[Aus meinem Leben]
Translation from the German by Robert Hutwohl[1]
[A note to the reader. The pdf form of this document accommodates “live notes capability.” If you click on the superscripted note number in the text body, it will jump to the note, whether endnote or footnote. Then, when clicking on the superscripted endnote or footnote number, you will be taken back to the original text location as before.]
[Begin: From My Life. Aus meinem Leben. Franz Hartmann. Neue Lotusblüten 1, no. 1-2 (January-February 1908), 37-62]
There are probably only a few people who believe in the possibility of an existence after the death of the body and have never been curious to find out how the process takes place. I too, have been plagued by this curiosity from time to time. Up to my thirty-fifth year I had studied and tried the most diverse religious systems, among Christians and heathens, materialists, atheists and rationalists, Jews, Catholics and Protestants, freethinkers, Shakers and Mormons, Methodists, Baptists, Perfectionists and whatever sects like that may be called, listened to their sermons and participated in their customs with emotion and without prejudice, without in any way finding the desired enlightenment. Then spiritism[2] came to my aid like a saving angel. I was fortunate not only to become acquainted with the best professional “mediums,” but also to find a very sensitive lady in my circle of friends who, although at first she herself did not believe in communication with the spirits of the deceased, nevertheless turned to developed into an excellent “medium” in a short time, and in my presence the most astonishing phenomena now took place: “levitations,” “apports,” “materializations,” “direct ghost writing,” photographs of ghosts and a hundred other things that were still little known at the time were known, but are now widely known through the research of famous scholars such as Professor Crookes, Richet, Carl du Prel, Zöllner, Aksakoff etc.
For fifteen years I have been studying these phenomena in America, and have had almost daily interaction with “embodiments of ghosts” which were visible, tangible, and audible to all. Such things are not new to those who have experienced them, nor to the readers of the literature pertaining to them; but for those who do not yet know about it, the following account of a session in my room, which I shall quote as an example, may be of interest:
A failed “debunking.”
On July 27, 1881, a séance was held in my room in Georgetown, Colorado,[3] at which, in addition to the medium Mrs. Miller of Denver, her husband, and myself, a Mr. Cree and Mrs. Smith, a very strong person, were present. A curtain in one corner of the room formed the “cabinet”; the room was darkened, only a night light burned behind a screen which spread enough light to see each other. Mrs. Miller took a seat in the cabinet and in a few minutes fell into a deathlike sleep. Breathing was weak, pulse and heartbeat were hardly noticeable. After a short time the usual phenomena, knocking, the movement of objects through the air, touching of those present by ourselves, internal time seemed to fall on visible hands, and the like, took place. Suddenly an intense odor of corpses spread through the room, and at the same time damp sea air seemed to be blowing. An object fell to the ground; we turned on the light, and found that a good deal of fresh seaweed had been brought, although we were about 2,000 miles from the sea. The room went dark again, and a voice from the cabinet informed us that the “ghost” of a fisherman who had recently drowned at sea had come. He had been caught by the storm, and his boat capsized near the shore; he tried to reach land by swimming and thought himself saved when his feet got entangled in seaweed and he found himself sinking.
Various materialized forms then appeared; they came out from behind the curtain one after the other, sometimes two at a time. It may have been twenty or thirty. They moved about the room freely; touched those present and spoke to them in whispers. They were dressed differently; there were men and women, Indians and whites among them. Both I and Mr. Cree were allowed to step behind the curtain so that we could see the sleeping medium and the materialized beings in the room at the same time.
Last came a female figure dressed in white and approached Mrs. Smith. The latter fell crying, “My mother! O, my mother!” rushed at the apparition and clasped it in her strong arms. Here it may be remarked that Mrs. Miller, in contrast to Mrs. Smith, was a very small, feeble creature, which Mrs. Smith could not possibly have resisted. At Mrs. Smith’s yelling, which was apparently a signal to people lurking in the street, the front door was opened and three men rushed in, as they had arranged with Mrs. Smith, to witness the medium’s “debunking.” But this did not succeed; for the figure had dissolved in Mrs. Smith’s embrace and vanished without a trace. On the other hand, Mrs. Miller was found in her chair in a deplorable condition. Her body was stained with blood which seemed to be oozing from the pores; it was difficult to get her breathing again and it took a few weeks for her to recover.
For the experienced, this case needs no explanation; for he knows that the elements which these phantoms need for their becoming visible and their embodiment must be taken from the medium’s body and reunited with it; otherwise the medium would die. Although there may be fraudulent media, such “debunking” as a rule proves nothing other than the ignorance of the “debunkers” in this area. Something similar must have happened with the notorious “debunking” of the medium Bastian in the Hofburg in Vienna.
The great riddle of human immortality seemed to be solved by such apparitions and reports from those who were supposed to have died; but notwithstanding all this, it seemed to me the matter was not quite satisfactory, and the evidence was not quite sufficient; for interaction with these materialized spirits left much to be desired. They did not usually appear to be particularly intelligent, could not give a satisfactory answer about their life in the “beyond” and their reports often turned out to be false. Often it even seemed as if they wanted to make fun of us and were inclined to play all sorts of practical jokes that are not at all appropriate for the dead. Just those of my deceased friends and relatives from whom I would have liked to receive news never appeared, while a multitude of unknown “spirits” who were none of my business thronged to our sessions.
On the other hand, many of the communications which I received, partly through the intermediary of mediums, partly through “direct spirit writing,” partly even through receiving what I wrote down mechanically and without thinking, were often very instructive, and some facts which were communicated to me later proved true, while others contradicted reason and experience, so that it often seemed as if the spirit realm was a madhouse populated by lunatics and fools. At that time I didn’t know that our own imaginations also produce thought images and that these not only could appear objectively for the clairvoyant, but can even embody and take shape for everyone to see.
I have already shared some of my experiences in this regard in my “Notable Recollections”[4] and would like to add a few more to supplement them, although I must apologize to the reader for repetitions.
One of my fondest memories is of my acquaintance with the “ghost” of a young girl, named Malwina Frankling,[5] who, a few years before, as a result of a love affair, poisoned herself in Chicago, and whose body was dissected and buried there. I received many communications from her in prose and verse. My inner senses were sufficiently opened to see her and hear her speak, and hundreds of times I unexpectedly felt her closeness. After about a year she informed me that she would ascend to a higher sphere, and then this communication with her ceased altogether.
In any case, she was not an image of my own making, and the truthfulness of her life story was proved by witnesses who had known her, and I did not need any medium to associate with her. On the other hand, during the sessions with others, the most diverse lying spirits often appeared, parading about under assumed names and titles of famous people, but always eventually betraying their origin. Such as, for example, the alleged ghost of Professor Justus von Liebig who was unable to answer even the simplest questions concerning chemistry, and the ghosts of Napoleon I and Josephine turned out to be products of a medium’s imagination, although they bore the closest resemblance to the portraits of these persons. Minnehaha, a richly feathered Indian princess, also appeared and greeted me, although this Minnehaha is only a poetic creation by Longfellow (“Hiawatha and Minnehaha”).
