THE GREAT MAHATMA HOMX;
How MRs. BESANT was BEFooLED
AND DEFOSED ; -
ITs ATTEMPTED REVIVAL
• OF f *-*
THE EXPLODED SUPERSTITIONS
or
THE MIDIDLE A.G.Es.
First edition, Tºo copies
M A D R A S :
THE CHRISTIAN TITERATURE SOCIETY, ->
S. P. C. K. PRESS, VEPERY.
*-*
1894.
Price, 3 Annas; Post-free, 4 Annas,
s’ “$.”











Tºp
5-15
tººl
2/~~~4, 2-4-
THE THEOSOPHIC CRAZE:
ITS HISTORY:
THE GREAT MAHATMA HOAX;
HOW MRS. BESANT WAS BEFOOLED
AND DEPOSED ;
ITS ATTEMPTED REVIVAL
OF
THE EXPLODED SUPERSTITIONS
OF
TEHE MITIDDLE A G-ES.
FIRST EDITION, 4,000 COPIES,
3t a flt a $:
THE CHRISTIAN TITERATURE SOCIETY.
S. P. C. K. PRESS, VEPERY.
1894.

*…” --
7-z, ž- “S.
SJ'a-º-3 PREFATORY NOTE.
—-o-o-o-ºo-o--
THE following compilation has been suggested by the visits
to India of Mrs. Besant. It brings the history down to the
present time.
There is a Latin proverb, De mortwis nihil wisi bonum, ‘Of the
dead let nothing be said but what is good.’ Under ordinary
circumstances this rule ought to be observed ; but when the dead
are used to diffuse most pernicious error among millions of the
living, the hope of India, the truth ought to be spoken.
Still, it may be said to be unfair to bring charges against the
dead who cannot rebut them. They were made in 1884, when
Madame Blavatsky was alive, and was publicly challenged to
disprove them in a Court of law. (See page 11.)
A careful study of the following papers will show that
Madame Blavatsky and her followers are most unsafe religious
guides.
The attention of educated Hindus is especially invited to the
closing chapters. Instead of accepting what is virtually a godless
philosophy, let them hold fast the great truths, that God is our
Father in heaven, and that our first duty is to be obedient and
lowing children. Acknowledging the Fatherhood of God, the
Brotherhood of Man follows as a legitimate inference.
J. MURDOCH.
MADRAs, December, 1894. /16"
COINTTIEHINTS_
INTRODUCTION ... tº tº tº tº º º . . .
SPIRITUALISM tº e º • * 0. © e Q
CoLonEL OLCOTT, “THE PRESIDENT-FoundER”
MADAME BLAVATSKY, THE REAL FOUNDER
THE THEosophical SocIETY IN INDIA Q & ©
ExPLANATION OF MADAME BLAVATSKY’s FRAUDS
REPORT OF THE PSYCHICAL RESEARCH SocIETY
MRS. ANNIE BESANT
MRs. BESANT'S VISIT TO INDIA
How MRs. BESANT WAS BEFooLED
tº e Q © e o
MRs. BESANT “ DEPOSED BY MASTER’s DIRECTION ?”
e e wº
& e &
THEOSOPHY A RETURN To ExPLODED SUPERSTITIONS OF THE MIDDLE
AGES tº º º
THE GREAT MAHATMA HoAX
G & 9 6 * Q
MADAME BLAVATSKY’s CONTEMPT FOR HER DUPES
“A CoRRUPT TREE BRINGETH FoETH EVIL FRUIT * tº e C
THE STUDY of HINDUISM dº e 9 © º º
SCIENTIFIC STUDIES
ANCIENT MonotherSM tº e > * - ©
THE TRUE JAGAT GURU, or WoRLD’s TEACHER
TESTIMONIES To CHRISTIANITY
A NATIONAL RELIGION ... tº gº º tº 9 e
NEED OF PRAYER ... tº G & * c 0
APPENDIX, LIST OF PUBLICATIONs ... © º o
11
17
29
37
46
52
59
60
65
72
73
75
76
77
79
81
82
82
85
THE THEOSOPHIC CRAZE.
—=#ES3 ge=—
INTRODUCTION.
The following chapters may be fitly introduced by the remarks
in The Times, when Mrs. Besant gave an address in London on
Theosophy:
“The fact that a large number of persons assembled on Friday in
St. James's hall for the purpose of hearing Mrs. Besant discourse upon
“Theosophy,” or, as we presume the words must be translated, upon Divine
Wisdom, is surely a curious commentary upon modern claims to intellectual
advancement. It was wittily said of a book which once attracted much
notice—the ‘Westiges of the Natural History of Creation'—that its publica-
tion served to reveal the existence of previously unsuspected strata of ignºr-
ance among the classes who were supposed to be educated; and, in like
manner, the eagerness with which certain sections of the public join in the
pursuit of anything which can excite in them the sensation of wonder may be
held to prove that the weighty words in which, nearly forty years ago, Fara-
day called attention to the almost total absence of any provision for the
education of the judgment, are as applicable now as they were to his contem-
poraries. It probably would not be too much to say that they are still more
applicable, or, at least, that they are applicable to a larger proportion of
persons; for, in the intervening time. the superficial forms of education have
become more and more diffused without any serious attempt to supply the
deficiency which Faraday indicated. More people read and marvel; but
there is probably no corresponding increase in the number of those who
read and think, or who, before they attempt the latter proëess, address them-
selves to the work of learning how to accomplish it in a profitable manner.
And thus it happens that doctrines and speculations as old as human nature
are again and again brought upon the stººge, with no other alteration than a
change of actors and of costume; and that, as often as they find exponents
capable of felicitous expression, or calculated by their own personalities to
arouse a feeling of curiosity, they attract audiences to whom their antiquity
and their sterility are alike unknown, and who accept words and phrases,
which, for the most part, are destitute of intelligible meaning, as if they
really conveyed appreciable additions to the sum of contemporary knowledge,
The great problems of life, by which all men are daily confronted, such as
the unequal distribution of property and other benefits, the origin of evil,
and similar questions, have always led to the formation of guesses at truth
by speculative philosophers, and these guesses, often times accepted by dis-
ciples as revelations, have differed among themselves chiefly to this extent,
that each one has been date-marked, so to speak, by the peculiar beliefs, or
by the peculiar ignorance, of the time or of the place in which it has its
origin, Moreover, the speculators have constantly been acquainted with
what may be generically called the phenomena of mediumship; second-sight,
mesmerism, hypnotism, and the like ; and on the basis of these phenomena
they have often claimed, or have been credited with, command of powers of a
supernatural order. In a large number of cases, they have also practised
2 THE THEOSOPHIC CRAZE.
the arts of the juggler, and have added what they knew to be deceptions to
those tricks of a different kind which, depending upon weakness of the ner-
vous system in those on whom they were performed, the performers may
often, in their ignorance, have regarded as being evidence of the possession
by themselves of some special gifts or qualities not common to mankind. It
is now admitted by all physiologists, that no such interpretation can be
correctly placed upon them.”—April 12, 1891.
1. SPIRITUALISM.
Some account may be fitly given of this system, with which
the founders of Theosophy originally started.
Belief in Ghosts.-‘‘ Modern Spiritualism,” says a writer in the
Encyclopædia Britannica, “ arose from one of the commonest
superstitions in the world.” Interesting details regarding the
different notions entertained of ghosts, or disembodied spirits, will
be found in Tylor’s Primitive Culture. The most troublesome
ghosts were supposed to be those of men notorious for their violence
during life or of persons who had been murdered.
Faith in ghosts was gradually disappearing among enlightened
nations. About seventy years ago, Sir Walter Scott, in his Demon-
ology and Witchcraft, could say, “the increasing civilisation of all
well-constituted countries has blotted out the belief in apparitions.”
Their physical causes became understood. Sully says, “Kant
observed that the madman is a dreamer awake, and more recently
Wundt has remarked that, when asleep, we ‘ can experience nearly
all the phenomena which meet us in lunatic asylums.’” Some
affection of the brain, which in its severer form causes insanity,
may, in a milder degree, occasion spectral illusions. The case of
Nicolai, a German bookseller, is well known. The following is
abridged from his own account :-
“I generally saw human forms of both sexes, but they usually seemed
not to take the smallest notice of each other, moving as in a market-place,
where all are eager to press through the crowd; at times, however, they
seemed to be transacting business with each other. I also saw several times
people on horseback, dogs, and birds. I also began to hear them talk: the
phantoms sometimes conversed among themselves, but more frequently
addressed their discourse to me.”f
Nicolai's illusions were caused by too much blood. When
some was withdrawn by the application of leeches, the illusions
began to fade, and at last they dissolved in the air. Hibbert
gives an account of different supposed apparitions, arising from
excited states of particular temperaments, &c.
Rise of Spiritualism.—Formerly ghosts, for the most part,
moved silently in dim twilight, though noisy apparitions were also
known. They likewise contented themselves with terrifying people.
* Illusions, p. 182. +, Hibbert's Philosophy of Apparitions, pp. 6, 7.
SPIRITUALISM. 3
In 1847-8 they made a new departure, answering questions by
means of raps. This first took place in the United States, that
land of marvels. Colonel Olcott thus magniloquently describes the
new phenomenon —
“If ever there was a fact of science proved, it is that a new and most
mysterious force of some kind has been manifesting itself since March 1848,
when this mighty modern epiphany was ushered in, with a shower of raps,
at an obscure hamlet in New York State. Beginning with these percussive
sounds, it has since displayed its energy in a hundred different phenomena,
each inexplicable upon any known hypothesis of science, and in almost, if not
quite, every country of our globe.”%
The “inexplicable phenomena” began with the “so-called
‘spirit raps.’ By these simple signals the whole modern movement
called Spiritualism was ushered in.”f Persons supposed to be able
to hold intercourse with spirits were called mediums. Answers to
questions were denoted by a certain number of raps.
The rappings were so successful that the spirits were encour-
aged to give other manifestations of their presence. Some me-
diums claimed to have the “power of floating in and moving
through the air, of raising tables from the ground and keeping
them suspended, and of performing many other supernatural
feats.”
The first professed mediums were two young sisters of the
name of Fox. They were followed by Davis, the “Poughkeepsie
Seer,” the Eddy Brothers, Katie King, Dr. Slade, and others too
numerous to mention.
Spread of Spiritualism.—The believers in this system claim
to be fifteen millions strong. This is an exaggeration, but they
are numerous. “Man,” says The Saturday Review, “is naturally
prone to superstition, and in his earlier stages of culture will
invent the strangest theories to account for the phenomena, he sees
around him. So much of this old leaven is left in us, that any
new doctrine, however preposterous it may be, is sure to find
adherents.”
It was said of the ancient Athenians that they “spent their
time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing.”
Spiritualism has been taken up by many in the same way. Some
thoughtful men are drawn to it for a higher reason : “Inquirers
who live in constant fear that science is trying to demonstrate
the truth of materialism, and to rob them of their dearest hope,
that of a future life in the society of their departed friends, turn
eagerly to what they think ocular evidence of another existence.”f
That there should be so many spiritualists is not surprising.
Carlyle, with grim humour, describes the population of the British
Islands, about thirty millions, as “mostly fools.” Colonel Olcott
* Addresses, p. 58. # Ibid, p, 61. J. Encyclopædwa Britannica, Vol. II.
4. THE THEOSOPHIC CRAZE.
bears the following testimony to the presence of some of them in
India :-
“I can show any of you, if you chose, a bundle of requests for the
miraculous cure of physical and mental ailments, the recovery of lost prop-
erty, and other favours, And, lest my English auditors might be disposed
to laugh in their sleeves at Hindu credulity, let me warn them that some of
the most preposterous of these requests have come from their own commu-
nity; some from persons so highly placed that they have asked that their
names may be withheld at all hazards.” Addresses, p. 107.
Reasons for Disbelief in Spiritualism—The great body of
scientific men reject the system for the following reasons:—
1. As a rule these phenomena are exhibited in the presence of ‘sensi-
tives, who are paid for exercising their profession and who prefer to do so
in a dark room.
2. As a rule, nothing worth notice has occurred at séances,” when
competent observers have been present.
3. When strange phenomena have been witnessed, they have often been
traced to conscious imposture and legerdemain.
4. When conscious imposture does not come in, wrºconscious cerebration
and wrºconscious muscular action, supervening on a state of ea pectant attention,
are just as deceitful.
5. The received spiritualist theory belongs to the philosophy of savages,
A savage looking on at a spiritual séance in London would be perfectly at
home in the proceedings,
6. The reported doings and sayings of the spirits are trivial, irrever-
ent, useless and shocking.
There is scarcely any literature, not even the records of trials for
witchcraft, that is more sad and ludicrous than the accounts of spiritual
séances, f
Acknowledgments of Trickery.--Mr. Crookes, a noted Spirit-
ualist, makes the following admission :-
“In the countless number of recorded observations I have
read, there appear, to be few instances of meetings held for the
express purpose of getting the phenomena under test conditions.”f
Colonel Olcott confesses, “a multitude of sickening exposures
of the rascality of mediums,...and the average puerility and fre-
uent mendaciousness of the communications received.” “Little
by little a body of enthusiasts is forming, who would throw a halo
of sanctity around the medium, and by doing away with test
conditions, invite to the perpetration of gross frauds. Mediums
actually caught redhanded in trickery, with their paraphernalia of
traps, false panels, wigs and puppets about them, have been
able to make their dupes regard them as martyrs to the rage of
sceptics, and the damning proofs of their guilt as having been
secretly supplied by the unbelievers themselves to strike a blow
at their holy cause !& The voracious credulity of a large body of
* Sittings with a view of holding intercourse with spirits.
+ Abridged from the Encyclopædia Britammica, Vol. II.
† Olcott's Lectures, p. 60.
§ These words suggest an application.
COLONEL OLCOTT. 5
*
Spiritualists has begotten nine-tenths of the dishonest tricks of
rmediums.”*
The foregoing remarks refer only to SPIRITUALISM, properly so
called—professed direct intercourse with departed spirits. They
do not apply to hypnotism and kindred subjects.
COLONEL OLCOTT.
“THE PRESIDENT-FoundER,”
Colonel Olcott claims to be the PRESIDENT-FOUNDER of the
Theosophical Society. The Supplement to The Theosophist, January,
1881, gives an account of his public life as a member of the Bar,
as an officer in the Army, Secretary of the National Insurance Con-
vention, Agricultural Editor of The Tribune, &c. “Although,” he
says, “I always took an active part in all that concerned my country
and fellow-countrymen, and an especially active one during our late
civil war, yet my heart was not set on worldly affairs.” Before he
met Madame Blavatsky in 1874, he had “ideas that had been the
growth of 22 years’ experiences, with mediums and circles.” He
also makes the following candid acknowledgment : “I was in 1874
—a man of clubs, drinking parties, mistresses, a man absorbed in
all sorts of worldly public and private undertakings and specula-
tions.”t *
He acknowledges that he was for 22 years a Spiritualist. His
own chief characteristic is the “voracious credulity,” with which
he charges a “large body” of them. (see page 4).
Colonel Olcott is the author of a remarkable book, People from
the Other World. In this, in his Lectures, and his magazine, The
Theosophist, he claims to have had the following wonderful ex-
periences:
1. The acquaintance of fifteen Mahatmas.-The Theosophist,
gives the following description of these “great souls:”
“A Mahatma is a personage, who, by special training and education, has
evolved those higher faculties and has attained that spiritual knowledge which
ordinary humanity will acquire after passing through numberless series of re-
incarnations during the process of cosmic evolution, provided of course, that
they do not go in the meanwhile, against the purposes of Nature, and thus
bring on their own annihilation.” July, 1884.
Colonel Olcott says in his Lectures:
“Within the three years when I was waiting to come to India, I had
other visits from the Mahatmas, and they were not all Hindus or Cashmiris. I
know some fifteen in all, and among them Copts, Tibetans, Chinese, Japanese,
Siamese, a Hungarian, and a Cypriote. But whatever they are, however much
* Olcott's Lectures, pp. 58, 59, 60.
# Esoteric Philosophy, pp. 77, 78.
| 8vo. 492 pp. American Publishing Company, 1875,
6 THE THEOSOPHIC CRAZE,
they may differ externally as to races, religion and caste, they are in perfect
agreement as to the fundamentals of occult science, and as to the scientific
basis of religion.” p. 165.
According to Colonel Olcott, the ancient proficients amongst
them, as Zaratushta and Buddha, “ knew more about nature
than Tyndall does, more about the laws of Force than Balfour
Stewart, more about the origin of species than Darwin or Haeckel,
more about the human mind and its potentialities than Mandsley
or Bain.” Lectures, p. 149.
2. The sight of “500 apparitions.”
The President-Founder seems to have been peculiarly favoured
in this way. The single Cock-lane ghost in England, during the
time of Dr. Johnson, was a wonder for half a century; but Colonel
Olcott claims to have seen, from first to last, “ more than 500
apparitions of dead persons” at the house of the Eddy Brothers.
Among them were :—
“Americans and Europeans, Africans and Asiatics, Red Indians of our
Prairies and white people, each wearing his familiar dress, and some even
carrying their familiar weapons.” Lectures, p. 68.
Colonel Olcott’s “apparitions” show the wisdom of the course
pursued by some nations, both in ancient and modern times, of
burying the dress, weapons, &c., of deceased persons with their
bodies. How else could the apparitions have been suitably clothed
or carried their familiar weapons f
Colonel Olcott had perhaps the unique experience of weighing
spirits. To do this correctly, he obtained one of Howe's best
Standard Platform Scales. His experiments elicited the remark-
able fact that the spirits could vary their weight. “Honto,”
weighed successively 88, 58, 58, and 65 lbs, ; “Katie Brink,” 77,
59, 52 lbs.”
3. A sight of the following Marvels:
1. Showers of roses made to fall in a room.
2. Letters from people in far countries drop from space into my lap.
3, Heard sweet music, coming from afar upon the air, grow louder and
louder until it was in the room, and then die away again out in the still
atmosphere until it was no more.
. Writing made to appear upon paper and slates laid upon the floor.
Drawings upon the ceiling beyond any one’s reach,
Pictures upon paper without the employment of pencil or colour.
Articles duplicated before my very eyes.
A living person instantly disappear before my sight.
Jet-black hair cut from a fair haired person’s head.
10. Had absent friends and distant scenes shown me in a crystal.
11. In America more than a hundred times, upon opening letters upon
various subjects coming to me by the common post from my correspondents
in all parts of the world, have found inside, written in their own familiar hand,
messages to me from men in India who possess the theosophical knowledge
of natural law.
i
* People from the Other World, p. 487,
MADAME BLAVATSKY, • 7
I have not even half exhausted the catalogue of the proofs that have
been vouchsafed to me during the last five years as to the reality of Asiatic
psychological science. Lectures, pp. 73, 74.
MADAME BLAVATSKY.
THE REAL FounDER.
EARLY LIFE.
MADAME HELENA PETROVNA BLAVATSKY was born at Ekaterinoslav,
in the south of Russia in 1831. Her father was Colonel Peter
Hahn. She says, “For over six years, from the time I was eight
or nine years old until I grew to the age of fifteen, I had an old
spirit who came every night to write through me...In those days
this was not called spiritualism, but possession.” “I was weak and
sickly. As I grew up and gained health and strength, all these
phenomena ceased.”
At the age of 17 she was married to General Blavatsky, for
many years Governor of Erivan in Armenia. He was 60 years of
age, and she had no affection for him, but married him in a fit of
girlish ill humour. She “bolted speedily, after a succession of
stormy scenes, from his household, never to return.”
Subsequently Madame Blavatsky spent many years in travel-
ling. She led Mr. Sinnett, one of her dupes, to believe that she
had displayed her courage by fighting in man’s dress, at the battle
of Mentana in Italy. Another fiction is that she was several years
in Tibet, studying under men of supernatural knowledge, called
Mahātmas, or “Great Souls.”
In 1872 she was in Cairo in Egypt. She was known there as
the Russian Spiritist, who called the dead and made them answer
questions. A lady, who afterwards married a person named
Coulomb, had recently lost a brother. She went to Madame
Blavatsky and tried to get some information about him; but she
neither saw nor heard anything except a few raps. When she
mentioned her disappointment to the Secretary of the Society, he
said that the spirits did not like to appear in a room which had
not been purified ; but if she came back in a few days, she would
see wonders. A room was being prepared to be used solely for
consulting spirits. When Madame Coulomb returned one day,
she found the place filled with people abusing Madame Blavatsky
for cheating them of their money, and showing them only a long
glove stuffed with cotton, said to represent the hand and arm of
some spirit. The Foundress of Theosophy afterwards expressed a
wish that the page which described her Cairo experience might be
“ torn out of the book of her life.” *
8 * THE THEOSOPHIC CRAZE.
MADAME BLAVATSKY IN AMERICA.
From Egypt Madame Blavatsky returned to Russia. After
spending some time there, she went to America, where she became
a naturalized American.
On October 14, 1874, Colonel Olcott first met Madame Bla-
vatsky at Chittenden, in the house of the Eddy Brothers, two farm-
ers. The brothers were supposed to be able to communicate with
spirits, and people wrote to them asking what lottery tickets they
should buy, whether a certain enterprise would be successful, when
some one would get married, and other questions like those put
to astrologers in this country. By means probably of a magic
lantern, they professed to show ghosts or spirits from another world.
Madame Blavatsky wished to start a Society. For this pur-
pose she needed the help of a gentleman in good position to act as
its President. For this purpose she selected Colonel Olcott. His
other qualification was the “voracious credulity” with which he
charges a large body of spiritualists. (page 4).
Madame Blavatsky, in collusion with the Eddy Brothers, play-
ed tricks upon Colonel Olcott. He thus describes the first of the
Russian lady’s spirit visitors:—
“He was a person of middle height, well-shaped, dressed in a Georgian
(Caucasian) jacket, with loose sleeves and long pointed over sleeves, an outer
long coat, baggy trousers, leggings of yellow leather and white skull-cap or
fez, with tassel. She recognised him at once as Michalko Guiegidze, late
of Kutais.” +
But on the evening of October 24th, there was a much more
remarkable manifestation. When the light was extinguished,
the ghost of George Dix, a sailor who had been drowned, thus
spoke to Madame Blavatsky:
“Madame, I am now about to give you a test of the genuineness of the
manifestations in this circle, which, I think, will satisfy not only you, but a
sceptical world beside. I shall place in your hands the buckle of a medal
of honour worn in life by your brave father, and buried with his body in
Russia. This has been brought to you by your uncle, whom you have seen
materialised this evening.”
Colonel Olcott says:
“Presently I heard the lady utter an exclamation, and, a light being
struck, we all saw Mme. de B. holding in her hand a silver buckle of a most
curious shape which she regarded with speechless wonder.
“Was there ever a ‘manifestation’ more wonderful than this P. A
token dug by unknown means from a father's grave, and laid in his
daughter's hand, 5,000 miles away, across an ocean a jewel from the breast
of a warrior sleeping in his last sleep in Russian ground, sparkling in the
candle light in a gloomy apartment of a Vermont farm-house !”f
The explanation is that the buckle was never in the grave.
* People from the Other World, p. 355. #|Ibid, p.
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. 9
It had been given by Madame Blavatsky to the Eddy Brothers to
deceive Colonel Olcott.
Colonel Olcott saw another wonderful “manifestation :”
“Hands of various sizes were shown. Among them one was too peculiar
to be passed over. It was a left hand, and upon the lower bone of the thumb
a bony excrescence was growing, which Madame de Blavatsky recognised
and said was caused by a gun shot wound in one of Garibaldi’s battles.”%
Colonel Olcott candidly admits that when he saw the “spirits,
or what purported to be such, in every imaginable variety of
costume, the light has been dim—very dim—and I have not been
able to recognise the lineaments of a single face. I could not
even swear to the lineaments of certain of my personal friends who
presented themselves.” “One cannot, with untrained eye, dis-
tinguish accurately between forms varying as much as six inches
in height.”f Madame Blavatsky must have been gifted with
acute sight to recognise the “bony excrescence on the lower bone
of the thumb.”
Madame Blavatsky led Colonel Olcott to believe that she held
intercourse with Mahatmas or “Brothers,” Masters in magical art.
One of them had been induced to accept Colonel Olcott as a pupil,
and letters received through Madame Blavatsky were alleged to
have been written by them. One day a woman, strangely dressed
and veiled, brought a letter from the “Brothers,” and handed it to
Madame Blavatsky. It was discovered afterwards that this sup-
posed Spirit Messenger was an Irish servant girl, to whom Mad-
ame Blavatsky had promised 5 dollars (about Rs. 10) for per-
sonating the Messenger. Having failed to get the money, she
confessed the fraud.
On another occasion, a person was dressed up as a Mahatma,
and came to the room where the Colonel was sitting. As a proof of
his visit, he left his turban, which the Colonel retains to this day.
Madame Blavatsky acquired such an influence over Colonel
Olcott, that she wrote of him as a “psychologised baby,” “who
did not know his head from his heels.”
*
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.
Colonel Olcott, the “President-Founder’ of the Society, says:
“On the 17th November, 1875, I had the honor of delivering in the
City of New York, my inaugural address as President of the Theo-
sophical Society.” ſo
The objects of the Society was said to be as follows:
First.—To form the nucleus of a Universal Brotherhood of Humanity,
without distinction of race, creed, or color,
• * People from the Other World, p. 315. + Ibid., pp. 163, 164,
B
10 THE THEOSOPHIC CRAZE.
ſ
Second.—To promote the study of Aryan and other eastern literatures,
religions, and sciences, and vindicate their importance.
Third.—To investigate the hidden mysteries of nature and the psychical
powers in man.
The third was the grand object until the imposture was
discovered.
Theosophists have been sailing under false colours. The name
theosophy is a misnomer. The word is derived from theos, God,
and sophos, wise. The proper meaning is divine wisdom. It was
originally used to express a more intimate knowledge of the rela-
tion of the soul with God. As will hereafter be shown, the Foun-
ders were avowed atheists. Their Theosophy is therefore ATHEO-
soPHY, godless wisdom. But the Chicago Religio-Philosophical
Journal suggests a still better name, BLAVATSKosophy, Blavatsky
wisdom |
Theosophy is now explained to mean the WISDOM RELIGION.
Its effects are just the reverse.
The course of the Society in America was by no means smooth.
In his first Indian lecture, Colonel Olcott admits that during the
Society’s four years of activity in America, there were “foes all
about, public sentiment hostile, the press scornful and relentless;”
“ the press has lampooned us in writing and pictorial caricature.”
(p. 1). Colonel Olcott was ridiculed as the “Hierophant;”
Madame Blavatsky was called “the champion impostor of the
age.” The New York Sun, thus “chaffed” the “President-
Founder” :— *
“While the “Hierophant’ was still a resident of the Eighth Avenue, he
had full faith in the capacity of an industrious Theosophist to attain through
contemplation, initiation, and a strictly virtuous life the power of defying and
overcoming what are generally accepted as the laws of nature. He believed
in levitation, for example, but when we invited him to illustrate his faith by
stepping out of -an upper window of the Tribune tall tower, he was fain to
admit that this was a height of adept science which he had not yet attained,
and to master which a journey to the Himalayas was necessary.”
The Americans were too sharp for Theosophy to succeed.
Colonel Olcott, at the anniversary address in Bombay, in November,
1879, says, “ of the thirteen officers and councillors elected at the
meeting (17th November 1875), only three remain ; the rest having
dropped off for one reason or another and left us to carry on our
work with new associates who replaced them.” (p. 18).
When a person plunges head foremost into the water and
comes up again at a little distance, he is said to “take a header.”
Colonel Olcott and Madame Blavatsky, as one of their associates
expresses it, wisely “took a header,” and turned up in Bombay on
the 16th February, 1879.
* The Occult World, p. 152,
THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN INDIA, 11
THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN INDIA.
PREPAREDNESS OF INDIA For THEOSOPHY.
“Ghosts,” it has been said “are almost the first guess of the
savage, almost the last infirmity of the civilised imagination.”
But India is one of the countries where “ occult phenomena” are
likely to find most ready credence. The Hindus claim to have 64
arts and Sciences. The following are some of them :—
12. The science of prognosticating by omens and augury.
14, Science of healing, which may include restoration to life of the dead,
the reunion of severed limbs, &c.
15. Physiognomy, chiromancy, &c.
36. The art of summoning by enchantment.
37. Exorcism.
38. Exciting hatred between persons by magical spells.
41. The art of bringing one over to another's side by enchantment.
42. Alchemy and chemistry.
44. The language of brute creatures from ants upwards.
47. Charms against poison,
48. Information respecting any lost thing obtained by astronomical cal-
culations.
50. The art of becoming invisible.
51. The art of walking in the air,
52. The power of leaving one's own body and entering another lifeless
body or substance at pleasure.
