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The Theosophical Movement 1875-1950

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Aftermath Of The Judge Case

THE VIRTUAL FIASCO of the July 10 meeting of the Judicial Committee called by Col. Olcott left a troubled atmosphere in the Theosophical Society. Mr. Judge’s accusers had proceeded with a great show of righteousness and “legality,” expressing profound solicitude for the welfare of the Theosophical Movement at large. Both Col. Olcott and Mrs. Besant asserted that they felt compelled by duty to undertake the unpleasant task of instituting the investigation in order to free Mr. Judge from the taint of calumny and to afford him the opportunity to meet directly the accusations and rumors concerning his conduct, and to disprove them if he could. But when the inquiry, thus heralded, reached its climax in an official “hearing,” the entire procedure collapsed of its own weight, and its sponsors retired in confusion.

The London Convention of the European Section of the Society was to hold its first session on July 12. Possibly in the hope that a more conclusive result of the inquiry might be presented to the European delegates, Mrs. Besant proposed to Dr. J. D. Buck that a “Jury of Honor” be impaneled to pass on the “charges.” She suggested the names of Messrs. Sinnett, Bertram Keightley, Sturdy, Burrows, and Firth for membership on such a jury. This was declined on the grounds that Mr. Judge had not yet been supplied with certified copies of the documents alleged to contain the “evidence” against him; that he would need time to produce witnesses and documents in rebuttal; finally, that the majority of the names submitted were those of men known to be already prejudiced against him, and that a jury, if chosen, should be composed of members qualified to weigh and pass upon principles, processes, and evidences necessarily connected with “precipitations” and other “occult” phenomena. There was further discussion of the “Jury of Honor” idea, but the course finally adopted was the presentation of two statements, one by Mrs. Besant, the other by Mr. Judge, before the European Convention. The former, speaking at length, began with a summary of 1 the “history” of the “Judge Case.” The first definite expression of the sentiment against Judge, she said, came with publication in the Theosophist (July, 1893) of “Theosophic Free-thought,” by Walter R. Old and Sidney V. Edge (see Chapter xiv). From that time on, she continued, malevolent rumors were spread concerning Mr. Judge, causing her to “intervene” privately in the hope that these exaggerated accusations might be ended and “what might remain of valid complaint might be put an end to without public controversy.” The accusations, however, she explained, became well known, when persons “who knew some of the things complained of ” broke the “promise of silence,” and Mrs. Besant, as she put it, offered to take upon herself “the onus of formulating the charges.”

She then described the events of the few days preceding, expressing personal agreement with the conclusion of the Judicial Committee that it could not “try” Mr. Judge, ether as Officer of the Society or as private individual. The remainder of her statement is devoted to repetition and analysis of the charges, in which Mrs. Besant states categorically her own version of the “offenses” committed by Mr. Judge:
And now I mustreduce these chargesto their proper proportions, asthey have been enormously exaggerated, . . . the vital charge isthat Mr.Judge has issued letters and messages in the script recognizable as that adopted by a Master with whom H.P.B. was closely connected, and that these letters and messages were neither written nor precipitated directly by the Master in whosewriting they appear; . . . leading up to thisthere are subsidiary charges of deception, but these would certainly never have been made the basis of any actionsave fortheir connectionwiththemainpoint.
Further, I wish it to be distinctly understood that I do not charge and have not charged Mr. Judge with forgery in the ordinary sense of the term, but with giving a misleading material form to messages received psychically from the Master in various ways, without acquainting the recipients with this fact.
I regard Mr. Judge as an Occultist, possessed of considerable knowledge, and animated by a deep and unswerving devotion to the Theosophical Society. I believe that he has often received direct messages from the Masters and from Their chelas, guiding and helping him in his work. I believe that he has sometimes received messages for other people in one or other of the ways that I will mention in a moment, but not by direct writing by the Master nor by His direct precipitation; and that Mr. Judge has then believed himself to be justified in writing down in the script adopted by H.P.B. for communications from the Master, the message psychically received, and in giving it to the person for whom it was intended, leaving that person to wrongly assume that it was a direct precipitation or writing by the Master Himself—that is, that it was done through Mr. Judge, but done by the Master.

Now personally I hold that this method is illegitimate and that no one should simulate a recognized writing which is regarded as authoritative when it is authentic. And by authentic I mean directly written or precipitated by the Master Himself. If a message is consciously written it should be so stated: if automatically written, it should be so stated. At least so it seems to me. It is important that the very small part generally played by the Masters in these phenomena should be understood, so that people may not receive messages as authoritative merely on the ground of their being in a particular script. Except in the very rarest instances, the Masters do not personally write letters or directly precipitate communications. Messages may be sent by Them to those with whom They can communicate by external voice, or astral vision, or psychic word, or mental impression, or in other ways. If a person gets a message which he believes to be from the Master, for communication to anyone else, he is bound in honour not to add to that message any extraneous circumstances which will add weight to it in the recipient's eyes. I believe that Mr. Judge wrote with his own hand, consciously or automatically I do not know, in the script adopted as that of the Master, messages which he received from the Master or from chelas; and I know that, in my own case, I believed that the messages he gave me in the well-known script were messages directly precipitated or directly written by the Master. When I publicly said that I had received after H.P.B.’s death, letters in the writing H.P.Blavatsky had been accused of forging, I referred to letters given to me by Mr. Judge, and as they were in the well-known script I never dreamt of challenging their source. I know now that they were not written or precipitated by the Master, and that they were done by Mr. Judge, but I also believe that the gist of these messages was psychically received, and that Mr. Judge’s error lay in giving them to me in a script written by himself and not saying that he had done so. I feel bound to refer to these letters thus explicitly, because having been myself mistaken, I in turn misled the public. . .

