March, 1922, in which the President of the T. S. makes some attempt to
deal with recent criticism. One is a Supplement, or Manifesto, addressed
"To all Members of the Theosophical Society," and couched in Mrs.
Besant's present style--flamboyant, a trifle bombastic, often Biblical
in phraseology, and running throughout it, her usual fervid and
disingenuous appeal to sentimental emotionalism, instead of the
instinctive sense of justice latent in all beings. This latter, a
feature of her best days, she has entirely abandoned; it no longer
serves her ends. What those "ends" are one almost hesitates to
formulate, so impious and almost insane do they appear. Even taking into
consideration the tangled mass of evasions, misstatements and
hypocritical equivocations presented in this manifesto, these "ends"
emerge with sufficient clearness. But, in the first place, and before
going further, one must ask on what basis this amazing claim to almost
deific powers and knowledge rests. Let me here call M. Lévy into the
witness box once more; for he also had put the same question to himself
nine years ago, and will provide the answer. It occurs in his chapter on
"Mrs. Besant's 'Return of the Christ,'" where he is dealing with her
position and actions in regard to Dr. Steiner, the German occultist and
Christian Theosophist--with whose ideas, I should add, I am not in
personal agreement. My teacher is H. P. Blavatsky and she alone: I
follow no lesser light. M. Lévy says:--
Our reason forces us to confess that all goes to suggest that
Mrs. Besant, having herself ceased to believe in the identity
of her Jesus with the Christ [of the Gospels.--A. L. C.], would
still continue to make others believe it.... Her pride ... her
dominating mind, have driven her on this crusade of
extermination of Dr. Steiner's teachings; it has induced her to
collect, _without the least regard for truth, justice, or
theosophic principles, no matter what weapons if they do but
serve against her opponent; calumny, abuse of power,
misstatement of facts, all combined in a subtle strategy_.
Italics are mine; for we find Mrs. Besant using precisely the same
methods to-day, only in a form fortunately neither so "subtle" nor so
Jesuitically plausible. Her powers are failing, as the manifesto under
consideration clearly proves. M. Lévy proceeds:--
And when she falls victim of some error in the course of her
occult investigations--of which in theory she is always
proclaiming the fallibility--it is again her pride that bars
the way to admission, and makes her the slave of the most
pitiful machinations ... which ... will shatter to fragments in
all directions the confidence she had formerly inspired. For if
she is not consciously defending her mistake, then what kind of
a break-up of all her faculties are we witnessing?... The more
deeply we study this [_i.e._, the "neo-theosophy" already
described by M. Lévy and Pandit Bhagavan Das.--A. L. C.], the
more terrible appear the responsibilities of Adyar in this
deplorable scheme; for we would still seek the origin of such
fearless confidence [in Mrs. Besant's followers.--A. L. C.]
refusing, as it does, to be shaken by the eloquent appeal of
the facts here set forth, and of which some, if not all, have
been within the reach and open to examination of those members
who profess such an enthusiastic confidence in Mrs. Besant. The
result of our search is a yet further culpability, as
overwhelming as it is unexpected.
For this confidence is not in the case of all the victims the
result of the free use of their own inner faculties. It is in
the case of the greater number, due to the influence of a
strong suggestion _deliberately organised and cleverly carried
out by the authors of this mystification themselves; by Mr.
Leadbeater who wrote, and by Mrs. Besant who published_, the
following lines in the _Adyar Album_, p. 45: "What can I say to
you of your President that you do not know already? Her
colossal [_sic_] intellect, her unfailing wisdom, her
unrivalled eloquence, her splendid forgetfulness of self, her
untiring devotion to work for others--all these are familiar to
you. Yet these qualities, these powers, are but a small part of
her greatness; they are on the surface, they may be seen by
all, they leap to the eyes. But there are other qualities,
other powers, of which you cannot know, because they pertain to
the secrets of Initiation. She is a pupil of our Masters; from
the fount of Their archaic wisdom she derives her own, the
plans which she is carrying out are Their plans for the welfare
of the world. Think, therefore, how great an honour it is for
you that you should be permitted to work under her, for in
doing so you are virtually working under Them. Think how
watchful you should be to miss no hint which falls from her
lips, to carry out exactly whatever instructions she may give
you. Remember that because of her position as an Initiate she
knows far more than you do; and precisely because her knowledge
is occult, given under the seal of Initiation, she cannot share
it with you. Therefore her actions must certainly be governed
by considerations of which you have no conception. There will
be times when you cannot understand her motives, for she is
taking into account many things which you cannot see and of
which she must not tell you. But whether you understand or not,
you will be wise to follow her implicitly, just because she
knows. This is no mere supposition on my part, no mere flight
of the imagination; I have stood beside your President in the
presence of the Supreme Director of evolution on this globe,
and I know whereof I speak. Let the wise hear my words, and act
accordingly."
It is easy to see how minds not gifted with a highly developed
critical faculty, or the instinctive sense that discriminates
the true from the false, would yield hopelessly to such a
formidable assault. They cannot see that he who thus guarantees
the infallibility of Mrs. Besant has himself need of
guarantee.... _I do not think that any religion or man-made
cult, even in the earliest ages, has ever promulgated
superstition in its grossest form so openly and boldly as this
..._ [Italics mine.--A.L.C.]. Mr. Leadbeater ... demands
_deliberate_ suppression of thought.... And having extolled
such a deliberately induced mental torpor for Mrs. Besant's
benefit, he immediately demands it for himself when he speaks
of the "Supreme Director of evolution on this globe." Who is
this administrative person? With whom is he to be identified in
the scheme of evolution as it has been given to us by Mrs.
Besant and Mr. Leadbeater themselves?... What avenging God will
come to confound this impious prophet who seeks to reduce
humanity to the level of a troop of obedient automata!... A
gentle and winning voice, infinitely reassuring, rises out of
the depths of my being ... a great light breaks forth,
triumphant. Mr. Leadbeater hears the words of a judgment
immediate and without appeal, pronounced by the Buddha
himself:--
"Believe not what you have heard said; believe not in
traditions merely because they have been transmitted through
many generations; believe not merely because a thing is
repeated by many persons; ... believe not conjectures ...
_believe not solely upon the authority of your Masters and
elders_. WHEN UPON OBSERVATION AND ANALYSIS A PRINCIPLE
CONFORMS TO REASON AND LEADS TO THE BENEFIT AND WELFARE OF ALL,
ACCEPT IT AND HOLD IT."--(Buddha, _Anguttura Nikaya_.)
What a royal refuge, what a noble support are the words of
those who are the truly great! They are the perpetual safeguard
of humanity.
We have seen that upon "observation and analysis" the
"unfailing" wisdom of Mrs. Besant is no more than a mass of
inconsistencies, injustices, sectarian tactics in
administration, error and mystification in esoteric
announcements. Far from leading to "the benefit and welfare of
all," this "unfailing" wisdom is leading to the ... most
miserable slavery of souls, the emasculation of minds, the
creation of a terrible heresy. And at the present time we are
all feeling that we shall not be living up to the wise
exhortations of that great Being who was the Buddha, unless we
clearly denounce the lamentable aberrations of these two
occultists in the hope of drawing all the souls we possibly can
away from their pernicious influence. With this end in view,
and faithful to this duty, we shall calmly and firmly continue
our investigation of facts.
Fortunately, the assertions of Mrs. Besant and Mr. Leadbeater
have lately reached to such a pitch of extravagance and have so
utterly defied common sense that they will rouse even the least
critical minds and the most compliant hearts.
Then follows the section of M. Lévy's book in which he quotes from _Man;
Whence, How, and Whither_; much of this I have given earlier in this
pamphlet. And M. Lévy, one must remember, wrote all this _nine years
ago_!
At this point it may serve a useful purpose if I specifically define my
own position in regard to Mrs. Besant's claims. _I entirely and most
emphatically reject them all._ Mr. Leadbeater's I was not even aware of,
until I came to collect and examine the material for this pamphlet. They
are so monstrous as not even to merit a specific "rejection"--it goes
without saying. I practically lost all faith in Mrs. Besant when she
dissimulated and tried to mislead the Inner Group Council on her return
from her first visit to India in 1894. She then informed us that she had
been "ordered by the Master to accuse Judge." On being closely
cross-examined, however, she finally admitted that she had not received
this "Order" _direct_, as she would have had us believe, but _through_
the Brahmin whom she then followed blindly[11], exactly as she now
follows Leadbeater. But later, when taxed with this in public, she
pretended that he had had nothing whatever to do with it! This is a
typical example of Mrs. Besant's idea of a 'truthful' statement in a
matter of the most vital importance involving the fate of a leader and
many thousands of members. What confidence can be placed in such a
woman--one whose mental processes are so warped, and whose ideas of
'truth' and 'honesty' are so peculiar? To inspire confidence a leader
must be the very soul of truth and uprightness. Mrs. Besant has always
been remarkable for asserting herself to be this, and people have
believed her. But a truly upright and honest person (even if aware of
it, as in Occultism he has to be) would never draw attention to it--and
that publicly and in print.
Because, for Mrs. Besant, Mr. ---- was _at this period_ her mouthpiece
for the Master, she expected her colleagues to take the same view
without question. This attitude is typical, and can be applied to all
that she now says about Leadbeater (see _ante_ p. 19.) From this time I
found it impossible to believe in her or her statements; such, for
instance, as that H. P. B. had reincarnated in Mr. ----'s little
daughter!![12]--or in anyone else for that matter. H. P. B. herself,
when someone asked her about reincarnating, jokingly replied--"Yes, in
some mild Hindu youth with half a lobe to his brain!" _H. P. B. has not
reincarnated._ On the ridiculous belief above mentioned Mrs. Besant
based her "authority" for doing things in H. P. B.'s name after her
death (see _post_ p. 71 for examples). It follows also that I absolutely
reject her claim to be an "agent" of the Masters (_i.e._, the
Trans-Himâlayan Brotherhood), neither do I believe that she has had any
communication whatsoever with Them since H. P. B.'s death.[13] Finally,
I reject her most presumptuous claim that she is able, or in anyway
fitted, to "expand," "verify," or "check" by psychic faculties H. P.
B.'s statements and teachings; still less to carry on independent occult
investigations on the same, or any similar plane of consciousness.
Whether Mrs. Besant, in making these claims, is acting under the glamour
of Mr. Leadbeater's "clairvoyant" delusions, as MM. Lévy and Schuré
suggest, or is fully conscious and responsible, is not my part to judge,
nor does it really matter. For me, her life may be summed up in some
words she applied recently to Mr. Gandhi (_Theosophist_, April, 1922).
It is "the tragedy of a soul." Her criticisms on what she calls his
"failure" apply fully and literally to _her own_.
There is really very little in the Manifesto (_Theosophist_, March,
1922), that is not sufficiently answered by the various extracts I have
quoted from previous critics. Mrs. Besant opens with the usual
disingenuous statements about the "Liberal Catholic Church." Her
argument that all religions are on an equal footing in the T. S.
carries no weight when it is widely known that L. C. C. agents are
everywhere at work pushing its interests.
Coming next to Mr. Leadbeater, Mrs. Besant states that he was "cleared
by a Committee in England"! But it is really a little too much, and
altogether too brazen,[14] when she dares to compare his case with that
of H. P. B. in the matter of slander. _There can be no possible
comparison._ The worst ever suggested against H. P. B. was what has been
said of many other women, including Mrs. Besant herself, who have had to
work in the glare of publicity and champion an unpopular cause. No
evidence was ever brought forward, and the New York _Sun_ promptly
apologised for publishing such statements on being shown that they were
unfounded.[15] The grave charges against Mr. Leadbeater were supported
by documentary evidence _which has never been rebutted_, and they have
to do with something far worse than personal moral laxity, as we have
seen. Mrs. Besant knows she cannot meet these charges, and so seeks to
brush them aside by voluble talk about "hatred," "defamation," and
"vilification." The only _justification_ she offers for having
reinstated him in 1907 is that she had discovered that it was "a cruel
lie that he had confessed to wrongdoing"! This is to argue that the
"accused" should be "acquitted" because he refused to confess--in the
face of evidence of no matter how damning a nature! Did Mrs. Besant
follow this procedure in her "Case against W. Q. Judge"? Not at all; far
from "acquitting" him when he refused to "confess to wrongdoing" and
asked for production of the incriminating documents, she calmly
confessed that she had destroyed them! But _now_ that it is a case of
her own guide and "intermediary" in the dock, her attitude is entirely
different, and it is quite enough for her that the "accused" did not
"confess" his crime!
As Dr. Stokes, Editor of the _O. E. Critic_ (Washington, D.C.) has been
fearlessly stating the facts and encouraging the "Back to Blavatsky"
movement for some time past, she next devotes a paragraph to an attempt
to discredit him by suggesting his connection with an old enemy of H. P.
B.'s. Dr. Stokes's championship of H. P. B., and relentless exposure of
the Besant-Leadbeater imposture is the more effective since he persists
in retaining his membership in the T. S.
The next to be dealt with is Pandit Bhagavan Das, and his criticisms
about the Central Hindu College. Here again, all I have quoted from his
pamphlet about the secret sections, underhand work, pledges, etc., are
entirely ignored.
