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 2/3 (Dr. Franz Hartmann)

The next suggestion for a real-life version of Doctor Strange was a German practicing doctor, who travelled extensively on a spiritual quest. He spent time in the United States and met up with H.P. Blavatsky in India, where he also made the acquaintance of W.Q. Judge. He wrote extensively on occult topics, his book Magic, White and Black (1888) has gone on to become a widely influential classic in the genre, with many printings. This personal account of his with an occult adept would be like Dr. Strange's first meeting with the Ancient One, if you will:

An Interview with a German -- Franz Hartmann (The Theosophist, May 1886, v.7, p534-36)

HIS figure was youthful and strong, his face expressed knowledge and happiness, his eyes seemed to penetrate into the innermost depths of my soul. I had suffered all day from a severe neuralgic pain in my face, he touched the place with his finger and the pain was gone, and did not return either the next day or afterwards. I expressed my surprise to see him so much changed from what he appeared in his physical body, and he said: the form which you see now represents my inner self ; that which you saw yesterday and which you will see tomorrow, is only an illusion. Material forms grow old in corruption; the spirit grows old in wisdom.”

Of the conversation that followed I will give the salient points as far as I can remember them. They are of great mysteries, but there is no necessity to keep them secret, because only those who are wise will understand them. The sceptic who possesses not the inner light that shines into the heart, will not recognize the truths which they contain.

What is God?

“God is the purest light, life and consciousness, radiating from itself; the cause of all power, sending continually its own active forces into its own productions and raising them into higher states of existence, and thus forming a living chain, in which everything is strength, life and power.

How can we know God?

“By becoming the recipients of his wisdom.”

How can we accomplish this?

“We can accomplish nothing , because we have no powers of our own ; but God may accomplish it through our instrumentality, if we become free of our own will and of the bonds of self and are prepared to obey and to fulfill the will of God.”

Where can we find God?

“In the centre of our own heart.”

Then God is not everywhere?

“God is everywhere present, but he is not everywhere equally manifest. A superior power requires a superior form for its manifestation.”

What is the origin o f God?

“The first cause of all causes can have no other cause but itself, it is self-existent, eternal and not limited by relative time and space.

Why is God represented a trinity in all religious systems?

“ Because a circle or sphere cannot exist without a centre, a radius and a periphery , then the centre may be incomprehensible, the radius infinite and the periphery without any conceivable limits.”

'"What is the origin of evil?

“The origin of good is beyond our conception of time ; the origin of evil is within time. The potency of evil existed from eternity, but evil itself was caused by a deviation from good. Evil is therefore not a cause but only an effect.”

Which is the true religion ?

“ The one which supplies the knowledge of self.”

Can man obtain, self-knowledge by intellectual labour alone?

“The brain is in the cupola of the temple, but the seat of life is in the inner sanctuary in the heart. Man think s through  the brain and feels through the heart. The one is the necessary complement of the other.”

What is the object o f man’s life ?

To free himself of every thing that does not essentially belong to his being, so that his soul may be filled with the light of wisdom that comes from God.”

What is the final object o f man’s existence?

“The attainment of the highest possible happiness by the attainment of the highest Good.”

How can the highest Good be attained ?

“ By the attraction of love for the good.”

How can we obtain a love for the good ?

“ By a knowledge of evil, which will cause us to flee from evil and to seek refuge in good. If the soul is penetrated by a love for the good, the inner senses of man will be opened and he will know the truth .”

What do you mean by “inner senses” ?

" I mean a spiritual power of seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling and tasting ; a power of direct perception of which the vulgar have no conception and the learned do not even know the existence, unless they can experience it through the purity of their own hearts. Such a perception is not ordinary clairvoyance, which is a faculty that may lead into error as much as physical sight, but it is a recognition of the truth through becoming one with the truth .”

Is it possible that by this spiritual perception a man may obtain knowledge o f exterior things, such as cannot be found in the ordinary way ?

“Certainly. He who assimilates his soul with the harmony of the universe, will see everything in the universe as if it were existing in himself.”

Why do our modern scientists not possess this power ?

“ Because they cling to illusions, they mistake effects for causes, creation for the creative power, the external appearance for the internal truth. The fundaments of modern science rest upon a superstitious belief that things are actually what they appear to be. Science deals with, opinions, wisdom is the knowledge of the truth. Science is attained through the senses and from the exterior; wisdom is attained in the interior and comes from God.

