464
COL. OLCOTT’S WONDERFUL SUCCESS
[Mr. P. C. Sen having written to The East describing the cure by mesmeric treatment on the part of Colonel Olcott of two of his relatives, the Editor of The East wrote: “Surely our correspondent does not mean to say that miracles are possible even at this fag end of the nineteenth century. If not, then why this attempt at ascribing these alleged cures to supernatural agencies?” On this H. P. B. commented as follows:]
Mirabile dictu! The esteemed Editor of The East must surely have been labouring under a biological hallucination at the time of penning his—to say the least—ill- humoured remark. What is there in Mr. Purna Chundra Sen’s above-quoted letter to make him suspect his correspondent of making an attempt to ascribe Col. Olcott’s cures to “supernatural agencies”? Are the words: “wonderful recovery,” “skilfulness in Mesmerism,” “ability,” etc., etc., synonyms of “supernatural agencies”? The Theosophists do not, as a rule— least of all the Founder—believe in, or attribute anything whatsoever to “miracle” or supernaturalism; nor do they ever allow their members, if they can help it, to have any such superstitious ideas “at this fag end of the nineteenth century.” We do not find in the above-quoted letter one word reminding in the remotest way of any “superstition.” Had Mr. Purna Chundra Sen, or the President-Founder, attributed his cures to the intervention of God or Divine Providence, then would the ill-humoured remark have indeed its raison d’être. But we suspect that it is just because of his letter being quite innocent of any 465 such gushy allusion—some people laying all and everything at the door of that hypothetical Providence—that the Editor of The East went out of his way to send a thrust into his correspondent. Nor are Colonel Olcott’s cures likely to ever become any less bona fide and real, for their being called by all the editors the world over only—”alleged” cures.