Some Unpublished Letters of H. P. Blavatsky, comp.
E. R. Corson
Theosophical University Press Online Edition
LETTERS 1 - 9
Letter No. 1
PHILADELPHIA, PA.,
9th of February, 1875.
PROFESSOR HIRAM CORSON,
DEAR SIR,
Pardon me if, to all appearance, I have neglected to answer your
very kind letter, received about a week ago. The fault is not
mine, as you will see, but ought to be laid right to the door
of my "Malchance," as the French Canadians say. I have
nearly broken my leg about ten days ago and cannot leave my bed
as yet; otherwise most assuredly I would not have risked even
for a while to be thought so ill-mannered as that.
I have received many letters of thanks for my article, many undeserved
compliments and very little practical help in the way of published
statements supporting my theory, which is certainly built upon
evident proofs. As an illustration of the moral cowardice prevailing
among spiritualists, I take the liberty of sending you a letter
just received by me from Gen. Lippett, the Commissioner, sent
by the Banner of Light to this city, with the special
purpose of investigating thoroughly the Katie King mystery. He
has done so, and he has discovered beyond any doubt the culpability
of Dr. Child. He has in his possession the testimony of two well
known photographers whom the Hon. "Father Confessor"
has bribed for the speculating purpose of obtaining Katie's portrait
by taking it from this creature White. The Banner has
refused as you see point blank to publish anything against Dr.
Child.
Talk after that of the wisdom of the old mottoes and proverbs,
and let us repeat if we dare about innocence and virtue being
rewarded and vice punished! Well, I do think that old dame Truth
has deserted for ever your beautiful shores. At least, by what
I can judge from my own experience of over eighteen months' residence
in your country, the old lady must be resting in undisturbed repose
as in a state of deep trance at the bottom of her native well.
There, I am unable to move in the perfect impossibility of leaving
my room and my articles sure to be henceforth refused.
I possess several valuable documents against our Philadelphian
prophet, among others the sworn statement of a voluntary witness,
which would kill Dr. Child if ever it was brought against him
in a Court of Justice. But -- it never will; for the Doctor is
as cautious as he is peculating, declines answering me even in
print, it seems. And to think that I was simple-minded enough
to hope that he would try and sue me for libel, for it was the
only way to force him into a Court of Justice.
My dear sir, would it be impossible for you to publish a few words
stating your opinion as to the matter. A few lines from you that
the Banner is sensible enough to appreciate,
and would never dare to refuse, would go far against our fraudulent
prophet. The editors will print nothing more from me, for they
say "there is no knowing where my literary Russian bombs
may explode." The only good result that has been brought
about by my article, as soon as it appeared, was the immediate
resignation of Dr. Child from his office of the President of Spiritual
Association of Philadelphia; otherwise he plays at "dummy,"
and is to be seen or heard nowhere.
I came to this country only on account of Truth in Spiritualism,
but I am afraid I will have to give it up. We shall never be able
to draw the line of demarcation between the true and the false
as long as the so-called pillars of spiritualism will, notwithstanding
their half-rotten and unreliable condition, be supported and helped
out to the last by the too lenient backs of the cowardly spiritualists.
Would the Holmses ever dare fool and swindle the public as they
did if they had not been backed and screened by Dr. Child until
three thousand dollars offered him by the Y.M.C.A.
proved too much for his tender soul, and he had to turn a modern
spiritual Judas and sell out his Christ to the highest bidder.
Now, the Holmses, frauds as they partly are, are still genuine
mediums, and no mistake, and if there is some excuse for them
for the perpetration of such a swindle, it lies in the "circonstance
attenante" of the perpetual danger of starvation,
as in the case of most of the public mediums. As for Dr. Child,
a gentleman and a man known to be wealthy, there is no excuse
for him, and such a character as that ought to be horsewhipped.
His participation -- in my eyes at least -- in this fraud, is
worse than robbery, worse than the murder of a human being; it
is a nameless crime, one of blasphemy, sacrilegious derision and
pollution of the most holy, sacred feelings treasured in the souls
of all spiritualists.
He has done his work for one of us at least; poor old Robert D.
Owen will not recover from the shock he experienced by the same
hand that led him into the belief in the pure Spirit. He is 73
years of age and does not leave a sick bed from the moment of
the exposure. I know it is his death blow.
That's why I hate Childs so bitterly.
Excuse my long letter, dear sir, in favour of the sincerity of
my feelings, strong and too impetuous as they may seem to you,
perhaps.
With sincere regards of esteem, dear sir.
Truly yours,
(signed) H. P. BLAVATSKY.
The Holmses have vanished from town and I took the house they
used to live in, for purposes you may guess.
825 North 10th Street,
Philadelphia, Pa.
LETTER NO. 2
This letter was posted in an envelope of Betanelly & Co.,
Russian-American Commission Merchants, Philadelphia, Pa. The postmark
is February 16th, and the year is evidently 1875. The letter itself
has no date, but is simply Philadelphia, Tuesday.
PROFESSOR HIRAM CORSON.
DEAR SIR,
Just received yours, and many thanks for the readiness with which
you undertake the defence of Truth. With my letter you
may do as you please; use my name, bring me out as a witness,
just whatever you may think proper. I can as readily answer for
Gen. Lippett's consent, though, not having his permission for
it, I suppose it more advisable to lay it all to my door, and
state that you learned the particulars about the cowardice of
the Banner of Light through me, for I do not care if
the editors get a grudge against me. I am perfectly independent
of them, but Lippitt is employed by them, and his means are very
limited. Just say that I wrote you, copying textually his letter.
I send you at the same time a very precious document, copied by
the writer himself from an original letter that he sent me in
the presence of Gen. Lippitt, whose signature you will find at
the bottom as a witness to the transaction. I have five more witnesses.
I am here in this country sent by my Lodge on behalf of Truth
in modern spiritualism, and it is my most sacred duty to unveil
what is, and expose what is not. Perhaps did I arrive here one
hundred years too soon. May be, and I am afraid it is so, that
in this present state of mental confusion, of doubt, of the endless
and fruitless conflicts between the Tyndalls and Wallaces, the
issues of which are arrested by the almighty power of the dollar,
-- for people seem to care every day less for truth and every
hour more for gold, -- my feeble protest and endeavours will be
of no avail; nevertheless, I am ever ready for the grand battle,
and perfectly prepared to bear any consequences that may fall
to my lot.
