The Cipher Letter: Historical Background

Pedro Oliveira

Evidence (dictionary definition): a thing or things helpful in forming a conclusion or judgment. In law: drawn from personal testimony, a document or a material object, used to establish facts in a legal investigation, or admissible as a testimony in a law court. Etymology: Middle English, from Old French, from Late Latin evidentia, from Latin evidens, ‘obvious to the eye or mind’, from e- (var. of ex-) ‘out’ + videre ‘to see’.

 

     After his return to England from Ceylon, at the end of 1889, C. W. Leadbeater became one of the popular speakers for the Theosophical Society, visiting many Lodges in that country. During the period from 1900 and 1905 he also lectured extensively in the United States. As a result of his talks many people joined the TS and came into contact with the teachings of Theosophy. In 1903, for a period of six months, he delivered a course of lectures in the US.

     What seems to be little known is the fact that CWL, apart from his work as a speaker, was in private correspondence with Helen Dennis, the then Corresponding Secretary of the Esoteric School in the US, during his several tours of that country. They discussed a number of subjects, but also about her serious concern of the influence of a certain boy on her son Robyn (Robert Dennis). The tone of the following letter shows that Dennis had approached him regarding sensitive matters:

       Seattle, Wash., Dec. 29, 1900.

Dear Mrs Dennis:

     I have received the enclosed letter from Mrs. Davis, and as it is entirely upon the business of which you wrote to me I am sending it for you to see, but please destroy it carefully as soon as you have read it, as I should not like it to fall into any other hands. I have written consoling her, and pointing out that although certainly a mistake was made, and although much mischief might have resulted, yet, so far, nothing serious has occurred. Mr. Warrington writes to me promising absolute secrecy as far as he is concerned, and I am quite sure that he will keep his word. I shall watch very carefully and I have no fear whatever as to success, so that I think that we may congratulate ourselves that very little harm has been done.

With all good wishes from both of us, I remain,

   Ever yours most gratefully,

   C. W. Leadbeater

     In his letter to Helen Dennis, written from La Jolla, California, February 21^st 1901, CWL writes: ‘It is true that Robert’s week with his friends at Los Angeles was lost time so far as we were concerned but he seems to have enjoyed it. The week at Coronado was also practically wasted, as he was never with us, but always ranging about the crowd. He I think we must do somewhat better because we shall be necessarily much more together. He has greatly enjoyed making a fire and cooking peas and making coffee for our evening meal – and he did it very well, too! But he is still inclined to resent any suggestion as to alteration of conduct as “always nagging at him”, poor boy! Still I have great hopes as to the results of our quiet fortnight here, though possibly he will not think it so lively as the great hotel.’

     In his next letter to Helen Dennis, still from La Jolla, California, March 6^th 1901, CWL provides an inkling into the ferocious campaign waged by Katherine Tingley, leader of the organization ‘Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society’, against him and against Annie Besant:

     I enclose herewith some news papers cuttings which will amuse and possibly interest you. They show how considerably Mrs. Tingley controls the press here, and can get long notices of all her proceedings inserted almost daily. It is said however that she pays highly for this privilege. She is intensely disgusted at our prolonged stay in the neighbourhood, and our own people are proportionately strengthened and elated – which is one reason why I consented to stay! If anyone wishes to know why we are pausing so long at this point, it might be explained that because of the power and virulence of the opposition here, our own members need special encouragement and help.

     He then proceeds to write about Robyn’s situation:

     I seem to see for the first time a real opportunity of progress with our dear boy. Now that we are reduced to primitive conditions of life, and are necessarily much alone together, the strange resistance is breaking down and he is really trying to be what we all wish. Of course the attempts are clumsy as yet, and there are frequent failures but he is trying, and that is a most encouraging advance on his previous “don’t care, and won’t do anything” attitude. How long it will last I cannot tell, but I must give it every chance and every encouragement in my power. I had a serious talk with him the other night, when for the first time he spoke quite openly about himself and the influence of the dark powers upon him. He told me how something within “which could express itself very well – much better than he could”, would constantly urge him to resist anything that Basil [Hodgson-Smith] or I suggested, telling him that to yield to our wishes would be a defeat for him, a loss of power, and so on. He said that once or twice he had struggled against it, but it never was any use, because it always won the day. I told him how serious this matters was, and how I thought it ought to be met and circumvented, and since then I have often watched the effort been made. He is at least trying now to be on our side as against the mighty Kâmic elemental which they have fostered so sedulously, and that is half the battle, in spite of constant failures.

     At the end of his American tour that year, CWL wrote, on the letterhead of the American Section of The Theosophical Society, which was located at 26 Van Buren Street, Room 426, New York, the following letter to Robert Dennis from New York, on June 22^nd 1901:

 My dear Robert,

     My first letter in America was written to you, and now my last one shall be to you also. It must be a very hurried one, I fear, as we have to be on board our steamer by noon, and I have many things to do first. All the time I have been thinking how delightful it would have been if you were coming with us, as you would have been if things had gone differently on that Californian expedition. But I suppose it will be all right somehow. Meantime I do very much want you, dear boy, to make up your mind once and for all that you will not lose any more chances, but will work away really hard with your mother, so that when I return there will be an enormous improvement to chronicle. As you grow older, you will of course see more clearly what the work is, and what your own real interests are, so that you will be less likely to sacrifice the opportunity of a lifetime for a little temporary gratification. If you will make real efforts to become what your mother and Mrs. Davis wish you to be, there is still a noble future before you, though of course it will not be so easy this time as it would have been if you had come with me now. Never mind, it is no use our grieving over what is past; we must only make up our minds to do better in the future. Remember that I shall always love you and often be thinking of you, and if you can only learn to be entirely unselfish we may do well yet. I shall write to you now and then, and I hope you will sometimes write to me. Perhaps, too, affairs may shape themselves so that you could come over on a visit next spring, and then return to America when I come back in the following autumn. All heartiest good wishes and much love from us both to you and to Don [Donald Dennis, Robert’s younger brother].

   I am ever

     Your loving friend

           C. W. Leadbeater

 

     During his 1903 tour of the US and Canada, CWL wrote to Helen Dennis from Victoria, British Columbia, on September 16^th 1903, informing her of another boy whose parents had asked for him to join CWL’s group in their travels:

     It is curious to be going once more to San Francisco, where last time Robert was with us. And, stranger still, for part of the same journey I shall have with me another Theosophical boy, a member of our Lotus Lodge, Douglas William Lawrence Pettit, of whom I think I showed you a photograph. His parents also are anxious that he should have the opportunity of hearing many Theosophical lectures, and learning to be useful along our lines. At present moment he is type-writing vigorously opposite to me, helping to get off a number of cards before our steamer starts. So far he has been very gentle and really wishful to do everything he can; but of course one only gradually comes to know how far they will persevere in well-doing! He is a very nice fellow, yet it somehow makes me rather sad to be taking in charge some one else than our first American boy. This, however, was in no way of my seeking, but was all arranged for me, so I suppose it is all for the best. I have just received the forty-eight missing pages of the proof from Regan, and shall look them over on the steamer. With all kindest regards to you and Mr. Dennis, and much love to Robert and Don.

     On October 12^th 1903, writing from San Francisco, California, CWL gave additional information to Helen Dennis about the boy Douglas Pettit:

     I enclose a very good portrait of Douglas Pettit, who is at present typewriting vigorously at some copying work. It seems a curious freak of destiny which brought us together in California, the scene of the other experiment. It is early yet to speak, but I have considerable hopes, since so far he is not only willing but very eager to do as much work as possible, and seems to think of almost nothing else. I incline to believe that the enthusiasm will last, because he has already made himself one of us in precisely the way which Robert never would do, although I was always trying to bring about that Condition of affairs. The parents are very kind and friendly about it, and apparently willing to lend him to us almost indefinitely. From what the father told me, he appears to have a very good record in school-work, being at the age of thirteen in a class where most of the others are seventeen and eighteen. He holds already apparently a certificate which qualifies him as a junior teacher, whatever that may amount to.

     1904 saw CWL traveling through the US again, and on October 25^th he wrote a letter to Fritz Kunz from Cleveland, Ohio, with whose family CWL was associated since 1902. The letter alludes to the difficulties, of a personal nature, that were besetting another boy, named George Nevers:

     I enclose two more [letters] from Douglas, and one really private one from George. At first I did not feel sure that even you ought to see this, yet I wanted you to know about it, because it shows George in a better light than we generally see him. Do not let any one else see it, and destroy it as soon as you have read it, for I feel it as a sort of confidence from him, and I should not show it to anyone but you. I am so glad you remembered something of one of our astral experiences; go ahead and remember many more, and tell me all about them, so that I may verify or correct them for you. At least one of those boys you really ought to recollect clearly, for he loves you very much.

     Towards the end of February 1906, Annie Besant, the resident in Benares, India, received a letter from Helen I. Dennis, dated 25 January 1906. The letter was co-signed by the following persons: Alexander Fullerton, General Secretary of the American Section of the TS; Frank F. Knothe, Assistant General Secretary; Elizabeth M. Chidester, Assistant Corresponding Secretary, E.S., and E. W. Dennis, Mrs Dennis’ husband.

     The letter presented the following charges against C. W. Leadbeater and demanded an inquiry about them: 1) “That he is teaching young boys into his care, habits of self-abuse [masturbation] and demoralizing personal practices.” 2) “That he does this with deliberate intent and under the guise of occult training or with the promise of the increase of physical manhood.” 3) “That he has demanded, at least in one case, promises of the utmost secrecy.” The letter also enclosed testimonies of the mothers of two boys and branded Leadbeater’s conduct as ‘criminal’. Although Helen Dennis’ letter to Annie Besant did not mention the names of the boys or their parents, and presents the (unsigned) boys’ testimonies through their parents, later it became known that the boys in question were Robert Dennis, Helen Dennis’ son, Douglas Pettit, George Nevers and Howard Maguire, who was the recipient of the Cipher Letter. Although Dennis and her co-signatories ‘pledged each other to the utmost secrecy and circumspection so that no hint of it shall escape them’, it soon became known that the charges had been widely circulated among Lodges and members in the American Section, reaching newspapers in early June 1906.

     In a letter to John Coats, dated June 18, 1966, Fritz Kunz recollects what transpired at Benares when Helen Dennis’ letter arrived in the mail:

     Basil [Hodgson-Smith], CWL and I were AB’s [Annie Besant] guests in Benares when the first letters came from USA in 1906. I remember it as if it were yesterday. We were all working in our top coats, for Benares in winter can be cold! The moment he read the first one, CWL swept all the mail together and marched into AB’s study and was there a long time, while they read the letters. She came over to see Basil, who was coming down with a temperature. He tried to get her to understand the unspeakable crudity and pettiness of some of the people accusing CWL, but the very nobility of her character made it difficult to communicate. At that time she had been only very briefly in USA. For what reason I don’t know, but she would not come to England to face George Mead and Co. Later she made handsome amends to CWL. This is all too complex for letters.

     On 27 February 1906, CWL wrote a frank letter to Alexander Fullerton, in which he said:

     The business of discovering and training specially hopeful younger members and preparing them for Theosophical work has been put into my charge. Possibly the fact that I have been associated with the training of young men and boys all my life (originally of course on Christian lines) is one reason for this, because of the experience which it has given me. As a result of that experience, I know that the whole question of sex feeling is the principal difficulty in the path for both boys and girls, and that very much harm is done by the prevalent habit of ignoring the subject and fearing to speak of it to young people. The first information about it should come from parents or friends, not from servants or bad companions. Therefore I always speak of it quite frankly and naturally to those whom I am trying to help, when they become sufficiently familiar with me to make it possible. The methods of dealing with the difficulty are two. A certain type of boy can be carried through his youth absolutely virgin, and can pass through the stages of puberty without being troubled at all by sensual emotions; but such boys are few. The majority pass through a stage when their minds are much filled with such matters, and consequently surround themselves with huge masses of most undesirable thought-forms which perpetually react upon them and keep them in a condition of emotional ferment. These thought-forms are the vehicles of appalling mischief since through them disembodied entities can and constantly do act upon the child.

     The conventional idea that such thoughts do not much matter so long as they do not issue in overt acts is not only untrue; it is absolutely the reverse of the truth. I have seen literally hundreds of cases of this horrible condition, and have traced the effects which it produces in after-life. In this country of India, the much abused custom of early marriage prevents all difficulty on this score. Much of this trouble is due to the perfectly natural pressure of certain physical accumulations, and as the boy grows older this increasing pressure drives him into associations with loose women or sometimes into unnatural crimes. Now all this may be avoided by periodically relieving that pressure, and experience has shown that if the boy provokes at stated intervals a discharge which produces that relief, he can comparatively easily rid his mind of such thoughts in the interim, and in that way escape all the more serious consequences. I know this is not the conventional view, but it is quite true for all that, and there is no comparison between the harm done in the two cases even at that time – quite apart from the fact that the latter plan avoids the danger of entanglement with women or bad boys later on. You may remember how St. Paul remarked that while it was best of all to remain celibate in the rare cases where that was possible, for the rest it was distinctly better to marry than to burn with lust. Brought down to the level of the boy, this is precisely what I mean; and although I know that many people do not agree with the view, I am at a loss to understand how anyone can consider it criminal – especially when it is remembered that it is based upon the clearly visible results of the two lines of action. A doctor might advise against it, principally on the ground that the habit of occasional relief might degenerate into unrestrained self-abuse; but this danger can be readily avoided by full explanation, and it must be remembered that the average doctor cannot see the horrible astral effects of perpetual desire.

     In her reply to Helen Dennis, Annie Besant stated that she did not agree with CWL’s advice to boys on sexual matters but defended his good faith and pure intent. Her view, however, would change dramatically, due to a statement to the effect that he had advised to the boys concerned a daily use of the practice [masturbation], which CWL emphatically denied. She considered that CWL that fallen on the path of Occultism. It was only after the visit by the two Mahatmas to Col. Olcott’s deathbed at Adyar, in January 1907, that her view would change. During that visit Olcott asked one of the Masters: ‘Is it then true that Mrs. Besant and Mr. Leadbeater did work together on the Higher Planes, under your guidance and instruction?’ To which Mahatma M. replied: ‘Most emphatically yes!’ This visit was witnessed by Marie Russak, an American member residing at Adyar, and Rina, Col. Olcott’s nurse, and was recorded in his Diaries. CWL’s opponents considered the ‘Adyar manifestations’ a psychicly-engendered illusion, and one of them blamed him for them, although he was in Italy at that time. For more information see the Bio page on this website.
 

   It is interesting to note that the Cipher Letter, allegedly written by CWL to one of the boys, was not part of the correspondence sent to Besant in January 1906 by Helen Dennis and others in the American Section. It was sent to them, upon request, sometime in May 1906, by the mother of the boy to whom the Cipher Letter was written. It is also well known that the President-Founder of the TS, Col. Olcott, had called for an Advisory Board meeting in London on 16 May 1906 to consider the charges against CWL, to be held at the Grosvenor Hotel, which included Mr Burnett as a representative of the American Section. At that meeting, and after an intense debate, when a number of those present wanted CWL expelled from the TS, Col. Olcott decided to accept his resignation from the Society with immediate effect.

