My Library

Whatever his contacts on the inner planes were, we do know that he founded a society on the physical plane in Boston in the year 1870. Its headquarters were in his offices on Boylston Street and its name was the Brotherhood of Eulis. Its members included several other doctors who wished to investigate the supernatural in a scientific manner. 29 They utilized sex and consciousness altering drugs and for this reason kept their teachings secret. Rumors and gossip of nefarious doings spread, however, and Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, later to found the Theosophical Society, denounced PBR, accusing him of having betrayed the Sacred Traditions. 30 An occult war between the two followed. Blavatsky championed the "moral" spiritualist cause while Randolph maintained the need to scientifically investigate the mysteries of sex and magic. Then, in 1872, disaster struck. On a tip from his enemies, his "Rosicrucian Rooms" on Boylston Street were searched by the Boston Police and he was arrested for distributing "free love" literature. During a brief stay in the Boston jail, he was persuaded to assign many of his copyrights to some ne'er do well opportunists. At his subsequent trial, he would be found not guilty of the charges, but his troubles were just beginning. 31 The Great Boston Fire devastated the city, completely destroying Randolph's offices. 32 His laboratory was destroyed, the plates of his books were destroyed, nothing was left. He was denounced as a libertine by the spiritualists and his friends began to turn their backs on him. One acquaintance invited him to stay with him after the Boston fire, only to extort money from him. 33 In another instance, a man and a woman known to him drugged his beer with morphine and robbed him, forcing him to sign false papers at gunpoint. 34 The details of these tragedies remain sketchy, but there can be little doubt that his world was crumbling around him. Penniless and outcast, Randolph finally found sanctuary in Toledo, Ohio. He was a broken man. In May, 1873, he suffered a railroad injury 35 and began to view death as imminent. He had lived at the pinnacle of success and now existed in the depth of despair. However, one bright spot was still to touch his life. He was to meet and fall in love with a young girl. She may well have been active in women's rights for by September, Randolph writes, "I attended a convention of Ultra Radicals in Chicago, led by a noted agitatress . . ." 36 PBR had always been a supporter of women's rights, maintaining that if there was a society for the prevention of cruelty to animals, there should be an organization to protect the rights of battered wives. Randolph and his love were married in Toledo and in 1874 they welcomed a son, Osiris Budh, into the world. Randolph continued to publish books from Toledo and to promote the Brotherhood of Eulis, but he could never regain the grandeur of his life in Paris and Boston. Finally, on July 29, 1875, he shot himself through the head with his revolver. 37 His followers claimed that the curses and black magic of H.P. Blavatsky