Chapter III: Part 3

Because, for Mrs. Besant, Mr. ---- was _at this period_ her mouthpiece for the Master, she expected her colleagues to take the same view without question. This attitude is typical, and can be applied to all that she now says about Leadbeater (see _ante_ p. 19.) From this time I found it impossible to believe in her or her statements; such, for instance, as that H. P. B. had reincarnated in Mr. ----'s little daughter!![12]--or in anyone else for that matter. H. P. B. herself, when someone asked her about reincarnating, jokingly replied--"Yes, in some mild Hindu youth with half a lobe to his brain!" _H. P. B. has not reincarnated._ On the ridiculous belief above mentioned Mrs. Besant based her "authority" for doing things in H. P. B.'s name after her death (see _post_ p. 71 for examples). It follows also that I absolutely reject her claim to be an "agent" of the Masters (_i.e._, the Trans-Himâlayan Brotherhood), neither do I believe that she has had any communication whatsoever with Them since H. P. B.'s death.[13] Finally, I reject her most presumptuous claim that she is able, or in anyway fitted, to "expand," "verify," or "check" by psychic faculties H. P. B.'s statements and teachings; still less to carry on independent occult investigations on the same, or any similar plane of consciousness. Whether Mrs. Besant, in making these claims, is acting under the glamour of Mr. Leadbeater's "clairvoyant" delusions, as MM. Lévy and Schuré suggest, or is fully conscious and responsible, is not my part to judge, nor does it really matter. For me, her life may be summed up in some words she applied recently to Mr. Gandhi (_Theosophist_, April, 1922). It is "the tragedy of a soul." Her criticisms on what she calls his "failure" apply fully and literally to _her own_.

There is really very little in the Manifesto (_Theosophist_, March, 1922), that is not sufficiently answered by the various extracts I have quoted from previous critics. Mrs. Besant opens with the usual disingenuous statements about the "Liberal Catholic Church." Her argument that all religions are on an equal footing in the T. S. carries no weight when it is widely known that L. C. C. agents are everywhere at work pushing its interests.

Coming next to Mr. Leadbeater, Mrs. Besant states that he was "cleared by a Committee in England"! But it is really a little too much, and altogether too brazen,[14] when she dares to compare his case with that of H. P. B. in the matter of slander. _There can be no possible comparison._ The worst ever suggested against H. P. B. was what has been said of many other women, including Mrs. Besant herself, who have had to work in the glare of publicity and champion an unpopular cause. No evidence was ever brought forward, and the New York _Sun_ promptly apologised for publishing such statements on being shown that they were unfounded.[15] The grave charges against Mr. Leadbeater were supported by documentary evidence _which has never been rebutted_, and they have to do with something far worse than personal moral laxity, as we have seen. Mrs. Besant knows she cannot meet these charges, and so seeks to brush them aside by voluble talk about "hatred," "defamation," and "vilification." The only _justification_ she offers for having reinstated him in 1907 is that she had discovered that it was "a cruel lie that he had confessed to wrongdoing"! This is to argue that the "accused" should be "acquitted" because he refused to confess--in the face of evidence of no matter how damning a nature! Did Mrs. Besant follow this procedure in her "Case against W. Q. Judge"? Not at all; far from "acquitting" him when he refused to "confess to wrongdoing" and asked for production of the incriminating documents, she calmly confessed that she had destroyed them! But _now_ that it is a case of her own guide and "intermediary" in the dock, her attitude is entirely different, and it is quite enough for her that the "accused" did not "confess" his crime!

As Dr. Stokes, Editor of the _O. E. Critic_ (Washington, D.C.) has been fearlessly stating the facts and encouraging the "Back to Blavatsky" movement for some time past, she next devotes a paragraph to an attempt to discredit him by suggesting his connection with an old enemy of H. P. B.'s. Dr. Stokes's championship of H. P. B., and relentless exposure of the Besant-Leadbeater imposture is the more effective since he persists in retaining his membership in the T. S.

The next to be dealt with is Pandit Bhagavan Das, and his criticisms about the Central Hindu College. Here again, all I have quoted from his pamphlet about the secret sections, underhand work, pledges, etc., are entirely ignored.

Mr. T. H. Martyn's letter, which has caused such a sensation in the Society (Holland alone asking for 500 copies) is dismissed as full of "untrue" statements. Truly a very simple method of dealing with matter which Mrs. Besant finds compromising or unpleasant (see _ante_ p. 18); but she can hardly believe it to be convincing.

It is when this profoundly disingenuous woman comes to an explanation of the motive behind her political work in India, that we find a typical specimen of the peculiar form of megalomania already so ably demonstrated by M. Lévy. What must be the mental condition of a person who can sit down and solemnly write the following?

The work entrusted to me directly by the great Rishi who is--as
one may say [_sic_]--the spiritual Viceroy[16] for India of the
King of Kings of our world--is the bringing about of Home Rule
in India, in close union with Great Britain, as part of a great
Federation of Free Nations, a model of the future World
Commonwealth...."

Why such a very mundane and political idea should need an order from a Rishi is not explained. The patent appeal both to the Government and the Indian people in this portentous announcement is not very happily conceived.

It is unfortunate for Mrs. Besant that her indignant denial that another of the notorious "Bishops" (Wedgwood) is "wanted" by the police was immediately followed by a priest's confession and the Bishop's resignation from the L. C. C., the T. S., and the Co-masons![17]

Finally we come to the most ominous part of the whole document, where Mrs. Besant refers to the present condition of the sex problem, and indicates that Mr. Leadbeater's vile teachings to, and practices with boys--trying "to wean lads from evil practices" is her version of it--are part of a process necessary "to save mankind in the near future." The "lessening of the sex impulse" on the "line of higher mental evolution" is "too slow." "Early marriage and birth-control"--preceded, one must assume, by Leadbeaterism--are now Mrs. Besant's inspired panaceas.

