Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
(Parts I.-III.)
By Franz Hartmann, M.D.[1]
Translation from German by Robert Hutwohl
This document incorporates live notes. Click on a superscripted endnote number in the text to jump to its corresponding endnote; click on the superscripted endnote numeral in the endnotes to return to the original text reference.
I.
These pages have often featured the enigmatic figure known as H. P. Blavatsky, a personality whom some admirers consider the incarnation of a deity, while others, who knew her only superficially or not at all, consider her as the “greatest imposter of this century.” What is certain is that H. P. Blavatsky initiated the mystical movement now making itself felt in all parts of the world, or, more accurately, that this movement was brought into being through her mediation. A biography of H. P. Blavatsky would therefore be of great interest to cultural historians, and, apart from countless newspaper articles, several biographies of this figure already exist, all of which, however, concern themselves more with her external qualities than with her inner life; which is roughly equivalent to trying to judge the quality of a wine by the shape of the bottle in which it is kept.
For the mystic, such externals have no value, and he cares little for what is of merely historical interest and belongs to the past. The cult of personality is equally alien to him, and he cares nothing whether this or that person is praised or criticized by the crowd; since, after all, the personality of man is only a temporary phenomenon, and only the truth that animates this phenomenon is lasting.
It is quite another, however, to study the mystical development in a person who, without intending or even wishing to, has distinguished himself outstandingly in this direction, so that he has rightly been called the Sphinx of the nineteenth century. The contemplation of this development will be of more use to anyone wishing to study occultism than entire volumes of theories on secret sciences, historical events, etc., for he thereby obtains a clear picture of the processes that can take place in the mysterious realm of the spirit when the necessary conditions are present. The following highly interesting and instructive information is from Vera Petrovna Jelihovsky [Vera Zhelikhovskaya], a sister of H. P. Blavatsky. Her purpose is not to idolize H. P. Blavatsky, but to present her as she really was.
My sister, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, née von Hahn, better known by her pen name Radha-Bai, under which she published her Russian writings, was an outstanding figure even in our time, so rich in distinguished individuals. Although her works are little known to the general public, they nevertheless provided the impetus for a spiritual movement and the organization of a society founded on the teachings they proclaimed—which their students readily claim to be “revelations”—I am referring to the Theosophical Society, which has achieved such widespread acceptance and recognition in America, England, and India, and, to a lesser extent, has also gained acceptance in Europe.
It was H. P. Blavatsky who conceived and carried out the plan to found this Society in 1875. She was living in New York at the time, but she herself could hardly give a reason why she had settled there, except that, as we shall see from her letters, she felt drawn there by an indomitable force that was quite inexplicable to her at the time.
Without financial means, without any influential acquaintance or patronage, without any other support than trust in her indomitable courage and her unflagging energy, this undoubtedly extraordinary woman managed in less than four years to acquire a number of completely devoted followers for her teachings, who unhesitatingly agreed to leave their homeland and go with her to India; and in not quite fifteen years she had thousands of pupils who not only professed their faith in her teachings, but also claimed that she was “the most eminent teacher of our time, the Sphinx of the century” and the only person in Europe initiated into the occult science of the East—indeed, if it were compatible with the philosophy she herself had taught them, they would, with few exceptions, have truly been ready to canonize her.
There are probably few countries where the death of H. P. Blavatsky did not leave a deep impression. Demonstrations of various kinds poured in from all parts of the world when the news of the death of this poor Russian woman, who owed her great fame exclusively to her personal genius, became known. For a time, her name was mentioned in the press throughout the world. It cannot be denied, however, that people spoke of her more negatively than positively; But she had nevertheless become a general topic of conversation, And while some pursued her through hill and dale and could not complain loudly enough about the harm she had caused, on the other hand she was praised in about twenty theosophical journals as their “enlightened” prophetess and the redeemer of humanity — humanity which, without the revelations she proclaimed in her works, but especially in the Secret Doctrine — according to these journals, — would have been plunged into ruin by the materialistic trend of the spirit of the age.
It is not my task to decide whether her friends and enthusiastic supporters or her bitter opponents are right. My intention is only to share with the public some family recollections unrelated to this controversy and to publish some letters of undoubted interest.