56. Restraining the action of fire.
57. The art of walking upon water.
58. The art of restraining the power of wind.
62. The art of preventing the discovery of things concealed.
63. The art by which the power of the sword or any other weapon is
nullified.
64. The power of stationing the soul at pleasure, in any of the five
stages.”
The so-called “pandits” of India accept the above “sciences”
as true : what, then, may be expected of the masses 7 Lyall says,
“It is probable that in no other time or country has witchcraft
ever been so comfortably practised as it is now in India under
British rule.”f
The intellect of the people has been so dwarfed by Hinduism,
that they believe the grossest absurdities. The wild fictions of
the Ramayana are generally accepted as true. To obtain medicine,
the monkey god Hanuman brought through the air a great moun-
tain from the Himalayas; the sun was hidden by him in one of his
armpits.
The field chosen was therefore peculiarly favourable to the
growth of Theosophy.
# Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. II, # Asiatic Studies, p. 96,
|
12 THE THEOSOPHIC CRAZE.
HISTORY OF THE SoCIETY, 1879–1884.
Bombay—The first Theosophist party landed at Bombay on
the 16th February, 1879. It consisted of Colonel Olcott, Madame
Blavatsky, Miss Bates and Mr. Wimbridge. The two latter were
English by birth, who had become members only a few weeks
before the party left America for India. Some time during the
year, they were joined by M. and Madame Coulomb, old Egyptian
acquaintances of Madame Blavatsky.
Colonel Olcott's first address, giving an account of the “Theo-
sophical Society and its Aims,” was delivered at the Framji
Cowasji Hall on March 23. The first year seems to have been
spent in Western India. “The Fourth Anniversary Address was
delivered in November 1879.” The Society’s Monthly Periodical,
The Theosophist, was started the previous month.
In concluding his second address, Colonel Olcott said:—
“There is one regret that comes to mar the pleasure of this evening,
and somewhat dim the lustre of all these lamps—our Buddhist brothers of
Ceylon are absent. And absent too, is that most beloved Teacher of ours,
that elder brother, so good, so erudite, so good, so courageous—Swamiji
Dayānand Saraswati.” (p. 28.)
First Visit to Ceylon–The Theosophists paid their first visit
to Ceylon in May, 1880. Colonel Olcott thus describes his welcome,
and contrasts it with Indian experience :— *
“During our visit of 1880, the Sinhalese people en masse gave us a
princely reception. We moved through the Island from Galle to Kandy and
back again, in almost a “royal progress.’ They exhausted their ingenuity
to do us honour, as in the ancient days they had done to their kings.
Triumphal arches, flags flying in every town, village and hamlet, roads lined
with olla fringes for miles together; monster audiences gathered together to
hear and see us. These evidences of exuberant joy and warm affection
astounded us.”
There is no doubt that a white gentleman, and still more a
white lady, avowing themselves Buddhists, created a great sensa-
tion among the Sinhalese. e
North India.-Colonel Olcott and Madame Blavatsky, after
their return from Ceylon, went, about August 1880, to North India.
The former delivered a lecture on “Spiritualism and Theosophy,”
at Simla, on October 7th, and one on “India, Past, Present and
Future” at Amritsar, on the 29th of the same month. They did
not return to Bombay till the last day of the year.
During this visit the famous “brooch incident” happened,
which will afterwards be described. Their reception seems to have
been almost as enthusiastic as in Ceylon. Colonel Olcott, in a
letter published in America, and dated Umballa, Punjab, Nov. 26th,
writes:
“I am going to spend a week with the Maharajah of Benares and will
HISTORY OF THE SocIETY, 1879–1884. 13
then return to Bombay. . . . . Things are booming along splendidly. It is
a rare thing for us to be able to travel around as we do for nothing. It is
a good thing that it is so, as I have not got a cent. Neither has Blavatsky.”
Bombay in 1881–On the 27th February, 1881, Colonel Olcott
gave a lecture in Bombay on “Theosophy: its Friends and Enemies.”
On the 18th April, Madame Blavatsky, Acting Treasurer, present-
ed a statement of the Society’s receipts from Dec. 1, 1878 to April
30, 1881. Initiation fees had been received from 108 persons in
India, from 246 in Ceylon, and 30 in Europe, realising Rs. 3,900 ;
various other sources yielded Rs. 2,973-3-4. The total expenditure,
including passages from New York to Bombay, amounted to Rs.
26,419-6-5. The difference between the receipts and expenditure,
amounting to Rs. 19,546-3-1, was “advanced as a loan without
interest or security,” by Colonel Olcott and Madame Blavatsky.”
Second Visit to Ceylon.—Colonel Olcott proceeded to Ceylon
in April, where he remained till mid-December, including a visit to
Tinnevelly in October. He thus describes the results —
“During these 212 days I gave sixty public addresses at temples, school
houses, colleges and in the open air; held two conventions, or councils of
Buddhist priests, travelled hundreds of miles, within the Western Province ;
largely increased the membership of our Society; wrote, published, and dis-
tributed 12,000 copies of Buddhist Catechism ; had translated into the
Sinhalese language several freethought tracts; and raised by national subs-
gription the sum of about Rs. 17,000 as the nucleus of a National Buddhistic
Fund, for the promotion of..the Buddhist religion, and the establishment of
schools.” (pp. 121-2). º
Colonel Olcott and four Sinhalese members, came over to
Tinnevelly in October, where they met with a grand welcome. The
Sinhalese planted a cocoa-nut in a Hindu temple as a mark of
respect. The temple was subsequently purified, as usual after
visits by Europeans. |
sixth Anniversary.—Colonel Olcott's Sixth Anniversary Ad-
dress was delivered at Bombay, on January 12th, 1882.
He spoke thus plainly —
“We have got beyond the preliminary stage of polite phrases on both
sides, You know just how we keep our promises, and we know what yours
are worth. The scented garlands Bombay brought us in February 1879,
withered long ago, its complimentary speeches of welcome long since died
away the air.” (p. 116).
The initiation fees from 1st May to 31st December 1881,
amounted to Rs. 1,838, and a donation of Rs. 100 was received.
The expenditure amounted to Rs. 6,529. -
The following month Colonel Olcott gave a lecture in the
Bombay Town Hall, on “The Spirit of the Zoroastrian Religion.”
visit to Calcutta.—The late Babu Peary Chand Mittra, of
Calcutta, had been a spiritualist for many years. Partly through
#Supplement to The Theosophist, May 1881.
14 THE THEOSOPHIC CRAZE,
:
:
his influence, Colonel Olcott, when he visited that city in March,
1882, met with a warm reception. At a soiree given by the Hon.
Maharajah Jotendro Mohun Tagore, C. S. I., Babu Peary Chand
Mittra thus addressed Colonel Olcott :—
“I welcome you most heartily and cordially as a brother. Although you
are of American extraction, yet, in thought and feeling, in sympathy, aspira-
tions, and spiritual conception, you are a Hindw; and we, therefore, look upon
you as a brother in the true sense of the word . . . . It is for the promotion of
the truly religious end that you, brother, and that most exalted lady, Madame
Blavatsky, at whose feet I feel inclined to kneel down with grateful tears,
have been working in the most saint-like manner, and your reward is from the
God of all perfection.”*
A Society was established, with Babu Peary Chand Mittra as
President. *
First visit to Madras–Colonel Olcott and Madame Blavatsky
landed at Madras from Calcutta on the 23rd April, 1882. An
address of “Welcome,” signed by several hundred influential native
gentlemen was read, and the Hon. Humayun Jah Bahadoor, C. S.I.,
placed wreaths of flowers around their necks. A large villa at
Mylapore, a suburb of Madras, was placed at their disposal. After
visiting different parts of the Presidency, Colonel Olcott and
Madame Blavatsky left in June for Bombay. In his farewell
address Colonel Olcott thus spoke of their reception :-
“We have learnt by experience what a Madras welcome means, and how
much generous cordiality is included in the Madrassee's notion of hospitality
to the stranger. I make no invidious comparisons when I say, that we, whom
you have entertained like blood relations rather than like guests, will remem-
ber your attentions and your politeness as among the highest features of not
only our Indian, but even of our whole experiences.” (p. 205).
Third Visit to Ceylon.—Colonel Olcott landed in Ceylon for
the third time, in July 1882. During his visit he delivered 64
lectures, and collected for the Sinhalese National Buddhistic
Fund Rs. 6,807, for whose management a Board of Trustees was
appointed. During his visit he is said to have “healed more than
fifty paralytics, in each case using the name of Lord Buddha.”f
He returned to Bombay about the end of October.
seventh Anniversary.—This was celebrated at Bombay on
the 7th December, 1882. “An unusual dignity was given to the
occasion by the presence in the chair of Mr. A. P. Sinnett, author
of ‘The Occult World.' Around the Hall were suspended 39
metal shields, painted blue, upon which were inscribed the names
of the branches of our Society, which have been founded in Asia.
Behind the President-Founder, a sepoy held the beautiful banner
which has just been worked for the Society by Madame Cou-
lomb.”f
* Supplement to The Theosophist, May, 1882.
# The Theosophist, April, 1883, p. 159.
† Supplement to The Theosophist, January, 1883,
EXPOSURE OF THE PHENOMENA IN 1884. 15
The Treasurer’s Report from 1st January to 4th December,
1882, was submitted. The Admission Fees realised Rs. 4,163 ;
Donations, Rs. 190. The chief items of Expenditure were Head-
quarter’s Maintenance, Rs. 4,571, Travelling Expenses, Rs. 3,417.
The total Expenditure amounted to Rs. 8,906. The cash advanced.
by Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott, was Rs. 4,553.
Removal of Headquarters to Madras.—From Colonel Olcott’s
reference to the “withered garlands” of Bombay, it would appear
that the progress of the Society in Western India had not been
very satisfactory. The Southern Presidency seemed to present a
more hopeful field, and towards the close of 1882 a change was
made. A house was selected in the Southern suburb, called
Adyar, and it was hoped that sufficient funds would be raised to
enable it to be purchased for the Society. How far this expec-
tation was eventually realised, the writer does not know. In
October the following appeared :
“The Founders headed the list with a cash donation of Rs. 500, highly
approving of the project—although they expect to have to advance about
Rs. 5,000 this year besides. Well, out of Rs. 8,520 (all necessary repairs
excluded) hitherto only Rs. 3,200 are paid, The sacred fire of devotion and
enthusiasm that burned so brightly at the beginning has flickered away, and
the probable consequences are that we will have to pay the rest ourselves.”*
Bengal Tour.—This seems to have lasted from 23rd February
to 19th May, 1883. It is remarkable for its “astounding cures.”
Col. Olcott's Acting Private Secretary reports 2,812 cases treated.
Some details of them are given. Other incidents during 1883 were
the “Open Letter” of Colonel Olcott, to the Bishop of Madras, the
“ peremptory orders” from the ‘Paramaguru” stopping Colonel
Olcott’s healing; the doubling of a lady’s ring at Ootacamund, and
the restoration by the “Brothers” of a broken China tray at Madras.
BXPosure of THE PHENOMENA IN 1884.
Leading Events during 1884.—The Theosophist party had
been joined by Dr. Hartmann, from California, and Mr. W. Q.
Judge, of New York. Colonel Olcott, after appointing a Special
Executive Committee to transact business during his absence,
left Bombay for Marseilles, with Madame Blavatsky, on the 20th
February, for the benefit of their health and to further the objects
of the Society. Meetings were held in London and in different
parts of the Continent of Europe.
While Madame Blavatsky was in Europe, the Theosophists at
the Madras head-quarters quarrelled among themselves, and turned
out two of their number, M. Coulomb and his wife. There is a
proverb, “When rogues quarrel their knaveries come to light,” and
*Supplement to The Theosophist, October, 1883.
16 THE THEOSOPHIC CRAZE.
so it happened in this case. Madame Coulomb had for several
years been a great friend of Madame Blavatsky, and had a large
number of letters written to her, some of them explaining how she
was to assist Madame Blavatsky in her tricks.
wº Madame Coulomb gave all these letters to the Rev. George
Patterson, Editor of the Madras Christian College Magazine. As
they proved unmistakably that Madame Blavatsky was a trickster,
plagiarist,” forger, and liar, trying to deceive ignorant people in
India, the Editor, after careful examination, published an account
of the fraud. Dr. Miller and the other Professors of the Madras
Christian College agreed with him. Madame Blavatsky asserted
that the letters were, in whole or in part, forgeries; but when
challenged to prove this in a court of law, she prudently declined.
There is a Society in England, called the “Psychical Research
Society.” Psychical comes from the Greek word psyche, the soul.
It is intended to investigate questions connected with the mind,
including mesmerism, &c. The President is Professor Sidgwick
of Cambridge, author of the well known treatise, The Method of
Ethics.
The Society had heard of the wonders attributed to Madame
Blavatsky and of their exposure by the Christian College Magazine.
To ascertain the truth, Mr. R. Hodgson, a Cambridge graduate,
was sent out to India, where he spent three months in investiga-
ting the evidence for the so-called “phenomena” or wonders.
Mr. Hodgson carefully examined Madame Blavatsky’s
letters, which were also subsequently submitted to experts
in London who considered them undoubtedly genuine. He
questioned a number of witnesses. Among them was Mr. A. O.
Hume, “Father of the National Congress,” in whose house
Madame Blavatsky had lived some months. Mr. Hume had found
out Madame Blavatsky’s trickery, and had given up all dealings
with her.
Mr. Hodgson took Madame Blavatsky’s letters to Europe,
and wrote out a long account of his investigations. All were
submitted to the Committee of the Society, and, after careful con-
sideration, Professor Sidgwick wrote the Report in which the
“ phenomena” were said to be fraudulent, and Madame Blavatsky
was characterised as a clever “impostor” or cheat.
Madame Blavatsky claimed to have lived several years in
Tibet as the Chela, or disciple of a Mahatma, and to have partly
acquired some of his magical powers. Careful inquiry showed
that her pretended “phenomena” were mere tricks. An ex-
planation of the manner in which they were performed will now be
given.
* One who claims other people's writings as his own,
CUP AND SAUCER. 17
EXPLANATION OF MADAME BLAVATSKY’s FRAUDs.
DISCOVERY OF A BROOCH.
A brooch is an ornamental pin, worn by ladies, generally to
fasten some article of dress. At a dinner party at Simla in the
house of Mr. A. O. Hume, Madame Blavatsky asked Mrs. Hume
whether there was anything she particularly wished for. She
mentioned an old family brooch which had been lost. In the
course of the evening Madame Blavatsky said that she had, by
her occult power, seen the brooch fall into a bed of flowers in the
garden. On search being made, the brooch was found, the fact
being attested by nine witnesses.
The explanation of this is the following:
Mrs. Hume gave the brooch to her daughter, who gave it to a
young gentleman whom she expected to marry. This gentleman
resided for some time in Bombay in the same house with Madame
Blavatsky. Needing money, he sold the brooch; Madame Bla-
vatsky obtained it, took it with her to Simla, and hid it in the
flower-bed where it was found.
The natives of India have long been familiar with feats akin
to the “Brooch Incident.” When an ingenious Brahman wishes
to earn an easy livelihood, one expedient is to bury beforehand
an image in the ground. He does not profess to be “clairvoyant,”
like Madame Blavatsky, but uses the more commonplace device
of a dream. The god appears to him in a vision of the night,
informs him that an image, miraculously produced, is to be found
buried in such and such a field, and that a temple should be built
upon the spot. In the morning, he makes known the revelation
he has received, and the principal men of the village are asked to
go to the place. On digging, the image is found, of which a
declaration might be made before any notary public. The temple
is built, and the Brahman is installed as its officiating priest,
entitled to the offerings made at the shrine.
CUP AND SAUCER.
One morning Madame Blavatsky accompanied a few friends
on a picnic among the hills. There were originally to have been
only six persons, but a seventh joined the party before starting.
When they came to the place for breakfast, there were only six
cups and saucers for seven people. One of the party suggested
that Madame Blavatsky should create another cup. She said that
it would be very difficult, but she would try. After wandering
about a little, and pretending to speak to her Mahatma, she pointed
out a place where they would be found. On digging, first a cup
C
18 THE THEOSOPHIC CRAZE,
and then a saucer was found. The cup and saucer both corres-
ponded exactly in pattern with those brought for the picnic.
The explanation is the same as the foregoing. *
Madame Blavatsky was living in the house with the party
giving the picnic. It was easy for her to obtain a cup and saucer
of the same pattern. These were previously buried, and found
when she pointed out the place.
Doubling OF A RING.
“Doubling,” or producing another thing of the same kind, is
one of the “phenomena” which those skilled in occult science claim
to perform. There is a well-known story of a Calcutta Mahatma
who professed to double bank notes. . \
One day a lady at Ootacamund and Madame Blavatsky,
warm friends, were sitting together on a sofa. “A Sapphire ring
was taken from the finger of the lady and almost immediately—
two minutes after—restored to her with another, the duplicate of
the former, only a great deal larger, and set with a Sapphire of
greater value than the original.”
It should be observed that the cup and saucer corresponded
exactly, while the ring did not, being larger and set with a stone
of greater value than the original. Why should there be this
difference f The explanation is that the former belonged to the
same set, while Madame Blavatsky had got the ring made in
Ceylon, so that, although like, it was not a complete match.
REPAIRING A BROKEN CHINA TRAY.
In the Occult Room” in the Madras head-quarters, there was
what was called a Shrine. The Shrine was about 3 or 4 feet in
width and height, and about a foot or 15 inches in depth, with a
drawer below. The back was formed of three sliding pieces. This
was placed against the wall of Madame Blavatsky’s bedroom. By
means of a hole in the wall, concealed by the shrine, Madame
Blavatsky was able to put letters or anything else into the shrine.
The opening in her bedroom was concealed by an almirah which
could easily be shifted.
Madame Blavatsky wished wealthy people to join the
Society that they might give money for its support. She sought
to induce them to do so by the exhibition of some of her wonders.
Among those whom she thus tried to influence was General Morgan.
General Morgan was invited to see a portrait of the Mahatma
Koot Hoomi, contained in the shrine. When the doors were opened,
a China tray, leaning against them, fell on the hard chunam floor
and was broken. The pieces were carefully collected, tied in a cloth,
* Occult means hidden, secret.
SENDING CIGARETTES, - 19
placed within the shrine, and the doors locked. General Morgan
remarked that the Mahatmas if they chose, could easily restore the
broken article. After five minutes, the doors were unlocked, and
on opening the cloth, the China tray was found whole and perfect
without a trace of the breakage -
Madame Blavatsky was at Ootacamund, but she had made the
arrangements beforehand with Madame Coulomb, and had sent a
note professedly from the Mahatma Koot Hoomi, in which it was
said that “the mischief is easily repaired. K. H.”
Madame Coulomb was ordered to buy two China trays of the
same pattern. The shopkeeper's bill was produced and examined
by Mr. Hodgson. One tray was placed from behind leaning
against the door, so that it fell when opened. It could not have
been so placed in front. When the broken pieces were placed in-
side the cloth, they were removed through the hole in the wall,
and the whole China tray was substituted.
BELL SOUNDS IN THE AIR.
Colonel Olcott refers to “sweet music coming from afar.” A
leading Madras Theosophist adduces “bell sounds in the air” as
evidence of the truth of the system.
The sound is produced by a contrivance which Madame Bla-
vatsky concealed under her clothing. When pressed by her arm
against her side, the sound was produced, louder or fainter accord-
ing to the pleasure. It may be brought at any good shop in
London where conjuring apparatus is sold.
SENDING CIGARETTEs.
Madame Blavatsky was a great smoker. The cigarette papers
she which always carried about with her, were supposed to be
“impregnated with her personal magnetism.” “The theory is that
a current of what can only be called magnetism can be made to
convey objects previously dissipated by the same force, to any dis-
tance, and in spite of the intervention of any amount of matter.”*
One form of this “ phenomenon” was to tear a cigarette in
two, and mark each end with pencil lines. One end would be
given to a person to hold, and shortly after the other would be
found inside a piano or in some other part of the room. Mr. Sin-
nett himself makes the following admission :-
“Of course any one familiar with conjuring will be aware that an imita-
tion of this “trick' can be arranged by a person gifted with a little sleight
of hand. You take two pieces of papers, and tear off a corner of both
together, so that the jags of both are the same. You make a cigarette with
one piece, and put it in the place where you mean to have it ultimately found.
* Occult World, p, 62.
20 THE TH}}OSOPHTC (; PAZE.
You then hold the other piece underneath the one you tear in presence of the
spectator, slip in one of the already torn corners into his hand instead of that
he sees you tear, make your cigarette with the other part of the original
piece, dispose of that anyhow you please and allow the prepared cigarette to
be found.”%
But sometimes cigarettes were sent to great distances. Madame
Coulomb explains how this was arranged. She placed them as
directed by Madame Blavatsky, and lo! they were found in every
case except one. The fiasco occurred at Bombay, where the former
had been told to place a cigarette on the statue of the Prince of
Wales, but failed. The explanation given was that the rain had
washed away the cigarette.t
The above is confirmed by extracts from Madame Blavatsky’s
letters. She wrote thus to Madame Coulomb :
“I enclose an envelope with a cigarette paper in it. I will drop another
half of a cigarette behind the Queen's head where I dropped my hair the
same day or Saturday. Is the hair still there P and a cigarette still under the
cover ?”
Madame Blavatsky wrote on the fly-leaf of the letter from
which this passage is taken :
“Make a half cigarette of this, Take care of the edges.”
And on a slip of paper said by Madame Coulomb to have ac-
companied the cigarette paper referred to :
“Roll a, º of this half and tie it with H. P. B.’s hair. Put it on the
top of the cup-board made by Wimbridge to the farthest corner near the wall
on the right. Do it quick.”f
THE SAssoon TELEGRAM.
Mr. Jacob Sassoon is a very wealthy citizen of Bombay.
On this account Madame Blavatsky was very desirous that
he should become a Theosophist. He was willing to do so if he
could obtain some proof of the existence of Mahatmas. Madame
Blavatsky thought that a telegram received from a Mahatma would
afford sufficient evidence. She therefore, when at Poona, arranged
with Madame Coulomb in Madras as follows:
“Now dear, let us change the programme. Whether something succeeds
or not I must try. Jacob Sassoon, the happy proprietor of a crore of rupees,
with whose family I dined last night, is anxious to become a Theosophist. He
is ready to give 10,000 rupees to buy and repair the headquarters; he said
to Colonel (Ezekiel, his cousin, arranged all this) if only he saw a little phe-
nomenon, got the assurance that the Mahatmas could hear what was said, or
give him some other sign of their eaſistence ( ?/ ? ) Well, this letter will reach
you the 26th, Friday; will you go up to the Shrine and ask K. H. (or Christo-
* Occult World, p. 63.
+ Some Account, &c. p. 16.
† Proceedings of the Psychical Research Society, p. 213.
THEIR ALLEGED APPEARANCE, 2:1
folo) to send me a telegram that would reach me about 4 or 5 in the after-
moon, same day, worded thus:-
“Your conversation with Mr. Jacob Sassoon reached Master just now.
Were the latter even to satisfy him, still the doubter would hardly find the
moral oourage to connect himself with the Society.”
“RAMALINGA DEB.”
“If this reaches me on the 26th, even in the evening, it will still produce
a tremendous impression. Address, Care of N. Khandallavalla, Judge, PoonA.
JE FERAI LE RESTE. Cela coãtera quatre ou cing roupies. Cela rve fait rien.”
“The envelope which Madame Coulomb shows as belonging to
this letter bears the postmarks, Poona, October 24th ; Madras,
October 26th; 2nd delivery, Adyar, October 26th; (as to which
Madame Blavatsky has written in the margin of my Copy of Mad-
ame Coulomb’s pamphlet) some Account of my Intercourse with
Aſadame Blavatsky) : “cannot the cover have contained another
letter 2 (Funny evidence l’) Madame Coulomb also shows in con-
nection with this letter an official receipt for a telegram sent in the
name of Ramalinga Deb from the St. Thomé Office, at Madras,
to Madame Blavatsky, at Poona, on October 26th, which contained
the same number of words as above.” f
The above letter shows Madame Blavatsky’s contempt for
her dupes. “Give him some other sign of their ea;istence (? / 1*)
MAEIATMAS.
Theosophy professes, not to have originated in Madame Bla-
vatsky’s brain, as its enemies insinuate, but in the revelations of
Mahatmas, “great souls,” who found in her a fit channel for the
propagation of ‘Truth.”
It has been well said that the alleged existence of Mahatmas,
or “Tibetan Brothers,” is the most “inexplicable phenomenon.”
connected with Theosophy. An ex-Theosophist remarked : “If
the Brothers are a myth, the Society for me is moonshine.”
The proofs of their existence are threefold :
I. THEIR ALLEGED APPEARANCE.
A sight of one of the “Brothers ” was ardently desired by
some influential members of the Society. It was considered the
one thing necessary to shut the mouths of gainsayers. Madame
Blavatsky therefore tried to meet their wishes. Madame Coulomb
gives the following account of the manner in which this was
effected :-
“She cut a paper-pattern of the face I was to make, which I still have;
* The words in French are: I will Do THE REST. It will cost 4 or 5 rupees
That is nothing.”
+ Proceedings of the Psychical Research Society, p. 211.
22 THE THEOSOPHIC CRAZE,
on this I cut the precious lineaments of the beloved Master, but to my shame
I must say that after all my trouble of cutting, sewing and stuffing, Madame
said that it looked like an old Jew—I suppose she meant Shylock, Madame
with a graceful touch here and there of her painting brush gave it a little
better appearance, but this was only a head without bust and could not very
well be used, so I made a jacket which I doubled and between the two cloths
I placed stuffing to form the shoulders and chest. The arms were only up to
the elbow, because when the thing was tried on we found the long arm would
be in the way of him who had to carry it.”
M. Coulomb, one moonlight night, appeared on the balcony
of the house, wearing this mask, and leaning against the balus-
trade. At the same time he dropped a letter. Colonel Olcott and
Damodar signed a certificate, testifying to the appearance of the
“Illustrious” in his astral body. At an “entertainment,” given
in the Old College Hall, Madras, Madame Coulomb produced the
mask, which corresponded fairly well with Colonel Olcott's
account.
Colonel Olcott acknowledges that American mediums make
use of “puppets.” The thing is conceivable that they might be
employed by Madame Blavatsky. The manifestations of the
“Brothers” were usually so fleeting, that those who saw them
might very easily have been mistaken. They were not seen under
“ test conditions.”
The Theosophists, like the Spiritualists mentioned by Colonel
Olcott, (page 4,) consider that the mask was prepared “ by the
unbelievers themselves to strike a blow at their holy cause.”
II. THEIR LETTERs.
The Mahatmas have chiefly distinguished themselves by their
replies to letters addressed to them. It is a reproduction of the old
system of oracles, which may therefore be briefly noticed.
Oracles.—These date from the remotest antiquity, but gradually
declined with the increase of knowledge. Many of the Egyptian
temples were oracular. The following is a brief account of Greek
oracles :—
“Ancient literature shows the Greeks as a people whose religion ran
much into the consultation of Oracle gods at many temples, of which the
shrine of Apollo at Delphos was the chief. No rite could keep up more per-
fectly the habit of savage religion than their necromancy, or consulting ghosts
for prophecy; there was a famous oracle of the dead near the river Acheron
in Thesprotia, where the departing souls crossed on their way to Hades.”f
When the writer visited the temple of “Isis” “unveiled” at
Pompeii, a secret entrance to the shrine was pointed out, by means
of which responsive oracles were given to the “imbeciles” of those
days.
* Some Account, p. 31. + Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. XV.
THEIR LETTERS, 23
The chief of the Mahatmas, Koot Hoomi, seems to have been
first brought on the stage by means of Mr. Sinnett. Through a
“happy inspiration,” he was led to address a letter “ to the Un-
known Brother.” From “that small beginning,” says Mr. S., “has
arisen the most interesting correspondence in which I have ever
been privileged to engage.”
The first Brother to whom Madame Blavatsky applied did not
wish to be troubled; another was more obliging. Mr. Sinnett
gives the following account of his new correspondent :—
“He was a native of the Panjab who was attached to occult studies from
his earliest boyhood. He was sent to Europe whilst still a youth at the
intervention of a relative—himself an occultist—to be educated in Western
knowledge, and since then has been fully initiated in the greater knowledge
of the East.
“My correspondent is known to me as Koot Hoomi Lal Sing. This is
his ‘Thibetan mystic name'—occultists, it would seem, taking new names on
initiation.”
The name is said to be “Thibetan.” An expert at the British
Museum Library examined a recent Thibetan Dictionary, and
found no such words as “ Koot” and “Hoomi.” The most eminent
Panjabi scholar of the day writes, “ Koot Hoomi is a name, I
believe, to be quite unknown in the Panjab. I have been here
about fifty years and I have never heard anything like it.”
Mr. Lillie says:—
“The Occult World (p. 65) tells us Koot Hoomi is a native of the Panjab,
and, Isis Unveiled tells us he is a native of Kashmir (Vol. II., p. 609). We
learn also that he is a Kutchi and the ‘son of a Katchi.” Ibid, Vol. II., p. 628.”
These accounts with regard to his nationality are rather
conflicting. He has now been wisely placed in Tibet, where he
cannot be cross-examined.
Mr. Sinnett admits that there is “a foolish suspicion enter-
tained by some sceptics” that the letters supposed to come from
the Brothers were written by Madame Blavatsky. Mr. C. C.
Massey, who in 1880 was one of the Society’s Vice-Presidents,
writing in 1882, mentions that it had been “maliciously suggest-
ed” that Koot Hoomi is an alias for Madame Blavatsky. He
has since withdrawn from the Society, it is believed because he
considers the “malicious” suggestion to be correct.
The following are some of the reasons for attributing the
authorship of the letters to Madame Blavatsky, and not to an
imaginary “Brother.”
1. Handwriting and Paper.—Madame Blavatsky acknow-
ledges that when young, she could write in a peculiar old-fashioned
German hand.t Her acquaintance with Russian, French, &c.,
would also easily enable her to have different styles of penmanship.
* Koot Hoomi Unveiled, p. 14. + Esoteric Philosophy, No. 1, p. 87.
24, THE THEOSOPHIO CRAZEe
The writer has seen only one specimen of writing alleged to
be by one of the “Brothers.” It is in blue pencil. It is rather
curious that Mr. Sinnett refers to Madame Blavatsky “fingering
a blue pencil.” He also notices another coincidence. “The
pink paper on which it was written (a letter from a Brother)
appeared to be the same which Madame Blavatsky had taken blank
from her pocket shortly before.”f
2. Style.—Koot Hoomi was educated in England, but, like
Webster’s Dictionary, he spells “scepticism” with a k. Madame
Blavatsky assured Mr. Sinnett that this “ was not an Americanism
in his case, but due to a philological whim of his” (i.
The language of good American writers, like Washington
Irving, is as pure and chaste as that of English authors. In the
United States, however, where political struggles are very keen,
there is a style of mock eloquence, called “stump oratory.”
Referring to this, The Saturday Review characterises Koot Hoomi’s
letters as “Choice American.” The Bombay Gazette expresses a
similar opinion : -
“As yet the sage has unfortunately only revealed himself to his worship-
pers in a series of letters whose vulgar and inflated style makes us shudder
at the prospect before us, if Occultism is destined to become the world’s
religion. The new revelation, so far, is like nothing so much as a series of
leading articles from a third-rate American paper.” Sept. 24, 1881.
3. Subject Matter—Like the ancient oracles and the spirit-
ualistic replies received by Dr. Hartmann, the letters of the
Mahatmas or Brothers are generally very vague. A clever fortune-
teller can often worm out secrets from her dupes, so as to lead them
to suppose that she possesses preternatural knowledge. Madame
Blavatsky knew well the persons who sought to communicate with
the Brothers, and could easily prepare letters suited to their cases.
From the “priceless treasures of their researches,”$ the
Brothers have not communicated a single jewel worthy of preserva-
tion. Old time-worn platitudes are simply presented in a “ Brum-
magem” setting.
4. Koot Hoomi’s Plagiarisms.-Mr. Kiddle, an America
professor, on reading “The Occult World,” says: -
“I was greatly surprised to find in one of the letters presented to Mr.
Sinnett as having been transmitted to him by Koot Hoomi in the mysterious
manner described, a passage taken almost verbatim from an address on Spiri-
tualism by me at Lake Pleasant in August, 1880, and published the same
month by the Banner of Light. As Mr. Sinnett's book did not appear till a
considerable time afterwards (about a year, I think), it is certain that I did
not quote, consciously ou consciously from its pages. How, then, did it get
into Koot Hoomi's mysterious letter P”
* Occult World, p. 95. † Ibid., p. 78.
# Ibid., p. 44. § Ibid, p. 5.
THEIR LETTERS.
25
The following are the passages referred to, printed side by side
for the sake of ready reference —
Extract from Mr. Kiddle's discourse
entitled “The Present Outlook of
Spiritualism,” delivered at Lake
Pleasant camp meeting, on Sunday,
August 15th, 1880.
“My friends, ideas rule the world,
and as men's minds receive new ideas,
laying aside the old and effete, the
world advances. Society rests upon
them; mighty revolutions spring from
Extract from Koot Hoomi's letter to
Mr. Sinnet, in “The Occult World,”
3rd edition, p. 102. The first edi-
tion was published in June, 1881.
“Ideas rule the world; and as
men's minds receive new ideas, laying
aside the old and effete, the world will
advance. Mighty revolutions will
spring from them, creeds and even
powers will crumble before their on-
ward march, crushed by their irresis-
tible force. It will be just as impos-
sible to resist their influence when the
time comes as to stay the progress of
the tide.”
If the papers of two students at a University examination
contained passages corresponding so closely as the above, it would
certainly concluded that one copied from the other or that both
copied from the same original.
5. Koot Hoomi's Excuses.—A liar often tries to support one
falsehood by another. One of the best means of convicting him is
to examine his supposed evidence.
Koot Hoomi’s first excuse is, e …”
“I was physically very tired by a ride of forty-eight hours consecutively,
and (physically again) half asleep.”*
If Koot Hoomi could come in his “astral body” from Thibet'
to Bombay, how was the poor man obliged to be “48 hours con-
secutively” in the saddle 7
The second reason alleged is as follows:–
“It was dictated mentally in the direction of and precipitated by a young
chela not yet expert in this branch of psychic chemistry, and who had to
transcribe it from the hardly visible imprint. Half of it, therefore, was
omitted, and the other half more or less distorted by the “artist.’”
If the “ young chela” had written something different from
Mr. Kiddle's remarks, it could easily be understood, but that he
should copy sentences almost verbatim is certainly an “occult
phenomenon.” º
Koot Hoomi afterwards admitted that the extracts given were
quotations; but even this is unsatisfactory. The Report of the
Psychical Research Society says:—
“More lately (in Light, September 20th 1884), Mr. Kiddle has shown that
the passage thus restored by no means comprises the whole of the unac-
thera; institutions crumble before
their onward march. It is just as
impossible to resist their influx, when
the tide comes, as to stay the progress
of the tide.”
* Occult World, p. 145.
26 THE THEOSOPHIC CRAZE.
knowledged quotations; and, moreover, that these newly-indicated quotations
are antecedent to those already admitted by Koot Hoomi, and described as
forming the introduction to a fresh topic of criticism. The proof of a deli-
berate plagiarism aggravated by a fictitious defence is therefore irresistible.”
Koot Hoomi himself affords the true explanation. “I was
not then anticipating its publication.” He thought that his
plagiarism would never be detected.
6. Channel of Communication.—This was through Madame
Blavatsky. Two leading Theosophists, who thought that the
Society might be better managed, wished to write straight to the
“Brothers.” One of the latter says:—
“Your desire is to be brought to communicate with one of us directly,
without the agency of Madame Blavatsky or any medium.”*
As might be expected, this audacious proposal was condemned
by Koot Hoomi, in a long letter, as “selfish 1”f All letters
through the astral post must go through the recognised postmis-
tress. Any other course would have been “unreasonable.”
7. Place of Reception.—Such phenomena usually took place
at the headquarters. Dr. Hartmann says:—
“Many of the ‘occult letters' that were received,—but by no means all—
were received either in that cupboard or in Madame Blavatsky's rooms. The
cupboard was a sort of post-office, to mail and receive letters from the
Masters.”:
For the first two or three months after Madame Blavatsky left
for Europe, a few letters were received about the same time as the
overland mails, but afterwards they seem to have entirely ceased.
Enemies of the cause derided the oracle as dumb ; Koot Hoomi
was accused of deserting his friends when his help was most
required. A more charitable conjecture was that he had himself
been “precipitated” down some Himalayan khud. Such accidents
are not unusual on the mountains, and might easily happen to a
man half asleep and exhausted with a 48 hours’ ride.
8. Manner of Reception.—This is an important element.
Letters were usually dropped, but at Madras a “shrine” was
specially made for them by Deschamps.
Mr. Judge, in his lecture delivered at the request of some
Madras students, says:—
“They held meetings in closed rooms, and yet objects would come
through the ceiling, Tyndall, Huxley and others might say that such a
thing was impossible, but the lecturer said he had seen such things happen.
. . . The lecturer had seen letters drop.”
When Mr. Sinnett was at the Society’s head-quarters, Bombay,
a letter dropped suddenly on the table in the middle of the room.
Why had a shrine to be made at Madras Mr. Judge notwith-
* Occult World, p. 70. + Ibid., pp. 71-74. f Report of Observations, p. 13.
ALLEGED ASSISTANCE OF THE MAHATMAS IN WRITING, ETC. 27
standing, it would appear that Tyndall and Huxley were right in
thinking that letters could not come through a thick Madras ceiling,
composed of brick and mortar. In Bombay, houses have usually
boarded floors and cloth ceiling. Letters could easily be made to
drop through a Bombay floor, while such a course was impossible
at Madras. Madame Coulomb gives an account of a trap which was
fixed on the floor of the garret above Mr. Sinnett's room ; the
floor was a boarded one, and between the boards was a space suffi-
ciently wide to permit a thick letter to slip through easily. By
pulling a string attached to the trap, the letter could be disengaged
at any moment.”
The Madras shrine stood in the “Occult Room,” which was
next to Madame Blavatsky’s bed-room.
Dr. Hartmann bears witness to the following:—
“Besides this hole in the wall there were found to be three secret
openings or sliding panels in various places. One into the occult room,
opening into the back of another cupboard or book-case, whose front was
covered by a mirror and which was made accessible from the hall,”f
The explanation given by the Theosophists is that “all these
tricks, holes, and trap-doors” were the work of M. Coulomb and
his wife after Madame Blavatsky left in order to criminate her.
M. Coulomb asserts that they were made by her orders, and her
enemies say that she used them to put letters in the shrine. As
The Christian College Magazine puts it : “primá facie, it is more
likely that letters and saucers should be pushed through sliding
panels and secret passages than through stout teak wood planks
and solid masonry walls.”f
When “Koot Hoomi” is “ Unveiled,” the form disclosed is
that of Madame Blavatsky.
3. ALLEGED AssistANCE OF THE MAHATMAS IN writing “IsIs
UNVEILED.”
“Isis UNVEILED” is a work in two thick octavo volumes. It pro-
fesses to be “A MASTER-KEY TO THE MYSTERIES OF ANCIENT AND
MoDERN SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY.”
Madame Blavatsky gives the following account of its prepa-
ration.
“It is but too true that ‘ the material sadly needs reducing to order,’ but
it never was my province to do so, as I gave out one detached chapter after
the other and was quite ignorant as Mr. Sinnett correctly states in the
Occult World, whether I had started upon a series of articles, one book or two
books... Most of the doctrines given had to be translated from an Asiatic lan-
guage...Most if not all the quotations from and references to, other works,—
some of them out of print, and many inaccessible but to the few—and which
* Some Account, p. 33. t Report, p. 43. † Oct. 1884,
28 . . . . . . THE THROSOPHIC CRAZE,
the author personally had never read or seen, though the passages quoted
were proved in each instance minutely correct.”
Mr. Sinnett gives further details:—
“In the production of this book she was so largely helped by the Broth-
ers, that great portions of it are not really her work at all. In the morning
she would sometimes get up and find as much as thirty slips added to the
manuscript she had left on her table over-night.
“The book was written—as regards its physical production—at New
York, where Madame Blavatsky was utterly unprovided with books of
reference. It teems, however, with references to books of all sorts, includin
many of a very unusual character, and with quotations the exactitude o
which may easily be verified at the great European libraries, as foot-notes
supply the number of the pages, from which the passages taken or quoted.”f
If the above account is correct, Mr. Sinnett rightly terms the
book a “great phenomenon.” It may justly complete with Bacon’s
treatise to be called maa'imus partus temporis, the greatest birth of
time !
Mr. Arthur Lillie, in “Koot Hoomi Unveiled,” gives a very
different account. According to him, it is largely translated from
Dogme et Ritual de la Haute Magie, written, by Louis Constant, a
French ex-priest, under the name of Eliphas Lévi. The geological
part of it is said to be derived from Donelly’s Atlantis. A clue is
thus afforded to what astonished Mr. Sinnett. Any one may make
a show of learning by copying references to works which he “had
never read or seen,” and they may be “proved in each instance
minutely correct.” What is novel in this case, is that the prodigy
is attributed to the aid of Mahatmas.
The Saturday Review, one of the first literary journals in
England, characterises Isis Unveiled as a “mystical jumble.” In
a review of the work which appeared in the St. James’s Gazette,
July 30th, 1884, Madame Blavatsky’s ignorance is represented as
astounding, “Almost every page shows this ignorance.” º
The gross ignorance of Madame Blavatsky and the Mahatmas
who assisted her is shown by Mr. W. E. Coleman in a series of
papers which appeared in the Chicago Religio-Philosophical Journal
in 1889. The following is an extract from the issue of August 31st —
“The Bhagavad Gita is the gem of Sanskrit literature . . . . . One would
think that if there was any Sanskrit book with which Madame Blavatsky
would be familiar, not in the original, for she was and is no Sanskritist, but
in translation, it would be the Gita, But when she wrote Isis she did not
èven know the name of the book, and was in ignorance of its contents. In a
large number of places in Isis she speaks of this book which she calls the
Bagaved gita. Note the difference in spelling between this and Bhagavad
Gita. None but a Sanskrit ignoramus would omit the “h” after the initial
B,” or spell Gita, with two ‘t’s.’ There are no such words in Sanskrit as
Bagaved and Gitta, (See Isis Unveiled, ii. 199,257, 275,277, 405.) So much
for the name; now for the contents of the book. I. U. ii. 199, states that the
* The Theosophist, Wol, II, p. 258. + The Occult World, pp. 80, 109.
REPORT OF THE PSYCHICAL RESEARCH sociFTY. 29
whole story of the massacre of the children at the birth of Jesus in Matthew
was ‘bodily taken' from the Bagaved gitta. There is not a word in the
Bhagavad Gita about the slaughter of children at the birth of Krishna, to
which she refers. I. U. ii. 257, states that the Bagaved gitta contains an
account of Wishnu assuming the form of a fish to reclaim the Vedas lost
during- the deluge, and in ii. 405 is found a purported quotation from the
Bagaved gitta concerning the deluge. Nothing of this, in any form or manner,
is in the Gita. The truth is that Madame Blavatsky has confounded two very
different books, the Bhagavad Gita and the Bhagavad Purana, The things
which she claims to be in the Gita are in the Purana. In another place she
twice speaks of the Bhagavatta (ii. 260), the name of which she spells wrongly,
using two “t's' in it instead of one. It is plain that Madame Blavatsky had
never seen either of these books, the Gita or Purana. Her information con-
cerning and quotations from them were copied from Lewis Jacolliot's writ-
ings. He was her standard authority. As is well known, Jacolliot's works
are full of forgeries and blunders, utterly worthless productions; and yet he is
Madame Blavatsky’s principal authority on Hinduism and Sanskrit literature
in Isis. That work is full of forgeries from Sanskrit works, adopted and
copied as truth from Jacolliot.
“A woman who does not know the difference between the Bhagavad
Gita and the Bhagavata Purana, and who cannot spell the name of either
correctly, and who adopts Jacolliot as her principal authority, is indeed a .
reliable writer on Hinduism and Sanskrit literature | |''
Numerous other illustrations are given of her ignorance of
Hinduism. The following is a similar example so far as Buddhism
is concerned :-
“We read in I. U. i. 92 that Maha Maya, or Maha Deva, the mother of
Gautama Bhudda (sic) had the birth of her son announced to her by Bhö-
disät (Sic)...... The name Maha Deva is so common in Hindu literature, as an
appellation of Shiva, the third member of the Hindu triad or trimurtti, that
it would seem that the veriest smatterer in Hinduism should know better
than to call Buddha's mother Maha-Deva. Moreover, no woman could be
called Maha-deva in Sanskrit. Deva in Sanskrit is masculine; the feminine
is Devi; and Gautama's mother Maya is sometimes called Maha-Devi ; but
never Deva.”
The above opinion is supported by the high authority of
Professor Max Müller, Editor of the Rig-Veda and of the Sacred
Books of the East:—
“There is nothing that cannot be traced back to generally accessible
Brahmanic or Buddhistic sources, only everything is muddled or misunder-
stood. If I were asked what Madame Blavatsky’s Esoteric Buddhism really
is, I should say it was Buddhism misunderstood, distorted, caricatured.
There is nothing in it beyond what was known already, chiefly from books
that are now antiquated. The most ordinary terms are misspelt and mis-
interpreted.” The Nineteenth Century. May, 1893, p. 775.
REPORT OF THE PSYCHICAL RESEARCH SOCIETY.
This Society was founded in 1882, under the Presidency of
Professor H. Sidgwick of Cambridge, author of The Method of
Ethics, &c. Its object is to make “an organised attempt to inves-
30 --- THE THEOSOPHIC CRAZE.
tigate that large group of debatable phenomena designated by such
terms as mesmeric, psychical, and spiritualistic.”. Some distin-
guished men are connected with it. The following Report was
written by Professor Sidgwick. It is followed in the Proceedings”
by “2. Account of Personal Investigations in India, and dis-
cussion of the Authorship of the “Koot Hoomi” Letters, by
Richard Hodgson.”
Mr. Hodgson’s “Account” occupies 193 pages, and contains
“Plan of Occult Room with Shrine and Surroundings,” together
with fac, similes of a number of the Letters.
STATEMENT AND CoNCLüsions OF THE COMMITTEE.
In May, 1884, the Council of the Society for Psychical
Research appointed a Committee for the purpose of taking such
evidence as to the alleged phenomena connected with the Theoso-
phical Society as might be offered by members of that body at the
time in England, or as could be collected elsewhere.
The Committee consisted of the following members, with power
to add to their number:—Messrs. E. Gurney, F. W. H. Myers,
F. Podmore, H. Sidgwick, and J. H. Slack. They have since
added Mr. R. Hodgson and Mrs. H. Sidgwick to their number.
For the convenience of Members who may not have followed
the progress of the Theosophical Society, a few words of prelimi-
nary explanation may be added here.
The Theosophical Society was founded in New York in 1875,
by Colonel Olcott and Madame Blavatsky, ostensibly for certain
philanthropic and literary purposes. Its headquarters were removed
to India in 1878, and it made considerable progress among the
Hindus and other educated natives. “The Occult World,” by Mr.
Sinnett, at that time editor of the Pioneer, introduced the Society
to English readers, and that work, which dealt mainly with pheno-
mena, was succeeded by “Esoteric Buddhism,” in which some
tenets of the Occult Doctrine, are so-called “Wisdom-religion,”
were set forth. But with these doctrines the Committee have, of
course, no concern.
The Committee had the opportunity of examining Colonel
Olcott and Madame Blavatsky, who spent some months in England
in the summer of 1884, and Mr. Mohini M. Chatterji, a Brahman
graduate of the University of Calcutta, who accompanied them.
Mr. Sinnett also gave evidence before the Committee ; and they
have had before them oral and written testimony from numerous
other members of the Theosophical Society in England, India, and
other countries, besides the accounts of phenomena published in
* December, 1885. Published by Trübner & Co. Price 4s. 6d.
STATEMENT AND CONCLUSIONS OF THE COMMITTEE. 31
“The Occult World,” “Hints on Esoteric Theosophy,” The Theo-
sophist, and elsewhere. .
According to this evidence, there exists in Tibet a brotherhood
whose members have acquired a power over nature which enables
them to perform wonders beyond the reach of ordinary men.
Madame Blavatsky asserts herself to be a Chela or disciple of these
Brothers, (spoken of also as Adepts and as Mahatmas,) and they
are alleged to have interested themselves in a special way in the
Theosophical Society, and to have performed many marvels in con-
nection with it. They are said to be able to cause apparitions of
themselves in places where their bodies are not, and not only to
appear, but to communicate intelligently with those whom they
then visit, and themselves to perceive what is going on when their
phantasm appears. This phantasmal appearance has been called
by Theosophists the projection of the “Astral form.” The evidence
before the Committee includes several cases of such alleged appear-
ances of two Mahatmas, Koot Hoomi and Morya. It is further
alleged that their chelas, or disciples, are gradually taught this art,
and that Mr. Damodar K. Mavalankar in particular, a Theosophist
residing at the head-quarters of the Society, has acquired it, and
has practised it on several occasions. It may be observed that
these alleged voluntary apparitions, though carrying us considerably
beyond any evidence that has been collected from other sources,
still have much analogy with some cases that have come under the
notice of the Literary Committee.
But we cannot separate the evidence offered by the Theosophists
for projections of the “Astral form,” from the evidence which
they also offer for a different class of phenomena, similar to some
which are said by Spiritualists to occur through the agency of
mediums, and which involve the action of “psychical" energies
on ponderable mattter; since such phenomena are usually de-
scribed either as (1) accompanying apparitions of the Mahatmas or
their disciples, or (2) at any rate as carrying with them a mani-
fest reference to their agency.
The alleged phenomena which come under this head consist—
so far as we need at present take them into account— in the trans-
portation, even through solid matter, of ponderable objects, in-
cluding letters, and of what the Theosophists regard as their
duplication ; together with what is called “precipitation” of hand-
writing and drawings on previously blank paper. The evocation
of sound without physical means is also said to occur.
In December, 1884, the Committee considered that the time
had come to issue a preliminary and provisional Report. This
Report, on account of its provisional character, and for other
reasons, was circulated among Members and Associates of the Society
for the Psychical Research only and not published. In drawing up
32 , THE THEOSOPHIC CRAZE,
the present Report, therefore, the Committee have not assumed
that their readers will be acquainted with the former one. The
conclusion then come to was expressed as follows: “On the whole
(though with some serious reserves), it seems undeniable that there
is a primá facie case, for some part, at least, of the claim made,
which, at the point which the investigations of the Society for
Psychical Research have now reached, cannot, with consistency, be
ignored. And it seems plain that an actual residence for some
months in India of some trusted observer-by actual intercourse
with the persons concerned, Hindu and European, so far as may be
permitted to him—is an almost necessary pre-requisite of any more
definite judgment. *
In accordance with this view, a member of the Committee,
Mr. R. Hodgson, B. A., Scholar of St. John’s College, Cambridge,
proceeded to India in November, 1884, and after carrying on his
investigations for three months, returned in April, 1885.
In the Madras Christian College Magazine for September and
October, 1884, portions of certain letters were published which
purported to have been written by Madame Blavatsky to a M.
and Madame Coulomb, who had occupied positions of trust at the
head-quarters of the Theosophical Society for some years, but had
been expelled from it in May, 1884, by the General Council of that
Society during the absence of Madame Blavatsky and Colonel
Olcott in Europe. These letters, if genuine, unquestionably impli-
cated Madame Blavatsky in a conspiracy to produce marvellous
phenomena fraudulently; but they were declared by her to be, in
whole or in part, forgeries. One important object of Mr. Hodgson's
visit to India was to ascertain, if possible, by examining the letters,
and by verifying facts implied or stated in them, and the explana-
tions of the Coulombs concerning them, whether the letters were
genuine or not. The Editor of the Christian College Magazine had
already, as Mr. Hodgson found, taken considerable pains to ascertain
this ; but he had not been able to obtain the judgment of a recog-
nised expert in handwriting. Accordingly, a selection of the
letters, amply sufficient to prove the conspiracy, was entrusted by
the editor (in whose charge Madame Coulomb had placed them),
to Mr. Hodgson, who sent it home before his own return. These,
together with some letters undoubtedly written by Madame
Blavatsky, were submitted to the well-known expert in handwriting,
Mr. Netherclift, and also to Mr. Sims of the British Museum.
These gentlemen came independently to the conclusion that the
letters were written by Madame Blavatsky. This opinion is entirely
in accordance with the impression produced in the Committee by
the general aspect of the letters, as well as by their characteristic
style, and much of their contents.
The Committee further desired that Mr. Hodgson should, by
STATEMENT AND CONCLUSIONS OF THE COMMITTEE. 33
cross-examination and otherwise, obtain evidence that might assist
them in judging of the value to be attached to the testimony of
some of the principal witnesses; that he should examine localities
where phenomena had occurred, with a view of ascertaining whether
the explanations by trickery, that suggested themselves to the
Committee, or any other such explanations,” were possible; and in
particular, as already said, that he should, as far as possible, verify
the statements of the Coulombs with a view to judging whether
their explanations of the phenomena were plausible. For it is
obvious that no value for the purpose of the psychical research can
be attached to phenomena, where persons like the Coulombs have
been concerned, if it can be plausibly shown that they might them-
selves have produced them : while, at the same time, their un-
supported assertions that they did produce them, cannot be taken
by itself as evidence.
After hearing what Mr. Hodgson had to say on these points,
and after carefully weighing all the evidence before them, the
Committee unanimously arrived at the following conclusions:—
(1) That of the letters put forward by Madame Coulomb all
those, at least, which the Committee have had the
opportunity of themselves examining and of submitting
to the judgment of experts, are undoubtedly written
by Madame Blavatsky; and suffice to prove that she
has been engaged in a long-continued combination
with other persons to produce by ordinary means a
series of apparent marvels for the support of the
Theosophic movement.
(2) That, in particular, the Shrine at Adyar, through which
letters purporting to come from Mahatmas were receiv-
ed, was elaborately arranged with a view to the
secret insertion of letters and other objects through a
sliding panel at the back, and regularly used for this
purpose by Madame Blavatsky or her agents.
(3) That there is consequently a very strong general pre-
sumption that all the marvellous narratives put for-
ward as evidence of the existence and occult power of
the Mahatmas are to be explained as due either (a) to
deliberate deception carried out by or at the instiga-
tion of Madame Blavatsky, or (b) to spontaneous
illusion, or hallucination, or unconscious misrepresenta-
tion, or invention on the part of witnesses.
(4) That after examining Mr. Hodgson’s report of the results
of this personal inquiries, they are of opinion that the
testimony to these marvels is in no case sufficient,
taking amount and character together, to resist the
force of the general presumption above mentioned.
E.
34 * THE THEOSOPHEC CRAZE,
Accordingly, they think that it would be a waste of time to
prolong the investigation. *
As to the correctness of Mr. Hodgson's explanation of
particular marvels, they do not feel called upon to express any
definite conclusion; since on the one hand, they are not in a
position to endorse every detail of this explanation, and on the
other hand, they have satisfied themselves as to the thoroughness
of Mr. Hodgson’s investigation, and have complete reliance on his
impartiality, and they recognise that his means of arriving at
a correct conclusion are far beyond any to which they can lay
claim.
There is only one special point on which the Committee think
themselves bound to state explicitly a modification of their original
view. They said in effect in their First Report that if certain
phenomena were not genuine, it was very difficult to suppose that
Colonel Olcott was not implicated in the fraud. But after consider-
ing the evidence that Mr. Hodgson has laid before them as to
Colonel Olcott’s extraordinary credulity, and inaccuracy in observ-
ation and inference, they desire to disclaim any intention of
imputing wilful deception to that gentleman,
The Committee have no desire that their conclusion should be
accepted without examination, and wish to afford the reader every
opportunity of forming a judgment for himself. They therefore
append Mr. Hodgson’s account of his investigation, which will be
found to form by far the largest and most important part of the
present Report. In it and the appendices to it, is incorporated
enough of the evidence given by members of the Theosophical
Society to afford the reader ample opportunity of judging of both
its quantity and quality.
There is, however, evidence for certain phenomena which did
not occur in India and are not directly dealt with in Mr. Hodgson's
Report. Accounts of them will be found at page 382, with some
remarks on this by Mrs. H. Sidgwick.
The Report of Mr. Netherclift on the handwriting of the
Blavatsky-Coulomb letters will be found at page 381. Extracts
from the letters themselves are given in Mr. Hodgson's Report,
pages 211-216.
The authorship of the letters attributed to Koot Hoomi, which
are very numerous, and many of them very long, is fully discussed
in Mr. Hodgson’s Report. It may be mentioned here that it is
maintained by some that the contents of these letters are such as to
preclude the possibility of their having been written by Madame
Blavatsky. This has never been the opinion of the Committee,
either as regards the published letters or those that have been
privately shown to them in manuscript. Those who wish to form
an independent opinion on the subject are referred to “The
STATEMENT AND CONCLUSIONS OF THE COMMITTEE. 35
Occult World” and “Esoteric Buddhism,” which contain many
of the letters themselves, and much matter derived from others.
