THE ADVENTURES OF A SEAL.
“O that Heaven had set a seal upon _men_, that we might know them,
honest from dishonest!”—EURIPIDES.
From the previous record of Colonel Olcott—described by Madame Blavatsky
herself, in an epigrammatically candid moment, as “a psychologised
baby”—he is almost the last person whom one would have expected to lead
the way in any sceptical examination of “miracles.”
And no doubt he might have been content, like Mrs. Besant, to open his
mouth and shut his eyes and take whatever Mr. Judge should send him, so
long as that gentleman’s thaumaturgy was confined to benefiting the
common cause. But it was another matter when the vice-president’s
Mahatma showed a tendency to favour the vice-president, and that at the
expense of the president himself. Had the oracle said “_Olcott’s_ plan
is right,” and declared that _Olcott_ was the “friend,” “not Lancelot
nor another”; had it made Olcott, and not Judge, Outer Head with Mrs.
Besant—the president’s ears might have been an inch longer, and the
course of Theosophic history have been changed.
But there was, from the first, about Mr. Judge’s Mahatma a certain
crudity, a lack of tact in dissembling favouritism, which was bound,
human nature being what it is, to make enemies.
On the decease of “H.P.B.,” President Olcott, like Vice-President Judge,
had hurried to the headquarters at Avenue-road. He had to come from
India, however, and the American disciple naturally out-ran him. When
the former arrived, the latter’s Mahatma was already in full swing. On
hearing of his performances with the seal, a look of more than usual
intelligence may have crossed the president’s mild and venerable
features; but, like Brer Rabbit, he wasn’t “sayin’ nuffin,” “he just lay
low.”
That busy July, ’91, the period of Mahatma M’s greatest activity, was
also marked by the assembling at Avenue-road of one of the periodical
conventions of Theosophic Europe. Some conversation occurred between the
president and vice-president about the expenses of this convention, and
the former, being “H.P.B.’s” legatee, mentioned a happy thought of his,
of selling some of the jewels that lady had left behind her, and giving
the proceeds as her posthumous contribution to the expenses.
[Sidenote: =THE “WITHOLD” MISSIVE.=]
But here, too, Mr. Judge was prepared to “go one better,” as his
countrymen say, than the president-legatee. He responded airily that
Colonel Olcott need not trouble himself about it, as “Master” had
promised him (Judge) that the cash should be forthcoming, and also that
he would convey a “message” on the subject to Olcott himself.
The Colonel waited for his message. None came.
The Colonel jogged Mr. Judge’s memory. Mr. Judge said he had no more to
tell.
But that very day, on sitting down at his writing-table, and lifting up
a piece of blotting-paper, the Colonel found under it a piece of
peculiar paper, reading as in the following facsimile (reds and blacks
as per former samples):—
[Illustration]
Now, Colonel Olcott thought he recognised that particular quality of
paper, and also, so far as it was legible, that seal-impression. The
facsimile here necessarily makes it much clearer. In the original the
impression was curiously faint and vague, as if the Master did not wish,
in the Colonel’s case, to burst that seal upon him all at once; but
preferred the manner of Tennyson’s Freedom, who “part by part to men
revealed The fulness of her face.”
So Brer Rabbit continued to say nuffin’, and to lie low.
Presently Mr. William Q. Judge left on the same writing-table the
following note (being scribbled on a torn-off scrap of paper, it also
has rather a Mahatmic look. But that is accidental):—
[Illustration]
“Dear Olcott” “looked” accordingly; and sure enough, in the ordinary
envelope of a letter, previously opened and put by on the table, there
was a piece of paper bearing a message with all the proper Mahatma-marks
about it. And _this_ time the Mahatma had taken heart and “precipitated”
a decently clear impression of the seal.
And then the Colonel “smiled a sorter sickly smile.” For now he _did_
recognise that seal. And this is its story.
* * * * *
Back in the palmy days of 1883, or ever the marvels of “H.P.B.” were
besmirched by slanderous tongues, the Colonel was in a certain city of
the Panjab. Passing an Urdu seal-engraver’s shop in the bazaar, he
turned in and ordered the man to make a seal bearing the cryptograph
signature which “H.P.B.” identified as that of the “Master of Wisdom,”
Mahatma Morya.
What did the Colonel want the seal for? Let him explain himself:—
An idea occurred to me (he writes) of sending through “H.P.B.,” as a
playful present to my Master M, a seal bearing a facsimile of his
cryptograph.
An odd idea, this “playful present” of the Colonel’s. Had the seal been
intended for use by an ordinary person—by “H.P.B.” herself, for
instance—there would have been some sense in it. But the Mahatma, of
course, who “precipitated” his letters and his signature psychically,
might just as well “precipitate” the latter in the shape of a seal
impression as otherwise, if he wanted to; and where, then, should the
use of a brass seal come in? However, as the Colonel says, the present
was merely “playful.”
