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First S.P.R. Report on H.P.B.
APPENDIX
XXXV.
See remarks made on Appendix
XXXIII.
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From Light of July 12th, 1884.
OCCULT PHENOMENA AT PARIS.
The undersigned attest the following phenomenon. On the morning of the 11th of
June, instant, we were present in the reception-room of the Theosophical Society at Paris,
46, Rue Notre Dame des Champs, when a letter was delivered by the postman. The door
of the room in which we were sitting was open so that we could see into the hall; and the
servant who answered the bell was seen to take the letter from the postman and bring it to
us at once, placing it in the hands of Madame Jelihovsky, who threw it before her on the
table round which we were sitting. The letter was addressed to a lady, a relative of
Madame Blavatsky’s, who was then visiting her, and came from another relative in
Russia. There were present in the room Madame de Morsier, Secretary-General of the
‘Societe Theosophique d’Orient et d’Occident,’ M. Solovioff, son of
the distinguished Russian historian, an attache of the Imperial Court, himself well known
as a writer; Colonel Olcott, Mr. W. Q. Judge, Mohini Babu, and several other
persons. Madame Blavatsky was also sitting at the table. Madame Jelihovsky,
upon her sister (Madame Blavatsky) remarking that she would like to know what was in the
letter, asked her, on the spur of the moment, to read its contents before the seal was
broken, since she professed to be able so to do.
“Thus challenged, Madame Blavatsky at once took up the closed letter, held it
against her forehand, and read aloud what she professed to be its contents. These
alleged contents she further wrote down on a blank page of an old letter that lay on the
table. Then she said she would give those present, since her sister still laughed at
and challenged her power, even a clearer proof that she was able to exercise her psychic
power within the closed envelope. Remarking that her own name occurred in the
course of the letter, she said she would underline this through the envelope in red
crayon. In order to effect this she wrote her name on the old letter (in which the
alleged copy of the contents of the sealed letter had been written), together with an
interlaced double triangle or ‘Solomon’s seal,’ below the signature which
she had copied as well as the body of the letter. This was done in spite of her
sister remarking that her correspondent hardly ever signed her name in full when writing
to relatives, and that in this at least Madame Blavatsky would find herself
mistaken. ‘Nevertheless,” she replied, ‘I will cause these two red
marks to appear in the corresponding places within the letter.’
“She next laid the closed letter beside the open one upon the table, and placed
her hand upon both, so as to make (as she said) a bridge along which a current of psychic
force might pass. Then, with her features settled into an expression of intense
mental concentration, she kept her hand quietly thus for a few moments, after which,
tossing the closed letter across the table to her sister, she said, ‘Tiens!
c’est fait. The experiment is successfully finished.’ Here it may be
well to add, to show that the letter could not have been tampered with in transit ---
unless by a Government official --- that the stamps were fixed on the flap of the envelope
where a seal is usually placed.
“Upon the envelope being opened by the lady to whom it was addressed, it was found
that Madame Blavatsky had actually written out its contents; that her name was there;
that she had really underlined it in red, as she had promised; and that the double
triangle was reproduced below the writer’s signature, which was in full, as Madame
Blavatsky had described it.
“Another fact of exceptional interest we noted. A slight defect in the
formation of one of the two interlaced triangles as drawn by Madame Blavatsky had been
faithfully reproduced within the closed letter.
“This experiment was double valuable, as at once an illustration of
clairvoyant perception, by which Madame Blavatsky correctly read the contents of a sealed
letter, and of the phenomenon of precipitation, or the deposit of pigmentary matter in the
form of figures and lines previously drawn by the operator in the presence of the
observers.
“(Signed) Vera Jelihovsky.
“( “ ) Vsevolod Solovioff.
“( “ ) Nadejda A. Fadeeff.
“( “ ) Emelie De Morsier.
“( “ ) William Q. Judge.
“( “ ) H. S. Olcott.
“Paris, 21st June, 1884.”
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