Madame Blavatsky: The Woman Behind the Myth (98 page)

87. Ibid.

88. Ibid., pp. 65-66.

89. Sinnett,
Occult World,
pp. 66-74; ODL, vol. 2, pp. 233- 236.

90. H.P.B. to Nadyezhda Fadeyev, February 21, 1880, HPBSP, vol. I, p. 226.

91. Sinnett,
Occult World,
pp. 78-79; ODL, vol. 2, pp. 238- 239. Even in H.P.B.'s time, it was known that people could be hypnotized at a distance without their being aware of it. In 1884, Dr. Pierre Janet, well-known French psychiatrist, was able to hypnotize Leonie, a peasant woman and clairvoyant, at a distance in the same room without saying or doing anything perceptible, but merely willing the entrancement.

92. Coulomb, pp. 18-19.

93. ML, 1-5. This first letter contains two glaring factual errors, one stating that Mary Magdalene had witnessed the resurrection of Christ, the other that Sir Francis Bacon helped found the Royal Society in 1662 (although he died in 1626). Sinnett did not, evidently, wonder why an omniscient Mahatma was so misinformed, or perhaps he simply did not catch the errors.

94. Ibid.

95. Ibid., p. 7.

96. Ibid., p. 9.

97. CW, vol. 2, p. 489.

98. ML, p. 19.

99. Conger, p. 38.

100. Ransom, p. 151.

101. Coulomb, p. 30.

102. Ibid.

103. CW, vol. 3, p. 120.

104. CW, vol. 2, p. 78.

105. ODL, vol. 2, p. 294.

106. Ibid.

107. Ibid., p. 135.

108. Coulomb, pp. 30-31.

109. H.P.B. to Vera Zhelihovsky, early 1881,
The Path,
April, 1895.

110.
Saturday Review,
June 25, 1881.

111. Ibid.

112. ML, pp. 38-39. In a volume of memoirs published posthumously,
The Early Days of Theosophy in Europe,
Sinnett acknowledged his belief that this letter was delivered by trickery: "On my return to India, after having published
Occult World
—after she knew that I was rooted in a personal conviction not only that she possessed magic powers, but that I was in touch with the Masters and devoted to the theosophical cause, she employed M. Coloumb to drop a letter from the Master… through a crack in the rafters above, trying to make me believe that it had been dropped by the Master himself—materialized then and there after transmission from Tibet."

113. Ibid., p. 39.

114. Ibid.

115.
Theosophist,
August, 1881.

116. Ibid.

117. Sinnett,
The Early Days of Theosophy in Europe,
p. 27.

118. Sinnett was by no means the only recipient of Mahatma letters. Masters Morya and Koot Hoomi wrote to countless other individuals, including Madame Blavatsky, who received three. The reason she got so few, according to C. Jinarajadasa, compiler of
Letters from the Masters of Wisdom,
was "because her consciousness was so linked to the minds of both the Masters M. and K.H. that she heard Their voices with occult hearing at once, and there was no need for written communications."

119. Evans-Wentz,
Tibet's Great Yogi Milarepa,
p. 20.

120. Ibid., p. 22.

121. Later, two European visitors to Tibet questioned lamas about H.P.B.'s Mahatmas. Alexandra David-Neel reported that "communications from mystic masters to their disciples through gross material means, such as letters falling from the ceiling or epistles one finds under one's pillow, are unknown in lamaist mystic circles. When questions regarding such facts are put to contemplative hermits, erudite lamas or high lamaist dignitaries, they can hardly believe that the inquirer is in earnest and not an irreverent joker" (David- Neel, p. 234). A similar reaction was reported by William Rockville: "When told of our esoteric Buddhists, the Mahatmas, and of the wonderful doctrines they claimed to have obtained from Tibet, they (the lamas) were immensely amused." (Rockville, p. 102.) 
Beginning in 1912, a young Californian named Edwin G. Schary made three attempts to find H.P.B.'s Masters in order to become their disciple. His account of these Tibetan travels,
In Search of the Mahatmas of Tibet,
amounts to a chronicle of nightmarish physical hardship: snow blindness, difficulty in breathing at high altitudes, thirst, hunger so intense that he ate field daisies, and general inhospitableness of the Tibetans who set their dogs on him. Schary's quest ended in failure.

