The Astral Power Struggle

During last summer, Mr. William Q. Judge appeared in Seattle and announced himself as the favorite pupil and familiar friend of the late Madame Blavatsky. In the absence of any authoritative commission, Mr. Judge's claim to the peculiar confidence of the dead Pythoness of Theosophy was treated with respect. The actual functions of leadership have been exercised since Blavatsky’s death by Mr. Judge and Mrs. Annie Besant, while Colonel Henry P. Olcott has been next in influence. Henry B. Foulke, of Philadelphia, however, according to recent dispatches, asserts that not long after Madame Blavatsky’s physical death, her astral body appeared to him and promised to give him in due season a special token of her favor. His friends hint that Foulke even received by Koot Hoomi, or one of his deputies, a commission in Blavatsky’s own handwriting. This claim of Foulke to the succession was at once respected. He is receiving scores of letters daily hailing him as the new leader. The special token, promised by Blavatsky, has arrived in the form of a portrait of herself painted upon a blank canvas. Mr. Judge would appear to be mistaken in his estimate of his theosophic consequence, while Annie Besant and Colonel Olcott can pool their griefs by impeaching the authenticity of the Blavatsky portrait, and claiming that Mr. Foulke has contrived a cunning fraud to secure the succession.