Madame Blavatsky: The Woman Behind the Myth (86 page)

There is, however, an alternate version of how
The Secret Doctrine
found its way to Mrs. Besant. According to Shaw, it was he who had been given the assignment, no doubt because he had previously reviewed the S.P.R. Report and also Sinnett’s biography of H.P.B.; he had passed on the job to Annie who had recently asked him to get her reviewing work from the
Gazette.
Why she would have needed Shaw as an intermediary is puzzling, since she and Stead were close friends, but in any case, she took home “my burden” and sat down to read. From the outset she was totally absorbed, in fact, she later admitted, “I was dazzled, blinded by the light in which disjointed facts were seen as parts of a mighty whole, and all my puzzles, riddles, problems, seemed to disappear.”
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Acknowledging that the book did not offer easy reading, she penned a facetious little note to Stead: “I am immersed in Madame B! If I perish in the attempt to review her, you must write on my tomb, ‘She has gone to investigate the Secret Doctrine at first hand.’”
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If reading H.P.B. seemed an arduous proposition, reviewing her was worse, and Annie started out by declaring that to ninety-nine out of every hundred readers, “the study of the book will begin in bewilderment and end in despair.” The average person might just as well skip it; all who did decide to attempt it “must have an intense desire to
know.”
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After handing in the review, she asked Stead for a letter of introduction to Madame Blavatsky, which she proceeded to forward along with a note asking permission to call. On March 15, Helena wrote back,

Dear Mrs. Besant,

I too have been long wishing to make your acquaintance, and there is nothing in the world I admire more than pluck and the rare courage to come out and state one’s opinion of the face of all the world—including Mrs. Grundy.

I am at home every evening from tea time at seven till eleven o’clock; and I shall be delighted to see you whenever you come. On Thursdays I have a meeting here, so on that night you would not find me alone; but all the rest of the week you would find me quite free.

Hoping that I shall soon have the pleasure of seeing you, believe me.

 Yours very sincerely, H. P. Blavatsky

P.S. This invitation includes of course Mr. Burrows or anyone whom you may choose to bring with you.
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Seemingly Helena and Mrs. Besant had nothing in common, except a mild awareness of each other’s careers over the past six years; on June 18, 1882, for example, Annie had devoted part of her “Daybreak” column in Bradlaugh’s
National Reformer
to the attention being given the Theosophical Society in India, mentioning Henry Olcott, whom Bradlaugh had once met during a visit to the U.S. Unacquainted with the Society, Annie limited herself to criticizing its vague doctrines and belief in apparitions. Two months later, H.P.B. replied gently in the
Theosophist
that Mrs. Besant was laboring under a complete misconception about the Society’s objectives; for one so highly intellectual as she to utter dogmatic statements, especially after she herself had suffered so cruelly from bigotry in her struggle for freedom of thought, seemed absurdly inconsistent. Mrs. Besant chose not to respond.

Over the next few years, as H.P.B. continued to send the
Reformer
copies of her magazine, relations between the two publications grew strained. Bradlaugh had a habit of making snide remarks about Theosophical “miracle working, even to the extent of restoring a broken china plate to its perfect state without cement or patching,” and he suggested it would be nice to have a Theosophical maid in households where there were frequent breakages. He also said that some of H.P.B.’s and Olcott’s statements were so loony that he could not regard the
Theosophist
as a serious publication, nor could he treat Theosophists as serious persons. “Many of them are very respectable, very good, and very mad. Some of them are less mad and less good.” In respect to Emma Coulomb’s revelations, he acquitted H.P.B. as an enthusiastic semi-Spiritualist “who has managed to get fairly crazed in dabbling with the wonderful in company with many simpletons.”
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In these scornful opinions he was supported by Annie.

