Theos-Talk Archives (May 2007 Message tt00035)

Dear All and Cass

Cass, I both understand and respect your position that you would 
prefer to "put the dilemma to bed" as being well considered as usual, 
kind and generous, and don't wish this posting to be in any way 
construed as an attempt to draw you into further discussion. 

That said, please allow me to use some remarks from one of your 
previous postings to highlight some points which are often raised by 
others as well and which seem important to me and perhaps to fellow 
students of T/theosophy.

1) "Even though Leadbeaterism and Besantism et all is not pure 
theosophy, I
imagine it has helped souls by putting them in the right direction, 
especially
Christians."

2) "it (challenging Bishop Leadbeater and his teachings) causes 
negative energy for theosophy at best, wasted energy at worst."

This idea, that the world is a better place as a result of the 
teachings of Bishop Leadbeater, Dr Besant et al, is very much a moot 
point that friends and I from the Adyar Society discussed every week 
for more than a year, some years ago. 
Subsequently, each of us helped establish the Theosophical Academy 
where the Theosophy of Madame Blavatsky and her teachers became the 
focus of our study. Some of the reasons for this included the loss of 
trust in many of the pronouncements and activities of Bishop 
Leadbeater and Dr Besant, a recognition that Madame Blavatsky and her 
teachers had something significantly special and different to say and 
a growing disillusionment with the Adyar Society, from our perception 
that it was not an organisation of entirely free speech after all. 
There were other contributing factors which are somewhat irrelevant 
to the current discussion.

>From my perspective, on balance I believe the Adyar Society and 
Theosophy in general would have been better off without Bishop 
Leadbeater and his teachings despite his many works and with many 
claiming they were initially drawn to the subject through his 
writings, myself included. Moreover, I have met and shared with many, 
many Adyar theosophical students who were and/or are fine, upstanding 
people. I have also met quite a few who were not, as is to be 
expected in a large organisation.
It seems unproductive to fully reiterate Bishop Leadbeater's lies, 
deceptions and often fanciful, romantic ideas with little basis in 
fact other than his own illusory sense of authority, as these have 
been fairly well covered in this forum throughout the past couple of 
years. However there are some other aspects which dovetail in with 
the aforementioned which deserve attention. 

A rationale is often put forward that Bishop Leadbeater's writings 
helped simplify the Theosophy of Madame Blavatsky and her teachers. 
But did they really, or did they and their accompanying occult 
energies actually draw students away from it. In my experience, the 
overwhelming majority of students who started with Bishop 
Leadbeater's theosophy i.e. his teachings, his mindset and his 
energies are still entranced and enamoured by it. 
His often romanticised ideas and powerfully deceptive energies cause 
many to become adoring followers, usually blind to demonstrable proof 
and in such states of denial and defensiveness as to disallow any 
possibility of a reasoned debate concerning the contradictory nature 
of his teachings in comparison with those his followers claims he 
simplified. 
Whilst this reactive mindset is largely the province of each 
individual, nevertheless this powerfully influential occult teacher 
who dishonestly represented another's works has had, and still has a 
significantly detrimental, ongoing effect on the mindsets of 
unwitting students as well as on the original Theosophical teachings 
themselves.

For those unaware of the many contradictions between the teachings of 
Madame Blavatsky and her teachers and those of Bishop Leadbeater and 
Dr Besant please go to:
http://blavatskyarchives.com/thomas/index.htm

Whatever way we might interpret Madame Blavatsky and her teachers' 
wishes for their Society and their version of Theosophy, they 
certainly did not want mesmerised, closed-minded followers. They 
certainly did not want a "theosophical" church complete with an 
authoritarian hierarchy. Nor did they want a Bishop or priest acting 
as intermediary between parishioners and their true selves or the 
outrageous discrimination afforded women through their disallowance 
to perform the sacraments because their vehicles were, according to 
Bishop Leadbeater and his subsequent representatives, unsuited to the 
task.

If Madame Blavatsky had wanted a manifestly simplified version of 
Theosophy she would have written one. She and her teachers did not 
want Theosophy simplified. They wanted us to think and to think 
deeply, further and further into the awesome profundities of nature 
and the cosmos. They wanted to expand our minds to breaking point and 
beyond, into the realms of the formless, where we might begin to 
learn the actual constructs of the cosmos and eventually become 
cosmocratores. 

A mind satisfied with simple explanations usually rests on its 
laurels, feeling secure it has found the truth. This mindset almost 
inevitably turns these explanations into a dogma and eventually may 
even become the basis for a church. 
This is what occurred as a result of Bishop Leadbeater's version of 
theosophy and his influential mindset.

For these and other reasons already stated in previous posts, my 
perspective for what little it's probably worth, is that Bishop 
Leadbeater and his teachings caused immeasurable harm to Madame 
Blavatsky and her teachers' Theosophy, as well as to the Adyar 
Theosophical Society itself. His legacy and influence in this 
organisation has always been very strong with high-ranking clergy 
also filling its positions of seniority.
Where there is so much contradiction, dishonesty and deception 
between teachings it begs the question as to how those in authority 
can reconcile this.

It is for these reasons that I do not think that exposing lies and 
hypocrisies is promoting negative energies, in fact quite the 
opposite. As long as there are inquiring students eager to learn 
about Theosophy I will continue as and where able to offer what I 
believe to be an honest and fair assessment of the differing versions 
and motivations. 

Regards to all
Nigel