Theos-Talk Archives (November 2006 Message tt00786)

-if I read page 167/8/9/ and 170
I see nothing about what leadbeater did or not did in that time, 
also he does not show his feelings about that quarrel between the 
conquerers of South America, to know the RedIndians and halfbreeds 
and others. also they conquer falsehood against their own people.
All to be read in page 170.
The RedIndians  would have drive the whites onto the sea after which 
it would be quite easy to massacre the half breeds and so to regain 
the whole country for themselves

it should be a good question, what will the whites have been done 
then?
Back to the nature and to swim for life possibly.
Christina.















-- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "carlosaveline" 
<carlosaveline@...> wrote:
>
> Dear Friends, 
>  
> This is about Bishop Leadbeater and his imaginary adventures  in 
South America. 
>  
> C. Jinarajadasa believed he was there with Leadbeater  in a 
previous body,  and that he was his biological younger brother, who 
was allegedly killed  and 'rediscovered' by CWL in Ceylon. 
>  
> In fact, in a footnote to his autobiographical Postface in the 
book "The Seven Veils of Consciousness", C. Jinarajadasa states 
that  that the true story of his own "previous (and glorious) death 
in Brazil"  is narrated in the  chapter "Saved by a Ghost", of  the 
book  "The Perfume of  Egypt" (2).   
>  
> C.J.  believed everything CWL said, and he also writes in the note 
that the same old silver crucifix which is mentioned in that story 
was in his possession,  as he wrote "The Seven Veils of 
Consciousness".   
>  
> As to Leadbeater, in the preface of his 'The Perfume of Egypt", he 
makes a solemn statement: 
> 
> "The stories in this book happen to be true."  
> 
> Along "Saved By a Ghost", the longest story of the volume, 
Leadbeater proudly describes how he killed numerous black people and 
indigenous people in South America during his youth.  
> 
> Of course, common sense says that the story is as illusory as the 
visits Leabeater made to physical plane civilizations in Mars and 
Mercury.            
>           
> But even if it were presented as a `short novel' pure and simple, 
and not as an autobiographical narration, the content of the text 
reveals too much of racism and disrespect against black  people, 
indigenous people and their right to live.  Leadbeater also uses the 
term "race" not in its theosophical meaning, but in the 
nationalistic way, as if each country had its own 'race',  
anticipating what Adolf Hitler would do decades later. 
>             
> At  p. 167 of the  Adyar edition, one starts to  read his 
description of Brazilian people:  
>             
> "First came the descendants of Spanish and Portuguese conquerors  ?
 a haughty, indolent race; a race courtly  and hospitable, by no 
means without its good qualities, but yet one whose strongest 
characteristic was an immeasurable contempt  (or the affectation of 
it) for all other races whatsoever". 
>             
> The amount of illusions-per-line is outstanding  here. 
>  
> First, Spanish people were never `conquerors' in Brazil. The 
country was `discovered'  and  made a colony by Portugal. Second, 
Portuguese people are not a race;  and they  cannot be easily 
described as `indolent'.  Third, Portuguese people generaly did not 
show `contempt' for other `races', and it is for this reason that 
miscigenation ?  intermarriage ? was from  the first the  main 
anthropological characteristic of the emerging Brazilian nation.  
Portuguese people easily created strong personal links with black 
people and indigenous people. (Of course, colonization was also 
violent.)
>  
> In the next paragraph, "bishop"  Leadbeater is even more 
surprising: 
>  
> "Next came red indians".  
>  
> Well, there are no `red indians' in Brazil, although the term is 
very common in old North American Far West bang-bang stories,  in 
which hundreds of "bad" Indians get typically killed by a few white 
men usually presented as brave heros. 
>  
> Leadbeater says about "red indians": 
>  
> "Of these many tribes had adopted a kind of squalid civilization, 
but many others were still savages untamed and untamable ? men who  
regarded work of any kind as the deepest degradation ? who hated the 
white man with a traditional, unrelenting hatred, and (strange as it 
may seen) more than reciprocated the boundless contempt of the blue-
blooded hidalgo of Spain. It will be no doubt incomprehensible to 
many of us that a half-naked savage can entertain any other feeling 
than envy for our  superior civilization, however much he may 
dislike us; but I can only say that the quite genuine and unaffected 
feeling of the Red Indian towards the white man is pure and 
unmitigated contempt." 
>  
> What  are the problems in these few lines?  First, again comes the 
Spanish `hidalgo' (nobleman) apparently ruling Brazil,  a country 
which was independent from Portugal (not Spain),  since 1822,  and 
was never under any "Spanish' ruling class. Second, the `red Indian' 
again.  Third, indigenous people and did not express hate against 
white people, and never actively resisted the domination of European 
rulers in Brazil.  These two paragraphs simply can't refer to any 
South American country.  
>  
> But CWL proceeds (p. 168) to develop his unbrotherly view of human 
beings:  
>  
> "Then came the negro race ? no inconsiderable portion of the 
populations, and chiefly in a state of slavery, though the 
Government was doing all in its power to remove that curse from its 
territories; and last and worst came what  were called  the half-
breeds or half-castes ? a mixed race which seemed, as mixed races 
sometimes do, to combine all the worst qualities of both its parent 
stocks. Indians, Spaniards, and Negro alike despised them; and they 
in turn regarded all alike with a virulent hatred." 
>  
> We can see in these words some strong `pioneer elements' for the 
future ideologies of Nazism and Fascism,  and ultimately for the 
mass-murder attemtps of  "ethnic cleansing". Look at it again: 
>  
> " (...) and last and worst came what  were called  the half-breeds 
or half-castes ? a mixed race which seemed (...) to combine all the 
worst qualities of both its parent stocks." 
>  
> This is Leadbeater.  
>  
> But -- what about Theosophy?  What does esoteric philosophy really 
say about the relations between rich and poor nations and among all 
different ethnical groups, with  their varied  kinds of colours in 
the skin?  In the "Letters from  the Masters", the famous letter 
known as coming  from the "Great Master" says:  
>  
> "To achieve the proposed object, a greater, a  wiser, and 
especially a more benevolent intermingling of the high and the low, 
of the Alpha and the Omega of  Society, was determined upon. The 
white race must be the first to stretch out the hand of fellowship 
to the dark nations, to call the poor despised `nigger'  brother.  
This prospect  may not smile to all, but he is no Theosophist who 
objects to his principle" (2) 
>  
> One can only conclude, then, that in writing that paragraph 
Leadbeater was "no theosophist". 
>  
> In fact, Leadbeater's vision of human beings as presented in that 
long story is not only ethically and  culturally unacceptable.  It 
is also legally criminal, for racism and stimulation of hatred among 
people of different skin-colours has been defined as crime in Brazil 
a few years ago.   
>  
> One can understand why the Brazilian edition of "Saved By a Ghost" 
cannot be found in Brazilian bookshops any longer.   Yet it is still 
for sale at Adyar, it seems.  
>  
> ( In another posting, I should refer to Leadbeater's proudly 
alleged acts of violence leading to death,  which, even if seen as 
fictional, are profoundly untheosophical. ) 
>  
> Best regards,   Carlos.             
>  
>  
>             
> NOTE:
>  
> (1) "The Perfume of  Egypt", by C. W. Leadbeater, whose sixth 
edition (TPH Adyar, 265 pp.) is dated 1978.  
>  
>  
> (2) "Letters From the Masters of the Wisdom", compiled by C. 
Jinarajadasa, Adyar TPH, first series, Letter number one, known 
as `the Maha-Chohan Letter' or "the Great Master Letter'.   
> 
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>