Chapter XVIII: Part III: Last Shreds of the Veil of Isis (1)

A REVIEW OF SOME THEOSOPHISTRIES.

As yet, “Isis Very Much Unveiled” remains very much unanswered. The oracles are dumb. “No Dolphin rose, no Nereid stirred”; no Mahatma “precipitated” a reply (as one of them did with such edifying results in the case of the Kiddle plagiarism), nor disintegrated by psychic force the damaging documents in my possession; Mrs. Besant, whose “astral body” has flitted across oceans to visit Mr. Herbert Burrows “on pre-arranged evenings,” gave no sign from Australia; Colonel Olcott, president, in India, disdained the more commonplace agency of the cable; and Mr. William Q. Judge, vice-president, whose official adytum is but five days away at New York, neglected to avail himself of the ordinary post, whatever he may have done about the astral one.

Moreover, accustomed as are all these three officials to scouring the earth, with all expenses paid, no intimation has been made public as to the date when we may expect to receive anyone of them back from the various regions to which they sped immediately after launching the report of their peculiar “Enquiry.” Their colleagues in England continue to speak as if a trip to New York carried one to the bourn from which no traveller returns.

But what of these colleagues themselves? Where is the “Voice of the Silence” of Avenue-road, St. John’s Wood? At point after point, the Story of the Great Mahatma Hoax touched matters to which one or other or all of them must have been privy. It told of missives which they had accepted as genuine, orders which they had acted upon, decisions in which they had agreed, fact after fact of which they had full cognisance. When Mr. Mead, the European secretary, gave out that he did not reply because he was not attacked, I did my best to oblige him; I began at the beginning, and challenged him at once as having been present and taken part in the “Judge’s-plan-is-right” decision; and I added that when he had denied my version of that I would supply him with further matter for denial. Whereupon the discreet European secretary subsided altogether.

The “Sacred Oath” Humbug.

Of course, some excuse had to be offered, and we have been told that what happens at meetings of the Esoteric Section is sacredly secret. Now, first, that only covers a small part of my story, some of which dealt with circumstances surrounding official acts of the society or its three sections. Secondly, the excuse is eminently one that accuses, by implying that what I say happened at those meetings _did_ happen; for presumably members take no oath to keep secret what does _not_ occur? But, thirdly, this alleged secrecy is a mere pretext; else how could Mrs. Besant publicly refer on platforms to “supernatural” experiences at those meetings; and Messrs. Old and Edge (the latter to this day holding office) raise questions about one such matter in print in Colonel Olcott’s journal; and Mrs. Besant, the Colonel, and a full council of officials notify Mr. Judge that in a certain eventuality (which did afterwards occur) they would make a “_full publication covering all the details_” of that matter, and others concerning the sacred Mahatma messages?

Whatever may be the “quasi-Masonic oath” of which we now hear, _they_ evidently held that it did not bind them to conceal, with their eyes open, a fraud upon their fellow-members; and those who do so interpret it only throw a very suggestive light on their own action in willingly taking such an oath. Was Mrs. Besant quite right when she gave the public what she confesses was a “misleading account” of these secrets, and only in the wrong when, along with Colonel Olcott and the rest, she proposed to give what she now knew to be the correct one? Is the position that a Theosophist may “tell”—anything he likes, except the truth?

A Survey of the Present Situation.

The absence of Colonel Olcott and Mrs. Besant does not alter the fact that he with others made, and she publicly adopted, certain charges against Mr. Judge, vice-president. And the silence of their colleagues in England does not disguise the fact that my account of the details has not been challenged as to one single event, letter, or facsimile. The published “Report of an Enquiry” cries aloud for some explanation: the explanation of “Isis Very Much Unveiled” holds the field untouched. It leaves the vice-president only able to exculpate himself, if at all, by further inculpating them. The “full rebuttal evidence held in reserve,” therefore, at which his professed representative in England hints, can be formidable only to the Theosophical Society, not to its critics. I am bound to say, however, that if the would-be impressive fragments of it which have been privately adumbrated to me are fair samples of the rest, it is not calculated to be formidable to anybody. When the “affidavits” hinted at have been published, or otherwise submitted to examination, I can promise them all the attention they deserve. To say that any affidavit, until cross-examined upon, is worth exactly as much as the paper it is written on would be an uncalled-for slight upon the paper-maker.

The Excommunication of “Brother Old.”