The appalling menace to _the evolution of the spiritual nature in man_, of the secret Leadbeater teaching known as the "X-system," is shown by the evidence of Dr. Eleanor M. Hiestand-Moore (M.D.), Editor of the _Theosophic Voice_ (Chicago), in which all the Leadbeater proceedings of 1906 were reported and discussed. In the August number, 1908, Dr. Hiestand-Moore writes:--

During the winter of 1906-7 the Editor [herself] was in Chicago
and in order to combat the widespread tendency to uphold
self-abuse on the lines indicated by Mr. Leadbeater, a series
of lectures on the psychology of sex was given. There were
members in the E. S., and out of it who upheld the X-system.
One person declared ... that _this system would, before many
years, be taught in our public schools_. Still another insisted
that _by self-abuse humanity was to return to the
hermaphroditic type_ and that _this practice would be universal
among Fifth Round Humanity_. A number declared that, while they
did not pretend to know anything about such matters, they had
understood this was _a highly occult teaching given to would-be
disciples_! We could lay hands on a letter setting forth the
claim that this teaching is purely "esoteric" and not to be
estimated by exoteric standards--this, too, from a Branch
president! [Italics mine.--A. L. C.].

These instances are sufficiently appalling in themselves. But
what can we say now that _The Voice_ has elicited a
correspondence which is simply a brazen defence of these
"teachings"?[18]

What, then, must be the moral condition of this horrible travesty of the old T.S. _now_, fourteen years after Dr. Hiestand-Moore wrote the foregoing? Mrs. Besant is thus seen to have now returned practically to the Neo-Malthusianism of her earlier, pre-theosophic association with the late Charles Bradlaugh. It may not be generally known that H. P. B. _refused to accept her as a pupil_ until she had published a recantation of all she and Bradlaugh had advocated in _The Fruits of Philosophy_. It is a sinister omen that under C. W. Leadbeater, the sex pervert, Mrs. Besant has abandoned H. P. Blavatsky's imperative requirement for becoming a student of _White_ Occultism, and has returned to the essentially materialistic doctrine of "birth-control," in direct contravention of the true Occult teaching. In other words, her assertion amounts to this:--_Self_-control is not possible (or is "too slow "), therefore we must control _results_. How different is the Occult teaching is well-known to all who have taken the trouble to read H. P. B.'s articles from which I have already quoted (see _ante_ p. 31) and the splendid chapter in Vol. II of _The Secret Doctrine_ entitled "The Curse from a Philosophical Point of View." And H. P. B. told me herself that she included the following verse in _The Voice of the Silence_ with the express object of combating such teachings and placing the Occult doctrine beyond possibility of misinterpretation:--

"Do not believe that lust can ever be killed out if gratified or satiated, for this is an abomination inspired by Mâra. It is by feeding vice that it expands and waxes strong, like to the worm that fattens on the blossom's heart."

In a note H. P. B. explains that Mâra is "personified temptation through men's vices, and translated literally means 'that which kills' the Soul." Far from "saving" mankind, therefore, these professed 'expanders' and 'expounders' of H. P. B.'s doctrines are in reality doing their best to hasten its end. Better far, from the Occult standpoint, that a race should be wiped out by "outraged Nature," as were the Atlanteans for the same sins, than that it should be kept alive only to sink lower and lower until "Mâra" kills its Soul.

In the "Watch-Tower" (_Theosophist_, March, 1922,) Editorial mention is made of a display at Adyar of "treasures of the most varied kinds," which have just been unearthed from "all the old locked-up boxes" at the headquarters. Why, one may not unreasonably enquire, has Mrs. Besant waited until 1922 to disinter, for instance, a long and valuable letter from H. P. B. herself? Why have such "treasures" been _kept back for over thirty years_; just as "Letters" from the Masters (the Trans-Himâlayan Brotherhood) were kept hidden away for an even longer period--nearly forty years? The reasons are so ridiculously transparent that they would hardly deceive an intelligent child. Mrs. Besant is becoming seriously discomposed, even alarmed, by the growing strength of the "Back to Blavatsky" movement, which is in itself a reaction against her own neglect. Hence all this "burrowing" (her own word) in order to make a brave show of these "treasures" for which she had no sort of use until, disturbed by alarming rumours, she hastily resorts to them for purposes of camouflage and disguise. For she is a skilful opportunist and clever actress, assuming successive parts with as convincing an air as any "star"; neither does she scruple to employ every device of the party politician.

Does Mrs. Besant seriously believe that this attempt to drag the red herring of an unexplained and suddenly awakened interest in these "treasures" across the trail of Mr. Leadbeater's infamies will deceive anyone save their blind and infatuated followers? Has she forgotten that when, _only two years_ after H. P. Blavatsky's death, she came under the direct hypnotic control of Brahmin influence, she threw doubts upon her old Teacher's _bona fides_ and her occult knowledge; and, in the course of formulating her charges against her fellow-disciple (a _chela_ of many years' standing before she ever even heard of Theosophy) suggested to Mr. Judge that, "_misled by a high example_" (H. P. B.), he had fallen "a victim." For, as she then told him, her "theory was _first_, that H. P. B. had committed several frauds for good ends and made bogus messages; _second_, that [he] was misled by her example; and _third_, that H. P. B. had given [him] permission to do such acts. She then," continues Mr. Judge, "asked me to confess thus, and that would clear up all. I peremptorily denied such a horrible lie, and warned her that everywhere I would resist such attack on H. P. B. These are the facts, and the real issue is around H. P. B." (_The Path_, March, 1895.)

With the complete disruption of the Society the Brahmin period of dominance over Mrs. Besant came to an end. Then followed the Leadbeater _régime_, the first phase of which culminated in the crisis of 1906. But on Colonel Olcott's death in the following year, she contrived the realisation of her great ambition, and became President of the Society. At this point in her career, however, there were two serious difficulties which she had to meet:--_first_, the Leadbeater scandal which raised a storm of horror and protest from those old and tried members who had remained in the Society up to that time, but who then practically withdrew in a body Deprived of their support, and having reinstated the infamous Leadbeater, Mrs. Besant realised that, as President, she could no longer risk appearing half-hearted over H. P. Blavatsky; nay more, she _needed_ the support of her venerated name; _second_, as President of the Society created by H. P. B., she must, for the sake of her own prestige, take some definite action which would remove all possibility of suspicion that she was no longer the follower of the Teacher whom she had, _in fact_, already "denied" and "betrayed" only two years after her death. Mrs. Besant realised, in short, that she had gone too far, and must now retrieve the position. Accordingly, in 1907, she issued a pamphlet entitled _H. P. Blavatsky and the Masters of the [sic] Wisdom_, in which, with all her accustomed ability, she dealt once more with the famous (or rather infamous) Report of the Society for Psychical Research, published in 1885. But the concluding eulogy strikes a false note, coming from one who, as I have shown, was capable of being persuaded that H. P. B. had concocted messages from those Masters Whom she so faithfully served for two-thirds of her life.

It was at this time also (1907), so Mrs. Besant later declared, that "the T. S. fully regained its original position, with the Masters of the [_sic_] Wisdom as once more the 'First Section' of the Society." This bold assertion was made in 1919, when, under pressure of some fresh scare connected with Mr. Leadbeater, Mrs. Besant published a small volume of the Masters' Letters (most of which had presumably been lying in the archives of the Society at Adyar for nearly forty years!), obviously for no other reason than because among them are two alleged to have been received by Mr. Leadbeater. This she did in order to bolster up the extravagant claims she now makes for him as a "Great Teacher." But there were many who received Letters in the early days, and there is no reason why similar claims should not be made for all the recipients!

In the article entitled "Whom will ye Serve?" (_Theosophist_, March, 1922,) Mrs. Besant says that H. P. B. "formed an inner circle of her pupils, that it might bear witness to the truth and reality of the inner side of life." This was the "Inner Group" of which she and I were two of the six women members. But as, unfortunately Mr. Leadbeater was not included, although he had become a member of the T. S. some years before, she adds:--"And behold! ere she passed away, she had led others to the Light, and bade them bear witness to it...." Considering that she "passed away" _less than a year_ after forming the Inner Group in the summer of 1890, and that we were constantly with her and never heard of these "others," this statement is manifestly untrue. Mrs. Besant also refers to Mr. Leadbeater as "one of H. P. B.'s nearest and most trusted pupils [Absolutely untrue.--A. L. C.] whom she had led to his Master of many lives, and in whom she had awakened the powers since so splendidly used in the service of the Society that he might become a great Teacher...."

I challenge Mrs. Besant to produce anything in writing by H. P. B. to warrant this audacious assertion. I was a pupil of H. P. B. (and through her was accepted as "a _chela_ on probation," in 1889) before Mrs. Besant joined the T. S., and saw her expel one of her most gifted and valued workers from the Esoteric Section for offences against the occult and moral law similar to those with which Mr. Leadbeater's name has now been associated for nearly twenty years. H. P. B. was always extremely strict on this particular point, and many would-be aspirants for _chelaship_ were refused on this one ground alone, while others who had been accepted "on probation" failed almost immediately afterwards.

When I joined the T. S. in 1885 my diploma was signed by Colonel Olcott as President and C.W. Leadbeater as Secretary (he was then at Adyar), but I never heard him mentioned by H. P. B. or anyone else at the London Headquarters, as a person of any importance whatever, in the occult sense. Mrs. Besant goes on to say that H. P. B. left "the twain of us [Leadbeater and herself] to bear personal witness to the truth when she had gone"! Where is her _evidence_ that Mr. Leadbeater was ever one of H. P. B.'s pupils? There is none, save this bare, unsupported assertion of a highly interested party. How could these two, to the exclusion of all H. P. B.'s pupils--some of them "regularly accepted _chelas_ on probation"--be specially selected, taught, and prepared, (and above all, to promulgate the sort of "teachings" of which I have given a few specimens), without any of us hearing even a hint of it! Moreover, I never saw, or even heard of Mr. Leadbeater at the London Headquarters while H. P. B. was alive. I might just as well claim such a mission for myself, or Mr. Mead, or Dr. Keightley, or any other member of the Inner Group who has remained true to the pledge and the Teacher; and with greater justice, for Mrs. Besant has _not_. The truth is that Mr. Leadbeater was never heard of in connection with occult teaching until he was taken up and foisted on the unfortunate T. S. and E. S. as a "Great Teacher" by Mrs. Besant who was herself never more than a "_chela_ on probation"--_during H. P. B.'s lifetime_.

Let me refer again to H. P. B.'s article "The Theosophical Mahatmas" from which I have already quoted (_ante_ p. 3), in which she deals with the members of the T. S. who were "regularly accepted _chelas_ on probation," and the subsequent failure of nearly all of them. If this was true at that time, it can certainly now be applied to the case of Mrs. Besant, who, in my judgment and that of many others, conspicuously failed under two great tests. The first failure occurred when she went to India in 1893, became an orthodox Hindu, and was induced to entertain those doubts of her Teacher that I have already alluded to. (_ante_ p. 66.) Bound up with this failure--the doubt of the Teacher--was her attack on her fellow _chela_, Mr. Judge.

