{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_60119/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_60119","id":"gutenberg_60119","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/60119","summary":null,"tags":["Besant, Annie, 1847-1933","Blavatsky, H. P. (Helena Petrovna), 1831-1891","Category: History - Modern (1750+)","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Judge, William Quan, 1851-1896","Olcott, Henry Steel, 1832-1907","Theosophy -- Controversial literature"],"text":"TOLD\n FROM\n SOURCES\n ISIS MAINLY\n VERY THEOSOPHICAL,\n MUCH BY\n UNVEILED, EDMUND\n BEING GARRETT,\n THE AUTHOR\n STORY [Illustration] OF\n OF \u201cIN\n THE AFRIKANDER\n GREAT LAND,\u201d\n MAHATMA \u201cIBSEN\u2019S\n HOAX. BRAND\n IN\n ENGLISH\n VERSE,\u201d\n &c.\n\n\n LONDON:\n \u201cWESTMINSTER GAZETTE\u201d _All Rights Reserved._\n OFFICE,\n TUDOR STREET, E.C.\n\n\n\n\n INDEX.\n\n\n PAGE.\n\n PART I.\u2014THE STORY OF THE GREAT MAHATMA HOAX.\n\n Chapter I.\u2014 Introduction 5\n \u3003 II.\u2014 No Mahatmas, no Members! 8\n \u3003 III.\u2014 Mystification under Madame Blavatsky 13\n \u3003 IV.\u2014 The Psychical Research Exposure 17\n \u3003 V.\u2014 Mystification under Mrs. Besant 22\n \u3003 VI.\u2014 Enter the Mahatma 27\n \u3003 VII.\u2014 Every Man his own Mahatma 32\n \u3003 VIII.\u2014 The Adventures of a Seal 36\n \u3003 IX.\u2014 The Climax of Theosophic Brotherhood 42\n \u3003 X.\u2014 The Mahatma Tries Threats 48\n \u3003 XI.\u2014 Mrs. Besant\u2019s _coup de main_ 55\n \u3003 XII.\u2014 A Meeting of the (Theosophical)\n Pickwick Club 60\n \u3003 XIII.\u2014 Questions and Challenges 67\n\n\n PART II\u2014ANSWERS AND THEOSOPHISTRIES.\n\n I.\u2014 From Officials 75\n II.\u2014 From Prominent Theosophists 80\n III.\u2014 From Private Members 93\n\n\n PART III.\u2014A GENERAL REJOINDER.\n\n Last Shreds of the Veil of Isis 99\n\n\n POSTSCRIPT.\n\n Mr. Judge\u2019s Mahatma at Bay 108\n L\u2019Envoi: \u201cThe Society upon the Himalay\u201d 117\n A Reply from Mr. W. Q. Judge 121\n An Appreciation of Mr. Judge\u2019s \u201cReply\u201d 133\n\n\n ILLUSTRATIONS AND FACSIMILES.\n\n Frontispiece, Portrait of Mme. Blavatsky 1\n Portrait of Mrs. Besant 80\u201381\n Portrait of Colonel Olcott 32\u201333\n The \u201cMahatma\u2019s Seal\u201d 28\n The Envelope Trick 35\n Facsimiles of Mahatma Missives, of Mr. Judge\u2019s 20, 33, 37, 38,\n Handwriting, &c. 50, 52, 54, 115\n Portrait Cartoon: \u201cWhen Augur meets Augur\u201d 119\n\n[Illustration:\n\n MADAME BLAVATSKY\n\n (From a photograph by Messrs. Elliott & Fry, Baker-street, W.)\n]\n\n\n\n\n PREFACE.\n\n\nTourists at Pompeii are shown a temple of Isis. The impartial cinders\nhave preserved for us there, not only the temple, but the secret passage\nwhich the priests used in the production of what are nowadays called\n\u201cphenomena.\u201d\n\nThe following pages are designed to show the secret passage in the\ntemple of the Theosophic Isis, the goddess of Madame Blavatsky\u2019s \u201cIsis\nUnveiled.\u201d\n\nInstead of having to wait on the pleasure of Vesuvius, I am enabled to\nact as cicerone while the temple is still (for the present) a going\nconcern.\n\nThe important difference between the exposure of Madame Blavatsky\u2019s box\nof tricks by the Society for Psychical Research, and the present\nexposure of her successors is, that in this case we have the\nhigh-priesthood giving evidence against itself. My own part in the\nbusiness is merely the humble one of seeing that they shall all\nsatisfactorily \u201cget at\u201d one another. In redacting, out of the mass of\nvarious testimony which has fallen into my hands as clear and readable a\nstory as I could present, my main care has been to tone down the mutual\ninsinuations. Talk about augur meeting augur with a smile! It is the\nsnarl which _these_ augurs cannot disguise.\n\nAs for myself, I have tried to render a service to truth; but I cannot\nsee, with some good people, that a sense of truth necessarily excludes a\nsense of humour.\n\nMrs. Besant is a lady whose character I have often defended in the press\nthough I have not always been able to accept the extremer estimates of\nher intellectual power. She is about the only one of my _dramatis\nperson\u00e6_ in whom the public at large (like myself) feel any personal\ninterest whatever. She is, therefore, the strongest buttress of a fabric\nwhich she has now for some time known to be rotten at the base. That is\nwhy I have dealt more seriously with her than with these Olcotts and\nJudges. The President is too flabby to be worth fighting; the\nVice-President is already thrown over by all the shrewder and honester\nmembers; even Mrs. Besant herself has now cabled her refusal to accept\nhis latest revelation, and discovered that his Mahatma is indeed a\nfraud\u2014when he \u201cdeposes\u201d Mrs. Besant.\n\nMy pity is saved for those humbler dupes of the rank-and-file who have\ntrusted these others not wisely but too well. From some of them I have\nseen pathetic letters; and if any gall has got upon my pen, it is the\ngall of the bitterness of their disillusion. They are more widely\nspread, and more worth saving from the quagmire of shams than most\npeople suspect.\n\nI need hardly remark that I was never a Theosophist myself. But my\nTheosophical sources of information, referred to in the course of the\nstory, have been growing within the Society week by week ever since the\nexposure began.\n\nThere are no signs at present of any intention on the part of the three\nTheosophic chiefs to return from the various continents to which they\ndeparted last July\u2014departed simultaneously with the issue of that\n\u201cReport of an Inquiry\u201d (so-called) which is the starting-point of these\nchapters. Mrs. Besant has left Australia to join Colonel Olcott in\nIndia; Mr. Judge remains just five days hence at New York. And so,\ntaking a cue from Mahomet and the Mountain, \u201cIsis Very much Unveiled\u201d\nwill now, in booklet form, go out to them.\n\n F. EDMUND GARRETT.\n\n\n\n\n ISIS VERY MUCH UNVEILED.\n\n\n\n\n PART I.\n\n THE STORY OF THE GREAT MAHATMA HOAX.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER I.\n INTRODUCTORY.\n\n \u201cO my Theosophists.... What a pack of fools you are!\u201d\u2014MADAME\n BLAVATSKY.\n\n\nThis will be one of the queerest stories ever unfolded in a newspaper.\nTruth, as worshipped by the Theosophists, is indeed stranger than\nfiction. But it is not here told merely for entertainment. It has also a\ndegree of importance and instructiveness measured by the growing wealth\nand numbers of the Theosophical Society, and the personal influence of\nMrs. Besant. To-day the Theosophical Society numbers some three or four\nthousand members in Europe, India, and America. It supports two or three\npublishing businesses and several score of magazines in various\nlanguages. It boasts offices and house property in London, New York, and\nAdyar. It attracts donations and bequests. It numbers a title or two and\nsome money-bags. It consists almost entirely of educated or\nsemi-educated people, many of whom are intelligent, many sincere; a few\nboth. And it is likely, amid that debauch of sign-seeking and\nmarvel-mongering into which a century rationalistic in its youth has\nplunged in its dotage, to captivate an increasing number of those who\nare bored with the old religions and yet agog for a new.\n\nIt is especially to these that I dedicate the singular narrative which\nthese articles are to unfold. It may save them betimes a painful\ndisillusionment, such as it will, I fear, inflict on many who are as yet\nnumbered among the faithful.\n\nWhat is the situation at present?\n\nEverybody knows that Madame Blavatsky, the original founder of the\nsociety, supported its pretensions to an occult origin by the production\nof phenomena which were pronounced by careful investigators to be due to\nsystematic trickery; but which are still believed by the faithful to\nhave been produced at Madame\u2019s request, and in support of the Theosophic\nmovement, by certain Eastern sages possessed of transcendental powers\nover mind and matter.\n\nEverybody will remember that Mrs. Besant, on whom the mantle of Madame\nBlavatsky has fallen, made a sensational public assertion, some time\nafter her teacher\u2019s death, to the effect that those \u201cpowers\u201d were still\nat work (they were indeed!), and that she was herself now the recipient\nof similar \u201ccommunications\u201d from the \u201cMahatmas.\u201d\n\nA few people are aware that as the result of a sort of split among\nprominent members of the society, there was recently a Theosophic\nmeeting at which Mrs. Besant confessed to her friends that there had\nbeen something wrong with the \u201ccommunications\u201d which she had been in\nsuch a hurry to announce to the public; made certain Theosophically\nobscure charges against a brother official of the society; but persuaded\nthose assembled to rest content with a general statement and not to\ninquire into the facts further\u2014in short, generally to hush the matter\nup.\n\nThis the Theosophists, being a docile folk, conscientiously did; and as\nthe accused proceeded with Mrs. Besant\u2019s sanction to deny, still in\ngeneral terms, what little assertion of fact Mrs. Besant herself had\nappeared to convey, after which there was an affecting reconciliation:\nit is not surprising that to the outside public the mystery remains\nexactly where it was.\n\nEven of the Theosophists themselves the full facts are only known at\npresent to a few of the inner ring.\n\nIn view of what has gone before, this reticence appears misplaced; and\nas circumstances have put me in possession of the facts, I propose to\ngive them the same publicity as was enjoyed by Mrs. Besant\u2019s original\nstatement.\n\nI propose to show:\u2014\n\nThat Mrs. Besant has been bamboozled for years by bogus \u201ccommunications\u201d\nof the most childish kind, and in so ludicrous a fashion as to deprive\nof all value any future evidence of hers on any question calling for the\nsmallest exercise of observation and common sense.\n\nThat she would in all probability be firmly believing in the bogus\ndocuments in question to this day, but for the growing and at last\nirresistible protests of some less greedily gullible Theosophists.\n\nThat the bamboozling in question has been practised widely and\nsystematically, ever since Madame Blavatsky\u2019s death, pretty much as it\nused to be during her lifetime.\n\nThat official acts of the society, as well as those of individual\nmembers, have been guided by these bogus messages from Mahatmas.\n\nThat the exposure of them leaves the society absolutely destitute of any\nobjective communication with the Mahatmas who are alleged to have\nfounded and to watch over it, and of all other evidence of their\nexistence.\n\nThat Mrs. Besant has taken a leading part in hushing up the facts of\nthis exposure, and so securing the person whom she believes to have\nwritten the bogus documents in his tenure of the highest office but one\nin the society.\n\nAnd that therefore Mrs. Besant herself and all her colleagues are in so\nfar in the position of condoning the hoax, and are benefiting in one\nsense or another by the popular delusion which they have helped to\npropagate.\n\nI shall show, finally, that the only alternative to this set of\nconclusions is another which would be even more discreditable to the\n_personnel_ of the society, and even more fatal to its continued\nexistence on its present basis.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER II.\n NO MAHATMAS, NO MEMBERS!\n\n \u201cIf there are no Mahatmas the Theosophical Society is an absurdity,\n and there is no use in keeping it up.\u201d\u2014MRS. BESANT, in _Lucifer_,\n December 15, 1890.\n\n\nBefore going any further I wish to emphasise one point. This society, as\nsuch, must stand or fall with its \u201cMahatmas.\u201d It should be realised how\nconsistent, in one sense, this miracle-mongering side of the\nTheosophical movement has been throughout the society\u2019s history; what an\nimportant part it has played and continues to play in attracting popular\ninterest; and how closely, along one of the versatile thaumaturgist\u2019s\nmany lines, Madame Blavatsky has been followed by her present-day\nimitator. I say this in justice to the latter, who, I think, may fairly\ncomplain of the unkind criticisms passed on his Mahatma-missives by\ncolleagues who still cherish those produced under the auspices of Madame\nBlavatsky.\n\nIt is true that the society does not officially vouch for Mahatmas. It\nis careful not to demand belief in them as a condition of membership;\nand the shrewder members are put into a panic by anything which tends to\ncompromise its boasted \u201cneutrality\u201d on this tender subject. But we shall\nsoon see what this \u201cneutrality\u201d is worth.\n\nMadame Blavatsky taught that \u201cthe Masters\u201d are certain sages, several\nhundred years old or so, who by steeping themselves in the immemorial\nlore of the East have attained powers transcending time, space, and the\nother puny limits of Western science. By profound solitary meditation on\nThings in General, these old gentlemen have arrived at a sort of Fourth\nDimension, in which a Soul and a Saucer come to very much the same\nthing. Their residence was shrouded in a judicious mystery, which Madame\ndeclared herself under a solemn oath to preserve. She at first located\nthem in the recesses of the Himalayas; but one of her most zealous\ndisciples lately stated in the _Daily Chronicle_ that \u201cthe two principal\nMahatmas now reside in an oasis of the Desert of Gobi.\u201d At any rate,\nthese \u201cadepts\u201d prefer a sequestered spot, and remain occult in the\nstrictest sense of the word.\n\nBut on some points Madame was unequivocal about them. She declared that\nshe had sat at the feet of one of them as his _chela_ (pupil); that the\nTheosophical Society was founded under his distinct inspiration; and\nthat he and his brothers continued to intervene in its affairs. The\noriginal draft of the Society\u2019s constitution, in fact, like a more\nauthentic Veda straight from heaven, had been \u201cprecipitated\u201d in New York\nby an exertion of the Masters\u2019 psychic force from Tibet. Hesitating\nconverts and dubious subscribers were determined by the same form of\ninterposition; and somebody or other has taken steps, at all times of\nthe society\u2019s history, to ensure that the more faithful of the\n\u201c_chelas_\u201d should be comforted and encouraged as need arose, by missives\nfrom their invisible \u201c_guru_.\u201d (A good, imposing word, \u201cguru.\u201d Do you\nremember the terrible old man by the road in \u201cDavid Copperfield,\u201d who\nscared David almost out of his wits by running out on him, and shouting\n\u201cGuroo, guroo, guroo\u201d?) Mrs. Besant herself has admitted that Theosophy\nis to be regarded in the light of a \u201crevelation\u201d from these exalted\nbeings, as well as in that of a science or philosophy which can be\narrived at by more ordinary means.\n\nIn a word, Theosophy without Mahatmas would be \u201cHamlet\u201d without the\nPrince of Denmark. \u201cIsis Unveiled\u201d and \u201cThe Secret Doctrine\u201d are works\nwhich few would be found to wade through if their verbose pages were not\nlightened by associations of that White Magic which lends a creepy\ninterest even to such avowed works of fiction as \u201cZanoni\u201d and \u201cMr.\nIsaacs.\u201d With belief in the Mahatmas must go any believing of \u201cH.P.B.,\u201d\nwho swore to them; and with \u201cH.P.B.\u201d and her authorities must go those\ntwo volumes of solemn farrago, which remain the society\u2019s only\ncontribution to philosophical knowledge. For all that is new in them, if\nthere _is_ anything new except the blunders, is explicitly given on the\nauthority of \u201cthe Masters.\u201d\n\nThe published \u201cObjects\u201d of the society run thus:\u2014\n\n (1) To form the nucleus of a Universal Brotherhood of Humanity\n without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste, or colour.\n\n (2) To promote the study of Aryan and other Eastern literatures,\n religions, and sciences.\n\n (3) A third object\u2014pursued by a portion only of the members of the\n Society\u2014is to investigate unexplained laws of nature and the\n psychical powers of man.\n\nIt will thus be seen that the \u201cphenomenal\u201d side of the society\u2019s\nactivities has all along had a place, though guardedly, even in its\npublished Objects. In point of fact, as I have elsewhere insisted, this\nthird Object is the only one in pursuit of which the society has any\nsubstantial achievement to point to. As to the first Object, my\nnarrative will presently suggest the same sort of remark on the\nbrotherliness of the Universal Brothers as has sometimes been made by\nscoffers on the sociability of Socialists. As to the second Object, it\nis observed that there are people who study Oriental literatures, and\nthere are people who belong to the Theosophical Society; but they are\nnot the same people. Professor Max M\u00fcller has edited the only series of\nEnglish translations of the Sacred Books of the East with which I am\nacquainted, and Professor Max M\u00fcller lately published some University\nlectures under the title of Theosophy. But his preface explained that he\ndid so in order to rescue that respectable and ancient philosophical\nterm from the associations of sciolism and miracle-mongering with which\nthe Theosophical Society have linked it in the public mind. In point of\nfact, there is no reason to believe that any member of the society in\nEurope could pass an examination in any Oriental language whatever. The\nthird Object, on the other hand, has led to some real achievements. The\nsociety has not, perhaps, done much in the \u201cinvestigation\u201d line itself;\nbut members of it have certainly supplied the most astonishing\n\u201cunexplained laws of nature\u201d and \u201cpsychical powers\u201d for investigation by\nother people. It is this which has given it its success, its growth, its\nworld-wide notoriety. It is this which first attracted and convinced its\nbest-known converts, and it is this which has created the successive\n\u201cbooms\u201d (as they would be called in a more purely commercial connexion)\nwhich have produced the biggest crops of entrance subscriptions from the\nwonder-loving public. I lay stress on this because the Theosophists have\nshown a good deal of inconstancy in their treatment of the third Object.\nThey have always worked a given marvel for all it was worth until it got\nsomehow blown upon; then they turn round and remark that mere material\nphenomena are, after all, of no great importance: the thing is the study\nof those great spiritual ideas which, &c., &c. In fact, they want to\nhave it both ways. Mr. Sinnett, however, whose \u201cOccult World\u201d remains\nthe classic description of Madame Blavatsky as a wonder-worker,\nconfesses candidly in a memorial sketch of her which appeared in the\n_Review of Reviews_ how much stress she herself laid on such things, as\nlong as she could get anyone to believe in them:\u2014\n\n One could no more write a memoir on trigonometry and say nothing\n about triangles, than survey the strange career just concluded and\n ignore the marvels coruscating through it. And at this early period\n of her enterprise [he means, before the Psychical Research exposure]\n she seems to have depended more on the startling effect of\n surprising powers she was enabled to exhibit than on the\n philosophical teaching ... which became the burden of her later\n utterances.\n\nJust so. It is easy to hold your miracles cheap\u2014after they have been\nfound out. Madame Blavatsky fell back on Object Two\u2014when Object Three\nwas discredited. But the taste for such things, even when it is _de\nrigueur_ to describe them as \u201coccult applications of strictly natural\nlaws,\u201d is apt to grow upon any religious sect which once dabbles in\nthem. Mrs. Besant, too, in due course fell a victim to the temptation to\nmake capital out of the marvellous; and my readers will now be prepared\nto put their proper value on the deprecating expressions in this\nconnexion which now, on the inevitable turn of the wheel, once more\nbegin to be heard, and which will be redoubled, no doubt, when this\nnarrative is fully before the public.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER III.\n MYSTIFICATION UNDER MADAME BLAVATSKY.\n\n \u201cNow, dear, let us change the programme.... He is willing\n to give 10,000 rupees ... if only he saw a little\n \u2018phenomenon\u2019!\u201d\u2014BLAVATSKY-COULOMB LETTERS.\n\n\nIt is no part of my present object to enter at length into the history\nand character of the late Madame Blavatsky. But a comparison of the\nearlier phase of the Theosophical Society with that of to-day is so\nindispensable to the right appreciation of both, that a brief _r\u00e9sum\u00e9_\n(borrowed mainly from previous sketches of my own elsewhere) may be\nwelcome at this point, even to readers already familiar with the\nsubject.\n\nThe Theosophical Society was born in America of Russo-Yankee parentage.\nHelena Petrovna Blavatsky founded it at New York in 1874, with the aid\nfirst of Colonel Olcott, then a kind of journalist, who became, and\nstill is, the president, and soon afterwards of William Q. Judge, then a\nlawyer\u2019s clerk in Olcott\u2019s brother\u2019s office, who became, and still is,\nthe vice-president.\n\nThe previous career of the Foundress had been remarkable enough, if we\naccept hostile accounts of it\u2014still more remarkable if we accept her\nown; but with this I am not concerned. From 1874 Madame Blavatsky\u2019s\nhistory and that of the Theosophical Society are one.\n\nIn 1878 the society moved its headquarters to India, and in the\ncongenial atmosphere of the mysterious East launched into marvels. Eked\nout by performances not unlike a drawing-room Maskelyne and Cook,\nMadame\u2019s rehash of Neo-platonist and Kabbalistic mysticism with Buddhist\nterminology soon \u201ccaught on\u201d with the impressionable natives. It had\nespecial attraction for the educated and ardent young Babu, that typical\nproduct of British India whom Mr. Rudyard Kipling has so often drawn for\nus. But it also carried away, thanks to Madame\u2019s intense\npersonality\u2014half repulsion, half charm\u2014editors and officials of mark in\nthe sceptical circles of Anglo-India. It made Mr. A. P. Sinnett (then\neditor of the _Pioneer_) turn evangelist in \u201cThe Occult World,\u201d and Mr.\nA. O. Hume (then Government Secretary) follow suit with \u201cHints on\nEsoteric Philosophy.\u201d And no wonder. Never was a new religion more\nindustriously supplied with miracles\u2014those _coups de main c\u00e9lestes_, as\na witty Frenchman has defined them. Wherever Madame happened to be with\na select circle of friends, disciples, or laymen worth impressing, but\nespecially in and about the bungalow at Adyar, near Madras, the\nsociety\u2019s headquarters, the invisible Mahatmas were never tired of\nexhibiting their astonishing psychic powers over ponderable matter. The\ntwo who were especially at Madame\u2019s disposal went by the names\n(reverently breathed) of Mahatma Morya and Mahatma Koot Hoomi Lal Sing.\nIn the region of White Magic they could do almost anything\u2014any feat\nwhich an adroitly led-up conversation might happen to suggest. But the\nparticular lines of business (if I may be allowed the phrase) of which\nthey made a speciality were making objects appear and disappear: in\nMadame\u2019s jargon, integrating and disintegrating them by a psychical\ncommand over astral vortices of atoms. Sitting in their studies 2,000\nmiles away in Tibet, they could, by a mere effort of will, project an\nastral epistle, or an astral body, or an astral cup and saucer, into the\nmiddle of an applauding circle at afternoon tea or picnic in Madras or\nBombay. Showers of roses fluttered down from the ceiling. Invisible\nbells tinkled from none knew where. All kinds of tricks were played with\nMadame\u2019s interminable cigarettes. Sketches and treatises were\npsychically \u201cprecipitated\u201d on to blank paper, nay, sometimes the very\nstationery was created out of nothing to receive them. Such inferior\nsketches, too, and such twaddling, such very twaddling, treatises! One\ndisciple\u2014Damodar K. Mavalankar, a youth passionately ambitious of\nfame\u2014even advanced to the acquirement of some of these extraordinary\npowers in his own person. Merely to have seen the astral body of a\nMahatma became in a manner a cheap accomplishment. Damodar boasted that\nhe had once or twice projected his own\u2014slipping spook-like through a\nbrick wall.\n\nMost of these marvels, as I have hinted, required the _mise en sc\u00e8ne_ of\nthe Adyar bungalow. Here Madame and the Colonel, and a few favoured\n_chelas_, had apartments. \u201cOur domestic imbeciles\u201d and \u201cour familiar\nmuffs\u201d the latter are termed in one of the letters attributed to Madame.\nHere, too, in the \u201cOccult Room\u201d adjoining Madame\u2019s bed-chamber, hung the\nfamous \u201cShrine,\u201d a sort of cupboard containing a fancy portrait in oils\nof the condescending Koot. This became associated with as many marvels\nas the image of a medi\u00e6val saint. Suppose you are an intending\nTheosophist\u2014a hesitating convert, especially a moneyed one, like Mr.\nJacob Sassoon. You call at headquarters. You are shown round by Damodar,\nor by M. or Madame Coulomb, librarian and secretary. With natural\ncuriosity you ask to gaze upon the Master\u2019s features. You are told of\nhis indulgent concessions to deserving neophytes seeking for a sign.\nWhen the cupboard has been shut again, you are asked if there is\nanything you particularly desire from the Master. You indicate, not\nunnaturally, a message. It is about even chances whether the said\nmessage\u2014reading generally not unlike Mr. Martin Tupper in his more\noracular vein\u2014is discovered in the cupboard immediately on reopening the\ndoor, or descends from the ceiling on to the top of your head.\n\nThe fame of these things, set out in the driest possible detail in the\npages of \u201cThe Occult World,\u201d aroused a furore of curiosity in this\ncountry, where people were just beginning to take a new interest in\nquestions of psychical research. It was about the time when family\ncircles played the \u201cwilling game,\u201d and sat in the dark trying to see\npurple flames coming out of a magnet. Quick to seize the psychological\nmoment, Madame Blavatsky came to England and \u201cstarred\u201d London in the\nseason of 1884. In her train came Colonel Olcott and Mohini L.\nChatterji. Mohini, a Brahmin graduate of the University of Calcutta,\nshone like Damodar with a lustre not all reflected. He, it was\nwhispered, was a _chela_ of some attainments. He was not to be touched.\nHe held his hands politely behind him when being introduced. There was a\nsplendour as of some astral oil about his dusky countenance and thick\nblack locks; while his big, dark eyes were as piercing as those of\nMadame herself. Men gazed on Mohini with awe, and ladies with\nenthusiasm. In the background hovered the recording Sinnett.\n\nIn spite of the disappointing fact that the London air proved\nunfavourable to miracles, the tale of the Indian ones was greedily drunk\nin, and Theosophy became the fashionable fad. Society people took to\ncalling themselves Esoteric Buddhists: some were enrolled as _chelas_ at\nshort notice. The Theosophists went the round of the London\ndrawing-rooms, penetrated to provincial towns, were not unheard of at\nthe Universities. Madame rolled cigarettes and swore and talked black\nmagic in the rooms of well-known Cambridge dons, till the hair of\nundergraduate listeners stood on end. Those were the days when a set of\nenthusiastic pass-men lived \u201cthe higher life\u201d on a course of Turkish\nbaths and a date diet; while three unlucky youths at Trinity nearly\npoisoned themselves with hasheesh in an attempt to project their astral\nbodies, and were only recovered at midnight by a relentless tutor armed\nwith the college authority and a stomach-pump.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER IV.\n THE PSYCHICAL RESEARCH EXPOSURE.\n\n \u201cEither she is a messenger from the Mahatmas or else she is a fraud.\n In either case the Theosophical Society would have had no existence\n without her.\u201d\u2014MRS. BESANT in _Lucifer_, December 15, 1890.\n\n\nAt the time of the Blavatsky season in London and Cambridge, the\nlately-founded Psychical Research Society, which had close connexion\nwith the University town, was spoiling for something to investigate, and\nit decided to investigate Madame Blavatsky. Madame and her friends were\ndelighted with this testimony to the stir which they had made, and\nentered into the thing with every hope of converting the Researchers.\nWere they not all ready to asseverate that such-and-such things had\nindeed happened\u2014\u2014in India?\n\nWhatever Theosophists may now say, the \u2018S.P.R.\u2019 was certainly not a\nhostile tribunal. Its very existence and objects were a challenge to the\naverage educated prejudice which assumes that nothing can ever happen in\nnature which is not accounted for in current scientific textbooks. The\nsociety had itself vouched for \u201ctelepathy,\u201d and coquetted with\n\u201cphantasms of the living\u201d; it has since bestowed a statistical\nrespectability on the common ghost. To the miracles of Adyar some of its\nmembers had lent a more than friendly ear. One of the most prominent had\nactually been dubbed a _chela_. Dr. Hodgson (now secretary of the S.P.R.\nAmerican Branch), who conducted the Indian part of the inquiry, declared\nthat whatever prepossessions he may have had \u201cwere distinctly in favour\nof occultism and Madame Blavatsky.\u201d\n\nWhen Mr. Hodgson got to India he found people very much excited over\nsome highly suspicious and suggestive letters which had just appeared in\na Madras paper, communicated by the Madame Coulomb already spoken of,\nand alleged by her to have been written by Madame Blavatsky. Mr. Hodgson\nhad to inquire on the spot: first, into the genuineness of these\nletters; secondly, into that of the missives alleged to have been\nprecipitated by Mahatmas; thirdly, into the credibility of the evidence\nabout other marvels given before the Psychical Committee by Madame\nherself, Colonel Olcott, Mr. Sinnett, and Mohini. He inquired and\ninvestigated for three months; and his report, with copious facsimiles\nand plans, is on record in Part IX. of the S.P.R. _Proceedings_\n(December, 1885).\n\nThe allegation of the Coulombs was that the whole series of miracles had\nbeen a matter of vulgar trickery, some of which they had been employed\nto carry out for Madame. During Madame\u2019s absence in Europe, the people\nat Adyar had quarrelled with them and dismissed the pair, partly for\nhaving at various times hinted to outsiders the secrets which they now\nproceeded to make a clean breast of. The origin of their close\nrelationship with Madame Blavatsky is obscure. She and Madame Coulomb\nhad been associated at Cairo in the seventies in some \u201cpage\u201d which the\nfoundress of Theosophy had expressed a wish to have \u201ctorn out of the\nbook of my life.\u201d By the foundress\u2019s own account, this torn-out page was\nsuch as made it odd that she should pitch on the Coulombs when in want\nof fit guardians for the sacred Shrine. Mrs. Besant once expounded to me\na theory that Madame did this, with the full foreknowledge that frauds\nwould follow and would discredit her and her Masters, partly from a\nsublime benevolence towards the wicked Coulombs, partly because it was\nnecessary that she should herself \u201chave her Calvary.\u201d It was the same\ncombined motives, no doubt, which led Madame Blavatsky to act more than\nonce exactly as if Madame Coulomb had some secret hold over her. An\nagitated telegram from Paris, however, failed to heal the present\nrupture; and the result was the giving to the press of a long series of\nletters in Madame\u2019s hand, teeming with veiled instructions to the\nCoulombs which fitted in at every point with their accounts of jugglery\nat Adyar.\n\nThe Coulomb story tallied also with equal accuracy with such outside\ncircumstantial evidence as happened to touch it. Did Madame Coulomb\nallege that a \u201cmiracle\u201d was worked by the substitution of one vase for\nanother exactly similar, the shop she named proved to have record of the\npurchase of just such an exact pair just before the date of the miracle.\nDid she make a similar statement about a \u201cmiraculous\u201d shower of roses,\nthe like corroboration would be forthcoming. Did her husband describe\nthe famous \u201cShrine\u201d cupboard as a trick-cabinet with three sliding\npanels in the back, the panels had to be admitted, and explained by\nMadame as \u201cfor convenience of packing in case of removal.\u201d It had hung\nagainst a hidden recess in the wall\u2014there was the recess, the\ncoincidence had to be deplored as unfortunate. On the other side of that\nrecess, in Madame\u2019s bedroom, the sideboard had a false back\u2014that, too,\nwas to be seen, and the Theosophists must content themselves with\nalleging that M. Coulomb had made it so after the miracles, and in the\nnick of time for the inquiry. As for the scribbled instructions and\nletters in which some of these arrangements were clearly hinted at,\nMadame was driven to the peculiar course of admitting some letters and\neven parts of letters and denying the rest. This, by the way, was\nexactly what she had done about a similar incriminating letter on the\nsubject of a trick \u201cmissive,\u201d which was planted on Mr. C. C. Massey, in\n1882; the discovery of which led to the resignation of that gentleman\nand others from the Society.\n\nAs for the evidence of Madame and her friends about special \u201cphenomena\u201d\nit had already so melted away under the application of ordinary\nevidential canons as to leave the field clear for the Coulomb theory.\nThe \u201ctests\u201d with which in some cases the Mahatmas had insisted on\nsupplementing the credibility of their witnesses were as worthless and\ndisingenuous as all the rest.\n\nLast, what of the Mahatma missives?\u2014precipitated from the Himalayas,\nspeaking in the persons and signed with the superscriptions of Mahatma\nMorya and Koot Hoomi Lal Sing. These precious documents, which had been\nrained among the faithful with a copiousness almost amounting to\ngarrulity, had been a little discredited already. The prosy and\nsometimes illiterate verbiage of the Tibetan sages was a severe trial to\nthe enthusiasm of the more critical Theosophists even where it was\napparently original. But it was too much of a good thing when a long\ndoctrinal treatise, which Koot Hoomi had addressed to Mr. Sinnett, was\nfound to be a gross plagiarism from a lecture by an American gentleman\nwhich had been reported in a Spiritualist paper a few months before. Nor\ndid it mend matters when, after considerable delay, the illustrious Koot\ncondescended to the newspaper arena, and wrote\u2014we mean precipitated\u2014an\nexplanation which for its evasiveness and general \u201cthinness\u201d is probably\nunique even in the records of convicted plagiarists.