DISCORD IN THE AMERICAN THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.
Recent despatches from San Diego, California, announce that Mrs. Katherine Tingley, the leader of the American Theosophical Society, has been obliged to “accept” the resignation of Dr. Jerome Anderson, as president of the Point Loma University brotherhood. Dr. Anderson is in open rebellion against Mrs. Tingley. He declares that she usurped the place of leader of the Theosophists, that she spent $300,000 on a “freakish oriental court” at Point Loma, California, and went to live there with a court “such as has never been seen off a comic-opera stage;” that she invented new court regulations, and new branches of Theosophy, such as the “school for the revival of the Lost Mysteries of Antiquity;” that she compels men and women of wealth and high social position to wear “long gowns and ridiculous hats” in her presence. Dr. Anderson finally declares that of the 140 prosperous lodges organized by W. P. Judge, not more than a dozen exist to-day. In a published interview Dr. Anderson said: “One reason for our trouble is that our constitution is foolishly broad and confers unlimited powers upon the ‘master.’ Recognizing her autocratic powers under the constitution, she demands that all members bow their knees before her, and she expects them to worship her. From her decisions there is no appeal. If she exercised her functions wisely, there would be no trouble; but she is a foolish, vainglorious woman, whose head has been turned by adulation, and who can not brook any opposition. Her conduct is very unsatisfactory to the Theosophists, and we have decided to quit.”—Public Opinion.