Page:Isis very much unveiled - being the story of the great Mahatma hoax (IA b24884273).pdf/23

Rh The Coulomb story tallied also with equal accuracy with such outside circumstantial evidence as happened to touch it. Did Madame Coulomb allege that a “miracle” was worked by the substitution of one vase for another exactly similar, the shop she named proved to have record of the purchase of just such an exact pair just before the date of the miracle. Did she make a similar statement about a “miraculous” shower of roses, the like corroboration would be forthcoming. Did her husband describe the famous “Shrine” cupboard as a trick-cabinet with three sliding panels in the back, the panels had to be admitted, and explained by Madame as “for convenience of packing in case of removal.” It had hung against a hidden recess in the wall—there was the recess, the coincidence had to be deplored as unfortunate. On the other side of that recess, in Madame’s bedroom, the sideboard had a false back—that, too, was to be seen, and the Theosophists must content themselves with alleging that M. Coulomb had made it so after the miracles, and in the nick of time for the inquiry. As for the scribbled instructions and letters in which some of these arrangements were clearly hinted at, Madame was driven to the peculiar course of admitting some letters and even parts of letters and denying the rest. This, by the way, was exactly what she had done about a similar incriminating letter on the subject of a trick “missive,” which was planted on Mr. C. C. Massey, in 1882; the discovery of which led to the resignation of that gentleman and others from the Society.

As for the evidence of Madame and her friends about special “phenomena” it had already so melted away under the application of ordinary evidential canons as to leave the field clear for the Coulomb theory. The “tests” with which in some cases the Mahatmas had insisted on supplementing the credibility of their witnesses were as worthless and disingenuous as all the rest.

Last, what of the Mahatma missives?—precipitated from the Himalayas, speaking in the persons and signed with the superscriptions of Mahatma Morya and Koot Hoomi Lal Sing. These precious documents, which had been rained among the faithful with a copiousness almost amounting to garrulity, had been a little discredited already. The prosy and sometimes illiterate verbiage of the Tibetan sages was a severe trial to the enthusiasm of