It is not at all my intention to make propaganda out of spiritism, or to convert people who are averse to it to believe in spirits and ghosts, rather, it has always been my endeavor to find a rational explanation for such things, and to warn of the dangers which the ignorant run in to when entering this field, which is full of lies and deceit. Every kingdom of nature, the super-sensuous as well as the sensuous, is worth investigating in order to learn about the laws governing it; but one must first be mature for any kind of research and have the necessary previous knowledge and means. It is only in this way can superstition be arrested; for facts are not nullified by suppressing them. However, the rational explanation is not always based on a blatantly materialistic basis, but on a deeper penetration into the laws of the spirit in nature. That a spiritistic superstition produces the most dreadful blossoms, of which we find testimony almost daily in the daily literature, and the unbelief which springs from the ignorance of occult powers often has no less regrettable consequences.
The purpose of my years of study of the phenomena of spiritism was not to convince myself of their authenticity or to amuse myself with them; neither was it my aim to encounter them with a thirst for doubt and to sniff out a fraud in every medium. I soon realized that nothing good can come from a spiritual atmosphere of mistrust, and I owe my successes to my open-mindedness. I was less interested in phenomena, be they “real” or “false,” than in knowing the hidden laws of nature, and I soon realized that simply observing phenomena whose causes are unknown, it is easy to make wrong conclusions and errors, and that anyone who wants to attain the truth must come to know it within himself, although this also requires external guidance and influence from above. This was also confirmed to me by messages from higher intelligences. One of these obtained by “direct spirit-writing,” that is, it suddenly appeared on paper for no apparent reason, read:
“Don’t look for external evidence. Within your hard skull is a place where you can speak face to face with the angels. Your mission is not to knock the table and answer foolish questions, but to penetrate the mysteries of nature yourself.”
According to my experience, the inner spiritual human being is connected to the spiritual world and has experiences there, which, however, do not always come to the outer consciousness, personal human being. In this way man can inwardly know some things which his brain-mind does not grasp, and under certain conditions this inward knowledge can reach personal consciousness, either through hunches or intuition, since the body is the mirror of the soul, or through “mediumship,” when your own thinking remains still and no fantasies interfere. The following can serve as an example:
I had gone to bed one evening and had already put out the light when I sensed there was someone in the room who wished to give me a message. So I got up, put the light back on, sat down at the table and began to write whatever came to mind without thinking about anything. It was a note from a friend who was physically several hundred miles away at the time, telling me that she had died and had asked her husband to send me a lock of her hair as a keepsake. A few days later a letter arrived from the widower with the death notice and the lock of hair.
I have read few modern books on philosophy in my life, neither studied Schopenhauer, Kant, Nietzsche, nor any other similar work, and I have not done so on purpose, because when I leafed through them I only found broad discussions of things which seemed extremely simple to me, and also because I wanted to keep myself free from other people’s ideas and judgments and not be the follower of someone else’s thoughts. Nevertheless, the conviction forced itself on me that man has a dual nature and that the inner man is a different being from the outer appearance. This didn’t remain just theory for me for long, but I soon knew it from my own experience. I had a tooth pulled out one day and had chloroform done beforehand. Complete unconsciousness soon set in; but suddenly I saw myself standing upright at the side of the chair on which my body was lying. I saw the bystanders and heard what they were saying, I saw the dentist at his work and all the objects in the room. I tried to pick up one of the instruments lying on the table, but I couldn’t. I didn’t care what was happening to my body; but I saw that the doctor had pulled the tooth, and heard him say to my friend who was there that there was still a root, and he thought I was still asleep. I answered: ‘Yes, I’m still asleep; just pull it shut!’ The dentist did not hear this; however, he completed the operation and I woke up in my physical body.
Something similar has happened to me many times since then. Many times my astral body (or “dream body” as Sankarāchārya calls it) has separated from the material body and I have then seen myself. On such occasions, when my consciousness is concentrated in the material body, I see myself standing in front of my couch, but when it has passed into the astral body, I see myself in bed. I also know enough people who have had very similar experiences, even leaving the room in their astral body and wandering into the street. A lady friend of mine writes:
“My fiancé had a strange event. One night he found himself standing in the middle of his room, his physical body lying stiff on his bed. The situation seemed a little strange to him, almost uncanny. He walked about the room, looking at the objects to make sure he was sane, went to the desk and read the open book, but was unable to turn a single page of it. Then he went to the window, saw the gas lanterns flickering outside, in short everything as it used to be in reality. Since he felt himself to be a ghost, he wondered if it wasn’t possible to walk through the wall like that. He did so and found a comrade sitting at the desk in the next room, bent over a drawing. He tried in vain to get his friend’s attention by touching him, breathing on him, calling him. Desolated at not being able to communicate with anyone, he went back to his room, where his body still lay just as immobile, and finally went out into the street. He walked to the station, saw the trains shunting, and came into a tunnel, which he had never seen or entered before, and in which workers were employed. Tired of roaming about, he returned to his room and saw his lad come in and sniff his nose, then rush towards the bed and shake the dead body while he himself (the owner) stood by. A moment later the boy rushed to the window and threw it open. — This is where the strange situation ended. My fiancé woke up in his bed with a feeling of coldness and asked the boy who was busy around him what had happened. He replied that Koblengas had been in the room and at first he thought the lieutenant was dead. My fiancé then asked him why he had come into the room again? The boy then explained that he suddenly had the feeling that he had to look at the stove again. The next day we made sure that the tunnel in question was actually built and that the friend actually made the drawing.”
I had already experienced a similar emergence of the astral body when I was young, when I fell from a glacier in the high mountains, but at the time I paid little attention to it. I can’t describe it other than watching my body fall and just eager to see what was happening to it.
Those who have had such experiences themselves need not speculate as to whether “astral bodies” exist, and need not bother with the gossip of ignorant professors, doctors, and writers who find it odd that, as they say “In our enlightened century, does anyone still believe in such nonsense.”
