“You may print this letter if you will, even in Russia. It is all the same now.”
This remarkable effusion may be the result of a fever-disordered brain, it may be, as she says, the “God’s truth;” at any rate it bears the ear-marks of the Blavatsky style about it. The disciples of the High Priestess of Isis have bitterly denounced Solovyoff and the revelations contained in his book. They brand him as a coward for not having published his diatribe during the lifetime of the Madame, when she was able to defend herself. However that may be, Solovyoff’s exposures tally very well with the mass of corroborative evidence adduced by Hodgson, Coues, Coleman, and a host of writers, who began their attacks during the earthly pilgrimage of the great Sibyl.
On receipt of this letter, Feb 16, 1886, Solovyoff resigned from the Theosophical Society. He denounced the High Priestess to the Paris Theosophists, and the Blavatsky lodges in that city were disrupted in consequence of the exposures. This seems to be a convincing proof of the genuineness of his revelations. After the Solovyoff incident, Madame Blavatsky went into retirement for a while. Eventually she appeared in London as full of enthusiasm as ever and added to her list of converts the Countess of Caithness and Mrs. Annie Besant, the famous socialist and authoress.
Finally came the last act of this strange life-drama. That messenger of death, whom the mystical Persian singer, Omar Khayyam, calls “The Angel of the Darker Drink,” held to her lips the inevitable chalice of Mortality; then the “golden cord was loosened and the silver bowl was broken,” and she passed into the land of shadows. It was in London, May 8, 1891, that Helena Petrovna Blavatsky ended one of the strangest careers on record. She died calmly and peacefully in her bed, surrounded by her friends, and after her demise her body was cremated by her disciples, with occult rites and ceremonies. All that remained of her—a few handfuls of powdery white ashes—was gathered together, and divided into three equal parts. One portion was buried in London, one sent to New York City, and the third to Adyar, near Madras, India. The New World, the Old World, and the still Older World of the East were honored with the ashes of H. P. B. Three civilizations, three heaps of ashes, three initials—mystic number from time immemorial, celebrated symbol of Divinity known to, and revered by, Cabalists, Gnostics, Rosicrucians, and Theosophists.
Mr. J. Ransom Bridges, who had considerable correspondence with the High Priestess from 1888 until her death, says (Arena, April, 1895): “Whatever may be the ultimate verdict upon the life and work of this woman, her place in history will be unique. There was a Titanic display of strength in everything she did. The storms that raged in her were cyclones. Those exposed to them often felt with Solovyoff that if there were holy and sage Mahatmas, they could not remain holy and sage, and have anything to do with Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. The ‘confession’ she wrote rings with the mingled curses and mad laughter of a crazy mariner scuttling his own ship. Yet she could be as tender and sympathetic as any mother. Her mastery of some natures seemed complete; and these people she worked like galley-slaves in the Theosophical tread mill of her propaganda movement.
“To these disciples she was the greatest thaumaturgist known to the world since the days of the Christ. The attacks upon her, the Coulomb and Solovyoff exposures, the continual newspaper calumnies they look upon as a gigantic conspiracy brewed by all the rules of the black art to counteract, and, if possible, to destroy the effect of her work and mission.”
“Requiescat in Pace,” O Priestess of Isis, until your next incarnation on Earth! The twentieth century will doubtless have need of your services! For the delectation of the curious let me add: the English resting place of Madame Blavatsky is designed after the model of an Oriental “dagoba,” or tomb; the American shrine is a marble niche in the wall of the Theosophical headquarters, No. 144 Madison avenue, the ashes reposing in a vase standing in the niche behind a hermetically-sealed glass window. The Oriental shrine in Adyar is a tomb modelled after the world-famous Taj Mahal, and is built of pink sandstone, surmounted by a small Benares copper spire.
4. The Writings of Madame Blavatsky.
Madame Blavatsky is known to the reading world as the writer of two voluminous works of a philosophical or mystical character, explanatory of the Esoteric Doctrine, viz., “Isis Unveiled,” published in 1877, and the “Secret Doctrine,” published in 1888. In the composition of these works she claimed that she was assisted by the Mahatmas who visited her apartments when she was asleep, and wrote portions of the manuscripts with their astral hands while their natural bodies reposed entranced in Thibetan Lamaseries. These fictions were fostered by prominent members of the Theosophical Society, and believed by many credulous persons. “Isis Unveiled” is a hodge-podge of absurdities, pseudo-science, mythology and folklore, arranged in helter-skelter fashion, with an utter disregard of logical sequence. The fact was that Madame Blavatsky had a very imperfect knowledge of English, and this may account for the strange mistakes in which the volume abounds, despite the aid of the ghostly Mahatmas. William Emmette Coleman, of San Francisco, has made an exhaustive analysis of the Madame’s writings, and declares that “Isis,” and the “Secret Doctrine” are full of plagiarisms. In “Isis” he discovered “some 2,000 passages copied from other books without proper credit.” Speaking of the “Secret Doctrine,” the master key to the wisdom of the ages, he says: “The ‘Secret Doctrine’ is ostensibly based upon certain stanzas, claimed to have been translated by Madame Blavatsky from the ‘Book of Dzyan’—the oldest book in the world, written in a language unknown to philology. The ‘Book of Dzyan’ was the work of Madame Blavatsky—a compilation, in her own language, from a variety of sources, embracing the general principles of the doctrines and dogmas taught in the ‘Secret Doctrine.’ I find in this ‘oldest book in the world’ statements copied from nineteenth century books, and in the usual blundering manner of Madame Blavatsky. Letters and other writings of the adepts are found in the ‘Secret Doctrine.’ In these Mahatmic productions I have traced various plagiarized passages from Wilson’s ‘Vishnu Purana,’ and Winchell’s ‘World Life’—of like character to those in Madame Blavatsky’s acknowledged writings. * * * A specimen of the wholesale plagiarisms in this book appears in vol. II., pp. 599-603. Nearly the whole of four pages was copied from Oliver’s ‘Pythagorean Triangle,’ while only a few lines were credited to that work.”
Those who are interested in Coleman’s exposé are referred to Appendix C, of Solovyoff’s book, “A Modern Priestess of Isis.” The title of this appendix is “The Sources of Madame Blavatsky’s Writings.” Mr. Coleman is at present engaged in the preparation of an elaborate work on the subject, which will in addition contain an “exposé of Theosophy as a whole.” It will no doubt prove of interest to students of occultism.