Why in 1951 the
Adyar Society Published Sixteen
Offensive and
False Letters Ascribed to H.P. Blavatsky
Carlos Cardoso Aveline
Ms. Jean Overton Fuller
(1915-2009)
helped investigate the
false “Bolt Letters”.
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The following text reproduces Chapter
Eleven of
the book “The Fire and Light of Theosophical
Literature”,
by Carlos Cardoso Aveline, The
Aquarian Theosophist, Portugal, 255
pp., 2013.
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The 16 Bolt Letters were published as if they
had been written by Helena P. Blavatsky. They are addressed to the Russian
Prince Dondoukoff-Korsakoff and show a handwriting similar to that of HPB. Yet
their contents is essentially the same as that of other and well-known forged
letters ascribed to the Old Lady, as the “Coulomb Letters” and the “Soloviof
Letters”.
Why is it that there is such a variety of false texts?
The cause is not too difficult to identify. It is enough to take into
consideration the strength and magnitude of the public enemies made by HPB
during the last quarter of the 19th century. She gave up every form of personal
comfort and dedicated her life to help destroy - through the force of her
writings - the foundations of organized
ignorance in the various fields of religion, philosophy and science. She
was planting the seeds of a new chapter in human history. She succeeded. Yet
some worldly powers were far from happy about that. Influential people thought
they had reasons strong enough to justify using secret service tactics in order
to destroy HPB’s public image. They wanted her teachings discredited before the
public, lest their own institutions were discredited by true Theosophy. And
they had no concern for Ethics.
The mysterious story of the forged Bolt Letters starts
in the 1920s. The narrative given by the Adyar leaders is almost fascinating.
“Mr. Pierre Bolt” is one of the most successful swindlers to infiltrate and
cause harm to the theosophical movement since HPB’s death in 1891.
It was in June 1926 that Ms. Elsa Lorsy-Stephani wrote
from Vienna to Annie Besant, then the president of the Adyar Society. As C.
Jinarajadasa reports, Elsa said that “a journalistic acquaintance of hers, a
Mr. Pierre Bolt, had brought to her sixteen letters of H.P. Blavatsky, which he
desired to sell.” [1]
Mr. “Bolt” had initial difficulties in his attempts to
get money for the false letters. In his favour, he had a remarkable absence of
discernment on the part of the Adyar leaders. At the time, they were busy
organizing the return of Lord Christ to the world. We will see that episode in
Chapter 15. At some point, while producing the theatrical Return of the Lord,
Besant announced to her friends that she herself was an Adept, a Master of the
Wisdom, an Immortal. [2]
It was in this mayavic situation that the Adyar
leaders evaluated the “Bolt” letters. It must not be a surprise, then, that,
according to Jinarajadasa, they were quick to accept these letters as genuine. But - he wrote - “the price
asked for the letters was very high”.
The contact was lost for several years with the man
who presented himself as “Mr. Bolt”. In 1932, Bolt tried to sell his letters to
the Point Loma Society, and failed again. Point Loma requested copies of the
material, and he did not comply. At last, in 1939, Bolt presented himself with
his 16 supposedly precious letters to the Adyar Society in Portugal, and
started to use another personal name. This time he succeeded in getting
material advantages. But in order to do so, he had to invent an entirely
different story as to the origin of the letters. Thus he heavily contradicted
himself. It is enough to compare the two stories to see that both are equally
far-fetched, and that artificialness is the sole thing they have in
common.
The Two Stories About the Origin
In 1926, “Pierre Bolt” had told the Adyar
Theosophists:
“The letters were property of a Russian lady,
presumably the heiress of the late Prince Dondoukoff-Korsakoff. They had been
sewn together with a thick paper cover and brought to Vienna by a Russian
diplomat, a personal friend of the Russian lady, who was said to be very poor
and wanted to make some money from the sale of the letters. The diplomat in his
turn sent them to his old friend in Vienna, Pierre Bolt, who was authorized by
him to sell them at the best possible price. It was then that Mr. Bolt
contacted Mrs. Lorsy-Stephani, a journalistic acquaintance whom he had not seen
for some years, but knew to be a member of the Society, and offered to sell the
letters to her.” [3]
Bolt’s second tale about the origin of the letters was
given in 1939 to the Portuguese theosophists. He said his real name was not
Pierre Bolt, and now named himself as Leo Ladislav Séméré, a Hun-garian by birth. Such a renewed personage had this story to tell:
“.... There was an Austrian soldier who had joined the
Bolshevik party and volunteered to go and help the Russian Revolution. The
supposition is that when the country houses of the wealthy Russian nobles were
sacked, among them was that of the family of Prince Dondoukoff-Korsakoff; the
letters were found, and this soldier brought them to Austria as part of his
booty. As the letters seemed to have been carefully guarded, he realized that
they must have some monetary value [4],
and so he contacted the Secret Service Ministry and offered the letters to one
of its employees for a hundred rubles. This latter gentleman, knowing of the
interest of Mr. Séméré in all matters of occult science (he had a great admiration
for H.P.B.) referred the soldier to him, and Mr. Séméré purchased the letters.
