Madame Blavatsky: The Woman Behind the Myth (52 page)

Reviewing
Mr. Isaacs
in the
Theosophist,
Helena, having forgotten K.H.’s encouragement of Minnie Hume and Ross Scott, pointed out that adepts do not normally function as matchmakers. Nor, she continued, do brokenhearted lovers drown their grief by running off to Tibet and joining the Brotherhood. Still, she felt extremely flattered: “We should nevertheless thank Mr. Crawford for one favour—he helps to make our Brothers conceivable human beings, instead of impossible creatures of the imagination.
Ram Lai
walks, talks, eats, and—gracious heavens!—rolls and smokes cigarettes.”
²⁰⁸

At the end of January, 1883, headquarters was honored by a royal visitor, the Thakur of Wudhwan, whom Henry had requested to bring only a few servants. When he arrived with nineteen in tow, Henry, stuck with more people than space in which to sleep them, could not help chastising the Maharajah, who expressed surprise and said he
had
brought only a small retinue. Usually he traveled with a hundred. When H.P.B. had last accepted the Tha-kur’s hospitality, the previous year, she had sustained a moment of real horror at the railway station at Wudhwan: one of her disciples, a blue-eyed Englishman who called himself Moorad Ali Beg, had snatched a sword from a Sepoy and tried to kill her, shrieking that she and her Mahatmas were devils. She realized that the incident was not the Thakur’s fault, for Godolphin Midford, alias Moorad Ali Beg, was most probably insane, and now she outdid herself to repay her guest in grand style.

In February Henry left on a tour of Bengal, one of several long trips he had planned for the year. In his memoirs he would think back to 1883 with poignancy, recalling that he traveled more than seven thousand miles, established forty-three new branches, and became a vegetarian; he thought that it was probably the happiest and most successful twelve months of his life. Helena, for once, was content to remain in one spot, refusing to partake of Henry’s new diet; she still loved her eggs swimming in grease.

At that time of the year the weather in Madras was sublime. At night, it was warm enough to sleep on the veranda or on the roof with only a thin covering, and during the day, the quality of the light made the compound inexpressibly beautiful. The dark green palms, the intense blue of sea and sky, the wide stretches of sandy beach where the Adyar flowed into the Bay of Bengal were a source of profound pleasure to H.P.B., while the house itself could not have been brighter or more cheerful. During the days the roof terrace rang with the sounds of hammering and sawing because a troop of masons and carpenters had been brought in to remodel H.P.B.’s quarters under Alexis Coulomb’s supervision. One corner of her large room was curtained off as sleeping quarters, and the rest turned into a sitting room; outside, on the northwest corner of the terrace, a kitchen had been installed so that she might have her meals prepared whenever the mood struck her. Olcott, grumbling about extravagance, complained that her personal expenses outran the maintenance of the entire compound. Resentful of his imputations, Helena felt that through her writings she contributed to the upkeep of the establishment and should be allowed a few luxuries. And there were certain expenses involved in arranging the phenomena that she could not disclose to him.

Apart from the renovation of her suite, she was having Alexis build what she called an Occult Room. Ever since the first night at Huddleston Gardens, her disdain for the trappings of religion notwithstanding, she had envisioned a special chamber in which she might erect a shrine to the Mahatmas. The addition of the Occult Room, built against the west side of Helena’s room, was no small task, as it involved removing the north window and transforming the south one into the only door to the room.

Helena dedicated herself to working with Alexis on the design of the shrine itself, a cedarwood cupboard lacquered black to look like ebony. About four feet in width and height and twelve to fifteen inches in depth, it was to be made with three sliding panels at the back, which would be invisible to the casual observer. Not until much later did Helena, under pressure, concede the existence of the panels and even then claimed that their sole purpose was to facilitate dismantling for traveling purposes. However, since the rest of the shrine was of solid construction, it is difficult to understand the advantages in merely removing portions of the back. In any event, once the drawing was completed, she gave it to the Madras cabinetmaking firm of Duchamps.