In this connection may be conveniently mentioned what the
Committee, in their First Report, called the most serious blot
which had then been pointed out in the Theosophic evidence. A
certain letter, in the Koot Hoomi handwriting and addressed
avowedly by Koot Hoomi from Thibet to Mr. Sinnett, in 1880,
was proved by Mr. H. Kiddle, of New York, to contain a long
passage apparently plagiarised from a speech of Mr. Kiddle's
made at Lake Pleasant, August 15th, 1880, and reported in the
Banner of Light some two months or more previous to the date of
Koot Hoomi's letter. Koot Hoomi replied (some months later)
that the passages were no doubt quotations from Mr. Kiddle's
speech, which he had become cognisant of in some occult manner,
and which he had stored in his mind; but that the appearance of
plagiarism was due to the imperfect precipitation of the letter by
the chela, or disciple, charged with the task. Koot Hoomi then
gave what he asserted to be the true version of the letter as dic-
tated and recovered by his own scrutiny apparently from the blurred
precipitation. In this fuller version the quoted passages were
given as quotations, and mixed with controversial matter. Koot
Hoomi explained the peculiar form which the error of precipitation
had assumed by saying that the quoted passages had been more
distinctly impressed on his own mind by an effort of memory than
his own interposed remarks; and, that inasmuch as the whole
composition had been feebly and inadequately projected, owing to
his own physical fatigue at the time, the high lights only, so to
speak, had come out; there had been many illegible passages which
the Chela had omitted. The Chela, he said, wished to submit the
letter to Koot Hoomi for revision, but Koot Hoomi declined for
want of time. - -
The weakness of this explanation was pointed out (in Light)
by Mr. Massey, who shewed (among other points) that the quoted
sentences seemed to have been ingeniously twisted into a polemical
sense, precisely opposite to that in which they were written.
And more lately (in Light, September 20th 1884), Mr. Kiddle
has shown that the passage thus restored by no means comprises
the whole of the unacknowledged quotations; and, moreover, that
these newly-indicated quotations are antecedent to those already
admitted by Koot Hoomi, and described as forming the introduction
to a fresh topic of criticism. The proof of a deliberate plagiarism
aggravated by a fictitious defence is therefore irresistible.
In conclusion, it is necessary to state that this not the only
evidence of fraud in connection with the Theosophical Society and
Madame Blavatsky, which the Committee had before them, prior
to, or independently of, the publication of the Blavatsky-Coulomb
36 TEIE THEOSOPHIC CRAZE.
correspondence. Mr. C. C. Massey had brought before them
evidence which convinced both him and them that Madame Bla-
vatsky had, in 1879, arranged with a medium, then in London, to
cause a “Mahatma” letter to reach him in an apparently “mys-
terious” way. The particulars will be found at page 897.
It forms no part of our duty to follow Madame Blavatsky
into other fields. But with reference to the somewhat varied lines
of activity which Mr. Hodgson's Report suggests for her, we may
say that we cannot consider any of them as beyond the range
of her powers. The homage which her immediate friends have
paid to her ability has been for the most part of an unconscious
kind; and some of them may still be unwilling to credit her with
mental resources which they have hitherto been so far from sus-
pecting. For our own part, we regard her neither as the mouth-
piece of hidden seers, nor as a mere vulgar adventuress; we think
she has achieved a title to permanent remembrance as one of the
most accomplished, ingenious, and interesting impostors in history.
EFFECTS OF THE REPORT.
“Consequent upon the publication of the Hodgson Report,”
says Mr. W. Emmette Coleman, “the production of phenomena was
tabooed in the Theosophical Society; and since then the occultic
marvels of the mahatmas, Mme. Blavatsky, and Damodar have
ceased. Save an occasional letter from one or other of the adepts,
said to have been received by the theosophic leaders, no sign of
their existence, or of the possession by them or H. P. B., of occult
power has been given. The psychical fraudulence till then rampant
in Theosophy was effectually killed by Mr. Hodgson,”
Madame Blavatsky was publicly challenged to prove the letters
to be forgeries, but she prudently declined, and left India for good.
In 1887 she settled in London and started a Theosophical Magazine,
called Lucifer, the Light-bringer. The following year she pub-
lished in two volumes, The Secret Doctrine; the Synthesis of Science,
Religion and Philosophy. This was the means of introducing to her
Mrs. Annie Besant, her most important disciple, of whom an
account will now be given. The sketch is chiefly compiled from
her own writings, and from an account of her life written by her
intimate friend, Mr. Stead, which appeared in the Review of
Reviews in October, 1891.
RELIGIOUS CHANGES BEFORE MARRIAGE. 37
MRS. ANNIE BESANT.
CHILDHooD. -
MRS. ANNIE BESANT's maiden name is Wood. She was born
in 1847, and is now therefore about 47 years of age. Her father
belonged to an English family; but he was born and educated in
Ireland, where he took his degree as a doctor, although he seldom
practised. Afterwards he removed to London, where he held a
good appoinment. Dr. Wood married an Irish lady called Morris.
He died in 1852 when his daughter was only five years old.
Grief made Mrs. Wood’s raven hair white as snow in a single
night. Though left a widow with a young family and scarcely
any means, instead of seeking help from relations, she nobly
sought to earn her own living, and to carry out the dying wish of
her husband to give their eldest boy a University education.
Mrs. Wood removed from London to Harrow, where there is
one of the most celebrated public schools in England, largely
attended by the children of wealthy families. The Rev. Dr.
Vaughan, then Headmaster of Harrow, allowed her to take some
of the Harrow boys into her own house, so that she was not only
able to support herself, but to find means for the education of her
son. Mrs. Besant acknowledges that Dr. Vaughan and his wife
were the earnest friends and helpers of her mother.
Annie, brought up as a child among boys, was as good a
cricketer and climber of trees as any of them. The house had a
large garden. There was not a tree in it which she did not climb.
One wide-spreading tree was her sitting room and study. She
would sit there reading for hours. Milton’s Paradise Lost was her
favourite book. She says, “I liked to personify Satan and declaim
the grand speeches of the hero-rebel.” -
Miss Marryat, a rich benevolent lady, offered to educate
Annie free of charge. Mrs. Besant thus acknowledges her obliga-
tions to her : “No words can tell how much I owe her, not only of
knowledge, but of that love of knowledge which has remained
with me ever since as a constant spur to study.
Miss Marryat “ visited the poor, taking help wherever she
went, and sending food from her own table to the sick.” She was
an earnest Christian. Annie learnt passages from the Bible and
hymns for repetition. She was also made to teach in the Sunday
School, for Miss Marryat said, “it was useless to learn, if we did
not try to teach those who had no one to teach them.”
RELIGIOUS CHANGES BEFORE MARRIAGE.
As there are different sects among Hindus, so there are
divisions among Christians. All Christians, properly so called,
agree on many of the most important points. They believe in the
38 THE THEOSOPHIO CRAZE,
same God, the same Saviour, and accept the Bible. The short
statement of belief, usually called the Apostles' Creed, is generally
acknowledged.
The two principal divisions of Christians are Roman Catholics
and Protestants. Besides disagreeing on some important points
of doctrine, they differ in their modes of worship. The Roman
Catholic Church has splendidly decorated churches, and its priests
wear rich vestments. Among Protestants, the tendency in worship
is towards simplicity. But in the Church of England there is a
section, called the High Church party, having a leaning, more or
less, to the Church of Rome,
Miss Marryat belonged to the Protestant party, and the future
Mrs. Besant was brought up under her influence. She had been
taught to shun balls where dancing is carried on late at night.
When Miss Wood left Miss Marryat and returned to Harrow, she
entered with pleasure into the amusements of the world. “She
was devoted to archery and croquet, and danced to her heart’s
delight with the junior masters ‘who could talk as well as flirt.’”
But a good deal of attention was also devoted to English
literature.
About this time there was what is called the High Church
Revival in the Church of England. A series of publications was
issued, called Tracts for the Times, in which Roman Catholic
doctrines and forms of worship were advocated. Mrs. Wood had
removed to London, where her daughter, who had acquired High
Church views, spent much time in making ornaments and arranging
decorations for a Mission Chapel.
During three years Miss Wood had passed through three
changes, having been Protestant, worldly, or fond of amusements,
and High Church, in turn.
MARRIAGE WITH MR. BESANT.
At the Mission Chapel, Miss Wood made the acquaintance of
a young clergyman, the Rev. Frank Besant, a Cambridge graduate,
who helped in the Mission, and supported himself as undermaster
of Stockwell Grammar School, London. He is the brother of
Mr. Walter Besant, the novelist. In December, 1867, when about
20 years of age, she became his wife. She married him, not from
love, but because she thought that he, by his office, would bring
her nearer to God.
Soon afterwards Mr. Besant obtained a mastership at Chelten-
ham, in the west of England. There in lodgings his young wife began
to write stories for the Family Herald, for which she received her
first earned money. She also wrote the “Lives of the Black Letter
Saints,” for which she could not find a publisher. The first pam-
ANTI-CHRISTIAN. 39
phlet which she printed was a little tract, Roman Catholic in its
tone, which insisted upon the virtue of fasting. -
BECOMES A THEIST AND SEPARATES FROM HER HUSBAND.
Lord Hatherley, Lord Chancellor of England, was the uncle
of Mrs. Besant. Through his favour Mr. Besant was appointed in
charge of Sibsey, a parish in Lincolnshire, with an income of about
£450 a year. -
Meanwhile, doubts about some of the truths of Christianity
had arisen in her mind. She read both Christian works on the
Evidences and Anti-Christian books without any benefit. As a
last resolve, she sought the advice of Dr. Pusey, considered the
leader of the High Church Party. He did not understand her case,
and the interview did more harm than good.
One of the most sacred Christian ordinances is that called the
Holy Communion, in memory of the death of Christ. When it was
observed at Sibsey, Mrs. Besant walked out of Church. Kind
farmers' wives who were present thought she was unwell, and call-
ed next day with sympathising inquiries.
Mrs. Besant acted more conscientiously than educated Hindus,
who take part in idolatrous ceremonies which they condemn,
merely to please their ignorant relatives.
At Sibsey Mrs. Besant wrote her first controversial tract
against Christianity. It was published anonymously, as “by the
wife of a beneficed clergyman.” Subsequently it was republished
as the first chapter of My Path to Atheism.
As it was very injurious to Mr. Besant’s work as a clergyman
for his wife to leave Church in the manner above mentioned, the
alternative was put to Mrs. Besant either to remain or to return
home. The former seemed a violation of conscience, so she chose
the latter. -
Mrs. Besant went back to her mother, receiving a small
monthly income from her husband. She occasionally earned some
money by nursing, and by her pen. She was still a Theist, and at-
tended the lectures of Moncure Conway in London.
ANTI-CHRISTIAN.
After separating from her husband, Mrs. Besant gave much of
her time to writing tracts against Christianity. With the excep-
tion of a few pages, the whole of My Path to Atheism is of the
above character. For about twenty years she “waged a pitiless
war against her early faith and its adherents.” She repeatedly
showed this spirit during her first Indian tour.
40 THE THEOSOPHIC CRAZE.
ATHEIST AND MATERIALIST.
Atheistic thoughts were first awakened in Mrs. Besant’s mind
in the following manner:
Two children were born, first a boy and then a girl. When
the latter was seven months old she had, like other children, an
attack of whooping cough. The child suffered severely and seemed
at death’s door, but recovered. Mrs. Besant says: “There had
rown up in my mind a feeling of angry resentment against the
God who had been for weeks, as I thought, torturing my helpless
baby. More than once the indignant cry broke from my lips, “How
canst Thou torture a poor baby so : Why dost Thou not kill her
at once and let her be at peace f* *
Mrs. Besant thought there could not be a God, because her
child suffered so much pain. The argument is like that of a man
who should say, my watch sometimes goes badly; therefore it
cannot have had a maker.
Mrs. Besant should rather have thought, If there is no God,
how came my child into existence 7
The wisest and best men in all ages have believed in the
existence of a great Creator.
One great difference between a bad and a good lawyer is that
the former cannot grasp the whole of a case. He dwells upon one
small point, while he overlooks the far stronger arguments on the
other side. So it is with atheists.
A parent punishes his child for wrong-doing. For this he is
to be praised rather than blamed. Most of the suffering in the
world is caused by men breaking God’s laws, and the pain is
intended to teach them to reform.
Granting, however, that there is some misery which we cannot
explain, we should set against it the innumerable blessings we
receive at God’s hand, and be content to wait till we reach His
presence and get it explained. We are like a child of two years
of age, unable fully to understand the government of a mighty
empire.
It was, however, intimacy with the late Mr. Bradlaugh that
made Mrs. Besant an avowed atheist.
One day in 1874, Mrs. Besant bought a copy of the National
Reformer. This led her to go and hear Mr. Bradlaugh’s lecture
in the Hall of Science. She wrote to him, and was accepted as a
member of the National Secular Society, established to spread
atheism and materialism. Shortly after she went to meet him,
when he said to her, “You have thought yourself into Atheism
without knowing it.” He saw that she was clever, and a few days
later he offered her a small weekly salary, and a place on the staff
of the National Reformer.
THE EVILS OF ATHEISM AND MATERIALISM, 41
For about 15 years Mrs. Besant laboured with zeal to pro-
pagate the above doctrines. When women embrace Atheism, so
contrary to their religious nature, they are generally blatant, or
noisy in the expression of their views. A gentleman in Ceylon
says that he was present in the Hall of Science, London, when,
Mrs. Besant stood with a watch in her hand and said: “If there
be a God, let Him strike me dead in five minutes.”
THE EVILS OF ATHEISM AND MATERIALISM.
Mrs. Besant was so deluded as to believe that Atheism was
the path to happiness. The Preface to her book, My Path to
Atheism, concludes as follows:
“The path from Christianity to Atheism is a long one, and its first steps
are very rough and very painful; the feet tread on the ruins of broken faith,
and the sharp edges cut into the bleeding flesh; but further on the path
grows smoother, and presently at its side begins to peep forth the humble
daisy of hope that heralds the spring-tide, and further on the roadside is
fragrant with all the flowers of summer, sweet and brilliant and gorgeous
and in the distance we see the promise of the autumn, the harvest that shall
be reaped for the feeding of man.”
The way in which this glorious change is to be brought about
is thus explained in her Constructive Rationalism :
“Full of hope, full of joy, strong to labour, patient to endure, mighty to
conquer, goes forth the new glad creed into the sad grey Christian world; at
her touch men's faces soften and grow purer, and women's eyes smile in-
stead of weeping; at last, the heir arises to take to himself his own, and the
negation of the usurped sovereignty of the popular and traditional God over
the world developes into the affirmation of the rightful monarchy of man.”
pp. 177, 178.
The golden age is to begin when man, the rightful lord of the
universe, takes the throne usurped by God
She thus wrote of the benefits of Materialism :
“As calmly as the tired child lies down to sleep in its mother's arms, and
passes into dreamless unconsciousness, so calmly does the Rationalist lie
down in the arms of the mighty mother, and pass into dreamless uncon-
sciousness on her bosom.”
Mrs. Besant is a most unsafe religious guide. The results
were just the opposite of what she promised.
To deny the existence of God is like to blot out the sun from
the heavens. Men are then like young orphan children, left to
wander alone, without any father whom they may love or to whom
they may look for help in trouble. If there is no hereafter in
which the virtuous are rewarded and the wicked punished, men
may, without fear, live as they please,
F.
42 THE THEOSOPHIC CRAZE,
MALTHUSIAN.
Malthus was an English writer who brought out in 1798
an Essay on the Principles of Population. He was afterwards Pro-
fessor of Political Economy and Modern History in the East
India Company’s College at Haileybury. He held that population
tends to increase faster than the means of subsistence, and there-
fore urged that an increase of population should be checked. The
remedy he suggested was late marriages.
In 1877 Mr. Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant united in publishing
a book by an American writer which proposed other means for the
above object. While they were fitted to answer this end, experience
showed that they might also be used to render seduction and
adultery safe from detection, although such was not the intention
of the publishers. It also permitted to married people the free
indulgence of sensual desires.
The book became the subject of a public prosecution. The jury
condemned the book as calculated to deprave public morals. As
the defendants refused to give up publishing it, they were sentenced
to six months’ imprisonment as first class misdemeanants, and fined
£200 each. Mr. Bradlaugh appealed on a point of law which was
decided in their favour, and the whole proceedings were quashed.
The book was afterwards withdrawn, and replaced by another
of a somewhat similar character from the pen of Mrs. Besant.
SPIRITUAL1st.
Spiritualism has already been explained. Mrs. Besant’s
account of her experience is briefly as follows:
“I added Spiritualism to my studies, experimentalising privately, finding
the phenomena indubitable, but the explanation of them incredible. The
phenomena of clair-voyance, clair-audience, thought-reading, were found to
be real,”%
Clair-voyance, clear-seeing, is a supposed power of being able
to see things not present to the senses. It has been repeatedly
disproved by the offer of a bank note, equal in value to Rs. 1,000,
to any one who would tell its number when enclosed in an envelope.
Clair-audience, clear-hearing, is a supposed power of hearing sounds
inaudible to others. An instrument, called the microphone, has
been invented which enables very faint sounds to be heard, as the
microscope enables very small objects to be seen. A fly can be
heard walking like an elephant. Thought reading professes to
know what other people are thinking about. This is possible to
some extent. A child can often read his mother’s thoughts; he
knows by her face whether she is pleased or angry. Clever men
can do more, but the power claimed has not yet been established.
* Quoted in Borderland, October 1893, p. 174.
TEE CHARGES AGAINST H. P. B. 43
THEOSOPHIST.
Madame Blavatsky, in 1888, published a large work in two
volumes, called, The Secret Doctrine. In 1889 this book was given
to Mrs. Besant, by Mrs. Stead, to review. Shortly after, she asked
Mr. Stead to give her an introduction to Madame Blavatsky.
When Mrs. Besant called on Madame Blavatsky, she found
her seated in a large chair before a table. “My dear Mrs. Besant,
I have so long wished to see you,” was the salutation. Mrs. Besant
sat down, while Madame Blavatsky talked of her travels, all the
time rolling cigarettes with her fingers, for she was a great smoker.
Before leaving, Madame Blavatsky said, “Oh ! my dear Mrs.
Besant, if you would only come among us!”
Mrs. Besant thus describes the next meeting:—
“THE CHARGES AGAINST H. P. B.
“And so it came to pass that I went again to Lansdowne road to ask
about the Theosophical Society. H. P. Blavatsky looked at me piercingly for
a moment: ‘Have you read the report about me of the Society for Psychical
Research P’ ‘No 1 never heard of it so far as I know.” “Go and read it, and
if, after reading it, you come back—well.’ And nothing more would she say
on the subject, but branched off to her experiences in many lands.”
“I borrowed a copy of the report, read and re-read it. Quickly I saw
how slender was the foundation on which the imposing structure was built.
The continual assumptions on which conclusions were based; the incredible
character of the allegations; the most damming fact of all—the foul source
from which the evidence was derived. Everything turned on the Veracity of
the Coulombs, and they were self-stamped as partners in the alleged frauds.
Could I put such against the frank fearless nature that I had caught a glimpse
of, against the proud fiery truthfulness that shone at me from the clear blue
eyes—honest and fearless as those of a noble child P Was the writer of ‘The
Secret Doctrine,’ this miserable impostor, this accomplice of tricksters, this
foul and loathsome deceiver, this conjurer with trap-doors and sliding panels P
I laughed aloud at the absurdity, and flung the report aside with the
righteous scorn of an honest nature that knew its own kin when it met them,
and shrank from the foulness and baseness of a lie. The next day saw me at
the Theosophical Publishing Company's Office at 7, Duke-Street, Adelphi,
where Countess Wachtmeister,”-one of the lealest of H. P. B's friends—
was at work, and I signed an application to be admitted as Fellow of the
Theosophical Society.” p. 175.
Mrs. Besant was thus received after joining the Society —
“On receiving my diploma, I betook myself to Landsdowne-road, where
I found H. P. B. alone. I went over to her, bent down and kissed her, but
said no word. ‘You have joined the Society P’ ‘Yes,’ ‘You read the
report P’—‘Yes,’ ‘Well?'—I knelt down, before her and clasped her hands
in mine, looking straight into her eyes: “My answer is, will you accept me
as your pupil, and give me the honour of proclaiming you my teacher in the
face of the world P’ Her stern set face softened, the unwonted gleam of
tears sprang to her eyes; then, with a dignity more than regal, she placed
her hand upon my head : ‘You are a noble woman, May Master bless you.’
44 THE THEOSOPHIC CRAZE.
From that day, May 10, 1889, until now—two years, three and a half months
after she left her body-my faith in her has never wavered, my trust in her
has never been shaken.” p. 175. -
An explanation has already been given of the “Charges
g . Madame Blavatsky” and the “Report” to which reference
IS Iſla Cl6),
It should be observed that before joining the Theosophical
Society Mrs. Besant never seems to have sought God’s guidance.
Nor does Madame Blavatsky say, “May God bless you,” but
“May Master bless you.” Her chief “Master” was Koot Hoomi
Lal Singh, an imaginary being, a description of whose “astral
body” has already been given.
ANTI-MATERIALIST.
Mrs. Besant was one of the lecturers in the Hall of Science,
advocating atheism and materialism. She was not satisfied with
the result of her labours. She wrote:–
“I had long been deeply troubled as to the ‘beyond’ (result) of all my
efforts at social and political reform. My own Socialism was that of love,
and of levelling up ; there was much Socialism that was of hatred; and I
often wondered if out of hatred any true improvement could spring. I saw
that many of the poor were as selfish and as greedy of enjoyment as many
of the rich, and sometimes a cold wind of despair swept over me lest the
‘ brute in man' should destroy the realisation of the noblest theories.”
When speaking for the last time in the Hall of Science she
said:
“There are problems in the universe which Materialism not only does not
solve but which it declares are insoluble—difficulties in life and mind which
Materialism cannot grapple with, and in face of which it is not only dumb,
but says that mankind must remain dumb for ever...Was I to refuse to see
them because my philosophy had for them no place P do what men have done
in every age—insist that nature was no greater than my knowledge, and
that because a fact was new it was, therefore, a fraud or an illusion P”
Her inquiry ended in the renunciation of Materialism and
adoption of Theosophy. She gave up her connection with Mr.
Bradlaugh, and became the disciple of Madame Blavatsky. Mr.
Stead truly describes her attitude towards her new Guru :
“She sat at her feet learning like a little child all the lore of the Mahat-
mas; she was obedient in all things.”
Through Storm to Peace.—Mrs. Besant (see page 41) gave a
glowing picture of the happiness she felt on accepting materialism.
Her satisfaction in rejecting it after embracing Theosophy, was
equally great :
“And thus I came through storm to peace, not to the peace of an untroubl:
ed sea of outer life, which no strong soul can crave, but to an inner peace that
outer troubles may not avail to ruffle –a peace which belongs to the eternal,
CLAIMANT TO BE THE SECOND worDD'S GREAT TEACHER. 45
not to the transitory, to the depths not to the shallows of life. It carried me
scathless through the terrible Spring of 1891 when death struck down Charles
Bradlaugh in the plenitude of his usefulness, and unlocked the gateway into
rest for B. P. Blavatsky. Through anxieties and responsibilities heavy and
numerous it has borne me; every strain makes it stronger; every trial makes
it serene; every assault leaves it more radiant. Quiet confidence has taken .
the place of doubt ; a strong security the place of anxious dread. In life, through
death, to life, I am but the servant of the great Brotherhood, and those on
whose heads but for a moment the touch of the Master has rested in blessing
can never again look upon the world save through eyes made luminous with
the radiance of Eternal Peace.”% -
Her dependence, it will be seen, is not upon her Creator, but
the great Brotherhood, and the Master (Koot Hoomi Lal Singh).
ANTI-MALTHUSIAN.
It has been mentioned that Mrs. Besant and Mr. Bradlaugh
had been associated in the publication of a book which, while it
checked population, allowed men the free indulgence of their
sensual nature, and could be used to avoid discovery in cases of
seduction and adultery. •
Mrs. Besant now felt that there was “a more excellent way”
for restricting population. She advocated self-control and self-
denial as far nobler than self-indulgence. With this object in view
she refused to print any more or to sell the copyright of her former
work. She says: -
“Having taken this step, it is right to take it publicly, and to frankly
say that my former teaching was based on a mistaken view of man's nature,
treating him as the mere product of evolution instead of as the spirit,
intelligence, and will without which evolution could not be.” Review of
IReviews, August 1891, p. 143,
In thus acting up to her convictions, Mrs. Besant deserves
warm commendation.
CLAIMANT TO BE THE SECOND “WoRLD’s GREAT TEACHER.”
Mrs. Besant reverently acknowledged Madame Blavatsky to be
the “World’s Great Teacher.” When the latter died in 1891, the
former claimed that the mantle of the prophetess had fallen upon
her. The chela aspired to her successor. She had been associated
with Madame Blavatsky in editing Lucifer, of which she now took
the whole responsibility. Of all the followers of Madame Blavatsky
she was, undoubtedly, by far the best qualified. She had such
unbounded belief in her Guru, that she did not consider it necessary
to investigate charges against her, although sustained by “irre-
sistible evidence.” She accepted with unwavering faith the ‘phe-
nomena” exhibited by Madame Blavatsky, and the statements of the
* Awtobiography, concluding paragraph.
46 TÉÉ TELEOSOPHIC CRAZE.
Mahatmas about “astral bodies,” “ the seven Kosmic planes of
manifestation,” &c, But she claimed sight as well as faith. When
interviewed by the Tanjore correspondent of the Madras Mail, she
is said to have made the following assertions:—
“Do you believe in what the Theosophists call “phenomena P”
“I do believe in phenomena. They were shown me and their reasons
were explained to me by Madame Blavatsky who was my Gwrw, and I under-
stood them as the results of psychic development.”
Q. “Have you seen a Mahatma P”
A. “I have.”%
Her creed may be summed up in the words: “I do not believe
in a personal God; the concept is impossible to me,’ but I BELIEVE IN
MADAME BLAVATSKY AND THE BROTHERRood.”
Mrs. Besant, among Theosophists, was unrivalled as an orator.
Although she discarded her first guru, Mr. Bradlaugh, for her
second, yet, under his guidance she had become an “adept” in
managing low class audiences, and had acquired a knowledge of
all the arts of clap-trap.
Lastly, she had the Irish love of a fight, and was ready to
give the challenge to the whole world, “Will any body trample on
the tail of my coat f°
VISIT TO INDIA.
INDIA, A PREPARED FIELD FOR MRS. BESANT’s CLAIMs.
The Chela wisely followed the example of her Guru in choosing
India as her first great field of labour. Sir Monier Williams, the
Oxford Professor of Sanskrit, who has devoted a long life to the
study of India’s sacred literature, thus shows the mental condition
to which Hindus have been reduced by that, “highly spiritual
religion,” their “ancient faith”:—
“Its policy being to check the development of intellect, and keep the
inferior castes in perpetual childhood, it encouraged an appetite for exaggera-
tion more monstrous and absurd than would be tolerated in the most
extravagant European fairy-tale. The more improbable the statement, the
more childish delight it was calculated to awaken. This is more true of the
Ramayana than of the Mahabharata; but even in the later epic, full as it is
of geographical, chronological, and historical details, few assertions can be
trusted. Time is measured by millions of years; space by millions of miles;
and if a battle has to be described, nothing is thought of unless millions of
soldiers, elephants, and horses are brought into the field.”f
Mrs. Besant might therefore expect to find a large number
of “imbeciles,” “muffs,” “flapdoodle (food for fools) babies.” Her
expectations were realised. At Bangalore she was hailed as “the
* Madras Mail, Dec. 2, 1893. + Indian Epic Poetry, p. 35,
MRS, BESANT's FLATTERY TO GAIN HER IND. 47
veritable goddess of Ind, coming from the far off West for the
spiritual regeneration of the land.” Sir Sheshadri Iyar, the
Dewan of Mysore, said she was “the incarnation of Saraswati and
their sister.”
Mrs. BESANT's OBJECT IN CoMING TO INDIA.
This was to persuade credulous Hindus to accept Theosophy as
their religion, and Mrs. Besant as its “Great Teacher” in succession
to Madume Blavatsky, its Founder.
MRs. BESANT’s FLATTERY TO GAIN HER END.
Flattery is the weak point of the Hindus. The most extra-
vagant compliments are in use among them. “Great King” is a
very ordinary term of address; “Lord of the 24 worlds” is not
unusual; even blasphemy is sometimes employed.
Colonel Olcott, at the commencement, tried flattery, and laid
it on thick enough to please even Hindus. When, however, money
promised was not forthcoming, he changed his tune. He spoke of
some Hindus as being “blinded by flattery, intoxicated with self-
adulation.” At his Bombay Anniversary Address in January 1882,
he said:
“You know just how we keep our promises; and we know what
gours are worth.”
