Theos-Talk Archives (December 2002 Message tt00060)

Dec 30 2002

Re writings of Olcott, Besant, Leadbeater.
compare with H P B and Masters' writings.

Dear Terrie:

I have looked over the writings of the three persons you quote,
sufficiently to say that they do not cohere faithfully to the "message
of theosophy from the Masters of Wisdom" as given to us by H P B.
They offer their personal opinions. Those are fine if they adhere to
the teachings as given by H P B for the Masters of Wisdom. The
problem is of exactitude and of necessity.

It would be unfair for me to say more, as I have not exhaustively made
a study of these beyond satisfying myself that they add little to
THEOSOPHY, and in fact, I find that they confuse in some cases. They
are discohate, as any student who takes the time to consider and
compare them, will find out for themselves. If I said any more, I
would be posing as an "authority." And that I prefer not to do. As
one with some experience I know the only way to satisfy ones' self is
to STUDY and DISCOVER for ones' self.. Then we can say: "I KNOW."

Take what I write. It can be classified as opinion of course. But I
try my best to stick to the ORIGINAL TEACHINGS. And I give my sources
and quotations from them. I freely admit that I may make errors and
ought to be always checked out for accuracy.

I hold it that THEOSOPHY is an accurate presentation of the History of
Evolution -- and it involves all of us as immortal pilgrims (
never-dying SPIRITUAL Monads) pursuing a goal : SUBLIME PERFECTION.

Or if you prefer, say it is a complete knowledge of all that can be
learned in our world and universe. Of course this cannot be learned
in a single short life-time, but we are immortals, and hence we add,
every incarnation, what we learn new to that which we have stored as
memory from the past. Our characters, our tendencies, our
inclinations, our genius in some directions, and also the things we
find difficult to do, or, do not like at all -- these are all
indications to us of what we have been learning and studying in past
incarnations.

They are also indications to us in an honest way, of how our
"personalities" (our psychic natures -- named KAMA) and its likes and
dislikes have shaped it. It is one of our tools, the other two are
the mind and the body.

If this is indefinite, it is because it is so vast. The THREE
FUNDAMENTAL PROPOSITIONS (S D I 14-19 ought to be thoroughly
understood by all students, and applied rigorously to all studies and
statements.

Theosophy to be valuable, useful and true, ( Monads) and to be used to
DISCOVER. the causes that have shaped the world around us, has to
first be made a surety. Only each one of us has to do that for
themselves.

I know the only way to satisfy ones' self about it, is to devise as
sincere and honest approach we can and then apply that rigorously to
all we look into or study -- Everything has to be made to pass the
test of lawfulness, brotherhood, uniformity in tolerance, harmony and
coherence. But it is we who have to put it to those tests, using the
most sincere and honest approach we can devise. The consensus and
comparison of our studies, as compared to our co-students, will
reveal whether that information is fair, just and accurate. We need
careful and honest comparison.

There are many who criticize THEOSOPHY without knowing enough about
it. Why they "stick their necks out" I will never understand.

However here are some views that may help:

These may relate to other writers of "theosophical" material who
followed H P B, but some of the comments made there also relate to the
ones you ask about, though with varying degrees of comparative
accuracy.


--------

1

Dr. James A. Santucci on Annie Besant's and C. W. Leadbeater's Neo-
Theosophy

[James A. Santucci is professor of religious studies and linguistics
at California State University, Fullerton and editor of THEOSOPHICAL
HISTORY http://www.theohistory.org/ ]

Dr. Santucci writes:

--------------------------------------------------------
Although Blavatsky was certainly the most influential and the most
brilliant interpreter of Theosophy, there was a subtle challenge to
her position as protagonist of the Theosophical movement. The
challenge came primarily from the two shining lights of the Adyar
Theosophical Society during the first third of the 20th century:
Annie Besant, the President of the Society from 1907 to her death in
1933, and Charles Webster Leadbeater, arguably the most influential
theosophical writer from the early years of the 20th century to his
death in 1934. The two were largely responsible for the introduction
of new teachings that were often in total opposition to the
Theosophy of Blavatsky and her Masters. These teachings were
designated by their opponents as Neo-Theosophy [15] or less often
Pseudo-Theosophy. The differences between Theosophy and Neo-Theosophy
are too numerous to mention in the context of this paper,[16] but it
is possible to capture the broad distinctions between the two:

1. the introduction of Catholicism and its attendant sacraments into
the Adyar Theosophical Society through the agency of the Liberal
Catholic Church and the efforts of its Presiding Bishop, James Ingall
Wedgwood, and his close associate, the leading theosophical writer of
the day, Charles Webster Leadbeater;

2. the claim, based on a psychic reading by Leadbeater in 1909, that a
young Indian boy, Jiddu Krishnamurti, would serve as the vehicle of
the World Teacher, the Christ or Maitreya. With such a claim came
the establishment shortly thereafter of an organization to promote
this belief, the Order of the Star in the East;

3. emphasis on the writings of Annie Besant and Charles Webster
Leadbeater as the main purveyors of Theosophy to the almost total
exclusion of those of H. P. Blavatsky;

4. more emphasis on the acquisition of and participation in psychic or
occult powers rather than on the theoretical understanding of the
occult.
-----------------------------------
[Footnotes to Santucci's statements:]

[15] The label was most likely coined in 1914 by F. T. Brooks, author
of Neo-Theosophy Exposed and The Theosophical Society and its
Esoteric Bogeydom.

[16]An extensive overview is given in the unpublished booklet,
Theosophy or Neo-Theosophy by Margaret Thomas, a member of the
Theosophical Society in Scotland, Wales, and England. The booklet was
written around 1925.
--------------------------------------------------------------

The above quoted from:
http://www.theohistory.org/aquarian_foundation.pdf

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




===================

2

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:
---------------------------------------

[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 super-physical 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]
------------------------------------------------------------------

An online version of Kuhn's book is available at:
http://downloads.members.tripod.com/~pc93/tsphyraw.htm

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

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

=====================

I hope that this proves to be helpful..

Basically there are NO SHORT CUTS to knowledge. We have to verify
everything ourselves, or wells like some members of religions we place
a blind faith on those who claim authority, and we fail to investigate
religious origins and history, as well as the philosophical and
logical basis for their doctrines. AND WE REMAIN A LITTLE MORE
IGNORANT AS A RESULT. And we loose a lot of time.


Best wishes,


Dallas

==========================


-----Original Message-----
From: thalprin <
Sent: Sunday, December 29, 2002 4:01 PM
To:
Subject: More reference? T S writers after H P B

Hi,

If it's no bother, Dallas, Daniel, Morton could you provide more
info/reference/links about the works/efforts of Helena Roerich,
Olcott and Krishnamurti?

----------------------------------------

DTB	BETTER READ AND STUDY WHAT THEY WROTE AND FORM YOUR OWN OPINIONS

=========================

I'd be interested in better understanding the explorations and/or
efforts of these folks.

Sincerely,
Terrie