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5. DETAILS OF THE EVIDENCE REFERRED TO ON PAGE 207.
In July, 1879, shortly after he had urgently represented to Madame
Blavatsky the desire of himself and other members of the Theosophical
Society, in London, for independent proof of the existence of
" Adepts," Mr. C. C. Massey found in the minute book of the Society
a letter addressed to him, and purporting to come from one of the
Adept " Brothers " ; Madame Blavatsky being then in India. This
discovery was made at the lodgings of a member of the Society (who was
at that time a non-professional medium), and in whose custody the
minute book then was. The book was brought to Mr. Massey by this
medium in connection with the business of the Society. The medium
will be here described as X., and the medium's " control " as Z. [59]
In May, 1882, Mr. Massey was shown a letter addressed to X. (who
had then ceased to reside in this country), apparently in Madame
Blavatsky 's handwriting, dated 28th June, 1879, and contained in
an envelope bearing the registered London post-mark, 21st July, 1879.
He took a copy of the first part of the letter, which was as follows : —
My Dear Good Friend, — Do you remember what Z. told or rather
pix>miBed to me ? That whenever there is need for it, he will always be
ready to cany any message, leave it either on Massey's table, his
pocket, or
some other mysterious place ? Well now there is the mod important need
fur such a show of his powers. Please ask him to take the enclosed
letter
and put it into M.'s pocket or in some other still more mysterious
place.
But he miuft iwt know it*s Z. Let him think what he likes, but he must
not
suspect you had been near him with Z. at your orders. He does not
distrust
you, but he does Z.
Also if he could treat L. L. with some Oriental token of love it would
be
right, but none of them must suspect Z. of it, therefore it is more
difficult
to make it to do it (sic) than it would otherwise be were it to be
produced at
one of your stances . . . &c.
Mr. Massey was not at that time at liberty to take, the otherwise
obvious course of communicating on the subject with Madame Blavatsky
or X. (with neither of whom, moreover, was he then in correspondence),
and it was not till some months later — autumn of 1882 — that, the
circumstances of tlie Society seeming to him to require the disclosure,
he communicated the facts privately to friends in it.
It is noteworthy that a. letter written by Madame Blavatsky to Mr.
Massey on July 2nd, 1879, four days after the date of the letter to X.,
seems mainly written in order to say that the London Fellows of the
Theosophical Society are not to have phenomena, and to explain why.
She says in it : " I tell you as a fact that the desires of the London
Fellows have been the subject of earnest consultation among our
Brothers. Some have been half inclined to gratify the wish for
phenomena But it has always ended in the unanimous
conviction that to do tliis, would only degrade adeptship, and help the
false theories of Spiritualism/' Knowledge of the letter found in the
minute book seems therefore to be implicitly denied. Mr. Massey
endeavoured to obtain some explanation of it from Madame Blavatsky,
but without success.
It was not until May, 1884, that on receiving a letter from Madame
Blavatsky — the first for several years — on another matter, he sent her
a copy of so much of the letter to X. as he had transcribed, and
obtained in reply an acknowledgment that she was the author of all
that part of it which concerned him. The following are extracts from
her letter: —
Enghien, Friday.
All I have the honour now of telling you is^^wi my theoaophkal word of
Hoitmir^ — 1 That I am the author of but the first part of the letter
you quote^
i.e. a few hurried lines to X. after receiving the letter addressed to
you and
received by me at Girgaum, Bombay — asking X. to remind Z. of his
promise
tmd convey the letter to you by any means provided they were occult,
[60] My
authorship begins with ** My dear good friend" — and ends with — **he
does
not distrust you but he does Z." \Vhat follows after has never been
written by
me, nor have I any knowledge of it, all you may say to the contraiy.
Whether the remainder of it is harmless or not ; and whether you are at
a
loss to conceive why it should be forged — all this is flapdoodle for
me. I
have not ioritteih it and that's all sufficient for me ; whatever it is
for you.
Who the devil may be '*L. L." is immaterial ; since the Masters do not
evidently want me to see at the bottom of the trick. It is forged —
^that's
all I know ; as many other things were, and may be yet — for your
special
benefit, as I think. I had for years and entirely lost every remembrance
of this letter and now it comes to me as a flash back with all its
details.
When Olcott spoke to me of it I had no clear remembrance of it and
now I have And now to the point.
What do you find of so deceitfid and unpardoiuible in this first part of
my
letter, which, as you think, is really the only one that incriminates me
? I
may be also lacking — ^in your code of notions of honour — ''a sense of
the
commonest morality " — and if so, then all I can say, it must be so in
yofir
»ighl, surely not in mine. I have not, nor have I had, in writing it the
smallest or faintest notion I was tliercby deceiring yon, trying to
impose vpan
yo^iy &c., &c. Do you call ivithholdhtg facts one has no right to enter
upon
— deceiving ? The letter forwarded to you was genuine, from as genuine a
"Brother" as ever lived; it was received |9/i^iomcna% by me in the
presence
of two theosophists who asked me what it was and whom I told it was none
of their business. Was I deceiving them also ? I was ordered to have it
delivered into your hands, but was not told how and left to do the best
I
knew how. I asked Olcott, how I was io send it over to you and he said
he
did not know ; and it was he who suggested Z. saying '^ Cant you send it
over to hini as it came to you and then have him deliver it to Massey if
it ia
so difficult for you to send it direct ? — I remember saying to him that
it
was difficult and tliat I would anyhow ask Z. to drop it somewhere. I do
not know whether he understood what I really meant ; and if he did, he
has
long ago forgotten all about it. But I remember it was through him that
the
idea about Z. came into my head And would I have tried to
deceive i/mt, at that time, above all ? You who had entire confidence
[61]
in me,
who had declared as much in the Theosophist, you whom I was so proud to
have in the Society, I could have cheated you like a paid medium ! . • *
to say tliat in the case of that letter I had plotted canscimidy to
deceive you, —
I say it is this which is an infenud lie — ^whoever says so ! . , . .In
your
case, Masters had forbidden me to help you in your dealings with mediums
—
to encourage them even with X., for fear you should never learn to
discern
occult from Spiritual phenomena; and this is why instead of writing to
you —
'* Go to X. and you will get a letter from a Brother in Scotland through
Z." —
I acted as I have. That I saw nothing in it then, as I do not see now,
of so
dreadful, is only a proof that I have not received my education in
London
and that our notions of the honourable and tlie dishonourable differ. .
