Practical Occultism — William Q. Judge

Letters from October 1888 - February 1889

October 4th 1888.
Miss Mary Musaeus,
Washington, D. C.

Dear Madame:

I have your last long letter. It will not be necessary to go so far as to get Mme Blavatsky to "take the seal off Mr. Higgin's lips" about theosophy in Washington because, first, I know all about that which you call "pseudo theosophy" there and the reasons which Mr. Higgins has; and second I did not want to know why you and he did not join the T S there, but only asked if you were members irrespective of the question whether you were in a Branch or unattached to one.

The peculiarities or idiosyncrasies of a single Branch or of its members should not deter us from engaging in the cause of Masters if we believe that They exist. The T S is meant to be a brotherhood and its members have to learn to bear with, or if you please, have pity for, the foibles and failings of their fellow members, but they have, in the organization, relief from such annoyance as personal contact might cause in that they can go into different Branches or become members at large and continue to work each by his lights for the objects set by the Masters. It is only in this work faithfully and sincerely carried on with no setting of the heart on the reward that the chance may arise of becoming accepted chelas of Masters or of Their advanced chelas.

The Masters of course have many other ways and places for obtaining chelas besides in the T S. They have Their disciples in various parts of India outside of the ranks of the T S, and over a thousand of those have given their sympathy and support to our body, and there are other places where They also have them. But you made your application to the body, formed here in the world by these high beings, and hence in replying to you we have been governed by the rules given us by Them. Chelas or would-be-chelas approaching through the T S have to join the body formed by the Masters and have to work for the furtherance of its objects unselfishly if through that channel they hope to get a fuller realization of what seems desirable to them. Masters have over and over again declared that they do not work for single individuals and will not to them be revealed no matter whether those persons are in the T S or out of it unless the conditions are complied with. Those are in part: a devotion to humanity and a persistence in work to that end and to the end that all the motives shall be purified and also the life. This is why there are many persons of extraordinary attainments who, failing to find the recognition which they think their due, have denied the existence of the Masters — the conditions had not been fulfilled.

I have spoken thus plainly so as to put you in possession of facts that you ought to be aware of and so as to prevent any misunderstanding, and with no other animus whatever. I send you a copy of the proceedings at the last Convention and invite your careful reading of the long letter from Mme Blavatsky therein printed.

Very Truly Yours,

WILLIAM Q. JUDGE.


NY Oct. 5 1888.

Dear Keightley

I have yours enclosing Harte's. Thanks. The dummy is at hand. Shall be glad to get the sheets, but there is so much delay it will not be possible to have the book [Secret Doctrine] out by 27th. Will try my best however. The book is splendid from the part found in the dummy. I get a few orders every week.

The prospectus you sent out from London has made bother, since you put the price £1.8 and I at $7.50. But I suppose you have sent out no more. I hope the index is good.

I see she rakes A P S. pretty well. He deserves it as he has stuck on his Esot B — what we call here 'mashed' on it — and admits nothing else right. It is easy to see defects in E B even by a casual reader. But he will fade out like a badly developed photograph, and we need not bother.

As to the french racket I could not pronounce on it now. In general the french are no good, and when one is found like Caboriau who will do, do, do, even badly, he ought to be encouraged. And I know that is Masters' idea. The petty rules and jealousies and rights of a lot of members are nothing when they clash with a man who really does for the cause. And so it is in this case. And also with some here in U. S. We have similar troubles, but if an obnoxious man is really working and spreading the ideas I do not much regard the cavils and crying of a lot of people who are good for nothing but to find fault with others.

Masters are guiding an enormous movement and have more concern to have work really carried on — of some, any or all sorts — than to coddle and advance in an abnormal manner any one or more individuals.

And it is also a fact that psychics generally have a few of the common screws loose. They are 1/2 here and 1/2 not, and hence they frequently do queer things, but if they do a meritorious work for the Cause they bear the burden of their own faults and do good to the world. I do not excuse their faults, but I do not bother about them. And it is quite plain that a host of grumblers who stick at points of form, right and etiquette while they do no real work for us, are of no account in our summing up. All the better of course it is if the real worker has much tact and virtue, but the conditions do not always combine in our Western world or in any other in this cycle.

So, in this way injustice might be committed. It was a coup de grace to take away the name of Isis but all the same it was error in my judgment even if I did congratulate Olcott. It was just the same about Cooper O who ought to have been put out long ago even if there ensued a holy war.

