A very much prettier and more poetical phase of mediumship was that of Mrs. Mary Baker Thuyer, of Boston, Mass., to the examination of whose phenomena devoted some five weeks of the same summer season.

She is, or was, what is called a "flower medium," viz., a psychic in whose presence rain showers of flowers, growing bushes, vines and grasses, and leaves and branches freshly torn from trees, perhaps of a kind that are exotics and to be found only in hot-houses in that cold country.

When I knew her she was a middle-aged woman of winsome manners, very obliging as to tests, and always cheerful and friendly. Like many other public mediums, however, she drank to some extent ; she said — and I can quite believe it — to make up for the terrible drain of the phenomena upon her nervous power. That she was a real medium I am fully convinced, but that   she also supplemented by trickery her genuine phenomena, I also know. I know, because I caught her at it one evening in the year 1875, shortly before our leaving for India, when she was trying to convince me of her ability to "pass matter through matter," in imitation of Professor Zollner's celebrated experiments at Leipzig with the help of the medium Slade. I was very sorry that she tried the game with me, for until then I had had nothing but good to say of her. It is sad, I repeat, to know that these poor mediumistic martyrs to human selfishness and inquisitiveness are so often, not to say invariably, driven by necessity to practicing on credulity for the lack of reasonable maintenance and surveillance, by properly constituted spiritualistic societies and committees, in command of adequate funds for the purpose. I have always pitied rather than blamed the wretched mediums, while laying the responsibility upon the Spiritualists as a body, where it solely belongs. Let those who think differently try starvation and selfish neglect for a while, and see if they will then be so quick to condemn tricking psychics.

A long summarized report of my Thayer investigations — in part of which H. P. B. assisted — appeared in the New York Sun of August 18, 1875, and was extensively copied throughout America and Europe, and translated into various languages.

The method of procedure at Mrs. Thayer's stances was this : The company being assembled, some respectable visitor agreeable to all was asked to examine the  room and furniture, to fasten and, if he liked, seal the windows, lock the doors and take charge of the keys. The medium would also, if asked (provided that she meditated no trickery), suffer her dress to be searched for hidden flowers or other objects. She permitted me to do this whenever I liked, and willingly suffered me to tie and seal her up in a bag, a test I first employed with Mrs. Holmes. All present would then seat themselves about a large dining-table, join hands (the medium as well as the rest), the lights would be put out, and in perfect darkness phenomena would be waited for. After some delay one could hear a pattering on the bare table top, the air would be filled with fragrance, and Mrs. Thayer would call for a light. Upon the room being illuminated, the surface of the table would be seen, sometimes, quite covered with flowers and plants, and sometimes they would be found thrust into the dress of the sitters or into their hair. Occasionally butterflies would come, or a rush of flying birds would be heard overhead and there might be a dove, a canary, a linnet, or some other bird, fluttering to the four corners of the room ; or a gold-fish would be flopping about on the table, wet, as if just taken from the water. Sometimes people present would cry out in pleased wonder on finding between their hands some flower or plant they had mentally asked might be brought them. One evening I saw in front of a Scottish gentleman a full-grown heather plant of his native country, roots and all, and with the soil clinging to them as if it had just been uprooted. There were even three angle worms wriggling in the dirt. It was quite a common thing for smilax and other vines, seemingly just torn from their pots or beds, and with the soil amidst their roots, to be brought : I had them myself. But I had a better thing than that. One afternoon, I visited Forest Hills Cemetery, situate in a suburb of Boston, and, passing through the green-houses, my attention was struck by a curious plant with long, narrow leaves, striped with white and pale green, known in botany as the Dracoena Regina. With my blue pencil I drew underneath one of the leaves the six-pointed star and mentally asked the spirits to bring it to me in Mrs. Thayer's next circle, on the following evening. On that occasion I sat beside her and held her hands to make sure of her good faith. In the dark, I felt some cool and moist object drop upon one of my hands which, when the room was again lit up, proved to be my marked Dracoena leaf ! To make assurance doubly sure, I revisited the greenhouse and found that my leaf had actually been detached from the stalk and the one I had in my pocket fitted the fracture ! A number of similar facts, which I lack space to even cursorily mention, convinced me that Mrs. Thayer was a real psychic; there was, moreover, a certain physiological phenomenon which not only strengthened my belief, but cast much light upon the whole problem of mediumship. Holding both her hands in mine, I noticed that just at the moment when the falling plants began to patter on the table, she would shudder as if chilly, sigh, and her hands instantly turned deathly cold, as though a flush of iced water had suddenly run through her veins. The next moment the hands would resume the normal temperature of health. I challenge all the doubting scientists in the world to imitate this phenomenon in themselves. It seems indicative of a total change of " vital polarity," in the making of phenomena, to use a necessary expression. When H. P. B. evoked the full-length spirit-form out of Mrs. Holmes's cabinet (P. O. VV., 477) she clutched my hand convulsively and her hand grew icy cold ; the hand of Signer B., the Italian sorcerer was like ice after his rain-compelling phenomenon ; and the passage of the hysteria into the cataleptic trance and other deeper stages of physical unconsciousness, is attended with abnormal lowering of bodily temperature. Dr. A. Moll says (Hypnotizing 113) that the "particularly surprising" experiments of Kraft-Ebbing prove that "we must assume an astonishing capacity for regulating the temperature of the body" by hypnotic suggestion. It is fair to infer, therefore, that such a very marked change in animal heat as we have seen occurring in Mrs. Thayer and others at the moment when psychical phenomena are happening, indicates bona fides — the pathological change could not be simulated. Not to dwell too long on this medium's case, highly interesting though it is, I will merely mention that at one of her public stances I counted and identified eighty-four species of plants ; at another, given under my own test-conditions, saw birds appear, caught and kept them ; at another, at a private house and in broad daylight, saw flowers and a branch torn from a tree in the compound, brought ; and at still another, in the same friend's house — where H. P. B. and I were both guests, she having come there from Philadelphia and I from New York, to follow out these investigations for M. Aksakoff — saw big stones and a quaint old table-knife of an ancient pattern, dropped on the table. But one particular rose given me by Mrs. Thayer's benevolent Pushpa Yakshini (See Art. "Fire Elementals," Theosophist, vol. xii., 259) was the vehicle for a phenomenon by H. P. B. that excelled all that I had ever seen a medium do.

Our kind hostess, Mrs. Charles Houghton, wife of a well-known lawyer of Boston, living in the suburb of Roxbury, drove into town with me one evening to attend Mrs. Thayer's public séance. H. P. B. declined to go, so we left her talking with Mr. Houghton in the drawing room. The carriage had been ordered to come for us at a certain hour, but the stance had proved a short one and all the assistants had left save Mrs. Houghton, another lady, and myself. As we had nothing better to occupy ourselves with, I asked Mrs. Thayer to give us three a private séance, to which she obligingly agreed. So we took places at the table. I held the medium's two hands and placed a foot upon her two feet, one of the ladies fastened the doors and saw that the windows were secure, and the other took charge of the light. This being extinguished, we waited in darkness for some time, but there was no sound of plant-dropping. Presently we heard the carriage drive up to the door, and at the same moment I felt a cool, moist flower lightly dropped, as though it might have been a snow-flake, upon the back of my hand. I said nothing until the candle was lighted, and even then continued holding Mrs. Thayer's hands, and called the ladies' attention to the fact. The flower on my hand was a lovely, half-opened double moss-rose bud, glistening with drops of dew. The medium, starting as though some one had addressed her from behind, said : "The spirits say. Colonel, that that is a present for Madame Blavatsky." I thereupon handed it to Mrs. Houghton, and she gave it over to H. P. B. on reaching home, where we found her smoking cigarettes and still talking with our host. Mrs. Houghton left the room to go and lay off her bonnet and wrap, and I seated myself with the others. H. P. B. was holding the rose in her hand, smelling its fragrance and with a peculiar far-away look in her face, that her intimates always associated with the doing of her phenomena. Her reverie was interrupted by Mr. Houghton's saying, " What an exquisite flower, Madame ; will you kindly let me see it ? " She handed it to him with the same dreamy look and as if mechanically. He sniffed its odor, but suddenly exclaimed : " How heavy it is ! I never saw a flower like this. See, its weight actually makes it bend over towards the stalk ! " " What are you talking about ? " I remarked, " There is nothing unusual about it ; certainly there was not awhile ago when it fell on my hand. Let me see it." I took it from him with my left hand, and lo ! it weighed certainly very heavy. " Take care ; don't break it ! " exclaimed H. P. B. Tenderly I lifted the bud with the thumb and finger of my right hand and looked at it. Nothing visible to the eye accounted for the phenomenal weight. But presently there sparkled a pin-point of yellow light in its very heart, and before I could take a second look, a heavy plain gold ring leaped out, as though impelled by an interior spring, and fell on the floor between my feet. The rose instantly resumed its natural erect position and its unusual weight had gone. Mr. Houghton and I, both lawyers, moved by the professional instinct of caution, then carefully examined the flower, but detected not the slightest sign of its petals having been tampered with ; they were so closely packed and overlaid that there was no possibility of forcing the ring under cover without mutilating the bud. And, in fact, how could H. P. B. have played the trick, right before our two pairs of eyes, in the full glare of three gas-jets, and while holding the rose in her right hand for not above a couple of minutes before she gave it to Mr. Houghton ? Well, certainly, there is an explanation possible in Occult Science : the matter in the gold ring and that in the rose petals could have been raised from the third to the fourth dimension, and restored back to the third at the instant when the ring leaped out of the flower. And that, doubtless, is what did happen ; and open-minded physicists should kindly note the fact that matter may have weight without physical bulk, as this charming experiment proves. The ring has been found to weigh a half ounce. I am wearing it at this moment. It was not a creation out of nothing, only an apport, it belonged to H. P. B., I think, and it is "hall-marked," or otherwise stamped to indicate its quality. It was a great ring for phenomena, certainly, to judge from what happened to it a year and a half later. The Theosophical Society was a year old then, and H. P. B. and I were living in two apartment suites in the same house. One evening my married sister, Mrs. W. H. Mitchell,* came with her husband to visit H. P. B. and myself, and, in the course of conversation, asked me to see the ring and bade me tell its history. She looked at it and put it on her finger while I was talking, after which she held it towards H. P. B. in the palm of   her left hand for her to take it. But H. P. B. leaving it lying as it was without touching it, closed my sister's fingers on it, held the hand for a moment, then let go, and told my sister to look at it. It was no longer a plain gold ring, for we found three small diamonds imbedded in the metal, " gipsy " fashion, and set so as to form a triangle. How was it done ? The least miraculous theory is that H. P. B. had had a jeweler insert the diamonds previously, and concealed them from us  by inhibiting our sense of perception until the spell was removed at the moment my sister's hand opened. As a hypnotic experiment this is perfectly comprehensible ; I have seen such things done and can do them myself. One cannot only cover a little diamond with the mask of invisibility, but a man, a roomful of people, a house, a tree, rock, road, mountain — anything, in short : hypnotic suggestion includes seemingly limitless possibilities. Well, let this particular experiment be explained as it may, it was a very perfect success.

