Published by Blavatsky
Study Center. Online Edition copyright 2003.
Some Past History
[Reprinted from The Canadian Theosophist, June 15, 1946.]
The
"Promise" Myth
The magazine Theosophy in noting an article by Carey McWilliams in the March Atlantic
dealing with "prominent religious exhibitionists" in Southern California,
undertakes to correct some of the statements made, and incidentally adds to the notoriety
of Ernest Temple Hargrove, who was probably successful in veiling his past when he
obtained and burned the letters and papers of Claude Falls Wright after that gentleman was
drowned in Central America. Here is what Theosophy has to say: -
The Point
Loma adventure of the Theosophical Movement and Aimee Semple McPherson's Four Square
Gospel enterprise receive lengthy treatment. Although repeating in general the
attacks made by General Harrison Gray Otis in the Los Angeles Times against Point
Loma cultists and Mrs. Tingley, Mr. McWilliams is careful to state that Mrs. Tingley later
"collected a handsome judgment" for libel. As a matter of fact, the charge
that "gross immoralities were practised" at Point Loma would be repudiated by
friend and enemy alike. In the account of the origins of the Point Loma colony,
however, a serious misstatement occurs. The writer says that in New York, Mrs.
Katherine Tingley "came to know the theosophist William Quan Judge, over whom she
soon acquired an extraordinary influence." Mrs. Tingley did acquire an
"extraordinary influence" over some theosophists, but certainly not over Mr.
Judge, nor was her influence, over those others much in evidence until after Judge's death
in March, 1896. Mr. McWilliams writes:
"Much
talk began to be heard in theosophical circles about the emergence of a mysterious
disciple, referred to by Judge as the `Promise,' the `Veiled Mahatma,' the `Light of the
Lodge,' and the `Purple Mother.' "
Hargrove's
Repudiation
There was
such talk, but only after Mr. Judge's passing, and the sources of this flamboyant
"mysticism" are fully identified in the volume, The Theosophical Movement,
Chapter xxxv, pages 653-88. E.T. Hargrove, a prominent member of the T.S. in A., was
the principal sponsor of Mrs. Tingley as the new "Leader" and "Head,"
announcing in a circular that Mr. Judge knew of her fitness as his "successor"
and had indicated a great future for "Promise," now identified as Mrs. Tingley
by Hargrove and others. Certain "private papers" of Mr. Judge, said to
bear out this claim, were never produced, and less than two years after his fulsome praise
of Mrs. Tingley, Mr. Hargrove himself repudiated her leadership without qualification and
went off with other dissident members to hold a runaway convention. There is
absolutely no evidence of any sort that Mr. Judge thought of Mrs. Tingley or anyone else
as his "successor," nor that the mysterious talk of "Promise" was
anything more than a frantic fabrication of foolish students who felt they must have some
figure-head for a "leader." Indeed, Hargrove, after his disaffection,
wrote to Mrs. Tingley on Jan. 30, 1898:
"Now,
my dear friend, you have made an awful mess of it - that is the simple truth. You
were run in as O(uter) H(ead) as the only person in sight who was ready to hand at the
time . . . you were sort of neutral centre around which we could congregate . . ."
Hargrove
regretfully admits having used his "personal influence" to get people to accept
Mrs. Tingley as "Outer Head," explaining that "enthusiasm and anxiety to
see all go well carried some of us too far." Her "rare mediumistic and
psychic gifts" were given as the reason for this enthusiasm, causing the sponsors of
Mrs. Tingley to suppose, as Hargrove says, that she was a "disciple of the
Lodge." There is evidence that E. August Neresheimer and Claude Falls Wright
had both been consulting her as possessed of "occult powers" before Mr. Judge's
death, accepting communications through her as "mesages from the Masters."
One such message, received by Mr. Neresheimer in 1895, contained the injunction,
"Under no circumstances must Mr. Judge know of this" - a proviso so entirely out
of keeping with the law of the Guru-parampara chain that it alone should have been
sufficient warning of the questionable nature of the communication.
"A
Gross and Palpable Fraud"
Hargrove,
Neresheimer and the others had all too quickly forgotten the oft-repeated principle of
occultism that there is no "apostolic succession." Judge himself said,
when asked by an anxious student where guidance could be found after his death, "Go
to the pages of the Path Magazine. Study what I have written there, and
you will know what I would do." H.P. Blavatsky had declared in Isis
Unveiled: "The present volumes have been written to small purpose if they
have not shown . . that . . . the apostolic succession is a gross and palpable
fraud," and Mr. Judge wrote in Lucifer for March, 1892: "Madame
Blavatsky has no `successor,' could have none, never contemplated, selected or notified
one." Are we to suppose that he then violated the rule of the Lodge by
appointing one for himself? As evidence that he did not, there is this statement by
Mr. Neresheirner, from an affidavit in February, 1932:
"Among
all the papers and other documents left by Mr. Judge, we found nothing whatever in his
handwriting bearing on the future conduct of the society after his death. Nor did we
find anything in his writing naming Mrs. Tingley or anyone else, either directly or
indirectly, as his successor in the affairs of the Theosophical Society in America, or any
directions of any kind to be followed in the event of his death."
Record
Now Clear
As
Mr. Neresheimer was the executor of Mr. Judge's will, and personally opened and examined
the contents of Mr. Judge's desk and his safe-deposit box, his word in this matter is the
best evidence available. As he, also, had been one of those who persuaded the
membership of the Society to accept Mrs. Tingley as the new "Leader" and
"Outer Head," during the months following Mr. Judge's death, his statement under
oath is of peculiar importance to Theosophical history. To his credit, it may be
said that at the end of his life, if not in the crucial hour of trial, Mr. Neresheimer was
true to the principles of the philosophy he had learned from Mr. Judge and H.P.B., and
that he established for the record the fact that, like H.P.B., William Q. Judge had
"no `successor,' could have none, never contemplated, selected or notified
one." It is unfortunately true that Hargrove and his handful of associates did
indeed go "too far" - so far that the myth of Mrs. Tingley's "extraordinary
influence" over Mr. Judge still exists to be seriously repeated as a fact in a
contemporary study of religious phenomena.
- Theosophy for April, 1946.