Yogis Without Borders 73
Blavatsky from the work of Levi and his notion of the astral light, which was
similar in nature to contemporary theories of ether and other subtle media.
The schemas of subtle materiality and embodiment introduced by Blavatsky
and elaborated on by later Theosophists are ascribed a pivotal role in the Indian
frameworks that they adapted to their purposes. It is the ether, however, that,
despite being only the lowest of these subtle spheres, is responsible for the observ-
able phenomena manifested by Mahatmas, Yogis, aspiring adepts, and indeed
Blavatsky herself.
Interestingly, though Blavatsky remained always in close communion with the
Mahatmas, she never attributed any such status to herself. She was, however, quite
fond of manifesting all sorts of supernatural phenomena dating back to her days
as an extraordinary Spiritualist medium. Strains of music would spontaneously
flow through the air, letters would tumble from the ceiling, and lost artifacts
would mysteriously reappear. Many of these phenomena were ultimately proven
to be fraudulent in the course of the infamous Coulomb scandal and a subsequent
report delivered to the British Society for Psychical Research (SPR) by Richard
Hodgson.
In 1884 the SPR launched a preliminary investigation into the marvelous phe-
nomena claimed by the Theosophical Society, resulting in a provisional report
that fraud was undoubtedly present but that there was good cause to believe that
at least some of the phenomena may have been genuine. Shortly thereafter Emma
Coulomb, a staff member at the Society’s Adyar headquarters, leveled a series of
accusations against the reality of Blavatsky’s phenomena, ranging from claiming
that the Mahatma letters were produced by Blavatsky herself to attributing noc-
turnal sightings of the Mahatmas to the creative use of a turbaned dummy. The
final SPR report, issued following Hodgson’s investigation of the phenomena in
India, concluded that all of the phenomena could be reasonably attributed either
to fraud by Blavatsky or hallucination and “unconscious misrepresentation” by
the witnesses and ended with the famous sentence that would come to represent
Blavatsky’s legacy:
For our own part, we regard her neither as the mouthpiece of hidden seers,
nor as a mere vulgar adventuress; we think that she has achieved a title to
permanent remembrance as one of the most accomplished, ingenious, and
interesting imposters in history.^41It has never been determined, however, to what extent Blavatsky’s phenomena
were a result of intentional deception on her part. Robert Ellwood has read her
as a charismatic mystagogue who embodies “qualities not only of the paradig-
matic shaman and magus, but also of the trickster and ‘ritual clown.’ ”^42 Blavatsky