History of the Adepts

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SPIRIT: Surely, the different meanings attached to this word are legion. According to the writer’s conception, Spirit, briefly stated, is the Formative principle of Life. More broadly defined, Spirit is the supreme principle of existence. The Tao of the Chinese mystic Lao Tzu: the immanent, all pervasive, formless power that is, at once, the primal source, the impulse, and the law through which we live and move and have our being. The ground of the universe is an illimitable ocean of formless substance in which the supreme spirit is the immanent principle. From this arises a psychical movement of unlimited extent which may be called the World Spirit. And this World Spirit is the psycho-physical basis of all movements, the source of all form visible or invisible. The old Chinese philosopher was right when he said “Tao is without limitation. Its depth is the source of whatever is.• I know not who gave it birth. It is more ancient than God.• This Tao, or Spirit, then, is the formless which manifests itself through form. Is immanent in matter, as energy, and gravity. [1 See Appendix IlI. 2 The “Tao TehKing.”] In organic life, as procreation, and love. In Art, as inspiration, and sympathy. In Science, as the insatiable thirst for knowledge. And in Religion, as faith and self-surrender to the highest ideal “I and the Father are one.”

The Quest of the Spirit, 1913.

Randolph 1863; Chintamon 1874; Britten 1876 and 1892; Grimke 1884, 1886, and 1900 ; Astley 1913

INTRODUCTION

CHINTAMON IN THEOSOPHICAL HISTORY

Henry Olcott’s credulity has been repeatedly depicted as the defining factor in his collaboration with Helena Blavatsky. The confidence with which he and HPB went to India was inspired largely by correspondence with Hurrychund Chintamon and destroyed soon after they met in Bombay. Four years later, Chintamon’s revelations to Richard Hodgson and the subsequent SPR Report forever changed Olcott’s relationship with Blavatsky and led to her forced departure from India.

The membership book of the Adyar Theosophical Society lists Hurrychund Chintamon as the second Indian member of the Society. By their own admission, Blavatsky and Olcott had been defrauded by Chintamon and learned as much within days of their arrival in Bombay in 1879, being handed an exorbitant bill for a welcoming ceremony and then learning that funds sent from New York to the Arya Samaj via Chintamon had not reached the intended recipients. He was expelled from both organizations as soon as the Theosophists compared notes with the Arya Samaj leaders and recognized signs of embezzlement.

Chintamon had played a crucial advisory role in the move of the TS to India, heretofore associated solely with his leadership of the Bombay Arya Samaj and status as representative of Swami Dayananda Saraswati. In India, Chintamon is remembered less for his dealings with the TS and Arya Samaj than as the father of Indian photography. In Photography: an Illustrated History, Martin W. Sandler writes “The early popularity of photography in India, particularly in Bombay, was also due in great measure to the contribution of one pioneer photographer. Hurrychind Chintamon…the most masterful and most successful of the early Indian photographers who captured carte-de-visite images of literary, political, and business figures, Chintamon’s most famous carte was a portrait of the Maharaja of Baroda. Thousands of these images were distributed throughout India.”[i]

Presumably his photographic expertise accounted for his presence in London in 1871 among an entourage of Indian rulers. He began an association with Freemasons in London that continued for more than twenty years.

In 1878 Chintamon authored a small pamphlet Discourse on Aryans and Freemasonry. A history of Lodge Rising Star of Western India identifies Chintamon as the first Hindu accepted into the craft there: “For the first time it was in this year [1872] that a Hindu Brother named Harichand Chintaman sought admission in the lodge as a visitor. As on the ground of their being polytheists and not monotheists the Hindus were not taken in the Order, a discussion arose but ultimately the Worshipful Master admitted the Brother as he belonged to a regularly constituted lodge of Masons in England and also held a certificate from the Grand Lodge.”[ii]

In the early 1890s Chintamon was again actively involved in the world of London Freemasonry, long past his associations with the Arya Samaj, Theosophical Society, and HBofL. He was quoted in Ars Quatour Coronatum in discussion at a meeting of the Quator Coronati Lodge in 1891 on the subject of the relationship of Masonry to Hinduism.[iii] Hence his Masonic affiliation both preceded and survived his subsequent attachments to the TS and the Arya Samaj.

An 1878 letter from Blavatsky to Chintamon suggests that he was useful to the TS and Arya Samaj efforts to recruit Indian royals because he knew rajas and maharajas by virtue of having photographed many of them.

“As for the future Fellows of our Indian branch, have your eyes upon the chance of fishing out of the great ocean of Hindu hated for Christian missionaries some of those big fish you can Rajahs, and whales known as Maharajahs. Could you not hook out for your Bombay branch either Gwalior (Scindia) or the Holkar of Indore—those most faithful and loyal subjects of the British (?).“[iv]

Why would Blavatsky expect Chintamon to be able and willing to “hook” rajahs and maharajas? His photographic career led him to be acquainted with many of them, and both of these maharajas did in fact eventually support the TS, presumably through Chintamon’s influence. Mahatma Letter #54 from Koot Hoomi refers to him as “the man who robbed the Founders and Dayanand of Rs. 4,000, deceived and imposed upon them from the first (so far back as New York), and then exposed and expelled from the Society ran away to England and is ever since seeking and thirsting for his revenge…showing letters from her, received by him while she was in America; and in which she is made to advise him to pretend— he is a ‘Brother’ and thus deceive the Brtish theosophists the better….”[v]  But in 1878, before meeting him, in an article “A Society Without a Dogma” HPB referred to “the famous commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita of our brother Hurrychund Chintamon” and quotes him to the effect that “In Hindustan, as in England, there are doctrines for the learned, and dogmas for the unlearned; strong meat for men and milk for babes; facts for the few, and fictions for the many, realities for the wise, and romances for the simple; esoteric truth for the philosopher, and exoteric fable for the fool.” Within a few years Chintamon would accuse Blavatsky of adding to the stock of Indian fictions and fables and produce documentary evidence that supported his accusation. Unlike the Coulomb accusers, however, Chintamon’s testimony was not public and self- incriminating. His complicity with Blavatsky in manipulating and misleading Olcott and Dayananda was never discussed publicly, perhaps as a reward for his usefulness to the Society for Psychical Research investigation of the Theosophical Society. Even after Chintamon’s departure from India, Swami Dayananda and the TS continued in amicable relations for another three years, but in 1882 the Swami publicly denounced the Theosophists, calling Blavatsky a fraud and juggler. Richard Hodgson’s 1885 Report relied in important details on the testimony of a correspondent of Blavatsky whose initials are H.C., and context makes it clear that Chintamon was his informant. A letter dated May 22, 1878 from Blavatsky to Chintamon was transcribed by Eleanor Sidgwick and is now the archives of the Society for Psychical Research. This date is highly significant as the official date of the amalgamation of the Theosophical Society and the Arya Samaj. The transcription was published in the first volume of the Letters of H.P. Blavatsky. Sidgwick paraphrases at times but mostly the letter seems to be directly transcribed. HPB acknowledges Chintamon’s last letter and discusses the amalgamation of the TS and the Arya Samaj. She writes that C.C. Massey, perhaps the most devoted member in England, is son of an MP and a congenital mystic, adding “I feel perfectly sure, that if Pundit Dayanand will write to him any request he will joyfully comply.” She then appeals to Chintamon to induce Dayananda to sign what might later be called two Mahatma letters, one to Massey and one to Emily Kislingbury, first English Spiritualist convert to the TS, composed by HPB.

