threatened to “peach,” the latter pièce à conviction was suddenly and stealthily removed from the spot where Mr. Judge had taught the Colonel to find it; how, after that, legible impressions were reserved for others, and the Colonel only got illegible ones; how, finally (this was after the Colonel had threatened to reproduce any he saw anywhere, together with the whole story of the seal, in the Theosophist), seal-impressions ceased altogether; and how Mr. Judge erased such as he could get hold of, and began quibbling and equivocating about the seal as he is doing up to the present moment.
These facts, again, I leave to tell their own story; in face of which it matters little how many “stories” Mr. Judge may tell. Quibbling about the Mahatma. Mr. Judge’s particular version of the old Theosophistry about the small part played by Mahatmas and their missives in the society is conveniently adjacent in this Reply to statements of his own in the exactly opposite sense. While in one breath he denies “influencing the course of affairs by any such thing,” a few lines lower down he tells us how he got a message directing him to prevent the president’s resignation, “and at once cabled to him and went to work to have the American section vote”; and, again, how he stopped Mrs. Besant going to India, “under direction”; and, again, how authoritative messages are going round “even as I write,” “and in relation to this very affair.” Compare these, too:—
| Mr. Judge in His “Reply.” | Mr. Judge Elsewhere. |
| It is absolutely untrue that the society grows by talking of the Mahatmas or Masters, or by having messages sent round from them. The movement here and elsewhere is pushed along the line of philosophy…. Messages from the Masters do not go flying around, and the society does not flourish by any belief in those being promulgated. | I am not acting impulsively in my many public statements as to Masters…. Experience has shown that a springing up of interest in Theosophy has followed declarations, and men’s minds are more powerfully drawn…. The Masters have said, “It is easier to help in America, because our existence has been persistently declared.”—(Mr. Judge, letter in Lucifer, April, 1893.) |