Then, as mentioned above, he offered them first to Mrs. Lorsy-Stephani (who
then contacted Dr. Besant), and then to Point Loma.”
While in Portugal, Bolt (or “Séméré”) lived in the
house of Mrs. Jeanne S. Lefèvre, the General-Secretary of the Adyar Society in
that country. C. Jinarajadasa writes that “his residence with her enabled her
to give him much personal assistance, as he was already a sick man”. When in
1940 the Portuguese police for some reason did not renew his permission to
remain in the country, he went to France. He had promised to give the
Portuguese theosophists the letters, but changed his mind and, breaking his
promise, took them with him while leaving Portugal. During his stay in France,
he still received a generous material support from Portuguese Adyar Society. He
finally gave the letters to French Adyar members. He then changed his name again - now calling
himself Joseph Louis Barrault - and made news arrive to Adyar theosophists that
he had died, in 1942, at Grasse, France.[5]
It is a well-known trick used by swindlers and secret
agents to simulate their death under one name and to start a “new life” under
another one. The question one should examine at this point is: “Why did the
Adyar leaders accept such stories?”
It was very convenient for them to confirm the
authenticity of those letters, because in them HPB seems to have attitudes
which, if true, would allow anyone to describe her as a mean and selfish
person. To build a false image of HPB
as an egotistic individual would help cover the real lack of honesty and ethics of some prominent Adyar leaders of
the period 1900-1934. It would give a degree of apparent legitimacy to the
falsehood and hypocrisy which were a growing problem in Adyar Society since the
1890s.
The path of discipleship is narrow and it is
dangerous. Even while HPB lived some would not resist the temptations of
disloyalty. When the movement was severely attacked by Christian Missionaries
in the 1880s, few dared to defend her. In 1885, she wrote in despair:
“Why should my best friends allow me to be so
vilified!”
In the same letter, we can read these words: “While my
enemies tear me to pieces the Adyar people play at hide and seek - they pretend to be dead - Oh! the poor miserable
cowards!!” [6]
Blavatsky had to leave India.
She rebuilt the inner part of the movement from
Europe, and for several years the work made excellent progress. The problem of
disloyalty to truth spread once more after HPB left the scene. It went out of
control in 1894-95, with the persecution promoted by Annie Besant and Henry
Olcott against William Judge. This paved the way for further acceptance of
calumnies against HPB.
The Contents of the Bolt Letters
The dates of the “Bolt letters” stop in 1884. This is
the same year when Alexis and Emma Coulomb were expelled from the Adyar
headquarters after trying to extort money, and then forged a number of letters
purported to be written by HPB, as a means for obtaining money from Christian
Churches.
Prince Alexander Mihaylovich Dondoukoff-Korsakoff
(1820-1893), to whom the Bolt Letters are addressed, was a distinguished
Russian military man and administrator, as Boris de Zirkoff reports. Alexander
Mihaylovich was Governor-General of the Provinces of Kiev, Podol and Volin. He
was a General of Cavalry and served as the Commander of the military forces of
the Caucasian military district, 1882-1890. [7] In order to have the Bolt Letters conveniently included in the
theosophical literature, the leaders of the Adyar Society had to do two things,
which they did. On one hand, they had to avoid examining their contents and
their meaning. On the other hand, they had to ignore these clear words from
H.P. Blavatsky:
“This gentleman [Prince Dondoukoff-Korsakoff] has been
a friend of my family and myself since 1846; yet beyond two or three letters
exchanged, I have never corresponded with him.” [8]
There are other and more specific evidences that the Bolt Letters to Prince Alexander
Mihaylovich are false beyond question; and we must examine them. British
Theosophist Jean Overton Fuller (1915-2009) wrote in her book “Blavatsky and
Her Teachers”:
“The letters are dated from August 1881 to June
1884. In the first, introducing herself
as one whom he knew well in their youth, she begs Prince Dondoukoff-Korsakoff
to send on for her a letter to her uncle, General Rostilav A. Fadeyev, her two
aunts (his sisters) both being in Carlsbad
so that she has no means to learn his address.”
