Theos-Talk Archives (December 2001 Message tt00122)

Daniel,

Is there a record of more impressive occult phenomena such as feeding
12,000 people with 3 fish and a loaf of bread, or bringing a dead person
back to life, or rising from the dead and ascending through the air?

One has to wonder why true master's would behave in such a small fashion as
depicted below. A master that smokes? Cigars, no less. And produces
flowers from air for entertainment? Whatever for? To prove to Olcott
(very similar sound as Occult) that they can? Why would that be necessary?


Finally, who did Olcott converse with when he claims to have been
conversing with his 20 year dead mother? His mother or his memory of his
mother? 

Bill

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> From: danielhcaldwell <danielhcaldwell@yahoo.com>
> To: theos-talk@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Theos-World Re: The Masters and rain in Olcott's apartment.
> Date: Sunday, December 09, 2001 2:17 AM
> 
> 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
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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