\n\nBut now came worse. For the same scrutiny which had identified Madame\nBlavatsky as the writer of the unblushing letters to Madame Coulomb now\nfound exactly the same characteristics of expression, turns of phrase,\nand solecisms in spelling in the compositions of Koot Hoomi Lal Sing. As\nto handwriting, it was shown that the styles of the two august\ncorrespondents had been evolved gradually by differentiation from\nMadame\u2019s ordinary hand. The facsimiles in the report deal only with\n\u201cK.H.\u201d documents; but the case against those of \u201cM.\u201d is just as strong.\nI showed a mass of \u201cM.\u201d script, which lies before me as I write,\nbelonging to the earliest period, to a Theosophist well acquainted with\nMadame\u2019s writing, and in perfect innocence he at once took it for hers.\nAt that time almost the only difference between the two Mahatma scripts\nwas that one affected red pencil or ink, and the other blue.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n FACSIMILE OF MAHATMA M.\u2019S SIGNATURE. FROM AN EARLY BLAVATSKY MISSIVE.\n]\n\nIn a word, it was declared that Koot Hoomi Lal Sing and Mahatma Morya\nwere the same person, and that person Madame Blavatsky. When a missive\nfrom the Himalayas floated down into the neophyte\u2019s lap, it was Madame\u2019s\nown hand which had prepared it, though it was the no less useful if\nhumbler function of M. Coulomb to jerk it from the ceiling at the\ncritical moment with a string, or deftly pass it through the sliding\npanel into the closed Shrine.\n\nPassing by the committee\u2019s report on Madame Blavatsky herself, what of\nher leading disciples? Of Colonel Olcott it was declared proven that in\na Theosophical connexion he was either unable to describe anything as he\nreally saw it, or else to see anything as it really was. Mohini and Mr.\nSinnett were disposed of in much the same way. Damodar\u2014the astral\nDamodar\u2014was charged explicitly as a confederate of Madame in\nmissive-manufacturing. Mohini, the fascinating saint, hurried back to\nIndia with a damaged halo. Mr. Sinnett has since sprung to fame as a\ndirector\u2014not of the regeneration of mankind, but of the Hansard Union.\nDamodar announced that he was off to find his _guru_ in the Himalayas,\ndisappeared, and has not been seen since by his friends.\n\nWilliam Q. Judge, having been left out in the cold when the hegira to\nIndia took place, lived to fight another day, as we shall see. Mrs.\nBesant had not yet loomed on the Theosophical horizon. Madame Blavatsky\nherself left England and travelled till the storm had blown over. To the\nS.P.R. Report no serious answer has ever appeared from that day to this;\nand it fairly killed the miraculous phenomena. One class of them has\nreappeared under the \u00e6gis of Mrs. Besant; but poor indeed, as we shall\nsee, is the Late Besantine period of mythological architecture beside\nits gorgeous predecessor.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER V.\n MYSTIFICATION UNDER MRS. BESANT.\n\n \u201cI look to possible developments of her Theosophic views with the\n very gravest misgiving.\u201d\u2014CHARLES BRADLAUGH, _National Reformer_,\n June, 1889.\n\n \u201cThe lady doth protest too much, methinks.\u201d\u2014HAMLET.\n\n\nI have said that the Psychical Research Report put a stop to most of the\nTheosophic miracles. But there were obvious reasons why the Mahatmas\nshould continue to \u201cprecipitate\u201d letters, even when the scoffs of a\nhard, cold world drove them to restrain their wonder-working\npropensities in other respects. The business was so beautifully safe and\nsimple. It defied \u201ctests.\u201d The task of proving that a scribble in red\nchalk on a scrap of paper found in a disciple\u2019s pocket is not the\nauthentic handwriting of an inaccessible teacher, whose devotees have\ndoubtless the best reason for knowing that he can never be produced as a\nwitness\u2014this is a task from which the boldest sceptic might well recoil.\n\nBut what of the actual process of \u201cprecipitation\u201d? Alas, it appears to\nbe surrounded by disappointingly obscure conditions. It is not given to\nsee the scrap of psychically-manufactured notepaper glimmer into being\nand become cream-laid out of nothing before one\u2019s eyes, nor to watch the\nmystic characters form themselves in lines along it like the writing on\nBelshazzar\u2019s wall. It is always the finished result that is discovered\nready-made, and this precisely resembles what is produced if you or I\nwrite it in the ordinary way. The \u201cprecipitation,\u201d in fact, is a deed of\ndarkness, and can only be done concealed from view, just as mediums are\nwont to declare at a s\u00e9ance that the spirits are prevented from\nmanifesting themselves by the mere presence of a sceptical inquirer with\na box of wax vestas. Perhaps it is another side of the same retiring\ninstinct which impels the Mahatmas to live only in parts of the earth\nnot penetrated to by vulgar explorers. Theosophists sometimes speak as\nif they had seen the actual precipitation; but cross-examine any\ncredible witness, and he will reluctantly admit that he has not. This is\na point to note and bear in mind.\n\nThe Mahatma missive only becomes a matter of difficulty when it has to\nbe made to drop from the ceiling into the recipient\u2019s hands, or spirited\ninto a cupboard found one moment before to be as empty as Mother\nHubbard\u2019s. Those were stirring days for Theosophic neophytes when that\nkind of thing was a common incident. But, ichabod! that glory is\ndeparted! Its departure precisely synchronised with that of the\nnimble-fingered Coulombs. Their graceless avowal that both special plant\nand skilful confederates were required for this kind of miracle may have\nbeen a gross calumny on their employer; but the fact remains that with\nthe removal of the panel-backed Shrine at Adyar and the dismissal of its\ncustodians, the Masters abruptly ceased to resort to these more\nsurprising methods of a\u00ebrial post.\n\nOccasionally they would make the assurance of the faithful doubly sure\nby artlessly \u201cprecipitating\u201d the message inside a sealed envelope (a\nspecies of \u201ctest\u201d of which more anon); but for the most part they were\ncontent to endorse letters passing through the ordinary post or\ndiscovered by the recipient in his blotting-pad under circumstances\nequally consistent with a commonplace human agency.\n\nSuch was the state of things till Madame Blavatsky\u2019s death.\n\nBut then came the rub. What the Psychical Research Committee held to be\nproven was that Madame had written practically the whole body of these\ndocuments with her own hand. What, then, if after her decease in May,\n1891, the same missives continued to be received?\n\nBefore the controversy which sprang up again over her ashes had well\ndied down, the public was asked to believe that this was indeed the\ncase, on the word of a woman whom it believed incapable of making a\nstatement of the kind without having first proved it to the uttermost\nand found it true.\n\nSpeaking in the Hall of Science on August 30, 1891, three months after\nMadame Blavatsky\u2019s death, Mrs. Besant said:\u2014\n\n\u201cYou have known me in this hall for sixteen and a half years. You have\nnever known me tell a lie. (\u2018No, never,\u2019 and loud cheers.) I tell you\nthat since Madame Blavatsky left I have had letters in the same\nhandwriting as the letters which she received. (Sensation.) Unless you\nthink dead persons can write, surely that is a remarkable fact. You are\nsurprised; I do not ask you to believe me; but I tell you it is so. All\nthe evidence I had of the existence of Madame Blavatsky\u2019s teachers of\nthe so-called abnormal powers came through her. It is not so now. Unless\neven sense can at the same time deceive me, unless a person can at the\nsame time be sane and insane, I have exactly the same certainty for the\ntruth of the statements I have made as I know that you are here. I\nrefuse to be false to the knowledge of my intellect and the perceptions\nof my reasoning faculties.\u201d\n\nIt is no wonder that the reporter had to interpolate the word\n\u201cSensation.\u201d The audience was one rather of Freethinkers than of\nTheosophists; the hall itself was identified with previous rhetorical\nsuccesses of Mrs. Besant as the prophetess of Materialism. The thing was\ndramatically done, and was well calculated to impress on the outside\npublic the fact that the personal reputation of Mrs. Besant for\nintelligence and honesty was now pledged to the genuineness of\nTheosophical wonder-working. In an interview in the _Pall Mall Gazette_\nof September 1, 1891, Mrs. Besant carried her statement still further,\nand pledged herself definitely to \u201cprecipitation\u201d:\u2014\n\n\u201c\u2018These letters are from a Mahatma whose pupil you are?\u2019\n\n\u201cMrs. Besant nodded assent.\n\n\u201c\u2018Did they just come through the post?\u2019 our representative asked.\n\n\u201cBut here he had hit the mystery.\n\n\u201c\u2018No, I did not receive the letters through the post,\u2019 the lady replied.\n\u2018They did come in what some would call a miraculous fashion, though to\nus Theosophists it is perfectly natural. The letters I receive from the\nMahatmas are \u201cprecipitated.\u201d\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018How \u201cprecipitated\u201d?\u2019 ...\n\n\u201cMrs. Besant was quite ready to explain.\n\n\u201c\u2018Well,\u2019 she said, \u2018you can hear voices by means of the telephone, and\nreceive a telegram which is actually written by the needle, not merely\nindicated by its ticks. The Mahatmas go a step further. With their great\nknowledge of natural laws they are able to communicate with us without\nusing any apparatus at all.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018But can you give me any details of the precipitation?\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018No; the Mahatmas only communicate with pupils who will not unwisely\ndivulge anything. You can easily imagine the reason why this knowledge\nshould be kept so secret. Were it possessed by a criminal it might be\nput to dreadful purposes.\u2019 ...\n\n\u201cMrs. Besant repeated that she had made her startling statement in the\nlecture deliberately, adding that there were many persons who knew her\nand would accept her statements as true, but who might not believe in\nMadame Blavatsky, because, Mrs. Besant was careful to add, they had not\nenjoyed the advantage of knowing that lady.\u201d\n\n * * * * *\n\nMrs. Besant did not overrate the extent of her public credit. She _was_\nimplicitly believed by many who would not have troubled their heads at\nall over an assertion of Madame Blavatsky\u2019s. A \u201cboom\u201d was the immediate\nresult\u2014the second big boom in the society\u2019s history. Mrs. Besant had the\nsatisfaction of seeing her statement honoured with a salvo of leading\narticles. \u201cCan it be,\u201d the _Daily Chronicle_ exclaimed, \u201cthat there are\nthings in heaven and earth which philosophy and science have not yet\ndreamed of?\u201d\u2014(_Daily Chronicle_, August 31.) And it opened its columns\nto a flood of correspondence on Theosophy and things occult. Day after\nday a crop of letters attested the public appetite for the marvellous.\n\nThe Theosophical Society has a sort of Press department, the business of\nwhich is to get up sham fights in newspapers in order to advertise the\nsociety; and whenever the excitement seemed to flag some member or other\ncontributed a screed which revived it. The time was well chosen. It was\nthe \u201csilly season,\u201d and under cover of Mrs. Besant more cautious papers\nthan the _Chronicle_ were glad to let the Mahatma divide attention with\nthe sea-serpent and the giant gooseberry. The Theosophical Society\nreaped a fine harvest; though some complaints were heard that the new\ninquirers after truth addressed themselves more to the marvels which had\nattracted them than to the philosophisings to which Mrs. Besant had\ndesigned the marvels as a bait. However, if their interest was tepid on\nthis side of Theosophy, their curiosity on the other side achieved small\ngratification. In Mrs. Besant\u2019s words, \u201cThe Mahatmas only communicate\nwith pupils who will not unduly divulge anything.\u201d\n\nBut, as we have seen, what Mrs. Besant did divulge was enough to convey\nto the public certain definite impressions: to wit, that she had\nreceived letters in a certain handwriting, which did not come through\nthe post, but \u201cin what some would call a miraculous fashion,\u201d and that\nthese letters were, in fact, \u201cprecipitated\u201d by the Mahatmas out of thin\nair. Also that she had satisfied herself of the above propositions by\nevidential processes as certain as the assurance of her own \u201csense\u201d and\n\u201creasoning faculty\u201d that her audience were before her as she spoke.\n\nAnd now let us see what were the facts on the strength of which Mrs.\nBesant made these astonishing statements. So far, I have been occupied\nnecessarily with putting on record matters of history open to any\ncareful student of the subject. From this point I shall be dealing with\na side of Isis which up to this moment has been kept closely veiled\nindeed.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER VI.\n ENTER THE MAHATMA.\n\n \u201cAnswer the question I\u2019ve put you so oft.... Give us a colloquy,\n something to quote. Make the world prick up its ear!\u201d\u2014MASTER HUGUES,\n of Saxegotha.\n\n \u201cThus has a Master spoken, and ... the word of a guardian of the\n Esoteric Philosophy is authoritative.\u201d\u2014\u201c_Introduction to\n Theosophy_,\u201d by ANNIE BESANT.\n\n\nMadame Blavatsky died May 8, 1891. Who was to succeed her as hierophant\nof the mysteries of Tibet? There was none among her disciples who could\naspire to fill that _r\u00f4le_ with anything resembling the hierophantine\nproportions of Madame herself. But Mrs. Besant, whose conversion had\nbeen much advertised to the public, was undoubtedly more fitted to pass\nmuster as a prophetess than any of the others.\n\nThe brief and late character of her acquaintance with Madame was rather\nin her favour than otherwise, since it had left undisturbed in her\nardent mind a loftier conception of Madame\u2019s ethical character than had\nbeen affected for some time past by some who had known her longer. Mrs.\nBesant was even understood to be in some sense designate for the\nsuccession.\n\nOfficially, however, she was subordinate to Colonel Olcott, the\npresident, then in India, and to Mr. William Q. Judge, vice-president,\nand head of the faithful in America.\n\nIt soon appeared that the latter gentleman, at any rate, did not mean\nhis claims to Theosophical prominence to be ignored.\n\nIn reply to the announcement of \u201cH.P.B.\u2019s\u201d death (Theosophists are wont\nto refer to their foundress, as the ancient Hebrews to the Deity, under\nthe guise of initials) Mr. Judge promptly cabled to\n\n \u201c_Do nothing till I come._\u201d\n\nAvenue-road was at first inclined to resent this ukase.\n\nBut Mr. Judge soon put a new face on matters when he arrived. That was a\ntime of sore searchings of heart. With \u201cH.P.B.\u2019s\u201d death the society\u2019s\none link with its unseen guides was broken, and \u201cMasters\u201d had let a\nfortnight elapse without giving any sign that they survived the decease\nof their high-priestess. William Q. Judge was to change all that.\n\n[Sidenote: =THE \u201cCABINET\u201d MISSIVE.=]\n\nOn the evening of May 23 (he lost no time after his arrival), Mr. Judge\nsuggested to Mrs. Besant that as they were in sore need of some\nassurance from Masters, they should repeat an old recipe of Madame\nBlavatsky\u2019s for bringing those august beings to a point. He proposed\nthat they should write a certain question on paper, put it in an\nenvelope, shut that into a certain cabinet in \u201cH.P.B.\u2019s\u201d room at\nAvenue-road, and invite the Masters to \u201cprecipitate\u201d replies.\n\nMrs. Besant agreed. Mr. Judge himself wrote the question and closed the\nenvelope, and put it into the cabinet.\n\nMrs. Besant did not stay in the room through the process of incubation.\nFor \u201cHe that hath ears to hear, let him hear,\u201d the Theosophic scripture\nreads, \u201cHe that hath eyes to see, let him put his Head in a Bag.\u201d\n\nAfter due delay, Mr. Judge took the letter out again. On his showing it\nto Mrs. Besant, judge of that lady\u2019s emotion at the discovery that at\nthe end of the question stood the word\n\n \u201cYES\u201d\n\ntraced apparently in red chalk; also, a little lower down, the words\n\n \u201cAND HOPE,\u201d\n\nwith the impression, in black carbon, of a peculiar seal, representing a\ncryptograph M. (A simple way to produce this appearance is to hold a\nseal in candle-smoke and impress with that.)\n\n [Illustration] [Illustration]\n THE \u201cMAHATMA\u2019S SEAL.\u201d IMPRESSION SHOWING CRYPTOGRAPH.\n\nWhat need of further witness that the thing was the result of psychic\n\u201cprecipitation\u201d from Madame Blavatsky\u2019s \u201cMahatma M,\u201d away in Tibet? If\nthat gentleman had not, in his communications to Madame, been observed\nto use a seal, still he certainly used to scribble them in the same sort\nof red chalk, and he certainly used to sign himself similarly M.\n\nNote one point here. It was not Mahatma M, but Mahatma K.H., who used to\nbe the more prolix correspondent in Madame Blavatsky\u2019s time, and whose\nhandwriting appeared accordingly in copious specimens and comparisons\nwith her own, in the published Report of the Psychical Research\nCommittee.\n\nNo specimens were there given of the writing which Madame called Mahatma\nM\u2019s: there were but a few scraps of it available.\n\nWhen, therefore, Mr. William Q. Judge conjured a letter from _him_ (I\nuse \u201cconjure\u201d in its old-fashioned sense, of course), it was not\npossible for Mrs. Besant to compare it with any published specimens of\nthe same script (with private specimens I fancy she had never been\nfavoured), even if the extremely scanty and hurried nature of the\nmessage, and the temper of Mrs. Besant\u2019s mind had not in themselves\nforbidden any such partial measure of verification.\n\nIt is true that a few months later Mrs. Besant felt able to affirm with\nthe utmost confidence (as we have seen) that the handwriting was \u201cthe\nsame as that which Madame Blavatsky was accused of producing,\u201d and this\nat first sight appears to refer to the \u201cK.H.\u201d script, which afforded the\ngravamen of Mr. Hodgson\u2019s Report. In that case what Mrs. Besant asserted\nwas that the writing was the same as that which was not even supposed to\nbe by the same person.\n\n * * * * *\n\nNext morning, there was a meeting of the \u201cInner Group,\u201d at which Mr.\nWilliam Q. Judge at once took up that position of Senior Chela to which\nhis services as postman of the Mahatmas so well entitled him. There is\nsome oath or other of equality with fellow-members and of obedience to\nits head which members of this Esoteric Section have to take: Mr. Judge\npointed out that it was quite unnecessary for _him_ to take this oath.\n\n[Sidenote: =THE \u201cNOTE THE SEAL\u201d MISSIVE.=]\n\nTo which end he produced not only a letter from Madame Blavatsky, but\none from Mahatma M, which he had personally received in America, he\nsaid. Its contents he did not feel able to communicate to others who\ncould not yet aspire to be on corresponding terms with the Great Unseen:\nwhat he did show was the signature and seal impression (which exactly\nresembled that \u201cprecipitated\u201d in the cabinet overnight). He specially\nbegged those present to take note of the seal; \u201cfor,\u201d said Mr. Judge,\n\u201cthey might have need to recognise it on some future occasion.\u201d\n\nWith eager eyes they all obeyed; each aspiring young _chela_ fluttered\nwith the hope (for Mrs. Besant had noised the cabinet business about,\nand it seemed to rain missives) that he too might soon be blest with\none.\n\nMr. Judge is a man of some foresight. But that was _not_ precisely what\nhe had in his mind when he bade them note the seal.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThree days after this (May 27) there was a meeting of the Esoteric\nSection Council, to decide how the section should in future be governed,\nits head being gone.\n\nIt had been expected that Mrs. Besant, having assumed the _r\u00f4le_ of\nTeacher and Expounder in succession to her friend, would succeed her\nalso as official head of the Esoteric Section Council. But William Q.\nJudge had drafted a plan under which the Council was to dissolve, and\nits powers be delegated to Mrs. Besant _and himself_ as joint \u201cOuter\nHeads\u201d\u2014the Inner Heads being, of course, Mr. Judge\u2019s august\ncorrespondents in the Himalayas.\n\n[Sidenote: =THE \u201cJUDGE\u2019S PLAN IS RIGHT\u201d MISSIVE.=]\n\nMrs. Besant, it seems, was more than content, in view of Mr. Judge\u2019s\nnewly-developed occult powers, with a position of \u201chigh collateral\nglory.\u201d But it was hardly to be expected that the scheme should not be\nexposed to some discussion and criticism from other members of the\nCouncil. At any rate, the Mahatma evidently deemed the occasion to be a\n_dignus vindice nodus_. For what happened?\n\nAs Mrs. Besant, who took the chair and expounded the new scheme, was\nturning over her papers on the table, there fluttered out a little slip\nof paper, at which she just glanced, and was about to put it by, when\nWilliam Q. Judge pointedly asked her what it was?\n\nThe slip of paper bore the words in red pencil\u2014\n\n \u201cJUDGE\u2019S PLAN IS RIGHT.\u201d\n\nSignature and seal as before.\n\n Tableau!\n\nRound it went from hand to hand. None questioned that paper and script\nalike had just been \u201cprecipitated\u201d into their midst by \u201cthe Master.\u201d\nThanks to Mr. Judge\u2019s foresight, as we have just seen, all were in a\nposition to recognise the seal.\n\nUnder these circumstances discussion was obviously out of place. William\nQ. Judge at once went and took his seat at Mrs. Besant\u2019s side, and\n\u201cJudge\u2019s plan\u201d was unanimously adopted!\n\n * * * * *\n\nIt will hardly be believed, but it is, nevertheless, a fact, which I\nchallenge Mrs. Besant to contradict, that when that lady, on a public\nplatform, pledged the evidence of her senses, her sanity, and her\nreasoning faculties, &c., &c., to having received messages from the\nMahatmas\u2014messages which, as she assured the subsequent interviewer, came\n\u201cnot through the post\u201d but by \u201cprecipitation\u201d \u201cin a way which some\npeople would call miraculous\u201d\u2014these two documents, produced as has been\ndescribed, and only these, were all the _pi\u00e8ces justificatives_ that she\nhad to go upon.\n\nBut the vice-president\u2019s Mahatma had only made a beginning. There was\nmore, much more, to come. It will be my privilege to present the reader,\nin succeeding Chapters, with facsimiles of several of his more\ninteresting compositions.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER VII\n EVERY MAN HIS OWN MAHATMA.\n\n \u201cThe T.S. is the agency chosen by the Masters ... but They do not\n directly guide, save where guidance is strenuously sought and\n eagerly obeyed.\u201d\u2014\u201c_Introduction to Theosophy_,\u201d by ANNIE BESANT.\n\n\nIt was not surprising that the Vice-President, finding the Mahatma so\ncomplaisant, should hasten to exploit him to the utmost. The resumption\nof the broken communication could not fail to restore the confidence of\ndoubting disciples both in the society itself and in the favoured\n_chela_, who could not only, Glendower-like, \u201ccall spirits from the\nvasty deep,\u201d but also, to the satisfaction of Theosophic Hotspurs, \u201cmake\nthem come.\u201d Forthwith letters began to be showered about among such\npersons as it was considered desirable to keep up to the mark, in which\nthe sentiments of William Q. Judge were endorsed by the Mahatma. Of\nthose two it might truly be said that \u201ctheir unanimity was wonderful.\u201d\n\n[Sidenote: =THE \u201cMASTERS WATCH US\u201d MISSIVE.=]\n\nOne of the first recipients was Mr. Bertram Keightley, a gentleman whose\nservices to Theosophy have been of a material kind, and whose zeal has\nbeen rewarded more than once by gratifying marks of approbation from\nTibet. In fact, his experience, like that of Countess Wachtmeister and\nsome other liberal friends of the society, suggests the formula: \u201cPut a\ndonation in the slot and you will receive a revelation.\u201d For the Mahatma\nobligingly honours the bills of the society.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n COLONEL H. S. OLCOTT.\n\n (From a photograph by Messrs. Elliott & Fry, Baker-street, W.)\n]\n\nUnder date May 29, 1891, the Vice-President wrote to Mr. Keightley from\nAvenue-road a Pauline epistle, in which he says:\u2014\n\n Fear not, Bert! Masters watch us, and since May 8 have sent word\n here in writing.\n\nClose beside the signature of \u201cWilliam Q. Judge\u201d appeared in solemn\nconfirmation the M signature and seal impression\u2014\u201cprecipitated,\u201d\ndoubtless, during transit among Her Majesty\u2019s mails. As the recipient\nwas at Adyar, Madras, and therefore, some thousands of miles nearer the\nhome of the Mahatmas than Mr. Judge, it will be seen to what roundabout\nmethods the Master was compelled in order to maintain his determination\nto have his messages ushered into the world in some connexion or other\nwith the one favoured disciple.\n\n * * * * *\n\n[Sidenote: =THE \u201cJUDGE IS THE FRIEND\u201d MISSIVE.=]\n\nAnother recipient was important for other reasons than Mr. Keightley.\nBabula, a low-caste Hindu, formerly Madame Blavatsky\u2019s personal servant,\nwas at this time in a position of trust at the Theosophic quarters at\nAdyar. Since then he has got into trouble with his employers, like\nothers of Madame\u2019s former confidants. But in July, 1891, Babula was\nstill in authority at Adyar, and the vice-president thought it worth\nwhile to convince him that he, Judge, was his friend. A letter, dated\nsome weeks later than Mr. Keightley\u2019s, from Avenue-road, terminated with\nthe signature,\n\n _Your friend_,\n WILLIAM Q. JUDGE.\n\n[Illustration]\n\nUnder the words \u201cYour friend,\u201d the ever-officious Mahatma has drawn a\nline, at the end of which he has solemnly inscribed \u201cYES,\u201d and his\nsignature and seal. The seal is, as usual, impressed in black carbon;\nthe writing is in red pencil; and Judge\u2019s signature is in ordinary ink.\n\nPity that the famous Mr. Codlin had not a Mahatma to back him thus\nconveniently in his asseverations that \u201cCodlin\u2019s the friend, not Short.\u201d\n\n * * * * *\n\n[Sidenote: =THE \u201cMASTER AGREES\u201d MISSIVE.=]\n\nParallel to this corroborative use of the Mahatma\u2019s seal, though\nbelonging to a different period of the story, was the case of another\nletter of Mr. Judge\u2019s to a brother official, in which, after expressing\ncertain views, Mr. Judge used these words:\u2014\n\n I believe the Master agrees with me, in which case I will ask him to\n put his seal here.\n\nPlump on the written word came the seal. Inimitable Mahatma!\n\n * * * * *\n\nMrs. Besant\u2019s previous \u201ccommunications,\u201d as we have seen, did not come\nthrough the post. But during that July Mr. Judge seems to have left Mrs.\nBesant\u2019s side for the express purpose of enabling his Mahatma to give\nher an exhibition of his powers in this special line of \u201cprecipitation\u201d\nduring postal transit.\n\nJuly 21, 1891, was the date of one such performance; which included\nsignature and seal complete. I pass over this and some equally\ncommonplace missives, which Mrs. Besant received at various dates, all\nequally under Mr. Judge\u2019s auspices, in order to deal more fully with one\nparticular one in which she was favoured with a \u201ctest condition.\u201d\n\nFor lo! on cutting the envelope open in the usual way, along the top\nedge, Mrs. Besant observed a line or so of pencilling inside written\npartly on the upper flap, partly on the under flaps, of the adhesive\npart of the envelope.\n\n[Sidenote: =THE \u201cENVELOPE TRICK\u201d MISSIVE.=]\n\nHere was proof indeed of powers occult! For this must obviously have\nbeen written or \u201cprecipitated\u201d _after the envelope was stuck up_: and\nthere it was _inside_! For a Mahatma, of course, it was as easy to\nproduce it so as in any other way. He might do it in mere artless\nabsence of mind.\n\nIngenuous Mrs. Besant! Unfortunately for the test, the feat is equally\neasy for any commonplace mortal\u2014though in his case it would hardly be\ndone quite artlessly. The trick was first shown me by a student of\n\u201coccultism\u201d\u2014a Theosophist, in fact. But it is a very old affair, and can\nbe found in any book of parlour magic. It might be called \u201cEvery Man his\nown Mahatma.\u201d\n\nAn envelope has four flaps. Three of these are stuck together in\nmanufacture, but with a much less adhesive sort of gum than that which\nis put on the remaining flap to be stuck up by the user.\n\n [Illustration] [Illustration]\n ENVELOPE, INSIDE VIEW. OUTSIDE VIEW, SHOWING INSERTION.\n\nIt is generally quite easy to insert a penknife behind the bottom flap,\nas in the accompanying cut, and so make entrance and exit for a slip of\npaper. On this slip you write the words backwards, as they would appear\nin a looking-glass, using a black pencil of the \u201ccopying\u201d kind. You then\npass the slip in, push and shake it into the right position, press till\nyou feel sure the inside flaps have taken the impression, and then out\nwith your slip by the door it came in at. Moisten and fix the flap\nagain, and the \u201cprecipitation\u201d is complete. A child can do it.\n\nA Mahatma, of course, produces the result by mere psychic effort. But it\nis a curious coincidence that M on this occasion abandoned his usual red\npencil for the black one which you or I would use if we were playing\njust the trick described.\n\nNo doubt he felt that a more satisfactory test would have been wasted on\nMrs. Besant.\n\nOthers, however, were a little more exacting. The story enters here on a\nless smooth course.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER VIII.\n THE ADVENTURES OF A SEAL.\n\n \u201cO that Heaven had set a seal upon _men_, that we might know them,\n honest from dishonest!\u201d\u2014EURIPIDES.\n\n\nFrom the previous record of Colonel Olcott\u2014described by Madame Blavatsky\nherself, in an epigrammatically candid moment, as \u201ca psychologised\nbaby\u201d\u2014he is almost the last person whom one would have expected to lead\nthe way in any sceptical examination of \u201cmiracles.\u201d\n\nAnd no doubt he might have been content, like Mrs. Besant, to open his\nmouth and shut his eyes and take whatever Mr. Judge should send him, so\nlong as that gentleman\u2019s thaumaturgy was confined to benefiting the\ncommon cause. But it was another matter when the vice-president\u2019s\nMahatma showed a tendency to favour the vice-president, and that at the\nexpense of the president himself. Had the oracle said \u201c_Olcott\u2019s_ plan\nis right,\u201d and declared that _Olcott_ was the \u201cfriend,\u201d \u201cnot Lancelot\nnor another\u201d; had it made Olcott, and not Judge, Outer Head with Mrs.\nBesant\u2014the president\u2019s ears might have been an inch longer, and the\ncourse of Theosophic history have been changed.\n\nBut there was, from the first, about Mr. Judge\u2019s Mahatma a certain\ncrudity, a lack of tact in dissembling favouritism, which was bound,\nhuman nature being what it is, to make enemies.\n\nOn the decease of \u201cH.P.B.,\u201d President Olcott, like Vice-President Judge,\nhad hurried to the headquarters at Avenue-road. He had to come from\nIndia, however, and the American disciple naturally out-ran him. When\nthe former arrived, the latter\u2019s Mahatma was already in full swing. On\nhearing of his performances with the seal, a look of more than usual\nintelligence may have crossed the president\u2019s mild and venerable\nfeatures; but, like Brer Rabbit, he wasn\u2019t \u201csayin\u2019 nuffin,\u201d \u201che just lay\nlow.\u201d\n\nThat busy July, \u201991, the period of Mahatma M\u2019s greatest activity, was\nalso marked by the assembling at Avenue-road of one of the periodical\nconventions of Theosophic Europe. Some conversation occurred between the\npresident and vice-president about the expenses of this convention, and\nthe former, being \u201cH.P.B.\u2019s\u201d legatee, mentioned a happy thought of his,\nof selling some of the jewels that lady had left behind her, and giving\nthe proceeds as her posthumous contribution to the expenses.\n\n[Sidenote: =THE \u201cWITHOLD\u201d MISSIVE.=]\n\nBut here, too, Mr. Judge was prepared to \u201cgo one better,\u201d as his\ncountrymen say, than the president-legatee. He responded airily that\nColonel Olcott need not trouble himself about it, as \u201cMaster\u201d had\npromised him (Judge) that the cash should be forthcoming, and also that\nhe would convey a \u201cmessage\u201d on the subject to Olcott himself.\n\nThe Colonel waited for his message. None came.\n\nThe Colonel jogged Mr. Judge\u2019s memory. Mr. Judge said he had no more to\ntell.\n\nBut that very day, on sitting down at his writing-table, and lifting up\na piece of blotting-paper, the Colonel found under it a piece of\npeculiar paper, reading as in the following facsimile (reds and blacks\nas per former samples):\u2014\n\n[Illustration]\n\nNow, Colonel Olcott thought he recognised that particular quality of\npaper, and also, so far as it was legible, that seal-impression. The\nfacsimile here necessarily makes it much clearer. In the original the\nimpression was curiously faint and vague, as if the Master did not wish,\nin the Colonel\u2019s case, to burst that seal upon him all at once; but\npreferred the manner of Tennyson\u2019s Freedom, who \u201cpart by part to men\nrevealed The fulness of her face.\u201d\n\nSo Brer Rabbit continued to say nuffin\u2019, and to lie low.\n\nPresently Mr. William Q. Judge left on the same writing-table the\nfollowing note (being scribbled on a torn-off scrap of paper, it also\nhas rather a Mahatmic look. But that is accidental):\u2014\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\u201cDear Olcott\u201d \u201clooked\u201d accordingly; and sure enough, in the ordinary\nenvelope of a letter, previously opened and put by on the table, there\nwas a piece of paper bearing a message with all the proper Mahatma-marks\nabout it. And _this_ time the Mahatma had taken heart and \u201cprecipitated\u201d\na decently clear impression of the seal.\n\nAnd then the Colonel \u201csmiled a sorter sickly smile.\u201d For now he _did_\nrecognise that seal. And this is its story.\n\n * * * * *\n\nBack in the palmy days of 1883, or ever the marvels of \u201cH.P.B.\u201d were\nbesmirched by slanderous tongues, the Colonel was in a certain city of\nthe Panjab. Passing an Urdu seal-engraver\u2019s shop in the bazaar, he\nturned in and ordered the man to make a seal bearing the cryptograph\nsignature which \u201cH.P.B.\u201d identified as that of the \u201cMaster of Wisdom,\u201d\nMahatma Morya.\n\nWhat did the Colonel want the seal for? Let him explain himself:\u2014\n\n An idea occurred to me (he writes) of sending through \u201cH.P.B.,\u201d as a\n playful present to my Master M, a seal bearing a facsimile of his\n cryptograph.