Theos-Talk Archives (July 2001 Message tt00135)

Monday, July 16, 2001

Dear Frank:

Thank you for the details and opinions you send. I now have a
chance to see how the matter originated. It is puzzling to us
after all those years.

I can send you a copy of the Bio-notes prepared from Mr.
Crosbie's own hand in case you desire to see them for comparison.
Let me know.

I am sure that those differences of opinion have already been
discussed before our time. By the various people involved,
including those who first authored the books you and I quote
from.

I am sure that there are severe differences of opinion. I also
think we are not going to able to settle them soon, but there is
no sense in my mind in carrying a feud forward.

All I can say for the moment is "read the actual documents." See
if we can make sense of the differences noted. Any one can do
that and our opinions may not have so much effect, in any case as
we hope.

We have THEOSOPHY to study and a review of how the older
generation handled matters between themselves can hardly be
settled by us in their absence.

Best wishes to you as always,

Let there be peace.

Dallas

===================

-----Original Message-----
From: Frank Reitemeyer [mailto:ringding@blinx.de]
Sent: Saturday, July 14, 2001 9:03 AM
To: theos-talk@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Theos-World Untrue ULT statement in their book "The
Theosophical Movement"

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 psychically 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 understanding 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. Councilors 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. O
ther 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 Jan
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 don't 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 believe in the gaminess 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





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