons for his resignation from the Theosophical Society and indulges in some very uncomplimentary remarks about H.P.B. On the left margin of this article, H.P.B. wrote in pen and ink:]}}

{{HPB-CW-comment|[Col. H. S. Olcott replied in the pages of the Spiritual Scientist to the very outspoken criticism of Prof. Hiram Corson in regard to his Inaugural Address of November 17, 1875. He protested against the rather rude and unfair remarks of Prof. Corson. The last paragraph of his reply is quoted below, and the italicized words in it are those which have been underlined by H.P.B. when she pasted the cutting of this reply in her {{SB-page|v=1|p=113}}|text=Scrapbook, Vol. I, p. 113:]}}

“As for the Theosophical Society, our present experience with a certain person, who shall be nameless since his conduct has been such as to forfeit his right to recognition, has been a lesson that we mean to profit by. We are considering a proposition to organize ourselves into a secret society* so that we may pursue our studies uninterrupted by the falsehoods and inpertinences of outside parties. When we have secured the proof palpable of the Unseen Universe and its laws, we may publish it to the world, unless we should then be satisfied that some other critic as courteous and fair as Mr. Corson would denounce us as guilty of ‘assumption,’ ‘pretention,’ or ‘brag.”’

Till the row with Sotheran the Society was not a secret one, as will be seen by this. But he began to revile our experiments & denounce us to Spiritualists & impede the Society’s progress & it was found necessary to make it secret.

Prest Moloney in his future capacity of the Hindu Hanuman tenderly searching for and delivering his younger Brothers of the Enemy- parasite.

{{HPB-CW-comment|[In the Banner of Light of February 12, 1876, Louisa Andrews wrote an article entitled “Professor Crookes still Faithful to his Conviction,” in which she said that “it is especially gratifying to know that this gentleman is still firmly grounded in the faith.”<br>

To this H.P.B. appended the following footnote when she pasted the cutting into her {{SB-page|v=1|p=116|text=Scrapbook, Vol. I, p. 116}}:]}}

Firmly “grounded” in his faith in the phenomena—perfectly sceptical as to their being produced by disembodied “Spirits”! Nei!—O, sweet sugar-plum Louisa. . . . .