Early Story of The Theosophical Society

4/23/2019 The Early Story of The Theosophical Society: A Chapter of History by William Stainton Moses
Published by The Blavatsky Archives Online. Online Edition copyright

1999.
The Early Story of

The Theosophical Society
_________
A Chapter of History
_________
No. I
by William Stainton Moses

[Reprinted from Light (London), July 9, 1892,
pp. 330-32; and July 23, 1892, pp. 354-57.]
[In this two-part article W. Stainton Moses reviews Col. Henry S. Olcott's
"series of historical reminiscences" titled "Old Diary Leaves" that were first published
in The Theosophist beginning with the March 1892 issue. Also in this article Moses
publishes a transcription of eight of Olcott's letters that were written to Moses during the
years 1875-76. Some of the letters give Colonel Olcott's early views of Madame
Blavatsky. Below are direct links to the 8 letters of Olcott.--- BAO editor.]
Olcott Letter #1
Olcott Letter #2
Olcott Letter #3
Olcott Letter #4
Olcott Letter #5
Olcott Letter #6
Olcott Letter #7
Olcott Letter #8
Colonel Olcott is engaged in writing the early history of his acquaintance

with Madame Blavatsky, which immediately preceded the formation of the
Theosophical Society. It is a work that needs doing. He will also give, as
only he now can, his reminiscences of the growth and vicissitudes of the
Society of which he was the President-Founder. Such a chapter of history
cannot but contain matter of great interest to the readers of “LIGHT,” and I
propose to give them from time to time some account of what is set forth,
having due regard to the request that a verbatim transcript may not be
made, in view of the possible collection of the papers in the form of a
volume.
During the time which Colonel Olcott covers in his early chapters
(“Theosophist,” March, May, and June, 1892), I was in regular
correspondence with Madame Blavatsky and himself, and have preserved
many of the voluminous letters then addressed to me by them. So far as
these are appropriate and can be published without infringing the privacy
blavatskyarchives.com/olcottmoses.htm 1/21
that belongs rightly to letters not written for publication, I shall quote
freely from what will throw light from an independent source on what is
published by Colonel Olcott. I find in the mass of letters before me many
records of occult phenomena which occurred in profusion during the years
1875 to 1878 in the presence of Madame Blavatsky. My own doubts as to
the existence of persons possessing the powers claimed for them, the
“Brothers,” as they were then called, were freely expressed, and much of
the correspondence I received from Madame Blavatsky is occupied with
attempts to remove my doubts. The letters will hardly be intelligible to an
outside reader, especially as I have no copies of my own replies, but some
quotations may be made as occasion serves.
Colonel Olcott commences his narrative with the meeting between himself
and Madame Blavatsky at the Eddy farmhouse at Chittenden. Full details
are given in his work, “People from the Other World,” which will be
known to most readers of “LIGHT.” The material of the book was
originally contributed in the form of letters to the “New York Daily
Graphic,” and it was the perusal of them that drew Madame Blavatsky to
Chittenden. Here is a description of the lady as she first burst on Olcott’s
astonished eyes: ---
The dinner hour at Eddy’s was noon, and it was from the
entrance door of the bare and comfortless dining-room that
Kappes and I first saw H.P.B. She had arrived shortly before
noon with a French Canadian lady, and they were at table as
we entered. My eye was first attracted by a scarlet
Garibaldian shirt the former wore, as being in vivid contrast
with the dull colours around. Her hair was then a thick blonde
mop, worn shorter than the shoulders, and it stood out from
her head, silken-soft and crinkled to the roots, like the fleece
of a Cotswold ewe. This and the red shirt were what struck
my attention before I took in the picture of her features. It was
a massive Calmuck face, contrasting in its suggestion of
power, culture, and imperiousness, as strangely with the
commonplace visages about the room as her red garment did
with the grey and white tones of the walls and woodwork and
the dull costumes of the rest of the guests. All sorts of cranky
people were continually coming and going at Eddy’s to see the
mediumistic phenomena, and it only struck me on seeing this
eccentric lady that this was but one more of the sort. [This
extract can be found in Olcott's Old Diary Leaves, Volume I,
p. 4.]
This was in September, 1874. The acquaintance that Colonel Olcott took
opportunity of making with this eccentric lady soon ripened into familiar
intercourse, and continued uninterrupted till death severed it. She was a
person respecting whom no idea of sex could ever be entertained by
anyone who knew her. She was an impersonal creature, who had seen
much of the world, and had had experience of the occult in many lands. “It
was not as an Eastern mystic, but rather as a refined Spiritualist she
talked.” She was very reticent, and it was not till long after that Olcott
discovered that she had come to Chittenden with a purpose.
It is well to have a clear view of the conditions under which the Chittenden
seances were held, and of the effect of the presence of this remarkable
women upon the manifestations. Colonel Olcott thus describes these
matters: ---
The seances of William Eddy, the chief medium of the family,

were held every evening in a large upstairs hall, in a wing of
the house, over the dining-room and kitchen. He and a
brother, Horatio, were hard-working farmers, Horatio
attending to the outdoor duties, and William, since visitors
came pouring in upon them from all parts of the United States,
doing the cooking for the household. They were poor, ill-
educated, and prejudiced --- sometimes surly to their unbidden
guests. At the further end of the seance-hall the deep chimney
from the kitchen below passed through the roof. Between it
and the north wall was a narrow closet of the same width as
the depth of the chimney, two feet seven inches, in which
William Eddy would seat himself to wait for the phenomena.
He had no seeming control over them, but merely sat and
waited for them to sporadically occur. A blanket being hung
across the doorway, the closet would be in perfect darkness.
Shortly after William had entered the cabinet, the blanket
would be pulled aside and forth would step some figure of a
dead man, woman, or child --- an animate statute so to say ---
temporarily solid and substantial, but the next minute resolved
back into nothingness or invisibility. They would occasionally
dissolve away while in full view of the spectators.
Up to the time of H.P.B.’s appearance on the scene, the figures

