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The Theosophical Movement 1875-1950

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The Theosophical Society In America

THE CONVENTION OF THE AMERICAN SECTION was held at Boston, April 28-29, 1895, with the 89 active Lodges all represented by delegates in person or by proxy. In addition there were numerous visiting Fellows from all over the United States and some from abroad. Dr. J. D. Buck was elected permanent chairman. Dr. Archibald Keightley was present from London as the delegate of several English branches. A letter from a number of Fellows in Australia was read, also an official letter from G. R. S. Mead, General Secretary of the European Section. No word was received from the Indian Section nor from the President-Founder.

Mr. Judge’s report as General Secretary contained the usual information on the work of the preceding year. It briefly rehearsed the charges against him, the meeting of the Judicial Committee in July, 1894, the Westminster Gazette articles, the subsequent proceedings at Adyar involving the resolutions demanding his “resignation” and an “explanation.” On all this his report says:
. . .I have replied, refusing to resign the Vice-Presidency.* And to the newspaper attack I have made a provisional and partial reply, as much as such a lying and sensational paper deserved. . . . But I have an explanation, and I renew my declaration of innocence of the offenses charged. As I have said in London and since, the messages I delivered, privately, are genuine messages from the Master, procured through me as the channel, 1 and that the basis of the attack on me is unbelief in my being a channel.

When all routine business of the Convention was concluded, Mr. C. A. Griscom, Jr., read a series of resolutions, with a preamble reciting the difficulties of continuing the work of the Movement under the then prevailing circumstances. The essential resolutions were:
First, that the American Section, consisting of Branches of the Theosophi c a l Soc i e t y in Ame ri c a , in convention a ss embl ed, hereby assumes and declares its entire autonomy and that it shall be called from and after this date “The Theosophical Society in America.”

Second, that the administration of its affairs shall be provided for, defined, and be under a Constitution and By-Laws, which shall in any case provide for the following;
(a)    A Federation of Branches. . . . 
(b)    (b) That William Q. Judge shall be President for life. . . .

RESOLVED, that the Theosophical Society in America hereby recognizes the long and efficient services rendered to the Theosophical Movement by Col. H. S. Olcott and that to him belongs the unique and honorary title of PresidentFounder of the Theosophical Society, and that, as in the case of H.P.B. as Cor 2 responding Secretary, he can have no successor in that oflice .

The First Session of the Convention then adjourned. The Second Session debated this resolution. A historical sketch of the Society, prepared by L. F. Wade and Robert Crosbie, was submitted, tracing the major events since 1879. Speeches were made by Mr. Fullerton, and by Dr. J. W. B. LaPierre, President of the Minneapolis Lodge—both strongly opposing the adoption of the resolutions. The speeches in opposition were listened to with close attention and entire respect for the speakers. Dr. LaPierre’s speech included a written protest. In fact, the bulk of the time was occupied by the few speakers in opposition to the resolutions, and their remarks are given in full in the official Convention Report. At the conclusion the list of Branches and Councillors was called and a formal vote taken. The totals showed 191 votes in favor of the resolutions and 10 against.

Thus did the “American Section of the T. S.” cease to exist, reorganizing as “The Theosophical Society in America.” After the close of this Second Session of April 28, Dr. Keightley read a detailed Reply by Mr. Judge to the charges of misusing the names and handwritings of the Mahatmas. This Reply was afterward printed in pamphlet form

Two sessions were held on April 29 as the T. S. in A. A Constitution and By-Laws were adopted and officers and an Executive Committee elected. The following letter from the Executive Committee of the newly organized Theosophical Society in America, signed by Mr. Judge as its President, was sent to the Convention of the European Section:
From the Theosophical Society in America to the European Theosophists, in Convention assembled as, “The European Section of the Theosophical Society.”

