Theos-Talk Archives (February 2006 Message tt00620)

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A. P. Sinnett's Autobiography Reveals

THE REAL ORIGIN OF C.W.L.’S FALSE CLAIRVOYANCE

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Dear Friends,


The starting point  of C.W. Leadbeater’s “clairvoyance” is honestly revealed 
in the “Autobiography” written by  Alfred P.  Sinnett (see bibliographical 
note below).

Since Mr. Leadbeater got back to London, a few years after receiving a 
couple of letters from a Mahatma, he never joined the Esoteric School 
founded by H.P. Blavatsky.  Any true disciple or lay disciple would 
certainly do that, but he didn’t.

Instead,  Leadbeater joined the “inner group” of the London Lodge, presided 
by Alfred P. Sinnett. All contact between Sinnett and the Mahatmas had 
ceased, but fancies quickly came in to replace actual contact. Relations 
with HPB’s students were most  tense and uneasy.

Since 1987, this “inner group”  promoted and “mesmeric sittings’ believed to 
have mediumnistic conversations with one of the Masters through a person 
named “Mary” by Mr. Sinnett.  “Mary’s” real name was Maude Travers.  (In 
1893, she married Mr. Scott-Elliot, a member of this “inner group”.)

Such pseudo-contacts with the Masters  and other similar mediumnistic 
attempts were commented by H. P. Blavatsky in her book “The Key to 
Theosophy”, published in 1889. Her words seem to foretell and describe  most 
 of what C.W. Leadbeater and Annie Besnat would do in later years.  Yet  
the whole process of illusions actually started in Mr. Sinnett’s “inner 
group” and during HPB’s life.  She wroite:

“Great are the desecrations to which the names of two of our Masters have 
been subjected. There is hardly a medium who has not claimed to have seen 
them. Every bogus swindling Society, for commercial purposes, now claims to 
be guided  by ‘Masters’, often supposed to be far higher than ours! Many and 
heavy are the sins of those who advanced these claims, prompted either by 
desire for lucre, vanity, or irresponsible mediumship. (...) Worst of all, 
the sacred names of Occultism and the holy keepers  thereof have been 
dragged in this filthy mire, polluted by being associated with sordid 
motives and immoral practices, while thousands of men have been held back 
from the path of truth and light through the discredit and evil report which 
such shams, swindles and frauds have brought  upon the whole subject.” (“The 
Key to Theosophy”, HPB, The Theosophy Co., 1987, pp. 298-299)

Note the  important expression “immoral practices”.

It was indeed in Mr. Sinnett’s “inner circle” that C.W. Leadbeater’s 
imaginary clairvoyance and false contact with the Masters began.  Also the 
pseudo-informations about Martian civilization started there.

In the page 48 of his Autobiography, Mr. Sinnett reveals how the then “Outer 
Head” of  the Esoteric School (Adyar) , Annie Besant, was personally brought 
into his unfortunate mediumnistic séances in 1894.   Soon Leadbeater was 
“adopted” by her as an “occult”  consellor:

“Perhaps Mrs. Besant’s regard for Leadbeater may be explained in this way. 
She had been admitted by her own request to the meetings of our London Lodge 
group in June 1894. Up to that time her psychic faculties had not developed. 
 Leadbeater was one of the most important elements in our group – Mary of 
course the other. (...) I do not know exactly how the idea arose that  he 
would (...) go to live at the Avenue Road and help the work going on there 
(...).”

Earlier that same year of 1894, the persecution had begun against Mr. 
William Q. Judge, a long-standing chela and a loyal friend to H.P.B. The aim 
was  – political power.  It is ironical that W. Q. Judge was accused 
precisely  of that which Mr. Sinnett, C.W.L. and Annie Besant  were 
personally doing. A  campaign of rumours stated that Judge had  “false 
contacts with the Masters”.

What’s the practical importance of these events to us?

In the first decades of the 21st century,  it seems to be the right time for 
us to accept the facts, to drop fancies and false ritualisms, to recover 
common sense and to take the Mahatmas’s pedagogy more seriously at heart.  
Such a pedagogy points to the autonomy of the learner and lay disciple; to 
the need for  frankness, truthfulness and unity in diversity.

Best regards,  Carlos Cardoso Aveline


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BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE:

Mr. A. P. Sinnett’s “Autobiography” was published by “Theosophical History 
Center”, London,   in 1986 (65 pp.).

On the personal identity of “Mary”, see the magazine “Theosophical History”, 
April 1987, p. 52, which has a commentary by C. Jinarajadasa on A.P. 
Sinnett’s “Autobiography”.  See also the short note “Mary Unveiled”, by 
Michelle G. Graye and Daniel H. Caldwell, in “Theosophical History”,  
October 1986, pp.205-207.  (CCA)

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