the subjects of Madame's hypnotic powers,--as I supposed them to be.
The young Hindus, with their refined faces and symbolical draperies,
conveyed an impression of being like the magical mangoes which the
jugglers evoke, looking at them from time to time to see how they are
growing. There were phases of chelahood, with precise terms for each.
I was invited to visit the shrine. It was in a small room, and stood
against the wall, reaching nearly to the ceiling. It was decorated
with mystical emblems and figures, and a breath of incense came when
the doors were opened. The Hindus prostrated themselves on the floor,
and hid their faces; it was explained as their oriental custom, but it
is certainly favorable to Thaumaturgy. Two days afterwards I was told,
being then at sea, that while we visited the shrine a mysterious bell
had sounded. No such incident was mentioned at the time, and I felt
quite sure that Madame Blavatsky and myself were the only persons
present whose testimony would be trustworthy. The interior of the
shrine was inlaid with metal work. There were various figures, Buddha
being in the centre, and framed "portraits" of Mahatmas Koothoomi and
Moria. Each portrait was about seven inches high, and if drawn, as I
understood, by astral art, it may be hoped the process will remain
occult. Koothoomi, who somewhat resembled an old London portrait I
have of Rammohun Roy, holds a small barrel-shaped praying-machine on
his head.
A considerable company surrounded the dinner table, and included one
or two whom I had not seen. Madame Blavatsky was a genial hostess.
When a disciple told some miraculous experience she would turn to me
and say, "Now think of that!" She ate little, but smoked a cigarette
during the repast. Late in the evening, as I insisted on leaving, she
ordered her carriage for me, and promised me an astral apparition of
herself after I should reach London. I did not find in Madame
Blavatsky the coarseness of which I had heard, and suspect it is
mainly due to a prejudice against ladies smoking.
Our ship between Madras and Calcutta was a floating epitome of the
world. There were missionaries contending with pundits, and world
travellers lazily amused by discussions involving the eternal welfare
of the human race. But the disputes had a hollow and perfunctory
sound, and the cultured Englishmen stood apart. Mozoomdar, of the
Brahmo-Somaj, preached us an ordinary Unitarian sermon. In private he
expressed to me a horror of Madame Blavatsky, but he did not appear to
me possessed of such religious enthusiasm as Norendranath Sen, whom I
had met at Adyar. The latter reproved me for wishing to see Madame
Blavatsky's wonders, instead of recognizing in Theosophy a movement
that was saving India from being dragged into revolting dogmas called
Christianity, its superstitions, discords, inhumanities. Even
admitting that some delusions, or impositions, have been connected
with the movement, they would pass away if liberal men did not make so
much of them, and would help to develop Theosophy into a religion
related to the devout and poetic genius of the oriental world. The
words of this thoughtful Hindu impressed me much. I need only look
about me on the ship to recognize the fact that the West is
overturning the deities and altars of the East, but has no religion to
give these instinctive worshippers. The scholarly English Church would
appear to have become conscious of this, and is leaving the work of
propagandism to vulgar and ignorant sects. There seems to be nothing
offered the young Hindus graduated in the universities of India except
a repulsive "Salvationism" on the one hand, and a cold Agnosticism on
the other. I had conversed with a company of students at Madras, and
found them hardly able to understand the interest with which I
followed the processions of "idols" about the streets, such things
being looked on by them much as a march of the Salvation Army might be
regarded by Oxonians. They had little interest in Christianity, but
some of them spoke reverently of Buddha, and probably Theosophy has
done something to revive in India love for that long banished teacher.
On the whole, I found the little company in their beautiful retreat at
Adyar becoming more and more picturesque in the distance. It seems a
hard, precipitous fall from visions of Indra's paradise to a
materialistic world of predatory evolution. The youth at Adyar,
dreaming of Mahatmas in mystical mountains, and evolving a natural
supernaturalism, may be dwelling amid illusions; but, as Shakespeare
tells us, our little life is rounded with a sleep,--a dreamland. If
Madame Blavatsky had recovered Prospero's buried wand, and amid the
dry and dusty realism of our time raised for her followers a realm of
faerie, beguiling them from scenes of falling temples and fading
heavens, were it not cruel to break her wand, even though it be
glamour? I remember at Concord, in my youth, a little controversy in
which miracles were critically handled, some ladies present being
distressed. Emerson had remained silent, and on our way home said,
"After all it appears doubtful whether, when children are enjoying a
play, one must tell them the scene is paint and pasteboard, and the
fairy's jewels but glass."
