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. . her relation with the notorious Solovyoff, who in his rage and resentment at
being refused the privilege of chelaship, did so much to injure her reputation."
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4 See her Autobiography, and a recent work by Jeoffrey West, The Life of Annie
Besant (Gerald Howe, Limited, London, 1929).
5 See statement made in The Theosophical Movement, p. 453. The author has been
informed by several veteran Theosophists that this is not likely, that perhaps
Chakravarti deputed others to guard her in this way. She regarded him at this
time as actually her Master, and he could not with dignity have assumed a rôle
of such condescension.
6 The Theosophical Movement, p. 479.7 Ibid., p. 559.
8 Mr. Judge's papers concerning Theosophy were turned over to the Theosophical
Society in the presence of Mrs. Judge and are now in the possession of the
International Headquarters at Point Loma, California. As most of them pertained
to the Esoteric Section, their contents have naturally been kept secret.
Consequently the evidence on which the claims that Mr. Judge had made his wishes
known are based is still unavailable.
9 See signed statement by E. T. Hargrove in the New York Sun of March 13, 1898.
10 The career of the Theosophic leader was beset with at least three law-suits
instituted against her by relatives of wealthy followers contesting the
disposition of funds allotted to her under the terms of wills. Both the Thurston
and the Spalding suits were settled with compromise agreements. In still another
sensational case Mrs. Tingley was sued by Irene M. Mohn for damages in the
amount of $200,000 for alienation of the affections of her husband, George F.
Mohn, a follower of Theosophy. Mrs. Mohn was awarded $100,000 by a California
jury, but Mrs. Tingley won a reversal of the judgment before the California
Supreme Court.
11 The work of an independent Theosophist, Mr. Roy Mitchell, lecturing in New
York and Toronto, has also emphasized the extent of these variations. He lays
particular emphasis on the Blavatskian doctrine of the descent of angelic hosts
into the Adamic races of humanity to perform the work of redeeming them from a
fallen estate, by means of the gift of Promethean fire or wisdom.
12 The occurrence came to be known among the Theosophists as "the Adyar
Manifestations."
13 Persons who have lived at the Theosophical headquarters at Adyar at the
period of the publication of The Lives of Alcyone, have intimated to the author
that certain residents of the colony who were not "put in" the early "Lives"
went to Mr. Leadbeater and requested that he look into their past and if
possible bring them into the story, with the result that he did as requested in
certain instances. About 1925 also there was published in England, by Mr. W.
Loftus Hare, in The Occult Review, an exposé of the whole "Alcyone" proceeding,
the alleged sources of Mr. Leadbeater's material being divulged in the shape of
some articles in old encyclopedias.
14 Brief mention should here be made of an incident arising out of the general
situation occasioned by the founding of this Church, in view of the principles
involved. Dr. William L. Robins, of Washington, D.C., long an honored member of
the Theosophical Society, looked with disfavor upon the establishment of an
ecclesiastical order in connection with Theosophy, and went so far as to adduce
considerable evidence to show that the Liberal Catholic Church was not free from
subserviency to the Roman Catholic Church. He resented the movement as an
attempt to saddle religionism upon Theosophy, and endeavored to show the hand of
Roman machination in the whole business. His statements and letters, coming to
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the notice of Mrs. Besant, were taken as an open attack upon the religion of
members of the Theosophical Society, and as such constituted a breach of
Theosophic conduct. Mrs. Besant straightway asked Dr. Robins to resign from the
Esoteric Section, with a statement to the effect that no member ought to attack
the religious affiliations of any member of the Theosophical Society.
15 It was his intention first to locate the colony somewhere in the James River
region in Virginia, and it was thought for a time that some of the pirate gold
of
16 In 1929 an order was issued from Adyar by Dr. Besant suspending the Esoteric
Section. A later order revived it in 1930.
17 Although Dr. Besant and her friends deny any substantial significance in the
claims made, yet the two Keightleys, who typed the manuscript of H.P.B.'s The
Secret Doctrine for the press, stated that Madame Blavatsky had completed not
only a third volume which dealt with the lives of outstanding occultists down
the ages, but practically a fourth volume, also; and Mrs. Alice L. Cleather has
been quoted as saying that she herself saw literally hundreds of changes made in
Madame Blavatsky's manuscripts in the handwriting of Mrs. Besant and Mr. Mead.
As to these changes, Mr. C. Jinarajadasa, when Vice-President of the
Theosophical Society, made a statement which will be found on page 110 of The
Golden Book of The Theosophical Society:
"The facts are that H.P.B. always recognized that her English was often
defective. . . . When The Secret Doctrine was published, she realized that there
were many emendations necessary in a subsequent edition. . . . This very heavy
task of checking and revising was largely the work of G. R. S. Mead, who devoted
a great deal of his time to carrying out H.P.B.'s wishes in the matter. . . .
"After H.P.B.'s death, all her remaining manuscript material was published as a
third volume of The Secret Doctrine. She was under the impression that the
material she had slowly collected during many years would make five volumes in
all of The Secret Doctrine. But steadily as she wrote the first two volumes of
The Secret Doctrine more and more of her material was incorporated into the
first two volumes, and the remaining manuscript material made only one more
volume."
The Keightleys insisted, however, that they had carefully revised the language
of the first edition, working with H.P.B. through the various stages of proof,
and that the extensive revisions in the second edition were uncalled for. They
also stated that they had seen the manuscript of the third volume "ready to be
given to the printers," and Alice Cleather pointed out that H.P.B. had made
several direct references to it in the first edition which were deleted in the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]