Theos-Talk Archives (December 2001 Message tt00521)

Dec 25th 2001

W Q Judge on H P Blavatsky

Dear Friends:


Since H P B has been the subject of much debate on our pages,
perhaps the following might also be considered.

Mr. W . Q. Judge was one of the original founders f the
THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY and since 1874 he worked with H P B, Col.
Olcott and others and assisted in the writing, and proof-reading
of ISIS UNVEILED

In America he was largely responsible for the extraordinary
expansion of the THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY and from about 5
Branches it expanded to well over 200. From a membership of less
than 20 it expanded, till in America alone the membership was
well over 3,000 at the time of his death March in 1896.

========== Mr. Judge wrote: ===================


About H.P.B. -- W. Q. Judge:


"In 1875, in the City of New York, I first met H.P.B. in this
life...


It was her eye that attracted me, the eye of one whom I must have
known in lives long passed away. She looked at me in recognition
at that first hour, and never since has that look
changed...Not as a questioner of philosophies did I come before
her...but as one, wandering many
periods through the corridors of life, was seeking the friends
who could show where the designs for the work had been hidden.
And true to the call she responded, revealing the plans once
again, and speaking no words to explain, simply pointed then out
and went on with the task. It was as if but the evening before
we had parted, leaving yet to be done some detail of a task taken
up with one common end; it was teacher and pupil, elder brother
and younger, both bent on the one single end, but she with the
power and the knowledge that belong but to lions and
sages.

Others I know have looked with suspicion on an appearance they
could not fathom, and though it is true they adduce many proofs
which hugged to the breast, would damn sages and gods, yet it is
only through blindness they failed to see the lion's glance, the
diamond heart of H.P.B...she was
laying down the lines of force all over the land...

The explanation has been offered by some too anxious friends that
the earlier phenomena were mistakes in judgment, attempted to be
rectified in later years by confining their area and limiting
their number, but...I shall hold to her own explanation made in
advance and never changed. That I have given above. For it is
easier to take refuge behind a charge of bad judgment than to
understand the strange and powerful laws which control in matters
such as these.

Amid all the turmoil of her life, above all the din produced by
those who charged her with deceit and fraud and others who
defended, while month after month, and year after year, witnessed
men and women entering the theosophical movement only to leave it
soon with malignant phrases for H.P.B., there stands a fact we
all might consider--devotion absolute to her Master. "It was
He," she writes, "who told me to devote myself to this, and I
will never disobey and never turn back."...

...she ever was devoted to Theosophy and the Society organized to
carry out a programme embracing the world in its scope. Willing
in the service of the cause to offer up hope, money, reputation,
life itself, provided the Society might be saved from every hurt,
whether small or great. And thus bound body and soul to this
entity called the T. S., bound to protect it at all hazards, and
in the face of every loss, she often incurred the resentment of
many who became her friends but would not always care for the
infant organization as she had sworn to do. And when they acted
as it opposed to the Society, her instant opposition seemed to
them to nullify professions of friendship. Thus she had but few
friends, for it required a keen insight, untinged with personal
feeling, to see even a small part of the real H.P.Blavatsky...


She worked under directors who, operating from behind the scene,
knew that the T. S. was, and was to be, the nucleus from which
help might be spread to all the people of the day, without thanks
and without acknowledgment...I asked her what was the chance of
drawing people into the
Society...she said:--"When you consider those days in 1875 and
after, in which you could not find any people interested in your
thoughts, and now look at the wide-spreading influence of
theosophical ideas--however labeled--it is not so bad.

We are not working that people may call themselves Theosophists,
but that the doctrines we cherish may affect and leaven the whole
mind of this century. This alone can be accomplished by a small
earnest band of workers, who work for no human reward, no earthly
recognition, but who, supported and sustained by a belief in that
Universal Brotherhood of which our Masters are a part, work
steadily, faithfully, in understanding and putting forth for
consideration the doctrines of life and duty that have come down
to us from immemorial time. Falter not so long as a few devoted
ones will work to keep the nucleus existing. You were not
directed to found and realise a Universal Brotherhood, but to
form the nucleus for one; for it is only when the nucleus it
formed that the accumulations can begin that will end in future
years, however far, in the formation of that body which we have
in view."


H.P.B. had a lion heart, and on the work traced out for her she
had a lion's grasp, let us...sustain
ourselves in carrying out the designs laid down on the
trestle-board, by the memory of her devotion and the
consciousness that behind her task stood, and still remain, those
Elder Brothers who, above the clatter and the din of our battle,
ever see the end and direct the forces distributed in array for
the salvation of "that great orphan--Humanity."
W. Q. Judge YOURS TILL DEATH AND AFTER, H.P.B..."
Judge Articles T.Co Vol. II p. 1


"...in 1875 she told me that she was then embarking on a work
that would draw upon her unmerited slander, implacable malice,
uninterrupted misunderstanding, constant work, and no worldly
reward. Yet in the face of this her lion heart carried her
on...Much has been said of her "phenomena," some denying them,
others alleging trick and device. Knowing her for so many years
so well, and having seen at her hands in private the production
of more and more varied phenomena that it has been the good
fortune of all others of her friends put together to seem I know
for myself that she had control of hidden powerful laws of nature
not known to our
science, and I also know that she never boasted of her powers,
never advertised their possession, never publicly advised any one
to attempt their acquirement, but always turned the eyes of those
who could understand her to a life of altruism based on a
knowledge of true philosophy.