which had shown themselves were either Red Indians, or
Americans, or Europeans akin to visitors. But on the first
evening of her stay spooks of other nationalities came before
us. There was a Georgian servant boy from the Caucasus; a
Mussulman merchant from Tiflis; a Russian peasant girl, and
others. Another evening there appeared a Koordish cavalier
armed with scimitar, pistols, and lance; a hideously ugly and
devilish-looking negro sorcerer from Africa, wearing a coronet
composed of four horns of the oryx with bells at their tips,
attached to an embroidered, highly-coloured fillet which was
tied around his head; and a European gentleman wearing the
cross and collar of St. Anne, who was recognised by Madame
Blavatsky as her uncle. The advent of such figures in the
seance-room of those poor, almost illiterate Vermont farmers,
who had neither the money to buy theatrical properties, the
experience to employ such if they had had them, nor the room
where they could have availed of them, was to every eye-
witness a convincing proof that the apparitions were genuine.
At the same time they show that a strange attraction to call out
these images from what Asiatics call the Kama-loca attended
Madame Blavatsky. It was long afterwards that I learnt that
she had evoked them by her own developed and masterful
power. [See Old Diary Leaves, Volume I, pp. 7-9.]
She seems very early to have set to work to demolish in Olcott’s mind a
belief that the Eddy phenomena were due to the intervention of the spirits
of departed human beings. He as warmly defended it, knowing, it is
important to note, nothing of the various Eastern theories which he has
since come to accept. He was a Spiritualist then, and Madame Blavatsky
tempered the wind to the shorn lamb. She was a Spiritualist too, though
hinting other things. She had even that wisdom of the serpent which made
her all things to all men if she might, perchance, win some. When she left
Chittenden she and Olcott were good friends, looking forward to a renewal
of pleasant intercourse in New York.
There, in November, 1874, Olcott called on her at her lodgings, 16, Irving-
place, and had various seances for table-tipping, rapping, and so forth,
“John King” being the communicating intelligence. Olcott then accepted
in good faith his history of himself as “the earth-haunting soul of Sir Henry
Morgan.” Now he is rude enough to call him a “humbugging elemental.”
Whatever he was or was not, “the phenomena were real.” But John King
was not. “He was first, John King an independent personality, then John
King messenger and servant --- never the equal --- of living adepts, and,
finally, an elemental pure and simple.” How are the mighty fallen! There
may, however, be some pardonable hesitation in giving a perfect assent to
these propositions.
It is, however, historically important to note the following passage,

containing Olcott’s impressions and Madame Blavatsky’s own statement of
her then position: ---
It is useless to deny that, throughout the early part of her

American residence, she called herself a Spiritualist and
warmly defended Spiritualism and its mediums from their
sciolistic and other bitter traducers. Her letters and articles in
various American and English journals contain many
evidences of her occupying that position. Among other
examples I will simply quote the following: ---
“As it is, I have only done my duty: first, towards

Spiritualism, that I have defended as well as I could from the
attacks of imposture under the too transparent mask of science;
then towards two helpless, slandered mediums. . . . But I am
obliged to confess that I really do not believe in having done
any good --- to Spiritualism itself. . . . It is with a profound
sadness in my heart that I acknowledge this fact, for I begin to
think there is no help for it. For over fifteen years have I
fought my battle for the blessed truth; have travelled and
preached it --- though I never was born for a lecturer --- from
the snow-covered tops of the Caucasian Mountains, as well as
from the sandy valleys of the Nile. I have proved the truth of
it practically and by persuasion. For the sake of Spiritualism I
have left my home, an easy life amongst a civilised society,
and have become a wanderer upon the face of the earth. I had
already seen my hopes realised, beyond my most sanguine
expectations, when my unlucky star brought me to America.
Knowing this country to be the cradle of Modern Spiritualism,
I came over here from France with feelings not unlike those of
a Mohammedan approaching the birth-place of his Prophet.”

&c., &c. (Letter of H.P.B. to the “Spiritualist” of December
13th, 1874.)
The two “helpless mediums” alluded to were the Holmeses, of

whose moral quality I have always had the poorest opinion.
Yet, in H.P.B’s presence I [H.S.O.] witnessed, under my own
test conditions, along with the late Hon. Robert Dale Owen
and General Lippitt, a series of most convincing and
satisfactory mediumistic phenomena. I half suspected then
that the power that produced them came from H.P.B., and that
if the Holmeses alone had been concerned I should either have
seen tricks or nothing. Now in hunting over the old
scrapbooks I find in H.P.B.’s MSS. the following
memorandum, which she evidently meant to be published after
her death: ---
“IMPORTANT NOTE”
“Yes, I am sorry to say that I had to identify myself, during

that shameful exposure of the Holmes mediums, with the
Spiritualists. I had to save the situation, for I was sent from
Paris to America on purpose to prove the phenomena and
their reality, and show the fallacy of the Spiritualistic theory of
spirits.” But how could I do it best? I did not want people at
large to know that I could produce the same things AT WILL. I
had received orders to the contrary, and yet I had to keep alive
the reality, the genuineness and possibility of such phenomena,
in the hearts of those who from Materialists had turned
Spiritualists, but now, owing to the exposure of several
mediums, fell back again, returned to their scepticism. This is
why, selecting a few of the faithful, I went to the Holmeses
and, helped by M. and his power, brought out the faces of John
King and Katie King from the Astral Light, produced the
phenomena of materialisation, and allowed the Spiritualists at
large to believe it was done through the mediumship of Mrs.
Holmes. She was terribly frightened herself, for she knew that
this once the apparition was real. Did I do wrong? The world
is not prepared yet to understand the philosophy of Occult
Science; let them first assure themselves that there are beings
in an invisible world, whether ‘Spirits’ of the dead or
elementals; and that there are hidden powers in man which are
capable of making a god of him on earth. [See Old Diary
Leaves, Volume I, pp. 12-14.]
I pass on, merely quoting, for the amusement of those who are interested in
phenomena, a pretty piece of psychical jugglery: ---
Among her callers was an Italian artist, a Signor B., formerly a

Carbonaro. I was sitting alone with her in her drawing-room
when he made his first visit. They talked of Italian affairs and
he suddenly pronounced the name of one of the greatest of the
Adepts. She started as if she had received an electric shock;
looked him straight in the eyes, and said (in Italian), “What is
it? I am ready.” He passed it off carelessly, but thenceforward

the talk was all about Magic, Magicians, and Adepts. It was a
cold, snowy winter evening, but Signor B. went and opened
one of the French windows, made some beckoning passes
towards the outer air, and presently a pure white butterfly
came into the room and went flying about near the ceiling.
H.P.B. laughed in a cheerful way, and said, “That is pretty, but
I can also do it!” She, too, opened the window, made similar
beckoning passes, and presently a second white butterfly came
fluttering in. It mounted to the ceiling, chased the other
around the room, played with it now and then, with it flew to a
corner, and, presto! both disappeared at once while we were
looking at them. “What does that mean?” I asked. “Only this,
that Signor B. can make an elemental turn itself into a
butterfly, and so can I.” The fact that it happened on a biting
cold night when no butterfly could possibly be flying about in
the frost-laden air will be noticed by the Western reader as
convincing proof that the insects were not real but illusionary
ones. [See Old Diary Leaves, Volume I, pp. 15-16.]
I can do no more than notice briefly Olcott’s unquestioning statement of

