An Interview with Doctor Strange 2/2 (Helena Blavatsky)

Blavatsky Interview - Paris, 1884

In a recent podcast, Blavatsky has been called ''The Real Life Doctor Strange', and her considerable occult powers were quite meticulously documented by credible observers  during her lifetime (see A. P. Sinnett's Occult World, Incidents in the Life of H.P. Blavatsky and H.S. Olcott's People From the Other World, Old Diary Leaves, Vols. 1, 2).  Discussion of the novel Mr. Isaacs features a portrayal based on an Eastern Adept, where the western protagonist becomes his student at the end, a Doctor Strange origin story, as it were.

From the English Morning News of Paris, April 21, 1884 – Discovered by Michael Gomes. Blavatsky and Theosophy got quite a bit of press coverage at the time and this article gives a good sampling of the pros and cons thereof.  The journalist is OK, he seems to have a liberal political attitude.  And Blavatsky comes through with her unique mixture of articulateness and candid frankness; and quite a canny debater (which she does not get nearly enough credit for, IMO)…But they probably did not have publicists or PR people in those days...of interest also is the participation of William Q. Judge, who was in the process of making a pivotal sojourn to Europe and Asia...

About the beginning of next month there is to be a great gathering in Paris of Theosophists, a mysterious body of men and women moving down from America and from Asia upon Europe. Col. Olcott, of the United States, will soon be here; Mme. Blavatsky, who started the society in council with a mystic circle of the wise somewhere up in the Himalayas, is actually with us, and a great Hindoo, the most learned man of the East„ is expected from day to day. This new "Salvation Army" of philosophers have already effected a lodgement on the other side of the Channel, and France is their next objective point.

The organ of the Society in Europe is a monthly publication, the Theosophist, issued by Trubner, of which Mme. Blavatsky is editor. There are more of what the vulgar call miracles in one number of the Theosophist than in all of the Four Gospels. The adepts play a great part in the work of the Society, and they form one of the orders or grades. They have watched over all things almost from the beginning of the world; and they had a good deal to do with the independence of the United States by their direct inspiration of the writings of Tom Paine.

All this is to be brought into Parisian drawing-rooms, and one may safely predict for it that it will make at least the sensation of a season. The society is particularly well equipped for work in these latitudes in having so many women among its members. The Parisian secretary is Mme. de Morsier, of 71, Rue Claude Bernard; and the Parisian president for life - Lady Caithness, Duchess dePomar, mother of the eccentric novelist, who often lends her luxurious apartment in the Rue de Grammont for the meetings. Finally, Mme. Blavatsky has the Russian readiness in the tongues: she speaks English almost without accent; French like a Parisian and when she likes like an American - of her Hindoostani it is not within our competence to speak.

It is a long way in every sense from Madras and its palace to the one or two poor rooms at No. 46 rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs, of which Mme. Blavatsky is now in temporary occupation, and where she receives on Thursday and Sunday evenings and on Sunday afternoons. Here through the kindness of Mme. de Morsier, she was found by a representative of THE MORNING NEWS, in company with Mr. Judge, an American who is shortly going out to India to resume the study of the higher mysteries.

"We are quite willing to have people write about us," said Mme. Blavatsky, "only we wish they would write the truth, and not superficial nonsense, as Mr. Moncure Conway did the other day after a visit to Madras.  It is worse than idle to say that all the 'manifestations' ceased as soon as he appeared - they had been ordered to cease long before he came by an authority which I will assure you took very little account of his modest individuality. It was just as foolish to think that one of our 'Chelas' refused to shake hands with him on caste principles. The refusal had nothing to do with caste; it is only to preserve his mystic, or if you like, mesmeric influence, which would have been expended to no purpose in the contact of this useless salutation."

"Then what we take for caste pride or prejudice of the East has often a deeper significance?"

"Of course: there is a great mystery in Oriental exclusiveness in the unwillingness to touch. The Oriental sense is finer than ours, much more sensitive to emanations of every kind, spiritual and material, and it holds that the best way of purification is to keep from defilement."