But Overton Fuller asks herself:
“Would Vera [HPB’s
sister] not have been able to give it to her, or would the aunts not
have been accessible even in Carlsbad?” [9]
“HPB” sounds strangely self-disrespectful in the
letter. The text suggests she is unhappy for being near the Himalayas. Jean
Overton Fuller proceeds:
“In the next [letter], she thanks him for his reply
and for asking her about her life. It is upon this hook that the rest hangs.
Phrases that begin to cause disquiet concern the adoration in which she is held
in India”. And Overton Fuller quotes from the letter, inserting her own
commentaries between brackets. HPB is made to say:
“The poor fools will deify my ashes in the manner of
those of Gautama Buddha and Krishna ….. the Buddhists look upon me as a deity
fallen from the clouds ….. I quickly learned Sanskrit and Pali [but she never
claimed to know either] ….. Colonel Olcott although President is my pupil and
has to obey me [well, yes, in the sense that the Masters had told her to teach
him, and he obeyed them, whose instructions he could get only through her -
but would she have put it thus
boastingly?] ….. I can go to Lhasa in Tibet
when I like [she never speaks of going to Lhasa and was not interested in
Lhasa, only in Shigatsè] ….. My address? H.P. Blavatsky, no more …..
they look on me as a saint, poor fools! ….. an incarnation of Sakyamuni (…..),
of a Buddha [blasphemy].” [10]
Here one can see an entirely soulless “Blavatsky”.
This fictitious personage is but a puppet reflecting and obeying to the
expectations and calumnies of the enemies of the real HPB. Such an artificial
“double” of Blavatsky appears to be full of vanity, arrogance and pride, and
shows no generous feelings. It has no respect or consideration for HPB’s co-workers
in the theosophical movement. They provoke a feeling of contempt in this
literary double. There is no sign of idealism in the Bolt letters, only
selfishness. They present but a parody of HPB which cannot deceive those who
study her teachings. It would not be correct to think that HPB did not
criticize theosophists. She did. Yet she did so while defending impersonal
ethical principles, never on the basis of personal disdain.
In the second letter the false HPB is also made to say
that her Master keeps the English theosophists “entirely under his mysterious
domination” (“H.P.B. Speaks”, vol. II, p. 21). This, of course, would be
tantamount to black magic. In fact, the Masters refused to give orders to lay
disciples, and they had in all times the utmost respect for everyone’s
self-determination, including regular and advanced disciples as HPB.
The “Blavatsky” in the Bolt Letters was indeed
invented, like the one in the Soloviof and Coulombs letters. One of the Masters
had warned Alfred P. Sinnett in 1884 about the fraud, telling him that forged
letters would appear, ascribed to HPB. [11]
The Artificial “Double” of HPB
Let’s see now a few more examples of sentences
ascribed to this artificial “double” of HPB, which attempts to cause harm to
inner levels of the theosophical movement’s aura.
On p. 22 of “H.P.B. Speaks”, the “double” of the Old
Lady is made to say that Alfred Sinnett dedicated his book “The Occult World”
to a Master “in the most abject terms”. It is not true, of course. The dedication
is well written, and HPB would never say such a thing. All along the second
letter, dated as from Bombay, December 5, 1881, this “personage” foolishly
ridicules herself while ridiculing other members of the movement.
In the third letter, dated as if it had been written
in Bombay in February 7, 1882, the “Bolt” Blavatsky says to the Prince,
referring to herself:
“You have acquired a faithful slave in this heathen
land. (.....) I will never see you again, but from now on I devote myself to
your service. Order and it shall be done, for I have convinced myself this time
that there still remain true gentils-hommes
in the world (to the devil, the gentlemen!).”
(“H.P.B. Speaks”, pp. 42-43)
In the same letter, p. 48, she says: “My book is
translated into Sanskrit and is a tremendous success”. In fact, it makes no
sense translating any modern theosophical book into Sanskrit, and it was never
done. In the same page, the “Bolt”
Blavatsky calls the Prince by the name “Faust” and refers to herself as
“Mephistopheles”. At page 53, in a letter dated March 1st, 1882, the Boltian
Blavatsky says:
“My belief is complete lack of belief, even in myself.
