Theos-Talk Archives (December 2001 Message tt00114)

Last month Brigitte M. wrote the following about Henry S. Olcott:

"Who could [accept at face value Olcott's account about meeting a 
Master in Bombay in 1879], after reading [Olcott's 1875 book 
titled] 'People of the other world' and finding out what this man was 
all capable of believing."

If one is inclined as Brigitte M. apparently is to believe that
Olcott was a credulous person EVEN AS EARLY as 1874, then please also 
consider Henry Olcott's following testimony from around February 1876:

"Wonder treads upon wonder. I wrote an account of my [first]
interview with the Brother I took for a Hindoo Brahmin, and was sorry
enough afterwards I had said a word about it, either in letter or
lecture. [Then] I began to doubt my own senses and fancy the scene
had all been an objective hallucination but I have seen him again
yesterday and another man was with him.

"Other persons have seen this man in New York. He is not a Brahmin,
but a swarthy Cypriote. I did not ask him before of what country he
was.

"I was reading in my room yesterday (Sunday) when there came a tap at
the door. I said 'come in' and then entered the Brother with another
dark skinned gentleman of about fifty with a bushy gray beard and eye
brows.

"We took cigars and chatted for a while.

"He said he would show me the production of flowers as the adepts do
it. At the same time pointing to the air, fancy --- the shadowy
outlines of flower after flower and leaf after leaf grew out of
nothing. The room was perfectly light; in fact the sun was shining
in. The flowers grew solid. A beautiful perfume saturated the air.
They were suspended as the down of a thistle in the air; each separate
from the other. Then they formed themselves into bouquets and a
splendid large one of roses, lilies of the valley, camelias, jessamine
and carnations floated down and placed itself in my hand. Then the
others separated again and fell in a shower to the floor. I was
stupefied with the manifestation.

"[Then] as he spoke [again] rain drops began pattering around us in
the room and positively a drenching shower was falling about us. The
carpet was soaked and so were my clothes, the books on the table, and
the bronzes, and clock, and photos on the mantel piece. But neither
of the Brothers received a drop.

"They sat there and quietly smoked their cigars, while mine became too
wet to burn. I just sat and looked at them in a sort of stupid
daze. They seemed to enjoy my surprise but smoked on and said
nothing. Finally the younger of the two (who gave me his name as
Ooton Liatto) said I need not worry. Nothing would be damaged.
The shower ceased as suddenly as it had begun. Then the elder man
took out of his pocket a painted lacquered case. Upon opening the
case a round flat concave crystal was displayed to view. He told me
to look in it.

"Holding it a few inches from my eye and shading my eye from the light
so that there might be no reflected rays cast upon the glass, the box
exhaled a strong spicy aromatic odor much like sandal wood but still
not just that. Whatever I wished to see, he said I need simply think
of, only taking care to think of but one thing at a time. I did as
directed.

"I thought of my dead mother as she used to sit with me twenty years
ago. I saw as it were a door in the far distance. It came nearer and
nearer, and grew plainer until I lost consciousness of external
objects and seemed to be in the very room I had in mind. Details long
forgotten, pictures, furniture, &c. came into view. My mother sat
there, and the conversation of twenty years ago was renewed.
I thought of a landscape --- lo! I stood upon the spot and mountain,
valley, river, and buildings lay smiling before me. I was there ---
not in my room in 34th Street.

"So for more than an hour, the thing went on. I seemed able to flit
from one clime to another with the speed of thought, and to call up
any spirit I wished to talk with. Things too that had occurred to me
when out of the body (all recollection of which had been obliterated
upon the return of my spirit to flesh) were shown me. But these were
only a few and unimportant, for when I seemed to be growing
inquisitive, some power prevented my seeing anything.

"Was I hallucinated? No sir, I was not. At least I can't imagine a
person being hallucinated and still be in such a state of mental
activity as I was in. I have never been psychologized. I am like
cast iron so far as sensitiveness to mesmeric influence while I used
to be a strong mesmeriser myself.

"The seance being over as I supposed, I asked Liatto if he knew Madam
B. He stared too. But as I thought he ought to know her, since her
flat was in the same house, I went on to discant [comment] upon her
character, her virtues, her intellectuality, &c. &c. The elder
Brother asked me to present their compliments to Madam and say that
with her permission they would call upon her.

"I ran down stairs, rushed into Madam's parlour and there sat these
two identical men smoking with her and chatting as quietly as if they
had been old friends. Madam motioned to me as if I had better not
come in, as if they had private business to talk over. I stood
transfixed looking from one to another in dumb amazement. I glanced
[at] the ceiling (my rooms are over Madame B's) but they had not
tumbled through.

"Madam said, 'What the Devil are you staring at Olcott? What's the
matter? You must be crazy.' I said nothing but rushed up stairs
again, tore open my door and the men were not there. I ran down
again; they had disappeared. I heard the front door close, looked
out of the window and saw them just turning the corner. Madam said
they had been with her for more than an hour. And that is all she
would tell me about them.

"When I showed her my wet clothes and the bouquet of flowers that
remained in evidence that I had not been hallucinated, she only said,
'That's nothing remarkable. Ask me no questions for I shall tell you
nothing. Let the Brothers do what they please for you, I shan't have
my name put out again as a medium.'

"In a half hour from the time the two men left, there was not a drop
of moisture in the room nor a shade of dampness to indicate that there
had been a shower. But my clothes stayed wet and had to be dried
before the fire."

The above extracts have been transcribed from the original source but
material not relevant to the subject has been silently deleted.
Explanatory words added by me are enclosed within brackets.

What does Brigitte M. ACTUALLY think about this 1876 series of events 
involving Ooton Liatto and "another dark skinned gentleman of about 
fifty"?

K. Paul Johnson, whose books Brigitte M. strongly defends, in his
first SUNY book THE MASTERS REVEALED gives the following assessment 
of the above Ooton Liatoo 1876 encounter:

"The names Ooton Liatto and Hilarion Smerdis have been equally
impossible to find in biographical and historical reference books.
While both may be pseudonyms, there is LITTLE DOUBT that two REAL 
adepts visited Olcott in New York." (p. 62) Caps added.

Even though there are various paranormal features in Olcott's 
account, Johnson still believes two REAL ADEPTS visited Henry Olcott 
in New York. I take this to mean that Johnson believes two physical 
human beings, two flesh and blood persons came to the residences of 
Olcott and Blavatsky in New York City.

I am curious to know what Brigitte thinks about this account. Does
Brigitte agree with Paul Johnson's opinion about this case? Does
Brigitte ALSO accept this Ootoo Liatto case as evidence that "two real
adepts visited Olcott in New York"? 

But if Brigitte really believes that HPB "clearly wrote about 
Olcott's Master fantasies to Hartmann", then what would be Brigitte's 
answer to the following: 

Is this Ootoo Liatto account by Olcott just another GOOD EXAMPLE of 
Olcott's "fantasies" about the Masters/Adepts?

I hope Brigitte will share with us her specific thoughts and 
reasoning about this Ootoo Liatto account, so that we can COMPARE her 
thinking on this issue with Paul Johnson's reasoning.

Daniel H. Caldwell
BLAVATSKY ARCHIVES
http://hpb.cc