If you, representatives of the T.S., consider that the publication of this statement followed by that which Mr. Judge will make, would put an end to this distressing business, and by making a clear understanding, get rid at least of the mass of seething suspicions in which we have been living, and if you can accept it, I propose that this should take the place of the Committee of Honour, putting you, our brothers, in the place of the Committee. I have made the frankest explanation I can;I knowhowenwrapped in difficulty are these phenomena which are connected with forces obscure in their workings to most; therefore, howfeware able to judge of themaccurately,while those through whom they play are not always able to control them. And I trust that these explanations may put an end to some at least of the troubles of the last two years, and leave usto go onwith ourwork fortheworld, each in his ownway. For any pain that I have given my brother, in trying to do a most repellent task,I askhispardon. as alsofor anymistakesthatImayhavemade. ANNIE BESANT

From reading Mrs. Besant’s statement by itself, one might believe that, at the time of the European Convention of 1894, she was still Mr. Judge’s devoted friend, even his admirer in some respects, and that she had acted solely from motives of Theosophical duty. There is, however, serious evidence of bad faith to be considered in connection with her statement. In reviewing the circumstances leading up to the inquiry, she says that she agreed to “intervene privately” in an attempt to stop the whispering campaign against Mr. Judge. Actually this “intervention” consisted of a letter written to Judge on January 11, 1894, in which she told him she had proof of his “guilt,” and demanded, as the price of her silence, that he should resign from both the T. S. and the E. S., giving up his offices in both. “or the evidence which goes to prove the wrong done must be laid before a committee of the T. S.”

The question naturally arises: Why did Mrs. Besant turn against Judge with such determination, after having enthusiastically sponsored him as Olcott’s successor to the Presidency of the Society less than two years earlier? The answer is clearly implied by a disclosure in this statement to the European Convention. All the members of the Society were familiar with Mrs. Besant’s momentous public declaration, on August 30, 1891, “that since Madame Blavatsky left, I have had letters in the same handwriting as the letters 2 which she received”—meaning additional “Mahatma Letters.” This meant, to many members of the Society, that the death of H.P.B. had constituted no interruption in the communication of the leaders of the Movement with the Theosophical Adepts; it meant, also, from outward appearance, that Mrs. Besant now enjoyed much the same relation with the Adepts as had H.P.B. during her life. What the members of the Society could not know, until told by Mrs. Besant herself, was that the communications referred to had come to her through Mr. Judge.

It seems apparent that her well-concealed bitterness against Judge was occasioned by suspicions, growing into confirmed belief, that these “messages” were not authentic. Without attempting too much reconstruction of Mrs. Besant’s emotional reactions, it may be supposed that her loss of certainty concerning those communications was directly responsible for her turning against Judge, as the apparent author of her occult insecurity, and that she sided with Olcott quite naturally because of his similar distrust of Judge. Olcott, it will be remembered, had strenuously objected to the publication in the Path (August, 1891) of Jasper Niemand’s article beginning with a quotation attributed to a recent letter from an Adept, and the running fire of criticism against Judge, printed in the Theosophist from that time on, was largely inspired by Olcott and his loyal supporters. In his discussion of the Judge Case in the 3 Report of the December, 1894 Convention in India, Olcott found occasion to remark, “My objective intercourse with the great Teachers ceased almost entirely on the death of H.P.B.,” the implication being that if he, the President-Founder, was no longer in communication with the Adepts, how could it be supposed that Mr. Judge, a younger and far less prominent man, enjoyed this great privilege ?

Mr. Judge’s statement, more succinct than that of Mrs. Besant, was as follows:
STATEMENT BY MR. JUDGE 
Since March last, charges have been going round theworld againstme,to which the name of Annie Besant has been attached, without her consent as she now says, thatI have been guilty of forging the names and handwritings of the Mahatmas and of misusing the said names and handwritings. The charge has also arisen thatIsuppressed the name of Annie Besant as mover in the matter from fear of the same. All this has been causing great trouble and working injury to all concerned, that is, to all our members. It is now time that this should be put an end to once for all if possible.