122. ML, p. 243.

123. Ibid. pp. 43, 241.

124. Ibid. p. 166.

125. Ibid., p. 431.

126. Ibid., pp. 36,302,428.

127. The word is the feminine of the Pali word
Upasaka
(disciple). "The nearest Western translation would be Lay Brother and Lay Sister. H.P.B. said that during her residence with the Masters in Tibet, she took the vows of a Lay Sister.

128. James,
Psychical Research,
p. 50.

129. Jung, p. 101.

130.
Christian College Magazine,
September, 1884.

131. INC, p. 189.

132. H.P.B. to Adelberth de Bourbon, September 4, 1881, HPBSP, vol. 2, p. 7.

133. H.P.B. to Mary Hollis Billing, October 2, 1881,
Theosophi- cal Forum,
May, 1936.

134.
Christian College Magazine,
September, 1884.

135. ML, p. 260.

136. Ibid., pp. 213-214.

137. Ibid., p. 214.

138. Coulomb, p. 44.

139. LBS, p. 50.

140. ML, p. 220.

141. Ibid., pp. 203-204.

142. Ibid. p. 221.

143. INC, p. 193.

144. ML, p. 207.

145. Coulomb, p. 42.

146. H.P.B. to Alexander Dondoukoff-Korsakoff, August 28, 1881, HPBSP, vol. 2, p. 14.

147. H.P.B. to A. P. Sinnett, November 2, 1881, LBS, p. 10.

148. ML, pp. 440-441.

149. H.P.B. to A. P. Sinnett, received November 10, 1881, LBS, p. 11.

150. H.P.B. to A. P. Sinnett, November 2, 1881, LBS, p. 9.

151. Ibid., p. 10.

152. H.P.B. to Vera Zhelihovsky, November, 1881,
The Path,
April, 1895.

153. ODL, vol. 2, p. 236.

154. William Judge to Damodar Mavalankar, October 26, 1881, Eek, p. 73.

155. ML, pp. 52, 56.

156. Smith, pp. 93, 96.

157. ODL, vol. 2, p. 327.

158. H.P.B. to A. P. Sinnett, May 8, 1882, LBS, p. 15.

159. Allan Hume to H.P.B., January 4, 1882, LBS, p. 306.

160. Ibid.

161. Ibid., p. 307.

162. ML, p. 264.

163. Ibid., p. 268.

164. H.P.B. to Alexander Dondoukoff-Korsakoff, February 7, 1882, HPBSP, vol. 2, p. 43.

165. Ibid., p. 45.

166. H.P.B. to Alexander Dondoukoff- Korsakoff, March 1, 1882, HPBSP, vol. 2, p. 53.

167. ODL, vol. 2, p. 342.

168. Subba Row to H.P.B., February 3, 1882, LBS, p. 317.

169. ODL, vol. 2, p. 342.

170. Ibid., p. 343.

171. Ibid., p. 344.

172. Ibid., pp. 347-352.

173. H.P.B. to Alexander Dondoukoff-Korsakoff, May 17, 1882, HPBSP, vol. 2, p. 74.

174. Ibid., p. 75.

175.
Theosophist,
March, 1926.

176. H.P.B. to Alexander Dondoukoff-Korsakoff, June 25, 1882, HPBSP, vol. 2, p. 81; October 1, 1882, HPBSP, vol. 2, p. 95.

177. H.P.B. to A. P. Sinnett, June 20, 1882, LBS, p. 18.

178. Linton and Hanson, p. 268.

179.
Theosophist,
June, 1882.

180. Hume, p. 11.

181. H.P.B. to A. P. Sinnett, August 26, 1882, LBS, p. 34.

182. Ibid., p. 31.

183. ML, p. 288.

184. S.P.R.,
Proceedings,
p. 397.

185. Blavatsky,
Isis Unveiled,
p. 351.

186.
Light,
July 8, 1882.

187.
Theosophist,
September, 1882.

188. H.P.B. to Alexander Dondoukoff-Korsakoff, June 25, 1882, HPBSP, vol. 2, p. 87.

189. H.P.B. to Alexander Dondoukoff-Korsakoff, September 1, 1882, HPBSP, vol. 2, p. 94.

190. H.P.B. to A. P. Sinnett, Received September 19, 1882, LBS, p. 37; H.P.B. to Vera Zhelihovsky, September, 1882,
The Path,
September, 1895.