In 1880 when Mahatma correspondence between Koot Hoomi and A.P. Sinnett was inaugurated, Dayananda was apparently taken by surprise and felt betrayed by this development. He wrote to her “Madame Blavatsky…whatever you had written to me from America, or discussed with me at Saharanpur, Meerut, Kashi, etc….does not seem to conform with your present activities.”[vi] Chintamon himself lent a hand with HPB’s schemes to impress Massey, however. Olcott and HPB stopped in London in early 1879 en route to Bombay from New York, and during this visit they saw Massey at the home of a mutual friend, the medium Mary Hollis-Billing. After materializing a Japanese teapot, HPB told Massey to reach into his overcoat pocket, where he found a card case containing Hurrychund’s signature on a slip of paper.

In the days immediately following her arrival in Bombay, before the irreparable break with Chintamon, HPB performed a phenomenon that again involved the use of his name. After meeting Ross Scott, who would become the son-in-law of Allan O. Hume, she offered to perform any phenomenon he wanted, and he asked that a handkerchief embroidered with her name be magically transformed into one embroidered with Hurrychund’s. In Olcott’s recounting of the story in Old Diary Leaves, Scott both chose unprompted the specific type of phenomenon—handkerchief replacement—and the name that he wanted on the handkerchief, and was so impressed that he immediately donated to the Arya Samaj: “She gave Scott to hold tight in his hand the embroidered corner of her handkerchief, retaining the opposite corner herself. After a minute or so she told him to look. He did so, found the substitution of names had been made, Hurrychund’s being there in the same kind of embroidery, and counted out into Hurrychund’s hand five golden sovereigns.”[vii]

In 1884, after meeting Chintamon and hearing his account of his dealings with the TS, Massey announced his resignation as British TS President, writing “The evidence for the existence of Adepts — or ’Mahatmas,’ since that term is now preferred — and even of their connection with individual members of the Theosophical Society, need not here concern us. We may, and I do, accept it; and yet see in their methods, or rather in the things that are said and done in their names, such deviations from our Philistine sense of truth and honour as to assure us that something is very wrong somewhere.”[viii]

What can we conclude from the brief involvement of Chintamon successively in the Arya Samaj, the TS, the HBofL, and the SPR? Olcott and Dayananda both entered into the TS/Arya Samaj affiliation in good faith, believing what they were told by HPB and Chintamon respectively. But HPB and Chintamon both acted in bad faith for different reasons and in different ways. Since Dayananda could not read English and the TS founders could not read Hindi, by acting as an intermediary Chintamon had the power to shape each group’s perception of the other. In his enthusiasm to promote the alliance he portrayed each group as being more compatible with the other in goals and beliefs than they actually were; it took several years for the resulting confusion to work itself out in a series of conflicts as Dayananda got better acquainted with Olcott and HPB. HPB approached the situation in bad faith in that her words indicated vast respect for the Swami as a spiritual teacher, yet at the same time she was concocting Mahatma letters to manipulate and deceive her closest supporters in England and intending that the Swami legitimize this fraud by signing the letters.

Chintamon was a whistle-blower in his role as informant to Richard Hodgson, as well as in his involvement with the HBofL founders. One of the greatest influences of his exposure of the 1878 correspondence with Blavatsky is that it drove a wedge between her and Olcott. When Hodgson repeated to him some disparaging statements that she had made to Chintamon about Olcott’s credulity, the Colonel was so despondent that he contemplated suicide by drowning:

“He made me suffer intensely in mind for a couple of days by declaring that Hurrychind Chintamon, of Bombay, had shown him a letter of H.P.B.’s to him, from New York, in which she said I was so under her hypnotic spell that she could make me believe whatever she liked just by looking me in the face, .it went to my heart that H.P.B., whose loyal friend I had been through everything, should have done this treachery to me; and merely to satisfy her vanity, it would seem. ..I have always said that the trouble of getting on with her, as Helena Petrovna, was infinitely more difficult than to overcome all the outside obstacles, impediments, and opposition that stood in the way of the Society’s progress. In my whole experience of the movement, nothing ever affected me so much as this. It made me desperate, and for twenty-four hours almost ready to go down to the beach and down myself in the sea. But when I put the question to myself what I was working for, whether the praise of men or the gratitude of H.P.B., or that of any other living person, all this despondency drifted away and my mind has never gone back to it. The sense of the paramount obligation of doing my duty, of serving the Masters in the carrying out of their lofty plans—unthanked, unappreciated, misunderstood, calumniated —it mattered not what—came to me like the flash of a great light, and there was peace.”[ix]

This passage provides sufficient clues for an interpretation of to the relationships among Chintamon the whistleblower, Hodgson the interrogator, Olcott the hostile witness, and Blavatsky the suspect. Whether motivated by revenge or a guilty conscience, Chintamon provided evidence that persuaded the SPR of the fraudulent nature of the Mahatma phenomena. But his attitude was not simply destructive towards the TS; apparently he also wanted to help bring about an alternative that would not be based on Blavatsky. T. H. Burgoyne’s writings evince a strong anti-Theosophical bias, and this antagonism was likely encouraged by Chintamon’s revelations. The compilers of The Hermetic Broterhood of Luxor conclude that in England “Chintamon allied himself with the rising Western opposition to esoteric Buddhism exemplified by Stainton Moses, C.C. Massey, William Oxley, Emma Hardinge Britten, Thomas Lake Harris, and others. From this formidable group, Burgoyne first contracted his hostility to Blavatsky’s enterprise that would mark all his writings.”[x]  But Chintamon was also the source of genuine Sanskrit learning, and thus was able to serve as an instructor to Burgoyne on Hindu occultism. The astro-Masonic themes Burgoyne adapted from English sources were likely catalyzed to some extent by Chintamon, the only one of Burgoyne’s mentors who is documented to have such Masonic credentials.

