Blavatsky Archives About Spiritualism

by H.P. Blavatsky
[Reprinted from The Daily Graphic (New York) November 13, 1874, pp. 90-91. On the same page as Madame Blavatsky's "Letter to the Editor" was an interview with her which has been reprinted here in the Blavatsky Archives.]

[To the Editor of THE DAILY GRAPHIC.] As Dr. Beard has scorned (in his scientific grandeur) to answer the challenge sent to him by your humble servant in the number of THE DAILY GRAPHIC for the 30th of October last, and preferred instructing the public in general rather than one credulous fool in particular, let her come from Circassia or Africa, I fully trust you will permit me to see your paper once more, in order that by pointing out some very spicy peculiarities of this amazingly scientific exposure, the public might better judge to whose door the aforesaid elegant epithet could be more appropriately laid. For a week or so an immense excitement, a thrill of sacrilegious fear, if I am allowed this expression, ran through the psychologized frames of the Spiritualists of New York. It was rumored in ominous whispers that J. Beard, M.D., the Tyndall of America, was coming out with his peremptory exposure of the Eddys ghosts, and - the Spiritualists trembled for their gods! The dreaded day has come; the number of THE DAILY GRAPHIC for November the 9th is before us. We have read it carefully with respectful awe - for true science has always been an authority for us (weaked-minded fool though we may be), and so we handled the dangerous exposure with a feeling somewhat akin to the one of the fanatic Christian opening a volume of Buchner. We perused it to the last; we turned the page over and over again, vainly straining our eyes and brains to detect therein one word of scientific proof or a solitary atom of overwhelming evidence that would thrust into our spiritualistic bosom the venomous fangs of doubt. But no; not a particle of reasonable explanation or of scientific evidence that what we have all seen, heard, and felt at the Eddies was but a delusion. In our feminine modesty, still allowing the said article to benefit of the doubt, we disbelieved our own senses, and so devoted a whole day to the picking up of sundry bits of criticism from judges that we believed more competent than ourselves, and at last came collectively to the following conclusion: THE DAILY GRAPHIC has allowed Dr. Beard in its magnanimity nine columns on its precious pages to prove - what? Why, the following: First, that he, Dr. Beard, according to

his own modest assertions (see columns second and third), is more entitled to occupy the position of an actor intrusted with characters of simpletons (Molieres Tartuffe might fit him perhaps as naturally) than to undertake the difficult part of a Professor Faraday vis-avis the Chittenden, D. D. Home. Secondly, that notwithstanding the learned doctor was overwhelmed already with professional labors (a nice and cheap reclame, by the way) and scientific researches, he gave the latter another direction, and so went to the Eddys. That arrived there he played with Horatio Eddy, for the glory of science and the benefit of humanity, the difficult character of a dishevelled simpleton, and was rewarded in his scientific research by finding on the said suspicious premises a professor of bumps, "a poor harmless fool! Galileo, of famous memory, when he detected the sun in its involuntary imposture, chuckled certainly less over his triumph than does Dr. Beard over the discovery of this poor fool No. 1. Here we modestly suggest that perhaps the learned doctor had no business to go so far as Chittenden for that. Further, the doctor, forgetting entirely the wise motto non bis in idem, discovers and asserts throughout the length of his article that all the past, present, and future generations of pilgrims to the Eddy homestead are collectively fools, and that every solitary member of this numerous body of Spiritualistic pilgrims is likewise a weak-minded, credulous fool! Query - The proof of it, if you please, Dr. Beard? Answer - Dr. Beard has said so, and Echo responds, Fool! Truly miraculous are thy doings indeed, O Mother Nature! The cow is black and its milk is white! But then, you see, those ill-bred, ignorant Eddy brothers have allowed their credulous guests to eat up all the trout caught by Dr. Beard and paid by him seventy-five cents per pound as a penalty; and that fact alone might have turned him a little - how shall we say, sour, prejudiced? No; erroneous in his statement will answer better. For erroneous he is, not to say more. When, assuming an air of scientific authority, he affirms that the seance room is generally so dark that one cannot recognize at three feet distance his own mother he says what is not true. When he tells us further that he saw through a hole in one of the shawls and the space between them all the maneuvers of Horatios arm he risks to find himself belied by thousands who, weak-minded though they may be, are not blind for all that, neither are they confederates of the Eddys, but far more reliable witnesses in their simple-minded honesty than Dr. Beard is in his would-be scientific and unscrupulous testimony. The same when he says that no one is allowed to approach the spirits nearer than twelve feet distance, still less to touch them, except the two simple-minded, ignorant idiots who generally sit on both ends of the platform. To my knowledge many other persons have sat there besides those two. Dr. Beard ought to know this better than any one else, as he has sat there himself. A sad story is in circulation, by the way, at the Eddys. The records of the Spiritual seances at Chittenden have devoted a whole page to the account of a terrible danger that has threatened for a moment to deprive America of one of her brightest scientific stars. Dr. Beard, admitting a portion of the story himself, perverts the rest of it, as he does in everything else in his article. The doctor admits that he has been badly struck by the guitar,

and, not being able to bear the pain, jumped up and broke the circle. Now it clearly appears that the learned gentleman has neglected to add to the immense stock of his knowledge the first rudiments of logic. He boasts himself of having completely blinded Horatio and others as to the real object of his visit. What should then Horatio pummel his head for? The spirits were never known before to be as rude as that. But then Dr. B. does not believe in their existence and so puts the whole thing to Horatios door. He forgets to state, though, that a whole shower of missiles were thrown at his head, and that, pale as a ghost - so says the tale-telling record - the poor scientist surpassed for a moment the fleet-footed Achilles himself in the celerity with which he took to his heels. How strange if Horatio, not suspecting him still, left him standing at two feet distance from the shawl? How very logical? It becomes evident that the said neglected logic was keeping company at the time with old mother Truth at the bottom of her well, not being wanted, none of them, by Dr. Beard. I myself have sat upon the upper step of the platform for fourteen nights by the side of Mrs. Cleveland. I got up every time Honto approached me to an inch to my face in order to see her the better. I have touched her hands repeatedly as other spirits have been touched, and even embraced her nearly every night. Therefore, when I read Dr. Beards preposterous and cool assertion that a very low order of genius is required to obtain command of a few words in different languages, and so to mutter there to credulous Spiritualists, I feel every right in the world to say in my turn that such a scientific exposure as Dr. Beard has come out with in his article does not require any genius at all; per contra, it requires the most ridiculous faith on the part of the writer in his own infallibility, as well as a positive confidence in finding in all his readers what he elegantly terms weak-minded fools. Every word of his statement, when it is not a most evident untruth, is a wicked and malicious insinuation, built on the very equivocal authority of one witness against the evidence of thousands. Says Dr. Beard, I have proved that the life of the Eddys is one long lie; the details need no further discussion. The writer of the above lines forgets, by saying these imprudent words, that some people might think that like attracts the like. He went to Chittenden with deceit in his heart and falsehood on his lips, and so, judging his neighbor by the character he assumed himself, he takes every one for a knave when he does not put him down as a fool. Declaring so positively that he has proved it, the doctor forgets one trifling circumstance, namely, that he has proved nothing whatever. Where are his boasted proofs? When we contradict him by saying that the seance-room is far from being as dark as he pretends it to be, and that the spirits have repeatedly called out themselves through Mrs. Eatons voice for more light, we only say what we can prove before any jury. When Dr. Beard says that all the spirits are personated by W. Eddy, he advances what would prove to be a greater conundrum for solution than the apparition of spirits themselves. There he falls right away in the domain of Cagliostro; for if Dr. B. has seen five or six spirits in all, other persons, myself included, have seen one hundred and nineteen in less than a fortnight, nearly all of whom were differently dressed. Besides, the accusation of Dr. Beard implied the idea to the public that the artist of THE DAILY GRAPHIC who made the sketches of so many of those apparitions, and who is not a

credulous Spiritualist himself, is likewise a humbug, propagating to the world that he did not see, and so thrusting at large the most preposterous and outrageous lie. When the learned doctor will have explained to us how any man in his shirt-sleeves and a pair of tight pants for an attire can possible conceal on his person (the cabinet having been previously found empty) a whole bundle of clothes, womens robes, hats, caps, head-gears, and entire suits of evening dress, white waistcoats and neckties included, then he will be entitled to more belief than he is at present. That would be a proof indeed, for, with all due respect to his scientific mind, Dr. Beard is not the first Oedipus that had thought of catching the sphinx by its tail and so unriddle the mystery. We have known more than one weakminded foot, ourselves included, that has labored under a similar delusion for more than one night, but all of us were finally obliged to repeat the words of the great Galileo, E pur, se muove! and give it up. But Dr. Beard he does not give it up. Preferring to keep a scornful silence as to any reasonable explanation, he hides the secret of the above mystery in the depths of his profoundly scientific mind. His life is given to scientific researches, you see; his physiological knowledge and neuro-physiological learning are immense, for he says so, and skilled as he is in combating fraud by still greater fraud (see column the eighth), spiritualistic humbug has no more mysteries for him. In five minutes this scientist has done more towards science than all the rest of the scientists put together have done in years of labor, and would feel ashamed if he had not. (See same column.) In the overpowering modesty of his learning, he takes no credit upon himself for having done so, though he has discovered the astounding, novel fact of the cold benumbing the sensation. How Wallace, Crookes, and Varley, the naturalist, anthropologist, the chemist and electrician, will blush with envy in their old country! America alone is able to produce on her fertile soil such quick and miraculous intellects. Veni, vidi, vici! was the motto of a great conqueror. Why would not Dr. Beard select for his crest the same? And then, not unlike the Alexanders and the Caesars of the antiquity (in the primitive simplicity of his manners), he abuses people so elegantly, calling them fools when he cannot find a better argument. A far more wise mind than Dr. Beard (shall he dispute the fact?) has suggested, centuries ago, that the tree was to be judged according to its fruits. Spiritualism, notwithstanding the desperate efforts of more scientific men than himself, stands its ground without flinching for more than a quarter of a century. Where are the fruits of the tree of science that blossoms on the soil of Dr. Beards mind? If we are to judge of them by his article, then, verily, the said tree needs more than usual care. As for the fruits, it would appear that they are as yet in the realms of sweet delusive hope. But then, perhaps, the doctor was afraid to crush his readers under the weight of his learning (true merit has been in all days modest and unassuming), and that accounts for the learned doctor withholding from us any scientific proof of the fraud that he pretends exposing, except the above-mentioned fact of the cold benumbing sensation. But how Horatio can keep his hand and arm ice cold under a warm shawl for half an hour at a time, in summer as well as in any other season, and that without having some ice concealed about his person, or how he can prevent it from thawing - all the above is a mystery that Dr. Beard doesnt reveal for the present. Maybe he will tell us something of it in his book that he advertises in the article. Well, we only hope that the former will be more satisfactory than the latter.

I will add but a few words before ending my debate with Dr. Beard forever. All that he says about the lamp concealed in a band-box, the strong confederates, &c., &c., exist but in his imagination, for the mere sake of argument, we suppose. False in one false in all, says Dr. Beard on column the sixth. These words are a just verdict to his own article. Here I will briefly state what I reluctantly withheld up to the present moment from the knowledge of all such as Dr. Beard. The fact was too sacred in my eyes to allow it to be trifled with in newspaper gossiping. But now, in order to settle the question at once, I deem it my duty as a Spiritualist to surrender it to the opinion of the public. On the last night that I spent with the Eddys I was presented by George Dix and Mayflower with a silver decoration, the upper part of a medal with which I was but too familiar. I quote the precise words of the spirit: We bring you this decoration for we think you will value it more highly than anything else. You shall recognize it, for it is the badge of honor that was presented to your father by his Government for the campaign of 1828, between Russia and Turkey. We got it through the influence of your uncle, who appeared to you here this evening. We brought it from your fathers grave at Stavropol. You shall identify it by a certain sign known to yourself. These words were spoken in the presence of forty witnesses. Colonel Olcott will describe the fact and give the design of the decoration. I have the said decoration in my possession. I know it as having belonged to my father. More, I have identified it by a portion that, through carelessness, I broke myself many years ago, and, to settle all doubt in relation to it, I possess the photograph of my father (a picture that has never been at the Eddys, and could never possibly have been seen by any of them) on which this medal is plainly visible. Query for Dr. Beard: How could the Eddys know that my father was buried at Stavropol; that he was ever presented with such a medal, or that he had been present and in actual service at the time of the war of 1828? Willing as we are to give every one his due, we feel compelled to say on behalf of Dr. Beard that he has not boasted of more than he can do, advising the Eddys to take a few private lessons of him in the trickery of mediumship. The learned doctor must be expert in all such trickeries. We are likewise ready to admit that in saying as he did that his article would only confirm the more the Spiritualists in their belief (and he ought to have added, convince no one else) Dr. Beard has proved himself to be a greater prophetic medium than any other in this country! H. P. BLAVATSKY 23 Irving place.

H.P.B. and Theosophy in France

Letters to Monsieur C. Biliere
(Translated from the French by Lolita W. Hart)

[Originally published in The Theosophical Forum, August 1950, pp. 479-491.]

Bombay, 3 August, 1880, To our very distinguished new "Brother" M. C. Biliere. Sir, When we speak of a Theosophical "School," we are on dangerous ground. - What "School," if you please? We have no School: nothing more than a Society, in general, and my humble self, in particular. And here, in order not to repeat myself, I refer you directly to the letter I have just written to M. Fauvety, in answer to his. It is a sort of circular letter in the form of an isolated number. But it will explain certain things of which you - Theosophists - should not be ignorant. To speak of a Theosophical School and to identify it with the Society, is as though one spoke of a plant or of a flower of a single species and called it "the garden." It is precisely this that constitutes the beauty of our Society, that is, we have neither religion, nor school, nor anything special, since the Society consists of all religions, of the most varied schools, each member having the right to present his own ideas, to have them discussed at the general assemblies and to defend them. Read, do read my letter to M. Fauvety, dear M. Biliere. I do not know if I am a "great soul," but I know that I would much prefer not to have one at all and to see it annihilated and my body along with it. This old carcass has bothered me for a long time and my "great soul" has made only ingrates and calumniators; therefore it is but an "idiot." But - that is my personal opinion, if you please, and the Theosophical Society has nothing to do with it. I am a Buddhist to my finger tips, and I have said so for years. I believe in the soul, but in a material soul, which ends by disappearing as is suitable to each honest soul as well as to every particle of matter, of which neither the form, nor the duration can in consequence be either infinite or immortal. I believe in the eternity of matter as a principle, never as form which is always temporary. I do not believe in the personal immortality of the soul or of the Ego; but I do believe in the immortality and Eternity of the Universal Spirit or of the impersonal and Highest Ego, and it is there that, finally plunged into and absorbed in the great All, my poor little "great soul" will find its annihilation, its NIRVANA, and will finally rest from its stormy and miserable existences in Universal Nothingness. Its feverish activity will be drowned in Spiritual Inactivity, the poor little individual atom in the Universal All, and then, H. P. Blavatsky, from a little muddy drop of water will have become an Ocean without limits, without end, and without beginning. Such is my aspiration! I will never be content to end by installing myself as an individual soul, either in Nirvana or in the traditional Paradise. Truly, it would be nice to see the souls of Jack, Peter and Susan making a show of themselves in Eternity with toothpicks of gold in their mouths, and the armorial bearings of Beings on their doors.

A very philosophic idea! My ambition is to become finally the All, to be finally drawn into and absorbed into Nirvana as a drop of vapor is drawn to the Ocean; and there, losing my personal individuality, replace it by the Impersonal individuality of the Universal Essence which the Christians and other deists call "God," and which I and my school (which is not the theosophical school), call the Universal Cause: a cause that has neither intelligence, nor desire, nor will, because it is absolute Intelligence, Desire, and Will. With that good night. You desire "my old frimousse" - at your service, dear Monsieur. Only, I warn you, watch out for nightmares! Meanwhile, accept the sincere salutations of one who soon, I hope, will be no more. H.P. Blavatsky

Madras, 17, January [1883] Dear Sir and brother, A fatality that I do not understand seems to interpose itself between our correspondence. I have had three letters from you, I have written you four! It is true they have just brought me back one of them - from the dead letter office, on account of the address. I find your name on it followed by "157 Rue Caumartin"! How did that happen? I do not know, but it must be that I am falling into my dotage and talk drivel. In truth, I have been very much occupied and extremely ill, having absented myself for three months. I went to Sikkhim and pushed on into Tibetan territory in order to see our Brothers who cured me of an almost mortal illness. At least the doctors had condemned me, limiting my future to a few weeks at most. Worthy people, well instructed and prophets to their finger tips! The "Theosophical Branch" of Paris addresses to me "its respectful homage"? I thank them; but my gratitude would be more due them, if this dear "Branch," did its duties a little better. In fact, its progress has been marvelous! Continuous dissolution until the extinction of natural heat apparently. You will tell me that if your little group has ceased to meet for three weeks or a month, it is because you had neither a program to guide you, nor a KootHoomi to instruct you . . . . Ah! dear Monsieur, I am very much afraid that it is otherwise, and that your "little group" has lived up to now just because of the absence of a theosophical guide. Had you heard him preach first, your branch would have detached itself from the parent tree two years ago, instead of dying its beautiful death only now. Say the word and call things by their right name, if you are really theosophists, and you yourself are more one than you realize. Say that there has been discord, good and plenty, in the ranks. That most of the French Spiritists who pretend to be in search of truth only, and nothing but the Truth, are as bigoted as so many others. That they do like the pope, excommunicating without right of appeal all those who have the hardihood to think for themselves and not follow like a herd of sheep the trail of the ram at their head. Admit that what I am telling

you here is the truth, and know that if I have kept silence up to now it was in order not to wound the sensibilities of my best friends in Paris. But I know all, and have for a long time. I know that if the French Spiritists are more polite and less aggressive than the English and American Spiritualists, they hate us no less; at any rate they hate the Theosophical doctrines. I know also that I have proof of it. For if it were otherwise, the management Committee of the Revue Spirite would never have closed its columns to M. D. A. Courmes, our brother at Toulon, on account of the divergence between the doctrine of the theosophists and that of M. Allan Kardec; and that it would not have refused to publish the translation of Fragments of Occult Truth. Those gentlemen of the Committee have become sectarians, and the Kardecists a sect will infallible and inviolable dogmas? - Well, dear Monsieur Biliere, my patient brother and correspondent, we will seek elsewhere, that is all. That which the management of the Revue Spirite has refused us, a journal of our own - of the Theosophists - will not refuse, and soon there will be one in Paris. You know, he would have to be clever who would want to stop now the rising tide of Asiatic Theosophy. I can die tomorrow and the President could follow me, but the Theosophical Society will never die. The hour of the great Revelation has struck and the world will listen to us willy-nilly - fifty-seven societies founded in India alone within four years. The most intelligent Europeans are joining us every day. These fragments of occult truths printed for the moment in the Theosophist are dictated to Mr. Sinnett by one of the greatest Asiatic adepts, Koot-Hoomi, the hero of Mr. Sinnetts book, The Occult World. It is this book which should be translated and it would sell like hot cakes. And what do the Kardecists fear? Must truth fear the daylight? if it is truth that they have? Send us an article full of dogmas, diametrically opposed to those of occult sciences, and we will print it for you without comment in our journal. - Why? Because we are not sectarians, but free thinkers, philosophers ready to accept truth no matter whence it comes; and that unless it can be proved mathematically and scientifically we are in error. - Come now, my friend Leymarie is very much in the wrong. Is the translation of Isis ready? In that case a copy could perhaps be sent to me? Only, as I have not corrected it myself, I do not hold myself responsible for the errors in translation. I hope there will be none, otherwise I shall be forced to deny my errors! Yours fraternally H. P. Blavatsky Send me a photograph of yourself, yours has entirely disappeared, leaving only white spots. H.P.B.

Madras-Adyar, January 1884 Dear Sir and friend,

I wish you happiness and all that is good. Do not wish me the same, for it will do me no good. And now, I am going to announce to you and regale you with an unexpected event, a change of scenery: on March 20th, or thereabouts - I disembark at Marseilles, and raise the flag of Theosophy on the Canebiere! Do you like that? Well, as for me, I do not like it at all. I expected to die in India, to be burned to the last drop of my Cossack fat on a funeral pyre like a widow of Malabar, and here I am sent to die elsewhere! Well, so much the worse for all of you. You will not find me amiable. Here are the facts, however. For five years I labor day and night. I have the Theosophist, my correspondence with half of creation and my articles in Russian newspapers, the only thing that pays me. The others pay me also but only by ingratitude. Well, I have been young, I am that no longer. I have become, thanks to our enervating climate, and the work of a galley slave, an old hack, a poor carcass or rather a deflated balloon! My nerves have let go like violin strings that have been stretched too far - and they are now quietly breaking one after the other. Three more months of this work and I will become an idiot (which would not surprise anyone perhaps, since I have been that way all my life), and I am cracking up. It is not that that would make me weep, for certainly I have had enough of life. I aspire towards Nirvana, I call to it with great cries from my soul, for I am tired, tired, tired! but the Society does not want me to die. It is foolish, but thus it is. Now then, as the doctors have declared that if I am not carried away by force to other climates for an absolute rest of a few months, I will not last for three months. Now here I am being shipped off by force, plus my Hindu domestic who is my maid, my valet de chambre, and my head which I no longer have. The Colonel-President must go to London to reconcile the English theosophists who box and squabble instead of studying theosophy. He is going to embark - with me on his arm - around the 20th of February, in order to reach Marseilles where he will leave me. Where will I go next? I dont know, to Nice for a few days perhaps to see the Duchess, then to Paris for a few days - why? - I dont know at all. But I want to see my old friend Leymarie, and Dr. Fortin, his enemy (see how these two Christians love each other!) and Mme. de Morsier - you also, with whom I would like to laugh a little, for you are a true Parisian although a Theosophist. But unless I stay but a few days I do not want to remain in your Babel of Louise Michel and Co. I want absolute tranquility. I will go to the country far from all noise, where I can revise and correct the French Isis (which I have just received today, January 27th, it comes in time!). And I want you to keep my secret, otherwise I shall not come. And poor Gaboriau who writes me that he is coming! his room awaits him and he will arrive at his own home in Adyar. It is the domestic hearth of all wandering and wounded Theosophists. I have left orders that he should be received as though he were myself, but he will have to resign himself to waiting several months for me. Let him study English until then. If he has not already left, he could help me to explain Isis and to correct it; for may the devil take me if I have reached the heights of classical French. In short, here I am being sent to rest, and yet I am going to have Isis on my back - or rather on my brain which is very shaky and ill at the moment. Finally my dear Monsieur Biliere, I am really ill without appearing so. First of all, my two legs are almost paralysed, and then my head no longer works. The hinges are rusting in a manner that is frightening. My Mahatma and venerated guru has already patched me up twice. Last year the doctors had condemned me

likewise. I had Brights disease in its last phase when I learned for the first time, that sheep are not the only ones to have kidneys, but that I possessed them also, in a very villainous state just like my liver. Well, I went to Darjeeling, to Sikkhim (which slams the door on every Englishman who approaches it), at the entrance to Tibet, and there my beloved Master (not Mahatma KootHoomi, but another) mended me, kidneys and liver, and, in three days, I was as sound as ever. It was a miracle, they said. He gave me only a decoction to drink seven times a day from a plant of the Himalayas. But now, he himself sends me to get fresh air. After all, I think I will go to the Alps. In any case write me at Marseilles, poste restante, and tell me where I could see you and press your hand. Meanwhile, Salaam. Fraternally yours, H.P. Blavatsky

(Without date or place.) Dear Monsieur Biliere, As you have written that the lady of the Castle refused to sub-let her apartment, and that she offered a much smaller one, on the same floor, and as the request to secure the apartment referred to the first one - which the good lady refuses - I believe it best to change our plan. Besides, it is our Master who writes us in order to signify his wishes to us. We must have a suitable apartment and especially a salon large enough for a meeting of our members (and we have nineteen here!). Thus I telegraphed you last evening, begging you to find one for 300 francs and much nearer the center, that is to the Duchess. And now I receive your telegram! a short telegram, denoting irritation, leaving us in the lurch and passing us on to Mme. de Morsier - this is equivalent to the loss of Doctor Fortin. You, and the said Doctor also, are in the middle of these quarrels of the two (or three?) societies of Paris. This is why with you two we were sure of not provoking pretensions on one side or the other. And this is precisely why we did not address our request to find an apartment, either to Mme. de Morsier or to the Doctor, or again to M. Leymarie. And now you abandon us! What in the world has happened? It is true that the Duchess wrote to her secretary and lieutenant, Mme. de Morsier, to help us in finding one near her. But this letter written today cannot yet have reached her. Why then do you seem to be angry. - Allah is great, and I am not his prophet! but it seems to me I can smell in the air yet another little animosity between you and Mme. de Morsier. This is indeed an epidemic among the Paris theosophists, which must come from London, where Mr. Sinnett and Mrs. Kingsford are cutting each others throats. Finally I await your letter which I hope will explain to me this new mystery. Until then I wish you good health and not to cough as I am doing.

Fraternally yours, H. P. Blavatsky

46, rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs. Monday My dear Sir and brother, Having received the order to open and answer any letters that might come to the President dated from Paris, in my position as Secretary General, Correspondent General, I answer you. I have been the witness of all that has taken place between you and another member of the Society from the first day of our arrival in Paris and no one has regretted it more than I. You know it, because I have told you. I have done all that I could to reconcile the two sides. I have talked to Mme. de Morsier very seriously and, although I have never been able to find out what she has against you, I have assured myself nevertheless that she, like a real woman, holds a grudge against you, and that as a woman there is nothing to be done about it except to deplore all this misunderstanding. The Duchess has deplored it, and would have liked to change the state of things. She has asked me why you had not been notified of the Assemblies of the Society - but it was useless. She has not been any more successful than I, Mme. de Morsier being Secretary General, it was difficult to force her to invite you. It is deplorable. But console yourself, there are many others who are. If you do me the honor to come and say goodbye to me (I leave Thursday morning) I will tell you by word of mouth. Still you are wrong to write that you have been "likewise separated from the mother Society," for that is not so. We have had no Theosophical Assembles here except once, and you were there. You suddenly ceased visiting us, it is therefore you who separated yourself from us. For almost six weeks I have hardly left the house - my aunt and my sister are staying here with me. You have never rung the door bell during that time. Finally, remember, if you please, that all the theosophists, with me at their head, consider you as one of our brothers, and it is unjust of you to hold us responsible for the caprices of one single theosophist. Nevertheless, as there is no one to replace her and, except for this caprice, there is nothing to reproach her with, it is impossible for us to remedy it. But know one thing well. By renouncing the society of Mme. de Pomar, you give up the only way of adjusting things. For the circular itself proves to you that all is changed. Mme. de Morsier will no longer be the Secretary of it and will not be a part of it, for she is leaving to form another group. On the contrary, you would render a great service to Mme. de Pomar by helping to reorganize her society that threatens to fall to pieces by this new arrangement. Do go and see her. I am sending her a letter and explaining the matter to her. Write her, but do it all between the two of you asking her for secrecy in this matter.

This is the counsel of a friend. Believe always in my sincere fraternal devotion. H.P. Blavatsky To Monsieur Biliere, 30, rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honore. I would like to see you, truly, to announce to you some still more important news that will surprise you. I will be at home tomorrow evening Tuesday.

(Without address or date.) Dear Monsieur Biliere, I see only one thing and that is that being a Frenchman you take everything the wrong way - even the best intentions of your friends. "The eminent secretary" of the Theosophical Society is not afraid of Mme. de Morsier herself nor of anybody in the world. I wanted to save a devoted friend, who came to my house, from a gratuitous impertinence from one who knows so well how to give such, especially before strangers. These strangers came for business and what I did was at the suggestion of another person who knows the story and told me in Russian to watch out, for she had seen the look the lady gave you. It reached such a point that when the strangers were gone I wrote to this lady to complain of her conduct. But it is useless to tell you anything further. You have accepted the thing, not as it was, but all wrong, I repeat. It is unfortunate for me. I thought you a friend with intuition and I find in you a touchy critic. Would you have wished me to place myself in the position of putting Mme. de Morsier out of my house, she a friend also, for after all your quarrels do not concern me, and I want to be friendly with the whole world, as theosophy demands of me! Because, if she had insulted you once more, I would have been absolutely forced to break with her. Is that what you sought? While deploring that there is not a single reasonable person in France, as far as I can see, and that every one in this country is crack-brained, believe, dear Monsieur Biliere, in my regrets if, in thinking I had done well, I offended you. I was not too much afraid of Mme. de Morsier; the day I bluntly told her my way of thinking, and took up your defense in the presence of two people, that very day she wanted to hand in her demit as secretary and even as a member. Did they tell you that? It seems not. I am sorry to receive your letter too late. Not being able to suspect this new avalanche, I wrote the enclosed long letter for Fortin this morning. Good heavens, tear it up. It is better done than [not] to keep faith. Wishing you happiness and prosperity, believe me always your very devoted

H. P. Blavatsky

Paris, 25 June 1884 My dear Monsieur Biliere, The story that I told you yesterday, I wrote today hoping that you, a friend of peace and a sincere Theosophist, will put it before the eyes of M. Fortin - unless you prefer to see him on the benches of the Police court for defamation. From all sides I am told that he is telling horrible things about me; that he calumniates me by telling impossible stories and throwing out accusations that he certainly will be obliged to prove - since it is a systematic and continued defamation that this gentleman permits himself - or else let him leave me alone. That is what I am advising this "magian" who, up to the month of March, filled his letters which I am keeping with impossible flatteries, and who since then has made such a quick volte-face. Does he invent these infamous stories; is it the demoiselle Smirnoff of the Place Vendome who has related them to him? - it doesnt matter to me. The fact is that he repeats them, and the hermetic lamas have not even revealed to him that by doing so he risks seeing himself arraigned before the Police court - with his friend and client la Smirnoff - whose viper tongue is known all over Russia! As soon as I knew, through Mlle, de Glinka, of the filth that that old vestal of the Imperial Court - to whom it would be well to show this letter - spread about me; hardly had I read the letter that she wrote to Mlle. de Glinka - a letter full of dirty lies in which she calumniated my sister and all my relatives - than I wrote her a letter and sent it to her by my sister who went to her house accompanied by Mlle. de Glinka. Know, that my sister, a widow of barely three years, lived in Tiflis for twenty-three years, with her husband and her children. During these years she was known by the Grand Duchess Olga, wife of the Grand Duke Michael, Viceroy of the Caucasus - and in constant contact with her, because of her husbands position. And this viper has dared to write that my sister had driven her husband to insanity and killed him by her misconduct, and that, having become a widow, she established herself in Odessa where she continued her lewd life! The truth is that my sister who has been a widow only three years, established herself in Odessa when she was already over fifty years old! - It is almost unbelievable. La Smirnoff fidgeted before my sister, and knew not where to hide herself, trying first to deny all and not being able to deny anything since my sister had her letter and Mlle. de Glinka was there. My sister treated her as she deserved, sending her to make inquiries about herself from the Grand Duke and his wife. It is to be regretted that one of my sisters sons, who is an officer in the Caucasus, was not there. My nephew would certainly have had the right to box the ears of this lady of honor. Let Dr. Fortin show her this letter, with whom you can

leave it as a souvenir. I made several copies of the letter I wrote to la Smirnoff, one for my lawyer, and the rest I distributed among all my Russian acquaintances and those to whom she had calumniated me. The Russians know her well. They all say she is crazy enough to be locked up, for her own venom is choking her. I believe it. La Smirnoff has said and written that I was a harlot, that I had dragged myself in the mud, lived in harems, being a drunkard at Tiflis and, finally, that all my life I had cheated the world, stolen, etc., for which high deeds I was under the threat of a criminal condemnation and had not been able to enter Tiflis for thirty years, for, if I returned there, I would be arrested, put in prison and sent to Siberia, because I had committed robberies. That is about what M. Fortin says, who had the audacity to ask Mr. Keightley - the young Englishman sent by Colonel Olcott to ask from him the return of his charter - if the antecedents of the two founders were known. Well, unless he retracts his words and leaves me alone, he will recognize them in the Police court, for this is what I have done. The chief commandant of the Caucasus is my intimate friend, one who has known me and my family for almost forty years. He is Prince Doudoukoff-Korsakoff. I wrote him a letter immediately in which I copied the accusations of la Smirnoff; and at the same time I sent an official petition to demand that after a minute research in the archives they send to me at once in Paris an official document from the Police in Tiflis. This document will state whether I was ever listed by the Police as a thief or a bad woman. I also wrote to the Police of Saint Petersburg. Armed with these two documents, we shall see where the infamies of la Smirnoff repeated by Doctor Fortin will lead them. Eight days ago Prince Doudoukoff to whom I sent the address of Mme. de Barrau in case I should be in London - sent her a telegram with these words: "Tell Mme. Blavatsky that her letter was received today. Indignant. The official documents, asked for, expedited day after tomorrow. - Prince Doudoukoff." I expect these documents today or tomorrow. Now then, as I left the Caucasus in 1848, and travelled with my father in Europe, and later lived for almost twelve years in India, South America and Africa; as I returned directly from America to St. Petersburg, in 1859, I stayed there with my father and my sister, known by all Petersburg; then in 1861 I went to Tiflis where I stayed with my grandfather, the intimate Counselor of the Emperor (and of my husband, M. Blavatsky, governor of Erivan), for more than a year at Tiflis - until his death in short - and then leaving again in 1864, I did not return any more to the Caucasus; during this period or epoch was I the vile woman described by Mlle. Smirnoff? It is what she will have to prove when my lawyer places my official dossier before jury and judge. Dr. Fortin would do better to leave me alone, and especially not to dare to write any more as he has written. Up till now I was to him, as attested by his letters, the venerated, the loved, the "respected Madame," etc., but now I have become on his say-so all that is most shameful? It is a quick change of opinion for a man who has clairvoyance to help him, astrology and other things. I understood him long ago - even at Madras - although I was not entirely certain. It was sufficient for me, however, to see him for an hour, at my house, to know that we would never understand each other. A man who, carried away by his choleric

and despotic disposition, lets himself go before twenty persons, as he did at his house insulting two honest people, such as Dr. Thurmann and Edard - calling them thieves and cheats, and throwing them out of the house "like two lackeys," is capable of anything! I warn him to calm himself; and you would do well to warn him also. I set out for London, but I am leaving a lawyer here and friends to watch over this affair. Pray accept, dear Monsieur and Brother, my esteem and fraternal consideration. H. P. Blavatsky

Leaves of Theosophial History

[Reprinted from The Theosophical Forum (Point Loma, California), May 1936, pp. 343346.] (The following letter from H. P. Blavatsky to Mrs. Hollis Billings is reproduced from a copy in one of General Abner Doubledays scrapbooks held in the archives of the International Theosophical Headquarters, Point Loma [now located in Pasadena, California.] It is copied in his own hand and is here reproduced verbatim et literatim. --- Eds. [of The Theosophical Forum.])

Letter from H. P. Blavatsky to Mrs. Hollis Billings

Simla. Oct. 2. 1881. My dear good friend Of course you must have long time since given me up as a bad job, or a bad penny. But do I turn up again and swear to you that not a dozen but a hundred of time I wanted to write and rush of business connected with the Theosophist, of important affairs --- sometimes weariness, not laziness, always made me put off the letter to another day. Believe me dear Mrs. Billings that never, never will I forget or love you less. You have been a dear good faithful friend to me, and so will I be forever to you, until my old body is burned and scattered to the winds. So negligent and careless am I that the silver bracelets I got for dear Sally are there for her, for nearly two years, and it is only my carelessness and truly constant sickness that prevented me always from sending them and be done with it. I am now at Simla 10,000 feet over the plains of India with the eternal snows over me and feeling better. I had kidney disease and have it still, and a beginning of dropsy. But I now feel better though not wholly cured. Now to business.

Why for pitys sake do not you tell people the truth about our Brother Ski, as you told me, as you and he know it to be truth? Why allow people to believe he is a disembodied Spirit, when he is a living Spirit, who lived and will live for as many hundred years as he likes, putting his body away to sleep, whenever tired of earthly life, and roaming in the interplanetary worlds as much as he likes. Why should you conceal from those who are prepared to receive the truth, that he was an Initiate, and knew more than all their medicine men put together? Our Brothers know him and he knows them. Morya is his greatest friend as you know, and he brought that silk handkerchief from his house to Olcott. Morya (M ) wants Ski to come out bravely and tell the world the truth: for, otherwise, now that our Society becomes so powerful with the most learned Englishmen, the most influential Anglo-Indian officials daily joining it, and who have their ideas about Spirits as taught by K. H. and M (read well the pamphlet I will send you in a week or so in the October Theosophist) even Ski and Jim Nolan (who are one) will be doubted and called Shells and Elementaries and spooks. Do dear turn a new leaf. Let it out gradually and please send me your address. K. H. or Koot-Hoomi is now gone to sleep for three months to prepare during this Sumadhi or continuous trance state for his initiation, the last but one, when he will become one of the highest adepts. Poor K. H. his body is now lying cold and stiff in a separate square building of stone (1) with no windows or doors in it, the entrance to which is effected through an underground passage from a door in Toong-ting (reliquary, a room situated in every Thaten (temple) or Lamisery; and his Spirit is quite free. An adept might lie so for years, when his body was carefully prepared for it beforehand by mesmeric passes etc. It is a beautiful spot where he is now in the square tower. The Himalayas on the right and a lovely lake near the lamisery. His Cho-han (spiritual instructor, master, and the Chief of a Tibetan Monastery takes care of his body. M . . also goes occasionally to visit him. It is an awful mystery that state of cataleptic sleep for such a length of time, but Ski describes it, when you have received the pamphlet and read it. You know the Buddhists do not believe in a personal God. They believe in one universal mind which gives impulses to creation but does not rule or meddle with the natural evolution or with man. This MIND is composed of the millions of aggregations of intelligences --- Planetary Spirits --- whom they call Dyan-Cho-han and these spirits were human at one time. Gautama Buddha is one of the five principal Celestial Buddhas, or Dyani-Buddhas. These reincarnate themselves in the Dala-Lamas, and the Tsheshu-Lamas, and some of the highest adepts. They relinquish the attainment of Br. and bliss in Nirvana that they might be born again in men for the benefit of mankind. The Dala Lama lives at Lha-ssa, and the Tsheshu Lama at and near Shikadze. Now Morya lives generally with Koot-Hoomi who has his house in the direction of the Kara Korum Mountains, beyond Ladak, which is in Little Tibet and belongs now to Kashmire. It is a large wooden building in the Chinese fashion pagoda-like, between a lake and a beautiful mountain, and The Brothers do not think the world ripe enough to teach them Occultism in its highest development. The world believes too much in a personal God and Christianity, and gods and such flap-doodle. They come out very rarely. But they can project their astral forms anywhere.

Morya is dead against phenomena but Sinnett the author of The Occult World is always craving for phenomena, and yet will give up neither his wine nor dances nor anything else. Hume, the President of the new Simla Eclectic Theosophical Society is less for phenomena and more for philosophy. And they believe a Ritual which Judge wants is nonsense. No one will work in New York for the Society and it is going to the devil. If you could take my place in N. Y. and give life to the N. Y. Society the Brothers would help you surely. Only propagate their ideas, and ask Ski to tell the truth and it will be done. Tell me is Eglinton a true medium? You had better write to him to proceed in the Theosophical groove in India, if he wants success here. Disembodied angels are at a fearful discount here, and he will do no good, and get all the Theosophists against him if he propounds here too much the theory of angels and returning mothers-in-law. Let him show phenomena and give no explanation; that will be better. Mr. Hume, who is the most influential man here, wants to have nothing to do with him, as he thinks it will compromise the Theosophical Society. Tell him that. Now good-bye dear. Anything you want me to do for you I will do, so command. I do not know what questions to ask, but you give a sitting to Judge and let Ski instruct him about Theosophy and we will have it printed. My love to dear Sally and believe me Yours for ever and eternally H. P. Blavatsky Where is Billings now? Is he gone to the dogs decidedly?

Endnotes:
(1) Master Morya in a letter to A.P. Sinnett described K.H.'s retreat as follows: "At a certain spot not to be mentioned to outsiders, there is a chasm spanned by a frail bridge of woven grasses and with a raging torrent beneath. The bravest member of your Alpine clubs would scarcely dare to venture the passage, for it hangs like a spider's web and seems to be rotten and impassable. Yet it is not; and he who dares the trial and succeeds --as he will if it is right that he should be permitted --- comes into a gorge of surpassing beauty of scenery --- to one of our places and to some of our people, of which and whom there is no note or minute among European geographers. At a stone's throw from the old Lamasery stands the old tower, within whose bosom have gestated generations of Bodhisatwas. It is there, where now rests your lifeless friend [K.H.] --- my brother, the light of my soul, to whom I made a faithful promise to watch during his absence over his work." Mahatma Letter No. 29

NOTE: For Theosophical definitions of many of the terms H.P.B used in this letter,
consult the following two sources:

COLLATION OF THEOSOPHICAL GLOSSARIES ENCYCLOPEDIC THEOSOPHICAL GLOSSARY

Extract of a Letter from Mme. Blavatsky (1)

[Reprinted from Hints on Esoteric Theosophy, No. 1, by A.O. Hume, Calcutta, Second edition, 1882, pp. 86-92.]

"Mr. ----- [W.H. Terry] lays great stress upon his own so-called mediumship, and so might I have done whilst I was similarly affected. He says that the fact of different handwritings being produced through his own automatic writing, is a proof of disembodied spirits. Surely very poor logic that. Then there is that venerable party who died 100 years ago, who always writes in the same handwriting, and always gives the same name! For over six years, from the time I was eight or nine years old until I grew up to the age of fifteen, I had an old spirit (Mrs. T......... L......... (2) she called herself), who came every night to write through me, in the presence of my father, aunts and many other people, residents of Tiflis and Saratoff. She gave a detailed account of her life, stated where she was born (at Revel, Baltic Provinces), how she married, and gave the history of all her children, including a long and thrilling romance about her eldest daughter, Z......., and the suicide of her son F........, who also came at times and indulged in long rhapsodies about his sufferings as a suicide. The old lady mentioned that she saw God and the Virgin Mary, and a host of angels, two of which bodiless creatures she introduced to our family, to the great joy of the latter, and who promised (all this through my handwritings) that they would watch over me, &c., &c., tout comme il faut. She even described her own death, and gave the name and address of the Lutheran pastor who administered to her the last sacrament. She gave a detailed account of a petition she had presented to the Emperor Nicholas, and wrote it out verbatim in her own handwriting through my childs hand. Well, this lasted, as I said, nearly six years - my writings - in her clear old-fashioned, peculiar handwriting and grammar, in German (a language I had never learnt to write and could not even speak well) and in Russian - accumulating in these six years to a heap of MSS that would have filled ten volumes.

In those days this was not called spiritualism, but possession. But as our family priest was interested in the phenomena, he usually came and sat during our evening seance with holy water near him, and a goupillon (how do you call it in English?) and so we were all safe. Meanwhile one of my uncles had gone to Revel, and had there ascertained that there had really been such an old lady, the rich Mrs. T........ L........., who, in consequence of her sons dissolute life, had been ruined and had gone away to some relations in Norway, where she had died. My uncle also heard that her son was said to have committed suicide at a small village on the Norway coast (all correct as given by "the Spirit"). In short all that could be verified, every detail and circumstance, was verified, and found to be in accordance with my, or rather "the Spirits," account; her age, number and name of children, chronological details, in fact everything stated. When my uncle returned to St. Petersburg he desired to ascertain, as the last and crucial test, whether a petition, such as I had written, had ever been sent to the Emperor. Owing to his friendship with influential people in the Ministere de lInterieur, he obtained access to the Archives, and there, as he had the correct date and year of the petition, and even the number under which it had been filed, he soon found it, and comparing it with my version sent up to him by my aunt, he found the two to be facsimiles, even to a remark in pencil written by the late Emperor on the margin, which I had reproduced as exactly as any engraver or photographer could have done. Well, was it the genuine spirit of Mrs. L........ who had guided my medium hand? Was it really the spirit of her son F........ who had produced through me in his handwriting all those posthumous lamentations and wailings and gushing expressions of repentance? Of course, any spiritualist would feel certain of the fact. What better identification, or proof of spirit identity; what better demonstration of the survival of man after death, and of his power to revisit earth and communicate with the living, could be hoped for or even conceived? But it was nothing of the kind, and this experience of my own, which hundreds of persons in Russia can affirm - all my own relations to begin with - constitutes, as you will see, a most perfect answer to the spiritualists. About one year after my uncles visit to St. Petersburg, and when the excitement following this perfect verification had barely subsided, D........, an officer who had served in my fathers regiment, came to Tiflis. He had known me as a child of hardly five years old, had played constantly with me, had shown me his family portraits, had allowed me to ransack his drawers, scatter his letters, &c., and, amongst other things, had often shown me a miniature upon ivory of an old lady in cap and white curls and green shawl, saying it was his old aunty, and teazing me, when I said she was old and ugly, by declaring that one day I should be just as old and ugly. To go through the whole story would be tedious; to make matters short, let me say at once that D........ was Mrs. L........s nephew - her sisters son.

Well, he came to see us often (I was 14 then), and one day asked for us children to be allowed to visit him in the camp. We went with our Governess, and when there I saw upon his writing-table the old miniature of his aunt, my spirit! I had quite forgotten that I had ever seen it in my childhood. I only recognized her as the spirit who for nearly six years had almost nightly visited me and written through me, and I almost fainted. "It is, it is the spirit," I screamed; "it is Mrs. T........ L........" "Of course, it is, my old aunt; but you dont mean to say that you have remembered all about your old play thing all these years?" said D........ who knew nothing about my spiritwriting. "I mean to say I see and have seen your dead aunt, if she is your aunt, every night for years; she comes to write through me." "Dead?" he laughed, "But she is not dead. I have only just received a letter from her from Norway," and he then proceeded to give full details as to where she was living and all about her. That same day D......... was let into the secret by my aunts, and told of all that had transpired through my mediumship. Never was a man more astounded than was D........, and never were people more taken aback than were my venerable aunts, spiritualists, sans le savoir. It then came out that not only was his aunt not dead, but that her son F........., the repentant suicide, lesprit soufrant, had only attempted suicide, had been cured of his wound, and was at the time, (and may be to this day), employed in a counting house in Berlin. Well then, who or what was "the intelligence" writing through my hand, giving such accurate details, dictating correctly every word of her petition, &c., and yet romancing so readily about her death, his sufferings after death, &c., &c.? Clearly despite the full proofs of identity, not the spirits of the worthy Mrs. T........ L......., or her scapegrace son F......., since both these were still in the land of the living. "The evil one," said my pious aunts; "the Devil of course," bluntly said the Priest. Elementaries, some would suppose, but according to what --------- (3) has told me, it was all the work of my own mind. I was a delicate child. I had hereditary tendencies to extra-normal exercise of mental faculties, though, of course, perfectly unconscious then of anything of the kind. Whilst I was playing with the miniature, the old ladys letters and other things, my fifth principle [Manas] (call it animal soul, physical intelligence, mind, or what you will,) was reading and seeing all about them in the astral light, just as does the mind of a clairvoyant when in sleep; what it so saw and read was faithfully recorded in my dormant memory, although, a mere babe as I was, I had no consciousness of this. Years after, some chance circumstance, some trifling association of ideas, again put my mind in connection with these long forgotten, or rather I should say never hitherto consciously recognized pictures, and it began one day to reproduce them. Little by little the mind, following these pictures into the astral light, was dragged as it were into the current of Mrs. L.......s personal and individual associations and emanations, and then the mediumistic impulse given, there was nothing to arrest it, and I became a medium, not for the transmission of messages from the dead, not for the amusement of elementaries, but for the objective reproduction of what my own mind read and saw in the astral light.

