I could not repress some homage to the sagacity of this unwitnessed confession. Forewarned that I was coming, Madame had received from her Guru a convenient prohibition against further use of the shrine as a post-office; and now, by one clever stroke, she altogether forestalled an inconvenient investigation. Obstruction to experiments, or evasion, would have been such confession as I could use. Failure to obtain phenomena that could be verified might subtly awaken skepticism in the simple-hearted Hindus around her. But this secret confession, which might be repudiated if necessary, raised my whole siege at once.[3] And the confession itself, while it admitted the unreality of the miracles, left a marvel,—namely, her power to cause the hallucinations. I remembered the legend of Glam, from whom came our word “glamour,” and had a droll feeling of being defeated, like Grettir, in the moment of his victory over that moonshine-giant. As says the Saga, “even as Glam fell a cloud was driven from the moon, and Glam said, Exceedingly eager hast thou sought to meet me, Grettir, but no wonder will it be deemed, though thou gettest no good hap of me.” Even so it proved lately, when I told my friend, Anne Besant, that Madame Blavatsky had admitted it was glamour. She reminded me of the power still left unexplained, to cast the glamour.
The remaining hours of my visit at Adyar were occupied with study of the subjects of Madame’s hypnotic powers,—as I supposed them to be. The young Hindus, with their refined faces and symbolical draperies, conveyed an impression of being like the magical mangoes which the jugglers evoke, looking at them from time to time to see how they are growing. There were phases of chelahood, with precise terms for each. I was invited to visit the shrine. It was in a small room, and stood against the wall, reaching nearly to the ceiling. It was decorated with mystical emblems and figures, and a breath of incense came when the doors were opened. The Hindus prostrated themselves on the floor, and hid their faces; it was explained as their oriental custom, but it is certainly favorable to Thaumaturgy. Two days afterwards I was told, being then at sea, that while we visited the shrine a mysterious bell had sounded. No such incident was mentioned at the time, and I felt quite sure that Madame Blavatsky and myself were the only persons present whose testimony would be trustworthy. The interior of the shrine was inlaid with metal work. There were various figures, Buddha being in the centre, and framed “portraits” of Mahatmas Koothoomi and Moria. Each portrait was about seven inches high, and if drawn, as I understood, by astral art, it may be hoped the process will remain occult. Koothoomi, who somewhat resembled an old London portrait I have of Rammohun Roy, holds a small barrel-shaped praying-machine on his head.
A considerable company surrounded the dinner table, and included one or two whom I had not seen. Madame Blavatsky was a genial hostess. When a disciple told some miraculous experience she would turn to me and say, “Now think of that!” She ate little, but smoked a cigarette during the repast. Late in the evening, as I insisted on leaving, she ordered her carriage for me, and promised me an astral apparition of herself after I should reach London. I did not find in Madame Blavatsky the coarseness of which I had heard, and suspect it is mainly due to a prejudice against ladies smoking.
Our ship between Madras and Calcutta was a floating epitome of the world. There were missionaries contending with pundits, and world travellers lazily amused by discussions involving the eternal welfare of the human race. But the disputes had a hollow and perfunctory sound, and the cultured Englishmen stood apart. Mozoomdar, of the Brahmo-Somaj, preached us an ordinary Unitarian sermon. In private he expressed to me a horror of Madame Blavatsky, but he did not appear to me possessed of such religious enthusiasm as Norendranath Sen, whom I had met at Adyar. The latter reproved me for wishing to see Madame Blavatsky’s wonders, instead of recognizing in Theosophy a movement that was saving India from being dragged into revolting dogmas called Christianity, its superstitions, discords, inhumanities. Even admitting that some delusions, or impositions, have been connected with the movement, they would pass away if liberal men did not make so much of them, and would help to develop Theosophy into a religion related to the devout and poetic genius of the oriental world. The words of this thoughtful Hindu impressed me much. I need only look about me on the ship to recognize the fact that the West is overturning the deities and altars of the East, but has no religion to give these instinctive worshippers. The scholarly English Church would appear to have become conscious of this, and is leaving the work of propagandism to vulgar and ignorant sects. There seems to be nothing offered the young Hindus graduated in the universities of India except a repulsive “Salvationism” on the one hand, and a cold Agnosticism on the other. I had conversed with a company of students at Madras, and found them hardly able to understand the interest with which I followed the processions of “idols” about the streets, such things being looked on by them much as a march of the Salvation Army might be regarded by Oxonians. They had little interest in Christianity, but some of them spoke reverently of Buddha, and probably Theosophy has done something to revive in India love for that long banished teacher.
On the whole, I found the little company in their beautiful retreat at Adyar becoming more and more picturesque in the distance. It seems a hard, precipitous fall from visions of Indra’s paradise to a materialistic world of predatory evolution. The youth at Adyar, dreaming of Mahatmas in mystical mountains, and evolving a natural supernaturalism, may be dwelling amid illusions; but, as Shakespeare tells us, our little life is rounded with a sleep,—a dreamland. If Madame Blavatsky had recovered Prospero’s buried wand, and amid the dry and dusty realism of our time raised for her followers a realm of faërie, beguiling them from scenes of falling temples and fading heavens, were it not cruel to break her wand, even though it be glamour? I remember at Concord, in my youth, a little controversy in which miracles were critically handled, some ladies present being distressed. Emerson had remained silent, and on our way home said, “After all it appears doubtful whether, when children are enjoying a play, one must tell them the scene is paint and pasteboard, and the fairy’s jewels but glass.”
So I bore away from Adyar a slight sprinkle of Madame Blavatsky’s moonshine. But it was rudely dispelled in Calcutta and Bombay, where the priestess had worn out her welcome by attempts at fraud. One of these instances was related by Mr. J. D. Broughton, a gentleman connected with the Indian government, to whom I carried a letter of introduction. Unwilling to accept any such fact without verification, I afterwards corresponded with those cognizant of the facts, and have before me now their letters establishing the statements of the following from Mr. Broughton.
“I was in Calcutta, and a friend was staying with me, Mr. H. Blanford, a Fellow of the Royal Society, and head of the Meteorological Department,—a practical man, not, I think, disposed to judge wrongly one way or the other. We both know Mrs. Gordon Psychic Notes, in Calcutta.
“I wrote to my wife [who had travelled on the Vega to England] and sent this account to her. She replied that Mr. Eglinton had brought a letter to her [during the voyage] to be marked,—that it had a cross upon it, and that she had been asked to mark another or others, and that she did so, crossing the first cross.