Chart Showing the Four Step Process of Discovery as applied to Case A

Chart Showing the 4 Step Process of Discovery as applied to Case A
OLCOTT'S ACCOUNT OF MEETING OOTON LIATTO IN NEW YORK CITY

What is your interpretation of Olcott's testimony about this encounter with this Master?

Step 1 Unexplained experience, phenomenon	Step 2 Hypotheses, possible explanations for experience	Step 3 Evidence (collected & analyzed)	Step 4 Interpreting and drawing conclusions
"...I was reading in my room yesterday (Sunday) when there came a tap at the door---I said 'come in' and there entered the [younger] Bro[ther] with another dark skinned gentleman of about fifty....We took cigars and chatted for a while....[Then Olcott relates that a rain shower started in the room. Olcott continues the account:] They sat there and quietly smoked their cigars, while mine became too wet to burn....finally the younger of the two (who gave me his name as Ooton Liatto) said I needn't worry nothing would be damaged....[Olcott also relates at this point that several other phenomena occurred. Olcott then continues the account:] I asked Liatto if he knew Madam B[lavatsky]....the elder Bro[ther]...[said] that with her permission they would call upon her. I ran downstairs---rushed into Madams parlour---and---there sat these same two identical men smoking with her and chatting....I said nothing but rushed up stairs again tore open my door and---the men were not there---I ran down again, they had disappeared--- I . . . looked out the window---and saw them turning the corner...." [A fuller account is given at Henry S. Olcott's Account of Meeting Ooton Liatto. A complete transcript of Olcott's account is given in the January 1994 issue of Theosophical History.]	1. Olcott perhaps was simply lying and this whole experience never actually happened. 2. Olcott was possibly duped by a confederate hired by Blavatsky to personate a Master. 3. Olcott was perhaps hypnotized by Blavatsky to see this "imaginary" adept. 4. Olcott was maybe under the influence of drugs & hallucinated the whole experience. 5. Olcott possibly met a real physical man who was an adept. 6. ?????????? 7. ?????????? etc.		Conclusion: