Quest Magazine

From the Archives: Passage to India: A Mission from the Masters

By Paula Chernyshev Finnegan

Originally printed in the SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2008 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Finnegan, Paula Chernyshev. "From the Archives: Passage to India: A Mission from the Masters." Quest  96.5 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2008):188-189.

 

MOST OF US KNOW THAT THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY was founded in 1875, but the events leading to how the international headquarters was established makes another very fine story. Here we document the story of the move to India using passages from The Esoteric World of Madame Blavatsky by Daniel Caldwell; Old Diary Leaves by Henry S. Olcott; and The Dawning of the Theosophical Movement by Michael Gomes.
 
Madame Blavatsky had been instructed by her teachers, also known as the Masters to travel to America which she did in 1873. She met Colonel Olcott in October 1874 and together they founded the Theosophical Society in New York City. HPB was then instructed to establish TS headquarters in India. She was joined by Olcott who was at first reluctant, but was convinced after a visit from a Master, which is related in this issue (see "The Man Who Met the Masters: Colonel Henry Steel Olcott" page 181).
 
In chapter IV, "Pilgrimage to India 1878," Gomes relates:

 

The decision to go to India came for Olcott during the writing of Isis Unveiled. From the time he learned "what India had been to the world, what she might be again," from H. P. Blavatsky, "an insatiable longing" had possessed him to go "to the land of the Rishis and Buddhas, the Sacred Land among lands; but I could not see my way clear to breaking the ties of circumstance which bound me to America."

He continues with Olcott's words after Olcott's experience with the Master, "Before the dawn of that sleepless night came, I began to devise the means and to bend all things to that end."

 

 
In The Esoteric World of Madame Blavatsky, Caldwell writes that in September 1877, the publication of Isis Unveiled had a powerful public impact and the New York Herald-Tribune considered the work as one of the "remarkable productions of the century." On July 8, 1878, HPB became a naturalized U.S. citizen, an event that received widespread publicity in various newspapers. Soon after her naturalization, Blavatsky announced that she and Colonel Olcott would be leaving for India by the end of the year. The New York Daily Graphic printed this interview with HPB on December 10, 1878:

 

 

Helen P. Blavatsky is leaving America, as she says, forever. A very damp reporter found his way into the pleasant French flat at Eighth avenue and Forty-seventh street this morning, and his ring was answered by a colored servant, who expressed serious doubts as to whether his mistress would see any one at so early an hour. The interviewer was, however, ushered into a breakfast room, which was in a very disordered condition, and invited to a seat on a vacant stool. The disorder was a necessary result of yesterday's auction sale, and the only semblance of occupancy left were an uncleared breakfast table and three human occupants. Colonel Olcott sat at the table busily making memoranda in a notebook and burning his handsome moustache with a half-finished cigar that struggled ineffectually to reach beyond the outskirts of his beard.
 
When the reporter was finally ushered into Mme. Blavatsky's own room, he found that lady seated at the end of a letter and tobacco laden table, twisting a fragrant cigarette from a quantity of loose tobacco of a famous Turkish brand. The room was the inner temple of the Lamasery, which has become so widely known in recent years.
 
The reporter said: "And so you are going to leave America?"
 
"Yes, and the Lamasery where I have spent so many happy, happy hours. I am sorry to leave these rooms, although there is little to regret about them now," glancing about at the bare floors and walls, "but I am glad to get away from your country. You have liberty, but that is all, and of that you have too much, too much!"
 
"When shall you leave?"
 
"I know neither the time nor the vessel, but it will be very soon. I am going first to Liverpool and London, where we have branch Theosophical societies. Then I shall go direct to Bombay. Oh! how glad I shall be to see my dear Indian home again!" and as she arose and wrapped a morning gown of strange design about her, she looked very much the Oriental priestess which she claims she is not.

 

In Old Diary Leaves 2:1, Colonel Olcott describes the "The Voyage Out."

 

Though we left American soil on the 17th of December (1878), we did not get away from American waters until 12.30 p.m. on the 19th, as we lost the tide of the 18th and had to anchor in the Lower Bay. Imagine the state of mind of H. P. B. if you can! She raged against the captain, pilot, engineers, owners, and even the tides. My Diary must have been in her portmanteau, for in it she wrote:
 
"Magnificent day. Clear, blue, cloudless [sky], but devilish cold. Fits of fear lasted till 11. The body is difficult to manage. . . . At last the pilot took the steamer across the Sandy Hook bar. Fortunately we did not get stuck in the sand! . . . All day eating at 8, 12, 4, and 7. H. P. B. eats like three hogs."
 
