Page:Isis very much unveiled - being the story of the great Mahatma hoax (IA b24884273).pdf/32

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Avenue-road was at first inclined to resent this ukase.

But Mr. Judge soon put a new face on matters when he arrived. That was a time of sore searchings of heart. With “H.P.B.’s” death the society’s one link with its unseen guides was broken, and “Masters” had let a fortnight elapse without giving any sign that they survived the decease of their high-priestess. William Q. Judge was to change all that.

On the evening of May 23 (he lost no time after his arrival), Mr. Judge suggested to Mrs. Besant that as they were in sore need of some assurance from Masters, they should repeat an old recipe of Madame Blavatsky’s for bringing those august beings to a point. He proposed that they should write a certain question on paper, put it in an envelope, shut that into a certain cabinet in “H.P.B.’s” room at Avenue-road, and invite the Masters to “precipitate” replies.

Mrs. Besant agreed. Mr. Judge himself wrote the question and closed the envelope, and put it into the cabinet.

Mrs. Besant did not stay in the room through the process of incubation. For “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear,” the Theosophic scripture reads, “He that hath eyes to see, let him put his Head in a Bag.”

After due delay, Mr. Judge took the letter out again. On his showing it to Mrs. Besant, judge of that lady’s emotion at the discovery that at the end of the question stood the word

traced apparently in red chalk; also, a little lower down, the words

with the impression, in black carbon, of a peculiar seal, representing a cryptograph M. (A simple way to produce this appearance is to hold a seal in candle-smoke and impress with that.)