It will be remembered that I was weak and sickly, and that I inherited capacities for such abnormal exercise of mind - capacities which subsequent training might develop, but which at that age would have been of no avail, had not feebleness of physique, a looseness of attachment, if I may so phrase it, between the matter and spirit, of which we are all composed, abnormally, for the time, developed them. As it was, as I grew up, and gained health and strength, my mind became as closely prisoned in my physical frame as that of any other person, and all these phenomena ceased. How, while so accurate as to so many points, my mind should have led me into killing both mother and son, and producing such orthodox lamentations by the latter over his wicked act of self-destruction, may be more difficult to explain. But from the first all around me were impressed with the belief that the spirit possessing me must be that of a dead person, and from this probably my mind took the impression. Who the Lutheran Pastor was who had performed the last sad rite, I never knew - probably some name I had heard, or seen in some book, in connection with some deathbed scene, picked out of memory by the mind to fill a gap, in what it knew. Of the son's attempt at suicide I must have heard in some of the mentally read letters, or have come across it or mention of it in the astral light, and must have concluded that death had followed, and since, young though I was, I knew well how sinful suicide was deemed, it is not difficult to understand how the mind worked out the apparently inevitable corollary. Of course, in a devout house like ours, God, the Virgin Mary and Angels were sure to play a part, as these had been ground into my mind from my cradle. Of all this perception and deception, however, I was utterly unconscious. The fifth principle worked as it listed; my sixth principle [Buddhi] or spiritual soul or consciousness was still dormant, and therefore for me the seventh principle [Atman] at that time may be said not to have existed. But I am straying from my purpose, which simply was to show that the most perfect proofs of spirit identity, I mean apparent proofs, are utterly fallacious, and that spiritualists, who base their theories on these supposed proofs, are truly building their house upon the sand.

Notes
(1) This letter was probably written by Madame Blavatsky to A.O. Hume in December 1881. (2) In a letter (dated Jan. 4, 1882) to Madame Blavatsky, A.O. Hume identified Mrs. T......... L......... as Madame Thekla Lebendorff. He mentioned HPB's above letter and wrote further: "But your explanation in this case is not intelligible -- so after trying to make out what you meant - I have entirely rewritten this out of my inner consciousness Buddha knows if I have got on the right scent - I do not - but you will see the proofs [of Hints on Esoteric Theosophy, No. 1] and you or the Brothers,? must correct any blunders."

The Letters of H. P. Blavatsky to A. P. Sinnett, Letter No. 156, p. 306 (online at: http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/hpb-aps/bl-156.htm). (3) One of the Brothers [Mahatmas].

Letter from H.P. Blavatsky to Henry S. Olcott]

[Reprinted from The Theosophist (Adyar, Madras, India), July 1908, p. 947.]

Adyar, 11th [November 1883] My Dear Olcott, Last night about 5 P.M., I was cleansing the portraits in the Shrine and Mr. Coulomb was in my bedroom with two masons mending the window; I suddenly heard Damodars voice! I did not believe my ears at first. I saw like a cloud, whitish, transparent, flickering, moving from the Shrine to my table and from the table again to the Shrine, but his voice came from the latter, as though through Mahatma Kashmirs portrait, and yet it was Damodars voice. He was telling me of some Shanker or Sander Sing, asking your mesmeric help for some boys and invalids at Moradabad, and praying that I should beg of the Master to give permission to ask for instructions. "I promised them to come to you personally in my astral soul (?!) and deliver them the Masters answer to that effect. Please telegraph to me to Moradabad the answer you will now have." "But I have no answer," I said, "and suppose Master does not choose to answer me." And then a thought struck me, and I told to what I supposed was Djual Khool playing tricks with me, and taking Damodars shape: "Now dont be bamboozling me, Master Benjamin." But then I heard Master Ms voice, who spoke very seriously and said very loud: "You are mistaken, it is Damodar. Tell him to say so and so" (what I telegraphed, I now forget, but He made me write under His direction then.) And then the flickering cloud - Damodars abortive attempts to materialise thoroughly, I suppose - disappeared after some words in Maratha as though thanking the Master; "Gurudeva," he called him. Mr. Coulomb came suddenly into the room exclaiming: "Ah! Damodar has returned at last? where is he?" I told him he must be dreaming, that Damodar had not returned. But he insisted that he had heard his voice!! And then Babula joined chorus, and swears to me that he heard Damodar speak to me from the passage. Well, I be hung, if Damodar is not developing at the rate of 60 miles an hour. So much the better. H.P.B.

Letters of H.P.B. to Dr. Hartmann

1885-1886
[Reprinted from The Path (New York), January, February, and March 1896.]

Contents
Letter I --- Ostende, December 5. Letter II --- Wurzburg, December (something), 1885 Letter III --- [No Date] Letter IV --- [No Date] Letter V --- [No Date] Letter VI --- April 3, 1886

Letters of H.P.B. to Dr. Hartmann

Letter I
[Reprinted from The Path (New York), January 1896, pp. 297-299.]

Ostende, December 5. My Dear Doctor: (1) --- You must really forgive me for my seeming neglect of you, my old friend. I give you my word of honor, I am worried to death with work. Whenever I sit to write a letter all my ideas are scattered, and I cannot go on with the Secret Doctrine that day. But your letter (the last) is so interesting that I must answer it as asked. You will do an excellent thing to send to the Theosophist this experiment of yours. It has an enormous importance in view of Hodgsons lies and charges, and I am happy you got such an independent corroboration; astral light, at any rate, cannot lie for my benefit. (2) [See Hartmann's article describing the psychometric experiment. See also the confirmatory evidence cited in Sylvia Cranston's HPB biography, pp. 95-97. --- BA Editor.]

I will only speak of number 4, as the correctness about the other three letters you know yourself. I. This looks like the private temple of the Teschu Lama, near Tchigadze --- made of the "Madras cement"-like material; it does shine like marble and is called the snowy "Shakang" (temple) --- as far as I remember. It has no "sun or cross" on the top, but a kind of algiorna dagoba, triangular, on three pillars, with a dragon of gold and a globe. But the dragon has a swastica on it and this may have appeared a "cross." I dont remember any "gravel walk" --- nor is there one, but it stands on an elevation (artificial) and a stone path leading to it, and it has steps --- how many I do not remember (I was never allowed inside); saw from the outside, and the interior was described to me. The floors of nearly all Buddhas (Songyas) temples are made of a yellow polished stone, found in those mountains of Oural and in northern Tibet toward Russian territory. I do not know the name, but it looks like yellow marble. The "gentleman" in white may be Master, and the "bald-headed" gentleman I take to be some old "shaven-headed" priest. The cloak is black or very dark generally --- (I brought one to Olcott from Darjeeling), but where the silver buckles and knee-breeches come from I am at a loss. (3) They wear, as you know, long boots --- up high on the calves, made of felt and embroidered often with silver --- like that devil of a Babajee had. Perhaps it is a freak of astral vision mixed with a flash of memory (by association of ideas) about some picture she saw previously. In those temples there are always movable "pictures," on which various geometrical and mathematical problems are placed for the disciples who study astrology and symbolism. The "vase" must be one of many Chinese queer vases about in temples, for various objects. In the corners of the temples there are numerous statues of various deities (Dhyanis). The roofs are always (almost always) supported by rows of wooden pillars dividing the roof into three parallelograms, and the mirror "Melong" of burnished steel (round like the sun) is often placed on the top of the Kiosque on the roof. I myself took it once for the sun. Also on the cupolas of the [dagoba] there is sometimes a graduated pinnacle, and over it a disk of gold placed vertically, and a pear-shaped point and often a crescent supporting a globe and the svastica upon it. Ask her whether it is this she saw, Om tram ah hri hum, which figures are roughly drawn sometimes on the Melong "mirrors" --- (a disk of brass) against evil spirits --- for the mob. Or perhaps what she saw was a row of slips of wood (little cubes), on which such things are seen:

If so, then I will know what she saw. "Pine woods" all round such temples, the latter built expressly where there are such woods, and wild prickly pear, and trees with Chinese fruit on that the priests use for making inks. A lake is there, surely, and mountains plenty --- if where Master is; if near Tchigadze --- only little hillocks. The statues of Meilha Gualpo, the androgyne Lord of the Salamanders or the Genii of Air, look like this "sphinx;" but her lower body is lost in clouds, not fish, and she is not beautiful, only symbolical.

Fisherwomen do use soles alone, like the sandals, and they all wear fur caps. Thats all; will this do? But do write it out. [See Hartmann's article describing the psychometric experiment. See also the confirmatory evidence cited in Sylvia Cranston's HPB biography, pp. 95-97. --- BA Editor.] Yours ever, H.P.B.

Endnotes
(1) On the request of Mr. and Mrs. Johnston and others I have permitted these private letters from H.P. Blavatsky to myself to be published in the Path, as they contain some things of general interest. --- Dr. F. Hartmann. (2) This refers to the clairvoyant (psychometric) examination of an "occult letter," which was printed, together with the picture, in the Theosophist of 1886. The psychometer was a German peasant woman, entirely uninformed in regard to such things; but gave as it appears a correct description of a Buddhist temple in Tibet, with its surroundings and the inscriptions within; also of the lamas or priests and of the Master, and also of some people working in the neighborhood of the temple. The picture could not have been read from my own mind, as I have never seen such a temple, or if I have been there in the spirit, that visit has left no trace in my personal memory. --- H[artmann]. [See Hartmann's article describing the psychometric experiment. See also the confirmatory evidence cited in Sylvia Cranston's HPB biography, pp. 95-97. --- BA Editor.] (3) The explanation of seeing the gentleman in knee-breeches may be that I was just then very much occupied with the spirit of the well-known occultist, Carl von Eckertshausen. --H[artmann].

Letter II
[Reprinted from The Path (New York), January 1896, pp. 299-300.]

Wurzburg, December (something), 1885. My Dear Conspirator: (1) --- Glad to receive from your letter such an emanation of true holiness. I too wanted to write to you; tried several times and - failed. Now I can. The dear Countess Wachtmeister is with me, and copies for me, and does what she can in helping, and the first five minutes I have of freedom I utilize them by answering your letter. Now, as you know, I also am occupied with my book. It took possession of me (the epidemic of writing) and crept on "with the silent influence of the itch," as Olcott elegantly expresses it - until it reached the fingers of my right hand, got possession of my brain - carried me off completely into the region of the occult. (2) I have written in a fortnight more than 200

pages (of the Isis shape and size). I write day and night, and now feel sure that my Secret Doctrine shall be finished this - no, not this - year, but the next. I have refused your help, I have refused Sinnetts help and that of everyone else. I did not feel like writing - now I do. I am permitted to give out for each chapter a page out of the Book of Dzyan - the oldest document in the world, of that I am sure - and to comment upon and explain its symbology. I think really it shall be worth something, and hardly here and there a few lines of dry facts from Isis. It is a completely new work. My "satellite," (3) I do not need him. He is plunged to his neck in the fascinations of Elberfeld, and is flirting in the regular style with the Gebhardt family. They are dear people and are very kind to him. The "darling Mrs. Oakley" has shown herself a brick - unless done to attract attention and as a coup detat in the bonnet business. But I shall not slander on mere speculation; I do not think she has acted courageously and honorably; I send you the Pall Mall to read and to return if you please; take care of the paper. . . . Thanks for the photo. Shall I send a like one to your "darling"? She is mad with me however. Had a letter from Rodha; she swears she never said to "Darling" or the he Darling either, that I had "abused them to the Hindus." To have never existed, good friend, is assuredly better. But once we do exist we must not do as the Servian soldiers did before the invincible Bulgarians or our bad Karma, we must not desert the post of honor entrusted to us. A room may be always had at Wurzburg; but shall you find yourself contented for a long time with it? Now the Countess is with me, and I could not offer you anything like a bed, since we two occupy the bedroom; but even if you were here, do you think you would not go fidgeting again over your fate? Ah, do keep quiet and wait - and try to feel once in your life - and then do not come at night, as you did two nights ago, to frighten the Countess out of her wits. Now you did materialize very nearly this time, you did. (4) Quite so. Yours in the great fear of the 1886 - nasty number. H. P. B.

Endnotes
(1) H.P.B. used to call me in fun her "conspirator" or "confederate," because the stupidity of certain persons went so far as to accuse me of having entered into a league with her for the purpose of cheating myself. - H[artmann]. (2) This was in answer to a letter in which I complained of the irresistible impulse that caused me to write books, very much against my inclination, as I would have preferred to devote more time to "self-development." - H[artmann]. (3) Babajee.

(4) I know nothing about it. - H[artmann].

Letters of H.P.B. to Dr. Hartmann

Letter III
[Reprinted from The Path (New York), February 1896, pp. 332-333.]

[No Date.] My Dear Doctor: --- Two words in answer to what the Countess told me. I do myself harm, you say, "in telling everyone that Damodar is in Tibet, when he is only at Benares." You are mistaken. He left Benares toward the middle of May, (ask in Adyar; I cannot say for certain whether it was in May or April) and went off, as everybody knows, to Darjeeling, and thence to the frontier via Sikkhim. Our Darjeeling Fellows accompanied him a good way. He wrote a last word from there to the office bidding good-bye and saying: "If I am not back by July 21st you may count me as dead." He did not come back, and Olcott was in great grief and wrote to me about two months ago, to ask whether I knew anything. News had come by some Tibetan pedlars in Darjeeling that a young man of that description, with very long flowing hair, had been found frozen in the (forget the name) pass, stark dead, with twelve rupees in his pockets and his things and hat a few yards off. Olcott was in despair, but Maji told him (and he, D., lived with Maji for some time at Benares,) that he was not dead - she knew it through pilgrims who had returned, though Olcott supposes which may be also - that she knew it clairvoyantly. Well I know that he is alive, and am almost certain that he is in Tibet - as I am certain also that he will not come back - not for years, at any rate. Who told you he was at Benares? We want him sorely now to refute all Hodgsons guesses and inferences that I simply call lies, as much as my "spy" business and forging - the blackguard: now mind, I do not give myself out as infallible in this case. But I do know what he told me before going away - and at that moment he would not have said a fib, when he wept like a Magdalen. He said, "I go for your sake. If the Maha Chohan is satisfied with my services and my devotion, He may permit me to vindicate you by proving that Masters do exist. If I fail no one shall ever see me for years to come, but I will send messages. But I am determined in the meanwhile to make people give up searching for me. I want them to believe I am dead." This is why I think he must have arranged some trick to spread reports of his death by freezing. But if the poor boy had indeed met with such an accident - why I think I would commit suicide; for it is out of pure devotion for me that he went. (1) I would never forgive myself for this, for letting him go. Thats the truth and only the truth. Dont be harsh, Doctor forgive him his faults and mistakes, willing and unwilling.

The poor boy, whether dead or alive, has no happy times now, since he is on probation and this is terrible. I wish you would write to someone at Calcutta to enquire from Darjeeling whether it is so or not. Sinnett will write to you, I think. I wish you would. Yours ever gratefully, H. P. B.

Endnote
(1) The fact is that Damodar was never asked to go to Tibet, but begged to be permitted to go there, and at last went with permission of H.P.B., on which occasion I accompanied him to the steamer. - H[artmann].

Letter IV
[Reprinted from The Path (New York), February 1896, pp. 333-335.]

[No Date.] My Dear Doctor: --- I read your part II - and I found it excellent, except two or three words you ought to change if you care for truth, and not to let people think you have some animus yet against Olcott. (1) Such are at the end "Presidential orders" and too much assurance about "fictions." I never had "fictions," nor are Masters (as living men) any more a fiction than you and I. But this will do. Thus, I have nothing whatever against your theory, though you do make of me a sort of a tricking medium. But this does not matter, since as I wrote to Dr. H.S. and will write to all - "Mme. Blavatsky of the T.S. is dead." I belong no more to the European Society, nor do I regret it. You, as a psychologist and a man of acute perception, must know that there are situations in this life, when mental agony, despair, disgust, outraged pride and honor, and suffering, become so intense that there are but two possible results - either death from broken heart, or ice-cold indifference and callousness. Being made to live for purposes I do not know myself - I have arrived at the latter state. The basest ingratitude from one I have loved as my own son, one whom I have shielded and protected from harm, whom I have glorified at the expense of truth and my own dignity, has thrown upon me that straw which breaks the camels back. (2) It is broken for the T.S. and for ever. For two or three true friends that remain I will write the S.D., and then - depart for some quiet corner to die there. You have come to the conviction that the "Masters" are "planetary spirits" - thats good; remain in that conviction. I wish I could hallucinate myself to the same degree. I would feel happier, and throw off from the heart the heavy load, that I have desecrated their names and Occultism by giving out its mysteries and secrets to those unworthy of either. If I could see you for a few hours,

if I could talk to you; I may open your eyes, perhaps, to some truths you have never suspected. I could show you who it was (and give you proofs), who set Olcott against you, who ruined your reputation, and aroused the Hindu Fellows against you, who made me hate and despise you, till the voice of one who is the voice of God to me pronounced those words that made me change my opinion. (3) I could discover and unveil to you secrets for your future safety and guidance. But I must see you personally for all this, and you have to see the Countess. Otherwise I cannot write. If you can come here, even for a few hours, to say good-bye to me and hear a strange tale, that will prove of benefit to many a Fellow in the future as to yourself, do so. If you cannot, I ask you on your honor to keep this private and confidential. Ah, Doctor, Karma is a fearful thing; and the more one lives in his inner life, outside this world and in regions of pure spirituality and psychology, the less he knows human hearts. I proclaim myself in the face of all - the biggest, the most miserable, the stupidest and dullest of all women on the face of the earth. I have been true to all. I have tried to do good to all. I have sacrificed myself for all and a whole nation - and I am and feel as though caught in a circle of flaming coals, surrounded on all sides like an unfortunate fly with torn-off wings by treachery, hatred, malice, cruelty, lies; by all the iniquities of human nature, and I can see wherever I turn - but one thing - a big, stupid, trusting fool - "H.P.B." - surrounded by a thick crowd circling her (4) of traitors, fiends and tigers in human shape. Good-bye, if I do not see you, for I will write no more. Thanks for what you have done for me. Thanks, and may you and your dear, kind sister be happy. Yours, H. P. B.

Endnotes
(1) This refers to my Report of Observations at the Headquarters at Adyar. (2) Babajee, whose Brahmanical conceit caused him to turn against H.P.B. when he became convinced that he could not make her a tool for the propaganda of his creed. H[artmann]. (3) This explains the letter printed in the notorious book of V. S. Solovyoff, page 124. The intrigue was acted by Babajee, who, while professing great friendship for me, acted as a traitor and spy. - H[artmann]. (4) The crowd alluded to is the same Brahmano-Jesuitical army which has now ensnared certain well-meaning but short-sighted "leaders" of the European Section T.S. H[artmann].

Letter V

[Reprinted from The Path (New York), March 1896, pp. 366-367.]

[No Date.] My Dear Doctor: --- Every word of your letter shows to me that you are on the right path, and I am mighty glad of it for you. Still, one may be on the right way, and allow his pastself to bring up too forcibly to him the echoes of the past and a little dying-out prejudice to distort them. When one arrives at knowing himself, he must know others also, which becomes easier. You have made great progress in the former direction; yet, since you cannot help misjudging others a little by the light of old prejudices, I say you have more work to do in this direction. All is not and never was bad in Adyar. The intentions were all good, and thats why, perhaps, they have led Olcott and others direct to fall, as they had no discrimination. The fault is not theirs, but of circumstances and individual karmas. The first two pages of your letter only repeat that, word for word, which I taught Olcott and Judge and others in America. This is the right occultism. Arrived at Bombay, we had to drop Western and take to Eastern Rosicrucianism. It turned [out] a failure for the Europeans, as the Western turned [out] a failure for the Hindus. This is the secret, and the very root of the failure. But, having mixed up the elements in the so-desired Brotherhood that could not be helped. Please do not misunderstand me. Occultism is one and universal at its root. Its external modes differ only. I certainly did not want to disturb you to come here only to hear disagreeable things, but [I] do try: (a) to make you see things in their true light, which would only benefit you; and (b) to show you things written in the Secret Doctrine which would prove to you that that which you have lately learned in old Rosicrucian works, I knew years ago, and now have embodied them. Cross and such symbols are world-old. Every symbol must yield three fundamental truths and four implied ones, otherwise the symbol is false. You gave me only one, but so far it is a very correct one. In Adyar you have learned many of such implied truths, because you were not ready; now you may have the rest through self-effort. But dont be ungrateful, whatever you do. Do not feel squeamish and spit on the path - however unclean in some of its corners - that led you to the Adytum at the threshold of which you now stand. Had it not been for Adyar and its trials you never would have been where you are now, but in America married to some new wife who would either have knocked the last spark of mysticism out of your head, or confirmed you in your spiritualism, or what is worse, one of you would have murdered the other. When you find another man who, like poor, foolish Olcott, will love and admire you as he did - sincerely and honestly - take him, I say, to your bosom and try to correct his faults by kindness, not by venomous satire and chaff. We have all erred and we have all been punished, and now we have learned better. I never gave myself out for a full-blown occultist, but only for a student of Occultism for the last thirty-five or forty years. Yet I am enough of an occultist to know that before we find the Master within our own hearts and seventh principle - we need an outside Master. As the Chinese Alchemist says, speaking of the necessity of a living teacher: "Every one seeks long life (spiritual), but the secret is not easy to find. If you covet the precious things of Heaven you must reject the treasures of the earth. You must kindle the fire that springs from the water and evolve the Om contained

within the Tong: One word from a wise Master and you possess a draught of the golden water." I got my drop from my Master (the living one); you, because you went to Adyar. He is a Saviour, he who leads you to finding the Master within yourself. It is ten years already that I preach the inner Master and God and never represented our Masters as Saviours in the Christian sense. Nor has Olcott, gushing as he is. I did think for one moment that you had got into the epidemic of a "Heavenly Master and Father God," and glad I am to find my mistake. This was only natural. You are just one of those with whom such surprises may be expected at any moment. Commit one mistake, and turn for one moment out of the right path you are now pursuing, and you will land in the arms of the Pope. Olcott does not teach what you say, Doctor. He teaches the Hindus to rely upon themselves, (1) and that there is no Saviour save their own Karma. I want you to be just and impartial; otherwise you will not progress. Well, if you do not come and have a talk - I will feel sorry, for I will never see you again. If you do, the Countess and I will welcome you. Yours ever truly, H.P.B.

Endnote
(1) The reputed "Postscript" in No. 7, vol. xvi, of the Theosophist, goes to show that in this case H.P.B. was wrong. - H[artmann].

Letter VI
[Reprinted from The Path (New York), March 1896, pp. 368-373.]

April 3, 1886. My Dear Doctor: --- I had given up all hope of ever hearing from you again, and was glad to receive to-day your letter. What you say in it seems to me like an echo of my own thoughts in many a way; only knowing the truth and the real state of things in the "occult world" better than you do, I am perhaps able to see better also where the real mischief was and lies. Well, I say honestly and impartially now - you are unjust to Olcott more than to anyone else; because you had no means to ascertain hitherto in what direction the evil blew from. Mind you, Doctor, my dear friend, I do not justify Olcott in what he did and how he acted toward yourself - nor do I justify him in anything else. What I say is: he was led on blindly by people as blind as himself to see you in quite a false light, and there was a time, for a month or two, when I myself - notwithstanding my inner voice, and to the day Masters voice told me I was mistaken in you and had to keep friends - shared his blindness. (1)

This with regard to some people at Adyar; but there is another side to the question, of which you seem quite ignorant; and that I wanted to show to you, by furnishing you with documents, had you only come when I asked you. But you did not - and the result is, this letter of yours, that will also go against you in the eyes of Karma, whether you believe in the Cross empty of any particular entity on it - or in the Kwan-Shi-Yin of the Tibetans. To dispose of this question for once, I propose to you to come between now and May the 10th, when I leave Wurzburg to go elsewhere. So you have plenty of time to think over it, and to come and go as you like. The Countess is with me. You know her; she is no woman of gush or impulse. During the four months we have passed together, and the three months of utter solitude, we have had time to talk things over; and I will ask you to believe her, not me, when and if you come, which I hope you will. (2) As to the other side of the question, that portion of your letter where you speak of the "army" of the deluded - and the "imaginary" Mahatmas of Olcott - you are absolutely and sadly right. Have I not seen the thing for nearly eight years? Have I not struggled and fought against Olcotts ardent and gushing imagination, and tried to stop him every day of my life? Was he not told by me (from a letter I received through a Yogi just returned from Lake Mansarovara) in 1881 (when he was preparing to go to Ceylon) that if he did not see the Masters in their true light, and did not cease speaking and enflaming peoples imaginations, that he would be held responsible for all the evil the Society might come to? (3) Was he not told that there were no such Mahatmas, who Rishi-like could hold the Mount Meru on the tip of their finger and fly to and fro in their bodies (!!) at their will, and who were (or were imagined by fools) more gods on earth than a God in Heaven could be, etc., etc., etc.? All this I saw, foresaw, despaired, fought against; and, finally, gave up the struggle in utter helplessness. If Sinnett has remained true and devoted to them to this day, it is because he never allowed his fancy to run away with his judgment and reason. Because he followed his common-sense and discerned the truth, without sacrificing it to his ardent imagination. I told him the whole truth from the first, as I had told Olcott, and Hume also. Hume knows that Mahatma K. H. exists, and holds to it to this day. But, angry and vexed with my Master, who spoke to him as though he (Hume) had never been a Secretary for the Indian Government and the great Hume of Simla - he denied him through pure viciousness and revenge. Ah, if by some psychological process you could be made to see the whole truth! If, in a dream or vision, you could be made to see the panorama of the last ten years, from the first year at New York to the last at Adyar, you would be made happy and strong and just to the end of your life. I was sent to America on purpose and sent to the Eddies. There I found Olcott in love with spirits, as he became in love with the Masters later on. I was ordered to let him know that spiritual phenomena without the philosophy of Occultism were dangerous and misleading. I proved to him that all that mediums could do through spirits others could do at will without any spirits at all; that bells and thought-reading, raps and physical phenomena, could be achieved by anyone who had a faculty of acting in his physical body through the organs of his astral body; and I had that faculty ever since I was four years old, as all my family know. I could make furniture move and objects fly apparently, and my astral arms that supported them remained invisible; all this ever before I

knew even of Masters. Well, I told him the whole truth. I said to him that I had known Adepts, the "Brothers," not only in India and beyond Ladakh, but in Egypt and Syria, - for there are "Brothers" there to this day. The names of the "Mahatmas" were not even known at the time, since they are called so only in India. (4) That, whether they were called Rosicrucians, Kabalists, or Yogis - Adepts were everywhere Adepts - silent, secret, retiring, and who would never divulge themselves entirely to anyone, unless one did as I did passed seven and ten years probation and given proofs of absolute devotion, and that he, or she, would keep silent even before a prospect and a threat of death. I fulfilled the requirements and am what I am; and this no Hodgson, no Coulombs, no Sellin, can take away from me. All I was allowed to say was - the truth: There is beyond the Himalayas a nucleus of Adepts, of various nationalities; and the Teschu Lama knows them, and they act together, and some of them are with him and yet remain unknown in their true character even to the average lamas - who are ignorant fools mostly. My Master and K. H. and several others I know personally are there, coming and going, and they are all in communication with Adepts in Egypt and Syria, and even Europe. I said and proved that they could perform marvellous phenomena; but I also said that it was rarely they would condescend to do so to satisfy enquirers. You were one of the few who had genuine communications with them; and if you doubt it now, I pity you, my poor friend, for you may repent one day for having lost your chance. (5) Well, in New York already, Olcott and Judge went mad over the thing; but they kept it secret enough then. When we went to India, their very names were never pronounced in London or on the way (one of the supposed proofs - that I had invented the Mahatmas after I had come to India - of Mr. A. O. Hume!) When we arrived, and Master coming to Bombay bodily, paid a visit to us at Girgaum, and several persons saw him, Wimbridge for one - Olcott became crazy. He was like Balaams she-ass when she saw the angel! Then came Damodar, Servai, and several other fanatics, who began calling them "Mahatmas"; and, little by little, the Adepts were transformed into Gods on earth. They began to be appealed to, and made puja to, and were becoming with every day more legendary and miraculous. Now, if I tell you the answer I received from Keshow Pillai you will laugh, but it characterizes the thing. "But what is your idea of you Hindus about the Masters?" - I asked him one day when he prostrated himself flat before the picture in my golden locket. Then he told me that they (the Mahatmas) were their ancient Rishis, who had never died, and were some 700,000 years old. That they were represented as living invisibly in sacred trees, and when showing themselves were found to have long green hair, and their bodies shining like the moon, etc., etc. Well, between this idea of the Mahatmas and Olcotts rhapsodies, what could I do? I saw with terror and anger the false track they were all pursuing. The "Masters," as all thought, must be omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent. If a Hindu or Parsi sighed for a son, or a Government office, or was in trouble, and the Mahatmas never gave a sign of life - the good and faithful Parsi, the devoted Hindu, was unjustly treated. The Masters knew all; why did they not help the devotee? If a mistake or a flapdoodle was committed in the Society - "How could the Masters allow you or Olcott to do so?" we were asked in amazement. (6) The idea that the Masters were mortal men, limited even in their great powers, never crossed anyones mind, though they wrote this themselves repeatedly. It was "modesty and secretiveness" - people thought. "How is it possible," the fools argued, "that the Mahatmas should not know all that was in every Theosophists mind, and hear every word pronounced by each member?"

That to do so, and find out what the people thought, and hear what they said, the Masters had to use special psychological means, to take great trouble for it at the cost of labor and time - was something out of the range of the perceptions of their devotees. Is it Olcotts fault? Perhaps, to a degree. Is it mine? I absolutely deny it, and protest against the accusation. It is no ones fault. Human nature alone, and the failure of modern society and religions to furnish people with something higher and nobler than craving after money and honors - is at the bottom of it. Place this failure on one side, and the mischief and havoc produced in peoples brains by modern spiritualism, and you have the enigma solved. Olcott to this day is sincere, true and devoted to the cause. He does and acts the best he knows how, and the mistakes and absurdities he has committed and commits to this day are due to something he lacks in the psychological portion of his brain, and he is not responsible for it. Loaded and heavy is his Karma, poor man, but much must be forgiven to him, for he has always erred through lack of right judgment, not from any vicious propensity. Olcott is thoroughly honest; he is as true as gold to his friends; he is as impersonal for himself as he is selfish and grasping for the Society; and his devotion and love for the Masters is such that he is ready to lay down his life any day for them if he thinks it will be agreeable to them and benefit the Society. Be just, above all, whatever you do or say. If anyone is to be blamed, it is I. I have desecrated the holy Truth by remaining too passive in the face of all this desecration, brought on by too much zeal and false ideas. My only justification is that I had work to do that would have been too much for four men, as you know. I was always occupied with the Theosophist and ever in my room, shut up, having hardly time to see even the office Hindus. All was left to Olcott and Damodar, two fanatics. How I protested and tried to swim against the current, only Mr. Sinnett knows, and the Masters. Brown was crazy before he came to us, unasked and unexpected. C. Oakley was an occultist two years before he joined us. You speak of hundreds that have been made "cowards" by Olcott. (7) I can show you several hundreds who have been saved through Theosophy from drunkenness, dissolute life, etc. Those who believed in a personal God believe in him now as they did before. Those who did not - are all the better in believing in the souls immortality, if in nothing else. It is Sellins thought, not yours - "the men and women ruined mentally and physically" by me and Olcott. Hubbe Schleiden is ruined only and solely by Sellin, (8) aided by his own weakness. No, dear Doctor, you are wrong and unjust; for Olcott never taught anyone "to sit down and expect favors from Mahatmas." On the contrary, he has always taught, verbally and in print, that no one was to expect favors from Mahatmas or God unless his own actions and merit forced Karma to do him justice in the end. Where has Sellin heard Col. Olcotts Theosophy? Sellin had and has his head full of spiritualism and spiritual phenomena; he believes in spirits and their agency, which is worse even than believing too much in Mahatmas. We all of us have made mistakes, and are all more or less to blame. Why should you be so hard on poor Olcott, except what he has done personally against you, for which I am the first to blame him? But even here, it is not his fault. I have twenty pages of manuscript giving a detailed daily account of your supposed crimes and falseness, to prove to you that no flesh and blood could resist the proofs and insinuations. I know you now, since Torre del Greco; I feared and dreaded you

at Adyar - just because of those proofs. If you come, I will let you read the secret history of your life for two years, and you will recognize the handwriting. (9) And such manuscripts, as I have learned, have been sent all over the branches, and Olcott was the last to learn of it. What I have to tell you will show to you human nature and your own discernment in another light. There are things it is impossible for me to write; and unless you come here - they will die with me. Olcott has nothing to do with all this. You are ignorant, it seems, of what took place since Christmas. Good-bye, then, and may your intuitions lead you to the Truth. Yours ever, H. P. B.

Endnotes
(1) This refers to a certain intrigue, owing to which Col. Olcott was made to believe that I wanted to oust him from the presidential chair. - H[artmann]. (2) When I went to Wurzburg I found that the whole trouble resulted from foolish gossip, started by Babajee, concerning my relations with a certain lady member of the T.S. H[artmann]. (3) The great increase in numbers of the members of the T.S. was undoubtedly due to the fact that, attracted by the false glamor of phenomena, fools rushed in "where angels fear to tread." - H[artmann]. (4) In Ceylon everybody of high standing is called "Mahatma"; the title seems to correspond to what in England is called "Esquire." - H[artmann]. (5) I could not doubt the existence of the Adepts after having been in communication with them; but I denied the existence of such beings as the Mahatmas were misrepresented to be. - H[artmann]. (6) The representative of the Society for Psychic Research was awfully angry because the "Mahatmas" could not see the importance of appearing before him with their certificates and producing a few miracles for his gratification. See The Talking Image of Urur. H[artmann]. (7) In many minds the misconceptions regarding the "Mahatmas" gave rise to a superstitious fear and a false reliance upon unknown superiors. - H[artmann]. (8) A certain German professor and spiritualistic miracle-monger, who never could see a forest on account of the number of trees. - H[artmann]. (9) These papers, filled with the most absurd denunciations against me, were concocted by Babajee out of jealousy and national hatred. - H[artmann].

Communication with Masters] (1)

by H.P. Blavatsky
[Reprinted from The Theosophist (Adyar, Madras, India), February 1908, pp. 393-394.]

The following was written by H. P. B. in 1885 to an intimate friend (2): It has been said by Babajee that "only the chela, entranced, can reach to the normal objective (meaning physical and personal) state of the Mahatmas". How then about those who live with Them --- whether chelas or ignorance servants, those who see Them again objectively in Their material bodies? Unless one regarded the Masters as Spirits the query seems pretty unanswerable. If the above sentence, on the other hand, relates only to the Mahatmas at a distance, then the question changes. (1) When Master orders a chela to precipitate a note or letter in His handwriting --- because of the intense desire of some one individual to that effect, a desire or prayer which, according to occult law, the Masters feel, and if the addressee is worthy, They are bound to notice one or the other --- he gets according to his deserts. When the Master --- who certainly cannot descend to our level --- gives such an order to a chela, the latter acts according to the best of his ability, and if he, in any way, perverts the meaning, so much the worse for that chela and him or her who troubled the Master with his or her petty worldly affairs. But each time when the desire for Masters interference is intense and sufficiently pure (though foolish in Their sight) the Masters sacramental phrase is: Satisfy So-andso, --- to the chela. (2) When the Mahatmas (or my Master for instance [who] appeared to Olcott in America) appear or manifest Themselves in Their astral bodies, Mayavi-rupa, (the whole of the fourth, a portion of the fifth and even an emanation from the sixth principle) it is Themselves, the Masters. Never would an Elemental dare (if the creature were an intelligent being, which it is not) assume Masters form. Those who say it blaspheme. They lower the powers of the Masters and Their sanctity, and moreover they have no idea of what an Elemental really means. Perhaps they think of the Elementaries at the Seances, who clothe themselves out of human reflections and the images in the brains of those present. These could produce a sorry caricature of one of the Masters, were they in presence of a strong medium who had see Masters portraits --- but even then the fraud would be soon detected. (3) When one sees a Master clairvoyantly, and when the seer is pure and worthy of the blessing, his desire is sure to have attracted that Masters attention, and it is then Himself. To produce the vision clairvoyantly, whether subjective or even objective, the Master has to make a very slight effort indeed (if the person is a clairvoyante, nota bene --- otherwise it

does require a great loss of energy). He has only to send his astral reflection on the current --- that is thrown like a bridge between the Seer and the Master he thinks of --- (not on a ray of light but on the akasic cosmo-magnetic fluid or wave, at the command of every Mahatma or great Adept). There are hundreds of things missing or incomplete in ---- ---- (3). The teachings were given by Mahatma K. H., a few letters written by Himself, others precipitated by his chelas. The mistakes made, whether through the fault of the precipitators or by others, have been and will be gradually explained and corrected. (4) In case of ordinary persons who will themselves out of their physical bodies, the astral form whether it becomes objective or remains subjective (which depends on the psychic constitution of that person) is composed of the third and second principles --- the fluidic perisprit that every human (or even animal) being has inside himself. The linga sharira proper cannot be moved until death, for it is part and parcel of the second or life principle, Jiva. When C. saw B. so plainly, and he wrote to her that he had been thinking intently of her at the time, it was his astral body materialised in Akasha, unconsciously to himself, emanating from his lower principles, that got projected and became visible to C.

Endnotes
(1) An abbreviated version of this letter can also be found on pp. 206-207 of Esoteric Instructions No. VI (issued in 1901 by the Esoteric School of the Hargrove Theosophical Society, New York). There are several minor textual variations between the two versions. We have incorporated a few variations from this 1901 version into the text as given in The Theosophist.---BA Editor. (2) Research indicates that this friend was Countess Constance Wachtmeister.---BA Editor. (3) Esoteric Buddhism by A.P. Sinnett. First published in 1883, this book included extensive quotations from Master K.H.'s letters to Sinnett on the Theosophical teachings.--BA Editor.

Two Letters from H.P. Blavatsky to Dr. Wilhelm Hbbe-Schleiden

The following two letters from H.P. Blavatsky to Dr. Wilhelm Hbbe-Schleiden have never before been published. The originals of these letters are preserved in the following collection:

Wilhelm Hbbe-Schleiden Papers, Niederschsischen Staats- und Universittsbibliothek Gttingen [State Library of Lower Saxony and the University Library of Goettingen], Gttingen, Germany Our grateful thanks to Baerbel Mund of Niedersaechsische Staats- und Universitaetsbibliothek for providing us with copies of the letters and giving us permission to publish the following transcriptions.

Historical Note on the Two Letters

On March 31, 1885, H.P. Blavatsky left India for Europe, settling first in Italy. In late July 1885, HPB left Italy and after stopping briefly in St. Cergues, Switzerland, arrived in Wurzburg, Germany, toward the middle of August. There she settled down to work on The Secret Doctrine. Late in the year, while writing the new book, HPB was joined by the Countess Constance Wachtmeister, who became her companion and helper. Their quiet, productive life was interrupted, however, by the arrival on the last day of the year of a copy of the Hodgson-SPR Report. On January 1, 1886, HPB wrote to A.P. Sinnett about the arrival of the Report against her: "Last evening as we were at tea Professor [Carl W.] Selin made his appearance with the famous and long expected report of S.P.R. under his arm. I read it, accepting the whole as my Karmic New Year's present --- or perhaps as the coup de grace of 1885. . . . I am called in it 'publicly and in print' forger about 25 times, trickster, fraud etc. and a Russian spy to boot. . . . " The Letters of H. P. Blavatsky to A. P. Sinnett, Letter 57, p. 134-5. On the same day Countess Wachtmeister also wrote Mr. Sinnett about Professor Selin's visit: "Professor Selin brought Madame yesterday evening a nice New Year's gift in the shape of the S.P.R. book. You may imagine what a lively time we had of it. Palpitations of the heart, digitalis, etc. I did not bless him for coming and undoing my work of the

last few weeks. He took it very philosophically and said it was only right that Madame should know what it said against her. Madame wanted to write off letters of protest right and left, but I have prevented her doing so. . . . The only safe course to pursue is this I think, that you and Dr. Hubbe [Schleiden] denounce the whole thing as slanders and lies, that the papers should be signed by every Theosophist and copies sent to all the members of the S.P.R. . . . " LBS, Letter 125, p. 270. On January 4, HPB received a letter from Professor Selin. Countess Wachtmeister described the contents of this letter: "[HPB] . . . is terribly upset to-day, has received a brutal letter from Selin telling her he resigns because he looks upon her and the whole Society as a fraud, that he does not believe in the Masters and that he thinks that 'Isis' has been plagiarised from other books." LBS, Letter 127, p. 272. Later in another letter to Mr. Sinnett, HPB penned these words: "I know Hubbe [Schleiden], psychologised by Sel[lin,] is shaky. He is an unfortunate little nervous, weak man. Sellin made him believe that it was Olcott who cheated him with Mahatma's letter in the railway carriage!! Unfortunate Olcott. Where's the line of demarcation between his being a credulous fool and a knave! . . . " LBS, Letter 62, p. 157. For biographical information on W. Hbbe-Schleiden (18461916), see HPB's Collected Writings, Volume VII, pp. 375-377. No biographical information is available on Carl W. Sellin (or Selin). Letter 1 (dated Jan. 4, 1886) is a brief one in which HPB tells Dr. Hubbe-Schleiden about the receipt of Dr. Sellin's "brutal" letter. In Letter 2 to Dr. Hbbe-Schleiden, HPB tries to answer some of the charges and accusations made against her by Richard Hodgson in his Report. This letter is undated but may have been written at about the same time as HPB's letter to Sinnett (dated Jan. 6, 1886). See The Mahatma Letters, Letter 140 (Letter 139, pp. 453-457 in the Chronological edition). The transcription of HPB's two letters to Dr. Hbbe-Schleiden is given below.

--- Daniel H. Caldwell, Blavatsky Archives editor, April 7, 2000. .

Letter 1
[Transcribed from Cod. MS W. Hbbe-Schleiden 33 (UNI Gottingen).]

Jan. 4, 1886 My dear Mr. Hubbe Schleiden I just received a letter from Prof. Sellin. What is it about? That he was going to leave the Society I saw it when he was here. But what is it he says that his only hope was that the Elberfeld phenomena should prove true but that "Hubbe's depositions were to the effect that even those phenomena were false" or to that effect. He says that he believes no more in the Mahatmas, that the whole Society is a fraud, & that he feels certain that not a few dozen only, of members shall resign but the whole Society will crumble in a few weeks. Now please kindly let me know what is all this. If Prof. Sellin chooses to believe that my Master is Babula (!!) & all His letters were written by that boy who does not know one letter of English & that I am a "Russian Spy" & the sole author of Isis Unveiled plagiarized from somebody & also the author of Mahatma K.H.'s letters all good & right. But that you should make depositions to the effect that the Elberfeld phenomena were false when I was unable to write one word in my own handwriting for three weeks, when there let alone forge letters in the handwritings of Mahatmas who do not exist this is something new until you have told me that you did say so over your own signature I cannot believe you did. Will you please if you ever had any friendly feelings for me write to me & explain all this. Mr. Sellin's letter is very brutal & I shall not answer it. But I hope you are not as he is & that at any rate you shall not condemn me before you hear what I have to say. What is it about everyone resigning? Those who believe in Hodgson's Report better resign this is sure. But I can assure you, that the Society shall never fall. Yours sincerely as ever H.P. Blavatsky Please do not feel afraid of hurting me. Write the truth; if I could bear the letter of Sellin

 I can bear anything. But I want the Truth.

Letter 2
[Transcribed from Cod. MS W. Hbbe-Schleiden 33, Nr. 2 (UNI Gottingen).]

To Doctor Hubbe-Schleiden, President of the German T.S. & others. If the scientific evidence of experts in handwriting is accepted against my word & denial which it is sure to be by all those who do not know all the circumstances attending the phenomena now proclaimed fraudulent as well as Mr Sinnett and some others do then it becomes utterly useless for me to try & defend myself. There are fifty cases on record of mistakes made by scientific experts and innocent people sentenced for forgery. To call forgery the Mahatmas letters is absurd; for, to be forged, the handwriting so forged must be existing somewhere in this phenomenal world; and if I have invented the two writers then I must have invented their alleged handwritings also and in such case it is my own handwriting or handwritings & it is not forged. But this is immaterial. Once I am pronounced a Russian spy I may as well be called a forger and accept the whole. Now take away the said scientific evidence & what remains ? Not one single fact proven against me except on circumstantial evidence as the Reporter calls it; this evidence being built on the calumnies & malicious suggestions of bitter enemies for years; on an evidence, that in the case of the Coulombs was gradually prepared by her for five years; in that of Wimbridge & Bates (who owe us 1500 rupees for five years also, & being far richer now than we have ever been, want to justify their indelicate action), based on hatred & Desire of revenge ever since Miss Bates was expelled from the Society for libellous slanders, lying and scandals & Wimbridge left after her. All the adverse testimony picked bit by bit by Mr Hodgson is from our worst enemies Damodars uncle & Wimbridges partners & bosom friends & a few sceptical theosophists shaky from the first. On this, the Reporter builds an act of accusations 200 pages long. Scraps of papers are stolen from my desk & writing papers; scraps and bits of writing disjoined & meaning anything one likes to invent pilfered from Damodars desk by the Coulombs. (such as the few lines in my handwriting translated from some Russian paper for Mr Sinnetts Pioneer probably, & the bit of Masters handwriting to Damodar). On this & the adverse testimony of enemies, the suspicion of sceptics & so forth I stand accused of the most abominable, predetermined deception, ten years of fraud, lying, acting, machinations, intrigues, that would necessitate whole days of forging in three or four different handwritings in languages of which neither I, nor Damodar (my supposed confederate who is in Tibet and cannot defend himself) know the first word! If confederates there must be, then it is not Damodar only who must be shown as one but a dozen more who can forge both Masters handwritings, write in eight or nine languages and dialects & be thoroughly versed in the Masters ways and style. Who forged Mahatma KHs letter to Dr. Hubbe Schleiden. Is it Col. Olcott who was with him ? And if it is I, who endowed with prevision and clairvoyance wrote or prepared

it beforehand, then it is Col Olcott who must have played the trick of throwing it or making it appear behind Doctor Hubbe S. in the railway carriage ? Go on, throw vile suspicion & mud at the most honest man living, at a man who is the Soul of honour, of unselfishness, kindness, benevolence & philanthropy, who is incapable of keeping anything secret when asked for he blushes to his ears at the smallest suspicion of an untruth or anything to be concealed. Go on, gentlemen of the Theosophical Society ruin his reputation and kill him in his honour as I am killed in mine. How can I begin my defence when I was never allowed to see even from afar my alleged letters to the Coulombs ? How can I deny that which I know nothing of ? What I do know & can prove is several accusations in the Report entirely absurd & that can not stand for one moment serious investigation. 1. That the red ink writing (is it from my Master, for I have seen the Report only for a few minutes ?) to Damodar found among his papers (by whom found ..., is it said there ?) has anything whatever to do with the Jhelum telegram to Mr Sinnett from Mahatma KH. To begin with I was at Amritsur, twelve hours of railway from Jhelum, & Damodar in Bombay, 2,000 miles from Amritsur four days journey by rail. The letter from Mr Sinnett to the Mahatma was received by me about 2 oclock p.m. from Allahabad when I was at Amritsar sitting at a table surrounded by people. I either sent it immediately or half an hour later I cannot remember now for I have not the Occult World to refer to. I believe I did it when the guests went away. Any how, the telegram found later on to have been written in Master KHs writing, in answer to that letter of Sinnett from Mahatma KH. was sent from Jhelum a few hours later, whether He had the material time to receive his letter from M.S. or not. Now how could I have, & why should I have written in red ink to Damodar 2,000 miles away, to copy that Jhelum telegram. Have I sent the red ink note flying through the air? Well, I am willing to accept this hypothesis. And wheres the material time in a few hours for my message in red-ink (if it was always I) to go to Damodar [1], for him to copy original telegram & send send [2] it back through Jhelum to Mr Sinnett in Allahabad? Absurd, preposterously so!! Let Hodgson try again & find some other fraudulent phenomenon to fit this documentary proof in red ink. Such documents in redink & blue pencil Damodar received by dozens daily as every chela does & this is why he is in Tibet, & happier than we are here. Poor, noble, self-sacrificing boy ! Even he vilified, abused, traduced by his own uncle who has always hated him and envied & hated me as much ; that very uncle who has got now Damodars money. Letters tampered with & opened? G['s] (or Garstins) letter opened. How extraordinary that M.G. should not have remarked the slightest traces of such tampering when he just received it through Mohini ! Have we not been told that he tried himself (Garstin) to find out whether his letter could not have been opened, tried with a heated knife, it was said, showed it to dozens of people for over one year; & now that it has passed thousands of times through various hands because one corner or [f]lap in it appears crumbled it is a proof that I had opened it! When? How could I have the time to do it. It was placed by Mr. G. in the shrine before his dinner about 7 in the evening. Since that hour to the moment it was thrown upon Mohinis head no one had left the room my rooms where I could have done the operation & written the answer. My rooms were full of chelas and guests till I went to bed about 10. The answer must have come about 7 . & as Mohini can testify I

believe, I had not remained one moment alone. Who did the operation & written the answer from the Mahatma, enclosed in Mr. G.s unopened letter (glued, sealed & closed with every precaution) which letter when it was thrown among us was immediately carried by Mohini to Mr. Garstin? How about Mr Humes letter from Govt House? or from Municipality (for I am sure I do not & cannot remember). This letter was received in 1881, or 82 . Never was there a suspicion thrown upon that; I have never heard Mr Hume say so to any one, which he surely would have done & to Mr Sinnett the first one. If Mr Sinnett has not heard of it from Mr Hume when he (S.) was in India & fast friends and coworkers then Mr Hume must have found out the mares nest later on three or four years after such tampering. Now how could any one least of all a Mahomeddan servant remember that he had given one among thousands of such letters received by Hume precisely the letter in question to Babula ? Who could remember it & why has not the servant remembered it there & then when Mr Hume was instituting the most careful inquest on that day as to who brought the letter when & how ? Strange after thought ! Not strange for me though or Mr Sinnett who know Mr. Humes character so thoroughly well. Another bit of Mr Humes precious testimony goes as far if not further to invalidate the whole. A square piece of Tibetan or Nepaul paper is before me covered with Masters redink writing & my notes from which were actually given my first lessons in the Secret philosophy (from which Esoteric Buddhism grew up, in Mr Humes museum & studio in his house at Simla, in 1881 & 2 ) Mr Sinnett & Mr Hume remember it well; they have seen it and looked & examined it may a time. How then does Mr Hume say that the Masters did not write on such paper till after I had been at Darjeeling where such paper, he says, can be got? I went to Darjeeling only at the end of 1883 [3] more than two years after I had taught them from notes on this bit of paper. How about this actually false evidence? The smallest thing is jumped at and made to go against me. Mr Sinnett saying once that 30 seconds had not passed in an interval & then 1 minute had not passed is charged with a gross contradiction & his testimony for me, becomes worthless. Mr. Hume says an evident falsehood something quite untrue whether deliberately or from lack of memory I do not want to say but he does give a piece of false testimony & everyone believes him. Is this just or fair? Is this charitable & gentlemanly when a whole long life reputation & the honour of a defenceless woman is at stake nay ruined to atoms & torn to shreds. I am accused of having written alone & unaided Isis, all the articles in the Theosophist, every letter of the two Mahatmas; of having invented Them and Their handwritings and Their philosophy. Very well. If it is shown that I had not done it for gain or money, since I am a beggar to day, & never had a penny of my own giving all I had from my Russian articles and novels some thousands of roubles to the Society; If it is further shown that the accusation of having been a Russian spy is utterly absurd (the whole of India will be in a roar of laughter when they read that accusation) and Mr Hume & Sinnett know it too well; If these two motives are made away with why all this romance which has lasted for over 12 years? Fame & notoriety ? Wouldnt I have had far more fame & glory if I had said that Isis with all its (only now found-out) faults & imperfections had been written by me ten years ago when I could not write two sentences correctly in English; that I was the sole author of all the philosophical articles in the Theosophist; I the author & the inventor of a Secret Doctrine (now found gradually corroborated in hundreds of archaic

Sanskrit volumes untranslated.) I, who now am writing the Secret Doctrine hundred times more philosophical, logical & erudite than Isis, alone, in Wurzburg, with about a dozen of books (mostly no books of reference at all) around me? Would not that sole authorship of a woman getting all this unaided out of her head alone been ten times as marvellous & leading to fame than my fathering it upon adepts? Had I wanted fame & name, I would have declared that all the phenomena produced by me were mine. I might have claimed for them the same non spiritualistic or non-mediumistic origin & yet maintained that the wonderful phenomena were produced by myself alone & I would have had fame enough I can assure you. Have I ever claimed any personal powers? No; except bell-ringing, raps, & other electric phenomena & occasional clairvoyance, I have never said anything but the same stereotyped phrase: "If the Masters or their chelas help me I can do so & so, if not I can do nothing by myself. Is this courting fame? I was a strong, a very strong medium before Master deprived me entirely of these dangerous soul-killing powers. Since then I can do nothing. Similarity of style the same mistakes spelling, gallicisms etc etc. Ergo I am Mah. KH & he is I . But why not explain it in the correct way? Ask Olcott, Judge & all those who knew me in America before I wrote Isis. They will tell you that I hardly spoke English. That most of the pages of Isis, where there is anything worth reading were dicated to me by Master KH. sometimes 30, 40 pages at a time without one mistake as Olcott & Dr Wilder know; that I learned to write English with him, the Master & spelt as he did in Isis sceptic with a K & Bakkus instead of Bacchus & so on. Till 1868, I had ceased to speak English having learned it in my childhood. And only from February 1868 till 70, some nine or ten months & then for about six months I spoke only English for I knew neither Tibetan nor Hindi, nor anything with the Mahatma. I may say I relearned the little English I knew when I came to America in 1873 from Him. I learned positively to write, from him while writing Isis. When I arrived to India I began spelling sceptic (a word unfortunately too often used in our Society) with a c having been laughed at for my previous spelling & [4] KH. went on spelling it in His own way. He precipitated & wrote through me hundreds of letters before I went to America & met Olcott but my Master protested saying it was mediumship. I actually thought the first letter He wrote to Mr Sinnett had been written through me at Simla; only I was told by Him I was mistaken. Nor would Mr Sinnett believe it. As to my Master he does not know one word of English. Every letter he wrote he had to take his English either from my head or that of one of his English speaking chelas. There are no miracles in nature. Everything that occurs must have its cause its effect. Then, as for proofs of my having invented the Mahatmas. For over twenty years since 1858 to 1881 I spoke as rarely as I could of Them. I had confided the secret to Olcott alone & Judge all the others had half-hints. I tried to keep their personalities, names, abodes everything secret. At Simla, when Mrs Hume & Sinnett were finally confided with the secret also, then it was that my misfortune began. I had withstood as much as I could the publicity & desecration of Their names. Hume & Mr Sinnett know it. He applied to Mah. KH. & the latter gave him permission to write the Occult World. It was the end of the century & an attempt had to be made to open the eyes of the blindfold public & I was chosen as the victim rather the manure for the future possible crop. But that publicity came out too brusquely, too unexpectedly. Spiritualists & materialists protested & my enemies had to be counted by the thousands. I begged Olcott not to mention either the Masters names or the phenomena too openly. He was ordered by

Master to leave off speaking of Them. You might as well have tried to stop the whirlwind as Olcott in his enthusiastic zeal. He would not. Then the Maha Chohan ordered me to tell to Olcott that if he went on like that untold evil would come upon us. It was in 1883 when he went to Ceylon. Again the warning came when he went with me to Europe. I wrote to him from Paris to London Leave the S.P.R. alone. Master says you shall ruin the cause thereby. I begged, I prayed him nothing would stop him. He crammed them (the Psychists) full with the narration of the most wonderful phenomena; he ended by making them believe he was either a lunatic or a fool, a credulous fool. Now he has his Karma. Fame ? Why I was horrified when I read the Occult World. Mahatma KH allowed it himself they say. The Mahatmas never forbid anything for it would be interfering with peoples' wills & Karma. The Mahatmas laugh at all the present row if they notice it, which I doubt, though of course they know it. Thus having been too cautious about letting people know of Them anything from 1858 till 1880 I am charged with having invented them. Having been the means of making Them widely known not as They are, but as They are not as a half measure I am now charged with having personated Them, forged Their handwritings etc etc. Of course I have never answered questions about Them as I would about Dr Hubbe Sch. or any one else. I never said an untruth but I concealed much and will conceal everything concerning Them to my dying day. I am under oath & will keep it if I had to be publicly burnt or hung for it. Mr Hume seeing a proof of Mah. KHs inability to read peoples character & so on because he praised the young man who was robbing him? Poor, blind man ! Mr Sinnett was warned by the Mahatmas under a pledge of secrecy from the beginning. Colonel Olcott also. It is Mr Hume who forced the young man upon the Mahatmas. It is Mr Hume who fell in love with him (the young man) with his purity, clairvoyant powers, mystical propensities; Mr Hume who called my Master unjust, cruel & what not to refuse taking him for a chela. Well a year after my Master wrote to him I take you on probation"; and then came out all the new probationers inner nature outside; his vile thieving propensities, his hypocrisy & all. Mr Sinnett was warned of it. He knew that both Mr Hume & his Secretary were being tried. And a week, before Mr Hume found out the truth Col. Olcott was ordered by Master to expell the young man as an embezzler. Whats the use saying what no one will understand who know nothing of the Mahatmas ways or the laws & rules of chelaship! How can one judge on the world standard the rules & laws of an Asiatic Brotherhood diametrically opposite in all to European ways. I have nothing more to say. I am ready to answer any question I can about myself. I shall say nothing of the Masters. They are sacred to me & I am ready to die for Them a thousand deaths if it can serve Them, or do any good to Humanity. My open public work is there, and Theosophy the Tree can be judged by its fruits. Hundreds of profligates, drunkards & heinous materialists have become pure & virtuous men ; dozens have returned to their abandoned wives and families. Ask people in India about me for one thing is true out of all the Report I have influence in India for beyond & outside the Society. Ask them, who has worked for five years to reconcile the natives to their fate; to generate brotherly feelings for the English, gratitude for the good they were doing in educating the natives, & forgiveness for the contempt & hatred shown to the inferior race. Ask them, whether I have done good or harm in India and then judge. The Masters name have become a household talisman in India keeping every one from harm. The Masters have saved the English in 1857, from being all murdered; it is They who have saved them from a

revolution in India during the Ilberts Bill and of the Masters it may be said as of God & Christ. Had they not existed they ought to be invented for the good, their names alone do to them who believe in Them. Well if I have invented Them I have done good to Asiatic Humanity thereby. Let the European Humanity in its usual Cain-like way stone me for it. H.P. Blavatsky

Endnotes
[1] There was no Deb, no Bawajee at that time with us They came one year later! Deb is a title. --- [HPB] [2] The word "send" is written twice at this point in HPB's letter. --- BA editor. [3] It is hard to decipher the year; it may be "1882." In fact, HPB was at Darjeeling in 1882. --- BA Editor. [4] One or two indecipherable words occur at this point in HPB's letter. --- BA editor.

Madame Blavatsky on Gerald Massey's "Lectures" and "Natural Genesis."

[Reprinted from The Agnostic Journal (London), October 3, 1891, p. 214. As far as I know, this letter has never been reprinted since 1891.---BA Editor.]

Editorial Office, 17, Lansdowne Road Holland Park, W., November 2nd, 1887. My Dear Mr. Massey [1], my respected Guru in Egyptology, your correspondent is, for once (?), and yourself too, at sea in your conjectures. Whatever the exoteric meaning of the editorial footnote, its esoteric meaning will become clear in the third number of Lucifer.[2] I have read and re-read your Lectures and the more I read them the more I rejoice, for whatever there is in them (except your unjust pitching, semi-unjust at any rate, into esoteric Buddhist and our septenary ideas [see Massey's Lectures, "The Seven Souls of Man and Their Culmination in Christ," pp. 219-248]) is a corroboration of our esoteric teaching. No man, not initiated into the "Gupta Vidya" (secret knowledge) of the Hindus and Buddhists could, or has, come to better understand the secret of symbolism in Egypt than you. This I said in so many words in my forthcoming article, "The Esoteric Character of the Gospels."

I quote you constantly, and, for me, you are the only man in Europe and America who understands that symbolism correctly. Not being much of an Egyptologist myself, except in those cases where that symbolism is identical with the Aryan (whether India had it from Egypt, or Egypt from India, is the business of ethnology and anthropology and the priority of races), I know, nevertheless, that yours is the correct rendering, simply because I know the secret symbolism of the Hindu Buddhists. The only object I have in view is to show this, and I can do so but by glorifying your esoteric intuition, not by representing it as exoteric. You differ from us in several important points, such as not accepting the Avatars, or the spirit of Christos, Buddha, Krishna (rather Vishnu), etc., otherwise than as purely subjective manifestations. We say that, with regard to the Gnostic Christ, you are absolutely right. There was no such "Avatar" since the pre-Mahabharatu times; but there is one at the close of every Kali-Yuga --- every 4,320,000 years (laugh, O Scientist!), the nine Avatars shown in the Puranas being only semi, not full, "Avatars." And you are absolutely right as to the Egyptian origin of Christianity, the carnalisation of purely metaphysical dogmas of the Gnostics, etc. I take your Egyptian aspect in toto, and only add to it the Aryan and what they would call the Turanian aspects, thus mutually strengthening our positions. We, too, claim that our interpretations are "derived from the facts themselves," and are not the outcome of our "own theoretic speculation." If you only "flesh the skeleton of facts," we do the same: plus, we infuse into that skeleton the soul and spirit of ancient metaphysics, which is, to say correctly, metaphysics only now, when the terrible Materialism and physicality of our modern minds has made it meta, something "beyond" our physical senses. We say there was a day when what is now meta-physical was as physical and as objective to the early races as our own bodies are now. Your Lectures are thus only one more chapter added, and a magnificent, invaluable contribution to, and a corroboration of, the Secret Doctrine in the "Books of Dzyan." One thing may well make you proud, and I mean to point it out. What we know we have learned it from ready made teachings for us, from the said Books and the Sanscrit secret Books. We avail ourselves of the ready-made Wisdom-religion of the far away past. We were taught, in short. You, all you know, you have laboriously acquired it by personal research and thought; you are self-initiate in the Mysteries --- of the British Museum; and [have] extracted the essence and the marrow of Esotericism out of the dead letter of Egyptian papyri, and under the conceited nose of Egyptologists, who see no deeper than the surface. I say, Mr. Massey, glory and honour to you. I say it for no compliment, out of no politeness, but from the bottom of my heart. It is our good Karma that sent you to us at the right moment, and the best --- when Lucifer was born on earth. Never mind that you differ from us and our views. What matters it that your conclusions are opposed to ours, when all your fundamental premises are identical and the same; and when, moreover, they (these conclusions) are only with regard to the aspect, or the version, of the archaic Esoteric Wisdom of one nation, the Egyptian, now radiating in so-called Christianity in a thousand broken rays. Let us, then, work in peace, harmony, and alliance against our common foe --the modern enemy and curse of humanity --- Exoteric Christianity --- though we may (in appearance only) be working on two different lines. Forgive us our mistakes, as we forgive you your exuberance of science and its strict methods. And, lastly, forgive me my pigeon English in favour of my sincerity. --- Yours in truth, "H.P.B."

Endnote
(1) Gerald Massey (1828-1907), English poet and Egyptologist. For a biographical sketch of his life, see HPB's Collected Writings, Volume VIII (1887), pp. 465-467. For a list of Massey's books and their contents, see Kessinger Publishing's Books by Gerald Massey.--BA Editor. (2) This would be the November, 1887 issue of Lucifer. H.P.B. is probably referring to Part I of her article "The Esoteric Character of the Gospels" published in that issue.---BA Editor.

H. P. B. and Theosophy in France

Letters to Mme. Camille Lemaitre
(Translated from the French by Lolita W. Hart) [Reprinted from The Theosophical Forum, July 1950, pp. 392-410.]

18 November 1887. Dear Madame Lemaitre, Do you wish to do me a great service? Give me permission to translate certain passages on the future of Theosophy in France that are to be found in your letter. They are superb in truth and eloquence, and express more than all that has been written on Theosophy so far. I will not give names in my translation, and I can publish it under the form of extracts from a letter. I will sign your name if you like or I will put an "X," or whatever you wish. But do not refuse me permission to insert these passages in Lucifer, because, I repeat it once more, your thoughts and reflections are superb - and that is the word. Kindly press the hand of your husband for me, and beg him to accept the expression of my true and fraternal consideration for him, and allow me to embrace you as a sister who admires and respects you for your humanitarian sentiments. All yours with heart and head. H. P. Blavatsky

London, 12 December 1888 My dear Madame Lemaitre, My letter will surprise you, but I hope that you will read it with attention, as well as without impatience or any foregone conclusion. I call on your womans intuition, to convince you of the truth of what I am writing you, for unless I am able to make you see the truth clearly, this is the last letter I will ever write you. Even that, however, would not change in any way the feeling of true respect and sympathy I have for you. It is not intellectually, but psychically, that I have known you, and the psychic sense has never yet misled me. Forgive my preface, but it is necessary. When I told you that I know the contents of the letters, that Gaboriau has written you about me, that I know what he has said about me, and that I have read your replies, you will understand why I am writing to you. Since the last letter I received from you things have changed: You have lost the desire to know me personally while still remaining a Theosophist. And why? Is it I or Gaboriau who has changed? From a devoted friend he has become almost an enemy. It is about the two of us then that I ask permission to speak to you. And first, ask yourself the question - Why, for what object, would I try to deceive you, to play on you, as they say. I have never seen you, and it is only through the death of our poor friend Dramard that I heard your name first pronounced. You wrote me a letter (the first) so full of hard truths about Olcott - the man and friend who has worked fourteen years harnessed to the same cart that is breaking our backs without ever killing us - that, if I were truly the woman poor Gaboriau presents to you, instead of feeling a great respect and sympathy for the frankness and uprightness of your character, I would not even have acknowledged your letter. The very fact that I write you now, proves it. What can you do for or against me? Nothing. Gaboriau could write volumes against the Society and my humble person, it would not get him anywhere. The Theosophical Society, all rotten as it appears outwardly, at the top of the edifice, is unshakeable in its foundations; its feet are riveted in rock and it defies the calumnies of men and their impotent efforts to shake it. Am I afraid of the mud that is thrown in my face? Oh! ye gods! I am so used to it, that I am beginning to use it for soap. At each new splash I am whiter than ever for those who know me. Never have I voluntarily injured anyone; I am therefore afraid of no one, and I leave all to Karma. But I value your personal friendship. You are a sister soul, and I would be grieved to know that you have unjust suspicions about me. While excusing you, for you do not know me, and you have no reason not to believe what Gaboriau tells you (I have known him well, believe me, for two years!), it is my duty, since you are and can never stop being a theosophist, to warn you about what you do not know. It is Gaboriau who has changed, not I. I am convinced that for some time he has been taking hashish. If this is not so, then he is moved by some villainous influence which he has caught in the spiritist seances he frequents. The fact is he is changed and become unrecognizable, even to his greatest friend, Coulomb, whom he accuses of being under my influence!

He has just sent his first cannonball against us, in his last number of the Lotus. Another month and he will fix Colonel Olcott, the Society and me in a fine manner. This is going to be a repetition of Mme. de Morsier, who, after kissing my hands and the hem of my dress to the point of disgusting me, starts to hate me under the combined influence of Mlle. Leonard and Soloviof and to throw mud at me with both hands! The Bulletin of Isis, against whose lies Gaboriau so often fought, was nothing in comparison to the last Lotus (OctoberNovember) and the remarks and "Editorial Notes" with which it is strewn. Ah! Madame, it is certainly the time to cry out with Esau: "How hast thou fallen from the heavens star of the morning, daughter of the sunrise? Thou, (O Lotus) who trampled nations, thou hast fallen to earth" - to the level of the Bulletin of Isis, so full of lies and slanders! And still, this poor Gaboriau is neither a liar, nor wicked by nature. It must then be an external influence - that is evident. Come, Madame, when did "Papus" & Co. say more about the Masters than Gaboriau in his first Note (first page)? - No, I am not "alone" in knowing the Masters. Others and many others know them - and they do exist. When, where, has Mme. de Morsier shown more crushing contempt for the theosophists - supposed by herself "the preachers of morals for others" - than does P. K. Gaboriau who sends them packing and honking (like geese?) while he chuckles in advance over their indignation for that apotheosis to DRUNKENNESS by Numa Pondouin? And isnt it better even, only to preach, without following it, the moral against drunkenness, than to proclaim its joys and its usage even in an eclectic journal, for it seems he wants to break with Theosophy? And which is the Review or journal conducted by a "serious Theosophist," as he entitles himself, that has ever washed its "soiled linen" in public more openly than has Gaboriau in his Little Theosophical Bulletin? Here are the flowers; the fruits are to be picked in his next number. And why all this? What have I done to him? It is true that Colonel Olcott has been unjust to him. But if you knew him as well as I and many others do, you would see that he is as ready to sacrifice himself, to sacrifice me, and anyone else, for what he believes - right or wrong - to be in the interest of the Society. He has been indiscreet, influenced by the gentle words of the enemies of Gaboriau, and bothered by the obstinacy, discontent and rancor of the latter. The fact that Gaboriau has made sacrifices; that he has devoted his time, his poor pennies, his last money in the service of the Society, could not touch Olcott as another might be touched, and the reason is very simple. Olcott is a fanatic. He has sacrificed family, happiness, his position in the world, his rank as a wealthy and well-known lawyer in the United States, his country and even his life. to Humanity, and above all to a people oppressed, persecuted and unfortunate. Thousands of poor Hindus venerate him, tens of thousands of poor children, destined by misery to the clutches of the missionaries, have been saved by him, placed in theosophical schools and brought up gratis at the expense of the theosophical Lodges of India. Olcott has personally become a beggar. Olcott hasnt a cent to buy himself shoes, nor does he make use, any more than I do, of a cent of the money he accumulates for the Theosophical Society and its work - the work of our life; for we have but one object in the world: that of bringing up, as far as it is possible to do so, the new generations, the children of Theosophists, in ideas of altruism, of universal Brotherhood. Every twenty-five francs that he finds is so much to pay for the schools and to nourish the unfortunate who otherwise would fall into the nets spread by the missionaries. Ah! Madame, satire is easy, but art is difficult. Gaboriau can mock those little square pieces

of paper glued on canvas, but if you knew the whole truth about Olcott, you who are ready to give your life to the poor and to the ideas of Socialism, you would see very well that with all his devotion, it is not Gaboriau who would sacrifice even one idea to which he clings, for the good of Theosophy, while the Colonel has not faltered one single time in fourteen years. Does this old man pay attention to personal insults, to the attacks of enemies, or to any tittle-tattle? Will he ever stop for a personal consideration either of wounded selfesteem or of vanity? What man can give more than he has? True, Olcott often is lacking in tact and fairness. He is of a weak character and often credulous when it is a question of fathoming the motives of those who surround him. But he is as good as a mother to those who need him, and he is as firm as a rock when it is a question of the interests of the Theosophical Society. And it is just from this that his errors in judgment arise. He wanted to make amends for his injustice toward Gaboriau when I made him see on his return that he had been unjust. It was too late; for Gaboriau became obstinate and would have nothing more to do with him. Whose fault was it? But what have I done to him? See the way he treats me to thank me for having supported him to the limit and having all but embroiled myself with the Colonel forever on his account. And I would perhaps have done it at the risk of ruining the Theosophical Society in Europe, if, fortunately for me, Gaboriau had not shown me the reverse side of the medal: his unrestrained obstinacy, despotism and a shattering stubbornness. Well, he will not break me; even if he succeeds in breaking off the friendship of several of my friends. I, whom barely a few months ago he made the paragon of all the virtues, he now injures in letters to his friends. I have read your reply to him, dear Madame, which he sent to M. Coulomb, a reply full of tact and wisdom, where you tell him to mind neither the color of the hair nor of the eyes of those who bring us truth, and end by saying that no matter how bad we are (Olcott and I), that does not in any way affect the truths that we teach, etc. It was a noble letter, Madame, but he has not followed your wise advice. For him his little personality is the "Great All" - as for our little personalities, apparently they exist only to serve and satisfy his! The day will come, and soon, Madame, when you will see how much this unhappy boy has changed, and you will believe as little in his words as does that poor Coulomb, his greatest friend from childhood, the man who loves him more than he knows, and who is in despair at what is happening. The latter is a true theosophist, ready to sacrifice himself as we are for the good of others. And he says with bitterness that if G----- does not change and that soon, he also will be forced to break with G------ and the Lotus. It is because G----- bombards him with letters full of slanders and sheer inventions about Olcott, me and everybody else, which he begs him to show me! And these fantastic inventions once examined are always found to be only inventions, dreams of hashish as they are. Besides, he has no sooner written some nonsensical fact than he denies it in the following letter. That is not naturel, dear Madame. Thus he asserts that the idea of adding a word of some kind to the title Lotus, as I begged him to do, to distinguish it from the Lotus of M. de Rosny (a Revue that has existed for seven years), is only a conspiracy between the Colonel and de Rosney, both Masons (!). First of all, the Colonel is not a Mason, and if he were what could he have as such against the Lotus? Next he accuses me of having given to Papus or to M. Arnould answers to mystic questions that I had refused (he says), to Isis. Never have I given or said anything, either to Papus, or to M. Arnould. The latter belongs to the Esoteric Section, whether he is the President of the Hermes or not, and he will receive, with many others, the same instructions that the other members get, no more no

less. But Gaboriau assures Coulomb that Arnould was a spiritist and, having lost his wife, aspires only to communicate with her through my intervention!! In the first place I am not a medium, next I hate Spiritism, and finally M. Arnould is not a Spiritist, because all those who become members of the E. S. must renounce Spiritism, and the fine materialized forms.(1) M. Gaboriau has no use for the Esoteric Society. He calls it a mere farce. He was perfectly in the right to refuse the charter I offered him - but he had no right to call "the only serious Section of the Theosophical Society" a mere farce. I was the first one to counsel him not to sign the "Pledge" - for he could never have remained faithful to his oath. I am sending it to you to prove to you how much the members must change their skin when entering it. It is the only way to make them work for humanity and the poor. They will do nothing if I do not recompense them, and I sacrificed myself, as usual. It is one more duty that will take all my time and work and I will receive only violent blows for thanks. But I am certain to make some theosophists at least and to develop their higher and inner SELF. And G----- mocks it! There, Madame, is the whole truth. I have pledged my word of honor to M. de Rosny to beg M. Gaboriau to add to the word "Lotus" an adjective of some sort - "philosophical" if he does not want the word "theosophical." I have been forced by considerations too long to tell here, to promise (certain as I was that Gaboriau would not refuse me, since my name is on the cover of the Lotus), that in case he refused the request, I would ask him to take my name off as "inspirer" of the Revue. Gaboriau refuses from sheer obstinacy; he calls upon me not only to write for the Lotus as in the past, but to let him publish the Secret Doctrine in it. That is impossible. When he changes the title - let him put "Lotus" white, blue, or red; Eclectic or philosophical Lotus - let him give me his word not to injure the Colonel in his Bulletins any more, and to wash our dirty linen at home, and I will do anything in the world for him. I will write articles every month, I will give him alone the right of translation and permission to publish some chapters, or even all the Secret Doctrine in the Lotus. What more can I propose to him? But he wants all that without making any change in the word Lotus, he still wants to injure Olcott and the others in it, "under the inspiration of H. P. Blavatsky" - and does not retreat a single step. And when I refuse to help him under these conditions he calls me "smoker," "liar," "traitor," etc. You judge, dear Madame, and decide. If he has said one word that contradicts what I am writing you, it is because he is unhinged and his imagination suggests fantasies to him. But I ask you, if in doing thus he does not pass a sponge with dirty water over all the services he has rendered the Theosophical Society and to the cause. How can he call himself a serious theosophist, if on account of a little (or even very much, if it pleases him) wounded vanity and personal considerations, he throws Theosophy to the dogs and acts a thousand times worse than Papus & Co. It is for you, Madame, to decide which one of us two, Gaboriau or I, tells the truth. Meanwhile, your very devoted as always, H. P. Blavatsky

31 December 1888. Dear and good Madame Lemaitre, the most theosophical of all my friends, Let me call you FRIEND, whether you become an Esotericist or not, whether you remain in the T. S. or not, whether you want to be my friend or not - I am your devoted friend, faithful unto death. Why? Try to understand with your intuition. I have known you thoroughly, I have seen Camille Lemaitre in the nakedness of her soul and her heart, that is sufficient for me. If we had ten theosophists like you in the T. S. we would conquer the world, and many of the broken hearts would be consoled, many materialists by force would see clearly in the darkness. Ah, I have thought a great deal since your beautiful letter - the one you allowed me to translate and to publish, and which is going to appear in the January Lucifer. I reflected whole nights long, and I think I have found a path, a crack that, narrow as it still is, gives us a thread of light in the darkness and chaos that reign in theosophical France. You remember your letter, do you not? The one where you gave your ideas on the best way of spreading propaganda in France, by literature sown in great handfuls among the common people - the poor people who need consolation and encouragement, Dramards idea as well as yours. Well, I believe I have found it. I spoke to you of M. Arnould. I believe I told you he had entered the Esoteric Section, that his is a poor suffering heart, a soul that believed it had lost everything when his wife died? A little while ago he wrote me a long letter - a confession. It is sacred and I cannot speak of it; but I think I consoled him by showing him the Truth - the one that leads to the supreme consolation; for it is only in the love of Humanity that one finds again all the affections one has believed lost forever. I think he is on the right road - I am sure of it. A little while ago (about a fortnight or so) I wrote him saying I was in despair to see that it was more and more difficult to do anything in France. The Lotus was lost to us; the Initiation, entre nous, is worth nothing - calendar of stories! Papus does not have the sacred fire; he is curious and one who has not much heart, I fear. Finally, I spoke to him of the absolute necessity of having a journal, our own organ - an ultra theosophical organ whose Direction would be heart and soul for Theosophy; all for the good of others, and not permitting any egoistic element to penetrate it. He accepted this idea with joy. But what can we do? He is obliged to work for his living, like the rest of us. 4000 francs at least as capital would be needed to assure its existence for one year. I thought of a little Co. like ours, a Society of deeds. I promised him to find 2000 francs, perhaps more, here. I wrote the Countess dAdhemar - an American who comes from the rank and file in spite of the wealth of her father, a woman whose only claim to aristocracy is the name of her husband. She had wanted to give a small subsidy to the Lotus; Gaboriau had bluntly refused and never wanted

it. I have good hopes in her. Arnould will go to see her, and I expect them to get along. I have three or four Americans in Paris who belong to the Esoteric Section: they will do what they can. But he writes me, that with the best will, and ready as he is to manage the Journal as I shall tell him, he does not know English, and it is translations that are needed the most of the chapters of the Secret Doctrine, of Lucifer, of the Path. Who could do it? He needs a helper for that. Someone who knows the needs of the people and how to choose the best articles. I thought of you. Would you refuse to extend your hand to us in order to realize this dream, which is yours? For I want the journal to be directed by you in fact, that is to say I will direct Arnould and Commandant C----- and you will direct me, and I swear to you that I will do all you tell me, for you know your France, and I do not know it at all. Will you do it, tell me? When I spoke of you to him, to show him what you were, I sent him your letter (the part that will be in Lucifer), I am incapable of a worse indiscretion, and see what he writes of you. He thinks you have an antipathy for him. But you wrote me the contrary. Dear friend, Arnould is a worthy and noble heart, you will see it, when you know him better. He suffered under Napoleon III, he was in exile for nine years, and he fought for the common people. With him and his help, you could introduce the socialist element into the Society. It could be arranged with Malon to print the journal - (never with Carre!). Finally, if you consent, I will leave all that to you. Only dont refuse me. He wants to write you, let him and see what he says to you. And now - let happen what may. If you say yes, I will go to work to find the money here. Without you the journal is impossible and I dont want one. Be kind enough to remember me to M. Lemaitre and give him my fraternal regards. As to yourself, let me embrace you as I love you. Happy New Year 1889 to all. All the best to you. H. P. Blavatsky Return Arnoulds letter when you have read it.

17 Lansdowne Road, Holland Park, W My dearest, my sister, I thank you with all my soul, as well as your dear husband. Some news. - "The mountain (Oh, what a comparison applied to you!) not being able to go to Mahomet, it is the (false) prophet who goes to the mountain." In a few days I shall be at Fontainebleau, Hotel de la Ville de Lyon et de Londres, on a visit to my theosophical and esoteric friend, Mrs. Ida G. Candler. She calls for me loudly! Besides, as I am half dead from all these stories and persecutions, and working fourteen hours a day - the doctor insists that I take some rest for a fortnight. I must have a change of air. I will be extremely

glad to see you, for I am sure you will come. Wont you? Have you read the article by Mrs. Besant, F.T.S. in Lucifer? She is as ardent for theosophy as for Socialism. She agrees with you. I embrace you with all my heart. Yours always. H.P.B. Do not speak to anyone of my arrival, except for two or three friends, I do not want to see anyone. - I beseech you!

Saturday My very dear friends, I am profoundly unhappy at what is taking place! You had written to me that everything was arranged between you and the Countess, and I did not know that this title of "Altruist" meant so much to you. That is why I signed my name to the conditions of the Count and Countess almost without looking at them! What did it matter to me if the Revue were her property, which was only just, as it was she who gave the funds? What did this change on the cover matter to me, where the Countess dAdhemar appears as Director, since "the Articles signed by H. P. Blavatsky, and the articles signed by Amaravella will be inserted as is, without any change or error and without any control whatever." - As long as I can make altruism the basis in my articles each month, I thought that was already something. I had no choice. She gave the 4000 francs, and if I had refused there would not be any Revue at all. You know, my dear friends, that I do not have a cent in the world; that all my possessions put together - made-over dressing gown and down-at-the-heel slippers and my old books are not worth 100 francs; that finally I live with some devoted theosophists, where I pay nothing. What then could I have done? What I want above all, is a true theosophical journal, that can hold its own with the Spiritist "Lotus," and the Masonic "Initiation" of Gaboriau and Encausse, which the public considers the two organs of Theosophy in France. If I had 3 or 4000 francs, I would say to you: Manage it alone. Let us publish the Altruist for the poor world, with Malon, and let us make of it a Revue costing 5 or 6 francs so that everyone can buy it. But I do not have the capital, I have only my work and my life that I can offer! Take them. However, if I had foreseen that you, my dearest friend, Madame Lemaitre, would be lost to us - I would not have signed these conditions without protesting. I beg of you, do not refuse to help us. The Countess is grieved and asks me what can be done. It is her husband who changed everything, you see, and she evidently does not want to go against his will and his ideas. But she likes you sincerely and deplores your loss! Could you not make a sacrifice, very small really, and help with the editing sometimes with articles or translations - while

waiting for better days. Who knows how soon we may not be able to start weekly and very simple leaflets, which cost very little, and which we could call Theosophical Altruism. One thing does not prevent the other and I am ready to work to the death. For example, I am opposed to the idea of Arnoulds of having Encausse on the Editorial Committee! NEVER. Either he or I. Although my articles would never be controlled and edited by him, I want none of it, and I so notified him. He is too much the aide of Saint-Yves and of Goyard and too sharp for me. In short, I want none of it. Let him write for it from time to time, but let him not put his finger in the pie, for I will never consent to it. Thank you, dear Monsieur Lemaitre, for the good and devoted words of me you wrote to M. Arnould. But let us forget my little personality to remember only theosophy and what is good for the cause. I am ready to serve as printers devil under the Countess, as under anyone at all, as long as she or he work to help Theosophy. Finally, I still hope for your kindness and that you will help us a little, my very dear friend. Let us be altruists ourselves first of all, and let us sacrifice ourselves a little. I have been as upset as you by these unforeseen changes; but - theosophy first, and personal predilections afterwards. Did you receive Instructions Nos. 1 and 2? They were sent to you in English. Write me then just two words. I hope that you are well, and M. Lemaitre also. Believe me, yours faithfully and truly forever. H. P. Blavatsky

London, 16 October 1888 Dear Madame Lemaitre, On my side, I must have appeared to you these last days like a person ornamenting her face with the false nose of theosophy. Why did I not answer you right away? There were two reasons for that: 1st - Your thoughts were mine; what you have felt since the arrival of the President, I have felt for five years - except that I know Colonel Olcott better and appreciate his real worth; 2nd - I wanted to give you a proof that all was not as black as you thought. Now all depends on Gaboriau and - on you, Madame, for your energy is greater than his. If he is reasonable, he can save the Theosophical Society in France; if he is obstinate, there is nothing to be done. Allow me to explain the situation to you, and you will see that you have judged by appearances. First, as I understand you, your ideal for the T. S. is mine. Fourteen years ago I founded the Society which was to serve in the first place as a permanent nucleus for a true FRATERNITY, such as M. Dramard envisions, plus - the mystical theosophy of our MASTERS and their teachings. The rich, the aristocrats, had no place in it. Everyone was equal - there were neither rich, nor poor, nor great, nor small - nothing but theosophists. All the disinherited, all the honest people were received in it, and honored more than those who were spoiled by

fate. The Master said this in his letter of which you will read a few extracts in the little book I will send you, marking the place. My idea and my aspiration were those of Olcott - they still are, but, alas! Madame, from master he has become the slave of the Executive Council. Since my departure from Adyar (four years ago) they have profited by my absence, profiting also by the scandal raised by the missionaries, that conspiracy of clerics and Protestant bigots to rid themselves of me in India - in order to tie the hands of Colonel Olcott by submitting him to the majority vote of that damnable Council. All my enemies had seats on it. I was so ill that they expected my death any day. The MASTER did not wish it and I was cured. The President is goodness and honesty itself, but - he is a weak character; and then he is American, and you know very well to a Yankee, the Dollar honors and can never dishonor. In short, his ideas are not mine, and seeing that he could never rid himself of his Councilors without me and that the Society would soon become an auxiliary branch of so many others, I decided to strike my great blow. Not having taken any part in affairs for almost five years, I resolved to demand and to reobtain my rights, and to enforce them. As founder of the Society and perpetual Corresponding Secretary, I demanded that the rules and statutes set forth by the Masters should be followed to the letter. As it was an impossibility in the Theosophical Society of India, where the members had proclaimed themselves exoteric, and where the sacred Science is studied apart, I asked that the mother Society be divided into three parts, and three Sections - one in India, another in Europe, and another in the United States, the three founders being respectively at the head of a Section. Colonel Olcott remains President in general and will direct the Societies in India; W. Q. Judge in the United States; I, in Europe. But a Section is sui generis, entirely independent of the Council of Adyar and of the General Council, answering to no one, but the President; but, as this President (Olcott) is a simple member of my Section, he is under me, consequently cannot go against my will. That will make you laugh, perhaps, but that is the way it is. I wanted to avoid scandal and save the T. S., and I have done it. So, I am sending Lucifer to you where you can read on the last page the announcement of the Esoteric Section of the Theosophical Society, under my sole and single direction. That is to say I have the right to give the charters in Europe and even in Asia. For a Fellow of the Mother Society once he is a member has nothing more to do in this Society unless he wants to belong to two Branches, one exoteric, the other esoteric - which is possible, being permitted by the rules. Now then. As M. Gaboriau has refused an exoteric charter I offer him an esoteric one, signed by me, and only countersigned by the Colonel, as my associate. The Mother Society will become the body; its esoteric Section the soul of that body. In other words, we have put back the T. S. on its first footing, adding only an esoteric Presidency (but not Secret since we are going to publish it over the whole world) and it is I who am its President. All the rules and regulations will be sent to you. The Section has abolished the entrance fee nothing is paid. The only condition required is that the candidate belong already to the Mother Society - that he should be a member with a diploma of the Mother Society. That I could not abolish without separating myself entirely from the Mother Society - which would be fatal to both. In future, therefore, the Presidents of the Societies in Europe, who obtain a charter (of the Esoteric Section) from me will have the same privileges as the New

British Section of the T. S. in England now established with a dozen little Branches: the members do not pay an entrance fee, only those who have the means give annually the small sum of 5 shillings, I think (it isnt yet settled), while those who dont have the means pay nothing. They are paid for by the voluntary contributions of wealthy members of the Section. So, if Gaboriau wishes, he will have a charter from me as soon as they are printed. As his Society will be esoteric, nothing but the rules in common will be published; the inner rules will be given and explained only to the candidates. Those gentlemen of the Hermes-Papus lodge can dance on a tightrope if they like in Theosophical matters and take in all the mountebanks they wish. That concerns Adyar; I have nothing to do with it. Only at the first anti-theosophical trick that they play, I will have their charter annulled, that I SWEAR. Let them keep quiet then, for I am watching. I have all power relegated to me now. Thank you, dear Madame, if you want to help the real Theosophical Society in France, Gaboriau must be helped to keep his LOTUS. I will do my utmost here, he must work in France. Only before I can do it - he must add "theosophical" to "Lotus." We will pay for the change; then unless he takes his Lotus from the hands of Caillie - he will be ruined in a few months. Ah! if M. Malon could help us with his advice, what a benefit he would confer upon true Theosophy. Finally, all that I ask of you is to advise me on what is to be done in France. Without you and Gaboriau - good bye to theosophy! Meanwhile, dear Madame, being up to my neck in work, I beg your pardon if this letter is a little vague. I will give you more explanations later. My respects to your husband, and may your karma reward you for your love for the common people and the poor of this earth. With all my esteem and good wishes to you. H. P. Blavatsky

7 January 1890. My very dear Camille, I have compared your translation of the Secret Doctrine with the original, and - I find it perfect, this is not just a compliment. I find only one word too many - (R.T. Dec. p. 180, line 14 from the top) where you are written "in seven branches" instead of "the triad ramifies into branches" - when it is fourteen as much as seven. But this is a trifle. Do not trouble yourself, my little Camille - and especially, do not fall from optimism into an exaggerated pessimism. You have only to add the few lines I designated at the end of "Why I became a Theosophist," and make a few little corrections, and the pamphlet will be saved. It is this unhappy ending that you have cut - it is hard to know why, for these few phrases make a superb epilogue - that has been the cause of all this rumpus. Produce the

last paragraph word for word, and you will save the thing. As for the S. D. I tell you on my honor and my Higher Self - it is perfect. No one will translate better than you, my friend; because you have intuition and the sacred flame in you, while so many others have only a bit of a candle of lighted tallow, instead of a heart. I WANT YOU TO TRANSLATE the "Voice of the Silence." Do it and send it to me to read over and for my approval and signature, signed in due form at the end. That, for instance, is esoteric, that is to say an esoteric order. As for Esoteric Buddhism, make a fricassee of it. Anything that you change or bring to it - can only make this work less materialistic. It is the idea or the ideas that are needed not the steel-like style of the author. I say, that makes me sorry and angry at the same time. Why, for such a mere bagatelle, should M. Lemaitre make himself ill? Ah, indeed! I certainly hope that on the receipt of this letter he will have overcome his upset. May the Masters protect and bless you both. As for me, I embrace you as I love you both, and forgive me if I have unknowingly given you pain. Yours heart and soul, H. P. B.

24 March 1890. My dear friends, I have been so ill - complete nervous prostration - that it has been impossible for me to write a word on any other theory than that of transcendental philosophy. For this requires neither cerebral action, nor thought, and I have only to open one drawer or another in the pigeon holes of my memory and the - copy. What you say of Caminade, I knew. He has done worse things, poor man, but it was because he was irresponsible. Have you then forgotten the pledge forever? He had a black cloud for several months, but that has passed from him. I have made him President of the T.S. in Paris, and what he has done must not prevent you from working with him and helping him like two good and faithful Esotericists. - Arnould could not have been President of the Hermes and of the T.S. without spending more time than he has to spend, and without losing Caminade. I know that this has surprised you, but believe me - I did it knowing what I was doing. So dont blame me, but wait. All is well that ends well and in the nick of time. My own mission is to apply psychic blisters, in order to draw out all the bad matter that settles in the in the body, dixe. My "permission to translate my books"? - My dearest little Camille may translate what she wants to - I give her carte blanche. How can you ask it of me, dear friend and brother! You are the only ones in France in whom I have full and complete confidence. You are free to

translate (2) my works - even before the police court - and I will not love you any the less forgive the infamous play on words. I count on you to keep me posted on what takes place in Esotericism in Paris. Do not believe what this or that one will say to you: Make allowances for human weaknesses, but see for yourselves. Ah - my heard is whirling. I am going crazy from the work I have to do. Do you not know then that we are building a Headquarters for the "British T.S." in London? Where we are going to have an Occult Room and a pronaos, where I shall teach the elect what I do not dare to write and confide in the post - the E.S. Instructions. Next summer I am going to try to send a railroad ticket to my friend Camille - and she will come, won't she? Meanwhile, I embrace you both as I love you, and especially do I respect you both. Yours with all my heart. H.P.B.

12 May My dear friend & Brother - my dearest friend - Camille, My doctor has absolutely forbidden me to write, or even to read - for I am half dead. But living for Theosophy is not only a duty, but I have a duty to write to you myself. You are a thousand times right in the affair of the Lotus. But, well-loved friend, do not be more of a Nemesis than Karma. Forgiveness, charity, forgetfulness of oneself, therefore of the faults of others - these are the qualities and the duties of the true theosophist. I send you poor Arnoulds letter. I scalped him in Lucifer, and now I forgive him. Do the same. I ask it of you as a personal and theosophical favor. Thanks, a thousand thanks for your portrait, the asparagus, and especially for the grass. It is the grass that made me happy over again. In touching it one seems to be pressing ones cheek to the fresh and satiny skin of our mother Nature herself. Ah, how I love green and fresh grass. Perhaps I was a cow in my last incarnation? I embrace you both as I love you. I am very ill and weak, so forgive this scribble. All the best to you - theosophically. H.P.B. Send back to me the letter of M. Arnould.

Sunday. Thank you for your letter - it is as I expected it to be. You are there body and soul, in those four pages - Yourself in entirety. If you call me H. P. B. - as do all those who love me, I will call you simply Camille. So, that is settled. Ah, you are a noble woman, truly; but I am afraid of one thing: You are too enthusiastic. If you will allow me to be at times your moderator, only sometimes and on great occasions, it is all I ask of you. All those "I pledge myself . . . . to obey, without cavil or delay, the orders of the Head of the Esoteric Section" - are see-saws.(3) I do not ask or exact obedience from anyone, except in cases concerning the psychic development or dangerous occultism, or else again if I find that such or another action of one of my "Esotericists" puts the T.S. in danger, that is to say the true theosophical movement, for the exoteric administration does not concern me, that is all. Now, to our affair. I wrote to Arnould - to write to you right away; and he will do it. He has been in the T.S. since November 21st, and since then he has been the most docile pupil in the world. He has a worthy heart. Poor old man (he is 58 years old), he is very unhappy, and he has suffered much. (2) The Ultra-republican? My dear child, the whole Society and the Grand Council would fall upon us, and this time with reason. The first rule of the Society is to leave politics alone. Each member having the right to his own religion, his own political views, and every other member being forced to respect the private and personal opinions of all other members of the Society, it becomes by that fact alone free of all sectarianism, whether religious or political. I am as much a socialist as you in my soul, and you are as much one as the Christ - that poor great Jew (Joshua or Josue) that man who was humiliated and insulted while being made a God! But though I am a Socialist by nature and by religion since I am a Buddhist, I give the right of speech in Lucifer which shines for the whole world - to Socialist and Royalist, conservative and liberal. No, it is a name that would connect us then with M. de Rochefort, whom I esteem very much, but he is not a theosophist, and he laughs at us. Let us call our Revue rather: "The Altruist," Journal of Militant Theosophy. Let us try to reform and to touch the hearts of the wealthy in its pages, and let us fight to the death for the rights and privileges of the poor and the disinherited of all countries. But perhaps a still better name might be found. I do not insist on my ideas more than those of others; but a name like the "Universal Altruist" isnt bad. You join with "Hermes"? and why do that? Leave them with their little Initiation calendars and their independence. M. Arnould (7, rue Stanislas) will tell you what these gentlemen think of me. They do not know me, and want none of me, the others do not want to accept anything that comes from London. May the gods hold them in their holy and worthy keep, and let them leave me alone - who leave them in peace. Certainly I will write for your Revue in France and every month, and "Amaravella" also. That poor worthy boy, whom Gaboriau threw aside because he took my part against him,

lives with us. He has just written some very fine pages for Lucifer, because he knows his English and writes it as well as French. He is a member of the Esoteric Society. If you could have an interview with Arnould and Mme. dAdhemar, it would be very useful. Finally I bid you adieu for the moment, sister soul of my soul, and I embrace you as I love you. My compliments and very fraternal greetings to M. Lemaitre. Yours forever H.P.B.

Notes
(1) belles encres (2) The word traduire in French may also mean to traduce. - L.W.H. (3) balancoires.

E.S.T.S. Pledge Folder

Issued in 1888 by H.P. Blavatsky to all applicants seeking admission to the Esoteric Section of the Theosophical Society.

Mrs. Alice Cleather, a student of Theosophy during H.P.B.'s residence in London, wrote about the opening of the Esoteric Section in these words: "In Lucifer for October, 1888, a notice had appeared to the effect that an 'Esoteric Section of the Theosophical Society' was to be formed under H.P.B., and that those who wished to join and abide by its Rules should send in their names. Mrs. Chowne and I . . . at once responded; but for some time we heard nothing. Then, one day, Mrs. Chowne came down to Harrow to see me. . . bringing the E.S.T. Pledge from H.P.B. for me to write out and sign. She said that H.P.B. had told her that, on our sending in our signed Pledges, each one would be 'tested' (i.e., 'examined for fitness') on inner planes, by the Master. . . ." (H.P. Blavatsky As I Knew Her by Alice Leighton Cleather, p. 15) A facsimile of the original edition of this four-page "pledge folder" is reproduced here for the first time. Page 1

Page 2

Page 3

Page 4

Extract from H.P.B.'s E.S.T.S. Instruction No. I

[In the Preface to Volume XII of H.P.B.'s Collected Writings, Boris de Zirkoff writes that ". . . the student will find in its [Volume XII's] pages the complete, unaltered and unedited text of H.P.B.'s Esoteric Instructions." Whatever Mr. de Zirkoff may have meant by this,

unfortunately, the text of the Esoteric Instructions in Volume XII is found to be incomplete, altered and edited when compared with the original edition of these Instructions. The first edition of HPB's three Esoteric Instructions was issued in mimeograph form. The second edition was a printed edition issued by the Aryan Press of New York in 1890. I have reproduced below a few pages of the 1890 edition of Instruction No. I. I invite the reader to compare this text with the version found in H.P.B.'s Collected Writings, Volume XII, pp. 515-516. I have indicated in red type the portion of the original text which is completely missing from the Volume XII version. Also if the student carefully compares the rest of the text, he will find a good number of other significant changes. Whatever the reason(s) for these deletions and changes, the Volume XII version does not accurately reflect the original text as written by HPB in 1889.--- Daniel H. Caldwell.]

.......................

E.S.T.S. --- No. I.

A Warning Addressed to All Members of the Esoteric Section. There is a strange law in Occultism which has been ascertained and proven by thousands of years of experience; nor has it failed to demonstrate itself, almost in every case, during the thirteen years that the T. S. has been in existence. As soon as anyone pledges himself as a Probationer, certain occult effects ensue. Of these the first is the throwing outward of everything latent in the nature of the man: his faults, habits, qualities or subdued desires, whether good, bad or indifferent. For instance, if a man is vain or a sensualist, or ambitious, whether by Atavism or by Karmic heirloom, all those vices are sure to break out, even if he has hitherto successfully concealed and repressed them. They will come to the front irrepressibly, and he will have to fight a hundred times harder than before, until he kills all such tendencies in himself. On the other hand, if one is good, generous, chaste, and abstemious, or has any virtue hitherto latent and concealed in him, it will work its way out as irrepressibly as the rest. Thus a civilized man who hates to be considered a Grandison, and therefore assumes a mask, will not be able to conceal his true nature, whether base or noble. This is an immutable law in the domain of the occult. Its action is the more marked, the more earnest and sincere is the desire of the candidate and the more deeply he has felt the reality and importance of his pledge.

Therefore let all members of this Section be warned and on their guard; for even in the last three months, even before the esoteric teaching began, several of the most promising candidates have failed ignominiously.

ESOTERIC SECTION
A Few Words as Preface. Before entering upon the first installment of the Instructions to be given to the Esoteric Section, it is necessary to call the special attention of its members to a new and rapidly growing danger which is threatening the Theosophical Society and the spread of the pure Esoteric Philosophy and knowledge in the U.S.A. I allude to those charlatanesque imitations of Occultism and Theosophy of which the Call to the Awakened, lately published in the Boston Esoteric, is the most glaring example. The danger in this particular case is the greater because some men of real scientific attainments and knowledge seem to have been drawn into it, and thus give to it an appearance of real knowledge which may easily deceive the unwary. By pandering to the prejudices of people, and especially by adopting the false ideas of a personal God and a personal, carnalized Saviour, as the groundwork of their teaching, the leaders of this swindle (for such it is) are endeavoring to draw men to them and in particular to turn Theosophists from the true path. The H. B. of L., of shameful memory in England, has now found a worthy substitute in the Esoteric College in Boston founded by a Brahmin of Irish descent, thousands of years old, (Vide A Call from the Unseen, etc.) Stealing from us our esoteric Sanskrit terms, our facts --- which he disfigures --- and even our motto, There is No Religion Higher than Truth, this self-styled illuminator is sure to prepare thousands of enemies to Theosophy, when those awakened by him will awaken to the sad truth of having been swindled by this Brahmin & Co. Let all Theosophists be warned in time by the Esotericists. True knowledge comes slowly and is not easily acquired. In this attempt the students will be at first confronted by the great difficulties of the disciples first steps upon the path of true Occultism. Even members of the E. S., especially those who crave for magic powers, are not unlikely to grow impatient and to rebel against the apparently slow progress made at first and at the amount of metaphysical and theoretic study required of them. To such the deceptive promises of quick results and grand achievements, of growth and progress, that are promised by the Esoteric College from day to day (??) will appear most attractive. But let all such take warning in time and avoid a snare in which they will at least leave the contents of their purses, even if they save their reputations. A close examination will assuredly reveal the whole scheme as a mere device for money getting and selfish gratification, in which materials largely stolen, as said, from

Theosophical writings are distorted and falsified so as to be palmed off on the unwary as revelations of new and undreamed of truths. But many will neither have the time nor the opportunity for such a thorough investigation; and before they become aware of the imposture they may be led far from the Truth, as well as be despoiled of their property and, worse than that, of their health. Under these circumstances, it is the duty of all members of the E. S. in America to do their utmost to unmask such movements, for nothing is more dangerous to Esoteric Truth than the garbled and distorted versions disfigured to suit the prejudices and tastes of men in general. Finally, the attention of all members of the E. S. is expressly called to Rule 18 of the Preliminary Memorandum, no infraction of which can or will be allowed.

ESOTERIC SECTION.
Instruction for January and February, 1889. The ancient occult axiom, Know Thyself, must be familiar to every member of this Section; but few if any have apprehended the real meaning of the Delphic Oracle. You all know your earthly pedigree, but who of you has ever traced all the links of heredity, siderial, psychic and spiritual, which go to make you what you are? Many have written and expressed their desire to unite themselves with their Higher Self, yet none seem to know the indissoluble link connecting their Higher Selves with the One Universal SELF. For all purposes of Occultism, whether practical or purely metaphysical, such knowledge is absolutely requisite. It is proposed, therefore, to begin the esoteric instruction by showing this connection in all directions with the worlds: Absolute, Archetypal, Spiritual, Psychic, Siderial, Astral and Elemental. Before, however, we can touch upon the three higher worlds --- Archetypal, Spiritual, and Psychic --- we must master the relations of the seventh, the terrestrial world, the lower Prakriti, or Malchuth as in the Kabala, to the four worlds or planes which immediately follow it. (See Secret Doctrine, vol. I, p. 200 et seq.) It is clear that once the human body is admitted to have direct relation with such higher worlds, the specialization of the organs and parts of the body will necessitate the mention of all parts of the body without exception. In the eyes of truth and nature, no one organ is more noble or ignoble than any other organ. The ancients considered as the most holy precisely those organs which we associate with feelings of shame and secrecy: for they are the creative organs corresponding to the Creative Forces of the Kosmos. The Esotericists are therefore warned that unless they are prepared to take everything in the spirit of truth and nature, and to forget the code of false propriety bred by hypocrisy and the shameful misuse of primeval functions, once considered divine --- they had better not study Esotericism.

OM, says the Aryan Adept, the son of the Fifth Race, who with this syllable begins and ends his salutation to the human being, his conjuration of, or appeal to, non-human PRESENCES. OM-MANI, murmurs the Turanian Adept, the descendant of the Fourth Race; and after pausing he adds, PADME-HUM. This famous invocation is very erroneously translated by the Orientalists as meaning, O the Jewel in the Lotus. For although, literally, OM is a syllable sacred to the Deity, PADME means in the Lotus, and MANI is any precious stone, still neither the words themselves, nor their symbolical meaning, are really correctly rendered.

E.S.T.S. Instructions No. I

January and February, 1889

by H.P. Blavatsky
Photographic Facsimile of the 1890 Edition Printed Privately on The Aryan Press, New York

Table of Contents
Cover Page Title Page Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Double-Page Diagram
(mentioned on p. 14)

Page 15 Colored Diagram

(mentioned on p. 15)

Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Tabular Diagram

(mentioned on p. 23)

Page 16

Page 24

Memorandum at End of HPB's Esoteric Instruction No. II

[The following "Memorandum" by H.P.B. is to be found at the end of Esoteric Instruction No. II (in both the first [mimeograph] edition of 1889 and the second [printed] edition issued by the Aryan Press of New York in 1890. This "Memorandum" is missing from later editions of the Instructions, including the version published in Volume XII of H.P.B.'s Collected Writings. I give below a facsimile from the 1890 edition of Instruction No. II--BA Editor.]

First page of Memorandum

Second page of Memorandum

The Esoteric Section of the Theosophical Society

[This short letter dated May 14, 1889 has never been republished or reprinted since it was first issued privately.]

H.P. Blavatsky having learned that Professor Elliot Coues (1) of Washington D.C. calls himself Perpetual President of the Esoteric Theosophical Society of America, feels it necessary to warn the members of the Esoteric Section of the T.S. of which she is the Head, that Professor Coues is not even a member of her Section. 1. The Head of the Section desires therefore, to inform all members of the E.S. that Prof. Coues has no authority, except his own, for assuming such a title; that he is not, & never has been, a member of Esoteric Section to which you belong; & that no papers, documents, memoranda or teachings given in this section must be shown or communicated to him. 2. Having learned that a memorandum dated March 17th 1889, relating to the duty which is incumbent on members of the E.S. to defend the T.S. & its leaders, has got into the hands of Col. Bundy of the Religio-Philosophic Journal, the Head of the Section desires to say that should any Member of the E.S. know how this has happened, it is his duty to communicate at once with the Council (vide memorandum appended to Instruction No 2). Should such a breach of faith ever occur again, the Esoteric Section will at once be broken up & all further instruction cease. It is therefore the duty of all who desire its continuance to exercise the greatest possible care & circumspection. 3. In order to prevent any mistake or deception arising as to membership in the E.S., the Head of the Section has selected the following Passwords: --The member desiring to ascertain whether another person belongs to the E.S. will first say Dhyani to which the person addressed (if a member of the E.S. will reply Pura. The questioner must then say Satri, to which the reply will be Asoph. No member must ever speak or discuss the teachings given in the E.S. or any of its confidential documents with any person to whom he has not previously given these Passwords, & received from him the correct replies as given above. The Head of the Section (signed) H.P. Blavatsky For the Council

Bertram Keightley :> Secretary 14 May 1889

Endnote
(1) For background information on Elliott Coues, see: Sylvia Cranston's biography HPB, chapter titled "A Conspiracy Underway," pp. 370-378; also The Theosophical Movement 1875-1950, Chapter XI, "The Coues-Collins Charges," pp. 143-155. For Coues' views on Madame Blavatsky, see "Blavatsky Unveiled!"

The Esoteric Section T.S.: Reorganization of the Section in America

by H.P. Blavatsky

Letter of H.P. Blavatsky to Dr. Elliott Coues]

[Reprinted from The Theosophical Forum (Point Loma, California), October 15, 1933, pp. 47-48.)

Leaves of Theosophical History

The following is printed verbatim et literatim from a typewritten copy now held in the official archives of the International Headquarters of The Theosophical Society, Point Loma, California. Letter from H. P. B. to Dr. Elliot Coues, (1) undated and bearing H. P. B.s signature in her own handwriting

To Dr. Elliot Coues, Sir, In your letter to the Religio Philosophical Journal (2), you say that four years ago you wrote to Mabel Collins (Mrs. Cook) (3) asking her as to the real source of Light on the Path; to which she replied that it was inspired by Koot Hoomi (!) or some other Hindu Adept. In her letter to you of April 18th 1889 which you publish, the first you received after an interval of four years, she states (see R. P. J.) that her previous letter to you was written at my dictation, adding that she had said Light on the Path was inspired by one of my Masters, because I had begged & implored her to do so!!! Now the facts are as follows: --(1) Light on the Path was first published early in 1885, & your letter to her could not have preceded the publication of the book. I returned to India in November 1884, & never saw Mabel Collins from that time till the 1st of May 1887; neither did any letters pass between us during that period. Therefore it is perfectly impossible that I should have dictated, or even suggested, such a letter as Mabel Collins speaks of. (2) Before my return to India in 1884, I saw Mabel Collins barely three or four times. She then showed me the first page or two of Light on the Path wherein I recognised some phrases which were familiar to me. Therefore, I the more readily accepted her description of the manner in which they had been given to her. She herself certainly believed that this

book was dictated to her by some one whose appearance she described, in which statement I am sure that I shall be born out by Mr Finch, who had the chief share in bringing about the publication of the book. (3) I saw the completed work, for the first time in my life, at Ostend a few months before I came to London in 1887, when a copy was given to me by Mr Arthur Gebhard who no doubt will remember the circumstance. This makes it still more ridiculous to suppose that I could have asked Mabel Collins to claim that Light on the Path was inspired by my Masters. So far as I, or any of the English Theosophists are aware, the suggestion has never been mooted --- till this letter of yours --- that the work in question was inspired by Mahatma K. H. On the contrary, as I am informed by those in a position to know best, its inspiration was always ascribed to quite another person, with whom it [is] true I am acquainted, but whom I should certainly never call my Master. Finally, I emphatically & unreservedly deny Mabel Collins vile insinuation that I ever asked her to make any statement regarding Light on the Path at all, let alone any untrue statement. Her accusation is a baseless & calumnious lie, the falseness of which will be apparent to everyone acquainted with the facts. Again, was I the mysterious visitor who unannounced entered her study when she began to write Through the Gates of Gold, & whose name she forgot to ask; he who spoke from knowledge, & from the fire of whose words she caught faith? Or when she dedicated the Idyll of the White Lotus to The true Author, the Inspirer, do you suppose that I was that inspirer, or that I was behind her & suggested that dedication? Why the book was begun long before I first saw her: it was unearthed by Mr. Ewen & shown to Col. Olcott, who heard all about its inspirer before I even knew of its existence. But apart from this, what is the meaning of your letter? Is it war that you want? Take care, I have been already so besmeared with mud that nothing worse can happen to me. I have nothing to lose; but I think that both you & Mabel Collins would not quite feel comfortable if I were to come out with all your respective letters & with one or two things which I know. I knew well enough that you did not believe in Masters, though your letters are full of protestations of your devotion to Them: but you will appear like a nice liar before the public if I publish them. Remember your letters shown in every line the real reason why you are angry with me; & I dont think people will hold you in very high esteem, or believe much in what you say, when once they know the real motives that guide you. And you may be very sure that I shall take good care that every one shall know & appreciate at their true value these motives of yours, if you do force things to an open war between us. Yours, H.P. BLAVATSKY

Endnotes

(1) For background information on Elliott Coues and Mabel Collins, see: Sylvia Cranston's biography HPB, chapter titled "A Conspiracy Underway," pp. 370-378; also The Theosophical Movement 1875-1950, Chapter XI, "The Coues-Collins Charges," pp. 143155. For Coues' views on Madame Blavatsky, see "Blavatsky Unveiled!" (2) See Elliott Coues' "Letter to the Editor" titled "Attention Theosophists! A Little More 'Light on the Path' for Your Benefit" which was published in the May 11, 1889 issue (p. 5) of The Religio-Philosophical Journal (Chicago). (3). For background information on Mabel Collins and Elliott Coues, see: Sylvia Cranston's biography HPB, chapter titled "A Conspiracy Underway," pp. 370-378; also The Theosophical Movement 1875-1950, Chapter XI, "The Coues-Collins Charges," pp. 143155.

To The Members of the E.S. of the T.S.

by H.P. Blavatsky
[This short letter addressed to H.P.B.'s Esoteric students has never been republished or reprinted since it was first issued privately in 1889.]

It having just come to my notice that a letter of mine, calling you Theosophists at large for subscriptions and donations to Lucifer (a reprint from the Journal) was sent appended to my No. III of Preliminary Explanations to the Members of the E.S., I take this opportunity to state as follows: It was done without my knowledge, and it was contrary to my distinct order never to connect the Esoteric with the Exoteric work, most of all anything connected with the financial business. I ask, therefore, all the Members of the E.S. who have received the two documents together, to disconnect them absolutely, bearing especially in mind that such appeals for funds have not, nor can they have, any relation direct or indirect to the pledge taken. I am extremely sorry and vexed that such a thing should have happened, as there may be Esotericists who will fancy that I made the Lucifer appeal with an eye to the pledged fellows. Let these know once for all, that NEVER, under any circumstances whatever, would I desecrate the sacred science by connecting it with money matters. Yours fraternally, HPB

1st November, 1889

"Personal Immortality"
by H.P. Blavatsky
[Reprinted from The Agnostic Journal (London), October 4, 1890, pp. 214-215.] [H.P.B.'s article is in reply to an article titled "Personal Immortality" by Lord Queensberry. This article is not included in HPB's Collected Writings and apparently has never been reprinted in the last 110 years..---BA Editor.]

I find with pleasure Lord Queensberry recalling in the Agnostic Journal (September 27th) a conversation, or rather a discussion he had with me over a year ago at the Theosophical Headquarters. He calls upon some Theosophist to enlighten him. With his permission, I will do so myself. (1) What I said on that evening to Lord Queensberry I maintain now. Only my statement is not quite correctly rendered because, as I believe, of a slight misunderstanding. I insisted upon the immortality of the individual---i.e., the higher consciousness and not upon that of the personal ego, or the personality, there being an enormous difference and a distinction to be made between the two. This doctrine of a dual soul, being very abstruse and requiring close preliminary study of that greatest problem in Nature --- consciousness --- before it can be fully comprehended, has led, leads, and will, for a very long time to come, lead our opponents to misunderstanding our beliefs. But my esteemed correspondent shows a remarkable Theosophical intuition --- or shall I say foresight? --- in his confessed presentment that he shall be told of some third principle which is neither body, nor personal consciousness, nor spirit. To be sure he shall; and, if the author of The Spirit of the Matterhorn wants to know the reason why, then he will learn that, no more than he, do we, or can we, believe in the immortality of the personal identity or consciousness, which are --- however much elevated in degree --- only those of the animal man, not of the divine entity. To urge such a survival would amount to the absurdity of claiming immortality in the eternal for not only our egos, but also for our wearing apparel. We maintain that only the inner man dwelling in Lord Queensberry, that which wrote the remarkable poem noticed in Lucifer, is immortal; but we should never dream of saying the same of his riding and shooting jackets, top boots, evening dress, and white cravats, nor yet of the night-shirts donned night after night by that form of clay now bearing the title of Lord Queensberry, which is the prison in the present incarnation of the immortal entity --- the inner tenant. My opponent has evidently never read The Key to Theosophy, as he does not seem to have an idea of the lower or personal Manas (mind or consciousness), and the higher Manas, the Individuality and the eternal Ego. His Lordship has, as evidently, given no serious consideration to our beliefs and teachings, if he does not know that he can get in our literature all the answers he

wants to his query, If that future existence is to be a conscious one, and a continuation of the present, where does the obliteration of all the wrongs that may have happened here in this life come in? He claims that there is no authority for such a belief. What is his authority for denying it? One of our authorities is logic, if he, in opposition to us, disregards the unbroken and unvarying testimony of the experience of the trained seers throughout long ages. If we are charged with mere assertion in our own favour, Agnostics may be charged with just the same assertion in theirs; it is six of one and half-a-dozen of the other, at the worst. If he, a hardened Agnostic, can say that he regards immortality in some form or other as possible, if not probable, we, Theosophists, have as much right to assert that we regard the immortality of our higher mind --- or that in it, at any rate, which deserves through its intrinsic value to become immortal --- as not only probable, but absolutely certain, the logic alone of the conservation of energy (as we Theosophists understand it) being a good warrant for such belief. This is no place to prove it, the more so as our literature teems with such proofs. But why should Lord Queensberry call the comparison I made to him, and which staggered him for the time being, a fallacy? This is how he puts it --- and perfectly correctly, so far as my remembrance goes: --It is no proof, because the past is a blank and you have no recollection of a previous conscious existence, that you had not one. You did have one......You do not remember......when you were born, nor when you were an infant; in fact, no one can say exactly when he first began to remember. But you were conscious, and had a personal identity, though no recollection of it, when an infant; as you neither had recollection before you were born into this life, though you had conscious existence. What is there so fallacious in this? At any rate, I am happy to show that my fallacy has been unconsciously and independently repeated by one of the greatest minds the Agnostics can claim --- namely, by Colonel R. G. Ingersoll. Speaking at the anniversary of the New York Lotus Club, he said: --......There is one splendid thing about the play called life. :Suppose that when you die that is the end. The last thing you know you are alive, and the last thing that will happen to you is the curtain, not falling, but the curtain rising on another thought, or that, as far as your consciousness is concerned, you will and must live forever. No man can remember when he commenced, and no man can remember when he ends. As far as we are concerned, we live both eternities, the one past and the other to come. It is delightful to me to feel satisfied, and to feel in my own heart that I can never be certain that I have seen the faces I love for the last time. The italicised sentences contain just what I said. No truer words have been pronounced by a greater Agnostic. We do live individually in both eternities --- in the beginningless past and the endless future; and this whether we like it or not, for the universal consciousness cannot die, neither as an absolute and an immutable principle, nor as a periodically manifesting power --- i.e., it is eternal in its compound parts (which are our higher egos), and eternal in its whole (which is the one and absolute Intelligence) --- an unknown quantity indeed, but assuredly neither body, soul, nor even spirit.

All these may prove very hard nuts to crack, even for a self-assumed Materialist or Agnostic; but the kernel will be found sound whenever it is cracked. However, this cannot be accomplished in a short article, nor, perhaps, in ten such, if the questioner would have something besides the mere form and colour of the fruit demonstrated to him. Those seriously anxious to obtain the true essence of the teaching are cordially invited to our public lectures, and even to the private classes held weekly at the Theosophical Headquarters, 19, Avenue Road, Regents Park. H. P. BLAVATSKY. (1) As my silence has frequently been interpreted as inability to answer, I take the opportunity of stating, with the Editors permission, that I am ever ready to discuss any Theosophical point, or even answer a personal charge, when my opponent writes as, and is, a gentleman. I maintain silence only with those Agnostics whose language recalls too vividly the gnosis and Billingsgate language of the bargee.

Personal Immortality
by Lord Queensberry
[Reprinted from The Agnostic Journal (London), September 27, 1890, pp. 194-195

Some time ago I received a very flattering notice in Lucifer, the Theosophist journal, with regard to my little poem, The Spirit of the Matterhorn, and in which the reviewer stated that it was nearly all pure Theosophy. Being anxious to comprehend what Theosophy was, and not being much enlightened by some of the Theosophic literature which I got hold of, I attended one of Madame Blavatskys evening parties, and was enabled to have a personal conversation with her. The point of discussion which arose between us was as to the alleged immortality of the personal and individual consciousness, which appears to be held by Madame Blavatsky and all Theosophists as a positive certainty and an article of their faith, the same as in Christianity. Thinking as I do on the subject, that personal consciousness --- which to me expresses what we call individual soul-life --- had a commencement with the formation of the physical body, and that it must naturally, therefore, end with it, I found I could not be defined as a Theosophist. In endeavouring to explain myself to Madame Blavatsky, I pointed out to her that I was unable to believe in a future personal consciousness after death, without the necessary corollary of a previous consciousness before birth; and this, to my mind, evidently had not existed. Is this future eternal consciousness which they predict for us, and which I myself have no wish for (if it is to be a continuation of our consciousness as now), to be a state of continued consciousness after death, but of perfect blankness of memory of the past here in this life, as it has been in the great before? There might be some comfort in this; but, alas, there can be no authority for such a belief. If that future existence is to be a conscious one, and a continuation of the present, where does the obliteration of all the wrongs that may

have happened here in this life come in? With the ideas I hold, I may look forward, and do, to something of this kind, but at the expense of my personal identity and consciousness. I do not, however, put forward my belief as a demonstrated fact; I only say that I regard immortality, in some form or other, as possible, if not probable. Madame Blavatsky, in reply to my statement that I could not conceive a previous personal individual existence, answered me in this way: How do you know you had no previous personal consciousness before you were born? I said, because that past is a perfect blank to me, and I have no consciousness of it whatever; and, therefore, had I a previous personal existence before I was born, my present one can hardly be an unbroken continuation of it. It could, moreover, not have been a conscious one, as it is now at any rate. Madame Blavatskys answer to this staggered me for the time being, for I was not quick enough to reply to her; but, in thinking it over, it staggers me no longer. She replied: It is no proof, because the past is a blank and you have no recollection of a previous conscious existence, that you had not one. You did have one. [No evidence given for this, only the bare assertion.] You do not remember, she continued, when you were born, nor when you were an infant; in fact no one can say exactly when he first began to remember. But you were conscious, and had a personal identity, though no recollection of it, when an infant; as you neither had recollection before you were born into this life, though you had conscious existence. I think any one may see the fallacy of this comparison, though for the time, in conversation, I could not reply to it. When I was born there were evidence and witnesses of my identity, though I have no recollection of it. There is no evidence or witness of that identity before I was formed in my mothers womb. That I have no recollection of conscious existence as an infant was simply that my brain was not sufficiently developed to enable it to what I call register; indeed, I cannot say if a new-born infant is conscious of his existence or identity at all, or at what exact age he does become conscious of it. Will some Theosophist enlighten me? We must all have first recollections of being able to remember, although hardly able to fix the date; but I should presume it would be the time when the brain had sufficiently grown and developed to be capable of doing what I have called registering. Is not this proof that there can be no consciousness without the brain power, and that in the way we use the word consciousness, as we express it in this life, there is no such thing without brain power? Will Madame Blavatsky or some other Theosophist answer me? I suppose I shall be told of some third principle, which is neither body nor personal consciousness nor spirit. I can see no evidence of such a thing, nor how it could be myself without either my physical body or brain consciousness. My intellect as yet has not been able to grasp beyond the idea of body and soul, though of the soul I am very vague, and of its very existence my opinion is Agnostic. I can have no conception of such a thing as a soul, except as an effect or result of the physical body, as illustrated by the simile of an Aeolian harp. The melody of a musical instrument has indeed often been termed its soul. What I maintain is that Madame Blavatskys comparison of my want of recollection as an infant with my want of recollection before I was born is no reply to my answer to hers, that before brain power existed there was neither consciousness, memory, nor personal existence, though the forces that had met to form me had always been, and would live for evermore. This is the only immortality I can, at present, see my way to claim for myself.

Queensberry [See Madame Blavatsky's reply titled "Personal Immortality."]

H.P. Blavatsky's E.S. Notice

dated Jan. 1, 1891

Is "Theosophy At Bay"?
By H.P. Blavatsky
[Reprinted from The Agnostic Journal (London), February 14, 1891, pp. 101-102. This article is not included in HPB's Collected Writings and apparently has never been reprinted in the last 109 years. --- BAO Editor.]

In the issue of the Agnostic Journal for February 7th there are several passages referring to Madame Blavatsky. Will the editor permit the humble individual of that name to answer one only of the charges, as all the others are really not worth noticing? Theosophy at Bay is the presumptive and very confident title of Mr. McIlwraiths logogriph. I have not read his pamphlet --- the subject of Mr. Iastrzebskis attack --- nor do I remember even its title, though it was sent to me. I never read our opponents effusions. Were our members to follow this policy, there would be less useless wrangling, less ridiculous blunders made by our critics, and hence no need to rectify them. However, it is a strange Karma that the obscure opponents of Theosophy should be made to gain an inglorious notoriety by attacking it. Yet so it is; and the fact is an interesting one for the philosopher to study. But --- pas trop nen faut. Why should we Theosophists help them to advertise their names, which otherwise would remain forever unknown to posterity? Moreover, none of the disputants will ever convince the other; and, as it is impossible to place before the public the teachings of the Eastern esoteric school in their harmonious fulness --- The Secret Doctrine having given out but a few fragmentary outlines of some of the fundamental doctrines of that school --- our evil-wishers will be ever finding something to carp at. (1) Such a literary battle over the shadows of things, the real substance of which is known only to those who study seriously the Occult philosophy, does seem, at best, unprofitable. Nor are our enemies over-scrupulous in mangling and misrepresenting even very plain and clear passages in order to gain a point. The following is a glaring instance. Mr. McIlwraith, after taking his opponent to task for saying that esotericism is never afraid of figures, and myself for stating that the figures belonging to the Occult calculation cannot be given, etc. (Secret Doctrine, vol. I., p. 170), makes a praiseworthy attempt to show in this a contradiction. Then he proceeds to cast insults at Messrs. Sinnett, Iastrzebski, and myself, not to mention the great Masters of Occultism, by asking: Is the esoteric knowledge of Mr. Iastrzebski the result of a different experience from that of Madame Blavatsky and Mr. Sinnett, or do the Masters think they have carried their thimble-rigging trick (2) as far as it is advisable; and that it is now time their dupes were finding the pea; hence an accusing conscience has induced them to disgorge the huge mass of figures we find in vol. ii., pp. 68-70, of The Secret Doctrine? This once, the thimble-rigging trick belongs by legal right to Mr. McIlwraith. We proceed to render unto Caesar the thing which is Caesars --- namely, the pea concealed

by him --- alas, very clumsily! The reader is asked to turn to The Secret Doctrine (pp. 68, 70), and see and judge for himself. Preceding the huge mass of figures found therein is an explanation that the said figures are all exoteric. They are copied from a public Tamil Calendar; they are in all the Puranas; and every Orientalist has quoted them over and over again, the merest tyro in the study of Hindoo religion knowing them to come from the laws of Manu. The only thing said by me to connect them in any way with esotericism is that these figures are almost identical with those taught in esoteric philosophy (p. 67). Finally, the huge mass of figures, which Mr. McIlwraith would make the reader believe were esoteric and pre-eminently occult, are directly followed by the following remark on page 70: These are the exoteric figures accepted throughout India, and they dove-tail pretty nearly with those of the secret works. Pretty nearly is not entirely. The displacement, addition, or subtraction of one single cipher or figure from them would hardly be remarked, and yet would throw the whole huge mass into a blind. Moreover, throughout the two volumes of The Secret Doctrine there will not be found one set of esoteric computations. Which, then, of us is the thimble-rigger in this case? Methinks echo responds --- Mr. McIlwraith, our would-be critic. I will not touch upon other points, but will conclude with a few words about Atlantis. Our pre-eminently scientific adversary does not believe that Atlantis has ever existed except in the imagination of the Lydian (?) priests who told it to Solon. (3) He quotes from Professor Jowetts Introduction to Timaeus, in proof of Platos ignorance of physical science, confusion of thought, etc. Well, Dr. Jowett is a great Greek scholar, let us say one of the first in England; but this does not make of him an authority on ancient history or geography. I, for one, have the sublime audacity of setting Dr. Jowetts claim of knowing Platos inner thought, and his authority on the spirit of Platonic and other philosophies, at naught. He denies the presence of any element of Oriental or Gnostic mysticism in Plato, and conveniently forgets that Plato was an Initiate, bound by the Sodalian oath, who could not speak otherwise than in blinds. Plato admits it himself by remarking: You say that.........I have not sufficiently explained to you the nature of the First. I purposely spoke enigmatically that, in case the tablet should have happened with any accident, either by land or sea, a person, without some previous knowledge of the subject, might not be able to understand its contents (Plato, ep. ii., p. 312; Cory, Ancient Fragments). Plato had a veneration for the Mysteries; and, as Dr. Jowett takes the latter fact in no consideration, I declare that, though he may have devoted half a lifetime to get a thorough grasp of Platos writings, he has, nevertheless, ingloriously failed in his attempt; and this settles the question for the Theosophist. There are other Greek scholars as great as the Master of Baliol College who thought and still think otherwise, and believe in Atlantis. Bailly, the most learned astronomer and encyclopaedist of the last century, wrote a large work on Atlantis. Voltaire believed in it. Matter, the great authority on Gnosticism, (4) a Royal Academician and a learned Platonist into the bargain, gives views entirely opposed to those of Dr. Jowett. Donnelly gives a long list of scientific men who believe in this myth. Nor does the experience of the last decade of the present century warrant further any too dogmatic denial of things hitherto held as myths. Hardly fifteen years ago Troy and the legends of pre-historic Hellas, along with Homer and his Iliad, were also regarded as myths. Scholars as great as Dr. Jowett, and greater even than Mr. McIlwraith --- e.g., Grote, Niebuhr, and others --- have determined, as Professor Sayce has it, that the tale of Troy divine, like that of the beleaguerment of Kadmeian Thebes, was but a form of

the immemorial story, which told how the battlements of the sky were stormed day after day by the bright powers of Heaven. (5) This amounted to saying that Troy was a solar myth, Priam and Hector, Agamemnon and Menelaus, and the tutti quanti of the famous Epos, were all solar heroes and sun gods, agreeably with the modern solar craze. Never was Atlantis more denied than the truths of the Iliad. And yet hear what is now said of this craze and myth in the work cited: The problem from which the scholars of Europe had turned away in despair has been solved by the skill, the energy, and the perseverance of Dr. Schliemann. At Troy, at Mykenae, and at Orkhomenos, he has recovered a past which had already become but a shadowy memory in the age of Peisistratos. We can measure the civilisation and knowledge of the peoples who inhabited those old cities, can handle the implements they used and the weapons they carried....... The heroes of the Iliad and Odyssey have become to us men of flesh and blood. We can watch both them, and older heroes still.......It is little wonder if so marvellous a recovery of a past, in which we had ceased to believe, should have awakened many controversies, and wrought a silent revolution in our conceptions of Greek history. It is little wonder if, at first, the discoverer who had so rudely shocked the settled prejudices of the historian should have met with a storm of indignant opposition or covert attack. But......we can never return to the ideas of ten years ago. (6) And if Troy from a myth has now become a reality, why not Atlantis? Already the Challenger has discovered the site of a submerged land; and, ten years hence, something more may be brought to view --- even the ruins of a submarine city, if not the bones of the giant Atlanteans. A confession from the same pen fits exactly with what we Theosophists might answer to any covert or open attack on our figures: The natural tendency of the student of to-day is to post-date rather than to ante-date, and to bring everything down to the latest period that is possible. The same reluctance that the scientific world felt in admitting the antiquity of man, when first asserted by Boucher de Perthes, has been felt by modern scholars in admitting the antiquity of civilisation. (7) Had our scientifically inclined critic, Mr. McIlwraith, lived in the days of the pious persecutors of Harvey, he would, no doubt, have jumped along with the others at the throat of the audacious physician who dared to proclaim the heresy of the circulation of the blood. Evidently, Mr. Iastrzebskis opponent has much to study and read --- for one thing, the history of the interminable blunders of science --- before he can hope to hold Theosophy at Bay. H. P. BLAVATSKY.

Endnotes

(1) See second page of my editorial, The Babel of Modern Thought, in the forthcoming February number of Lucifer, concerning The Secret Doctrine. [HPB] (2) The author of this gratuitous impertinence, who, no doubt, ranks himself with the eminent scientists of the day he defends and quotes so often, would do well to apply the term of thimble-rigging trick to some Darwinists, and that of dupes to the English, along with the rest of the European public. Let him open Haeckels Pedigree of Man (Avelings translation, p. 77), and meditate on the fraud of the eighteenth stage. Almost ten years ago Quatrefages exposed the dishonesty of Haeckel and his supporters, by proving, on pages 108-10 of his Human Species, that, while there were no such creatures as Prosimiae with placenta in this world, Haeckels Sozura was equally unknown to science, and that, as a result, these two fanciful animals could not be made to supply the missing gaps in the genealogy of man through the animal stages. This has in no wise prevented the scientists --- the staunch supporters of the animalistic theory --- from ignoring Quatrefages protest; and we find the mythical Sozura and Prosimiae with placenta as flourishing as ever in the last edition of Dr. Avelings translation. This is thimble rigging with facts and science, indeed. See Lucifer, vol. I., pp. 73, 74, September, 1887, article Literary Jottings, for the full account; and this is not an isolated case by any means! [HPB] (3) A Lydian priest at Sais, in Egypt, is as curious as a Prosimia with placenta. [HPB] (4) Author of the Histoire Critique du Gnosticisme, a work crowned by the Academy. [HPB] (8) (5) Preface to Dr. Schliemanns Troja, Results of the Latest Researches and Discoveries on the Site of Homers Troy, p. I. [HPB] (6) Troja, by Schliemann; Preface by Professor Sayce; p. vii., et seq. The italics are mine. [HPB] (7) Ibid, p. vi. [HPB] (8) [H.P.B. is referring to Jacques Matter (1791-1864) who wrote Histoire critique du gnosticisme, et de son influence sur les sectes religieuses et philosophiques des six premiers sicles de lre chrtienne. 2. d. Strasbourg, V.E. Levrault; Paris, P. Bertrand, 1843-44. 3 volumes in 1.---BAO Editor.]

 Blavatsky, H.P. Reprint of Instructions I, II and III. An 8page document outlining the new edition of HPB's Instructions plus other E.S. business. Reprinted from the April 1891 original.
Originally published April 1891

Van aparte en imgenes...

Letters of H.P. Blavatsky to Her Family in Russia

From December 1894 through December 1895 in the monthly Path magazine of New York, the editor William Q. Judge published a series of articles by Vera Johnston, the niece of H.P. Blavatsky. In this series Mrs. Johnston translated into English excerpts from more than sixty of HPB's letters to her family in Russia. Vera tried to arrange the letters in chronological order and added an explanatory narrative. These letters of HPB give an overview of her life from 1875 to 1890.

Contents
Part I---New York 1875-1876 Part II---New York 1877 Part III---New York1875-1878 Part IV---India 1879-1880 Part V---India 1881-1883 Part VI---Europe February-June 1884 Part VII---Europe July-October 1884 Part VIII---Egypt November 1884 and

Europe 1885 Part IX---Europe 1885 Part X---Europe 1886-1887 Part XI---England 1887 Part XII---England 1887-1889 Part XIII---England 1890

Letters of H.P. Blavatsky.

I.
These letters will be continued each month in the Path. They constitute a correspondence carried on by H.P.B. with her Russian relatives, and are being translated into English by H.P.B.s niece, Mrs. C. Johnston, whose maiden name was Vera Jelihovsky, and whose mother is Mme. Jelihovsky, the sister of H.P.B. who contributed under her own name to Mr. Sinnetts Incidents in the Life of Madame Blavatsky. As most of the letters were not dated, it will not always be possible to say whether H.P.B. was writing from America, Tibet, Egypt, or the North Pole. A great many letters are in this correspondence, and the series will be continued until all are published. They are all of wonderful interest. It must be borne in mind for a clearer understanding of her words that she was writing to relatives who did not understand her strange inner life, and many of whom held religious opinions very different from hers. Permission has been given to me to add some notes, but for those I alone will be responsible. W. Q. J.

About the year 1875 Madame Jelihovsky, who is well known both on account of her own contributions to literature and also as the sister of Madame Blavatsky, heard that H.P.B. had commenced to write in a way that would have been impossible to her a few years before. How she had acquired the knowledge that won the unanimous praise of both the English and American press was beyond all explanation. There were rumors afloat as to "sorcery" being at the root of it, and filled with forebodings and terrors Madame Jelihovsky wrote to her sister, imploring an explanation. (1) She received the following reply:

"Do not be afraid that I am off my head. All that I can say is that someone positively inspires me -- ... more than this: someone enters me. It is not I who talk and write: it is something within me, my higher and luminous Self, that thinks and writes for me. Do not ask me, my friend, what I experience, because I could not explain it to you clearly. I do not know myself! The one thing I know is that now, when I am about to reach old age, I have become a sort of storehouse of somebody elses knowledge... Someone comes and envelops me as a misty cloud and all at once pushes me out of myself, and then I am not "I" any more -- Helena Petrovna Blavatsky -- but someone else. Someone strong and powerful, born in a totally different region of the world; and as to myself it is almost as if I were asleep, or lying by not quite conscious, -- not in my own body but close by, held only by a thread which ties me to it. However, at times I see and hear everything quite clearly: I am perfectly conscious of what my body is saying and doing -- or at least its new possessor. I even understand and remember it all so well that afterwards I can repeat it and even write down his words... At such a time I see awe and fear on the faces of Olcott and others, and follow with interest the way in which he half-pityingly regards them out of my own eyes and teaches them with my physical tongue. Yet not with my mind but his own, which enwraps my brain like a cloud... Ah, but really I cannot explain everything." H.P.B.s astonishment at this marvellous development of her own powers would appear to have been great, if one may judge by a letter she wrote (about 1875 to 1876) to her aunt, Madame Fadeef, with whom she had been brought up and educated: "Tell me, dear one, do you take any interest in physiologico-psychological mysteries? Here is one for you which is well qualified to astonish any physiologist: in our Society there are a few exceedingly learned members -- for instance, Professor Wilder, one of the first archaeologist and Orientalists in the United States, and all these people come to me to be taught, and swear that I know all kinds of Eastern languages and sciences, positive as well as abstract, much better than themselves. Thats a fact! And its as bad to run up against a fact as against a pitchfork. So then tell me: how could it have happened that I, whose learning was so awfully lame up to the age of forty, have suddenly become a phenomenon of learning in the eyes of people who are really learned? This fact is an impenetrable mystery of Nature. I -- a psychological problem, an enigma for future generations, a Sphinx! (2) Just fancy that I, who have never in my life studied anything, and possess nothing but the most superficial smattering of general information; I, who never had the slightest idea about physics or chemistry or zoology, or anything else -- have now suddenly become able to write whole dissertations about them. I enter into discussions with men of science, into disputes out of which I often emerge triumphant... Its not a joke; I am perfectly serious; I am really frightened because I do not understand how it all happens. It is true that for nearly three years past I have been studying night and day, reading and thinking. But whatever I happen to read, it all seems familiar to me. ...I find mistakes in the most learned articles, and in lectures by Tyndall, Herbert Spencer, Huxley, and others. If some archaeologist happens to call on me, on taking leave he is certain to assure me that I have made clear to him the meaning of various monuments, and pointed out things to him of which he had never dreamed. All the symbols of antiquity, and their secret meaning, come into my head and stand there before my eyes as soon as the conversation touches on them.