I now state as follows:
1.    I left the name of Annie Besant out of my published circular by request of my friends in the T. S. then near me so as to save her and leave it to others to put her name to the charge. It now appears that if I had so put her name it would have run counter to her present statement.
2.    I repeat my denial of the said rumoured charges of forging the said names and handwritings of the Mahatmas or of misusing the same.
3.    I admit that I have received and delivered messages from the Mahatmas and assert their genuineness.
4.    . I say that I have heard and do hear from the Mahatmas, and that I am an agent of the Mahatmas; but I deny that I have ever sought to induce that belief in others and this is the first time to my knowledge that I have ever made the claim now made. I am pressed into the place where I must make it. My desire and effort have been to distract attention from such an idea as related to me. But I have no desire to make the claim, which I repudiate, that I am the only channel for communication with Masters; and it is my opinion that such communication is open to any human being who, by endeavoring to serve mankind, affords the necessary conditions.
5.    Whatever messages from the Mahatmas have been delivered by me as such—and they are extremely few—I now declare were and are genuine messages from the Mahatmas so far as my knowledge extends; they were obtained through me, but as to how they were obtained or produced I cannot state. But I can now again say, as I have said publicly before, and as was said by H.P.Blavatsky so often that I have always thought it common knowledge among studious Theosophists, that precipitation of words or messages is of no consequence and constitutes no proof of connection with Mahatmas; it is only phenomenal and not of the slightest value.
6.    . So far as methods are concerned for the reception and delivery of messages from the Masters, they are many. My own methods may disagree from the views of others and I acknowledge their right to criticise them if they choose; but I deny the right to anyone to say that they know or can prove the non-genuineness of such messages to or through me unless they are able to see on that plane. I can only say that I have done my best to report—in the few instances when I have done it at all—correctly and truthfully such messages as I think I have received for transmission, and never to my knowledge have I tried therewith to deceive any person or persons whatever.
7.    And I say that in 1893 the Master sent me a message in which he thanked me for all my work and exertions in the Theosophical field, and expressed satisfaction therewith, ending with sage advice to guard me against the failings and follies of my lower nature; that message Mrs. Besant unreservedly admits.
8.    . Lastly, and only because of absurd statements made and circulated, I willingly say that which I never denied, that I am a human being, full of error, liable to mistake, not infallible, but just the same as any other human being like to myself, or of the class of human beings to which I belong. And I freely, fully and sincerely forgive anyone who may be thought to have injured or tried to injure me. WILLIAM Q. JUDGE
Comparison of Mrs. Besant’s statement with that of Mr. Judge discloses the points of agreement and of contrast, both in matters of fact and in tone. On the real issue involved—whether or not Mr. Judge was in communication with the Theosophical Adepts and received messages from them—Mrs. Besant makes two significant admissions:
I believe that he [Judge] has often received direct messages from the Masters and from Their chelas.

I believe that he has sometimes received messages for other people. What, then, was the assumed offense that had led her to bring the charges against Mr. Judge? Mrs. Besant states it several times:
I believe that Mr. Judge wrote with his own hand, consciously or automatically I do not know, in the script adopted as that of the Master, messages which he received from the Master or from chelas.
I know now that they were not written or precipitated by the Master, and that they were done by Mr. Judge, but I also believe that the gist of these messages was psychically received.
Mrs. Besant adds:
Now personally I hold that this method is illegitimate and that no one should simulate a recognized writing which is regarded as authoritative when it is authentic. And by authentic I mean directly written or precipitated by the Master Himself. if a message is consciously written it should be so stated; if automatically written, it should be so stated. At least so it seems to me.

The foregoing passage is italicized for the reason that it contains the substance of Mrs. Besant’s complaint. It shows, further, that despite all her subsequent claims and affirmations, Mrs. Besant had no real knowledge of the occult teachings, that she labored under gross ignorance even of what had been given out years before both by H.P.B. and Masters. For, in the Appendix to the fourth and later editions of The Occult World, Mr. Sinnett h a d given a long letter direct from the Master “K. H.” on the very subject of “precipitations” in connection with the Kiddle incident, which showed the Master himself “guilty” on his own confession of the very “method” which Mrs. Besant holds to be “illegitimate.” In the extremely important article, “Lodges of Magic,” H.P.B. in Lucifer for October, i888—at the time of the public formation of the E. S.—goes at length into this very question. And with good reason: Mr. Sinnett and others had been whispering about the identical “charges” against her of “forgery” and “false messages.” Like Mrs. Besant, these students had received “messages” through H. P. B. which comported with their ideas, and other “messages” which upset their preconceptions. The one they had pronounced “genuine”; the other “false.” H.P.B.set out to show the absurdity of this position, writing:

We have been asked by a correspondent why he should not “be free to suspect some of the so-called ‘precipitated’ letters as being forgeries,” giving as his reason for it that while some of them bear the stamp of (to him) undeniable genuineness, others seem from their contents and style, to be imitations. This is equivalent to saying that he has such an unerring spiritual insight as to be able to detect the false from the true, though he has never met a Master, nor been given any key by which to test his alleged communications. The inevitable consequence of applying his untrained judgment in such cases would be to make him as likely as not to declare false what was genuine, and genuine what was false. Thus what criterion has anyone to decide between one “precipitated” letter, or another such letter? Who except their authors, or those whom they employ as their amanuenses (the chelas and disciples), can tell ? For it is hardly one out of a hundred “occult” letters that is ever written by the hand of the Master, in whose name and on whose behalf they are sent, as the Masters have neither need nor leisure to write them; and that when a Master says, “I wrote that letter,” it means only that every word in it was dictated by him and impressed under his direct supervision. Generally they make their chela, whether near or far away, write (or precipitate) them, by impressing upon his mind the ideas they wish expressed and if necessary aiding him in the picture-printing process of precipitation. It depends entirely upon the chela’s state of development, how accurately the ideas may be transmitted and the writing-model imitated. Thus the non-adept recipient is left in the dilemma of uncertainty, whether, if one letter is false, all may not be; for, as far as intrinsic evidence goes, all come from the same source, and all are brought by the same mysterious means. But there is another, and a far worse condition implied. For all that the recipient of “occult” letters can possibly know, and on the simple grounds of probability and common honesty, the unseen correspondent who would tolerate one single fraudulent line in his name, would wink at an unlimited repetition of the 5 deception.

