Read an Excerpt

Lion of Light

The Spiritual Life of Madame Blavatsky

John Hunt Publishing Ltd.

CHAPTER 1

Early Days and Early Travels

I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is like a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

Winston Churchill

A cholera plague raged through Europe on the night that Elena Petrovna Hahn was born. At her baptism, the robes of the hastily summoned priest caught fire. Such was the auspicious beginning to the life of one of the most extraordinary characters of the nineteenth century, one whose influence would last much longer than her comparatively short sojourn upon this Earth. The heavens chose 12th of August 1831 for her birth, in Ekaterinoslav, a district of the Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire. She was the child of a Colonel in the Russian Army, Peter Von Hahn, and his wife, Helena Andreyevna. The name Hahn is a patronymic form of Johannes and derives from hane, high German for 'rooster'. The symbolism of this creature is of conceit, and sexual activity – both qualities that would later be attributed to our subject, and not always fairly.

Her mother claimed the lineage of one of the oldest Empire families, a direct descendant, she said, of Grand Duke Rurik, the first ruler of Russia. It was perhaps inevitable that her mother should be a novelist, and Helena's sister Vera, also wrote occult fiction. The education of Helena, as she was soon to be called, came to be supervised by her maternal grandmother. This lady was a princess, her husband, the governor of Saratov. Of Helena's other relations, most prominent was her first cousin Sergei Witte, who later became prime minister of Russia in the reign of Tsar Nicholas II.

Inevitably, such a privileged background would do much to determine the kind of childhood Helena would enjoy. What made this little girl different from her peers was the strength of her 'inner life'. This quality would ensure that she would never be just a conventional member of the elite in Russian society, and her contacts with the 'other side' also made her both sensitive and wilful. Much that terrified her as a child was propagated by her own imagination, and in later years her often morbid sensibility led to an inability to accept criticism, or even what might be termed 'sensible advice.' She was idealistic, naïve and often unworldly. That said, she commanded respect, and considering her capricious temperament, a great many people throughout her life were completely devoted to her. Few recollections exist of Helena's childhood, but this, from the pen of an unnamed aunt, is revealing:

She was ... very lively and highly gifted, full of humour, and most remarkably daring; she struck everyone by her self-willed and determined actions ... Her restless and very nervous temperament, one that led her into the most unheard-of ungirlish mischief ... her passionate love and curiosity for everything unknown and mysterious, weird and fantastic; and foremost of all, her craving for independence and freedom of action – a craving that nothing and no one could control; all this, combined with an exuberance of imagination and a wonderful sensitiveness, ought to have warned her friends that she was an exceptional creature ...

The aunt goes on to tell of Helena's nocturnal conversations with invisible personages, and of her being able to answer questions as if she were a 'sibyl entranced'. Her ability to converse with spirits, whether departed from this world or not, was in evidence from her early childhood. Between nine and sixteen years of age she regularly communicated with the spirit of Tekla Lebendoff, a middle-aged woman, who was very much alive, and lived in Reval in Estonia. A fuller account of Helena's gifts comes from her sister Vera – later Mme Jelihovsky. The following passage, though lengthy, is worth quoting for the insight that it provides, of a remarkable child:

'... daring and fearless in everything else, she often got scared into fits by her own hallucinations ... she would shut her eyes tight during such visions, and run away to hide ... screaming desperately and frightening the whole household. At other times she would be seized with fits of laughter, explaining them by the amusing pranks of her invisible companions. She found these in every dark corner, in every bush of the tick park that surrounded our villa during the summer months; while in winter, when all our family emigrated back to town, she seemed to meet them again in the vast reception rooms of the first floor ... Helena was found several times during the night hours in those dark apartments in a half-conscious state, sometimes fast asleep, and unable to say how she got there from our common bedroom on the top storey. She disappeared in daytime also. Searched for, called and hunted after, she would be often discovered, with great pains, in the most unfrequented localities; once it was in the dark loft, under the very roof to which she was traced, amid pigeons' nests, and surrounded by hundreds of those birds ... At other times ... the deserter would be found, after hours of search in deep conversation with seals and stuffed crocodiles ... For her all nature seemed animated with a mysterious life of its own. She heard the voice of every object and form, whether organic or inorganic; and claimed consciousness of being ... even for inanimate things such as pebbles ...

Mysticism came as naturally to Helena as breathing. The perceptions that might take a sage an entire lifetime to acquire, she owned at birth. She also displayed the temperament of the occultist, laying down foundations on the Inner Plane – there for the future. Already she has a sense that time is malleable, perhaps invisible. High magic is being unconsciously embraced, and as Madame Blavatsky, she will later display all the courage and conviction that the practitioner must own in order to perform her miracles. Helena sought out the acquaintance of Baranig Boyrak, an old sage who lived near her grandparents' home. She wished him to teach her the language of insects, birds and animals. Whether he did so is not recorded, but he certainly recognized her as being an exceptional young girl and spoke of her thus:

This little lady is different from all of you. There are great events lying in wait for her in the future. In thinking that, I will not live to see my predictions (fulfilled); but they will come to pass.

