Theos-Talk Archives (December 2002 Message tt00053)

A.B. Kuhn on Annie Besant's and C.W. Leadbeater's Deviations from 
H.P. Blavatsky's Teachings

Alvin Boyd Kuhn in his book titled THEOSOPHY: A MODERN REVIVAL OF 
ANCIENT WISDOM (published 1930)wrote: 
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[During the first three decades of the 20th century] Mrs. Besant and 
Mr. Leadbeater stood out unrivalled as the literary exponents and 
formulators of Theosophy. Their statements were hailed [within the 
Adyar Theosophical Society] with as much respect and authority as 
those of Madame Blavatsky in the earlier days. Both of them wrote 
assiduously and lectured with great frequency, and their publications 
rapidly began to supplant all other works on the Theosophic shelves. 
With The Ancient Wisdom, A Study in Consciousness, and Esoteric 
Christianity Mrs. Besant began a literary output which has been 
rarely matched in volume. Some eighty or more works now stand in her 
name. Mr. Leadbeater's total may reach twenty, but they are mostly of 
a more pretentious character than Mrs. Besant's, being accounts of 
his clairvoyant investigations into the nature and history of the 
world and man. His works had to do mostly with subjects connected 
with the Third Object of the Society, the psychic powers latent in 
man. Mrs. Besant touched alike on all three of the objects, not 
neglecting the ethical aspects of Theosophy, which she emphasized in 
such works as The Path of Discipleship and In The Outer Court. 
Predominantly under the influence of these two leaders the power of 
Theosophy spread widely in the world.

Mr. Leadbeater was one of the participants with Mr. Sinnett and 
others in occult investigations carried on in the London Lodge, an 
autonomous group not fully in sympathy with some phases of Madame 
Blavatsky's work. He developed, as was reported, great psychic 
abilities, as the result of which, notwithstanding his frequent 
disclaiming of occult authority, he exercised great influence over 
the thought of a large number of members of the Society. His studies 
and his books reflected the attitude of "scientific common sense." He 
claims to have brought the phenomena of the superphysical realms of 
life, of the astral and the mental plane, of the future disembodied 
life, and of the past and future of this and other spheres, under his 
direct clairvoyant gaze. He wrote elaborate descriptions of these 
things in a style of simplicity and clearness. He asserted that such 
powers enabled one to review any event in the past history of the 
race, inasmuch as all that ever happened is imprinted indelibly on 
the substance of the Astral Light or the Akasha, and the psychic 
faculties of trained occultists permit them to bring these pictures 
under observation. With the same faculties he asserted his ability to 
investigate the facts of nature in both her realms of the infinite 
and the infinitesimal. Hence he explored the nature of the atom, its 
electrons and its whorls, and in collaboration with Mrs. Besant, who 
was alleged also to possess high psychic powers, published a work 
entitled Occult Chemistry. For years he stood as perhaps the world's 
greatest "seer," and in books dealing with Clairvoyance, Dreams, The 
Astral Plane, Some Glimpses of Occultism, The Inner Life, The Hidden 
Side of Things, Man: Whence, How and Whither, he labored to 
particularize and complement Madame Blavatsky's sweeping outline of 
cosmic evolution and human character, as given in The Secret 
Doctrine. 

Certain schools of his critics assert flatly that he has only 
succeeded in vitiating her original presentation. Two years ago 
[starting in the March 15, 1928 issue] The Canadian Theosophist, a 
magazine published under the editorship of Mr. Albert Smythe at 
Toronto, published a series of articles in which parallel passages 
from the writings of Madame Blavatsky and the Mahatma Letters on one 
side, and from the books of Mrs. Besant, Mr. Leadbeater, Mr. C. 
Jinarajadasa, on the other, give specific evidence bearing on the 
claims of perversion of the original theories by those whom they call 
Neo-Theosophists. The articles indicate wide deviations, in some 
cases complete reversal, made by the later interpreters [Besant, 
Leadbeater, Jinarajadasa] from the fundamental statements of the 
Russian Messenger [Blavatsky] and her Overlords [the Mahatmas]. 

The differences concern such matters as the personality of God, the 
historicity of Jesus, his identity as an individual or a principle, 
the desirability of churches, priestcraft and religious ceremonial, 
the genuineness of an apostolic succession, and a vicarious 
atonement, the authority of Sacraments, the nature and nomenclature 
of the seven planes of man's constitution, the planetary chains, the 
monad, the course of evolution, and many other important phases of 
Theosophic doctrine. This exhaustive research has made it apparent 
that the later exponents have allowed themselves to depart in many 
important points from the teachings of H.P.B.

Whatever may be the causes operating to influence their intellectual 
developments, they have succeeded in giving Theosophy a somewhat 
different direction which, on the whole, has emphasized the religious 
temper and content of its doctrines. It should be added that these 
criticisms are not representative of the great majority of followers 
of the movement, who regard the later elaborations from fundamentals 
as both logical and desirable.

For years Mr. Leadbeater was looked upon as the genuine link between 
the Society and its Mahatmic Wardens, and his utterances were 
received as law and authority by members of the organization from the 
President downward. . . . [pp. 329-331]
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An online version of Kuhn's book is available at:
http://downloads.members.tripod.com/~pc93/tsphyraw.htm

The book is also inprint and available through Amazon.com
See: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1564591751/

Daniel H. Caldwell
BLAVATSKY ARCHIVES
http://hpb.cc