Theos-Talk Archives (February 2009 Message tt00311)

Pedro Oliveira gives C.W. Leadbeater's birthdate
as 1854. He writes:

-----------------------------------------------------
CHARLES WEBSTER LEADBEATER was born in Stockport, Chesire, England,
on 16 February 1854, to Charles and Emma Leadbeater. This date of
birth was given in the English census of 1861, 1871 and 1881. After
his mother died, in May 1882, his date of birth was given as 17
February 1847 and it appears in the 1891 census. This was also the
date he used in his passport. His reason for using a different date
of birth is not known, although research about it continues.
-----------------------------------------------------
Quoted from: http://www.cwlworld.info/html/bio.html

Robert Ellwood also gives the 1854 birthdate in his biographical
article on Mr. Leadbeater published in the 2006 THEOSOPHICAL
ENCYCLOPEDIA.

But Pedro Oliveira notes in the above quoted text that Mr.
Leadbeater "used in his passport" a different date: 1847.

One might consider this discrepancy as of little importance, possibly
attributing the date 1847 on the passport to a mere typographical 
error.

But when one reads the following account written by Mr. Leadbeater in
one of his most well-known books THE MASTERS AND THE PATH, one
realizes that the "1854 versus 1847" discrepancy has MUCH GREATER
SIGNIFICANCE.

BELOW is Mr. Leadbeater's own words which actually involves his claim
of seeing the Master Morya in the year 1851:

=================================================

Madame Blavatsky . . . met the Master Morya
in Hyde Park, London, in the year 1851. . . .
STRANGELY ENOUGH, I myself, then a little child
of four, saw Him also. . . . Of course, I knew
nothing then [in 1851] of who He was, and I should
never have identified Him had it not been for
a gracious remark which He made to me many years
afterwards.

. . . one day in His presence. . . He Himself. . .
said [to me] ". . . Do you not remember, as a
tiny child, watching the Indian horsemen ride
past in Hyde Park, and did you not see how EVEN THEN
I SINGLED YOU OUT?" I remembered instantly,
of course, and said "Oh, Master, was
that you? But I ought to have known it."

=====================================================

Caps added. Quoted from Leadbeater's THE MASTERS AND THE PATH.

Gregory Tillett, author of "THE ELDER BROTHER: A Biography of Charles
Webster Leadbeater" has summarized here on Theos-Talk the
evidence concerning when Mr. Leadbeater was born. See:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/41138

How does one reasonably explain how Leadbeater could have been born
in 1854 but also saw the Master in 1851?

For more material on C.W. Leadbeater, see:

http://leadbeater.org

Daniel
http://hpb.cc