* If any one chooses to ask her she will corroborate my narrative, no doubt. Her address is Orange, New Jersey, U. S. A.

To return to Mrs. Thayer : we were so pleased with her phase of mediumship that we offered her the chance to go to Russia, but, like Mrs. Youngs and for the same reasons, she declined. Similar offers were conditionally made to Mrs. Huntoon, a sister of the Eddys, and to Mrs. Andrews and Dr. Slade, but all declined. So the affair dragged on until the Winter of 1875, by which time the Theosophical Society had come into existence ; M. Aksakoff's committee had broken the original compact framed to secure a thorough investigation of the phenomena, and, with Prof. Mendeleyeff, an iron-clad materialist, at their head, had published a condemnatory report, framed on baseless conjecture, not on evidence ; whereupon M. Aksakoff, with noble unselfishness and from sheer love of the truth, had determined to carry out the original program at his own cost and risk. He writes to the London Spiritualist about that time :

" When I resolved to search after mediums to visit St. Petersburg, ... I decided upon a line of action  which I communicated to Colonel Olcott, whom I deputed to select mediums in America. I told him that I wanted our committee to have the means of proving the abnormal movement of solid objects in the light without contact with any living person. I further wished to find mediums who could get the movement of solid objects in the dark behind curtains, while they were seated in front thereof in full view of the sitters," etc.

This will give my Indian readers an idea of the extraordinary physical phenomena which were going on at the time in the Western countries. In the East, similar displacements of solid things, such as household furniture, cooking utensils, articles of clothing, etc., are occasionally heard of, but always with horror, and the eye-witnesses have scarcely ever dreamt of making them the subjects of scientific research : on the contrary, they are looked upon as misfortunes, the work of evil spirits, often of earth-bound souls of near relatives and intimate friends, and their greatest desire is to abate them as unqualified nuisances. I only repeat what has often been explained before by all theosophical writers, in saying that intercourse between the living and their deceased friends and connections is, to the Asiatic, an abhorrent proof that the dead are not happily dissevered from earthly concerns, and thus are hampered in their normal evolution towards the condition of pure spirit. The West, as a whole, despite its religious creed, is grossly materialistic, imagining the future life as but an extension of this in time, — and in space too, if one comes to consider its physical conceptions of heaven and hell — and can only grasp the actuality of post-mortem conscious existence through such concrete physical phenomena as M. Aksakoff enumerates, and the many others which astonish the visitors to mediums * The East, on the other hand, is spiritual and philosophical in its conceptions, and phenomena of the above kind are to Asiatic but evidences of the possession of a low order of psychical powers by those who show them. The incident of my flower-born ring, of Mrs. Thayer's showers of plants, flowers, and birds, and of Mrs. Youngs's lifting of pianos on eggs, strike the Western materialist's imagination, not as horrors but simply as interesting lies, too scientifically revolutionary to be true, yet vastly important if so. I suppose I must have heard a hundred times if once, in India, that it was a great pity that H. P. B. showed phenomena, for it went to prove that she had not reached a high stage of Yoga. True, the Yogi is warned by Patanjali, as the contemporary bhikshus were by Gautama Buddha, to beware of vainly showing their wonders when they found the Siddhis had developed themselves in the course of their psychical evolution. Yet the Buddha himself sometimes displayed his transcendent powers of this kind, but improved the occasion  to preach the noble doctrines of his Arya Dharma, and spur his hearers to the noblest efforts to spiritualise, after de-brutifying themselves.  And so with most other religious teachers. Did not H. P. B. adopt the like policy ? Did she not, even while doing her wonders, warn us all that they were a very subordinate and insignificant part of Theosophy — some, mere hypnotic suggestions, others physical marvels in the handling of matter and force, by knowledge of their secrets and an acquired control over the elemental races concerned with cosmic phenomena? Nobody can deny this; nobody can truthfully aver that she did not invariably teach that the psychical experiment has the same relation to spiritual philosophy that the chemical experiment has to the science of chemistry. She, no doubt, erred in wasting power to astonish unimportant observers, that could have been far more profitably employed in breaching the walls of incredulous and despotic Western science: yet she did thereby convince some who were thus influenced to do good work for this great movement of ours ; and some of the most tireless of that class among us came into Eastern out of Western Spiritualism over the bridge of psychical phenomena. For my part, I can say, that the great range of marvels of educated will-potency which she showed me, made it easy for me to understand the Oriental theories of spiritual science. My greatest sorrow is that others, especially those of my Eastern colleagues whose minds were thoroughly prepared, did not have the same chance.

* In drafting the much-discussed " Third Object" of the Theosophical Society, at New York, my mind was influenced by the knowledge of this fact, and, at the same time, by my ignorance of the full scope of Oriental Science. Had I known what evils were to come upon us through the pretended development of psychical powers, I should have worded it otherwise.  

CHAPTER VII.

DR. SLADE.

OUR search for mediums resulted in our selection of Dr. Henry Slade for the St. Petersburg test. Mr. Aksakoff sent me $ 1000 in gold for his expenses, and in due course he departed on his mission. But, through greediness, or vanity, perhaps, certainly most inadvisably, he stopped in London, gave stances, created a great public excitement, and was arrested on the complaint of Professor Lankester and Dr. Donkin on the pretence of trickery. C. C. Massey was his counsel, and saved him on a technical point, on appeal. Slade subsequently gave at Leipzig the famous tests by which Professor Zollner proved his theory of the Fourth Dimension, and visited The Hague and other places before going to St. Petersburg. Before we sent him abroad he submitted his mediumistic powers to the scrutiny of a special committee of the Theosophical Society, which with one dissentient, who made a most unfair minority report, certified to Mr. Aksakoff its belief in his genuineness. A most instructive account, showing long and intimate familiarity with his powers, was supplied by his former business partner, Mr. James Simmons, to the issue of the Theosophist for November, 1893.

I had quite forgotten until I came to write the present chapter, at what period in the year 1875 the Eastern theory of sub-human and earth-bound spirits was brought to public attention, but I now find in our Scrap Books that the term " Elementary Spirits " was first used by myself in a letter to the Spiritual Scientist of June 3, 1875, reference being made to the sub-human spirits of the elements, or what we now call, "the elementals.'' It was but a bare reference, without the giving of any explanatory details, and intended as a caution to Spiritualists against swallowing, as they had been doing previously, without proper sifting and analysis, the messages of real or pretended mediums as trustworthy communications from departed spirits. The publication of the "Luxor" circular (in the Spiritual Scientist, April 17, 1875), provoked some private correspondence and public comment, the most important example of the latter being a scholarly and interesting article by a young barrister named Failes, writing under the pseudonym of "Hiraf," which appeared in the Spiritual Scientist for 1875, p. 202, and was continued in the next week's issue. It is full of theosophical ideas interpreted in terms of Rosicrucianism and under that title. The writer presents the Eastern philosophy of Unity and Evolution ; and shows how it anticipated by many centuries the modern theories  of force- correlation and conservation of energy. Its major importance, however, was the fact that it drew from H. P. B. a reply, which, in our Scrap-book, she calls " My first occult shot," and which, in fact, laid open the whole field of thought since ploughed up by the members, friends, and adversaries of the Theosophical Society.

In tracing up H. P. B.'s literary history from that point until the close of her life, one important fact should be borne in mind by such as are willing to do her simple justice. She was not a "learned" woman, in the literary sense, when she came to America. When, long after Isis Unveiled was begun, I inquired of her ever-beloved aunt Mdlle. N. A. Fadeyef, where her niece had acquired all this varied knowledge of recondite philosophies, metaphysics, and sciences, this prodigiously intuitive comprehension of ethnical evolution, the migrations of ideas, the occult forces of nature, etc., she wrote me frankly that up to their last meeting, some four or five years previously, Helena had "not even thought of such things in her dreams," that her education had been simply that of any young lady of good family. She had learnt, besides her native Russian, French, a little English, a smattering of Italian, and music: she was astounded at my accounts of her erudition, and could only attribute it to the same sort of inspiration as had been enjoyed by the Apostles, who, on the Day of Pentecost, spoke in strange tongues of which they had previously been ignorant. She added that from her childhood  her niece had been a medium, more extraordinary for psychical power and variety of phenomena than any of whom she had read in the whole course of a lifelong study of the subject.* I had a better chance than any of her friends to know what were her actual literary attainments, having helped her in her correspondence and labours of authorship and corrected almost every page of her MSS. for years : besides which I had her confidence in a greater degree, from 1874 to 1885, than any other person. I can affirm, then, that in those early days she was not, in her normal state, a learned woman, and was never an accurate writer. This is a propos of her reply to "Hiraf," in which she went into particulars about Occultism and explained the nature of elementary spirits. A learned but blindly vindictive critic of hers, stigmatizes this article as "simply a rehash of the writings upon Magic of Eliphas Levi, and Des Mousseaux, and Hargrave Jennings' " Rosicrucian's." In it, he says, " the Madame (sic) disclaims any authority as a teacher, calling herself  'poor, ignorant me,' and states that she desired simply to tell a little of the little she picked up in her long travels in the East. The statement that she derived any of this article from 'the East' is untrue ; the whole of it was taken from European books.''