From the amount of material at my disposal I could easily fill several volumes, but I will select only the most interesting and here and there interweave my personal recollections.
Our mother, Miss Helene von Hahn, née Fadéew, died at the age of twenty-seven. But despite her premature death, she had already acquired such a literary reputation that she was called “the Russian George Sand”—a name bestowed upon her by our best critic, Belinsky. At the age of seventeen, she married artillery captain Peter von Hahn, and her time was soon fully occupied with supervising the education of her three children. Helene, her eldest daughter, was an unusual child and, from her tenderest childhood, attracted the attention of everyone she came into contact with. All the skill and experience of her teachers were insufficient to conquer her unruly nature; she rebelled against all order and, apart from her goodwill and her personal interests, would not acknowledge any master over her. She was reserved, original, and sometimes violent to the point of brutality.
When we moved in with our mother’s relatives, after her death, Helene exhausted the patience of all our teachers, for she was absolutely unable to commit to a regular schedule. Nevertheless, she amazed them with her outstanding abilities, especially the ease with which she mastered foreign languages, as well as her musical talent. She possessed the character of an energetic boy, with all its good and bad qualities; she knew no greater pleasure than travel and adventure, disregarded danger, and was rarely susceptible to warnings.
When mother died, although her eldest daughter was only 11 years old, she was nevertheless filled with only too well-founded worries about her future, so that she made the statement:
“Oh! Perhaps it is best for me to die; at least then I will be spared having to see what becomes of Helene! One thing, however, seems certain to me: her life will not be like that of other women, and she will have much to suffer.”
This was truly a prophetic word!
At seventeen, H. P. Blavatsky married a man three times her age; but after only a few months, she left him in the same precipitate and stubborn manner with which she had first married him. She left him under the pretext of living with her father, but before she arrived at his place of residence, she disappeared and managed to shroud herself in such complete obscurity that for years no one knew of her whereabouts, and we already considered her dead. Her husband was the vice-governor of the province of Erivan in Transcaucasia. He was a man of honor in every respect, making only the one mistake of marrying a young girl who had not the slightest respect for him and who had already told him quite openly that the only reason she had chosen him over other suitors for her hand was that she had fewer scruples about making him unhappy than anyone else.
Even before the wedding, she said to him: “You are making a great mistake by marrying me. You are fully aware that, given your age, you could very well be my grandfather. You want to make someone unhappy, but that someone will not be me. I, for one, am not afraid of you; but I would like to point out to you that you will achieve nothing through our union!”
So he could never complain that he had been deceived.
- P. Blavatsky spent most of her youth, indeed almost her entire life, outside of Europe. Recently, she claimed to have spent many years in Tibet, the Himalayas, and northern India, where she learned Sanskrit and, along with this literature, was initiated into the occult sciences in which the adepts, sages, or mahatmas are so versed; a claim for which she later suffered numerous attacks. Such, at least, is her account of her activities, both to us, her relatives, and to Mr. Sinnett, who published her biography in English under the title “Incidents in the Life of Madame H. P. Blavatsky.” Only after the ten-year period required for her legal separation from her husband had expired did Madame Blavatsky return to Russia.
After returning to her homeland, she first settled in the Pskov Governorate, where I was staying with our father at that time. Although we didn’t expect her for several weeks, strangely enough, as soon as she rang the doorbell, I knew she had arrived and hurried to meet her. Coincidentally, a party was taking place that very evening at my father-in-law’s house, where I was living. His daughter was celebrating her wedding that evening, the guests were seated at table, and the doorbell rang continuously. Nevertheless, I was so certain she had come that, to everyone’s astonishment, I suddenly jumped up from the wedding table to open the door myself, because I didn’t want a servant to do it for me.
Overwhelmed with joy, we fell into each other’s arms, momentarily forgetting the remarkable nature of this event. I immediately led her to my room and that same evening became convinced that my sister had acquired miraculous powers. Whether awake or asleep, mysterious movements, strange noises, and soft knocking sounds continued to make themselves known, coming from all directions —from the furniture, the windowpanes, the ceiling, the floor, and the walls —. They were very clearly audible and seemed to act intelligently, knocking once or three times for “yes” and twice for “no.”
