Isis Very Much Unveiled/Chapter 5
CHAPTER V.
MYSTIFICATION UNDER MRS. BESANT.
“I look to possible developments of her Theosophic views with the very gravest misgiving.”—Charles Bradlaugh, National Reformer, June, 1889.
“The lady doth pretest too much, methinks.”—Hamlet.
I have said that the Psychical Research report put a stop to most of the Theosophic miracles. But there were obvious reasons why the Mahatmas should continue to “precipitate” letters, even when the scoffs of a hard, cold world drove them to restrain their wonder-working propensities in other respects. The business was so beautifully safe and simple. It defied “tests.” The task of proving that a scribble in red chalk on a scrap of paper found in a disciple’s pocket is not the authentic handwriting of an inaccessible teacher, whose devotees have doubtless the best reason for knowing that he can never be produced as a witness—this is a task from which the boldest sceptic might well recoil.
But what of the actual process of “precipitation”? Alas, it appears to be surrounded by disappointingly obscure conditions. It is not given to see the scrap of psychically-manutactured notepaper glimmer into being and become cream-laid out of nothing before one’s eyes, nor to watch the mystic characters form themselves in lines along it like the writing on Belshazzar’s wall. It is always the finished result that is discovered ready-made, and this precisely resembles what is produced if you or I write it in the ordinary way. The “precipitation,” in fact, is a deed of darkness, and can only he done concealed from view, just as mediums are wont to declare at a séance that the spirits are prevented from manifesting themselves by the mere presence of a sceptical inquirer with a box of wax vestas. Perhaps it is another side of the same retiring instinct which impels the Mahatmas to live only in parts of the earth not penetrated to by vulgar explorers. Theosophists sometimes speak as if they had seen the actual precipitation; but cross-examine any credible witness, and he will reluctantly admit that he has not. This is a point to note and bear in mind.
The Mahatma missive only becomes a matter of difficulty when it has to be made to drop from the ceiling into the recipient’s hands, or spirited into a cupboard found one moment before to be as empty as Mother Hubbard’s. Those were stirring days for Theosophic neophytes when that kind of thing was a common incident. But, ichabod! that glory is departed! Its departure precisely synchronised with that of the nimble-fingered Coulombs. Their graceless avowal that both special plant and skilful confederates were required for this kind of miracle may have been a gross calumny on their employer; but the fact remains that with the removal of the panel-backed Shrine at Adyar and the dismissal of its custodians, the Masters abruptly ceased to resort to these more surprising methods of aërial post.
Occasionally they would make the assurance of the faithful doubly sure by artlessly “precipitating” the message inside a sealed envelope (a species of “test” of which more anon); but for the most part they were content to endorse letters passing through the ordinary post or discovered by the recipient in his blotting-pad under circumstances equally consistent with a commonplace human agency.
Such was the state of things till Madame Blavatsky’s death.
But then came the rub. What the Psychical Research Committee held to be proven was that Madame had written practically the whole body of these documents with her own hand. What, then, if after her decease in May, 1891, the same missives continued to be received?
Before the controversy which sprang up again over her ashes had well died down, the public was asked to believe that this was indeed the case, on the word of a woman whom it believed incapable of making a statement of the kind without having first proved it to the uttermost and found it true.
Speaking in the Hall of Science on August 30, 1891, three months after Madame Blavatsky’s death, Mrs. Besant said:—
“You have known me in this hall for sixteen and a half years. You have never known me tell a lie. (‘No, never,’ and loud cheers.) I tell you that since Madame Blavatsky left I have had letters in the same handwriting as the letters which she received. (Sensation.) Unless you think dead persons can write, surely that is a remarkable fact. You are surprised; I do not ask you to believe me; but I tell you it is so. All the evidence I had of the existence of Madame Blavatsky’s teachers of the so-called abnormal powers came through her. It is not so now. Unless even sense can at the same time deceive me, unless a person can at the same time be sane and insane, I have exactly the same certainty for the truth of the statements I have made as I know that you are here. I refuse to be false to the knowledge of my intellect and the perceptions of my reasoning faculties.”