* Letter dated Odessa, 8/20 May, 1877.

And whence did their authors get their knowledge, " unless from other authors? And whence these authors? From the East, always from the East : not one of those mentioned was a practical occultist, an adept in practical psychology ; not even Eliphas Levi, save to the minor extent of being able (taking himself as the authority) to evoke spirits by the formularies of Ceremonial Magic. He was too much addicted to the pleasures of the table to be anything higher in Magic. Des Mousseaux was simply a most industrious and successful compiler for the Jesuits and Theatins, whose complimentary certificates he publishes in his works ; and as for the late Mr. Hargrave Jennings, we all knew him for an estimable little gentleman, a London littérateur, with a book knowledge of occult subjects and not conspicuously accurate in his deductions. Whether H. P. B. did or did not acquire her practical psychical knowledge or powers in the East, it is undeniable that she had them, could practice them whenever she liked, and that her explanations of them were identical with those which are given in the teachings of every Eastern school of Occult Science. I, personally, can further testify that she was in relations with Eastern adepts, and that not only she, but even I, was visited by them, conversed with them and was taught by them, before leaving America and after reaching India. To her, the books of Levi, Des Mousseaux, and all other modern and ancient writers were simply the toolboxes from which she could take the tools she needed in building the Western structure for the habitation of Eastern ideas: from one she could take one fact, from another, another. She found them but imperfect tools, at best, for those who knew, concealed, and those who did not, twisted and mutilated or misrepresented their  facts. The Rosicrucian, Hermetic and Theosophical Western writers, producing their books in epochs of religious ignorance and cruel bigotry, wrote, so to say, with the headsman's axe suspended over their necks, or the executioner's fagots laid under their chairs, and hid their divine knowledge under quaint symbols and misleading metaphors. The world lacked an interpreter, and H. P. B. came to supply the need. Having the clues to the labyrinth in her own trained consciousness and full practical experience, she led the way, torch in hand, and bade the morally brave to follow her.* An American critic said of Isis that she quoted indiscriminately from the classical authors and from the current newspapers of the day ; and he was right, for it mattered not what author or paragraphist she quoted from so long as his writing suggested an idea illustrative of her present theme. This answer to "Hiraf " was the first of her esoteric writings, as her answer to Dr. Beard was the first of her defenses of mediumistic Spiritualism. The history of Literature furnishes no more surprising spectacle than that of this fashionably under-educated Russian noblewoman writing English at times like an Englishman ; French so pure that French authors have told me her articles would serve as models of style in French schools ; and Russian so enticingly brilliant as to make the conductor of the most important of their reviews actually beseech her to write constantly for it, on terms as high as they gave Tourguenief . She was not always at those high-water marks, however ; sometimes she wrote such bad English that her MSS. had to be almost re-written. Nor, as said, was she an orderly or accurate writer ; her mind seemed to rush ahead at such a pace, and streams of thought came pouring from both sides in such force that confusion and want of method were the result in her writing. She laughed once, but confessed the justness of the comparison, when I told her that her mind was like Dickens's image of Mugby Junction, with its ceaseless trains screaming in and screaming out, backing and shunting, and from morning to night keeping up a bewildering confusion. But beginning with the " Hiraf " article, and coming down to the last line she wrote for type, one thing must honestly be said — her writing was always full of thought-suggestion, brilliant and virile in style, while her keen sense of humour often seasoned her most ponderous essays with mirth-provoking ideas. To the methodical scholar she was exasperating, yet never dull or uninteresting. Later on, I shall have occasion to speak of the phenomenal changes in her literary and conversational moods and styles. I have said, and shall always reiterate, that I learnt more from her than from any schoolmaster, professor, or author I ever had to do with. Her psychical greatness, however, so overmatched her early education and mental discipline that the critics who knew her only in literature have done  her bitter and savage injustice. X. B. Saintine writes, in Picciola, that the penalty of greatness is isolation ; her case proves the aphorism : she dwelt on spiritual heights whither only the eagles of mankind soar. Most of her adversaries have only seen the mud on her shoes ; and, verily, sometimes she wiped them even on her friends who could not mount on wings as strong as her own.

* I say this with a reservation as to the actual degree of her own independent agency in the affair, about which I do not feel willing to dogmatize.  

The "Hiraf" letter has another historical value in that she therein proclaims unequivocally "from personal knowledge" the existence of regular schools of occult training "in India, Asia Minor, and other countries.'' " As in the primitive days of Socrates and other sages of antiquity," she says, "so now, those who are willing to learn the Great Truth will ever find the chance if they only 'try' to meet someone to lead them to the door of 'one who knows when and how.'" She corrects "Hiraf's" too sweeping generalization of calling all occultists Rosicrucian's ; telling him that that fraternity was but one of many occult sects or groups. She now openly styles herself "a follower of Eastern Spiritualism," and foresees the time when American Spiritualism will "become a science and a thing of mathematical certitude.'' Again, reverting to the question of adepts, she says the real Kabbala, of which the Jewish version is but a fragment, is in possession of "but a few Oriental philosophers ; where they are, who they are, is more than is given me to reveal. Perhaps I do not know it myself and have only dreamed it. Thousands will say it is all imagination : so be it. Time will show. The only thing I can say is that such a body exists, and that the location of their Brotherhoods will never be revealed to other countries until the day when Humanity shall awake, Until then, the speculative theory of their existence will be supported by what people erroneously believed to be ...(?)... facts," Her article conveys the warning that it is waste of time to seek to become a practical Kabbalist (or Rosicrucian, if you will) by acquiring a book knowledge of occult literature ; it is as foolish, she says, " as to try to thread the famous labyrinth without the clue, or to open the ingenious locks of the mediaeval ages without having possession of the keys." She defines the difference between White and Black Magic and warns against the latter. Finally, she says : "But say what you (the "very orthodox priests and clergymen of various creeds and denominations, you who are so intolerant towards Spiritualism." [mark what meaning her context gives the term now] ' the purest of the Children of Ancient Magic.") will, you cannot help that which was, is, and ever will be, namely, the direct communication between the two worlds. We term this intercourse modem Spiritualism with the same force and logic, as when we say the " New World," in speaking of America."

I am sure all earnest members of the Theosophical Society will be glad to know that as early as July, 1875, H. P. B. affirmed the existence of the Eastern Adepts, of the mystic Brotherhood, of the stores of divine knowledge in their keeping, and her personal connection with them. She reaffirms this in a letter to the Spi. Sci. (p. 64, but of what month of 1875 I cannot tell, as she has not dated the cutting in our Scrapbook; but she writes from Ithaca whither she went to visit Professor and Mrs. Corson, of Cornell University, in August or early September), and puts forth the important idea that "Spiritualism, in the hands of an adept, becomes Magic, for he is learned in the art of blending together the laws of the Universe, without breaking any of them and thereby violating Nature. In the hands of an inexperienced medium. Spiritualism becomes unconscious sorcery ; for ... he opens, unknown to himself, a door of communication between the two worlds, through which emerge the blind forces of Nature lurking in the astral Light, as well as good and bad spirits." The occult idea was now fairly launched, and our published writings and private correspondence henceforth teemed with such allusions. My first extended contribution on those lines was a letter entitled " The Immortal Life," dated August 23, 1875, and published in the New York Tribune of the 30th of that month. I state in it that I had believed in the mediumistic phenomena for about a quarter of a century, but had discredited the assumed identification of the intelligences behind them. I affirm my belief in the reality of ancient occult science, and the fact that I had unexpectedly "been brought into contact with living persons who do, and had in my presence done the very marvels that Paracelsus, Albertus, and Apollonius are credited with."

 In saying this, I had in mind not only H. P. B.'s multifarious phenomena, not only the beginnings of my intercourse with the Mahatmas, but also the disclosure to my own eyes, in my own bedroom, in a house where H. P. B. did not live, and when she was not present, of the spirits of the elements, by a stranger whom I casually met in New York, one day shortly before penning the letter. The stranger came by appointment to my chambers. We opened the folding doors which separated the sitting from the small bedroom, sat on chairs facing the wide doorway, and by a wonderful process of Maya (I now suppose) I saw the bedroom converted, as it were, into a cube of empty space. The furniture had disappeared from my view, and there appeared alternately vivid scenes of water, cloudy atmosphere, subterranean caves, and an active volcano ; each of the elements teeming with beings, and shapes, and faces, of which I caught more or less transient glimpses. Some of the forms were lovely, some malignant and fierce, some terrible. They would float into view as gently as bubbles on a smooth stream, or dart across the scene and disappear, or play and gambol together in flame or flood. Anon, a misshapen monster, as horrid to see as the pictures in Barrett's Magus, would glare at me and plunge forward, as though it wished to seize me as the wounded tiger does its victim, yet fading out on reaching the boundary of the cube of visualized akásh, where the two rooms joined. It was trying to one's nerves, but after my experiences at Eddy's I managed not to "weaken." My stranger friend declared himself satisfied with the result of the psychical test, and, on leaving, said we might meet again. But until now we have not. He seemed a fair-skinned Asiatic, but I could not exactly detect his nationality, though I then fancied him a Hindu. He talked English as fluently as myself.  

