Esoteric World Chapter 11

Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott were at Bombay, residing in a house called "The Crow’s Nest," while they pursued considerable activity in propagating the Theosophical Society. That propagation included having certain persons, both Easterners and Westerners, get into touch with the Mahatmas, by either correspondence or personal visitations. The contact of those persons with the Mahatmas was sometimes arranged by HPB, but was often independent of her, as in the case of the distinguished Spiritualist, William Eglinton. He had a paranormal encounter with the Mahatma KH on board the S. S. Vega and subsequently sent a written communication by paranormal means from the ship to Calcutta (selections 11e and 11f). On the other hand, HPB had considerable abilities in producing phenomena and sometimes did so in a joking way, as in her spontaneous materialization of a letter in the handwriting of an antagonist to the Society, purporting to be his application for membership (selection 11g).

I have had constant occasions to visit [Theosophical] headquarters at Breach Candy, Bombay. My connection with the Founders of the Society has been close, and my opportunity good for studying Theosophy. I am therefore inclined, for my satisfaction and for the information of students of Nature, to record here my experiences of certain phenomena, which came under my observation on several occasions in the presence of brother Theosophists and strangers. I have also had the rare privilege to see the so-called and generally unseen Brothers [Mahatmas] of the 1st section of the Theosophical Society.

In the month of April 1881, on one dark night, while talking in company with other Theosophists with Madame Blavatsky about 10 p.m. in the open verandah of the upper bungalow, a man, six feet in height, clad in a white robe, with a white [turban] on the head, made his appearance on a sudden, walking towards us through the garden adjacent to the bungalow from a point—a precipice—where there is no path for any one to tread. Madame then rose up and told us to go inside the bungalow. So we went in, but we heard Madame and he talking for a minute with each other in an Eastern language unknown to us. Immediately after, we again went out into the verandah, as we were called, but the Brother had disappeared.

On the next occasion, when we were chatting in the above verandah as usual, another Brother, clothed in a white dress, was suddenly seen as if standing on a branch of a tree. We saw him then descending as though through the air, and standing on a corner edge of a thin wall. Madame then rose up from her seat and stood looking at him for about two minutes, and—as if it seemed—talking inaudibly with him. Immediately after, in our presence, the figure of the man disappeared, but was afterwards seen again walking in the air through space, then right through the tree, and again disappearing.

I have received two letters in all from the revered Mahatma [Koot Hoomi]. The first [letter] I received on the evening of the 15th July, 1881. I copy the endorsement which I immediately made on the back of the envelope which contained the letter: "Received about ten minutes to ten—a little while after Madame [Blavatsky] had retired and Babula had left the lamp on the table. I had just written the first two lines of a poem I was composing on the Brothers, and was thinking how to finish the third, when I heard a sound as if a large butterfly had fallen on the table. It was this letter. It fell from some height. The doors of the room and shutters were closed. My gratitude and thanks. 15-7-81, S.J.P." After I had examined the room to see that there was no trickery in the affair, and satisfying myself that none was possible, I fell on my knees and uttered some words to myself mentally. The following morning I saw Madame Blavatsky in her study. After some conversation she told me she was satisfied that I was devoted to the [Theosophical] cause, for the Master had watched me and she proceeded to relate all that had happened in my room after I had received the letter, startling me at the same time by reciting word for word my unspoken thought.

During [July] 1881 I returned to India from a visit to England, and on landing at Bombay spent a few days with Mme. Blavatsky at the headquarters of the Theosophical Society, then established at Breach Candy, in a bungalow called the Crow’s Nest, perched up on a little eminence above the road. It had been unoccupied for some time I heard, discredited by a reputation for snakes and ghosts, neither of which encumbrances greatly alarmed the new tenants.

The building was divided into two portions—the lower given over to the Society’s service and to Colonel Olcott’s Spartan accommodation; the upper part, reached by a covered stairway, corresponding to the slope of the hill, to Mme. Blavatsky and the office work of the Theosophist. There was also a spare room in this upper portion, all the rooms of which were on one level, and opening on to a broad covered-in verandah, which constituted Mme. Blavatsky’s sitting, eating, and reception room all in one. Opening out of it at the further end she had a small writing-room. The covered verandah was all day long and up to late hours in the evening visited by an ebb and flow of native guests, admiring Theosophists who came to pay their respects to Madame.