. «
There are tliree points which may be specially noted in this letter.
First, the part of the letter to X. acknowledged by Madame Blavatsky
clearly indicates a plan of imposing on Mr. Massey as a manifesta*
tion of the power of the Mahatmas a phenomenon which she knew not
to be due to any such agency. Secondly, the whole letter to X. as
above quoted suggests a strong suspicion that she intended the
phenomenon to be produced by perfectly natural and normal agency.
TJiis suspicion, however, would be most strongly suggested by the part
of the letter which does not relate to Mr. Massey. Accordingly,
Madame Blavatsky's method of dealing with the situation in which she
finds herself placed is to acknowledge the authorship of the part of the
letter which she had, apparently, some hope of explaining to Mr.
Massey's satisfaction, while denying the authorship of the latter part.
Her method of dealing with the Blavatsky-Coulomb correspondence is
precisely similar. Tliirdly, her explanation, however ingenious, is not
perfectly consistent^ for it is impossible to explain (1) Why she did
not send the " Brother's " letter direct to Mr. Massey by post, unless
she wished to make him believe it had reached liim by occult means ;
(2) Why she made no allusion to it when she wrote to him about
letters and phenomena on July 2nd, 1879, and stated so positively
that there were to be no phenomena, unless she wished him to believe
that she had nothing to do with it — that it had not passed through her
hands ; and (3) how a *' Brother " in Scotland could be so ignorant of
geogi*aph7, or about Madame Blavatsky's occult acquirements, as to
think it desirable to send a letter for Mr. Massey in London round by
Bombay, instead of posting it himself at the nearest post-office.
The following further facts may be noted :— (1) That " K. H.," in
letters which have been seen by Mr. Massey, avowed and defended
Madame Blavatsky's authorship of so much of the letter as she herself
afterwards admitted, and similarly denied the parts denied by her.
(2) That X. absolutely denied to Mr. Massey all knowledge whatever
of Madame Blavatsky's letter, or of having seen the letter enclosed
in it before it was discovered by Mr. Massey in the minute book. (3)
That " K. H.," in a letter which Mr. Massey has seen, attempts to
reconcile this contradiction by suggesting that X. received the letter
in
a mediumistic state of trance or quasi-trance!
----------
CONTENTS OF THE FOREGOING REPORT.
Statement and Conclusions of the Committee 201-207
Outline of Mr. Hodgson's Investigation and Conclusions 207-210
Extracts from and Comments upon Blavatsky-Coulomb Letters 211-219
The Shrine a " Conjurer's Box " 219-236
Untrustworthiness of Mr. Damodar's Evidence 226-231
Collapse of Evidence for Mr. Damodar's *' Astral" Journeys ..' ...
231-2S7
Worthlessness of Colonel Oloott's Evidence 237-239
Worthlessness of Mr. Mohini M. Chatter jee's Evidence 239-245
And of the remaining Evidence for Appearances of Mahatmas 245-248
Reasons for Distrusting Mr. Babajee D. Nath 246-247
Appearance and Disappearance of Letters accounted for 24S-2S6
The "Occult World" Phenomena and Weakness of Mr. Sinnett's Evidence
256-273
Mr. A. O. Hume's Evidence 273-275
Handwriting of Blavatsky-Coulomb Letters 276-277
Circumstances under which certain Documents were received 278-281
Mr. F. G. Netherclift's Opinion on the K. H. Writing 282-283
Reasons for attributing K.H. Letters to Madame Blavatsky 283-293
Changes in the use of the English dhy Madame Blavatsky 290-291
Two K. H. Letters attributed to Mr. Damodar 293-297
Deception by Mr. Bhavani Shankar 297
Chela Docimient signed B. D. S., written by Mr. Babajee D. Nath ... 298
Forged Hartmann Document written by Madame Blavatsky 298-301
Authorship of Mahatma M. Writing 301-302
Ignorance Displayed by Mahatmas 303-304
Koot Hoomi's bad English 305-307
Chelas incited to Fraud 308
Possible Motives of Mr. Damodar 309-310
Colonel Olcott ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 311
Summary of the main {loints involved in the Inquiry 312-313
Motives of Madame Blavatsky 313-317
Appendices
Mr. F. G. Netherclift's Report on Blavatsky-Coulomb Documents ...
381-382
Phenomena that have occurred in Europe 383-39a
Evidence suggestive of Fraud by Madame Blavatsky in 1879 397-400
_______________
Notes:
59. The suppression of these names is by request of Mr. Massey. It is not
material to publish them for the present purpose.
60. This proviso does not appear in the letter to X.
61. It may be observed, however, that Mr. Massey's confidence in Madame
Blavatsky had not prevented his urgent requirement of proof of the
"Adepts"
which should be independent of any such confidence.
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