Mr. T. H. Martyn's letter, which has caused such a sensation in the
Society (Holland alone asking for 500 copies) is dismissed as full of
"untrue" statements. Truly a very simple method of dealing with matter
which Mrs. Besant finds compromising or unpleasant (see _ante_ p. 18);
but she can hardly believe it to be convincing.
It is when this profoundly disingenuous woman comes to an explanation of
the motive behind her political work in India, that we find a typical
specimen of the peculiar form of megalomania already so ably
demonstrated by M. Lévy. What must be the mental condition of a person
who can sit down and solemnly write the following?
The work entrusted to me directly by the great Rishi who is--as
one may say [_sic_]--the spiritual Viceroy[16] for India of the
King of Kings of our world--is the bringing about of Home Rule
in India, in close union with Great Britain, as part of a great
Federation of Free Nations, a model of the future World
Commonwealth...."
Why such a very mundane and political idea should need an order from a
Rishi is not explained. The patent appeal both to the Government and
the Indian people in this portentous announcement is not very happily
conceived.
It is unfortunate for Mrs. Besant that her indignant denial that another
of the notorious "Bishops" (Wedgwood) is "wanted" by the police was
immediately followed by a priest's confession and the Bishop's
resignation from the L. C. C., the T. S., and the Co-masons![17]
Finally we come to the most ominous part of the whole document, where
Mrs. Besant refers to the present condition of the sex problem, and
indicates that Mr. Leadbeater's vile teachings to, and practices with
boys--trying "to wean lads from evil practices" is her version of
it--are part of a process necessary "to save mankind in the near
future." The "lessening of the sex impulse" on the "line of higher
mental evolution" is "too slow." "Early marriage and
birth-control"--preceded, one must assume, by Leadbeaterism--are now
Mrs. Besant's inspired panaceas.
The appalling menace to _the evolution of the spiritual nature in man_,
of the secret Leadbeater teaching known as the "X-system," is shown by
the evidence of Dr. Eleanor M. Hiestand-Moore (M.D.), Editor of the
_Theosophic Voice_ (Chicago), in which all the Leadbeater proceedings of
1906 were reported and discussed. In the August number, 1908, Dr.
Hiestand-Moore writes:--
During the winter of 1906-7 the Editor [herself] was in Chicago
and in order to combat the widespread tendency to uphold
self-abuse on the lines indicated by Mr. Leadbeater, a series
of lectures on the psychology of sex was given. There were
members in the E. S., and out of it who upheld the X-system.
One person declared ... that _this system would, before many
years, be taught in our public schools_. Still another insisted
that _by self-abuse humanity was to return to the
hermaphroditic type_ and that _this practice would be universal
among Fifth Round Humanity_. A number declared that, while they
did not pretend to know anything about such matters, they had
understood this was _a highly occult teaching given to would-be
disciples_! We could lay hands on a letter setting forth the
claim that this teaching is purely "esoteric" and not to be
estimated by exoteric standards--this, too, from a Branch
president! [Italics mine.--A. L. C.].
These instances are sufficiently appalling in themselves. But
what can we say now that _The Voice_ has elicited a
correspondence which is simply a brazen defence of these
"teachings"?[18]
What, then, must be the moral condition of this horrible travesty of the
old T.S. _now_, fourteen years after Dr. Hiestand-Moore wrote the
foregoing? Mrs. Besant is thus seen to have now returned practically to
the Neo-Malthusianism of her earlier, pre-theosophic association with
the late Charles Bradlaugh. It may not be generally known that H. P. B.
_refused to accept her as a pupil_ until she had published a recantation
of all she and Bradlaugh had advocated in _The Fruits of Philosophy_. It
is a sinister omen that under C. W. Leadbeater, the sex pervert, Mrs.
Besant has abandoned H. P. Blavatsky's imperative requirement for
becoming a student of _White_ Occultism, and has returned to the
essentially materialistic doctrine of "birth-control," in direct
contravention of the true Occult teaching. In other words, her assertion
amounts to this:--_Self_-control is not possible (or is "too slow "),
therefore we must control _results_. How different is the Occult
teaching is well-known to all who have taken the trouble to read H. P.
B.'s articles from which I have already quoted (see _ante_ p. 31) and
the splendid chapter in Vol. II of _The Secret Doctrine_ entitled "The
Curse from a Philosophical Point of View." And H. P. B. told me herself
that she included the following verse in _The Voice of the Silence_ with
the express object of combating such teachings and placing the Occult
doctrine beyond possibility of misinterpretation:--
"Do not believe that lust can ever be killed out if gratified or
satiated, for this is an abomination inspired by Mâra. It is by feeding
vice that it expands and waxes strong, like to the worm that fattens on
the blossom's heart."
