Theos-Talk Archives (January 2005 Message tt00956)

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "kpauljohnson" 
<kpauljohnson@y...> wrote:

> --- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "prmoliveira" 
<prmoliveira@y...> 
> wrote:
> > 
> > I suppose that because they were isolated geographically, even 
when
> > Geoffrey Hodson (New Zealand), Phoebe Bendit (England) and Dora 
> Kunz(USA) checked and confirmed, with their own investigations,
> > Leadbeater's basic descriptions of auric fields, including the 
> etheric double, INDEPENDENTLY OF HIM,
> 
> Even if they weren't capitalized those three words would leap off 
> the page. In what sense can Adyar Theosophists whose clairvoyant 
> investigations confirmed CWL's be considered "three independent 
> investigators"? Not in any meaningful sense I can think of. 
> Suggestibility plays far too large a role in such "perceptions" 
for 
> me to accept any of these three as independent of CWL. Don't know 
> anything about Bendit but surely Kunz and Hodson were as 
> Leadbeaterian as any modern Theosophist could be. They saw what 
> they were looking for.

Dear Paul:

In the book "The Personal Aura" by Dora van Gelder Kunz, Renee 
Weber, who wrote the foreword, has this to say:

"An acquaintance of mine - a successful and experienced psychiatrist 
who had already been through an analysis - once consulted Dora when 
he was at a crossroad in his life. "In all my life I have never felt 
so profoundly understood by anyone," he later told me. "I felt as if 
she could see right to the bottom of me. The nuances of her 
perception are without equal in my experience." A complex, skeptical 
and critical man, he offered the opinion that, although he did not 
believe in clairvoyance, he believed that Dora was indeed 
clairvoyant."

Later on in the book, writing about her personal history, Dora van 
Gelder Kunz said:

"As for my clairvoyance, I suppose I began to become aware of it and 
develop it when I was around six or seven years of age. At about 
that time, C. W. Leadbeater (who was a famous clairvoyant and 
theosophical author) came to visit us, and he was very much 
interested in me and what I saw. Later on, when I was about twelve 
years old, we went to live in Australia and I was in contact with 
him daily for a number of years. I cannot say that he ever trained 
me in the use of my clairvoyance, but he did put specific tasks to 
me - some of which were very difficult for a shy young girl - and 
through trying to accomplish these tasks I learned to have more 
confidence in myself.

But perhaps the early training which has been most useful to me came 
from my father's insistence that I think for myself and learn to 
uphold my ideas in spite of opposition. My father loved argument, 
and he made me defend the positions I took, so that I learned I 
could not take anything for granted.

Thus at an early age I was taught not to expect that people would 
necessarily agree with me. This has stood me in good stead in my 
work with the medical profession, for if I happen to be associated 
with doctors who are skeptical about my clairvoyance, this attitude 
does not seem unreasonable to me and never interferes with my 
willingness to collaborate with them. In other words, I am not 
bothered by the fact that people may think clairvoyance is nonsense, 
for I believe that every person has the right to accept claims of 
others only if they make sense to him or her."


Perhaps the list members who are in New Zealand could comment of 
Geoffrey Hodson and his work as a clairvoyant.


> As for the argument that Perry is being unbrotherly to a deceased 
> Theosophical author by "calling him" a liar, etc. If CWL was in 
> fact a liar, which has been clearly proven, what do we owe his 
> memory in terms of denying or ignoring that fact? How does the 
duty 
> to treat dead Theosophists in a brotherly manner (that is, 
overlook 
> their faults) dovetail with the second and third Objects which 
> require a devotion to truth? The latter are duties to the living, 
> which outweigh IMO any alleged duty to the dead. 


To me Brotherhood is an inward feeling towards all beings, based on 
the non-mediated awareness of the oneness of all existence in all 
forms. Although I have failed repeatedly in trying to practice it, I 
still believe it applies to all people, without exception. I cannot 
trace it now, but have read somewhere the suggestion that HPB *knew* 
the Coulombs would give her trouble and yet she took them in. The 
Mahatmas, for example, accepted as Chelas Mohini Chatterji and 
Darbhagiri Nath, both of whom a few years later became very hostile 
to the Founders (HPB and HSO).

I obviously failed again in my comment to Perry regarding his 
remarks about Leadbeater.


> My own answer is that it is inappropriate to rant and rave about 
> CWL's misdeeds, or to obsessively confront Theosophists on the 
> issue. But it is just as inappropriate to shield him from 
scrutiny 
> and criticism or attack an author whose investigation of him is 
> entirely fair and honest. The denial and avoidance of Adyar 
powers-
> that-be concerning CWL actually feeds and keeps alive the outrage 
> among other Theosophists, so 70 years after his death Leadbeater's 
> shadow still hangs over the Movement. 


"Shield him from scrutiny and criticism or attack"?! CWL has been 
under almost constant scrutiny, criticism and attack for one hundred 
years! A Google search on "Charles Webster Leadbeater" shows the 
existence of 6,780 websites. The only publication, in the Adyar TS, 
in the past 100 years that tried to defend him was a tiny booklet 
called "Charles Webster Leadbeater - A Great Occultist" (available 
in the Blavatsky Archives). 

It is a great pity that Fritz Kunz, who new Leadbeater well and 
travelled with him during part of the 1905 lecture tour in the US, 
the year before serious accusations were levelled against him, did 
not write a biography of CWL. With his scientifc backround, 
scholarship, personal knowledge of crucial historical facts, his 
would have been an important contribution to the understanding of 
the Leadbeater case.


Pedro