Theos-Talk Archives (February 1998 Message tt00198)

Dear David Green,

I must say that I find this publication of ES documents and edited
letters without naming their source or giving them context disturbing.
As interesting as the Neresheimer letter is, you do not tell us to whom
the letter was written, nor do we know where the original resides.
These are important details in order to give the letter authenticity and
context.  I'm also reluctant to comment on this letter because the
subject concerns occult matters that have been up to this time protected
by the Judge/Point Loma/Pasadena tradition Theosophists and are not
discussed--certainly not on a public forum like this.  But, in order to
stay the confusion created by this annotated and context less letter, I
think that this much ought to be said:  I believe that the annotator's
square bracketed identification of the Rajah with Judge is incorrect, or
at least very misleading.  The Raja or "luminous youth" was the name of
an oil painting that Judge made of a young man.  Little is known about
this portrait except that it was supposed to be of a person of high
occult status who was connected with Judge.  After Judge's death Tingley
kept this painting in her home behind a curtain that was kept closed
when visitors were present.  She used the painting for occult purposes.
You are of course free to attach whatever meaning to this that makes you
happy, but keep in mind that she did not discuss the painting or what
use she made of it with others.  She also eventually had the painting
destroyed.  I leave the meaning of all of this to your intuition.

Regarding the EST communication, I have no record of  such a
communication going out to the ES members on that date, or any other
date that year, and I believe that my file is fairly complete for that
period.  I would be very interested in knowing the date of the O.E.
Library Critic from which this circular was supposed to have been
taken.  Also, EST circulars sent out by Judge around that time bore a
London (not New York) address, because Judge was residing in London at
that time.  I'm not questioning the existence of the message, but only
complaining that when you present documents on the net in this way, you
make it impossible for the readers to confirm and put them into an
historical context, and therefore to intelligently comment upon them.

So please, now that you have published these documents, would you please
give us complete information about them, so that we will be able to make
our own evaluations.

Thank you
JHE