Theos-Talk Archives (December 2001 Message tt00455)

John W. Lowell, an early Theosophist wrote regarding the occult and 
the early TS: "Emma Britten as she told me was born into a verry 
conservative family and much to her distress, at an early age, 
developed psychic powers. Among others the power of leaving her 
physical body at quite early age. For a time she was used as a 
messenger by agroup of Rosicrucians (note that "messenger" wich also 
Blavatsky is to date called by Thesosophists really means "medium") 
by a group of Rosicrucians of wich Lord Lytton, then Sir Edward 
Bulwer, was a member." (Lovell, "Reminiscences of Early Days of the 
Theosophical Society, "Canadian Theosophist 10/1, March 15, 1929.)
The story of the inner workings of these groups of magicians was told 
in Ghost Land in 1872 three years before the founding of the TS of 
wich the by laws where decided up at a meeting at the home of the 
Britton's. The book relates the adventures of members of the Berlin 
Brotherhood (Frank Reitemeyer wasn't born yet that time) and the 
Orphic Circle who used drugs and crystals and magic mirrors to 
separate the "flying souls" of their young subjects and send them on 
occult missions about the earth.

In an interview with the "New York World",April 2, 1877,"Why a 
Russian Countess Firmly Believes in Magic," Blavatsky later stated 
publicly that "the chief of the gurus showed me things wich I 
demonstrated to be truth. For instance he made me look at a bright 
tin plate and fix my toughts on something I wished to see."He made 
passes over her and made her drink a potion "the ingredients of wich 
I know but will not tell"(J.Deveney Theosophical History Occasional 
Papers Vol. VI, p. 19.)
In the "Religio-Philosophical Journal 22/20, May 19, 1877:p. 4, 
Blavatsky wrote that the separation of soul and body is "one of the 
last and very highest achievements of magic."

>From Deveney's study and the biiographical work on Felt by Santucci 
(see also my earlier mails on this subject), one knows that some two 
and a half years after the foundation of the TS and only six months 
before Olcott and Blavatsky departed for India Felt was secretly 
working in some way with the elect of the Society.
Again as an indication of how important the work with the occult, 
practical magic, and the search for "a teacher" (meaning no K.H. yet 
in sight) was for the Olcott and Blavatsky that time , afther Felt 
failure they try to find a substitute , including the commisioning of 
E.S.Spaulding, a member, in august 1876 to travel to Tunis with some 
stranded "Arab" sailors "to find a real magician or sorcerer who 
would consent to come to this country"…(Olcott's letter to 
E.S.Spaulding in August 1876. See also "Those Desolate Arabs. What a 
Member of the theosophical Society Who Accompanied Them Home is 
Required to Accomplish, "Banner of Light" 29/20, August 12. 1876)
Next the Society repeatedly hinted at the coming of a Hindu "fakir" 
to instruct its members, and just as frequently hd to explain the 
non-appearance of the guru.
The apparent failure of all these endeavors brought an increasing 
chorus from the Society's enemies, and eventually from its friends as 
well, to produce the proofs of its claims. (Banner of Light 
46/20 "Invitation to theossophists to enter upon the Field of 
Explanation and Proof", Banner of Light 45/3: There have been many 
claims for occultism. From Olcott but no proof. ; "Will Theosophy 
Please Explain," Religio-Philosophical Journal 24/5, April 6, 
1878:4. "Alas! Poor Olcott! Where are your proofs?")

The role assigned to Swami Dayananda was another illustrative then 
of the TS's search for a practical teacher. Initially, Blavatsky and 
Olcott assured the members that Dayananda was really an adept who had 
taken over the swami's body. Including also Hurrychund 
Chintamon, "revealed as a thief, and who later told C. Massey that he 
had never been even a chela and had no occult powers whatsoever. 

In fact John Deveney writes on the subject of the change (re-
invention ?) of the TS that time from the empasis on practical 
application to a more philosophical ("principles") 
orientation: "simple the ultimate fallback position of schemers who 
had been called upon to demonstrate what they had been advertising 
and, unable to do so, fell back on the impossibility of the goals so 
long touted ? Was the problem faced by Blavatsky and Olcott , in 
other words, similar to that faced by the Strict Observance in the 
18th century when it was finally backed in a corner and had to 
produce its Unknown superiors ?"
(The complaint is also implicit in the rejection of the Mahatmas by 
Mrs. Josephine Cables and W.T. Brown. See Blavatsky, "The 
Theosophical Mahatmas," Path 1/9, December 1886.)

A clear statement of the debate is also in "Hints on Esoteric 
Theosophy", a pamphlet put out in Calcutta in the spring of 1882. The 
author , "H.X." (probably A.O.Hume) replied to a long letter 
purportedly by "G.Y., late F.T.S.," complaining of the Society's 
failure to develop the powers latent in man put up by Hume to make 
his own points. G.Y. lays out a complaint (that according to Deveney, 
will be made repeatedly by others in the coming years) wrote: I 
have inquired and sought diligently, and cannot discover that either 
I or any other Theosophist has learnt one iota concerning "the hidden 
mysteries of nature, or the psychical powers latent in man". 
Therefore I look upon the society as a delusion . If I alone were 
left out in the cold I might attribute it to my own shortcomings: but 
it is not so. Dozens of men, cleverer than Madame Blavatsky, as as 
beneficient, pure and self-devoted as Colonel Olcott, are in the same 
predicament; the whole Society is left out in the cold. There is 
plenty of talk, but nothing is done. 
It is most especially because you and a hundred other Theosophists 
you know have, during two or thee years' adherents to the Society, 
made no iota of progress in such invetigations that you denounce the 
whole affair as a delusion. (H.X., A.O.Hume, Hints on Esoteric 
Theosophy. No 1." Is Theosophy a Delusion? Do the Brothers 
Exist ?" , Calcutta,1882.)