his continued intercourse with those whom he calls the “Masters,”
elsewhere the “Brothers,” and yet again the “Adepts.” He tells us how,
having been under “The African section of the Occult Brotherhood,” later
on he was “transferred to the Indian section and a different group of
Masters,” “when a certain wonderful thing of a psycho-physiological
nature happened to H. P. B., that I am not at liberty to speak about, and that
nobody has up to the present suspected, although enjoying her intimacy
and confidence, as they fancy.” There can be no doubt --- as there never
has been any in my mind --- of Olcott’s perfect conviction on this point.
Some remarks of his p. 332 of this March number of the “Theosophical”
are conclusive, if there were any previous room for doubt.
I have left Madame Blavatsky in the early days of 1875, when she had
come to New York from her mission to make Olcott’s acquaintance at
Chittenden. Olcott gives some facts in her history between 1873, when she
was ordered at a day’s notice to leave Paris for New York “in the interest of
Spiritualism,” and states categorically that during this time “she had
attended seances and consorted with mediums, but never came under
public notice.” Into this antecedent history I do not enter. My own
acquaintance with Olcott was formed when his Eddy book was published.
I wrote to my friend, Espes Sargent, offering to introduce it to English
Spiritualists. He wrote to Olcott, who in turn addressed me on April 10th,
1875, from the Lotos Club, 2, Irving-Place, New York. In the course of his
letter he writes: ---
[Olcott Letter #1]

I would be glad to know that enlightened investigators like
yourself were giving attention to the writers who are alone, in
my opinion, able to account for these Spiritualistic
phenomena. Whatever we see of marvels in our day are
merely duplicates of what happened generations ago; and,
unless a multitude of persons combined in successive epochs

to cheat mankind, there is no apparent reason why we may not
have such manifestations as we chose, when we like, where
we like, and gather about us at will good spirits or bad. I
believe that the Universe was made for man, that man partakes
of Divine powers and attributes, and that it is within his reach
to exercise those powers over the spiritual as over the material
world. If his nature is debased he may, by the help of evil
spirits, injure and destroy; if the contrary, he may elevate and
bless himself and his fellow-men. I did not know this when
my book was being written, but I know it now, for I have
recently been furnished abundant proof through a lady whom I
mention in my book --- Madame de Blavatsky.
I called my work “People from the Other World,” because I

wished to convey just the idea that the so-called spirits are
nothing more or less than people --- people like ourselves,
people just as they were before they passed beyond our view.
I dedicated it to Wallace and Crookes because I felt that I
owed that much to their manliness and the example of honesty
they have set us all.
It is a curious literary production, in truth --- five hundred

pages of descriptions of personal encounters with materialised
spirits, embellished with many sketched portraits from life.
H. S. OLCOTT
In the course of a subsequent letter, dated May 18th, I find some passages
that show Olcott’s position at that time: ---
[Olcott Letter #2]

The rule of law, “Falsus in uno, &c.,” most emphatically does
not apply to mediums, for I think there are few who do not
gladly give genuine manifestations when they can. When I
first went to Chittenden I thought the Eddys were imposters,
but just at that point, when the friend who accompanied me
left in disgust, I determined to begin my investigation; and,
that I might not do the people injustice, as they and their
elementary spirits refused me facilities for close contact, I
stayed at my post, in the most disagreeable surroundings to a
man of my habits, for three months, until my notebook was
crammed with facts sufficient to make up my case. I proved
the Eddys’ mediumship in their own despite, and now they
regard me with unfriendly feelings, when you would say that
they ought to consider me their benefactor. William Eddy I
consider a good, pure man, and his materialisations I believe
to be genuine. Horatio is also a great medium, but he is one of
those whom I should watch constantly. Some things that occur
in his presence are truly marvellous, and one of his spirits,
“Mayflower,” is a most attractive and interesting child. Her
musical performances are extremely beautiful.
I sincerely hope you are able to visit me in the spirit now that I
have laid a cable of my Odic force across the water. I am no
medium myself, but I have reason to believe that my spirit
sometimes does a little travelling on its own account, at night
when my body is asleep. Come to me if you can, and let us
take counsel together.
The time has come, in my opinion, for us leaders in this

movement to go back to the only and true sources of
knowledge about these spiritual phenomena. Just see how
they have been occurring for twenty-seven years and nobody
teaching the people how they occur, how to control their
occurrence, how to “try the spirits if they be of God!” Is it not
strange that, with hundreds of ancient books within reach of
our spiritual scholars, which teach us everything we desire to
know, no volume has been consulted, but we have been taking
the crude speculation of elementary spirits, the turgid
vaticinations of ignorant mediums, and actually swallowing
the lies of living spirits, who, with a brave show of words that
fill our minds as the East wind might the belly of the fool,
have made us do their bidding and assist in their pranks? Turn
to Fludd, and Apollonius, to Eliphas Levi, and a hundred other
such authorities, and you will find every single phase of
“Modern Spiritualism” anticipated and explained. One
phenomenon, the instantaneous disappearance of spirit-writing
from a paper, I thought unique, but on turning back I found
that when Apollonius was cited before Nero upon a charge of
philosophising in the streets, and his accuser was asked to
hand the Emperor the indictment, lo! the writing had vanished,
and the parchment was as clean as if it had never been soiled
with ink! Consult the authors quoted in my book, and you will
find your every question answered, your every doubt
removed. For a most interesting compilation of magical facts I
refer you to the works of Des Mousseaux, who, although a
blind Catholic and an implicit believer in Diabolism, has
collated a host of valuable facts, that your more enlightened
and emancipated mind will value as they deserve. You will
also find advantage in reading up works upon the Oriental
sects and priestly orders; and some interesting particulars are
in Lane’s “Modern Egyptians,” from which I quote in my
work.
Like yourself, I make no pretensions whatever to scientific

training. If I did, I should not assume so humble and
deferential a tone to the Academicians as I have, to the
dissatisfaction of Wallace, who writes to censure me for
undervaluing the results of my labours, which he is pleased to
pronounce conclusive and valuable.
Is not it time for us to admit that in the successive destructions

of manuscript collections by Diocletian, Caesar, and Isanrus,
science may have sustained a loss so gigantic that it has
required all theses subsequent centuries to get our scientific
students as far along as the re-discovery of the most
elementary facts of nature, whose secrets the ancients had