I never knew the meaning of the phrase written by H. P. B.'s hand in my Diary on 17th December, 1878: " All dark-but tranquil," until at London, when her niece translated for me an extract from the letter written by her aunt to her mother (Mme. Jelihovsky) from London on 14th January, 1879, and which she has kindly copied out for the present use. H. P. B. writes her sister:
 
"I start for India. Providence alone knows what the future has in store for us. Possibly these portraits shall be the last. Do not forget your orphan-sister, now so in the full meaning of the word.
 
"Good-bye. We start from Liverpool on the 18th. May the invisible powers protect you all!
 
"I shall write from Bombay if I ever reach it. ELENA."

 

LONDON, 14th January, 1879.
 
If she ever reached it? Then she was not certain that she would; that New York prediction might come true. Very well; but how, then, about all this romance we have been having circulated, about her having had complete foreknowledge as to our Indian career? The two clash . . .
 
On 15th January we sent on our heavy baggage to Liverpool; on the 17th I issued an Executive Notice appointing, ad interim, Major-General A. Doubleday, U. S. A., F. T. S., Acting President of the T. S.; Mr. David A. Curtis, Acting Corresponding Secretary; and Mr. G. V. Maynard, Treasurer; W. Q. Judge was already elected Recording Secretary. This arrangement was for the purpose of carrying on the work at the New York Headquarters until the future disposal of the Society should have been decided upon, according to what should happen after we had settled at Bombay.

 

 

Olcott and HPB then embarked on the one-month voyage to India aboard a British passenger/cargo steamer. The Speke Hall SS was built in 1878 by Charles Connell & Company in Scotstoun for Alexander & Radcliffe, Liverpool. It is surprising that Olcott describes it as "dirty and disagreeable" since it was a new ship. Blavatsky and Olcott arrived in Bombay in February 1879 where they soon established temporary headquarters.
 
In chapter 8 of The Esoteric World of Madame Blavatsky, "London, Bombay, and Allahabad, 1879," Caldwell relates the story told in Old Diary Leaves.

 

 

On the 17th [of January] we left for Liverpool, after a delightful stay of a fortnight [in England] with and among our kind friends and colleagues. The next day we passed at the Great Western Hotel, Liverpool, and at 5 p.m. embarked on the Speke Hall in a downpour of rain. The vessel was dirty and disagreeable to see; and what with that, and the falling of rain, the smell of damp tapestries and carpets in the saloon and cabins, and the forlorn faces of our forty fellow passengers, all equally disgusted as ourselves, it was a wretched omen for our long voyage out to India.
 
Meanwhile HPB was making it lively for the servants and her fellow passengers who, with one or two exceptions, were shocked by her ironclad language [and] outraged by her religious heterodoxy. The ship being struck by a tremendous sea, HPB was pitched against a leg of the dining-table, got her knee badly bruised, [and was] laid up in her cabin with her lame knee.
 
At the rate of 250 to 300 miles a day, we sailed up the Mediterranean, past Gibraltar, past Algiers, on to Malta. Port Said [Egypt] was reached on 2nd February, and then came two days and nights in the Suez Canal. [We] emerged into the Red Sea and began the third and final stage of our sea pilgrimage to the Land of Desire. That night the moon paved with silver the waters of the Gulf of Suez, and we felt as if we were sailing on a dream sea. Nothing of moment happened until the 12th, when a flue burst in the boiler, and we had to stop for repairs. On the 15th [of February], at noon, [we] were but 160 miles away from [the Bombay lights], and the next morning entered Bombay Harbor. Before sunrise I was on deck and, as we steamed rapidly towards our anchorage, reveled in the panorama of the harbor that was spread before me. Elephanta, ahead of us, was the first locality we asked to be shown us, for it was the type and visible representative of that Ancient India. Alas! as one turned towards the promontory of the Malabar Hill the dream was dispelled. The India we saw there was one of sumptuous bungalows, framed in the luxury of English flower gardens, and surrounded with all the signs of wealth gained in foreign commerce.
 
The ship's anchor was hardly dropped before we were boarded by three Hindu gentlemen in search of us. All seemed strangers to us, but when they pronounced their names I opened my arms and pressed them to my breast. We went ashore in their bunder boat and landed on the Apollo Bunder. The first thing I did on touching land was to stoop down and kiss the granite step; my instinctive act of puja!
 
The noonday Bombay sun of mid-February is a surprise to a Western visitor, and we had time to feel its full power before Mr. Hurrychund came . . .
 
The streets of Bombay charmed us with their strikingly Oriental character. The tall apartment houses in stucco, the novel dresses of the motley Asiatic population, the quaint vehicles . . . all these vivid impressions filled us with delight.
 