"A pupil of Faradays, a certain Professor H., who has been christened by the voice of a thousand mouths the Father of experimental Physics, having spent yesterday evening with me, now assures me that I am well qualified to put Faraday in my pocket. Can it be that they are all simply fools? But it is impossible to suppose that friends and enemies alike have leagued together to make of me a savant if all that I do is to prove superficially certain wild theories of my own. And if it was only my own devoted Olcott and other Theosophists who had such a high opinion of me, it could be said: Dans le pays des aveugles les borgnes sont rois (In a country of blind men the one-eyed are kings). But I continually have a whole crowd from morning to night of all kinds of Professors, Doctors of Science, and Doctors of Divinity; (3) ... for instance, there are two Hebrew Rabbis here, Adler and Goldstein, who are both of them thought to be the greatest Talmudists. They know by heart both the Quabalah of Simeon Ben Jochai and the Codex Nazaraeus of Bardesanes. They were brought to me by A., a protestant clergyman and commentator on the Bible, who hoped they would prove that I am mistaken on the subject of a certain statement in the Chalden Bible of Onkelos. And with what result? I have beaten them. I quoted to them whole sentences in ancient Hebrew and proved to them that Onkelos is an authority of the Babylonian school." In the earlier letters of H.P.B. to Madame Jelihovsky the intelligence which has been referred to as "enveloping her body" and using her brain is spoken of as "the Voice" or "Sahib". Only later did she name this, or another "Voice", as "Master". For instance, she writes to Madame Jelihovsky: "I never tell anyone here about my experience with the Voice. When I try to assure them that I have never been in Mongolia, that I do not know either Sanskrit or Hebrew or ancient European languages, they do not believe me. How is this, they say, you have never been there, and yet you describe it all so accurately? You do not know the languages and yet you translate straight from the originals! and so they refuse to believe me. (4) They think that I have some mysterious reasons for secrecy; and besides, it is an awkward thing for me to deny when everyone has heard me discussing various Indian dialects with a lecturer who has spent twenty years in India. Well, all that I can say is, either they are mad or I am a changeling!" About this time, H.P.B. appears to have been greatly troubled, for though some members of the nascent Theosophical Society were able to get "visions of pure Planetary Spirits", she could only see "earthly exhalations, elementary spirits" of the same category, which she said played the chief part in materializing seances. She writes: "In our Society everyone must be a vegetarian, eating no flesh and drinking no wine. This is one of our first rules. (5) It is well known what an evil influence the evaporations of blood and alcohol have on the spiritual side of human nature, blowing the animal passions into a raging fire; and so one of these days I have resolved to fast more severely than hitherto. I ate only salad and did not even smoke for whole nine days, and slept on the floor, and this is what happened: I have suddenly caught a glimpse of one of the most disgusting scenes of my own life, and I felt as if I was out of my body, looking at it with repulsion whilst it was walking, talking, getting puffed up with fat and sinning. Pheugh, how I hated myself! Next night when I again lay down on the hard floor, I was so tired out

that I soon fell asleep and then got surrounded with a heavy, impenetrable darkness. Then I saw a star appearing; it lit up high, high above me, and then fell, dropping straight upon me. It fell straight on my forehead and got transformed into a hand. Whilst this hand was resting on my forehead I was all ablaze to know whose hand it was... I was concentrated into a single prayer, into an impulse of the will, to learn who it was, to whom did this luminous hand belong.. And I have learned it: there stood over it I myself. Suddenly this second me spoke to my body, Look at me! My body looked at it and saw that the half of this second me was as black as jet, the other half whitish-grey, and only the top of the head perfectly white, brilliant, and luminous. And again I myself spoke to my body: When you become as bright as this small part of your head, you will be able to see what is seen by others, by the purified who have washed themselves clean... And meanwhile, make yourself clean, make yourself clean, make yourself clean. And here I awoke." At one time H.P.B. was exceedingly ill with advanced rheumatism in her leg. Doctors told her that it was gangrened, and considered her case hopeless. But she was successfully treated by a negro who was sent to her by the "Sahib". She writes to Madame Jelihovsky: "He has cured me entirely. And just about this time I have begun to feel a very strange duality. Several times a day I feel that besides me there is someone else, quite separable from me, present in my body. I never lose the consciousness of my own personality; what I feel is as if I were keeping silent and the other one -- the lodger who is in me -- were speaking with my tongue. For instance, I know that I have never been in the places which are described by my other me, but this other one -- the second me -- does not lie when he tells about places and things unknown to me, because he has actually seen them and knows them well. I have given it up: let my fate conduct me at its own sweet will; and besides, what am I to do? It would be perfectly ridiculous if I were to deny the possession of knowledge avowed by my No. 2, giving occasion to the people around me to imagine that I keep them in the dark for modestys sake. In the night, when I am alone in my bed, the whole life of my No. 2 passes before my eyes, and I do not see myself at all, but quite a different person -- different in race and different in feelings. But whats the use of talking about it? Its enough to drive one mad. I try to throw myself into the part and to forget the strangeness of my situation. This is no mediumship, and by no means an impure power; for that, it has too strong an ascendency over us all, leading us into better ways. No devil would act like that. Spirits, maybe? But if it comes to that, my ancient spooks dare not approach me any more. Its enough for me to enter the room where a seance is being held to stop all kinds of phenomena at once, especially materializations. Ah no, this is altogether of a higher order! But phenomena of another sort take place more and more frequently under the direction of my No. 2. (6) One of these days I will send you an article about them. It is interesting."

Endnotes
(1) It must be recollected that the "rumors of sorcery" were afloat in Russia and not in America. -- W.Q.J. (2) This name was prophetic, for thus she has been often called -- W.Q.J.

(3) Col. Olcott and myself can testify to the continual stream of people of all sorts which entered her rooms every day. In 1875 she told me that when she had to write about evolution a large picture of scenes of the past would unroll before her eyes, together with another picture of the present time. -- W.Q.J. (4) In London, in 1888, a Hindu who had met her at Meerut said to her in my presence through an interpreter that he was surprised she did not use his language then, as she had used it at Meerut. She replied: "Ah, yes, but that was at Meerut." -- W.Q.J. (5) This was a proposed rule. H.P.B. accepted a thing proposed as a thing done, and so spoke of it here. But she did not carry out that rule then proposed, and never then suggested its enforcement to me. -- W.Q.J. (6) These phenomena were those amazing feats of magic, hundreds of which I witnessed in broad daylight or blazing gas-light, from 1875 to 1878. -- W.Q.J.

II.
The newspapers gave accounts of certain of these phenomena and described the appearance of astral visitors, amongst others a Hindu. In sending the extracts H.P.B. comments: "I see this Hindu every day, just as I might see any other living person, with the only difference that he looks to me more ethereal and more transparent. Formerly I kept silent about these appearances, thinking that they were hallucinations. But now they have become visible to other people as well. He (the Hindu) appears and advises us as to our conduct and our writing. He evidently knows everything that is going on, even to the thoughts of other people, and makes me express his knowledge. Sometimes it seems to me that he overshadows the whole of me, simply entering me like a kind of volatile essence penetrating all my pores and dissolving in me. Then we two are able to speak to other people, and then I begin to understand and remember sciences and languages -- everything he instructs me in, even when he is not with me any more." Directly Isis Unveiled was published, H.P.B. wrote to Madame Jelihovsky: "It seems strange to you that some hindu sahib is so free and easy in his dealings with me. I can quite understand you: a person not used to that kind of phenomenon -- which, though not quite unprecedented, is yet perfectly ignored -- is sure to be incredulous. For the very simple reason that such a person is not in the habit of going deeply into such matters. For instance, you ask whether he is likely to indulge in wanderings inside other people as well as me. I am sure I dont know; but here is something about which I am perfectly certain: Admit that mans soul -- his real living soul -- is a thing perfectly separate from the rest of the organism; that this perisprit is not stuck with paste to the physical innerds; and that this soul which exists in everything living, beginning with an infusoria and ending with an elephant, is different from its physical double only inasmuch as being more or less overshadowed by the immortal spirit it is capable of acting freely and independently. In the

case of the uninitiated profane, it acts during their sleep: in the case of an initiated adept, it acts at any moment he chooses according to his will. Just try and assimilate this, and then many things will become clear to you. This fact was believed in and known in far distant epochs. St. Paul, who alone among all the apostles was an initiated Adept in the Greek Mysteries, clearly alludes to it when narrating how he was caught up to the third heaven, whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell: God knoweth. Also Rhoda says about Peter, It is not Peter but his angel -- that is to say, his double or his soul. And in the Acts of the Apostles, ch. viii, v. 39, when the spirit of God lifted up Philip and transported him, it was not his body that was transported, not his coarse flesh, but his Ego, his spirit and his soul. Read Apuleius, Plutarch, Jamblichus, and other learned men -- they all allude to this kind of phenomenon, though the oaths they had to take at the time of their initiation did not allow them to speak openly. What mediums accomplish unconsciously, under the influence of outside powers which take possession of them, can be accomplished by Adepts consciously at their own volition. Thats all ... As to the Sahib, I have known him a long time. Twenty-five years ago he came to London with the Prince of Nepaul; three years ago he sent me a letter by an Indian who came here to lecture about Buddhism. In this letter he reminded me of many things, foretold by him at the time, and asked me whether I believed him now and whether I would consent to obey him, to avoid complete destruction. After this he appeared repeatedly, not only to me but also to other people, and to Olcott whom he ordered to be President of the Society, teaching him how to start it. I always recognize and know the Master, and often talk to him without seeing him. How is it that he hears me from everywhere, and that I also hear his voice across seas and oceans twenty times a day? I do not know, but it is so. Whether it is he personally that enters me I really cannot say with confidence: if it is not he, it is his power, his influence. Through him alone I am strong; without him I am a mere nothing." There was naturally considerable fear in the minds of H.P.B.s nearest relatives as to the character of this mysterious Hindu teacher. They could not help regarding him as more of a "heathen sorcerer" than anything else. And this view H.P.B. took pains to combat. She told them that her Master had a deep respect for the spirit of Christs teachings. She had once spent seven weeks in a forest not far from the Karakoram mountains, where she had been isolated from the world, and where her teacher alone had visited her daily, whether astrally or otherwise she did not state. But whilst there she had been shown in a cave-temple a series of statues representing the great teachers of the world, amongst others: "A huge statue of Jesus Christ, represented at the moment of pardoning Mary Magdalene; Gautama Buddha offers water in the palm of his hand to a beggar, and Ananda is shown drinking out of the hands of a Pariah prostitute." H.P.B. wrote to Madame Jelihovsky (date unknown) that she was learning to get out of her body, and offering to pay her a visit in Tiflis "in the flash of an eye". This both frightened and amused Madame Jelihovsky, who replied that she would not trouble her so unnecessarily. H.P.B. answered: "What is there to be afraid of? As if you had never heard about apparitions of doubles. I, that is to say, my body, will be quietly asleep in my bed, and it would not even matter if it were to await my return in a waking condition -- it would be in the state of a harmless idiot.

And no wonder: Gods light would be absent from it, flying to you; and then it would fly back and once more the temple would get illuminated by the presence of the Deity. But this, needless to say, only in case the thread between the two were not broken. If you shriek like mad it may get torn; then Amen to my existence: I should die instantly... I have written to you that one day we had a visit from the double of Professor Moses. Seven people saw him. As to the Master, he is quite commonly seen by perfect strangers. Sometimes he looks just as if he were a living man, as merry as possible. He is continually chaffing me, and I am perfectly used to him now. He will soon take us all to India, and there we shall see him in his body just like an ordinary person." From New York: "Well, Vera, whether you believe me or not, something miraculous is happening to me. You cannot imagine in what a charmed world of pictures and visions I live. I am writing Isis; not writing, rather copying out and drawing that which She personally shows to me. Upon my word, sometimes it seems to me that the ancient Goddess of Beauty in person leads me through all the countries of past centuries which I have to describe. I sit with my eyes open and to all appearances see and hear everything real and actual around me, and yet at the same time I see and hear that which I write. I feel short of breath; I am afraid to make the slightest movement for fear the spell might be broken. Slowly century after century, image after image, float out of the distance and pass before me as if in a magic panorama; and meanwhile I put them together in my mind, fitting in epochs and dates, and know for sure that there can be no mistake. Races and nations, countries and cities, which have for long disappeared in the darkness of the prehistoric past, emerge and then vanish, giving place to others; and then I am told the consecutive dates. Hoary antiquity makes way for historical periods; myths are explained to me with events and people who have really existed, and every event which is at all remarkable, every newly-turned page of this manycolored book of life, impresses itself on my brain with photographic exactitude. My own reckonings and calculations appear to me later on as separate colored pieces of different shapes in the game which is called casse-tete (puzzles). I gather them together and try to match them one after the other, and at the end there always comes out a geometrical whole... Most assuredly it is not I who do it all, but my Ego, the highest principle which lives in me. And even this with the help of my Guru and teacher who helps me in everything. If I happen to forget something I have just to address him, or another of the same kind, in my thought, and what I have forgotten rises once more before my eyes -sometimes whole tables of numbers passing before me, long inventories of events. They remember everything. They know everything. Without them, from whence could I gather my knowledge?" Soon after the appearance of Isis Unveiled H.P.B. received invitations to write in all sorts of newspapers. This greatly amused her, and she wrote to Madame Jelihovsky: "Its lucky for me that I am not vain, and besides as a matter of fact I have hardly any time to write much in other peoples publications for money... Our work is growing. I must work, must write and write, provided that I can find publishers for my writings. Would you believe that so long as I write I am all the time under the impression that I write rubbish and nonsense which no one will ever be able to understand? Then it is printed and then the

acclamations begin. People reprint it, are in ecstasies. I often wonder: can it be that they are all asses to be in such ecstasies? Well, if I could write in Russian and be praised by my own people, then perhaps I should believe that I am a credit to my ancestors, Counts Hahn Hahn von der Rothenhahn of blissful memory." H.P.B. often told her relatives that she took no authors pride in the writing of Isis Unveiled; that she did not know in the least what she was writing about; that she was ordered to sit down and write, and that her only merit lay in obeying the order. Her only fear was that she would be unable to describe properly what was shown to her in beautiful pictures. She wrote to her sister: "You do not believe that I tell you Gods truth about my Masters. You consider them to be mythical; but is it possible that it is not clear to you that I, without their help, could not have written about Byron and grave matters, as Uncle Roster says? What do we know, you and I, about metaphysics, ancient philosophies and religions, about psychology and various other puzzles? Did we not learn together, with the only difference that you did your lessons better? And now look at what I am writing about, and people -- such people, too, professors, scientists -- read and praise! Open Isis wherever you like and decide for yourself. As to myself I speak the truth: Master narrates and shows all this to me. Before me pass pictures, ancient manuscripts, dates -- all I have to do is to copy, and I write so easily that it is no labor at all, but the greatest pleasure." (But the ancient manuscripts to which H.P.B. refers were not only seen by psychic means. Hodgson, the great self-exposer of the S.P.R., discovered a page of a mysterious and ancient manuscript at Adyar. This was proof to him, as it was written in cypher, that she was a Russian spy. It was from a page of a Senzar manuscript, lost by H.P.B. and deeply lamented as lost!) In another letter of about the same date, H.P.B. wrote her sister: "Do not believe that Theosophy contradicts or, much less, destroys Christianity. It only destroys the tares, but not the seed of truth: prejudice, blasphemous superstitions, Jesuitical bigotry ... We respect mens freedom of conscience and their spiritual yearnings far too much to touch religious principles with our propaganda. Every human being who respects himself and thinks has a holy of holies of his own, for which we Theosophists ask respect. Our business concerns philosophy, morals, and science alone. We ask for truth in everything; our object is the realization of the spiritual perfectability possible to man: the broadening of his knowledge, the exercising of the powers of his soul, of all the psychical sides of his being. Our theosophical brotherhood must strive after the ideal of general brotherhood throughout all humanity; after the establishment of universal peace and the strengthening of charity and disinterestedness; after the destruction of materialism, of that coarse unbelief and egotism which saps the vitality of our country."

III.
The following letter was written before the foundation of the Theosophical Society. A somewhat inaccurate translation appeared in Mr. Sinnetts Incidents in the Life of Madame

Blavatsky, but as some additions were made to the original it is interesting to see what was actually written by H.P.B. at such an early date. "The more I see of spiritist seances in this cradle and hotbed of Spiritism and mediums, the more clearly I see how dangerous they are for humanity. Poets speak of a thin partition between the two worlds. There is no partition whatever. Blind people have imagined obstacles of this kind because coarse organs of hearing, sight, and feeling do not allow the majority of people to penetrate the difference of being. Besides, Mother-Nature has done well in endowing us with coarse senses, for otherwise the individuality and personality of man would become impossible, because the dead would be continually mixing with the living, and the living would assimilate themselves with the dead. It would not be so bad if there were around us only spirits of the same kind as ourselves, the half-spiritual refuse of mortals who died without having reconciled themselves to the great necessity of death. Then we might submit to the inevitable. One way or another, we cannot help identifying ourselves physically and in a perfectly unconscious way with the dead, absorbing the constituent atoms of what lived before us: with every breath we inhale them, and breathe out that which nourishes the formless creatures, elementals floating in the air in the expectation of being transformed into living beings. This is not only a physical process, but partly a moral one. We assimilate those who preceded us, gradually absorbing their brainmolecules and exchanging mental auras -- which means thoughts, desires, and tendencies. This is an interchange common to the entire human race and to all that lives. A natural process, an outcome of the laws of the economy of nature... It explains similarities, external and moral... But there exists another absolute law, which manifests itself periodically and sporadically: this is a law, as it were, of artificial and compulsory assimilation. During epidemics of this kind the kingdom of the dead invades the region of the living, though fortunately this kind of refuse are bound by the ties of their former surroundings. And so, when evoked by mediums, they cannot break through the limits and boundaries in which they acted and lived... And the wider the doors are opened to them the further the necromantic epidemic is spread; the more unanimous the mediums and the spiritists in spreading the magnetic fluid of their evocations, the more power and vitality are acquired by the glamour." Madame Jelihovsky says that "Helena Petrovna described many seances in terms of horror in consequence of the sights she was enabled to see as a result of her clairvoyance. She saw details hidden from the others present: perfect invasions of hosts of soulless remains of mortals, woven of fleshly passions, of evil thoughts, of vicious feelings which had outlived the body". And H.P.B. wrote: "It stands to reason that this mere earthly refuse, irresistibly drawn to the earth, cannot follow the soul and spirit -- these highest principles of mans being. With horror and disgust I often observed how a reanimated shadow of this kind separated itself from the inside of the medium; how, separating itself from his astral body and clad in someone elses vesture, it pretended to be someones relation, causing the person to go into ecstasies and making people open wide their hearts and their embraces to these shadows whom they sincerely believed to be their dear fathers and brothers, resuscitated to convince them of life eternal, as well as to see them... Oh, if they only knew the truth, if they only believed! If they saw, as I have often seen, a monstrous, bodiless creature seizing hold of someone

present at these spiritistic sorceries! It wraps the man as if with a black shroud, and slowly disappears in him as if drawn into his body by each of his living pores." In the year 1878, or thereabouts, a defence of modern Spiritualism was brought out by Alfred Russell Wallace. This greatly pleased H.P.B., who wrote on the subject to her sister: "See how cleverly he proves how mistaken people are who say that we propagate ancient prejudices and superstitions; how he proves that a body of people who preach the study of mans nature, who teach the acquirement of eternal bliss as a consequence of attaining the full perfection of their moral and spiritual powers, is the chiefest enemy, not only of gross materialism, but also of all kinds of silly bigotry and myth-worship. Spiritualism is an experimental science; its development -- which is the object of the Theosophical Society (1) -- will make it possible to find a foundation for a true philosophy. There is only one truth, and it is higher than anything else. Theosophy is bound to destroy such meaningless expressions as a miracle or the supernatural. In nature everything is natural, but everything is not known; and yet there is nothing more miraculous than her powers, hidden as well as revealed. Spiritualism, meaning the spiritual powers of man and the deeper knowledge of the psychical aspects of life, which we Theosophists preach, will cure the old evils of religious quarrels, owing to which the faith of man in the primitive truths of immortality and repayment according to deserts is disappearing. Wallace speaks the truth when he says that Spiritualism well deserves the sympathy of moralists, philosophers, even of politicians and of everyone who desires the perfecting of our society and our life." H.P.B. did not spare herself when portraying the humorous side of her surroundings. The American Phrenological Society wrote and asked for her portrait and for a cast of her head, and Professor Buchanan, the phrenologist and psychometer, called on her for an interview. She describes the incident in writing to Madame Jelihovsky: "And so this poor victim (victim in view of his awful task) was sent to me -- a phrenological occultist, who came in the company of a huge bouquet (as if I were a prima donna!) and with three trunk-loads of compliments. He fingered my head and fingered it again; he turned it on one side and then on the other. He snorted over me -- snorted like a steam-engine, until we both began to sweat. And at last he spat in disgust. Do you call this a head?, he says; Its no head at all, but a ball of contradictions. On this head, he says, there is an endless war of most conflicting bumps; all Turks and Montenegrins. (2) I cant make anything of this chaos of impossibilities and confusion of Babel. Here, for instance, he says, poking my skull with his finger, is a bump of the most ardent faith and power of belief, and here, side by side with it, the bump of scepticism, pessimism, and incredulity, proudly swelling itself. And now, if you please, here is the bump of sincerity for you, walking hand in hand with the bump of hypocrisy and cunning. The bump of domesticity and love for your country boxes the ears of the bump of wandering and love of change. And do you mean to say you take this to be a respectable head? he asked. He seized himself by the hair, and in his despair pulled a considerable lock from his own respectable head, answering to the highest standards of phrenology... But all the same he described, drew, and published my poor head for the amusement of the hundred thousand subscribers to the Phrenological Journal. Alas, alas, heavy is the crown of Monomach! (3) The aureola of my own greatness, acquired so undeservedly, is simply crushing me. Here, I send you a

copy of my poor head, which you are requested to swallow without any sauce. A hundred thousand Yankees are going to feast upon it, and so I am certainly going to save a bit for my own blood!" "Now listen to this, little brothers", she writes in her next letter, "I am sending you a great curio. Examine it, wonder at it, and improve by it. The Freemasons of England, whose Grand-Master is the Prince of Wales, have sent me a diploma, which means to say that I am raised to a high Masonic dignity, and so my title is Mysterious Freemason. Ah me! next I shall probably be elected Pope of Rome for my virtues. The decoration they sent me is very beautiful: a ruby cross and a rose. I send you the cutting from the Masonic Journal." Many honors were showered upon H.P.B. as a result of the publication of Isis Unveiled. A very ancient Society in Benares, founded before the beginning of the Christian era, called the Sat-Bai, sent her a diploma in Sanskrit, decorated with many symbols. It is remarkable that in this diploma Helena Petrovna is alluded to as a "Brother of the female sex". "Henceforward our brother Rad is entitled, owing to his great knowledge, to power over the inferior grades of ministers, couriers, listeners, scribes, and the dumb ones." H.P.B. also received a very ancient copy of the Bhagavad-Gita, in a mother-of-pearl and gold binding, from an Indian Prince. At the approach of the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-1878, H.P.B. wrote many articles against the Roman Catholics, because the Pope had blessed the weapons of the Turks. These articles she signed "A Russian Woman". They created such a stir that Cardinal McCloskey sent his Jesuit secretary to her, under the pretext of making the acquaintance of "such a remarkable woman, and pioneer thinker, who knew how to shake off the prejudice of patriotism and to create for herself an independent position in an independent country". In February, 1877, she wrote to her sister: "I told him his endeavors were in vain; that whatever I personally, as a Theosophist, might believe was no business of his at all; that the faith of my Russian fathers was sacred to me; that I shall always stand up for this faith and for Russia, and shall always write against the attacks of the hypocritical Catholics upon them as long as my hand can hold a pen, and without letting myself be frightened by the threats of their Pope or the wrath of their Roman Church, the Great Beast of the Apocalypse!" The result of this visit was a new article by her against the head of the Western Christian Church, who blessed Musselmans that they might the better kill Christians, Slavs, and Russians. Soon after this move Mme. Jelihovsky received newspaper cuttings containing the report of H.P.B.s real fight -- but this time not with an ecclesiastic, but with a propagator of materialistic views, of European renown. She writes to her sister in her usual humorous way: "I send you, friends, one more article of mine, which received by no means small honors here and was reprinted by several New York papers. This is the way it happened: the London scientist Huxley has been visiting here, the progenitor of protoplasm and highpriest of psychophobia, as I have surnamed him. He delivered three lectures. At the first, he made short work of Moses and abolished the whole of the Old Testament, declaring to the public that man is nothing but the great-grandson of a frog of the Silurian period. At the second he beat everyone, like a new Kit Kitich. (4) You are all fools, he says, you

dont understand anything... Here is the four-toed foot of Hipparion, the antediluvian horse, for you, from which it is evident that we, five-toed men, are closely related to it as well, through our origin. There is an insult for you! But at the third lecture our wise psychophob tried to sing it altogether too high, and so started telling fibs. Listen to me, he says, I have looked into the telescopes, I have whistled under the clouds in balloons, I have looked out for God everywhere with great zeal; and nowhere, in spite of all my researches, did I see or meet him! Ergo -- there is no God and there never was any such! It was worth these peoples while paying him $5,000 for three lectures of this sort of logic. Also, he says, the human soul... where is it now? Show it to me as I can show you the heart and the rest of the inwards. Anima Muni, ether, Archos of Plato... I have searched for the soul with the aid of spy-glasses and microscopes; I have observed the dying and anatomized the dead, but upon my word of honor, there is no trace of it anywhere! It is all a lie of the spiritists and the spiritualists. Dont you, he says, believe them. I felt awfully sorry at all this. So sorry as even to be angry. So I thought to myself, let me go and write an article against this self-willed, self-opinionated Kit Kitich. And what do you think? I have written it. And it came out not at all so bad, as you can see by the enclosed copy. Needless to say, I immediately took this article, sealed it, and sent it through our corresponding members to London, to be delivered to Huxley with my most earnest compliments." H.P.B. was compelled for various reasons to become an American citizen. This troubled her considerably, as, like all Russians, she was passionately devoted to her country. She wrote to Madame Fadeef: "My dearest, I write to you because otherwise I would burst with a strange feeling which is positively suffocating me. It is the 8th of July to-day, an ominous day for me, but God only knows whether the omen is good or bad. To-day it is exactly five years and one day since I came to America, and this moment I have just returned from the Supreme Court where I gave my oath of allegiance to the American Republic and Constitution. Now for a whole hour I have been a citizen with equal rights to the President himself. So far so good: the workings of my original destiny have forced me into this naturalization, but to my utter astonishment and disgust I was compelled to repeat publicly after the judge, like a mere parrot, the following tirade: that I would renounce all obedience to the powers established by him and the government of Russia, and that I would accept the duty to defend, love, and serve the Constitution of the United States alone. So help me God in whom I believe! I was awfully scared when pronouncing this blackguardly recantation of Russia and the emperor. And so I am not only an apostate to our beloved Russian Church, but a political renegade. A nice scrape to get into, but how am I to manage to no longer love Russia or respect the emperor? It is easier to say a thing than to act accordingly."

Endnotes
(1) At this time a wide distinction was drawn between "Spiritualism" and "Spiritism". It will be seen from H.P.B.s own definition that she was not speaking of "Spookology" as the object of the Theosophical Society. (2) This was during the war in 1877.

(3) The coronation crown of Russia; this was said by one of the Tsars. (4) Kit Kitich, or in Academic Russian Tit Titich, is a stage character whose favorite saying is: "Who can beat Kit Kitich when Kit Kitich will beat everyone first?" He has long become the synonym of a bully, a petty, self-willed, domestic tyrant. The popular Russian dialect quite unconsciously transforms "Titus, the son of Titus" (Tit Titich) into "the Whale, the son of the Whale" ("Kit" means "whale" in Russian); and H.P.B. used this unconscious pun to make fun of the biological evolutionist who claimed to be, in some sense, the son of the whale, and whose doctrine she found to be "very like a whale", too. But a pun, unlike a bishop, loses by translation.

IV.
In a letter to Madame Jelihovsky: "I have not written to you for a month, my well-beloved friend, and could you guess the cause of it? One beautiful Tuesday morning in April I got up as usual, and as usual sat down at my writing table to write to my California correspondents. Suddenly, hardly a second later, as it seemed to me, I realized that for some mysterious reason I was in my bed-room and lying on my bed; it being evening and not morning any more. Around me I saw some of our Theosophists and Doctors looking at me with the most puzzled faces, and Olcott and his sister Mrs. Mitchell -- the best friend I have here, both of them pale, sour, wrinkled, as if they had just been boiled in a sauce-pan. Whats the matter? Whats gone and happened?, I asked them. Instead of answering, they heaped questions upon me: what was the matter with me? And how could I tell -- nothing was the matter with me. I did not remember anything, but it certainly was strange that only the other moment it was Tuesday morning, and now they said it was Saturday evening; and as to me, these four days of unconsciousness seemed only the twinkling of an eye. Theres a pretty pair of shoes! Just fancy, they all thought I was dead and were about to burn this dismantled temple of mine. But at this, Master telegraphed from Bombay to Olcott: Dont be afraid. She is not ill but resting. She had overworked herself. Her body wanted rest, but now she will be well. Master was right. He knows everything, and in fact I was perfectly healthy. The only thing was I did not remember anything. I got up, stretched myself, sent them all out of the room, and sat down to write the same evening. But it is simply awful to think about the work that has accumulated. I could not give a thought to letters." Then from India, describing her arrival: "Olcott was exactly like Carnival Bauf Gras; Miss B. like a pole covered with convolvulus; W. like a bed of lilies and roses; and I myself probably like a huge balloon woven of flowers. I was ready either to laugh or to be angry. They placed us in a boat, and we were taken to the landing-stage amidst the sounds of music, where we ran up against a new solemnity: we were met by a band of local, half-naked dancing girls, who surrounded us chanting their mantra, and led us in state -- all the time bombarding us with flowers -- to a -- maybe you think to a carriage? Not at all, to a white elephant! Good Lord, the effort it

cost me to climb over the hands and backs of naked coolies to the top of this huge animal. It still puzzles me to know how I managed not to drop out of the howdah where Olcott and I were put, especially when the elephant was rising to his feet. The others were placed in palanquins, and lo! to the accompaniment of acclamations, tamborines, horns, with all sorts of theatrical pomp, singing, and a general row, they carried us -- humble slaves of God -- to the house of the Arya Somaj." In a letter to Madame Fadeef, dated November, 1879, H.P.B. writes: "Would you like to get acquainted with the programme of my inevitable monthly work? If so, here you are: first to see to the accuracy of every article for the next number of the Theosophist; second, to see to the translation of from two to four articles in Sanskrit or the Indian vernaculars into English; thirdly, to personally write the leader and some other signed article; fourthly, to examine all the mystical articles to prevent Olcott and other coworkers from mixing things up and from over-salting these contributions; fifthly, to correct proofs, sometimes five times running; sixthly, to answer some three or four dozen letters addressed to the Corresponding Secretary of the Theosophical Society; seventhly, to thank people who send us books for our library from all points of the compass, and to acknowledge their receipt; eighthly, to answer a few dozen private letters; ninthly, to write two or three periodical articles for the American and Indian newspapers; tenthly, to be present at the initiation of the new members, to enter their names, and to give them their diplomas by the dozen and more; eleventh, to enter the new subscribers; twelfth, to skim through about forty magazines and newspapers; thirteenth, to receive visitors every evening -- as many as the hall will hold -- all kinds of Brahmans, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis, Mussulmans, and Europeans, who come for scientific purposes, and with whom I have to discuss philosophy and metaphysics up to eleven oclock at night; fourteenth, and above all these I sometimes have additional work to do: for instance, to post six hundred and fifty invitation cards -- one of which I send to you, as you are one of our members -- for a great ceremony which is to be held to-morrow evening, the 29th of November, in honor of the fifth anniversary of the Society (1879), of the opening of our library and the publishing of our magazine the Theosophist. You can easily imagine the pleasure of getting oneself up regardless in this heat; of hanging oneself over with every kind of medal, sign, and the ribbons of different Societies, and to smile at six-hundred and fifty naked, half-naked, muslin-clad and evening dressed Brother-Theosophists. Thank God I am going away at the beginning of December to Allahabad, with a deputation of Rao-Bahadurs, which means Great Warriors. I am going there with a double object, first to see Swami Dayanand, second, to get acquainted with the wife of the Resident. I have promised the Sinnetts to spend some time with them. A prospect of calls, dinners, and balls in high life. My hair stands on end at the very thought of it, but it must be done. I have warned Mrs. Sinnett that I, though not a Russian spy but an American citizen, will not listen to a single word of disrespect to Russia or to our Emperor. Just let them try, and how I will abuse their England! So let them be warned." H.P.B.s position as an exponent of true mysticism was recognized in India. Lord Lytton, the Governor General and the son of the author of Zanoni, said of her: "I know only of one author who can hold her own in mystical literature with my father. It is H. P. Blavatsky. She can well stand comparison with the author of Zanoni in her comprehension of abstract

metaphysics." The remark was reported in the Indian newspapers, and H.P.B. wrote to her sister: "And so now I have become the lion of the day. I am proclaimed to be a deep orientalist, a friend of science, a herald of truth which has been enslaved by centuries of prejudice. Read the newspaper cuttings which I send to you, and glory in your relation being glorified by the nations!" In another letter: "From Simla I wrote an article for the Novoe Vremya, The Truth about the Nephew of Nana Sahib. I have gathered the most elaborate information about this scamp. Golos constantly prints letters written by this liar, as if to incite England to make war on Russia. And Novoe Vremya disdained to print my note. For what reason? Besides being true, it is written as a free contribution. One would think they might have believed in the good intention of a countrywoman of theirs, of a Russian who is at the very source of the information about this self-proclaimed and false ally of Russia -- this Prince Ramchandra. His biography -- perfectly false -- has appeared in the June number of the Russian Herald, 1889. And his letters from Bagdad and Cabul, printed in Golos, amuse and needlessly irritate everyone here who knows the truth of the matter. (1) . . . Whilst in Simla Olcott and Sinnett, nearly dragging me by force, made me visit Sir A. Lyall, Chief-Secretary for Foreign Affairs; also dine with the Viceroy, and in fact go to all kinds of aristocratic gatherings; and everywhere I had to quarrel so much for Russias sake that I got a sore throat and am sick of them all! And yet our papers wont print my articles!" In spite of the lack of courtesy on the part of the Russian newspapers in regard to herself, H.P.B. always subscribed to many Russian magazines and papers, and having no time to read these during the day, she robbed herself of sleep during the short five or six hours of her nightly rest, in order to know what was going on in her own country. The arrival of one of these newspapers gave rise to the following psychometric experience in the autumn of 1880. Writing to Madame Fadeef, H.P.B. expressed her gratitude for a parcel of newspapers she had sent her: "And what an interesting thing happened to me not long since. I received your bundle of Novoe Vremyas and went to bed a little after ten (you know I get up at five). Having taken up one of the newspapers, without choosing, just the nearest one, I stretched myself and went deep into thought about a certain Sanskrit book which I thought would help me to make good fun of Max Muller in my magazine. So you see it was by no means about you that I was thinking. And the newspaper lay all the time behind my head on the pillow, partly covering my forehead. When all of a sudden I felt myself transported into some strange and yet familiar house. The room I saw was new to me, but the table in the middle of it an old acquaintance. And there, sitting at the table, I saw you -- you, my darling comrade, sitting smoking your cigarette and deeply thinking . The supper was laid on the table, but there was no one else in the room. Only it seemed to me that I caught a glimpse of Aunt going away through the door. Then you raised your hand and, taking a newspaper from the table, put it aside. I had just time to read its heading, Herald of Odessa, after which everything disappeared. To all seeming there was nothing strange in this occurrence,

but here is something strange: I was perfectly sure that it was a number of the Novoe Vremya that I had taken up, and having noticed in my vision some slices of black bread beside you, I was suddenly seized with such a desire to taste some of it -- even a wee crumb -- that I felt its taste in my mouth. I thought to myself, What does it all mean? What can be the cause of such fancy? And in order to get rid of a desire that could not be gratified, I unfolded the newspaper and began to read. When lo! it actually was the Herald of Odessa, and not at all the Novoe Vremya in my hands. And, moreover, crumbs of my longed-for rye-bread were sticking to it! And so these fragments on touching my forehead transmitted to my consciousness the whole scene as it probably happened at the precise moment of their sticking to the newspaper. In this case, crumbs of rye-bread have taken the place of a photographic apparatus. These dry pieces of bread gave me such intense delight, having transported me for a brief moment to you. I was quite filled with the atmosphere of home, and in my joy I licked up the biggest crumb, and as to the small ones -- here they are, I have cut them out as they stuck to the paper and send them back to you. Let them return home with some of my own soul. This may be rather a silly proceeding, but perfectly sincere."

Endnote
(1) This extract is interesting as showing that whilst Mr. Hodgson was quite sure (among other things) that H.P.B. was a Russian spy, her own countrymen would not trust her politically because she was an American citizen and a resident in India.

V.
H.P.B. was exceedingly ill in the early part of 1881, and all the doctors agreed that she would have to be cauterized in the back. She tried to keep out bed in spite of it, though her back was in terrible condition; but whether in bed or out of it she kept continually at work. She wrote in momentary despair: "Oh God! what a misery it is to live and to feel. Oh, if it were possible to plunge into Nirvana! What an irresistible fascination there is in the idea of eternal rest! Oh, my darlings, only to see you once more, and to know that my death would not give you too much sorrow." In many of her following letters she showed she was ashamed of this little weakness. Her convictions were too deep, says Madame Jelihovsky; she knew too well that even in death it is not everyone who realizes the longed-for-rest. She despised and dreaded the very thought of a willful shortening of suffering, seeing in it a law of retribution the breaking of which brings about only worse suffering both before and after death. In case H.P.B. should suddenly be taken ill, she always left instructions with Col. Olcott, or one of her secretaries, to inform her family of the fact. On this occasion they were greatly astonished, not long after hearing of her suffering, to learn in the beginning of August, 1881, that she had suddenly started for Simla in northern India, on her way further north. From Meerut she informed her family in her own handwriting that she was ordered to leave the railways and other highways, and to be guided by a man who was sent to her for the purpose, into the

jungles of the sacred forest "Deo-Bund"; that there she was to meet a certain great Lama, Debodurgai, who would meet her there on his way back to Tibet from a pilgrimage to the tree of Buddha, and who was sure to cure her. She writes: "I was unconscious. I do not remember in the least how they carried me to a great height in the dead of night. But I woke up, or rather came back to my senses, on the following day towards evening. I was lying in the middle of a huge and perfectly empty room, built of stone. All round the walls were carved stone statues of Buddha. Around me were some kind of smoking chemicals, boiling in pots, and standing over me the Lama Debodurgai was making magnetic passes." Her chronic disease was much relieved by this treatment, but on her way back she caught a severe rheumatic fever. Her illness was in no slight measure due to her distress at the murder of the Tsar Alexander II. On hearing of the Emperors death she wrote to Madame Jelihovsky: "Good heavens, what is this new horror? Has the last day fallen upon Russia? Or has Satan entered the offspring of our Russian land? Have they all gone mad, the wretched Russian people? What will be the end of it all, what are we to expect from the future? Oh God! people may say, if they choose, that I am an Atheist, a Buddhist, a renegade, a citizen of a Republic, but the bitterness I feel! How sorry I am for the Imperial family, for the Tsar martyr, for the whole of Russia. I abhor, I despise and utterly repudiate these sneaking monsters -- Terrorists. Let every one laugh at me if they choose, but the martyr-like death of our sovereign Tsar makes me feel -- though I am an American citizen -- such compassion, such anguish, and such shame that in the very heart of Russia people could not feel this anger and sorrow more strongly." H.P.B. was very pleased that the Pioneer printed her article on the Tsar, and wrote to her sister about it: "I have put into it all I could possibly remember; and just fancy, they have not cut out a single word, and some other newspapers reprinted it! But all the same, the first time they saw me in mourning many of them asked me, What do you mean by this? Arent you an American? I got so cross that I have sent a kind of general reply to the Bombay Gazette: not as a Russian subject am I clothed in mourning (I have written to them), but as a Russian by birth, as one of many millions whose benefactor has been this kindly, compassionate man now lamented by the whole of my country. By this act I desire to show respect, love, and sincere sorrow at the death of the sovereign of my mother and my father, of my sisters and brothers in Russia. Writing in this way silenced them, but before this two or three newspapers thought it was a good opportunity to chaff the office of the Theosophist and the Theosophist itself for going into mourning. Well, now they know the reason and can go to the devil!" On being sent a portrait of the dead Emperor in his coffin, H.P.B. wrote to Madame Fadeef on the 10th of May, 1881:

"Would you believe it, the moment I glanced at it something went wrong in my head; something uncontrollable vibrated in me, impelling me to cross myself with the big Russian cross, dropping my head on his dead hand. So sudden it all was that I felt stupified with astonishment. Is it really I who during eight years since the death of father never thought of crossing myself, and then suddenly giving way to such sentimentality? Its a real calamity: fancy that even now I cannot read Russian newspapers with any sort of composure! I have become a regular and perpetual fountain of tears; my nerves have become worse than useless." In another letter to Madame Fadeef, dated 7th March, 1883, H.P.B. shows how perfectly she was aware of what was taking place in her own family, and how strong her clairvoyance was, mentioning amongst other things a conversation between her two aunts that had taken place on the day on which she wrote from India: "Why does Auntie allow her spirits to get so depressed? Why did she refuse to send a telegram to B. [her son] to congratulate him when he received the decoration of St. Anne? No occasion for it; a great boon indeed!, she said, did she not?" And in another letter she reproaches Madame Fadeef: "You never mention in your letters to me anything that happens in the family. I have to find out about everything through myself, and this requires a needless expenditure of strength." Madame Fadeef was a subscriber to the Bulletin Mensuel de la Societe Theosophique, published in Paris, but frequently did not read it until long after it had been received by her. On the 23d March, 1883, H.P.B. wrote to her asking her to pay especial attention to the ninth page of the number issued in Paris on the 15th March. This issue had been received by Madame Fadeef some time previously, and on looking at the uncut number, at H.P.B.s suggestion, she found that on the page mentioned by H.P.B. there was a large mark in blue pencil as it seemed. The passage so marked referred to the prophecy of the Saint Simonists that in 1831 a woman would be born who would reconcile the beliefs of the extreme East with the Christian beliefs of the West, and would be the founder of a Society which would create a great change in the minds of men.

