Theos-Talk Archives (October 2008 Message tt00426)

And where has serious scholarship flown to? The Leadbeater account is
written in the _literary style-, even with made up dialogues and
graphic descriptions. This is not to be ranked as a memoir or even as
a valid document in historical sense.

We cannot stamp this excercise in litareure or light-hearted proze as
anything more than that.

regards,

Theo

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, Raquel Rodríguez <raquel_rpj@...>
wrote:
>
> Pedro
>  
> Uma história muito bonita. Obrigada
>  
> Raquel
> 
> --- El mié, 15/10/08, Pedro Oliveira <prmoliveira@...> escribió:
> 
> De: Pedro Oliveira <prmoliveira@...>
> Asunto: Theos-World Re: Countess Blavatskaya
> Para: theos-talk@yahoogroups.com
> Fecha: miércoles, 15 octubre, 2008 8:00
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> --- In theos-talk@yahoogro ups.com, Drpsionic@ . wrote:
> 
> > 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 ? 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.singapor elodge.org/ htctm.htm# 7A)
> 
> Pedro
> 
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