I.—LETTERS FROM OFFICIALS.
FROM THE EUROPEAN SECRETARY: “DESERVING OF NO ANSWER.”
Sir,—I have forwarded the copies of your paper containing the series of articles entitled “Isis Very Much Unveiled” to my friends Colonel Olcott, Mrs. Besant, and Mr. Judge, who are respectively at their posts and carrying out their engagements in India, Australia, and the United States of America.
The mass of insinuations and misrepresentations with which these articles abound is deserving of no answer.
I enclose you a copy of the Enquiry held in July last, to which the full statements of Mrs. Besant and Mr. Judge are appended. This was months ago issued to every member of the Theosophical Society and published in full in our magazines. You can thus allow your readers to form their own opinion, instead of relying on the insinuations of your contributor, if you choose to do so.
The writer of the articles has several times made reference to a private body of students, and endeavoured to involve it in his attack. The informant of your contributor knows that he can with impunity make any allegation he likes against that body, and that, although it is in a position to give, and has already given to its own members, a denial to his allegations with regard to its council, it must, nevertheless, remain silent in public because of obligations of honour.
For the rest, of the truth or falsity of the most serious allegations I am without any knowledge, and do not propose to enter the arena of mere opinion.
But of this I am confident—that my friends Colonel Olcott, Mrs. Besant, and Mr. Judge, together with the best part of the Theosophical Society, are not only ready and glad to face any obloquy in upholding their individual ideals, but also that they are also willing to sacrifice everything for the cause they hold so dear, except the privilege of working heart and soul for its final triumph.—I am, Sir, faithfully yours,
G. R. S. Mead.
19, Avenue-road, Regent’s Park, N.W.
[The pamphlet forwarded by Mr. Mead is the so-called “Enquiry into Certain Charges,” which was the starting-point of our articles, and which was very fully dealt with in the last two of the series.—Ed. W. G.]
FROM THE VICE-PRESIDENT’S REPRESENTATIVES: “WE COULD AN IF WE WOULD.”
Sir,—You appear to have expected an immediate reply to the series of articles entitled “Isis Very Much Unveiled.” This expectation is astonishing in view of the fact that, while the three persons mainly attacked by you were together in London for some weeks this summer, you waited until Mrs. Annie Besant and Colonel Olcott are now respectively in Australia and India, and Mr. W. Q. Judge is on a lecturing tour in the United States, as your informant knows. His time for attack is well chosen, but no just measure of surprise can be felt, either that their replies—should they care to make any—are delayed, or that we should have intended originally to await the close of your series before making our present brief remarks.
Your informant holds the position held among Freemasons by a brother who has broken his Masonic pledge. Those who refuse to enter further into this subject follow the traditions of all private societies in like circumstance. Englishmen will take at its proper valuation all information on whatever subject from such a source. We beg to take distinct issue with you on the point of the minor importance of sources of information. Our whole legal system is based upon the contrary fact. Character of witnesses has primary weight with all civilised juries.
The Theosophical Society has no concern with the beliefs of its members, nor with questions of Thaumaturgy. The endeavour to spread a contrary belief, to confuse the issue by slanders, or attacks against individual members, to belittle and misrepresent the objects and work of the society, must alike fail in the face of general disproof. The society pursues its way unaffected by all such attempts.
The Committee of Investigation appointed to consider the charges made against Mr. Judge threw out the indictment on the ground that the constitution of the Theosophical Society rendered illegal all charges involving questions of creed or belief. Mr. Judge came from the United States in readiness for their investigation, and his defence had to be abandoned for the preservation of the freedom of our platform. We do not, therefore, propose to bring the case to “trial by newspaper.” As representatives respectively of the American Section of the T.S. and of the general secretary of that Section on the Committee of Investigation, we are aware of the rebuttal evidence held in readiness by Mr. Judge. He holds affidavits from persons of unblemished reputation disproving a number of the charges made then and now by you, of which evidence detail is for the present reserved for the reasons above given. We need not further emphasise the danger of conclusions formed from “plaintiff’s evidence” only.
In conclusion, we beg to state our long acquaintance with, and our confidence in the integrity and standing of, Mr. Judge, a confidence shared, to our personal knowledge, to the fullest extent by the American Section of the T.S., as the reports of its last Convention prove. The American is the largest and the most active of our three Sections, one which not only carries on an enormous work, but which also assists the other two Sections. It is in it that Mr. Judge’s long labour and personal sacrifices have won for him the respect of the community.—Yours very truly,
Archibald Keightley.
