Following the publication of Edward Gardner’s There
is No Religion Higher than Truth, which you can read in the
next post, some of Leadbeater’s followers published this pamphlet to defend
their teacher (and later in
purple, I will put my commentaries).
Compiled by Sandra Hodson and
Mathias J. van Thiel (n.p.: the editors, n.d. [ca. 1965])
Contents
1. Introduction - Geoffrey Hodson
2. A Study in Evidence - Hugh Shearman
3. “There is No Religion Higher than Truth”
- Rt. Rev. Marijn Brandt
4. An Appreciation of C.W. Leadbeater -
Geoffrey Hodson
5. C.W. Leadbeater, A Self-Illumined Man
- Some of His Pupils.
1.
Introduction
By
Geoffrey Hodson
Since I find its title to be in
complete harmony with my own views, I value the opportunity offered to me to
contribute to this booklet. For me C.W. Leadbeater was indeed a self-illumined
man and I feel privileged to participate in this defence, made on his behalf,
concerning the charges levelled against him - especially the charge of
self-delusion.
Two groups of people have been moved
to draw attention to errors in a booklet written by Mr. E.L. Gardner entitled There
is No Religion Higher than Truth.
One of these consists of those whom C.W. Leadbeater had accepted, when younger,
as suitable for training in the spiritual life. The other group comprises
present members of the Theosophical Society who have felt moved to contradict
the accusations made in the booklet.
The members of the first group acted
from motives of loyalty, outrage at the untruthfulness of certain statements
contained in the booklet, and in obedience to an ideal which their teacher had
held up to them, namely “a valiant defence of those who are unjustly attacked”.
In their eyes Mr. Gardner's derogation of their teacher was not only unjust but
also unjustifiable, because made not when the latter was alive and able to
defend himself, if so moved, but after his death when he could no longer do so.
The members of the second group
found in Mr. Gardner's publication such gross inaccuracies and misquotations
from claimed authorities in support of the charges made that they published
Articles, included in this booklet, in which these textual errors were exposed.
There Is No Religion Higher than
Truth is
concerned largely with the affirmation made by its author - himself herein
proven inexact - that C.W. Leadbeater was a self-deluded man, particularly in
so far as his relationship with certain of the Adepts was concerned. In some of
his books Mr. Leadbeater described physical and extra-physical meetings with
Masters of the Wisdom and, when sufficiently prepared, presentations to them of
those who had become his pupils. In this connection Mr. Gardner has affirmed
that Mr. Leadbeater himself created the figures of the Adepts, Their homes,
surroundings and actions, by what he termed “unconscious kriyashakti”.
He did not, however, support this
charge with any evidence based upon his own capacities for direct research in
this field, and herein he differs greatly from Mr. Leadbeater, who spent the
major part of his life in such re-search. Thus Mr. Gardner has offered no
evidence of personal qualifications which would justify his denial of the truthfulness
of Mr. Leadbeater's accounts, merely seeking to vindicate his statements by
quotations from theosophical literature. Unfortunately for his case these
quotations are found to be erroneous, as is pointed out in these pages.
Although not myself privileged to
have been a pupil of C.W. Leadbeater, I met him personally on many occasions
and throughout the fifty-six years of my membership of the Theosophical Society
I have benefited very greatly from his writings. I therefore feel honoured to
have been invited to add my words to those of the authors of this booklet. I am
also grateful because, after careful consideration of the views advanced by Mr.
Gardner and their rebuttals, and after conversation with Mr. Gardner himself, I
find myself in complete disagreement with his thesis. Indeed, I cannot but
regret that he chose to publish his charge of self-delusion against one whose
whole life was utterly and selflessly devoted, as guide and teacher in the
pursuit of truth, to the service of his fellow-men.
My regrets have been intensified by
the discovery made as I travel of the harm which Mr. Gardner's booklet is doing
within the Theosophical Society, especially to those who are seeking the light
of truth in theosophical literature and lectures, and in the lives lived by its
members. Some of these enquirers were responding favourably to theosophical
ideas, and so were very likely to accept a philosophy of life which is both
logical and an inspiration to noble living. Unfortunately a number of such
students have been turned away from these sources of knowledge by reading a
booklet by an older Theosophist which makes the charge that one of the chief
exponents of Theosophy in modern days was a self-deluded man. My own
contribution, other than this Introduction, to a rebuttal of that charge
consists of an Appreciation of C.W. Leadbeater, written in response to many
requests.
Truth, it has been said, needs no
defenders and by its very greatness will ultimately prevail. Even so, human
agents eventually prove necessary, and it is surely a fine thing boldly to step
forward as correctors of error and as defenders of those who are unjustly
attacked. In my view grave injustice has been done to the late C.W. Leadbeater
by Mr. Gardner's misstatements and misquotations. Harm has also resulted to the
Theosophical Society, its members, and its actual and potential students.
These, I understand, are the chief reasons for the writing and publication of
this booklet. I associate myself with its contents, and trust that it will be
widely read and accepted as a valid refutation of the accusations which Mr.
Gardner has made.
Geoffrey Hodson
Auckland, New Zealand.
Auckland, New Zealand.
2. A Study in Evidence
By Hugh Shearman
Some of the matters dealt with in
Mr. Gardner's booklet are in the realm of opinion and are, at least, not
questions which can be examined in terms of evidence. But most of what he has
written is an account of past events, and this has to be judged by ordinary
standards of historical truth and accuracy. Is his account of these events true
or not true? Is it consistent with evidence from other sources?
Dating the events
“About forty-five years ago”, the
booklet begins, “an announcement of the Coming of the World Teacher was made by
Mrs. Annie Besant and Bishop C.W. Leadbeater.” Forty-five years before 1963,
the year of the booklet's publication, brings us to 1918. Mr. Gardner
attributed this announcement, which he says was made then, to the influence of
Bishop Leadbeater exercised upon Mrs. Besant through letters written between 1916
and 1920, and to the fact that “in 1912 she (Mrs. Besant) shut herself off from
investigation of the inner planes” and henceforth “loyally accepted the statements
of Leadbeater and others.”
This sounds very plausible, but it
becomes complete nonsense when we find that Mrs. Besant made the announcement
in 1910, when Leadbeater's letters were still unwritten and when she herself
had not yet made the alleged abandonment of her powers of perception on “inner
planes”. The Order of the Star in the East, based upon that announcement, was
spreading rapidly during 1911.
It is true that Mr. Leadbeater drew
Mrs. Besant's attention to the potentiality of Krishnamurti (in 1909); but her
first reaction to this was to have Krishnamurti and his brother to stay with her
at Benares, so that she could form her own judgement on the matter. When she
made the announcement in 1910, “She spoke”, says Mr. N. Sri Ram, “with great
assurance, as if she knew, and not as if she had been told by a colleague.”
(The Theosophist, Vol. 85, p.285)
Mrs. Besant's Responsibility
But what about this alleged shutting
off of Mrs. Besant's contact with the “inner planes” which Mr. Gardner said
took place in 1912? According to Mrs. Besant herself, as we shall see, she did
not shut herself off in the manner described and did not become dependent on others,
as Mr. Gardner alleged.
Other people who were very close to
her have recorded what occurred in terms which flatly contradict Mr. Gardner's
account of this. Mr. Jinarajadasa wrote that Mrs. Besant renounced her habitual
exercise of clairvoyance “soon after 1913 . . . but not completely, for . . .
she knew how, when it was necessary that she should remember what happened on
the other side, to make a special arrangement, so that when she returned from
the higher worlds her brain would register the record.” (Occult Investigations,
p. 50, C. Jinarajadasa) A similar account is given by Josephine Ransom. (Short
History of the Theosophical Society, p.448, Josephine Ransom)
Mrs. Besant, however, may be left to
speak for herself. In March, 1922, since allegations were being made similar to
those made by Mr. Gardner, Mrs. Besant issued a circular letter “To all
Members of the Theosophical Society”. In this she said:
“My 'super physical line of communication'
with the Masters has never been broken . . . I could obtain, whenever
necessary, the approval or disapproval of my Master on any point on which I was
in doubt. And in very serious matters . . . I have impressed the facts on my
physical brain, i.e. brought them into waking consciousness.” (Op. cit. p.6).
She also described how she had an arrangement with Bishop Leadbeater to verify
and corroborate the more important experiences in which they both shared, by
letters written at once and crossing one another in the post.
With regard to the question of
Bishop Leadbeater's influence upon her, she wrote, “I ought to add that Bishop
Leadbeater, whose work is on a different line, has never influenced me or
sought to influence me on mine. In fact, as to my own work, he looks on me as
the authority and conforms himself to the line I take, ready to help me if he
can, as I am ever ready to help him in his work. Each has his own 'job' and obeys
his own Chief.” (Ibid. p.7)
Mrs. Ransom, who in the course of research
went through the diaries and correspondence of Bishop Leadbeater at Adyar and
the letters that passed between him and Mrs. Besant, has reported:
“From Bishop Leadbeater's letters to
Dr. Besant over very many years, it is clear that in all official matters he
waited upon her lead, ready and willing to uphold her decisions. As to his own
work, he shouldered all the responsibility. In 'occult matters' and
instructions, they exchanged and checked experiences, both being very careful
to be as accurate as possible.” (Short History of the Theosophical Society,
p.448)
When Mrs. Besant made announcements
with respect to the “Coming”, she made them in terms which implied that they
came from her own inner knowledge or from specific orders received from a
Superior, not as if they came from anybody else. Her most remarkable
announcement on the subject was made at Ommen in the Netherlands in 1925 (The
Theosophist, Vol.57), while Bishop Leadbeater was at Sydney, Australia. The
testimony of those present with him at Sydney, such as Mrs. Ransom, was that
the announcements which Mrs. Besant then made at Ommen were as much news to him
as to anybody else, and he had clearly no part in formulating them.
In connection with what Bishop
Leadbeater wrote in The Masters and the Path, Mrs. Besant did not
merely, as Mr. Gardner put it, give a “whole-hearted endorsement of his views”.
She stated that she had herself shared the experiences described by Bishop
Leadbeater, or had had similar experiences. In the Foreword to The Masters and
the Path she wrote, “. . . I desire to associate myself with the statements
made in this book, for the accuracy of nearly all of which I can personally
vouch . . . “.
Thus Mrs. Besant repeatedly claimed
that she acted out of her own experience and her own inner prompting. It is not
here a question of whether Mrs. Besant was right or wrong, wise or foolish, in
what she did; but the point is that she did it on her own responsibility and
motivation, and not under the influence or at the bidding of another person.
Without providing any evidence to support his claim, and propping it up with an
entirely untrue description of the timing of events, Mr. Gardner ignored or
treated as mendacious what Mrs. Besant herself has said. But a certain level of
testimony from the individuals actually involved in a past event has to be
respected until it is proved untrue. On the evidence so far available, it would
appear that the major responsibility in the matter of publicly announcing the “Coming”
was Mrs. Besant's, not Bishop Leadbeater's.
Again quite without evidence, Mr.
Gardner said that Mrs. Besant merely “accepted . . . in good faith” what was
told to her by Bishop Leadbeater about the founding of the Liberal Catholic
Church; and again she herself tells a very different story. In her letter “To
all Members of the Theosophical Society” she specifically mentioned “the three
activities” [which included the Liberal Catholic Church] as one of those
matters in which she herself had independently verified what was told to her.
(Op. Cit. p.7)
As a final thrust in his argument
about Mrs. Besant's dependence on others, Mr. Gardner employed the old and
generally discredited device of giving a vague ex parte summary of a
conversation with a person long dead. Since more than thirty years were allowed
to lapse before Mr. Gardner acted in any way upon that conversation with Mrs.
Besant, one is naturally inclined to feel that it must have been rather
different from what he later imagined it to have been, and that the reminiscences
of a man who saw events in 1910 being set in motion by letters written from
1916 onwards may not be entirely reliable.
Documentary Sources
Passing on from Mr. Gardner's
handling of persons, we can consider now his handling of the documents offered
as sources. He referred first to letters written between 1916 and 1920 which
had “but recently come to my knowledge” and which he said had “recently been
examined”. Though no proper reference is given, it seems to be generally
understood that these are the few letters published as long ago as 1952 by Mr.
Jinarajadasa under the title On The
Liberal Catholic Church, and this also seems to be what Mr. Gardner
referred to when he wrote of questions put by Bishop Leadbeater to the Master
K.H. It is very misleading to refer to these things in terms of portentous
mystery, as if long researches had unearthed some kind of theosophical Dead Sea
Scrolls. The uninformed could imagine that Mr. Gardner had discovered
something.
In his observations on “unconscious
kriyashakti” Mr. Gardner made quotations said to be from Madame Blavatsky's
writing in The Secret Doctrine. Reference to the text will show that these are
only from “Notes on some oral teachings” included at the end of The Secret
Doctrine after H.P.B.'s death. We do not know who wrote the notes, but they
were certainly not part of the text of The Secret Doctrine as she wrote and
published it. Students of The Secret Doctrine, as it came from H. P. B.
herself, are likely to conclude that she used the term “unconscious kriyashakti”
to refer to something different from what Mr. Gardner had in mind.
The Mahatma Letters
More important and significant,
however, was Mr. Gardner's use of quotations from two “Letters” in The Mahatma
Letters to A.P. Sinnett. He quoted them as if they were the actual words of the
two Masters. In Letter No.53 of The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett we are told
that the normal custom was to give the task of delivering such letters to a
chela or pupil, “and if not absolutely necessary - to never give it a thought.
Very often our very letters - unless something very important and secret--are
written in our handwritings by our chelas.” Madam Blavatsky declared that “It
is hardly one out of a hundred occult letters that is ever written by the hand
of the Master in whose name and on whose behalf they are sent.” (Lucifer, Vol.
3. P.93). A. P. Sinnett wrote of a time when, H.P.B. told him, “the Masters had
stood aside and left everything to various chelas, including freedom to use the
blue handwriting.” (The K.H. Letters to C.W. Leadbeater, p. 75, C.
Jinarajadasa).
In a letter to Frau Gebhard, H.P.B.
admitted that she had represented letters as coming direct from the Masters
when she had known that they were only the work of chelas, and said that she
had been “shocked and startled, burning with shame when shown notes written in
Their handwritings . . . exhibiting mistakes in science, grammar and thoughts,
expressed in such language that it perverted entirely the meaning originally
intended.” (The Early Teaching of the Master, Foreword p. x, C. Jinarajadasa).
She also stated that there had been
cases where chelas had taken “ideas” for the Letters out of her (H.P.B.'s) own
head. Sinnett wrote that “The correspondence as a whole is terribly contaminated
by what one can only treat as Madame Blavatsky's own mediumship in the matter .
. . It must always be remembered that correspondence from a Master,
precipitated through the mediumship of a chela, cannot always be regarded as
His ipsissima verba,” (The Story of the Mahatma Letters, p.25, C.
Jinarajadasa).
This being the nature of the obscure
and composite authorship of the Mahatma Letters, it is not possible to show
that any particular passage authentically represents the Master Himself.
Passing now from the Letters in general to the passages used by Mr. Gardner,
his first quotation was from Letter No. 10, which he stated was “signed by the
Master K.H.” Reference to the published text, however, shows that this was not
a Letter, was not signed and does not exist in the K.H. handwriting. It is a
set of “abridged” notes on a Chapter that had been written by A. 0. Hume, and
is in the handwriting of A. P. Sinnett. Mr. Gardner showed that he was not
entirely happy about this “Letter”, for he tried to improve on it a little by
slightly altering the wording. This was exposed in detail by the Rt. Rev.
Marijn Brandt in St. Michael's News for April, 1964.
The second quotation, stated by Mr.
Gardner to be the words of the Master M., is from the document published as
Letter No. 134 in The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett. This Letter was not
written by the Master M. nor signed by Him. It was written down by H.P.B. At
the beginning of the Letter she seems to represent herself as taking it down
from dictation, but later she describes herself as “translating” His meaning.
In the case of any ordinary document which was variously described as the
result of dictation or of translation, there would be some doubt as to how far
it conveyed the meaning originally intended.
Already we have seen that Sinnett
believed that H.P.B.'s own influence got into the Letters, and she herself
admitted that some of her “ideas” found their way into them. Anyway, when
Letter No. 134 was published Colonel Olcott denied its authenticity as a true
expression of the Master and wrote of it in The Theosophist of April, 1895,
that it “grossly violates that basic principle of neutrality and eclecticism on
which the T.S. has built itself from the beginning.” With all this background,
it would be unreasonable to expect the quoted words to be accepted seriously as
the words of the two Masters.
Mr. Gardner implied that C.W. Leadbeater
was not familiar with “Letter No.10” because it was published only in 1923. It
is almost certain that he was acquainted with it, as he was the recipient of
copies from Sinnett and it was these copies that Mr. Jinarajadasa used to
prepare the first draft of The Early Teachings of the Masters, in which he
included “Letter No.10”. (The Story of the Mahatma Letters, p.21, C. Jinarajadasa).
Bishop Leadbeater himself made his attitude towards the Mahatma Letters quite
clear in his little book, Messages from the Unseen. He regarded them as written
largely by chelas, and he quoted H.P.B. to that effect.
The Theosophical Society and its
President
Apart from the publication of actual
misstatements, it is possible in various ways to convey an impression which is
so false that it amounts to a misstatement. Many will feel that Mr. Gardner and
his publishers have done this in two respects. One is by the incorporation of
material written some time previously by Mr. N. Sri Ram, President of the
Theosophical Society. Though no claim is made verbally, the way in which this
excerpt is embodied in the booklet tends to convey the impression that the
President of the Theosophical Society endorses and approves of the opinions of
Mr. Gardner, or even endorses as true Mr. Gardner's description of past events.
This is, in fact, the opposite of the truth. In The Theosophist of February,
1964, Mr. Sri Ram completely dissociated himself, both in general and in
particular, from those views and opinions after he had seen the booklet.
The other false impression is that
which is created by using the Motto of the 'Theosophical Society-”There is no
Religion Higher than Truth”-as the title of the booklet. It conveys the idea
that the booklet is somehow “official”, and also that it is truthful, when it
is actually neither.
The Testimony of Others
It is a rule of scientifically
written history that all relevant evidence must be taken into account before a
final conclusion is offered. On some of the matters to which Mr. Gardner
referred it would be difficult to assess the value of the evidence that is
available, since it consists of testimony relating to individual experiences of
a highly subjective nature. But to ignore that testimony and write as if it did
not exist amounts to a suppression of the truth. Thus Mr. Gardner wrote, “Obviously
there has been no Coming.” That this was not obvious to many people who were
close to Krishnamurti is evident from many personal testimonies. It will
suffice to quote one of these as an example. Miss Clara Codd, writing on the
nature of love, wrote:
“I knew and remember something of
what that Divine Love - agape - is, from that wonderful meeting in Benares,
long years ago, when Krishnaji was overshadowed. I seemed to see then,
momentarily, through the eyes of the Lord Christ, the Buddha Maitreya, the World
Teacher, and I knew then that with Him was no shadow or sense of difference, no
big or small, no important or unimportant. All were equally important, equally
dear.” (The Way of the Disciple, p.255, Clara Codd).
Such a statement is not something
that can be evidentially proved, but equally this type of testimony cannot
wholly be left out of account, nor should it - in a Society devoted to
brotherhood, truth and the communication of experience - be, as it were,
shouted down or devalued and obscured by a mass of untrue statements.
In another place Mr. Gardner stated
that “the Lord Maitreya and the Masters with whom Leadbeater was on such
familiar terms were his own thought-creations.” Again this is perhaps not a
matter that it would be easy to prove evidentially one way or another; but one
cannot ignore or with honesty suppress the fact that Bishop Leadbeater's
testimony on this subject was supported by that of many other people, including
three successive Presidents of the Theosophical Society.
Conclusion
Thus at a strictly factual level
this booklet sins against the light in many ways. It is profoundly inaccurate
in its presentation of facts. It reaches its conclusions by falsifying the time
and order in which events occurred. Without offering any evidence, it makes
statements about Mrs. Besant which she specifically denied in her lifetime as
untrue. It places much dependence on already discredited sources, and in one
case tampers with a source by alteration and omission. It omits any reference
to the existence of substantial testimony pointing to conclusions quite other
than those of its writer, and it is set forth in such a way as to compromise
the Theosophical Society and its President.
Part of the booklet consists of
opinions which it is anybody's privilege to accept or reject. But opinions
which have to be supported by such untruthful and distorted descriptions of
past events and of the actions and motives of the people concerned, and by such
misuse of printed sources, are likely to commend themselves only to the very
credulous.
It is sad that Mr. Gardner, in
trying to reconstruct the past, relied on the hindsight of his own advanced age
- a more clouded hindsight than he realised - and did not seek the help of
anybody able to gather information by ordinary scientific and objective methods
of research.
Hugh Shearman.
3. “There Is No Religion Higher Than Truth”
by the Rt. Rev. Marijn Brandt
With regard to the discussion arisen
about Mr. E.L. Gardner's booklet There is no Religion higher than Truth,
I should like to make a few remarks.
If we don't want our theosophy to
become a kind of orthodoxy, it is necessary that we are always ready to submit
our views to a thorough criticism, and that we actually do this now and then.