     In her letter of May 1906 to the Investigating Committee of the American Section, the mother of the boy to whom the Cipher Letter had been written mentions that ‘our only desire is that a full, fair setting forth of all points in the matter be made. We have the deepest appreciation of Mr L’s kindness to the boy and ourselves in many ways, and whatever may come from us, we wish to avoid any semblance of pre-judging. What conclusions I have arrived at are based on the facts at hand.’ She also protested saying that ‘Mr L … either considered the parents unfit counselors or else he feared their disapproval. In either case it was an assumption of privilege. For no matter which view he held, the parents are Karmically responsible for the child, and such teaching so contrary to their sense of right would have been possibly permissible only after having consulted them and receiving their consent.’ Then she added an interesting piece of information:

     Our son left the slip of paper on the floor, from which the enclosed cipher note is copied. I also found another on the floor some time after finding the above mentioned cipher. That note was written in Mr L’s hand and asked our son to keep a record of days when “experiments” were made, but this is now mislaid. It was not of so dangerous a nature as the enclosed: for in this as you will observe, Mr L …. expresses himself as “glad sensation is pleasant” showing that he approves of the sensuous part of the practice.

     The other note, referred to above, although mislaid in 1906, mysteriously reappeared in 1908, during the aggressive campaign to prevent CWL from rejoining the TS. The text of the Cipher Letter is reproduced below.

PRIVATE

     My own darling boy, there is no need for you to write anything in cipher, for no one but I ever sees your letters. But it is better for me to write in cipher about some of the most important matters; can you always read it easily? Can you describe any of the forms in rose-colour which you have seen entering your room? Are they human beings or nature spirits? The throwing of water is unusual in such a case, though I have had it done to me at a spiritualistic seance. Were you actually wet when you awoke, or was it only in sleep that you felt the water? Either is possible, but they would represent different types of phenomena. All these preliminary experiences are interesting, and I wish we were nearer together to talk about them.

     Turning to other matters, I am glad to hear of the rapid growth, and the strength of the results. Twice a week is permissible, but you will soon discover what brings the best effect. *The meaning of the sign [Circle with dot in center] is osauisu. Spontaneous manifestations are undesirable, and should be discouraged. Eg ou dinat xeuiiou iamq, ia oaaet socceoh nisa iguao. Cou oiu uii iguao, is ia xemm oiu dina xamm. Eiat uiuu iuqqao xiao zio usa utmaaq; tell me fully. Hmue taotuueio et ti qmautuou. Uiiotuoo lettat eusmeoh. (The following paragraph is the boy's translation of the paragraph written in cipher - beginning with the. first *) The meaning of the sign [Circle with dot in center] is urethra. Spontaneous manifestations are undesirable and should be discouraged. If it comes without help, he needs rubbing more often, but not too often or he will not come well. Does that happen when you are asleep? Tell me fully. Glad sensation is so pleasant. Thousand kisses darling.

(Key to the cipher:

Cipher: a b c d e f g h i j k l m

Translation: e a b c d,i e f g h,o i j k l

Cipher: n o p q r s t u v w x y z

Translation: m n,u o p q r s a,t u v w x y)

   In a letter to Fritz Kunz from Adyar, February 6^th 1913, CWL shares his view regarding the Cipher Letter. The President mentioned below is Annie Besant, who was elected as the second President of the TS in 1907 after the passing of Col. Olcott in February of that year:

     As to the horrible cipher letter, I think that have already told you all that I know of the matter. I certainly did not write the thing in the form in which it at present appears, and I equally certainly never used the phrases attributed to me in the sense which is there put upon them. I have never seen the original, but I did see a written copy made by Monsieur Charles Blech from one that was shown to him by (I think) Mrs. Russak. So far as I remember the document it was divided into two parts, the first part referring to some psychic experiences, and the second to sexual difficulties. The first part corresponds with a sort of half-recollection that I have of a story of psychic experiences told to me by Howard Maguire; and my impression is that I did write to him very much what the first part of the ‘cipher letter’ contains. The second half contains such advice as I think I might have given, though I do not definitely remember giving it; but the closing phrases are not in the least my style, and, as I have already said, I am quite sure that I did not use them in the sense now attributed to them, though I may, for anything that I know, have employed the phrase about ‘sensation’ with regard to some psychic experience; though of that also I have no actual recollection. I have always been given to understand that the letter was supposed to be addressed to Howard; but perhaps I assumed that because I knew that it was to him that I had written in connection with the psychic experience. I think, however, that I remember hearing at the time something about the attitude taken in regard to it by his father and mother; and altogether I have very little doubt that he was the recipient. If so, that finally disposes of the idea that Fullerton could have written it, for I do not think that he knew the boy. Nor can I conceive of any reason why he should have written it even if he had known him, and the advice on psychical matters is not such as he would be likely to give. I am not casting any doubt on the value of the psychic impressions either of your sister or of Mrs. Tuttle; but from what I know about such things I should think it not impossible that the eager use which Fullerton made of the document might be quite sufficient to guide their intuitions towards him and make them regard him as its author. I cannot believe that he had anything to do with it; but if you find evidence suggesting that, I think the simplest plan would be to ask him directly, for I believe that now he would tell us the truth on such a matter. The President told me long ago that the alleged original document had been shown to her; that it was typewritten, without address, date or signature; but that one short word, which had apparently been omitted in typing, was inserted in handwriting that looked like mine. I also heard at the time that Chidester, when it was shown to him, identified the paper as some which (I think) he had given to me, and expressed the opinion that the typing was like that of my Blickensderfer. I have really never troubled to form much of a theory for myself; but I know that two possibilities occurred to me at the time: (1) that the document might be an absolute forgery, inserted phenomenally in one of my letters as it passed through the post (this hypothesis, of course, requires the presence of people of the black magician type); (2) that a document really written by me might have been found as stated, and skillfully copied with a transposition of some sentences (and possibly the insertion of others) so as to give to them an entirely different meaning from that which they really bore. The President also told me that she had seen an answer, written by the boy to me (but never posted) in which he asked the meaning of that remarkable phrase about ‘sensation’. All this, I think, makes it almost absolutely certain that the letter was received by Howard, and that he took it as a genuine document; though if it was, as alleged, picked up on the floor of his bedroom, and afterwards shown to him, I presume that he could not be certain that it had not in the meantime been recopied or changed in some way.

     Below is Annie Besant’s statement in her ‘Letter to the Members of the Theosophical Society’, in November 1908, regarding the Cipher Letter:

     Much has been made of a “cipher letter.” The use of cipher arose from an old story in the Theosophist, repeated by Mr. Leadbeater to a few lads; they, as boys will, took up the cipher with enthusiasm, and it was subsequently sometimes used in correspondence with the boys who had been present when the story was told. In a typewritten note on a fragment of paper, undated and unsigned, relating to an astral experience, a few words in cipher occur on the incriminated advice. Then follows a sentence, unconnected with the context, on which a foul construction has been placed. That the boy did not so read it is proved by a letter of his to Mr. Leadbeater – not sent, but shown to me by his mother – in which he expresses his puzzlement as to what it meant, as he well might. There is something very suspicious about the use of this letter. It was carefully kept away from Mr. Leadbeater, though widely circulated against the wish of the father and the mother, and when a copy was lately sent to him by a friend, he did not recognize it in its present form, and stated emphatically that he had never used the phrase with regard to any sexual act. It may go with the Coulomb and Pigott letters.

     (Emma and Alexis Coulomb were workers at the headquarters of the TS at Adyar who participated in a conspiracy with Christian missionaries in Madras against Madame Blavatsky in 1884. Richard Pigott was a journalist for The Times in London in the 1880s, well known for the 'Pigott forgeries' against Charles Stewart Parnell.)

     The attitude of Helen Dennis to Annie Besant in this crisis is worth mentioning as it reveals not only a pattern of animosity but also a sense of deep bitterness and personal attack that seemed to have continued towards the end of her life. In a letter to Fritz Kunz, dated August 27^th 1906, from Harrogate, England, CWL writes:

     Mrs. Howard of Chicago writes me that Mrs. Dennis “called her to her house and argued like a lawyer, taking up point after point to convince her that Mrs. Besant was unfit longer to remain Outer Head”! The points were – 1. Mrs. Besant had grown proud, arrogant and dictatorial. 2. Had shown her utter unfitness by defending her colleague. 3. Is not a pupil of the Masters (!!) 4. Had fallen and has steadily fallen for the past five years. 5. Is drunk with power. 6. Is in the hands of black magicians. 7. Is trying to lead us all into Catholicism. Now this represents most abdominal treachery, and shows to what depths these misguided people are descending. I don’t care what they say about me, but if they begin this kind of thing they will get into trouble. I never heard before of a school which proposed to elect its headmaster!

     The University of Chicago Library holds a Helen I. Dennis Collection, which includes her handwritten reminiscences of the 1906 events. In a note written in May 1940, what Helen Dennis writes corroborates her views expressed in CWL’s letter above mentioned:

     What a terrible mess she [Annie Besant] made of the T.S., providing slogan after slogan which ignorant fools repeated ad nauseam after her. As a crowning insult to the Society, she left to their votes the decision as to whether or not she was fit to be the President of the TS and what is worse, whether or not C W Leadbeater as a self-pronounced sex pervert who defended his theory was worthy of membership in the T.S., and infinitely worse to be put on the pedestal of a spiritual teacher and leader. She vacated her honour and duty of the defense of true Theosophy, and left it to the votes and ignorance of blind devotees, and left the Adyar T.S. forever tainted with upholding one of the worst forms of Black Occultism known – a purely Tantrika practice to develop psychic vision.

     However, the constitutional and democratic institution of a vote by the members world wide to elect the President of the Theosophical Society, conducted in May 1907 and presided over by A. P. Sinnett as Acting President, following the death of Col. Olcott in February 1907, the figures of which are shown below (from Josephine Ransom’s A Short History of the Theosophical Society), exposes the unreasonableness of Mrs Dennis’ view:

     On 28 June [1907], Mr. Sinnett advised Mrs. Besant that the returns showed an overwhelming vote in her favour. America 1319 for, 679 against; Britain 1181 for, 258 against; the rest of the world 7072 for, 152 against; total voting strength at the end of 1906, 12,984. The vote recorded in the United States was taken by the officials as a vote of censure upon themselves, and they resigned.

     It is said that the Cipher Letter is not among Helen Dennis’s Collection at the University Chicago Library, and that it may have been destroyed. One certainly wonders why such a central accusatory piece against CWL would not have been preserved. In a number of biographical references about C. W. Leadbeater, including Wikipedia, the Cipher Letter is still presented as having been written by him in spite of the clear evidence to the contrary.

     The many testimonies in his favour have been persistently ignored by his accusers, both contemporary and from early times, some of which were and are staunch students of Madame Blavatsky’s teachings. His name remains controversial but his influence on the contemporary world is both real and lasting, in many fields, including art (see the Influence page on this website).

     Yet it was Madame Blavatsky herself that ended up providing an enduring testimony about the man who left everything behind in England and travelled with her to India in 1884. She wrote in his personal copy of The Key to Theosophy which she presented to him in 1891, the year she died:

 To my old and well-beloved friend

Charles Leadbeater

from his fraternally

H. P. Blavatsky

London, 1891.

     As C. Jinarajadasa remarked in his article ‘What H. P. B. Thought of C. W. Leadbeater’ (The Theosophist, February 1927), ‘she did not call every Theosophist round her a “well-beloved friend”.’ Her dedication to him was not written in cipher, but in plain English, as an evidence for all to see.

A Mahatma’s Visit to a Medium

Compiled by Pedro Oliveira

Neither Madame Blavatsky nor her Teachers were normally favourable to Spiritualism and Mediumship. On the contrary, their writings point out the inherent dangers involved in the central spiritualistic practice of mediumship. For example, in writing about dreams, HPB said:

Q. Can there be any connection between a dreamer and an entity in “Kama Loka”?

A. The dreamer of an entity in Kama Loka would probably bring upon himself a nightmare, or would run the risk of becoming “possessed” by the “spook” so attracted, if he happened to be a medium, or one who had made himself so passive during his waking hours that even his higher Self is now unable to protect him. This is why the mediumistic state of passivity is so dangerous, and in time renders the Higher Self entirely helpless to aid or even warn the sleeping or entranced person. Passivity paralyzes the connection between the lower and higher principles. It is very rare to find instances of mediums who, while remaining passive at will, for the purpose of communicating with some higher intelligence, some ex-terraneous spirit (not disembodied), will yet preserve sufficiently their personal will so as not to break off all connection with the higher Self.

(H. P. Blavatsky Collected Writings, vol. 10, p. 262)

Writing about Stainton Moses, a well-known English medium at the time who wrote under the pseudonym of ‘M. A. Oxon’, one of the Mahatmas had this to say in his letter to A. P. Sinnett:

When helped to get free from his too material body, absent from it for hours and days sometimes, his empty machine run during that period from afar and by external, living influence, — as soon as back, he would begin labouring under the ineradicable impression of having been all that time the vehicle for another intelligence, a disembodied not embodied Spirit, truth never once flashing across his mind. “Imperator,” he wrote to her, “traverses your idea about mediumship. He says there should be no real antagonism between the medium and the adept.” Had he used the word “Seer” instead of “medium” the idea would have been rendered more correctly, for a man becomes rarely an adept without being born a natural Seer. Then again. In September, 1875, he knew nothing of the Brothers of the Shadow — our greatest, most cruel, and — why not confess — our most potential [powerful] Enemies. In that year he actually asked the old lady whether Bulwer [-Lytton] had been eating underdone pork chops and dreaming when he described “that hideous Dweller of the Threshold.” “Make yourself ready,” she answered — “in about twelve months more you will have to face and fight with them.” In October, 1876, they had begun their work upon him. “I am fighting” — he wrote — “a hand to hand battle with all the legions of the Fiend for the past three weeks. My nights are made hideous with their torments, temptations and foul suggestions. I see them all around, glaring at me, gabbling, howling, grinning! Every form of filthy suggestion, of bewildering doubt, of mad and shuddering fear is upon me... I can understand Zanoni’s Dweller now... I have not wavered yet... and their temptations are fainter, the presence less near, the horror less. . . .”

One night she had prostrated herself before her Superior, one of the few they fear, praying him to wave his hand across the ocean, lest S.M. should die, and the Theos. Soc. lose its best subject. “He must be tried” was the answer. He imagines that + Imper. had sent the tempters because he S.M. was one of those Thomases who must see; he would not believe that + could not help their coming. Watch over him he did — he could not drive them away unless the victim, the neophyte himself, proved the strongest. But did these human fiends in league with the Elementaries prepare him for a new life as he thought they would? Embodiments of those adverse influences which beset the inner Self struggling to be free and to progress, they would never have returned had he successfully conquered them by asserting his own independent WILL, by giving up his mediumship, his passive will. Yet they did.

