Some Observations about My Olcott / Blavatsky Series of Articles

A London 1890 photograph of H. P. Blavatsky with James M. Pryse (left) and G. R. S. Mead.

I first learned about Madame H. P. Blavatsky at lectures in 1996 at the Philosophical Research Society in Los Angeles.  I decided to read about her life and soon realized that what made possible the phenomena associated with HPB had been shown to me beginning in the summer of 1995 when I witnessed occurrences associated with a so-called 'talking poltergeist' haunting in Oklahoma — phenomena that continued to occur in my presence following my return home to my Echo Park condo, as chronicled in Testament.  

After reading several books about HPB, I decided that her life was a problematic case for metaphysical insights as she was a self-proclaimed 'Occultist' who avowed keeping secrets.  Now having read the first four volumes of Theosophical Society Founder/President H. S. Olcott's Old Diary Leaves published between 1895 and 1910, it seems evident that Olcott described his life with HPB candidly yet it is obvious that his perspective was always to some extent influenced by his main concern — the advancement of the Theosophical Society.

I began this 2012 blog series after reading Olcott's People From The Other World (1875) for the first time and found this to be a well-observed and detailed case study.  Previous blog series have featured the topics of 'The Michael Pattern,' 'Spiritualism' and 'Talking Poltergeist' cases.

This week I read HPB's letters published in The Letters of H. P. Blavatsky to A. P. Sinnett (1925) and it is this source that allows the reader to gain some understanding of her personality and outlook upon life.  Around fifteen years ago, the first time I read through some of the letters, a passage that seemed particularly revealing (as it still does) was the one from Letter No. LX where HPB expressed her reluctance to divulge the whole truth about her life, offering no reason other than "I am an Occultist; a pucka not a sham one, in truth."  In Letter No XLV, HPB mentioned "things I was not permitted to divulge."

There are remarks about phenomenal occurrences, sometimes with social ramifications as shown in the following excerpt from Letter No. XXIII written in the town of Ooty in India.

Mrs. Carmichael, Mrs. G. Duff, Mrs. Kenney Herbert and Mrs. Everybody here, bombarding me with invitations to receptions, balls, dinners etc. and seeing that the Mountain will not go to Mahomet coming Mahomet-like to the mountain sitting at her foot, and—kissing my hands!!!  Why, they have turned crazy—archi-crazy!  and all this for a poor sapphire ring doubled from that of Mrs. Carmichael which became forthwith thinner and smaller the sapphire in her ring having positively become visibly smaller, (this is the thing par excellence that flabbergasted and floored definitely Mr. Carmichael who could not be converted until then properly) . . .

One passage characteristic of HPB's contrary disposition is the following from Letter No. XXVI: "I know one thing, and that is, that my notions about honor and justice seem to differ widely from other people's notions.  I have warned you what the people say here about this conspiracy of the rich to defraud the poor and do my duty I think."  In the following letter (XXVII), an individual is considered "a true theosophist" for being "unselfish and ready to part with her last clothing for the benefit of others."

HPB and Olcott both realized that the Mahatmas had selected them as subjects instrumental for the instruction of others; however, their desires were not always readily understood, as shown by this passage from HPB Letter No. XXX.  HPB's 'Master' is customarily known by the name 'Morya' (or 'M').

I prepared a long, polite and as I thought a diplomatic letter, defending you of course in one sense and blaming only for your thirst for phenomena and tests.  Alas, alas!  I had calculated without my host!  I had no occasion to "submit it to Mahatma K. H." for the same day he helped himself to it, without saying a word.  Now a digression.  You say in your last—that whatever K. H. would tell you do, you would do accordingly and add—"and you too."  Well I say that in this case I am not sure I would.  K. H. is not my Master however much I revere him.  But, no sooner had I finished copying my letter (English corrected by Mohini) an operation performed on my best paper and with new pen, which took me a whole forenoon to the detriment and neglect of other work, than the following occurred.  My letter 8 pages—was quietly torn one page after the other by my Boss!!  his great hand appearing on the table under Subba Row's nose (who wanted me to write quite differently) and His voice uttering a compliment in Telugu which I shall not translate though Subba Row seemed to translate it for me in great glee.  "K. H. wants me to write differently" was the order.  They (the Bosses) have put their heads together and decided that the "divine Anna" should be humoured.  She is necessary to them; she is a wonderful palliative (whatever on earth the word means in the present case!) and they mean to use her.  She must be made to remain the aureolic President, you the nucleus (or nucleatic?) President.  Both of you have to face each other as the two poles, chance guided by Masters drawing finally the true meridian between you two for the Society.  Now don't imagine that I laugh or chaff.  I am in a state of mute and helpless despair—for this once I be hung if I understand what they are driving at!  I simply give you the expressions of Djual Khool as he gave them to me, not to write to her but in order that I should "realize and understand their (the Masters) policy."

Other comments about the Mahatmas include (from Letter No. XXXV) "Funny that he should not realize that when my Master orders—I have but to obey, regardless of every consequence."  HPB considered them (Letter No. XXVI) "in their true light and nature, as superior mortals not as inferior flapdoodle Gods."  HPB declared about the Masters In Letter No. LXXI: "I only care to have Their holy names unsullied in the hearts of the few Theosophists who know Them, believe in them, and honour Them, whatever my mistakes and faults . . ."

