The New York Times on Madame Blavatsky and her Mahatmas

William Quan Judge · Blavatsky Tributes Series · 7 pages

In January 1889 the New York Times interviewed William Quan Judge — head of the Theosophical organisations in the United States, President of the Āryan Theosophical Society of New York, and editor of The Path — on his return from a trip to England and Germany undertaken in the interest of those organisations. His principal business in London had been with Madame Blavatsky, whom the paper describes as justly considered the head of all theosophical teaching outside India and Tibet, or, as she herself preferred to be regarded, the mouthpiece and representative of the Masters who seclude themselves somewhere in the Orient from public knowledge. The interview was republished in Echoes of the Orient under the title "Blavatsky Still Lives, and Theosophy is in a Flourishing Condition".

What Judge chiefly conveys is the sheer industry of her final years. She was living with the Countess Wachtmeister — widow of a Swedish count who had been ambassador to the Court of St James — in Holland Park, and scarcely ever left the house. From half past six in the morning until evening she was constantly at work: articles for Lucifer and other theosophical publications, correspondence, and the preparation of further volumes of The Secret Doctrine. The evenings brought visitors of every kind, inquirers and critics and sceptics and curiosity-seekers alongside friends, and all of them, Judge says, were welcomed with such grace and simplicity that everyone was made to feel at home.

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