Site Map

THE HODGSON REPORT / REPORT ON PHENOMENA CONNECTED WITH THEOSOPHY

PART 2.

The chief questions in which we are aided by caligraphic evidence
concern the authorship of the Blavatsky-Coulomb letters and the
authorship of the Mahatma documents. I do not propose to go into
any detail in describing the similarities between Madame Blavatsky's
undoubted handwriting and the handwriting of the Blavatsky-Coulomb
letters. [29] These letters, before publication in the Christian College
Magazine^ were, as I have said, submitted by the editor to several
gentlemen with experience in handwriting, who were unequivocally
of opinion that they were written by Madame Blavatsky. The same
opinion was also expressed by Mr. J. D. B. Gribble, of Madras, in
"A Report of an Examination into the Blavatsky Correspondence,
published in the Christian College Magazi7ie" But the most im>
portant judgment on this point is that of the. expert in handwriting,
Mr. F. G. Netherclift, who has no doubt whatever that the disputed
letters which were submitted to him were written by Madame
Blavatsky. His Report will be found on p. 381. Mr. Sims, of the
British Museum, is also of the same opinion.

Under these circumstances I need say little more than that I
examined the whole of these documents, and throughout I found those
characteristics of Madame Blavatsky's handwriting which were
present in the document I used as my chief standard, viz,^ a letter*
from Madame Blavatsky to Dr. Hartmann, written from Elberfeld in
October, 1884.

I had other undoubted writings [30] of Madame Blavatsky in my
possession, which rendered me some assistance, but, as will appear
presently, I was unable to regard these as altogether trustworthy.
Further, I found no peculiarity whatever in the Blavatsky-Coulomb
letters which is not present in Madame Blavatsky's undoubted hand-
writing. There were, indeed, a few forms which are not found very
often in Madame Blavatsky^s ordinary handwriting, and which are
found often in the Koot Hoomi writings; but this statement applies
just as much to Madame Blavatsky's acknowledged handwriting as it
does to the Blavatsky-Coulomb letters, and it appears to me to suggest
an additional proof of the fact that the letters in question were one
and all written by Madame Blavatsky.

In Part I. of this Report I have shown that the circumstantial evi-
dence which I obtained in relation to these disputed letters, adds to the
strength of the conclusion reached on grounds of handwriting, that
Madame Blavatsky wrote them. I shall show later that there is evi-
dence which confirms yet further the justice of this conclusion. In
order to appreciate the considerations which follow, we must first
understand the circumstances under which several of the documents
demanding our attention appeared. I must therefore briefly describe
the course of events at the headquarters of the Theosophical Society
sifter the departure of Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott for
Europe in February, 1884.

Before this time, according to Dr. Hartmann, if Madame Coulomb
** found a willing ear she would never hesitate a moment to insinuate
that the whole Society was a humbug, the phenomena produced by-
fraud, and that * she could tell many things, if she only wanted to do
so.* " After the departure of Madame Blavatsky she apparently began
to speak more freely to that effect, and it appeared, moreover, to the
officers of the Society, especially Mr. St. Q-eorge Lane-Fox and Dr.
Hartmann, that the Coulombs were wasting its funds. Letters on the
subject were written from the headquarters to Madame Blavatsky and
Colonel Olcott. In particular, Mr. Damodar wrote to Madame Blavatsky,
probably by the mail leaving India on March 12th, which would
arrive in Paris about April 1st, informing her that Madame Coulomb
was spreading reports that the phenomena were fraudulent. In
the meantime Mr. Lane-Fox and Dr. Hartmann resolved " to impeacli
them [the Coulombs] in a formal manner," and began to draw up the
charges. At this stage Mr. Damodar produced a Koot Hoomi letter
which he declared that he had received from the " astral form of a
Chela" and which runs as follows: —

"So long as one has not developed a perfect sense of justice, he should
prefer to err rather on the side of mercy than commit the slightest act of
injustice. Madame Coulomb is a medium and as such irresponsible for many
things she may say or do. At the same time she is kind and charitable.
One must know how to act towards her to make her a veiy good friend.
She has her own weaknesses, but their bad effects can be minimised by
exercising on her mind a moral influence by a friendly and kindly feeling.
Her mediumistic nature is a help in this direction, if proper advantage be
taken of the same.

"It is my wish therefore that she shall continue in charge of the household
business, the Board of Control of course exercising a proper supervisoiy
control, and seeing, in consultation with her, that no unnecessary expendi-
ture is incurred. A good deal of reform is necessary and can be made rather
with the help than the antagonism of Madame Coulomb. Damodar would
liave told you this but his mind was purposely obscured, without his know-
ledge, to test your intentions. Show this to Madame Coulomb, so that she
may co-operate with you.

K. H."

The above letter is docketed as having been received on March 22nd.
[I shall refer to tliis letter afterwards, when I shall give reasons for
thinking that it was written by Mr. Damodar, as " K. H. (Y)."] The
effect of it was that " an armistice was concluded witli the Coulombs
by treating them with greater consideration."

On April 1st, according to Dr. Hartmann's account, Madame Coulomb,
Mr. Lane-Fox, and Mr. Damodar went "for a change" to Ootaca^
mund. By this time the letters complaining of the Coulombs liad
reached Madame Blavatsky, who wrote to the Coulombs a letter which
with its threats and its pleadings [31] speaks for itself to the intelligent
reader. Madame Blavatsky no doubt wrote also to Mr. Damodar.
Her letters would reach Madras about April 24th, and Ootacamund
on April 26th, on which date Mr. Damodar produced a Mahatma M.
letter, declaring that it had fallen in liis room; it was addressed to
Dr. Hartmann, who has published the following portions of it: —

"For some time already the woman has opened communication — a
regular diplomatic pourparlers — with the enemies of the cause, certain |)adris.
She hopes for more than 2,000 rupees from them if she helps them raining
or at least injuring the Society by injuring the reputation of the founders.
Hence hints as to ' trap-doors ' and tricks. Moreover to^en iieeded trap-doors
will hefoufid, as they have been forthcoming for some time. They are sole
masters of the top storey. They alone have full entrance to and control of
the premises. * Monsier ' is clever and cunning at every handicraft — good
mechanic and carpenter, and good at walls likewise. Take note of this — ye
Theosophists. They hate you with all the hatred of failure agamst success;
Society, Henry, H. P. B., theosophists, and aye — the very name of theosophy.
The * * * are ready to lay out a good sum for the ruin of the Society
they hate. *** Moreover the J * * * of India are in direct
understanding with those of London and Paris. * * * Keep all said
above in strictest confidence if you would be strongest. Let her not suspect
you know it, but if you would have my advice — be prudent, yet act without
delay. *** M.C."

Mr. Damodar was instructed on the outside of the letter to let Dr.
Hartmann have it without delay; and Dr. Hartmann was instructed
in the document itself to show it to Mr. Lane-Fox. The writer
of the letter was evidently unaware that Mr. Lane-Fox was with
Mr. Damodar at Ootacamund, and that Dr. Hartmann was at Madras.
Mr. Damodar, however, remedied the ignorance of " Mahatma M.",
and showed the letter to Mr. Lane-Fox before forwarding it to Dr.
Hartmann.

As a consequence of these and other documents and the resulting
altercations, immediate action was taken by Mr. Lane-Fox and Dr.
Hartmann, which led to the expulsion of Madame Coulomb on May 14th,
on the ground that she had spoken evil of the Society. According
to Dr. Hartmann, " M. Coulomb was requested to resign, but as he
could not make up his mind whether he would do so or not, he was
expelled likewise."

The reader will remember that the contrivances for trickery were
investigated when M. Coulomb gave up the keys of Madame Blavatsky's
rooms on May 17th or 18th. Madame Coulomb showed me a telegram
sent to her by Madame Blavatsky on May 19th: " What can be done?
Telegraph "; and asserted that this telegram was in i^eply to a letter
written by her to Madame Blavatsky at the end of April (which would
reach Paris about May 19th), threatening, in case of a rupture, to
produce incriminating letters written by the latter. M. Coulomb
declares that he showed tliis telegram to Mr. Damodar, who refused to
take any notice of it, and therefore no reply was sent by the Coulombs
to Madame Blavatsky.

Some time later Colonel Olcott received, he says, in a " cover post
marked Madras," a letter forged in the handwriting of Dr. Hartmann.
Writing to Dr. Hartmann on July 10th, Colonel Olcott stated that he
had received this document " some Httle time ago," and had laid it away
in his despatch-box, but that in going through his papers that morning
(July 10th), " I noticed that the Master had been putting his hand upon
the document and while reading liis endorsement I heard him tell me
to send it to you by to-day's post,"

The endorsement — by ** Mahatma M." — ^is in these words: " A
clumsy forgery, but good enough to show how much an enterprising
enemy can do in this direction. They may call this at Adyar — a
pioneer."

The document itself is as follows: —

Private. Adyar, April 2Sth, 1884.

My Deab Madame Coulomb, — I was very glad to receive your kind
warning: but I need a new and further explanation before I will believe in
Madame Blavaisky's innocence. From the first week of my arrival I knew
she was a trickster for I had received intimation to that effect, and had been
told so by Mr. Lane-Fox before he went to Ooty (and who added moreover,
that he had come from England with this purpose, as he had received secret
instructions from the London fellows) and even sayd that he felt sure she
was a spy).

She is worse than you think and she lied to me about lots of things; but
you may rest assured that she shall not bambuzle me.

I hope to tell you more when I see you, upon your return from Ootocamund
and show you that Col. Olcott is no better than he should be.

Excuse short letter. I am writing in the dark.

Yours faithfully,

Dr. F. Hartmann.

This forged Hartmann document, and also the endorsement thereon,
are, in my opinion, the handiwork of Madame Blavatsky. I think
there can be little doubt that she forged this Hartmann document for
the purpose of attributing the forgery to the Coulombs, in order that
she might thus prepare the way for her assertion that the Blavatsky-
Coulomb letters were also forgeries. The evidence for this will appear
later. I must now describe the manner in which various documents
used by me in my examination of handwriting in India came into my
possession.