           (The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, letter no. 18)

In spite of the above mentioned statements, there was one medium that did find extraordinary favour with both HPB and her Teachers. He was William Eglinton (1857-1933), a respected English medium who had lived in India between 1881 and 1882. Although he never met Col. Olcott and Madame Blavatsky while in India he eventually did meet them in London in 1884. Writing in The Theosophist (April 1882), HPB gives the reasons why the Founders decided not to contact Eglinton in India:

The enemies of Spiritualism and Theosophy can rejoice and triumph, and the Calcutta bigoted and dyspeptic fogies—old or young—are invited to render thanks to their respective gods. Mr. Eglinton is gone having left for England on the S.S. Vega on the 16th ult. And now, for some time to come at least, they are allowed a respite and can draw a long breath of relief. Newspaper accounts of levitations, of materialization and direct writing, of instantaneous transfer of articles and letters through distances of thousands of miles, and many other weird and inexplicable phenomena may trouble their dreams no longer. The nightmare of a new religious belief—with its genuine, palpable, demonstrated “miracles” to support its claims; a belief arresting the progress, if not entirely superseding the religions based upon blind faith and unverifiable traditions no better than fairy tales, has vanished and dissolved behind the great ocean mists, like one of Macbeth’s unclean witches. . . .

Well, time alone will show which of the two now prevailing superstitions is calculated to survive. Whether it is occult phenomena—based upon actual, though yet undiscovered, correlations of natural forces; or—belief in Divine and Satanic “miracles.” Methinks, faith in the “miracles” of an Infinite, personal NOBODY, and in those of his hereditary foe—the cloven-footed, horned, and caudated gentleman, the Lord of the hot regions—is more calculated to disgrace our age of agnosticism and blank denial, than belief in the spiritual agencies. Meanwhile, Mr. Eglinton is gone, and with him the best opportunity that was ever offered to India to investigate and vindicate the claims of her old world-renowned sages and philosophers—is also gone. Thus for some time at least, will the assertions of the Hindu Shastras, the Buddhist and Zoroastrian books of wisdom, to the effect that there exist occult powers in man as well as in nature— be still held as the unscientific vagaries of the ancient savages.

Since the appearance of the editorial, “A Medium Wanted” (The Theosophist, May, 1881), in which Mr. Eglinton was mentioned for the first time, and our readers shown that the wonderful phenomena produced through him were attested to over the signature of such witnesses as Mr. A. R. Wallace, Sir Garnet Wolseley, General Brewster, Mr. Robert S. Wyld, LL.D., Edin., M. Gustave von Vay, and a host of others—from that day to this one we never met him personally, nor even held a correspondence with him. We refused going to Calcutta to meet him, and felt obliged to deny ourselves and our numerous members the instructive pleasure of seeing him here, as was several times proposed. We have done so intentionally. Feeling that we had no right to subject him to insulting suspicions—such as we had ourselves to suffer from, and which once we were brought together would be sure to follow in our trail—we abstained from seeing him, and spoke even of his work but casually, once or twice in this journal and only for the purpose of giving publicity to some wonderful phenomena of his. Our cautious policy inspired by a natural feeling of delicacy—more for his sake than our own—was misunderstood and misinterpreted by our best friends, who attributed it to a spirit of opposition to everything connected with Spiritualism or its phenomena. No greater mistake was ever made, no more erroneous misconception ever set afloat. For now that Mr. Eglinton is gone, and with him every danger from malicious slanders has disappeared, we give our reasons publicly for such a “policy of noninterference,” on our part, and gladly publish a full recognition of the good that gentleman has achieved in India. If he has failed to convince the general public and the masses, it is because, knowing of him, they yet knew nothing of his wonderful gifts, having never had an opportunity of witnessing his phenomena. The séances given were limited to a small fraction of the Anglo-Indian Society, to educated ladies and gentlemen—worth convincing. And so much Mr. Eglinton has most undoubtedly achieved with great success. During the several months he passed in Calcutta, and notwithstanding the determined and ferocious opposition coming from ingrained sceptics as much as from religious Zealots, no one who came to his séances ever went away with a shadow of doubt but that what he had seen was pakkâ genuine phenomena, which to whatsoever agency it might be attributable was no sleight of hand or clever conjuring. The life of a medium—especially that of a genuine and honest medium, born with the instincts of a gentleman—is a hard and a bitter one. It is one of daily mental tortures, of deep-felt and everlasting anxiety, lest through the brutal interference and precipitation of the first dissatisfied sceptic, who imagines he detects fraud where there is but the manifestation of a weird genuine phenomenon, his hard-won reputation for honesty should be ruined in a few moments. This is an agony that few of the investigators, even among the Spiritualists are able to fully realize. There are so few genuine, honest mediums among the professionals of that class, that accustomed to the feigned agitation—as easily soothed as exhibited—and to the feigned indifference, manifested at the first symptoms of suspicion by the mediums of the tricky crew, the Spiritualists themselves become insensible to the degree of mental suffering inflicted upon the true sensitive who feels he is unjustly suspected. And such an insufferable state of mind, we suspect, must have fallen to the lot of Mr. Eglinton during his stay in India. Notwithstanding that he lived under the strong protection of devoted friends, we have reasons to believe that it was that, which made him hasten the day of his departure. At all events, it would have been in store for him had he remained much longer in Calcutta. While disgusting intrigues were set on foot by the public enemies of truth, who plotting secretly, as they always do, wrote unguarded letters to Bombay (which we have seen and read); in Calcutta, peremptory clamouring for séances more open to the public than was thought advisable, was becoming with every day louder, and all his watchful friends could do was to keep the curious mob at arm’s length. They have done well; for that mob—which in many cases may include so-called ladies and gentlemen—would have surely brought in with the tide Calcutta Lankesters, Dr. Beards, and other like benefactors of “deluded” humanity. Therefore, for Mr. Eglinton’s sake, we are glad he has left just at the right time. No greater misfortune could have befallen the Theosophical Society, and with it Spiritualism, in the present psychologically undeveloped state of mind of the Anglo-Indian Society, were its ignorant, but would-be all-wise areopagus to take it into its clever head that a medium was exposed, when de facto he would be perhaps only suspected, and very unjustly too. Sad experience has taught us in the past that it is not sufficient that a medium should be all that is honest and fair, but that he had yet to so appear. The supposed cheating of Dr. Slade owing to the undoubted one of Mr. Lankester and Co. has now crystalized itself in India into an axiomatic truth. The fact that the great American medium, has never yet been proved guilty on any incontrovertible testimony, disappears from the memory of the scoffer, the fool and the sceptic, to leave instead but the one vivid recollection—that of his unjust trial and disgraceful sentence in London.

Alive to the above, we would never advise a professional medium, unless he is a coarse-fibered charlatan, to bring to India his “angel-guides.” No gentleman ought to ever run such a risk. Yet we must say that in the case in hand the loss is decidedly India’s, and not Mr. Eglinton’s. Some hope to see him back in June, but we doubt whether it will be so. Many will be those who will regret his departure, and the opportunities lost unless he returns. But it is too late in the day for useless regrets. If his friends are really worthy of that name, and if they are anxious to show themselves above mere phenomena-hunters, who regard the medium in no better light than an instrument they have hired at so much per hour, let them now use their influence to get Mr. Eglinton into a position which would place him above every risk and peril of professional mediumship. Among his proselytes we have heard of many an Honourable, and of more than one official in high and influential position, for whom it would be an easy task to undertake. — It now remains to be seen whether any one of them will lift up a finger for the sake of SCIENCE, TRUTH and FACT.

(BCW vol. 4, pp. 83-87)

Below are several passages from The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett regarding Eglinton and the Mahatmas’ perception of him. They make for quite interesting reading:

And now, to your laugh in September last as to the imaginary dangers to him who produces phenomena, dangers growing in size in proportion to the magnitude of the phenomena so produced, and the impossibility to refute them. Remember the proposed test of the Times to be brought here. My good friend, if the trifling phenomena (for they are trifling in comparison with what could and might be done) shown by Eglinton provoked such bitter hatred, evoking before him scenes of imprisonment owing to false witnesses, what would not be the fate of the poor “Old Lady”! You are yet barbarians with all your boasted civilization.

And now to Morya. (This strictly between us and you must not breathe it even to Mrs. Gordon). Eglinton was preparing to depart leaving on poor Mrs. G.’s mind the fear that she had been deceived; that there were no “Brothers” since Eglinton had denied their existence and that the “Spirits” were silent as to that problem. Last week then M., stalking in, into the motley crowd took the spooks by the skin of their throats and, — the result was the unexpected admission of the Brothers, the actual existence and the honour claimed of a personal acquaintance with the “Illustrious.” The lesson for you and others, derived from the above, may be useful in future — events having to grow and to develop.

(ML no. 54)

I will try my best to make of him a vegetarian and a teetotaller. Total abstinence from flesh and liquor are very wisely prescribed by Mr. Hume, if he would have good results. In good hands E. [Eglinton] will do an immense good to the T.S. in India, but for this he has [to go] through a training of purification. M. had to prepare him for six weeks before his departure; otherwise it would have been impossible for me to project into his atmosphere even the reflection of my “double.” I told you already, my kind friend, that what he saw was not me. Nor will I be able to project that reflection for you — unless he is thoroughly purified. Therefore, as the matter now stands I have not a word to say against Mr. Hume’s conditions as expressed in his last “official” letter, except in congratulating him with all my heart. For the same reason it is impossible for me to answer him and his questions just now. Let him have patience, pray, in the E. matter. There are dirty conspiracies set on foot, germinating in London, among the spiritualists; and I am not at all sure that E. will resist the tide that threatens to submerge him unless they obtain from him at least a partial recantation. We departed from our policy and the experiment was made with him on the “Vega” solely for the benefit of some Anglo-Indian theosophists. Mr. Hume had expressed his surprise that even E.’s “spirits” should know nothing of us, and that despite the interests of the cause we did not show ourselves even to him. On the other hand, the Calcutta spiritualists and Mrs. Gordon with them were triumphant, and Colonel G. followed suit. The “dear departed ones” were for the short period of his stay at Calcutta in odour of sanctity, and the “Brothers” rather low in public estimation. Many of you thought that our appearing to E. would “save the situation” and force Spiritualism to recognise the claims of Theosophy. Well, we complied with your wishes. M. and I were determined to show to you that there was no ground for such hopes. The Bigotry and Blindness of the Spiritualists fed by the selfish motives of professional mediums are rampant and the opponents are now desperate. We must allow the natural course of events to develop, and can only help on the coming crisis by having a hand in the increasing frequency of exposures. It would never do for us to force events, as it would be only making “martyrs” and allowing these the pretext for a new craze.

(ML no. 63)

Good friend, I will not, in sending forth the letter, reiterate again the many remarks that might be made respecting the various objections which we have the right to raise against Spiritual phenomena and its mediums. We have done our duty; and, because the voice of truth came thro’ a channel which few liked, it was pronounced as false, and along with it — Occultism. The time has gone by to argue, and the hour when it will be proved to the world that Occult Science instead of being, in the words of Dr. R. Chambers — “superstition itself,” as they may be disposed to think it, will be found the explanation and the extinguisher of all superstitions — is nearby. For reasons that you will appreciate, though at first you will be inclined to consider (in regard to yourself) unjust, I am determined to do that, for once, which hitherto I have never done; namely, to personate myself under another form, and, perhaps — character. Therefore, you need not grudge Eglinton the pleasure of seeing me personally, to talk with me, and — be “dumbfounded” by me, and with the results of my visit to him, on board “The Vega.” This will be done between the 21st and the 22nd of this month and, when you read this letter, will be a “vision of the past,” — if Olcott sends to you the letter to-day.

                                                                                                                   (ML no. 55)

Virginia Hanson, the American Theosophist who was a lifelong student of The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, had this to say in her notes on the above mentioned letter which were included in the chronological edition of the book, originally published by The Theosophical Publishing House in Manila, The Philippines, in 1993:

In a letter written to Sinnett by Eglinton from England dated April 28, 1882, Eglinton says: “I am certain if I were in any other position than that of a medium gaining his living by his gifts, the Bros. would be enabled to manifest with great clearness and certainty.” The Mahatma K.H. inserted a note in this letter, in transit, saying: “This — to prove that living men can appear — thro’ such excellent mediums — in London, even tho’ themselves at Tsi-gadze, Tibet.”

In view of the above, it is not surprising that when C. W. Leadbeater decided to write a letter to one of the Mahatmas, offering himself as a pupil to him, he asked William Eglinton for help. This is what CWL wrote in his short autobiographical book How Theosophy Came to Me:

                                         Mr. Eglinton

In the course of my inquiries into spiritualism I had come into contact with most of the prominent mediums of that day, and had (as I have said before) seen every ordinary phenomena about which one reads in books upon that subject. One medium with whom I had much to do was Mr. Eglinton; and although I have heard stories told against him, I must bear witness that in all my own dealings with him I found him most straightforward, reasonable and courteous. He had various so-called controls—one a Red Indian girl who called herself Daisy, and chattered volubly on all occasions, appropriate or inappropriate. Another was a tall Arab, named Abdullah, considerably over six feet, who never said anything, but produced remarkable phenomena, and often exhibited feats showing great strength. I have seen him simultaneously lift two heavy men, one in each hand.

A third control who frequently put in an appearance was Ernest; he comparatively rarely materialized, but frequently spoke with direct voice, and wrote a characteristic and well-educated hand. One day in conversation with him something was said in reference to the Masters of the Wisdom; Ernest spoke of Them with the most profound reverence, and said that he had on various occasions had the privilege of seeing Them. I at once enquired whether he was prepared to take charge of any message or letter for Them, and he said that he would willingly do so, and would deliver it when opportunity offered, but he could not say exactly when that would be.

I may mention here that in connection with this I had later a good example of the unreliability of all such communications. Some considerable time afterwards some spiritualist wrote to Light explaining that there could not possibly be such persons as the Masters, because Ernest had positively told him that there were not. I wrote to the same newspaper to say that I had it on precisely the same valueless authority that there were Masters, and that Ernest knew Them well. In each case Ernest had evidently reflected the thought of the questioner, as such entities so often do.

To return to my story, I at once provisionally accepted Ernest’s offer. I said that I would write a letter to one of these Great Masters, and would confide it to him if my friend and teacher, Mr. Sinnett, approved. At the mention of this name the “spirits” were much perturbed; Daisy especially was very angry, and declared that she would have nothing to do with Mr. Sinnett under any circumstances; “Why, he calls us spooks!” she said, with great indignation. However, I blandly stuck to my point that all I knew of Theosophy had come to me through Mr. Sinnett, and that I therefore did not feel justified in going behind his back in any way, or trying to find some other means of communication without first consulting him.

Finally, though with a very bad grace, the spirits consented to this, and the séance presently terminated. When Mr. Eglinton came out of his trance, I asked him how I could send a letter to Ernest, and he said at once that if I would let him have the letter he would put it in a certain box which hung against the wall, from which Ernest would take it when he wished. I then posted off to Mr. Sinnett, and asked his opinion of all this. He was at once eagerly interested, and advised me promptly to accept the offer and see what happened.

