Page:Isis very much unveiled - being the story of the great Mahatma hoax (IA b24884273).pdf/138

130 Theosophical movement. No amount of argument or Maskelyneish explanation will drive out that knowledge. It will bear all the assaults of time and foolish men. And the only basis on which I can place the claim of communication by the Masters to me, so far as the world is concerned, is my life and acts. If those for the last twenty years go to prove that I cannot be in communication with such beings, then all I may say one way or the other must go for naught.

Why so many educated Englishmen reject the doctrine of the perfectibility of man, illustrated by the fact of there now existing Masters of wisdom, passes my comprehension, unless it be true, as seems probable, that centuries of slavery to the abominable idea of original sin as taught by theology (and not by Jesus) has reduced them all to the level of those who, being sure they will be damned any way, are certain they cannot rise to a higher level, or unless the great god of conventionality has them firmly in his grasp. I would rather think myself a potential god and try to be, as Jesus commanded, “perfect as the Father in heaven”—which is impossible unless in us is that Father in essence—than to remain darkened and enslaved by the doctrine of inherent original wickedness which demands a substitute for my salvation. And it seems nobler to believe in that perfectibility and possible rise to the state of the Masters than to see with science but two possible ends for all our toil: one to be frozen up at last, and the other to be burned up, when the sun either goes out or pulls us into his flaming breast.—Yours truly,

[The following is the “affirmation” of Mr. Abbot Clark, enclosed with the above]:—

“San Francisco, Cal., April 21, 1894.

“I, Abbot Clark, a member of the Theosophical Society, do hereby state and affirm as follows: I have seen it stated in the newspapers that it is charged that I wrote Colonel H. S. Olcott in 1891 to India, and that in that letter was some message not known to me and that Colonel Olcott replied, asking where William Q. Judge was at the time, and that I replied he was in my house,. [sic] The facts are: That in 1891 W. Q. Judge was lecturing in