Theos-Talk Archives (September 2006 Message tt00163)

KH to Mrs. Besant:  "You have for some time been under deluding 
influences."

What were those "deluding influences"?  and for how long
had she been under those infuences?

Read BELOW what C.W. Leadbeater writes especially the statement that:

"[August 1895]...We stayed at a house called 'The Cottage'....We 
were visited more than once by the Masters, also by D.K. and H.P.B, 
and while we were there Mrs. Besant learnt to use astral vision..."

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first printed in The Theosophist, October 1932, Page 11 

Dr. Besant's First Use of Clairvoyance
by C.W. LEADBEATER 

In the year 1895, Dr. Besant and her colleague C.W. Leadbeater, 
accompanied by Mr. Bertram Keightley, went for a short holiday to 
Box Hill, Surrey. The holiday lasted from Friday, August 16, till 
Wednesday 21st. What happened during the trip was reported at the 
time in a letter received by Miss F. Arundale in Benares. C.J. [Note 
by C. Jinarajadasa]

[Letter] From C.W. Leadbeater to F. Arundale 

August 25, 1895 

Turning to other matters, we had a capital time at Box Hill. The 
weather was splendidly fine all the time we were there (from Friday 
night to Wednesday evening) so we simply climbed the hill directly 
after breakfast (which was always at eight), took a rug with us to 
sit upon, and remained there either all day, if we had taken up some 
lunch, or at any rate till two o'clock. When we descended for lunch 
we camped out in the garden (which was large) directly after it, had 
our tea out there about five, and came into dinner about seven, 
after which we took a two hours walk and went to bed. That was our 
life all the while we were there, and we did nothing but talk 
Theosophy the whole time. I wished very much you could have been 
with us for I am sure you would have enjoyed it all immensely. 

We stayed at a house called "The Cottage", a real old fashioned 
place, delightfully clean and quiet, but possessing modern 
conveniences as far as baths and good cooking are concerned. We were 
visited more than once by the Masters, also by D.K. and H.P.B, and 
while we were there Mrs. Besant learnt to use astral vision, which 
is not only a never-ceasing delight to her, but a great help to me, 
as I have now another person to help check my recollection of 
things. She plunged into it all with the greatest ardour, and we 
made some very interesting investigations together, the results of 
which will no doubt materialize themselves presently in the form of 
papers or articles. 

We got some unexpected new lights upon Devachan, shewing 
possibilities which to me at least had been quite unexpected before. 
The subject was fairly fully worked out, and a series of examples 
were shown to us, but the whole explanation is far too long to write 
here, and the conclusions without the explanation are startling. 

Very shortly and roughly put, it comes to this that as a man evolves 
in goodness and intelligence, he generally develops his 
consciousness on that plane; the images of him which enter into the 
Devachan of his various departed friends are no longer mere 
reflections (which are really illusions) but become a part of his 
extended consciousness, so that the dead man is not deceiving 
himself when he thinks that he meets and talks with a friend still 
on earth; and the higher a man rises the more truly he is present in 
his friend's Devachan. 

Of course this crude statement requires considerable modification, 
but I am giving the merest outline, and I must say it was a great 
relief to me to find that it was so. Another interesting point was 
the extent to which the contemplation in Devachan of a noble idea to 
which one looks up with love and gratitude may perfect and 
spiritualize one's character during that period; the example given 
being that of a sempstress who had been a kind of ministering angel 
in the slum in which she was. The feelings that her ministrations 
aroused among these unfortunates was the only thing, in some cases, 
that gave them any Devachan at all, so that her earthly help was as 
nothing beside thee impulse she gave them on a higher plane, though 
of this she was naturally entirely unconscious. 

We also made further investigations into the different orders of 
atoms and molecules, the arrival of the first class pitris from the 
Moon, and the manners, customs, religion and history of some 
Lemurian and early Atlantean races, to say nothing of a few casual 
incarnation hints. During the latter we witnessed the first birth of 
Mahatma Morya on this earth, on arrival from the spiritual state 
following the Lunar Chain, and found him again about a million years 
ago as one of the great dynasty of the Divine Rulers of the Golden 
Gate in Atlantis. 

So you see we did not altogether waste our time though we were 
taking a holiday. A little rest and change did Mrs. Besant a great 
deal of good. She is down at Harrogate lecturing today and will 
return tomorrow. She delivered a very fine address here last 
Thursday evening, sweeping away all the absurd and almost 
blasphemous exaggerations with which the Path of spiritual 
advancement has been often described as a "Path of woe", of ever 
increasing agony from age to age, and insisting on the sane aspect - 
the joyous confidence, the serenity and bliss which can be given 
only by the widening knowledge of the disciple. 
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Further investigations were made after the return to London; they 
were incorporated in the Theosophical Manual, No VI. The Devachanic 
Plane. This incident of the sempstress is described at length on 
pp.40, 41- C.J. [Note by C. Jinarajadasa]
[quoted from:  http://katinkahesselink.net/other/leadb2.html  ]