She would generally be up at an early hour writing at her Russian articles or translations, or at her endless letters she sent off in all directions in the interest of the Society, or at articles for the Theosophist; then during the day she would spend a large part of her time talking with native visitors in her verandah room, or getting back to her work with wild protests against the constant interruption she was subject to, and in the same breath calling for her faithful Babula, her servant, in a voice that rang all over the house, and sending for some one or another of the visitors she knew to be waiting about below and wanting to see her.

Then in the midst of some fiery argument with a pundit about a point of modern Hindoo belief that she might protest against as inconsistent with the real meaning of the Vedas, or a passionate remonstrance with one of her aides of the Theosophist about something done amiss that would for the time overspread the whole sky of her imagination with a thundercloud, she would perhaps suddenly "hear the voice they did not hear"—the astral call of her distant Master or of one of the other "Brothers" and forgetting everything else in an instant she would hurry off to the seclusion of any room where she could be alone for a few moments, and hear whatever message or orders she had to receive.

She never wanted to go to bed when night came. She would sit on smoking cigarettes and talking—talking with a tireless energy that was wonderful to watch—on Eastern philosophy of any sort, on the mistakes of theological writers, on questions raised (but not settled) in Isis, or, with just as much intensity and excitement, on some wretched matter connected with the administration of the Society, or some foolish sarcasm leveled against herself and the attributes imputed to her in one of the local newspapers.

She joined me at Allahabad a few [weeks] after my return to India in 1881, and went up to Simla with me to be the guest for the remainder of that season of Mr. A. O. Hume. She was far from well at the time, and the latter part of the journey—a trying one for the most robust passenger—was an ordeal that brought out the peculiar characteristics of her excitable temper in an amusing way; for the "tongas," in which the eight hours’ drive up the mountain roads from Kalka at the foot of the hills to the elevated sanatorium [Simla] is accomplished, are not luxurious conveyances. They are low two-wheeled carts hung on a crank axle, so that the foot boards are only about a foot above the road, with seats for four persons, including the driver, two and two back to back—just accommodation enough in each for one passenger with his portmanteau (equivalent, if he has one with him, to a passenger), and a servant. We had two tongas between us, putting our servants with some of the luggage in one, while Mme. Blavatsky and I occupied the back seat of the other with a portmanteau on the seat beside the driver.

A tonga gets over the ground rapidly, and the ponies, frequently changed, trot or canter up all but the steepest gradients. The traveler is jolted frightfully, but he is not likely to be capsized, though even that happens sometimes, for the mountain roads are very rough, and the ponies apt to be troublesome. The animals are attached to the vehicle by a strong crossbar resting in sockets on saddles they carry for the purpose, and though on this system ponies and cart are as firmly united as a bunch of keys by its steel ring, still they are no less loosely linked together, and a nervous passenger is liable to be disturbed by the extraordinary positions into which they get during any little disagreement between the team and the driver.

One such disagreement arose soon after our start on the journey, and Madame’s impassioned anathemas directed against the whole service of the tonga dak and the civilization of which it formed a part, ought not, I remember thinking at the time, to have had their comicality wasted upon an audience of one. Then as the day and the weary drive wore on, Madame’s indignation at the annoyance of the situation only waxed more vehemently. Especially incensed whenever the driver sounded his ear-piercing horn close behind us, she would break off whatever she was talking about to launch invectives at this unfortunate "trumpet."

On the evening of 31st January, when the daily batch of letters was being opened, one was found to contain some red writing different from the body of the letter. Col. Olcott then took two unopened letters and asked Madame Blavatsky if she could perceive similar writing in them. Putting them to her forehead, she said one contained the word "carelessly" and the other something about Col. Olcott and a branch at Cawnpore. I then examined these letters and found the envelopes sound. I opened them and saw the words mentioned. One letter was from Meerut, one from Cawnpore, and one from Hyderabad.

Next day Col. Olcott remarked that if I were to get any letters while here, there might be some of the same writing in them. I replied that there would be "no chance of that, as no one would write to me." Madame Blavatsky then, looking fixedly for a little, said: "I see a Brother here. He asks if you would like some such token as that we have been speaking of." I replied that I would be much gratified. She rose from the table and told us to follow her. Taking my hand, she led me along the verandah, stopping and looking about at some points till we reached the door of my bedroom. She then desired me to enter alone and look round the room to see if there was anything unusual, and to close the other doors. I did so, and was satisfied the room was in its usual condition.

