H. P. Blavatsky; A Great Betrayal

by Alice Leighton Cleather

[Mrs. Besant's] remarks on the Central Hindu College [Benares] in your paper are illustrations of this sad change in her. This Institution, for which she has done more than anyone else perhaps, she now openly and obviously tries to injure most deeply in the minds of the public by wild suggestions that it and the Hindu University, into which it is proposed to be expanded, are mixed up with political seditionists and extremists ... that such an educational movement is in any way mixed up with seditionism and extremism is an idea ... fatuously ludicrous.... The reckless, incoherent, self-contradictory, incorrect and misleading statements that Mrs. Besant has been freely making latterly in the public press, have only injured her own reputation.... The C. H. C. was founded in July, 1898, in order to do for the numerous sects and sub-divisions of Hinduism what the T. S. was endeavouring to do for all views and religions.... The College grew and prospered year by year, under the Presidentship of Mrs. Besant, and won the confidence ... of Hindus of almost all shades of opinion.... But with the transfer of Mrs. Besant from Benares to Adyar in 1907, as President of the T. S., elected under very peculiar circumstances [as I learnt recently from a very old member present in Adyar when Colonel Olcott was on his deathbed. Italics mine.—A. L. C.] foreshadowing the coming policies, a change began to come over the spirit of all her work and surroundings. Despite the suggestions, advice, entreaties, expostulations, and warnings of her old colleagues and counsellors who had made her work in India possible [Italics mine.—A. L. C.], she developed more and more and beyond all due bounds, the germ of person-worship so long held in restraint. Entirely proofless claims to superphysical powers and experiences, to being an Initiate, an Arhat, a Mukta and what not; claims to read Mars and Mercury and the whole Solar System, past, present and future (but with careful avoidance of even the most easy test, such as reading a given page of a closed book) claims to be the authorised agent of "the Great White Brotherhood which guides Evolution on earth" and to be in communication with the Supreme Director of the world and with "the World-Teacher," etc., in short, all the elements of sensationalism and emotionalism—which were subdominant and private (confined mostly to the "inner" E. S. T. organisation within the T. S.) now began to be predominant and public.... In the spring of 1909, a "brother Initiate" of Mrs. Besant's "discovered" the boy, now nicknamed Alcyone, as the future vehicle of the Coming Christ ... "neo-theosophy" was started more or less definitely [Italics mine.—A. L. C.]....

In January 1911 was started publicly by the then Principal of the C. H. C., as the chief member of the "Group" an "Order" called The Order of the Rising Sun, with the idea of "preparing for a coming World-Teacher "as its publicly avowed central idea, and the creed that the boy J. K. (Alcyone) would be the "vehicle" of the "Coming Christ—Maitreya-Bodhisattva," etc., as its privately understood creed, to spread which amongst the students was the duty of the inner "pledged group.' ... [[See ante p. 21].

In short, Mrs. Besant cleverly utilised an already existing organisation, founded for quite other objects and aims, to spread this crazy and pernicious "neo-theosophy," under cover of secrecy, pledges, etc., which she and C. W. Leadbeater—the real inspirer—well knew to be almost irresistible baits for sensitive and imaginative youths at a highly impressionable age.

In April, 1911, on remonstrance by the older members of the Managing Committee, Mrs. Besant arranged that the Order of the Rising Sun should be disbanded. But this was mere show. When the disbandment was announced to the managers, it had already been arranged to replace the O. R. S. on a larger scale by The Order of the Star in the East with the Principal, Head Master, and various Professors of the C. H. C. as the Private and other secretaries, of the boy J. K. as Head of the Order, and Mrs. Besant as Protectress of the whole....

In the summer of 1911, side by side with this public activity, there was started by Mrs. Besant within the E. S. T. ... A WRITTEN PLEDGE OF ABSOLUTE OBEDIENCE TO HERSELF. This fact, "private and confidential" at the time, is now public property since the Madras law suits....

In August, 1911, the Trustees of the C. H. C., to allay the apprehension in the public mind that the C. H. C. was being diverted from its constitutional broad and liberal Hinduism into a bizarre and unhealthy personal-cult and bigoted Second-Adventism, passed formal resolutions to the effect that the Institution had nothing to do with any such Orders as those of the Rising Sun or the Star in the East.