I do not think H P B has erred at all, and we must not judge by the present and we cannot see the future, but we can wait for it. It is our duty to work and obey without trying to adjust orders with our ideas or those of others or with what are called "rights" of people. So even if you had been rushed over to Paris and back on a fool's chase it is well, provided you were told to do it and proceeded on orders from your nearest superior. Such at least is my judgment. Excuse haste and love to you and the rest

As Ever

WILLIAM Q JUDGE


N. Y. Oct 17, 1888
Personal.

My dear Sir and Brother:

I have yours of 11th in which you say there are enigmas in mine of 2d which you cannot solve. I did not so intend it. And perhaps the official letter with the decision, now perhaps in your hands will put things in a different light.

I do not see how you can misunderstand the situation. It is this:

(a) You were expelled by the Los A T S.

(b) That makes your expulsion in general from the T. S., until revoked.

(c) It is revoked for irregularity — the only matter the Committee could consider.

(d) Hence, you are now again F. T. S. in good standing.

You say you are a lawyer. That has been my profession for 16 years and is now, and under our T. S. rules an expulsion unrevoked works as such all through the T. S. If they had merely dropped your name from the roll that would have been merely local. If there had been a trial on charges we could consider the cause; but as there was not we only could consider the action.

It must be plain to a layman, let alone a lawyer, that they never could convict and expel you on the charge they make. Hence it is plain that they will take no further proceedings and you stand well, for their illegal action is now, under the decision, no action at all.

As to the suggestion about resigning it is also plain that as you were illegally expelled and therefore not expelled you are still a member of that Branch. It is not necessary for you to find a meeting of it in order to resign from the local T. S. You can send your resignation by mail to the Secretary of it and you need not bother about what they may do and only need notify me as Gen Sec that you have resigned and are a member at large. Your friend of whom you speak can do the same thing. Resignation is always effective even without acceptance by the body to whom it is addressed.

And it seems to me a wise thing to resign now from the L. A. T. S. and end all official connection with a body in which you are not at home. I cannot forestall anything they may do, but must accord them their rights just as much as I must do the same to you. One of their rights is for them to be able to try you if they are so foolish as to attempt it. I have privately tried to point out to them that such a thing is folly and likely to damage them, since all that you have to do is to remain silent and they can then prove nothing since their asseveration that they are the persons referred to would only prove that they had done a similar thing to that spoken of in the article. I hope this is all plain; and recollect it is said to you privately as a fellow member and not as an official.

You err in supposing that from Mrs Ver Planck alone you got help. Another person first suggested to me that I take certain steps in the matter of your expulsion as soon as the Secy notified me. It is true I waited a while. And in other ways you were helped in the silent methods.

Now my dear Brother I know that you are willing to work and I propose to let you, for as you say the laborers are few, and the work sadly needs others; and besides that if there was not this work for you to do you might as well be dead. Is it not so? And recollect what Masters say: "We have no personal favorites. We care for the acts of people and not for their standing or their mere sentimental aspirations."

I have appreciated all your work and value highly what you have done in the Mystic which will be of greater value when you shall have a T. S. Branch there which will be willing to do all that you say about printing and children and public work comprehensible by the average man. And I shall be glad to assist you in it as I may; and if I could see any way to going to California I would be glad to do that too for a visit in order to help you on the spot as well as the others on the coast. We need work sadly. We are troubled all through the T. S. with barnacles who will do nothing for either themselves or others but stand often in the way of the work that might be done if they were not there. But even for those we must be charitable and must always try to persuade as much as we can, or to steer a middle course, not swerving from our own work as laid down, and at the same time by patience and non resistance prove to others that we can work and let all men do as they please. We must be "allowers of all theologies, compassionaters, perceivers, rapport of men. We reject nothing that is asserted nor the asserters" but we work on, on, ever, to the end that "Men may become brothers" as we try to be.

After sending in your resignation as a member of the L. A. T. S. and waiting a reasonable time, proceed with your other plans looking to the establishment of another T. S. You may meet formal opposition from those entitled to notice, but if "you have courage, patience and faith all will be well." And do not talk of resigning from the T. S. or of any such nonsense as letting things go by default. You know that you could not if you tried.

Hoping to hear from you soon,

I am fraternally yours,

WILLIAM Q JUDGE


To Bertram Keightley, Esq
35 Broadway NY
Oct 26 1888.

