Theos-Talk Archives (January 2005 Message tt01023)

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, gregory <gregory@z...> wrote:


> John, alas, had a heart attack while I was staying with him, was rushed 
> to hospital, and, shortly after I left Adyar, died. Amazing stories
were 
> circulating at Adyar about the cause of his heart attack - the most 
> extraordinary was that Radha Burnier (head of the ES) had stolen HPB's 
> "occult ring" and used it in "black magic" to cause John's collapse.
Some 
> readers may know that stories about the HPB ring are many and diverse, 
> but this is the oddest allegation I have ever heard. It was also
alleged 
> that the stomach bug that afflicted me after John was taken to hospital 
> had the same origin. I prefer a more boring explanation.



It would have been extraordinary indeed as HPB's "occult ring",
according to Elsie Benjamin ("The Ecclectic Theosophist", March-April
1985) - a member of The Mahatma Letters Trust and co-editor, with
Christmas Humphreys, of the third edition of THE MAHATMA LETTERS TO A.
P. SINNETT - never came into the possession of the Adyar TS Presidents.

She says that HPB's "occult ring" had a socket and that the one
William Judge gave to Annie Besant (who was in the US when HPB died in
1891) didn't have one. Pictures of Besant wearing the ring clearly
show it didn't have a socket. 

She also says that Boris de Zirkoff met N. Sri Ram, then President of
the Adyar TS, at Wheaton, in one of his lecture tours, and asked to
see the ring. Zirkoff did confirm that it didn't have a socket. I
myself have seen Mrs Radha Burnier wearing the Presidential ring at
Conventions at Adyar, and it does not have a socket.

Bejanmin says that HPB's "occult ring" was passed on to Mrs Katherine
Tingley as William Judge's successor, and after that to her
successors, the current one being Mrs Grace Knoche.

Mrs Burnier and Mrs Knoche, Leader of The Theosophical Society,
International Headquarters at Pasadena, did meet at the Centenary of
the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago, in July 1993, thirteen
years after John Coats died at Adyar, on 26 December 1979.


Pedro