LETTERS BETWEEN BLAVATSKY AND JUDGE - 9

H.P.B. Foretells That a Theosophical

Frankenstein Will Threaten Her Work

Helena P. Blavatsky

 Frankenstein, the Literary

Character Created By Mary Shelley

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A 2011 Editorial Note:

The following letter from H. P. Blavatsky

to W. Q. Judge is dated March 19, 1887. We

reproduce it from “Theosophical History” magazine,

volume V, Number  4, October 1994, pp. 125-127. 

We thank the magazine for publishing this document.

Underlined words are thus in the original. Sometimes,

they are underlined with a double line in the  transcription

made by Mr. Michael Gomes. We don’t take that into

consideration. Words in brackets, followed by question marks,

are attempts by the transcriber to understand the original.

While the first paragraph of the letter is addressed

specifically to William Judge, it also applies as an

axiom to every earnest student of theosophy in any time

or place. A truth-seeker has to renounce important, often

central parts of his emotional life in order to be able to make

progress along the path. Such renunciation is seldom easy.

The letter contains the “Frankenstein prophecy”, by

which H.P.B. anticipates the abandoning of the original

teachings of theosophy on the part of her students in

London, and also the distortion of her teachings in the

1890s. Both facts occurred under the leadership of

Annie Besant. The prophecy refers to the classical drama

of the creature turning against its creator,  as in the novel

“Frankenstein”, by Mary Shelley (1797-1851).  H.P.B.’s

vision of the future of her work in London is in these words:

“I have dozens upon dozens of petitions from

London to come without delay & take the management,

reformation & revival of the Branch - of the L.L. - into

my hands. I am offered a corpse!! I have to galvanize

a rotten body like Christ with Lazarus. I must go,

nevertheless. The Keightleys have come for me - all

is prepared there & it is old, paralyzed, hardly moving

old woman who has to build up a new Frankenstein who,

when grown & strong again will pounce upon his

parent & try to destroy her. So be it. - Such is my destiny.”

The paragraph shows that H.P.B. had no illusions

about any short-term results of her mission. She worked

instead with a long-term vision of the theosophical effort.

The letter has also significant information on the training

of groups of disciples by the Masters of the Wisdom.

We add a few explanatory notes.

(Carlos Cardoso Aveline)

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My dear W. Q. J.                                                                Ostende   March 19 / 87

When a fruit has a worm in it, the latter does its work of destruction to the bitter end. But the fruit can’t help it - a human fruit endowed with will, intelligence & perambulatory powers can. If the human fruit who could extract the damaged part 10 years ago did not do it, - for lack of resolution & choice of either one thing or the other - of “to be or not to be” - why should he curse his fate, the web of his own fabrication.

If you went in search of Masters now - you would not find Them. One must be free & unclaimed by man or woman if he would offer himself personally to them. Otherwise the link which binds you to Brooklyn would be like a rope ever pulling back.[1] You have tried it once & went half way to search for & meet the Masters. What has it resulted in? Scandal certainly worse than a clean divorce ever would. You have fettered yourselves with chains & unless you keep within their limit they will be always strangling you. You have to come to a decisive & final determination & she has to choose. It is only womanly accursedness to hold you chained as she does. In this I can give no advice but only point out the cause in the diagnosis of the mortal disease. You will never be happy outside your natural element.

You have very good & wholesome ideas when sitting bent over your fancy sketches & pen drawings. But these ideas vanish away in thin air as soon as you throw up your pencil or pen. You have been watched my poor old chum. You have all the sympathy of Masters and pupils. But who dares touch the “link” and bonds & break them except yourself?

No; you do not know yourself. The only palliative I know of is for you to come & get strength with me for a month or two this summer. Try to do so.

I have dozens upon dozens of petitions from London to come without delay & take the management, reformation & revival of the Branch - of the L.L. [2] - into my hands. I am offered a corpse!! I have to galvanize a rotten body like Christ with Lazarus. I must go, nevertheless. The Keightleys [3] have come for me - all is prepared there & it is old, paralyzed, hardly moving old woman who has to build up a new Frankenstein who, when grown & strong again will pounce upon his parent & try to destroy her. So be it. - Such is my destiny.

Mrs. Cables writes & complains you will not answer her letters - something about Convention. Asks & wants me to tell her whom shall she choose this day - the gods in Washington - or Coues [4] or the god of her fathers -W.Q.J.  I answered she might choose who she damn pleased. I opined for Coues. She is too gushy for you.