By late February or early March, the finished cabinet was delivered and hung against the former north window of Helena’s bedroom. The window was no longer visible because part of it had been filled in with brick and plaster and the small opening that remained was hidden by the shrine on one side of the wall, and by a wardrobe on Helena’s side. If anyone wondered about the window, they were supposed to assume it had been boarded up.

Later, up until as recently as 1963, interested parties would attempt to reconstruct the relative positions of the shrine and wardrobe. Floor plans would be drawn, secret passageways hypothesized, wall thicknesses estimated, theories and counter-theories advanced in such dizzying profusion that one quickly becomes mired in a quicksand of so-called evidence. The Theosophists’ explanation that the hidden opening eventually discovered between the two rooms was made after Madame Blavatsky went to Europe is possible, of course, but unpersuasive, since it violates common sense by implying that the shrine apports were genuine. Granted, common sense is not always an appropriate yardstick in psychical matters but it is the preferred solution. “The common sense rule of presumption in scientific logic,” William James once stated, “is never to assume an unknown agent where there is a known one, and never to choose a rarer cause for a phenomenon when a commoner one will account for it. The usual is always more probable.”
²⁰⁹
There is no good reason for supposing that the sole purpose of the shrine was anything other than a means of facilitating H.P.B.’s phenomena, mainly as a mailbox for Mahatma letters, although other gifts from the Masters were also slipped in through the back door.

Once the shrine arrived from Duchamps, Alexis personally undertook its installation; it rested on a shelf, but its chief support consisted of two thick iron wires attached to hooks near the ceiling. The wall behind the shrine was covered with white glazed calico while the other three walls of the room were tacked with red-and-white striped calico; the space around the shrine was enclosed by muslin curtains that could be drawn aside when anyone came to worship. The decor, Helena’s creation, seems to have been immensely charming, and the feeling in the room was one of gaiety instead of the usual religious sobriety.

As the winter wore on, Helena busied herself with the
Theosophist
and her Mahatma correspondence, which was changing almost imperceptibly in its character and tone. Rarely did Koot Hoomi bother with the metaphysical treatises that had reflected H.P.B.’s higher self. Now the letters were chiefly notable for their observations of persons and events, the commentary frequently malicious, especially so coming from a Buddhist supposedly following the noble eight-fold path and practicing right speech. Sinnett had plans to incorporate the Mahatma’s more recent teachings into a book and call it
Esoteric Buddhism,
which K.H. thought an excellent idea; but when Alfred suggested going to Darjeeling or Sikkim and meeting the Master face to face, he was gently dissuaded and his plan rejected as being “simply impracticable. The time has not yet come.”
²¹⁰

Alfred’s request reflected the ups and downs in his life then. His position at the
Pioneer
had grown intolerable and his prospects for establishing a new paper, to be called the
Phoenix
were bleak, since not one rupee of capital had thus far been raised. In February, months before his contract with the
Pioneer
was due to expire, he suddenly resigned, notifying Helena that he and his family would be visiting England; he had every intention of returning and promised to take no other position for a year. En route to London, they stopped for several weeks at Adyar where Alfred began the writing of
Esoteric Buddhism.
It seemed to him the perfect situation, since whenever he had questions for the Mahatmas, he could easily drop a request into the shrine and receive a reply almost immediately.

By the time Colonel Olcott returned from Bengal on May 25, it appeared that the shrine was in good working order: already it had processed Alfred’s letters, a gift for Patience, and a string of encouraging notes for the Hindus who came to prostrate themselves before the curtained cupboard. Eager to show off her contrivance, Helena decided to arrange a special event for Henry’s homecoming and sent Emma into town to purchase four Chinese vases, two small and two large. M. Faciole and Co. did not, evidently, have the vases in stock but offered to obtain them from Assam and Co. The shop gave Emma a receipt, dated May 25, for thirteen rupees (seven rupees for the larger pair of vases, six for the smaller).

