Theos-Talk Archives (March 2009 Message tt00549)

V.S. Solovyoff's book titled A MODERN PRIESTESS
OF ISIS can be purchased at:

http://tinyurl.com/mztzj

Solovyoff's book is a valuable historical record but
of course one needs to use some of the material with
caution. Certainly persons interested in the
relationship between Solovyoff and Blavatsky should
read other material that helps one to understand
these events.

Some of the works that NEED TO BE consulted are:

(1)Cranston's HPB biography (the chapter on Solovyoff)
(2)Beatrice Hasting's "Solovyoff's Fraud"
(3)K.F. Vania's book on HPB
(4)the valuable appendix A in MODERN PRIESTESS which
is a partial translation of HPB's sister Vera's
defense pamphlet in answer to Solovyoff's book.

And several other books and documents.

The Hasting's book is required reading in order
to ascertain the truthfulness/falsity of Solovyoff's testimony.
I give the full title below and the online URL:

Solovyoff's Fraud: Being a critical analysis of the
book "A Modern Priestess of Isis" translated from the
Russian of Vsevolod S. Solovyoff by Walter Leaf.
By Beatrice Hastings

http://www.theosophycanada.com/ct_file/SolFraud.pdf

I consider the Solovyoff volume as an important source of historical
information although at the same time I believe Solovyoff finally
turned against HPB and lied about her in the pages of this book.

The Theosophical historian Michael Gomes gives the following
estimation concerning Solovyoff:

==========================================================

Although he LATER claimed that he was playing the role
of the docile inquirer, Solovyov's name appears in
a number of letters to the press [in 1884 for example]
testifying to the VALIDITY of [Blavatsky's] Theosophical phenomena.

The publication of Richard Hodgson's damning report of H.P.B.
in the December 1885 Proceedings of the Society for
Psychical Research, and the attendant ridicule it brought
to the adherents of Theosophy, must have caused him to RECONSIDER
his position, for HIS ATTITUDE toward her RADICALLY CHANGED. . . .

============================================================
Caps added. Quoted from Gomes' Introduction to Beatrice Hastings'
SOLOVYOFF'S FRAUD.

Daniel
http://hpb.cc