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diff --git a/36373.txt b/36373.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f719d4e --- /dev/null +++ b/36373.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3812 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of H. P. Blavatsky, by Alice Leighton Cleather + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: H. P. Blavatsky + A Great Betrayal + +Author: Alice Leighton Cleather + +Release Date: June 11, 2011 [EBook #36373] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK H. P. BLAVATSKY *** + + + + +Produced by David E. Brown, Margo Romberg, Bryan Ness and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive/American +Libraries.) + + + + + + + H. P. BLAVATSKY + + A GREAT BETRAYAL + + BY + + ALICE LEIGHTON CLEATHER + + One of Her Pupils + + + PRICE + + _One Rupee, Fifty cents, or + One Shilling Six Pence_ + + PUBLISHED BY + THACKER, SPINK & CO + CALCUTTA + 1922 + + +WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR. + +=H. P. Blavatsky:=--_Her Life and Work for Humanity._ CALCUTTA: THACKER, +SPINK & CO., 1922. + +=In Collaboration with Mrs. Laura Langford:=--_Helena Petrovna +Blavatsky. Personal Recollections by Old Friends._ New York, 1922. + +=In Collaboration with Mr. Basil Crump:= _Richard Wagner's Music +Dramas._ Embodying Wagner's own interpretations based upon his studies +of Oriental Philosophy. + +LONDON: METHUEN & CO., 4 VOLS. + + + + + H. P. BLAVATSKY + + +"Behold the truth before you! a clean life, an open mind, a pure heart, +an eager intellect, an unveiled spiritual perception, a brotherliness +for one's co-disciple, a readiness to give and receive advice and +instruction, a loyal sense of duty to the Teacher, a willing obedience +to the behests of TRUTH, once we have placed our confidence in, and +believe that Teacher to be in possession of it; a courageous endurance +of personal injustice, a brave declaration of principles, a valiant +defence of those who are unjustly attacked, and a constant eye to the +ideal of human progression and perfection which the secret science +(_Gupta Vidya_) depicts--these are the golden stairs up the steps of +which the learner may climb to the Temple of Divine Wisdom. Say this to +those who have volunteered to be taught by you." + + Letter to H. P. B. from her Master + (concerning her E. S. students.) + + + + + H. P. BLAVATSKY + + A GREAT BETRAYAL + + BY + + ALICE LEIGHTON CLEATHER + + _One of Her Pupils_ + + _Published by_ + + THACKER, SPINK & CO + CALCUTTA + 1922 + + + + +"Tell them ...; As pure water poured into the scavenger's bucket is +befouled and unfit for use, so is divine truth when poured into the +consciousness of a Sensualist.... Observe, that the first of the steps +of gold which mount towards the Temple of Truth is--A CLEAN LIFE. This +means a purity of body, and a still greater purity of mind, heart and +spirit." + + Letter to H. P. B. from her Master + (concerning her E. S. students.) + + + + + CONTENTS. + + PAGE + + FOREWORD vii + + INTRODUCTORY 1 + + MR. WILLIAM KINGSLAND ON THE CRISIS OF 1906 7 + + M. M. SCHURE AND LEVY ON THE CRISIS OF 1913 11 + + MRS. BESANT'S "RETURN OF THE CHRIST" 15 + + FUNDAMENTAL CAUSES: SOME OCCULT METHODS 23 + + H. P. BLAVATSKY ON TRUE OCCULTISM 31 + + MRS. BESANT'S RESPONSIBILITY AND THE MADRAS LAW-SUITS 39 + + THE CENTRAL HINDU COLLEGE: AN INDIAN CRITICISM 43 + + MRS. BESANT'S LATEST ASSERTIONS AND CLAIMS EXAMINED 51 + + TAMPERING WITH H. P. BLAVATSKY'S WRITINGS 71 + + "ANNIE BESANT'S CORRUPTION OF THE SECRET DOCTRINE" 76 + + THE TRUTH ABOUT THE E. S. COUNCIL AND THE INNER GROUP 83 + + CONCLUSION 89 + + + ADDENDUM. + + THE AUSTRALIAN CRISIS 92 + + AN INDICTMENT OF MRS. BESANT BY A RESIGNING MEMBER OF + HER E. S. 95 + + BIBLIOGRAPHY 97 + + + + +"There is a very, very ancient maxim, far older than the time of the +Romans or the Greeks.... It is a maxim all of them ought to +remember--and live accordingly ... a sound and pure mind requires a +sound and pure body. Bodily purity every adept takes precautions to +keep.... Most of them know this.... But though they have been repeatedly +told of this _sine qua non_ rule on the Path of Theosophy and +_Chelaship_, how few of them have given attention to it.... Behold, how +many of them are ... debauchees, GUILTY OF SECRET IMMORALITY in more +than one form.... Though such a person with any of the faults as above +declared [others are named] should fill the world with his charities, +and make his name known throughout every nation, he would make no +advancement in the practical occult sciences, but be continually +slipping backward. The 'six and ten transcendental virtues,' the +Paramitas[1], are not for full grown Yogis and priests alone, but for +all those who would enter the 'Path.'" + + + Letter to H. P. B. from her Master + (concerning her E. S. students.) + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] _See "The Voice of the Silence," by H. P. Blavatsky._ + + + + +FOREWORD. + + +This Protest has been undertaken at the earnest and repeated requests of +Theosophical friends of long standing. They feel strongly that the time +has come for one of H. P. Blavatsky's old pupils, who was a member of +her Inner Group, to demonstrate as clearly as possible that the +teachings promulgated for nearly twenty years past by the present +leaders of the "Theosophical Society" have departed more and more from +H. P. B.'s, and are now their direct antithesis, particularly on the +fundamental question of sex morality. + +Since Mr. G. R. S. Mead, one of my fellow-members of the Inner Group, +spoke out at the Leadbeater Inquiry of 1906, and resigned, no other +surviving member, so far as I have been able to ascertain, has attempted +to stem the awful and ever increasing tide of horror and delusion, that +is, engulfing--one might almost say _has_ engulfed--Mrs. Besant's +Society. If Mr. Mead could say in 1906;--"We stand on the brink of an +abyss," what is to be said now? The enquiries and researches I have +undertaken to enable me to write this pamphlet have revealed the present +state of things to be far worse than I could have imagined possible. + +From the time I left Mrs. Besant in 1895 and Mrs. Tingley in 1899, I +have been out of touch with these two movements, each calling itself +"theosophical" and each leader claiming to be H. P. B.'s "successor." +This is the reason why I have hitherto kept silent; in fact, it was not +until I came to live in India in 1918, after spending some years on the +Continent, and met some of the members--both Indian and European--who +had left Mrs. Besant in more recent years, that I learnt of the +appalling developments since she became President and installed the sex +pervert Leadbeater as supreme esoteric teacher. + +I feel that I should be failing in my duty, and false to the solemn +Pledges I have taken, if I did not now do my utmost to clear H. P. B.'s +name from these horrible associations, and demonstrate that they have +nothing whatever to do with her Masters (the Trans-Himalayan +Brotherhood) or Their Esoteric doctrine. + +I therefore PROTEST with all my strength, and _in Their sacred Names_, +against what is to me a desecration and a blasphemy. + + + _September, 1922._ + A. L. C. + + + + +_Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad._ + + + + +INTRODUCTORY. + + +For the past fifteen years, despite repeated scandals, exposures, and +even the damning evidence produced in various court cases, Mrs. Besant +still persists in her blind and fanatical support of the sex pervert and +pseudo-occultist C. W. Leadbeater, and the promulgation of his delusive, +immoral, and poisonous teachings among the members of the Theosophical +Society she rules, and the public at large, to whom she is known chiefly +as an able speaker and an astute politician. Goaded by a revival of the +well-known evidence against Mr. Leadbeater, and a severe criticism of +her own actions, Mrs. Besant published in her official organ +(_Theosophist_, March, 1922.) an article entitled "Whom Will Ye Serve?" +and a long Supplement addressed to the members, reiterating her support +of Mr. Leadbeater, and making statements in justification of him and +herself that call imperatively for a dispassionate review of the history +of this ill-omened partnership, and the strongest possible protest +against the complete stultification and perversion of H. P. Blavatsky's +life-work and teaching that it involves. + +I have no personal quarrel with Mrs. Besant, whose brilliant +intellectual gifts we all so much admired in the early days, and who +accomplished such splendid work for the Cause during H. P. Blavatsky's +lifetime. I had already been a member of the Society for four years when +Mrs. Besant joined in 1889; and as we both subsequently became members +of the Inner Group of H. P. B.'s personal pupils, I feel I am in a +position to review the facts, and entitled to utter this protest. In +fact, I can no longer remain silent in the face of so much that is +abhorrent to every true Theosophist, to every devoted follower of H. P. +Blavatsky, her Masters, and Their teachings. + +In a private letter to Mr. Judge, in or about 1887, H. P. B. writes: "I +am the mother and creator of the Society; it has my magnetic fluid.... +Therefore I alone and to a degree ... can serve as a lightning conductor +of Karma for it. I was asked whether I was willing, when on the point of +dying--and I said 'Yes'--for it was the only means to save it. Therefore +I consented to live...." Obviously, the only possible conclusion to be +drawn from this is that, when in 1891 H. P. Blavatsky passed away (or +rather was "recalled") nine years before the limit of time within which +the Masters' help could be given,[2] it was because They saw that the T. +S. had definitely failed, that it could no longer be kept alive. + +A long and, in this connection, very important letter was written by H. +P. Blavatsky in 1890 "To my Brothers in Aryavarta," giving the real +reason why she did not return to India. Among other significant +statements which she makes (_Theosophist_, January, 1922.), there is one +which shows that she must clearly have foreseen the ultimate +disintegration of the Society, which occurred in 1895. Writing of the +shameful way in which she was thrown overboard, like a second Jonah, by +Colonel Olcott and the T. S. Council at Adyar in their cowardly panic +during the crisis of 1884-85, H. P. B. says: "It was during that time +... that the seeds of all future strifes, and--let me say at +once--_disintegration of the Theosophical Society_ [Italics mine.--A. L. +C.] were planted by our enemies.... In a letter received from Damodar in +1886 [He had been called by his Master to Tibet the previous year.--A. +L. C.] he notified me that the Masters' influence was becoming with +every day weaker at Adyar." Further on in the letter H. P. B. again +refers to Adyar, and to an invitation to return to India which "came too +late ... nor can I, if I would be true to my life-pledge and vows, now +live at the Headquarters _from which the Masters and Their spirit are +virtually banished. The presence of Their portraits will not help; They +are a dead letter._" [Italics mine. Yet Mrs. Besant asks us to believe +that They returned when she was elected President in 1907, and even +nominated her!--A. L. C.] + +In the same letter H. P. B. says that she was pledged never to reveal +"the whole truth" about the Masters to anyone, "excepting to those who +like Damodar, had been finally selected and called by Them." She also +speaks of him as "that one future Adept who has now the prospect of +becoming one day a Mahatma, Kali Yuga notwithstanding." It is he again +of whom she spoke four years earlier, when she wrote: "During the eleven +years of the existence of the Theosophical Society I have known, out of +the seventy-two regularly accepted _chelas_ on probation and the +hundreds of lay candidates--only _three_ who have not hitherto failed, +and _one only_ who had a full success." ("The Theosophical Mahatmas." +_Path_, December, 1886.) Damodar is the only _chela_ she ever spoke of +as a "full success" in her lifetime; and it is worthy of special note +that he was a high caste Brahmin who did not hesitate to give up caste +and become a Buddhist (so Colonel Olcott states). + +In the late spring Mrs. Besant paid a hasty visit to Australia, whither +her "brother-initiate" had to flee from India some time since, as +previously from London, Paris, and America. The cause is always the +same; scandals inevitably arise, and Australia has proved no exception. +Mr. Leadbeater is a "Bishop" of the "Liberal Catholic Church," an +anomalous body warmly supported and encouraged within and without the T. +S. by Mrs. Besant. Other of its bishops have incurred similar odium and +a "priest" has quite recently confessed in writing and implicated the +"Presiding Bishop" and others. It has been stated that all these men are +being watched by the police, who are only waiting to secure enough +evidence. Matters cannot go on much longer like this; and a pamphlet +published at New York last February says that "with difficulty a delay +of a few months has been obtained in a pending arraignment and exposure +in the Public Press in America." When it comes it will be a far graver +indictment than that which precipitated the 'Besant _v._ Judge' crisis +in 1894-95, and rent the T. S. in twain. _Then_ Mrs. Besant accused her +colleague Mr. Judge of "giving a misleading material form to messages +received psychically from the Master in various ways ..." (_Enquiry_ at +London, July, 1894); but _now_ she is deliberately condoning, if not +actually supporting, something far worse which was investigated and +found true by a T. S. committee of enquiry in 1906.[3] + +For those unfamiliar with the events succeeding H. P. Blavatsky's death +in 1891, I must add that those of us who supported Mr. Judge against +Mrs. Besant's charges came under the sway, after his death a year later, +of an equally masterful, able, and ambitious woman having very similar +characteristics and methods. This was Mrs. Katherine Tingley, formerly a +New York professional psychic and trance medium, from whose organisation +("The Universal Brotherhood") I resigned in 1899. Her activities are now +mainly confined to a colony in California. + +A point to which I think attention has not hitherto been drawn is the +striking similarity in the fate which befell Mrs. Besant and Mr. Judge +respectively after the death of H. P. Blavatsky. Being left as the most +obvious leaders of the European and American Sections respectively +(neither of them were in England when she died), the E. S. Council +decided that they should carry on the Esoteric School as joint Outer +Heads in place of H. P. B., oblivious of the fact that one of them (Mrs. +Besant) was untrained, and both were unfit to fill such a high occult +office (see _post_ p. 86). This soon became evident when each in turn +fell an easy prey to external influences which first separated them, and +then disrupted the Society and E. S. + +Among the old T. S. and E. S. papers now lying before me I find not a +few which throw a most illuminating light on Mrs. Besant's activities in +recent years. Before dealing with her latest statements I will quote +extracts from these papers in support and elucidation of the points I +wish to make, _viz_:-- + + (_a_) That under Mrs. Besant's guidance the T. S. has long + ceased to represent H. P. Blavatsky's teaching, or the thought + of its Founders. + + (_b_) That it is now completely dominated by the deluded, + impure, and poisonous ideas of an acknowledged sex pervert, to + whom this unhappy and misguided woman believes and openly + declares herself to be bound by indissoluble and age-long ties. + + (_c_) That in adopting and conniving at the promulgation of the + teachings of this man, and allowing him virtually to control + her Society, Mrs. Besant most impiously gives out that she is + acting under the orders of the Trans-Himalayan Masters of + Wisdom, and H. P. Blavatsky's directions. + +This last point (_c_) is the real gravamen of my Protest. It would be of +relative unimportance--Mrs. Besant having already wrecked the Society in +1895--that it had descended to the level of any existing sect, Christian +or other (as much a close corporation as the Adventists or New +Jerusalemites), had its two present leaders dropped the _title_, and +ceased to claim any connection with the "real Founders." But, on the +contrary, Mrs. Besant and Mr. Leadbeater use Their sacred names and +declare themselves to be under Their direct guidance. Such proceedings +merit the sternest possible moral condemnation in view of the facts. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[2] " ... there remain but a few years to the last hour of the +term--namely, till December the 31st, 1899. Those who will not have +profited by the opportunity (given to the world in every last quarter of +a century) ... will advance no further than the knowledge already +acquired. No Master of Wisdom from the East will himself appear or send +anyone to Europe or America after that period.... Such is the law, for +we are in _Kali-Yuga_--the Black Age--and the restrictions in this +cycle, the first 5,000 years of which will expire in 1897, are great and +almost insuperable." (H. P. Blavatsky in the "Book of Rules, E. S. T." +1888.) + +[3] For later and fuller particulars from Australia, see Addendum. + + + + +Mr. William Kingsland on the Crisis of 1906. + + +The first of the old papers I shall quote from is by my old friend and +fellow-Councillor Mr. William Kingsland, author of _The Esoteric Basis +of Christianity_ and kindred works. He was one of the leading members in +the early days under H. P. B. who, when Mrs. Besant on securing the +Presidency after Colonel Olcott's death in 1907 reinstated Mr. +Leadbeater, resigned their membership. Mrs. Besant had reviewed a new +book by Mr. Kingsland, and took the opportunity to refer to his +resignation. Replying in "An Open Letter to Annie Besant" dated +December, 1909, he tells her: + + You have dragged in a perfectly irrelevant, uncalled-for and + untrue statement which I cannot allow to pass unchallenged...." + The words I refer to are these: "We have here a very excellent + Theosophical book, with an evasion of all recognition of the + source whence the ideas are drawn. When Theosophy becomes + fashionable, how those who refuse to walk with her in the days + of scorning will crowd to claim her as theirs when she walks in + the sunshine amid applause!" Now these words convey the + implication, in the first place, that there is a connection + between the form in which my book is presented, and recent + events in the Theosophical Society which have led me as well as + many others, to sever our connection with that Society; and, in + the second place, that we now "refuse to walk with her" + because, forsooth, she is not now "fashionable," but "in the + days of scorning." Neither of these statements is true, and the + implication is most unworthy of you.... That, however, is a + small matter compared with the implication that I and others + have turned our backs on Theosophy for so unworthy a reason. + + Let me ask you to look at the names of the old and tried + workers whom you have forced out of the Society by your + disastrous policy, and then ask yourself in the Great Presence + whether it is true that any of them have deserted Theosophy--or + rather the Theosophical Society--because it is less + "fashionable" now than it was in the old days when you and I + and these others stood side by side and fought the battle for + H. P. Blavatsky. Did any of us shirk obloquy then, and do you + really think we are less ready to face it now? It is one thing, + however, to incur obloquy for the sake of Truth, and quite + another thing to be asked to do it _in support of immoral + teachings_.... What I want to point out now more particularly, + and in the interest of true Theosophy, is, that you are now + making the grand mistake--one never made by H. P. Blavatsky--of + thinking, writing, and speaking as if Theosophy and the + Theosophical Society were one and the same thing, absoutely + identical; and that there can be no Theosophy in the world + without the Theosophical Society, and no Theosophists outside + of it.... You must know that in leaving the Theosophical + Society, the great majority of us at all events have not given + up Theosophy, even if we may feel compelled to teach it under + another name, and though we can no longer work with or through + the Theosophical Society, we are none the less carrying on the + great work which H. P. Blavatsky initiated. + + But in the old days we did at least think that the Theosophical + Society stood for pure Theosophy and pure Morality. _We cannot + think or say this any longer._ The "Theosophy" of the + Theosophical Society is now a definite creed and dogma based + upon authoritative psychic pronouncements, from which those who + dare to differ are first of all squeezed out of office by the + President, and finally compelled to leave the Society, being + denounced in the strongest language as "persecutors" and + "haters." I am quite aware that all the time you are preaching + freedom of opinion; but that is one of the farcical aspects of + the _regime_ which you inaugurated.... Whatever you may preach, + it is now notorious that your practice has been the exact + reverse. You commenced by turning out the Vice-President for + daring to hold a different opinion from your own as to the + inception of the Society; and you then proceeded so to + manipulate matters that several old and tried officials who had + been in opposition to your pronouncements and policy, were + ousted from their positions as General Secretaries of + Sections.... Well, you succeeded in getting your own supporters + appointed--and in losing many hundreds of old members. + + Doubtless you will now have complete control and be able to + mould the Society to your own will and liking, and train it to + "obedience" to your psychic authority and visions. At what + expense and sacrifice of principles you have already done this, + we all know. But let none imagine that this is the basis on + which H. P. Blavatsky founded the Society; or that it will thus + fulfil the mission for which it was intended; or that it can + thereby become other than _a narrow and exclusive sect_. And if + perchance your statement is true that the Theosophical + Sciety--which you so mistakenly identify with Theosophy--is now + "in the days of scorning," possibly even more than it was in + the old days; What and who is it that has made it so? + + Is it not because the President and General Council have set + their seal and official condonation to a "theosophy" _which + countenances the grossest immorality_, and which can + advocate--as a means of "discharging [_sic_] thought-forms" + (see Van Hook's pamphlet)--a practice which you yourself once + characterised as being "when taught under the name of Divine + Wisdom, essentially earthly, sensual, devilish?" Yet it is thus + taught and justified--with an appeal to the laws of + reincarnation and _karma_--in Van Hook's pamphlet, which you + and the General Council have refused to repudiate, and have + thereby condoned. + + And now, since you have had your own way, and have cleared the + Society of the elements of the so-called "hatred and + persecution"; can you not at least refrain from hitting behind + our backs? Nothing is sadder for your old friends and comrades + than to see you stoop to veiled insinuations, and even direct + untruths; missing no opportunity--not even in the review of a + book--of striking unjustly and falsely at those who have + recently been your opponents, and who have now no direct means + of answering you, or of refuting your statements within the + Society itself. + +I have italicised a few passages which seem to be of special importance +as showing that, _thirteen years ago_, Mr. Leadbeater's sinister hand +had already grasped the Society and its infatuated President, and that +his vile and immoral teachings, supported by her, had driven out some of +the oldest and most clear-headed and clear-sighted of H. P. Blavatsky's +friends and pupils; among them Mr. G. R. S. Mead, one of the Leadbeater +Committee of Inquiry, who also resigned at the time Mrs. Besant became +President for the same reasons as those stated by Mr. Kingsland. The +"practice" to which he alludes in his Open Letter is of course now well +known to be that taught and advocated by Mr. Leadbeater, who claims that +in so doing he is acting on the advice and under the authority of one of +the Masters of Wisdom. Could a more terrible infamy be perpetrated! + + + + +M. M. Schure and Levy on the Crisis of 1913. + + +Let us see, however, what others have to say seven years later on the +state of the T. S. In 1913 another violent crisis convulsed this +miserable travesty of a Society that once stood for the highest +principles and ideals, but which even a Lake Harris might blush now to +be associated with. As before, it centred round the shocking perverter +of morals who had obtained complete ascendancy over Mrs. Besant. A book +entitled _Mrs. Besant and the Present Crisis in the Theosophical +Society_ was published in 1913 by M. Eugene Levy, "with a Prefatory +Letter by M. Edouard Schure," the well-known author of _The Great +Initiates_ and other mystical works. Writing to M. Charles Blech, +General Secretary of the French T. S., M. Schure states that he feels +"compelled to retire officially from the T. S." and that it is his +"duty" to give his "reasons straightforwardly." After alluding to the +date (1907), when M. Blech had offered and he had accepted the honorary +membership in the Society, M. Schure goes on to speak of Mrs. Besant, as +she had then appeared to him, in high terms, expressing the hope that +"the nobility of her past career" was an augury "that the T. S. would +continue in the broad way of tolerance, impartiality, _and veracity_ +which forms an essential part of its programme." M. Schure then +continues:-- + + Unfortunately things turned out otherwise. The primary cause of + this deviation lies in the close alliance of Mrs. Besant with + Mr. Leadbeater, a learned occultist, but of an unsettled + disposition and doubtful morality. After Mr. Leadbeater _had + been found guilty_ by an advisory Committee of the T.S. Mrs. + Besant publicly announced her reprobation of the educational + methods with which he was charged.... By an inconceivable + change of front she soon afterwards declared her intention of + bringing Mr. Leadbeater into the T.S. again and she + succeeded.... The excuses she gave for this recantation were + charity and pardon. _The real reason was that the President + needed Mr. Leadbeater for her occult investigations_, and that + this collaboration appeared to her necessary to her prestige. + To those who have followed her words and acts from that time + onwards, it is clearly manifest _that Mrs. Besant has fallen + under the formidable suggestive power of her dangerous + collaborator, and can only see, think and act under his + control_. The personality henceforward speaking through her is + ... the questionable visionary, the skilful master of + suggestion who no longer dares to show himself in London, + Paris, or America, but in the obscurity of a summer-house at + Adyar governs the T. S. through its President. The ill-omened + consequences of this influence were soon to appear before the + world through the affair of Alcyone and the founding of the + Order of the Star in the East.... If a real Indian initiate, a + Brahmin or otherwise, of ripe age, had come to Europe on his + own responsibility or in the name of his Masters to teach his + doctrines, nothing would have been more natural or + interesting.... But it was not in this form that we beheld the + new apostle from Adyar. A young Indian, aged thirteen, + _initiated by Mr. Leadbeater_ ... is proclaimed and presented + to the European public as the future teacher of the new era. + Krishnamurti, now called Alcyone, has no other credentials than + his master's injunctions and Mrs. Besant's patronage. His + thirty-two previous incarnations are related at length, the + early ones going back to the Atlantean period. _These + narrations_, given as the result of Mr. Leadbeater's and Mrs. + Besant's visions, _are for the most part grotesquely puerile_, + and could convince no serious occultist. They are ostensibly + designed to prove that for twenty or thirty thousand years the + principal personages in the T. S. have been preparing for the + "Great Work" which is soon to be accomplished. In the course of + _their incarnations, which remind one of a newspaper novel_, + these personages are decorated with the great names of Greek + mythology, and with the most brilliant stars in the firmament. + During a meeting at Benares, Krishnamurti presenting + certificates to his followers, received honours like a divine + being, many persons present falling at his feet. He does not, + however, utter a word, but only makes a gesture of benediction, + prompted by Mrs. Besant. In reporting this scene Mr. Leadbeater + likens it to the descent of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost. + + For this dumb prophet is founded the Order of the Star in the + East, which the whole world is invited to join, and of which he + is proclaimed the head ... this passive young prodigy, who has + not yet given the world the least proof of having any mission + at all [this is as true in 1922 as it was in 1913.--A. L. C.], + becomes henceforth the centre and cynosure of the T. S., the + symbol and sacred ark of _the orthodox faith at Adyar_. As to + the doctrine preached by Mrs. Besant, it rests on a perpetual + equivocation. She allows the English public at large, to whom + she speaks of the coming Christ, to believe that he is + identical with the Christ of the Gospels, whereas to her + intimates she states what Mr. Leadbeater teaches, and what he + openly proclaims in one of his books, _The Inner Life_--namely, + that the Christ of the Gospels never existed, and was an + invention of the monks of the second century. Such facts are + difficult to characterise. I will simply say that they are + saddening for all who, like myself, believed in the future of + the T. S., for they can only repel clear-sighted and sincere + minds.... In my eyes, one can no longer be an actual member of + the T. S. without implicitly approving the deeds and words of + the President, which flagrantly contradict the essential + principle of the Society--I mean _scrupulous and absolute + respect for truth_. For these reasons I regret that I must send + you my resignation as a member of the Theosophical Society. + +The italics throughout the foregoing quotations are mine, and serve +again to emphasise essential points; points almost exactly similar to +those raised by Mr. Kingsland, the most serious being the condonation by +Mrs. Besant of immoral practices in a colleague whose collaboration, as +M. Schure shrewdly adds, has become a necessity to her, and under whose +"formidable suggestive power" she has now completely fallen. If this was +true in 1913, what may not be said in 1922, when the intervening nine +years have given time for the growth and development of this deadly Upas +Tree? I use the simile advisedly, for this teaching _is_ a "deadly" +poison, not only from the ordinary moral standpoint, but especially from +that of the esoteric teaching of H. P. B. and the Trans-Himalayan +Brotherhood, under whose authority it is falsely and blasphemously given +out; I do not hesitate to declare it. + +M. Schure also emphasises an important and vital point which Mr. +Kingsland seems to have felt equally deeply, _viz._--That Mrs. Besant +has no use for any but those who accept everything she says and does +with blind subservience, even when, in the eyes of such men as M. +Schure, Mr. Mead, Mr. Kingsland, and others, it merits strong +condemnation as "untrue" and "misleading." In the pages of the recent +numbers of the _Theosophist_ the talk about "freedom of opinion" within +the Society is still repeated, although in actual practice, as I have +shown, the exact opposite obtains. Much that emanates from this tainted +source is so fantastic and puerile that ridicule ought long since to +have killed it, as it did Oscar Wilde's AEsthetic movement. + + + + +Mrs. Besant's "return of the Christ." + + +To return to M. Levy's book; it deals with "Mrs. Besant's Proceedings" +under various headings. In the one entitled "Mrs. Besant's Return of the +Christ" is to be found some of the most amazing balderdash--given out as +serious teaching!--it has ever been my lot to encounter. For instance, a +book called _Man: Whence, How, and Whither_, written by Mrs. Besant and +Mr. Leadbeater in collaboration, is quoted from by M. Levy at +considerable length. He explains that "the substitution of a "false +Christ" for the "Christ of the Gospels" is here supported by "_a new +order of evidence_" (Italics mine). Specimens of this "evidence" follow, +and I will here give some of it in order to show the almost unbelievably +low level of intelligence to which this whole mischievous +movement--miscalled Theosophical--has descended, and the sort of +elements in human nature to which such an ill-conceived and fantastic +production is designed to appeal. M. Levy writes:-- + + In the course of their investigations these two occultists look + up on the one side, the past incarnations of him whom Mrs. + Besant calls the "Master Jesus," that is, of the "Jesus" born + 105 B.C.; and on the other side, the past lives of the being + whom she calls the "Lord Maitreya, the present Bodhisattva, the + Supreme Teacher of the World"; whose ego at a given moment + replaced that of "Jesus," this being the last incarnation of + the Christ whose immediate return she is announcing. + + Let us first quote from their account of the incarnations of + the "Supreme Teacher" ... In the chapter headed "Early Times + on the Moon Chain," p. 34, we read:-- + + "There is a hut in which dwell a Moon-Man, his wife and + children; these we know in later times under the names of Mars + and Mercury, the Mahaguru and Surya. A number of these + monkey-creatures live round the hut, and give to their owners + the devotion of faithful dogs; among them we notice the future + Sirius, Herakles, Alcyone, and Mizar, to whom we may give their + future names for the purpose of recognition, though they are + still non-human."[4] + + In the Fourth Root Race we again find the personage supposed to + be "Maitreya" as the husband of the ego claimed by these + authors as that of "Master K. H." Mrs. Besant is again + incarnated in the family as daughter, the eldest sister of the + "Master M."; "Maitreya," the future World-Teacher, being at + this time the head of the tribe (p. 113).... + + We have thus reached to somewhere about the year 15,000 B.C., + and then--incredible as it seems--they give no further + incarnations of him whom they nevertheless claim to have been + the World-Teacher at the beginning of our era. + + They give us his incarnations as husband, as father, as + counsellor and priest, and are silent as to the only + incarnation of fundamental and vital importance to the whole + world. + + Let us see if the incarnations of their "Jesus" will fill this + gap in our knowledge, if they will throw light on this + essential point, thus left in obscurity. + + We meet this "Jesus" for the first time at the beginning of the + Fifth Root Race, as daughter of Alcyone (Krishnamurti) and + sister of "Maitreya" (p. 252.) + + Then, on p. 328, as the wife of Julius Caesar 18,878 B.C., he, + or rather she, being at this time the widow of Vulcan (Known in + his last incarnation as Sir Thomas More).... + + He is later identified as daughter of Alcyone-Krishnamurti (his + father) and Fabrizio Ruspoli (his mother),[5] parents at the + same time of the future "World-Teacher, Maitreya," their young + daughter. These incarnations took place 72,000 B.C., on the + shores of the Lake of Gobi, we are told on p. 490. + + In 15,910 B.C., we find "Jesus" as grandson of "Maitreya," and + as father and grandfather of a large family composed, as in all + cases investigated by these two authors, of _present_ members + of the Theosophical Society _only_, and including the faithful + friends of Adyar _to the exclusion of all others_.[6] + + " ... In 12,800 B.C. the "Jesus" of these investigations again + forms part of a very extensive family composed as usual of the + selfsame elements, and including amongst the names known in the + theosophic world that of Mme. Marie Louise Kirby (an Italian + theosophist recently at Adyar) who was his sister. "Jesus" was + then the father of Mrs. S. Maud Sharpe (General Secretary of + the English Section), of Julius Caesar, and of T. Subba Rao; + the Teshu Lama being at that time his daughter, etc., etc. (p. + 499).... + + Once more have our hopes been betrayed, for an absolute silence + broods over the Incarnations of "Jesus" later than this date of + 13,500, as it reigned over those of the "World-Teacher".... + + We cannot, however, conceive that this information gathered + from occult investigation will be felt to be indispensable by + anyone. Now that we know that Mrs. Besant's "World-Teacher" is + an ordinary man of the lunar chain (to whom Mrs. Besant was + first domestic animal and then sister, and who, in the early + period of our earth, was daughter of the young Krishnamurti (or + of M. Ruspoli), who could be found still to imagine that there + could be here any question, save a mad or impious joke".... + +Incredible as it may appear to those who know anything of H. P. +Blavatsky's teachings, their comprehensive grandeur and sublimity, +especially as given in _The Secret Doctrine_, this extraordinary mixture +of clumsy fairy-tale and extravagant and even malicious mumbo-jumbo is +apparently swallowed whole by the blind and credulous followers of this +grotesque "Neo-Theosophy." Not so much for them do I write as for those +who, while interested in these subjects, have neither the inclination +nor the leisure to examine, for instance, such published Records as +these from which I quote, for themselves. Such would naturally accept on +their face value Mrs. Besant's own account of herself and of her +Society, unaware that she is no longer anything but a "blind leader of +the blind," incapable of distinguishing light from darkness, truth from +falsehood. We have direct testimony to the truth of this statement in +Mr. T. H. Martyn's now famous letter to Mrs. Besant.[7] In it he tells +her:--"You have been relying upon C. W. L. as _sole intermediary between +the Hierarchy_ [the Trans-Himalayan Brotherhood, the Masters of Wisdom. +Italics mine.--A. L. C.] and yourself for many years.... C. W. L.'s word +is final and his seership infallible to you." The quality of this +supposed "seership" bears a very close resemblance to a stupid and +vulgar hoax. This is clearly shown by Mr. Martyn, who says:--"In 1919 I +went to America. Young Van Hook was in New York. He talked freely of C. +W. L.'s immorality and about _faking the 'lives' of people_" (Italics +mine.) Mr. Martyn then puts together various pieces of evidence against +this man, and tells Mrs. Besant that he finds "staring me in the face +the conclusions that _Leadbeater is a sex pervert_, his mania taking a +particular form which I have--though only lately--discovered, is a form +well known and quite common in _the annals of sex criminology_." +(Italics mine.) This sex criminal, then, is the creature whom Mrs. +Besant has accepted "for many years" as "sole intermediary between" +herself and--_the Masters of Wisdom_!! One almost hesitates to draw the +obvious inference; for this is the man whom she has for years held up to +and imposed upon their followers as a model of all the virtues--"a +saint"--a person "on the threshold of divinity." (See also footnote +_post_, p. 56.) + +Why has it always been necessary for Mrs. Besant to have an +"intermediary"? Before Mr. Leadbeater it was her Brahmin guide, and +before him it was Mr. Judge. To each in turn she gave implicit belief in +the matter of "messages" and directions from the Masters, while +outwardly claiming "direct" communication. The fact is that, as I have +come to believe, the plain psychology of the thing is--sheer femininity. +With all her intellectual talents, her once clear brain, Mrs. Besant is +(in her personality) just simple _woman_, relying upon male guidance and +authority as instinctively as any of her humbler sisters. And what +student of human nature will fail to recognise in her that purely +feminine trait of blind and fanatical "obedience" which loves to receive +and obey "orders" even though the result should be "a world in ruins"? +The existence of this fundamental and essential quality in female human +nature is the real reason why even the most broad-minded men shrink from +giving women equality of power with themselves in wordly affairs. + +Let me here declare what I believe to be the real truth; namely, that +after H. P. Blavatsky's death in 1891, neither Mrs. Besant, nor Mr. +Judge, nor Colonel Olcott, nor anyone else, could "communicate," because +_H. P. B.'s withdrawal meant the withdrawal of her Masters as well_. It +has always seemed strange to me that this was never realised by anyone, +for in this pamphlet I have quoted quite enough from H. P. B. to make it +perfectly clear. Does she not say in the 1890 letter to the Indians (see +p. 2) that after she had to leave India in 1885 the Masters' influence +at Adyar became a dead letter? Did not the Masters Themselves write as +early as 1884 that they could only communicate through her or in places +previously prepared magnetically by her presence? How, then, could They +be expected to continue to communicate or direct the affairs of the T. +S. (as They did in India until 1885), or the E. S. (as They did from +1888 to 1891), after They had withdrawn the Agent They had so carefully +prepared and subjected to the severest trials and initiations in Tibet? +Barely three years after this withdrawal the fatal "Split" took place +owing to Mr. Judge giving out what purported to be "direct" +communications, but which, as I discovered after working for a time +under his inspirer and successor, Mrs. Tingley, _were obtained from +her_. Mrs. Besant, in accusing him, did precisely the same, for she +stated in her _Case against W. Q. Judge_ that she had received her +orders direct from the Master, whereas (as I relate elsewhere, _post_, +p. 56) she admitted to the Inner Group that they came "through" her +Brahmin guide. + +This, then, was the great and fundamental error committed by the leaders +of the movement, after H. P. B. was withdrawn. It is responsible for all +the subsequent troubles, and the appalling situation with which we are +faced to-day. A great and world-wide organisation is being used to +promulgate blasphemous, poisonous and absolutely anti-Theosophical and +anti-Occult doctrines as emanating direct from the Masters who +definitely withdrew Their chosen Agent in 1891. (See _ante_ p. 2.) + +In any case, even had she lived, H. P. B. told the E. S. that the "last +hour of the term" was December 31st, 1899, after which "no Master of +Wisdom from the East will himself appear or send anyone to Europe or +America." (See footnote, _ante_ p. 2.) She also said that the next +Messenger would be sent out in 1975. Yet the fiction that the Masters +are still directing the leaders and the movement is kept up, not only by +Mrs. Besant, but also by Mrs. Tingley, 22 years after "the last hour of +the term." + +It is the same with all this wild talk about the imminent advent of a +"World-Teacher." Is this in the least probable, in view of the above +pronouncements? H. P. B. definitely states in _The Secret Doctrine_ the +exact opposite; but all the Neo-Theosophists seem to prefer the Besant +and Leadbeater books. H. P. B. says, with reference to this very +Maitreya whose name they so lightly take in vain, that He is not due +until the Seventh Sub-Race, _i.e._, several thousand years hence; and +that, in any case, "it is not in the _Kali Yug_, our present +terrifically materialistic age of Darkness, the 'Black Age,' that a new +Saviour of Humanity can ever appear." (S. D. Third Ed., Vol. I, p. 510 +_et seq._ See also _Theosophical Glossary_, "Kalki Avatar" and "Maitreya +Buddha.") If we accept H. P. B.'s authority there is no evading this +issue, and we must reject the Besant-Leadbeater pretensions _in toto_, +for their absurdity is patent. Yet they claim to have been specially +taught and prepared by her to carry on her message! (_Vide_ Mrs. Besant +in the _Theosophist_, March, 1922; and also _post_ p. 68.) + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[4] In these incarnations such names are used as; Mars for the "Master +M."; Mercury for the "Master K. H."; Surya, the Lord Maitreya, the +present Bodhisattva, the Supreme Teacher of the World"; Sirius for Mr. +Leadbeater; Herakles for Mrs. Besant; Alcyone for Krishnamurti; Mizar +for his young brother, etc. A list of these names and those to whom they +apply is given in the Foreword of the book. [Italics mine. Here we see +the bald and unabashed appeal to the personality and its ambitions and +desires which is characteristic of this kind of charlatanism.--A. L. C.] +We shall here substitute the names of the real persons as given in this +list for the fancy names used to distinguish them in the body of the +book, _Man: Whence, How and Whither_. + +[5] M. Ruspoli is an Italian theosophist recently living at Adyar, with +whom Mr. Leadbeater stayed in Italy. + +[6] It is a remarkable fact that outside this little circle not a single +being in our great world has ever entered into these family communities +to whom the honour is given of being the pioneers of every civilisation +of the past. Even though we are invited to assist at marriages running +into thousands, _ever_ the same names appear and _all_ the members of +_all_ the families are identified. This singular oligarchy of friends +and devotees of Adyar perhaps merited to be signalised throughout the +evolution of our earth, the more so that Mr. Leadbeater, writing in his +bird's-eye view of the twentieth century and of the pioneers of the +future sixth race, remarks maliciously: "We know who will _not_ be +there." He puts in italics the word _not_; desirous doubtless to +indicate the unworthiness of other theosophists. + +[7] Mr. Martyn is the President of the Sydney Lodge, Australian Section +T. S., a member of thirty years' standing. See Addendum. + + + + +Fundamental causes: Some Occult Methods. + + +Under this heading M. Levy deals with what he calls "the pitiful climax +of this parody":-- + + What a contrast to the great traditions of the Theosophical + movement, formulated by H. P. Blavatsky in _The Key to + Theosophy_ (Third Edition, p. 191);--"As for our best + Theosophists, they would also far rather that the names of the + Masters had not been mixed up with our books in any way." And + later, on p. 192;--"I say again, every earnest Theosophist + regrets to-day, from the bottom of his heart, that these sacred + names and things have ever been mentioned before the public." + And this would be the moment to say with Mme. + Blavatsky;--"Great are the desecrations to which the names of + two of the Masters have been subjected." ... But when all is + said and done, what _is_ this occultism which produces _such + disregard of truth, such calumny in daily life, such diastrous + confusion in the domain of clairvoyance_, and finally, _advice + of such a kind as to arouse universal disgust_? [Italics + mine.