The next day Helena escorted Olcott up to the Occult Room and opened the door to the shrine. Inside, draped with yellow silk, lay framed portraits of Morya and Koot Hoomi, and a silver bowl. The pungent aroma of incense filled the room. She would not be surprised, she told him, if the Mahatmas had left a token of their affection for him, as well as a welcoming note. The shrine doors closed, then reopened, and of course Henry found his note with a Chinese vase.
²¹¹
According to Emma Coulomb, it was Henry who then wondered if the vase could be “doubled.” “Madame asked ‘mentally’ the permission of the Mahatma on duty,” Emma said, and after obtaining it, the colonel was allowed to make a few mesmeric passes. When the cupboard was opened, “Lo! another vase was there.”
²¹²
That night Henry wrote in his diary, “May 26th. Fine phenomenon. Got pair of tortoise-shell and lacquer vases with flowers in a cabinet a moment before empty.”
²¹³
It felt good to be appreciated.

Madras in the summer was not so pleasant as Madras in winter. Toward the end of June, when the thermometer in the compound read a hundred twenty-eight degrees in the shade, the west wind began to blow at sunrise and howled incessantly until late afternoon; Helena was told that it kept right on blowing until the end of August. Protective measures had to be taken: all the doors and windows facing the wind were covered with thick
tattis
or mats, the chinks stopped up and even the most minuscule openings stuffed with cotton wool. But still the wind managed to infiltrate the books and manuscripts until the papers on Helena’s desk rolled themselves up into tiny tubes. If the sofas and chairs in her room were not beaten every hour, they were soon covered with a layer of dust three-quarters of an inch thick.

For this reason, fashionable people began leaving in March for Ootacamund, the hill station in the Nilgiri Mountains. “I also decided to leave,” Helena wrote, “but not in the spring; it was already the middle of July and the West-wind had had enough time to dry me to the marrow of my bones.” More to the point, it was not until early July that she received a welcome invitation from Maj.-Gen. and Mrs. Henry Rhodes Morgan and their eight children to summer at Ooty on their tea-and-coffee plantation. The Morgans had become Theosophists and Helena liked them very much, especially Mrs. Morgan, a cultivated and intelligent woman who ran the plantation and also had written a book,
Witchcraft on the Nilgiri.
On the seventh of July, “half dead with heat, I rapidly packed my bags.” Keys to the Occult Room were entrusted to Emma, instructions for the magazine given to Damodar, farewells made to Babaji, Ananda Charloo and a dozen other Indians now making their home in the compound. Despite Babula’s protestations that he wanted to stay behind with his wife, the two of them boarded a train at 6 p.m., arrived the next noon at Metopolam in the foothills of the Nilgiris, and from there began the trip up to Ooty in “an abominable box on two wheels covered with a linen roof.” The
tongas
on the road to Simla, Helena thought, were like royal compartments compared to her carriage, which reminded her of “a kennel where the dogs are kept during a voyage,” nor was she reassured at the sight of “two miserable worn-out nags” pulling the conveyance.

The journey was not without incident: a half hour after they departed, one of the horses fell and the carriage tumbled into a ditch, the single casualty being Helena’s dress, which was ripped in the accident. To make matters worse it began to rain. “My cab was soon transformed into a bathtub with shower,” she recalled, adding that the temperatures soon began to plunge and “I was freezing in my fur coat.” But she was not seriously grumbling, for the brisk air, impregnated with the perfume of violets and pine, was delicious after the swelter of Madras. She arrived in Ooty on a Sunday evening, just as people were returning from evening church service, emerging shaken and disheveled from her carriage with her trunks “half broken and soiled with mud.” That night, “I trembled with cold under my blankets and had to have a fire during the whole night.”
²¹⁴

But Ooty was worth the climb; it had all Simla’s benefits with one special advantage: this time she was a bonafide celebrity. Although she was embarrassed by the Morgans’ unrelenting concern for her comfort, she could not help wallowing in the plethora of invitations to receptions, dinner parties and balls, savoring the delight of being “lioness of the day.” To Sinnett in London, she could not resist the urge to brag:

My graceful, stately person, clad in half Tibetan half night-dress fashion, sitting in all the glory of her Calmuck beauty at the Governor’s and Carmichael’s dinner parties; H.P.B. positively courted by the aide-decamps! Old ‘Upasika’ hanging like a gigantic nightmare on the gracefully rounded elbows of members of the Council, in pumps and swallow tail evening dress and silk stockings smelling brandy and soda enough to kill a Tibetan Yak!!
²¹⁵