Theos-Talk Archives (March 2002 Message tt00078)

INCIDENT A

"Even at that hour a number of devoted friends were
gathered in Mrs. Oakley’s drawing room [in London] to
say farewell to Madame Blavatsky, who seated herself
in an easy chair by the fireside. She was talking
brilliantly to those who were present, and rolling one
of her eternal cigarettes, when suddenly her right
hand was jerked out towards the fire in a very
peculiar fashion, and lay palm upwards. She looked
down at it in surprise, as I did myself, for I was
standing close to her, leaning with an elbow on the
mantelpiece; and several of us saw quite clearly a
sort of whitish mist form in the palm of her hand and
then condense into a piece of folded paper, which she
at once handed to me, saying 'There is your answer.'
Every one in the room crowded round, of course, but
she sent me away outside to read it, saying that I
must not let anyone see its contents. It was a very
short note."

INCIDENT B:

"So in due course we took our places in the train.

As the journey [through Egypt] continued Madame
Blavatsky favored us with the most gloomy
prognostications of our future fate.

'Ah! you Europeans,' she said, 'you think you are
going to enter upon the path of occultism and pass
triumphantly through all its troubles; you little know
what is before you; you have not counted the wrecks by
the wayside as I have. The Indians know what to
expect, and they have already passed through tests and
trials such as have never entered into your wildest
dreams, but you, poor feeble things, what can you do?'

She continued these Casandra-like prophecies with a
maddening monotony, but her audience was far too
reverential to try to change the subject. We sat in
the four corners of the compartment, Madame Blavatsky
facing the engine, Mr. Oakley sitting opposite to her
with the resigned expression of an early Christian
martyr; while Mrs. Oakley, weeping profusely, and with
a face of ever-increasing horror, sat opposite to me.

In those days trains were usually lit by smoky oil
lamps, and in the center of the roof of each
compartment there was a large round hole into which
porters inserted these lamps as they ran along the
roofs of the carriages. This being a day train,
however, there was no lamp, and one could see the blue
sky through the hole. It happened that Mr. Oakley and
I were both leaning back in our respective corners, so
that we both saw a kind of ball of whitish mist
forming in that hole, and a moment later it had
condensed into a piece of folded paper, which fell to
the floor of our compartment. I started forward,
picked it up, and handed it at once to Madame
Blavatsky, taking it for granted that any
communication of this nature must be intended for her.
She at once unfolded it and read it, and I saw a red
flush appear upon her face.

'Umph,' she said, 'that’s what I get for trying to
warn you people of the troubles that lie before you,'
and she threw the paper to me.

'May I read it?' I said, and her only reply was, 'Why
do you think I gave it to you?'

I read it and found it to be a note signed by the
Master Koot Hoomi, suggesting very gently but quite
decidedly that it was perhaps a pity, when she had
with her some earnest and enthusiastic candidates, to
give them so very gloomy a view of a path which,
however difficult it might be, was destined eventually
to lead them to joy unspeakable. And then the message
concluded with a few words of kindly commendation
addressed to each of us by name."

Both incidents given by C.W. Leadbeater. See:
http://www.theosophical.org/theosophy/books/esotericworld/chapter14/



=====
Daniel H. Caldwell
BLAVATSKY ARCHIVES
http://blavatskyarchives.com/introduction.htm
"...Contrast alone can enable us to appreciate things at
their right value; and unless a judge compares notes and
hears both sides he can hardly come to a correct decision."
H.P. Blavatsky. The Theosophist, July, 1881, p. 218.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Sports - sign up for Fantasy Baseball
http://sports.yahoo.com