Madame Blavatsky: The Woman Behind the Myth (95 page)

Documentation is supplied for all quotations and for items that might be considered debatable or controversial. Otherwise, I have given references only when they seem important or useful to the reader, who may wish to further pursue the life of Madame Blavatsky.

CW = Collected Writings

HPBSP = H.P.B. Speaks

INC = Incidents in the Life of Madame Blavatsky

LBS = The Letters of H. P. Blavatsky to A. P. Sinnett

LM = Letters from the Masters of Wisdom

ML = The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett

ODL = Old Diary Leaves 

RUSSIA

1. CW, vol. 1, p. 401.

2. Ibid., p. xxvii-lxxii; HPBSP, vol. 2, p. 62.

3. CW, vol. 1, p. xxviii.

4. Haxthausen,
The Russian Empire,
p. 417.

5. Extracts from
The World's Judgment
, quoted in
Theosophical Forum,
August, 1948.

6. H.P.B. to A. N. Aksakov, December 13, 1874, Solovyov, p. 234.

7. CW, vol. 1, p. xxix.

8. Bergamini, p. 310.

9. Jerrmann, p. 116.

10. July 31, Old Style. According to the Gregorian calendar, in use almost everywhere in the world, the date would have been August 12. Russia used the Julian calendar until 1918. In the nineteenth century, it was twelve days behind the Gregorian calendar.

11. INC, p. 13.

12. Extracts from
The World's Judgment,
quoted in
Theosophical Forum,
August, 1948.

13. She was a cousin of Peter von Hahn's. INC, p. 75.

14. LBS, pp. 159-160.

15. INC, p. 19.

16. Ibid., p. 16.

17. Ibid.

18. Description of Astrakhan: Hommaire de Hell, pp. 165-185; Blavatsky,
Isis Unveiled,
vol. 2, p. 603 footnote.

19. H.P.B. to P. C. Mitra, April 10, 1878,
Theosophist,
August, 1931.

20. INC, p. 19.

21. LBS, p. 150.

22. H.P.B. to Henry Olcott, January 6, 1886,
Theosophist,
August, 1931.

23. Neff, p. 36, quoting Nadyezhda Fadeyev.

24. LBS, p. 150.

25. Billington, p. 352.

26.
Theosophical Forum,
August, 1948.

27. Extracts from
The Ideal.
quoted in
Theosophical Forum,
August, 1948.

28. Ibid.

29. Neff, p. 17.

30. ODL, vol. 3, p. 9.

31. INC. p. 29.

32.
Lucifer,
November, 1894.

33. INC, p. 22.

34. Medium Eileen Garrett, under hypnosis, was able to recall the names of her three invisible playmates; she also remembered that the two girls had died before she was born, but she had seen photographs of them in an album, and that the boy was a neighbor who had drowned.

35. INC, p. 23.

36. Vera Zhelihovsky to V. S. Solovyov, quoted in Solovyov, p. 193.

37. INC, p. 24.

38. INC, pp. 27-28.

39. Besant,
HPB and the Masters of Wisdom,
p. 7.

40. Witte, p. 8.

41. Besant,
HPB and the Masters of Wisdom,
p. 7.

42. Hume, pp. 86-92; Neff, pp. 18-22.

43. Garrett,
My Life as a Search,
p. 133, and
Many Voices,
p. 94.

44. INC, p. 34.

45. LBS, p. 150.

46. According to Boris de Zirkoff, editor of H.P.B.'s
Collected Writings
and her only known living relative, "There is no confirmation of any such trip at that time." CW, vol. 1, p. xxxiii.

47. ODL, vol. 2, p. 458.

48. INC, p. 71.

49. Neff, p. 19.

50. Ibid., p. 18. According to H.P.B., this took place in 1843, but her dating seems to be in error. The only time she lived in Katherine Witte's house was 1846-1847.