I pray you, do not take me to be a "blind fanatic,"
for, if I am the latter, I am not the former. When I became a
spiritualist, it was not through the agency of the ever-lying,
cheating mediums, miserable instruments of the undeveloped Spirits
of the lower Sphere, the ancient Hades. My belief is based on
something older than the Rochester knockings, and springs out
from the same source of information that was used by Raymond Lully,
Picus della Mirandola, Cornelius Agrippa, Robert Fludd, Henry
More, et cetera, etc., all of whom have ever been searching for
a system that should disclose to them the "deepest depths"
of the Divine nature, and show them the real tie which binds all
things together. I found at last, and many years ago, the cravings
of my mind satisfied by this theosophy taught by the Angels and
communicated by them that the protoplast might know it for the
aid of the human destiny. The practical, however small knowledge
of the Principle, Ain-Soph, or the Endless and the Boundless with
its ten Sephiroths or Emanations, goes more towards opening your
eyes than all the hypothetical teachings of the leaders of Spiritualism,
let them be American or European. In my eyes, Allan Kardec and
Flammarion, Andrew Jackson Davis and Judge Edmonds, are but schoolboys
just trying to spell their A B C and sorely blundering sometimes.
The relation between the two is in just proportion what were in
the ancient ages the book called Sohar, based on the
perfect knowledge of the Kabbala handed down by oral tradition
from David and Solomon to Simon ben Jochai, the first man who
dared write it down, and the Massorah, a book based on
outside, not direct tradition, and which never vouchsafed the
truth of what it taught.
I do not know why I write you all this. Perhaps it does not interest
you in the least; perhaps you will find me presumptuous, conceited,
boosting, and a bore. I must beg of you to account for it in one
way at least, viz. the great desire I have to hear responding
echoes, to seek for them whenever and wherever I can, in the only
hope of being occasionally answered. If the Doctrine of the "Aged
of the Aged" of Sephira, its first-born, the Macroprosophos,
etc., is a thing you never troubled yourself of investigating,
then let it drop at once, and consigning me for ever in the annals
of your memory with the demented and crazy dreamers of the age,
believe me only
Gratefully and truly yours,
(signed) H. P. BLAVATSKY.
825 North Tenth Street,
Philadelphia, Pa.
Letter No. 3
PHILADELPHIA,
March 6th.
PROFESSOR H. CORSON,
DEAR SIR,
Kindly forgive me for intruding once more -- unwelcome this time
maybe -- on your valuable time. I know that I should not be disturbing
you now, for somehow or other I feel that, as the French say,
"Vous-avez d'autre chats a fouetter en ce moment," and
my new message risks to become an unasked guest. But at the same
time I feel sure that you are not one of those who begins a job
and leaves it unfinished. Your article has appeared, and I am
glad of it; I knew Colby would never dare refuse you. My article
was sent ten days ago, and will never appear, I am afraid; and
so, I take the liberty of forwarding it to you for perusal when
you have a moment to spare for it. As you will see, it's a new
proof against Dr. Child. I enclose together with it the statement
of a man named Westcott who was present when the bargain between
the "father confessor" and Mrs. Holmes for ten dollars
a seance was made. In his Sunshine, that Colby wants
to pass off as an answer to my question, Child does not dare deny,
as you see; he only tries his best to influence his readers' hearts,
and says I "fabricate stories."
I hope and pray for truth's sake and justice's sake that you will
be able to finish what Colby is determined not to let me do --
to wit: unmask the lying villain.
With profound esteem and regard,
Yours truly,
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
When you are through with my article, please forward it to Mrs.
L. Andrews, Springfield, when you write her. I wonder if I could
not have it published in the Springfield Republican by
paying for it? I am ready to pay any sum of money for it. Please
find enclosed a letter from General Lippitt, that will show you
how our leading spiritualist paper is ready to die for truth.
Letter No. 4
PHILADELPHIA,
March 20th (1875).
PROFESSOR H. CORSON.
MY DEAR SIR,
I am all swollen up, my face as big as a pumpkin, and I feel like
dematerializing, dissolving, but I feel so glad at the
same time of having received such a kind friendly letter from
you, that I forget all my ailings and sit down right away for
the purpose of only telling you that I appreciate deeply, very
deeply indeed, all your kindness to a woman, a stranger,
that I am afraid you will find, when you know her better, not
to deserve this kindness so much as you think, perhaps. Alas!
my dear Sir, I am really very very vicious in my own way, and
unpardonably so in the eyes of every true American. My only hope
for the future is that you may turn out to be more of a man, a
true-hearted, noble-minded man, than of an American; then perhaps
you may forgive me my Russian vices and put up with them for the
sake of charity. I feel so happy to think that I may have a chance
of passing a week or two in the society of my two correspondents
and, may I add, friends -- you and Mrs. Andrews. I am so scared
at the same time when I come to think how utterly disenchanted
you may both of you feel, and how shocked Mrs. Corson may feel,
though she is not an American but a French lady, who knows better
than your own nation does what we Russians are. You invite me
so kindly to the Cascade; but what will you say when you see your
guest stealing away from the room every fifteen minutes to go
and hide behind the doors and in the yards and basements to smoke
a cigarette? I am obliged here to confess that I, like all the
women of Russia, smoke in my drawing-room as in the drawing-room
of every respectable lady from an aristocratic princess down to
the wife of an employee; they smoke according to our national
custom in the carriage as well as in the foyer of the theatres.
I am actually obliged to hide myself like a thief; for the Americans
have insulted me and stared me out of countenance, and published
about me in the papers, ornamenting my poor self with the most
wonderful names, and inventing about me stories, and so forth,
till, unable to give up an innocent habit of more than twenty
years standing, I was finally driven to what I consider to be
a mean act of cowardice; doing what I am ashamed here in America
to proclaim in the face of the world. But if you can forgive me
my national sins, then, of course, I will be most happy to avail
myself of your kind invitation. A thousand times I thank you and
Mrs. Corson, to whom I beg you will present my most sincere compliments,
and ask her beforehand for some indulgence and charity for a poor
barbarian who has fallen down from her Cossack-land in your civilized
country like some ill-shaped aerolite from the moon. Tell her
I promise never to smoke in her drawing-room. If after my confession
Mrs. Corson is brave enough to repeat her invitation, I can go
and seek out the company of the hamadryads in the silent woods.
With the dear, sincere, truthful Mrs. Andrews I was more sincere
still, if I remember right. Heavens be merciful unto me, but I
do think that to her friendly invitation to come and visit her
one of these days at Springfield I actually confessed to her that
I very often swore in Russian. I do not know yet how she bore
the shock, but I do hope that this fatal revelation did not kill
her on the spot.
Oh! dear me! you will have a nice idea of your correspondent now
since I have devoted four pages to confess my two most disgusting
vices, but I like always to have people see my worst side at first,
so that if they happen to find out some particle of genuine gold
in a heavy, bad penny, so much the better for the penny.
I have not changed my residence, but it is always better to send
the letters to my P.O. box 2828, as I am obliged
to absent myself from town every now and then on spiritualistic
business; as I told you, I was sent to this country by my Society,
and the letters may be mislaid sometimes.
