A great block of such evidence is in our possession concerning not merely the existence but also the attributes of the great initiates, and to those of us in a position to appreciate this the foundations of Theosophic knowledge are quite unshaken by such incidents as those on which you have been commenting.—I am, Sir, yours, &c.,
WHOM DID THE CIRCULAR REFER TO
[In reference to the subject of Mr. Sinnett’s letter, the following is an extract from the Westminster Gazette under the heading:—“More Theosophistry: A Belated Piece of Bluff.”]
In the current number of the Review of Reviews a letter appears signed by the Dr. Keightley who lately wrote to The Westminster Gazette as a professed representative of Mr. W. Q. Judge, Vice-President of the Theosophical Society. The letter is worthy of some attention as an illustration of the tactics of Mr. Judge’s friends, and of the line which they were taking towards any allusion in the Press to certain events before the appearance of the recent exposure in this journal.
The letter is dated October 25, and was therefore written at the time when the Theosophists still hoped to maintain the great “hush up” inaugurated at the Convention of last July, and before they dreamed that all London would presently be discussing the facts which had been so industriously buried.
The occasion of the letter appears to have been a comment of Mr. Stead’s in the last number of the Review on a circular lately issued under the title of “Occultism and Truth.” This circular was issued just after the so-called “Enquiry into Certain Charges against the Vice-President,” and (to this office, at any rate) it was enclosed under one cover with the pamphlet report of that “Enquiry.” The substance of it is an assurance to the Theosophical world, on the part of some prominent Theosophists, that occultists have no more right than ordinary people to fib. Coming at the time when it did, and signed as it was by all the principal official Theosophists, with the one exception of the vice-president, the Editor of the Review of Reviews very naturally interpreted it as having some connexion with the charges against the last-named gentleman, and with what his colleagues evidently felt to be their apparent condonation of the “occult methods” ascribed to him.
The following is the substantial passage in the letter thereupon addressed to the Review of Reviews by Mr. Judge’s representatives:—