Stephen Prothero attributes a permanent split between Blavatsky and the Colonel to the news conveyed by Hodgson about the correspondence between Chintamon and HPB:

Instead of pushing him to suicide, however, this revelation quickened Olcott’s resolve to distance himself from Blavatsky, if not from theosophy. Determined to bring the Coulomb affair and the Hodgson investigation to a speedy resolution, Olcott decided it was time for Blavatsky to go…. Olcott finally confronted his friend, demanding that she resign as corresponding secretary and leave India immediately. Now more bitter toward Olcott than toward Coulomb and Hodgson combined, Blavatsky sailed for Europe on April 2, 1885. She would never see India again…The TS was his organization and, as such, was under his control… the troubles that beset Blavatsky as a result of the Coulomb Affair, moreover, only strengthened Olcott’s hold over the society.[xi]

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[i] Martin Sandler, Photography: an Illustrated History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 32

[ii] D.F. Wadia, History of Lodge Rising Star of Western India, no. 342 S.C.  (Bombay: British Indian Press, 1912), p. 186

[iii] Ars Quator Coronatum, Vol. 4, p. 50 (London, 1891)

[iv] Report on Phenomena, p. 316

[v] Blavatsky Collected Writings, Vol. 1, p. 306

[vi] Dayananda Sarasvati, Autobiography of Dayanand Saraswati (New Delhi: Manohar, 1978) p. 68

[vii] Olcott, Old Diary Leaves, Vol. 2, p. 18

[viii] C.C. Massey, “Explanation of the Kiddle Incident in the Fourth Edition of The Occult World,” Light, July 26, 1884, pp. 307-309

[ix] Olcott, Old Diary Leaves, Vol. 1, p. 59

[x] The Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, p.36

[xi] Stephen Prothero, The White Buddhist (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996) pp. 119-121

The Astley home in Carmel Woods

Time: Space: Movement: Form: these are
the cardinal features of the eternal reality. Time
and movement are the same, viz.: Duration. Form
and Space are the same, that is, imply each other;
and the whole, inter-related, and co-dependent,
are relative terms to express the one ultimate and
fundamental fact of existence- which is Life. These
cardinal features are accepted as undeniable facts of
experience. A metaphysic that would deny the
reality of any one of them is unworthy of any sane
thinker. Nevertheless, we are reminded that there
are those who would question each and all.

“Doubting Castle” is no myth, but a mighty fortress
in the wilderness of the mind, and many there be
who dwell therein. There is also in that strange and
“hollow land” a great shrine most wondrously
fashioned by cunning craftsmen, called the Cave of
Solipsism, in whose sub-mundane gloom there is
reflected nothing but the images of self. Each
worshipper, being his own idol, is blind to
everything but the phantasmagoria of his own
creating. The atmosphere is mephitic! Let us pass
on! We have not forgotten the days of captivity on
Devil’s Island,” and need a breath of pure ozone
from the sea.

PART VII.
BETSEY CLARK IN DREAM-LAND.

This is an English translation of the poem Akdamut, written in 1060 in Worms, Germany by Rabbi Meir ben Isaac.

Before reading the ten divine commands,
O let me speak in awe two words, or three,
Of the One who wrought the world
And sustained it since time’s beginning.

At God’s command is infinite power,
Which words cannot define.
Were all the skies parchment,
And all the reeds pens, and all the oceans ink,
And all who dwell on earth scribes,
God’s grandeur could not be told.

Sovereign over the heavens above,
God reigns supreme on earth below.
God launched creation unaided
And contains it in the bounds of His law.

Without weariness God created,
Only by divine will, uttered in a gentle sound.
God wrought His works in six days,
Then established His glorious sovereignty
Over the life of the universe.

Myriads of angelic hosts serve God,
Divine messengers that propel life’s destiny.
They arise each morning to their calling.
All the celestial beings join in a chorus of praise;
In unison they call to one another:
All the earth is full of the glory of the thrice Holy One.

In a mighty roar,
As the thundering noise of vast waters,
Moving amidst the heavenly spheres
Where the divine light grows brilliant,
The angelic hosts proclaim their words of adoration:

Praised be God’s glory by every whispering lip
From the place of His abode which is everywhere.
All the celestial hosts roar their response in awe:
The splendor of God’s dominion
Is acclaimed from age to age.

Yet dearer to God than this
Is the song of the children of Israel,
Rising to Him morning and evening,
In free outpourings of adoration.

Chosen to be the faithful servants of God’s will,
They continually rehearse God’s praises,
Who summoned them in love
To pursue the labors of Torah,
And accepts their supplications and entreaties,
Which weave a crown of glory for the Almighty.

The Eternal cherishes their prayers
And keeps them ever before Him,
Thus declaring the greatness of Israel
Who reiterate that God is One.

Israel acclaims the glory of the Ruler of the universe,
And offers God homage before kings and princes.
They all gather and ask in wonder,
Who is this your beloved, O fair one,
For whom you brave the perils of the lion’s den?
If you but join our fold,
We would cover you with splendor and glory;
In every land would we ratify your every wish.

A wise reply is Israel’s:
How can you know God with your foolish minds?
How compare the glories you bestow
With the glory that is God’s,
With the splendor of God’s deeds
In the hour of our deliverance,
When the light divine will shine on us
While darkness covers your mocking multitudes,
When God will manifest His glorious might
And render His foes their due,
And triumph to the people
Abounding in virtue
Whom God has loved.

Joy unmarred will reign in hearts ennobled, pure.
Jerusalem will rise again;
Her exiled children will come back to her.
Day and night God will shed His glory on her,
And build in her anew His sacred shrine of praise.

The righteous will possess the reward for their service.
They will dwell before their Creator,
Arrayed on golden thrones,
With seven steps ascending,
Resplendent as the azure of the sky
And the brightness of the stars.

They will acclaim God:
It is God we trusted with faith unyielding
In the days of our captivity.
God will lead us forever,
Renewing us with the glee of youthful dancers.

We still possess the portion
God set apart for us in ancient days.
Leviathan and the wild ox of the mountains
Will charge and contend with each other,
The beast goring fiercely with its horns,
The sea monster striking with its mighty fins.

But Adonai will make an end of them
With His great sword,
And prepare a banquet for the righteous.

They will sit at tables of precious stones,
Rivers of balsam flowing before them:
And they will drink the precious wine
Stored for them from the first of days.

O you upright who have heard the song of God’s praise,
May you ever be in the blessed circle of God’s faithful.

Through all eternity, exalted be Adonai
Who conferred true love upon us
By entrusting to us the Torah.

The poem subsequently was used in the 1917 Christian hymn The Love of God.

“I BELIEVE just as did the writer of these lines,” said the Rosicrucian, as he began his recital in the cabin of the “Uncle Sam,” after partaking of what the purveyors of that steamship line, in the rich exuberance of their facetious imaginations were pleased to call a supper…Originally we were taller than many of our present trees, and coarser than our mountains. We are smaller and better than ever before, and our worst man is better than the best of the preceding state. The worst, in the next change, will be better than our best. To illustrate, let me say, that the following persons, viz.: Thurlow W —, Abraham L— ., Russel L. —, J. Gordon B .— , Henry J. R.— , Win. Cullen B— , Jefferson D——, John C. Fre—, James Buch—, Wigfall, Charles Su, Horace G, Fernando—W, George B. Mc—, Gen. J. H—k—r, Dr. H. F. G—d—r, Charles T—n—s, Lizzie D— and myself, respectively, were, previously to the last change: the first, a feudal lord; the second, an editor; the third, a Danish prince; the fourth, a court-jester; the fifth, a missionary; the sixth, a generalissimo; the seventh, a harpist; the eighth, a theatrical manager; the ninth, a knife— grinder; the tenth, a privateer; the eleventh, a preacher; the twelfth, a schoolmaster; the thirteenth, a trumpeter; the fourteenth, a politician; the fifteenth, a hunter; the sixteenth, a very little boy, died exceedingly young; the seventeenth, an emperor; the eighteenth, a born queen and the last, a barber’s clerk; so that it is evident, that though our progress is slow, still that we are ‘Coming up.’ Little as our actual worth may be, still we are better now, generally speaking, than in the former stage. Thus, we will grow smaller at every change. Some worlds, and their dwellers, in this universe have thus decreased, and being sometimes seen by people here, have been called Fays or Fairies. The world has yet to undergo some thousands of these changes, until at last we become very small indeed, which will occur when conception is no longer possible in the universe, either in the vegetable or animal worlds; and then will occur the change and transference beyond the wall.

