Elliott Coues

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Samuel Elliott Coues (1842–1899)

Elliott Coues (* 9. September 1842 in Portsmouth as Samuel Elliot Coues , New Hampshire ; † 25. December 1899 in Baltimore , Maryland ) was a US Army - surgeon , historian , ornithologist , author and Theosophist .

Career and occupations

Coues was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. He graduated from Columbian University in Washington, DC in 1861 and the Medical School of the same institution in 1863. 1862/63 he served as a medical cadet in Washington (DC) and 1864 he was finally assistant surgeon of the US Army . In 1872 he published his Key to North American Birds , which was reviewed and re-published in 1884 and 1901, and which contributed a great deal to the systematics of American ornithology . Coues was a distinguished surgeon and naturalist for the US Northern Boundary Commission between 1873 and 1876 and executive director and naturalist of the US Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories from 1876 to 1880 , for which he also wrote publications . From 1877 to 1882 he was a lecturer in anatomy at the Medical School of Columbian University, where he received a professorship in the same subject in 1882 , which he held until 1887. In 1877 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and in 1878 to the American Philosophical Society .

Coues resigned from the army in 1881 in order to devote himself fully to scientific research. He was a co-founder of the American Ornithologists' Union and edited its press organ, The Auk , as well as several other ornithological journals . He died in Baltimore after an operation at Johns Hopkins Hospital .

In addition to ornithology, he made a living in the study of mammals ; his work Fur-Bearing Animals (1877) differed from other current works in terms of accuracy and completeness of the species descriptions, including some species that were already rare at that time. In the 1880s he became a member of the Society for Psychical Research .

As a theosophist

In 1880 Coues came into contact with theosophy and in the summer of 1884 he joined the London Lodge and thus the Theosophical Society (TG). In the same year he founded in Washington (DC) a box of TG, the Gnostic Lodge of the Theosophical Society ( Gnostic Lodge of the Theosophical Society) whose president he became.

President of the Control Council

After Henry Steel Olcott , the president of the TG, had set up an American Board of Control for the American lodges in May 1884, this elected Coues as its president on July 4, 1885. Coues "ruled" the Control Council autocratically and quickly provoked resistance from the members. A number of telegrams with disheveled contents reached in 1886 a number of leading Theosophists, including an invitation to William Quan Judge , the President of the Theosophical Aryan Lodge (Lodge of the Aryans ) to close the "doors no one to take in more and in the silence of the astral bells to listen ". These letters were signed by Helena Blavatsky and the master Kuthumi , later it turned out that Coues was the author. The annual convention of the Control Council for 1886 was to be postponed to July 5th at the direction of Olcott until these events were resolved, but Coues held the meeting before then. Thereupon the congress met again without coues in October 1886, decided to abolish the control council and instead to found an American section of the TG with Judge as general secretary. Coues automatically lost his presidential post on the Control Council.

Esoteric Theosophical Society of America and Gnostic Lodge

In 1887 he founded the Esoteric Theosophical Society of America ( Esoteric Theosophical Society of America) and proclaimed himself perpetual president of the Esoteric Theosophical Society of America (Perpetual president of ...). Since he gave his correspondence this title, it led some theosophists to believe that Coues was the head of the esoteric section of the TG. Blavatsky, the actual president of the Esoteric Section, made it clear in a letter dated May 14, 1889 that Coues had never even been a member of the Esoteric Section and that the TG had no authority to give itself the title of Perpetual President . It is not known whether the Esoteric Theosophical Society ever had members and was not just an invention of Cole. There is no evidence of any activity or effectiveness of this society outside of the person of Coues, from around 1890 it no longer appeared.

The Gnostic Lodge of the Theosophical Society , which he founded and directed in 1884, also known as the Gnostic Theosophical Society of Washington or just the Gnostic Branch , existed as part of the TG until 1889. Around 1886 / In 87 the Gnostic Lodge increasingly began to become a gathering point for dissatisfied theosophists and opponents of theosophy. In 1888 and 1889 Coues published a number of newspaper articles which more or less openly discredited the TG, more on this below. For this reason Coues was excluded from the TG on June 22, 1889 and the deed of foundation for the Gnostic Lodge was withdrawn, which also meant the exclusion. Coues himself incorrectly claimed in the magazine Light of November 9, 1889 that he himself had dissolved the Gnostic Lodge in October 1886 and then re-established it as an independent company. After the unfair activities of Coues gradually became known from 1892, most of the Gnostic Lodge members fell away from him and the organization dissolved. Coue's death in 1899 at the latest meant the final finale for the Gnostic Lodge, which had never played a significant role.

