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THE SEXUAL MAGIC THAT LEADBEATER PRACTICED




On this matter, researcher Gregory Tillett wrote the following:

« Some of Leadbeater's critics within the Theosophical Society were convinced that Leadbeater was teaching sexual magic, or tantra, which they automatically equated with black magic. They chose not to make this claim public for fear of the damage it would do to the Theosophical Society, but they circulated privately documents arguing the case.

The two principal exponents of this view were Edward Gardner, the eminent British Theosophist, and Rex Dutta, an English Theosophist, who presently produces his own Theosophical journal, Viewpoint Aquarius.

The horror with which these two, and those who agreed with them, viewed any suggestion of tantra was based on H.P. Blavatsky's teaching that it was practiced only by the most debased, and black, of occultists, the dugpas. The differences between schools of tantra, and the theory behind them was generally ignored, or misunderstood by the Theosophical critics. Any form of occultism which involved sexuality, let alone homosexuality, could only be evil.

(Cid's observation: I agree with that, but neither can Leadbeater claim to be a disciple of Master Kuthumi and do things that the Theosophists repudiate. This is a further proof that Leadbeater lied.)




Edward Gardner

Edward Gardner is best known in Theosophical circles for his works developing theories on the basis of the teachings of The Secret Doctrine. But, in addition to his public work There is No Religion Higher than Truth (1963) where he doubt of Leadbeater’s clairvoyance. He was also the author of two studies of Leadbeater, headed "Private", and circulated amongst those within the Theosophical Society whom he believed he could trust.

These were:

  - The Liberal Catholic Church and the Theosophical Society (April, 1966)
  - The Rev. C.W. Leadbeater Problem (September, 1966)

He further expounded his theories in a lengthy correspondence with the editor of HPB's Collected Writings, Boris de Zirkoff.

This correspondence extended from 1964 to 1966. It began with a letter dealing with There is No Religion Higher than Truth, which Gardner said was receiving favourable reactions within the Theosophical Society; he even claimed that the then Presiding Bishop of the Liberal Catholic Church (Sir Hugh Sykes of England) "told me a month ago that he accepted the booklet throughout! - But the L.C.C. was in existence and he thought it was 'doing good work'".

Gardner hinted at "certain teachings by Leadbeater (himself clean but ignorant)" which had produced "disastrous effects", and sought de Zirkoff's advice as to whether "H.P. Blavatsky gives in any published or private papers any further information about the use of the powerful Sex-Force for stimulation of the higher centres".

Gardner concluded:

-      "The colossal mistake due to Leadbeater's ‘forced vision’ must never occur again!"


In his next letter Gardner noted:

« When I first knew the whole truth in 1928-1930, I was much inclined to think the worst of Leadbeater. But the abundant evidence accumulated since, coupled with my personal contacts with him, I am sure [sic] that his “forced vision” and the confidence it gave him, was the real cause of his errors. Coupled with that however was the memory of incarnation in Greece. It was there that he cultivated the creative force of the male sex given a certain Hatha-Yoga practice. »

In July, 1966, Gardner again wrote to de Zirkoff, saying that he devoted the last six months to research into Leadbeater's "interest in the many boys he contacted". He had, even in the 1920's, suspected that Leadbeater was undertaking occult experiments with semen, and had been undertaking research into the history of such practices.

Four months later Gardner wrote, enclosing a copy of Jinarajadasa's On The Liberal Catholic Church, which he claimed Jinarajadasa had published in 1925 in an attempt to bring about the closing down of the LCC, and which had only ever, at that time, been distributed privately to some bishops and priests of the Church.

Towards the end of 1966, Gardner, having been referred by de Zirkoff to Franz Hartmann's Paracelsus for information on the occult use of semen, replied, and concluded that this represented "the blackest of black magic". The implication in the letter is that Leadbeater was making occult use of a "special substance" in semen.

A letter of December 8th, 1966, ended the correspondence (presumably with the death or incapacity of Gardner), but added nothing new.



In his two private studies of Leadbeater, Gardner presents only a veiled version of the material he made available to de Zirkoff. However, he included some material which, if true, is vital to the story of Leadbeater's involvement in the T.S. Gardener claimed, for example, that Mrs. Besant knew "the whole truth" about Leadbeater's psychic vision, and was "about to make the whole truth known to the T.S." when she became "broken physically and mentally".