A word or two about the attempt to create a diversion by attacking the character of the one Theosophical official who has had the honesty to resign office rather than shut his eyes to a fraud on the public. The attack on Mr. Old cannot in any case discredit the story I have narrated. First, because the largest and most important part of that story is from the undenied written evidence of persons still holding office in the society, and especially of its “President-Founder.” Secondly, because, even as regards Mr. Old’s part, the character of a witness is only a relevant consideration where the truth of his testimony is disputed. What I am now about to say is said, therefore, merely in justice to Mr. Old himself. The attack on him has two lines. It is said that he had to perjure himself to give any information whatever. It is hinted that what information he did give was given for money. The former charge turns entirely on the “sacred oath” humbug, which I have discussed already. As to the latter, it is true to my knowledge that for the part he has taken in fulfilling what he regards as a public duty to truth, Mr. Old neither asked nor received any consideration whatever. My own acquaintance with Mr. Old began in an odd way, not without bearing on the question of his sincerity. At the time of the Salvation Army riots at Eastbourne, a gallant old Englishman, who could not bear that women, under any provocation, should be publicly assaulted in English streets, went down there to stand up for the “Hallelujah lasses.” He asked, through the _Pall Mall Gazette_, for five hundred Englishmen to help. He got five. This Quixotic gentleman, this modern Sieur de Marsac, was my friend Mr. Charles Money, of Petersfield. I went myself to see that he did not get his head broken more than was necessary. His company, as seedy a lot of knights-errant as ever I saw, consisted mainly of Cockney journalists who did not believe in God. But one—a spruce, slight youth—declared himself a Theosophist. The adventurers spouted to a yelling mob, got off with whole skins, and by testimony of the local police actually achieved their end. But Mr. Money and one other were knocked about a bit in the crowd. That other—he quitted himself like a man—was Mr. W. R. Old, Theosophist. I may be wrong: it was but a street row; but I regard that as a more practical service on Mr. Old’s part to the “Universal Brotherhood of Humanity” than all the hundredweights of vapid moralising on the subject ever vomited from “The H.P.B. Press.”

Stewing in the Judge Juice.

Except Mr. Old, one prominent Theosophist, and one alone, has so far publicly faced the facts. Mr. Herbert Burrows has had the honesty and the courage to say out that this thing must be answered by Mr. Judge, and fully, or he for one will quit the society. Mr. Burrows forgets that others besides Mr. Judge have made themselves answerable. Other correspondents, again, represented other factions, and showed how the society is seething with distrust and shame. But the mass of the letters only serve to prove that, whatever else the “occult powers” of the Theosophists may be, they do not include a command either of plain English or of straight argument. If “Isis” does not yet stand before us absolutely like Hans Breitmann’s “maiden mit nodings on,” it is a painfully thin fabric of Theosophistries which alone shelters her from the cold wind of public contempt. Let us examine it.

The Theosophistry about Proving a Negative.

“_After all, you have not proved that Mahatmas do not exist, nor that occult phenomena cannot occur._”

Certainly I have not, nor did I ever propose to try. I am quite prepared to believe in both when evidence for them has been produced, and has stood the test of such ordinary evidential canons as have been applied to kindred subjects—for instance, by the Psychical Research Society. All that I have said is that certain evidence on which the Theosophical Society has been building proves nothing whatever, except the existence of a hotbed of humbug within the society itself. As for the Mahatmas, there is no difficulty about conceiving that illiterate, twaddling, and mendacious beings of a second-rate order of intelligence, such as those reflected in the “missives” which I have reproduced, may exist in Tibet as they unhappily do elsewhere. But when we are told that these beings have acquired powers which rise superior to time and space, and that they use these for communicating “in a quasi-miraculous manner” with the Theosophical Society, we ask for facts; and we get—such facts as were investigated by Dr. Hodgson and his colleagues, and such facts as have been exposed in “Isis Very Much Unveiled.” What else is there? One Theosophist directs me to “our literature on the subject, which is copious.” I don’t doubt it; but it is not “literature” that I am in search of. Another declares “it does not all depend on Madame Blavatsky and Mr. Judge; others have seen Mahatmas.” It seems that Mrs. Besant has been telling her Australian audiences that she herself has been so favoured (just as she told the Hall of Science audience that she had been favoured with supernatural missives). Well, how did Mrs. Besant know her Mahatma? By his “portrait,” I suppose, as others have done. And how was that portrait produced? When Madame Blavatsky began to spell spiritualism “Theosophy,” and turned her “spirit-control” “John King,” of whom Colonel Olcott tells, into Master Koot Hoomi—whom she again subordinated, after the Kiddle exposure, to Mahatma Morya, whom she, in turn, after the S.P.R. Report, left over for exploitation by Mr. Judge—when Madame started the Mahatma on this chequered career, it was one of her earliest steps to secure a counterfeit presentment of her creation. Various artists and amateurs were set to paint portraits under occult inspiration. The results may all have resembled the Protean Mahatma; some of them were strikingly unlike each other. The two best were done by Mr. Schmiechen, now a society portrait-painter, partly out of his head, partly from directions given by Madame, and partly from a photograph of a typical Hindu which she gave him for the purpose. Madame identified one as Koot and the other as Morya, and declared they were speaking likenesses—an opinion which nobody else was in a position to contradict. They hang to-day in the “Occult Room” at Adyar, and are declared to have been painted from the respective “astral bodies” of their subjects. Colonel Olcott, president, who knows their origin perfectly well, exhibits them reverently to barefoot disciples doing “puja.” Photographs from the fancy portrait of “M,” in locked cases, have been distributed to the Esoteric few; Mrs. Besant always works with one facing her; Madame Blavatsky made it part of a _chela’s_ course to spend some time daily staring at the image, and deliberately trying to “visualise” it in corners of the room. What wonder if some of them have succeeded? It would have been contrary to all experience of the phenomena of self-hypnotic hallucination if they had not. The thing only begins to call for examination when the figure thus “visualised” leaves something not entirely psychic behind him. The Master who left a shower of roses once at Adyar turned out to have been M. Coulomb, eked out with a mask, a bladder, and some white muslin; and the roses were traced elsewhere than to Tibet. And the Master who precipitated the Judge missives?——But perhaps the Theosophists would prefer not to put him forward. When they have something better, I shall be glad to hear of it.

