{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_36373/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_36373","id":"gutenberg_36373","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36373","summary":null,"tags":["Besant, Annie, 1847-1933","Blavatsky, H. P. (Helena Petrovna), 1831-1891","Category: History - Other","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Leadbeater, C. W. (Charles Webster), 1854-1934","Theosophical Society (Chennai, India)"],"text":"</pre>\n\n\n\nProduced by David E. Brown, Margo Romberg, Bryan Ness and\nthe Online Distributed Proofreading Team at\nhttps://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images\ngenerously made available by The Internet Archive/American\nLibraries.)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n    H. P. BLAVATSKY\n\n    A GREAT BETRAYAL\n\n    BY\n\n    ALICE LEIGHTON CLEATHER\n\n    One of Her Pupils\n\n\n    PRICE\n\n    _One Rupee, Fifty cents, or\n    One Shilling Six Pence_\n\n    PUBLISHED BY\n    THACKER, SPINK & CO\n    CALCUTTA\n    1922\n\n\nWORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR.\n\n=H. P. Blavatsky:=--_Her Life and Work for Humanity._ CALCUTTA: THACKER,\nSPINK & CO., 1922.\n\n=In Collaboration with Mrs. Laura Langford:=--_Helena Petrovna\nBlavatsky. Personal Recollections by Old Friends._ New York, 1922.\n\n=In Collaboration with Mr. Basil Crump:= _Richard Wagner's Music\nDramas._ Embodying Wagner's own interpretations based upon his studies\nof Oriental Philosophy.\n\nLONDON: METHUEN & CO., 4 VOLS.\n\n\n\n\n    H. P. BLAVATSKY\n\n\n\"Behold the truth before you! a clean life, an open mind, a pure heart,\nan eager intellect, an unveiled spiritual perception, a brotherliness\nfor one's co-disciple, a readiness to give and receive advice and\ninstruction, a loyal sense of duty to the Teacher, a willing obedience\nto the behests of TRUTH, once we have placed our confidence in, and\nbelieve that Teacher to be in possession of it; a courageous endurance\nof personal injustice, a brave declaration of principles, a valiant\ndefence of those who are unjustly attacked, and a constant eye to the\nideal of human progression and perfection which the secret science\n(_Gupta Vidya_) depicts--these are the golden stairs up the steps of\nwhich the learner may climb to the Temple of Divine Wisdom. Say this to\nthose who have volunteered to be taught by you.\"\n\n    Letter to H. P. B. from her Master\n    (concerning her E. S. students.)\n\n\n\n\n    H. P. BLAVATSKY\n\n    A GREAT BETRAYAL\n\n    BY\n\n    ALICE LEIGHTON CLEATHER\n\n    _One of Her Pupils_\n\n    _Published by_\n\n    THACKER, SPINK & CO\n    CALCUTTA\n    1922\n\n\n\n\n\"Tell them ...; As pure water poured into the scavenger's bucket is\nbefouled and unfit for use, so is divine truth when poured into the\nconsciousness of a Sensualist.... Observe, that the first of the steps\nof gold which mount towards the Temple of Truth is--A CLEAN LIFE. This\nmeans a purity of body, and a still greater purity of mind, heart and\nspirit.\"\n\n    Letter to H. P. B. from her Master\n    (concerning her E. S. students.)\n\n\n\n\n    CONTENTS.\n\n                                                              PAGE\n\n    FOREWORD                                                   vii\n\n    INTRODUCTORY                                                 1\n\n    MR. WILLIAM KINGSLAND ON THE CRISIS OF 1906                  7\n\n    M. M. SCHUR\u00c9 AND L\u00c9VY ON THE CRISIS OF 1913                 11\n\n    MRS. BESANT'S \"RETURN OF THE CHRIST\"                        15\n\n    FUNDAMENTAL CAUSES: SOME OCCULT METHODS                     23\n\n    H. P. BLAVATSKY ON TRUE OCCULTISM                           31\n\n    MRS. BESANT'S RESPONSIBILITY AND THE MADRAS LAW-SUITS       39\n\n    THE CENTRAL HINDU COLLEGE: AN INDIAN CRITICISM              43\n\n    MRS. BESANT'S LATEST ASSERTIONS AND CLAIMS EXAMINED         51\n\n    TAMPERING WITH H. P. BLAVATSKY'S WRITINGS                   71\n\n    \"ANNIE BESANT'S CORRUPTION OF THE SECRET DOCTRINE\"          76\n\n    THE TRUTH ABOUT THE E. S. COUNCIL AND THE INNER GROUP       83\n\n    CONCLUSION                                                  89\n\n\n    ADDENDUM.\n\n    THE AUSTRALIAN CRISIS                                       92\n\n    AN INDICTMENT OF MRS. BESANT BY A RESIGNING MEMBER OF\n    HER E. S.                                                   95\n\n    BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                97\n\n\n\n\n\"There is a very, very ancient maxim, far older than the time of the\nRomans or the Greeks.... It is a maxim all of them ought to\nremember--and live accordingly ... a sound and pure mind requires a\nsound and pure body. Bodily purity every adept takes precautions to\nkeep.... Most of them know this.... But though they have been repeatedly\ntold of this _sine qua non_ rule on the Path of Theosophy and\n_Chelaship_, how few of them have given attention to it.... Behold, how\nmany of them are ... debauchees, GUILTY OF SECRET IMMORALITY in more\nthan one form.... Though such a person with any of the faults as above\ndeclared [others are named] should fill the world with his charities,\nand make his name known throughout every nation, he would make no\nadvancement in the practical occult sciences, but be continually\nslipping backward. The 'six and ten transcendental virtues,' the\nParamitas[1], are not for full grown Yogis and priests alone, but for\nall those who would enter the 'Path.'\"\n\n\n    Letter to H. P. B. from her Master\n    (concerning her E. S. students.)\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] _See \"The Voice of the Silence,\" by H. P. Blavatsky._\n\n\n\n\nFOREWORD.\n\n\nThis Protest has been undertaken at the earnest and repeated requests of\nTheosophical friends of long standing. They feel strongly that the time\nhas come for one of H. P. Blavatsky's old pupils, who was a member of\nher Inner Group, to demonstrate as clearly as possible that the\nteachings promulgated for nearly twenty years past by the present\nleaders of the \"Theosophical Society\" have departed more and more from\nH. P. B.'s, and are now their direct antithesis, particularly on the\nfundamental question of sex morality.\n\nSince Mr. G. R. S. Mead, one of my fellow-members of the Inner Group,\nspoke out at the Leadbeater Inquiry of 1906, and resigned, no other\nsurviving member, so far as I have been able to ascertain, has attempted\nto stem the awful and ever increasing tide of horror and delusion, that\nis, engulfing--one might almost say _has_ engulfed--Mrs. Besant's\nSociety. If Mr. Mead could say in 1906;--\"We stand on the brink of an\nabyss,\" what is to be said now? The enquiries and researches I have\nundertaken to enable me to write this pamphlet have revealed the present\nstate of things to be far worse than I could have imagined possible.\n\nFrom the time I left Mrs. Besant in 1895 and Mrs. Tingley in 1899, I\nhave been out of touch with these two movements, each calling itself\n\"theosophical\" and each leader claiming to be H. P. B.'s \"successor.\"\nThis is the reason why I have hitherto kept silent; in fact, it was not\nuntil I came to live in India in 1918, after spending some years on the\nContinent, and met some of the members--both Indian and European--who\nhad left Mrs. Besant in more recent years, that I learnt of the\nappalling developments since she became President and installed the sex\npervert Leadbeater as supreme esoteric teacher.\n\nI feel that I should be failing in my duty, and false to the solemn\nPledges I have taken, if I did not now do my utmost to clear H. P. B.'s\nname from these horrible associations, and demonstrate that they have\nnothing whatever to do with her Masters (the Trans-Him\u00e2layan\nBrotherhood) or Their Esoteric doctrine.\n\nI therefore PROTEST with all my strength, and _in Their sacred Names_,\nagainst what is to me a desecration and a blasphemy.\n\n\n    _September, 1922._\n    A. L. C.\n\n\n\n\n_Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad._\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTORY.\n\n\nFor the past fifteen years, despite repeated scandals, exposures, and\neven the damning evidence produced in various court cases, Mrs. Besant\nstill persists in her blind and fanatical support of the sex pervert and\npseudo-occultist C. W. Leadbeater, and the promulgation of his delusive,\nimmoral, and poisonous teachings among the members of the Theosophical\nSociety she rules, and the public at large, to whom she is known chiefly\nas an able speaker and an astute politician. Goaded by a revival of the\nwell-known evidence against Mr. Leadbeater, and a severe criticism of\nher own actions, Mrs. Besant published in her official organ\n(_Theosophist_, March, 1922.) an article entitled \"Whom Will Ye Serve?\"\nand a long Supplement addressed to the members, reiterating her support\nof Mr. Leadbeater, and making statements in justification of him and\nherself that call imperatively for a dispassionate review of the history\nof this ill-omened partnership, and the strongest possible protest\nagainst the complete stultification and perversion of H. P. Blavatsky's\nlife-work and teaching that it involves.\n\nI have no personal quarrel with Mrs. Besant, whose brilliant\nintellectual gifts we all so much admired in the early days, and who\naccomplished such splendid work for the Cause during H. P. Blavatsky's\nlifetime. I had already been a member of the Society for four years when\nMrs. Besant joined in 1889; and as we both subsequently became members\nof the Inner Group of H. P. B.'s personal pupils, I feel I am in a\nposition to review the facts, and entitled to utter this protest. In\nfact, I can no longer remain silent in the face of so much that is\nabhorrent to every true Theosophist, to every devoted follower of H. P.\nBlavatsky, her Masters, and Their teachings.\n\nIn a private letter to Mr. Judge, in or about 1887, H. P. B. writes: \"I\nam the mother and creator of the Society; it has my magnetic fluid....\nTherefore I alone and to a degree ... can serve as a lightning conductor\nof Karma for it. I was asked whether I was willing, when on the point of\ndying--and I said 'Yes'--for it was the only means to save it. Therefore\nI consented to live....\" Obviously, the only possible conclusion to be\ndrawn from this is that, when in 1891 H. P. Blavatsky passed away (or\nrather was \"recalled\") nine years before the limit of time within which\nthe Masters' help could be given,[2] it was because They saw that the T.\nS. had definitely failed, that it could no longer be kept alive.\n\nA long and, in this connection, very important letter was written by H.\nP. Blavatsky in 1890 \"To my Brothers in Aryavarta,\" giving the real\nreason why she did not return to India. Among other significant\nstatements which she makes (_Theosophist_, January, 1922.), there is one\nwhich shows that she must clearly have foreseen the ultimate\ndisintegration of the Society, which occurred in 1895. Writing of the\nshameful way in which she was thrown overboard, like a second Jonah, by\nColonel Olcott and the T. S. Council at Adyar in their cowardly panic\nduring the crisis of 1884-85, H. P. B. says: \"It was during that time\n... that the seeds of all future strifes, and--let me say at\nonce--_disintegration of the Theosophical Society_ [Italics mine.--A. L.\nC.] were planted by our enemies.... In a letter received from Damodar in\n1886 [He had been called by his Master to Tibet the previous year.--A.\nL. C.] he notified me that the Masters' influence was becoming with\nevery day weaker at Adyar.\" Further on in the letter H. P. B. again\nrefers to Adyar, and to an invitation to return to India which \"came too\nlate ... nor can I, if I would be true to my life-pledge and vows, now\nlive at the Headquarters _from which the Masters and Their spirit are\nvirtually banished. The presence of Their portraits will not help; They\nare a dead letter._\" [Italics mine. Yet Mrs. Besant asks us to believe\nthat They returned when she was elected President in 1907, and even\nnominated her!--A. L. C.]\n\nIn the same letter H. P. B. says that she was pledged never to reveal\n\"the whole truth\" about the Masters to anyone, \"excepting to those who\nlike Damodar, had been finally selected and called by Them.\" She also\nspeaks of him as \"that one future Adept who has now the prospect of\nbecoming one day a Mahatma, Kali Yuga notwithstanding.\" It is he again\nof whom she spoke four years earlier, when she wrote: \"During the eleven\nyears of the existence of the Theosophical Society I have known, out of\nthe seventy-two regularly accepted _chelas_ on probation and the\nhundreds of lay candidates--only _three_ who have not hitherto failed,\nand _one only_ who had a full success.\" (\"The Theosophical Mahatmas.\"\n_Path_, December, 1886.) Damodar is the only _chela_ she ever spoke of\nas a \"full success\" in her lifetime; and it is worthy of special note\nthat he was a high caste Brahmin who did not hesitate to give up caste\nand become a Buddhist (so Colonel Olcott states).\n\nIn the late spring Mrs. Besant paid a hasty visit to Australia, whither\nher \"brother-initiate\" had to flee from India some time since, as\npreviously from London, Paris, and America. The cause is always the\nsame; scandals inevitably arise, and Australia has proved no exception.\nMr. Leadbeater is a \"Bishop\" of the \"Liberal Catholic Church,\" an\nanomalous body warmly supported and encouraged within and without the T.\nS. by Mrs. Besant. Other of its bishops have incurred similar odium and\na \"priest\" has quite recently confessed in writing and implicated the\n\"Presiding Bishop\" and others. It has been stated that all these men are\nbeing watched by the police, who are only waiting to secure enough\nevidence. Matters cannot go on much longer like this; and a pamphlet\npublished at New York last February says that \"with difficulty a delay\nof a few months has been obtained in a pending arraignment and exposure\nin the Public Press in America.\" When it comes it will be a far graver\nindictment than that which precipitated the 'Besant _v._ Judge' crisis\nin 1894-95, and rent the T. S. in twain. _Then_ Mrs. Besant accused her\ncolleague Mr. Judge of \"giving a misleading material form to messages\nreceived psychically from the Master in various ways ...\" (_Enquiry_ at\nLondon, July, 1894); but _now_ she is deliberately condoning, if not\nactually supporting, something far worse which was investigated and\nfound true by a T. S. committee of enquiry in 1906.[3]\n\nFor those unfamiliar with the events succeeding H. P. Blavatsky's death\nin 1891, I must add that those of us who supported Mr. Judge against\nMrs. Besant's charges came under the sway, after his death a year later,\nof an equally masterful, able, and ambitious woman having very similar\ncharacteristics and methods. This was Mrs. Katherine Tingley, formerly a\nNew York professional psychic and trance medium, from whose organisation\n(\"The Universal Brotherhood\") I resigned in 1899. Her activities are now\nmainly confined to a colony in California.\n\nA point to which I think attention has not hitherto been drawn is the\nstriking similarity in the fate which befell Mrs. Besant and Mr. Judge\nrespectively after the death of H. P. Blavatsky. Being left as the most\nobvious leaders of the European and American Sections respectively\n(neither of them were in England when she died), the E. S. Council\ndecided that they should carry on the Esoteric School as joint Outer\nHeads in place of H. P. B., oblivious of the fact that one of them (Mrs.\nBesant) was untrained, and both were unfit to fill such a high occult\noffice (see _post_ p. 86). This soon became evident when each in turn\nfell an easy prey to external influences which first separated them, and\nthen disrupted the Society and E. S.\n\nAmong the old T. S. and E. S. papers now lying before me I find not a\nfew which throw a most illuminating light on Mrs. Besant's activities in\nrecent years. Before dealing with her latest statements I will quote\nextracts from these papers in support and elucidation of the points I\nwish to make, _viz_:--\n\n     (_a_) That under Mrs. Besant's guidance the T. S. has long\n     ceased to represent H. P. Blavatsky's teaching, or the thought\n     of its Founders.\n\n     (_b_) That it is now completely dominated by the deluded,\n     impure, and poisonous ideas of an acknowledged sex pervert, to\n     whom this unhappy and misguided woman believes and openly\n     declares herself to be bound by indissoluble and age-long ties.\n\n     (_c_) That in adopting and conniving at the promulgation of the\n     teachings of this man, and allowing him virtually to control\n     her Society, Mrs. Besant most impiously gives out that she is\n     acting under the orders of the Trans-Him\u00e2layan Masters of\n     Wisdom, and H. P. Blavatsky's directions.\n\nThis last point (_c_) is the real gravamen of my Protest. It would be of\nrelative unimportance--Mrs. Besant having already wrecked the Society in\n1895--that it had descended to the level of any existing sect, Christian\nor other (as much a close corporation as the Adventists or New\nJerusalemites), had its two present leaders dropped the _title_, and\nceased to claim any connection with the \"real Founders.\" But, on the\ncontrary, Mrs. Besant and Mr. Leadbeater use Their sacred names and\ndeclare themselves to be under Their direct guidance. Such proceedings\nmerit the sternest possible moral condemnation in view of the facts.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[2] \" ... there remain but a few years to the last hour of the\nterm--namely, till December the 31st, 1899. Those who will not have\nprofited by the opportunity (given to the world in every last quarter of\na century) ... will advance no further than the knowledge already\nacquired. No Master of Wisdom from the East will himself appear or send\nanyone to Europe or America after that period.... Such is the law, for\nwe are in _Kali-Yuga_--the Black Age--and the restrictions in this\ncycle, the first 5,000 years of which will expire in 1897, are great and\nalmost insuperable.\" (H. P. Blavatsky in the \"Book of Rules, E. S. T.\"\n1888.)\n\n[3] For later and fuller particulars from Australia, see Addendum.\n\n\n\n\nMr. William Kingsland on the Crisis of 1906.\n\n\nThe first of the old papers I shall quote from is by my old friend and\nfellow-Councillor Mr. William Kingsland, author of _The Esoteric Basis\nof Christianity_ and kindred works. He was one of the leading members in\nthe early days under H. P. B. who, when Mrs. Besant on securing the\nPresidency after Colonel Olcott's death in 1907 reinstated Mr.\nLeadbeater, resigned their membership. Mrs. Besant had reviewed a new\nbook by Mr. Kingsland, and took the opportunity to refer to his\nresignation. Replying in \"An Open Letter to Annie Besant\" dated\nDecember, 1909, he tells her:\n\n     You have dragged in a perfectly irrelevant, uncalled-for and\n     untrue statement which I cannot allow to pass unchallenged....\"\n     The words I refer to are these: \"We have here a very excellent\n     Theosophical book, with an evasion of all recognition of the\n     source whence the ideas are drawn. When Theosophy becomes\n     fashionable, how those who refuse to walk with her in the days\n     of scorning will crowd to claim her as theirs when she walks in\n     the sunshine amid applause!\" Now these words convey the\n     implication, in the first place, that there is a connection\n     between the form in which my book is presented, and recent\n     events in the Theosophical Society which have led me as well as\n     many others, to sever our connection with that Society; and, in\n     the second place, that we now \"refuse to walk with her\"\n     because, forsooth, she is not now \"fashionable,\" but \"in the\n     days of scorning.\" Neither of these statements is true, and the\n     implication is most unworthy of you.... That, however, is a\n     small matter compared with the implication that I and others\n     have turned our backs on Theosophy for so unworthy a reason.\n\n     Let me ask you to look at the names of the old and tried\n     workers whom you have forced out of the Society by your\n     disastrous policy, and then ask yourself in the Great Presence\n     whether it is true that any of them have deserted Theosophy--or\n     rather the Theosophical Society--because it is less\n     \"fashionable\" now than it was in the old days when you and I\n     and these others stood side by side and fought the battle for\n     H. P. Blavatsky. Did any of us shirk obloquy then, and do you\n     really think we are less ready to face it now? It is one thing,\n     however, to incur obloquy for the sake of Truth, and quite\n     another thing to be asked to do it _in support of immoral\n     teachings_.... What I want to point out now more particularly,\n     and in the interest of true Theosophy, is, that you are now\n     making the grand mistake--one never made by H. P. Blavatsky--of\n     thinking, writing, and speaking as if Theosophy and the\n     Theosophical Society were one and the same thing, absoutely\n     identical; and that there can be no Theosophy in the world\n     without the Theosophical Society, and no Theosophists outside\n     of it.... You must know that in leaving the Theosophical\n     Society, the great majority of us at all events have not given\n     up Theosophy, even if we may feel compelled to teach it under\n     another name, and though we can no longer work with or through\n     the Theosophical Society, we are none the less carrying on the\n     great work which H. P. Blavatsky initiated.\n\n     But in the old days we did at least think that the Theosophical\n     Society stood for pure Theosophy and pure Morality. _We cannot\n     think or say this any longer._ The \"Theosophy\" of the\n     Theosophical Society is now a definite creed and dogma based\n     upon authoritative psychic pronouncements, from which those who\n     dare to differ are first of all squeezed out of office by the\n     President, and finally compelled to leave the Society, being\n     denounced in the strongest language as \"persecutors\" and\n     \"haters.\" I am quite aware that all the time you are preaching\n     freedom of opinion; but that is one of the farcical aspects of\n     the _r\u00e9gime_ which you inaugurated.... Whatever you may preach,\n     it is now notorious that your practice has been the exact\n     reverse. You commenced by turning out the Vice-President for\n     daring to hold a different opinion from your own as to the\n     inception of the Society; and you then proceeded so to\n     manipulate matters that several old and tried officials who had\n     been in opposition to your pronouncements and policy, were\n     ousted from their positions as General Secretaries of\n     Sections.... Well, you succeeded in getting your own supporters\n     appointed--and in losing many hundreds of old members.\n\n     Doubtless you will now have complete control and be able to\n     mould the Society to your own will and liking, and train it to\n     \"obedience\" to your psychic authority and visions. At what\n     expense and sacrifice of principles you have already done this,\n     we all know. But let none imagine that this is the basis on\n     which H. P. Blavatsky founded the Society; or that it will thus\n     fulfil the mission for which it was intended; or that it can\n     thereby become other than _a narrow and exclusive sect_. And if\n     perchance your statement is true that the Theosophical\n     Sciety--which you so mistakenly identify with Theosophy--is now\n     \"in the days of scorning,\" possibly even more than it was in\n     the old days; What and who is it that has made it so?\n\n     Is it not because the President and General Council have set\n     their seal and official condonation to a \"theosophy\" _which\n     countenances the grossest immorality_, and which can\n     advocate--as a means of \"discharging [_sic_] thought-forms\"\n     (see Van Hook's pamphlet)--a practice which you yourself once\n     characterised as being \"when taught under the name of Divine\n     Wisdom, essentially earthly, sensual, devilish?