Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1891-06-06

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| kxPkRIEScE-DR. coUEs SAYS TAILOR MADE
| GHOSTS ARE FRAUDe-HIs IDEA OF SPIRITUAL
! pEOPLE WHO LOVE THE MYSTERIOUS
and like to have chills chase up and down
their backs by the suggestion Of things super
natural are interested in two questions con-
nected With the death Of Madame Blavatsky.
They are wondering who will succeed her as
the priestess OF mystery, and whether or not
her ghost at unseemly hours will be visiting the
giimpses OF the moon. 1t is but natural that q
spirit 30 restless as hers and 80 given, as her
followers pretend to believe, to acting with
entire independence of its material abiding
place and doing things in its own ETHEREAL way
should continue by force of habit to walk the
earth disembodied and untrammeled.
Therefore there have already appeared many
stories Of this spirit having revealed itself to
certain especially favored persons quite in
accordance with the customs Of well behaved
and intelligent ghosts. There may be a gem
eral suspicion that these stories are ''fakes,"
and that the spirit with the body Of Blavatsky
lies at rest for eternity, but some who would
ridicule the idea Of . ghost believe in the
spiritual manifestation through the occult inn
it il said that the spirit Of Blavatsky has been
DISCLOSED IN WASHINGTON.
But this ghost cannot take the place Of the
natural Bavatsky. Whether a fraud and fakir
or being of supernatural endowments, the
public associate her name with theosophy. and
regard her death as leaving vacancy for some
one to fill in that neutral ground between the
material and the occult world.
DIR. Elliot Coues was not, for some years be-
fore her death, friend of Blavatsky's, though
at one time they were quite closely associated.
Dr. Coues persists in pronouncing the great
priestess fakir and fraud, whose natural tai
ents were exercised for the deception of the
credulous. But DR.. Couesis theosophist and be-
lieves that there is life spiritual as well as life
physical and that both the spiritual and the
physical are natural and that the spiritual,
while not thing tangible, may become mani.
fest in one way or another. He makes broad
nction between the spiritual and the super
natural.
NO SUCCESSOR TO BLAvATsKY.
A STAR reporter had long talk with him the
other night about Blavatsky and theosophy.
There will be no successor to Blavatsky in the
school Of thought known as theosophy. he says,
and there Is no such school of thought. The
spiritualistic manifestations and the pretended
inspiration from some high priest of Buddhism
long dead, which are associated with Blavatsky's
name, he says, are all fraud and deception. Her
books on occult subjects are plagiarisms from
numerous obscure and forgotten authors, and
her manifestations were receptions: He claims
proof of this and ridiculcs the idea OF
such inspiration. He ridicules the idea Of
solid substance being materialized out OF
thin air. The idea Of q spirit coming
out in silk dress and diamonds, of notes, ma
terial ink and paper notes being precipitated
out of the arc--all that which is unnatural he
denounces. The trouble in talking on such q
subject he says is to convey an idea Of just
what he means when he says that the spiritual
part Of one living or dead may appear to an
other person at long distance from the body
of the visiting spirit.
Within his meaning such manifestation is
the spiritual communication of two persons.
and not the actual appearance OF ghost in
solid flesh with a tailor made suit on. He even
grants that the spirit may not come to the per-
son who sees it, but it may be the mind of that
person flying out from its abode and envelop-
ing or being enveloped in the other spiritual or
magnetic force; that there may actually be
nothing at all where the aparition has been
seen.
He says there is no school of theosophy: that
every man who makes q study Of his own
spiritual nature, recognizing that he is COM
posed of the two beings, one spiritual and the
other physical, is a theosophist Any one who
looks inward and thinks upon and regards his
spiritual nature is a theosophist, though his
theories and inductions may not agree with
those of any other of his kind, even though his
reasoning and conclusions may be wrong.
GHOSTS NOT MADE TO ORDER
All this show business Of spiritualism, he con-
tends, is a fraud. Ghosts can't be made to
order, and nothing" does not condense into
solid substance and then again vanish. turning
into nothing. A spirit does not leave her
pockethandkerchief with you as a remem-
brance. The ghost Of an Anticipated belle does
not matsrialize with false teeth, hand me-down
bangs and frescoed cheeks, as in life.
But the fact that these things are humbug
does not, DR.. Coues says. argue that we have
no spiritual being or that the spiritual being
may not manifest itself without the physical
form. Whether il is true that the spirit gathers
itself together in a form merely that the
spiritual or magnetic force impresses the mind
with the idea Of that form is immaterial. What
ever there is Is natural and ell assumptions of
the supernatural are frauds.
HAS MADANs BLAvArsKY's SPIRIT APPEARED HERE?
DR.. Coues has thought that the spirit of
Madame Blavatsky would appear to some peo-
pie, but he believes that most of the stories of
the visitations are false.
He belivss that this spirit has appeared in
Washington and perhaps elsewhere.
On the 18th Of this month there was q meet
ing OF some five or six persons who are inter-
ested in spiritual phenomsns, among them DR..
Coues. They were people well known One of
the party, DR.. Coues says, young lady OF the
highest character and intelligence, became dis
turbed by some manipulation. Her face, he
says showed great terror and tears ran down
her cheeks, but she said nothing Of the cause
and nobody In the room saw or was conscious
of the disturbing presence. But after leaving
the company, the young lady wrote out the
following strange statement which she sent to
DR.. Coues signed in her own name and the sig
nature attested:
REMARKABLE VISION.
"On Wednesday night, May 10, at DR.. Elliott
Coues, after our usual experiments, the table
began to culver. We placed our hands upon it
and Immediately I had most wonderful and
at the same time most horrible vision.
II had no sooner placed my hands upon the
OF me. felt as If my eyes would burst from
theft sockets and every hair seemed to stand
upright I did not feel a. II nv body felt this
thing, and vet it was l. For several seconds
this terror increased and then saw before me
(and all around, in fact was part of the scene,
Madame Blavatsky with q most awful and deadly
wound just about an inch below the left breast.
l thought perhaps I was little nervous and
tried to throw 1t off by placing my whole at
tention on the table, which was beginning to
show signs Of moving. The more tried to
Danish 1t the greater was wracked with ter
ror and pain, and the vision became
more and moro distinct She seemed to
be lying on . bed partly dressed. Her gown
seemed to have been torn from her, leaving
most OF her left side bare. She was extremely
fat Her flesh was not fair, but rather sallow
and muddy. The bedding was not at all tidy.
Blood was clotted around the wound and
little stream was oozing from it. The sight