Helena's father was not convinced of her psychic ability until one day when she informed him of the significance of the family name. It came about that during the Crusades, Count Rottenstern von Hahn of Meckelenburg had appended 'Hahn' to the family name, and put a cock's image on his coat of arms. What prompted this move was an incident involving an ancestor at war:

... while sleeping in his tent, the Knight Crusader was awakened by the cry of a cock to find himself in time to kill, instead of being stealthily killed by an enemy who had penetrated into his tent ...

Blavatsky always maintained that she felt the presence of a strong guardian very early on in her life, and swore that this 'protector' saved her from certain death on several occasions. She describes him as being an Oriental – a tall, white-robed figure. Blavatsky is supposed to have actually encountered him in London in 1851, on a visit to England with her father. The meeting apparently took place in Hyde Park, by the river Serpentine. It has been suggested by astrologers, and with some telling evidence, that the influence of Neptune in Blavatsky's nativity, determined certain aspects of her personality. Neptune bestows imaginative and idealistic qualities, though deception and confusion may at the same time plague the native. Mystical experiences were commonplace in her youth and they somehow formed the rock of her beliefs, and thus her conscious life. This would not have been allowed to happen had she not been surrounded by understanding company; her uniqueness was not stifled but even encouraged. Her mentors were active during a period that has been described as the Russian Enlightenment.

The Russian Empire had actively suppressed Ukrainian culture in the 1860s yet a great upsurge in interest in all things mystical and spiritual sprung up in the following decades, and many artists, writers and thinkers in Russia adopted a metaphysical approach to life. Among these progressive figures in Helena's childhood was Taras Schevchenko, the romantic poet and painter. It is interesting to note that in 1848 he won a Silver Medal for his painting 'The Gypsy Fortune Teller', the same year that Helena's young life dramatically changed. It might be conjectured that Blavatsky was following the zeitgeist, and though she would be parted from her native land for a great part of her life, she retained her Ukrainian spirit.

The Ukraine is the heartland of Russia, and still preserves the grandeur that bestows upon it a singular character. Originally inhabited by peoples known as the Rus', from which the name Russia derives, the soul of the country firmly rests here. In the tenth century, Vladimir, Prince of Kiev was responsible for bringing the Orthodox Greek Christianity to the Ukraine, being informed by his emissaries that its liturgy was more impressive than that of the other faiths. The spiritual roots of the land were part pagan, part Christian and later esoteric. Freemasonry was most fashionable among the aristocracy in the time of Catherine the Great, and its influence brought the enlightenment to Russia. Buddhism too had always hovered in the background, spicing and leavening the doctrinal mix.

In Kiev, the oldest church was dedicated to St. Sophia, part of the Gnostic trinity, adding another dimension. Any assessment of Blavatsky cannot ignore her upbringing and her environment. The former made her autocratic; the latter gave her a singular view of the world. It would be meaningless to make generalisations concerning the Russian temperament, yet a certain melancholy and fatality are always present within it. The teachings and the ambiance of the Russian Orthodox Church may well have influenced Blavatsky as a child, and it may have always had a home deep in her unconscious. To W.B. Yeats she explained, 'The Greek Church, like all true religions, was a triangle, but it spread out and became a bramble bush, and that is the Church of Rome ...'

Quite why Helena Hahn agreed, at the age of sixteen, to marry General Nikifor, or Nicephore, Blavatsky, a man many years her senior, has never been made abundantly clear. It has been said that on being told by her governess that, because of her ill-temper, no man would ever marry her, Helena rose to the challenge and forced Blavatsky to propose. If she did so 'for a dare' then Helena displayed those qualities that teenagers always do, namely – pride, recklessness and a bad temper. By even contemplating this bizarre union, she thought she was somehow spiting the world, for often the goal of a truculent adolescent is to shock those around her. Once this was achieved, however, Helena deeply regretted what she had done. The general may have even been in his sixties, which made the prospect even more unpalatable. If she had believed that marriage would somehow bring her a degree of freedom, it was a rash assumption.

That she was not committed to her marriage was proved when she attempted to flee from her husband on the day after they were wed. As it was, she was unwilling to remain in his company for longer than three months, after which she succeeded in leaving him for good. The immediate consequences of that decision are well-documented – the return to her grandfather's house, and his dispatching of his granddaughter back to her father. What happened after that is almost anybody's guess, for this event marked the beginning of the mysteries that were to surround this extraordinary woman throughout her life.