\" Yet it is thus\n     taught and justified--with an appeal to the laws of\n     reincarnation and _karma_--in Van Hook's pamphlet, which you\n     and the General Council have refused to repudiate, and have\n     thereby condoned.\n\n     And now, since you have had your own way, and have cleared the\n     Society of the elements of the so-called \"hatred and\n     persecution\"; can you not at least refrain from hitting behind\n     our backs? Nothing is sadder for your old friends and comrades\n     than to see you stoop to veiled insinuations, and even direct\n     untruths; missing no opportunity--not even in the review of a\n     book--of striking unjustly and falsely at those who have\n     recently been your opponents, and who have now no direct means\n     of answering you, or of refuting your statements within the\n     Society itself.\n\nI have italicised a few passages which seem to be of special importance\nas showing that, _thirteen years ago_, Mr. Leadbeater's sinister hand\nhad already grasped the Society and its infatuated President, and that\nhis vile and immoral teachings, supported by her, had driven out some of\nthe oldest and most clear-headed and clear-sighted of H. P. Blavatsky's\nfriends and pupils; among them Mr. G. R. S. Mead, one of the Leadbeater\nCommittee of Inquiry, who also resigned at the time Mrs. Besant became\nPresident for the same reasons as those stated by Mr. Kingsland. The\n\"practice\" to which he alludes in his Open Letter is of course now well\nknown to be that taught and advocated by Mr. Leadbeater, who claims that\nin so doing he is acting on the advice and under the authority of one of\nthe Masters of Wisdom. Could a more terrible infamy be perpetrated!\n\n\n\n\nM. M. Schur\u00e9 and L\u00e9vy on the Crisis of 1913.\n\n\nLet us see, however, what others have to say seven years later on the\nstate of the T. S. In 1913 another violent crisis convulsed this\nmiserable travesty of a Society that once stood for the highest\nprinciples and ideals, but which even a Lake Harris might blush now to\nbe associated with. As before, it centred round the shocking perverter\nof morals who had obtained complete ascendancy over Mrs. Besant. A book\nentitled _Mrs. Besant and the Present Crisis in the Theosophical\nSociety_ was published in 1913 by M. Eug\u00e8ne L\u00e9vy, \"with a Prefatory\nLetter by M. Edouard Schur\u00e9,\" the well-known author of _The Great\nInitiates_ and other mystical works. Writing to M. Charles Blech,\nGeneral Secretary of the French T. S., M. Schur\u00e9 states that he feels\n\"compelled to retire officially from the T. S.\" and that it is his\n\"duty\" to give his \"reasons straightforwardly.\" After alluding to the\ndate (1907), when M. Blech had offered and he had accepted the honorary\nmembership in the Society, M. Schur\u00e9 goes on to speak of Mrs. Besant, as\nshe had then appeared to him, in high terms, expressing the hope that\n\"the nobility of her past career\" was an augury \"that the T. S. would\ncontinue in the broad way of tolerance, impartiality, _and veracity_\nwhich forms an essential part of its programme.\" M. Schur\u00e9 then\ncontinues:--\n\n     Unfortunately things turned out otherwise. The primary cause of\n     this deviation lies in the close alliance of Mrs. Besant with\n     Mr. Leadbeater, a learned occultist, but of an unsettled\n     disposition and doubtful morality. After Mr. Leadbeater _had\n     been found guilty_ by an advisory Committee of the T.S. Mrs.\n     Besant publicly announced her reprobation of the educational\n     methods with which he was charged.... By an inconceivable\n     change of front she soon afterwards declared her intention of\n     bringing Mr. Leadbeater into the T.S. again and she\n     succeeded.... The excuses she gave for this recantation were\n     charity and pardon. _The real reason was that the President\n     needed Mr. Leadbeater for her occult investigations_, and that\n     this collaboration appeared to her necessary to her prestige.\n     To those who have followed her words and acts from that time\n     onwards, it is clearly manifest _that Mrs. Besant has fallen\n     under the formidable suggestive power of her dangerous\n     collaborator, and can only see, think and act under his\n     control_. The personality henceforward speaking through her is\n     ... the questionable visionary, the skilful master of\n     suggestion who no longer dares to show himself in London,\n     Paris, or America, but in the obscurity of a summer-house at\n     Adyar governs the T. S. through its President. The ill-omened\n     consequences of this influence were soon to appear before the\n     world through the affair of Alcyone and the founding of the\n     Order of the Star in the East.... If a real Indian initiate, a\n     Brahmin or otherwise, of ripe age, had come to Europe on his\n     own responsibility or in the name of his Masters to teach his\n     doctrines, nothing would have been more natural or\n     interesting.... But it was not in this form that we beheld the\n     new apostle from Adyar. A young Indian, aged thirteen,\n     _initiated by Mr. Leadbeater_ ... is proclaimed and presented\n     to the European public as the future teacher of the new era.\n     Krishnamurti, now called Alcyone, has no other credentials than\n     his master's injunctions and Mrs. Besant's patronage. His\n     thirty-two previous incarnations are related at length, the\n     early ones going back to the Atlantean period. _These\n     narrations_, given as the result of Mr. Leadbeater's and Mrs.\n     Besant's visions, _are for the most part grotesquely puerile_,\n     and could convince no serious occultist. They are ostensibly\n     designed to prove that for twenty or thirty thousand years the\n     principal personages in the T. S. have been preparing for the\n     \"Great Work\" which is soon to be accomplished. In the course of\n     _their incarnations, which remind one of a newspaper novel_,\n     these personages are decorated with the great names of Greek\n     mythology, and with the most brilliant stars in the firmament.\n     During a meeting at Benares, Krishnamurti presenting\n     certificates to his followers, received honours like a divine\n     being, many persons present falling at his feet. He does not,\n     however, utter a word, but only makes a gesture of benediction,\n     prompted by Mrs. Besant. In reporting this scene Mr. Leadbeater\n     likens it to the descent of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost.\n\n     For this dumb prophet is founded the Order of the Star in the\n     East, which the whole world is invited to join, and of which he\n     is proclaimed the head ... this passive young prodigy, who has\n     not yet given the world the least proof of having any mission\n     at all [this is as true in 1922 as it was in 1913.--A. L. C.],\n     becomes henceforth the centre and cynosure of the T. S., the\n     symbol and sacred ark of _the orthodox faith at Adyar_. As to\n     the doctrine preached by Mrs. Besant, it rests on a perpetual\n     equivocation. She allows the English public at large, to whom\n     she speaks of the coming Christ, to believe that he is\n     identical with the Christ of the Gospels, whereas to her\n     intimates she states what Mr. Leadbeater teaches, and what he\n     openly proclaims in one of his books, _The Inner Life_--namely,\n     that the Christ of the Gospels never existed, and was an\n     invention of the monks of the second century. Such facts are\n     difficult to characterise. I will simply say that they are\n     saddening for all who, like myself, believed in the future of\n     the T. S., for they can only repel clear-sighted and sincere\n     minds.... In my eyes, one can no longer be an actual member of\n     the T. S. without implicitly approving the deeds and words of\n     the President, which flagrantly contradict the essential\n     principle of the Society--I mean _scrupulous and absolute\n     respect for truth_. For these reasons I regret that I must send\n     you my resignation as a member of the Theosophical Society.\n\nThe italics throughout the foregoing quotations are mine, and serve\nagain to emphasise essential points; points almost exactly similar to\nthose raised by Mr. Kingsland, the most serious being the condonation by\nMrs. Besant of immoral practices in a colleague whose collaboration, as\nM. Schur\u00e9 shrewdly adds, has become a necessity to her, and under whose\n\"formidable suggestive power\" she has now completely fallen. If this was\ntrue in 1913, what may not be said in 1922, when the intervening nine\nyears have given time for the growth and development of this deadly Upas\nTree? I use the simile advisedly, for this teaching _is_ a \"deadly\"\npoison, not only from the ordinary moral standpoint, but especially from\nthat of the esoteric teaching of H. P. B. and the Trans-Him\u00e2layan\nBrotherhood, under whose authority it is falsely and blasphemously given\nout; I do not hesitate to declare it.\n\nM. Schur\u00e9 also emphasises an important and vital point which Mr.\nKingsland seems to have felt equally deeply, _viz._--That Mrs. Besant\nhas no use for any but those who accept everything she says and does\nwith blind subservience, even when, in the eyes of such men as M.\nSchur\u00e9, Mr. Mead, Mr. Kingsland, and others, it merits strong\ncondemnation as \"untrue\" and \"misleading.\" In the pages of the recent\nnumbers of the _Theosophist_ the talk about \"freedom of opinion\" within\nthe Society is still repeated, although in actual practice, as I have\nshown, the exact opposite obtains. Much that emanates from this tainted\nsource is so fantastic and puerile that ridicule ought long since to\nhave killed it, as it did Oscar Wilde's \u00c6sthetic movement.\n\n\n\n\nMrs. Besant's \"return of the Christ.\"\n\n\nTo return to M. L\u00e9vy's book; it deals with \"Mrs. Besant's Proceedings\"\nunder various headings. In the one entitled \"Mrs. Besant's Return of the\nChrist\" is to be found some of the most amazing balderdash--given out as\nserious teaching!--it has ever been my lot to encounter. For instance, a\nbook called _Man: Whence, How, and Whither_, written by Mrs. Besant and\nMr. Leadbeater in collaboration, is quoted from by M. L\u00e9vy at\nconsiderable length. He explains that \"the substitution of a \"false\nChrist\" for the \"Christ of the Gospels\" is here supported by \"_a new\norder of evidence_\" (Italics mine). Specimens of this \"evidence\" follow,\nand I will here give some of it in order to show the almost unbelievably\nlow level of intelligence to which this whole mischievous\nmovement--miscalled Theosophical--has descended, and the sort of\nelements in human nature to which such an ill-conceived and fantastic\nproduction is designed to appeal. M. L\u00e9vy writes:--\n\n     In the course of their investigations these two occultists look\n     up on the one side, the past incarnations of him whom Mrs.\n     Besant calls the \"Master Jesus,\" that is, of the \"Jesus\" born\n     105 B.C.; and on the other side, the past lives of the being\n     whom she calls the \"Lord Maitreya, the present Bodhisattva, the\n     Supreme Teacher of the World\"; whose ego at a given moment\n     replaced that of \"Jesus,\" this being the last incarnation of\n     the Christ whose immediate return she is announcing.\n\n     Let us first quote from their account of the incarnations of\n     the \"Supreme Teacher\" ... In the chapter headed \"Early Times\n     on the Moon Chain,\" p. 34, we read:--\n\n     \"There is a hut in which dwell a Moon-Man, his wife and\n     children; these we know in later times under the names of Mars\n     and Mercury, the Mahaguru and Surya. A number of these\n     monkey-creatures live round the hut, and give to their owners\n     the devotion of faithful dogs; among them we notice the future\n     Sirius, Herakles, Alcyone, and Mizar, to whom we may give their\n     future names for the purpose of recognition, though they are\n     still non-human.\"[4]\n\n     In the Fourth Root Race we again find the personage supposed to\n     be \"Maitreya\" as the husband of the ego claimed by these\n     authors as that of \"Master K. H.\" Mrs. Besant is again\n     incarnated in the family as daughter, the eldest sister of the\n     \"Master M.\"; \"Maitreya,\" the future World-Teacher, being at\n     this time the head of the tribe (p. 113)....\n\n     We have thus reached to somewhere about the year 15,000 B.C.,\n     and then--incredible as it seems--they give no further\n     incarnations of him whom they nevertheless claim to have been\n     the World-Teacher at the beginning of our era.\n\n     They give us his incarnations as husband, as father, as\n     counsellor and priest, and are silent as to the only\n     incarnation of fundamental and vital importance to the whole\n     world.\n\n     Let us see if the incarnations of their \"Jesus\" will fill this\n     gap in our knowledge, if they will throw light on this\n     essential point, thus left in obscurity.\n\n     We meet this \"Jesus\" for the first time at the beginning of the\n     Fifth Root Race, as daughter of Alcyone (Krishnamurti) and\n     sister of \"Maitreya\" (p. 252.)\n\n     Then, on p. 328, as the wife of Julius C\u00e6sar 18,878 B.C., he,\n     or rather she, being at this time the widow of Vulcan (Known in\n     his last incarnation as Sir Thomas More)....\n\n     He is later identified as daughter of Alcyone-Krishnamurti (his\n     father) and Fabrizio Ruspoli (his mother),[5] parents at the\n     same time of the future \"World-Teacher, Maitreya,\" their young\n     daughter. These incarnations took place 72,000 B.C., on the\n     shores of the Lake of Gobi, we are told on p. 490.\n\n     In 15,910 B.C., we find \"Jesus\" as grandson of \"Maitreya,\" and\n     as father and grandfather of a large family composed, as in all\n     cases investigated by these two authors, of _present_ members\n     of the Theosophical Society _only_, and including the faithful\n     friends of Adyar _to the exclusion of all others_.[6]\n\n     \" ... In 12,800 B.C. the \"Jesus\" of these investigations again\n     forms part of a very extensive family composed as usual of the\n     selfsame elements, and including amongst the names known in the\n     theosophic world that of Mme. Marie Louise Kirby (an Italian\n     theosophist recently at Adyar) who was his sister. \"Jesus\" was\n     then the father of Mrs. S. Maud Sharpe (General Secretary of\n     the English Section), of Julius C\u00e6sar, and of T. Subba Rao;\n     the Teshu Lama being at that time his daughter, etc., etc. (p.\n     499)....\n\n     Once more have our hopes been betrayed, for an absolute silence\n     broods over the Incarnations of \"Jesus\" later than this date of\n     13,500, as it reigned over those of the \"World-Teacher\"....\n\n     We cannot, however, conceive that this information gathered\n     from occult investigation will be felt to be indispensable by\n     anyone. Now that we know that Mrs. Besant's \"World-Teacher\" is\n     an ordinary man of the lunar chain (to whom Mrs. Besant was\n     first domestic animal and then sister, and who, in the early\n     period of our earth, was daughter of the young Krishnamurti (or\n     of M. Ruspoli), who could be found still to imagine that there\n     could be here any question, save a mad or impious joke\"....\n\nIncredible as it may appear to those who know anything of H. P.\nBlavatsky's teachings, their comprehensive grandeur and sublimity,\nespecially as given in _The Secret Doctrine_, this extraordinary mixture\nof clumsy fairy-tale and extravagant and even malicious mumbo-jumbo is\napparently swallowed whole by the blind and credulous followers of this\ngrotesque \"Neo-Theosophy.\" Not so much for them do I write as for those\nwho, while interested in these subjects, have neither the inclination\nnor the leisure to examine, for instance, such published Records as\nthese from which I quote, for themselves. Such would naturally accept on\ntheir face value Mrs. Besant's own account of herself and of her\nSociety, unaware that she is no longer anything but a \"blind leader of\nthe blind,\" incapable of distinguishing light from darkness, truth from\nfalsehood. We have direct testimony to the truth of this statement in\nMr. T. H. Martyn's now famous letter to Mrs. Besant.[7] In it he tells\nher:--\"You have been relying upon C. W. L. as _sole intermediary between\nthe Hierarchy_ [the Trans-Him\u00e2layan Brotherhood, the Masters of Wisdom.\nItalics mine.--A. L. C.] and yourself for many years.... C. W. L.'s word\nis final and his seership infallible to you.\" The quality of this\nsupposed \"seership\" bears a very close resemblance to a stupid and\nvulgar hoax. This is clearly shown by Mr. Martyn, who says:--\"In 1919 I\nwent to America. Young Van Hook was in New York. He talked freely of C.\nW. L.'s immorality and about _faking the 'lives' of people_\" (Italics\nmine.) Mr. Martyn then puts together various pieces of evidence against\nthis man, and tells Mrs. Besant that he finds \"staring me in the face\nthe conclusions that _Leadbeater is a sex pervert_, his mania taking a\nparticular form which I have--though only lately--discovered, is a form\nwell known and quite common in _the annals of sex criminology_.\"\n(Italics mine.) This sex criminal, then, is the creature whom Mrs.\nBesant has accepted \"for many years\" as \"sole intermediary between\"\nherself and--_the Masters of Wisdom_!! One almost hesitates to draw the\nobvious inference; for this is the man whom she has for years held up to\nand imposed upon their followers as a model of all the virtues--\"a\nsaint\"--a person \"on the threshold of divinity.\" (See also footnote\n_post_, p. 56.)\n\nWhy has it always been necessary for Mrs. Besant to have an\n\"intermediary\"? Before Mr. Leadbeater it was her Brahmin guide, and\nbefore him it was Mr. Judge. To each in turn she gave implicit belief in\nthe matter of \"messages\" and directions from the Masters, while\noutwardly claiming \"direct\" communication. The fact is that, as I have\ncome to believe, the plain psychology of the thing is--sheer femininity.\nWith all her intellectual talents, her once clear brain, Mrs. Besant is\n(in her personality) just simple _woman_, relying upon male guidance and\nauthority as instinctively as any of her humbler sisters. And what\nstudent of human nature will fail to recognise in her that purely\nfeminine trait of blind and fanatical \"obedience\" which loves to receive\nand obey \"orders\" even though the result should be \"a world in ruins\"?\nThe existence of this fundamental and essential quality in female human\nnature is the real reason why even the most broad-minded men shrink from\ngiving women equality of power with themselves in wordly affairs.\n\nLet me here declare what I believe to be the real truth; namely, that\nafter H. P. Blavatsky's death in 1891, neither Mrs. Besant, nor Mr.\nJudge, nor Colonel Olcott, nor anyone else, could \"communicate,\" because\n_H. P. B.'s withdrawal meant the withdrawal of her Masters as well_. It\nhas always seemed strange to me that this was never realised by anyone,\nfor in this pamphlet I have quoted quite enough from H. P. B. to make it\nperfectly clear. Does she not say in the 1890 letter to the Indians (see\np. 2) that after she had to leave India in 1885 the Masters' influence\nat Adyar became a dead letter? Did not the Masters Themselves write as\nearly as 1884 that they could only communicate through her or in places\npreviously prepared magnetically by her presence? How, then, could They\nbe expected to continue to communicate or direct the affairs of the T.\nS. (as They did in India until 1885), or the E. S. (as They did from\n1888 to 1891), after They had withdrawn the Agent They had so carefully\nprepared and subjected to the severest trials and initiations in Tibet?\nBarely three years after this withdrawal the fatal \"Split\" took place\nowing to Mr. Judge giving out what purported to be \"direct\"\ncommunications, but which, as I discovered after working for a time\nunder his inspirer and successor, Mrs. Tingley, _were obtained from\nher_. Mrs. Besant, in accusing him, did precisely the same, for she\nstated in her _Case against W. Q. Judge_ that she had received her\norders direct from the Master, whereas (as I relate elsewhere, _post_,\np. 56) she admitted to the Inner Group that they came \"through\" her\nBrahmin guide.\n\nThis, then, was the great and fundamental error committed by the leaders\nof the movement, after H. P. B. was withdrawn. It is responsible for all\nthe subsequent troubles, and the appalling situation with which we are\nfaced to-day. A great and world-wide organisation is being used to\npromulgate blasphemous, poisonous and absolutely anti-Theosophical and\nanti-Occult doctrines as emanating direct from the Masters who\ndefinitely withdrew Their chosen Agent in 1891. (See _ante_ p. 2.)\n\nIn any case, even had she lived, H. P. B. told the E. S. that the \"last\nhour of the term\" was December 31st, 1899, after which \"no Master of\nWisdom from the East will himself appear or send anyone to Europe or\nAmerica.\" (See footnote, _ante_ p. 2.) She also said that the next\nMessenger would be sent out in 1975. Yet the fiction that the Masters\nare still directing the leaders and the movement is kept up, not only by\nMrs. Besant, but also by Mrs. Tingley, 22 years after \"the last hour of\nthe term.\"\n\nIt is the same with all this wild talk about the imminent advent of a\n\"World-Teacher.\" Is this in the least probable, in view of the above\npronouncements? H. P. B. definitely states in _The Secret Doctrine_ the\nexact opposite; but all the Neo-Theosophists seem to prefer the Besant\nand Leadbeater books. H. P. B. says, with reference to this very\nMaitreya whose name they so lightly take in vain, that He is not due\nuntil the Seventh Sub-Race, _i.e._, several thousand years hence; and\nthat, in any case, \"it is not in the _Kali Yug_, our present\nterrifically materialistic age of Darkness, the 'Black Age,' that a new\nSaviour of Humanity can ever appear.\" (S. D. Third Ed., Vol. I, p. 510\n_et seq._ See also _Theosophical Glossary_, \"Kalki Avatar\" and \"Maitreya\nBuddha.\") If we accept H. P. B.'s authority there is no evading this\nissue, and we must reject the Besant-Leadbeater pretensions _in toto_,\nfor their absurdity is patent. Yet they claim to have been specially\ntaught and prepared by her to carry on her message! (_Vide_ Mrs. Besant\nin the _Theosophist_, March, 1922; and also _post_ p. 68.)\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[4] In these incarnations such names are used as; Mars for the \"Master\nM.\"; Mercury for the \"Master K. H.\"; Surya, the Lord Maitreya, the\npresent Bodhisattva, the Supreme Teacher of the World\"; Sirius for Mr.\nLeadbeater; Herakles for Mrs. Besant; Alcyone for Krishnamurti; Mizar\nfor his young brother, etc. A list of these names and those to whom they\napply is given in the Foreword of the book. [Italics mine. Here we see\nthe bald and unabashed appeal to the personality and its ambitions and\ndesires which is characteristic of this kind of charlatanism.--A. L. C.]\nWe shall here substitute the names of the real persons as given in this\nlist for the fancy names used to distinguish them in the body of the\nbook, _Man: Whence, How and Whither_.\n\n[5] M. Ruspoli is an Italian theosophist recently living at Adyar, with\nwhom Mr. Leadbeater stayed in Italy.\n\n[6] It is a remarkable fact that outside this little circle not a single\nbeing in our great world has ever entered into these family communities\nto whom the honour is given of being the pioneers of every civilisation\nof the past. Even though we are invited to assist at marriages running\ninto thousands, _ever_ the same names appear and _all_ the members of\n_all_ the families are identified. This singular oligarchy of friends\nand devotees of Adyar perhaps merited to be signalised throughout the\nevolution of our earth, the more so that Mr. Leadbeater, writing in his\nbird's-eye view of the twentieth century and of the pioneers of the\nfuture sixth race, remarks maliciously: \"We know who will _not_ be\nthere.\" He puts in italics the word _not_; desirous doubtless to\nindicate the unworthiness of other theosophists.\n\n[7] Mr. Martyn is the President of the Sydney Lodge, Australian Section\nT. S., a member of thirty years' standing. See Addendum.