We are all, therefore, face to face with the question whether we will abide by Masters and their Messenger on the one hand, or by the disrupting forces that stand on the other, willing to destroy our great mission if we will but give them the opportunity.
“I Declare Mrs. Besant’s Headship at an End!”The pamphlet closes with the following “E.S.T. ORDER,” dated November 3, and signed in manuscript:—
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. This has been done already in America. So far as concerns the rest of the E.S.T. I may have to await the action of the members, but I stand ready to exercise those functions in every part of it. Hence, under the authority given me by the Master and H.P.B., and under Master’s direction, I declare Mrs. Annie Besant’s headship in the E.S.T. at an end.
This, then, is Mr. Judge’s response to the case against him, and, as was expected, it takes the form of attacking his colleagues, but keeps strictly to generalities as regards the evidence against himself. The date affixed is one when Mr. Judge had probably heard of the articles in The Westminster by cable, but had no idea of the detailed nature of the attack. The parts quoted throw many interesting side-lights, but perhaps the most delightful thing is the picture presented of all the Theosophists playing off the Mahatma on one another: Mr. Judge, Mrs. Besant, Mr. Chakravarti, and others, giving the most contradictory messages from the same Tibetan source; and Mr. Judge now finally “going one better” than all the rest, for has he not, in a very real sense, the Mahatma in his pocket?