The Theosophistry of Throwing Over the Mahatmas.

“_What matter even if the Mahatmas do not exist, and the phenomena are frauds? There still remain those sublime ideas which_,” &c., &c.

I was quite prepared for this particular Theosophistry. That was why I started, at the very beginning of my story (Chapter II.), by showing what an enormous practical part the Mahatmas and their miracles have played in the movement. It is easy for this Theosophist or that to protest that they never attracted _him_. The fact remains that the big accessions to the society’s numbers have always followed on the miracle “booms,” alike under Madame Blavatsky and under Mrs. Besant. Moreover, it is not possible, even argumentatively, to dissociate “those sublime ideas,” &c., from the Mahatmas on whose authority Madame Blavatsky gave them out. If she spoke truth, they were the real authors of “Isis Very Much Unveiled” and of “The Secret Doctrine.” If she lied, and the authority for those teachings is her own, what is that lying authority worth? I need not labour the point, as it was conclusively proved long ago by Mrs. Besant herself. In an article in _Lucifer_ of December, 1890, addressed apparently to certain Theosophical schismatics who showed a tendency to throw over alike their foundress and her “Masters,” Mrs. Besant accomplished the easy task of showing that the society was tied hand and foot to both. It was founded by _Her_ at the bidding of “_Them_”; They have been the _deus ex machinâ_ whenever She was in a fix, and the society has so accepted Them. It can be “neutral” about Them, and Their miracles, and Their prophetess, only when an heir is neutral about his own title-deeds. As Mrs. Besant puts it in a nutshell: “If there are no Masters, then the Theosophical Society is an absurdity.”

The Theosophistry of Throwing Over the “Inner Group.”

“_The Esoteric Section is a private body, not officially connected with the Theosophical Society; so the Society is not responsible for miracle-mongering in the Section._”

The so-called Esoteric Section or E.S.T. (“Eastern School of Theosophy”), of which the High-priesters and the Vice-President are now quarrelling for the headship, and, in the words of the latter official, “the core of the Theosophical Society.” The Inner Group, again, is the core of the E.S.T. Both were the special creation of the Society’s foundress. The Group was to contain her top pupils. The members of the group are almost to a man officials of the Society, living at the Society’s expense. With the one exception of Colonel Olcott, practically all the high panjandrums are included in it. Lastly, if it has been the centre of the Mahatma communications, it is a centre that has radiated them in all directions to the society’s circumference. The plop of a missive sends a ripple from the Inner Group to the Esoteric Section, from the Esoteric Section to the society at large, and from the society to the public.

Well, the yolk of an egg is not officially connected with the outer portion; but when the yolk is bad, we call it a rotten egg without further parley.

The Theosophistry of Throwing Over the Society’s Personnel.

But that brings me to the most barefaced Theosophistry of all: “_Even if all our officials be proved to have lied and cheated, there still remains untouched their grand ethical teaching!_”

I simply state this, and leave it. Like the coster when his barrow broke down, “Friends, I ain’t ekal to it.” I cannot do justice to such colossal impudence. “Truth survives all attacks”; she does; she will even survive Theosophical defences. “The noble religions and philosophies of the East exist”; they do, as they did long centuries before the Theosophical Society was heard of, and will do long centuries after it has been forgotten. But when Mahatmas, and miracles, and the founders, and the officials, and the official acts of the Theosophical Society are all thrown over—What remains of the society? “We have absolutely no creed,” the European secretary told an interviewer the other day—(all unfettered by the fact that he distributes broadcast Mrs. Besant’s “Introduction to Theosophy” with a complete pseudo-Buddhistic cosmology about the Seven Planes, &c., authenticated by direct reference to the Masters, and particularising, for instance, that “Devachan” lasts “for average persons some fifteen centuries”!)—“Absolutely no creed.” “You would simply call yours a moral or religious society, then?” asked the puzzled interviewer. To which Mr. Mead naïvely replies, “_I don’t exactly know what you would call it_.”—(_Sunday Times_, Nov. 11.)

Since scholarship has opened the stores of the East to Western culture, there has been a natural awakening of popular interest in Eastern directions. While that lasts, people discussing each other’s souls will continue to sprinkle their remarks, harmlessly enough, with those mingled jargons which make a true Orientalist smile. If “Theosophy” means that, “Theosophy” has certainly some life before it; but as for the Theosophical _Society_—“why cumbereth it the ground?” It is an organised machine for taking in the Honest Enthusiast at one end, passing him through the stages of the Willing Dupe and the Conscientious Humbug, and turning him out at the other end at worst a conscious fraud, at best a dreary and disillusioned cynic.

Enough of the logical and ethical fog that Theosophy diffuses!—the Mahatmosphere, as one might call it. It is a relief to escape from it into the fresh air of common honesty and common sense.

POSTSCRIPT.

A MAHATMA AT BAY:

THE VICE-PRESIDENT’S TRUMP CARD.

The following appeared in the _Westminster Gazette_, under the headings: “OPEN SPLIT BETWEEN THEOSOPHICAL OFFICIALS”; “RIVAL REVELATIONS FROM THE SAME MASTER”; “MR. JUDGE GETS A MISSIVE DEPOSING MRS. BESANT”:—

Just as the Story of the Great Mahatma Hoax is going to press in its collected form, just in the nick of time to be included, comes the material for a new chapter of more extravagant humour than all the rest. Readers of the “Isis” chapters will recall that the Theosophic embroglio has gone through the following stages:—(1) The vice-president’s “Mahatma” makes reflections on the president. (2) The president and other officials make charges of “forging” Mahatma missives against the V.P. (3) Mrs. Besant, after some vacillation, adopts these charges, and joins with the others in offering the V.P. the choice of retiring quietly or an exposure. (4) The V.P. bluffs them all into silence, and they all join in inducing the “Convention” of last July to separate without looking further into the matter. (5) Mrs. Besant and the V.P. “join hands,” in public, on her statement that though he wrote the alleged missives “with his own hand,” yet he had “psychically received” their contents from the Mahatma. (6) In private, Mrs. Besant separates herself from the V.P. by dissolving their joint headship of the Esoteric Section (“the core of the Theosophical Society,” as Mr. Judge justly calls it below): Mr. Judge, V.P., to retain the American section of the section, and she herself the European, to which she has since added the Indian.

Now we learn Phase 7. Seven is a highly Theosophical numeral, and this phase is certainly a rich one. Mr. Judge sends round to the Esoteric Section a pamphlet in which he announces that Mrs. Besant is, in effect, possessed of a devil, and that the Mahatma (under whose direction she also professes to be acting) has ordered him to depose her altogether, and take over the whole thing himself!! Which, in a formal “Order,” he accordingly proceeds to do.

The pamphlet, which among other things professes to give the Judge version of the true inwardness of the abortive “Enquiry” in July, has just been sent round to the Esoteric Theosophists. Copies were not sent to some who were considered dangerous; but the recent unveiling has made a good many so who were safe enough, from the Judge point of view, before, and thanks to one of these who does not acknowledge any headship of Mr. Judge over the European Esotericists since Mrs. Besant’s dissolution thereof, it is possible to give to mankind what was meant by Mr. Judge for a party. The following are the salient passages, followed by the Order deposing Mrs. Besant (the titles in capitals are Mr. Judge’s; the paragraph headings are not):—

BY MASTER’S DIRECTION.

I now send you this, all of it being either direct quotations from
the messages to me, or else in substance what I am directed to say
to you, the different details and elaborations being my own....

We have now to deal with the E.S.T. and with our duty to it and to
each other; and among those others, to Mrs. Besant....

The Greatness of Wm. Q. Judge.

I am not a pledged member of the E.S.T., and never made a pledge in
it, as my pledges were long before to the Master direct. I was one
of its founders, with H.P.B., and she, at the beginning, made me
manager and teacher in it from the first, under her, for the
American part especially. You can remember all she said of that. I
wrote the rules of the E.S.T. myself in London in 1888 at H.P.B.’s
request, and under the direction of the Master. Those were not
altered by her, but after reading them and further consulting the
Master she added some general paragraphs. I am the only one standing
in that position. Mrs. Besant and all other members are pledged and
certified in the ordinary way....

An Inner Group was later on formed by H.P.B. at London, so that she
might give out teachings to be recorded by the members, and, if
possible, teach them practical Occultism. Of this Mrs. Besant, with
George Mead to help her, was made the Secretary, because she had
great ability in a literary way, was wholly devoted, and perfectly
fit for the task. But this did not make her a teacher....

The Littleness of Mrs. Besant.

The death of H.P.B. destroyed, of course, any further value in the
office of “Recorder.”

The conversations of H.P.B. with the Inner Group were taken down in
a more or less fragmentary form by the different members, in notes,
and later Mrs. Besant and George Mead wrote them out, as
Secretaries. I have a complete copy of these, and so has each member
of the Inner Group, and those copies comprise all the “Instructions”
left in the possession of Mrs. Besant or the Inner Group. In my
possession, and within my control, is a large body of instructions
given to me all the time from 1875, which I shall give out and have
given out, as far as I am directed....

Mrs. Annie Besant has been but five years in this work, and not all
of that time engaged in occult study and practice....

Since 1889 she has done great service to the T.S. and devoted
herself to it. But all this does not prevent a sincere person from
making errors in Occultism, especially when he, as Mrs. Besant did,
tries to force himself along the path of practical work in that
field. Sincerity does not confer of itself knowledge, much less
wisdom....

Singular Disinterestedness of Wm. Q. Judge.

I wish it to be clearly understood that Mrs. Besant has had herself
no conscious evil intention: she has simply gone for awhile outside
the line of her Guru (H.P.B.), begun work with others, and fallen
under their influence. We should not push her farther down, but
neither will the true sympathy we have blind our eyes, so as to let
her go on, to the detriment of the movement. I could easily retire
from the whole T.S., but my conceptions of duty are different,
although the personal cost to myself in this work is heavy, and as I
am ordered to stay I will stay and try my best to aid her and
everyone else as much as possible. And the same authority tells me
that “could she open her eyes and see her real line of work, and
correct the present condition in herself as well as the one she has
helped to make in the T.S. and E.S.T., she would find herself in
mental, spiritual, and physical conditions of a kind much better
than ever before, for her present state is due to the attacks of the
dark powers, unconsciously to her.”

Black Magic and the Plot Behind the Scenes.

And now it becomes necessary under instructions received to give the
members of the School some account of the things behind the scenes
in connexion with the recent investigation attempted at London upon
the charges against me....

I was made the object of an attack in the guise of an attempt to
purify the Society, and Mrs. Besant was thrown forward as the
official accuser of myself—a friend who was certified to her by
H.P.B., her teacher, well known as working for the T.S. for many
years. All this needs light, and the best interests of Mrs. Besant
and of the E.S.T. demand that some of the secret history shall be
given out, however disagreeable it may be, in order that the very
purgation which was improperly directed to the wrong quarter shall
take place now. The difficulty arose when in January or February
Annie Besant finally lent herself unconsciously to the plot which I
detail herein....

The plot exists among the Black Magicians, who ever war against the
White, and against those Black ones we were constantly warned by
H.P.B. This is no fiction, but a very substantial fact. I have seen
and also been shown the chief entity among those who thus work
against us....

How Mr. Judge’s Master Caught Out Mrs. Besant’s Friend.

The name of the person who was worked upon so as to, if possible,
use him as a minor agent of the Black Magicians, and for the
influencing of Mrs. Besant, is Gyanendra N. Chakravarti, a Brahman,
of Allahabad, India, who came to America on our invitation to the
Religious Parliament in 1893. He permitted ambition to take subtle
root in his heart; he is no longer in our lines. He was then a Chela
of a minor Indian Guru, and was directed to come to America by that
Guru, who had been impressed to so direct him by our Master....
While in that relation he was telepathically impressed in Chicago
with some of the contents of a message received by me from the
Master. It corroborated outwardly what I had myself received. It
was, however, but a part, and was, moreover, deficient in matter,
Chakravarti himself being only aware of it as a mental impression,
and I am informed that at the time he was not fully aware of what he
was doing. His ability to be used as an unconscious vehicle was made
known to me when he was made to receive the message. Although he was
not fully aware of it, not only was the whole of his tour here well
guarded and arranged, but he was personally watched by the agents of
the Master’s scattered through the country unknown to him, who
reported to me. On several occasions he has taken people into his
confidence, believing that he was instructing them, when in fact
they were observing him closely from the Lodge, helping him where
right, and noting him fully, though they did not tell him so. This
was also so in those parts of his tour when he believed himself
alone or only with Mrs. Besant....

“If I am a Fraud so are H.P.B. and the Masters.”

If I was guilty of what I was accused, then Master would be shown as
conniving at forgery and lying—a most impossible thing. The only
other possibility is that Mr. Chakravarti and I “got up” the
message. But he and Mrs. Besant have admitted its genuineness,
although she is perfectly unable herself to decide on its
genuineness or falsity; but further, Mrs. Besant admitted to several
that she had seen the Master himself come and speak through my body
while I was perfectly conscious. And still further, H.P.B. gave me
in 1889 the Master’s picture, on which he put this message, “To my
dear and loyal colleague, W. Q. Judge.”

Now, then, either I am bringing you a true message from the Master,
or the whole T.S. and E.S.T. is a lie, in the ruins of which must be
buried the names of H.P.B. and the Masters. All these stand together
as they fall together....

How Mrs. Besant Privately Thinks H.P.B. a Fraud.

As final proof of the delusions worked through this man and his
friends, I will mention this:—Many years ago—in 1881—the Masters
sent to the Allahabad Brahmans (the Prayag T.S.) a letter which was
delivered by H.P.B. to Mr. A. P. Sinnett, who handed a copy over to
them, keeping the original; it dealt very plainly with the Brahmans.
This letter the Brahmans do not like, and Mr. Chakravarti tried to
make me think it was a pious fraud by H.P.B. He succeeded with Mrs.
Besant in this, so that since she met him she has on several
occasions said she thought it was a fraud by H.P.B., made up
entirely, and not from the Master. I say now on Master’s authority
that it was from the Master, and is a right letter. Only delusion
would make Mrs. Besant take this position: deliberate intention
makes the others do it. It is an issue which may not be evaded, for
if that letter be a fraud, then all the rest sent through our old
teacher, and on which Esoteric Buddhism was made, are the same. I
shall rest on that issue: we all rest on it.

Mrs. Besant’s Rival Revelations.