CHAPTER VIII.

THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY PROPOSED.

WE may now take up the story of the formation of the Theosophical Society and show what led up to it, who were the people who formed it, and how its aims and objects were defined. For this, let it be remembered, is a complete history of the Society's beginnings, not a mere record of personal recollections of H. P. B.

The way had been prepared for the organization of such a society by the active discussion, first, of Spiritualism and afterwards of some portions of Eastern spiritualistic ideas. This had been going on since my N. Y Sun report on the Eddys appeared, in August of the previous year (1874), and had been tenfold intensified since H. P. B. and I met at Chittenden, and used the press for the exposition of our heterodox views. Her piquant published letters, the stories that were afloat about her magical powers, and our several affirmations of the existence of non-human races of spiritual beings, drew into our acquaintanceship numbers of bright, clever people of occult leanings. Among these were scientific men, philologists, authors, antiquarians, broadminded clergymen, lawyers, and doctors, some very well known Spiritualists, and one or two gentlemen journalists attached to metropolitan papers, only too eager to make good "copy" out of the business. It was an audacious thing, certainly, to stand, defiant of public prejudice, and assert the scientific legitimacy of ancient Magic in this age of scientific skepticism. Its very boldness compelled public attention, and the inevitable result was that, in time, those whom the discussion had drawn together in sympathy should group themselves together as a society for occult research. The attempt of May, 1875, to form such a nucleus in a " Miracle Club " having failed, for the reason stated in Chapter I., the next opportunity presented itself when Mr. Felt lectured privately to a few friends of ours, in H. P. B.'s rooms at 46 Irving Place, New York, on the 7th of September of the same year. This time there was no failure : the tiny seed of what was to be a world-covering banyan tree was planted in fertile soil and germinated. I regret to say that, to my knowledge, no official memorandum exists of the persons actually present on that particular evening, though one of them, the Reverend J. H. Wiggin, an Unitarian clergyman, published in The Liberal Christian of Sept. 4th, a notice of a similar gathering during the previous week, at which the fact of Mr. Felt's promised lecture was, I think, announced for the evening of the 7th. He names H. P. B., myself, Signor Bruzzest, a New  Jersey Judge and his wife, and Mr. Charles Sotheran (who had procured for him from H. P. B. an invitation to be present). He expresses his wonder at the range and depth of the conversation, remarking :

 "It wonld be discourteous to derail the minutiae of a friendly conversation where there was no desire for publicity nor any magic display, or offer a motion about it. The phallic element in religion;   recent wonders among the mediums, history; the souls of flowers; Italian character; the strangeness of travel; chemistry; poetry; Nature's trinity; Romanism; gravitation; the Carbonari;   Crookes's new discoveries about the force of light ; the literature of Magic — were among the topics of  animated discussion lasting until after midnight. If Madame B1avatskv can indeed bring order out of the chaos of modern spiritism, she will do the world a service."

 On the evening of September 7th. Mr. Felt gave his lecture on "The Lost Canon of Proportion of the Egyptians." Ke was a remarkably clever draughtsman, and had prepared a number of exquisite drawings to illustrate his theory that the canon of architecture proportion employed by the Egyptians, as wellas by the great architects of Greece, was actually preserved in the temple hiereglyphics of the Land of Khemi. His contention was that, bv following certain definite clues one could inscribe what he called the "Star of Perfection" upon a certain temple wall, within which the whole secret of the geometrical problem of proportion would be read ; and that the hieroglyphs outside the inscribed figure were but mere blinds to deceive the profane curiosity-seeker ; for, read consecutively with those within the geometrical figure, they either made undecipherable nonsense or ran into some quite trivial narrative. This diagram consists of a circle with a square within and without, containing a common triangle, two Egyptian triangles and a pentagon. He applies it to the pictures, statues, doors, hieroglyphs, pyramids, planes, tombs and buildings of Ancient Egypt, and shows that they agree so perfectly with its proportions that they must have been made by its rule. He applies the same canon of proportion to the masterpieces of Greek art and finds that they were, or might have been, carved without models by this rule. It is, in fact, the true canon of Nature's architecture. The late Dr. Seth Pancoast, M.D., of Philadelphia, a most erudite Kabbalist, being present, categorically questioned Mr. Felt as to whether he could practically prove his perfect knowledge of the occult powers possessed by the true ancient magician; among others, the evocation of spirits from the spatial deep. Mr. Felt replied as categorically that he had done and could do that with his chemical circle. "He could call into sight hundreds of shadowy forms resembling the human, but he had seen no signs of intelligence in these apparitions." I take these details from a contemporary cutting that I find in its proper place in our Scrap-book 1., but to which the name of the paper is not attached. It looks as if it had been cut from Mr. Wiggin's paper, The Liberal Christian. Felt's theory and drawings were so captivating that J. W. Bouton, the publisher of symbological books, had contracted with him to bring out his work in 1000 pages folio, with numberless illustrations, and had advanced a large sum for copper plates, graving tools, presses, etc., etc. But having to deal with a genius burdened with a large family and exasperatingly unpunctual, the thing dragged along until he lost all patience, and the final result was, I believe, a rupture between them and the grand work was never published.

Mr. Felt told us in his lecture that, while making his Egyptological studies, he had discovered that the old Egyptian priests were adepts in magical science, had the power to evoke and employ the spirits of the elements, and had left the formularies on record ; he had deciphered and put them to the test, and had succeeded in evoking the elementals. He was willing to aid some persons of the right sort to test the system for themselves, and would exhibit the nature-spirits to us all in the course of a series of lectures, for which we were to pay him. Of course we passed an informal vote of hearty thanks for his highly interesting lecture, and an animated discussion followed. In the course of this, the idea occurred to me that it would be a good thing to form a society to pursue and promote such occult research, and, after turning it over in my mind, I wrote on a scrap of paper the following :

"Would it not be a good thing to form a Society for this kind of study?"

— and gave it to Mr. Judge, at the moment standing between me and H. P. B., sitting opposite, to pass over to her. She read it and nodded assent. Thereupon I rose and, with some prefatory remarks, broached the subject. It pleased the company and when Mr. Felt, replying to a question to that effect, said he would be willing to teach us how to evoke and control the elementals, it was unanimously agreed that the society should be formed. Upon motion of Mr. Judge, I was elected Chairman, and upon my motion Mr. Judge was elected Secretary of the meeting. The hour being late, an adjournment was had to the following evening, when formal action should be taken. Those present were requested to bring sympathizers who would like to join the proposed society.

As above stated, no official record by the Secretary of the attendance at this first meeting survives, but Mrs. Britten quotes, in her Nineteenth Century Miracles, (p. 296), a report which was published in a New York daily and copied into the Spiritual Scientist, and from her book I take the following extracts :

" One movement of great importance has just been inaugurated in New York, under the lead of Colonel Henry S. Olcott, in the organization of a society, to be known as the Theosophical Society. The suggestion was entirely unpremeditated, and was made on the evening of the 7th inst. in the parlors of Madame Blavatsky, where a company of seventeen ladies and gentlemen had assembled to meet Mr. George Henry Felt, whose discovery of the geometrical figures of the Egyptian Cabbala may be regarded as among the most surprising feats of the human intellect. The company included several persons of great learning and some of wide personal influence. The Managing Editors of two religious papers ; the co-editors of two literary magazines ; an Oxford LL.D. ; a venerable Jewish scholar and traveler of repute ; an editorial writer of one of the New York morning dailies ; the President of the New York Society of Spiritualists ; Mr. C. C. Massey, an English visitor [barrister-at-law] ; Mrs. Emma Hardinge Britten and Dr. Britten ; two New York lawyers besides Colonel Olcott ; a partner in a Philadelphia publishing house ; a well-known physician ; and, most notable of all, Madame Blavatsky herself, comprised Mr. Felt's audience. . . . During a convenient pause in the conversation, Colonel Olcott rose, and after briefly sketching the present condition of the spiritualistic movement ; the attitude of its antagonists, the Materialists ; the irrepressible conflict between science and the religious sectaries ; the philosophical character of the ancient theosophies and their sufficiency to reconcile all existing antagonism ; and the apparently sublime achievement of Mr. Felt, in extracting the key to the architecture of Nature from the scanty fragments of ancient lore left us by the devastating hands of the Moslem and Christian fanatics of the early centuries, he proposed to form a nucleus around which might gather all the enlightened and brave souls who are willing to work together for the collection and diffusion of knowledge. His plan was to organize a society of Occultists and begin at once to collect a library ; and to diffuse information concerning those secret laws of Nature which were so familiar to the Chaldeans and Egyptians, but are totally unknown by our modern world of science."

