Theos-Talk Archives (June 2004 Message tt00118)

 A. P. Sinnett, October 20, 1880, Simla, India, OCCULT WORLD, 108–113
[Note: A. P. Sinnett writes: "I saw K. H. in astral form on the night of 19th of October. 1880—waking up for a moment but immediately afterwards being rendered unconscious again (in the body) and conscious out of the body in the adjacent dressing room, where I saw another of the Brothers afterwards identified with one called Serapis by Olcott." The Mahatma Letters. p. 10. — Editor]

Accompanied by our guests [Madame Blavatsky, Colonel Olcott, and Alice Gordon], we went to have lunch one day on the top of a neighboring hill. The night before, I had had reason to think that my correspondent, Koot Hoomi, had been in what I may call subjective communication with me. After discussing the subject in the morning, I found on the hall table a note from Koot Hoomi, in which he promised to give me something on the hill which should be a token of his (astral) presence near me the previous night.

We went to our destination, camped down on the top of the hill, and were engaged on our lunch, when Madame Blavatsky said Koot Hoomi was asking where we would like to find the object he was going to send me. Up to this momentthere had been no conversation in regard to the phenomenon I was expecting. The usual suggestion will, perhaps, be made that Madame Blavatsky "led up" to the choice I actually made. The fact of the matter was simply that in the midst of altogether other talk Madame Blavatsky pricked up her ears on hearing her occult voice—at once told me what was the question asked, anddid not contribute to the selection made by one single remark on the subject. In fact, there was no general discussion, and it was by an absolutely spontaneous choice of my own that I said, after a little reflection, "insidethat cushion," pointing to one against which one of the ladies present wasleaning. I had no sooner uttered the words than my wife cried out, "Oh no,let it be inside mine,"
or words to that effect. I said, "Very well, inside my wife's cushion"; Madame Blavatsky asked the Mahatma by her own methods if that would do, and received an affirmative reply. My liberty of choice as regards the place where the object should be found was thus absolute and unfettered by conditions. The most natural choice for me to have made under the circumstances, andhaving regard to our previous experiences, would have been up some particular tree, or buried in a particular spot of the ground; but the inside of asewn-up cushion, fortuitously chosen on the spur of a moment, struck me, as my eye happened to fall upon the cushion I mentioned first, as a particularly good place; and when I had started the idea of a cushion, my wife’s amendment to the original proposal was really an improvement, for the particular cushion then selected had never been for a moment out of her own possession all the morning. It was her usual jampan cushion; she had been leaning against it all the way
from home, and leaning against it still, as her jampan had been carried right up to the top of the hill, and she had continued to occupy it. The cushion itself was very firmly made of worsted work and velvet, and had been inour possession for years. It always remained, when we were at home, in thedrawing room, in a conspicuous corner of a certain sofa, whence, when my wife went out, it would be taken to her jampan and again brought in on her return.

When the cushion was agreed to, my wife was told to put it under her rug, and she did this with her own hands, inside her jampan. It may have been there about a minute, when Madame Blavatsky said we could set to work to cut it open. I did this with a penknife, and it was a work of some time, as the cushion was very securely sewn all round, and very strongly, so that it hadto be cut open almost stitch by stitch, and no tearing was possible. When one side of the cover was completely ripped up, we found that the feathers of the cushion were enclosed in a separate inner case, also sewn round all the edges. There was nothing to be found between the inner cushion and the outer case; so we proceeded to rip up the inner cushion; and this done, my wife searched among the feathers.

The first thing she found was a little three-cornered note, addressed to mein the now familiar handwriting of my occult correspondent. It ran as follows: 
My "Dear Brother,"

This brooch No. 2—is placed in this very strange place simply to show to you how very easily a real phenomenon is produced and how still easier it is to suspect its genuineness.

The difficulty you spoke of last night with respect to the interchange of our letters I will try to remove. An address will be sent to you which you can always use; unless, indeed, you really would prefer corresponding through—pillows.

—Koot’ Hoomi Lal Sing.

While I was reading this note, my wife discovered, by further search among the feathers, the brooch referred to, one of her own, a very old and very familiar brooch which she generally left on her dressing table when it was not in use. The whole force and significance to us of the brooch thus returned, hinged onto my subjective impressions of the previous night. The reasonfor selecting the brooch as a thing to give us dated no earlier than then.On the hypothesis, therefore, that the cushion must have been got at by Madame Blavatsky, it must have been got at since I spoke of my impressions that morning, shortly after breakfast; but from the time of getting up that morning, Madame Blavatsky had hardly been out of our sight, and had been sitting with my wife in the drawing room. She had been doing this, by the by, against the grain, for she had writing which she wanted to do in her own room, but she had been told by her voices to go and sit in the drawing room with my wife that
morning, and had done so, grumbling at the interruption of her work, and wholly unable to discern any motive for the order. The motive was afterwardsclear enough, and had reference to the intended phenomenon. It was desirable that we should have no arriere pensee [after thought, mental reservation, suspicion] in our minds as to what Madame Blavatsky might possibly have been doing during the morning, in the event of the incident taking such a turn as to make that a factor in determining its genuineness. Of course, if the selection of the pillow could have been foreseen, it would have been unnecessary to victimize our "old Lady," as we generally called her. The presence of the famous pillow itself, with my wife all the morning in the drawing room, would have been enough. But perfect liberty of choice was to be left to me in selecting a cache for the brooch; and the pillow can have been in nobody’s mind, any more than in my own, beforehand.

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