(Cid’s observation: in another letter Gardner considered that the fact that Annie Besant discovered Leadbeater was a liar and the whole story of Lord Maitreya had been a falsehood, it was too hard for her and that killed her. But it cannot be ruled out that they have silenced her to keep up appearances. She being already a very old and fragile lady, it was easy to knock her down.)


Gardner also noted that Jinarajadasa only published the letters in “On The Liberal Catholic Church” - which he had received as Leadbeater's executor in 1934 - in 1953 when he knew he was dying. Even then it had a strictly limited circulation.


In his other study, Gardner quotes a woman who had been "a devoted admirer of CWL" whom he questioned when she returned, "distressed and almost vehement" from a period in Sydney. She refused to tell Gardner anything beyond the comments: "Leadbeater's a beast", and "He makes them drink it".

Gardner cited material on traditions associated with the magical use of semen, including a quotation from H.P. Blavatsky in which she referred to Aristotle and others teaching of "a special substance contained within the pneuma, itself contained within the semen of man".

Gardner concluded:

« C.W. Leadbeater's “discovery” of the potency of the “semen of man” he shared, at least. with one (FWP) [presumably, Frank Waters Pigott] --- and thereby others. However well meaning Leadbeater's intentions his errors of judgment led to catastrophic results in the Theosophical Society. »




Rex Dutta

Gardner took care to see that his private theories about the origin and nature of Leadbeater's clairvoyance were not widely known. After his death his papers passed into the possession of another English Theosophist, Rex Dutta, the editor of a curious Theosophical journal, Viewpoint Aquarius, which combines Blavatskian Theosophy with information about (and allegedly from) flying saucers, and other miscellaneous occult material.

In the July/August, 1982, issue of Viewpoint Aquarius, Dutta reviewed the author's The Elder Brother. A Biography of C.W. Leadbeater, Dutta began a consideration of Leadbeater's claims to clairvoyance by reviewing the theory presented in “There is No Religious Higher Than Truth”, and HPB's teachings about kriyashakti.

However, he claimed that the "external stimulus" to Leadbeater's clairvoyance was "Semen from young boys", and he claimed:

"He wanted the semen; to stimulate his dense-grade clairvoyance. He drank semen 'holy water'".

Dutta concluded:

"Mr. Tillett (pages 283-5) when he guesses at Tantrika Sexual Black Magic, doesn't realize the half of it. Small wonder that H.P.B. called [Leadbeater] WC."

(Cid's observation: Leadbeater's clairvoyance was nil, but instead he had a great magnetism that he used to captivate people, as did Osho and other gurus. For what, I consider that Leadbeater rather used the sexual energy to increase his magnetism.)




Where did Leadbeater get these techniques from?

Leadbeater's sexual teachings link him with two movements which developed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The first appears in aesthetic and religious circles, and focused on the glorification of a spiritual relationship, with sexual implications if not sexual involvement, between a Teacher and a Pupil.

Timothy d'Arch Smith, in his study of "Uranian" poets, began by noting:

« Between the eighteen nineties and the nineteen thirties a boy was a very quiet, self-effacing and unobtrusive creature indeed. The Uranians' adoration of such a person was not therefore immediately suspect as it is in modern society where the state is intolerant of any intrusion into her prerogative of wet-nurse or where certain Sunday newspapers are as thoughtlessly swift to condemn such relationships as they are immorally prompt to arouse their young readers' erotic ardour with pictures of near nude females, and it is probably that the Uranians' love of boys gave genuine help and affection where no official organization or counsel existed outside the home or school. »

The term "Uranian" was coined, he notes, by those who advocated "boy love" in the period to which he refers, and included such literary figures as Oscar Wilde, Edward Carpenter, John Addington Symonds, William Johnson Cory and Ralph Nicholas Chubb. Of the last named, it was said that he endeavoured "to raise paederasty to a form of religious devotion".

Amongst the religious figures d'Arch Smith included Fr Ignatius of Llanthony, George Reader, Frederick Widdows, Frederick Samuel Willoughby (who consecrated Wedgwood) and Leadbeater.

Obviously, Wedgwood and some of his associates should also have been included.

