TH
Martyn was an important member of the Theosophical Society in Australia, and
before the accusations he received from Annie Besant –who was then the International
president of that institution– he replied the following:
Note by the E.O. Library Critic Editor:
The following is reprinted from Down,
May 1922. The date of Mrs. Besant's circular letter “To All Members of the
Theosophical Society" is erroneously printed as March 4th instead or March
2nd. The original letter of Mr. Martyn to Mrs. Besant will be found in the
Critic of January 4th, 1922, and reprints of the same can be had from the
Critic on request.
_ _ _
Under date March 4th. 1922. Mrs.
Besant wrote a circular letter addressed to all members of the Theosophical
Society (T.S.). As references are made in places to myself. I take this
opportunity, at the invitation of the Editor of Dawn, to partially reply to it.
It is to be regretted that the
President, at the outset, misrepresents the attitude of many T.S. members in
regard to the Liberal Catholic Church (L.C.C.); she makes it appear that
opposition is prompted by dislike —even hatred— of this Church, whereas, in my
experience, the opposition has been to the manner in which the Church has been
forced on to the T.S. allied and confused with the T.S. and associated in the
public mind with the T.S. It has been quoted against lira. Besant that she
herself has made reference to it as a “Theosophical Church.”
(Cid’s note:
the Liberal Catholic Church is a sect that Leadbeater and his henchmen founded
in order to satisfy their ecclesiastical fantasies and pedophile desires.)
I will pass over the attack on Dr.
Stokes, of Washington He will be quite able to take care of himself. At one
time I thought his criticisms in the E.O. Library Critic rather extreme. In
view of more knowledge, I can see he has done, and is doing, excellent work in
fearlessly placing facts before T.S. members, which they should know, and which
the officials of the T.S. seem very anxious to hide from view tor reasons I
here no sympathy with.
I say this in spite of the fact that
I regret the publication by Dr. Stokes of my “Private and Confidential"
letter to Mrs. Besant, dated May 20th. 1921. My cabled protest, sent as soon as
I heard through a private source that the publication of the letter was
contemplated, reached Washington after the letter had been printed and
distributed. Had Dr. Stokes received it in time, he would. I am sure, have held
the letter back, in spite of the fact that be regarded it as of vital
importance to the cause he was championing — that of purity in the T.S. and
candor.
This brings me to the letter itself
and its contents. This letter was written to Mrs. Besant by myself, when I
thought she could help me solve what had become a hopeless puzzle. I received
an acknowledgment, but no reply, to my difficulty. Let me say here and now that
my answer to these perplexities has come as the outcome of subsequent events,
and is, to a great extent, due to the publicity given to the letter itself.
My problem is, I think, fairly set
out in the letter and can be summarized thus:
In October 1919, as I was leaving
London to return to Sydney, Mrs. Besant sent for me, and asked me to take a
message from her to Mr. Jinarajadasa. She told me that the usual methods of
communication were closed to her, and would involve her in the possible
consequences of compounding a felony.
The message itself was, that Mr.
Jinarajadasa, then in Sydney, was to tell Mr. Wedgwood that he must resign from
the Theosophical Society and the Esoteric Section (E.S.T.). Incidentally, Mrs. Besant told me:
- That she had to take this action because of gross immorality, not suspected merely, but confirmed.
- That in a previous talk to an E.S. meeting on the subject of “Black Magic and Sex Perversion,” she referred to this particular case.
- That Mr. Wedgwood was not an initiate.
The letter goes on to explain the
effect of my message on Mr. Jinarajadasa. He did not bother about the
immorality, but fastened on the statement that Mr. Wedgwood was not an
initiate. He promptly got to work through the cable office, and sent this message
to meet Mrs. Besant on her return to India:
"Sydney,
December 17, 1919, to Besant, Adyar. — Martyn reports you said Wedgwood not
initiate. Leadbeater asserts you were present at initiation. I am
most anxious members sake there should be no fundamental divergence between you
and him on such important occult matter since at same time. . . .and. . . .took
second. . . .and. . . .first. Do you mean that since you have no recollection
you cannot assert Wedgwood initiate, but do not wish to be quoted as saying that
he is positively uninitiated.”