My dear Keightley:

Item. I shall start for London in November on the 3d 7th or 10th as I can arrange. The death of my Uncle in Dublin offers an opportunity to go over that I cannot miss. I would have started before this if it had not been for the Secret Doctrine. So you may expect to see me in due course.

The trouble I expected with the Appraiser came on. He sent for me after I had taken out 3 cases, and said that the book [Secret Doctrine] was undervalued. On a calculation it appeared that the 1000 copies came to some 30c. each. This of course is too low, and therefore I was stared in the face with the chance of a penalty and double duty. The law is: that we must pay duty here (at 25%) upon the market value of the goods. In this case that is determined by cost of paper and printing; in the case of a book already sold the wholesale price abroad determines the value upon which duty is to be paid.

But after a long argument and great persuasion, and perhaps for other causes, the Appraiser consented to let the book through, with the caution that on the next invoice the true value is to be stated. When I see you I will have the minutest directions regarding 2d Vol.

It is, as I said, impossible to come out on 27. The cases got out of the Cust. H. to the binder on the 23d only and had to be recollated as American binders will take no risks on your collating and I am only waiting the binding to go away.

I will bring over full details of other matters and so will not go into it now, except to observe that no contract has yet been made with a bookseller as agent, since Mr Lovell advised me to have a copy in hand before I went to see about that.

I have selected as colors for cover dark brown and dark blue. I cannot with my limited help attend to all the un-[indecipherable] work, and so have agreed with the binder that he is to wrap up some 300 copies ready for Fullerton to send out.

My regards to all. Meanwhile I wait in joyful anticipation for a reunion in November.

As Ever

WILLIAM Q JUDGE


Oct. 26th 1888

My dear Bro. Richardson:

If I understand your letter aright, our Boston Brethren are learning through disappointment what might have been earlier learned through examination. If the Theosophical Society had been established as a School of Occultism, or if membership therein had been urged as the step to Occult Powers, or if assurance had been vouchsafed that through the Society would come "radical information on Magic," etc. "in advance of that presented to the world," then truly you and all who have expected, yet have not received, these things would have ground for complaint. But is such the fact? If you read the 3 avowed aims for which the Society was founded, you will see that the 3d (not the 1st, by the way) was the "investigation" of unexplained laws and of psychical powers, not the "acquirement" of such powers. Moreover, in the most explicit terms and on very many occasions, in editorial articles in "Lucifer" and "The Theosophist" and in addresses and letters, the Founders of the T. S. have disavowed any purpose of founding a School of Adeptship or Magic, have never held out any inducement or any hope or even any incitement to a search for "Powers," but have clearly, repeatedly, and urgently explained that the true aim for each individual was spiritual development, that ambition for magical power was as purely selfish and untheosophic as ambition for social or political or any other power, that unselfish consecration to the general good measured the genuine quality of any aspirant, and that supra-natural powers were the collateral attendants upon, not the immediate result of, spiritual illumination.

Now if, in disregard of the avowed aims of the Society and in defiance of the direct teachings and warnings of its highest expositors, any of our Brethren demand an experience different from, and even antagonistic to, that held out, is not disappointment inevitable? And if disappointment is inevitable, is resentment just?

Let us look at the matter from still another view-point. You desire, I understand, magical powers. Why? Because they are curious and pleasing and a nice thing to have; or because you wish to use them to benefit humanity? If the former, there is no more reason for expecting aid towards them from the T. S. than in expecting aid from it towards the acquirement of money or office or any other personal treasure. But if the latter, why should you expect occult powers for benevolent purposes when you do not even use the natural powers on hand? For you talk of leaving the Society, the very agency through which our Revered Heads are working for the expansion of Light and Truth through the world, and which they desire every sincere Theosophist to join as (at present) the most efficient means for assisting Them in Their mission!

I think, my friend, that you could not do greater good to yourself — to say nothing of the Cause — than by revising your conception of Theosophy, and the Theosophic mission, and the motive best for each Theosophist. If the result of this should be a conviction that the surest path to Light and Strength is over the prostrate forms of all mere personal desires, and that the more one works for others the more he ultimately gains for himself — in fact, though not from intention, you will partake of the spirit of Damodar, and so may hope for his success. And if the other members of the Boston T. S. come to like conclusions, we shall no more hear of constant dissension and possible dissolution, but of united effort in the spread of Theosophic truth and of self-forgetful interest in every good word and work.