I have long ceased to believe, to have faith, in visible and invisible persons
or in objective or subjective gods, in ghosts and in providence, and I believe
ONLY in human stupidity.”
In a forged text dated May 17, 1882, the double equals
itself to a prostitute (pp. 75-76). The same occurs again at the “letter” dated
August 7, 1883 (pp. 113-114) and at the letter supposedly dated June 3, 1884
(p. 143). In the text dated January 15, 1884, the forgers of the text failed to copy in a correct way the title of
her famous series of articles published
in Russia, and instead of “From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan”, they made
their literary personage say “From
the Caves and Deserts of India” (p. 132). [12]
Such is the level of nonsense present in these texts.
The whole lot of “letters” is but a collection of absurd, vain, offensive and
self-offensive remarks made by an imaginary Blavatsky. There is no need to give
further details here: those interested in more evidences should read Jean O.
Fuller’s book. Her work includes a study of the numberless gross mistakes made
by those who forged these texts. She takes the trouble to show that the
relations and contacts between HPB and the Mahatmas - which are vastly
documented in the theosophical literature - are in each and every point
distorted and disrespected in these “letters”.
While investigating the process of forgery, Overton
Fuller writes:
“If, as I contend, the letters are forged, who forged
them? They are partly in French and partly in Russian, and therefore probably
by a Russian. Several of them are on the stationery of the Theosophical
Society, some on that of its Corresponding Secretary. It is as dangerous to
leave stacks of blank, headed stationery about as books of blank cheques. The
picker-up could have been Solovioff. [13]
As the letters invented by him which appear in the back of his book are in
print only, one may doubt whether he had talent as a forger of handwriting, but
he may have retained Theosophical stationery in case he should one day think of
a use for it and the forgery may have been done on it by someone else.” [14]
The Coulombs, for example, were efficient in forging
letters. Imitating other people’s handwritings was considered a basic ability
to professional spies and Jesuits, in those days.
Together with the 16 letters there is one envelope,
and Overton Fuller proceeds:
“I do not regard the envelope, which bears Indian and
Russian postmarks, as forged. But as H.P.B. remarked in another context,
exhibition of an envelope is no proof of what it is alleged to have contained.
She probably wrote a letter to the Prince for which something more saleable has
been substituted.” [15]
After making this point, Overton Fuller writes about
the need of discernment on the part of theosophists:
“It is my impression that Theosophists are too little
alert to the prevalence of literary forgery. When a person’s name has acquired
sensation value, there is always the likelihood of forged writings being
produced to deceive dealers and bedevil biographies. There was the notorious Don Leon, in the metre and rhyme scheme
of Byron’s Don Juan, but obscene.
Forged letters have been produced as from Byron, Oscar Wilde, Aubrey Beardsley
and Charles Dickens. More recently there have been the forged Hitler diaries.
These passed the scrutiny of the handwriting experts; and it was only when Lord
Dacre (Hugh Trevor Roper) realized the provenance was not as he first thought
he had been told that a more intensive scrutiny of the content disclosed such
disaccord with historical facts that forgery became obvious.”
And she concludes:
“In this case, there are two provenances, given at different
times by the same person. If the heiress of Prince Dondoukoff-Korsakoff had
them, why do we not know her name? And why did she give the letters to ‘Bolt’
to sell instead of to a reputable dealer or auctioneer. Why did she not deal on
her own behalf and so save the commission? Perhaps it was because ‘Bolt’ knew
he could not answer these questions that he changed the story. But then, it
would have to be a very unusual Austrian soldier who went to Russia to help the
Bolsheviks and brought back this booty. If neither story is true, it is
probable that the real provenance is disreputable. It surprises me that those
at Adyar should not have seen the tenor of the letters was anti-Theosophical
and could only offer ammunition to the enemies of Madame Blavatsky.” [16]
Law of Karma Has No Favorites
It is enough to think of the real Blavatsky - shown in
her personal life, in her letters to Alfred P. Sinnett and his wife, as well as
in letters to other theosophists and to her own relatives - to see that the
creators of this “alternative” Blavatsky fabricated with their thoughts but an
artificial monster. It is the duty of theosophists to thoroughly clarify the
issue of false texts ascribed to H.P. Blavatsky, in spite of the fact that such
texts have been accepted as true by ill-informed sectors of the theosophical
movement. For HPB had her reasons to write in 1885:
“And oh, dear, how many traitors and Judases of all
colours and shades we have in the very heart of the Society. Ambition is a terrible adviser!” [17]
The two-volume edition of “H.P.B. Speaks”, published
by C. Jinarajadasa in 1951 and including
the Bolt Letters, might be classified
as an occult prototype of the first volume of “The Letters of H.P.
