REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS NINTH ANNUAL CONVENTION | WQJ | Articles

. . . It is now my duty to officially report to you what has taken place and been done in the matter of the charges made against me as Vice-President, and which you considered last April. Generally I can say that the resolutions you passed were in substance carried out. Although every member knows the fact, yet I must report that your delegate proceeded to the Committee of Inquiry at London, and the said Committee sat after the T.S. Council held a session. At that meeting of the Council it was decided that it would be a breach of the Constitution and of the neutrality of the T.S. to try the question raised, because involving the existence or non-existence of Mahatmas, and that I could not be tried by the Committee because that can only deal with the Vice-President for acts done as such. The Committee followed the decision of the President and Council. The total expense of the Committee, counting the distances travelled from India and America and the time lost, must have run up into the thousands. The whole proceeding, as well as some other matter, was printed in a pamphlet entitled by Col. Olcott himself The Neutrality of the Theosophical Society, and that has been circulated all over the Section. Statements were made at the local Convention by Mrs. Besant and by me, and a resolution to close the whole matter was passed, and these were included in the pamphlet. This was intended in good faith to stop the whole thing in the T.S., but almost the next day Mrs. Besant issued a circular to the world, sending it to all the London papers, entitled Occultism and Truth, as a direct attack on me, asserting that the doctrine of "the end justifies the means" must not be allowed to prevail in the T.S., though she did not name me. Since then she has admitted that it was intended for me. With such a spirit, and after such an immediate going back upon a solemn resolution declaring the matter closed, it was plain that the matter was not closed.

Shortly afterwards The Westminster Gazette reopened the whole matter with additional and elaborate charges of fraud and duplicity in the matter of messages from Masters, and this was immediately seized upon by prominent English members, by Mrs. Besant and B. Keightley, as a reason for reopening the disgraceful persecution of a fellow-member. Since then the attacks have been incessant, and the end and purport of them all was to secure a vacancy in the Vice-Presidency. Mrs. Besant and B. Keightley attended Indian meetings and, proposing and seconding, had carried a set of resolutions reiterating charges and requesting the President to demand my resignation as Vice-President. In passing I may say that a so-called Anniversary meeting, which is unknown to the Constitution and without power of any sort, was held at the same time at Adyar and passed the same sort of resolutions. It was an illegal action. It is necessary to refer to this because in public reports prominence has been given to this Anniversary-meeting resolution, and a report asserted that one E. M. Sasseville was a delegate from this Section. No delegate or representative was sent to the meeting, and all such claims are false. They have been apparently made to try and cause it to appear that a supposed American delegate did not speak well of the Vice-President. I think it is prejudicial, not to say unconstitutional, to allow our members in all parts to suppose that these voluntary meetings at Adyar are legal. There has been too much ignoring of the Constitution. It is for this Section to consider these points. The July decisions showed that the great Committee―our largest―should never have been called together at all. Attention to the Constitution would have resulted in an immediate decision by the President that no Committee could be called, but that the accused should be tried before his Branch.

And, again, I beg to point out to you that the Constitution recognizes no such office as Federal Correspondent, and gives no power to the President to create any office. The President has promulgated (July or August last) an order creating the office of "Federal Correspondent," and has appointed thereto Mrs. I. Cooper-Oakley, and has printed the name of office and officer among the list of T.S. officials. This is absolutely illegal. I will frankly say that I am personally exceedingly fatigued with these constant breaches―for I consider it a breach to have allowed the Judicial Committee to be called at all―and some sort of end must be put to this kind of thing one way or another.

Some European Lodges passed resolutions asking me to resign until full explanation and clearance were made. This, it seems, is a sort of English custom, but it certainly is not American. To these and the President I have replied, refusing to resign the Vice-Presidency. And to the newspaper attack I have made a provisional and partial reply, as much as such a lying and sensational paper deserved. In my official answer to the letter of the General Secretary of the European Section conveying to me such expressions as had reached his office, I drew attention to the fact that I could not reply properly without documents or copies of them, as all the charges are based on documents: that I did not have such copies; and that Mrs. Besant and Col. Olcott had kept from me both inspection and copies of the documents during the whole time I was in London, until July 19th, when they allowed a hasty glance―about thirteen days after the Inquiry had closed. I made a hasty copy of a few short documents, but long letters to H.P.B., to Damodar, and to Col. Olcott―all included in the matter―I could not copy. And aside from that, I am entitled to certified copies. Again, several items of charges are made, the documents regarding which I have never seen. Before the Inquiry, at it, and after, I demanded copies. Mrs. Besant promised and failed; when she had delivered back the papers to Col. Olcott she could give none. Col. Olcott promised to furnish them. I demanded them as long ago as when the charges were first sent to me from India. Up to this writing I am not in possession of these needful copies. If they are furnished me before the sitting of this Convention I shall be able to make an explanation. Otherwise I cannot say whether or not such could be made save of same of the cases, thus leaving the matter incomplete; and this would be unsatisfactory. But I have an explanation, and I renew my declaration of innocence of the offenses charged. As I have said in London and since, the messages I delivered, privately, are genuine messages from the Master, procured through me as the channel, and that the basis of the attack on me is unbelief in my being a channel. The object in view in beginning the proceedings was, as is proved by the prosecutor's own letters, to procure my resignation of the office of Vice-President and the supposed (but non-existent) office of Successor to the Presidency. . . .

Convention Reports of
The Theosophical Society
American Section
April 28-29, 1895

There is no Religion Higher Than Truth - सत्यान् नास्ति परो धर्मः