Always faithfully and fraternally yours,

WILLIAM Q. JUDGE


Jan 11 1889
C. H. Whitaker Esq

Dear Sir

I cannot throw light on the matter of the glossary. Perhaps it was found to be too great a work and too much for the expense. I think it will be gotten out. But really one of those Eastern books sold by Scribner with the words in them ought to be owned by us all, and personally I think it was too much to offer a glossary with the Secret Doctrine. A real Glossary would involve 3 vols more.

Sincerely

WILLIAM Q JUDGE


Jan. 30, 1889
Dr. C. W. Bush,
Pres. Los Angeles T S

Dear Sir and Bro:

I beg to inform you that the Executive committee met on the 28th inst and considered the matter of the application for a Branch in Los Angeles to be called Sattwa, and after reading the objections and correspondence have come to the conclusion that no valid reason has been given for a refusal to issue the charter which has been regularly applied for by over five members.

The Committee thinks that all members should try to bury dissensions and that whenever in a town a split or disagreement occurs in a Branch it is much better to permit one party to form another Branch, if they should so desire — and there is no insuperable objection — for in that way the work may be carried on in many different directions. They are very sorry that any trouble has occurred, and they direct me to say that they think it much wiser to let all the personalities in this matter come to an end, whatever may have been the supposed offense of any person, and it seems to them that if the matter was pressed very much farther it would become more disagreeable at every step, and would never tend to the adjustment of the difficulties or peace.

As I am informed, the new Branch has no intention or desire to interfere with your work and there seems to be plenty of room in your city for more than two Branches.

The newspaper report which was sent here was not thought by the Committee to have weight, because such reports have been constantly made and such charges reiterated about the Society, its leaders and the Adepts for the last 14 years, in all parts of this country, Asia and Europe, and I have always found that whenever any one starts the subject of theosophy before the public, a storm of ridicule is evoked; and I beg to tell you that one of the instructions sent by one of the Adepts, in writing, is, that the Society and its work must be spread before the world as much as possible. This applies to the exoteric and not to the esoteric work.

Your Branch still has the right to appeal to the Convention in April.

Fraternally Yours

WILLIAM Q JUDGE


Feb. 3 1889
General Secretary

Dear Bro. Dick

I got yours of 21 Jan and am obliged. But I cannot hope to reply as I am too busy. May I ask you to send me each month some little note of the work and affairs in Dublin and I will use it in Path, as I shall your present letter. Will try and send you a photo as you ask — perhaps in this letter.

Glad you saw H P B. The visit did you good. I hope the work will go on further and it seems to be growing a little in Old Dublin. If we work the Masters always help. They need instruments and cannot effect good ends where all is apathy: hence the value of any work with a sincere heart.

My love to all in Dublin and believe me ever your brother

WILLIAM Q JUDGE


5 Feby 1889

Dear Arch

So awfully busy. No time to write. Got yours. Sent you the supplies. They had gone when yours came saying they were for 32 Rem. Mach. Glad your room is fixed up, and hope you will sell the novels and salt the few rupees resulting into your pocket.

There will be endless delays about S. Sec. but let them wait and think, it will do them good. If they cant get on without instructions they cant with them.

Hope you understand that your idea to send all direct from London is in accord with mine.

How would you like to exchange with Fullerton. You to come here and work with me and he to go there to London? He is good at system and away from my chilling sphere he gets on first rate: as he never will understand me. I am in earnest and bespeak your prayerful thought on the subject. Ask H P B how it would fit. He would keep all the books etc etc with great regularity and attend to all matters and do literary work of great value to the T S., T P S., and all the rest.

Meanwhile I am rushed. Am getting out a record edition of Patanjali in your english and think it will sell. It will go to the printer a week or two.

As Ever old man

WILLIAM Q


Feb. 8, 1889.
Mrs. Alice M Wyman

Dear Madam:

The experiences you relate are those common in mediumship. You cannot help the girl to anything but mediumship and that is a detriment. Already she has attracted to her the worst of elementaries — a suicide — and no one can tell when others may get in the same road. All the teaching I know is against mediumship but not against cultivating an acquaintance with ones own spirit — this is never done by mediumship.

Better bring such things to a close, and try to surround the girl and yourself with thoughts of spirit and not of matter — for these experiences are all of matter. The girl is all mixed up even in her psychic flights with monks and priests and so on, and you cannot tell when a messenger of Master may speak through her (and that is not probable) and when not. A Guru does not come by mediumship but silently reveals within and in dreamless sleep. The right road is indicated in the Memo. and rules.