       A Letter to the Master

Thereupon I went home and wrote three letters. The first was to the Master K. H., telling Him with all reverence that ever since I had first heard of Theosophy my one desire had been to place myself under Him as a pupil. I told Him of my circumstances at the time, and asked whether it was necessary that the seven years of probation of which I had heard should be passed in India. I put this letter in a small envelope and sealed it carefully with my own seal. Then I enclosed it in a letter to Ernest in which I reminded him of his promise, and asked him to deliver this letter for me, and to bring back an answer if there should be one. That second letter I sealed in the same manner as the first, and then I enclosed that in turn with a short note to Eglinton, asking him to put it in his box, and let me know whether any notice was taken of it. I had asked a friend who was staying with me to examine the seals of both the letters with a microscope, so that if we should see them again we might know whether anyone had been tampering with them. By return of post I received a note from Mr. Eglinton, saying that he had duly put the note for Ernest into his box, and that it had already vanished, and further that if any reply should come to him he would at once forward it.

A few days later I received a letter directed in a hand which was unknown to me, and on opening it I discovered my own letter to Ernest apparently unopened, the name “Ernest” on the envelope being crossed out, and my own written underneath it in pencil. My friend and I once more examined the seal with a microscope, and were unable to detect any indication whatever that any one had tampered with the letter, and we both agreed that it was quite impossible that it could have been opened; yet on cutting it open I discovered that the letter which I had written to the Master had disappeared. All that I found inside was my own letter to Ernest, with a few words in the well-known handwriting of the latter written on its blank page, to the effect that my letter had been duly handed to the Great Master, and that if in the future I should ever be thought worthy to receive an answer Ernest would gladly bring it to me.

I waited for some months, but no reply came, and whenever I went to Eglinton’s séances and happened to encounter Ernest, I always asked him when I might expect my answer. He invariably said that my letter had been duly delivered, but that nothing had yet been said about an answer, and that he could do no more. Six months later I did receive a reply, but not through Ernest, and in it the Master said that though He had not received the letter (nor, as He remarked, was it likely that He should, considering the nature of the messenger) He was aware of what I had written and He now proceeded to answer it.

Mahatma K.H.’s reply to CWL’s letter can be seen at Letters from Master

Facsimile of the envelope of the first letter from the Master to CWL.

Source: The “K.H.” Letters to C. W. Leadbeater, with a commentary by C. Jinarajadasa

Violence: the Hidden Side

  Violence appears to have been a perennial companion of humanity for many centuries. It tears up relationships, families, communities and nations. It destroys, mauls, hurts and fragments the fabric of life, wiping out thousands of species of animals, bringing desolation to the Earth and its delicate systems.

  It is not enough to explain violence or to institute laws that seek to combat its consequences, its unspeakable aftermath. It needs to be fully understood, without bias, without ideological preferences, as it really is. Below is a brief but detailed description of the fields created by anger and its unfoldment in the human mind. Also included is an article that seeks to understand violence from insights derived from sources in the Indian traditions.

 Anger

(Extracts from Thought-Forms (1901) by Annie Besant and C. W. Leadbeater)

Murderous Rage and Sustained Anger

In Figs. 22 and 23 [below] we have two terrible examples of the awful effect of anger. The lurid flash from dark clouds (Fig. 22) was taken from the aura of a rough and partially intoxicated man in the East End of London, as he struck down a woman; the flash darted out at her the moment before he raised his hand to strike, and caused a shuddering feeling of horror, as though it might slay. The keen-pointed stiletto-like dart (Fig. 23) was a thought of steady anger, intense and desiring vengeance, of the quality of murder, sustained through years, and directed against a person who had inflicted a deep injury on the one who sent it forth; had the latter been possessed of a strong and trained will, such a thought-form would slay, and the one nourishing it is running a very serious danger of becoming a murderer in act as well as in thought in a future incarnation. It will be noted that both of them take the flash-like form, though the upper is irregular in its shape, while the lower represents a steadiness of intention which is far more dangerous. The basis of utter selfishness out of which the upper one springs is very characteristic and instructive. The difference in colour between the two is also worthy of note. In the upper one the dirty brown of selfishness is so strongly evident that it stains even the outrush of anger; while in the second case, though no doubt selfishness was at the root of that also, the original thought has been forgotten in the sustained and concentrated wrath. One who studies Plate XIII in Man Visible and Invisible will be able to image to himself the condition of the astral body from which these forms are protruding; and surely the mere sight of these pictures, even without examination, should prove a powerful object-lesson in the evil of yielding to the passion of anger.

Intense anger (From Man Visible and Invisibe)

Explosive Anger

In Fig. 24 we see an exhibition of anger of a totally different character. Here is no sustained hatred, but simply a vigorous explosion of irritation. It is at once evident that while the creators of the forms shown in Figs. 22 and 23 were each directing their ire against an individual, the person who is responsible for the explosion in Fig. 24 is for the moment at war with the whole world round him. It may well express the sentiment of some choleric old gentleman, who feels himself insulted or impertinently treated, for the dash of orange intermingled with the scarlet implies that his pride has been seriously hurt. It is instructive to compare the radiations of this plate with those of Fig. 11. Here we see indicated a veritable explosion, instantaneous in its passing and irregular in its effects; and the vacant centre shows us that the feeling that caused it is already a thing of the past, and that no further force is being generated. In Fig. 11, on the other hand, the centre is the strongest part of the thought-form, showing that this is not the result of a momentary flash of feeling, but that there is a steady continuous upwelling of the energy, while the rays show by their quality and length and the evenness of their distribution the steadily sustained effort which produces them.

Understanding Violence

Pedro Oliveira

(Originally published in The Theosophist, April 2005)

When one of the producers of Mel Gibson’s film, The Passion of the Christ, was asked why was there so much violence depicted in the film, his answer was: “Because violence is the language of our time.” His statement may be controversial and provocative but it is also painfully true. Whoever today watches prime time television news programmes cannot but be overwhelmed by the amount of gore, cruelty and unceasing suffering generated by violence in its many forms. It is also true that modern media exploits the present climate of violence to its own advantage, but the media has not invented the human darkness that descended, for example, upon Srebrenica, Darfur and Iraq.

In a recent report, Amnesty International denounces that mass rape of women is being used as a weapon of war. Those who survived the Japanese invasion of Singapore during World War II can testify to that. The same pattern unfolds in the region of Darfur, Sudan, as this is written. On the other hand, millions of people have been displaced, forcefully removed from their homes and villages by armed conflicts in different areas of the world. There is growing urban violence in many cities in the world and also the not so visible domestic violence, the scale of which has compelled many governments to create hostels for women and children who bear the scars of brutality perpetrated by their “loved ones”. The real dimension of the problem of violence is difficult to measure but its urgency has a voice which cannot be suppressed any longer.

Is it possible to understand violence? What are its origins? How does it maintain its grip over the human mind? Can it end?

Law enforcement agencies deal with the consequences of violence and act within the framework of existing laws. Necessary though this is, it leaves the causes of the problem untouched. It has been said, again and again, that one of the causes of violence is poverty and social alienation; but the fact that millions of poor people all over the world are law abiding individuals seems to indicate that the cause of violence lies deeper than any attempt at explaining it through social topography. The first step to understand violence is perhaps to enquire into the nature of emotion.(...)

Emotions are desires either to perpetuate a situation if pleasurable, or to escape out of it if painful. (1)

The Emotion thus begin in, and looks back to, a feeling of positive Pleasure and Pain, and looks forward to, and ends in, a possible Pleasure and Pain. (2)

Emotion is thus a reaction dictated by what is felt to be pleasurable or otherwise in our contacts with the world around us. Because emotions are also associated with deeply-rooted desires and their accompanying energy, they play such a vital role in the way we see the world and tend to perpetuate a reactive attitude which prevents a clear understanding of people, circumstances and situations. A mind dominated by reactions cannot see things as they are.

In-built in the nature of emotions is a feeling of expectation, of anticipation, which seeks pleasure and avoids pain. It is not difficult to see how this mechanism invites frustration and disappointment as it leads the personal self into believing that the whole of existence is organized to suit its illusory programme. As the Bhagavadgita teaches, the contacts of matter – pleasure and pain, happiness and sorrow, honour and dishonour – are inevitable and have to be endured bravely. Perhaps one of the very purposes for such a polarity is that consciousness can learn that, in its essential nature, it is utterly free from identification with anything external to itself.

Emotions are Desires, and (...) the two elementary Desires are: (i) the Desire to unite with an object that causes Pleasure; and (ii) the Desire to separate from an object which causes Pain; in other words, Attraction and Repulsion, Like and Dislike, Love and Hate, or any other pair of names that may seem best. (3)

The above definition throws light on the pair of opposites which are at the very nature of our emotional life, and shows that Attraction and Repulsion are indeed two sides of the same coin. Because they have the same origin they display an almost chameleonic behaviour, for example, when a strong attraction turns almost instantly into a vengeful repulsion. Many of the so-called crimes of passion convey this almost bizarre transformation of “love” into hate and are evidence that the inherent duality present in human emotions is not only volatile – it can be also lethal.

Bhagavan Das goes on to attempt defining the most basic and fundamental human emotions: love and hate.

(...) Love, the desire to unite with something else, implies the consciousness of the possibility of such union, and (...) its full significance is this: an instinctive, ingrained, inherent perception by each individual self, each Jivatma, of its essential underlying unity, oneness (...) with all other Jivatma-s, all other selves. (4)

Hate is the instinctive perception by each self (...) of the non-identity, the inherent separateness, the manyness (...) of each not-self, each atom of Mulaprakrti, from every other atom, every other not-self, and its endeavour to maintain such separate existence at all costs and by all means. (5)

A number of emotions emanate from the abiding feeling of love: trust, sympathy, courage, compassion, forgiveness, helpfulness, sacrifice.  They may be natural expressions of this perception alluded to above that there is an essential underlying unity at the heart of existence that makes us all profoundly one with each another and with every other form of life. This may be the reason why the ancients affirmed that “love conquers all”, for love is anchored in the mighty truth that all life is one and truly endures all things.

On the other hand, hate is based on and rooted in this notion, this perception, of the personal self of an inherent separateness between itself and the rest of existence plus an endeavour to maintain such separateness “at all costs and by all means.” In other words, within the personal self lurks a deep-seated resistance, conscious or unconscious, to the truth of unity as the ground of all being. This resistance or reaction may be one of the wellsprings of violence in the human consciousness as it is an affirmation of division, separateness as well as a denial of the universal principle that life is relationship.

The Sanskrit word dvésha means hatred, dislike, repugnance, enmity to. It is derived from dvish, “to hate, show hatred against, be hostile or unfriendly”. A relevant word in this context is dvi, meaning “two”. The origin of feelings of hostility, aggression and violence lies in the dualistic perception that our individual existence is forever separate from the totality of life. The psychological and environmental consequences of this can be widely seen in our contemporary world in which cruelty, war and widespread devastation of Nature have come to be accepted as almost inevitable. Dr Taimni comments on the nature of dvesha or repulsion: 

Dvesha is the natural repulsion felt towards any person or object which is a source of pain or unhappiness to us. The essential nature of the Self is blissful and therefore anything which brings pain or unhappiness in the outer world makes the outer vehicles recoil from that thing. (6)

We are tied to the person we hate perhaps more firmly than the person we love, because the personal love can be transformed into impersonal love easily and then loses its binding power. But it is not so easy to transmute the force of hatred and the poison generated by it is removed from one’s nature with great difficulty. (7)

Enmity and animosity can indeed last for a long time, in some cases for centuries as many ethnic wars have shown for, as declared by a Mahatma, “Love and Hatred are the only immortal feelings, the only survivors from the wreck of Ye-dhamma, or the phenomenal world.” (Mahatma Letters, 70c, chronological). Once harboured in the mind and nourished by continuous thoughts and images, enmity and animosity become even stronger as they make the sense of a personal self more solid, with its divisiveness, its isolation from the glory of life, and its stubborn insistence in asserting its own self-interest against and above the common good. Unless we can begin to look at these patterns within ourselves earnestly and constantly, violence and its dark progeny of pain, suffering and destruction are bound to continue to make of the earth a veritable valley of shadows and death.

Why do emotions have such a grip over our minds? Annie Besant comments:  “Emotion is not a simple or primary state of consciousness, but it is a compound made up by the interaction of two aspects of the Self – Desire and Intellect. The play of Intellect on Desire gives birth to Emotion; it is the child of both, and shows some of the characteristics of its father, Intellect, as well as of its mother, Desire.” (8)

The complexity of emotions lies in the interplay between desire and intellect. When the energy of desire vivifies and enhances the many images which are moving within the mind we have the birth of emotions. The simple but clear definition given by Bhagavan Das is eloquent in its conciseness: “Emotion is only a form of motion; motion towards an object, or away from it, in the mind, is Emotion.” It is thought galvanized by desire and it retains its intrinsic nature of attraction or repulsion. Any attempt to suppress emotions necessarily lead to tension and fragmentation. But a mind that is nothing more than a playground to ceaseless emotions and desires can never find real peace and contentment in life. What is the path to equanimity?

He abused me, he injured me, he overcame me, he deprived me: for them who entertain such thoughts, enmity does not abate.

He abused me, he injured me, he overcame me, he deprived me: for them who do not entertain such thoughts, enmity abates completely.

Enmities do not abate here at any time through enmity; and they abate through friendliness. This is the eternal Dharma (Law).” (Dhammapada, I:3-5)

Note the emphasis on the expression “entertain such thoughts”. Is this a clue to ending violence in the human mind? As long as there is lack of self-awareness, an honest examination of oneself from day to day, mental patterns are not going to change miraculously. As it was wisely said, “an unexamined life is not worth living.” But self-observation is just one aspect of the solution; the other is cultivating a positive attitude of loving-kindness, friendliness, helpfulness, service. In other words, an attitude of giving of oneself unreservedly to every contact, every relationship and every circumstance. One can thus become a self-effacing centre through which beneficent influences radiate into the world. This way of life is possible for every self-responsible human being and it would naturally lead to the diminishing of the patterns of aggressiveness and violence that seem so predominant today. Every individual that steps out of the stream of mechanical living, which is the personal self, the “me”, helps to enlighten the consciousness of humanity for:

The “me” is the root of all this; the “me” is identified with a particular nation, with a particular community, with a particular ideology or religious fancy. The “me” identifies itself with a certain prejudice, the “me” says “I must fulfil”; and when it feels frustrated, there is anger and bitterness. It is the “me” that says, “I must reach my goal, I must be successful”, that wants and doesn’t want, that says “I must live peacefully”, and it is the “me” that gets violent.

     (J. Krishnamurti, The Awakening of Intelligence, p.468.)

References:

Das, Bhagavan, The Science of the Emotions, The Theosophical Publishing Society, London and Benares, 1908, p. 26.

op. cit., p. 26.

op. cit., p. 28.

op. cit., p. 29.

op. cit., p. 29-30.

Taimni, I. K., The Science of Yoga, The Theosophical Publishing House, Wheaton, 1972, p. 148.

op. cit., p. 149.

Besant, Annie, A Study in Consciousness, The Theosophical Publishing House, Madras, 1999, p. 253.

