H. S. Olcott's Old Diary Leaves (First Volume) — "The True Story of the Theosophical Society"

 Front Book Cover

In the Foreword of the first volume of Old Diary Leaves (1895), H. S. Olcott’s six-volume memoir about the Theosophical Society, he observed about Co-Founder Helena Petrovna Blavatsky: “. . . if there ever existed a person in history who was a greater conglomeration of good and bad, light and shadow, wisdom and indiscretion, spiritual insight and lack of common sense, I cannot recall the name, the circumstances or the epoch.”  Something undeniable was "her evident devotion to the Masters whom she depicted as almost supernatural personages, and her zeal for the spiritual uplifting of humanity by the power of the Eastern Wisdom."
 
Despite any human foibles of HPB, Olcott was convinced of the intercourse “between her mind and the minds of other living persons . . . Or, sometimes, the subordination of her will and whole personality to the will of another entity.”  In his analysis of "psychical phenomena of or connected with Mme. Blavatsky," he included "spiritual insight, or intuition, or inspiration."
 
Olcott described an enlightening occurrence pertaining to his own mentality.  This incident involved an anagram (the name of a 'Master') noticed in the acrostic made by the initials of a six-paragraph circular he had written.
 

It proved to me that space was no bar to the transmission of thought-suggestions from the teacher’s to the pupil’s brain; and it supported the theory that, in the doing of world-work, the agent may often be actually led by overseeing directors to do things which they choose to have done without his being at all conscious that his mind is not functioning under the sole impulse of its controlling Ego.

 
A self-declared 'Occultist,' HPB was unable to explain the precise circumstances of her revered spiritual guides despite her having written an extensive assortment of books, articles and correspondence concerning her experiences and beliefs.  Olcott related: “. . . I had ocular proof that at least some of those who worked with us were living men, from having seen them in the flesh in India after having seen them in the astral body in America and Europe; from having touched and talked with them.  Instead of telling me that they were spirits, they told me they were as much alive as myself, and that each of them had his own peculiarities and capabilities; in short, his complete individuality.”  Olcott further wrote:
 

One of the greatest of them, the Master of the two Masters about whom the public has heard a few facts and circulated much foul abuse, wrote me on June 22, 1875: “The time is come to let you know who I am.  I am not a disembodied spirit, Brother, I am a living man; gifted with such powers by our Lodge as are in store for yourself some day.  I cannot be with you otherwise than in spirit, for thousands of miles separate us at present.  Be patient and of good cheer, untiring labourer of the sacred Brotherhood!  Work on and toil too for yourself, for self-reliance is the most powerful factor of success.  Help your needy brother and you shall be helped yourself in virtue of the never-failing and ever active Law of Compensation.”

 
One observation that can be made about this statement based upon Olcott’s own reporting in People From The Other World (1875) is that the people who appeared during seances at the Eddy Homestead were not adequately described as ‘disembodied spirits’ either.  He wrote in the earlier book: “I had had too many proofs of the materiality of the visible spirit-forms to fancy them imponderable and unsubstantial . . . To my sense of touch they appeared as substantial as any human being in the flesh, the only difference being in their temperature, which was invariably lower than my own, and the skin, which was ordinarily covered with a clammy sweat.”
 
Olcott came to accept HPB’s perspective that seance room phenomena could be attributed to “elementals.”  A scrapbook remark added by Blavatsky via pen and ink was included in the published Collected Writings (Volume One) of H. P. Blavatsky and referred to the ‘Elementals’ as “the beings living in the Elements.”  In an 1893 article, HPB appraised that there were elemental beings that were “simply creatures of ethereal matter, irresponsible, and neither good nor bad, unless influenced by a superior intelligence.”  When I first read the first volume of Old Diary Leaves more than two decades ago, the shared idiosyncrasies of Olcott and HPB’s metaphysical beliefs seemed most vividly expressed in the thought-provoking anecdote describing an occurrence in 1875 at HPB’s house in Philadelphia.  Here is Olcott’s report of this incident.
 

One day, bethinking me that a sufficiency of towels was but too evidently lacking in her house, I bought some and brought them home with me in a parcel.  We cut them apart, and she was for putting them into immediate use without hemming, but, as I protested against such bad housekeeping, she good-naturedly set to plying her needle.  She had hardly commenced when she gave an angry kick beneath the work-table at which she sat, and said, “Get out, you fool!” “What is the matter?” I asked.  “Oh,” she replied, “it is only a little beast of an elemental that pulled my dress and wants something to do.”  “Capital!” I said; “here is just the thing: make it hem these towels.  Why should you bother about them, and you such an atrocious needlewoman as that very hem proves you to be?”  She laughed, and abused me for my uncomplimentary speech, but at first would not gratify the poor little bond-slave under the table that was ready to play the kindly leprachaun if given the chance.  I, however, persuaded her at last: she told me to lock up the towels, the needles and thread, in a bookcase with glass doors lined with thick green silk, that stood at the farther side of the room.  I did so and resumed by seat near her, and we fell to talking on the inexhaustible and unique theme that occupied our thoughts—occult science.  After perhaps a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes, I heard a little squeaky sound, like a mouse’s pipe, beneath the table, whereupon H. P. B. told me that “that nuisance” had finished the towels.  So I unlocked the bookcase door, and found the dozen towels were actually hemmed, though after a clumsy fashion that would disgrace the youngest child in an infant-school sewing-class.  Hemmed they were, beyond the possibility of doubt, and inside a locked bookcase which H. P. B. Never approached while the thing was going on.  The time was about 4 P.M., and, of course, it was broad daylight.  We were the only persons in the room, and no third person entered it until all was finished.

 
The Theosophical Society was first proposed in 1875 and became a reality that same year.  Olcott wrote: “It was to be a body for the collection and diffusion of knowledge; for occult research, and the study and dissemination of ancient philosophical and theosophical ideas . . .”
 
There was an amalgamation of the Society with Swami Dyánand Sarasvati’s Arya Samaj (“a brief and unpleasant connection”) in May 1878 that lasted only a few months.  Olcott commented: “Our two hearts drew us towards the Orient, our dreams were of India, our chief desire to get into relations with the Asiatic people.”
 
The British Theosophical Society was formed at a “Meeting of Fellows” at Great Russell Street, London in June 1878 with Charles Carleton Massey elected President. 
 
By Autumn, the decision had been made to transfer the Society’s ‘executive centre’ from New York to India.  HPB’s entries in Olcott’s diary “testify to the nervous eagerness she felt to get away, and her fears that my plans might miscarry.”  Olcott further reported:
 

In the entry of October 22d she writes—speaking of the urgency of our Mahâtmas: “N—went off watch and in came S—with orders from — to complete all by the early part of December.  Well, H. S. O. is playing his great final stake.”

 
When their steamer left New York Bay on December 19, 1878, Olcott remembered, “At last we were crossing the blue water towards our Land of Promise; and, so full was my heart with the prospect, that I did not wait on deck to see the Navesink Highlands melt out of view, but descended to my cabin and searched for Bombay on my Map of India.”

The first volume of Old Diary Leaves derived from original articles by Olcott that appeared in The Theosophist journal between 1892 and 1894.  A second edition of the first volume (or "First Series") was published in 1941 by the Theosophical Publishing House with a few corrections and the subtitle added “America, 1874—1878.”

The first volume of Old Diary Leaves may be read on the Internet at several websites, including the HathiTrust Digital Library edition.