The first instruction will soon be forwarded from London. Meanwhile patience is a virtue.

Sincerely yours,

WILLIAM Q. JUDGE.


Feb. 13, 1889.
Mrs. A. M. Wyman

Dear Madam:

I have yours and am glad to read its contents.

The clairaudience and clairvoyance you refer to is not the function of the spirit but is the work altogether and in every case of the merely psychic senses, and have nothing to do with the spirit.

The latter can only be reached when we have become master of the body and of all sense.

The advice you got was good about the books and was no doubt a message given to the spooks by your own higher self or that of the other person. But in these matters one must accept only that which one is sure is from the higher self.

Fraternally yours,

WILLIAM Q. JUDGE


Feb 17 1889.

My dear Arch:

I have yours with enclosure. Yes, I am sorry you are not on the exchange list. I havent got any one yet, but hope in god.

Now as you say these "Revised Rules" of Hartes are nothing less than damnable. They are wrong, silly and hugely full of elements for trouble and dismay. His dismay will begin when he gets my letter of today, for I plainly tell him that we wont have it and will tear his constitution into bits first. It is the product of his brain. It begins nowhere and ends at no place. Just read the objects p.p. 53 and 54. He has cut off end of 2d and the words he has cut off embody the last 14 years efforts of H P B's life. And then 3d object he has made an abortion of by his injecting "pursued by a portion of the fellows" and the next sentence in brackets is put, unauthorized, and 2d, a lie, for the E. S. T. S. has nothing to do with Rules of T. S. or objects. And "Secy in Partibus"! What silly imitation of R. C. "in partibus infidelium." I have laid him out in 8 p.p. and ended by saying he might crawl through a hole and telegraph me "limited" meaning that the voluntary system is limited to India. Next week I am sending out to every Branch a notice to same effect, and at Convention I shall sit on it as hard as I know how. Such is my mind; and I feel very tired. He will do something else that will be a killer or else he will be sat on. The trouble is he has no one there to sit on him and will be quite unrestrained. He has a passion for machinery of a great size and these Revised Rules are his first chance since I sat on his "Elder Brother" scheme in 1886.

Well I havent time for more as you can imagine what a wealth of work has dropped on me since Alexander left — and it is likely to increase. Am hoping to have somebody fly in the window soon.

Will move Path office to 21 Park Row in March and then will have larger spaces not palatial but good and in a fine building where the elevator (lift!) does not run slow nor stop at 5.

Please note inclosed proof of my new American edition of Patanjali edited by me and dedicated to H P B. Am selling it already. Price $1.25. Better notice and advertise it.

Adieu then. Love to the brethren — Please tell H P B to surely send me a letter to read to convention and to also send me a rescript that this fee business is limited to India.

As Ever

WILLIAM Q


Feb. 20th 1889.
Dr J. F. Miller, Esq.

Dear Sir and Brother: —

Your favor in regard to your patient was duly received but owing to pressure of work, and also owing to the letter and enclosures being slightly illegible I have not given them quite the attention I otherwise would, and therefore will write to you on the basis of that which you said to me last night.

The case is not an unusual one. Through the unfortunate subject having allowed her thoughts to dwell too much on the man she loves, and he having allowed his to dwell too much on her, and these thoughts evidently not having always been of the purest there has been an elemental developed which taking the shape of her lover has fixed itself upon her as an incubus. Such cases are, sad as it is to have to admit it, not of phenomenally rare occurrence. No exorcism, and no remedies can be efficacious excepting insofar as they — the remedies — to a certain extent may [indecipherable] your patient from the effort to control her body, and allow her to thus give greater attention to regaining the mastery over herself. The regaining of this mastery is, of course, a slow process. She must interest herself in lines of thought, particularly thought connected with action, which will so engross her mind that the thought of her lover gradually vanishes therefrom. Nature abhors a vacuum, and like air rushing into empty spaces the old thoughts will, when her mind is not filled with others rush in to fill the void space and with them will rush in this elemental power which she has developed. She has gone down hill; she must now climb up the hill, even if with pain and difficulty. She and her lover little by little, imperceptibly and gradually have allowed themselves to fall from the highest plane of regard to a lower one of lust. He is not all to blame. She must have done her part; and when she has again done her part and retrieved the past she will be free from the baneful presence, and, whether her lover will or not, it must seek gratification elsewhere. Perhaps you think I have talked more common sense than theosophy, but you must not forget that in one sense theosophy is common sense par excellence; and he who looks only for doctrine, or some new or strange thing will be generally disappointed. And now one word in parting; all those external helps which you as a faithful physician will suggest are of the utmost importance. I refer to the use of a moderate and bland diet; the avoidance of stimulants, even tea and coffee, care especially in having the last meal a light one and not taken too soon before retiring, and the having the sleeping room well ventilated, the avoidance of heavy bed clothes, and an abundance of out-door daily exercise, etc. Although the external is but a manifestation or clothing of the internal yet the external itself powerfully affects the internal, and when a severe and doubtful internal struggle is going on a little carelessness about the external may decide for defeat rather than victory. Trusting that I may have served you I am