--A. L. C.] + + This occultism has its methods, as all schools of occultism + have; for occultism consists in a methodical training and the + awakening of consciousness to superior worlds; and where a + method produces such results, may we not regard it as + legitimate to ask what is the source of such serious and such + numerous aberrations?... On this question, as on all those that + we have examined, we will cite as witnesses original documents, + the appraisements of those who teach their own methods. It is + well known that Mr. Leadbeater is the inventor and manipulator + of the Adyar occultism. In the _Inner Life_ (Vol. I, p. 450), + in speaking of the centres, the awakening of which, as we + know, developes clairvoyance, he expresses himself in these + terms;--"I have heard it suggested that each of the different + petals of these force-centres represents a moral quality, ... I + have not yet met with any facts which confirm this ... _their + development seems to me to have no more connection with + morality than has the development of the biceps_." [Italics + mine. A little later I shall quote some very definite + pronouncements of H. P. Blavatsky's which teach the exact + opposite.--A. L. C.] + + Further, it is of interest to find Mrs. Besant and Mr. + Leadbeater, in the first lines of the Preface to _Man; Whence + How, and Whither_, expressing the same view as regards the + connection between morality and clairvoyance--"It is not + generally accepted, nor indeed is it accepted to any large + extent ... [clairvoyance] is a power latent in all men ... it + can be developed by any one who is able and willing to pay the + price demanded for its forcing, ahead of the general + evolution." + + Mrs. Besant is no less positive. A price is demanded for the + "forcing" of clairvoyance, but this price is neither "high + spirituality" nor "lofty intelligence," nor even "purity of + character" ... she fully shares the views of Mr. Leadbeater.... + + Thus the calumny, sectarianism, the disregard of truth in daily + life, the increasingly serious aberrations in the spiritual + life, have gradually revealed the main source of all these + facts, _i. e._, the defect of the method. + + All becomes clear. Mr. Leadbeater is probably right, and it may + be possible to develop, as he claims, a certain clairvoyance + (an inferior clairvoyance, it must be said) without the + concurrence of a moral and mental training.... But who will + maintain that without moral purification we shall possess that + moral sense that inspires gracious and noble conduct, and + teaches us to hate falsehood?... be able to distinguish + illusions from reality in our astral visions? + + Mrs. Besant and Mr. Leadbeater are most certainly not ignorant + of the dangers of occult development without morality. But it + is quite another matter to profess this theory, or even to lean + towards morality in the course of occult development, _by means + of ... generous aspirations perpetually evoked in eloquent + language_, from setting to work on the development of these + centres by means of exercises arranged with the express purpose + of bringing in the _practice_ of morality, of truth, and of + logic as powerful factors in the reorganisation of the subtle + bodies--which produces clairvoyance.... That method which + dissociates moral and intellectual aspiration from occult + development, and seeks to cultivate them separately, will not + achieve moral progress since _the inner nature is not + transmuted_; but this method will produce a very debauch of + phrases invoking these aspirations. For, instead of penetrating + by means of the appropriate practice into the inner regions of + the soul, these aspirations swirl, so to say, perpetually on + the surface of the mind. Their presence there will produce a + kind of psychic intoxication, sometimes rousing in the + occultist thoughts so much above his own mental and moral + standard, that he may come to regard himself as a saint, while + at the same time performing the most despicable actions. + Indeed, during such times the conduct shows a moral + retrogression very noticeable when compared with the conduct + before this occult development For this latter _increases and + intensifies all the temptations_, as every occultist will + admit. An increase of active morality is therefore, required if + we would avoid this most dangerous lack of balance.... + + We find constantly in Mrs. Besant and Mr. Leadbeater, under a + great show of high moral aspirations, the reality of an actual + moral and intellectual fall. Much emphasis is placed on + "liberty of thought" [see p. 14 A. L. C.], and at the same time + the intellectual desertion of this principle is preached in + counselling members to give blind obedience to "the least hint + which falls from the lips of Mrs. Besant," and to follow her + implicitly whether she is understood or not.... + + We see clearly that the fruits are precisely those we should + expect from the seed; the terrible danger of this method can + neither be misunderstood nor denied ... [we must] never lend + ear to the words which in this school quite naturally take the + place of the honest and right act, and so turn attention from + the moral ugliness of the actions performed.... _Acts alone + show forth morality, not attractive formulas flowing from + literary or oratorical talent._ The constant declaration of + liberty of thought, of human brotherhood, cannot impress us + when the actions of those who delight in them enslave thought, + persecute merit, seek to poison souls by flimsy and deceptive + spiritual pronouncements.... + + It is a painful duty to have to press this point with such + insistence. But now that we are facing the consequences of the + Leadbeater method on the mental character of the clairvoyant, + our warnings in reference to still more serious harm will not + appear exaggerated. + + We know that the higher regions of the invisible worlds are + those in which "consciousness" manifests itself principally in + the most intense awareness of moral beauty. + + Since this is so, the cultivation of the non-moral clairvoyance + could only attain results in the lower regions of the astral + world ... the organ of clairvoyant sight, when developed + according to certain methods, will be blind to the moral + outline of subtle worlds, _and will thus be cut off from all + their truly spiritual content. The field of their experiences + will be limited to the lower regions of the astral plane._ + + And it is these lower visions, more frequently experienced + because of _their affinity to elements in the vehicles of the + investigator not yet purified, that will be presented as the + most sublime images of the higher worlds_. For such a + clairvoyant is deprived of the high morality which is the force + leading our "bodies" by affinity towards truly spiritual Beings + [_e.g._, the Masters in Their Mahatmic "bodies".--A. L. C.] + Deprived of the standard of comparison that these provide, _he + will be the_ _victim of all the illusions of a world that is + the veritable motherland of illusions, for human errors are but + the faint reflection of these_. Since the sense of + responsibility, which is essentially moral in origin [H. P. + Blavatsky says; "_The sense of Responsibility is the beginning + of Wisdom._" A. L. C.] will equally fail him, _he will have no + scruple in sharing his illusions with all in making known his + misleading experiences_--the less since the forces, whose sport + he is, push him irresistibly to this. Are they not in truth the + adversaries of the divine scheme of evolution, _the servants + and sowers of error and immorality the world over_? + +In these clear and logical arguments M. Levy expresses, even in a +translation, so much better than I could have done, the dangers of the +way leading to the path of "error" which Mrs. Besant is now treading, +that I have quoted at greater length than I originally intended. +Although written nine years ago, they are more than ever true to-day. M. +Levy then continues:-- + + We have thus sketched in their broad hypothetical outlines _the + incalculable reactions that the defect in the Leadbeater method + brings into the inner life, into the words and actions of those + who yield their souls to him_. + + In demonstrating the fatal effects of this method we have shown + the real meaning of the faults and failings of all kinds as + exhibited by Mrs. Besant, who is its most fervent adherent. The + right interpretation of the known facts seems to us so entirely + in conformity with the consequences, as implied in our + hypothesis, as to make it possible to some extent to foresee + these facts with scientific certainty--which is precisely what + has happened.... + + We recall the "Leadbeater Case," which in 1906 [this was the + Committee of Inquiry in London, above referred to.--A. L. C] + called forth within the Theosophical Society, no less than + outside, unanimous moral censure.... Resigning from the + Theosophical Society in consequence of this affair, Mr. + Leadbeater has since returned, at the invitation of Mrs. + Besant.... Have the principles and methods of Mr. Leadbeater + changed since he has returned to his place amongst us? He + himself informs us on this point in a letter written after the + "affair," at the express desire of Mrs. Besant that he should + "define his position" at the time she started the well-known + campaign in favour of his re-admission (_Theosophist_, February + 1908.) + + "You ask me," says Mr. Leadbeater, "to write you a clear letter + that you may show at need, expressing my real views on the + advice I gave some time ago to certain young boys. I need + hardly say that I keep my promise not to repeat the advice, for + I defer to your opinion that it is dangerous. I also recognise, + as fully as yourself, that it would be if it were promiscuously + given, but I have never thought of so giving it." + + In this declaration Mr. Leadbeater first recognises the danger + of his advice, then immediately retracts this confession by + reservations which imply its harmlessness in just those cases + for which he is blamed. He has not, as we see from this letter, + then, changed his views; but the important fact is that he only + speaks of "danger," and never of "immorality." _His moral + standpoint remains, then, unaltered--is precisely the same as + before the expose._ + + And what is this point of view? Mrs. Besant thus gives it in a + letter dated July, 1906 (_Theosophic Voice_, May, 1908):-- + + "Mr. Leadbeater appeared before the Council of the British + Section, representatives from the French and the American + Sections being present and voting. Colonel Olcott in the chair. + _He denied none of the charges_, but in answer to questions, + very much strengthened them, for he alleged.... _So that the + advice ... became advice putting foul ideas into the minds of + boys innocent of all sex impulses.... It was conceivable that + the advice, as supposed to have been given, had been given with + pure intent, and the presumption was so in a teacher of + theosophical morality; anything else seemed incredible. But + such advice as was given in fact, such dealing with boys_ + _before sex passion had awakened, could only be given with pure + intent if the giver were, on this point, insane._" [Italics + mine. The details omitted cannot be put in print.--A. L. C.] + + "Let me here place on record my opinion that such teaching as + this, given to men, let alone to innocent boys, is worthy of + the sternest reprobation. It distorts and perverts the sex + impulse ... degrades the ideas of marriage, fatherhood and + motherhood ... befouls the imagination, pollutes the emotions, + and undermines the health. Worst of all that it should be + taught under the name of Divine Wisdom, being essentially + 'earthly', 'sensual', 'devilish.'" + +Mrs. Besant's last sentence contains the whole _raison d'etre_ of this +my Protest. She has expressed precisely the views I hold; but in this +fervid condemnation she herself must now be included, since she condones +and thus supports this horror. M. Levy graphically portrays for us on +what road it is that this once apparently sane and normal woman, with +all her great gifts, is descending--a road that, as H. P. Blavatsky puts +it in the concluding paragraph of _Occultism_ versus _the Occult Arts_, +"can lead only to Dugpa-ship." (see _post_ p. 33.) He continues:-- + + Mrs. Besant then deemed Mr. Leadbeater's morality so defective + as to be accounted for only by mental derangement. + Nevertheless, the promise contained in the letter just quoted + and which expresses no shadow of moral repentance whatsoever, + nor anything approaching it, was sufficient, in Mrs. Besant's + eyes, to justify her in bringing back into the Theosophical + Society a teacher she has judged thus. Could one ask a clearer + proof of the anarchy produced by such occultism? + + A recent suit, instituted by the parent of the young + Krishnamurti, re-claiming the custody of his child, brings + forward again this question of morality ... reminding us of the + expose. In fact, the present case clearly formulates the + accusation of immoral conduct testified to by witnesses ... In + such a discussion, this attempt [by Mrs. Besant] to play upon + the political interests of the judges is unexpected, + amazing,--and, alas! significant. We see clearly that a mind + that shows itself capable of throwing into the balance + political (and racial) appeals in a matter of conduct, is + utterly blind to the question of human consideration [a Brahmin + father re-claiming his young sons] that overshadows this whole + case. + + Clear and unmistakable through all these actions shows the + consistent distortion of the moral outlook, more serious since + the esoteric ethics should be an extension, a purification, an + exaltation of exoteric morality, and in no circumstances its + decline, its degradation, its negation. And if we would realise + to what extent this moral outlook can be warped under certain + influences, we need but to hear Mrs. Besant say of Mr. + Leadbeater:--"By hard, patient work he has won rewards ... + until he stands perhaps the most trusted of his Master's + disciples on the threshold of Divinity." (_Theosophist_, + November, 1911, p. 308.) + + This conception of the "Divinity" that should be the the final + expression of morality has no need of comment other than that + same "deification" by his colleague--who five years earlier + regarded his teaching as so utterly immoral as to suggest + mental derangement as the only explanation.... Perhaps we shall + understand these things a little better if we remember that + this occultist, if he contradicts the Buddha, on the other hand + almost deifies Mrs. Besant. Possibly taking into consideration + this exchange of admiration, the meaning of the "deifications" + will become sufficiently clear. + + + + +H. P. Blavatsky on true Occultism. + + +Before giving some fine passages from M. Levy's concluding chapters I +will quote from H. P. Blavatsky's _Practical Occultism: Occultism_ +versus _the Occult Arts_, mentioned a few pages back. In its original +form it is a booklet containing a reprint of two articles which she +wrote for _Lucifer_ in 1888, shortly before she founded the Esoteric +Section. These extracts will show the "true" teaching in this matter of +Occultism, as contrasted with the "false," or Mrs. Besant's and Mr. +Leadbeater's. H. P. B. begins by declaring that: "There are not in the +West half-a-dozen among the fervent hundreds who call themselves +'Occultists' who have even an approximately correct idea of the nature +of the Science they seek to master. With a few exceptions, they are all +on the highway to sorcery.... Let them first learn the true relation in +which the Occult Sciences stand to Occultism.... [It] differs from Magic +and other secret sciences as the glorious sun does from a rush-light, as +the immutable and immortal Spirit of Man--the reflection of the +absolute, causeless and unknowable ALL--differs from the mortal +clay--the human body.... [The word] OCCULTISM is certainly misleading, +translated as it stands from the compound word _Gupta-Vidya_ (Secret. +Knowledge.) But the knowledge of what? Some of the Sanskrit terms may +help us. + +"There are four (out of the many other) names of the various kinds of +Esoteric Knowledge or Sciences given, even in the exoteric Puranas. +There is (1) _Yajna-Vidya_, knowledge of the occult powers awakened in +Nature by the performance of certain religious ceremonies and rites. (2) +_Mahavidya_, the 'great knowledge,' the magic of the Kabalists and of +the _Tantrika_ worship, often Sorcery of the worst description. (3) +_Guhya-Vidya_, knowledge of the mystic powers residing in Sound (Ether), +hence in the Mantras (chanted prayers or incantations), and depending on +the rhythm and melody used; in other words, a magical performance based +on knowledge of the Forces of Nature and their correlation; and (4) +_Atma-Vidya_, a term which is translated simply 'Knowledge of the Soul,' +_true Wisdom_ by the Orientalists, but which means far more. + +"This last is the only kind of Occultism that any Theosophist who +admires 'Light on the Path,' and who would be wise and unselfish, ought +to strive after. All the rest is some branch of the 'Occult Sciences,' +_i.e._, arts based on the knowledge of the ultimate essence of all +things in the kingdoms of Nature--such as minerals, plants and +animals--hence of things pertaining to the realm of _material_ nature, +however invisible that essence may be, and howsoever much it has +hitherto eluded the grasp of Science.... _Siddhis_ (or the Arhat powers) +are only for those who are able to 'lead the life,' and to comply with +the terrible sacrifices required for such a training, and to comply with +them _to the very letter_. Let them know at once and remember always, +that true Occultism or Theosophy is the 'Great Renunciation of SELF,' +unconditionally and absolutely, in thought as in action. It is ALTRUISM, +and it throws him who practises it out of the ranks of the living +altogether. 'Not for himself, but for the world he lives,' as soon as he +has pledged himself to the work. Much is forgiven during the first years +of probation. But, no sooner is he 'accepted' than his personality must +disappear, and he has to become a _mere beneficent force in Nature_. +There are two poles for him after that, two paths, and no midway place +of rest. He has either to ascend laboriously step by step, often through +numerous incarnations and _no Devachanic break_, the golden ladder +leading to Mahatmaship (the _Arhat_ or _Bodhisattva_ condition), or--he +will let himself slide down the ladder at the first false step, and roll +down into _Dugpa-ship_....[8] + +"All this is either unknown or left out of sight altogether. Indeed, one +who is able to follow the silent evolution of the preliminary +aspirations of the candidates often find strange ideas quietly taking +possession of their minds. There are those whose reasoning powers have +been so distorted by foreign influences that they imagine that animal +passions can be so sublimated and elevated that their fury, force and +fire can, so to speak, be turned inwards ... _until their collective and +unexpanded strength enables their possessor to enter the true Sanctuary +of the Soul_, and stand therein in the presence of the _Master_--the +HIGHER SELF.... Oh, poor blind visionaries!... Strange aberration of the +human mind. Can it be so? Let us argue. + +"The 'Master' in the Sanctuary of our souls is 'the Higher Self'--the +divine spirit whose consciousness is based upon and derived solely (at +any rate during the mortal life of the man in whom it is captive) from +the mind, which we have agreed to call the _Human Soul_ (the 'Spiritual +Soul' being the vehicle of the Spirit.) In its turn the former (the +_personal_ or human soul) is a compound, in its highest form of +spiritual aspirations, volitions and divine love; and in its lower +aspect, of animal desires and terrestrial passions imparted to it by its +association with its vehicle, the seat of all these ... the _inner +animal_. [It] is the instinctual 'animal soul,' and is the hotbed of +those passions which ... are lulled instead of being killed, ... And +where, on what neutral ground, can they be imprisoned so as not to +affect man? + +"The fierce passions of love and lust are still alive, and they are +allowed to still remain in the place of their birth--_that same animal +soul_.... It is thus the mind alone--the sole link and medium between +the man of earth and the Higher Self--that is the only sufferer, and +which is in incessant danger of being dragged down by those passions, +that may be re-awakened at any moment and perish in the abyss of +matter.... How can harmony prevail and conquer, when the soul is stained +and distracted with the turmoil of passions and the terrestrial desires +of the bodily senses, or even of the 'Astral man'? + +"For this 'Astral'--the shadowy 'double' (in the animal as in man) is +not the companion of the _divine Ego_ but of the _earthly body_. It is +the link between the personal self, the lower consciousness of _Manas_, +and the Body, and is the vehicle of _transitory, not of immortal +life_.... It is only when the power of the passions is dead altogether, +and when they have been crushed and annihilated in the retort of an +unflinching will; when not only all the lusts and longings of the flesh +are dead, but also the recognition of the personal Self is killed out +and the 'Astral' has been reduced in consequence to a cipher, that the +Union with the 'Higher Self' can take place. Then when the 'Astral' +reflects only the conquered man, the still living but no more the +longing, selfish personality, then the brilliant _Auoeides_, the +divine SELF, can vibrate in conscious harmony with both the poles of the +human Entity--the man of matter purified, and the ever pure Spiritual +Soul--and stand in the presence of the MASTER SELF, the Christos of the +mystic Gnostic, blended, merged into, and one with IT for ever.