It is easy to understand that under such circumstances I became very interested in the “astral bodies” which appeared in our spiritistic sessions, and the conclusion was obvious that these “phantoms” could also originate from living persons whose astral bodies are condensing or had “materialized” and thereby gained enough strength to set material objects in motion, move tables, write letters and the like. This theory was confirmed to me by experience; for once embracing such a materialized form in my arms, I had the distinct feeling that this was the medium’s body, while the medium itself was physically and visibly present a few paces from me. The fact that “ghosts” often do all sorts of unreasonable things is also understandable; for the astral body is called the “dream body” according to the Indian sages. It is not always fully conscious, acting on his instincts. We often dream the most unreasonable things. An event I became acquainted with can serve as testimony to the correctness of this view:
“Two ladies I knew, English women, lived together in F . . . . The one, whom I shall call Miss X, dreamed three nights in a row that she had been in someone else’s room and had amused herself by moving the furniture there and throwing it about, and that the lady of the house finally got there and saw her and was startled by it. Not long after this the two traveled to London and Miss X was invited by her friend to accompany her on a visit to a lady she knew, but Miss X did not know. On this visit they were introduced into a reception-room, which Miss X at once recognized as the room she had dreamed of. Soon after, the lady of the house appeared. When the same saw Miss X, she was startled and withdrew again, pretending to be suddenly unwell. The other followed her and now learned that for three nights (the date of which coincided with that of the dreams) the house had been haunted, that the furniture in the reception room had been thrown into disarray, and that on the third night the lady of the house saw the haunted spirit and now recognized it as the person of Miss X.”
That this etheric or “astral” dream body, even after its complete separation from the physical body, that is, after the death of the latter, can still exist, is proved by innumerable phenomena. One of the best known of such cases is that of Field Marshal Graf Moltke, who was seen a few hours after his death by the sentries standing at the gate and by gentlemen from the court, how he walked through the street in Berlin and looked at the bridge under construction named after him. The sentinels presented the rifle, the courtiers followed him, the matter was investigated by the authorities and — hushed up because no one understood what was going on.
In such incidents and judicial investigations, the professors and doctors who are brought in as supposed “experts” usually play the most ridiculous role, because as a rule they understand nothing at all about the matter which they are judging, even if they understand other subjects no matter how well versed they are; because one can be a good anatomist and physiologist and still know nothing about psychology and the forces of the soul. The “astral” or “middle” region (as the ancients called it) does not appear to be very different from this visible world. There, too, there will be all kinds of fools who will obey their instincts until they have discarded their astral body and reached another level of existence through a “second death.” The human spirit is surrounded by different bodies like shells. As the Bhagavad-Gītā teaches, he sheds one after the other after death and thereby always enters another existence, another state.
Spiritism belongs to the field of psychology. It is a science which is very difficult to study because one is dealing with things which remain hidden to most people, namely to those whose inner senses are not yet awakened. It is like being at a masquerade ball, where it is difficult to spot those present in their disguises and most are anxious to fool us. We are dealing not only with the “dream bodies” of the living and the astral remains of the deceased, but with beings of a very different kind, which it is not advisable to talk about much because the time is not yet right. There can be nothing supernatural to us in the phenomena of nature; for what happens in nature is in nature and not above or outside of it; but an activity of the “supersensory” in the sensually perceptible is an indisputable fact, since the entire physical world of appearances is an expression of the spiritual forces on which it is based, in other words: the world soul. That there are a multitude of deceitful spirits, both among the living and among the departed, there is no doubt; but as far as the popular clamor about so-called exposures of fraudulent media is concerned, it is usually based on self-deception and ignorance of psychological causes. It is far more convenient to mistake facts that one does not understand than to investigate and explain them. Despite many years of research I have never found a deliberately deceitful medium, but certain events often reminded me of the story of the African chief who had a missionary beheaded because he had claimed that the water in Europe often got so hard in winter that one could walk on it. The chief, who did not know how water freezes, did not want to let such a liar live.
I have always concerned myself far less with the phenomena than with their causes; but I lacked the key to their knowledge. One day this came to me. For it fell into my hands, in 1882, an issue of the Madras journal The Theosophist, and in it was an article by H. P. Blavatsky, which contained a description of the “seven principles” from which both man and also the whole universe is composed as a material, psychological and spiritual relationship, and it was easy to recognize that each of these principles in man is directly related to its principle of the same name in the great universe, receives similar vibrations and influences from the same and reacts to them. Then the truth of the old occult proposition became clear to me, which says: “As it is above, so it is below, and there is nothing so small in the world that when what is below stirs, those above it do not move against it.” This turned the whole previously learned worldview upside down, and instead of a living world made of dead matter, of incomprehensible causes, I now saw a world full of living phenomena, which is a revelation of the working out of spirit in matter. With that, my world view received a spiritualistic one instead of an unreasonable materialistic one, that is, religious and yet rational foundation which nothing could shake, and this is the value of spiritistic phenomena, whether they are “real” or “false,” that they stimulate thought, and the “scholars” the possibility of error in their “rationalism” and draw their attention to the fact that there may be things which the academies don’t know anything about.
I soon became convinced that by studying the seven principles one discovers, in a short time, many more things of real worth than that which can be learned by years of attending the universities; for what could be more important than the knowledge of one’s own ego, its origin, the purpose of its existence and its destiny, and its relationships to the spiritual as well as to the material world? But I also realized that one’s own advancement is absolutely necessary for the exploration of higher states, and I therefore decided to devote myself to this task.
To this end, it seemed to me the most expedient thing to do was to travel to India in order to receive enlightenment from Blavatsky pertaining to the questions which occupied me, and I also had the secret intention of becoming a “chela” (disciple) of the masters, but kept it secret, since I did not consider myself worthy of it. I wrote to Madame Blavatsky. A few weeks later, one morning in a dream I saw a letter whose address was written in a handwriting which was unfamiliar to me. The stamp also seemed strange to me and I noticed that it was stuck on the wrong side of the letter. A few hours later, I actually received a letter which looked exactly like this. It was from Adyar, from Col. H.S. Olcott, who invited me on behalf of the Masters to come to India and be a collaborator in his work. A few lines by H. P. Blavatsky were added at the end. The prospect of being initiated into the mysteries of occult science was more tempting than I could have considered my material interests. I accepted the invitation, went to San Francisco, and left for Yokohama [Japan] and India on October 11, 1883.
(Sequel follows.)
[Begin: Aus meinem Leben. Franz Hartmann. Neue Lotusblüten 1, no. 3-4 (March-April 1908), 119-132]
Occult Phenomena.[6]
India is rightly called a “land of wonders”; for things happen there which can surprise even the most educated European, if he is not an occultist or metaphysician, because he does not know the causes of certain phenomena and processes and their natural laws, and which therefore seem supernatural to him, although they are easily explained to those in the know and in recent times also partly known to the spiritualists and have attracted attention even in the highest circles of scholars. But one would be greatly mistaken if one believed that one need only go to India to see magical wonders on the very first day. There are, of course, plenty of alleged fakirs who perform sleight of hand tricks, but who are generally far behind their European colleagues in terms of skill, but genuine “yogīs” are a rarity, and one may have lived in India for twenty years without having finding opportunity to see a real magician; for to an Indian saint such things are holy; he neither exposes them in public displays for the satisfaction of the curious or amusement of the public, nor takes any payment for them, and whether the learned European believes or not believes in such things is of the utmost indifference to him. But it may happen that it produces some magical effect to convince this or that person of the existence of occult powers, provided that this is for the good of the individual or of a larger circle.