                                                               ‘There is No Religion Higher than Truth’

Views on E. L. Gardner’s criticism of C. W. Leadbeater

Compiled by Pedro Oliveira

In November 1963 E. L. Gardner, a former General Secretary of the English Section of the Theosophical Society and respected student of Madame Blavatsky’s writings, published a booklet entitled There is No Religion Higher than Truth: Developments in the Theosophical Society. In it Gardner presents a strong criticism of CWL’s perception of the Masters which is encapsulated in the following statement:

With the advantage of forty years perspective, plus the letters to Annie Besant and the events of 1920-30, it is now clear (as some have long known or suspected) that the Lord Maitreya and the Masters with whom Leadbeater was on such familiar terms were his own thought-creations.

Yet Gardner, unlike most of CWL’s critics, did not doubt his sincerity and honesty. He wrote:

Yet I feel certain that there was no intention to deceive. Bishop Leadbeater’s honesty and sincerity were undoubted. His clairvoyance was unquestioned. It was by that faculty that he discovered the boy Krishnamurti, who has at any rate turned out to be a great leader of thought, widely acknowledged all over the world. This discovery in itself was no small feat, and it was not an isolated case. And Leadbeater’s frequent references to the Masters were, from his own point of view, utterly sincere and true. Nor was it a case of a split mind. The projection was a vivid example of the phenomenon of ‘unconscious kriyāśakti’.

Gardner refers the readers to his own article on this phenomenon, ‘Kriyāśakti, Conscious and Unconscious’, published in The Theosophist (July, 1963). He adds:

The Sanskrit word Kriyāśakti is defined as the Power of Creative Thought. It is a well-known term in Occultism, and its meaning has been abundantly demonstrated during the past few decades in research work on the mysteries of the human mind. The description of the mind by Patañjali, given long ago, is still much to the point:

The mind may be compared to a lens in the form of a sphere, so constructed as to be capable of giving a three-dimensional image inside itself of every external object. (Book 1, 41 – Stephen’s translation)

After briefly examining the phenomena associated with mental automatism and visualization, he refers to the complexities to be found in the relationship between a Master and a chela (disciple). He says:

The automatism of the elemental essence of thought-forms is used, it is said, in the occult relationship of Master and chela. A mental image of the chela is made by the Master, with a ‘radio’ link between image and chela. This image is isolated in the Master’s ‘cave’ and records the chela’s progress. The reverse process, though less efficient, is also possible. By intense contemplation a devotee can imprint the picture of a Master in his mental aura. Any link that a Master might make with the Chela’s pictured thought-form depends, however, on the clarity and purity of the created form. Conscious Kriyāśakti builds the form, but unconscious Kriyāśakti may endow it with the emotional vibrations of the chela. Therein lies the extreme hazard of the venture.

Later on, Gardner defines what he meant by hazard:

A clear and finely built thought-form of a Master may, occasionally, be the skilled product of conscious Kriyāśakti by a devotee. If its rock crystal purity be undisturbed, the form may presumably provide a medium for communication. But if its elemental life is affected by the skandhá of its creator — though quite unconsciously conveyed — then absorption and enhancement by the elemental will merely mean the birth of an attractive royal edition by its creator. Thus one’s own thought-creation of a Master may provoke the dangerous illusion of being the Master himself. And mental clairvoyance assists its realistic objectivity. The results of such a mistaken identity could well be disastrous.

Based on his theory, E. L. Gardner comes to several conclusions: the ‘Coming’ of the World Teacher through Krishnamurti did not happen; the ceremonies of the Liberal Catholic Church were not approved by the Masters, and the Theosophical Society lived twenty-one fateful years between 1909, the year of the discovery of Krishnamurti by CWL, and 1930, when, according to Gardner, Annie Besant woke up to the ‘truth’ regarding the happenings during that period, termed by him ‘the disastrous error’. 

In support of his view, Gardner quotes from the ‘On the Watch-Tower Notes’ by N. Sri Ram in The Theosophist (July, 1963), written before Gardner’s booklet was published, and which comment on his article published in the same issue of that magazine. It is to be noted, however, that nowhere in his previously referred article Gardner mentions CWL. Sri Ram wrote that Gardner’s article:

… throws a clear light on a phenomenon which occurs among people of all religions, namely, that of an image formed subjectively, partly out of material from the creator’s thought-environment, and partly out of ideas generated by his own personal emotions and desires, assuming an objectivity, a full-scale reality, that is completely convincing to him. Many a vision takes place in this manner and is afterwards proclaimed to others and becomes the basis of a legend. The image is really a projection from the person’s own mental make-up, to use a modern psychological term, but it gains a strength and a vitality from his sub-conscious reactions, which give it the character of an independent entity. The process involved in this phenomenon is well illustrated by what is said about ‘elementals’ in early Theosophical literature, artificial entities which are either created for a specific purpose and maintained by deliberate design and volition, or, coming into existence more naturally through repetitive or collective thought, get strengthened through interchange with the psychic condition of their unconscious progenitors and thus prolong their life for as long a period as the impulse might last.

Mr Gardner points out that while an image of some loved and reverenced person, or Teacher, if it be of rock-crystal purity, as he calls it, can be a medium for communication with him, any unconscious desire vibrations — also any established tendencies of thought – will affect the image – and it may then become a ‘talking image’ reflecting the subconscious mind of its creator. H.P.B refers in her writings to the ‘enormous mysteries’ of the human mind and of the deceptive nature of the psychic realms to which it is related.

After the pamphlet was published, in November 1963, there were naturally many reactions, both in favour of it and criticizing it. In a letter to N. Sri Ram, dated 7 December 1963, Hugh Shearman, a well-known author and a leading member of the TS in Northern Ireland, mentions that ‘If he [Gardner] had a case, he has made it badly and has tried to support it with an inaccurate rendering of past T.S. history. He has not, I think, ever understood the Liberal Catholic Church. My own experience inside it has satisfied me that the directives which C.W.L. understood himself to have received with respect to it had a fundamental authenticity.’ On the other hand, V. Wallace Slater, General Secretary of the English Section of the TS at that time, wrote to Sri Ram saying that ‘I have received very favourable comments from a number of leading members in this country, including Corona Trew, Sir Hugh Sykes, Clara Codd and others.’

In his reply to Shearman, dated 10 December 1963, Sri Ram expressed his views about Gardner’s pamphlet: ‘Doris Groves has since shown me your letters to her on the subject of Mr. Gardner’s pamphlet. I do not go along with the statements in it or even accept its main thesis concerning the question of the Coming. But as the impression obtains that I do, and in any case, considering the nature of those statements, I feel impelled to express openly, that it, in The Theosophist, my own thoughts on the matters dealt with in the pamphlet. I am enclosing a proof-copy of what I am saying, which will appear in the January 1964 issue of The Theosophist. I hope it will help many members who read the pamphlet to see things in a better perspective, and not let themselves be thrown off their balance by questions that have been raised.’ Sri Ram then adds: ‘When I had my talk at Camberley with E.L.G., I could not (I am saying this confidentially to you) engage in a free conversation because I had to speak very loudly to make myself heard. As I have indicated in my article [published in February 1964 in The Theosophist], I read E.L.G.’s manuscript rather hurriedly, and though I had misgivings, I felt he had a right to express his views, and it would be for the members to form their own views on the subject.’ In the same letter Sri Ram says he was sending a copy of what he had written to Gardner himself, Leslie Leslie-Smith and V. Wallace Slater, the last two being those who helped Gardner to publish his booklet.

After receiving a copy of Sri Ram’s views on the matter of the pamphlet, Slater and Gardner sent him the following cable: ‘Suggest you postpone your comments on Gardner pamphlet until February.’ Slater wrote to Sri Ram on 19 December 1963: ‘If I may be perfectly frank, as I know you would wish me to be, I feel you have been rather rushed into withdrawing your approval of the pamphlet. It appeared from your letter to Mr. Gardner that Doris Groves (influenced by Rukmini) and Hugh Shearman, were the two leading members who persuaded you to change your mind. I can add that Helen Zahara has also expressed to me strong objections to the pamphlet.’ He then added: ‘I think that it is up to those of us who agreed that the pamphlet should be published to make clear what Mr. Gardner had in mind, even if in some places his wording may lead to misunderstanding.’

Sri Ram’s reply to Slater’s letter was written from Varanasi, India, on 3 January 1964:

I duly received your letter of December 19. I wrote to you immediately acknowledging the cable sent by you and E.L.G. and agreeing to postpone my comments till February.

Actually I was not “rushed into withdrawing your approval of the pamphlet” by Rukmini or Doris Groves, although they both discussed it with me, feeling quite upset. The discussions and some letters from abroad made me feel that I should express my own views. I am of the opinion – unlike some others – that E.L.G. had a right to express his views which he had obviously thought over carefully. But while I agreed with him on a number of points I also had the ideas which I have expressed in my comments but unfortunately not prominently in the foreground of my mind when I talked with E.L.G.

I believe in what I have stated in those comments as to viewing all such matters free from any authority. If you remove the basis of authority what E.L.G. says is an expression of ideas to be carefully considered, not the declaration of a position to be accepted by all in the place of a position previously held. The same would apply to whatever I say.

You will note that I say in my comments that I share E.L.G.’s scepticism as regards certain things. By following up that statement with a reference to the discrepancy on God, religion, etc, I have indicated that there is reason for scepticism. The feeling of scepticism, which is essentially negative, has to be separated from any positive explanation of how the statements in question came to be made (Kriyāśakti, A.B. put aside her clairvoyance, etc.). E.L.G. has given a positive explanation, and that is all right on his part; but my attitude as regards explanations is one of openness and essentially exploratory, combined with the feeling that it may not be necessary to settle these issues connected with the past, which most of us have put aside completely and about which we do not have certain knowledge.

In his letter to Sri Ram, dated 20 December 1963, Hugh Shearman expresses his views about “occult” experiences:

A point that I try to make in discussions in members’ meetings in the T.S. is that all expressions of experience of “the occult” ought to have a certain discrepant character, since they represent different personal convergences upon something that is beyond the level of the argumentative mind. Temperamentally I find no difficulty in being at one and the same time a Liberal Catholic priest and what one might call an extreme anti-clericalist. One does not have to live only on one side of a fence. I believe that to C.W.L., also, there was no conflict between his own kind of ecclesiasticism and the attitude conveyed in the K.H. letter which is so often quoted [letter 10 of The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, third edition; letter 88 in the chronological sequence edition].

Over a year ago I had a most interesting conversation on a long train journey with a clergyman whom I discovered to be the Dean of Christ Church, Dublin. I found among other things that he had sympathetically read C.W.L. But the most memorable point in our conversation was that we found that we were in perfect agreement as to the complete compatibility of the two apparent extremes of the religion of Inner Light which utterly rejects form and institution and the religion of Sacrament which is uncompromisingly ecclesiastical.

For me this kind of insight is a true key to “the occult”, and I have some sense of disappointment when people who can say quite wise things yet seem compulsively bound to one of a pair of opposites. The real “occult” seems to be a level of understanding in which these opposites do not even have to be resolved, and the measure of success of the T.S. seems to lie in the number of people it can lead towards this experience with respect to their own place and circumstances in life.

E. L. Gardner wrote to Sri Ram on 6 January 1964:

My dear Sri Ram,

Many thanks indeed for your kind response to our suggestion and request to postpone your comments. My reason for the request is simply to avoid the opening up of all manner of questions if it be submitted that Krishnaji is the answer to Mrs Besant’s proclamation of the Coming of the World Teacher.

I have set down as briefly as possible the objections to this view – quite apart from Krishna’s own repudiations. They are ample in themselves. But I would also add that the first letter of C.W.L.’s to A.B. in 1916, introduces the ‘Lord Maitreya’ so abruptly and easily as to imply a long familiar topic between them. Looking back at all the happenings I feel certain that the source and only source of the COMING was C.W.L.’s ‘Lord Maitreya’.

In the writing of the Pamphlet I was intent on keeping all within close limits. No one is blamed, due respect and credit is given for honesty of purpose of all concerned. A mistake is explained without any reflection on character.

In Nethercot’s new book and in the many reviews – Bishop Leadbeater is described as ‘deliberately deceiving Mrs Besant’, as a ‘fraudulent charlatan’ and much else! Some of this is repeated last week in obituaries of Lady Emily Lutyens – who died a few days ago. What possible defence is there for C.W.L. other than the Pamphlet?

Of the large number of letters that have come in to Wallace [Slater] and myself, all – with three exceptions – are favourable. Most of them very warmly expressed.

Wallace found last week a Canadian Theosophist article by [Victor] Endersby (1960 I think) stating that Alice Bailey’s ‘Tibetan’ and C.W.L.’s ‘Master’ were both creations of their own – Dugpas he called them. Without proof such statements carry little weight. It is the proof that I offer that is so conclusive. We seem to be just in time with this Pamphlet.

I shall hope that you will feel able without reserve to support it and I am sure the Society will benefit greatly by knowing the truth. The Lodges too will have a most interesting and enlightening subject for study related to the Third Object. Several have it already in their syllabuses.

It may prove interesting to compare Gardner’s above statement that ‘that the first letter of C.W.L.’s to A.B. in 1916, introduces the ‘Lord Maitreya’ so abruptly and easily as to imply a long familiar topic between them. Looking back at all the happenings I feel certain that the source and only source of the COMING was C.W.L.’s ‘Lord Maitreya’, with the following passage of Mary Lutyens’ book Krishnamurti: Years of Awakening (1975). It contains an account by C.W.L. to Fabrizio Ruspoli, who was at Adyar, of an event that took place on 28 December 1911 in Benares, when Krishnaji, as the Head of the Order of the Star, was handing over certificates of membership to new members. Approximately 400 people were present, including Mrs Besant, C.W.L., Miss Francesca Arundale, J. Nityananda and a number of European members, besides many others:

All at once the hall was filled with a tremendous power, which was so evidently flowing through Krishna that the next member fell at his feet, overwhelmed by this mighty rush of force. I have never seen or felt anything in the like of it; it reminded one irresistibly of the rushing, mighty wind, and the outpouring of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost. The tension was enormous, and every one in the room was most powerfully affected. It was the kind of thing that we read about in the old scriptures, and think exaggerated; but here it was before us in the twentieth century. … At a meeting [of the Esoteric Section] the President said for the first time that, after what they had seen and felt, it was no longer possible to make even a pretence of concealing the fact that Krishna’s body had been chosen by the Bodhisattva, and was even now being attuned by Him. (p. 55)

Finally, in the February 1964 issue of The Theosophist, in his column ‘On the Watch-Tower’, N. Sri Ram, as President of the TS, addressed the controversial matter of E. L. Gardner’s booklet. Below are some extracts of what he wrote:

It is stated in the pamphlet, “Obviously there has been no Coming”. I would add to this sentence the words: “as expected”. Krishnaji is giving a teaching, message or whatever else we may call it, which is of unique value and importance. He is himself quite an extraordinary person, unlike anybody else in so many respects. May it not be that he is fulfilling the mission to which the prophecy really referred? Even after breaking from the Society and with the traditional lines of Theosophical thought, Krishnaji in 1928-1929 did claim to have reached complete identification with the Truth. He used the words, “One with the Beloved”, and explained — this explanation is printed in Mr Gardner’s pamphlet — “To me it is all, it is Sri Krishna, it is the Master K.H., it is the Lord Maitreya, it is the Buddha, and yet it is beyond all these forms. What does it matter what name you give?”