\n\n\n\n\nFundamental causes: Some Occult Methods.\n\n\nUnder this heading M. L\u00e9vy deals with what he calls \"the pitiful climax\nof this parody\":--\n\n     What a contrast to the great traditions of the Theosophical\n     movement, formulated by H. P. Blavatsky in _The Key to\n     Theosophy_ (Third Edition, p. 191);--\"As for our best\n     Theosophists, they would also far rather that the names of the\n     Masters had not been mixed up with our books in any way.\" And\n     later, on p. 192;--\"I say again, every earnest Theosophist\n     regrets to-day, from the bottom of his heart, that these sacred\n     names and things have ever been mentioned before the public.\"\n     And this would be the moment to say with Mme.\n     Blavatsky;--\"Great are the desecrations to which the names of\n     two of the Masters have been subjected.\" ... But when all is\n     said and done, what _is_ this occultism which produces _such\n     disregard of truth, such calumny in daily life, such diastrous\n     confusion in the domain of clairvoyance_, and finally, _advice\n     of such a kind as to arouse universal disgust_? [Italics\n     mine.--A. L. C.]\n\n     This occultism has its methods, as all schools of occultism\n     have; for occultism consists in a methodical training and the\n     awakening of consciousness to superior worlds; and where a\n     method produces such results, may we not regard it as\n     legitimate to ask what is the source of such serious and such\n     numerous aberrations?... On this question, as on all those that\n     we have examined, we will cite as witnesses original documents,\n     the appraisements of those who teach their own methods. It is\n     well known that Mr. Leadbeater is the inventor and manipulator\n     of the Adyar occultism. In the _Inner Life_ (Vol. I, p. 450),\n     in speaking of the centres, the awakening of which, as we\n     know, developes clairvoyance, he expresses himself in these\n     terms;--\"I have heard it suggested that each of the different\n     petals of these force-centres represents a moral quality, ... I\n     have not yet met with any facts which confirm this ... _their\n     development seems to me to have no more connection with\n     morality than has the development of the biceps_.\" [Italics\n     mine. A little later I shall quote some very definite\n     pronouncements of H. P. Blavatsky's which teach the exact\n     opposite.--A. L. C.]\n\n     Further, it is of interest to find Mrs. Besant and Mr.\n     Leadbeater, in the first lines of the Preface to _Man; Whence\n     How, and Whither_, expressing the same view as regards the\n     connection between morality and clairvoyance--\"It is not\n     generally accepted, nor indeed is it accepted to any large\n     extent ... [clairvoyance] is a power latent in all men ... it\n     can be developed by any one who is able and willing to pay the\n     price demanded for its forcing, ahead of the general\n     evolution.\"\n\n     Mrs. Besant is no less positive. A price is demanded for the\n     \"forcing\" of clairvoyance, but this price is neither \"high\n     spirituality\" nor \"lofty intelligence,\" nor even \"purity of\n     character\" ... she fully shares the views of Mr. Leadbeater....\n\n     Thus the calumny, sectarianism, the disregard of truth in daily\n     life, the increasingly serious aberrations in the spiritual\n     life, have gradually revealed the main source of all these\n     facts, _i. e._, the defect of the method.\n\n     All becomes clear. Mr. Leadbeater is probably right, and it may\n     be possible to develop, as he claims, a certain clairvoyance\n     (an inferior clairvoyance, it must be said) without the\n     concurrence of a moral and mental training.... But who will\n     maintain that without moral purification we shall possess that\n     moral sense that inspires gracious and noble conduct, and\n     teaches us to hate falsehood?... be able to distinguish\n     illusions from reality in our astral visions?\n\n     Mrs. Besant and Mr. Leadbeater are most certainly not ignorant\n     of the dangers of occult development without morality. But it\n     is quite another matter to profess this theory, or even to lean\n     towards morality in the course of occult development, _by means\n     of ... generous aspirations perpetually evoked in eloquent\n     language_, from setting to work on the development of these\n     centres by means of exercises arranged with the express purpose\n     of bringing in the _practice_ of morality, of truth, and of\n     logic as powerful factors in the reorganisation of the subtle\n     bodies--which produces clairvoyance.... That method which\n     dissociates moral and intellectual aspiration from occult\n     development, and seeks to cultivate them separately, will not\n     achieve moral progress since _the inner nature is not\n     transmuted_; but this method will produce a very debauch of\n     phrases invoking these aspirations. For, instead of penetrating\n     by means of the appropriate practice into the inner regions of\n     the soul, these aspirations swirl, so to say, perpetually on\n     the surface of the mind. Their presence there will produce a\n     kind of psychic intoxication, sometimes rousing in the\n     occultist thoughts so much above his own mental and moral\n     standard, that he may come to regard himself as a saint, while\n     at the same time performing the most despicable actions.\n     Indeed, during such times the conduct shows a moral\n     retrogression very noticeable when compared with the conduct\n     before this occult development For this latter _increases and\n     intensifies all the temptations_, as every occultist will\n     admit. An increase of active morality is therefore, required if\n     we would avoid this most dangerous lack of balance....\n\n     We find constantly in Mrs. Besant and Mr. Leadbeater, under a\n     great show of high moral aspirations, the reality of an actual\n     moral and intellectual fall. Much emphasis is placed on\n     \"liberty of thought\" [see p. 14 A. L. C.], and at the same time\n     the intellectual desertion of this principle is preached in\n     counselling members to give blind obedience to \"the least hint\n     which falls from the lips of Mrs. Besant,\" and to follow her\n     implicitly whether she is understood or not....\n\n     We see clearly that the fruits are precisely those we should\n     expect from the seed; the terrible danger of this method can\n     neither be misunderstood nor denied ... [we must] never lend\n     ear to the words which in this school quite naturally take the\n     place of the honest and right act, and so turn attention from\n     the moral ugliness of the actions performed.... _Acts alone\n     show forth morality, not attractive formulas flowing from\n     literary or oratorical talent._ The constant declaration of\n     liberty of thought, of human brotherhood, cannot impress us\n     when the actions of those who delight in them enslave thought,\n     persecute merit, seek to poison souls by flimsy and deceptive\n     spiritual pronouncements....\n\n     It is a painful duty to have to press this point with such\n     insistence. But now that we are facing the consequences of the\n     Leadbeater method on the mental character of the clairvoyant,\n     our warnings in reference to still more serious harm will not\n     appear exaggerated.\n\n     We know that the higher regions of the invisible worlds are\n     those in which \"consciousness\" manifests itself principally in\n     the most intense awareness of moral beauty.\n\n     Since this is so, the cultivation of the non-moral clairvoyance\n     could only attain results in the lower regions of the astral\n     world ... the organ of clairvoyant sight, when developed\n     according to certain methods, will be blind to the moral\n     outline of subtle worlds, _and will thus be cut off from all\n     their truly spiritual content. The field of their experiences\n     will be limited to the lower regions of the astral plane._\n\n     And it is these lower visions, more frequently experienced\n     because of _their affinity to elements in the vehicles of the\n     investigator not yet purified, that will be presented as the\n     most sublime images of the higher worlds_. For such a\n     clairvoyant is deprived of the high morality which is the force\n     leading our \"bodies\" by affinity towards truly spiritual Beings\n     [_e.g._, the Masters in Their Mahatmic \"bodies\".--A. L. C.]\n     Deprived of the standard of comparison that these provide, _he\n     will be the_ _victim of all the illusions of a world that is\n     the veritable motherland of illusions, for human errors are but\n     the faint reflection of these_. Since the sense of\n     responsibility, which is essentially moral in origin [H. P.\n     Blavatsky says; \"_The sense of Responsibility is the beginning\n     of Wisdom._\" A. L. C.] will equally fail him, _he will have no\n     scruple in sharing his illusions with all in making known his\n     misleading experiences_--the less since the forces, whose sport\n     he is, push him irresistibly to this. Are they not in truth the\n     adversaries of the divine scheme of evolution, _the servants\n     and sowers of error and immorality the world over_?\n\nIn these clear and logical arguments M. L\u00e9vy expresses, even in a\ntranslation, so much better than I could have done, the dangers of the\nway leading to the path of \"error\" which Mrs. Besant is now treading,\nthat I have quoted at greater length than I originally intended.\nAlthough written nine years ago, they are more than ever true to-day. M.\nL\u00e9vy then continues:--\n\n     We have thus sketched in their broad hypothetical outlines _the\n     incalculable reactions that the defect in the Leadbeater method\n     brings into the inner life, into the words and actions of those\n     who yield their souls to him_.\n\n     In demonstrating the fatal effects of this method we have shown\n     the real meaning of the faults and failings of all kinds as\n     exhibited by Mrs. Besant, who is its most fervent adherent. The\n     right interpretation of the known facts seems to us so entirely\n     in conformity with the consequences, as implied in our\n     hypothesis, as to make it possible to some extent to foresee\n     these facts with scientific certainty--which is precisely what\n     has happened....\n\n     We recall the \"Leadbeater Case,\" which in 1906 [this was the\n     Committee of Inquiry in London, above referred to.--A. L. C]\n     called forth within the Theosophical Society, no less than\n     outside, unanimous moral censure.... Resigning from the\n     Theosophical Society in consequence of this affair, Mr.\n     Leadbeater has since returned, at the invitation of Mrs.\n     Besant.... Have the principles and methods of Mr. Leadbeater\n     changed since he has returned to his place amongst us? He\n     himself informs us on this point in a letter written after the\n     \"affair,\" at the express desire of Mrs. Besant that he should\n     \"define his position\" at the time she started the well-known\n     campaign in favour of his re-admission (_Theosophist_, February\n     1908.)\n\n     \"You ask me,\" says Mr. Leadbeater, \"to write you a clear letter\n     that you may show at need, expressing my real views on the\n     advice I gave some time ago to certain young boys. I need\n     hardly say that I keep my promise not to repeat the advice, for\n     I defer to your opinion that it is dangerous. I also recognise,\n     as fully as yourself, that it would be if it were promiscuously\n     given, but I have never thought of so giving it.\"\n\n     In this declaration Mr. Leadbeater first recognises the danger\n     of his advice, then immediately retracts this confession by\n     reservations which imply its harmlessness in just those cases\n     for which he is blamed. He has not, as we see from this letter,\n     then, changed his views; but the important fact is that he only\n     speaks of \"danger,\" and never of \"immorality.\" _His moral\n     standpoint remains, then, unaltered--is precisely the same as\n     before the expos\u00e9._\n\n     And what is this point of view? Mrs. Besant thus gives it in a\n     letter dated July, 1906 (_Theosophic Voice_, May, 1908):--\n\n     \"Mr. Leadbeater appeared before the Council of the British\n     Section, representatives from the French and the American\n     Sections being present and voting. Colonel Olcott in the chair.\n     _He denied none of the charges_, but in answer to questions,\n     very much strengthened them, for he alleged.... _So that the\n     advice ... became advice putting foul ideas into the minds of\n     boys innocent of all sex impulses.... It was conceivable that\n     the advice, as supposed to have been given, had been given with\n     pure intent, and the presumption was so in a teacher of\n     theosophical morality; anything else seemed incredible. But\n     such advice as was given in fact, such dealing with boys_\n     _before sex passion had awakened, could only be given with pure\n     intent if the giver were, on this point, insane._\" [Italics\n     mine. The details omitted cannot be put in print.--A. L. C.]\n\n     \"Let me here place on record my opinion that such teaching as\n     this, given to men, let alone to innocent boys, is worthy of\n     the sternest reprobation. It distorts and perverts the sex\n     impulse ... degrades the ideas of marriage, fatherhood and\n     motherhood ... befouls the imagination, pollutes the emotions,\n     and undermines the health. Worst of all that it should be\n     taught under the name of Divine Wisdom, being essentially\n     'earthly', 'sensual', 'devilish.'\"\n\nMrs. Besant's last sentence contains the whole _raison d'\u00eatre_ of this\nmy Protest. She has expressed precisely the views I hold; but in this\nfervid condemnation she herself must now be included, since she condones\nand thus supports this horror. M. L\u00e9vy graphically portrays for us on\nwhat road it is that this once apparently sane and normal woman, with\nall her great gifts, is descending--a road that, as H. P. Blavatsky puts\nit in the concluding paragraph of _Occultism_ versus _the Occult Arts_,\n\"can lead only to Dugpa-ship.\" (see _post_ p. 33.) He continues:--\n\n     Mrs. Besant then deemed Mr. Leadbeater's morality so defective\n     as to be accounted for only by mental derangement.\n     Nevertheless, the promise contained in the letter just quoted\n     and which expresses no shadow of moral repentance whatsoever,\n     nor anything approaching it, was sufficient, in Mrs. Besant's\n     eyes, to justify her in bringing back into the Theosophical\n     Society a teacher she has judged thus. Could one ask a clearer\n     proof of the anarchy produced by such occultism?\n\n     A recent suit, instituted by the parent of the young\n     Krishnamurti, re-claiming the custody of his child, brings\n     forward again this question of morality ... reminding us of the\n     expos\u00e9. In fact, the present case clearly formulates the\n     accusation of immoral conduct testified to by witnesses ... In\n     such a discussion, this attempt [by Mrs. Besant] to play upon\n     the political interests of the judges is unexpected,\n     amazing,--and, alas! significant. We see clearly that a mind\n     that shows itself capable of throwing into the balance\n     political (and racial) appeals in a matter of conduct, is\n     utterly blind to the question of human consideration [a Brahmin\n     father re-claiming his young sons] that overshadows this whole\n     case.\n\n     Clear and unmistakable through all these actions shows the\n     consistent distortion of the moral outlook, more serious since\n     the esoteric ethics should be an extension, a purification, an\n     exaltation of exoteric morality, and in no circumstances its\n     decline, its degradation, its negation. And if we would realise\n     to what extent this moral outlook can be warped under certain\n     influences, we need but to hear Mrs. Besant say of Mr.\n     Leadbeater:--\"By hard, patient work he has won rewards ...\n     until he stands perhaps the most trusted of his Master's\n     disciples on the threshold of Divinity.\" (_Theosophist_,\n     November, 1911, p. 308.)\n\n     This conception of the \"Divinity\" that should be the the final\n     expression of morality has no need of comment other than that\n     same \"deification\" by his colleague--who five years earlier\n     regarded his teaching as so utterly immoral as to suggest\n     mental derangement as the only explanation.... Perhaps we shall\n     understand these things a little better if we remember that\n     this occultist, if he contradicts the Buddha, on the other hand\n     almost deifies Mrs. Besant. Possibly taking into consideration\n     this exchange of admiration, the meaning of the \"deifications\"\n     will become sufficiently clear.\n\n\n\n\nH. P. Blavatsky on true Occultism.\n\n\nBefore giving some fine passages from M. L\u00e9vy's concluding chapters I\nwill quote from H. P. Blavatsky's _Practical Occultism: Occultism_\nversus _the Occult Arts_, mentioned a few pages back. In its original\nform it is a booklet containing a reprint of two articles which she\nwrote for _Lucifer_ in 1888, shortly before she founded the Esoteric\nSection. These extracts will show the \"true\" teaching in this matter of\nOccultism, as contrasted with the \"false,\" or Mrs. Besant's and Mr.\nLeadbeater's. H. P. B. begins by declaring that: \"There are not in the\nWest half-a-dozen among the fervent hundreds who call themselves\n'Occultists' who have even an approximately correct idea of the nature\nof the Science they seek to master. With a few exceptions, they are all\non the highway to sorcery.... Let them first learn the true relation in\nwhich the Occult Sciences stand to Occultism.... [It] differs from Magic\nand other secret sciences as the glorious sun does from a rush-light, as\nthe immutable and immortal Spirit of Man--the reflection of the\nabsolute, causeless and unknowable ALL--differs from the mortal\nclay--the human body.... [The word] OCCULTISM is certainly misleading,\ntranslated as it stands from the compound word _Gupta-Vidya_ (Secret.\nKnowledge.) But the knowledge of what? Some of the Sanskrit terms may\nhelp us.\n\n\"There are four (out of the many other) names of the various kinds of\nEsoteric Knowledge or Sciences given, even in the exoteric Pur\u00e2nas.\nThere is (1) _Yajna-Vidya_, knowledge of the occult powers awakened in\nNature by the performance of certain religious ceremonies and rites. (2)\n_Mahavidya_, the 'great knowledge,' the magic of the Kabalists and of\nthe _Tantrika_ worship, often Sorcery of the worst description. (3)\n_Guhya-Vidya_, knowledge of the mystic powers residing in Sound (Ether),\nhence in the Mantras (chanted prayers or incantations), and depending on\nthe rhythm and melody used; in other words, a magical performance based\non knowledge of the Forces of Nature and their correlation; and (4)\n_Atma-Vidya_, a term which is translated simply 'Knowledge of the Soul,'\n_true Wisdom_ by the Orientalists, but which means far more.\n\n\"This last is the only kind of Occultism that any Theosophist who\nadmires 'Light on the Path,' and who would be wise and unselfish, ought\nto strive after. All the rest is some branch of the 'Occult Sciences,'\n_i.e._, arts based on the knowledge of the ultimate essence of all\nthings in the kingdoms of Nature--such as minerals, plants and\nanimals--hence of things pertaining to the realm of _material_ nature,\nhowever invisible that essence may be, and howsoever much it has\nhitherto eluded the grasp of Science.... _Siddhis_ (or the Arhat powers)\nare only for those who are able to 'lead the life,' and to comply with\nthe terrible sacrifices required for such a training, and to comply with\nthem _to the very letter_. Let them know at once and remember always,\nthat true Occultism or Theosophy is the 'Great Renunciation of SELF,'\nunconditionally and absolutely, in thought as in action. It is ALTRUISM,\nand it throws him who practises it out of the ranks of the living\naltogether. 'Not for himself, but for the world he lives,' as soon as he\nhas pledged himself to the work. Much is forgiven during the first years\nof probation. But, no sooner is he 'accepted' than his personality must\ndisappear, and he has to become a _mere beneficent force in Nature_.\nThere are two poles for him after that, two paths, and no midway place\nof rest. He has either to ascend laboriously step by step, often through\nnumerous incarnations and _no Devachanic break_, the golden ladder\nleading to Mahatmaship (the _Arhat_ or _Bodhisattva_ condition), or--he\nwill let himself slide down the ladder at the first false step, and roll\ndown into _Dugpa-ship_....[8]\n\n\"All this is either unknown or left out of sight altogether. Indeed, one\nwho is able to follow the silent evolution of the preliminary\naspirations of the candidates often find strange ideas quietly taking\npossession of their minds. There are those whose reasoning powers have\nbeen so distorted by foreign influences that they imagine that animal\npassions can be so sublimated and elevated that their fury, force and\nfire can, so to speak, be turned inwards ... _until their collective and\nunexpanded strength enables their possessor to enter the true Sanctuary\nof the Soul_, and stand therein in the presence of the _Master_--the\nHIGHER SELF.... Oh, poor blind visionaries!... Strange aberration of the\nhuman mind. Can it be so? Let us argue.\n\n\"The 'Master' in the Sanctuary of our souls is 'the Higher Self'--the\ndivine spirit whose consciousness is based upon and derived solely (at\nany rate during the mortal life of the man in whom it is captive) from\nthe mind, which we have agreed to call the _Human Soul_ (the 'Spiritual\nSoul' being the vehicle of the Spirit.) In its turn the former (the\n_personal_ or human soul) is a compound, in its highest form of\nspiritual aspirations, volitions and divine love; and in its lower\naspect, of animal desires and terrestrial passions imparted to it by its\nassociation with its vehicle, the seat of all these ... the _inner\nanimal_. [It] is the instinctual 'animal soul,' and is the hotbed of\nthose passions which ... are lulled instead of being killed, ... And\nwhere, on what neutral ground, can they be imprisoned so as not to\naffect man?\n\n\"The fierce passions of love and lust are still alive, and they are\nallowed to still remain in the place of their birth--_that same animal\nsoul_.... It is thus the mind alone--the sole link and medium between\nthe man of earth and the Higher Self--that is the only sufferer, and\nwhich is in incessant danger of being dragged down by those passions,\nthat may be re-awakened at any moment and perish in the abyss of\nmatter.... How can harmony prevail and conquer, when the soul is stained\nand distracted with the turmoil of passions and the terrestrial desires\nof the bodily senses, or even of the 'Astral man'?\n\n\"For this 'Astral'--the shadowy 'double' (in the animal as in man) is\nnot the companion of the _divine Ego_ but of the _earthly body_. It is\nthe link between the personal self, the lower consciousness of _Manas_,\nand the Body, and is the vehicle of _transitory, not of immortal\nlife_.... It is only when the power of the passions is dead altogether,\nand when they have been crushed and annihilated in the retort of an\nunflinching will; when not only all the lusts and longings of the flesh\nare dead, but also the recognition of the personal Self is killed out\nand the 'Astral' has been reduced in consequence to a cipher, that the\nUnion with the 'Higher Self' can take place. Then when the 'Astral'\nreflects only the conquered man, the still living but no more the\nlonging, selfish personality, then the brilliant _Auoeides_, the\ndivine SELF, can vibrate in conscious harmony with both the poles of the\nhuman Entity--the man of matter purified, and the ever pure Spiritual\nSoul--and stand in the presence of the MASTER SELF, the Christos of the\nmystic Gnostic, blended, merged into, and one with IT for ever.