Alice Leighton Cleather

“ The fierce passions of love and lust are still alive, and they are allowed to still remain in the place of their birth—that same animal soul.... It is thus the mind alone—the sole link and medium between the man of earth and the Higher Self—that is the only sufferer, and which is in incessant danger of being dragged down by those passions, that may be re-awakened at any moment and perish in the abyss of matter.... ”

“ Let them know at once and remember always, that true Occultism or Theosophy is the 'Great Renunciation of SELF,' unconditionally and absolutely, in thought as in action. It is ALTRUISM, and it throws him who practises it out of the ranks of the living altogether. 'Not for himself, but for the world he lives,' as soon as he has pledged himself to the work. Much is forgiven during the first years of probation. But, no sooner is he 'accepted' than his personality must disappear, and [Pg 33] he has to become a mere beneficent force in Nature. ”

“ For, whoever indulges, after having pledged himself to OCCULTISM, in the gratification of a terrestrial love or lust, must feel an almost immediate result—that of being irresistibly dragged from the impersonal divine state down to the lower plane of matter. Sensual, or even mental, self-gratification involves the immediate loss of the powers of spiritual discernment; the voice of the MASTER can no longer be distinguished from that of one's passions, or even that of a Dugpa; the right from wrong; sound morality from mere casuistry. ”

“ Leadbeater who wrote, and by Mrs. Besant who published, the following lines in the Adyar Album, p. 45: "What can I say to you of your President that you do not know already? Her colossal [sic] intellect, her unfailing wisdom, her unrivalled eloquence, her splendid forgetfulness of self, her untiring devotion to work for others—all these are familiar to you. Yet these qualities, these powers, are but a small part of her greatness; they are on the surface, they may be seen by all, they leap to the eyes. ”

“ Then when the 'Astral' reflects only the conquered man, the still living but no more the longing, selfish personality, then the brilliant Augœides, the divine SELF, can vibrate in conscious harmony with both the poles of the human Entity—the man of matter purified, and the ever pure Spiritual Soul—and stand in the presence of the MASTER SELF, the Christos of the mystic Gnostic, blended, merged into, and one with IT for ever. ”

“ Besant lent herself and her oratory to the acquittal, without evidence, of Mr. Leadbeater at a public meeting ... In my view it is as bad to rescue a man from public justice (which is a wider term than criminal law) by the exercise of a dominating personal veto, as it is to do it by money or social or any other 'influence'—'influence' which is the bane of any system of justice.... She may effect a master-stroke of salvage, but she offends every canon of fairplay, let alone of that ordinary morality by which all men, high or humble, must be content to be judged. ”

“ This last is the only kind of Occultism that any Theosophist who admires 'Light on the Path,' and who would be wise and unselfish, ought to strive after. All the rest is some branch of the 'Occult Sciences,' i.e., arts based on the knowledge of the ultimate essence of all things in the kingdoms of Nature—such as minerals, plants and animals—hence of things pertaining to the realm of material nature, however invisible that essence may be, and howsoever much it has hitherto eluded the grasp of Science.... ”

“ What percentage of love and care will there remain to bestow on the 'great orphan' [Humanity] ? And how shall the 'still small voice' make itself heard in a soul entirely occupied with its own privileged tenants?... yet, he who would profit by the wisdom of the universal mind, has to reach it through the whole of Humanity, without distinction of race, complexion, religion, or social status. ”

“ And what student of human nature will fail to recognise in her that purely feminine trait of blind and fanatical "obedience" which loves to receive and obey "orders" even though the result should be "a world in ruins"? The existence of this fundamental and essential quality in female human nature is the real reason why even the most broad-minded men shrink from giving women equality of power with themselves in wordly affairs. ”

“ Acts alone show forth morality, not attractive formulas flowing from literary or oratorical talent. The constant declaration of liberty of thought, of human brotherhood, cannot impress us when the actions of those who delight in them enslave thought, persecute merit, seek to poison souls by flimsy and deceptive spiritual pronouncements.... ”

“ The "Theosophy" of the Theosophical Society is now a definite creed and dogma based upon authoritative psychic pronouncements, from which those who dare to differ are first of all squeezed out of office by the President, and finally compelled to leave the Society, being denounced in the strongest language as "persecutors" and "haters." I am quite aware that all the [Pg 9] time you are preaching freedom of opinion; but that is one of the farcical aspects of the régime which you inaugurated.... Whatever you may preach, it is now notorious that your practice has been the exact reverse. ”

“ Mrs. Besant is again incarnated in the family as daughter, the eldest sister of the "Master M."; "Maitreya," the future World-Teacher, being at this time the head of the tribe (p. 113) ....
We have thus reached to somewhere about the year 15,000 B.C., and then—incredible as it seems—they give no further incarnations of him whom they nevertheless claim to have been the World-Teacher at the beginning of our era.
They give us his incarnations as husband, as father, as counsellor and priest, and are silent as to the only incarnation of fundamental and vital importance to the whole world. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For this 'Astral'—the shadowy 'double' (in the animal as in man) is not the companion of the divine Ego but of the earthly body. It is the link between the personal self, the lower consciousness of Manas, and the Body, and is the vehicle of transitory, not of immortal life.... It is only when the power of the passions is dead altogether, and when they have been crushed and annihilated in the retort of an unflinching will ”