In a note H. P. B. explains that Mâra is "personified temptation through
men's vices, and translated literally means 'that which kills' the
Soul." Far from "saving" mankind, therefore, these professed 'expanders'
and 'expounders' of H. P. B.'s doctrines are in reality doing their best
to hasten its end. Better far, from the Occult standpoint, that a race
should be wiped out by "outraged Nature," as were the Atlanteans for the
same sins, than that it should be kept alive only to sink lower and
lower until "Mâra" kills its Soul.
In the "Watch-Tower" (_Theosophist_, March, 1922,) Editorial mention is
made of a display at Adyar of "treasures of the most varied kinds,"
which have just been unearthed from "all the old locked-up boxes" at the
headquarters. Why, one may not unreasonably enquire, has Mrs. Besant
waited until 1922 to disinter, for instance, a long and valuable letter
from H. P. B. herself? Why have such "treasures" been _kept back for
over thirty years_; just as "Letters" from the Masters (the
Trans-Himâlayan Brotherhood) were kept hidden away for an even longer
period--nearly forty years? The reasons are so ridiculously transparent
that they would hardly deceive an intelligent child. Mrs. Besant is
becoming seriously discomposed, even alarmed, by the growing strength of
the "Back to Blavatsky" movement, which is in itself a reaction against
her own neglect. Hence all this "burrowing" (her own word) in order to
make a brave show of these "treasures" for which she had no sort of use
until, disturbed by alarming rumours, she hastily resorts to them for
purposes of camouflage and disguise. For she is a skilful opportunist
and clever actress, assuming successive parts with as convincing an air
as any "star"; neither does she scruple to employ every device of the
party politician.
Does Mrs. Besant seriously believe that this attempt to drag the red
herring of an unexplained and suddenly awakened interest in these
"treasures" across the trail of Mr. Leadbeater's infamies will deceive
anyone save their blind and infatuated followers? Has she forgotten that
when, _only two years_ after H. P. Blavatsky's death, she came under the
direct hypnotic control of Brahmin influence, she threw doubts upon her
old Teacher's _bona fides_ and her occult knowledge; and, in the course
of formulating her charges against her fellow-disciple (a _chela_ of
many years' standing before she ever even heard of Theosophy) suggested
to Mr. Judge that, "_misled by a high example_" (H. P. B.), he had
fallen "a victim." For, as she then told him, her "theory was _first_,
that H. P. B. had committed several frauds for good ends and made bogus
messages; _second_, that [he] was misled by her example; and _third_,
that H. P. B. had given [him] permission to do such acts. She then,"
continues Mr. Judge, "asked me to confess thus, and that would clear up
all. I peremptorily denied such a horrible lie, and warned her that
everywhere I would resist such attack on H. P. B. These are the facts,
and the real issue is around H. P. B." (_The Path_, March, 1895.)
With the complete disruption of the Society the Brahmin period of
dominance over Mrs. Besant came to an end. Then followed the Leadbeater
_régime_, the first phase of which culminated in the crisis of 1906. But
on Colonel Olcott's death in the following year, she contrived the
realisation of her great ambition, and became President of the Society.
At this point in her career, however, there were two serious
difficulties which she had to meet:--_first_, the Leadbeater scandal
which raised a storm of horror and protest from those old and tried
members who had remained in the Society up to that time, but who then
practically withdrew in a body Deprived of their support, and having
reinstated the infamous Leadbeater, Mrs. Besant realised that, as
President, she could no longer risk appearing half-hearted over H. P.
Blavatsky; nay more, she _needed_ the support of her venerated name;
_second_, as President of the Society created by H. P. B., she must, for
the sake of her own prestige, take some definite action which would
remove all possibility of suspicion that she was no longer the follower
of the Teacher whom she had, _in fact_, already "denied" and "betrayed"
only two years after her death. Mrs. Besant realised, in short, that she
had gone too far, and must now retrieve the position. Accordingly, in
1907, she issued a pamphlet entitled _H. P. Blavatsky and the Masters of
the [sic] Wisdom_, in which, with all her accustomed ability, she dealt
once more with the famous (or rather infamous) Report of the Society for
Psychical Research, published in 1885. But the concluding eulogy strikes
a false note, coming from one who, as I have shown, was capable of being
persuaded that H. P. B. had concocted messages from those Masters Whom
she so faithfully served for two-thirds of her life.