The second failure was a far worse one when, in 1906, after having publicly endorsed the finding of the Advisory Committee on Leadbeater's crimes (see footnote _ante_ p. 59), she suddenly turned round and secured his reinstatement. In thus condoning and even endorsing immorality of the vilest description, she denied one of the strictest occult laws binding upon a _chela_.

This double failure had far more serious results in her case than in those of which H. P. B. wrote in 1886, because, owing to her commanding position as a leader, the fate of the many thousands of earnest souls in the Society who believed in and followed her implicitly, was involved.

FOOTNOTES:

[11] This Brahmin is the person referred to in the following passage from Mr. T. H. Martyn's letter to Mrs. Besant of May 20th, 1921 (see _ante_ p. 18):--"Like many of the older members I have known how you and others for quite a long time regarded ---- as _a Master in the flesh_ and later had to repudiate him when certain facts indicated the mistake." Italics mine. This is absolutely new to me. In 1894 none of us (so far as I was then aware) regarded Mr. ---- as anything more than a _chela_, so what Mr. Martyn here states must have been a later development, and explains much.

I suppress the gentleman's name out of regard for his present official position in India and his dissociation from Mrs. Besant.

[12] I did not learn the actual facts of this foolish fable until I came to India in 1918, and found they were common knowledge among leading members of that time. Naturally, when Mrs. Besant transferred her allegiance to Mr. Leadbeater, she had to find another "body" for H. P. B. So, in the _Theosophist_ for January, 1922. she writes the following typical effusion for the benefit of the faithful:--" ... alas! she passed away, and took rebirth in the north of India, and though we have lived for twenty-eight years in the same land so dear to beth of us, we have never met physically face to face. Yet close ties bind us to each other, and may be we shall yet greet each other in the flesh." Observe the suggestion that she has always been in close touch with H. P. B. _out of the body_, and that later they may meet "in the flesh." This prepares the ground for producing this new "incarnation" when the suitable moment comes; just as the boy Krishnamurti was brought forward as the "body" for the coming "World-Teacher." Mrs. Besant's new version must be amusing reading for those familiar with the earlier theory, as she was certainly "face to face" with the "little daughter" constantly, and even persuaded Countess Wachtmeister to resume her former care of H. P. B. in her new body. Needless to say the poor Countess was sadly disillusioned, and died not long afterwards bitterly bewailing the ruin of the T. S.

[13] As showing the absurdity of such a claim, I may mention that Mrs. Besant actually visited mediums through whom H. P. B. was supposed to communicate. In 1892, only a year after her death, my colleague Mr. Basil Crump, Barrister-at-Law, was investigating the phenomena of a certain trance medium shortly before he joined the T. S. He was present at a private sitting with this medium in the studio of an artist friend, to which Mrs. Besant came with another member of H. P. B.'s Inner Group, Miss Emily Kislingbury, in order to speak with her deceased teacher. An intelligence calling itself "Madame Blavatsky" controlled the medium, and Mrs. Besant held a conversation with it. Later, when Mr. Crump became acquainted with H. P. B.'s explanation of Spiritualistic phenomena, and her express denial that the true immortal Ego ever communicated in this manner, he was naturally astonished that one of her most learned pupils should for a moment entertain such a possibility and waste her valuable time in attending a séance. But now he sees that it was only an early symptom of the astounding credulity and ignorance of occult science she has since exhibited, as shown in these pages. H. P. B.'s explanations of psychic phenomena are rapidly being endorsed and followed by the modern scientific school of investigation, which has succeeded not only in proving the genuineness of the phenomena, but also the important part played by the _will and imagination_ both of the medium and the sitters in their production.

[14] Her latest move, is to draw a distinction between the "Advisory Committee of 1906" which she accuses of "unjust action," and what she calls "the prolonged investigation of 1907-08," which of course was engineered by her after she became President, in order to white-wash Mr. Leadbeater and secure his reinstatement. (See _Theosophist_, July, 1922). See Addendum for the Australian views on this.

[15] The importance of this case lies in the fact that it constituted an absolute vindication of H. P. B., for every slander ever circulated directly or indirectly was covered by it. Although the libel action came to an end with her death, the paper was so impressed by the evidence produced, in rebuttal, by Mr. Judge, that it not only retracted all that it had published, but also invited Mr. Judge to write a long article entitled "The Esoteric She" which they said "disposes of all questions relating to Madame Blavatsky." That Mrs. Asquith and Count Witte should both have seen fit to revive some of these old slanders in their books of reminiscences does not redound to their credit.

[16] Mrs. Besant's "Spiritual Viceroy" has certainly nothing to do with Those who were directing H. P. B. when she founded the Indian T. S. OR U. B. in 1879; for a special clause was included in the Constitution stating that "The Society repudiates all interference on its behalf with the Governmental relations of any nation or community, confining its attention exclusively to the matters set forth in the present document...." H. P. B. also wrote in the _Theosophist_, for October, 1879--"Unconcerned about politics; hostile to the insane dreams of Socialism and Communism, which it abhors--as both are but disguised conspiracies of brutal force and sluggishness against honest labour; the Society cares but little about the outward human management of the material world. The whole of its aspirations are directed toward the occult truths of the visible and invisible worlds. Whether the physical man be under the rule of an empire or a republic, concerns only the man of matter. His body may be enslaved; as to his Soul, he has the right to give to his rulers the proud answer of Socrates to his Judges. They have no sway over the _inner_ man." There speaks the true Mystic whose "Kingdom is not of this world." Three years later H. P. B. and Colonel Olcott published a further disclaimer, in which they said--"Before we came to India, the word Politics had never been pronounced in connection with our names; for the idea was too absurd to be even entertained, much less expressed...."