Mrs. Besant was then made to agree with these people under the
delusion that it was approved by the Masters. She regarded herself
as their servant. It was against the E.S.T. rules. When the rule is
broken it is one’s duty to leave the E.S.T., and when I got the
charges from her I asked her to leave it if it did not suit her. The
depth of the plot was not shown to Mrs. Besant at all, for if it had
been she would have refused. Nor was Colonel Olcott aware of it.
Mrs. Besant was put in such a frightful position that while she was
writing me most kindly and working with me she was all the time
thinking that I was a forger and that I had blasphemed the Master.
She was made to conceal from me, when here, her thoughts about the
intended charges, but was made to tell Mr. B. Keightley, in London,
and possibly few others. Nor until the time was ripe did she tell
me, in her letter, in January, from India, asking me to resign from
the E.S.T. and the T.S. offices, saying that if I did and would
confess guilt, all would be forgiven, and everyone would work with
me as usual. But I was directed differently, and fully informed. She
was induced to believe that the Master was endorsing the
prosecution, that he was ordering her to do what she did. At the
same time, I knew and told her that it was the plan there to have
Colonel Olcott resign when I had been cut off, the presidency to be
then offered to her. It was offered to her, and she was made to
believe it was the Master’s wish for her “not to oppose.” She then
waited. I did not resign, and the plot so far was spoilt for the
time....

She felt and expressed to me the greatest pain to have to do such
things to me. I knew she so felt, and wrote her that it was the
Black Magicians. She replied, being still under the delusion, that I
was failing to do Master’s will.

How Mrs. Besant Tried Witchcraft.

Her influencers also made her try psychic experiments on me and on
two others in Europe. They failed. On me they had but a passing
effect, as I was cognisant of them; on one of the others they
reflected on health, although she did not desire any harm at all;
she was made to think it best and for my good. She then sent word to
these people that she had not succeeded. This is all the effect of
pure delusion; the variance between such things and her usual
character is shown in her all the time writing me the most kind
letters. In all this Mr. Chakravarti was her guide, with others. She
was writing him all the time about it. He went so far as to write me
on a matter he was supposed to know nothing of: “No matter what
Annie may do to you as co-head of the E.S. she means you no harm.”

“Every Man His Own Mahatma.”

Informed as I was of these inside facts, I drew up under Master’s
direction my circular on the charges in March, 1894, and there
outlined what would be done. It was all done as I said, and as the
Master in March told me would be the case. The London investigation
ended as Master predicted through me in my circular, and for the
benefit of the T.S. But all that time the conspirators used all
means against me. They had all sorts of letters sent me from India
with pretended messages from the Masters asking me to resign and
confess. But Master kept me informed and told me what steps to take.
He even told me that, much as it might seem the contrary from the
official papers, Colonel Olcott would be the central figure and the
one through whom the adjustment would come. This also turned out
true.

Migration of Mahatmas to—New York?

The Master says that the T.S. movement was begun by Them in the West
by western people; that cyclic law requires the work in the West for
the benefit of the world; that They do not live in India.

They also say that Nature’s laws have set apart woe for those who
spit back in the face of their teacher, for those who try to
belittle her work, and make her out to be part good and part
fraud....

A distinct object H.P.B. had in view I will now, on the authority of
the Master, tell you, unrevealed before by H.P.B. to anyone else
that I know of: it is, the establishment in the West of a great seat
of learning, where shall be taught and explained and demonstrated
the great theories of man and nature which she has brought forward
to us, where Western occultism, as the essence combined out of all
others, shall be taught.

I also state on the same authority that H.P.B. has not
reincarnated....

We are all, therefore, face to face with the question whether we
will abide by Masters and their Messenger on the one hand, or by the
disrupting forces that stand on the other, willing to destroy our
great mission if we will but give them the opportunity.

“I Declare Mrs. Besant’s Headship at an End!”

The pamphlet closes with the following “E.S.T. ORDER,” dated November 3, and signed in manuscript:—

I now proceed a step further than the E.S.T. decisions of 1894, and
solely for the good of the E.S.T. I resume in the E.S.T., in full,
all the functions and powers given to me by H.P.B. and that came to
me by orderly succession after her passing from this life, and
declare myself the sole head of the E.S.T. This has been done
already in America. So far as concerns the rest of the E.S.T. I may
have to await the action of the members, but I stand ready to
exercise those functions in every part of it. Hence, under the
authority given me by the Master and H.P.B., and under Master’s
direction, I declare Mrs. Annie Besant’s headship in the E.S.T. at
an end.

This, then, is Mr. Judge’s response to the case against him, and, as was expected, it takes the form of attacking his colleagues, but keeps strictly to generalities as regards the evidence against himself. The date affixed is one when Mr. Judge had probably heard of the articles in THE WESTMINSTER by cable, but had no idea of the detailed nature of the attack. The parts quoted throw many interesting side-lights, but perhaps the most delightful thing is the picture presented of all the Theosophists playing off the Mahatma on one another: Mr. Judge, Mrs. Besant, Mr. Chakravarti, and others, giving the most contradictory messages from the same Tibetan source; and Mr. Judge now finally “going one better” than all the rest, for has he not, in a very real sense, the Mahatma in his pocket?

At any rate, the battle has now well begun. The prophets of Baal are cutting, not themselves as of old, but one another. More power to all their elbows!

Mrs. Besant was willing enough to accept Mr. Judge’s anti-Olcott missives as “psychically” from the Mahatma; we shall now see how it strikes her when the same weapon is turned against herself.[1]

Footnote 1:

We _have_ seen. _Vide_ Preface.

