HPB-SB-10-412

H. P. Blavatsky Scrapbooks

from Adyar archives of the International Theosophical Society

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vol. 10, p. 412	volume 10, page 412 vol. title: vol. period: 1879-1880 pages in vol.: 577
Legend HPB note HPB highlighted HPB underlined HPB crossed out <Editors note> <Archivist note> Lost or unclear SBT, DT Restored

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< Evenings with the in Dwellers of the World of Spirits (continued from page 10-411) >

another doppel-ganger

In April, 1852, the atmospheric spirit of a military officer of rank at Court, a Spaniard and a Roman Catholic (who afterwards served in the Crimea) appeared for the first time in my H. Crystal. I never knew him in the world, but we formed a mutual attachment, assisting each other in our occult studies, and communicating our experiences. He possessed the faculty of seeing spirits, and was a constant visitor in my mirrors and crystals for eight years. He would never tell us his name, and we dubbed him Captain Anderson.

On the 6th February, 1856, he was relating to me the difficulties he was in with a spirit he had invoked, and I said: I hope you did not use a vessel of water. He replied: No, I did not, and never intend to do so again. Did I ever tell you how a spirit escaped from a bottle of water I was once using? I replied: No, do tell us that.

captain anderson’s relation—an elementary spirit—the bottle imp

I had been looking in the crystal one evening for a long time without having a vision. Before I left off, I asked the spirit of the crystal, very earnestly, when I could have a vision, for it was so very wearisome to look and to anticipate, and then be disappointed. This message immediately came:

Procure a glass vessel a foot deep, flat inside, and six inches square; fill it with water from a fish-pond; let the neck of the vessel be sufficiently large to admit your three fingers. Cut the middle finger of your left hand, and having put a strip of paper round the outside of the middle of the bottle, write with the blood of the finger you have cut, this one name * * * * * Paste this strip of paper round the bottle, and then insert the finger you have cut and two other fingers into the neck, and from it into the water let a drop of blood flow. If you do this you will see and hear of that which will instruct you in spiritual knowledge, and aid you in all that you desire appertaining to the world.

Although I thought it could not be good, I did not desire anything evil, and I thought, foolishly, that I could hear, and see, and know what they said, without allowing them to influence me, or without for one moment surrendering myself to their possession. I would not do it again. It was not the power but the knowledge that I sought. I was at the time in a house with a good many people in it, and fearing that someone might interrupt me I

locked the door. Before I began I had been obliged to have the glass bottle made to the exact size, and I wrote the name on a vellum band and sealed it on. This I placed on the table, and very soon without any call—I used nothing more than the name on the bottle—the water began to change to a thick dirty red liquid, and from this there formed, as the water again became clearer, a spirit more like an animal than even a distorted human figure; it had a tail as long in proportion to its size as is the tail of a mouse to the rest of the animal, and it had peculiarly shaped horns. It increased in size so as to fill the entire bottle, the tips of the horns rising above the water in the neck of the bottle. When I saw its head coming above the water, I thought I should be able to prevent its getting any larger by putting a stopper on the top. I could not find anything to place over it at the moment, but a book from the mantelpiece. The instant that I stepped across for the book, the horns of the spirit were visible to me above the bottle. Very quickly you may imagine I was back with the book. I am very strong, as strong, I believe, as most men; I can lift a couple of hundredweight, and now I had occasion to put my strength forth. I tried to press the book on the neck of the bottle with all my might, but I could not move it one inch. My hands and the book in them went up as easily as I could have lifted a baby's hands. I grew desperate. I tore the band off the bottle; I used exorcism. There was no fire in the room, and no light, or I would have immediately burned the band. I could not tear it, and I had no means of destroying it; the spirit all this time was gradually getting out of the bottle.

I could not think what to do; I took the bottle up, threw it down and broke it; the water of course ran all over the carpet, and I thought for a moment that I had got rid of the spirit, but I was mistaken, for from the water, as it lay on the floor, it rose again much larger than before.

I went to the door, but I was afraid to open it; then in an instant I thought he might be only visible to me and not to others, and that if I were with other people he would disappear from me, and I tried the door, but could not open it. I forgot that I had locked it. Again I used the form of dismissal and exorcism but it was of no use. Having done this, I asked him what he wanted. He asked me to test his power by naming anything I desired, and said that if I found that he gave it me and if <... continues on page 10-413 >