[Thurlow Weed, Abraham Lincoln, Russell Lowell, J. Gordon Bennett, Henry J. Raymond, William Cullen Bryant, Jefferson Davis, John C. Fremont, James Buchanan, Louis Wigfall, Charles Sumner, Horace Greeley, Fernando Wood, George B. McClellan, General Joseph Hooker, Dr. H.F. Gardner, Charles Trinius, Lizzie Doten. Each of the seven parts of the book is predominantly fiction, but some sections have abundant chronological, autobiographical and geographical detail that sheds light on Randolph and his times. Much of the autobiographical material includes diatribes against Spiritualist enemies, often unnamed, not helpful to the historical researcher. But in Part VII the tale becomes about the Civil War and eighteen more historical figures enter the narrative.]

[John G. Downey, Los Angeles Democrat, was California governor from 1862 through 1864.]

PART VI.

WHAT BECAME OF THOMAS CLARK.

OUR entertainer ceased to speak, for the evening meal was nearly ready, and the golden sun was setting in the West, and he rose to his feet to enjoy the glowing scene. Never shall I forget the intense interest taken by those who listened to the tale— and doubtless these pages will fall in the hands of many who heard it reported from his own lips, on the quarter-deck of the steamer “Uncle Sam,” during the voyage begun from San Francisco to Panama, on the twenty-first day of November, 1861. At first his auditors were about ten in number, but when he rose to look at the crimson glories of the sky, fifty people were raptly listening. We adjourned till the next day, when, as agreed upon the night before, we convened, and for some time awaited his appearance. At last he came, looking somewhat ill, for we were crossing the Gulf of California, and Boreas and Neptune had been elevating Robert, or in plainer English, “Kicking up a bobbery,” all night long. We had at least a thousand passengers aboard, consisting of all sorts of people—sailors, soldiers, and divers trades and callings.

“There’s a tide in the affairs of men, which, Taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.” SHAKSPEARE.

“There’s a tide in the affairs of women, which, Taken at the flood, leads—God knows where.” BYRON.

[The Shakespeare quote is from Act IV, Scene III of Julius Caesar, while the Byron quote is from Don Juan, Canto the Sixth.]

“Hark! he is whistling in the rigging; he is swinging on the snapping three ends of yonder loosened halliards if they strike you you are dead, for they are Whips, and Death is grapping them! He is calling you, Tom Clark; don’t you hear him? Balling from his throne, and his “throne is the Tempest, Tom Clark—the Tempest. Now he is watching you—don’t his glance trouble you?’ Don’t you know that he is gazing down into your eyes? How cold is his glance! how colder his breath! It is very, very cold. Ah! I shiver as I think—and Death is freezing you, Tom Clark; he is freezing your very heart, and turning your blood to ice. He is freezing you, an has tried to freeze me, in various ways. But I bade him stand back—to stay his breath—for, unlike you, Tom Clark, I am a Brother of the Rosie Cross, and I have been over Egypt, and Syria, and Turkey; on the borders of the Caspian, and Arabia’s shores; over sterile steppes, and weltered through the Deserts— and all in search of the loftier knowledge of the Soul, that can only there be found; and I found what I sought.

https://luna.lib.uchicago.edu/luna/servlet/s/8mlkx6

PART IV.
THE DREAM OF BETSEY CLARK.
“MADAME, awake, it will be remembered, had come to the conclusion to settle Tom’s coffee— and hash, at the same time, with a dose or two of ratsbane, or some similar delicate condiment; and now, in her dream, she thought all her plans were so well and surely made as to defy detection, and laugh outright at—failure.

“In California there is a small but very troublesome rodent known to Science as ‘Pseudo—stoma bursarius,’ and to the vulgar world as ‘gopher’—a sort of burrowing rat, nearly as mischievous and quite as wicked, for the little wretches have a settled and special penchant for boring holes in the ground, particularly in the vicinity of fruit trees. My friend, Mr. Rumford, who has a very fine orchard in Fruit Vale, Contra Costa, just across the bay from Santa Blarneeo, recently assured me that the rascals make it a point to destroy young trees, not only without compunction, but even without saying, ‘By your leave.’ Now it so happened that Clark’s place was overstocked with the pestilent animals alluded to, and the proprietors had, time and again, threatened the whole race with extermination, by means of arsenic, phosphor- paste, or some other effective poison, but had never carried the resolution into practice. This fact was seized on by Mrs. Clark, as a capital point d’appui. Accordingly, with a dull hand-saw, the lady hacked a few dozen of the very choicest young trees, in such a way as to make them look like unmistakable gopher-work, thus subjecting the brutes to charges whereof they were as innocent as two unborn babes. Gophers and the Devil have to answer for a great deal that properly belong to other parties. Her act was a grand stroke of policy. She meant that Tom should voluntarily get the poison, which she intended he—not the gophers should take at the very earliest possible opportunity. She didn’t mean to purchase arsenic—oh, no, she knew too much for that! The ravage was speedily discovered by Clark. He raved, stamped his foot in his wrath, turned around on his heel, pulled his cap over his eyes, ejaculated, ‘Dod dern ’em! started for the city, and that very night returned, bearer of six bits’ worth of the strongest and deadliest kind of poison quite as deadly, almost as strong, as that which stupid fools drink in corner stores at six cents a glass. That night about half the poison was mixed and set. Twelve hours thereafter there was great tribulation and mourning in Gopherdom; for scores of the little gentry ate of it, liked the flavor, tried a little more—got thirsty—they drank freely (most fools do!) felt uncomfortable, got angry, swelled—with indignation and poisoned meal! and not a few of them immediately (to quote Mr. Clark), ‘failed in business’; that is to say, they burst —burst all to thunder: Alas, poor rodents!’ [Fruitvale, now a neighborhood in Oakland, had many orchards in the mid 19thc and Isaac B. Rumford of Brooklyn in neighboring Alameda County was listed in the 1860 census with Nursery as his occupation.]