It is sad indeed, as you say, that Truth has to beg and pray and
humble herself to be admitted into the leading organ of the spiritualists
of this country, when lies have only to send in their cards to
be received with outstretched arms. For instance, there is in
the last Banner an account of one Mr. Wood, who pretends
he saw his wife at a seance given by Mrs. Holmes. Now I know it
to be a falsehood. In the first place, no respectable wife, dead
or alive, will ever materialize through such a source of vile
impurity as this Mrs. Holmes happens to be, to the greatest disgrace
of us spiritualists. Then, a certain old lady, Mrs. Lippincott,
in whose house the seance took place, assured me most emphatically
that on that same evening the medium was found tricking and cheating;
but the old gentleman who wrote this wonderful account is a half-crazy
lunatic, who happens to see his wife in every corner, under the
chairs, and in each glass of whiskey he swallows. "Et c'est
ainsi que l'on ecrit l'histoire!" Poor spiritualism!
Most certainly I am ready to do anything you or Mrs. Andrews think
proper. You may curtail the article, trim it, and even crop it
in a Sing-Sing fashion if you think it will do any good; but I
really think that for the sake of the cause, we spiritualists
ought not to too much humble ourselves when we know we are right.
Don't think for a moment, my dear Mr. Corson, that it is vanity
or author's pride that speaks in me. If I write well enough in
other languages, and I know I do, I know well at the same time
that I have nothing to boast of in my English articles; and if
it was not for the thought and moral certitude that truth, however
badly dressed, must always conquer, I would never have dared to
come out in polemics in the arena of English literature. I guess
you, a professor of English philology and literature, have often
laughed at my Muscovite expressions. I wish to goodness I could
make you laugh heartily, for it seems to me you sadly need to.
I can't say more, and could not if I would, for I can never, somehow
or other, express what I feel unless I fight for it. I am a poor
hand for any outward show of sympathy or compliments, and there
are many things I would never dare touch, for those wounds are
so deep that they cut through the very centre of the heart, and
my hands are so rough that I dare not trust to them. One thing
I must say, though, for I can't help it. I am sorry to see that
you, a spiritualist, and knowing yourself that you use a wrong
expression, still pronounce the word "lost" or "dead."
Now, it seems to me that this sounds like a profanation. We insult
our beloved ones apparently gone so far yet still nearer than
ever. There is but one death in nature, and that is the moral
death of a person in our hearts when the bad actions and deeds
of this person compel us to bury him for ever in our soul's memory,
and the remembrance vanished to the last particle. How can your
pure, beautiful, innocent child be dead? Did not she, apparently
to us, suffer unjustly the penalty of her living in this
world, and being confined in her prison of clay? This same apparent
injustice should be to us spiritualists the most apparent convincing
proof of the immortality of our spirit, that's to say, to every
one who firmly believes in a just omnipotent God as a Principle
of everything. What harm did she ever do? What sin could she have
committed to have been made to suffer as she did? Her physical
death was but a proof that she was ready before her natural term
of years to live in spirit henceforth in a better world. As I
once wrote to Mrs. Andrews about the loss of her young son Harold,
I have yet enough left in me of love for poor humanity to rejoice
when I see children and poor young people die. "Too good
to live in this world" is not an idle saying. It is a profound
philosophical verity. What really devoted father or mother would
not consent to become blind for the sake of the eternal felicity
of their beloved children? Would not you? Is not caecity worse
in such a case? for it makes everything vanish out of sight for
ever, whereas now you cannot see one dear one only. To this you
may object that a blind man can at least feel or hear the voice
of one lost to sight. But cannot you feel and hear her the same
as ever? Did you ever try? Oh, how I wish I could teach you some
things you seem to know nothing of as yet. How happy you could
be then! American spiritualism is dreadful in some things; it's
killing, for it really brushes close materialism, sometimes. Why
should you go and profanate the names of your best-beloved, your
departed ones, the holy spirits inhabiting regions in atmospheres
as pure and holy as themselves, by breathing their names to dirty,
venal paid mediums, when you have all the means within yourselves
to communicate and visit and receive visits from your departed!
How willingly would I devote all my life, nay, sacrifice it even,
if I could only impart to some bereaved fathers and mothers sons,
and often daughters, the grandest truth that ever was, a truth
so easily learned and practised for whomever is endowed with a
powerful will and faith. I have said too little
or too much, I know not which. By the fruit shall we judge of
the seed. Amen.
You want to know about the Revue Spirite. I comply with
your request, the more willingly as I know well and consider M.
Leymarie, the editor of it, my friend. This journal or periodical
is the best in France. It is highly moral and truthful and interesting.
Of course, the direction of it is purely kardec-like, for the
book was the creation of the "Maitre" himself, as French
Spiritistes, the re-incarnationists, call Allan Kardec,
and was left, furthermore, as an heirloom by the latter to Leymarie.
The widow, Madame A. Kardec, is one of the noblest and purest
women living. The Spiritistes have a slight tendency to ritualism
and dogma, but this is but a slight shadow of their Catholic education,
a habit innate in this people who jump so quickly from Popish
slavery to materialism or spiritualism. Mrs. Corson will not repent
if she subscribes for it. I find fault with them for one thing,
not with the Revue Spirite, but with the teaching itself,
namely, that they are re-incarnationists and zealous missionaries
for the same. They could never do anything with me in that way
so they gave me up in disgust, but we still are friends. Monsieur
and Madame Leymairie are both of them highly cultured people,
and truthful and sincere as gold. For you, dear Sir, if I can
make so bold as to give you advice, subscribe to the Boston Spiritual
Scientist. It is a worthy little paper, and the tendency
is good, though they are as poor as poverty itself. I have a good
mind to send my article to be published in that paper; they have
very good articles sometimes and, moreover, print all they find
of interest in foreign spiritualistic journals. I send you two
copies, in both you will find marked with red pencil flattering
notices about my father's best daughter. Prince Wittgenstein is
an old friend of my youth, but has become a re-incarnationist.
We had a fight or two and parted half friends and half enemies.
He is the one that feels sure that the London Katy King
was in a previous life his wife when he was some Turkish sultan
or other. There's the fruit of the re-incarnational teaching.
As soon as my noble profile and classic nose reincarnate themselves
in their previous normal state I shall have my portrait taken
for you and Mrs. Andrews, but not in profile. By some mysterious
and unfair decree of Providence my nose presents in that way the
appearance of an upturned old slipper, a little the worse for
wear. I met Dr. Child a few days ago at Lincoln Hall face to face.
He did not look at all as if he saw the sunshine this once after
a storm, but looked, on the contrary, when meeting my gaze, the
very picture of a venomous mushroom after a heavy shower -- and
cleared out.