[9] + +"How, then, can it be thought possible for a man to enter the 'strait +gate' of occultism when his daily and hourly thoughts are bound up with +worldly things, desires of possession and power, with lust, ambition, +and duties which, however honourable, are still of the earth, earthy? +Even the love for wife and family--the purest as the most unselfish of +human affections--is a barrier to _real_ occultism.... While the heart +is full of thoughts for a little group of _selves_, near and dear to us, +how shall the rest of mankind fare in our souls? What percentage of love +and care will there remain to bestow on the 'great orphan' [Humanity]? +And how shall the 'still small voice' make itself heard in a soul +entirely occupied with its own privileged tenants?... yet, he who would +profit by the wisdom of the universal mind, has to reach it through _the +whole of Humanity_, without distinction of race, complexion, religion, +or social status. It is _altruism,_ not _ego_-ism even in its most legal +and noble conception, that can lead the unit to merge its little Self in +the Universal Selves. It is to _these_ needs and to this work that the +true disciple of true Occultism has to devote himself if he would obtain +_theo_-sophy, divine Wisdom and Knowledge. + +"The aspirant has to choose absolutely between the life of the world and +the life of Occultism.... It would be a ceaseless, a maddening struggle +for almost any married man, who would pursue _true_ practical Occultism, +instead of its _theoretical_ philosophy. For he would find himself ever +hesitating between the voice of the impersonal divine love of Humanity, +and that of the personal, terrestrial love.... Worse than this. For, +_whoever indulges, after having pledged himself to_ OCCULTISM, _in the +gratification of a terrestrial love or lust_, must feel an almost +immediate result--that of being irresistibly dragged from the impersonal +divine state down to the lower plane of matter. Sensual, or even mental, +self-gratification involves the immediate loss of the powers of +spiritual discernment; the voice of the MASTER can no longer be +distinguished from that of one's passions, or _even that of a Dugpa_; +the right from wrong; sound morality from mere casuistry. The Dead Sea +fruit assumes the most glorious mystic appearance ... although it is the +intention that decides primarily whether _white_ or _black_ magic is +exercised, yet the results even of involuntary sorcery cannot fail to be +productive of bad Karma.... _Sorcery is any kind of evil influence +exercised upon other persons, who suffer, or make other_ persons to +suffer, in consequence ... such causes produced have to call forth +effects, and these are evidenced in the just laws of Retribution. + +"Much of this may be avoided if people will only abstain from rushing +into practices neither the nature nor importance of which they +understand.... We are in the Kali-Yuga and its fatal influence is a +thousand-fold more powerful in the West than it is in the East; _hence +the easy preys made by the Powers of the Age of Darkness in this cyclic +struggle, and the many delusions under which the world is now +labouring_." (Italics mine--A. L. C.) + +Applying this high and absolutely uncompromising moral standard, these +grand and stern words, to the two pseudo-occultists under discussion, it +is not difficult--even in the light of the little I have already +given--to see that they themselves, and their actions, bear _no sort of +relation_ to real "Occultism" as here briefly outlined by H. P. +Blavatsky. Their teaching concerning sex is indeed its antithesis, which +inevitably leads to Dugpa-ship, as H. P. B. definitely states. The issue +is clear, and cannot be evaded or explained away. + +It is true that Mrs. Besant started well, even splendidly, in H. P. B.'s +lifetime, and just after her death wrote a series of simple explanatory +manuals which were of great value to beginners and enquirers. But only +two years later she began, under Brahmin[10] inspiration, to make +serious alterations in H. P. B.'s own works, and even to throw doubt on +her occult knowledge (_e.g._, Mrs. Besant's Preface to the so-called +Vol. III of _The Secret Doctrine_.) Unfortunately larger and more +ambitious works which followed were vitiated by the same influences, and +I well remember marking many passages in _The Ancient Wisdom_ which were +not in accordance with H. P. B.'s teachings. But the radical departure +from them began when Mrs. Besant definitely threw in her lot with C. W. +Leadbeater, the sex pervert, and thereby alienated and caused such deep +sorrow to her former friends and supporters. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[8] DUGPAS. (_Tibetan_). Lit., "Red Caps," a sect in Tibet. Before the +advent of Tsong-ka-pa in the fourteenth century, the Tibetans, whose +Buddhism had deteriorated and been dreadfully adulterated with the +tenets of the old _Bhon_ religion--were all Dugpas. From that century, +however, and after the rigid laws imposed upon the _Gelukpas_ (Yellow +Caps) and the general reform and purification of Buddhism (or Lamaism), +the Dugpas have given themselves over more than ever to sorcery, +immorality, and drunkenness. Since then the word _Dugpa_ has become a +synonym of "sorcerer", "adept of black magic" and everything vile. There +are few, if any, Dugpas in Eastern Tibet, but they congregate in Bhutan, +Sikkim, and the borderlands generally.--_The Theosophical Glossary_, by +H. P. Blavatsky. + +[9] Man is a trinity composed of Body, Soul, and Spirit; but _man_ is +nevertheless _one_, _and_ is surely not his body. The three 'Egos' are +MAN in his three aspects on the astral, intellectual or psychic, and +Spiritual planes, or states. + +[10] In making use of the word "Brahmin" in this connection, I mean only +to indicate that "sacerdotal" spirit of the Brahmin caste which has +always resisted (and quite reasonably, _from their point of view_) any +revealing of esoteric teaching to the multitude, and especially to the +West. The particular Brahmin whom Mrs. Besant followed at that period +(see _post_ p. 56 Footnote) induced her to adopt a line of action which +disrupted the Society created by H. P. B., and diverted attention from +her works. + + + + +Mrs. Besant's responsibility and the Madras Law-suits. + + +M. Levy's concluding chapter, from which I will now quote, is obviously +written from the heart. He says that it is his "imperative duty" to +resign his membership in Mrs. Besant's Society, referring to the pain +caused to her old friends by the opinion expressed by the police court +magistrate in the defamation cases ... for he considered that the facts +before him, and the documentary evidence, supported the view that Mrs. +Besant had known of and even countenanced the practices of Mr. +Leadbeater.... + + "In restoring to Mr. Leadbeater his influence over herself and + over the destinies of the Theosophical Society [she] has proved + her failure in moral vigilance and her lack of intellectual + discrimination as regards methods to which she thus fails the + first victim. And the sorry contradictions that this brings + into her spiritual message, the utter disregard of truth + resulting from this, impel her to words and actions that now + involve an incalculable number of victims, misled by their + devoted trust in her. Her responsibility is in truth a very + terrible one.... I have come to regard the actions of Mrs. + Besant--and of Mr. Leadbeater equally, of course--as the + _leaven of destruction, of disintegration in the Theosophical + Society_. + + We cannot rid ourselves of a growing disquiet in seeing Mrs. + Besant, in her monthly articles in the _Theosophist_, entitled + "On the Watch-Tower," so tirelessly expressing such great and + manifest satisfaction in every smallest material increase, + improvement and enrichment of the Adyar Headquarters. + + Mr. Leadbeater shares in this joy. Speaking of Mrs. Besant in + the _Adyar Album_, p. 7, he praises at great length the + material improvements of the Headquarters:--"In her reign have + been added to the estate no less than six valuable pieces of + property." Thus temporal power would clearly seem to be the + main concern of Adyar. And we involuntarily turn to the words + of Christ, who so well described the spiritual splendours:--"My + kingdom is not of this world." _Not thus does Mrs. Besant + understand spirituality_ since she "reigns" as a prince of this + world, over a kingdom that grows by her conquests.... A like + concern follows Mr. Leadbeater even into his occult + investigations into the twenty-eighth century, in which he sees + "a kind of gorgeous palace with an enormous dome, the central + part of which must be an imitation of the Taj Mahal at Agra, + but on a much larger scale. In this great building they mark as + memorials certain spots by pillars and inscriptions, such as + ... here such and such a book was written ... they even have + statues of _some of us_ [_sic!!_] ...--_Man; Whence, How, and + Whither._ + +Truly may one here repeat the somewhat banal phrase "Comment is +needless"; indeed one might add, "impossible," in the face of such an +amazing manifestation of megalomania. But this is not the most serious +disease from which C. W. Leadbeater and his colleague are suffering. As +M. Levy has already shown, there is much worse behind of which this +megalomania is only one symptom. In an "Addendum" given at, the end of +his book, M. Levy says that since the publication of his brochure +judgment has been pronounced on the case he mentions (see p. 29), the +judge ruling that the children should be removed from the care of Mrs. +Besant and given back to the father within a fixed time." He then +continues:-- + + Further legal proceedings have confirmed, with yet more + precision, the infamous immorality of which Mr. Leadbeater + stands accused. (see report in _The Hindu_, Madras, May 9th, + 1913.) A Madras medical review called _The Antiseptic_ had + pubished an article in which apprehension of the establishment + of a 'Temple of Onanism" ["unnatural sin." See Dr. Hartmann's + _Paracelsus_, p. 90] at Adyar was expressed. _The Hindu_ + newspaper reprinted the scandal. Mrs. Besant took proceedings + aga nst the author of the article and the publisher of _The + Antiseptic_; and the Treasurer of the Theosophical Society was + moved at the same time to action against _The Hindu_. _All + three cases were dismissed._ The gravity of the position is + evident. Mr. Leadbeater's methods have been proved by his own + admissions as well as by documents before the Court to be + subversive of morality.... + + These facts [I omit the worst details that M. Levy feels + obliged to quote] condemn Mr. Leadbeater without possibility of + appeal; they reveal to us, with regard to Mrs. Besant, a truly + degrading complaisance, by reason of her desire to hide a crime + as patent as it is abominable ... the members of the + Theosophical Society are not only kept in complete ignorance + regarding these facts, but the administration of Adyar, through + its extensive propaganda, has a great influence over new + members in all conditions, while concealing and perverting the + truth.... The existence of persons like Mr. Leadbeater, who + admit and practise the worst perversities, is a sad reminder of + the darker side of human nature; yet the attitude of simply + ignoring that such things exist seems indefensible when these + persons pretend to the highest morality and represent + themselves as guides towards spiritual development ... claiming + to stand "on the threshold of divinity.".. The danger that such + persons may continue to extend their empire over the souls of + others is an increasing one.... + +In view of these "facts" M. Levy's restraint of language is remarkable, +his condemnation hardly sufficiently scathing. His concluding words, +however, explain much; he has evidently greatly admired Mrs. Besant in +earlier years, and the last paragraph of his book eloquently attests his +personal grief:--"The feeling which here arrests my pen, and prevents me +from saying more on the matter, will be understood by those who have +followed me so far, and they may hear across my silence the voice of +their own sorrow." I deeply respect M. Levy's feelings; but for me--who +have never had any illusions regarding Mrs. Besant from the time of the +disruption of the Society in 1894-5--the matter assumes a more sinister +aspect. His pages have rendered me most invaluable help in putting +before the general public matter not personally known to my own +experience. I left Colonel Olcott's Society in 1895, M. Levy left Mrs. +Besant's in 1913; and when we remember that this was its condition nine +years ago, my previous remarks (see p. 14) may be better appreciated now +that more evidence has been adduced + + + + +The Central Hindu College. An Indian Criticism. + + +In a pamphlet published at Benares about the same date (1913) by Pandit +Bhagavan Das, "a former General Secretary of the Indian Section T. S." +we possess still further evidence of Mrs. Besant's extraordinary +aberrations under C. W. Leadbeater's guidance and control. Mr. Das's +pamphlet is addressed to the editor of the London _Christian +Commonwealth_, and is entitled "The Central Hindu College and Mrs. +Besant." It is a reply to some "remarks" by her on this College, which +appeared in that paper in June, 1913. Mr. Das writes:-- + + [Mrs. Besant's] remarks on the Central Hindu College [Benares] + in your paper are illustrations of this sad change in her. This + Institution, for which she has done more than anyone else + perhaps, she now openly and obviously tries to injure most + deeply in the minds of the public by wild suggestions that it + and the Hindu University, into which it is proposed to be + expanded, are mixed up with political seditionists and + extremists ... that such an educational movement is in any way + mixed up with seditionism and extremism is an idea ... + fatuously ludicrous.... The reckless, incoherent, + self-contradictory, incorrect and misleading statements that + Mrs. Besant has been freely making latterly in the public + press, have only injured her own reputation.... The C. H. C. + was founded in July, 1898, in order to do for the numerous + sects and sub-divisions of Hinduism what the T. S. was + endeavouring to do for all views and religions.... The College + grew and prospered year by year, under the Presidentship of + Mrs. Besant, and won the confidence ... of Hindus of almost all + shades of opinion.... But with the transfer of Mrs. Besant + from Benares to Adyar in 1907, as President of the T. S., + elected _under very peculiar circumstances_ [as I learnt + recently from a very old member present in Adyar when Colonel + Olcott was on his deathbed. Italics mine.--A. L. C.] + foreshadowing the coming policies, a change began to come over + the spirit of all her work and surroundings. Despite the + suggestions, advice, entreaties, expostulations, and warnings + of her old colleagues and counsellors _who had made her work in + India possible_ [Italics mine.--A. L. C.], she developed more + and more and beyond all due bounds, the germ of person-worship + so long held in restraint. Entirely proofless claims to + superphysical powers and experiences, to being an Initiate, an + Arhat, a Mukta and what not; claims to read Mars and Mercury + and the whole Solar System, past, present and future (but with + careful avoidance of even the most easy test, such as reading a + given page of a closed book) claims to be the authorised agent + of "the Great White Brotherhood which guides Evolution on + earth" and to be in communication with the Supreme Director of + the world and with "the World-Teacher," etc., in short, all the + elements of sensationalism and emotionalism--which were + subdominant and private (confined mostly to the "inner" E. S. + T. organisation within the T. S.) now began to be predominant + and public.... In the spring of 1909, a "brother Initiate" of + Mrs. Besant's "discovered" the boy, now nicknamed Alcyone, as + the future vehicle of the Coming Christ ... _"neo-theosophy" + was started more or less definitely_ [Italics mine.--A. L. + C.].... + + In January 1911 was started publicly by the then Principal of + the C. H. C., as the chief member of the "Group" an "Order" + called The Order of the Rising Sun, with the idea of "preparing + for a coming World-Teacher "as its publicly avowed central + idea, and the creed that the boy J. K. (Alcyone) would be the + "vehicle" of the "Coming Christ--Maitreya-Bodhisattva," etc., + as its privately understood creed, to spread which amongst the + students was the duty of the inner "pledged group.' ... [See + _ante_ p. 21. + +In short, Mrs. Besant cleverly utilised an already existing +organisation, founded for quite other objects and aims, to spread this +crazy and pernicious "neo-theosophy," under cover of secrecy, pledges, +etc., which she and C. W. Leadbeater--the real inspirer--well knew to be +almost irresistible baits for sensitive and imaginative youths at a +highly impressionable age. + +In April, 1911, on remonstrance by the older members of the Managing +Committee, Mrs. Besant arranged that the Order of the Rising Sun should +be disbanded. But this was mere show. When the disbandment was announced +to the managers, it had already been arranged to replace the O. R. S. on +a larger scale by _The Order of the Star in the East_ with the +Principal, Head Master, and various Professors of the C. H. C. as the +Private and other secretaries, of the boy J. K. as Head of the Order, +and Mrs. Besant as Protectress of the whole.... + +In the summer of 1911, side by side with this public activity, there was +started by Mrs. Besant _within_ the E. S. T. ... A WRITTEN PLEDGE OF +ABSOLUTE OBEDIENCE TO HERSELF. This fact, "private and confidential" at +the time, is now public property since the Madras law suits.... + +In August, 1911, the Trustees of the C. H. C., to allay the apprehension +in the public mind that the C. H. C. was being diverted from its +constitutional broad and liberal Hinduism into a bizarre and unhealthy +personal-cult and bigoted Second-Adventism, passed formal resolutions to +the effect that the Institution had nothing to do with any such Orders +as those of the _Rising Sun_ or the _Star in the East_. + +On December 24th, 1911, resolutions were passed by the Trustees, +agreeing that the C. H. C. should become part of the Hindu +University.... The neo-theosophic propagandism within (as without) the +C. H. C. continued ... in a score of evasive and elusive forms. Inner +"Groups" and "Esoteric Section Groups" of persons formally pledged to +obedience to Mrs. Besant, "Leagues of Service" of various kinds, +"Orders of S. E." and "S. I." and "I. L.," "Co-Masonry Lodges," "Temple +of the R. C.," and corresponding badges, bands, "regalia," "jewels,"and +"pink," and "blue," and "yellow" scarves; "magnetized ribbons," and +"stars" in pin, brooch, and button forms, etc. [for all the world like +the Kindergarten games for developing infant intelligences!--A. L. C.] +multiplied and replaced one another in interest like mushrooms in the +rain time, a very fever of restless sound and movement hiding lack of +substance and of wise purpose. Fuss of the most absurd and mischievous +kind became rampant. Lectures, meetings, night classes, outside the +college rooms and buildings, took place perpetually in the neighbouring +T. S. premises and private residences, for expounding the doctrines of +neo-theosophy and especially the book called _At the Feet of the Master_ +alleged to have been written down by Alcyone (J. Krishnamurti), as the +embryonic scriptures and revelation of "the Embryo of a New Religion," +as Mrs. Besant declares the O. S. E. to be. Resident students were +advised, and a number of them began to keep photos of Alcyone, as the +"vehicle" of the "Coming Christ" and himself an "Initiate of the Great +White Brotherhood" (and Mrs. Besant and one or two other living persons) +"on the threshold of divinity," and to worship them with flowers, +incense, etc. Old and young believers prostrating and genuflecting, +literally, at the feet of the living original when within reach.... The +then Principal of the College (who had founded the O. R. S.) proclaimed +in his lectures in the neighbouring T. S. Hall, and elsewhere, that he +was a "High Disciple of the Master"; and that the C. H. C. was "founded +to prepare for the Advent of the World-Teacher".... + +[Mrs. Besant] has publicly stated [that] all of the members of the +General Council of the T. S. now belong, with one or two exceptions +perhaps, to the "Esoteric Section," prime condition of membership of +which is, THE FORMAL WRITTEN PLEDGE OF ABSOLUTE OBEDIENCE TO MRS. +BESANT; and so while the loud profession is freedom of thought "for all" +the practice is sedulously "for herself," and her pledged votaries +only; while the theory is that the O. S. E. "must not be identified with +the T. S.," the practice is that the T. S. must be merged in the O. S. +E. + +Let us turn to the C. H. C. to bring the narrative up to date. In March +and April 1913 there came into the hands of another Manager and Trustee, +a printed "letter," covering some three foolscap pages, bearing the +signature of the gentleman who was then Principal of the C. H. C., the +date October 25th, 1912, and the imprint of Mrs. Besant's _Vasanta +Press_, Adyar, Madras, and not bearing any word like "private" or +"personal," or "confidential." In this "letter" amazingly extravagant +and fantastic statements are made as regards Mrs. Besant; she is hailed +repeatedly as one who is "_to become one of the greatest Rulers of the +World of Gods and men_" [This is sheer insanity.