Madame Blavatsky: The Woman Behind the Myth (24 page)

Beard’s article threw Helena into an uproar. No sooner had she achieved the public eye than her area of endeavor became suspect. She was also alarmed at the slurs on Henry, for if he were made to appear less than a serious investigator, she would never be able to sell the translations of his article. Desperate to retrieve her vanishing hopes, she drafted a stinging reply to Beard in which she defended the Eddys, citing her own experiences as proof of their honesty. Then she hand-delivered the letter to the
Graphic.

A Spiritualist of many years’ standing, I am more sceptical in receiving evidence from paid mediums than many unbelievers. But when I receive such evidence as I received at the Eddys’, I feel bound on my honour, and under the penalty of confessing myself a moral coward, to defend the mediums, as well as the thousands of my brother and sister Spiritualists, against the conceit and slander of one man who has nothing and no one to back him in his assertions.
³⁹

If Beard believed that he could duplicate the materializations, let him make good his boast:

I now hereby finally and publicly challenge Dr. Beard to the amount of $500 to produce before a public audience and under the same conditions the manifestations herein attested, or, failing this, to bear the ignominious consequences of his proposed
expose.
⁴⁰

She did not have five hundred dollars of course, but she felt on fairly safe ground in calling Beard’s bluff. In her opinion he was a publicity-seeking headhunter looking for a missionary to eat, a person who went around causing “flapdoodles” (a favorite word of hers) for the want of something better to do. Unfortunately he had given her no choice but to defend the Eddys, which she had never intended, because while she did not believe them frauds (at least no more fraudulent than other mediums), she certainly did not think that the phantoms were what the Spiritualists claimed them. Rather, she was inclined to believe that the apparition of her uncle, for instance, had not really been Gustave von Hahn but a picture that she had projected on William Eddy’s astral body (an exact, non-physical replica of the individual physical body). It was Eddy who unconsciously assimilated her own mental projections, but the fact that he could objectify her thoughts proved nothing about life after death. It seemed ironic to her that never at any séance she had attended, the Eddys’ included, had she ever seen anybody she wanted to see, like Yuri or Agardi. All she ever got were servants and the perfidious Safar Ali who had betrayed her to Nikifor.

Having done all she could to counteract Dr. Beard, Helena now redoubled her efforts on behalf of Olcott and herself. Several weeks had passed since Andrew Jackson Davis had written to Aksakov, but no reply had come. On October 28, she decided to write herself, offering exclusive translations of eminent American psychics with whom she was acquainted. As a matter of fact, the only one she knew was Olcott, who had only recently made his debut as a commentator on Spiritualism, but she was determined to impress Aksakov. “I am also working for the
Graphic
and can send my articles regularly,” she said, and offered to provide an additional service—pen-and-ink illustrations. Grossly inflating the importance of the subject she was trying to peddle, she airily misinformed Aksakov that Spiritualism was “no laughing matter” in America where the number of believers had recently mushroomed to eighteen million, or almost half the population! Even the press was giving respectful attention to the movement and “attempts at ridicule, condemnation and censure are rarer and rarer,”
⁴¹
she said.

The next day, when Olcott’s
Sun
article about “Madame Blowtskey” and her singing Georgian appeared, Helena found herself a minor celebrity, for twenty-four hours anyway. Knowing how fickle the public can be, she quickly looked for ways to garner additional publicity and, coincidentally, prove George Beard a liar once and for all. Obviously the situation called for someone to corroborate the identity of the Russian phantoms at Chittenden. As it happened, Michael Betanelly was in New York that day and she had no difficulty (one presumes) in persuading him to step forward as an independent witness who, of course, knew nothing about Spiritualism and who certainly had no connection with “Madame Blowtskey.” Giving his address as 430 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, he wrote to Henry Olcott at Chittenden:

Dear Sir,

Though I have not the pleasure of your personal acquaintance, I take the liberty of addressing to you a few words, knowing your name from the
Daily Graphic
correspondence on Eddy’s manifestations, which I read with greatest interest.