“Next morning Tom’s coffee was particularly good. Betsey fairly surpassed herself, in fact she came it rather too strong. About ten-o’clock he felt thirsty, and inclined toward cold water; for the weather was hot, and so were his ‘coppers,’ to quote the Ancient Mariner. He would have taken much, water, only that Betsey dissuaded him, and said: ‘It was just like him, to go and get sick by drinking ever so much cold water! Why didn’t he take switchel, or, what was much better, cold coffee, with plenty of milk in it,—and sugar, of course; and so he (Tom) tried her prescription, liked it, took a little more, and that night followed the Gophers! “Three days afterwards a kindly neighbor handed Mrs. Clark a fresh copy of the ‘Santa Blarneeo Looking Glass,’ wherein she read, with tearful eyes, the following true and veracious account of

“‘A MOST DISTRESSING AND FATAL
SUICIDE!

“‘We regret to announce—the fearful suicide, while laboring under a fit of temporary insanity, caused by the bite of a gopher, of Mr. Thomas W. Clark. It appears, that in order to destroy the vermin, he purchased some arsenic, gave some to the animals, got bitten by them, ran stark mad in consequence, and then swallowed the balance (about a pound) himself. His unfortunate wife now lies at the point of death, by reason of the dreadful shock. She is utterly distracted by the distressing and heartrending event, which is all the more poignant from the fact, that probably no married pair that ever lived were more ardently and devotedly attached than were they. The coroner and a picked jury of twelve men sat for two hours in consultation, after which they found a verdict of “Death by his own act, while insane from the bite of a gopher!”

“What’s genius without gold? They won’t—pay?’ No, no, Madame; in the game of life, diamonds are always trumps, and hearts are bound to lose. What’s the result—?

“‘Who knoweth the spirit of a man that it goeth upward; or of a beast that it goeth downward?’ The Spiritualists?— a pack of fanatics! I don’t believe in ghosts—but she shuddered as she gave utterance to the words, and her hair crawled upon her head as if touched with spectral fingers. No man disbelieves his immortality—the thing is impossible, per se; for although he may differ with that class of people who pretend to very extensive ghostly acquaintanceship and commerce, as many do—yet he doubtless always whistles as he passes a graveyard in the night! I certainly do! Why? Because I disbelieve in ghosts—of course.

“In spite of Reason, erring Reason’s spite, One truth is clear, whatever is is right.” [From “An Essay on Man,” a poem written 1733-34 by Alexander Pope, slightly misquoted by Randolph.]

“Tom was to die. The conditions that surrounded him were just such as had determined the results that followed. I was but the proxy of eternal Fate. Am I to blame? Certainly not, for I acted in precise accordance with the conditions that surrounded me—that made me do as I did— tempted me beyond my strength; and, for that reason, the crime, if crime it be, was a foregone conclusion from the foundation of the world! Hereafter?’

“Come from the grave tomorrow with that story, And I may take some softer path to glory. [From “Parrhasius and the Captive” by Nathaniel Parker Willis in his 1846 collected works.]

“‘Parrhasius was a true philosopher—or Willis. Pshaw—I guess I’ll take another drop of Angelica!’

“We are still in the little chamber, near the window, the little window at the foot of the bed whose upper sash was down.”

PART III.
THE MAGIC SPELL.
“In the Kingdom of Dream strange things are seen, And the Fate of’ the Nations are there, I ween.”
From “The Rosie Cross,” an unpublished Poem by
P.B. RANDOLPH

THE regal being was scarcely gone from the chamber ere Hesperina and the Shadow—which had once more become visible, approached the sleeping pair—drew nigh unto the woman and the man; and the Fay gently breathed upon their heads, as if to establish a magnetic rapport between herself and them. She then calmly took her stand, near the bedside, and folded her beautiful arms across her still more beautiful bosom and awaited—the action of the tempter. She had not long to wait, for straightway the Black Presence advanced, and hovered, over the bed—hovered scowlingly over then, glaring down into their souls, as doth the vampire upon the man she would destroy—the spirit of Wrong peering; wistfully at all beautiful, things, and true! Such was the posture of affairs.; and thus they remained: until the Thing had also established some sort of connection with the sleepers. It soon became evident, from their nervous, uneasy movements and postures, that the twain were rapidly crossing the mystic boundaries that divide our own from Dreamland— that they were just entering the misty mid-region—the Shadow, the Thing, the monstrous IT, ruling the hour, and guiding them through the strange realm—’That lieth sublime, out of Space and out of Time. [A quote from the poem Dream-Land by Edgar Allen Poe, his only poem published in 1844.]

The man who says that dreams are figments is a fool. Half of our nightly experiences are, in their subsequent effects upon us, far more real and positive than our daily life of wakefulness. Dreams are, as a general thing, save in rare instances, sneered at by the wise ones of this sapient age. Events, we of Rosicrucia hold, are pre-acted in other spheres of being. Prophetic dreaming is no new thing. Circumstances are constantly occurring in the outer life that have been previewed in Dream-land. Recently, while in Constantinople, I became acquainted with a famous Dongolese negro, near the Grand Mosque of St. Sophia, in one of the narrow streets on the left, as you enter the square from toward the first bridge, and this man had reduced the interpretation of dreams to a science almost; and many a long hour have I rapidly driven the pen, in the work of recording what was translated. to me from Dongolese and Arabic into Turkish and English, from his lips, obtaining in this way not merely the principles upon which his art was founded, but also explicit interpretations of about twenty-nine hundred different dreams. [Dongola was the ancient capital of Nubia in what is now Sudan. The book cover depicted appears on an annual report from the Polish Center for Mediterranean Archaeology at the University of Warsaw, ]

“Was Tom Clark mistaken? Was it Fancy? Was it Fear? . . .One night he went to a theatre, but left it in a hurry, when the actor, who was playing Macbeth, looked straight into his private box and said:

“‘The times have been that, when the brains were out the man would die—and there an end; But now they rise again, with twenty mortal murders On their crowns, to push us from our seats!’ [Act 3, Scene 4, MacBeth.]

Abou Ben Adhem | The Poetry Foundation

PART II.
THE DOUBLE DREAM.

“and saw within the moonlight of his room——— An angel, writing in a book of gold. LEIGH HUNT.”

[These lines are from Abou Ben Adhem, a poem about a Sufi saint published in 1834 by English Romantic poet Leigh Hunt (1784-1859).]

After two trips to southwest Missouri in search of traces of Thomas Moore Johnson, I learned that a major conference venue in Springfield honors the memory of this Sufi saint.

These are the Unloved ones; yet ought not to be, for are they not somebody’s sons and daughters? Yes! Then they have rights; and the first, greatest, highest right of all is the right of being loved—loved by the people of the land— our world-cousins, for what we do, are doing, or have done; and to be loved, for the sake of the dear soul within, by somebody else’s son or daughter.

“So think we of the Rosicrucian Order; so, one day, will think the world.

“‘Come down in thy profoundest gloom—Without one radiant firefly’s light, Beneath thine ebon arch entomb Earth from the gaze of Heaven, O Night. A deed of darkness must be done, Put out the moon, roll back the sun.’ [From the poem The Missionary’s Burial by James Montgomery, published 1824.]

