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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