8 MADAME BLAVATSKY'S LAST YEARS

AFTER HER STAY AT WURTZBOURG, which had been interrupted by several trips to Elberfeld where she visited her friends Mr and Mrs Gebhard,^[1] former disciples of Éliphas Lévi, Mme Blavatsky went on to Ostende, where she lived for some time with the Countess Wachtmeister and where she also resumed writing _The Secret Doctrine_. According to witnesses she worked furiously, writing from six in the morning until six at night, scarcely stopping to take her meals. At the beginning of 1887 she returned to settle in England, first at Norwood and then, in September of the same year, in London. She was helped in her work at this time by the brothers Bertram and Archibald Keightley, who corrected her poor English, and by D.E. Fawcett, who collaborated on the portion of the work concerned with evolution.^[2] It was also in 1887 that the English review _Lucifer_ was founded under Blavatsky's immediate direction, the Society having had until then only one official organ, the _Theosophist_, published at Adyar, to which must be added the _Path_, the special organ of the American section.

1887 also saw the appearance of the first French Theosophist review, entitled _Le Lotus_. Lacking official status, this review showed a certain independence and ceased publication after two years, in March 1889.^[3] Its director, F.-K. Gaboriau, expressed himself emphatically on what he called the 'pathological case' of Mme Blavatsky, admitting that he had been completely deceived when in November 1886 he saw her at Ostende,

refuting with wonderful skill, which at the time we took for sincerity, all the attacks made against her, misrepresenting things, attributing to people words that long afterward we recognized to have been false; in brief, during the eight days we spent alone with her offering us the perfect type of innocence, of the superior being—good, dedicated, poor, and maligned.... As I am more inclined to defend than to accuse, it took irrefutable proofs of the duplicity of this extraordinary person to convince me of what I am about to assert here.

And the following is his scarcely flattering judgment on _The Secret Doctrine_, which had just been published:

It is a wide-ranging, disordered encyclopedia, with an incorrect and incomplete table of contents, of everything that has been stirring for ten years or so in Mme Blavatsky's brain.... Subba Rao, who had to correct _The Secret Doctrine_, denounced it as an 'inextricable muddle....^[4] Certainly, this book could not prove the existence of the Mahātmās; rather, it made one doubt their existence.... I like to believe that the Tibetan adepts do not exist elsewhere than in the _Dialogues philosophiques_ of Renan, who, before Mme Blavatsky and Olcott, invented a factory of Mahātmās in central Asia under the name of _Asgaard_, and gave interviews in the style of Koot Hoomi before the latter's manifestation.

Finally, here is his appraisal of Olcott:

The day he came in person to Paris to meddle in our work was a total disillusionment for all the Theosophists, who then withdrew, leaving room for more novices. A self-assured imperturbable American, an iron constitution, not the least eloquent, not the least educated, but with the special qualities of a compiler [another American trait], not well-mannered, a credulity bordering on complicity and excusing if need be his blunders, and I must add—for it contrasts with his domineering former associate—a certain kindness or rather good-naturedness: such is the man who is at present the traveling salesman of Buddhism.^[5]

While abandoning administrative functions to Olcott, who was permanently installed in the headquarters in Adyar, Blavatsky kept for herself what concerned the 'esoteric section', to which none could be admitted without her approval. However, on December 25, 1889 she named Olcott 'secret agent and sole authorized representative of the esoteric section for the countries of Asia'; and on the same date Olcott, then in London, named her in return director of a section with the title 'personal and authorized representative with official powers of President for the U.K. and Ireland,' to which Annie Besant, William Kingsland, and Herbert Burrows belonged. Thus, Mme Blavatsky exercised control over both these sections of the Society for the whole United Kingdom, and it was the same for Olcott in India. We say India only, for we do not think there were at the time any Theosophical branches in the other countries of Asia.^[6]

On the other hand, in Europe there were of course already branches in several countries; and exactly six months later, on July 9, 1890, Olcott delegated to Mrs Besant full authority to strike an agreement with the various branches and group them into a single European section. This section was to enjoy full autonomy of the kind represented by the American section already constituted under the direction of William Q. Judge, Vice-President of the Society. There were thus three autonomous sections in the Theosophical Society. Today there are as many national 'Theosophical Societies,' that is, autonomous sections, as there are countries where Theosophists are found in sufficient numbers to form one; but of course all save the dissident groups are attached to the headquarters in Adyar and receive from it directives which they accept without the least discussion; there is therefore real autonomy only for the truly administrative organization.

