delay of a few months has been obtained in a pending arraignment and exposure in the Public Press in America." When it comes it will be a far graver indictment than that which precipitated the 'Besant v. Judge' crisis in 1894-95, and rent the T. S. in twain. Then Mrs. Besant accused her colleague Mr. Judge of "giving a misleading material form to messages received psychically from the Master in various ways ..." (Enquiry at London, July, 1894); but now she is deliberately condoning, if not actually supporting, something far worse which was investigated and found true by a T. S. committee of enquiry in 1906.[3]

For those unfamiliar with the events succeeding H. P. Blavatsky's death in 1891, I must add that those of us who supported Mr. Judge against Mrs. Besant's charges came under the sway, after his death a year later, of an equally masterful, able, and ambitious woman having very similar characteristics and methods. This was Mrs. Katherine Tingley, formerly a New York professional psychic and trance medium, from whose organisation ("The Universal Brotherhood") I resigned in 1899. Her activities are now mainly confined to a colony in California.

A point to which I think attention has not hitherto been drawn is the striking similarity in the fate which befell Mrs. Besant and Mr. Judge respectively after the death of H. P. Blavatsky. Being left as the most obvious leaders of the European and American Sections respectively (neither of them were in England when she died), the E. S. Council decided that they should carry on the Esoteric School as joint Outer Heads in place of H. P. B., oblivious of the fact that one of them (Mrs. Besant) was untrained, and both were unfit to fill such a high occult office (see post p. 86). This soon became evident when each in turn fell an easy prey to external influences which first separated them, and then disrupted the Society and E. S.

Among the old T. S. and E. S. papers now lying before me I find not a few which throw a most illuminating light on Mrs. Besant's activities in recent years. Before dealing with her latest statements I will quote extracts from these papers in support and elucidation of the points I wish to make, viz:—

(a) That under Mrs. Besant's guidance the T. S. has long ceased to represent H. P. Blavatsky's teaching, or the thought of its Founders.

(b) That it is now completely dominated by the deluded, impure, and poisonous ideas of an acknowledged sex pervert, to whom this unhappy and misguided woman believes and openly declares herself to be bound by indissoluble and age-long ties.

(c) That in adopting and conniving at the promulgation of the teachings of this man, and allowing him virtually to control her Society, Mrs. Besant most impiously gives out that she is acting under the orders of the Trans-Him㭡yan Masters of Wisdom, and H. P. Blavatsky's directions.

This last point (c) is the real gravamen of my Protest. It would be of relative unimportance—Mrs. Besant having already wrecked the Society in 1895—that it had descended to the level of any existing sect, Christian or other (as much a close corporation as the Adventists or New Jerusalemites), had its two present leaders dropped the title, and ceased to claim any connection with the "real Founders." But, on the contrary, Mrs. Besant and Mr. Leadbeater use Their sacred names and declare themselves to be under Their direct guidance. Such proceedings merit the sternest possible moral condemnation in view of the facts.

Mr. William Kingsland on the Crisis of 1906

THE first of the old papers I shall quote from is by my old friend and fellow-Councillor Mr. William Kingsland, author of The Esoteric Basis of Christianity and kindred works. He was one of the leading members in the early days under H. P. B. who, when Mrs. Besant on securing the Presidency after Colonel Olcott's death in 1907 reinstated Mr. Leadbeater, resigned their membership. Mrs. Besant had reviewed a new book by Mr. Kingsland, and took the opportunity to refer to his resignation. Replying in "An Open Letter to Annie Besant" dated December, 1909, he tells her:

You have dragged in a perfectly irrelevant, uncalled-for and untrue statement which I cannot allow to pass unchallenged...." The words I refer to are these: "We have here a very excellent Theosophical book, with an evasion of all recognition of the source whence the ideas are drawn. When Theosophy becomes fashionable, how those who refuse to walk with her in the days of scorning will crowd to claim her as theirs when she walks in the sunshine amid applause!" Now these words convey the implication, in the first place, that there is a connection between the form in which my book is presented, and recent events in the Theosophical Society which have led me as well as many others, to sever our connection with that Society; and, in the second place, that we now "refuse to walk with her" because, forsooth, she is not now "fashionable," but "in the days of scorning." Neither of these statements is true, and the implication is most unworthy of you.... That, however, is a small matter compared with the implication that I and others have turned our backs on Theosophy for so unworthy a reason.

Let me ask you to look at the names of the old and tried workers whom you have forced out of the Society by your disastrous policy, and then ask yourself in the Great Presence whether it is true that any of them have deserted Theosophy—or rather the Theosophical Society—because it is less "fashionable" now than it was in the old days when you and I and these others stood side by side and fought the battle for H. P. Blavatsky. Did any of us shirk obloquy then, and do you really think we are less ready to face it now? It is one thing, however, to incur obloquy for the sake of Truth, and quite another thing to be asked to do it in support of immoral