Theos-Talk Archives (October 2006 Message tt00232)

HPB Seeing in Astral Light


    Blavatsky was able to "read in the 
astral light."  If she needed a certain 
book or idea, or quote, it apparently was 
shown to her somehow, or she could see it 
herself. (talk about indexing.... who 
needs computer files if you can read the 
astral light.)  Olcott writes of her in 
helping her write "Isis Unveiled:"


"To watch her at work was a rare and 
never to be forgotten experience.  We 
sat at opposite ends of one big table 
usually, and I could see her every movement.  
Her pen would be flying over the page, 
when she would suddenly stop, look out 
into space with the vacant eye of a 
clairvoyant seer, shorten her vision as 
though to look at something held invisibly 
in the air before her, and begin copying 
on her paper what she saw.  The quotation 
finished, her eyes would resume their 
natural expression, and she would go on 
writing until again stopped by a similar 
interruption." (Personal Memoirs of H.P. 
Blavatsky, Mary K. Neff, E.P. Dutton, 
1937, p. 263)


    I think you can see this latent ability 
in people who have certain types of memory.  
'Used to go to a used bookstore with an old 
bookseller, and any book you asked about, 
he would pause for a moment and know just 
where it was in his 50,000 books.


    Blavatsky writes further:


    "The only thing I know is, that now, 
when I am about to reach old age, I have 
become the storehouse for somebody else's 
knowledge.... Before me pass pictures, 
ancient manuscripts, dates - all I have 
to do is to copy, and I write so easily 
that it is no labor at all, but the greatest 
pleasure." (Neff, pp. 244, 247) 


    If one just thinks this is Blavatsky 
and Olcott's active imagination, below is 
an account from Bertram Keightly of 
Blavatsky quoting a poem she COULDN'T 
possibly have a copy of.



THE "GEM' AND BLAVATSKY


      Bertram Keightly, H.P. Blavatsky's 
proof reader for her magazine "Lucifer" 
wrote of an uncanny example of what appears 
to have been Blavatsky's ability to accurately 
read the astral fight. The poem below was 
used to lead off her occult story "Karmic 
Visions."  The following account is taken 
from the Blavatsky Collected Writings, volume IX:


   Oh sad No More! Oh sweet No More!
   ......Oh strange No More! 
   By a mossed brookbank on a stone 
   I smelt a wildweed-flower alone; 
   There was a ringing in my ears, 
   And both my eyes gushed out with tears, 
   Surely all pleasant things had gone before, 
   Lowburied fathom deep beneath with thee, No More!
                - Tennyson (The Gem, 1831)


      There is an interesting story connected 
with this particular poem. According to 
Bertram Keightly ... H.P.B. always wrote 
her Lucifer editorials herself, "and she 
had a fancy for very often heading (them) 
with some quotation, and it used to be 
one of my troubles that she very seldom 
gave a reference for these, so that I had 
much work, and even visits to the British 
Museum Reading Room, in order to verify 
and check them, even when I did manage, 
with much entreaty, and after being most 
heartily 'cussed,' to extract some 
reference from her.


        "One day she handed me as usual 
the copy of her contribution, a story 
for the next issue headed with a couple 
of four line stanzas. I went and plagued 
her for a reference and would not be 
satisfied without one. She took the 
manuscript and when I came back for it, 
I found she had just written 'Alfred Tennyson' 
under the verses. Seeing this I was at a 
loss for I knew my Tennyson pretty well 
and was certain that I had never read 
these lines in any poem of his, nor were 
they at all in his style. I hunted up my 
Tennyson, could not find them; consulted 
everyone I could get at -also in vain. 
Then back I went to H.P.B. and told her 
all this and said that I was sure these 
lines could not be Tennyson's, and I 
dared not print them with his name attached, 
unless I could give an exact reference. 
H.P.B. just damned me and told me to get 
out and go to Hell. It happened that 
the Lucifer copy must go to the printers 
that same day. So I just told her that 
I should strike out Tennyson's name 
when I went, unless she gave me a 
reference before I started. Just on 
starting I went to her again, and she 
handed me a scrap of paper on which 
were written the words: "The Gem - 1831." 
'Well, H.P.B.,' I said, 'this is worse 
than ever; for I am dead certain that 
Tennyson has never written any poem 
called "The Gem."' All H.P. B. said was 
just: 'Go out and be off.'


      "So I went to the British Museum 
Reading Room and consulted the folk 
there, but they could give me no help 
and they one and all agreed that the 
verse's could not be, and were not 
Tennyson's. As a last resort, I asked 
to see Mr. Richard Garnett, the famous 
Head of the Reading Room in those days, 
and was taken to him. I explained to 
him the situation and he also agreed 
in feeling sure the verses were not 
Tennyson's. But after thinking quite 
a while, he asked me if I had consulted 
the Catalogue of Periodical Publications'. 
I said no, and asked where that came in. 
'Well," said Mr. Garnett, 'I have a dim 
recollection that, there was once a 
brief-lived magazine called the "Gem." 
It might be worth your looking it up.' 
I did so, and in the volume for the 
year given in H.P.B's note, I found 
a poem of a few stanzas signed 
'Alfred Tennyson' and containing the 
two stanzas quoted by H.P.B. verbatim 
as she had written them down. And 
anyone can now read them in the second 
volume of "Lucifer"; but I have 
never found them even in the supposedly 
most complete and perfect edition 
of Tennyson’s Works,"


                      - jake j.

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