mastered? Oh! the presumptuous conceit of our modern
associations and academies, to which we Spiritualistic
explorers pay such tribute of deference! I have done with
this. I shall write no more books in such a spirit. If I can
discover a new law, or demonstrate a new fact, I shall have no
hesitation in enunciating it. They have sneered at us for a
quarter of a century, now let you and me and our trusty
colleagues turn the tables on them, and lash them into respect
for Truth at all costs.
My theory of materialisation is yet too crude to warrant my

communicating it; but I hope before long to be better
instructed. One thing is sure: it indicates the activity of a new
force, acting upon a new (to us) form of matter, under the
control of Will Power. My realisation of the boundless
potency of this latter is growing daily clearer. I think, from
what little I have read of your own mediumship, that you are
an excellent example of what its exercise may do; and, if I
were you, I would consult the Rosicrucian authors and see
what they say of it and how it may be advantageously applied.
I have seen it marvellously effective in the production of spirit
lights, hands, direct writing and full forms. I don’t mean to
enter into details, for I have chatted with you almost an hour,
but I give you a glimpse of what I mean in what I say of
Madame Blavatsky in Part II.
H. S. Olcott
One more extract from a letter dated from the Lotos Club, June 22nd,
1875, in acknowledgment of my review of his book, must close my present
instalment: ---
[Olcott Letter #3]

I have just finished a second reading of your charming review
of my book, in the copy of “Human Nature” which you were
kind enough to send me, and I feel as if I ought not to await
your answer to my last letter before making my hearty
acknowledgments.
Mr. Huxley said once that if a man obtained the approval of

about a dozen men for his work he need not care what all the
others might say; and I am so much of his opinion that I
unhesitatingly declare that, since Mr. Wallace and yourself and
a few others think that I have made the most of such
opportunities as were afforded me in the matter of the
materialisations, I am indifferent to any other criticisms that
may be made upon my labours.
But you cannot imagine the extent of my own dissatisfaction

with what I did when I think of how vastly more I might have
done but for the obstacles placed in my way. The scrutiny of
four or five hundred spirits, rich as it was in results, only

whets my appetite for more study and experiments, and I shall
not rest contented until I have gone further towards the bottom
of my deep-sea soundings in the ocean of Psychology. I have
been an observer of Spiritualistic phenomena for twenty-five
years, and have been waiting all that time to find the
philosophy which should satisfactorily account for them. It is
this which makes me, after failing in every other direction,
turn with so much interest and hope towards the ancient
masters of Occult Science. I have discovered enough already
to make me pretty confident that if the key to the mystery does
not lie within their writings it cannot be found at all; and as the
scent grows stronger, the interest is constantly on the increase.
A very learned spirit friend and correspondent (who writes to

me without the intervention of any medium, and writes his
letters on parchment) recently gave me the titles of three books
he wished me to read. They are: “L’Etoile Flamboyante,” per
le Baron Tschoudy; “Magia Adamica,” by “Eugenius
Philalethes”; and “The Key to the Concealed Things Since the
Beginning of the World.” The first two I have found and read;
the third is not attainable. The former contain the essence of
the Hermetic Philosophy, and I strongly recommend them to
your favour. Setting aside the questions of the Elixir of Life
and the Universal Alkahest, what these authors say of the
philosophy of creation --- the birth of spirit and matter, the
fecundation of the latter by the former, and the possibilities
within the reach of man’s soul --- afford me more satisfaction
and comfort than anything I have met with elsewhere. You
speak in your review of my “spiritual insight,” and I can
assure you that the intuitions which have been awakened in me
by my studies of the past year enable me to see, beyond the
printed pages of these philosophers of two centuries ago, the
dawning day of that spiritual light for which I have so long
and so vainly sought. For the first time in my life the plan of
Creation seems to unfold itself before my inner sight, and I
begin to get glimpses --- and I fancy that finite man can never
get more than a glimpse --- of the boundless glory of the
Infinite God --- of the method by which the forces of the
Universe are balanced and directed.
H. S. Olcott
No. II.
We continue our notice of Colonel Olcott’s letters, to which we have
previously adverted. They do not require much comment. They
sufficiently explain themselves. Subsequently we may add some remarks:
---
[Olcott Letter #4]
I have delayed my letter for the appearance of the

communication I had sent to the “Tribune,” as it answers some
of the questions in your recent favour. Now let me run it over
and take up your points seriatim.
The Occultist authors, of course, intended to write in such a

way as that, while concealing the truth from superficial
readers, they should nevertheless preserve it for the earnest,
diligent student who might come after them. The main points
of their philosophy relate: (1) To the nature and attributes of
the First Cause --- the En-Soph; (2) to the evolution of spirit
and matter --- their progressive changes, combinations,
relations, attributes or properties, and destiny; (3) to the
evolution of intelligence, moral faculties, and spiritual
capabilities, and their embodiment in the elementary spirits, in
man, in angels, seraphs, and other entities. In this department
are included, of course, all that relates to the domination of the
human spirit over the lower races of spirits and the forces of
nature, in the microcosm; and also to our gradual evolution
and progression from lower to higher conditions, from the
bottom to the top of the ladder that reaches from earth to
Heaven, from base matter to pure spirit, from us to God.
The bearing of this philosophy upon the question of

Spiritualism is most important. It shows us, what I for one at
least never suspected, that there are such things as elementary
spirits, which we may define simply as beings possessed of
intelligence and craft, but not of immortal souls; that these
beings are able to and do produce a majority of the physical
phenomena of mediumship; that each of us was, once upon a
time, an elementary, and each of those we left behind is sure to
become, like us, immortal men by having the breath of the En-
Soph breathed into him at birth; and that by reason of our
share of that Immortal Breath, that portion of the Deity
possessing all the attributes of Himself, in degree, we may
subjugate these elementaries and make them do our will. It
defines to us the nature of the forces of the “Unseen
Universe,” and shows us how to command them; displaying
before our astonished eyes a whole world of causes of which
the most lucid of our seers had only given us the vaguest
glimpses, and of the laws of which we have been utterly
ignorant. It shows us how absolute is the analogy between
man and the Universe, he being animated by a spark of the
Divine Soul, and it by the Great Soul itself. It presents to us
the sight of globes surrounded by a common luminous
atmosphere of their own emanations, or their distilled
essences, as we might say, as our bodies are enveloped in odic
“spheres” peculiar to ourselves, which mix and combine when
we gather together, and make a multitude of individual,
perhaps discordant, entities merge into a whole, whose
ultimate effect may be for good or evil as one or the other
tendency may predominate. This common emanation of the
Universe is technically termed the Astral Light, and the life-
principle of man, which is itself only a reflection of the pure
spirit (Immortal Breath) which exists in and never leaves the

