Theos-Talk Archives (April 2004 Message tt00572)

Bart,

You wrote:

==============================================
I believe that what I said was that some of the 
reports of her [HPB's] magic had details that were consistent 
with magic tricks, and odd if it were the real thing. 
In any case, I conclude from that, and her tendency to 
exaggerate, that she used trickery to attract 
attention. . . . In other words, in my opinion, at 
the very worst, she used magic tricks to attract attention, 
and it was a mistake to do so. . . .
==============================================

But, Bart, where did the trickery END and the genuine
BEGIN??

Did she use trickery ALSO when it came to the appearances
of her Masters?

See the following page:

http://blavatskyarchives.com/muhleggerwrote2.htm

or

http://theosophy.info/muhleggerwrote2.htm

If she did trickery in order to attract attention,
certainly her claim about the Masters gained her
worldwide attention. So are you suggesting that the
trickery extended to even the appearances of her Masters?

And if you really believe she used trickery, why stop
with that? 

Did she use the Coulombs to drop letters from the Masters
through a hole in the ceiling? 

But it was also the testimony of the Coulombs that she
employed Mr. Coulomb to impersonate a Mahatma.

In the opinion of skeptical magicians (like the Amazing
Randi??) ALL of her phenomena were consistent with
trickery. As far as I know, Randi has never seen a 
paranormal event that he didn't beleive was really due
to trickery or to some other normal explanation. So I
suspect he would label all of Blavatsky's phenomena as
trickery or some other kind of delusion.

Bart, it would be interesting to know if you believe any
of Blavatsky's phenomena were real and not trickery.
And exactly how do you distinguish between the genuine
and the spurious?

How does one judge if a phenomenon is real thing or 
just trickery? 

I believe you have brought this subject up before but
have never shared your indepth thinking on the subject.

Daniel
http://hpb.cc
http://theosoophy.info