James M. Pryse.
30, Linden-gardens, Bayswater, W.,
November 6.
Editorial Note appended in Westminster Gazette.
In regard to Dr. Keightley’s remarks on “the character of the witnesses,” from which, in view of the law of libel, we have had to omit one or two phrases, it is only fair to state that this letter was received before it had been made clear in the articles that the chief witnesses were, in fact, not Mr. Old, who has resigned office, but the President and Dr. Keightley’s brother, who retain it.
ANOTHER AVENUE-ROAD OFFICIAL: “VOLUMINOUS LITERATURE” v. HARD FACTS.
Sir,—Now that you have had the only answer it is possible for the present to make in connexion with that part of your articles which professes to disclose the affairs of a secret body, I am at liberty to make some remarks on that part of them which deals with the public affairs of the Theosophical Society, if you will grant me the opportunity of reply which, as a member of an attacked society, I have the right to demand.
In spite of all implications and assertions to the contrary, I must emphatically assert it as my opinion that the majority of members of the society do not join on account of phenomena; and I regard any attempt to prove the contrary as a conscious or unconscious misrepresentation of the actual state of affairs. A large mass of the public know well by this time that the chief activity of the society consists in making known and advocating a certain system of philosophy, and that appeals are made to the judgment and intellectual sense of the people as to whether they shall accept or reject it. I do not know whether your intelligent readers will consider themselves flattered when they read your contributor’s notion of the kind of procedure that is necessary to captivate them; but I am inclined to think that most of them must have common-sense enough to prefer judging a philosophy by its own merits to accepting or rejecting it according to the evidence for and against phenomena wrought in connexion with it. However, if there be any who, indifferent to all questions of ethical and philosophical truth, choose their faith according to its thaumaturgic properties alone, the society will not be sorry to lose them, for such weak natures are a source of weakness to every body in which they enrol themselves.
While declaring here my own belief in the integrity and sincerity of the persons attacked in your articles, and regretting my inability lo communicate all of that faith to others, I maintain, Sir, that Theosophy will not stand or fall by any personal scandals, whether true or false, and that the Theosophical Society will not cease to exist in Europe so long as there are even a few who believe as I do.
Your contributor has sought to convey the impression that the Theosophists, or at all events those who reside at the various headquarters, live in an atmosphere of constant thaumaturgy and intrigue; ever in expectation of some new wonder, ever ready to alter their deepest convictions at a moment’s notice in accordance with some enigmatical message or some trumpery sign. I call upon those who know the society, are habitués at its meetings, or have lived at headquarters, to say whether there is a grain of truth in this, or whether, on the contrary, we are a body of earnest students, living a prosaic life, and exhausting our energies in the endeavour to place before others the truths we have found so helpful to ourselves.
Your contributor makes much of his contention that the adepts were invented by Madame Blavatsky. What does he expect to gain by this? If he can succeed in discrediting Madame Blavatsky in the eyes of a few persons, he cannot disprove the existence of adepts for them unless he is also prepared to discredit every one of the other sources of information from which the evidence for the existence of such exalted men is drawn. Madame Blavatsky has reminded the world of the reality of those beings in which the more enlightened of its denizens have always believed. Of the few who may have accepted the belief on her testimony alone I would say, better they had taken the trouble to substantiate it from other sources. Whether Madame Blavatsky invented the adepts or not, at all events I here and now advance the theory, and refer for my evidence to the Theosophical literature on the subject, which is plentiful.
Let our critics, after reading it, come forward and publicly refute us. We await their onslaught with pleasure. Many points I am obliged to leave untouched on account of the length my letter would otherwise assume; but I must just note the absolute futility of the statement that “Max Müller has edited the only series of English translations of the Sacred Books of the East with which I am acquainted,” and the complete falsity of the statement that “there is no reason to believe that any member of the society in Europe could pass an examination in any Oriental language whatever.” Let these serve as samples of the quality of the rest of the attack.
In conclusion, sir, I would call your readers’ attention to the fantastically absurd position of an opponent who hopes to discredit, by his so-called “exposure” of a certain group of manifestations, the whole sacred science of true magic. I maintain that such a science as magic (in its true sense) exists, that it teaches the mysteries of nature and of man, that the voice of the ages endorses it, and that it is worthy of study to-day. I am prepared to support these contentions publicly if called upon, and can meanwhile refer your readers to the voluminous literature of the subject.—Yours truly,
Henry T. Edge.
19, Avenue-road, Regent’s Park, London, N.W., November 7.