Letters Between Blavatsky and Judge

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. (CCA)

[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)

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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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