Colonel Olcott was a kind of Mr. Facing-both-ways. The
Indian Spectator said : Theosophy “is all a mist to Pandit Daya-
nand, wherein the colours of the Vedas, of Buddhism, and Zoroas-
trianism blend. He cannot say where one begins and another ends,
so far as Theosophy is concerned.” April 2, 1882.
Madame Blavatsky professed herself a Buddhist in Ceylon;
her Chela wisely preferred a larger constituency. Mrs. Besant pro-
fesses to be an out-and-out Hindu. She believes in the gods of
the EHindu pantheon, great and small; she upholds the caste system
as a necessary part of the law of Karma, those in the lowest caste
being there as the result of their former works. “Preserve your
idols” is another advice.
Nay, she is reported to have made at Bangalore the following
astounding statement :
That she was a Hindu Pandit in a former birth, and is visiting
her own land after a sojourn in the West where she was reincarnated
to know the nature of the materialistic civilisation of those regions.”
In corroboration of her now being a genuine Hindu, she has
adopted the name of Amma Bhai.
* The Harvest Field, January 1894, p. 279,
48 THE THEOSOPHIC CRAZE,
The following is the dose of flattery administered by Anna
Bhai in an address at Tinnevelly :
1. The Hindu theosophy is the best of all philosophies,
2. The Hindus are the wisest of all nations.
3. The Sanskrit language is the best of all languages.
4, Western civilization, with all its discoveries in science, is nothing
compared with Hindu civilization.
5. All that is best in the West has been borrowed from India.
This is too strong for a few stomachs, and is rather inclined
to act as an emetic ; but on the “imbeciles” it has all the soothing
delightful feeling of an opiate.
THEosophy ALLEGED TO BE ANCIENT HINDUISM.
“HINDU THEosophy” is held to be “THE BEST OR ALL PHILOSOPHIES.”
Hindus may ask in surprise why this was not revealed till the time
of Madame Blavatsky. Mrs. Besant answers this question satis-
factorily. In a lecture at Trichinopoly, as reported by the corres-
pondent of the Madras Standard, (Dec. 8) she said:— -
“That the present Vedas are not the whole, but that thousands of Slokas
have disappeared. That the latter have not been lost, but they have been
taken away by the gods knowing that in the Kali Yuga India would be
brought under foreign yoke, and fearing that the ignorant foreigner would
desecrate the sacred science.”
The thousands of the lost slokas had been preserved by
Mahatmas in Tibet, who communicated the substance of their
precious contents to Mrs. Besant’s Guru.
This is a pure fiction, totally opposed to fact. At an early
period, before the foot of a foreign invader had touched the soil of
India, every verse, every word, every syllable of the Rig Veda
had been carefully counted. The number of verses varies from
10,402 to 10,622 according as a few hymns are included or left out;
the number of padas, or words, is 153,826; that of the syllables
432,000.*
So far from Theosophy being ancient Hinduism, as already
mentioned, it is chiefly derived from a French book of magic by a
writer who calls himself Eliphas Levi, from Paracelsus, and other
medieval mystics. See Koot Hoomi Unveiled, by Arthur Lillie,
Member of the Royal Asiatic Society. Mr. W. Emmette Coleman
is preparing a work in which this will be substantiated by full
quotations.
TEIEOSOPHY, THE ORGANON TO RESTóRE INDIA To HER PRITSINE
GRANDEUR,
“In the old days,” says Mrs. Besant “India was really great;
she was great first in the spiritual life; great first in the grandeur
* Max Muller's Ancient Sanskrit Literature, p. 221,
MRS. BESANT's THREE GREAT MEASURES FOR INDIA. 49
of her spiritual knowledge, in the depth of her spiritual know-
ledge.”
Well may it be said, “How are the mighty fallen l’’
What is the cause of India’s deep degradation ? Contact with
Western nations, grovelling in the dust of materialism.
But India is not irretrievably ruined. Krishna says in the
Bhagavad Gita: “Whensoever religion fades and irreligion pre-
vails, then I produce myself.” His present avatar, however, is in
female form—the white goddess Saraswati-so says the Dewan
of Mysore. Mrs. Besant is to be accepted as the World's “Great
Teacher,” in succession to Madame Blavatsky.
MRS. BESANT’S THREE GREAT MEASURES FOR
- THE IMPROVEMENT OF INDIA.
1. THE RESTORATION OF HINDU CivilizATION.
Mrs. Besant is reported to have said at Tinnevelly —
“ Westerm Civilization, with all its discoveries in science, is
mothing compared with Hindu Civilization.”
Dewan Bahadur R. Ragunath Row says that at Kumbakonum
she expressed the following wish :
“She was ama.ious to see the Aryan Civilization restored, being
the oldest, truest, and best in the world.”f
Mrs. Besant formed the above estimate of Hindu Civilization
after having been only a few days in India. Dr. Bhandarkar is a
distinguished Oriental Scholar, who has just retired from the Sans-
krit Professorship in the Deccan College at Poona. As a mark of
the esteem in which he is held, the Bombay Government lately
appointed him Vice-Chancellor of the Bombay University. What
is his opinion of the comparative merits of Hindu and Western
Civilization ? In a lecture in Bombay on the Critical, Comparative,
and Historical Method of Inquiry, addressing his “Hindu friends,”
he says:—
“It is no use ignoring the fact that Europe is far a-head of us in
all that constitutes Civilization.” p. 23.
The case is, Mrs. Besant versus Dr. Bhandarkar : Whose
opinion is to be accepted
For a full account of Hindu Civilization, the reader is referred
to Mr. R. C. Dutt’s Civilization in Amcient India in 3 volumes.
A comparison between Hindu and Western Civilization is given
in India Past and Present, 8vo. 96 pp. Price 2 As. Sold by
Mr. A. T. Scott, Book Depôt, Madras.
* Address in the Victoria Hall, Madras, December 21, 1893,
+ Letter to The Hindu, December 28, 1893,
G
50 THE THEOSOPHIC CRAZE.
India was never so enlightened as it is at present. The words
of Macaulay, with reference to medieval Europe, apply with double
force to Ancient India : “We see the multitudes sunk in brutal
ignorance, and the studious few engaged in acquiring what did not
deserve the name of knowledge.”
2. THE SUBSTITUTION OF MANU’s LAws For THE
PENAL CODE, AND THE RETENTION OF CASTE.
Mrs. Besant has made the grand discovery, why India has so
often fallen under a foreign yoke.
The correspondent of The Hindu gives an account of one of
her lectures in the Kumbakonum Town Hall, “full to suffocation.”
The following is an extract :
“Mrs. Annie Besant said that India was a mighty country so long as the
dictates of Manu the Legislator were observed to the letter; but when the
spirit of his dictates was forgotten by them, hordes after hordes of foreign
conquerors swept over the land and subjugated it.” Dec. 7th, 1893.
Instead of that, the effect has been just the opposite. Manu's
Code is the grand support of Caste, well described by Sir H. S.
Maine in Ancient Law, as “THE Most DISASTROUS AND BLIGHTING OF
HUMAN INSTITUTIONs.” Professor Bhandarkar says:
“The caste system is at the root of the political slavery of India.”
The Romans had a maxim, “ Divide and conquer.” The
Brahmans acted upon the same principle. By splitting up the
people into numerous sections, they more easily retained their
supremacy. “A nation divided against itself,” is the proper
description of the Hindu race. Hence India has become the easy
prey of foreign invaders. Sir Lepel Griffin thinks it would be
politic on the part of the British Government to encourage caste.
A new feeling of nationality is springing up among educated
Indians, but this is in direct opposition to caste, The “National
Congresses,” regarded with enthusiasm, would be impossible under
Manu's caste regulations. Sudras compose the great majority of
the population ; but if they had presumed to attend and sit in the
presence of the “twice-born,” banishment and mutilation would
have been the reward of their presumption.
Pandit Sivanath Sastri, after enumerating other evils connected
with caste, says:
“9. It has made the country fit for foreign slavery by previ-
ously enslaving the people by the most abject spiritual tyranny.”
III. THE PRESERVATION OF THE ANCIENT FAITH.
Mrs. Besant made the following earnest appeal :
“I plead to you for your old faith. Be not ashamed of the
ancient worship. Be not recreamt to the ancient faith.”
THE PRESERVATION OF THE ANCIENT FAITH. 51
In an open air address at Madras she adviced Hindus to keep
their idols. People do not destroy the playthings of their child-
hood. They may not care for them, but their sons or grandsons
may. -
The most ancient worship in India, is probably a black stome,
Smeared with red-lead to represent blood. Are Hindus not to be
ashamed of this 2 -
But the most general form of worship is idolatry. Of India it
may well be said, “The land is full of idols ſ”
Some educated Hindus, adopting an apology learned from
Europeans, allege that idols are only like photographs, serving to
remind us of those we love.
To a remark of this kind Mr. Desmukh well replied:
“It is true we like to retain photographs of people we love to remind us
of their form and features; but your blocks of stone or your deformed hideous
brazen images, bought at a shop in the bazaar, of what sort of Divinity do
they remind us?”
Mrs. Besant alleged that the idols are only symbolic. Her
Hinduism was then only a few weeks old. Rammohun Roy, born
and bred a Hindu, knew better the feelings of the people. What
does he say ?
“Neither do they regard the images of these gods merely in the light
of instruments for elevating the mind to the conception of those supposed
beings: they are simply in themselves made objects of worship. For what-
ever Hindu purchases an idol in the market, or constructs one with his own
hands, or has one made under his own superintendence, it is his invariable
practice to perform certain ceremonies, called Pran Pratishtha, or the endow-
ment of animation, by which he beliéves that its nature is changed from that of
the mere materials of which it is formed, and that it acquires not only life but
supernatural powers. Shortly afterwards, if the idol be of the masculine
gender, he marries it to a feminine one : with no less pomp and magnificence
than he celebrates the nuptials of his own children. The mysterious process
is now complete; and the god and goddess are esteemed the arbiters of his
destiny, and continually receive his most ardent adoration.”
Another excuse is that idols were invented for those who are
not possessed of sufficient understanding. If so, it is a most con-
demnatory proof of the degradation to which Hindus have been
reduced by their religion. Rammohum Roy thus replies to this
pretext:-- - * *
“Permit me in this instance to ask whether every Mussulman in Turkey
from the highest to the lowest, every Protestant Christian at least of
Europe, and many followers of Cabeer and Nanak do worship God without the
assistance of consecrated objects P If so, how can we suppose that the human
race is not capable of adoring the Supreme Being without the puerile practice
of having recourse to visible objects? I will never hesitate to assert, that His
adoration is not only possible and practicable, but even incumbent, upon every
rational creature.”
52 THE THEOSOPHIC CRAZE,
The ignorant do not need images to remind them of God.
They cannot understand His form, for He has none. They can
remember their parents when far distant ; they can love a bene-
factor whom they have never seen ; they can obey the authority
of a Queen-Empress though she never set foot on their soil.
They can worship God who is a Spirit in spirit and in truth.
Idols are a hindrance, not a help, to true worship. They give
most degrading ideas of God. w
Instead of listening to the Siren voice of Mrs. Besant, let Hindus
obey the earnest call of the late Keshub Chunder Sen —
“For the sake of your souls and for the sake of the souls of millions of
your countrymen, come away from hateful idolatry, and acknowledge the one
supreme and true God, our Maker, Preserver and Moral Governor, not in be-
lief only, but in the every-day concerns and avocations of your life. By offer.
ing such uncompromising allegiance to Him and dedicating yourselves
wholly to His service, you will rescue your own consciences from corruption
and sin, and your country from superstition, priestcraft, absurd rites, injuri-
ous practices, and horrid customs and usages. By declaring a vigorous
crusade against Hinduism, you will lay the axe at the root of the tree of
corruption.”
Intelligent Indian pantheists usually look upon the deities
commonly worshipped as mere fictions of the popular mind. If Mrs.
Besant takes this view, then, in the words of Professor Flint, she
is guilty of a “conscious alliance with falsehood, the deliberate
propagation of lies, a persistent career of hypocrisy.” o
HOW MES, BESANT WAS BEFOOLED.
MESSAGES AFTER THE DEATH OF MADAME BLAVATSKY.t
The Psychical Research Committee had proved that Madame
Blavatsky herself had written the letters professedly come from
Mahatmas; but after her death in May, 1891, the same missives
continued to be received. This was thought by Mrs. Besant to be
a triumphant denial.
Speaking at the Hall of Science in August 30, 1891, she
said:—
“You have known me in this hall for 16% years. You have never known
me tell a lie (‘No, never,’ and loud cheers). I tell you that since Madame
Blavatsky left I have had letters in the same handwriting as the letters she
received (sensation). Unless you think dead persons can write, Surely that
is a remarkable fact. You are surprised; I do not ask you to believe me ;
but I tell you it is so. All the evidence I had of the existence of Madame
Blavatsky’s teachers of the so-called abnormal powers came through her. It
is not so now. Unless even sense can at the same time deceive me, unless a
* Antitheistic Theories, p. 390.
+ Abridged from the Westminster Gazette, October 29–November 8, 1894.
Many details are omitted. Fac-similes of the messages are also given,
THE DISPUTED STUCCESSION, 53
person can at the same time be same and insane, I have exactly the same
certainty for the truth of the statements I have made as I know that you are
here. I refuse to be false to the knowledge of my intellect and the percep-
tions of my reasoning faculties.”
Mrs. Besant had satisfied herself of the above propositions by
evidential processes as certain as the assurance of her own “sense”
and ‘reasoning faculty’ that her audience were before her as she
spoke. Her evidence will now be examined.
THE DISPUTED SUCCESSION.
The American Section of the Society was, to some extent,
distinct. Its chief officer was Mr. W. Q. Judge, Vice-President of
the Society. He was a lawyer's clerk in Colonel Olcott's brother’s
office, but came out to India for a time, to assist in the Society’s work.
He fully conformed to the theosophical plan of flattering the
Hindus. Addressing some Madras students, he bore the following
testimony to Hindu philosophy of which he knew so little —
“The great Indian nation produced its Sanskrit, Great consideration
was due to this language. It contained Philosophy as refined as Herbert
Spencer's, and further it used language that Herbert Spencer could not un-
derstand. His very ideas were to be found in Indian philosophy elaborated
to such an extent that Spencer would do well to throw his books into the sea
and apply himself to the study of Hindu Philosophy.” Madras Mail,
Sept. 29, 1884,
When Madame Blavatsky, died in 1891, the question arose,
Who was to succeed her ? Mrs. Besant was understood to be
designated for the office, but Mr. Judge did not wish his claims
to be ignored. When he heard of the death of “ H. P. B.,” he
promptly cabled, “Do nothing till I come.” Soon after his arrival,
he suggested to Mrs. Besant to consult the Mahatmas. He pro-
posed that they should write a certain question on paper, put it in
an envelope, shut that into a certain cabinet in “H. P. B.” rooms,
and invite the Mahatmas to “precipitate” replies.
Mrs. Besant agreed. Mr. Judge himself wrote the question
and closed the envelope, and put it into the cabinet. Mrs. Besant
afterwards left the room for a time. After due delay, Mr. Judge
took the letter out again. On his showing it to Mrs. Besant, judge
of that lady’s emotion at the discovery that at the end of the
question stood the word “YES,” traced apparently in red chalk,
also a little lower down the words
%
“AND HOPE * º
%
with the impression, in black carbon of a peculiar seal, represent-
ing a cryptograph M. (This appearance is easily produced by hold-
ing a seal in candle smoke and impress with that.)
54 THE THEOSOPHIC CRAZE,
i
!
This precipitation was not from Mahatma Koot Hoomi, who
usually corresponded with Madame Blavatsky; but from Ma-
hatma Morya, who used to sign himself M., although he did not
use a seal. There were only a few scraps of his letters, so that the
handwriting could not be tested.
Next morning at a meeting of the “Inner Group,” at which
Mr. Judge took up the position of Senior Chela, to which his
services as postman of the Mahatmas well entitled him. He said
that he had received a letter in America from Mahatma M., whose
contents he could not reveal, but he showed the signature and
seal, which exactly resembled that ‘ precipitated’ in the cabinet
overnight. He specially begged those persons to take note of the
seal, “for” said he, “they might have need to recognise it on some
future occasion.”
Three days after this (May 27) there was a meeting of the
Esoteric Section Council to decide how the section should in future
be governed. It was expected that Mrs. Besant should succeed,
but Mr. Judge proposed that the Council should dissolve and its
powers be delegated to Mrs. Besant and himself as joint “Outer
Heads.” Colonel Olcott was in India, so that his claims could be
ignored.
Mrs. Besant was quite content with the position proposed;
but other members of the Council might have some objections.
When expounding it, she was turning over some papers, out of
which fluttered a little slip of paper to which Mr. Judge directed
her attention.
The slip of paper bore the words in red pencil—
“JUDGE's PLAN IS RIGHT.”
Signature and seal as before. Round it went from hand to
hand. None questioned that paper and script alike had just been
“precipitated” unto their midst by “the Master.” Thanks to
Mr. Judge's foresight, all were in a position to recognise the seal.
Mr. Judge at once went and took his seat at Mrs. Besant’s
side, and “Judge’s plan” was unanimously adopted
As the first letters were so successful, others followed. One
of the first recipients was Mr. Bertram Keightly, a gentleman
whose services to Theosophy had been of a material kind, and
whose zeal has more than once been rewarded by gratifying marks
of approbation from Tibet. Under date May 29, 1891, the Vice-
President wrote to Mr. Keightly:—
“Fear not Bert Masters watch us, and since May 8 have sent word
here in writing.”
Close beside the signature of “William Q. Judge” appeared
in solemn confirmation the M. signature and seal impression. The
*
|
|
|
THE MOCK INQUIRY. 55
message was sent in a very roundabout way, for Mr. Keightly
was in Madras, several thousand miles nearer Tibet.
On another occasion Mr. Judge, writing to a brother official,
used these words:—
“I believe the Master agrees with me, in which case, I will ask him to
put his seal here.”
Down at once came the sealſ
STORY OF THE MAHATMIC SEAL.
On the decease of “ H. P. B.,” Colonel Olcott hurried from
India to London, but Mr. Judge had arrived before him. On
hearing about the performances of the seal, Colonel Olcott smiled,
but said nothing. Its history is as follows:
In 1883, when Colonel Olcott was in the Punjab, passing an
Urdu seal-engraver’s shop, he asked the man to make a seal, bearing
the signature which “H. P. B.” identified as that of the “Master
of Wisdom,” Mahatma Morya. He wished to send it as a present
to the Mahatma through “H. P. B.”
When the seal was shown to Madame Blavatsky, she objected
that it was not quite correct, which was a sufficient excuse for not
sending it, and with some other things it was thrown into a de-
spatch box belonging to her. In 1888 it was seen by Mr. Keightly,
then staying with her in London. On inquiry what the little
brass seal was, the prophetess said,
“Oh, it’s only a flap-doodle of Olcott's.”
The same year Mr. Judge was also staying with Madame.
The seal afterwards disappeared.
The President of the Theosophical Society stared at the impres-
sion of his own “flap-doodle * seal on that which purported to be
a letter from the Mahatma. He remarked to Judge that he had
missed a certain brass seal from among Madame Blavatsky’s relics,
and described the story of its making. He asked Judge if he had
seen the seal f Judge answered in the negative. Upon which
the Colonel expressed a hope that “no scoundrel would get
possession of it, and use it to give colour to bogus Mahatma
messages.”
THE MOCK INQUIRY.
The Society in India was not very prosperous, and early in
1892, Colonel Olcott resigned the presidency. Mr. Judge pro-
fessed sorrow, and got a “message” from the Mahatma counter-
manding the step taken. Colonel Olcott was overjoyed, and with-
drew his resignation.
56 THE THEOSOPHIC CRAZE,
In July of the same year, however, Mr. Judge at the meeting
in London forgot to mention either the Master’s message or the
Colonel’s withdrawal of his resignation, and Mr. Judge, on the
motion of Mrs. Besant, was elected President for life.
On the announcement of Judge’s election Colonel Olcott wrote
to London that there was no vacancy, and he printed in the
Theosophist, the Master's message which had led him to withdraw
his resignation.
Mr. Judge when questioned about the Mahatma's seal,
declared that “whether He,” (the Master) “has a seal or uses one,
is something on which I am ignorant.” It was on this statement
that he was challenged in the Theosophist of April, 1893, in an
article signed by Messrs. W. R. Old and S. W. Edge, both T. S.
officials (secretaries, Indian section.)
By virtue of their joint position as Outer Heads of the Esoteric
section to which they were elected under warrant of the very seal
in question, Mrs. Besant and Mr. Judge promptly “suspended”
Messrs. Old and Edge from their Esoteric membership.
At the Chicago “Parliament of Religions,” Mrs. Besant met
Mr. G. U. Chakravarti, the Indian representative of the Theosophical
Society. Under his influence, Mrs. Besant was convinced that she
had been deluded by Judge, that he had himself written with his
own hand the letters to which she had pinned her faith.
The Indian section threatened to secede from the Society if
Mr. Judge's presidency were confirmed with the scandal unsifted.
Judge himself, when offered the alternative of resigning all his
offices quietly or facing a “full publication of the facts,” replied
in a defiant sense.
Mrs. Besant then offered to adopt the charges, turn prosecu-
tor, and conduct the case against Mr. Judge herself. Colonel
Olcott was delighted, and all the evidence and control of the case
passed into her hands.
A Judicial Committee of the Society, composed of 11 mem-
bers, met in London on July 10th 1894, professedly to investi-
gate the charges. The President-Founder, who was in the chair,
in a long address gave the following reasons why Mr. Judge could
not be tried :
Either the Mahatma letters are genuine or they are fabricated:
(a) If found to be genuine, that implies the affirmation of
the existence of Mahatmas as a Theosophic dogma, and the aban-
donment of the Society’s precious “neutrality,” which is uncon-
stitutional.
(b) If found to be bogus missives produced by the Vice-
President, then it is obvious that he must have done it in his private
capacity; the production of bogus documents being no part of his
official duties. Therefore he cannot be tried by an official tribunal.
THE MOCK INQUIRY. 57
Mrs. Besant, like the President, was “convinced that the point
was rightly taken.” There was nothing more to be said.
On the 12th July, Mrs. Besant made a long statement. She
admitted, “I did my utmost to prevent a public Committee of
Enquiry of an official character.”%
She acknowledged that as stated by the President —
“The vital charge is that Mr. Judge has issued letters and messages in
the script recognizable as that adopted by a Master with whom H. P. B. was
closely connected, and that these letters and messages were neither written
nor precipitated directly by the Master in whose writing they appear; as
leading up to this there are subsidiary charges of deception.”
“Further, I wish it to be distinctly understand that I do not charge and
have not charged Mr. Judge with forgery in the ordinary sense of the term,
but with giving a misleading material form to messages received psychically
ãº, *Master in various ways without acquainting the recipients with
1S ſa,CU.
“Forgery in the ordinary sense of the term,” means imitating
a known person’s signature; Mr. Judge was not guilty of this,
because the Mahatma M. has no existence.
Mrs. Besant also blamed the “vindictiveness” of Mr. Judges’s
accusers in pressing an inquiry “painful” to Mr. Judge, and paid
laudatory tributes to his character and Theosophical activity.
Down sat Mrs. Besant and up rose Mr. Judge, and read his
statement. It contained the following sentences:—
“I repeat my denial of the said rumoured charges of forging the said
names and handwritings of the Mahatmas, or of misusing the same. I admit
that I have received and delivered messages from the Mahatmas...they were
obtained through me, but as to how they were obtained or produced I cannot
state. . . . . I willingly say that which I never denied, that I am a human
being, full of error, liable to mistake, not infallible, but just the same any other
human being.”
The following Resolutions, moved by Mr. Keightley, were
then adopted:
Resolved : That this meeting accepts with pleasure the adjustment
arrived at by Annie Besant and William Q, Judge as a final settlement of
matters pending hitherto between them as prosecutor and defendant, with a
hope that it may be thus buried and forgotten, and—
Resolved : That we will join hands with them to further the cause of
genuine brotherhood in which we all believe.”
This mock “Enquiry” in the case of Mr. Judge is a repeti-
tion of what took place in Madras after the Madras Christian
College Magazine’s exposure of Madame Blavatsky’s frauds. She
was exonerated, and recommended not to accept the challenge to
prove in a Court of law that the letters were forgeries.
Evidence of Lying and Fraud on the part of Mr. Judge—Such
* Supplement to the Theosophist for September 1894, p. xlviii.
H
58 THE THEOSOPHIC CRAZE.
serious charges require to be well substantiated. Mr. F. E. Garrett,
the author of the articles in the Westminster Gazette, says:—
“The evidence for those facts, be it good or bad, is that of the Theoso-
phical leaders themselves, written and signed as the case against the Vice-
President, and adopted by Mrs. Besant as true. If it be not true, then Colonel
Olcott, Mr. B. Keightley, Mr. W. R. Old, and the other official witnesses must
be guilty of a conspiracy, as I said it the outset, “even more discreditable
to the personal of the Society.” It is not I who accuse Mr. Judge. It is
Mr. Judge and his colleagues who accuse each other. The rank-and-file of
the Theosophists have paid their money; they may now take their choice.”
“The fact is, before Mrs. Besant got hold of the evidence, at least one set
of complete and duly witnessed copies had been made, together with facsimiles
of the documents. It is these which lately fell into my hands, under circum-
stances which left me free to take, as I do, the moral and legal responsibility
of that publication which the President first promised and afterwards
Shirked.”%
Opinion of Mr. W. Q. Judge—“In regard to Mr. William Q.
Judge, Vice-president, I do not feel called on to labour any theory
of my own as to that gentlemen’s character and conduct. As the
Society of Psychical Research long ago remarked, the precise
line between rogue and dupe in the Theosophical Society has never
been easy to draw....With the facts of the preceding narrative
before him, the reader can form his own opinion.”
Opinion of Mrs. Besant—“I take Mrs. Besant’s statement at
the so-called “Enquiry,’ that she believed now that Judge wrote
with his own hand the missives which he had induced her, and she
had induced the public to regard as precipitations from Tibet of
the kind which ‘some people would call miraculous.”
“ Apparently Mrs. Besant considers that this avowal sufficed
to clear her honour towards her colleagues and the public whom
she had, “misled.” To me it appears admirably calculated to
mislead them again. Remember even those whom Mrs. Besant
was addressing—much more the outside public—were ignorant of
the facts. Mrs. Besant had taken good care of that. Had she
boldly cut herself free from the rottenness at the core of the
Theosophic movement as soon as it was shown to her, she
might have saved her reputation for straightforwardness, if not
for intelligence. In choosing instead the equivocal policy of
hushing up a scandal at all costs, she doubtless convinced herself
that she was acting only for the ends of edification and the good of
her church. That is the old, old story of priestcraft, and Mrs.
Besant has been playing the high priestess now for three years.
But were there not also some more personal motives at work :
There is one thing which even the most candid hate to confess—
and that is, that they have been thoroughly bamboozled. It does
not improve matters when they have themselves helped in their own
* Westminster Gazette, Nov. 8, 1894.
|
MRS. BESANT DEPoSED BY “MASTER’s DIRECTION.” 59
bamboozlement. To confess how recklessly inaccurate were her
statements about ‘ the same hand-writing,” the ‘semi-miraculous
precipitation,” the absolute assurance of her own senses, and so
forth ; to let the public see for itself the childish twaddle which
she accepted and helped to force upon others as profound and ora-
cular: all this would have been a sad come-down from the Delphic
tripod. I do not wonder the poor lady shrank from it. I do
wonder that Mrs. Besant tried to evade it at the expense of a sort
of confidence-trick. To this has come the woman whom we once
thought, whatever her other faults, at least fearless and open–
the woman whose epitaph, as she tells us, is to be
She Sought to Follow Truth Pº
MRS. BESANT DEPOSED BY “ MASTER’S DIRECTION.”
While this pamphlet was passing through the press, The
Westminster Gazette of November 23, was received. It contains
a full account of an “Order” by Mr. Judge, containing the follow-
ing charges against her, and ending with her Deposition, all under
Mahatmic authority
Insincerity.—“While she was writing to me most kindly and working
with me, she was all the time thinking that I was a forger and that I had blas-
phemed the Master. She was made to conceal from me when here, her
thoughts about the intended charges, but was made to tell Mr. Keightly, in
London, and possibly a few others. Nor until the time was ripe did she tell
me, in her letter, in January, from India, asking me to resign from the
E. S. T. and the T. S. offices, saying that if I did and would confess guilt, all
would be forgiven, and every one would work with me as usual. But I was
directed differently, and fully informed. She was induced to believe that the
Master was endorsing the prosecution, that he was ordering her to do what
she did.”
Black Magic.—“She (Mrs. Besant) felt and expressed to me the greatest
pain to have to do such things to me. I knew she so felt, and wrote her that
it was the Black Magicians.
“The plot exists among the Black Magicians, who ever war against the
White, and against those Black ones we were constantly warmed by H. P. B.
This is no fiction, but a very substantial fact. I have seen and also been
shown the chief entity among those who thus work against us.
“The name of the person who has worked upon so as to, if possible, use
him as a minor agent of the Black Magicians, and for the influencing of
Mrs. Besant, is Gyanendra N. Chakravarti a Brahman of Allahabad, India, who
came to America on our invitation to the Religious Parliament in 1893. He
was then a Chela of a minor Indian Guru, and was directed to come to America
by that Guru, who had been impressed to so direct him by our Master.”
Failure of Mrs. Besant's Magic.—“Her influencers also made her
try psychic experiments on me and on two others in Europe. They failed.
* Westminster Gazette, Nov. 8, 1894.
60 THE THEOSOPHIC CRAZE.
On me, they had but a passing effect as I was cognisant of them ; on One
of the others they reflected on health, although she did not desire any harm
at all; she was made to think it best and for my good. She then sent word
to these persons that she had not succeeded.”
Deposition.—“ E. S. T. ORDER, dated November 3.”
“I now proceed a step further than the E. S. T. decisions of 1894, and
solely for the good of the E. S. T. I resume in the E. S. T. in full, all the
functions and powers given to me by H. P. B., and that came to me by
orderly succession after her passing from this life, and declare myself the
sole head of the E. S. T. This has been done already in America. So far as
concerns the rest of the E. S. T., I may have to await the action of the mem-
bers, but I stand ready to exercise those functions in every part of it, Hence
under the authority given me by the Master and H. P. B., and under Master's
direction, I declare Mrs. Annie Besant's headship in the E. S. T., at an end.”
(Signed) William Q, Judge.
TRUE STATEMENT OF THE CASE By MR. JUDGE.
“Now then, either I am bringing you a true message from the
Master, or the whole T. S. and E. S. T., is a lie, in the ruins of
which must be buried the names of H. P. B. and the Masters. All
these stand together as they fall together.”
No one except an “imbecile” can hesitate a moment which
alternative to adopt.
THEOSOPHY, A RETURN TO EXPLODED SUPERSTITIONS
OF THE MIDDLE AGES.
The Indian Magazine, edited by Miss Manning, and the organ
of the Indian Association, is well-known and esteemed by intelligent
Hindus, and cannot be charged with a Missionary bias. A recent
article shows that the movement has not assisted but opposed
Indian progress in every respect, seeking to revive exploded
superstitions. This is pointed out in the following extracts:
Theosophists are fond of assuming that they represent a movement
which is serviceable to the true interests of the natives of India. They also
assert that the Theosophical Society “promotes the study of Aryan, and other
Eastern literatures, religions, and sciences.”
Let us see how far these fair sounding professions are in agreement with
the performances of those who make them. And, first of all, in what way does
the Theosophical movement serve Indian interests P It is true, Theosophists
—following the example of their founder, Madame Blavatsky—have many
agreeable and flattering things to say about Eastern civilisations generally,
and especially about the civilisation of ancient India; and that they say many
disagreeable and contemptuous things about Western civilisations, and about
the civilisation of modern England in particular. But, then, to praise ancient
India, and to abuse modern England, does not establish a claim to serve the
interests of the Indian people, The tendency of these extravagant flatteries
THEOSOPHY A RETURN TO EXPLODED SUPERSTITIONs, ETC. 61
of Eastern customs and views of life, on the one hand, and of the exaggerated
abuse of Western customs and views of life, on the other, is to strengthen
Eastern exclusiveness, and to embitter race antipathies; and such an influence
is not serviceable, but injurious, to the advancement of India in the present
day.
I suppose we may take as the most competent judges of what is really
advantageous to the interests of the native community, those patriotic Indians
who have devoted themselves to the educational, social, and political progress
of their country. We find these leaders of Indian progress not assisted,
but opposed, by the influences of Theosophy. Theosophists would have young
Indians believe that their own literatures contain all wisdom and knowledge,
and that they can only derive error and Impiety from Western sources. On
the contrary, many distinguished Indians, belonging to the Mohammedan,
Hindu, and Parsee communities, are agreed in desiring that native students
should have the benefit of Western practical training and scientific education
to qualify them to become actively useful to their country. They also agree
in urging upon young Indians, whose means admit of it, that they should
travel, and acquaint themselves with Western methods of thought and habits
of life, Certainly, patriotic native gentlemen, who themselves continue to
hold the religious faiths of their ancestors, are not in favour of any renuncia-
tion on the part of the younger generation, of the spiritual beliefs belonging
to the creeds in which they were born. But the influence of these enlighten-
ed men is used to help their compatriots to distinguish between splitual
beliefs and mischievous and degrading superstition; and to convince them
that irrational and inhuman practices are opposed to the purposes that their
own prophets and teachers had in view. Theosophists, on the contrary,
insist upon the sacred authority of these Superstitions. They defend, by the
mouths of their chief representatives—Madame Blavatsky, Colonel Olcott,
and Mrs. Besant—the very institutions and practices that enlightened Indians
most deplore : the institution of caste; the unlimited privileges of the Brah-
mans; the servitude and seclusion of women; the worship of idols; the
belief in charms, exorcisms, and incantations; the terror of sorcery ; the
hideous self-macerations and mutilations of yogee-1sm ; the fanatical perver-
sion that leads persons capable of sacrifice to waste their devotion in Inflict-
ing aimless torments upon themselves, instead of in conferring benefits upon
their fellow-creatures, &c. In the opinion of Madame Blavatsky and Mrs.
Besant, it is in the restoration of such practices, and in a general revival of
enthusiasm for ancient Sanskrit literature, and their old religions and philo-
sophies—properly explained and added to by Theosophists—that the future
hope of the Indian people must be found. In the opinion of practical Indian
reformers, this hope lies in the emancipation of their compatriots from
superstition; and in their deliverance from those prejudices that create divi-
sions between men of different creeds and castes, and prevent them working
together for the Social and political interests they have in common. As for
early Sanskrit literature, and old Indian philosophy and religious thought,
it is not probable that Theosophists either understand their value better, or
take more delight and pride in their special beauties, than do the direct heirs
of the original creators of these treasures. At the same time, enthusiasm for
Sanskrit literature, and a renewal of zeal for philosophical and religious
Speculations, are not the passions that Indian leaders of progress desire to see
just now stimulated in the minds of their contemporaries; they recognise that
it these subjects have not in the past occupied their countrymen too much,
economic, social, and political welfare of their native land has interested
em too little. They now desire to awaken a sense of obligations in young
ndians to occupy themselves with the more practical aspects of life, and to
fit themselves for actively useful caroers.


62 THE THEOSOPHIC CRAZE,
In all these directions, then, the influences of Theosophy are opposed to
the interests of the natives of India. And this opposition is not the result of
an accidental misunderstanding on the part of the founders of Theosophy as
to what these real interests actually are. It must be borne in mind that in
India, as in Europe and America, the founders and leaders of Theosophy have
pursued, and still continue to pursue, one object ; and that all other professed
aims, social, religious, or humanitarian, they may claim to serve by the way,
are merely put forward to assist, or to screen, this supreme object. The
Object consistently pursued by Theosophic leaders is the re-establishment of
the belief in magic and witchcraft, the dethronement of intelligence, and the
restoration of the old dominion of superstition over the human mind. In the
pursuit of this end, it is inevitable that Theosophy, wherever it may strike
roots, should find itself in antagonism to all movements that have enlight-
enment, emancipation, and progress for their aims. Occultists, and the
monopolists of secret doctrines, are not likely to approve of the spread of
popular education, and the open investigations of science. Theurgists, and
revivers of magical processes, are bound to affect scorn of reason and of the
intellectual culture that condemn them. Dogmatists, who make a primaeval
revelation the standard of truth and virtue, necessarily undervalue the
authority of the moral sense, and the worth of knowledge obtained by methods
of observation and thought. Defenders of the privileges and superiority of
a sacred caste, compared with whom mankind at large is described as the
“common herd,” and the “masses of the profane,” are, whatever may be
their professions, incapable of feeling or teaching the doctrine of Human
Brotherhood that has its foundation upon principles of equality and justice,
and upon the sentiment of the native dignity of man....
Again, the “philosophy” as preached by the “Masters” is not “a grand
and beneficent philosophy” upon its own merits: but the reverse. The effort
to revive the belief in magic and the terror of sorcery is a conspiracy against
the intelligence of the age, The endeavour to restore dogmatic authority, and
the spiritual supremacy of a priestly caste, is an effort to recall the most
mischievous tyrannies that have held the human mind and conscience in
bondage. The discouraging doctrine that wisdom and human perfection lie
behind us in the unrecoverable past, not before us in the attainable future, is
a denial of all that lends ideal faith and hope to the noblest movements of our
day. The encouragement of personal vanity in their defects of health and
judgment on the part of persons of imperfectly balanced mind, and hysteri-
cal temperament, is injurious to the cultivation of habits of self-control and
of intellectual discipline, the safeguard necessary to restrain these person-
ages from becoming infected themselves, and the means of infecting others,
with insanity. These and other peculiarities that are characteristic of the
“ philosophy” preached by, or for, the Masters, make the so-called philosophy
a demoralising and humiliating disease, that distorts all it touches, and
disfigures every subject with which it deals.”
There is an elaborate work, by P. Lacroix, on the Science and
Literature of the Middle Ages.” One of the Chapters is on “The
Occult Sciences.” The following are some of them; Oneiromancy,
(divining of dreams) astrology, chiromancy, palmistry (divining by
the hand) magic, necromancy (revealing future events through the
dead), &c. -
A “List of Theosophical Books to be obtained at the Th
Sophist Office, Adyar, Madras,” has been published. An Adve
* Bickers, publisher,


THEosophy A RETURN TO ExPLODED SUPERSTITIONs, ETC. 63
tisement in The Hindu, after giving a selection from it, adds,
“And 500 more works upon Religion, Magic, Sorcery, Phantoms,
Spiritualism, Thought-Reading, Psychometry, Astrology, Palmistry,
Hygienic, &c.
The following are some of the titles with their explanations:
Rs. A.
Magic, White and Black, by Dr. F. Hartmann 1 12
Very popular treatise upon Magic.
Occult Sciences, by A. E. Waite 5 0
An account of magical practices.
Bible in India by Louis Jacolliotº 9 O
Hindu origin of Hebrew and Christian Revelation.
The Debatable Land between the World and the Next, by Owen.
Touching communication of religious knowledge to men, with illus-
trative narratives.
Posthumous Humanity, by M. D. Assier, and Colonel Olcott ... 5 8
A most interesting work on astral phantoms, very suggestive
to Hindus especially.
6
0
Planchette Mystery tº $ tº • * * 0 1 0
The Medium's Book, Experimental Spiritism 6 O
Chiromancy, by Firth and Heron-Allen * * * 0 12
A concise exposition of how to read and to foretell events.
Manual of Cheirosophy, by E. H. Allen (the best book on
Palmistry) * * * º ºg & * * * ... 4 0
Grammar of Palmistry, by Katherine St. Hill I 0
[All the above are useful books.]
Book of Dreams, by Raphael ..., e e & , 0 12
Text Book of Astrology, by A. J. Pearse, 2 Vols. * & © . 18 O
Astrology—a Series of four Lectures, by W. R. Old ... O 8
Rey to Astrology, by Raphael ... tº e G tº º ſº 0 13
Geomancy, by F. Hartmann & 1 14
The art of divining by punctuation.
Hand-book of Cartomancy, by Grand Orient 1 12
(The art of telling fortunes with cards, Webster.) tº a g
History of Magic, by J. Ennemoser (2 Vols. Highly recommended) 9 0
A repository of very important facts.
Mysteries of Magic, by A. E. Waite * * 9 O
Translation of a famous work by Eliphas Levi,
Fascination, or the Philosophy of Charming & ... 3 2
There is a monthly magazine, called The Theosophist, published
in Madras, commenced by Madame Blavatsky. The Saturday
Review thus characterised its contents when under her manage.
ment :
“The Theosophist is full of translations from the works of ancient
‘theurgists,’ of ‘spirit communications,’ and of blatant nonsense of all kinds,
flavoured with the pseudo-science and second-hand archaeology which dis.
tinguish ‘trance lectures' and the utterances of ‘materialized spirits.” Our
3—
* The worthless character of this book has been exposed by Max Müller, but it
was a great authority with Madame Blavatsky.
64 THE THEOSOPHIC CRAZE.
old friend Zadkiel, too, has a good word said for him. ‘ Omne ignotwm pro
magnifico” is a trite adage; and we dare say that all this rubbish presents
itself to the EHindu mind as serious Western lore.
“A clumsy attempt has been made to spread the false and pernicious
doctrines of ‘Spiritualism” among the too impressionable inhabitants of
India, and to bolster up the balderdash with pseudo-oriental learning which
will not bear for one moment the test of scholarly criticism.”
It fully maintains the above reputation under Colonel Olcott's
editorship. The following specimens are culled from a single issue,
November, 1894.
In an article on “Clairvoyance and the Phenomena of the
Double,” the following remarkable facts are mentioned :
“A further characteristic of clairvoyance, when associated with the
projection of the double, seems to be indicated when the seer falls into a
lifeless condition, which may be connected with a partial diversion of the life
principle, and is, at the same time, seen at a distant place.” p. 78.
“Remigius relates: A French merchant who had travelled into Italy,
wanted to get news of his home through a conjurer. He was made to wait
an hour in the adjoining room and was then told that his younger brother was
dead, his wife delivered of twins, and servant had stolen a bag of money, all of
which proved correct,” p. 79.
“A similar case is given by Bodin : “In the year 1546, when I was at
Nantes, I heard of seven sorcerers, who said in the hearing of several persons,
that within an hour they would bring news of all that was taking place ten
miles around. Thereupon they fell into a kind of swoon, and remained in this
position full three hours. Then they stood up and said what they had seen in
the town of Nantes and roundabout, and wherever they had distinctly per-
ceived the circumstances, places, actions and persons. What they said was
found to be true,” pp. 79, 80.
“EHAUNTED TREES AND STONES.”
“Many stories, apparently well authenticated, are told of deaths and
illnesses resulting to individuals who have meddled with, or cut down these
chosen habitations of the elemental gods.” p. 101.
“An English doctor happening to be out on a night case, took refuge
under the treef from a heavy storm that overtook him, while his saice handed
him his waterproof, holding the pony for him. As the doctor was trying to
put on the coat, he suddenly received a blow between the shoulders which
nearly felled him to the ground. He thought for a moment that he had been
struck by lightning, but then he remembered that there had been no flash.
He turned quickly round, but there was nothing to be seen, and to this day
he believes that he was struck by some superhuman agency.” p. 101.
“A European (lady), who was interested in Spiritualism, wishing to get
en rapport with the spirit of a certain tree which was commonly reported to be
haunted, took a branch of the tree home, and sitting down to a séance invoked
the said spirit. To her then appeared a headless man who made signs or
gave her to understand that he would come the next day with his head if she
would do certain things, Terrified out of her senses, the lady brought the
Séance to an abrupt termination.” p. 102.
The above may well be described as “balderdash.” An in-
telligent Hindu in Madras observed, that, so far as the influence of
Theosophy extended, it had “PUT BACK INDIA HALF A CENTURY.”
* Quoted in Bombay Gazette, Sept. 28, 1881, + One of the above.
NATURE OF MAHATMAS, 65
TEIE GREAT MAEIATMA HOAX.3%
IMPORTANCE OF MAHATMAs.
The Secret Doctrine, of Madame Blavatsky, is professedly
founded on revelations through the Mahatmas; the course of
the Society has been guided by them. Well, therefore, may Mrs.
Besant say:
“If there are no Mahatmas, the Theosophical Society is an
Absurdity.” Lucifer, Dec. 15, 1890.
Mr. Judge, the American Vice-President of the Society, is
equally decided on this point (See p. 60), If the message from his
Mahatma is a myth, the names of H. P. B. and the Masters must
be buried in the ruins of the Society.
NATURE OF MAHATMAs.
During her recent Australian tour, Mrs. Besant gave a lecture
on Mahatmas, of which the following abstract is given in the West-
minster Gazette of November 6, 1894:—
The Australian mail, which has just arrived in London, brings an account
of a lecture delivered by Mrs. Besant in the Sydney Opera House, on Septem-
ber 28 to a crowded audience, Mrs. Besant commenced by informing her
hearers that she had met Mahatmas, but she did not enter into details. She
dealt, however, upon the superhuman nobleness, purity, and power of these
spirits. They needed, however, no defence from her. It was not for their
sakes, but for the sake of mankind, that she spoke to the world at large.
MAHATMAs As “ DIVINE MEN.”
First as to what Mahatmas were. A Mahatma was a man living in a
human body, who, in the course of evolution by means of repeated incarna-
tions, had reached the highest possible point of human perfection—physically,
intellectually, and morally; a man who had acquired all the powers of the
human soul, and had acquired all the knowledge to be found on earth–
literally a Divine man. Mahatmas had always possessed superhuman powers.
They were able, indeed, to control the powers of Nature,
THE EVIDENCE OF THEIR EXISTENCE.
Coming to the evidence for the existence of Mahatmas at the present
day, Mrs. Besant pointed out that the only possible evidence of the existence
of people at a distance was human testimony. That evidence they possessed
by the testimony of a number of honourable and credible people who had
come into personal contact with them. There was Madame Blavatsky,
Colonel Olcott, and so on—man after man, and woman after woman, who had
testified to having personally seen them, Madame Blavatsky had been
taught by a Mahatma who had come specially to London for that purpose;
Mrs. Besant said that she herself could add her own personal testimony of
the fact of their existence, and if anyone challenged to her the existence of these
teachers it was just as if they challenged the existence of some intimate friend
of hers in London.
* An Ewposé under this title is to be issued by the Westminster Gazette,
I
66 THE THEOSOPHIC CRAZE.
How To BECOME A MAHATMA.
The question of the existence of Mahatmas having been settled by this
and other arguments, Mrs. Besant proceeded to describe how Mahatmas
were evolved. If a man wished to become a disciple, and so ultimately a
Mahatma, he had to obey certain rules. He must study for twelve, twenty-
four, or thirty-six years, and then he had to pass into the life of a householder
and rear a family. This was always a part of the discipline and training of
an aspirant to Mahatmaship. Having attained as near moral perfection as
he could by the practice of virtues, the next step for the disciple was to die
and be reincarnated again and again without any prolonged rest in Paradise
between the incarnations, All this time the Mahatmas would be teaching
and guiding him until he reached perfection, and the infinite bliss of Paradise
lay before him. Then came the great renunciation made by all Mahatmas.
Instead of entering Paradise he would turn back and say he would never
cross the threshold till all men crossed it with him and all sorrow was at an
end. He would turn back to be one of the helpers of humanity, one of the
bearers of the burden of the world, and that was the Mahatma. (Loud cheers.)
How To KNow A MAHATMA when YoU SEE EIIM.
Mahatmas did from time to time come among men. One of the brethren
was in London in 1851 for a special purpose, but none of them had been recog-
nised, for they had nothing to distinguish them save their dignity and
silence. It was only when the soul was awakened that a Mahatma could be
recognised, and then it was not necessary to meet them in the physical body.
The awakened soul could communicate with them at a distance. Another
reason why they did not come among men was that it was a great waste of
spiritual force for them to come amongst the “befouled magnetism” of men in
Western civilisation. “If a Mahatma came to Sydney he would be poisoned by
the mere exhalations of the foulness through which he would have to pass,
unless he exercised a great power of flinging from him all this foul matter, and
so preserved his own magnetism pure, no matter how foul the surroundings.”
(Great applause.)
THE QUATERNION OF WITNESSES FOR THE EXISTENCE OF MAHATMAs.
Indubitable evidence is required to show that such exalted
personages are not a myth. Mrs. Besant affirmed that the
“evidence they possessed was the testimony of a number of
honourable and credible people, who had come into personal
contact with them. There was Madame Blavatsky, Colonel Olcott,
and so on—man after man, and woman after woman, who had
testified to having personally seen them.” She modestly did not
mention herself, although she told the Tanjore correspondent of
the Madras Mail that she had seen one. (See page 46). To these
may be added Mr. Judge, the Mahatmic postmaster in succession
to Madame Blavatsky.
Let these “honourable and credible people” be examined in
turn :
I. Madame Blavatsky.—Mrs. Besant admits that if the
“ phenomena,” were not true, Madame Blavatsky was a miserable
impostor, an accomplice of tricksters, a foul and loathsome deceiver,
THE QUATERNION OF WITNESSES FOR THE EXISTENCE OF MAHATMAs. 67
a conjurer with trap doors and sliding panels.” That she was an
“impostor” is proved by what Professor Sidgwick considers
“irresistible” evidence. (see page 35.)
Madame Blavatsky’s conduct is the worse, as she hypocriti-
cally expressed the highest admiration of truth. The motto of
The Theosophist, which she edited, was, “There is no Religion
higher than Truth;” the “moral standard of The Theosophist, is
TRUTH.” . A Theosophist banner had the inscription, “There is no
Duty higher than Truth.”
II. - Colonel Qlcott—This gentleman, Professor Sidgwick says
in his Report, showed “extraordinary credulity and inaccuracy in
observation and inference.” This is most abundantly confirmed by
his own volume, People from the Other World (See pp. 5, 6). For a
man who has seen “more than 500 apparitions of dead persons,”
acquaintance with “15 Mahatmas” is no great wonder. Dr. Daly,
his quondam associate, describes him as a “theorist of very shallow
understanding, and colossal vanity.” e
III. Mrs. Besant—The value of this lady's testimony will be
examined more in detail. It is worth little for the following reasons:
(1) Her inability to weigh evidence. Take the case of Madame
Blavatsky. The evidence that she was an impostor was the
following :-
1. Seventy or eighty of her own letters, including a number
professedly written by Mahatmas, Madame Blavatsky asserted that
these letters were forgeries, in whole or in part ; but when chal-
lenged to prove this in a court of law, she prudently declined.
2. The evidence of A. O. HUME, Esq., in whose house Madame
Blavatsky resided for some months, and to whom several Mahatma
letters were addressed.T
3. The investigation by the Editor of the Madras Christian
College Magazine, confirmed by Dr. Miller and the Professors of
, the Madras Christian College. *
4. The Report of the Psychical Research Society, written by
Professor Sidgwick, of Cambridge, after the receipt of Mr. Hodg-
son’s Account of his Investigations. Mr. Hodgson, a Cambridge
graduate, spent three months in India inquiring into the evidence
for the alleged “phenomena.”
One would have thought that such charges, supported by such
evidence, would have been long and carefully investigated by Mrs.
Besant; but after reading Professor Sidgwick’s Report she “flung
it aside with righteous scorn,” and within 24 hours became a
member of the Theosophical Society.
What was it that apparently weighed most with her in coming
to such a decision ?
* Indian Daily News, Oct. 1, 1894.
+ See Proceedings of the Psychical Research Society, December 1885, p. 274,
68 THE THEOSOPHIC CRAZE.
“The proud fiery truthfulness that shone at me from the clear
blue eyes—honest and fearless as those of a noble child.”
Such evidence may be deemed sufficient by a woman to refute
any amount of testimony on the other side; but lawyers will rate it
at its proper value. They prefer looking to scores of letters
rather than to “clear blue eyes.”
2. Her frequent changes of opinion.—She has been well de-
scribed in the words:
“Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,
Everything by starts, and nothing long.”
Stiff in Opinion.—Mr. Foote, her free-thought fellow-worker,
remarked that in all Mrs. Besant’s changes, she remained “quite
positive.”
In this world of sin and sorrow, the greatest comfort a sufferer
can have is to believe that however sore his affliction, it all proceeds
from the loving hand of a heavenly Father, intended to work for
good in the end. . When loved ones are taken away by death, how
consoling it is to look forward to a world where death and separation
are unknown, where parent and child, husband and wife, dwell for
ever together in happiness.
When Mrs. Besant embraced atheism and materialism, she
went about doing her utmost to rob people of these solaces, proudly
putting her opinion against the conclusions of the greatest and
wisest men in all ages.
The “Path to Atheism” was described as being in the end
“fragrant with all the flowers of summer;” the golden age of the "
world was to be restored when man was seated on “the usurped
throne of God | *
She is now equally “positive” with regard to the beneficial
results of Theosophy. She hopes that
“The tale of one soul that went out alone into the darkness and on the
other side found light, that struggled through the storm and found peace,
may bring some ray of light and peace into the darkness and storm of
other lives.”
The Kural, a famous South Indian poem, says, “All lights
are not true lights.” Mrs. Besant’s light is only a beacon of
warning.
“Always in the Wrong.”—Mrs. Besant professes to be an
earnest seeker after truth. She asks for no other epitaph upon
her tomb than
“SHE TRIED TO FOLLOW TRUTH.”
Notwithstanding this, it has been her unhappy lot to devote
most of her adult life to the zealous propagation of deadly errors,
and to choose as her Guru a consummate hypocrite. The following
THE QUATERNION OF WITNESSES FOR THE EXISTENCE OF MAHATMAS. 69
are some illustrations of her being “in the wrong” at one period or
another in her history :
TRUTH.
Theism.
Man has a Soul.
A Future State.
Belief in Prayer.
The Pardon of Sin.
The Need of Divine Help.
Monotheism.
Idolatry forbidden.
The Brotherhood of Man.
Progress the idea of Civilization.
A fiction of Madame Blavatsky,
Madame Blavatsky proved, by “irre-
sistible” evidence to be an “im-
Mrs. Besant on the side of
ERROR.
Atheism.
Materialism.
T}eath ends All.
Prayer a Contradiction.
Karma Unchangeable.
Man his own Saviour.
Pantheism and Polytheism.
“Preserve your Idols.”
“Keep your Caste Marks.”
Hindu Civilization the oldest and best
in the World.
Belief in - the “Seven
Planes,” &c.
The evidence “flung aside with righte-
Rosmic
ous scorn,” and Madame Blavatsky`--
acknowledged as the world’s “Great T--
postor.”
Teacher.”
“Everything by starts, and nothing, long.”—ſn her many
changes of belief Mrs. Besant has been fitly compared to a stage
player, who suddenly retreats behind the scenes, and re-appears
in a different character. She has been PROTESTANT and HIGH
CHURCH CHRISTIAN, ANTI-CHRISTIAN, THEIST, ATHEIST, MATERIALIST,
ANTI-MATERIALIST, MALTHUSIAN, ANTI-MALTHUSIAN, SPIRITUALIST,
THEosophist, PANTHEIST, PolythBIST, HINDU.
Her friend Mr. Stead thinks that her changes are not yet
over. He says, “the prediction was made long ago that Mrs.
Besant would die in the odour of sanctity within the pale of the
Catholic Church.”
3. Her Self-Confidence.—A celebrated Greek philosopher
in ancient times said: “Atheism is a disease of the soul before
it becomes an error of the understanding.” The “ disease” of
Mrs. Besant’s soul is pride. Madame Blavatsky, whom she calls
her “Guru,” saw through her character: “Child, your pride is
terrible ; you are as proud as Lucifer himself.”
It has been shown that Madame Blavatsky was a charlatan,
making claims to knowledge which she did not possess. This is
proved by her calling the Bhagavad Gita the “Bagaved gitta,”
and by the assertion that “Maha Maya or Maha Deva was the
mother of Bhudda P’ Her “Secret Doctrine” is a mystical jumble
of baseless speculations, derived from comparatively modern Euro-
pean works, though professed to be obtained from Mahatmas.
Babu Brajendranath Seal, in letters to The Indian Messenger, shows
“Mrs. Besant’s inability to comprehend the recent discoveries of
# Borderland, Oct. 1893, p, 175,
70 THE THEOSOPHIC CRAZE,
science, and her hazy notions about Hindu philosophy” notwith-
standing “her pompous claims to first-hand scientific knowledge
and her implied access to the teachings of the Hindu Shastras
and Darsanas.”* º
Mrs. Besant’s “seven Kosmic planes of manifestation,” “the
seven globes in a planetary chain,” “the seven races on each
planet,” &c. are accepted on the authority of imaginary Mahatmas,
proved to be plagiarists and liars. The Indian Magazine justly
says:
“If dishonest people whom we know to have been guilty of falsehood
and trickery in this present state of existence choose to dogmatise about the
condition of life in other spheres, we are justified in rejecting their state-
ments off hand; for, if they are not to be helioved concerning things that can
be seen, how are we to believe thom when they prophesy about the unseen P”
The Times quotes the following as describing Theosophical
speculations: “talking grave nonsense on subjects beyond the
reach of the human understanding.”