\n\nAn odd idea, this \u201cplayful present\u201d of the Colonel\u2019s. Had the seal been\nintended for use by an ordinary person\u2014by \u201cH.P.B.\u201d herself, for\ninstance\u2014there would have been some sense in it. But the Mahatma, of\ncourse, who \u201cprecipitated\u201d his letters and his signature psychically,\nmight just as well \u201cprecipitate\u201d the latter in the shape of a seal\nimpression as otherwise, if he wanted to; and where, then, should the\nuse of a brass seal come in? However, as the Colonel says, the present\nwas merely \u201cplayful.\u201d\n\nBack went the Colonel to Madras, where Madame was, and presented the\nseal to her, with a \u201cjocular remark\u201d (I am again quoting his own\naccount). Madame\u2019s keen eye dwelt on it a moment, and then she pointed\nout that the Colonel, in his jocularly playful mood, had made a slight\nmistake. \u201cThe Master\u2019s cryptograph was not correctly drawn,\u201d according\nto the pattern already familiar to recipients of his precious missives.\nThere was a twiddle too much, or a twiddle too little, in it. The\nColonel himself saw the blunder when it was pointed out, and he now\ndeclares that he would know it anywhere.\n\nFor this sufficient reason the \u201cplayful present\u201d was not sent on to the\nHimalayas (Heaven knows, by the way, by what astral form of parcels-post\nservice the Colonel had expected it to be sent); neither did it appear\nin any of the communications vouched for by Madame.\n\nIt went into Madame\u2019s despatch-box, along with a lot of other mystical\nodds and ends, properties of the occult stage; and among these it was\nremarked, as late as 1888, by the Mr. Keightley already mentioned, who\nwas then living with her in Lansdowne-road.\n\nThis gentleman asked the prophetess what the little brass seal might be?\nMadame Blavatsky\u2019s answer\u2014a characteristically racy \u201cfragment of her\nprophet voice\u201d\u2014was:\u2014\n\n \u201cOh, it\u2019s only a flap-doodle of Olcott\u2019s.\u201d\n\nIn the same year, at a time when William Q. Judge was staying with\nMadame, Mr. Judge\u2019s Mahatma evidently determined to overlook the\ninaccuracy in the seal, and to make use of it for the first time to save\nhimself the trouble of a psychic signature.\n\nHe did this, of course, in a letter of Mr. William Q. Judge\u2019s own, and\nin a sense endorsing Mr. William Q. Judge\u2019s wishes\u2014in fact, the letter\nwas the one recorded in the last chapter, in which the Master\u2019s seal\ncame so plump upon the disciple\u2019s prayer for a sign.\n\nI have not mentioned before, however, that the recipient of this \u201988\nletter was Colonel Olcott. He presumably recognised, then as now, his\nown \u201cplayful present,\u201d his own \u201cflap-doodle\u201d; but he appears to have let\nit pass in silence.\n\nFrom this date the seal seems to have disappeared from among Madame\nBlavatsky\u2019s belongings. It was, of course, intrinsically valueless.\n\n[Sidenote: =THE TELEGRAM MISSIVE.=]\n\nBut in 1890 it turned up again\u2014in New York, and in close contiguity with\nMr. Judge. Madame sent a message through Mr. Judge to a disciple, then\nin America, who happened to be the Mr. Keightley who had remarked the\n\u201cflap-doodle of Olcott\u2019s\u201d at Lansdowne-road. The context, which is\nbefore me as I write, shows that Madame was persuading this disciple to\ntake some course distasteful to him. Judge added his persuasions to\nhers. But what was bound to determine the disciple was the discovery on\nreceiving the missive from Mr. Judge\u2019s hands, that the Mahatma had added\n_his_ vote _in transitu_ by endorsing the word \u201cRIGHT,\u201d in red pencil,\nwith cryptograph and impression of the Panjab seal.\n\nMr. Keightley, too, must have recognised the \u201cflap-doodle\u201d; but he, too,\nlike Olcott, said never a word. He did, indeed, go so far as to ask\nJudge if _he_ had affixed the seal? But on receiving a blandly surprised\nassurance that Mr. Judge did not so much as know there _was_ a seal\naffixed, he let the matter drop.\n\nThese are, so far as I know, the only two instances in evidence of the\nuse of this peculiar seal in Mahatma missives _during the lifetime of\nMadame Blavatsky_, and, as was to be expected from her objection to the\nseal, neither missive was among those vouched for by her, for the\nmessage from herself to New York was telegraphed, and it was the\ntelegraph-form at the New York end that the Mahatma endorsed.\nNevertheless, it is clear that no intimate of Madame\u2019s would get hold of\nthe seal and make use of it for bogus Mahatma missives under her very\nnose, unless he were under the impression either that she had it for\nthat purpose herself, or that she might be relied on at least not to\n\u201cpeach\u201d on a _chela_ who used it.\n\nBut why did neither Colonel Olcott nor Mr. Keightley speak? The only\nanswer I can suggest is that while Madame Blavatsky was in the flesh the\nfaithful thought twice before they expressed a doubt about anything or\nanybody. They were accustomed to take their marvels as they found them,\nand be thankful.\n\nOtherwise, they might at least have pointed out to Mr. Judge, in order\nthat he might in turn apprise his Mahatma, whose supernal knowledge\nseems here to have been somewhat at fault, what a fatal blunder he was\nmaking in palming off upon the faithful a bogus edition of his own\ncryptograph, known as such by three of the faithful themselves.\n\nHowever, there are the facts; and but for the Mahatma\u2019s _trop de z\u00e9le_\nin pushing his favourite _chela\u2019s_ occult claims immediately on Madame\nBlavatsky\u2019s decease, I fear we should never have been vouchsafed this\ninstructive side-light on an earlier period of the Theosophical Society.\n\nThese Adventures of a Seal supply the clue to the great game of bluff\nbetween the two highest Theosophical officials which must be depicted in\nthe next chapter.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER IX.\n THE CLIMAX OF THEOSOPHIC BROTHERHOOD.\n\n \u201cTo form the nucleus of a Universal Brotherhood of\n Humanity.\u201d\u2014THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, Object I.\n\n \u201cPestling a poisoned poison behind his crimson lights!\u201d\u2014\u201cMAUD.\u201d\n\n\n[Sidenote: =THE \u201cMASTER WILL PROVIDE\u201d MISSIVE.=]\n\nWe left the president of the Theosophical Society staring at the\nimpression of his own \u201cflap-doodle\u201d seal on that which purported to be a\nmissive from the Mahatma.\n\nThe purport of the missive was precisely what the prescient Judge had\nforetold. Colonel Olcott was not to sell the Blavatsky jewels, as the\nmoney would be provided.\n\nHaving shown it to a brother member, the Colonel replaced it in the\nenvelope, and went off to have a few words with Mr. William Q. Judge.\n\nHe remarked to Judge that he had missed a certain brass seal from among\nMadame Blavatsky\u2019s relics, and described the Panjab seal and the story\nof its making; not mentioning, however, the name of the exact city where\nit was made. Had Judge seen the seal?\n\nJudge answered in the negative. Upon which the Colonel remarked\nmeaningly (I quote his own account) that he \u201choped no scoundrel would\nget possession of it, and use it to give colour to bogus Mahatma\nmessages,\u201d adding that he would at once recognise an impression from the\nseal.\n\nHe did not mention that he had looked for and found the missive in the\nenvelope.\n\nAfter two days he looked into the envelope for that missive again. _It\nwas gone!_\n\nSome judicious hand had removed it. \u201cJudicious,\u201d says the Dictionary,\n\u201cliterally: of or pertaining to a Judge.\u201d Colonel Olcott concluded with\nsome assurance that the hand which had removed that missive, the hand\nwhich had put it there, and the hand which had written it, were one and\nthe same hand, and that hand William Q. Judge\u2019s. That is a conclusion\nwhich we must leave the two gentlemen to settle between them.\n\n * * * * *\n\nBut note the sequel. The writer of the missive, whoever he was, was as\ngood as his word.\n\nWhen the Convention in due course was held, it was announced that a\ndonation had been contributed towards the expenses in a peculiar way.\n\nThere had appeared to one of the brethren one afternoon a dark and\nmysterious Oriental figure, who gave no name, but deposited two Bank of\nEngland \u00a310 notes (from Tibet?), which were backed with the familiar red\ncryptograph, after which he, like Mr. Lewis Carroll\u2019s Snark, \u201csoftly and\nsilently vanished away.\u201d\n\nIt will not surprise the astute reader to learn that the brother\nfavoured with this substantial spectre was William Q. Judge.\n\nWell, there was the \u00a320, and the vice-president\u2019s reputation as an\noccultist stood higher than ever. There was a time, years before, when\nthe society had made much of a similar vision of its president\u2019s, one\nwhich, the Colonel used to explain, had first assured him of the truth\nof Madame Blavatsky\u2019s doctrines. On his asking for a sign, the Colonel\u2019s\nfigure, which was, of course, like Mr. Judge\u2019s, the \u201castral body\u201d of a\nMahatma, had materialised its turban, and disappeared into several yards\nof substantial textile fabric. \u201cAnd here,\u201d the Colonel was wont to\nconclude the story, \u201chere, you see, is the turban!\u201d\u2014whipping it from his\ncoat-tail pocket. Ah! that was in the palmy eighties. But now where was\nhe? What was a _chela_ who conjured up a turban beside one who could\nconjure up \u00a320 hard cash\u2014\u201con the table,\u201d as Hilda Wangel would say?\n\nIn a word, Colonel Olcott was altogether thrown into the shade by this\nbold stroke, and had not even the face to suggest that perhaps Mr.\nJudge\u2019s story was only a donor\u2019s graceful way of conveying assistance\nfrom his own pocket. The Colonel pulled rather a sour face, however,\nover the heavy sum with which the society\u2019s chest was debited when Mr.\nJudge\u2019s expenses at the Convention came to be paid. For, Judge having\nattended in his official capacity, it was the Colonel\u2019s treasury at\nAdyar which had to foot the bill. Personally, I consider the miracles\ncheap at the price.\n\nThis reminds me of the matter of Madame Blavatsky\u2019s Rosicrucian jewel,\nin which also the Mahatma stole an amusing march on the Colonel. This\nwas a pendant set with gems, which had the property of changing colour\nwith every change in Madame\u2019s health\u2014so she and the faithful Olcott used\nto swear. The Colonel had his own ideas about the future of this mystic\ngewgaw; but what was his disgust on getting to Avenue-road to learn that\nthe Master had sent a message for it to be given to Judge, and that Mrs.\nBesant had accordingly handed it over! Nor was the Colonel\u2019s chagrin\nlightened by the fact that the forgetful Mahatma attempted (through\nJudge, of course) to put him off the track of the jewel by a message to\nquite another effect\u2014an exceedingly misleading message.\n\nFor all I know, the gift was as valueless intrinsically as the brass\nseal; but Theosophically it was a distinct score for Mr. Judge and his\nMahatma thus to amalgamate the two mystic apparatuses in one firm\u2019s\nhands, so to speak.\n\n * * * * *\n\n[Sidenote: =THE \u201cINNER GROUP\u201d MISSIVE.=]\n\nAfter the passages described above, Mr. Judge\u2019s Mahatma was chary of\nsubjecting any more epistolary efforts to the eye of Colonel Olcott. And\nhe seems to have become more cautious altogether. In the following\nSeptember, however, he succumbed to the temptation of intervening again\nin the administration of the society. A letter with the usual trimmings\nwas enclosed to the Inner Group, bearing upon its constitution and\nfuture changes, in one of Mr. Judge\u2019s on the same subject and in the\nsame sense (September 14).\n\nJust at this time Colonel Olcott was visiting America, _en route_ for\nJapan, where he was to teach the Buddhists their own religion in a\nflying visit. He took the opportunity of making some more pointed\nrepresentations to Mr. Judge on the vagaries of his Master.\n\nThe result was prompt and significant.\n\nDuring the very next month Mrs. Besant, then preparing for her trip to\nIndia, received a cablegram from the vice-president in America to this\neffect:\u2014\n\n You are desired not to go to India remain where you are grave danger\n Olcott await further particulars by an early mail.\n\n[Sidenote: =THE \u201cGRAVE DANGER OLCOTT\u201d MISSIVE.=]\n\nAt Avenue-road this mysterious telegram was at first read in the sense,\n\u201cGrave danger _to_ Olcott.\u201d The president was just then due at Tokyo,\nand there was a report of an earthquake thereabouts. For a while there\nwas a great flutter over this convincing case of Mahatmic prescience.\nWhen, however, the \u201cearly mail\u201d arrived with Mr. Judge\u2019s explanatory\nletter, quite a different complexion was put on the telegram. After\nreading this letter, and one from the inevitable Mahatma which Mr. Judge\nenclosed, the conclusion of the Inner Group was that the \u201cgrave danger\u201d\nagainst which the Master warned Mrs. Besant was \u201c_from_ Olcott.\u201d The\nTibetan founder of the society, in short, warned Mrs. Besant against\nimperilling her safety in the neighbourhood of its president!\n\nThe Mahatma had declared war on Colonel Olcott.\n\nThis was the first shot in the campaign.\n\nBut what could this danger from Colonel Olcott be? Mr. Judge and his\nMahatma left that darkly vague. Some of their friends in England dotted\nthe i\u2019s and crossed the t\u2019s for them. It is hardly credible, but the\nsuggestion was nothing less preposterous than that Colonel Olcott\nintended to _poison_ Mrs. Besant!\n\nI have no great veneration for Colonel Olcott\u2019s character, and none at\nall for his intelligence; but I frankly apologise to him for having to\nmention this astounding nonsense in connexion with his name. I mention\nit simply in order to explain one of the documents which follow, and to\nthrow a light on the minds of the colleagues who made or believed the\ncharge; and I suppose I need scarcely add that I attach to it no other\nvalue whatever. Colonel Olcott is about as remote as it is possible to\nconceive from the sort of stuff of which murderers are made. I am sure\nhe never had and never will have any more intention to poison Mrs.\nBesant, or anybody else, than the Man in the Moon. Having said so much\nto make any misunderstanding impossible, I return to the suspicions or\npretended suspicions of the Colonel\u2019s professed \u201cBrothers.\u201d\n\nPositively, the only material which these ladies and gentlemen had to\nwork on was an innocent conversation of the Colonel\u2019s with a friend on\nthe subject of poisons, Indian and other, which took place at a date\nwhen Mrs. Besant was not yet even a member of the society! The\n\u201cevidence\u201d\u2014save the mark!\u2014was such as ordinary non-Theosophical folk\nwould not give even a dog a bad name on. But Mahatmas and their friends\nare different, and Mr. Judge\u2019s Mahatma was well served. For this trivial\nepisode, buzzed about from mouth to mouth in connexion with the sinister\nhints of \u201cMahatma M,\u201d sufficed to make this monstrous charge against\ntheir president currently believed at Avenue-road, for some weeks at\nleast, by the very inmost and governing circle of his colleagues, with\nMrs. Besant at their head!\n\nA belief once discarded, it is easy to deny that it ever existed. But\nthis particular belief, or half-belief, showed itself in action. Mrs.\nBesant deferred her visit to India, and to impatient Indian disciples\nwrote that \u201cMaster had forbidden her to come,\u201d and \u201ctill that order was\ncountermanded\u201d she would not budge.\n\nNow just pause a moment, and enjoy the exquisite irony of this unique\nsituation. The Theosophic Society was to be \u201cthe nucleus of a Universal\nBrotherhood of Mankind.\u201d At this moment, taking the three chief\nexponents of this new Brotherliness, the president believed the\nvice-president to be fabricating bogus documents; the vice-president\napparently believed the president to have designs to poison the\nhigh-priestess; and the high-priestess, having these two beliefs to\nchoose from, coquetted at least, as we have seen, with the more heinous\nof the two.\n\nOther Theosophists appear from their course of action to have\naccomplished the intellectual feat of believing both.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER X.\n THE MAHATMA TRIES THREATS.\n\n \u201cBe these juggling fiends no more believed, that palter with us in a\n double sense!\u201d\u2014\u201cMACBETH.\u201d\n\n \u201c_Masters_, it is proved already that you are little better than\n false knaves.\u201d\u2014\u201cMUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.\u201d\n\n\nWhile the Mahatma was thus stealthily undermining the president, he was\nalso busy strengthening his own outworks. In December one of the\ndoubting ones, the Mr. Keightley who had been making up his mind whether\nto believe his own eyes ever since June, 1890, received in India a\nletter from Mr. Judge fortifying him against the heterodox influences to\nwhich he would be exposed on Colonel Olcott\u2019s return to that country.\n\n[Sidenote: =THE \u201cFOLLOW JUDGE AND STICK\u201d MISSIVE.=]\n\nMr. Judge warned his \u201cdear Bert\u201d that Olcott would try to shake his\nfaith in the genuineness of Mr. Judge\u2019s Mahatma-missives; that he might\neven have the baseness to suggest that they were fabricated by Mr. Judge\nhimself. On opening this letter, Mr. Keightley found a small slip of\npeculiar paper, which turned out (on a prosaic scrutiny) to be the sort\nof tissue which is used to separate the sheets of typewriting transfer\npaper. On this slip appeared in Mahatmic script the words:\u2014\n\n Judge leads right. Follow him _and stick_!\n\nThere was, however, no seal impression. The Mahatma had grown chary of\nusing that seal. From the material of this missive we gather that the\nMahatma is not so remote from typewriters as one would expect in the\nHimalayas; from its diction we learn that, whatever the failings of his\nEnglish, the august being has a racy command of Yankee.\n\nI may remark here that when Mahatmas \u201cprecipitate\u201d their own notepaper,\nas well as the writing upon it, it has always been the etiquette that\nthe former should have an Indian look about it, however European the\nlatter might be. Even tissue, as in this case, is considered more in\nkeeping than commonplace stationery, with, perhaps, the watermark of\nsome English firm upon it. But the \u201cmake\u201d preferred, alike now and in\nthe Blavatsky days, is a peculiar sort of hand-made rice-paper, which\nthe Psychical Researchers had some difficulty in tracking to the\nmaker\u2019s. They were not assisted by Colonel Olcott. But now, the same\nmystic paper having turned up in the productions of _Mr. Judge\u2019s_\nMahatma (borrowed, perhaps, at the same time as the seal?) the Colonel\nresolves the mystery at once. Wishing to suggest that Mr. Judge got it\nready-made from Madame Blavatsky, he mentions that Madame had gone about\nwith a good supply of it, adding that it was originally bought in\nCashmere. He had bought it himself at Jammos, in fact, as long ago as\n1883, just as he had also been the purchaser of the brass seal; and just\nas he explains that the seal was got merely as a \u201cplayful present,\u201d so\nhe represents the original purpose of the Cashmere stationery as the\nhumble one of \u201cpacking books\u2014it being both cheap and strong.\u201d From\nparcels post to astral notepaper is a distinct rise. But who first\npromoted it? Another side-light unintentionally thrown on the old\nBlavatsky days!\n\nBut to return to Mr. Judge\u2019s Mahatma. His last attempt to bring Colonel\nOlcott to a better mind by persuasion was made that autumn. In October\nhe had resorted to a bold device for overcoming scepticism, which he and\nMahatma Koot Hoomi had patented in the early Blavatsky days\u2014that of\nwaylaying (astrally, of course) the post-bag of some disconnected and\nquite unconscious correspondent of the sceptic, and so introducing a\nmessage through an obviously untainted channel. For instance, Mr. Hume\nonce \u201cgot a note from Koot Hoomi inside a letter received through the\npost from a person wholly unconnected with our occult pursuits, who was\nwriting to him on some municipal business.\u201d (\u201cOccult World,\u201d p. 21.) The\nletter happened to have a large and noticeable envelope, and long after,\nin the days of disillusion, Mr. Hume discovered that Madame\u2019s servant\nBabula had carried off just such a letter from the postman for Madame,\nand then returned it to him with an apology for the mistake. (S. P. R.\nReport, p. 275.)\n\n[Sidenote: =THE \u201cJUDGE IS NOT THE FORGER\u201d MISSIVE.=]\n\nIn October, then, Colonel Olcott, who was just returning to India, got a\nletter from a Mr. Abbott Clark, of Orange County, California, a\ngentleman who was under no sort of suspicion of having anything to do\nwith Mahatmas. And in _this_, if you please, there had somehow found its\nway into the envelope a slip of paper bearing a message in the M script,\nwith signature, but _with seal too blurred to distinguish_, in facsimile\nas follows:\u2014\n\n[Illustration]\n\n[Illustration]\n\nSo much is in the usual red pencil; the part represented by shading\nabove is smudged, as is the red blotch which represents the seal,\napparently by being rubbed with the finger. Across a margin of the paper\nis the following postscript, in the black carbon usually devoted to the\nseal impression:\u2014\n\n[Illustration]\n\nRather cryptic, this missive; but the meaning seems to be this. The\nMahatma has to explain to the suspicious Colonel several things: why the\nmissives habitually come in letters from Mr. Judge; why, nevertheless,\nMr. Judge knows nothing of them; why he, the Master, has used a bogus\nseal which bungles his own cryptograph; and, above all, why the\nimpressions of that seal have been illegible ever since an exposure of\nit was threatened. He hints, accordingly, that he \u201cuses\u201d Mr. Judge to\nassist in some undefined psychic way in the precipitation process; but\nJudge\u2019s part in this is unconscious\u2014it must be \u201cwhen he does not know.\u201d\nAlso, the thing precipitated \u201cfades out often\u201d\u2014and plump on the word\ncomes an illustration.\n\nIn saying that \u201cJudge did not write Annie\u201d (_i.e._, Mrs. Besant, for\nthis spirit is a familiar one), the Master is misinformed, as we have\nseen. Mr. Judge _had_ just \u201cwritten Annie,\u201d enclosing the Master\u2019s own\nwarning against Colonel Olcott. Lastly, the remark about \u201cfacit per\nalium\u201d (the Mahatma can use a tag of lawyers\u2019 Latin on occasion) seems\nto mean that when Colonel Olcott had the \u201cflap-doodle\u201d seal made he was\nunconsciously prompted by the Master himself, who had now adopted it,\noverlooking the blunder in engraving. The prescience which foresaw that\nthe \u201cprecipitation\u201d would give out in just this letter is no less\nremarkable than that which provided for an unexpressed doubt by the\nassurance, \u201cNo, it is _not_ pencil.\u201d\n\nBut for Colonel Olcott the gem of this letter was none of these. It was\nthe reference to the Panjab seal as the \u201c_Lahore_ brass.\u201d All that Mr.\nJudge knew, as we have seen, was that the seal was made at a \u201ccertain\ncity in the Panjab.\u201d Mr. Judge\u2019s Mahatma assumes that this city was the\ncapital of the province. It was a likely guess\u2014a good shot, if such a\nphrase may be used of the mental processes of a Tibetan sage\u2014and one\ncalculated to end the Colonel\u2019s doubts\u2014if correct. But that is just what\nit was not. The city at which the Colonel got the seal was quite another\ncity; so the Mahatma, though he hints that he psychically presided over\nthe purchase, does not even know where that purchase took place!\n\nThe result of this unlucky lapse of memory on the part of the Master was\nthat the missive made bad worse. Despite the distance of California,\nwhere Mr. Clark\u2019s envelope was posted, from New York, and the offices of\nMr. William Q. Judge, the Colonel suspected Mr. Judge\u2019s hand in it. He\nwrote to Mr. Clark, and discovered that Judge had spent two days in\nOrange County at the very date when the Master availed himself of Mr.\nClark\u2019s envelope. Thereupon the Colonel formed his own ideas as to how\nthe Master had \u201cused\u201d his favourite _chela_ on _that_ occasion.\n\n[Sidenote: =THE \u201cPOISON-THREAT\u201d MISSIVE.=]\n\nCan we wonder that the Master was incensed by this incorrigible\nscepticism\u2014a spirit, as the Colonel himself had formerly taught, and as\nthe event was to prove but too surely\u2014fatal to Theosophy?\n\nPersuasion failing, the Master resorted to threats!\n\nIn January, 1892, the Colonel received an amicable letter from Mr.\nJudge, reproaching him for not writing. On opening it, he found written\nalong the margin of the first page the following laconic message in\nMahatma script (signed, but again no seal: much reduced here):\u2014\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\u201cHim\u201d presumably means Judge. The bearing of the threat will be\nintelligible to readers of the last Chapter. Certain rumours from\nAvenue-road made it intelligible also to Colonel Olcott. The Master of\nWisdom, the unapproachable sage of the Himalayas, He-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed\nby Mrs. Besant and the whole Theosophical Society, had thrown off the\nmask of benignity. Here he was plainly adopting, as a weapon against his\nown unlucky president, that impossible accusation which represents the\nlowest point of ethical squalor yet touched, in this story at any rate,\nby Theosophic \u201cbrotherhood\u201d! This was miching Mallecho, thought the\nColonel; it meant mischief with a vengeance. The voice was the voice of\nthe Mahatma, but again the Colonel thought it the hand of Judge. So he\nwrote with some natural heat to ask that gentleman what he meant by his\n\u201cbase insinuation.\u201d\n\nOnly to receive, however, the blandly innocent reply:\u2014\n\n I have puzzled my head over your reference to \u201cpoison,\u201d as if in one\n of mine; as I never referred to it I cannot catch on, and have given\n it up in despair.\n\nAfter this the Colonel seems to have given the Mahatma up in despair,\ntoo. But the Mahatma, on his part, was busily pushing up a column to\ntake the Colonel in the flank, and bring this story to a crisis.\n\nSecure in the support of Mrs. Besant, he was to make the pusillanimous\npresident resign his office, and to enthrone William Q. Judge in his\nplace!\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XI.\n MRS. BESANT\u2019S COUP DE MAIN.\n\n \u201cI did my utmost to prevent a public Committee of Enquiry of an\n official character.\u201d\u2014MRS. BESANT at T.S. Convention, July 12, 1894.\n\n\nHow even a \u201cpsychologised baby\u201d like Colonel Olcott came to succumb to a\nmovement for ousting him from office, backed by such methods as we have\nexamined, is to me a mystery. No doubt he had his own reasons for\navoiding a contest in disclosures with his old colleague Mr. Judge, who\nknows so much about Theosophy ever since the days of its foundation. At\nany rate, succumb he did. On receiving an emissary from Avenue-road,\nearly in 1892, he threw up the cards in the unequal game with the\nMahatma, and formally resigned his presidency.\n\nThen was seen a touching sight. C\u00e6sar pushed away the crown. Mr. Judge\nwas loth to succeed. Who could doubt it? Why, he got a \u201cmessage\u201d\ncountermanding the resignation, and forwarded it to the Colonel (March,\n1892), just too late to be acted on before the American Convention in\nApril, which, with decent reluctance, acclaimed Mr. Judge for the vacant\noffice.\n\nBut now came a hitch. Colonel Olcott took the anti-resignation message\n_au grand s\u00e9rieux_. He forgot all his doubts about Mr. Judge\u2019s Mahatma\nmissives in his simple joy at the tenor of this last one. It was but a\ntyped copy which Mr. Judge sent him. Never mind, it was a declaration of\npeace; and if ever there was a man of peace it is the Colonel, despite\nhis American brevet. He could not disobey the Master; he did withdraw\nhis resignation. Such was his answer to Mr. Judge.\n\nMr. Judge expressed his delight. But in absence of mind\u2014possibly excess\nof joy\u2014he quite forgot to mention either the Master\u2019s message or the\nColonel\u2019s consent at Avenue-road when, in the following July, the time\ncame to make his succession to the Colonel\u2019s office definite.\n\nThe result was that Mr. Judge was then and there elected president for\nlife. Some voices were for a term; but Mrs. Besant arose in her\neloquence and \u201cswept up the floor\u201d (in the phrase of one Theosophic\nenthusiast), and the election was \u201cfor life.\u201d Alas! Contracts entered\ninto for that period are notoriously apt to give out at an earlier date.\n\nPerhaps one thing which explains the Colonel\u2019s small show of fight is\nthe fact that he was to be consoled with an \u201cOlcott Pension Fund.\u201d\nUnhappily the treasurer defalcated some eight or nine thousand rupees,\nand then committed suicide. Ill-luck seemed to dog the vanquished\npresident.\n\nBut now came the turn of the tide.\n\nOn the announcement of Judge\u2019s election, Colonel Olcott indignantly\nwrote to Avenue-road to point out that there was no vacancy. And he\nprinted in the _Theosophist_ the Master\u2019s message which had led him to\nwithdraw his resignation.\n\nHe did more. The _Theosophist_, the official journal of the Indian\nsection, has come to be Colonel Olcott\u2019s private property, just as\n_Lucifer_ is Mrs. Besant\u2019s, and _The Path_ Mr. William Q. Judge\u2019s\u2014an\nillustration of the odd mixture of private and official capacities in\nthis society. And now the Colonel plucked up heart to publish in his\npaper the first note publicly heard of criticism\u2014yes, actual\ncriticism\u2014of Mr. Judge\u2019s Mahatma.\n\nPrivately, there had been some troubled bleatings heard already among\nsome of the less docile of the Theosophic sheep. Mr. Judge had been\nobliged to take up the cudgels for the merits of some of his Mahatma\nmissives as philosophic compositions. I find him claiming (in the true\noracular spirit) that:\u2014\n\n A very truism, when uttered by a Mahatma, has a deeper meaning for\n which the student must seek, but which he will lose if he stops to\n criticise and weigh the words in mere ordinary scales.\n\nA sentiment printed with approbation in Mrs. Besant\u2019s paper. Again, he\nis parrying inquisitive questions about the Master\u2019s seal. He \u201cdoes not\nknow\u201d what they mean. An inquirer sends him a sample letter with a good\nimpression to look at\u2014one which had come from Mr. Judge himself, I\npresume\u2014and gets it back with the impression rubbed out (\u201cit fades out\noften,\u201d as we have seen above), and the puzzled remark from Mr. Judge,\n\u201cWhere _is_ your seal? I don\u2019t see one.\u201d Finally, pressed, Mr. Judge\ndeclares that \u201cWhether He\u201d (the Master) \u201chas a seal, or uses one, is\nsomething on which I am ignorant.\u201d\n\nIt was on this statement\u2014which involves a total lapse of memory on Mr.\nJudge\u2019s part of events narrated in Chapter V.\u2014that he was challenged in\nthe _Theosophist_ of April, 1893, in an article signed by Messrs. W. R.\nOld and S. V. Edge, both T.S. officials (secretaries, Indian section).\nThe article is hardly what would be called trenchant by non-Theosophical\nstandards. But it just pointed out that little discrepancy in a polite\nfoot-note; and that was enough.\n\nIf there is one thing more than another which is deemed to be bad form\nin circles Theosophical, it is to corner a Theosophist on a definite\nmatter of fact. Anything undraped in verbiage is considered nude, even\nto indecency. The voice of questioning has to be stifled at once.\n\nBy virtue of their joint position as Outer Heads of the Esoteric\nsection, to which they were elected under warrant of the very seal in\nquestion, Mrs. Besant and Mr. Judge promptly \u201csuspended\u201d Messrs. Old and\nEdge from their Esoteric membership.\n\n * * * * *\n\nIn December, Mrs. Besant went to India. She had, therefore, thrown over\nthe Mahatma\u2019s warning. But she had not thrown over the Mahatma\u2014not a\nbit. She declared that nothing on earth would induce her to give up\nbelieving that the missives were indeed \u201cprecipitated\u201d by Mahatma M,\nunless Mahatma M in person appeared and repudiated them. If a person who\nhad been told that the Man in the Moon daily \u201cprecipitated\u201d the _Times_\nleading articles should decline to be convinced of the contrary till he\nheard it from the lips of the Man in the Moon himself he would probably\nbe \u201cof the same opinion still\u201d for some considerable time.\n\nIn India, Mrs. Besant suddenly changed her mind. Had the Master indeed\nappeared and fulfilled her conditions? She does not say so. Yet it can\nscarcely have been on any mere, dull ground of fact and argument. She\nwas presented with a set of depositions establishing all of the\nsubstantial facts of this narrative, given under the names of those\npersonally cognisant of them, with Colonel Olcott at their head, and\nsummed up in the form of certain definite charges against William Q.\nJudge. But many of these facts she already knew herself, as well as\nanybody, and made naught of.\n\nWhat _did_ work the miracle, then?\u2014As far as I can make out, it was\nthis. Mrs. Besant sat at the feet of G. N. Chakravati. And G. N.\nChakravati just mentioned that he did not believe in Judge.\n\nThis is the Hindu gentleman who was sent to represent the Theosophical\nSociety at the Chicago Parliament of Religions, at an expense of \u00a3500.\nThis is the teacher who has made \u201cAnnabai\u201d so far a Hindu that she now\nprotests against harsh mention even of the child-widow horrors, the\n12,000 temple prostitutes of Madras, and the other religious\nindecencies of Hinduism. As Mr. Bradlaugh led Mrs. Besant from the\nChurch to Materialism, as Mr. Herbert Burrows went hand-in-hand with\nher from Materialism to Madame Blavatsky, as Judge made her believe in\nJudge, so she could only abandon Judge with the aid of G. N.\nChakravati. Whatever the explanation, the fact remains that, blessed\nby this worthy pundit, the case formulated against Mr. Judge became\nstrong\u2014convincing\u2014irresistible. Mrs. Besant\u2019s mind blossomed in a day\ninto the full-blown view that she had been deluded, that Judge had\nhimself written the missives to which she had pinned her faith\u2014written\nthem all with his own hand.\n\nAppalling bathos!\u2014and one which an Enquiry must needs result in\npublishing to all the world. Yet an Enquiry there must be. The Indian\nsection was threatening to secede from the society if Mr. Judge\u2019s\npresidency were confirmed with the scandal unsifted. Judge himself,\noffered the alternative by cablegram of resigning all his offices\nquietly or facing a \u201cfull publication of the facts,\u201d replied in a\ndefiant sense which showed his conviction that there were others to whom\n\u201cfull publication of the facts\u201d (which it was easy to threaten, but\nwhich it has been left for an outsider to carry out) would be more\nungrateful even than to himself. What was Mrs. Besant to do?