She then desired us to sit down, and in doing so took my hands in both of hers. In a few seconds a letter fell at my feet. It seemed to me to appear first a little above the level of my head. On opening the envelope I found a sheet of notepaper, headed with a Government stamp of the Northwestern Provinces and Oudh, and the following words written with red pencil, in exactly the same handwriting as that in the letters of the previous evening "NO CHANCE of writing to you inside your letters, but I can write direct. Work for us in Australia, and we will not prove ungrateful, but will prove to you our actual existence, and thank you." A fair review of the circumstances excludes, in my opinion, any theory of fraud.

It was not until the last week of my stay in India that I began to receive evidence of the existence of the beings designated the "Himalayan Brothers." One night I was sitting with Colonel and Mrs. Gordon at their house in Howrah [a suburb of Calcutta] when my [spirit] guide, "Ernest," came and informed us that he had been in communication with certain of the Brotherhood. This aroused my curiosity, because I knew I could depend upon a statement so made, but nothing more happened to convince me until I was homeward bound on board the S. S. Vega.

On the 22nd March, 1882, I was at sea, having left [Colombo,] Ceylon about 6 p.m. the same day. I occupied a deck cabin forward under the bridge. About ten o'clock I was in this cabin undressing preparatory to sleeping on deck, my back being to the open door. On turning round to make my exit, I found the entrance barred by what I took, at first sight, to be a khitmaghur or native butler.

Thinking he had come on some message, I waited for him to speak, but as he did not do so, and deeming his manner insolent from his not having demanded entrance, and not paying the deference usual to Europeans, I angrily told him, in Hindustani, to go away; whereupon he stepped into the cabin, grasped me by the right hand, and gave me the grip of a Master Mason before I had sufficiently recovered from my astonishment. I requested him to tell me why he had intruded upon me and to state his business.

Speaking in perfect English, he deliberately informed me he was "Koot Hoomi Lal Singh," and I was at the moment so profoundly impressed with his general appearance, his knowledge of Freemasonry, and the statement that he really was the person, mystic, or Adept of whom I had heard so much during my residence in India, that without hesitation I accepted him as such. We then entered into conversation of some length, of no particular importance to anyone but myself, but it proved to me that he was intimately acquainted with both the Spiritualistic and Theosophical movements, as well as with friends of mine in India.

He was in every respect an intelligent man, perfectly formed, and in nowise differing, in outward semblance at any rate, from the thousands of natives one sees in the East. Nor was it hallucination, for I was in full possession of all my faculties; and that it was not a subjective vision is proved by the grasp of the hand, and the very evident materiality of the figure. Some little thing attracted my attention from him for a moment, for I was criticizing him keenly, and when I turned my head again—he was gone! Two steps took me to the open door, where I had the advantage of scanning both the fore and aft decks, but I could observe no one in the act of retreating, although no living being could have in the time escaped from the range of my vision.

The next day I searched the ship, even going down into the shaft tunnel to find a person in appearance like the man I had seen on the previous night, but without obtaining the slightest clue to his identity, although my mind was then dwelling upon the possibility of a man having been commissioned to come on board at Ceylon on purpose to deceive me. But the more I reflected the more difficult I found it to accept such a theory, and two days after I penned the hasty and enthusiastic letter which appears in The Occult World.

"Koot Hoomi" had promised to take a letter to Mrs. Gordon, at Howrah, if I would write one when on board. I thought my having seen the "figure" a good opportunity to convey the news in the manner suggested, and I accordingly wrote, asserting my complete belief that the person I had seen was none other than the Great Master. After I had written the letter, I went onto the deck, and knowing a certain lady to be on board who was much interested in psychical matters, I read her the letter, and invited her to mark the envelope as a little test between ourselves and those at the "other end of the line." This she did.

On my return to the smoking room I told some of my fellow passengers what I had done, whereupon a gentleman who claimed to be a Theosophist and acquainted with Madame Blavatsky, asked why, if I could send a letter, could he not do the same? I saw no objection to his doing so, and he at once wrote a short note. I opened the envelope and enclosed both letters in another, and again sought the lady to re-mark it. She was not on the deck at the time, so I returned to the smoking room, and on mentioning the matter to those assembled, one said, "Put a cross upon it"; another remarked, "Add a second"; and a third person wished that three crosses should be put. As each one spoke I added the cross, until there were three in all, and I then took the envelope, placed it in my locked writing case, and put it (the case) upon a shelf in my cabin. I opened it at intervals to see whether the envelope was still there, and I last saw it, to the best of my recollection, about four p.m., for when I looked again just before dinner it was gone.

