Theos-Talk Archives (April 2005 Message tt00760)

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