During my two-year stay in India I only came into contact with very few Europeans, with the exception of those who were at the headquarters of the “Theosophical Society in Adyar”; on the other hand, among the natives I became acquainted with many intellectually superior persons endowed with occult powers, and soon convinced myself that there are people who arbitrarily and at will can produce certain occult phenomena, similar to those taking place in Europe and America by invisible beings through the agency of spiritistic mediums, without these mediums, who are only blind tools of these “ghosts,” knowing how this happens. Here belongs, for example, the emergence of direct “ghost writing” without a visible external cause. It is an insoluble enigma to the uninitiated, but easily explained to those who know that the invisible “astral body,” whether of the medium or of another being, can under certain circumstances condense, or “materialize,” to the point of having material objects to set things in motion, to move tables, to write and the like. But in order to understand this, it is above all necessary to get to know the inner constitution of the human being through self-observation and inner self-examination and to recognize that the inner human being is different from the outwardly visible personality and is equipped with its own developable organs and sensory tools. When the inner man has fully developed and mastered his astral body, he can finally work through it just as well as an ordinary man, so long as he is not paralyzed, can use his visible body for external actions, and just as the body of an epileptic makes movements which are not dependent on man’s will and of which he is unaware, so the astral body can also perform actions which lie outside the sphere of consciousness of the personality. This is proved by experiments, and the observation of our dream life bears witness to it.
The most interesting in this respect, was Mrs. H. P. Blavatsky, who has rightly been called “the sphinx of the nineteenth century”; for her two personalities were clearly marked, and for those who knew her and could distinguish between her true nature and her outer composite personality, the “riddle of the sphinx,” the human riddle, was solved. A great deal has been written about Blavatsky by scholars and non-scholars alike, but most of her critics have only concerned themselves with her outward personality and failed to recognize the individuality hidden behind it. But this is something like taking a virtuoso’s violin for the master himself and wanting to judge him accordingly, while a dilettante elicits discordant tones from it. The only essential difference is that the instrument on which the master played in this case was itself a living, thinking being, not constantly under his control, but also having a will of its own. Much has been written about Blavatsky, but the mystery has not been solved; for those who wanted to know would not have understood it, and for those who understood such things no enlightenment was necessary. Now that, in recent years, a better understanding of the makeup of the human personality has come about in scholarly circles, and one is beginning to see that it is made up of many personalities, that like a harp with many strings it consists of many personalities and is like a house with many inhabitants, while the master of the house is but one, it’s easier to talk about things like that.
Blavatsky, at the time I knew her, was a personality who is of interest to us only inasmuch as she was the student and instrument of a Higher Being, and through that she communicated with the Masters of Wisdom, the Adepts. The doctrines of wisdom which she proclaimed were not her invention, and just as Jesus of Nazareth said: “The word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s who sent me” (Jn. X, 9), Blavatsky could also have said: “The teachings which I impart to you are not mine, but Upāsikā’s who chose me. What I do of myself is of no importance; for in my personality I am only a frail old woman.” In fact, Blavatsky often expressed herself in this way and wrote among other things: “My knowledge is not my own, but that of my master. I am nothing more than a mirror for the light of another higher being; but I also could not prevent this light gradually filling me and illuminating me.” Thus, Blavatsky was not an ordinary, ignorant “medium,” but rather an enlightened one, an “initiated” or prophetess, who nevertheless possessed in her personality, like many hundreds of well-known geniuses, the qualities and personal weaknesses belonging to her (Russian) nationality.
But who was Upāsikā? – The name designates a female “chela” or disciple of a master, and this upāsikā was, as far as we know, H. P. Blavatsky”s inner self, i.e., the individuality which had incarnated in the personality of Blavatsky or had taken up residence in her. Upāsikā and Blavatsky were two different beings, yet in a sense connected as one as long as Blavatsky lived, and through this her Higher Self, Blavatsky communicated with the Masters, as does every sufficiently spiritually evolved human being when he explores the sanctuary within himself through his innermost being in connection with higher intelligences, yes can even reach the Deity.
Upāsikā was a disciple of the Adepts, sent into the world by them to spread a higher worldview and to bring long-forgotten teachings of wisdom back to the minds of mankind. She was clothed in the body of Blavatsky, Blavatsky was her living tool and not without faults. Upāsikā is described as a beautiful, young, black-eyed Indian woman; Blavatsky was a fat, short-tempered, and sometimes quarrelsome old woman. Blavatsky was visible, Upāsikā invisible to the external senses. Upāsikā was like the light, Blavatsky the lantern. Many of Blavatsky’s critics saw only the lantern, blind to the light within. Just as every magnet has two poles, so also two souls dwell in every human being’s breast,[7] but not in every human being is the one higher part an “initiate,” magician, or adept. With Blavatsky we are dealing with such an extremely rare incarnation, and therefore Blavatsky too, with the help of Upāsikā, or more correctly, Upāsikā, could produce occult phenomena through Blavatsky’s peculiarly designed organism, the most important of which were the so-called “occult” letters and writings, in which the adepts gave advice on special occasions. Most such letters were signed by one or the other of the two adepts often mentioned in theosophical writings. I myself received quite a number of them in India, even while Blavatsky was absent from Europe.
The above attached are two samples which may be of interest to graphologists.[Page 128] Schriftprobe von Mahātmā Morya. [Top.] Schriftprobe von Mahātmā Kut Humi. [Bottom.]
Writing sample of Mahātmā Morya. [Top.] Writing sample of Mahātmā Kut Humi. [Bottom.]
Such letters allegedly came from adepts living in Tibet and were biochemically produced by them, that is, formed by the power of thought concentration and “precipitated” by the magical power of will. I can’t prove this, of course; but on my return from India I put such a letter in the hands of a worker’s wife, who was a very sensitive person and clairvoyant, for “psychometric” examination, and received from her a detailed description of a Buddhist temple in Tibet, although she knew nothing of these things. This may serve as evidence that Upāsikā was a disciple of the adepts in Tibet, and some apparent contradictions in H. P. Blavatsky’s biographies are explained by the confusion of Blavatsky with Upāsikā. So e.g., for example, while Blavatsky’s body lay ill in the Caucasus, her other “I” (Upāsikā) may have been in Tibet. For the experienced occultist, who may have made “astral” journeys himself, this explanation offers no difficulty; but the inexperienced may think whatever he pleases.
