"the T. S. fully regained its original position, with the Masters of the
[_sic_] Wisdom as once more the 'First Section' of the Society." This
bold assertion was made in 1919, when, under pressure of some fresh
scare connected with Mr. Leadbeater, Mrs. Besant published a small
volume of the Masters' Letters (most of which had presumably been lying
in the archives of the Society at Adyar for nearly forty years!),
obviously for no other reason than because among them are two alleged to
have been received by Mr. Leadbeater. This she did in order to bolster
up the extravagant claims she now makes for him as a "Great Teacher."
But there were many who received Letters in the early days, and there is
no reason why similar claims should not be made for all the recipients!
In the article entitled "Whom will ye Serve?" (_Theosophist_, March,
1922,) Mrs. Besant says that H. P. B. "formed an inner circle of her
pupils, that it might bear witness to the truth and reality of the inner
side of life." This was the "Inner Group" of which she and I were two of
the six women members. But as, unfortunately Mr. Leadbeater was not
included, although he had become a member of the T. S. some years
before, she adds:--"And behold! ere she passed away, she had led others
to the Light, and bade them bear witness to it...." Considering that she
"passed away" _less than a year_ after forming the Inner Group in the
summer of 1890, and that we were constantly with her and never heard of
these "others," this statement is manifestly untrue. Mrs. Besant also
refers to Mr. Leadbeater as "one of H. P. B.'s nearest and most trusted
pupils [Absolutely untrue.--A. L. C.] whom she had led to his Master of
many lives, and in whom she had awakened the powers since so splendidly
used in the service of the Society that he might become a great
Teacher...."
I challenge Mrs. Besant to produce anything in writing by H. P. B. to
warrant this audacious assertion. I was a pupil of H. P. B. (and
through her was accepted as "a _chela_ on probation," in 1889) before
Mrs. Besant joined the T. S., and saw her expel one of her most gifted
and valued workers from the Esoteric Section for offences against the
occult and moral law similar to those with which Mr. Leadbeater's name
has now been associated for nearly twenty years. H. P. B. was always
extremely strict on this particular point, and many would-be aspirants
for _chelaship_ were refused on this one ground alone, while others who
had been accepted "on probation" failed almost immediately afterwards.
When I joined the T. S. in 1885 my diploma was signed by Colonel Olcott
as President and C.W. Leadbeater as Secretary (he was then at Adyar),
but I never heard him mentioned by H. P. B. or anyone else at the London
Headquarters, as a person of any importance whatever, in the occult
sense. Mrs. Besant goes on to say that H. P. B. left "the twain of us
[Leadbeater and herself] to bear personal witness to the truth when she
had gone"! Where is her _evidence_ that Mr. Leadbeater was ever one of
H. P. B.'s pupils? There is none, save this bare, unsupported assertion
of a highly interested party. How could these two, to the exclusion of
all H. P. B.'s pupils--some of them "regularly accepted _chelas_ on
probation"--be specially selected, taught, and prepared, (and above all,
to promulgate the sort of "teachings" of which I have given a few
specimens), without any of us hearing even a hint of it! Moreover, I
never saw, or even heard of Mr. Leadbeater at the London Headquarters
while H. P. B. was alive. I might just as well claim such a mission for
myself, or Mr. Mead, or Dr. Keightley, or any other member of the Inner
Group who has remained true to the pledge and the Teacher; and with
greater justice, for Mrs. Besant has _not_. The truth is that Mr.
Leadbeater was never heard of in connection with occult teaching until
he was taken up and foisted on the unfortunate T. S. and E. S. as a
"Great Teacher" by Mrs. Besant who was herself never more than a
"_chela_ on probation"--_during H. P. B.'s lifetime_.
Let me refer again to H. P. B.'s article "The Theosophical Mahatmas"
from which I have already quoted (_ante_ p. 3), in which she deals with
the members of the T. S. who were "regularly accepted _chelas_ on
probation," and the subsequent failure of nearly all of them. If this
was true at that time, it can certainly now be applied to the case of
Mrs. Besant, who, in my judgment and that of many others, conspicuously
failed under two great tests. The first failure occurred when she went
to India in 1893, became an orthodox Hindu, and was induced to entertain
those doubts of her Teacher that I have already alluded to. (_ante_ p.
66.) Bound up with this failure--the doubt of the Teacher--was her
attack on her fellow _chela_, Mr. Judge.