[In the same issue was published a “vote of censure passed on the
President by one of the local ‘Lodges’ of the T.S. (Bournemouth),
declaring that the articles recently published in the _Westminster
Gazette_ disclose a _primâ facie_ case against the Vice-President,”
“of fraud upon his fellow Theosophists.” “The Vice-President should
not continue to lie,” the Bournemouth Lodge remarks, “under such a
charge.” Other Lodges have also taken one side or the other.]

THE SOCIETY UPON THE HIMALAY.

(THEOSOPHICALLY ADAPTED FROM BRET HARTE.)

I reside at Table Mountain, and my name is Truthful James;
I am not fond of pious frauds or Oriental games;
And I’ll tell in simple language, as well as I can say,
What broke up our Society upon the Himalay.

But first I would remark that there must needs be painful scenes
When Theosophic gents begin to give each other Beans;
And though Mahatma missives do pan out a little queer,
We should avoid disturbances in the Mahatmosphere.[2]

Now nothing could be nicer or more full of harmony
Than the first few months that followed the decease of “H.P.B.”;
Till Judge of Calaveras produced a curious set
Of missives in red pencil what he said were from Tibet.[3]

From these he reconstructed a Mahatma (very rare),
A Nest of that peculiar kind pertaining to a Mare;
But Mrs. Besant found a rival missive on the shelf,[4]
And said she fancied Mr. Judge had written his himself.[5]

Then Judge’s smile took on a most unpleasant sort of curve;
He said he would not trespass so on Mrs. B.’s preserve.
He was a most resourceful man, that quiet Mr. Judge;
He got another missive saying Mrs. B.’s was fudge.[6]

Now, it is not edifying for a Theosophic priest
To call another one a fraud—to all intents, at least;
Nor should the individual who happens to be meant
Reply by throwing things about to any great extent.

Then Olcott, H., of Adyar, raised a point of order, when
A chunk of old red pencil took him in the abdomen;[7]
And he smiled a kind of sickly smile and curled up on the floor,
And the subsequent proceedings interested him no more.[8]

For, in less time than I write it, all the meeting got upset
With “precipitating” missiles which did _not_ come from Tibet;
And the things they called each other in their anger were a sin—
Till the public got disgusted, and the temple roof caved in.

And this is all I have to say of these improper games,
For I live at Table Mountain and my name is Truthful James;
And I’ve told in simple language all I know about the fray
That broke up our Society upon the Himalay.

* * * * *
Footnote 2:

“Any action in these controversial matters tends to set up a perfect
whirlwind on other planes.”—Mrs. Besant in _Lucifer_.

Footnote 3:

“Mahatma Morya affects red pencil, Koot Hoomi blue.”—“Isis Very Much
Unveiled.”

Footnote 4:

“She wrote ... it was Master’s wish ... that Master ordered her to do
as she did.”—Mr. Judge’s circular to the E.S.T.

Footnote 5:

“I now know that they were written by Mr. Judge.”—Mrs. Besant, “Report
of an Enquiry,” &c.

Footnote 6:

“Under Master’s direction, I declare Mrs. Besant’s headship at an
end.”—Mr. Judge’s circular to the E.S.T.

Footnote 7:

“Isis,” Chapters IX., X.

Footnote 8:

“I declare, as my opinion, that this Enquiry must go no
farther.”—Colonel Olcott, “Report of an Enquiry,” &c.

F. E. G.

“WHEN AUGUR MEETS AUGUR”—

“It is rather a squalid fight between the augurs that the curtain has
been raised upon; but it has got to be fought out now before the
public, and it is in vain to try to ring the curtain down again.”
]

“ISIS VERY MUCH UNVEILED.”

A REPLY FROM MR. WILLIAM Q. JUDGE.

_To the_ EDITOR _of_ THE WESTMINSTER GAZETTE.

SIR,—You have published slanderous articles against the Theosophical Society, using me as the person; you have asked for a reply; I send it to you and ask that it be given place in your paper.—Yours truly,

WILLIAM Q. JUDGE.

_Theosophical Society, American Section,
General Secretary’s Office, New York, Nov. 26._

_To the_ EDITOR _of_ THE WESTMINSTER GAZETTE.

SIR,—At the time your articles directed against the Theosophical Society under the above title were appearing, I was lecturing in the country, and only within a few days have I seen your last numbers. Time is required for writing on such a subject, and at this distance from London I cannot be accused of much delay. With the greatest interest and amusement I have read your long series of articles. The writer is an able man, and you and he together constitute one of the advertising agencies of the Theosophical Society. The immense range of your notices cannot be well calculated, and very truly we could never pay for such an advertisement. Do you mind keeping this part of my letter as all the remuneration we can give you for the work done by you in thus advertising the movement and bringing prominently to the notice of your public the long-forgotten but true doctrine of the possible existence of such beings as Professor Huxley says it would be impertinent to say could not exist in the natural order of evolution?

And while I look at it all as an advertisement, I cannot admire the treason developed therein, nor the spiteful unworthy tone of it, nor the divergence from fact in many cases when it suited the purpose, nor the officious meddling in the private affairs of other people, nor the ignoring and falsification in respect to possible motive, made out by you to be gain by some of us, when the fact is that we are all losers of money by our work. That fact a candid person would have stated, and marvelled at it that we should be willing to slave for the Theosophical Society, and always spend our money. Such a person would have given “the devil his due.” You have suppressed it and lied about it, and hence it is not admirable in you, but is quite mean and low. You advertise us and then try to befoul us. Well, we gain by the advertisement, and the course of time will wipe off the small stain you try to paint upon us. When you and your ready writer are both dead and forgotten, and some of you probably execrated for offences not as yet exposed, we will still live as a body and be affecting the course of modern thought, as we have been doing for nearly twenty years.