It is curious to note that Annie’s name appears twice in the Mahatma letters to Alfred Sinnett. In January, 1884, Koot Hoomi mentioned his respect for Bradlaugh and Besant and his belief that they were not immoral, but he firmly regarded
Fruits of Philosophy
as “infamous and
highly pernicious.”
He had not read the book, nor did he intend to, but its “unclean spirit, its brutal aura” offended him and he thought the advice it contained was “abominable.”
¹³⁴
Both K.H. and H.P.B. strongly opposed birth control, even though in 1883 she had carried ads for
Fruits of Philosophy
in the
Theosophist.
Apparently she had no idea of the book’s contents, because when Anna Kingsford complained, she hastily removed them.

There is another Koot Hoomi letter, undated but probably received in the summer of 1883 after Sinnett had returned to England, in which K.H. advised him to “use every effort to develop such relations with A. Besant that your work may run on parallel lines and in full sympathy... You may, if you see fit—show this note to her only.”
¹³⁵
According to Sinnett’s notation, he did show her the letter, but it is inconceivable that she would have felt her work running along Theosophical paths. Even as late as the autumn of 1887 she had no sympathy whatever with Theosophy and in her monthly literary magazine,
Our Corner,
she expressed a bemused opinion of the new publication
Lucifer.
“What is to be said of such a magazine as
Lucifer,
‘a theosophical monthly’? It has a very effective cover, but the contents are mere ravings; it may suffice to say that during the perusal of one story the reader is requested to accept ‘the theory of the reincarnation of souls’ as a living fact.”
¹³⁶
Little did she realize that in less than two years she would become the editor of
Lucifer
and accept reincarnation as “a living fact.”

It was a soft spring evening in late March when Annie Besant and Herbert Burrows, a Socialist friend who was interested in Theosophy, walked from Notting Hill Station to the door of 17 Lansdowne Road. When they were ushered in, Helena saw a petite, slightly stooped woman with a gently rounded face and close-cropped hair that showed streaks of silver. A few years earlier Annie had been slimmer, prettier; she had worn tightly buttoned gowns that showed off her slender figure and cameo brooches at her throat, and she had curled her hair into short bangs over the forehead with the rest wound in plaits at the back of her head. Now, no longer so slim, she had taken to wearing a sort of working-class uniform—short skirt that skimmed the top of her thick, laced boots (usually muddy) and a red neckerchief or Tarn O’Shanter. But the sweet face remained.

Helena reached out for her hand and gave it a firm shake. “My dear Mrs. Besant,” she said, “I have so long wished to see you.”

Annie was conscious of a sudden leaping of her heart—”was it recognition?” she asked herself later—followed immediately by “a fierce rebellion, a fierce withdrawal, as of some wild animal when it feels a mastering hand.”

The rest of the visit proved anticlimactic. When Annie explained that she was interested in Madame’s work and would like to know more about it, Helena, “her eyes veiled, her exquisitely moulded fingers rolling cigarettes incessantly,” talked about Egypt and India and then turned the conversation to more general topics. Nothing was said about occultism, no mysteries were subtly conveyed. Slightly disappointed, Annie and Burrows rose to leave but at that last moment, Annie would recall, “the veil lifted, and two brilliant, piercing eyes met mine, and with a yearning throb in the voice: ‘Oh, my dear Mrs. Besant, if you would only come among us!’ “ The younger woman, struggling against an almost uncontrollable desire to bend down and kiss Helena, steeled herself and turned away “with some inanely courteous and evasive remark.”

During the next weeks Annie Besant struggled against the temptation to go back and drown herself in “that yearning voice, those compelling eyes,”
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but she could see what throwing herself at Madame’s feet entailed. She had finally overcome many years of public ostracism and now saw a smooth road stretching before her. Was she to begin a fresh fight for an unpopular cause and make herself an object of ridicule again? Must she turn against materialism and face the humiliation of publicly confessing that she had been wrong? “What would be the look in Charles Bradlaugh’s eyes when 1 told him that I had become a Theosophist?”
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she wondered. Aside from these agonizing questions, she also felt perplexed as well as repulsed by H.P.B. Madame Blavatsky was obviously wasting away and Annie repeatedly asked herself how this was consistent with her occult training: if the Mahatmas existed, why did they permit their representative to suffer? “And does it not seem rather cruel,” she wrote Reverend Ashman, “if they have used her, worn her out, & thrown her away? They remain vigorous and strong. If they trained her, why does she not share their higher vitality, instead of being exhausted. I am puzzled altogether.”
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When Annie’s review appeared on April 25, she sent Helena a copy and was invited to call again. By this time it must have been obvious to H.P.B. that while Annie wanted to join the Society, pride was holding her back. She was, H.P.B. decided and later told her, “as proud as Lucifer himself.” When Annie returned yet a third time and continued to ask questions about Theosophy and made it clear she was close to a decision, Helena took an immense gamble. Looking at her piercingly, she asked, “Have you read the report about me of the Society for Psychical Research?”

