Note^[1]

Mr. J. D. B. Gribble has just issued a “Report of an Examination into the Blavatsky Correspondence.” Mr. Gribble claims to be an expert, and I cannot follow him through all his dexterous and intricate vermiculations by which he tries to convince himself that the alleged letters have been written by Madame Blavatsky. I will therefore only refer to what he says in regard to the letter in which my one handwriting is forged. He says that the difference between that handwriting and my own is so striking, that either the person who wrote this letter had never seen my handwriting or had no opportunities of copying it, or else the person writing intended that the receiver should at once detect the forgery.

          I have shown the said letter to a good many people (non-experts) who were acquainted with my handwriting, and they all mistook that handwriting at first sight as that of mine own.

          Mr. Gribble further states that Col. Olcott, when he saw the endorsement on the back of the letter, “assumed it to have been made by the ‘Master’ and then sent the letter to Dr. Hartmann, who at once recognised the hand-writing of the endorsement to be not of the ‘Master’ but of a Mahatma, with whose writing he was acquainted.”

          This is a distinction without a difference because the Mahatma and Col. Olcott’s “Master” are one and the same person, as every Theosophist knows.

Notes:

^[1] Mr. Gribble’s Pamphlet. F. Hartmann, F. T. S. The Theosophist 6, no. 2 (November 1884), 50. {This short article is in regard to J. D. B. Gribble’s statement about the hand-writing of the forged April 28, 1884 letter was supposedly written by Franz Hartmann to Madame Coulomb.This article was reformatted from the original, but with the content unchanged other than fixing minor typos, by Robert Hutwohl, ©2025}