Page:Isis very much unveiled - being the story of the great Mahatma hoax (IA b24884273).pdf/108

100 as to the date when we may expect to receive anyone of them back from the various regions to which they sped immediately after launching the report of their peculiar “Enquiry.” Their colleagues in England continue to speak as if a trip to New York carried one to the bourn from which no traveller returns.

But what of these colleagues themselves? Where is the “Voice of the Silence” of Avenue-road, St. John’s Wood? At point after point, the Story of the Great Mahatma Hoax touched matters to which one or other or all of them must have been privy. It told of missives which they had accepted as genuine, orders which they had acted upon, decisions in which they had agreed, fact after fact of which they had full cognisance. When Mr. Mead, the European secretary, gave out that he did not reply because he was not attacked, I did my best to oblige him; I began at the beginning, and challenged him at once as having been present and taken part in the “Judge’s-plan-is-right” decision; and I added that when he had denied my version of that I would supply him with further matter for denial. Whereupon the discreet European secretary subsided altogether.

Of course, some excuse had to be offered, and we have been told that what happens at meetings of the Esoteric Section is sacredly secret. Now, first, that only covers a small part of my story, some of which dealt with circumstances surrounding official acts of the society or its three sections. Secondly, the excuse is eminently one that accuses, by implying that what I say happened at those meetings did happen; for presumably members take no oath to keep secret what does not occur? But, thirdly, this alleged secrecy is a mere pretext; else how could Mrs. Besant publicly refer on platforms to “supernatural” experiences at those meetings; and Messrs. Old and Edge (the latter to this day holding office) raise questions about one such matter in print in Colonel Olcott’s journal; and Mrs. Besant, the Colonel, and a full council of officials notify Mr. Judge that in a certain eventuality (which did afterwards occur) they would make a “full publication covering all the details” of that matter, and others concerning the sacred Mahatma messages?

Whatever may be the “quasi-Masonic oath” of which we now hear, they evidently held that it did not bind them to conceal, with their eyes open, a fraud upon their fellow-members; and those who do so interpret it only throw a very suggestive light on their own action in