Do you mean to say that the truth is too high for the scientists?

“No.; the truth is not too high for the scientists, but the scientists are usually too high for the truth . The truth is too simple for those who love that which is complicated. They love to revel in systems that are the creations of their own phantasy, and they desire nothing but that which can be fitted into their systems.”

Who are the true Adepts?

“Those who have no other desire but for love of the divinity in humanity and who possess the true knowledge of all.

Who are the false Adepts?

“Those who attempt to mystify the people, who denounce the religious sentiment of man, boast of their own knowledge, quarrel about opinions and are opposed to marriage. The true adept knows that he has no life, no strength and power of his own, but that it is the power of God in himself that accomplishes everything through him. The false adept seeks for the source of power in his own self; he seeks the cause of phenomena, in places where such causes do not exist; he is like a man who Examines a lamp-post to find out how the gas is prepared. The true adept knows the real and attributes little importance to the phenomenal. He does not quarrel about opinions nor fight for the truth, but he knows and teaches the truth; he recognizes the sacredness of the marriage tie, and knows the divine power that is generated by true union of the souls of man and woman; he does not boast of his attainments nor pretend to be in the possession of secrets which are not accessible to others, but he is opposed to darkness, frank, open and willing to assist all who desire, to come out of the shadow into the light.”

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.

Blavatsky on the Pagan Origins of Easter and Egg Symbolism

 

The Pagan origins of Easter is still a popular topic of discussion nowadays, and back in the day, Blavatsky had her own take on this question in some brief, but suggestive remarks. For a full exposition on the world egg see The Secret Doctrince I, 2, ch. 6-The Mundane Egg. 

 

Easter. The word evidently comes from Ostara, the Scandinavian goddess of spring (1) She was the symbol of the resurrection of all nature and was worshipped in early spring. It was a custom with the pagan Norsemen at that time to exchange coloured eggs called the eggs of Ostara. These have now become Easter-Eggs. As expressed in Asgard and the Gods (WilhelmWagner, 1880) : “Christianity put another meaning on the old custom, by connecting it with the feast of the Resurrection of the Saviour, who, like the hidden life in the egg, slept in the grave for three days before he awakened to new life” . This was the more natural since Christ was identified with that same Spring Sun which awakens in all his glory, after the dreary and long death of winter (Asgard, p.114, 8th ed, 1917). (See “Eggs”.)

Eggs (Easter). Eggs were symbolical from an early time. There was the “Mundane Egg”, in which Brahmâ gestated, with the Hindus the Hiranya-Gharba, (2) and the Mundane Egg of the Egyptians, which proceeds from the mouth of the “unmade and eternal deity”, Kneph, (3) and which is the emblem of generative power. Then the Egg of Babylon, which hatched Ishtar, and was said to have fallen from heaven into the Euphrates. (4) Therefore coloured eggs were used yearly during spring in almost every country, and in Egypt were exchanged as sacred symbols in the spring-time, which was, is, and ever will be, the emblem of birth or rebirth, cosmic and human, celestial and terrestrial. They were hung up in Egyptian temples and are so suspended to this day in Mahometan mosques. (5) (Theosophical Glossary)

Orphic Egg

The Christians — especially the Greek and Latin Churches — have fully adopted the symbol, and see in it a commemoration of life eternal, of salvation and of resurrection. This is found in and corroborated by the time-honoured custom of exchanging “Easter Eggs.” From the anguinum, the “Egg” of the “pagan” Druid (6), whose name alone made Rome tremble with fear, to the red Easter Egg of the Slavonian peasant, a cycle has passed. And yet, whether in civilized Europe, or among the abject savages of Central America, we find the same archaic, primitive thought; if we only search for it and do not disfigure — in the haughtiness of our fancied mental and physical superiority — the original idea of the symbol. (The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1, Page  368)

 

Footnotes

(1) Bede. De temporum ratione ("The Reckoning of Time", Ch, 15:“Ēosturmōnaþ has a name which is now translated “Paschal month”, and which was once called after a goddess of theirs named Ēostre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month. Now they designate that Paschal season by her name, calling the joys of the new rite by the time-honoured name of the old observance.”