191. H.P.B. to A. P. Sinnett, Received September 19, 1882, LBS, p. 37.

192. H.P.B. to Alexander Dondoukoff-Korsakoff, October 1, 1882, HPBSP, vol. 2, p. 98.

193. Ibid., pp. 99-100.

194. H.P.B. to Vera Zhelihovsky, circa October, 1882,
The Path
, September, 1895. In an undated letter to M. Biliere, Paris, Helena supplied further details on Master Mo- rya's medical treatment. "He gave only a potion to drink seven times a day, from a plant of the Himalayas."
(Theosophist,
December, 1930.)

195. H.P.B. to A. P. Sinnett, October 9, 1882, LBS, p. 38.

196. H.P.B. to Alexander Dondoukoff-Korsakoff, December 15, 1882, HPBSP, vol. 2, p. 104.

197.
Christian College Magazine,
September, 1884.

198. Henry Olcott to Emma Coulomb, September 25, 1882,
Christian College Magazine,
October, 1884.

199. LMW, vol. 2, pp. 116-117.

200. H.P.B. to Franz Hartmann, April 3, 1886,
The Path,
March, 1896.

201. ML, p. 446.

202. Barborka,
The Mahatmas and Their Letters,
p. 323.

203. Ibid., p. 329.

204. Ibid.

205. H.P.B. to Alexander Dondoukoff-Korsakoff, December 5, 1881, HPBSP, vol. 2, p. 17.

206. H.P.B. to Nadyezhda Fadeyev, circa January, 1883,
The Path,
September, 1895.

207. ODL, vol. 2, p. 392.

208.
Theosophist,
February, 1883.

209. James,
William James on Psychical Research,
p. 145.

210. ML, p. 201.

211. In a letter to Sinnett, dated January 9, 1886, H.P.B. made a general admission that the materialized vases and other "apports" pre-existed as objects and were purchased from a shop. The point of these phenomena, she asserted, did not rest on the vases themselves but on their having been made to pass through walls and doors before appearing in a closed cabinet.

212. Coulomb, p. 66.

213. S.P.R.,
Proceedings,
p. 325.

214. Blavatsky,
The People of the Blue Mountains,
pp. 109- 113.

215. H.P.B. to A. P. Sinnett, August 15, 1883, LBS, p. 45.

216. Ibid., p. 43.

217. H.P.B. to either Vera or Nadyezhda, July or August, 1883,
Theosophist,
May, 1959.

218. Marryat, p. 98.

219.
Christian College Magazine,
September 1884.

220. S.P.R.,
Proceedings,
p. 322.

221. Ibid.

222. H.P.B. to A. P. Sinnett, July 15, 1883, LBS, p. 43.

223. Coulomb, p. 65.

224. Ibid.

225. H.P.B. to A. P. Sinnett, September 27, 1883, LBS, p. 57.

226.
Light,
September 1, 1883.

227. Ibid.

228. Ibid., September 22, 1883.

229. Ibid., November 17, 1883.

230. Lillie,
Modern Mystics
, p. 117.

231. H.P.B. to A. P. Sinnett, November 17, 1883, LBS, p. 66.

232. ML, pp. 421-422.

233. Ibid., p. 422.

234.
Theosophist,
October, 1931.

235. It is possible that H.P.B. recognized Brown's symptoms at once. In a letter of April 3, 1886, to Franz Hartmann, she wrote: "Brown was crazy before he came to us, unasked and unexpected." (
The Path,
March, 1896.)

236. H.P.B. to A. P. Sinnett, September 27 and November 17, 1883, LBS, pp. 55, 67-68.

237. Coulomb, p. 66.