My advice, our advice is external unity at least. 31 counties or states & rings and quarrels do not prevent the U.S. from being one for the outside world. Let the Branches be all as free as every state is in America, all of which recognize one fool, who so ever he be in the White House & yet have their own laws. The Board of Control is abolished isn’t it? Why then not let & even help Coues to do his work as an independent President of his Branch. Let each Branch have its own Karma. “There is more joy over one repented sinner than over 99 saints in heaven.” Make a rule that any fellow found out slandering another - be expelled after the second warning. Make the rules strict & foremost of. Let every one either peg out of the Society or - hold his tongue & mind his own business. Too many cooks spoil a broth.

Make another rule that on that day when one joins the Society a wall should be built between his past & the Fellows of [the?] Society. No one has the right to criticize a fellow for what he was before he joined. But no mercy should be shown to one who goes on whoring & backbiting & leading a bad life when he is in the Society.

He who does all & the best he can & knows how - does enough for them.[5] This is a message for you. Your “Path” begins to beat the Theosophist out of sight. It is most excellent. Bjerregaard’s articles are very very good. The “Path” alone is your certificate for you in Theosophy. A secret group may be formed in any state the T.S. is in. Join three or five or seven; and work with all your powers on the same & one [line ?].  Note every event every casual thing in your daily lives - to the most trifling - then once a week meet & compare them & find out the occult causes & effects & the mutual interaction & correlation of those events & then see whether a hand will not lead you; whether you will not recognize that hand which will retard some events, precipitate others etc - without interfering with the law of Karma in the least. If your group can be brought into strict union of thought & singleness of purpose - & harmony you will sense Orders and the right direction you have to take as plainly as Bishop & Co. sense the hardly perceptible tension of the muscles in the hand that he is in contact with. This is the method of training of the younger chelas - down there at home. They record every small circumstance, compare their accumulated numbers, deduct their conclusions from the premises & those syllogisms lead them unerringly onward. It helps sharpening intuitions & sensitiveness, develops clairvoyance & every chela comes to recognize instantaneously the smallest change in the invisible aura of the ever present thought of his guru who guides the events though he never creates them. Do you understand, oh Lamb of god? Try to.

My poor, poor friend, what a damned fool you are with all your intelligence, Irish-Hindu acuteness of perception etc. It is the worm that gnaws at your discriminative powers. It is the incubus of the family hearth that sits so heavily on your brain that it can hardly function in the right direction after every methodist squabble. Oh my poor crushed chum what I would I give to help you. But how can I fight against your Irish Self which sits upon & tries to throttle the Hindu Self - the “mild” Hindu?

I try to be with you as much as I can. I am often watching you. Watch the shadows on the walls around you & gather strength from one who is oftener with you than you know of. Do not oppose Coues in his department. For my external sake do not be against him openly. He is a weapon in the hands of Karma & you are interfering with the Law.

Be strong, calm firm & hopeful. You are not even forty.

Yours ever

HPB

NOTES:

[1] Indeed, the link between Judge and his wife was not superficial. Ernest Pelletier writes in his book “The Judge Case” that Mrs. Ella M. Judge was a Brooklyn school teacher when she married W.Q. Judge in 1874. “Mrs. Judge was described as a very ordinary woman, and a strict Methodist. Their marriage was very difficult, both on personal and religious grounds, and that only increased when their daughter died at a very early age. (…) Yet in her own way, she was devoted to him, and during his illness, never spared herself in her efforts to alleviate his suffering.  When travelling, Judge took her with him as often as he could. During his life, she cared nothing about theosophy. Yet after his death she came to see the value of the theosophical teachings. Some records say she was already a member of the theosophical movement in 1897.  She joined the United Lodge of Theosophists in 1915 (six years after its creation in 1909). Mrs. Ella Judge died in April 17, 1931, four days after Mr. Judge’s birthday.  See “The Judge Case”, Ernest Pelletier, Edmonton Theosophical Society, 2004, part I, p. 264.   See also “Theosophical Quarterly”, July 1933, pp. 33-35, and “Echoes of the Orient”, a three-volume compilation of writings by W.Q.J., edited by Dara Eklund, volume I, pp. XIX-XX (information on Mrs. Ella Judge is in a text compiled by Sven Eek and Boris de Zirkoff).

[2] “L.L.” - London Lodge.

[3] Archibald Keightley and his uncle Bertram Keightley.

[4] Elliott Coues.

[5] “for them” - that is, for the Masters.

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