This being from an outside source and published within a few days of the meeting, is even more welcome than if official, as it shows conclusively what I had in mind when proposing the formation of our Society. Il was to be a body for the collection and diffusion of knowledge ; for occult research, and the study and dissemination of ancient philosophical and theosophical ideas : one of the first steps was to collect a library. The idea of Universal Brotherhood was not there, because the proposal for the Society sprang spontaneously out of the present topic of discussion. It was a plain, business-like affair, unaccompanied by phenomena or any unusual incident. Lastly, it was free of the least sectarian character and unquestionably antimaterialistic. The little group of founders were all of European blood, with no strong natural antagonism as to religions, and caste distinctions were to them non-existent. The Brotherhood plank in the Society's future platform was, therefore, not thought of: later on, however, when our sphere of influence extended so as to bring us into relations with Asiatics and their religions and social systems, it became a necessity, and, in fact, the corner-stone of our edifice. The Theosophical Society was an evolution, not — on the visible plane, — a planned creation. I have an official report of the meeting of September 8th, signed by myself, as Chairman, and W. Q. Judge, as Secretary, which I will quote from our Minute Book :

"In consequence of a proposal of Col. Henry S. Olcott, that a Society be formed for the study and elucidation of Occultism, the Cabbala, etc., the ladies and gentlemen then and there present, resolved themselves into a meeting, and, upon motion of Mr. William Q. Judge, it was

" Resolved, That Col. H. S. Olcott take the chair. Upon motion it was also

" Resolve J, That Mr. W. Q. Judge act as Secretary. The chair then called for the names of the persons present, who would agree to found and belong to a Society such as had been mentioned. The following persons handed their names to the Secretary :

" Col. Olcott, Mme. H. P. Blavatsky, Chas. Sotheran, Dr. Chas. E. Simmons, H. D. Monachesi, C. C. Massey, of London, W. L. Alden, G. H. Felt, D. E. de Lara, Dr. W. Britten, Mrs. E. H. Britten, Henry J. Newton, John Storer Cobb, J. Hyslop, W. Q. Judge, H. \l. Stevens (all present save one).

" Upon motion of Herbert D. Monachesi. it was

 " Resolved, That a committee of three be appointed by the chair to draft a constitution and by-laws, and to report the same at the next meeting. Upon motion, it was

" Resolved, That the chair be added to the Committee. " The chair then appointed Messrs. H. J. Newton, H. M. Stevens, and C. Sotheran to be such Committee.

" Upon motion, it was

" Resolved, That we now adjourn until Monday, September 13th, at the same place, at 8 p.m."

The Society, then, had sixteen formers — to use the most apposite term — not founders ; for the stable founding was a result of hard work and self-sacrifice, of years, and during a part of that time H. P. B. and I worked quite alone in the trenches, laying the strong foundation. Our colleagues either went out entirely, or became listless, or were prevented by force of circumstances from devoting their time and efforts to the work. But I must not anticipate. When this portion of my narrative appeared in the Theosophist (November, 1892), sketches were given of several of the officers of the Society, to which the interested reader is referred ; the superabundance of material for the present volume compelling me to condense so far as practicable. I shall, however, preserve my note on Mr. Alden for the sake of the story of one of his occult experiences.

 Mr. W. L. Alden, now so well known in London literary circles, was then an editorial writer on the N. Y. Times, of great repute for his caustic and humoristic criticisms upon current topics. I met him in Paris recently, after many years of separation, and learnt that he had been holding an important consular appointment under the American Government. He had an amusing adventure in New York, I recollect, at about the beginning of our acquaintance. He was then an editorial contributor to the N. Y. Daily Graphic, and I was writing for the paper my Chittenden letters. A host of eccentric people were attracted to the editorial rooms to ask idle questions, and they bored the editor, Mr. Croly, so much that at last he published a cartoon, representing himself standing at bay, with a revolver and huge pair of shears, to defend himself against an irruption of, "long-haired men and crop-haired women" Spiritualists. But one morning there came an aged man in Eastern garb, who carried a strange-looking, evidently very old book under his arm. Saluting the editorial staff with grave courtesy, he began talking about my letters, and about Western and Eastern Spiritualism. All left their writing-tables and clustered about him. When he spoke of Magic he turned quietly towards Alden, whose occult tastes nobody had until then suspected, and said : " Do you believe there is truth in Magic, Sir? " Taken aback, Alden replied : " Well, I have read Zanoni and think there may be something in it." By request, the stranger showed his queer book to the editors. It proved to be a treatise upon Magic, written in Arabic or some other Eastern tongue, with numerous illustrations interspersed with the text. All were very much interested, Alden especially, who, at parting, asked the old gentleman if he might have some further talk with him. The latter smilingly assented, and gave him an address at which to call. When Alden went there, however, it proved to be a Ronan Catholic image and book-shop ; my friend found himself tricked, and ever after, for months, fruitlessly kept a sharp eye upon the people he met, in the hope that he might once more see the mysterious Asiatic. I was told by Mr. Croly that the man never revisited the Graphic office ; it was as if the earth had swallowed him. This unexpected appearance and sudden disappearance of mysterious people who bring rare books to the right man, or who impart useful hints that put him on the right path through the swamp of difficulties through which he is bravely floundering towards the truth, is not an uncommon experience. Many a case of the kind has been recorded in religious history. Sometimes the visit is made during the waking hours, sometimes in visions of the night. The revelations sometimes come in "flashes" — flashes of the buddhi in upon the mânas — begetting great discoveries in science ; as the idea of the spectroscope flashed in upon the mind of Fraunhofer, that of the nature of lightning upon Franklin's, that of the telephone upon that of Edison, and that of ten thousand other great facts or laws upon other minds open to suggestion. It would be deemed exaggeration if say that every aspirant of arcane knowledge has his chance to get it once in his lifetime, yet it is true . I believe, that the percentage of those who have is a hundredfold greater than people imagine. It is the individual's misfortune if, through ignorant misconceptions as if how such messenger should look, if with what phenomenal persones his message should be delivered, he "entertains an angel unawares" if elbows him in the street without feeling even ... to divert his attention from a passing cab. I speak of that which I know.

CHAPTER IX. FORMATION OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.

AT the adjourned meeting, on the evening of September 18th, 1875, Mr. Felt continued from the previous meeting, September 8th, the interesting description of his discoveries, which he illustrated by a number of colored diagrams. Some persons present thought they saw light quivering over the geometrical figures, but I incline to the belief that this was due to auto-suggestion, in part, and partly to what Felt said about their magical properties.* Certainly, I saw nothing of an occult nature nor did the others present, save a very inconsiderable minority. The lecture finished, the order of the day was taken up ; I acting as Chairman, and Mr. C. Sotheran as Secretary. The Minute Book says: 

 " The Committee on Preamble and By-laws reported progress, and Mr. De Lara read a paper which he had been requested to write for the Committee.

" At the suggestion of the Committee it was, upon motion.  

" Resolved, That the name of the Society be ' The Theosophical Society.'

" The chair appointed the Rev. Mr. Wiggin and Mr. Sotheran a Committee to select suitable meeting rooms ; and then several new members were nominated and, upon motion, it was

" Resolved, That these persons be added to the list of founders."  

"After which the meeting adjourned, subject to the call of the chair. The report is signed by me as Chairman and by Dr. John Storer Cobb, for C. Sotheran, Secretary."

 

 ____________________

* The following important draft of a letter signed by Mr. Felt was found by me a short time after this chapter was written. I cannot remember whether the letter was sent for publication or not, but incline to the latter opinion. The importance of the document lies in the fact that in it, Mr. Felt unreservedly affirms the existence of elemental spirits, his acquired control over them, their effect upon animals and their relations with humanity. I think the statements as to the influence of the Egyptian geometrical drawings upon Mr. Felt's hearers exaggerated. The would-be teachers who did not come to learn, as Mr. Felt describes them, were the Spiritualist members whose orthodoxy was unshakable.

New York, June 19, 1878.  

To THE EDITOR of the " London Spiritualist."

My attention has but just now been called to certain articles, published in your city, and one of them in your paper, which reflect upon statements made by friends of mine, respecting the "Theosophical Society" and myself. One or more of the writers question  whether such a person as myself actually exists, or is but "the creation of the brains of Mme. Blavatsky and others." Having very little in common with the public which supports your paper, I seldom see it, and would perhaps never have known of these statements, if they had not been pointed out to me. I am engaged in mathematical pursuits, and take little or no interest in anything that cannot be exactly demonstrated, for which reason Spiritualists and myself have very few bonds of sympathy. I have so little faith in their so-called manifestations that I have long since given up trying to keep track of them.

 The Theosophical Society was started under the mistaken impression that a fraternity of that kind could be run on the modern mutual admiration plan for the benefit of the newspapers, but very soon everything was in confusion. There were no degrees of membership nor grades, but all were equal. Most members apparently came to teach, rather than to learn, and their views were thoroughly ventilated on the street corners. The propriety of making different degrees was at once apparent to the real Theosophists, and the absolute necessity of forming the Society into a secret body. This reorganization into a secret society, embracing different degrees, having been accomplished, all statements of what has transpired since the members were so bound in secrecy, are of course to be viewed with suspicion, as, even if such statements were true, things may have been done in the presence of the illuminali, of which many ex-members and novitiates had no knowledge. Of my own acts in and out of the society, before this bond of secrecy, I am at liberty to speak, but of my doings or the doing of others since that time, I have no right to give evidence. Mr. Olcott's statement about my experiments with elemental or elementary spirits, in his inaugural address, was made without consultation with me or my consent, and was not known to me until too long after its appearance for me to protest. Although substantially true, I looked upon it as premature, and as something that should have been kept within the knowledge of the Society.

That these so-called elementals or intermediates, or elementary or original spirits were creatures that actually existed, I was convinced through my investigations in Egyptian archeology. While working at drawings of several Egyptian Zodiacs, in the endeavour to arrive at their mathematical correspondences, I had noticed that very curious and unaccountable effects were sometimes produced. My family observed that at certain times a pet terrier dog and a Maltese cat, which had been brought up together and were in the habit of frequenting my study and sleeping on the font of my lied, were acting very strangely, and at last called my attention to it. I then noticed that when I commenced certain investigations the cat would first appear to be uneasy and the dog for a short time would try to fjuict him, but shortly the dog would also seem to be in dread of something happening. It was as though the perceptions of the cat were more acute, and they would both then insist on being let out of the room, trying to get out themselves, by running against the glass windows. Heing released they would stop outside and mew and bark as though calling to me to come out. This lichaviour was rc;|)eriled until I was forced to the conclusion at last that they were susceptible to influences not perceptible to me.