Mrs. Besant
replied on December 22nd, 1919:
"Brother [Leadbeater]’s statement enough, accept fact,
cancel message sent.”
Mrs. Besant thereafter never asked
me what message I had delivered, but forthwith, in letters to Mr. Leadbeater in
Sydney, and communications to the E.S.T., commented on what she assumed to be
my message.
She referred to it as grossly
exaggerated, etc. I do not know to this day what Mr. Jinarajadasa represented
to her as ray message, but I was certainly surprised that anyone in Mrs.
Besant’s position should make reflections on the messenger [Mr. Martyn], who
obliged her in a difficulty, without referring to him for his version of the foots.
That, however, by the way.
When Mrs. Besant told me that Mr.
Wedgwood was not an initiate, I had no idea that she did not know that Mr.
Leadbeater had, in 1917, declared that he was. Had I known that, I think I
should have told her so. I was simple enough at that time to suppose that she
was conversant with all such “occult” matters.
In one of her letters I have seen a
statement by Mrs. Besant, that I asked her if Mr. Wedgwood was an initiate. In
this detail the President’s memory is at fault. I most certainly did not ask
her. Her statement on the subject arose from her expressing regret that Mr.
Leadbeater —whom she described as a high initiate— should occupy an inferior
position in the Church to Mr. Wedgwood, who was not an initiate.
This little misunderstanding between
Mrs. Besant and Mr. Leadbeater will no doubt seem unimportant to some of my
readers, but to me it was vital. As explained in my letter to Mrs. Besant under
review, I could never be satisfied to accept Mr. Leadbeater’s unsupported
statements on subjects that I could not check. While Mrs. Besant, as an
occultist, confirmed them well and good.
I was greatly disillusioned to find
this “fundamental divergence,” as Mr. Jinarajadasa neatly described it, between
the two “occultists,” [Besant and Leadbeater] and had to conclude —for reasons
stated in my letter— that Mrs. Besant was herself depending upon Mr. Leadbeater
for her messages from the inner planes, and was satisfied to accept anything he
reported without question.
Why I could not myself do this
—partly because of an accumulation of disagreeable incidents regarding Mr.
Leadbeater, which had come to my knowledge— is set out in the letter.
To return
now to Mrs. Besant’s circular, she makes the following statement:
"The published letter of Mr. Martyn contains a number of infamous
accusations, none of which I believe, against a number of persons whom I know
to be incapable of the conduct charged. I do not discuss them; no decent person would
mention them except in a court of justice, or in preparation for legal action,
or possibly if in need of help, and if the circulators of this filth have any
justification for making such accusations, they should at once place their
information in the hands of the police.”
Mrs. Besant ignores the fact that
she herself made the “infamous accusations,” as they related to Mr. Wedgwood;
but passing over that lapse on her part, I may explain that, in my own letter
to Mrs. Besant, I tell her that I called on a certain lady in London a week
before she herself sent for me, and that this lady told me the police were
threatening proceedings against two L.C.C. bishops [for their pedophile
activities] (Mr. Wedgwood was one) and some priests. That she had got one of
the latter, whose evidence was most feared, out of the country, etc., etc.
I suppose these are the infamous
accusations that the President refers to. Of course, I did not make them; I
merely informed Mrs. Besant of what the lady in London told me.
It will be noted that Mrs. Besant
boldly states that she knows the persons named to be incapable of the conduct
charged. Here, unhappily, Mrs. Besant is again in trouble, for on February 28th
of this year, just four days before the date on her circular letter, one of the
priests named made a written confession, a certified copy of which is now in my
possession. In this confession he states:
“The imputation against myself, as well as against Wedgwood, _____ and
_____, in Mr. Martyn’s letter, is but too true.”
As one result of this confession,
Mr. Wedgwood has resigned from the L.C.C. and the T.S. So down tumbles this
house of cards to the utter confusion of the “occultists,” [Leadbeater and
Besant] who vouch for a sex-pervert [Wedgwood] as an initiate, and the chosen
agent of the Great Lodge, to act as their channel for passing the Divine Grace
of the Apostolic Succession and a new priest system on to the Theosophical
Society.