[17] The original documents appear in the _O. E. Critic_ for June 21st, 1922, and include a confession signed by a priest of the L. C. C. who states that he was "led astray by those whom I considered to be my superiors both morally and spiritually" adding "Wedgwood absolutely declines to give up the mal-practice." Wedgwood fled to Algeria at the end of March. A cable from Sydney dated May 30th states that "Mrs. Besant refused to answer any enquiry in reference to Wedgwood. Police now holding an enquiry into the charges against Leadbeater." Dr. Stokes concludes his comments on the documents as follows:--"And Annie Besant, having repeatedly been informed of the facts, not only refused to look into them, but launched her anathemas against those who criticised, even threatening them with expulsion from the E. S., and even very recently cabling to Wedgwood that he made a mistake in resigning!--It is on Annie Besant, more than on any other one person, that the responsibility for the present scandalous condition in the T. S. rests. The best of societies may have its black sheep and it is not to be blamed if it does its best to purge itself. But it is Annie Besant, with her tools and sycophants, who has ever concealed and denied the palpable facts, or, where they could not be denied, has palliated, excused and even defended them, throwing over them a veil of esoteric glamour, supporting such scoundrels as Leadbeater and Wedgwood, apparently in order the better to serve her ambitions. A vote of confidence in Annie Besant to-day either betrays total ignorance of the facts, or associates those who give it with the grossest forms of moral rottenness." See Addendum for Mr. Piddington, K. C's opinion on Mrs Besant's conduct in Australia last May; also Mr. Hugh Gillespie's evidence of her use of the Esoteric School as a "_political machine_" to secure her "ascendancy in the various bodies to which E. S. members have gained access."

[18] As to the methods employed to suppress criticism, Dr. Hiestand-Moore says in the same issue:--"Slander, falsehood, deceit, treachery, all have been summoned to the support of Mr. Leadbeater's cause. Anonymous communications have been written to confound the prosecution, letters have been stolen and threats made. The Editor of _The Voice_ has been compelled to call upon the Secret Service to protect her mails." [An entire issue in proof with copy and unset matter disappeared, and had to be rewritten!] Again, the Editor of the _O. E. Critic_ writes:--"It is understood, and I have the direct testimony of the publisher to the fact, that the entire edition of the Brooks' books [_Esoteric Bogeydom_ and _Neo-Theosophy Exposed_] was corralled by Mrs. Besant in order to suppress their circulation. They tell too much about her."

Tampering with H. P. Blavatsky's writings.

The result of Mrs. Besant's first failure, through harbouring doubts of her Teacher's _bona fides_ and esoteric knowledge, was soon manifested when she began to publish new editions of H. P. B.'s works. The first noteworthy example was her excision from _The Voice of the Silence_ of passages and notes, presumably out of deference to Brahmin sentiment, which then governed her actions. One of the last verses in "The Two Paths" (the second of the "Three Fragments" forming the little book) in the original edition (1889) begins thus:--"He who becomes Pratyeka Buddha, makes his obeisance but to his Self." In a footnote H. P. B. explains that "Pratyeka Buddhas are those Bodhisattvas who strive after and often reach the Dharmakaya robe after a series of lives. Caring nothing for the woes of mankind or to help it, but only for their own _bliss_, they enter Nirvana and--disappear from the sight and the hearts of men. In Northern Buddhism a 'Pratyeka Buddha' is a synonym of spiritual Selfishness."

In Mrs. Besant's edition both the passage and the footnote I have quoted are omitted. Her reason for this unscrupulous proceeding is given in a footnote on p. 416 of the so-called "third volume" of _The Secret Doctrine_. In this note Mrs. Besant, from the heights of her then newly-acquired Brahmanical wisdom, adopts the following dictatorial and censorious tone towards her late Teacher:--

The Pratyeka Buddha stands on the level of the Buddha [!], but
His work for the world has nothing to do with its teaching,
and His office has always been surrounded with mystery. The
preposterous [_sic_] view that He, at such superhuman height of
power, wisdom and love could be selfish, is found in the
exoteric books, though it is hard to see how it can have
arisen. H. P. B. _charged me to correct the mistake, as she
had, in a careless moment, copied such a statement
elsewhere_.--A. B.

Observe the assumption of superior knowledge to H. P. B.'s, and the use of the words "preposterous" and "careless." To any real Oriental _chela_ such an attitude towards his _Guru_ would be simply unthinkable; but we have seen how very quickly Mrs. Besant believed herself to have soared far above the "chela on probation" state of her H. P. B. days into that of an "Initiate" and future "Supreme Ruler of the World of Gods and men." To such vanity and self-delusion everything is possible. How different was the attitude of the _real_ Occultist who was spoken of by the Masters as "Our Brother H. P. B.," yet called herself "a Chela of one of Them"!