VI.
By the end of 1883 H.P.B. had resolved to go to Europe. Just about this time the members of her family in Odessa were in great trouble. General R. A. Fadeef, the brother of H.P.B.s mother, was dying. They were all of them so overcome by sorrow and by continual watching over him, whilst on the other hand they knew of H.P.B.s intention to start for Europe, that for a long time not one of them wrote to her. Only a few days after the funeral they thought of informing her about their common misfortune. But their letters reached Madras when H.P.B. had already left that city, and were sent back to Europe after her departure. Meanwhile she spent some time in Bombay and let her family know that on the

7th of February, 1884, she had arranged to embark on board the "Chundernagore". She wrote: "I am starting depressed by a terrible foreboding. Either uncle is dead or I am off my head. The night before our leaving Adyar I dreamed of a scene which happened exactly twenty years ago in Tiflis, in 1864, when I was so ill, as you remember. I was lying on a sofa in the hall dozing, and on opening my eyes I saw Uncle bending over me with so much sadness and pity in his face that I jumped to my feet and actually burst into tears, just as I have done when this scene repeated itself all over again in dream. And about five days ago, in a railway carriage, I was alone in the compartment at about two oclock a.m. I was lying down but not sleeping, when suddenly between me and the window through which the moon shone very brightly, I saw someone standing. The lamp was covered, but all the same I recognized him at once. It was Uncle, pale, thin, dishevelled. Lord, how I started forward, and then heard in answer to my cry his voice as if vanishing in the air, Farewell to you, Helena Petrova and then everything disappeared. I refused to believe myself. My heart was breaking: I felt I was to believe, but tried not to do so. And then a third time, again when awake: I was not asleep, having great pain in my leg, but shut my eyes in the effort to doze. Half-lying in an arm-chair, I saw him once more before me. But this time as he formerly used to be, twenty years ago. He was looking at me with an amused twinkle in his eyes as he used to do. Well, he says, and so we have met once more. Uncle, I cried, Uncle, for goodness sake tell me you are alive! I am alive, he answered, more than at any other time before, and I am shielded from suffering. Do not give way to sadness, but write to them not to make themselves wretched. I have seen father and all of them, all of them. The last words sounded as if going away, becoming less and less audible, and his very outline became more transparent and at last disappeared altogether. Then I knew for certain he was no more in this world. I knew he was ill all this time, but it is so long since I heard from you. But then he chose to come personally and say good-bye to me. Not a single tear in my eyes, but a heavy stone in my heart. The worst of it is that I do not know anything for certain." H.P.B. got her mail at Suez, and only then learned from the newspapers and her relations letters that she had been perfectly right. H.P.B. stayed in Nice with the Countess of Caithness before going on to London. Whilst there, she received numerous invitations to stop with people in England, and replied to these letters in a sort of circular. It reads as follows (translated from the Russian): "Having received the cordial invitations of ... and others, I am deeply touched with this proof of the desire to see and to make the acquaintance of my unworthy self on the part of both new and old friends in England. But I do not foresee for myself any possibility of struggling with my fate. I am ill, and feel myself to be much worse than in Bombay and even more so than in the open sea. In Marseilles I spent a whole day in bed, and am still in bed, feeling as if I were on the point of breaking into pieces like an old sea-biscuit. All that I hope to be able to do is to mend my weighty person with medicines and will-power, and then drag this ruin overland to Paris. And what would be the use of my going to London? What good could I do to you in the midst of your fogs mixed up with the poisonous evaporations of the higher civilization? I have left Madras a mon corps defendant; I

should not have gone at all if I had not been compelled to make up my mind on account of my illness and the orders of the Master... I feel sick and cross and wretched, and gladly would I return to Adyar if I could... Lady Caithness is an incarnation of all that is good: she does everything possible to rest me and to make me comfortable. I must wait here till the weather is more settled. When the March winds are over I shall go to Paris to meet the delegates of the European Branches of the T.S., but I very much fear it will be torture for me. Am I fit for such civilized people as you all are? But in seven minutes and a quarter I should become perfectly unbearable to you English people if I were to transport to London my huge, ugly person. I assure you that distance adds to my beauty, which I should soon lose if near at hand. Do you think I could listen with equanimity to discussions about Sankaracharya being a Theist, and that Subba Row does not know what he is talking about; or to still more striking statements about Raj Yogis, to the crippling of the Buddhist and Adwaita teachings even in their exoteric interpretations? No doubt as a result of all these trials I should burst a blood-vessel. Let me die in peace if it is not given to me to go back to my familiar Lares and Penates in my dear Adyar!" H.P.B. dispatched letters daily to Odessa, where at that time both her aunts and her sisters lived, imploring them not to deprive her of a last meeting with them on this earth, with all the passion she always felt in regard to her family. It was like the affection of a child. "My dear, my sweet one, dont you bother about money. What is money? Let it be switched! Katkoff is bombarding me with telegrams. One of them was sent to me here by post from Madras. Twenty-nine words! I expect it cost him at least 500 francs, and when I wrote to him from here he sent another asking for my articles. He must be wanting them badly if he asks for them at such cost. So we shall have money. I expect you must have been greatly impressed with all the flatteringly magnificent articles about me in the newspapers, in the Pall Mall and others. They praise me entirely out of all proportion. In spite of all my uncouth and far from presentable figures with my swollen legs, I am getting to be a la mode! Reporters from all parts simply give me no rest. Next from Paris in 1884: "If for no other reason, come for the sake of the fun and see how I am worshipped as a kind of idol; how in spite of my tearful protests all sorts of Duchesses, Countesses, and Miladies of Albion kiss my hands, calling me their saviour who has torn them from the abyss of Materialism, unbelief and despair sic! You will see for yourself how they carry on about me... You will probably go to at least one of the meetings, to one of the Seances Philosophiques de la Societe Theosophique dOrient et dOccident in the princely halls of the Duchesse de Pomar. You shall see there the elite de la societe et de lintelligence de Paris. Renan, Flammarion, Madame Adam, and lots of the aristocracy from the Faubourg St. Germain... And besides, we really do not want any of them at all, but for Gods sake do not always change your mind: do not kill me. Give me this greatest and only happiness in the end of my life. I am waiting and waiting and waiting for you, my own ones, with an impatience of which you can have no idea... I have run away from my cosmopolitan friends and interviewers, and other prying torturers, leaving Paris for a few days for Anghein, Villa Croisac, belonging to my dear friends Count and Countess dAdhemar. They are real friends, caring for me not only for the sake of phenomena

which be bothered. Here I have a whole enfilade of rooms at my own and at your service. But if you wish we can easily live in Paris, coming here only for a few days. The Countess is a charming woman: she has already prepared rooms for you, and insists upon your staying with her. Its only a quarter of an hour from Paris, past St. Denis, and the station is nearly at the entrance of the chateau. Dont be afraid of being in their way. Their house is a huge one. She is a very rich American, so nice and unpretentious. Her husband also, though a great aristocrat and a crusted legitimist, is very simple in his ways." In spite of this, Madame Fadeef and Madame Jelihovsky preferred to stay with H.P.B. in Paris, where they spent six weeks together. Many interesting things happened. Mr. W. Q. Judge was at that time staying in the same house with them. When the time came for the party to break up, H.P.B. started for London some two hours before her sister and aunt left for Russia. The latter accordingly saw her off at the Gare du Nord, with a large party of friends and acquaintances. To use Madame Jelihovskys own words: "H.P.B. was very unwell, being hardly able to move her swollen feet which gave her awful pain. Most probably I was not the only one to nourish angry thoughts against her all-powerful Mahatmas if they actually were so kind as described thinking that they might help her, relieving her suffering, were it only in part, now that she had a long trip and the sorrow of parting with us before her. As usual she stood up for them, assuring us that though they do not think it a good thing to relieve peoples suffering (the latter being the lawful reaction on each separate person), yet her own particular Master had often helped her, saving her from mortal illness. I walked, supporting her under the arm, to the platform, when suddenly she drew herself up, and glancing over her shoulder exclaimed: What is that? Who touched me on the shoulder? Did you see a hand? No one had seen any hand, and we all stared at each other in astonishment. But how great was our surprise when Helena Petrovna smiled, and, pushing my arm aside, walked ahead firmly and briskly as I had never lately seen her do. So now, she said, this is an answer to you, Vera; you have been abusing them for their lack of desire to help me, and this moment I saw the hand of the Master. Look how I walk now. And in fact she walked all the time on the platform, quickly and quite easily. Though she had to change the railway carriage twice, she got in and got out each time without visible effort, assuring us that her pain had entirely gone and that it was long since she had felt herself so well physically."

VII.
A few days after leaving Paris H.P.B. wrote to Madame Fadeef from London, where she was staying with Miss Arundale: "My dear, my precious Nadeja Andreevna! For many years I have not cried, but now I have cried out all my tears on losing sight of you two. I thought my heart would burst, I felt so faint. Happily, some kindly French people in the same compartment as myself brought me some water at the next station and took care of me as best they could. At Boulogne Olcott came to meet me, and was nearly ready to cry himself on seeing how ill I was. He was also greatly put out by the thought that you and Vera might think him heartless for not having come to fetch me in Paris. But the poor old body never knew I was so unwell. You know I

am always shaky. I spent a night in Boulogne, and next morning five more of our Theosophists came from England to look after me. Amongst them two good friends, Captain B. and his sister Lady T. I was nearly carried to the steamer and off it again, and triumphantly brought to London. I can hardly breathe, but all the same we have a reception this evening, to which probably about fifty of our old acquaintances will come. English people in their totality are not fickle; they have lots of constancy and loyalty. At Charing Cross, Mohini and K. nearly frightened to death all kinds of English people by falling down before me as if I had been an idol. It made me positively angry, this tempting of providence. "My dear, this new parting from you is so bitter for me, and yet it is a consolation to have seen each other and to have learned to know each other better. I tell you, friend, life has nothing better than the consolation and happiness of the deep affection for things and people we have loved from childhood. This kind of thing can never die: it will have eternal life in eternity. Long, long after I had gone I saw you three together you, Vera, and Madame de Morsier. She writes me she was with you until the moment your train left. This woman has a good heart, for the sake of which we must forgive her moody temper." From London, between May and August, 1884: "I shall never get well here... Its not life I lead here, but a sort of mad turmoil from morning till night. Visitors, dinners, evening callers, and meetings every day. Our Olga N. assures me she feels a sort of adoration for me, and daily brings some of her friends to see me. She has already brought me the whole of celebrated London, except the great Minister Gladstone, who, according to the St. James Gazette, both fears and admires me is afraid of as much as he admires her! To my mind this is simply a kind of glamor... On the 21st July there was a meeting conversazione as they are called here in honor of Madame Blavatsky and Col. Olcott, held in the Princes Hall. At first they printed five hundred invitation cards, and then there was such a rush for them that they had to add nearly as many again. Madame N. wrote asking for two tickets in the name of our Ambassador, and personally brought the Ambassadors of France, Holland, Germany, Turkey, Prince H. of Roumania, and nearly the whole of the staff of her devoted friend Gladstone. Lastly, Hitrovo, our Consul General in Egypt, who came here on business... I leave it to your own imagination to fancy the following picture: a huge hall, ladies in low dresses, costumes de gala of all nations and I sitting in the place of honor, a kind of kingly throne out of a ballet performance, in my black velvet dress with a tail three yards long (which I hate), and Sinnett and Lord B. and Finch, the President of the London Lodge T.S., bringing and introducing to me, one by one, all who want to make my personal acquaintance. And of such there happened to be I am trying not to exaggerate about three hundred people. Just fancy, smiling and shaking hands with three hundred ladies and gentlemen during two hours. Oof!! Lord and Lady H. asked me to dine with them next day. After such an evening: just think of it! Cross, the Secretary for India, sat down beside me and complimented me to such an extent on the love of the Hindus for me that I simply got frightened: they might put a political coloring even on this! Besides all sorts of European notabilities, they introduced to me a heap of black and yellow Princes, Maori, Javanese, Malay I dont know who. Professor Crookes and his wife sat behind my arm-chair like a pair of adjutants, pointing out to me no end of their colleagues of the Royal Society,

celebrated savants in physics, astronomy, and all kinds of Dark Sciences. Now, darling, do you see, do you feel, the working of Karma? English Science, intelligence, and aristocracy paying honors to me which I do not deserve in the least. Master declared to me beforehand it would be so, and now I am perfectly miserable getting lots of visits and invitations, especially after Sinnetts speech in Princes Hall. He struck an attitude and began to oratorise: Ladies and gentlemen! Before you you see a woman who has accomplished a world-wide work. She alone thought out and executed a colossal plan, the creation of a whole army of cultured people whose duty it is to fight against Materialism and Atheism as much as against superstition and an ignorant interpretation of the teaching of Christ (that is to say, against the one hundred and thirty-seven sects, Shakers, Quakers, howling Salvationists revelling in darkness) which is the shame of the Christian world... Ladies and gentlemen of cultured England, behold the woman who has shown the world what can be accomplished by the power of will, steadfastly pursuing a certain aim, and by a strongly realized ideal. All alone, ill, without means, without patronage, without help of any kind, with the sole exception of Col. Olcott, her first convert and apostle, Madame Blavatsky has planned to unite into one intellectual whole a universal brotherhood of all nations and of all races. She has accomplished this undertaking; she has overcome animosity, calumny, the opposition of fanatics, and the indifference of ignorant people... Even our liberal Anglo-Indian government mistakenly arose against her humanitarian mission. But happily it realized its mistake and stopped in time. And so on and on in the same strain. The applause was deafening. I tried to blush for modestys sake, but got pale instead of want of air. I nearly fainted, for I am still very weak; though my legs from that moment in the railway station have stopped aching altogether. "What am I to do with all these letters, evidently intended to arouse my pity, from all these admirers who are so very much in love with me? Half of them I can answer only in thought. But amongst them are many whom I really love and pity, as for instance our poor Solovioff. Its not long since I have come to London, but I have already got two such pitiful letters. The only thing he asks of me is to care for him and not forget him. He says he has never loved anyone outside of his family as he loves poor old me. Also our dear J. D. Glinka: do you know what she has done? She has printed five hundred copies of the document and the letter of Prince Dondukoff clearing me from the calumny of Mdlle. Smirnoff, and has sent them to all who are doubtful about the matter... But, God bless my enemies! Now listen to a curious story: M. A. Hitrovo, our Consul in Egypt, called on me and asked me among other things: By the way, did you get our telegram, signed collectively by all the crew of the frigate Strelok? We sent from Suez to Port Said an expression of our gratitude to Radha Bai (1) for her kindly affection and remembrances of her compatriots. I listened silently without understanding a word. But dont you remember, he says, I, as Consul, had to see off the Ambassador to China, and so was on board the frigate which you m et in the Suez Canal. Only then I remembered. Dont you recollect I told you in Paris about a joke I played in Suez, on the 3d of March if I am not mistaken. Our steamer of the Messagerie had to tie up in order that a big Russian frigate might pass on its way to China. So I took my visiting-card and wrote on it, A Russian woman who during many years never saw a Russian face sends a hearty greeting and deep salutations and her wishes for a pleasant voyage to all the Russians, beginning with the Commander and the officers and ending with the Marines. God protect Russia and her Czar! signed Radha Bai. And on the other side I wrote my real name and my Adyar

address. We put this card into a tin box and flattened it. Then when the frigate was in line with us, Olcott very deftly threw the tin over into a group of officers and soldiers, and I shouted A letter to the Commander. It was handed to him immediately, and under our very eyes he read it out. All the officers took off their caps to me, waving them to my address, and the crew shouted Hurrah! I was awfully pleased. We were all very much amused by your invention, said Hitrovo, and very much touched by your note. The Ambassador and all the officers immediately agreed to wire you their gratitude to Port Said. And fancy, isnt it vexing, it was never delivered to me... I told Hitrovo I should insist upon its delivery, as a souvenir." Herr Gebhardt came to fetch H.P.B. from London, and took her over to Elberfeldt, anxious that she should have proper care and rest, as well as tonic waters and massage, which had been ordered by many doctors who had agreed that her brain was the only sound organ in her body. H.P.B. writes: "I travelled as if I had been a queen. Everywhere I had cabins and railway carriages all to myself, and Gebhardt, who came to fetch me in London, never allowed me to pay a penny for anything. We were about fifteen Theosophists travelling together, and here I have also found a large party of German Theosophists waiting for me. The President of the new German Branch, Dr. Hubbe Schleiden, Baron von Hoffman and his wife, de Prel, a certain dignified Countess Spreti with her husband and Aid-de-Camp for he is a General Captain U. I may well say with Madame Kourdukoff (2) that I have found here a company of lords, counts, and princes, all of them very decent people and all Theosophists of ours. Besides them there was the celebrated painter, Gabriel Max (dont you know?), with his wife and his sister-in-law, and Madame Hammerle from Odessa; and Solovioff writes that he will not fail to come. What if you come also?" Next came the Coulomb disturbance. In regard to this Madame Jelihovsky writes: "H.P.B. stayed nearly two months in Germany and was thinking of settling in Europe for good a step greatly recommended by the doctors. But at this time began a tragi-comedy, preparations for which had been made long previously by the enemies of her work. The Christian College Magazine of Madras issued a series of letters purporting to be signed by her and to be written to a certain French woman, Madame Coulomb. This Madame Coulomb, with her husband, had kept a hotel in Cairo some years before, and Helena Petrovna had stayed in it during the existence of her Spiritualistic Society which never succeeded. Unfortunately for her, she met them again, many years later, in India, when they were in abject misery and want, and kind-heartedly sheltered them in her house. In H.P.B.s absence Madame Coulomb quarrelled with all the occupants of the house, and consequently thought of finding some other situation for herself. Then Madame Coulomb was offered a very profitable transaction. Someone was sent to them by a certain missionary, explaining to them that in destroying this heretical Society they would act as good Christians and besides would earn a goodly sum of money." This the Coulombs tried to earn as all now know. H.P.B. writes: "Everything has changed. A hostile wind is blowing on us. What cure, what health is possible for me? I have to go back quickly to the climate that is fatal to me. It cant be helped. Were I to pay for it with death, I must clear up these schemes and calumies because

it is not me alone they harm: they shake the confidence of people in our work, and in the Society, to which I have given the whole of my soul. So how can I care for my life? ... They write to us that in Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta all the street walls are covered with thousands of placards: Fall of Madame Blavatsky; her Intrigues and Deceits Discovered and so on and so on. But on the other hand there are more than a thousand people who have arisen in my defence. Not letters alone, but telegrams costing thousands of rupees have been sent to the Times of London. As to India, the war there is more than a newspaper war. About two hundred native students have crossed out their names from the registers of this Christian College whose journal has printed these wonderful letters of mine. To be fair to truth, I must say that with the exception of two or three government papers in India, everyone is on my side. Even here some people have shown themselves real friends to me. Madame N. brought Mackenzie Wallace to see me; he has lived in Russia and speaks Russian so well. He is going to be sent as a Secretary to the Viceroy, Lord Dufferin. He gave me a letter of introduction to Nubar Pasha of Cairo, requesting him to help me in finding information about the Coulombs. Above all it is necessary to show up these rascals."

Endnotes
(1) "Radha Bai" was H.P.B.s Russian nom-de-plume. (2) Madame Kourdukoff is the heroine of a well-known Russian comic poem, a mixture of Russian, French, German, and English.

VIII.
Writing from Suez, on November 30th, 1884, H.P.B. says: "I sit in an hotel by the sea and wait for the weather. (1) In plain words I am waiting for our steamer, which is now busy crawling along the canal. We arrived here direct from Cairo by rail, having spent ten days there, which counts for much these days. That they mean much you will see for yourself by the long telegrams from the London newspapers which I send to you. I am beginning to be convinced that I actually am a celebrity when so much money is paid for telegrams about me. The correspondent of the Daily Telegraph came personally to interview me, and asked my permission to let his readers know of my discoveries as to the antecedents of Mon. and Mme. Coulomb, and as to my own movements. In the telegrams as you see they are styled blackmailers and fraudulent bankrupts, hiding from several ordres darret. You will also see that in Alexandria and Cairo I was received very warmly by the viceroy and the cream of society. And so I really was. You cannot imagine how much was made of me. As soon as Hitrovo learned that I had arrived, he invited us to his house and immediately began all sorts of dinners, lunches, picnics, till the very sky was hot. Our Russian compatriots, Hitrovo, Abaza, Tschegloff, gentleman-in-waiting, and the ex-Madame Beketoff, nee Princess Vera Gagarin and now Countess de la Salla all of them such nice, kindly people that I do not know how to thank them for their services and their kindness. And even on the part of the foreigners, I

was astonished, not with their extreme amiability to amiability I am used -- but with their real cordiality and simplicity of manner. Next morning I went with Mrs. CooperOakley to see the Nubars, taking with me the letter of Mackenzie Wallace, and as soon as my card was sent in, Nubar Pasha in person came to meet us nearly to the street door. He led us into the Palace, brought his wife and his daughter, Madame Tigran Pasha, and they were all so kind to us, we might have been old friends. Certainly I ascribe it all to the letter of my dear Olga Alexeevna (Madame N.). Madame Nubar Pasha is an Armenian, a welleducated and well-read woman, speaking French like a Parisian, a real grande dame. We lunched and dined with them twice. At their house I made the acquaintance of a dear Russian soul, Countess de la Salla. Her husband is an adjutant to the Khedive, but he is more like a healthy, nice-looking Russian lad than an Italian. She knew me by hearsay and also as Radha Bai, and when she heard that I was the niece of General Rostislav Fadeef, she positively fell on my neck and kissed me. Uncle used to go to their house as an intimate friend, and she was so attached to him that she had tears in her eyes when she asked me for particulars of his death. She took me up, and began to take me from one aritocratic house to another, proclaiming to all that I am a celebrity, a wonderful woman, an authoress, a savant and what not. She took me to the Vice-Reine, as the wife of the Khedive is called here, assuring me that it was absolutely necessary. There in the Khedives Hareem I found a crowd of visitors, most of them English women, wives of the notabilities who are now reigning over Egypt. My old, but not kindly acquaintance from India, Lady B., who was always an enemy to the T.S., fairly stared at me, finding me on a sofa side by side with their Vice-Reine; and the Countess de la Salla immediately wanted to know if she was a Theosophist! and declared that she herself had joined the Society and was awfully proud of her diploma! Un coup de theatre! Then she took me to the niece of Ishmail Pasha, the late Khedive; to his sons wife, Princess Hussain. Both these Princesses and the wife of the Khedive have a European education, are Parisian in speech des emancipees. The ViceReine is positively a beauty, a most charming face, but it is a pity she is too stout. The de la Sallas have got up a dinner-party for me, inviting about fifty of the local aristocracy, both French and English, as well as our diplomatic corps. All the Russians are especially delighted with my having turned an English clergyman, the Rev. C. Leadbeater, into such an ardent Theosophist. As if he were the only one! Why amongst our members we have even got Bishops. "Well, and now I am starting for Madras to fight the pseudo-Christian missionaries. Gods will be done, and if He does not give us up the pig wont eat us. (2) Good-bye my dear, my loved ones: maybe forever, but even this would not matter. Happiness is not to be gained on earth. Here we have the dark entrance-hall alone, and only on opening the door into the real living place, into the reception-room of life, shall we see light. Whether in Heaven, in Nirvana, in Swarga is all the same: the name does not matter. But as to the divine Principle it is One, and there is only one Light, however differently it may be understood by various earthly darknesses. Let us wait patiently for the day of our real, our best birth. Yours until that day, until Nirvana and forever." H.P.B. left India in April, 1885. She was desperately ill at the time, and there was so much confusion over her departure that she was not even given her clothes to take with her. She gave Col. Olcott her word of honor that she would not say where she was living until the worst of the storm had blown over, and she kept her word. With Babajee and Mary Flynn

she travelled to Naples, and there lived in entire seclusion for some months. Whilst there, she put in preliminary order her materials for the Secret Doctrine. Madame Jelihovsky writes that she herself sometimes did not like the idea of certain people in Tibet apparently monopolizing all the wisdom in the universe. H.P.B. would reply that they did not monopolize such wisdom; she spoke of the existence of these particular Great Souls because she knew of their existence, but others no doubt existed in other parts of the world who were equally wise and equally great. "In every country and in every age there were and there will be people, pure of heart, who, conquering their earthly thoughts and the passions of the flesh, raise their spiritual faculties to such a pitch that the mysteries of being and the laws governing Nature and hidden from the uninitiated, are revealed to them. Let blind men persecute them; let them be burned and hunted from societies acknowledged by law; let them be called Magi, Wise Men, Raj Yogis or saints they have lived and they still live everywhere, recognized or unrecognized. For these people who have illumined themselves during their life-time, there are no obstacles, there are no bodily ties. They do not know either distance or time. They are alive and active in the body as well as out of it. They are, wherever their thought and their will carries them. They are not tied down by anything, either by a place, or by their temporary mortal covering." When the three months residence in Naples had nearly expired, H.P.B. thought of going to Germany, where, as she wrote, they at least had warm stoves and double windows in the winter, and where it was possible to be comfortable indoors. She also vigorously defended the "Adyar Theosophists" for having left her in such sore straits in Naples, and protested that they had done all that was possible for her under the circumstances; and to prove that the Society itself was loyal to her, she sent her relatives hundreds of letters from Branches and people in India, England, and "especially in America," protesting against her retirement. She had resigned her office of Corresponding Secretary at Colonel Olcotts urgent entreaty, as he had been greatly alarmed over the Coulomb attack. All her letters at this time breathed peace and rest, even gladness, caused by the many proofs of sincere friendship from such people, she wrote, -- "as Solovioff. (3) I am travelling with him in Switzerland. I really cannot understand what makes him so attached to me. As a matter of fact I cannot help him in the least. I can hardly help him to realize any of his hopes. Poor man, I am so sorry for him and all of them."

Endnotes
(1) A Russian proverb. (2) A Russian proverb. (3) Who afterwards became her bitter enemy, as all his prayers to be taken as a Chela were utterly rejected.

IX.
H.P.B. was in perfect raptures over the climate and scenery of Switzerland. All her life she adored nature. "I have never breathed so freely. I can even walk as I have not been able to walk for ten years past." At this time all the sad troubles of the past year appeared to Helena Petrovna not in a black but in a humorous light. She wrote to Madame Jelihovsky in September, 1885: "My faithful Theosophists wont let me alone. They invite me to London. They want me to put myself at the head of the European Theosophical Society; and to edit my Theosophist from there. And the Hindus are also piling letters on me, telling me I must come back to India, threatening poor Olcott with a mutiny without me. In their eyes he is only the realizer of my inspirations, and I am the chief priestess and Pythia. Have you read about the Psychists (the members of the S.P.R.) and their meeting in London, publicly accusing me of having created Theosophy, of having invented the Mahatmas, and of having played all kinds of tricks all with the only aim and object of political intrigue for Russia, which paid me for it?!! Even such enraged Conservatives and Russophobes as Mr. Sinnett and Lord Borthwick were disgusted with such meaningless rubbish. The only foundation for their accusation is that during my arrival in India some Anglo-Indian papers stopped abusing Russia, as they had been doing up till then. There is some truth in this. Some of the editors of the best papers, as The Indian Mirror, Amrita Bazaar Patrika, The Hindu, etc., are Theosophists and my personal friends, and so they knew very well that every word uttered by them against Russia cut me to the heart especially if it is Englishly unjust. And so they abstained from it, and for this I was promoted into a paid official spy. Oh Lord, I recognize my usual fate! Davoir la reputation, saus en avoir en la plaisir! And if I only had the consolation of having been of some use to dear Russia: but such was not the case; only negative, trivial results." "I understand," wrote H.P.B. in another letter, "that the Psychical Research Society could not help separating from us. Though at the beginning it warmed itself in the nest of the Theosophical Society, like the thievish cuckoo warming its progeny in someone elses nest at the time, as you remember, when Myers so constantly wrote to you, (1) and also requested me to write to you asking you to act as his Russian correspondent. It would be too dangerous for Myers, as he makes a point of not separating himself from European Science, to proclaim honestly and fearlessly what are no tricks and no lies but the result of powers not known to European scientists. He would have against him all the greatest social peers of England, the clergy and the corporations representative of Science. As to us Theosophists, we have no fear of them, as we swim against the stream. Our Society is a kind of constant poke-in-the-eye for all the bigoted Jesuits and pseudo-scientists. As for me, being a Russian, I am a regular scapegoat for them all. They had to explain my influence in some way or another, and so they wrote an indictment a whole book by a former colleague and friend, Myers. It begins with the words: We proclaim Madame Blavatsky the grandest, the cleverest, the most consummate impostor of the age! And in truth it looks like it! Just think of it: I arrive all alone in America; choose Olcott, a

spiritualist, and begin work on him as a kind of prologue, driving him mad without any delay! But from an ardent follower of Spiritualism he becomes a Theosophist; after which I, though unable at the time to write three English words without a mistake, sit down and write Isis. Its appearance produces a furore on one side and gnashing of teeth on the other. Here I invent the Mahatmas, and immediately dozens of people take to believing in them, many see them there begins a series of phenomena under the eyes of hundreds of people. In a year the Society counts a thousand members. Master appears to Olcott ordering him to migrate to India. We start, baking new Branches like hot loaves on our way, in London, in Egypt, in Corfu. At last in India we grow to be many thousands. And, mind you, all these are my tricks. Letters of the Mahatmas simply pour from all the points of the compass, in all languages; in Sanskrit, in Indian dialects, in ancient Telugu which is little known, even in India. I fabricate all this and still alone. But after a short time I very adroitly make confederates out of those whom till then I had deceived, leading them by their noses; I teach them how to write false letters in handwritings which I have invented and how to produce jugglers tricks. When I am in Madras, the phenomena happening in Bombay and Allahahad are produced by my confederates. Who are they, these confederates? This has not been made clear. Take notice of this false note. Before Olcott, Hubbe-Schlieden, the Gordons, the Sinnetts, and other people of standing, Myers politely excuses himself, acknowledging them to be only too credulous, poor dupes of mine. Then who are the deceivers with me? This is the problem which my judges and accusers cannot explain anyhow. Though I point out to them that these people must necessarily exist: otherwise they are threatened with the unavoidable necessity of proclaiming me an out-and-out sorceress. How could it be otherwise? In five years I create an enormous Society, of Christians, Hindus and Buddhists. Without going anywhere, being constantly ill, sitting as if rooted at my work, the results of which are evident I, an old Russian gossip, spreading nets over thousands of people who without any signs of insanity believe in my phenomena; as also hundreds of thinkers and learned people who from being materialists became visionaries how can people help seeing in me the greatest impostor of the age? "In the enumeration of my sins, it is openly proclaimed: You naive Anglo-Saxon Theosophists, do not believe that Madame Blavatskys influence in India only reaches you; it goes far further. When she came back to Madras, about eight-hundred students, not Theosophists at all, presented her with an address of sympathy. Her influence is immense. Nothing would be easier for her than to instil hatred towards England in the hearts of the Hindus, and to prepare the soil slowly but surely for a Russian invasion. So this is what they fear, is it? A Russian spy indeed! no spy at all, but a regular conquerer. You may be proud of such a sister... "It is no longer my business, but the business of all Theosophists. Let them fight for me; as for me, I am sitting quietly in Wurtzburg, waiting for Nadyas (Madame Fadeefs) promised visit, and wont stir from here. I am writing a new book which will be worth two such as Isis." About the same time she informed her friends that the phenomena of her clairvoyance and clairaudience, which took place many years ago in New York, were taking place again and were considerably intensified. She said she saw "such wonderful panoramas and

antediluvian dramas," had such clear glimpses and vistas into the hoary past, maintaining she had never heard or seen better with her inner faculties. About this time the half-restored health of Madame Blavatsky came to grief again. The worry of her final rupture with V. S. Solovioff, whom she had taken for a true disinterested friend until then, and the death of a beloved cousin of hers were partial causes of it. Her sister writes concerning it: "V. S. Sovolioff did not succeed in his earnest wish to ruin Madame Blavatsky, but by this new scratch at her sore heart he certainly succeeded in shortening her life." The result of all was a days swoon. "I have frightened them all, poor people," writes H.P.B., "I am told that for half an hour I was like one dead. They brought me back to life with digitalis. I fainted in the drawing room, and returned to consciousness when undressed in my bed, with a doctor at the foot of my bedstead, and Mlle. Hoffman crying her eyes out over me. The kind hearted HubbeSchleiden, President of the German Society, brought the doctor personally from town, and my kindly ladies, wives of the painters Tedesco and Schmiechen, and Mlle. Hoffman sat up all night with me."

Endnote
(1) He wrote so often asking questions about H.P.B. that Madame Jelihovskys family got wearied and almost gave the postman directions not to deliver the letters!

X.
The following letter belongs properly to an earlier part of the series. It was written from Bombay in the autumn of 1882: "My blood is transformed into water; it oozes out and forms bags. For this I have to thank, primo, Bombay heat and dampness, and secundo my eternal irritations, bothers and troubles. I have become so nervous that the light step of Babulas bare feet gives me palpitations of the heart. I have forced Dudley (the Doctor) to tell me that I may die any moment from any kind of fright, without which I could live a year or two more. As if it were possible with the life I lead! I have twenty fights a day, not one. I have put the whole business into the hands of the Masters. M----- wants me to start at the end of September. He has sent me one of his Chelas from the Nilgiri, to take me with him. Where, I do not know exactly, but probably into some place in the Himalayas." After this there was a long lapse in the letters, and then H.P.B.s sister got a few lines from her, dating from Darjeeling, saying that she had nearly died; that she certainly would not be among the living if it had not been for the miraculous intervention of her Master, who had taken her off to the mountains and brought her back to life again by means of a few passes, when she was to all intents and purposes a corpse. Madame Jelihovsky often asked H.P.B. in after days for further particulars of this mysterious episode in her life. "How did she happen to find herself unconscious and ill in some unreachable and perfectly impassible

mountains in the Himalayas? Who took her there? Where did she spend the time of her convalescence? How, again, did she return to civilization?" She always answered that firstly she could not remember everything, and secondly she was not allowed to tell everything. Madame Jelihovsky writes, however, that, if not at this time then at some earlier epoch, she is perfectly certain that H.P.B. visited Lhassa, and that she had also been to the chief religious centre of Thibet, where among several hundred Lamas lives the Teshu Lama, the spiritual head of the Buddhists, whom they consider the reincarnation of Buddha. Madame Jelihovsky is also certain that at some time or other her sister had been in the Kuen Lun mountains. H.P.B. always told her that the two Mahatmas whom she knew personally were very different, both in character and in their mode of living; that the Mahatma K.H. was much more accessible, and lived with his sister and nephew in Kuen Lun; that Mahatma M., her personal teacher, had no fixed residence, was much more serious and stern, was always on the move, going wherever he might be most needed at the moment. The former talked and laughed at times like any ordinary person; the latter never, being very laconic. He is the older of the two. When H.P.B. returned she was almost perfectly healthy and strong, and, to the great astonishment of the doctors, began her work again. On the seventeenth of December, 1882, H.P.B., Col. Olcott and others moved to Adyar. She wrote to Mme. Fadeef: "It is simply delightful. What air we have here; what nights! And what marvellous quiet! No more city noises and street yells. I am sitting quietly writing, and now and then gaze over the ocean sparkling all over as if a living thing really. I am often under the impression that the sea breathes, or that it is angry, roaring and hurling itself about in wrath. But when it is quiet and caressing there can be nothing in the world as fascinating as its beauty, especially on a moonlit night. The moon here against the deep dark-blue sky seems twice as big and ten times brighter than your European mother-of-pearl ball. Farewell." Her sister and niece visited her at Ostende in 1886. This is what she wrote to them soon after they left: "I shall take myself to task now that I am alone; and instead of a restless wandering Jew I shall turn myself into a hermit crab, into a petrified sea monster, stranded on the shore. I shall write and write, my only consolation! Alas, happy are the people who can walk. What a life to be always ill and without legs, into the bargain..." After her great illness in Ostende in the Spring of 1887, she wrote to her sister: "My darling, do not be frightened: once more I have disappointed the snub-nosed one. (1) Some people have pulled me through. Such wonderful things happen to me. You write, How can you be so careless!" As if I have caught cold through carelessness. I never rose from my armchair, never left the room, sitting as if chained to my Secret Doctrine; I have made everyone work at it: the Countess, Dr. Keightley, the cousin of the one you saw in Paris. He came as a delegate from London, to invite me to go there and I put him to work! Dont you see how it was: about ten days before my illness the London Society began to call out vehemently for me they wanted me, they said; could not do anything without me. They want to study occultism, and so burn with the desire of depriving

Ostende of my beneficent presence. Before then I got heaps of imploring letters, but kept silent. Be off with you! I thought to myself, let me alone to write my book quietly. Not at all: they sent a deputation for me. Dr. Keightley tells me, We have taken a beautiful house with a garden, we have got everything ready for you and we shall transport you in our arms. Do be persuaded! And so I was about to make up my mind. The Countess began packing; her intention was to pack me up first, then to go to Sweden and sell her property, in order to live with me, never leaving me and all of a sudden I dropped down! Such is my planet of destiny, it appears. And besides, here is another wonder for you: On the 27th of March we were to start, and on the 17th I went to sleep in my armchair after dinner, without any reason. You know this never happens to me! I went into a very deep sleep, and suddenly spoke to her, as she told me afterwards, for I do not remember anything myself: Master says you must not go away because I shall be mortally ill. She shouted, What are you saying? I awoke and also shouted with astonishment, What are you screaming about? What has happened? Tableau! Two days after we nearly forgot all about it, when I received a letter from a certain London member, whom I never saw before in my life Ashton Ellis, a doctor of the Westminster Dispensary, a mystic, a Wagnerian, great lover of music, still quite a young man, he also insisted on my coming for the simple reason, dont you know, of having seen me before him and having recognized me because of my portraits. I stood, he says, on the other side of the table on which he was writing, and gazed at him. I and Constance (the Countess Wachtmeister) were very much amused by his enthusiastic statement: My life seems strangely linked with yours, he writes, with you and the Theosophical Society. I know I am bound to see you soon. We were amused, but soon forgot all about it. Then I caught a cold in the throat, I really do not understand how, and then it grew still worse. When on the fifth day after I had to go to bed, the Ostende doctors said there was no hope, as the poisoning of the blood had begun owing to the inaction of the kidneys, I dozing all the time and doomed to enter eternal sleep while thus dozing the Countess remembered that this Ashton Ellis is a well-known doctor. She telegraphed to him, asking him to send her a good specialist. And lo! this perfect stranger wires back: coming myself, shall arrive in the night. Through my sleep I dimly remember someone coming into the room in the night, taking my hand and kissing it and giving me something to swallow; then he sat at the edge of my bed and started massaging my back. Just fancy, this man never went to bed during three days and three nights, rubbing and massaging me every hour... " Further Madame Blavatskys letter narrates that she heard someone saying her body would not be allowed to be burned, were she to die not having signed her will. "Here," she continues, "consciousness awoke in me, struck with horror at the thought of being buried, of lying here with Catholics, and not in Adyar ... I called out to them and said: Quick, quick, a lawyer, and, would you believe it, I got up! Arthur Beghard, who had just returned from America and had come here with his mother, having heard about my illness, rushed out and brought a lawyer and the American Consul, and I really dont know how I could gather so much strength: -- I dictated and signed the will... Having done with it, I felt I could not keep up any longer. I went back to bed saying to myself: Well, good bye, now I shall die. But Ashton Ellis was positively beside himself; the whole night he massaged me and continually gave me something nasty to drink. But I had no hope, for I saw my body

was grey and covered with dark yellowish-blue spots, and loosing consciousness I was bidding good bye to you all in my thoughts... " But the cure had taken effect; she slept twenty-four hours and woke up to life again. Concerning the same illness she writes to her aunt, Madame Fadeef: Sunday, Catholic Easter. My old comrade and friend, I wrote to you about my illness some ten days ago, when I was still in bed. So what reason have you to grumble at my playing the dummy (2) again? Is it true, though, that I was nearly about to play the eternal dummy; once more I had a hairs breadth escape, and once more I have risen from the dead. When and how I caught cold, having never left my room, is more than I can understand. It began with bronchitis, and ended with a complication of kidney disease. The Ostende doctors tortured me, with no result at all, robbing me of my money and nearly killing me, but I was saved by a Theosophist of ours, Dr. Ashton Ellis, who as a reward has lost a situation with good pay, having left the Westminster Dispensary without permission and having been the last nine days by my side (massaging my back)... When all the local doctors gave me up, Countess remembered about Ashton Ellis, whom she knew by reputation, and asked him to give some advice or to send some doctor, and he answered, he was coming personally in the night. He dropped everything and came here. And mind you, he had not so much as seen me before, knowing of me only through my work and articles. I am simply tortured with remorse, he having lost so much for my sake. At least it is well he is a bachelor... He has saved me with massage, rubbing me day and night, positively taking no rest whatever. Lately he has been to London and returned yesterday, informing me that he will not leave me until I am quite recovered and intends to take me to London personally, the first warm day. Madame Gebhard is still with me; instead of spending Easter with her family, she is nursing me, as if I was a baby, and seeing that I take my medicine, whilst the Countess has gone to Sweden, being compelled to do so, in order to sell her property. In future she proposes to live with me inseparably, to look after me and to take care of me. And what do you say about the attachment this Ashton Ellis has shown to me! Where could a man be found, who would give up a good position and work, all in order to be free to save from death an old woman, an unknown stranger to him? ... And everything at his own expense, he refuses to take a penny from me, treating me, into the bargain, to some very old Bordeaux, he has unearthed from somewhere. And all this from a stranger and an Englishman, moreover. People say: the English are cold, the English are soulless. Evidently not all... You ask whether you should send me something, whether I want something? I do not want anything, darling, except yourself. Send me yourself. We have not seen each other for a year and a half, and when shall we meet again? Maybe, never. I am going to London, and in the autumn, if I dont die by that time, I want to go to Adyar. They persistently ask for me there... Have you received our new Parisian magazine, Le Lotus? It is edited, as you will see on the title page, sous linspiration de H. P. Blavatsky (!?) What inspiration, please, when I have no time to write a single word for them... I have taken three subscriptions: one for you, one for Vera, and one for Katkoff. I simply adore Katkoff for his patriotism. I do not mind his not sending me any money again, God bless his soul. I deeply respect him, because he is a patriot and a brave man, speaking the truth at whatever cost! Such articles as his are a credit to Russia. I am sure that if darling uncle were still living he would find an echo of his own thoughts in them... Oh, if

only the Regents were hanged in Bulgaria, and Germany checkmated, I should die in peace."

Endnotes
(1) Meaning death.

(2) Not writing. XI.

In letters and conversations alike, H.P.B. often referred to the debt of gratitude she owed to the Countess Wachtmeister, Madame Gebhard, and especially Doctor Ashton Ellis, for their devotion and self-abnegation during her illness. In one of the last letters she wrote to Madame Jelihovsky from Ostende, she spoke as follows: "I really do not know what to think! What am I to them? Why should the Countess be so devoted to me, as to be ready to give her life for mine? What am I to Ellis, who never saw me before, that he should think nothing of the risk, when leaving the hospital without permission, for a whole week for my sake; now he has lost his place, his handsome pay, and his rooms at the Westminster Dispensary. He went home and returned here laughing: he does not care a bit, he says! He will have more time to spend on Theosophy, with his practise alone... Well, what does all this mean? What do they find in me? Why should it be my fate to influence the destinies of other people? I tell you seriously, I feel frightened! I cease understanding causes and feel lost. The only thing I know is that I have called forth an unknown power which ties the destinies of other people to my destiny, to my life... I know also to my great relief, that many amongst those devoted to me look up to me as to their rescuer. Many were heartless egotists, faithless materialists, worldly, lightheaded sensualists, and many have become serious people, working indefatigably, sacrificing everything to the work: position, time, money, and thinking but of one thing: their spiritual and intellectual development. They have become in a way the victims of self-sacrifice, and live only for the good of others, seeing their salvation and light in me. And what am I? I am what I always was. At least so far as they are concerned, seriously. I am ready to give the last drop of my blood for Theosophy, but as for Theosophists I hardly love anyone amongst them personally. I cannot love anyone personally, but you of my own blood... What a blind tool I am, I must own, in the hands of the one whom I call my Master! ... I do not know, I do not know, I do not know. For me, as for anyone else, the phenominal birth of our Society, on my initiative, its daily and hourly growth, its indestructibility, in spite of the many blows from its enemies are an unsolved riddle. I do not know any logical cause for it, but I see, I know, that the Theosophical Society is preordained to have a world-wide importance. It will become one of the events of the world! It possesses a moral and psychical power, the weight of which, like the ninth wave, will submerge, sweep away and drown all that the lesser waves of human thought have left on the shore; all foreign sediments, all shreds and patches of systems and philosophies. I am its blind motor, but a great power rests with it." When finally settled in London Madame Blavatsky wrote to her sister:

"Here I am planted among the fogs of Albion. Literally planted, because I did not come here of my own free will. I have been dragged over by my admirers, nearly in my bed or in their arms. They make a regular hobby of me. To their mind, they wont be able to find their way to the Kingdom of Heaven without me. They sent a deputation with a petition from seventy-two Theosophists who have firmly made up their minds to deprive poor Ostende of my ennobling presence and beneficent magnetic fluid excuse du pen! I grumble at them, I drive them away, I shut myself off from all these mystical vampires, who suck all the moral strength out of me no! all the same they rush to me, like flies to honey. We have become aware, they say, of the spirit of holiness and moral perfection in your atmosphere. You alone can enlighten us and give life to the hybernating and inactive London Society. Well, now they have got what they wanted; I have come and thrown more fuel into the furnace I hope they wont repent it. I sit at my table and write, whilst they all jump about and dance to my music. Yesterday we had a meeting at which was formed a new branch of the Theosophical Society, and just fancy that they unanimously called it The Blavatsky Lodge of the T.S.! ... This I call hitting the Psychical Research Society straight in the face; let them learn of what stuff we are made! ... We are about to found a magazine of our own, Lucifer. Dont allow yourself to be frightened: it is not the devil, into which the Catholics have falsified the name of the Morning Star, sacred to all the ancient world, of the bringer of light, Phosphoros, as the Romans often called the Mother of God and Christ. And in St. Johns Revelation does it not say, I, Jesus, the morning star? I wish people would take this to mind, at least. It is possible that the rebellious angel was called Lucifer before his fall, but after his transformation he must not be called so... It is simply frightful what a lot of work I have. They write from Paris that the Society is also divided there. They refuse to acknowledge the Branch under the presidency of Lady Caithness, Duchesse de Pomar, and ask for a representative of mine; just like those here, who want me to take the place of Sinnett... They insisted upon my tearing myself to pieces for them! I am to play at being a kind of omnipresent General Booth with his Salvation Army! Thank you very much! And a new magazine Le Lotus they intend to start too. I have refused the editorship point blank; and so look at the title page I enclose the specimen copy Sous linspiration de Mme. H. P. Blavatsky. How do you like that now? And, please, how am I to inspire them? Am I to send magnetic fluids to Gaboriau, its editor, and to his collaborators? It appears that your sister is getting to be the fashion in Europe also. Look at Hartmann dedicating his book to my genius. But how I am to get time for everything magazines, lessons in occultism, the Secret Doctrine, the first part of which is not yet ready I do not know myself!" During this eventful time Madame Blavatsky was in excellent spirits and very hopeful as to the future of her Society, as is shown by the following letter to her sister: "A whole Society of Catholic clergy and High-Church fanatics has been formed here against your sister. They already have had three meetings. During the first they tried to prove that I am no more and no less than the very Devil in petticoats. But my Theosophists protested, and having asked for the right of speech proved very neatly on the spot that these Catholics were Jesuits, sorry Christians, worshippers of Baal and Mammon. During the second, they tried to take up the old story: she is a spy, an agent of the Russian government and is dangerous to British interest... Here arose Lane Fox, Sinnett and Sir W. Grove and proved to the public that the enemies of Theosophy, who fear my Russian patriotism, are

near relatives to Balaams ass, though it saw an angel, at least, and could talk, and they see only small blue devils everywhere, in their bigotry, and cant speak, into the bargain. At the third meeting was discussed the question: can it be that I am Antichrist? Here the young Lord P. got up and read out my answer, in which I laconically but clearly inform the world, that if twice two equals four, all these people are blank ignoramuses and calumniators... The effect exceeded expectation as you will see from the reports, so great was the enthusiasm of my friends... Now they are going to cry still louder: Lucifer will kill our opposers! Even my personal enemies are full of praises for it... And yet I feel sad, oh so sad! Oh, if I only could see you."

