Theos-Talk Archives (March 2004 Message tt00362)

Hey,

I'm currently reading Divine Feminine: Theosophy and Feminism in 
England by Joy Dixon (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University 
Press, 2001) which seems to have escaped notice here and among 
Theosophists generally. I'm in the third chapter which discusses 
Besant's election in 1907 and her opponents. Here is an incisive 
paragraph about G.R.S. Mead and his objections to Besant becoming TS 
President:

G.R.S. Mead also objected to being governed by the Masters and their 
candidate. He "repudiated the pronouncements of these apparitions" 
in terms similar to those used by Kingsland and Sinnett. Besant's 
election, he went on to argue, would mean "the death of our 
constitution and the handing over of the society to the mercy of an 
irresponsible psychic tyranny." As Outer Head of the ES (in Mead's 
words, that "most important and intimate office"), Besant as 
president of the TS would be able to "force other similar 
pronouncements upon us and hold them in terrorem over the heads of 
the unknowing and timorous." Mead's implications were clear. 
The "intimate office" of the Outer Head of the Esoteric Section 
rested on private and personal power; this power was not exercised 
responsibly in public, but rather was wielded irresponsibly in 
private. And it exploited the weakness, timidity, and lack of 
knowledge of those who were willing to bend to such "psychic 
tyranny." As he recalled in 1926, he had opposed Besant's election 
on the grounds that the ES had become "the inner rot to the whole 
movement, seeing that it was based on blind obedience to (so-called) 
`esoteric orders.'" Mead argued that Besant's election had been 
engineered "by the teamwork of the E.S. under her orders" and 
claimed that this "Esoteric cabal" was a "camouflaged political 
caucus, `pulling' every crisis in the society from within to suit 
A.B.'s own views and purposes." (p. 72)