It only remains to add, to complete the disingenuousness of this very Theosophistical letter, that its signatories authenticate its statements by flaunting the title of “Members of the Committee of Investigation”; the committee referred to being the one which met only to decide that it could not investigate, and the members of it as such having no knowledge whatever of the evidence either on one side or the other!
III.—LETTERS FROM MINOR OFFICIALS AND PRIVATE MEMBERS.
What matters “Truth or Falsehood?”
Sir,—My husband and myself are two of the officials in one of the local branches of the Theosophical Society. I write in his name and my own to say that we have read with some interest your voluminous attack on the personal characters of some of our leading members.
We were also amused by the ingenuous surprise of your reporter, that the Blavatsky Lodge meeting in London, which he attended, was spent in philosophic study, not in the discussion of psychic phenomena or of the personal characters of members.
You say (Chapter II.):—“This society as such must stand or fall with its Mahatmas.” This is not so. The Theosophical Society is entirely neutral on the question of the existence or non-existence of such beings, and the reason why the charges, of which you have published a more or less correct statement, were not gone into by the authorities of the T.S. was, that to have done so would have entailed an infringement of that neutrality.
The question whether Mrs. Besant was misled when she made the statement at the Secular Hall in 1891 has been answered by her own clear withdrawal of that statement.
The question as to Mr. Judge is entirely one as to his own truth or falsehood, and may be well left to him to answer or not. It is not necessary for the public or for the members of the Theosophic Society to judge him.—Faithfully yours,
Sarah Corbett.
Manchester, November 6.