My best compliments to Mrs. Corson; and to you, my sincerest,
deepest wishes for a genuine warm "sunshine" to thaw
the icicles from every place of your inner self. With sincere
esteem and regard,
Truly yours,
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
Letter No. 5
PHILADELPHIA,
May 20th, 1875.
PROFESSOR HIRAM CORSON.
MY DEAR SIR,
As you will learn in my letter addressed to Mrs. Corson, if you
ever do see me you will never have the pleasure of admiring but
one of my legs, I am afraid. Fate is fate, and the less we talk
about it the better it may be.
I agree with you that any talk about such an abstruse subject
as spiritualism can be a great deal better done in conversation
than through letters. I will "try" and come to see you
if it were only for that; for I know you could be in great need
of spiritual truths, and the sooner you will get convinced of
the simple facts the less you will have chances of pondering over
this subject as well as over others that may preoccupy you as
I often saw you do, rubbing slowly your hands in your meditative
mood, in the meanwhile, and asking yourself thousands of questions,
all of them unanswered. Is it so? Or is it but the vicious images
sent forth by the emanations of my own perverse imagination? It's
for you to agree, and for me to submit to your decision.
I have an article by Professor Wagner, Professor of Zoology, and
a very eminent scientist, a friend of the late A. Humbolt. Wagner
has been battling and kicking and fighting for years against spiritualism.
Now he has found out at last that he has been "kicking against
the pricks," as they say, shows his sores to the public,
and admitting in a very lengthy article the truth of the phenomena,
begs his brother scientists of Europe and America not to make
asses of themselves any longer but decide once for all and go
and investigate spiritualism earnestly and very seriously. Alas!
Alas! I am afraid his voice will be one in a wilderness here in
this country. Too many Dr. Beards and Professor Anthonys for that
in America. As soon as I feel better I will translate this article
for the Scientist.
Now you must excuse even this bit of a letter, for I write it
from the deep recess of my bed, which is far from being a bed
of roses, suffering as I do. You may think me perhaps a cheat
if you did not forget that I promised you my portrait, and that
you have to see it yet. But I am not to be blamed. I seldom allow
my noble countenance to get immortalized in portraits. I have
none, and passing through New York had some taken at a spirit
photographers. There I am, represented on it looking like some
elderly idiot staring disconsolately at a she spirit with a rooster
crest on its head, making faces at me. Really, putting all vanity
aside, how can I send you such an awful caricature? So I gave
two of those libel pictures to two persons I do not care about;
but neither you nor Mrs. Andrews, nor Mr. Sargent, or even Olcott
got one, and have to wait.
I feel very faint, and therefore, begging you will excuse my blots
and scratchings out, and the general unclean appearance of my
poor epistle, I hope you will still believe in the sincerity with
which I sign myself,
Truly yours,
(signed) H. P. BLAVATSKY.
My constant address is P.O. Box 2828, Philadelphia.
Letter No. 6
PHILADELPHIA,
Sunday.
PROF. H. CORSON.
MY DEAR SIR,
Really it is very very kind of you to care so much about
such a poor lame creature as I have become lately, and how gladly
would I avail myself of the opportunity you offer me so amiably,
were I able to do so at present! But, as I can hardly travel from
my bed to the other end of the room without help, how can I travel
by railway to Ithaca? and how can I risk to encumber you with
such a sad, cross, limping, disagreeable thing as I feel myself
to be at present? As soon as I feel better and able to walk, if
it be on a crutch, I will come to Ithaca, and then we will talk.
Just prepare me a little corner where I can safely surround
myself with clouds of smoke and change the spot into a miniature
valley at the foot of Mt. Vesuvius, without shocking too much
poor Mrs. Corson, and I will soon appear in it like some weird
monstrous she-goblin or spook, peeping out from this
dense smoky atmosphere only to force you to follow me into realms
and regions far more dense and foggy and impenetrable at first
sight than the former. But with a sufficient stock of will-power
and earnest desire to impart to others what I happen to know myself,
and a good dose of introductory knowledge on your part, as you
happen to study so seriously Howitt's Ennemoser and others, let
us hope that this mutual introreception will not be followed (as
in some cases I experienced lately) by a violent commotion of
conflicting, adverse elements, causing a wide breach to form between
the interlocutors for want of calm reasoning or too much fanaticism
on either side.
Yes, I wrote to Mr. Sargent, and blamed him for having allowed
the Scientist to go on with his idiotical Diogenes
whom Brown has certainly fished out from some wash-tub in
Boston. Of course, I excuse the poor man in one sense (Brown,
not Diogenes, who is no man, but an ass), for he had to fill up
his paper quand meme, and perhaps was driven
by necessity to ornament it with such impudent and occasionally
indecent stuff. But previously to that, I had blown up
Mr. Brown himself, and told him what I thought of him and his
Diogenes. He will not publish it any more, I bet you. So
you can contribute something to it occasionally, and receive for
it the thanks of spiritualists in general and mine in particular.
You are right, and the wickedest traitors are mostly to be found
in one's own family. Such is the wolf-like propensity of human
nature. I do not know Brown personally, nor do I care much for
such an honour, but I do think him more foolish and young
and inexperienced than conceited or stupid. He seems perfectly
willing to take any advice, and has never accepted it from me
or Mr. Sargent, but with real gratitude and readiness to submit
most humbly to our sine qua nons and decrees. So don't
be too hard on him. Poor Mr. Owen, between the cruel Truth staring
him in the face, his long friendship for the Judas-Child and his
own spiritual fluctuations, he is sadly situated,
the dear old patriarch. I do not think him fair in what he wrote
so far as he consented to write anything at all, and vis-a-vis
Olcott; but he speaks truly and sincerely when he says that he
better abstain from giving his opinions about the Holmeses, who
are mediums, and for all that frauds; and so they are.
I will explain to you many things when I see you (if I ever do).
Now look at poor General Lippitt and his efforts to save them
from starvation and want! Why, he does not know, of course, what
all of us know in Philadelphia, namely, that Mrs. Holmes's appeal
to spiritualists was chiefly made for the purchase of a buggy
and horse. They just bought one, and paid between one
hundred and fifty to two hundred dollars for this apparel of luxury.
What people who are in real want will ever think of buying horses
and buggies? Now, this is mere imposition, and I call it robbing
the really needy ones from their last piece of bread to satisfy
cheating, wicked, lying impostors! Do not write this to Mrs. Andrews,
she will never believe it, any more than she believes
about Slade; but if you want to ascertain the fact, have someone
ask Mr. John Morton, a Philadelphia gentleman of high standing,
president of the Market Street railroad, to whom Mrs. Holmes applied
for this same horse. I never give to the world anything but true
facts, and I will never allow myself to throw discredit
on anyone, not even on Child that I despise and loathe, unless
I am perfectly sure of the fact.
