Theos-Talk Archives (November 2006 Message tt00910)

Dear Friends, 
 
The text of the ?1900 Letter to Annie Besant?, especially  those parts of it which were eliminated by C. Jinarajadasa in  his edition of the letter,  contain many severe and accurate warnings about future mistakes that Annie Besant should avoid.  Bud which she did didn't.    
 
The whole of  the Letter is in agreement with the general perspective followed by HPB/Masters students in the decades that followed, including the ULT after its start in 1909.   
 
Let?s compare what the full text of the 1900 Letter says, with what Annie Besant did. (1)  The Letter statements are in capital letters:
 
1) ?IS THE WORSHIP  OF A NEW TRINITY MADE UP OF THE BLESSED M.,   UPASIKA   AND YOURSELF TO TAKE THE PLACE OF EXPLODED CREEDS.  WE ASK NOT FOR THE WORSHIP OF OURSELVES.? 
 
In fact, in the following years the Adyar Society was transformed in a semi-Christian belief system, with a Masonry,  a Catholic Church with its priests and Bishops, and even a new Christ of its own making.  Dogmatic religions stopped to be criticized. The Masters were transformed in objects of emotional worship and blind belief.  
 
2) ?THE DISCIPLE SHOULD IN NO WAY BE FETTERED. BEWARE OF AN ESOTERIC POPERY.? 
 
Annie Besant did exactly what the Letter?s author told her not to do. She created the illusion that the leaders of the Adyar Society were clairvoyant, and that they could consult the Masters at any time, thus being able to avoid making any mistakes. As we know, Popes are supposed (by their followers)  to be infallible.  The ?logic result? of such a popish  infallibility was that everyone should obey Annie Besant blindly. Thus an ?Esoteric Popery? emerged, with its own ?apostolic succession?. 
 
3) THE INTENSE DESIRE TO SEE UPASIKA REINCARNATE AT ONCE HAS RAISED A MISLEADING  MAYAVIC IDEATION.  UPASIKA HAS USEFUL  WORK TO DO ON HIGHER PLANES AND CANNOT COME AGAIN SO SOON. 
 
By then, Annie Besant had started to create a collective expectation  that  H.P.B.  was coming back as  the little daughter of G. N. Chakravarti. In fact, that was the starting point for a  neotheosophical version of the ?myth of the divine child?. 
 
The 1900 letter  did grant some peace to HPB?s soul  in its afterdeath process. The hysteria about her ?Second Coming? was immediately abandoned.  Yet the neochristian  myth of  the ?divine child? would soon come back in a most unfortunate  way  through C. W . Leadbeater?s false clairvoyance, with the presentation of the boy Jiddu Krishnamurti as the future ?Christ?. The consequences of such a myth of the ?divine child? ended by bringing shame upon the Adyar Society and provoking several scandals of which C.W. Leadbeater was always the centre.   
 
4) ?YOU HAVE FOR SOME TIME BEEN UNDER DELUDING INFLUENCES.?
 
This includes the influences which had made Annie Besant persecute William Judge in 1894-95, that had made her  join the mediumnistic group of Mr. Sinnett?s ?inner circle? (which promoted false contacts with the Masters), and that made her follow G. N. Chakravarti?s leadership.    
 
5) ?SHUN PRIDE, VANITY AND LOVE OF POWER.? 
 
In the following years Annie Besant concentrated all power in her hands. She was the President of the T.S., the Head of  the Esoteric School, the leader of  Co-Masonic groups, the responsible for the Egyptian Rite, etc. 
 
Yet she depended on C.W. Leadbeater?s ?clairvoyance?  to take every real decision.  CWL dominated her because of her  vanity and love for power. 
 
6) ?BE NOT GUIDED BY EMOTION BUT LEARN TO STAND ALONE.  BE ACCURATE AND CRITICAL RATHER THAN CREDULOUS. THE MISTAKES OF THE PAST IN THE OLD RELIGIONS MUST NOT BE GLOSSED OVER WITH IMAGINARY EXPLANATIONS.  THE E.S.T. MUST BE REFORMED SO AS TO BE AS UNSECTARIAN AND CREEDLESS AS THE T.S.   THE RULES MUST BE SIMPLE AND ACCEPTABLE TO ALL.? 
 
In  fact, the T. S. was reformed so as to become so sectarian and blind as the E. S.T.,  and not the other way around. 
 
