Thus it was that there were attacks from the very first against the teachings of Theosophy, but more than all against the one who brought again these teachings to the world—Madame H. P. Blavatsky—and on handing the guidance of the Theosophical Movement on to her successors they too have been subject to similar attacks from the forces of evil, whose very existence is threatened by the spread of the teachings of Theosophy, which are the teachings of truth.
Madame Blavatsky's mission was in part to tear down the materialism of the age on one hand, and dogmatic domination on the other, and this made for her many bitter enemies. It was not long before enmity and unbrotherliness met her on every side, and these culminated in a plan to overthrow the influence of Theosophy and discredit her before the world. It was in India, in 1884, that this plan unfolded. Two ingrates, (French people, man and wife) who had been befriended by Madame Blavatsky when they were starving and ragged, and who later attempted to blackmail some of the members of the Society, and confessed themselves to be bribe-takers, liars, and forgers, associated themselves with the Christian College of Madras, India, and sought to destroy Madame Blavatsky and her work. It was afterwards discovered—admitted by the missionaries themselves, and published in the Madras Mail—that these missionaries had agreed to pay a large sum of money to the above-referred-to people for letters of Madame Blavatsky. These letters, as was afterwards proven, were gross forgeries.
At the same time the Psychical Research Society sent out as its agent a young man who had just left college, to investigate and make a report. This young man, wholly inexperienced, had all his traveling expenses paid on his long trip of sight-seeing, and no doubt felt that he must make some report to warrant the large outlay for his expenses, and in order to earn his salary. The whole source of this young man's information, on which he based his report, was the testimony of the two people above referred to, who later confessed their fraud. Furthermore, the young man published as his own a drawing made by William Q. Judge of something that the young man had no possibility of seeing, as it did not exist in that state when the young man arrived in India. Nevertheless, the Psychical Research Society accepted the young man's unsupported testimony, without asking for any answer from Madame Blavatsky, nor did they ask her friends, but made their report solely on the testimony of two perjured ingrates, and of a young man, who appropriated the work of another as his own.
MADAME BLAVATSKY FOUNDS THE ESOTERIC SCHOOL
HER LIFE-LONG TRUST IN WILLIAM Q. JUDGE
In 1888, H. P. Blavatsky, then in London, on the suggestion and at the request of her Colleague, William Q. Judge, founded the Esoteric School of Theosophy, a body for students, of which H. P. Blavatsky wrote that it was "the heart of the Theosophical Movement," and of which she appointed William Q. Judge as her sole representative in America. Further, writing officially to the Convention of the American Societies held in Chicago, 1888, she wrote as follows:
To William Q. Judge, General Secretary of the American Section of the Theosophical Society:
My dearest Brother and Co-Founder of the Theosophical Society:
In addressing to you this letter, which I request you to read to the Convention summoned for April 22nd, I must first present my hearty congratulations and most cordial good wishes to the Society and yourself—the heart and soul of that body in America. We were several to call it to life in 1875. Since then you have remained alone to preserve that life through good and evil report. It is to you chiefly, if not entirely, that the Theosophical Society owes its existence in 1888. Let me thank you for it, for the first, and perhaps for the last time publicly, and from the bottom of my heart, which beats only for the cause you represent so well and serve so faithfully. I ask you also to remember that on this important occasion, my voice is but the feeble echo of other more sacred voices, and the transmitter of the approval of Those whose presence is alive in more than one true Theosophical heart, and lives, as I know, pre-eminently in yours.
This regard that Madame Blavatsky had for her Colleague William Q. Judge continued undiminished until her death in 1891, when he became her successor.
THE TRUE AND THE COUNTERFEIT
In giving even such a brief sketch as the present necessarily is of the objects and history of the Theosophical Society, it is nevertheless due to all honest and fair-minded people that an explanation should be given why there are small bodies of people here and there which are labeled Theosophical but which are in no way endorsed or recognized by the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society. These small bodies have sprung up from year to year in different parts of the world, and though in the aggregate their efforts and influence have been weak, they have nevertheless been more or less successful in misleading honest minds from the truth. It becomes a duty therefore to call attention to these matters and to give warning lest others be misled. In other words a distinction must be drawn between the true and the counterfeit.
Madame Blavatsky, in 1889, writing in her Theosophical magazine published in London, said that the purpose of the magazine was not only to promulgate Theosophy, but also and as a consequence of such promulgation, "to bring to light the hidden things of darkness." She further says: