Hodgson Report

The Hodgson Report was a document that arose from an investigation by the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) on H. P. Blavatsky, her performance of psychic phenomena, and the production of the Mahatma letters. In November, 1884, Richard Hodgson of the SPR went to India and visited the Adyar headquarters of the Theosophical Society. He was deceived by Emma Coulomb and her husband Alexis into believing that Madame Blavatsky had faked phenomena and forged letters. Hodgson wrote a 200-page report that he presented to the SPR. Even though the Society the Psychical Research never officially endorsed the report, the public invested Hodgson's writings with the full authority of the London Society. An international scandal ensued, and Hodgson's denunciation of Blavatsky was treated as authoritative in many books and enclopedias for decades, to the great detriment of her reputation and that of the Theosophical Society.

The case was re-examined a hundred years later by Dr. Vernon Harrison, an expert on forgery, which led to the SPR to publish a report taking exception of the methods used by Richard Hodgson.

Coulomb affair

Mme. Blavatsky met briefly Emma Cutting and her would-be husband Monsieur Coulomb in Cairo, in 1871. When the Founders arrived to Bombay in 1878, the Coulombs were in Galle, Sri Lanka, where they had opened a boarding house. This venture, however, was about to collapse, and Mme. Coulomb wrote to HPB asking for a loan. The latter answered that, if she and her husband would come to India, she could help them finding jobs. They eventually ended up working for the Founders and when they moved to Madras in 1882, the Coulombs came with them and resided at the new Headquarters at Adyar.

In February 1884 the Founders left for Europe and the management at Adyar was put in the hands of a Board of Control. Difficulties soon arose between the Board and the Coulombs. The Masters were obviously aware of was going on there, as shown in a letter precipitated to Col. Olcott in a railway compartment in motion, in England, on April 5, written by Master K.H.. It was published as Letter 18 in Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, First Series:

Do not be surprised at anything you may hear from Adyar. Nor discouraged. It is possible—tho’ we try to prevent it within the limits of karma—that you may have great domestic annoyances to pass thro’. You have harboured a traitor and an enemy under your roof for years, and the missionary party are more than ready to avail of any help she may be induced to give. A regular conspiracy is on foot. She is maddened by the appearance of Mr Lane Fox and the powers you have given to the Board of Control. We have been doing some phenomena at Adyar since H.P.B. left India to protect Upasika from the conspirators.

The Coulombs were eventually dismissed about the middle of May. Between the time of the dispute and the day they left Adyar, Monsieur Coulomb, who was an expert carpenter, tampered with the "The Shrine" where the Masters of Wisdom used to precipitate letters. This shrine was a small wooden wall cabinet hanging up on one of the walls of H. P. Blavatsky's writing room. After leaving, the Coulombs and made charges that the shrine had been used to deceive the recipients of the letters which appeared, alleging that they were really inserted through secret panels and holes in the wall.

Missionaries' involvement

The Christian missionaries of Madras played an important role in the plot created by the Coulombs, in an attempt to thwart the TS efforts to bring about the Hindu and Buddhist revival it had started to stimulate. Thus, they took up the Coulombs, financed them, and launched an attack on the Society in their magazine, offering so-called evidence that the Masters were Mme. Blavatsky's invention, their letters written by her, and put in "The Shrine" with the Coulombs' assistance.

Boston Courier reaction

Boston Courier, July 18, 1886

Boston Courier, July 18, 1886

The report drew international attention. The Boston Courier printed a lengthy and scathing article, saying the SPR "has made no more egregious blunder than its report on Theosophy." It quoted a letter signed by almost seventy citizens of Negapatam (now Nagapattinam), India, regarding one of Richard Hodgson's major assertions:

The existence of the Mahatmas or Sadhus was not invented by Madame Blavatsky or any other individual. Our forefathers who had lived and gone long before the birth of Madame Blavatsky and the Coulombs had full belief in the existence of the Mahatmas and their psychical powers, and even had personal interviews with them. There are persons in India, even at the present day,who have no connection with the Theosophuical Society, and yet have interviews with such Superior Beings... Let Mr. Hodgson and the Committee, if they are in earnest, make deep researches into the matter and find that their conclusions were not only hasty but also entirely unfounded. The report of Mr. Hodgson and the conclusion of the Committee thereon, cannot at all affect in the least our belief in the existence of the Mahatmas, but will only betray their grossest ignorance of the Occult history of the Hindus.

The article went on to criticize Hodgson's qualifications and the quality of his work:

The truth is that Mr. Hodgson, sent out by the London society to India, to investigate Madame Blavatsky, was so entirely unfitted for the work confided to him that he fell a victim to errors the most egregious. He set down to the credit of Madame Blavatsky's inventive powers theories and statements which may be found even in plenty of English works upon Indian religions published in London a century or more ago; and the society can hardly be willing to attribute to Madame a term of life so extended as to suppose her to have instigated the writing of books so old.