Back went the Colonel to Madras, where Madame was, and presented the
seal to her, with a “jocular remark” (I am again quoting his own
account). Madame’s keen eye dwelt on it a moment, and then she pointed
out that the Colonel, in his jocularly playful mood, had made a slight
mistake. “The Master’s cryptograph was not correctly drawn,” according
to the pattern already familiar to recipients of his precious missives.
There was a twiddle too much, or a twiddle too little, in it. The
Colonel himself saw the blunder when it was pointed out, and he now
declares that he would know it anywhere.
For this sufficient reason the “playful present” was not sent on to the
Himalayas (Heaven knows, by the way, by what astral form of parcels-post
service the Colonel had expected it to be sent); neither did it appear
in any of the communications vouched for by Madame.
It went into Madame’s despatch-box, along with a lot of other mystical
odds and ends, properties of the occult stage; and among these it was
remarked, as late as 1888, by the Mr. Keightley already mentioned, who
was then living with her in Lansdowne-road.
This gentleman asked the prophetess what the little brass seal might be?
Madame Blavatsky’s answer—a characteristically racy “fragment of her
prophet voice”—was:—
“Oh, it’s only a flap-doodle of Olcott’s.”
In the same year, at a time when William Q. Judge was staying with
Madame, Mr. Judge’s Mahatma evidently determined to overlook the
inaccuracy in the seal, and to make use of it for the first time to save
himself the trouble of a psychic signature.
He did this, of course, in a letter of Mr. William Q. Judge’s own, and
in a sense endorsing Mr. William Q. Judge’s wishes—in fact, the letter
was the one recorded in the last chapter, in which the Master’s seal
came so plump upon the disciple’s prayer for a sign.
I have not mentioned before, however, that the recipient of this ’88
letter was Colonel Olcott. He presumably recognised, then as now, his
own “playful present,” his own “flap-doodle”; but he appears to have let
it pass in silence.
From this date the seal seems to have disappeared from among Madame
Blavatsky’s belongings. It was, of course, intrinsically valueless.
[Sidenote: =THE TELEGRAM MISSIVE.=]
But in 1890 it turned up again—in New York, and in close contiguity with
Mr. Judge. Madame sent a message through Mr. Judge to a disciple, then
in America, who happened to be the Mr. Keightley who had remarked the
“flap-doodle of Olcott’s” at Lansdowne-road. The context, which is
before me as I write, shows that Madame was persuading this disciple to
take some course distasteful to him. Judge added his persuasions to
hers. But what was bound to determine the disciple was the discovery on
receiving the missive from Mr. Judge’s hands, that the Mahatma had added
_his_ vote _in transitu_ by endorsing the word “RIGHT,” in red pencil,
with cryptograph and impression of the Panjab seal.
Mr. Keightley, too, must have recognised the “flap-doodle”; but he, too,
like Olcott, said never a word. He did, indeed, go so far as to ask
Judge if _he_ had affixed the seal? But on receiving a blandly surprised
assurance that Mr. Judge did not so much as know there _was_ a seal
affixed, he let the matter drop.
These are, so far as I know, the only two instances in evidence of the
use of this peculiar seal in Mahatma missives _during the lifetime of
Madame Blavatsky_, and, as was to be expected from her objection to the
seal, neither missive was among those vouched for by her, for the
message from herself to New York was telegraphed, and it was the
telegraph-form at the New York end that the Mahatma endorsed.
Nevertheless, it is clear that no intimate of Madame’s would get hold of
the seal and make use of it for bogus Mahatma missives under her very
nose, unless he were under the impression either that she had it for
that purpose herself, or that she might be relied on at least not to
“peach” on a _chela_ who used it.
But why did neither Colonel Olcott nor Mr. Keightley speak? The only
answer I can suggest is that while Madame Blavatsky was in the flesh the
faithful thought twice before they expressed a doubt about anything or
anybody. They were accustomed to take their marvels as they found them,
and be thankful.
Otherwise, they might at least have pointed out to Mr. Judge, in order
that he might in turn apprise his Mahatma, whose supernal knowledge
seems here to have been somewhat at fault, what a fatal blunder he was
making in palming off upon the faithful a bogus edition of his own
cryptograph, known as such by three of the faithful themselves.
However, there are the facts; and but for the Mahatma’s _trop de zéle_
in pushing his favourite _chela’s_ occult claims immediately on Madame
Blavatsky’s decease, I fear we should never have been vouchsafed this
instructive side-light on an earlier period of the Theosophical Society.
These Adventures of a Seal supply the clue to the great game of bluff
between the two highest Theosophical officials which must be depicted in
the next chapter.