Mr. Gardner's booklet might have been an inducement to do that. The idea of
unconscious kriyashakti is a very important notion, and I am quite ready to
accept that many people make such strong thought-forms and vivify them in such
a way, that these finally appear to them as objective realities. It will be
good to take this specially into account whenever we might have “occult
experiences” ourselves. And also with regard to all “clairvoyant” informations,
even by our great leaders. No man is infallible, and we must realise that great
experts in the occult field, like C.W.L., can make mistakes, and might even be
misled by their own imagination. I should like to add: why not also H.P.B. and
A.B.? These three great people have often warned us not to regard them as
infallible.
But a very weak point in Mr.
Gardner's booklet is that he seems to make C.W.L. the scapegoat for all the “mistakes”,
whitewashing others who may have had an equal responsibility. Why should only
C.W.L. have been misled by his unconscious kriyashakti? In trying to prove
this, Mr. Gardner supplies “evidence” which contains many inaccuracies.
Unacceptable is also the way in which parts of sentences, quoted from “The
Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett” are taken out of their context, and grouped
in such a way that a meaning is suggested which we don't find in the original
text. Mr. Hugh Shearman's article in the March issue of St. Michael's News
pointed to a number of inaccuracies of Mr. Gardner's pamphlet. In answer to
this Mr. Gardner wrote in a letter, printed in the April issue, that the
announcement of the “Coming” was not widely proclaimed till after the war
(1918). Mr. Gardner needs this statement as “evidence” to prove that Mrs.
Besant relied for her “announcement” on the information she had received from
C.W.L., as she had “cut off” her clairvoyant faculties in 1912. (Others say:
after 1913). From my personal memory I know that Mr. Gardner is wrong in dating
the “wide” announcement after 1918. When I joined the Order of the Star in the
East in March 1914 (so: before World War l) there had already for at least
three years been given wide publication to the expectation of the coming of the
World Teacher. In March 1912 Mrs. Besant gave several public lectures on the
subject in Holland.
In “A Short History of the
Theosophical Society”, compiled by Josephine Ransom, a survey is given of
Mrs. Besant's activities and lectures about the “coming” in the years 1910-1913
on pages 386-399. This shows that she gave these lectures about the “coming”
during a time when she had not yet made her psychic faculties inactive. So I
don't think we have a right to say that only C.W.L. was responsible for the
announcement of the “coming”. In “The Theosophist” of October 1911 we
read in “On the Watch-tower”:
“The Order of the Star in the East .
. . is making remarkable progress in England. It has already more than a
thousand adherents in this country, and hundreds are joining on the Continent”.
This proves also that wide
publication was given to it in that time.
Does the fact that Krishnaji
repudiated the authority which was created around him, mean that there has been
no “coming”, or that C.W.L. (and/or A.B.) were wrong? Who is able to judge such
things now? And is it of any importance? Many things in the Order of the Star
in the East may have been based on mistakes. But mistakes or no mistakes,
Krishnaji is giving a message to the world, and it is that message which
matters, not what people thought or did not think about him in the past.
And the same applies to the origin
of the Liberal Catholic Church. Whether C.W.L. was right or wrong in his
letters of 1916 to 1923 to Mrs. Besant about the relation between the Lord
Maitreya and the Liberal Catholic Church, is of little importance now. The
important thing is, that the Liberal Catholic Church exists as a Christian
church, free from a number of the limitations of other Christian churches, free
from dogmas, free from anxiety, free from heaven and hell, free from the
tyranny of a priestly caste. That this became possible is mainly due to the
work of Bishops Leadbeater and Wedgwood. We may really be proud that Theosophy
inspired them to bring about this regeneration of Christianity, just as we may
be proud that our President-Founder Col. Olcott gave the impetus to a
renaissance of Buddhism in Ceylon, and that other Theosophists tried the same
for other religions.
Mr. Gardner quotes on page 7 from a
letter by C.W.L. to A.B. (published in the booklet “On the Liberal Catholic
Church, Extracts from letters of C.W. Leadbeater to Annie Besant, 1916-1923”,
compiled by C. Jinarajadasa in 1952):
“He (The Lord Maitreya) told us to
ask questions from the Master K.H. upon points as to which we were uncertain -
and the information which we gained in this way was of the very greatest value
to us'.
Then Mr. Gardner continues:
“The questions put by Bishop
Leadbeater to the Master K.H., and said to have been answered by him, run to
several thousand words. They relate to the celebration of Mass, the effect of
consecration and of priesthood, and to numerous details of ecclesiastical
procedure. The answer to these many questions all support and endorse the
clerical views of Bishop Leadbeater himself.”
This is really a very remarkable
accusation. Where does Mr. Gardner find the information that those “several
thousand words” are answers given by the Master K.H.? He seems to think that
the number of rather incoherent notes found in C.W.L.'s safe after his death,
and published by Mr. Jinarajadasa on pages 17-54 of the above mentioned booklet,
are the answers to questions put to the Master K.H. But before these notes Mr.
Jinarajadasa printed the following introductory remark (p. 16):
“The following Notes are among the
files in Bishop Leadbeater's safe. I print them from the copy which is with me.
Much of this material was later incorporated in Bishop Leadbeater's book 'The
Science of the Sacraments'.”
And what follows, is a number of
notes - only some of them in the form of questions and answers, but nowhere is
indicated that the answers came from the Master K.H.; a few answers are printed
between quotation marks, indicating that C.W.L. was not the real author of
those, and in one of the cases it is clear that he refers to the Lord Maitreya.
For all the rest it seems quite clear to me, that these questions were
questions put to Bishop Leadbeater, and answered by him. But most of the notes
are not at all in the form of questions and answers, and in some cases they are
very disconnected. What is the use of publishing such notes that have already
been used as material for “The Science of the Sacraments”? It is true that
Bishop Leadbeater stated that he had gained information from the Master K.H.,
but Mr. Gardner invents that the “several thousand words” printed there are
claimed as answers from the Master! This is creating myths!
Mr. Gardner continues:
“Evidently the 'Lord Maitreya' knew
nothing of the Master K.H.'s strong views on religions and sacerdotalism. The
Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett had not at that time been published. Letter
No. 10, signed by the Master K.H., states:
'The chief cause of nearly
two-thirds of the evils that pursue humanity . . . is religion under whatever
form and in whatsoever nation. It is the sacerdotal caste, the priesthood and
the churches; it is in those Illusions that man looks upon at sacred that he
has to search out the source of that multitude of evils which is the great
curse of humanity.
. . . The sum of human misery will
never be diminished unto that day when the better portion of humanity destroys
in the name of Truth, morality and universal charity the altars of their false
gods.'“
One of the fundamental laws of
scientific honesty is, that whenever we quote something written by another, we
must use the quoted words in the same context as the original writer used them.
Even slight alterations, such as changing a single word or omitting a part of a
sentence, may change the meaning. Alas, there are many writers (even among
trained scientists) who break this rule of honesty, and so, by untruthfully
quoting, do violence to the meaning of the original writer.
This has been done in Mr. Gardner's
booklet, and in order to show it, I shall quote a little more from that letter
No. 10, giving that part exactly as it was printed in “The Mahatma Letters”.
