I find that the first three chapters are quite excellent. He
has a breezy, conversational style and he manages to juggle several strands of
discussion with a remarkable ability to synthesize a lot of information into concise,
focused, snappy, insightful, interesting, and original paragraphs. For example:
“If the reader feels this sounds like something out of
Alexander Dumas and The Count of Monte Cristo, I’m not surprised. HPB’s “journey
into the unknown” had begun and at this point her life becomes a series of
adventures, much like those her contemporary Jules Verne would pack into the
pages of his novels. Around the World in Eighty Days, was published in
1873, the year that Blavatsky surfaces in New York, and it made Verne an
international success. But between 1849, when she escaped her crestfallen
husband, and that year, HPB embarked on a voyage that Phileas Fogg would have
found impressive” (p. 33).For the next seven chapters, he visits the standard events in the Blavatskian biographical corpus (Blavatsky has always been considered bio-friendly. Since her passing, there’s been a steady output of biographies, one every five years on average: http://www.blavatskyarchives.com/blavatskysourcebook.htm). He manages to deftly consider the anti-Blavatsky and pro-Blavatsky stances on the various issues and arrive at some sensible understanding of them. (Briefly, this means allegations by Home, Coleman, Coulomb, Hodgson, the SPR, Soloviov, De Witte, Coues, and a couple of pseudo-Blavatsky forgeries).
Overall, I think that he is quite successful in dispelling the haze of confusion that the aforementioned testimonies have created and which have effectively left Blavatskian studies in a state of arrested development for over a century. He diligently analyzes the relevant data and tends to demonstrate that there is very little substance to the various claims or any concrete evidence. Moreover, the testimony in question tend to have flagrant factual discrepancies and the people in question tend to have palpable motivations of personal ideology or ambition.
Otherwise, he manages to place of a lot interesting, if undeveloped, digressions that can serve as placeholders for future research. For example, on page 313 he notes how Vsevolod Solovyov is the brother of Vladimir Solovyov, an important spiritual philosopher. In turns out that the latter actually did an interesting review of the Key to Theosophy to which Blavatsky issued a very articulate reply. Unfortunately, the reply was not published at the time, but her manuscript survived. This intriguing meeting of minds surely merits further study:
Moreover, he makes use of more contemporary research into parapsychology and supernatural phenomena, as well as alternative science and makes some interesting comparisons to Blavatksy’s writings and experiences.
In terms of critiques, I think that this work would
benefit from a greater awareness of the classic original insights and
explanations into Blavatsky’s behavior and motives from an occult perspective,
as can be gleaned from the Mahatma letters and Blavatsky’s letters to A.P.
Sinnett. These essentials can be found in Geoffrey Barborka’s Blavatsky, Tibet, and
Tulku. Although published in 1974, I think that it remains a very helpful
work for understanding Blavatsky’s character from an esoteric perspective. Also, the description of the Secret Doctrine human evolutionary scheme (pp. 255-56) is a little innacurate (nb. in a future post, an accurate chart will be presented here). Moreover, I think that more exploration into what is known as the "Judge Case" would be needed. Simply reading Judge's own final reply, would seem to indicate that there is more to the picture than what the press of the time had put forth (see the second reply of "Two replies" : http://www.phx-ult-lodge.org/two_replies.htm )
Note 79 on page 266 seems a little garbled. Mead is
not involved in the Johnston text.
I would venture to say Lachman’s book marks a kind of breakthrough in the sense that it is the first
bio aimed at the general public that I know of that is reasonably neutral and
objective and has a reasonably critical analysis of historical sources.
Hallelujah. Hopefully this clears the ground for a new phase of more original
and open research into the mysterious Madame B.
PS. Below is a little-known Blavatsky text that is interesting in that she offers some interesting insights and perspectives into the difficulties of the semantics of esoteric historiography that, in my opinion, remain relevant:
http://www.katinkahesselink.net/blavatsky/articles/v8/y1887_036.htm
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