• Theosophical Origins, Transplant to India and Indianization
• Efforts to recruit influencial Europeans: Beginning and Consolidation of the A.P. Sinnett-A.O. Hume-Connection
• Humes Search for Theosophical Certainty, (Oct. 1880-Oct. 1881)
• Sinnett's first proselytizing Enterprise: the Occult World
• Hume's one year Commitment to Theosophy: Near-Belief private Questioning and Public Criticism, 1881-1882
• The Parting of the Ways between Hume and Blavatsky and her Mahatmas
• Postscript: Hume, Sinnett, Indian Chelas and the Theosophical Society Crisis of 1885
• Conclusion

   The second thesis is that the Indianizing of Theosophy meant that it was impossible for Europeans, who belonged to a Christian and western cultural tradition, to become chelas or even lay chelas (devotees who were married) without undergoing a conversion process. By that is meant a basic change in beliefs or practices which could happen quickly or be a long drawn out process. The most important cases in point in this period are those of Alfred P. Sinnett, editor of the influential newspaper, The Pioneer, and Allan O. Hume , a prominent Indian Civil Service officer. In these years they were the most prominent Europeans in India to become deeply involved in the Society and play formative roles in its development. Sinnett converted quickly and completely but for Hume the process was long-drawn out and he was never free of doubts about the founders and their teachings. Extensive data exists on their contrasting Theosophical experiences and the paper gives much attention to this subject. Hume’s case is of particular interest not merely for our understanding of Theosophy and conversion but because his experiences impinged upon his subsequent involvement in the organization of the Indian National Congress. 

In its modern nineteenth century avatar, theosophy refers to the ideas and beliefs of the Theosophical Society as formed and developed by Blavatsky and Olcott. Blavatsky was born in southern Russia in 1831. She came from a privileged family of German-Russian origins and was reputed by her family to have been psychic, rebellious and strong-willed from childhood. 1) Pressured in her late teens into a marriage with 40 year old N.V.Blavatsky, a vice-governor in Armenia, she promptly ran away to Constantinople and became something of world traveller until 1873 when she settled in the United States and became a citizen. By then she was heavily into spiritualsim and the performance of occult phenomena, then much in vogue among religious liberals on the eastern seaboard where she lived. 2) This was the link which brought her into contact with Olcott, a lawyer and journalist who had earned the rank of colonel in Lincoln’s army and subsequently developed an interest in spiritualism. They first met in the autumn of 1874. Olcott, who was a year younger than Blavatsky, was fascinated by her power as a medium. She saw him as a potentially loyal and trustworthy associate and they became close friends. In her New York flat, popularly known as ‘the lamasery,’ Blavatsky presided over many discussions on the occult and eastern spiritualism. At one such meeting in September 1875, she and Olcott took the initiative in founding the Theosophical Society.

The Society failed to flourish in its American setting, 3) and by the latter part of 1878, Blavatsky and Olcott, who were respectively the life-time corresponding secretary and president, left for India in the hope of finding a more favourable spiritual and cultural environment for the growth of the movement.

A year earlier Blavatsky had produced the first major literary underpinnings for Theosophy, namely Isis Unveiled: A Master Key to the Mysteries of Ancient and Modern Science and Theology, a massive tow volume publication. Bruce F. Campbell, in his recent critical but sympathetic history of Theosophy, has succinctly summarized the strong scholarly evidence subsequently presented by the American orientalist and spiritualist, W. E. Coleman, that extensive portions of these volumes were plagiarized by Blavatsky. 4) While that assessment is sound and undermines the book’s philosophic originality, it is still important for our purposes to understand its essential views. Blavatsky’s purpose was to rediscover the authentic roots of ‘the spiritual aspirations of mankind,’ in an effort to counter the ‘materialism’ which was threatening to engulf all humanity. 5) These roots she believed to exist in the writings of the ‘ancient philosophers and religious teachers,’ who had resided in the East but whose doctrines had not reached the West because of the ‘prejudice and bigotry’ of Christianity. 6) The West had lost not merely a knowledge of true theology but also of science. Psychology, for example, was ‘alone ... understood’ in the East, and ‘pretend’ Western authorities on ‘modern psychological phenomena,’ needed to ‘go to the Brahmans and Lamaists of the far Orient, and respectfully ask them to impart the alphabet of true science. 7) The most saintly among these religious leaders constituted a continuing brotherhood of morally and intellectually perfected beings known as adepts, masters or mahatmas. Indeed, Blavatsky presented Isis Unveiled to the world as ‘the fruit of a somewhat intimate acquaintance with Eastern adepts and study of their science.’ 8) Her book constituted a statement on behalf of ‘divine religion’ and ‘spiritual freedom’ and a ‘plea ... for enfranchisement from all tyranny, whether of Science or Theology. 9)

Two themes in Isis explain why Theosophy was to prove broadly attractive to many of India’s new intellectual classes. One was the focus on ancient Indian religion and culture. In a chapter entitled ‘India the Cradle of the Race,’ she contended that as a result of advances made in the study of Sanskrit, it had been ‘discovered’ that the ‘very same ideas’ of the ancient Egyptian philosophers were earlier expressed in ‘almost identical language ... in the Buddhist and Brahmanical literature. 10) The other was a vehement attack on organized Christianity. The Church was symbolized by the inquisition, which had shed ‘torrents of human blood ... unparalleled in the annals of Paganism,’ and by Catholic clergy, who ‘surpassed ... the "heathen"’ in sorcery’. 11) Moreover, Jesus was only a pale, later image of the Buddha, who had developed the religion to perfection. Buddhism, unlike modern Christianity, did not ‘curse the "heathen"’ or condemn ‘him and his religion to "eternal damnation".’ 12) Instead, the Buddhist doctrine was ‘entirely based on practical works’ and had as ‘its nucleus’ a ‘general love of all beings, human and animal’. Later in the volume Blavatsky referred to the ‘Vedas’ and ‘Brahmanical literature’ as the source of ‘identical cosmical myths, symbols and allegories,’ which underlay Judaism, Christianity and Gnosticism. 13) An understanding of these myths and allegories was ‘possible only to those who have inherited the key from their inventor.’ This was where the adepts came in, for they alone knew true ‘Magic’ or ‘spiritual wisdom’ and its ‘material ally,’ nature. 14) Blavatsky’s special gift was to be able to communicate transcendentally with these masters.

It is clear from the above that prior to their arrival in Bombay in February 1879 the Theosophical founders had a rudimentary familiarity with Indian religious literature as translated by Western orientalists. Moreover, during their last months in America they had also become aware of the reformist Arya Samaj and had established written contact with its leader, Dayananda Sarasvati. 15) One of their initial objectives in India was to use that relationship as a springboard to enlist support among Indian reformist elites. Their strategies for this latter purpose included making India the international headquarters of the movement, recruiting a small core of personal devotees to assist in the work of the Society, extensive travel and use of the public platform and press to spread the message. In this latter connection, in October 1879 the Society established its own monthly journal, The Theosophist, with Blavatsky as editor. The Society also developed an explicit statement of purpose which was well attuned to the Hindu cultural-intellectual ethos. While the main focus was on winning support among Indian elites, the founders understood the realities of political power relations in British India and were anxious to gain adherents among influential members of the European community.

The Society’s first formal statement of principles in its new Indian context was worked out at a meeting which the founders held with Dayananda in Banares in December 1879. 16) The first principle stated: ‘The Theosophical Society is formed upon the basis of a Universal Brotherhood of Humanity.’ In all, seven specific purposes were identified - namely, to ‘keep alive’ man’s ‘spiritual intuitions;’ to ‘counteract’ all forms of ‘bigotry ... , whether as an intolerant religious sectarianism or belief in miracles or anything supernatural;’ to ‘promote ... brotherhood among nations’ and ‘assist ... international exchange of useful arts and products;’ to seek and diffuse ‘knowledge of all the laws of Nature, ... especially ... the Occult Sciences;’ to disseminate ‘correct information’ about ‘ancient philosophies, traditions and legends;’ to foster ‘the spread of non-sectarian education;’ and finally to ‘encourage and assist individual Fellows in self-improvement, intellectual, moral and spiritual.’ These objectives fitted closely with the values of many thinking Indian leaders.

In 1881 the Society refined its goals into a more succinct version incorporating much of the above but also providing an explicit commitment to the study of Indian philosophy and culture. The revised statement of principle was as follows:

First. To form the nucleus of a Universal Brotherhood of Humanity, without distinction of race, creed or colour.
Second. To promote the study of Aryan and other Eastern literature, religions and science and vindicate its importance.
Third. To investigate the hidden mysteries of Nature and the Psychical powers latent in man. 17)
Gone were explicit commitments to assisting improvements in livelihood and to the promotion of education, though such reforms remained of interest to the movement. What remained was in accord with the general ethos of Hinduism and Buddhism and clause two was obviously appealing to Indian cultural nationalists.

The process of Indianizing the Society can be further illustrated by a brief examination of Olcott’s inaugural address in Bombay and of the first issue of The Theosophist. Olcott was neither an original nor profound thinker, but he enjoyed public speaking and his first Indian speech was a masterly production. Entitled ‘The Theosophical Society and its Aims,’ the address was cast in the form of answers to numerous questions about Theosophy raised by interested Indian friends during their first month in Bombay. Olcott emphasized that the Society, founded by more than coincidence in the same year as the ‘Arya Samaj of Aryavarta,’ had begun its life in ‘the enemy’s country, with foes all about, public sentiment hostile, the press scornful and relentless’ and ‘traitors’ working to undermine the organization. 18) In addition, Christian clergy had ‘denounced’ the Theosophists as ‘the children of Satan, doomed to eternal damnation along with the wretched "Heathen."’ In his introduction to the published text he stated that the founders had chosen to ‘settle’ in India, because they were thoroughly ‘Hindoocized’. They were ‘enraptured with the ancient learning and philosophy of India’ and for India had ‘left their homes and sacrificed all worldly considerations.’

After assuring the audience that the Society was non-political and would not interfere in social institutions such as marriage or ‘filial or parental relations,’ he spelled out its essential philosophy. Theosophy believed that there was ‘one Absolute Truth’ underlying all established religions and accepted the ‘immortality of the human soul’. It supported the systematic study of ‘occult science,’ first, because it taught that there was ‘a world of Force within this visible world of Phenomena,’ and second, because it stimulated the ‘student to acquire, by self-discipline and education, a knowledge of his soul-powers and the ability to employ them.’ This ‘occult science,’ not that of the modern West, was the key to the ‘sacred science’ which was the core of all truth and explained the very nature of life. This core truth had been discovered by the ancient sages of ‘Tibet, India, Persia, Chaldea, Egypt and Greece,’ and still survived and was ‘practised by men who carefully guard their knowledge from profane hands.’ Then, sounding like a Vedantist, he spoke of the contrast between ‘our narrow physical life and the Bhavitatman, of soul universalized - the soul having sympathies with the Universal Good, True, Just, and being absorbed in Universal Love!’

Olcott identified the Society with indigenous religious and cultural reform organizations rather than with traditional and orthodox Hindu leaders. He particularly welcomed adherents of the ‘Arya, Brahmo, Prarthana, and all other minor Samajes which represent the progressive mind of Young India.’ Olcott concluded with various moral injunctions, generally in accord with the ideas of these Societies. He appealed to Hindus to ‘rise above their castes and every reactionary influence’ in order to ‘regenerate’ their country. He also made a pitch for ‘non-sectarian education for native girls and married women,’ which Theosophists regarded as ‘the corner-stone of national greatness’. He promised that the Society would aid in promoting such education, as well as the introduction of ‘cheap and simple machines,’ which could be used to ease manual labour and promote India’s prosperity’. His only explicit criticism of modern India was that it ‘completely’ ignored the ‘achievement of ancient Aryavarta.’ He added, presumptuously, that he and Blavatsky knew ‘more of the essence of Vedic philosophy than the direct descendants of the Rishis themselves.’ On this point, as they were later to discover, Dayananda was to disagree profoundly.

The first issue of The Theosophist repeated many of the general themes which Olcott had identified in his inaugural address. Even its sub-title, A Monthly Journal Devoted to Oriental Philosophy, Art, Literature and Occultism: Embracing Mesmerism, Spiritualism and other Secret Sciences, emphasized its identification with the East. Educated Indians, used to the berating of their culture by Western officials and missionaries, must have been flattered by the Journal’s first titled article, ‘Namaste!’, which gave the rationale for its establishment. The prime purposes were twofold. The first was to provide an ‘organ through which the native scholars of the East could communicate their learning to the Western world’ by expounding the ‘sublimity of Aryan, Buddhistic, Parsi and other religions’. 19) The second function was that of a ‘repository’ especially for ‘facts’ about occultism. Members might adhere to any religion but they could not use the Journal to exclusively promote their own sect. It promised not to suppress facts and asked for ‘courtesy of language’ to be used against opponents, something which Blavatsky herself was to find difficult to observe. In a later issue, noting the numerous contributors, who varied so greatly in ‘literary merit’ as well as in ‘race and creed’, Blavatsky proudly described The Theosophist as ‘the Asiatic People’s Magazine.’ 20)

The extent of the Society’s Indianization can also be seen in its articulation of guidelines for members. From its early months in India the Society’s expectations regarding its members envisaged two different levels of commitment, depending upon whether one was interested in ‘exoteric’ or ‘esoteric’ Theosophy. The first involved support for the general philosophic principles of the Society. In his 1879 Bombay address, Olcott emphasized that it was not necessary for general members of the Society to forego marriage and that even as president he had merely given up his former moderate wine drinking and other worldly pleasures such as frequenting clubs, theatres and race courses. Only the adepts were obliged to forsake obligations to 'country, society and family,’ and follow a ‘life of strict chastity.’ 21) Later Hume, writing on behalf of the Society, detailed the behaviour code for chelas, by which he meant followers of ‘esoteric’ Theosophy who were involved in sustained endeavours to understand the divine wisdom of the mahatmas. To become such an adherent required a ‘complete change of life, mind and heart,’ and ‘most strict and long-continued preparation’. 22) This involved abstaining from ‘all spirituous liquors;’ living a ‘perfectly pure and chaste life;’ being ‘perfectly truthful, just and honest, in all ... words and deeds;’ maintaining a state of mental ‘serenity’ and banishing ‘all passion, pride, hate, malice, envy, anger, greed and craving for worldly advantaged; ‘ subordination ‘self to others,’ filling one’s heart with ‘loving kindness towards all living beings;’ watching for ‘opportunities of doing secret kindness to all within reach;’ and, finally, accepting ‘the empty and transitory character of all earthly things,’ and centring one’s ‘desires ... on the unseen and imperishable, and on the attainment of that higher knowledge which leads to these’. This code was well attuned to the ideas of Indian religious reformers, while the Society accepted as ordinary fellows all who sympathized with its general objectives.