On December 24th, 1911, resolutions were passed by the Trustees, agreeing that the C. H. C. should become part of the Hindu University.... The neo-theosophic propagandism within (as without) the C. H. C. continued ... in a score of evasive and elusive forms. Inner "Groups" and "Esoteric Section Groups" of persons formally pledged to obedience to Mrs. Besant, "Leagues of Service" of various kinds, "Orders of S. E." and "S. I." and "I. L.," "Co-Masonry Lodges," "Temple of the R. C.," and corresponding badges, bands, "regalia," "jewels,"and "pink," and "blue," and "yellow" scarves; "magnetized ribbons," and "stars" in pin, brooch, and button forms, etc. [for all the world like the Kindergarten games for developing infant intelligences!—A. L. C.] multiplied and replaced one another in interest like mushrooms in the rain time, a very fever of restless sound and movement hiding lack of substance and of wise purpose. Fuss of the most absurd and mischievous kind became rampant. Lectures, meetings, night classes, outside the college rooms and buildings, took place perpetually in the neighbouring T. S. premises and private residences, for expounding the doctrines of neo-theosophy and especially the book called At the Feet of the Master alleged to have been written down by Alcyone (J. Krishnamurti), as the embryonic scriptures and revelation of "the Embryo of a New Religion," as Mrs. Besant declares the O. S. E. to be. Resident students were advised, and a number of them began to keep photos of Alcyone, as the "vehicle" of the "Coming Christ" and himself an "Initiate of the Great White Brotherhood" (and Mrs. Besant and one or two other living persons) "on the threshold of divinity," and to worship them with flowers, incense, etc. Old and young believers prostrating and genuflecting, literally, at the feet of the living original when within reach.... The then Principal of the College (who had founded the O. R. S.) proclaimed in his lectures in the neighbouring T. S. Hall, and elsewhere, that he was a "High Disciple of the Master"; and that the C. H. C. was "founded to prepare for the Advent of the World-Teacher"....

[Mrs. Besant] has publicly stated [that] all of the members of the General Council of the T. S. now belong, with one or two exceptions perhaps, to the "Esoteric Section," prime condition of membership of which is, the formal written pledge of absolute obedience to Mrs. Besant; and so while the loud profession is freedom of thought "for all" the practice is sedulously "for herself," and her pledged votaries only; while the theory is that the O. S. E. "must not be identified with the T. S.," the practice is that the T. S. must be merged in the O. S. E.

Let us turn to the C. H. C. to bring the narrative up to date. In March and April 1913 there came into the hands of another Manager and Trustee, a printed "letter," covering some three foolscap pages, bearing the signature of the gentleman who was then Principal of the C. H. C., the date October 25th, 1912, and the imprint of Mrs. Besant's Vasanta Press, Adyar, Madras, and not bearing any word like "private" or "personal," or "confidential." In this "letter" amazingly extravagant and fantastic statements are made as regards Mrs. Besant; she is hailed repeatedly as one who is "to become one of the greatest Rulers of the World of Gods and men" [This is sheer insanity.—A. L. C.]; mention is made of the "recognition of the God without us, which made us members of this Group from which we draw our life to-day"; it is said "that her light to ours was and is as the rays of the sun at noon-time to the rays of a lamp at night, and we did not desire to examine the Sun to see under what conditions it might possibly ray forth a more dazzling brilliance." The members of the Group are reminded that "we pledged ourselves in our hearts that we should strive to become her true and loyal servants ...," etc.

Thus complete was the hypnosis and surrender of reason which was sought to be effected amongst the votaries. It was a case of emotionalism run amuck...."

It is, unfortunately, "a case" of something infinitely more mischievous; of evil "magic" and "sorcery" (cf. H. P. B.'s definition, [ante p. 36].) Whether Mrs. Besant knows it or not, Mr. Leadbeater undoubtedly must be well aware that life and strength can be drawn, on inner planes of being, from the blind devotion of a solid body of fanatical votaries. "Magicians" of a certain school—I need hardly specify which—thus prolong their lives through the magnetic and vita emanations of their nearest and most devoted followers. In a word, it is Vampirism, pure and simple, on the psychic plane. (I found that Mrs. Tingley well understood this form of Sorcery.) This, if true in Mrs. Besant's case is probably unconscious; but in Mr. Leadbeater's it is done consciously and with knowledge. That the secret acts and teachings of this man are far worse than most people have ever suspected is confirmed in a "Letter in reply to Mrs. Besant" by "Dreamer" which appeared in The Theosophic Voice (Chicago), November, 1908, under the title "India Speaks." This scholarly Hindu Theosophist writes:—