The passage I have italicised in the above footnote by Mrs. Besant is untrue on the face of it to anyone who knew, as I did, the loving care with which H. P. B. prepared this unique little book of "Golden Precepts." Moreover, she states in her Preface that the verses given are selected from a much larger number which she "learnt by heart." Further, H. P. B. _not only repeated but greatly amplified_ this statement about the Pratyeka Buddha in her _Theosophical Glossary_, a fact which Mrs. Besant had evidently forgotten when she concocted the footnote quoted above.[19] The Pratyeka Buddha is doubtless much that Mrs. Besant claims for him, but she does not seem to know, or has probably forgotten, that there are _two_ classes of Masters, _two_ "Paths" (as this very section of _The Voice of the Silence_ shows); that the "Pairs of Opposites" obtain on all planes of Manifestation and Being, right up to the threshold of the _Un_manifested--the ONE; that, while there are _Masters of_ COMPASSION, there must of necessity exist also the opposite pole--the wearers of the "Dharmakâya robe," with all the power and knowledge which that state implies, but without that _Compassion_ which alone makes a Master of the "Right Hand Path."[20]

It was a great and valuable feature of H. P. B.'s, method that she taught us to reason on these lines, checking everything by the Law of Correspondences. But Mrs. Besant has evidently long since abandoned this, and prefers the sacerdotal plan of accepting everything on "authority," which in her present phase means Leadbeater or her own psychic delusions. The "World Teacher" dogma is a case in point. She asserts it as a fact to be accepted because she says it; whereas, as I have shown, it is untenable in the light of _The Secret Doctrine_ (see _ante_ p. 2), which endorses Oriental tradition and cyclic law.

Mrs. Besant's partiality for the Pratyeka Buddha, however, may possibly be explained by some words that H. P. B. once wrote of her to Mr. Judge:--"She is not psychic or spiritual in the least--all intellect." For H. P. B. opens her paragraph in the _Theosophical Glossary_ on the Pratyeka Buddha with these words:-- "The Pratyeka Buddha is a degree which belongs exclusively to the Yogâchârya school ... one of _high intellectual development with no true spirituality_". (Italics mine.) Moreover, we have the authority of the Maha Chohan Himself (the Head of the Trans-Himâlayan Brotherhood) for the statement that even Nirvâna is, "after all, but an exalted and glorious selfishness."

In the _Theosophist_ for March, 1922, Mrs. Besant says, in her "Watch-Tower" notes:--

A wild theory has just been started in the U. S. A. that _The
Secret Doctrine_, brought out by the London T. P. H. after H.
P. B.'s death, was not as H. P. B. wanted it. The _insinuation_
is made that _H. P. B._ was "edited" by those in charge of _the
second edition_. The _trustees_ to whom she left _the
safeguarding of her printed books and unpublished manuscripts_
were all her own pupils who had _lived with her for years_, and
they made only _such changes as she had herself directed_,
which consist mainly in the correction of verbal and
grammatical errors, and the _arrangement of the material of
Vol._ III.

I have italicised the statements requiring explanation or correction. The "second edition," as Mrs. Besant must be well aware, was merely a re-print to meet an unexpected demand, and bears the same date as the original edition, _viz._, 1888. But as Mrs. Besant only joined the T. S. early in 1889, and was led to seek an interview with H. P. Blavatsky _after_ reviewing _The Secret Doctrine_ for the late Mr. W. T. Stead, then Editor of the _Pall Mall Gazette_, clearly she can know absolutely nothing of the preparation of its first _or_ of its "second edition"! As to the alleged "trustees," I can only say that I never heard of their existence. _Mrs. Besant_ only "lived with" H. P. B. for rather more than eighteen months. H. P. B. left 17, Lansdowne Road, London, W., in the summer of 1889, the Headquarters being moved to Mrs. Besant's house in Avenue Road, N.W., where she died in May 1891, _while Mrs. Besant was on her way back from a lecture tour in America_.

Take next the alleged "safeguarding" of H. P. B.'s "unpublished manuscripts." Those who were responsible for the so-called Volume III, had a strange and unusual conception of the meaning of the word "safeguarding." It so happens that while it was being set up I was able actually to peruse one or two of the familiar long foolscap sheets which H. P. B. always covered with her small fine handwriting. They were mutilated almost beyond recognition, few of her sentences remaining intact; and there were "corrections" not only in the handwritings of the editors, Mrs. Besant and Mr. Mead, but also in that of others which I was able to identify. More than this I cannot say without abusing confidence; but the wrong done to my Teacher compels me to say this much.

Those who were H. P. B.'s untiring and unfailing helpers in the preparation of _The Secret Doctrine_ for the press in 1887-88, Dr. Archibald and Mr. Bertram Keightley, have, fortunately for posterity, put on record their experiences of those days. They have made statements of the utmost value in connection with the facts I am here dealing with, which they wrote specially for Countess Wachtmeister's _Reminiscences of H. P. Blavatsky and "The Secret Doctrine,"_ published in 1893. Moreover, Dr. Keightley wrote an account of H. P. B.'s manifold literary activities at this time, which appeared in the _Theosophist_ for July 1889, in which he states that "_the Third Volume of The Secret Doctrine is in MS. ready to be given to the printers_. [Italics mine.--A. L. C.] It will consist mainly of a series of sketches of the great Occultists of all ages, and is a most wonderful and fascinating work."

In the face of this clear and definite statement, made by one whose word I know to be unimpeachable, and who lived and worked with H. P. B. at that time, what becomes of H. P. B.'s alleged "directions" for the "arrangement of the material of Vol. III" which Mrs. Besant speaks of above, and the statement in the Preface to _her_ version of Vol. III:--"The task of preparing this volume for the press has been a difficult and anxious one.... The papers given to me by H. P. B. were quite unarranged, and had no obvious order...."? This volume, given by Mrs. Besant to the world in 1897, is most certainly _not_ the one Dr. Keightley speaks of as "ready" for "the printers" in 1889, as I will prove. WHAT THEN BECAME OF THAT VOLUME?

