Miracle Club

The Miracle Club was a group formed by Henry Steel Olcott and Madame Blavatsky in New York City to investigate the phenomena of Spiritualism. While the organization existed for only a few months, it served as a predecessor to the Theosophical Society founded on November 17, 1875. Colonel Olcott wrote of the intention to study:

All the manifestations, including materialisations, to occur in the light, and without a cabinet.

Public announcement

On May 4, 1875, the New York newspaper Daily Graphic published a letter from Colonel Olcott that was mostly a refutation of criticism of his new book People of the Other World. He concluded by announcing the formation of the club:

The large sale which my book is meeting proves that the public interest in "materialization" has been in nowise abated by the preposterous expose of the Katie King humbug, while before long things will occur in this city that will raise the excitement to fever heat. A "Miracle Club" is being organized by some of the best of our citizens, who have secured the attendance of a private gentleman, in whose presence every wonder of modern Spiritualism, including the materialization of full-length spirit forms, occurs without a cabinet and in the light.

A few days later, a Daily Graphic writer wrote a mocking response that materializing ghosts should be required to pay an "annual subscription" (dues) and suggested various other comical club rules. Colonel Olcott, who was on very good terms with the newspapermen of New York, replied:

The "Miracle Club," which excites the hilarity of your paragraphist, is not a body given up to feasting and drinking with ghosts, but a circle of gentlemen who are determined to probe this thing to the bottom, under conditions that have never heretofore been offered. The party includes one of the most popular clergymen of this city, a judge, two United States judicial officers, a physician or two, one of our greatest painters, and some lawyers. We intend to meet twice a week in a private house, in a lighted room, without a "cabinet," and we hope to see every important phase of "spirit manifestation" enacted before our eyes. The medium is a private gentleman, brother to one of the best known men in this country, who has possessed this gift for twenty years, and fought against its display until he can resist no longer. We hope that before long we will be in a position to invite the most daring and learned of our scientists to pursue, either in committee or singly, as they choose, a course of experiments that may demonstrate the nature and potency of this now occult force of nature, and thus stop the mouths of the joking editors that are now stretched open with their broad grins.

Encouragement from the Mahatmas

The Masters of the Wisdom, or Mahatmas, took an interest in this activity. In an encouraging letter to Colonel Olcott, Master Tuitit Bey wrote: "Thou hast many good mediums around thee, don’t give up thy club. TRY." This was the first of dozens of letters that Olcott was to receive.

End of club

The club existed only for a brief time, and served mainly to . This attempt at organization failed, mainly because the medium that was to be involved wanted to earn money from this endeavor, something Madame Blavatsky always opposed.