--A. L. C.]; mention is +made of the "recognition of the God without us, which made us members of +this Group from which we draw our life to-day"; it is said "that her +light to ours was and is as the rays of the sun at noon-time to the rays +of a lamp at night, and we did not desire to examine the Sun to see +under what conditions it might possibly ray forth a more dazzling +brilliance." The members of the Group are reminded that "we pledged +ourselves in our hearts that we should strive to become _her true and +loyal servants ...,_" etc. + +Thus complete was the hypnosis and surrender of reason which was sought +to be effected amongst the votaries. It was a case of emotionalism run +amuck...." + +It is, unfortunately, "a case" of something infinitely more mischievous; +of evil "magic" and "sorcery" (cf. H. P. B.'s definition, _ante_ p. 36.) +Whether Mrs. Besant knows it or not, Mr. Leadbeater undoubtedly must be +well aware that life and strength can be drawn, on inner planes of +being, from the blind devotion of a solid body of fanatical votaries. +"Magicians" of a certain school--I need hardly specify which--thus +prolong their lives through the magnetic and vita emanations of their +nearest and most devoted followers. In a word, it is _Vampirism_, pure +and simple, on the psychic plane. (I found that Mrs. Tingley well +understood this form of Sorcery.) This, if true in Mrs. Besant's case is +probably unconscious; but in Mr. Leadbeater's it is done consciously and +with knowledge. That the secret acts and teachings of this man are far +worse than most people have ever suspected is confirmed in a "Letter in +reply to Mrs. Besant" by "Dreamer" which appeared in _The Theosophic +Voice_ (Chicago), November, 1908, under the title "India Speaks." This +scholarly Hindu Theosophist writes:-- + + If we are to believe the stenographic report of the Inquiry in + 1906, then instead of holding that Mr. Leadbeater denied the + charges, we must come to the conclusion that not only did he + teach the solitary vice, but further he did things which would + have brought him within the pale of the criminal laws for the + foulest and most indecent offence which brute man may commit. + This is our latter day saint who must be re-admitted, nay, + invited back, into the Theosophical Society. + +Note that this was written fourteen years ago! The subject is a +revolting one, but in the interests of that public whom these people are +still misleading and deceiving, and who have no idea of the extreme +gravity of the menace, it is necessary to be explicit. + +To return to the "Letter" mentioned by Mr. Das; he continues:-- + + The Trustee and Manager into whose hands a copy of the + astonishing document came, with the information that _it had + been circulated_ amongst a number of the C. H. C. students, + informed the secretaries of the College, and sent the letter + with the comments on the same for publication in a daily paper, + in order to show the public how the person-worship-creeds of + Mrs. Besant's "neo-theosophy" were being sown and grown within + the C. H. C. despite the resolutions of the Trustees. + + On publication of the rhapsody, a great outcry in the name of + "injured innocence" was raised.... As to the + "dishonourableness" of the publication, competent judges of + such matters have pronounced that it was dishonourable only if + it be dishonourable to expose what cannot be called other than + _gross treason_ to the Constitution and ideals of the C. H. C., + and to bring to light, and the bar of public opinion, underhand + or half-concealed or openly defiant efforts to convert students + to a grotesque person-worship and demoralizing and + soul-stunting blind obedience to Mrs. Besant.... The asking + for, and the receiving of the pledges of obedience to herself, + etc., is an act of over-weening presumption against the God in + every man.... Ever since she encouraged and started them, her + mind has worked less and less correctly and confusion has + fallen ever worse and worse upon her work, losing to the T. S. + many thousands of old members, alienating from her all her old + co-workers and co-founders of the C. H. C. and destroying the + confidence in her of the Indian public. + +Towards the end of his most illuminating pamphlet Mr. Das has occasion +to speak of Mrs. Besant's "wildly reckless statements," some of which he +quotes. They relate to the C. H. C. and he stigmatises them as "_all +simply and utterly untrue_." "Her mind," he says a little further on, is +working "incoherently." Finally, he writes:-- + + Let us conclude; when a person like Mrs. Besant, with a + biography full of remarkable changes, full of fine work as well + as bad blunders, having established herself, in her own belief, + and that of her pledged band, as the present chief Spiritual + Teacher and Saviour of Mankind, as "the God within us" now, and + as the future "greatest Ruler of the World of Gods and men," + suddenly adds on the role of political saviour of India in + particular, and pre-determined martyr in constant danger of + assassination [strangely enough, this was also one of Mrs. + Tingley's obsessions] by anarchist miscreants ... and proclaims + that those who differ from her are in league with those + miscreants--when this happens, what explanation can be offered + to their own minds by her old friends ...? + + The only sad explanation that they can postulate is that she is + suffering from mental delusions. + +Alas! this lenient and charitable judgment by no means covers the ground +as a complete explanation of Mrs. Besant's mischievous and almost +irresponsible activities. Mr. Das fails to see as clearly as MM. Levy +and Schure the sinister influence behind all these manifestations; the +source and inspiration of all this evil. + + + + +Mrs. Besant's latest Assertions and claims examined. + + +We now come to the examination of two articles in the _Theosophist_ for +March, 1922, in which the President of the T. S. makes some attempt to +deal with recent criticism. One is a Supplement, or Manifesto, addressed +"To all Members of the Theosophical Society," and couched in Mrs. +Besant's present style--flamboyant, a trifle bombastic, often Biblical +in phraseology, and running throughout it, her usual fervid and +disingenuous appeal to sentimental emotionalism, instead of the +instinctive sense of justice latent in all beings. This latter, a +feature of her best days, she has entirely abandoned; it no longer +serves her ends. What those "ends" are one almost hesitates to +formulate, so impious and almost insane do they appear. Even taking into +consideration the tangled mass of evasions, misstatements and +hypocritical equivocations presented in this manifesto, these "ends" +emerge with sufficient clearness. But, in the first place, and before +going further, one must ask on what basis this amazing claim to almost +deific powers and knowledge rests. Let me here call M. Levy into the +witness box once more; for he also had put the same question to himself +nine years ago, and will provide the answer. It occurs in his chapter on +"Mrs. Besant's 'Return of the Christ,'" where he is dealing with her +position and actions in regard to Dr. Steiner, the German occultist and +Christian Theosophist--with whose ideas, I should add, I am not in +personal agreement. My teacher is H. P. Blavatsky and she alone: I +follow no lesser light. M. Levy says:-- + + Our reason forces us to confess that all goes to suggest that + Mrs. Besant, having herself ceased to believe in the identity + of her Jesus with the Christ [of the Gospels.--A. L. C.], would + still continue to make others believe it.... Her pride ... her + dominating mind, have driven her on this crusade of + extermination of Dr. Steiner's teachings; it has induced her to + collect, _without the least regard for truth, justice, or + theosophic principles, no matter what weapons if they do but + serve against her opponent; calumny, abuse of power, + misstatement of facts, all combined in a subtle strategy_. + +Italics are mine; for we find Mrs. Besant using precisely the same +methods to-day, only in a form fortunately neither so "subtle" nor so +Jesuitically plausible. Her powers are failing, as the manifesto under +consideration clearly proves. M. Levy proceeds:-- + + And when she falls victim of some error in the course of her + occult investigations--of which in theory she is always + proclaiming the fallibility--it is again her pride that bars + the way to admission, and makes her the slave of the most + pitiful machinations ... which ... will shatter to fragments in + all directions the confidence she had formerly inspired. For if + she is not consciously defending her mistake, then what kind of + a break-up of all her faculties are we witnessing?... The more + deeply we study this [_i.e._, the "neo-theosophy" already + described by M. Levy and Pandit Bhagavan Das.--A. L. C.], the + more terrible appear the responsibilities of Adyar in this + deplorable scheme; for we would still seek the origin of such + fearless confidence [in Mrs. Besant's followers.--A. L. C.] + refusing, as it does, to be shaken by the eloquent appeal of + the facts here set forth, and of which some, if not all, have + been within the reach and open to examination of those members + who profess such an enthusiastic confidence in Mrs. Besant. The + result of our search is a yet further culpability, as + overwhelming as it is unexpected. + + For this confidence is not in the case of all the victims the + result of the free use of their own inner faculties. It is in + the case of the greater number, due to the influence of a + strong suggestion _deliberately organised and cleverly carried + out by the authors of this mystification themselves; by Mr. + Leadbeater who wrote, and by Mrs. Besant who published_, the + following lines in the _Adyar Album_, p. 45: "What can I say to + you of your President that you do not know already? Her + colossal [_sic_] intellect, her unfailing wisdom, her + unrivalled eloquence, her splendid forgetfulness of self, her + untiring devotion to work for others--all these are familiar to + you. Yet these qualities, these powers, are but a small part of + her greatness; they are on the surface, they may be seen by + all, they leap to the eyes. But there are other qualities, + other powers, of which you cannot know, because they pertain to + the secrets of Initiation. She is a pupil of our Masters; from + the fount of Their archaic wisdom she derives her own, the + plans which she is carrying out are Their plans for the welfare + of the world. Think, therefore, how great an honour it is for + you that you should be permitted to work under her, for in + doing so you are virtually working under Them. Think how + watchful you should be to miss no hint which falls from her + lips, to carry out exactly whatever instructions she may give + you. Remember that because of her position as an Initiate she + knows far more than you do; and precisely because her knowledge + is occult, given under the seal of Initiation, she cannot share + it with you. Therefore her actions must certainly be governed + by considerations of which you have no conception. There will + be times when you cannot understand her motives, for she is + taking into account many things which you cannot see and of + which she must not tell you. But whether you understand or not, + you will be wise to follow her implicitly, just because she + knows. This is no mere supposition on my part, no mere flight + of the imagination; I have stood beside your President in the + presence of the Supreme Director of evolution on this globe, + and I know whereof I speak. Let the wise hear my words, and act + accordingly." + + It is easy to see how minds not gifted with a highly developed + critical faculty, or the instinctive sense that discriminates + the true from the false, would yield hopelessly to such a + formidable assault. They cannot see that he who thus guarantees + the infallibility of Mrs. Besant has himself need of + guarantee.... _I do not think that any religion or man-made + cult, even in the earliest ages, has ever promulgated + superstition in its grossest form so openly and boldly as this + ..._ [Italics mine.--A.L.C.]. Mr. Leadbeater ... demands + _deliberate_ suppression of thought.... And having extolled + such a deliberately induced mental torpor for Mrs. Besant's + benefit, he immediately demands it for himself when he speaks + of the "Supreme Director of evolution on this globe." Who is + this administrative person? With whom is he to be identified in + the scheme of evolution as it has been given to us by Mrs. + Besant and Mr. Leadbeater themselves?... What avenging God will + come to confound this impious prophet who seeks to reduce + humanity to the level of a troop of obedient automata!... A + gentle and winning voice, infinitely reassuring, rises out of + the depths of my being ... a great light breaks forth, + triumphant. Mr. Leadbeater hears the words of a judgment + immediate and without appeal, pronounced by the Buddha + himself:-- + + "Believe not what you have heard said; believe not in + traditions merely because they have been transmitted through + many generations; believe not merely because a thing is + repeated by many persons; ... believe not conjectures ... + _believe not solely upon the authority of your Masters and + elders_. WHEN UPON OBSERVATION AND ANALYSIS A PRINCIPLE + CONFORMS TO REASON AND LEADS TO THE BENEFIT AND WELFARE OF ALL, + ACCEPT IT AND HOLD IT."--(Buddha, _Anguttura Nikaya_.) + + What a royal refuge, what a noble support are the words of + those who are the truly great! They are the perpetual safeguard + of humanity. + + We have seen that upon "observation and analysis" the + "unfailing" wisdom of Mrs. Besant is no more than a mass of + inconsistencies, injustices, sectarian tactics in + administration, error and mystification in esoteric + announcements. Far from leading to "the benefit and welfare of + all," this "unfailing" wisdom is leading to the ... most + miserable slavery of souls, the emasculation of minds, the + creation of a terrible heresy. And at the present time we are + all feeling that we shall not be living up to the wise + exhortations of that great Being who was the Buddha, unless we + clearly denounce the lamentable aberrations of these two + occultists in the hope of drawing all the souls we possibly can + away from their pernicious influence. With this end in view, + and faithful to this duty, we shall calmly and firmly continue + our investigation of facts. + + Fortunately, the assertions of Mrs. Besant and Mr. Leadbeater + have lately reached to such a pitch of extravagance and have so + utterly defied common sense that they will rouse even the least + critical minds and the most compliant hearts. + +Then follows the section of M. Levy's book in which he quotes from _Man; +Whence, How, and Whither_; much of this I have given earlier in this +pamphlet. And M. Levy, one must remember, wrote all this _nine years +ago_! + +At this point it may serve a useful purpose if I specifically define my +own position in regard to Mrs. Besant's claims. _I entirely and most +emphatically reject them all._ Mr. Leadbeater's I was not even aware of, +until I came to collect and examine the material for this pamphlet. They +are so monstrous as not even to merit a specific "rejection"--it goes +without saying. I practically lost all faith in Mrs. Besant when she +dissimulated and tried to mislead the Inner Group Council on her return +from her first visit to India in 1894. She then informed us that she had +been "ordered by the Master to accuse Judge." On being closely +cross-examined, however, she finally admitted that she had not received +this "Order" _direct_, as she would have had us believe, but _through_ +the Brahmin whom she then followed blindly[11], exactly as she now +follows Leadbeater. But later, when taxed with this in public, she +pretended that he had had nothing whatever to do with it! This is a +typical example of Mrs. Besant's idea of a 'truthful' statement in a +matter of the most vital importance involving the fate of a leader and +many thousands of members. What confidence can be placed in such a +woman--one whose mental processes are so warped, and whose ideas of +'truth' and 'honesty' are so peculiar? To inspire confidence a leader +must be the very soul of truth and uprightness. Mrs. Besant has always +been remarkable for asserting herself to be this, and people have +believed her. But a truly upright and honest person (even if aware of +it, as in Occultism he has to be) would never draw attention to it--and +that publicly and in print. + +Because, for Mrs. Besant, Mr. ---- was _at this period_ her mouthpiece +for the Master, she expected her colleagues to take the same view +without question. This attitude is typical, and can be applied to all +that she now says about Leadbeater (see _ante_ p. 19.) From this time I +found it impossible to believe in her or her statements; such, for +instance, as that H. P. B. had reincarnated in Mr. ----'s little +daughter!![12]--or in anyone else for that matter. H. P. B. herself, +when someone asked her about reincarnating, jokingly replied--"Yes, in +some mild Hindu youth with half a lobe to his brain!" _H. P. B. has not +reincarnated._ On the ridiculous belief above mentioned Mrs. Besant +based her "authority" for doing things in H. P. B.'s name after her +death (see _post_ p. 71 for examples). It follows also that I absolutely +reject her claim to be an "agent" of the Masters (_i.e._, the +Trans-Himalayan Brotherhood), neither do I believe that she has had any +communication whatsoever with Them since H. P. B.'s death.[13] Finally, +I reject her most presumptuous claim that she is able, or in anyway +fitted, to "expand," "verify," or "check" by psychic faculties H. P. +B.'s statements and teachings; still less to carry on independent occult +investigations on the same, or any similar plane of consciousness. +Whether Mrs. Besant, in making these claims, is acting under the glamour +of Mr. Leadbeater's "clairvoyant" delusions, as MM. Levy and Schure +suggest, or is fully conscious and responsible, is not my part to judge, +nor does it really matter. For me, her life may be summed up in some +words she applied recently to Mr. Gandhi (_Theosophist_, April, 1922). +It is "the tragedy of a soul." Her criticisms on what she calls his +"failure" apply fully and literally to _her own_. + +There is really very little in the Manifesto (_Theosophist_, March, +1922), that is not sufficiently answered by the various extracts I have +quoted from previous critics. Mrs. Besant opens with the usual +disingenuous statements about the "Liberal Catholic Church." Her +argument that all religions are on an equal footing in the T. S. +carries no weight when it is widely known that L. C. C. agents are +everywhere at work pushing its interests. + +Coming next to Mr. Leadbeater, Mrs. Besant states that he was "cleared +by a Committee in England"! But it is really a little too much, and +altogether too brazen,[14] when she dares to compare his case with that +of H. P. B. in the matter of slander. _There can be no possible +comparison._ The worst ever suggested against H. P. B. was what has been +said of many other women, including Mrs. Besant herself, who have had to +work in the glare of publicity and champion an unpopular cause. No +evidence was ever brought forward, and the New York _Sun_ promptly +apologised for publishing such statements on being shown that they were +unfounded.[15] The grave charges against Mr. Leadbeater were supported +by documentary evidence _which has never been rebutted_, and they have +to do with something far worse than personal moral laxity, as we have +seen. Mrs. Besant knows she cannot meet these charges, and so seeks to +brush them aside by voluble talk about "hatred," "defamation," and +"vilification." The only _justification_ she offers for having +reinstated him in 1907 is that she had discovered that it was "a cruel +lie that he had confessed to wrongdoing"! This is to argue that the +"accused" should be "acquitted" because he refused to confess--in the +face of evidence of no matter how damning a nature! Did Mrs. Besant +follow this procedure in her "Case against W. Q. Judge"? Not at all; far +from "acquitting" him when he refused to "confess to wrongdoing" and +asked for production of the incriminating documents, she calmly +confessed that she had destroyed them! But _now_ that it is a case of +her own guide and "intermediary" in the dock, her attitude is entirely +different, and it is quite enough for her that the "accused" did not +"confess" his crime! + +As Dr. Stokes, Editor of the _O. E. Critic_ (Washington, D.C.) has been +fearlessly stating the facts and encouraging the "Back to Blavatsky" +movement for some time past, she next devotes a paragraph to an attempt +to discredit him by suggesting his connection with an old enemy of H. P. +B.'s. Dr. Stokes's championship of H. P. B., and relentless exposure of +the Besant-Leadbeater imposture is the more effective since he persists +in retaining his membership in the T. S. + +The next to be dealt with is Pandit Bhagavan Das, and his criticisms +about the Central Hindu College. Here again, all I have quoted from his +pamphlet about the secret sections, underhand work, pledges, etc., are +entirely ignored. + +Mr. T. H. Martyn's letter, which has caused such a sensation in the +Society (Holland alone asking for 500 copies) is dismissed as full of +"untrue" statements. Truly a very simple method of dealing with matter +which Mrs. Besant finds compromising or unpleasant (see _ante_ p. 18); +but she can hardly believe it to be convincing. + +It is when this profoundly disingenuous woman comes to an explanation of +the motive behind her political work in India, that we find a typical +specimen of the peculiar form of megalomania already so ably +demonstrated by M. Levy. What must be the mental condition of a person +who can sit down and solemnly write the following? + + The work entrusted to me directly by the great Rishi who is--as + one may say [_sic_]--the spiritual Viceroy[16] for India of the + King of Kings of our world--is the bringing about of Home Rule + in India, in close union with Great Britain, as part of a great + Federation of Free Nations, a model of the future World + Commonwealth...." + +Why such a very mundane and political idea should need an order from a +Rishi is not explained. The patent appeal both to the Government and +the Indian people in this portentous announcement is not very happily +conceived. + +It is unfortunate for Mrs. Besant that her indignant denial that another +of the notorious "Bishops" (Wedgwood) is "wanted" by the police was +immediately followed by a priest's confession and the Bishop's +resignation from the L. C. C., the T. S., and the Co-masons![17] + +Finally we come to the most ominous part of the whole document, where +Mrs. Besant refers to the present condition of the sex problem, and +indicates that Mr. Leadbeater's vile teachings to, and practices with +boys--trying "to wean lads from evil practices" is her version of +it--are part of a process necessary "to save mankind in the near +future." The "lessening of the sex impulse" on the "line of higher +mental evolution" is "too slow." "Early marriage and +birth-control"--preceded, one must assume, by Leadbeaterism--are now +Mrs. Besant's inspired panaceas. + +The appalling menace to _the evolution of the spiritual nature in man_, +of the secret Leadbeater teaching known as the "X-system," is shown by +the evidence of Dr. Eleanor M. Hiestand-Moore (M.D.), Editor of the +_Theosophic Voice_ (Chicago), in which all the Leadbeater proceedings of +1906 were reported and discussed. In the August number, 1908, Dr. +Hiestand-Moore writes:-- + + During the winter of 1906-7 the Editor [herself] was in Chicago + and in order to combat the widespread tendency to uphold + self-abuse on the lines indicated by Mr. Leadbeater, a series + of lectures on the psychology of sex was given. There were + members in the E. S., and out of it who upheld the X-system. + One person declared ... that _this system would, before many + years, be taught in our public schools_. Still another insisted + that _by self-abuse humanity was to return to the + hermaphroditic type_ and that _this practice would be universal + among Fifth Round Humanity_. A number declared that, while they + did not pretend to know anything about such matters, they had + understood this was _a highly occult teaching given to would-be + disciples_! We could lay hands on a letter setting forth the + claim that this teaching is purely "esoteric" and not to be + estimated by exoteric standards--this, too, from a Branch + president! [Italics mine.--A. L. C.]. + + These instances are sufficiently appalling in themselves. But + what can we say now that _The Voice_ has elicited a + correspondence which is simply a brazen defence of these + "teachings"?