In two letters HPB refers to "my inner voice."  Letter No. CXIII mentions — 

"Take care!"  I heard my inner voice say, and I did.

Letter No. LXXX is among those that involve her work on The Secret Doctrine (1888).  Here are two excerpts.

There's a new development and scenery, every morning.  I live two lives again.  Master finds that it is too difficult for me to be looking consciously into the astral light for my S.D. and so, it is now about a fortnight, I am made to see all I have to as though in my dream.  I see large and long rolls of paper on which things  are written and I recollect them.  Thus all the Patriarchs from Adam to Noah were given me to see—parallel with the Rishis; and in the middle between them, the meaning of their symbols—or personifications.

I was ordered to do so, to make a rapid sketch of what was known historically and in literature, in classics and in profane and sacred histories—during the 500 years that preceded the Christian period and the 500 y. that followed it: of magic, the existence of a Universal Secret Doctrine known to the philosophers and Initiates of every country and even to several of the Church fathers such as Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and others, who had been initiated themselves.  Also to describe the the Mysteries and some rites; and I can assure you that most extraordinary things are given out now, the whole story of the Crucifixion, etc. being shown to be based on a rite as old as the world—the Crucifixion on the Lathe of the Candidate—trials, going down to Hell etc. all Aryan.  The whole story hitherto unnoticed by Orientalists is found even exoterically, in the Puranas and Brahmanas, and then explained and supplemented with what the Esoteric explanations give.  How the Orientalists have failed to notice it passes comprehension.

This passage of introspection is from Letter No. LXXXVI.

I never had either personal ambition or love of power, and had ever shown myself to people in my worst light.  Had I been an actress or a hypocrite, no enemy could have crushed me.  It is my actual position that can alone defend me, if not now then after death.  I am a beggar in the full sense of the word—and I am proud of it: I am a wanderer on the Earth without roof or home—or any prospect of returning to India, and I feel ready even for this sacrifice provided I can do good to our Society by my physical and mental suffering.

One of the unfortunate aspects of HPB's life is how her demeanor with close friends such as Olcott and Sinnett could be so radically affected by perceived calumnies.  She professed her high regard for them in her letters.

English translations of excerpts from HPB's letters were also published in an 1894/5 series of articles in Path magazine: Letters of H. P. Blavatsky to her Family in Russia.  HPB's niece Vera Johnston was the translator.  The first letter from HPB in New York circa 1875 commented upon her writing ability.

"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 editor of Path, William Q. Judge, included his observations and notes in the articles and mentioned that the intelligence described by HPB had been called "the Voice" or "Sahib" in earlier letters.  In sending newspaper extracts to her family during this period, HPB described astral visitors that included one she referred to as "the Hindu."

"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."

Here is the beginning of Part XII from the Path series, showing HPB's complex feelings toward spirituality and religion in England in the 1887-1889 period near the end of her lifetime in 1891.

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 sister’s 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 Buddha’s idol in it, etc., etc.  She immediately wrote a letter on the subject to the office of this newspaper, in a very good-natured 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 can’t listen to people talking about the wretched Hindus or Buddhists being converted to Anglican Phariseeism or the Pope’s 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 . . . 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 can’t help it.  Such is my silly, inconsistent nature."

In presenting these quotations, I am reminded that no particular quotation ever perfectly expresses an individual but reflects a particular moment in time.  Considered collectively, the letters show that HPB perceived a momentous "sense of my duty" (Letter No. LX) to the Masters and felt enormous pressure to fulfill their requests.

There are several fundamental lessons that I found upon considering HPB's letters.  I have known individuals like HPB who are constantly ruled by their feelings and emotions rather than successfully managing to respond to obstacles with a calm intellect.  This is certainly a challenge that faces every human being and could affect all of one's relationships.   

Another realization is how different life would have been for HPB if she could have been free to be honest about her knowledge of the Mahatmas.  I have always found an honest orientation to life alleviates most of one's problems.  An author who has written about this topic is Dr. David Viscott (1938-1996), whose books include Emotionally Free: Letting Go of the Past to Live in the Moment (1992).

Overeating can result from stress.  Many of HPB's physical ailments are mentioned in her letters, including kidney disease and gout.  Her sedentary lifestyle as a writer also contributed to her lack of physical fitness, resulting in considerable discomfort that escalated as she became older.  HPB's quandary in this respect is a reminder that a spiritually aware orientation to food is remembering that the purpose is sustenance.  

Readers who have read other posts of this blog will be at an advantage to perceiving parallels throughout the annals of authentic 'paranormal phenomena' as they relate to HPB's case.  Some of the events reported from HPB's life are analogous with events described by the Ballards (Guy Warren Ballard and Edna Ballard) and they too would lead a movement (The 'I Am' Movement) during the 1930s under the direction of 'ascended masters.'  There are now twenty volumes in the Ballards' Saint Germain Series of books.  Information about the Ballards is available at Saint Germain Press/Saint Germain Foundation.