Theos-Talk Archives (July 2007 Message tt00371)

Dear Pablo

I wish to sincerely thank you again for staying the course in this 
dialogue. After only twelve years in the Adyar Society, the 
approximate age of confirmation in the Christian church, you are 
certainly going through your baptism/confirmation of fire here on 
theostalk! You are answering in an honest way from your experience 
and open mind. You have quite obviously given this subject 
considerable thought and investigation and although I disagree with 
your inferences thus far, I greatly respect the integrity of your 
approach.

I would like to comment on two of the statements you have made in 
some of your recent postings.

You write concerning the cipher letter, "The letter is quite 
disgusting, but the, he said it was a forgery. It certainly didn't 
have signature, as I said. And was typewritten."

As you say, the letter, whether fraudulent in part or not, is 
disgusting. This only amplifies my earlier point that Bishop 
Leadbeater should have unequivocally denied the letter outright for 
the sake of the boy. As I wrote in an earlier post, "Irrespective of 
his innocence or guilt, for reasons mentioned above he should not 
have allowed the boy to be implicated in this manner by remaining 
silent. As a putative occult "teacher" he also had a bounden duty to 
protect his naïve charges from scurrilous attack. To protect a 
brother's good name is a standing tradition in occultism. To permit a 
shadow of doubt to hang over another innocent boy is once again 
incomprehensible until, through weight of accumulating evidence, we 
consider the possibility of something more sinister."

You write, "There are also many written statements from several 
people who lived and work with Leadbeater, completely refusing that 
statement. I read them personally."

In my profession I worked intensively with "dysfunctional" young 
people from some of our most disadvantaged suburbs. Many had been 
either physically, emotionally or sexually abused with some having 
suffered all three. 
Whilst I do not have academic qualifications in this field, it was 
required that I have a layman's working knowledge of the subject of 
paedophilia, its causes and methodologies. The methodologies are 
astounding and shocking to say the least. Some paedophiles can be 
extraordinarily cunning through their processes of familiarisation, 
grooming, enticement, normalisation and eventual entrapment. All of 
this almost invariably occurs under a cloak of secrecy. Secrecy is 
standard fare for paedophiles. To facilitate this, some use 
enticements of pleasure, others of fear and sometimes a combination. 
Paedophiles choose their victims carefully and practice their abuse 
surreptitiously and are astonishingly "successful" even when there 
are other children in the vicinity such as dormitories, schools, 
camps etc. This is what surprised me the most. A predator can abuse 
one or more children in the midst of others, sometimes without any 
child knowing of any other involved. There are variants to this 
whereby a number of children are involved and are mutually aware. And 
this is where it can become even more insidious. The normalisation 
process can cause a child or groups of children to believe they are 
acting "normally."  This can occur where the abuse does not involve 
the pain of sexual penetration e.g. mutual masturbation. The accepted 
scenario is that boys "do it", and to have an adult secretly 
supporting it, in complete opposition to the child's perception of 
their parents' extreme disapproval, can be exciting to a child. This 
perception of their parents' extreme disapproval guarantees non-
disclosure under almost any circumstances. This is one of the reasons 
why paedophiles have historically remained largely untouched. 
Initially the boys will not disclose for fear of parental retribution 
and by the time the boys have reached sufficient maturity to realise 
the debauchery which has occurred they are too ashamed to admit it, 
very often blame themselves and will usually vehemently deny its 
occurrence due to feelings of shame. 
In terms of enticement and entrapment it seems Bishop Leadbeater used 
the enticement of "occult progress" and its "required" secrecy as his 
lure. The familiarisation, grooming and normalisation were easy for 
him given his status and prestige.  
Interestingly perhaps, paedophilia is not always about sex itself. It 
is an issue of power. And this is why it is so often priests who 
suffer this disease. They belong to a mental system or mindset, which 
actually worships power over others. There are certainly numerous 
other causes however that would involve a considerable dissertation 
just to review.

With regards to bathing naked with the boys and your experience of 
bathing with your father, this might well be culturally acceptable in 
your tradition. My father, and to a lesser extent myself, was raised 
in the old British tradition. Never did my father appear naked before 
me nor would he have permitted it so. Even in communal showers men 
and young boys would retain their trunks or underwear. There were 
certain things that were just not done in Britain up the 1950's of 
which I can speak. Bishop Leadbeater would without doubt have been 
aware of this cultural norm.  

>From my research into all the available evidence, some of which 
admittedly would be deemed circumstantial, my perception is that 
Bishop Leadbeater used his privileged position as teacher and mentor 
to gratify his particular perversion with boys. In a court of law I 
would have no compunction in convicting him of the crime of 
paedophilia based on the principle "beyond all reasonable doubt."    

I do however accept that I could be wrong in this deliberation and 
stand ready to accept further evidence.
Until that time Pablo I must respectfully disagree with your 
conclusions. 

Thank you so much again for this most interesting dialogue.

Kind regards
Nigel