[18] + +What, then, must be the moral condition of this horrible travesty of the +old T.S. _now_, fourteen years after Dr. Hiestand-Moore wrote the +foregoing? Mrs. Besant is thus seen to have now returned practically to +the Neo-Malthusianism of her earlier, pre-theosophic association with +the late Charles Bradlaugh. It may not be generally known that H. P. B. +_refused to accept her as a pupil_ until she had published a recantation +of all she and Bradlaugh had advocated in _The Fruits of Philosophy_. It +is a sinister omen that under C. W. Leadbeater, the sex pervert, Mrs. +Besant has abandoned H. P. Blavatsky's imperative requirement for +becoming a student of _White_ Occultism, and has returned to the +essentially materialistic doctrine of "birth-control," in direct +contravention of the true Occult teaching. In other words, her assertion +amounts to this:--_Self_-control is not possible (or is "too slow "), +therefore we must control _results_. How different is the Occult +teaching is well-known to all who have taken the trouble to read H. P. +B.'s articles from which I have already quoted (see _ante_ p. 31) and +the splendid chapter in Vol. II of _The Secret Doctrine_ entitled "The +Curse from a Philosophical Point of View." And H. P. B. told me herself +that she included the following verse in _The Voice of the Silence_ with +the express object of combating such teachings and placing the Occult +doctrine beyond possibility of misinterpretation:-- + +"Do not believe that lust can ever be killed out if gratified or +satiated, for this is an abomination inspired by Mara. It is by feeding +vice that it expands and waxes strong, like to the worm that fattens on +the blossom's heart." + +In a note H. P. B. explains that Mara is "personified temptation through +men's vices, and translated literally means 'that which kills' the +Soul." Far from "saving" mankind, therefore, these professed 'expanders' +and 'expounders' of H. P. B.'s doctrines are in reality doing their best +to hasten its end. Better far, from the Occult standpoint, that a race +should be wiped out by "outraged Nature," as were the Atlanteans for the +same sins, than that it should be kept alive only to sink lower and +lower until "Mara" kills its Soul. + +In the "Watch-Tower" (_Theosophist_, March, 1922,) Editorial mention is +made of a display at Adyar of "treasures of the most varied kinds," +which have just been unearthed from "all the old locked-up boxes" at the +headquarters. Why, one may not unreasonably enquire, has Mrs. Besant +waited until 1922 to disinter, for instance, a long and valuable letter +from H. P. B. herself? Why have such "treasures" been _kept back for +over thirty years_; just as "Letters" from the Masters (the +Trans-Himalayan Brotherhood) were kept hidden away for an even longer +period--nearly forty years? The reasons are so ridiculously transparent +that they would hardly deceive an intelligent child. Mrs. Besant is +becoming seriously discomposed, even alarmed, by the growing strength of +the "Back to Blavatsky" movement, which is in itself a reaction against +her own neglect. Hence all this "burrowing" (her own word) in order to +make a brave show of these "treasures" for which she had no sort of use +until, disturbed by alarming rumours, she hastily resorts to them for +purposes of camouflage and disguise. For she is a skilful opportunist +and clever actress, assuming successive parts with as convincing an air +as any "star"; neither does she scruple to employ every device of the +party politician. + +Does Mrs. Besant seriously believe that this attempt to drag the red +herring of an unexplained and suddenly awakened interest in these +"treasures" across the trail of Mr. Leadbeater's infamies will deceive +anyone save their blind and infatuated followers? Has she forgotten that +when, _only two years_ after H. P. Blavatsky's death, she came under the +direct hypnotic control of Brahmin influence, she threw doubts upon her +old Teacher's _bona fides_ and her occult knowledge; and, in the course +of formulating her charges against her fellow-disciple (a _chela_ of +many years' standing before she ever even heard of Theosophy) suggested +to Mr. Judge that, "_misled by a high example_" (H. P. B.), he had +fallen "a victim." For, as she then told him, her "theory was _first_, +that H. P. B. had committed several frauds for good ends and made bogus +messages; _second_, that [he] was misled by her example; and _third_, +that H. P. B. had given [him] permission to do such acts. She then," +continues Mr. Judge, "asked me to confess thus, and that would clear up +all. I peremptorily denied such a horrible lie, and warned her that +everywhere I would resist such attack on H. P. B. These are the facts, +and the real issue is around H. P. B." (_The Path_, March, 1895.) + +With the complete disruption of the Society the Brahmin period of +dominance over Mrs. Besant came to an end. Then followed the Leadbeater +_regime_, the first phase of which culminated in the crisis of 1906. But +on Colonel Olcott's death in the following year, she contrived the +realisation of her great ambition, and became President of the Society. +At this point in her career, however, there were two serious +difficulties which she had to meet:--_first_, the Leadbeater scandal +which raised a storm of horror and protest from those old and tried +members who had remained in the Society up to that time, but who then +practically withdrew in a body Deprived of their support, and having +reinstated the infamous Leadbeater, Mrs. Besant realised that, as +President, she could no longer risk appearing half-hearted over H. P. +Blavatsky; nay more, she _needed_ the support of her venerated name; +_second_, as President of the Society created by H. P. B., she must, for +the sake of her own prestige, take some definite action which would +remove all possibility of suspicion that she was no longer the follower +of the Teacher whom she had, _in fact_, already "denied" and "betrayed" +only two years after her death. Mrs. Besant realised, in short, that she +had gone too far, and must now retrieve the position. Accordingly, in +1907, she issued a pamphlet entitled _H. P. Blavatsky and the Masters of +the [sic] Wisdom_, in which, with all her accustomed ability, she dealt +once more with the famous (or rather infamous) Report of the Society for +Psychical Research, published in 1885. But the concluding eulogy strikes +a false note, coming from one who, as I have shown, was capable of being +persuaded that H. P. B. had concocted messages from those Masters Whom +she so faithfully served for two-thirds of her life. + +It was at this time also (1907), so Mrs. Besant later declared, that +"the T. S. fully regained its original position, with the Masters of the +[_sic_] Wisdom as once more the 'First Section' of the Society." This +bold assertion was made in 1919, when, under pressure of some fresh +scare connected with Mr. Leadbeater, Mrs. Besant published a small +volume of the Masters' Letters (most of which had presumably been lying +in the archives of the Society at Adyar for nearly forty years!), +obviously for no other reason than because among them are two alleged to +have been received by Mr. Leadbeater. This she did in order to bolster +up the extravagant claims she now makes for him as a "Great Teacher." +But there were many who received Letters in the early days, and there is +no reason why similar claims should not be made for all the recipients! + +In the article entitled "Whom will ye Serve?" (_Theosophist_, March, +1922,) Mrs. Besant says that H. P. B. "formed an inner circle of her +pupils, that it might bear witness to the truth and reality of the inner +side of life." This was the "Inner Group" of which she and I were two of +the six women members. But as, unfortunately Mr. Leadbeater was not +included, although he had become a member of the T. S. some years +before, she adds:--"And behold! ere she passed away, she had led others +to the Light, and bade them bear witness to it...." Considering that she +"passed away" _less than a year_ after forming the Inner Group in the +summer of 1890, and that we were constantly with her and never heard of +these "others," this statement is manifestly untrue. Mrs. Besant also +refers to Mr. Leadbeater as "one of H. P. B.'s nearest and most trusted +pupils [Absolutely untrue.--A. L. C.] whom she had led to his Master of +many lives, and in whom she had awakened the powers since so splendidly +used in the service of the Society that he might become a great +Teacher...." + +I challenge Mrs. Besant to produce anything in writing by H. P. B. to +warrant this audacious assertion. I was a pupil of H. P. B. (and +through her was accepted as "a _chela_ on probation," in 1889) before +Mrs. Besant joined the T. S., and saw her expel one of her most gifted +and valued workers from the Esoteric Section for offences against the +occult and moral law similar to those with which Mr. Leadbeater's name +has now been associated for nearly twenty years. H. P. B. was always +extremely strict on this particular point, and many would-be aspirants +for _chelaship_ were refused on this one ground alone, while others who +had been accepted "on probation" failed almost immediately afterwards. + +When I joined the T. S. in 1885 my diploma was signed by Colonel Olcott +as President and C.W. Leadbeater as Secretary (he was then at Adyar), +but I never heard him mentioned by H. P. B. or anyone else at the London +Headquarters, as a person of any importance whatever, in the occult +sense. Mrs. Besant goes on to say that H. P. B. left "the twain of us +[Leadbeater and herself] to bear personal witness to the truth when she +had gone"! Where is her _evidence_ that Mr. Leadbeater was ever one of +H. P. B.'s pupils? There is none, save this bare, unsupported assertion +of a highly interested party. How could these two, to the exclusion of +all H. P. B.'s pupils--some of them "regularly accepted _chelas_ on +probation"--be specially selected, taught, and prepared, (and above all, +to promulgate the sort of "teachings" of which I have given a few +specimens), without any of us hearing even a hint of it! Moreover, I +never saw, or even heard of Mr. Leadbeater at the London Headquarters +while H. P. B. was alive. I might just as well claim such a mission for +myself, or Mr. Mead, or Dr. Keightley, or any other member of the Inner +Group who has remained true to the pledge and the Teacher; and with +greater justice, for Mrs. Besant has _not_. The truth is that Mr. +Leadbeater was never heard of in connection with occult teaching until +he was taken up and foisted on the unfortunate T. S. and E. S. as a +"Great Teacher" by Mrs. Besant who was herself never more than a +"_chela_ on probation"--_during H. P. B.'s lifetime_. + +Let me refer again to H. P. B.'s article "The Theosophical Mahatmas" +from which I have already quoted (_ante_ p. 3), in which she deals with +the members of the T. S. who were "regularly accepted _chelas_ on +probation," and the subsequent failure of nearly all of them. If this +was true at that time, it can certainly now be applied to the case of +Mrs. Besant, who, in my judgment and that of many others, conspicuously +failed under two great tests. The first failure occurred when she went +to India in 1893, became an orthodox Hindu, and was induced to entertain +those doubts of her Teacher that I have already alluded to. (_ante_ p. +66.) Bound up with this failure--the doubt of the Teacher--was her +attack on her fellow _chela_, Mr. Judge. + +The second failure was a far worse one when, in 1906, after having +publicly endorsed the finding of the Advisory Committee on Leadbeater's +crimes (see footnote _ante_ p. 59), she suddenly turned round and +secured his reinstatement. In thus condoning and even endorsing +immorality of the vilest description, she denied one of the strictest +occult laws binding upon a _chela_. + +This double failure had far more serious results in her case than in +those of which H. P. B. wrote in 1886, because, owing to her commanding +position as a leader, the fate of the many thousands of earnest souls in +the Society who believed in and followed her implicitly, was involved. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[11] This Brahmin is the person referred to in the following passage +from Mr. T. H. Martyn's letter to Mrs. Besant of May 20th, 1921 (see +_ante_ p. 18):--"Like many of the older members I have known how you and +others for quite a long time regarded ---- as _a Master in the flesh_ and +later had to repudiate him when certain facts indicated the mistake." +Italics mine. This is absolutely new to me. In 1894 none of us (so far +as I was then aware) regarded Mr. ---- as anything more than a _chela_, +so what Mr. Martyn here states must have been a later development, and +explains much. + +I suppress the gentleman's name out of regard for his present official +position in India and his dissociation from Mrs. Besant. + +[12] I did not learn the actual facts of this foolish fable until I came +to India in 1918, and found they were common knowledge among leading +members of that time. Naturally, when Mrs. Besant transferred her +allegiance to Mr. Leadbeater, she had to find another "body" for H. P. +B. So, in the _Theosophist_ for January, 1922. she writes the following +typical effusion for the benefit of the faithful:--" ... alas! she +passed away, and took rebirth in the north of India, and though we have +lived for twenty-eight years in the same land so dear to beth of us, we +have never met physically face to face. Yet close ties bind us to each +other, and may be we shall yet greet each other in the flesh." Observe +the suggestion that she has always been in close touch with H. P. B. +_out of the body_, and that later they may meet "in the flesh." This +prepares the ground for producing this new "incarnation" when the +suitable moment comes; just as the boy Krishnamurti was brought forward +as the "body" for the coming "World-Teacher." Mrs. Besant's new version +must be amusing reading for those familiar with the earlier theory, as +she was certainly "face to face" with the "little daughter" constantly, +and even persuaded Countess Wachtmeister to resume her former care of H. +P. B. in her new body. Needless to say the poor Countess was sadly +disillusioned, and died not long afterwards bitterly bewailing the ruin +of the T. S. + +[13] As showing the absurdity of such a claim, I may mention that Mrs. +Besant actually visited mediums through whom H. P. B. was supposed to +communicate. In 1892, only a year after her death, my colleague Mr. +Basil Crump, Barrister-at-Law, was investigating the phenomena of a +certain trance medium shortly before he joined the T. S. He was present +at a private sitting with this medium in the studio of an artist friend, +to which Mrs. Besant came with another member of H. P. B.'s Inner Group, +Miss Emily Kislingbury, in order to speak with her deceased teacher. An +intelligence calling itself "Madame Blavatsky" controlled the medium, +and Mrs. Besant held a conversation with it. Later, when Mr. Crump +became acquainted with H. P. B.'s explanation of Spiritualistic +phenomena, and her express denial that the true immortal Ego ever +communicated in this manner, he was naturally astonished that one of her +most learned pupils should for a moment entertain such a possibility and +waste her valuable time in attending a seance. But now he sees that it +was only an early symptom of the astounding credulity and ignorance of +occult science she has since exhibited, as shown in these pages. H. P. +B.'s explanations of psychic phenomena are rapidly being endorsed and +followed by the modern scientific school of investigation, which has +succeeded not only in proving the genuineness of the phenomena, but also +the important part played by the _will and imagination_ both of the +medium and the sitters in their production. + +[14] Her latest move, is to draw a distinction between the "Advisory +Committee of 1906" which she accuses of "unjust action," and what she +calls "the prolonged investigation of 1907-08," which of course was +engineered by her after she became President, in order to white-wash Mr. +Leadbeater and secure his reinstatement. (See _Theosophist_, July, +1922). See Addendum for the Australian views on this. + +[15] The importance of this case lies in the fact that it constituted an +absolute vindication of H. P. B., for every slander ever circulated +directly or indirectly was covered by it. Although the libel action came +to an end with her death, the paper was so impressed by the evidence +produced, in rebuttal, by Mr. Judge, that it not only retracted all that +it had published, but also invited Mr. Judge to write a long article +entitled "The Esoteric She" which they said "disposes of all questions +relating to Madame Blavatsky." That Mrs. Asquith and Count Witte should +both have seen fit to revive some of these old slanders in their books +of reminiscences does not redound to their credit. + +[16] Mrs. Besant's "Spiritual Viceroy" has certainly nothing to do with +Those who were directing H. P. B. when she founded the Indian T. S. OR +U. B. in 1879; for a special clause was included in the Constitution +stating that "The Society repudiates all interference on its behalf with +the Governmental relations of any nation or community, confining its +attention exclusively to the matters set forth in the present +document...." H. P. B. also wrote in the _Theosophist_, for October, +1879--"Unconcerned about politics; hostile to the insane dreams of +Socialism and Communism, which it abhors--as both are but disguised +conspiracies of brutal force and sluggishness against honest labour; the +Society cares but little about the outward human management of the +material world. The whole of its aspirations are directed toward the +occult truths of the visible and invisible worlds. Whether the physical +man be under the rule of an empire or a republic, concerns only the man +of matter. His body may be enslaved; as to his Soul, he has the right to +give to his rulers the proud answer of Socrates to his Judges. They have +no sway over the _inner_ man." There speaks the true Mystic whose +"Kingdom is not of this world." Three years later H. P. B. and Colonel +Olcott published a further disclaimer, in which they said--"Before we +came to India, the word Politics had never been pronounced in connection +with our names; for the idea was too absurd to be even entertained, much +less expressed...." + +[17] The original documents appear in the _O. E. Critic_ for June 21st, +1922, and include a confession signed by a priest of the L. C. C. who +states that he was "led astray by those whom I considered to be my +superiors both morally and spiritually" adding "Wedgwood absolutely +declines to give up the mal-practice." Wedgwood fled to Algeria at the +end of March. A cable from Sydney dated May 30th states that "Mrs. +Besant refused to answer any enquiry in reference to Wedgwood. Police +now holding an enquiry into the charges against Leadbeater." Dr. Stokes +concludes his comments on the documents as follows:--"And Annie Besant, +having repeatedly been informed of the facts, not only refused to look +into them, but launched her anathemas against those who criticised, even +threatening them with expulsion from the E. S., and even very recently +cabling to Wedgwood that he made a mistake in resigning!--It is on Annie +Besant, more than on any other one person, that the responsibility for +the present scandalous condition in the T. S. rests. The best of +societies may have its black sheep and it is not to be blamed if it does +its best to purge itself. But it is Annie Besant, with her tools and +sycophants, who has ever concealed and denied the palpable facts, or, +where they could not be denied, has palliated, excused and even defended +them, throwing over them a veil of esoteric glamour, supporting such +scoundrels as Leadbeater and Wedgwood, apparently in order the better to +serve her ambitions. A vote of confidence in Annie Besant to-day either +betrays total ignorance of the facts, or associates those who give it +with the grossest forms of moral rottenness." See Addendum for Mr. +Piddington, K. C's opinion on Mrs Besant's conduct in Australia last +May; also Mr. Hugh Gillespie's evidence of her use of the Esoteric +School as a "_political machine_" to secure her "ascendancy in the +various bodies to which E. S. members have gained access." + +[18] As to the methods employed to suppress criticism, Dr. +Hiestand-Moore says in the same issue:--"Slander, falsehood, deceit, +treachery, all have been summoned to the support of Mr. Leadbeater's +cause. Anonymous communications have been written to confound the +prosecution, letters have been stolen and threats made. The Editor of +_The Voice_ has been compelled to call upon the Secret Service to +protect her mails." [An entire issue in proof with copy and unset matter +disappeared, and had to be rewritten!] Again, the Editor of the _O. E. +Critic_ writes:--"It is understood, and I have the direct testimony of +the publisher to the fact, that the entire edition of the Brooks' books +[_Esoteric Bogeydom_ and _Neo-Theosophy Exposed_] was corralled by Mrs. +Besant in order to suppress their circulation. They tell too much about +her." + + + + +Tampering with H. P. Blavatsky's writings. + + +The result of Mrs. Besant's first failure, through harbouring doubts of +her Teacher's _bona fides_ and esoteric knowledge, was soon manifested +when she began to publish new editions of H. P. B.'s works. The first +noteworthy example was her excision from _The Voice of the Silence_ of +passages and notes, presumably out of deference to Brahmin sentiment, +which then governed her actions. One of the last verses in "The Two +Paths" (the second of the "Three Fragments" forming the little book) in +the original edition (1889) begins thus:--"He who becomes Pratyeka +Buddha, makes his obeisance but to his Self." In a footnote H. P. B. +explains that "Pratyeka Buddhas are those Bodhisattvas who strive after +and often reach the Dharmakaya robe after a series of lives. Caring +nothing for the woes of mankind or to help it, but only for their own +_bliss_, they enter Nirvana and--disappear from the sight and the hearts +of men. In Northern Buddhism a 'Pratyeka Buddha' is a synonym of +spiritual Selfishness." + +In Mrs. Besant's edition both the passage and the footnote I have quoted +are omitted. Her reason for this unscrupulous proceeding is given in a +footnote on p. 416 of the so-called "third volume" of _The Secret +Doctrine_. In this note Mrs. Besant, from the heights of her then +newly-acquired Brahmanical wisdom, adopts the following dictatorial and +censorious tone towards her late Teacher:-- + + The Pratyeka Buddha stands on the level of the Buddha [!], but + His work for the world has nothing to do with its teaching, + and His office has always been surrounded with mystery. The + preposterous [_sic_] view that He, at such superhuman height of + power, wisdom and love could be selfish, is found in the + exoteric books, though it is hard to see how it can have + arisen. H. P. B. _charged me to correct the mistake, as she + had, in a careless moment, copied such a statement + elsewhere_.--A. B. + +Observe the assumption of superior knowledge to H. P. B.'s, and the use +of the words "preposterous" and "careless." To any real Oriental _chela_ +such an attitude towards his _Guru_ would be simply unthinkable; but we +have seen how very quickly Mrs. Besant believed herself to have soared +far above the "chela on probation" state of her H. P. B. days into that +of an "Initiate" and future "Supreme Ruler of the World of Gods and +men." To such vanity and self-delusion everything is possible. How +different was the attitude of the _real_ Occultist who was spoken of by +the Masters as "Our Brother H. P. B.," yet called herself "a Chela of +one of Them"! + +The passage I have italicised in the above footnote by Mrs. Besant is +untrue on the face of it to anyone who knew, as I did, the loving care +with which H. P. B. prepared this unique little book of "Golden +Precepts." Moreover, she states in her Preface that the verses given are +selected from a much larger number which she "learnt by heart." Further, +H. P. B. _not only repeated but greatly amplified_ this statement about +the Pratyeka Buddha in her _Theosophical Glossary_, a fact which Mrs. +Besant had evidently forgotten when she concocted the footnote quoted +above.[19] The Pratyeka Buddha is doubtless much that Mrs. Besant claims +for him, but she does not seem to know, or has probably forgotten, that +there are _two_ classes of Masters, _two_ "Paths" (as this very section +of _The Voice of the Silence_ shows); that the "Pairs of Opposites" +obtain on all planes of Manifestation and Being, right up to the +threshold of the _Un_manifested--the ONE; that, while there are _Masters +of_ COMPASSION, there must of necessity exist also the opposite +pole--the wearers of the "Dharmakaya robe," with all the power and +knowledge which that state implies, but without that _Compassion_ which +alone makes a Master of the "Right Hand Path."