BROTHERS AND SISTERS:—We send you our fraternal greeting, and fullest sympathy in all works sincerely sought to be performed for the good of Humanity. Separated though we are from you by very great distance we are none the less certain that you and we, as well as all other congregations of people who love Brotherhood, are parts of that great whole denominated The Theosophical Movement, which began far back in the night of Time and has since been moving through many and various peoples, places and environments. That grand work does not depend upon forms, ceremonies, particular persons or set organizations,—“Its unity throughout the world does not consist in the existence and action of any single organization, but depends upon the similarity of work and aspiration of those in the world whoareworking forit.”Henceorganizationsof theosophistsmust vary and change in accordance with place, time, exigency and people. To hold that in and by a sole organization forthewholeworld isthe onlyway toworkwould beboyishinconceptionandnotinaccordwithexperienceornature'slaws
Recognizing the foregoing, we, who were once the body called The American Section of the T. S.,resolved to make our organization, or merely outer form for government and administration, entirely free and independent of all others; but retained our theosophical ideals, aspirations, aims and objects, continuing to be a part of the theosophical movement. This changewas an inevitable one, and perhapswill ere long bemade also by you as well as by others. It has been and will be forced, as it were, by nature itself under the sway of the irresistible law of human development and progress.

Butwhile the changewould have beenmade beforemany years by us as an inevitable and logical development,we have to admit that itwas hastened by reason of what we considered to be strife, bitterness and anger existing in other Sections of the theosophical world which were preventing us from doing our best work in the field assigned to us by Karma. In order to more quickly free ourself from these obstructions we made the change in this, instead of in some later, year. It is, then, a mere matter of government and has nothing to dowith theosophical propaganda or ethics, except that itwill enable ustodomore andbetterwork.

Therefore we come to you as fellow-students and workers in the field of theosophical effort, and holding out the hand of fellowship we again declare the complete unity of alltheosophicalworkersin every part of theworld.This you surely cannot and will not reject from heated, rashly-conceived counsels, or from personalities indulged in by anyone, or from any cause whatever. To reject the proffer would mean that you reject and nullify the principle of Universal Brotherhood upon which alone all true theosophical work is based. And we could not indulge in those reflections nor put forward that reason but for the knowledge that certain persons of weight and prominence in your ranks have given utterance hastily to expressions of pleasure that our change of government above referred to has creed them from nearly every one of the thousands of earnest, studious and enthusiastic workers in our American group of Theosophical Societies. This injudicious and untheosophical attitude we cannot attribute to the whole or to any majority of your workers.

Let us then press forward together in the great work of the real Theosophical Movement which is aided by working organizations, but is above them all. Together we can devise more and better ways for spreading the light of truth through all the earth. Mutually assisting and encouraging one another we may learn how to put Theosophy into practice so as to be able to teach and enforce it by example before others. We will then each and all be members of that Universal Lodge of Free and Independent Theosophists which embraces every friend of the human race. And to all this we beg your corporate official answer for our more definite and certain information, and to the end that this and your 3 favorable reply may remain as evidence and monuments between us.
Fraternally yours,
 WILLIAM Q. JUDGE President

The reception accorded this letter by the European Convention showed that the rift in the Society was to be permanent. Col. Olcott was already in London, having attended a General Council meeting on June 27, so that he was able to preside at the Convention sessions, which began on July 4. Olcott informed the delegates of Mr. Judge’s letter, but declined to present it on the ground that its “discourteous form of address” constituted an “insult” to the Society. Precisely why he regarded this as “insulting” is not disclosed in the report of the Convention. Sympathizers of Mr. Judge contested his ruling, and at the suggestion of Mrs. Besant the letter was read and “laid on the table,” without further comment. After this procedure the delegates of the eight European Lodges supporting Mr. Judge left the convention floor, and, as the report states, the “business thereafter went smoothly on.” Mr. Sinnett’s appointment to the Vice Presidency, replacing Mr. Judge, was approved. At the General Council Meeting a few daysbefore, Col. Olcott had made this appointment of Mr. Sinnett, and had also designated Alexander Fullerton, one of the few American Theosophists who now opposed Judge, to assist in the formation of a new American Section. On July 5 Olcott officially recognized the reformed “loyal” American Section, with Fullerton as General 4 Secretary. Olcott declared that the former American Section had seceded from the Theosophical Society, thereby abrogating its charter, and asserted that the Theosophical Society in America, formed at Boston, was “an adventitious body, the growth of circumstances, and having no real corporate authority over its Sections and Branches.” Thereafter Col. Olcott, Mrs. Besant, Mr. Sinnett, and all those under their influence, continually spoke and wrote of the “secession” of the American Section, and of their former associates as “seceders.” Mr. Judge was referred to as a once devoted Theosophist who had “gone wrong,” and as a “forger.” Those who had confidence in him were “deluded.”