Soon after my arrival at Adyar, I asked for a specimen of Madame
Blavatsky's undoubted handwriting, — for the purpose of comparison
with the disputed documents. Mr. Damodar avoided giving me any
before Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott reached headquarters,
and after I had had some conversation with them on the subject, Colonel
Olcott said that Madame Blavatsky would write me a letter at once, if
I wished, which I could use as a test document. I replied that it would
be desirable for me to have some manuscript that was written before
the appearance of the Christian College Magazine in September, wliere-
upon Colonel Olcott said abruptly that he could take no action as to
giving me any handwriting of Madame Blavatsky's until their own
Committee had met and that Madame Blavatsky was in the hands of
the Theosophical Society.

My request, made at the same time, for Mahatma documents for the
purpose of submitting them to a caligraphic expert was also refused.

I was afterwards, however, enabled to obtain some documents in the
following maimer. Mr. Damodar had recounted to me some of his
professed experiences, and had shown me several Mahatma documents in
connection with them. Most of these, he alleged, were too private to be
submitted for my reading throughout^ but there were several to which
tins objection did not apply, and among these were some 16^ pages
of the K. H. writing in black ink, which liad formed portions of
tiie reply by K. H. to questions which' had been raised concerning
certain statements in ''Esoteric Buddhism." I pointed out to Mr.
Damodar that there could be no possible objection to my having these
for examination, and he agreed, and allowed me to take them away for
a few days for my own inspection only. The IGJpp. referred to I shall
speak of as the K. H. 16-1/2 pp.

I received also from Dr. Hartmann, for my own inspection only,
the letter from Madame Blavatsky, written to him from Elberfeld in
October, 1884, the forged Hartmann document^ and the K.H. (Y)
letter already mentioned.

Further, I had been anxious to know what answer Madame
Blavatsky had to make to the pamphlet written by Madame
Coulomb, entitled "Some Account," «fec., and Madame Blavatsky
liad taken the trouble to write out her replies to the first portion
of this pamphlet, although I had not asked her for a written.
statement, and although she made oral statements as well, the
important points of which I took down at the time in writing. This
written statement by Madame Blavatsky covers about 7|pp. foolscap.
I shall speak of it as the B. Replies, In addition, Madame Blavatsky
wrote various statements in my copy of Madame Coulomb's pamphlet.
These I shall speak of as the B, Marginal Notes, Other documents
came under my notice, which it will suffice to specify further on
when I have occasion to refer to them.

I now proceed to consider the authorsliip of the Mahatma
letters, and propose in the first place, and chiefly, to deal with the
K. H. series of documents, these being by far the most abundant and
the most important of the Mahatma writings. It is upon the K. H.
series almost exclusively that Mr. Sinnett has relied for his volume on
" Esoteric Buddhism" as well as for certain portions of " The Occult
World "; it is to the K. H. series that most of the Mahatma letters
written to other persons also belong; and it is portions of the K. H.
series alone which we have been able to obtain for the purposes of
careful examination.

With the incriminating Blavatsky-Coulomb letters which were
submitted to Mr. Netherclift, were also submitted some specimens of
the K. H. writing, viz., several small slips which were forwarded
from India with the Blavatsky-Coulomb letters proper, a K. H.
document in blue ink submitted by Mr. Massey, and a K. K.
document in blue pencil submitted by Mr. Myers. Mr. Netherclift^ in
the first instance, came to the conclusion that these K. H. documents
were not written by Madame Blavatsky. I had already expressed
my own conclusion, reached after an investigation of K. H.
writings in India, that those I had examined were, with the
exception of the K. H. (Y), written by Madame Blavatsky, and
on my arrival in England I was surprised to find that Mr. Netherclift
was of a different opinion concerning the K. H. writings submitted
to him. The small slips I had already seen in India; and after
examining the K. H. writings submitted by Messrs. Massey and Myers,
I concluded that these also were written by Madame Blavatsky. My
judgment, however, was originally formed upon my examination of
the K. H. 16^pp., in which the marks of Madame Blavatsky's handi-
work were more patent than in the documents which Mr. Netherclift
had had an opportunity of examining. In the meantime we had
obtained from Mr. Sinnett eight specimens of the K. H. writing, which
represented, some of them at least, consecutive periods of time, beginning
with the earliest letter received by Mr. Sinnett. In this, which was
received about October, 1880, the traces of Madame Blavatsky's
handiwork were numerous and conspicuous, and from this onwards
the gradual development of the K. H. conventional characteristics.
and the gradual elimination of many of Madame Blavatsky's pecu-
liarities, were clearly manifest. The K. H. writings which had
been submitted to Mr. Netherclift, were written after Madame
Blavatsky had had years of practice. I therefore re-submitted to him
the KL H, writings belonging to Messrs. Massey and Myers, which
we still had in our possession, together with the series forwarded
by Mr. Sinnett. The result was that Mr. Netherclift came to the con-
clusion that the whole of these documents were without doubt written
by Madame Blavatsky. Mr. Sims, of the British Museum, who had
originally expressed the same conclusion as Mr. Netherclift, similarly
changed his opinion after inspection of the documents furnished by Mr.
Sinnett.

I may now give some of the results of my own comparison of these
docimients with the undisputed handwriting of Madame Blavatsky. [32]
At first sight Madame Blavatsky's ordinary handwriting, for the
most part small and somewhat irregular, looks very different from the
large, bold, round, regular writing of the K. H. documents. It is only
when we examine closely the formations of individual letters that the
traces of the same handiwork in both become obvious. The little
importance that can be attached to the mere general appearance of a
written document is well enough known to persons who are at all
familiar with the comparisons of handwritings.

I shall now endeavour to show —

I. That there are clear signs of development in the K. H. writing,
various strong resemblances to Madame Blavatsky^s ordinary hand-
writing having been gradually eliminated.

II. That special forms of letters proper to Madame Blavatsky's
ordinary writing, and not proper to the K. H. writing, occasionally
appear in the latter.

III. That there are certain very marked peculiarities of Madame
Blavatsky's ordinary writing which occur throughout the K. H.
writing.

I shall specify, under each of these heads, the most important
instances that I have observed, but shall not attempt to place before
the reader any exhaustive statement of them, as this would be tedious.

I. Facsimiles of the series of K. H. letters lent by Mr. Sinnett
would perhaps have been interesting and suggestive to the reader, and
would have clearly shown the development of the K. H. hand; but
Mr. Sinnett strongly empliasized his desire that no use whatever should
be made of the specimens he submitted except for comparison of
handwriting, and the facsimile production of portions of the
documents was, of course, impossible without the publication, to
some extent, of their substance. I have therefore chosen several
small letters, /, g^ k and y, for the purpose of illustrating the
development I have mentioned. The groups of individual letters in
Plate I. are copied from tracings of my own made from the original
documents, and hence many of them exliibit a tremulous appearance
which is not characteristic of the original Mss., and which might have
been avoided if the work hod been done entirely by the lithographic
artist. The letters in the first row of each of the groups of
the /, ffi k, y are taken from undisputed writings of Madame
Blavatsky, those to Mr. Hume already mentioned. These letters I
shall call (B). The remaining five rows of each group are taken from
the first five documents of the K. H. series lent by Mr. Sinnett.
These I shall speak of as K. H. No. 1, K. H. No. 2, iSrc. The numbers
do not mean that these were the first five letters received by Mr.
Sinnett from " K. H." Mr. Sinnett describes them as follows: —

"No. 1 * * * is the first sheet of the first letter I ever had from
him certainly through another hand.

"Nos. 2 and 3 selections from later letters of the old series written
before the publication of * The Occult World.' [33]

"No. 4 was received by me in London about the time 'Esoteric
Buddhism' was published. [34]

"No. 5 * * is from a letter certainly in K. H.'s own handwriting."

The f, it will be observed, in Madame Blavatsky's ordinary hand-
writing (B), is commonly looped only below, and is usually
preceded by an up-stroke. It is easy to see the close correspondence
between thQ/*8 in (B) and those in K. H. No 1. Compare, moreover,
the second ff in (B) with the ff in K. H. No. 2; the formation is
peculiar and the resemblance striking. The type of the y* soon changes.
In K. H. No. 1, the forms are almost all looped below, but in R. H.
No. 2 they are generally looped above, and as we go on through Nos. 3,
4, and 5, Madame Blavatsky 's ordinary y gradually disappears; though
here and there in later K. H. documents a stray/ looped only below
may be discovered, sometimes the upper loop is found to have been
added by an afterstroke, and the tendency to make fs with a loop
below is manifest.

The g'a in K. H. No. 1. are very various, but yet suggest an efibrt
to introduce a new type. Various as they are, however, I believe tliat
by a careful search I might match abuost every form in K. H. No. 1
by a corresponding form from Madame Blavatsky's acknowledged hand-
writing. Even from the specimens given in (B) it will be perceived
that her g^s vary greatly, and that there are one or two curious forms
that find fairly close parallels in K. H. Nos. 1 and 2.

The characteristic K. H. ky which is formed quite differently from
Madame Blavatsky's, first appears, I think, in K. H. No. 2, but is
somewhat narrower in formation than the tjrpe it ultimately reaches.
Some of the k^s in the group represent capitals, the capital k being
formed on the same type as the small k. Madame Blavatsky's
ordinary k is frequently preceded by an upstroke and consists of
a main downstroke from the bottom of which the next stroke starts
upwards, trending to the right, without the pen^s having been
taken off the paper. The final stroke is frequently added separately
and often not connected with the rest of the letter; but in many
cases the whole of the letter appears to be made in one continuous
movement. All these habits, together with other little peculiarities of
curvature, are clearly visible in the A;'a of K. H. No. 1, and in later
K. H. documents the gap between the two last strokes of the k con*
tinues to be common. The last of the T^s selected from K. H. No. 3
is particularly noteworthy as exhibiting a lapsus calami which has
been partially covered with the cloak of the K. H. k curvature.

The y's in the early K. H. documents, most of whicli have a
nearly straight downstroke, with a little curl to the right, are just as
suggestive of Madame Blavatsky as are the /^s, and they begin to
develop nearly as rapidly as the g^s and in the same direction, the
downstroke of both eventually ending in a pronounced curling curve to
the left, with the concave side habitually upwards. The letter j has
developed similarly, and so also apparently has the letter s, all of
these letters finally exhibiting a similar curve to the left.