Many devout Hindus and religious reformers already lived according to the principles required of chelas, which meant that they could even become a part of the Theosophical inner circle without having to undergo changes of belief or lifestyle. By the same token few Westerners in India were likely to be in that category. Indeed, the more the Society became Indianized, the greater was the change required in belief and lifestyle for Europeans who wished to become chelas. The case was probably similar for a small number of young Indians who were entrusted by Blavatsky to work at headquarters. But the great majority of Indian supporters were interested only in ‘exoteric’ Theosophy and that required no changes in belief or behaviour. It will be useful first to examine some specific cases of Indian non-conversion and conversion. BACK TO TOP

The first such formally initiated recruits appear to have been Lieutenant Colonel William Gordon of the Bengal Army Staff Corps and his wife, Alice, who were based in Calcutta. They came to Theosophy via spiritualism and were formally initiated as fellows in August 1879. 56) They were both active in the Society for several years but do not appear to have aspired to chelaship. Another early European recruit was Ross Scott, a young Irish member of the Indian Civil Service in the North-Western Provinces who had returned to India on the same ship as Blavatsky and Olcott. 57) Blavatsky tried to interest Scott in Theosophy and he undoubtedly had a part in bringing the Hume family into contact with the movement. While we do not know the background circumstances, in February 1880 Ross Scott and Maria Jane or Minnie Hume, the daughter and only child of Allan O. Hume and his wife Mary, along with three Indian members, were initiated into the Society by Blavatsky at her bungalow in Bombay. 58) According to Blavatsky, ‘Miss Hume,’ who was her house guest for three days, had already been associated with the Society for ten months. While we have no corroborating evidence on this latter point, the first list of paid up subscriptions to The Theosophist, printed in the December 1879 issue, contained Minnie’s name, as well as that of Scott. Blavatsky described Scott as a ‘Christian’ and Minnie as a ‘Christian follower of Swedenborg,’ the Swedish mystic. She further alleged that though Minnie had lived in India for ten years she had ‘never touched the hand of any native’ until the evening of her membership initiation. Blavatsky confessed that she was utterly ‘bored’ with Minnie before the visit ended, but she had much greater interest in Scott and later, as we shall see, attempted to draw him into the inner circle.

Far more significant for the Society was the contact which started in February 1879 with Alfred P. Sinnett (1840-1921), editor from late 1872 of the influential Allahabad newspaper, The Pioneer. Sinnett had begun his journalistic career in Hong Kong in the late 1860s, after which he returned to London in 1870 and became an editorial writer for The Evening Standard. 59) That same year he married Patience Edensor, who went with him two years later to his prestigious new position in Allahabad. During a three months’ London furlough in 1875 Sinnett became heavily influenced by spiritualism. He heard about Isis Unveiled shortly after its publication and when he saw a note in a Bombay newspaper about the arrival there of Blavatsky and Olcott, he published an item about them in The Pioneer. Olcott wrote to him on the basis of that news item and Sinnett, in turn, invited the founders to visit Allahabad. The visit materialized in early December 1879, when Blavatsky and Olcott, accompanied by Babula and Damodar, arrived in Allahabad as the guests of the Sinnetts. According to Damodar, the Sinnetts wanted Blavatsky to demonstrate her occult powers but she declined until she consulted Dayananda, who was then in Banares. 60) In mid-December, the Sinnetts, along with Mrs. Alice Gordon, went with the founders to Banares, where they witnessed what Damodar described as flowers dropped ‘by invisible hands’ on a table around which the group were sitting. Evidently satisfied, the Sinnetts returned to Allahabad where the founders soon rejoined them for a further week. During that stay Sinnett and his wife were formally admitted as fellows of the Society. 61) This was a major coup, Sinnett being one of the most influential, non-governmental Englishman in India. It was equally significant for the Sinnetts, transforming their lives and constituting a conversion experience.

The Allahabad visit also captured the first sparks of interest in another prominent Briton, Allan O. Hume (1829-1912), who had just taken up residence in that city. He too had a certain prominence, or more accurately notoriety, among the British community in India, but was in the opposite camp from the conservative Sinnett on political, social and intellectual issues. Hume was the product of a liberal utilitarian family background, and like his Radical M.P. father, Joseph Hume, had little evident interest in institutional Christianity. He was essentially a rational empiricist, deeply interested in natural science and by that time recognized as the leading Indian ornithologist. 62) While ornithology was his passion, his professional career since 1849 had been that of an Indian Civil Service officer. Until 1867 he had been involved in district administration in the North-Western Provinces, after which he spent four highly successful years as commissioner of inland customs and from 1871 to 1879 was secretary to the Indian government’s newly department of revenue, agriculture and commerce.

Given this background, how and why did Hume become interested in Theosophy? The circumstances of his first contact are clear enough. Hume had been a zealous secretary of his department but as a critic of government policies and reform activist he became a thorn in the side of his superiors. The result was that in June 1879 the government took advantage of an ostensibly cost-cutting restructuring of central administration to abolish Hume’s department and demote him to junior membership of the revenue board in the North-Western Provinces. 63) This explains his presence in Allahabad when the Theosophical leaders visited. Hume was invited to introduce Olcott at their public meeting on 13 December. While he had undoubtedly heard about Theosophy through his daughter, at the meeting Hume stated that he knew little about the Society except for what he had ‘gleaned from the first three numbers of The Theosophist’ and from ‘a few all too brief conversations’ with Olcott and Blavatsky. 64)

In his introductory remarks Hume emphasized the humanitarian message of Theosophy. Its ‘fundamental’ objective, he informed the audience, was the ‘institution of a sort of brotherhood in which, sinking all distinctions of race and nationality, caste and creed, all good and earnest men, all who love science, all who love truth, all who love their fellow-men, may meet as brethren, and labour hand in hand in the cause of enlightenment and progress.’ This was a ‘noble idea’ and, while only the future would prove whether it would be translated into ‘reality,’ he believed that ‘no honest efforts for the good’ of humanity were ‘ever wholly fruitless’. For these reasons, one ‘must necessarily sympathize with the Theosophists’. In an oblique reference to the occult, Hume referred to ‘other aims’ with which he declined to ‘entirely identify’ himself. However, he wholeheartedly supported the Theosophists in their ‘desire to break down all artificial barriers between the various sections of mankind and unite all good and true men and women in one band, labouring for the good of their fellows’. Hume’s interest was genuine though tinged with liberal scepticism.

Sinnett, by contrast, was deeply interested in spiritualism and was primarily attracted to Blavatsky by her commitment to the occult. Being more socially conventional than Hume, Sinnett found Blavatsky’s personality difficult to accept. He later acknowledged having found her ‘rugged manners and disregard of all conventionalities,’ including her ready use of ‘expletives’ and ‘vehement tirades’ against the good-natured Olcott, rather offputting. 65) Even though she was ‘too violent a departure from accepted standards’ to be well received in general Anglo-Indian circles, Sinnett characterized her first visit ‘an unqualified success’. As it turned out, he and his wife were on the road to being lifetime believers. For more than six months following the December visit nothing further occurred to involve Sinnett or Hume actively in the Society. But the Sinnetts were already fellows and anxious to pursue occult inquiries. Consequently, they invited Blavatsky and Olcott to spend the autumn season of 1880 at their home in Shimla. This visit, which lasted from early September to late October, was very important for the development of the movement for it turned Sinnett into a true chela. At the same time, the visit deepened the interest of Hume, who was then living in Shimla and got to know Blavatsky better.

Sinnett was already convinced that Blavatsky was ‘in possession of some faculties of an abnormal chracter.’ 66) Nevertheless, he still wanted ‘absolute certitude’ as to the existence of the adepts and their ‘wonderful powers,’ including the ability to teach human beings ‘positive knowledge concerning ... their own spiritual nature.’ Hume’s interest was more humanitarian. It was psychological as well for he was facing a traumatic mid-life crisis. Being a very energetic and goal-oriented person, he felt the need for a new mission in life. In 1879 he was 50 years old, had spent 30 years in the I.C.S., and considered his provincial revenue position boring and demeaning. Accordingly, in May 1880 he arranged an eighteen month leave as a forerunner to his planned early retirement at the end of 1881. The object of his leave was to undertake a pioneering ornithological expedition to Manipur and to complete a 3 volume publication The Game Birds of India, Burmah, and Ceylon, which he was producing in conjunction with C.H.T. Marshall. By the autumn of 1880 when Blavatsky and Olcott came to Shimla that project was nearing completion. Given his scientific orientation, it seems likely that Hume also had a theoretical interest in the claims of Theosophy as a higher science for the exploration of human consciousness and the natural universe.

Hume also had a lively intellect, an enquiring mind and a wide range of interests in social and political issues. At the same time his family life was not very stimulating; indeed his wife Mary Anne (née Grindall), who was five years older than her husband, appeared by then to have a serious alcohol problem. It was hardly surprising, therefore, that Hume found Blavatsky personally and intellectually fascinating as he got to know her better that autumn in Shimla. Blavatsky had a very fertile imagination and her striking individuality and feisty temperament resembled Hume’s. While these common traits helped to bring them into close association, they were to prove significant factors in explaining why the intellectual relationship between them was to prove both stormy and relatively short-lived.

Meanwhile, Blavatsky’s 1889 season in Shimla was marked by her precipitation of a rash of phenomena. These began with a ‘happening’ during a late September picnic on Prospect Hill, involving Mary Hume, Patience Sinnett and Blavatsky, in which their on-the-spot request to receive a communication from the adepts was answered with a note on a nearby bush. 67) Next, on 3 October at a breakfast picnic, at which Hume and Sinnett were both present, a seventh person had unexpectedly joined the group at the time of their starting out. As they prepared to eat somebody asked Blavatsky to produce a needed extra cup and saucer, whereupon she directed them to dig in the ground nearby and to their amazement a cup and saucer matching the other six was located. 68) That same evening at the Humes’ luxurious bungalow, Rothney Castle, located on Jakko Hill overlooking the Shimla Mall, the most sensational phenomena of the series occurred. Including Blavatsky and Olcott, there were eleven people present, among them the Sinnetts and Alice Gordon. During post-dinner conversation Blavatsky asked Mary Hume if there was anything that she especially wished for, whereupon she mentioned a brooch which she had given away, possibly to her daughter, who had allowed it to pass from her possession. After a period of concentration, Blavatsky had a premonition that the brooch had just fallen into a certain flower bed in the garden. Sure enough, a search there quickly located the missing brooch. What was special about this incident was that all nine witnesses signed a written account of what had transpired, including an expression of their belief that it represented ‘unimpeachable ... evidence of the truth of the possibility of occult phenomena.’ The statement was promptly released to the press and quickly gained country-wide publicity.

While press reports coming out of Bombay and elsewhere soon cast doubts on the authenticity of the ‘brooch incident’, 69)another development of more significance was the beginning, via Blavatsky, of transcendental correspondence from mahatma Koot Hoomi to Sinnett and Hume. This new development began with the more captivated Sinnett. Since Blavatsky produced phenomena only through the agency of the adepts, Sinnett wished to consult them about the crucial importance of providing ‘perfect and unassailable’ demonstrations of their occult powers. 70) Blavatsky agreed to attempt to transmit such a letter to the brothers. Anxious to prove beyond doubt ‘the possibility of obtaining by occult agency physical results which were beyond the control of ordinary science,’ Sinnett presented a brilliant test, one in which Hume evidently had input - namely, ‘the production in our presence in India of a copy of the London Times of that day’s date.’ 71) After a few days Blavatsky learned via ‘her psychological telegraph,’ that a ‘Brother’ had agreed to receive and answer the letter. Sinnett was so excited that he immediately dashed off another letter and on the evening of 15 October found on his desk a lengthy letter from ‘Koot Hoomi Lal Singh’ responding to both his communications. Even though the letter categorically rejected the London newspaper test, Sinnett was deeply moved by the contact with the mahatmas, who kept up a sustained correspondence with him until November 1884. 72) The explanation for not precipitating a copy of The Times was that humanity was still totally ‘unprepared’ for such a phenomenon and would either regard it as a ‘miracle’ or attribute it to ‘dark agencies’. 73) Indeed, Sinnett was not as yet worthy of ‘such phenomena,’ which had ‘ever been reserved as a reward for those who have devoted their lives to serve the goddess Saraswati - our Aryan Isis.’ The letter reminded Sinnett that he had already witnessed ‘a greater variety of phenomena’ than ‘many a regular neophyte’ and that his duty, as the ‘trustworth[y]’ editor of an influential newspaper, was to publicize news of the recent phenomena effected by Madame Blavatsky. If Sinnett complied, Koot Hoomi promised ‘further evidence.’ While he may not have been altogether satisfied with this response, Sinnett was predisposed to believe and was on the way to becoming a faithful chela.   BACK TO TOP

Koot Hoomi replied to Hume in a letter postmarked Amritsar, where Blavatsky, the exchange medium for these transcendental communications, had gone after leaving Shimla. The letter expressed the appreciation of the mahatma ‘fraternity,’ who were particularly interested in India’s welfare, ‘for an offer of held whose importance and sincerity no one can doubt.’ 75) However, instead of focusing on that offer, which was what really mattered to Hume, it then proceeded to the issue of establishing a separate ‘Anglo-Indian Branch’ of the Theosophical Society, an idea mooted by Blavatsky but in which Hume had little interest. To Hume this was off-putting, as was the response to his thoughtful queries as to why the mahatmas had failed to ‘leave any mark upon the history of the world,’ and what ‘good’ was to be attained for humanity through ‘occult sciences.’ The answer to the first was to question Hume’s capability of knowing their impact on the world and to confess that they were not ‘demi-gods’ but only wise men who could ‘divert’ some of the world’s ‘energy into useful channels.’ As for occult sciences, interest in it by ‘high officials,’ would encourage ‘the natives’ to ‘openly ... study’ their ‘ancestral sciences and philosophies’. The letter concluded with the snide comment that if Hume would only devote to his fellow men ‘half the attention’ that he bestowed on his ‘little birds,’ he would ‘round off a useful life with a grand and noble work.’