Rosicrucian Emblem on the cover of Eulis, published 1874, from The Emancipatory Visions of a Sex Magician: Paschal Beverly Randolph’s Occult Politics — The Public Domain Review

TOM CLARK AND HIS WIFE
Their Double Dreams, and the Curious Things that Befell them Therein, being the Rosicrucian’s Story. Part I.
Paschal Beverly Randolph

[This public domain book, first published in 1863, includes annotations added in this edition by K. Paul Johnson. The spelling and punctuation are those of the original, but fonts and spacing have been revised for modern readability. Annotations for the 2024 edition identifying names, places, and literary sources mentioned by Randolph are italicized and appear in brackets. This is from pages 16-26 in the print 2024 edition.]

“Sleep came—sweet sleep—deep and strange; and in it I dreamed. Methought I still wandered gloomily beneath the vast arches of the grand old hall, until at last, after countless cycles of ripe years had been gathered back into the treasury of the Etre Supreme, I stood before a solid, massive door, which an inscription thereabove announced as being the entrance to the Garden of the Beatitudes. This door was secured by a thousand locks, besides one larger than all the rest combined. Every one of these locks might be opened, but the opener could not pass through unless he unfastened the master—lock having ten thousand bolts and wards.

“Once more despair seized on my soul, in this dream which was not all a dream; for to achieve an entrance through the gate without the master-key was a task, so said the inscription, that would defy the labors of human armies for periods of time utterly defying man’s comprehension—so many were the difficulties, so vastly strong the bolts.

“Sadly, mournfully, I turned away, when, as if by chance—forgetting that there is no such thing as Chance—my eye encountered a rivetless space upon the solid brazen door—a circular space, around the periphery of which was an inscription running thus: ‘MAN ONLY FAILS THROUGH FEEBLENESS OF WILL!’ Within this smooth circle was the semblance of a golden triangle, embracing a crystalline globe, winged and beautiful, crowned with a Rosicrucian cypher, while beneath it stood out, in fiery characters, the single word, ‘Try.’ The very instant I caught the magic significance of these divine inscriptions, a new Hope was begotten in my soul; Despair fled from me, and I passed into

THE SECRET OF GREATNESS.

“A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM.”

“What a change! During my slumber it seemed that I had been transported to the summit of a very lofty mountain, yet still within the Temple. By my side stood an aged and saintly man, of regal and majestic presence. He was clad in an oriental garb of the long-gone ages, and his flowing robes were bound to his waist by a golden band, wrought into the similitude of a shining serpent—the sacred emblem of eternal wisdom. Around his broad and lofty brow was a coronet of silver, dusted with spiculae of finest diamond. On the sides of the centre were two scarabei, the symbol of immortality; and between them was a pyramid, on which was inscribed a mystical character which told, at the same time, that his name was Ramus the Great.

“This royal personage spake kindly to me, and his soft tones fell upon the hearing of my soul like the words of pardon to the sense of sinners at the Judgment Seat. “Look, my son, said he, at the same time pointing toward a vast procession of the newly-risen dead—a spectral army on the sides of the mountain, slowly, steadily, mournfully wending their way toward the part of the temple I had quitted previous to the commencement of this dream within a dream. Said the man at my side: ‘Yonder host of pilgrims are men and women who are seeking, as thou hast sought, to unbar the Gates of Glory, that they may pass through them into the delightful Garden of the Beatitudes. It is one thing to be endowed with Intellectual Strength, Knowledge and Immortality; it is another to be Wise and Happy. The first is a boon granted to all the children of earth alike; the last can only be attained by integral development—by self endeavor by innate goodness and God-ness continually manifested—and this in material and aromal worlds alike. Man is man and woman is woman, wherever they may be! The true way to the garden lies not through Manifestation Corridor, but through the Hall of Silence! and each Aspirant must open the door for himself alone. Failing to enter, as thou hast failed, each must turn back, and, like thee, come hither to Mount Retrospect, and entering into the labyrinths within its sides, must search for the triple key, which alone can unbar the Gate, and admit to the Beautiful Garden I Remember! Despair not! Try! and in an instant the Phantom—man turned from me, and with outstretched arms, and benignance beaming from every feature, hied him toward the ascending army.

“Again I stood alone, not now in despondency and gloom, but in all the serene strength of noble, conscious Manhood—not the actual, but the certain and glorious possibility thereof. My soul had grown. It was aware of all its past short-comings, failures, and its hatreds toward two me who had done me deadly wrong. This feeling still survived, stronger than ever, now that I was across the Bridge of Hours, and had become a citizen of the inner land—a wanderer through Eternity. That hate was as immortal as my deathless soul. Will it ever be? And yet I had ever meant well. All was calm in my spirit, save this single awful thing. In this spirit, with this consciousness—not of deep malignance, but of outraged Justice—I began to look for the mysterious key; and as I looked, an instinct told me that the key must consist of certain grand human virtues, and corresponding good deeds, held and done before I left the shores of time and embarked upon the strange and mystic sea whereon my soul’s fortunes were now cast.

“And so I searched, and at last seemed to have found what I sought; and thereupon I wished myself once more before the brazen Gate. Instantly, as if by magic, the wish was realized, and I stood before it, on the same spot formerly occupied. The first inscription, the symbols and circle had disappeared, and in their stead was another circle, containing these lines: ‘Speak, for thou shalt be heard! Tell what thou hast done to elevate thy fellow men, and to round out the angles of thine own soul. Whom hast thou uplifted, loved, hated? Speak, and when the words containing the key are spoken, the door will yield, and thou mayest pass the Threshold.’

“The writing slowly faded, and left naught but a surface, but that surface as of molten gold. I spoke aloud my claim to entrance, and, to my astonishment, my voice rang out shrill and clear, through the vaults and arches of the mighty dome towering far above my head. ‘I have suffered from infancy—been opposed from the cradle to maturity—been hated, robbed, slandered on all sides, yet pushed forward in defiance of all, until I reached all that I desired—all that earth could give me. Self-educated, I achieved triumphs where others failed; have reaped laurels and grasped the keys of fame, and laughed at my folly afterwards, because what is fame? A canker, gnawing out one’s life when living, disturbing his repose when dead— not worth a straw! But, in all this, despite the ending, I have set an example, by following which man might elevate himself, society be improved, and its constituents realize the bliss of moving in loftier spheres of usefulness!’ While giving voice to these truths, I firmly expected to see the gate fly open at their conclusion. But what was my horror and dismay to see that it moved not at all, while the echoes of my speech gave back in frightfully resonant waves of sound the last word, ‘USEFULNESS!’

“Not being able to think of any nobler achievements, I cast my eyes groundward, and, on again raising them, I beheld, across the clear space on the door, the single word TRY.

“Taking heart again, I said, Paschal, my beloved—lone student of the weary world—I await thy entrance here. But thou mayest not enter now, because no hatred can live inside these gates of Bliss. Wear it out, discard it. Thou art yet incomplete, thy work is still unfinished. Thou hast found the keys! Go back to earth, and give them to thy fellow-men. Teach, first thyself, and then thy brethren, that Usefulness, Love, Labor, Forgiveness, Faith and Charity, are the only keys which are potent to cure all ill, and unbar the Gates of Glory.’