Occult phenomena of the lower order, as they occur every day and in many places, such as, e.g., the movement of objects, knocking sounds, throwing stones, haunted appearances and the like are also well known and researched in Europe, so that the number of those who always smell fraud and sleight of hand behind it is more and more dwindling. Upāsikā could voluntarily produce such phenomena by means of the nerve currents present in H. P. Blavatsky’s physical organism, because her astral organism was capable of this as a result of the complete development of her organs.[8] Due to the fact that another being with a fully developed astral body could work in Blavatsky’s organism, which being was her inner “I” and yet different from her outer, personal I, but connected with it, many phenomena in her life are possible to be explained which, without this knowledge of man’s dual nature, are an insoluble riddle. But this theory agrees with the explanations of all the great mystics, and every reflective man can find in himself a higher “I” which is distinct from his outer personality, though not, as was the case in Blavatsky, fully formed or the physical organism is not fit to allow for its manifestation. Higher-order occult phenomena, such as, for instance, the almost instantaneous physical transference of living persons to distant places (metathesis), being buried alive and resurrection of fakirs and the like are known in the writings of Jacolliot[9] and others, are already widely known, and a recent work by Richard Schmidt[10] contains descriptions of facts whose credibility is beyond doubt, even if the theories contained within it are worthless.
All such events, however, are of no real value if they serve only for thoughtless amazement, amusement, or the gratification of curiosity. Its purpose is to encourage man to think for himself, to awaken in him a higher world view, and to convince him that there is a higher spiritual life and existence which is distinct from material life. Then he will also strive to live in such a way that the existence of his higher true self comes to his personal consciousness in him, and only then will the gate of self-conscious immortality open to him; for a man who denies the possibility of existence outside of gross matter, and is utterly incapable of inwardly feeling the omnipresence of spirit, is like a dreamer in the realm of imagination, and has as yet no real life and self-consciousness within him. This was also the purpose of the phenomena produced by Blavatsky on special occasions. They were like the candy with which one lures children to school so that they can learn something there. This is the school of self-knowledge, and I don’t know anyone who has ever regretted going to this school.
(Sequel follows.)
[Begin: Aus meinem Leben. Franz Hartmann. Neue Lotusblüten 1, nos. 5-6 (May-June 1908), 198-211]
Occultism and Theosophy.[11]
In my experience, to develop the intellect and to enlarge the field of scientific knowledge, one needs various books and external observations and experiences; but in the end nothing else is needed to satisfy intellectual growth other than a “golden heart.” — The study of the so-called “occult sciences” (metaphysics, astrology, psychology, spiritism, phrenology, chiromancy, etc.) is just as useful for the scientifically educated person who has the necessary maturity, as the study of the “non-occult” natural sciences (physics, chemistry, astronomy, etc.). The “mystery” with which the former are surrounded is not that one wants to keep them secret, but is in the nature of the matter; for just as external perceptive faculties are necessary for the study of the external natural sciences, so too is the faculty of spiritual observation and, above all, intuition necessary for the knowledge of the higher natural laws. In order to attain this, the proximity of a spiritually superior person seems to me to be much more useful than all the brooding, speculating and racking your brains, which may only produce fantasies through which the light of self-knowledge cannot break a path.
There are people who speak of these higher sciences with contempt, and relegate the study of them to the realm of superstition. This is, now, their own affair, and only proves that they are still low and within a very narrow field of vision. The mole in its self-dug hole does not have the same worldview as the eagle soaring in the air. A brain stuffed with vain knowledge is a hindrance rather than an aid to inward edification and elevation, or to attaining one’s insight and self-knowledge. Jakob Böhme says: “What use is knowledge to me which is not a religion?” and Thomas von Kempen writes: “What good does it do me if I can speak learnedly about the holy trinity and the holy trinity rejects me?” What do I get if I receive messages from supposed spirits and believe them blindly without being able to check whether they are true or false or if I know what is printed in the “Secret Doctrine” about the Lemurians and Atlanteans, but despite all my knowledge I don’t know myself? H. P. Blavatsky said repeatedly that one must first become a “Theosophist” before one can become a true Occultist. And by that she didn’t mean that one first had to become a member of a “Theosophical Society,” but one first had to recognize the Higher Self, the master within oneself, and for that a pure heart is needed much more than a brain overflowing with scholarly stuff and darkened. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God (the truth).” (Matthew V, 8.)
This does not mean, however, that man should not use his intellect and should not research, rather he should strive to bring all his abilities and powers, physical, intellectual and spiritual, to the highest perfection; intellectual growth should go hand in hand with the enrichment of knowledge, because theory and practice are mutually dependent and complementary. In spite of all the advances of civilization, we have, so to speak, only reached the beginning of the incarnation of man, and mankind as a whole has only slightly crossed the line separating it from animality. There are still many amazing powers in the human being, of which academic science knows nothing and the description of which would probably seem like a fairy tale to most people. Modern science has made great advances in controlling the forces of nature by external means; but the time will come when man, awakened to spiritual life, will have the ability to truly recognize himself as the lord of the world and to rule all of nature through his inner spiritual power, after he has above all learned to rule himself; for since, as philosophy teaches, the whole world is a product of will and imagination, and everything consists of “thought-forms,” likewise, one whose will is permeated with mental power and self-awareness and who can completely control his feelings and thoughts, in this state (samādhi) has complete control over the vibrations of which all material things, including his own body, are formed. These powers (Siddhis) are rightly called “supernatural” because they belong to the spirit man, who by means of them controls what nature has produced. But if these powers came to those who have not yet outgrown the region of their animal desires and passions, the world would perish; for, driven by their selfishness, they would abuse them to their own advantage and to the detriment of all.
The perfect human being, made godlike through union with the deity, has divine powers. Such Siddhis are described in Patanjali’s Yoga Philosophy [Patañjali’s Yoga-sūtras]. “The perfect yogi can leave his body, re-enter it, assume any form, enter the organism of another human being and dominate it; he can move wherever he wants; the elements cannot harm him; he can master them; the highest knowledge is at his disposal; his body is transfigured, luminous and indestructible, and nothing can harm it; for him there is no death, but only a change of appearances dependent on his will; he is omniscient and omnipresent and transcends space, time and form; one with God’s omnipresence and omniscience; exalted above heaven and hell.”
To be sure, this sounds like a fairy tale, and it would be difficult to find a Yogī who, in the indescribable state of samādhi, would be willing to display his occult powers to satisfy scientific curiosity. Nevertheless, there are various reports from credible eyewitnesses to such magical effects, and I myself had the opportunity to learn of the occurrence of such rare phenomena, such as, e.g., that of “magic metathesis,” that is, the almost instantaneous transfer of living people over great distances, not only in their “astral body,” but in the physical body, being transported from one place to another through walls, closed doors, and windows.[12] But if normal people can be moved in such a way by invisible beings or “spirits,” then it seems reasonable to conclude that man has the hidden power to physically move himself to where he thinks he is, through his own spirit or magical willpower.