Many of the Uranians were characterized by a retrospective longing for the days of classical Greece, when the Teacher-Pupil relationship, including a sexual relationship between an older and a younger man, was held to be the pinnacle of culture.

Leadbeater, of course, made frequent references to his own last incarnation in ancient Greece, as the pupil of one of Socrates' disciples.

The religious component in "boy love" was not, as d'Arch Smith notes, merely a decorative element:

« This spiritualizing of paederasty absolves [the Uranian] from the guilt which makes him hate society and turn into a recluse. His is no longer a common human weakness, for he has felt the cleansing fire of divinity. »

But Leadbeater's sexual teachings did not only link him with an aesthetic and religious movement; they also related directly to an occult and magical tradition which employed sexual activities to produce "power". It is commonly believed that the oriental tradition of tantra (or, more accurately, traditions of tantra) represents the only such use of sexuality in religion. This is not so, and in the West sexuality had been employed in a variety of religious and magical contexts, all agreeing with the principle of tantra summarized by Benjamin Walker as:

« Sex is a natural activity, but like many other such natural activities has a transcendent and esoteric side which can be utilized in secret ways to reveal to man the hidden truths of the universe. The sexual act is a means to salvation, and one can obtain mukti (redemption) through bhuti (pleasure). Copulation brings siddhis (psychic powers] and knowledge of Brahma [God].

In gross sensual pleasure, as expounded in the erotics, we have the lowest and most transient form of this revelation, which in any case cannot be discerned because the participant's mind is clouded with the fumes of passion. To transcend this carnal state one must gain an understanding of the true meaning of sexual activity. »


The magical use of masturbation is known in some traditions of both Eastern and Western occultism.

« The theory of sexual magic may be summarized:

1) Man possesses hidden powers (often identified with the subconscious mind) which give him greater perception, raise him to states of ecstasy, expand his consciousness, stimulate increased physical, emotional and mental powers;

2) These powers lie 'buried' beneath some 'barrier' which conscious control cannot penetrate, but which can be overcome by a variety of techniques, including to some extent drugs and alcohol;

3) This 'barrier' can be penetrated through heightening the physical, emotional and intellectual focus of the body by sexual stimulation, leading to a 'break through' at the point of orgasm, at which energy is released. »


Techniques employed in sexual magic may be heterosexual, homosexual or auto-sexual.

In the case of auto-sexual techniques, the aim was usually to heighten the consciousness of the practitioner and focus and stimulate his magical power, culminating in the release of energy at the point of orgasm.

For example, the English artist and magician, Austin Spare (1886-1956) employed a technique of "magical masturbation" as a means of concentrating, releasing and directing magical energy. And Aleister Crowley also employed magical sexual techniques – of every imaginable variety - in his occult work.

If sexual magic seemed inherently immoral, and was certain to attract strongly hostile reactions, homosexual magic was many times worse and, until recently, inevitably involved criminal acts. Few magicians were prepared to openly advocate or describe their own practices of such a form of sexual magic; even Aleister Crowley wrote about it in code.

Most occultists vehemently denounced sexual magic generally, and "unnatural vice" in any form. Dion Fortune, for example, warned against the problem of homosexual vice in various of her writings. In her Esoteric Philosophy of Love and Marriage she commented:

-      "It is more than tragic that young boys should be foully made use of in black occultism."



However, one contemporary magician, and probably the best known of all modern writers on sexual magic, Kenneth Grant, took a less critical approach, and implied that Leadbeater used sexual magic to invoke beings from another dimension, or at least was aware of the possibility of such invocation.

Assuming that Leadbeater was teaching some form of sexual magic, it would be of importance of identify possible sources.

Did he simply invent theories and practices which happened to fit into pre-existing schemes?

Or did he have contact with groups or individuals from whom he learned them?


Leadbeater claimed at the 1906 "trial" to have learned the principle of systematic masturbation as a means of overcoming moral lapses in an Anglican organization but, having made this startling statement, refused to give any further information about the matter.

The only Anglican organisations to which he is known to have belonged seem to be most unlikely sources. It is possible that, through his link with the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament, a controversial (at the time) body which attracted many eccentrics of the ritualistic variety, he came into contact with some (probably informal) group of Anglican "boy lovers". Certainly, the Confraternity was alleged to have immoral associations as far as its critics were concerned, the ideal of celibate clergy leading to general assumptions of sexual immorality, usually with women, but also with boys.