Mrs. Besant proceeds to argue as if it were something hitherto unknown, that “it should be generally understood. . . that letters and messages may be written or may be precipitated in any script, without thereby gaining any valid authority.” In thus arguing she was but repeating what H.P.B. and Mr. Judge had been teaching for years; but if she knew this to be the fact, why should she have attached such importance to “Mahatmas’ handwritings” precipitated “in a material form” through Mr. Judge or any one else? If “the source of messages can be decided only by direct spiritual knowledge,” and if she had that knowledge so that she knew, as she claimed, that Mr. Judge’s messages themselves were genuine, why did she not affirm their genuineness to the doubters instead of charging Mr. Judge with “forgery” ? Or if the source can be decided only “intellectually by the nature of their contents,” why did she not discuss the contents instead of the form of the disputed messages? And if “each person must use his own powers and act on his own responsibility in accepting or rejecting them,” what occasion or right at any time on the part of any one to charge any other with “fraud” in connection with any “messages” soever?

These considerations, however, were far from being apparent to the great majority of the theosophists in attendance at the London Convention. Each “side” had its “say,” and now harmony and mutual forbearance were expected to reign once again. The Report of the Convention recites:
Having heard the above statements, the following resolution was moved by Mr. Bertram Keightley, seconded by Dr. Buck, and carried nem. con.
Resolved: that this meeting accepts with pleasure the adjustment arrived at by Annie Besant and William Q. Judge as a final settlement of matters pending hitherto between them as prosecutor and defendant, with the hope that it may be thus buried and forgotten, and
Resolved: that we will join hands with them to further the cause of 6 genuine Brotherhood in which we all believe.

At the conclusion of the official proceedings of the third session of the European Sectional Convention, which terminated with the adoption of the foregoing Resolutions, a spontaneous outburst of fraternal feeling animated all the delegates and visiting members of the Theosophical Society. On all sides those who had been rent by partisan emotions, those who had endeavored to remain neutral and impartial, leaders and followers alike, joined in mutual congratulations and felicitations over what seemed to be a complete restoration of unity

The official notices of the Convention in the various Theosophical publications represented the Judge case as being “settled,” but it is plain from the treatment of the subject in both Lucifer and the Theosophist that Mr. Judge’s enemies were far from satisfied to let matters rest. Both magazines contained thinly veiled preachments intended to suggest that there was opportunity to profit by Mr. Judge’s “mistakes.” The flames of controversy may have been smothered and hidden from view for a time, but subsequent events proved that the fire continued with smouldering intensity.

Mr. Judge left London July 18, 1894, to return to New York; Col. Olcott, after a brief tour of England, Scotland and Ireland, departed for India. Mr. Bertram Keightley also returned to India to resume his duties as general Secretary of the Indian Section, and to be near Chakravarti, whose pupil he had become. Mrs. Besant at once set sail for Australia to form Branches and establish an Australasian Section of the T. S. under a carte blanche authority given her by the PresidentFounder. She also bore with her an authority from the European Convention to represent that Section as its delegate to the “Adyar Parliament” to be held in December.

Mr. Walter R. Old, co-author with Sidney Edge of the attack in The Theosophist on Mr. Judge (“Theosophic Freethought”), who had arrived from India in April, remained in England after the Convention. Old had been under suspension from the E.S. (of which he was a Council member) since August, 1893, because of a statement in the “Freethought” article violating the rule of occult secrecy to which he was pledged. His suspension had been by joint order of Mrs. Besant and Mr. Judge. There is good evidence, however, that Mrs. Besant, upon reaching Adyar in December, 1893, consulted with Mr. Old and listened to his tale of wrongs and innuendoes against Judge. Old’s journey to England early in 1894, ostensibly ordered by his physician, as announced in the Theosophist, made it possible for him to prepare the English Theosophists for reception of the charges against Mr. Judge. After the inquiry was over, Old was apparently piqued by Mrs. Besant’s reference, in her Convention address, to “persons inspired largely by hatred for Mr. Judge,” for Old was obviously one whom this description might fit, and he certainly was one who, to use Mrs. Besant’s words, had “circulated a mass of accusations against him [Judge].” As both Old and Edge were named in the next succeeding paragraph of Mrs. Besant’s statement, Old felt that they had been identified with those who “hated” Mr. Judge. Accordingly, he wrote to Olcott objecting to this characterization of himself, remarking that both the President-Founder and Mrs. Besant were well acquainted with the “attitude” of Old and Edge regarding Judge. This letter, which was printed in Lucifer at Col. Olcott’s request, does not however, elaborate on what that “attitude” was, the implied 7 suggestion being that it was shared by Olcott and Mrs. Besant. Mr. Old’s subsequent course remained unknown until a few months later, when a new attack, this time from without, expended its fury on the Theosophical Movement.