The second failure was a far worse one when, in 1906, after having
publicly endorsed the finding of the Advisory Committee on Leadbeater's
crimes (see footnote _ante_ p. 59), she suddenly turned round and
secured his reinstatement. In thus condoning and even endorsing
immorality of the vilest description, she denied one of the strictest
occult laws binding upon a _chela_.
This double failure had far more serious results in her case than in
those of which H. P. B. wrote in 1886, because, owing to her commanding
position as a leader, the fate of the many thousands of earnest souls in
the Society who believed in and followed her implicitly, was involved.
FOOTNOTES:
[11] This Brahmin is the person referred to in the following passage
from Mr. T. H. Martyn's letter to Mrs. Besant of May 20th, 1921 (see
_ante_ p. 18):--"Like many of the older members I have known how you and
others for quite a long time regarded ---- as _a Master in the flesh_ and
later had to repudiate him when certain facts indicated the mistake."
Italics mine. This is absolutely new to me. In 1894 none of us (so far
as I was then aware) regarded Mr. ---- as anything more than a _chela_,
so what Mr. Martyn here states must have been a later development, and
explains much.
I suppress the gentleman's name out of regard for his present official
position in India and his dissociation from Mrs. Besant.
[12] I did not learn the actual facts of this foolish fable until I came
to India in 1918, and found they were common knowledge among leading
members of that time. Naturally, when Mrs. Besant transferred her
allegiance to Mr. Leadbeater, she had to find another "body" for H. P.
B. So, in the _Theosophist_ for January, 1922. she writes the following
typical effusion for the benefit of the faithful:--" ... alas! she
passed away, and took rebirth in the north of India, and though we have
lived for twenty-eight years in the same land so dear to beth of us, we
have never met physically face to face. Yet close ties bind us to each
other, and may be we shall yet greet each other in the flesh." Observe
the suggestion that she has always been in close touch with H. P. B.
_out of the body_, and that later they may meet "in the flesh." This
prepares the ground for producing this new "incarnation" when the
suitable moment comes; just as the boy Krishnamurti was brought forward
as the "body" for the coming "World-Teacher." Mrs. Besant's new version
must be amusing reading for those familiar with the earlier theory, as
she was certainly "face to face" with the "little daughter" constantly,
and even persuaded Countess Wachtmeister to resume her former care of H.
P. B. in her new body. Needless to say the poor Countess was sadly
disillusioned, and died not long afterwards bitterly bewailing the ruin
of the T. S.
[13] As showing the absurdity of such a claim, I may mention that Mrs.
Besant actually visited mediums through whom H. P. B. was supposed to
communicate. In 1892, only a year after her death, my colleague Mr.
Basil Crump, Barrister-at-Law, was investigating the phenomena of a
certain trance medium shortly before he joined the T. S. He was present
at a private sitting with this medium in the studio of an artist friend,
to which Mrs. Besant came with another member of H. P. B.'s Inner Group,
Miss Emily Kislingbury, in order to speak with her deceased teacher. An
intelligence calling itself "Madame Blavatsky" controlled the medium,
and Mrs. Besant held a conversation with it. Later, when Mr. Crump
became acquainted with H. P. B.'s explanation of Spiritualistic
phenomena, and her express denial that the true immortal Ego ever
communicated in this manner, he was naturally astonished that one of her
most learned pupils should for a moment entertain such a possibility and
waste her valuable time in attending a séance. But now he sees that it
was only an early symptom of the astounding credulity and ignorance of
occult science she has since exhibited, as shown in these pages. H. P.
B.'s explanations of psychic phenomena are rapidly being endorsed and
followed by the modern scientific school of investigation, which has
succeeded not only in proving the genuineness of the phenomena, but also
the important part played by the _will and imagination_ both of the
medium and the sitters in their production.
[14] Her latest move, is to draw a distinction between the "Advisory
Committee of 1906" which she accuses of "unjust action," and what she
calls "the prolonged investigation of 1907-08," which of course was
engineered by her after she became President, in order to white-wash Mr.
Leadbeater and secure his reinstatement. (See _Theosophist_, July,
1922). See Addendum for the Australian views on this.
[15] The importance of this case lies in the fact that it constituted an
absolute vindication of H. P. B., for every slander ever circulated
directly or indirectly was covered by it. Although the libel action came
to an end with her death, the paper was so impressed by the evidence
produced, in rebuttal, by Mr. Judge, that it not only retracted all that
it had published, but also invited Mr. Judge to write a long article
entitled "The Esoteric She" which they said "disposes of all questions
relating to Madame Blavatsky." That Mrs. Asquith and Count Witte should
both have seen fit to revive some of these old slanders in their books
of reminiscences does not redound to their credit.
[16] Mrs. Besant's "Spiritual Viceroy" has certainly nothing to do with
Those who were directing H. P. B. when she founded the Indian T. S. OR
U. B. in 1879; for a special clause was included in the Constitution
stating that "The Society repudiates all interference on its behalf with
the Governmental relations of any nation or community, confining its
attention exclusively to the matters set forth in the present
document...." H. P. B. also wrote in the _Theosophist_, for October,
1879--"Unconcerned about politics; hostile to the insane dreams of
Socialism and Communism, which it abhors--as both are but disguised
conspiracies of brutal force and sluggishness against honest labour; the
Society cares but little about the outward human management of the
material world. The whole of its aspirations are directed toward the
occult truths of the visible and invisible worlds. Whether the physical
man be under the rule of an empire or a republic, concerns only the man
of matter. His body may be enslaved; as to his Soul, he has the right to
give to his rulers the proud answer of Socrates to his Judges. They have
no sway over the _inner_ man." There speaks the true Mystic whose
"Kingdom is not of this world." Three years later H. P. B. and Colonel
Olcott published a further disclaimer, in which they said--"Before we
came to India, the word Politics had never been pronounced in connection
with our names; for the idea was too absurd to be even entertained, much
less expressed...."
[17] The original documents appear in the _O. E. Critic_ for June 21st,
1922, and include a confession signed by a priest of the L. C. C. who
states that he was "led astray by those whom I considered to be my
superiors both morally and spiritually" adding "Wedgwood absolutely
declines to give up the mal-practice." Wedgwood fled to Algeria at the
end of March. A cable from Sydney dated May 30th states that "Mrs.
Besant refused to answer any enquiry in reference to Wedgwood. Police
now holding an enquiry into the charges against Leadbeater." Dr. Stokes
concludes his comments on the documents as follows:--"And Annie Besant,
having repeatedly been informed of the facts, not only refused to look
into them, but launched her anathemas against those who criticised, even
threatening them with expulsion from the E. S., and even very recently
cabling to Wedgwood that he made a mistake in resigning!--It is on Annie
Besant, more than on any other one person, that the responsibility for
the present scandalous condition in the T. S. rests. The best of
societies may have its black sheep and it is not to be blamed if it does
its best to purge itself. But it is Annie Besant, with her tools and
sycophants, who has ever concealed and denied the palpable facts, or,
where they could not be denied, has palliated, excused and even defended
them, throwing over them a veil of esoteric glamour, supporting such
scoundrels as Leadbeater and Wedgwood, apparently in order the better to
serve her ambitions. A vote of confidence in Annie Besant to-day either
betrays total ignorance of the facts, or associates those who give it
with the grossest forms of moral rottenness." See Addendum for Mr.
Piddington, K. C's opinion on Mrs Besant's conduct in Australia last
May; also Mr. Hugh Gillespie's evidence of her use of the Esoteric
School as a "_political machine_" to secure her "ascendancy in the
various bodies to which E. S. members have gained access."
[18] As to the methods employed to suppress criticism, Dr.
Hiestand-Moore says in the same issue:--"Slander, falsehood, deceit,
treachery, all have been summoned to the support of Mr. Leadbeater's
cause. Anonymous communications have been written to confound the
prosecution, letters have been stolen and threats made. The Editor of
_The Voice_ has been compelled to call upon the Secret Service to
protect her mails." [An entire issue in proof with copy and unset matter
disappeared, and had to be rewritten!] Again, the Editor of the _O. E.
Critic_ writes:--"It is understood, and I have the direct testimony of
the publisher to the fact, that the entire edition of the Brooks' books
[_Esoteric Bogeydom_ and _Neo-Theosophy Exposed_] was corralled by Mrs.
Besant in order to suppress their circulation. They tell too much about
her."
Tampering with H. P. Blavatsky's writings.