To Hume, who had offered to redirect his whole life to the Theosophical movement, this reply was decidedly unsatisfactory. Unlike Sinnett, who asked many questions of the mahatmas but did not tend to challenge their responses, Hume’s reply was characteristically argumentative. He criticized Koot Hoomi for only partly understanding his position and failing ‘to touch the more important points’ on which he desired ‘enlightenment.’ 76) He insisted that ‘one good’ direct ‘conference’ would be infinitely preferable to ‘any amount of correspondence.’ ‘[I]s it not possible,’ Hume queried, ‘for you to arrange to deal with me conversationally, in or out of the body, under your own condition of time, place, secrecy and the like?’ He believed that his personal ‘weakness’ and ‘follies’ were ‘eradicable,’ and that he already had ‘so much in common’ with the mahatmas. ‘We might become friends and fellow workers in earnest,’ Hume continued, ‘if you ... are what I would fain believe, men purified from ordinary human errors, devoid of all selfish views, inspired by one sole desire of doing good’. To work with them in such a cause ‘would be the dearest desire of my heart,’ Hume added, ‘to attain which, nothing on my part would seem an unreasonable effort.’
Hume emphasized both his yearning to believe in the mahatmas and his need for proof. He already accepted the ‘possibility’ of their existence and ‘almost’ believed in them as a reality. As a near-convert, he was fully conscious of how such belief would be regarded by ‘most Western minds’ - namely as ‘pure idiotcy.’ They would question whether ‘the wild talk of a clever but most erratic minded, and in many ways inaccurate woman’ such as Blavatsky and ‘a few strange phenomena that might be ... mere tricks,’ were ‘reasonable’ grounds for ‘even entertaining the notion of such a brotherhood, possessed of such knowledge and powers’ as the Theosophical leaders claimed. However, since Hume was already ostracized by his fellow administrators, the attitude of the British Indian community to his adhesion Theosophical involvement was inconsequential. Moreover, he was ‘essentially a believer in the unseen universe’. Indeed, he had ‘always admitted ... the possibility’ of special ‘psychical training and development’ and even had ‘at odd times’ in his life ‘glimpses of something like’ the ‘philosophy’ of the mahatmas. ‘It would be such a boon to me to find my dreams true,’ Hume added, ‘that I am anxious to grasp any chance of proving them so.’
Hume went on to deconstruct Koot Hoomi’s reply and to criticize the Theosophical founders. He considered the notion of imparting their ‘higher knowledge’ as a reward for deserving work immoral. With their superior insight the brothers should know whether sharing their knowledge with him would make him ‘more useful’ to humanity, and in which case they were ‘bound by all eternal laws of right and wrong so to enlighten’. Hume did not care ‘a fig for the knowledge and the philosophy’ unless it enabled him ‘to work in earnest instead of wasting’ his life on ‘comparatively trivial matters’ because he could not see his ‘way to meddle safely with more serious concerns of human life’.

As for an Anglo-Indian Theosophical branch, Hume contended that it could only amount to ‘blind leaders of the blind,’ as long as the mahatmas declined to provide special guides to Sinnett and himself. As a result Hume regarded Koot Hoomi’s further suggestion that he and Sinnett provide ‘ideas of the plan on which the branch should be organized’ as patently stupid. Hume bridled at the accusation that he was refusing ‘to give a helping hand to humanity,’ by insisting upon special adept quidance. This was ‘an utterly distorted and misleading resumé’ of his case - so much so, that he speculated that in a former existence Koot Hoomi must have been ‘a lawyer trained "to make the bad appear the better cause".’ Having been given no meaningful knowledge of the wisdom that the brotherhood were supposed to possess, Hume was worried that the outcome might be the overwhelming of ‘peace and good government’ instead of the ‘crushing [of] our common enemies, ignorance and vice’. How can I yet be sure,’ Hume candidly asked, ‘that this is not all moonshine?’ ‘I have seen many shams,’ he continued, ‘many windbags, many starcrowned, flower decked lies and before I move I require to be thoroughly satisfied as to course and consequences.’ Not a person who was modest about his own moral commitment and intellectual acuteness, Hume added:
If you want men to rush on blindfold, headless of ulterior results - stick to your Olcotts - if you want men of a higher class, whose brains are to work effectually in your cause, remember that such men are as fully impressed with their responsibility for their acts as you can ever be, and that you must convince them and take them into your confidence before you can expect them to do your work.
Hume bitterly resented Koot Hoomi’s slighting of his ornithological work and general hostility to modern science. The mahatma had ‘too narrow’ a conception of science and failed to see its connection with ‘moral nature’ and ‘Philanthropy’. Science, Hume insisted, taught ‘a love of truth for its own sake’ and led to ‘a purely desinterested exercise of intellectual facilities’. It was the ‘next best thing to spiritual culture,’ and closely related thereto. Only when science copied the stance of its defeated foe, theology, and became dogmatic did it warrant denunciation. Hume admonished Koot Hoomi to realize that ‘laws are the backbone of all science’ and that science ministered ‘in ten thousand thousand ways’ to the ‘comfort’ and alleviation of the ‘sufferings’ of ‘humanity’. As for his own work in Indian ornithology, it was undertaken ‘for wide reaching moral effects that follow the implanting of scientific tasks.’

In a similar vein, Hume frankly questioned the adepts’ veneration of eastern philosophy over what he regarded as the central truth of ‘all western religions - Thou shalt love thy highest conception of goodness, knowledge and love with all thy heart and thy neighbour as thy self.’ That precept, he believed, was superior to ‘all the theologies Eastern and Western.’ Moreover, he questioned the wisdom of the mahatmas in wishing to revive ‘ancient Indian civilization,’ which, like all civilizations, was the product of a particular environment and time. That civilization was ‘dead’ and the adepts were wasting their ‘talent’ and ‘energies’ in seeking to revive it. Similarly, instead of trying to revive ‘another Golden Age of Sanscrit literature’ the mahatmas should ‘call from its tomb all the flowers of thought that survive it and plant them in the garden of the present’.
Hume contended that in the present age intellectual culture could best be ‘acquired thro[ugh] the study of Western literature’ and ‘the handmaid of the soul,’ science. Acknowledging that the East had much to offer in spiritual culture, Hume challenged the mahatmas to give that ‘culture ... with open hand, and leave to cosmic energies the fashioning of that age-harmonized form of civilization which must necessarily follow the preserve of combined mental and spiritual culture.’ Instead, Koot Hoomi and his ‘fraternity’ were ‘smothering’ this spiritual culture with their ‘traditional laws’ and ‘rules of practice,’ which were the fossilized relics’ of earlier ages. Indeed, he feared that the mahatmas were ‘a perishing organization, no longer possessing the vital capacity for the readjustment of internal organization in correspondence with the changes in external conditions.’ Their ‘glorious association,’ Hume warned, would be ‘doomed’ unless they could reform ‘its conditions to meet the altered circumstances of modern life.’ In fact, Hume was not even sure whether they existed or were merely the ‘creation of M[adame] B[lavatsky]’s prolific imagination’. In addition to criticizing the adepts, Hume expressed his misgivings about Blavatsky and Olcott. He knew ‘nothing’ about their ‘antecedents,’ but theq seemed ‘to be earnest and well intentioned’ and had communicated to him ‘matters ... quite incredible.’ However, Hume continued, neither of them possessed ‘intellectual capacities, sufficiently great to enable me to feel certain that they are not themselves in error.’ Blavatsky was ‘decidedly clever’ but she was ‘clearly neither stable in mind, nor accurate in statement.’ On the other hand, she had exhibited ‘certain phenomena’ for which Hume could not account by ‘natural laws’. These ‘may have been mere clever tricks’ but he was not yet prepared to rule out that they were ‘bona fide results of a knowledge of natural laws exceeding’ his own. Because he believed in ‘the unseen universe,’ he had not ‘pooh pooh[ed] the whole matter,’ as had the ‘majority’ of his fellow Westerners. Indeed, if this ‘new gospel’ were ‘true,’ it could infinitely benefit ‘humanity’ and at the same time enable Hume personally ‘to regain that faith in the potency of human effort, the fading of which has so embittered my life and paralysed my energies’. What he found inexplicable was the unresponsiveness of the mahatmas. As he bluntly phrased it, he had asked Koot Hoomi ‘for bread’ but received only ‘a stone.’
Not surprisingly, a long silence followed Hume’s critical letter. Assuming, as any secular rationalist must, that Blavatsky and her mahatmas were one and the same entity, this was not an easy letter to deal with. On the one hand, Hume clearly suspected that the adepts were the creation of Blavatsky’s imagination, but this was accompanied by a passionate desire to believe in them, intertwined with a questioning of their wisdom and morality. An answer that would draw Hume into the Society required careful thought. Before any response was forthcoming, Sinnett sent Hume a copy of his latest letter from Koot Hoomi. In it he had informed Sinnett that Russia was ‘massing her forces’ for a ‘future invasion’ of Tibet and that the adepts were trying to stop it. 77) This was intended to demonstrate how they were working for good in the world. Koot Hoomi had also spoken approvingly of Olcott, who ‘never questions, but obeys,’ and had ‘pledged’ his ‘faithful service’ to them ‘come well, come ill.’

This letter only reinforced Hume’s concerns about the adepts. On 20 November he wrote to Koot Hoomi regarding the letter to Sinnett. ‘I cannot bear the idea,’ Hume emphasized, ‘of your throwing me over under any misconception of my views.’ 78) But instead of displaying the kind of submissiveness that Koot Hoomi desired Hume gave a candid critique of the letter. He was unimpressed about claims of restraining Russia, observing that if he thought Russia would govern Tibet or India in a way which made the ‘inhabitants ... happier than they are under the existing governments,’ he himself would ‘welcome and work for her advent.’ However, since he judged the Russian government to be a ‘corrupt despotism, hostile to individual liberty of action and therefore to real progress,’ surely it was axiomatic for the adepts to oppose her expansion. As for praising Olcott’s unquestioning obedience, it was reprehensible. ‘This,’ Hume declared, ‘is the Jesuit organization over again’. ‘[T]his renunciation of private judgement, this abnegation of one’s personal responsibility, this accepting the dictates of outside voices as a substitute for one’s own conscience,’ he expostulated, ‘is to my mind a sin of no ordinary magnitude.’ If ‘this doctrine of blind obedience’ was ‘essential’ to the ‘system’ of the adepts, Hume doubted whether ‘any spiritual light’ it might confer could ‘compensate mankind for the loss of that private freedom of action, that sense of personal, individual responsibility of which it would deprive them.’ He himself would never accept instructions from the adepts ‘without understanding the why or the wherefore, without scrutinizing consequences’ and would never act in a ‘blind and heedless’ manner. As an ‘avowed enemy of ... military organization’ and an ‘advocate of the industrial or co-operative system,’ Hume warned that he would never join any Society which ‘purports to limit or control my right of private judgement.’ He feared that he was ‘too essentially a radical at heart, to be accepted’ into the ‘naturally conservative order’ of the adepts.

Hume’s criticisms angered Koot Hoomi, who, as soon became evident, was anxious to project himself as a traditional Indian guru who did not take kindly to being challenged by his followers, much less a mere aspiring chela such as Hume. In a lengthy response to Hume himself and in other comments to Sinnett, Koot Hoomi was scathing. He attributed Hume’s reactions to his nationality, asserting that it was easier for oil and water to mix than for even the most ‘intelligent, noble-minded and sincere’ Englishman to ‘assimilate ... exoteric Hindu thought, let alone its esoteric spirit.’ 79) By contrast, the ‘Hindu mind’ was ‘pre-eminently open to ... the perception of the most transcendental ... abstruse metaphysical truths,’ and hence oriental adepts would always be ‘Masters’ of Europeans in ‘spiritual sciences’. He deplored Hume’s criticisms of Olcott and infinitely preferred his loyalty to Hume’s ‘fierce combativeness’. He also drew unfavourable contrasts with Sinnett, who ‘believes and will never repent,’ whereas Hume had allowed his ‘mind to become gradually filled with odious doubts and most insulting suspicions.’ Hume was so filled with ‘that haughty and imperative spirit which lurks at the bottom of every Englishman’s heart’ that he would be uncomfortable with an oriental guru. On the other hand, Koot Hoomi assured Sinnett that he was the exception to the haughtiness which was a ‘national feature’ of the English and thus ‘would ever consent to have a "nigger" for a guide or leader’. 80) While Sinnett was also egotistical he did not mount ‘philanthropical stilts’ like Hume and therefore had much greater likelihood of learning ‘a good bit of occultism.’ Hume, however, was the very embodiment of the ‘egotism of this age’ and hence the prospect of the adepts developing an ‘entente cordiale’ with him was remote. 81) Koot Hoomi ominously warned that Hume’s ‘suspicion’ threatened to become a ‘hideous monster’ which would likely prevent him from realizing his ‘highest ideals’ and leave him in ‘worse darkness than before’.