[9]\n\n\"How, then, can it be thought possible for a man to enter the 'strait\ngate' of occultism when his daily and hourly thoughts are bound up with\nworldly things, desires of possession and power, with lust, ambition,\nand duties which, however honourable, are still of the earth, earthy?\nEven the love for wife and family--the purest as the most unselfish of\nhuman affections--is a barrier to _real_ occultism.... While the heart\nis full of thoughts for a little group of _selves_, near and dear to us,\nhow shall the rest of mankind fare in our souls? What percentage of love\nand care will there remain to bestow on the 'great orphan' [Humanity]?\nAnd how shall the 'still small voice' make itself heard in a soul\nentirely occupied with its own privileged tenants?... yet, he who would\nprofit by the wisdom of the universal mind, has to reach it through _the\nwhole of Humanity_, without distinction of race, complexion, religion,\nor social status. It is _altruism,_ not _ego_-ism even in its most legal\nand noble conception, that can lead the unit to merge its little Self in\nthe Universal Selves. It is to _these_ needs and to this work that the\ntrue disciple of true Occultism has to devote himself if he would obtain\n_theo_-sophy, divine Wisdom and Knowledge.\n\n\"The aspirant has to choose absolutely between the life of the world and\nthe life of Occultism.... It would be a ceaseless, a maddening struggle\nfor almost any married man, who would pursue _true_ practical Occultism,\ninstead of its _theoretical_ philosophy. For he would find himself ever\nhesitating between the voice of the impersonal divine love of Humanity,\nand that of the personal, terrestrial love.... Worse than this. For,\n_whoever indulges, after having pledged himself to_ OCCULTISM, _in the\ngratification of a terrestrial love or lust_, must feel an almost\nimmediate result--that of being irresistibly dragged from the impersonal\ndivine state down to the lower plane of matter. Sensual, or even mental,\nself-gratification involves the immediate loss of the powers of\nspiritual discernment; the voice of the MASTER can no longer be\ndistinguished from that of one's passions, or _even that of a Dugpa_;\nthe right from wrong; sound morality from mere casuistry. The Dead Sea\nfruit assumes the most glorious mystic appearance ... although it is the\nintention that decides primarily whether _white_ or _black_ magic is\nexercised, yet the results even of involuntary sorcery cannot fail to be\nproductive of bad Karma.... _Sorcery is any kind of evil influence\nexercised upon other persons, who suffer, or make other_ persons to\nsuffer, in consequence ... such causes produced have to call forth\neffects, and these are evidenced in the just laws of Retribution.\n\n\"Much of this may be avoided if people will only abstain from rushing\ninto practices neither the nature nor importance of which they\nunderstand.... We are in the Kali-Yuga and its fatal influence is a\nthousand-fold more powerful in the West than it is in the East; _hence\nthe easy preys made by the Powers of the Age of Darkness in this cyclic\nstruggle, and the many delusions under which the world is now\nlabouring_.\" (Italics mine--A. L. C.)\n\nApplying this high and absolutely uncompromising moral standard, these\ngrand and stern words, to the two pseudo-occultists under discussion, it\nis not difficult--even in the light of the little I have already\ngiven--to see that they themselves, and their actions, bear _no sort of\nrelation_ to real \"Occultism\" as here briefly outlined by H. P.\nBlavatsky. Their teaching concerning sex is indeed its antithesis, which\ninevitably leads to Dugpa-ship, as H. P. B. definitely states. The issue\nis clear, and cannot be evaded or explained away.\n\nIt is true that Mrs. Besant started well, even splendidly, in H. P. B.'s\nlifetime, and just after her death wrote a series of simple explanatory\nmanuals which were of great value to beginners and enquirers. But only\ntwo years later she began, under Brahmin[10] inspiration, to make\nserious alterations in H. P. B.'s own works, and even to throw doubt on\nher occult knowledge (_e.g._, Mrs. Besant's Preface to the so-called\nVol. III of _The Secret Doctrine_.) Unfortunately larger and more\nambitious works which followed were vitiated by the same influences, and\nI well remember marking many passages in _The Ancient Wisdom_ which were\nnot in accordance with H. P. B.'s teachings. But the radical departure\nfrom them began when Mrs. Besant definitely threw in her lot with C. W.\nLeadbeater, the sex pervert, and thereby alienated and caused such deep\nsorrow to her former friends and supporters.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[8] DUGPAS. (_Tibetan_). Lit., \"Red Caps,\" a sect in Tibet. Before the\nadvent of Tsong-ka-pa in the fourteenth century, the Tibetans, whose\nBuddhism had deteriorated and been dreadfully adulterated with the\ntenets of the old _Bhon_ religion--were all Dugpas. From that century,\nhowever, and after the rigid laws imposed upon the _Gelukpas_ (Yellow\nCaps) and the general reform and purification of Buddhism (or Lamaism),\nthe Dugpas have given themselves over more than ever to sorcery,\nimmorality, and drunkenness. Since then the word _Dugpa_ has become a\nsynonym of \"sorcerer\", \"adept of black magic\" and everything vile. There\nare few, if any, Dugpas in Eastern Tibet, but they congregate in Bhutan,\nSikkim, and the borderlands generally.--_The Theosophical Glossary_, by\nH. P. Blavatsky.\n\n[9] Man is a trinity composed of Body, Soul, and Spirit; but _man_ is\nnevertheless _one_, _and_ is surely not his body. The three 'Egos' are\nMAN in his three aspects on the astral, intellectual or psychic, and\nSpiritual planes, or states.\n\n[10] In making use of the word \"Brahmin\" in this connection, I mean only\nto indicate that \"sacerdotal\" spirit of the Brahmin caste which has\nalways resisted (and quite reasonably, _from their point of view_) any\nrevealing of esoteric teaching to the multitude, and especially to the\nWest. The particular Brahmin whom Mrs. Besant followed at that period\n(see _post_ p. 56 Footnote) induced her to adopt a line of action which\ndisrupted the Society created by H. P. B., and diverted attention from\nher works.\n\n\n\n\nMrs. Besant's responsibility and the Madras Law-suits.\n\n\nM. L\u00e9vy's concluding chapter, from which I will now quote, is obviously\nwritten from the heart. He says that it is his \"imperative duty\" to\nresign his membership in Mrs. Besant's Society, referring to the pain\ncaused to her old friends by the opinion expressed by the police court\nmagistrate in the defamation cases ... for he considered that the facts\nbefore him, and the documentary evidence, supported the view that Mrs.\nBesant had known of and even countenanced the practices of Mr.\nLeadbeater....\n\n     \"In restoring to Mr. Leadbeater his influence over herself and\n     over the destinies of the Theosophical Society [she] has proved\n     her failure in moral vigilance and her lack of intellectual\n     discrimination as regards methods to which she thus fails the\n     first victim. And the sorry contradictions that this brings\n     into her spiritual message, the utter disregard of truth\n     resulting from this, impel her to words and actions that now\n     involve an incalculable number of victims, misled by their\n     devoted trust in her. Her responsibility is in truth a very\n     terrible one.... I have come to regard the actions of Mrs.\n     Besant--and of Mr. Leadbeater equally, of course--as the\n     _leaven of destruction, of disintegration in the Theosophical\n     Society_.\n\n     We cannot rid ourselves of a growing disquiet in seeing Mrs.\n     Besant, in her monthly articles in the _Theosophist_, entitled\n     \"On the Watch-Tower,\" so tirelessly expressing such great and\n     manifest satisfaction in every smallest material increase,\n     improvement and enrichment of the Adyar Headquarters.\n\n     Mr. Leadbeater shares in this joy. Speaking of Mrs. Besant in\n     the _Adyar Album_, p. 7, he praises at great length the\n     material improvements of the Headquarters:--\"In her reign have\n     been added to the estate no less than six valuable pieces of\n     property.\" Thus temporal power would clearly seem to be the\n     main concern of Adyar. And we involuntarily turn to the words\n     of Christ, who so well described the spiritual splendours:--\"My\n     kingdom is not of this world.\" _Not thus does Mrs. Besant\n     understand spirituality_ since she \"reigns\" as a prince of this\n     world, over a kingdom that grows by her conquests.... A like\n     concern follows Mr. Leadbeater even into his occult\n     investigations into the twenty-eighth century, in which he sees\n     \"a kind of gorgeous palace with an enormous dome, the central\n     part of which must be an imitation of the Taj Mahal at Agra,\n     but on a much larger scale. In this great building they mark as\n     memorials certain spots by pillars and inscriptions, such as\n     ... here such and such a book was written ... they even have\n     statues of _some of us_ [_sic!!_] ...--_Man; Whence, How, and\n     Whither._\n\nTruly may one here repeat the somewhat banal phrase \"Comment is\nneedless\"; indeed one might add, \"impossible,\" in the face of such an\namazing manifestation of megalomania. But this is not the most serious\ndisease from which C. W. Leadbeater and his colleague are suffering. As\nM. L\u00e9vy has already shown, there is much worse behind of which this\nmegalomania is only one symptom. In an \"Addendum\" given at, the end of\nhis book, M. L\u00e9vy says that since the publication of his brochure\njudgment has been pronounced on the case he mentions (see p. 29), the\njudge ruling that the children should be removed from the care of Mrs.\nBesant and given back to the father within a fixed time.\" He then\ncontinues:--\n\n     Further legal proceedings have confirmed, with yet more\n     precision, the infamous immorality of which Mr. Leadbeater\n     stands accused. (see report in _The Hindu_, Madras, May 9th,\n     1913.) A Madras medical review called _The Antiseptic_ had\n     pubished an article in which apprehension of the establishment\n     of a 'Temple of Onanism\" [\"unnatural sin.\" See Dr. Hartmann's\n     _Paracelsus_, p. 90] at Adyar was expressed. _The Hindu_\n     newspaper reprinted the scandal. Mrs. Besant took proceedings\n     aga nst the author of the article and the publisher of _The\n     Antiseptic_; and the Treasurer of the Theosophical Society was\n     moved at the same time to action against _The Hindu_. _All\n     three cases were dismissed._ The gravity of the position is\n     evident. Mr. Leadbeater's methods have been proved by his own\n     admissions as well as by documents before the Court to be\n     subversive of morality....\n\n     These facts [I omit the worst details that M. L\u00e9vy feels\n     obliged to quote] condemn Mr. Leadbeater without possibility of\n     appeal; they reveal to us, with regard to Mrs. Besant, a truly\n     degrading complaisance, by reason of her desire to hide a crime\n     as patent as it is abominable ... the members of the\n     Theosophical Society are not only kept in complete ignorance\n     regarding these facts, but the administration of Adyar, through\n     its extensive propaganda, has a great influence over new\n     members in all conditions, while concealing and perverting the\n     truth.... The existence of persons like Mr. Leadbeater, who\n     admit and practise the worst perversities, is a sad reminder of\n     the darker side of human nature; yet the attitude of simply\n     ignoring that such things exist seems indefensible when these\n     persons pretend to the highest morality and represent\n     themselves as guides towards spiritual development ... claiming\n     to stand \"on the threshold of divinity.\".. The danger that such\n     persons may continue to extend their empire over the souls of\n     others is an increasing one....\n\nIn view of these \"facts\" M. L\u00e9vy's restraint of language is remarkable,\nhis condemnation hardly sufficiently scathing. His concluding words,\nhowever, explain much; he has evidently greatly admired Mrs. Besant in\nearlier years, and the last paragraph of his book eloquently attests his\npersonal grief:--\"The feeling which here arrests my pen, and prevents me\nfrom saying more on the matter, will be understood by those who have\nfollowed me so far, and they may hear across my silence the voice of\ntheir own sorrow.\" I deeply respect M. L\u00e9vy's feelings; but for me--who\nhave never had any illusions regarding Mrs. Besant from the time of the\ndisruption of the Society in 1894-5--the matter assumes a more sinister\naspect. His pages have rendered me most invaluable help in putting\nbefore the general public matter not personally known to my own\nexperience. I left Colonel Olcott's Society in 1895, M. L\u00e9vy left Mrs.\nBesant's in 1913; and when we remember that this was its condition nine\nyears ago, my previous remarks (see p. 14) may be better appreciated now\nthat more evidence has been adduced\n\n\n\n\nThe Central Hindu College. An Indian Criticism.\n\n\nIn a pamphlet published at Benares about the same date (1913) by Pandit\nBhagavan Das, \"a former General Secretary of the Indian Section T. S.\"\nwe possess still further evidence of Mrs. Besant's extraordinary\naberrations under C. W. Leadbeater's guidance and control. Mr. Das's\npamphlet is addressed to the editor of the London _Christian\nCommonwealth_, and is entitled \"The Central Hindu College and Mrs.\nBesant.\" It is a reply to some \"remarks\" by her on this College, which\nappeared in that paper in June, 1913. Mr. Das writes:--\n\n     [Mrs. Besant's] remarks on the Central Hindu College [Benares]\n     in your paper are illustrations of this sad change in her. This\n     Institution, for which she has done more than anyone else\n     perhaps, she now openly and obviously tries to injure most\n     deeply in the minds of the public by wild suggestions that it\n     and the Hindu University, into which it is proposed to be\n     expanded, are mixed up with political seditionists and\n     extremists ... that such an educational movement is in any way\n     mixed up with seditionism and extremism is an idea ...\n     fatuously ludicrous.... The reckless, incoherent,\n     self-contradictory, incorrect and misleading statements that\n     Mrs. Besant has been freely making latterly in the public\n     press, have only injured her own reputation.... The C. H. C.\n     was founded in July, 1898, in order to do for the numerous\n     sects and sub-divisions of Hinduism what the T. S. was\n     endeavouring to do for all views and religions.... The College\n     grew and prospered year by year, under the Presidentship of\n     Mrs. Besant, and won the confidence ... of Hindus of almost all\n     shades of opinion.... But with the transfer of Mrs. Besant\n     from Benares to Adyar in 1907, as President of the T. S.,\n     elected _under very peculiar circumstances_ [as I learnt\n     recently from a very old member present in Adyar when Colonel\n     Olcott was on his deathbed. Italics mine.--A. L. C.]\n     foreshadowing the coming policies, a change began to come over\n     the spirit of all her work and surroundings. Despite the\n     suggestions, advice, entreaties, expostulations, and warnings\n     of her old colleagues and counsellors _who had made her work in\n     India possible_ [Italics mine.--A. L. C.], she developed more\n     and more and beyond all due bounds, the germ of person-worship\n     so long held in restraint. Entirely proofless claims to\n     superphysical powers and experiences, to being an Initiate, an\n     Arhat, a Mukta and what not; claims to read Mars and Mercury\n     and the whole Solar System, past, present and future (but with\n     careful avoidance of even the most easy test, such as reading a\n     given page of a closed book) claims to be the authorised agent\n     of \"the Great White Brotherhood which guides Evolution on\n     earth\" and to be in communication with the Supreme Director of\n     the world and with \"the World-Teacher,\" etc., in short, all the\n     elements of sensationalism and emotionalism--which were\n     subdominant and private (confined mostly to the \"inner\" E. S.\n     T. organisation within the T. S.) now began to be predominant\n     and public.... In the spring of 1909, a \"brother Initiate\" of\n     Mrs. Besant's \"discovered\" the boy, now nicknamed Alcyone, as\n     the future vehicle of the Coming Christ ... _\"neo-theosophy\"\n     was started more or less definitely_ [Italics mine.--A. L.\n     C.]....\n\n     In January 1911 was started publicly by the then Principal of\n     the C. H. C., as the chief member of the \"Group\" an \"Order\"\n     called The Order of the Rising Sun, with the idea of \"preparing\n     for a coming World-Teacher \"as its publicly avowed central\n     idea, and the creed that the boy J. K. (Alcyone) would be the\n     \"vehicle\" of the \"Coming Christ--Maitreya-Bodhisattva,\" etc.,\n     as its privately understood creed, to spread which amongst the\n     students was the duty of the inner \"pledged group.' ... [See\n     _ante_ p. 21.\n\nIn short, Mrs. Besant cleverly utilised an already existing\norganisation, founded for quite other objects and aims, to spread this\ncrazy and pernicious \"neo-theosophy,\" under cover of secrecy, pledges,\netc., which she and C. W. Leadbeater--the real inspirer--well knew to be\nalmost irresistible baits for sensitive and imaginative youths at a\nhighly impressionable age.\n\nIn April, 1911, on remonstrance by the older members of the Managing\nCommittee, Mrs. Besant arranged that the Order of the Rising Sun should\nbe disbanded. But this was mere show. When the disbandment was announced\nto the managers, it had already been arranged to replace the O. R. S. on\na larger scale by _The Order of the Star in the East_ with the\nPrincipal, Head Master, and various Professors of the C. H. C. as the\nPrivate and other secretaries, of the boy J. K. as Head of the Order,\nand Mrs. Besant as Protectress of the whole....\n\nIn the summer of 1911, side by side with this public activity, there was\nstarted by Mrs. Besant _within_ the E. S. T. ... A WRITTEN PLEDGE OF\nABSOLUTE OBEDIENCE TO HERSELF. This fact, \"private and confidential\" at\nthe time, is now public property since the Madras law suits....\n\nIn August, 1911, the Trustees of the C. H. C., to allay the apprehension\nin the public mind that the C. H. C. was being diverted from its\nconstitutional broad and liberal Hinduism into a bizarre and unhealthy\npersonal-cult and bigoted Second-Adventism, passed formal resolutions to\nthe effect that the Institution had nothing to do with any such Orders\nas those of the _Rising Sun_ or the _Star in the East_.\n\nOn December 24th, 1911, resolutions were passed by the Trustees,\nagreeing that the C. H. C. should become part of the Hindu\nUniversity.... The neo-theosophic propagandism within (as without) the\nC. H. C. continued ... in a score of evasive and elusive forms. Inner\n\"Groups\" and \"Esoteric Section Groups\" of persons formally pledged to\nobedience to Mrs. Besant, \"Leagues of Service\" of various kinds,\n\"Orders of S. E.\" and \"S. I.\" and \"I. L.,\" \"Co-Masonry Lodges,\" \"Temple\nof the R. C.,\" and corresponding badges, bands, \"regalia,\" \"jewels,\"and\n\"pink,\" and \"blue,\" and \"yellow\" scarves; \"magnetized ribbons,\" and\n\"stars\" in pin, brooch, and button forms, etc. [for all the world like\nthe Kindergarten games for developing infant intelligences!--A. L. C.]\nmultiplied and replaced one another in interest like mushrooms in the\nrain time, a very fever of restless sound and movement hiding lack of\nsubstance and of wise purpose. Fuss of the most absurd and mischievous\nkind became rampant. Lectures, meetings, night classes, outside the\ncollege rooms and buildings, took place perpetually in the neighbouring\nT. S. premises and private residences, for expounding the doctrines of\nneo-theosophy and especially the book called _At the Feet of the Master_\nalleged to have been written down by Alcyone (J. Krishnamurti), as the\nembryonic scriptures and revelation of \"the Embryo of a New Religion,\"\nas Mrs. Besant declares the O. S. E. to be. Resident students were\nadvised, and a number of them began to keep photos of Alcyone, as the\n\"vehicle\" of the \"Coming Christ\" and himself an \"Initiate of the Great\nWhite Brotherhood\" (and Mrs. Besant and one or two other living persons)\n\"on the threshold of divinity,\" and to worship them with flowers,\nincense, etc. Old and young believers prostrating and genuflecting,\nliterally, at the feet of the living original when within reach.... The\nthen Principal of the College (who had founded the O. R. S.) proclaimed\nin his lectures in the neighbouring T. S. Hall, and elsewhere, that he\nwas a \"High Disciple of the Master\"; and that the C. H. C. was \"founded\nto prepare for the Advent of the World-Teacher\"....\n\n[Mrs. Besant] has publicly stated [that] all of the members of the\nGeneral Council of the T. S. now belong, with one or two exceptions\nperhaps, to the \"Esoteric Section,\" prime condition of membership of\nwhich is, THE FORMAL WRITTEN PLEDGE OF ABSOLUTE OBEDIENCE TO MRS.\nBESANT; and so while the loud profession is freedom of thought \"for all\"\nthe practice is sedulously \"for herself,\" and her pledged votaries\nonly; while the theory is that the O. S. E. \"must not be identified with\nthe T. S.,\" the practice is that the T. S. must be merged in the O. S.\nE.\n\nLet us turn to the C. H. C. to bring the narrative up to date. In March\nand April 1913 there came into the hands of another Manager and Trustee,\na printed \"letter,\" covering some three foolscap pages, bearing the\nsignature of the gentleman who was then Principal of the C. H. C., the\ndate October 25th, 1912, and the imprint of Mrs. Besant's _Vasanta\nPress_, Adyar, Madras, and not bearing any word like \"private\" or\n\"personal,\" or \"confidential.\" In this \"letter\" amazingly extravagant\nand fantastic statements are made as regards Mrs. Besant; she is hailed\nrepeatedly as one who is \"_to become one of the greatest Rulers of the\nWorld of Gods and men_\" [This is sheer insanity.--A. L. C.]; mention is\nmade of the \"recognition of the God without us, which made us members of\nthis Group from which we draw our life to-day\"; it is said \"that her\nlight to ours was and is as the rays of the sun at noon-time to the rays\nof a lamp at night, and we did not desire to examine the Sun to see\nunder what conditions it might possibly ray forth a more dazzling\nbrilliance.\" The members of the Group are reminded that \"we pledged\nourselves in our hearts that we should strive to become _her true and\nloyal servants ...,_\" etc.\n\nThus complete was the hypnosis and surrender of reason which was sought\nto be effected amongst the votaries. It was a case of emotionalism run\namuck....\"\n\nIt is, unfortunately, \"a case\" of something infinitely more mischievous;\nof evil \"magic\" and \"sorcery\" (cf. H. P. B.'s definition, _ante_ p. 36.)\nWhether Mrs. Besant knows it or not, Mr. Leadbeater undoubtedly must be\nwell aware that life and strength can be drawn, on inner planes of\nbeing, from the blind devotion of a solid body of fanatical votaries.\n\"Magicians\" of a certain school--I need hardly specify which--thus\nprolong their lives through the magnetic and vita emanations of their\nnearest and most devoted followers. In a word, it is _Vampirism_, pure\nand simple, on the psychic plane. (I found that Mrs. Tingley well\nunderstood this form of Sorcery.) This, if true in Mrs. Besant's case is\nprobably unconscious; but in Mr. Leadbeater's it is done consciously and\nwith knowledge. That the secret acts and teachings of this man are far\nworse than most people have ever suspected is confirmed in a \"Letter in\nreply to Mrs. Besant\" by \"Dreamer\" which appeared in _The Theosophic\nVoice_ (Chicago), November, 1908, under the title \"India Speaks.\" This\nscholarly Hindu Theosophist writes:--\n\n     If we are to believe the stenographic report of the Inquiry in\n     1906, then instead of holding that Mr. Leadbeater denied the\n     charges, we must come to the conclusion that not only did he\n     teach the solitary vice, but further he did things which would\n     have brought him within the pale of the criminal laws for the\n     foulest and most indecent offence which brute man may commit.