Theos-Talk Archives (February 2006 Message tt00516)

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Our Ambassador To The Red Planet?

C.W. LEADBEATER ON THE SOCIAL

AND POLITICAL LIFE  OF THE MARTIANS

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By Carlos Cardoso Aveline


During his unlikely visits to the red planet, the liberal catholic priest 
Charles Leadbeater spent some time observing the political structures of the 
physical-plane Martian civilization he thought he saw.

After discussing the houses, cities and the cultural life in that planet,  
his fancy made him write:

“On every hand one sees signs of a very old civilization, for the 
inhabitants have preserved the tradition of all that was known when the 
great life-wave of humanity occupied the planet, and have since added to it 
many discoveries. Electricity seems to be practically the  sole motive 
power, and all sorts of labor-saving machines are universally employed.”

This, by the way,  is  quite similar to the terrestrial conditions in which 
Leadbeater was living.

It seems that the Bishop was not very fond of the Martians, as he accuses 
them of being indolent:

“The people are on the whole distinctly indolent, especially after they have 
passed their first youth. But the comparatively small size of the population 
enables them to live very easily. They have trained various kinds of 
domestic animals to a far higher condition of intelligent cooperation  than 
has yet been achieved on earth, so that a great deal of servant’s and 
gardener’s work is done by these creatures with comparatively little 
direction.”

According to Leadbeater, the Martian government is autocratic,  but there is 
a monarchy, like in his native England.  The interplanetary ritualistic 
clairvoyant writes:

“One autocratic ruler governs the whole planet, but the monarchy is not 
hereditary. Polygamy is practiced but it is the custom to hand over the 
children to the State at a very early age to be reared and educated, so that 
among the vast majority of the people there is no family tradition whatever, 
and no one knows who are his father and mother.  There is no law compelling 
this, but it is considered so decidedly the right thing to do and  the best 
for the children that the few families who choose to live somewhat more as 
we do, and  to educate their children at home, are always regarded as 
selfishly injuring their prospects for the sake of what is considered mere 
animal affection.”

Children educated with no contact with their parents is another “familiar 
scene” for the clairvoyant visitor on Mars.  CWL was very keen at educating 
other people’s children at Adyar and elsewhere.

But, it is also possible  that by doing this Leadbeater was only trying hard 
to introduce this exclusive revolutionary  Martian educational system here 
on earth -- through  the Adyar Society.

Although there is no hope of democracy on Mars,  Leadbeater does see a 
Monarchy with its vice-roys, like in the British empire  where he lived:

“The King has under him what may be called viceroys of large districts, and 
they in turn have under them governers of smaller districts, and so on, down 
to what would be equivalent here to the head-man of a village. All these 
officials are chosen by the King from this group of especially  educated 
children, and when the time of his own death is considered to be approaching 
it is from among them or from among the already appointed officials that he 
chooses his successor.”

This is somewhat similar to the Adyar Society, where the international 
leaders normally choose their successors. In any case, the political 
power-structure  of Leadbeater’s Martian society  is completely top-down:

“All these rulers are autocratic, each within his own sphere but appeal to a 
higher official is always possible,  though the right is not frequently 
exercised,  because the people usually prefer to acquiesce in any fairly 
reasonable  decision rather than to take the   trouble involved in the 
appeal.”

As a political analyst CWL  looks like having extremely conservative views. 
He fails to imagine idealism in his Martian nightmare:

“The rulers on the whole seem to perform their duties fairly well, but again 
one gets the impression that they do so not so much from a pre-eminent sense 
of right or justice as to avoid the trouble that would certainly ensue from 
a flagrantly unjust decision.”

The conclusion being that,  whenever authorities cheat and lie, such actions 
must not be too apparent, in order to avoid trouble.

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A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE :

All the Leadbeater sentences quoted above are taken  from the book “Inner 
Life”, by C. W. Leadbeater, Section Ten.  The text was published  by the 
magazine “Theosophical History”, London, January 1988; see pages 145-146 for 
the sentences quoted above.  I have the same text in the Spanish edition of 
“Inner Life”, by CWL,  published in Buenos Aires by Editorial Glem (pp. 
389-394). In  later years the USA T.P.H. editions of the book “Inner Life” 
have silently eliminated this description, as well as the brief but 
astonishing description of physical life on Mercury. Yet a  Brazilian 
edition of the book “The Solar System”, by Mr. Arthur Powell – a follower of 
C.W.L.’s –  can still be bought in Brazil with this description of physical 
life on Mars.

Another author and leading Adyar clairvoyant, Mr. Geoffrey Hodson,  followed 
the same track at least up to the 1950s. In 1954-1955, Mr. Hodson delivered 
a series of talks and classes to students in the international headquarters 
of the Adyar Society, in Madras/Chennai, southern India. It was part of the  
“School of the Wisdom”. The content of his lectures was published by the 
T.P.H. in India, in 1955, in two large volumes under the title of “Lecture 
Notes -- The  School of the Wisdom”, with 616 pp. in the volume I and 582 
pp. in volume II.  On pages 445-442 of  volume I, Mr. Geoffrey Hodson quotes 
and adopts, though  in a somewhat cautious way,  the same vividly absurd  
description made by Mr. Leadbeater about a civilization on the red planet.   
 (CCA)


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Best regards,   Carlos Cardoso Aveline.

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