Annie Besant did not learn to stand alone and used emotional  worship to get more personal power. 
 
The Adyar movement became a complicated, bureaucratic, ritualistic belief-system,  under the cover of liberty of  thought.  As to the reference to the ?errors of the old religions?, the sentence  is a clear vindication of the ?Prayag Letter?, a message from the Masters received through H.P.B.,  whose  authenticity was publically denied by H. S. Olcott but which now is part of the ?Mahatma Letters to A.P.  Sinnett? as edited by the Adyar TPH (Letter  134, non-chronological editions, or Letter 30, chronological edition).  William Judge had openly defended the authenticity of that letter  in his New York magazine THE PATH (March 1895, p. 430, and  June 1895, p. 81).  The 1900 Letter mentions the same idea and underlines the importance of discussing the mistakes of  all dogmatic religions.  Something which Besant and Leadbeater, of  course, never did.   
 
7) ?WE NEVER TRY TO SUBJECT TO OURSELVES THE WILL OF ANOTHER. AT FAVOURABLE TIMES  WE LET LOOSE ELEVATING INFLUENCES WHICH STRIKE VARIOUS PERSONS IN VARIOUS WAYS.   IT IS THE COLLECTIVE ASPECT OF MANY SUCH THOUGHTS THAT CAN  GIVE THE CORRECT NOTE OF ACTION.? 
 
This is a precious bit of advice for the next decades and centuries. In 1900, it was also a prophecy. It was an announcement that the days of  verbal and visual contact with  the Mahatmas were over, but  that an  inner contact was still possible at a subtle level.  These sentences were unduly despised by A. Besant, who preferred her own clairvoyant fancies about Initiations and verbal contacts with Masters.  Right now,  these same sentences may reveal to us the middle way between two equally mayavic extremes: one, the idea that the Masters are completely out of touch,  or that  they do not exist; the other, that they can be contacted in  any visual or verbal way, or by lower personalities.   
 
8) ?MISLEADING SECRECY HAS GIVEN THE DEATH BLOW TO NUMEROUS ORGANIZATIONS.  THE CANT ABOUT THE  ?MASTERS? MUST BE  SILENTLY BUT FIRMLY  PUT DOWN. LET THE DEVOTION AND SERVICE BE TO THAT SUPREME SPIRIT ALONE OF  WHICH EACH (2) ONE  IS A PART.? 
 
Annie Besant did exactly the opposite.  She used misleading secrecy as a power-mechanism, and so  she gave a death-blow to  most of Adyar Society as a spiritual level. She used the names of the Masters to justify her fancies, and she exacted personal devotion from theosophists to herself, in the name of the  Masters.   
 
9)  ?YOU WILL HAVE TO LEAVE A GOOD DEAL OF YOUR EMOTIONS AND CREDULITY BEFORE YOU BECOME A SAFE GUIDE AMONG THE INFLUENCES THAT WILL COMMENCE   TO WORK IN THE NEW CYCLE.?        
 
Here the letter says, in an implicit yet clear way, that Annie Besant, as she was, could not be a safe guide. And she was not.   The text also mentions ?the new cycle?, which constitutes an internal evidence of  its accuracy,  since H.P.B. had positively written --  apparently ?en passant? --  that the the new cycle, Aquarius Age,  would start in that year of 1900.  (3)   
 
 
 
O o o O o o O o o O  
 
Much more can be said about this controversial Letter.  Yet  a few things  seem to stand clear: 
 
1) That the 1900  Letter  announces most mistakes Annie Besant would make in the 33 following years; 
 
2) That the warning was not heard;  
 
3) That anyone except a High Initiate would find it most difficult to foresee all  such mistakes in such a stern and  accurate way; 
 
4) That being a ?last farewell? letter, it was issued in 1900, during the inaugural moments of  the Aquarius Age, and contains important hints for the movement as a whole in the decades and centuries ahead. 
 
5) It is not coincidence that the full content of  the letter was only discovered in 1987, during the following ?end-of-century-effort?; and not by a member of the Adyar Society, but by an independent student. Even now, Adyar leaders can?t comment or discuss  the full text of the Letter ? it is too  strong for them.  
 
Best regards,  Carlos Cardoso Aveline.                                       
 
 
O o o O o o O o o O o o O  o o O  


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