If one combines the circunstantial evidence so far, it clearly 
supports Steve's observation regarding the Ooton case, and has 
further consequences indeed .

I just found out that Blavatsky when she published "The Voice of the 
Silence" inscribed the flyleaf of her own copy, "From H.P.B. to 
H.P.Blavatsky, with no kind regards." (In Barker, ed, Letters of 
Blavatsky to Sinnet, p.145.) 

I do not know if there was an influence atole there from the 
extended drug use as is indicated by Wachtmeister (I first tought HPB 
used only drugs in the New York and pre-NY times)or if there is 
another reason to give significance to what could have coused this 
sense of a doubling or splitting that Blavatsky exploited to state 
spiritual authority as a man (the Masters) and spiritual powers as a 
women (Helena Blavasky). 

And certainly no attempt is made t to invalidate Blavatsky's 
writings and make them look less then what they are, and deserve a 
study in themselve.

The reason Olcott ended up getting into drugs in the first place 
because he believed during the NY- TS time that it was a necessary 
part of the (secret) higher esoteric training.

It was for shure part , of certain secret society's pre-dating the TS 
that same century, and as we have seen in my earlier mails probably 
part of the higher grades of the TS that time. There is sufficient 
evidenc to show that the TS started as a society interrested in the 
occult (see ; http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/4242) 
and therefore has later (maybe more then once) been re-invented for 
more modern consumption.

Even the Mahatma letters played with notions of their own 
fictitiousness, calling attention to the Mahatma's status as 
inventive inventions: having been "'invented' ourselves," the Masters 
noted, they "repay the inventors by inventing" increasingly 
complicated "imaginary" doctrines as a way of avoiding accusations of 
inconsistency or internal contradiction in their teachings.(KH to 
Sinnet , letter No.24B, in "Mahatma Letters".)

Theosophical "principles", wich could be printed, published, 
annotated , and debated (including "Atma and Parabrahman"),replaced 
the occult and became the public emphasis of the society. The 
formation of the Blavatsky Lodge in 1887 was partly the result of 
this emphasis on propaganda and theosophical principles. According to 
Bertram Keightley, one of its founding members, the Blavatsky Lodge 
was intended to rescue the TA from the "diletante class or high 
society men", Keightley argued, was not for the "kid gloves and 
swallow-tail coats," but for earnest and dedicated students of 
spiritual mysteries. (Keighley, "The Adyar Convention Lectures: 
Theosophy in the West", The Theosophist .,July 1891,585.) 

Thanks to the work of the Blavatsky Lodge, the magazine "Lucifer" was 
launched in 1887, and Blavatsky's "The Secret Doctrine" appeared a 
year later. The Judge crisis , as it came to be known in the TS, once 
again revealed how claims to spiritual authority were embedded in 
competing and unstable hierarchies.

W.Q. Judge had stayed in America when Blavatsky and Olcott moved to 
India. And with the membership of the American section steadely 
rising now - it had reached six thousend by the time he died in 1896 -
Judge was now weary of his subordinate role. And when "Master Morya" 
wrote to Olcott ordering him to retain the presidency, "Master Koot 
Hoomi" wrote to Judge encouraging him to depose the colonel. Olcott, 
accused of an immoral liaison, finally resigned in Judge's favour and 
then revoked his resignation. the European Section called Judge to 
lead the society - bu also instructed Olcott to stay in office. Annie 
Besant wavered between the two men, moving against Judge only after 
her errival in India in November 1893 convinced her that Olcott was 
in the right after all. She then began to pursue Judge with charges 
of fraud and misrepresentation of the Masters in forged letters, and 
persuaded Olcott to convene a judicial committee of the Sociey to try 
the case against him But the members eventually sidestepped the issue 
by accepting Judge's claim that becouse he had acted in a private 
cpaity - i.e. not in the role as head of the American section - it 
had no jurisdiction over him. And asserted that it had there were no 
grounds for comment on the messages he had supposdly recieved from 
the Masters, because belief in the existence or otherwise of these 
beings was a matter for the individual, not a positive doctrine of 
the Society. Olcott agreed, announcing that Judge's suspension as 
Vice-president was itself suspended. The upshot of this judgement was 
a situation in wich the verry existance of the" Brotherhood of 
Masters" on whose revelations the Theosophical Society was allegedly 
founded was put in doubt. Or as the Westminster Gazette of 29 Oct. 
1894 put it; "every Theosophist is in future free to circulate 
Mahatma messages, but no Theosophist to test their genuineness."

What emerged within the TS in England around that time was a self-
consciously "gentlemanly" variant of theosophy, which emphasized 
above all theosophy's rational, scolarly, and scientific character. 
Annie Besant in her presidential address in 1911, made clear that her 
position as the Masters representative allowed her to affirm : "Some 
of you may say: `Yes, but you are right.' That may be. It is verry 
likely that I am; for I know on these matters, far more than any one 
of you can know." (Annie Besant Presidential Address, in the 
Convention Minute Book, 1911-27.)

In "Behavior in an E.S. Lodge" it is instructed: The sacred portraits 
of the Masters themselves should, whenever possible be displayed in 
the meeting room and reverently saluted with the silent 
thought, "Homage to the Divine Teacher." Dissent was not to be openly 
expressed, as what one student might dislike could be helpful to 
another . Argument and laughter were discouraged, as "these cause 
disturbing ripples in the stream of thought." 

Brigitte