\n\nA happy thought struck her. She offered to adopt the charges, turn\nprosecutor, and conduct the case against Mr. Judge herself.\n\nThe signatories of the evidence were delighted\u2014especially Colonel\nOlcott, who got behind Mrs. Besant now with the same alacrity as\npreviously behind Messrs. Old and Edge.\n\nBy this bold, yet simple stroke, the evidence, documents, and whole\ncontrol of the case passed into Mrs. Besant\u2019s hands, where they, as she\nfondly hopes, or hoped, now remain.\n\nNot altogether!\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XII.\n A MEETING OF THE (THEOSOPHICAL) PICKWICK CLUB.\n\n THE CHAIRMAN felt it his imperative duty to demand of the hon.\n gentleman whether he had used the expression \u201ca humbug\u201d in a common\n sense?\n\n MR. BLOTTON had no hesitation in saying that he had not\u2014he had used\n the word in its Pickwickian sense. (Hear, hear.) He was bound to\n acknowledge that personally he entertained the highest esteem for\n the hon. gentleman; he had merely considered him a humbug in a\n Pickwickian point of view.\n\n MR. PICKWICK felt much gratified by the candid explanation of his\n hon. friend. He begged it to be at once understood that his own\n observations had been merely intended to bear a Pickwickian\n construction. (Cheers.)\u2014_The Pickwick Papers._\n\n\nWe have now seen how, step by step, as by a resistless nemesis the rival\nTheosophical leaders were led on to bring their quarrel to that which\nneither of them had much stomach for\u2014an inquiry into evidence. Bluff\nmeeting bluff, the thing got as far as the summoning from three\ncontinents of a Committee of Investigation representing both parties.\n\u201cInvestigating\u201d hidden forces in nature, as we saw in Chapter II., is\none of the professed \u201cObjects\u201d of the Theosophical Society. The present\nchapter is to show what the Theosophical idea of investigating is like.\n\nThere lies before me a pamphlet, reprinted from _Lucifer_ of August\nlast, which bears the facetious title, \u201cAN INQUIRY Into Certain Charges\nagainst the Vice-President, Held in London, July 1894.\u201d Anybody is at\nliberty to get this publication\u2014and make what head or tail of it he can.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n BADGE OF THE T.S.\n]\n\nThe plain matter of fact which lay behind the proceedings in question\nwas this. Mrs. Besant and Colonel Olcott had given away their friends\nand compromised with Judge on the terms that he should give Olcott back\nhis presidency, Judge\u2019s election thereto being declared null and void,\nwhile they on their part should suppress the evidence which the Judicial\nCommittee had been summoned to report on.\n\nMr. Judge had protested in a vehement circular, when first called on by\nthe President to appear before the committee, against one of his\naccusers proposing to preside at his trial. There was reason in the\nobjection at the time. He could not foresee that the proceedings would\ntake the form of the presiding judge and the counsel for the prosecution\ncombining to prevent the case from going to the jury.\n\nThis being the plain English of the affair, let us now see how it reads\ntranslated into what I may call Theosophistry.\n\nThe first part of the pamphlet consists of the Judicial Committee\u2019s\nminutes. Of this, six-sevenths is devoted to an \u201cAddress of the\nPresident-Founder\u201d proving that they ought to do nothing. The remaining\npage is devoted to doing it.\n\nThe \u201ccharges of misconduct preferred by Mrs. Besant against the\nvice-president\u201d are nowhere formally stated at all. They are\nincidentally summarised by the president as follows:\u2014\n\n\u201cThat he practised deception in sending false messages, orders, and\nletters, as if sent and written by \u2018Masters.\u2019 ... That he was untruthful\nin various other instances enumerated.\u201d\n\nThe bulk of the address is occupied in discussing with great solemnity\nvarious reasons alleged by Mr. Judge why these charges should not be\ngone into by the committee.\n\nOne or two of these, such as the vice-president\u2019s discovery that he had\nnever been really vice-president at all, and the contention that,\nwhichever way the decision went, it must \u201coffend the religious feelings\u201d\nof some member or another, and that this was against the rules of the\nsociety\u2014these were, after the due amount of pomposity, declared against\nby the president.\n\nBut there were two other pleas of such irresistible force and weight\nthat the president found himself convinced by them \u201cthat this inquiry\nmust go no further.\u201d Stripped of prolix circumlocutions, these may be\nput as an alternative, thus:\u2014\n\nEither the Mahatma missives are genuine or they are fabricated.\n\n(_a_) If found to be genuine, that implies the affirmation of the\nexistence of Mahatmas as a Theosophic dogma, and the abandonment of the\nsociety\u2019s precious \u201cneutrality.\u201d Which is unconstitutional.\n\n(_b_) If found to be bogus missives produced by the vice-president, then\nit is obvious that he must have done it in his private capacity; the\nproduction of bogus documents being no part of his official duties.\nTherefore he cannot be tried for it by an official tribunal.\n\nCould anything be more delicious than this dilemma? It is worthy of a\ntrial scene in Gilbertian comic opera.\n\nMrs. Besant, like the president, was \u201cconvinced that the point was\nrightly taken.\u201d There was nothing more to be said.\n\nThe Judicial Committee \u201cresolved\u201d in the same sense, without any\ninconvenient discussion, and forthwith committed hara-kiri with the\ncomplaisance of a Chinese nobleman. Not only had they not investigated\nthe case, but, as far as I can make out, they had not even heard what it\nwas, except in the most abstract of summaries. Having gravely adjusted\nthe bandage over each other\u2019s eyes, they separated with a good\nconscience. For many of them\u2014worthy investigators!\u2014I believe I am the\nfirst to remove the bandage, and set them blinking at the truth.\n\nFrom (_a_) it follows, as the president pointed out _en passant_ in the\ncourse of his Address, that every Theosophist is in future free to\ncirculate Mahatma messages, but no Theosophist to test their\ngenuineness.\n\nFrom (_b_) it equally follows that no officer of the society is in\nfuture responsible to it for any misdeed whatever, since such misdeed\ncannot well be among his official duties.\n\n * * * * *\n\nPerhaps it is not very surprising that the result of the Judicial\nCommittee, which had been gathered to its task from the ends of the\nearth, was received with disgust by the generality of members then met\nin London for one of their interminable conventions. A demand was even\nheard for a private jury of honour; or, failing that, for publication of\nthe case for both sides, the course to which one side, as we saw, had\naffected to pledge itself. Mr. Judge found himself unable to refuse his\nassent to the jury proposal. Again Mrs. Besant dashed in and triumphed\nin the sacred cause of obscurantism. At the third session of the\nconvention she announced that she and Mr. Judge had agreed upon a couple\nof statements representing their different points of view, and proposed\nthat the convention should hear these, accept them, and let the matter\ndrop. These two statements compose the second part of the pamphlet; and\nthey are at least as bewildering as the first.\n\n\u201cWe come to you, our brothers, to tell you what is in our hearts,\u201d Mrs.\nBesant read out. Her endeavour to \u201ctell\u201d fills four pages. The following\nare the sentences which gyrate least round the point:\u2014\n\n I do not charge, and have not charged, Mr. Judge with forgery in the\n ordinary sense of the term, but with giving a misleading form to\n messages received psychically from the Master in various ways....\n Personally I hold that this method is illegitimate.... I believe\n that Mr. Judge wrote with his own hand, consciously or automatically\n I do not know, in the script adopted as that of the Master, messages\n which he received from the Master, or from _chelas_; and I know that\n in my own case I believed that the messages he gave me in the\n well-known script were messages directly precipitated or directly\n written by the Master. When I publicly said that I had received,\n after H. P. Blavatsky\u2019s death, letters in the writing that H. P.\n Blavatsky had been accused of forging, I referred to letters given\n to me by Mr. Judge, and as they were in the well-known script I\n never dreamt of challenging their source. I know now that they were\n not written or precipitated by the Master, and that they were done\n by Mr. Judge; but I also believe that the gist of these messages was\n psychically received, and that Mr. Judge\u2019s error lay in giving them\n to me in a script written by himself and not saying so.... Having\n been myself mistaken, I in turn misled the public.\n\nThe rest of Mrs. Besant\u2019s statement is easily summarised. Part is\ndevoted to minimising the importance of the question whether Mr. Judge\nwrote, or the Mahatma precipitated, the letters, by remarking that after\nall it did not matter so very much, as Mahatmas sometimes communicate\n(like spiritualist \u201ccontrols\u201d) by allowing ordinary people to write for\nthem. \u201cIt is important,\u201d quoth Mrs. Besant, na\u00efvely, \u201cthat the small\npart generally played by Masters in these phenomena should be\nunderstood\u201d\u2014a remark with which the present writer quite agrees, and a\nmain object of the present narrative. But in the sense in which Mrs.\nBesant meant it, it was not very relevant to an inquiry entirely dealing\nwith letters passed off as having been precipitated, and precipitated\nwithout Mr. Judge\u2019s knowledge, by the Mahatma himself.\n\nBeyond this, Mrs. Besant\u2019s statement consists about equally of blame\ndirected at the untheosophical \u201cvindictiveness\u201d of Mr. Judge\u2019s accusers\nin pressing an inquiry \u201cpainful\u201d to Mr. Judge, and of laudatory tributes\nto the character and Theosophical activity of Mr. Judge himself.\n\nDown Mrs. Besant sat, and up rose Mr. Judge, and read _his_ statement.\nIt contained the following sentences:\u2014\n\n I repeat my denial of the said rumoured charges of forging the said\n names and handwritings of the Mahatmas, or of misusing the same....\n I admit that I have received and delivered messages from the\n Mahatmas ... they were obtained through me, but as to how they were\n obtained or produced I cannot state.... My own methods may disagree\n from the views of others.... I willingly say that which I never\n denied, that I am a human being, full of error, liable to mistake,\n not infallible, but just the same as any other human being like to\n myself, or of the class of human beings to which I belong. And I\n freely, fully, and sincerely forgive anyone who may be thought to\n have injured or tried to injure me.\n\nNow, so far as these sentences were an answer at all to such charges as\nMrs. Besant\u2019s statement had allowed itself to convey, they were\ncertainly a flat contradiction. But that point was naturally overlooked\nby eyes moist from the affecting \u201cforgiveness\u201d of Mr. Judge\u2019s\nperoration, and his very handsome, if somewhat tautologously expressed,\nadmission that he was only a \u201chuman being.\u201d Without a word more, _nemine\ncontradicente_, it was\n\n _Resolved_: that this meeting accepts with pleasure the adjustment\n arrived at by Annie Besant and William Q. Judge as a final\n settlement of matters pending hitherto between them as prosecutor\n and defendant, with a hope that it may be thus buried and forgotten,\n and\u2014\n\n _Resolved_: that we will join hands with them to further the cause\n of genuine brotherhood in which we all believe.\n\nThese resolutions were proposed by the Mr. Keightley (M.A. Cant.) whose\nname has occurred so often in our story among the bamboozled ones, and\nseconded by Dr. Buck, one of the nominees from Mr. Judge\u2019s section to\nthe abortive committee.\n\nAnd there ends the Pamphlet\u2014and the \u201cEnquiry.\u201d It has since appeared\nthat the \u201cjoining of hands\u201d between Mrs. Besant and Mr. Judge was for\nfootlight purposes only; for no sooner was the curtain rung down than\nthe two joint Outer Heads found they could no longer work together, and\nsettled the matter by splitting the Esoteric section into independent\ndominions, Mr. Judge taking America, and Mrs. Besant Europe\u2014to which she\nhas since added India.\n\nThe result is one on which Mr. William Q. Judge must be congratulated.\nHe retains all his offices as head of his lodge, of his section, and of\nthe American Esoteric section; retains his vice-presidency of the whole\nsociety; retains the status of heir-presumptive, at least, to the\npresidency; retains, also, I suppose, either he or his Mahatma, the\nbrass \u201cflap-doodle,\u201d to say nothing of the Blavatsky relic, with full\nfreedom to continue using the same as heretofore.\n\nIn a word, the Theosophical Society has chosen to stand or fall with its\nvice-president.\n\n * * * * *\n\nTheosophy is a religion as well as a philosophy, and the T.S.\nmasquerades as in some sort a Church. Imagine the situation, then, in\nany other religious denomination. Suppose that the Archbishop of\nCanterbury were to put forth missives which he alleged to have fluttered\ndown direct from St. Augustine in heaven; and suppose after Convocation\nhad governed the Church for years in conformity with directions so\nreceived, the Archbishop of York were to declare at a Church Congress\nhis belief that his esteemed brother, whose services to the Church were\nbeyond all praise, had written the missives himself, an expedient \u201cwhich\nI personally hold to be illegitimate,\u201d but into the details of which he\nbegged the Congress not to pry: suppose, then, that the Archbishop of\nCanterbury on his part declared himself, like Mr. Pickwick, \u201cmuch\ngratified with the candid explanation of his hon. friend,\u201d that he\n\u201cmerely considered him a humbug in a Pickwickian point of\nview\u201d\u2014supposing all this, can you imagine the Church Congress rising as\none man to \u201cbury\u201d the dispute, and \u201cjoin hands\u201d with the embracing\ndisputants?\n\nProbably not. But then, as Mrs. Besant remarked, the \u201cstandards of the\nworld\u201d are \u201clower\u201d than those of the Theosophical Society\u2014and of the\n\u201cPickwick Club.\u201d\n\nNevertheless, I must ask leave to break in on the harmonious scene with\na few troublesome questions.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XIII.\n QUESTIONS AND CHALLENGES.\n\n \u201cHath he said anything?\u201d\n \u201cHe hath, my lord; but, be you well assured,\n No more than he\u2019ll unswear.\u201d\u2014\u201cOTHELLO.\u201d\n\n \u201cNext in importance, or perhaps equal in value, to Devotion, is\n Truth.\u201d\u2014Circular on \u201cOccultism and Truth,\u201d signed by H. S. OLCOTT,\n ANNIE BESANT, B. KEIGHTLEY, &c., July, 1894.\n\n\nIn my first chapter I set out certain conclusions. In succeeding\nchapters I have given the facts on which my conclusions were based. I\nnow assert that the evidence for those facts, be it good or bad, is that\nof the Theosophical leaders themselves, written and signed as the case\nagainst the Vice-President, and adopted by Mrs. Besant as true. If it be\nnot true, then Colonel Olcott, Mr. B. Keightley, Mr. W. R. Old, and the\nother official witnesses must be guilty of a conspiracy, as I said at\nthe outset, \u201ceven more discreditable to the personnel of the society.\u201d\nIt is not I who accuse Mr. Judge. It is Mr. Judge and his colleagues who\naccuse each other. The rank-and-file of the Theosophists have paid their\nmoney; they may now take their choice.\n\nThe fact is, before Mrs. Besant got hold of the evidence, at least one\nset of complete and duly witnessed copies had been made, together with\nfacsimiles of the documents. It is these which lately fell into my\nhands, under circumstances which left me free to take, as I do take, the\nmoral and legal responsibility of that publication which the president\nfirst promised and afterwards shirked.\n\n * * * * *\n\nIn regard to Mr. William Q. Judge, vice-president, I do not feel called\non to labour any theory of my own as to that gentleman\u2019s character and\nconduct. As the Society for Psychical Research long ago remarked, the\nprecise line between rogue and dupe in the Theosophical Society has\nnever been easy to draw. On any view of Mr. Judge I have at least as\nmuch respect for him as for his virtuously vacillating superior, whose\nmind seems to have been made up for him from one stage to another by\nwhatever party happened to be at the moment nearest and most peremptory.\nWith the facts of the preceding narrative before him, the reader can\nform his own opinion about both officials.\n\nEqually unable am I to state what Mr. Judge\u2019s own version of Mr. Judge\u2019s\nacts may be. I have read and re-read his \u201cstatement\u201d at the \u201cEnquiry,\u201d\nand his circular issued just previously. In these I have groped\u2014faint,\nyet pursuing\u2014among the mazes of that Theosophical verbiage which always\nseems to be coming to the point; but for me at least it has never quite\ngot there. Where the denials are most explicit, the thing denied is\nvaguest; where admission is most candid, the thing admitted is least\nrelevant to the issue. Mr. Judge admits, for instance, that he is a\n\u201cfallible human being\u201d; he denies that he has \u201cforged.\u201d I, for one,\nshould never dream of disputing either position. The verb, to forge,\ndefinitely connotes in English the imitation of the signature of a\nperson who really exists, and who has also an existent banking account.\nThe worst I should dream of imputing to Mr. Judge in this connexion is\nthe imitation of someone else\u2019s imitation of the feigned signature of\nsomebody who never existed.\n\nMr. Judge must see that between the mere human fallibility to which he\nconfesses, and the felony of which no one has accused him, it does not\nneed a sensitive ear to distinguish whole octaves of intervening notes.\nThanks to Mrs. Besant, he has not yet been obliged to locate himself at\nany one point of the gamut. But, for all I know, he may now come forward\nand twit his associates with deficient humour for not seeing that the\nwhole thing was just a rollicking hoax. Throwing off the _r\u00f4le_ of an\ninterpreter of Tibet, he may appear as William Q. Judge, the American\nHumorist. He might fairly claim that many have performed under a like\ntitle much less divertingly. He might say that the joke was so obvious\nthat it never struck him his colleagues would take it seriously; that\ntheir evident determination not to spoil sport was an invitation no\njoker could have resisted; and that he only kept it up so long for the\nfun of seeing, through a graduated scale of absurdity, how much they\nreally would stand. Of course, to carry through a big practical joke one\nmay be excused a few taradiddles, to which the moralist might apply a\nharsher name. No doubt some might question the taste of making a\nfriend\u2019s funeral the starting-point of even the most innocent _mauvaise\nplaisanterie_. But American humour has never spared the cemetery.\n\n * * * * *\n\nFrom my own position, then, and Mr. Judge\u2019s position, I now pass to Mrs.\nBesant\u2019s. This is interesting from its bearing on the curious\npsychological puzzle offered by Mrs. Besant\u2019s own mind, to the study of\nwhich she herself continually invites the public. Let us accept the\ninvitation for a moment.\n\nI take Mrs. Besant\u2019s statement at the so-called \u201cEnquiry,\u201d that she\nbelieved now that Judge wrote with his own hand the missives which he\nhad induced her, and she had induced the public, to regard as\nprecipitations from Tibet of the kind which \u201csome people would call\nmiraculous.\u201d\n\nApparently Mrs. Besant considers that this avowal sufficed to clear her\nhonour towards her colleagues and the public whom she had \u201cmisled.\u201d To\nme it appears admirably calculated to mislead them again. Remember, even\nthose whom Mrs. Besant was addressing\u2014much more the outside public\u2014were\nignorant of the facts. Mrs. Besant had taken good care of that.\n\n_They_ did not know, as the reader does, the circumstances which\nsurrounded these various missives: The \u201cMaster Agrees\u201d missive, the\nTelegram missive, the Cabinet missive, the \u201cNote the Seal,\u201d the \u201cJudge\u2019s\nPlan is Right,\u201d the \u201cJudge is the Friend,\u201d the Envelope Trick, the\n\u201cWithold,\u201d the \u201cMaster will Provide,\u201d the Bank-note, the Inner Group,\nthe \u201cGrave Danger Olcott,\u201d the \u201cJudge is not the Forger,\u201d the \u201cFollow\nJudge and Stick,\u201d and the Poison Threat missive\u2014as I have severally\nnamed them.\n\nReferring to those circumstances, as the reader now knows them, I ask of\nwhat did and does Mrs. Besant mean to convict Mr. Judge?\n\nIf Judge \u201cwrote with his own hand\u201d the answers got from the cabinet\noracle (May 23, 1891), did he also use sleight-of-hand or some similar\nartifice to make her accept the answers as precipitated in a sealed\nenvelope in a closed drawer?\n\nIf Judge \u201cwrote,\u201d &c., the slip \u201cJudge\u2019s plan is right,\u201d the sudden\nappearance of which among Mrs. Besant\u2019s papers made her and him joint\nofficials on May 27, 1891\u2014did he also place it among those papers on\npurpose to be so discovered?\n\nIf Judge \u201cwrote\u201d &c., Mrs. Besant\u2019s message of July 12, 1891, which was\nacross the inside flaps of a closed envelope\u2014did he also insert the\nwriting by the trick described in the chapter which I entitled \u201cEvery\nMan his Own Mahatma\u201d?\n\nIf Judge \u201cwrote,\u201d &c., all the various letters, notes, and endorsements\nto which the \u201cMahatma\u2019s\u201d signature and seal were attached, missives\nbacking Judge\u2019s own views, raising Judge\u2019s own Theosophical status, and\nbluffing other \u201cservants\u201d of that \u201cMaster,\u201d to whom he and they cannot\nallude without capital letters\u2014did he also \u201cwith his own hand\u201d take and\naffix the seal which he has persistently denied having ever set eyes on?\n\nIf Mrs. Besant did _not_ mean all this, and much more which hangs by the\nsame logic, then her Statement grossly calumniated Mr. Judge to the few\nwho knew the tenor of the case against him.\n\nIf she _did_ mean it, then her Statement completely hoodwinked her\naudience and the public.\n\nFor will anybody assert that _this_, which has just been outlined, or\nanything like it, was the picture naturally called up by Mrs. Besant\u2019s\ncarefully worded description of \u201cMr. Judge\u2019s error\u201d as the negative one\nof \u201cnot mentioning\u201d certain circumstances, her suggestion that personal\nopinions might reasonably differ on the \u201clegitimacy\u201d of his methods, her\nlaudatory allusions to his general character and Theosophic services,\nher public sanction of a statement on his part which on this theory must\nhave been utterly misleading, her eager lead in the attempt to cloak up\nfor ever the Great Mahatma Hoax, and to shield the hoaxer?\n\nBut there is another point. Mrs. Besant professes still to cling to the\nbelief that the Mahatmas had something to do with the letters. Mr. Judge\nwrote them, she says, but what he wrote he had first \u201creceived\npsychically from the Master.\u201d\n\n Faith, fanatic faith, once wedded fast\n To some dear falsehood, hugs it to the last.\n\nNobody can prove that those missives, or, for that matter, these\narticles, or Shakespeare\u2019s plays, were not due to the Master\u2019s\n\u201cpsychical\u201d authorship. Mr. Judge and Mrs. Besant are both quite free to\nsay so. But again I must point out to Mrs. Besant the logical inferences\nfrom her position. In the attempt to hold on to one spar in the general\nwreck, she just says enough to inculpate the Mahatma, and not enough to\nexculpate Mr. Judge.\n\nFor, to apply theory once more to concrete fact: Does Mrs. Besant\nattribute to the Mahatma the preposterous insinuations against Colonel\nOlcott? And does she mean that the Mahatma made these insinuations and\nvarious direct false statements in order to co-operate with Mr. Judge in\nshielding from discovery a prolonged use of a bogus imitation of the\nMahatma\u2019s own seal and signature?\n\nIn this case, we are entitled to challenge Mrs. Besant to say whether\nshe herself now believes that the insinuations against Colonel Olcott\nwere justified. If yes, then I can only leave her to settle that matter\nwith the Colonel. If no, then what becomes of the supernal wisdom and\nlofty character of \u201cThose Who to some of us are most sacred\u201d? Must it\nnot be confessed that They have made uncommon fools of Themselves?\u2014not\nto give a stronger name to the extremely shady methods of which Tibetan\ndiplomacy is thus found guilty.\n\nThe public will await satisfactory answers to these questions. It will\nnot, I hope, for a moment suspect Mrs. Besant of conscious fraud, or of\nsordid motives. I most certainly do not. With some of the lesser fry,\nwho would be bankrupt in every sense if Theosophy failed them, the\nconsideration of pleasant board and lodging at other people\u2019s expense\nmay be a governing one. With Mrs. Besant, who brings far more to the\norganisation in the shape of gate-money, no doubt, than she ever\ncondescends to accept from it, the motives are subtler. Had she boldly\ncut herself free from the rottenness at the core of the Theosophic\nmovement as soon as it was shown to her, she might have saved her\nreputation for straightforwardness, if not for intelligence. In choosing\ninstead the equivocal policy of hushing up a scandal at all costs, she\ndoubtless convinced herself that she was acting only for the ends of\nedification and the good of her church. That is the old, old story of\npriestcraft, and Mrs. Besant has been playing the high priestess now for\nthree years. But were there not also some more personal motives at work?\nThere is one thing which even the most candid hate to confess\u2014and that\nis, that they have been thoroughly bamboozled. It does not improve\nmatters when they have themselves helped in their own bamboozlement. To\nconfess how recklessly inaccurate were her statements about \u201cthe same\nhandwriting,\u201d the \u201csemi-miraculous precipitation,\u201d the absolute\nassurance of her own senses, and so forth; to let the public see for\nitself the childish twaddle which she accepted, and helped to force upon\nothers, as profound and oracular: all this would have been a sad\ncome-down from the Delphic tripod. I do not wonder the poor lady shrank\nfrom it. I do wonder that Mrs. Besant cared to evade it at the expense\nof a sort of confidence-trick. To this has come the woman whom we once\nthought, whatever her other faults, at least fearless and open\u2014the woman\nwhose epitaph, so she tells us, is to be\u2014\n\n _She Sought To Follow Truth!_\n\nLastly, a few words to the rank-and-file of the Theosophical Society, a\nlarge proportion of whom are now gathering open-mouthed at Adyar. In\nMadame Blavatsky few of the better-informed of the flock nowadays affect\nto believe\u2014except in public. They cling to her gifts, perhaps; they have\nthrown over her morals. For fresh evidence has been coming to light,\never since that strange woman died, as to the tricks to which she\ncondescended, and encouraged her _chelas_ to condescend; and poor\nColonel Olcott, though he continues to work the old gold-mine in print,\nhas been driven even there to enunciate the theory that Madame Blavatsky\nherself was really killed at the battle of Mentana, and her body\nthereafter occupied by seven distinct spirits who, of course, are not\nresponsible for contradicting each other. Till May, 1891, Madame was the\nprincipal witness to the objective existence and attributes of Mahatmas.\nSince that date, the principal witness is William Q. Judge. Soon the\nfaithful at Adyar will be filing into the Occult Room to gaze through\npeep-holes at the two August Portraits, illuminated and set off by all\nthe artifices associated here with exhibitions by M. Jan van Beers. Will\nthey dare, any of them, to ask their officials plainly what evidence\nthey can now offer that either of the subjects of those fancy portraits\never existed?\n\nAnd if on this and other questions suggested by these chapters, Mrs.\nBesant, President Olcott, and Vice-President Judge do not succeed in\nsatisfying their followers\u2014\u2014what next? No doubt each member of the\ntrinity will sit secure in his or her autocracy in his or her own\ncontinent, owning there, as I understand, the official organ and the\npublishing plant which the society as a whole has built up into\nprosperity. Yet something, surely, may be done by those who do not care\nto remain unwilling parties to the Great Mahatma Hoax, to recover their\nown self-respect, if not to save the Theosophical Society.\n\nIt is for them to decide whether the society, on its non-fraudulent\nside, is worth saving. It may be a kind of university extension for the\npopularising of Eastern philosophies. Or it may be, as some rather\nthink, a mere smattering of catch-words out of cribs for the use of\nMutual Mystification clubs, tending to a certain indigestion in the\nmental processes and a flatulent style of English composition. In either\ncase there is no reason why the organisation should revolve about a\nvortex of tomfoolery and legerdemain into which honest members are apt\nto be sucked before they realise its true nature.\n\n\n\n\n PART II.\n\n\n\n\n \u201cTHE VOICE OF THE SILENCE.\u201d\n LETTERS ON VARIOUS SIDES FROM THEOSOPHISTS.\n\n\nThe foregoing chapters appeared in the _Westminster Gazette_, of October\n29th, and nine succeeding issues. They attracted wide notice and\ncomment, and were the subject of allusion in a large part of the London\nand provincial press. In accordance with their usual custom, the\nofficial Theosophists in England are said to have cabled to their\nleaders abroad to know what line they should take; but, if so, they do\nnot appear to have got any clear answer.\n\nA mass of correspondence was addressed to the _Westminster Gazette_, and\nto the author of the articles, some of it from officials, most of it\nfrom private members; some admitting that \u201cmuch is, and all may be\ntrue,\u201d others denying everything\u2014in general terms; some throwing over\nthe Vice-President, others lauding him as a model of Theosophic\nrectitude; some rejoicing (\u201cin confidence\u201d) at the \u201ccleaning-out of this\nAugean stable of trickery,\u201d others declaring that, proved or disproved,\nthe charges do not matter a pin.\n\nIn regard to the repeated accusations that the assailant of the society\n\u201cwaited\u201d till its three Theosophic chiefs were at a distance before\nchallenging them on their \u201cEnquiry,\u201d it was pointed out that they gave\nnobody any chance to wait, the official Report of the Enquiry being sent\nround almost on the very day that Mrs. Besant sailed for Australia.\n\nThe following is a representative selection from the letters:\u2014\n\n\n\n\n I.\u2014LETTERS FROM OFFICIALS.\n\n\n FROM THE EUROPEAN SECRETARY: \u201cDESERVING OF NO ANSWER.\u201d\n\n\n SIR,\u2014I have forwarded the copies of your paper containing the series\n of articles entitled \u201cIsis Very Much Unveiled\u201d to my friends Colonel\n Olcott, Mrs. Besant, and Mr. Judge, who are respectively at their\n posts and carrying out their engagements in India, Australia, and\n the United States of America.\n\n The mass of insinuations and misrepresentations with which these\n articles abound is deserving of no answer.\n\n I enclose you a copy of the Enquiry held in July last, to which the\n full statements of Mrs. Besant and Mr. Judge are appended. This was\n months ago issued to every member of the Theosophical Society and\n published in full in our magazines. You can thus allow your readers\n to form their own opinion, instead of relying on the insinuations of\n your contributor, if you choose to do so.\n\n The writer of the articles has several times made reference to a\n private body of students, and endeavoured to involve it in his\n attack. The informant of your contributor knows that he can with\n impunity make any allegation he likes against that body, and that,\n although it is in a position to give, and has already given to its\n own members, a denial to his allegations with regard to its council,\n it must, nevertheless, remain silent in public because of\n obligations of honour.\n\n For the rest, of the truth or falsity of the most serious\n allegations I am without any knowledge, and do not propose to enter\n the arena of mere opinion.\n\n But of this I am confident\u2014that my friends Colonel Olcott, Mrs.\n Besant, and Mr. Judge, together with the best part of the\n Theosophical Society, are not only ready and glad to face any\n obloquy in upholding their individual ideals, but also that they are\n also willing to sacrifice everything for the cause they hold so\n dear, except the privilege of working heart and soul for its final\n triumph.\u2014I am, Sir, faithfully yours,\n\n G. R. S. MEAD.\n\n 19, Avenue-road, Regent\u2019s Park, N.W.\n\n [The pamphlet forwarded by Mr. Mead is the so-called \u201cEnquiry into\n Certain Charges,\u201d which was the starting-point of our articles, and\n which was very fully dealt with in the last two of the series.\u2014ED.\n _W. G._]\n\n\n FROM THE VICE-PRESIDENT\u2019S REPRESENTATIVES: \u201cWE COULD AN IF WE WOULD.\u201d\n\n SIR,\u2014You appear to have expected an immediate reply to the series of\n articles entitled \u201cIsis Very Much Unveiled.\u201d This expectation is\n astonishing in view of the fact that, while the three persons mainly\n attacked by you were together in London for some weeks this summer,\n you waited until Mrs. Annie Besant and Colonel Olcott are now\n respectively in Australia and India, and Mr. W. Q. Judge is on a\n lecturing tour in the United States, as your informant knows. His\n time for attack is well chosen, but no just measure of surprise can\n be felt, either that their replies\u2014should they care to make any\u2014are\n delayed, or that we should have intended originally to await the\n close of your series before making our present brief remarks.\n\n Your informant holds the position held among Freemasons by a brother\n who has broken his Masonic pledge. Those who refuse to enter further\n into this subject follow the traditions of all private societies in\n like circumstance. Englishmen will take at its proper valuation all\n information on whatever subject from such a source. We beg to take\n distinct issue with you on the point of the minor importance of\n sources of information. Our whole legal system is based upon the\n contrary fact. Character of witnesses has primary weight with all\n civilised juries.