In the group of letters (B"), all of which are taken from Madame
Blavatsky's ordinary writing, I have given various forms of her L
All these forms are common in the earliest K. H. documents;
tiie first three forms are common in the developed K. H«
writing, the peculiarity in the third form being the very small curl to
the right at the end of the downstroke. The fourth form occurs
occasionally even in some of the latest K. H. writings which I
have seen, but in these I have observed no specimen at all of the fifth
and sixth forms. The fifth and sixth forms, with the curious loop at
the bottom before the stroke runs on to the next letter, abound how-
ever in a large portion of the K. H. mss. in my possession, written about
1880-1882. The sixth form is apparently an offshoot of the fourth form^
the fifth being intermediate. The downstroke of the first form of t
is abnost universally non-looped, as represented in the Plate, in
Madame Blavatsky's ordinary writings of 1878; similarly in the
earliest K. H. writing; and though in the developed K. H. writing
this t is commonly looped, the non-looped form is very frequent. The
long dashes through or over the Vs, which are a marked feature of the
K. H. writing; may be merely the expansion of a habit of Madame
Blavatsky's, in whose ordinary writings these dashes are just as
pronounced as they are in the earliest K. H. documents.

Preceding upstrokes, which are prevalent in Madame Blavatsky's
ordinary handwriting, are far more numerous in the earliest than in
the latest K. H. documents.

The German type of d may be mentioned as a letter which has been
gradually eliminated from the K. H. writing, but I shall have more to
say about this further on.

I have now in my hands the Koot Hoomi letter, the greater part
of which is quoted by Mr. Sinnett in " The Occult World," pp. 85-95.
It bears the date of November 1st (1880), and is signed in full, " Koot
Hoomi Lai Sing,^' by which name it may be designated. The second
group of capital letters in the Plate is taken from this document; the
first group, which I will call (B'), is taken from undisputed writings of
Madame Blavatsky — from the same documents whence the small
letters (B) are taken. These capital letters, A, D, F, P, T, require but
little comment. The D, F, and T, of the Koot Hoomi Lai Svng are
especially suggestive of Madame Blavatsky's handiwork, and they soon
disappear from the K. H. documents. The hook above, at the
end of the roof-stroke of the first Koot Hoomi T, presents a similar
appearance to that shown by a form of T which occurs in a letter of
Madame Blavatsky's in 1878. The common forms of F and T in the
K. H. writings are quite different from Madame Blavatsky*s usual forms;
the specimens in square brackets represent the type commonly found
in the Koot Hoomi Lai Sing, The characteristic features which occur
in the P*s of (B') and those of Koot Hoomi Lai Sing may be noted.
The long preliminary upstroke, the crook to the left at the end of the
downstroke, seen also in the F*s and the T's, the downward curl which
begins the umbrella curvature above, the turn to the left which ends it,
and the little final scrape downwards. Some of these, as also some of
the characteristics of the D, remain throughout the K. H. writing, but
others almost completely disappear.

II. We are now to consider letters which are proper to Madame
Blavatsky's ordinary writing, and not to the K. H. writing, but which yet
occasionally appear in the latter — apparently by mistake. An attempt
is often made to remedy the mistake by afterstrokes, transforming the
letter into the K. H. type. Such additions, reformations, cloakings
and erasures occur in the case both of small and of capital letters; they
appear to me to be especially significant, and to place it almost beyond
a doubt that the person who wrote the K. H. mss. where they occur
was in the habit of prodacing a different handwriting, and that that
person wras Madame Blavatsky. I find numerous instances throughout
the K. H. documents which I have examined, but especially in the
earlier ones, and will mention a few of the letters in which these mistakes
have been made.

The letter e in Madame Blavatsky's ordinary writing is uniformly
made upon the common type which we are all taught in copybooks, but
when it begins a word in the K. H. writing, it is formed on the same
type as Madame Blavatsky's capital E in her ordinary writing. Yet
in the early K. H. documents there are many instances where the initial
small e was at first well formed in the ordinary way, and then transformed
into the other type by the addition of a second curve at the top; there
are instances also where the transformation was never made, and the
initial e of the ordinary type still remains.

Instances occur in the K. H. writings of the form of k which is
most characteristic of Madame Blavatsky; sometimes the form has
been cloaked by an afterstroke, as in the case already mentioned, and
sometimes not.

The letter x in the K. H. writings is formed even from the
first in an entirely different way from that used by Madame Blavatsky
in her ordinary writing; a different form would seem to have been
deliberately and successfully adopted. Nevertheless, there are one or
two cases where Madame Blavatsky 's ordinary x was first made,
and the K. H. x superposed; and I have also discovered,
in the Koot Hoomi writings now in my hands, two instances — pure
and free, undimmed by any cloakings, and untouched by any after-
strokes — of Madame Blavatsky's own x. One of these stray:x^8 abides
near the sheltering presence of a capital Q beginning the word "Quixottes*'
(nc.), which is suggestive of Madame Blavatsky's peculiar form, and
which is very different from the Q which I have found oftenest in the
K. H. writing. Another Q which I have found in the K, H.
writing bears a much closer resemblance to Madame Blavatsky's
ordinary Q.

There are several conspicuous instances of alterations in the K. H.
capital B, Madame Blavatsky's usual form having been first made
either partially or entirely. I have observed two very notable and
indubitable specimens of this; an altered capital B, which the reader
will find in Plate II., K. H. (I), I regard as a doubtful case.

Madame Blavatsky uses two forms of capital F, the one illustrated
in the Plate, and another, perhaps the commoner of the two, wliich
shows a very different type. I have seen a specimen of the latter in the
K. H. 16|pp., and there are several very closely resembling it in the
K. H. MSS. in my possession.

Many other instances might be given under this head, and some-
thing like the counterpart of what I have been pointing out is also
true — viz., that forms of letters proper to the K. H. writing, and not to
Madame Blavatsky's ordinary writing, occasionally appear in the latter.

This is perhaps the most convenient place to mention the stroke
over the 7?i. Tliis stroke, which is a peculiar and apparently meaning-
less feature of the K. H. writing, occurs several times over
letters which resemble an English 771 in some Russian writing
which I have seen by Madame Blavatsky. There are two Russian
letters which resemble the English m, and these, I am informed
by Mr. W. R. S. Ralston, "being much alike wlien written carelessly,
they are sometimes, but rarely, written " with a stroke above and below
respectively. This may suggest the origin of the stroke over the m in
the Koot Hoomi writings.

III. I shall now proceed to show that there are fundamental
peculiarities in some of Madame Blavatsky's formations of certain
small letters which are found througliout all the K, H, writings
lohichllmve examined^ except those which timers are strong positive grounds
for attributing to the authorship of Mr, Damodar.

The evidence which we are now to consider is, in my view, the
most important of all in proof of the fact that the K. H. writings
in general are the handiwork of Madame Blavatsky. This evidence
depends on Madame Blavatsky's formation of the group of letters a, d,
g, 0, and q. The peculiarities exliibited in these letters are very
striking; they are sufficiently shown in the specimens of a, dj o, and q,
which I have given in group B" (all the letters in which are taken
from the undoubted writings of Madame Blavatsky), and are apparent
also in the different groups of g*s which I have given as mani-
festing the evolution of the characteristic K. H. g. A properly made
" o " formation is uncommon both in Madame Blavatsky's ordinary
handwriting and in Uie K. H. writings. If the letter requiring such a
formation is initial, or not connected with the preceding letter, the
tendency in both handwritings is to produce a formation akin to those
shown in the first four a'«, the first three English cTs, and the first four q^s.
If the letter is connected with the preceding letter, the tendency is either
to begin the "o" formation high up with a loop, as happens most
commonly in the case of the d, leaving a gap above, — or to begin it
low down, in which case the curiae is rarely closed by a complete
backward stroke, — and a peculiar gap therefore remains on the left-
hand side. This last method of formation, whicli I shall call the left-
gap stroke, may be clearly seen in some of the q^s and o's, and is yet
more noticeable in the g^s and a'«, of which last especially it is
the common, conspicuous, and most highly cJiaracteristic feature^ both in
Madame Blavalsky^s ordinary writing and in those K, H. wi'itings
which I attribute to her. [35] It is so peculiar, that were it found but
rarely in both sets of writings, or commonly in one and rarely in
the other, it would still be a tolerably definite indication of identity
of handiwork; but when we find, as we do, that it occurs constantly
in both sets of writings, that any other form (except the initial
forms spoken of) is comparatively rare, and that numerous varieties
of the type in the one set of writings can be exactly paralleled
in the other, there can, I think, be little doubt that one and the same
person wielded the pen tliroughout. Only a few specimens of these
peculiar letters are given in the plate. Sometimes the stroke ends by
rolling into the right-hand part of the curve, so that in the case of the
a the remaining part of the letter, which is commonly made
with a new stroke of the pen, appears to be almost or quite
continuous with the first stroke. Frequently the second part
of the letter is quite unconnected with the first part, and frequently it
begins in the heart of the space partially enclosed by the first stroke.
Sometimes, again, the first stroke travels farther back to the left than
its origin, still lea\'ing a gap, and sometimes, but seldom, it even joins
its origin, so as to form a complete enclosure. It must be difficult for
any person to trace this left-gap stroke throughout a series of Madame
Blavatsky's acknowledged writings, and throughout a set of what I
believe to be her K. H. writings, comparing in detail all the
swirling tricks and fantastic freaks of curvature which it adopts, and
at the same time resist the impression that the same person executed
them all.

There are two types of d given in the plate, which I may speak of as
the Oerman d (enclosed in square brackets) and the English d. It is the
English type which is almost universally assumed by the d in all but the
earliest writings; wliile the German type is now almost exclusively used
by Madame Blavatsky in her ordinary writing. In the early Koot Hoomi
writings, however, there are many instances of the German c/, and in
Madame Blavatsky's writings of 1878 and 1879 the English d frequently
occurs. The first part of the English d is formed like the initial a'«, or with
a loop, and there is frequently a wide gap between the loop and the final
down stroke of the letter, which is often clipped short, as shown in some
of the instances in the Group (B"). This looped d witli the wide gap and
the clipped down stroke 1 shall call the clipped loose df; it is the character-
istic form of the developed K. K. writing, and among the English cf «
of Madame Blavatsky's undoubted handwriting it is also of common
occurrence. But some persons who possess writings of Madame
Blavatsky may, perhaps, be unable to find any specimens at all of the
English d in her writing; and this brings me to the additional evidence
which I said at the beginning of this part of my report would be forth-
coming in proof of the fact that Madame Blavatsky wrote the Blavatsky-
Coulomb letters.