My sister asked me to ask questions in my mind. I did so, choosing a question about an incident known only to me. By spelling it out, I received such a correct and accurate answer that I was completely astonished. I had often heard of ghost knocking, but I had never had the opportunity to test their knowledge.
It wasn’t long before the whole city was talking about the “miracles” that occurred around Madame Blavatsky. The responses of these invisible forces, revealing not only intelligence but even clairvoyance, which manifested themselves day and night around my sister without any visible cooperation, amazed and astonished those present even more, like the movement of inanimate objects, which apparently either lost or regained their weight, a phenomenon they evoked simply by fixing their [her] gaze on the designated object.
All these phenomena were described in detail in the Russian newspapers at the time. For us, however, there was no peace left, not even when we retreated for a short time to a country estate belonging to myself. Even there, we were pursued by letters and visits. The situation became quite unbearable, however, after the person who had committed a murder in the neighborhood was discovered through the mediation of the “gentlemen spirits,” as our father laughingly called them, and the police officers became convinced believers and demanded miracles. Things became even worse when, one fine day, Helene began to describe “the former inhabitants of the house, visible only to her,” whom, after her description, the elderly people and local natives recognized as the former landlords and their servants, all of whom, although long dead, still lived on in the people’s memories. I must note that this estate was my property for only a few months; I had acquired it in a district completely unknown to me, and none of us had ever heard of the people she described.
My father was a very perspicacious and scientifically well-educated man, a lifelong skeptic, or, as we say in Russia, a Voltairian. However, the force of circumstances forced him to change his previous convictions, and before long, he was busy days and nights, under the dictation of the “Lord Spirits,” writing down the story of his ancestors, “the brave knights of Hahn-Hahn von Rotterhahn.”
Since her return to Russia, H. P. Blavatsky was unable to explain her mediumistic state, but at that time she did not yet show the disgust and aversion to mediumship that she would in later years. After about ten or twelve years, she spoke only with distaste of the mediumistic activities of her younger days — at that time, she was not yet aware of the forces at work in the phenomena, which unfolded their activity quite independently of her will; later, after she had succeeded in gaining complete control over them, she no longer desired to be reminded of them. But at twenty-eight, she still did not possess the strength to control them.
In relation to what has just been said, the following is of interest:
In the summer of 1860, we left the Pskov Governorate and went to the Caucasus to visit our grandparents, Fadéew, and Madame Witté, our aunt, my mother’s sister, whom Helene had not seen for over eleven years. On our way through the Voronezh Governorate, we learned in the town of Zadonsk that the Metropolitan of Kieff, the Most Reverend Isidor, whom we had met as children in Tiflis, where he was head of the Exarchate of St. George, happened to be in the city on a trip to Petersburg, but was currently holding a service at the monastery. We were very anxious to see him; he also remembered us and sent us a message saying he would be very happy to see us after Mass. We set out for the cathedral, not without some apprehension on my part. On the way, I said to my sister:
“Please make sure your little devils stay quiet while we’re with the Metropolitan.”
She burst out laughing and said that she herself longed for this, but that she could not vouch for anything.
Yes! I knew that only too well. Therefore, while I was not at all surprised, I was nevertheless extremely embarrassed when, as the venerable old gentleman began to converse with my sister about her travels, I heard knocking—one!—two!—one! two! three!—It was impossible for him to ignore these intrusive beings, who seemed determined to intrude upon the group and join in the conversation; indeed, to interrupt us, they even set the furniture, the mirrors, our teacups, even the rosary of amber beads that the saintly old man held in his hand, in swinging motion.
He immediately noticed our embarrassment, but immediately demonstrated his mastery of the situation by asking which of us was the medium. Being a true egotist, I immediately pointed to my sister. He spoke with us for over an hour, asking my sister questions in a loud voice, again only thinking about her invisible accomplices, and it seemed that he was, on the one hand, very astonished, yet, on the other, delighted to have seen the phenomena himself.
