Theos-Talk Archives (October 2008 Message tt00379)

Aaah, I guess that was just a precognitive version of the modern environmental eletric cars.
I think she faked being sick from time to time.
:-)


M. Sufilight


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Drpsionic@aol.com 
  To: theos-talk@yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 2008 5:28 PM
  Subject: Re: Theos-World Re: Countess Blavatskaya


  The image of HPB in a boson's chair is priceless!

  Chuck the Heretic


  In a message dated 10/15/2008 1:00:49 A.M. Central Daylight Time, 
  prmoliveira@yahoo.com writes:

  --- In _theos-talk@yahoogrotheos-t_ (mailto:theos-talk@yahoogroups.com) , 
  Drpsionic@.., Dr

  > Better to admire her for what she was, a person of extraordinary 
  energy and 
  > knowledge whose presence still looms over the world, who is a 
  source of 
  > inspiration for us and of horror to our enemies. Let us honor her 
  for that and at 
  > the same time have a good laugh at the extreme gravity of her 
  person which 
  > could break chairs and capsize boats if she looked over the side. 
  (I used to 
  > joke that she was the reason my family ended up in America because 
  she caused 
  > the Great Pasta Famine.)
  > 
  > And let us never, ever forget her humanity.

  After reading your moving tribute to HPB, Chuck, I could not resist 
  posting some excerpts of Leadbeater's description of some incidents 
  in his travel with her from Cairo to India in 1884:

  "Among the passengers were several missionaries, and they, with one 
  exception, seemed distinctly disposed to regard us as emissaries of 
  the Prince of Darkness. The exception was a young Wesleyan minister 
  named Restorick, with whom I used to play deck-tennis; I found him 
  quite friendly and reasonable, and willing to discuss without 
  acrimony all kinds of religious matters. A very different type was an 
  earnest but quite uneducated missionary from America, named Daniel 
  Smith, who made no secret of the fact that he had been a bricklayer, 
  but found the hard work and the exposure too severe for his health, 
  and so, as he put it, the Lord had called him to preach the gospel to 
  the heathen.

  Perhaps because of his ignorance, he was apt to be aggressive, and 
  used frequently to engage in arguments with Madame Blavatsky which 
  were a source of great amusement to the passengers. I am afraid that 
  our Leader took a kind of impish pleasure in entangling him in his 
  talk and inducing him to commit himself to the most impossible 
  theological statements. She knew the Bible far better than he did, 
  and would constantly quote unexpected and little-known texts which 
  drew from him the indignant protest: "That's not in the Bible! I'm 
  sure that's not in the Bible!"

  Then Madame Blavatsky would turn to me with deadly composure:

  "Leadbeater, fetch my Bible from my cabin!" and would proceed to 
  confound him with chapter and verse. Once he was so ill-advised as to 
  rejoin: "Well, anyhow, I'm sure it's not in my copy!" But the ripple 
  of amusement which ran round among the audience warned him to avoid 
  such a rash assertion in the future.

  As we were crossing the Indian Ocean I remember walking the deck with 
  Madame Blavatsky early one morning in all the glory of a tropical 
  sunrise, when this worthy missionary appeared at the top of the 
  staircase, and she at once hailed him with the words:

  "Now, Mr. Smith! Look round you! See the calm shining sea, and the 
  lovely colours! See how good your God is! Surely on such a glorious 
  morning as this you can't tell me that I am going to be burnt in hell 
  for ever and ever!"

  I must do the Rev. Daniel the justice to admit that he blushed deeply 
  and looked very uncomfortable, but he stuck manfully to his guns, and 
  replied with an evident effort:

  "Well, I'm very sorry, ma'am, but I guess you will!"

  Naturally Madame Blavatsky's brilliant and powerful personality 
  impressed itself upon the whole company, officers and passengers 
  alike (always excepting the Captain) and whenever she chose to show 
  herself upon deck in good weather she speedily gathered round her a 
  kind of court of interested auditors, who asked her questions upon 
  all sorts of subjects, and listened fascinated to her stories of 
  experience and adventure in out-of-the-way corners of the world. At 
  night especially they asked always for tales of the weird and 
  supernatural, which she told so well and with such gruesome realism 
  that her audience shuddered with delightful thrills of horror â but I 
  noticed that they had a distinct tendency to herd together 
  afterwards, and that none would adventure into a dark passage alone!

  Landing at Madras

  After a day or two in Colombo we resumed our voyage on the Navarino, 
  and duly arrived at Madras, to find an uncomfortably heavy swell, 
  which made our landing a distinctly unpleasant and even somewhat 
  hazardous business. A breakwater had been erected some years 
  previously, but had not proved strong enough to resist the seas 
  raised by the monsoon, so that all that was left of it were a few 
  scattered heaps of stone. Consequently we had to be taken off the 
  ship in enormous boats of a very unusual type. The planks of which 
  they were constructed seemed to be not nailed together in the 
  ordinary way, but as it were stitched together with rope, so that 
  there was a curious collapsibility about the sides; and we were told 
  that this method of construction enabled them to resist the impact of 
  the tremendous surf better than if they had been more rigid.

  The boats were of great depth, and the rowers with their long paddles 
  perched themselves somehow on the sides, the very gunwale of the 
  boat, while the unfortunate passengers were dumped into the central 
  hollow far below the feet of the rowers, in what would have been the 
  hold of the craft if it had been decked. It will perhaps be 
  understood that to descend into such a craft from a steamer which was 
  rolling heavily in the open roads (for of course there was then 
  nothing like a harbour) required great agility, and was indeed a 
  decidedly dangerous feat, as the boat was sometimes level for a 
  moment with the ship's bulwarks and directly afterwards twenty or 
  thirty feet below, for the seas were positively mountainous.

  One had to jump at exactly the right moment, and one by one most of 
  the passengers achieved it, though with a good deal of trepidation, 
  mostly bundling ungracefully and ignominiously into the bottom of the 
  boat. Obviously gymnastics of this sort were impossible for Madame 
  Blavatsky, and the only alternative was to tie her carefully into a 
  chair, and lower her by means of the ordinary cargo winch. I need 
  hardly say that she did not appreciate this operation, and I think 
  that her language on the occasion rather surprised even the hardened 
  officers. She was, however, lowered and received with perfect safety, 
  and though the process may have appeared undignified, I think some of 
  the rest of us rather envied her.

  Presently we were all safely in the boat, very wet but otherwise 
  uninjured. We have to remember that Madame Blavatsky was returning to 
  India to meet a mass of most wicked and slanderous charges which had 
  been brought against her by the Madras Christian College 
  missionaries, that these so-called missionaries had confidently 
  predicted that she could never return to face these charges, and that 
  consequently the Indian population regarded her as a hero and a 
  martyr, and came down in their thousands to give her such an ovation 
  as might have been accorded to a victorious general."

  (_http://www.singaporhttp://www.http://wwwht_ 
  (http://www.singaporelodge.org/htctm.htm#7A) )

  Pedro

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