I supposed at first that the hideous representations on the Zodiacs, etc. , were " vain imaginations of a distempered brain," but afterwards thought that they were conventional representations of natural objects. After studying these effects on the animals, 1 reflected that as the spectrum gives rays, which though to our unaided sight invisible, had been declared by eminent scientists to be capable of supporting another creation than the one to us objective, and that the creation would probably also be invisible (Zollner's theory), this phenomenon was one of its manifestations. As these invisible rays could be made apparent by chemical means, and as invisible chemical images could be reproduced, I commenced a series of experiments to see if this invisible creation or the influences exerted by it would be thereby affected. I then began to understand and appreciate many things in my Egyptian researches that had been incomprehensible before. As a result I have become satisfied that these Zodiacal and other drawings are representations of types in this invisible creation delineated in a more or less precise manner, and interspersed with images of natural objects more or less conventionally drawn. I discovered that these appearances were intelligences, and that while some seemed to be malevolent and dreaded by the animals, others on the contrary were not obnoxious to them, but on the contrary they seemed to like them and to be satisfied when they were about.  

I was led to believe that they formed a series of creatures in a system of evolution running from inanimate nature through the animal kingdom to man, its highest development ; that there were intelligences capable of being more or less perfectly controlled, as man was more or less thoroughly acquainted with them, as he was able to impress them as being higher or lower in the scale of creation, or as he was more or less in harmony with nature or nature's works. Recent researches showing that plants possess senses in greater or less perfection, having convinced me that this system can be still further extended. Purity of mind and body, I found to be very powerful, and smoking and chewing tobacco and other filthy habits, I observed to be especially distasteful to them.

I satisfied myself that the Egyptians had used these appearances is their initiations ; in fact, I think I have established this beyond question. My original idea was to introduce into the Masonic fraternity a form of initiations such as prevailed among the ancient Egyptians, and tried to do so, but finding that only men pure in mind and body could control these appearances, I decided that I would have to find others than my whisky-soaked and tobacco-sodden countrymen, living in an atmosphere of fraud and trickery, to act in that direction. I found that when these appearances, or elementals could not be kept in perfect control, they grew malicious, and despising men whom their cunning taught them must be debased, they became dangerous, and capable of inflicting damage and harm.  

With one of the members of the Society, a legal gentleman of a mathematical turn of mind, I accomplished the following, after the manner of Cornelius Agrippa, who claimed for himself and Trithemus, that " at a great distance, it is possible without any doubt to influence another person spiritually, even when their position and the distance is unknown." Ds Occulta Phil. — lib.XW., p. 3. Several times, just before meeting me, he observed a bright light ; and at last came to connect this light with my coming and questioned me about it. I told him to notice the hour and minute at which these lights would be seen, and when I met him afterwards I would tell him the exact time. I did this 30 or 40 times before his naturally skeptical mind was thoroughly convinced. These lights appeared to him at different times of the day, wherever he happened to be, in New York or Brooklyn, and we arranged that, in each case, about two hours from that time I should meet at his office.

These phenomena differ essentially from any mesmeric, magnetic, or so-called spiritual manifestations that I am acquainted with, and are not referable thereto ; this gentleman has never been influenced by me in either of these ways.

Once he came to my house, in the suburbs of this city, and examined some Kabbalistic drawings upon which I was working, with one of which he was much impressed. After leaving he saw, in bright day-light, in the cars, an appearance of a curious kind of animal, of which he then made a sketch from memory. He was so impressed with the circumstance and the vividness of the apparition, that he went at once to one of the illuminati of the Society, and showed his drawing. He was informed that though apparently an ideal figure, it was really a so-called elemental spirit which was represented by the Egyptians as next in the order of progression to a certain reptile, which was the figure he had seen at my house, and that it was employed by the Egyptians in making their Zodiacs, at initiations, etc., etc. He then returned to me, and without comment I showed him a drawing of the very figure seen by him, whereupon he told me that he had seen it and under what circumstances and produced his sketch. He was then convinced that I foresaw that he would see this appearance after having been impressed by my Kabbalistic drawing. These phenomena are clearly not referable to any familiar form of manifestations.

At one of my lectures before the Theosophical Society, at which all degrees of members were present, lights were seen by the illuminati passing to and from one of my drawings, although they stood in the glare of several gas lights, a dark cloud was observed to settle upon it by others, and other phenomena, such as the apparent change of the- Zodiacal figures into other forms or elemental representations, were observed.

Certain members of lower degree were impressed with a feeling of dread, as though something awful were about to happen ; most of the probationers were rendered uncomfortable or uneasy ; some became hypercritical and abusive ; several of the novitiates left the room ; and Mme. Blavatsky, who had seen unpleasant effects follow somewhat similar phenomena iu the East, requested me to turn the drawings and change the subject. If there had previously been any doubt, the absolute necessity of forming the society into degrees was then apparent, and I have never since met others than the illuminati of the society, with similar manifestations.

The unfriendly tone of the article above referred to was entirely uncalled for, and there was no boasting on the part of any of the members in their remarks. Being a secret society we could not in any manner retaliate until permission to do so was given. Having now received permission, I here publicly state that I have lately performed what I agreed to do, and, unless the Council forbids, I hereby give permission to such of the illuminati as have seen it, to come forward, if they choose and bear evidence of the fact.

I do not know if you will think this worth the space it will occupy in your columns, but think that it is but just, after keeping an absolute silence for more than two years, I should now be heard in this matter. Modern Spiritualism need not weep with Alexander, for there is another world for it to discover and conquer. George H. Felt.    

The choice of a name for the Society was, of course, a question for grave discussion in Committee. Several were suggested, among them, if I recollect aright, the Egyptological, the Hermetic, the Rosicrucian, etc., but none seemed just the thing. At last, in turning over the leaves of the Dictionary, one of us came across the word " Theosophy,'' whereupon, after discussion, we unanimously agreed that that was the best of all ; since it both expressed the esoteric truth we wished to reach and covered the ground of Felt's methods of occult scientific research. Some stupid story has gone about that, while the Committee were sitting, a strange Hindu walked into the room, threw a sealed packet upon the table and walked out again, or vanished, or something of the sort ; the packet, when opened, being found to contain a complete draft of a Constitution and By-laws for the Society, which we at once adopted. This is sheer nonsense ; nothing whatever of the sort occurred. Several similarly absurd yarns have been set afloat about us from time to time ; some of them very funny, some weird, some too childishly improbable to be worth even reading, but all misleading. An old journalist myself, I cared too little for such canards to take the least notice of them. While they create temporary- confusion and misconceptions, in the long run they do no harm.  

As regards the drafting of the original By-laws, we took much pains and drew up as good a set as any society could desire. The Rules of various corporate bodies were examined, but those of the American Geographical and Statistical Society and the American Institute were thought by us to be as good models as any to follow. All preliminaries being settled, we obtained permission from Mrs. Britten that the next meeting should be held at her private residence (no hall having as yet been taken), and I issued (on post-cards) the following notice :  

The Theosophical Society.

New York, October 13, 1875.  

The Committee on By-Laws having completed its work, a meeting of the Theosophical Society will be held at the private residence. No. 206 West 18th St., on Saturday, October 16, 1875, at 8 p. m., to organize and elect officers. If Mr. Felt should be in town, he will continue his intensely interesting account of his Egyptological discoveries. Under the By-Laws proposed, new members cannot be elected until after thirty days' consideration of their application. A full attendance at this preliminary meeting is, therefore, desirable.

The undersigned issues this call in compliance with the order adopted by the meeting of September 13th ultimo.

(Signed) HENRY S. OLCOTT, President, pro. tem.  

The copy of the original post-card sent by post by Sotheran to H. P. B. I have, framed, at " Gulistan," and my own copy is also in my possession.

Our Minute Book records the following persons as present at this meeting in question :

" Mme. Blavatsky, Mrs. E. H. Britten, Henry S. Olcott, Henry J. Newton, Chas. Sotheran, W. Q. Judge, J. Hyslop, Dr. Atkinson, Dr. H. Carlos, Dr. Simmons, Tudor Horton, Dr. Britten, C. C. Massey, John Storer Cobb, W. L. Alden, Edwin S. Ralphs, Herbert D. Monachesi, and Francisco Agromonte.

" On behalf of the Committee on Preamble and By- Laws, the Preamble was read by the chair, and the By- Laws by Mr. Chas. Sotheran."

Mr. Massey was then introduced by the chair and made some remarks ; after which he was obliged to hurry away to the steamer on which he was to sail for England.  

Discussions ensued and various motions were made on the adoption of the By-Laws ; the final result being that the draft submitted by the Committee was laid on the table and order printed. The meeting then adjourned. H. S. Olcott was Chairman and J. S. Cobb Secretary of the meeting.

The next preliminary meeting was held at the same place on the 30th October. The Committee on rooms having reported, Mott Memorial Hall, 64 Madison Avenue (a few doors only from our recently purchased New York Headquarters), was selected as the Society's meeting-place. The By-Laws were read, discussed and finally adopted, but with the proviso that the Preamble should be revised by H. S. Olcott. C. Sotheran and J. S. Cobb, and then published as the Preamble of the Society.

