The Passing of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

A London 1888 photograph with H. P. Blavatsky (front left) and her sister Vera Petrovna de Zhelihovsky.  Behind them are Vera (HPB's niece) with her husband Charles Johnston and Henry S. Olcott.  Other photos are available at The Blavatsky Archives.

The six books comprising Henry S. Olcott's memoirs offering "The Only Authentic History of the Theosophical Society," Old Diary Leaves, derived from remembrances that originated in articles published in The Theosophist, the Society's journal.  The fourth volume chronicles the years 1887 through 1892 and was published in 1910.  An unidentified editor contributed a preface for this "Fourth Series" and noted that Olcott passed over in 1907.  Here is the description of the book's contents from the Editor's Preface.

The volume before us deals with some five years during which the writer travelled all round the world, visiting Japan twice, Europe twice, Ceylon several times; Australia, America, Burma each once, besides making long lecturing tours in India.  These were years which saw the advent of Mrs. Besant—the present President—to the Theosophical Society, and witnessed the death of Madame Blavatsky, and of her learned Hindu colleague, T. Subba Row.  Work on behalf of Buddhist Unity occupied much of the writer's time and energy in his Eastern travels, while, in the West, he devoted a good deal of attention to the study of hypnotism, both in Paris and Nancy.  Many useful notes on this subject are embodied in these pages.

Finally, the volume closes with foreshadowings of the "Case against W. Q. Judge": various incidents which had an important bearing on this scandal (afterwards the subject of the notorious Westminster Gazette articles under the title "Isis Very Much Unveiled") are recorded from time to time as they occur.

No revision of the "Leaves" as they originally appeared has been attempted.  The Editor's work is confined to one or two explanatory notes, and the correction of a few other obvious errors.

The period chronicled in the book included many contentious occasions, including instances where Olcott came close to resigning his presidency of the Theosophical Society.  He reflected about his relationship with Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky:

She was the Teacher, I the pupil; she the misunderstood and insulted messenger of the Great Ones, I the practical brain to plan, the right hand to work out the practical details.  Under the Hindu classification, she would be the teaching Brahmin, I the fighting Kshattriya; under the Buddhist one, she would be the Bhikshu, I the working Dyâkya or laic.  It is painful beyond words to read her correspondence from Europe, and see how she suffered from various causes, fretting and worrying too often over mares' nests.

A footnote indicates HPB's financial predicament: "From the time of her leaving Adyar I had sent her £20 monthly until the reserve fund of the Theosophist was exhausted, when I notified her that unless she came back and shared my crusts she would have to find some other means of support; I could go no further."

In the shadow of the Mahatmas, seemingly common events are like parables, such as this incident related in the first chapter when Olcott was touring in India.  The locale was Guntur, deemed by Olcott as "an important place, the scene of much missionary activity."

Among my callers after my first lecture was the Rev. Mr. S, a Presbyterian missionary, whose case was a very hard one.  For two years past he and his wife had been persecuted by the other missionaries, their pay stopped, and every effort made to drive them out of India, because, on discovering that the senior missionary had been behaving immorally with some of the women converts, they had tried their best to have him tried and removed.  The policy of expediency, however, prevailed over that of justice, and these two honest Christian workers had been reduced to the direst straits.  He had worked at carpentering and other odd jobs and she had done sewing, but there were days when they had to go hungry.  The Hindu community held the worthy couple in respect and told me these facts, so I had my cook prepare a good dinner for them, and sent it over and invited myself to come and help eat it.  They received me with affectionate kindness as a compatriot and sympathiser, and Mrs. S expressed the wish that I might leave the error of my beliefs and join them as a missionary; a proposal which made me laugh, and make them the counter-proposal that they should disconnect themselves from a party where such iniquities could prevail, and join me as earnest Theosophists!

In 1888 as well as 1889, Olcott was reunited with HPB during visits to London.  One result was the formation of the 'Esoteric Section of the Theosophical Society' under the sole direction of HPB.  Olcott mentioned there had been a previous failure in this direction at Adyar in 1884 when HPB and others "tried to organize a secret class, or group, whose members were to have been brought more closely into relations with the Masters, but which failed . . ."

During the 1889 London visit, Olcott for the first time encountered Annie Besant, who was living in the house that was the local TS Headquarters.  He observed about his being together again with HPB, "Things which had seemed to her as mountains became molehills when we came to look at them calmly.  Thus had it always been."  Although "pleasant relations" with HPB had been restored during Olcott's visit, back in India Olcott found HPB's "prickly side" again manifesting with acrimonious correspondence.  Olcott admitted in 1890, "She was driving me almost to desperation at about that time, even to the extent of sending out Mr. Keightley to India with a sort of letter-of-marque, apparently intended to destroy the prestige of Adyar, and concentrate all exoteric, as well as esoteric, authority in London."

 . . . before leaving home for Ceylon, I had written to H. P. B. my intention to retire from the Presidentship and to give her the entire executive, as well as spiritual, management, which she seemed anxious to acquire; I reminded her that our pioneering work was practically finished, and she could easily find a dozen better educated and more yielding men than myself to help her continue the movement.  My intention was also communicated to a number of our leading men, both of the East and the West.


