When Theosophists met in Shimla

“…among the rhododendron trees, Madame Blavatsky, Colonel Olcott and Mr Sinnett move mysteriously in the performance of their wonders.”

— Fredrick Marion Crawford in his bestseller, ‘Mr Isaacs’ (1882)

A LESSER known moment of Shimla’s tightly woven and yet varied history is the arrival of the Theosophists, Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott, as guests of Alfred Percy Sinnett, who lived in a house named Brightlands.

In the years before rare and out-of-print books became more easily available through sellers on the Internet, my good friend, Rajeev Sud of Shimla’s antiquarian bookshop Maria Bros, arranged to procure a copy of F Marion Crawford’s book, ‘Mr Isaacs’. The book served its purpose, for what I was writing at the time and for the next few years settled down to live on a bookshelf. Then, for quite something else, I opened this again and did some more digging. After writing ‘Mr Isaacs’, Crawford had gone on to write several other highly successful books till he passed away in 1909 at the age of 54. It was quite by chance that one came across the piece of information that Crawford had come to India in 1879. Apart from studying Sanskrit, he had briefly edited a relatively obscure paper called ‘The Indian Herald’ at Allahabad.

The same year, 1879, was also the time when AP Sinnett had come to Allahabad as the editor of the respected and far better known Anglo-Indian newspaper, ‘The Pioneer’. Also posted to Allahabad after having displeased the British Viceroy, Lord Lytton, was Allan Octavian Hume, who was a part of the ‘Heaven Born’, as members of the Indian Civil Service were often called. In the rarefied circles of Anglo-Indian society, the paths of these men crossed. Around the same time, the ‘Founders’ of Theosophy, the outgoing Helena Blavatsky and the mild-mannered Colonel Olcott, came to Allahabad and met Sinnett.

For perspective, in the 19th century, Theosophy was established as a belief system, not quite a religion, in USA by the Russian, Helena Blavatsky. Drawing on esoteric mysticism and brushing by the occult, this drew on supposed spiritual masters who lay in Tibet and elsewhere, and communicated mysteriously to adepts or chosen ones. One of the central tenets of Theosophy is the belief in karma and reincarnation.

After their meeting in Allahabad, in 1880, Madame Blavatsky and her companion, Colonel Olcott, came to Shimla at the invitation of AP Sinnett, who had become interested in Theosophy. Sinnett’s summer residence at Shimla was Brightlands, which is just off the slope that leads down to Himachal’s High Court from the direction of Oakover, the official residence of the Chief Minister.

It was on September 7, 1880, that Blavatsky, Olcott and their companions left Meerut for Shimla. They reached Ambala and then, in a dak gaadi, a horse-drawn carriage also used to transport mail, they travelled through the night to Kalka. They rested for a few hours and then resumed their journey. On September 8, at sunset, Madame Helena Blavatsky and Colonel Henry Steel Olcott reached Brightlands.

It was in that autumn, before Madame Blavatsky became a guest at AO Hume’s residence, Rothney Castle, that she made an impact in Shimla. Expectedly, the colonial government began keeping tabs on the Founders, as Blavatsky and Olcott were called. The ‘Teachers’, especially Koot Hoomi and Morya, supposedly communicated with the Founders. Slips would sometimes be found with messages from the ethereal Teachers — one was found by Mrs Sinnett on September 29, 1880, in a tree on Prospect Hill, which lies above Boileauganj. This read: “I believe I was asked to leave a note here. What can I do for you?”

It was around this time of year, almost a century and a half ago, that both Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott left Shimla just before noon on October 21, 1880. They reached Kalka at 8 pm and stayed overnight at Laurie’s Hotel. The passage of the ‘Teachers’ in Shimla may have been fleeting, but the impact was considerable. They had exerted a profound influence on AO Hume, who went on to form the Indian National Congress. Annie Besant, who founded the Home Rule League and was president of the Congress in 1918, was one of Madame Blavatsky’s disciples. Adopted by Mrs Besant, the internationally renowned philosopher J Krishnamurti was one of its intellectual successors.