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The Theosophical Movement 1875-1950
By
Farewell To India
MADAME BLAVATSKY sailed from India on March 30, 1885. She was seriously ill and had to be carried on board the vessel. Accompanied by her physician and an attendant she voyaged to Naples, where she remained for several months. In August she went to Wurzburg, Germany, where she was visited and sustained by the Gebhards, devoted admirers living nearby in Elberfeld, whom she had met during a visit to Europe the year before. H.P.B. was later joined in Wurzburg by the Countess Wachtmeister, widow of the late Swedish Ambassador to England, who had become a member of the London Lodge in 1884. On her way to Italy in the summer of 1885, the Countess had stopped at Elberfeld to spend some time with the Gebhards, and learning of H.P.B.'s illness and isolation in Wurzburg, went to see her. What she saw and felt caused her to remain, and to become the companion, secretary, friend and voluntary servant of H.P.B. Here, in Wurzburg, where she lived for nearly a year, Madame Blavatsky began the enormous task of writing The Secret Doctrine, which was to be the systematic treatise of the Theosophical teachings.
In May, 1886, H.P.B. was ordered by physicians to find a more favorable climate, if she were to regain her health. Her next place of residence was Ostend, Belgium, where, less than a year later, she nearly died. In the spring of 1887 she yielded to the pleas of a small group of English students, who brought her to England. She passed the summer in a small cottage in Norwood, and in the autumn was installed in the house at 17 Lansdowne Road, Holland Park, West, where she lived until her death. These last five years of H.P.B.’s life were spent in the kindly care of English theosophists who shared her household and gave her the assistance she needed to complete The Secret Doctrine.
With H.P.B. no longer in India, the Movement there began to sink to the level of faint-heartedness and timidity which had characterized the Society’s “defense” against the attack of the Coulombs. Olcott, recalled from a tour by the extreme sickness of Madame Blavatsky, early in 1885, before her departure, found many of the Indian Lodges lapsing into dormancy, others threatening to dissolve. Some members, filled with a growing realization of the injustice done to H.P.B. by the Convention of 1884,were inclined to blame Olcott for the multiplying weaknesses of the Movement in India. Olcott found his autocratic rule of the Society’s affairs called into question by a growing number, and only H.P.B’s support enabled him to smooth over the dissatisfaction and to regain the security of his position. Meanwhile, he tried to make amends to H.P.B., although his attempt to persuade Hodgson to adopt a more impartial or friendly attitude was hardly a course to inspire the confidence of the young investigator of the Society for Psychical Research.
The theosophists of India convened their December, 1885 Convention in a chastened spirit. Resolutions passed by the delegates invited H.P.B. to resume the office of Corresponding Secretary when her health would permit, affirmed that the charges against her were unproved, and refused to consider Olcott’s retirement as President-Founder. Olcott’s critics in the Society had questioned his competency for this office, and the action of the Convention helped to restore his confidence. H.P.B. made a will leaving Olcott her interest in the Theosophist. She gave him the entire revenue of the publication and continued to send him articles for publication from Europe. These several expressions of fraternal accord strengthened the Society and hastened the revival of the work in India. The Movement there, however, never regained the vigor it had possessed in the early days. It is evident, too, that Olcott could not make full moral recovery from his vacillation during the Coulomb attacks. Both his articles in the Theosophist and the asides in Old Diary Leaves show that, separated from H.P.B., he increasingly cherished and guarded his personal authority and prestige as the head of an organization, instead of giving his best energies to cooperation with the one who had been his teacher and closest friend from the beginning.
Insight into the disastrous effects of Olcott’s attitude is provided by some notes left by H.P.B. in the form of a memorandum of a talk with one of the Theosophical Adepts. A portion of this memorandum, written in pencil by H.P.B., reports the Master as saying:
. . . the Society has liberated itself from our grasp and influence and we have let it go—we make no unwilling slaves. He (Col. Olcott) says he has saved it ? He saved its body, but he allowed through sheer fear, . . . its soul to escape, and it is now a soulless corpse, a machine run so far well enough, but which will fall to pieces when he is gone. Out of the three objects the second alone is attended to, but it is no longer either a brotherhood, nor a body over the face of which broods the Spirit from beyond the Great Range. His kindness and love of peace are great and truly Gautamic in their spirit; but he has misapplied that kindness; . . .
. . . This [his] policy has done more harm to the spirit of the Society and 1 its growth than several Coulombs could do. . . .
The history of the Society in India after 1885 becomes a monotonous record of the politics of religious organization, of personal frictions and legalistic disputes. These controversies are reflected in the pages of the Supplements to the Theosophist, which were devoted to the activities of the Society. For the living spirit of the Theosophical Movement, Olcott substituted the Theosophical Society as his object of worship, and he tended to identify the Society with himself as President-Founder. His subsequent conflicts with H.P.B. were always the result of his mistaking the human institution of the “Society” for the dynamic cause which H.P.B. served. She always subordinated the merely mechanical arrangements of “organization” to the larger purposes for which the organization was created. Olcott, however, interpreted her policy as the erratic behavior of a crotchety woman, and he found endless occasions to express himself to this effect, both directly and by innuendo. His opposition to Judge, in later years, was primarily due to the same cause. As the basic conceptions of the philosophy were gradually made into dogmas by Olcott and others who wanted formulas and rules, Judge continued to embody the original spirit of the teaching—a course which, by contrast, violated Olcott’s crystallized ideas and made him Judge’s bitter and self-righteous enemy.
Two of Madame Blavatsky’s writings, one a letter addressed to the Indian theosophists, the other an article published in Lucifer in 1889, provide a summary of the Indian cycle of the nineteenth-century Theosophical Movement. In the letter, addressed “To my Brothers of Aryavarta,” H.P.B. explains why she never 2 returned to India after 1885. The article, “Our Three Objects,” lists some of the achievements that may be attributed to the work of the Movement in India.
The letter, which was written in 1890, five years after H.P.B. left India, begins by speaking of the warm communications she had received from Hindu theosophists. These friendly demonstrations, she explains, make her feel obligated to tell why she does not return to India. Ill health, she says, is not the only reason:
There is a far more serious reason. A line of conduct has been traced for me here, and I have found among the English and Americans what I have so far vainly sought for in India. . . . I have met with hundreds of men and women who have the courage to avow their conviction of the real existence of the Masters, and who are working for Theosophy on Their lines and under Their guidance, given through my humble self.
In India, on the other hand, ever since my departure, the true spirit of devotion to the Masters and the courage to avow it has steadily dwindled away. At Adyar itself, increasing strife and conflict has raged between personalities; uncalled for and utterly undeserved animosity—almost hatred—has been shown towards me by several members of the staff. There seems to have been something strange and uncanny going on at Adyar, during these last years. No sooner does a European, most Theosophically inclined, most devoted to the Cause, and the personal friend of myself or the President, set his foot in Headquarters, than he becomes forthwith a personal enemy to one or other of us, and what is worse, ends by injuring and deserting the Cause. . . .
Of the Coulomb attack and the S.P.R. Report, she writes: If, I say, at that critical moment, the members of the Society, and especially its leaders at Adyar, Hindu and European, had stood together as one man, firm in their conviction of the reality and power of the Masters, Theosophy would have come out more triumphantly than ever, and none of their fears would have ever been realized, however cunning the legal traps set for me, and whatever mistakes and errors of judgment I, their humble representative, might have made in the executive conduct of the matter.
But the loyalty and courage of the Adyar Authorities, and of the few Europeans who had trusted in the Masters, were not equal to the trial when it came. In spite of my protests, I was hurried away from Headquarters. Ill as I was, almost dying in truth, as the physicians said, yet I protested, and would have battled for Theosophy in India to my last breath, had I found loyal support. But some feared legal entanglements, some the Government, while my best friends believed in the doctors’ threats that I must die if I remained in India. So I was sent to Europe to regain my strength, with a promise of speedy return to my beloved Aryavarta. . . .
Then, in Europe—
In a letter received from Damodar in 1886, he notified me that the Masters’ influence was becoming with every day weaker at Adyar. . . . Finally, he urged me very strongly to return, saying that of course the Masters would see that my health should not suffer from it. I wrote to that effect to Colonel Olcott, imploring him to let me return, and promising that I would live at Pondicherry, if needed, should my presence not be desirable at Adyar. To this I received the ridiculous answer that no sooner should I return, than I should be sent to the Andaman Islands as a Russian spy, which of course Colonel Olcott subsequently found out to be absolutely untrue. The readiness with which such a futile pretext for keeping me from Adyar was seized upon, shows in clear colours the ingratitude of those to whom I had given my life and health. Nay more, urged on, as I understood, by the Executive Council, under the entirely absurd pretext that, in case of my death, my heirs might claim a share in the Adyar property, the President sent me a legal paper to sign, by which I formally renounced any right to the Headquarters or even to live there without the Council’s permission. This, although I had spent several thousand rupees of my own private money, and had devoted my share of the profits of The Theosophist to the purchase of the house and its furniture. Nevertheless I signed the renunciation without one word of protest. I saw I was not wanted, and remained in Europe in spite of my ardent desire to return to India. How could I do otherwise than feel that all my labours had been rewarded with ingratitude, when my most urgent wishes to return were met with flimsy excuses and answers inspired by those who were hostile to me?
The result of this is too apparent. You know too well the state of affairs in India for me to dwell longer upon details. In a word, since my depa rture, not only ha s the activity of the movement there gradually slackened, but those for whom I had the deepest affections, regarding them as a mother would her own sons, have turned against me. While in the West, no sooner had I accepted the invitation to come to London, than I found people—the S. P. R. Report and wild suspicion and hypotheses rampant in every direction notwithstanding—to believe in the truth of the great Cause I have struggled for, and in my own bona fides.
Acting under the Master’s orders I began a new movement in the West on the original lines; I founded Lucifer, and the Lodge which bears my name. Recognizing the splendid work done at Adyar by Colonel Olcott and others to carry out the second of the three objects of the T. S., viz., to promote the study of Oriental Literature, I was determined to carry out here the two others. All know with what success this has been attended. Twice Colonel Olcott was asked to come over, and then I learned that I was once more wanted in India—at any rate by some. But the invitation came too late; neither would my doctor permit it, nor can I, if I would be true to my life-pledge and vows, now live at the Headquarters from which the Masters and Their spirit are virtually banished. The presence of Their portraits will not help; They are a dead letter. The truth is that I can never return to India in any other capacity than as Their faithful agent. And as, unless They appear among the Council in propria persona (which They will certainly never do now), no advice of mine on occult lines seems likely to be accepted, as the fact of my relations with the Masters is doubted, even totally denied by some; and I myself having no right to the Headquarters, what reason is there, therefore, for me to live at Adyar?
The fact is this: In my position, half-measures are worse than none. People have either to believe entirely in me, or to honestly disbelieve. No one, no Theosophist, is compelled to believe, but it is worse than useless for people to ask me to help them, if they do not believe in me. . . . The only claim, therefore, which India could ever have upon me would be strong only in proportion to the activity of the Fellows there for Theosophy and their loyalty to the Masters.
The letter ends with an appeal to the Theosophists of India to “turn a new leaf in the history of the Theosophical Movement” and to join with other loyal theosophists, bidding defiance “to all calumniators and ambitious malcontents—both without and within the Theosophical Society.”
This communication shows, as nothing else could, the tragic situation of the Theosophical Movement in India after 1885. The members there wished to remain theosophists, yet feared to support H.P.B. in her hour of need. Their attempt to compromise, with “half-measures,” had placed them in the curious position of having virtually conceded to the opposition that H.P.B. was not to be wholly trusted—that she was only half-honest !—while they still pretended to be followers of a movement of which she had been, and still was, the living inspiration. A Society with this sort of leadership was worse than none, for its policy was one of semi-conscious hypocrisy, justified by fear. It may be added that there has been no appreciable change in the Adyar Society from that day to this. In 1929, when portions of the letter quoted above finally appeared for the first time in the Theosophist, all 3 passages reproachful of the members in India were carefully excised. To this day, readers of the Theosophist are ignorant of H.P.B.’s real feelings concerning the Adyar Society and what it became after her departure.
But whatever the ingratitude and betrayal H.P.B. met in India, she was uncompromising in her own defense of the Indian people, especially when they were deprecated in comparison with European civilization. In 1886 Mr. Sinnett sent her an article on Mesmerism which he had published in the July Transactions of the London Lodge. In this discussion he chanced to express the opinion that the people of India “are on a somewhat lower level of cosmic evolution” than those of Europe. H.P.B.’s reply was characteristically vigorous:
Thanks for the Transactions. Very interesting, your mesmerism. Only why can’t you ever write about India or Indians without allowing your pen to run away with your ineradicable prejudices at the expense of truth and fact? . . . You want to write esoteric facts and you give instead English race prejudice. Believe me, I speak seriously. You cannot remodel esoteric History to suit your little likings and dislikes. . . . How many times have I told you that if, as a race, they are lower than Europeans it is only physically and in the matter of civilization or rather what you yourselves have agreed to regard as civilization—the purely external, skin deep polish, or a whitened sepulchre with rottenness inside, of the Gospel. Hindus are spiritually intellectual and we are physically spiritual. Spiritually they are immensely higher than we are. The physical point of evolution we have reached only now—they have reached it 100,000 years ago, perhaps. And what they are now spiritually you may not hope to reach in Europe before some millenniums yet. . . You must have written your Transaction—in sulks. However it may be I am sorry to have to contradict you in the Secret D. I have written that long ago—and it is diametrically opposite to what you 4 say—and as it was dictated to me.
The article, “Our Three Objects,” reviews the accomplishments of the Theosophical Movement in India, under the headings of Brotherhood, the study of Aryan literature, and occult science. H.P.B.’s observations concerning the work of the Society on behalf of Universal Brotherhood will illustrate both the spirit of her undertaking and its practical result.
She wrote:
“When we arrived in India, in February, 1879, there was no unity between the races and sects of the Peninsula, no sense of a common public interest, no disposition to find the mutual relation between the several sects of ancient Hinduism, or that between them and the creeds of Islam, Jainism, Buddhism and Zoroastrianism. Between the Brahmanical Hindus of India and their kinsmen, the modern Sinhalese Buddhists, there had been no religious intercourse since some remote epoch. And again, between the several castes of the Sinhalese—for, true to their archaic Hindu parentage, the Sinhalese do still cling to caste despite the letter and spirit of their Buddhist religion—there was a complete disunity, no intermarriages, no spirit of patriotic homogeneity, but a rancorous sectarian and caste ill-feeling. As for any international reciprocity, in either social or religious affairs, between the Sinhalese and the Northern Buddhistic nations, such a thing had never existed. Each was absolutely ignorant of and indifferent about the other’s views, wants or aspirations.
“Finally, between the races of Asia and those of Europe and America there was the most complete absence of sympathy as to religious and philosophical questions. The labours of the Orientalists from Sir William Jones and Burnouf down to Prof. Max Muller, had created among the learned a philosophical interest, but among the masses not even that. If to the above we add that all the Oriental religions, without exception, were being asphyxiated to death by the poisonous gas of Western official science, through the medium of the educational agencies of European administrations and Missionary propagandists, and that the Native graduates and undergraduates of India, Ceylon and Japan had largely turned agnostics and revilers of the old religions, it will be seen how difficult a task it must have been to bring something like harmony out of this chaos, and make a tolerant if not a friendly feeling spring up and banish these hatreds, evil suspicions, ill feelings, and mutual ignorance.
“Ten years have passed and what do we see ? Taking the points seriatim we find—that throughout India unity and brotherhood have replaced the old disunity; one hundred and twenty-five Branches of our Society have sprung up in India alone, each a nucleus of our idea of fraternity, a centre of religious and social unity. Their membership embraces representatives of all the better castes and all Hindu sects, and a majority are of that class of hereditary savants and philosophers, the Brahmans, to pervert whom to Christianity has been the futile struggle of the Missionary and the self- appointed task of that high-class forlorn hope, the Oxford and Cambridge Missions. The President of our Society, Col. Olcott, has traversed the whole of India several times, upon invitation, addressing vast crowds upon theosophic themes and sowing the seed from which, in time, will be garnered the full harvest of our evangel of brotherhood and mutual dependence.
“The growth of this kindly feeling has been proven in a variety of ways: first, in the unprecedented gathering of races, castes, and sects in the annual Conventions of the Theosophical Society: second, in the rapid growth of a theosophical literature advocating our altruistic views, in the founding of various journals and magazines in several languages, and in the rapid cessation of sectarian controversies; third, in the sudden birth and phenomenally rapid growth of the patriotic movement which is centralized in the organisation called the Indian National Congress. This remarkable political body was planned by certain of our AngloIndian and Hindu members after the model and on the lines of the Theosophical Society, and has from the first been directed by our own coll e ague s; men among the most influenti a l in the Indian Empire. At the same time, there is no connection wha t eve r, ba rring tha t through the pe rsona liti e s of individuals, between the Congress and its mother body, our Society. It would never have come into existence, in all probability, if Col. Olcott had suffered himself to be tempted into the side paths of human brotherhood, politics, social reforms, etc., as many have wanted him to do. We aroused the dormant spirit and warmed the Aryan blood of the Hindus, and one vent the new life made for itself was this Congress. All this is simple history and passes unchallenged.
“Crossing over to Ceylon, behold the miracles our Society has wrought, upon the evidence of many addresses, reports, and other official documents heretofore brought under the notice of our readers and the general public. The castemen affiliating; the sectarian ill-feeling almost obliterated; sixteen Branches of the Society formed in the Island, the entire Sinhalese community, one may almost say, looking to us for counsel, example and leadership; a committee of Buddhists going over to India with Col. Olcott to plant a cocoanut—ancient symbol of affection and good-will—in the compound of the Hindu Temple in Tinnevelly, and Kandyan nobles, until now holding aloof from the low-country people with the haughty disdain of their feudal traditions, becoming Presidents of our Branches, and even travelling as Buddhist lecturers.
“Ceylon was the foyer from which the religion of Gautama streamed out to Cambodia, Siam and Burma; what, then, could be more appropriate than that there should be borne from this Holy Land a message of Brotherhood to Japan! How this message was taken, how delivered by our President, and with what magnificent results, is too well known to the whole Western World to need reiteration of the story in the present connection. Suffice it to say, it ranks among the most dramatic events in history, and is the all sufficient, unanswerable and crowning proof of the vit a l r e a lit y of our s cheme to beg e t the f e e ling of Universal Brotherhood among all peoples, races, kindreds, castes, and colours.”
Thus the Theosophical Movement, under the inspiration of H. P. Blavatsky, sought to overcome the divisions of sectarianism in organized religion, not merely by criticism, but by providing the philosophic verities which could dissolve the superficial differences of doctrine among the religions of the world, showing them all to have the common foundation of the archaic Wisdom Religion.
We turn, now, to the United States, where a new cycle of activity began about the time Madame Blavatsky left India.
THE REAL BEGINNING of the work of the Theosophical Movement in the United States came in 1886, when William Q. Judge established The Path, an independent Theosophical magazine. Until this time, not much had been accomplished in the way of growth of the Society in America. Even before the departure of Olcott and H.P.B. for India, as early as the close of 1876, as Olcott says, “The Theosophical Society as a body was comparatively inactive: its By1 laws became a dead letter, its meetings almost ceased.” When the journey of the two Founders to India was decided upon, General Abner Doubleday was chosen to serve as the President in America, pro tem., and Judge was made Recording Secretary.
While Judge kept in close contact with both H.P.B. and Olcott through correspondence, there was little if any organizational activity for the next several years. The difficulties confronting him during this period are illustrated by a biographical passage written by Mrs. Archibald Keightley and included by her in the second volume of Letters That Have Helped Me. It was a time when Madame Blavatsky—
she, who was then the one great exponent, had left the field, and the curiosity and interest excited by her original and striking mission had died down. The T. S. was henceforth to subsist on its philosophical basis, and this, after long years of toil and unyielding persistence, was the point attained by Mr. Judge. From his twenty-third year until his death, his best efforts and all the fiery energies of his undaunted soul were given to this Work. We have a word picture of him, opening meetings, reading a chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, entering the Minutes, and carrying on all the details of the same, as if he were not the only person present; and this he 2 did, time after time, determined to have a society.
In these early days, Mr. Judge was a young practicing lawyer who had to give much of his time to earning a living. He had married in 1874, shortly before meeting H.P.B. There was only one child, a girl, who died while very young. Business affairs took him to South America in 1876, where he con tracted Chagres fever, and he was ever after a sufferer from this torturing disease. Other phases of his South American experiences are recorded in his writings, often allegorical, suggesting the character of the occult contacts which may have been established on this journey. In 1883, with some others, Mr. Judge established a branch society, the Aryan Theosophical Society of New York, which was chartered by Col. Olcott. In later years, under Judge's guidance, the Aryan Society was to set an example to all other American branches in effective promulgation of Theosophy. In the first number of the Path, Mr. Judge described the Aryan Society as a branch “formed with the idea of cementing together the New York members taken into the Parent Society while Col. Olcott and Madame Blavatsky were here.” He adds, however, that “it was found that a good many had joined [the Parent Society] under the impression that it was a new kind of spiritualism, and then had retired.” The real activity of the Aryan branch began in 1886, with the publication of the Path.
In 1884, at Judge's suggestion, Col. Olcott had organized an American Board of Control for the government of the Society in the United States. This executive body superseded the Presidency of Abner Doubleda 3 y. Early in 1884, Judge went to London, where he met Sinnett and other English members. A few weeks later he went to Paris where, on March 28, he was joined by H.P.B. and Olcott, who had come from India. Judge remained in Madame Blavatsky's company for several weeks in France—for him a pleasant change from the moral atmosphere of London, which he had found extremely depressing. Actually, this period early in 1884 seems to have been a critical interlude in the preparation of Mr. Judge for the work which lay ahead of him. Correspondence to friends, written in London, and some of his Paris letters also, reveal that he was suffering from an extraordinary despondency which lasted several weeks or months. It was a time, he explained to his intimates, when certain influences from the distant past returned to disturb his psychic well-being. Both the simplicity and the strength of the young Irish-American are shown by this passage from one of his Paris letters:
“These last days (12) have been a trial to me. Quite vividly the question of sticking fast or letting go has come up. I believe that I have been left alone to try me. But I have conquered. I will not give up; and no matter what the annoyance or bitterness, I will stand. Last night I opened theTheosophist that Mme. has here, and almost at once came across those articles about chelaship, its trials and dangers. It seemed like a confirmation of my thoughts, and while the picture in one sense was rather 4 dismal, yet they strengthened me. . .
In April, 1884, intimations of the plot of the Coulombs were received in Paris and Judge was sent to India with, as he put it, “full power from the president of the society to do whatever seemed best for our protection against an attack we had information was about to be made in conjunction with the missionaries who conducted the 5 Christian College at Madras.” He arrived at Adyar shortly after the Coulombs had been expelled and at once took charge. He called a number of witnesses to see the handiwork of the Coulombs, and then closed H.P.B. 's quarters to the public. As an interesting footnote to the attack of the missionaries on H.P.B., Judge makes this statement:
The very next day Missionary Patterson, expert Gribble & Co., came to examine. It was too late. The law was already in existence; and Mr. 6 Gribbie, who had come as an “impartial expert,” with, however, a report in full in his pocket against us, had to go away depending on his 7 imagination for damaging facts. He then drew upon that fountain.
Mr. Judge remained in India only long enough to attend to his duties in connection with the Coulomb conspiracy, but during this period he strengthened the bond of fraternity with Damodar and other Hindu members whom he knew only by correspondence. In 1885, after his return to America, he set to work to revitalize the Movement in the United States. Seeing that the Board of Control established by Olcott provided a “somewhat paternal and unrepresentative government” for the American branches, he appealed to Olcott and H.P.B. to cooperate with him in establishing an “American Section” of the Parent Society, in which all the branches would have a voice. This was finally accomplished through a meeting of the Board of Control in Cincinnati in October, 1886. Following the suggestion of a resolution by the General Council in India, the American theosophists at this meeting dissolved the Board of Control and “formed the American Section of the General Council of the Theosophical Society, but deferred the question of adopting a formal constitution and laws until some other date when a more complete representation could be 8 secured.” In 1887 a second meeting was held and the Constitution of the American Section was regularly adopted by instructed delegates.
At the time of the 1886 meeting of the Board of Control, there were twelve branches of the Theosophical Society in the United States. These were in Rochester, Chicago, Boston, Malden (Mass.), Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, St. Louis, San Francisco, Washington, D. C., and two in New York. The members of these branches made up a total of 264. By the 1887 Convention, held in New York City, there were still twelve branches, but the membership had increased to 302. At the second annual convention of the American Section—its first large meeting—in Chicago, April 22 and 23, 1888, Mr. Judge, who was General Secretary, reported the addition of ten new branches, and an aggregate membership of about 460. This extraordinary rate of the Society’s growth in America continued for a number of years. By 1896, there were 103 branches in the United States.
The first number of the Path appeared in April, 1886. Its opening editorial struck the keynote of the policy it was to maintain for ten years, under the editorship of Mr. Judge. He began by explaining that the magazine was not the official organ of the Theosophical Society, but an independent journal “the impulse for which arose directly from Theosophical teachings and literature.” The magazine’s founders, he said,
have resolved to try on the one hand to point out to their fellows a Path in which they have found hope for man, and on the other to investigate all systems of ethics and philosophy claiming to lead directly to such a path, regardless of the possibility that the highway may, after all, be in another direction from the one in which they are looking. From their present standpoint it appears to them that the true path lies in the way pointed out by our Aryan forefathers, philosophers, and sages, whose light is still shining brightly, albeit that this is now Kali Yuga, or the age of darkness.
The editorial concludes: The very first step in true mysticism and true occultism is to try to apprehend the meaning of Universal Brotherhood, with out which the very highest progress in the practice of magic turns to ashes in the mouth.
We appeal, therefore, to all who wish to raise themselves and their fellow creatures—man and beast—out of the thoughtless jog trot of selfish everyday life. It is not thought that Utopia can be established in a day; but through the spreading of the idea of Universal Brotherhood, the truth in all things may be discovered. Certainly, if we all say that it is useless, that such highly-strung, sentimental notions cannot obtain currency, nothing will ever be done. A beginning must be made, and it has been, by the Theosophical Society. Although philanthropic institutions and schemes are constantly being brought forward by good and noble men and women, vice, selfishness, brutality, and the resulting misery, seem to grow no less. Riches are accumulating in the hands of the few, while the poor are ground harder every day as they increase in number. Prisons, asylums for the outcast and the magdalen, can be filled much faster than it is possible to erect them. All this points unerringly to the existence of a vital error somewhere. It shows that merely healing the outside by hanging a murderer or providing asylums and prisons will never reduce the number of criminals nor the hordes of children born and growing up in hot-beds of vice.
What is wanted is true knowledge of the spiritual condition of man, his aim and destiny. This is offered to a reasonable certainty in the Aryan literature, and those who must begin the reform are those who are so fortunate as to be placed in the world where they can see and think out the problems all are endeavoring to solve, even if they know that the great day may not come until after their death. Such a study leads us to accept the utterance of Prajapati to his sons: “Be restrained, be liberal, be merciful”; 9 it is the death of selfishness
While Madame Blavatsky wrote about Theosophy with great erudition and out of her immense store of occult knowledge, Mr. Judge addressed the common man in homely language and with simple reason. The Path, from its beginning, was evidence that he had completely found himself, and was now intent upon cultivating the area of his greatest usefulness to the Movement. His natural interest in the welfare of others affected everything he did, so that his articles and Theosophical talks are cast in the idiom of the man in the street. There was nothing of the poseur in Mr. Judge, and his simple, unaffected style sometimes has the effect of concealing his wisdom from those who expect certain mannerisms or pretensions in “occult” or “deep” writing. As the years went by, Mr. Judge revealed himself as a skillful organizer and a self-effacing administrator who knew how to help other men to develop their talents and take responsibilities. He wrote for the Path under a variety of pseudonyms, thus hiding from the public his large personal part in that publication, although he signed with his own name all decisive statements of policy for which individual responsibility ought to be assumed.
His knowledge of Theosophy emerged in the pages of the Path in the form of endlessly varied applications of the philosophy. His method is suggestive rather than dogmatic. Everything he wrote of a metaphysical nature can be found supported, directly or indirectly, in the works of Madame Blavatsky. He attempted no new “revelation,” but illustrated in his own works the ideal use of the concepts of the Theosophical teachings. At the conclusion of the first volume of the Path, he presented a view of the law of cycles showing that, to him, this law was no abstraction, but a principle having direct bearing on the work of the Movement and on the psychological and moral needs of the human race at this time. He wrote:
The “Christian” nations have dazzled themselves with the baneful glitter of material progress. They are not the peoples who will furnish the clearest clues to the Path. A few short years and they will have abandoned the systems now held so dear, because their mad rush to the perfection of their civilization will give them control over now undreamed of forces. Then will come the moment when they must choose which of two kinds of fruit they will take. . . .
In the year just passing we have been cheered by much encouragement from without and within. Theosophy has grown not only in ten years, but during the year past. A new age is not far away. The huge, unwieldy flower of the 19th century civilization, has almost fully bloomed, and preparation must be made for the wonderful new flower which is to rise from the old. We have not pinned our faith on Vedas nor Christian scriptures, nor desired any others to do so. All our devotion to Aryan literature and philosophy arises from a belief that the millions of minds who have trodden weary steps before ours, left a path which might be followed with profit, yet with discrimination. For we implicitly believe that in this curve of the cycle, the final authority is the man himself. In former times the disclosed Vedas, and later, the teachings of the great Buddha, were the right authority, in whose authoritative teachings and enjoined practices were found the necessary steps to raise Man to an upri ght position. But the g r and c lock of the Universe points to another hour, and now Man must seize the key in his hands and himself—as a whole—open the gate. Hitherto he has depended upon the great souls whose hands have stayed impending doom. Let us then together enter upon another year, fearing nothing, assured of strength in the Union of Brotherhood. For how can we fear death, or life, or any horror or evil, at any place or time, when we well know that even death itself is a part of the dream which we are weaving before our eyes. Our belief may be summed up in the motto of the Theosophical Society: “There is no religion higher than Truth,” and our practice consists in a disregard of any authority in matters of religion and philosophy except such propositions as from their innate quality we feel 10 to be true.
This editorial was Judge's way of repeating the doctrine—implied in Isis Unveiled and to be stated explicitly in The Secret Doctrine and in numerous articles and letters by Madame Blavatsky—that t h e twentieth century would be a period of vast psychic mutation in human history, during which the faculties of the human mind would be heightened and the psycho-emotional susceptibilities of all men would be greatly increased. The need, in this coming cycle, would be for greater moral stability and intellectual selfreliance, in order to avoid the catastrophic psychological disorders which would afflict the race unless this stability were gained. Here, in his Path editorial, Mr. Judge put into simple terms a teaching of crucial importance to the future of Western civilization, but it was not labelled or accompanied by any fanfare to attract attention. The ideas were given, and readers were left to recognize their significance for themselves.
It was natural that in the course of years Mr. Judge attracted to the Movement in America a nucleus of devoted individuals who supported and helped with the work in various ways. One of these was J. D. Buck, who became a member of the Society in 1878, after reading Isis Unveiled. Dr. Buck maintained a correspondence with H.P.B. while she was in India. Col. Olcott appointed him to serve on the American Board of Control, which met in Dr. Buck's home in Fregonia, N.Y., in 1884 to consider plans for a Theosophical revival in the United States. Other meetings of the Board convened in 1885 and 1886 in his house in Cincinnati. Dr. Buck wrote numerous excellent articles for the Path, both under his own name and under the pseudonym of “Hiraj.” His personal affection for Mr. Judge made him a loyal worker throughout the former's life, but after Judge died, Dr. Buck was confused by the various claims to “spiritual authority” and became a follower of “TK,” an “occult” writer with pretensions to higher Masonic knowledge.
Another worker was Julia Campbell VerPlanck, later Mrs. Archibald Keightley, who was probably more help to Judge than any one else in getting out the Path. She wrote for the Path under the names of “Julius,” “August Waldensee,” and “Jasper Niemand.” She used the latter name as editor of the volume of M r . J u d g e ' s letters to her, which she published as Letters That Have Helped Me.
Alexander Fullerton, an Episcopalian clergyman who had been Mrs. VerPlanck’s pastor, was attracted to Theosophy by her and gave up his position in the church. In 1890 he became a member of the Council of the American Section of the T. S. He was well educated, could write and speak, and his offer of services at the busy headquarters of the General Secretary was gladly accepted. Mr. Fullerton soon became known as Mr. Judge's right-hand man. He contributed many articles to the Path, edited the Forum—a small periodical devoted to Theosophical questions and answers—and attended to much of the correspondence coming to the Path editorial office and the headquarters of the America Section Another prominent American worker was Jerome A. Anderson, active on the Pacific Coast, who was author of elementary books on Reincarnation and Karma, Immortality, and Septenary Man. Mr. Anderson was a frequent contributor to the pages of the New Californian, a Theosophical monthly founded in Los Angeles in 1891. The editor of this magazine, Miss Louise A. Off, was among the most active members on the Pacific Coast, writing on Theosophical subjects for the California newspapers as well as in the New Californian. She also conducted in her home well-attended weekly meetings for the discussion of Theosophy. Although Miss Off was not physically strong, having to discontinue publication of the magazine after two volumes were completed, she worked strenuously for Theosophy and continued to write in the service of the Movement until her death in 1895.