\n\n The Theosophical Society has no concern with the beliefs of its\n members, nor with questions of Thaumaturgy. The endeavour to spread\n a contrary belief, to confuse the issue by slanders, or attacks\n against individual members, to belittle and misrepresent the objects\n and work of the society, must alike fail in the face of general\n disproof. The society pursues its way unaffected by all such\n attempts.\n\n The Committee of Investigation appointed to consider the charges\n made against Mr. Judge threw out the indictment on the ground that\n the constitution of the Theosophical Society rendered illegal all\n charges involving questions of creed or belief. Mr. Judge came from\n the United States in readiness for their investigation, and his\n defence had to be abandoned for the preservation of the freedom of\n our platform. We do not, therefore, propose to bring the case to\n \u201ctrial by newspaper.\u201d As representatives respectively of the\n American Section of the T.S. and of the general secretary of that\n Section on the Committee of Investigation, we are aware of the\n rebuttal evidence held in readiness by Mr. Judge. He holds\n affidavits from persons of unblemished reputation disproving a\n number of the charges made then and now by you, of which evidence\n detail is for the present reserved for the reasons above given. We\n need not further emphasise the danger of conclusions formed from\n \u201cplaintiff\u2019s evidence\u201d only.\n\n In conclusion, we beg to state our long acquaintance with, and our\n confidence in the integrity and standing of, Mr. Judge, a confidence\n shared, to our personal knowledge, to the fullest extent by the\n American Section of the T.S., as the reports of its last Convention\n prove. The American is the largest and the most active of our three\n Sections, one which not only carries on an enormous work, but which\n also assists the other two Sections. It is in it that Mr. Judge\u2019s\n long labour and personal sacrifices have won for him the respect of\n the community.\u2014Yours very truly,\n\n ARCHIBALD KEIGHTLEY.\n JAMES M. PRYSE.\n\n 30, Linden-gardens, Bayswater, W.,\n November 6.\n\n\n EDITORIAL NOTE APPENDED IN _Westminster Gazette_.\n\nIn regard to Dr. Keightley\u2019s remarks on \u201cthe character of the\nwitnesses,\u201d from which, in view of the law of libel, we have had to omit\none or two phrases, it is only fair to state that this letter was\nreceived before it had been made clear in the articles that the chief\nwitnesses were, in fact, not Mr. Old, who has resigned office, but the\nPresident and Dr. Keightley\u2019s brother, who retain it.\n\n\n ANOTHER AVENUE-ROAD OFFICIAL: \u201cVOLUMINOUS LITERATURE\u201d v. HARD FACTS.\n\nSIR,\u2014Now that you have had the only answer it is possible for the\npresent to make in connexion with that part of your articles which\nprofesses to disclose the affairs of a secret body, I am at liberty to\nmake some remarks on that part of them which deals with the public\naffairs of the Theosophical Society, if you will grant me the\nopportunity of reply which, as a member of an attacked society, I have\nthe right to demand.\n\nIn spite of all implications and assertions to the contrary, I must\nemphatically assert it as my opinion that the majority of members of the\nsociety do _not_ join on account of phenomena; and I regard any attempt\nto prove the contrary as a conscious or unconscious misrepresentation of\nthe actual state of affairs. A large mass of the public know well by\nthis time that the chief activity of the society consists in making\nknown and advocating a certain system of philosophy, and that appeals\nare made to the judgment and intellectual sense of the people as to\nwhether they shall accept or reject it. I do not know whether your\nintelligent readers will consider themselves flattered when they read\nyour contributor\u2019s notion of the kind of procedure that is necessary to\ncaptivate them; but I am inclined to think that most of them must have\ncommon-sense enough to prefer judging a philosophy by its own merits to\naccepting or rejecting it according to the evidence for and against\nphenomena wrought in connexion with it. However, if there be any who,\nindifferent to all questions of ethical and philosophical truth, choose\ntheir faith according to its thaumaturgic properties alone, the society\nwill not be sorry to lose them, for such weak natures are a source of\nweakness to every body in which they enrol themselves.\n\nWhile declaring here my own belief in the integrity and sincerity of the\npersons attacked in your articles, and regretting my inability lo\ncommunicate all of that faith to others, I maintain, Sir, that Theosophy\nwill not stand or fall by any personal scandals, whether true or false,\nand that the Theosophical Society will not cease to exist in Europe so\nlong as there are even a few who believe as I do.\n\nYour contributor has sought to convey the impression that the\nTheosophists, or at all events those who reside at the various\nheadquarters, live in an atmosphere of constant thaumaturgy and\nintrigue; ever in expectation of some new wonder, ever ready to alter\ntheir deepest convictions at a moment\u2019s notice in accordance with some\nenigmatical message or some trumpery sign. I call upon those who know\nthe society, are habitu\u00e9s at its meetings, or have lived at\nheadquarters, to say whether there is a grain of truth in this, or\nwhether, on the contrary, we are a body of earnest students, living a\nprosaic life, and exhausting our energies in the endeavour to place\nbefore others the truths we have found so helpful to ourselves.\n\nYour contributor makes much of his contention that the adepts were\n_invented_ by Madame Blavatsky. What does he expect to gain by this? If\nhe can succeed in discrediting Madame Blavatsky in the eyes of a few\npersons, he cannot disprove the existence of adepts for them unless he\nis also prepared to discredit every one of the other sources of\ninformation from which the evidence for the existence of such exalted\nmen is drawn. Madame Blavatsky has _reminded_ the world of the reality\nof those beings in which the more enlightened of its denizens have\nalways believed. Of the few who may have accepted the belief on her\ntestimony alone I would say, better they had taken the trouble to\nsubstantiate it from other sources. Whether Madame Blavatsky invented\nthe adepts or not, at all events I here and now advance the theory, and\nrefer for my evidence to the Theosophical literature on the subject,\nwhich is plentiful.\n\nLet our critics, after reading it, come forward and publicly refute us.\nWe await their onslaught with pleasure. Many points I am obliged to\nleave untouched on account of the length my letter would otherwise\nassume; but I must just note the absolute futility of the statement that\n\u201cMax M\u00fcller has edited the only series of English translations of the\nSacred Books of the East with which I am acquainted,\u201d and the complete\nfalsity of the statement that \u201cthere is no reason to believe that any\nmember of the society in Europe could pass an examination in any\nOriental language whatever.\u201d Let these serve as samples of the quality\nof the rest of the attack.\n\nIn conclusion, sir, I would call your readers\u2019 attention to the\nfantastically absurd position of an opponent who hopes to discredit, by\nhis so-called \u201cexposure\u201d of a certain group of manifestations, the whole\nsacred science of true magic. I maintain that such a science as magic\n(in its true sense) exists, that it teaches the mysteries of nature and\nof man, that the voice of the ages endorses it, and that it is worthy of\nstudy to-day. I am prepared to support these contentions publicly if\ncalled upon, and can meanwhile refer your readers to the voluminous\nliterature of the subject.\u2014Yours truly,\n\n HENRY T. EDGE.\n\n 19, Avenue-road, Regent\u2019s Park, London, N.W., November 7.\n\n\n\n\n II.\u2014LETTERS FROM PROMINENT THEOSOPHISTS.\n\n\n FROM MR. HERBERT BURROWS: \u201cA REPLY WE MUST HAVE, OR I LEAVE THE\n SOCIETY.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat do you think of THE WESTMINSTER GAZETTE articles? What are the\nTheosophical Society and what are its members going to do about them?\u201d\nThis is the question which is asked me on all hands. I recognise that\nnot only my own personal friends but the public generally have a right\nto ask this question, and to expect an answer, and I have asked the\npermission of the Editor to give the answer from my own point of view,\nwithout in the smallest degree pledging anyone else. Without the\nsmallest tinge of egotism, I may say that, next to Mrs. Besant, I am\nperhaps better known to the public generally than any other English\nmember of the Theosophical Society. I have tried to bring a good many\npeople into the fold of the faith, I know intimately the currents of\nthought inside the society, and while no one is responsible for the\nopinions I express, I believe that they represent the feelings of a\nlarge number of members.\n\n\n The Old \u201cExposure\u201d and the New.\n\nWhen I read Mr. Garrett\u2019s opening chapters, I said to myself,\n\u201cChestnuts!\u201d We had heard it so often before. All the while Mr. Garrett\nwas writing about the \u201cS.P.R.\u201d he was probably asking himself, How is it\nthat this business did not kill the Theosophical Society? The answer is,\nBecause it was not conclusive. When Mrs. Besant and I joined the\nsociety, apart from each other, I joining a few days before her, Madame\nBlavatsky said to both of us, \u201cYou had better read what there is against\nme,\u201d and referred us to the Psychical Report. We read it separately,\nanalysed it, and joined. I brought to it my Civil Service training, what\nbusiness faculties I had, and a fair knowledge of the laws of evidence.\nI am a sceptic by nature, and I was then a materialist, and the honest\nconclusion that I came to was that the case for the prosecution was far\ntoo weak to warrant a conviction. That opinion I still hold. If I\nthought differently I should be outside the Theosophical Society instead\nof in it. I suppose that nine out of ten people who talk glibly about\nthe report have never seen even the covers of it.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n MRS. ANNIE BESANT.\n\n (From a photograph by Messrs. Elliott & Fry, Baker-street, W.)\n]\n\nBut I am bound to say that as Mr. Garrett went on with this newer case\nthe situation altered. The details are too precise, and supported by too\nmuch evidence, for me honestly to escape from the conclusion that, if\nthe facts and documents are correctly set forth, a _prim\u00e2 facie_ case\nhas been established against Mr. Judge.\n\n\n \u201cIf Mr. Judge declines to answer.\u201d\n\nSome facts in the series of articles and many of the inferences are\nwrong, as I shall have occasion to show; but enough is made clear to\nimperatively demand an answer. The charge here is, of course, of no\noffence known to the law; but were it otherwise, many men have been\nfound guilty on charges which were supported by less evidence than\nthese.\n\nI am quite aware that a goodly number of my fellow Theosophists will\nblame me exceedingly for saying this, especially some of our younger\nmembers, whose moral sense seems somehow or other to have become\nconfused over this matter. Let me put myself quite straight with them.\nMy mind is perfectly open on the subject. I have no opinion yet one way\nor the other as to Mr. Judge\u2019s conduct, for I have not heard his\ndefence. For aught I know he may have a crushing, triumphant reply, and\nMr. Garrett and Mr. Old (and with them Mrs. Besant!) may all have to go\ndown on their knees to Mr. Judge. _But that reply we must have_, and as\na member of the Theosophical Society, whose motto is, \u201cThere is no\nreligion higher than Truth,\u201d and who has appealed to the public to join\nit because I believed that it was founded on truth, and that its chief\nofficials and leaders were upright, honourable people, I mean to use\nevery legitimate effort to get it. If Mr. Judge declines to give it, if\nhe refuses to come out into the open fully and squarely, or if his reply\ndoes not meet the case, then sadly and reluctantly I shall have to leave\nthe Theosophical Society, for it will be impossible any longer to remain\nin an organisation whose vice-president is in such a position.\n\n\n An Appeal to all Honest Theosophists.\n\nNow it depends on the members of the society as to whether Mr. Judge\u2019s\nreply shall be forthcoming. They can make such strong representations to\nhim as will be impossible for him to ignore, and I hold that it is their\nduty to do so. Every member of the society has an indefeasible right to\nknow what manner of man their vice-president is, and it ought to be made\nperfectly clear that the morality of the organisation is at least as\nhigh as that of the best commercial morality, and is not based on\nJabez-Balfourism. If there is to be any talk, as there is already among\nsome members, of \u201cletting by-gones be by-gones\u2014saving the\nsituation\u2014ignoring the attack for the sake of Theosophy, safeguarding\noccultism,\u201d &c., then self-respecting members will have to protest\nstrongly, and, if necessary, clear out. All such talk comes from mental\nostriches, and in this matter ostrich-tactics won\u2019t work. It is not a\nquestion of Mr. Judge, or of occultism, or the Theosophical Society, but\nwhat is above and beyond all these, _Truth_, on which Theosophy itself\nis based, as I firmly believe. If there is no religion higher than\ntruth, then truth must be had at all hazards. For the truth we shall\nhave to wait, perhaps, some months. Till we get it, minds should be\nperfectly open and unbiassed. Only three people can give the truth\u2014Mr.\nJudge, Mrs. Besant, and Colonel Olcott. As far as lies in my power I\nmean to see that the truth is forthcoming.\n\n\n The Judicial Committee of Inquiry.\n\nOver this Mr. Garrett has floundered somewhat. I was a member of it, and\nknow the facts. When Mr. Garrett says in his first article that \u201ca few\npeople are aware ... that there was recently a Theosophic meeting at\nwhich Mrs. Besant confessed to her friends that there had been something\nwrong with the \u2018communications,\u2019\u201d and that she persuaded those assembled\ngenerally to hush the matter up, he does not know his case. This is what\nreally happened. After Mr. Old had been some time in India he came to\nthe conclusion that certain charges against Mr. Judge, which up to then\nhad been vaguely floating about, were true, and he said so. In England\nwe disbelieved them, for we had no real evidence, but when Mrs. Besant\nreached India, and examined the evidence, she agreed with Mr. Old. She\nformally adopted and formulated the charges, and the fact that she had\ndone so immediately became known all over the world. There was no\nhole-and-corner work about it. An official investigation committee met,\nbut found itself blocked by the constitutional difficulties with which\nyour readers are now familiar.\n\n\n Mrs. Besant and the Deadlock.\n\nThen I proposed that we should resolve ourselves into a voluntary jury\nof honour. Mr. Judge did not agree to this, and so there was a deadlock.\nThe evidence had not been heard, although Mrs. Besant was ready with it,\nfor the inquiry had not been made, neither had we heard Mr. Judge\u2019s\ndefence. The next stage in the proceedings was the reading, to a very\nfull meeting of members from all parts of the world\u2014for it was our\nannual convention\u2014of the statements by Mrs. Besant and Mr. Judge, to\nwhich Mr. Garrett has so often referred. In her statement Mrs. Besant\nsaid: \u201cThe vital charge is that Mr. Judge has issued letters and\nmessages in the script recognisable as that adopted by a Master with\nwhom H.P.B. was closely connected, and that these letters and messages\nwere neither written nor precipitated directly by the Master in whose\nwriting they appear.\u201d That is pretty definite and precise. These two\nstatements by the accuser and the accused, together with all the\nproceedings of the committee, were published in _Lucifer_ on August 15,\nand they were reprinted in a pamphlet which was sent to every member of\nthe society, and I also know that the day before she sailed for\nAustralia Mrs. Besant made arrangements for that pamphlet to be sent to\nall the principal papers of the United Kingdom. I have said all this at\nlength in order to dispel the idea that Mrs. Besant wished to bamboozle\nthe society or hush up charges of fraud. I know that it is asked why she\ndid not publish the whole of the evidence. If the official Enquiry had\nbeen proceeded with the evidence would have been published with its\nother proceedings. But Mrs. Besant felt, rightly or wrongly, that it\nwould be unfair of her to publish it without the defence, and this there\nwere no means of getting.\n\n\n The Unsatisfactory Position of the Society.\n\nBut now see the unsatisfactory position of the society. The most serious\ncharge possible had been made by its chief member against its second\nofficial, one of its founders, the tried and trusty friend of Madame\nBlavatsky. The charges were still hanging over his head, his members in\nAmerica thoroughly disbelieved them, the members in India as thoroughly\nbelieved them, and we in Europe did not know what to think. They had\nbeen neither proved nor disproved. Colonel Olcott was going back to\nIndia, Mr. Judge flitted back to America, and Mrs. Besant rushed off to\nAustralia to fulfil lecturing engagements made a year previously, and so\nfar as regards the society generally Mahomet\u2019s coffin was not in it for\n\u201cfloating.\u201d Those of us who really took the thing to heart held our\nhands. We fully recognised the gravity of the whole matter, but we\ndetermined to wait till Mrs. Besant\u2019s return before we moved, for\nwithout the evidence we were powerless. But we reckoned without our\nWESTMINSTER!\n\nIn concluding this article, I say frankly that THE WESTMINSTER has\nreally, although quite unconsciously, done Mr. Judge a good turn. I do\nnot for a moment flatter myself that Mr. Garrett wishes any good to\nTheosophy! The tone of his articles precludes that idea. But his attack\non Mr. Judge puts the latter in this position, that if he chooses he can\ndefend himself without any fear whatever of pledging the Theosophical\nSociety to one jot or tittle of dogma with regard to Mahatmas. He is\nattacked as a man, and as a man I sincerely hope that he will manfully\nand satisfactorily reply.\n\n HERBERT BURROWS.\n\n\n FROM MR. W. R. OLD, EX-OFFICIAL: \u201cA THOROUGH GRIP OF THE FACTS.\u201d\n\nSIR,\u2014As my name has been publicly mentioned by Mr. Mead, general\nsecretary of the European T.S., in connexion with the series of articles\n\u201cIsis Very Much Unveiled,\u201d I think it advisable to state my own position\nand attitude in the matter.\n\nThe writer of those articles has named me, quite correctly, as having\ntaken the first step in forcing an inquiry into the case against Mr.\nJudge. For this act of mine, I was suspended from my membership in the\nEsoteric Section, under the authority of the joint signatures of William\nQ. Judge and Annie Besant, Outer Heads of the E.S.T., and my name was\ndishonourably mentioned before the members of the E.S., among whom I\nnumbered many an old colleague and friend. The mandate somehow found its\nway into the public Press. However, there was one advantage. After her\nofficial action in suspending me from membership Mrs. Besant was, of\ncourse, bound to hear my justification. This happened at Adyar in the\nwinter of 1893. Mrs. Besant\u2019s first remark to me after reading the case\nand examining the documents was, \u201cYou were perfectly justified by the\nfacts before you.\u201d\n\n\n THE HEAD OFFICIALS PLEDGED TO PUBLISH THE FACTS.\n\nIn the presence of the president-founder Colonel Olcott, Mrs. Besant,\nCountess Wachtmeister, Mr. E. T. Sturdy, together with Mr. Edge and\nmyself, it was decided that the task of officially bringing the charges\nshould devolve upon Mrs. Besant, and that the whole of the evidence\nshould be published. Consequently, the documents were handed over to\nMrs. Besant for the purpose of drawing up her charges, and the president\nsent an official letter\u2014or, as Colonel Olcott now claims, a \u201cprivate\nletter\u201d in official form\u2014dated at Agra, February 12, 1894, to Mr. Judge\nas vice-president, in which he said (I re-quote from a circular issued\nby Mr. Judge, March 15, 1894):\u2014\u201cI place before you the following\noptions:\u2014\n\n 1. To retire from all offices held by you in the T.S., and leave me\n to make a merely general public explanation; or,\n\n 2. To have a Judicial Committee convened ... and make public the\n whole of the proceedings in detail.\n\n In either alternative, you will observe, a public explanation is\n found necessary: in the one case, general; in the other, to be full\n and covering all the details.\u201d\n\nIt was the second alternative which was adopted, with the abortive and\ndisingenuous result already known. But what of the \u201cfull publication of\nall the details\u201d? What of us Theosophists who had brought these charges\nagainst Mr. Judge? Were we not left in the position of persons who had\nbrought charges without proving them? The position was one which I felt\nto be intolerable. Mrs. Besant had the full evidence in her hands by\nwhich to justify all the charges she had engaged to bring against Mr.\nJudge, but for some reason best known to herself involved the whole\nsociety in countenancing a systematic attempt to bolster up a delusion\nby concealment of facts. Mrs. Besant was also in honour bound to publish\nthe facts, to all members of the society at least, since they were of a\nnature to vitally affect the beliefs of Theosophists the world over. She\nwas, in short, bound to give them the same publicity as her former\nprofessions of occult intercourse obtained.\n\n\n \u201cMORALLY BOUND TO GIVE PUBLICITY TO THE TRUTH.\u201d\n\nThe T.S. is an organised body with a wide system of propaganda, and has\ntaken the public into its confidence in cases where its special claims\nappear to have been supported by facts, and while the public are invited\nto join the society it is only right and honest that they should know\nwhat of those claims are true and what of those \u201cfacts\u201d have stood the\ntest of inquiry. This responsibility cannot be avoided, and as I have\npersonally been instrumental in the inquiry into these claims and facts,\nI am morally bound to give what publicity I can to the truth when\narrived at. To rectify what I believed to be a fatal policy on the part\nof those concerned with the charges against Mr. Judge, I resigned from\nall offices held by me in the T.S., and left myself free to speak openly\nof the matter whenever occasion presented itself. I do not believe that\na system of truth can be raised from a fabric of fraud. In the course of\nmy travels I met with my friend Mr. Garrett, to whom, upon inquiry, I\ngave the reasons of my resignation from official connexion with the\nsociety. He asked my permission to publish the facts. My reply was that\nalthough I could not unsay what I had said, I had not intended such\npublication as he contemplated, and doubted whether the case could be\nput forth with sufficient clearness and fairness by a \u201cPhilistine.\u201d I\nsoon found, however, that he had a thorough grip of the facts; and on\nhis representation, the truth of which I had to admit, that the society\nhad closed the inquiry, and would not open its journals to a full\ndiscussion of the evidence, I let him take his own course.\n\nCertain persons, who seem unable to conceive that a man may act on\nprinciple and without interested motives, have suggested that I was\nmoved by some petty personal grudge, or even by some pecuniary\ninducement. I repudiate both these insinuations as lies. My independent\naction in this matter has involved certain pecuniary sacrifices; I have\nin no way used it, and should scorn to use it, for pecuniary gain.\n\n\n MR. JUDGE AND MRS. BESANT.\n\nIt will, therefore, be clear to all members of the T.S. and the public\ngenerally that I am responsible for the facts occurring in Mr. Garrett\u2019s\narticles only so far as they apply to the charges against Mr. Judge, and\nfor these I have documentary evidence produced under a legal hand, and\nduly witnessed. With Mr. Garrett\u2019s method of presenting the facts I am\nby no means in sympathy. I do not lose sight of the fact that, however\nmistaken or misled many of the Theosophical Society may be, as regards\nthe traditional \u201cMahatmas\u201d and their supposed \u201ccommunications,\u201d they are\nnevertheless as sincere in their beliefs as many of their more orthodox\nfellows, and have as much right to respectful consideration. I regret\nparticularly that Mrs. Besant should have been placed in this awkward\npublic position by the present exposure. Her intention I believe to have\nbeen perfectly honest, but I think she made a fatal mistake in avoiding\nthe publication of the full facts, and in allowing the misconception to\nendure concerning her own and Mr. Judge\u2019s connexion with the Mahatmas.\n\n\n MME. BLAVATSKY AND THE MAHATMAS.\n\nOf Madame Blavatsky I speak as I knew her. At the time I made her\nacquaintance she had forsworn all \u201cphenomenalism,\u201d so that I never saw\nany occult phenomena at any time. I believe that _for her_ the Mahatmas\nexisted, and I believe she thought them to be embodied personalities.\nColonel Olcott has another theory, and others have their own.\nPersonally, I believe in the extensibility of human faculty, and in the\nexistence of an order of intelligences higher than our own, but I do not\nrequire that they are embodied or terrestrial in any sense of the word.\nFinally, I have been through the Theosophical Society with my eyes open,\nand for more than five years have been, officially and unofficially, as\nfully \u201cin the Theosophical Society\u201d as one can well be; and while I am\ncertain that many are fully convinced of the truth of their own beliefs\nin these matters, I am also fully assured that a large number are in the\nposition of persons self-deceived, who have unfortunately committed\nthemselves too far to review their position without almost disastrous\nconsequences to themselves and others. But that of which I have the\nfullest conviction and the greatest amount of presentable proof is the\nfact that no such thing as evidence of the existence (in an ordinary\nsense) of the Mahatmas, or of their connexion with the T.S. as a body or\nwith its members individually, is obtainable by a person pursuing\nordinary methods of investigation.\n\nFor those who are willing to found their beliefs upon the mere statement\nof another, without question of possible interestedness on the one hand,\nor self-deception on the other, the position is of course otherwise. For\nsuch persons _proofs_ have no value whatever, what they are pleased to\ncall their \u201cbeliefs\u201d and their \u201cknowledge\u201d being determined or\ndeterminable from the moment they sign away their independence of\njudgment and freedom of thought.\u2014Yours sincerely,\n\n WALTER R. OLD.\n\nP.S.\u2014One misstatement of fact appears in your issue of November 3. What\nMr. Garrett refers to as \u201cMadame Blavatsky\u2019s Rosicrucian signet-ring\u201d\nwas not a ring, but a jewel, used as a pendant. Also, the \u201cdark\ngentleman\u201d who delivered the two \u00a310 notes to Mr. Judge made his call\n(so we were told) in the early afternoon, not in \u201cthe evening\u201d as stated\nin Mr. Garrett\u2019s text. I am bound to add that, whatever may be my\nannoyance and regret at the tone of the articles and of some of the\ninferences, as regards that part of the evidence which is known to\nmyself, I have noticed so far no other substantial error of _fact_.\n\n * * * * *\n\n [These slight corrections have been made in this reprint.\u2014_F. E. G._]\n\n\n FROM MR. A. P. SINNETT: \u201cOCCULTISTS MAY NOT TELL FIBS.\u201d\n\nSIR,\u2014The circular bearing this title\u2014referred to in your leading columns\nyesterday\u2014was issued last July, and directly affects some questions you\nhave lately been discussing. Under the circumstances, I hope you will\nkindly consent to give it fuller publicity. It was addressed to students\nof Occultism, and ran as follows:\u2014\n\n The inevitable mystery which surrounds Occultism and the Occultist\n has given rise in the minds of many to a strange confusion between\n the duty of silence and the error of untruthfulness. There are many\n things that the Occultist may not divulge; but equally binding is\n the law that he may never speak untruth. And this obligation to\n Truth is not confined to speech; he may never think untruth, nor act\n untruth. A spurious Occultism dallies with truth and falsehood, and\n argues that deception on the illusory physical plane is consistent\n with purity on the loftier planes on which the Occultist has his\n true life; it speaks contemptuously of \u201cmere worldly morality\u201d\u2014a\n contempt that might be justified if it raised a higher standard, but\n which is out of place when the phrase is used to condone acts which\n the \u201cmere worldly morality\u201d would disdain to practise. The doctrine\n that the end justifies the means has proved in the past fruitful of\n all evil; no means that are impure can bring about an end that is\n good, else were the Good Law a dream and Karma a mere delusion. From\n these errors flows an influence mischievous to the whole\n Theosophical Society, undermining the stern and rigid morality\n necessary as a foundation for Occultism of the Right Hand Path.\n\n Finding that this false view of Occultism is spreading in the\n Theosophical Society, we desire to place on record our profound\n aversion to it, and our conviction that morality of the loftiest\n type must be striven after by every one who would tread in safety\n the difficult ways of the Occult World. Only by rigid truthfulness\n in thought, speech, and act on the planes on which works our waking\n consciousness, can the student hope to evolve the intuition which\n unerringly discerns between the true and the false in the\n supersensuous worlds, which recognises truth at sight and so\n preserves him from fatal risks in those at first confusing regions.\n To cloud the delicate sense of truth here is to keep it blind there;\n hence every teacher of Occultism has laid stress on truthfulness as\n the most necessary equipment of the would-be disciple. To quote a\n weighty utterance of a wise Indian disciple:\u2014\n\n \u201cNext in importance, or perhaps equal in value, to Devotion is\n TRUTH. It is simply impossible to over-estimate the efficacy of\n Truth in all its phases and bearings in helping the onward evolution\n of the human soul. We must love truth, seek truth, and live truth;\n and thus alone can the Divine Light which is Truth Sublime be seen\n by the student of Occultism. When there is the slightest leaning\n towards falsehood in any shape, there is shadow and ignorance, and\n their child, pain. This leaning towards falsehood belongs to the\n lower personality without doubt. It is here that our interests\n clash, it is here the struggle for existence is in full swing, and\n it is therefore here that cowardice and dishonesty and fraud find\n any scope. The \u2018signs and symptoms\u2019 of the operations of this lower\n self can never remain concealed from one who sincerely loves truth\n and seeks truth.\u201d\n\n To understand oneself, and so escape self-deception, Truth must be\n practised; thus only can be avoided the dangers of the \u201cconscious\n and unconscious deception\u201d against which a Master warned his pupils\n in 1885.\n\n Virtue is the foundation of White Occultism; the P\u00e0ramit\u00e0s, six and\n ten, the transcendental virtues, must be mastered, and each of the\n Seven Portals on the Path is a virtue, which the Disciple must make\n his own. Out of the soil of pure morality alone can grow the sacred\n flower which blossoms at length into Arhatship, and those who aspire\n to the blooming of the flower must begin by preparing the soil.\n\n H. S. OLCOTT, A. P. SINNETT, ANNIE BESANT, BERTRAM KEIGHTLEY, W.\n WYNN WESTCOTT, E. T. STURDY, C. W. LEADBEATER.\n\nI do not propose to discuss the merits of the case against Mr. Judge,\nbut we who signed this paper\u2014without prejudging in their personal aspect\naccusations which it had then been found impossible to thresh out\nthoroughly\u2014conceived it desirable to remind all fellow-students of\nOccultism that no beneficial results along that path could possibly be\nattained except by a course of life which, whatever else it might be,\nshould be strictly in harmony with the dictates of ordinary morality.\n\nThe Theosophical Society has grown in a few years to such extraordinary\nproportions, and is so loosely jointed, that it cannot be correctly\nthought of as a homogeneous association all parts of which are equally\nrepresented by the officers nominally at its head. But it ought at this\ncrisis to be generally understood that the many persons of culture and\nearnest purpose to whom spiritual progress along the original lines of\nTheosophic teaching is the main object of existence are guided by\nevidence concerning the possibilities of their higher evolution that is\nof a kind utterly unlike that which you not unreasonably discredit. A\ngreat block of such evidence is in our possession concerning not merely\nthe existence but also the attributes of the great initiates, and to\nthose of us in a position to appreciate this the foundations of\nTheosophic knowledge are quite unshaken by such incidents as those on\nwhich you have been commenting.\u2014I am, Sir, yours, &c.,\n\n A. P. SINNETT.\n\n November 17.\n\n\n WHOM DID THE CIRCULAR REFER TO\n\n [In reference to the subject of Mr. Sinnett\u2019s letter, the following\n is an extract from the _Westminster Gazette_ under the\n heading;\u2014\u201cMore Theosophistry: A Belated Piece of Bluff.\u201d]\n\nIn the current number of the _Review of Reviews_ a letter appears signed\nby the Dr. Keightley who lately wrote to THE WESTMINSTER GAZETTE as a\nprofessed representative of Mr. W. Q. Judge, Vice-President of the\nTheosophical Society. The letter is worthy of some attention as an\nillustration of the tactics of Mr. Judge\u2019s friends, and of the line\nwhich they were taking towards any allusion in the Press to certain\nevents before the appearance of the recent exposure in this journal.\n\nThe letter is dated October 25, and was therefore written at the time\nwhen the Theosophists still hoped to maintain the great \u201chush up\u201d\ninaugurated at the Convention of last July, and before they dreamed that\nall London would presently be discussing the facts which had been so\nindustriously buried.\n\nThe occasion of the letter appears to have been a comment of Mr. Stead\u2019s\nin the last number of the _Review_ on a circular lately issued under the\ntitle of \u201cOccultism and Truth.\u201d This circular was issued just after the\nso-called \u201cEnquiry into Certain Charges against the Vice-President,\u201d and\n(to this office, at any rate) it was enclosed under one cover with the\npamphlet report of that \u201cEnquiry.