探索频道英语听力 遗失的大陆-13

With her air of cultivated mystery, her almost incomprehensible Russian accent, and her outlandish behavior, Madam Blavatsky soon became one of the stars of the New York seance scene, revealing to her guests through a series of bizarre spiritual contacts that she was in communication with mysterious forces--mysterious forces from Atlantis. Although exposed as a trickster on numerous occasions, somehow Madam Blavatsky's appeal just kept on increasing. Before long, Madam Blavatsky attracted the attention of Colonel Henry Olcott, a former member of the committee that had investigated President Lincoln’s assassination. The two soon moved in together.

They called each other Jack and Melanie which doesn’t suggest a sexual relationship. But they did live together, they lived together perhaps as pals, chums, friends. Mysterious letters soon began appearing all over the apartment. Written in her own handwriting, Brobasky claimed these materialized letters had been dictated to her by cosmic masters who were eager to inform Olcott of their shared mission. The messages told them he had been admitted into the secret order of these cosmic masters whose ranks included such great spiritual teachers as Christ, Buddha, Confucius, Solomon, and Plato.

Very few people are admitted to this wisdom and the knowledge of Atlantis is part of that wisdom, because of course the continent of Atlantis was the original settlement of these arriving cosmic masters coming from a different part of the universe to set up, as it were, human life or what was to become human life. After Atlantis’ destruction, the cosmic masters had retreated to hidden valleys in the Himalayan Mountains, venturing out only rarely to monitor the progress of the human race. Blavatsky claimed she had first encountered these cosmic masters when she herself had been traveling in Tibet many years before. Now after an apprenticeship of 20 years, the cosmic masters wanted her to bring about a new age of spiritual enlightenment with Olcott's help.

In1875 the two companions set up an organization dedicated to universal brotherhood, investigation of man’s latent psychic powers and spreading the wisdom of the east to the west. They called it the Theosophical Society. Incredibly within a decade, they had branches all over the world including India where Mahatma Gandhi would become a member.

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outlandish: adj. 奇异的，外国气派的
seance: n. 降神会
trickster: n. 骗子
chum: n. 密友
Theosophical: adj. 通晓神学的，神智学的