For comparison I print the parts quoted by Mr. Gardner in italics. In a rather
long treatise on “Our Ideas on Evil”, the Master K.H. sums up many causes of
evil, and writes:
“Therefore it is neither nature nor
an imaginary Deity that has to be blamed, but human nature made vile by
selfishness. Think well over these few words; work out every cause of evil you
can think of and trace it to its origin and you will have solved one-third of
the problem of evil. And now, after making due allowance for evils that are
natural and cannot be avoided, - and so few are they that I challenge the whole
host of Western metaphysicians to call them evils or to trace them directly to
an independent cause - I will point out the greatest, the chief cause of nearly
two-thirds of the evils that pursue humanity ever since that cause became
power. It is religion under whatever form and in whatever nation. It is the
sacerdotal caste, the priesthood and the churches. It is in those illusions
that man looks upon as sacred, that he has to search out the source of that
multitude of evils which is the great curse of humanity and that almost
overwhelms mankind. Ignorance created Gods and cunning took advantage of
opportunity. Look at India and look at Christendom and Islam, at Judaism and
Fetichism. It is Priestly imposture that rendered these Gods so terrible to
man; it is religion that makes of him the selfish bigot, the fanatic that hates
all mankind out of his own sect without rendering him any better or more moral
for it. It is belief in God and Gods that makes two-thirds of humanity the
slaves of a handful of those who deceive them under the false pretence of
saving them. Is not man ever ready to commit any kind of evil if told that his
God or gods demand the crime?; Voluntary victim of an illusionary God, the
abject slave of his crafty ministers. The Irish, Italian and Slavonian peasant
will starve himself and see his family staving and naked to feed and clothe his
padre and pope. For two thousand fears India groaned under the weight of caste,
Brahmins alone feeding on the fat of the land, and today the followers of
Christ and those of Mahomet are cutting each other's throats in the names of
and for the greater glory of their respective myths. Remember the sum of human
misery will never be diminished until that day when the better portion of
humanity destroys in the name of Truth, morality, and universal charity, the
altars of their false gods.
“If it is objected that we too have
temples, we too have priest and that our lamas also live on charity, let them
know that the objects named have in common with their Western equivalents but
the name. Thus in our temples there is neither a god nor gods worshipped, only
the thrice sacred memory of the greatest as the holiest man that ever lived.”
When we carefully compare the
sentences Mr. Gardner quotes with the original text, we see that he grouped
them in such a way that the letter might be applicable to the Liberal Catholic
Church, and that is probably what Mr. Gardner wants. But he omitted “ever since
that cause became a power”, and he places three little points instead of these
words. That is the way in which we indicate something has been omitted, but the
rule of honesty tells us, that we may only do that if we do not change the
context. Here it makes quite a difference.
The next three little points
indicate again a part which has been omitted. In that part the Master states
that it is the imposture and the exploitation of the masses by the priestly
caste, which is the cause of so much evil. He does not criticise praise and
adoration of the Divine, nor the existence of temples and priests as such, but
He does criticise the organisation of power which most of the Western churches
in that time were and still are (perhaps to a lesser extent because they have
lost much of their influence now). The Liberal Catholic Church is nothing like
such an organisation of power, it has brought us a Christianity with freedom of
belief, without fear, without exploitation, and with priests who have no power
over people, and who do not receive any money, but who are only servants of
their fellow-men. So there is no contradiction between “the Master K.H.'s
strong views on religions and sacerdotalism”, and the views on religion and
church which Bishop Leadbeater brings in “The Science of the Sacraments”. Mr.
Gardner's quotation stops just before the statement of the Master that They in
Tibet too have temples and priests, but quite different from those in the West,
having only their name in common with their Western equivalents. But this last
thing may be said just as well of the L.C.C., -so much so that a number of
orthodox churches refuse to recognise it as a Christian church! Is it so
unlikely that the Master would welcome such a new form of church which is free
from the causes of evil which He mentioned in His letter?
Mr. Gardner also “quotes” from
letter No.134 of “The Mahatma Letters”. That letter contains a treatise on a
totally different subject, namely that the Masters were willing to write to Mr.
Sinnett and Mr. Hume, but not to certain other people, because those others
were too much caught in religious prejudices, and the Masters would have to use
more than ordinary exercise of power to drive away the undesirable entities
around them. In his “quotation” Mr. Gardner picks out a small part of a
sentence here, a small part of another sentence there, and again some part of a
sentence somewhere else - and then puts these parts in a sequence, thus
suggesting a whole which never existed. This is not any more quoting; this is,
to say it very gently, a misrepresentation of the facts.
Because of all this, for an
unprejudiced but critical student Mr. Gardner's booklet cannot stand the test.
The idea of conscious and unconscious kriyashakti may be a valuable one, but
the fact that this idea has been (mis)used in order to press forward a fixed
idea, and above all: the way in which this has been done, is not in accord with
the motto: “There is no Religion higher than Truth”.
The Rt. Rev. Marijn Brandt.
4. An
Appreciation of C.W. Leadbeater
By Geoffrey Hodson
The reliability of the seership of C.W.
Leadbeater has been challenged by E.L. Gardner, who has described the former's
occult experiences as being mere unconscious “thought-creations”. Since some
members of the Theosophical Society have become very disturbed by this charge,
I have decided, in response to many requests, to relate certain personal
experiences which demonstrate to me that E.L. Gardner is in error.
One of the accusations made by Mr.
Gardner is that C.W. Leadbeater's supposed contacts with the Masters of the
Wisdom were largely imaginary, being the result of the unconscious projections
of his own thoughts. It should be remembered, however, that C.W. Leadbeater
received two letters from one of the Masters, both being in solid, objective
form and transmitted occultly from beyond the Himalayas. This being the case,
neither Mr. Gardner nor anyone else can truthfully say that C W. Leadbeater's
first contacts with the Masters were imaginary. The two letters were, and still
are, physical objects now preserved in the archives of the Theosophical
Society. (The K.H. Letters to C.W. Leadbeater, C. Jinarajadasa).
Although a very great deal of what C.W.
Leadbeater said and described is beyond my own limited experience, I am able to
offer the testimony that I have independently become assured of the truth of
certain of his teachings. The existence of the human aura, for example, and of
the changes and conditions produced in it by both temporary and habitual
feelings and thoughts, are undeniable facts for me. It fell to my lot for some
six years to make a special study of this subject, having been drawn into
collaboration with certain medical men and used as an investigator and
diagnostician in London from 1923 to 1929. Again and again in the course of my
investigations I received evidence of the close relationship existing between
the physical body and clairvoyantly observable psychological and mental
conditions.
As I thus studied the subject I
found that much which is written in Man Visible and Invisible and Thought-Forms
concerning the aura, and the astral and mental bodies of man, is strictly in
accordance with my own observations. I am therefore able to say that I know
that the human aura exists, and that it is correctly portrayed in many of the
descriptions and illustrations contained in these two books by C.W. Leadbeater.
The health aura (The Etheric Double,
A.E. Powell), to which C.W. Leadbeater also draws attention, was the first
etheric phenomenon which I observed and later charted, noting the outflowing
from the body of both unused and used prana and of certain electro-magnetic
forces. I further remember sending a copy of my chart to E.L. Gardner and a
group of students then gathered around him. I confirm, in addition, the
existence and visibility of the vitalising, life-energy from the sun, known in
Sanskrit as prana, its absorption by the body, and its later distribution to
different organs according to a very precise system of reception,
individualisation and circulation of that life-energy.