Koot Hoomi’s response to Hume’s letter of 20 November was to suspend correspondence with him while venting his outrage to Sinnett. He accused Hume of wanting to disturb the ‘moral, pure hearted, simple people’ of Tibet by imposing on them his own ‘ideal of civilization and Govt.’ 82) He added with withering satire that Hume ‘ought to be sent by an international Commitee of Philanthropists ... to teach our Dalai Lamas - wisdom.’ Men like Hume, he acknowledged, might make ‘able statesman, orators, anything you like but - never Adepts.’ Later, when rejecting Sinnett’s plea that he was being ‘too hard’ on Hume, Koot Hoomi speculated that Hume found ‘in his quiet life too meagre a field’ with his wife ‘Moggy’ and his taxidermist, Davidson. 83) Consequently, his mind ‘bursts the dam and pounces upon every imagined event,’ and being a ‘skilled workman in intellectual mosaic’ he delighted in picking out ‘ingredients’ of the adepts’ teachings to ‘daub’ their ‘faces with.’ Koot Hoomi was pleased that the ‘spiritual light’ was burning within Sinnett and urged him to publicize the Theosophical movement and the revelations from the mahatmas.   BACK TO TOP

Home News of 29 July 1881 gave it a sympathetic review and acknowledged the strength of occultism in ‘India and adjacent countries’. 86) It rightly noted that Sinnett had failed to give a satisfactory explanation of why occultism had remained ‘secret property’ through the ages. While not convinced by his arguments, the reviewer acknowledged that Sinnet’s book raised ‘a host of vague speculations in the mind of the reader, and startles and fascinates him’. The book was just what Blavatsky and Koot Hoomi had wanted Sinnett to produce and the latter, in a communication to the author on his arrival back in India in July 1881, greeted him as ‘good friend and brilliant author’. 87) The first edition sold out quickly and the following year Sinnett published a new edition with further updates on ensuring developments. Although it soon became evident that the book included a letter of Koot Hoomi’s containing plagiarized material from a prominent American spiritualist, Henry Kiddle, that did not jeopardize its popularity or propaganda value for the movement. 88)BACK TO TOP

The period from the autumn of 1881 until the latter part of 1882 marked the high point in Hume’s involvement in Theosophy. His formal commitment expressed itself in the form of concerted study of the writings of Blavatsky, the adepts and authorities on Hinduism, Buddhism and mysticism and in extensive writing on behalf of the Society. Most of this writing was published in The Theosophist from the autumn of 1881 until the spring of 1883, some of it under his own name and other items under two pseudonyms which he regularly employed, namely ‘Aletheia’ (truth) and ‘H. X.’ At other times his writings appeared in the form of pamphlets or booklets sponsored by the Theosophical Society. Here we shall refer only to his writings which relate to his struggle to believe and to be accepted as a chela.

One recurring theme of Hume’s was the lack of charity on the part of the founders in response to criticisms by Christian missionaries. While he held no brief for the missionaries or other Christian clerics, Hume thought that it was incumbent on the leaders of Theosophy to respond to attacks with Buddha-like charity. This was one of the points he made in his first article reviewing Olcott’s A Buddhist Catechism, prepared for Theosophical mission work in Ceylon. Hume had high praise for Buddhism, a religion ‘inculcating as pure a code of morality as it is possible for the human intellect to conceive’ and ‘in no way practically antagonistic’ to Christianity. 92) He strongly chided Olcott for being at times ‘distinctly aggressive’ towards Christian missionaries in Ceylon. This, he thought, was not in keeping with the ‘pure spirit’ of either Buddhism or Christianity. Hume returned to this same general theme later in a letter under the pseudonym, Aletheia. The case concerned articles in The Theosophist ‘redolent with hatred and malice’ against Rev. Joseph Cook, a Boston preacher who had been travelling around India criticizing Theosophy and Spiritualism. 93) ‘Is it for us, who enjoy the blessed light,’ the letter queried, ‘to imitate a poor unenlightened creature (whom we should pity and pray for) in the use of violent language?’ No great religious reformers had ever won adherents without consistently observing their own teachings. ‘Think now,’ the letter continued, if the Blessed Buddha, assailed, as he passed, with a handful of dirt by some naughty little urchin wallowing in a gutter, had turned and cursed, or kicked the miserable little imp, where would have been the religion of Love and Peace? With such a demonstration of his precepts before them, Buddha might have preached ... through seventy times seven lives, and the world would have remained unmoved.

Instead of ‘returning good for evil, ‘the founders of the Society, ‘straightway ... fume and rage, and hurl back imprecations and anathemas, which even the majority of educated gentlemen ... would shrink from employing.’ Such behaviour could only lead the world to ignore the divine message of Theosophy.

Hume’s first major publication was a series of three essays, ‘Fragments of Occult Truth,’ published in The Theosophist from October 1881 to September 1882 and subsequently issued in pamphlet form. 94) These essays show him trying to comprehend Theosophical teaching as it was being revealed piece-meal by Blavatsky and the adepts and also to spread the message. The essays were in response to criticisms of an Australian spiritualist, W. H. Terry, who argued that occultists did not understand the phenomena of spiritualism. 95) In the first essay, Hume explained the Theosophical notion that human beings consisted of seven components (physical body; vital principal or jiva-atma; astral body; astral shape or body of desire; physical ego; spiritual ego; and spirit or emanation of the Absolute) not three (the body; the animal soul; and spiritual soul), as the spiritualists believed. 96) According to Theosophy the first three components dissipated at death. Then, according to the ‘Universal Law of Affinity,’ either of two things happened. If during life the ‘spiritual Ego’ had been ‘material in its tendencies,’ it continued to ‘cling blindly’ to the physical bodily elements, in which case the ‘true spirit severs itself from these and passes awayelsewhere ... still guided ... by the irresistible cyclic impulse which first projected it through the veil of primitive cosmic matter.’ If, however, ‘the tendencies of the Ego’ had been ‘towards things spiritual,’ then at death the ego would ‘cling to the spirit’ and pass with it into a new stage of being where it would be ‘reborn’ into a world ‘higher in the spiritual scale’. By deductive logic it followed that ‘no Spirits of the departed can appear ... in the phenomena of Seance-rooms’ but merely the ‘animal souls’ or ‘shells of the deceased’. In his third article, he dogmatically contended that the knowledge of the spiritualist medium was ‘unreal’ and ‘untrustworthy,’ in contrast to that of the adepts, who ‘alone possess the real knowledge, their minds alone being en rapport with the universal mind.’ 97)
Hume appeared to write with the assurance of a believer, but privately he worried about the weakness of some of his arguments. The main problem related to adept teachings about the fate of the spirits of those who died premature deaths from suicide, violence or epidemics. Theosophy taught that only a minority of phenomena in seance rooms derived from these spirits, but statistics showed that in Britain, for example, some 85% of the people died before ‘their normal death period’. 98) Another problem was that Theosophy maintained that ‘the spirits of ... good people dying natural deaths remain[ed] some time in the earth’s atmosphere,’ but failed to explain why they could not communicate through seances. Thirdly, Hume was convinced Theosophy grossly underestimated the ‘number of pure high spirits,’ thousands of which he was convinced ‘appear in pure circles and teach the highest morality’. In support of that view he cited the books of the French spiritualist, Alan Kardec, noting at the same time that ‘pages and pages’ of his book were ‘identical’ with what the adepts taught. If he suspected plagiarism, he did not level that charge against Koot Hoomi. What he did warn was that ‘unless the whole theory’ was ‘properly set forth,’ Theosophy would ‘never win over the spiritualists.’ ‘Better tell the outside world nothing.’ Hume argued, ‘than to tell them half truths, the incompleteness of which they detect at once, the result being a contemptuous rejection of what is truth’.

The publication of Fragments of Occult Truth overlapped with Hume’s most substantial discourse on Theosophy, Hints on Esoteric Theosophy, issued under the pseudonym ‘H.X.’ and published in book form by the Theosophical Society in the first part of 1882. It was written in response to two letters addressed to Hume by thoughtful questioners of Theosophy. The proposition of the first of these, as paraphrased by Hume, was that the Theosophical Society was a ‘delusion’ and that there was not ‘a shadow of evidence of the existence of Brothers,’ the phenomena and correspondence being ‘the result of Madame Blavatsky’s mesmeric, clairvoyant and mediumistic powers.’ 99) The letters also criticized the founders and their management of the Society. Hume attempted to address the issues, but in so doing he candidly acknowledged certain problems regarding Theosophical beliefs and practices.

Hume agreed that the Society had as yet achieved much less than it ‘might and ought to have ... done,’ but argued that it was already having some success in bringing together India’s ‘myriad classes, castes, sects and races’. 100) On the Society’s second objective, that of promoting ‘ancient languages, science and religion,’ Hume conceded that little had ‘apparently’ been accomplished, but contended that ‘some of the most learned Pundits, Sanscritists and Pali Scholars of India’ had joined the movement. 101)

On the issue of whether the adepts were real, Hume admitted in the original edition that he had ‘no absolutely conclusive proof’ of their existence. 102) He contended, however, that ‘the existence of a Lodge of persons, such as the Brothers ... is a hypothesis (monstrous as it must seem to all outsiders) less difficult to accept ... than any other ... suggested’. 103) One of the problems, Hume admitted, was that until one became a chela and submitted ‘absolutely’ to the brothers’ guidance they would provide none of their secret knowledge out of fear that otherwise it might be misused. 104) But Hume maintained that even among those who were aspiring or recognized chelas ‘none of us feel disposed to subordinate our wills entirely to those of other people, Adepts or non-Adepts.’ The result was that, except for Olcott, no European in India had yet become a regular chela. But even he could still ‘perform no phenomenon’ and in Hume’s opinion was ‘nearly as far from the great secret as any of us.’ Blavatsky alone was on a ‘different footing,’ being not only a chela but having ‘passed through several of the stages which precede the lowest stage of adeptship.’ As such, she possessed ‘powers’ and could ‘communicate at will with the Brothers’. Only Blavatsky, Olcott and one other ‘cultivated European,’ whom Hume did not name, had ever ‘seen and conversed’ with one of the Brothers. 105) However, Damodar and other ‘natives’ had ‘publicly testified to seeing one or other of the Brothers.’ Indeed, there were ‘a large number of natives who have received absolute proof and possess an absolute certainty of the existence of the Brothers, under whom many of them are working, and in whose steps they are treading.’ The other factors which supported the hypothesis of the reality of the adepts were, Hume argued, ‘a long series of phenomena, several of which are outside all authenticated spiritualistic experiences,’ and written ‘communications supposed to have come from them,’ which in some cases Blavatsky could not ‘possibly have had access to, or even knowledge of’.

Hume also dealt with the secretiveness of the mahatmas and their refusal to deal directly even with a ‘selected number of Theosophists, and thus pave the way for the gradual infusion of the truths about them amongst mankind,’ but instead leaving them all ‘in the pitiable state of uncertainty’. 106) The answer, Hume reasoned, was that mankind, being most deeply stirred by ‘mysteries of death and the possible world beyond the grave,’ was not yet ready to absorb peacefully the news of the existence of adepts ‘who not only knew all about death, but ... watch[ed] the progress of the immortal portion of man after death, witnessed what befell it, and knew why and how in each case this occured’. 107) Given the existing state of mankind, Hume argued that ‘the public appearance and ministry of the Brothers’ would ‘give birth to a new crop of bainful superstitions, ... disorganise society, disturb the whole course of public affairs, and not improbably extinguish finally that small Brotherhood, in whose sole custody remains the secret knowledge of the universe.’ Even the frustatingly slow revelation of the fragments of the truth being doled out to Theosophical devotees was preferable in Hume’s mind to such social upheaval.

Another issue was that of the obvious preference of the mahatmas for orientals instead, as Hume’s questioner put it, of ‘more enlightened and better educated Europeans.’ 108) In particular, Hume’s questioner had queried why the brothers had bothered to ‘waste time with a half-educated slip of a boy’ like Damodar. Even though Hume was no fan of Damodar, he challenged the questioner’s dismissal of him as a ‘monomaniac’ who saw ‘anything and everything!’ Instead, he noted that Damodar had ‘deliberately given up high caste, family, friends and an ample fortune, all in the pursuit of truth’. Hume thought that the adepts’ ‘love [for] the natives’ occurred because India was the ‘earliest traceable home of Occultism,’ and ‘adeptship’ had been known there for ‘at least 4,000 years’. Moreover, he believed that the physical character of ‘Easterns,’ due partly to climate and ‘vegetarian diet,’ was more ‘favorable to the development of psychical powers than the more robust animal-food-fed organisations of the Westerners.’ All this explained why the ‘large proportion’ of adepts appeared to have been ‘natives of India.’ This posed no problem for Hume, who was not tainted by racism and had already decided to stay on in his adopted home of India rather than return to Britain.