The first half of 1895 was a time when all hitherto concealed issues of the Judge case became public. Most important of these was the matter of the “Prayag Letter,” published by Mr. Judge in the Path for March. This letter was presented by Mr. Judge as a communication sent in 1881 by a Mahatma, through Madame Blavatsky, to A. P. Sinnett, who was to convey it to the Indian members of the Prayag Branch of the Theosophical Society. Olcott, Sinnett, and Mrs. Besant, however, were of the opinion that the Prayag Letter was a fraud, thereby imputing the good faith of H.P.B., the teacher of all three. By publishing the letter in the Path, Mr. Judge forced this issue out into the open.

The “Prayag Psychic T. S.,” of Allahabad, was among the first branches formed after H.P.B. and Olcott arrived in India in 1879. Gyanendra N. Chakravarti was an early member and both Sinnett and Hume were prominent in its affairs. Its membership consisted largely of high caste Brahmins and it was one of the most influential of the Indian branches for years. It was among the few—if not the only one—of the Society's branches which did not formally adopt the “First Object” of the Parent body. Its avowed object was “psychical research.” During the early days in India, complaints were made by the Brahmin members of the Prayag T. S. that while“low caste” persons, and “mlechchhas” (foreigners) such as Sinnett and Hume, and other “beef-eating, wine-drinking Englishmen” received messages from the Theosophical Adepts, they—the flower of India’s scholarship and learning—had been neglected. The reply to this complaint, written down by H.P.B., as she said, at her Master’s dictation, was copied into H.P.B.’s letter to Sinnett and was finally read to the Prayag Brahmins. The message was blunt and to the point:
Message which Mr. Sinnett is directed by one of the Brothers, writing through Madame B[lavatsky], to convey to the native members of the Prayag Branch of the Theosophical Society. The Brothers desire me to inform one and all of you natives that unless a man is prepared to become a thorough Theosophist, i.e., to do what D[amodar] Mavalankar did—give up entirely caste, his old superstitions, and show himself a true reformer (especially in the case of childmarriage), he will remain simply a member of the Society, with no hope whatever of ever hearing from us. The Society, acting in this directly in accord with our orders, forces no one to become a Theosophist of the Second Section. It is left with himself at his choice. It is useless for a member to argue “I am one of a pure life, I am a teetotaller and an abstainer from meat and vice, all my aspirations are for good, etc.,” and he at the same time building by his acts and deeds an impassable barrier on the road between himself and us. What have we, the disciples of the Arhats of Esoteric Budhism and of Sang-gyas, to do with the Shasters and orthodox Brahmanism? There are 100 of thousands of Fakirs, Sannyasis, or Sadhus leading the most pure lives and yet being, as they are, on the path of error, never having had an opportunity to meet, see, or even hear of us. Their forefathers have driven the followers of the only true philosophy upon earth away from India, and now it is not for the latter to come to them, but for them to come to us, if they want us. Which of them is ready to become a Budhist, a Nastika, as they call us? None. Those who have believed and followed us have had their reward. Mr. Sinnett and Hume are exceptions. Their beliefs are no barriers to us, for they have none. They may have bad influences around them, bad magnetic emanations, the result of drink, society, and promiscuous physical associations (resulting even from shaking hands with impure men), but all this is physical and material impediments which with a little effort we could counteract, and even clear away, without much detriment to ourselves. Not so with the magnetic and invisible results proceeding from erroneous and sincere beliefs. Faith in the gods or god and other superstitions attracts millions of foreign influences, living entities and powerful Agents round them, with which we would have touse more than ordinary exercise of power to drive them away. We do not choose to do so. We do not find it either necessary or profitable to lose our time waging war on the unprogressed planetaries who delight in personating gods and sometimes well-known characters who have lived on earth. There are Dhyan Chohans and Chohans of darkness. Not what they term devils, but imperfect intelligences who have never been born on this or any other earth or sphere no more than the Dhyan Chohans have, and who will never belong to the “Children of the Universe,” the pure planetary intelligences who preside at every Manvantara, while the Dark Chohans 5 preside at the Pralaya.