MR. GLADSTONE thus refers to Mrs. Besant in The Nineteenth
Century, when noticing her Autobiography :
“Her readers will find, that the book is a spiritual itinerary, and that it
shows with how much at least of intellectual ease, and what unquestioning
assumptions of being right, vast spaces of mental travelling may be perform-
ed. The stages are, indeed, glaringly in contrast with one another; yet the
violent contrarieties do not seem at any period to suggest to the writer so
much as a doubt whether the mind which so continually changes in attitude
and colour can after all be very trustworthy in each and all its movements.
This uncomfortable suggestion is never permitted to intrude; and the abso-
lute self-complacency of the authoress bears her through tracts of air buoyant
and capacious enough to carry the Dircean swan. Mrs. Besant passes from
her earliest to her latest stage of thought as lightly, as the swallow skims the
surface of the lawn, and with just as little effort to ascertain what lies beneath
it. An ordinary mind would suppose that modesty was the one lesson which
she could not have failed to learn from her extraordinary permutations; but
the chemist who shall analyse by percentages the contents of these pages will
not, I apprehend, be in a condition to report that of such an element he can
find even the infinitesimal quantity usually and conveniently denominated a
‘trace.’ Her several schemes of belief or non-belief appear to have been
entertained one after another, with the same undoubting confidence, until
the junctures successively arrived for their not regretful, but rather con-
temptuous rejection. They are nowhere based upon reasoning, but they rest
upon one and the same authority—the authority of Mrs. Besant.”
Among other remarks the following may be quoted:
“She is sensible of having been much governed by vanity at that period
of her life (early childhood), while she does not inform us whether this qual-
ity spontaneously disappeared, or what had become of it in the later stages.”
“In all her different phases of thought, that place in the mind where the
sense of sin should be, appears to have remained, all through the shifting
scenes of her mental history, an absolute blank.”
* Indian Messenger, February 18, 1894.
THE QUATERNION OF WITNESSES FOR THE EXISTENCE OF MAHATMAS. 71
“Speaking generally, it may be held that she has followed at times
her own impulsions with an entire sincerity; but that those impulsions have
been woefully dislocated in origin, spirit, and direction, by an amount of
egregious self-confidence which is in itself a guarantee of failure in mental
investigation.” September, 1894, pp. 317-319.
MR. GARRETT, author of the articles in The Westminster Gazette,
possessed special advantages for forming an opinion as he had
in his possession attested copies of the suppressed evidence against
Mr. Judge. What does he think of her ?
“Mrs. Besant has been bamboozled for years by bogus ‘com-
munications’ of the most childish kind, and in so ludicrous a fashion
as to deprive of all value any future evidence of hers on any
question calling for the smallest exercise of observation and com-
In Orl SenS6.
“She would in all probability be firmly believing in the bogus
documents in question to this day, but for the growing and at last
irresistible protests of some less greedily gullible Theosophists.
“That the bamboozling in question has been practised widely
and systematically, ever since Madame Blavatsky’s death, pretty
much as it used to be during her lifetime.
“That official acts of the Society, as well as those of individual
members, have been guided by these bogus messages from Mahat-
IſlayS,
“That the exposure of them leaves the Society absolutely
destitute of any objective communications with the Mahatmas who
are alleged to have founded and to watch over it, and of all other
evidence of their existence.
“That Mrs. Besant has taken a leading part in hushing up the
facts of this exposure, and so securing the person whom she believes
to have written the bogus documents in his tenure of the highest
office but one of the Society.
“And that therefore Mrs. Besant herself and all her colleagues
are in so far in the position of condoning the hoax, and are bene-
fiting in one sense or another by the popular delusion which they
have helped to propagate.”* *
IV. Mr. Judge.—The facts mentioned prove incontestibly that
the American head of the Society was guilty of lying and fraud.
He produced “bogus,” messages, alleged to have been sent by
“Mahatma Morya” and attested by his seal, the history of which
has been given.
Such are the “honourable and credible witnesses” for
“The Great Mahatma, Hoax.”
* The Westminister Gazette, October, 29, 1894.
72 THE THEOSOPHIO CRAZE.
MADAME BLAVATSKY’s CoNTEMPT FOR HEE DUPES.
Madame Blavatsky secretly ridiculed those whom she deceived.
They were characterised as “domestic imbeciles,” “familiar
muffs.”
But Madame Blavatsky’s greatest scorn was reserved for Colonel
Olcott, who so much assisted her in establishing the Society. As
already mentioned, he was called a “psychologised baby,” who
“ did not know his head from his heels;” “flapdoodle (food for
fools) Olcott,” “an idiot.”
It would be interesting to know what she thought of Mrs.
Very probably, mutatis mutandis (with the necessary
Besant.
changes), what she wrote about Colonel Olcott :
“The Yankees thought themselves very Smart, and Colonel Olcott
thought he was particularly smart, even for a Yankee, but he would have to
get up much earlier in the morning to be as smart as she was.”
The Bombay Gazette's estimate of Theosophist intellect is not
much more flattering than that of Madame Blavatsky. Referring
to Mr. Sinnett, author of The Occult World, it is said:
& “We have to face the unpleasant fact that the author and one or two
others who, like himself, had some claim to be accepted as representatives
here of European learning and culture, have subscribed their faith to as
ridiculous a scheme of things as ever called itself a philosophy, and that they
have done so on the evidence of as patent a series of juggling tricks as ever
imposed on the bumpkins at a village fair.” Sept. 24th, 1881.
The New York Herald, referring to Mr. A. P. Sinnett, says
that he “brays with a fatuousingenuousness and with a good faith
that are charming and purely asinine.”
Mr. Garrett says:
“Till May, 1891, Madame was the principal witness to the objective
existence and attributes of Mahatmas. Since that date the principal witness
is William Q, Judge.”
In July, 1894, a circular was issued, signed by Colonel Olcott,
A. P. Sinnett, Mrs. Besant, Bertram Keightly, and others, dwelling
on the importance of truth. “ We must love truth, seek truth, and
live truth.” Why was the issue of such a circular necessary 7
Was it not elicited by the Mahatmic seal 7 was it not a homily
intended for the special benefit of W. Q. Judge
Mr. Garrett suggests that the “faithful,” when they file into
the Occult Room at the next convention to gaze through peep holes
at the two August Portraits of Mahatmas, should have the courage
to ask their officials plainly what evidence they can now offer that
either of the subjects of those fancy portraits ever existed.t
* Proceedings of Psychical Research Society, Dec, 1885, p. 310,
+ Westminster Gazette, November 8th, 1894,
*
“A CORRUPT TREE BRINGETH FORTH EVIL FRUIT,” 73
Mrs. Besant admits that the “ only possible evidence” of the
existence of Mahatmas is “human testimony” (page 65). It has
been shown that there is not a shred of this of a credible character.
Mr. H. Burrows scouts the need of testimony. Like the Germans,
he evolves Mahatmas out of the “depths of his inner conscious-
ness.” Replying to a newspaper representative he said:—
“My general position with regard to Mahatmas is, that as an evolution-
ist, I believe in the development and progress not merely of the body, but
also of the soul. A Mahatma—literally * great soul’—is a human being
who, by long physical, mental and moral training, has attained to more
knowledge of the universe, and its really vital forces than the ordinary
person. The belief in the existence of any particular Mahatma must depend
upon the personal experience of the student, I believe, this is impregnable
scientific ground, and on it. I take my stand.”
The whole history of the Theosophic movement, from the
time that Madame Blavatsky duped Colonel Olcott at the farm
of the Eddy Brothers, to the Mahatmic seal and deposition of Mrs.
Besant, is a sickening record of fraud on the one hand, and “vora-
cious credulity” on the other. The revelations of the Westminster
Gazette will open the eyes of some ; but so great is human folly,
that a tolerably full gathering of “imbeciles,” “muffs”, and
“babies” may nevertheless be expected at the Adyar.
“A. CORRUPT TREE BRINGETH FORTH EVIL FRUIT.”
The “Great Teacher” says: “Do men gather grapes of thorns
or figs of thistles?” What was the character of the founder of
the “Wisdom Religion ?” -
She was notoriously irascible; but her fatal defect was want
of truthfulness. f
Hints on Esoteric Philosophy, No. I., a pamphlet published
during her lifetime, “Issued under the Authority of the Theoso-
phical Society,” and acknowledged by Mr. A. O. Hume, contains
the following: -
“Madame Blavatsky's converse is . . . . . too often replete with contradic-
tions, inaccuracies, and at times apparently distinct misstatements. . . .
“Her memory is undoubtedly impaired, and not unfrequently, I believe,
she quite wheonsciously, in the course of conversation, makes incorrect, if not
absolutely false, statements.” pp. 68, 69. -
The charge of lying is not confined to individual cases; she is
accused of “consciously weaving for years an enormous network of
falsehood.” The case is thus stated by Mr. Sinnett — -
“There is no immediate alternative between the conclusion that her
statements concerning the Brothers are broadly true, and the conclusion that
she is what some American enemies have called her, ‘the champion impostor
• Quoted in The Hindu, Dec. 15, 1894.
74 # THE THEOSOPHIG CRAZE,
of the age.' ... Either she must be right, or she has consciously been weaving
an enormous network of falsehood in all her writings, acts, and conversation
for the last eight or nine years. . . . Pare away as much as you like from the
details of Madame Blavatsky's statement on account of possible exaggeration,
and that which remains is a great solid block of residual statement which
must be either true, or a structure of conscious falsehood.”
The “imbeciles” and the world differ as to the alternative to
be accepted.
Combination of Scepticism and Credulity in Theosophists.-
Persons who are too wise to believe in the existence of an intelligent.
Creator, accept as true the grossest absurdities. This is nothing
new. Lecky says in his History of European Morals :—
“There existed, too, to a very large extent, a kind of superstitious
scepticism which occupies a very prominent place in religious history.”
Vol. I, p. 179.
“The period when Roman incredulity reached its extreme point had been
the century that preceded and the half century that followed the birth of
Christ . . . . . This disbelief, however, as I have already noticed, co-existed
with numerous magical and astrological superstitions.” Ibid, p. 330.
“The notions, too, of magic and astrology, were detached from all
theological belief, and might be found among many who were absolute
atheists.” Ibid, p. 393.
The Society, as such, does not profess to have any theological
creed; but its founders are avowed atheists. Theists do not under-
stand by a “personal God,” a Being with a body; but one conscious
of His own existence, and acting with intelligence. “Personal” is
introduced to distinguish it from a mere force, like gravitation.
Madame Blavatsky, in reviewing The Theosophical Society, by
the Rev. A. Theophilus, makes the confession :
“Now we desire the reader to properly understand that personally we do
not at all deny the charge of atheism, the word being used in an orthodox
theistic sense.” s
The following statement is admitted to be “correct:” “Colonel
Olcott, as well as Madame Blavatsky, told the Pandit in the presence
of several respectable gentlemen that they did not at all believe in .
the existence of God.”f
Colonel Olcott, in a catechism which he compiled in Ceylon,
where he professed to be a Buddhist, says:
“A personal god Buddhists regard as only a gigantic shadow thrown
upon the void of space by the imagination of ignorant men.” No. 112.
The Bombay Gazette, reviewing The Occult World, by Mr. A.
P. Sinnett, a prominent member of the Society, says:—
“The first act of faith required of the disciple of Occult Philosophy is to
purge his mind of belief in an imaginary personal God (p. 135) and all simi-
* The Occult World, pp. 152, 153,
f The Theosophist Sept. 1882,
1. The Theosophist June 1882, see p. 7.
STUDY OF HINDUISM, 75
lar ‘current superstitions,’ (p. 139). This, we may say in passing, is not in
all cases so difficult as one might suppose. Our author, at least, as we shall
see, had so loose a hold on these venerable beliefs, that a trick with a clock
sº enough to disłodge them, one and all, from his mind.” Sept.
Whatever Mrs. Besant may now think, for many years she
was an avowed atheist. “I do not believe in a personal God; the
concept is impossible to one.”
The above quotations prove scepticism ; the whole of the fore-
going pages demonstrate credulity. The combination is the same
as that mentioned by Lecky.
No Prayer.—Colonel Olcott says in his Addresses : “The
Founders of the Theosophical Society do not pray.” (p. 119).
They are not illustrations, either intellectually or otherwise, of the
advantages of such a course. It must, however, be admitted that
they are carrying out their principles logically, for it is useless to
pray to a Being who does not exist or to an Entity who is practi-
cally a nonentity.
Of the “Wisdom Religion,” it may be said, IIic Deus nihil-fecit
(Here God did nothing). It may well be called Atheosophy, godless
wisdom, rather than Theosophy.
STUDY OF HINDUISM.
While books full of error, like those of Madame Blavatsky,
are worse than useless, educated Hindus are recommended to study
their own religion through its recognised standards. A beginning
should be made with the Vedas, on which it is professedly based.
Formerly their contents were almost unknown; copies of the
Rig-Veda, the most important, are now easily procurable.
Only a very few Indian scholars are able to understand the
Rig-Veda in Sanskrit: an imperfect knowledge of the language is
worthless for this purpose. English translations, however, by com-
petent scholars give a fair idea of the original. -
There is a translation of the whole work by Professor Wilson
and others; Professor Max Müller has one in progress. The best
and cheapest complete translation now available is by Mr. R. T.
GRIFFITH, for many years Principal of the Government College,
Benares, where he had the assistance of the ablest pandits in
India. Valuable explanatory notes are added throughout. It is
published by E. J. Lazarus & Co., Benares, Price Rs. 16 in 16
parts; or Rs. 19-12-0 in 4 volumes.
If possible, the complete translation should be obtained ; but
as this is beyond the means of most, a cheap selection has been
published.
76 TEIE THEOSOPHIC CRAZE,
AN ACCOUNT OF THE VEDAs WITH ILLUSTRATIVE EXTRACTs. 8vo.
166 pp. 4% As. Post-free, 6 As.
With the kind permission of Mr. Griffith, it contains a few of
the most important hymns, in whole or in part, from the ten
Mandalas. The first hymn is given in Nagri and Roman character
as well as in English. The hymns quoted in full include one
addressed by Sunahsepa to Varuna when bound to the sacrificial
post, and the celebrated Purusha Sukta hymn. -
There are selections from 11 hymns in the Atharva Veda.
One of them is regarded as a spell, “To recall from Death.”
Short extracts from the Aitareya Brahmana and the Satapatha
I3rahmana give some idea of their character.
- There is an Introduction of 66 pages, compiled from the works
of Max Müller, Muir, Haug, Whitney, Rajendra Lala Mitra, and
others which will be found very useful. -
The translation by Mr. Griffith of the SAMA VEDA in one
volume (Rs. 4) is already available, and the translation of the .
ATHARVA VEDA is in progress.
Professor Max Müller’s magnificent series of the Sacred Books
of the East enables all well acquainted with English to acquire a
fair knowledge of their contents. They are by eminent men,
furnished with the best aids, and who have given years to their
study. They also follow “the critical, comparative, and historical
method of inquiry,” the value of which is shown by Dr. Bhandarkar
in his lecture on the subject. The interpretations of Indian
pandits and men like the late Dayanand Sarasvati are often absurd.
Next to the Vedas, the study of the Bhagavad Gita is especially
recommended. It is supposed to represent the loftiest flights of
Hindu philosophy. An abstract of the history of Krishna, as given
in the Puranas, and an examination of the doctrines of the Gita,
based on extracts from Mr. Telang’s translation, are given in the
pamphlet named below.” -
Among other works the History of Hindu Civilization in
Ancient India, by Mr. Romesh Chunder Dutt, may be mentioned.t
SCIENTIFIC STUDIES.
The Indian mind is dreamy and imaginative. It greatly.
needs the discipline of scientific study. But the “Occult Sciences,”
under the guidance of The Theosophist, are not what is meant.
The Indian Magazine thus notices Madame Blavatsky’s ideas of .
Science :- *
“Madame Blavatsky's methods were theurgical and occult. For such
open but laborious methods as those followed by scholars and men of Science
* KRISHNA As DESCRIBED IN THE WISHNU PURANA, BHAGAVATA Tºur ANA, AND THE
MAILABHARATA, ESPECIALLY THE BHAGAVAD GITA, 8vo, 72 pp. 2% As, Post-free, 3 AS,
f In 3 Volumes, published by Messrs, Thacker, Spink & Co,
ANCIENT MONOTHEISM. 77
she always made it her business to express a profound contempt. In her
Isis Unveiled, we have her presuming to teach Sir Richard Proctor astronomy;
Faraday and Tyndall natural philosophy; Professor Huxley physiology ;
while she makes fun of that simpleton Sir Isaac Newton, with his stupid
belief in the laws of gravity l’”
Colonel Olcott is equally convinced of the superiority of the
knowledge possessed by Mahatmas. Addressing Parsees he said:—
“I, a Western man, taught in a Western University, and nursed on the
traditions of modern civilization, says that Zaratushta knew more about
nature than Tyndall does, more about the laws of force than Balfour Stewart,
more about the origin of species than Darwin or Haeckel, more about the
human mind and its potentialities than Maudsley or Bain, And so did Bud-
dha and some other proficients in Occult Science.” Addresses, p. 149.
Colonel Olcott pours contempt on the so-called scientific
studies of the Indian Universities. The heads of students are
“crammed with a terrible lot of poor stuff;” “they are baked dry
“in the scholastic ovens of Elphinstone College.” He says;
“The science we have in mind is a far wider, higher, nobler Science
than that of modern sciolists. Our view extends over the visible and invisi-
ble, the familiar and the unfamiliar, the patent and the . Occult sides of
Nature. In short, ours is the Aryan conception of what science can be and
should be, and we point to the Aryans of antiquity as its masters and pro-
ficients. Young India is a blind creature whose eyes are not yet open, and
the nursing mother of its thought is a bedezened goddess, herself blind of
one eye, whose name is modern science,” pp. 83, 84. .
Colonel Olcott directs the students to whom to go for the genu-
ine article :- ge -
“Pshaw Young man of the Bombay University, when you have taken
your degree, and learned all your professors can teach you, go to the hermit
and recluse of the jungle, and ask him to prove to you where to beginſ your
real study of the world into which you have been born.” (p. 149).
The exact spot where it is to be found is also clearly indi-
cated :- -
“If you drag the depths of the ocean of human nature, if you study the
laws of your own self, if you turn the eye of intuition to those profounder
depths of natural law, where the demiurgic Hindu Brahma manages the
correlation of forces and the rhythmic measures of the atoms, and the eternal
principle of motion, called by the Hindus Parabrahm, outbreathes and in-
hales universes,<-there will the golden key of this Ineffable Knowledge be
found,” (p. 129.)
Well did Madame Blavatsky characterise Colonel Olcott as a
“ psychologised baby.” Let science be studied, but through text-
books like those prescribed by the Universities.
ANCIENT MONOTHEISM.
Modern Hindus are both pantheists and polytheists. The
number of divinities is popularly said to be 33 crores. The
pantheism of the Upanishads is sometimes confounded with mono-
* Addresses, p, 124.
78 THE THEOSOPHIC CRAZE,
theism, based on the formula from the Chhandogya Upanishad, ekam
evadvitiyam, “One only without a second.” This is a mistake.
The real meaning is, not that there is only one God, but that there
is no second anything—a totally different doctrine.
Some Hindus, unacquainted with the Vedas, think that they
contain a pure monotheism. Such is not the case. The religion
of the Vedas is polytheistic. The gods are usually spoken of as
thrice-eleven, with their wives, as the following quotations will
show :
In the third Mandala of the Rig-Veda, Hymn 6, verse 10,
Agni is thus addressed :
“Bring, with their wives, the gods, the three-and-thirty, after thy god-
like nature, and be joyful.”
The following invitation is given to the Asvins:—
“Come O Nasatyas, with the thrice eleven gods; come, O ye Asvins to
the drinking of the meath,” I. 34. 11.
A hymn to the Visvedevas concludes thus:
“O ye eleven gods whose home is heaven, O ye eleven who make earth
your dwelling,
Ye who with might, eleven, live in waters, accept this sacrifice, O gods,
with pleasure.” I, 139. 11.
It will be seen that the gods are reduced in number from 33
crores to 33 with their wives. In Book iv. 9. 9. the gods are
mentioned as being much more numerous: “Three hundred,
three thousand, thirty and nine gods have worshipped Agni.”
But let us go back beyond the Vedas to the time when the
|Eastern and Western Aryans lived together, somewhere in Central
Asia, and we find monotheism. Max Müller says:
“There is a monotheism which precedes the polytheism of
the Veda, and even in the invocation of their innumerable gods,
the remembrance of a God, one and infinite, breaks through the
mist of an idolatrous phraseology, like the blue sky that is hidden
by passing.clouds.”
The Eastern and Western Aryans, the ancestors of the Hindus,
Persians, Greeks, Romans, Germans, French and English, were
once living together, speaking the same language, and worshipping
the same God under the same name—a name which meant Heaven-
Father. This is shown by the Sanskrit DYAUSH-PITAR being the
same as the Greek ZEUS-PATER, and the Latin JUPITER.
Max Müller well remarks that when the Aryan nations
“search for a name for that which is most exalted and yet most
dear to every one of us, which expresses both awe and love, the
infinite and the finite,” they “can but do what their old fathers did,
combine the self-same words, and utter once more the primeval
THE TRUE JAGAT GURU, WORLD'S TEACHER. 79
Aryan prayer, Heaven-Father, in that form which will endure
for ever, “Our Father, which art in heaven.’” -
Educated Hindus! go back to the monotheism which Max Müller
says “precedes the polytheism of the Veda, ’’ Return to the wor-
ship of our great Father in heaven.
THE TRUE JAGAT GURU, or WoRLD’s TEACHER.
The great truth that there is only one God, our Creator, and
Father in heaven, was soon forgotten. Men, in their ignorance,
worshipped the sun, moon, and stars, and devised gods after their
own evil hearts. Thus in the Vedas we have the worship of
Surya, Indra, the sender of rain, Agni, fire, &c. After nature
worship, deities like Vishnu and Siva were invented.
Even Hinduism teaches that divine interposition is needed to
restore righteousness in the world. In the Bhagavad Gita Krishna
is represented as saying:
“Whensoever piety languishes, and impiety is in the ascendant, I
Create myself. I am born age after age, for the protection of the good, for
the destruction of evil-doers and the establishment of piety.” VI. 7, 8.
It is shown in the pamphlet on Krishna, already mentioned,
that the Avatara of Krishna, as related in the Puranas, does not
fulfil these conditions. But Christianity presents a mishkalank or
spotless Avatara. -
The following summary has been given of the mere external
facts of Christ’s life :-
“In the reign of Augustus Caesar, a man is born into the world,
in an obscure province of the Roman Empire. His parents are poor,
—his reputed father being an ordinary mechanic. Nothing notice-
able occurs either in his infancy or childhood, if we except the
visit to Jerusalem, at twelve years of age. His deportment on this
occasion is remarkable, no doubt, exhibiting a ripeness and strength
of thought above his years, and in advance of the moral intelligence
of the times. But still no condition of humanity is transcended ; and
the light which had flashed for a moment, as far as the world at large
is concerned, goes out again in darkness. Another long interval elap-
ses, and manhood is reached; yet all passes without mark, without
observable preparation, without a single inch of ground being
cleared away for the erection of that mighty platform, soon to be
the scene of transactions which should convulse the world. Sud-
denly that platform is raised. It comes up, as it were, in a night,
—like the gourd over the prophet’s head, but not to perish or pass
away. Nations flock to the shadow of it. Unbidden and unknown,
Jesus comes forth. Without patronage from the rich, without
* Science of Religions, p. 173.
80 - THE THEOSOPHIC CRAZE.
countenance from the learned, without sympathy from the men of
his own nation, he emerges from the deep seclusion of Nazareth,-
a friendless artizan prophet, to bear his resistless testimony against
superstition, against hypocrisy, against a corrupt priesthood,
against all falsehood, and against all sin. He gathers a little band
around him, obscure in station like himself. And having trav-
elled with this handful of disciples over the cities and villages of
Palestine, and having, in the course of his journeys, given to them
a body of teaching, unsurpassed for the purity of its precepts, and
the sublimity of its doctrines, and the augustness of its disclosures,
—after a ministry of three short years, and, under a ban of infamy
and disgrace, he dies.”
The Gospel of Theosophy and the Gospel of Jesus Christ com-
pared.—Theosophists have adopted the Buddhist doctrine of Karma,
which teaches that neither in heaven nor in earth can man escape
from the consequences of his acts. The Gospel of Theosophy, the
“glorious truth,” according to Colonel Olcott, to be proclaimed
“ through a sin-burdened world,” is that …
“Eternal, immutable law punishes the slightest moral sin as certainly
as it does every physical sin; and, that as man creates his own destiny,
so he must be his own Saviour and Redeemer, and can have no other.”
Addresses, p. 38. •
It is admitted that Christianity also teaches the general truth
that men must reap as they sow, but it has its limitations. It is a
natural law that severe disease should end in death ; but a skilful
physician intervenes, and the patient may recover. Although, as
a general rule, the punishments decreed by law must be inflicted;
the sovereign reserves to himself the right of pardoning if he sees
sufficient reason. f
Karma, according to Buddhists and Theosophists, is somewhat
like fate, an unintelligent force to which there can be no appeal;
but it is different if the world is governed by God.
Men instinctively believe in the forgiveableness of sin, and
instinctively pray for pardon. An earthly king can pardon an
offender ; why should this prerogative be denied to the King of
king's 7 -
gº is admitted that the great problem is how to combine mercy
and justice. Christianity sees the difficulty, and points out the
solution. God, our heavenly Father, seeing that we could not
deliver ourselves from the punishment due to sin, has graciously
provided a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. Repenting of our sins
and seeking forgiveness in His name, it will assuredly be granted.
Among the last words of Buddha to his followers were,
Atlasaraná viharatha, Be your own refuge. Man is to gain
* Moore's The Age and the Gospel, pp. 71, 72,
TESTIMONTES TO, CHRISTIANITY. 81
Salvation by himself and for himself alone. Such also is the
teaching of Theosophy.
When any one sincerely tries to overcome his evil desires, he
finds that he is, as it were, tied and bound with the chains of
his sins, and needs Divine help. Christianity likewise says,
“Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,” but Divine
help is offered. A Father's hand is held out to deliver us, and hold
us up when we are tempted. -
TESTIMONIES TO CHRISTIANITY.
A large number of these, from some of the greatest men that
have ever lived, will be found in Testimonies of Great Men to the
Bible and Christianity.* Only a very few can be quoted.
Gladstone, the most distinguished English statesman of the
time, says:
“I see that for the last fifteen hundred years Christianity has always
marched in the van of all human improvement and civilization, and it has
harnessed to its car all that is great and glorious in the human race.”
“Christianity continues to be that which it has been heretofore, the
great medicine for the diseases of human nature, the great consolation for its
sorrows; the great stay to its weakness, the main and only sufficient guide
in the wilderness of the world.”
Referring to his own personal belief he says:
“All I write, and all I think, and all I hope is based upon the divinity
of our Lord, the one central hope of our poor wayward race.”
Lecky, in his History of European Morals, bears the following
testimony to the EFFECTs of Christianity:—
“It was reserved for Christianity to present to the world a character
which, through all the changes of eighteen centuries, has inspired the hearts
of men with an impassioned love : has shown itself capable of acting on all
ages, temperaments, and conditions; has been not only the highest pattern
of virtue, but the strongest incentive to its practice; and has exercised so
deep an influence, that the simple record of three years of active life has
done more to regenerate and soften mankind than all the discussions of
philosophers and all the exhortations of moralists.”
Macaulay, in a speech in parliament, describes Christianity as:
“That religion which has done so much to promote justice and mercy, and
freedom, and arts, and sciences, and good government, and domestic happi-
ness, which has struck off the chains of the slave, which has mitigated the
horrors of war, which has raised women from servants and playthings into
companions and friends.” To discountenance it he says, “is to commit high
treason against humanity and civilisation.”
He characterises Christianity as:
“Strong in her sublime philosophy” strong in her spotless morality,
strong in those internal and external evidences to which the most powerful
and comprehensive of human intellects have yielded assent.”
* Price 13 As. Post-free, 2 AS, Sold by Mr. A. T. Scott, Book Depôt, Madras.
L
82, THE TEREOSOPHIC CRAZE,
English and American atheists seek to give educated Hindus
the impression that Christianity is decaying in the West. It has
never been more vigorous. Indians have proof of this before their
eyes. Every aged Hindu knows that missionaries are now far more
numerous than they were when he was young. In the United
States 17 new churches, on an average, are built every day by one
body of Christians alone. Missionaries are sent not merely to India,
but to every accessible part of the earth.
A NATIONAL RELIGION.
A cry is raised by some educated Hindus for a National religion.
It is thought degrading to India to have any other religion, than
her own.
There is no national geography, astronomy, chemistry, geo-
metry, &c. Science is one all the world over. It is the same with
religion. If each country had its own God, there might be different
religions; but all enlightened men are now agreed that there is
only one God, the Creator, Preserver, and Governor of the Uni-
verse. The Brotherhood of Man is similarly acknowledged.