I said above that I now have my
answer. I have. It is not necessary for me to have to assume that the Great
Lodge requires the help of sensualists of a specially degraded kind to do their
work. I can accept what appears to be the President’s only alternative, i.e.,
that Mr. Leadbeater is a deluded seer, if he be a seer at all, and that no
attention need be, or should be, given to his statements about the spiritual
progress of A or B or C.
I have to confess I find it hard to
believe that he knows who are, and who are not, initiates in the true sense. He
may or may not be clairvoyant: he certainly is untruthful, and he is no real
friend to the Theosophical Society, as those who have read his comments in the
E.S.T. Bulletin for the current month (May), and know the facts on which he
comments, will see.
Another factor in convincing me of
the wrongness of things as they are, is the persistent manner in which the
“Officials” deny facts, misrepresent and distort truths, and stoop to all sorts
of questionable actions to bolster up their self-made claims to spiritual high
places.
To me, they seem to constitute
themselves as a sort of occult profession, and to make claims which will not
bear investigation.
Mrs. Besant
concludes by telling members of the E.S.T. that they cannot belong both to the
T.S. Loyalty League and the E.S.T.
(Cid´s note:
the TS Loyalty League was a section of the Theosophical Society that was
founded in Australia and sought to return to the original teachings. But Annie
Besant repudiated it and this section became an independent organization.)
I have been asked by many of my old friends
in the E.S.T. what I think they ought to do. For myself, I choose the T.S.
Loyalty League. I believe it is doing the Masters’ work, and helping to make
crooked places straight. The T.S. cannot go on if it is to become a moral
cesspit —a hiding place— where the morally unfit and unclean are protected, any
more than it can if it is to be invaded by all sorts of fancy sects [like the
Liberal Catholic Church]..
The T.S. Loyalty League has already
effected a useful spring cleaning, and posterity should be thankful to it.
Certainly it is but a temporary phase, and, its work done, it will pass out,
while the E.S.T. appears to be a permanent institution. Actually, however, it
has, in the opinion of many, already done its work. No truthful member could
now describe it as an Occult School. As such, it is effete. On the other hand,
there is more than a suspicion that it is being used for the political purposes
of those who control it. Has the time not come when we need to make a fresh
start providing for the needs of those who aim at self-unfoldment.
I pray that the Gods may send us a
brand new Occult School — one where there is purity, mental freedom, and no
need for hiding things, or for camouflage and mystery. If the E.S.T. does not
want us, let us start afresh, where we can live in the pure air of truth, and
get away from this unhealthy strain of believing in make-believe. After all,
there is no religion, no occultism, no “leader” higher than TRUTH, and Truth is
never tainted by the exercise of reason and common sense.
In conclusion, I do not forget the
impassioned claim with which Mrs. Besant concludes her article in The
Theosophist, March, 1922, on "Whom Will Ye Serve?” Her words are
thrilling, even if they savor of nervous overstrain:
“To those who know anything of Occultism, I say I stand as the servant
of the Hierarchy, obeying Their Will and doing Their work as H.P.B. [Blavatsky]
bade me declare. Either
I am Their Agent, or I am a liar and a blasphemer. Take me as you will.”
There are two ways of reading these
words. One implies that Mrs. Besant is the Agent. If that is so, why pass on
the agency to Mr. Leadbeater? The other way of reading it is, that the same is
true of not only Mrs. Besant, but of every simple soul seeking to do the work
of the Elder Brothers in any department of human service. In that way I, for
one, elect to read it.
T. H.
MARTYN.
(E.O.
Library Critic, July 19, 1922, Vol. 11, No. 25, p.5-8)
OBSERVATION
Anyone who studies original theosophy realizes that
Leadbeater was a big charlatan and that Annie Besant was completely
manipulated by him.
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