Before leaving New York, I had written Hurrychund to engage for us a small, clean house in the Hindu quarter. We were taken to a house on Girgaum Back Road, standing in a comparatively forlorn compound, and adjoining his glass-roofed photographic studio. Cocoa palms nodded their fronds over our roof, and Indian sweet-scented flowers rejoiced our sense of smell; after the dismal sea voyage it seemed like Paradise. The ladies of our friends' families called on HPB and a number of Hindu and Parsi gentlemen on our whole party; but the rush of visitors began the next morning.
 
On the evening of 17th February, a reception was held at the photographic studio, at which over 300 invited guests were present. The usual welcome address, with garlands, limes, and rose-water as accompaniments, was given us. Soon after landing, they were contacted by Alfred Percy Sinnett, then Editor of the Government paper, the Pioneer of Allahabad. This contact soon proved of the utmost importance.

 

Caldwell continues with A. P. Sinnett's recollection of how he first made the acquaintance of HPB.

Col. Olcott['s] and Mme. Blavatsky['s] arrival in India had been heralded with a few newspaper paragraphs dimly indicating that Mme. Blavatsky was a marvelous person, associated with a modern development of "magic," and I had seen her great book, Isis Unveiled, which naturally provoked interest on my part in the authoress. From some remarks published in the Pioneer, of which I was at that time the editor, the first communications between us arose.

Because of the dangerous nature of ocean travel at that time, HPB and Olcott were fortunate to have suffered only a bruised knee and bouts of sea sickness. They fared much better than their ship; the Speke Hall was lost on June 3, 1885 during a cyclone while on passage from Cardiff to Bombay. After their long voyage, the founders were rewarded with a warm welcome and wonderful reception. But Blavatsky and Olcott had come to India to establish the international headquarters of the Theosophical Society, and they wasted no time working toward that goal. By the autumn of 1879, they began publishing The Theosophist which continues to be the international journal for the TS. It was through their dedication and tireless energy that the Society and the Theosophical movement survived, and began to flourish, during those early days in India.

Paula Chernyshev Finnegan is a Theosophist, a biologist, and a native Chicagoan. Her interest in anthropology and Native American studies led her to the Quest Bookshop and the TS in the early 1990s. Paula has worked as coordinating editor for Quest magazine for three years. She would like to thank Janet Kerschner for combing the Archives in search of photographs and resources for this article.

Viewpoint: Butterflies Are Not Free

By Betty Bland

Originally printed in the SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2008 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Bland, Betty. "Viewpoint: Butterflies Are Not Free." Quest  96.5 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2008):164-165.

Theosophical Society - Betty Bland served as President of the Theosophical Society in America and made many important and lasting contributions to the growth and legacy of the TSA.

THE DRIFTING DAZZLING BEAUTY OF A BUTTERFLY wafting on the summer breezes, floating from flower to flower, conjures in us an aesthetic appreciation and a certain longing to be carefree like this diaphanous illusion. As the Buddhist teachings affirm, "All beings wish to be happy." And we human beings add the strength of our highly developed mental and emotional faculties to this search for happiness as a driving factor in our lives.
 
What can make us happy? After our basic needs are met, we begin to seek in all sorts of places. Thrills, power, and wealth might be pursued as the key to a sense of satisfaction. When the sense of meaning, purpose, and love are missing from our lives, our psyche can drive us into strange and self-destructive places. The things we long for the most are those things that are our half-remembered birthright. Our inner nature calls to us and tells us that we are so much more than this crazy merry-go-round in the physical world.
 
We are like the grub or caterpillar, pushing around in the dark, earthbound and prickly. We eat, we sleep, and we gather experiences, but an inner sense keeps nagging at us. Something important is missing. We begin weaving the web of self-examination—around and around, back and forth, until we might feel that there is nothing but darkness in our cocoon. In the process of this transformative pain, our insides can turn to mush. Nothing fits the old mold. What we might have thought was real and important is no longer so.
 
Whether this psychological alteration is long or short depends on many factors, but it must come in some way to each of our lives, turning ourselves inside out so that we no longer focus on self-pity and indulgences, but begin to recognize the fundamental unity with all of existence. Even the faintest glimmer of this realization begins to alter our nature that our wings of flight are just a breath away. It will not be long until we break free of our cocoon, fly into the sunlight of compassion, and sip the nectar of meaning in unity.
 
The butterfly is born, but not without a price. The process of change brings it to a state of amorphous chaos in which nothing seems certain. Yet in the unfoldment of time and under the condition that nothing goes awry, the lovely creature emerges in all its glory.
 
This imagery applies to the path of each human spirit in that we have undergone long development as self-protective, self-interested beings focused solely on our survival, who finally, through difficulties of one sort or another, have been catapulted into ourselves in order to grow beyond our accustomed boundaries. This happens cyclically within each life and on a grander scale through many lifetimes. Each new birthing is an initiatory experience along our return pathway to the divine nature hidden within, the only source of true happiness.
 