So I bore away from Adyar a slight sprinkle of Madame Blavatsky's
moonshine. But it was rudely dispelled in Calcutta and Bombay, where
the priestess had worn out her welcome by attempts at fraud. One of
these instances was related by Mr. J. D. Broughton, a gentleman
connected with the Indian government, to whom I carried a letter of
introduction. Unwilling to accept any such fact without verification,
I afterwards corresponded with those cognizant of the facts, and have
before me now their letters establishing the statements of the
following from Mr. Broughton.
"I was in Calcutta, and a friend was staying with me, Mr. H.
Blanford, a Fellow of the Royal Society, and head of the
Meteorological Department,--a practical man, not, I think,
disposed to judge wrongly one way or the other. We both know Mrs.
Gordon [a spiritualist] the lady to whom Mr. Eglinton [a
spiritualist medium of London] wrote--or says he wrote--from the
Vega, while at sea; and I am on friendly terms with her, as is
Mr. Blanford to the best of my belief. She called at my house a
day or two after the Vega had left Colombo, and produced a
letter, an envelope, and two or three cards. The letter was from
Mr. Eglinton. It was not in the envelope, but was attached to it
by a string in the corner, which was passed through the corner of
the cards. These cards had writing upon them, which we were told
was the writing of Madame Blavatsky, then at Poona. The writing
on the cards referred to the contents of the letter. The envelope
had three crosses on the back of it. Mrs. Gordon stated that
these letters had been brought to her the day before by what are
called astral means, having been conveyed from the Vega, then on
the way from Colombo to Aden, first to Poona, and then from Poona
to her residence in Housah, a suburb of Calcutta. I have not the
slightest doubt that Mrs. Gordon firmly believed this, and I am
under the impression that she believes it still. Mr. Blanford and
I, however, ventured to ask a few questions as to the
circumstances under which the letters made their appearance at
Housah, and the replies led us to form an opinion that the lady
might have been imposed upon. The circumstances, which were, I
believe, considered to amount to strong proof in favor of the
astral theory, were published in a paper called _Psychic Notes_,
in Calcutta.
"I wrote to my wife [who had travelled on the Vega to England]
and sent this account to her. She replied that Mr. Eglinton had
brought a letter to her [during the voyage] to be marked,--that
it had a cross upon it, and that she had been asked to mark
another or others, and that she did so, crossing the first
cross.
"I will add that when my wife left Calcutta I accompanied her in
a steam launch, and she embarked on board the Vega at Diamond
Harbor. I was the bearer of a letter to Mr. Eglinton. It was
given to me for him by Mrs. Gordon, I think, but I won't be
positive. I had known Mr. Eglinton; he was in the habit, when in
Calcutta, of giving exhibitions of his powers in private houses,
for a fee. He came to our house in this way, but nothing
occurred; I think he considered it a failure."
Mrs. Broughton writes that she was with her friend Mrs. Eddis when
Eglinton brought the letter. Both ladies observed that the letter
which Koothoomi was to convey across the sea contained no allusion to
anything that had occurred since they left--nothing that might not
have been written before they started. Instead of marking the
envelope, for identification, in the way Eglinton suggested, she made
his cross into an asterisk. But the envelope published in India to
prove the power of Koothoomi was marked, as Eglinton had requested,
with three separate crosses. All efforts to obtain explanation of the
difference between the marks on the letter sent and the letter
received were vain. In reply to my question Mr. Sinnett said, "All I
can tell you now is that Mrs. Broughton acted very badly." I was
present when the Hon. Mrs. Pitt Rivers pressed Colonel Olcott for an
explanation. He replied, "The tone of your question suggests collusion
between the Theosophists of India and Mr. Eglinton. To such a charge I
am, of course, dumb." It was the only prudent answer he could make.
This incident lowered my idea of Madame Blavatsky's powers. It was not
clever to rest so much on the pliability of a "society lady" with whom
she was unacquainted. I presently found that at Bombay she had failed
in several performances, but was shielded by a theosophistical
argument that mere jugglers never fail.[4] There was a pretty general
feeling in Calcutta and Bombay that no glamour or magnetic mystery was
needed for Madame Blavatsky's thaumaturgy, which would soon collapse
in Madras as elsewhere. Nearly the first thing I heard after reaching
London (1884) was of that collapse. Mr. and Mrs. Coulomb, the former a
skilled mechanic, had confessed at Madras that they had all along
been assisting Madame Blavatsky in frauds; elaborate contrivances were
discovered behind the shrine, and compromising letters written by the
high priestess were produced. Madame Blavatsky declared that the
contrivances were put in the shrine to ruin her; but Coulomb could
have done that by a small mechanism, whereas the arrangements were
extensive and expensive, requiring such time as must have assured
detection, and money which he had not. The letters, mainly efforts to
prevent the Coulombs from revealing the frauds, were pronounced
forgeries; but no expert reading them can fail to perceive that to
forge them would require a genius far beyond even that of Madame
Blavatsky. The letters are brilliant, and Mrs. Coulomb is sometimes
worsted in them. Mrs. Coulomb, after her confession, wrote me a long
letter, which shows no trace of the style or ability disclosed in the
Blavatsky letters. However, it was a sufficient confession that the
Theosophists receded from a proposal to test all these things,
including the handwriting of the letters, before a law court, for
which the Coulombs were eager. The result was that Madame Blavatsky
left India and established herself in London.
[4] Commissioner Grant was awakened by a telegram and requested
to look for a cigarette in a certain part of the Prince of
Wales' statue, in Bombay; he went and found nothing. Mrs.
Coulomb now says she was Madame B----'s confederate, and that
she was afraid of being taken up as a lunatic if she climbed
to the unicorn's horn where the cigarette was to be placed.
So she said the rain must have washed it away. Madame
Blavatsky showed mental weakness in not considering the
difficulties, and her fondness for cigarettes made her set
them too high in dignity as well as position.
At the very time that I was at Adyar, and despite a certain repugnance
to "occultism," sympathetically appreciating the serene harmony of the
Theosophists in their beautiful retreat amid the palms, the place was
turbid with discord, Madame Blavatsky at one end of the table and the
Coulombs at the other were even then in mortal combat. I have often
marvelled at the self-possession of the woman under the suspended
sword that presently fell.
The most curious thing about this turbaned Spiritualism is its
development of the Koothoomi myth. I asked Sir W. W. Hunter,
Gazetteer-General of India, and other orientalists, about the name of
this alleged Mahatma, or Rabat, and they declared Koothoomi to be
without analogies in any Hindu tongue, ancient or modern. I was
assured on good authority that the name was originally "Cotthume," and
a mere mixture of Ol-_cott_ and _Hume_, Madame Blavatsky's principal
adherents. Out of Madame's jest was evolved this incredible being, who
performed the part allotted to the aboriginal "John King" in America.
Sumangala, chief priest of the Buddhist world, though not unfriendly
to Theosophy, told me that it was a belief among them that there had
been Rahats in the early world. I gathered from him and others that
they are thought of as Enoch, Seth, Elias, etc., are in Christendom.
The Coulomb story is that a pasteboard doll, with half-shrouded head,
superimposed on the shoulders of Mr. Coulomb, himself orientally
draped, moved about in the dusk at Adyar when an "astral" apparition
was wanted. In an accession of conscience, Mrs. Coulomb, who is a
Catholic, smashed the effigy. She says she had not cared much so long
as Hindus only were cheated, because they believed such things anyway,
but she could not stand it when European gentlemen and ladies were
subjects of the imposture. Perhaps it was because of this moral
"strike" that Koothoomi was not tried on me.