Hume also dealt with the sensitive topic of aspersions on the characters of Blavatsky and Olcott and their management of the Society. After having closely observed Olcott for months, Hume was convinced no ‘mere man’ could have led ‘a purer, better life’ than he had following his arrival in India. 109) As for Blavatsky, Hume had to contend with severe strictures from his questioner, who had remarked on ‘her restlessness of mind, loose and inaccurate habits of speech, ... her irascible temper, her want of charity to all who oppose or doubt her, her dogmatic and imperious spirit and vehemence of speech’. 110) Hume admitted ‘a substratum of truth’ in these comments but argued that they were seriously exaggerated. 111) With an air of male superiority, he considered that ‘like most other women’ she was at times ‘irritable and fractious,’ but he had never been able to detect ‘any malicious or revengeful spirit in her.’ He further acknowledged that when faced with ‘some new and outrageous calumny’she sometimes became ‘very angry’ and showed ‘a great disposition to abuse her assailants roundly’ or to fire off a sharply worded letter. But afterwards she was always sorry for her behaviour. Hume also emphasized that she had incredible aggravations to contend with. ‘When you ... have sacrificed everything in life ... to spread truth and do good to your fellows,’ he wrote, ‘it is ... aggravating to see yourself continually denounced, in the public prints, by anonymous writers, as a swindler, impostor, liar and what not.’ A true philosopher might merely smile and disregard such abuse, but Blavatsky ‘had not one grain of this philosophic temperament’. Hume further admitted that she was ‘by no means in all respects’ what the adepts ‘should have desired’. 112) Evidently accepting much of the existing myth about Blavatsky’s past, Hume noted that she had inherited a ‘special capacity ... for ... occult studies’ from ‘an Adept ancestor,’ possessed an ‘innate yearning’ to ‘penetrate’ the ‘secrets’ of ancient wisdom which had ‘led’ her to Tibet, and there had become ‘thoroughly grounded in the science’. This special background, coupled with total rejection of ‘all worldly objects’ and ‘absolute singleness of heart’ in her devotion to the mahatmas, led them to accept her as ‘on the whole the fittest instrument available.’ Notwithstanding this defence of Blavatsky, Hume concluded with two severe criticisms. The first was her inaccuracy. Again showing his own male chauvinism, he contended that ‘most women’ were inaccurate, but Blavatsky was ‘more than normally so’. 113) This he attributed to her long and difficult life and her health, which had been ‘failing for years’. She suffered ‘morbidly from the vulgar slander’ with which she was ‘assailed;’ her memory was ‘undoubtedly impaired’ and she frequently made ‘incorrect, if not absolutely false, statements.’ Her second disconcerting tendency was her ‘humorous combativeness,’ which at times when she was in ‘high spirits’ led her ‘to propound absolute fictions of malice prepense.’ On such occasions even her closest friends could not be certain whether she was acting in ‘fun or in earnest,’ whether she was ‘telling a truth or simply bamboozling an adversary’. Hume deeply regretted such a ‘habit’ in a leader of her position and considered it the source of much ‘enemy’ criticism.

In addition, Hume insisted that even the adepts were not without serious faults. On the basis of Koot Hoomi’s letters, Hume considered him to be ‘quite as dogmatic and imperious, and far less polite, than his poor chela Madame Blavatsky ever has been or could be.’ 114)He could ‘seldom avoid some fling at the stupidity of ... "Pelings"’ (foreigners) when it came to grasping ‘abstruse metaphysical idea[s]’. These faults Hume attributed to Koot Hoomi’s not having completely shed the residue of his ‘haughty’ Rajput heritage, which made him ‘intolerant of all opposition and thoroughly hating and despising of Europeans.’ Most disconcerting of all to those of the inner circle, Hume confessed, was the ‘fact that the Brothers themselves’ had at times ‘formed very erroneous conceptions of the state of mind of some of those with whom they were dealing.’ 115) Hume’s explanation was that their ‘psychic force’ sometimes became exhausted, but he did not himself appear to find it very convincing. In his view the shortcomings of the adepts and Blavatsky were ‘grievous stumbling blocks’ to the development of the movement. 116)

The second part of Hume’s Hints was subtitled Swedenborg and Theosophy and was a response to criticisms by a follower of that mystic. Here Hume portrayed himself as a Theosophical believer and sought by essentially dogmatic assertions to convince his critic of the inadequacy of Swedenborg’s spiritualism and his belief in the personal God of Christian teaching. Hume accepted Swedenborg as one of the ‘greatest natural mystics’ and ‘witnesses to the truth’ during an age of ‘dark ... materialism’. 117) He was an ‘untrained seer’ whom the adepts had tried to lead to ‘absolute truth,’ but had failed because Swedenborg had the ‘erroneous ... western notion of an omnipotent Personal God,’ which ‘absolutely barred his ever rising to the perfect light’. Hume contended that the Theosophical 7^th principle (the Spirit) was ‘Chrst, ... God, or what you like,’ but it was ‘impersonal, and a scintilla only of the Universal Divine, which is in and is everything.’ 118) The object of modern Theosophy was ‘to bring men back to the basic and eternal truths from which Christ and Buddha alike drew their inspiration.’ In the case of Christianity this could never be done by the institutional church, for its preachings bore ‘no resemblance’ to those of Jesus. 119) Moreover, the teachings of Jesus existed only in a ‘most imperfect form,’ and were ‘nothing more than a repetition of a portion of the teachings of Buddha, and other ancient eastern religious teachers’.

Hume also discoursed at some length on how Theosophy alone, by its return to the eternal verities from which all religions sprang, could ensure human salvation and social order in a world threatened by materialism. The gravity of the latter threat explained why after ‘thousands of years of secrecy’ the adepts had now decided to ‘share some portion of their knowledge with mankind.’ 120) The established religious were ‘perishing’ from ‘spiritual dry rot’ and the ‘most cultivated and intellectual men,’ influenced partly by developments in physical sciences, were doubting ‘a continued existence after the death of the body’. Consequently, ‘divine laws’ were losing their hold on ‘the minds of mankind,’ with resulting decreased ‘respect for human laws’. The world was becoming ‘rapidly demoralised,’ not merely by ‘reckless, murderous Nihilism, Communism, [and] Fenianism,’ but by the ‘general weakening of the moral sense amongst all bodies, political, commercial, professional’ and not merely in the public but also the private lives of their members. The real threat to social order would appear when the ‘ignorant masses,’ already lacking ‘self-respect and self-control,’ adopted the ‘non-beliefs’ of the intellectuals. Only the truth offered by Theosophy could avert ‘the coming terrors of a godless, soulless, materialistic age’. It alone could ‘show experimentally’ that there was ‘something in man independent of his physical and death-doomed body’. Esoteric Theosophy taught all ‘willing and worthy to learn how to obtain for themselves ... proof positive of their distinctness from and capacity for existence apart from, their physical bodies.’ At the same time, Theosophy was to ‘rehabilitate the divine law of retributive justice, ... a justice that exactly requites every human being for every deed, good or bad.’ This was the Hindu concept of karma on which Theosophy put much stress. Finally, Theosophy would restore ‘the old divine idea of Universal Brotherhood,’ and, either in its own name or through the total transformation of one of the world’s existing religions, become the ‘religion of the future’.
In reality, Hume was far less confident of the truth of Theosophy than his published discourse suggested. This he candidly admitted to Blavatsky in early January 1882, just after he had finished writing the first part of Hints. His opening sentence, in which he confessed that at times he was ‘desperately inclined’ to believe that she was an ‘imposter,’ but that he ‘love[d]’ her nonetheless, gave a foretaste of what was to follow. 121) Hume pleaded that he could not be more conclusive about the brothers unless he had more convincing proof. ‘[T]hough I may convince others,’ he confided, ‘I have almost unconvinced myself.’ ‘Never till I came to defend it,’ he added, ‘did I realise the extreme weakness of our position.’ He then proceeded to chide Blavatsky severely:
You, you dear old sinner (and wouldn’t you have been a reprobate under normal conditions?) are the worst breach of all - your entire want of control of temper - your utterly un-Buddha and un-Christlike manner of speaking of all who offend you - your reckless statements form together an indictment that it is hard to meet ....

Hume hoped that his candour regarding her deficiencies would ‘stop others’ mouths’ but ‘I personally am not satisfied,’ he added. The adepts’ ‘supposed explanation’ that Blavatsky was a ‘psychological cripple’ because one of her ‘seven principles’ was ‘in pawn in Tibet,’ Hume found unconvincing. He deplored the ‘fatuity of superior beings’ who sent Blavatsky ‘to fight the world armed with only a part’ of her faculties and surrounded by a ‘network of such contradictory and compromising facts’ as to make it ‘impossible’ for even ‘loving’ friends not to doubt the existence of the adepts and her ‘good faith.’ The situation, Hume thought, threw suspicion on the whole notion of a sagely brotherhood.

Hume added perceptively that in many other areas the ‘more one looks into things, the less they seem to hold water.’ Instead, they looked like ‘contrivances thrown out on the spur of the moment to meet an immediate difficulty.’ He failed to understand why the adepts could not explain their philosophy in its entirety. Assuming that the brothers existed, Hume’s most fervent prayer was that they would make Blavatsky ‘more what a great moral reformer should be’ and thus strengthen the hands of people like himself and Sinnett to ‘defend ... and advance’ the cause.

Elaborating on his own position, Hume warned that the brothers were making a ‘mistake in crippling’ his ‘energies’ by leaving him ‘without any certainty of their existence’. As a result he was harassed with ‘doubts’ whether he might ‘not be preaching doctrines’ which were ‘founded on a fraud’. He worried that he might be ‘wickedly wasting’ his ‘time and brains over a chimera, time and energies’ that he might devote to a ‘truer’ and better cause. The thought that the adepts might be an illusion brought forth Hume’s most acerbic comment:

If they don’t exist what a novel writer you would make! You certainly make your characters very consistent. When is our dear old Christ - I mean K.H., again to appear o the scene - he is quite our favourite actor ....

On a more sober note, Hume concluded that ‘if put into the witness-box,’ he ‘could swear’ that he believed Blavatsky to be ‘a perfectly true woman,’ but ‘could not swear that the whole story about the Brothers was not a fiction’. All he could say was that ‘on the whole’ he ‘believed it to be more likely to be true than false.’

In this continued questioning Hume contrasted himself to Sinnett, a ‘lucky fellow’ who ‘has no shade of doubt’. He was confident that Sinnett, with ‘his conviction - position and abilities,’would be a ‘tower of strength’ both to Blavatsky and to Theosophy. One result, Hume added, was that he himself would ‘have less compunction’ in washing his hands of the ‘business’ knowing that she would not be ‘left without a champion in the hands of the Philistines.’

Hume sent the proofs of Hints to Blavatsky, with a warning not to ‘weaken’ the criticisms, arguing astutely that ‘the strongest position is always gained, by putting out yourself all that can possibly be said against you.’ Much as Blavatsky disliked Hume’s criticisms, she did not revise the manuscripts. Had she attempted to do so she would have had a nasty fight on her hands and that she obviously had the foresight to realize. The first edition of part 1 of Hints sold well and by June 1882 Hume had completed a second edition, with some additional material about the recent activities of the mahatmas. It also contained the following revealing footnote by H.X.: ‘now I can say that I am quite certain of the existence of the Brothers’. 122) While there is no reason to doubt this profession of belief, it does not mean that Hume was satisfied with the piece-meal way in which they revealed their teachings or with Blavatsky and her inner circle. These factors were to lead in the autumn of 1882 to Hume’s termination of his one year commitment to the Society. The circumstances surrounding his disengagement merit examination. BACK TO TOP

For his part, Hume acknowledged in a private letter to an Indian fellow Theosophist, probably written around the end of 1881, his profound misgivings about the movement. ‘I am entirely in the professions of the Theosophical Society,’ he wrote, ‘but I can not approve the practice in a dozen different ways of most of the leaders and chelas.’ 126) He added: ‘theirs is the upasana of sakti, not of anand.’ He complained that Damodar was so ‘sore’ at his ‘plain speaking about their Mahatmas’ that he would not even answer correspondence, while Blavatsky was ‘overbearing and intolerant’. Moreover, he found the organizational ‘system of the society ... most distasteful,’ and believed it was ‘fraught with danger for all those who meddle with it.’ However, he was not prepared at that time to make a public issue of these matters.

Frustrated by his lack of accord with the adepts, in the spring of 1882 Hume evidently proposed what Koot Hoomi described as the ‘insane idea of going to Tibet’ to try to contact them first hand. 127) Koot Hoomi assured Sinnett that neither Hume, nor even ‘an army of Pelings’ who had upset the ‘the Chohans’ the way he had, would ever find anything out about the brotherhood, even if they went all the way to Lhasa. By contrast, those whom the adepts desired ‘to know’ would find them at ‘the very frontiers’ of Tibet. Koot Hoomi, therefore, warned Sinnett to persuade Hume to abandon his ‘insane plan,’ or face the prospect of an ‘absolute separation between your world and ours.’ Sinnett acted accordingly and Hume did not persist, though the incident undoubtedly increased his doubts about the mahatmas.

Another negative influence on Hume’s relations with the Society in the spring of 1882 was family related. In December 1881 his daughter Minnie had married Ross Scott, in a civil ceremony held in the Hume home before the marriage registrar, an event publicized in the Society’s journal as ‘A Marriage of Theosophists.’ 128) Scott had earlier become secretary of the Shimla Eclectic branch and Blavatsky was intent upon bringing him more closely into her inner circle. After leaving Shimla in October 1881 Blavatsky had spent some time with Scott at his official post in Dehra Dun. Later that autumn Scott was invited to chair the sixth aniversary Theosophical convention in Bombay but he declined because of ‘official duties’. 129) By May 1882, however, the relationship between Scott and Blavatsky had soured and she learned that he had become suspicious of her. She was unsure of ‘how much or in what’ Scott suspected her, but threw some interesting light on her previous relation with him. 130) She indicated that Scott had had a medical problem with his leg and that she had ‘repeatedly’ requested the adepts to ‘cure’ it, but was advised instead to ‘provide him with a wife’. Koot Hoomi had suggested that ‘Miss Hume would do first rate for him,’ and that if he proved ‘faithful and true’ they would ‘attend to his leg’. Accordingly, the adepts allowed him ‘six months probation’ but he failed the trial. Blavatsky attributed the failure to the ‘pretty jealousy’ of his wife Minnie, who was afraid that she or the adepts would retain their ‘hold upon her husband’. There is no corroborating evidence on this point, but in any case Scott and Minnie severed their ties with the Society. Undoubtedly, this episode had a negative influence on Hume.
Later that spring some comments by Olcott on organizational developments prompted a strong public protest from Hume. Olcott had announced that Theosophy desired ‘the formation throughout India of affiliated societies, the members of which should recognise the necessity for the strictest discipline and the most perfect subordination to their leaders’. 131) Hume was sure that Olcott’s comments would refuel earlier troublesome speculation that the Society was ‘only a thinly-veiled disguise for a political purpose.’ He was even more worried that such an organisation ‘might lend itself to political purposes utterly foreign to the objects of Theosophy’. He was equally concerned that it would lead ‘to the creation of a new spiritual despotism,’ to him a total anathema. Hume suggested that the above statement must have ‘fallen’ from Olcott in an ‘unguarded moment,’ and he was confident that the adepts would never allow anyone to ‘pollute’ Theosophy with ‘any worldly or political purpose’.