Because the pattern of development is so different for each of us in the way that it manifests, I might add an additional allusion to the butterfly. That is, "If a butterfly flutters its wings in China, there will be a powerful hurricane in the Atlantic." The truth of this phenomenon, which is called "sensitive dependence upon initial conditions" by chaos theorists, becomes more apparent daily as the Internet and ever-increasing mobility exponentially expand our realms of influence. Each person's pathway has different circumstances, so that there are as many pathways to Spirit as there are people. Together we are forming this lovely pattern of emerging butterflies. And we each impact untold others.
 
It is well to remember that the Theosophical Society in its many national sections, as well as the international Society as a whole, is a conglomerate entity which follows this same sort of pattern. We are blessed more than many organizations by the solid foundation of our long history. Yet it is clear that the further back into time our beginnings reach, the more transformational processes we will have to undergo to fulfill our mission as we develop and the world changes.
 
The Society has recently undergone an international election that unleashed controversy that wounds us all—and that to some may seem like a backward step. However, it is by virtue of our functioning as a group, buffeting against one another elbow to elbow, that our prickles are shorn and our predispositions turned to mush. As a microcosm of the entire human family we must learn to develop our own strengths while at the same time honoring our fellows undergoing the same process. Our interactions with one another create the environment and feedback that replicate the idea of a cocoon on a larger basis. Our self-focus and personal agendas must undergo radical change. With the necessity of looking into one another's eyes we are made to see ourselves more clearly, so that through a more lucid consciousness we are transformed and thus able to participate in building a more effective nucleus of the universal brotherhood of all.
 
It is neither simple nor easy, but our work as a Society draws each of us into the chaos of transformation and thereby recreates us to be contributing parts of the larger whole. By working together we bring about change in ourselves, from being selfishly ground-based caterpillars into the winged creatures of selfless service. Just as the individual has to experience trials and setbacks as a part of growth, so also the Society has to undergo the trauma of changes. To become a butterfly is difficult. It is not free, but it is worth it.
 
After a contentious election in 1954, Sidney Cook, National Vice President, wrote:
What is tremendously important is that after any electoral event in the Theosophical Society there be a renewal of our sense of oneness. So deep is the knowledge of our brotherhood—it is the very foundation cement of our Society's being—that when the partisanship ceases the true nature of our brotherly relationship and purpose again comes rapidly to the surface and directs our deliberations, our decisions and our actions. . . . Here lies the real test. It is in our groups, lodges, committees, boards, that our deepest principle must most evidently prevail. It is there we become or fail to become the nucleus upon which the whole welfare of the Society rests and upon which its whole vital work must be based. There can be no understanding of the Wisdom, no comprehension of the work without it.
 
Now that the exaggerations of difference, fanned during an election, have disappeared, let the enthusiasm of our brotherhood possess us (The American Theosophist, August 1954, p. 150).

Explorations: The Power of Sangha in Theosophical Work

By Vicente Hao Chin

Originally printed in the SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2008 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Chin, Vicente Hao. "Explorations: The Power of Sangha in Theosophical Work." Quest  96.5 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2008):186-187.

 

ONE ENCOUNTERS THE AGELESS WISDOM mainly through two avenues: the first is through books, and the other is through people. It is the second that I believe has a greater impact on influencing someone to walk the spiritual path. I may read a book on karma, and after reading it, nod my head and say, "Oh, yes, this is true. I believe in karma," and end there. It is rare that reading a book alone will trigger a basic redirection of one's life path, although this does happen. But, it is when we meet someone whose life strikes a chord of truth within us, and are continuously exposed to such a person, that we realize the power of such association in creating turning points in our lives. Allow me to share four facets of this power of long-term association with spiritually inclined people, in our case, the Theosophical sangha.
 
The first is the chance to begin. We are introduced to a new way of life when we meet people who embody such a life and worldview. We notice within them a different kind of inner power; one of equanimity and wisdom that goes beyond the smartness and cunningness that we normally see all around us.
 
My first encounter with the ageless wisdom was through a orange-robed yogi who spoke at our college. I do not remember what he talked about, but after the lecture I approached him and asked to be taught how to meditate. The following Sunday I received my introduction to raja yoga, which led me to the Theosophical Society. There I met a lady who was to have an enduring influence on my young life. I have been involved with the Theosophical Society ever since, and my life has never been the same. The first power of sangha, then, is the chance to begin our initial steps towards the spiritual path in this life. The right community can kindle the spiritual fire within.
 
Kindling the spiritual fire is but the first step. This flame must be sustained, and here we encounter the second power of the sangha, the power to nurture. Being with a spiritual group like the TS, not just an intellectual debating society but a living spiritual community, enables us to sustain our initial effort to tread the path toward the higher life.
 