\n     This is our latter day saint who must be re-admitted, nay,\n     invited back, into the Theosophical Society.\n\nNote that this was written fourteen years ago! The subject is a\nrevolting one, but in the interests of that public whom these people are\nstill misleading and deceiving, and who have no idea of the extreme\ngravity of the menace, it is necessary to be explicit.\n\nTo return to the \"Letter\" mentioned by Mr. Das; he continues:--\n\n     The Trustee and Manager into whose hands a copy of the\n     astonishing document came, with the information that _it had\n     been circulated_ amongst a number of the C. H. C. students,\n     informed the secretaries of the College, and sent the letter\n     with the comments on the same for publication in a daily paper,\n     in order to show the public how the person-worship-creeds of\n     Mrs. Besant's \"neo-theosophy\" were being sown and grown within\n     the C. H. C. despite the resolutions of the Trustees.\n\n     On publication of the rhapsody, a great outcry in the name of\n     \"injured innocence\" was raised.... As to the\n     \"dishonourableness\" of the publication, competent judges of\n     such matters have pronounced that it was dishonourable only if\n     it be dishonourable to expose what cannot be called other than\n     _gross treason_ to the Constitution and ideals of the C. H. C.,\n     and to bring to light, and the bar of public opinion, underhand\n     or half-concealed or openly defiant efforts to convert students\n     to a grotesque person-worship and demoralizing and\n     soul-stunting blind obedience to Mrs. Besant.... The asking\n     for, and the receiving of the pledges of obedience to herself,\n     etc., is an act of over-weening presumption against the God in\n     every man.... Ever since she encouraged and started them, her\n     mind has worked less and less correctly and confusion has\n     fallen ever worse and worse upon her work, losing to the T. S.\n     many thousands of old members, alienating from her all her old\n     co-workers and co-founders of the C. H. C. and destroying the\n     confidence in her of the Indian public.\n\nTowards the end of his most illuminating pamphlet Mr. Das has occasion\nto speak of Mrs. Besant's \"wildly reckless statements,\" some of which he\nquotes. They relate to the C. H. C. and he stigmatises them as \"_all\nsimply and utterly untrue_.\" \"Her mind,\" he says a little further on, is\nworking \"incoherently.\" Finally, he writes:--\n\n     Let us conclude; when a person like Mrs. Besant, with a\n     biography full of remarkable changes, full of fine work as well\n     as bad blunders, having established herself, in her own belief,\n     and that of her pledged band, as the present chief Spiritual\n     Teacher and Saviour of Mankind, as \"the God within us\" now, and\n     as the future \"greatest Ruler of the World of Gods and men,\"\n     suddenly adds on the role of political saviour of India in\n     particular, and pre-determined martyr in constant danger of\n     assassination [strangely enough, this was also one of Mrs.\n     Tingley's obsessions] by anarchist miscreants ... and proclaims\n     that those who differ from her are in league with those\n     miscreants--when this happens, what explanation can be offered\n     to their own minds by her old friends ...?\n\n     The only sad explanation that they can postulate is that she is\n     suffering from mental delusions.\n\nAlas! this lenient and charitable judgment by no means covers the ground\nas a complete explanation of Mrs. Besant's mischievous and almost\nirresponsible activities. Mr. Das fails to see as clearly as MM. L\u00e9vy\nand Schur\u00e9 the sinister influence behind all these manifestations; the\nsource and inspiration of all this evil.\n\n\n\n\nMrs. Besant's latest Assertions and claims examined.\n\n\nWe now come to the examination of two articles in the _Theosophist_ for\nMarch, 1922, in which the President of the T. S. makes some attempt to\ndeal with recent criticism. One is a Supplement, or Manifesto, addressed\n\"To all Members of the Theosophical Society,\" and couched in Mrs.\nBesant's present style--flamboyant, a trifle bombastic, often Biblical\nin phraseology, and running throughout it, her usual fervid and\ndisingenuous appeal to sentimental emotionalism, instead of the\ninstinctive sense of justice latent in all beings. This latter, a\nfeature of her best days, she has entirely abandoned; it no longer\nserves her ends. What those \"ends\" are one almost hesitates to\nformulate, so impious and almost insane do they appear. Even taking into\nconsideration the tangled mass of evasions, misstatements and\nhypocritical equivocations presented in this manifesto, these \"ends\"\nemerge with sufficient clearness. But, in the first place, and before\ngoing further, one must ask on what basis this amazing claim to almost\ndeific powers and knowledge rests. Let me here call M. L\u00e9vy into the\nwitness box once more; for he also had put the same question to himself\nnine years ago, and will provide the answer. It occurs in his chapter on\n\"Mrs. Besant's 'Return of the Christ,'\" where he is dealing with her\nposition and actions in regard to Dr. Steiner, the German occultist and\nChristian Theosophist--with whose ideas, I should add, I am not in\npersonal agreement. My teacher is H. P. Blavatsky and she alone: I\nfollow no lesser light. M. L\u00e9vy says:--\n\n     Our reason forces us to confess that all goes to suggest that\n     Mrs. Besant, having herself ceased to believe in the identity\n     of her Jesus with the Christ [of the Gospels.--A. L. C.], would\n     still continue to make others believe it.... Her pride ... her\n     dominating mind, have driven her on this crusade of\n     extermination of Dr. Steiner's teachings; it has induced her to\n     collect, _without the least regard for truth, justice, or\n     theosophic principles, no matter what weapons if they do but\n     serve against her opponent; calumny, abuse of power,\n     misstatement of facts, all combined in a subtle strategy_.\n\nItalics are mine; for we find Mrs. Besant using precisely the same\nmethods to-day, only in a form fortunately neither so \"subtle\" nor so\nJesuitically plausible. Her powers are failing, as the manifesto under\nconsideration clearly proves. M. L\u00e9vy proceeds:--\n\n     And when she falls victim of some error in the course of her\n     occult investigations--of which in theory she is always\n     proclaiming the fallibility--it is again her pride that bars\n     the way to admission, and makes her the slave of the most\n     pitiful machinations ... which ... will shatter to fragments in\n     all directions the confidence she had formerly inspired. For if\n     she is not consciously defending her mistake, then what kind of\n     a break-up of all her faculties are we witnessing?... The more\n     deeply we study this [_i.e._, the \"neo-theosophy\" already\n     described by M. L\u00e9vy and Pandit Bhagavan Das.--A. L. C.], the\n     more terrible appear the responsibilities of Adyar in this\n     deplorable scheme; for we would still seek the origin of such\n     fearless confidence [in Mrs. Besant's followers.--A. L. C.]\n     refusing, as it does, to be shaken by the eloquent appeal of\n     the facts here set forth, and of which some, if not all, have\n     been within the reach and open to examination of those members\n     who profess such an enthusiastic confidence in Mrs. Besant. The\n     result of our search is a yet further culpability, as\n     overwhelming as it is unexpected.\n\n     For this confidence is not in the case of all the victims the\n     result of the free use of their own inner faculties. It is in\n     the case of the greater number, due to the influence of a\n     strong suggestion _deliberately organised and cleverly carried\n     out by the authors of this mystification themselves; by Mr.\n     Leadbeater who wrote, and by Mrs. Besant who published_, the\n     following lines in the _Adyar Album_, p. 45: \"What can I say to\n     you of your President that you do not know already? Her\n     colossal [_sic_] intellect, her unfailing wisdom, her\n     unrivalled eloquence, her splendid forgetfulness of self, her\n     untiring devotion to work for others--all these are familiar to\n     you. Yet these qualities, these powers, are but a small part of\n     her greatness; they are on the surface, they may be seen by\n     all, they leap to the eyes. But there are other qualities,\n     other powers, of which you cannot know, because they pertain to\n     the secrets of Initiation. She is a pupil of our Masters; from\n     the fount of Their archaic wisdom she derives her own, the\n     plans which she is carrying out are Their plans for the welfare\n     of the world. Think, therefore, how great an honour it is for\n     you that you should be permitted to work under her, for in\n     doing so you are virtually working under Them. Think how\n     watchful you should be to miss no hint which falls from her\n     lips, to carry out exactly whatever instructions she may give\n     you. Remember that because of her position as an Initiate she\n     knows far more than you do; and precisely because her knowledge\n     is occult, given under the seal of Initiation, she cannot share\n     it with you. Therefore her actions must certainly be governed\n     by considerations of which you have no conception. There will\n     be times when you cannot understand her motives, for she is\n     taking into account many things which you cannot see and of\n     which she must not tell you. But whether you understand or not,\n     you will be wise to follow her implicitly, just because she\n     knows. This is no mere supposition on my part, no mere flight\n     of the imagination; I have stood beside your President in the\n     presence of the Supreme Director of evolution on this globe,\n     and I know whereof I speak. Let the wise hear my words, and act\n     accordingly.\"\n\n     It is easy to see how minds not gifted with a highly developed\n     critical faculty, or the instinctive sense that discriminates\n     the true from the false, would yield hopelessly to such a\n     formidable assault. They cannot see that he who thus guarantees\n     the infallibility of Mrs. Besant has himself need of\n     guarantee.... _I do not think that any religion or man-made\n     cult, even in the earliest ages, has ever promulgated\n     superstition in its grossest form so openly and boldly as this\n     ..._ [Italics mine.--A.L.C.]. Mr. Leadbeater ... demands\n     _deliberate_ suppression of thought.... And having extolled\n     such a deliberately induced mental torpor for Mrs. Besant's\n     benefit, he immediately demands it for himself when he speaks\n     of the \"Supreme Director of evolution on this globe.\" Who is\n     this administrative person? With whom is he to be identified in\n     the scheme of evolution as it has been given to us by Mrs.\n     Besant and Mr. Leadbeater themselves?... What avenging God will\n     come to confound this impious prophet who seeks to reduce\n     humanity to the level of a troop of obedient automata!... A\n     gentle and winning voice, infinitely reassuring, rises out of\n     the depths of my being ... a great light breaks forth,\n     triumphant. Mr. Leadbeater hears the words of a judgment\n     immediate and without appeal, pronounced by the Buddha\n     himself:--\n\n     \"Believe not what you have heard said; believe not in\n     traditions merely because they have been transmitted through\n     many generations; believe not merely because a thing is\n     repeated by many persons; ... believe not conjectures ...\n     _believe not solely upon the authority of your Masters and\n     elders_. WHEN UPON OBSERVATION AND ANALYSIS A PRINCIPLE\n     CONFORMS TO REASON AND LEADS TO THE BENEFIT AND WELFARE OF ALL,\n     ACCEPT IT AND HOLD IT.\"--(Buddha, _Anguttura Nikaya_.)\n\n     What a royal refuge, what a noble support are the words of\n     those who are the truly great! They are the perpetual safeguard\n     of humanity.\n\n     We have seen that upon \"observation and analysis\" the\n     \"unfailing\" wisdom of Mrs. Besant is no more than a mass of\n     inconsistencies, injustices, sectarian tactics in\n     administration, error and mystification in esoteric\n     announcements. Far from leading to \"the benefit and welfare of\n     all,\" this \"unfailing\" wisdom is leading to the ... most\n     miserable slavery of souls, the emasculation of minds, the\n     creation of a terrible heresy. And at the present time we are\n     all feeling that we shall not be living up to the wise\n     exhortations of that great Being who was the Buddha, unless we\n     clearly denounce the lamentable aberrations of these two\n     occultists in the hope of drawing all the souls we possibly can\n     away from their pernicious influence. With this end in view,\n     and faithful to this duty, we shall calmly and firmly continue\n     our investigation of facts.\n\n     Fortunately, the assertions of Mrs. Besant and Mr. Leadbeater\n     have lately reached to such a pitch of extravagance and have so\n     utterly defied common sense that they will rouse even the least\n     critical minds and the most compliant hearts.\n\nThen follows the section of M. L\u00e9vy's book in which he quotes from _Man;\nWhence, How, and Whither_; much of this I have given earlier in this\npamphlet. And M. L\u00e9vy, one must remember, wrote all this _nine years\nago_!\n\nAt this point it may serve a useful purpose if I specifically define my\nown position in regard to Mrs. Besant's claims. _I entirely and most\nemphatically reject them all._ Mr. Leadbeater's I was not even aware of,\nuntil I came to collect and examine the material for this pamphlet. They\nare so monstrous as not even to merit a specific \"rejection\"--it goes\nwithout saying. I practically lost all faith in Mrs. Besant when she\ndissimulated and tried to mislead the Inner Group Council on her return\nfrom her first visit to India in 1894. She then informed us that she had\nbeen \"ordered by the Master to accuse Judge.\" On being closely\ncross-examined, however, she finally admitted that she had not received\nthis \"Order\" _direct_, as she would have had us believe, but _through_\nthe Brahmin whom she then followed blindly[11], exactly as she now\nfollows Leadbeater. But later, when taxed with this in public, she\npretended that he had had nothing whatever to do with it! This is a\ntypical example of Mrs. Besant's idea of a 'truthful' statement in a\nmatter of the most vital importance involving the fate of a leader and\nmany thousands of members. What confidence can be placed in such a\nwoman--one whose mental processes are so warped, and whose ideas of\n'truth' and 'honesty' are so peculiar? To inspire confidence a leader\nmust be the very soul of truth and uprightness. Mrs. Besant has always\nbeen remarkable for asserting herself to be this, and people have\nbelieved her. But a truly upright and honest person (even if aware of\nit, as in Occultism he has to be) would never draw attention to it--and\nthat publicly and in print.\n\nBecause, for Mrs. Besant, Mr. ---- was _at this period_ her mouthpiece\nfor the Master, she expected her colleagues to take the same view\nwithout question. This attitude is typical, and can be applied to all\nthat she now says about Leadbeater (see _ante_ p. 19.) From this time I\nfound it impossible to believe in her or her statements; such, for\ninstance, as that H. P. B. had reincarnated in Mr. ----'s little\ndaughter!![12]--or in anyone else for that matter. H. P. B. herself,\nwhen someone asked her about reincarnating, jokingly replied--\"Yes, in\nsome mild Hindu youth with half a lobe to his brain!\" _H. P. B. has not\nreincarnated._ On the ridiculous belief above mentioned Mrs. Besant\nbased her \"authority\" for doing things in H. P. B.'s name after her\ndeath (see _post_ p. 71 for examples). It follows also that I absolutely\nreject her claim to be an \"agent\" of the Masters (_i.e._, the\nTrans-Him\u00e2layan Brotherhood), neither do I believe that she has had any\ncommunication whatsoever with Them since H. P. B.'s death.[13] Finally,\nI reject her most presumptuous claim that she is able, or in anyway\nfitted, to \"expand,\" \"verify,\" or \"check\" by psychic faculties H. P.\nB.'s statements and teachings; still less to carry on independent occult\ninvestigations on the same, or any similar plane of consciousness.\nWhether Mrs. Besant, in making these claims, is acting under the glamour\nof Mr. Leadbeater's \"clairvoyant\" delusions, as MM. L\u00e9vy and Schur\u00e9\nsuggest, or is fully conscious and responsible, is not my part to judge,\nnor does it really matter. For me, her life may be summed up in some\nwords she applied recently to Mr. Gandhi (_Theosophist_, April, 1922).\nIt is \"the tragedy of a soul.\" Her criticisms on what she calls his\n\"failure\" apply fully and literally to _her own_.\n\nThere is really very little in the Manifesto (_Theosophist_, March,\n1922), that is not sufficiently answered by the various extracts I have\nquoted from previous critics. Mrs. Besant opens with the usual\ndisingenuous statements about the \"Liberal Catholic Church.\" Her\nargument that all religions are on an equal footing in the T. S.\ncarries no weight when it is widely known that L. C. C. agents are\neverywhere at work pushing its interests.\n\nComing next to Mr. Leadbeater, Mrs. Besant states that he was \"cleared\nby a Committee in England\"! But it is really a little too much, and\naltogether too brazen,[14] when she dares to compare his case with that\nof H. P. B. in the matter of slander. _There can be no possible\ncomparison._ The worst ever suggested against H. P. B. was what has been\nsaid of many other women, including Mrs. Besant herself, who have had to\nwork in the glare of publicity and champion an unpopular cause. No\nevidence was ever brought forward, and the New York _Sun_ promptly\napologised for publishing such statements on being shown that they were\nunfounded.[15] The grave charges against Mr. Leadbeater were supported\nby documentary evidence _which has never been rebutted_, and they have\nto do with something far worse than personal moral laxity, as we have\nseen. Mrs. Besant knows she cannot meet these charges, and so seeks to\nbrush them aside by voluble talk about \"hatred,\" \"defamation,\" and\n\"vilification.\" The only _justification_ she offers for having\nreinstated him in 1907 is that she had discovered that it was \"a cruel\nlie that he had confessed to wrongdoing\"! This is to argue that the\n\"accused\" should be \"acquitted\" because he refused to confess--in the\nface of evidence of no matter how damning a nature! Did Mrs. Besant\nfollow this procedure in her \"Case against W. Q. Judge\"? Not at all; far\nfrom \"acquitting\" him when he refused to \"confess to wrongdoing\" and\nasked for production of the incriminating documents, she calmly\nconfessed that she had destroyed them! But _now_ that it is a case of\nher own guide and \"intermediary\" in the dock, her attitude is entirely\ndifferent, and it is quite enough for her that the \"accused\" did not\n\"confess\" his crime!\n\nAs Dr. Stokes, Editor of the _O. E. Critic_ (Washington, D.C.) has been\nfearlessly stating the facts and encouraging the \"Back to Blavatsky\"\nmovement for some time past, she next devotes a paragraph to an attempt\nto discredit him by suggesting his connection with an old enemy of H. P.\nB.'s. Dr. Stokes's championship of H. P. B., and relentless exposure of\nthe Besant-Leadbeater imposture is the more effective since he persists\nin retaining his membership in the T. S.\n\nThe next to be dealt with is Pandit Bhagavan Das, and his criticisms\nabout the Central Hindu College. Here again, all I have quoted from his\npamphlet about the secret sections, underhand work, pledges, etc., are\nentirely ignored.\n\nMr. T. H. Martyn's letter, which has caused such a sensation in the\nSociety (Holland alone asking for 500 copies) is dismissed as full of\n\"untrue\" statements. Truly a very simple method of dealing with matter\nwhich Mrs. Besant finds compromising or unpleasant (see _ante_ p. 18);\nbut she can hardly believe it to be convincing.\n\nIt is when this profoundly disingenuous woman comes to an explanation of\nthe motive behind her political work in India, that we find a typical\nspecimen of the peculiar form of megalomania already so ably\ndemonstrated by M. L\u00e9vy. What must be the mental condition of a person\nwho can sit down and solemnly write the following?\n\n     The work entrusted to me directly by the great Rishi who is--as\n     one may say [_sic_]--the spiritual Viceroy[16] for India of the\n     King of Kings of our world--is the bringing about of Home Rule\n     in India, in close union with Great Britain, as part of a great\n     Federation of Free Nations, a model of the future World\n     Commonwealth....\"\n\nWhy such a very mundane and political idea should need an order from a\nRishi is not explained. The patent appeal both to the Government and\nthe Indian people in this portentous announcement is not very happily\nconceived.\n\nIt is unfortunate for Mrs. Besant that her indignant denial that another\nof the notorious \"Bishops\" (Wedgwood) is \"wanted\" by the police was\nimmediately followed by a priest's confession and the Bishop's\nresignation from the L. C. C., the T. S., and the Co-masons![17]\n\nFinally we come to the most ominous part of the whole document, where\nMrs. Besant refers to the present condition of the sex problem, and\nindicates that Mr. Leadbeater's vile teachings to, and practices with\nboys--trying \"to wean lads from evil practices\" is her version of\nit--are part of a process necessary \"to save mankind in the near\nfuture.\" The \"lessening of the sex impulse\" on the \"line of higher\nmental evolution\" is \"too slow.\" \"Early marriage and\nbirth-control\"--preceded, one must assume, by Leadbeaterism--are now\nMrs. Besant's inspired panaceas.\n\nThe appalling menace to _the evolution of the spiritual nature in man_,\nof the secret Leadbeater teaching known as the \"X-system,\" is shown by\nthe evidence of Dr. Eleanor M. Hiestand-Moore (M.D.), Editor of the\n_Theosophic Voice_ (Chicago), in which all the Leadbeater proceedings of\n1906 were reported and discussed. In the August number, 1908, Dr.\nHiestand-Moore writes:--\n\n     During the winter of 1906-7 the Editor [herself] was in Chicago\n     and in order to combat the widespread tendency to uphold\n     self-abuse on the lines indicated by Mr. Leadbeater, a series\n     of lectures on the psychology of sex was given. There were\n     members in the E. S., and out of it who upheld the X-system.\n     One person declared ... that _this system would, before many\n     years, be taught in our public schools_. Still another insisted\n     that _by self-abuse humanity was to return to the\n     hermaphroditic type_ and that _this practice would be universal\n     among Fifth Round Humanity_. A number declared that, while they\n     did not pretend to know anything about such matters, they had\n     understood this was _a highly occult teaching given to would-be\n     disciples_! We could lay hands on a letter setting forth the\n     claim that this teaching is purely \"esoteric\" and not to be\n     estimated by exoteric standards--this, too, from a Branch\n     president! [Italics mine.--A. L. C.].\n\n     These instances are sufficiently appalling in themselves. But\n     what can we say now that _The Voice_ has elicited a\n     correspondence which is simply a brazen defence of these\n     \"teachings\"?[18]\n\nWhat, then, must be the moral condition of this horrible travesty of the\nold T.S. _now_, fourteen years after Dr. Hiestand-Moore wrote the\nforegoing? Mrs. Besant is thus seen to have now returned practically to\nthe Neo-Malthusianism of her earlier, pre-theosophic association with\nthe late Charles Bradlaugh. It may not be generally known that H. P. B.\n_refused to accept her as a pupil_ until she had published a recantation\nof all she and Bradlaugh had advocated in _The Fruits of Philosophy_. It\nis a sinister omen that under C. W. Leadbeater, the sex pervert, Mrs.