51. Description of Tiflis: Haxthausen,
Transcaucasia,
pp. 45, 94-95.

52. Neff, pp. 20-21.

53. INC, p. 23.

54. H.P.B. to Alexander Dondoukoff-Korsakoff, March 1, 1882, HPBSP, vol. 2, pp. 62- 63.

55. Neff, p. 32.

56. Ibid.

57. H.P.B. to Alexander Dondoukoff-Korsakoff, December 5, 1881 HPBSP, vol. 2, p. 28.

58. H.P.B. to Alexander Dondoukoff- Korsakoff, March 1, 1882ibid., p. 62.

59. Ibid., pp. 50, 102, 123, 128.

60. Ibid., p. 113.

61. General P. S. Nikolaeff,
Reminiscences of Prince A. T. Bariatinsky,
quoted in INC, p. 110.

62. H.P.B. to Alexander Dondoukoff-Korsakoff, March 1, 1882, HPBSP, vol. 2, p. 61.

63. Ibid., p. 60.

64. The alchemists' philosophers' stone was not a means of making gold, but a symbol of hidden knowledge—the secrets of nature and possession of perfect wisdom.

65. Ibid., p. 62.

66.
Theosophical Forum,
July, 1913.

67. New York
Daily Graphic,
November 27, 1874.

68. INC, p. 40.

69. Ibid.

70. H.P.B. to Alexander Dondoukoff-Korsakoff, March 1, 1882, HPBSP, vol. 2, p. 63.

71.
Lucifer,
November, 1894.

72. LBS, p. 157.

73. Ibid., p. 214.

74.
Lucifer,
November, 1894.

75. H.P.B. always insisted that the marriage took place in 1848, when she was sixteen. But according to Vera's diary, it happened immediately after their cousin Sergei Witte was born, and this date was June 17/29 1849.

76. INC, p. 40.

77. Ibid.

78. Ibid.

79. Ibid., p. 41.

80. H.P.B. to Alexander Dondoukoff-Korsakoff, March 1, 1882, HPBSP, vol. 2, p. 63.

81. Ibid., p. 64.

82. H.P.B. to V. S. Solovyov, circa February, 1886, Solovyov, p. 177.

THE VEILED YEARS

1. H.P.B. to Alexander Dondoukoff-Korsakoff, March 1, 1882, HPBSP, vol. 2, p. 64.

2. H.P.B. to Alexander Dondoukoff-Korsakoff, August 7, 1883, HPBSP, vol. 2, p. 116.

3. Ibid.

4. INC, p. 43.

5. Ibid., pp. 44-45.

6. H.P.B. to Alexander Dondoukoff-Korsakoff, March 1, 1882, HPBSP, vol. 2, p. 66.

7. LBS, p. 154.

8. Ibid., p. 151.

9. Rawson,
Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly,
February 1892.

10. LBS, p. 151.

11. Rawson,
Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly,
February, 1892.

12. Ibid.

13. Wolff,
The Two Worlds,
December 11, 1891.

14. Rawson,
Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly,
February 1892.

15. Ibid. Rawson mistakenly identifies the countess as "Kazenoff."

16. INC, p. 44.

17. H.P.B. to Alexander Dondoukoff-Korsakoff, March 1, 1882, HPBSP, vol. 2, p. 66.

18. Quoted in Hart, p. 111.

19. CW, vol. 1, p. 4. H.P.B. told Sinnett (INC, pp. 46-48) that in July, 1851, she went to Canada for the purpose of meeting Red Indians and learning the secrets of their medicine men, but that they stole her boots. From there she reported traveling to Missouri, Louisiana, Texas and Mexico. However, she told Countess Wachtmeister that the seaside sketch was made on August 12, 1851, "the day I saw my blessed Masters." (Wachtmeister, p. 45). In my opinion, the sketchbook definitely places her in London during the summer of 1851.

20. Bulwer-Lytton: Liljegren, p. 28. The author believes that H.P.B. had a schoolgirl crush on Bulwer-Lytton. It is known that the novelist visited Ramsgate in the summer of 1851. Liljegren theorizes that Helena saw him from a distance.