“‘Lara! Beautiful Lara, I obey thee! Wait for me, love. I am coming soon!’ I cried, as she slowly retreated, and the gate closed again. ‘Not yet, not yet,’ I cried, as with extended arms I implored the beauteous vision to remain—but a single instant longer. But she was gone. I fell to the ground in a swoon. When I awoke again, I found the night had grown two hours older than it was. Then I sat down in the chair in my little chamber in Bush Street, the little chamber which I occupied in the goodly city of the Golden Gate.

“Thus spake the Rosicrucian. We were all deeply moved at the recital, and one after the other we retired to our rooms, pondering on the story and its splendid moral. Next day we reached Acapulco, and not till we had left and were far on our way toward Panama, did we have an opportunity of listening to the sermon to the eloquent text I have just recounted. At length he gave it, as nearly as it can possibly be reproduced, in the following words:
END OF THE PROEM

The steamship Uncle Sam, built 1852, from the National Park Service

This is from pages 7-15 of the 2024 print edition

THE MAN.
HE used to pace rapidly up and down the deck for a minute or two, and then, suddenly striking his forehead, as if a new thought were just pangfully coming into being at the major foci of his soul, he would throw himself prone upon one of the after seats of the old “Uncle Sam,” the steamer in which we were going from San Francisco to Panama, and there he would lie, apparently musing, and evidently enjoying some sort of interior life, but whether that life was one of reverie, dream, or disembodiedness, was a mystery to us all, and would have remained so, but that on being asked, he very complaisantly satisfied our doubts, by informing us that on such occasion he, in spirit, visited a place not laid down in ordinary charts, and the name of which was the realm of “Wotchergifterno,” which means in English, “Violinist’s Meadow” (very like “Fiddler’s Green”). When not pacing the deck, or reclining, or gazing at the glorious sunsets on the sea, or the still more gorgeous sun-risings on the mountains, he was in the habit of—catching flies; which flies he would forthwith proceed to dissect and examine by means of a microscope constructed of a drop of water in a bent broom wisp. Gradually the man became quite a favorite with both passengers and officers of the ship, and not a day passed but a crowd of ladies and gentlemen would gather around him to listen to the stories he would not merely recite, but compose as he went along, each one containing a moral of more than ordinary significance. It was apparent from the first that the man was some sort of a mystic, a dreamer, or some such out-of-the-ordinary style of person, because everything he said or did bore an unmistakable ghostly impress. He was sorrowful withal, at times, and yet no one on the ship had a greater or more humorous flow of spirits. In the midst, however, of his brightest sallies, he would suddenly stop short, as if at that moment his listening soul had caught the jubilant cry of angels when God had just pardoned some sinful, storm-tossed human soul the nature of that mysterious thing called the human soul, and in which our fellow passenger had, as usual, taken a leading part, with the endeavor to elicit, as well as impart, information, he suddenly changed color, turned almost deathly pale, and for full five minutes, perhaps more, looked straight into the sky, as if gazing upon the awful and ineffable mysteries of that weird Phantom-land which intuition demonstrates, but cold reason utterly rejects or challenges for tangible proof. Long, and steadily gazed the man; and then he shuddered—shuddered as if he had just received some fearful, solution of the problem near his heart. And I shuddered also— in pure sympathy with what I did not fairly understand. At length he spoke; but with bated breath, and in tones so low, so deep, so solemn, that it seemed as though a dead, and. not a living man, gave, utterance to the sounds: “Lara! Lara! Ah, Lovely I would that I had gone then—that I were with thee now!” and he relapsed into silence.

Surprised, both at his abruptness, change of manner and theme—for ten minutes before, and despite the solemnity of the conversational topic, he had been at a fever—heat of fun and hilarity—I asked him what he meant. Accustomed, as we had been, to hear him break in upon the most grave and dolorous talk with a droll observation which instantly provoked the most unrestrainable, hilarious mirth; used, as we had been to hear him perpetrate a joke, and set us all in roar in the very midst of some heart-moving tale of woe, whereat our eyes had moistened, and our pulses throbbed tumultuously, yet I was not, even by all this, prepared for the singular characteristic now presented. In reply to my question, he first wiped away an involuntary tear, as if ashamed of his weakness; then raised his head, and exclaimed: “Lara! Lara! The Beautiful One!”

“What of her?” asked Colbert, who, sat opposite him and who was deeply moved .at his evident distress, and whose curiosity, as that of us all, was deeply piqued.

“Listen” said he, “and I will tell you;” and then, while we eagerly drank in his words, and strove to drink in their strange and wondrous meaning (first warning us that what he was about to say was but the text of something to be thereafter told), he leaned back upon the taffrail, and while the steamer gently plowed her way toward Acapulco and far-off Panama, said…

The contemplation of such a possibility was bitter, very bitter—even like unto painful death—and yet it seemed true that failure had been mine—failure, notwithstanding men by thousands spoke well of me and of my works—the children of my thought—and bought my books in thousands. Failure? My soul rejected the idea in utter loathing. For a moment the social spirit, the heartness of my nature over-shadowed Reason, and caused me to forget that, even though confined by dungeon walls, stricken with poverty, deformity, sin or disease—even though left out to freeze in the cold world’s spite—yet the thinker is ever the world’s true— and only King. I had become, for a moment, oblivious of the fact that failure was an impossibility. Rosicrucians never fail!”

“But now, as I slowly moved along, I felt my human nature was at war with the God-nature within, and that Heart for a while was holding the Head in duress. I longed for release from Solitude; my humanity yearned for association, and would have there, on the breast of the great Eterne; given worlds for the company of the lowliest soul I had ever beheld—and despised, as I walked the streets of the cities of the far-off earth. I yearned for human society and—affection, and could even have found blissful solace with—a dog just such a dog as in times past, I had scornfully kicked in Cairo and Stambol— Even a dog was denied me now— all affection withheld from me—and in the terrible presence of its absence I longed for death, forgetting again that Soul can never die. I longed for that deeper extinguishment which should sweep the soul from being, and crown it with limitless eternal Night forgetful, again, that the Memories of Soul must live, though the rememberer cease to be, and that hence Horrors would echo through the universe—children mourning for their suicidal parent, and that parent myself!…

“It was dreadful, very dreadful, to be all alone. True, the pangs of hunger, the tortures of thirst, the fires of ambition, and the raging flames of earthly passion no longer marred my peace. Pain, such as mortals feel, was unknown; no disease racked my frame, or disturbed the serenity of my external being—for I was immortal, and could laugh all these and Death itself to scorn; and yet a keener anguish, a more fearful suffering, was mine. I wept, and my cries back no outer sound, but they rang in sombre echoes through the mighty arches, the bottomless caverns, the abyssmal deeps of Soul—my soul—racking it with torments such as only thinking things can feel. Such is the lot, such the discipline of the destined citizens of the Farther Empyrean—a region known only to the Brethren of the Temple of Peerless Rosicrucia. [More information about the Uncle Sam is available from the Maritime History Project.]

scarlet

et

et

https://www.nps.gov/articles/the-civil-war-at-golden-gate.htm

From pages 5- 6 in the 2024 print edition:

Dear Charles T s:
Since we parted at the “Golden Gate,” the weight of a world has rested on your shoulders, and I have suffered much, in my journeyings up and down the world, as wearily I wandered over Zahara’s burning sands and among the shrines and monuments of Egypt, Syria, and Araby the blessed; separated in body, but united in soul, we have each sought knowledge, and, I trust, gained wisdom. Our book is just begun. One portion of that work consists ln the endeavor to unmask villainy, and vindicate the sanctity and perpetuity of marriage. In this little work I have tried to do this, and believe that if the magic talisman herein recommended as a sovereign balm for the strifes and ills of wedlock, be faithfully used, that the great married world will adopt your motto and my own, and become convinced that in spite of much contrary seeming “WE MAY BE HAPPY YET!”

