Theos-Talk Archives (April 2004 Message tt00692)

Mr Oliveira states that Blavatsky¹s ³letters to Sinnett are a clear evidence of her attitude towards² Leadbeater. It is more accurate to state that they are an indication of her attitude towards Leadbeater up until he returned to London from Ceylon and India in 1889. Leadbeater was, from his first meeting with Blavatsky until his return, a rising star of the Theosophical Society and favoured by Blavatsky. The interesting question remains: what happened after his return to London? There is, to my knowledge, no correspondence between Leadbeater and Blavatsky thereafter. Leadbeater did not join Blavatsky¹s ES (let alone its IG). Nor do there seem to be any records of them meeting after Leadbeater called to pay his respects (and to introduce Jinarajadasa) immediately after he arrived in London in December, 1889. The break in relations may have been a result of Leadbeater¹s alliance(partly for financial reasons) with Sinnett, for whom he acted as a psychic in obtaining communications from the Masters, some of them contradicting Blavatsky¹s teachings. The most notable of such contradictions is what became known as ³the Mars-Mercury controversy.²
The significance of the ³W.C.Leadbeater² inscription has probably been exaggerated. I suspect it is more likely to have been a simple mistake by Blavatsky, who seems unlikely to have understood the English meaning of the initials. Meade (1980:445) claims that Blavatsky used to refer to Leadbeater as ³W.C.² but I have never seen a source for this claim.
Leadbeater and Besant both claimed (but only after Blavatsky¹s death) that they were her chosen successors. (see, for example, ³Talks on the Path of Occultism², Volume III, 1926:843) Leadbeater was, essentially, in Theosophical obscurity from his return to London until the death of Blavatsky and the rise of Annie Besant.

Dr Gregory Tillett