Elbridge Gerry Brown
Elbridge Gerry Brown was an American Editor of the Spiritual Scientist of Boston, Mass. According to Readers Guide to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett:
Brown, Elbridge Gerry, editor of the magazine Spiritual Scientist in Boston. Referred to in ODL and early letters from the Egyptian Adepts to HSO. Apparently he was one of the three selected by the Brotherhood to start the TS movement through an interest in spiritualism. "Educated but very poor; for, to become a Spiritualist and editor of a spiritualistic paper, he had quarreled with his family" (SH, p. 68). Later, when HPB and HSO were trying to wean the public mind away from spiritualism, Brown decided to go his own way and keep his belief in "Spirits." HPB said "he might have become a Power" but preferred otherwise (SH, p. 71).[1]
Theosophical involvement
From early letters, it is evident that the Masters of Wisdom had originally chosen three people to form the nucleus of what would become the Theosophical Society. Two of them were H. P. Blavatsky and H. S. Olcott. The third one was young E. G. Brown, then editor of the Spiritual Scientist, and interested in understanding the occult laws behind spiritualistic phenomena. As Master S. wrote in a letter to Col. Olcott:
This cause—in your country—depends entirely on the closest unity between you three—our Lodge’s chosen Triad—you, verily so, you three so utterly dissimilar and yet so closely connected to be brought together and linked in one by the never-erring Wisdom of the Brotherhood.[2]
Mr. Brown worked for the Theosophical project for a short time with the financial support of The Founders, since he was very poor. However, he failed to continue with this work and eventually turned against it. Mme. Blavatsky wrote about him: "The man might have become a Power, he preferred to remain an Ass".[3] Madame Blavatsky's third scrapbook includes a bankruptcy notice for Brown summarized in this way by Mary K. Neff:
Creditors list includes Col Olcott ($590), Mme. Blav. ($150), to which HPB has red pencilled a note: "And several hundred more given without asking for a note. HPB." Also: "A constant shower of abuse and sneering in his paper against us, and in other papers too, and bankruptcy to end the whole without a single line of acknowledgment, excuse or regret. Such is Gerry Elbridge Brown, the Spiritualist." (Total debt of Brown: $3710)[4]
Other references to Brown exist in Blavatsky's letters to Hiram Corson and in Olcott's Old Diary Leaves.
Notes
- ↑ George E. Linton and Virginia Hanson, eds., Readers Guide to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 221-222.
- ↑ Curuppumullage Jinarājadāsa, Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom Second Series No. 6 (Adyar, Madras: The Theosophical Publishing House, 1988), 17.
- ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Collected Writings vol. I (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1988), 888.
- ↑ Mary K. Neff, "H.P.B.'s Scrapbooks," a summary of the scrapbooks written about 1934. Quoted from Boris de Zirkoff Papers, Records Series 22, Theosophical Society in America Archives.