21. CW, vol. l,p. 5.

22. Ibid.

23. H.P.B. to Alexander Dondoukoff-Korsakoff, March 1, 1882, HPBSP, vol. 2, p. 66.

24. Gauld, p. 67.

25. In 1874, H.P.B. told a reporter that the Princess willed her forty thousand dollars and would have left more "if I had been with her before her death" (New York
Graphic,
November 9, 1874).

26. INC, p. 44.

27. Ibid., pp. 46-55.

28. Ibid.

29. Three persons offered testimony that Theosophists accept as corroboration of H.P.B.'s claims:  
1. In 1892, Anna Ballard told Henry Olcott that H.P.B. had mentioned a Tibetan trip during an interview Ballard had conducted with her in 1873 while a reporter for the New York
Sun
(ODL, vol. 1, p. 21).  
2. On March 3, 1893, Olcott met Major-General C. Murray on a train between Calcutta and Nalhati. Murray, a former commander of the Frontier District between Nepal and Tibet, told Olcott that in 1854 or '55 a European woman had tried to cross the border but had been brought back by guards (ODL, vol. 1, p. 265).  
3. In 1927, Major Cross, manager of a tea plantation belonging to the Dalai Lama, said that he had recently talked to people in northwest Tibet who remembered the visit of a white woman in 1867 (
Canadian Theosophist,
June, 1927). 
In my opinion, none of these accounts can be accepted as reliable evidence.

30. CW, vol. 11, p. 263.

31. LBS, pp. 143-144.

32. Witte, p. 5.

33. H.P.B. to A. N. Aksakov, December 6, 1875, Solovyov, p. 268.

34. Witte, p. 6.

35.
Theosophist,
July, 1913.

36. De Zirkoff, p. 51.

37. H.P.B. to A. N. Aksakov, December 6, 1875, Solovyov, p. 228.

38. Witte, p. 6.

39. New York
Daily Graphic,
November 13, 1874.

40. Quoted in Maskelyne, p. 29.

41. Vera Zhelihovsky to Constance Wachtmeister, January 15/27, 1886, LBS, p. 274.

42. Nikifor Blavatsky to Nadyezhda Fadeyev, November 13 (O.S.), 1858,
Theosophist,
August, 1959.

43. Ibid.

44. INC, p. 101.

45.
Lucifer,
November, 1894.

46. INC, pp. 67-68.

47. Ibid., pp. 70-74.

48. Ibid., p. 75.

49. Ibid., pp. 91-102.

50. Ibid., p. 105.

51. Witte, p. 4.

52. INC, pp. 108-110.

53.
Lucifer,
November, 1894; INC, p. 107.

54. Witte, p. 6.

55. H.P.B. to Alexander Dondoukoff-Korsakoff, June 3, 1884, HPBSP, vol. 2, pp. 152, 156. In her famous confession letter written to Solovyov in February, 1886, she says that she lived with Nikifor only three-and-a-half days, but that letter was composed in a state of emotional stress. In a legal petition to the General Commander-in-Chief of the Caucasus, she states the time as approximately one year, which I believe is correct.

56. Witte, p. 7.

57. General P. S. Nikolaeff,
Reminiscences of Prince A. T. Bariatinsky,
quoted in INC, p. 111.

58. Ibid., p. 112.

59. Quoted in Maskelyne, p. 29.

60. V. S. Solovyov to H.P.B., circa April, 1886, LBS, p. 207.

61. Witte, p. 7.

62. LBS, p. 144.

63. CW, vol. 1, p. 10.

64. LBS, p. 145.

65. Haxthausen,
Transcaucasia,
pp. 17-31.

66. INC, p. 114.

67. Ibid.

68. Quoted in Murphet,
When Daylight Comes,
p. 51.

69. LBS, p. 151; Bechhofer-Roberts, p. 51.

70. INC, p. 116.

71. Ibid.

72. Ibid., p. 115.

73. Ibid., p. 117.

74.
The Path,
May, 1895.

75. Passport for Yuri and H.P.B.: CW, vol. 1, p. xlvi.

76. LBS, p. 177.