I am also able to support, from
independent observations made throughout a great many years, C.W. Leadbeater's
teachings concerning the existence of the Serpent Fire or kundalini. (The
Chakras, C.W. Leadbeater). I have made a special study of this force in varying
degrees of its activity, including its effects upon advanced occultists in whom
it is fully aroused. The resultant increased functions of the seven
force-centres or chakras in the etheric, astral and mental bodies of man have
also long been a subject of study.
I pause at this point to assure my
readers that the above and following observations concerning C.W. Leadbeater's
seership are offered in response to special requests. It was thought that, as
one who has carried out researches in the same field of study, I might be regarded
as an acceptable witness.
Continuing, I am also able to
confirm that one can be conscious and active in one's superphysical bodies
whilst the physical body is asleep. In consequence, I have found that it is
possible to serve effectively in this manner as helper, healer and protector of
one's fellowmen. (Invisible Helpers, C.W. Leadbeater).
The existence of nature spirits and
of the Angelic Hosts has become a reality to me and here again C.W. Leadbeater's
vision, far outranging my own, is to me a correct source of information
concerning members of this other kingdom of Nature. He also wrote Occult
Chemistry, a work admittedly not yet found to be in conformity with modern
physics. The book consists both of co-ordinated and illustrated descriptions of
presumed etheric counterparts of the atoms of the then known chemical elements,
and of other expositions of occult physics. I was at one time invited to
collaborate with a scientist who, without informing me of the statements
contained in Occult Chemistry, requested that I should attempt clairvoyant
investigation of certain elements. The existence of etheric structures similar
to the geometrical figures which C.W. Leadbeater described were on numerous
occasions also seen by myself.
C.W. Leadbeater's teachings that the
akashic records - or memory of Nature - exist, as also does man's power to read
them, are demonstrably true for me. I have, for example, under the direction of
a scientist, clairvoyantly examined fossil bones of ape-men and men-apes, and
was later taken into the cave where these relics were found. The
palaeontologist concerned confirmed in a written statement the correctness of
most, but not all, of that which I had described. Interestingly enough, he
tested the possibility of mind-reading by verbally giving me faulty
information, and at the same time projecting into my mind a wrong thought-form
concerning a specimen. I was not, however, aware of either of these actions
and, as he later testified, saw and described the correct owner of the fossil -
in this case an ape. Thus the two ideas advanced by C.W. Leadbeater - the
existence of the akashic records and of the faculty of reading them - are, I
repeat, in this instance demonstrable facts to me.
The discovery of Krishnamurti, and
the prophecy that he had been selected to be a vehicle for a great Teacher,
have an important place in E.L. Gardner's book. He assumes that since the
manifestation did not occur in the manner expected, the prophecy was in error.
Whilst this subject is referred to in another part of this booklet, I here
describe certain experiences of my own in relation to the prophecy.
As I have elsewhere written, I
attended several of the Star Camps in Holland and was present when there was
evidence of remarkable, if brief, supernormal manifestations. On more than one
occasion some two thousand people from many parts of the world were gathered at
Ommen to hear Krishnamurti. Each evening, all were seated in concentric circles
round a large camp fire. Krishnamurti would arrive, take his place for a time,
and then rise and apply a torch to the camp fire. As the flames arose against
the evening sky he would chant a mantram to the god Agni, and return to his
seat. Thereafter he would begin to speak, and on more than one occasion a
noticeable change took place in him. His voice altered and his hitherto rather
iconoclastic utterances gave way to a wonderful tenderness of expression and
thought which induced in those present an elevation of consciousness. The Talks
were followed by prolonged meditative silences. Many of those present, myself
among them, bore testimony to the sense of divine peace which had descended, to
a realisation of the Presence of the Lord, and to an assurance that the prophecy
had begun to be fulfilled.
These phenomena occurred during some
few successive years, the events being so marked that Krishnamurti himself
thereafter changed the Objects of the Order of the Star in the East from, in
effect, “To prepare for the coming of the Lord” to “To serve the World Teacher
now that He is in our midst.” I, myself, more than once heard Krishnamurti
affirm that the great Teacher was now here and that the “Coming” had actually
occurred. Even now when he is speaking, with others I discern a spiritual
influence emanating from him, as if a great Being were still using him as a
vehicle. This, however, does not constitute a complete fulfilment of the
original prophecy.
The foregoing and many other
experiences prevent me from allowing to pass unchallenged an attack upon the
seership of C.W. Leadbeater. I am convinced that his occult experiences were no
mere projections of his own thought-creations, and it should ever be remembered
that he himself never assumed total accuracy; neither did he ever ask his
readers to believe his observations merely because they were made by him. He
wished them to be judged on their merits alone, after application of the tests
of reason and intuition. Indeed, recalling C.W. Leadbeater's presence, the
clarity of his mind and the stamp of authority and greatness in him, I deny
that he was a self-deceived, deluded man. E.L. Gardner himself recognises this
in the remarkable perception and pre-vision exhibited by C.W. Leadbeater in his
discovery that an apparently normal Indian boy was, in fact, the reincarnation
of an advanced human being, as has since been proved to be the case; for
Krishnamurti is today recognised throughout the world as a great teacher and
helper of mankind, large numbers of people flocking to hear him wherever he
goes.
Finally, I think it would be a great
tragedy if, because of E.L. Gardner's attack upon C.W. Leadbeater, less notice
were taken of the latter's valuable writings, especially those which expound
basic Theosophy, for he always wrote with rare lucidity. His unique
contributions to the literature upon the spiritual life, the Path of
Discipleship, the Masters of the Wisdom and the Great White Brotherhood of
Adepts upon Earth, are not likely to be equalled in their power to transform
people's lives in this period of world history. With so many other revealers of
spiritual and occult wisdom to mankind, he has been - and by E.L. Gardner is
now-decried and assailed. For me, however, C W. Leadbeater was a giant amongst
men, a great teacher and light-bringer to mankind, and I am indeed grateful for
this opportunity of adding my testimony to that of others who knew him far more
intimately than ever was my own privilege.
Geoffrey Hodson.
6. C.W.
Leadbeater: A Self-illumined Man
by Some of His Pupils
We, the undersigned, are moved to
protest against the attack upon C.W. Leadbeater made by Mr. E.L. Gardner in his
booklet, There Is No Religion Higher Than Truth, adding our voices to those
already raised on C.W.L.'s behalf. We do this for the following reasons:
Mr. Gardner has attacked a very
great servant of humanity, no longer alive to defend himself.
In response to the ideal of “A
valiant defence of those who are unjustly attacked”, as consistently taught by
C.W.L.
