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.