Despite Hume’s troublesomeness, Blavatsky’s adepts remained anxious not to lose him. Indeed, by summer 1882 Koot Hoomi not only resumed correspondence with Hume but acknowledged his ‘sincere desire’ to serve the Society and humanity and assured him that there was nobody else in India better able to ‘disperse the mists of superstition and popular error by throwing light on the darkest problems.’ 132) He even suggested that Hume, having become a thorough vegetarian, now had ‘more chances’ of being given further wisdom than Sinnett, who evidently had not yet abandoned ‘feeding on animals’. However, on Hume’s primary desire of obtaining ‘a clearer comprehension of the extremely abstruse ... theories of our occult doctrine,’ Koot Hoomi’s only assurance was that Hume would not die before completing his ‘mission’. While his own ‘Master,’ the ‘hitherto implacable Chohan,’ had permitted him to ‘devote ... a portion’ of his time to the ‘progress’ of the Shimla Eclectic, he could not reveal further information about the nature of their organization or ‘impart’ to Hume ‘the secrets concerning ... the seventh round’ of existence. Indeed, understanding of ‘the higher phases of man’s being on this planet’ could not be attained by ‘mere ... knowledge’. As for Hume’s request to ‘converse’ with him ‘through astral light,’ Koot Hoomi did not think Hume’s ‘psychical powers of hearing’ could develop sufficiently to make that possible.

This letter plunged Hume into agonizing soul-searching as his self-imposed, one year deadline to achieve certainty regarding the adepts and their teachings approached. He expressed his spiritual turmoil in two private letters to Blavatsky in July 1882. Commenting on the recent refusal of the adepts to permit Blavatsky to revisit their Tibet headquarters, Hume confessed that only the ‘hope of doing good’ prevented him from ‘taking warning’ from their disregard for her and cutting his ‘connection’ with the Society. 133) ‘[E]quilibrium is their God,’ Hume complained, ‘and the more ... any of us push - the more they will push in the opposite direction.’ Unless wiser counsels prevailed among the ‘conservative element’ of the senior adepts, the Society was almost certain to ‘break down.’ ‘It is grievous,’ Hume added, ‘but we are helpless.’ All roads forward seemed to be blocked by the un-cooperativeness of the adepts. Hume believed there were only ‘two ways of carrying convictions to the world’s leaders,’ who needed to be won over in order to influence the ‘millions’. One way was ‘by phenomena,’ but the adepts evidently wanted to restrict it ‘to clinch[ing] a nearly formed conviction’ in the cases of ‘picked men’ - a position with which Hume had no philosophic disagreement. The second way was ‘by giving a complete philosophy, which by its completeness should carry indirect intellectual conviction.’ Unfortunately, Hume complained, the adepts would only ‘allow’ that ‘to be taught in a mutilated form’. Consequently, Hume added, ‘my hopes of getting a complete system which ... would in itself have carried conviction have vanished.’ He observed despondently that if nothing came of Theosophy his life would be ‘ruined and wasted’.
The tone of his second letter a week later was even more dejected. Hume revealed that he had initially hoped to win 'others to the truth’ through ‘preaching by phenomena’ but by July 1881 ‘found that could not be permitted.’ 134) He had then attempted to ‘get out a complete system of philosophy, that would really stand fire,’ but now that also had been disallowed. Moreover, the ‘Fragments’ they were ‘allowed’ to propagate could ‘be knocked into a cocked hat by any clear tinker.’ ‘I could smash them up amongst the unextinguishable laughter of the world,’ Hume added, ‘and that’s what someone will do sooner or later and throw us back fifty years.’ If Theosophy continued to ‘push these scraps sufficiently’ some of ‘the leading thinkers’ would eventually ‘tackle’ them and make the Society ‘the laughing stock of the western world at any rate.’ ‘[S]eeing how very thin the ice is, I am despondent,’ he added. He had, after all, given up ornithology, in which he had been ‘doing some little good,’ to take up Theosophy only to find that ‘circumstances and the peculiar organization and traditions’ of the adepts precluded his doing ‘any good’. He had ‘given up every thing’ for the Theosophical cause and now his life was threatened with ruin. He concluded, plaintively:

Time after time have I prayed and prayed-let me be sacrificed-and happen what may to me-but let me help others-let me do good ....
I would give my life with pleasure-but I want some good to others in exchange for it-and this it seems to me I shall not get-and I cannot see my way to be a bit nearer being useful in a future rebirth.

Given the unhappy fate of his government service career, one can understand Hume’s anguish over the dashing of his cherished hopes for a worthwhile mission in Theosophy.

During August and September 1882 the mounting difficulties between Hume and Theosophy came to a head over doctrinal contradictions raised by C. C. Massey, the first President of the Theosophical Society in England, who published an article in Light, exposing discrepancies between Isis Unveiled and recent issues of The Theosophist. Blavatsky’s attempts to explain the differences in the August 1882 issue of The Theosophist did not convince Hume and he insisted on having his say in a letter in the ensuing issue. Hume’s letter, written under the familiar initials, ‘H.X.’, proved to be dynamite. Asserting that the reply given to Massey was neither ‘satisfactory or sufficient,’ Hume launched into his own assault on Isis Unveiled. 135) ‘I think it a pity,’ he wrote, ‘that it is not plainly said that ‘Isis Unveiled’ ... teem with ... errors.’ ‘Passages on passages’ conveyed ‘to every ordinary reader, wholly erroneous conceptions.’ Isis had not been ‘unveiled’ and instead, only ‘a few rents were torn in the veil, through which those knowing how to look can obtain glimpses of the Goddess.’ The book was ‘essentially destructive’ and ‘never seriously aimed at reconstruction’. Another difficulty was that the text, much of which was written by ‘different adepts imperfectly acquainted with English,’ had to be ‘put into shape’ by Blavatsky, who was ‘no great English scholar’ and by Olcott, who was then ‘quite ignorant ... of occult philosophy.’ This, Hume advised, should be ‘plainly’ admitted, thus avoiding the ‘perpetually recurrent demand for the reconciliation of apparent discrepancies between passages in ‘Isis’ and passages in articles in the Theosophist.’

Hume then launched into a critical assault on the adepts. Their insistence on giving only ‘stray glimpses’ of their truth to ‘lay disciples’ like himself was nothing short of ‘a sin’, ‘I hold,’ Hume contended, ‘that be a man an adept or what not, all the knowledge he possesses, he holds, simply, in trust for his fellow-men.’ An adept might be justified in reserving ‘for specially tried disciples, such knowledge as would invest men with abnormal powers over their fellows, but the rest’ he was ‘bound to give. ’Instead, the adepts held that the knowledge they possessed was ‘their own especial property, to communicate ... as they please’. Furthermore, there were problems in their manner of teaching, which differed in ‘toto’ from Western notions. ‘If we wanted to teach any thing,’ Hume explained, ‘we should teach it piece by piece, and each branch with perfect accuracy.’ The adepts, however, appeared ‘to care nothing about complete accuracy.’ They also seemed content to convey merely a ‘general conception of the outline.’ Worst still from Hume’s liberal perspective, they appeared unwilling to impart their ‘philosophy’ to anyone ‘not bound to them by obligations rendering them practically their slaves’. Hume boasted that ‘in one week’ he himself ‘could teach any ordinarily intelligent man, all, that in eighteen months, we ... have succeeded in extracting’ from the mahatmas.

Hume contended that from an ‘educated European’ viewpoint the behaviour of the adepts was completely ‘unreasonable and unsatisfactory,’ but acknowledged that from an ‘Oriental point of view’ it posed little difficulty. ‘[M]any of my native friends,’ he conceded, ‘seem to look upon it as not only natural and what was to be expected, but as actually reasonable and right.’ Hume was anxious that ‘European Theosophists’ should understand this situation. They needed to know too that ‘one might as well try to argue with a brick wall as with the fraternity, since when unable to answer your arguments they calmly reply that their rules do not admit of this or that.’ Hence, dealing with the brothers was ‘very far from a hopeful business’. Their ‘system and their traditions’ were ‘opposed’ to European ‘ideas of right and wrong,’ and they themselves were neither ‘altogether just, nor generous’. ‘[I]n a dozen different ways,’ Hume continued, ‘they fall short of the European ideal of what men so elevated in learning and so pure in personal life should be’. Hume acknowledged that the brothers ‘honestly believe themselves to be entirely right in all their ways’ and that ‘Asiatics see it as the Brothers do’. In summation, he added:
We have to deal with a set of men almost exclusively Orientals; ... learned beyond the conception of most Westerns, very pure in life, very jealous of their treasured knowledge, brought up and petrified in a system that can only recommend itself to Eastern minds, and saturated with a stream of thought flowing directly at right angles to that in which runs all the highest and brightest modern Western Thought.
 

Looking at the issue from what Hume characterized as ‘Mr. Gladstone’s now traditional formula’ there were three possible courses. These were to ‘accept the Brothers as they are’ and ‘accept gratefully such small crumbs as fall from our Masters’ tables;’ secondly, ‘to give up the Brothers and their painfully doled out glimpses of the hidden higher knowledge altogether, but to work ... to unite all we can in bonds of brotherly love;’ and thirdly ‘to cut the concern altogether’. At the time he wrote his letter Hume stated that his own preference was still for the first ‘alternative’.
Blavatsky, who received Hume’s H. X. letter in her capacity as editor of The Theosophist, was livid. She confided to Sinnett that Hume, after depicting her as ‘a consummate liar, a chronic humbug’ in his Hints was now ‘absolutely’ insisting on denouncing Isis and labelling ‘the Brothers ... selfish Asiatics.’ 136) ‘Why ... should he come in like an African Simoon,’ she railed, ‘blasting and destroying all on his passage, impeding my work, showing my mediocrity in a blaze of light, criticizing all and everything, finding fault with everybody and forcing the whole of India to point a finger of scorn at me’. Since Hume had begun writing for the ‘alleged good of the Society,’ she had received more ‘insults’ and ‘kicks’ from him than anybody she knew. Her instinct was to throw the letter ‘into the fire,’ but Koot Hoomi directed her to publish it. The upshot was that The Theosophist published the letter though Blavatsky included with it a long editorial clarifying that she did so ‘under a strong personal protest,’ 137) Predictably she condemned the author for daring, as a European, to ‘judge’ by his standards the adepts, who were ‘exempted from judgment even by their own people - the teeming millions of Asia’. She emphasized the cruelty of depicting the brothers in a totally ‘false light’ and having them ‘cut up piece-meal by one dissatisfied student for the benefit of a few who are not even lay-chelas!’

Hume’s claimed purpose had been to answer the charges of critics in Britain, 138) but he had left himself open to Indian counterattack by his strong indictment of the Asiatic adepts. Blavatsky’s closest Indian devotees were quick to pick up on that point. In the same issue of The Theosophist, and directly following the H.X. letter, was one protesting against it signed by Damodar and ten other ‘Hindu Chelas of the Himalayan Brothers’. Nine were listed as fellows of the Society, and the other two, identified as Deva Muni and Paramahamsa Shub-Tung, reportedly belonged ‘to the confidential chelas of the Chohan himself.’ 139) The most prominent of the fellows was T. Subba Rao, the Society’s leading expert on Hindu theological issues. All were undoubtedly close to Blavatsky or Damodar. They latched strongly on to the racial issue, satirically describing themselves as ‘inferior’ Asiatics. No full chela, they asserted, much less a lay one like H.X., had a ‘right to openly criticize and blame’ the masters on the basis of his own ‘unverified hypotheses’. They made no apologies for their ‘slavish’ devotion, for it was precisely because chelas had ‘always blindly followed the dictates of their Masters’ that some of them, after years of selfsacrifice, had become adepts. H.X. should have been grateful for any ‘crumbs of knowledge’ the adepts deigned to give him. Though his letter was ‘indisputably clever ... from a literary and intellectual stand-point,’ as ‘natives’ they perceived its essence to be ‘an imperious spirit of domineering’ that was ‘utterly foreign’ to Indian character.

Hume was neither impressed nor repentant. Informed by telegram from Blavatsky that the Chohans and Subba Rao had protested against his letter, Hume responded that if the adepts could so totally ‘misconceive’ the purpose, ‘spirit and practical bearing’ of an intervention for which they ‘ought to give thanks’ then the situation was ‘hopeless’. 140) Theosophy was like a ship with a captain who did not know navigation. ‘I give it up,’ Hume categorically stated. To Sinnett, he complained that the Chohan superiors expected ‘obedience’. 141) ‘Well they won’t get it from me,’ Hume asserted.

His exasperation was expressed most graphically in a long letter to Blavatsky. Referring t an adept who had precipitated some pictures of the mahatmas, Hume directed Blavatsky to inform ‘Gjuakual, or whatever his blessed name may be, not to make a goose with his sham occult pictures’. ‘Tell him,’ Hume continued, ‘I can make quite as good pictures as he can. 142) At the same time he accused Damodar of taking the letter of an aspiring chela, Edmund Fern, producing a ‘facsimile’ of his ‘handwriting’ and then telling Fern that it was ‘done by occult means!’ Damodar should stop such ‘infernal nonsense’ and remember that he had a ‘big microscope’ and could himself ‘reproduce by similar occult means every single handwriting’ he chose. ‘I don’t go in for this,’ Hume added, ‘because we call it forgery - but I can do it a great deal better than D. M. to judge by the sample.’ He warned Blavatsky that if she did not ‘keep these boys in hand’ they would ‘play the duce’ with the Society.