Blavatsky is referring to the folklore speculations of the time. Very little historical evidence exists on the question. See

Ostara and the Hare: Not Ancient, but Not As Modern As Some Skeptics Think. Stephen Winick, April 28, 2016

(2) In classical Purāṇic Hinduism, Hiraṇyagarbha is the term used in the Vedanta for the "creator". Hiraṇyagarbha is also Brahmā, so called because it is said he was born in a golden egg (Manu Smṛti 1.9)

(3) Kneph (Eg.). Also Cneph and Nef, endowed with the same attributes as Khem. One of the gods of creative Force, for he is connected with the Mundane Egg. He is called by Porphyry “the creator of the world”; by Plutarch the “unmade and eternal deity”; by Eusebius he is identified with the Logos; and Jamblichus goes so far as almost to identify him with Brahmâ since he says of him that “this god is intellect itself, intellectually perceiving itself, and consecrating intellections to itself; and is to be worshipped in silence”. One form of him, adds Mr. Bonwick “was Av meaning flesh. He was criocephalus, with a solar disk on his head, and standing on the serpent Mehen. In his left hand was a viper, and a cross was in his right. He was actively engaged in the underworld upon a mission of creation.” Deveria writes: “His journey to the lower hemisphere appears to symbolise the evolutions of substances which are born to die and to be reborn”. (Catal. MSS. (1881), 49) Thousands of years before Kardec, Swedenborg, and Darwin appeared, the old Egyptians entertained their several philosophies. (James Bonwick, Egyptian Belief and Modern Thought C. Kegan Paul & Company, 1878., p. 105-106, 203)(Theosophical Glossary) (see also Chnoumis and Chnouphis)

Their God Kneph, out of whose mouth issued the Orphic egg, whence the author of the Clementine Recognitions makes a hermaphroditic figure to emerge, uniting in itself the two principles whereof Heaven and the earth are forms, and which enter into the organization of all beings which the heavens and the earth engender by their concourse, furnishes another emblem of the double power, active and passive, which the ancients saw in the Universe, and which they symbolized by the egg. (Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma, 1871, p. 654-656). See also W R. Cooper, The Serpent Myths of Ancient Egypt. 1873, p.17

For more about platonic sources of Kneph, see http://www.archaeologicalresource.com/Books_and_Articles/Iamblichus_Mysteries_3_Translations/Iamblichus_Mysteries.htm

(4) Pseudo-Hyginus’s Fabulae 197 reads as follows, as translated by R. Scott Smith:

“It is said that an egg of remarkable size once fell from the sky into the Euphrates River and that the fish pushed it out onto the bank. Doves came and alighted upon the egg, and after it grew warm, it hatched. Out came Venus [i.e. Ishtar], who afterward was called the Syrian Goddess. Since she was far more just and upright than the rest of the gods, Jupiter gave her choice, and she had the fish raised into the stars. Because of this the Syrians consider fish and doves to be gods and do not eat them.” Smith, R. Scott & Trzaskoma, Stephen M. (transl.), Apollodorus' Library and Hyginus' Fabulae: Two Handbooks of Greek Mythology

Nubian Egg

(5) "Colored eggs appear on the altars made for the new year known as Nowruz, which is celebrated at the vernal equinox. This tradition has ancient roots in Persia and Zoroastrianism, but is now practiced across Eurasia by Persian and Turkic peoples of various faiths.' Ancient Art of Decorating Eggs Stephanie Hall 2017 https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2017/04/decorating-eggs/

3,000 BC carved stone ball Aberdeenshire

 

(6) (Pliny, Natural History, 29, 3*) There is also a sort of egg, famous in the provinces of Gaul, but ignored by the Greeks. Innumerable snakes coil themselves into a ball in the summertime. Thus they make it so that it is held together by a bodily secretion and by their saliva. It is called an anguinum. The Druids say that [the snakes] hiss and cast it upwards, and that it is to be caught in a cloak so that it not touch the ground. One must immediately ride off on a horse with it, for the snakes will continue to pursue until the course of a stream blocks their way. If one tests it, the anguinum will float against the current of a river even when covered in gold. And, as the magi will throw a cloak of deception over their trickery, they make out as though the eggs are to be taken only on a particular point in the lunar cycle, as though it was up to human beings to determine the snakes’ role in this procedure. Nonetheless, I have seen one of these eggs myself. It was round the size of a small apple. The shell was cartilaginous, and mottled with cups like the tentacles of a squid. The Druids value it highly: it is praised as insuring success in litigation and in going to audiences with kings. However, this is nonsense; for once a man (a Roman knight and a tribesman of the Vocontii) held one of these eggs against his body during a trial, and was condemned to death by the Emperor Claudius, for that reason alone so far as I can tell.

The Blavatsky Scrapbooks

Among her many talents, one of the least known is her keen scrapbooking skills. As Madam Blavatsky did not do things in half measures, there are 24 volumes ranging from 110 to 350 pages. Volume one even has some creative flourishes that one would associate with modern scrapbooking, such as drawings, comments, decorations, and even stickers, with many pithy comments, to be sure. Essentially covering all the considerable press coverage and essential magazine and newspaper writings of the Theosophical Society throughout her lifetime. Currently, the first three volumes have been made available online, with some indexing work in progress:

https://en.teopedia.org/lib/HPB-SB

Vol. 1 covers the period from 1874 to 1876 and has 208 pages. Articles from Daily Graphic, Banner of Light, Spiritual Scientist, London Spiritualist, Spiritualist, N. Y. Sunday Mercury, Pall Mall Gazette, New-York Daily Tribune, Sun, Liberal Christian, Tribune, World, New York Sun, Daily Graphic, Woodhall & Cloflin's Weekly, Baltimore Underwriter, Pall Mall Budget, Standart, World, Commonwealt with authors such as M. A. Oxon,  E. H.Britten, H. S.Olcott, C. C.Massey, Charles Sotheran, G. L. Ditson, Elizabeth D. N. Denton, S. Pancoast, (Lux), Hiram Corson,, A. N.  Aksakoff, and focuses on the very active spiritualism movement. 

 https://en.teopedia.org/lib/HPB-SB-1

Marina Alexandrova, “The Unveiling of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky”, in New Age in Russia, 26/02/2020

https://newageru.hypotheses.org/3350

Check out the various interesting projects teopedia has undertaken of late : 

https://en.teopedia.org/lib/Main_Page

Blavatsky's Eloquent Anti Racist Colonialism Travelogue 2/2

The text below gives an idea of how challenging it was for the Theosophical Society to establish itself in the colonialist era, of which many attitudes still survive. Even today, the pandemic crisis has given rise to some lamentable racial scape-goating.  This account is one of the more candid and personal accounts of her experiences with racism in India and describes with vivid explicitness the crude racist attitudes of an English member of the Theosophical Society. See also Blavatsky's Eloquent Anti Racist Colonialism Editorial

translated from Russian by Olga Fyodorova 

From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan: Letters to the Homeland (Pre-reform Russian: «Изъ пеще́ръ и де́брей Индоста́на: пи́сьма на ро́дину»; tr. Iz peshcher i debrei Indostana: pis'ma na rodinu) was written by Blavatsky under the pen name Radda Bai in serial installments (letters) from 1879 to 1886 in Moscow in the periodicals Moskovskiya Vedomosti and Russkiy Vestnik, edited by Mikhail Katkov. The first part of these letters was published in a single volume in 1883 as an appendix to the journal Russkiy Vestnik.
(Cranston, S. L. HPB: the extraordinary life and influence of Helena Blavatsky, founder of the modern Theosophical movement, 1993).
p. 56, 336)