To the text of the Prayag Letter, Mr. Judge added the following comment in the Path:
Nowthisis a genuinemessage fromthe Master, allowing, of course,for any minor errors in copying. Its philosophical and occult references are furthermore confirmed by the manuscript of part of the third volume of the Secret Doctrine, not yet printed. We know also that Master K.H. informed Mr. Sinnett and others that he was an esoteric Budhist; H.P.B. declared herself a Buddhist;onmy askingherin1875what couldtheMasters'belief be calledshe toldme theymightbedesignated“pre-VedicBudhists”;butthatnoonewould now admit there was any Buddhism before the Vedas, so I had best think of themasEsotericBuddhists.
ButI aminformed that Mrs.Besant hasseveral times privately stated that in her opinion the letterfirst above printedwas a “forgery or humbug” gotten up byH.P.B.IknowthatMr.Chakravartihassaidthe same thing,becausehe saidit to me in New York. It is for Mrs. Besant to deny the correctness of my informationastowhatshe said:she canaffirmherbelief inthe genuinenessof the letter.If she doesso,we shall all be glad to know.If she merely deniesthat she everimpugned it,then itwill be necessary for herto say affirmativelywhat is her belief,forsilencewill be assent to its genuineness.I affirm that it isfrom one of the Masters, and that, if it be shown to be a fraud, then all of H.P.B.’s claims of connection with and teaching from the Master must fall to the ground.Itisnowtimethatthisimportantpointbeclearedup. 
WILLIAM Q. JUDGE

Mr. Judge sent advance proofs of his article, including the Prayag Letter, to Lucifer and the Theosophist. Mrs. Besant replied: “I do not regard the letter as genuine, but I have never attributed it to H.P.B.”* She printed this st a tement inLucifer for July, 1895, together with some correspondence by Mr. Judge, the latter being intended to show that he had previously failed to urge that the letter was “genuine.” The burden of this correspondence, written to India, was that the content of the Prayag Letter was entirely consistent with the teachings of the Theosophical Adepts.

Olcott, in the Theosophist, asserted:
The [Prayag] message is one of the most transparently unconvincing in the history of Mahatmic literature. It bears on its face the seal of its condemnation. It is an ill-tempered attack. . . . the undersigned . . . pronounces the message a false one, and if this is likely to shatter H.P.B.’s oft-declared infallibility, as the transmitter of only genuine messages from the Masters, so let it be: the sooner the monstrous pretense is upset the better for her memory and for a noble cause. . . . it does not follow that H.P.B. consciously falsified; the simple theory of mediumship has explained many equally deceptive and even more exasperating messages 7 from the invisible world. . .