Child never answered my last letter. He never attempted to by
printed word or a spoken one, except once, the day I had two hundred
copies of my article distributed by my order on a Sunday at Lincoln
Spirit'l Hall: the agent by an act of ironical politeness offered
him one (as they were given away gratis); and a gentleman who
knew Child asked him before quite a number of people what he was
going to say in answer to that article: to which Child, with an
unparalleled coolness, a ne plus ultra of sublime impudence,
said aloud: "O! pshaw! I know what it was all about. Some
lying information furnished to this Russian by Leslie,
no doubt." And that was all. Orestes turning back on Pylades,
Castor accusing his bosom friend Pollux of lying information!
Rich and sublime, wasn't it? For this Leslie is the same "amateur
detective" that played such a conspicuous part in the detection
of the false she-spirit, together with Child.
Some time ago, Child tried to creep in as secretary to the International
Committee of Spiritualists for the Centennial. I knew of it an
hour after, and went to work; the result of my labour was that
he was pitched out of that place, obliged by spiritualists
themselves to resign as he resigned his presidency three months
ago. He is an honorary member and correspondent of the London
Spiritualist; his name is on the list, as you may
see if you get the London Spiritualist, elbowing
the names of the Prince Emile de Wittgenstein, Aksakof, Epes Sargent,
Eugene Crowell, and such-like earnest, honest spiritualists. I
am at work, and need say no more. From the deepest
recess of my sick-bed, with my lame leg compelling me to an utter
inactivity, and obliging me to retire from many public works (?),
I have yet a few resources left in me, as you can see, to protect
my cowardly, timid, silently-suffering brother spiritualists from
the sham and degradation of such an association as this one. If
I live his name will disappear from the list and vanish in oblivion.
Like some unlicensed self-constituted Nemesis, I work silently
but surely for all that. I am bed-ridden and a helpless cripple
to be perhaps. If my leg is paralyzed, my brains are not paralyzed,
that's sure, and Will-power, my dear Mr. Corson,
goes far when well applied by those "who know how and
when."
Excuse me for this long, very long letter. Somehow or other, all
my letters, especially if addressed to those that I believe and
hope will understand me, become too long.
I thank you most sincerely for all the sympathy you show for the
aforementioned luckless leg of mine; but, as it is a cloven-hoofed
one in the mystical sense of the word, it will be no great
loss to humanity to see it disappear from its unworthy mistress.
I guess there are more than one of my true friends who
are secretly hoping and praying for both of us -- leg and myself
-- that we might vanish into space on the traditional broomstick
and be seen no more. But fate is fate, and we are but its helpless
toys.
Now, I will deliver you of myself and letter and close by calling
on your head all the lights and blessings of the Empyrean
and its hosts of Seraphims, if you are
acquainted with the latter mysterious gentlemen.
"May your shadow never decrease and may it screen you for
ever from your enemies." That's a Chaldeo-Persian compliment
I learned in its native land.
With sincere regard and esteem,
Very truly yours,
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
Letter No. 7
PHILADELPHIA,
Tuesday Night
DR. HIRAM CORSON.
MY DEAR SIR,
I am doubly fortunate in receiving letters from both yourself
and Madame, but time admits my acknowledging only your own to-night.
To-morrow I will answer Mrs. Corson.
Your criticism upon the literary aspirations of callow youth is
generally correct, but I am persuaded does not apply to the case
in point. Epes Sargent has called upon Mr. Brown by my request
and makes a favourable report as to his industry and worthiness.
His paper is selected for assistance because it is already established,
is on a very economical basis, has a clean record, and presents
itself to us as a tabula rasa. By degrees the
favour of such men as yourself, Epes Sargent, Gen. Lippitt, Col.
Olcott, and others I might name, is being enlisted, and it is
my desire that at a time not distant, the survival of the paper
being assured, a list of these eminent writers will be announced
as thereafter contributing exclusively to its columns. My idea
is, by no means to depend on Mr. G. Brown alone for the direction
of our campaign; however, more of this anon. I thank you in advance
for your hearty and kind promise of valuable help. I have so much
confidence in the future that I have sent Mr. G. Brown to-day
fifty dollars scraped off the bottom of an empty purse, and only
regret my present inability to do more at a moment when he requires
at least two hundred and fifty dollars to tide him over deep waters.
He wrote me a desperate letter, and I have put the matter in the
hands of Mr. Epes Sargent, who will go to him immediately on receipt
of my message, and handing him the sum, ascertain what more can
be done or ought to be done for the paper.
Do not undervalue the importance of spiritual phenomena; instead
of regarding them as the letter "which kills" you should
consider them as constituting the broad deep foundations upon
which alone intelligent belief in man's immortality can be safely
reared. They heralded the birth of the Christian religion, clustered
about its infancy, comforted, consoled, and armed its patristic
propagandists; and the decadence of the Church dates from the
time when they were ignored entirely by one branch and misdirected
by the other. If you will simply say that the phenomena of the
past twenty-seven years have mainly served to startle, amuse,
or terrify the public I will not contradict you; but, in beginning
our work of expounding the laws by which they are produced, and
inculcating the moral principles they suggest, our purpose would
be fatally defeated, for we should soon come into the present
extremity of the denominational Churches, and propound dogmas
unsupported by vital proofs. He who attains to the sublime heights
of Wisdom and Intuition no more requires the buoyant support of
these phenomena than does the eaglet need to rest on its mother's
back after his pinions are fairly spread; but the eagles of mind
are few, and the twittering sparrows multitudinous, and it is
not for those who can mount above the clouds of doubt to despise
the needs of their weaker fellows. The mighty supernal intelligences
who are directing this spiritual movement, so far from sharing
in your view of the manifestations, have already begun to produce
phenomena of a still higher order such as transfigurations (n'en
deplaise Professor Anthony), direct writings, the photographing
of the wandering soul of living persons, and the evocation of
the latter (in spirit) while their individual bodies are asleep.
The occurrence of these marvels was foretold to me and by me to
others long before their advent; and if you will attentively watch
the English, French, and American papers during the next three
months you will see more and more cause for astonishment. I do
not need to go to the Franklin Library or search in the annals
of Baronius, Gibbon, or other authors for the facts about the
"Labarum." If it interests you I can tell you all about
it without ever reading one single one of those books, for in
the records to which I have had access I find that this sign was
known before Constantine's birth, that it was flashed in the sky
obediently to a purpose long before entertained, to furnish a
sign and a convenient symbol to arouse the enthusiasm and stimulate
fervour of the hosts to whom the execution of a great design was
committed. The books extant have only served to mislead men whose
minds were not prepared to receive the truth by reason of their
extraordinary self-sufficiency and conceit. The indications are
that we are about at the threshold of an epoch when a thousand
mysteries shall be revealed, and it depends at least in some degree
upon such very feeble mortal agencies as your pen and mine and
those of other zealous workers, how soon the world shall be enlightened.