In three letters written by Madame Blavatsky in 1878, the English
d occurs about 80 times and the German d about 340 times. In a letter
to Mr. Massey of July, 1879, the English d occurs about 130 times and
the German d about 525 times. In her three writings to Mr.
Hume, already mentioned, of about 1881-82, the English d occurs
4 times and the German d about 674 times. In three letters (and two
envelopes) to Mr. Massey in 1884 the English d occurs 6 times and the
German d about 1 106 times. In four letters (and two envelopes) to Mr.
Myers in 1884 the English d occurs 5 time^ and the German c/ about
400 times. In the Elberfeld letter to Dr. Hartmann, 1884, d occurs
39 times, and is always of the German type.

In the B. Replies the English d occurs about 140 times and the
German d about 220 times, and in B. Marginal Notes the English d
occurs 6 times and the German d about 89 times. These writings were
produced in the time covered by the last few days of 1884 and the
iirst few days of 1885, the Marginal Notes being for the most part
slightly later than the Replies.

Now, it can hardly fail to be regarded as singular that the Englisli
d being thus frequent (about 210 to 865) in Madame Blavatsky's
ordinary writings in 1878 and 1879, and being thus rare (15 to
about 2,200, and 7 out of these 15 occur on envelopes) in Madame
Blavatsky's writings from 1881 to 1884, should suddenly be found in
such abundance as appears in the B, Replies^ and I have been
able myself to account for tliis singular fact in only one way. Before
Madame Blavatsky's arrival at Adyar at the end of 1884, Mr. J. D. B.
Gribble, of Madras, had published " A Report of an Examination
into the Blavatsky Correspondence Published in the Christian
College Magazine,*^ and in that report he drew special attention,
in connection with the Blavatsky-Coulomb letter dated 1st April,
1884, to the uniformity of the small d of the German type. Now
Madame Blavatsky knew that I was desirous of obtaining a specimen
of her undoubted writing for the purpose of testing the Blavatsky-
Coulomb lett^^rs; and she knew that I would not use a letter professedly
written to meet my requirement since I had already declined the offer
made by Colonel Olcott, I assume at her instigation, that she should
write such a letter (see p. 281). Is it not possible that she hoped, never-
theless, that I might use as my standard a document written by her
ostensibly with quite another object? Had I used the B. Replies, with
its numerous English ds, as a standard of reference for the Blavatsky-
Coulomb letters, I should have been compelled to conclude that the rarity
of the English d in the disputed documents was certainly an argument
in favour of their having been forged. But a comparison of the B, Replies
in this respect with other writings of Madame Blavatsky ^lows that
unquestionably this frequency of the English d is foreign to Madamo
Blavatsky's ordinary writing produced about the same time as the £,
JRepliea, or during the four previous years. I cannot help thinking
therefore that the use of these English d*8 was deliberate, and that
they were inserted for the special purpose of misleading me in one of
the most important parts of my investigation. In one or two other
minor points Madame Blavatsky has also, I think, in the B. Replies^
altered her usual handwriting. If I am right in this conclusion it
would follow that Madame Blavatsky has resorted to a device which an
innocent person would scarcely be likely to adopt; and when I take all
the circumstances into consideration, remembering especially that
Madame Blavatsky was entirely unaware, as I believe, tliat I intended
to send some of the disputed documents to England for examination —
the manuscript in question affords, in my opinion, strong confirmatory
evidence of her authorship of the Blavatsky-Goulomb letters.

To return to the K. H. writings, it is strongly suggested by the
foregoing facts concerning Madame Blavatsky's (Ta that, since the
appearance of K. H. writing with the English d as the regular form,
she has aimed at eliminating the English type from her ordinary hand-
writing, and using there the German type; but what we have especially
to note here is that the very marked peculiaiities which characterise
the formation of the English d in her acknowledged handwriting,
also characterise its formation in the K. H. manuscript which I
attribute to her.

There are other minor peculiarities common to both sets of writings.
One of these, which occurs in the formation of the letter /, deserves
special mention, and several specimens are given in the Plate (B"). When
final, it is frequently clipped very short; not only is the last upstroke
frequently wanting, but the main downstroke is often carried no further
than its junction with the first upstroke of the letter, so that the letter
remains as a mere loop. Moreover, in the case of II, the second I is
not only frequently clipped short, but it takes a different angle from
that of the previous I (compare also the^, not rising so high, and pre-
senting the appearance of tumbling over to the right. These forms of
I are common both in Madame Blavatsky's undoubted writing, and in
the K. H. Mss. which I believe to have been written by her.

The peculiar formations in the group of letters a, d, g, o
and q, were entirely absent from the K. H. (Y), but they wero
present in the other K. H. documents which I had the opportunity
of carefully examining in India. In some of these latter documents
there were further traces of Madame Blavatsky*s handiwork — e,g,^
in the K. H. 16Jpp. there were various alterations, and the word
or letters altered were usually crossed out, but in three places
careful ercmcres had been made, and these erasures were just where
the K. H. A; had been afterwards formed. In two of these
cases I was unable to determine what the previous formation had
been, but in the third I could stiU trace the outline of Madame
Blavatsky's characteristic k. In another place in the same MS., the
word " Buddhist " had been inserted afterwards in faint lead-pencil;
this was written in Madame Blavatsk/s ordinary handwriting; upon
it had been written, in- ink, the same word in the K. H. writing, but
the pencil marks had not been erased. In the K. H. document alleged
by Madame Fadeeff to have been received by her at Odessa from " un
messager k figure asiatique, qui disparut sous mes yeux mimes,'^ Madame
Blavatsky's characteristic a formations were present, and there were
also many instances of the after stroke transforming a well-formed copy-
book e into the Greek type. These were the most noticeable of those
features of the document [36] which struck me in the two or three minutes'
inspection of it which I had the opportunity of making.

I have, I tliink, said enough to justify my conclusion that Madame
Blavatsky was the writer of nearly all the K. H. documents which I
have seen. And since those which I attribute to her include, among
others, the whole of the K. H. manuscript forwarded to me by Mr.
Hume, as well as every specimen of the series lent to us by Mr. Sinnett,
I think I may assume that by far the greater portion of the K. H.
Mss. is the handiwork of Madame Blavatsky.

Different specimens of Madame Blavatsky's ordinary writing and
the K. H. writing may be seen in the Plates which accompany this
Report^ and Mrs. Sidgwick's corroboration of my observations will be
found in Appendix XV.

----------

I shall now proceed to give the barest possible outline of the results
of my examination of sundry other documents, and begin with the
K. H. (Y). It was this letter to which Dr. Hartmann referred when
he wrote to us last year that it was ''handed to me by Damodar, who
received it in my presence from the hands of the astral fonn of a
Chela/' In his pamphlet, p. 33, he wrote also: " we . • were engaged
in drawing up the charges [against the Coulombs] in my room, when
the astral body of a Chela appeared, and handed the following letter
to Damodar." Madame Blavatsky, in a letter to Mr. C. C. Massey, on
May 4th, 1884, wrote, apparently concerning this letter: "When the
Council assembled and the Board of Trustees were i*eady to lay the
black charges against . her and have her exp€|led — ^there. falls on the
table a letter of Mahatma K. H. to the Bilard, and defending Jier^
speaking with his Christ-like forgiveness and kindness, and saying that
she was a victim and not a culprit, and that it would one day be
proved." I asked Dr. Hartmann about this incident, and he told me
that Mr. Damodar had left the room (Dr. Hartmann's), where he Imd
been talking with Dr. Hartmann, but had returned almost immediately
with the letter in question, saying that he had just received it from
the " astral form of a Chela "! Madame Coulomb alleges that she
peeped through a small hole which she had previously bored through
the wooden partition which formed one side of Mr. Damodar's room,
and that she saw him preparing this Mahatma letter; and I certainly
found a small hole such as Madame Coulomb described to me, which
looked as if it had been made on purpose to serve as a spy-hole.

On comparing the K. H. (Y), in India, with ether K. H. mss. in my
hands at the time, I noted that there was a close similarity as regards
particular characteristics of the K. H. writing, as in the curls to the left
of the downstrokes of g, j and y, the stroke over the 9/1, the formation of
the initial small e, the a;, p, &c. In short, those peculiar forms which
I suppose Madame Blavatsky to have deliberately and successfully
employed in the developed K. H. writing, and which she would
naturally teach as characteristics of the handwriting to any person
whom she wished to train in the art of writing it, were strongly marked
in the K. H. (Y). There were, however, certain differences between
this document and the other K. H. writings with which I compared it.

1. It contained not a single instance of the "left^ap stroke" or of
the clipped loose d.

2. There was not a single upstroke preceding the words, 31 in
number, beginning with 771, n, or i.

3. The abbreviated tk was very different from any specimen in the
other K. H. writings.

4. The curl to the left at the end of the downstroke in g, j, and y,
was made stiffly, starting abruptly from the end of the downstroke.

5. It showed a habit of strongly looping the main downstrokes of
certain letters — a habit which appeared especially in the capital M and
the small d. This habit is, in the case of these letters, foreign to the
ordinary K. H. writings, but is eminently suggestive of Mr. Damodar's
handiwork.

6. The capital D was different from either of the two forms usual
in the K. H. writings. The final loop of the I) touched without
passing to the left of the main downstroke. This D was a facsimile of
some which I found in Mr. Damodar^s ordinary writing.

7. There were six instances of a peculiar small a, of which I
could not find a single instance in the K. H. IBjpp., but which is
very common in Mr. Dutoiodar's ordinary writing.

8. The style was much less flowing than is usual in the K. H.
handwritings, but I do not attribute much importance to this fact.

There were other minor differences, and my examination of the
document led me to the conclusion that it was certainly not written
by Madame Blavatsky, and that it was probably written by Mr.
Damodar. This conclusion has been strengthened by my examination
of a document, which I shall call K. H. (Z), submitted to us for
examination by Mr. B. J. Padshah, who received it last year direct
from Adyar, in reply to a letter which fie beui sent, and who thinks
that Madame Blavatsky could not have known anything about the
letter, she being at the time in Europe. The letter is about the same
length as K. H. (Y), nearly two pages of note-paper.

1. It contains not a single instance of the peculiarities which I
have described in the group of letters a, d, g, and o. (The letter q does
not occur.)

2. There is only one case of a preceding upstroke in the 16 words
beginning with i, and only one very doubtful case of a preceding upstroke
in the 18 words beginning with m or n.

3. It contains an abbreviated <t of the same formation as that
noted in the K. H. (Y).

4. The turns to the left at the end of the downstroke in g, J, and y
have an angular comer, and the curvature of the stroke to the left is
always concave downwards, never concave upwards.

5. Several of the cTa have the main downstroke very strongly
looped.

6. A capital L on the envelope is different from any L which I have
found in what I may now call the Blavatsky K. H. writings.

7. Mr. Damodar'a peculiar a formation, which I will describe
presently, is obvious in two a'«, and there are clear traces of it in other
a'Sy which are now somewhat blurred. A similar formation occurs in
six g'a, and the tendency to this formation in other instances is
manifest.

8. The style is less flowing than is usual in the K. H. handwritings.

9. The main downstroke of the initial t [type of the first t in the
B'' group] of a word is invariably strongly looped; and that of the
final t [type of the second t in the B" group] is almost invariably
looped.

10. The main downstroke of the h and the h is invariably looped.

Both K. H. (Y) and K. H. (Z) are written in blue pencil, whereas
the K. H. documents which I have hitherto discussed are chiefly written
in ink. Lest it should be maintained that t^e differences noted are
due to this, I shall now compare this K. H. (Z) with another K. H.
letter, also in blue pencil (8pp.), and written approximately at the
same time. It was received by Mr. Myers from the hands of Madame
Blavatsky when she was in Cambridge last year, and I find —

1. That the Blavatskian peculiarities which I have described in the
group of letters a, d^ g and o, abound throughout.

2. That of the first 16 words (excluding four doubtful cases) beginning
with », 10 have a preceding upstroke, and that of the first 18 words
beginning with m or n,9 have a preceding upstroke.

3. The form of d: is different from the form in K. H. (Z).

4. The corners of the turns to the left at the end of the down--
strokes in g, j and y are almost invariably rounded and the curvature
of the stroke to the left is almost invariably concave upwards.

5. There is no instance of a d with its main downstroke strongly
looped.

6. A capital L which occurs is different from that in K. H. (Z).

7. There is one solitary instance (in the 8pp.) of an a formation
which resembles those common in Mr. Damodar's writing, but the
specimen is somewhat doubtful. There is no tendency to this formation
in other instances.

8. The style of handwriting is much freer and swifter than that of
the K. H. (Z).

9. The downstroke of the initial t is rarely so strongly looped as in
K. H. (Z), and is frequently not looped at all; and that of the final t is
commonly not looped.

10. The main downstroke of the h and the h is frequently not looped.

There ai-e other points of difference between the two documents^
which, however, it is unnecessary to enumerate.

On the importance of (1) I need not dwell any further. The
contrast noted in (2) is also true to a certain extent in y, u and w. To
none of these letters when beginning a word is there any preceding up-
stroke in K. H. (Z). Preceding upstrokes to the letters mentioned are
common in Madame Blavatsky's ordinary writing, but except in the
cases of wi and n, [37] comparatively rare in Mr. Damodar's ordinary
writing. Thus in a letter of his, written last year, there are
17 initial t's, and only two have the upstroke; there are 31 initial
lo's, and not one has the upstroke, though there may be a slight doubt
in two cases.

The strong looping of the main downstroke of the d is
characteristic of Mr. Damodar's writing, as may be seen from the
instances in Plate I., Group (D). The specimens in this Group are
taken from a letter written by Mr. Damodar in August, 1884. The
last instance is especially peculiar, where the upstroke touches the
initial point of the letter and the main downstroke cuts the initial
stroke, which thus divides the extraordinary loop of the d into two
parts. There is a conspicuous example of exactly tliis form in the
K. H. (Z). It is also particularly to be observed that not only is there
no instance of the clipped loose d, but there is never the slightest
tendency to such a formation. There is not a single instance where the
preceding letter runs into the initial stroke of the if so as
to form a loop with it^ and the structure of the letter
throughout exactly conforms to the structure of the English
d found in Mr. Damodar's ordinary writing. Mr. Damodar
indeed frequently leaves a gap in his ordinary writing between the
beginning of the d and the main downstroke; this seems to be partly
due to rapid writing, but there is apparently one instance of it in the
K. H. (Z), and two other instances may be considered doubtful, though
I think myself, after careful examination with a lens, that the appear-
ance of a gap in these two cases is due simply to the attrition of the
first part of the pencilled stroke. The other most important trace of
Mr. Damodar's handiwork in the K. H. (Z) is the presence of what I
shall call the beaked a formation, of which several instances are given in
the Plate (Group D). The initial point of the letter is considerably farther
to the right than the top of the straight downstroke of the letter, which,
moreover, does not reach so liigh as the upper curvature. It is tins
beaked a formation to which I refer above in (7); it is very commoa
in Mr. Damodar's ordinary writing.

My own view is that Mr. Damodar unquestionably wrote the K. H. (Z)
as well as the K. H. (Y). Mr. Netherclift has had no opportunity of
seeing the K. H. (Y), which was only lent to me for a short time in India,
but the K. H. (Z) was submitted to him with the other K. H.
documents upon which he was asked to give a second opinion, with the
additional light afforded by those lent to us by Mr. Sinnett. Mr.
Netherclift, in his second report, stated as his opinion that it was *' quite
impossible that Damodar could have accommodated his usual style to
suit that of K. H./' and although he admitted that he was unable
to find in it an instance of what I have called the left-gap stroke^ and
that it was less like Madame Blavatsky^s than other of the K. H.
documents, he appeared to think that this may have been due to the
increased wariness of Madame Blavatsky, and 'placed it with the others as
being unmistakably her handiwork. I then submitted to him my
analysis of the document, and he kindly undertook to make a further
examination, expressing his confidence that he would prove to me that
the conclusion which I had reached was erroneous. The result, how-
ever, of a prolonged comparison which he then made was that he frankly
confessed that my view was the correct one, saying that in the whole course
of his many years' experience as an expert, he had " never met a more
puzzling case,'' but that he was at last " thoroughly convinced that " the
K. H. (Z) ''was written by Damodar in cloee imitation of the style adopted
by Madame Blavatsky in the K. H. papers."

Specimens of the K. H. (Z) and the other K. H. letter with
which I have compared it are given in Plate II., and it may be
noticed that the K. H. characteristics in the former are almost
all rigidly of one variety, as we might expect to find in the work of a
copyist adhering to his lesson.

I may here make brief reference to a long account of the professed
experiences of a native witness, which was sent to the headquarters of
the Theosophical Society while I was in India. Mr. Bhavani Shahkar
alleged that he was copying this account for me, and that he had
already copied a portion of it. At the time I thought it rather odd
that I never saw him actually engaged in the copying, and when after
the lapse of some days I found that the document was not ready, I
doubted whether I should receive it at all. Eventually, however, I did
receive it, and with the explicit declaration of Mr. Bhavani Shankar
that it was his copy. The pointedness of his assurance that he had
made the copy caused me to wonder slightly why he was so anxious to
let me have what I should know was a specimen of his handwriting; and
the probable explanation did not occur to me till some time afterwards,
when I was struck by observing, in the document in question, some
peculiarities which I had noticed in the ordinary writing of Mr.
Damodar. I then made a careful examination of the document,
and found that it had every appearance of having been written by Mr.
Damodar, beginning with an elaborate though clumsy attempt at
disguise, and ending with what can hardly be called any disguise at all.
Tliis incident has confirmed me in my opinion of the untrustworthiness
of both Mr. Damodar and Mr. Bhavani Shankar. But as to why Mr.
Bhavani Shankar should hav^e made this attempt to deceive me con-
cerning the characteristics of his handwriting, I have only a conjectural
view.

My examination of another document which I saw in India con-
firmed me in my opinion of the untrustworthiness of Mr. Babajee D.
Nath. This document was written in green ink, and purported to be
the work of a Chela B. D. S. (Bhola Deva Sarma). The disguise seemed
to me to be very puerile, most of the letters being of the copy-book
type; one or two of Mr. Babajee's habits being traceable throughout^
while the name Nath^ which occurred in it, was almost a facsimile of a
"Nath" which I found in Mr. Babajee's ordinary signature.

The forged Hartmann document (see p. 280), which I believe to have
been forged by Madame Blavatsky, for the purpose of attributing it to
the Coulombs, was alleged by some Theosophists to have been the work of
the Coulombs, on the ground that the sentence, " Excuse short letter. I
am writing in the dark," suggested a peculiarity of Madame Coulomb's,
that " writing in the dark " meant " writing in a hurry," and in proof
of this an old letter of Madame Coulomb's, in which she used a similar
expression, was produced ^rom the possession o/ Madame Blavatsky, I
saw this letter, and the expression there appeared to me to be meant
literally. The forged document may possibly have been intended to
bear traces of its forgery on the face of it, though of this I cannot be
sure. The imitation of Dr. Hartmann's characteristics is for the most
part exceedingly close, and on this point I must differ entirely from
Mr. Gribble, [38] who was evidently unfamiliar with Dr. Hartmann's
writing; moreover, bad spelling is noticeable in the document^ and bad
spelling of a similar character is noticeable also in Dr. Hartmann's
writings; but Dr. Hartmann himself asserts that the letter is a forgery,
and the fact that it contains fourteen remakings of letters is enough to
confirm his statement. Although there were 14 remakings of letters,
there was only one erasure; this was in the k of the word dark. Dr.
Hartmann's k is peculiar; so is Madame Blavatsky's; but the
erasure had been so thoroughly made that I was unable to trace the
shape of the letter first formed. I compared the document with
writing of M. and Madame Coulomb, and could not find in it any
traces of their handiwork; but comparing it with Madame Blavatsky's
writings, I found several, and these instances formed the only diver-
gencies which I observed from Dr. Hartmann's formations. I attach
importance to the following: —

1. The figure " 8 " in the dating of the letter was not Dr. Hartmann's^
but Madame Blavatsky's.

2. A capital S was not Dr. Hartmann's, but Madame Blavatsky's.

3. A small z was very different from Dr. Hartmann's, and was
almost a facsimile of the careful z in the K. H. writings, which also
shows exactly the same type as the careful z (very rare) in Madame
Blavatsky's ordinary writing, except that the former terminates in the
leftward curl, while the latter terminates in the usual copy-book up-
ward stroke, trending to the right, cutting the lower part of the down-
stroke, and thus forming a closed loop with it.