The same night, in the presence of Colonel Olcott and Colonel and Mrs. Gordon, an envelope marked with three crosses and stated to contain my letter, was dropped from the ceiling of the bedroom I had occupied when at Howrah. I have not been able to verify whether the letter was in my writing, but I imagine it to be mine as the letter was similar in terms to the one written by me—in addition to which Mrs. Gordon was intimately acquainted with my writing.

Colonel Olcott told me that he had had an intimation in the night from his Chohan (teacher) that K.H. had been to the Vega and seen Eglinton. This was at about eight o’clock on Thursday morning, the 23rd [of March]. A few hours later a telegram, dated at Bombay 9 minutes past 9 pm on Wednesday evening, came to me from Madame Blavatsky, to this effect: "K.H. just gone to Vega." It corroborated, as will be seen, the message of the previous night to Colonel Olcott. We then felt hopeful of getting the letter by occult means from Mr. Eglinton. A telegram [from Mme. Blavatsky] later on Thursday asked us to fix a time for a sitting, so we named 9 o’clock Madras time, on Friday 24th.

At this hour we three—Colonel Olcott, Colonel Gordon, and myself—sat in the room which had been occupied by Mr. Eglinton. We had a good light, and sat with our chairs placed to form a triangle, of which the apex was to the north. In a few minutes Colonel Olcott saw outside the open window the two "Brothers" and told us so; he saw them pass to another window, the glass doors of which were closed. He saw one of them point his hand towards the air over my head, and I felt something at the same moment fall straight down from above on to my shoulder, and saw it fall at my feet in the direction towards the two gentlemen. I knew it would be the letter, but for the moment I was so anxious to see the "Brothers" that I did not pick up what had fallen. Colonel Gordon and Colonel Olcott both saw and heard the letter fall. Colonel Olcott had turned his head from the window for a moment to see what the "Brother" was pointing at, and so noticed the letter falling from a point about two feet from the ceiling. When he looked again the two "Brothers" had vanished.

There is no verandah outside, and the window is several feet from the ground.

I now turned and picked up what had fallen on me, and found a letter in Mr. Eglinton’s handwriting, dated on the Vega the 24^th. We opened the letter carefully, by slitting up one side, as we saw that someone had made on the flap in pencil three Latin crosses, and so we kept them intact for identification. The letter is as follows:

My Dear Mrs. Gordon, —At last your hour of triumph has come! After the many battles we have had at the breakfast-table regarding K.H.’s existence, and my stubborn skepticism as to the wonderful powers possessed by the "Brothers," I have been forced to a complete belief in their being living distinct persons. I am not allowed to tell you all I know, but K.H. appeared to me in person two days ago, and what he told me dumbfounded me.

[Colonel Olcott in his diary for March 24, 1882 pens the following: "At 9 the Gordons and I sat together. Morya and K.H. appeared at the windows and notes from Eglinton (from on board the Vega), Morya, K.H and H.P.B., tied together, dropped through the air on Mrs. Gordon’s shoulder. A stupendous phenomenon all round. E. says in his note that he is sending it off by the Brothers to H.P.B. after showing it to a fellow passenger, Mrs. Boughton, and having her mark the envelope." —Editor]

In June 1882, H.P.B. and I accepted an invitation to visit Baroda, the flourishing capital of H. H. the Gaikwar. Judge Gadgil and other high officials met us at the station, and took us to a bungalow adjoining the new and splendid palace. We had many visitors [and] our reception room was] crowded with inquirers day and evening.

I had been out to see the Gaikwar, and on my return found [Mr.] Kirtane and [Judge] Gadgil standing at the threshold of H.P.B.'s open door, while she was in the middle of the room with her back towards us. Our two friends told me not to step inside, as Madame B. was doing a phenomenon and had just turned them out on the verandah where I found them. The next minute she came towards us, and, taking a sheet of paper from the table, told the gentleman to mark it for identification. Receiving it back, she said: "Now turn me in the direction of his residence." They did so. She then laid the paper between her palms (held horizontally), remained quiet a moment, then held it towards us and went and sat down. Cries of amazement broke from the two on seeing on the just before clean sheet of paper, a letter addressed to me in the handwriting and bearing the signature of the then British Resident at that Court. It was a most peculiar, small calligraphy, and the signature more like a tiny tangle of twine than a man's name.

They then told me the story. It seems that they were asking H.P.B. to explain the scientific rationale of the process of precipitating upon paper, cloth, or any other surface, a picture or writing, then invisible to the onlooker, and without the help of ink, paints, pencils, or other mechanical agents. She told them that inasmuch as the images of all objects and incidents are stored in the Astral Light, it did not require that she should have seen the person or known the writing, the image of which she wished to precipitate; she had only to be put on the trace and could find and see them for herself and then objectivate them. They urgently begged her to do the thing for them. "Well, then," she finally said, "tell me the name of some man or woman most unfriendly to the Theosophical Society, one whom neither Olcott nor I could have ever known." At once, they mentioned Mr … the British Resident, who held us and our Society in especial hatred, who never missed the chance of saying unkind things of us, and who had prevented the Gaikwar from inviting HPB and myself to his enthronement, as he had otherwise intended, on the suggestion of Judge Gadgil. They thought this a poser. That it was not, the sequel proved.

I thought they would explode with laughter when they read the contents of the note. It was addressed to "My dear Colonel Olcott," begged my pardon for the malicious things he had said against us and said he wished to become a member of the Theosophical Society; it was signed "Yours sincerely" and with his name. She had never seen a line of the gentleman's writing nor his signature, never met him in the flesh, and the note was precipitated on that sheet of paper, held between her hands, as she stood in the middle of the room, in broad daylight, with us three witnesses looking on.

[On the night of September 13th] while retiring to bed in Colonel Olcott’s room [at the Theosophical Headquarters, Bombay], with all doors closed, and in a good lamp light, I was startled to see, coming as it were out of the solid wall, the form of my most revered Guru Deva [Koot Hoomi] and I prostrated myself before him and he blessed me and, in good Telugu, desired me to come and see him beyond the Himalayas. A conversation of a private character then followed in the Telugu language. He disappeared in the same way as he had appeared.

[Later] while I was travelling by railway between the Allahabad and Mogal Sarai stations, a letter fell in the compartment of the railway carriage in which I was sitting. I was alone in the compartment and the carriage was in motion. I had wished that Mahatma K.H. should give me instructions regarding a certain matter about which I was then thinking, and when I opened the letter I found that my thoughts had been answered, and that the letter was in the handwriting of Mahatma K.H., whose writing I know so well.

[Later on this journey to Darjeeling when near Sikkim, Mr. Pillay reported that he saw the Mahatmas Koot Hoomi and Morya in their physical bodies. See Report of the Result of an Investigation into the Charges against Madame Blavatsky (Madras, 1885), p. 89. –Editor]

My health having been disturbed by official work and worry, I applied for leave on medical certificate and it was duly granted. One day in September last, while I was reading in my room [in the town of Tinnevelly, southern India], I was ordered by the audible voice of my blessed Guru, [Morya], to leave all and proceed immediately to Bombay, whence I had to go in search of Madame Blavatsky wherever I could find her and follow her wherever she went. Without losing a moment, I closed up all my affairs and left the station. Arrived at Bombay, I found Madame Blavatsky gone. Really not knowing whither I had best go, I took a through ticket to Calcutta; but, on reaching Allahabad, I heard the same well-known voice directing me to go to Berhampore.

On the 23rd [of September], I was brought by Nobin Babu from Calcutta to Chandernagore, where I found Madame Blavatsky, ready to start with the train. When the train arrived, she got into the carriage. I myself had barely the time to jump into the last carriage.

The first days of her arrival [at Darjeeling] Madame Blavatsky was living at the house of a Bengalee gentleman, a Theosophist; was refusing to see any one. To all our importunities we could get only this answer from her: that we had no business, to stick to and follow her, that she did not want us, and that she had no right to disturb the Mahatmas with all sorts of questions.

In despair, I determined, come what might, to cross the frontier, which is about a dozen miles from here, and find the Mahatmas, or—DIE. Without breathing a word of my intentions to anyone, one morning, namely, October 5, I set out in search of the Mahatma. The same afternoon I reached the banks of the Rungit River, which forms the boundary between the British and Sikkim territories.