\u201d The substance of it is an assurance\nto the Theosophical world, on the part of some prominent Theosophists,\nthat occultists have no more right than ordinary people to fib. Coming\nat the time when it did, and signed as it was by all the principal\nofficial Theosophists, with the one exception of the vice-president, the\nEditor of the _Review of Reviews_ very naturally interpreted it as\nhaving some connexion with the charges against the last-named gentleman,\nand with what his colleagues evidently felt to be their apparent\ncondonation of the \u201coccult methods\u201d ascribed to him.\n\nThe following is the substantial passage in the letter thereupon\naddressed to the _Review of Reviews_ by Mr. Judge\u2019s representatives:\u2014\n\n Allow us to make a very necessary correction.... Mrs. Besant, who\n originated the circular, was asked directly whether it was connected\n with the charges or whether it was in any way aimed at Mr. Judge.\n She gave an emphatic denial to both questions to many who took the\n same view expressed by you.\n\n Another fact is not generally known, and leads people\u2014yourself among\n others\u2014into unconsciously committing an injustice. The charges\n against Mr. Judge were never substantiated, and the committee\n appointed to inquire into them declared that they were illegally\n laid.\n\n(The letter then concludes with a high tribute to Mr. Judge\u2019s character\nfor truthfulness and every other virtue.)\n\nNow, as regards the statement about the intention of the Circular, we\nwill only say that one co-signatory of it at least has committed himself\nto the precise view of it which this letter denies. Nor is it obvious\nwhy the heads of any society should issue a round robin to say it is\nnaughty to tell taradiddles, unless some current reference were intended\nto the affairs of the society.\n\nBesides this, however, there is unmistakably conveyed the impression\nthat Mr. Judge\u2019s accusers failed to substantiate their case, and that\nthere was something actually \u201cillegal,\u201d in the ordinary sense of the\nword, about some part of their conduct.\n\nAs readers of \u201cIsis Very Much Unveiled\u201d are aware, both these things are\nabsolutely untrue. The simple fact was that, owing to the objections\nraised by Mr. Judge, no opportunity was given for the charges to be\neither substantiated or the reverse; while the only justification for\nthe statement that they were \u201cillegally laid\u201d is such as can be squeezed\nout of the fact that the Theosophical Pickwickians were persuaded by Mr.\nJudge that inquiry was forbidden by the constitution of their society.\n\nIt only remains to add, to complete the disingenuousness of this very\nTheosophistical letter, that its signatories authenticate its statements\nby flaunting the title of \u201cMembers of the Committee of Investigation\u201d;\nthe committee referred to being the one which met only to decide that it\ncould not investigate, and the members of it as such having no knowledge\nwhatever of the evidence either on one side or the other!\n\n\n\n\n III.\u2014LETTERS FROM MINOR OFFICIALS AND PRIVATE MEMBERS.\n\n\n What matters \u201cTruth or Falsehood?\u201d\n\nSIR,\u2014My husband and myself are two of the officials in one of the local\nbranches of the Theosophical Society. I write in his name and my own to\nsay that we have read with some interest your voluminous attack on the\npersonal characters of some of our leading members.\n\nWe were also amused by the ingenuous surprise of your reporter, that the\nBlavatsky Lodge meeting in London, which he attended, was spent in\nphilosophic study, not in the discussion of psychic phenomena or of the\npersonal characters of members.\n\nYou say (Chapter II.):\u2014\u201cThis society as such must stand or fall with its\nMahatmas.\u201d This is not so. The Theosophical Society is entirely neutral\non the question of the existence or non-existence of such beings, and\nthe reason why the charges, of which you have published a more or less\ncorrect statement, were not gone into by the authorities of the T.S.\nwas, that to have done so would have entailed an infringement of that\nneutrality.\n\nThe question whether Mrs. Besant was misled when she made the statement\nat the Secular Hall in 1891 has been answered by her own clear\nwithdrawal of that statement.\n\nThe question as to Mr. Judge is entirely one as to his own truth or\nfalsehood, and may be well left to him to answer or not. It is not\nnecessary for the public or for the members of the Theosophic Society to\njudge him.\u2014Faithfully yours,\n\n SARAH CORBETT.\n\n Manchester, November 6.\n\n\n A Protest against \u201cCondoning.\u201d\n\nSIR,\u2014Having read the revelations your correspondent has been pleased to\ngive to the public, and _presuming them to be correct_, it seems to me\nthat there are now three parties at fault in place of two as I had\nsupposed, viz., Mr. Judge for imposing (whether consciously as a\ndeceiver or unconsciously) as a medium obsessed by a spirit of ambition\nand the communicator of the facts (if a member of the inner circle) for\nbreaking his solemn pledge not to reveal or betray the affairs of that\ncircle. The recent correspondence now adds others as condoning the\noffence of Mr. Judge\u2014and all this has come from the love of pre-eminence\nand the mere dabbling (child\u2019s play) with the occult. Clearly, if the\noffence was proved, the officers of the society were bound in truth and\nhonour to expel the offender, and all would then have been clear and\nstraight. My advice to the society would be to stick to their programme,\nwhich is a highly laudable one, and let no word from an invisible and\nunknown be taken as of any external value, but judged only by its\ninternal worth.\n\nThe society, it seems to me, can no longer pretend to condemn the\ncommunication with Spirits as a dangerous thing, nor cry out against the\noccasional frauds of mediums, in conscious or unconscious state, seeing\nhow heavily they have fallen into the same snare, nor can they point the\nfinger to frauds or delusions in other bodies whether Catholic or\nnon-Catholic. A greater strictness and more uniform abstinence from\nflesh-eating and tobacco, as well as alcohol (which last they eschew)\nshould be enjoined on all its members by their authorised officers, and\ntheir own three objects steadily pursued\u2014separating from the third _all\nspurious imitations_ of magical wonders; and, above all, the spirit of\ntruth which accepts nothing on this or that authority without careful\nverification should be cultivated. A want of bravery to do the right, to\ntell the truth, and face the consequences, is the only thing that can be\nlaid to the charge of the presiding officers of the Indian and English\nsections. Are all societies and Churches free from this? Has not a\nnatural tenderness from long friendship, and sympathy in noble and\nuseful work, been often the cause of much to be deplored? And in this\ninstance, is not such over-tenderness of noble, unsuspicious, and\nhonourable souls, worthy rather of regret than of too severe\ncensure.\u2014Yours,\n\n A THEOSOPHIST.\n\n\n \u201cAbandon the T.S. in Disgust.\u201d\n\nSIR,\u2014I see Mr. Mead is reported as saying that \u201cwhat the articles [in\nTHE WESTMINSTER GAZETTE] would do, if they did anything, was to sift the\nsociety of those who had simply joined for the sake of the marvellous.\u201d\n\nThis remark shows the same utter oblivion of the appreciation of truth\nthat has unhappily shown itself in the society\u2019s record before. It is\nnot a question of phenomena; it is one of good faith; and if this is the\nline taken, not the phenomena-hunters merely, but seekers for truth and\nrespecters of it, who expected to find it in the Theosophical Society,\nwill abandon that body in disgust.\n\nMr. Mead continues:\u2014\u201cTheosophists could no more divulge secrets without\nviolating every sense of honour than a Mason could.\u201d\n\nTo compare the Theosophical Society, as at present constituted, with an\nhonourable body like the Masons, is an insult to the latter,\ngoose-guzzling and luxuriant as they may have tended to become in these\nlatter days.\n\nThere is a profound difference between hiding secrets, which are\nentrusted to one, and which concern certain (perhaps) important facts in\nthe nature of man, and taking part in proceedings to gull a number of\nfellow-students and the outside public. This is practically what has\nbeen done before, and the dissatisfied either disappeared altogether or\nwere well howled at as traitors to \u201cthe cause,\u201d whereas, in verity, they\nwere doing their best for the disowned cause of truth; or, again, they\nwere coerced by the solemn warning of \u201cyour pledge, take care of your\npledge,\u201d and thereby intimidated from seeing that they were making\nthemselves parties to a continuous misrepresentation of facts and a\ndeliberate fraud upon their less-informed fellow-members, not to mention\nthe public. \u201cWhat have our troubles to do with the public?\u201d has been the\nquestion. I reply, \u201cEverything,\u201d for it is to the public that constant\nappeal is made and amongst its ranks that proselytes are sought.\n\nNothing has, so far, been exposed in these articles that any\nright-thinking truth-seeker would wish to have cloaked. The public are\nnot being made acquainted with any arcane wisdom; but if one-third of\nthe statements made in THE WESTMINSTER GAZETTE are supported by\ndocumentary and other evidence, then the world certainly ought to be\nwarned against a society that takes as its motto, \u201cThere is no religion\nhigher than TRUTH\u201d and forthwith allows its leading members to play such\nantics and engage in such grotesque jugglery without bringing them\nsternly to book. As for continuing to work with these people in the\nestablishment of a \u201cuniversal brotherhood,\u201d rather will it become a\nuniversal imposture to expose which were a service to the glorious old\nWisdom of the Venerable East, which it dishonoured by its sham Mahatmas.\n\nThose who are publishing the facts, if facts they be, are doing a\nservice to the cause of truth, and should have the thanks and gratitude\nof all of us in the Theosophical Society whose motive in being there is\nto seek TRUTH, and to combat error and fraud in religion, mysticism, or\nanything else.\u2014I am, &c.,\n\n A FELLOW OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY AND\n MEMBER OF THE E.S.T.\n\n\n \u201cIt all comes of not Sticking to Vegetables.\u201d\n\nSIR,\u2014With every word of Brother Old\u2019s letter of to-day\u2019s issue I beg to\nexpress my fullest sympathy. I deprecate the tone of the \u201crevelations,\u201d\nbut of the necessity of making the public fully acquainted with the\nfacts I have not the least doubt. As to the existence of \u201cMahatmas,\u201d I\ncan only say I _do_ believe in the existence on this earth of a higher\norder of beings who, by total abstinence from and abhorrence of\nflesh-eating, alcohol, and tobacco, and other evil and impure customs,\nand by adherence to a fixed rule of life, retiring early and early\nrising, with daily ablutions, and by certain studies and training of\nbody and mind, have acquired certain attributes and powers so far in\nadvance of ordinary human beings as to be regarded by them as\nmiraculous. Of this I have had evidence, not from Theosophists, but from\npersonal friends resident in India before ever they heard of the name of\nTheosophy. Whether any of these have anything to do in the direction of\nthe Theosophical Society is quite another matter. There is Theosophy and\nTheosophy, and one of these I would rather term \u201cTheophilosophy,\u201d\n_i.e._, \u201cthe love and wisdom of God,\u201d or \u201clove and wisdom religion\u201d\u2014and\nnot wisdom only as is implied in the term \u201cTheosophy.\u201d Readers of \u201cThe\nPerfect Way\u201d and its companion volume, \u201cClothed with the Sun,\u201d by that\nnoble woman Anna Kingsford and her colleague, will know what I mean.\nNow, what about the future of the Theosophical Society? I believe its\nofficers may fall, but its work must endure. No doubt of that. The\nfounders have had their weaknesses and foibles like other mortals, but I\nhope none will ever forget the gratitude they owe to Madame Blavatsky,\nespecially to the blessings she has conferred in founding the\nTheosophical Society and giving through its means to all hungry and\nthirsty souls such priceless stores of knowledge and suggestive thought\n(from the Oriental religions and philosophies which have made such deep\nimpress on the millions of the East) as are contained in the grand\nvolumes of \u201cThe Secret Doctrine,\u201d with its index and glossary, and her\nother publications. None can read these volumes, but must ask\nthemselves, What manner of woman must she have been who devoted so many\nlong years of labour, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily, in their production,\nand that amidst incredible difficulties and opposition and worry? Nor\nmust we forget the debt that we owe to Colonel Olcott and Madame Besant\nfor having made this knowledge accessible to all minds and conditions by\ntheir lectures and booklets.\n\nWhat can be more noble than the promotion of universal brotherhood\nirrespective of sex, colour, caste, or creed, united in the study of the\nancient religions of East and West, and of all that pertains to the\nhidden powers in man, and their development for the good of the race?\nBut these last, I say again, will not be attained in purity but by\nprayer, and abstinence from flesh meal, alcohol, and tobacco, and other\nevil customs of society, and the disuse of all things gotten by cruelty\nto, or oppression of, our fellow-creatures the lower animals, and by\npure surroundings.\u2014Yours,\n\n I. G. OUSELEY, O.G.A. and F.T.S.\n\n Evelyn-terrace, Brighton,\n November 9.\n\n\n \u201cFolly and Fraud: but of such is the Kingdom.\u201d\n\nSIR,\u2014No one should blame you, or resent the publication of the facts.\n_Truth_ is the first consideration, and though we who have interested\nourselves in the philosophy promulgated by the society may bitterly\nregret that folly and fraud are to be found within its fold\u2014as\nelsewhere\u2014yet we can rest assured that whatever there is in this\nphilosophy which appeals to the enlightened intelligence of mankind will\nremain when the superstructure raised by designing intriguers or unwise\nenthusiasts shall have crumbled away. It is in consequence of this\nbelief that the writer, with others in the society, can read with\ncalmness, and not without some sense of amusement, this unpleasant\ndisclosure; not doubting but that a great deal of it is true, and that\nall may be so; and while feeling unmixed contempt for the \u201cinformer,\u201d\ncan acknowledge that any editor is well within his rights, and a public\nbenefactor, when exposing fraud wherever it is found.\n\nWould that this feature were more pronounced in journalism generally,\nand not indulged in only when such exposures fall in with public\nprejudice!\n\nFor several years the writer of this letter has been absent from the\nAvenue-road centre: among other reasons, from a feeling of disapproval\nof certain follies which may be called incipient relic worship, and\nwhich no sensible person could tolerate for long. So it will be seen\nthat all Theosophists have not fallen under the spell of Mrs. Besant\u2019s\nrash enthusiasm, which has done, and is doing, so much to discredit her,\nnow as heretofore, in the eyes of the world. Yet, in spite of her\nindiscrimination and lack of sound judgment, which has alienated many,\nthe writer would rather stand in the pillory of public opprobrium with\nher than sit at a banquet with the \u201cinformer\u201d and those who can rejoice\nover the failings of a beautiful soul. For it may be said of her, and a\nfew others, \u201cOf such is the Kingdom of Heaven.\u201d That there is to be\nfound even one of these among Theosophists may lead a few to suspect\nthat there is something more in Theosophy than can be discovered in your\narticles, and that, though fraud should be proved, there may\nnevertheless be real occultists and true phenomena. Thus, what at first\nsight appears a serious blow to our cause will perhaps induce further\ninquiry among your readers, while doing useful work in destroying errors\nand growing superstition.\n\n F. T. S.\n\n\n\n\n PART III.\n\n\n\n\n LAST SHREDS OF THE VEIL OF ISIS.\n\n\n A REVIEW OF SOME THEOSOPHISTRIES.\n\nAs yet, \u201cIsis Very Much Unveiled\u201d remains very much unanswered. The\noracles are dumb. \u201cNo Dolphin rose, no Nereid stirred\u201d; no Mahatma\n\u201cprecipitated\u201d a reply (as one of them did with such edifying results in\nthe case of the Kiddle plagiarism), nor disintegrated by psychic force\nthe damaging documents in my possession; Mrs. Besant, whose \u201castral\nbody\u201d has flitted across oceans to visit Mr. Herbert Burrows \u201con\npre-arranged evenings,\u201d gave no sign from Australia; Colonel Olcott,\npresident, in India, disdained the more commonplace agency of the cable;\nand Mr. William Q. Judge, vice-president, whose official adytum is but\nfive days away at New York, neglected to avail himself of the ordinary\npost, whatever he may have done about the astral one.\n\nMoreover, accustomed as are all these three officials to scouring the\nearth, with all expenses paid, no intimation has been made public as to\nthe date when we may expect to receive anyone of them back from the\nvarious regions to which they sped immediately after launching the\nreport of their peculiar \u201cEnquiry.\u201d Their colleagues in England continue\nto speak as if a trip to New York carried one to the bourn from which no\ntraveller returns.\n\nBut what of these colleagues themselves? Where is the \u201cVoice of the\nSilence\u201d of Avenue-road, St. John\u2019s Wood? At point after point, the\nStory of the Great Mahatma Hoax touched matters to which one or other or\nall of them must have been privy. It told of missives which they had\naccepted as genuine, orders which they had acted upon, decisions in\nwhich they had agreed, fact after fact of which they had full\ncognisance. When Mr. Mead, the European secretary, gave out that he did\nnot reply because he was not attacked, I did my best to oblige him; I\nbegan at the beginning, and challenged him at once as having been\npresent and taken part in the \u201cJudge\u2019s-plan-is-right\u201d decision; and I\nadded that when he had denied my version of that I would supply him with\nfurther matter for denial. Whereupon the discreet European secretary\nsubsided altogether.\n\n\n The \u201cSacred Oath\u201d Humbug.\n\nOf course, some excuse had to be offered, and we have been told that\nwhat happens at meetings of the Esoteric Section is sacredly secret.\nNow, first, that only covers a small part of my story, some of which\ndealt with circumstances surrounding official acts of the society or its\nthree sections. Secondly, the excuse is eminently one that accuses, by\nimplying that what I say happened at those meetings _did_ happen; for\npresumably members take no oath to keep secret what does _not_ occur?\nBut, thirdly, this alleged secrecy is a mere pretext; else how could\nMrs. Besant publicly refer on platforms to \u201csupernatural\u201d experiences at\nthose meetings; and Messrs. Old and Edge (the latter to this day holding\noffice) raise questions about one such matter in print in Colonel\nOlcott\u2019s journal; and Mrs. Besant, the Colonel, and a full council of\nofficials notify Mr. Judge that in a certain eventuality (which did\nafterwards occur) they would make a \u201c_full publication covering all the\ndetails_\u201d of that matter, and others concerning the sacred Mahatma\nmessages?\n\nWhatever may be the \u201cquasi-Masonic oath\u201d of which we now hear, _they_\nevidently held that it did not bind them to conceal, with their eyes\nopen, a fraud upon their fellow-members; and those who do so interpret\nit only throw a very suggestive light on their own action in willingly\ntaking such an oath. Was Mrs. Besant quite right when she gave the\npublic what she confesses was a \u201cmisleading account\u201d of these secrets,\nand only in the wrong when, along with Colonel Olcott and the rest, she\nproposed to give what she now knew to be the correct one? Is the\nposition that a Theosophist may \u201ctell\u201d\u2014anything he likes, except the\ntruth?\n\n\n A Survey of the Present Situation.\n\nThe absence of Colonel Olcott and Mrs. Besant does not alter the fact\nthat he with others made, and she publicly adopted, certain charges\nagainst Mr. Judge, vice-president. And the silence of their colleagues\nin England does not disguise the fact that my account of the details has\nnot been challenged as to one single event, letter, or facsimile. The\npublished \u201cReport of an Enquiry\u201d cries aloud for some explanation: the\nexplanation of \u201cIsis Very Much Unveiled\u201d holds the field untouched. It\nleaves the vice-president only able to exculpate himself, if at all, by\nfurther inculpating them. The \u201cfull rebuttal evidence held in reserve,\u201d\ntherefore, at which his professed representative in England hints, can\nbe formidable only to the Theosophical Society, not to its critics. I am\nbound to say, however, that if the would-be impressive fragments of it\nwhich have been privately adumbrated to me are fair samples of the rest,\nit is not calculated to be formidable to anybody. When the \u201caffidavits\u201d\nhinted at have been published, or otherwise submitted to examination, I\ncan promise them all the attention they deserve. To say that any\naffidavit, until cross-examined upon, is worth exactly as much as the\npaper it is written on would be an uncalled-for slight upon the\npaper-maker.\n\n\n The Excommunication of \u201cBrother Old.\u201d\n\nA word or two about the attempt to create a diversion by attacking the\ncharacter of the one Theosophical official who has had the honesty to\nresign office rather than shut his eyes to a fraud on the public. The\nattack on Mr. Old cannot in any case discredit the story I have\nnarrated. First, because the largest and most important part of that\nstory is from the undenied written evidence of persons still holding\noffice in the society, and especially of its \u201cPresident-Founder.\u201d\nSecondly, because, even as regards Mr. Old\u2019s part, the character of a\nwitness is only a relevant consideration where the truth of his\ntestimony is disputed. What I am now about to say is said, therefore,\nmerely in justice to Mr. Old himself. The attack on him has two lines.\nIt is said that he had to perjure himself to give any information\nwhatever. It is hinted that what information he did give was given for\nmoney. The former charge turns entirely on the \u201csacred oath\u201d humbug,\nwhich I have discussed already. As to the latter, it is true to my\nknowledge that for the part he has taken in fulfilling what he regards\nas a public duty to truth, Mr. Old neither asked nor received any\nconsideration whatever. My own acquaintance with Mr. Old began in an odd\nway, not without bearing on the question of his sincerity. At the time\nof the Salvation Army riots at Eastbourne, a gallant old Englishman, who\ncould not bear that women, under any provocation, should be publicly\nassaulted in English streets, went down there to stand up for the\n\u201cHallelujah lasses.\u201d He asked, through the _Pall Mall Gazette_, for five\nhundred Englishmen to help. He got five. This Quixotic gentleman, this\nmodern Sieur de Marsac, was my friend Mr. Charles Money, of Petersfield.\nI went myself to see that he did not get his head broken more than was\nnecessary. His company, as seedy a lot of knights-errant as ever I saw,\nconsisted mainly of Cockney journalists who did not believe in God. But\none\u2014a spruce, slight youth\u2014declared himself a Theosophist. The\nadventurers spouted to a yelling mob, got off with whole skins, and by\ntestimony of the local police actually achieved their end. But Mr. Money\nand one other were knocked about a bit in the crowd. That other\u2014he\nquitted himself like a man\u2014was Mr. W. R. Old, Theosophist. I may be\nwrong: it was but a street row; but I regard that as a more practical\nservice on Mr. Old\u2019s part to the \u201cUniversal Brotherhood of Humanity\u201d\nthan all the hundredweights of vapid moralising on the subject ever\nvomited from \u201cThe H.P.B. Press.\u201d\n\n\n Stewing in the Judge Juice.\n\nExcept Mr. Old, one prominent Theosophist, and one alone, has so far\npublicly faced the facts. Mr. Herbert Burrows has had the honesty and\nthe courage to say out that this thing must be answered by Mr. Judge,\nand fully, or he for one will quit the society. Mr. Burrows forgets that\nothers besides Mr. Judge have made themselves answerable. Other\ncorrespondents, again, represented other factions, and showed how the\nsociety is seething with distrust and shame. But the mass of the letters\nonly serve to prove that, whatever else the \u201coccult powers\u201d of the\nTheosophists may be, they do not include a command either of plain\nEnglish or of straight argument. If \u201cIsis\u201d does not yet stand before us\nabsolutely like Hans Breitmann\u2019s \u201cmaiden mit nodings on,\u201d it is a\npainfully thin fabric of Theosophistries which alone shelters her from\nthe cold wind of public contempt. Let us examine it.\n\n\n The Theosophistry about Proving a Negative.\n\n\u201c_After all, you have not proved that Mahatmas do not exist, nor that\noccult phenomena cannot occur._\u201d\n\nCertainly I have not, nor did I ever propose to try. I am quite prepared\nto believe in both when evidence for them has been produced, and has\nstood the test of such ordinary evidential canons as have been applied\nto kindred subjects\u2014for instance, by the Psychical Research Society. All\nthat I have said is that certain evidence on which the Theosophical\nSociety has been building proves nothing whatever, except the existence\nof a hotbed of humbug within the society itself. As for the Mahatmas,\nthere is no difficulty about conceiving that illiterate, twaddling, and\nmendacious beings of a second-rate order of intelligence, such as those\nreflected in the \u201cmissives\u201d which I have reproduced, may exist in Tibet\nas they unhappily do elsewhere. But when we are told that these beings\nhave acquired powers which rise superior to time and space, and that\nthey use these for communicating \u201cin a quasi-miraculous manner\u201d with the\nTheosophical Society, we ask for facts; and we get\u2014such facts as were\ninvestigated by Dr. Hodgson and his colleagues, and such facts as have\nbeen exposed in \u201cIsis Very Much Unveiled.\u201d What else is there? One\nTheosophist directs me to \u201cour literature on the subject, which is\ncopious.\u201d I don\u2019t doubt it; but it is not \u201cliterature\u201d that I am in\nsearch of. Another declares \u201cit does not all depend on Madame Blavatsky\nand Mr. Judge; others have seen Mahatmas.\u201d It seems that Mrs. Besant has\nbeen telling her Australian audiences that she herself has been so\nfavoured (just as she told the Hall of Science audience that she had\nbeen favoured with supernatural missives). Well, how did Mrs. Besant\nknow her Mahatma? By his \u201cportrait,\u201d I suppose, as others have done. And\nhow was that portrait produced? When Madame Blavatsky began to spell\nspiritualism \u201cTheosophy,\u201d and turned her \u201cspirit-control\u201d \u201cJohn King,\u201d\nof whom Colonel Olcott tells, into Master Koot Hoomi\u2014whom she again\nsubordinated, after the Kiddle exposure, to Mahatma Morya, whom she, in\nturn, after the S.P.R. Report, left over for exploitation by Mr.\nJudge\u2014when Madame started the Mahatma on this chequered career, it was\none of her earliest steps to secure a counterfeit presentment of her\ncreation. Various artists and amateurs were set to paint portraits under\noccult inspiration. The results may all have resembled the Protean\nMahatma; some of them were strikingly unlike each other. The two best\nwere done by Mr. Schmiechen, now a society portrait-painter, partly out\nof his head, partly from directions given by Madame, and partly from a\nphotograph of a typical Hindu which she gave him for the purpose. Madame\nidentified one as Koot and the other as Morya, and declared they were\nspeaking likenesses\u2014an opinion which nobody else was in a position to\ncontradict. They hang to-day in the \u201cOccult Room\u201d at Adyar, and are\ndeclared to have been painted from the respective \u201castral bodies\u201d of\ntheir subjects. Colonel Olcott, president, who knows their origin\nperfectly well, exhibits them reverently to barefoot disciples doing\n\u201cpuja.\u201d Photographs from the fancy portrait of \u201cM,\u201d in locked cases,\nhave been distributed to the Esoteric few; Mrs. Besant always works with\none facing her; Madame Blavatsky made it part of a _chela\u2019s_ course to\nspend some time daily staring at the image, and deliberately trying to\n\u201cvisualise\u201d it in corners of the room. What wonder if some of them have\nsucceeded? It would have been contrary to all experience of the\nphenomena of self-hypnotic hallucination if they had not. The thing only\nbegins to call for examination when the figure thus \u201cvisualised\u201d leaves\nsomething not entirely psychic behind him. The Master who left a shower\nof roses once at Adyar turned out to have been M. Coulomb, eked out with\na mask, a bladder, and some white muslin; and the roses were traced\nelsewhere than to Tibet. And the Master who precipitated the Judge\nmissives?\u2014\u2014But perhaps the Theosophists would prefer not to put him\nforward. When they have something better, I shall be glad to hear of it.\n\n\n The Theosophistry of Throwing Over the Mahatmas.\n\n\u201c_What matter even if the Mahatmas do not exist, and the phenomena are\nfrauds? There still remain those sublime ideas which_,\u201d &c., &c.\n\nI was quite prepared for this particular Theosophistry. That was why I\nstarted, at the very beginning of my story (Chapter II.), by showing\nwhat an enormous practical part the Mahatmas and their miracles have\nplayed in the movement. It is easy for this Theosophist or that to\nprotest that they never attracted _him_. The fact remains that the big\naccessions to the society\u2019s numbers have always followed on the miracle\n\u201cbooms,\u201d alike under Madame Blavatsky and under Mrs. Besant. Moreover,\nit is not possible, even argumentatively, to dissociate \u201cthose sublime\nideas,\u201d &c., from the Mahatmas on whose authority Madame Blavatsky gave\nthem out. If she spoke truth, they were the real authors of \u201cIsis Very\nMuch Unveiled\u201d and of \u201cThe Secret Doctrine.\u201d If she lied, and the\nauthority for those teachings is her own, what is that lying authority\nworth? I need not labour the point, as it was conclusively proved long\nago by Mrs. Besant herself. In an article in _Lucifer_ of December,\n1890, addressed apparently to certain Theosophical schismatics who\nshowed a tendency to throw over alike their foundress and her \u201cMasters,\u201d\nMrs. Besant accomplished the easy task of showing that the society was\ntied hand and foot to both. It was founded by _Her_ at the bidding of\n\u201c_Them_\u201d; They have been the _deus ex machin\u00e2_ whenever She was in a\nfix, and the society has so accepted Them. It can be \u201cneutral\u201d about\nThem, and Their miracles, and Their prophetess, only when an heir is\nneutral about his own title-deeds. As Mrs. Besant puts it in a nutshell:\n\u201cIf there are no Masters, then the Theosophical Society is an\nabsurdity.\u201d\n\n\n The Theosophistry of Throwing Over the \u201cInner Group.\u201d\n\n\u201c_The Esoteric Section is a private body, not officially connected with\nthe Theosophical Society; so the Society is not responsible for\nmiracle-mongering in the Section._\u201d\n\nThe so-called Esoteric Section or E.S.T. (\u201cEastern School of\nTheosophy\u201d), of which the High-priesters and the Vice-President are now\nquarrelling for the headship, and, in the words of the latter official,\n\u201cthe core of the Theosophical Society.\u201d The Inner Group, again, is the\ncore of the E.S.T. Both were the special creation of the Society\u2019s\nfoundress. The Group was to contain her top pupils. The members of the\ngroup are almost to a man officials of the Society, living at the\nSociety\u2019s expense. With the one exception of Colonel Olcott, practically\nall the high panjandrums are included in it. Lastly, if it has been the\ncentre of the Mahatma communications, it is a centre that has radiated\nthem in all directions to the society\u2019s circumference. The plop of a\nmissive sends a ripple from the Inner Group to the Esoteric Section,\nfrom the Esoteric Section to the society at large, and from the society\nto the public.\n\nWell, the yolk of an egg is not officially connected with the outer\nportion; but when the yolk is bad, we call it a rotten egg without\nfurther parley.\n\n\n The Theosophistry of Throwing Over the Society\u2019s Personnel.\n\nBut that brings me to the most barefaced Theosophistry of all: \u201c_Even if\nall our officials be proved to have lied and cheated, there still\nremains untouched their grand ethical teaching!_\u201d\n\nI simply state this, and leave it. Like the coster when his barrow broke\ndown, \u201cFriends, I ain\u2019t ekal to it.\u201d I cannot do justice to such\ncolossal impudence. \u201cTruth survives all attacks\u201d; she does; she will\neven survive Theosophical defences. \u201cThe noble religions and\nphilosophies of the East exist\u201d; they do, as they did long centuries\nbefore the Theosophical Society was heard of, and will do long centuries\nafter it has been forgotten. But when Mahatmas, and miracles, and the\nfounders, and the officials, and the official acts of the Theosophical\nSociety are all thrown over\u2014What remains of the society? \u201cWe have\nabsolutely no creed,\u201d the European secretary told an interviewer the\nother day\u2014(all unfettered by the fact that he distributes broadcast Mrs.\nBesant\u2019s \u201cIntroduction to Theosophy\u201d with a complete pseudo-Buddhistic\ncosmology about the Seven Planes, &c., authenticated by direct reference\nto the Masters, and particularising, for instance, that \u201cDevachan\u201d lasts\n\u201cfor average persons some fifteen centuries\u201d!)\u2014\u201cAbsolutely no creed.\u201d\n\u201cYou would simply call yours a moral or religious society, then?\u201d asked\nthe puzzled interviewer. To which Mr. Mead na\u00efvely replies, \u201c_I don\u2019t\nexactly know what you would call it_.\u201d\u2014(_Sunday Times_, Nov. 11.)\n\nSince scholarship has opened the stores of the East to Western culture,\nthere has been a natural awakening of popular interest in Eastern\ndirections. While that lasts, people discussing each other\u2019s souls will\ncontinue to sprinkle their remarks, harmlessly enough, with those\nmingled jargons which make a true Orientalist smile. If \u201cTheosophy\u201d\nmeans that, \u201cTheosophy\u201d has certainly some life before it; but as for\nthe Theosophical _Society_\u2014\u201cwhy cumbereth it the ground?\u201d It is an\norganised machine for taking in the Honest Enthusiast at one end,\npassing him through the stages of the Willing Dupe and the Conscientious\nHumbug, and turning him out at the other end at worst a conscious fraud,\nat best a dreary and disillusioned cynic.\n\nEnough of the logical and ethical fog that Theosophy diffuses!