When Theological Ethics Speak No Longer in Man

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky · Black versus White Magic Series · 16 pages

An unusual document: Blavatsky writing about a current political scandal, and writing as a moralist rather than a metaphysician. The case is the repudiation of Natalie Keshko, Queen consort of Serbia, by her husband Milan Obrenovitch, and the forcible separation of her from her son — a matter, she argues, emanating directly from the realm of political and diplomatic action and crying loudly to the common ethics of humanity for exposure.

The argument is put on grounds anyone can follow. The prosperity of every state rests on the orderly establishment of family principles, and the first duty of those in power is to guard maternal rights against brutal violation; a future king of Serbia is now doomed to witness from childhood daily scenes copied from the palaces of Messalina and the Borgia popes. She addresses the responsible parties directly — who gives you the right and audacity to insult all law, divine and human, and is it in the name of Christianity that you perpetrate an act which would disgrace any heathen potentate? — and closes with a warning that what has been done to the queen of an insignificant kingdom may be done to any of them when the hour of retributive justice strikes. Explanatory notes by Boris de Zirkoff and a supporting letter from C. Carter Blake follow.

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