Protests came pouring in from all sides, and a number of my correspondents announced that they should leave the Society unless I consented to remain.  H. P. B. cabled Keightley that she would not allow him to read to the Convention a friendly farewell address to myself, which he had drafted and sent her a copy of for approval; she said that the Masters disapproved of my resignation, and by the next mail she wrote him a positive order to return at once if I should retire, threatening to herself withdraw and dismember the T.S.

Here is one of Olcott's anecdotes about his study of hypnotism.  He had observed at HPB's sitting-room at Lansdowne Road, experiments conducted by Danish professional hypnotist Carl Hansen.

. . . one of the company present—Mrs. Besant—was made to seem to the subject to have disappeared from the room.  Although she stood directly in front of him and spoke to him, he seemed neither to see nor hear her.  She took from H. P. B.'s whist-table a handkerchief and dangled it by one corner before the subject's eyes, but he did not see her hand holding it, though he did see the handkerchief, and was much amused at its self-suspension in the air.  Turning to H. P. B., he said: "Madame, you must be doing some magic, for I see a handkerchief out there with nothing to hold it up: what is it?"  Mrs. Besant then held against her back a playing-card, drawn at random and face downward from a pack, and again the subject saw it, and not Mrs. Besant: her body was transparent to his psychical vision.  This was an astounding experiment, for neither Mrs. Besant nor any of the others in the room had knowledge of the value of the card until the subject called it out, and we each verified his accuracy.  If Hansen had seen it first, then we might presume that it was a case of telepathy, but he did not.  let the Materialist explain the phenomenon—if he can.

Olcott described the work of Baron von Reichenbach and "His announcement of his discovery of a new and potent force of nature, which he called Odyle . . . a force which is neither electricity nor magnetism . . . extends throughout space, every celestial orb being being apparently, like our earth, a focal centre of it."

Olcott was in Australia in May 1891 when he learned the "direful news" of the passing of HPB after a chronic illness.  The details are provided in a Lucifer 1891 article by Laura M. Cooper.  Olcott wrote: "Although I had known for years that she would die before me, yet I never expected that she would leave me so abruptly without passing over to me certain secrets which she told me she must give me before she could go."  He spoke about his 'chum' to attendees of the first Annual Convention in Europe in July: ". . . of what I know about Theosophy and Theosophical matters, a large part has been obtained through Isis Unveiled, in the composition of which I was engaged with her for about two years.  Our effort should be to spread everywhere among our sympathisers the belief that each one must work out his own salvation, that there can be no progress whatever without effort . . ."  He expressed to the TS members that they had been more fortunate than a hapless would-be pupil of an indifferent Master in India or Tibet —

We have had H. P. B. with us as an active worker for the last sixteen years, during which time she has given out in various channels, in the Theosophist, in Lucifer, her books, and her conversation, a great volume of esoteric teaching, and hundreds of hints which, if taken, understood, and followed up will enable any one of us to make decided progress in our Theosophical direction.


I hope the spirit of amity may dwell in this meeting; that we may feel we are in the presence of the Great Ones whose thoughts take in what is transpiring at any distance as easily as what is transpiring near by . . .

In 1892 there was another notice of resignation given by Olcott, who explained: "Exaggerated reports has been spread about me; the Judge influence was paramount in London . . . I took all the necessary measures to make the transfer of authority to Mr. Judge, then Vice-President, practicable."  Olcott modified the terms of his resignation to allow the conclusion of unsettled property matters and then there was "an interference from a quarter which could not be ignored."  He described having received clairaudiently just before daybreak on February 10, a message from his Guru "quite contrary to my own belief, and hence it could not be explained away as a case of auto-suggestion."

He told me (a) That a messenger from him would be coming, and I must hold myself ready to go and meet him; (b) That the relationship between himself, H. P. B., and myself was unbreakable; (c) That I must be ready for a change of body, as my present one had nearly served its purpose; (d) That I had not done well in trying to resign prematurely: I was still wanted at my post, and must be contented to remain indefinitely until he gave me permission to abandon it; (e) That the time was not ripe for carrying out my scheme of a great International Buddhist League, and that the Mahâ-Bodhi Society, which I had intended to use as the nucleus of the scheme, would be a failure; (f) That all stories about his having cast me off and withdrawn his protection were false, for he kept constant watch over me, and would never desert me.

This messenger was eventually designated by Olcott as Mrs. Besant.

Olcott assumed that the Mahatma Letters instructing Judge were fraudulent and expressed his new perspective of Judge: ". . .I had no confidence in his pretended revelations and occult commissions."  One of these letters was sent to Olcott and included the news that Judge had been recently ordered to change his policy in relation to Olcott's resignation — at least for the present.  "The Judge Affair" is a topic of the fifth volume of Old Diary Leaves.  

Olcott reported another clairaudient message: ". . . just before dawn on the 14th of March my Guru's voice told me that I 'had no occasion to worry about H. P. B.'s condition, as she was now safe, and her bad and good record was made up and could not be changed.'"

Also mentioned in the fourth volume of Old Diary Leaves is a declaration published in the March 1883 Theosophist: "While it is yet time, both the Founders of the Theosophical Society place upon record their solemn promise that they will let trance mediums severely alone after they get to 'the other side.'”

At the Theosophical Society Convention of 1892, Olcott's 'Annual Address' announced the cancellation of his resignation and resumption of official duty.  The book concludes with the statement: "And so closes the story of the doings of 1892, which passes into the Book of Judgment of Chitragupta, Record-keeper of the Akâsha."