Compared to these rare magical phenomena, the already well-known and everyday phenomena of spiritism are child’s play. Also, like all scientific experiments, such things have no real value if they are used only for amusement or to satisfy curiosity. The purpose of all experiments and also of all observations of natural phenomena is to get to know the causes and the laws on which they are based, and thus to get from the outer to the inner, from appearances to reality. The purpose of the appearance of Spiritism was to supplant blind rationalism and to make a certain class of people aware that their knowledge has not yet reached the pinnacle of perfection and that, as Shakespeare says, there are things between heaven and Earth “of which our school wisdom cannot dream.” Nowadays only ignorance denies such things, but it is still a long step towards a knowledge of the laws which govern them.
There is no shortage of reports of interesting phenomena in the field of spiritism today; they appear in all places and ends, and eminent scholars deal with them. I have written about my experiences in this regard in my “Memorable Memoirs”[13] and could add a number of things; tales of unexplained phenomena alone do not yet prove anything, and I also believe that most of my readers have already encountered things in their immediate family circles which belong to the so-called “nocturnal region of nature” and gave food for thought.
Natural science has to do with the world of phenomena, be they “occult” or everyday events; Theosophy in the true sense of the word raises the human spirit above the realm of appearances to knowledge of the essence of things, above the realm of probabilities to the light of truth. Man can only attain this light by revealing it within himself. Light can only unite with light. Just as the Apostle Paul teaches, theosophy is not intellectual knowledge (worldly wisdom), but the “hidden wisdom of God.” Theosophy is the self-knowledge of God in man. No one can truly know himself as something which he is not, and in order to know himself as God in the inmost sanctuary of his heart, man must come to the consciousness of what is divine in him, i.e., be united with the true, divine self, the Spirit of God.
Just as the great sage Sankarācārya taught, the first condition for attaining true self-knowledge is the ability to separate within oneself the enduring ego from the impermanent assumed selfhood, the immortal from the mortal, the essence from the personality differentiate. Every normal person has the feeling that there is something higher, something higher than his animal nature; but this higher nature of his can only then be revealed in him when his personal desires and passions stand still and his mind is turned away from the transitory and fixed on the eternal. This does not mean the raving and dreaming of the idealist; man does not enter the kingdom of God, the kingdom of divine self-knowledge, while he is asleep, but only with full consciousness; but stillness is needed so that this kingdom can move into him. Just as the growth of plants takes place in silence, spiritual rebirth also takes place without noise and shouting. A spiritual nourishment takes place, through which the spiritual body is formed in the human being. Food draws the soul out of the macrocosm (Buddhi attracts Buddhi), and every uplifting, sacred thought pervading man’s ego brings him nearer to the divine state and increases his spiritual power. This is the power of “prayer” when it comes not from the imagination but from the heart.
There are a number of so-called “occult schools” nowadays, in which one is supposedly taught, for a fee, how to become an adept and attain occult powers by hocus-pocus; but without the help of the Holy Spirit all holding of the breath and similar “yoga exercises” are useless and at most lead to “black magic”; for where the spirit of selfishness and vanity reigns, there the holy spirit of truth is wanting, and the thought-forms which are born through the lusts of the earth-spirit attract corresponding beings from the underworld. Then, instead of an angel, a devil is produced in man, and this is the reason why there are so many “fallen angels,” that is, morally and spiritually degenerate “occultists” and pseudo-magicians who end up committing suicide or in a madhouse.
The “Practice of yoga” is basically nothing other than the exercise of self-control; it consists in mans’ domination of his lower nature by the indwelling power of his keen knowledge. All external means, such as “yoga postures,” regulating the breath, etc. are only an auxiliary means and are useless without the spirit. Whoever denies himself any pleasure, neither out of ordinary “sense of duty,” nor for some personal benefit, but out of that knowledge which springs from the consciousness of his higher nature, has already advanced, and has taken a stage higher in his occult development and has achieved a step further on the path to inner enlightenment. Whoever has learned to distinguish between his immortal self and his ephemeral personality has found his master. He is then his own master and his person is his pupil entrusted to him for education. Both are combined into one during temporal life, whereby guidance becomes internal and much more powerful than if it were external; but still the two are different from each other. Personalities are basically thought-forms which come and go; they disappear with all their selfish attainments, be it for a shorter or longer period, after the death of the material body, and are reborn; they are the garments which the true Self (which most people do not know) puts on when it enters the phenomenal world and leaves it “in the wardrobe” when it departs; but the real Self, the Master, exists. He is the big I and the personality is the small one. If the small finds itself in the great, then it is immortal in Him.
[Begin: Aus meinem Leben. Franz Hartmann. Neue Lotusblüten 2, nos. 11-12 (November-December 1909), 349-362]
From My Life[14]
A contribution to A. Besant: “H. P. Blavatsky and the Masters of Wisdom.”[15] (Continued from Vol. I, p. 211.)
In my “Memorable Recollections” I have already described the headquarters of the Theosophical Society at Adyar and the main events which took place there during my two-year stay from 1883 to 1885, and I feel compelled to add something, the more so as I am, with one exception, the last living European who was an eyewitness to these events.
The Headquarters, as then formed,[16] was then more modest in appearance than now, having been greatly enlarged with grand parks added. It consisted of a bungalow or country house with pillars at the entrance. On the ground floor were the workrooms and other rooms; Blavatsky had her sanctuary on the upper floor, which she seldom left. There, she wrote from early morning till late evening, and there she received her visits and had long conversations with Subba Row and other Brahmins. Sometimes she was not to be seen for days; but when she descended from her Olympus in the morning, one could hear her scolding from afar. Then terror seized the limbs of the chelas, and it seemed as if they would have preferred to crawl into a mouse-hole to escape her displeasure. Her usual expression to describe anything she didn’t like was “flap doodle,” a word she invented that might translate to “rubbish,” “bunk,” “nonsense,” and the like.
But her anger was usually insignificant and quickly subsided, and after the floodgates opened and the flood poured over the bowed heads of the disciples, all was right again and the clouds dispersed. The upper floor also housed the now famous “shrine” or so-called “miracle cabinet”; a box which was used to send letters to the adepts living in Tibet and to receive their replies. So much has already been written about this cabinet that it seems superfluous to add anything else. This much is certain, that “occult letters” were often received without using it; but that through its mediation, whether as a result of the darkness prevailing in it or the magnetic fluid accumulated in it, the coming about of the “astral mail” seemed to be facilitated. This is also evidenced by the fact that Blavatsky, when she was traveling from Madras to Naples with me, made a similar box on the ship out of a cigar box, which she hung in her cabin and through whom she received occult letters and notes related to her “Secret Doctrine” during the journey.
What most interested anyone who came to Adyar was H. P. Blavatsky and her communication with the Masters. Mrs. Annie Besant recently wrote a very interesting work on this subject, which contains everything you need to know. It speaks of the alleged “debunking” by Mr. Hodgson, a member of the Society for Psychical Research, and it only remains for me to say a few things about the origins of the “great scandal.” These causes were, first of all, the excessive talking of certain enthusiasts, who could not refrain from boasting about things which were a purely private matter of the members of the Theosophical Society, and secondly, the lack of understanding of occult laws on the part of the young and inexperienced man, who had been sent from London to Adyar as an alleged “expert” in investigating occult phenomena.
