Theos-Talk Archives (October 2004 Message tt00155)

Here is what Annie Besant reported in her so-called "E.S." (she has never been a pupil of the Masters themselves, but only of their messengers) on the split in 1895, obviously still unconscious of the true meaning:

"The Society used to be divided into three Sections: the Masters as the first; certain pupils as the second; and the Society as the third. After the time that arrangement was broken up, and the First Section ceased to exist as such. It came back as the First Section some time ago, no longer outside the T.S. but within it. In order that that might become effective, all the great difficulties had to be faced and overcome. You should all know the reasons why these shocks take place from time to time; I will tell you again why they come. I learnt it myself during the Judge secession in America [Gosh! It where Besant and Olcott which seceded from the esoteric HQ in NY, but they never grasped it!]. 

Practically the whole of the American Section then went out, leaving only 5 or 6 Branches and something like 100 members. "Why should such a thing take place"? It was then, as I was travelling in a train, that my Master said: "Do you NOT YET yet understand?" [Not yet, italics mine, obviously refers to certain warnings to her, beginning with three warning letters of Judge to her, the cutting off of her organization from the Masters work and some letters of warning of J.H. Fussell, secretary of KT in 1907] 

And I answered in a shame-faced way: "No, I do not." He then told me why these things happened. The Society, He said, was the beginning of the Sixth Root Race, of which He was to be the Manu, and the Master K.H. the Bodhisattva. They had taken this way of sounding out the note of Brotherhood in order to call together the people who might form the nucleus of the Race [where was this nucleus? In Adyar, Halcyon or Point Loma?] that is to establish Brotherhood upon earth; this is Their way of choosing the likely people. [the ULTers still condemn KT for that choosing out, or breathing in, believing that a big number of section members was the highest aim of the Masters, they just intermix cause and effect. The shakings were used by the Masters to sort out those which where not ready to work for Brotherhood. You can use your logic and analogy to find the dissolution for more than one worldly problem or historical question.]

A good many, however, will come in who are not quite suitable, and so from time to time some passing event, some piece of karma which some prominent person in the Society has to work out, is taken advantage of, and used as an opportunity for these great shakings of the T.S. The result is always of shaking out of elements that are not wanted or have become mischievous. [including herself, but unknown to herself, except the last days before her death?] 

This does not mean that such people drop out of the movement altogether, but only for a time [when theosophical groups are seperated as Judge wrote in his famous 1894 ES circular]; some defect in their own nature makes them hindrances [as stated in the 1900 K.H. letter to her], and they must step out for the time, to return at another point [note that GdeP in 1929 suggested to AB to unite the separated groups as he believed Adyar "has learned its lesson"]. 
The present time is a very special time, owing to the transition state in which we are standing, which gives great opportunities and great difficulties [...]

Then, in addition, comes in the active agency of the great Brothers of the Shadow; the active agency which hopes that the Society may be destroyed and is always working against it. Their hope, of course, is that in a critical moment they may be able to over-balance the movement. They want merely to retard evolution. They have no enmity against the people concerned but they want to check the spiritual evolution, because they want materiality to remain so that unity may be delayed and diversity continue. Therefore, at critical times, they throw in their forces to disintegrate and destroy. [Obviously she never draws K.H.'s criticism to herself, under the illusion that Judge was the dugpa and she, the lay chela, being the hero, although a lower chela as AB was can NEVER have any communications from a Master without a messenger who does the transmit, this shoul dbe self evident, but megalomanic pseudo-theosophists like Besant, Leadbeater, Steiner, Sinnett, were so convinced of their superioty from a few contacts and glimpses into the Mahatmic world etc. that these fools tried to fool other fools to believe in their mayavic occult powers or at least were not able and not ready to recognize these qualities in others] 
Their work is largely done through people's virtues, not their vices. The mass of people who went out were good people; their loyalty was played upon to break the movement." [it was only the Society]

- excerpts from: Annie Besant in: "The Link," [E.S. magazine] August 1911, reprinted privately in "E.S. Ideals and Work", Adyar, TPH 1960, pp.148-150.


Annie Besant testifies here:

1. That the work of the TS was projected on a larger scale as merely being a book reader club or a philantropic lodge with lectures and banquets. Similar statements of Katherine Tingley are affirmed.

2. That the split of 1895 was not the idea of Judge (or KT as Mrs. Cleather believed), but of the Masters themselves. Similar statements of Katherine Tingley are affirmed. Also the words of Gottfried de Purucker: 

"Never has there been a Messenger [as KT] so misunderstood. Never has there been a greater martyr to their cause, to the cause of the Teachers, than she was." - Dialogues II:125 http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/dialogue/dial14.htm)

"Student -- Would it be right to say that the breaking up that happened to the Theosophical Society was an event in human nature and in times similar to the event that happened to Christianity? Is there any similarity between the two? 

G. de P. -- There is a similarity. This similarity exists in the fact of the breaking into different bodies, into different sects -- because there actually are sects in the theosophical movement today. We have to face the truth. We must, Companions, keep theosophy pure, broad, deep, generous, and ourselves be great-hearted and forgiving in our work. We must do Masters' work! 

