Adyar 25-11-83. Hour 10.15.
Letter No. 116 (ML-128) Dated November 27, 1883
A few hours later, Olcott sent a second telegram explaining in more detail, and including the message from Damodar which he had found along with that of the Mahatma's. Olcott related how, even before he sent the telegram to H.P.B. he had an instinct to take Damodar's luggage, his trunk and bedding, and pack them away under his own cot.
That evening, he received a telegram in reply from H.P.B. She told him that a Master had told her that Damodar would return, and she added that the Colonel must not let Damodar's luggage, especially his bedding, be touched by anyone else. "That was strange, was it not," asks the Colonel, "that she, at Madras, i.e., some 2,000 miles away — should tell me to do the very thing it had been my first impulse to do on finding out about the lad's departure?"
In ODL 3:p. 54, Olcott makes the following comments:
It was on the 25th of November, at daylight, that Damodar left us: he returned in the evening of the 27th — after an absence of some sixty hours, but how changed! He left, a delicate-framed, pale student-like young man, frail, timid, deferential; he returned with his olive face bronzed several shades darker, seemingly robust, tough, and wiry, bold and energetic in manner: we could scarcely realise that he was the same person.
Damodar describes his experience with considerable restraint, though he was permitted to tell of it. It was first published in The Theosophist for Dec.-Jan. 1883-84, pp. 61-2. It is now found in the book Damodar by Sven Eek, pp. 333-36; and the story is related in Geoffrey Barborka's book The Mahatmas and Their Letters, pp. 247-50. Here is the pertinent part:
. . . I had the good fortune of being sent for, and permitted to visit a Sacred Ashram where I remained for a few days in the blessed company of several of the much doubted Mahatmas of Himevat and Their disciples. There I met not only my beloved Gurudeva and Col. Olcott's Master (Morya), but several others of the Fraternity, including One of the Highest. I regret [that] the extremely personal nature of my visit to those thrice blessed regions prevents my saying more of it. Suffice it that the place I was permitted to visit is in the Himalayas, not in any fanciful Summer Land, and that I saw Him in my own sthula sarira [physical body] and found my Master identical with the form I had seen in the earlier days of my Chelaship.
So, while these two telegrams are among the shortest entries in the volume, they tell a very important story.
INDIAN TELEGRAPH.
To
Station Adyar Madras
To
Person Madame Blavatsky
From
Station Jummoo
From
Person Colonel Olcott
Editor of the Theosophist.
Damodar left before dawn — at about eight o'clock letters from him and Koothumi found on my table — Don't say whether return or not — Damodar bids us all farewell conditionally and says brother theosophists should all feel encouraged knowing that he has found the blessed masters and been called by them. The dear boys recent developments astonishing. Homey231 bids me await orders.
Madras 25-11-83. Hour 17.30.
Letter No. 117 (ML-93) Rec. December 1883
To comprehend this letter, it is necessary to go back to Letter No. 12 (ML-6). The Sinnetts went to England in 1881, and while they were there The Occult World was published. Before leaving India, Sinnett had been told by the Mahatma K.H. to use anything he wished in his book; the Mahatma had complete confidence in his discretion and judgment. Therefore, Sinnett did quote from one of the letters — the one mentioned immediately above — the passage beginning "Plato was right, ideas rule the world . . ."
After the book's publication, it happened that, in the United States, a Spiritualist by the name of Henry Kiddle read it. Mr. Henry Kiddle had given a lecture at a gathering of Spiritualists at Lake Pleasant, New York. He claimed that the above cited passage from OW plagiarized some comments of his in this lecture. He first wrote to Sinnett — so he claimed — through his publisher. It is possible that this letter was not received. Kiddle then wrote to Stainton Moses (M.A. Oxon), editor of Light, the English Spiritualist organ, claiming that the printed passage in OW was "taken verbatim" from his address at Lake Pleasant. His letter was published in the September 1, 1883 issue of that journal. At this time, the Sinnetts were permanently in England. Sinnett at once responded to this letter. A great deal of correspondence resulted from all this (which came to be called "The Kiddle Incident").
For some time the Mahatma did not bother to answer the charges of plagiarism, apparently attaching little importance to it. But seeing how distressed Sinnett was over the whole matter, he undertook to explain. Letter No. 117 contains this explanation.
Received in London 1883-84.
My good and faithful friend — the explanation herein contained would have never been made but that I have of late perceived how troubled you were during your conversations upon the subject of "plagiarism" with some friends — C.C.M. particularly. Now especially that I have received your last in which you mention so delicately "this wretched little Kiddle incident," to withhold truth from you would be cruelty; nevertheless, to give it out to the world of prejudiced and malignantly disposed Spiritualists, would be sheer folly. Therefore, we must compromise: I must lay both yourself and Mr. Ward, who shares my confidence, under a pledge never to explain without special permission from me the facts hereinafter stated by me to anyone — not even to M.A. Oxon and C.C. Massey, included for reasons I will mention presently and that you will readily understand. If pressed by any of them you may simply answer that the "psychological mystery" was cleared up to yourself and some others; and — IF satisfied — you may add, that "the parallel passages" cannot be called plagiarism or words to this effect. I give to you carte blanche to say anything you like — even the reason why I rather have the real facts withheld from the general public and most of the London Fellows — all except the details you alone with a few others will know. As you will perceive, I do not even bind you to defend my reputation — unless you feel yourself satisfied beyond any doubt, and have well understood the explanation yourself. And now I may tell you why I prefer being regarded by your friends an "ugly plagiarist."
Having been called repeatedly a "sophist," a "myth," a "Mrs. Harris" and a "lower intelligence" by the enemies, I [would] rather not be regarded as a deliberate artificer and a liar by bogus friends — I mean those who would accept me reluctantly even were I to rise to their own ideal in their estimation instead of the reverse — as at present. Personally, I am indifferent, of course, to the issue. But for your sake and that of the Society I may make one more effort to clear the horizon of one of its "blackest" clouds. Let us then recapitulate the situation and see what your Western sages say of it. "K.H." — it is settled — is a plagiarist — if it be, after all a question of K.H. and not of the "two Occidental Humourists." In the former case, an alleged "adept" unable to evolve out of his "small oriental brain" any idea or words worthy of Plato, turned to that deep tank of profound philosophy, the Banner of Light, and drew therefrom the sentences best fitted to express his rather entangled ideas, which had fallen from the inspired lips of Mr. Henry Kiddle! In the other alternative, the case becomes still more difficult to comprehend — save on the theory of the irresponsible mediumship of the pair of Western jokers. However startling and impracticable the theory, that two persons who have been clever enough to carry on undetected the fraud of personating for five years several adepts — not one of whom resembles the other; — two persons, of whom one, at any rate, is a fair master of English and can hardly be suspected of paucity of original ideas, should turn for a bit of plagiarism to a journal as the Banner, widely known and read by most English-knowing Spiritualists; and above all, pilfer their borrowed sentences from the discourse of a conspicuous new convert, whose public utterances were at the very time being read and welcomed by every medium and Spiritualist; however improbable all this and much more, yet any alternative seems more welcome than simple truth. The decree is pronounced; "K.H.," whoever he is, has stolen passages from Mr. Kiddle. Not only this, but as shewn by "a Perplexed Reader" he has omitted inconvenient words and has so distorted the ideas he has borrowed as to divert them from their original intention to suit his own very different purpose.