Theosophical responses

A. P. Sinnett

A. P. Sinnett refuted the report in a 60-page booklet, The Occult World Phenomena and the Society for Psychical Research, published in 1886.

Annie Besant

After Annie Besant reviewed Madame Blavatsky's 1888 work The Secret Doctrine, she went the meet the author on May 10, 1889. Blavatsky expressed her wish to have Besant joining the Theosophical Society, and recommended that she read Hodgson's report. Mrs. Besant wanted to join, but was aware that this step would produce a rift with all her previous Freethinker and Socialist associates. However, after reading the report, she immediately became a member of the Society on May 21, 1889. "She gave two evening lectures on 'Why I Became a Theosophist,' before a packed Hall of Science in London on August 4 and 11." After the lecture she answered a question about the Coulomb controversy with flawless reasoning about how the report was illogical and slanderous. This brought the Hodgson Report squarely in the public eye again.

The conversion of the country's leading female orator, atheist, socialist, promulgator of birth-control, a member of the London School Board, at the height of her career, 'Struck the whole of England like a thunderbolt!,' to use H.P.B.'s words.

Mrs. Besant followed up with an exchange of letters in The Methodist Times with Rev. Patterson, and defense of H.P.B. in Lucifer. In a Pall Mall Gazette article entitled "I Believe in Madame Blavatsky" she summarized her views unequivocally:

I consider that Mr. Hodgson was simply befooled by the Coulombs, and that the tricks which they alleged they had helped Madame Blavatsky to perform were a tissue of lies; that the 'Blavatsky Letters' which they produced were forgeries; and that all the sliding panels which they revealed had been constructed by them without Mme. Blavatsky's knowledge.

Testimony by C. W. Leadbeater

In an article published in The Theosophist, C. W. Leadbeater wrote the following:

I was at Adyar myself when Mr. Hodgson came out there to make that investigation. He was very young and obviously not very well acquainted with psychic matters. I had my own opinion of the way in which he carried out his investigation! I gave him a considerable amount of testimony, but he did not refer to that in any way in drawing up his decision, and I know the same was the case with several others of our people there. He cross-examined us but apparently made no use whatever of what we told him of the honesty of Madame Blavatsky; perhaps he did not believe us; at any rate he sent in a report which induced people to condemn her.

Re-examination by Dr. Vernon Harrison

Dr. Vernon Harrison, an expert on forgery, examined the evidence of the case using Twentieth Century forensic methodology. He published an article in the April 1986 issue of the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, followed by a book, H. P. Blavatsky and the SPR. An Examination of the Hodgson Report of 1885, in which he outlined flaws in Hodgson's work. On May 8, 1986, the Society for Psychical Research issued a press release in support of Harrison's findings, and rejecting the Hodgson report.

Additional Resources

Articles and pamphlets

• Gomes, Michael. "The Coulomb Case." Theosophical History Occasional Papers Volume X. Fullerton, California: Theosophical History, 2005.
• "The Hodgson Report (Theosophy)" at Psi Encyclopedia.
• The Great Mare's Nest of the Psychical Research Society by Annie Besant.
• "The Society for Psychical Research and the Theosophical Phenomena. The Report of the S.P.R. on Madame Blavatsky" at Blavatsky Study Center.
• Paranormal Features of Some of the Appearances of the Mahatmas by Daniel H. Caldwell
• "H. P. Blavatsky and The Society for Psychical Research" by Grace F. Knoche
• "Notes By The Way: White Lotus Day" by Leslie Price
• Press Release of Society for Psychical Research, 1986 at Blavatsky Net.

Books

• First Report of the Committee of the Society for Psychical Research at The Blavatsky Archives Online.
• Obituary: The "Hodgson Report" on Madame Blavatsky by Walter A. Carrithers, Jr.
• H. P. Blavatsky and the SPR. An Examination of the Hodgson Report of 1885 by Vernon Harrison, Ph.D.
• The Coulomb Conspiracy against Theosophy by Charles J. Ryan, from H. P. Blavatsky and the Theosophical Movement, Ch. 13.
• The "Occult World Phenomena" and the Society for Psychical Research by A. P. Sinnett.
• Vania, K. F. Madame Blavatsky: Her Occult Phenomena and the Society for Psychical Research. Bombay: Sat Publishing, 1951. 488 pages. Mr. Vania wrote the first thorough account of the affair.

Bibliography

• The Coulomb Case. Some Suggested Reading - Pro and Con at Blavatsky Study Center.