What will be the future of Theosophy? Its age of miracles has passed,
and is more likely to be repudiated than renewed. It may easily be
held that even if Madame Blavatsky was sometimes tempted, in the
absence of her potent Guru, to satisfy the demand for signs and
wonders with devices, she performed wonders not so explicable. In one
of Madame Blavatsky's letters to Mrs. Coulomb, she says, defiantly, "I
have a thousand strings to my bow, and God Himself could not open the
eyes of those who believe in me." Elsewhere she quotes a letter she
(Blavatsky) has from Colonel Olcott, saying: "If Madame Coulomb, who
has undeniably helped you in some phenomena, for she told this to me
herself, were to proclaim it on the top of the roof, it would change
nothing in my knowledge, and that of Dr. Hartmann, Brown, Sinnett,
Hume, and so many others, in the appreciation of Theosophy and their
veneration for the brothers. You alone would suffer. For even if you
yourself were to tell me that the Mahatmas do not exist, and that you
have tricked in every phenomenon produced by you, I would answer you
that YOU LIE, for we know the Mahatmas, and know that you cannot--no
more than a fly on the moon--have produced certain of the best of your
phenomena." It should be stated here that, in the whole correspondence
revealed by Mrs. Coulomb, Colonel Olcott appears as the dupe of Madame
Blavatsky, and in no case accessory to imposture unless by an amazing
credulity.
We may assume that Colonel Olcott will continue his propaganda, and it
remains only to consider what vitality there is in Theosophy, apart
from its "occultism," and what competency its leader has for such
work. I gathered up in India a number of Colonel Olcott's addresses,
circulated in cheap form, and find them much like "The Veiled Isis"
ascribed to Madame Blavatsky. They contain a medley of Buddhist,
Brahmanic, and Zoroastrian traditions, interpreted in a mystical and
moral way, the only thing systematic being a Buddhist catechism. This
catechism was printed by the favor of a Singhalese lady, and approved,
for use in schools, by the Buddhist high priest Sumangala. Colonel
Olcott's theosophy on the negative side aims to combine all oriental
religions against Christianity. He has not "any belief in, or
connection with, Christianity in any form whatsoever." (_Theosophy and
Buddhism_, p. 2.) But he maintains the oriental philosophies, and to
some extent the mythologies, of eras corresponding to the discredited
biblical doctrines and legends. It is not, indeed, a literal
restoration; but no esoteric interpretation can make it very different
from an attempt to rationalize for Europeans ancient Druidism, or for
Americans Aztec fables and symbolism. This kind of revival appeals in
a certain way to the Rajahs whom English rule has reduced to
antiquarian curiosities; they too are survivals from primitive
religious and social systems. Colonel Olcott had patrons among the
Rajahs who used to send elephants to meet him, and entertain him in
their palaces. But young India is not going that way. English freedom
and English colleges have emancipated Hindu youth, and they look upon
the cruel idolatry under which their fathers groaned as Colonel Olcott
does on the Puritanism he fiercely denounces.
But if Colonel Olcott should give up his Rajahs and elephants, and fix
his headquarters in Ceylon, there would be, I believe, fair prospect
of a fruitful alliance of Theosophy with Buddhism. In this island, now
the centre of the Buddhist world, I found Madame Blavatsky
comparatively unimportant, the great personage being Colonel Olcott.
The Buddhists are a mild, speculative, unambitious people, easily
overborne by the aggressive missionaries, and were without any leader
to defend their rights before Olcott came. He came to their rescue in
a case where their procession was attacked by Catholics, while
enshrining relics of Buddha,--the Catholics thinking it a mockery of
their own processions. Colonel Olcott appealed to the government and
obtained redress. The Catholics (Portuguese) presently found some
holy well, pointed out, I believe, by a vision, where ailing pilgrims
were said to be healed,--among these a number of Buddhists who were
deserting their temples. Colonel Olcott announced that he would try
and heal sufferers in the name of Buddha, and it is said his success
quite eclipsed the holy well. Several eminent Buddhists told me that
he had healed members of their families. He is a robust man, of
powerful will, and in these days of hypnotism his influence over the
most passive of people may appear less wonderful to us than to them.