Dr. Besant started her political work in 1913, and it was then that she said she put aside the use of her clairvoyant faculties. The proclamation as to the Coming was made by her in a Convention lecture at Adyar, entitled “The Opening of the New Cycle” in December 1910, three years after she became President, and while she was still obviously in the plenitude of her powers. It is difficult to imagine that in a matter of such tremendous importance, she could have made the proclamation without any grounds of her own. She spoke with great assurance and as if she knew, and not as if she had been told by a colleague. 

It is quite possible that both Dr Besant and Brother Leadbeater understood what was hoped for and expected according to their own ideas of the form it should take, but based the central idea on what they had learned through contact with the higher Sources.

There is the statement in Mr. Gardner’s pamphlet that “The Lord Maitreya and the Masters with whom C.W.L. was on such familiar terms were his own thought-creations”. This is a statement which the world at large would readily believe, but in the form in which it is made it may not coincide with the truth. Brother Leadbeater through the faculties he had probably got a great deal that is valuable and correct, yet there might be mixed with it certain of his personal ideas and the influence of his personal predilections.

I feel that no one — and not only Brother Leadbeater — should be considered infallible, and such a view is consistent with the highest respect to the person concerned, and with faith in his integrity. As H.P.B. says in The Secret Doctrine, there are “enormous mysteries connected with the mind”. Something might easily go wrong in the process of translation from a higher to a lower plane, in one’s recollections of what he had heard or knew inside himself. The only safe rule for all of us is to consider for oneself impersonally every statement, from whatever source it may come, and act according to one’s own understanding, not imagining that one’s understanding and judgment must be absolutely correct.

Today, forty-seven years after the publication of E. L. Gardner’s pamphlet, different Lodges and different Sections of the TS may gravitate towards this or that author, or authors. Partially as a result of the contribution of E. L.Gardner, V. Wallace Slater, E. Lester-Smith, Leslie Leslie-Smith, Geoffrey Farthing and others, interest in the writings of H. P. Blavatsky in the English Section remains a focal point. I. K. Taimni’s books became a success story in Latin-America and in the French-speaking world. Geoffrey Hodson’s books are much appreciated in New Zealand and in other places as well. And, not surprisingly, books by Annie Besant and C. W. Leadbeater continue to attract the interest of members and non-members in many places. The TS, to the disappointment of some, did not become a one-author Society but has continued to promote a diversity of views in Theosophical studies, thus honouring its motto: satyan nasti paro dharmah, ‘there is no religion higher than truth’. Mr Gardner certainly got that right.

My First Flight

The Rt. Revd. C. W. Leadbeater

(Originally published in The Australian Theosophist, August 1928.)

As our General Secretary, the Rev. Harold Morton, found it impossible to complete the northern part of his tour, and therefore postponed his visit to Queensland for a month or two, I went up to Brisbane a few weeks ago to do some of the Church and Masonic work which he would have done, and so to minimize the disappointment of our members in this district. While staying at Mr. Tweedie’s ever hospitable home, I received an invitation to go over to Toowoomba and hold a couple of meetings there; and as I found that there was a daily service by aeroplane between the two towns, it occurred to me that the quickest and easiest method of transit would be to avail myself of that route.

This was all the more interesting to me because I had never been up in an aeroplane before, though in my younger days I made many balloon ascents. But of course the whole movement and method of progression of an aeroplane is utterly different from that of a balloon, so I felt that it would be an entirely new experience for me. I also felt that it would be of interest to observe the sylphs or spirits of the upper air, so it seemed desirable to take the opportunity which offered itself.

Dick Clarke and Bishop Leadbeater

Perhaps I should premise that although I had frequently been up in the Blue Mountains to a height probably as great as an aeroplane would be likely to touch during an ordinary trip in fine weather, that is by no means the same thing for observational purposes as actually leaving the surface of the earth. One is likely to meet varieties of fairies and nature-spirits in the Mountains which are not so common on lower ground; but they are still of the kind which dwells on the earth’s surface and works with the trees and the flowers; whereas when one rises clear away from the touch of the soil, one finds oneself floating among spirits of the air which very rarely descend to the earth at all. In my earlier experiences of ballooning I had not yet acquired clairvoyance, and so though I had risen on some of those occasions to much greater heights (though not more than about   2 ½ miles) I had no physical contact with the air creatures in their own realm. Of course in astral work one constantly ascends among them, but to go there in the physical vehicle is quite a different matter.

The aeroplane proved much more comfortable than I had thought to be possible. I had expected to have to don some horrible leather headpiece, more or less of the nature of a diver’s helmet, and I also thought it probable that I should be very unpleasantly affected by the appalling noise of the engine. To my satisfaction I found that the machine awaiting us possessed a saloon, very much like the interior of a four-seated motor-car, except that the cushions were far softer than those of an automobile and that we had much more leg-room than a car usually provides. One had to climb into this saloon through a section of its roof, which opened something as does the bonnet of a motor-car, and that was a mild acrobatic feat; but the pilot told me that very shortly they would have new planes on that run with doors opening at the side just like those of an ordinary carriage. Anyhow, when once one was inside, it was exceedingly comfortable. Our machine, I may mention, was a bi-plane with a 240 horse-power engine.

Bishop Leadbeater and aeroplane

After the preliminary run on the ground which is necessary to get up speed the plane soared into the air just as a bird might have done, and I was delighted to find that in its cabin, even with the windows open, the roar of the engine was not sufficiently audible to be unpleasant, and we could converse with only a slight raising of the voice. I was much impressed by the steadiness with which it flew; it is the only kind of vehicle I have yet encountered (except a great mail-steamer) in which it is easy and comfortable to write with a pen. It sped through the air like an arrow, and for the greater part of the journey the sensation, so far as the physical nerves are concerned, was just as though it was resting on the earth. Two or three times in our seventy miles it seemed suddenly to drop about a foot with an odd little jerk, but we met with nothing in the nature of an air-pocket. Just after starting and just before alighting the plane swept round in a semicircle with a splendid swoop like an albatross, heeling over at a slight angle like a yacht in a breeze; otherwise it was as one-idea’d as an express train, holding its nose as straight as if it were pointed at a star.

The air spirits seemed to hail us with riotous joy; they clustered around us and circled at our prow just as I have often seen dolphins behave round the bows of a steamer. We were flying at a very fair speed, but these creatures circled round us with the utmost ease, as though they did not feel the air pressure at all. They gave me the impression of being extremely friendly and well-disposed, and did not in the slightest degree resent our intrusion upon their domain. Curiously enough, however, I caught sight of some other creatures higher up—much higher up—who seemed by no means so friendly. They were of immense size and looked somehow for more material than the sylphs. They were curiously sullen in appearance, and I rather wondered what sort of reception they would have given us if we had risen into their immediate neighbourhood. I did not much like the look of them; they reminded me uncomfortably of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s powerful story ‘The Horror of the Heights.’ But after all they may have been quite harmless, though sulky.

The alighting of the aeroplane at the end of the journey was a masterly achievement; we did not know when it touched the ground until we felt the comparative bumpiness of running over a field of grass. We had an equally pleasant experience when we flew back the next day, doing our seventy miles in just three-quarters of an hour. The whole thing is absolutely different from the aeronautics of my youth. The aeroplane seems to be absolutely under control, whereas in the balloon we were entirely at the mercy of the wind, our only power of voluntary motion being either to rise by throwing ballast overboard, or to sink by letting out some gas.

The balloon was wonderfully quiet and steady even in a fairly strong wind, because it moved absolutely with it, without the slightest resistance; but the descent was always something of an adventure. We endeavoured to find a reasonably smooth place for landing and then threw out a grappling hook at the end of a rope, which sometimes caught in a fence, a tree or a furrow, and sometimes declined to do so. When it did catch, the balloon swept down rather swiftly, but was always liable to rebound on touching the earth. In calm weather one could wind in the rope and throw other thinner lines to attendant yokels; but in gusty weather matters were much less certain, and the proceedings were liable to be protracted and sometimes painful. The machine heavier than air is in many ways a distinct improvement, and I shall watch its future development with great interest.

                                                                           A MYSTERIOUS MANUSCRIPT

                                                                                     Johan van Manen


Johan van Manen was born in Holland in 1877. He joined the Theosophical Society in that country in 1895. In 1897 he acted as a translator for H. S. Olcott. During the period of 1904 and 1906 he was the Honorary Secretary of the first Convention of the Federation of European Sections of the TS. He came to Adyar in February 1909 with C. W. Leadbeater. From 1909 to 1916 he was the Assistant Director of the Adyar Library and helped to furnish it with rare manuscripts. Later on he was the General Secretary of the Royal Asiatic Society in Bengal and the editor of its Journal. He passed away in 1943. The article reproduced here was originally published in The Theosophist, January 1911. (Source: The Theosophical Year Book, 1937)

A Mysterious Manuscript (Source: The Theosophist, January 1911)

The Manuscripts in the Adyar Library

The collection of manuscripts in the Adyar Library is really unique in its Sanskrit department. It contains already over twelve thousand works – of which several indeed are duplicates of the same treatise, but of which, on the other hand, a considerable number are unique, not known to exist in any other library, and, lastly of which a great number (if not unique) are of great rarity. Besides these Sanskrit Manuscripts there are also several others, the presence of which in our collections is perhaps less known to the public. We have, for instance, a magnificent copy of the Pāli Tripitaka and a small number of other Pāli works, and further some Telugu, Tamil, Chinese, Javanese and Tibetan Manuscripts. Besides these, again, we possess a considerable number of Japanese and Chinese prints (mostly Buddhistic) both in xylography and typography, amongst which are the Tokyo edition of the Chinese Tripitaka, and also, the late King of Siam’s printed edition of the Pāli Tripitaka in Siamese characters.

Our library being a young one with very limited financial means at its disposal, some of the works in languages other than Sanskrit have not yet been adequately determined and catalogued, though it may be added that at least the Chinese Tripitaka has now been duly arranged by Mr. Spurgeon Medhurst and ourselves, and that we have also determined the character of the few bundles of Tibetan Manuscripts in our possession. The latter contain nothing of a startling nature. There is, we may say of course, a copy of the Vajracchedika or Rdo-rje-gchod-pa; then there are some minor treatises relating to Padmasambhava and similar matters, important neither in contents nor extent, nor in perfection of the writer’s art. We may perhaps add that we ourselves possess a small collection of Tibetan blockprints, comprising some 2,700 leaves, and containing amongst other matter an Açtasahasrikā Prajnāparamitā, two different editions of Milaraspa (each containing the two works), and two different Padma Thangyigs (both differing from the texts made known by Grünwedel and Schlagintweit).

A Solitary Leaf of a Tibetan Manuscript

Besides the Manuscripts mentioned above there is one other Tibetan production in our collection, a solitary leaf of what is evidently a big book. It is a splendid specimen of Tibetan calligraphy, though the leaf itself has not come to us in an altogether undamaged condition. On both outer ends it shows clear traces of being singed or burned, and on the right hand side perhaps an inch has broken off, the material having become brittle when undergoing its fire-ordeal. The text is only slightly interfered with, at the most the width of one of one or two letters having been lost in this way; and these lost letters, owing to the nature of the text written on the leaf, can be easily restored, as this text consists chiefly of a series of formulae which occur over and over again with only a slight verbal change in a single expression or group of expressions. The material of the leaf is some tough and leathery paper, colored dark blue and polished on that part of it on which the text has been written. The letters, beautifully and clearly executed, about a quarter of an inch high (pa, ba and the like), do not show any difference from the modern form and are written or painted in the well-known shiny, yellowish-golden color which lends such beauty to Tibetan writings of that class. The leaf contains eight lines on each side; it measures exactly ten inches high and in its present condition nearly 24½ inches long, but its length may have originally been 1 to 1½ inches more. Our reproduction on a scale of a little under one-third gives a clear idea of the state and appearance of the leaf on its recto side.

How the Manuscript Came to Us

The history of the arrival of the Manuscript in the Adyar Library is already romantic in itself. Dr. [Otto] Schrader, the Director, had, soon after his first arrival in India, taken care of a young Brahmana orphan to whom he intended to give a good education with a view of qualifying him for secretarial work of some kind. After having been placed in the Central Hindu College, the lad preferred, however, to lead the parivrājaka life, went north and was subsequently only occasionally heard of. He seems to have wandered through Nepal amongst other places, and in November, 1908, Dr. Schrader received the late tidings from him. This news was contained in a letter (bearing the postmark of Askote, Almora, November 17th, 1908 ), giving some particulars about his present condition and asking for a determination of the nature and contents of the Manuscript leaf, sent by the same mail per book-post under separate cover. He stated that a friend he had met possessed a collection of such leaves, of which this was one, but did not know what it was, and would be glad to be enlightened on the point. With characteristic forgetfulness he neglected to add his present address, so that no answer could be sent; and after several months Dr. Schrader, unhappily, destroyed the letter, the precise contents of which he is now no longer able to recall. How this manuscript came into the possession of the youthful brahmachārin’s friend remains thus an unsolved problem. Let its solution be as it may; the fact remains that we are in the possession of this tantalizing knowledge that somewhere up north someone possesses the remainder of this Manuscript, not knowing its unique value, which am going to demonstrate further on, perhaps not taking due care of it, whilst we are impotent to rescue it from oblivion and possible decay or disappearance.

The Unique Character of the Manuscript

When Dr. Schrader, on a mere chance occasion, during the autumn of 1909, submitted the Manuscript to me I at once recognised it as something special and remarkable. On first sight I found its orthography quite peculiar showing the ancient da-drag and the subjoined vowel, ya between the initial m and the vowels e and i in full use. Most readers will exclaim: “What are these da-drag and subjoined ya?” They represent ancient forms of Tibetan orthography, which, according to modern authorities, ceased to be employed before about the year 800 of our era.  It will be seen immediately how important that single leaf at once became by this discovery. For either we have before us a modern copy artificially reproducing the obsolete orthography – and an example of such a procedure is as yet absolutely unknown – or we have a genuine old Manuscript dating from within a century or two of the introduction of writing into Tibet, which took place in about 640 A.D. It would bring us into contact with the work of the earliest translators from Sanskrit into Tibetan, and would in another way be of importance as indicating the survival at the present day of bulky specimens of the old writing, examples of which – in a very limited number – have until now only been found buried under the devastating but preservative sands of Turkestan.

What hopes for further discovery this possibility evokes it is needless to say. Let us mention only the importance such discoveries would have for the intricate history and genetic development of the Buddhist writings. Textual criticism could not hope for a better find. Little wonder, then, that I remained perplexed as to the truth of the matter, and could not easily pass over the fact that the appearance of our leaf is fresh, that it does not clearly indicate any hoary past, and does not lend force to the theory that this leaf is more than a thousand years old. And yet the cold Tibetan climate is a good preserver, better than that of tropical India with its moisture, its heat and its devouring insects. 

To What Work the Leaf Belongs

In attempting to solve the above puzzle the first step to take is evidently to determine to what work this isolated leaf belongs. Unhappily there is no marginal short title on the leaf, such as is found in almost all xylographs; there is no chapter closing or beginning, no colophon or other indication which might give it a clue. The only thing is to judge the contents as such. There is however one indication of a secondary nature, and that is the page number. The leaf is marked on its recto side ga x x go-bshi or in other words Vol. III, page 94. Taking the volume number as applying to a single work – seeing that this is a Manuscript, and not a printed work, in which separate treatises are often included in a number of volumes, and accordingly marked with a volume number which has no reference to their individual length – the whole work must be of considerable bulk.