"And," said Mr. Judge, "Mr. Conway was annoyed because the Chelas prostrate themselves before a picture of one of the Masters! It is altogether the act of a Chela or Hindoo, who does the same thing to his father and mother every day of his life, and who regards the Master in the light of a father."

"This curious susceptibility to contact," resumed Mme. Blavatsky, "runs through everything. See in making this cigarette for you - you smoke, I hope; I do - I twist a small holder around the middle of it, so that the cigarette does not actually pass from me to you. A holy man in India taught me that, who was bound by his vows not to touch anything that had touched a woman."

"Yet with this prejudice against women in the East, how have you been able to do so much?"

"Because there is far less prejudice than you think, and you altogether mistake the nature of it and the reasons. When I have sought the higher teachings I have found no obstacle on account of my sex."

"But tell me about this higher truth. Why do the Brahmins and the Buddhists make it so eminently select? The Theosophists talk all through of an esoteric mystery, of a truth revealed only to an inner circle. What is the use of a truth bottled up in this way? If a truth at all, it concerns humanity at large - why not proclaim it to all whom it concerns?"

"Because it might be misused. Take certain truths in ordinary science, about poisons for instance: they are practically communicated only to a few under all sorts of restrictions, because of the abuse that might result if it were made a matter of common knowledge. How much more is that true of the occult truths to which some of us have found access in India - tremendous secrets of Nature and of human life that in the keeping of the vicious or unprincipled would be as the thunderbolt in the hands of a child."

"You have merged individuality and nationality too in your new creed?"

"No, I am an American by adoption - I respect American religious freedom - but I am still a good Russian at heart. Only, there is too little freedom at home; that is why I do not go back. I have not been in Russia for many years; I would not care to give my friends and relations a chance of shutting me up in a convent for life on the plea that I was a victim of illusions. I like the Emperor personally, if only because of the long relations of my family with the Imperial house. We have always been loyal supporters of the throne. I see very little Russian society even at Nice, where I might see everybody. It is so unpleasant to find them wondering why you do not go to Church, and to the Greek Church."

"With your knowledge of Hindoostani, you might give the world a fine work on the position of the English in India."

"But I have better work to do. The English owe more than they know to the religious bodies in India - to the old faiths. A few men in spiritual authority stopped the Mutiny: it was not stopped by the British army - how could England have held all these millions in check? But wise men saw that the time had not yet come for the English to go, and their expulsion would bring back the old anarchy and the old despotism; so the word was passed round, and the Mutiny stopped. And you have no idea how quickly such an order travels in India. It is what you would call miraculous. Officers have often told me that news of any event reached the common people, from the Himalayas to the sea, long before it reached the Government. There were occult arts before the telegraph, you may be sure of that. The English ought to take warning by what happened in the Mutiny and lower their tone of patronage to men immeasurably their superiors in every kind of knowledge."

"Their contempt as practical men for the dreamy Hindoo is most marked."

"I assure you it is repaid with interest; but time will show. How can one pretend to despise men like that?"

And Mme. Blavatsky produced the photograph of a group in which two Hindoos of rather youthful appearance and extremely intelligent expression are sitting in her company. One of them is dressed in white from head to foot and is barefoot. (1) "That," said Mme. de Morsier, "is the wisest man in India, and perhaps in all the world."

"You have read Mr. Isaacs?" (2)

"Yes; it was written on an imperfect knowledge of our society and of the great mysteries. Some of the passages will recall to you passages in the Theosophist on the astral body. The book is a mixture of hints of our doctrine, in so far as Mr. Crawford knows anything about it, with the personal description of Mr. Jacobs, a well known diamond merchant in India."

"What are the objects of your society?"

"How can I state them better than by showing you the statutes? You see, we want to form the nucleus of a 'Universal Brotherhood of Humanity', without distinction of race, creed, or colour; to promote the study of Aryan (3) and other Eastern literature, religions and sciences, and to vindicate their importance; to investigate the hidden mysteries of nature and the psychical powers latent in man."
In running over the list of members was found - along with Rawal Shree Hurreesinghjee Roosinghjee, of Kathiawar; Diwan Bahadur R. Ragoonath Row, of Madras; Babu Sourendro Nath Mukerji, of Punjab - the honoured and familiar name of Sam Ward, from the United States. (3)

1. The photograph depicts H.P.B. sitting with T. Subba Row (the one considered to be “wisest man in India”) and Krishnaswami Aiyengar (also known as Babaji and D. Nath).

2. A 1882 best-selling novel by Francis Marion Crawford. It's a beautiful, spiritual love story, still worth reading.

3. Blavatsky was critical of the western appropriation of that term for purposes of racial anthropology. 'Ârya (Sk.) Lit., “the holy”; originally the title of Rishis, those who had mastered the “Âryasatyâni” (q.v.) and entered the Âryanimârga path to Nirvâna or Moksha, the great “four-fold” path. But now the name has become the epithet of a race, and our Orientalists, depriving the Hindu Brahmans of their birth-right, have made Aryans of all Europeans.' (Theosophical Glossary)

4. Samuel Cutler Ward (1814-1884) was an American financier and lobbyist. He was also the uncle of Marion Crawford.

An Interview with Doctor Strange 1/2(William Q. Judge)

On the occasion of the new Doctor Strange movie, I thought it opportune to present  some interviews with some of the most credible real-life models of Doctor Strange that I know of. The interest of this interview is that, although his lectures have received ample press reviews, this is the only known interview from Mr. Judge with the press, hence it has a value of being of a more spontaneous nature. Moreover, Judge went on a spiritual quest to India, operated out of a brownstone building in downtown New York and he kind of looks like Doctor Strange, doesn't he?

India's Wonder-Workers

Interview with W. Q. Judge

"The term fakir is not properly applied when used to designate the Brahman wonder-worker," remarked William Q. Judge, the great theosophist who is now in Stockton, to a Mail reporter today.

Mr. Judge was seated in an easy chair in the library of Mrs. Kelsey's residence, where he is a guest, and was whiffing a cigarette as he spoke. His object in visiting this city is to deliver public lectures explanatory of Theosophy, as he is the head of the American Theosophical Society. In an introductory conversation with the reporter, Mr. Judge, when asked to describe the wonders he had seen performed in India, said he cared nothing for the so-called miracles of the Brahmans, and intimated that in his opinion the public ought to devote its attention to the underlying principles of Theosophy rather than to the wonders which the Brahmans can work.

"But," said the reporter, "the public does not take kindly to didactic discourses. People generally are more interested in the marvelous side of Theosophy, and even the local theosophists themselves would probably be more interested in a description of the fakirs' feats, and your explanation of them, than any explanation of the religion of India."

"The fakirs," said Mr. Judge, "are really Mohammedans. The Brahmanistic class of wonder-workers are the yogis. Both the yogi and the Mohammedan fakir perform their feats in India.

"The wonder-workers are divided into two great classes. The one class consists of common jugglers, who rely simply on sleight of hand. The other class is gifted with powers not popularly understood. Some of the feats performed by the latter class are imitated by the former, and hence you will sometimes find the same trick performed in different ways.

"An instance of this is the basket trick, which is accomplished by two different methods, the one through jugglery and the other through a power that would be called superhuman by the majority of people. I had the good fortune to discover by an accidental circumstance the method in which the jugglers perform the feat. A woman was placed in a basket, and the cover of the basket was put on. The juggler then ran a sword through the basket in every direction. When the cover was removed the woman was found to be unhurt. The explanation was very simple. I happened to be sitting in such a position that the sunlight, reflected from the floor through the basket, enabled me to see the woman within it. She was moving about constantly. The sword would go under her arm at one thrust, then under her chin, and then she would rise in the basket and the sword would pass under her body -- and so on. Her movements were preconcerted. There was a systematic arrangement, and by practice between the two she knew just how to move in order to avoid the sword thrust.

"There is, however, what might be called a legitimate way of performing the basket trick -- that is to say, a method in which the element of trickery does not enter. That is where the yogi thrusts his sword in and draws it out covered with blood. You can hear the woman's screams. When the cover is removed from the basket nobody is within."

"How do you account for that feat?" was asked.

"On the theory of hypnotism. The yogi by reason of his metaphysical power makes you think you see what you do not."

Mr. Judge then went on to describe other wonders which in his opinion were, like the basket trick first described, accomplished by means of trickery. On one occasion a fakir placed a stone in a bag, Mr. Judge standing by and seeing the stone dropped into it. In a few moments the fakir opened his mouth, wide-open, and indicated that the stone was about to come out of his mouth. Mr. Judge looked down the fellow's throat and saw the stone come up, covered with slime. Two tenpenny nails followed it up. When the bag was opened the stone was gone from within it. In Mr. Judge's opinion the stone was got rid of by sleight-of-hand when being apparently put into the bag. The stone which came from the fakir's mouth was a duplicate which was in his stomach when he began the trick. The fakirs and the yogi both perform their feats practically naked. In sleight-of-hand tricks they far excel the European juggler, who is assisted by his clothing, his pockets and his mechanical appliances.

Another feat performed by trickery is this: Four or five powders of different colors are mixed together and swallowed by the juggler, who then spits them out on a sheet of paper, and each powder is spat out separately, according to its color.

The feats into which no element of fraud enters are accomplished by the intervention of natural laws. One is this: The yogi places half a dozen coins of different denominations on your table and then steps to the opposite side of the room. You are at liberty to examine the coins and the table, and satisfy yourself that there is no tangible connection (such as a thread, for instance) between the table and the yogi. You are then requested to name any one of the coins. When you name it it rises, as if animated, on its rim, and traverses the table. It will advance and retire at your bidding and roll off the table when you so command. Mr. Judge has seen the feat performed.

Another wonder, quite as remarkable as that just described, was narrated to Mr. Judge by a friend who witnessed it. There were two large earthen jars, about five feet high, standing in one end of a room. They were nearly full of water. The yogi who performed the feat stood in the other end of the room. At his bidding the jars fell upon their sides and rolled along the floor without spilling the water. The eye-witness of the performance looked into the jars as they were rolling and saw that the water within them was whirling around rapidly, making an eddy-like depression in the surface.

"I attribute the secret of these two tricks -- the performance with the coin and that with the water jars," remarked Mr. Judge to the reporter, "to the control which the yogi is able to exercise in the way of overcoming certain natural laws with certain other laws equally as natural but not well understood by the world at large. I do not think that in feats of this class hypnotism cuts any figure."

"What is the most remarkable wonder in the hypnotic class?" was asked.

"Well, a singular performance was described to me a few months ago by Mr. E. T. Greaves, a correspondent for the New York World, who said he saw the thing done in Algiers. It was performed by a man and a boy -- presumably father and son. The father took a coil of rope and tossed the rope up into the air, holding onto one end of it. Up and up the rope went until the upper end disappeared in the sky. The rope seemed to stretch from earth to Heaven. Then the man sent the boy up the rope. The youngster climbed and climbed until he, too, disappeared in the sky. The man called him down. The boy did not come. The man, feigning anger, put a knife between his teeth and climbed the rope also, swearing he would kill the boy. Soon shrieks were heard in the sky. A dismembered leg suddenly dropped from above. Then an arm; then the other leg; then the boy's head -- and so on. Soon the man was seen descending the rope with his bloody knife. He gathered the remains together, covered them with a sheet and pulled the rope down out of the air. Then he removed the sheet. The boy was beneath it, whole, safe and sound."

From the Stockton Mail, October 9, 1891.