No Christian was found willing to meet him in debate. By lectures, in
which Ingersollism blends with Arnold's "Light of Asia," the Colonel
brought about a sort of Buddhist revival. The Singhalese saw the
Theosophists as wise men from the West, bringing frankincense and
myrrh to the cradle of their prophet. Although their high priest,
Sumangala, expressed disbelief in the Mahatmas, he valued the services
of Colonel Olcott. He was especially moved by a request from this
American for his permission to administer the _pansala_ to another
American. The ceremony took place at Madras. The two Americans, amid a
crowd of witnesses, went through formulas unheard there since the
ancient banishment of the Buddhists. "I take refuge in Buddha! I take
refuge in religion! I take refuge in Truth!" The Colorado doctor
(Hartmann) pledged observance of the Five Precepts (_pansala_):
abstinence from theft, lying, taking life, intoxicating drink,
adultery. All of this has profoundly impressed the Buddhist world, but
that is a world of humble people. It remains to be seen whether
Theosophy, which has hitherto shown an affection for titles in India
and London, is willing to take its place beside Buddha under his Bo
tree, and share the lowliness of his followers. This may be rather
hard after the rapid success of Theosophy in India, where in four
years from its foundation (1879) it counted seventy-seven flourishing
branches; but these are withering away under the Blavatsky scandals,
and if Theosophy is to live it must "take refuge in Buddha!"
EMANCIPATION BY NATIONALISM.
BY T. B. WAKEMAN.
The usually very liberal and skeptical Reverend Minot J. Savage has
become astonishingly, and it may be prematurely, certain on one
subject. In THE ARENA for August (p. 321) he declares that,
"Nationalism, freely chosen, would be the murder of liberty, and
social suicide." To which the usually impartial editor cries Amen,
thus:--
"I most heartily _and_ cordially endorse Mr. Savage's position." For
this sudden and decisive foreclosure of the future and of THE ARENA
upon Nationalism the world was not prepared. We enter a protest and an
appeal! Able "Gladiators are ready to fight for it," with aid and
sympathy from the leading reformers--the world over. The contest has
hardly begun. A Bunker Hill or a Bull Run does not end the war.
He who opened _an Arena_ must keep it open, and like "the God of
battles" wait for the best cause to win.
Suppose it be found, as we propose to begin to show here and now, that
Nationalism, under the laws of Sociology, is not the murder, but in
fact and theory, the only condition of liberty, and the only way out
from social suicide,--what then? Would it not have been better for THE
ARENA to have been kept open, as if by the aforesaid Deity, with a
level head and a stiff and silent upper lip?
For the Reverend and exultant Mr. Savage his exasperating situation is
his excuse. For, with the inbred and lethal instinct of a Theolog he
was put upon the trail of a brother Theolog to bring in his scalp. To
return without _some_ scalp would be a disgrace. But on coming up with
his reverend brother Bellamy, instead of finding him ready for fight
or "treed, like Capt. Scott's coon," he finds him already down and
explaining in the blandest style: That, whereas, "this difficulty" was
a secular one, not at all theological, but quite within the bounds of
"the Knowable," there was really no necessity for one brother to scalp
the other, although both were clergymen. He even proposed ways by
which the manifest benefit of both, and of all, could be secured if
they should hunt together, being sure to go no further than such
benefit justified. But an accommodation was just what the Reverend
Savage was not out to find. Shaking his war feathers, he says, "You
are too fair,--I must kill you, _or something_, though it may be
'cruelty to animals.' Stop,--I sniff 'paternalism'! It must be you or
yours!" And without waiting for an answer he bangs away at that old
skunk which hasn't a friend on this side of the world. Then, inflamed
by smell of powder, blood, or something worse, he goes it wild,
mistakes even the good social domestic animals for wild beasts, and
his reverend friend as their protector. His slaughter of these purely
imaginary enemies is accompanied by a self-approving wit, which only
exhales when, as Mephisto says, the Parson and Comedian are happily
combined, and inspire each other. But, alas! neither prayers nor
laughter can settle the industrial and political difficulties of our
day. They may do, and are doing, much to prevent such settlement,
which must come from people who do not live in another world, and
therefore are not free to ignore or to make a joke of this. There is
hope, therefore, when our reverend friend "ties his legs," and in his
said article settles down to steady numbers: 1, 2, 3, 4. For by them,
we can at least get hold of him, and all points in his prior antics
can be thereunder disposed of.
He delivers his first fire, thus:--
"1. The world began in Socialism. In the barbaric period the tribe was
all, the individual nothing. Every step of human progress has kept
pace with the rise of the individual."
Most true! But that is half of the truth. If you had told the other
half your article could not have been written, for it would have been
answered beforehand from a to z. The other half is: That the rise of
the individual has always been because of, and the result of, the
concomitant and ever-increasing Socialism. The two have ever gone, and
must ever go, hand in hand. Integration is the inevitable counterpart
of individuation.