The result of Mrs. Besant's first failure, through harbouring doubts of
her Teacher's _bona fides_ and esoteric knowledge, was soon manifested
when she began to publish new editions of H. P. B.'s works. The first
noteworthy example was her excision from _The Voice of the Silence_ of
passages and notes, presumably out of deference to Brahmin sentiment,
which then governed her actions. One of the last verses in "The Two
Paths" (the second of the "Three Fragments" forming the little book) in
the original edition (1889) begins thus:--"He who becomes Pratyeka
Buddha, makes his obeisance but to his Self." In a footnote H. P. B.
explains that "Pratyeka Buddhas are those Bodhisattvas who strive after
and often reach the Dharmakaya robe after a series of lives. Caring
nothing for the woes of mankind or to help it, but only for their own
_bliss_, they enter Nirvana and--disappear from the sight and the hearts
of men. In Northern Buddhism a 'Pratyeka Buddha' is a synonym of
spiritual Selfishness."
In Mrs. Besant's edition both the passage and the footnote I have quoted
are omitted. Her reason for this unscrupulous proceeding is given in a
footnote on p. 416 of the so-called "third volume" of _The Secret
Doctrine_. In this note Mrs. Besant, from the heights of her then
newly-acquired Brahmanical wisdom, adopts the following dictatorial and
censorious tone towards her late Teacher:--
The Pratyeka Buddha stands on the level of the Buddha [!], but
His work for the world has nothing to do with its teaching,
and His office has always been surrounded with mystery. The
preposterous [_sic_] view that He, at such superhuman height of
power, wisdom and love could be selfish, is found in the
exoteric books, though it is hard to see how it can have
arisen. H. P. B. _charged me to correct the mistake, as she
had, in a careless moment, copied such a statement
elsewhere_.--A. B.
Observe the assumption of superior knowledge to H. P. B.'s, and the use
of the words "preposterous" and "careless." To any real Oriental _chela_
such an attitude towards his _Guru_ would be simply unthinkable; but we
have seen how very quickly Mrs. Besant believed herself to have soared
far above the "chela on probation" state of her H. P. B. days into that
of an "Initiate" and future "Supreme Ruler of the World of Gods and
men." To such vanity and self-delusion everything is possible. How
different was the attitude of the _real_ Occultist who was spoken of by
the Masters as "Our Brother H. P. B.," yet called herself "a Chela of
one of Them"!
The passage I have italicised in the above footnote by Mrs. Besant is
untrue on the face of it to anyone who knew, as I did, the loving care
with which H. P. B. prepared this unique little book of "Golden
Precepts." Moreover, she states in her Preface that the verses given are
selected from a much larger number which she "learnt by heart." Further,
H. P. B. _not only repeated but greatly amplified_ this statement about
the Pratyeka Buddha in her _Theosophical Glossary_, a fact which Mrs.
Besant had evidently forgotten when she concocted the footnote quoted
above.[19] The Pratyeka Buddha is doubtless much that Mrs. Besant claims
for him, but she does not seem to know, or has probably forgotten, that
there are _two_ classes of Masters, _two_ "Paths" (as this very section
of _The Voice of the Silence_ shows); that the "Pairs of Opposites"
obtain on all planes of Manifestation and Being, right up to the
threshold of the _Un_manifested--the ONE; that, while there are _Masters
of_ COMPASSION, there must of necessity exist also the opposite
pole--the wearers of the "Dharmakâya robe," with all the power and
knowledge which that state implies, but without that _Compassion_ which
alone makes a Master of the "Right Hand Path."[20]
It was a great and valuable feature of H. P. B.'s, method that she
taught us to reason on these lines, checking everything by the Law of
Correspondences. But Mrs. Besant has evidently long since abandoned
this, and prefers the sacerdotal plan of accepting everything on
"authority," which in her present phase means Leadbeater or her own
psychic delusions. The "World Teacher" dogma is a case in point. She
asserts it as a fact to be accepted because she says it; whereas, as I
have shown, it is untenable in the light of _The Secret Doctrine_ (see
_ante_ p. 2), which endorses Oriental tradition and cyclic law.
Mrs. Besant's partiality for the Pratyeka Buddha, however, may possibly
be explained by some words that H. P. B. once wrote of her to Mr.
Judge:--"She is not psychic or spiritual in the least--all intellect."
For H. P. B. opens her paragraph in the _Theosophical Glossary_ on the
Pratyeka Buddha with these words:-- "The Pratyeka Buddha is a degree
which belongs exclusively to the Yogâchârya school ... one of _high
intellectual development with no true spirituality_". (Italics mine.)
