Judge Writes to H.P.B. About the Hodgson
Report
William Q. Judge
Helena
P. Blavatsky and William Q. Judge
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An
Editorial Note:
The following document is
reproduced from “Letters
of H. P. Blavatsky to A. P.
Sinnett”, Theosophical
University Press, Pasadena,
CA, 1973, 404 pp., Section
II, Miscellaneous Letters,
Letter CLIX, pp. 312-314.
The London
Society for Psychical Research (SPR)
published
in December 1885 a 200-page text by Richard
Hodgson
falsely denouncing H.P.B. as a fraud and saying
she
was “one of the most accomplished, ingenious, and
interesting
impostors in history.” Mr. Hodgson’s
biased
report
helped defend the interests of powerful dogmatic
Churches,
to whose domination in India (as in the whole
world)
the theosophical movement was, at that time, a
growing
obstacle. One hundred years later, Hodgson’s frauds
and
H.P.B.’s innocence were demonstrated in a publication
of
the very same “Society for Psychical Research”.[1]
Dated
February 5, 1886, the letter by William Judge makes
ironical
commentaries about Richard Hodgson’s accusations.
(Carlos
Cardoso Aveline)
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[New York]
Feby. 5, 1886.
My Dear H. P. B.,
So they have reported on you. You are a corpse. You are
squelched, you are a mere Mahatma fabrication. But they praise you too, for you
must ever remain the chief, the most interesting, the hugest, the most
marvellous and the most able impostor and organiser of great movements, who has
appeared in any age either to bless or to curse it. Not Cagliostro had such
honour as this! Well you deserve honour; I only wish it were not accompanied by
such vile lies and trash as they put on you. You revisit these glimpses of the
moon, and these madmen forthwith assail you and while they admit you have no
motive they will not if they can help it permit you to do the great work which
without you, might have waited longer yet for its beginning.
I shall have written before you get this a letter to the Boston Index
which reprinted the report. You must have observed that Hodgson has left me
out. And yet I am an important factor. I was there. I examine all, I had all in
charge, and I say there was no aperture behind the shrine. Then
as to letters from [2] you know I have many that came to me which resemble
my writing. How will they explain that? Did I delude myself? And so on.
You can rely on me at this point for all the help that may be thought
necessary. You will remember that I was at Enghien with you the day
of one of the phenomena. They did not get those times when I got letters from
the postman with messages inside. I have here some old letters, and one of them
relates to the cremation of De Palme. [3]
But people here are not distressed by this report. They see that truth
runs through our whole movement and they are not so hidebound by reports and
authority as in other places.
Gebhard is my pupil! He and I have been crowding the mourners, and in
Boston and Cincinnati great interest is growing. They find me back from India
still a believer and still explaining away what they call your “impostures”.
Mr. and Mrs. E. Forbes Waters of Boston, have returned to the field. I
reinitiated them the other night. They control many intellectual people and we
expect to do something in Boston, great. We had meetings there night after
night and you can imagine them plying poor Gebhard with questions who referred
to me when they desired to know all the laws of Occultism, the residences of
Mahatmas, how they appear, all the fine “ramifications” of Karma etc. etc.
Well, as they know nothing the little I do know seemed much to them. By the
time they find themselves with the same amount of knowledge perhaps I will have
acquired more.
Now as to me will you ask if there be
anything to say to me. I work all the time. How does he explain the meaning of his
message through you that I “showed intuition by leaving India”? If you do not
care to bother with [it] it will not make any difference. If 10 years have not
made any change certainly failure to get this will not.
As ever yours,
WILLIAM Q. JUDGE.
NOTES:
[1] “H. P. Blavatsky
and the SPR - An Examination of the Hodgson Report of 1885”, by Vernon
Harrison, PhD., Member of the Society of Psychical Research, London, England,
Theosophical University Press, TUP, Pasadena, 1997, 78 pp. (CCA)
[2] Three dots in the
form of a triangle are a reference to a Mahatma. (C CA)
[3] A reference to Baron Joseph Henry Louis de Palm. In 1876, his body was the first to be
cremated, in the history of the United States. See the book “HPB”, by Sylvia
Cranston, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 1994, 648 pp., pp. 158-159. (CCA)
000
On the role of the esoteric
movement in the ethical awakening of mankind during the 21st
century, see the book “The Fire
and Light of Theosophical Literature”, by Carlos Cardoso Aveline.
Published in 2013 by The Aquarian
Theosophist, the volume has 255 pages and can be obtained through Amazon
Books.
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