\u2014the\nMahatmosphere, as one might call it. It is a relief to escape from it\ninto the fresh air of common honesty and common sense.\n\n\n\n\n POSTSCRIPT.\n\n\n\n\n A MAHATMA AT BAY:\n\n\n THE VICE-PRESIDENT\u2019S TRUMP CARD.\n\nThe following appeared in the _Westminster Gazette_, under the headings:\n\u201cOPEN SPLIT BETWEEN THEOSOPHICAL OFFICIALS\u201d; \u201cRIVAL REVELATIONS FROM THE\nSAME MASTER\u201d; \u201cMR. JUDGE GETS A MISSIVE DEPOSING MRS. BESANT\u201d:\u2014\n\nJust as the Story of the Great Mahatma Hoax is going to press in its\ncollected form, just in the nick of time to be included, comes the\nmaterial for a new chapter of more extravagant humour than all the rest.\nReaders of the \u201cIsis\u201d chapters will recall that the Theosophic embroglio\nhas gone through the following stages:\u2014(1) The vice-president\u2019s\n\u201cMahatma\u201d makes reflections on the president. (2) The president and\nother officials make charges of \u201cforging\u201d Mahatma missives against the\nV.P. (3) Mrs. Besant, after some vacillation, adopts these charges, and\njoins with the others in offering the V.P. the choice of retiring\nquietly or an exposure. (4) The V.P. bluffs them all into silence, and\nthey all join in inducing the \u201cConvention\u201d of last July to separate\nwithout looking further into the matter. (5) Mrs. Besant and the V.P.\n\u201cjoin hands,\u201d in public, on her statement that though he wrote the\nalleged missives \u201cwith his own hand,\u201d yet he had \u201cpsychically received\u201d\ntheir contents from the Mahatma. (6) In private, Mrs. Besant separates\nherself from the V.P. by dissolving their joint headship of the Esoteric\nSection (\u201cthe core of the Theosophical Society,\u201d as Mr. Judge justly\ncalls it below): Mr. Judge, V.P., to retain the American section of the\nsection, and she herself the European, to which she has since added the\nIndian.\n\nNow we learn Phase 7. Seven is a highly Theosophical numeral, and this\nphase is certainly a rich one. Mr. Judge sends round to the Esoteric\nSection a pamphlet in which he announces that Mrs. Besant is, in effect,\npossessed of a devil, and that the Mahatma (under whose direction she\nalso professes to be acting) has ordered him to depose her altogether,\nand take over the whole thing himself!! Which, in a formal \u201cOrder,\u201d he\naccordingly proceeds to do.\n\nThe pamphlet, which among other things professes to give the Judge\nversion of the true inwardness of the abortive \u201cEnquiry\u201d in July, has\njust been sent round to the Esoteric Theosophists. Copies were not sent\nto some who were considered dangerous; but the recent unveiling has made\na good many so who were safe enough, from the Judge point of view,\nbefore, and thanks to one of these who does not acknowledge any headship\nof Mr. Judge over the European Esotericists since Mrs. Besant\u2019s\ndissolution thereof, it is possible to give to mankind what was meant by\nMr. Judge for a party. The following are the salient passages, followed\nby the Order deposing Mrs. Besant (the titles in capitals are Mr.\nJudge\u2019s; the paragraph headings are not):\u2014\n\n\n BY MASTER\u2019S DIRECTION.\n\n I now send you this, all of it being either direct quotations from\n the messages to me, or else in substance what I am directed to say\n to you, the different details and elaborations being my own....\n\n We have now to deal with the E.S.T. and with our duty to it and to\n each other; and among those others, to Mrs. Besant....\n\n\n The Greatness of Wm. Q. Judge.\n\n I am not a pledged member of the E.S.T., and never made a pledge in\n it, as my pledges were long before to the Master direct. I was one\n of its founders, with H.P.B., and she, at the beginning, made me\n manager and teacher in it from the first, under her, for the\n American part especially. You can remember all she said of that. I\n wrote the rules of the E.S.T. myself in London in 1888 at H.P.B.\u2019s\n request, and under the direction of the Master. Those were not\n altered by her, but after reading them and further consulting the\n Master she added some general paragraphs. I am the only one standing\n in that position. Mrs. Besant and all other members are pledged and\n certified in the ordinary way....\n\n An Inner Group was later on formed by H.P.B. at London, so that she\n might give out teachings to be recorded by the members, and, if\n possible, teach them practical Occultism. Of this Mrs. Besant, with\n George Mead to help her, was made the Secretary, because she had\n great ability in a literary way, was wholly devoted, and perfectly\n fit for the task. But this did not make her a teacher....\n\n\n The Littleness of Mrs. Besant.\n\n The death of H.P.B. destroyed, of course, any further value in the\n office of \u201cRecorder.\u201d\n\n The conversations of H.P.B. with the Inner Group were taken down in\n a more or less fragmentary form by the different members, in notes,\n and later Mrs. Besant and George Mead wrote them out, as\n Secretaries. I have a complete copy of these, and so has each member\n of the Inner Group, and those copies comprise all the \u201cInstructions\u201d\n left in the possession of Mrs. Besant or the Inner Group. In my\n possession, and within my control, is a large body of instructions\n given to me all the time from 1875, which I shall give out and have\n given out, as far as I am directed....\n\n Mrs. Annie Besant has been but five years in this work, and not all\n of that time engaged in occult study and practice....\n\n Since 1889 she has done great service to the T.S. and devoted\n herself to it. But all this does not prevent a sincere person from\n making errors in Occultism, especially when he, as Mrs. Besant did,\n tries to force himself along the path of practical work in that\n field. Sincerity does not confer of itself knowledge, much less\n wisdom....\n\n\n Singular Disinterestedness of Wm. Q. Judge.\n\n I wish it to be clearly understood that Mrs. Besant has had herself\n no conscious evil intention: she has simply gone for awhile outside\n the line of her Guru (H.P.B.), begun work with others, and fallen\n under their influence. We should not push her farther down, but\n neither will the true sympathy we have blind our eyes, so as to let\n her go on, to the detriment of the movement. I could easily retire\n from the whole T.S., but my conceptions of duty are different,\n although the personal cost to myself in this work is heavy, and as I\n am ordered to stay I will stay and try my best to aid her and\n everyone else as much as possible. And the same authority tells me\n that \u201ccould she open her eyes and see her real line of work, and\n correct the present condition in herself as well as the one she has\n helped to make in the T.S. and E.S.T., she would find herself in\n mental, spiritual, and physical conditions of a kind much better\n than ever before, for her present state is due to the attacks of the\n dark powers, unconsciously to her.\u201d\n\n\n Black Magic and the Plot Behind the Scenes.\n\n And now it becomes necessary under instructions received to give the\n members of the School some account of the things behind the scenes\n in connexion with the recent investigation attempted at London upon\n the charges against me....\n\n I was made the object of an attack in the guise of an attempt to\n purify the Society, and Mrs. Besant was thrown forward as the\n official accuser of myself\u2014a friend who was certified to her by\n H.P.B., her teacher, well known as working for the T.S. for many\n years. All this needs light, and the best interests of Mrs. Besant\n and of the E.S.T. demand that some of the secret history shall be\n given out, however disagreeable it may be, in order that the very\n purgation which was improperly directed to the wrong quarter shall\n take place now. The difficulty arose when in January or February\n Annie Besant finally lent herself unconsciously to the plot which I\n detail herein....\n\n The plot exists among the Black Magicians, who ever war against the\n White, and against those Black ones we were constantly warned by\n H.P.B. This is no fiction, but a very substantial fact. I have seen\n and also been shown the chief entity among those who thus work\n against us....\n\n\n How Mr. Judge\u2019s Master Caught Out Mrs. Besant\u2019s Friend.\n\n The name of the person who was worked upon so as to, if possible,\n use him as a minor agent of the Black Magicians, and for the\n influencing of Mrs. Besant, is Gyanendra N. Chakravarti, a Brahman,\n of Allahabad, India, who came to America on our invitation to the\n Religious Parliament in 1893. He permitted ambition to take subtle\n root in his heart; he is no longer in our lines. He was then a Chela\n of a minor Indian Guru, and was directed to come to America by that\n Guru, who had been impressed to so direct him by our Master....\n While in that relation he was telepathically impressed in Chicago\n with some of the contents of a message received by me from the\n Master. It corroborated outwardly what I had myself received. It\n was, however, but a part, and was, moreover, deficient in matter,\n Chakravarti himself being only aware of it as a mental impression,\n and I am informed that at the time he was not fully aware of what he\n was doing. His ability to be used as an unconscious vehicle was made\n known to me when he was made to receive the message. Although he was\n not fully aware of it, not only was the whole of his tour here well\n guarded and arranged, but he was personally watched by the agents of\n the Master\u2019s scattered through the country unknown to him, who\n reported to me. On several occasions he has taken people into his\n confidence, believing that he was instructing them, when in fact\n they were observing him closely from the Lodge, helping him where\n right, and noting him fully, though they did not tell him so. This\n was also so in those parts of his tour when he believed himself\n alone or only with Mrs. Besant....\n\n\n \u201cIf I am a Fraud so are H.P.B. and the Masters.\u201d\n\n If I was guilty of what I was accused, then Master would be shown as\n conniving at forgery and lying\u2014a most impossible thing. The only\n other possibility is that Mr. Chakravarti and I \u201cgot up\u201d the\n message. But he and Mrs. Besant have admitted its genuineness,\n although she is perfectly unable herself to decide on its\n genuineness or falsity; but further, Mrs. Besant admitted to several\n that she had seen the Master himself come and speak through my body\n while I was perfectly conscious. And still further, H.P.B. gave me\n in 1889 the Master\u2019s picture, on which he put this message, \u201cTo my\n dear and loyal colleague, W. Q. Judge.\u201d\n\n Now, then, either I am bringing you a true message from the Master,\n or the whole T.S. and E.S.T. is a lie, in the ruins of which must be\n buried the names of H.P.B. and the Masters. All these stand together\n as they fall together....\n\n\n How Mrs. Besant Privately Thinks H.P.B. a Fraud.\n\n As final proof of the delusions worked through this man and his\n friends, I will mention this:\u2014Many years ago\u2014in 1881\u2014the Masters\n sent to the Allahabad Brahmans (the Prayag T.S.) a letter which was\n delivered by H.P.B. to Mr. A. P. Sinnett, who handed a copy over to\n them, keeping the original; it dealt very plainly with the Brahmans.\n This letter the Brahmans do not like, and Mr. Chakravarti tried to\n make me think it was a pious fraud by H.P.B. He succeeded with Mrs.\n Besant in this, so that since she met him she has on several\n occasions said she thought it was a fraud by H.P.B., made up\n entirely, and not from the Master. I say now on Master\u2019s authority\n that it was from the Master, and is a right letter. Only delusion\n would make Mrs. Besant take this position: deliberate intention\n makes the others do it. It is an issue which may not be evaded, for\n if that letter be a fraud, then all the rest sent through our old\n teacher, and on which Esoteric Buddhism was made, are the same. I\n shall rest on that issue: we all rest on it.\n\n\n Mrs. Besant\u2019s Rival Revelations.\n\n Mrs. Besant was then made to agree with these people under the\n delusion that it was approved by the Masters. She regarded herself\n as their servant. It was against the E.S.T. rules. When the rule is\n broken it is one\u2019s duty to leave the E.S.T., and when I got the\n charges from her I asked her to leave it if it did not suit her. The\n depth of the plot was not shown to Mrs. Besant at all, for if it had\n been she would have refused. Nor was Colonel Olcott aware of it.\n Mrs. Besant was put in such a frightful position that while she was\n writing me most kindly and working with me she was all the time\n thinking that I was a forger and that I had blasphemed the Master.\n She was made to conceal from me, when here, her thoughts about the\n intended charges, but was made to tell Mr. B. Keightley, in London,\n and possibly few others. Nor until the time was ripe did she tell\n me, in her letter, in January, from India, asking me to resign from\n the E.S.T. and the T.S. offices, saying that if I did and would\n confess guilt, all would be forgiven, and everyone would work with\n me as usual. But I was directed differently, and fully informed. She\n was induced to believe that the Master was endorsing the\n prosecution, that he was ordering her to do what she did. At the\n same time, I knew and told her that it was the plan there to have\n Colonel Olcott resign when I had been cut off, the presidency to be\n then offered to her. It was offered to her, and she was made to\n believe it was the Master\u2019s wish for her \u201cnot to oppose.\u201d She then\n waited. I did not resign, and the plot so far was spoilt for the\n time....\n\n She felt and expressed to me the greatest pain to have to do such\n things to me. I knew she so felt, and wrote her that it was the\n Black Magicians. She replied, being still under the delusion, that I\n was failing to do Master\u2019s will.\n\n\n How Mrs. Besant Tried Witchcraft.\n\n Her influencers also made her try psychic experiments on me and on\n two others in Europe. They failed. On me they had but a passing\n effect, as I was cognisant of them; on one of the others they\n reflected on health, although she did not desire any harm at all;\n she was made to think it best and for my good. She then sent word to\n these people that she had not succeeded. This is all the effect of\n pure delusion; the variance between such things and her usual\n character is shown in her all the time writing me the most kind\n letters. In all this Mr. Chakravarti was her guide, with others. She\n was writing him all the time about it. He went so far as to write me\n on a matter he was supposed to know nothing of: \u201cNo matter what\n Annie may do to you as co-head of the E.S. she means you no harm.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cEvery Man His Own Mahatma.\u201d\n\n Informed as I was of these inside facts, I drew up under Master\u2019s\n direction my circular on the charges in March, 1894, and there\n outlined what would be done. It was all done as I said, and as the\n Master in March told me would be the case. The London investigation\n ended as Master predicted through me in my circular, and for the\n benefit of the T.S. But all that time the conspirators used all\n means against me. They had all sorts of letters sent me from India\n with pretended messages from the Masters asking me to resign and\n confess. But Master kept me informed and told me what steps to take.\n He even told me that, much as it might seem the contrary from the\n official papers, Colonel Olcott would be the central figure and the\n one through whom the adjustment would come. This also turned out\n true.\n\n\n Migration of Mahatmas to\u2014New York?\n\n The Master says that the T.S. movement was begun by Them in the West\n by western people; that cyclic law requires the work in the West for\n the benefit of the world; that They do not live in India.\n\n They also say that Nature\u2019s laws have set apart woe for those who\n spit back in the face of their teacher, for those who try to\n belittle her work, and make her out to be part good and part\n fraud....\n\n A distinct object H.P.B. had in view I will now, on the authority of\n the Master, tell you, unrevealed before by H.P.B. to anyone else\n that I know of: it is, the establishment in the West of a great seat\n of learning, where shall be taught and explained and demonstrated\n the great theories of man and nature which she has brought forward\n to us, where Western occultism, as the essence combined out of all\n others, shall be taught.\n\n I also state on the same authority that H.P.B. has not\n reincarnated....\n\n We are all, therefore, face to face with the question whether we\n will abide by Masters and their Messenger on the one hand, or by the\n disrupting forces that stand on the other, willing to destroy our\n great mission if we will but give them the opportunity.\n\n\n \u201cI Declare Mrs. Besant\u2019s Headship at an End!\u201d\n\nThe pamphlet closes with the following \u201cE.S.T. ORDER,\u201d dated November 3,\nand signed in manuscript:\u2014\n\n I now proceed a step further than the E.S.T. decisions of 1894, and\n solely for the good of the E.S.T. I resume in the E.S.T., in full,\n all the functions and powers given to me by H.P.B. and that came to\n me by orderly succession after her passing from this life, and\n declare myself the sole head of the E.S.T. This has been done\n already in America. So far as concerns the rest of the E.S.T. I may\n have to await the action of the members, but I stand ready to\n exercise those functions in every part of it. Hence, under the\n authority given me by the Master and H.P.B., and under Master\u2019s\n direction, I declare Mrs. Annie Besant\u2019s headship in the E.S.T. at\n an end.\n\n[Illustration]\n\nThis, then, is Mr. Judge\u2019s response to the case against him, and, as was\nexpected, it takes the form of attacking his colleagues, but keeps\nstrictly to generalities as regards the evidence against himself. The\ndate affixed is one when Mr. Judge had probably heard of the articles in\nTHE WESTMINSTER by cable, but had no idea of the detailed nature of the\nattack. The parts quoted throw many interesting side-lights, but perhaps\nthe most delightful thing is the picture presented of all the\nTheosophists playing off the Mahatma on one another: Mr. Judge, Mrs.\nBesant, Mr. Chakravarti, and others, giving the most contradictory\nmessages from the same Tibetan source; and Mr. Judge now finally \u201cgoing\none better\u201d than all the rest, for has he not, in a very real sense, the\nMahatma in his pocket?\n\nAt any rate, the battle has now well begun. The prophets of Baal are\ncutting, not themselves as of old, but one another. More power to all\ntheir elbows!\n\nMrs. Besant was willing enough to accept Mr. Judge\u2019s anti-Olcott\nmissives as \u201cpsychically\u201d from the Mahatma; we shall now see how it\nstrikes her when the same weapon is turned against herself.[1]\n\nFootnote 1:\n\n We _have_ seen. _Vide_ Preface.\n\n [In the same issue was published a \u201cvote of censure passed on the\n President by one of the local \u2018Lodges\u2019 of the T.S. (Bournemouth),\n declaring that the articles recently published in the _Westminster\n Gazette_ disclose a _prim\u00e2 facie_ case against the Vice-President,\u201d\n \u201cof fraud upon his fellow Theosophists.\u201d \u201cThe Vice-President should\n not continue to lie,\u201d the Bournemouth Lodge remarks, \u201cunder such a\n charge.\u201d Other Lodges have also taken one side or the other.]\n\n\n\n\n THE SOCIETY UPON THE HIMALAY.\n\n (THEOSOPHICALLY ADAPTED FROM BRET HARTE.)\n\n\n I reside at Table Mountain, and my name is Truthful James;\n I am not fond of pious frauds or Oriental games;\n And I\u2019ll tell in simple language, as well as I can say,\n What broke up our Society upon the Himalay.\n\n But first I would remark that there must needs be painful scenes\n When Theosophic gents begin to give each other Beans;\n And though Mahatma missives do pan out a little queer,\n We should avoid disturbances in the Mahatmosphere.[2]\n\n Now nothing could be nicer or more full of harmony\n Than the first few months that followed the decease of \u201cH.P.B.\u201d;\n Till Judge of Calaveras produced a curious set\n Of missives in red pencil what he said were from Tibet.[3]\n\n From these he reconstructed a Mahatma (very rare),\n A Nest of that peculiar kind pertaining to a Mare;\n But Mrs. Besant found a rival missive on the shelf,[4]\n And said she fancied Mr. Judge had written his himself.[5]\n\n Then Judge\u2019s smile took on a most unpleasant sort of curve;\n He said he would not trespass so on Mrs. B.\u2019s preserve.\n He was a most resourceful man, that quiet Mr. Judge;\n He got another missive saying Mrs. B.\u2019s was fudge.[6]\n\n Now, it is not edifying for a Theosophic priest\n To call another one a fraud\u2014to all intents, at least;\n Nor should the individual who happens to be meant\n Reply by throwing things about to any great extent.\n\n Then Olcott, H., of Adyar, raised a point of order, when\n A chunk of old red pencil took him in the abdomen;[7]\n And he smiled a kind of sickly smile and curled up on the floor,\n And the subsequent proceedings interested him no more.[8]\n\n For, in less time than I write it, all the meeting got upset\n With \u201cprecipitating\u201d missiles which did _not_ come from Tibet;\n And the things they called each other in their anger were a sin\u2014\n Till the public got disgusted, and the temple roof caved in.\n\n And this is all I have to say of these improper games,\n For I live at Table Mountain and my name is Truthful James;\n And I\u2019ve told in simple language all I know about the fray\n That broke up our Society upon the Himalay.\n\n * * * * *\nFootnote 2:\n\n \u201cAny action in these controversial matters tends to set up a perfect\n whirlwind on other planes.\u201d\u2014Mrs. Besant in _Lucifer_.\n\nFootnote 3:\n\n \u201cMahatma Morya affects red pencil, Koot Hoomi blue.\u201d\u2014\u201cIsis Very Much\n Unveiled.\u201d\n\nFootnote 4:\n\n \u201cShe wrote ... it was Master\u2019s wish ... that Master ordered her to do\n as she did.\u201d\u2014Mr. Judge\u2019s circular to the E.S.T.\n\nFootnote 5:\n\n \u201cI now know that they were written by Mr. Judge.\u201d\u2014Mrs. Besant, \u201cReport\n of an Enquiry,\u201d &c.\n\nFootnote 6:\n\n \u201cUnder Master\u2019s direction, I declare Mrs. Besant\u2019s headship at an\n end.\u201d\u2014Mr. Judge\u2019s circular to the E.S.T.\n\nFootnote 7:\n\n \u201cIsis,\u201d Chapters IX., X.\n\nFootnote 8:\n\n \u201cI declare, as my opinion, that this Enquiry must go no\n farther.\u201d\u2014Colonel Olcott, \u201cReport of an Enquiry,\u201d &c.\n\n F. E. G.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n \u201cWHEN AUGUR MEETS AUGUR\u201d\u2014\n\n \u201cIt is rather a squalid fight between the augurs that the curtain has\n been raised upon; but it has got to be fought out now before the\n public, and it is in vain to try to ring the curtain down again.\u201d\n]\n\n\n\n\n \u201cISIS VERY MUCH UNVEILED.\u201d\n\n\n A REPLY FROM MR. WILLIAM Q. JUDGE.\n\n _To the_ EDITOR _of_ THE WESTMINSTER GAZETTE.\n\nSIR,\u2014You have published slanderous articles against the Theosophical\nSociety, using me as the person; you have asked for a reply; I send it\nto you and ask that it be given place in your paper.\u2014Yours truly,\n\n WILLIAM Q. JUDGE.\n\n _Theosophical Society, American Section,\n General Secretary\u2019s Office, New York, Nov. 26._\n\n\n _To the_ EDITOR _of_ THE WESTMINSTER GAZETTE.\n\nSIR,\u2014At the time your articles directed against the Theosophical Society\nunder the above title were appearing, I was lecturing in the country,\nand only within a few days have I seen your last numbers. Time is\nrequired for writing on such a subject, and at this distance from London\nI cannot be accused of much delay. With the greatest interest and\namusement I have read your long series of articles. The writer is an\nable man, and you and he together constitute one of the advertising\nagencies of the Theosophical Society. The immense range of your notices\ncannot be well calculated, and very truly we could never pay for such an\nadvertisement. Do you mind keeping this part of my letter as all the\nremuneration we can give you for the work done by you in thus\nadvertising the movement and bringing prominently to the notice of your\npublic the long-forgotten but true doctrine of the possible existence of\nsuch beings as Professor Huxley says it would be impertinent to say\ncould not exist in the natural order of evolution?\n\nAnd while I look at it all as an advertisement, I cannot admire the\ntreason developed therein, nor the spiteful unworthy tone of it, nor the\ndivergence from fact in many cases when it suited the purpose, nor the\nofficious meddling in the private affairs of other people, nor the\nignoring and falsification in respect to possible motive, made out by\nyou to be gain by some of us, when the fact is that we are all losers of\nmoney by our work. That fact a candid person would have stated, and\nmarvelled at it that we should be willing to slave for the Theosophical\nSociety, and always spend our money. Such a person would have given \u201cthe\ndevil his due.\u201d You have suppressed it and lied about it, and hence it\nis not admirable in you, but is quite mean and low. You advertise us and\nthen try to befoul us. Well, we gain by the advertisement, and the\ncourse of time will wipe off the small stain you try to paint upon us.\nWhen you and your ready writer are both dead and forgotten, and some of\nyou probably execrated for offences not as yet exposed, we will still\nlive as a body and be affecting the course of modern thought, as we have\nbeen doing for nearly twenty years.\n\nI am the principal object of your attack, though you also cruelly abuse\na woman who has long enough fought the world of your conventional\nnation, and perhaps you expect me to either rise and explain, or keep\nsilent. Well, I will do neither. I will speak, but cannot fully explain.\nYour paper is a worldly forum, a sort of court. In it there is neither\nplace nor credence for explanations which must include psychic things,\nfacts, and laws, as well as facts and circumstances of the ordinary\nsort. Were I to explain in full, no one would believe me save those\nstudents of the occult and the psychical who know psychic law and fact.\nThose who doubt and wish all to be reduced to the level of compass and\nsquare, of eye and word of mouth, would still be doubters. Nothing would\nbe gained at all. That difficulty no intelligent person who has had\npsychic experience can overlook. That is why you are quite safe from a\nsuit for libel. I assure you that had you published something not so\ninextricably tangled up with psychic phenomena I should be glad to have\nyou in court, not to soothe wounded feelings I have not, but to show\nthat our faulty law and so-called justice do sometimes right some\nwrongs.\n\nLet me first emphatically deny the inference and assertion made by you,\nthat I and my friends make money out of the T.S., or that the\norganisation has built up something by which we profit. This is untrue,\nand its untruth is known to all persons who know anything at all about\nthe society. No salaries are paid to our officers. We support ourselves\nor privately support each other. I have never had a penny from the\nsociety, and do not want any. The little magazine, the _Path_, which I\npublish here in the interest of the society, is not supported by\nsubscriptions from members, but largely by others, and it is kept up at\na loss to me which will never be repaid. I publish it because I wish to,\nand not for gain. Thousands of dollars are expended in the T.S. work\nhere each year over and above what is paid in for fees and dues. The\ndues are but four shillings a year, and three times as much as that is\nexpended in the work. Where does it come from? Out of our private\npockets, and if I had a million I would spend it that way. My friends\nand myself give our money and our time to the society without hope or\ndesire for any return. We may be fanatics\u2014probably are\u2014but it is false\nand malicious to accuse us of using the society for gain. The only\npayment we get is the seeing every day the wider and wider spread of\nTheosophical theories of life, man, and nature. I am ready to submit all\nour books and vouchers to any auditor to support these statements. And\nyou were in a position to find out the facts as I have given them.\n\nIt is also absolutely untrue, as you attempt to show or infer, that the\nsociety grows by talking of the Mahatmas or Masters, or by having\nmessages sent round from them. The movement here and elsewhere is pushed\nalong the line of philosophy, and each one is left to decide for himself\non the question of the Mahatmas. \u201cMessages from the Masters\u201d do not go\nflying round, and the society does not flourish by any belief in those\nbeing promulgated. Nor am I, as you hint, in the habit of sending such\nmessages about the society, nor of influencing the course of affairs by\nusing any such thing. Send out and ask all the members and you will find\nI am correct. It is true that those Masters tell me personally what I am\nto do, and what is the best course to take, as they have in respect to\nthis very letter, but that is solely my own affair. Could I be such a\nfool as to tell all others to go by what I get for my own guidance,\nknowing how weak, suspicious, and malicious is the human nature of\nto-day? You are on the wrong tack, my friend.\n\nBut you were right when you say that Mrs. Besant made a remarkable\nchange in respect to me. That is true, and Mr. Chakravarti whom you name\nis, as you correctly say, the person who is responsible for it. Before\nshe met Chakravarti she would not have dreamed of prosecuting me. This\nis a matter of regret, but while so, I fail to see how you aid your case\nagainst me by dragging the thing in thus publicly, unless, indeed, you\nintend to accuse him and her of going into a conspiracy against me.\n\nThere are two classes of \u201cmessages from the Masters\u201d charged to me by\nyou and by that small section of the T.S. members who thought of trying\nme. One class consists of notes on letters of mine to various persons;\nthe other of messages handed to Mrs. Besant and Colonel Olcott and\nenclosure found in a letter to Colonel Olcott from a man in California.\n\nI have never denied that I gave Mrs. Besant messages from the Masters. I\ndid so. They were from the Masters. She admits that, but simply takes on\nherself to say that the Master did not personally write or precipitate\nthem. According to herself, then, she got from me genuine messages from\nthe Masters; but she says she did not like them to be done or made in\nsome form that she at first thought they were not in. I have not\nadmitted her contention; I have simply said they were from the Master,\nand that is all I now say, for I will not tell how or by what means they\nwere produced. The objective form in which such a message is of no\nconsequence. Let it be written by your Mr. Garrett, or drop out of the\nmisty air, or come with a clap of thunder. All that makes no difference\nsave to the vulgar and the ignorant. The reality of the message is to be\ntested by other means. If you have not those means you are quite at sea\nas to the whole thing. And all this I thought was common knowledge in\nthe Theosophical world. It has long been published and explained.\n\nOne of those messages to Mrs. Besant told her not to go to India that\nyear. I got it in California, and then telegraphed it to her in\nsubstance later, sending the paper. I had no interest in not having her\ngo to India, but knew she would go later. The other messages were of a\npersonal nature. They were all true and good. At the time I gave them to\nher I did not say anything. That I never denied. It was not thought by\nme necessary to insult a woman of her intellectual ability, who had read\nall about these things, by explaining all she was supposed to know.\nThose who think those messages were not from the Master are welcome to\ndoubt it so far as I am concerned, for I know the naturalness of that\ndoubt.\n\nWhen Colonel Olcott resigned I was first willing to let him stay\nresigned. But I was soon directed by another \u201cmessage\u201d to prevent it if\nI could, and at once cabled that to him, and went to work to have the\nAmerican Section vote asking him to stay in office. As I was the person\nmentioned to succeed him, we also, to provide for contingencies,\nresolved that the choice of America was myself as successor. But when he\nrevoked, then my successorship was null and void until voted on at\nanother period not yet reached. But it is absolutely false that I sent\nan emissary to him when I found he was minded to stay in office. Ask him\non this and see what he says. I leave that to him. Truly enough I made\nan error of judgment in not telling the influential London members of my\nmessage when I told Olcott. But what of that? I did not tell the\nAmericans, but left their action to the dictates of their sense and the\ntrend of friendship and loyalty to our standard-bearer. The English\nvoted against Olcott by doing nothing, but I asked them in the same way\nas I asked the Americans to request him to revoke. They had their\nchance. As India had done the same as America I saw the vote was final\nas my message directed, and so I dropped it from my mind\u2014one of my\npeculiarities. I certainly did not use any pressure by way of \u201cmessages\nfrom the Masters\u201d on anyone as to that, save on Olcott. And he reported\na message to the same effect to himself. Did I invent that also? My\nmessage to him was copied by me on my type-writer and sent to him. I did\nit thus because I knew of spies about Olcott, of whom I had warned him\nto little effect. One of those confessed and committed suicide, and the\nother was found out.\n\nA message was found in a letter from Abbot Clark, a Californian, to\nColonel Olcott. This, you say, I made and put in the letter. I have the\naffirmation of Mr. Clark on the matter, which I send you herewith to be\ninserted at this place if you wish. It does not bear out your\ncontention, but shows the contrary. It also shows that his letter to\nColonel Olcott was opened in India by some other person before being\nsent on to Colonel Olcott. You can make what inference you like from\nthis.\n\nYour statement about putting a question in a cabinet for an answer when\nI stayed in the room and Mrs. Besant went out is false. No such thing\ntook place. I deny that there was any such thing as a reception of\n\u201canswers in a sealed envelope in a closed drawer.\u201d That is supreme bosh\nfrom beginning to end, and cannot be proved by anybody\u2019s testimony,\nunless you will accept perjury.\n\nAt the same time I can now say, as the sole authority on the point, that\nseveral of the contested messages are genuine ones, no matter what all\nand every person, Theosophist or not, may say to the contrary.\n\nYou have much talk about what you say is called the Master\u2019s seal. You\nhave proved by the aid of Colonel Olcott that the latter made an\nimitation in brass of the signature of the Master and gave it to H.P.B.