Since God is one and all men are alike His children, it is rea-
sonable to suppose that He has given only one religion. A national
religion shows that it is not the true religion.
The most enlightened countries in Europe and America ac-
cepted a religion first made known to them by Asiatics, and did
not reject it from false patriotism, saying “We must have national
religions.”
An Indian poet says: “The disease born with you, will destroy
you : the medicine from a far-off mountain not born with you, will
cure, that disease.”
Of all false patriotisms that is the worst which seeks by sophistry
to defend erroneous beliefs because they are national. It promotes
hypocrisy and disregard of truth among its advocates, while it is
a grievous wrong to their ignorant countrymen, tending to perpet-
uate the reign of Superstition.
NEED of PRAYER.
The confession has been quoted: “The Founders of the Theoso-
phical Society do not pray.” In opposition to this, the reader is
strongly urged to seek Divine guidance.
The following short prayers for light may be fitly offered :
“Show me Thy ways, O Lord ; teach me. Thy paths; lead
me in Thy truth and teach me; for Thou art the God of my
salvation.”
FATHER, LEAD ON } 83
“Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk; for I lift
my soul to Thee.”
O all-wise, all-merciful God and Father, pour the bright beams
of Thy light into my soul, and guide me into Thy eternal truth.
The following prayer for spiritual light is attributed to Augus-
time, one of the most distinguished early Christians, born in Africa,
354 A. D.
... O Lord, who art the Light, the Way, the Truth, the Life; in whom there
is no darkness, error, vanity, nor death; the light, without which there is
darkness; the way, without which there is wandering; the truth, without
which there is error; the life, without which there is death; say, Lord, ‘Let
there be light,’ and I shall see light and eschew darkness; I shall see the
way, and avoid wandering; T shall see the truth, and shun error; I shall
see life and escape death. Illuminate, O illuminate my blind soul, which
sitteth in darkness and the shadow of death; and direct my feet in the way
of peace,
If we make use of the light we possess, more will be given ;
if we act contrary to it, the light is gradually extinguished.
A man who indulges in vice of any kind cannot expect to
arrive at the truth. Of the successful searcher Tennyson says :
“Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds,
At last he beats his music out.”
The following prayer which Jesus Christ taught His disciples
may be used daily :
“Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name.
Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts as we
forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver
us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and
the glory, for ever. Amen.”
It has been shown that there was a time when the ancestors
of the Hindus, Persians, English, French, Germans, and others,
were living together in Central Asia, worshipping the same God
under the self-same name—TIeaven Father. May the time soon
come when both Eastern and Western Aryans will kneel at the
same throne of grace, and offer the same grand old prayer 1
FATHER, LEAD ON .
My Father God, lead on
Calmly I follow where Thy guiding hand
Directs my steps. I would not trembling stand,
Though all before the way
Is dark as night. I stay
- My soul on Thee, and say:
Father, I trust Thy love; lead on.
84
THE THEOSOPHIC CRAZE.
Thou givest strength : lead on 1
I cannot sink while Thy right hand upholds,
Nor comfort lack while Thy kind arm enfolds.
Through all my soul I feel
A healing influence steal,
While at Thy feet I kneel,
Father, in lowly trust : lead on.
'T will soon be o'er; lead on 1
Left all behind, earth’s heart-aches then shall seem
E’en as the memories of a vanished dream;
And when of griefs and tears
The golden fruit appears,
Around the eternal years,
Father, all thanks be Thinel Lead on 1
RAY PALMER,
APPENDIX.
ENGLISH PUBLICATIONS FOR INDIAN READERS.
Papers on Indian Reform.
This is a Series of Papers treating of the great questions connected
with Indian progress—material and moral.
SOCIAL REFORM.
ON DECISION OF CHARACTER AND MORAL CourAGE. 8vo. 56 pp. 1% As.
Post-free, 2 As.
A reprint of Foster's celebrated Essay, with some remarks on its application
to India,
SANITARY REFORM IN INDIA. 55 pp. 2 As. Post-free, 2% As.
How lakhs of Lives may be saved every year, and crores of cases of Sickness
prevented ; Precautions against Fever, Cholera, Diabetes, &c.
Is INDIA BEcoMING PooBER OR RICHER P WITH REMEDIES For THE
ExISTING PowerTy. 8vo. 82 pp. 2% As. Post-free, 3 As.
The prevailing idea with regard to the increasing poverty of India shown to
be incorrect, and the true means of promoting its wealth explained.
DEBT AND THE RIGHT USB of Monry. 8vo. 32 pp. 1 An.
Prevalence of Debt in India; its Causes; Evils; how to get out of it ; with
Franklin's Way to Wealth, &c.
PURITY REFORM. 8vo. 32 pp. 1 Anna.
The great need of this reform shown, and the means for its promotion.
CASTE. 8vo. 66 pp. 2 As. Post-free, 2% As,
Supposed and real origin of Caste; Laws of Caste according to Manu; its
Effects; Duty with regard to it. -
THE WOMEN OF INDIA AND what CAN BE Don E FOR THEM. 8vo. 158 pp.
4 As. Post-free, 5% As.
Women in Hindu literature ; Female Education ; Marriage Customs; Widow
Marriage; means to be adopted to raise the Position of Women.
THE ABOVE COMPLETE IN ONE volumE, 1 Rupee Net. Postage, 2% As.
RELIGIOUs REFORM.
PoPULAR HINDUISM. 8vo. 96 pp. 2% As. Post-free, 3% As.
Review of the Hinduism of the Epic Poems and Puranas, &c.; Rites and Obser-
vances; Effects of Hinduism, and Suggested Reforms.
PHILOSOPHIC HINDUISM. 8vo. 72 pp. 2% Annas. Post-free, 3 As.
The Upanishads; the Six Schools of Hindu Philosophy; the Minor Schools;
Doctrines of Philosophic Hinduism ; the Bhagavad Gita ; Causes of the Failure of
Hindu Philosophy; &c.
M
86 ENGLISH PUBLICATIONS.
AN ACCOUNT of THE WEDAs, WITH ILLUSTRATIVE EXTRACTs. 8vo.
166 pp. 4% Annas. Post-free, 6 Annas,
The principal Divisions of Vedas are described ; with life in Wedic times, the
gods of the Vedas, the offerings and sacrifices. Some of the most important hymns
from the ten Mandalas are quoted in full. Extracts are also given from the Atharva
Veda and the Brahmanas. -
THE BRAHMA SAMAJ, AND OTHER MoDERN ECLECTIC RELIGIOUs SystEMs.
108 pp. 3 As. Post-free, 4 Annas.
Modern Hindu Theism; Rammohun Roy ; Debendranath Tagore; Keshub Chunder
Sen; the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj; Madras Brahmoism ; Prarthana Samajes;
Brahmist Doctrines and Prospects. With Portraits of Rammohun Roy, Debendra-
nath Tagore, and Keshub Chunder Sen.
INDIA HINDU, AND INDIA CHRISTIAN ; OR, WHAT HINDUISM HAs DONE
For INDIA, AND WHAT CHRISTIANITY woulD Do For IT. 8vo. 72 pp.
2% Annas. Post-free, 3 Annas.
Address to thoughtful Hindus, showing how much their country would benefit from
the religion which many of them now oppose,
THE ABOVE COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME, 1 Rupee Net. Postage, 2% As.
CHRISTIANITY ExPLAINED TO A HINDU : or, THE DOCTRINEs of CHRIS-
TIANITY AND HINDUISM COMPARED. 60 pp. 2 As.
Doctrines about God, Creation, and Soul, Karma, Transmigration, Sin, Incarna-
tions, Salvation, Prospects at Death, and Compartive Effects.
TESTIMONIES OF GREAT MEN TO THE BIBLE AND CHRISTIANITY. 8vo.
45 pp. 1% As. Post-free, 2 As.
Opinions expressed by great writers, philosophers, scientists, lawyers and
statesmen, showing that the Bible and Christianity are firmly believed by the most
eminent men of the time.
How THE PEOPLE OF ANCIENT EUROPE BECAME CHRISTIANS, AND THE
|FUTURE RELIGION OF INDIA. 8vo. 48 pp. 1% As. Post-free, 2 As.
An account of the Eastern and Western Aryams; their common origin; resem-
blances in language and religion; how Christianity was first brought to Europe; the
opposition it encountered, and its final success; with the evidence that it will follow
a similar course in India.
THE GREAT TEMPLES OF India, CEYLON AND BURMA. Imperial 8vo.
104 pp. with 60 illustrations. 6 As. Post-free, 7% As.
There are pictures and descriptions of some of the most celebrated Hindu, Sikh,
Jain, and Buddhist temples; as Puri, Budh-Gaya, Benares, Hardwar, Gangotri,
Ellora, Elephanta, Amritsar, Gwalior, Tanjore, Srirangam, Kandy, Prome and
Mandalay.
RRISHNA, As DESCRIBED IN THE PURANAS AND BEIAGAVAD GITA. 8vo.
71 pp. 2% As. Post-free, 3 As.
A full account is given of the Krishna Avatara, chiefly taken from the Vishnu
Purana, with some extracts from the Bhagavata Purama and the Mahabharata ; the
circumstances which led to the great war between the Pandus and Kurus are
described; and some of the doctrines of the Bhagavad Gita are examined in detail.
Account of THE TEMPLE OF JAGANNATH AT PURI. 8vo. 48 pp. 1% As.
Post-free, 2 As.
The account is taken chiefly from Dr. Rajendralala Mitra’s Antiquities of Orissa ;
Hunter's Gazetteer of India, Sterling's Orissa, &c. With views of the temple, proces-
sion, and images,
ENGLISH PUBLICATIONS. - 87
Civilization, ANCIENT AND MoDERN, CoMPARED; WITH REMARKS ON
THE STUDY of SANSKRIT. 8vo. 48 pp. 1% As. Post-free, 2. As.
Hindu Civilization in the Vedic and Puranic Periods, contrasted with that of
modern times. The accounts of the former have been largely taken from Mr. R. C.
Dutt’s Civilization in Ancient India.
TRACTs For MUHAMMADANs. 12mo. 120 pp. 3 As.
By the Rev. Dr. G. H. Rouse, M. A. Translated from the Bengali. The Integrity
of the Gospel; Jesus or Muhammad P; The Sinless Prophet ; The True Islam : The
Koran ; Fatiha ; The Paraclete, &c. are some of the subjects.
Pice Papers on Indian Reform, # Anna. Each.
Some are original ; others are abridged from the foregoing for popular use.
1. LOVE OF HOARDING AND JEWELRY.
2. MARRIAGE AND SHRADDBA ExPENSEs.
3. SUPPOSED AND REAL CAUSES OF DISEASE.
4. PATRIOTISM : FALSE AND TRUE.
5. MANAGEMENT OF INFANTs.
6. DEBT, AND How To GET OUT OF IT.
7. THE PURDAH : or, THE SECLUSION OF INDIAN Wom EN.
8. CASTE: ITS ORIGIN AND EFFECTs.
9. ASTROLOGY. -
10. WHAT HAS THE BRITISH GoverNMENT DONE FOR INDIA 7
11. WHO WROTE THE VEDAs f
12. MANAVA-DHARMA SASTRA.
13. THE BEIAGAVAD GITA,
14. THE SCIENCE OF THE HINDU SASTRAs.
15. FEVERS: THEIR CAUSEs, TREATMENT, AND PREVENTION.
16. CHOLERA AND BOWEL COMPLAINTs.
17. ANIMAL WORSHIP.
18. EARLY MARRIAGE, ITS EVILS AND SUGGESTED REFORMs.
19. DUTY TO A WIFI}.
20. THE FRUITS OF HINDUISM.
THE ABOVE COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME, 10 Annas.
21. INDIAN WIDOWS AND WHAT SHOULD BE DONE FOR THEM.
22. THE ADVANTAGES OF FEMALE EDUCATION.
23. HINDU AND CHRISTIAN WORSHIP CoMPARED.
24. HINDU PILGRIMAGES.
25. CHARITY: FALSE AND TRUE.
26. THE Two WATCHWoRDS—CUSTOM AND PROGRESS,
27. THE WALUE OF PURE WATER. $.
28. CHARMS, MANTRAS AND OTHER SUPERSTITIONs.
29. NAUTCHES.
30. IMPORTANCE OF CLEANLINESS.
31. How TO HAVE HEALTHY CHILDREN.
32. How To BRING UP CHILDREN.
88 ENGLISH PUBLICATIONS,
33. How TO TAKE CARE OF THE SICK.
34. ECLIPSEs. *~
35. FAMILY WoRSHIP.
36. GIVING ABUSE.
Exposures of Theosophy.
THE THEOSOPHIC CRAZE : ITs HISTORY ; THE GREAT MAHATMA HOAx;
How MRs. BESANT WAS BEFooLED AND DEPOSED ; ITs ATTEMPTED
REVIVAL OF EXPLODED SUPERSTITIONs of THE MIDDLE AGES.
8vo. 96 pp. 3 As. Post-free, 4 As.
A sketch is given of the history of the Society sincé its commencement; the tricks
of Madame Blavatsky are exposed; an account is given of the many changes through
which Mrs. Besant has passed; it is shown how she was befooled and at last deposed
by “Master's Direction ;” the worthlessness of the evidence for the existence of
Mahatmas is pointed out ; with an appeal to educated Hindus.
INDIA, PAST AND PRESENT. 8vo. 96 pp. 2 Annas. Post-free, 2% As.
It is considered whether India would benefit more from Hindu or Western Civili-
Zation, from Sanskrit or English; with a notice of India’s Present Needs. Theoso-
phist plans for the improvement of India are examined.
Papers for Thoughtful Hindus.
No. 1. THE RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY AND HINDUISM. 8vo. 32 pp.
By the Rev. Dr. KRISHNA MoHUN BANERJEA, late Sanskrit
Examiner to the Calcutta University. § An.
The remarkable resemblances, in some respects, between ancient Hinduism and
Christianity are pointed out. --
No. 2. THE SUPPOSED AND REAL DOCTRINES OF HINDUISM, AS HELD
BY EDUCATED HINDUs. 8vo. 32 pp. By the REv. NEHEMIAH
(NILAKANTH) GOREH. & Anna.
It is shown that the belief of educated Hindus with regard to God, His Attributes,
Creation, &c., are not found in the Vedas; but have been derived from Christianity.
No. 3. MoRAL COURAGE. 8vo. 32 pp. ; Anna.
A lecture by the Bishop of Bombay.
No. 4. THE IMPORTANCE OF RELIGION. 8vo. 48 pp. # Anna.
An appeal to the young, by John Foster, author of Essay on Decision of Character,
No. 5. CHRISTIANITY, OR—WHAT 8vo. 16 pp. # An. By the Rev.
H. Rice.
Christianity is shown to be the only religion which meets the wants of man.
No. 6. THE SENSE OF SIN IN THE LIGHT OF HISTORY. A lecture by
the Rev. F. W. KELLETT, M. A., Madras Christian College.
8vo. 20 pp. Price # Anna.
It is shown that the deeper the sense of sin, the more mature the religious life,
No. 7. BISHOP CALDWELL ON KRISHNA AND THE BRAGAVAD GITA.
8vo. 32 pp. # An.
A Reprint of “Remarks on the late Hon. Sadagopah Charloo’s Introduction to
a Report of a Pamphlet, entitled ‘Theosophy of the Hindus,’” with a Preface by the
Rev. J. L. Wyatt,
&
ENGLISH PUBLICATIONS. 89
© Descriptions of Countries and Peoples.
PICTORIAL Tour RounD INDIA. Imperial 8vo. 116 pp. 6 As. Post-
free, 7% As. cº
An imaginary tour round India, with visits to Nepal and Cashmere, describing
the principal cities and other objects of interest. With 97 woodcuts illustrative of
the Himalayas, Calcutta, Benares, Agra, Delhi, Bombay, Madras, &c.
THE PRINCIPAL NATIONS OF INDIA. 8vo. 160 pp. 4 As. Post-free, 5 As.
An account of 42 Nations and Tribes of India, with specimens of some of their
languages, and 55 Illustrations.
THE NATIVE STATES OF INDIA AND THEIR PRINCEs ; WITH NOTICES OF
soME IMPORTANT Z.EMINDARIs. 4to. 100 pp. 5 As. Post-free, 6 As.
157 States are described, and 32 portraits are given. The little book will help to
enable Indians to understand the vast extent of their country, and what is being
done for its improvement.
RASI, or BENAREs, The Holy City of the Hindus. Imperial 8vo.
44 pp. 3 As. Post-free, 4 As.
An account of the city; its Sanskrit Schools, ghats, temples, and pilgrimages; with
23 illustrations.
BURMA AND THE BURMESE. 4to. 54 pp. 2% As. Post-free, 3 As.
A description of the manners and customs of the Burmese; an account of their
government, religion, and history, with illustrative woodcuts, and portraits of King
Theebaw and his Queen,
LANKA AND ITS PEOPLE ; or, A DESCRIPTION OF CEYLON, 4to. 72 pp.
3. As, Post-free, 3% As.
The account of Lanka, given in the Ramayana is first mentioned. Its history,
and present condition are then described, with numerous illustrative woodcuts.
PICTORIAL TOUR ROUND ENGLAND, ScotlanD AND IRELAND. Imperial 8vo.
114 pp. 6 As. Post-free, 7# As.
Description of the chief places of interest ; Public Schools and Universities;
Coal Mines and Manufactures; the British Government; Home Life ; England
an example and warning to India. With 104 woodcuts, and coloured engraving
of the Queen-Empress.
PICTURES OF CHINA AND ITS PEOPLE. 4to. 56 pp. 2% As. Post-free,
3 As.
Extent, History, Manners and Customs of the People; Schools, Examinations;
Industries; Travelling Language and Literature; Government; Religions; India
and China compared; with 64 Illustrations,
JAPAN : THE LAND OF THE RISING SUN. 4to. 68 pp. 2% As. Post-
free, 3 As.
With 49 illustrations. An interesting description of this beautiful country, and
an account of the remarkable changes which have taken place in it.
PICTORIAL ToUR ROUND BIBLE LANDS. Imperial 8vo. 100 pp. 6 As.
Post-free, 7% As.
The principal countries mentioned in the Bible and in ancient history are
described ; as, Palestine, Syria, Babylon, Asia Minor, Greece and Italy; with 104
illustrations.
ARABIA, AND ITS PROPHET, 4to. 64 pp. 2% As. Post-free, 3 As.
An account of the Arabs; with descriptions of Jeddah, Mecca, Medina; the History
of Muhammad and the early Caliphs; the Koran, Muslim Doctrines, Sects, Prayers,
Pilgrimage, &c, ; with numerous illustrations,
90 ENGLISH PUBLICATIONS.
PICTURES OF RUSSIA AND ITS PEOPLEs. Imperial 8vo. 83 pp. 5 As.
Post-free, 6 As. sº
A description both of European and Asiatic Russia, including an account of the.
different races by which they are peopled, their manners and customs, the Govern-
ment, &c.; with 89 illustrations and maps.
PICTUREs of Wom RN IN MANY LANDs. Imperial 8vo. 112 pp. 6 As.
Post-free, 7% As.
Descriptions of women, beginning with the most degraded nations of the world,
and gradually ascending to the most enlightened ; with suggestions, from the review,
for Indian women, 172 illustrations.
Biographies.
STATESMEN OF RECENT TIMEs. 8vo. 192 pp. 8 As. Post-free, 9% As.
Accounts are given of the leading Statesmen in the great countries of the world,
as Gladstone, Salisbury, Bismarck and others. Special notice is taken of those in-
terested in India. In all 182 are mentioned, with 122 portraits.
THE GOVERNORS-GENERAL OF INDIA, First Series. By Henry Morris,
M. C. S. (Retired.) 8vo. 144 pp. 4 As. Post-free, 5 As.
Contains sketches of the lives of Warren Hastings, Lord Cornwallis, Sir John
Shore, Marquis Wellesley, the Earl of Minto, and the Marquis of Hastings, with
portraits. Interesting personal details are given, such as are not usually found in
histories,
ANGLO-INDIAN WoRTHIES : By Henry Morris, Madras C. S. (Retired.)
8vo. 160 pp. 4 As. Full cloth, gilt title, 10 As.
Lives of Sir Thomas Munro, Sir John Malcolm, Lord Metcalfe, Mountstuart
Elphinstone, James Thomason, Sir Henry Lawrence, Sir James Outram, Sir Donald
Macleod, and Sir Bartle Frere, with portraits.
EMIN ENT FRIENDs of MAN ; or, LIVEs of DISTINGUISHED PHILANTHRO-
PISTs. 8vo. 158 pp. 4 As. Post-free, 5 As. Full cloth, gilt
title, 10 As. f
Sketches of Howard, Oberlin, Granville Sharp, Clarkson, Wilberforce, Buxton,
Pounds, Davies of Devauden, George Moore, Montefiore, Livesey, the Earl of Shaf-
tesbury, and others; with remarks on what might be done in India.
SoME NOTED INDIANS OF MoDERN TIMEs. 8vo. 164 pp. 4 As. Post-
free, 5 As.
Sketches of Indian Religious and Social Reformers, Philanthropists, Scholars
Statesmen, Judges, Journalists, and others, with several portraits.
MARTIN LUTHER, THE GREAT EUROPEAN REFORMER. 8vo. 109 pp.
2% As. Post-free, 3 As.
The state of religion in Europe in the time of Luther is described; a full account
is given of his undaunted efforts to bring about a reformation; the greater need
of a similar change in India is shown, and Luther is held up as an example, 15
Illustrations.
BABA PADMANJI. An Autobiography. 8vo. 108 pp. 2% As. Post-
free, 3 As.
An interesting account by himself of this popular Marathi author, describing
his conversion from Hinduism to Christianity.
ENGLISH PUBLICATIONS. 91
PICTURE STORIES OF Noble Wom EN. 4to. 50 pp. 2% As. Post-
free, 3 As.
Accounts of Cornelia, Agrippina, Padmani of Chittore, Lady Jane Grey, Ahaliya
Bai, Mrs. Fry, Princess Alice, Miss Carpenter, Maharani Surnomayi, Pandita
Ramabai, Miss Nightingale, and Lady Dufferin.
THE QUEEN-EMPREss OF INDIA AND HER FAMILY. 43 pp. 3 As.
Post-free, 3% As.
Her early life; marriage; widowhood; children : progress in India during her
reign ; traits of character and lessons from her life. With 27 illustrations and a
coloured portrait of the Empress,
§ See also the Amma Library.
The Anna Library. 1 Anna, each.
Mostly with Numerous Illustrations,
INDIAN FABLEs. 48 pp.
PICTURE FABLEs. 48 pp.
CHOICE PICTURES AND STORIES. 48 pp.
PICTURES AND STORIES FOR THE YoUNg. 48 pp.
SAINT AUGUSTINE, THE GREATEST EARLY CHRISTIAN WRITER.
WILLIAM CAREY. 48 pp.
STORY OF DR. LIVINGSTONE. 48 pp.
STORY OF DR. DUFF, By A. L. O. E. 56 pp.
THOMAS ARNOLD, THE MODEL ENGLISH TEACHER, 48 pp.
GENERAL GARFIELD. 48 pp.
NEESIMA: THE TRUE PATRIOT OF JAPAN. 48 pp.
PALISSY THE POTTER. 48 pp.
INDIA IN VEDIC TIMEs. 48 pp.
PICTURE STORIES OF THE ANCIENT GREEKs. 48 pp.
PICTURES AND STORIES of THE OLD ROMANs. 48 pp.
PICTURE STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 48 pp.
PICTURES AND STORIES OF WILD BEASTs, 48 pp.
PICTURES AND STORIES OF BIRDs, 48 pp.
SNAKES, CRoCodiLEs, AND OTHER REPTILEs. 48 pp.
FISHES AND WHALEs. 48 pp.
CURIOUS LITTLE PEOPLE ; A DescripTION OF INSECTs. 48 pp.
THE WONDERFUL House I Live IN. 48 pp.
A description of the human body.
AsTRONOMY AND ASTROLOGY, 48 pp.
BURNING MoUNTAINs, EARTHQUAKEs, AND OTHER WONDERs. 48 pp.
THE AYAH AND LADY. By Mrs. Sherwood. 64 pp.
PROVERBs FROM EAST AND WEST. 48 pp.
BUDDHA AND HIs RELIGION. 60 pp.
IDOLS OF THE EARTH : ANCIENT AND MODERN. 48 pp.
HISTORY OF THE TRUE INCARNATION. 52 pp.
92 ENGLISHI PUBLICATIONS.
SHORT PAPERs For SEEKERS AFTER TRUTH, 12mo. 112 pp.
A Guide to Religious Inquirers. g
SHORT PAPERS FOR YoUNG MEN, 12mo. 104 pp.
A. Sequel to the foregoing. Hints on General Conduct, the Choice of a
Profession, and Success in Life,
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 12mo, 68 pp.
Series for Parents.
CHILDBIRTH. 12mo. 36 pp. 1 An. Post-free, 1% As.
How to have safe delivery, and strong, healthy children,
THE HEALTH of CHILDREN. 12mo. 106 pp. 2 Annas.
Management of Infancy; Health; the Diseases of Children, Accidents; short
-,
notices of the most useful Medicines. *
THE TRAINING OF CHILDREN. 12mo. 94 pp. 2 As. Post-free, 2% As.
How to train children to be intelligent, obedient, truthful, industrious, orderly,
&c., showing how to prepare them both for this world and the next.
Publications for Students.
SELECT CONVoCATION ADDRESSEs, delivered to Graduates of the
Madras University. 8vo. 231 pp. Stiff covers, 8 As. ; Half
bound in cloth, 12 As. Full bound in cloth, with gilt title,
1 Re. Post-free.
The volume contains 15 addresses, commencing in 1859, and including several of
the most recent. Some of the most distinguished men in South India during the
last 30 years took part in the Series. Many very useful hints to young men
entering upon the battle of life in any part of India will be found in the collection.
THE INDIAN STUDENT's MANUAL. 12mo. 352 pp. 8 As. Post-free, 9 As.
Hints on Studies, Examinations, Moral Conduct, Religious Duties, and Success
in Life.
THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF STUDENTs. 8vo. 32 pp. 3 Anna.
A Lecture by N. G. Chandavarker, Esq., B.A., B.L.
How To PAss ExAMINATIONs. 8vo. 29 pp. ; Anna.
Advice to students about University Examinations, with an account of a great
examination which all must pass.
PRAYERS For STUDENTS AND OTHERs. 18mo. 36 pp. ; Anna. .
THE SCHOOL Boy. 16mo. 48 pp. # An.
Advice to school-boys about their lessons, general conduct, and duty to God.
PRINTED AT THE S. P. C. K. PRESS, VEPERY, MADRAs—1894.
*S*s 2. sº **s
ENGLISH PUBLICATIONS • * . .
.* º - - *
FOR,
INDIAN READERS.
Attention is invited to the List of English Publications,
prepared for Indian readers. (See pp. 85-92.) * -
Subjects of special interest have been selected. They include
pictorial accounts of India, Ceylon, Burma, Russia, China, Arabia,
England, and other countries. Ancient India is described, with
copious extracts from the Vedas and Brahmanas.
Historical tales, biographies of distinguished men worthy of
imitation, anecdotes, fables and tales, are other classes of
publications. •
There are numerous treatises fitted to promote sanitary and
social reform. The elevation of the women of India receives
special attention. k
Many of the publications are copiously illustrated ; and the
prices are so low that they are within the means of the great
majority of educated Indians.
;
\
Progress.
This is a monthly Illustrated Periodical for the educated
classes in India and Ceylºn. The subscription is only 8. As
a year; with postage 14 As. Three copies may be sent for #
anna postage. * - * *
The Periodical is specially recommended to TEACHERs. . It
would give new ideas to their pupils, while the page for students
would be very useful to those preparing for examinations.
Orders to be addressed to Mr. A. T. Scott, Tract Depot,
Madras.
---
*g
Educational Catalogue.
A Catalogue of ENGLISH Schoo! Books, specially adapted to
India, will be forwarded by Mr. A. T. Scott, on application.
pº ENGLISH PUBLICATIONs are on sale also at the following
epôts : &
CALCUTTA, Bible and Tract House, Chowringhee.
ALLAHABAD, Bible and Tract House.
LAHORE, the Punjab Religious Book Society's Depository.
BOMBAY, Tract and Book Depôt, Esplanade. º
BANGALORE, Bible and Tract Depository. -
CoLoMBO, Bible and Tract Depôt, opposite the Kachcheri,
*
Catalogues of VERNACU, R PUBLICATIONs can be obtained at
the Tract Depôts in each Province. -
šersserºse=sserºsersse assesser'ssessser-sease,
º,
|
§
§