[Charles Trinius of Stralsund was Grand Guard of the San Francisco Supreme Grand Lodge founded by Randolph in 1861].

To you, and to such this book is

Affectionately dedicated by your friend and the world’s,
P. B. RANDOLPH.

Following posts in March will serialize the book with illustrations and historical annotations.

Dr. John Ballou Newbrough

This 1988 book arrived as a gift from Oregonian friends who recently visited the site:

https://epcc.libguides.com/c.php?g=754275&p=5406002

Ellora Cave photo from the 1864 edition of James Ferguson’s The Rock-cut Temples of India. The first edition was published in 1843 soon after the photos were taken.

From Emma Hardinge Britten:

Page 382:

Page 547:

Page 600:

From Marc Demarest:

Page 628:

Page 629:

These quotes are from the Kindle edition of 760 pages and page numbers are different from those of the 458 page printed book.

needless

Ede

excerpted from Marc Demarest’s opening pages

Marc writes with clarity and conciseness that I envy and try to emulate. Here he “cuts to the chase” explaining the historical uniqueness of Ghost Land, whose Spiritualist author was the inventor of much of what we now call occultism and Theosophy. The practice of writing occult fiction and calling it genuine history did not start with Britten and Blavatsky; Freemasons and Rosicrucians did this centuries before Spiritualists and Theosophists added to the confusion. Britten’s emphatic repudiation of Theosophy in the 1890s was not a disavowal of the 1870s alliance between Spiritualists and Theosophists, but a protest against what Theosophy became in the 1880s. Demarest explains her motive for a turf war between Spiritualist Adepts and Theosophical Mahatmas, claiming credit where due and counteracting Theosophical disinformation: Ghost Land does so in print, some number of years or months (depending on how one counts) before any public description of a Great White Brotherhood by Theosophists (HPB’s claims notwithstanding.) For the rest of 2025 there will be one blog post per month from the astrological profiles in the BOL Lessons, followed by another about two weeks later that excerpts Ghost Land. This alternation might illuminate the connections between 19th century British occultism and that of the 20th century in California.

As the Sun enters Aquarius today, here is one of the most famous Aquarians of his time, born 11:38 pm, 2/11/1847 in Milan, Ohio. Edison was associated with Alexander Wilder and Helena Blavatsky when he joined the Theosophical Society in April 1878. By the end of 1877 William and Emma Hardinge Britten had left for Australia and in late 1878 Helena Blavatsky and Henry Olcott departed for India, but possibly Edison continued to be acquainted with Wilder who stayed in the New York area.

A series of monthly Ghost Land excerpts with commentary will appear through 2026; for 2025 there are nine more astrological profiles of important people to share from the BOL Lessons. Changes may be made in this 2025 schedule, but here is the plan: Piscean Luther Burbank, Arian Harry Houdini, Taurean Alice Faye, Geminian Abdul Baha, Leo Amelia Earhart, Virgoan Jesse James, Libran Mohandas Gandhi, Scorpio Billy Sunday, Sagittarian Noel Coward. (Cancerian Nikola Tesla was the first one featured, Aquarian Edison the second.) The BOL Lessons have much to say about Decanates and aspects, Moon and ascendant positions of the same historical figures, so categorizing them by sun signs is only one of many ways to look at their charts.

In March 1937, World Astrology featured an article by Elbert, Nikola Tesla and the Death Ray that goes into more detail.

The entire March 1937 issue is available at IAPSOP here.

PS– There is a lot of noise, online and in print, and with a recent documentary, about Tesla’s Death Ray and his own mysterious death. Here is a credible account from the Science History Institute Museum in Philadelphia, now closed for renovations but due to reopen soon.

Destroyed by the Eaton fire in Altadena this week:

From the website of the Altadena Historical Society.

top photo, Theosophical Library Center on Lake Avenue bottom photo, TS headquarters on Mariposa Street

My first experience with writing for publication occurred in September 1981 with Sunrise Magazine on my first visit to Altadena. I returned repeatedly through the 1980s and contributed regularly to Sunrise on international occult history topics. In 1995 my research interests became US local history/genealogy focused as I started work on what became Edgar Cayce in Context (1998) and continued in that direction with Pell Mellers, Carolina Genesis, and Letters to the Sage.

The Eaton fire is not the first disastrous incident in southern California involving a Theosophical publisher I knew. Another periodical for which I wrote in the 80s was The Eclectic Theosophist, edited by Emmett Small who owned Point Loma Publications, a small specialty press. After his passing, their entire book and archival inventory was destroyed by fire in October 2007 in San Diego County. The event was called the Witch Fire. Here is Marc Demarest’s post about the implications of the devastating fire in Altadena that destroyed both the TS library and their nearby headquarters, which was also home to the staff. So much to think and talk about re historic preservation as we enter the second quarter of the 21st century.

Books by Randolph (1863), Chintamon (1874), Grimke (1900), and Astley (1913) are linked through fifty years of literary history to the same small organization. The History of the Adepts book series is now renamed as Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor to make the description more informative about how these four books are related. (The blog title is unchanged.) Randolph’s and Chintamon’s books predated the 1884 formation of the HBL; Astley’s was published after the organization collapsed in Colorado in 1909 and Benjamin Williams was invited by some of its leaders to author a new set of lessons that would be published by a new organization in California, the Brotherhood of Light. Grimke is the central figure in the series timeline, whose chronology connects with all the others in various ways: philosophical, political, spiritual, and personal.

from the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History

The complete edition of Ghost Land includes the first publication in book form of Volume Two, set in the 1880s and 90s but featuring experiences the author Britten had in the 1850s and 60s in the US as “Mrs. Hardinge.” She has become allied with Thomas H. Burgoyne and the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor by the time the second volume appears. He resides in the Monterey Bay region from 1886 through 1889, then is found in Mendocino County by 1891 as a ranch owner. This illuminates the California connections between Ghost Land and The Light of Egypt.

This Santa Cruz County tourism website provides photos and information about the stretch of coast described in Volume Two of Ghost Land. Britten had not been in California in years by this point but Burgoyne had lived there for several years and was enthralled by the scenery, as was Elbert Benjamine years later.