highest (seventh) sphere (or the immediate vicinity of the En-
Soph, of whom it is a part), is a part of this Astral Light, and is
called ATMA.
It defines the nature of clairvoyance, showing it to be simply

the seeing of what exists in the Astral Light by the human
spirit which can free itself for the moment from the “cloud of
sense.”
It offers nothing to conflict with the discoveries of science, but

goes hand in hand with our savans into the “Fire Mist,” and
then when they stop, unable to face what Herbert Spencer calls
the incomprehensible, leads the courageous explorer into the
penetralia of nature where he can discover the soul of things,
and read all the riddles of creation.
The records of its adepts have preserved, for coming

generations, the archives of all past time and the record of
every discovery that has blessed the world, whether seemingly
“lost” or not.
One of its most startling developments is the awful potency of

the human WILL, by which the adept can control not only his
own existence, but also that of his fellows, and summon to his
help the most hidden powers of nature.
Yes, as you say, Spiritualism is “only one part of a vast

subject,” and I leave it to your high intelligence and clear
intuition to answer your own question whether “the profit
equals the risk” of pursuing the study. Occultism is, as
Madame de Blavatsky says, a two-edged sword, but it wounds
the wielder only when his purpose is ignoble, his courage
feeble, and his perseverance weak. For my part, I can
conceive of no greater reward than the knowledge of my own
immortal soul’s powers, and for its acquisition I esteem no
labour too hard, no danger of moment, no sacrifice of earthly
advantage too great. Of what moment to the enlightened
philosopher are the mean vanities and preferments of this life
of a span’s length? What to him the enjoyments of peace, or
wealth, or temporal power? True, he owes it to his race to
benefit them as far as lies in his power, and he should never be
deaf to the call of duty; but he sees the whole field of his
destiny spread before him, as one sees the path from a
mountain-top, and applies his powers as the case demands.
The eye of his spirit penetrates the future before which the
materialistic scientist sees a thick curtain drawn, and in his
vocabulary the word Incomprehensible is used only when he
speaks of God.
You are quite right about our “spoiling our mediums by taking
no care of them” --- suffering them to sit in “mixed circles of
foolish gapers,” and having “so low a tone of thought pervade
them.” For this reason the mediums in private families are
better --- more trustworthy --- than those who follow
mediumship as an occupation. A time must come when, as

you suggested in a former letter, we will isolate our mediums
as they did of old, and when, I may add, we will know enough
to discriminate between the sybillic utterances of the wise
departed, and the jabbering and falsehoods of the
“elementaries” who walk into, occupy, and control the open
bodily houses of the mediums, and give us as oracles the
memories, theories, and desires they see in our own minds.
You remark how apt to this point is that verse of Tom Moore’s:
---
“I soon could trace each thought

that lay
Gleaming within her heart, as clear
As pebbles within brooks appear.”
Apply this test to your own mediumship as well as that of

others and learn to be wise.
I have already warned you against spending time or money on

pseudo Occultist societies and adepts. You will not need them,
for the order has gone out from the genuine brothers to
communicate with you, and all will come right in time.
Try to get private talk with “John King” --- he is an initiate,

and his frivolities of speech and action are meant to cover
serious business. You can see him at Herne’s or Williams’s,
and privately arrange with him to come and talk to you and
bring others. Remember the advances must always be made
by ourselves. We must desire strongly, or as Jesus --- that
most spiritual-minded of our initiates --- puts it, “Knock and it
shall be opened to you.” When you have made yourself
familiar with Occultism you will do well to re-peruse the
Bible, for you will be astounded to find its pages swarming
with precepts from the Chaldean Kabbala, and all through the
Gospels the most irrefragable evidences of Christ’s initiation
into the Mysteries.
The only words I would change in my report of the Holmes’

affair are in the second paragraph of my summary on p. 478. I
would now write them thus: “The phenomena described by me
as having occurred in the presence of the Holmeses were
genuine spirit manifestations; but I have reason to suspect that
I should not have witnessed them if Madame de Blavatsky had
not been present and assisted to produce them by the exercise
of her powers as an Occultist. While, therefore, the issue of
my experiments does not relieve the Holmeses from the
imputation of fraud, any more than the testimony of Mrs.
White and Dr. Child convicts them, it does most clearly
demonstrate the occurrence of real spiritual phenomena,
including the materialisation of the spirit-form.
Now you see that the main question is not affected as our
enemies desired and intended, for that I saw real
manifestations is no more doubtful than that I write you these
lines. I did not then know what I have since learnt about
Madame de Blavatsky’s powers, and she will have to answer
for letting me credit her doings to the Holmeses. She did it out
of blind devotion to the Cause, which she feared might be
mortally wounded if I did not report real phenomena as being
seen by me in the Holmeses presence.
There is no doubt about Mrs. Compton’s transfiguration

whatever. Why, my plain, unvarnished story shows that! You
ask me what becomes of her body. Madame de Blavatsky will
answer you in an article she is now preparing under order from
headquarters.
My Miracle Club is in statu quo, but will be organised in due

time. Meanwhile I am making isolated experiments and
reporting the results to the daily papers. I can do more good
thus than by giving everything to the Spiritualistic Press. I
have sent you some lately.
Good-bye; God bless you. This letter is too long already. Let
me call myself your sincere friend and brother,
H. S. OLCOTT
_____________________
[Olcott Letter #5]

I shall just write a line to save the mail, deferring a suitable
reply to your friendly letter of the 10th inst. for a few days, as
I want to send you a letter I have prepared for the “New York
Tribune,” which in some measure answers your questions.
Meanwhile, let me advise you to join no society whatever for

the present. The European Rosicrucians bear about the same
relation to the Oriental Occultists that the other degrees of
Free Masonry do to practical architecture. The fraternity, as a
working branch of the real Order, died out with Cagliostro, as
Free Masonry did with Wren. What is left is a mere husk.
Again, keep clear of Eliphaz Levi’s adept. Levi was a

schismatic, and his work bears the ear-marks of the Jesuits.
He says such preposterous things as that prayer offered in a
church is more efficacious than when offered in one’s own
room.
Again; depend upon it, that nine-tenths of spiritual

communications --- oral, trance, and written --- are not from
ascended spirits, but from the elementaries whom Madame
Blavatsky described in the “Scientist” so well. I totally
disbelieve in the current theory of “guides,” “controls,” and
“bands,” as well as in the identity of most of the “spirits,” who
not only claim to be the former denizens of this sphere, but by
their Protean powers can assume their shapes and clothe

themselves with their magnetic effulgence.
In pointing out the existence of these elementary spirits,

