Masonic, Occult and Esoteric Online Library
H.P. Blavatsky As I Knew Her
By Alice Leighton Cleather
Chapter 3
P CHAPTER III. Formation of the Esoteric School. ASSING on to the time when the " Esoteric School of Theosophy " was formed in the autumn of 1888, I find the name of Mrs. Chowne immediately coming into my mind ; for she was intimately bound up with the circumstances and events attending my admission into that body. She and her husband, Colonel Chowne, were personal friends of H. P. B., who had stayed with them in India, where he was stationed when she was there (from '79 to '85) ; and she had no more loyal or staunch adherents and supporters. I had met Mrs. Chowne when I first joined the T. S., and we became friends immediately. Indeed, I stayed with them more than once in their London house after Colonel Chowne had retired from the service.
In Lucifer for October, 1888, a notice had appeared to the effect that an " Esoteric Section of the Theosophical Society" was to be formed under H. P. B., and that those who wished to join and abide by its Rules should send in their names. Mrs. Chowne and I, also Colonel Chowne, if I remember rightly, at once responded ; but for some time we heard nothing. Then, one day, Mrs. Chowne came down to Harrow to see me I was ill at the time bringing the E. S. T. Pledge from H. P. B. for me to write out and sign. She said that H. P. B. had told her that, on our sending in our signed Pledges, each one would be " tested " (i.e., " examined for fitness ") on inner planes, by the Master. Mrs. Chowne's exact words were, " taken out and tested. " Our past lives would be called up, and upon what was there seen and known of our real selves, would depend whether or not we wereaccepted as candidates. She told me later that whenshe handed our signed Pledges to H. P. B. she had looked very seriously almost solemnly at her, and said : " It is a great trust that you have given me."
So we waited ; days, even weeks passed, and nothing occurred. I had almost forgotten what Mrs. Chownehad warned me might happen, until, one Tuesday night, (it was Full Moon, I remember) I had the most wonderful experience, save one, that had ever happened to me. I knew I was myself, lying half awake, half asleep, in myown room at home. Yet I was also in an EgyptianTemple of extraordinary grandeur, and going through things quite unspeakable and most solemn. This experience began soon after 10 P.M., and almost exactly as a neighbouring church clock struck midnight I lost consciousness in an overpowering and almost terrible blaze of light, which seemed completely to envelope me. The next morning I recorded all I could remember in my diary, and on Thursday went up to Lansdowne Roadas usual for the Lodge meeting. I was a little early, but H. P. B. at work in the inner room must have knownwho had arrived, for she called me in, and turning round, said most seriously : " Master told me last night that you are accepted." Nothing more ; but I at once realised vividly that my experience the previous Tuesday night had indeed been my " testing." Thereupon I related the whole thing to H. P. B., who only nodded several times, but made no remark whatever about it.
Mrs. Chowne told me afterwards that she and her husband had had similar experiences, adding that only a few of the first applicants were so " tested "; that it did not, in fact, apply generally. Certainly I never heard from anyone else that they had been told what Mrs. Chowne told me. Members of the E. S. T. were all known by numbers (the uneven ones), and the Chownes and myself, and two others, since dead (as is Colonel Chowne also), received the first five single numbers. It may or may not have been a " coincidence," but it is a curious fact that the school numbers of both my boys (one of whom died comparatively young) were multiples of the number H. P. B. herself gave me when she wrote out and handed me my E. S. certificate.
One of the clauses of the original E. S. T. Pledge ran thus : " I pledge myself to support before the world the Theosophical Movement, its leaders and its members " Not long after the School, was formed, I made one of a number of the House inmates and workers at Lansdowne Road who were gathered together one evening in the den of the Secretary (then Mr. Bertram Keightley) upstairs ; there may have been six or eight of us. It was late (I was staying the night) and we were discussing an attack on H. P. B. in the Westminster Gazette, an evening paper, which had just come in. [It was this paper which in 1894 published the elaborate attack based on information furnished by Mr. W. R. Old (a member of the Inner Group) against Mr. Judge and his methods, which led to the disruption of the T. S. a year later.] Suddenly H. P. B.'s bell rang somewhat violently, and Mr. Keightley jumped up with some semi-jocular remark and ran downstairs to her room. I must confess that it had not occurred to any of us even to suggest replying to this attack, which, so far as I remember, was a scurrilous one. While Mr. Keightley was downstairs we just went on with our desultory talk ; after a few minutes he returned with a very long face and serious manner. He said we were under severe reproof by the Master, who (unseen, of course) had been in t:he room while we were so light-heartedly discussing the ^newspaper attack on our " Outer Head." He had descended immediately to H. P. B. in great displeasure,telling her to inform us that if this was our conception ofkeeping our newly-taken pledge we had better all resignat once. We at least I can speak for myself wereterribly ashamed, and all with one accord sat downatonce and wrote as good a defence and indignant protestas in us lay. I do not remember the sequel, but certainlyone, if not more, of those letters were inserted.
