Article selections from an interview with Lady M. Caithness | Introduction and Notes by H.P.B.
The following purports to be an interview with our respected friend and colleague Lady M. Caithness, sent to the Chicago Tribune by a correspondent. We have never known the Countess as “a priestess of Buddha”, but rather as a Christian mystic. Nor would she, we fear, subscribe to the title without protest. However, as the conversation between the reporter and Lady Caithness is interesting, notwithstanding its several sensational blunders, we republish it.
Lady Caithness’ Faith
A Priestess of Buddha in Her Parisian Temple
[Here followed the interview in question; we give only selections related to H.P.B.’s notes.]
. . .
“No”, said Lady Caithness; “and I knew he would not, for while the priest read the letter the spirit said as distinctly as I repeat it to you: ‘The Pope has no power. It rests with a woman.’ I treasure the admonition as a divine inspiration and it sustains me in my efforts to lead humanity to a higher life, to esotericism, which will eventually establish a new religion.” It is ten years1 since Mme. Blavatsky, in whom Lady Caithness recognises the “accumulated wisdom of the ages”, founded a Theosophical Society in New York, whence led by the Great Spirit, who is in constant communion with the spirits of the other world, she went to India.2 Theosophical query originated in Madras, and if Mme. Blavatsky’s recent article in the North American Review is credited, it is now spread all over the world.
1. Fifteen years, if it is the same for the correspondent, nor was she alone to found it.—H.P.B.
2. The individual of that name is not aware of having been led into India by any “Spirit,” great or small. Colonel H. S. Olcott and H. P. Blavatsky went to India because such was the wish of their Masters in Eastern philosophy, and those Masters are no “Spirits,” but living men.—H.P.B.