But first I will quote Dr. Stokes, Editor of the _O. E. Critic_, whose most specific charges and plain statements of fact hardly come under the purposely misleading term "insinuations," used by Mrs. Besant! Dr. Stokes "_insinuates_" nothing; he heads his most damaging accusation as follows:--

"ANNIE BESANT'S CORRUPTION OF THE SECRET DOCTRINE."

In all probability Annie Besant's "revision" of H. P.
Blavatsky's original edition of _The Secret Doctrine_
constitutes the most colossal case of corruption of an original
text to be found in history. A group of students is comparing
the original edition with the "third and revised edition,"
edited by Annie Besant and G. R. S. Mead, after the author's
death.... I am informed by those making the comparison [that]
... the actual changes will be far more than twenty thousand.
Many of these changes are trivial and one wonders at the
impertinence or conceit which inspired them. Some of the
changes--those which might have put students on their guard
against the so-called Third Volume--can only be construed as
deliberate and intentional suppressions and corruptions of the
original text. And this in a work of which the Master K. H.
wrote: "Every mistake or erroneous notion corrected and
explained by her from the works of other Theosophists was
corrected by me or under my instruction." The true title of the
"third and revised edition" should be "_The Secret Doctrine_,
written by H. P. Blavatsky, corrected and approved by the
Master K. H., and corrupted by Annie Besant." It is almost
impossible to comprehend the colossal conceit, the limitless
contempt for common literary decency which could have inspired
such an act of vandalism, to say nothing of such disrespect for
the Master whom she professes to venerate. And all of this is
put forth as the work of H. P. Blavatsky herself, with the mere
apology in the preface that "Had H. P. Blavatsky lived to issue
the new edition, she would doubtless have corrected and
enlarged it to a very considerable extent." What a specious
excuse? [Repeated in the preface to the alleged Vol. III.--A.
L. C.] Had H. P. B. "corrected and enlarged it" it would
without doubt have been done under the same guidance and
authority which directed and corrected the first edition. It is
enough to cast suspicion on each and every quotation of
original sources made by Mrs. Besant, and her emendation of the
Theosophy of H. P. B. as well. (October 12th, 1921.)

As for the third volume, edited and published after the death
of H. P. B. from manuscripts left by her, nobody knows, in the
absence of a previous edition issued by her, how much of it is
H. P. B.'s and how much is not, but there is good evidence that
much of it is not, which is the more likely in view of the
vandalisms the same editors perpetrated in the first two
volumes. In no sense can the "third and revised edition" be
said to be a re-print of the original _Secret Doctrine_ of H.
P. Blavatsky. (December 21st, 1921.)

I most fully endorse all that Dr. Stokes so ably demonstrates, and I can quite believe that, in regard to Vol. III, some of the contents are not by H. P. B.-- the style in places is not hers at all. But I can enlighten him as to those portions of the contents of which I have actual knowledge. I may here add that, when my own group of students were checking the "third and revised edition" of the first and second volumes of _The Secret Doctrine_ by the original edition of 1888, they came across no less than four specific references by H. P. B. to Vols. III and IV as being practically completed, _viz._, Vol. I, Preface, and p. 11; Vol. II, pp. 437, 798, 1st Ed., 1888. Mrs. Besant coolly deleted all these without a word of explanation!

How unnecessary nearly all of this so-called "revision" was, can be realised in the Keightleys' accounts (see Countess Wachtmeister's book) of the care taken over the proofs of the first edition. Mr. Bertram Keightley says they first "read the whole mass of MSS.--a pile over three feet high--most carefully through, correcting the English and punctuation where absolutely indispensable." (Contrast this modesty and respect for the author with the spirit that perpetrated the thirty thousand corrections in the "third edition"!) It was then arranged under H. P. B.'s supervision in Sections, etc., and professionally typewritten. This first copy was again revised and any obscurities explained. It should be noted here that Mr. Keightley says they laid before H. P. B. "a plan, suggested by the character of the matter itself, _viz._, to make the work consist of four volumes ... to follow the natural order of exposition and begin with the Evolution of Cosmos, to pass from that to the Evolution of Man, then to deal with the historical part in a third volume treating of the lives of some great Occultists, and of 'Practical Occultism' in a fourth." This proves that at least the whole of the material for Vol. III was actually there (Dr. Keightley elsewhere states that it was _ready for the printer_.) Finally the Keightleys themselves set to work to type out a fair copy of Vols. I and II for the printer. "H. P. B. read and corrected two sets of galley proofs, then a page proof, and finally a revise in sheet, correcting, adding, and altering up to the very last moment."

Dr. A. Keightley says:--" ... no work and no trouble, no suffering or pain could daunt her from her task. Crippled with rheumatism, suffering from a disease which had several times nearly proved fatal, she still worked on unflaggingly, writing at her desk the moment her eyes and fingers could guide the pen.... We had to carry on the general scheme ... to act as watch-dogs and help her to make the meaning as clear as possible. But all the work was hers ... it went through three or four other hands besides H. P. B.'s in galley proof, as well as in revise. She was her own most severe corrector...."

Another able helper was Mr. E. Douglas Fawcett, the well-known author of _The Riddle of the Universe_, of whom both the Keightleys speak in terms of high praise. His profound knowledge of science, philosophy, and metaphysics was invaluable. "He supplied many of the quotations from scientific works, as well as many confirmations of the occult doctrines derived from similar sources."