\nas a joke. You trace it to her and there you leave it, and then you\nthink I am obliged to prove I did not get it, to prove negatives again,\nwhen it has never been proved that I had it. I have long ago denied all\nknowledge of Master\u2019s seal either genuine or imitated. I do not know if\nhe has a seal; if he has, I have not yet been informed of it; the\nquestion of a seal owned by him as well as what is his writing or\nsignature are both still beclouded. None of the members who have been in\nthis recent trouble know what is the writing, or the seal, or the mark\nof the Master. It was long ago told by H.P.B. that the so-called writing\nof the Master was only an assumed hand, and no real knowledge is at hand\nas to his having a seal. I have seen impressions similar to what you\nhave reproduced, but it is of no consequence to me. If there were a\nmillion impressions of seals on a message said to be from the Master, it\nwould add nothing to the message in my eyes, as other means must be\nemployed for discovering what is and what is not a genuine message.\nSeals and ciphers do not validate these things. Unless I can see for\nmyself by my inner senses that a message is genuine, I will not believe\nit, be it loaded with seals I do not know. As I know the thousand and\none magical ways by which impressions of things may be put on paper,\neven unconsciously to the human channel or focus, I have relied, and ask\nothers to rely, on their own inner knowledge and not to trust to\nappearances. Others may think these little decorations of importance,\nbut I do not. I never asked anyone at any meeting, private or public, to\nnote or observe the seal-impression you give. Others may have done so,\nbut I did not. Others may have gone into laboured arguments to show the\nvalue of such a thing, but I did not. The whole matter of this so-called\nseal is so absurd and childish that it has made me laugh each time I\nhave thought of it.\n\nNow I can do no more than deny, as I hereby do absolutely, all the\ncharges you have been the means of repeating against me. I have denied\nthem very many times, for I have known of them for about two years and a\nhalf. My denial is of no value to you; nor to those who think there is\nno supersensual world; nor to those who think that because conjurors can\nimitate any psychical phenomenon, therefore the latter has no existence;\nnor to those who deny the possibility of the existence of Mahatmas or\ngreat souls. These things are all foolishness to such persons, and I am\nwilling to let it stay that way. Were I to go into all the details of\nall the messages you refer to, and were I to get from those who know, as\nI can, the full relation of all that is involved in those messages on my\nletters which I saw after the July \u201cinvestigation\u201d was ended, I would be\nopening the private doors to the secret hearts of others, and that I\nwill not do. Already I know by means not generally accessible altogether\ntoo much of the private hearts of many of these people, and have no\ndesire to know more.\n\nSome of the matters you cite are related to a private body, once called\nthe Esoteric Section, which is protected\u2014nominally, so it seems, among\nyour informants\u2014by a pledge. The breaking of that by others gives me no\nright to add to their breach. I cannot, like Mr. Old and others more\nprominent, violate the confidences of others. His revelations cannot be\nanalysed by me in public. He is in the position of those Masons who have\nattempted to reveal the secrets of Masonry; and either the public has\nlistened to a liar or to one who has to admit that he does not regard\nhis solemn obligation as worth a straw when it obstructs his purposes;\nin either case the information cannot be relied upon. His account and\nyours contain so many misrepresentations that none [of] it has any\nserious consideration from me.\n\nAnd Mr. Old\u2019s revelations, or those of any other members, amount to\nnothing. The real secrets have not been revealed, for they have not been\nput in the hands of such people; they have been given only to those who\nhave shown through long trial and much labour that they are worthy to\nhave the full relation of the plans of the master-builder exposed to\ntheir gaze. Let the dishonest, the perjured, and the vacillating go on\nwith their revelations; they will hurt no one but themselves.\n\nNow as to the Investigation at which you have laughed. I grant you it\nwas matter for laughter from outside to see such a lot of labour and\ngathering from the four quarters to end in what you regard as smoke.\nNow, my dear sir, I did not call the Inquiry Committee. I protested\nagainst it and said from the beginning it should never have been called\nat all. Must I bear the brunt of that which I did not do? Must I explain\nall my life to a committee which had no right to come together, for\nwhich there was no legal basis? It was called in order to make me give\nup an official succession I did not have; months before it met I said it\nwould come to nothing but a declaration written by me of the\nnon-dogmatic character of the T.S. My Master so told me and so it turned\nout. Will you give me no credit for this foreknowledge? Was it a guess,\nor was it great ability, or did it come about through bribery, or what?\nI was told to use the opportunity to procure an official declaration\nthat belief in Mahatmas or Masters was not and is not one of the T.S.,\nand I succeeded in so doing. I might have been accused as an individual\nand not official member. But by the influence of the Mr. Chakravarti\nwhom you mention the whole power of the society was moved against me, so\nas to try and cut me down root and branch officially and privately, so\nthat it might thereby be made sure that I was not successor to the\npresidency. This is the fact. That is why I forgave them all; for it is\neasy to forgive; in advance I forgave them since they furnished such a\nsplendid official opportunity for a decision we long had needed. The\nodium resulting from the attempt to try occult and psychical questions\nunder common law rules I am strong enough to bear; and up to date I have\nhad a large share of that.\n\nI refused a committee of honour, they say. I refused the committee that\nwas offered as it was not of persons who could judge the matter rightly.\nThey would have reached no conclusion save the one I now promulgate,\nwhich is, that the public proof regarding my real or delusive\ncommunications from the Masters begins and ends with myself, and that\nthe committee could not make any decision at all, but would have to\nleave all members to judge for themselves. To arrive officially at this\nI would have to put many persons in positions that they could not stand,\nand the result then would have been that far more bad feeling would come\nto the surface. I have at least learned after twenty years that it is\nfruitless to ask judges who have no psychic development to settle\nquestions the one half of which are in the unseen realm of the soul\nwhere the common law of England cannot penetrate.\n\nThe \u201cmessages from the Masters\u201d have not ceased. They go on all the time\nfor those who are able and fit to have them, but no more to the doubter\nand the suspicious. Even as I write they have gone to some, and in\nrelation to this very affair, and in relation to other revelations and\npledge-breakings. It is a fact in experience to me, and to friends of\nmine who have not had messages from me, that the Masters exist and have\nto do with the affairs of the world and the Theosophical movement. No\namount of argument or Maskelyneish explanation will drive out that\nknowledge. It will bear all the assaults of time and foolish men. And\nthe only basis on which I can place the claim of communication by the\nMasters to me, so far as the world is concerned, is my life and acts. If\nthose for the last twenty years go to prove that I cannot be in\ncommunication with such beings, then all I may say one way or the other\nmust go for naught.\n\nWhy so many educated Englishmen reject the doctrine of the\nperfectibility of man, illustrated by the fact of there now existing\nMasters of wisdom, passes my comprehension, unless it be true, as seems\nprobable, that centuries of slavery to the abominable idea of original\nsin as taught by theology (and not by Jesus) has reduced them all to the\nlevel of those who, being sure they will be damned any way, are certain\nthey cannot rise to a higher level, or unless the great god of\nconventionality has them firmly in his grasp. I would rather think\nmyself a potential god and try to be, as Jesus commanded, \u201cperfect as\nthe Father in heaven\u201d\u2014which is impossible unless in us is that Father in\nessence\u2014than to remain darkened and enslaved by the doctrine of inherent\noriginal wickedness which demands a substitute for my salvation. And it\nseems nobler to believe in that perfectibility and possible rise to the\nstate of the Masters than to see with science but two possible ends for\nall our toil: one to be frozen up at last, and the other to be burned\nup, when the sun either goes out or pulls us into his flaming\nbreast.\u2014Yours truly,\n\n WILLIAM Q. JUDGE.\n\n[The following is the \u201caffirmation\u201d of Mr. Abbot Clark, enclosed with\nthe above]:\u2014\n\n \u201cSan Francisco, Cal., April 21, 1894.\n\n\u201cI, Abbot Clark, a member of the Theosophical Society, do hereby state\nand affirm as follows: I have seen it stated in the newspapers that it\nis charged that I wrote Colonel H. S. Olcott in 1891 to India, and that\nin that letter was some message not known to me, and that Colonel Olcott\nreplied, asking where William Q. Judge was at the time, and that I\nreplied he was in my house. The facts are: That in 1891 W. Q. Judge was\nlecturing in this State, and I was with him at Santa Ana, and that I had\nno house and never had, being too poor to have one. Brother Judge\nstopped at the hotel in Santa Ana, where he came from my home, my\nfather\u2019s house at Orange, where he had been at dinner, and at Santa Ana\nI arranged his lectures and I stayed at my aunt\u2019s at Santa Ana; while in\nthe hotel a conversation arose with us, in which I spoke of Theosophical\npropaganda among the Chinese on this coast, and Brother Judge suggested\nthat I write to Colonel Olcott, as he knew many Buddhists Theosophists,\nand might arrange it better than Brother Judge; and I then myself wrote\nto Colonel Olcott on the matter, showing the letter after it was done to\nBrother Judge to see if it should be improved or altered, and he handed\nme back the letter at once. I put it in my pocket and kept it there for\nseveral days waiting for a chance to buy stamps for postage as I was\naway from any post-office. Brother Judge left by himself the morning\nafter I wrote the letter and went to San Diego, and the only time I saw\nhim again was in the train just to speak to him on his return after\nabout four days, and the letter was not mentioned, thought of, nor\nreferred to.\n\n\u201cI assert on my word of honour that Brother Judge said nothing to me\nabout any message pretended to be from Masters or otherwise, and so far\nas any reports or statements have been made relating to me herein\ndifferent from the above they are absolutely false.\n\n\u201cFrom India I got a reply from Adyar T.S. office from one Charlu, saying\nhe had opened my letter in Colonel Olcott\u2019s absence, and had forwarded\nit to him; and Dharmapala told me he had seen letters from me to Colonel\nOlcott on the matter received in India away from Adyar. The said Charlu,\nin reply, also asked me where Brother Judge was when the letter was\nwritten, and I wrote that he had been at my house on that date, which is\ntrue as above stated, Orange being only three miles from Santa Ana, as I\nthought Charlu wished to have Brother Judge\u2019s dates. But I thought also\nthe questions put were peculiar from such a distance. I never got any\nreply to my sincere first question in that letter about propaganda from\nhim, and never any reply of any sort from Colonel Olcott. When\nDharmapala was here he did not bring any message in reply from Colonel\nOlcott, but referred to recollecting speaking with Olcott about a\nproposal from California to work with the Chinese. And Charlu did not\nspeak of any enclosure in said letter. A year later I again wrote on the\nsame matter to Colonel Olcott, which was answered by Gopala Charlu, now\ndead, saying but little, if anything, would be done by him. To all this\nI affirm on my honour.\n\n \u201cABBOT B. CLARK.\n\n \u201cWitness: signatures:\n ALLEN GRIFFITHS, E. B. RAMBO.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n THE MAHATMA OF NEW YORK.\n\n\nAn Appreciation of Mr. Judge\u2019s \u201cReply,\u201d by the Author of \u201cIsis Very Much\n Unveiled.\u201d\n\nA convicted person has one last refuge. He may contrive to suggest\nimbecility, and so appeal from the sense of justice to that of pity. To\nthe average reader it might seem that this, and this alone, could be the\nreal object of the astounding piece of self-revelation which I have been\nprivileged to extract from Mr. William Q. Judge, vice-president of the\nTheosophical Society. But we must remember that with the Theosophical\nreader it may be otherwise. To the Theosophical Society this \u201cReply\u201d\nfrom the man they have delighted to honour may seem, for all I know, a\nmodel of candour, of coherence, and of cogency. That is not, I confess,\nwhat I hear privately; but, so far as any public word goes, the good,\ndocile folk have evidently determined to wait till Mrs. Besant comes\nhome and tells them what to think, and (still more important) what to\nsay. For their benefit, then, and still more for the benefit of those\npotential converts to Theosophy in whom the atrophy of the mental\nprocesses is not yet complete, I will, as gravely as I can, examine the\nvice-president\u2019s utterance.\n\n\n How Much is Admitted.\n\nNow, first, let us see how many of the \u201cMahatma missives\u201d Mr. Judge\ndirectly or indirectly admits. Those which I have referred to as\nproduced by Mr. Judge included the following:\u2014\n\n The Cabinet missive.\n The \u201cNote the Seal\u201d missive.\n The \u201cJudge\u2019s Plan is Right\u201d missive.\n The \u201cMasters Watch us\u201d missive.\n The \u201cJudge is the friend\u201d missive.\n The \u201cMaster agrees\u201d missive.\n The Envelope Trick missive.\n The \u201cI withold\u201d missive.\n The Telegram missive.\n The \u201cMaster will Provide\u201d missive.\n The Inner Group missive.\n The \u201cGrave Danger Olcott\u201d missive.\n The \u201cFollow Judge and Stick\u201d missive.\n The \u201cJudge is not the Forger\u201d missive.\n The Poison Threat missive.\n\n(Besides these I have referred to other Mahatma letters or endorsements\non letters, on bank-notes, &c.; but those enumerated will do for the\npresent.)\n\nOut of all these Mr. Judge disputes only two. As regards the \u201cNote the\nSeal\u201d missive, all that he denies is the statement that it was he who\ndrew the special attention of the Inner Group to the seal upon it\u2014a\ndenial which I shall deal with presently. He denies the whole story of\nthe Cabinet missive, and in regard to the \u201cJudge is not the Forger\u201d\nmissive, he denies that it was fabricated by _him_, but suggests that it\nwas fabricated by some other Theosophist.\n\nThe facts about the whole of the remaining thirteen (and more) missives\nhe thus implicitly admits, using such general phrases as\nthese:\u2014\u201c_Several_ of the contested messages are genuine ones\u201d; \u201cthey\nwere _all_ good and true\u201d; \u201cthey were from the Master\u201d; \u201cI _have not\nadmitted_ her [Mrs. Besant\u2019s] contention\u201d [that they were only\npsychically from the Master, and were written in Mahatmascript by\nJudge]; and, finally, \u201cI _will not tell_ how or by what means they were\nproduced.\u201d The \u201cGrave Danger Olcott\u201d missive, by the way, he admits\nexplicitly.\n\nIt is for the Theosophists, therefore, now to consider whether the\nsubstance of these admitted missives (to say nothing of this \u201cReply,\u201d in\nwhich also Mr. Judge asserts the Master\u2019s collaboration) squares with\ntheir conception of \u201cthe Master of Wisdom,\u201d that \u201cgod-like\u201d exemplar of\n\u201cthe perfectibility of man,\u201d as his own \u201cMessenger\u201d describes him.\n\n\n The Two Contested Missives.\n\nThe reason why Mr. Judge selected just these two for denial is, no\ndoubt, the damaging suggestiveness of the contents of the one and of the\ncircumstances under which the other was produced. I for my part applaud\nhis choice, because it will bring him into sharp conflict, as regards\nthe one missive, with Mrs. Besant, and as regards the other, with\nColonel Olcott.\n\n\n (1) The Cabinet Missive: Judge v. Besant.\n\nIn regard to all those missives which were palmed off on Mrs. Besant\nherself, my account is based, as regards generalities, on Mrs. Besant\u2019s\nown statements and Mr. Judge\u2019s own admissions. As regards details,\nhowever, I have had to rely on intimates and colleagues at Avenue-road,\nto whom Mrs. Besant told the wondrous tale at the time.\n\nThe story of the Cabinet missive is briefly this (see \u201cIsis Very Much\nUnveiled,\u201d p. 28). Mr. Judge suggests to Mrs. Besant that they should\nput a question to the Masters by writing it on paper, and placing this\nin a certain cabinet in \u201cH.P.B.\u2019s\u201d room. The result was the endorsement\nof the paper with the words, \u201cYes,\u201d \u201cAnd hope,\u201d in the red script used\nin all these communications, and also the impression of what Madame\nBlavatsky called the \u201cflap-doodle\u201d seal, under circumstances which\ndemonstrated either psychic precipitation on the part of the Master, or\nelse vulgar trickery on the part of Mr. Judge.\n\nMr. Judge declares \u201cno such thing took place.\u201d\n\nNow, on the facts stated, it is obvious that only one person can\nauthoritatively contradict Mr. Judge here: to wit, Mrs. Besant. This I\nam bound to suppose that she will do; for my version of the story is\nthat given by her on the day after the occurrence to a colleague, who\nquoted it from his diary. Mrs. Besant also showed what purported to be\nthe missive, sealed and endorsed as described, and this to several\npeople. At Adyar, at the beginning of this year, when the Judge missives\nwere being blown upon all round, she repeated the story, with only one\ncorrection\u2014a notable one\u2014that she had _not_, as she at first implied,\nstayed in the room all the time during Mr. Judge\u2019s working of the\nCabinet oracle.\n\nWhat Mr. Judge will do if Mrs. Besant sticks to her version of the story\nI do not know. But he has already, in the secret circular lately\ndivulged, disposed of the rest of her action in this matter as due to\npossession by a devil; so no doubt he will say that here, too, it was\n\u201cthe Black Magicians\u201d (_per_ Brother Chakravarti) who both imposed the\ndelusion and manufactured the missive to fit it. Note that he does not\nappeal to Mrs. Besant to bear him out, but says: \u201cIt cannot be proved by\nanybody\u2019s testimony, _unless you will accept perjury_.\u201d This is not the\nonly passage in his Reply where Mr. Judge foreshadowed his readiness to\nextend his accusations of lying, pledge-breaking, &c. (as, indeed, he is\nlogically bound to), from Mr. Old to Mr. Old\u2019s fellow-sinners, Mrs.\nBesant and Colonel Olcott.\n\n\n (2) The \u201cJudge Is not the Forger\u201d Missive: Judge v. Olcott.\n\nThe other missive with which Mr. Judge disclaims connexion is the only\none in the whole series which was apparently not produced in immediate\njuxtaposition with him, and under his personal superintendence. That,\nindeed, was just the point of it; it was enclosed in a letter from\nanother person, with all the distance between New York and California to\nprove that Mr. Judge could have had no hand in it. It was, in fact, a\nlast desperate attempt to lull the suspicions of the recipient, Colonel\nOlcott, who, however, discovered that Mr. Judge had been in California,\nand in the company of Mr. Clark, from whom the letter came, at the very\ndate of the letter. (\u201cIsis,\u201d pp. 50-52.)\n\nI told this story\u2014quoting Colonel Olcott\u2019s evidence\u2014and forthwith was\nassured, publicly, in general terms (\u201cIsis,\u201d p. 76), then specifically\nthrough a private source, that Mr. Judge could annihilate it by\nproducing an affidavit from the Mr. Clark in question. (\u201cAbbot\nClark\u201d\u2014the name comically recalls that of \u201cAbner Dean\u201d in Bret Harte\u2019s\n\u201cSociety upon the Stanislaus.\u201d) I was not much perturbed by this\nannouncement, as the reserve evidence in my hands happened to include\nthe substance of a letter from Mr. Abbot Clark himself, offering\nabundant material for cross-examination upon the boasted \u201caffidavit,\u201d if\nand when this was produced.\n\nAnd lo! now we have this precious \u201caffidavit\u201d (which, by the way, turns\nout not to be an affidavit at all), testifying\u2014what? Why, that Mr. Judge\nhad abundant opportunities for inserting or getting inserted any\nenclosure he wished in Mr. Clark\u2019s letter, and that the letter which\nprovided the opportunity was actually written at Mr. Judge\u2019s suggestion,\nand passed once through Mr. Judge\u2019s fingers, besides spending several\ndays in Mr. Clark\u2019s coat pocket!\n\nThe guilelessness with which Mr. Abner De\u2014I mean Mr. Abbot Clark\u2014adds,\namong the rest of the plaintive verbiage of his statement, that \u201con my\nword of honour Brother Judge said nothing to _me_ about any missive,\u201d\ncompletes the charm of this document. Ah! it would be a poor world for\nthe William Q. Judges if it did not contain a good percentage of Abbot\nClarks.\n\n\n Whom does Mr. Judge Accuse?\n\nBut now arises another point. Mr. Judge does not number this missive\namong the \u201cseveral genuine\u201d ones. It was not the Mahatma\u2019s; it was not\nfabricated by Mr. Judge; therefore it must have been fabricated by\nsomebody else. \u201cYou can make what inference you like,\u201d Mr. Judge\nliberally remarks; but the only inferences possible from what he says\nare that the guilty person is Colonel Olcott or Colonel Olcott\u2019s manager\nat the _Theosophist_ office. (The latter, by name T. Vijiaraghava\nCharlu, was the person who received and forwarded the letter and\nenclosure to Colonel Olcott. Mr. Judge and his satellite appear to wish\nto confuse this person with another Charlu, Theosophical treasurer, who\ncommitted suicide after peculation.)\n\nNow, as I have made sufficiently clear, I hold no sort of brief for any\nTheosophist, and especially none for any Theosophical official. In the\npast, Mr. Judge has had no monopoly of the missive-manufacturing\nindustry; and if he can prove that there are colleagues in the business\neven now, I shall be glad to consider the evidence. But, in this\nparticular case, just look at the probabilities.\n\nFirst, there is the handwriting, which is apparently exactly the same in\nthis missive as in others of the series with which, admittedly, these\nother gentlemen had nothing, and Mr. Judge had everything, to do.\n\nThen there are the contents. These also fit admirably into the chain.\nThe Master is made to declare that \u201cJudge is not the forger\u201d\u2014a point of\nwhich Mr. Judge was trying hard to convince the Colonel; also, to\nprovide explanations of various suspicious circumstances in other\nmissives which tended to show that Judge _was_ \u201cthe forger\u201d; also to\nexculpate Judge for various misstatements by suggesting that he was an\nunconscious vehicle.\n\nThen, there is the description of the \u201cflap-doodle\u201d seal as \u201cthe Lahore\nbrass\u201d\u2014a bad shot at the place of origin known to Olcott, but only half\nknown to Judge. Attribute this to Mr. Judge trying to startle his\ncolleague, and it exhibits just that mixture of fatuity and cunning\nwhich appears throughout the vice-president\u2019s transactions. Attribute it\nto Colonel Olcott manufacturing a pretended Judge forgery, and it\nbecomes a refinement of malignant ingenuity such as his worst enemy, I\nfancy, will not suspect Colonel Olcott of compassing, either himself or\nthrough an agent.\n\nIt needs no Sherlock Holmes to point the bearing of these probabilities.\n\n\n The Evidence of the Seal.\n\nWe have it now on Mr. Judge\u2019s authority that \u201cthe whole matter of this\nso-called seal ... has made me laugh whenever I have thought of it.\u201d If\nso, it shows how much harmless mirth a trivial and apparently useless\nnick-nack may be the cause of. Throughout its history this\nMahatma-signet seems to have had a magical effect on the risible\nmuscles. We saw how Madame Blavatsky smiled at it as \u201ca flap-doodle of\nOlcott\u2019s\u201d; Colonel Olcott himself has told us that he had it\nmanufactured in the first instance as \u201ca playful present,\u201d and\naccompanied the gift with \u201ca jocular remark\u201d; and there is no doubt that\nhe has enjoyed many a quiet chuckle since over the unwary use of it by\nhis rival, who may yet prove to have sealed his own official\ndeath-warrant in sealing the Mahatma\u2019s \u201cmissives.\u201d\n\nWell, since it is so provocative of pleasant emotions, let us look again\ninto this matter of the Master\u2019s seal. For, indeed, it is only since\ncertain other things have been found out that Mr. Judge has discovered\nhow little the question of the seal\u2019s genuineness matters either way. It\nis all very well now for him to declare that internal evidence is the\nonly test of Mahatmic origin: that in a message, for instance, like\n\u201cFollow Judge and stick\u201d (\u201cIsis,\u201d p. 48), it is the words themselves\n\n whose very sweetness giveth proof\n That they were born for immortality.\n\nBut that was not always Mr. Judge\u2019s line. After all, _somebody_ must\nhave been at pains to see to the seal impression in those missives which\nMr. Judge vouched for\u2014to say nothing of such other external and material\nthings as the texture of the paper, quite unlike any found elsewhere,\nand the handwriting and signature, all of which used to be triumphantly\ncited as evidence by Mr. Judge\u2019s satellites (the present quotation is\nfrom a pamphlet on \u201cMahatmas,\u201d embellished with learned references to\n\u201cLord Bacon,\u201d which is by Mr. Judge\u2019s private secretary, and bears the\nimprimatur of Mr. Judge). Mr. Judge denies that it was he who called\nspecial attention to the seal impression as authenticating his first\npioneer missive in 1891 (the \u201cNote the Seal\u201d missive, as I have called\nit). As he does not deny my statement that he excused himself to the\nothers present for not showing the contents of the letter, perhaps he\nwill explain what it was that he did call attention to, if not the seal\nand signature. But why labour the point, when there is the direct\nevidence afforded by one of his own seal-bearing letters\u2014one which he\nhas not denied\u2014in which he wrote, \u201cI believe the Master agrees with me,\n_in which case I will ask him to put his seal here_\u201d\u2014and \u201cplump on the\nwritten word came the seal\u201d (\u201cIsis,\u201d p. 34). In those days at any rate\nMr. Judge was of those who \u201cthink these little decorations of\nimportance,\u201d as he now puts it.\n\n\u201cYou trace it [the seal] to her [H.P.B.], and there you leave it,\u201d Mr.\nJudge says; \u201cand then you think I am obliged to prove I did not get\nit\u2014to prove negatives.\u201d But I traced it rather farther than to H.P.B. I\ntraced the seal to Lansdowne-road in 1888 (Mr. B. Keightley\u2019s evidence).\nI traced an impression of it on a letter from _Mr. Judge_ at\nLansdowne-road in 1888 (Colonel Olcott\u2019s evidence). I showed that when\nMr. Judge went back to America, the seal went too (telegram impression,\nNew York, 1890; evidence of Mr. B. Keightley). I showed that\nthenceforward it appeared on missives produced by Mr. Judge, and on no\nothers, again and again. I showed how, in the missives planted on\nColonel Olcott, as if dubious how far the Colonel would carry on the\ncomplaisance of Madame Blavatsky, Mr. Judge\u2019s complete letter-writer\ntried the seal on gradually; first, an illegible impression, and then a\nbold one; how, when the Colonel threatened to \u201cpeach,\u201d the latter _pi\u00e8ce\n\u00e0 conviction_ was suddenly and stealthily removed from the spot where\nMr. Judge had taught the Colonel to find it; how, after that, legible\nimpressions were reserved for others, and the Colonel only got illegible\nones; how, finally (this was after the Colonel had threatened to\nreproduce any he saw anywhere, together with the whole story of the\nseal, in the _Theosophist_), seal-impressions ceased altogether; and how\nMr. Judge erased such as he could get hold of, and began quibbling and\nequivocating about the seal as he is doing up to the present moment.\n\nThese facts, again, I leave to tell their own story; in face of which it\nmatters little how many \u201cstories\u201d Mr. Judge may tell.\n\n\n Quibbling about the Mahatma.\n\nMr. Judge\u2019s particular version of the old Theosophistry about the small\npart played by Mahatmas and their missives in the society is\nconveniently adjacent in this Reply to statements of his own in the\nexactly opposite sense. While in one breath he denies \u201cinfluencing the\ncourse of affairs by any such thing,\u201d a few lines lower down he tells us\nhow he got a message directing him to prevent the president\u2019s\nresignation, \u201cand at once cabled to him and went to work to have the\nAmerican section vote\u201d; and, again, how he stopped Mrs. Besant going to\nIndia, \u201cunder direction\u201d; and, again, how authoritative messages are\ngoing round \u201ceven as I write,\u201d \u201cand in relation to this very affair.\u201d\nCompare these, too:\u2014\n\n MR. JUDGE IN HIS \u201cREPLY.\u201d MR. JUDGE ELSEWHERE.\n\n It is absolutely untrue that the I am not acting impulsively in my\n society grows by talking of the many public statements as to\n Mahatmas or Masters, or by having Masters.... Experience has shown\n messages sent round from them. The that a springing up of interest in\n movement here and elsewhere is Theosophy has followed\n pushed along the line of declarations, and men\u2019s minds are\n philosophy.... Messages from the more powerfully drawn.... The\n Masters do not go flying around, Masters have said, \u201cIt is easier to\n and the society does not flourish help in America, because our\n by any belief in those being existence has been persistently\n promulgated. declared.\u201d\u2014(Mr. Judge, letter in\n _Lucifer_, April, 1893.)\n\n Nor am I, as you hint, in the habit I now send you this, all of it\n of sending such messages about the being either direct quotations from\n society, nor of influencing the the messages to me or else in\n course of affairs by using any such substance what I am directed to say\n things. Could I be such a fool as to you.... We are all, therefore,\n to tell all others to go by what I face to face with the question\n get for my own guidance? whether we will abide by Masters\n and their messenger.\u2014(Mr. Judge,\n circular to \u201cthe core of the T.S.,\u201d\n deposing Mrs. Besant, November,\n 1894.)\n\n\n What Mr. Judge Lives On.\n\nMr. Judge pretends that I have said that his motive is mere pecuniary\ngain. I have throughout treated the vice-president as a spiritual Jabez,\nnot a financial one; and I wish him joy of the distinction. But since he\nhas raised the question at such length, I will examine it a moment. Mr.\nJudge says: \u201cNo salaries are paid to our officers. We support ourselves,\nor privately support each other.\u201d As he has elsewhere explained that he,\nfor one, gives his whole time to the society, it will be seen that the\nTheosophical officials supply a parallel to those famous Scilly\nIslanders who \u201ceked out a precarious existence by taking in each others\u2019\nwashing.\u201d The statement about the salaries is directly contradicted, on\nturning to the 1894 Convention Report, by an extra vote of \u00a3150 for the\nofficials at Avenue-road. But I am well aware that the ready money of\nthe T.S. is drawn far more from a few individuals with means and from\nspecial funds than from the small annual subscription, and I have said\nalready that the \u201cfree board and lodging\u201d amid the temple groves at\nAdyar, Avenue-road, and New York is more than their small salary to\nthose of \u201cthe smaller fry\u201d to whom such things are a consideration. As\nfor Mr. Judge, he does not deny that it is he to whom the _Path_, and\nthe press and publishing business connected with it, now belong; but he\nmakes the curious statement that the proceeds, whatever they may be,\ncome out of the pockets, not of \u201cmembers, but largely of others.\u201d In\nother words, it is not Theosophists, but the outside public, who support\nthe official organ of Theosophy! Can it be that the _Path_ is widely\ntaken in as a comic paper?\n\n\n A Few Other Curiosities.\n\nNote the information conveyed, in this Reply and in Mr. Judge\u2019s recent\nCircular, that both Mrs. Besant and Colonel Olcott also profess to get\n\u201cmessages from the Master.\u201d \u201cIf you may get messages (he asks in effect)\nwhy not I missives?\u201d Why, indeed?\n\nNote the reproach about \u201cabusing a woman who has long enough fought,\u201d\n&c. This from the man who has just issued a circular ordering the\ndeposition of the said woman for being possessed of a devil!\n\nNote the threat, addressed to me and the Editor of THE WESTMINSTER, that\nMr. Judge\u2019s Master will get us \u201cexecrated for offences not yet exposed,\u201d\nand that he has already let Mr. Judge into \u201caltogether too much of the\nsecret hearts\u201d of his Theosophical colleagues. This is an old line which\nMadame Blavatsky used to find very effective with weak-minded disciples.\n\nNote the claim to prophetic \u201cforeknowledge,\u201d based on the fact that Mr.\nJudge said, long before the July \u201cEnquiry,\u201d that it would come to\nnothing. It must be granted that this does imply a complete prescience\non the part of Mr. Judge\u2014of the tactics which Mr. Judge in due course\nadopted.\n\nNote, lastly, Mr. Judge\u2019s plain avowal that he declines to face any\ninquiry of any sort or kind. He declines the Law Courts, which, I\nfrankly agree, are no possible tribunal for him. He declines the\nJudicial Committee of the T.S., because he, the vice-president, is a\nprivate member. He declined a Theosophical Jury of Honour in July, which\nwould have tried him as a private member, because they, too, were not\noccult enough for him. And he avows that he will decline everything and\nanything else, because the \u201cproof\u201d of the New York Mahatma \u201cbegins and\nends with myself.\u201d Need I add a word more?\n\n F. EDMUND GARRETT.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n TRANSCRIBER\u2019S NOTES\n\n\n 1. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.\n 2. Retained anachronistic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as\n printed.\n 3. Footnotes have been re-indexed using numbers.\n 4. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.\n 5. Enclosed bold font in =equals=.","title":"Isis very much unveiled, being the story of the great Mahatma hoax","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":46296}