Theos-Talk Archives (January 2005 Message tt00898)

Perry wrote:

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He [CWL] may have said you can believe this or not, 
but that is quite a different thing from not 
pointing out to his readers and followers how
his teachings clashed with those of the Adept 
teachers of Blavatsky he claimed to be a Chela 
and student of.
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Pedro replies:

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Why should he do this? He [CWL] was presenting the 
results of HIS OWN studies. And

"The fact is, that to the last and supreme 
initiation every chela -(and even some adepts) - 
is left to his own device and counsel." (ML
92, chronological)
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caps added

It is interesting to compare and contrast what
Pedro says Leadbeater was doing with what Madame Blavatsky
said about the Esoteric System:

She wrote:

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>From Swedenborg onwards there have been many
seers who profess to gather their knowledge
of other worlds from actual observation, but
such persons are isolated, and subject to
the delusions of isolation. Any intelligent
man will have an intuitive perception of this,
expressing itself in a reluctance on his part
to surrender himself entirely to the assurances
of any such clairvoyants. But in the case of
regularly initiated seers it must be remembered
that we are dealing with a long — an extraordinarily
long — series of persons who, warned of the
confusing circumstances into which they pass
when their spiritual perceptions are trained
to range beyond material limits, are so enabled
to penetrate to the actual realities of things,
and who constitute a vast organized body of seers, who check
each other's conclusions, test each other's discoveries and
formulate their visions into a science of spirit as precise
and entirely trustworthy as, in their humble way, are the
conclusions, as far as they go, of any branch of physical
science. Such initiates are in the position, as regards
spiritual knowledge, that the regularly taught professor
of a great university is in, as regards literary knowledge,
and anyone can appreciate the superior claims of instruction
which might be received from him, as compared with the
crude and imperfect instruction which might be offered
by the merely self- taught man. The initiate's speculations,
in fact, are not spun at all; they are laid out before
him by the accumulated wisdom of ages, and he has merely
followed, verified and assimilated them.

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Here Madame Blavatsky tells her readers that the
Adepts "check each other's conclusions . . . [and] test each 
other's discoveries."

This is repeated in THE SECRET DOCTRINE where she wrote
[I abridge the text]:

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The [Esoteric] system is no fancy of one or several isolated 
individuals. It is the uninterrupted record covering thousands of 
generations of Seers. For long ages, the 'Wise Men' of the Fifth 
Race had passed their lives in learning by checking, testing, and 
verifying in every department of nature the traditions of old by the 
independent visions of great adepts; i.e., men who have developed and 
perfected their physical, mental, psychic, and spiritual 
organisations to the utmost possible degree. No vision of 
one adept was accepted till it was checked and confirmed by the 
visions --- so obtained as to stand as independent evidence --- of 
other adepts, and by centuries of experiences.
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This is the claim put forward by Blavatsky. One may choose
to doubt it if they so choose.

But the method as described by Blavatsky is a collorabative effort of 
comparing, contrasting and checking.

Is Pedro suggesting that Leadbeater did his studies on his
own and without consultation with the Adepts Morya, Koot Hoomi and 
others?

If so, then Leadbeater would be in the same boat as Swedenborg:

=================================================
>From Swedenborg onwards there have been many
seers who profess to gather their knowledge
of other worlds from actual observation, but
such persons are isolated, and subject to
the DELUSIONS OF ISOLATION.
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caps added

In other words, did Leadbeater suffer from the DELUSIONS OF ISOLATION?

Daniel