In all of Bhurtpore, and it seems, in the entire kingdom of the Jats, numbering 100,000,131 people, there is not a single European doctor, but there are only native "hakim" (healers). Going anywhere that day was unthinkable; and so, having sent the carriages away until another morning, we carried the unfortunate Englishwoman to the tiny telegraph operator's room at an equally tiny railway station and tried to revive her by home remedy. But there was not even ice at the station - the first medicine for heat apoplexy. Remembering the box with vodka and ice of the blond spy following on our heels, we sent Y *** to his compatriot to explain our difficulty and humbly ask him if he would not yield for the dying English lady a little bit of his stock while it is sent to us from Agra. The spy listened very politely and - refused! A small piece won't help and he himself can get sick here from the heat ... Babu, whom had been insulted by Miss B ***,  tried the last desperate resource and - was her and our saviour. He ran with Narayan into the field and brought a whole bunch of herb called kuzimakh. This herb, which has the properties of nettles, covers the body after one light touch with a rash and terrible blisters. Without saying a word, he asked me to put on gloves and rub the legs of Miss B*** with kuzimakh. His face and hands instantly swelled like a bubble, but he paid no attention to it. I confess that I have carried out the task entrusted to me with a vicious zeal. For some reason, I hoped ... I felt that the Thakur would not allow such a tragic end as the death of an Englishwoman during our journey, and it suited me fine to give her an unpleasant but beneficial itch for several days. After five minutes of rubbing, the legs of the Englishwoman turned into bloody blisters, but she opened her eyes and had the pleasure of seeing (at least I hoped) how the "son of a contemptible race" was taking care of her. But the Babu did not stop at this: whereas at nine o'clock in the evening W ***, her compatriot, under the pretext of ill health and fatigue, went to bed in the next room, the little Bengali did not leave her for a minute. He alone changed her head bandages with ice, which was finally sent from Agra in the evening as a result of our telegram, and left her only the next morning, when an English doctor arrived with the first train.

Learning about the strange medicine of the Babu, the doctor muttered something under his breath, and then declared that even kuzimakh was good, like any other counter-attraction of blood from the head. Having ordered to take the patient back to Agra, and upon recovery immediately back to Bombay, he took 50 rupees and went to have breakfast while waiting for the return train, asking W ***, en passant, to see to it that those “negros” would not bother him. W ***, feeling that I was looking at him, blushed very much, but promised - without making the slightest comment. He went with her, because it was impossible to let her go alone in such a condition, and it was impossible for us to leave without seeing Swami Dayananda.

But let's go a few hours back. The day before, in the evening after the disaster and when the patient fell asleep, the four of us: the Thakur, the colonel, Narayan and me, gathered together behind the small garden of the station, near the tents that were pitched for us. The tents belonging to the Thakur, appeared in a few minutes, as if summoned by magic from the ground, and were very curious. At other times, their internal arrangement, where there was a corridor, a bedroom, a living room, and even a bath room, would have attracted all the attention of our inquisitive president, especially their rather oriental furnishings. But at the present moment he was too excited. His only thought was the responsibility of his position as President of the Society; the thought that our company is upset, and one of its members, no matter how guilty, was in danger of death. Uncertainty of the future and sincere grief due to the factual impossibility of reconciling two so opposite elements in the Society presided by him and entrusted to him, like the arrogant Englishmen and the natives, who, like fire and water, only hissed at the slightest contact, all this did not give him rest. And the poor colonel, in the greatest confusion, strolled back and forth in front of the awning of the middle tent, where the Thakur, calm and serene as always, smoked on the carpet at the door.

Finally, he uttered his desperate monologue. “Undoubtedly,” he reasoned, “Miss B *** is a terrible, awful woman! Selfish and quick-tempered, as ... as ... a Mexican mare!” –he cut short, not finding a better comparison. “All this is so. In addition, she is an Englishwoman, pompous and starched like her own skirts, and ready, like that frog in the fable, to swell every minute with pride due to her own and national greatness! She is rather stupid, in a word! But nevertheless she is a member of our Society! Isn't that so?” – he ended by addressing me.

“Only as long as she remains a 'member' nothing will come of this Society,” I replied. “She herself does not follow its constitution, and leads others astray.”

“But she’s still a useful member of the Society,” he argued. “She is helpful because she is both the English and a patriot. Mr. Y *** and her, both serve us as a bulwark ... a living protest, so to speak, well, at least against that idiot over there in a white tunic who is now drinking his almost twentieth peg on the veranda and takes us for spies, like himself ... And now, if she dies, what are we going to do?”

“Don't worry, Colonel; she will not die,” - the Thakur said indifferently.

“Won’t she? Do you give me your word in that, my dear Thakur?” - exclaimed the delighted American.

“Giving a word in the life or death of a sick person without being a doctor would be too impudent of me,” the Rajput objected, laughing. “But, judging by many years of experience, if she survived the first half hour and the symptoms of some other disease did not join the sunstroke, then, of course, the main danger is over...”

“And ... and you ... excuse me, my dear, my highly respected friend, will you not send other such symptoms on her?” – asked the colonel mysteriously looking around and bending low over the Takur’s carpet.

