29 The Shooting Star December 31, 1911. A shooting star drew a line of light in the sky. "It was New Year's Eve, and I decided, 'Within the coming year.'" The image Mother had retained was "at the door of our studio. I had a large, almost square studio, a bit bigger than this room" —Mother was seated in her top-floor room —"with a door giving on to a courtyard. I opened the little door and looked at the sky; and there, just as I looked, was a shooting star. "You know the tradition," she said to Satprem, "if you formulate an aspiration just as you see a shooting star —before the star disappears —it will be realized within the year. An

Mother's Chronicles Book Three — Mirra the Occultist Chronology 1897 to 1907 -Mirra and Henri Morisset live in 15 Rue Lemercier. 1898, August 23 Their son, ANDRÉ MORISSET, is born in Paris. 1903-1904 -First contact with the Cosmic Movement. -Series of visions of Sri Aurobindo, or Krishna as Mirra thought. 1905 -Mirra meets MAX THEON. 1906, 14 July to15 October -First visit to Tlemcen. 1906 1907,July to October -Second visit to Tlemcen. 1908 -Mirra lives in 49 Rue de Levis. 1908,March -Divorce from H. Morisset. 1910,April -Paul Richard meets Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry. 1911,

18 A Skilled Occultist In spite of all the astonishing happenings at Tlemcen with which we have become acquainted, Mother still had other startling news up her sleeve. "There were some amazing things," she said. Then she dropped her bombshell of a revelation. "Theon also showed me how to deflect lightning." "Can it be done?" asked an astounded Satprem. "Ah, yes!" she was positive. "He used to do it." "But it takes a formidable power!" "Oh, he had a formidable power!" She laughed, "Theon had a formidable power. "I saw him deflect a bolt of lightning! I SAW it !'' She mused awhile. "One stormy day —there were Pag

22 The Lord as Electrical Vibration! Well then, Mother has already told us the loads of fun she had had table-moving, furniture-rapping and all that, in her apartment on Rue de Levis. But all sorts of other things took place during those reunions. One day Satprem was reading to her an article1 on the electrical force of the cells, which reported that "in experiments in his Mexico city laboratory, Dr Ruggiero produced a current in a goat with which the animal lit a series of 40-watt bulbs and activated an electric doorbell." Mother cut in to say, "But it's been known for a long time that cats —the skin of cats —are full of elect

21 OM That Mirra had "the BEING capable of gaining this knowledge" within her is without a shadow of doubt. Matteo's son Etienne Alfassa told the following story to our friend Rachel Neuville, from whom we heard it. In the beginning, Mirra used to pull along her brother to those 'spiritist' reunions. One day, as they went in, they were told that there was a young man who was a first-rate subject. But he looked rather puny. Matteo perceived a heap of big, fat dictionaries in the drawing-room, and he willed the young man to carry them across to the other end of the room. To his own and the group's amazement the youth lifted the pile of dictionaries and began carrying the

Table of Illustrations Page Frontispiece Mirra in Tlemcen in 1906 22 Facsimile of a cover of La Revue Cosmique Bibliothéque Nationale, Paris) 26 Théon's postcard to Mirra (courtesy Noren Nahar) 45 Theon, a sketch by Mother (courtesy Abhay Nahar) 54-55 Facsimile of the entry of marriage (courtesy Christian Chanel) 113 An impression of Zarif (by Michel Danino) 132 Zarif: Mirra at her window (courtesy Abhay) 208 The Divine Consciousness emerging from the Inconscient, a painting by Mother 272 Mirra playing tennis (courtesy Abhay) 294 The house on Rue du Val de Grâce (courtesy Dav

20 The Gambler and the Spirit "Oh, I could write you a book with all the examples I've had of those things," said Mother talking about the forces one contacts through automatic writing or other kindred means. And as was her wont, she first cleared the decks. "It all depends on the person practising it." But to be frank, she viewed all this spiritism with a rather scornful eye. "Sometimes there are no forces at all!" she said. "Ninety-eight times out of a hundred, what works the planchette is the mental and vital vibrations of those present, and they call up their own subconscious ideas. "At one time I actually wanted to prove to peopl

23 They Came as Forerunners Came a bolt from the blue. Madame Theon was dead. Mirra heard the news in utter disbelief. Why? Why? Oh, why? How? When? Where? After eighty years the trail was evidently cold. But in 1988 Patrice followed it doggedly and his perseverance paid off. Helped by Christian Chanel, he came up with a few hard facts which have enabled us to reconstruct the sequence of events. The Théons were spending that summer of 1908 at Courseulles, with the Thémanlys family, when Madame Theon decided to visit the Channel Islands. We do not know for what reason. So, early in September, she went to the port of Car

14 Satan Mother was deploring the lack of mental qualities in the Ashram children. "These children don't understand Sri Aurobindo's irony," she told Satprem. "Happily, on this point of humour, there was a meeting of Sri Aurobindo's mind and mine," she said. "They read prosaically," she moved her palm in the air in a gesture of superficiality. "Strangely enough, it's the same phenomenon when they read Anatole France.1 And Anatole France, read without understanding his irony, is abominably commonplace. "They don't grasp the irony. "Sri Aurobindo had it. He understood the irony of Anatole France so well, he had this same thing —so subtle, so refined." 1

10 What Happened at Tlemcen That was Mother's story to the children. Naturally enough, her stories covered wider grounds when she could talk freely to Satprem. She retold him the stories about the Lord of the Snow, about the musical toad, and other tales of Tlemcen. Towards late afternoon Mirra went walking with Theon to explore the neighbour hood. But when one day he took her to visit the ancient marabout's tomb, he put her in an embarrassing situation and had his little revenge on her. "We used to go for walks in the nearby countryside to see the tombs," said Mother to Satprem. "It was entirely a Muslim country, and the Muslim tombs ar