\nBesant has abandoned H. P. Blavatsky's imperative requirement for\nbecoming a student of _White_ Occultism, and has returned to the\nessentially materialistic doctrine of \"birth-control,\" in direct\ncontravention of the true Occult teaching. In other words, her assertion\namounts to this:--_Self_-control is not possible (or is \"too slow \"),\ntherefore we must control _results_. How different is the Occult\nteaching is well-known to all who have taken the trouble to read H. P.\nB.'s articles from which I have already quoted (see _ante_ p. 31) and\nthe splendid chapter in Vol. II of _The Secret Doctrine_ entitled \"The\nCurse from a Philosophical Point of View.\" And H. P. B. told me herself\nthat she included the following verse in _The Voice of the Silence_ with\nthe express object of combating such teachings and placing the Occult\ndoctrine beyond possibility of misinterpretation:--\n\n\"Do not believe that lust can ever be killed out if gratified or\nsatiated, for this is an abomination inspired by M\u00e2ra. It is by feeding\nvice that it expands and waxes strong, like to the worm that fattens on\nthe blossom's heart.\"\n\nIn a note H. P. B. explains that M\u00e2ra is \"personified temptation through\nmen's vices, and translated literally means 'that which kills' the\nSoul.\" Far from \"saving\" mankind, therefore, these professed 'expanders'\nand 'expounders' of H. P. B.'s doctrines are in reality doing their best\nto hasten its end. Better far, from the Occult standpoint, that a race\nshould be wiped out by \"outraged Nature,\" as were the Atlanteans for the\nsame sins, than that it should be kept alive only to sink lower and\nlower until \"M\u00e2ra\" kills its Soul.\n\nIn the \"Watch-Tower\" (_Theosophist_, March, 1922,) Editorial mention is\nmade of a display at Adyar of \"treasures of the most varied kinds,\"\nwhich have just been unearthed from \"all the old locked-up boxes\" at the\nheadquarters. Why, one may not unreasonably enquire, has Mrs. Besant\nwaited until 1922 to disinter, for instance, a long and valuable letter\nfrom H. P. B. herself? Why have such \"treasures\" been _kept back for\nover thirty years_; just as \"Letters\" from the Masters (the\nTrans-Him\u00e2layan Brotherhood) were kept hidden away for an even longer\nperiod--nearly forty years? The reasons are so ridiculously transparent\nthat they would hardly deceive an intelligent child. Mrs. Besant is\nbecoming seriously discomposed, even alarmed, by the growing strength of\nthe \"Back to Blavatsky\" movement, which is in itself a reaction against\nher own neglect. Hence all this \"burrowing\" (her own word) in order to\nmake a brave show of these \"treasures\" for which she had no sort of use\nuntil, disturbed by alarming rumours, she hastily resorts to them for\npurposes of camouflage and disguise. For she is a skilful opportunist\nand clever actress, assuming successive parts with as convincing an air\nas any \"star\"; neither does she scruple to employ every device of the\nparty politician.\n\nDoes Mrs. Besant seriously believe that this attempt to drag the red\nherring of an unexplained and suddenly awakened interest in these\n\"treasures\" across the trail of Mr. Leadbeater's infamies will deceive\nanyone save their blind and infatuated followers? Has she forgotten that\nwhen, _only two years_ after H. P. Blavatsky's death, she came under the\ndirect hypnotic control of Brahmin influence, she threw doubts upon her\nold Teacher's _bona fides_ and her occult knowledge; and, in the course\nof formulating her charges against her fellow-disciple (a _chela_ of\nmany years' standing before she ever even heard of Theosophy) suggested\nto Mr. Judge that, \"_misled by a high example_\" (H. P. B.), he had\nfallen \"a victim.\" For, as she then told him, her \"theory was _first_,\nthat H. P. B. had committed several frauds for good ends and made bogus\nmessages; _second_, that [he] was misled by her example; and _third_,\nthat H. P. B. had given [him] permission to do such acts. She then,\"\ncontinues Mr. Judge, \"asked me to confess thus, and that would clear up\nall. I peremptorily denied such a horrible lie, and warned her that\neverywhere I would resist such attack on H. P. B. These are the facts,\nand the real issue is around H. P. B.\" (_The Path_, March, 1895.)\n\nWith the complete disruption of the Society the Brahmin period of\ndominance over Mrs. Besant came to an end. Then followed the Leadbeater\n_r\u00e9gime_, the first phase of which culminated in the crisis of 1906. But\non Colonel Olcott's death in the following year, she contrived the\nrealisation of her great ambition, and became President of the Society.\nAt this point in her career, however, there were two serious\ndifficulties which she had to meet:--_first_, the Leadbeater scandal\nwhich raised a storm of horror and protest from those old and tried\nmembers who had remained in the Society up to that time, but who then\npractically withdrew in a body Deprived of their support, and having\nreinstated the infamous Leadbeater, Mrs. Besant realised that, as\nPresident, she could no longer risk appearing half-hearted over H. P.\nBlavatsky; nay more, she _needed_ the support of her venerated name;\n_second_, as President of the Society created by H. P. B., she must, for\nthe sake of her own prestige, take some definite action which would\nremove all possibility of suspicion that she was no longer the follower\nof the Teacher whom she had, _in fact_, already \"denied\" and \"betrayed\"\nonly two years after her death. Mrs. Besant realised, in short, that she\nhad gone too far, and must now retrieve the position. Accordingly, in\n1907, she issued a pamphlet entitled _H. P. Blavatsky and the Masters of\nthe [sic] Wisdom_, in which, with all her accustomed ability, she dealt\nonce more with the famous (or rather infamous) Report of the Society for\nPsychical Research, published in 1885. But the concluding eulogy strikes\na false note, coming from one who, as I have shown, was capable of being\npersuaded that H. P. B. had concocted messages from those Masters Whom\nshe so faithfully served for two-thirds of her life.\n\nIt was at this time also (1907), so Mrs. Besant later declared, that\n\"the T. S. fully regained its original position, with the Masters of the\n[_sic_] Wisdom as once more the 'First Section' of the Society.\" This\nbold assertion was made in 1919, when, under pressure of some fresh\nscare connected with Mr. Leadbeater, Mrs. Besant published a small\nvolume of the Masters' Letters (most of which had presumably been lying\nin the archives of the Society at Adyar for nearly forty years!),\nobviously for no other reason than because among them are two alleged to\nhave been received by Mr. Leadbeater. This she did in order to bolster\nup the extravagant claims she now makes for him as a \"Great Teacher.\"\nBut there were many who received Letters in the early days, and there is\nno reason why similar claims should not be made for all the recipients!\n\nIn the article entitled \"Whom will ye Serve?\" (_Theosophist_, March,\n1922,) Mrs. Besant says that H. P. B. \"formed an inner circle of her\npupils, that it might bear witness to the truth and reality of the inner\nside of life.\" This was the \"Inner Group\" of which she and I were two of\nthe six women members. But as, unfortunately Mr. Leadbeater was not\nincluded, although he had become a member of the T. S. some years\nbefore, she adds:--\"And behold! ere she passed away, she had led others\nto the Light, and bade them bear witness to it....\" Considering that she\n\"passed away\" _less than a year_ after forming the Inner Group in the\nsummer of 1890, and that we were constantly with her and never heard of\nthese \"others,\" this statement is manifestly untrue. Mrs. Besant also\nrefers to Mr. Leadbeater as \"one of H. P. B.'s nearest and most trusted\npupils [Absolutely untrue.--A. L. C.] whom she had led to his Master of\nmany lives, and in whom she had awakened the powers since so splendidly\nused in the service of the Society that he might become a great\nTeacher....\"\n\nI challenge Mrs. Besant to produce anything in writing by H. P. B. to\nwarrant this audacious assertion. I was a pupil of H. P. B. (and\nthrough her was accepted as \"a _chela_ on probation,\" in 1889) before\nMrs. Besant joined the T. S., and saw her expel one of her most gifted\nand valued workers from the Esoteric Section for offences against the\noccult and moral law similar to those with which Mr. Leadbeater's name\nhas now been associated for nearly twenty years. H. P. B. was always\nextremely strict on this particular point, and many would-be aspirants\nfor _chelaship_ were refused on this one ground alone, while others who\nhad been accepted \"on probation\" failed almost immediately afterwards.\n\nWhen I joined the T. S. in 1885 my diploma was signed by Colonel Olcott\nas President and C.W. Leadbeater as Secretary (he was then at Adyar),\nbut I never heard him mentioned by H. P. B. or anyone else at the London\nHeadquarters, as a person of any importance whatever, in the occult\nsense. Mrs. Besant goes on to say that H. P. B. left \"the twain of us\n[Leadbeater and herself] to bear personal witness to the truth when she\nhad gone\"! Where is her _evidence_ that Mr. Leadbeater was ever one of\nH. P. B.'s pupils? There is none, save this bare, unsupported assertion\nof a highly interested party. How could these two, to the exclusion of\nall H. P. B.'s pupils--some of them \"regularly accepted _chelas_ on\nprobation\"--be specially selected, taught, and prepared, (and above all,\nto promulgate the sort of \"teachings\" of which I have given a few\nspecimens), without any of us hearing even a hint of it! Moreover, I\nnever saw, or even heard of Mr. Leadbeater at the London Headquarters\nwhile H. P. B. was alive. I might just as well claim such a mission for\nmyself, or Mr. Mead, or Dr. Keightley, or any other member of the Inner\nGroup who has remained true to the pledge and the Teacher; and with\ngreater justice, for Mrs. Besant has _not_. The truth is that Mr.\nLeadbeater was never heard of in connection with occult teaching until\nhe was taken up and foisted on the unfortunate T. S. and E. S. as a\n\"Great Teacher\" by Mrs. Besant who was herself never more than a\n\"_chela_ on probation\"--_during H. P. B.'s lifetime_.\n\nLet me refer again to H. P. B.'s article \"The Theosophical Mahatmas\"\nfrom which I have already quoted (_ante_ p. 3), in which she deals with\nthe members of the T. S. who were \"regularly accepted _chelas_ on\nprobation,\" and the subsequent failure of nearly all of them. If this\nwas true at that time, it can certainly now be applied to the case of\nMrs. Besant, who, in my judgment and that of many others, conspicuously\nfailed under two great tests. The first failure occurred when she went\nto India in 1893, became an orthodox Hindu, and was induced to entertain\nthose doubts of her Teacher that I have already alluded to. (_ante_ p.\n66.) Bound up with this failure--the doubt of the Teacher--was her\nattack on her fellow _chela_, Mr. Judge.\n\nThe second failure was a far worse one when, in 1906, after having\npublicly endorsed the finding of the Advisory Committee on Leadbeater's\ncrimes (see footnote _ante_ p. 59), she suddenly turned round and\nsecured his reinstatement. In thus condoning and even endorsing\nimmorality of the vilest description, she denied one of the strictest\noccult laws binding upon a _chela_.\n\nThis double failure had far more serious results in her case than in\nthose of which H. P. B. wrote in 1886, because, owing to her commanding\nposition as a leader, the fate of the many thousands of earnest souls in\nthe Society who believed in and followed her implicitly, was involved.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[11] This Brahmin is the person referred to in the following passage\nfrom Mr. T. H. Martyn's letter to Mrs. Besant of May 20th, 1921 (see\n_ante_ p. 18):--\"Like many of the older members I have known how you and\nothers for quite a long time regarded ---- as _a Master in the flesh_ and\nlater had to repudiate him when certain facts indicated the mistake.\"\nItalics mine. This is absolutely new to me. In 1894 none of us (so far\nas I was then aware) regarded Mr. ---- as anything more than a _chela_,\nso what Mr. Martyn here states must have been a later development, and\nexplains much.\n\nI suppress the gentleman's name out of regard for his present official\nposition in India and his dissociation from Mrs. Besant.\n\n[12] I did not learn the actual facts of this foolish fable until I came\nto India in 1918, and found they were common knowledge among leading\nmembers of that time. Naturally, when Mrs. Besant transferred her\nallegiance to Mr. Leadbeater, she had to find another \"body\" for H. P.\nB. So, in the _Theosophist_ for January, 1922. she writes the following\ntypical effusion for the benefit of the faithful:--\" ... alas! she\npassed away, and took rebirth in the north of India, and though we have\nlived for twenty-eight years in the same land so dear to beth of us, we\nhave never met physically face to face. Yet close ties bind us to each\nother, and may be we shall yet greet each other in the flesh.\" Observe\nthe suggestion that she has always been in close touch with H. P. B.\n_out of the body_, and that later they may meet \"in the flesh.\" This\nprepares the ground for producing this new \"incarnation\" when the\nsuitable moment comes; just as the boy Krishnamurti was brought forward\nas the \"body\" for the coming \"World-Teacher.\" Mrs. Besant's new version\nmust be amusing reading for those familiar with the earlier theory, as\nshe was certainly \"face to face\" with the \"little daughter\" constantly,\nand even persuaded Countess Wachtmeister to resume her former care of H.\nP. B. in her new body. Needless to say the poor Countess was sadly\ndisillusioned, and died not long afterwards bitterly bewailing the ruin\nof the T. S.\n\n[13] As showing the absurdity of such a claim, I may mention that Mrs.\nBesant actually visited mediums through whom H. P. B. was supposed to\ncommunicate. In 1892, only a year after her death, my colleague Mr.\nBasil Crump, Barrister-at-Law, was investigating the phenomena of a\ncertain trance medium shortly before he joined the T. S. He was present\nat a private sitting with this medium in the studio of an artist friend,\nto which Mrs. Besant came with another member of H. P. B.'s Inner Group,\nMiss Emily Kislingbury, in order to speak with her deceased teacher. An\nintelligence calling itself \"Madame Blavatsky\" controlled the medium,\nand Mrs. Besant held a conversation with it. Later, when Mr. Crump\nbecame acquainted with H. P. B.'s explanation of Spiritualistic\nphenomena, and her express denial that the true immortal Ego ever\ncommunicated in this manner, he was naturally astonished that one of her\nmost learned pupils should for a moment entertain such a possibility and\nwaste her valuable time in attending a s\u00e9ance. But now he sees that it\nwas only an early symptom of the astounding credulity and ignorance of\noccult science she has since exhibited, as shown in these pages. H. P.\nB.'s explanations of psychic phenomena are rapidly being endorsed and\nfollowed by the modern scientific school of investigation, which has\nsucceeded not only in proving the genuineness of the phenomena, but also\nthe important part played by the _will and imagination_ both of the\nmedium and the sitters in their production.\n\n[14] Her latest move, is to draw a distinction between the \"Advisory\nCommittee of 1906\" which she accuses of \"unjust action,\" and what she\ncalls \"the prolonged investigation of 1907-08,\" which of course was\nengineered by her after she became President, in order to white-wash Mr.\nLeadbeater and secure his reinstatement. (See _Theosophist_, July,\n1922). See Addendum for the Australian views on this.\n\n[15] The importance of this case lies in the fact that it constituted an\nabsolute vindication of H. P. B., for every slander ever circulated\ndirectly or indirectly was covered by it. Although the libel action came\nto an end with her death, the paper was so impressed by the evidence\nproduced, in rebuttal, by Mr. Judge, that it not only retracted all that\nit had published, but also invited Mr. Judge to write a long article\nentitled \"The Esoteric She\" which they said \"disposes of all questions\nrelating to Madame Blavatsky.\" That Mrs. Asquith and Count Witte should\nboth have seen fit to revive some of these old slanders in their books\nof reminiscences does not redound to their credit.\n\n[16] Mrs. Besant's \"Spiritual Viceroy\" has certainly nothing to do with\nThose who were directing H. P. B. when she founded the Indian T. S. OR\nU. B. in 1879; for a special clause was included in the Constitution\nstating that \"The Society repudiates all interference on its behalf with\nthe Governmental relations of any nation or community, confining its\nattention exclusively to the matters set forth in the present\ndocument....\" H. P. B. also wrote in the _Theosophist_, for October,\n1879--\"Unconcerned about politics; hostile to the insane dreams of\nSocialism and Communism, which it abhors--as both are but disguised\nconspiracies of brutal force and sluggishness against honest labour; the\nSociety cares but little about the outward human management of the\nmaterial world. The whole of its aspirations are directed toward the\noccult truths of the visible and invisible worlds. Whether the physical\nman be under the rule of an empire or a republic, concerns only the man\nof matter. His body may be enslaved; as to his Soul, he has the right to\ngive to his rulers the proud answer of Socrates to his Judges. They have\nno sway over the _inner_ man.\" There speaks the true Mystic whose\n\"Kingdom is not of this world.\" Three years later H. P. B. and Colonel\nOlcott published a further disclaimer, in which they said--\"Before we\ncame to India, the word Politics had never been pronounced in connection\nwith our names; for the idea was too absurd to be even entertained, much\nless expressed....\"\n\n[17] The original documents appear in the _O. E. Critic_ for June 21st,\n1922, and include a confession signed by a priest of the L. C. C. who\nstates that he was \"led astray by those whom I considered to be my\nsuperiors both morally and spiritually\" adding \"Wedgwood absolutely\ndeclines to give up the mal-practice.\" Wedgwood fled to Algeria at the\nend of March. A cable from Sydney dated May 30th states that \"Mrs.\nBesant refused to answer any enquiry in reference to Wedgwood. Police\nnow holding an enquiry into the charges against Leadbeater.\" Dr. Stokes\nconcludes his comments on the documents as follows:--\"And Annie Besant,\nhaving repeatedly been informed of the facts, not only refused to look\ninto them, but launched her anathemas against those who criticised, even\nthreatening them with expulsion from the E. S., and even very recently\ncabling to Wedgwood that he made a mistake in resigning!--It is on Annie\nBesant, more than on any other one person, that the responsibility for\nthe present scandalous condition in the T. S. rests. The best of\nsocieties may have its black sheep and it is not to be blamed if it does\nits best to purge itself. But it is Annie Besant, with her tools and\nsycophants, who has ever concealed and denied the palpable facts, or,\nwhere they could not be denied, has palliated, excused and even defended\nthem, throwing over them a veil of esoteric glamour, supporting such\nscoundrels as Leadbeater and Wedgwood, apparently in order the better to\nserve her ambitions. A vote of confidence in Annie Besant to-day either\nbetrays total ignorance of the facts, or associates those who give it\nwith the grossest forms of moral rottenness.\" See Addendum for Mr.\nPiddington, K. C's opinion on Mrs Besant's conduct in Australia last\nMay; also Mr. Hugh Gillespie's evidence of her use of the Esoteric\nSchool as a \"_political machine_\" to secure her \"ascendancy in the\nvarious bodies to which E. S. members have gained access.\"\n\n[18] As to the methods employed to suppress criticism, Dr.\nHiestand-Moore says in the same issue:--\"Slander, falsehood, deceit,\ntreachery, all have been summoned to the support of Mr. Leadbeater's\ncause. Anonymous communications have been written to confound the\nprosecution, letters have been stolen and threats made. The Editor of\n_The Voice_ has been compelled to call upon the Secret Service to\nprotect her mails.\" [An entire issue in proof with copy and unset matter\ndisappeared, and had to be rewritten!] Again, the Editor of the _O. E.\nCritic_ writes:--\"It is understood, and I have the direct testimony of\nthe publisher to the fact, that the entire edition of the Brooks' books\n[_Esoteric Bogeydom_ and _Neo-Theosophy Exposed_] was corralled by Mrs.\nBesant in order to suppress their circulation. They tell too much about\nher.\"\n\n\n\n\nTampering with H. P. Blavatsky's writings.\n\n\nThe result of Mrs. Besant's first failure, through harbouring doubts of\nher Teacher's _bona fides_ and esoteric knowledge, was soon manifested\nwhen she began to publish new editions of H. P. B.'s works. The first\nnoteworthy example was her excision from _The Voice of the Silence_ of\npassages and notes, presumably out of deference to Brahmin sentiment,\nwhich then governed her actions. One of the last verses in \"The Two\nPaths\" (the second of the \"Three Fragments\" forming the little book) in\nthe original edition (1889) begins thus:--\"He who becomes Pratyeka\nBuddha, makes his obeisance but to his Self.\" In a footnote H. P. B.\nexplains that \"Pratyeka Buddhas are those Bodhisattvas who strive after\nand often reach the Dharmakaya robe after a series of lives. Caring\nnothing for the woes of mankind or to help it, but only for their own\n_bliss_, they enter Nirvana and--disappear from the sight and the hearts\nof men. In Northern Buddhism a 'Pratyeka Buddha' is a synonym of\nspiritual Selfishness.\"\n\nIn Mrs. Besant's edition both the passage and the footnote I have quoted\nare omitted. Her reason for this unscrupulous proceeding is given in a\nfootnote on p. 416 of the so-called \"third volume\" of _The Secret\nDoctrine_. In this note Mrs. Besant, from the heights of her then\nnewly-acquired Brahmanical wisdom, adopts the following dictatorial and\ncensorious tone towards her late Teacher:--\n\n     The Pratyeka Buddha stands on the level of the Buddha [!], but\n     His work for the world has nothing to do with its teaching,\n     and His office has always been surrounded with mystery. The\n     preposterous [_sic_] view that He, at such superhuman height of\n     power, wisdom and love could be selfish, is found in the\n     exoteric books, though it is hard to see how it can have\n     arisen. H. P. B. _charged me to correct the mistake, as she\n     had, in a careless moment, copied such a statement\n     elsewhere_.--A. B.\n\nObserve the assumption of superior knowledge to H. P. B.'s, and the use\nof the words \"preposterous\" and \"careless.\" To any real Oriental _chela_\nsuch an attitude towards his _Guru_ would be simply unthinkable; but we\nhave seen how very quickly Mrs. Besant believed herself to have soared\nfar above the \"chela on probation\" state of her H. P. B. days into that\nof an \"Initiate\" and future \"Supreme Ruler of the World of Gods and\nmen.\" To such vanity and self-delusion everything is possible. How\ndifferent was the attitude of the _real_ Occultist who was spoken of by\nthe Masters as \"Our Brother H. P. B.,\" yet called herself \"a Chela of\none of Them\"!\n\nThe passage I have italicised in the above footnote by Mrs. Besant is\nuntrue on the face of it to anyone who knew, as I did, the loving care\nwith which H. P. B. prepared this unique little book of \"Golden\nPrecepts.\" Moreover, she states in her Preface that the verses given are\nselected from a much larger number which she \"learnt by heart.\" Further,\nH. P. B. _not only repeated but greatly amplified_ this statement about\nthe Pratyeka Buddha in her _Theosophical Glossary_, a fact which Mrs.\nBesant had evidently forgotten when she concocted the footnote quoted\nabove.[19] The Pratyeka Buddha is doubtless much that Mrs. Besant claims\nfor him, but she does not seem to know, or has probably forgotten, that\nthere are _two_ classes of Masters, _two_ \"Paths\" (as this very section\nof _The Voice of the Silence_ shows); that the \"Pairs of Opposites\"\nobtain on all planes of Manifestation and Being, right up to the\nthreshold of the _Un_manifested--the ONE; that, while there are _Masters\nof_ COMPASSION, there must of necessity exist also the opposite\npole--the wearers of the \"Dharmak\u00e2ya robe,\" with all the power and\nknowledge which that state implies, but without that _Compassion_ which\nalone makes a Master of the \"Right Hand Path.\"[20]\n\nIt was a great and valuable feature of H. P. B.'s, method that she\ntaught us to reason on these lines, checking everything by the Law of\nCorrespondences. But Mrs. Besant has evidently long since abandoned\nthis, and prefers the sacerdotal plan of accepting everything on\n\"authority,\" which in her present phase means Leadbeater or her own\npsychic delusions. The \"World Teacher\" dogma is a case in point. She\nasserts it as a fact to be accepted because she says it; whereas, as I\nhave shown, it is untenable in the light of _The Secret Doctrine_ (see\n_ante_ p. 2), which endorses Oriental tradition and cyclic law.\n\nMrs. Besant's partiality for the Pratyeka Buddha, however, may possibly\nbe explained by some words that H. P. B. once wrote of her to Mr.\nJudge:--\"She is not psychic or spiritual in the least--all intellect.\"\nFor H. P. B. opens her paragraph in the _Theosophical Glossary_ on the\nPratyeka Buddha with these words:-- \"The Pratyeka Buddha is a degree\nwhich belongs exclusively to the Yog\u00e2ch\u00e2rya school ... one of _high\nintellectual development with no true spirituality_\". (Italics mine.)\nMoreover, we have the authority of the Maha Chohan Himself (the Head of\nthe Trans-Him\u00e2layan Brotherhood) for the statement that even Nirv\u00e2na is,\n\"after all, but an exalted and glorious selfishness.\"\n\nIn the _Theosophist_ for March, 1922, Mrs. Besant says, in her\n\"Watch-Tower\" notes:--\n\n     A wild theory has just been started in the U. S. A. that _The\n     Secret Doctrine_, brought out by the London T. P. H. after H.\n     P. B.'s death, was not as H. P. B. wanted it. The _insinuation_\n     is made that _H. P. B._ was \"edited\" by those in charge of _the\n     second edition_. The _trustees_ to whom she left _the\n     safeguarding of her printed books and unpublished manuscripts_\n     were all her own pupils who had _lived with her for years_, and\n     they made only _such changes as she had herself directed_,\n     which consist mainly in the correction of verbal and\n     grammatical errors, and the _arrangement of the material of\n     Vol._ III.\n\nI have italicised the statements requiring explanation or correction.\nThe \"second edition,\" as Mrs. Besant must be well aware, was merely a\nre-print to meet an unexpected demand, and bears the same date as the\noriginal edition, _viz._, 1888. But as Mrs. Besant only joined the T. S.\nearly in 1889, and was led to seek an interview with H. P. Blavatsky\n_after_ reviewing _The Secret Doctrine_ for the late Mr. W. T. Stead,\nthen Editor of the _Pall Mall Gazette_, clearly she can know absolutely\nnothing of the preparation of its first _or_ of its \"second edition\"! As\nto the alleged \"trustees,\" I can only say that I never heard of their\nexistence. _Mrs. Besant_ only \"lived with\" H. P. B. for rather more than\neighteen months. H. P. B. left 17, Lansdowne Road, London, W., in the\nsummer of 1889, the Headquarters being moved to Mrs. Besant's house in\nAvenue Road, N.W., where she died in May 1891, _while Mrs. Besant was on\nher way back from a lecture tour in America_.\n\nTake next the alleged \"safeguarding\" of H. P. B.'s \"unpublished\nmanuscripts.\" Those who were responsible for the so-called Volume III,\nhad a strange and unusual conception of the meaning of the word\n\"safeguarding.\" It so happens that while it was being set up I was able\nactually to peruse one or two of the familiar long foolscap sheets which\nH. P. B. always covered with her small fine handwriting. They were\nmutilated almost beyond recognition, few of her sentences remaining\nintact; and there were \"corrections\" not only in the handwritings of the\neditors, Mrs. Besant and Mr. Mead, but also in that of others which I\nwas able to identify. More than this I cannot say without abusing\nconfidence; but the wrong done to my Teacher compels me to say this\nmuch.\n\nThose who were H. P. B.'s untiring and unfailing helpers in the\npreparation of _The Secret Doctrine_ for the press in 1887-88, Dr.\nArchibald and Mr. Bertram Keightley, have, fortunately for posterity,\nput on record their experiences of those days. They have made statements\nof the utmost value in connection with the facts I am here dealing with,\nwhich they wrote specially for Countess Wachtmeister's _Reminiscences of\nH. P. Blavatsky and \"The Secret Doctrine,\"_ published in 1893. Moreover,\nDr. Keightley wrote an account of H. P. B.'s manifold literary\nactivities at this time, which appeared in the _Theosophist_ for July\n1889, in which he states that \"_the Third Volume of The Secret Doctrine\nis in MS. ready to be given to the printers_. [Italics mine.--A. L. C.]\nIt will consist mainly of a series of sketches of the great Occultists\nof all ages, and is a most wonderful and fascinating work.\"\n\nIn the face of this clear and definite statement, made by one whose word\nI know to be unimpeachable, and who lived and worked with H. P. B. at\nthat time, what becomes of H. P. B.'s alleged \"directions\" for the\n\"arrangement of the material of Vol. III\" which Mrs. Besant speaks of\nabove, and the statement in the Preface to _her_ version of Vol.\nIII:--\"The task of preparing this volume for the press has been a\ndifficult and anxious one.... The papers given to me by H. P. B. were\nquite unarranged, and had no obvious order....\"? This volume, given by\nMrs. Besant to the world in 1897, is most certainly _not_ the one Dr.\nKeightley speaks of as \"ready\" for \"the printers\" in 1889, as I will\nprove. WHAT THEN BECAME OF THAT VOLUME?\n\nBut first I will quote Dr. Stokes, Editor of the _O. E. Critic_, whose\nmost specific charges and plain statements of fact hardly come under the\npurposely misleading term \"insinuations,\" used by Mrs. Besant! Dr.\nStokes \"_insinuates_\" nothing; he heads his most damaging accusation as\nfollows:--\n\n\n     \"ANNIE BESANT'S CORRUPTION OF THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\"\n\n     In all probability Annie Besant's \"revision\" of H. P.\n     Blavatsky's original edition of _The Secret Doctrine_\n     constitutes the most colossal case of corruption of an original\n     text to be found in history. A group of students is comparing\n     the original edition with the \"third and revised edition,\"\n     edited by Annie Besant and G. R. S. Mead, after the author's\n     death.... I am informed by those making the comparison [that]\n     ... the actual changes will be far more than twenty thousand.\n     Many of these changes are trivial and one wonders at the\n     impertinence or conceit which inspired them. Some of the\n     changes--those which might have put students on their guard\n     against the so-called Third Volume--can only be construed as\n     deliberate and intentional suppressions and corruptions of the\n     original text. And this in a work of which the Master K. H.\n     wrote: \"Every mistake or erroneous notion corrected and\n     explained by her from the works of other Theosophists was\n     corrected by me or under my instruction.\" The true title of the\n     \"third and revised edition\" should be \"_The Secret Doctrine_,\n     written by H. P. Blavatsky, corrected and approved by the\n     Master K. H., and corrupted by Annie Besant.\" It is almost\n     impossible to comprehend the colossal conceit, the limitless\n     contempt for common literary decency which could have inspired\n     such an act of vandalism, to say nothing of such disrespect for\n     the Master whom she professes to venerate. And all of this is\n     put forth as the work of H. P. Blavatsky herself, with the mere\n     apology in the preface that \"Had H. P. Blavatsky lived to issue\n     the new edition, she would doubtless have corrected and\n     enlarged it to a very considerable extent.\" What a specious\n     excuse? [Repeated in the preface to the alleged Vol. III.--A.\n     L. C.] Had H. P. B. \"corrected and enlarged it\" it would\n     without doubt have been done under the same guidance and\n     authority which directed and corrected the first edition. It is\n     enough to cast suspicion on each and every quotation of\n     original sources made by Mrs. Besant, and her emendation of the\n     Theosophy of H. P. B. as well. (October 12th, 1921.)\n\n     As for the third volume, edited and published after the death\n     of H. P. B. from manuscripts left by her, nobody knows, in the\n     absence of a previous edition issued by her, how much of it is\n     H. P. B.'s and how much is not, but there is good evidence that\n     much of it is not, which is the more likely in view of the\n     vandalisms the same editors perpetrated in the first two\n     volumes. In no sense can the \"third and revised edition\" be\n     said to be a re-print of the original _Secret Doctrine_ of H.\n     P. Blavatsky. (December 21st, 1921.)\n\nI most fully endorse all that Dr. Stokes so ably demonstrates, and I can\nquite believe that, in regard to Vol. III, some of the contents are not\nby H. P. B.-- the style in places is not hers at all. But I can\nenlighten him as to those portions of the contents of which I have\nactual knowledge. I may here add that, when my own group of students\nwere checking the \"third and revised edition\" of the first and second\nvolumes of _The Secret Doctrine_ by the original edition of 1888, they\ncame across no less than four specific references by H. P. B. to Vols.\nIII and IV as being practically completed, _viz._, Vol. I, Preface, and\np. 11; Vol. II, pp. 437, 798, 1st Ed., 1888. Mrs. Besant coolly deleted\nall these without a word of explanation!\n\nHow unnecessary nearly all of this so-called \"revision\" was, can be\nrealised in the Keightleys' accounts (see Countess Wachtmeister's book)\nof the care taken over the proofs of the first edition. Mr. Bertram\nKeightley says they first \"read the whole mass of MSS.--a pile over\nthree feet high--most carefully through, correcting the English and\npunctuation where absolutely indispensable.\" (Contrast this modesty and\nrespect for the author with the spirit that perpetrated the thirty\nthousand corrections in the \"third edition\"!) It was then arranged under\nH. P. B.'s supervision in Sections, etc., and professionally\ntypewritten. This first copy was again revised and any obscurities\nexplained. It should be noted here that Mr. Keightley says they laid\nbefore H. P. B. \"a plan, suggested by the character of the matter\nitself, _viz._, to make the work consist of four volumes ... to follow\nthe natural order of exposition and begin with the Evolution of Cosmos,\nto pass from that to the Evolution of Man, then to deal with the\nhistorical part in a third volume treating of the lives of some great\nOccultists, and of 'Practical Occultism' in a fourth.\" This proves that\nat least the whole of the material for Vol. III was actually there (Dr.\nKeightley elsewhere states that it was _ready for the printer_.)\nFinally the Keightleys themselves set to work to type out a fair copy\nof Vols. I and II for the printer. \"H. P. B. read and corrected two sets\nof galley proofs, then a page proof, and finally a revise in sheet,\ncorrecting, adding, and altering up to the very last moment.\"\n\nDr. A. Keightley says:--\" ... no work and no trouble, no suffering or\npain could daunt her from her task. Crippled with rheumatism, suffering\nfrom a disease which had several times nearly proved fatal, she still\nworked on unflaggingly, writing at her desk the moment her eyes and\nfingers could guide the pen.... We had to carry on the general scheme\n... to act as watch-dogs and help her to make the meaning as clear as\npossible. But all the work was hers ... it went through three or four\nother hands besides H. P. B.'s in galley proof, as well as in revise.\nShe was her own most severe corrector....\"\n\nAnother able helper was Mr. E. Douglas Fawcett, the well-known author of\n_The Riddle of the Universe_, of whom both the Keightleys speak in terms\nof high praise. His profound knowledge of science, philosophy, and\nmetaphysics was invaluable. \"He supplied many of the quotations from\nscientific works, as well as many confirmations of the occult doctrines\nderived from similar sources.\"\n\nAnd this monumental work, produced with such meticulous care and\nprecautions against errors, is subjected to some thirty thousand\ncorrections by its subsequent \"editors\"! In all my study of the original\nedition I have never found more than a few errors that matter in the\nleast, and these are mostly typographical and quite obvious to any\nperson of average intelligence. The marvel is that there are so few in a\nwork of such magnitude and scope. Those of my students who possess only\nthe \"third and revised edition\" (the first and second now being\nscarce), have re-corrected it to agree with the first; and to look at\nthe pages covered with these re-corrections brings home to one, as\nnothing else can, the force and justice of Dr. Stokes's indictment. Let\nus hope that when H. P. B.'s great work is understood and accepted\nseriously at its true worth, an indignant posterity will pass judgment\non one of the worst examples of literary vandalism in the nineteenth\ncentury.\n\nIn her Preface to Vol. III, Mrs. Besant boldly states that, in regard to\nthe Sections entitled \"The Mystery of Buddha,\" there are \"very numerous\nerrors of fact, and many statements based on exoteric writings, not on\nesoteric knowledge\"! If her own statement with which I have dealt,\nregarding the Pratyeka Buddha is to be taken as the measure of her\ncapacity to judge of the merit or demerit of H. P. B.'s work, all that\nMrs. Besant says, or skilfully suggests, in this Preface can be\ndismissed as absolutely worthless. But in view of the fact that she then\nbelieved herself to be acting under the direction of \"a Master in the\nflesh\" (see Mr. Martyn's letter, _ante_ pp. 18-19 and footnote p. 56),\nwho happened to be _an orthodox Brahmin_, these unfounded pronouncements\nwhich I quote with regard to the Sections on the Lord Buddha are perhaps\nnot so surprising. I use the word \"unfounded\" advisedly, for she makes\ntwo separate statements as to the way in which she obtained the material\nfor this so-called Vol. III. She opens the Preface with the first\none:--\"The task of preparing this volume for the press has been a\ndifficult and anxious one, and it is necessary to state clearly what has\nbeen done.\" This is one of her usual formulas, after which she proceeds\nto do the exact opposite. She thus continues, in fact:--\"The papers\ngiven to me by H. P. B....\" But Mrs. Besant was not in England when H.\nP. B. died, _quite unexpectedly_, and with only three of her pupils\npresent, namely, Mr. Claude Wright, Mr. Walter Old and Miss Laura Cooper\n(now Mrs. G. R. S. Mead.) We were all summoned by telegram, and I was at\nAvenue Road within a few hours. I never heard of any evidence that she\ngave Mrs. Besant papers, or directions about papers, before the latter\nleft for America on a lecture tour; and most certainly H. P. B. never\nformally \"appointed\" her, or anyone else, as her \"successor,\" for the\nvery good reason that I have given elsewhere--that the movement had\ndefinitely failed, and she was \"recalled.\" (see _ante_ p. 2.)\n\nTo return to Mrs. Besant's Preface. Her second statement is that the\npapers for the Sections on \"The Mystery of the Buddha\" were \"given into\nmy hands to publish, as part of the Third Volume of _The Secret\nDoctrine_....\" _By whom_ were they \"given\"? Certainly not by H. P. B.;\nand why does Mrs. Besant speak of these Sections on the Buddha as if\nthey were something apart from the \"papers\" she alleges she received\n_from H. P. B._? Clearly any further analysis is useless, for in all\nprobability the truth about what really happened to all H. P. B.'s MSS.\nafter her death _will never be known_, since the few who do know will,\nnaturally, never speak.\n\nBrushing aside, therefore, Mrs. Besant's \"explanatory\" Preface, Volume\nIII, as given to the public in 1897, appears to be simply a collection\nof fugitive articles which, as I have shown, were obviously freely\nedited. To pad out the volume (the MSS. spoken of by H. P. B. in Vols. I\nand II, as already existing, having mysteriously vanished) Mrs. Besant\nprints both the _E. S. T._ and the _Inner Group Instructions_, despite\nthe pledge of secrecy taken by her and all other recipients of these\nteachings. In justification of this she states--_six years after H. P.\nB.'s death_--that H. P. B. instructed her to do so! The worthlessness of\nsuch \"instructions\" is palpable in the light of her na\u00efve belief in the\nalleged reincarnation of her Teacher in Mr. ----'s little daughter.\n(Needless to add that, under Leadbeater, she has another version of this\nidea!) We have the usual misleading and disingenuous statement in a\n\"Note\" which is prefixed to these Instructions. Mrs. Besant\nsays:--\"Papers I, II and III ... were written by H. P. B. and were\ncirculated privately during her lifetime\"\n\n_These \"Papers\" are the E. S. Instructions._ She calls those given to\nthe Inner Group \"Notes of some Oral Teaching.\" But, with two exceptions,\nalmost _every word of both E. S. and I. G. Instructions are given\nintact_, just as we received them; I possess them all. The two\nexceptions are, first, the practical teachings, given at the first\nmeeting of the _I. G._, for Yoga development, which even Mrs. Besant had\nnot the hardihood to publish; and, second, a very long \"Preliminary\nMemorandum\" to Instructions III.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[19] See also _An Introduction to Mahay\u00e2na Buddhism_, by W. M. McGovern,\n1922. Kegan Paul. He confirms H. P. B.'s definition.\n\n[20] It was ... during the highest point of civilisation and knowledge,\nas also of human intellectuality, of ... the Atlantean Race that ...\nhumanity branched off into its two diametrically opposite paths; the\nRight and the Left-hand paths of knowledge or of Vidya. \"_Thus were the\ngerms of the White and the Black Magic sown in those days. The seeds lay\nlatent for some time, to sprout only during the early period of the\nFifth (our Race)._\" (_Commentary_).--_The Secret Doctrine._ First\nEdition, Vol. I, p. 192.\n\n\n\n\nThe Truth about the E. S. Council, and the Inner Group.\n\n\nThe E. S. Instructions were written by H. P. B. during the winter of\n1888-89. The I. G. Teachings were given orally by H. P. B. at its\nmeetings in 1890-91. It was the duty of the two secretaries, Mrs. Besant\nand Mr. Mead, to write these Teachings up, from notes sent in by _all of\nus_, after each meeting, and record them in a book. This record was\ndealt with at each succeeding meeting, corrected and often amplified by\nH. P. B. All these _might_, therefore, have been included in Vol. IV of\n_The Secret Doctrine_, according to the general plan of the work adopted\nby H. P. B., if she had lived and had permitted it. Mrs. Besant's\nstatement that they were written with that in view is incorrect, and was\nobviously made to justify her action in using them for her version of\nVol. III.\n\nIn the _Theosophist_ for March, 1922, Mrs. Besant published an article\nin which several false statements are made concerning the history of the\nE. S. The writer, a Mr. Fritz Kunz, quotes Colonel Olcott's _Old Diary\nLeaves_ as authority for saying that \"the first move towards founding\nthe E. S. was made in 1881,\" that it was \"organised steadily through the\ntrials of 1884-85,\" and merely \"announced\" in 1888. The actual facts\n(see _Theosophist_, April, 1880) are, that when H. P. B. established the\nreal THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OR UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD at Benares in 1879\n(the T. S. founded at New York in 1875 was only a \"Miracle Club,\" as\nColonel Olcott says, with no \"brotherhood plank\"), it was on a purely\nesoteric basis. It was under the direct guidance of the Trans-Him\u00e2layan\nBrotherhood, Who formed the First Section; the second and third being\nfor \"accepted\" and \"probationary\" _chelas_ respectively. When I joined\nthe T. S. in 1885, these rules were still in force in the London Lodge.\nBut Colonel Olcott insisted on an exoteric organisation with \"the\noccultism more in the background\"; and the crisis of 1884-85, which\ndrove H. P. B. from India (see her letter of 1890, _ante_ p. 2), was the\nnatural result of this policy. Far from the E. S. being \"organised\nsteadily\" at that time, as Mr. Kunz asserts, H. P. B. makes it clear in\nher letter that the Master's influence was \"virtually banished\" from\nAdyar through lack of faith in Them, and failure to support her, and\nthat she had been ordered to \"establish the Esoteric Section,\" at\nLondon, which she did in 1888, because the necessary faith in the\nMasters still existed there and in America.\n\nMr. Kunz then makes the astonishing assertion that the E. S. was\n\"transferred to Mrs. Annie Besant in due course by H. P. B. in 1891.\" As\nI was a member of H. P. B.'s Inner Council which was responsible for\nwhat was done after her death, I am in a position to state the true\nfacts as known to me, and as they appear in the E. S. documents in my\npossession. These _facts_ are:--When H. P. B. died--suddenly and\nunexpectedly, on May 8th, 1891[21]., Mr. Judge at once came over from\nNew York, and after much consultation and informal meetings of the E. S.\nCouncil (composed of the I. G. members) and two others, Mr. Wm.\nKingsland and Dr. W. Wynn Westcott), a formal and \"full meeting of the\nCouncil\" was held at Headquarters on May 27th, 1891, when \"Bro. Wm. Q.\nJudge attended _as the representative of H. P. B._ under a general power\ngiven as below.\" (Italics mine.--A. L. C.)\n\n\"As Head of the Esoteric Section of the Theosophical Society, I hereby\ndeclare that William Q. Judge, of New York, U.S., in virtue of his\ncharacter as a _chela_ of thirteen years' standing, and of the trust and\nconfidence reposed in him, is my only representative for said Section in\nAmerica, and he is the sole channel through whom will be sent and\nreceived all communications between the members of said Section and\nmyself, and to him full faith, confidence and credit in that regard are\nto be given, .*. Done at London this fourteenth day of December, 1888,\nand in the fourteenth year of the Theosophical Society.\n\n    [Seal]               H. P. Blavatsky,\n\n\" ... The Council passed the following minute....\n\nThat it was resolved and recorded that the highest officials in the\nSchool for the present are Annie Besant and William Q. Judge, in\naccordance with the above-quoted order to William Q. Judge of December,\n1888, and with the order of April 1st, 1891, to Annie Besant, as well as\nwith the written declaration of H. P. B. in a letter to William Q. Judge\ndated March 27th, 1891, which we now here have read, in which she wrote\nthat Annie Besant should be so considered. The order of April 1st, 1891,\nis as follows:--\n\n     I hereby appoint, in the name of the Master, Annie Besant Chief\n     Secretary of the Inner Group of the Esoteric Section and\n     Recorder of the Teachings.[22]\n\n     H. P. B., [asterism dots]\n\nFinally, we--the Council--declared over our signatures that \"from\nhenceforth with Annie Besant and William Q. Judge rest the full charge\nand management of the School.\"\n\nThus did _the Council_ establish the \"Dual Headship,\" and until her\nmeeting with Mr. ----, two years later, and her subsequent visit to\nIndia, Mrs. Besant continued to work harmoniously with Mr. Judge in the\nmanagement of the School.\n\nA full report of this Council meeting was immediately sent out to the\nwhole E. S., bearing the date May 27th, 1891. Attached to it was an\n\"Address\" signed by Mrs. Besant and Mr. Judge as joint \"Outer Heads,\"\ndeclaring that these \"changes in the Constitution of the School\" having\nbeen \"made _by the joint Councils of the_ E. S. T.