Now a perusal of the contents showed the enumeration of the various well-known series of the four (five) fruits or paths (srotāpatti, etc., including rang-byang-chhub or pratyekabuddha as the fifth), the six parāmitās, the eighteen shūnyatās, and the mention of several other series, which are, however, not singly enumerated like the former, but only mentioned collectively, as for example the four noble truths, the noble eightfold path, the four meditations, the eight escapes or emancipations, and the five powers. It is clear that the most probable hypothesis is that, with regard to length (at the least three volumes) and contents, we have here to do with one of the larger Prajnāparāmitās. And if this be so, the choice must lie between the Shatasahasrikā (the 100,000 shloka Prajnāparāmitā), the Panchavimshatishasrikā (in 25,000 shlokas) and the Actadashasrikā (in 18,000 shlokas). The two smaller recensions, the Dashasahasrikā (in 10,000 shlokas) and the Actasahasrika (in 8,000 shlokas) are scarcely probable as the original work, as both are continually printed in Tibet in a single volume, and it is not likely that our Manuscript, containing as much matter on a page as the printed editions, would expand to (at least) three volumes in writing.

Going a step further, considering all elements at my disposal, I have come finally to this conclusion that the most likely hypothesis is to assign our fragment as belonging to the 25,000 shloka recension, called by abbreviation nyi-khri in Tibetan, and consisting in reality – as that word indicates – of perhaps roughly 20,000 shlokas. I need not detail how I have finally come to this conclusion, which, it must be remembered, is after all only a hypothesis. Suffice it to add still that a rapid glance through this 25,000 shloka recension of the Chinese Tripitaka, one through the Sanskrit 8,000 shloka edition published in the Bibliotheca Indica by Rajendralāla Mitra, one through the Tibetan 100,000 shloka edition as far as published in the Bibliotheca Indica by Pratāpachandra Ghosha, have only given me several dizzy headaches, but have not led me to an identification of our passage.

Clairvoyance to the Rescue

So there the matter stood, without prospect of further development, when I bethought myself that it might be interesting to attempt an appeal to the powers of trained clairvoyance for some suggestions, or perhaps a solution to the problem. So on the evening of November 17, 1909, at 9.30 P.M., after the day’s work was over, I went to Mr. Leadbeater with the Manuscript, outlined the case to him, and asked him if he would be kind enough to go into the question either by sheer clairvoyance or by psychometry. It should be understood that I told him only the barest facts of the case: that here was a Manuscript which according to its orthographic peculiarities must be supposed to have been written before 800 A.D., that it was Tibetan, and that further than that there was nothing known about it, neither as to its ultimate provenance nor as to of what work it formed part. Unnecessary to add that Mr. Leadbeater knows no Tibetan or other Oriental languages; and though himself a Buddhist and keenly interested in its living aspects, has made no scientific studies concerning its development, nor is specially acquainted with the literature about it by any but the more popular writers amongst the western Buddhist scholars.

Readers of the Magazine are familiar with the results of clairvoyant enquiry as applied to historic researches through the series of ‘Lives of Alcyone’. Those as yet unfamiliar with this subject can do no better than read Mr. Leadbeater’s own little manual on Clairvoyance, describing the whole theory concerning the exercise of this power; and they may also advantageously compare Mr. Mead’s remarks on this subject in the introduction to his work on Did Jesus live 100 B.C.? It is here, of course, not the place to insert a petitio principii concerning the reality of clairvoyance, some knowledge of which subject is taken for granted in our readers. Psychic researchers may note down the case here related as an interesting document for study, and those interested in this problem will find a good illustration of a chance example of clairvoyance, quite casually demonstrated without any previous preparation or warning. In the regular and systematic exercise of the power in lengthy series of investigations, such as those connected with Thought-forms, Ancient Peru, Occult Chemistry, and others, the existence of some preliminary preparation might be argued, but here we have a mere chance chip thrown off from the block, and the spontaneity of its production has a special demonstrational value.

The Date of the Leaf

Mr. Leadbeater, at once, most kindly, acquiesced in my wishes. It has been my privilege – as it has been that of many others in close connection with him – to have often witnessed such little spontaneous ‘asides’ to his more regular work. Those of us who have had this experience might construct an interesting evidential chain of argument and circumstance in favor of the reality of his possession of this abnormal power in a scientific sense.

He first took the leaf in his hands, sat quietly for a few moments, half closed his eyes, and began to speak. The Manuscript was very old, he said; it had been written in Tibet, or at least somewhere among the mountains of the Himālayan chain, or those north of them. He could not at first say exactly where. Glancing over contemporary Europe to find some landmarks for the fixing of the date – a process said to be quite feasible – it was found that it was about the time of Pepin le Bref and Charlemagne. Some interesting details of personal description of the latter were given, some glimpses of scenes in his life were depicted, and some living touches of the life of the times were described in a most casual manner, and in the merest passing. A glance over contemporary England confirmed the approximate date gained, and whilst Mr. Leadbeater was wandering round amongst these pictures of ancient life, I looked up and verified such details as lent themselves to it from the cyclopedia. It has always struck me as an amusing fact that, whereas in olden times the wizard – at least traditionally – had his proper setting in picturesque and dramatic surroundings, he now-a-days uses a prosaic typewriter, and does not despise the use of dictionary and cyclopedia to check as far as possible his own results. In occult methods, too, civilization brings progress!

A direct question brought the answer that, running rapidly over the history of the Manuscript in reverse order, from the present day to its genesis, our leaf proved to be the original production and not a later copy of it. At the moment no further precision of the date fixed was attempted, as this would entail considerable difficulty; for in such a matter concrete minute points of comparison are needed, fixed points as it were, and these depend largely on the actual knowledge present in the consciousness of the seer. Within historical times, this would not be very difficult for countries whose languages the seer understands; but for nations speaking languages or using chronologies unknown to him, the process would be laborious. Some practical makeshifts are in many cases resorted to, as for instance, when in events coinciding with Roman times the contemporary name of the acting consul was looked up and then his date read up in some cyclopedia. Huge periods are commonly computed from astronomical observations.

The Author of the Leaf

Having fixed his attention on the writer of the Manuscript, Mr. Leadbeater gave a description of him and ascertained some facts connected with him. His name was unluckily not determined, though somehow in a vague way the name Sambhava was mentioned in connection with him. He was an oldish man of commanding appearance, seemingly of some Mongolian race – perhaps Tibeto-Chinese. There was an impression that he had been born somewhere on or near the Chinese frontier. He was observed writing in a sort of monastery, a great bare walled place, part of a much larger establishment. This place was, in a sort, identified in an interesting way. During the summer of 1909 Mr. Leadbeater and myself had read the proofs of Ekai Kawaguchi’s work Three Years in Tibet which was published by The Theosophist Office. Whilst clairvoyantly looking at the Tibetan writer, long since dead and gone, and at his dwelling-place, Mr. Leadbeater said that this was the same place which Kawaguchi had visited and described in his book. He stated: ‘Look up Kawaguchi; you will find there the description of the same place. It is situated to the east of the river. Nyalba (or Nyalva) is the name of a village near by.’ Upon being asked how he knew this, he answered that a habitual exercise of clairvoyance brings with it the automatic arising of pictures of the original when various subjects are spoken or read of. So, in reading a book of travel, the practised clairvoyant continually sees before him the real scenes and incidents described. In this way he recognised the old monastery as that which he had seen in connection with Kawaguchi’s book. The detail is interesting. But I have not been able to identify the place from any description in the book.

The Writing of the Book

The vision showed the beautiful Manuscript and there was ‘lots of it’. The Manuscript in the final state, of which our solitary leaf is a specimen, was not the immediate result of the translation. The translation itself was done from a palm-leaf Manuscript, written in some form of Sanskrit. The ancient translator worked at it as his great life-task, taking many years over it. His labor was a sort of secret charge. The first draft was written on some dirty-looking white-grey paper. From this the Manuscript was copied with scrupulous care and in painfully neat calligraphy on the blue paper of which we have the sample. The writing was done, it seems, with some kind of bamboo or wooden brush or pen. My notes do not record the detail, but I believe it was given at the time. The copying as well as the translation were equally sacred tasks to the Tibetan monk.

According to Csoma de Körös-Feer the Tibetan translation of the 25,000 shloka recension of the Prajnāpāramitā is unknown.

Glossolaly

Except in the Christian Creed, where he has given pontou pilêtou as the original form of the pontiou pilatou in the Gospels, Mr. Leadbeater has to my knowledge never yet published direct readings from ancient Manuscripts, clairaudiently obtained. The more interesting is it that on this occasion he reproduced several larger and smaller snatches of sound heard from the Tibetan writer in reading his Manuscripts. It must be borne in mind that clairvoyance does not in itself enable its possessor to read ancient Manuscripts if he does not know their script, but the clairvoyant, or rather clairaudient can hear and reproduce the sounds uttered by the people of the time who read these writings aloud. The sounds heard seem to belong to three different categories. They are those of the Sanskritic original, those of the Tibetan translation, and one sentence which seems Chinese.

I will spell as well as I can phonetically with the ordinary continental values of the letters.

(a) Chinese
The monk began his readings with what seemed a set formula running somewhat as follows, though the exact order of the sounds is not guaranteed.

fo do bo zo

Remarks:

This looks more Chinese than Tibetan, and may represent an invocation in the monk’s mother tongue, as he was possibly a Chinaman by birth. It must be remembered that the titles of the Chinese Pāramitās abound in monosyllables having an o sound. The Chinese names for the three Chinese versions of the 25,000 shloka recension are named: Fāng-kwāng-pān- jo-po-lo-mi-ching, Mo-hö- pān-jo-po-lo-mi-ching, and  Kwāng-tsān-pān-jo-po-lo-mi-ching . Pān-jo-po-lo-mi-to is the Chinese transcription for Prajnāpāramitā.

(b) Tibetan
The following sentences and isolated works or expressions were dictated as Tibetan. They were of course pronounced through an untrained English larynx by one not conversant with Tibetan, nor, for the matter of that, with Sanskrit or Chinese.

1.fo khiën khab dzju  lobchen thupha
2.tcha khiën sangtszu lo bat tsze gyal bor ang khor bat zug hrang po chellung phota .

Remarks:

An adherent to the doctrine of sub-conscious memory will probably see in ang
khor bat a reminiscence of the famous ruins in Cambodia.

3.Shrī chen.
4.naljor.
5.genpakdenchub.
6.norlab dipak denpo.

Remarks:

Number one may be intended to represent a name; I have a lingering remembrance that it was given as such, but I have not recorded the fact in my notes.
Number two was a sentence from the book.
Number three and five were isolated words.
Number four was a word known to Mr. Leadbeater and recognized by him, as it is used in Theosophical literature, it is of course the Tibetan equivalent for Yoga, Yogin, Yogāchārya or Yogāchāra.
Number six may be a name again.

(c) Sanskritic (Classical Sanskrit, Buddhistic Sanskrit, Pāli?)
Taken from the original Manuscript from which the Tibetan translation was made.

1. Itipisso bhagavan arahan

Remarks:

This is evidently the well-known Pāli formula: Iti pi so bhagavā arahan sammāsambuddho vijjā-carana-sampanno sugato lokavidū, etc. It would be strange to find Pāli in the original instead of some form of Sanskrit if our book is really one of the Prajnāpāramitās. But a similar formula was at one time known to Tibetan Buddhists  in the form: “Itapi so Bhagavā(n) Samjaksambudho vidschdschatscharanasampano Sugato Lokavidjānuttaro” (as transcribed by Schiefner), given the language of Magadha.

The words were given as the beginning of a sentence.

May it be that Mr. Leadbeater heard the Pāli form in Ceylon during the course of
his lengthy residence there, and clothed the nearly similar sounds in a form reminiscent of them in some sub-conscious?

Mr. Leadbeater himself thinks this hypothesis probable. It was his opinion that in each of these cases, out of a torrent of unknown words which he heard, his mind pounced upon such as were already partly familiar to it, and even that he might easily have been deceived by apparent and superficial resemblances to words sub-consciously present in his mind.

2. Saririr pilikulenda.
3. Buddha rajanān wahanseye nama swawera.

Remarks:

Buddharajanānwahansé is an honorific title frequently applied in Ceylon to the Buddha. The words heard may only have resembled these.

We publish the above details in the hope that some reader or readers thoroughly conversant with spoken Tibetan and Chinese or with Buddhistic Sanskrit may shed some light on the problems they raise. As an almost unique example of what they are in the way of recovered sounds from the past heard by clairaudience in time, they cannot fail to have also a special interest for the student of such matters.

The Pre-History of the Document

What we have written up till now has a special interest mainly for the psychic researcher, the philologist and the student of Buddhist history and literature, and generally also for the Theosophist. What now follows is of special and almost exclusive interest to the latter. For the stray scholar, who may have happened to meet and read these pages, hypothesis and description cease and romance begins. But even if he should regard what follows as a mere story, it is an interesting one which will amuse him if no more. Needless to say that we ourselves regard the following to be as much a subject for serious consideration as what has gone before, and that we consider that our own faculties and expectations are by no means the measure of the possible or the true. Besides, we are able to bring forward a few corroborative arguments with regard to some points of the story.

After having come thus far in the description of the author, his place and time and book, I asked Mr. Leadbeater to go a step further and follow up the Sanskrit Manuscript from which the Tibetan translation was made. By tracing it back to some other Manuscript from which, in its turn, it might prove to have been copied, and so on, we would at last come to the original author and also probably to the title of the book.

Already, when describing the Tibetan translator, he had said hat the man looked somehow familiar though he did not finally identify him (not as to name, but as to ego). Also the Sanskrit Manuscript had a ‘curious feel’ about it, he said. And in acceding to my request he very soon said: “I believe that Master K.H. may have something to do with the book.” He then described how in ascending along the line of time, the Master’s influence became perceptible in the Manuscript, growing stronger and stronger as he moved into the earlier past, until at last he found Master K.H. himself as its author nearly two thousand years ago. First the Manuscript took him to India. It was interesting to watch the description of how the surrounding climate was softening, and at last was transformed into one of tropical heat, and how the country in which he was moving changed from icy Tibet to glaring India. After a few centuries he found himself transported – much to his surprise – to the identical monastery and library where Alcyone (in the thirtieth life) was abbot and librarian. In that library the Manuscript was one of the great treasures, and either that self-same Manuscript, or a copy made from it, was the Sanskrit book seen in the hands of the Tibetan translator. As this life of Alcyone will soon appear in The Theosophist, we need not give any particulars here, but satisfy ourselves with the statement that its time was about 650 A.D. and the place Kanyakubja.

Nāgārjuna

It is well-known in Theosophical circles that it has been stated that he who is now Master K.H. was known in a former life as Pythagoras, and some centuries later in India as Nāgārjuna  – a great saint and scholar in the early Buddhist world, renowned as a mighty sorcerer and great philosopher, a voluminous author, a Methusalah who lived for three centuries as a Buddhist patriarch, the focus of countless legends, stories, traditions and even fairy-tales. To him at last the investigation leads when searching for the ultimate (or rather penultimate, as we shall see) origin of our mysterious leaf. The following are the bare facts as Mr. Leadbeater told them that evening.