Madame Blavatsky has given us a clue to most of what has
hitherto been mysterious and tantalising in spiritual
phenomena.
Depend upon it, that those who are true adepts of the Orient
write no letters, make no boasts, and display their powers only
under very exceptional circumstances. You will encounter
them --- I know it; for to you the Brotherhood looks to lead the
English public towards the light, as they do to me in this
country to perform the same office. Read, mark, and digest.
You will soon hear the truth.
H. S. OLCOTT
__________________________
[Olcott Letter #6]

Called out of town by the news that my old father had suffered
a paralytic stroke, I hasten upon my return to reply to your
long and welcome letter of 16th ult., which I have just read.
I sincerely hope that Madame Blavatsky and her letters will

not give you chronic dyspepsia, since you say that you are
“digesting” the latter. They must be tough indeed if they tax
your gastric juice. Wait until we have time to finish her book,
and you will find Occultism done into “plain English.” Many,
many mysteries of Fludd and Philalethes, of Paracelsus and
Agrippa are interpreted so that he who runs may read. She has
had permission to write plainly (up to a certain point, of
course, and no further), and has obeyed orders. I am the
gainer first, as I sit up night after night with her, helping to
polish the diamonds of wisdom. In this way I have learned
more of magic than otherwise I could have done in months ---
perhaps years. I have learnt --- not from the book, but from
her orally about the Brotherhood --- their general government,
habitat, the names and personalities of some of the chiefs, the
nature of the power they exert and how, the assignment of
duty, some of the requirements of membership, the pains,
penalties, trials and rewards of novitiate. Moreover, I have
long been in personal intercourse with them by
correspondence --- which comes to me at times and in ways
which preclude all possibility of her agency in the matter.
They have written me certain things about her --- her
disposition, mental condition, merits and demerits --- which
she does not even suspect I know, for they have prevented her
from seeing or knowing about them. But other things that they
have told me they have allowed her to discover. It is very
curious; is it not? I am regularly entered as a novice, and am
diligently trying to open my intuitions, and by self-

development and self-purification to fit myself to attain the
inestimable blessing of full membership --- which, despising
as I long have all earthly honours and advantages, I consider
more precious than rubies. Her admonitions and example
have made me a better, a wiser, and a purer man, and never in
the remotest degree the reverse.
And yet with all that I have learnt --- so much more than you
or any other person --- how little do I know of what lies
beyond! By comparison with the erudition, the power, the
experience of some of these embodied and disembodied men
who are counselling and teaching me, I regard myself as the
most ignorant of ignoramuses! All that I have learnt in books
is dross, all the distinction I ever gained for any thing I ever
did is as valueless as the rust on the rapier --- the mould on the
vine. You speak of being tortured with doubts, I have none.
Your mind is beclouded with suspicion --- mine as clear as a
drop of dew. For the first time in my life death has no mystery
for me, life no remediless sorrow, the future no uncertainty.
Light comes into my intellect, little by little, and the scheme
and purpose of the Creation are becoming plain. For thirty
years I have groped in darkness; now a guide leads me by the
hand towards the quarter where morning breaks. That guide is
the woman whom you have heard caluminated, whom you half
suspect of criminality. She is my sister. She has shown me the
documentary record of her past life. I know it all, from
girlhood until now. I have seen the letters from her kinsfold --
- some of her orders from the Brotherhood --- the letters from
persons of high social position, for whose offences she has
silently borne calumny and reproach. They confess her
beneficience and fidelity, and “their” own unworthiness. I tell
you, my brother “Oxon,” that this woman is a heroine; and that
is about all I can tell you. What she has shown me, as to a
tried and trusty brother, is not mine to repeat. If my word is of
weight --- if I have proven by my conduct the right to have it
respected by honest people --- that must suffice. She is
blameless of evil conduct, and she is worthy of your full
confidence and respect. If you will tell me just what stories
you have heard about her, instead of giving me hints which
only perplex without enabling me to answer, I will let you
know all that is necessary to set her right in your eyes and
Massey’s.
I have stated facts about the “substratum of fact” I have found

“beneath Occultism” in letters to the papers and you have read
them; but still you ask, “Does anybody know anything about it
except Madame Blavatsky?” How the deuce can you be
satisfied? It’s impossible, “Oxon,” until you see things for
yourself. So wait patiently, and talk to the Brother whom you
think one of your “Band.” Get the Elementaries down and sit
on them; that’s half the battle. The other half is in learning to
exercise your will-power. I wish you would get from Paris
Jacolliot’s “Spiritisme dans le Monde,” and read what the
Hindoo Brothers do. Perty has not printed half that Wagner
quotes in his Russian pamphlet which he has just sent me.
Read Jacolliot, and be wise.
_________________
[Olcott Letter # 7]
Mind you, I’m forty-three, not twenty-three --- and so neither
a callow enthusiast nor a credulous simpleton. Why, during
the four years of our war, I examined some fifteen hundred
witnesses (I and my few subordinates, I revising their work
always) a year, and Secretary Stanton entrusted me --- as he
said --- with as much power and discretion as he himself
enjoyed. He constantly issued orders, ordered trials, changed
officers, established regulations upon my simple report and
recommendation. Do you think I am to be made a dupe by a
woman about a matter of scientific and philosophical truth?
Do you suppose I don’t know this woman --- whom I have
known as intimately as a brother a sister for over a year, so as
to be able to discover if she is a strumpet, a liar, or a cheat?
Now, my lad, tell me of what is she accused. Do you want to
know how she is regarded by excellent people here? Read the
enclosed notes from Dr. Ditson and Mrs. Amer (a very refined
and wealthy lady of Philadelphia) which I have “cabbaged” for
you from her topsy-turvy table, the piles of papers and books
upon which make it look as if a stationer’s shop had been
struck by lightning.
What you mean about “Madame Blavatsky and Paris” I can’t

imagine, and she can’t tell me. If you want to know how she
lived there with her brother, at 10, Rue du Palais, write to
Leymaire or Madame Leymaire, both of whom knew her.
There is a Canadian lady here, a Madame Marquette, who took
her medical degree here and in Paris and is practising, who
saw Madame Blavatsky every day, and is perfectly ready to
give me any certificate I desire as to her perfectly correct life.
At the last meeting of the Theosophical Society we had a test