“ Besant in 1895 and Mrs. Tingley in 1899, I have been out of touch with these two movements, each calling itself "theosophical" and each leader claiming to be H. P. B.'s "successor." This is the reason why I have hitherto kept silent; in fact, it was not until I came to live in India in 1918, after spending some years on the Continent, and met some of the members—both Indian and European—who had left Mrs. Besant in more recent years, that I learnt of the appalling developments since she became President and installed the sex pervert Leadbeater as supreme esoteric teacher. ”

“ 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. ”

“ From that century, however, and after the rigid laws imposed upon the Gelukpas (Yellow Caps) and the general reform and purification of Buddhism (or Lamaism) , the Dugpas have given themselves over more than ever to sorcery, immorality, and drunkenness. Since then the word Dugpa has become a synonym of "sorcerer", "adept of black magic" and everything vile. There are few, if any, Dugpas in Eastern Tibet, but they congregate in Bhutan, Sikkim, and the borderlands generally.—The Theosophical Glossary, by H. P. Blavatsky.
[9] Man is a trinity composed of Body, Soul, and Spirit ”

“ The 'Master' in the Sanctuary of our souls is 'the Higher Self'—the divine spirit whose consciousness [Pg 34] is based upon and derived solely (at any rate during the mortal life of the man in whom it is captive) from the mind, which we have agreed to call the Human Soul (the 'Spiritual Soul' being the vehicle of the Spirit.) In its turn the former (the personal or human soul) is a compound, in its highest form of spiritual aspirations, volitions and divine love ”

“ Leadbeater is probably right, and it may be possible to develop, as he claims, a certain clairvoyance (an inferior clairvoyance, it must be said) without the concurrence of a moral and mental training.... But who will maintain that without moral purification we shall possess that moral sense that inspires gracious and noble conduct, and teaches us to hate falsehood?... be able to distinguish illusions from reality in our astral visions? ”

“ These extracts will show the "true" teaching in this matter of Occultism, as contrasted with the "false," or Mrs. Besant's and Mr. Leadbeater's. H. P. B. begins by declaring that: "There are not in the West half-a-dozen among the fervent hundreds who call themselves 'Occultists' who have even an approximately correct idea of the nature of the Science they seek to master. With a few exceptions, they are all on the highway to sorcery.... Let them first learn the true relation in which the Occult Sciences stand to Occultism.... ”

“ WE now come to the examination of two articles in the Theosophist for March, 1922, in which the President of the T. S. makes some attempt to deal with recent criticism. One is a Supplement, or Manifesto, addressed "To all Members of the Theosophical Society," and couched in Mrs. Besant's present style—flamboyant, a trifle bombastic, often Biblical in phraseology, and running throughout it, her usual fervid and disingenuous appeal to sentimental emotionalism, instead of the instinctive sense of justice latent in all beings. ”

“ Besant and Mr. Leadbeater are most certainly not ignorant of the dangers of occult development without morality. But it is quite another matter to profess this theory, or even to lean towards morality in the course of occult development, by means of ... generous aspirations perpetually evoked in eloquent language, from setting to work on the development of these centres by means of exercises arranged with the express purpose of bringing in the practice of morality, of truth, and of logic as powerful factors in the reorganisation of the subtle bodies—which produces clairvoyance.... ”

“ 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. ”

“ Besant say of Mr. Leadbeater:—"By hard, patient work he has won rewards ... until he stands perhaps the most trusted of his Master's disciples on the threshold of Divinity." (Theosophist, November, 1911, p. 308.)
This conception of the "Divinity" that should be the the final expression of morality has no need of comment other than that same "deification" by his colleague—who five years earlier regarded his teaching as so utterly immoral as to suggest mental derangement as the only explanation.... ”

“ If a real Indian initiate, a Brahmin or otherwise, of ripe age, had come to Europe on his own responsibility or in the name of his Masters to teach his doctrines, nothing would have been more natural or interesting.... But it was not in this form that we beheld the new apostle from Adyar. A young Indian, aged thirteen, initiated by Mr. Leadbeater ... is proclaimed and presented to the European public as the future teacher of the new era. Krishnamurti, now called Alcyone, has no other credentials than his master's injunctions and Mrs. Besant's patronage. ”

“ 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 [Pg 48] emanations of their nearest and most devoted followers. In a word, it is Vampirism, pure and simple, on the psychic plane. ”

“ II of The Secret Doctrine entitled "The Curse from a Philosophical Point of View." [Pg 65] 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." ”