As we left, he blessed us and said we had no reason to be afraid of the phenomena.
“There is no power,” he said, “which does not emanate from the Creator, both in its essence and in its manifestation. As long as you do not misuse the gifts bestowed upon you, you have no harm to fear. We are by no means forbidden to explore the hidden forces of nature. The time will come when they will be understood and harnessed; but it is not yet here. May God’s blessing be with you, my daughter!”
He blessed Helene again and made the sign of the cross over her.
How often in recent years must H. P. Blavatsky have remembered these kind words from one of the leaders of the Orthodox Greek Church, a man to whom she was always filled with gratitude. —
(Sequel follows.)
(Continued.)
II.
[Vera Jelihovsky continues]
For the next four years, H. P. Blavatsky lived exclusively in the Caucasus. Always driven by a thirst for activity, constantly active and full of all sorts of plans, she settled first for a time in Imeretia and then in Mingrélia, on the Black Sea coast, where she engaged in trading with the fine wood species so abundant in these regions. Later, she moved further south, to Odessa, where our aunts had also settled after the death of their grandfather. There, she took over the management of an artificial flower factory, but soon turned to other ventures, only to withdraw from them again shortly afterwards, even though they were generally met with favorable results.
By her actions, she never worried about whether they were consistent with her position; she considered any honest business equally good. Nevertheless, it must seem striking that she did not consider devoting herself to an occupation more suited to her high talents instead of engaging in such commercial transactions; that she did not, for example, devote herself to literature or music, which would have been much more in keeping with her intellectual abilities, especially since she had never had anything to do with commercial transactions in her youth.
After another two years, she went abroad again, first to Greece, then to Egypt. Throughout her life, she was restless and wandering; always, so to speak, searching for an unknown goal, for some task that it was her duty to discover and fulfill. Her wandering life and inactivity only ended after she had become acquainted with the scientific, humanitarian, and spiritual problems of philosophy. Only then did she stop, like a ship that, after years of wandering, feels safe in a harbor, lowers its sails, and casts anchor for the last time.
Mr. Sinnett, her biographer, claims that Madame Blavatsky, for many years before she finally traveled to America, had been in spiritual communication with those strange beings whom she later called her Masters, the Mahatmas of Ceylon and Tibet, and that she wandered from place to place and from country to country only at their direct command. Whether this statement is correct, I cannot say. She first mentioned these mysterious beings to us, her closest relatives, in the period 1873/74, when she was in New York.
The fact is, however, that her departure from Paris to America was as sudden as it was unprovoked, and for many years she refused to explain to us what prompted her to take this step. Then she explained that these same Masters had given her the order to do so, without giving her any reason at the time. She explained that she hadn’t told us anything about it by saying that we wouldn’t have understood her and wouldn’t have believed her; and that would have been quite natural.
From then on, she had no interest in anything else, and from that time on, she never lost sight of the goal that now suddenly stood clearly before her mind, namely, to ensure that the teachings of that oldest philosophy should be spread far and wide throughout the world, which testify to the infinite importance of spiritual things in comparison with material matters, as well as to the physical forces in nature as well as in man, and to the immortality of the soul and spirit of man.
In a letter to me she writes:
“Humanity has lost faith and its highest ideals. These have been destroyed by materialism and pseudoscience. The children of our age no longer possess the power of faith; they demand proof, scientifically based proof at that—they shall have it. Theosophy, the source of all human religion, will give it to them.”
Before long, her letters were full of evidence against the abuse of spiritism, which she called spiritual materialism, and with expressions of displeasure against mediumistic séances, where even the dead are recalled—“against the materialization of the departed,” the inhabitants of the land where eternal spring reigns—and which, in her opinion, are nothing but shadowy figures, goblins, and lying elemental spirits, which are often dangerous and, moreover, exercise a bad influence on the health of the mediums, their passive victims.
A visit to the Eddy brothers, the famous Vermont mediums, was the final straw for her. From that time on, she became a sworn enemy of all spiritualistic displays.