Mr. Sinnett maintained a public silence until 1896, when, a month after Mr. Judge’s death, the April issue of Theosophy (Mr. Judge changed the name of the Path to Theosophy, beginning with the eleventh volume) printed W.Q.J.’s last article, “H.P.B. Was Not Deserted by Masters,” in which he charged Mr. Sinnett with claiming that “before the writing of the Secret Doctrine, . . . she [H.P.B.] was deserted by the Masters and was the prey of elementals and . . . was a 8 fraud in other directions.” After this article by Mr. Judge appeared, Mr. Sinnett sent a categorical denial to Theosophy, which was printed in July. “I never,” he wrote, “said anything of the kind, and I never in my life called Mme. Blavatsky a ‘fraud’.” This statement was published by the editor of Theosophy with a note stating that to the editor’s personal knowledge, “Mr. Judge’s authority for his original position was Mme. H. P. Blavatsky herself.

The reply of Mr. Sinnett to Mr. Judge’s article was a public denial of the charge. Privately, in 1895, shortly after publication in the Path of the Prayag Letter, he wrote to Alexander Fullerton a full account of his “suspicions” of H.P.B. This letter, which was obtained by the Boston Herald and printed on April 27, 1895, was as follows:
. . . I have known for a great many years that many letters in the Mahatmas’ handwriting, coming through Madame Blavatsky herself were anything but what they seemed. The trouble in this respect began about the year 1887, when Madame Blavatsky was in this country [England] and desirous of carrying out many arrangements with the society in London of which I personally disapproved. To my surprise I received through her letters in the familiar handwriting of the Mahatma K.H. which endorsed her views and desired my compliance. These gave me great distress at the time, though I did not at first suspect the bona fides of their origin.
The flavour of their style was unlike that to which I had been used during the long course of my previous correspondence with the Mahatma, and gradually my mind was forced to the conviction that they could not be really authentic. A year or so later, when the Coulomb scandal had for the moment almost overwhelmed Madame Blavatsky’s influence here, I visited her in her retirement at Wurzburg, and in the intimate conversation that ensued she frankly avowed to me that the letters to which I have above referred had not proceeded from the Mahatma at all.
She had in fact procured their production in order to subserve what she conceived to be the right policy of the society at the time—falling into the fatal error of doing evil that good might come. There is no room for supposing that I am mistaken in my recollections of what passed. These are clear and definite, and were the subject of much conversation between myself and theosophical friends at the time.
Moreover, at a somewhat later date, when Madame Blavatsky was staying at Ostende, I again referred to the matter, and said that I considered myself to have been hardly used, in so far as my deepest sentiments of loyalty to the Mahatma had been practiced upon for purposes with which he had nothing to do. Madame Blavatsky, I remember, replied: “Well, you were not much hurt, because, after all, you 10 never believed the letters were genuine. . .

With publication of these views, it was evident that of the four theosophists prominent before the world after H.P.B.’s death—H. S. Olcott, A. P. Sinnett, William Q. Judge, andAnnie Besant—only one, Judge, was faithful to her and to her ideals. Both Olcott and Mrs. Besant repudiated a letter which H.P.B. had herself transmitted to Sinnett as from her Master. Sinnett charged her with forgery and fraud before she died. Only Judge continued H.P.B.’s work in the spirit with which it had been begun and maintained by her. The other three, for reasons of vanity or ambition, and because of other personal factors difficult to define, all minimized H.P.B.’s historic part in the Theosophical Movement and rose to pedestals of their own in the Theosophical world.

If the attack on Judge needs further explanation, that explanation must be that Judge's continued championship of H.P.B. was offensive to his opponents in two ways. First, his loyalty to the one who had been their common instructor was a direct reproach to them for no longer holding her in respect. If they had moments of uneasy conscience at the way in which they were displacing H.P.B. as the teacher, and subverting her position as the Agent of the Adepts, Judge’s stand could only prolong the inner pain of those moments and reinforce what self-criticisms they secretly felt.