I was sitting obliquely, leaning against the awning post, and listening in silence. At the president's words, I shuddered: they were an echo of my own unexpressed and deeply buried feelings, but, nevertheless, a true echo. Narayan, with an extinguished biri (a kind of small cigar made of the green leaves of the mango tree) in his teeth, was standing near Gulab-Singh. A black shadow also passed over Narayan's face, and he quickly looked up at the colonel. In this look, both anger and a mute reproach to the insolence of the questioner were clearly read.

In the deep and dark, like an abyss, mysterious eyes of the Thakur, I did not notice this time that burning, lightning-like light that illuminated them, as a lightning illuminates the distant sky, when Miss B *** behaved so unbearably stupid and insulting towards everything native; I did not find in them that sharp spark that, I confess, always frightened me, awakening a vague feeling of some kind of superhuman fear, which I was ashamed of, but could not overcome. At that moment his gaze remained calm and indifferent: only a slightly mocking smile raised the corner of his mouth...

“Your question, in other words, is a direct accusation that “I sent the initial illness on her?” – he asked, looking  the Colonel straight in the eyes.

The colonel blushed from ear to ear, but did not demean himself to useless denial. He looked directly and boldly with his half-blind, honest eyes into the Thakur’s face and, stammering, confessed:

“Yes, as I understand this unfortunate circumstance ... But you needlessly call it “accusation”...”

“H’m! However, one cannot say that such a suspicion was very flattering,” - after a pause, but still smiling, said the Rajput, looking into the distance. “To take revenge on a woman for the intemperance of her stupid language by almost death is even less in the customs of the robber tribe of Rajistan than it is in the taste of educated Europeans. But I have no right to blame you for such a thought, since knowing that you have formed some exaggerated, high concept of my ... psychological power, I, nevertheless, left you to your own conclusions and inferences ... In your own way, you are right...”

 “He would build his own happiness on the misery of another, can never become be a Raja Yogin!..” said the voice clearly.

The next day we put Miss B ***, weak but already scolding, into the carriage and sent her back to Agra in the care of W *** and the doctor. On the parting greetings of the Babu, who was taking care of her until morning, she answered with a gracious, but stately and rather cold bow of her head. As for the Hindus, she did not shake hands with anyone; but W ***, ashamed of our presence, hastily and as if hiding behind the backs of the audience, shook hands with all of them, except for the Thakur, who was not present at the farewell. The doctor, raising his hat slightly in front of us and with an unlighted cigar in his teeth, was about to turn to the "silent general" with the order to get him a fire. But he was immediately taken aback by the colonel, who, taking Mulji's arm, shouted aloud: “Hey! Who's there! Send a footman here!”, - boldly looking into the eyes of both the doctor and the “spy” who had already appeared on the platform. Miss B *** in tears threw herself into my rather cold embrace and for two minutes wiped her nose on my breast.

Finally, the last call freed us from this unsympathetic element, and we all sighed, as if a heavy mountain had been lifted off our shoulders. We were left alone, face to face with our Hidus and the Anglo-Indian spy. But on the same day he mysteriously disappeared somewhere and was replaced before our return to the English territory, as we learned from the Thakur, by Muslim spies.

In the evening of the same day, we went to the capital of the Maharaja, where we spent the first night in the palace of the independent prince of India. That story, however, and the narrative about our further adventures are yet to come.

RADDA-BAI.

Footnotes

________________________________________

1- In India, doctors call this kind of death heat apoplexy.

2- Guru is a teacher.

3- A kind of a secular monk, from birth dedicated to celibacy and obliged to study siddhis - the science of theurgy or white magic and miracles.

4- Telling us: “I will come back!” (Fr.) – Ed.

5- This system of the philosophy of asceticism is the most difficult to understand in India. Like the Chaldean Kabbalah, according to which Simeon Ben Yohai composed the Hebrew Kabbalah in the first century, or some treatises of the alchemists, each noun in it means something else according to a secret key. This key, according to generally accepted concepts, is in the possession of some Raja Yogis, and the Brahmans have no idea of the real meaning of these teachings.

6- Avani means “stream” or “river”, bai means “sister” and is added to every female name by both the Parsis and the Hindus.

7- Akasa is the ether of our teachings and, moreover, something else indescribable in our language and for which the metaphysics of the West has not yet found suitable name.