of Mrs. Thayer, the Boston flower and bird medium. I put her
in a bag, and no one was present at the table but our members.
We got lots of flowers and plants and a pair of pretty ring-
doves.
OLCOTT
It’s just as our “Jack” (J.K., alias Sir H. M.) told me: he
marked your copy of my photo, and the Elementaries are
masquerading in his lovely form all over the world. They are
at it in Boston very profusely --- every devilish humbug of a
materialiser shows up a J.K.; while Mrs. Holmes keeps hers in
the bosom of her dress with its nose broken and its beard half
pulled out. John is a very busy spirit, and has been working in
Spiritualism ever since the Salem witchcraft days of 1694. In

fact, upon a photograph of a witchcraft trial scene that I gave
him, and that hangs in Madame Blavatsky’s library, he has
written in his own quaint characters this legend: “Johnny’s
doings. His work!”
The inscription upon your copy of my photo is identical with

what he has put upon a whole dozen of them. I put them in the
drawer of Madame Blavatsky’s tale for a little time; looked for
them and found them gone; looked again, and there they were
again with the Cabalistic, (J.K.) on each.
The is the mark of the lodge (of which John is a member;

having taken one degree before his death). He has been often
in London --- in fact, I met him there myself in 1870; but he
says that for each time he has really appeared, twenty
Elementaries have personated him. His visitation to you is not
so remarkable as the prank he played with Epes Sargent, from
whose library he took away in a twinkling a photo or a card
about eight by ten inches, or longer, in size, because Madame
Blavatsky blew him up for making the picture of which the
photo was a copy, in part from an old plate in a German
magazine, and then pretending that it was all his original
composition. The picture was a most remarkable one, a
central scene surrounded with separate panels, in each of
which was a scene. It was done beneath the table, by himself,
in a few minutes time, and it was not until a year or more
afterwards that Madame Blavatsky discovered that one of the
panels was, as I say, a copy of an old engraving. Beyond
bringing us some pears and grapes two or three times when we
were thirsty and requested them, and bringing Madame
Blavatsky a genuine or counterfeit Jewish medal of the time of
Moses, with Hebrew inscriptions, he has not done much of
late. We have been too busy to bother with tricks.
Now a word about “bands” and “controls” which seems to

perplex you. What I meant to say is that a man’s best band is
his intuition, conscience and reason; his best “controls” his
own purified and exalted soul. No man has the right to submit
himself to abject slavery, as most mediums do. But a medium
or seer should no more reject the advice and brotherly or
paternal counsel of spirits wiser and better than himself than
he should neglect to read what better, wiser and purer men put
into their books or sermons. The “Spirit Teachings” given to
you bear their own endorsement. Your Imperator is a wise and
good man --- rather fixed in his earth-life notions, the result of
his study, but still a wise man. If he wanted you to do
anything wrong; or if he wished you to yield servile obedience
to his dictates; or if he tried to prevent your studying all you
should study; and getting all the light you needed, then I
should rebel, and assert the supremacy of my own royal spirit -
-- my Augoeides. This is what I mean by my strictures about
bands and controls. I am sick of hearing mediums talk about
them and parading the badges of their servitude upon their

sleeves --- a servitude to ignorant Indians, Africans or other
Diakka, and to Elementaries. My blows are for manhood and
against slavery.
I have seen the spirits of all four of the elements. I told the
story in my lecture, but the papers bungled it awfully. It was
not Felt who showed them, but a Hindoo adept who
accidentally (?) met me at a restaurant. His performance was
very much like that of Jacolliot’s Covendasary.
__________________________
[Olcott Letter # 8]
Like rain upon the parched ground are your letters to me. I
esteem other correspondents --- they write me interesting
letters --- some of them flatter my vanity (the Baronne Von
Vay, for instance, who feeds me on the honey of applause ---
and who is manifestly destined to come into our ring some
day), but they are correspondents only; while you two boys
seem to me like my chums, my class-mates, studying with me
out of the same books, up to the same larks, and cramming for
the same degree. So keep on writing, old chap; whenever you
have a half-hour fling it into an envelope and send it here with
a three penny stamp. I’ll do the same by you.
I did read your article on Soul and Spirit, and a right,

sagacious, and brave one it is, too. You write manfully, and
thus show out your own manful nature. Don’t pitch in, per
saltum, like me. I am not a Professor --- I’ve no situation to
lose. I can say and do what I please, and it’s my own
business. We are situated differently here from you. If I were
in England I might be quite a Conservative. Here I have the
whole field to myself --- like a young ass in the middle of a
wide pasture --- and I bray to attract people’s attention. I’m
not headstrong and impulsive, as one might think from my
writing: not a bit of it. A cooler, more deliberate madman
there never was. I had a new idea to formulate --- an
important, a revolutionary one. I had to draw the eyes of some
millions of self-deluded people who were taking counsels of a
swarm of bogus “Aunt Sally’s,” and “Indian Guides,” and
“Professor Webster’s.” I had to break through a twenty-seven
years’ crust, twenty-seven feet thick, under which common-
sense and the Truth was suffocating. I had to put the enemy
upon the defensive the moment I opened my mouth, and keep
him thus, or be swept away. This accounts for all my
skirmishing, my badinage, my tilts at persons and things. If I
had regarded only my own preferences, or interest, I should
never have noticed one of these infuriated gentlemen and
ladies. You have no such necessity; so go along in peace,
cultivate your will-power, filter yourself through your shell,
and lead your public by easy stages up to the high levels where
you and I already stand. And remember that for at least seven
years you nor I can count upon one day or one hour when we
will not be liable to some test of our faith --- in each other, in
ourselves, in our belief, our courage, our persistence. This
secret of secrets is so awful a possession; it so raises its
possessor above the dead level of his kind --- placing him in
Olympus itself, a demi-god --- that he would be a fool who
should expect to attain it before proving himself above and
beyond everything that could prove him to be unworthy to be
its keeper. I have been a year at this study, and already my
faith has been tried in a thousand ways. With the evidence of
Madame Blavatsky’s learning, relationships and powers piled
up mountain high, I have had sometimes to just put down my
foot and swear by my soul to depend upon it and its intuitions
despite all and through all. And it has happened to make me
respect, confide in, and trust her more than before, and my
faith has conquered. How many spirits and mortals have lied
to me about her! But having seen her past life, not only
through the lens of the present, but also as reflected in her
documentary evidence, I have always come out “right side
up.” I am in great anxiety about her now, though.
I wish you would ask Imperator, with my compliments, if he