In October, 1894, the London Westminster Gazette began the publication of a series of articles by Edmund Garrett, entitled “Isis Very Much Unveiled; the Story of the Great Mahatma Hoax.” This series, together with editorial articles and correspondence concerning it, ran for two months without cessation. All former Theosophical storms rolled into one were as but an April shower in comparison with the havoc wrought in the Theosophical Society’s ranks by Garrett’s “exposé.” It was immediately issued in book form by the Westminster Gazette and gained a tremendous circulation. Some one paid for sending copies to all Lodges of the Theosophical Society!

Mr. Garrett was an exceedingly clever writer. No “trial by newspaper” ever had an abler advocate for the plaintiff. Moreover, Mr. Garrett was plainly honest. He concealed neither the sources of his information, his own detestation of Theosophy and its Society, nor that his object was to discredit what he detested.

Mr. Garrett was a personal friend of Mr. Old, and it was Mr. Old who inspired him to write his series of articles and who supplied him with most of the documentary matter used against the Society. Mr. Old was the only one of the numerous characters whom Mr. Garrett’s serio-comedy treated with respect. All the others were targets for his keen wit, Mrs. Besant most of all. Colonel Olcott was mercilessly lampooned, H.P.B. and Mr. Judge held forth as astute charlatans who had made dupes and fools of Mrs. Besant, Col. Olcott, and the rest with bogus phenomena and bogus messages from equally bogus Mahatmas.

It was clearly evident from the documents used by Mr. Garrett that Mr. Old had been aided by both Col. Olcott and Mrs. Besant, for some of the papers cited could not have been otherwise obtained. This is 8 practically admitted by Mr. Old in a letter to Lucifer, despite his denial of the fact in the same letter. He wrote:
The published facts are just those which came into the evidence of Col. Olcott and Bertram Keightley, and upon which the charges were based and action taken; and they are, moreover, part of a body of evidence, which, from the outset, it was decided to publish. I take the whole Karma of my own action, and I affirm that it is wholly independent of connivance or instigation on the part of anyone. (Italics added.)

At the same time, Mr. Old addressed a letter to the Westminster Gazette, which was published, and which was also included in the matter of Mr. Garrett’s book. Enough is quoted to establish or confirm the links already given:
The writer of those articles has named me, quite correctly, as having taken the first step in forcing an inquiry into the case against Mr. Judge. For this act of mine, I was suspended from my membership in the Esoteric Section, under the authority of the joint signatures of William Q. Judge and Annie Besant, Outer Heads of the E.S.T., and my name was dishonourably mentioned before the members of the E.S. among whom I numbered many an old colleague and friend . . . . After her official action in suspending me from membership Mrs. Besant was, of course, bound to hear my justification. This happened at Adyar in the winter of 1893. Mrs. Besant’s first remark to me after reading the case and examining the documents was, “You were perfectly justified by the facts before you.”
In the presence of the president-founder Col. Olcott, Mrs. Besant, Countess Wachmeister, Mr. E. T. Sturdy, together with Mr. Edge and myself, it was decided that the task of officially bringing the charges should devolve upon Mrs. Besant, and that the whole of the evidence should be published. [Italics added.]

Mr. Old goes on to tell of Mrs. Besant’s formal demand to Col. Olcott for the investigation, Col. Olcott’s official letters to Mr. Judge, and the Judicial Committee meeting, “with the abortive and disingenuous result already known.” He then continues:
But what of the “full publication of all the details ?” What of us Theosophists who had brought these charges against Mr. Judge? Were we not left in the position of persons who had brought charges without proving them? The position was one which I felt to be intolerable.

So Mr. Old gave his “proofs” to the commercial press. It seems never to have occurred to him, any more than to Mrs. Besant and the others, that there was anything “intolerable” in spreading privately and publicly calumnies dignified as “charges” and “evidences.” But when lurid publicity played the spotlight upon the authors of the “mass of accusations,” then their position became “intolerable” indeed—first to Mr. Old, and then to Mrs. Besant and Col. Olcott.

After arguing that it was his “duty” to supply ammunition to Mr. Garrett, whom he calls a “Philistine,” in order that “a system of truth” should not be “raised from a fabric of fraud,” Mr. Old says:
It will, therefore, be clear to all members of the T. S. and the public generally that I am responsible for the facts occurring in Mr. Garrett’s articles only so far as they apply to the charges against Mr. Judge. . . . I do not lose sight of the fact that, however mistaken or misled many of the Theosophical Society may be, as regards the traditional “Mahatmas” and their supposed “communications,” they are nevertheless as sincere in their beliefs as many of their more orthodox fellows, and have as much right to respectful consideration. I regret particularly that Mrs. Besant should have been placed in this awkward public position by the present exposure.
Of Madame Blavatsky I speak as I knew her. At the time I made her acquaintance she had forsworn all “phenomenalism,” so that I never saw any occult phenomena at any time. I believe that for her [these italics are Mr. Old’s] the Mahatmas existed, and I believe she thought them to be embodied 9 personalities.Colonel Olcott has another theory, and others have their own. . . .

