• new play about the three founders of the TS in 1875 (extract below from page 1)
• Root Causes ”The Error of Violence” on p 3
• Experiences of a Chela on p 5
• Franklin on Humility & the Virtues p 7
• B.P.Wadia and the early ULT p 8… and don’t miss
• the book review of  the excellent “Is there no other way? – The search for a nonviolent future” p 11

on the founding of the TS –

opens with Narrator, H.P.Blavatsky and Col H.S.Olcott

 extract from Part 1:

 Narrator: … but first, there’s someone else I want to introduce to you all.    So if you’d take a seat.   Colonel, I would like to call forward (raises voice) Mr. William Quan Judge!

          (HSO sits next to HPB as WQJ comes forward, bows to HPB, shakes hands with HSO and turns to face the audience)

         Mr. Judge, we think of you now as the third member of the theosophical ‘trinity’, but am I not right in saying that your doctor many years ago would not have believed such a career as yours would be possible.

  WQJ: He pronounced me dead.

 Narr: Could you elaborate a little, please?

 WQJ:  Not really. I was dead. The doctor had said to my parents who were at the bedside: “I’m deeply sorry, but your son is dead”.

 Narr: (pause) I suspect that everyone in this room feels there’s something more you have to tell us.

WQJ: Well, you can imagine my parents’ surprise when I not only opened my eyes but then started to tell them of having been somewhere else. 

Narr: And in the following months this visiting “somewhere else” continued each time you slept?

WQJ: My mother was a strict Methodist and hated any talk about mysticism and things like reincarnation or the religions of the East.

Narr: And your dreams were of places in the East?

WQJ: Yes, in India. But they weren’t dreams. I was there  – as a boy – a boy of noble birth. Then - (pause)

Narr: Yes?

WQJ: Then he – or rather I – that is, the I in India, died too (pause) Well, actually he didn’t die but he became one with me; or I became one with him. (turns to HPB) Please, Madame, can you explain this better?

HPB: Use your intuition, Judge, and try to understand.

WQJ: To this day I’m not really sure why it was but when I recovered after that near death in Ireland, I found I had an intense interest in books on occultism, and mesmerism and such like. Poor Mother. She felt she’d brought some sort of changeling into the world. And it was doubly “poor Mother” as she exhausted herself giving birth to seven children.

HSO: Didn’t you tell me she died soon after that seventh birth?

WQJ: (pause) Yes. (pause) Father decided that perhaps we’d have a better life in America, so to the United States we came.

————–from Part 4: —————

 HPB: (still writing) That One religion of Nature from which every dogma has grown and – and become sadly materialised, (pretends to gather up papers, stands up, kisses WQJ and follows HSO, waving as she goes)

         (pause)

 Narr: Our revels now are – almost – ended. To round off the story of the formation of our Society this evening, I would like to ask Mr Judge if he would care to say a few closing words – Mr Judge.

 WQJ: (to Narr.) Thank you, Mr – er – thank you. (faces audience)

 Brothers and Sisters, it is surely unnecessary to say to you – members of the T.S. as you all are – that this Society must not fail. It will not fail. As you’ve just heard, we are entering a New Cycle with all the opportunities that it offers!

  Humanity has a choice; it can either move further down that road to where its goals are wealth, possessions and selfish gratification, or up towards a Golden Age of compassionate love and the true joy that comes from an awareness that none of us are separate but integral parts of the whole of Nature.

We have been assured by The Masters that in this task, as long as The Theosophical Society exists, the link between them and ourselves will be maintained.

So, though many attempts will be made to break our resolve through slander, malice and deliberate distortions of what we are attempting to teach -and, more importantly, to show by the way we live – it is only indifference that can seriously weaken our cause.

To study what The Masters have given us is a privilege. What individually you do with that privilege is up to you.

Remember, when we have gone on, you will be the Society’s advocates; you will be its emissaries. And remember too that wonderful phrase - our “Inner Abiding Presence”. Draw comfort from the thought of its existence, or – dare I say – from its realisation.

Therefore, dear friends, whatever your achievements or failures; whenever come your times of happiness or sorrow; wherever you go, may your Inner Abiding Presence always guide you.  (puts hands together)  Namaste.

              (turns to Narr:) Namaste.

              Narr: Namaste.

THE END

 Permission to reprint these extracts were kindly given by the author, Alan Hughes, from the Adyar TS in London UK.

The full text will be reprinted in the May Supplement.

 [...]

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