It is not easy trying to live according to one's principles. The worldly life has its own smart rules that sneer at integrity and truthfulness, at spirituality and selflessness, at meditation and nonacquisitiveness. It offers so many tantalizing experiences and sights that it is easy for one to get carried away. The sangha enables us to sustain our sight of the distant light ahead of us, or, to put it another way, to constantly be aware of this inner vision of the truer life. The spiritual community sustains and energizes this inner insight that begins as a series of intermittent sparks and becomes a tiny unsteady flame that needs to be gently fanned for it not to be blown out.
 
My parents were businesspeople. Being the eldest in the family, I was expected to pursue the life of a businessman after I graduated. The people around me, the immediate surrounding culture, my uncles and relatives, were of similar business minds. It is hard to say what I would be doing today if it I had not encountered yoga and the Theosophical Society. The weekly association with Theosophists had a sustaining impact in my young life, such that despite being involved in the business world, I was never fully immersed in or carried away by it. One becomes like the double-headed eagle, capable of seeing in two directions: the life in the outer world, and the life in the inner. This dual vision is one of the most crucial stages in one's effort to live the higher life. It keeps one's feet on the ground, cognizing one's duties and one's humanity, but at the same time not losing sight of the reality of our transcendent nature.
 
The third power of the sangha is the power to inspire. This, of course, depends upon the type of organization or group one is associated with. Speaking of my own exposure to the Theosophical Society, I may say that encountering certain individuals in the Society has pivotally uplifted my own small efforts, giving strength to my young wings. This is possible because we see embodied in certain individuals the fruits of the wisdom and the worthiness of such a life. We realize that some day, we too can reach such heights, such levels of integration.
 
The power of example is a very potent one. People are the highest embodiments of truth outside of ourselves. They give us conviction and certainty about the validity of the spiritual or theosophic way of life. The deep, balanced, and exemplary lives of spiritual people are the proof that the wisdom is ultimately sound and that committing our lives to the higher life is worth it. Finally, the fourth power of the sangha is the power to teach how to truly serve. Again, this depends upon which particular group one associates. When there is at least one person in the group who exhibits the quality of cheerful and spontaneous service, we may be blessed with the discovery of, perhaps, the most important activity that a human being can engage in the life of service.
 
Most people are not naturally endowed with a service-oriented nature. On the contrary, we almost always start with selfishness. The budding spirituality that inclines towards selfless service needs to be nurtured in an environment that is not cynical about compassion and the giving of oneself.
 
It is rather unfortunate that the practical man or woman is often subconsciously nurtured to think that one should do certain things only when there is a resultant personal gain from it. In a world of competition, the aim is to get ahead, to acquire more, to gain. One even learns that it is smart to use Machiavellian ways to surge ahead. I was not lacking in such exposure, however, the timeless principles of the ageless wisdom constantly reminded me to look the other way, to be willing to lose, to give way, or to assist, if doing so would mean lightening the burden of someone. These principles taught me that there is no such thing as an enemy. We are all travelers or pilgrims in quest of a distant paradise. Let us not quarrel about precious stones or jewels that we may have picked up along the way. We will have to divest ourselves of them eventually and enter the sacred land holding each other's hands, not jewels and stones.
 
Our journeys are not independent of one another, but intertwined in complex and mysterious ways so that the joys and pains of others are really shared by everyone. The spiritual community teaches us how to serve; not in the way a merchant would give his goods in exchange for something in return, but to give and serve unconditionally. It is truly a difficult lesson to learn because the encrusted ego would like to continue to strengthen itself, and is not willing to let go of its imagined treasures without a corresponding gain. The sangha has the power to soften and melt such encrustations so that one day, in one life, the soul will be ready to let go of that center called the self and awaken to the Self Universal.
 
The Theosophical community is indeed a blessing to those whose lives revolve around its sphere of influence. It has, first, the power to allow a soul to begin the quest; second, it has the power to nurture the flame that sustains the quest; it has the power to inspire and uplift the soul to transcending heights; and, finally, it has the power to teach how to truly serve without self.
 
The Theosophical sangha, while bestowing blessings and power on the pilgrim soul, does not demand for itself any allegiance to any doctrine or dogma. It is a sangha that points not to itself, but to something beyond itself. This is the transcendent power of a truly spiritual sangha. One feels truly blessed to be under its motherly wings.
 
For our part, let us share in nurturing the spiritual quality of the Theosophical sangha for the sake of future pilgrims to come. Let our programs, activities, and gatherings always be imbued with a wisp of the eternal. And let this begin with our tiniest actions, with the casual words that flow from our lips, with the daily fleeting thoughts that cross our minds, until our own lives have become permeated with the soundless melody of the song of life, the song of the eternal. Then, truly, every new pilgrim will be in the midst of a genuinely transformative community, the Theosophical Society.