We are now somewhere near the time that the Christian gospels were written, about 200 A.D., or rather a little less; between 150 and 180 A.D., would be more exact. Nāgārjuna is now an old man. He wrote the original Manuscript, but this was itself not an original production, but a translation from an Atlantean Manuscript. There is already a queer and romantic story current about it. This Manuscript was a holy relic when one of the later Atlantean migrations left Poseidonis. They took it with them to India. After a long time of peaceful dwelling in the new land, the Āryan hordes begin to invade the country from the North. The older Atlantean tribe began to be harassed and to be sorely pressed. They fought like lions but without avail. They formed the kshattriya or rājan caste, and were red-colored. At last they saw their doom was sealed, and they decided to bury their sacred treasure. They did, and it remained buried in a dry sandy place for thousands of years, quite undisturbed. This Atlantean Manuscript was enclosed in an air-tight case, hermetically sealed and made out of some sort of metal. Its preservation remained perfect.

Nāgārjuna got hold of information about it and located it by some magical means, after which he dug it up. The Manuscript was written in colored hieroglyphs on what seem metal plates. It was about two feet long and twelve inches broad. There were twenty-seven lines of script, written on one side of the plates only, which numbered one hundred and fifty-three. In translation the text expanded considerably. It was translated on palm-leaves about sixteen inches long and four high, on which twelve lines were written on both sides. About three of such palm leaves went to one metal sheet. The translation seems to consist of three parts – three bundles anyhow. The work is known as Sambodhi; this is the original title and Nāgārjuna is the translator. This translation is somehow dual in its nature. There seems first to be a mere translation, corresponding exactly to the original, and then secondly, under the same title, something which seems a commentary. There ought therefore to be two books or parts, with the same name but quite different contents.

After this translation was made, and the work commenced its wandering career throughout the centuries, it began to expand. This process of expansion went on and on till the book reached Tibet. And even before it reached India from Atlantis, it had already begun increasing its initial size.

A curious phrase in or connected with the initial Manuscript is: “The great King of Glory who liveth for 124,000 years.”

This then is the story of the Manuscript in so far as it related to Nāgārjuna, and so far as briefly outlined in a short and cursory investigation lasting in all scarcely more than one hour, certainly less than two hours.

Some Corroborative Observations on the Previous Paragraph

The first interesting corroboration for our story is that, in effect, there exists a legend that Nāgārjuna did find a case with manuscripts from which he drew the materials for writing the Pāramitās, all of which tradition ascribes to him. In the popular versions this case was recovered from the nether-world or the sea, by the aid of a King of the Nāgas. It will be remembered that occult enquiry has suggested the equivalence of the name Nāga – really meaning serpent, a mystical being playing a great part in early Buddhist legend – with the name of an Atlantean tribe or race. They were so called, it is stated, because of their tribal totem, borne before them in war, was a snake. Nepālese Manuscripts of the Prajnāpāramitā record in their colophons that they had been drawn from the nether-world by Nāgārjuna. The Chinese biography of Nāgārjuna  relates the story as follows:

“Nāgarāja (King of the Dragons) took pity on him [Nāgārjuna] and took him with him to his palace at the bottom of the sea, and showed him there seven precious receptacles, containing the Vaipulya books and other Sūtras of a deep and mystical meaning; Nāgārjuna read them for ninety consecutive days, and then returned to the earth with a case (Kiste).”

Waddell  adds that Nāgārjuna alleged the Buddha Himself had composed the treatise.

A second corroboration is perhaps to be found in the fact that the 25,000 shloka recension is commonly given as printed in three volumes, which fact may have something to do with the ‘three original parts’ described.

The third is with regard to the name Sambodhi. In the 25,000 shloka recension of the work, the fourth of its eight chapters is called Sarvakārābhisambodha or ‘cognisance of all forms, whereby the Bodhisattva acquires a right understanding of the various phases of the mind under different circumstances’, and the sixth chapter is called Ekākshna-visambodha, or ‘knowledge of all times present, past and future’.

The fourth corroboration is with regard to the statement that there were two different books, a translation and a commentary. Rājendralāla Mitra writes in his work already quoted, p. xiv, the following:

“The second abridgment of the large work [the 100,000 shloka recension of the Prajnāpāramitā] is usually reckoned at 25,000 shlokas … but … roughly calculated it is limited to 20,045 shlokas… Though professedly a digest, the arrangement of the work is not founded on the plan of the Shatasahasrika, and the treatment of the subject is generally different. In fact the work is an independent one on the subject of Nihilism bearing on the attributes of Buddha.”

For a quite recent discovery of the existence of a separate work included in the Prajnāpāramitās see M. Haraprasāda Shāstrī in the J. & P. A. S. B. Vol. VI, No. 8, August, 1910, p. 425. This short note is quite important for our present problem and was published a year after Mr. Leadbeater’s researches. It also gives some clue to the process of expansion of the earlier versions, and states that the prose portions of the work alone are original, the verses are ‘different works’.

All the above considerations deserve further careful study, and it is highly desirable that all those competent to shed more light on these problems should not hesitate to co-operate towards this end.

Back to Atlantis

The investigation did not altogether end with the facts ascertained concerning Nāgārjuna's part in the production of our manuscript. A further endeavor was made to trace back the Atlantean plates to their origin. The inquiry was a quite summary one and disclosed only a few general data, but one of them was of special interest. It was found that ultimately the primary Manuscript was one which Master M., when, more than ten thousand years ago, a Ruler in Poseidonis, had had copied. Mr. Leadbeater stated: “Master M. has had a hand in it also. I am not surprised. For wherever you find Master K.H. there you may be sure you will somehow meet Master M. also.” It was not definitely stated at what time this took place. Anyhow the copy was, some 11,500 years ago, in the possession of a secret society then existing in the capital of Poseidonis, and having wide ramifications all through the land. It was then a period of the grossest general corruption, but at the same time this hidden league of white magicians and good, pure people was active in the very heart of the degraded civilisation.

Now in the fifteenth of the series of lives of Orion – which series will be published in course of time in the pages of The Theosophist – its hero lived in a female body in Poseidonis, from 9603-9564 B.C. She, together with another woman (Sirius) belonging to same mountain tribe as herself, was made captive in a military expedition of the Toltec army against her people, and both were carried off to the city and apportioned as slaves to a rich and highly placed official. They suffered torture and abuse to such an extent that they attempted to run away and they were ultimately successful in reaching a place of safety. Whilst hurrying through the streets of the town on their way to freedom they actually passed the house in which the meeting-place of this secret society was situated. When arriving at the point in his story, telling of the existence of this secret brotherhood, Mr. Leadbeater suddenly exclaimed in tones half of despair, half of anger: “And by Jove, they did not know, they did not know!” On being asked: “Who did not know what?” he explained the above situation, and said that if the two fugitives had only turned in there, they would have been safe and their tribulations ended. In seeing the house in which the Manuscript was guarded, and being back in the times and places of Orion’s life in that period, the other pictures connected with all concerned had also been evoked, and for the first time he realised what might have been in that life, instead of what actually was. Certainly this was the first time that I witnessed emotions manifested because of adventures of more than ten thousand years ago.

A Tangled Skein

A tangled skein, indeed, has the strange story of our mysterious Manuscript proved itself according to its occult history obtained by clairvoyance, according to its immediate history in arriving in the Adyar Library, and according to the evidence of its special orthographic character. The intermingled threads have now been unravelled, but another tissue has at the same time been woven in connection with it. We find two Masters, Alcyone, Sirius, Orion, more or less directly connected with it – further investigation would perhaps reveal more kārmic links. Involuntarily we therefore ask ourselves a question which seems to suggest itself: May the coming of this leaf to us carry some purpose as yet unknown? We do not know; perhaps the future will show.

Conclusion

Before ending we must once more emphasise the fact that this little investigation was undertaken quite on the spur of the moment, without any preparation whatever. The various details outlined above were not in the least all known to myself, and even of the little of what I knew about the Prajnāpāramitās and Nāgārjuna I did not tell a word to Mr. Leadbeater in outlining the case when submitting it to him. This casual investigation, besides, was only one of many similar ones which I have seen Mr. Leadbeater undertake in a like way. Let us admit, to say the least of it, that the story, taken as a mere concoction, is a clever improvisation for one not consulting a single book at the time, and without any special knowledge of Oriental languages and the more technical literature about them. Let us admit again that the instantaneous use of the imagination in the manufacture of such a consistent story, or such use of the dramatic powers of the sub-conscious self, would be – if anyone wishes to ascribe the tale to their action – of a nature remarkable enough to merit some attention and to demand some explanation.

We hope that the above narrative, quite apart from its interest to Theosophists, may serve a useful end in offering a remarkable ‘case’ for those interested in the whole problem of clairvoyance, or of the Theosophical doctrine of the ākāshic records. It is a typical little case, perhaps not rich enough in details and data to furnish sufficient materials for scientific study and analysis to reach final conclusions, yet certainly sufficient as a starting point for such study. There must be several people with the abilities of a Flournoy or an Lutoslawski, to mention widely divergent temperaments, who, in combination with Sanskrit, Tibetan and Chinese scholars, might contribute a most instructive discussion of this report. It seems to me that their labors would not be uselessly employed on it. There are great difficulties still to be explained, as for instance, the utterly Buddhistic nature of our leaf in connection with its alleged pre-Buddhistic origin, but all the more welcome would be all additional information which would enable us to understand all this – in whatever direction that explanation might eventually prove to lie.

REFERENCES:

1. The initial letter a does not occur on the leaf, so we cannot compare its form with the variety designated by L. D. Barnett in the J. R. A. S. [Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society], 1903, p. 111, as characteristic of Tibetan paleography.
2. ‘one who wanders’. [PO]
3. Though the accompanying letter was destroyed, happily the cover in which the Manuscript was sent was kept, which enables us to fix the date given.
4. For some literature on the subject see Jäschke ‘Tibetan Grammar’ (1883) § 34, and Dictionaries (1871 or 1881) s. v. da.; Csoma de Körös ‘Grammar of the Tibetan Language’ (1834), p. 11; Schmidt ‘Grammatik der Tibetischen Sprache’ (1839), p. 20, 21; Sarat Chandra Dās ‘Tibetan-English Dictionary’ (1902) s. v. da-drag; L. D. Barnett, J.R.A.S., 1903, p. 109 and p. 821; W. W. Rockhill, J.R.A.S., 1903, p. 572; L. A. Waddell, J.R.A.S., 1909, p. 923 (especially p. 942) and compare also p. 69; S. W. Bushell, J.R.A.S., 1880, p. 435 (especially plates after p. 534; the subjoined ya seems to be there, but the rubbing is very imperfect); M. A. Stein ‘Preliminary Report, etc., in Chinese Turkestan’ (1901) last plate and p. 57. From Laufer’s ‘Studien zur Sprachwissenchaft der Tibeter Zamatog’ in the Sitzungsberichte der philos.-philol. u. d. hist. Classe der k. b. Ak. d. Wissensch. zu München 1898), p. 519, we must conclude, ex omisione, that the Tibetan Grammar Zamatog, written in about 1500 A.D., no longer knows the da-drag, whereas Thonmi-sambhota’s grammar (about 625 A.D.) treats of it, according to A.H. Francke in the J.&P.A.S.B., 1910, p. 410. Whilst correcting the proofs of this article the October numbers of the J.R.A.S., for 1910, have come to hand, in which see L. A. Waddell, p. 1247 and especially p. 1250 and 1251. In this article the da-drag is proven to have been employed as late as about 840 A.D.
5.I will not enter into any technical discussion about the peculiarities of the Manuscript, if any such exist. That may be referred to more learned heads. Let me however note one point, the occurrence of the curious term rang-byang-chhub in the series srotāpatti, etc., after arhat, which term Chandra Dās in his dictionary (1166 b.) gives as the equivalent of rang-sangs-rgyas or pratyekabuddha. I may also add that the use of the da-drag does not tally with Barnett’s analysis of it in the Eudere fragments, J.R.A.S., 1903, pp. 110, 111.
6.The above according to Csoma de Körös-Leon Feer in the ‘Anales du Museé Guimet’, Vol. II, p. 199. It should be remarked that whilst these authors give the 25,000 shloka recension as contained in three volumes, both the catalogue of the R.A.S.B. (‘A nominal list of Tibetan Manuscripts and xylographs’, etc., by P. Ghosha, p. 4, 5) and of the St. Petersburg Academy (I. J. Schmidt and O. Böhtlingk ‘Verzeichniss der Tibetischen Handschriften und Holzdrucke’, etc. [1846], Nos. 187-190) indicate only editions in four volumes.
7. It is curious that during all the twelve years that this publication has been in progress no one concerned has noticed that on the outer titles from the beginning till end stong phrag brgyad pa has been printed and on the inner and chapter titles stong phrag brgya pa. Jäschke has a clerical error in his London (1881) dictionary and gives stong phrag as ‘ten thousand’; his Gnadau (1871) dictionary is correct on this point.
8. Bunyiu Nanjio ‘Catalogue, etc., of the Chinese Buddhist Tripitaka’, Oxford, 1883, col.4.
9. kh=Greek chi; ië as in French bière.
10. dzju as in English jujube.
11. Something between thirpa (ir an in English thirst), thupha or thirpo (short o).
12. Bat or pat.
13. Hrang very guttural in its initials and the a sound very short.
14. Phota or phoda.
15. Something between chen, short chan or chin.
16. “That is the Noble One, the Saintly One, the perfectly Enlightened One, filled with Wisdom and Virtue, the Welcome One, whose look penetrates the worlds”, etc. See Bhikkhu Nānatiloka ‘Die Reden des Buddha’, Erster Band, Einer-Buch, Leipzig, [1910?], p. 57. The formula does not seem to occur in the written cannon of Ceylon, but to be in current use among the Buddhist population.
17.  A Schiefner ‘Wassiljew’s Vorrede, etc, zu Tārānātha’s Geschichte des Buddhismus in Indien’, St. Petersburg, 1869, p. 29.
18. See about Nāgārjuna: Albert Grünwedel ‘Mythologie des Buddhismus in Tibet und der Mongolei’, Leipzig, 1900, p. 29; L. A. Waddell ‘The Buddhism of Tibet’, London, 1895, p. 10; W. Wassiljew ‘Der Buddhismus’, St. Petersburg, 1860, p. 232, also translated into English in ‘The Indian Antiquary’, Vol. IV, Bombay, 1875, p. 141. A list of literature on Nāgārjuna in Grünwedel’s work, note 31, p. 203.
19. J. & P. A. S. B., Vol. VI, 1910, p. 309 and 426.
20. Wassiljew ‘Der Buddhismus’ and ‘Indian Antiquary’. See note to previous paragraph. The English translation is defective.
21. ‘The Buddhism of Tibet’, p. 11.
22. Rājendralāla Mitra ‘Ashtasahasrika’ (Biblioteca Indica), Calcuta, 1888, p. xiv, xv.