Theos-Talk Archives (February 2006 Message tt00641)

1. I know of no evidence that Leadbeater (unlike Arundale, Besant, Wedgwood and
others) ever made a direct claim as to his own occult status. However, he
certainly allowed other people (notably Mrs Besant)to make statements about his
occult status without comment or correction. If someone publicly announces or
writes that I hold degrees in medicine (which I do not) and I say nothing, am I
at least passively promoting a claim that I have such degrees? Or, at the very
least, allowing others to believe a claim that is false?

Leadbeater certainly implied high occult status for himself, but I haven't been
able to find any direct assertion. In the Egyptian Rite, of which he became
Grand Master, it was declared that the various grades of initiation equated to
level of occult status - so presumably it could be assumed that Leadbeater
claimed the occult rank required for the Grand Master.

2. "I recall reading somewhere that CWL had a book in which he kept a record of
who is where on the path to adeptship. I do not know what happened to the book
after he died. Anyone has any info on it?"

A number of sources claimed to me that there were two "Golden Books" - one kept
by Besant, one by Leadbeater - in which "occult progressions" were recorded. If
such books existed, or still exist, they would make fascinating reading! I was
told that the two copies were in the archives of the ES at Adyar. Enquiries
about them when I was at Adyar ruffled many feathers and led, of course, to no
direct answer (that is, no-one would say they did exist or did not exist).

Dr Gregory Tillett