Voting for officers was next proceeded with ; and Tudor Horton and Dr. W. H. Atkinson being appointed tellers of the Election, the result was announced bv Mr. Horton as follows : 

President, Henry S. Olcott ; Vice President, Dr. S. Pancoast and G. H. Felt ; Corresponding Secretary, Mme. H. P. Blavatsky ; Recording Secretary, John Storer Cobb; Treasurer, Henry J, Newton ; Librarian, Charles Sotheran ; Councillers, Rev. J. H. Wiggin, R. B. Westbrook, LL.D., Mrs. Emma Hardinge Britten, C. E. Simmons, M.D., and Herbert D. Monachesi ; Counsel to the Society. William Q. Judge.

The meeting then adjourned over to the 17th November, 1875, when the perfected Preamble would be reported, the President Elect deliver his Inaugural Address, and the Society be thus fully constituted.

On the evening designated, the Society met in its own hired room ; the minutes of the previous meeting were read and approved ; the President's Inaugural Address was delivered and ordered printed ; upon Mr. Newton's motion, thanks were voted to the President ; and the Society, now constitutionally organised, adjourned over to the 15th December.  

Thus the Theosophical Society, first conceived of on the 8th September and constitutionally perfected on the 17th November, 1875, after a gestatory period of seventy days, came into being and started on its marvellous career of altruistic endeavour per angusta ad augusta. Inadvertently, in our first published document, the Preamble and By-Laws of The Theosophical Society, the 30th October was given as the date of organisation, whereas, as seen above, it should properly have been November 17, 1875.  

The foregoing narrative of the origin and birth of the Society is very prosaic and lacks all the sensational and imaginative features which have sometimes been ascribed to the event. It has, however, the merit of being historically exact ; for, as I am writing history and not romance, I have stuck to the evidences of our certificated records and can prove every point. With an exaggeration of supposed loyalty which has bred injustice, as bigotry invariably does, many persons have been repeating to the echo the incorrect statement that H. P. B., and she alone, founded the Theosophical Society ; what her colleagues did was less than nothing. The fact is that she herself vigorously repudiated the idea when put forward by Mr. J. L. O'Sullivan, in 1878. She says — answering a caustic critic : 

" With crushing irony he speaks of us as 'our teachers.' Now I remember having distinctly stated in a previous letter that we [she and I] have not offered ourselves as teachers, but, on the contrary, decline any such office — whatever may be the superlative panegyric of my esteemed friend, Mr. O'Sullivan. who not only sees in me a 'Buddhist priestess' (!) but, without a shade of warrant of fact, credits me with the foundation of the Theosophical Society and its Branches."  [Letter of H. P. Blavatsky, in the Spiritualist of March 22, 1878.]

 H. P. B. was quite wonderful enough as she actually was without the fulsome praise that has been lavished upon her : and the attempt to read into every word and action an occult value will only recoil upon us authors, by the inflexible general law of action and leaction observable in Nature. Her devotees ignore the fact, that the more a revisionary power and infallible insight they ascribe to her, the mere mercilessly will men hold her accountable for her every action, her mistakes in judgment, inaccuracies in statement, and other foibles which, in an ordinary — i.e., an uninspired person, are often only mildly blamed because recognised as proofs of human infimity. It is a most unfriendly act to try to make her a being above humanity, without a weakness, spot, or blemish, for her written public record, let alone her private correspondences, proves the thing impossible.

Though my Inaugural Address was applauded by my audience, and Mr. Newton, the orthodox Sipiritualist, joined with Mr. Thomas Freethinker, and the Rev. Mr. Westbrook, to get a vote that it be printed and stereotyped — a good proof that they did not think its views and tone unreasonable — yet it reads a bit foolish after seventeen years of hard experience,  A good deal of its forecast of results has been verified, much of it falsified. What we counted on as its sound experimental basis, vis.. Felt's demonstration of the existence of the Elemental races, proved a complete and mortifying disappointment. Whatever he may have done by himself in that direction, he showed us nothing, not even the tip end of the tail of the tiniest Nature-spirit. He left us to be mocked by the Spiritualist and every other class of sceptic. He was a man of extraordinary acquirements, and had made what seemed a remarkable discovery. So probable, indeed, did it appear that — as I have above stated — Mr. Bouton, an experienced merchant, risked a very heavy sum on the speculation of getting out his book. For my part, I believe he had done what he claimed, and that, if he had but systematically followed up his beginnings, his name would have been among the most renowned of our epoch. Having so often seen H. P. B. employ the Elementals to do phenomena, Signor B. do the same on several occasions, and my mysterious strangers show me them in my own rooms, what was easier than for me to believe that Felt could do likewise ; especially when H. P. B. assured me that he could ? So, with the temerity of a born pioneer and the zeal of a congenital optimist and enthusiast, I gave rein to my imagination and depicted, in my Address, what was likely to result if Felt's promise was made good. Luckily for me, I put in the "if" ; and it might have been better if it had been printed thus — IF. On the plea of his pecuniary necessities, he got out of Treasurer Newton $100 to defray the costs of the promised experiments, but brought us no Elementals. In the Council meeting of March 29, 1876, a letter from him was read, in which he stated that "he was prepared to fulfil his promise to lecture before the Society upon the Kabbalah, and giving an outline of the different departments into which he would divide his subject."

Whereupon, Mr. Monachesi moved a Resolution, which was passed, that

" The Secretary be intrusted to have printed and circulated among the Fellows of the Society, either the letter of V. P. Felt, or a syllabus which Fellow Felt and himself would prepare." [Extract, " Minutes of the T. S.," p. 15.]  

The circular was issued, and helped somewhat to lessen the feeling of resentment that prevailed against Mr. Felt for his breach of promise. He actually delivered his second lecture on the 21st June, but then he again failed us, and I find that, in the Council meeting on the 11th October, on Treasurer Newton's motion, a Resolution was adopted, instructing Mr. Judge, the Society's Counsel, to demand that he should fulfil his legal obligation at an early date. But he never did. Finally, he went out of the Society ; and, it having thus been proved that nothing was to be expected of him a number of persons also vanished from the Society, and left us others, who were not mere sensation-seekers, to toil on as best we might.  

And it was toil, as all who were at all active in those days, very well recollect. Our object was to learn, experimentally, whatever was possible about the constitution of man, his intelligence, and his place in nature. Especially Mind, active as will, was a great problem for us. The Eastern magus uses it, the Western mesmerist and psychopath employ it ; one man developes it, and becomes a hero, another paralyses it, and becomes a spirit medium. To its resistless sway the beings of all kingdoms and various planes of matter are obedient, and when imagination is simultaneously active, it creates, by giving objectivity to just-formed mind-images. So, though Felt had defaulted, and we could count on no sailing on smooth tides, yet we had still many fields left for research, and we explored them a little. The old records show that we tested mediums, tried experiments in psychometry, thought-reading and mesmerism, and wrote and listened to papers. But we made slow progress, for, though we all, by tacit consent, put the best face upon it, every one of us was secretly discouraged by Felt's fiasco, and there seemed no chance of finding a substitute : the rain-maker, Signer B., had been driven away by H. P. B., after his futile attempt to create a breach between her and myself ; my swarthy, elemental- summoning visitor did not show his face again ; and H. P, B., upon whose help everybody had — as we thought — not unreasonably counted, refused to do the slightest phenomenon at our meetings. So the membership dwindled by degrees, until, at the end of a year or so, there survived the following : the form of a good organisation, sound and strong in its platform ; a clangorous notoriety ; a few, more or less indolent, members ; and an indestructible focus of vitality in the quenchless enthusiasm of the two friends, the Russian woman and American man, who were in deadly earnest ; who never for a moment harboured a doubt as to the existence of their Masters, the excellence of their delegated work, or the ultimate complete success that would crown it. Judge was a loyal friend and willing helper, but he was so very much our junior that we could not regard him as an equal third party. He was more like the youngest son in a family. Many an evening after we had established our residential Headquarters, when our visitors had gone and H. P. B. and I stopped in the Library-room for a parting-smoke and chat, have we laughed to think how few we could count upon to stand by us through everything. The fair speeches and smiles of the evening's guests would be recalled, and the selfishness they often meant to mask detected. The one thing we felt more and more as time went on was, that we two could absolutely depend upon each other for Theosophy, though the sky itself should crack ; beyond that, all depended upon circumstances. We used to speak of ourselves as the Theosophical Twins, and sometimes as a trinity ; the chandelier hanging overhead making the third of the party! Frequent allusions to both these pleasantries occur in our Theosophical correspondence ; and on the day when she and I were leaving our dismantled apartments in New York, to go aboard the steamer that was to take us towards India, the last thing we did was to say, with mock seriousness, " Farewell, old Chandelier ; silent, light-giving, unchanging friend and confidant ! "  

The enemy have sometimes said that when we sailed away from America we left no Theosophical Society behind us ; and to a certain extent that was true, for, owing to several causes, it did nothing to speak of during the next six years. The social nucleus — always the most powerful factor in movements of this kind — had been broken up ; nobody was able to form a new one ; another H. P. B. could not be created : and Mr. Judge, the then only potential future leader and organiser, was called away to Spanish countries by professional business, as above remarked.  

