''Report of the committee appointed to investigate phenomena connected with the Theosophical Society'',
commonly called the Hodgson Report was an 1885 report by the
Society for Psychical Research
The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) is a nonprofit organisation in the United Kingdom. Its stated purpose is to understand events and abilities commonly described as psychic or paranormal. It describes itself as the "first society to condu ...
(SPR) on
Helena Blavatsky
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (; – 8 May 1891), often known as Madame Blavatsky, was a Russian-born Mysticism, mystic and writer who emigrated to the United States where she co-founded the Theosophical Society in 1875. She gained an internat ...
and purportedly
apported Mahatma Letters.
History
Richard Hodgson, a member of the SPR and a research worker of paranormal phenomena, was sent to India. Hodgson's task was to examine if the mode of appearance attributed to the Mahatma Letters represented genuine psychical phenomena. In December 1884 Hodgson arrived in Adyar. He eventually concluded that the evidence supported Emma Coulomb, and that various inconsistencies, misrepresentations, and provable falsehoods in sworn statements by certain
Theosophical Society
The Theosophical Society is the organizational body of Theosophy, an esoteric new religious movement. It was founded in New York City, U.S.A. in 1875. Among its founders were Helena Blavatsky, a Russian mystic and the principal thinker of the ...
members destroyed their credibility. He included in his research examination of the physical spaces where phenomena had been reported, including architectural features that had been concealed or removed from their original placements. Hodgson wrote a 200-page report, in which Blavatsky was described "as one of the most accomplished, ingenious, and interesting impostors in history."
The report considers at length if letters from Blavatsky provided by the Coulombs as evidence for fraudulent activity were genuinely from her hand, the consistency and credibility of various people who claimed to have witnessed psychic phenomena that occurred through Blavatsky, possible methods by which many purported phenomena might have been humanly produced, and references to various accounts of these phenomena as they had been published or circulated in public knowledge. The Hodgson report is detailed and contains extensive appendices.
Blavatsky's reputation was seriously damaged due to the Hodgson Report.
See also
*
Coulomb Affair
* ''
Incidents in the Life of Madame Blavatsky''
References
Further reading
* Transcribed from
* Transcribed from
*
* Hastings, Beatrice: ''Defence of Madame Blavatsky'' (Band 2). The Hastings press, Worthington 1937
* Transcribed from
*
*
* Kingsland, William: ''The real H. P. Blavatsky, a study in theosophy and a memoir of a great soul''. J.M. Watkins, London 1928
*
*
*
* Vania, K. F.: ''Madame H. P. Blavatsky, her occult phenomena and the society for physical research.'' Sat Publishing Co., Bombay 1951
* Transcribed in
External links
*
*
* Reported in {{cite web, title=Press release of Society for Psychical Research – 1986, website=blavatsky.net, location=Blue Ridge, GA, publisher=Theosophy Foundation, url=http://www.blavatsky.net/index.php/9-theosophy/history/382-spr-press-release, access-date=2014-10-13, archive-date=1999-02-02, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/19990202214538/http://www.blavatsky.net/gen/refute/sprpress.htm, url-status=dead
Helena Blavatsky
Theosophy