If the world thinks that her days were spent in deluding her
followers by pretended phenomena, it is solely because her
injudicious friends, against her expressed wish, gave out
wonderful stories of her "miracles" which can not be proved to a
skeptical public and which are not the aim of the Society nor
were ever more than mere incidents in the life of H.P.Blavatsky.


Her aim was to elevate the race. Her method was to deal with the
mind of the century as she found it, by trying to lead it on step
by step; to seek out and educate a few who, appreciating
the majesty of the Secret Science and devoted to "the great
orphan Humanity," could carry
on her work with zeal and wisdom; to found a Society whose
efforts--however small itself might be--would inject into the
thought of the day the ideas, the doctrines, the nomenclature of
the Wisdom Religion, so that when the next century shall have
seen its 75th years the new messenger coming again into the world
would find the Society still at work, the ideas sown broadcast,
the nomenclature ready to give expression and body to the
immutable truth, and thus to make easy the task which for her
since 1875 was so difficult and so encompassed with obstacles in
the very paucity of the language--obstacles harder than all else
to work against."
W. Q. Judge "H.P.B.--A LION-HEARTED COLLEAGUE PASSES"
WQJ Articles, T. Co., Vol. II p. 5



"This article is meant for members of the T.S...Those members who
believe that such beings as the
Masters may exist must come to one of two conclusions in regard
to H.P.B.: either that she invented her Masters, who therefore
have no real existence, or that she did not invent them but spoke
in the names and by the orders of such beings.

If we say she invented the Mahatmas, then, of course, as so often
was said by her, all that she has taught and written is the
product of her own brain, from which we would be bound to
conclude that her position on the roll of great and powerful
persons must be higher than people have been willing to place
her.

But I take it most of us believe in the truth of her statement
that she had those teachers whom she
called Masters and that they are more powerful beings than
ordinary men.

The case I wish to deal with...is this: H.P.B. and her relations
to the Masters and to us; her books and teachings; the general
question of disciples and chelas...Chelas and disciples are of
many grades, and some of the Adepts are themselves the chelas of
higher Adepts...[they are those who have] devoted himself or
herself to the service of mankind and the pursuit of knowledge of
the Self...[Some] have gained through knowledge and discipline
those powers over mind, matter, space, and time which to us are
the glittering prizes of the future...

So much being laid down, we may next ask how we are to look at
H.P.B...every one has the right to place her if he pleases for
himself on the highest plane...But taking her own sayings, she
was a chela or disciple of the Masters, and therefore stood in
relation to them as one who might be chided or corrected or
reproved. She called them her Masters, and asseverated a
devotion to their behests and a respect and confidence in and for
their utterances which the chelas has always for one who is high
enough to be his Master

But looking at her powers exhibited to the world, and as to which
one of her Masters wrote that they had puzzled and astonished the
brightest minds of the age, we see that compared with ourselves
she was an Adept...

...Subba Row [said to the writer] in 1884: "The Mahatmas are in
fact some of the great Rishis and Sages of the past, and people
have been too much in the habit of lowering them to the petty
standard of this age." But with this reverence for her teachers
she had for them at the same time a
love and friendship not often found on earth. All this indicates
her chelaship to Them, but in no way lowers her to us or warrants
us in deciding that we are right in a hurried or modern judgment
of her.

Now some Theosophist ask if there are other letters extant from
her Masters in which she is called to account, is called their
chela, and is chided now and then, besides those published.
Perhaps yes. And what of it ? Let them be published by all
means, and let us have the full and complete record of all
letters sent during her life; those put forward as dated after
her death will count for aught...since the Masters do not
indulge in any criticisms on the disciples who have gone from
earth. As she has herself published letters and parts of letters
from the Masters to her in which she is called a chela and is
chided, it certainly matte if we know of others of the same sort.

For over against all such we have common sense, and also the
declarations of her Masters that she
was the sole instrument possible for the work to be done, that
They sent her to do it, and that They approved in general all she
did. And she was the first direct channel to and from the Lodge,
and the only one to date through which came the objective
presence of the Adepts. We cannot ignore the messenger, take the
message, and laugh at or give scorn to the one who brought it to
us. There is nothing new in the idea that letters are still
unpublished wherein the Masters put her below them, and there is
no cause for any apprehension. But it certainly is true that not
a single such letter has anything in it putting her below us; she
must ever remain the greatest of the chelas....

There only remains...the position taken by some and without a
knowledge of the rules governing these matters, that chelas
sometimes write messages claimed to be from the Masters when they
are not. this is an artificial position not supportable by law
or rule. It is due to ignorance of what
is and is not chelaship, and also to confusion between grades in
discipleship. It has been used as to H.P.B. The false
conclusion has first been made that an accepted chela of high
grade may become accustomed to dictation by the Master and then
may fall into the false pretense of giving something from himself
and pretending it is from the Master. It is impossible. The
bond in her case was not of such a character to be dealt with
thus. One instance of it would destroy the possibility of any
more communication from the teacher. It may be quite true that
probationers now and then have imagined themselves as ordered to
say so and so, but that is not the case of an accepted and high
chela who is irrevocably pledged...This idea, then, ought to be
abandoned; it is absurd, contrary to law, to rule, and to what
must be the case when such relations are established as existed
between H.P.B. and her Masters."

W. Q. Judge -- "MASTERS, ADEPTS, TEACHERS AND DISCIPLES"
WQJ Art. T. Co., Vol. II p. 9


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