Can you doubt what I meant by the language you quote from a former
letter of mine? Has your observation of spiritualism been to such
little purpose that you do not know that there are ways of talking
to your departed ones, of seeing them, of feeling the clasp of
their hands, the pressure of their lips, without going to paid
mediums, whose moral depravity is so often the means of surrounding
them with a fetid and polluted atmosphere, habitable only by lying,
mischievous, and vicious spirits, such as will be Child's? If
you would learn the Secret of Secrets by which the highest heavens
can be brought within the easy reach of your soul's vision and
grasp, you must go to those sources of knowledge which have been
long closed except to the initiate. I cannot even name
to you the Body which has these secrets in charge, much less impart
to you any of those I have learned, unless I find your mind after
long acquaintance in such a stable mood as to indicate its receptivity.
I have watched you through your moods of seclusion,
and can only say that if with such abstraction, light has not
at least glimmered upon your soul, you are not now in a state
that would warrant what you desire. Instead of thanking me you
would doubt me "even though one should rise from the dead"
to corroborate my statements. Oh, my dear sir, why should poor
humanity doubt so bitterly and repulse the divine hands stretched
forth to every suffering mortal! Why is it that the more enlightened
seems a man the more his brains become thickly inlaid with a double
crust of conceit and vanity which gets so incrusted in the "seat
of thought" that they actually shut out every glimpse of
divine light, leaving him a voluntary victim to the illusions
of his self-constituted gods, in the shape of precise ciphers,
mathematical deductions, and so forth? Poor, poor humanity! Verily,
said Christ, that pure spirit that will remain in the heart of
every noble man or woman, the very ideal of perfection on this
dirty earth, that "the kingdom of heaven be taken away from
the wise men and revealed unto babes" (if I quote erroneously
forgive my ignorance of the precise words). If my poor explanation
and still poorer knowledge can be of any use to you, why, I ask
the question about what you call "the monogram of Christ,"
the 
-- the question came
after I had read your description of the suffering, the patience
in illness, and moral fortitude of that poor child that was your
daughter on this earth, and is now your daughter a thousand times
more so in the land of light and love. You seem to feel the loss
(!?) so bitterly, your agony appeared so intense to me that I
asked myself with surprise (that will be justified in the hereafter
even in your eyes) how it came to pass that you, who have selected
the mysterious symbol of
for your seal, not only use black sealing wax for it (the black,
emblem of darkness and irretrievable loss) but actually used in
one breath, -- if I am permitted this expression -- the expression
of your sorrow and the exhibition of the symbol of the whole.
I saw at once that you did not fully realize its secret meaning,
that standing before an open door, that you had but to touch with
your finger if you wanted "to behold the one that stood behind
it"; you lamented, believing the door shut, if not for ever,
-- locked at least for the time of your earthly life, and that
perhaps you did not even know that you stood at the very open
door. I employed a little diplomatic subterfuge -- pardon me,
for I was afraid of becoming guilty of an indiscretion, and put
you the question about the symbol in another shape, expecting
to understand from your answer how far you knew its meaning and
properties. I now see all. You are acquainted with the
"Labarum" only as many others are. You take it to be
a monogram of Christ, for the books you allude to, never thought
(or perhaps did not know themselves) that, because the shape of
the happened to resemble
the Greek letters of 
and
P., it was not proof at all that the "Labarum" had been
formed of the letters belonging to the Greek alphabet. Why should
not the Greek alphabet be as likely composed partially of the
most ancient symbols and signs? Such is the case I assure you.
I defy all the scientists of the world, as well as all the antiquaries,
philologists, and all the Champollions, Senior
and Junior, to prove to me that this symbol of
does not exist as far back as 16,000 years previous to the birth
of Christ. You can trace it from our modern cathedrals down to
the Temple of Solomon, to the Egyptian Karnac, 1600 B.C. The Thebans
find it in the oldest Coptic records of symbols preserved on tablets
of stone and recognize it, varying its multitudinous forms with
every epoch, every people, creed or worship. It is a Rosicrucian
symbol, one of the most ancient and the most mysterious. As the
Egyptian Crux ansata, 
or that travelled from India,
where it was considered as belonging to the Indian symbolism of
the most early ages, its lines and curves could be suited to answer
the purpose of many symbols in every age and fitted for every
worship. But the real genuine meaning very few know,
and when they do know they are afraid to use it through
moral cowardice and stubborn doubt. The Crux ansata meant
"the time that was to come," the "Labarum"
when it went under another alias meant "the time
is come." As God looks down upon the passing ages
and remains for ever the same unchangeable 
and 
, the Alpha and Omega;
so it is with this symbol and powerful sign. You may alter its
shape and adopt its form to suit any period or fancy, call it
whatever name you like, it will, notwithstanding all its metamorphoses,
remain the same, with the identical power it possesses, and will
always help the initiated to unlock as a genuine
key the door of the "Mystery of Mysteries."
Its origin belongs to the greatest of light suns in history;
for it is born from the central "intolerable ring of brilliancy,"
to quote the words of Flamel, -- the original gods' revelation.
It retains its power up to our days, belongs to the oldest of
religions, or knowledge, I should rather say,
and is ever ready to usher us through its potency into the presence
of our beloved, living in a brighter world. Even the famous "Sesame,
ouvres toi" refers to the "Labarum"; "omnia
ex uno, omnia in uno, omnia ad unum,
omnia per medium, et omnia in omnibus"
is a Hermetic axiom and can be applied to the so-called "Labarum."
The two lines of 
and
or
do not represent the Greek letter (the Russian or Slavonian tau)
or guttural ch.
In the Rosicrucian teaching both of these lines united or separated
have special magic or spiritual powers according to where they
stand to the super-natural extra forces that help them through
the operations of those "who know how and when to direct
the weird power," says Robertus de Fluctibus, the great English
Rosicrucian or alchemist, in his learned work called "Examen
in qua Principia philosophiae Roberti Fluddi, Medici." I
wish you could read it. He would teach you all you may expect
to know.
Forgive me my long letter.
Truly yours with the greatest esteem,
(signed) H. P. BLAVATSKY.
3420 Samson St.,
West Philadelphia.
My dear Sir, please note the letters I write you at night-time,
and put more faith in them than in those scribbled in daylight.
I will explain when I have the honour and pleasure of seeing you
personally.
Letter No. 8
PROFESSOR H. CORSON.
MY DEAR SIR,
Truly spirits do bring on sometimes wonderful things! Hardly had
I mailed you a letter, three times too long perhaps for an ordinary
man's patience, when your own last favour proved to be a real
god-send: first, for a poor worthy fellow, and then, if spirits
help me, it may prove to be the little first cause of great results.