 

Vicente Hao Chin, Jr. is president of the Theosophical Society in the Philippines; founder and chairman of the Golden Link School, which focuses on bringing Theosophical principles and ideals to primary school children; and editor of the chronological edition of The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett. This article is from a talk given at Summer National Gathering in 2007.

September - October 2008

VOLUME 96, NUMBER 5

 

Contents

Viewpoint: Butterflies Are Not Free
By Betty Bland

The Man Who Met the Masters:
Colonel Henry Steel Olcott
By John Algeo

The Light of the Russian Soul:
A Personal Memoir of Early Russian Theosophy
By Elena F. Pisareva, translated by George M. Young

The Universal Brotherhood of Humanity
By Edward Abdill

Explorations: The Power of Sangha in Theosophical Work
By Vicente Hao Chin

From the Archives:
Passage to India: A Mission from the Masters
By Paula Chernyshev Finnegan

The Light of the Russian Soul: A Personal Memoir of Early Russian Theosophy

The Light of the Russian Soul: A Personal Memoir of Early Russian Theosophy

By Elena F. Pisareva

Originally printed in the SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2008 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Pisareva, Elena F. "The Light of the Russian Soul: A Personal Memoir of Early Russian Theosophy." Quest  96.5 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2008):171-174.

The following extracts are taken from a new translation by George M. Young of a never before published account of Theosophy in Russia before and until the Russian Revolution. The author, Elena Pisareva, focuses especially on the early leader of Russian Theosophists, Anna Kamensky, some of whose activities these extracts describe. 

NINA GERNET DESERVES TO BE CONSIDERED the first pioneer of Theosophy in Russia. She traveled abroad annually, attended most European Theosophical congresses, became acquainted with Annie Besant, and at great personal risk smuggled forbidden Theosophical literature into Russia. The main repository for this literature was in St. Petersburg, in the residence of a childhood friend, Anna Kamensky, who had attended secondary school with Nina in Geneva.
 
Anna Kamensky was born on August 25, 1867, near St. Petersburg. Until the age of fifteen, she enjoyed a very happy childhood, first in Germany and then in Geneva, where she finished her secondary education. Her dream was to attend a university, but at that time her mother's financial situation had become desperate, so they were forced to return to their homeland. After Anna and Nina had finished school, both families, the Kamenskys and Gernets, returned to Russia.
 
Anna was deeply involved in the Enlightenment movement, begun in Russia on the initiative of progressive groups with the intention of liberally informing the Russian people. The initial stimulus for the rise of Theosophy in Russia was an unexpected event in Anna's life. As mentioned above, Nina Gernet had left a collection of Theosophical literature at Anna Kamensky's residence and repeatedly urged her to become acquainted with these works, insisting, "This is just right for you."
 
But Anna had to spend all day giving lessons in French in order to support her family: a mother, an aunt, and two younger sisters. She devoted all her free time between lessons to her social enlightenment activities. Owing to this unending task, she was not able to follow her friend's wishes until an unfortunate event resulted in involuntary leisure.
 
In 1899, while hurrying to a lesson, Anna Kamensky slipped on the street, fell, and broke a leg. This accident forced her to stay in bed for an entire month. She remembered the collection of Theosophical literature and asked for whichever book was at the top of the trunk holding Nina Gernet's Theosophical volumes. That book turned out to be Annie Besant's In the Outer Court. From the first page, Anna was so captivated that she read the whole book straight through during the night. When she had finished, it seemed to her that "before her a veil had been torn and she beheld the entire path of humanity and the entire meaning of suffering."
 
After reading Annie Besant's book In the Outer Court, Anna immediately became a member of the English Section of the Theosophical Society, and in 1902 set off for London, where she met Annie Besant, who had come there to preside at the convention. Shortly afterwards, Anna wrote Besant a letter in which she described her soul's current state of development and her wish to pursue enlightenment through Theosophical work. In reply to this letter, Annie Besant invited her for a visit and after a prolonged conversation declared that she would accept Anna as her personal pupil.

 

Tolstoy and Theosophy 

Leo Tolstoy, although not directly connected with the history of the Theosophical Society in Russia, had a sympathetic attitude toward Theosophy. He took a course in Theosophy and read our Theosophical Herald, thanks to being constantly in touch with his daughter-in-law Sofia Tolstoy, who was one of the first to join the Russian Theosophical Society and was an active member. She made it her usual practice to go to Yasnaya Polyana, where Tolstoy lived, with the final proofs of articles for the Theosophical Herald, which he read carefully. On one of them were such notations in his hand as "true," "good," and "very good." From these notations it was clear that he accepted the entire ethical side of Theosophical teaching and shared it.
 
In the summer of 1908 Anna Kamensky and I visited Tolstoy. During the whole afternoon we were there, Tolstoy spent it in conversation with us, paying careful attention to everything that concerned Theosophy. I gave him an account of my first encounter with Theosophy in the park of the Rikli sanatorium, where all the patients spent the time from morning to dinner in direct oneness with nature, barefoot, in just their smocks. I noticed six individuals who were all behaving with such good will and attentiveness to others that I decided they all surely belonged to the same spiritual society. When I made their acquaintance, I learned to my great surprise that they were all from different countries and had first met here at the Rikli sanatorium. Noticing my astonishment, one of them, an English woman replied smiling: "This similarity is natural, we are all members of the Theosophical Society." This imprint of nobility on the human soul was what drew me toward Theosophy.
 
After listening to my story, Tolstoy repeated several times with great animation, "That's how I understand it! That's how it really is! Not just words, it's a person that causes change, that's the main thing!"
 
Afterwards, Sofia Tolstoy told me that, when we had left and over the next several days, her father-in-law kept repeating my story to new visitors, and each time he would conclude, "That's how it really is! That's the main thing!"
 
We all loved him. He awakened our conscience. He recognized karma and reincarnation, but he would declare, "None of that is important, only one thing matters: love one another, and all the rest will follow."

 

Search and Seizure 

In 1920, when the activities of all societies were curtailed, including those of the Theosophical Society, one night the government conducted a search of the Theosophical Center. The investigator had an order for the arrest of Anna Kamensky, but at the time she happened to be out of the city, at the Lesny sanatorium, where her mother had just been buried and she herself lay ill. During the search, the editorial secretary, Tsetselia Gelmboldt, demonstrated remarkable self-control and presence of mind, thanks to which she managed to save Annie Besant's letters to Anna. The portraits of the Masters also, by some miracle, remained and were not seized. The search did not uncover anything dangerous; nevertheless the agents of the Secret Police took away many papers, manuscripts, and letters that were stored there.
 
On the next day after the search of the headquarters of the Theosophical Society, a soldier appeared with a warrant to arrest Anna Kamensky and take her to the Secret Police. Tsetselia began to explain to the soldier that Anna was out of the city, lying ill, and could not appear. The soldier turned out to be goodhearted and advised her to go herself and personally explain the reason for the absence of the chairwoman.
 
Tsetselia went immediately to the Secret Police but had not even finished her explanations when the official started to shout at her and threaten that, if they were to go into hiding, he would send both of them to exile in Tmutarakan! To this, Tsetselia replied that they would not think of going into hiding, that Anna was just lying sick at Lesny. "I'll give you my word that in a week, when she is better, she herself will come to you." In answer to this, the policeman began to shout that such promises would not work on him, that Anna Kamensky had to appear at once, otherwise "both of you are going to Tmutarakan!" To this Tsetselia calmly answered, "Well, so what! Even in Tmutarakan it may be all right if a person does not do wrong. A person carries light inside and shines it everywhere."
 
The policeman screwed up his eyes at her, and she continued, "We are not thinking of going into hiding. You can rely on our promise. If you were acquainted with our teachings, you would know that we cannot lie. And why are you shouting so? It's hard for me to listen, and you are wasting your energy; in order to understand one another, it's much better to speak in a normal voice, without straining." After these words the policeman started combing the back of his head and said in an entirely different tone of voice, "It's true, this is just a habit we have. You can go, just so Anna Kamensky shows up here in a week!" When Tsetselia was walking away, he got up and stopped her: "Wait! I'll give you a pass!" Later she found out that without this piece of paper they would not have let her out.
 
After a week passed, Anna had just managed to return from the sanatorium when she was sent a notice to appear at the Secret Police in person. She at once set off, and her devoted friend Tsetselia decided to go with her as well. This was very risky, since those who entered the doors of the Secret Police for the most part never came out again.
 
They were led into the office of the investigator, and then separated. Tsetselia was taken into an adjacent room, and each of them was given a printed questionnaire to which detailed answers were required. One of the questions was "How do you regard the commune?" They were both interrogated; although they were in different rooms, they both answered in the same way, word for word, saying that for Theosophists a spiritual community was one of the ideals of the future.
 
The investigator tried to trap them and to upset them with shouts and crude insults. He called them "enemies of the people," accusing them of underground intrigues, and threatened them with prison and exile if they did not sincerely confess all their crimes. In passing he questioned them about friends and colleagues, trying to obtain their names and addresses. When they did not answer these questions, the investigator grew more abusive.
 