Now that the sordid affair of the “Case against Judge” had been exploited in the press, to the shame and discredit of the entire Theosophical Movement, Mr. Judge took decisive action. On November 3, 1894, he issued an E.S. circular letter, headed “By Master’s Order,” in which he deposed Annie Besant from her CoHeadship in the Esoteric School.

In this circular, which was sent to all members of the E.S., Mr. Judge says that he has “put off writing it since March, 1894,” although “in March this letter seemed to me to be as necessary as it is now,” but that he was “directed to wait for the conclusion of the matter of the charges made against” him. He says he has since seen the wisdom of the direction to “wait,” because had he written it while the “charges” were still pending, the Theosophical Society would have been “mixed up” with the troubles in the Esoteric Section—which had no official relation to the Society. “We have now,” he proceeds, “to deal with the E.S.T. and with our duty to it and to each other; and among those others, to Mrs. Besant.”

He then briefly rehearses the story of the foundation of the E.S., its history, the Inner Group, the reorganization of the School following the death of H.P.B. He discloses the fact that the actual formation of the School originated with himself, in a letter to H.P.B. in May, 1887, a year and a half before the public announcement, and that the foundation followed the lines suggested by him. He also advised the members that he himself had never taken the School or Inner Group pledges, having made his own vows in 1875 direct to the Masters—all of which is borne out by recorded public and private statements by H.P.B. He then speaks of Mrs. Besant as follows:
Mrs. Annie Besant has been but five years in this work, and not all of that time engaged in occult study and practice. Her abilities as a writer and speaker are rare and high for either man or woman, her devotion and sincerity of purpose cannot be doubted. She gave many years of her life to the cause of the oppressed as she understood it: against the dread blight of materialistic belief in herself, she worked thus without hope in a future life and in every way proved her altruistic purpose and aim. 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 of itself confer knowledge, much less wisdom. H.P.B. and all the history of occultism says that seven years of training and trial at the very least are needed. Mrs. Besant has had but five. Mistakes made by such a disciple will ultimately be turned to the advantage of the movement, and their immediate results will be mitigated to the person making them, provided they are not inspired by an evil intention on the person’s part. And 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 whole movement.
Mr. Judge discusses the recent charges and troubles in the Society and the School, from the standpoint of the Second Section, treating their real origin, their strategy and tactics, as having their source in the everlasting struggle of human evolution—the contending forces of the light and dark sides of nature and being. He concludes this part of his narrative by saying that the troubles of the Movement began anew “when in January or February [1894] Annie Besant finally lent herself unconsciously to the plot which I detail herein; but prior to that (from August, 1893), those managing that plot had begun to work upon her.” He places the root of the plot in India and says that forces opposing the Theosophical Movement
.  .  .  have succeeded in influencing certain Brahmans in India through race-pride and ambition, so that these, for their own advantage, desire to control and manage the T. S. through some agent and also through the E.S.T. They of course have sought, if possible, to use one of our body, and have picked out Mrs. Besant as a possible vehicle. One object of the plot is to stop the current of information and influence started by H.P.B. by deflecting thought back to modern India. To accomplish this it is absolutely necessary to tear down the tradition clustering around the work of H.P.B. her powers and knowledge have to be derogated from; her right to speak for the Masters has to be impugned; those Masters have to be made a cold abstraction; her staunch friends who wish to see the real work and objects carried on have to be put in such a position as to be tied hand and foot so as not to be able to interfere with the plans of the plotters; it has to be shown that H.P.B. was a fraud and a forger also. These men are not the Chelas of our Masters.
The name of the person who was worked upon so as to, if possible, use him as a minor agent . . . 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. At the first sincerely desirous of helping the race by bringing to the American people the old truths of his forefathers, he nevertheless, like so many before him, permitted ambition to take subtle root in his heart. Fired with the ambition of taking position in the world as a Guru, though doubtless believing himself still a follower of the White Brotherhood, he is no longer in our lines; on the contrary his mediumship and weakness leave him a vehicle for other influences also.

Mr. Judge tells of a message in regard to himself, received by Chakravarti, in which the Master commended Mr. Judge and his work, and says: “I informed Mrs. Besant in September, 1893, of the message.” This message was the one referred to by Mr. Judge in his statement before the European Convention in July, 1894, as being undisputed by Mrs. Besant. The circular continues:
But afterwards, when Mr. Chakravarti’s work under me was finished, and when ambition aroused through that visit, had grown strong, he tried to destroy the effect of that message on Mrs. Besant’s mind by cunningly construing it to mean that, although I was thus in all things commended, the last part of it contradicted the first and supported the charge of forgery and lying. This is madness when not deliberate. . . . She accepted the cunning construction, permitted herself to think that the Master could commend me for all the work I had done, of which the pretended acts of forgery would be a part, and at the same time send me a delusive message, part of which was to be immediately used as condemnation if brought forward by me. 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 or they fall together. Let it be proved that H.P.B. is a liar and a fraud, and I will abandon the T. S. and all its belongings; but until so proved I will remain where I was put. Lastly, 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 various occasions said she thought it was a fraud by H.P.B. , made up entirely, and not from the Master. . . . Only delusion would make Mrs. Besant take this position; deliberate intention makes the others do it. It is an issue that may not be evaded, for if that letter be a fraud then all the rest sent through our old teacher, are the same. I shall rest on that issue; we all rest on it.

