As to the "weak-minded Theosophists"--if any--they can take care of themselves in the way they please. IF THE "FALSE PROPHETS OF THEOSOPHY" ARE TO BE LEFT UNTOUCHED, THE TRUE PROPHETS WILL BE VERY SOON--AS THEY HAVE ALREADY BEEN--CONFUSED WITH THE FALSE. IT IS HIGH TIME TO WINNOW OUR CORN AND CAST AWAY THE CHAFF. The Theosophical Society is becoming enormous in its numbers, and if the _false_ prophets, the pretenders, or even the weak-minded dupes, are left alone, then the Society threatens to become very soon a fanatical body split into three hundred sects--like Protestantism--each hating the other, and all bent on destroying the truth by monstrous exaggerations and idiotic schemes and shams. We do not believe in allowing the presence of _sham_ elements in Theosophy, because of the fear, forsooth, that if even "a false element in the faith" is _ridiculed_, the latter is "apt to shake the confidence" in the whole. ... What _true_ Christians shall see their co-religionists making fools of themselves, or disgracing their faith, and still abstain from rebuking them publicly as privately, for fear lest this _false_ element should throw out of Christianity the rest of the believers. THE WISE MAN COURTS TRUTH; THE FOOL, FLATTERY. However it may be, let rather our ranks be made thinner, than the Theosophical Society go on being made a spectacle to the world through the exaggerations of some fanatics, and the attempt of various _charlatans_ to profit by a ready-made program. These, by disfiguring and adapting Occultism to their own filthy and immoral ends, bring disgrace upon the whole movement.--_Lucifer_, Vol. iv, pp. 2 & 3. THE DUTY OF A THEOSOPHIST In regard to the above it should be remembered that Madame Blavatsky wrote this in 1889 and had in view certain people who were advocating immoral teachings and practices in the sacred name of Theosophy, and it shows clearly what she would have done and what would be a Theosophical duty should ever a similar occasion arise. Thanks to the safe-guarding of the Theosophical Movement by the Constitution of the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society, such cannot ever arise in the Society itself, but just as there is no legal means of preventing anyone from calling himself a Christian however much his life may depart from the teachings and ideals of the Teacher whose name he so dishonors, so there is no means of preventing unworthy people from using the sacred name of Theosophy and giving out teachings or advocating practices which are absolutely contrary to the teachings of Theosophy as given first by our Teacher, H. P. Blavatsky, and later by her successors, William Q. Judge and Katherine Tingley.