If the “Theosophical Society” had been a miracle club, or if it were its task to convince the world of the truthfulness of occult phenomena, a scientific study of these phenomena would have been in order. An examining commission would then have been appointed, as is the case with spiritualist investigations, and Madame Blavatsky would have had to submit to the conditions imposed on her as a “medium.” But in Adyar things were different. Here the occult phenomena were just a side issue, and it wasn’t a matter of convincing anyone of their authenticity; but the main thing was the interaction with the masters, and phenomena were the natural consequence of this communication. When I am in Europe and correspond with a friend in America, it is not to prove to the world that my friend can write and that letters can be sent from America to Europe; but the purpose of the correspondence is an end. exchange of thoughts; the type of transport is irrelevant.
Die echte Geisterschrift.[17]
So it often happened that when we wanted to ask the adepts for some advice or instruction, one wrote the question on a piece of paper and put it in the box, from which you could then get the answer, provided you found one; or you put the paper on your desk or some other place without using the box, and it often happened that the answer appeared before our eyes on the part of the letter which was left blank.[18] Such phenomena took place in Adyar even without Blavatsky present, even while she and Olcott were in Europe. Such communications were often written by the hands of invisible chelas, and confirmed by the adepts.
If we take up the journal The Theosophist of 1883 and 1884, we find in it a multitude of reports by enthusiastic admirers of these phenomena, through whom they trumpeted their wondrous experiences to the world, and it is not surprising, therefore, that these stories caused a sensation, but also aroused mistrust and envy in certain circles. The Protestant clergy, in particular, seemed to think that a competitive society had grown up in the Theosophical Society with the intention of luring people by supposed miracles and reducing the benefits of the Church, and when good Olcott banged the big drum before the Society for Psychical Research, the natural consequence was that the world was made aware of these phenomena, and “religion” and “science” felt their interests threatened.
What is written in the Bible, Matthew VII, 6? — As a result of non-observance of this rule, spirits of envy, hatred and ridicule were awakened. Communication with the saints of the Himalayas, which should have remained a secret of the initiates, became the subject of tavern talk, their names dragged into the filth of blind and sensationalist journalism, and the pearls of oriental wisdom were trampled upon by a foolish literary rabble. At that time people knew just as little about the possibility of astral communication and the long-distance effect of thought as about wireless telegraphy and the airships of the Zeppelins. The unbelievers considered all that was said about the Adepts to be lies and frauds, and the believers considered them to be supernatural beings who must be worshiped in order to gain their favor, while yet these Masters of Wisdom, as they themselves declared, and as Blavatsky too repeatedly declared, were nothing more than human beings living in flesh and blood, who through inner spiritualization had attained a degree of perfection, enlightenment and wisdom which was incomprehensible to the majority of the uninitiated, and thus also acquired certain occult abilities of which our academic science knows nothing. Today the matter sounds less astonishing, as some unknown areas have opened up in psychology and there are already numerous persons who have attained the ability to work consciously on the astral plane and to send their thought-images at great distances. Nor do such experiments require a special degree of holiness, and precisely in this lies the danger of misusing these powers and black magic.
An old proverb says: “A half knowledge is a dangerous thing,” and in the Bhagavad Gita it is written: “This teaching is not for those who do not exercise self-control, do not worship Me and do not want to hear My voice. Nor is it for the obstinate and blasphemers.”[19] Perfection is not attained through greedy pursuit of astral powers, but through spiritual development and the growth of the soul in the light of that true knowledge which belongs to the inner, spiritual man, and of which man, limited and imprisoned by material things, can know nothing, indeed which is even folly for him, because it thrives only on the soil of self-renunciation.[20]
Thinking one’s own way hasn’t become the general fashion these days. Everyone would like to be guided and led on a leash. The belief in the existence of Adepts as supernatural beings opened the door to a new superstition. Crowds of people thronged with petitions, expecting their most foolish and selfish desires to be granted by the Adepts, just as the illiterate Catholic expects from his saints all sorts of favors and material benefits. One wanted the saints of the Himalayas to see to it that his wife had a son, to get another job, to give advice to a third about selling a house, etc., and if these people didn’t get an answer, then they became angry and switched to Blavatsky and the Masters, just as the pious Neapolitans heaped abuse on his Saint Januarius if he did not perform the requested miracle.
Many wanted to become “chelas”; but none had the maturity to do so. Everyone cried out for “orders” and instructions; but the Adepts gave only advice and no orders and their instructions were seldom followed. On the other hand, a great deal of mischief was now being carried out in various countries with alleged Mahatma letters; for there are still enough people, just as there were in the days of Weishaupt’s “Illuminati,” who are ready to obey any order contained in an anonymous letter, if they are led to believe that the letter came from some “unknown superior.” Also, spiritistic mediums appeared everywhere, allegedly possessed by Adepts and making communications on their behalf which they themselves believed to be true and which were also believed to be true by the believers and then passed off as “direct communications” from the Mahatmas.[21] Many a man now imagined himself to be under the influence of the Adepts, and took the ideas of his imagination for inspiration from a higher world.
The consequence of such conditions was a quarrel arising between H. S. Olcott and W. Q. Judge, which led to a fragmentation of the Theosophical Society into various factions, which is continuing even now, although there is hope that a reunion will take place. Mr. Hodgson, too, was later converted, and has become a formidable advocate of “occult phenomena,” the possibility of which he had previously denied. Perhaps he has unknowingly done a godly work with his “unmasking,” because he has put a limit to gullibility through his thirst for doubt and only by overcoming doubt does one reach self-knowledge. Requiescat in Pace [Rest in Peace].
Finally, it is repeatedly to be noted that true “theosophy,” that is, Self-knowledge of the truth, is not based on blind faith in alleged authorities, nor is it based on the belief in the authenticity of occult phenomena, but everyone has to strive for himself to find the true in the confusion of the phenomena of this world, they are “jokcult” or not occult, to find what is true, and this happens by growing spiritually, in his consciousness, to that height which is above the material kingdom, and from which he descends to this physical world with its phenomena of good and evil, including his own person, just as an uninvolved spectator may look down.[22]
This does not mean that intellectual science is to be despised. The external in nature is not the essence of things, but appearances are there to give us opportunity to penetrate through the outer to the essence, through the shell to the core, through the gleam of light to the sun of truth. For the study of external natural sciences, the whole visible realm of the material, is open to us; for the metaphysician the realm of processes originating from the so-called “supernatural world” is present; but what has the exploration of the kingdom of God within us to do with phenomena and externals? Knowing a lot doesn’t make you happy, and the temple of immortality is not to be found in the fool’s paradise of fantastic ideas and pipe dreams. Spiritism has dealt the deathblow to gross materialism, but it has also opened the gates to obsession. Above all, the lowest forces of the astral plane closest to us streamed in through the opened gate and found willing reception in the organisms of our modern generation, weakened and unnerved as a result of the wrong way of life prescribed by our culture. They are the causes of hysteria and suicide, of drunkenness and the ever-spreading sexual perversity. Mindless mediums became more and more prevalent, people were led by the nose by mindless larvae, and even the most ingratiating messages from alleged spirits of the dead usually contained only idle chatter.