At Eddys’ country estate, she also met Col. H. S. Olcott, who became her first pupil, her most devoted friend, and the future president of the Theosophical Society, the child of her own creation, upon which all her thoughts were henceforth focused. He had established himself there as a rigorous observer of spiritualistic phenomena, to research and report on the materializations brought about through the mediumship of the two brothers, which were then being talked about throughout America. He also wrote a book about the events there, a study entitled “People from the Other World”—but this was the last service he rendered to the spread of modern spiritualism. He converted to the views of H. P. Blavatsky, whose dissemination the American newspapers were happy to ensure. Since they were both sworn enemies of materialism, they were of the opinion that spiritualism had indeed rendered a great service to humanity in that it demonstrated the error of materialistic belief, but that, since it had proven the existence of invisible and immaterial forces in nature, its role had now been played out, and that efforts must be made to prevent humanity from falling into another error, namely superstition and black magic.
Since we could not understand this sudden change of sides in a personality whom we had known as a very powerful medium, and who had herself only recently been vice-president of the spiritualist society in Cairo, she wrote to us asking us to forget the past, the time of her unfortunate mediumship, to which, as she expressed it, she had only given herself up out of ignorance of the truth.
From New York she wrote to us:
“I have joined a certain group of Theosophists, a branch of the Indo-Aryan Society, which was founded here, solely for the reason that they fight with all their might against the excesses, superstitions, and abuses of the false prophets of the dead letter—against the countless calchase [Greek, Κάλχας, Kalkhas = seer] of all exoteric religions, as well as against spiritual nonsense. We are Spiritualists, if you will call us that, but not in the American manner, but according to the rules of the ancient Alexandrians.”
At the same time, she also sent us clippings from American newspapers in which both her articles and reviews of her writings were published, from which we could see that her views were met with great acclaim. Her excellent ability as a critic was demonstrated especially in a series of articles on Professor Huxley’s lectures in Boston and New York, which caused a general sensation. What amazed us most was the profound knowledge, the comprehensive understanding, which so suddenly emerged in all her writings. Where did she get all these diverse and mysterious insights, of which there had never been any sign in her until then? She herself did not know! Around this time, she also spoke to us for the first time about her Masters, or rather, about her Master, but still in very vague terms, referring to him sometimes as “the Voice,” then as Sahib (or Master), or as “he who inspires me,” as if she herself had not yet known the source of this spiritual influence. This was no means for us to understand her, and we were already beginning to fear for her mental health.
In a letter from 1874 she wrote to me:
“I am engaged in the composition of a major work on theology, ancient beliefs, and the mysteries of occult sciences; but fear nothing for myself; I am sure of my cause. I, for my part, would hardly be able to say anything about these abstract subjects, but all the important passages are dictated to me. Everything I shall write is not of myself; I am nothing but the pen; the head that thinks for me is that of a being who knows everything . . .”
Another time Helene wrote to our aunt N. A. Fadéew:
“Tell me, my dear friend, are you interested in the mysteries of psychic philosophy? . . . What I am about to tell you is certainly an interesting problem for researchers in psychology. Among the members of our small, recently founded society of people who wish to study oriental languages, are interested in the supersensible things in nature, as well as in the spiritual powers hidden in man, there are many very learned men; for example, Professor Wilder, archaeologist and orientalist, as well as various others, who put scientific questions to me and assure me that I am better versed in both positive and abstract sciences than they are, and that I also have a better command of ancient languages. This is an inexplicable fact, but nevertheless absolutely true! . . . Well, what do you say to that, my old study buddy? . . . Please explain to me how it is possible that I, who, as you well know, was caught in crass ignorance until I was forty, have now suddenly become a “scholar,” a model of learning even in the eyes of real “scholars”? That is an inexplicable mystery. Yes, I am truly a psychological enigma, a sphinx, and a mystery to myself as well as to future generations.