You never thought, I am sure, when writing as you did in your
last and giving vent to an honest indignation that ought to be
felt and shared by every spiritualist, about the disgusting publication
of "Duff Mr. Duff " in the Irreligio -- Un-philosophical,
as it ought to be called, -- that your indignation, catching hold
of me, would make me lay awake all night; and when I lay awake
I think, and after thinking I generally act. The same morning
brought me back my article from Colby which without further comment
he respectfully declined on a bit of a dirty printed slip of paper.
Very well; so I began thinking and plotting and scheming, and
took the Spiritual Scientist, to which little
paper I had never paid much attention before; and finding there
another mention of my name from the Revue Spirite,
I sent it to you. Did you receive it? (not the Revue
but the Scientist). I took up some back
numbers and read them through attentively, and the more I read
the less I found of such trash as I found on the Religio,
and even in the great sublime Banner. On the contrary,
I remarked in it a decided tendency, as I wrote you, to help our
cause, and an earnest endeavour to follow the steps of The
London Spiritualist, and other such respectable
foreign papers. Are you of my opinion? To be sure it is rather
difficult for you to judge from two single copies; but I like
it so well myself that I subscribed for it immediately. Then came
in a gentleman from Boston to visit me, and I learned from him
that the editor of The Scientist was a very well-educated
young man, well-connected enough but poor as poverty itself. To
become a spiritualist and an editor of a spiritual paper he had
quarrelled with all his family, and the consequences were that
he had quite ruined himself. The opposition on the part of the
Banner, -- whose policy is to praise and puff up all
spiritual manifestations, even fraudulent and spurious ones, and
never to expose anything or anyone, -- was untiring. Their persecution
of this poor Jerry Brown, who took from the first quite a contrary
course, was merciless. That's what I learned from Mr. Giles of
Boston. Of course, I felt fired up like a dry match immediately,
got several subscribers for him the same day, and sent him my
article, adding in my letter that I begged him not to look upon
the subscription money in the light of a bribe, for, if he were
not to print my article at all or thought it too long for the
Scientist, I should try to find him subscribers
just the same. Then I received a letter from Olcott talking with
me at length about the immediate necessity of having in this country
a respectable spiritualistic paper, and that I must try and work
for it if I have the cause at heart. So I went and talked to my
friends and acquaintances, and the idea struck me that if we could
secure the Scientist for this class of spiritualist,
which I can name at once the opposition party, we might do a vast
deal of good for the cause. We have got no antidote as yet. The
poisonous stuff is served out in the shape of all manner of bogus
communications. The spiritualists are more and more bewildered,
benumbed, and paralyzed though believing all the time sur
parole only because the Banner or the dear old Religio-Philosophical
said so and endorses it. Such a state of mind is more than
dangerous and requires an antidote. My idea is to raise a subscription
from the richer spiritualists and issue stock at one hundred dollars
a share.
An editor, an able one at least, would be very difficult to select,
for if he answered well enough one way he might fail in something
else. Colonel Olcott is ready enough, but then he asks right away
seven hundred dollars a month, and I find the nut too hard to
crack for a fervent spiritualist. Would not you think that if
we tried to help that poor Jerry Brown, something good might come
of it? If we only help him by inducing prominent spiritualists
and prominent well known men to write for his paper occasionally,
help him in the way of finding subscribers (as the Banner
acts so mean towards him), don't you think we could help
the cause and at the same time help a poor struggling fellow-creature,
a brother spiritualist? I am not, generally speaking, very tender-hearted,
but my heart aches for that man after the letter I received this
morning from him, which I forward to you for perusal. Don't you
think his very soul speaks in this simple truthful narrative of
his trials and sufferings? I know he does not tell half of his
troubles; his position is worse even than what he admits to me.
He might get as a printer, a compositor, or type-setter thirty-five
dollars a week, -- and still he clings to the truth and struggles
and works like a slave to get but half this amount, with a regular
weekly deficit that slowly but surely drags him into the abyss!
Isn't it meritorious in him? I do respect and honour him for that
and will do everything in my power to help him through. If you
could only write something serious for his paper, something that
would attract attention, and your name alone would be sufficient
to raise up his paper. And then, perhaps, you might find him a
few subscribers in Ithaca. If you cannot, which I am afraid is
the case, for I know more than you think about you, then do write
something for his paper. See how freely and unceremoniously I
act; that's the usual effect of too much kindness. But I know
you are a good, kind, noble heart, and will not think me daring
or indiscreet to claim such a service from you; you are a spiritualist
and a true one. When you have read Jerry Brown's letter in response
to my second one in which I asked him to tell me what I could
do for him, and if a subscription would be of any good to him,
-- please send it to Mrs. Louisa Andrews. I know she will cry
over it, that she will, and her "Buff" will howl with
sympathy, for dogs are in our days more honest and noble-hearted
than men are, and more truthful than spiritualists of the class
of Colby. Fancy Rich, the proprietor of the Banner,
in partnership with a low variety theatre. Spiritualism and
variety show! O Nineteenth Century! what a pretty fellow you are!
I will write to Flammarion, the astronomer, of Paris, and ask
him to write something; and then I will get Mrs. Andrews. Do you
think if Longfellow would write a piece of poetry for him it would
do him any good? With all this I forgot my article. It will appear
in the next number of the Scientist, and I am
going to take several hundred copies and send them all over the
country. I guess Child's "sunshine" will be eclipsed
for a few days.
Excuse my "style echevele" and innumerable
mistakes, but no one can reasonably expect a woman with her nerves
all stretched and like strings in an old fiddle ready to burst,
to write good English. I feel so excited that I wonder I didn't
write my letter in Russian. I enclose a very curious letter from
a prisoner, published by the Hartford Times, and
sent me by Colonel Olcott. Perhaps it will make you smile. Please
present my sincere compliments to Mrs. Corson, and keep on believing
me, most truly and respectfully yours,
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
Thursday.
Could you not bring out our statements against Child in the
Scientist and confound Colby?
P.S. No date.
Will you kindly allow me, dear Sir, one more question. If my inquisitiveness
is rude or unwelcome don't answer me, and I will understand and
feel the eloquent hint. I wanted to ask you the question from
the first, but did not feel I had the right to. Why, instead of
the original sign of the "Labarum" which stands thus
, and is the one which
is said to have appeared to the Emperor Constantine in the heavens
one fine morning, you have adopted a change on each side of the
"Labarum," 
?
The latter characters, as far as I know (and I judge in my own
Rosicrucian way by the second table of stone in the Double Lithoi)
mean -- 
, which was given
or delivered by 
(male
principle) and -- because
it passed or came through -- (THE FEMALE PRINCIPLE RIGHT
AND LEFT). But then on your seal is lacking both on
and the surrounding
signs of 
.