It was then that the Theosophical movement, launched by H. P. Blavatsky, arose. Through it the ancient teachings of the Sages of all peoples were presented anew to the memory of mankind; the Theosophical teachings acquainted the world with the composition of the macrocosm and microcosm and the relationships existing between the two, and pointed out to the seekers of truth that salvation from error and death is to be found only in the spiritual life of the soul, within man. She was only able to accomplish this greatest of all works of redemption by being a suitable tool for the Adepts in her human organization and, according to her statement, having received her light from these Masters of Wisdom and being instructed and guided by them. If these Adepts were only the product of her imagination, she herself would have been the greatest of all Adepts.
But whether the adepts, of whom H. P. Blavatsky was a pupil, exist in Tibet or elsewhere is an idle question, the answer to which can only serve to satisfy curiosity; and whether Blavatsky produced this or that phenomenon with her physical hands or with the organs of her astral body, we can be extremely indifferent. The credibility of theosophical teachings does not depend on external forms but on knowledge of the truth contained in these teachings. Every human being has within himself a spark of the divine power of self-knowledge of truth, everyone has within himself the light of reason, which shines all the more brightly the more he develops spiritually. Divine powers are hidden in every human being, waiting to be awakened, but these powers belong to the inner, immortal human being. The proper “study of theosophy” consists not in inquiring into external things or philosophical conclusions, but in inward refinement and spiritualization and in the unselfish exercise of human virtues, which leads to the knowledge of God within oneself. Whoever finds himself in truth has found his lord and master and can be his pupil. Whoever has found this Master within himself will also understand the existence of the Adepts.
Notes:
[1] Aus meinem Leben. Franz Hartmann, M.D. Neue Lotusblüten 1, no. 1-2 (January-February 1908), 37-62; Aus meinem Leben. Franz Hartmann, M.D. Neue Lotusblüten 1, no. 3-4 (March-April 1908), 119-132; Aus meinem Leben. Franz Hartmann, M.D. Neue Lotusblüten 1, no. 5-6 (May-June 1908), 198-211; Aus meinem Leben. Franz Hartmann, M.D. Neue Lotusblüten 2, no. 11-12 (November-December 1909), 349-362. Translation from German into English by Robert Hutwohl, ©2025
[2] {R.H.—Spiritism is a branch of Spiritualism. The movement was founded during the 1850s in France, by Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail, who, wrote using the pen name, Allan Kardec.}
[3] {See: Report of Observations Made During a Nine Months’ Stay at the Head-Quarters of the Theosophical Society at Adyar (Madras), India, by F. Hartmann, M. D., F. T. S. (An American Buddhist) Madras, Printed at the Scottish Press, 1884.}
[4] {Memorable Recollections from the Life of the Author of the “Lotusblüten 10-12, 15-16”}
[5] {This name appears as, Jennie Melvina F. . . . . in Denkwürdige Erinnerungen aus dem Leben des Verfassers der “Lotusblüten.” Franz Hartmann, M.D. Lotusblüten, vol. 10, no. 60 (Sep. 1897), 629.}
[6] Aus meinem Leben. Franz Hartmann. Neue Lotusblüten 1, no. 3-4 (March-April 1908), 119-132.
[7] “Faust.”
[8] During a sea voyage, Blavatsky spoke to the ship’s captain about occult phenomena. The captain would not believe in such things and declared all this to be fraud. Even the knocking sounds that Blavatsky made on the table, on the walls and on other objects did not convince him. But when she made the same tapping noises in the captain’s mouth on a gold-filled tooth, he could find no other theory for it than that it was all “the devil’s work.”
[9] “Dans le pays des fakirs.” {“In the land of the fakirs.”}
[10] “Yoga-Teaching and Yoga-Practice.” (Berlin, published by Hermann Barsdorf.)
[11] Aus meinem Leben. Franz Hartmann. Neue Lotusblüten 1, nos. 5-6 (May-June 1908), 198-211.
[12] Compare “New Metaphysical Review,” Vol. XIV, Issue 1, p. 25 and following.
[13] {Denkwürdige Erinnerungen aus dem Leben des Verfassers der “Lotusblüten.” [Memorable Recollections from the life of the author of the “Lotusblüten.”] }
[14] Aus meinem Leben. Franz Hartmann. Neue Lotusblüten 2, nos. 11-12 (November-December 1909), 349-362.
[15] Translated into German by A. Dunkhase.
[16] See illustration. {Hartmann is probably referring to the photo, “Adyar im Jahre 1884.” on the page prior to the article, “Erlernen und Erleben,” page 321, Neue Lotusblüten 2, no. 11-12 (November-December 1909)}
[17] {R.H.: Inserted between pages 352-3. It is a letter by Damodar K. Mavalankar to a Master, posing the question what should be done about The Theosophist journal during his absence. The answer in handwriting (not by K.H. or M.) appears below it.
“As I am going away to Ootacamund tomorrow, are there any orders to be given for the management of affairs at Hdqs during my absence? Damodar K. Mavalankar
Dr. F Hartmann, assisted by Dharbagiri Nath will [s] have to look to the Theosophist work done by Damodar. The proofs may first be compared with the Mss. and examined by Mr. Brown [William Tournay Brown?] and T. Vijaraghavacharloo [Vijayarāghava Charlu {Thanks to Dr. James Santucci for the correct spelling of his name.}]. They should then be carefully gone over by Dr. H. and D. N. [Dharbagiri Nāth] and then submitted to Subba Row. The Theosophist is an for rather the) important factor in the spread of theosophical knowledge and that should be very carefully attended to. Every thing will have to be carefully watched to see that nothing goes wrong. Dharbagiri Nath will have to take charge of all the accounts and the secretary’s work. T.V. had, in addition to his work in the office, better supervise the work of the servants and see that their services are imployed for a useful}
Below is another sample of Damodar’s signature from Mahatma Letter No. 142b (Barker no. 14b) to compare.
[18] See Figure II. {R.H.—Possibly Dr. Hartmann meant the photo, with the caption: “Die echte Geisterschrift. [The genuine spirit-letter.]”}
[19] Chapter XVIII. Verse 67.
[20] I. Corinthians II. 14.
[21] Nomina sunt odiosa [Names are odious.]. So, I don’t want to say anything more about it other than that this nonsense has also made itself felt in Germany.
[22] Compare Bhagavad Gita. Chapter XIV. Verse 23.