Online Edition published 1999 by The Blavatsky Archives Online.
Letter 20
From H.P. Blavatsky to W.Q. Judge.
Dated November 19, 1890
private
Theosophical Head Quarters,
19, Avenue Road,
Regent's Park, N.W.
London, Nov. 19 1890My dear W.Q.J.
I send you this as a warning, for all of us the whole Society in fact. Read carefully Olcott's last editorial in Theosophist. "The first leaf out of the History of the T.S." & you will find perhaps, as I did where he is driving to. His position is that the T.S. was not founded as a result of Master's "order," that in fact he never received any "order" but the whole thing came to him spontaneously. Well, you know that he almostlies. Six months before we were talking & preparing for such a thing, I going against his "Miracle Club" & he unable to find any other name. He calls me in the article "a hypnotizing agent," puts himself to the front desperately, from the first line to the last, & mentions me in a very suggestively casual way. Now I will tell you why he does so. It is in consequence of Bert putting him squarely the question: Is he going to stick to the Master's programme or is he not? If so, how can he say he is devoted to the Masters but that he has lost absolutely every confidence in me? And this he says ever since I was placed by unanimous vote at the head of the European Section. The fact is, he is desperately jealous of me!!! And it is that infernal Harte who brought him gradually to such a feeling. For it is he who made him doubt me, made him believe that I was ambitious, vain, & sought to take his place as President! The fool!! If the whole T.S. demanded that I should step into his shoes (as T. Tatya does) I would refuse as I refused him. Olcott now tries to gradually cut my throat by diminishing in the eyes of the world my participation in founding the T.S. He goes back on himself forgetting what he had been constantly repeating to his audiences for the first ten years, repeating the same in print in his Lectures & articles. He will end by showing himself a liar, if we (you especially who know all) do not stop him. You know how many letters he already wrote with mild hints in them that I was only a medium hence irresponsible. It was his way of getting his own personality out of difficulty, by throwing in time a piece of my reputation to the hungry beasts that pursued us, in order to save his skin. And now he emphasizes,[?] & crown[?] and[?] all. Look at the last page of the last Theosophist: one of the most malicious articles against me is republished & quoted without any reason or cause, unless it is to contradict the sentence "priestess of Theosophy" or "High Priestess." A whole tub of dirty water poured on my head, for the sake of taking exception to one word! It's Harte, but it is also Olcott, because he permits such things & damns himself thereby. Would I ever permit a para from the Tribune or the N.Y. Sun against Olcott to appear in Lucifer? But the editorial is a far graver blunder.
H.S.O. threatens to resign, may be will resign, and he seeks to throw the whole blame upon me! Last year when here, he boasted of theosophy & its Branches going up higher than sky, in India. All was flourishing then, all promising, the people's devotion as great as ever, 150 Branches strong & happy: And what's the truth & what does Bert find there? Out of the 150 Branches, only 40 alive. No one approaching Adyar at 5 miles distance. Theosophy rapidly dying. Why? I say because of Harte's reigning supreme at Adyar for the last two years, & especially Olcott going away for a year to Japan, where he did not establish a single Branch, but caught chronic dissentry, made incurable his old illness in the testes, which has now so enfeebled him as to have entirely altered the man! The unfortunate man can no longer even deliver a lecture. From a fascinating speaker, a good orator, he became a dull lecturer & his lectures in England last year, were miserable failures. He has no energy; lost his love for the work, became indifferent to the T.S., lazy & incapable any longer of fighting our way & struggling. And because of that he seeks to throw the blame upon me, tells Bert & everyone that it is I, who killed the T.S., owing to the Coulomb-Hodgson affair, etc. etc. Is this fair, I ask you?
Well, my dear W.Q.J. if you don't look out it is HSO, whose Yankee vanity & personality will kill the T.S. in India, at any rate, & thereby weaken America & Europe. I have done my duty & have no more responsibilities except with my own people here, a group that will be true to me till death. And really outside of this I have no other ambition. Nothing can shake me with those whom I teach in dead earnest, for they know, that I know. And, unless you stand by me in this business, I am ready to do with America that which I have done with India, namely, to part company with it by means of a circular as the one I sent to India to the members of the E.S. Shall this suit you? And if you do not refresh Olcott's memory in a serious private letter to him, & unless he stops his little game on me, I will do so, I swear. It is not my personality that I care for but I tremble for the whole Society. For, if the "President-Founder" goes back on us, then will the death-knell of the T.S. ring in dead earnest. Answer me all this W.Q.J. I am tired of all, disgusted unto death. Think of this seriously and tell me what you would have me do. H.S.O. speaks in his editorial of his Masters & Teachers, as if They had come to him independently of me, had dropped me and stuck to him alone from first to last. Well do not take the above for a threat to you or the American E.S. which heaven forbid. I will never forget your loyalty & devotion, your unswerving friendship but I am afraid that H.S.O. will so weaken the T.S. by his mad (present) capers[?] that I shall not be able to do anything for anyone.
yours to death
H.P.B.
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