Service, who has written the two books named at the head of this article professedly to adapt Occultism to Western modes of thought. He claims to have been entrusted with a mission to do this from the chiefs or ' adepts' of this occult association, of whom we have presently to speak. This gentleman asserts that 'it is chiefly in the East that Occultism is still kept up, in India and in adjacent countries,' while with regard to their actual knowledge he declares that they inherit from their great predecessors a science which deals not merely with physics, but with the constitution and capacities of the human soul and spirit. Modern science has discovered the circulation of the blood; occult science understands the circulation of the life-principle. Modern physiology deals with the body only; occultism with the soul as well.'1

The masters or adepts who are asserted to be the present depositaries of these stupendous powers are called Mahatmas (brothers) or Arhats. They are not, however, accessible to the general mass of mankind, or even at all times to their disciples or followers. A veil of mystery is flung over their places of abode, their powers, occupations, and modes of communication with the few persons (chelas, that is, disciples) who are to some extent in their confidence. Their existence is assumed to be demonstrated by their transmission of letters to and fro by other means than the ordinary post; by the showering of notes, roses, and such like, upon people's heads at unexpected times; the placing of answers to letters in places apparently inaccessible by ordinary means, and similar exploits for the most part showing (as it strikes us) a marked degree of eccentricity of character, and a want of that intellectual gravity which the possession of great knowledge and exalted powers might be supposed to impart. Let us give an example, in which Mr. Sinnett declares that he is relating his own experience :

'I have repeatedly heard Madame Blavatsky called in this way, when our own little party being alone some evening we have all been quietly reading. A little "ting" would suddenly sound, and Madame Blavatsky would get up and go to her room to attend to whatever occult business may have been the motive of her summons. A very pretty illustration of the sound, as thus produced by some brother-initiate at a distance, was afforded one evening under these circumstances. A lady, a guest at another house at Simla, had been dining with us, when about eleven o'clock I received a note from her host, enclosing a letter which he asked me to get Madame Blavatsky to send on by occult means to a certain member of the

1 The Occult World, p. 3.

great fraternity, to whom both he and I had been writing. I shall explain the circumstances of this correspondence more fully later on. We were all anxious to know at once-before the lady with us that evening returned up the hill, so that she could take back word to her host-whether the letter could be sent ; but Madame Blavatsky declared that her own powers would not enable her to perform the feat. The question was whether a certain person, a half-developed brother then in the neighbourhood of Simla, would give the necessary help. Madame Blavatsky said she would see if she could "find him,” and taking the letter in her hands, she went out into the verandah, where we all followed her. Leaning on the balustrade, and looking over the wide sweep of the Simla valley, she remained for a few minutes perfectly motionless and silent, as we all were; and the night was far enough advanced for all common-place sounds to have settled down, so that the stillness was perfect. Suddenly, in the air before us, there sounded the clear note of an occult-bell. "All right," cried Madame, "he will take it." And duly taken the letter was shortly afterwards.' ' This lady, Madame Blavatsky, who is here introduced to the reader by Mr. Sinnett as possessed of and exercising such remarkable powers, is, we are told (in another place), ‘a Russian gentlewoman, grand-daughter of Princess Dolgorouki, of the elder branch, and widow of General N. V. Blavatsky, governor during the Crimean War and for many years of Erivan, in Armenia. This lady, after devoting herself to occult pursuits for some thirty years, repaired to a Himalayan retreat, where she spent seven years under the immediate direction of the Brothers, and was initiated and instructed for her mission.' She was then dismissed to the outer world, where she has been advocating occultism in various countries, but principally in India and the East, ever since, by such displays of her peculiar powers as that narrated above, mostly, if not invariably, in the private houses of her friends and acquaintances. If the reports of these ladies and gentlemen are to be accepted simply as facts, there can be no doubt that she is able to do a variety of strange things. But the question at once arises, Were they deceived or not? Were the so-called 'phenomena genuine results of the exercise of abnormal powers, or were they due simply to clever conjuring? And it is precisely this issue which is raised in the harshest and most unmistakable form, by the publication of a series of letters in the Christian College Magazine for September and October 1884, purporting to be from Madame B. to a certain Madame Coulomb, a confidential agent who had been, with her husband, resident for some considerable time at the 'head-quarters' of the Theosophical Society at Adyar, Madras, and, as she asserts,

1 The Occult World, p. 41.

the confederate of Madame Blavatsky in the production of many of these phenomena. These letters, whatever judgment may be ultimately formed respecting them, cannot possibly be ignored in any critical examination of the occult question. The members of the Theosophical Society, indeed, protest that they do not attach much importance to the phenomena.' But it is unquestionable that the whole movement will be morally discredited if found to have been based on, or at all events supported by, fraud and trickery. Under these circumstances, it may be a matter of surprise that the Committee of the Theosophical Society should report against the sifting of the matter in a court of law. Nor does the alleged shrinking from giving the world the spectacle of a spiteful cross-examination' (Report, p. 104) tend at all to mend matters. But it is not our business to decide the point; nor, indeed—although we have read with the greatest care not only Madame Coulomb's Account of my Intercourse with Madame Blavatsky, and Mr. Gribble's Report of an Examination into the Blavatsky Correspondence, which pronounces for the genuineness of the letters, which two documents may be regarded, we imagine, as the case for the prosecution, but also (on the other side) Dr. Hartmann's Observations, the Theosophical Society Committee's 'Report,' and the other publications on this subject-do we feel capable of doing so. The 'Report' we mentioned just now of the Committee appointed by the General Council of the Theosophical Society on The Result of an Investigation' contains a detailed criticism by Madame Blavatsky herself upon the letters, partly admitting, partly denying them. But where the conflict of evidence is so great as it is here, we have no means of deciding which is right, and, indeed, no great interest in so doing. The so-called 'Occult Phenomena' are in no sense and in no point of view the onμɛîa μεγάλα και τέρατα which have weight to authenticate a new Evangel indeed, the general character is such as to arouse impatience rather than awe, and ridicule in place of wonder. It is difficult to linger gravely over the details of a picnic party, and the wonderful (!) event described at much length which took place there, and which we are invited to regard as ' a most wonderful display of a power of which the modern scientific world has no comprehension whatever' :