It is no wonder that the reporter had to interpolate the word “Sensation.” The audience was one rather of Freethinkers than of Theosophists; the hall itself was identified with previous rhetorical successes of Mrs. Besant as the prophetess of Materialism. The thing was dramatically done, and was well calculated to impress on the outside public the fact that the personal reputation of Mrs. Besant for intelligence and honesty was now pledged to the genuineness of Theosophical wonder-working. In an interview in the Pall Mall Gazette of September 1, 1891, Mrs. Besant carried her statement still further, and pledged herself definitely to “precipitation”:—
“ ‘These letters are from a Mahatma whose pupil you are?’
“Mrs. Besant nodded assent.
“ ‘Did they just come through the post?’ our representative asked.
“But here he had hit the mystery.
“ ‘No, I did not receive the letters through the post,’ the lady replied. ‘They did come in what some would call a miraculous fashion, though to us Theosophists it is perfectly natural. The letters I receive from the Mahatmas are “precipitated.” ’
“ ‘How “precipitated”?’ …
“Mrs. Besant was quite ready to explain.
“ ‘Well,’ she said, ‘you can hear voices by means of the telephone, and receive a telegram which is actually written by the needle, not merely indicated by its ticks. The Mahatmas go a step further. With their great knowledge of natural laws they are able to communicate with us without using any apparatus at all.’
“ ‘But can you give me any details of the precipitation?’
“ ‘No; the Mahatmas only communicate with pupils who will not unwisely divulge anything. You can easily imagine the reason why this knowledge should be kept so secret. Were it possessed by a criminal it might be put to dreadful purposes.’ …
“Mrs. Besant repeated that she had made her startling statement in the lecture deliberately, adding that there were many persons who knew her and would accept her statements as true, but who might not believe in Madame Blavatsky, because, Mrs. Besant was careful to add, they had not enjoyed the advantage of knowing that lady.” ***** Mrs. Besant did not overrate the extent of her public credit. She was implicitly believed by many who would not have troubled their heads at all over an assertion of Madame Blavatsky’s. A “boom” was the immediate result—the second big boom in the society’s history. Mrs. Besant had the satisfaction of seeing her statement honoured with a salvo of leading articles. “Can it be,” the Daily Chronicle exclaimed, “that there are things in heaven and earth which philosophy and science have not yet dreamed of?”—(Daily Chronicle, August 31.) And it opened its columns to a flood of correspondence on Theosophy and things occult. Day after day a crop of letters attested the public appetite for the marvellous.
The Theosophical Society has a sort of Press department, the business of which is to get up sham fights in newspapers in order to advertise the society; and whenever the excitement seemed to flag some member or other contributed a screed which revived it. The time was well chosen. It was the “silly season,” and under cover of Mrs. Besant more cautious papers than the Chronicle were glad to let the Mahatma divide attention with the sea-serpent and the giant gooseberry. The Theosophical Society reaped a fine harvest; though some complaints were heard that the new inquirers after truth addressed themselves more to the marvels which had attracted them than to the philosophisings to which Mrs. Besant had designed the marvels as a bait. However, if their interest was tepid on this side of Theosophy, their curiosity on the other side achieved small gratification. In Mrs. Besant’s words, “The Mahatmas only communicate with pupils who will not unduly divulge anything.”
But, as we have seen, what Mrs. Besant did divulge was enough to convey to the public certain definite impressions: to wit, that she had received letters in a certain handwriting, which did not come through the post, but “in what some would call a miraculous fashion,” and that these letters were, in fact, “precipitated” by the Mahatmas out of thin air. Also that she had satisfied herself of the above propositions by evidential processes as certain as the assurance of her own “sense” and “reasoning faculty” that her audience were before her as she spoke.
And now let us see what were the facts on the strength of which Mrs. Besant made these astonishing statements. So far, I have been occupied necessarily with putting on record matters of history open to any careful student of the subject. From this point I shall be dealing with a side of Isis which up to this moment has been kept closely veiled indeed.