Judge's support of H.P.B. was also unpleasant to Olcott, Sinnett and Mrs. Besant for the reason that so long as H.P.B. remained preeminently the Teacher, they could themselves enjoy but a reflected glory. Olcott’s Presidency was his claim to fame; but it is obvious from Old Diary Leaves and other of Olcott’s pronouncements that he felt overshadowed by any recollection of H.P.B.’s occult status and struggled against it for many years. Both Sinnett and Mrs. Besant, on the other hand, made claims to an “occult status” of their own, and the support of these claims involved them in depreciations of H.P.B. The source of Mrs. Besant’s “occult” inspiration has been shown to be the Brahmin, Chakravarti, who, playing Svengali to Mrs. Besant’s Trilby, saw in Judge a rival that must be downed. The measures taken in this direction constitute Mrs. Besant’s “Case against W. Q. Judge.”

Sinnett’s self-revelations in his book, The Early Days of Theosophy in Europe, show the nature of his special attainments in “occultism,” both before and after the death of H.P.B. Briefly, he became a kind of Theosophical Spiritualist, obtaining “messages” which he supposed to be from the adeptwith whom he had previously corresponded in India, but now 11 through C. W. Leadbeater—his “medium

Charles W. Leadbeater was originally a curate in a rural parish of the Church of England. He had been interested in Spiritualism for many years when he read Mr. Sinnett’s two earliest books. Thereafter he held séances with Mr. W. Eglinton, a famous medium of the time who had been at Adyar while H.P.B. was there. Eglinton, like Mr. W. Stainton Moses (M. A. Oxon), had been helped by H.P.B. and had received various evidences through her of the existence of Masters, and joined the London Lodge in 1884. In a séance with Mr. Eglinton early in 1884, Mr. Leadbeater endeavored, through the latter's “control,” “Ernest,” to get in “communication with the Masters.” This is referred to in Letter VII of Letters from the Masters of 12 the Wisdom, a Letter received by Leadbeater through H.P.B. m a n y months later, after he had avowed his desire to return with h e r t o India.

Accordingly, Mr. Leadbeater went to India with H.P.B. late in 1884 and was at Adyar during the time of Mr. Hodgson’s investigations there. From Adyar Mr. Leadbeater was sent to Ceylon by Col. Olcott and while there he began to manifest a tendency to become infatuated with young boys. C. Jinarajadasa, now president of the Theosophical Society, was one who attracted Leadbeater's special interest.

Mr. Leadbeater returned to England in 1889, taking the boy, C. Jinarajadasa, with him. In London, he grew to know well Mr. Sinnett, for whose son he served as tutor, along with Jinarajadasa and George Arundale. He also became the “psychic” through whom Mr. Sinnett kept up his supposed communications with the “Masters of H.P.B.”

Mr. Leadbeater was never at any time a member of the E.S., nor in any way connected with H.P.B., after his return to England. Mr. Sinnett made him Secretary of the London Lodge when he reached England in 1889. The course and practices, public and private, of the London Lodge were wholly at variance with the occult discipline taught by H.P.B.—were, in fact, identical with mediumship, psychical research, and Hatha Yoga. No public rupture occurred during the life of H.P.B., but the relations between the London Lodge and those of the Blavatsky Lodge were of the slightest, and purely formal.

The first breach in the accord between Mrs. Besant and Mr. Judge was due, not only to the influence of Chakravarti but, as well, to that of Mr. Sinnett. While a member of the E. S. and one of its Co-Heads, Mrs. Besant joined the London Lodge and took part in the experiments of Messrs. Sinnett, Leadbeater, and the rest of their coterie, thus violating her pledges and pursuing two absolutely antithetical systems of “occult development.” When Chakravarti came to London, the ground for Mrs. Besant’s subornation had, therefore, already been well prepared. It is one of the ironies of the situation that ultimately, in 1907, Mr. Sinnett rejected the “Adyar manifestations”* for which Mrs. Besant stood sponsor, and was forced to join in the “white-wash” of Mr. Leadbeater, whose practices with boys were exposed in the fall of 1906—and that Mrs. Besant was forced by the exigencies of her own situation to turn against Messrs. Sinnett, Chakravarti, and Leadbeater in order to defend herself against the taint of the latter, to allay the doubts thrown on the “Adyar manifestations,” and to secure the coveted position of President of the society after the death of Col. Olcott.