That whole afternoon I traveled on foot, penetrating further and further into the heart of the Sikkim Territory, along a narrow foot-path. I travelled before dusk not less than twenty or twenty-five miles. Throughout, I saw nothing but impenetrable jungles and forests on all sides of me, relieved at very long intervals by solitary huts belonging to the mountain population.

At dusk I began to search around me for a place to rest in at night. After a sound sleep, undisturbed by any dream, I woke and found it was just dawning.

I lost no time. When it became quite light, I wended my way on through hills and dales.

It was, I think, between eight and nine am, and I was following the road to the town of Sikkim, whence, I was assured by the people I met on the road, I could cross over to Tibet easily in my pilgrim's garb when I suddenly saw a solitary horseman galloping towards me from the opposite direction. From his tall stature and the expert way he managed the animal, I thought he was some military officer of the Sikkim Raja. Now, I thought, am I caught. But as he approached me, he reined the steed. I looked at and recognized him instantly. I was in the presence of my own revered Guru. The very same instant saw me prostrated on the ground at his feet. I arose at his command and, leisurely looking into his face, I forgot myself entirely. I knew not what to say: joy and reverence tied my tongue. I was at last face to face with "the Mahatma of the Himavat" and he was no myth. It was no night dream; it is between nine and ten o'clock of the forenoon. There is the sun shining and silently witnessing the scene from above.

He speaks to me in accents of kindness and gentleness. Nor was it until a few moments later that I was drawn to utter a few words, encouraged by his gentle tone and speech. Never have I seen a countenance so handsome, a stature so tall and so majestic. He wears a short black beard, and long black hair hanging down to his breast. He wore a yellow mantle lined with fur, and, on his head a yellow Tibetan felt cap.

When the first moments of rapture and surprise were over and I calmly comprehended the situation, I had a long talk with him. He told me to go no further, for I would come to grief. He said I should wait patiently if I wanted to become an accepted Chela.

The Mahatma, I found, speaks very little English—or at least it so seemed to me—and spoke to me in my mother-tongue—Tamil. I asked the blessed Mahatma whether I could tell what I saw and heard to others. He replied in the affirmative. He was pleased to say when I offered my farewell namaskarams (prostration) that he approached the British Territory to see [HPB].

Before he left me, two more men came on horseback, his attendants I suppose, probably Chelas, for they were dressed like himself, with long hair streaming down their backs. They followed the Mahatma, as he left, at a gentle trot.

For over an hour I stood gazing at the place that he had just quitted, and then, I slowly retraced my steps. I had eaten nothing since the day before, and I was too weak to walk further. My whole body was aching in every limb. At a little distance I saw petty traders with country ponies, taking burden. I hired one of these animals. In the afternoon I came to the Rungit River and crossed it. A bath in its cool waters renovated me. I purchased some fruit in the only bazaar there and ate them heartily. I took another horse immediately and reached Darjeeling late in the evening.

I could neither eat, nor sit, nor stand. Every part of my body was aching. My absence had seemingly alarmed Madame Blavatsky. She scolded me for my rash and mad attempt to try to go to Tibet, after this fashion. I recounted all that had happened to me.

• Eglinton, William. Light (London), June 24, 1882, p. 301, and January 30, 1886, pp. 50–1. Selection 11e.
• Gordon, Alice. "Instantaneous Transmission of Another Letter." Psychic News (Calcutta, India), March 30, 1882, pp. 60–1. Selection 11f.
• Hume, A. O. Hints on Esoteric Theosophy, No. 1: Is Theosophy a Delusion? Do the Brothers Exist? Calcutta, India: Calcutta Central Press, 1882. Selections 11a, 11d.
• Olcott, Henry S. Old Diary Leaves: The Only Authentic History of the Theosophical Society. Vol. 2 (1878–1883). London: Theosophical Publishing Society, 1900. Selection 11g.
• Ramaswamier, S. "How a 'Chela' Found His Guru." Theosophist (Bombay, India) 4 (December 1882): 67–9. Selection 11i.
• Sinnett, A. P. Incidents in the Life of Madame Blavatsky, Compiled from Information Supplied by her Relatives and Friends. London: George Redway, 1886. Reprint New York: Ayer, 1976. Selection 11c.
• Theosophical Society. Report of the Result of an Investigation into the Charges against Madame Blavatsky Brought by the Missionaries of the Scottish Free Church of Madras, and Examined by a Committee Appointed for That Purpose by the General Council of the Theosophical Society. Madras, India: Theosophical Society, 1885. Selections 11b, 11h.