[20] + +It was a great and valuable feature of H. P. B.'s, method that she +taught us to reason on these lines, checking everything by the Law of +Correspondences. But Mrs. Besant has evidently long since abandoned +this, and prefers the sacerdotal plan of accepting everything on +"authority," which in her present phase means Leadbeater or her own +psychic delusions. The "World Teacher" dogma is a case in point. She +asserts it as a fact to be accepted because she says it; whereas, as I +have shown, it is untenable in the light of _The Secret Doctrine_ (see +_ante_ p. 2), which endorses Oriental tradition and cyclic law. + +Mrs. Besant's partiality for the Pratyeka Buddha, however, may possibly +be explained by some words that H. P. B. once wrote of her to Mr. +Judge:--"She is not psychic or spiritual in the least--all intellect." +For H. P. B. opens her paragraph in the _Theosophical Glossary_ on the +Pratyeka Buddha with these words:-- "The Pratyeka Buddha is a degree +which belongs exclusively to the Yogacharya school ... one of _high +intellectual development with no true spirituality_". (Italics mine.) +Moreover, we have the authority of the Maha Chohan Himself (the Head of +the Trans-Himalayan Brotherhood) for the statement that even Nirvana is, +"after all, but an exalted and glorious selfishness." + +In the _Theosophist_ for March, 1922, Mrs. Besant says, in her +"Watch-Tower" notes:-- + + A wild theory has just been started in the U. S. A. that _The + Secret Doctrine_, brought out by the London T. P. H. after H. + P. B.'s death, was not as H. P. B. wanted it. The _insinuation_ + is made that _H. P. B._ was "edited" by those in charge of _the + second edition_. The _trustees_ to whom she left _the + safeguarding of her printed books and unpublished manuscripts_ + were all her own pupils who had _lived with her for years_, and + they made only _such changes as she had herself directed_, + which consist mainly in the correction of verbal and + grammatical errors, and the _arrangement of the material of + Vol._ III. + +I have italicised the statements requiring explanation or correction. +The "second edition," as Mrs. Besant must be well aware, was merely a +re-print to meet an unexpected demand, and bears the same date as the +original edition, _viz._, 1888. But as Mrs. Besant only joined the T. S. +early in 1889, and was led to seek an interview with H. P. Blavatsky +_after_ reviewing _The Secret Doctrine_ for the late Mr. W. T. Stead, +then Editor of the _Pall Mall Gazette_, clearly she can know absolutely +nothing of the preparation of its first _or_ of its "second edition"! As +to the alleged "trustees," I can only say that I never heard of their +existence. _Mrs. Besant_ only "lived with" H. P. B. for rather more than +eighteen months. H. P. B. left 17, Lansdowne Road, London, W., in the +summer of 1889, the Headquarters being moved to Mrs. Besant's house in +Avenue Road, N.W., where she died in May 1891, _while Mrs. Besant was on +her way back from a lecture tour in America_. + +Take next the alleged "safeguarding" of H. P. B.'s "unpublished +manuscripts." Those who were responsible for the so-called Volume III, +had a strange and unusual conception of the meaning of the word +"safeguarding." It so happens that while it was being set up I was able +actually to peruse one or two of the familiar long foolscap sheets which +H. P. B. always covered with her small fine handwriting. They were +mutilated almost beyond recognition, few of her sentences remaining +intact; and there were "corrections" not only in the handwritings of the +editors, Mrs. Besant and Mr. Mead, but also in that of others which I +was able to identify. More than this I cannot say without abusing +confidence; but the wrong done to my Teacher compels me to say this +much. + +Those who were H. P. B.'s untiring and unfailing helpers in the +preparation of _The Secret Doctrine_ for the press in 1887-88, Dr. +Archibald and Mr. Bertram Keightley, have, fortunately for posterity, +put on record their experiences of those days. They have made statements +of the utmost value in connection with the facts I am here dealing with, +which they wrote specially for Countess Wachtmeister's _Reminiscences of +H. P. Blavatsky and "The Secret Doctrine,"_ published in 1893. Moreover, +Dr. Keightley wrote an account of H. P. B.'s manifold literary +activities at this time, which appeared in the _Theosophist_ for July +1889, in which he states that "_the Third Volume of The Secret Doctrine +is in MS. ready to be given to the printers_. [Italics mine.--A. L. C.] +It will consist mainly of a series of sketches of the great Occultists +of all ages, and is a most wonderful and fascinating work." + +In the face of this clear and definite statement, made by one whose word +I know to be unimpeachable, and who lived and worked with H. P. B. at +that time, what becomes of H. P. B.'s alleged "directions" for the +"arrangement of the material of Vol. III" which Mrs. Besant speaks of +above, and the statement in the Preface to _her_ version of Vol. +III:--"The task of preparing this volume for the press has been a +difficult and anxious one.... The papers given to me by H. P. B. were +quite unarranged, and had no obvious order...."? This volume, given by +Mrs. Besant to the world in 1897, is most certainly _not_ the one Dr. +Keightley speaks of as "ready" for "the printers" in 1889, as I will +prove. WHAT THEN BECAME OF THAT VOLUME? + +But first I will quote Dr. Stokes, Editor of the _O. E. Critic_, whose +most specific charges and plain statements of fact hardly come under the +purposely misleading term "insinuations," used by Mrs. Besant! Dr. +Stokes "_insinuates_" nothing; he heads his most damaging accusation as +follows:-- + + + "ANNIE BESANT'S CORRUPTION OF THE SECRET DOCTRINE." + + In all probability Annie Besant's "revision" of H. P. + Blavatsky's original edition of _The Secret Doctrine_ + constitutes the most colossal case of corruption of an original + text to be found in history. A group of students is comparing + the original edition with the "third and revised edition," + edited by Annie Besant and G. R. S. Mead, after the author's + death.... I am informed by those making the comparison [that] + ... the actual changes will be far more than twenty thousand. + Many of these changes are trivial and one wonders at the + impertinence or conceit which inspired them. Some of the + changes--those which might have put students on their guard + against the so-called Third Volume--can only be construed as + deliberate and intentional suppressions and corruptions of the + original text. And this in a work of which the Master K. H. + wrote: "Every mistake or erroneous notion corrected and + explained by her from the works of other Theosophists was + corrected by me or under my instruction." The true title of the + "third and revised edition" should be "_The Secret Doctrine_, + written by H. P. Blavatsky, corrected and approved by the + Master K. H., and corrupted by Annie Besant." It is almost + impossible to comprehend the colossal conceit, the limitless + contempt for common literary decency which could have inspired + such an act of vandalism, to say nothing of such disrespect for + the Master whom she professes to venerate. And all of this is + put forth as the work of H. P. Blavatsky herself, with the mere + apology in the preface that "Had H. P. Blavatsky lived to issue + the new edition, she would doubtless have corrected and + enlarged it to a very considerable extent." What a specious + excuse? [Repeated in the preface to the alleged Vol. III.--A. + L. C.] Had H. P. B. "corrected and enlarged it" it would + without doubt have been done under the same guidance and + authority which directed and corrected the first edition. It is + enough to cast suspicion on each and every quotation of + original sources made by Mrs. Besant, and her emendation of the + Theosophy of H. P. B. as well. (October 12th, 1921.) + + As for the third volume, edited and published after the death + of H. P. B. from manuscripts left by her, nobody knows, in the + absence of a previous edition issued by her, how much of it is + H. P. B.'s and how much is not, but there is good evidence that + much of it is not, which is the more likely in view of the + vandalisms the same editors perpetrated in the first two + volumes. In no sense can the "third and revised edition" be + said to be a re-print of the original _Secret Doctrine_ of H. + P. Blavatsky. (December 21st, 1921.) + +I most fully endorse all that Dr. Stokes so ably demonstrates, and I can +quite believe that, in regard to Vol. III, some of the contents are not +by H. P. B.-- the style in places is not hers at all. But I can +enlighten him as to those portions of the contents of which I have +actual knowledge. I may here add that, when my own group of students +were checking the "third and revised edition" of the first and second +volumes of _The Secret Doctrine_ by the original edition of 1888, they +came across no less than four specific references by H. P. B. to Vols. +III and IV as being practically completed, _viz._, Vol. I, Preface, and +p. 11; Vol. II, pp. 437, 798, 1st Ed., 1888. Mrs. Besant coolly deleted +all these without a word of explanation! + +How unnecessary nearly all of this so-called "revision" was, can be +realised in the Keightleys' accounts (see Countess Wachtmeister's book) +of the care taken over the proofs of the first edition. Mr. Bertram +Keightley says they first "read the whole mass of MSS.--a pile over +three feet high--most carefully through, correcting the English and +punctuation where absolutely indispensable." (Contrast this modesty and +respect for the author with the spirit that perpetrated the thirty +thousand corrections in the "third edition"!) It was then arranged under +H. P. B.'s supervision in Sections, etc., and professionally +typewritten. This first copy was again revised and any obscurities +explained. It should be noted here that Mr. Keightley says they laid +before H. P. B. "a plan, suggested by the character of the matter +itself, _viz._, to make the work consist of four volumes ... to follow +the natural order of exposition and begin with the Evolution of Cosmos, +to pass from that to the Evolution of Man, then to deal with the +historical part in a third volume treating of the lives of some great +Occultists, and of 'Practical Occultism' in a fourth." This proves that +at least the whole of the material for Vol. III was actually there (Dr. +Keightley elsewhere states that it was _ready for the printer_.) +Finally the Keightleys themselves set to work to type out a fair copy +of Vols. I and II for the printer. "H. P. B. read and corrected two sets +of galley proofs, then a page proof, and finally a revise in sheet, +correcting, adding, and altering up to the very last moment." + +Dr. A. Keightley says:--" ... no work and no trouble, no suffering or +pain could daunt her from her task. Crippled with rheumatism, suffering +from a disease which had several times nearly proved fatal, she still +worked on unflaggingly, writing at her desk the moment her eyes and +fingers could guide the pen.... We had to carry on the general scheme +... to act as watch-dogs and help her to make the meaning as clear as +possible. But all the work was hers ... it went through three or four +other hands besides H. P. B.'s in galley proof, as well as in revise. +She was her own most severe corrector...." + +Another able helper was Mr. E. Douglas Fawcett, the well-known author of +_The Riddle of the Universe_, of whom both the Keightleys speak in terms +of high praise. His profound knowledge of science, philosophy, and +metaphysics was invaluable. "He supplied many of the quotations from +scientific works, as well as many confirmations of the occult doctrines +derived from similar sources." + +And this monumental work, produced with such meticulous care and +precautions against errors, is subjected to some thirty thousand +corrections by its subsequent "editors"! In all my study of the original +edition I have never found more than a few errors that matter in the +least, and these are mostly typographical and quite obvious to any +person of average intelligence. The marvel is that there are so few in a +work of such magnitude and scope. Those of my students who possess only +the "third and revised edition" (the first and second now being +scarce), have re-corrected it to agree with the first; and to look at +the pages covered with these re-corrections brings home to one, as +nothing else can, the force and justice of Dr. Stokes's indictment. Let +us hope that when H. P. B.'s great work is understood and accepted +seriously at its true worth, an indignant posterity will pass judgment +on one of the worst examples of literary vandalism in the nineteenth +century. + +In her Preface to Vol. III, Mrs. Besant boldly states that, in regard to +the Sections entitled "The Mystery of Buddha," there are "very numerous +errors of fact, and many statements based on exoteric writings, not on +esoteric knowledge"! If her own statement with which I have dealt, +regarding the Pratyeka Buddha is to be taken as the measure of her +capacity to judge of the merit or demerit of H. P. B.'s work, all that +Mrs. Besant says, or skilfully suggests, in this Preface can be +dismissed as absolutely worthless. But in view of the fact that she then +believed herself to be acting under the direction of "a Master in the +flesh" (see Mr. Martyn's letter, _ante_ pp. 18-19 and footnote p. 56), +who happened to be _an orthodox Brahmin_, these unfounded pronouncements +which I quote with regard to the Sections on the Lord Buddha are perhaps +not so surprising. I use the word "unfounded" advisedly, for she makes +two separate statements as to the way in which she obtained the material +for this so-called Vol. III. She opens the Preface with the first +one:--"The task of preparing this volume for the press has been a +difficult and anxious one, and it is necessary to state clearly what has +been done." This is one of her usual formulas, after which she proceeds +to do the exact opposite. She thus continues, in fact:--"The papers +given to me by H. P. B...." But Mrs. Besant was not in England when H. +P. B. died, _quite unexpectedly_, and with only three of her pupils +present, namely, Mr. Claude Wright, Mr. Walter Old and Miss Laura Cooper +(now Mrs. G. R. S. Mead.) We were all summoned by telegram, and I was at +Avenue Road within a few hours. I never heard of any evidence that she +gave Mrs. Besant papers, or directions about papers, before the latter +left for America on a lecture tour; and most certainly H. P. B. never +formally "appointed" her, or anyone else, as her "successor," for the +very good reason that I have given elsewhere--that the movement had +definitely failed, and she was "recalled." (see _ante_ p. 2.) + +To return to Mrs. Besant's Preface. Her second statement is that the +papers for the Sections on "The Mystery of the Buddha" were "given into +my hands to publish, as part of the Third Volume of _The Secret +Doctrine_...." _By whom_ were they "given"? Certainly not by H. P. B.; +and why does Mrs. Besant speak of these Sections on the Buddha as if +they were something apart from the "papers" she alleges she received +_from H. P. B._? Clearly any further analysis is useless, for in all +probability the truth about what really happened to all H. P. B.'s MSS. +after her death _will never be known_, since the few who do know will, +naturally, never speak. + +Brushing aside, therefore, Mrs. Besant's "explanatory" Preface, Volume +III, as given to the public in 1897, appears to be simply a collection +of fugitive articles which, as I have shown, were obviously freely +edited. To pad out the volume (the MSS. spoken of by H. P. B. in Vols. I +and II, as already existing, having mysteriously vanished) Mrs. Besant +prints both the _E. S. T._ and the _Inner Group Instructions_, despite +the pledge of secrecy taken by her and all other recipients of these +teachings. In justification of this she states--_six years after H. P. +B.'s death_--that H. P. B. instructed her to do so! The worthlessness of +such "instructions" is palpable in the light of her naive belief in the +alleged reincarnation of her Teacher in Mr. ----'s little daughter. +(Needless to add that, under Leadbeater, she has another version of this +idea!) We have the usual misleading and disingenuous statement in a +"Note" which is prefixed to these Instructions. Mrs. Besant +says:--"Papers I, II and III ... were written by H. P. B. and were +circulated privately during her lifetime" + +_These "Papers" are the E. S. Instructions._ She calls those given to +the Inner Group "Notes of some Oral Teaching." But, with two exceptions, +almost _every word of both E. S. and I. G. Instructions are given +intact_, just as we received them; I possess them all. The two +exceptions are, first, the practical teachings, given at the first +meeting of the _I. G._, for Yoga development, which even Mrs. Besant had +not the hardihood to publish; and, second, a very long "Preliminary +Memorandum" to Instructions III. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[19] See also _An Introduction to Mahayana Buddhism_, by W. M. McGovern, +1922. Kegan Paul. He confirms H. P. B.'s definition. + +[20] It was ... during the highest point of civilisation and knowledge, +as also of human intellectuality, of ... the Atlantean Race that ... +humanity branched off into its two diametrically opposite paths; the +Right and the Left-hand paths of knowledge or of Vidya. "_Thus were the +germs of the White and the Black Magic sown in those days. The seeds lay +latent for some time, to sprout only during the early period of the +Fifth (our Race)._" (_Commentary_).--_The Secret Doctrine._ First +Edition, Vol. I, p. 192. + + + + +The Truth about the E. S. Council, and the Inner Group. + + +The E. S. Instructions were written by H. P. B. during the winter of +1888-89. The I. G. Teachings were given orally by H. P. B. at its +meetings in 1890-91. It was the duty of the two secretaries, Mrs. Besant +and Mr. Mead, to write these Teachings up, from notes sent in by _all of +us_, after each meeting, and record them in a book. This record was +dealt with at each succeeding meeting, corrected and often amplified by +H. P. B. All these _might_, therefore, have been included in Vol. IV of +_The Secret Doctrine_, according to the general plan of the work adopted +by H. P. B., if she had lived and had permitted it. Mrs. Besant's +statement that they were written with that in view is incorrect, and was +obviously made to justify her action in using them for her version of +Vol. III. + +In the _Theosophist_ for March, 1922, Mrs. Besant published an article +in which several false statements are made concerning the history of the +E. S. The writer, a Mr. Fritz Kunz, quotes Colonel Olcott's _Old Diary +Leaves_ as authority for saying that "the first move towards founding +the E. S. was made in 1881," that it was "organised steadily through the +trials of 1884-85," and merely "announced" in 1888. The actual facts +(see _Theosophist_, April, 1880) are, that when H. P. B. established the +real THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OR UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD at Benares in 1879 +(the T. S. founded at New York in 1875 was only a "Miracle Club," as +Colonel Olcott says, with no "brotherhood plank"), it was on a purely +esoteric basis. It was under the direct guidance of the Trans-Himalayan +Brotherhood, Who formed the First Section; the second and third being +for "accepted" and "probationary" _chelas_ respectively. When I joined +the T. S. in 1885, these rules were still in force in the London Lodge. +But Colonel Olcott insisted on an exoteric organisation with "the +occultism more in the background"; and the crisis of 1884-85, which +drove H. P. B. from India (see her letter of 1890, _ante_ p. 2), was the +natural result of this policy. Far from the E. S. being "organised +steadily" at that time, as Mr. Kunz asserts, H. P. B. makes it clear in +her letter that the Master's influence was "virtually banished" from +Adyar through lack of faith in Them, and failure to support her, and +that she had been ordered to "establish the Esoteric Section," at +London, which she did in 1888, because the necessary faith in the +Masters still existed there and in America. + +Mr. Kunz then makes the astonishing assertion that the E. S. was +"transferred to Mrs. Annie Besant in due course by H. P. B. in 1891." As +I was a member of H. P. B.'s Inner Council which was responsible for +what was done after her death, I am in a position to state the true +facts as known to me, and as they appear in the E. S. documents in my +possession. These _facts_ are:--When H. P. B. died--suddenly and +unexpectedly, on May 8th, 1891[21]., Mr. Judge at once came over from +New York, and after much consultation and informal meetings of the E. S. +Council (composed of the I. G. members) and two others, Mr. Wm. +Kingsland and Dr. W. Wynn Westcott), a formal and "full meeting of the +Council" was held at Headquarters on May 27th, 1891, when "Bro. Wm. Q. +Judge attended _as the representative of H. P. B._ under a general power +given as below." (Italics mine.--A. L. C.) + +"As Head of the Esoteric Section of the Theosophical Society, I hereby +declare that William Q. Judge, of New York, U.S., in virtue of his +character as a _chela_ of thirteen years' standing, and of the trust and +confidence reposed in him, is my only representative for said Section in +America, and he is the sole channel through whom will be sent and +received all communications between the members of said Section and +myself, and to him full faith, confidence and credit in that regard are +to be given, .*. Done at London this fourteenth day of December, 1888, +and in the fourteenth year of the Theosophical Society. + + [Seal] H. P. Blavatsky, + +" ... The Council passed the following minute.... + +That it was resolved and recorded that the highest officials in the +School for the present are Annie Besant and William Q. Judge, in +accordance with the above-quoted order to William Q. Judge of December, +1888, and with the order of April 1st, 1891, to Annie Besant, as well as +with the written declaration of H. P. B. in a letter to William Q. Judge +dated March 27th, 1891, which we now here have read, in which she wrote +that Annie Besant should be so considered. The order of April 1st, 1891, +is as follows:-- + + I hereby appoint, in the name of the Master, Annie Besant Chief + Secretary of the Inner Group of the Esoteric Section and + Recorder of the Teachings.[22] + + H. P. B., [asterism dots] + +Finally, we--the Council--declared over our signatures that "from +henceforth with Annie Besant and William Q. Judge rest the full charge +and management of the School." + +Thus did _the Council_ establish the "Dual Headship," and until her +meeting with Mr. ----, two years later, and her subsequent visit to +India, Mrs. Besant continued to work harmoniously with Mr. Judge in the +management of the School. + +A full report of this Council meeting was immediately sent out to the +whole E. S., bearing the date May 27th, 1891. Attached to it was an +"Address" signed by Mrs. Besant and Mr. Judge as joint "Outer Heads," +declaring that these "changes in the Constitution of the School" having +been "made _by the joint Councils of the_ E. S. T." (Italics mine.--A. +L. C.), they considered it their "duty" to issue this address to each +member. + +_The one error_, and the foundation of all subsequent ones, as I +subsequently realised, was that of speaking of themselves as H. P. B.'s +"agents and representatives after her departure"; for there is nothing +whatever in the wording of the abovementioned official appointments +which even suggests such a contingency. _Both_ obviously could refer to +the holders of them only _during_ H. P. B.'s _life-time_. Indeed, Mr. +Judge's was made when the School was founded, and had been operative +ever since; while Mrs. Besant's was merely an official confirmation of a +secretarial office she had filled since the formation of the I. G. +scarcely nine months previously (thus giving her the precedence of Mr. +Mead.) It will be seen, however, that Mr. Judge's appointment was a far +more important one than Mrs. Besant's, and was conferred on him "in +virtue of his character as _a chela of thirteen years' standing_"; +whereas Mrs. Besant had been "on probation" _only_, for barely a year. +Moreover, when Mr. Judge became the object of attacks in 1889, H. P. B. +issued the following very significant notice:-- + + "LONDON, + _October 23rd, 1889_. + + "The Esoteric Section and its life in the U. S. A. depends upon + W. Q. J. remaining its agent and what he is now. The day W. Q. + J. resigns H. P. B. will be virtually dead for the Americans. + W. Q. J. is the Antaskarana between the two _Manas(es)_, the + American thought and the Indian--or rather the trans-Himalayan + esoteric knowledge. _Dixi._ + + H. P. B. [asterism dots] + + "_P. S._--W. Q. J. had better show and impress _this_ on the + mind of _all those it may concern_." + +This notice appeared in an E. S. paper issued by Mrs. Besant and Mr. +Judge, dated July 18th, 1894, when Mrs. Besant was already implicated in +the plot against Mr. Judge. + +Mrs. Besant's appointment, given above, was the only official one she +ever received from H. P. B. in either the E. S. or T. S. Certainly I +never heard of anything else. The absolutely Jesuitical nature of her +methods is patent, in that she _completely ignores_ the documentary +facts set forth above. To read the present statements it might be +imagined that Mr. Judge hardly existed at that time, except as an +obscure person who, as Mr. Kunz tactfully (!) puts it, made an +"unfortunate blunder." As I have shown elsewhere (see _ante_ pp 5, 70); +it is the fact that "blunders"--and worse than blunders--were made after +H. P. B.'s death (see _ante_ p. 86); but Mrs. Besant's "blunders" were +far more serious than Mr. Judge's; though both of them were, in the +first instance, misled by others, whose real aim was to disrupt the +Society and defeat H. P. B.'s work. + +I possess a copy of the previously mentioned most valuable "Preliminary +Memorandum" to Instructions III, as issued by H. P. B. to her students; +and a prefatory note states:-- + + The following "Preliminary Memorandum" was written by H. P. B. + at the time of a grave crisis, or rather series of crises, + through which the T. S. passed in 1889-90. Treachery within the + E. S. itself, and persistent and relentless attacks on the T. + S. from without, especially in America necessitated the + striking of a fresh keynote and giving directions for the + closing up of the ranks of the E. S. At the time of reprinting + the Instructions in London in 1890-91, certain portions of this + "Preliminary Memorandum" dealing with the details of the matter + were purposely omitted by those of H. P. B.'s pupils who were + constituted the editors [Mrs. Besant and Mr. Mead], these + portions being deemed by them of too personal a character to + remain. This was done when H. P. B. was too ill to supervise, + without her sanction, and, as she afterwards said, much against + her wishes. [Some of the details omitted related to attacks on + Mr. Judge, and the duty of defending him "when the time + comes."] + +Similarly, Mr. Mead omitted from his "third and revised edition" of H. +P. B.'s _Key to Theosophy_, published in 1893, most of the part in +which the author deals with the Report of the Society for Psychical +Research, classing it with "passages of a controversial nature, which +are no longer of general interest." Yet the public at large still accept +this Report as a proof that H. P. B. was a fraud, a charlatan, and a +Russian spy! + +Another feature of this edition, as of others of her works produced after +her death, is what he calls "a systematic use of italics and capitals." +This means that he abandons H. P. B.'s extremely effective use of large +and small capitals and italics to emphasise the importance of words like +MYSTERIES, OCCULTISM, WISDOM-RELIGION, etc., or SELF, ~Self~, and _Self_ +to indicate the three different selves in man, and so robs her text of +much of its emphasis and meaning. One has to compare her editions with +these posthumos ounes to realise the extent to which this has been done. +It is particularly noticeable in _The Voice of the Silence_, where the +exact meaning often depends on the distinctions H. P. B. thus makes. (See +her article on Occultism quoted _ante_ p. 31). + + +CONCLUSION. + +If the "Back to Blavatsky" movement accomplishes nothing else, let us +hope it may succeed in getting rid of all this vandalism and +re-establishing H. P. B.'s works on their original basis, that she may +go down to posterity on her own merits and not altered and distorted by +the brain-mind notions of her followers. Some of this work is already +being done by organisations or private enterprise, but it needs to be +systematised and co-ordinated.[23] Although the "door" had to be "shut" +at the end of 1899, H. P. B. in her last paragraph of the _Key to +Theosophy_ expressed the hope that, "when the time comes for the effort +of the twentieth century [_i.e._, in 1975], besides a large and +accessible literature ready to men's hands, the next impulse will find a +numerous and _united_ body of people ready to welcome the new +Torch-bearer of Truth." + +It has been my painful task to show how lamentably we have failed to +realise her hopes. The "_united_ body" she sacrificed so much to create +and hold together, was disrupted barely four years after her death; the +main body under the Besant-Leadbeater _regime_ is following strange +gods; while the great literary legacy left by H. P. B. has not only been +seriously tampered with, but even largely superseded and obscured by +books which will certainly not be of any assistance to the next +"Torch-Bearer." + +Some years ago I founded an H. P. B. Lending Library with my original +editions of her works, and others that are reliable and in line with her +teaching. It has already done much good, especially among those who have +been misled and kept in ignorance of them. If others would do the same +we can in time hope to stem the tide of evil and error, and preserve H. +P. B.'s message untainted until 1975. It is now within the life-span of +our younger students, many of whom, as the children of Theosophists, +have been brought up on the teachings and will bridge the gap for us. + +The bridging of this gap, however, has been rendered more difficult than +it should have been; first, by the failure of the T. S. as _a living +spiritual force in the world_; and second, by the sinister activities of +this "ill-omened partnership" which almost immediately followed. The +whole tragic and dreadful history, fragments only of which I have been +able to give in this brief examination, proves what incalculable harm +"Leadbeaterism" is working on the minds of the rising generation. Not +only is he the virtual director of Mrs. Besant's Society, but he has +completely infected _her_ mind with his soul-destroying teachings. Hers +is the real responsibility, therefore[24]; and hers the _karma_ of +ruining H. P. B.'s life-work, and carrying with her in her fall +thousands upon thousands of honest, but too credulous and easily +deceived souls along the broad and flowery road "leading to +destruction." + +As H. P. B. says in concluding her "Occultism _versus_ the Occult +Arts":--"If, while turning their backs on the narrow gate, they are +dragged by their desire for the Occult one step in the direction of the +broad and more inviting Gates of that golden mystery which glitters in +the light of illusion, woe to them! It can lead only to Dugpa-ship, and +they will be sure to find themselves very soon landed on that _Via +Fatale_ of the _Inferno_, over whose portal Dante read the words:-- + + "_Per me si va nella citta dolente + Per me si va nell'eterno dolore + Per me si va tra la perduta gente._" + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[21] _How_ "unexpected" was the manner of her passing may be gathered +from the fact that she was, at that very time, building a little +"occult" room next to her own, of a particular shape and structure, in +which each of her pupils was to "sit"--alone--"for development," under +special conditions and "under observation." The tiny roof was to be of +dark blue glass, of which I still possess a small piece of the colour H. +P. B. had finally selected. + +[22] These orders are here reproduced exactly as printed in the E. S. +paper. It should be noted that the one relating to Mr. Judge is in +larger type than the other. The triangle formed of asterisks .*. after +the words "regard are to be given" indicates that H. P. B. is there +endorsed by an Initiate of a higher grade. It will also be noticed that +the dots forming the triangle after her signature differ in size in the +two orders. In a note in the _Voice of the Silence_ to the words +"Thyself and mind, like twins upon a line, the star which is thy goal +burns overhead" H. P. B. says "Every stage of development in _Raja-Yoga_ +is symbolised by a geometrical figure. This one is the sacred _Triangle_ +[_i.e._, [asterism dots] and precedes Dharana. The [triangle] is the +sign of the high _chelas_, while another kind of triangle is that of +high Initiates." The [asterism dots] is also used in Freemasonry to +denote certain high degrees. + +[23] It is only fair to give Mrs. Tingley's Organisation credit for the +good work it is doing in publishing accurate reprints of H. P. B.'s +works with all the references carefully checked, but none of her own +writing tampered with. Now that the 1888 edition of _The Secret +Doctrine_ is so scarce, students will be glad to know that an unaltered +reprint can now be had instead of the Besant corruption. The reprint of +_Isis Unveiled_, with the addition of an excellent Index, has long been +wanted; and the original paging has been preserved, so that the Index +also serves for the original edition. It is to be regretted that these +reprints are prefaced by an account of the Theosophical Movement from +Mrs. Tingley's point of view, which is inaccurate and misleading. +However, this is easily removed. + +[24] In a letter from a Master to a friend occur these words:--"You are +responsible for the influence that you permit others to exert over you." + + + + +_ADDENDUM._ + +=The Australian Crisis.= + + +The official account of the events in Australia last spring reached me +too late to include in its proper place (_ante_, p. 4), but its +importance as the latest phase of the Leadbeater scandal demands +quotation of the principal details. Australia has been the scene of Mr. +Leadbeater's activities since the Madras lawsuits (_ante_, p. 39) made +India too hot for him in 1913. Needless to say, the same scandals were +repeated there, and finally brought about a crisis at the T. S. +Convention last Easter in Sydney. Two of Mr. Leadbeater's Indian +"pupils," Krishnamurti (see _ante_, p. 12) and Jinarajadasa, secured a +vote of confidence in Mrs. Besant and Mr. Leadbeater which roused strong +opposition. I quote from a long circular letter issued to the members by +one of the opposition, Mr. J. M. Prentice, of Hobart, who is evidently a +leading officer. It is dated May 28, 1922. + + + MRS. BESANT REFUSES AN ENQUIRY. + + Soon after Convention Mrs. Besant arrived in Sydney [from + India] a very worried and angry woman. At the Sydney Lodge she + spoke on the lines of "Judge not that ye be not judged," and + made it thoroughly apparent that she was not in favour of + anything in the nature of an Enquiry. During the Convention + Leadbeater had issued a special statement to the E. S. T. which + led to its expulsion from the Sydney Lodge building. It was + this that had finally angered Mrs. Besant to boiling point.... + She expressed a wish to meet the Lodge Committee and talk over + the difficulties. There was a three-hour conference that led + nowhere. I am told that she was helpless to a point of pathos. + She denied everything as far as Leadbeater and Wedgwood [see + _ante_, p. 62] were, concerned, and refused to consider + anything in the nature of an Enquiry. She read from old files + of the _Theosophist_ how Leadbeater had been rehabilitated, but + a member of the Executive challenged her with more recent + happenings, to which she could only reply that she did "not + believe them." + + + A TERRIFIC PRESS CRITICISM. + + Two days later the _Daily Telegraph_ came out with a tremendous + attack on the "Liberal Catholic Church." The result was + terrific. At the members' meeting that night feeling ran very + high. The _Telegraph_ had a reporter present and came out with + six or seven columns under heavily leaded headlines. Moreover + this information was disseminated to all the papers the + _Telegraph_ is correspondent for. The result is that + irreparable damage has been done to Theosophy and the Society; + although the ablest papers are willing to admit that there is + still a minority genuinely fighting for sanity and cleanness in + the T. S. + + + GOVERNMENT ENQUIRY INSTITUTED. + + The Government has now instituted an Enquiry, but so far I do + not know the scope of its intention. I have been told by + telegram that the Leadbeater boys have been examined or + interrogated.... One of the latest developments was when Mr. A. + B. Piddington, a leading barrister and K. C. of Sydney, + resigned from the Presidency of the Public Questions Society of + Sydney University rather than meet Mrs. Besant at a public + address which she proposed to give to the members. He has + addressed a scathing letter to the _Telegraph_, or rather + released for publication his letter of resignation, which is a + remarkable summing-up of the position. + + +MR. PIDDINGTON, K. C.'S OPINION. + +The following are the chief points made by this gentleman, who is not a +member of the T. S., and therefore represents an impartial legal and +public view of the moral issue at stake:-- + + My resignation is based on the ground that the Society ought to + withdraw its invitation to Mrs. Besant until the matters + involved in her defence of Mr. C. W. Leadbeater have been + settled by a trustworthy tribunal. + + Grave allegations were recently made against Mr. Leadbeater by + Mr. Martyn [see _ante_, p. 18,] for his letter to Mrs. Besant, + and Mr. Leadbeater's precept and practice in the training of + boys have been quoted. Mr. Martyn is supported by other + reputable Australians. + + Before landing here, and since, Mrs. Besant has refused any + inquiry into these matters, and taken up positions which, in a + teacher of morals disentitle her to be heard by an + undergraduate society which exists for the pursuit of truth. + These positions are:-- + + 1. That there is a class of beings so high in the religious + order that to accuse them is presumption on the part of the + common people. Indeed accusations are 'persecution,' which + proves the sanctity of these higher beings, and is (in Mrs. + Besant's words) the "seal of their apostolate." + + 2. Mrs. Besant refers Mr. Leadbeater's challengers to the + courts, though to propagate in private the abominable tenet + held by him does not constitute an offence against any law, but + only against common decency as understood by ordinary men. + + 3. She writes that she does not believe, and will not discuss + Mr. Martyn's allegations, though she writes from India of what + Mr. Martyn says happened in his own home in Sydney. + + If these are good reasons for refusing to hold an inquiry, then + immorality can be safely taught and practised in high places so + long as the teacher belongs to Mrs. Besant's way of thinking. + From the public point of view such a claim cuts the ground from + all morals. + + In her letter to the _Daily Telegraph_ [of Sydney] for May 18, + Mrs. Besant asks the public to believe that Mr. Leadbeater has + to meet charges relating to 1906 [see _ante_, p. 27], and + disposed of [?] by some private investigation in 1908. The fact + is ignored that Mr. Martyn's accusations relate to conduct + since 1914, Worse than this, the fact is suppressed that Mrs. + Besant in 1913 was herself ordered by the Madras High Court to + return to their father two boys whom she insisted in placing in + Mr. Leadbeater's care, in spite of the father's protest. [See + _ante_, p. 40] ... Mr. Justice Bakewell said that, from + Leadbeater's evidence, he was "certainly an immoral person, and + highly unfit to be in charge of the boys." He also found that + Mrs. Besant had violated her stipulation made with the father + before parting with the boys, that they should have nothing to + do with Mr. Leadbeater. (London _Times_, March 8, 1913.) + + In the following year Mr. Leadbeater came to Australia and now + "trains" Australian boys. + + Mrs. Besant lent herself and her oratory to the acquittal, + without evidence, of Mr. Leadbeater at a public meeting ... In + my view it is as bad to rescue a man from public justice (which + is a wider term than criminal law) by the exercise of a + dominating personal veto, as it is to do it by money or social + or any other 'influence'--'influence' which is the bane of any + system of justice.... She may effect a master-stroke of + salvage, but she offends every canon of fairplay, let alone of + that ordinary morality by which all men, high or humble, must + be content to be judged. These sombre facts stand out:-- + + 1. Mrs. Besant's chief colleague has stated as late as 1913 in + open court that he still believed in teaching a detestable vice + to boys, which he had previously taught them. + + 2. An English Judge for this reason declared him to be an + immoral person. + + 3. Mr. Martyn accused Mr. Leadbeater of being still what the + English judge said of him, and alleged fact upon fact in + support of this. + + 4. Mrs. Besant has shielded Mr. Leadbeater from inquiry. + + 5. Mr. Leadbeater says nothing. + + +AN INDICTMENT OF MRS. BESANT BY A RESIGNING MEMBER OF HER E. S. + +Further very recent testimony and criticism is furnished by a letter of +resignation from Mrs. Besant's Esoteric School by Mr. Hugh R. Gillespie, +of Krotona, California, one of the strongholds of the "Liberal Catholic +Church." The letter, dated May 29, is printed in the _O. E. Critic_ of +August 16, and the Editor in a prefatory note says:-- + + The writer ... is well-known to Theosophists of three + continents as a lecturer and as a fearless, persistent and + uncompromising fighter for honesty and cleanness in the T. S. + For almost three years he was attached to Adyar as architect + and sanitary engineer.... He was at Adyar during the trial of + the "Cases" in the Madras courts and saw the whole sordid drama + in action. During this period he had abundant opportunity for + getting light, as well as sidelights, on the working of the + Adyar machine and on the personal peculiarities of the gods and + demigods of the Theosophical Olympus. Later he was resident + three years at Krotona, where similar opportunities were not + lacking. + +Mr. Gillespie writes that he resigns as a protest against the actions +and utterances of Mrs. Besant as "Outer Head" of the E. S. and President +of the T. S., and continues:-- + + These actions and utterances have, since her assumption of the + above mentioned positions, been of such a character that, to + use the words of H. P. B., the Theosophical Society is + + " ... 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 programme. These, by + disfiguring and adapting Occultism to their own filthy and + immoral ends bring disgrace on the whole movement." + + As a result of Mrs. Besant's methods we learn that the T. S. + and E. S. in almost every section is seething with dissension. + England, Australia and America are racked and torn; Germany is + split; Finland is shattered, and the closing of the E. S. for + some four years in Switzerland indicates the conditions there. + + Mrs. Besant's arrogance and vanity in office and her lack of + dignity, as exemplified in her ridiculous "Whom will ye serve?" + tirade, and her letter of March, 1922, have drawn the attention + of the great London weekly _Truth_, and in its pages the T. S. + is held up to the scorn and ridicule of the world. [I have + dealt with these under the heading of "Mrs Besant's Latest + Assertions and Claims Examined."--A. L. C.] + + So far as the E. S. is concerned, my experience of its working + under Mrs. Besant in Australia, Adyar, England, and America + enable me to assert that it is nothing but a political machine + used for the purpose of securing the ascendancy of Mrs. Besant + in the various bodies to which E. S. members have gained + access. [I would draw particular attention to this important + statement. It is especially true of India, which is the + principal scene of her political activities.--A. L. C.] + + ... Mrs. Besant's parade of thrusting the L. C. C. out of the + T. S. door while bringing it in by the E. S. window, added to + her condonement of the vile practices of the L. C. C. bishops + and priests, fall little short of a betrayal of the T S. and + could only be adequately met by her resignation from all + office.... + + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHY. + + +_The Secret Doctrine._ London, 1888. _The Key to Theosophy and The Voice +of the Silence._ London 1889. _The Theosophical Glossary._ London, 1892. +_Practical Occultism_ Reprint, London, 1921.--H. P. Blavatsky. + +_Mrs. Besant and the Present Crisis in the Theosophical Society._ With a +Prefatory Letter by M. Edouard Schure. London, 1913.--Eugene Levy. + +_The Central Hindu College and Mrs. Besant. (The Rise of the Alcyone +Cult.)_ Chicago, 1913.--Bhagavan Das. + +_Reminiscences of H. P. Blavatsky and "The Secret Doctrine."_ London, +1893--Countess Constance Wachtmeister. + + + + + PRINTED BY + + THACKER, SPINK & CO + + CALCUTTA + + + * * * * * + + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES + +This text is full of typographical errors (wrong spelling and unmatched +brackets and quotation marks, reference to italics when there are none). +Since these are really a characteristic of the text, I have left them +unchanged. + +The asterisms on p. 85 and in footnote 22 are represented in the text +version as .*. and the "asterisms-with dots" on the same page and in the +same footnote are represented by [asterism dots]; the triangle on p. 86 +is indicated by [triangle] in the text version. + +Words in bold are indicated by the markup = =. + +The word Self in small capitals is indicated by the markup ~Self~. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's H. P. Blavatsky, by Alice Leighton Cleather + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK H. P. 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