I am the principal object of your attack, though you also cruelly abuse a woman who has long enough fought the world of your conventional nation, and perhaps you expect me to either rise and explain, or keep silent. Well, I will do neither. I will speak, but cannot fully explain. Your paper is a worldly forum, a sort of court. In it there is neither place nor credence for explanations which must include psychic things, facts, and laws, as well as facts and circumstances of the ordinary sort. Were I to explain in full, no one would believe me save those students of the occult and the psychical who know psychic law and fact. Those who doubt and wish all to be reduced to the level of compass and square, of eye and word of mouth, would still be doubters. Nothing would be gained at all. That difficulty no intelligent person who has had psychic experience can overlook. That is why you are quite safe from a suit for libel. I assure you that had you published something not so inextricably tangled up with psychic phenomena I should be glad to have you in court, not to soothe wounded feelings I have not, but to show that our faulty law and so-called justice do sometimes right some wrongs.

Let me first emphatically deny the inference and assertion made by you, that I and my friends make money out of the T.S., or that the organisation has built up something by which we profit. This is untrue, and its untruth is known to all persons who know anything at all about the society. No salaries are paid to our officers. We support ourselves or privately support each other. I have never had a penny from the society, and do not want any. The little magazine, the _Path_, which I publish here in the interest of the society, is not supported by subscriptions from members, but largely by others, and it is kept up at a loss to me which will never be repaid. I publish it because I wish to, and not for gain. Thousands of dollars are expended in the T.S. work here each year over and above what is paid in for fees and dues. The dues are but four shillings a year, and three times as much as that is expended in the work. Where does it come from? Out of our private pockets, and if I had a million I would spend it that way. My friends and myself give our money and our time to the society without hope or desire for any return. We may be fanatics—probably are—but it is false and malicious to accuse us of using the society for gain. The only payment we get is the seeing every day the wider and wider spread of Theosophical theories of life, man, and nature. I am ready to submit all our books and vouchers to any auditor to support these statements. And you were in a position to find out the facts as I have given them.

It is also absolutely untrue, as you attempt to show or infer, that the society grows by talking of the Mahatmas or Masters, or by having messages sent round from them. The movement here and elsewhere is pushed along the line of philosophy, and each one is left to decide for himself on the question of the Mahatmas. “Messages from the Masters” do not go flying round, and the society does not flourish by any belief in those being promulgated. Nor am I, as you hint, in the habit of sending such messages about the society, nor of influencing the course of affairs by using any such thing. Send out and ask all the members and you will find I am correct. It is true that those Masters tell me personally what I am to do, and what is the best course to take, as they have in respect to this very letter, but that is solely my own affair. Could I be such a fool as to tell all others to go by what I get for my own guidance, knowing how weak, suspicious, and malicious is the human nature of to-day? You are on the wrong tack, my friend.

But you were right when you say that Mrs. Besant made a remarkable change in respect to me. That is true, and Mr. Chakravarti whom you name is, as you correctly say, the person who is responsible for it. Before she met Chakravarti she would not have dreamed of prosecuting me. This is a matter of regret, but while so, I fail to see how you aid your case against me by dragging the thing in thus publicly, unless, indeed, you intend to accuse him and her of going into a conspiracy against me.

There are two classes of “messages from the Masters” charged to me by you and by that small section of the T.S. members who thought of trying me. One class consists of notes on letters of mine to various persons; the other of messages handed to Mrs. Besant and Colonel Olcott and enclosure found in a letter to Colonel Olcott from a man in California.

I have never denied that I gave Mrs. Besant messages from the Masters. I did so. They were from the Masters. She admits that, but simply takes on herself to say that the Master did not personally write or precipitate them. According to herself, then, she got from me genuine messages from the Masters; but she says she did not like them to be done or made in some form that she at first thought they were not in. I have not admitted her contention; I have simply said they were from the Master, and that is all I now say, for I will not tell how or by what means they were produced. The objective form in which such a message is of no consequence. Let it be written by your Mr. Garrett, or drop out of the misty air, or come with a clap of thunder. All that makes no difference save to the vulgar and the ignorant. The reality of the message is to be tested by other means. If you have not those means you are quite at sea as to the whole thing. And all this I thought was common knowledge in the Theosophical world. It has long been published and explained.

One of those messages to Mrs. Besant told her not to go to India that year. I got it in California, and then telegraphed it to her in substance later, sending the paper. I had no interest in not having her go to India, but knew she would go later. The other messages were of a personal nature. They were all true and good. At the time I gave them to her I did not say anything. That I never denied. It was not thought by me necessary to insult a woman of her intellectual ability, who had read all about these things, by explaining all she was supposed to know. Those who think those messages were not from the Master are welcome to doubt it so far as I am concerned, for I know the naturalness of that doubt.