Moreover, we have the authority of the Maha Chohan Himself (the Head of
the Trans-Himâlayan Brotherhood) for the statement that even Nirvâna is,
"after all, but an exalted and glorious selfishness."
In the _Theosophist_ for March, 1922, Mrs. Besant says, in her
"Watch-Tower" notes:--
A wild theory has just been started in the U. S. A. that _The
Secret Doctrine_, brought out by the London T. P. H. after H.
P. B.'s death, was not as H. P. B. wanted it. The _insinuation_
is made that _H. P. B._ was "edited" by those in charge of _the
second edition_. The _trustees_ to whom she left _the
safeguarding of her printed books and unpublished manuscripts_
were all her own pupils who had _lived with her for years_, and
they made only _such changes as she had herself directed_,
which consist mainly in the correction of verbal and
grammatical errors, and the _arrangement of the material of
Vol._ III.
I have italicised the statements requiring explanation or correction.
The "second edition," as Mrs. Besant must be well aware, was merely a
re-print to meet an unexpected demand, and bears the same date as the
original edition, _viz._, 1888. But as Mrs. Besant only joined the T. S.
early in 1889, and was led to seek an interview with H. P. Blavatsky
_after_ reviewing _The Secret Doctrine_ for the late Mr. W. T. Stead,
then Editor of the _Pall Mall Gazette_, clearly she can know absolutely
nothing of the preparation of its first _or_ of its "second edition"! As
to the alleged "trustees," I can only say that I never heard of their
existence. _Mrs. Besant_ only "lived with" H. P. B. for rather more than
eighteen months. H. P. B. left 17, Lansdowne Road, London, W., in the
summer of 1889, the Headquarters being moved to Mrs. Besant's house in
Avenue Road, N.W., where she died in May 1891, _while Mrs. Besant was on
her way back from a lecture tour in America_.
Take next the alleged "safeguarding" of H. P. B.'s "unpublished
manuscripts." Those who were responsible for the so-called Volume III,
had a strange and unusual conception of the meaning of the word
"safeguarding." It so happens that while it was being set up I was able
actually to peruse one or two of the familiar long foolscap sheets which
H. P. B. always covered with her small fine handwriting. They were
mutilated almost beyond recognition, few of her sentences remaining
intact; and there were "corrections" not only in the handwritings of the
editors, Mrs. Besant and Mr. Mead, but also in that of others which I
was able to identify. More than this I cannot say without abusing
confidence; but the wrong done to my Teacher compels me to say this
much.
Those who were H. P. B.'s untiring and unfailing helpers in the
preparation of _The Secret Doctrine_ for the press in 1887-88, Dr.
Archibald and Mr. Bertram Keightley, have, fortunately for posterity,
put on record their experiences of those days. They have made statements
of the utmost value in connection with the facts I am here dealing with,
which they wrote specially for Countess Wachtmeister's _Reminiscences of
H. P. Blavatsky and "The Secret Doctrine,"_ published in 1893. Moreover,
Dr. Keightley wrote an account of H. P. B.'s manifold literary
activities at this time, which appeared in the _Theosophist_ for July
1889, in which he states that "_the Third Volume of The Secret Doctrine
is in MS. ready to be given to the printers_. [Italics mine.--A. L. C.]
It will consist mainly of a series of sketches of the great Occultists
of all ages, and is a most wonderful and fascinating work."
In the face of this clear and definite statement, made by one whose word
I know to be unimpeachable, and who lived and worked with H. P. B. at
that time, what becomes of H. P. B.'s alleged "directions" for the
"arrangement of the material of Vol. III" which Mrs. Besant speaks of
above, and the statement in the Preface to _her_ version of Vol.
III:--"The task of preparing this volume for the press has been a
difficult and anxious one.... The papers given to me by H. P. B. were
quite unarranged, and had no obvious order...."? This volume, given by
Mrs. Besant to the world in 1897, is most certainly _not_ the one Dr.
Keightley speaks of as "ready" for "the printers" in 1889, as I will
prove. WHAT THEN BECAME OF THAT VOLUME?
But first I will quote Dr. Stokes, Editor of the _O. E. Critic_, whose
most specific charges and plain statements of fact hardly come under the
purposely misleading term "insinuations," used by Mrs. Besant! Dr.
Stokes "_insinuates_" nothing; he heads his most damaging accusation as
follows:--
"ANNIE BESANT'S CORRUPTION OF THE SECRET DOCTRINE."