1 We suppose it would be hardly fair to call it a 'packed' one, but yet it seems to have consisted entirely of thoroughgoing partizans of Madame Blavatsky, without one outsider or independent critic.

'We set out at the appointed time next morning. We were originally to have been a party of six, but a seventh person joined us just before we started. After going down the hill for some hours, a place was chosen in the wood near the upper waterfall for our breakfast; the baskets that had been brought with us were unpacked, and, as usual at an Indian picnic, the servants at a little distance lighted a fire, and set to work to make tea and coffee. Concerning this, some joking arose over the fact that we had one cup and saucer too few, and some one laughingly asked Madame Blavatsky to create another cup and saucer. There was no set purpose in the proposal at first, but when Madame Blavatsky said it would be very difficult, but that if we liked she would try, attention was of course at once arrested. Madame Blavatsksy, as usual, held mental conversation with one of the Brothers, and then wandered a little about in the immediate neighbourhood of where we were sitting-that is to say, within a radius of half a dozen to a dozen yards from our picnic cloth -I closely following, waiting to see what would happen. Then she marked a spot on the ground, and called to one of the gentlemen of the party to bring a knife to dig with. The place chosen was the edge of a little slope covered with thick weeds and grass and shrubby undergrowth. The gentleman with the knife-let us call him Xas I shall have to refer to him afterwards-tore up these in the first place with some difficulty, as the roots were tough and closely interlaced. Cutting then into the matted roots and earth with the knife, and pulling away the debris with his hands, he came at last on the edge of something white, which turned out, as it was completely excavated, to be the required cup. A corresponding saucer was also found after a little more digging. Both objects were in among the roots, which spread everywhere through the ground, so that it seemed as if the roots were growing round them. The cup and saucer both corresponded exactly, as regards their pattern, with those that had been brought to the picnic, and constituted a seventh cup and saucer when brought back to where we were to have breakfast. I may as well add at once that afterwards, when we got home, my wife questioned our principal khitmutgar, as to how many cups and saucers of that particular kind we possessed. In the progress of years, as the set was an old set, some had been broken, but the man at once said that nine teacups were left. When collected and counted that number was found to be right, without reckoning the excavated cup. That made ten, and as regards the pattern, it was one of a somewhat peculiar kind, bought a good many years previously in London, and which assuredly could never have been matched in Simla."

Yet this is the episode of 'the Simla Cup' which we are told has become historical.' We cannot say that we feel greatly impressed either with what Mr. Sinnett calls 'the celebrated brooch incident,' and the impression we have when we are

1 The Occult World, p. 47.

told of a shower of cut roses falling on the heads of the writer and his friends when sitting at dinner in the hall of a house lent them by a native prince, is merely that of the busy hands of some 'tricksy Puck,' human in all probability, and not at all that of a wonder-working sage. Mr. Sinnett, indeed, did, it would seem, on one occasion propose a test which, far from having the fanciful and foolish character of most of the ' phenomena,' was grave, sensible, and businesslike, and would, we are free to allow, have proved 'the possibility of obtaining by occult agency physical results which were beyond the control of ordinary science': that is, in his own words, ' the production in our presence in India (Simla) of a copy of the London Times of that day's date' (Occult World, p. 64)—but then, he was refused: and among all the cloud of pseudowonders, nothing of that kind has ever been done, so far as we know; though certainly such a result would be of a perfectly natural kind, and one that human science and commercial enterprise may conceivably hope some day to see realized. So, then, it would seem that any number of petty wonders may be performed by the skill or power of the occultists, but nothing serious or important, nothing unmistakably a 'work of power,' that should bear adequate witness to the science and mastery which had brought it to pass. 'Precisely because the test of the London newspaper would close the mouths of the sceptics,' we are told that Koot Hoomi' wrote to his admiring disciple, it was inadmissible. But wherefore, most grave and reverend Signior? Why provoke and feed public curiosity, and yet refuse to satisfy it? Refuse altogether, or yield altogether-either course is intelligible and may be right. But the middle course, to make high pretensions, and claim vast powers, while behaving at all times and places like the 'tricksy fiend' at the pantomime of a country fair, does not impress us with admiration of the elevating influences which occult studies have had, we are told, upon the minds of the 'adepts', or even show their possession of ordinary common sense. Some have doubted, we believe, whether the so-called Mahatmas or Masters,' and particularly the gentleman who rejoices in the euphonious name of 'Koot Hoomi,' had any real existence at all, and have thought them rather voces et præterea nihil, put forward by the leaders of the movement to cover and give greatness to their own indistinguished personalities. Whatever be the case with other occult names that have been mentioned, we at least do not doubt, from the perusal of the various letters and communications purporting to have come from him, that there