The Coues-Collins affair

The Coues-Collins affair, or Coues-Collins charges, began in 1885 when Coues read a copy of the then-unpublished manuscript of Mabel Collins' book Light on the Path . Enthusiastic about the reading, Coues wrote to Collins and asked for the source, whereupon Collins described the work in a letter as the transmission of the masters of wisdom . When Collins was expelled from the TG in April 1889, she wrote in a letter to Coues dated April 18, 1889 that her statement at the time was made under Blavatsky's dictation. In fact, the text should not have come from the Masters of Wisdom, but she would have seen it in a vision. Blavatsky would have finally persuaded them to claim about the masters in order to give the TG a new boost.

On May 11, 1889, Coues published the two letters in the Religio-Philosophical Journal and a number of other incriminating material in later editions. Collins suffered a series of nervous breakdowns and was in poor health until 1910. Although Collins then claimed that it was all based on a misunderstanding and that there was in fact no coercion on the part of Blavtsky, the damage was irreparable. A myriad of letters, statements, reports and counter-reports on this matter dragged on for years, but did not produce a clear result. Several theosophical lodges collapsed over this scandal and numerous members left the TG. Whether the Coues-Collins affair brought a true incident to light or a chain of unfortunate circumstances led to a false accusation is still controversial today.

Allegations in the New York Sun.

From 1888 onwards, Coues began to publish articles in several newspapers claiming that he had received letters from the Masters of Wisdom . Coues claimed that he would have recognized these immediately as fakes and hocus-pocus. These statements challenged the masters' letters , which the TG regarded as authentic , which, among others, Blavatsky and Alfred Percy Sinnett allegedly wanted to have received from the “masters” and thereby discredited the entire TG. The climax of these publications appeared on June 1 and July 20, 1890 in the New York Sun interviews with Coues in which he described Blavatsky as a "crook" and "swindler" and declared the entire TG as a "fraud". Blavatsky then filed a defamation lawsuit against the New York Sun and Coues. Blavatsky died before a verdict, however, on May 8, 1891, according to US law, her death ended the investigations and the case was dropped. In the issue of September 26, 1892, the New York Sun brought a correction to the articles printed in 1890, distanced itself from Coue's statements and revoked them publicly and editorially. Coues himself did not comment on it.

The Blavatsky-Coulomb letters

In December 1885 the Society for Psychical Research published the so-called Hodgson Report , written by Richard Hodgson , which weighed heavily on Blavatsky. Hodgson was referring to the Coulomb affair in his allegations . The correspondence between Blavatsky and Emma Coulomb was supposed to show that Blavatsky was seriously involved in fraud and forgery of the master craftsman's letters . Though he had the opportunity and, according to the principles of scientific work , it would have been necessary, Hodgson did not make a single facsimile of these letters. In 1890 Coues bought the Blavatsky-Coulomb letters from the Free Church of Scotland mission in Chennai through a dealer . The check signed by Coues for payment for these letters has survived to this day, but the letters themselves have been lost since then. Vernon Harrison , who investigated the Hodgson Report, learned the following:

“When Coues was conducting his trial, he bought the Coulomb letters through a dealer for the Scottish missionaries in India. I have a copy of his check. The check is in the Coues archives of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin. I have a microfilm of all of his papers on theosophy and things related to it. The Coulomb letters are NOT in the archives. Now, in obtaining the letters, Coue's intention was to obtain evidence of his defense against HPB's [Helena Petrovna Blavatsky] trial in order to expose her as a fraudster. His wife was a millionaire; and so he had every professional means at his disposal to overthrow HPB if these letters were originals. However, complete silence - he never mentioned owning her. Either he destroyed them during his lifetime or left instructions to his heirs to destroy them. "

- Vernon Harrison : HP Blavatsky and the SPR. P. 7 f.

“If they [the Blavatsky-Coulomb letters] were genuine, they would have offered damning evidence in his [Elliott Coues] favor. He did not use them […] but the evidence brought about by [the] circumstances that they were forgeries […] is strong. He [Coues] had both a motive and the ability to do it. I can't believe Coues would not have used the letters to damage HPB if they were real. Perhaps Coues - realizing that they were useless to him - preferred to have them destroyed before they found their way to the Blavatsky camp. "

- Vernon Harrison : p. 43 f.

