Edward Lewis Gardner was an eminent member
of the Theosophical Society in England (1907-1962). He founded and led a
Theosophical Community at Stamford House, Wimbledon, 1926-1940, and was one of
the founders of the Tekels Park Estate, Camberley, in 1928. He was the General
Secretary of the English Section of the Theosophical Society, 1924-1928, and he
travelled widely as an international lecturer for the Theosophical Society.
And about his investigations on Leadbeater, the
researcher Gregoy Tillet wrote the following:
PUBLIC WORK
In November, 1963, he published a
booklet entitled “There is No Religion Higher than Truth. Developments in the
Theosophical Society”, which you can read here.
Front cover and
opening page
Published by the Theosophical
Publishing House in London. It was a serious questioning of Leadbeater’s
clairvoyance and presented a theory explaining his supposedly psychic powers.
Gardner began by reminding his readers of that most painful experience in the
history of the Theosophical Society – the failure of the Coming of the World
Teacher.
“About forty-five years ago
announcement of the Coming of the World Teacher was made by Annie Besant and
Bishop Charles Leadbeater. Most of the Sections and Lodges of the Theosophical
Society accepted this proclamation with confidence and diverted much of their
energy to the Star Campaign – in preparation for his Coming. Obviously there
has been no Coming.”
After a brief outline of the
Theosophical career of Leadbeater, Gardner then examined his clairvoyant investigations,
noting that all his discoveries confirmed and endorsed the views that
Leadbeater himself held.
Gardner’s basic thesis was this: Leadbeater
unconsciously created an entire, artificial system, based upon his own strongly
held views, and, again unconsciously, used his occult power to visualize this
system into a state where it had the appearance of reality, and appeared as an
objective reality to him when he viewed it clairvoyantly.
Leadbeater’s followers attacked Gardner
with a pamphlet titled “C.W. Leadbeater. A Great Occultist”, which you can read
here.
This did little more than defend
Leadbeater against allegations of deliberate fraud, of which, in fact, Gardner
did not accuse him, and note minor historical errors in Gardner’s booklet.
But there were also Theosophists who defended Gardner, as for example Ernest Wood, which article you can read here.
PRIVATE WORKS
Subsequently Gardner wrote, for
strictly private circulation, several papers regarding the allegations of
sexual misconduct against Leadbeater and his (Gardner’s) opinion that these
involved some form of “sex magic”.
Gardner wrote two works on this subject:
- The Liberal Catholic Church
and the Theosophical Society (April, 1966) and
- The Rev. C.W. Leadbeater
Problem (September, 1966)
Neither of which has ever been published. Copies of the manuscripts of
were sent, labeled “Private”, to a few of Gardner’s closest associates.
In addition, Gardner wrote a series of twelve letters on the same subject
to Boris de Zirkhoff from 1964 to 1966. Those letters were kept in the
archives of Point Loma Publications, California, and appear to have perished
when that archives was destroyed by fire. It may be that copies exist
elsewhere.
In the two published works, and in the letters, Gardner offers somewhat
startling details of the results of his inquiries into Leadbeater’s sexual
teachings and practices, as well as into his claims to clairvoyance.
Gardner suggests that his unpublished works need to be read in
conjunction with his “There is No
Religion Higher Than Truth”, 1963, and with Jinarajadasa’s “On The Liberal Catholic Church”,
Theosophical Publishing House, Adyar, 1953.
An understanding of Gardner’s comments is also enhanced by reference to
his “Kriyashakti, Conscious and Unconscious”, The Theosophist, July, 1963.
Having visited one of my off-site storage sites this morning, I was able
to retrieve one of the large archival boxes of material relating to Leadbeater,
including the file of Gardner’s writings and copies of his correspondence on
the subject, and reproduce here the first page of “The Rev. C.W. Leadbeater Problems”:
And below reproduce the first page of what appears to be the first letter
from Gardner to Zirkhoff:
I hope in due course to be able to publish an annotated collection of
this material, and some other relevant material, subject to clarifying some
issues relating to intellectual property rights.
One of those associates to whom Gardner gave copies of his unpublished
material, and with whom he discussed his theories regarding Leadbeater, sex and
psychic powers was Rex Dutta, an English Theosophist, who published some of
that material in the strange journal he edited, Viewpoint Aquarius.
(Source:www.cwleadbeater.wordpress.com/2016/07/17/e-l-gardner-on-leadbeater)
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