Theos-Talk Archives (July 2001 Message tt00115)

Many serious students feel that some passages in the book THE THEOSOPHICAL
MOVEMENT 1975-1950 (not published by Theosophy Company, L. A., but by
CUNNINGHAM PRESS) are erroneous.

In an old email Dallas wrote me

>Now if you will point them out to me then I will be glad to talk them over
with my friends at the TS in Pasadena and see if >there are any real
differences. They have the archives there and there ought to be some
solution we can arrive at. Do help >in this, please.

As Dallas offers his help I draw attention to only three excerpts from the
TM book that are erroneous, misleading and defaming against Katherine
Tingley. Here are the three choice passages:

"The 'notes' referred to are nothing more than transcripts of 'psychic'
messages, obtained through Mrs. Tingley as medium, and alleged to be to
Judge from the discarnate H.P.B. The tone of these 'notes' is explanation
enough of the reluctance of their present possessors to make them easily
accessible. Although dressed up in feeble imitation of H.P.B.'s colloquial
style, they are strongly reminiscent of the drivel of the seance...."
- p. 285 TM 1951 edition

"Dr. H.N. Stokes, editor of the Critic, then expressed his own opinion that
the 'notes' were in Judge's handwriting....Mr. Ryan, apparently, welcomed
Stokes' judgment that the psychially received notes were in Judge's
handwriting, but the price he paid for this vindication was the reduction of
Judge to a dabbler in Spiritualism, a mere psychic dupe. Judge...needed a
medium, a 'helper,' [Mrs. Tingley] to get in touch with H.P.B.! What can
succession to such a 'leader' be worth?"
- p. 286 TM 1951 edition

"The much-proclaimed and never-produced 'private papers of Mr. Judge' bear a
rather remarkable likeness to 'private notes' of Mrs. Tingley."
- p. 671 TM 1925 edition

The anonymous ULT writer is suggesting that these "notes" were forgeries by
Mrs. Tingley. To my humble unterstanding this Anonymous and you, Dallas,
seem to ignore same basic facts which gives another light to the story.
I limit myself only to three pieces of evidence which are ignored by ULT
officials since decades (although surely known to them), the uninformed
public and even the uninformed, uninitiated members of the ULT:

(1) See Mr. Judge's letter (addressed to Dr. Archibald Keightley and other
E.S.T. Councillors in England ) dated January 4, 1895. The letter was first
published in The O. E. Library Critic (Washington, D.C.), November 1932 by
the editor Dr H. N. Stokes. Letter is preserved in the Archives of The
Theosophical Society, Pasadena, California.

Judge's letter is handwritten on E.S.T. letterhead stationary. Other than
the printed letterhead, the rest of the letter "is written in ink in the
handwriting of William Q. Judge." The accompanying transcript of the
communication from the dead Madame Blavatsky is also in Judge's handwriting.
Inspecting the original letter in 1932, these facts were certified as
accurate by Iverson L Harris, Joseph H. Fussell, Elsie V Savage, Margherita
Siren and Helen Harris. Judge's letter reads ---

"Enclosed is an exact transcript of what HPB said to me Jany 3,[1895]
prematurely ended by a visitor - as usual & as results from European
continual nagging at me. It is word for word. More will be said later. You
can let all worthy & devoted loyalists read this - It may be read in a
proper group. Copies not to be made. This is to be kept with Council
papers."

(2) See the following letter in the handwriting of William Quan Judge
preserved in the Archives of The Theosophical Society, Pasadena, California.
The letter was first published in The O. E. Library Critic (Washington,
D.C.), October 1932 by Dr Stokes. Mr. Judge's letter (addressed to Mrs.
Katherine Tingley) is dated January 5, 1895.

After the transcription of the letter, a certification reads in part: "The
above is an exact copy made by me of an original letter in William Q.
Judge's handwriting, written on two sides of one sheet of white paper. . . .
" and is signed by Iverson L. Harris and confirmed by J.H. Fussell, Helena
Harris, Elsie V. Savage and Margherita Siren.