XII.
The effect of her work was spreading, at which she was overjoyed, founding with her usual buoyance great hopes for her Society, the teachings she advocated and the people who followed them. But personally, at the bottom of her heart, she felt cold and lonely, in spite of the many devoted people around her. Her constant cry was, Oh for something Russian, something familiar, somebody or something loved from childhood! She was always glad to spend all her savings to have her sister or her sisters children with her. To please her, Madame Jelihovsky offered to ask the Rev. E. Smirnoff, the minister of the Russian Embassy Church in London, to call on her. H.P.B. was very pleased with the suggestion: "But will he not refuse?" she wrote in return. "Maybe he also takes me for the Antichrist? What an inconsistent old fool I am: there is a gulf between the Catholic and Protestant clergy and our own priesthood. Is it not astonishing that I, a heathen, hating Protestantism and Catholicism alike, should feel all my soul drawn towards the Russian Church. I am a renegade, a cosmopolitan unbeliever everyone thinks so, and I also think so, and yet I would give the last drop of my blood for the triumph of the Russian Church and everything Russian." During the winter of 1887 Novoe Vremya, one of the leading St. Petersburg papers, informed the Russian public that Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, a compatriot of theirs, had settled in London with the view of demolishing Christianity and spreading Buddhism, to further which she had already built a pagoda with Buddhas idol in it, etc., etc. She immediately wrote a letter on the subject to the office of this newspaper, in a very goodnatured and humorous tone, but unfortunately it never was printed. "Why should Novoe Vremya tell such fibs?" She wrote to Mme. Jelihovsky. "Whence could it gather that our intention is to preach Buddhism? We never dreamed of such a thing. If in Russia they read my Lucifer, our chief organ in Europe at present, they would learn that we preach the purest Theosophy, avoiding the extremes of Count Tolstoi, trying to reestablish the purely Christlike Theosophy and life-giving mortality. In the third, November, number there will be an article of mine (The Esoteric Character of the Gospels) in which I stand up for the teachings of Christ, glorifying, as usual, his true doctrine, not disfigured as yet either by Popery or Protestantism. I, i.e., we Theosophists, certainly do unmask Phariseeism and superstition of every kind. I do not spare Catholicism either, which has

over-dressed the pure teachings of Christ with unnecessary gewgaws and empty-sounding ritualism, or Protestantism which, in the heat of its indignation against the wilfulness of the Pope and the vanity of the Catholic clergy, has stripped the tree of truth of all its healthy bloom and fruit, as well as of the barren flowers, which were grafted on it by Popery. We mean, it is true, to give it hot to bigotry, to Phariseeism, to bitter materialism, but "Buddhism" is not the right word for them to use. Make of it whatever you can. People call me, and I must admit, I also call myself, a heathen. I simply cant listen to people talking about the wretched Hindus or Buddhists being converted to Anglican Phariseeism or the Popes Christianity: it simply gives me the shivers. But when I read about the spread of Russian orthodoxy in Japan, my heart rejoices. Explain it if you can. I am nauseated by the mere sight of any foreign clerical, but as to the familiar figure of a Russian pope I can swallow it without any effort... I told you a fib in Paris, when I said I did not want to go to our Church; I was ashamed to say that I went there before your arrival, and stood there, with my mouth wide open, as if standing before my own dear mother, whom I have not seen for years and who could not recognise me! ... I do not believe in any dogmas, I dislike every ritual, but my feelings towards our own church-service are quite different. I am driven to think that my brains lack their seventh stopper (1) ... Probably, it is in my blood... I certainly will always say: a thousand times rather Buddhism, a pure moral teaching, in perfect harmony with the teachings of Christ, than modern Catholicism or Protestantism. But with the faith of the Russian Church I will not even compare Buddhism. I cant help it. Such is my silly, inconsistent nature." In May 1888 Madame Jelihovsky lost her son. Madame Blavatsky felt her sisters sorrow with her usual acuteness and passion, which is shown by the two following fragments: "... in a country new to you all, you, may be, will find some relief. Come, darling. Come all of you, my dears, ... do not grudge me this greatest joy... You will have a separate room, and we have a garden, a nice shady garden, with birds singing in it, as if in the country. You shall be comfortable, and the poor girls will have what little distraction is possible for them... Smirnoff is also writing to you, advising you to come. He is so fond of you all... He has just been to see me. He is the only person with whom I could talk about you as with an intimate friend. For Gods sake make up your mind! do come! ... do not change your mind. The hope to see you has given new life to me. This is my first gladness, my first ray of light in the darkness of sorrow and suffering, of my lonely suffering, my untold suffering for you! ... Come, darling ... " She certainly possessed a great faith in the undying nature of man, which amounted to knowledge, and without doubt she could have used her moral influence over her sister to console her. But the great kindness of her loving heart knew better than even this and she tried to soothe her loved ones with words about new, unfamiliar surroundings, her garden and birds singing in it, as simple as the first pangs of her sisters sorrowing heart. Late in the autumn of 1888 there was a considerable lapse of time between her letters to her sister, at which Madame Jelihovsky grew impatient and wrote reproachfully to ask with what she was so very busy that she could not find a minute to write a letter. Madame Blavatsky answered:

"Friend and sister: Your thoughtless question, What am I so busy with? has fallen amongst us like a bomb loaded with naive ignorance of the active life of a Theosophist. Having read it, I translated your Kushma Proatkoff (2) into the language of Shakespeare; and, as soon as I translated it -- Bert., Arch., Wright, Mead, and the rest of my home staff swooned right away, smitten with your defamatory question what am I busy with? I, is it? I tell you, if there ever was in the world an over-worked victim it is your long-suffering sister. Do take the trouble to count my occupations, you heartless Zoilas. Every month I write from forty to fifty pages of "Esoteric Instructions," instructions in secret sciences, which must not be printed. Five or six wretched voluntary martyrs among my esotericists have to draw, write and lithograph during the nights, some 320 copies of them, which I have to superintend, to rectify, to compare and to correct, so that there may be no mistakes and my occult information may not be put to shame. Just think of that! White-haired, trained Cabalists and sworn Free-Masons take lessons from me... Then, the editing of Lucifer wholly depends upon me, from the leader and some other more or less lively article for every number, to the correcting of proofs. Then my dear Countess dAdhemar sends me La Revne Theosophique; I cant refuse to help her either. Then, I also must eat, like anyone else, which means supplying some other bread-winning article. Then the receptions, the weekly meetings, accompanied by learned discussions, with a stenographer behind my back, and sometimes two or three reporters in the corners, all this, you can easily believe, takes some time. I must read up for every Thursday, because the people who come here are no ignoramuses from the street, but such people as the electrician K., Dr. William B. and the naturalist C. B. I must be prepared to defend the teachings of Occultism against the applied sciences, so that the reports of the stenographer may be printed, without correction, in our new monthly publication under the name of The Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge. This alone, the stenographer and the printing cost my theosophists nearly L 40 a month... Since your departure they have all gone mad here; they spend such a lot of money that my hair stands on end... Dont you see, they have written a circular to all theosophists of all the wide world: H.P.B., they say, is old and ill, H.P.B. wont stay with us much longer. Suppose H.P.B. died, then we might whistle for it! There will be no one to teach us manners and secret wisdom. So let us raise a subscription for the expenses, etc., etc... And so they have raised a subscription and now spend money. And H.P.B. sits with holes in her elbows, sweating for everybody and teaching them. Needless to say, I wont accept a penny for this sort of teaching. Your silver perish with you, for that you thought to buy the grace of God for money, I repeat to everyone who imagines he can buy the divine wisdom of centuries for pounds and shillings." The following two letters show how very open Madame Blavatsky was to new impressions, even in her old age. The first is from Fontainbleau, the second from Jersey, where she was taken by Mrs. Candler in the summer of 1889, less than two years before her death. Both are to Madame Fadeef. "Delicious air, all impregnated with the resin of the pine forest and warmed by the sun, to which I am exposed whole days, driving in the lovely park has revived me, has given me back my long lost strength. Just fancy, several theosophists came yesterday from London to see me, and so we all went to see the castle. Out of the fifty-eight state rooms of the palace I have done forty-five with my own, unborrowed legs!! It is more than five years since I have walked so much! I have ascended the entrance steps, from which Napoleon I took

leave of his guardsmen; I have examined the appartments of poor Marie Antoinette, her bedroom and the pillows on which rested her doomed head; I have seen the dancing hall, gallerie de Francois I, and the rooms of the "young ladies" Gabrielle dEstree and Diane de Poitiers, and the rooms of Madame de Maintenon herself, and the satin cradle of le petit roi de Rome all eaten up by the moths, and lots of other things. The Gobelins, the Sevres china and some of the pictures are perfect marvels! ... I have also put my fingers on the table on which the great Napoleon signed his resignation. But best of all I liked the pictures embroidered with silk par les demoiselles de St. Cyr for Madame de Maintenon. I am awfully proud of having walked all around the palace all by myself. Think of it, since your stay in Wursburg I have nearly lost my legs; and now, you see, I can walk all right... But what trees in this doyen des forets! I shall never forget this lovely forest. Gigantic oaks and Scotch firs, and all of them bearing historical names. Here one sees oaks of Moliere, of Richelieu, of Montesquieu, of Mazarin, of Beranger. Also an oak of Henri III, and two huge seven hundred year old trees des deux freres Faramonds. I have simply lived in the forest during whole days. They took me there in a bath-chair or drove me in a landau. It is so lovely here, I did not feel any desire to go to see the Exhibition..." Then from Jersey: "Well, my old comrade, I have seized a short little minute in the interval of work, which is simply smothering me after my inertia and laziness of Fontainbleau, and write to you in bed, in spite of being perfectly well. The doctor has put me there for precautions sake, as lately my knees have been aching a little. I have been brought here by my Mrs. Ida Candler, an American friend, so that I might get some sea air. The house is quite close to the shore, yellow sand begins right from the steps... On three sides the house is drowsed in trees and flowers. Camelias and roses, as if we were in Italy! ... A lovely island and so curious. They have a government of their own here, England being acknowledged only nominally, mostly for the sake of the pompousness. They issue their own coins and keep to their own ancient Norman laws. For instance, in case some person wants to catch a thief in his garden or simply box somebodys ears, he must shout, before he proceeds to do so: Haro! Oh, Rollo, mon prince et mon seigneur! Otherwise he will catch it himself. This "Rollo" is the first of the Norman princes, father of Robert the Devil, a giant and a hero, who took the island from the Druids. The inhabitants speak a funny kind of French; but they are awfully offended if anyone says they are French or English. I am a Jerseyman, and no one else they say ... "

Endnotes
(1) A Russian equivalent for "a bee in the bonnet." (2) Kushma Proatkoff is the author of very amusing parodies of philosophic aphorisms, of which H.P.B. was very fond.

XIII.

In February, 1890, she wrote to Mme. Jelihovsky: "As you see, I am in Brighton, on the seashore, where I was sent by the doctors, to inhale the oceanic evaporations of the Gulf Stream, to get rid of a complete nervous prostration. I do not feel any pains, but palpitations of the heart, a ringing in the ears I am nearly deaf and weakness too, such weakness that I can hardly lift my hand. I am forbidden to write or read or even to think, but must spend whole days in the open air sit by the sea and wait for fair weather. My doctor got frightened, himself, and frightened all the staff. It is an awfully expensive place; and my money alas! So my esotericists put their money together immediately and pursuaded me to go. And now subsidies fly to me from all points of the compass, for my care; some of them even unsigned, simply to my address. America especially is so generous that, upon my word, I feel ashamed. I admit they want me, as they repeat to me twenty times a day, but still, why should they spend so much? They keep me in luxury as if I were an idol, and dont allow me to protest. "Two or three Theosophists at a time take turns at my side, coming from London; watching my every movement like Cerbertuses. Now one of them is putting his head in with a tearful request to stop writing, but I must let you know that I am still alive. You have been to Brighton, have you? We have splendid spring weather here; the sun is simply Italian, the air is rich; the sea is like a looking-glass, and during whole days I am pushed to and fro on the esplanade, in an invalid chair. It is lovely. I think I am already strong enough. My brain moves much less, but before I was simply afraid for my head. My doctor said ... exhaustion of the brain and nervous prostration. You have overworked yourself, he says, you must give yourself a rest. Thats it! And with all this work on my hands! You have written your full, he says; now drive about. "It is easy for him to speak, but all the same I must put the third volume of the Doctrine in order, and the fourth hardly begun yet, too. It is true though that in my present state of weakness my head keeps nodding, I feel drowsy. But, all the same, dont be afraid. There is no more danger. Take consolation from the enclosed newspaper cuttings. You see how the nations magnify your sister! My Key to Theosophy will bring many new proselytes, and the Voice of the Silence, tiny book though it is, is simply becoming the Theosophists bible. "They are grand aphorisms, indeed. I may say so, because you know I did not invent them! I only translated them from Telugu, the oldest South-Indian dialect. There are three treatises, about morals, and the moral principles of the Mongolian and Dravidian mystics. Some of the aphorisms are wonderfully deep and beautiful. Here they have created a perfect furore, and I think they would attract attention in Russia, too. Wont you translate them? It will be a fine thing to do. The sea air did her good, but she did not keep her strength long. Not later than April she was again forbidden to work, abstaining from which was a real torture for her, as with her failing strength the activity of her thought seemed only to increase. She knew she had not much time to lose, and yet she had to spend whole days in her bed doing absolutely nothing. She wrote to her sister:

"And still I have a consolation: my Theosophists grudge nothing for me in either labor, time or money. Formerly I used to think they could not do without me, having imagined I am a well of wisdom, and so took care of me as of a precious jewel, which has come from far across the seas. And now I see I was mistaken, many of them simply love me as a dear mother of theirs. For instance Mrs. Candler: she is not a very deep Theosophist, and yet she spent the whole of the last summer petting me and now again she writes, asking me to settle beforehand where I feel inclined to spend the season, and wants to take me to all kinds of places, having wrapped me in wadding. But I shall not go anywhere. I want you, Vera, you and your children. Besides, it seems likely that Charlie and Vera will also return from India. They could not stay long in Russia; you are free to do what you like, so instead of the country come to me, all of you... Or maybe you would prefer to spend the summer in Stockholm, near the seaside instead of England. Seriously my Swedish theosophists are very eager that I should come; one of them offers me a whole villa at my service, with a park and a yacht to sail in the bay... But I think we might as well stay in London. Our new house, the Theosophical headquarters, is right in Regents Park, near the Zoological Gardens. I am forbidden to work now, but all the same I am awfully busy changing from one end of London to the other. We have taken three separate houses, joined by a garden, for several years; 19 Avenue Road, with building-right. So I am building a lecture hall, to hold 300 people; the hall is to be in Eastern style, made of polished wood. And one of our Theosophists who is a painter is going to paint allegorical signs and pictures over it. Oh, it will be lovely!" Mme. Blavatsky was as pleased as a child with all the new arrangements, and yet she had a foreboding she was to die in this new house, and spoke of it to her sister. Her next letter, dated July, describes the opening of her new lecture hall. "At one end of the hall they placed a huge arm-chair for me and I sat as if enthroned. I sat there hardly able to keep myself together, so ill was I, my doctor near at hand in case I should faint. The hall is lovely, but about 500 people had assembled, nearly twice as many as it would hold... And imagine my astonishment: in the first row I was shown Mrs. Benson, the wife of the Archbishop of Canterbury, to whom my Lucifer addressed a "brotherly message." I am sure you remember it? What are we coming to! The speeches were by Sinnett and others, but needless to say, no one spoke so well as Annie Besant. Heavens, how this woman speaks! I hope you will hear her yourself. She is now my coeditor of Lucifer and the president of the Blavatsky Lodge. Sinnett is to remain the president of the London Lodge alone. As for me, I have become a regular theosophical pope now: I have been unanimously elected president of all the European theosophical branches. But what is the use of all this to me? ... If I could get some more health that would be business. But honors and titles are altogether out of my line." (1)

Endnote
(1) This number closes the series of letters by H.P.B. to her family. . . . ---EDITOR [W.Q. Judge].

Some Letters of H.P. Blavatsky to W.Q. Judge

and Other Miscellaneous Letters

The originals of these Blavatsky letters (see Table of Contents below) are preserved in the following collection: Helene Petrovna Blavatsky Letters, bMS 34, Andover-Harvard Theological Library of Harvard University, Cambridge Massachusetts. Transcriptions used for this online edition were done by Dara Eklund and Nicholas Weeks with some minor corrections by Daniel H. Caldwell.

Introductory Note
These Blavatsky letters were first published in the pages of Theosophical History (see issues for April 1994 through January 1997). For that publication, the letters were transcribed by Michael Gomes who also added valuable historical background notes. This new online edition uses the transcription of the letters independently done by Dara Eklund and Nicholas Weeks. Blavatsky Archives Online is planning to publish in the future an indepth commentary on the letters. In the meantime, we encourage interested readers to consult Mr. Gomes' historical notes. (See the TH web page on back issues. Also email the TH Editor James Santucci for more ordering information.) Our thanks to Dara Eklund and Nicholas Weeks for transcribing these fascinating letters of H.P. Blavatsky

and also providing us with electronic copies. We also appreciate the kind assistance of Timothy Driscoll, Curator of Manuscripts and Archives, AndoverHarvard Theological Library. ---Blavatsky Archives Online editor, November 25, 1999.

Table of Contents
Letter 1 dated April 29, 1885 from Babajee to W.Q. Judge Letter 2 dated May 1, 1885 from H.P. Blavatsky to W.Q. Judge Letter 3 dated Nov. 3, 1886 from H.P. Blavatsky to W.Q. Judge Letter 4 dated March 19, 1887 from H.P. Blavatsky to W.Q. Judge Letter 5 dated August 12, 1887 from H.P. Blavatsky to W.Q. Judge Letter 6 dated August 1887 from Bertram Keightley to W.Q. Judge with end note by H.P. Blavatsky Coming Soon! Letter 7 dated Sept. 15, 1887 from H.P. Blavatsky to W.Q. Judge Letter 8 undated but probably written Sept. 15, 1887 from H.P. Blavatsky to W.Q. Judge Letter 9 dated late September 1887 from H.P. Blavatsky to W.Q. Judge Letter 10 dated Sept. 27, 1887 from H.P. Blavatsky to the Theosophists of the United States and the American Theosophical Council Letter 11 undated but envelope postmarked London June 5, 1888 from H.P. Blavatsky to W.Q. Judge Letter 12 dated Sept. 14 [1888] from H.P. Blavatsky to John Ransom Bridge Letter 13 dated July 7, 1889 from H.P. Blavatsky to W.Q. Judge Letter 14 dated Aug. 5, 1889 from H.P. Blavatsky to W.Q. Judge Letter 15 undated but probably written late Oct. 1889 from H.P. Blavatsky to W.Q. Judge Letter 16 dated Feb. 9, 1890 from H.P. Blavatsky to W.Q. Judge

 Letter 17 undated but probably written around March 7, 1890 from H.P. Blavatsky to W.Q. Judge Letter 18 dated August [1890] (probably around the 9th) from H.P. Blavatsky to W.Q. Judge. Letter 19 dated Aug. 9, 1990 from Bertram Keightley to W.Q. Judge Coming Soon! Letter 20 dated Nov. 19, 1890 from H.P. Blavatsky to W.Q. Judge

Letter 1
From Babajee to W.Q. Judge Dated April 29, 1885

T. del. Greco, 29/4/85 My dear Mr. Judge, Dr. H [artmann] has given out that he with your & my assistence had burnt the shrine. I do not believe you are concerned in the act; if you are, then you must know best that I had nothing to do with the ugly matter. If you are not (as I hope) concerned in it, then allow me to assure you that Dr. has has as unjustly implicated me as yourself. So I had told Hodgson I had no hand in the burning. Has the Psychical Research Society asked you about the matter, & what have you said? Please reply me. Kindly keep our address strictly secret. Ever yours, Babajee

Letter 2
From H.P. Blavatsky to W.Q. Judge Dated May 1, 1885

Naples. Torre del Greco Hotel del Vesuvio 1 May, 1885 My Dear Judge There was a time that I regarded you as a true friend & after your short note, or postal card, from London, I have no reason yet to regard you otherwise. Still everything you said, say &

did, would give me the right to think that there is a great change in you. For this change I do not blame you, but other people, much as I may deplore it. However it may be, I write, confiding in your honour as a gentleman not to betray that which I will have to say; for if you do, it will be of no profit to you, but will only add to the heap of abuse showered upon me, and this is not what would give you any profit or pleasure. Therefore trusting in your honour if it were only for the sake of your past friendship I will narrate to you a legend, the morals of which is left to you, to add or infer from. Look at my address, and it will show to you that I am in the same bag with you, the victim of one & same man, than whom, no one in the worldnot even the Coulombs or the padris has done us and me such harm. You left Adyar because he wanted to get rid of you (sic, these are his own words); and I left because at the very moment when we were going to triumph, he lied so infernally that he upset in one day the work of truth & justice and, if he did not ruin the Society (for no one in heaven or hell can do so, except the Masters) it was because I sacrificed myself, and going away into voluntary exile, took him away with me. And he went with me, because he cares not a fig for the Cause, the T.S. or even the Masters, and that as he is jealous of every one having any relation with, or attention from Them so the one thing he longs for is to pump out of me all the knowledge he can, and is determined to become an Occultist and an Occult literateur at my expense. All this is riddle for you, is it? Listen. To begin with: if I did not write to you (or Olcott either) it is not because, as you satirically remark in your letter to him, of Feb. 25th (which he received at Naples and gave to me, I have it before me) we received "orders" from Master "not to write" to you, and that it would be in the case we told him so a "fabrication of one or both" but because from Jan. 14 to April 1st I was on my deathbed, doctors & all in the H. Quarters expecting me to die every moment; and Olcott because, owing to the infernal intrigues of several theosophists he was all that time on the verge of committing suicide. It is Master who saved me (something miraculous to the Doctors) and who ordered Olcott to be a man and take the whole as his Karma. This is why, my dear Judge, we wrote "not a word" since we got back on December the 25th. Indeed, indeed, you must be thoroughly under his influence yet, since you think and say of your best & truest friends, what you do, in this letter to the Doctor! Listen Judge, and see the difference between us two. When I received that horrid letter from your own brother, several from Harris and one from Mrs. Billing, instead of believing in the shameful story as told by them about you & your drama with Mrs B's daughter. I concealed it from Olcott, then two months later gave it to him to read, as ordered by Master and he & I said: "We shall not believe it, unless told so by Master." When in London, a week before leaving for India about the last days in October Mrs. Hollis Billing gave me to read your letters to her & her daughter. I would not read them and when she left one with me "to keep" I never opened it, shut it in an envelope and put it away with other documents that are kept with Olcott. Now, it is no reason why, only because Master kept silent, and did not corroborate Mrs H. Billing's & Harris' accusation that you should not be guilty of what they said. For Master lets us know rarely the truth, leaving all the events to take their natural course, never interfering unless it becomes quite necessary with people's Karma and having his own ways for his own purposes. But we would not and will not believe in any infamy said against a friend. I spoke to you about this at Paris. Neither Olcott nor I will

ever turn against you. If the Doctor "the much despised (?) Doctor" told you that either Olcott or I have spoken to him about the money borrowed by you from Damodar in any other way but casually mentioning it he lies. It is he who spoke to us, to me, repeatedly what a liar you were; that you had given out that you had not only wife but children; that you who had called Mohini & Damodar & Subba Row etc. liars were the biggest liar yourself; that you were a fool & a conceited one, but that he has so cleverly got rid of you that we all had to thank him. To Lane Fox he wrote a letter, which I saw in London, that you had gone away from Adyar because you became certain of my fraud and lost all your faith in Masters etc. To me and others he repeated heaven knows how many times, that you had said that you were brought from America by fraud; that some letter to you from Master was a forgery of Damodar or of myself; that this "order" received at Paris was a forgery of Mohini, myself or Olcott etc., etc., etc. If he made you believe all this, or if led you by other means & insinuation to believe it, then you are indeed under dugpa influence! Yet you believed and said anything about us, while we remained always true to you, and if Olcott has anything against you in his heart, as well as myself it is only profound sorrow for the loss of one whom we have ever regarded as a staunch & true friend. This is the difference between us Judge. Now that I have resigned (owing to the same intrigues) my office of a Corres. Secy. of the T.S. and as good as severed my connection with it, in order to save it, I have no motive to tell you anything but the truth. You call Damodar a liar. He is a Hindu, a chela, secretive, cautious & trembling to say more than he is permitted. Never a purer, nobler or more self-sacrificing soul breathed on this earth. If he refused you at first the money, it is because he was in despair that you should leave us at such a moment. He really did not have the sum in the house, but got it for you. This I know. He said to Colonel that he felt finally obliged to furnish you with the 500 (?) or 600 rupees (I forget which) because you were one of the Founders, had worked loyally in defending me & the Society, and that you were entitled to it. Neither Olcott nor I look upon the transaction as "borrowing" but as something due to you. These are our words to Hartmann & if he tells anything else he lies. Olcott said simply that it was not Damodar's business but that of the Board of Control to have ordered the sum to be handed to you. He never blamed Doctor H., never reproached him with anything but the Doctor hating him would like to turn every one against him. He made me lose the friendship of more than one friend, wrote to Hume, etc. against me while pretending to defend me, and his article in the "Bombay Gazette" was infamous so much indeed, that even the editor published an editorial remark that "if such are Mme. B's friends [] what must be her enemies", and that he himself (H.) when pasting it into the scrap-book cut out the foul insinuating paragraph from his letter. The man is most intelligent or rather intellectual, cunning, crafty, having no feeling for anyone, or anything & is hundred times more dangerous than the Coulombs. He has all the stuff needed to make a black magician in him. That is why I refused to enlighten or give him information. Now this is what he said to Mrs. Cooper Oakeley who told me of it. Whether true or not, I leave you to judge. When the C. Oakeley's came to Adyar they were my most devoted friends. Then from the first days, he entered into their confidence & made[?] such friendship with them that soon the Doctor became all that is good & wise, & me everything bad. Came Hume, & remained two days friendly with me, after which he turned back on me owing to what the three said. I was sick & dying and left alone day after day, Olcott

being in Burmah, and Damodar, driven to despair by Hartmann's insults & intrigues having left Adyar & gone to Sikkhim to see the Avatar Lama, then just arrived & going with him to Tibet. Where he is now I do not know; but I hope he is happier than I am. Well the wiseacres having put their heads together, Hume decided to call the Gen. Council, and then gave Raganath Row & Subramanya Iyer a paper in which it was proposed that Olcott, I, Damodar, Anand, Bhawani Row, Nivarun[?] Babu, Mohini, etc. should be forced to resign since they believed or pretended to believe in non existing Masters & fraudulent phenomena, and the Society incorporated & entirely reformed under the mismanagement of Hume, Hartmann, the Oakeley's and a few Hindus. Dewan Bahadoor who was elected chairman, and all others: (Subba Row, Sreenavas Row, Ramaiyer, Dewan Bahadoor especially Subramanya Iyer etc,) laughed the paper & proposal to scorn. They declared that they did not believe me guilty, that the Society without its President Founder, so long as the latter was alive was unthinkable, that, in short, they would never consent to enter in his absence into such a mean conspiracy against Olcott, & myself who was upstairs dying. They all came to me and the little plot fell to pieces. I telegraphed to Olcott to return and had a relapse. In this, Doctor H., unable to conceal that he took a prominent part wants me now to believe that he only voted my resignation as an executive officer, so as to save me from any responsibility in the Society's management. Lane Fox who had returned & gone before this final coup de theatre, had also attempted to take the Society in his hands: proposed an executive committee with himself composed of Europeans, this committee having alone the right to govern Olcott and even to appoint new officers in the office i.e. to turn out Damodar, Anand, Bowajee, Nivarun etc. He wanted me to sign it, and when I said I would not without Olcott, he said (so Hartmann tells me & Bowajee now, at least) that if we did not do what he wanted us to, that he would go to Grant Duff, tell him we were a political Society & for the rest a humbug, and make him force all the Hindus to resign!! Nice theosophists, this lot of those Europeans. Now to this day I be hung, if I have arrived at any definite conclusion as to what part the Oakely's played in this conspiracy. That they were for a time under H.'s influence is sure. Yet all the time, while advising me to perform "the noble act of sacrificing myself for the good of the Cause" i.e. resigning, she assured me that she loved me as much as ever, believed in the Masters implicitly & finally confessed to me, that having been taken in by the Doctor for a short time, after catching him in thousand & one lies she was acting a part with him and had caught him. She said he was in love with her, & I believed it myself (though now I know he hates her). He had told her & her husband in confidence, laughing and as a good joke, she said how he contrived to get rid of you. He had written a bogus letter to you supposed to come from a Mahatma? (neither Master nor K.H.) & that when you were alone with him he let it drop on your nose (sic). The letter advising you to go away etc., he prevailed upon you to quit Adyar. Now is this true or false I do not know. That he said so to Mrs O. I am sure, for she could not have invented the thing, but, whether he (H) told a fact or a lie it is known best[?] to yourself. The result was all that ensued. You know that Hodgson was sent by the London Society for Psychical Research, to which Olcott was fool enough to tell every possible and impossible phenomenon that he ever witnessed, and which, since it published these facts, after the Coulombs' lies, was entitled to investigate the truth or falsehood of our allegations. So Mr. Hodgson came to Adyar. Hartmann began by setting him against Subba Row, Bowajee, Damodar, etc. telling him

that they were all "awful liars," thus prejudicing Hodgson against the chief witnesses. Then he, the Doctor testified to him that the shrine had been stolen from Damodar's room; seriously & earnestly in the presence of numerous witnesses, he asked Hodgson to look about him when he went to the Coulombs, to see whether he would not find it hidden somewhere, for it was surely either Coulomb or the missionaries who had stolen it. He even went so far in his lying as to show Hodgson the imprint of feet & hands on the walls under Damodar's window. Well, when the Coul. & padris had set well with false & paid witnesses Hodgson against us, the latter putting his wise head together with Hume's head evolved a theory. It was I, H.P.B., who had sent Baboola from London home to Adyar, with orders to make away with the compromising shrine. This Hodgson had written in his Report already, when Hartmann who had confessed already to Mrs. Oakeley that it was he who had burnt the shrine got frightened and taking Hodgson to his room showed him the two velvet doors under his mattress where he had kept them concealed for months and said that he had burnt this, for the shrine had been desecrated. He said to Hodgson that it was you and him and Bowajee who burnt the shrine. Bowajee denies it & says you will understand what it[?] means. Result: his defence of me in the pamphlet against the Coulombs, all he ever said in my & the Society's favour, all, all, became annihilated. He was proclaimed by Hodgson the biggest liar and one who had evidently helped me in my fraud!! He says it was to save me from a false accusation. I say he has two men in him. One highly intellectual, fit for an Occultist, a man of the highest intuition, the other cunning, lying, possessed by a Dugpa, in short. There is no reliance to be placed upon him. Today he is apparently a friend an hour later he cooly damns you with one of his infernally cunning lies. He is either an irresponsible sensitive medium or the most dangerous, heartless rascal one can meet. I prefer the former conclusion, for otherwise Master would have never written to him, never pronounced Himself satisfied with some of his doings. But the fact remains the same: no one ought to trust him. Thus he spoilt all and ruined the Society. He frightened Subba Row out of his senses by telling him that Garstin had proclaimed to the Oakeleys & Hodgson at dinner at his house that Subba Row being my friend was suspected by Govt to be my accomplice in the "Russian spy" business; he made me lose the friendship of Khandalawala, of Niblett, of Lane Fox (against whom he has now turned[?] himself & calls him "Mahatma Lane Fox" laughing at him, proclaiming him crazy etc.) of Hume, of nearly every one. Finally Subba Row said that unless Dr. H. left Adyar he would resign. All the Hindus refused unanimously to serve on the same Committee with him; and Olcott was notified that unless the Doctor was made to leave many Theosophists would resign. A resolution was passed, that no one except the executive officers should live at Adyar, and he was made a simple member. But in what shall it prevent him to make more mischief? He writes like St. Augustine, twenty epistles a day, corresponds with the best Fellows and wrote only yesterday to the Duchess de Pomar (Heaven knows what!), Bowajee thinks he asked her for money for himself or perhaps for me. I will surely not accept it, if he has. He goes to Germany to his sister & will set the German Theosophists agog. Such is the state of affairs. Well, as Olcott returned to Adyar the padris came out again. Seeing that they could not force me to sue them and that they had no chance to catch me for perjury or contempt of court; knowing I was sick and almost on my death-bed for nine weeks, and that the Doctor (Mrs Sharlieb) who came twice a day & declared I could not live much longer (with the Bright's disease, and heart disease developing so rapidly), had said that it was impossible

under the circumstances that I should appear at Court, since the slightest excitement could kill me suddenly, what do they do? Why they had a stout French woman from Calcutta, who went in various shops & drug-stores calling herself Mad. Blavatsky, speak seditiously against the British rule, threaten India with the Russian invasion, abuse the officials etc. Then she was packed off back to Calcutta, and the report being set abroad that the T.S. had bribed Dr. Sharlieb, that I was only shaming illness, and could be served with a writ to appear in Court, the padris sent a summons to General Morgan to appear for defamation of character as in his pamphlet, he calls the Coulombs "forgers" and "experienced forgers". All this was intended (for the pamphlet was written six months before) to get hold of me. They would have forced me to appear for n' against the General & then[?] brought false witnesses to swear that I was a Russian spy, or done some such horrid trick. Now Dr. H. who understood that every one was against him & that he had worn out his welcome at Adyar & even the T.S. began trying to entice me to go for rest to Ceylon or Japan with him, that we would write the Secret Doctrine together etc. I let him go on. I understood (I know it) that he tried to get me into his hands by setting every one against me, and pretending he was my last refuge and friend. He wanted me as a weapon to break Olcott's & other heads with. He wants me now to set up a rival & secret Occult Society & call around me all the best Theosophists! All this I declined or rather said neither yea or no. Then came the secret information that the padris were to sue Morgan & their tricks & the Gen. Council decided to pack me off the scenes, the more so as Dr. Sharlieb said she did not answer for my life if I remained in Madras in my present state of health. The doctor offered to accompany me, believing I would then be entirely in his power and would do for him what I did for Olcott. When accepted for the Oakeleys and Olcott & especially the Hindus were most anxious to get rid of him then Master & Mahatma K.H. gave "orders" as you say, not to us but direct to Bowajee to come with me and never leave me to my dying day: to bring me back alive or dead, when the time should come. And Mary Flynn who was on a visit at Adyar would not let me go alone but insisted on coming out with me. And then I decided that if I had to go I would go to Italy and not to Ceylon where I could be still troubled & the Doctor return to Madras if not to Adyar where the Gen. Council declared he would not be permitted to live any longer. And so, at 24 h. notice I was transported from my bed in an invalid's chair to a French steamer, and off we went and came here, where barring further developments & events I shall live till October & then either return or go somewhere else. The Doctor pesters me to write the Secret Doctrine and Master forbids me saying one [?] word on occultism or writing the smallest thing upon it until matters are settled. Virtually I was kicked out of the Society though of course if Master had wanted me to stay no one could have done so. Remains to be seen what the Occult Doctrine, Society etc. will become without me. I do not care. I am so disgusted with their eternal intrigues, lies, conspiracies and so on that on the slightest provocation I shall resign even my membership & sever for ever all connection with the Society. Olcott prepares, as he writes to me, to sacrifice me for the good & salvation of the Society & firmly believes he is doing what is right. He would not hesitate to sacrifice himself; this I know.

Therefore, and unless you think the whole of the above is fabrication & lies in which case, pray write to Olcott & ask, or even the Oakeley's you must see how unjust you were to us O. and myself. Judge, my friend, I will never forget you. You are poor, without any or much influence, I need you for nothing now that I left the Society so you may believe me. Beware of Hartmann. Even were you to show or tell him of this letter I do not care an halfpenny damn for him, or anyone else. If he had known and understood me I would have made an Occultist of him. He was & is false to me as to every one else. I would not believe, much less trust him on his oath. He believes like Olcott used to and you sometimes also that I am usually a "shell" which becomes good for something only when some one else enters it. Believe what you please. But know that I am[?] ever faithful to my friends & remain grateful for the little they may do for me even when they become enemies. Oh gods what a dirty world what false people! Look at Mrs. Holloway. Do you still admire her? What you mean in your letter to H. by saying that you "hit upon another little matter which places the leaders in the position that either great lies have been told or Mahatmas are absolutely useless as guides" is a mystery to me. What is it that "happened in London & involved the reception of numerous letters from both Mahatmas" and that Mohini, the Arundales, O. and HPB know all about it."? Is it the SinnettHolloway imbroglio when she bamboozled all of us & tried to bamboozle the Mahatmas, but came out second best? When she set Sinnett against Olcott & me & the Mahatmas and O. me & the Arundales against Sinnett etc. etc.? I do not know what you mean. If you are still a friend you will write to me & say it; if not do as you like. But know that General Howard L.C.H's pious friend is in the padri conspiracy against us he & his Y.M.C.A. I do not believe that "chelas could project letters" in the Mahatmas name without their supervision or knowledge. When done it is always by their Master's "orders" at which you are now made to laugh. Lane Fox wrote a letter from Calcutta to Hartmann in which he says he has "met a chela of K.H." sent to him to tell him that "the Founders having betrayed the sacred trust "given to them by the Mahatmas, having mismanaged the Society and failed in their duty" the Mahatmas were going "to entrust him Lane Fox with the reforms in the Society" and kick out, I suppose the Founders. L.F. believed in it implicitly & thereupon went to Ladak. It was Mohini's brother, who translated for L.F. the wise & truthful speech of the Mah. K.H.'s chela who proved a chela of the Almora Swami's. Hume's ex and late guru & a humbug. Yet even his action was permitted by the Masters for purposes of their own. Oh, my poor Judge, how deceived & bamboozled you have been only neither by O., myself D.K.M. nor any one else but our witty Dr. Hartmann! You do not know though by this time you ought to what a hard, arduous task is probationary chelaship. You have failed once before, and still the Master was ready to receive you back. You went to Adyar and fell into the snares of a jealous, envious, cunning, malicious and wicked man. May the Master who I know pities you be permitted to forgive your weakness & lack of trust in those who have always loved & regarded you as a brother! Were there no "Master" would I, after what you say of us and your leaving Adyar & us in the lurch, still love you? What would I care for your opinion & what you may say a drop added to an ocean of abuse. It is, because Master is my barometer & I blindly trust in Him even when I do not understand

His policy, & when to all intents & purposes He is the first to sacrifice me and allow most cruel things to befall me, that I am what I am only a capricious, "howling" old woman in the sight of the blind always an Upasika, acting under "orders" in the eyes of those "who know" ever so little even. Good bye, my poor Judge and do not reject the friendly & true hand I extend to you. Use you own judgement, never that of those who have an interest in mixing up the cards. H. will not end well you will see, and I pity him profoundly. He is his own executioner. I wish you could hear once how, with what contempt & sneers he speaks of you, who believe in him. H. going to edit a paper on Buddhism? I should say not. Buddhists of Ceylon all hate him and Sumangala, nor any other eminent Buddhist of Ceylon, will ever write a line for him. They told me this themselves. Why they should hate him I do not know, but they have collectively sent a request to Olcott not to send Dr. Hartmann to Ceylon. They won't have him. As to your receipt for the money had not Damodar gone to Tibet I would have insisted upon his sending it to you back torn. But I learnt of the receipt only now from your letter. So you do well to feel easy about the money. Money mind asked! No money will ever pay true friendship. But you have always mistrusted me. You called me "mean" in one of your letters to O. about Wimb. & Sarah Cowles[?] & you have never had but half a faith in me. Well, my friendship for you of nine years is unaffected by all this. May the Powers that be grant you peace & happiness, is the sincere wish of yours ever, H.P. Blavatsky

Letter 3
From H.P. Blavatsky to W.Q. Judge Dated November 3, 1886

[In another hand] private & confidential [?] Ostende Nov 3 86 My dear Judge: Your's received and Mr. Harte's papers read all carefully & with attention. What can I say? Only that I am with you heart & soul but I am not at one with Arthur who acts as no worst enemy could with regard to Olcott. That H.S.O. is a damned fool, with the best intentions is known; that he bows before Science & titles is also true, otherwise he would not be the Yankee he is, but that he is the best & the most reliable of friends & faithful to his word to the back bone is equally true. Once

he sees his stupid mistake he will be allright again, that's sure. I sent him the papers with a letter that will make him sneeze & curse me. Well, I don't care. I know he is going against Master's wish in more than one thing & yet imagines he is following Their wish but mistakes the voice of his own flapdoodle Self for Master's voice. But he is honest & he never backbites. What he has to say he tells a man right to his face. Please assure Arthur that he may be very wise in the eyes of his generation, but that nevertheless he is damned mistaken when he writes to his mother that the "O.L." was fooled by Coues. The O.L. was not. She never answered C.'s letters but over for twenty of his letters & she never wrote to him one line ever since the last letter written from Elberfeld. I did not tell right to his face that he humbugged & bamboozled simply because I did not want to make an enemy; & secondly because he is really a psychic and an crazy man in the bargain who will become a raving madman one of these days if he does not drop certain practices I know of. But the charge of his being with the Jesuits is foolish. He may be a Jesuit himself but he would never have made himself such a transparently idiotic fool if he were really under the advice of Jesuits. It's all Arthur's fancies. One thing Judge private & confidential try to save the best little woman that ever lived: Mrs. Emily Bates of Philadelphia. She does not know him as we do; she pities him & has almost consented to marry him who feigns love only for her wealth. She stopped with me for over a month she is fully devoted to me & the Society. But if he gets hold of her she is lost. Once she knows who & what he really is she will not sacrifice herself. But now without loving him she imagines him a hero, a martyr & with womanly flapdoodle generosity has taken it into her head to save him from himself!! I saw the letters he wrote to her immediately after her divorce. Do a theosophical work Judge & try to save her. He is a blackguard in more than one way. Well, there's an answer to the "Cables Brown" manifesto. If you will not, or cannot publish it in "Path" please send it to Adyar. I felt bound to say what I thought of W.T. Brown of Glascow. The fool changes ideas & Masters like match boxes & tho I do not name him he & others will recognize Mr. W.T. Brown in the portrait, too kind, too generous & too good for him. But he is a fool & I pity him. Well, Sir[?] & my only friend the crisis is nearing. I am ending my S.D. & you are going to replace me or take my place in America. I know you will have success if you do not lose heart; but do, do remain true to the Masters & their Theosophy & the names. If you do not like my article send it back. Thank Mr. Harte for his kind letters I swear I have no time to answer. I hardly find two minutes to answer you & Olcott. Funny things in preparation. May They help you and allow us to give you our best blessings. I am offered any amount of money an income, board, lodging, all free to come to America & work without you. i.e. against.

Of course I sent them to Hell. I rather lose the whole American lot to the last man Arthur included than you. Perhaps soon now, you will know why, yours ever, H.P. Blavatsky

Letter 4
From H.P. Blavatsky to W.Q. Judge Dated March 19, 1887

Ostende March 19/87 My Dear W.Q.J. When a fruit has a worm in it, the latter does its work of destruction to the bitter end. But the fruit can't help it a human fruit endowed with will, intelligence & perambulatory powers can. If the human fruit who could extract the damaged part 10 years ago did not do it, for lack of resolution & choice of either one thing or the other of "to be or not to be" why should he curse his fate, the web of his own fabrication. If you went in search of Masters now you would not find Them. One must be free & unclaimed by man or woman if he would offer himself personally to them. Otherwise the link which binds you to Brooklyn would be like a rope ever pulling back. You have tried it once & went half way to search for & meet the Masters. What has it resulted in? Scandal certainly worse than a clean divorce ever would. You have fettered yourselves with chains & unless you keep within their limit they will be always strangling you. You have to come to a decisive & final determination & she has to choose. It is only womanly accursedness to hold you chained as she does. In this I can give no advice but only point out to the cause in the diagnosis of the mortal disease. You will never be happy outside your natural element. You have very good & wholesome ideas when sitting bent over your fancy sketches & pen drawings. But these ideas vanish away in thin air as soon as you throw up your pencil or pen. You have been watched my poor old chum. You have all the sympathy of Masters and pupils. But who dares touch the "link" and bonds & break them except yourself? No: you do not know yourself. The only palliative I know of is for you to come & get strength with me for a month or two this summer. Try to do so. I have dozens upon dozens of petitions from London to come without delay & take the management, reformation & renewal of the Branch of the L.L. into my hands. I am offered a corpse!! I have to galvanize a rotten body like Christ with Lazarus. I must go,

nevertheless. The Keightleys have come for me all is prepared there & it is old, paralyzed, hardly moving old woman who has to build up a new Frankenstein who, when grown & strong again will pounce upon his parent & try to destroy her. So be it Such is my destiny. Mrs Cables writes & complains you will not answer her letters something about Convention. Asks & wants me to tell her whom shall she choose this day the gods in Washington or Coues or the god of her fathers W.Q.J. I answer she might choose who she damn pleased. I opined for Coues. She is too gushy for you. My advice, our advice is external unity at least. 31 [33?] Counties or States & rings and quarrels do not prevent the US from being one for the outside world. Let the Branches be all as free as every State is in America, all of which recognize one fool, whosoever he be in the White House & yet have their own laws. The Board of Control is abolished isn't it? Why then not let & even help Coues to do his work as an independent President of his Branch. Let each Branch have its own Karma. "There is more joy over one repented sinner than over 99 Saints in Heaven." Make a rule that any fellow found out slandering another be expelled after the second warning. Make the rule strict & foremost of all. Let every one either peg out of the Society or hold his tongue & mind his own business. Too many cooks spoil a broth. Make another rule that on that day when one joins the Society a wall should be built between his past & the Fellows of the Society. No one has the right to criticize a fellow for what he was before he joined. But no mercy should be shown to one who goes on whoring & backbiting & leading a bad life when he is in the Society. He who does all & the best he can & knows how does enough for them. This is a message for you. Your "Path" begins to beat the Theosophist out of sight. It is most excellent. Bjerregaard's articles are very very good. The Path alone is your certificate for you in Theosophy. A secret group may be formed in any state the T.S. is in. Join three or five or seven; and work with all your powers on the same & one line. Note every event every casual thing in your daily lives to the most trifling then once a week meet & compare them & find out the occult causes & effects & the mutual interaction & correlation of those events & then see whether a hand will not lead you; whether you will not recognize that hand which will retard some events, precipitate others etc. without interfering with the law of Karma in the least. If your group can be brought into strict union of thought & singleness of purpose & harmony you will sense orders and the right direction you have to take as plainly as Bishop & Co. sense the hardly perceptible tension of the muscles in the hand that he is in contact with. This is the method of training of the younger chelas down there at home. They record every small circumstance, compare their accumulated numbers, deduct their conclusions from the premisses & those syllogisms lead them unerringly onward. It helps sharpening intuitions & sensitiveness develops clairvoyance & every chela comes to recognize instantaneously the smallest change in the invisible aura of the ever present thought of his guru who guides the events though he never creates them. Do you understand, Oh lamb of god? Try to. My poor, poor friend, what a damned fool you are with all your intelligence, Irish-Hindu acuteness of perception etc. It is the worm that gnaws at your discriminative powers. It is the incubus of the family hearth that sits so heavily on your brain that it can hardly

function in the right direction after every Methodist squabble. Oh my poor crushed chum what would I give to help you. But how can I fight against your Irish Self which sits upon & tries to throttle the Hindu Self the "mild" Hindu? I try to be with you as much as I can. I am often watching you. Watch the shadows on the walls around you & gather strength from one who is oftener with you than you know of. Do not oppose Coues in his Department. For my external sake do not be against him openly. He is a weapon in the hands of Karma & you are interfering with the Law. Be strong, calm firm & hopeful. You are not even forty. yours ever HPB

Letter 5
From H.P. Blavatsky to W.Q. Judge Dated August 12, 1887

Aug. 12 My dear W.Q.J. To explain my telegram of today know, that for several days I kept thinking over your letter & that of Coues feeling the great responsibility you wanted me to assume. The night before last, however, I was shown a bird's eye view of the present state of Theosophy & its Societies. I saw a few earnest reliable Theosophists in a death struggle with the world in general, with other nominal but ambitious theosophists. The former are greater in number than you may think, & they prevailed, as you in America will prevail, if you only remain staunch to the Masters' programme and true to yourselves. And last night I saw & now I feel strong such as I am in my body, and ready to fight for theosophy & the few true ones to my last breath. Are you ready to help me carry on the sacrifice that of accepting & carrying on the burden of life which is heavy? My choice is made & I will not go back on it. I remain in England in the midst of the howling wolves. Here I am needed & near to America, there, in Adyar there are dark plots going on against me & poor Olcott (which you will understand better by reading Bert's letter & the enclosed one from Olcott) and I could only defend myself not do any good to the Cause or Society. The defending forces have to be judiciously so scanty they are distributed over the globe wherever Theosophy is struggling against the powers

of darkness. Let O. remain at Adyar I will remain here. If you & Coues carry out the plan we will have four great & strong centres America, Paris, India, England. The words said by "Let both unite & carry out their idea of secret counsel. But to work effectually two conditions are necessary: (1) work in good faith & full accord, pledged to support each other & remain united in weal or woe success or failure. The latter will never be allowed to reach its acme if they are true to each other. (2) In order to silence the (`kickers') & opponents both President & General Secretary must be elected for life." This can be done by your direct followers & has to be done if you would ensure success & have to help you in the U.S.A. as "Illarion" helps here. The President being permanent no kicks will do any good. There is not a man in all the U.S. who is better fitted to fight for theosophy & his Society than is E. Coues; there is no man there more devoted to Them & cause, nor more fitted than you are. These are 's words. Both you have faults & shortcomings but your fitness & the peculiar qualifications of both for theosophical work are by far greater. Your polarities so utterly different, can but help to attract people to both ends. They are your strength & power when united in one the ruin & cause of failure, when separated. Unite, unite, I say; & you will have culminated the object for which, after breaking metaphorically each other's noses you were led to reconciliation. Take my place in America now & after I am gone at Adyar. If you have no more personal ambition than I have & I know you have not, only combativeness then this will be no more sacrifice for you than it was for me to have Olcott as my President, damn him from morn to night & still recognize that there is no better man for the work than he is. "This is no sacrifice for him" said I "if I only know my W.Q.J." "No; none in reality, but the illusion that it is one may yet be strong in the `old' man's body" remarked. Is it so? I hope not. Dixit I have no more to say till I receive your answer. I am "yours truly" in the work for ever. Dispose of me I will be your thing & help you with all my powers when if you do agree, write to me the instructions & my part of the work & wait & see. The "plot at Adyar." It began a little after the last anniversary. I received an address signed by 107 names headed by Subba Row, Cooper Oakly Nield Cook begging me to return to Adyar for the next anniversary. Then S.R. came out with his attack on myself & the 7 principles. (See Bert's letter). Today poor Miss Cook who is dying of a cancer writes to Bert in despair to ask what has fallen upon her brother at Adyar. C.O. & S.R. They intrigue to prevent my returning to Adyar, bringing forward the scare of "Russian spy", of padris etc. They write letters (not S.R.) incessantly that Master is against me & directs S.R. (!) how to palliate the evil I have done!! That the L.L. here is positively lost, having fallen under my evil influence & being psychologized by me. Olcott, as you see writes that the Counsel has passed a unanimous resolution to ask me to postpone my return.