No, Annie replied, she had not even heard of it although the statement is hard to believe.

“Go and read it,” Helena suggested. “And if, after reading it, you come back—well.” And she changed the subject.

For two days Mrs. Besant read and re-read Richard Hodgson’s findings. Everything, she thought, turned on the veracity of the Coulombs who admitted themselves partners in the alleged frauds. Could she believe their word as against “the proud fiery truthfulness” that shone from Madame’s blue eyes? Was the author of
The Secret Doctrine
“this miserable impostor, this accomplice of tricksters, this foul and loathsome deceiver, this conjuror with trapdoors and sliding panels?” She could not believe it.

On the tenth of May she visited the office of the Theosophical Publishing Company in Duke Street and asked Countess Wachtmeister for an application. Filling it in then and there, she left and hurried straight to Lansdowne Road where she found H.P.B. alone. Without a word, she went up to her chair and bent to kiss her.

Deeply moved, Helena nevertheless set her face in a stern expression and asked. “You have joined the Society?”

 “Yes.”

“You have read the report?”

“Yes.”

“Well?”

Kneeling beside her, Annie clasped both of her hands and looked deep into her eyes. “My answer is, will you accept me as your pupil, and give me the honour of proclaiming you my teacher in the face of the world?”

With tears gleaming in her eyes, Helena rested her hand on Annie’s head. When she could trust herself to speak, she murmured, “You are a noble woman. May Master bless you.”
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No one knew better than H.P.B. what this decision would cost Annie Besant and what it would mean to the Theosophical Society. For her, it was literally a dream come true and it provoked joyous tears; it was one of the rare instances in her life when anybody saw her cry.

Due to the fact that Annie’s
Pall Mall Gazette
review had been unsigned, news of her conversion took several weeks to become public. There was a personal item in the
Sun
on June 16 announcing briefly that she had turned Theosophist and had been admitted to “the Esoteric Section of the famous Blavatsky Lodge,” and a few days later Annie wrote a piece for the
Star, “Sic Itur ad Astra”:
or, Why I Became a Theosophist. Bernard Shaw, while paying a call on the editor, happened to glance at a set of proofs littering the table and saw Annie’s by-line. Staggered, he galloped over to her office in Fleet Street and “asked her whether she was quite mad.” Did she know that Madame Blavatsky had been exposed as a fraud by the Society for Psychical Research? If Annie sincerely felt in need of a mahatma, he teased, he would be her mahatma. After playing all his usual tricks to stir her indignation or her wit, he could see that “it was no use.” She listened patiently with a half smile and then remarked only that she had become a vegetarian, as he was; perhaps the new diet had enfeebled her mind. “In short,” Shaw concluded, “she was for the first time able to play with me; she was no longer in the grip of her pride; she had after many explorations found her path and come to see the universe and herself in their real perspective.”
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Charles Bradlaugh was aghast. Viewing Annie’s conversion with “the very gravest misgiving,” he deeply regretted that his colleague and co-worker had accepted as fact “matters which seem to me as unreal as it is possible for any fiction to be.” The Theosophists’ Tibetan Masters “are to me as the ‘inhabitants’ of the planet Mars, and equally fall into the category of Romance, whether vouched for by Mme. Blavatsky or by M. Jules Verne.”
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