I learned from today’s
Sun
that at Eddys’, in presence of Mme. Blowtskey, Russian lady, a spirit of Michalko Guegidse (very familiar name to me) has materialized in Georgian dress, has spoken Georgian language, danced Lezguinka, and sung Georgian National Air.

Being myself a native of Georgia, Caucasus, I read these news with greatest astonishment and surprise, and being not a believer in spiritualism, I do not know what to think of these manifestations.

I address to-day a letter to Mrs. Blowtskey, asking some questions about materialized Georgian, and if she left Eddys’ please forward it to her, if you know her address.

I also earnestly request your corroboration of this astonishing fact, materialized Georgian, if he really came out from the cabinet in Georgian dress, and in your presence. If that occurred in fact, and if anybody will regard it, as usually, trickery and humbug, then I will state to you this: There are in the United States no other Georgians but three, of whom I am the one and came first to this country three years ago. Two others whom I know came over last year. I know they are not in Vermont now and never been there before; and I know they do not speak English at all. Besides us three, no other man speaks Georgian in this country, and when I say this, I mean it to be true fact. Hoping you will answer this letter, I remain, yours respectfully,

 M. C. Betanelly
⁴²

To Helena and Michael, the letter must have seemed like a harmless enough deception to pull on poor Olcott, who of course had nothing to lose and everything to gain if the public accepted the Eddy phenomena as real. However, it was a mistake to have mentioned the other Georgians (who were certainly fictitious), because Henry immediately asked Betanelly for their names and suggested that the three of them sign a statement swearing they had known Michalko when alive. Probably Michael had not intended to become part of an elaborate conspiracy, but now that he had put one foot into the situation, the confederate was now obliged to wriggle out as best he could. “I am perfectly willing,” he replied, “to give you all information and certificates concerning materialized Georgian spirits at Eddys’ “ but unfortunately he had lost the addresses of his Georgian friends whom he believed were living in New York or “out West.” Having admitted he did not know their whereabouts, he went on to assure Olcott that they were not in Vermont.

Then, obviously anxious to change the subject, he hurried to tell all he knew about Michalko (not much), declared that the names of Hassan-Aga and Safar Ali Bek were “also very familiar to me,” and finally claimed to have known the late Andrey Fadeyev, “a tall and old Gentleman in Tiflis, who died several years ago.”
⁴³
Why he brought in Helena’s grandfather is a mystery, because his apparition had not appeared at the Eddys. One would think that this second letter of Betanelly’s might have aroused Olcott’s suspicions, but apparently not, for he included Michael’s testimony in his
Graphic
pieces and even forwarded to the paper for facsimile reproduction a Georgian newspaper that Betanelly had supplied him.

In the meantime, Helena had her hands full. Dr. Beard’s comeback to her was a nine-column article reaffirming his opinion that William Eddy staged all the apparitions and that Olcott’s reports were “terribly and stupendously exaggerated” and his assertions that the spirits talked “absurdly untrue.” Most of the visitors at the Eddys’ were “weak-minded fools” incapable “of thinking a sensible thought.”
⁴⁴
Shooting back a response to his reply, Helena matched sarcasm for sarcasm and reminded readers that Beard had not accepted her five-hundred-dollar challenge.

This media combat had a number of happy results: she received an admiring letter from Gerry Brown, editor of the
Spiritual Scientist
offering to publish anything she wished to write; and the
Daily Graphic
decided that she was sufficiently newsworthy to warrant an interview. At the newspaper office, she blew smoke at the reporter and narrated a life story peppered with more falsehoods than a cookie has crumbs. Knocking three years from her age, she presented herself as a former child-bride married to a doddering seventy-three-year-old whose “habits were not agreeable to me,” and “as I had a fortune of my own, I decided to travel.” She mentioned having lived in England and Egypt, also in the Sudan where she made a small fortune after cornering the ostrich-feather market and at Baden-Baden where she lost a fortune at the gambling tables. In fact, she declared, money meant nothing because fortunately she had received a sizable legacy from Princess Bagration.