Judge wrote:

"[Jan] 5th [1895] on the train
[from New York City to Chicago]

Dear Purple [Mrs Tingley]

....Now about this Spanish idea. [See Judge's letter to Keightley and
accompanying transcript of Blavatsky's message.] It's a good one-----but it
will raise a lot of ideas & talk. It will raise some jealousy. She
[Blavatsky] was right in saying, as she said today that she did not mean to
exclude the rest of Europe and that those now in the work in Spain had not
used all efforts. They have not. Now the prominent man there has not
accepted the order. Would it be well to tell him what she has said? It looks
to me like a good idea. He does believe in HPB and R will certainly have no
such message for him. If you think well of this plan I will write to him
from Chicago....

I shall have you in mind every day. Why dont you put down briefly things you
get & not have them all lost...."

(3) In the O.E. Library Critic for Nov.-Dec., 1934, Dr. Stokes wrote about
the messages to William Q. Judge from the dead Madame Blavatsky which praise
Mrs. Katherine Tingley:

"The question of the relation of W.Q. Judge to Katherine Tingley having been
raised again, . . . search of the Point Loma [Theosophical Society] archives
brought to light all of the documents. . . and all of them [are] in Judge's
own handwriting. . . ."

"I was furnished with photographs of most of these . . . [Judge] documents.
These I compared, with the assistance of old friends of Judge, with
unquestionably genuine and personal letters of Judge in their possession and
in the presence of a person expert in examining handwriting, and the
unanimous conclusion was that the documents were actually written by Judge.
In the [O.E. Library] Critic of September, October, November and December,
1932, I discussed these manuscripts, especially those containing what Judge
regarded as direct communications from the deceased H.P. Blavatsky, in which
a woman designated by a sign was spoken of in highly laudatory terms. The
special sign used [though there were others] consisted of three short nearly
horizontal lines crossed by a nearly vertical stroke. . . . In one case the
three short horizontal lines were used, the vertical stroke being omitted,
presumably because of haste in taking down the dictation, many other signs
of such haste being in evidence....I reproduce here the passages of the
Judge scripts containing these signs, copied from the photographs before
me...."

In a continuing article in the Jan.-Feb., 1935 issue of O.E. Library Critic,
Dr. Stokes added:

"We have . . . [now] the positive proof that the special sign . . . which
was used by Judge in the script of his purported communications from H.P.B.
about the end of 1894 and beginning of 1895 was also used by him in
addressing Mrs. Tingley, that he knew at the time that it was Mrs. Tingley
who was referred to, and that the same sign was used by others in writing to
Mrs. Tingley after Judge's death. . . . Judge was receiving from some source
what he regarded as communications from H.P.B. endorsing Mrs. Tingley. . .
but admonishing him to keep her 'in the background in outer work'. This
should afford a sufficient reason why she was not mentioned by name in any
discovered documents in his writing, even when quoting H.P.B.'s
'communications' to others, as to Dr. Archibald Keightley . . . . One has
but to read between the lines of Judge's letter to Mrs. Tingley. . . to
sense the esteem in which he held her. . . ."

...I am not going to express an opinion, at least here, except to say very
distinctly that charges of forgery, or even vague insinuations such as have
been made (Theosophy [ULT magazine], Oct., 1933, page 572) reflect only on
the character of the persons making them, unless backed by proof. . . ."

All documents mentioned in (1), (2) and (3) are in archives of T.S.
Pasadena.
If ULT agents do not beleive in the genuiness of the quoted documents above
they should go to the Pasadena archives and have a look.

Furthermore, as the ULT, is presented in the internet as a theosophical
group interested in original Theosophy, which runs parallel with TRUTH, it
is high time that the unfounded and false attacks against KT are replaced by
a more true historical discourse.
Frank