Blavatsky was always a wonderful storyteller. It was never difficult for her to hold an audience in enraptured silence with her tales – and some were taller than others. The biographer must always take into account this fantastic aspect of Blavatsky when he attempts to render a true picture of her life. To approach this extraordinary figure as if she were anything other than extraordinary would be a gross error. The key to understanding Blavatsky is to view her life as two separate, yet entwined, narratives, one 'ordinary' reality, the other totally marvellous. It is as if from the moment she left Russia, she became someone else – the figure that she wished to be – a romantic adventuress. She undoubtedly was that person, and more significantly, she believed she was.

An important magical principle is being demonstrated already in her life, and Blavatsky was certainly capable of performing magic if she wished. If the practitioner believes he is in a certain place, then that is where he is. In her life, Blavatsky adopted a different stance to suit the circumstances that she found herself in, and this chameleon aspect is another key to her personality, as we shall discover. Now, we pass on to that part of Blavatsky's life when the world appears to be at her feet.

In the eighteenth century lived one Lady Hester Stanhope, a legendary traveller in the Middle East. There she was received with great respect by the Turkish and Bedouin Sheiks who ruled that part of the world. She dressed in the costume of a Turkish male, a purple velvet robe, embroidered trousers, turban and slippers. She journeyed to the Muslim city of Damascus where she refused to wear a veil, but such was her formidable personality that she was not censured by the inhabitants. Lady Hester went on to visit the ancient city of Palmyra in Syria, a fabulous place known as the 'Bride of the Desert', and it was here that she began to realise her destiny. Hearing omens from soothsayers and prophets that she was to be the bride of the New Messiah, she settled in her new homeland and was crowned Queen Hester by those who were devoted to her. In command of a court, and renowned for her gifts of divination, she settled and eventually died, in the area now known as the Lebanon. When Blavatsky found fame, and was questioned in interviews about these early years, she was occasionally compared to Lady Hester by journalists desperate for copy.

Towards the end of her life, Blavatsky permitted Alfred Percy Sinnett, known as A.P. Sinnett, to embark upon her biography. A great portion of her life was to remain inviolate she informed him. Sinnett was informed in no uncertain terms that a veil must be drawn over anything that happened to her before the advent of the Theosophical Society in 1875. Blavatsky was adamant:

... no one can expect me to stand on Trafalgar Square and to be taking into my confidence all the city roughs and cabmen that pass. And even these have more my respect and confidence than your reading and literary public ...

After her death, a steady trickle of reminiscences and recollections of Blavatsky began to emerge. Many of these pieces were trivial or waspish. With the publication of the memoirs of Blavatsky's cousin, Count Serge Witte, something of value came to light for the first time. It is from these pages that we glean the details of her dramatic departure from her husband, and soon afterwards her equally colourful 'elopement' with the captain of an English steamer, The Commodore. Blavatsky, after embarking at Constantinople, is supposed to have joined a circus 'as an equestrienne'.

She apparently succeeded in captivating one member of the audience. Agardi Metrovitch, a Hungarian opera singer proposed marriage to her. It is presumed that Blavatsky conveniently forgot to mention her first husband. The subsequent union with Metrovitch is supposed to have produced a child named Yuri. The truth of this is impossible to ascertain solely from Witte's account. Any knowledge of the death of Metrovich soon afterwards is even more opaque. Did he perish in 1870 from fever, or from the effects of an explosion on board ship in 1871? Witte seems unconcerned about her husband's fate, going on almost in the same breath, to mention that Blavatsky met Daniel Dunglas Home, a celebrated 'conjurer of phantoms' in Paris. It was Home, Witte states, who converted Blavatsky to spiritualism in 1858. She apparently returned to Russia in the same year, and Witte recalls visiting his cousin in a flower shop in Odessa. The only other recollection of Blavatsky, during this period, is from an American artist Albert Leighton Rawson, who is said to have accompanied her on a trip around Cairo in 1850.

As she kept no diary of the period, we have only Blavatsky's word that during the ten years from 1848 and 1858, she visited Egypt, France, Canada, England, South America, Germany, Mexico, Tibet, India and Greece. A suggestion propounded by Kingsland that Blavatsky deliberately falsified the accounts of her travels, to conceal the identity of the places that she visited, is of interest. The notion is supported by accounts of others using similar tactics. Philo, the first-century philosopher, Jacob Bohme, and the Count de Saint-Martin are all said to have engaged in such deliberate deception. Whether or not Blavatsky followed their example, is not known for certain.
(Continues...)

---

Excerpted from Lion of Light by Gordon Strong. Copyright © 2013 Gordon Strong. Excerpted by permission of John Hunt Publishing Ltd..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---