It must be said, in justice to Mr. Judge, General Doubleday, and their associates in the original Theosophical Society, whom we left in charge on leaving for India, that the suspended animation was for two or three years mainly due to my own fault. There had been some talk of converting the Society into a high Masonic degree, and the project had been favourably viewed by some influential Masons. I shall have to recur to this subject later on. For the present it suffices to say that I was asked to draft an appropriate form of ritual, and when we left America this was one of the first things I was to do after reaching India. But instead of the quiet and leisure anticipated, we were instantly plunged into a confusion of daily work and excitement ; I was forced on the lecturing platform ; we made long journeys through India ; the Theosophist was founded, and it was simply impossible to give any attention to the ritual ; though I have several letters from General Doubleday and Judge complaining that it was not sent them, and saying they could do nothing without it. Moreover, our wider experience convinced us of the impracticability of the plan ; our activity had taken a much wider extension, and our work a more serious and independent character. So, finally, I decided not to follow up the scheme. But by this time Judge had gone abroad and the others did nothing. In a letter dated New York, October 17, 1879, — a year after our departure — Mr. Judge writes : " We have taken in but few members and decided to wait for the ritual before taking in more, as that would make a serious change." For us two, however, there had been twelve months of heavy work. General Doubleday writes to the same effect under date of September 1, 1879, saying : " With regard to the T. S. in the United States we have been in statu quo, waiting for the promised ritual." On the 23d of June, 1880, he asks : " Why do you not send us that ritual ? " And Mr. Judge, on April 10, 1880, tells me, "Everything here lags. No ritual yet. Why?" November 7, 1881, Judge being absent in South America, his brother, whom he had left in charge of T. S. affairs, writes me that nothing is doing, and that "the Society will not start working until W. Q. J., General Doubleday, and I [he] can find time and means to start it" ; both of which were lacking. Finally — as it is useless to follow up the matter further — on January 7, 1882, Judge writes : " The Society is dormant, doing absolutely nothing. Your explanation about the ritual is satisfactory."  

Yet throughout all these years, Mr. Judge's letters to H. P. B., myself, and Damodar show that his zeal for Theosophy and all mysticism was unquenchable. His greatest desire was that a day might come when he should be free to devote all his time and energies to the work of the Society. But as the clover seed, imbedded in the soil twenty feet below the surface, germinates when the well-diggers bring it up above ground, so the seed we planted in the American mind, between the years 1874 and 1878, fructified in its due time ; and Judge was the husbandman predestined to reap our harvest. Thus, always, Karma evolves its pioneers, sowers, and reapers. The viability of our Society was proximately in us two founders, but ultimately in its basic idea and the transmitters, the August Ones, who taught us and shed into our hearts and minds the light of their benevolent goodwill. As both of us realised this, and as we were both permitted to work for it and with them, there was a closer bond between us two than any that the common social relationships could have forged. It made us put up with each other's weaknesses and bear all the grievous frictions incident to the collaboration of two such contrasting personalities. As for myself, it made me put behind me as things of no value all worldly ties,  ambitions, and desires. Truly, from the bottom of my heart, I felt, and feel, that it is better to be a door-keeper, or even something more menial than that, in the house of the "Lord on High." than to dwell in any silken pavilion the selfish world could give me for the asking. So felt  H. P. B., whose tireless enthusiasm for our work -was a never-failing wellspring of encouragement to every one coming in contact with her. Feeling thus, and ready, as we were, to make every sacrifice for our cause, the extinction of the Theosophical Society was simply impossible.  

Many things of interest to Theosophists are recorded in the early Society records. At the Council meeting of January 12, 1876, it was resolved, upon the motion of T. S. Cobb. "that Wilham Q. Judge. Counsel to the Society, be invited to assist in the deliberations of the Council, at its meetings." At the same meeting, the withdrawal of Mr. Sotheran from the Society was noted and Mr. H. J. Newton appointed to fill the vacancy ; and the Council ordered the Recording Secretary- to lay before the Society, at its next regular meeting, the following Resolution, as upon the recommendation of the Council, for adoption :  

"That in future this Society adopt the principle of secrecy in connection with its proceedings and transactions, and that a Committee be appointed to draw up and report upon the details necessary to give effect to such a change."  

So that, after an experience of barely three months — I had thought it was much longer — we were obliged in self-defence to become a secret body. At the Council meeting of March 8, 1876, on motion of H. B. Blavatsky, it was  

" Resolved, That the Society adopt one or more signs of recognition, to be used among the Fellows of the Society, or for admissions to the meetings."

A Committee of three, of whom H. P. B. was one, was appointed by me to invent and recommend signs. The appropriate seal of the Society was partly designed after a very mystical one that a friend of H. P. B.'s had composed for her, to use on her letter-paper, and it was beautifully engraved for us by Mr. Tudor Harton. A little later Mr. Judge and I, with the concurrence of others, sketched a badge of membership, consisting of a serpent coiled about an Egyptian Tau. I had two made, for H. P. B. and myself, but we subsequently gave them away to friends. Quite recently, this very pretty and appropriate symbol has been revived in America.

But what little secrecy there ever was in the Society — as little, or even less than that so carefully guarded by the Tyler of a Masonic Lodge — has virtually passed away, after its brief period of use in our early days. In 1889, it was made the chief feature in the Esoteric Society which I chartered for H. P. B., and, I regret to say, has caused us much harm with much good.  

CHAPTER X.

BARON DE PALM.

THE evolution of the Society up to its perfected organisation having been traced, we may now give attention to special incidents which occupied the attention of its founders and more or less affected its interests. If the details of early T. S. history were known to the majority of its members this historical retrospect might be left to some less busy person than myself to compile. In point of fact, however, no other living person knows them all so well as I ; no one save H. P. B., and I assumed all the responsibilities, took all the hard knocks, organised all the successes : so, perforce, I must play the historian. If I do not, the truth will never be made known. The special incident to be dealt with in the present chapter is the story of Baron de Palm's connection with our Society, his antecedents, death, will, and funeral ; his cremation will require a separate chapter. This is not Theosophy, but I am not writing Theosophy : it is history, one of several affairs which were mixed up in our Society's concerns, and which greatly occupied the time and thoughts of my colleague and myself. These affairs threw upon me, as President, in particular, very grave responsibilities. When I say that I carried through the The Palm funeral obsequies with the conviction that it would cost me a professional connection worth some  L2,000 a year, my meaning will appear. The thing apprehended did happen, because I mortally offended the gentleman — a bigoted Christian — who controlled the matter in question, and who influenced its transfer to another friend of his. Of course, I should do it over again, and I only mention the circumstance to show that it cost something to be a worker with the Masterrs in those early days.

Joseph Henry Louis Charles, Baron de Palm, Grand Cross Commander of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre and Knight of various other orders, was born at Augsburg, May 10, 1809, in an ancient baronial family of Bavaria. Late in life he emigrated to America, lived a number of years in the Western States, and about December, 1875, came to me in New York with an introductory letter from the late Col. Bundy, editor of the Religio Philosophical Journal, commending him to my courtesy. Finding him a man of engaging manners, evidently familiar with the best society, and professing much interest in SpirituaJism and a wish to learn something about our Oriental theories, I made him welcome, and at his request introduced him to H. P. B, The acquaintance was kept up, the Baron joined our Society) , and, a vacancy occurring soon after by the resignation of the Rev. J. H. Wiggin, he was elected a Member of Council on the 29th March, 1876. As he complained of feeble health, and of having no one in New York who cared whether he lived or died in the wretched boarding-house where he was put up, I invited him to come and occupy a room in my "apartment," looked after his comfort, and called in a physician to prescribe for him. Symptoms of pneumonia and nephritis showing themselves and the medical attendant pronouncing him in danger, he got me to send him Mr. Judge, the Society's Standing Counsel, and executed a will devising certain parcels of real estate at Chicago to two lady friends, making me residuary legatee, and appointing Mr. Newton, Treasurer of the T. S., and myself his executors, with full powers. Under medical advice and at his own earnest request, he was removed to the Roosevelt Hospital on Friday evening, May 19th, (1876), and died the next morning. The result of an autopsy was to show that he had for years been suffering from a complication of diseases of the lungs, kidneys, and other organs; a medical certificate that he had died of nephritis was given and filed, as prescribed by law, in the Health Bureau, and the body was conveyed to the receiving-vault of the Lutheran Cemetery pending the completion of arrangements for interment.  

In religion Baron de Palm was a Voltairean with a gloss of Spiritualism. He particularly asked that no clergyman or priest should officiate at his funeral, but that I should perform the last offices in a fashion that would illustrate the Eastern notions of death and immortality. The recent agitation of the subject of cremation in Great Britain and America, caused by the incineration of the body of the first Lady Dilke, the scientific experiments of Sir Henry Thompson (vide his published essay The Treatment of the Body after Death, London, 1874), and the sensational articles and pamphlets of Rev. H. R. Haweis upon the unspeakable horrors of the burial-grounds of London, led me to ask him how he would wish me to dispose of his remains. He asked for my opinion upon the relative superiority of the two modes of sepulture, concurred in my preference for cremation, expressed a horror of burial, some lady he had once known having been buried alive, and bade me do as I found most advisable. A dilettante sort of body calling itself the New York Cremation Society, had been formed in April, 1874, and I had enrolled myself as a member, and been elected a member of the Legal Advice Committee ; but beyond passing resolutions and issuing pamphlets the members had done nothing to prove the faith that was in them. Here, at last, was the chance of having a body to burn, and thus inaugurating the very needed reform. I offered it to the Society in question and it was accepted. The weather being warm for the season, urgent haste was called for, and up to the evening before the day appointed for the public funeral of the Baron, it was understood that after the ceremonies I was to deliver over the body to the Society's Agents for cremation. Meanwhile H. P. B. and the rest of us bestirred ourselves to organise an impressive " Pagan funeral" — as the press chose to call it — compose a litany, devise a ceremonial, write a couple of Orphic hymns for the occasion, and get them set to appropriate music. On the Saturday evening mentioned above we were rehearsing our programme for the last time when a note was brought me from the Secretary- of the X. Y. Cremation Society to say that they would have to give up the cremation because of the great noise that the papers had made about the funeral and their attacks upon the Theosophical Society. In other words, these respectable moral cowards dared not face the ridicule and animosity which had been excited against us innovators. The quandary we were in did not last longer than a half hour, for I finally offered to take the whole responsibility upon myself, and pledged my word that the body should be burnt if I had even to do it myself. The promise was fulfilled in due time, as the sequel will show.

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