It ought to stand, if I understand right, thus:
Can you tell me why?
Well, perhaps I am a fool after all, and an inquisitive one, too,
and you are right and know better.
God bless you and forgive my indiscretion, if it is one.
Yours truly again,
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
Letter No. 9
PHILADELPHIA,
Monday.
PROFESSOR HIRAM CORSON.
DEAR SIR,
Having received your letter on Friday evening I postponed answering
it, wishing first to ascertain if my article be printed in the
last Banner. I knew it would not, and my prevision turned
out to be true. Henceforth, if I do not promptly act I will have
to follow the example of Bluebeard's wife with her "Seur
Anne, ne vois tu rien venir?" It's useless,
Colby will not publish it, for some causes as unfathomable
as spiritualism itself in certain minds. If it would not be giving
you too much trouble I would beg of you to let Colby know that
you have read a copy of my article, as I tell him that I have
sent it all over the country to all of my acquaintances and correspondents.
I am determined to see it published, whatever the cost may be.
I write to Mrs. Andrews to-day asking her to try if she cannot
manage to get it in the Springfield Republican. If she
succeeds -- so much the better for truth and the worse for Colby's
partiality. Have you read in the Boston Spiritual Scientist
an extract from the London Spiritualist? Even
in London they know that out of the eleven spiritualists claiming
to exist in this country, I, a foreigner, a woman, am the only
one to fight the truth. They are very complimentary to me, but
Colby will take care not to quote from it in his paper.
Mrs. Andrews has sent me a beautiful portrait of yours, and I
am very much obliged to her. I did not dare trouble you for it,
being such an utter stranger to you. I do take her to be one of
the brightest, purest spirits ever created in this dirty swamp
called Earth. She seems to be incarnated kindness and gentleness,
so sincere, so truthful, so ever ready to forgive and be unwilling
to believe in evil; no wonder she can never feel happy here.
I am next to afraid of corresponding too much with her lest
I should inadvertently show her a glimpse of the "horns and
hoofed heel" of my real true nature, for I cannot and will
not forgive as long as I can help it. I have taken to task to
scourge and whip vice wherever I find it, and in myself more than
in others. You will surely blame me for it as many others did,
but I cannot help it. I sooner will forgive murder, or worse than
that, theft, than a lie; and Dr. Child is a biped lie, as you
know it yourself. I have promised myself and proclaimed to the
world my indomitable resolution to take this Philadelphia hydra
with his seven lying-heads by the teeth and claws, and not to
relinquish my hold until I strangle it fairly on the spot, though
I may be bitten and wounded by it. Lies and untruthfulness or
cheating must be considered the greatest crimes in our sacred
cause, for they are the more dangerous in a belief that allows
so much margin for deception and self-illusion, and ought to be
persecuted above everything else. What the "pious frauds"
of the "Fathers" of the Church in the early days of
Christianity, combined with the deliberate cheating of the Catholic
priesthood, have brought to poor deluded humanity (or at least
a portion of it) must be avoided for spiritualism in the future
ages. Humanity as a mass is worse than ever now, having sinned
through ignorance and frailty of our imperfect nature. Now they
sin, the so-called civilization, and knowing perfectly what they
are about. The prevailing miserable tendency toward materialism
in our age, brought about by the never-ending exposures by science
of all manner of religious frauds, can be cured by Truth alone,
and only by it, for humanity in general is certainly too much
advanced to accept one lie for another. On the whole, confessing
to ourselves how things stand just now, we spiritualists certainly
cannot wonder at the reluctance of the majority of people to barter
that erroneous belief which, notwithstanding its numerous fabricated
dogmas, has still won its right to citizenship and respectability
through ages, for another one, that is seemingly fabricated under
the very eyes of the growing generations. How very careful must
we be, then, in accepting phenomena and revelations purporting
to come from spirits. What dreadful consequences can bring about
one deliberate lie, found out beyond doubt in the mouth of a spiritualist!
Like one drop of gall in a bucketful of pure water, it is ever
liable to poison the whole truth. I know that what I undertake
is perhaps beyond my powers, but never beyond my will;
for like a sentinelle perdue I will die
at my post firm and unflinching, trying to set all facts in their
true light. Those that seek to overturn the truth of spiritualism
will find a curious dragon in me and a merciless exposer, whoever
they may be. I see the arduousness and barrenness of the journey
lying before me, the impassable thorns my path is covered with,
but I do not fear or feel discouraged. I have received anonymous
letters, threatening messages, and insulting warnings, but only
feel like laughing at them. My reward is not here, and I do not
expect it here; it's at home upstairs, and I know well, that were
I to fail or succeed, in either case I shall be laughed at, defamed,
slandered, and blackmailed; and even should events subsequently
vindicate fully the whys and wherefors of my mode of proceeding,
I feel that not one dog of the vilifiers of our cause and scoffers
of myself will sway his tongue to acknowledge that at least one
of the fanatics, crazy believers in spiritualism, has been truthful
in every way. But what I do feel sometimes sorely, is that I am
but a woman, after all, and that all the moral courage and physical,
too, I guess, cannot carry me through if someone does not help
me and back me, an individual of my poor weak sex. Will you be
one of your strong sex to help me in the truth? When I look at
your portrait, though I see you but in profile, it seems to me
that you are one that accomplishes more than he promises and acts
more than he speaks. Most probably you will never see me, and
that's lucky, for my shocking Russian manners would terrify you,
but will you allow me to write you and ask your help for the forthcoming
fight between truth and blind fanaticism in spiritualism? I have
secured the help of Colonel Olcott, General Lippitt, of Dr. Taylor,
in the West, Aksakof in Petersburg, and a dozen others. Spiritualism
as it is must be stopped in its progress and given another direction.
The delusions and insane theories of some spiritualists are shameful
in our century. I have some rich friends here in Philadelphia,
and the female portion of them are all ready to come out with
their money and influence on behalf of the cause. So what we need
the most is brains and fearless indomitable minds to work up in
the mental department at our command, we have but very very few
scholars. Do not be frightened, dear sir, for I will never take
advantage of your kind permission if you give it, and become a
bore. What I ask you is to simply contribute a few times a year
some article like the one you sent in to the Banner,
your last letter I mean, and let Colby and his like know
that there is behind the screens a small party of spiritualists
who are after truth alone, and will never allow a lie or an exaggerated
fact to spread abroad without trying to rectify it. They will
never allow him, the truthful Colby, to withhold truth and help
falsehood.
Well, I think that, notwithstanding my fine promises for the future,
I did become a bore in my present letter, which is undoubtedly
too long for any mortal's patience, so please accept my sincere
thanks and excuses, and . . . (the subscription only cut off).
Letters 10-17
Contents