Later on, her further necessities caused Mrs. Besant to adjust the breach with Mr. Sinnett by making him Vice-President, and with Mr. Leadbeater by procuring his return to the Society, from which he had resigned during the investigation in 1906. Forced to choose between two competing augurs, she chose Mr. Leadbeater, rather than Chakravarti, whose usefulness to her was outlived, and from that time on Mr. Leadbeater was the “power behind the throne” of Mrs. Besant’s exoteric and esoteric sovereignty.

Returning to the antipathy against Mr. Judge, it should be observed that there was a third factor which worked to antagonize Olcott and Mrs. Besant, and probably Sinnett as well. This was Mr. Judge’s calm assurance, when forced to a public declaration, in stating that he was in communication with the Masters 13 and that he was in fact Their Agent.

Obviously, when such a statement is made, the one who makes it is either a conscienceless liar, or he is what he claims to be. There is no middle ground except insanity. Having forced Mr. Judge to this open declaration by their charges against him, his enemies had either to admit the claim or condemn him utterly. They chose the latter course.

After the Boston Convention in 1895, the affairs of the T. S. in A. were distinguished by the absence of maledictions against the other Societies with which it had been linked. Actually, throughout the storm which lasted from the beginning of 1894 to the middle of 1895, the work of the Theosophical Movement proceeded as usual in the United States, with branches being added and Theosophical speakers carrying the message of the teachings to all parts of the country. Mr. Judge himself, despite the enormous drain on his energies occasioned by the attack, continued to write many articles for the Path, showing his extraordinary grasp of the philosophy and his serene spirit in the face of betrayal by his former colleagues. It was during this general period, or a little earlier, that The Ocean of Theosophy was written—a book used as a textbook by many study classes and found especially valuable as an epitome of The Secret Doctrine.

The record of his service to the Movement, before, during, and after the “Judge Case,” was sufficient refutation of the charges against him, if “refutation” were needed. The American theosophists were well aware of this, which accounts for the almost unanimous support he received at the Boston Convention. An appreciation of Mr. Judge, written shortly after his death by one of his closest friends and coworkers, J. D. Buck, helps to throw light on the attitude of the American theosophists. Dr. Buck wrote:
People on the other side of the ocean never understood Mr. Judge’s position in America, where he was well known in connection with his work, nor how impossible it would be to shake confidence in him. It is true the issues raised were seemingly altogether personal, and it took some time to make clear to the whole Soc i e t y the ir r e a l na tur e. When, howeve r, the s e issue s became clear and people had time to consider them, the verdict was overwhelming, and those who were present at Boston last April [1895] will never forget the scene there enacted [when the T. S. in A. was formed]. It has been my lot to preside over many conventions, both medical and Theosophical, but I never witnessed such a scene before and never expect to again. There was no noisy demonstration, but the very air throbbed with sympathy and appreciation.
He was never narrow, never selfish, never conceited. He would drop his own plan in a moment if a better were suggested, and was delighted if some one would carry on the work he had devised, and immediately inaugurate other lines of work. To get on with the work and forward the movement seemed to be his only aim in life. . . . For myself, knowing Mr. Judge as I did, and associating with him day after day—at home, in the rush of work, in long days of travel over desert-wastes or over the trackless ocean, having travelled with him a distance equal to twice around the globe—there is not the slightest doubt of his connection with 14 and service of the Great Lodge.

In this chapter of the Theosophical Movement has been witnessed the high peak of personal devotion and loyalty to Mr. Judge. But this was not enough. The failure to work out, as Mr. Judge himself did, the problems of the Society on the well-established principles of the philosophy could only lead to divergent courses rather than to concerted and calm action, when his impersonal faithfulness to the Movement and to his colleagues was no longer present to guide.