\" (Italics mine.--A.\nL. C.), they considered it their \"duty\" to issue this address to each\nmember.\n\n_The one error_, and the foundation of all subsequent ones, as I\nsubsequently realised, was that of speaking of themselves as H. P. B.'s\n\"agents and representatives after her departure\"; for there is nothing\nwhatever in the wording of the abovementioned official appointments\nwhich even suggests such a contingency. _Both_ obviously could refer to\nthe holders of them only _during_ H. P. B.'s _life-time_. Indeed, Mr.\nJudge's was made when the School was founded, and had been operative\never since; while Mrs. Besant's was merely an official confirmation of a\nsecretarial office she had filled since the formation of the I. G.\nscarcely nine months previously (thus giving her the precedence of Mr.\nMead.) It will be seen, however, that Mr. Judge's appointment was a far\nmore important one than Mrs. Besant's, and was conferred on him \"in\nvirtue of his character as _a chela of thirteen years' standing_\";\nwhereas Mrs. Besant had been \"on probation\" _only_, for barely a year.\nMoreover, when Mr. Judge became the object of attacks in 1889, H. P. B.\nissued the following very significant notice:--\n\n    \"LONDON,\n    _October 23rd, 1889_.\n\n     \"The Esoteric Section and its life in the U. S. A. depends upon\n     W. Q. J. remaining its agent and what he is now. The day W. Q.\n     J. resigns H. P. B. will be virtually dead for the Americans.\n     W. Q. J. is the Antaskarana between the two _Manas(es)_, the\n     American thought and the Indian--or rather the trans-Him\u00e2layan\n     esoteric knowledge. _Dixi._\n\n     H. P. B. [asterism dots]\n\n     \"_P. S._--W. Q. J. had better show and impress _this_ on the\n     mind of _all those it may concern_.\"\n\nThis notice appeared in an E. S. paper issued by Mrs. Besant and Mr.\nJudge, dated July 18th, 1894, when Mrs. Besant was already implicated in\nthe plot against Mr. Judge.\n\nMrs. Besant's appointment, given above, was the only official one she\never received from H. P. B. in either the E. S. or T. S. Certainly I\nnever heard of anything else. The absolutely Jesuitical nature of her\nmethods is patent, in that she _completely ignores_ the documentary\nfacts set forth above. To read the present statements it might be\nimagined that Mr. Judge hardly existed at that time, except as an\nobscure person who, as Mr. Kunz tactfully (!) puts it, made an\n\"unfortunate blunder.\" As I have shown elsewhere (see _ante_ pp 5, 70);\nit is the fact that \"blunders\"--and worse than blunders--were made after\nH. P. B.'s death (see _ante_ p. 86); but Mrs. Besant's \"blunders\" were\nfar more serious than Mr. Judge's; though both of them were, in the\nfirst instance, misled by others, whose real aim was to disrupt the\nSociety and defeat H. P. B.'s work.\n\nI possess a copy of the previously mentioned most valuable \"Preliminary\nMemorandum\" to Instructions III, as issued by H. P. B. to her students;\nand a prefatory note states:--\n\n     The following \"Preliminary Memorandum\" was written by H. P. B.\n     at the time of a grave crisis, or rather series of crises,\n     through which the T. S. passed in 1889-90. Treachery within the\n     E. S. itself, and persistent and relentless attacks on the T.\n     S. from without, especially in America necessitated the\n     striking of a fresh keynote and giving directions for the\n     closing up of the ranks of the E. S. At the time of reprinting\n     the Instructions in London in 1890-91, certain portions of this\n     \"Preliminary Memorandum\" dealing with the details of the matter\n     were purposely omitted by those of H. P. B.'s pupils who were\n     constituted the editors [Mrs. Besant and Mr. Mead], these\n     portions being deemed by them of too personal a character to\n     remain. This was done when H. P. B. was too ill to supervise,\n     without her sanction, and, as she afterwards said, much against\n     her wishes. [Some of the details omitted related to attacks on\n     Mr. Judge, and the duty of defending him \"when the time\n     comes.\"]\n\nSimilarly, Mr. Mead omitted from his \"third and revised edition\" of H.\nP. B.'s _Key to Theosophy_, published in 1893, most of the part in\nwhich the author deals with the Report of the Society for Psychical\nResearch, classing it with \"passages of a controversial nature, which\nare no longer of general interest.\" Yet the public at large still accept\nthis Report as a proof that H. P. B. was a fraud, a charlatan, and a\nRussian spy!\n\nAnother feature of this edition, as of others of her works produced after\nher death, is what he calls \"a systematic use of italics and capitals.\"\nThis means that he abandons H. P. B.'s extremely effective use of large\nand small capitals and italics to emphasise the importance of words like\nMYSTERIES, OCCULTISM, WISDOM-RELIGION, etc., or SELF, ~Self~, and _Self_\nto indicate the three different selves in man, and so robs her text of\nmuch of its emphasis and meaning. One has to compare her editions with\nthese posthumos ounes to realise the extent to which this has been done.\nIt is particularly noticeable in _The Voice of the Silence_, where the\nexact meaning often depends on the distinctions H. P. B. thus makes. (See\nher article on Occultism quoted _ante_ p. 31).\n\n\nCONCLUSION.\n\nIf the \"Back to Blavatsky\" movement accomplishes nothing else, let us\nhope it may succeed in getting rid of all this vandalism and\nre-establishing H. P. B.'s works on their original basis, that she may\ngo down to posterity on her own merits and not altered and distorted by\nthe brain-mind notions of her followers. Some of this work is already\nbeing done by organisations or private enterprise, but it needs to be\nsystematised and co-ordinated.[23] Although the \"door\" had to be \"shut\"\nat the end of 1899, H. P. B. in her last paragraph of the _Key to\nTheosophy_ expressed the hope that, \"when the time comes for the effort\nof the twentieth century [_i.e._, in 1975], besides a large and\naccessible literature ready to men's hands, the next impulse will find a\nnumerous and _united_ body of people ready to welcome the new\nTorch-bearer of Truth.\"\n\nIt has been my painful task to show how lamentably we have failed to\nrealise her hopes. The \"_united_ body\" she sacrificed so much to create\nand hold together, was disrupted barely four years after her death; the\nmain body under the Besant-Leadbeater _r\u00e9gime_ is following strange\ngods; while the great literary legacy left by H. P. B. has not only been\nseriously tampered with, but even largely superseded and obscured by\nbooks which will certainly not be of any assistance to the next\n\"Torch-Bearer.\"\n\nSome years ago I founded an H. P. B. Lending Library with my original\neditions of her works, and others that are reliable and in line with her\nteaching. It has already done much good, especially among those who have\nbeen misled and kept in ignorance of them. If others would do the same\nwe can in time hope to stem the tide of evil and error, and preserve H.\nP. B.'s message untainted until 1975. It is now within the life-span of\nour younger students, many of whom, as the children of Theosophists,\nhave been brought up on the teachings and will bridge the gap for us.\n\nThe bridging of this gap, however, has been rendered more difficult than\nit should have been; first, by the failure of the T. S. as _a living\nspiritual force in the world_; and second, by the sinister activities of\nthis \"ill-omened partnership\" which almost immediately followed. The\nwhole tragic and dreadful history, fragments only of which I have been\nable to give in this brief examination, proves what incalculable harm\n\"Leadbeaterism\" is working on the minds of the rising generation. Not\nonly is he the virtual director of Mrs. Besant's Society, but he has\ncompletely infected _her_ mind with his soul-destroying teachings. Hers\nis the real responsibility, therefore[24]; and hers the _karma_ of\nruining H. P. B.'s life-work, and carrying with her in her fall\nthousands upon thousands of honest, but too credulous and easily\ndeceived souls along the broad and flowery road \"leading to\ndestruction.\"\n\nAs H. P. B. says in concluding her \"Occultism _versus_ the Occult\nArts\":--\"If, while turning their backs on the narrow gate, they are\ndragged by their desire for the Occult one step in the direction of the\nbroad and more inviting Gates of that golden mystery which glitters in\nthe light of illusion, woe to them! It can lead only to Dugpa-ship, and\nthey will be sure to find themselves very soon landed on that _Via\nFatale_ of the _Inferno_, over whose portal Dante read the words:--\n\n    \"_Per me si va nella citt\u00e1 dolente\n    Per me si va nell'eterno dolore\n    Per me si va tra la perduta gente._\"\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[21] _How_ \"unexpected\" was the manner of her passing may be gathered\nfrom the fact that she was, at that very time, building a little\n\"occult\" room next to her own, of a particular shape and structure, in\nwhich each of her pupils was to \"sit\"--alone--\"for development,\" under\nspecial conditions and \"under observation.\" The tiny roof was to be of\ndark blue glass, of which I still possess a small piece of the colour H.\nP. B. had finally selected.\n\n[22] These orders are here reproduced exactly as printed in the E. S.\npaper. It should be noted that the one relating to Mr. Judge is in\nlarger type than the other. The triangle formed of asterisks .*. after\nthe words \"regard are to be given\" indicates that H. P. B. is there\nendorsed by an Initiate of a higher grade. It will also be noticed that\nthe dots forming the triangle after her signature differ in size in the\ntwo orders. In a note in the _Voice of the Silence_ to the words\n\"Thyself and mind, like twins upon a line, the star which is thy goal\nburns overhead\" H. P. B. says \"Every stage of development in _Raja-Yoga_\nis symbolised by a geometrical figure. This one is the sacred _Triangle_\n[_i.e._, [asterism dots] and precedes Dharana. The [triangle] is the\nsign of the high _chelas_, while another kind of triangle is that of\nhigh Initiates.\" The [asterism dots] is also used in Freemasonry to\ndenote certain high degrees.\n\n[23] It is only fair to give Mrs. Tingley's Organisation credit for the\ngood work it is doing in publishing accurate reprints of H. P. B.'s\nworks with all the references carefully checked, but none of her own\nwriting tampered with. Now that the 1888 edition of _The Secret\nDoctrine_ is so scarce, students will be glad to know that an unaltered\nreprint can now be had instead of the Besant corruption. The reprint of\n_Isis Unveiled_, with the addition of an excellent Index, has long been\nwanted; and the original paging has been preserved, so that the Index\nalso serves for the original edition. It is to be regretted that these\nreprints are prefaced by an account of the Theosophical Movement from\nMrs. Tingley's point of view, which is inaccurate and misleading.\nHowever, this is easily removed.\n\n[24] In a letter from a Master to a friend occur these words:--\"You are\nresponsible for the influence that you permit others to exert over you.\"\n\n\n\n\n_ADDENDUM._\n\n=The Australian Crisis.=\n\n\nThe official account of the events in Australia last spring reached me\ntoo late to include in its proper place (_ante_, p. 4), but its\nimportance as the latest phase of the Leadbeater scandal demands\nquotation of the principal details. Australia has been the scene of Mr.\nLeadbeater's activities since the Madras lawsuits (_ante_, p. 39) made\nIndia too hot for him in 1913. Needless to say, the same scandals were\nrepeated there, and finally brought about a crisis at the T. S.\nConvention last Easter in Sydney. Two of Mr. Leadbeater's Indian\n\"pupils,\" Krishnamurti (see _ante_, p. 12) and Jinarajadasa, secured a\nvote of confidence in Mrs. Besant and Mr. Leadbeater which roused strong\nopposition. I quote from a long circular letter issued to the members by\none of the opposition, Mr. J. M. Prentice, of Hobart, who is evidently a\nleading officer. It is dated May 28, 1922.\n\n\n     MRS. BESANT REFUSES AN ENQUIRY.\n\n     Soon after Convention Mrs. Besant arrived in Sydney [from\n     India] a very worried and angry woman. At the Sydney Lodge she\n     spoke on the lines of \"Judge not that ye be not judged,\" and\n     made it thoroughly apparent that she was not in favour of\n     anything in the nature of an Enquiry. During the Convention\n     Leadbeater had issued a special statement to the E. S. T. which\n     led to its expulsion from the Sydney Lodge building. It was\n     this that had finally angered Mrs. Besant to boiling point....\n     She expressed a wish to meet the Lodge Committee and talk over\n     the difficulties. There was a three-hour conference that led\n     nowhere. I am told that she was helpless to a point of pathos.\n     She denied everything as far as Leadbeater and Wedgwood [see\n     _ante_, p. 62] were, concerned, and refused to consider\n     anything in the nature of an Enquiry. She read from old files\n     of the _Theosophist_ how Leadbeater had been rehabilitated, but\n     a member of the Executive challenged her with more recent\n     happenings, to which she could only reply that she did \"not\n     believe them.\"\n\n\n     A TERRIFIC PRESS CRITICISM.\n\n     Two days later the _Daily Telegraph_ came out with a tremendous\n     attack on the \"Liberal Catholic Church.\" The result was\n     terrific. At the members' meeting that night feeling ran very\n     high. The _Telegraph_ had a reporter present and came out with\n     six or seven columns under heavily leaded headlines. Moreover\n     this information was disseminated to all the papers the\n     _Telegraph_ is correspondent for. The result is that\n     irreparable damage has been done to Theosophy and the Society;\n     although the ablest papers are willing to admit that there is\n     still a minority genuinely fighting for sanity and cleanness in\n     the T. S.\n\n\n     GOVERNMENT ENQUIRY INSTITUTED.\n\n     The Government has now instituted an Enquiry, but so far I do\n     not know the scope of its intention. I have been told by\n     telegram that the Leadbeater boys have been examined or\n     interrogated.... One of the latest developments was when Mr. A.\n     B. Piddington, a leading barrister and K. C. of Sydney,\n     resigned from the Presidency of the Public Questions Society of\n     Sydney University rather than meet Mrs. Besant at a public\n     address which she proposed to give to the members. He has\n     addressed a scathing letter to the _Telegraph_, or rather\n     released for publication his letter of resignation, which is a\n     remarkable summing-up of the position.\n\n\nMR. PIDDINGTON, K. C.'S OPINION.\n\nThe following are the chief points made by this gentleman, who is not a\nmember of the T. S., and therefore represents an impartial legal and\npublic view of the moral issue at stake:--\n\n     My resignation is based on the ground that the Society ought to\n     withdraw its invitation to Mrs. Besant until the matters\n     involved in her defence of Mr. C. W. Leadbeater have been\n     settled by a trustworthy tribunal.\n\n     Grave allegations were recently made against Mr. Leadbeater by\n     Mr. Martyn [see _ante_, p. 18,] for his letter to Mrs. Besant,\n     and Mr. Leadbeater's precept and practice in the training of\n     boys have been quoted. Mr. Martyn is supported by other\n     reputable Australians.\n\n     Before landing here, and since, Mrs. Besant has refused any\n     inquiry into these matters, and taken up positions which, in a\n     teacher of morals disentitle her to be heard by an\n     undergraduate society which exists for the pursuit of truth.\n     These positions are:--\n\n     1. That there is a class of beings so high in the religious\n     order that to accuse them is presumption on the part of the\n     common people. Indeed accusations are 'persecution,' which\n     proves the sanctity of these higher beings, and is (in Mrs.\n     Besant's words) the \"seal of their apostolate.\"\n\n     2. Mrs. Besant refers Mr. Leadbeater's challengers to the\n     courts, though to propagate in private the abominable tenet\n     held by him does not constitute an offence against any law, but\n     only against common decency as understood by ordinary men.\n\n     3. She writes that she does not believe, and will not discuss\n     Mr. Martyn's allegations, though she writes from India of what\n     Mr. Martyn says happened in his own home in Sydney.\n\n     If these are good reasons for refusing to hold an inquiry, then\n     immorality can be safely taught and practised in high places so\n     long as the teacher belongs to Mrs. Besant's way of thinking.\n     From the public point of view such a claim cuts the ground from\n     all morals.\n\n     In her letter to the _Daily Telegraph_ [of Sydney] for May 18,\n     Mrs. Besant asks the public to believe that Mr. Leadbeater has\n     to meet charges relating to 1906 [see _ante_, p. 27], and\n     disposed of [?] by some private investigation in 1908. The fact\n     is ignored that Mr. Martyn's accusations relate to conduct\n     since 1914, Worse than this, the fact is suppressed that Mrs.\n     Besant in 1913 was herself ordered by the Madras High Court to\n     return to their father two boys whom she insisted in placing in\n     Mr. Leadbeater's care, in spite of the father's protest. [See\n     _ante_, p. 40] ... Mr. Justice Bakewell said that, from\n     Leadbeater's evidence, he was \"certainly an immoral person, and\n     highly unfit to be in charge of the boys.\" He also found that\n     Mrs. Besant had violated her stipulation made with the father\n     before parting with the boys, that they should have nothing to\n     do with Mr. Leadbeater. (London _Times_, March 8, 1913.)\n\n     In the following year Mr. Leadbeater came to Australia and now\n     \"trains\" Australian boys.\n\n     Mrs. Besant lent herself and her oratory to the acquittal,\n     without evidence, of Mr. Leadbeater at a public meeting ... In\n     my view it is as bad to rescue a man from public justice (which\n     is a wider term than criminal law) by the exercise of a\n     dominating personal veto, as it is to do it by money or social\n     or any other 'influence'--'influence' which is the bane of any\n     system of justice.... She may effect a master-stroke of\n     salvage, but she offends every canon of fairplay, let alone of\n     that ordinary morality by which all men, high or humble, must\n     be content to be judged. These sombre facts stand out:--\n\n     1. Mrs. Besant's chief colleague has stated as late as 1913 in\n     open court that he still believed in teaching a detestable vice\n     to boys, which he had previously taught them.\n\n     2. An English Judge for this reason declared him to be an\n     immoral person.\n\n     3. Mr. Martyn accused Mr. Leadbeater of being still what the\n     English judge said of him, and alleged fact upon fact in\n     support of this.\n\n     4. Mrs. Besant has shielded Mr. Leadbeater from inquiry.\n\n     5. Mr. Leadbeater says nothing.\n\n\nAN INDICTMENT OF MRS. BESANT BY A RESIGNING MEMBER OF HER E. S.\n\nFurther very recent testimony and criticism is furnished by a letter of\nresignation from Mrs. Besant's Esoteric School by Mr. Hugh R. Gillespie,\nof Krotona, California, one of the strongholds of the \"Liberal Catholic\nChurch.\" The letter, dated May 29, is printed in the _O. E. Critic_ of\nAugust 16, and the Editor in a prefatory note says:--\n\n     The writer ... is well-known to Theosophists of three\n     continents as a lecturer and as a fearless, persistent and\n     uncompromising fighter for honesty and cleanness in the T. S.\n     For almost three years he was attached to Adyar as architect\n     and sanitary engineer.... He was at Adyar during the trial of\n     the \"Cases\" in the Madras courts and saw the whole sordid drama\n     in action. During this period he had abundant opportunity for\n     getting light, as well as sidelights, on the working of the\n     Adyar machine and on the personal peculiarities of the gods and\n     demigods of the Theosophical Olympus. Later he was resident\n     three years at Krotona, where similar opportunities were not\n     lacking.\n\nMr. Gillespie writes that he resigns as a protest against the actions\nand utterances of Mrs. Besant as \"Outer Head\" of the E. S. and President\nof the T. S., and continues:--\n\n     These actions and utterances have, since her assumption of the\n     above mentioned positions, been of such a character that, to\n     use the words of H. P. B., the Theosophical Society is\n\n     \" ... being made a spectacle to the world through the\n     exaggerations of some fanatics, and the attempt of various\n     charlatans to profit by a ready-made programme. These, by\n     disfiguring and adapting Occultism to their own filthy and\n     immoral ends bring disgrace on the whole movement.\"\n\n     As a result of Mrs. Besant's methods we learn that the T. S.\n     and E. S. in almost every section is seething with dissension.\n     England, Australia and America are racked and torn; Germany is\n     split; Finland is shattered, and the closing of the E. S. for\n     some four years in Switzerland indicates the conditions there.\n\n     Mrs. Besant's arrogance and vanity in office and her lack of\n     dignity, as exemplified in her ridiculous \"Whom will ye serve?\"\n     tirade, and her letter of March, 1922, have drawn the attention\n     of the great London weekly _Truth_, and in its pages the T. S.\n     is held up to the scorn and ridicule of the world. [I have\n     dealt with these under the heading of \"Mrs Besant's Latest\n     Assertions and Claims Examined.\"--A. L. C.]\n\n     So far as the E. S. is concerned, my experience of its working\n     under Mrs. Besant in Australia, Adyar, England, and America\n     enable me to assert that it is nothing but a political machine\n     used for the purpose of securing the ascendancy of Mrs. Besant\n     in the various bodies to which E. S. members have gained\n     access. [I would draw particular attention to this important\n     statement. It is especially true of India, which is the\n     principal scene of her political activities.--A. L. C.]\n\n     ... Mrs. Besant's parade of thrusting the L. C. C. out of the\n     T. S. door while bringing it in by the E. S. window, added to\n     her condonement of the vile practices of the L. C. C. bishops\n     and priests, fall little short of a betrayal of the T S. and\n     could only be adequately met by her resignation from all\n     office....\n\n\n\n\nBIBLIOGRAPHY.\n\n\n_The Secret Doctrine._ London, 1888. _The Key to Theosophy and The Voice\nof the Silence._ London 1889. _The Theosophical Glossary._ London, 1892.\n_Practical Occultism_ Reprint, London, 1921.--H. P. Blavatsky.\n\n_Mrs. Besant and the Present Crisis in the Theosophical Society._ With a\nPrefatory Letter by M. Edouard Schur\u00e9. London, 1913.--Eug\u00e8ne L\u00e9vy.\n\n_The Central Hindu College and Mrs. Besant. (The Rise of the Alcyone\nCult.)_ Chicago, 1913.--Bhagavan Das.\n\n_Reminiscences of H. P. Blavatsky and \"The Secret Doctrine.\"_ London,\n1893--Countess Constance Wachtmeister.\n\n\n\n\n    PRINTED BY\n\n    THACKER, SPINK & CO\n\n    CALCUTTA\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nTRANSCRIBER'S NOTES\n\nThis text is full of typographical errors (wrong spelling and unmatched\nbrackets and quotation marks, reference to italics when there are none).\nSince these are really a characteristic of the text, I have left them\nunchanged.\n\nThe asterisms on p. 85 and in footnote 22 are represented in the text\nversion as .*. and the \"asterisms-with dots\" on the same page and in the\nsame footnote are represented by [asterism dots]; the triangle on p. 86\nis indicated by [triangle] in the text version.\n\nWords in bold are indicated by the markup = =.\n\nThe word Self in small capitals is indicated by the markup ~Self~.","title":"H. P. Blavatsky; A Great Betrayal","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":31433}