But there is this difference in the parallel which you have drawn between Christianity and the modern theosophical movement. In our own theosophical movement, comprising all these various Theosophical Societies today, the break-up into these various Societies was deliberately engineered. Why? Because the teachers knew that if certain ones were not called out, called apart -- I mean certain ones who could be depended upon -- they would be swallowed up, lost, in the welter of religious and psychical superstition which had already begun to invade the theosophical movement before Judge died. Do you understand me?"

http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/dialogue/dial18.htm

"Student -- This is on another subject. I have often wondered how it is that the religion that was started by the Buddha should have deteriorated to its present state; and I wonder, is there not the same danger for the theosophical movement to crystallize into a religion? The messenger in the first case was the Buddha; he was perhaps the highest messenger who has come to the earth for millions of years. 

G. de P. -- True. 

Student -- And in the second place it was H. P. Blavatsky, who was not as high as the Buddha. Was the coming to this earth of the one less momentous than that of the other? 

G. de P. -- Yes, it was less momentous. That statement is quite true. But with regard to the second or rather the intermediate part of your remarks: it is precisely the danger of the degeneration of theosophy into a sectarian religion that we must prevent, and that fate has already begun and is proceeding apace in the largest of the Theosophical Societies, so called, existing today. I don't care to point more particularly. It was because of this danger being imminent that the need for checking things, for separating the sheep from the goats, has become so great at the present time. The theosophical movement must be kept pure and inspired by the original unadulterated teachings derived from the flow of inspiration from the Great Lodge. The theosophical movement must not be allowed to degenerate into a dogmatic religion, into a sectarian faith. 

It matters not what happens to individual theosophists. It matters not what happens to the messengers. The work of safety and purification must be done, and it will be done. I will tell you frankly that I was sent to do that work more than anything else -- to rescue genuine theosophists in the other societies, and to keep our own Society in the purity, in the theosophical purity, that at present distinguishes it, and this is due more than anything else to KT's masterly esoteric training. That saved the situation even in the earlier days when she first came into office. You should know this fact. One less strong than she would have failed. It was her very strength, her willpower, her vision, that brought upon her devoted head the hatred and misrepresentations regarding her and her character and her work that exist in the world today outside of our Society. 

Now coming to the first part of your question regarding the religion of the Buddha: it is true that in certain doctrinal aspects it has not retained the crystalline purity that it had as long as the great master lived. But granting that, nevertheless this also should be said, that it is the most theosophical in the proper sense of the word of any religion or religious philosophy on the earth today. It is the cleanest, the purest, the loftiest religion on earth today, and the least degenerated of them all. "

http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/dialogue/dial16.htm

Compare this also with this statement of KatherineTingley: 

"I remember telling Mr. Judge that the first time I knew of our present site at Point Loma was when I was 8 years old, and than then I seemed to be conscious of being about 50, and saw a great School for Humanity on this place.

"'But I think you have made a mistake,' he said. 'Is it not in another century?'

... By this I saw that he desired me to talk more, and I definitely mentioned when it would be built. (Of course, he knew all the time, but he told me afterwards that in making these queries he was following instructions he had received from H.P.B.) He said, 'I used to ask H.P.B. questions when she mentioned this great School of Occultism in the West, and she would laughingly wink and say, 'Wait until you find her;' and what you now say corresponds, but the fact that we are talking this plan over is dangerous.' He meant that if the secret of a School to be built in the West got out the plan might be blocked by enemies. And this is the reason why I was so secretive about my plan, and would not give it to some of the old members at 144 Madison Avenue, New York...

"With reference to the efforts of a certain Body in opposing our Work, this today depends for support and help upon ex-members of our Society, to destroy us. They have tabulated no end of things that have been published in the past by the eccentric minds of old members now no longer with us.

"The methods that will be used in attacking our Organization are so different and so subtle that the most discerning members will not be able to see them. At the present time there is more effort being made behind the scenes, so to speak, because our opponents do not dare to do anything as publicly as heretofore. Ashort time ago, the Literary Digest published the statement that, at an important meeting held at the Vatican, Theosophy was discussed and that those who are guiding the catholic Church are greatly disturbed because of the menace to their work by Theosophy!! We know there are some who say the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society must go, but they are perfectly willing to put their money where do, and they send their agents here to try to steal our system and carry it out in their own organizations; they are willing to take our grounds and turn them to their own use; but they have little hope of accomplishing their plans unless K.T. is set aside. Double watch must be kept on every Center because every effort is being made to work persons into our Organization to try to destroy it. Take some of the attacks in the newspapers recently. Do you suppose those articles were places without an inducement?...

"I am preparing a new SEARCHLIGHT which will very soon be ready, and I am planning that in future our SEARCHLIGHTS will each have some historical facts of importance to preserve. In this one there is a Message, which I am sending to the members..."

- The Searchlight, Vol. II, Octrober 15, 1905, No.3, pp. 27-28., italics original.















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