Blavatsky”, published by John Algeo in 2003 and which includes the Soloviof
Letters and the Eleanor Sidgwick Letters.
The two compilations follow the same editorial policy
in that they adopt as true a number of offensive and forged letters. The
distance in time between them is significant. There are 52 years between 1951
and 2003, and this indicates a square
in the trajectory of Saturn in the sky. It means that a strong karmic challenge
to the heart of the movement, made in 1951, renewed itself in an astrological
square, a weak point of its karmic trajectory. Saturn is the Lord of Time and
Karma, and its cycle is divided in four periods of seven years and a few months
each. The stern ringed planet does not favour forgeries of any kind.
Esoteric Philosophy teaches that the Law of Karma
makes no exceptions. The motto of the movement - “There is no Religion Higher
than Truth” - is still valid, and Karmic processes grant Justice to everyone in
the right time and proper rhythm.
NOTES:
[1] “H.P.B. Speaks”, edited by C. Jinarajadasa,
Theosophical Publishing House, Adyar, Madras / Chennai, India, 1951, a two
volume edition, see volume II, p. V.
[2] On Besant’s declaration of Adepthood, read Chapter 7
in the book “Life and Death of Krishnamurti”, by Mary Lutyens, Krishnamurti
Foundation India, 1990, 232 pp.
[3] “H.P.B. Speaks”, volume II, p. IX. The spelling of
Russian names is not presented in a uniform way. It follows the varying
spellings used by the different sources quoted.
[4] There is no logic in such an idea. If a family keeps
old letters with care, the assumption is that these are texts of personal and
emotional interest with no monetary value.
[5] “H.P.B. Speaks”, volume II, pp. X-XII. This story is told also at the magazine of
the Adyar Society in Portugal, “Portugal Teosófico”, October / December 1983,
pp. 53-55.
[6] “The Letters of H.P. Blavatsky to A.P. Sinnett”,
T.U.P., Pasadena, CA, USA, 1973, 404 pp. See p. 112 for the question on “why
should my best friends...”. See p. 114 for the sentence on “poor miserable
cowards”.
[7] “Collected Writings”, H.P. Blavatsky, TPH, USA,
volume VI, p. 432.
[8] “Madame Blavatsky Speaks Out”, in “The Theosophist”,
Adyar, India, Supplement to the March 1889 edition, also published at “The
Collected Writings of H.P. Blavatsky”, TPH, USA, volume XIII, pp. 205-207. For
this sentence, see p. 206, item 4.
[9] “Blavatsky and her Teachers - an investigative
biography”, 1988, East-West Publications, London and The Hague, in association
with the T.P.H., London, 270 pp., see p. 235.
[10] “Blavatsky and her Teachers -
an investigative biography”, pp. 235-236.
[11] This warning from a Master is
at “The Mahatma Letters”, T.U.P. edition, California, USA, 493 pp., Letter LV,
p. 322. The facsimile of its manuscript is reproduced at the opening of Part
Two in the present volume.
[12] For more information on this
series of Russian articles, see the text “The Writings of H.P. Blavatsky in
Russian”, by Boris de Zirkoff, in the first pages of the volume “From the Caves
and Jungles of Hindostan”, H.P. Blavatsky, TPH, USA. First edition, 1975.
Second edition, 1983, 719 pp.
[13] Overton Fuller is right: it could be Soloviof. Yet
the “picker-up” could also be one of the Coulombs. They had access to HPB’s
office in her Adyar headquarters for quite some time, before they publicly
attacked her in order to get money from Christian missionaries, after their
failed attempt to extort money from theosophists. It is also true that such a
stationery can be easily fabricated in imitation of the original model.
[14] “Blavatsky and her Teachers - an investigative
biography”, p. 237.
[15] “Blavatsky and her Teachers - an investigative
biography”, same p. 237.
[16] “Blavatsky and her Teachers -
an investigative biography”, same page 237.
[17] “The Letters of H.P.
Blavatsky to A.P. Sinnett”, T.U.P., Pasadena, CA, USA, 1973, 404 pp., see p.
95.
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In September 2016, after a careful analysis of the state of the
esoteric movement worldwide, a group of students decided to form the Independent Lodge of Theosophists,
whose priorities include the building of a better future in the different
dimensions of life.
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