In many Anglo-Catholic circles (then and now) there has been a strong homoerotic element. This has often led to the development of theories explaining and spiritualizing homosexuality. Frank Pigott, originally an Anglo-Catholic clergyman prior to becoming a Theosophist and (later) a Liberal Catholic Bishop, wrote, in a review of Oscar Wilde's De Profundis:

« Even that little-understood 'offence' amongst people of refinement, where it mostly flourishes, has its purpose in the ordering of things and has a useful and necessary part to play in the working of human evolution... Some of the finest flowers of the human race have been of that way; it is absurd to speak of such as criminals or even as moral perverts or pathological cases. »

However, the subject of homosexuality in Christianity has been sufficiently taboo that even in modern times very little has been written about it in other than theological terms. If Leadbeater was associated with some sort of "Uranian" group within the Church of England, it seems that no trace of it remains.




OTO

If Leadbeater's sexual teachings cannot be traced directly to a religious organization, it may be possible to trace them to two sources of influence: oriental tantra, to which Leadbeater was exposed in India, and (directly in later years, but perhaps indirectly in earlier) to an occult organization specifically concerned with sexual magic. This was the Ordo Templi Orientis (the Order of Oriental Templars, generally known as the OTO).

The OTO was divided into nine grades or degrees, with a purely administrative tenth degree. These generally followed a semi-Masonic model. The first six grades were conferred ritually, the first three being similar to the first three degrees of Masonry. The next three were based on interpretations of Masonic symbolism. The seventh, eighth and ninth degrees concerned Sexual magic, but were conferred without ritual, the initiates simply being given written instructions. The eighth degree taught an auto-sexual technique called by one commentator on the degree "magical masturbation". And the ninth heterosexual magic based on the traditions of Bengali tantra.

The teachings of the OTO were kept highly secret, and, given the small number of members, received a limited circulation. But the sexual teachings were also written largely in a form of code which would not have made a great deal of sense to the uninitiated – for example, in some writings, the penis was called "the athanor", and semen "the Serpent" or "the blood of the red lion".

Although it is possible to see similarities between the teachings of the OTO and Leadbeater, there is no evidence that, in his early Theosophical days, he was a member of the Order, or had even heard of it. There is, however, evidence that, following the visit to Sydney of James Wedgwood in 1915, Leadbeater may have become a member of the OTO.

The probable link between Leadbeater and the OTO is the mysterious figure of Vyvyan Hereword Rowden Deacon, a descendant of the poet, Robert Browning.

Deacon had, according to his diaries, a close association with Leadbeater. Deacon's daughter has commented:

"In 1914 my father was trained by Bishop Leadbeater in Theosophical and Rosicrucian practices. Leadbeater's books and Rudolf Steiner's books on Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry, although published many years after this time, reveal, many of the subjects well known to the poet [Robert Browning] and my father as family tradition."

Deacon was associated with a number of Leadbeater's activities, being a member of the TS and the ES, and attending meetings of the Order of the Star. When the Old Catholic (later Liberal Catholic) Church was established, Vyvyan and his young wife, Eunice, were both baptized. The ceremony took place on June 10th, 1916, and was performed by Gustav Kollerstrom; afterwards they were both confirmed by James Wedgwood.

Wedgwood, greatly interested in the fringes of Masonry, was a close friend of John Yarker, from who the founders of the OTO received a charter in 1902. Wedgwood himself was admitted to the OTO in 1912 by its Outer Head, Theodor Reuss, at Yarker's request, and was attached as an honorary member to the Holy Grail Lodge in Munich.

After Yarker's death in March, 1913, his widow was supported by a small pension granted to her by the Co-Masonic Order, of which Wedgwood was Grand Secretary.




Conclusion

While it cannot be proved beyond doubt, it seems likely, given that the evidence for the more clearly magical teachings about sex come from the post-1915 period, that Leadbeater was initiated into the OTO, probably by Wedgwood (who initiated him into Co-Masonry, and brought him into the Old Catholic Church), perhaps with some involvement by Vyvyan Deacon»
(A biographical study, p.908-926)














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