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. . . . 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 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. . . . Not until the time was ripe did she tell me, in her letter in January [1894], from India, asking me to resign from the E.S.T. and 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 persecution, that he was ordering her to do what she did. . . .

In all this Chakravarti was her guide, with others. . . . *
Mr. Judge closed his circular of November 3, 1894, with the following:
E. S. T. ORDER 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. . . . Hence, under the authority given me by the Master and H.P.B. , and under the Master’s direction, I declare Mrs. Annie Besant's headship in the E.S.T. at an end.

A notice of this Order was at once cabled to Mrs. Besant in Australia, where she then was; and a copy of the entire circular was forwarded to her at Colombo, Ceylon, where she arrived on December 18, 1894, en route to attend the Adyar Convention. Immediately Mrs. Besant drew up a counter-circular which, dated Colombo, December 19, was as quickly as possible sent out under a London imprint, to all members of the E.S.T. After a preliminary paragraph devoted to explanations of her delay in sending out her statement, she makes the following comments:
I do not know if the statements as to Mr. Judge's part in the foundation of the E.S.T. are or are not true. H.P.B. never mentioned to me the alleged facts, except the one that Mr. Judge had not taken the ordinary pledge, he being already pledged.

This assertion can scarcely be taken as other than a convenient hiatus of memory on Mrs. Besant’s part, seeing that it was herself who read at the Council Meeting of May 27, 1891, the bundle of documents establishing the veracity of Mr. Judge’s statements. She continues:
The “plot,” so far as I know, is the purest delusion. What is said of Mr. Chakravarti I know to be false, and I can but feel the profoundest pity and sorrowforhimwhousestheholynameof theMastertocoversuchacharge.

In passing, it may be remarked that although Mrs. Besant then claimed to “know” that what Judge said of Chakravarti was “false,” later on, after 1906, she said the same thing of Chakravarti herself.

Mrs. Besant states, with reference to Mr. Judge’s E.S. Order:
The “E.S.T. Order” . . I reject. I shall pursue my work quietly, with such of the Council left by H.P.B. as think it right to work with me. Mr. Judge thinks it right to rend the School in twain, and I can only go on steadily as I have learned. We have come to the parting of the ways. I recognize no authority in Mr. Judge. Not from his hands did I receive my work; not into his hands may I surrender it. And now, brothers and sisters, you must choose your road, grievous as the choice must be to you. Mr. Judge casts me aside, breaks the last tie between us that remained.

Mrs. Besant ended her rejection of Mr. Judge’s E.S. Order with an appeal to her supporters to “Follow peace and charity; attack none; blame none; impute no evil motives; cast not back reproaches.” On her way to India to attend the December convention, she prepared a long article on the Westminster Gazette attack, which she gave to the Madras Mail upon arriving at Adyar. This article contained a defense of herself and accusations of Judge. The Convention was largely devoted to the Judge case. Col. Olcott began, in his Presidential Address, by saying that “the unavoidable failure to dispose of the charges against Mr. Judge” had created “a crisis that is the most serious within our history since 1884”—the time of the Coulomb conspiracy against H.P.B. The Society, he said, was torn by differences of opinion on what should be done. The American Section, he conceded, would support Mr. Judge almost unanimously—would even secede if Mr. Judge were forced to resign, and form an independent American Society. Olcott referred to the support of Judge by certain Irish and English Lodges, and others on the Continent, although other European members and branches were against him. The President spoke of the recognition by many Indian members of Judge’s “immense services and tireless activities in official work,” but reported that India “had sent no protest in his [Judge’s] favor.”
Olcott then urged that Judge resign as Vice-President and stand for re-election. He indirectly “warned” the members, before they decided that Mr. Judge had been deliberately dishonest, to consider the possibility that he had acted as a misled medium or psychic under some evil influence!
In conclusion, then [he said], I beg you to realize that, after proving that a certain writing is forged and calculated to deceive, you must then prove that the writer was a free agent before you can fasten on him the stigma of moral obliquity. To come back to the case in point, it being impossible for any third party to know what Mr. Judge may have believed with respect to the Mahatmic writings emanating from him, and what subjective facts he had to go on, the proof cannot be said to be conclusive of his bad faith, 10 however suspicious the available evidence may seem

This portion of Col. Olcott’s address seems to have been intended as a generous gesture which would allow Mr. Judge to confess to being a medium instead of a fraud! In the printed version of his speech, however, this “generosity” is vitiated by a note at the end, reporting that the President wished it known that he had withheld his “private views with respect to the Case of Mr. Judge,” so as not to violate the “obligation of strict impartiality” in the drafting of an official document. But even with this Parthian fling, Olcott’s address was more temperate than most of the other expressions. Nearly thirteen pages of small type in the Theosophist were needed to report a succession of attacks on Judge by 11 various persons. The first speaker was Mrs. Besant, who concluded by proposing a Resolution that the President-Founder “at once call upon Mr. W. Q. Judge to resign” the office of Vice-President of the Society. Most of the other speakers concurring, after a few mild objections and some debate, the Resolution was passed.

