Publisher's Synopsis
Commentary from the "Theosophical Review," Volume 16:
STRANGE how utterly unjust a paper can be towards anyone who does not fit into its own particular little religious groove, and how illiberal is "Liberalism." The Spectator of July 13th says, in a brief notice of Solovyoff's slanderous romance, "A Modern Priestess of Isis":
"That Madam Blavatsky, the "modern priestess of Isis," was a fraud, and that she confessed herself to be such to him, is abundantly certain. It seems that she took up theosophy when she found that the game of spiritism, which she had practised for some time in the United States, was played out. Her Theosophy itself was borrowed from certain writers on occultism, as is set out in detail by an expert in these subjects, Mr. W. Emmette Coleman. All this being settled, let the woman and her doings be buried and forgotten, except, indeed, her career should be wanted as a lesson and a warning. What a " Nemesis of unfaith " it is when those who have shaken off belief in religion as a folly out of which the world ought to have grown, fall victims to the frauds of an immoral and lying adventuress."
It "is abundantly certain" from this paragraph that the writer thereof has not read Mme. Blavatsky's books, and is merely repeating, parrot-like, the gossip that floats about on the surface of society. Yet he would probably be surprised if he realised that such repetition of uninvestigated slanders is as immoral as anything that he ascribes to Mme. Blavatsky. The childish and petulant impatience to have " the woman and her doings" out of the way brings little credit to a journal which plumes itself on its "Christianity," but which shows more of the spirit that cried "Away with him, away with him," than of that spirit of equity and charity which should characterise those who claim to be specially favoured with religious knowledge. Mme. Blavatsky and her doings cannot "be buried and forgotten" while increasing numbers of thoughtful people owe to her that definite proof of the existence of the Soul that popular Christianity fails to supply, and that definite training of the spiritual life in man which few modern Christian teachers are able to impart. Her memory will live, not because she could perform marvels but because she could feed starving Souls with the bread of spiritual Wisdom; and because she showed that Religion was not a beautiful dream but a solid verity, based on truths in Nature, not only on hopes in Man. Her memory will live because she opened the way to Initiation in a modern world where only the faint traditions of the Higher Life survived, where Science scoffed at Intuition and where Reason was undermining Religion, where belief in the Invisible World was derided as a folly or apologised for as an amiable weakness. Many persons know that she possessed Occult Powers, and could wield the subtler forces of Nature; but if every phenomenon she performed had been a weak and wrongful accommodation to the demands made upon her by materialistic enquirers, she would still remain the heroic witness for the reality of the Occult Life, the possessor of spiritual Wisdom and its imparter to those who desired to receive it. Vainly will impatient scribblers cry for her obliteration, while those she taught are constantly verifying her statements by their own experience, and are helping others to take the steps which they themselves took under her guidance. Her children in Occultism rise up and call her blessed; her imperfections will "be buried and forgotten" and her great life-work will remain.
