Theos-Talk Archives (April 2005 Message tt00621)

Anand does NOT seem to view Madame Blavatsky
in a very favorable light but here is what
Mr. Leadbeater wrote about her.
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Madame Blavatsky

Let me try for a moment to look at her as an outsider might have 
looked, if that be possible for me. Frankly, I do not think I can do 
that, because I love her with the deepest love, I reverence her more 
than anyone else, except her great Masters and mine. So perhaps I 
cannot look at her dispassionately from outside, but at least I am 
trying to do so. I have seen many strangers approach her. I will try 
to tell you what I have seen reflected in their faces and their 
minds. The first thing that strikes them all, the first thing that 
always struck me, was the tremendous power that she radiated. The 
moment one came into Madame Blavatsky's presence, one felt that
here 
was some one who counted—some one who could do things,
emphatically 
one of the great ones of the world; and I think that none of us ever 
lost that feeling.

There were assuredly many people who disagreed with various things 
that she said; there were others of us who followed her 
enthusiastically. She was so strong a person that I have never seen 
anyone among the thousands who met her who was indifferent to her. 
Some of them absolutely hated her, but more were immensely impressed 
by her. Many were almost awed by her; but those who knew her best 
loved her with a never-failing emotion, and love her still. I have 
recently seen some of those who knew her well, and it does seem that 
in every one of them the memory of her is just as green as it is in 
my own heart, and we have never ceased to love her. The impression 
that she made was indescribable. I can well understand that some 
people were afraid of her. She looked straight through one; she 
obviously saw everything there was in one—and there are men who
do 
not like that. I have heard her make sometimes very disconcerting 
revelations about those to whom she spoke.

I say that that overwhelming sense of power was the first thing that 
was borne in upon one; and then it is difficult to say what came 
next, but there was a sense of dauntless courage about her which was 
very refreshing, outspokenness to the verge of—one could not
quite 
say rudeness, but she spoke out exactly what she thought and exactly 
what she felt; there, again, there are people who do not like that, 
who find it rather a shock to meet naked truth; but that was what 
she gave them. Prodigious force was the first impression, and 
perhaps courage, outspokenness, and straightforwardness were the 
second.

I suppose most of us have heard that she was often accused of 
deception by those who disliked or feared her. Enemies thought her 
guilty of fraud, of forgery, of all kinds of extraordinary things. 
Those who repeat such slanders in the present day are all people who 
have never seen her, and I venture to say that if any of those who 
talk about her now could have been in her presence for an hour they 
would have realized the futility of their aspersions. I can 
understand that certain other things might have been said against 
her—for example, that she rode a little roughshod over
people's 
prejudices sometimes; perhaps it is a good thing for people to have 
their prejudices exposed occasionally; but to accuse her of forgery 
or deception was utter folly to any of us who knew her. It was even 
said that she was a Russian spy. (There was a great scare at the 
time that Russia had designs on India.) If there ever was on this 
earth a person who was absolutely unsuited for the work of a spy, 
that person was Madame Blavatsky. She could not have kept up the 
necessary deception for ten minutes; she would have given it all 
away by her almost savage outspokenness. The very idea of deception 
of any sort in connection with Madame Blavatsky is unthinkable to 
anyone who knew her, who had lived in the same house with her, and 
knew how she spoke straight out exactly what she thought and felt. 
Her absolute genuineness was one of the most prominent features of 
her marvellously complex character.

I think the next thing which must have impressed the outsider was 
the brilliance of her intellect. She was without exception the 
finest conversationalist that I have ever met—and I have seen
many. 
She had the most wonderful gift for repartee; she had it almost to 
excess, perhaps. She was full, too, of knowledge on all sorts of out-
of-the-way subjects; I mean subjects more or less connected with our 
line of thought—but then it is difficult to realize how very wide
is 
the range of thought which we include under the head of Theosophy. 
It involves knowing something at any rate along quite a large number 
of totally different lines. Madame Blavatsky had that knowledge. 
Whatever might turn up in the course of conversation, Madame 
Blavatsky always had something to say about it, and it was always 
something distinctly out of the common.

Whatever else she may have been, she was never commonplace. She 
always had something new, striking, interesting, unusual to tell us. 
She had travelled widely, chiefly in little-known parts of the 
world, and she remembered everything, apparently, even the slightest 
incident that ever occurred to her. She was full of all kinds of 
sparkling anecdotes, a wonderful raconteuse, one who could tell her 
story well and make her point effective. She was a remarkable person 
in that respect, as in so many others.

Soon, with a little more intimate talk, one encountered the great 
central pivot of her life—her intense devotion to her Master. She 
spoke of Him with a reverence that was beautiful—all the more 
beautiful from the fact that one could not describe Madame Blavatsky 
as exactly of a reverent nature. On the contrary, she always saw the 
humorous side of anything and everything. Apart from this one great 
central fact, she would sometimes make a joke about things that some 
of us would have considered sacred; but that was because her utter 
straight-forwardness made her detest anything in the nature of a 
sham or pretence, and there is a great deal of what passes for 
reverence which is really only empty-mindedness, though well akin 
perhaps to respectability. . . . 

Quoted from: HOW THEOSOPHY CAME TO ME