By this time some unfortunate incidents had occurred in the American section. Dr Elliott E. Cowes, a scholar of some reputation who had left the beaten path but was nevertheless not slow to notice many things, formed an independent Society which a number of the branches in the United States joined, and naturally he was hurriedly expelled.^[7] He retaliated by publishing an article in which he let it be known that the alleged revelation of the 'Mahātmās,' to whom were now attributed the inspiration for both _Isis Unveiled_ and _The Secret Doctrine_, had been drawn in good part, at least as regards the first of these two works, from books and manuscripts bequeathed to Mme Blavatsky by the Baron de Palmas; and he pointed out that this should have been obvious from the fact that one of the authors most frequently cited in these alleged communications from Tibet was the French occultist Éliphas Lévi.^[8] Baron de Palmas had died in New York in 1876, bequeathing all he possessed to the Theosophical Society. Sinnett claimed that apart from his library he had absolutely nothing left, but in July 1876 Mme Blavatsky wrote that 'he left all his property to our Society,' and on the following October 5th following that 'the property consists of a good number of rich silver mines and seventeen thousand acres of land.' Doubtless this was not to be spurned, but in any case what seems well established is that the library played a large part in the writing of _Isis Unveiled_, which appeared the following year. Dr Cowes' disclosures had some repercussions in America, especially owing to the author's personality, and Judge believed he must take action for damages against Cowes and against the journal where the article had appeared for 'libel against the founders of the Society'^[10], but nothing came of these proceedings, for they were abandoned upon the death of Mme Blavatsky, in whose name they had been instigated. This last affair was taken as a pretext by Mme Blavatsky to address a lengthy letter to the members of the French branch on September 23, 1890 in which she complained that a similar libel was circulating in London, and said that these 'personal enemies' were aided by 'one of the most active members of the Society in France,' who was none other than Papus, and who had 'once or twice crossed the Channel in this _honorable aim_.' She added that her patience was at an end and threatened to summon to court anyone who dared make similar accusations against her.

Blavatsky died in London on May 8, 1891. She had been ill for some time, and it even appears she had been abandoned two or three times by the doctors,^[11] although it was claimed that she was better at the time of her death owing to the intervention of an occult influence. According to Sinnett, she is then supposed to have passed immediately into another body, masculine this time, and already fully mature. More recently, Leadbeater wrote on this same subject:

> Those who were in close contact with our great founder Mme Blavatsky generally knew that when she left the body in which we knew her she entered another body, this having taken place at the very moment that it was relinquished by its initial occupant. As for knowing whether this body had been specially prepared for her use, I do not have any information; but there are other examples known where this was done.^[12] We will return later to this singular idea of the replacement of one personality by another, the first having been simply charged with preparing a suitable body for the second to occupy at the requisite moment. In May 1897, barely six years after Mme Blavatsky's death, Mrs Besant announced her next manifestation in a masculine reincarnation;^[13] this manifestation has not yet taken place, but on every occasion Leadbeater continues to repeat that Mme Blavatsky has already been reincarnated and that Colonel Olcott must very soon be reincarnated to work at her side once again.^[14]

These are remarkable exceptions to the law which had been formulated both by Mme Blavatsky herself and Sinnett whereby twelve or fifteen hundred years must normally elapse between two successive lives; it is true that even in ordinary cases this alleged law has been abandoned, and this is a rather interesting example both of the variation of Theosophical doctrines and of efforts made to conceal this variation. Mme Blavatsky wrote in the _Secret Doctrine_ that

> save in the case of young children, and of individuals whose lives have been violently cut off by some accident, no Spiritual Entity can reincarnate before a period of many centuries has elapsed....^[15]

Now, Leadbeater has disclosed that the expression _spiritual entities_ appears to mean that Mme Blavatsky had in view only highly developed individuals!^[16] And he gives a table in which, according to the 'degree of evolution' of individual humans, the intervals go from two thousand years or more for 'those who have entered on the Path' (allowing for exceptions), to twelve hundred years for 'those who approach it,' to forty or fifty years, and so on to as low as five years in the case of the 'dregs of humanity.^[17] As for the passage where Sinnett clearly states that '1500 years, if not an impossibly short, would be a very brief, interval between two rebirths,^[18] here is the explanation given by the same author:

One is justified in believing that the letters which served as a basis for _Esoteric Buddhism_ were written by different disciples under the general direction of the Masters; therefore, even taking account of inaccuracies that have been introduced (we know they have crept in), it is impossible to suppose that the authors ignored facts easily accessible to whoever can observe the process of reincarnation.^[19] Let us recall that the letter in question was not written for the public but was addressed especially to Sinnett, so that doubtless it was communicated to some persons who worked with him. Such a means established for them, would be exact, but we cannot admit it at the present time for the whole human race.^[20]

It is really too convenient to explain things away like this, and the same method could serve to efface all the contributions that Hume had noted from 1883. As for the 'inaccuracies' attributed to foolish disciples, was it not Koot Hoomi himself who, in the Kiddle affair, gave the example on this point? We know on the other hand that Mavalankar, Subba Rao, and others worked as 'chelas' or direct disciples of the 'Masters', so according to the passage just cited there is no conflict as to the authors of the letters in question, since they were indeed only 'under the direction' of Mme Blavatsky. Since that time the 'Masters' are no longer accorded any more than a 'general supervisory role' in the writing of these messages; by keeping silent on the process of 'precipitation' it clearly becomes much more difficult to denounce an obvious fraud. Thus it must be admitted that this tactic does not lack a certain cleverness; but to let oneself be taken in one must ignore, as perhaps many present Theosophists do, the entire history of the first period of the Theosophical Society. It is truly regrettable for the latter that, contrary to the practice of the ancient secret societies of which they claim to be the inheritors, it has left behind such an abundance of written documents.