“Just imagine me, my dearest, who never had any desire to learn anything, who had no knowledge of chemistry, zoology, or physics, and who also knew very little of history and geography; imagine this same person speaking of herself before the most famous professors and doctors of science on learned subjects, and not only contradicting their views, but even convincing them! I assure you, and you can take my word for it, that I am not joking when I say I am afraid of myself. Yes, I am afraid because I don’t understand the processes! . . . Just think that everything I am reading now seems to me to have been known for a long time. I see and recognize the errors in articles by such outstanding scholars as Tyndall, Herbert Spencer, Huxley, and others. I speak with conviction against the claims made by learned theologians, and it turns out that I am right! . . . Where does Only this knowledge? . . . I don’t know, and I sometimes feel tempted to believe that my mind, my own soul, no longer belongs to me . . .”
When the book Isis Unveiled appeared in installments, it was reviewed and criticized in the newspapers. She sent us such reviews; they were extremely flattering and convinced us that she had truly acquired a literary reputation; but they nevertheless contained such striking and strange information that we could not shake off our fears for Helene. The reports of Olcott, of Judge (the president of the American section of the Theosophical Society), as well as of a number of reporters from the Herald and the Times of New York and other newspapers, all spoke of extraordinary phenomena. I will speak of these later. I will conclude this chapter by remarking that, although Madame Blavatsky herself did not have a very high opinion of her first great work, which she even described as poorly written, incomprehensible, and without great effectiveness, she nevertheless expressed her great delight at the truly unusual triumphs and honors that consequently came her way. In addition to countless articles published about this book, she was also honored to receive two diplomas and numerous letters from distinguished scholars, such as Layman, John Draper, and Alfred Russel Wallace. The latter wrote in a letter to her as follows:
“I am truly amazed, my dearest, at the depth of your knowledge. I feel indebted to you for opening my eyes to a world of things whose existence I had previously had no idea about, for I was unaware of the perspective you have presented to science, which solves problems that previously seemed insoluble . . .”
She received diplomas from English Masonic lodges and from Benares (from the Svat-Baï Society), which authorized her entry into the higher degrees of their fraternity. The former was accompanied by a rosary of rubies, the latter by an extremely valuable ancient copy of the Bhagavad Gita, the Indian Bible. But even more remarkable than these honors is the fact that the Reverend Doctor of the Episcopal Church at the University of New York used this book, Isis Unveiled, for his lectures. For several Sundays, it lay on his desk, and when Rev. Mc. Kerty took his sermon topics from the third chapter of the first volume, his listeners were edified by the powerful blows and sharp condemnation that fell upon the adherents of materialism of the school of August Comte and the like.
- P. Blavatsky remained a Russian and a staunch patriot until her death; the good opinion and recognition of her countrymen always formed her chief pride and most stimulated her ambition. Her works were forbidden in Russia by censorship (although they are inaccessible to the majority of the people, as they are written in English, a language little known in Russia) and had only a small readership there. It was therefore all the more honorable for her when those who had read them, quite freely, expressed themselves in a similarly appreciative and laudatory manner, such as the Most Reverend Archbishop Aïvasovsky (the brother of our most laudably renowned painter) and the son of our famous historian Serge Solovioff, the well-known novelist Vsévolod Solovioff.
Aïvasovsky asked me to lend him “Isis Unveiled” and Olcott’s “People from the Other World.” After reading both, he wrote to me that, in his opinion,
“There has never been or will never be a more miraculous event than the writing of a book like Isis Unveiled by a woman and in the space of a few months, for by ordinary standards, ten years would hardly be enough for a scientifically educated man to complete such a work.”
- V. Solovioff writes in a letter dated July 7, 1884, after reading the French manuscript of the same book:
“I have read the second part of Isis Unveiled and am now completely convinced that it is a true marvel.”
Thus, they completely agreed in their judgment! M. V. Solovioff and Archbishop Aïvasovsky both repeatedly expressed to me that it seemed quite unnecessary to them to speak of my sister’s other miracles after what she had accomplished by writing this book.
As for the so-called natural or psychological tricks, as Blavatsky herself called them, and of which she always spoke in a disparaging and contemptuous tone, it would have been better for both herself and her Society if they had been spoken of less, or not at all. Her friends have done her a very disservice by publishing books such as Mr. Sinnett’s The Occult World. Instead of, as they hoped, increasing her fame, the stories of the miracles of the founders of the Theosophical Society caused her a great deal of inconvenience, not only irritating skeptics but also being denounced as frauds by all sensitive people and accusing them of charlatanism.[2]
(Sequel follows.)