I knew all this; I knew the meaning of Nield Cook's sentence: Subba Row is the only one to save the Society (founded by me!!) & he is preparing a great Reform. Poor fools! Well I have raised a "Frankenstein" & he seeks to devour me. You alone can save the fiend & make of him a man. Breathe into him a Soul if not the Spirit. Be his Saviours in the U.S. & may the blessings of my Superiors & yours descend on you. yours the "old woman," but one ready to offer you her inner life, if you begin & proceed with the work. HPB Please draw Coues' attention to a new book that appeared by our enemy Lillie. "Buddhism in Christendom." Read pp. 358 & 404 & tell me if there can be found any worse libel than this! Go to Letter 6 (Not available yet)

Letter 7
From H.P. Blavatsky to W.Q. Judge Dated September 15, 1887

Maycot Sept 15/87 My dear W.Q.J. Either I muddled up things writing one thing & thinking another or you misunderstood me. Master has suggested, as you say, not ordered (for He "orders" no longer since the unveiling of every prominent theosophist's character has commenced) & therefore ordered (me alone) to telegraph to you both & ask you are you ready, or willing, or prepared to be elected for life. This does not mean that you should be elected right away & to begin with. The change of front would be too ludicrous & absurd. But it means just what I telegraphed to you. Begin by being elected both of you for a year, and then if you are prepared to pledge yourselves both for life then affairs & events may be turned off by unseen

powers into such a groove that you will be unanimously elected for life just as Olcott & I were to go on with the work after our deaths. Do you understand what it means? It means that unless you consent, you force me to a miserable life & a miserable death with the idea preying on my mind that there is an end of theosophy. That for several years I will not be able to help it on & stir its course, because I will have to act in a body which will have to be assimilated to the Nirmanakaya, because even in Occultism there are such things as a failure, & a retardment, and a misfit. But you don't understand me, I see. Judge, try to. Whatever you do hurry up, for you do not know what may come tomorrow. Nor do you know, to read peoples' characters yet, behind a thick veil of maya. Those you have an affection for, you will skip over their faults; those you have no love for, you exaggerate their defects. It is only human & natural, my dear friend, but it is not theosophical. Lucifer is sent to you; I do not like, or rather I am not so well satisfied with the first No. I have tried to make it entirely different from the Path & Theosophist, so as not to clash or hurt either, and now the actual thing itself jars upon me. Go to India until the English put me out? Until the English put me[?] in, you mean. For this is what will happen if I go. C.O. is sure to side with the padris, and a lie against me is no sooner told than it is believed. Thanks. I believe I am more useful here, in London free then at Adyar in prison as a Russian spy on suspicion. Yours ever & ever HP Blavatsky Do as you like. Do not ask my advice any more for really I am ready to do anything you tell me, but I will advise you nothing. Let karma take its course.

Letter 8
From H.P. Blavatsky to W.Q. Judge Undated but probably written September 15, 1887

private The letter just written you may or might show to C., therefore, I have written nothing then that would prevent you to do so. But what I say there is gospel. Master wants you to be elected for life, for reasons of his own, that's god's truth. I cannot write to C. that it was a test since it was not, but simply a question to which both of you answered.

I am ready to say any fib on lay principles, but I cannot say a lie when Master is concerned. You say you do "feel Master" in this. Well my dear fellow your intuition is at fault then. Less than you would I want to see him or anyone else (save yourself) elected for life; but once it is in the programme for future actions & policy, I have but to submit, disagreeable though it be for me personally. But if I do not like the idea, it is because I trust no one any longer, save yourself, & Olcott, perhaps. I have lost my last faith in Mankind & see & smell (rightly, if you please) Judases everywhere. But with you it is different. You do not want him elected for life because you exaggerate his evil tendencies; you dread his lying propensities, his "tricks" & vindictiveness. Well, you are right only as far as the latter vice goes. He is vindictive because he is proud, & if you make of him an enemy now you will have murdered theosophy in the U.S. with your own hands. Vindictive he is, lying & trickyno. You do not know him. He is a sensitive & a terrible one. He is more than a medium, for he deceives not only his "sitters" & public but himself which other mediums do not. He is a self-hypnotic to the last degree. He is that so much so, that while some of his "tricks" are apparent to you, they are truth & fact for him. He is what Mahomet was, yet Mahomet founded a religion which with all its faults is a 1000 times better than any except Buddhism. What matters it to you his karma if he obtains or creates good results for theosophy? Coues is our last trump-card. If you lose him you & the cause will have lost their battle. I tell you so. It is our Waterloo. Olcott is too weak though firm in appearance. The whole plan that "upset" you, the "plan for life" is a consequence of his getting married to Mrs Bates. That woman is an angel, & my best friend among the she-females. She will be his salvation. This man is profoundly miserable in his hurt pride, & because people have never understood him rightly. He hates & despises the world, because it pelted him with mud for 20 years when he had not deserved it. He has of the traditional "fallen angel" in him & I repeat again Judge, you do not understand the man. Let him be elected for a year & then see. But whatever you do for mercy sake, for the sake of Masters, your own and the sake of the Cause do not become enemies again. I feel profoundly desperate & miserable, and you made me so. I had no thought of the thing; I had given up all idea when I heard that a political entente was going on between you two. I was warned. Then came your joint letters from Washington. Then Master ordered me to telegraph, I did, as told & now it upsets you! My dearest friend you cannot make a theosophist according to your heart of him. But you can make an excellent weapon, a charmed "Thor's hammer" with which you may become Thor, the invincible against the "Frost Giants" of the malicious, wicked materialistic world. We must either do the best we can out of available material at hand or shut up shop at once. Amen. And now may the Masters enlighten you. yours, [M glyph]

Return at once [written vertically on the page in a different hand]

Letter 9
From H.P. Blavatsky to W.Q. Judge Dated late September 1887

My dearest W.Q.J. If I thought for one moment that "Lucifer" will "rub out" Path I would never consent to be its editor. Now listen to me my good old friend: Once that the Masters have proclaimed your "Path" the best the most theosophical of all theosophical publications surely it is not to allow it to be rubbed out!! I know what I am saying & doing, my "commanding genius" not withstanding. To prove this (which will be proven to you by the first number of Lucifer when you see its polemical contents) I will write every month regularly for "Path" occult, transcendental & theosophical articles. I give you my word of honour of HPB. I will force people to subscribe for Path & this will never hurt "Lucifer." One is the fighting, combative Manas the other (Path) is pure Buddhi. Can't both be united in an offensive & defensive alliance in one rupa or Sthula Sarira theosophy? Lucifer will be Theosophy militant "Path" the shining light, the Star of Peace. If your intuition does not whisper to you it is so: then that intuition must be wool-gathering. No Sir; the "Path" is too well, too theosophically edited for me to interfere. I am not born for meek & conciliating literature! Now for C. What I thought of him I say so still. But he will hence forward have an iron hand upon him unconsciously to himself. He too, is Theosophy militant & the General in chief thereon in the U.S. I thought reflected, pondered, till I had nearly become mad. I never thought he would give up the Society in giving up that dd Board of Control. But Judge, if you love theosophy & the Cause, if you would save the unfortunate building, trembling & splitting on all its seams put that strong indomitable character over the movement. Work with him be the palliative. But unless we place that Atilla as the "Angel of the Sword" no one, not even Olcott is up to that task in America. See, Adyar is collapsing. I just received another letter from O. He sends me a letter to him from CooperOakely who brough t[?] the Council to vote for my not returning this year to Adyar. I will send you this specimen of foul plot & intrigue & you will judge. Beware of C.O.! He is determined to make away with me & has enrolled Subba Row with him by lies, slanders & insinuations. Believe me my Son, Hystaspes, Lucifer & the Path, are barely sufficient as an army to hold in check dark intrigues & plot. They all want to get into my shoes. May they never hurt their favourite corns!

Be quick, hurry on, whatever you do. Be ready, if you would go to the end & force by conquering it the Kingdom of Heaven. [line and a half blacked out, with only a few words visible] to be xxxxx chela xxxx has to regard xxxxxx as xxxxx guru. Such are the orders. Yours in haste HPB

Letter 10
From H.P. Blavatsky to the Theosophists of the United States and the American Theosophical Council Dated September 27, 1887

London W. 17 Landsdowne Road (Holland Park) Sept 27, 1887 To the Theosophists of the United States and the American Theosophical Council Dear Brothers and Sisters, The Convention held April 1887, in the United States having left open the appointment or office of President by order of the Secret Council of the Holy Brotherhood which appointed me & conferred upon me my original powers as Founder of the Society, I do hereby, in virtue of those powers appoint Dr. Elliot Coues, President of the Gnostic Theosophical Society, Washington, D.C. to be President of the American Theosophical Council from this date until the next regular convention & direct my Co-founder, W.Q. Judge, General Secretary in America to notify all Branches of this Appointment. The President will uphold & carry out the present Constitution of April 1887. Fraternally yours H.P. Blavatsky By order of the Secret Council.

Letter 11

From H.P. Blavatsky to W.Q. Judge Undated but envelope postmarked London June 5, 1888

My dear Judge A few words but most serious. Subba Row, Cooper-Oakley N. Cook have resigned from the T.S. & left Adyar. Olcott with his usual tact having, on S.R.'s request, to announce this in the Theosophist, wrote to say in a brief para "non committal as possible" as he expresses it that the reason for it is "the strained relations between him (S.R.) & yourself" (me!). Well, that's probably done. All I know is, that [at the] first word about S.R. or C.O. or any of them S.R. will come down heavily upon myself, Olcott & the S. Doctrine. It will be a new scandal worse than that of Coulomb. It is your address to me in "Path" that broke the last straw. Well, I ask you in the name of the Masters for my sake & that of the Cause, not to mention their resignations by a single word in "Path". Let it pass unnoticed. He is ready to pounce on us, supported by C.O. & M.C. & others. I will not say one word in Lucifer, just as if he had never existed. You know that S.R. claimed for the two past years to be in communication with my Master; actually with [M glyph] !!! That he showed Sanskrit letters from Him (no handwriting no indiscrete calligraphy in Sanskrit!) to himself, & translated them to C.O. The letters were to the effect that he S.R. had to reform the Society, & hinted that I, HPB had been given up by the Masters!! C.O. who has chosen S.R. for his guru, who worships him as does N. Cook believes in him explicitly. What are the "Muslin & bladder Mahatmas" of the Coulombs compared to such doings!! Bus, bus I must say nothing, however much I may be disgusted. But, as the ranks thin around us, & one after the other our best intellectual Forces depart to turn bitter enemies I say Blessed are the pure hearted who have only intuition for intuition is better than intellect. I will copy your paper [&] send it to you this week. Yours ever HPB

Letter 12
From H.P. Blavatsky to John Ransom Bridge Dated Sept. 14 [1888]

[A copy not in HPB's hand] London 14th Sept [1888] My dear Mr. Bridge

I owe you many thanks for you thoughtful kindness, in sending me for perusal copies of the correspondence between yourself & Mr. Judge. I hope that at this late day no special assurance from me is needed that I do not even dream of setting up as a female "Pope", or the representation of dogmatic teaching. The whole spirit of the Eastern philosophy castigates[?] that idea. In the society are many strong personal friends of mine whose zeal is sometimes provocative of misunderstanding. Among these, my friend Mr. Judge is my most indulgent & enthusiastic supporter. But even he, as you can perceive from his letter, had no intention of paralyzing me; though his original circular seems to have been partly open to such a reading. In reality, it was not the Executive power that was spoken of; but what was in view, was connected with occult teaching & the necessary relation between pupils & teacher. The facts are these! For the past 12 years I have been imparting, & transmitting esoteric teachings without enacting any pledge or imposing conditions to several more or less known individuals among others a few Hindus. Since the explosion of the infamous Hodgson & Coulomb conspiracy against me some of my ex-pupils illgrounded in the theosophical spirit, have, for various reasons deserted me, after posing for chelas. The latter attitude they would not abandon, however. Hence since that time, they have been giving out travestied versions of the esoteric philosophy, composed of one part of truths, & three parts misconceptions & conceit. Thus great confusion, & contradictory statements have been made in print, all of which have been pitched back upon my unfortunate head. Not only that, but with the idea of making themselves more important they have pretended that my occult knowledge had faded away during my illness; that even[?] Masters have turned away from me to them, & that I was now the prey of Elementals & half-fledged chelas! Many, however, wish me to continue my instructions. But I am not willing to do so, save under restrictions shown by experience to be necessary. I am determined not to permit any longer the Master's names to be desecrated & dragged in the mire of idiotic criticism. Now the "Blavatsky Lodge" of the T.S. was the outgrowth of this idea being composed of a few dozens of such friends, as are willing to enter with, & follow me in a spirit of candid loyalty on the path of true Occultism. The Idea was (& is) to have my Thursday expositions reduced to writing, & copies sent out to all the sympathetic Branches & theosophists, as also questions asked & answered throughout the theosophical world. I have not the slightest desire for executive authority. I hate "red tape" & parliamentarism, & my ways are not those of Coln. Olcott. Yet, we have ever been acting together on these two planes he in the executive exoteric work, I in the philosophical & esoteric field. There is not the least quarrel between us. He is now stopping in the house with me & we are the same devoted old friends & co-workers as we ever were. He came from Adyar to settle all kinds of theosophical rows here, preeminently the Paris revolution in the "Isis Lodge", three men out of which are against my right to interfere & the rest are for me. Now, I did have, as an ex-officio member of the Executive Council at

Adyar, the right to issue an emergent temporary order in the present scandalous row in the Paris Lodge, & my action was ratified by the President Founder & the Executive Council, in India. Now H.S. Olcott having arrived with full powers, the matter rests with him. But the fact that the three French members have in the meanwhile issued bulletins & blaguereded me & the Masters ("les pretendus Maitres," they called them therein) & sent the Bulletins to every Branch they could think of remains and I will have no more of this. Again, as I do not meddle save such emergencies in Coln. Olcott's executive affairs, so he never interferes in my special department of Occult teaching, & he is at one with me. Et, voil tout! Coln. Olcott is here also to organize a British Section of the T.S. including all the British Branches; & I am organizing with his help to form a special centre an adjunct to the IInd Section of accepted Chelas (such as the Presid. Founder, Mr. Judge & a few others) of exclusively occult students, willing to accept, not as dogmas but as a basis for self-evolution the teachings of which I am the channel & which I cannot impart except to pledged members; for I cannot give them out in the "Secret Doctrine." You know yourself that in such a Society as ours there will be a large percentage disinclined to special mystical study & interested primarily in the exoteric aspects of the movement, together with a smaller number whose sole aspirations are for mystical knowledge & the Occult life. It is those who are invited, & what Mr. Judge had in view. No one is forced into this, nor do I care were even all of you to decline. You are at liberty to make any use of this letter you choose. Coln. H.S. Olcott joins me in friendly greetings to you, & I, remain, Very fraternally yours H.P. Blavatsky

Letter 13
From H.P. Blavatsky to W.Q. Judge Dated July 7, 1889

Fontainebleau, France Hotel de la Ville de Lyon & de Londres July 7th 1889 My dear W.Q.J.

Having been spirited away by Mrs. Ida G. Candler, of Boston, and forced to take rest for a month here, I have a little time now to write, & I mean to tell you all I had to say since you left, & that remained unsaid. 1. I do not thank you for the two men you sent here, with regard to whom I have done all you wanted me to & followed your instructions. I am friends with both & have nothing against them, they love me, I love them, but neither is worth a two-penny damn for our work here. Both Fullerton & Lane are complete failures in England. The former worked & did what he could at least; the latter will not touch a thing & speaks of nothing but suicide. Five days after he came he went off to the isle of Wight & remained a fortnight; no sooner had I gone to France then went off to Scotland. I can do nothing for him. 2. In re E.S. Now you know, or ought to know for the situation is full well defined, that if you drop now the E.S., down goes the whole of the T.S. in America, save a few flapdoodling independent Branches. Drop it, and you yourself become useless & helpless. The E.S. is the throbbing heart of the T.S. & without it the T.S. becomes a sham & nothing more. Had we 100 Annie Besants & Herbert Burrowses it might become in time a real Brotherhood of Man, the nucleus of the future weal[?] of Humanity, as in "Looking Backward". But we have one Annie & one Herbert & hundreds of sentimental half selfish when not quite selfish ninnies, who will quarrel & dispute & ruin the whole. So true is this, that the whole force of Coues' infernal cunning is directed against the E.S. alone, hence against me. If you do not understand this, then you are not the acute Irishman I take you to be. Now you know that Coues hates you, but pitches only into me though till now he has not hated me but had great hopes in me for himself. He knows that once he has destroyed the E.S. he will have stopped the heart & activity of the whole T.S. in America, and he acts accordingly. Coues is wise in his generation & you are not, I see. Read his interview with the "Washington Star" reporter & see how cunningly he acts. His whole aim is to identify the Theosophists with the Butlerites, and make the "Esoteric", & the "Esotericists of the T.S." identical in the sight of the public just to ruin us. Now what can you do against him? You have pitched him out, expelled him & he speaks as if he was the President of the T.S. having the impudence of saying that "we (Coues) do not mean to permit her (Blavatsky) to do that & the other." And he will go on laughing at us: because he has money & can bribe the devil[?] in & we have none & that papers refuse insertion to our replies. Now I say, that the only salvation to this is the E.S., because however ill-managed, the majority will ever be true and that if we could only establish ramifications & have esoteric Lodges, the Presidents of which would be responsible for their members, receive but one instruction for the whole lodge (two or three, if numerous) then it would be all right. Your suggestion to abolish the 7 Councillors is impossible & excuse me, absurd. Do you want me to appear a fickle fool? I have just appointed them and now I will smash them? No sir. I was told to do it, & I did it; and if (through your fault & obstinacy) the E.S. falls, the 7 will fall with it and I too. For, the moment the E.S. is destroyed I retire from the T.S. altogether. This I swear. Between Olcott's & Harte's flapdoodle the T.S. is as good as a

farce. I tell you Coues knows it well; and if you let him triumph, then let the karma fall upon you. Do what you like & how you like. I leave you with a carte blanche to act. So long as the fermentation goes on & the stream of the E.S. is not settled, I will give instructions which if they ever fall into the enemies hands will do no harm. Catch me, giving the real until I know my chelas. All these were and are flowers & if you would have the fruit behave yourselves. Dixi. Bert will send you an address of the Esot. "Horus" Lodge of the T.S. which please see if you can publish in Path. It shows that Mahatmas or no Mahatmas what I can teach personally is sufficient to old Kabalists of 20 years standing. All the members of the Horus Lodge (Bradford) are old Masons & Kabalists & what they say in the Address is very suggestive & will wipeout Coues' nose off. Now I see how true it is what Lane says. What you need in America is a Weekly if not a fighting daily. Path is a "lamb-Job" an ever meek Jeremiah, as is our Revue Theosophique in Paris. You hardly dare to say booh in it, for fear it should look like polemics. If, profiting by the occasion, you should address every Theosophist & Esotericist and have Buck & a few others to help you and representing them the truth, namely that Theosophy cannot triumph so long as every paper pitches into it and none will print an answer, collect money enough to publish a weekly, a theosophical pucka fighting paper "the Champion" or the "Wrangler", or some such thing & set Fullerton as nominal editor & you the real Boss, then we could get on. Now Mrs. Candler (the wife of the member for Congress who proposes going for Coues' scalp in October at Washington) who adores me & proves it, promises 300 a year for something like that. She made me come to Paris & spent 30 on one way here only; forcing Bert to take coup-lit reserved carriages & what not for me my maid & himself who accompanied me; placing me in a suit[e] of rooms at 25 francs a day, for a whole month, & spending money like mad[?] she will do anything for me. She is a generous, charming, devoted friend & theosophist & will be a valuable ally for you in October. She will start up a subscription for a Weekly for you & is sure to head it with a good sum. Your Path is a most excellent theosophical paper, but useless for militant purposes. Well, that's all. Choose ye this day etc. Here Bert & I have received writs from Mrs. Cook, who proposes to sue us for defamation & damages for our two libels in Light!! She begins[?] & I had no right to reply & contradict her libel. What next. I am sick, sick, sick of all. If you don't help, I give up all. Your [indecipherable word] HPB

Letter 14
From H.P. Blavatsky to W.Q. Judge Dated August 5, 1889

Jersey Isle Aug. 5, 1889 My dear Judge I begin to feel and share your royal contempt for the lights that compose the E.S. Counsel in London. The mistakes made are such that it is enough to tear one's hair out from despair. Something is wrong in the state of Denmark & very rotten, indeed. Now fancy, both the Instructions never received by A. Griggs, he complaining and Bert swearing that he sent them to his Hotel in Boston. Now where are they? If, as I am assured, every package bears on it our address & the post office is asked to return to it the packet if the person addressed is not found, then how is that the P.O. does not comply with the request? Is this Grigg's or Bert's fault? Both bedamned & redamned the two asses! With Bert it is an entire loss of memory; & he can not be trusted with such esoteric business. I have Mead with me now who has memory & brains, likewise. We will see whether this will help. I have just written to Bridge & others. Nothing that you will do shall ever be discountenanced by me my beloved W.Q.J. You may become guilty of flapdoodles but I will smooth them down. But why the devil do you say I pitch into you? Well you dream, I suppose. I said to Bridge as follows, in reply to his private hint that I should make Griggs a Councillor instead of him as G. seems jealous of him. "He is too careless and neglectful. But still to keep everything smooth & quiet I would be willing to do so, if things remained as they are: but they cannot so remain. The Seven Councillors are useless, I see. It is regular Presidents of Occult Lodges that we need, Lodges, like the "Horus" of Bradford England, whose 14 men, all of them old Masons & Kabalists work like one man & learn splendidly (vide Lucifer for July). Presidents with full powers and chartered who alone will receive the Instructions & be answerable for them & the members who belong to their lodges. Presidents who will select their members themselves & recommend new ones. In short, the E.S. has to be actively reorganized." "You heard from Judge I suppose to that effect. What he does now is perhaps only provisionary. If a Council could be called in every city where there are Esotericists it would be well, as before I resume my teachings the E.S. has to be firmly organized. If I have to teach you at all, and teach real Occultism not give out only a portion of the truth & hints as to the rest as I have done heretofore then I must feel secure. I will not be surprised to see the 2 Instructions published some day in Bundy's Journal. Those already given will not do much harm; were I to continue without shielding the teaching, that[?] which follows will do an immense harm if it falls into the hands of unscrupulous people. Here, and as HPB, I have no right to refuse any one who seeks admission. But the Presidents of Occult groups will have

such a right & be bound to do so. Thus there will less risk for me to receive into the Society traitors." etc. etc. This is what I wrote to him among other things & it does not differ from your programme. But, it is more than necessary to forbid occultism at this junction. We cannot forbid it after the first degree of probation has been passed. No one will accept a life of toil with no powers to reward for it. And you ought to tell it to them. There ought to be a President of the Occult group in every city where there are several Esotericists. About the members who live scattered some other rule must be arrived at if I leave it to your Irish Yankee ingenuity. Now to other matters. Olcott is coming. He will be here on August 24 or 25th. He wants his sister Isabel Mitchell here and asks you to notify her that he is coming in the last week of Aug. Now I do not know her address nor do I expect very wise[?] or desirable things to come out of this meeting. I will have difficulties enough with him alone; but if she comes then I declare[?] she will upset him as sure as you live. With every year he becomes more easily psychologized by those who pander to him (and I can't) and more stubborn. What shall I do! As I must ask you to notify her, I also leave it to you to see whether it will be in the interests of theosophy to have her, since I feel sure she will be worse for us than a mad bull in a China shop & make him ungovernable & as mad. Read my letters in Theosoph Se[p]t.[?] in the Aug. Lucifer and see what I mean. If it comes to the worst then I tell you frankly Judge I will break with the T.S. and resign. I cannot bear the idea that I who had brought Theosophy into existence am expected now to bow to Adyar, Harte and the Counsel which is mad [?] to renounce Masters, Occultism & all. I rather see everything damned at once & turn a fresh leaf. Fancy Harte printing foolish reporter's interview, from the N.Y. Times & then put in my own journal still more foolish editorial notes to throw into my [indecipherable word] that the "Blavatsky Lodge" is no Theosophical Society!! And see his impudence. Those who have ears let them hear. Yours ever & always HPB

Letter 15
From H.P. Blavatsky to W.Q. Judge Undated but probably written late Oct. 1889

My dearest W.Q.J.

If, knowing that you are the only man in the E.S. in whom I have confidence enough not to have exacted from him a pledge you misunderstand me, or doubt my affection for you, or gratitude, then in addition to other things you must be a flapdoodle. To begin, except my sincere apology for having gone into the wrong box. It appears it is not you (not directly at any rate) but Griggs who has ruffled Bridge's feathers. But the question is: has Griggs acted on his own hook, or have you, Councillors, with yourself at the head made the rule that a President in chair or before taking the chair should pledge himself? If so it's silly, my beloved son. The President of each E. group must first of all pledge all his members in his presence to obey him and make them repeat the pledge & then only pledge himself before them all to the Esoteric Constitution. And there are & will be cases when a member of the E.S. does not like to join a group, wants to remain unknown or apart from others & then if I have confidence in him, I may allow him to remain an unattached member, make this provision, for it is absolutely necessary. Judge, we have too many enemies not to do our level best to keep our good members, & Bridge & Noyes are honest & sincere, both. They may be fanatics & snap their fingers at personalities, but they are true & devoted to Theosophy to death. Now don't be a mule-headed Irishman & do not kick against your best friends. There is nothing I would not do for you & I will stick for you till death thro' thick & thin. Do something to help me; do not make enemies of those who will otherwise remain in our army, simply on account of some damned formality and red-tape rule. You say & write & print you are my agent (of the rather, not mine). Therefore, it is easy for you to say that the alteration is made by myself if you have any such rule. And look here, if you dare protest in blue or red pencil against what I write about you in my forthcoming Instructions then I will curse you on my death bed! You do not know what I do. [Next sentence in another hand.] It will be in praise J. You have to be defended whether you will or not. I am collecting affidavits against Darius H. [?] because he is sure to accuse you one day otherwise than in the R.P.J. and we must clean your skirts & show his as black as they are, & protect you & prepare for it before hand. Now here Bridge will be invaluable. Take therefore my advice & do your best to keep him in friendship at whatever cost. Mead sends to you his letter to me & my answer to him. This may mend matters but not unless you help me. I see now that it is Griggs not you. But I have an old tenderness to Griggs & do not want to ruffle his feathers in his turn. Only why the devil you should throw away 3 additional dollars to telegraph, that you had nothing to do in the matter & that you may now resign (very theosophical), I be switched if I know! Judge you have much to endure & you are overworked. But so have I and if you threaten me with such a thing then I better shut up shop. If you take offence at what I may say in a moment of bewilderment & fear of losing good members & thus strengthening the enemy, then the T.S. is indeed a sham & the Cause an unreachable utopia. For mercy sake, our sake & your own, do mend matters & let us hear no more of it. It is two months I am meditating[?] to alter the wording of the Pledge & now I am doing it. It is just the same, only a little bit more explicit period. May our Saviour, the mild Jesus have you in his keeping. Yours ever, H.P.B.

[Written sideways, in her own handwriting, in larger script are the words:] I hate to be accused of wanting to play the Pope and the autocrat.

Letter 16
From H.P. Blavatsky to W.Q. Judge Dated Feb. 9, 1890

Feb. 9, 1890 London My dear W.Q.J. You suffer from liver, I, too. It seems to make you pessimistic, crotchety & not over friendly. It makes me appreciate only the more the difficulties your liver makes you labor under & to seek means to remedy it. I leave therefore important work to answer your letter seriatim, though I do not find it useful to point out your contradictions between e.g. your "OK"s, on the applications, meaning that you know they are all correct, & your fling at the new rules which would force you to find out about the fitness of the incoming members & the impossibility I place you & the Council under, by such a stupid "order". And this is "insidious"? Very well. Now it so happens that the Presidents of the groups & the Councillors were appointed just for that very thing. No one wanted them or you to be spies but simply to "OK" them. You refuse threatening to resign well, do as you like. Ever since the E.S. was formed I had nothing but worry with it in America & in America alone. I have here in England, about 80, & abroad 25 esotericists, 35 in the London Gupta Vidya alone, & not one ever since "M.C." left, not one has ever given trouble, or turned traitor, or gave any difficulty whatever. This is why being sure of these, I teach them the real thing as extras, sending to America only that which if ever printed will really do no harm, as they do not possess the lost [last?] key to correspondences & tattvic mysteries. Is it this, you call a "humbug"? Then after remarking that it is so much, & no more that is given the three (first) years to all who are taught by & live with the Masters I feel justified in my "humbug". I know who sent the things to Bundy & told you so; and the person who helped in Chicago, has left long ago the E.S. Pray do not imagine that because I hold my tongue as bound by my oath & duty that I do not know who is who. I know enough for my purposes, & this is sufficient. The charters were given and ordered to be distributed by the Masters. And if you did not do so then, instead of rejoicing I would feel, if I were you,

that I have impeded the work. They are not given to those who receive extras in private & confidential letters from me, (tho' so far in America there are only two who have received such) but the Charters are meant as pretty toys to suit the tastes of those to whom only semi truths are given, so far. They are meant as outward signs for visible groups, in which the majority will ever remain only half trusted, and the minority alone an extremely great minority, if you pardon the Irish bull will learn in time the real thing. But if even this is too much for you & you see in them worse traitors than those who will henceforth enter then, throw up the whole thing, & say so publicly & openly. Tell them the work kills you, and that you cannot go on. What do I care! Does our American E.S. give me any benefit or glory or anything except worry & an eternal, everlasting jeremiad from you? You say it is the E.S. that made you ill? Throw it up, or pass the group's & the further Instructions to Mr. Fullerton; or shut up shop entirely, for what I care. There are in America half a dozen or perhaps a little more whom I will not abandon because you abandon the work. I will go on teaching them in private letters & that's all. But I prophecy & my prophecy will soon come to pass: destroy the groups of the E.S., withhold their Charters, do, as you do, and the T.S. will fall down into ruins in America beforesix months are over, just as it fell down & collapsed in 1878 when we left. But the point is that if you go on as you do, it is I who will break with America, as I do not intend to keep on being bullied by you in every letter. Your opinion of me is quite flattering. I have been "egged" you think by someone. No Esotericist here will ever egg me. The rules were passed & added, just as the Gupta Vidya Lodge here was formed, in which the majority is to, & already belongs, to the inner circle you speak of. You never imagined, did you, that a body of about 500 men & women (473) could remain having all its members trusted as much as the few? I have begun the shifting long ago. But as the Master told me to do, so I did. [M glyph] said, only last January in a letter I have what I had to do & I only carry out his instructions, not mine. You seem to imagine that I care personally for this hard labour work, the tread-mill of the E.S. I say I do not in the least, except to benefit the T.S. at large. If you are "sick of the masses of letters from E.S. & constant violation of every rule & regulations" I am all that also. If you are sick "of the whole outfit as it is now worked" as it is yourself who have placed it on such footing, why did you do so? I have nothing to do with your work. I have made the rules for the few, and again tell you; & because there was absolute necessity for this; and if you kick against rules III & IV, I say leave them alone; only then no E.S. will receive any extra matter; no group will ever have its inner group and they will go on semi Esotericists because only half-trusted. In such case as I said I will choose here, those, few, with whom I will correspond, personally, & I need have no agent, no Secretary in America for it. Remember please, that if I could only forget that there is an America in this world & an E.S. that I could then earn easily 100 a month under my new contracts with the Russian journals. Remember that I have to receive 150 roubles in gold or 30 for every printed sheet or 16 pages of 300 words on each, which I can easily write in one day if I had nothing to think of; (1) and this I cannot do because I have not literally one moment of spare time; and here I am, obliged to accept from time to time alms from our Theosophists when they see me dying and have to send me off to recuperate on the sea-shore. All this; thanks to the E.S. of the T.S. Do as you like; This is my ultimatum.

And now to other things, less exalted but as necessary. I owe 7 Duke St. money on my books; & the Countess asks me for it from time to time. I gave her the 50 received by me from a New York Esotericist for I would not keep one penny of the money given by members for myself as he had asked me to do; and I gave her the other 20; but I owe Duke Street, for more it seems. Well, she laboured, I believe under the impression that I received money from you & did not say a word, the note enclosed from Fullerton is not likely to dispel her suspicion if she has any. You tell him, he says, that you made to me two remittances on my books? You never did as you know. You sent me once 7, for, or on the Secret Doctrine; I never received yet one cent on either the Key or the Voice. What does he or you mean then? Well, I feel sorry of having made the arrangement that you should send to me direct what I have to receive for the S.D. Key & Voice. It only gives you extra trouble, and to me the bother of speaking about money matters which I hate. I had done it when I thought that Duke St. would either go down to hell or remain in the hand of Arch & Bert, which would come to the same thing. Now that the Countess took the settlement of all the affairs upon herself and is the sole manager I beg you to regard my previous arrangement nil. I send you another legal script & give to the Countess one to the same effect. Let all business be transacted now officially & in a business sort of way. This will avoid me writing on money-matters and worrying; and must please you too. The less we have money transactions between us the healthier for our friendship. I gave the Countess your accounts about the Secret Doctrine & that's all I had from you. Dixi. And now wishing you better health & luck than my E.S. & "humbug" have brought to you, believe me your friend, as ever HP Blavatsky (1) There's my little article of hardly 3,000 words the Progress of Theosophy in the North American Review for February (or March) for which I have received a cheque of 20 from Doyle Brice.

Letter 17
From H.P. Blavatsky to W.Q. Judge Undated but probably written around March 7, 1890

[Note from HPB to WQJ on ES Charters (1)] W.Q.J. is asked to have the following alterations & additions made on the E.S. Charters.

Whereas Brothers of the E.S. (give name of locality) having made known to us their (change from his) 9th [?] line, last word, Brothers Explanation for W.Q.J. The "Inner Lodge" of the Dzyan is the name by which the Master's Lodge in the inner Lamasery is known. All the adepts, chelas etc. in that part of the country are known among Lamas as Dzyan-pas. The "we" does not refer to me but to myself & staff Secretary chosen by Council besides which, you W.Q.J. as the Chief & only agent of the "Dzyan" in America have to add your signature under mine on each Charter. The Charters may be prolix & high faluting perhaps, but they were written out by High Masons those of the Horus Lodge & Rosicrucians. I am sorry but I must beg of you to deliver these permanent charters to every group in your list with numbers & options to them to give name to their Lodges or not. Yours truly H.P.B. The Lodges may be known publicly by their names, if they like, but their numbers must not be divulged. As to the Masters' photos: 1. Every E.S. Lodge may have one copy of each for the Lodge if they desire it. 2. Individual members of the E.S. may also have a single copy of each, subject to the approval of W.Q.J. Why speak of selling the photos? (2) Does paying for the bare cost of producing them come under the head of selling? In other words the privilege to the members is simply that of taking copies of the photos at their own expense. Your suggestions with regard to Mead's work have been attended to. I do not understand why the pictures of the Masters should become less "sacred" because the photographer who reproduces them has to be paid? Will W.Q.J. please explain? His ever

HP Blavatsky HPB

Endnotes
(1) For a facsimile of an ES charter, see The Original Programme of the Theosophical Society and Preliminary Memorandum of the Esoteric Section by H.P. Blavatsky. Adyar, Madras, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1931. (2) These comments by H.P.B. may be in reply to Mr. Judge's letter dated "N. Y. Feb. 25 1890" and addressed to Countess Wachtmeister who was residing with HPB in London.--B.A.O. editor.

Letters from February 1890 - July 1890

N. Y. Feb. 25 1890 My dear Countess: This photographic affair will drive us both crazy unless we end it, and I propose to do that. I propose to now settle all questions respecting the photos of Masters by paying for those I have at the rates you ask, although I think them high and that you have been swindled by the photographers. (1) I received of the large H. P. B. reproductions -- life size -- only two, one in brown, and one grey. Of these I sold one at $7.00 (no matter what Mr. Fullerton may have understood) as I could not get $10. for it and I kept the other to use in headquarters here. Hence I owe you for those, which at your own rates of $10 is -- $20. (2) I have two small photos of the Masters and two large ones, four in all. The two large ones I have given a friend to keep and as I do not know the price I must leave it to you to inform me. The two small ones I have in hand as trustee and shall return them if you please as I shall not be a party to selling pictures of the Masters. Hence you will please add to the $20. for H. P. B.'s the price of the two large photos of Masters and draw against me upon the T. P. Co, that is, let the T. P. Co. pay you and charge it in the a/c ag'st me that I have with them. Let me know at once the total amount. This therefore brings this business to a conclusion. I have given orders in the Path office not to order any photos of anyone and not to receive any, but to send them back, and to refer all persons direct to London. As to the photos of Masters I consider the whole thing a scandal. In one breath they are sacred and then they are sold for money. It does not excuse to say that they cost that, for if they are to go to certain proper persons then they should be free and if that can't be afforded then they should not be at all. Of course I do not criticize you in any way for I have no right and I do not think you originated it; but I am only expressing my private opinion as I think I can safely do with you as with no one else.

Hoping to hear from you soon I am sincerely yours WILLIAM Q JUDGE:

Letter 18
From H.P. Blavatsky to W.Q. Judge. Dated August [1890 probably around the 9th]

private & E.S. August 19 Avenue Road Regent's Park, W. My dear W.Q.J. I answer you question re E.S. and Bert. If he has informed all the E.S. groups... that "they are to form the auric egg & are to do this by means of colors, and are to do this 7 times a day & so as until formed" then he has said that which has no more meaning than an order to form a sheep out of a goose's egg. If he added to this that "this was by my order" than he was either insane or he fibbed, not to use a worse word. My opinion is, that he got [?] this alleged "order" through Mrs K. Sherburne (the second edition & supplement of M.C.) and went as mad over it as over his magnetised water for Mrs Gahan [?]. Now I beg of you to notify all the E.S. members at once of this: i.e. that I have never dreamt of giving any such absurd & idiotic orders. Moreover, issue a short notice to the effect that unless you, or any other I may send to represent me (which I will not do in a hurry) can show any such "order" signed with my physical hand, not the astral (damn these phenomenal orders!) I repudiate such a signature. More still: any one who after having been notified of the present accepts and acts upon such an "order" through a third person let it be Olcott himself I expell him from the E.S. as I do not want any fools in it. All this K.S. (the defunct) "mesmerized water" in my name and "auric egg" by my ["]orders" have forced me, acting according to the rules, to suspend Bert. I cannot expell him for ever, as this would be to ruin him for ever but I suspend him for an indefinite period of time and I send him to India. He is to sail in three days. I do not want Olcott nor any one to know anything of his guilt or his suspension. I trust in him theosophically if not esoterically, & you know the difference. I leave him even the Instructions till No. 3 but he will receive no more; nor can he belong to the inner group & receive [?] it final teachings or have access to the "occult room" as those few of the inner group. If he

succeeds in saving the situation in India where theosophy is falling into dreamless sleep & [indecipherable word] well & good. If not he will have to work until he has atoned for his sins. Yours ever the same. HPB Please see that none but the Councillors know of his expulsion. I write to Sherb[urne], myself & will try to pacify him. Oh, woe to me as the Head of the E.S.! Go to Letter 19 (Not available yet)

Letter 20
From H.P. Blavatsky to W.Q. Judge. Dated November 19, 1890

private Theosophical Head Quarters, 19, Avenue Road, Regent's Park, N.W. London, Nov. 19 1890 My dear W.Q.J. I send you this as a warning, for all of us the whole Society in fact. Read carefully Olcott's last editorial in Theosophist. "The first leaf out of the History of the T.S." & you will find perhaps, as I did where he is driving to. His position is that the T.S. was not founded as a result of Master's "order," that in fact he never received any "order" but the whole thing came to him spontaneously. Well, you know that he almostlies. Six months before we were talking & preparing for such a thing, I going against his "Miracle Club" & he unable to find any other name. He calls me in the article "a hypnotizing agent," puts himself to the front desperately, from the first line to the last, & mentions me in a very suggestively casual way. Now I will tell you why he does so. It is in consequence of Bert putting him squarely the question: Is he going to stick to the Master's programme or is he not? If so, how can he say he is devoted to the Masters but that he has lost absolutely every confidence in me? And this he says ever since I was placed by unanimous vote at the head of the European Section. The fact is, he is desperately jealous of me!!! And it is that infernal Harte who brought him gradually to such a feeling. For it is he who made him doubt me, made him believe that I was ambitious, vain, & sought to take his place as President! The fool!! If the whole T.S. demanded that I should step into his shoes (as T. Tatya does) I would refuse as I refused him. Olcott now tries to gradually cut my throat by diminishing in the eyes of the world my participation in founding the T.S. He goes back on himself forgetting what he had been constantly repeating to his audiences for the first ten

years, repeating the same in print in his Lectures & articles. He will end by showing himself a liar, if we (you especially who know all) do not stop him. You know how many letters he already wrote with mild hints in them that I was only a medium hence irresponsible. It was his way of getting his own personality out of difficulty, by throwing in time a piece of my reputation to the hungry beasts that pursued us, in order to save his skin. And now he emphasizes,[?] & crown[?] and[?] all. Look at the last page of the last Theosophist: one of the most malicious articles against me is republished & quoted without any reason or cause, unless it is to contradict the sentence "priestess of Theosophy" or "High Priestess." A whole tub of dirty water poured on my head, for the sake of taking exception to one word! It's Harte, but it is also Olcott, because he permits such things & damns himself thereby. Would I ever permit a para from the Tribune or the N.Y. Sun against Olcott to appear in Lucifer? But the editorial is a far graver blunder. H.S.O. threatens to resign, may be will resign, and he seeks to throw the whole blame upon me! Last year when here, he boasted of theosophy & its Branches going up higher than sky, in India. All was flourishing then, all promising, the people's devotion as great as ever, 150 Branches strong & happy: And what's the truth & what does Bert find there? Out of the 150 Branches, only 40 alive. No one approaching Adyar at 5 miles distance. Theosophy rapidly dying. Why? I say because of Harte's reigning supreme at Adyar for the last two years, & especially Olcott going away for a year to Japan, where he did not establish a single Branch, but caught chronic dissentry, made incurable his old illness in the testes, which has now so enfeebled him as to have entirely altered the man! The unfortunate man can no longer even deliver a lecture. From a fascinating speaker, a good orator, he became a dull lecturer & his lectures in England last year, were miserable failures. He has no energy; lost his love for the work, became indifferent to the T.S., lazy & incapable any longer of fighting our way & struggling. And because of that he seeks to throw the blame upon me, tells Bert & everyone that it is I, who killed the T.S., owing to the Coulomb-Hodgson affair, etc. etc. Is this fair, I ask you? Well, my dear W.Q.J. if you don't look out it is HSO, whose Yankee vanity & personality will kill the T.S. in India, at any rate, & thereby weaken America & Europe. I have done my duty & have no more responsibilities except with my own people here, a group that will be true to me till death. And really outside of this I have no other ambition. Nothing can shake me with those whom I teach in dead earnest, for they know, that I know. And, unless you stand by me in this business, I am ready to do with America that which I have done with India, namely, to part company with it by means of a circular as the one I sent to India to the members of the E.S. Shall this suit you? And if you do not refresh Olcott's memory in a serious private letter to him, & unless he stops his little game on me, I will do so, I swear. It is not my personality that I care for but I tremble for the whole Society. For, if the "President-Founder" goes back on us, then will the death-knell of the T.S. ring in dead earnest. Answer me all this W.Q.J. I am tired of all, disgusted unto death. Think of this seriously and tell me what you would have me do. H.S.O. speaks in his editorial of his Masters & Teachers, as if They had come to him independently of me, had dropped me and stuck to him alone from first to last. Well do not take the above for a threat to you or the American E.S. which heaven forbid. I will never forget your loyalty & devotion, your unswerving friendship but I am afraid that H.S.O. will so weaken the T.S. by his mad (present) capers[?] that I shall not be able to do anything for anyone.

yours to death H.P.B.

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