Hume then vented his wrath against the adepts, terming Koot Hoomi’s response to his recent letters as ‘fatuous’. ‘Ask him to be reasonable in the matter of occultism and occult philosophy,’ Hume added. It was one thing to accept Koot Hoomi as his master, but ‘when he says a thing is black one day and white another - I ask him to "exercise his ingenuity."’ Koot Hoomi ‘ought to be grateful’ to him since his criticisms had as their ‘only object ... the more satisfactory turning out of his work.’ Hume still claimed ‘sincere affection’ for Koot Hoomi personally, but ‘wholly’ disapproved of ‘much of ... the organization and system of the Brotherhood’. He was profoundly sad to see all around him ‘Brothers and non-Brothers, persuade themselves that good can come out of evil - and that crooked paths can prove short cuts’. Theosophy’s promise of ‘good and blessedness’ was being undermined b the ‘perverse’ and ‘fossilized’ system of the adepts, which was ‘no longer in harmony with the age and therefore an abiding source of discord.’ In short, Hume placed the blame for what had occurred on Blavatsky and the brothers.

Hume’s public and private letters created a storm in the higher echelons of the movement. Blavatsky wanted no more letters from Hume. She informed Sinnett that the ‘Boss,’ Olcott, was ‘fearfully mad with Hume,’ fearing the latter had ‘spoilt all his work’. 143) In another letter she confided to Sinnett that she thought Hume was ‘beginning to be off his head.’ 144) ‘He bamboozles himself,’ she wrote, ‘into the insane belief that he is fast becoming an adept and he sees sights and believes in them as revelations.’ She feared that he wanted to ‘sink’ the existing Society and create a ‘new one’ with the ‘help of a few insane mystics-spiritualists, whom he will go on bossing.’ Hume was ‘doomed,’ Sinnett was her ‘only true and faithful’ English friend in India and she could now see the ‘difference between a Conservative [Sinnett] and a Liberal [Hume]!! Oh Jesus.’
The adepts too, mainly in correspondence with Sinnett, voiced their displeasure against Hume. Morya insisted that he would not resume correspondence with Hume. After ‘centuries of independent existence,’ they would never become the ‘puppets of a Simla Nawab ... [or] submit to the rod of a Peling schoolmaster.’ 145) He also indicated that Blavatsky was again seriously ill and in danger of ‘falling to pieces’ becaus of ‘constant anxiety for the Society’ produced by Hume’s behaviour. Koot Hoomi, for his part, accused Hume of writing ‘words so filthy as to pollute the very air that touched them.’ 146) While he thought Asiatics were unlikely to be affected by Hume’s ‘egotistical thrusts,’ he feared a very harmful effect on ‘European readers’. He thought that after Hume’s outrageous H.X. letter ‘people’ would ‘regard him more than ever a lunatic,’ while ‘Hindu members’ would ‘blame him for years, and our chelas can never be made to look upon him but in the light of an iconoclast, a haughty intruder, incapable of any gratitude, hence - unfit to be one of them.’ 147) He had no recourse but to ‘denounce’ Hume and would never again mention his name to the Chohan. Surprisingly, however, Koot Hoomi then affirmed that he had been ‘ordered not to break with him until the day of the crisis comes.’ This implied that the adepts wanted Hume himself to initiate any formal break with the Society.

By that time Hume had had his fill of Blavatsky, Olcott, the Theosophical Society and the organizational system of the brotherhood. He felt a duty to complete some further publications, mostly of a general intellectual or cultural nature, but in early October 1882 he resigned the presidency of the Shimla Eclectic and thereby, except for his intervention in the crisis of 1885, severed his active association with the Society and its founders.

Blavatsky and the adepts claimed a certain amount of satisfaction over Hume’s defection but this was mostly false bravado. In reality there was much concern over Hume’s potential for damage. For example, in early January 1883, Koot Hoomi appealed to Sinnett to visit Britain in order to counteract the ‘harm’ caused by Hume’s letters before it was too late to ‘undo the mischief.’ 148) Hume was a ‘prolific letter writer’ and, now that he was free of ‘all restraints,’ could become a real loose cannon. He compared his defection to that of Dayanand. Hume was the victim of the same ‘demon - Vanity’ which had ‘ruined Dayanand,’ though he feared that the ‘Avatar’ of ‘Jakko’ was preparing an ‘assault upon us and the T.S. far more savage than the Swami’s.’ Obviously, Koot Hoomi felt he was damning Hume by putting him in the same camp as Dayananda. In fact, given the Arya leader’s deserved reputation as a true swami, he was paying Hume a high compliment. On another occasion Koot Hoomi accused Hume of ‘diabolical malice’ in fomenting the opposition of Anna Kingford and her Christian mystic allies in the London branch and of ‘plotting and scheming to make us all into a holocaust’. 149) Finally, Blavatsky herself in one of her last major jibes against Hume at this time informed Sinnett that she would rather ‘emigrate to Ceylon or Burma’ than remain in India with Hume, ‘our Jhut-sing of Simla’. 150) At the same time she criticized Hume for associating himself with Lord Ripon’s liberal reforms, to which she was adamantly opposed. Obviously the leadership took Hume’s loss seriously and continued to fear his influence. BACK TO TOP
 
 

The first direct reference to the Swami by Hume was in correspondence with Sinnett in September 1882, when he indicated that he had ‘received a commucication from a representative of another School.’ 153) ‘I have replied,’ Hume added, ‘and am awaiting an answer - if favourable, while still aiding the Theosophical Society to the utmost, I shall take a great deal of my teaching from elsewhere,’ Hume continued:

All are equally awaitees - all equally desire the good of mankind - all say that the time has come for new (tho[ugh]old) truths to dawn on the world - but the other school is more Xn [Christian] - it lays more stress on love - and is less cold and selfish than ours. Moreover the very words of my letter to the O[ld] L[ady] ... in which I say that I have intuitively unified the negative and the positive are quoted with approval as being the real highest knowledge ....
This return to advaitism was resented by Koot Hoomi, who complained that Hume ‘impresses himself with the illusion that he is ‘far more of an Adwaite’ than either M[orya] or myself’, 154) This, however, only showed Hume’s lack of understanding because the adepts ‘never were Adwaitees’. 155) He even suggested that Hume had become an advaitist partly to spite him and to prove him at ‘fault’.

Hume’s best explanation of his position was in a letter to Blavatsky in which he asserted that he had been a ‘staunch ...adwaitee’ all his life. 156) ‘I claim,’ he continued, ‘a higher intuitional generalization which cannot properly be expressed by any words, whereby I know that the impersonal, the unconscious, the unintelligent is also the positive of all these negatives.’ That knowledge, he maintained, had come to him ‘three ... times in everlasting glory’. Consequently, it was ‘nonsense’ for Koot Hoomi to regard him as a ‘personal god worshipper and creator of the ordinary low dualistic type.’ Hume elaborated:

I am a pukha adwaitee of the most unswerving character - but admitting that ... the human mind cannot see beyond this, I hold ... that the soul may and can, and that my soul has so gone and possesses a conception that language, fettered by laws of contradictions does not permit me to formulate, exploring the behind the veil and unifying the negative and the positive.
When I say C’être est l’être with E. Levi - I mean that I, you, God, the universe are all one and the same - that all distinctions are matter-created delusions - that my own existence proves ... God, man and the universe.

Clearly, Hume was fully in tune with Swami Paramahamsa and his philosophy and seems to have maintained the relationship until his advaitist guru died in December 1883.
Outwardly, Hume’s split with Theosophy had little immediate negative effect. That was because he still supported the humanitarian goals of the movement and did not publicize his break. In fact, he appears to have explained what had occurred only to a few close associates. We have records of only two such instances. The first of these was a letter which he wrote to a leading Madras Theosophist, Judge P. Sreenivas Rao, on 22 November 1882. 157) It is also the most outspoken statement we have by Hume on his complete disillusionment with Blavatsky’s adepts. Hume confided to Rao that he found ‘the Brotherhood a set of wicked selfish men’ who cared for ‘nothing but their own spiritual development’. Moreover, their ‘system’ was one of ‘deception and tainted largely with sorcery in that they employ spooks’ or ‘elementals to perform their phenomena.’ ‘The deception occurred because once a person became a chela and ‘bound himself’ by the vows which the adepts exacted, ‘you cannot believe a word he says’. ‘Every chela,’ Hume insisted, was ‘a slave of the most abject description - a slave in thought as well as in word and deed’. The result was that the Society was a noble ‘edifice’ only in ‘outside show,’ and in reality was built ‘on the shifting sands of atheism’ and ‘full of deceit and the dead bones of a pernicious, jesuitical system’. Significantly, Hume informed Rao he was free to make use of his letter ‘inside the Society,’ thus implying that he did not want it publicized.

The second instance of Hume’s private disparagement was in a letter to Lord Ripon, the Gladstonian Liberal viceroy with whom he had developed close bonds because of their common interest in political reform in India. In January 1884 Hume informed Ripon of his Indian transcendental contacts. He explained that initially Blavatsky and Olcott had been partially ‘aided’ by them, but the Theosophical founders had not proved to be ‘quite honest,’ but had ‘drifted away into a maze of falsehoof, or at any rate exaggerations and deceptions, and have been gradually left almost wholly to their own devices’. 158) Hume claimed that though Blavatsky and Olcott had proved untrustworthy they had helped in the first instance to reunite him with a network of mystics with whom he had had brief contact in Paris in 1848, just prior to his coming to India. Hume was undoubtedly reffering to the famous French mystic, Eliphas Levi, whom he obviously now linked to his Indian transcendental community. Hume maintained that the Theosophical founders were ‘working with a lower Association’ which the ‘friends’ with whom he was now associated ‘did not acknowledge or approve because its principles’ were not ‘at all as rigidly pure, nor its objects as elevated.’ ‘Peace, order, brotherly love, freedom and progress’ he assured Ripon were ‘the key-notes of our people.’ Hume appeared in a happier frame of mind with advaitist philosophy and the resulting but ill-defined transcendental associates than he had ever been with Theosophy.
Meanwhile, Sinnett remained active in the inner circle of Theosophy. At the height of their collaboration he and Hume had spent ‘long hours together, day after day, in trying to develop the unmanageable hints ... obtained in the form of written answers to questions’ to the mahatmas. 159) Sinnett respected Hume’s intellectual acumen and expressed his ‘lasting regret’ that he became ‘alienated from the undertaking.’ 160) By the autumn of 1882, Sinnett’s involvement in Theosophy got him in trouble with the owners of The Pioneer, who gave him notice of his termination as editor. 161) This did not, however, shake his commitment to the movement. After the failure of an attempt by the founders to launch a new newspaper with Sinnett as its editor, he and his wife returned permanently to England in April 1883. Later that year he published his second book, Esoteric Buddhism, designed to further the Theosophical message. This book, which expanded upon many of the themes developed in his earlier Occult World, went through three English editions within about a year and in 1884 had its first American edition. These two books and the publicity which they gave to the letters from the mahatmas, as Campbell has observed, ‘gave Theosophy wide publicity both in India and the West, and were important to the development of the movement.’ 162)

The kind of troubles for which Hume had long feared the Theosophical Society was headed erupted in 188e. In May of that year, while Blavatsky and Olcott were visiting Europe, Emma and Alexis Coulomb, assistants and confidants of Blavatsky, were expelled from the Adyar headquarters. They revealed what they claimed were authentic letters of Blavatsky showing that they had been her accomplices in facilitating various occult phenomena in the shrine room at Adyar and elsewhere. Then in September and October, while the founders were still in Europe, the Madras Christian College Magazine created a sensation by publishing an exposé of the Adyar occult phenomena, based on the Coulomb letters. 163) While Hume had long before become distrustful of Blavatsky and her devotees at headquarters, his initial reaction to the news was that Blavatsky was too clever to have allowed herself to fall into the hands of ordinary assistants such as the Coulombs. Notwithstanding his break with Blavatsky, he went to the trouble of publishing a letter expressing this opinion. 164) However, as Hume acquired more information about the Coulomb affair, he obviously changed his mind. When in December 1884 the newly established Society for Psychical Research, based at Cambridge University, sent G. Hodgson, a capable young scholar, to India to investigate Blavatsky’s occult phenomena at the Adyar headquarters, Hume became a prime cooperator in the inquiry. 

Hume spent much of February and March 1885 in Madras working with Hodgson. He and Hume, with several others, were informed by Dr. Franz Hartmann, one of the prominent Theosophists at Adyar who had been present when the shrine was examined prior to being destroyed, that it had had a false back - a sliding panel that could be accessed from the adjoining room. 165) Hodgson concluded that the Adyar phenomena were fraudulent and that Blavatsky was the creator of the correspondence from the adepts. Hume did not go nearly so far. His position, as he explained it to Hodgson, was that despite all the frauds perpetrated, there have been genuine phenomena, and that, though of a low order, Madame [Blavatsky] really had and has Occultists of considerably though limited powers behind her; that K.H. is a real entity, but by no means the powerful and godlike being he has been painted, and that he has had some share, directly of indirectly ... in the production of the K.H. letters. 166)

In short, Hume still believed Blavatsky had occult contacts and that Koot Hoomi was a mahatma of a lower order.
Hume’s final action in connection with the Society during the crisis of March 1885 was to attempt to reshape the organization by ousting the founders, Damodar and 13 other members of headquarters and introducing major reforms, but he could not persuade Subba Rao and other Brahmin leaders of the Society in Madras to go along. 167) This ended Hume’s involvement. Instead of the radical reforms he advocated more modest changes were effected, the main action being to oblige Blavatsky to resign as corresponding secretary of the Society and leave India at once. In poor health and even poorer spirits, and furious with Hume and Hodgson, Blavatsky left India for the last time at the end of March 1885. Olcott managed to stay on as president and introduced organizational reforms, including the down-playing of the occult.