(Continued)
III.
[Madame Vera Jelihovsky continues:]
All the stories circulated by Olcott, Judge, Sinnett, and various other people, of drawings produced by simply placing her hand on a piece of white paper, of the appearance of both living and dead persons, or of various objects lost for years, which were then found in flowerbeds or cushions, not only contributed in no way to increasing the prestige of Madame Blavatsky and her Society, but even gave her opponents a handle as proofs of superstition and error. The whole world is full of more or less convincing phenomena, but there will always be more unbelievers than believers, and more traitors than loyal followers. The large number of ardent followers of the Theosophical Society and zealous friends of Madame Blavatsky, who later became her bitterest enemies as a result of their disappointed hopes of financial gain, provides new proof of this assertion. . . .
Although H. P. Blavatsky was always indifferent to disbelief in her astonishing phenomena—material phenomena—she was, on the other hand, extremely sensitive to lack of confidence in her psychic abilities, in her clairvoyance, and in that kind of spiritual intuition that emerged in her when she either spoke or wrote about serious matters. In 1875, she wrote to us about this possession of her inner being by a force external to her:
“I fully understand that it is difficult for you to understand this psychic process, even though history has already reported precedents. If you admit that the human soul, the animating soul, the pure spirit, consists of a substance entirely independent of the organism and is not inseparably connected with our internal organs—and that, further, this soul, which is inherent in all living beings, infusoria as well as elephants and each of us, can only be distinguished (from our shadow image, which forms the almost always invisible basis of our physical shell) insofar as it is more or less illuminated by the divine essence of our immortal spirit—then you will also have to admit that it can also act independently of our body. Try to understand this—then many hitherto incomprehensible things will become clear to you. In ancient times, this was a fully recognized fact. In the body of a lay person, the fifth principle of our being, the human soul, displays a portion of its independence during sleep; but in the initiated adept, it enjoys it continuously. Doesn’t St. Paul, the only one of the Apostles initiated into the esoteric mysteries of Greece, say in the passage where he speaks of his ascension to the third heaven: “Whether in the body or out of the body,” he could not say; “God alone knows.” And in the same sense, the maid Rhoda, upon seeing Saint Peter, says: “It is not he, but his angel,” that is, his double, his shadow. Also in the Acts of the Apostles (VIII, 39), where the spirit—the divine power—takes Saint Philip away, it says: is it truly he himself, living in his body, who is being carried away into the distance? It was his soul and his double—his true Self. Read Plutarch, Apuleius, and Iamblichus. You will find many allusions to such facts in them, even if no facts themselves are narrated, which, after all, the initiates have no right to do . . . . What the mediums accomplish unconsciously and under the influence of external forces awakening during their sleep, the adepts do with full awareness, acting according to known methods . . . . Voilà tout. [That’s all]”
In this way, my sister tried to explain to us the visits of her Master, who not only taught her and instilled in her, through her intuition, suggestions of his own extensive knowledge, but also came in his astral body to visit her—herself, Colonel Olcott, and various other people.
Thus, in 1885, Mahatma Morya appeared to Mr. Vsevolod Solovioff and engaged in conversation with him. He recounted the entire incident to many people with his renowned eloquence. I myself, however, have never seen a Mahatma, yet I have no right to doubt their existence, since it is attested to by people whose credibility cannot be questioned. Nevertheless, these apparitions seemed very problematic to me, and I never hesitated to express this view to my sister, to which she would reply:
“That’s your business, my dear . . . I just wish you a better understanding.”