The next move against Mr. Judge came with publication in Lucifer for February, 1895, of a 27-page discussion by Mrs. Besant, entitled, “The Theosophical Society and Present Troubles.” She now asserted that she had been “gulled” by Mr. Judge. Referring to his Order deposing her from the Co-headship of the E.S., she spoke of his statements as “morally evil,” following this introduction with republication of (1) her article printed in the Madras Mail, and (2) her address before the December, 1894 Convention in Adyar, ending with the resolution on Judge’s resignation. Finally, she accused Mr. Judge of using the secrecy of the E. S. to slander her in his Order of November 3, and declared 12 that order a “public document.

In April Mrs. Besant, now returned to England, issued a booklet of 88 pages entitled The Case against W. Q. Judge. It contained a long letter by Mrs. Besant “to members of the T. S.,” a detailed statement of six charges against Mr. Judge, and testimony said to have been prepared for presentation at the Judicial Committee hearing of July, 1894, still other “evidence,” and a memorandum by Mrs. Besant concerning the “messages” she had received through Mr. Judge.

The important revelation in this booklet is Mrs. Besant’s statement, in her opening “Letter to members,” that she first learned of Mr. Judge’s “deception” about September, 1893. Some words and acts of Mr. Judge, she said, caused her to be uneasy. She continued:
The result was that I made a direct appeal to the Master, when alone, stating that I did feel some doubt as to Mr. Judge’s use of His name, and praying Him to endorse or disavow the messages I had received through him. He appeared to me as I had so often before seen Him, clearly, unmistakably, and I then learned from Him directly that the messages were not done by Him, and that 13 they were done by Mr. Judge.

This meant, of course, that as early as September, 1893, Mrs. Besant believed on “high spiritual authority” that Judge had tricked her with regard to messages from the Master. In explanation of her long silence concerning this “discovery,” she claimed that the Master had told her to take no public action she could not “prove,” and that the needed “evidence” would be provided when she reached Adyar. There, after her meeting with Olcott, Walter Old, and others, she said, she was ordered “to put an end to the deception practised.” Mrs. Besant’s account of the instruction which, she claimed, was given her by the Master, concludes:
I was bidden to wash away the stains on the T. S. “Take up the heavy Karma of the Society. Your strength was given you for this.” How could I, who 14 believed in Him, disobey?

In this letter to the members of the T. S., Mrs. Besant claims two visitations from H.P.B.’s Master: the first, apparently, in America, about the time of the World’s Fair Parliament of Religions, which she attended with Chakravarti; the second at Adyar, in either November or December. She also states that the first messages she received through Mr. Judge were those she referred to in her Hall of Science address, in August, 1891, and that “no thought of challenging their authenticity” entered her head at that time. Thus, for more than two years, according to her own words, Mrs. Besant was allowed by this “Master” to be systematically deceived by Mr. Judge!

Apt at quoting Madame Blavatsky when it served her purpose, Mrs. Besant here seemed to forget entirely H.P.B.’s statement regarding precisely this kind of deception. In “Lodges of Magic,” H.P.B. had written: “For all that the recipient of 'occult' letters can possibly know, and on the simple grounds of probability and common honesty, the unseen correspondent who would tolerate one single fraudulent line in his name, would wink at an unlimited repetition of the deception.” Yet Mrs. Besant now asserted that for the crucial two years following H.P.B.'s death, H.P.B.’s Master had “tolerated” many such “fraudulent” lines in his name, penned by Mr. Judge, who had been H.P.B.’s closest associate!

Mrs. Besant, on her own behalf, cited a letter written by H.P.B. to Mr. Judge, on March 27, 1891, quoting from it a statement about herself. H.P.B. had said: “She [Mrs. Besant) hears the Master’s voice when alone, sees His Light, and recognises His Voice from that of D_____.” What Mrs. Besant did not quote from the same letter to Judge by H.P.B. was the further statement, also about herself, that she was “not psychic or spiritual in the least—all intellect.” If she was on intimate terms with the Master after H.P.B.’s death, how could she fail to have been warned almost at once of Judge’s supposed “trickery”? The record shows, instead, that her suspicions against Judge dated from her meeting with Chakravarti, in the summer of 1893; that it was he, as described by Dr. Archibald Keightley in the Path (June1895), who was responsible for Mrs. Besant’s new-found intimacy with the “Master,” and that, finally, the charges against Judge were outlined, and the first accusing letter of Olcott, dated Feb. 7, 1894, to Judge, was written, in Allahabad—Chakravarti’s home.