As his pupils, drawn for some years
into close association with him, we are able to state categorically that, for
us, he was certainly not a self-deluded man (Mr. Gardner's accusation against
him). On the contrary, we know C.W.L. to have been a self-illumined seer, and
this certainty of ours is supported not only by natural intuitive responses
throughout many years, but also by direct, independent experiences of an
extra-sensory nature. We also affirm our conviction that C.W.L. was, in fact,
in close association with certain Adepts, this relationship having begun on
receipt of two letters from his own Master. (The K.H. Letters to C.W. Leadbeater,
C. Jinarajadasa)
Mr. Gardner's use of the official
Motto of the Theosophical Society, “There Is No Religion Higher Than Truth,” as
the title of his booklet is, in our opinion, most regrettable. It would seem
that by using this Motto he intended to imply that he is in possession of the
truth, and therefore in a position rightfully to sit in judgement on C.W.L. A
very high position indeed, for he would also have to assume a mantle of greater
truthfulness than C.W.L. Yet we discover that in support of his charges, namely
that C.W.L. was guilty of errors caused by self-delusion, he has demonstrably
misquoted passages from theosophical literature.
In all our association with C.W.L.
we found him to be the last person ever to claim infallibility, either in his
exposition of theosophical teachings or in his own researches. On the contrary,
he always said in effect:”This is what I have discovered to be true for myself.
Use your reason and your intuition and, if you have them, your own clairvoyant
faculties, to verify or disprove my findings. Thus you may discover truth for
yourself.” Mr. Gardner has ignored this approach to truth which was typical of
C.W.L. If, furthermore, Mr. Gardner so gravely doubted C.W.L.'s teachings, one
may ask why, during the years of his acquaintance with C.W.L. when he was
alive, did he not express personally his doubts and so give C.W.L. the
opportunity to defend himself? Why wait until more than thirty years after
C.W.L.'s death? Those of us who knew him well, however, are aware that had Mr.
Gardner attacked him while he was alive, he would never have defended himself;
for this was something he had always steadfastly refused to do.
When appraising the life of an
occultist, it is necessary to remember that much of that life must inevitably
be hidden from public view, because it is private and personal; also that this
concealment is deliberate, for there is a self-imposed discipline of silence.
Nevertheless the existence of these hidden factors, of which Mr. Gardner should
be well aware, must in all justice be taken into account. This is especially so
when considering attacks upon the life and work of such a selfless Theosophist
and server of mankind as was our friend and teacher - C.W.L. Some day in the
future, we feel sure, the world will recognise C.W.L.'s genius, his immense
contributions to spiritual and occult knowledge, and his absolute purity of
heart and single-minded integrity up to the day of his death.
We who knew and respected C.W.L. are
particularly disturbed by, and take grave exception to, the introduction by Mr.
Gardner of a satirical note on the first page of his booklet. Satire has been
defined as being essentially a criticism of folly or vice, which it holds up to
ridicule or scorn. It is simply sarcastic expression deliberately used thus to
draw attention to that which is purported to be erroneous. This undesirable
frame of mind causes a doubt to arise in the mind of the genuine enquirer as to
the sincerity of the author in stating on the following page his “warm
indebtedness” to C.W.L. Those students who seriously study the Ancient Wisdom
must surely be struck by the hypocrisy of such an attitude and its expression.
In the analysis he claimed to have found “evidence” and “proof” in support of
his accusation. It is then suggested that the “phenomenon of 'unconscious
Kriyashakti'” is the cause of it all.
To the general public, or world at
large, this may seem very impressive and could possibly be readily believed.
Yet on close examination it proves not to be an analysis at all, but merely
expressions of the writer's own personal doubts. A series of quotations follow,
some if not all of which are fragments pieced together to convey a meaning
different from the real message of the originals when read in their complete
form. A false image is thus presented (The Science of the Sacraments, C.W. Leadbeater),
which in actual fact throws a wrong light on a series of events and the
personalities who played a part in them; for in these quotations neither proof
nor evidence can be found at all.
Two Letters of the Mahatmas, (The
Mahatma Letters To A.P. Sinnett, A.T. Barker) Nos. 10 and 134, are quoted, for
example, and alleged to convey Their views on “the celebration of the Mass”, “the
effect of consecration and of priesthood” and “numerous details of ecclesiastical
procedure” in the Liberal Catholic Church; for it is this Church and its
teaching which are now also under attack in the booklet. Firstly, as far as is
known these Letters were written in the last century, long before the L.C.C.
was founded, and cannot therefore be regarded as an expression of the Mahatma's
views on this Church and its teaching. Secondly, Letter No. 10 consists of
notes on the then existing conceptions of God and the forms of worship in the
then existing denominations of various religions in the world, of which the
Christian Religion is one. The views expressed in Letter No. 10, however, are
in complete harmony with - and the underlying principle of - the teaching of
the Liberal Catholic Church. (Demonstrated in the accompanying Article by The
Rt. Rev. Marijn Brandt).
At the time when the Mahatma Letters
were written, both orthodox conceptions of God and ecclesiastical practices
were of such a nature as to call forth and justify the Master K.H.'s
denunciations. The L.C.C., which brings Theosophy into Christianity, was not
yet in existence. Therefore the Master's remarks cannot possibly be regarded as
being directed against that Church. Letter No. 134 refers to misconceptions
prevalent in the then existing forms of popular religion. The same remark can
be made here as in connection with Letter No. 10. The last sentence in the
quotation is not quite correct, for Mr. Gardner left out “and Mohamedans”.
One wonders how much actual truth a
serious student of the occult doctrine can find in this booklet, which has such
an exalted title, and yet in which so much negative thought, prejudice,
suspicion and doubt are expressed in the Introduction, and why the wrong
presentation of facts? These but serve as barriers to Mr. Gardner's own understanding,
and also cause distraction to the reader.
The Coming of the World Teacher was
proclaimed by Dr. Annie Besant in December, 1910, while she was still supposed
to be in the “plenitude of her powers” as Mr. N. Sri Ram, President of the
Theosophical Society, expressed it in his Watch Tower Article in The
Theosophist of February, 1964. It was in 1913, and not in 1912 as Mr. Gardner
stated, that she reportedly put aside the use of her clairvoyant faculties -
another misstatement of fact. Concerning the prophetic announcement in regard
to the World Teacher, Mr. Gardner wrote: “Obviously there has been no Coming.”
Referring to this in his Article, Mr. Sri Ram added the qualification “as
expected”. He then went on to say that “Krishnaji is giving a teaching, message
or whatever else we may call it, which is of unique value and importance.” This
would seem to indicate a thought in the President's mind that possibly
Krishnamurti may be to some extent a vehicle for the World Teacher. This, if
true, would negate Mr. Gardner's declaration that “there has been no Coming.”
Indeed, it is an undeniable fact
that many people still regard J. Krishnamurti as a great teacher, and this is
even stated on his current publications. For instance, on the cover of his book
Life Ahead, edited by D. Rajagopal (Harper and Row, 1963, Copyright by Krishnamurti
Writings Inc.), we read: “A great teacher writes on the meaning of a mature
life.” On the inside of the jacket there is a reference to him as being “unique
among spiritual leaders” and the statement that “many thousands of people from
all walks of life have been uplifted and spiritually reborn through his
teachings.” This is the man whom C.W.L. saw as a poor boy in India and
recognised as one who would become a great teacher. Dr. Annie Besant, with the
assistance of C.W.L., subsequently gave him both protection and education. Is
not this in itself a living testimony of C.W.L.'s powers of seership?