During the Russo-Turkish War, Helena Petrovna did not have a moment’s peace. All her letters written during this period, 1876–77, are full of concern for her countrymen and testify to the sorrow she felt for the safety of all those family members who were actively involved in the war. She completely forgot to write anti-materialist and anti-spiritualist articles, instead of spewing fire and flames against all enemies of the Russian nation—not against our enemies themselves, for they themselves were to be pitied, but against the malicious hypocrites, against their feigned sympathy for the Turks, against their Jesuit policy, which was an insult to all Christian peoples. When she heard of the infamous address by Pope Pius IX. After hearing a speech in which he taught the faithful “that the hand of God would unsheathe the sword of the Bashi-Bozuks against the spreading schism” and in which he blessed the Muslim weapons directed against the infidel Orthodox Greek Church, she fell ill. Afterwards, however, she vented her anger in a series of articles so apt but poisonous that they attracted the attention of the entire American press, as well as all anti-Russian journals, and the Papal Nuncio in New York, the Scottish Cardinal MacKlosky, even saw fit to send a clergyman to negotiate with her. However, he could accomplish little, for Madame Blavatsky did not miss the opportunity to recount the whole incident in her next article, adding that she would ask the Cardinal to negotiate with her through the press, so that she would probably not be left without a proper answer.
We sent her a poem by Turgeneyeff entitled “Croquet at Windsor,” in which Queen Victoria and her court are depicted playing ball with the bloody heads of the Slavs. She immediately set about translating it, and if I am not mistaken, I first saw it published in The New York Herald.
In October 1876, H. P. Blavatsky gave new proof of her clairvoyant gifts. She saw in her mind what was happening in the Caucasus on the Turkish border, where her cousin Alexander Witté, a major in the Nijni Novgorod Dragoons, narrowly escaped death. She mentioned the incident in a letter to her relatives, and since she had often written before about apparitions of people who had informed her of their deaths weeks before she could receive the news through ordinary channels, we were not at all surprised.
She sent everything she earned during the war through her articles for Russian newspapers, as well as the first installment of her publisher’s fee, to Odessa and Tiflis for the benefit of wounded soldiers or their families, or to the Red Cross Society.
In the spring of 1878, Madame Blavatsky encountered something quite strange. One morning, as she sat down at her worktable after rising, she suddenly lost consciousness and did not regain consciousness for five days. She was in a state of such deep lethargy that she would have been buried had not Colonel Olcott and his sister, who were with her at the time, received a telegram from the man she called her Master. The message read: “Fear nothing, she is neither dead nor sick, but she needs rest; she has overworked herself . . . She will awaken again.” The fact is that she awoke and felt so well that she could not believe she had slept for five days. Soon after this event, she decided to go to India.
The Theosophical Society was now formally established in New York. Its three main purposes were the same as they are today: 1. The organization of a universal brotherhood without distinction of race, creed, or social position, in which the members pledged themselves to strive for their own and others’ improvement; 2. The common study of the languages, sciences, and literature of the Orient; 3. The investigation of the hidden laws of nature and the psychological forces of man, of which science has hitherto had no knowledge.[3]
Notes:
[1] Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (Part 1) Franz Hartmann, M.D. Lotusblüten 5, no. 32 (May 1895), 369-386; Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (Part 2) Franz Hartmann, M.D. Lotusblüten 5, no. 33 (June 1895), 444-460; Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (Part 3) Franz Hartmann, M.D. Lotusblüten 6, no. 34 (July 1895), 522-531 [Translation from the German by Robert Hutwohl, ©2025]
[2] The reasons, even in Germany, that led a certain class of people, after first foolishly exalting H. P. Blavatsky to the heavens, to then, just as foolishly, condemn her as a “conscienceless deceiver,” cannot, unfortunately, be discussed for personal reasons. Envy and megalomania are forces that often irresistibly move the souls of weaklings, and the number of chatterers and fools is legion. H.
[3] This “Theosophical Society” still exists in America today and is the only one of that name operating according to the principles introduced by the adepts through H. P. Blavatsky. It was founded on September 7, 1875, in New York, and Col. Olcott was elected president. In 1878, Col. Olcott and H. P. Blavatsky were sent to India to conduct theosophical studies there, and General Abner Doubleday assumed the presidency. Col. Olcott immediately began to form branch groups of this society and made membership much easier for everyone. As a result, the society quickly spread throughout the world, but in doing so, it also brought together the most heterogeneous elements. Eventually, Jesuit-Brahmin influences began to assert themselves within it, threatening to undermine the foundations of the society. Consequently, a reorganization became necessary, which recently took place in America.