4. Dr. Hartmann's small x is nearly of the common copy-book
type, the first half of the letter being formed like a reversed c; but it
seems that he habitually keeps his pen upon the paper until he has com-
pleted the letter, so that from the end of the first part of the letter a
diagonal stroke runs up to the beginning of the second part, between the
left side of which and the right side of the first part there remains a gap,
bridged by the cross stroke; at a first glance, the bridging stroke may
escape notice, and the x appear to be of the copy-book form. Now x
occurs three times in the forged Hartmann document. The first of these
is formed without the bridge, and the two strokes of the letters touch
each other. The second of them is formed like Dr. Hartmann's variety.
The third of them, however, which occurs in the last sentence of the
letter, waafiratformed as Madame Blavatsky's jyeculiar x, Dr. Hartmann's
type being formed over it toithout any erasure's having been made. On
close inspection this was clear even to the naked eye, and examination
with a lens rendered it absolutely unmistakable.

Let us now consider the MaluUmn M, endorsement on the forged
Hartmann document.

1. In five of the seven r's the upper loop has unmistakably been
added by an after stroke, and apparently in the other two also. Very
heavily crowned r's are characteristic of the M. writing; but Madame
Blavatsky in her ordinary writing is frequently obliged to twirl the top
of the r with an afterstroke. (Mr. Gribble also regarded the r's of this
document as suggestive of Madame Blavatsky.)

2. The letter g in the words good and forgery exhibits the peculiar
left-gap stroke. The gap in the g of good has been partly filled by another
stroke, and this also occasionally but rarely happens both in Madame
Blavatsky's ordinary writing and in the K. H. writing. (See the final
a and o in the Plate, Group B'*.)

3. The letter following the t in the word "enterprising" was
manifestly first made as Madame Blavatsky's left^ap stroke a. The-
word has apparently been first spelt " entaprising," and the second
part of the a altered into an r by the addition of a very grotesque-
loop, awkwardly placed in consequence of the little room left for it.

I suppose that Madame Blavatsky, having forged the document in
Dr. Hartmann's writing, and enclosed it in a "cover postmarked Madras,"
in which Colonel Olcott might receive it, afterwards obtained it again
surreptitiously (on finding, as I conjecture, that Colonel Olcott was not
bringing forward the document and stating that he believed it to be a.
forgery, as she had intended him to do), wrote the endorsement in her
disguised M. handwriting and replaced it in Colonel Olcott'y.
despatch-box. If she had little time at her disposal in which to write
the endorsement) this would account for the exceptionally glaring
indications of her handiwork which it contains.

Everyone will admit, I think, that the forged Hartmann document
must have originated either with the Coulombs or with Madame
Blavatsky. If the Coulombs were the authors, it is difficult to see
the point of the last sentence about " writing in the dark," and if the
phrase really illustrates a peculiarity of Madame Coulomb's, an old
letter of hers in the possession of Madame Blavatsky being adduced
as proof, the Coulombs would seem to have committed the very
curious mistake of inserting a statement for what looks like the specific
purpose of indicating themselves as the authors. That they should
not only have done tliis, but have also perpetrated the marvellously
subtle fraud of making several slips in the forged document wliich
should be characteristic of Madame Blavatsky's handiwork, is a sup-
position which, I think, appears in itself somewhat absurd, besides
being incompatible with the hypothesis which has been ' put forward
that they forged the letter in order to make mischief between the
founders of the Society and Dr. Hartmann and Mr. Lane-Fox; and
it is difficult to see what other motive they could possibly have had.
In short, the hypothesis that the Coulombs forged the document is
fraught with so many great difficulties that I do not imagine any
impartial reader will entertain it for a moment, or have any doubt
whatever that Madame Blavatsky wrote both the forged document
and the Mahatma M. endorsement. Her action in this respect is in
liarmony with her action throughout, and her object [39] is not far to
seek. The remarks in the Madrcts Christian College Magazine for
October, 1884, p. 302, are entirely justified: —

"What the whole Press and the Indian public has been quick enough to
see was not likely to be concealed from Madame Blavatsky, viz., that the
only chance of her rehabilitation lies in Madame Coulomb's letters being
proved forgeries. How would a person of Madame Blavatsky's genius be
likely to parry such a thrust? Not by a mere assertion, but by a proof that
forgeiy is in the air — that attacks upon Theosophy are being made through
the forger's pen."

She therefore forged a letter which would indubitably be shown to
be a forgery, and which, at the same time, should contain evidence
apparently pointing to the Coulombs as the authors. This evidence
(the aforesaid phrase about '^ writing in the dark ") appears to me to
point on the contrary to Madame Blavatsky herself as the author.

I have not had specimens of the M. writing which would
Jiave enabled me to make such a full examination as I have made of
the £. H. writing, but I have no doubt that all of the few short
specimens which I have had the opportunity of carefully examining
may have been, and that some of them unquestionably were, written by
Madame Blavatsky. It occurred to me that the first M. writing
may have been written by Madame Blavatsky with her left hand, and
that she afterwards imitated with her right hand the characteristics
thus displayed; and on trying the experiment, making some of Madame
Blavatsky's characteristic strokes, I found that several of her peculiarities
took the roughened form which I have observed in some of the M.
writing. But whether all the M. writing was the liandiwork of
Madame Blavatsky, or whether some of the earliest specimens were
written by Babula under the guidance of Madame Blavatsky — as
Madame Coulomb asserts — or whether some other person had some share
in their production, my limited acquaintance with the MSS. has not
provided me with any means of determining. I observed in some
specimens which Mr. Kamaswamier allowed me to see, an instance of
Madame Blavatsky's characteristic A;, with another k formed over it, an
instance of her terminal r, and an instance of her peculiar x. In
perusing the Mahatma M. document which Mr. Damodar alleged had
fallen into his room at Ootacamund, on April 26th, 1884 (see p. 279),
I observed the following peculiarities: —

1. There were a capital H and a capital P which were varieties of
certain H and P types found both in the £. H. and in Madame
Blavatsky's ordinary writings.

2. Many of the ^'s exhibited a double stroke which, though not a
facsimile of Madame Blavatsky's, was very strongly suggestive of her
handiwork.

3. The a exhibits new peculiarities in the M. writing, but some
of the a's here showed the left-gap formation notwithstanding.

4. Several ^'s exhibited Madame Blavatsky's ordinary left-gap
stroke, and in one case the gap had been partially filled up, so that it
presented an eminently peculiar appearance, . Uke that shown in the
final a and o of the Group B^. (See Plate I.)

5. In two words the initial e had been first made in the common
type, and had afterwards been altered into the Greek form.

6. In at least four cases the top of the r had been added by an
after stroke.

A complete examination of this document might have revealed more
resemblances to Madame Blavatsky's ordinaiy handwriting, but I think
those above enumerated are, considering the circumstances of its ap-
pearance, enough to justify me in concluding that Madame Blavatsky
was the writer. [40] The substance of the document is certainly much more
suggestive of the cunning combined with the inevitable ignorance of
Madame Blavatsky in Paris, than of any divine wisdom or knowledge
of the supposed " Mahatma M." in India. The K.H. (Y) of March 22nd,
and the Ootacamund M. letter of April 26th are not easily explained,
except on the view that Mr. Damodar wrote the former and Madame
Blavatsky the latter; for the documents absolutely contradict each
other. But they admit of a satisfactory explanation when we find
that on March 22nd Mr. Damodar was doing his best to avoid a
rupture with the Coulombs, and that Madame Blavatsky, a week or so
later, ignorant of the change of position at headquarters, and ignorant
that Messrs. Lane-Fox and Damodar were at Ootacamund, while Dr.
Hartmann remained at Adyar, was preparing a Mahatma document
to serve as a guard against the disclosure of the trick apparatus, just
as she afterwards forged the Hartmann document to ward off the blow
which fell in the publication of her own incriminating letters in the
Jfadrcis Christian College Magazine.

Even greater ignorance, or a curious standard of morality, is
displayed in another Mahatma document, written to Mr. Hume. It
contains a reference to a "young man" to whose rapid spiritual
development "K. H." enthusiastically draws Mr. Hume's attention.
After referring to the growth of this young man's " inner soul-power
and moral sense," <kc., K. H. continues: —

"I have often watched that silent yet steady progress, and on that day
when ho was called to take note of the contents of your letter to Mr. Sinnett,
concerning our humble selves, and the cotuiUimis you imposed upon us — ^I
have myself learned a lesson. A soul is being breathed into him, a new
Spirit let in, and, with every day he is advancing towards a state of higher
development. One fine morning the * Soul ' vnll find him; but, unlike your
English mystics across the great Sea, it will be under the guidance of the true
liviiig adept f not under the spasmodic inspirations of his own untutored
* Buddhi,' known to you as the 6th principle in man." [41]

Mr. Hume appends a note that, at the very time the above passage
was written, the young man in question " was systematically cheating
and swindling me by false contracts, besides directly embezzling my
money."

How far the K'. H. letters received by Mr. Sinnett, upon which
"Esoteric Buddhism" is confessedly founded, emanated from the brain
of Madame Blavatsky, how far she was assisted in their production by
confederates, how much of' their substance was plagiarised from other
writers, are questions which lie somewhat outside my present province.
In the light of the incident mentioned by Mr. Hume, where matter
furnished by an able native had been used in the preparation of
Mahatma documents — we may regard it as not improbable that Madame
Blavatsky has obtained some direct or indirect assistance from native
learning and native familiarity with Hindu Philosophy; and the
"Kiddle incident," where the charge of plagiarism has eventually
been admitted, and the fraud attributed to a Chela — is enough to
show that "K. H." has not been above pilfering the very
language of a lecturer on Spiritualism. But apart altogether from
such incidents as these, we must remember that Madame Blavatsky
appeared in the last decade as the author of " Isis Unveiled." It is not
denied that a similarity of style exists between a number of the K. H.
documents and portions of " Isis Unveiled "; the inference made by
those who accept the statements of Madame Blavatsky is that
she wrote neither; I think it much more probable that she wrote
both.

Madame Blavatsky at times writes very strange English, or rather
a language which can hardly be called English. This, I believe, she
frequently does intentionally, and sometimes with good effect. Thus,
towards the close of a long passage in her ordinary handwriting, and in
her good English style, she says that it was dictated to her by a "greasy
Tibetan," and in what follows immediately afterwards, which of course
we are to notice is her own, she lapses into a markedly poorer form
of utterance. I have no doubt that she was fully aware [42] of tiie
importance of convincing adherents like Mr. Sinnett that i^he was
unable to produce the K. H. writings, and that one of her devices
to this end was the speaking and writing of purposely deteriorated
English. Her best English style appears to me to be essentially like
that of the K. H. writings, especially in the cumbrous and wordy form
of sentence which so often appears, in the abundance of parenthetical
phrases and in the occasional use of almost otUre metaphors.

There are, indeed, certain oddities in Madame Blavatsky's English
which are not feigned — in spelling, in the division of words at the end
of a line, and in grammatical structure; but I find that these occur in
the K. H. writings also; where the frequency of dashes, underlinings,
and expressions like " please," " permit me,'' <!bc., is further suggestive
of Madame Blavatsky's work. I admit that some of the quotations
which have been published by Mr. Sinnett, from the K. H. mss.,
attain a standard of style and reflective thought which I should not
expect Madame Blavatsky to maintain continuously through a long
series of documents, and I am accordingly not surprised to learn from
Mr. Hume, who received a large quantity of the K. H. mss., and who
began the writing of " Esoteric Buddhism,'' that much of the K. H.
writing is considerably below the level of those fragments which have
been published, and that the task of eliminating the vast mass of
rubbish was exceedingly difficult. I conceive myself that it would be
impossible for the writer of the K. H. mss. now in my possession to
substantiate any claim to a familiarity with the principles of either
Science or Philosophy, and I see no reason why they should not have
been written by Madame Blavatsky herself, without any assistance
whatever. To speak about '' a bacteria," as K. H. does in one of these
documents, is to show a knowledge neither of Biology nor of Philology;
and to say, as K. H. does in another of these documents, '^that man has
a better prospect for him after death than that of turning into carbolic
(sic) acid, water and ammonia " [43] shows a lamentable ignorance of the
constitution of the Bupa, the ordinary human organism, the first of
the "seven principles."

It would, however, be a tedious and a useless task to analyse these
K. H. documents at length, and I shall now simply give a few instances
of those points wliich admit of a brief illustration. I take the following
from the Koot Hoomi Lai Sing: " Whatever helps restore " [= "what-
ever helps to restore]. Also, "You and your colleagues may help
furnish the materials." Similarly Madame Blavatsky writes, " to help
him publish." The Koot Hoomi Lai Sinff, as I have already men-
tioned, is quoted almost in its entirety by Mr. Sinnett, on pp. 85-95 of
*' The Occult World." But the reader will find that the word to is
inserted before its verb in Mr. Sinnett's version. I was certainly sur-
prised on finding this, as Mr. Sinnett had written ('^The Occult
World," p. 69):—

"I shall, of course, throughout my quotations from Koot Hoomi's letters
leave out passages which, specially addressed to myself, have no immediate
bearing on the public argument. The reader must be careful to remember,
however, as I now most unequivocally affirm, that I shall in no case alter
one syllable of the passages actually quoted. It is important to make this
declaration very emphatically, because the more my readers may be acquainted
with India, the less they will be willing to believe, except on the most positive
testimony, that the letters from Koot Hoomi, as I now publish them, have
been written by a native of India."

Yet on comparing the original document, Koot Hoomi Lai Sing^
with " The Occult World," I find that there are more than sixty differ-
ences between the two (excluding mistakes of spelling — hen^a and
remarqued — and excluding also omission of underlinings, changes of
punctuation, <Ssc.). Many of these differences consist of words omitted
or inserted, others of words changed, and although some of these
differences may be resolved into misprints or mis-co;ne«, by no
means all of them can be explained in this way. For example, in
the original document I read: '* the difference between the modes of
physical (called exact often out of mere politeness) and metaphysical
sciences "; but in " The Occult World " (p. 88), politeness appears as
complimefit. Again: '^ Education enthrones skepticism, but imprisons
spiritualism "; spiritualism in *' The Occult World " (p. 94) appears
as spirituality, Jietnarqusd and politeness appear to me to be more
suggestive of Madame Blavatsky than of the K. H. described to us,
whose peculiarities ought to be German rather than French; [44] and it is
curious that Madame Blavatsky, in a letter of last year to Mr. Myers,
should have drawn a contrast " between spiritualism and materialism,"
where spiritualism^ is clearly intended to bear the same meaning as in
the passage quoted from the K. H. document. I do not suppose that
Mr. Sinnett himself knew anything of these and other alterations, but
he is certainly chargeable with no ordinary negligence for not having
ascertained, after the emphatic and unequivocal declaration which
I have quoted, that no coppst or printer's devil or reader had
assumed the function of improving Koot Hoomi's English — ^unless,
indeed, we are to suppose that Koot Hoomi At m(?)self corrected the
proof for the press, in which case we ought to have been told that
he did so, and how and when it was done. Such exceeding carelessness
on the part of Mr. Sinnett has destroyed the confidence which I
formerly had that his quotations from Koot Hoomi documents might
be regarded as accurately faithful reproductions of the originals.

The following short groups of peculiarities of spelling and mistakes
of idiom may be compared:—

It may seem strange that K. H. should be induced by a " philo-
logical whim," to spell "skepticism" with a k {vide ^. 271), and yet
make such mistakes in spelling and such remarkable diYisions of words
as I have instanced above. And throughout the K. H. documents in
my hands, expressions abound which can hardly be termed feliciUUee,
though they are certainly curiosce, and which appear to me to be
eminently Blavatskian.

What the ethics of a real Mahatma would be we perhaps have no
means of judging, but those of Madame Blavatsky's Mahatma certainly
are, in some points, those which we should expect would commend
themselves to a person engaged in producing fraudulent phenomena.
There is evidence in one of the K. H. documents that K. H. actually
endeavoured to incite the recipient to what I think every honour-
able Englishman would regard as a falsehood. The moral is toler-
ably obvious, and the reader will perhaps rather expect the advanced
Chelas of ^^Mahatmas" to be, by virtue of that very position,
untrustworthy individuals. That there are persons whose actions
are marked by the highest integrity, and who have devoutly
and sincerely believed themselves to be acting under the tutelage
of a " Mahatma," I do not for a moment question; though there
can be little doubt that there are also instances where Madame
Blavatsky has endeavoured to persuade natives to pretend falsely
that they were Chelas, and in some cases, as I think I have shown,
has succeeded, but in other cases has failed. Mr. Hume has stated
to me his conviction, founded on their own confessions, that certain
natives had been instigated by Madame Blavatsky to fraudulent
assertion of their Chelaship, and to the conveyance of " Mahatma ''
messages in the guise of Chelas; this would appear also from some
of the documents forwarded to me by Mr. Hume; and, quite indepen-
dently of this evidence, I was assured by an educated native with whom
I had a personal interview, that Madame Blavatsky had used her
powers — not only of persuasion, but of threatening — to induce him
to further her objects, as explained to him, and to play the rdle of
a dawning Adept. It is, in short, quite certain that there are
natives who have charged Madame Blavatsky with inciting them to
the fraudulent personation of Chelas of "Mahatmas," and she seems
to have worked upon patriotic feeling for the purpose of securing
their assistance.

I have now dealt with the main points of the evidence for the
alleged marvellous phenomena in connection with the Theosophical
Society which were directly associated with my investigations in
India, and I regard the details which I have given as sufficient to
warrant the conclusion which I expressed at the beginning of my
Beport, that these alleged marvellous phenomena have been fraudulent
throughout. The force of the evidence leading to this conclusion will
hardly be appreciated except by those who have followed the accounts
given in the Appendices, and it certainly cannot be conveyed in a
mere summary. Yet I think it well that the reader should be reminded
of the most important considerations which have arisen in the course
of the inquiry, and I shall therefore suggest these once more — ^in as
few words as possible. But, before doing so, there are one or twa
collaterrvl questions which demand some brief reference.

At the time of our First Report, it appeared to us a serious difficulty
in the way of adopting the hypothesis of fraud that we should have to
suppose Mr. Damodar to have exchanged, within a comparatively short
time, the character of a confiding dupe for that of a thorough-going*
conspirator. This difficulty was impressed upon us all the more
strongly by the account of Mr. Damodar which we received fronk
Colonel Olcott, who stated: —

"His father was a wealthy gentleman occupying a high position in the-
Govemment secretariat at Bombay; and the son, besides the paternal
expectations, had, in his own right, about 50,000 or 60,000 rupees. The
father at first gave his consent to the son's breaking caste— a most serious
step in India — so as to take up our work. But subsequently, on his death-
bed, his orthodox family influenced his mind, and he demanded that his son
should revert to his caste, making the usual degrading penance required in
such cases. Mr. Damodar, however, refused, saying that he was fully
committed to the work, which he considered most important for his country
and the world; and he ultimately relinquished his entire property, so that
he might be absolutely free."

