Note Return to text — MADAME BLAVATSKY AT ADYAR.

I could not repress some homage to the sagacity of this unwitnessed confession. Forewarned that I was coming, Madame had received from her Guru a convenient prohibition against further use of the shrine as a post-office; and now, by one clever stroke, she altogether forestalled an inconvenient investigation. Obstruction to experiments, or evasion, would have been such confession as I could use. Failure to obtain phenomena that could be verified might subtly awaken skepticism in the simple-hearted Hindus around her. But this secret confession, which might be repudiated if necessary, raised my whole siege at once.[3] And the confession itself, while it admitted the unreality of the miracles, left a marvel,—namely, her power to cause the hallucinations. I remembered the legend of Glam, from whom came our word “glamour,” and had a droll feeling of being defeated, like Grettir, in the moment of his victory over that moonshine-giant. As says the Saga, “even as Glam fell a cloud was driven from the moon, and Glam said, Exceedingly eager hast thou sought to meet me, Grettir, but no wonder will it be deemed, though thou gettest no good hap of me.” Even so it proved lately, when I told my friend, Anne Besant, that Madame Blavatsky had admitted it was glamour. She reminded me of the power still left unexplained, to cast the glamour.