88
A BUDGET OF GOOD NEWS
The organization of Col. Olcott’s ‘Miracle Club’ is progressing satisfactorily. Applications are daily received from those wishing to join, but few selections have been positively made; as it is desired that the Club should be composed of men of such standing, and scientific, and other attainments, as shall afford to the public a perfect guarantee of the trustworthiness of any conclusions they may reach.
The medium who is to sit with the investigators, being actively interested in certain business operations, has been temporarily called from New York. Meanwhile in anticipation of the commencement of his report of the séances of the Miracle Club, Col. Olcott authorises the announcement that he will contribute to the Scientist some of the results of his winter’s reading, in the form of a series of articles entitled “What the Ancients knew, and what the Moderns think they know.” This popular author in addition to what he gleaned in his researches among the splendid collections of the “Watkinson Library of Reference,” in Hartford, has recently had access to some ancient manuscripts, furnished him by “one who knows when and how,” as the phrase goes; and our readers may count upon 89 both entertainment and instruction in the papers which will appear in this Journal.
We shall also begin at once the publication of a most important paper contributed by N. Wagner, Professor of Zoology in the University of St. Petersburg, and the Huxley of Russia; it gives the results of recent séances held with a French medium, named Brédif, by Prof. Wagner and two other professors of equal eminence. The document, which will appear in three successive chapters, has been translated from the Russian language for this paper by Madame Blavatsky, the accomplished lady, to whose trenchant pen several American journals are indebted for recent contributions which have elicited the highest praise for the elegance of their style and the vigour of their argument.
[At the end of this cutting, H.P.B. wrote the following in pen and ink:]
An attempt in consequence of orders received from T*** B*** through P*** personating J.K. [symbol]. Ordered to 90 begin telling the public the truth about the phenomena & their mediums. And now my martyrdom will begin! I will have all the Spiritualists against me in addition to the Christians & the Skeptics! Thy Will, oh M . . . be done!
H.P.B.