And this monumental work, produced with such meticulous care and precautions against errors, is subjected to some thirty thousand corrections by its subsequent "editors"! In all my study of the original edition I have never found more than a few errors that matter in the least, and these are mostly typographical and quite obvious to any person of average intelligence. The marvel is that there are so few in a work of such magnitude and scope. Those of my students who possess only the "third and revised edition" (the first and second now being scarce), have re-corrected it to agree with the first; and to look at the pages covered with these re-corrections brings home to one, as nothing else can, the force and justice of Dr. Stokes's indictment. Let us hope that when H. P. B.'s great work is understood and accepted seriously at its true worth, an indignant posterity will pass judgment on one of the worst examples of literary vandalism in the nineteenth century.

In her Preface to Vol. III, Mrs. Besant boldly states that, in regard to the Sections entitled "The Mystery of Buddha," there are "very numerous errors of fact, and many statements based on exoteric writings, not on esoteric knowledge"! If her own statement with which I have dealt, regarding the Pratyeka Buddha is to be taken as the measure of her capacity to judge of the merit or demerit of H. P. B.'s work, all that Mrs. Besant says, or skilfully suggests, in this Preface can be dismissed as absolutely worthless. But in view of the fact that she then believed herself to be acting under the direction of "a Master in the flesh" (see Mr. Martyn's letter, _ante_ pp. 18-19 and footnote p. 56), who happened to be _an orthodox Brahmin_, these unfounded pronouncements which I quote with regard to the Sections on the Lord Buddha are perhaps not so surprising. I use the word "unfounded" advisedly, for she makes two separate statements as to the way in which she obtained the material for this so-called Vol. III. She opens the Preface with the first one:--"The task of preparing this volume for the press has been a difficult and anxious one, and it is necessary to state clearly what has been done." This is one of her usual formulas, after which she proceeds to do the exact opposite. She thus continues, in fact:--"The papers given to me by H. P. B...." But Mrs. Besant was not in England when H. P. B. died, _quite unexpectedly_, and with only three of her pupils present, namely, Mr. Claude Wright, Mr. Walter Old and Miss Laura Cooper (now Mrs. G. R. S. Mead.) We were all summoned by telegram, and I was at Avenue Road within a few hours. I never heard of any evidence that she gave Mrs. Besant papers, or directions about papers, before the latter left for America on a lecture tour; and most certainly H. P. B. never formally "appointed" her, or anyone else, as her "successor," for the very good reason that I have given elsewhere--that the movement had definitely failed, and she was "recalled." (see _ante_ p. 2.)

To return to Mrs. Besant's Preface. Her second statement is that the papers for the Sections on "The Mystery of the Buddha" were "given into my hands to publish, as part of the Third Volume of _The Secret Doctrine_...." _By whom_ were they "given"? Certainly not by H. P. B.; and why does Mrs. Besant speak of these Sections on the Buddha as if they were something apart from the "papers" she alleges she received _from H. P. B._? Clearly any further analysis is useless, for in all probability the truth about what really happened to all H. P. B.'s MSS. after her death _will never be known_, since the few who do know will, naturally, never speak.

Brushing aside, therefore, Mrs. Besant's "explanatory" Preface, Volume III, as given to the public in 1897, appears to be simply a collection of fugitive articles which, as I have shown, were obviously freely edited. To pad out the volume (the MSS. spoken of by H. P. B. in Vols. I and II, as already existing, having mysteriously vanished) Mrs. Besant prints both the _E. S. T._ and the _Inner Group Instructions_, despite the pledge of secrecy taken by her and all other recipients of these teachings. In justification of this she states--_six years after H. P. B.'s death_--that H. P. B. instructed her to do so! The worthlessness of such "instructions" is palpable in the light of her naïve belief in the alleged reincarnation of her Teacher in Mr. ----'s little daughter. (Needless to add that, under Leadbeater, she has another version of this idea!) We have the usual misleading and disingenuous statement in a "Note" which is prefixed to these Instructions. Mrs. Besant says:--"Papers I, II and III ... were written by H. P. B. and were circulated privately during her lifetime"

_These "Papers" are the E. S. Instructions._ She calls those given to the Inner Group "Notes of some Oral Teaching." But, with two exceptions, almost _every word of both E. S. and I. G. Instructions are given intact_, just as we received them; I possess them all. The two exceptions are, first, the practical teachings, given at the first meeting of the _I. G._, for Yoga development, which even Mrs. Besant had not the hardihood to publish; and, second, a very long "Preliminary Memorandum" to Instructions III.

FOOTNOTES:

[19] See also _An Introduction to Mahayâna Buddhism_, by W. M. McGovern, 1922. Kegan Paul. He confirms H. P. B.'s definition.

[20] It was ... during the highest point of civilisation and knowledge, as also of human intellectuality, of ... the Atlantean Race that ... humanity branched off into its two diametrically opposite paths; the Right and the Left-hand paths of knowledge or of Vidya. "_Thus were the germs of the White and the Black Magic sown in those days. The seeds lay latent for some time, to sprout only during the early period of the Fifth (our Race)._" (_Commentary_).--_The Secret Doctrine._ First Edition, Vol. I, p. 192.

The Truth about the E. S. Council, and the Inner Group.

The E. S. Instructions were written by H. P. B. during the winter of 1888-89. The I. G. Teachings were given orally by H. P. B. at its meetings in 1890-91. It was the duty of the two secretaries, Mrs. Besant and Mr. Mead, to write these Teachings up, from notes sent in by _all of us_, after each meeting, and record them in a book. This record was dealt with at each succeeding meeting, corrected and often amplified by H. P. B. All these _might_, therefore, have been included in Vol. IV of _The Secret Doctrine_, according to the general plan of the work adopted by H. P. B., if she had lived and had permitted it. Mrs. Besant's statement that they were written with that in view is incorrect, and was obviously made to justify her action in using them for her version of Vol. III.