Mrs. Besant, as we have recorded elsewhere, has passed from
the materialism of Charles Bradlaugh to the theosophy of Madame Blavatsky, and now believes in the power of the Mahatmas to " precipitate " letters from the recesses of the Himalayas to London without the use of any such inter. mediate agency as the post. The substance on which these theosophical letters are written is thus described in a letter from Mrs. Isabel Cooper-Oakley, "Fellow of the Theosophical Society," to the Daily Chronicle of Thursday last :—" Permit me to answer one query in your leader of to-day. I refer to the following lines : We would only inquire whether letters pur- porting to come from Tibet are written on paper manu- factured in England or Madras P Whether the Mahatma who writes them uses the imperial post or no ? ' The paper is not of European manufacture, nor of such sort as is usually seen in Europe or India ; it is, sui generis, more like a leaf in texture. The Mahatmas do not always use the imperial post.' I have seen the letters since Madame Blavatsky's death. They are the fee-similes of those received by her, in hand-writing, signature, and seal." It is not easy to say whether the passage from Mr. Bradlaugh's materialism to the theosophy of the Mahatmas, is to be regarded as pro- gressive or retrogressive. It is progressive so far as it con- fesses the dreary sterility of materialism, but it may possibly be retrogressive if the ostentatious spiritualism of the Mahatmas is a spiritualism of mere intellectual caste.
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