Masonic, Occult and Esoteric Online Library
H.P. Blavatsky As I Knew Her
By Alice Leighton Cleather
Chapter 6
I FIND that I digressed from my narrative at the time of H. P. B/s death, on May 8th, 1891. Late that afternoon I received a telegram at Harrow announcing the bare fact, and adding " Come at once." So my husband and I went straight off to Avenue Road. There we found everything quiet and calm, as was the " mortal coil " of our beloved Teacher, lying so peacefully in the shell of light wood destined for the crematory flames. The impression which stands out more clearly than any other in my recollections of that sad evening is the feeling I had that H. P. B. had completely gone. There was much talk at the time of her being still there in spirit, and so forth ; but, for me, it never seemed to be true. I did not venture to suggest such an idea to my col- leagues ; but it was an absolutely real one, and, at this distance of time, I am more than ever convinced of its truth. Lrfact, the influence of the Great Lodge, of which she alone had been the representative, was completely withdrawn, because the Society had definitely failed on inner planes of being and consciousness. It only remained for the result to work out on the material plane as indeed it very soon did.
I am well aware that hardly any of my contemporaries, now living, will agree with this view. In fact, the only one who ever definitely expressed it to me was Mrs. Chowne. Meeting her again (she was then living out of England) in London about the time of the disruption of the Society in 1895, she expressed herself most emphatically on the subject. " Do you believe H. P. B. would have left us if she could have carried the Movementthrough into the next century " ? she said, " Not for amoment ! " And I had to confess I agreed with herabsolutely.
The newspapers were full of H. P. B. at this time,and some of the obituary notices did her a certain measureof justice, though scarcely any showed real understandingof her and her work. The saddest reading of all, lookingover them again after the lapse of thirty years, is thecollection of articles written immediately after her deathby some of her pupils and admirers. Nearly all of theformer still living have turned away from her ; " they allforsook her," in the literal sense of these words.
H. P. B.'s body was cremated at Woking on Maynth, and Mr. Mead's address on that occasion wasdeeply moving and beautiful, spoken from the heart.He and I drove across London that evening from WaterlooStation to Avenue Road with the urn containing theashes all that remained of her mortal body. I thenrecalled that it was we two who had received the firstcopies of The Voice of the Silence from our Teacher'shands, at Lansdowne Road, barely two years earlier,and shortly before she left it for Avenue Road.
One more incident remains to be told. I brokedown in health about this time, and went up to Londonto consult H. P. B.'s clever physician, Dr. Z. Mennell.It was a memorable visit, lasting nearly two hours (hekept a roomful of patients waiting while we talked).Very little was said about my own health, so far as Iremember, except that I had " not a drop of good blood"in my body but would probably live, " by will," till Iwas eighty ! But we talked much of H. P. B. He toldme what an inspiration she had been to him in his medicalwork ; how much she had taught him about the natureof the body and its powers particularly the brain. Some of the things which she had demonstrated with her own organism, were so far beyond anything then known to medical science, that it would have been useless to lay them before the College of Physicians, of which I believe he was a distinguished member. He told me that he had brought one instance before them, but was met with such hopeless and determined scepticism that he never repeated the attempt.
As I have tried to show, in my H. P. Blavatsky : Her Life and Work for Humanity, she was one of the true Saviours of the race ; one of that deathless band of Great Ones " whose hands hold back the heavy Karma of the World " who " remain unselfish to the endless end."
