Constance Wachtmeister

Constance Wachtmeister

The Countess Wachtmeister was the companion and coworker of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky from 1885 until HPB's death in 1891. She lectured widely in the 1890s, and helped Annie Besant to form lodges in the United States.

Personal life

Constance Georgina Louise Bourbel de Monpincon was born in Florence, Italy on March 28, 1838, to a French father and an English mother. Constance lost her parents at an early age and was sent to England to her aunt, Mrs. Bulkley of Linden Hall, Berkshire, where she was educated and lived until her marriage in 1863 with her cousin, the Count Wachtmeister, then Swedish and Norwegian minister at the court of St. James. They had a son, count Axel Raoul, who was born in 1865. The family moved to Stockholm, Sweden, when the Count was appointed as the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Countess Wachtmeister’s husband died in 1871. .

She remained in Sweden for several years, spending the winter in warmer climates on account of health. Because the countess herself had some psychic abilities and had witnessed some phenomena, she became interested in psychic research. She began investigations into Spiritualism in 1879 but after two years of arduous research she found it unsatisfactory and dangerous.

Eventually she found in Theosophy an explanation of the phenomena in herself and joined the Theosophical Society in 1881. All her deepest problems of life found a solution in Theosophy and from then on she devoted her whole life and fortune to the service of H.P.B. and her Masters.

She happened to be in Germany when H.P.B. came to there from India in 1884 and was ready to serve by entering H.P.B.’s household as an all-around helper and answering H.P.B.’s letters. She kept this up faithfully until H.P.B.’s death.

This was during the years in which she wrote The Secret Doctrine and in Constace Wachtmeister’s book Reminiscences of H.P.B. she writes about the remarkable phenomena connected with the preparation of this work she was privileged to see.

During these years she became a close friend of H.P.B. and stood by her in time of great distress and anxiety, both physical and social.

To her is also due the credit for the successful establishment of the Theosophical Publishing Society in London. The T.S.P. had been organized to publish the Secret Doctrine and other Theosophical books and magazines. The countess had become seriously involved financially in this endeavor.

She was a devoted Theosophist, a strict vegetarian and lived a “simple life”.

She died in 1910.

Encounters with Mahatma Morya

"On one or other of his early visits to Europe, Countess Wachtmeister also met Master Morya. H. P. B. mentions the fact in a letter to Mr. N. D. Khandalvala, dated July 12, 1888:

Constance Wachtmeister joined the T.S. because she recognised in the portrait of my Master her living Master who saved her on several occasions, whom she saw in his physical body years ago when he was in England, whom she saw in her astral body a number of times, and who wrote to her from the first in the same handwriting he uses for our Society. When she assured herself of this, she joined the T.S. at his advice; and now for three years and more she lives with and takes care of me."

Experiences with phenomena

In the autumn of 1885 the Countess was getting ready to go to Italy to spend the winter with some friends, when a singular phenomenon happened:

I was making preparations to leave my home in Sweden to spend the winter with some friends in Italy. . . . I was arranging and laying aside the articles I intended to take with me to Italy when I heard a voice saying, "Take that book, it will be useful to you on your journey." I may as well say at once that I have the faculties of clairvoyance and clairaudience rather strongly developed. I turned my eyes on a manuscript volume I had placed among the heap of things to be locked away until my return. Certainly it seemed a singular inappropriate vade mecum for a holiday, being a collection of notes on the Tarot and passages in the Kabbalah that had been compiled for me by a friend. However, I decided to take it with me, and laid the book in the bottom of one of my traveling trunks.

On her way to Italy she stopped at Elberfeld and satyed for some days with Madame Gebhard. When she was about to depart she got a telegram from H. P. Blavatsky requesting the Countess to join her at Wurzburg. Soon after she arrived, she had the following incident:

I remember very well that it was then, on going into the dining room together to take some tea, that she said to me abruptly, as of something that had been dwelling on her mind.

"Master says you have a book for me of which I am much in need."

"No, indeed," I replied, "I have no books with me."

"Think again," she said, "Master says you were told in Sweden to bring a book on the Tarot and the Kabbalah".

Then I recollected the circumstances that I have related before. From the time I had placed the volume in the bottom of my box it had been out of my sight and out of my mind. Now, when I hurried to the bedroom, unlocked the trunk, and dived to the bottom, I found it in the same corner I had left it when packing in Sweden, undisturbed from that moment to this.

Writing and editing

The Countess was an excellent writer in English and in French, and edited Theosophical Siftings. She worked with Bertram Keightley to organize the Theosophical Publishing Society. The Union Index of Theosophical Periodicals lists 446 articles by or about Constance and Axel Wachtmeister.

Articles

• "The Countess Wachtmeister Defends Madame Blavatsky," The Religio-Philosophical Journal (Chicago, Illinois) May 5, 1888, p. 6. Available at Blavatsky Archives.

Books

• Practical Vegetarian Cookery. San Francisco: Mercury Publishing Co.; Chicago: Theosophical Book Concern, 1897. Written with Kate Buffington Davis. Available at Wellcome Library, Biblioboard, and others.
• Spiritualism in the Light of Theosophy. San Francisco: Mercury Publishing Co., 1897.
• Reminiscences of H. P. Blavatsky and the Secret Doctrine. London: Theosophical Publishing Society; New York: The Path; Madras: Theosophical Society, 1893. Available at Hathitrust and Internet Archive. Translated into Swedish and French.
• H. P. B. and The Present Crisis In The Theosophical Society. [London]: Privately printed, Women's Printing Society, 1894-1895. translated into Swedish, 1895.
• Theosophy In Every-Day Life. Sydney, 1895. "Compiled by a fellow of the Theosophical Society, repr. from Theosophical Siftings, Vol. 3, by kind permission of the editor, the Countess Wachtmeister." Translated into French by Annie Besant.