After 1892, Coues hardly appeared in public, his esoteric reputation was destroyed and his scientific reputation was also damaged by the events related to theosophy.

Works

  • Outlines of a system of mechanical philosophy, being a research into the laws of force. Charles & Brown, Boston 1851.
  • A monograph of the Tringeae of North America. Philadelphia 1861.
  • On the osteology and myology of Colymbus torquatus. Riverside, Cambridge 1866.
  • Prodrome of a work on the ornithology of Arizona Territory. Merrihew & son, Philadelphia 1866.
  • A monograph of the alcidæ. Philadelphia 1868.
  • Bullock's oriole. Salem 1871.
  • Key to North American birds, containing a concise account of every species of living and fossil bird at present known from the continent north of the Mexican and United States boundary. Salem 1872.
  • On the osteology and myology of Didelphys virginiana. Boston 1872.
  • Birds of the Northwest, a handbook of the ornithology of the region drained by the Missouri river and its tributaries. Washington 1874.
  • Abstract of results of a study of the genera geomys and thomomys, with addenda on the osteology of geomyidos and on the habits of geomys tusa. Washington 1875.
  • Report upon the collections of mammals made in portions of Nevada, Utah, California, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona, during the years 1871, 1872, 1873, and 1874. Washington 1875.
  • Fur-bearing Animals, monograph of North American Mustelidae, in which an account of the wolverene, the martens or sables, the ermine, the mink and various other kinds of weasels, several species of skunks, the badger, the land and sea otters, and numerous exotic allies of these animals, is contributed to the history of North American mammals. Washington 1877.
  • Monographs of North American Rodentia. Washington 1877.
  • Birds of the Colorado Valley, a repository of scientific and popular information concerning North American ornithology. Washington 1878.
  • A check list of North American birds. Putnam, Salem 1879.
  • The Coues check list of North American birds. Estes & Lauriat, Boston 1882.
  • Biogen, a speculation on the origin and nature of life. Judd, Detweiler, Estes & Lauriat, Washington, Boston 1882–84.
  • Avifauna Columbana, being a list of birds in the District of Columbia. Webster, Washington 1883.
  • Can matter think? A problem in psychics. Estes & Lauriat, Boston 1884.
  • The daemon of Darwin. Estes & Lauriat, Boston 1885.
  • Kuthumi, the true and complete economy of human life, based on the system of theosophical ethics. Estes & Lauriat, Boston 1886.
  • Handbook of field and general ornithology, a manual of the structure and classification of birds. Macmillan, London 1890.

literature

  • Michael J. Brodhead: A soldier-scientist in the American Southwest, being a narrative of the travels of Brevet Captain Elliott Coues, Assistant Surgeon, USA, through Kansas and the territories of Colorado and New Mexico, to Arizona, and thence to the coast of California together with his observations upon the natural history, especially the avifauna, of the regions traversed, 1864-1865. Arizona Historical Society, Tucson 1973.
  • Paul Russell Cutright: Elliott Coues, naturalist and frontier historian. University of Illinois Press, Urbana 2001, ISBN 0-252-06987-0 .
  • Coues, Elliott . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 7 : Constantine Pavlovich - Demidov . London 1910, p. 307 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Member History: Elliott Coues. American Philosophical Society, accessed June 28, 2018 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g The Theosophical Movement 1875–1950: phx-ult-lodge.org p. 143 ff.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f The Theosophical Movement, Chapter XIV: wisdomworld.org
  4. ^ A b Sunrise Theosophical Perspectives, 3/1996: William Quan Judge: A biographical outline ( Memento from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ; PDF) p. 72 f.
  5. ↑ a b Dr. Elliott Coues in His Letters: blavatskyarchives.com
  6. ^ Abner Doubleday and Theosophy in America: 1879-1884: theosociety.org
  7. ^ The Esoteric Section of the Theosophical Society: blavatskyarchives.com
  8. ↑ a b "Light on the Path" and Mabel Collins: blavatskyarchives.com
  9. ^ A b The Many Lives of Mabel Collins: kimfarnell.co.uk
  10. ↑ Blavatsky Unveiled!
  11. ↑ a b c HP Blavatsky and the SPR: theosophischer-verlag.de (PDF)
personal data
SURNAME Coues, Elliott
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Coues, Samuel Elliott (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American army surgeon, historian, ornithologist, author, and theosophist
DATE OF BIRTH September 9, 1842
PLACE OF BIRTH Portsmouth , New Hampshire
DATE OF DEATH December 25, 1899
Place of death Baltimore , Maryland