While the events of 1885 marked the definitive end of Hume’s relations with the Theosophical Society Sinnett stuck with Madame Blavatsky and in 1886 published a highly sympathetic account of her life, entitled Incidents in the Life of Madame Blavatsky. He remained a convinced and active Theosophist until his death in 1921. As for Blavatsky’s closest Indian confidant, Damodar, he became a martyr to the cause. Accused of being a confederate of Blavatsky in the phenomena at Adyar, Damodar left Madras in February 1885 to join his master in Tibet. He died in the Himalayas, while still en route, though Olcott and Theosophical believers were convinced that he actually reached his guru. 168) Subba Rao first supported Blavatsky in the 1885 crisis but subsequently changed his position and left the Society the following year. 169)

Hume, for his part, gave every evidence that following the split with the Theosophical Society in late 1882 he established an ongoing relationship with more noble transcendental contacts, achieved through his Hindu advaitist association. In November 1886, Hume confided to the new viceroy, Lord Dufferin, that he was ‘working under the advice and guidance of advanced initiates’. 170) Some months earlier he had informed Dufferin that, thanks to this transcendental brotherhood, he sometimes received ‘precipitated facsimiles’ of official state papers. 171) He made the same point to another prominent official, A. P. Macdonnell, hoping that some day even cynics might realize that ‘there are things in heaven and earth outside the every-day world philosophy.’ 172) These are the last known references by Hume to this brotherhood connection but he remained a devout vegetarian until his death in 1912. While he found his new and most satisfying life mission in the promotion of Indian national politics from 1883 onward, one can assume that he continued to approve Theosophical efforts for India’s educational and cultural revitalization and for improved human understanding. BACK TO TOP
 
 

Comments to:  esotericandscience_news@yahoo.com
 
 

1)  A. P. Sinnett, Incidents in the Life of Madame Blavatsky Compiled from Information Supplied by her Relatives and Friends (London, 1886), 14-74. There is extensive writing on Blavatsky, generally either by Theosophical enthusiasts or hostile opponents. Sinnet’s is the earliest of the former category.
2)  Bruce F. Campbell, Ancient Wisdom Revived: A History of the Theosophical Movement (Berkeley, 1980), 13-20.
3)  Blavatsky complained around November 1878 that ‘very few’ even of the ‘Fellows’ of the Society attended meetings in New York. (C. Jinarajadasa, ed., H. P. B. Speaks. vol. 1. Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House, 1950, 106).
4)  Campbell, op. cit., 32-35.
5)  Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled, vols. I & II (The Theosophical Company, 1975), xlv. This is a photographic reproduction of the original, New York 1877, publication.
6)  Ibid., xliv-xlv.
7)  Ibid., xlv.
8)  Ibid., v. Blavatsky claimed to have first visited India in 1852, a second time around 1856 to early 1857 and again around 1868, when she spent considerable time in Tibet and first met one of her principal adepts, Koot Hoomi (H. P. Blavatsky Collected Writings, 1874-1878 (hereafter B.C.W.) I, 2^nd. ed. Wheaton, Illinois: Theosophical Publishing House, 1977, xl-xlviii). The compiler of the Collected Writings acknowledges that Blavatsky’s Tibetan stay ‘is wrapped ... in considerable mystery,’ but for an account which assumes the certainty of the Indian and Tibetan visits, see Jean O. Fuller, Blavatsky and her Teachers: An Investigative Biography (London: East-West Publications, 1988), 13-15 & 24-27. Campbell is a better guide when he concludes that there is no ‘reliable account’ of Blavatsky’s life during the 25 years following her escape to Constantinople (op. cit., 4)
9)  Ibid., xlv.
10)  Ibid., I, 626.
11)  Ibid., II, 5-6.
12)  Ibid., 288.
13)  Ibid., 405.
14)  Ibid., 590.
15)  Campbell, op. cit., 77.
16)  B. C. W., 1879-80 II, xxix; and The Theosophist I (Apr. 1880), 179.
17)  A Report of the Proceedings of a Public Meeting ... Bombay, on the 12^th of January 1882, to Celebrate the Sixth Anniversary of the Theosophical Society (Bombay, 1882), 5.
18)  Address Delivered by Col. H. S. Olcott ... at ... Bombay on March 23^rd, 1879 (Bombay, 1879), 1-2. Where, as in the ensuing passages, there is a sequence of quotations from the same speech, article or letter only an initial citation is provided.
19)  The Theosophist I (Oct. 1879), I.
20)  Ibid., (June 1880), 229.
21)  Address ... by ... Olcott ..., 1879, op. cit., 13-15.
22)  Hints on Esoteric Theosophy. 2^nd. ed. (Calcutta, 1882), 20-25. ‘H.X.’, a pseudonym used by Hume in much of his extensive Theosophical writings from 1881 to 1883, appears frequently in the text but not on the title page. The Indian Mirror publicly identified ‘H.X.’ as Hume (The Theosophist, Supplement IV (June 1883), 9.
56)  B.C.W. (1879-80) II, xxviii, and Linton and Hanson, op. cit., 331.
57)  Linton and Hanson, op. cit., 344.
58)  C. Jinarajadasa, ed., op. cit., 226.
59)  Linton and Hanson, op. cit., 349-56.
60)  Eck, op. cit., 36-37.
61)  B.C.W., 1879-80 II, xxix-xxx.
62)  For Hume’s involvement in ornithology see, Moulton, ‘The Contributions of Allan O. Hume to the Scientivic Advancement of Indian Ornithology,’ The Indian Archives XLI (Jan.-June 1992), 1-19.
63)  Moulton, ‘Allan O. Hume and the Indian National Congress: A Reassessment,’ South Asia VIII (Juni-Dec. 1985), 7.
64)  [Hume’s speech], printed in The Pioneer, 16 Dec. 1879.
65)  Sinnett, op. cit., 223-24.
66)  Sinnett, The Occult World 9^th ed. (London, Theosophical Publishing House, 1969), 42-43. The original edition was 1881.
67)  Hume to the Editor, The Pioneer, 23.Oct. 1880. Hume, who first published the account, has his wife finding the note whereas Sinnett described his wife as cenral (Occult World, 54-55).
68)  Hume to the Editor, ibid., and Sinnett, 58-60. Olcott’s account did not include Hume among those present (Eck, op.cit., 156-58).
69)  J.N. Farquhar, Modern Religious Movements in India (New York, 1919), 229-31.
70)  Sinnett, Occult World, 82.
71)  Ibid., 82-83.
72)  A valuable research guide to these letters, the originals of which are in the British Library, is Linton and Hanson, op. cit., according to whom (pp. 307-09) the last two mahatma letters to Sinnett were dated September or October 1885.
73)  M. P., 45, 284, f. 1-9. Printed in M. L., 1-6.
74)  Sinnett, Occult World, 90-91.
75)  Printed in Margaret Conger, Combined Chronology for Use with The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett and The Letters of H.P. Blavatsky to A.P. Sinnett (Pasadena: Theosophical University Press, 1973), 29-38.
76)  M.P., 45, 289B, f. 39-60.
77)  M.P., 45, 284, f. 24-32. Printed in M.L., 11-17.
78)  Ibid., 45, 288, f. 151-71. A short excerpt of this letter is printed in M.L., 428-31.
79)  Ibid., 45, 285, f. 56-66. This letter is undated but the context indicates it is a direct reply to Hume’s letter of 7 November. Printed in M.L., 205-15.
80)  Ibid., 45, 284, f. 33-37. Printed in M.L., 17-21.
81)  Ibid., 45, 285, f. 56-66.
82)  M. P. 45, 286, f. 148-49. Printed in M.L., 427-28.
83)  Ibid., 45, 284, f. 39-42. Printed in M.L., 22-24.
84)  Ibid.
85)  Campbell, op. cit., 57 and 81.
86)  Printed in The Theosophist III (Oct. 1881), 3-4.
87)  M. P. 45, 284, f. 62. Printed in M.L., 38.
88)  Campbell, op. cit., 58-59, gives a succinct and insightful account of this case of plagiarism.
89)  M. P., 45, 284, f. 62-74. Printed in M.L., 38-41.
90)  The Theosophist, Supplement III (Oct. 1881), I.
91)  M.P., 45, 288, f. 166-69. Printed in B.L., 305-10. The letter is dated 4 Jan. 1881 but the context indicates that the year was 1882.
92)  The Theosophist, II (Sept. 1881), 270-71.
93)  Ibid., III (June 1882), 223. The issue of Apr. 1882 (183-84) had contained an editorial on Cook entitled ‘A Theological Snob.’
94)  Hume’s name did not appear on the articles but contemporary Theosophical correspondence indicates that he wrote the first three essays in this series.
95)  For brief information on Terry, see Jill Roe, Beyond Belief: Theosophy in Australia, 1879-1939 (New South Wales University Press, 1986), 2-3, 12-13 and 38.
96)  The Theosophist III (Oct. 1881), 17-21.
97)  Ibid., (Mar. 1882), 158.
98)  M. P., 45, 284, f. 166-69.
99)  Hints on Esoteric Theosophy. No. 1. Is Theosophy a Delusion? Do the Brothers exist? 2^nd. ed. (Calcutta, 1882), 17.
100)  Ibid., 18.
101)  Ibid., 19.
102)  Ibid., 41.
103)  Ibid., 71.
104)  Ibid., 30.
105)  Ibid., 41-42.
106)  Ibid., 39-40.
107)  Ibid., 38.
108)  Ibid., 42-45.
109)  Ibid., 52.
110)  Ibid., 15.
111)  Ibid., 64-65.
112)  Ibid., 53-54.
113)  Ibid., 68-70.
114)  Ibid., 63-64.
115)  Ibid., 70.
116)  Ibid., 65.
117)  Hints on Esoteric Theosophy. No. 2 Swedenborg and Theosophy, 1882 (Calcutta, 1883), 12-13.
118)   Ibid., 28-29.
119)  Ibid., 42.
120)  Ibid., 21-24.
121)  M. P., 45, 288, f. 166-69. Printed in B. L., pp. 305-10. Hume mistakenly dated this letter 1881 instead of 1882.
122)  Hints on Esoteric Theosophy. No. 1, op. cit., 71.
123)  Linton and Hanson, op. cit., 8-10.
124)  M.P., 45, 288, f. 170-75. Printed in B.L., 310-11.
125)  Ibid., 45, 285, f. 122-27. Printed in M.L., 255-59.
126)  The Mahratta, 27. Oct. 1912, 343. This letter was published following Hume’s death earlier that year.
127)  M.P., 45, 287, f. 3. Printed in B.L., 4.
128)  Supplement III (Feb. 1882), 16.
129)  Ibid., 3.
130)  M.P., 45, 287, f. 28-33. Printed in B.L., 15-17.
131)  Hume to the Editor, The Indian Daily News, 23 June 1882.
132)  M.P., 45, 289A, f. 33-46. Printed in M.L., 59-66.
133)  Ibid., 45, 289B, f. 150-51.
134)  Ibid., f. 152-57.
135)  The Theosophist III (Sept. 1882), 324-26.
136)  M.P., f. 55-59. Printed in B.L., 29-34.
137)  The Theosophist III (Sept. 1882), 324.
138)  M.P., 45, 285, f. 210-26. Printed in M.L., 322-31.
139)  Ibid., f. 165-70. Printed in M.L., 284-90.
140)  Ibid., 45, 288, f. 176b. Printed in B.L., 311.
141)  Ibid., 45, 289B, f. 165-66.
142)  Ibid., f. 182-93.
143)  Ibid., 45, 287, f. 64-65. Printed in B.L., 37-38.
144)  Ibid., f. 60-63. Printed in B.L., 34-36.
145)  Ibid., 45, 285 f. 138-40. Printed in M.L., 264-66.
146)  Ibid., f. 93-96. Printed in M.L., 239-41.
147)  Ibid., f. 165-70. Printed in M.L., 284-90.
148)  Ibid., f. 210-26. Printed in M.L., 322-31.
149)  Ibid., f. 36-37. Printed in M.L., 364-66.
150)  Ibid., f. 45, 287. Printed in B.L., 43-44.
151)  Ibid., f.132-37. Printed in M.L., 260-64.
152)  The Theosophist, III (Aug. 1882), 273-74; (Sept. 1882), 297-98; IV (Feb. 1883), 118; (Mar. 1883), 128; and (July 1883), 246-48.
153)  M.P., 45, 289B. f. 169-70.
154)  Ibid., 45, 284, f. 165-70. Printed in M.L., 284-87.
155)  Hume probably assumed otherwise because the leading Hindu chela, Subba Rao, was an advaitist, though he and the Swami of Almora disagreed on interpretations of the philosophy (The Theosophist, IV (July 1883), 248-51).
156)  M.P., 45, 289B, f. 182-93.
157)  This letter is quoted at length by Koot Hoomi in writing to Sinnett (Ibid., 45, 285 f. 210-26. Printed in M.L., 322-31).
158)  Hume to Lord Ripon, 11 Jan. 1884, Ripon Papers. Add. Mss. 43, 616.
159)  Sinnett, Incidents in the Life of Madame Blavatsky, op. cit., 244.
160)  Ibid., 245.
161)  B.C.W., 1882-1883, IV, xxvi.
162)  Campbell, op. cit., 57.
163)  See ibid., 88-91, for a succinct account of this important episode.
164)  The Statesman, 20 Sept. 1884.
165)  Proceedings of the Society Psychical Research 3, IX (1883), 224.
166)  Quoted in ibid., 275.
167)  M.P., 45, 286, f. 242-51. Printed in M.L., 461-62.
168)  Campbell, op. cit., 91-92.
169)  B.C.W. 1883 V, 270.
170)  Hume to Dufferin, 27 Nov. 1886, Dufferin Papers, F142\42g.
171) Hume to Dufferin, 31 July 1886, ibid., F130/42C.
172) Hume to Macdonnell, 1887, ibid., Microfilm 534, vol. 2, 369-70.

*)  Research for this paper was made possible by grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute. I wish to thank my colleague, K. Klostermaier, an expert on Hinduism, and the editor, Geoffrey A. Oddie, for helpful comments on an earlier draft of the paper. Alice Moulton valuable research and proofing assistance.

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