Theos-Talk Archives (November 2006 Message tt00755)

Dear Friends, 
 
This is about Bishop Leadbeater and his imaginary adventures  in South America. 
 
C. Jinarajadasa believed he was there with Leadbeater  in a previous body,  and that he was his biological younger brother, who was allegedly killed  and 'rediscovered' by CWL in Ceylon. 
 
In fact, in a footnote to his autobiographical Postface in the book ?The Seven Veils of Consciousness?, C. Jinarajadasa states that  that the true story of his own ?previous (and glorious) death in Brazil?  is narrated in the  chapter ?Saved by a Ghost?, of  the book  ?The Perfume of  Egypt? (2).   
 
C.J.  believed everything CWL said, and he also writes in the note that the same old silver crucifix which is mentioned in that story was in his possession,  as he wrote ?The Seven Veils of Consciousness?.   
 
As to Leadbeater, in the preface of his 'The Perfume of Egypt", he makes a solemn statement: 

?The stories in this book happen to be true.?  

Along ?Saved By a Ghost?, the longest story of the volume, Leadbeater proudly describes how he killed numerous black people and indigenous people in South America during his youth.  

Of course, common sense says that the story is as illusory as the visits Leabeater made to physical plane civilizations in Mars and Mercury.            
          
But even if it were presented as a ?short novel? pure and simple, and not as an autobiographical narration, the content of the text reveals too much of racism and disrespect against black  people, indigenous people and their right to live.  Leadbeater also uses the term ?race? not in its theosophical meaning, but in the nationalistic way, as if each country had its own 'race',  anticipating what Adolf Hitler would do decades later. 
            
At  p. 167 of the  Adyar edition, one starts to  read his description of Brazilian people:  
            
?First came the descendants of Spanish and Portuguese conquerors  ? a haughty, indolent race; a race courtly  and hospitable, by no means without its good qualities, but yet one whose strongest characteristic was an immeasurable contempt  (or the affectation of it) for all other races whatsoever?. 
            
The amount of illusions-per-line is outstanding  here. 
 
First, Spanish people were never ?conquerors? in Brazil. The country was ?discovered?  and  made a colony by Portugal. Second, Portuguese people are not a race;  and they  cannot be easily described as ?indolent?.  Third, Portuguese people generaly did not show ?contempt? for other ?races?, and it is for this reason that miscigenation ?  intermarriage ? was from  the first the  main anthropological characteristic of the emerging Brazilian nation.  Portuguese people easily created strong personal links with black people and indigenous people. (Of course, colonization was also violent.)
 
In the next paragraph, ?bishop?  Leadbeater is even more surprising: 
 
?Next came red indians?.  
 
Well, there are no ?red indians? in Brazil, although the term is very common in old North American Far West bang-bang stories,  in which hundreds of ?bad? Indians get typically killed by a few white men usually presented as brave heros. 
 
Leadbeater says about ?red indians?: 
 
?Of these many tribes had adopted a kind of squalid civilization, but many others were still savages untamed and untamable ? men who  regarded work of any kind as the deepest degradation ? who hated the white man with a traditional, unrelenting hatred, and (strange as it may seen) more than reciprocated the boundless contempt of the blue-blooded hidalgo of Spain. It will be no doubt incomprehensible to many of us that a half-naked savage can entertain any other feeling than envy for our  superior civilization, however much he may dislike us; but I can only say that the quite genuine and unaffected feeling of the Red Indian towards the white man is pure and unmitigated contempt.? 
 
What  are the problems in these few lines?  First, again comes the Spanish ?hidalgo? (nobleman) apparently ruling Brazil,  a country which was independent from Portugal (not Spain),  since 1822,  and was never under any ?Spanish? ruling class. Second, the ?red Indian? again.  Third, indigenous people and did not express hate against white people, and never actively resisted the domination of European rulers in Brazil.  These two paragraphs simply can?t refer to any South American country.  
 
But CWL proceeds (p. 168) to develop his unbrotherly view of human beings:  
 
?Then came the negro race ? no inconsiderable portion of the populations, and chiefly in a state of slavery, though the Government was doing all in its power to remove that curse from its territories; and last and worst came what  were called  the half-breeds or half-castes ? a mixed race which seemed, as mixed races sometimes do, to combine all the worst qualities of both its parent stocks. Indians, Spaniards, and Negro alike despised them; and they in turn regarded all alike with a virulent hatred.? 
 
We can see in these words some strong ?pioneer elements? for the future ideologies of Nazism and Fascism,  and ultimately for the mass-murder attemtps of  ?ethnic cleansing?. Look at it again: 
 
? (...) and last and worst came what  were called  the half-breeds or half-castes ? a mixed race which seemed (...) to combine all the worst qualities of both its parent stocks.? 
 
This is Leadbeater.  
 
But -- what about Theosophy?  What does esoteric philosophy really say about the relations between rich and poor nations and among all different ethnical groups, with  their varied  kinds of colours in the skin?  In the ?Letters from  the Masters?, the famous letter known as coming  from the ?Great Master? says:  
 
?To achieve the proposed object, a greater, a  wiser, and especially a more benevolent intermingling of the high and the low, of the Alpha and the Omega of  Society, was determined upon. The white race must be the first to stretch out the hand of fellowship to the dark nations, to call the poor despised ?nigger?  brother.  This prospect  may not smile to all, but he is no Theosophist who objects to his principle? (2) 
 
One can only conclude, then, that in writing that paragraph Leadbeater was ?no theosophist?. 
 
In fact, Leadbeater?s vision of human beings as presented in that long story is not only ethically and  culturally unacceptable.  It is also legally criminal, for racism and stimulation of hatred among people of different skin-colours has been defined as crime in Brazil a few years ago.   
 
One can understand why the Brazilian edition of ?Saved By a Ghost? cannot be found in Brazilian bookshops any longer.   Yet it is still for sale at Adyar, it seems.  
 
( In another posting, I should refer to Leadbeater?s proudly alleged acts of violence leading to death,  which, even if seen as fictional, are profoundly untheosophical. ) 
 
Best regards,   Carlos.             
 
 
            
NOTE:
 
(1) ?The Perfume of  Egypt?, by C. W. Leadbeater, whose sixth edition (TPH Adyar, 265 pp.) is dated 1978.  
 
 
(2) ?Letters From the Masters of the Wisdom?, compiled by C. Jinarajadasa, Adyar TPH, first series, Letter number one, known as ?the Maha-Chohan Letter? or ?the Great Master Letter?.   


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