Yours fraternally

WILLIAM Q JUDGE


Feb 22 1889
Mrs D L Sherburne
Los Angeles Calif

Dear Madame:

Replying to your letter, I would advise you to join the T. S. Branch.

The spirit of the Branch should not be that it needs teacher and cannot get on without one. The T. S. is a Brotherhood and each unit (Branch) as well as each unit therein (member) should do all that they can for the Cause. When the disciples are ready the teachers will appear. By doing just what it can in studying theosophical doctrines, and with their own minds the members of a Branch will grow and teach each other, for as yet it is not teachers that are wanted, but the preparation found in study, work and self-discipline. The Branch should also try to spread before the people — without proselyting — the doctrines of Theosophy such as Brotherhood, Karma and Reincarnation, and meanwhile should exemplify Brotherhood, and act with energy as well as discrimination.

The first steps in true occultism are Self discipline, self knowledge and devotion to the interests of others — i.e.: unselfishness. One cannot hope to be a chela until the elementary steps are gone through. Your own heart will tell you how much you are prepared for chelaship. Secondly, the adepts when they do take a chela nearly always stop psychic powers for a while, until the disciple has got to know himself, his faults, his follies, his vices and his thoughts as well as his virtues.

By attentively reading the Path you will find much that you seek. See for instance in Feb. Path p. 342.

I enclose applications.

Fraternally yours

WILLIAM Q JUDGE


P. O. Box 2659, N. Y. City
Feby, 22. 1889.

My dear Griscom;

Your sketch of a plan for the working of branches of the T. S. came duly to hand. Please accept my thanks for the same. Now will you add a little more to the obligation by doing a little more thinking for me. I have in mind publishing in the "Path" from time to time subjects for discussion at the meetings of the branches, the discussion of these subjects being entirely voluntary, but done so nearly as possible in the same week by those which accept the suggestions. The harvest is so full that it grieves me constantly that the workers are not more ready. That there are workers waiting, and many of them too, I know, but they do not seem to know how to begin work. A little infusion of courage, of zeal, of faith and of confidence is all that is needed. I consider myself happy in doing the little which I can. But that which I can do is not only little, but others fail to receive the benefits which would accrue to them by doing on their own parts. Our members must not forget that they must rise by action, and by long, hard, steady action, to a higher state. It will not do for them to lie like hungry birds in the nest waiting with open bills for the mother to bring them food. They must out and search for their own food. They must be up and doing. No matter how crude their efforts they must make them. The beginning is always hard, but the sooner it is made the better. And I see no better way for them to make the beginning, after the regular duties of life are performed, than by activity in the cause. Right thought is one of the greatest of gifts, so let those that have it give it to their fellow seekers. And let them too get from their fellow seekers, so that they may as time passes be more and more, and being more and more have more and more to give. But to get down again to the point of departure, I like your suggestions. I want more and fuller ones; and also, as I said, a list of subjects suitable for discussion, and with it if possible, a brief analysis of each and also the names of books bearing upon it, so that members having the subject presented to them long before the time of meeting and being told where to look for information can be so prepared as to have each one something of interest for others. Those who have not the gift of speaking can at least read a quotation or two.

Will you undertake to overthrow my undertaking to furnish lists of subjects for discussion in the branches, and I will print them in the "Path"?

It is not necessary to go over all the possible subjects at once, but to show the manner in which the various doctrines may be discussed and applied in all directions. For example: KARMA. What is Karma? How many kinds of Karma are there, Is there left-over Karma? Do we exhaust in this life all previous Karma? (No) What sort of Karma is made by kicking an orange peel off the sidewalk? (This is called a sort of weak but still good Karma) etc. etc.

Waiting your answer I am,

Sincerely yours,

WILLIAM Q JUDGE



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