Goggling, the reporter kept lighting Helena’s cigarettes and repeating, “That’s a remarkable statement,” to which H.P.B. would solemnly reply, “It’s true.” Name-dropping constantly, she reeled off stories about Daniel Home, Charles Darwin (whose works she claimed to have translated into Russian while in Africa), Czar Alexander, and other persons likely to impress a newspaper reporter. However hard-pressed he may have been to believe her tales, the writer must have been impressed, because he described her as “handsome, with a full voluptuous figure, large eyes, well-formed nose, and rich, sensuous mouth and chin.” He thought her elegantly dressed, noting that “her clothing is redolent of some subtle and delicious perfume”
⁴⁵
that he assumed was Oriental. Possibly it was hashish.

When the interview appeared on November 13, Helena could not have been overly pleased; unmistakably the reporter was making fun of her, for which she had only herself to blame, and afterward she would be more careful about what she said to newsmen. Still, the last few weeks had proved successful beyond her yeastiest imaginings, for now there was hardly a newspaper reader in New York who did not know of Madame Blavatsky—and all this before Olcott’s Chittenden pieces had even appeared. As Henry admitted, she generated “a blaze of publicity”
⁴⁶
on her own.

Amidst the excitement, Helena found time to move twice. From East Sixteenth Street, she shifted around the corner to 16 Irving Place and then, a few days later, to 23 Irving Place, where she rented a suite of rooms in a brownstone owned by Dr. and Mrs. I. G. Atwood. The Atwoods were Spiritualists— Dr. Atwood had a successful practice as a magnetic healer—and felt honored to house the foremost defender of the faith. Helena had the entire first floor, with a front room facing on tree-shaded Irving Place and the back on a pretty garden. H.P.B. had always liked this pleasant residential neighborhood south of Gramercy Park, but her new apartment had the additional advantage of being located only a few doors down the street from the Lotos Club. It could not hurt to be Henry’s neighbor when he returned from Vermont.

H.P.B.’s mood of exhilaration lasted until she learned from Andrew Jackson Davis that he had received a reply from Alexander Aksakov. Since it was written in French, he asked her to translate for him. Reaching the part about herself, she was horrified to read: “I have heard of Madame Blavatsky from one of her relatives, who told me that she is quite a powerful medium. Unfortunately her communications show the effects of her morals, which have not been of the strictest kind.”
⁴⁷
Unable to hide her violent agitation, Helena explained Aksakov’s remarks by saying that he must have heard ugly gossip about her. Davis reacted with sympathy and reassurance and promised to write Aksakov “that he does not know you personally and that I know you.”

Unnerved, she rushed back to her apartment where she broke down in despair over her folly in trying to reach Aksakov. His words had not only “awakened all the past within me and torn open all the old wounds,” but made her realize that Aksakov had the power to destroy her even in America. There was nothing left but flight, to where she could not imagine. In this anguished mood, she decided to throw herself on Aksakov’s mercy:

Whoever it was told you about me, they told you the truth, in essence, if not in detail. God only knows how I have suffered for my past. It is clearly my fate to gain no absolution upon earth. This past, like the brand of the curse on Cain, has pursued me all my life, and pursues me even here, in America, where I came to be far from it and from the people who knew me in my youth. You are the innocent cause of my being obliged to escape somewhere yet farther away, where, I do not know. I do not accuse you; God is my witness that while I am writing these lines, I have nothing against you in my heart, beyond the deep sorrow which I long have known for the irrevocable past.
⁴⁸

The Helena Petrovna he had heard about and the Helena Petrovna of 1874 were “two different persons.” The old Helena had not believed in God, nor had she concerned herself with morality. Nevertheless, for the past ten years she had dedicated “every moment of my life” to Spiritualism, and were she rich, she would spend her last farthing to propagandize for the Divine Truth. “But my means are very poor and I am obliged to live by my work, by translating and writing in the papers.” Now even this would not be possible. Thanks to Aksakov’s “just but harsh judgment” of her, there was no hope but death. She had only one request to make of him: