The Truth about the E. S. Council, and the Inner Group.

THE E. S. Instructions were written by H. P. B. during the winter of 1888-89. The I. G. Teachings were given orally by H. P. B. at its meetings in 1890-91. It was the duty of the two secretaries, Mrs. Besant and Mr. Mead, to write these Teachings up, from notes sent in by all of us, after each meeting, and record them in a book. This record was dealt with at each succeeding meeting, corrected and often amplified by H. P. B. All these might, therefore, have been included in Vol. IV of The Secret Doctrine, according to the general plan of the work adopted by H. P. B., if she had lived and had permitted it. Mrs. Besant's statement that they were written with that in view is incorrect, and was obviously made to justify her action in using them for her version of Vol. III.

In the Theosophist for March, 1922, Mrs. Besant published an article in which several false statements are made concerning the history of the E. S. The writer, a Mr. Fritz Kunz, quotes Colonel Olcott's Old Diary Leaves as authority for saying that "the first move towards founding the E. S. was made in 1881," that it was "organised steadily through the trials of 1884-85," and merely "announced" in 1888. The actual facts (see Theosophist, April, 1880) are, that when H. P. B. established the real Theosophical Society or Universal Brotherhood at Benares in 1879 (the T. S. founded at New York in 1875 was only a "Miracle Club," as Colonel Olcott says, with no "brotherhood plank"), it was on a purely esoteric basis. It was under the direct guidance of the Trans-Him㭡yan Brotherhood, Who formed the First Section; the second and third being for "accepted" and "probationary" chelas respectively. When I joined the T. S. in 1885, these rules were still in force in the London Lodge. But Colonel Olcott insisted on an exoteric organisation with "the occultism more in the background"; and the crisis of 1884-85, which drove H. P. B. from India (see her letter of 1890, ante p. 2), was the natural result of this policy. Far from the E. S. being "organised steadily" at that time, as Mr. Kunz asserts, H. P. B. makes it clear in her letter that the Master's influence was "virtually banished" from Adyar through lack of faith in Them, and failure to support her, and that she had been ordered to "establish the Esoteric Section," at London, which she did in 1888, because the necessary faith in the Masters still existed there and in America.

Mr. Kunz then makes the astonishing assertion that the E. S. was "transferred to Mrs. Annie Besant in due course by H. P. B. in 1891." As I was a member of H. P. B.'s Inner Council which was responsible for what was done after her death, I am in a position to state the true facts as known to me, and as they appear in the E. S. documents in my possession. These facts are:—When H. P. B. died—suddenly and unexpectedly, on May 8th, 1891[21]., Mr. Judge at once came over from New York, and after much consultation and informal meetings of the E. S. Council (composed of the I. G. members) and two others, Mr. Wm. Kingsland and Dr. W. Wynn Westcott), a formal and "full meeting of the Council" was held at Headquarters on May 27th, 1891, when "Bro. Wm. Q. Judge attended as the representative of H. P. B. under a general power given as below." (Italics mine.—A. L. C.)

"As Head of the Esoteric Section of the Theosophical Society, I hereby declare that William Q. Judge, of New York, U.S., in virtue of his character as a chela of thirteen years' standing, and of the trust and confidence reposed in him, is my only representative for said Section in America, and he is the sole channel through whom will be sent and received all communications between the members of said Section and myself, and to him full faith, confidence and credit in that regard are to be given, ⁂ Done at London this fourteenth day of December, 1888, and in the fourteenth year of the Theosophical Society.

[Seal] H. P. Blavatsky, ∴

" ... The Council passed the following minute....

That it was resolved and recorded that the highest officials in the School for the present are Annie Besant and William Q. Judge, in accordance with the above-quoted order to William Q. Judge of December, 1888, and with the order of April 1st, 1891, to Annie Besant, as well as with the written declaration of H. P. B. in a letter to William Q. Judge dated March 27th, 1891, which we now here have read, in which she wrote that Annie Besant should be so considered. The order of April 1st, 1891, is as follows:—

I hereby appoint, in the name of the Master, Annie Besant Chief Secretary of the Inner Group of the Esoteric Section and Recorder of the Teachings.[22]

H. P. B., ∴

Finally, we—the Council—declared over our signatures that "from henceforth with Annie Besant and William Q. Judge rest the full charge and management of the School."

Thus did the Council establish the "Dual Headship," and until her meeting with Mr. ——, two years later, and her subsequent visit to India, Mrs. Besant continued to work harmoniously with Mr. Judge in the management of the School.

A full report of this Council meeting was immediately sent out to the whole E. S., bearing the date May 27th, 1891. Attached to it was an "Address" signed by Mrs. Besant and Mr. Judge as joint "Outer Heads," declaring that these "changes in the Constitution of the School" having been "made by the joint Councils of the E. S. T." (Italics mine.—A. L. C.), they considered it their "duty" to issue this address to each member.

The one error, and the foundation of all subsequent ones, as I subsequently realised, was that of speaking of themselves as H. P. B.'s "agents and representatives after her departure"; for there is nothing whatever in the wording of the abovementioned official appointments which even suggests such a contingency. Both obviously could refer to the holders of them only during H. P. B.'s life-time. Indeed, Mr. Judge's was made when the School was founded, and had been operative ever since; while Mrs. Besant's was merely an official confirmation of a secretarial office she had filled since the formation of the I. G. scarcely nine months previously (thus giving her the precedence of Mr. Mead.) It will be seen, however, that Mr. Judge's appointment was a far more important one than Mrs. Besant's, and was conferred on him "in virtue of his character as a chela of thirteen years' standing"; whereas Mrs. Besant had been "on probation" only, for barely a year. Moreover, when Mr. Judge became the object of attacks in 1889, H. P. B. issued the following very significant notice:—

"London, October 23rd, 1889.

"The Esoteric Section and its life in the U. S. A. depends upon W. Q. J. remaining its agent and what he is now. The day W. Q. J. resigns H. P. B. will be virtually dead for the Americans. W. Q. J. is the Antaskarana between the two Manas(es), the American thought and the Indian—or rather the trans-Himâlayan esoteric knowledge. Dixi.

H. P. B. ∴

"P. S.—W. Q. J. had better show and impress this on the mind of all those it may concern."

This notice appeared in an E. S. paper issued by Mrs. Besant and Mr. Judge, dated July 18th, 1894, when Mrs. Besant was already implicated in the plot against Mr. Judge.

Mrs. Besant's appointment, given above, was the only official one she ever received from H. P. B. in either the E. S. or T. S. Certainly I never heard of anything else. The absolutely Jesuitical nature of her methods is patent, in that she completely ignores the documentary facts set forth above. To read the present statements it might be imagined that Mr. Judge hardly existed at that time, except as an obscure person who, as Mr. Kunz tactfully (!) puts it, made an "unfortunate blunder." As I have shown elsewhere (see ante pp 5, 70); it is the fact that "blunders"—and worse than blunders—were made after H. P. B.'s death (see ante p. 86); but Mrs. Besant's "blunders" were far more serious than Mr. Judge's; though both of them were, in the first instance, misled by others, whose real aim was to disrupt the Society and defeat H. P. B.'s work.

I possess a copy of the previously mentioned most valuable "Preliminary Memorandum" to Instructions III, as issued by H. P. B. to her students; and a prefatory note states:—

The following "Preliminary Memorandum" was written by H. P. B. at the time of a grave crisis, or rather series of crises, through which the T. S. passed in 1889-90. Treachery within the E. S. itself, and persistent and relentless attacks on the T. S. from without, especially in America necessitated the striking of a fresh keynote and giving directions for the closing up of the ranks of the E. S. At the time of reprinting the Instructions in London in 1890-91, certain portions of this "Preliminary Memorandum" dealing with the details of the matter were purposely omitted by those of H. P. B.'s pupils who were constituted the editors [Mrs. Besant and Mr. Mead], these portions being deemed by them of too personal a character to remain. This was done when H. P. B. was too ill to supervise, without her sanction, and, as she afterwards said, much against her wishes. [Some of the details omitted related to attacks on Mr. Judge, and the duty of defending him "when the time comes."]

Similarly, Mr. Mead omitted from his "third and revised edition" of H. P. B.'s Key to Theosophy, published in 1893, most of the part in which the author deals with the Report of the Society for Psychical Research, classing it with "passages of a controversial nature, which are no longer of general interest." Yet the public at large still accept this Report as a proof that H. P. B. was a fraud, a charlatan, and a Russian spy!

Another feature of this edition, as of others of her works produced after her death, is what he calls "a systematic use of italics and capitals." This means that he abandons H. P. B.'s extremely effective use of large and small capitals and italics to emphasise the importance of words like MYSTERIES, OCCULTISM, WISDOM-RELIGION, etc., or SELF, Self, and Self to indicate the three different selves in man, and so robs her text of much of its emphasis and meaning. One has to compare her editions with these posthumos ounes to realise the extent to which this has been done. It is particularly noticeable in The Voice of the Silence, where the exact meaning often depends on the distinctions H. P. B. thus makes. (See her article on Occultism quoted ante p. 31).

Conclusion.

If the "Back to Blavatsky" movement accomplishes nothing else, let us hope it may succeed in getting rid of all this vandalism and re-establishing H. P. B.'s works on their original basis, that she may go down to posterity on her own merits and not altered and distorted by the brain-mind notions of her followers. Some of this work is already being done by organisations or private enterprise, but it needs to be systematised and co-ordinated.[23] Although the "door" had to be "shut" at the end of 1899, H. P. B. in her last paragraph of the Key to Theosophy expressed the hope that, "when the time comes for the effort of the twentieth century [i.e., in 1975], besides a large and accessible literature ready to men's hands, the next impulse will find a numerous and united body of people ready to welcome the new Torch-bearer of Truth."

It has been my painful task to show how lamentably we have failed to realise her hopes. The "united body" she sacrificed so much to create and hold together, was disrupted barely four years after her death; the main body under the Besant-Leadbeater régime is following strange gods; while the great literary legacy left by H. P. B. has not only been seriously tampered with, but even largely superseded and obscured by books which will certainly not be of any assistance to the next "Torch-Bearer."

Some years ago I founded an H. P. B. Lending Library with my original editions of her works, and others that are reliable and in line with her teaching. It has already done much good, especially among those who have been misled and kept in ignorance of them. If others would do the same we can in time hope to stem the tide of evil and error, and preserve H. P. B.'s message untainted until 1975. It is now within the life-span of our younger students, many of whom, as the children of Theosophists, have been brought up on the teachings and will bridge the gap for us.

The bridging of this gap, however, has been rendered more difficult than it should have been; first, by the failure of the T. S. as a living spiritual force in the world; and second, by the sinister activities of this "ill-omened partnership" which almost immediately followed. The whole tragic and dreadful history, fragments only of which I have been able to give in this brief examination, proves what incalculable harm "Leadbeaterism" is working on the minds of the rising generation. Not only is he the virtual director of Mrs. Besant's Society, but he has completely infected her mind with his soul-destroying teachings. Hers is the real responsibility, therefore[24]; and hers the karma of ruining H. P. B.'s life-work, and carrying with her in her fall thousands upon thousands of honest, but too credulous and easily deceived souls along the broad and flowery road "leading to destruction."

As H. P. B. says in concluding her "Occultism versus the Occult Arts":—"If, while turning their backs on the narrow gate, they are dragged by their desire for the Occult one step in the direction of the broad and more inviting Gates of that golden mystery which glitters in the light of illusion, woe to them! It can lead only to Dugpa-ship, and they will be sure to find themselves very soon landed on that Via Fatale of the Inferno, over whose portal Dante read the words:—

"Per me si va nella cittᡤolente Per me si va nell'eterno dolore Per me si va tra la perduta gente."

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