He began to accuse them of sabotage and parasitism, to which they responded that they wanted to work but they were persecuted everywhere and prevented in every way possible from laboring for the benefit of the people. On hearing this, the investigator stunned them. He proposed that Anna become head of a New Spiritual Academy, where she would be free to propagate Theosophy, but only on one condition: she must convince people that there was no God and that every religion was a false doctrine.
 
Tsetsilia, in her turn, was offered the post of nothing more or less than the Commissar of Public Enlightenment. When she declined, the investigator gave her a penetrating look and asked why she had refused. "Because," she replied, "I do not consider myself qualified for such an important and responsible job. I do not have enough knowledge for it." "Nonsense!" shouted the investigator. "We pull a peasant away from his plow and put him in a responsible post, and he does not refuse!" "Because he does not realize," declared Tsetselia, "that he does not have the knowledge and does not have a sense of responsibility, but I have enough of both to understand how much one needs to know in order to be a good Commissar of Public Enlightenment."
 
Anna also refused the honor offered, and they continued to interrogate her for five more hours. Finally Anna changed her tone and sharply and energetically expressed her exasperation that innocent citizens had to undergo such an inquisition. After that the investigator changed his tone, stopped shouting, and let them go.

 

Escape from Soviet Russia 

Anna and Tsetselia managed to flee at the beginning of June 1921 through the forests and swamps of Finland.
 
At that time in St. Petersburg, several secret organizations conducted refugees across the border. Anna and Tsetselia were able to make contact with one of them. The plan of escape was as follows. One of the Finnish milkmaids who brought milk into St. Petersburg from a village by the border volunteered to ride with Anna and Tsetsilia as far as the next railway station and then lead them through the forest to her house in the village. There they would rest, and at dawn two Finnish smugglers were supposed to come for them and lead them over a nearby river that separated Russia and Finland.
 
On the day set for departure, Anna and Tsetsilia dressed in proletarian clothes and covered their heads with kerchiefs like those worn by peasant women. Shouldering knapsacks that contained all necessary toilet articles, one change of underwear, the Gospels, and the Bhagavad Gita, they set off on their perilous journey.
 
All went well as the fugitives traveled by rail and then walked through the forest, following the milkmaid and pretending that she was walking by herself and that they did not know her. But just when they were getting close to her village, the milkmaid suddenly noticed on a tree some kind of sign indicating that a Red Army patrol was in the vicinity.
 
She left the fugitives in the forest and ran ahead by herself into the village. This happened just as it was starting to get dark, and soon night had completely fallen. Anna and Tsetsilia started to feel creepy, waiting there in a strange forest. When the milkmaid returned, they learned from her that Red Army troops had indeed entered the village, and to go there would be dangerous. They would need to take a new route through forests and swamps and avoid the road for ten miles northward. The milkmaid led them down a ravine, where the smugglers, two healthy young Finns, were waiting for them; then she went off alone to the village.
 
All night until dawn, the refugees walked through the woods and swamps but not once did they experience fear or doubt. The warm June night, the starry sky, spreading out over them, and the forest thickets all seemed like an enchanted kingdom. They felt that an angel was guiding them and that, without a doubt, everything would turn out well. Both of them experienced a profound sense of peace.
 
And indeed everything did go well right to the end, and their peaceful mood was broken on only two occasions. Just before they left the forest, the smugglers took out revolvers and demanded immediate payment, excusing their demand by pointing out the possibility of meeting up with the patrol that was threatening them all with death. They wanted to be paid, no matter what. But Anna, considering the situation, calmly and firmly reminded them that by their mutual agreement payment was to be made after crossing the border, and not before; then the guides relented.
 
They experienced a second alarming moment when they began to go down toward the river. No one could be seen, there was complete silence, but dawn had already started to break. Going down to the very edge of the river and considering themselves safe, the smugglers began to take off their shoes to ford the river barefoot. At that moment, Tsetselia grew frightened, thinking it would take too long to get her shoes off, and she worried that Red Army troops might suddenly appear at the last second, So she plunged into the river, not waiting for the smugglers to take off their shoes or show her where the ford was. Anna followed after her, and both came up onto the far shore completely soaked, while the guides crossed the dry way.
 
When they stepped up onto Finnish soil, Anna crossed herself and said, "Thank God! We are on free land!" And Tsetselia stretched out her arms toward the shore they had left and in tears declared, "All our brothers and sisters are still left there."

 

George M. Young, Ph.D., is a Slavicist who has taught Russian and Comparative Literature at Grinnell and Dartmouth Colleges, although for many years he ran a fine arts and auction business. He is the author of many articles and books on Russian literature and religious philosophy. Young currently teaches English literature at the University of New England. These excerpts are from his translation of Elena Pisareva's journal, The Light of the Russian Soul: A Personal Memoir of Early Russian Theosophy (Quest Books, 2008).

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