This incident was the seed of what later became thePress Bureau, formed for the express purpose of keepingtrack of such attacks and criticisms on H. P. B. and thework generally, and of seeing that they were promptlyand suitably dealt with. It became a most successfulinstitution, and the various Press .Cutting Agenciesprovided ample material and saved an enormous amountof search work. Mrs. Cooper-Oakley was in charge ofthe bureau, and sent out the cuttings to members mostable to deal with them. I was one of the staff of writers; and later, under Mr. Judge, I had entire charge of theEuropean Press Bureau. During this work I madeavaluable collection of cuttings, including all the obituarynotices of H. P. B.
Many a proof did I have of H. P. B.'s power of" hearing " and " seeing " at a distance ; things mostly toopersonal to relate and usually connected with reproofor instruction. Countess Wachtmeister bears witnessin her Reminiscences to these same powers in H. P. B.
One day, not very long before she moved away fromLansdowne Road, Mr. George Mead and I were with herin her little sanctum (the inner drawing-room). TheVoice of the Silence one of the most wonderful mysticalworks of this or any other time had just been published,and she was looking at one of the first copies. Suddenlyhanding it to us (it may have been one each ; I do notremember) she said something to the effect of How did we like it ? or, What did we think of it ? I forget the exact words. She was her most serious self. I opened the little book, haphazard, and read one or two verses, and the tears started involuntarily to my eyes, such was the beauty and pathos of the words I had read. I looked up at H. P. B., and was almost certain I saw the glimmer of a tear in hers ; but she abruptly changed the subject, and jumped down my throat about something or other. As I see it now, it was because to allow mere sentimental emotionalism to become linked with a theme too solemn and too deep for tears was dangerous. Too dangerous, I mean, for us Western people, with our "sensuous development of brain and nerves " (as she once wrote) ; and unworthy of the exalted nature of the subject-matter dealt with in the book. But I shall always believe I did see tears in her eyes at that moment always.
Almost the last in fact it was the very last incident I recollect of the Lansdowne Road days is, to me, the most touching and tragic of all my memories of H. P. B. It was the day before she left for 19, Avenue Road, Regent's Park, N.W., and as it was a lovely warm afternoon the Countess had taken her for a drive in Hyde Park, in the fashionable hour. Never shall I forget her return from that drive ; Mrs. CooperOakley and I were in the double drawing-room when she entered, followed by the Countess, in what seemed to be almost a passion ; but it was a passion of grief. She walked up and down the room, the tears streaming down her face, ejaculating from time to time : " Not a Soul among them not one ! " It was a heart-cry of grief, a poignant illustration and my first sight of that " helpless pity for the men of Karmic sorrow " (of which I had only just read in The Voice of the Silence) felt by those Great Ones who through countless lives have worked for the redemption of humanity.
A trained Occultist, like H. P. B., can see moreand far deeper than the mere semi-material aura visibleto most clairvoyants, with its ever-changing colours andthought-images. Such an one sees whether the aurareveals the presence of a Soul. This is seen and known,also by colour or vibration but vibration on a farhigher plane of consciousness than those reachable byordinary psychic vision. We commonly take for grantedthat each person must " have " a soul. Yet our Teacherstell us in unmistakable terms that such is not the case." We elbow soulless men and women at every step inlife," writes H. P. B. in Isis Unveiled (II, p. 369) ; and herMaster tells us that " He who defendeth not the persecutedand the helpless, who giveth not of his food to the starving,nor draweth water from his well for the thirsty, hath beenborn too soon in human shape." This is clear beyond ashadow of misunderstanding, and explains the natureof the grief felt by H. P. B. grief called forth by pity andcompassion for those helpless, soulless beings, " borntoo soon in human shape," whom she had that afternoonseen in their hundreds, in Hyde Park. It was somethingentirely above and beyond my comprehension; butit was divine if ever anything was. It was Buddhalike.