can’t do something, in the psychological way, to prevent
Madame Blavatsky from going to India. I am very anxious
upon this point. I can do nothing myself. She is a changed
woman these past few weeks. She is moody, reserved, and
apparently desperate. The calumnies circulated in Europe and
here have cut her so deeply; she feels such a disgust with our
world; she so longs for her sacred Ganges, and the society of
her Brethren, that I am afraid we will lose her. It may be a
small matter to Spiritualists, but it is a great one for us three.
She will give me no answers to my questions as she used to,
when these phenomena occur --- as they do now almost daily.
I have seen some new and very interesting oneS since I wrote
you. Baron de Palm was here the other evening, and we all
heard the most dulcet sounds as of a silver bell in the air ---
there, it sounds this instant! fifteen or twenty times. And yet it
is not quite like a bell, for there is no metallic vibration: it is a
musical note. This is the usual signal they give Madame
Blavatsky when they wish to attract her attention. Baron P.
and I were sitting at the end of the room, and the sounds came
at the other end, twenty feet away from Madame Blavatsky.
The Baron heard it as distinctly as myself. I was explaining
the Astral Light to him, and the sounds seemed to express
endorsement of my statements. I received a letter from one of
the noblest of the living Brothers --- an Indian; it suddenly
appeared sticking in one of the ornaments of the bronze clock,
and in it was a lock of his hair. It was powerfully perfumed
with sandal wood and other Oriental scents. (I’ll tear off a
corner and enclose it, so that you may hereafter recognise a
genuine letter from the Lodge.) She has also repeated three
times the phenomenon of invisibility that I allude to (do I not?
or do I?) in my book. We are sitting in her room writing ---
she at one side of the long table, I at the other --- when presto!
she is gone! I say nothing, but keep on writing, and again

presto! there she is. She has been to India or some “jumping
off place,” but not a word will she tell me. Fancy how
exasperating to be thus befooled when it is so important for
one to learn. Well, that is novitiate, my boy, and you will have
your fill of it. Do ask your Imperator what I suggest. I should
not have answered your letter so soon but for my anxiety upon
this point. He seems a wise spirit, and perhaps he is a
powerful one. Ask him if he can’t help us, and if he won’t.
And yet, if he should say --- well, let us see what he will say.
There is a Mrs. Thompson here --- a widow lady --- worth
seven millions (of dollars), who worships the ground Madame
Blavatsky walks upon, and she offers her money and
everything if she will only go to India and give her a chance to
study and see for herself. She has been a whole year trying to
make her acquaintance, but Madame Blavatsky wouldn’t make
an advance of an inch, and it was only a few nights ago that
Mrs. Thompson succeeded in meeting her. If she were an
adventuress, surely woman never had a better chance to
feather her nest!
I note what you say about the bringing to you of the sapphire
stone and the promise of the pink crystal. Do you know the
significance of the former? See Exodus xxiv. 10; xxviii.,18,
30, concerning the occult virtues of stones; see also Eliphaz
Levi’s books, and the “Spiritual Scientist” for March 2nd, chap
xiii. of Agrippa’s book. I have things of all sorts brought to
me, too; the neatest of which was a deposit of 500dol. in my
bank last summer, when I was hard up. A stranger, they told
me, called and made the deposit in my name. That was
objective, anyhow.
That was a curious letter I had from the Baronne Von Vay. She
says she had “an irresistible impulse to write me”; that for
years she has seen the Elementary, who “call themselves
Beroeger der Natur”; that she likes them “very much”; that she
is much interested in Madame Blavatsky --- her “cousin,
Prince Wittgenstein,” telling her that he has known her many
years, and “she is full of talent.” She invites me to visit her,
&c., &c. I have answered her today, and given her a chance to
show her hand a little farther. If she wants to come in with us
she can (but she must scrape off her Re-incarnation shoes at
the door; there’s no room for that in our Philosophy).
Don’t forget Imperator.
H. S. O.
[End of Series]

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4/23/2019 The Early Story of The Theosophical Society: A Chapter of History by William Stainton Moses

Published by The Blavatsky Archives Online. Online Edition copyright

The Early Story of

by William Stainton Moses

Colonel Olcott is engaged in writing the early history of his acquaintance

The seances of William Eddy, the chief medium of the family,

Up to the time of H.P.B.’s appearance on the scene, the figures

It is, however, historically important to note the following passage,

It is useless to deny that, throughout the early part of her

“As it is, I have only done my duty: first, towards

a Mohammedan approaching the birth-place of his Prophet.”

The two “helpless mediums” alluded to were the Holmeses, of

“Yes, I am sorry to say that I had to identify myself, during

Among her callers was an Italian artist, a Signor B., formerly a

it? I am ready.” He passed it off carelessly, but thenceforward

I can do no more than notice briefly Olcott’s unquestioning statement of

[Olcott Letter #1]

unless a multitude of persons combined in successive epochs

I called my work “People from the Other World,” because I

It is a curious literary production, in truth --- five hundred

[Olcott Letter #2]

The time has come, in my opinion, for us leaders in this

Like yourself, I make no pretensions whatever to scientific

Is not it time for us to admit that in the successive destructions

elementary facts of nature, whose secrets the ancients had

My theory of materialisation is yet too crude to warrant my

[Olcott Letter #3]

Mr. Huxley said once that if a man obtained the approval of

But you cannot imagine the extent of my own dissatisfaction

four or five hundred spirits, rich as it was in results, only

A very learned spirit friend and correspondent (who writes to

[Olcott Letter #4]

I have delayed my letter for the appearance of the

The Occultist authors, of course, intended to write in such a

The bearing of this philosophy upon the question of

spirit (Immortal Breath) which exists in and never leaves the

It defines the nature of clairvoyance, showing it to be simply

It offers nothing to conflict with the discoveries of science, but

The records of its adepts have preserved, for coming

One of its most startling developments is the awful potency of

Yes, as you say, Spiritualism is “only one part of a vast

mediumship as an occupation. A time must come when, as

“I soon could trace each thought

Apply this test to your own mediumship as well as that of

I have already warned you against spending time or money on

Try to get private talk with “John King” --- he is an initiate,

The only words I would change in my report of the Holmes’

There is no doubt about Mrs. Compton’s transfiguration

My Miracle Club is in statu quo, but will be organised in due

[Olcott Letter #5]

Meanwhile, let me advise you to join no society whatever for

Again, keep clear of Eliphaz Levi’s adept. Levi was a

Again; depend upon it, that nine-tenths of spiritual

their Protean powers can assume their shapes and clothe

In pointing out the existence of these elementary spirits,

[Olcott Letter #6]

I sincerely hope that Madame Blavatsky and her letters will

diligently trying to open my intuitions, and by self-