The spirit of the work of the Movement in America is best discovered by a reading of the first ten volumes of the Path, of Jasper Niemand's compilation of Letters That Have Helped Me, and of the letters of H. P. Blavatsky to the annual conventions of the American Section. There were five of these messages from H.P.B. to the American Theosophists. The first, which was read to the delegates to the convention held in Chicago in April, 1888, she addressed to Mr. Judge as “Brother and Co-Founder of the Theosophical Society.” This letter is of particular interest for several reasons, among them the evidence it provides of the position occupied by Mr. Judge in her regard. She began with greetings to the Delegates and Fellows of the Society, adding—”and to yourself [Judge]—the heart and soul of that Body in America.” The letter continues:
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 then 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.
The remainder of the letter is occupied with practical advice for carrying on the work of the Theosophical Movement. H.P.B. expressed herself on the various problems confronting the Society, noting both the opportunities and the dangers which lay ahead. She wrote:
Theosophy has lately taken a new start in America which marks the commencement of a new Cycle in the affairs of the Society in the West. And the policy you are now following is admirably adapted to give scope for the widest expansion of the movement, and to establish on a firm basis an org anization which, while promoting feelings of fraternal sympathy, social unity, and solidarity, will leave ample room for individual freedom and exertion in the common cause—that of helping mankind.
The multiplication of local centres should be a foremost consideration in your minds, and each man should strive to be a centre of work in himself. When his inner development has reached a certain point, he will naturally draw those with whom he is in contact under the same influence; a nucleus will be formed, round which other people will gather, forming a centre from which information and spiritual influence radiate, and towards which higher influences are directed.
But let no man set up a popery instead of Theosophy, as this would be suicidal and has ever ended most fatally. We are all fellow-students, more or less advanced; but no one belonging to the Theosophical Society ought to count himself as more than, at best, a pupil-teacher—one who has no right to dogmatize.
Since the Society was founded, a distinct change has come over the spirit of the age. Those who gave us commission to found the Society foresaw this, now rapidly growing, wave of transcendental influence following that other wave of mere phenomenalism. Even the journals of Spiritualism are gradually eliminating the phenomena and wonders, to replace them with philosophy. The Theosophical Society led the van of this movement; but, although Theosophical ideas have entered into every development or form which awakening spirituality has assumed, yet Theosophy pure and simple has still a severe battle to fight for recognition. The days of old are gone to return no more, and many are the Theosophists who, taught by bitter experience, have pledged themselves to make of the Society a “miracle club”no longer. The faint-hearted have asked in all ages for signs and wonders, and when these failed to be granted, they refused to believe. Such are not those who will ever comprehend Theosophy pure and simple. But there are others among us who realize intuitionally that the recognition of pure Theosophy—the philosophy of the rational explanation of things and not the tenets—is of the most vital importance in the Society, inasmuch as it alone can furnish the beacon-light needed to guide humanity on its true path.
This should never be forgotten, nor should the following fact be overlooked. On the day when Theosophy will have accomplished its most holy and most important mission—namely, to unite firmly a body of men of all nations in brotherly love and bent on a pure altruistic work, not on a labour with selfish motives—on that day only will Theosophy become higher than any nominal brotherhood of man. This will be a wonder and a miracle truly, for the realization of which Humanity is vainly waiting for the last 18 centuries, and which every association has hitherto failed to 11 accomplish.
H.P.B. spoke prophetically in this letter. She wrote also of the awakening interest in Theosophy in England. In addition to Lucifer, H.P.B.'s magazine, English theosophists were supporting a new organization, the Theosophical Publication Society, which was issuing literature for public use—undertaking, as the letter said, “the very necessary work of breaking down the barrier of prejudice and ignorance which has formed so great an impediment to the spread of Theosophy.” She wrote also that The Secret Doctrine, her great work for which so many students were waiting impatiently, was now ready for the printer. She ended by expressing her intention of staying in England—“where for the moment the hardest fight against prejudice and ignorance has to be fought”—but added that “much of my hope for Theosophy lies with you in theUnited States, where the Theosophical Society was founded, and of which country I myself am proud of being a citizen.”
These annual messages to the American theosophists from H.P.B. continued until her death in 1891. Taken together, they form an inspiring manual of Theosophical work and counsel, full of the enthusiasm of the most tireless worker of them all, and pervaded by that practical knowledge of human needs which all true philanthropists must possess. The “five messages” are regarded by most theosophists as a succinct statement of the “lines” of Theosophical work, to be followed carefully in order to make the Theosophical Movement of the greatest possible benefit to the modern world.