Mr. Geoffrey Hodson, also
commenting, has raised the question of how any human being can with certainty
affirm that Krishnamurti is or is not a vehicle, which gives rise to the
further question: “How does Mr. Gardner know?” Mr. Hodson continued: “The
absence of drama and of miracle is no proof that in both the presentation of
certain ideas and the function of a channel for the Lord's out flowing
inspiration and blessing, Krishnamurti may not very well be serving according
to the Lord's original plan; for He, in His wisdom, may have decided to rely
upon the transmission of ideas rather than the production of dramatic events
and transcendent phenomena! Indeed a quiet, persuasive, pervasive presentation
of a group of ideas, appealing as much to the intuition as to the mind, may
have been the original plan. This is what is actually occurring and
Krishnamurti's personal renunciation of the Office, as he thought, would not in
any way affect this kind of vehicleship. Even if Mr. Gardner's pronouncement of
failure is justified, the fact would not deny C.W.L.'s ability accurately to
receive and convey communications from the Adepts; for his actual words when
first announcing that Krishnamurti would be the vehicle for the Lord were,
according to the testimony of the late Mr. Ernest Wood who was present, 'unless
something went wrong' (See Article entitled Krishnamurti, Memories of His Early
Life, The Theosophical Journal (England), Vol.6, No. 1, Jan-Feb., 1965. [heavy
print ours]). Mr. Wood stated also: 'This I want to emphasise in justice to Mr.
Leadbeater.' I am aware that Ernest Wood endorsed 'almost every word' of Mr.
Gardner's booklet, but consider that this gives his testimony (quoted above)
added strength. The Lord may have decided that He would quietly and
undramatically - and here and there in Krishnamurti's Talks, as it were - send
out into the world certain selected ideas. One of these could have been, 'where
truth is concerned, try to stand upon your own feet.'“
Mr. Gardner has laid himself open to
strong criticism, not only because he has attacked C.W.L. who, being dead, is
unable to defend himself, but also because when quoting from The Secret
Doctrine to support his attack he has been guilty of misquoting from that work.
Here are Mr. Gardner's words from page thirteen of his booklet concerning
skandhas and Kriyashakti:” . . . Thus, the elemental enclosed within the
consciously created form, if vitalised by the skandhas of its creator - i.e., personal
desire vibrations - will be awakened into a desire to live. And, should its
creator weaken, it may become his Frankenstein. Such is the vivid description
given by H. P. Blavatsky of the possible result of unconscious Kriyashakti.
(The Secret Doctrine, Adyar edition, V.560)”
Let us now turn to the Volume from
which Mr. Gardner affirmed that he was quoting. Here is the relevant passage in
its original form: “It is wrong to speak of Tanhas in the plural; there is only
one Tanha, the desire to live. This develops into a multitude or one might say
a congeries of ideas. The Skandhas are Karmic and non-Karmic. Skandhas may
produce Elementals by unconscious Kriyashakti. Every Elemental that is thrown
out by man must return to him sooner or later, since it is his own vibration.
They thus become his Frankenstein.” A comparison of these two passages will
demonstrate at once that Mr. Gardner has misquoted.
At this juncture we may justifiably
demand that if Mr. Gardner wishes to lay a charge against anyone, no matter
whom it may be, let him both present facts accurately in their complete
perspective, untainted by his own personal desire and opinion or those of
others, and found his thesis upon irrefutable logic.
In further defence of our great
teacher it may be pointed out that he never claimed to be a perfect exponent of
the occult doctrine, but humbly offered his work as a contribution to human
thought. He has at least given us a wonderful glimpse of the powers latent in
every man, powers that we believe enabled C.W.L. to bring the teachings of
Occult Science down into his physical brain. Whilst observing the many
activities in which he was engaged, one witnessed a scientist at work, whether
alone or in collaboration with his most trusted colleagues. Many observations
had to be made over and over again, checked and counter-checked many times,
before the information was accepted as correct and finally expressed in that
lucid language characteristic of all that he wrote and said. We furthermore
submit that he who decides publicly to pass judgement upon another, to do so
fairly and justly must take into account not only the external and visible
results of that person's life work but also the very nature of his being. Those
of us who were so often elevated in consciousness in C.W.L.'s presence, and
revered him so greatly as being very much wiser than ourselves, were never once
asked to believe his teachings on his authority alone, but were always
encouraged to reason them out for ourselves.
Finally, we wish to acknowledge
before the Theosophical Society and the world our deep respect and our love for
C.W. Leadbeater, also our profound gratitude for all that he was and all that
he gave to us of spiritual and mental light, of true and lasting happiness, and
of invaluable practical guidance in the living of our lives. We believe that we
knew him as he really was - a great occultist, a seer, a sage, and a selfless
servant of the human Race.
Sandra Hodson; Maude Fisher; Mathias
J. Van Thiel; Claire Thompson; Ellie Freeman; David B. Ewart; Hilda van Hall;
H. H. Banks; Lilie Muller von Czernicki-van Thiel; H. A. Edsall; J. Leonie van
de Waart-van Gulik; Marjorie S. King; Alexandra Bitter; Esme Ellison; Arthur
van Gelder; Muriel Parkes; Russel Balfour Clarke; D. Hooker; Melanie van
Gelder; Axel Poignant; Karel van Gelder; Gwendolyn Garnsey.
I think all of us firmly believe
that C.W.L. did all in his power to prepare us for the task of living as
sincerely and truly as conscience dictates. Personally, I think he had enormous
courage and a wonderful and very selfless love for all his pupils, whom he
prepared as best he could, and according to his honest convictions, for life in
a terrible age.
As to his clairvoyance, I have no
power to judge as he never stressed this. We were all very untalented on this
point, so we could not prove or disprove anything, but C.W.L. was one of the
most careful and most truthful people I know. Therefore I do not think that he
would have said anything he did not thoroughly believe.
Furthermore, I presume it is very
difficult to explain things that no-one has ever seen or can place in any known
frame of picture or experience! I certainly do not think C.W.L. was self-deluded.
The difficulty was transmitting what he saw to a host of others who did not
have the same vision. I think all seers must have the same trouble. If
anything, C.W.L. was more careful and less apt to exaggerate than most people,
as he was a man of little imagination really. To us he was a great man because
of his human qualities; not because he was clairvoyant and not for his beliefs,
but because he had the courage to act accordingly and was more capable of a
real and very pure love than anyone I know.
- Hilda van Hall.
I only hope that, when I am as old
as Mr. Gardner, I shall not have forgotten C.W.L. as I have known him, viz. — a
man of absolute integrity, a “great” man, radiating love and a powerful light.
- J. L. van de Waart.van Gulik.
Humanity today is indebted to C.W. Leadbeater for the advancement of
religious thought, especially in:
The revitalisation of Buddhism in Ceylon:
*Smaller Buddhist Catechism is a classic.
The reintroduction of esoteric teaching into Christianity through his books.
*The Christian Creed
*The Hidden Side of Christian Festivals
*The Science of the Sacraments
*Liturgy of the Liberal Catholic Church
*and other writings
*The Hidden Side of Christian Festivals
*The Science of the Sacraments
*Liturgy of the Liberal Catholic Church
*and other writings
The reintroduction of esoteric teaching into modern Masonry through his
books:
*The Hidden Life in Freemasonry
*Glimpses of Masonic History
*and other writings
*Glimpses of Masonic History
*and other writings
OBSERVATION
Later I will detail all the falsehoods there are in this pamphlet.
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