The impressiveness of this, however, was considerably reduced by
further investigation, which revealed that Colonel Olcott's statement
conveyed utterly erroneous ideas concerning the actual facts of the
case. From evidence I obtained in Bombay from several witnesses,.
&nd from a series of documents which I was allowed to peruse by
an uncle of Mr. Damodar, and which consisted partly of letters
written by Mr. Damodar, it appeared that his father had been a
member of the Theosophical Society, but that he had resigned all
connection with it in consequence of the conclusion he had reached that
the founders of the Society were untrustworthy. It was also in
consequence of this conclusion that he so earnestly entreated his son
(not to " revert to his caste," but) to give up his connection with
Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott, or at least to live no longer in.
the same house with them. It was, moreover, in consequence of the-
opinion which prevailed among some of Mr. Damodar's acquaintancesr
in Bombay to the effect that Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott
had sought to gain power over Mr. Damodar for the purpose of
obtaining his money — that Mr. Damodar had expressed his desire to
relinquish his property. And, according to the provisions of his.
father's will, he may yet receive the property on certain conditions, of
which the primary one is the severance of his connection with the-
Theosophical Society. I must add that the correspondence to which
I refer, which lasted over some months, afforded ample evidence that.
Mr. Damodar's father had been painfully impressed by his want of
truthfulness and honourable dealing.

At the time when Mr. Damodar desired to give up all claims to the
property, he was, I think, not a confederate. Wlien he first began to
suspect fraud, I have no means of ascertaining; but as regards the
transition from being a dupe to becoming himself a conspirator, there
is this to be said. — There can be little doubt that patriotic feeling —
which, I believe, has much more to do with the underworking of the
Theosophical Society than the followers of Madame Blavatsky in
England commonly imagine — ^was one of the strongest influences which
attracted him to the Society, and which aftei'wards kept him an active
worker in the movement. His bitter antipathy to the " conquering
race " was sufficiently obvious in those letters of his which I had the
opportunity of perusing. To this we must add the fact that he had
espoused the Theosophical cause and the claims of Madame Blavatsky
with a burning intensity of antagonism to those who alleged that these
claims rested on a foundation of dishonesty. It was not easy to confess
to the world that the flaming ardour which resisted the tender and wise
advice of his father, and perhaps was fed by the importunate cautions
and scoffings of his friends, was but the folly of an aspiring youth, who
was not quite clever enough for Madame Blavatsky. And, after all,
he might have the honour of posing as a Chela, with rapidly-developing
powers, and receiving reverence and glory, not only from his native
associates, but from Englishmen themselves. In the face of such
considerations as these, the psychological revolution in which Mr.
Damodar was transformed from a dupe, capable of deceiving his father,
to an impostor in the supposed interests of his country, is perhaps not
very difficult to understand. There is no necessity for me to give all the
results of my inquiries concerning the personal characters and ante-
cedents of those persons whom I regard as confederates of Madame
Blavatsky. As Mr. Damodar is the only one of her followers who has
deprived himself of any substantial property by his action in connection
with the Theosophical Society, or who, in my opinion, can be said to
have sacrificed his worldly prospects, I have thought it desirable to
draw special attention to the circumstances under which the sacrifice
was made.

After reviewing the instances I have given of the unreliability of
Colonel Olcott's testimony, some readers may be inclined to think that
Colonel Olcott must himself have taken an active and deliberate part
in the fraud, and have been a partner with Madame Blavatsky in the
conspiracy. Such, I must emphatically state, is not my own opinion,
though I should be unwilling to affirm that Colonel Olcott may not,
by carrying out supposed injunctions of his "Master," have improperly
contributed, either by word or action, to the marvellousness of certain
phenomena. It is clear, for example, from documents in my posses-
sion, that the influence of "K. H.'' has been exerted unsuccessfully
in the case of another gentleman, for the purpose of strengthening the
evidence for an alleged " occult" phenomenon, and 1 can well understand
that Colonel Olcott may have been induced by the solemn asseverations
of his '* Master " that certain events occurred, to remember incidents
which never happened at all; and how much may have been exacted
from his blind obedience it is impossible to determine. Further,
his capacity for estimating evidence, which could never have been very
great, was probably seriously injured before the outset of his Theoso-
phical career by his faith in Madame Blavatsky, who herself regarded
him as the chief of those '' domestic imbeciles " and ** familiar muf& "
to whom she refers in her letters to Madame Coulomb; and writing
about him from America to a Hindu in Bombay, she characterised him
as a " psychologised baby," saying that the Yankees thought themselves
very smart, and that Colonel Olcott thought he was particularly smart,
even for a Yankee, but that he would have to get up much earlier in the
morning to be as smart as she was. His candour was shown by his
readiness in providing me with extracts from his own diary, and the
freedom with which he allowed me to inspect important documents in
his possession; and he rendered me every assistance in his power
in the way of my acquiring the evidence of the native witnesses. Not
only so, but observing, as I thought, that Mr. Damodar was unduly
endeavouring to take part in my examination of a witness shortly after I
arrived in India, he desired me not to hesitate in taking the witnesses
apart for my private examination, and he made special arrangements
for my convenience. Not unmindful of the opportunities afforded me
for investigation by most of the Theosophists themselves, it is with all
the more regret that I now find myself expressing conclusions which
must give pain to so many of them. But Colonel Olcott himself would
be among the first to admit that the interests of truth must not be
stopped or stayed by any merely personal feelings, and although in a
letter to Madame Coulomb, he implied that his mind could not " be
unsettled by any trivial things " — such as, among others, the making
of trap-doors and other apparatus for trick-manifestations by Madame
Blavatsky — ^lie wrote also: —

"I do fk>£ think it right or fair that you should continue to be a member
of a Society which you thought flourishing by the aid of trickery and false
representation. If I thought my Society ihat I would leave it, and wash my
hands of it for ever."

This, however, is a course which probably Colonel Olcott's mind
will never be " unsettled " enough to take, and he still apparently
continues to believe in the genuineness of the alleged occult phenomena.

_______________

Notes:

29. Several of these letters were lent to me for my own examination by the
editor of the Christian College Magazine, The remaining letters I examined
at the honse of a gentleman in whose cnBtody they were at the time. Some of
them which I selected myself were entrusted to me to he sent to England for
the judgment of the best experts obtainable, with the special request that they
should be returned as soon as possible, and I found upon my arrival in England
that they had already been returned.

30. I refer to the B, Marginal Notes and the B, Replies, (See pp. 282
and 290.)

31. See Madame Coulomb's pamphlet "Some Account," &c., pp. 94-104.

32. In addition to the manuscripts which I have already mentioned as pro-
viding me with a knowledge of Madame Blavatsky's ordinary handwriting, I
have in my possession various undisputed writings of hers produced between
1877 and 1885, among which are three letters written to a Hindu in 1878, three
writings to Mr. Hume about the years 1881-1832, and other more recent letters
to Messrs. Massey and Myers.

33.  The Occult World '' (first edition) was published Jane 2nd, 1881.

34. "Esoteric Buddhism " (first edition) was published June 8th, 1883.

35. Mr. Gribble, in his pamphlet, '^ A Report of an Examination into the
Blavatsky Correspondence," &c., has drawn special attention to this left gap-
stroke Id Madame Blavatsky's ordinaiy writing, and to the significance of it»
occiirpence in some K. H. Meriting.

36. I think it not improbable that this document was written by Madame
Blavatsky in 1879 or 1880 when the idea of corresponding with one of the
"Brothers" appears to have been first mooted. In weighing the statement of
Madame Fad^eff that she received the document about the year 1870, we should
remember that she is a Russian lady, and the aunt of Madame Blavatsky, and
that Madame Blavatsky may have been infiuenced by political motives in the
founding of the Theosophical Society {vid. p. 314). It may be mentioned here
that Madame Blavatsky, when she heard tliat Mr. Hommsji had given evidence
that he had received a brooch from her for repair, which resembled the one
afterwards produced at Simla for Mrs. Hume, first alleged (to Mr. Hume) that
the brooch Mr. Hormusji had seen was square, and a few days later (to myself)
that it was round, and had, indeed, some resemblance to Mrs. Hume's, that she
(Madame Blavatsky) had pxirchased it for her niece, and that I could obtain
confinnation from Madame Fad^eff. Considering Madame Blavatsky 's con-
tradictory statements about the brooch, this ready reference to Madame Fad^eff,
in connection with it, suggests that she was a convenient person to appeal
to when no other con*oboration of Madame Blavatsky's assertions could be
obtained.

37. The initial curve beginning the m or n strictly fomis part of the letter in
ordinary writing, but in the K. H. writing these letters are made on the
pattern of the letters t and u, so that the absence of a first upstroke is ]es9
curious than it would otherwise be.

38. "A Report of an Examination into the Blavatsky Correspondence," &e.,
p. 7. Mr. Gribble says: — " The only instance in which any resemblance to
Dr. Hartmann's writing is to be found is in the formation of the capital H," and
he mentions the capital letters A and T, and no others, as exhibiting
pecnliarities which reminded him of "similar letters to be found in Madame B.'s
acknowledged writings." The A and T are, in my opinion, not more suggestive
of Madame Blavatsky than the A and T of Br. Hartmann's undoubted ordinary
writings. I should say that Mr. Gribble had the opportunity of examining the
document only very hastily during a short visit of an hour at the headquarters
of the Theosophical Society, when he examined other documents also; and this
DO doubt accounts for the mistakes which he made in his'examination of it.

39. I have already referred to Madame Coulomb's allegation that at the end of
April she wrote to Madame Blavatsky threatening to prodace incriminating
letters written by the latter.

40. The following passage occurs in the document: "She hopes for more than
2,000 Rupees from them, if she helps them ruining or at least injuring the
Society," &c. Madame Blavatsky writes, in one of her imdoubtecl letters: " I
ask yon to do this to help me tracing by the emanations the persons," &c.

41. It is noteworthy that in the same K. H. document the following passage
occurs: ** Nor can I allow you to be under the misapprehension that any adept
is unable to read the hidden thoughts of others without first mesmeriAing
them."

42. This appears, e.g., in the following sentence of hers in a letter to Mr.
Home, of 1882: " You have either to show me as a champion liar, but cunning,
logicaU and with a most phenomenal memory (instead of my poor failing brains),
or admit the theory of the Brothers."

43. This reminded me of a passage in the Contemporary/ Eevieio for September,
1876, p. 545: ** The man resolves into carbonic acid, water and ammonia, and
has no more personal future existence than a consumed candle."

44. Other mistakes suggesting that the writer was accustomed to French
may be found in different K. H. documents; for instance, motUain for mountain,
pro/and for profound, vanted for vaunted, defense for defence, " you have to beat
your iron while it is yet hot."
 

Go to Next Page