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The Theosophical Movement 1875-1950

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The Adyar Society

THE DEATH OF MR. JUDGE, in less than a year after the separation of the American Section from the parent Society and the formation of the T.S. in A., left Col. Olcott in the unique position of sole survivor of the original Three Founders of the Theosophical Society. Col. Olcott was now the “grand old man” of the Movement, still at the head of the Society, and many who might have remained indifferent to Mrs. Besant’s claims as “successor” to H.P.B. were undoubtedly influenced by the name, “The Theosophical Society,” and the venerable President-Founder’s connection with it. The entirety of the Indian and Australasian membership were faithful to this society. In Great Britain, on the Continent, and, to some extent in the United States, the ability and reputation of Mrs. Besant, the secondary but considerable influence of Mr. Sinnett and other writers and leaders, coupled with the fact that the Besant-Olcott faction was the accuser, and not the accused, in the controversy with Mr. Judge, gave the original Society a special advantage in gaining and holding public attention.

The course followed by the T.S., however, was hardly one to attract serious-minded people to the support of the Theosophic Cause. The ageing Olcott became increasingly a mere figure-head, while Mrs. Besant’s flair for dramatic pronouncements and claims came gradually to dominate the activities of the Adyar Society. In the summer of 1899, Mrs. Besant withdrew the pledge, memorandum, and instructions of H.P.B. and substituted a new “pledge” for her “esoteric” students. This was followed by “studies” and “instructions” of her own, and by the circulation in her “School” of the literary results of “occult investigations” pursued by Mr. Leadbeater and herself. The latter were eventually published as Occult Chemistry and Thought Forms.

In 1906, charges of sexual misconduct with and infamous teachings to boys entrusted to his care were brought against 1 Mr. Leadbeater. An inquiry into the matter was held by Col. Olcott in London. After admitting enough of the charges to shock severely and disgust the members of Olcott’s committee of inquiry, Leadbeater resigned from the Society. Col. Olcott, who had come to regard Mr. Leadbeater as an “agent of the Masters,” was much disturbed by this development, which probably hastened his death. Meanwhile, there was the question of who was to “succeed” him as President of the Society. Mr. Chakravarti and others endeavored to procure the endorsement by Col. Olcott of Bertram Keightley as the next President of the Society, while followers of Mrs. Besant sought the same on her behalf. After Olcott died, early in 1907, Mrs. Besant declared that the “Masters” had come to the T.S. Headquarters at Adyar and “impressed” her that she was to be Olcott’s “Successor,” just as she had already “succeeded” H.P.B. Supported in this by the “clairvoyant” testimony of two women, Mrs. Hotchener (Mrs. Marie Russak) and Miss Renda, Mrs. Besant rode to victory and became the new President of the Society. At the outset, Mr. Sinnett rejected these “Adyar Manifestations,” declaring them to be anything but what they were claimed to be, and G.R.S. Mead also revolted against them. During the war of claims, pro and con, which ensued, Mrs. Besant issued a booklet, H.P.B. and the Masters of Wisdom, purporting to be a defense of H.P.B. against the CoulombS.P.R. charges of more than twenty years earlier. Actually, however, it presented its author in the frame of H.P.B.'s martyrdom and persecution. Was not Mrs. Besant now accused of fabricating the evidence of “occult” relationships, even as had been H.P.B.? Mrs. Besant was overwhelmingly elected to the Presidency by members who believed her to have been “appointed by the Master.”

Mrs. Besant at once began a campaign for the restoration of the repute of her colleague, Mr. Leadbeater. He was soon invited to return to the Society and as the years went by became increasingly “the power behind the throne” in Mrs. Besant’s wing of the movement. In due course (in 1911), Mrs. Besant promoted “The Order of the Star in the East” to herald the “coming Christ.” This was followed by a number of adjunct and affiliated orders and organizations, best known of which was Co-Masonry, followed by the “Liberal Catholic Church.”

What happened to the Theosophical Society, through the years, under the guidance of Mrs. Besant, became abundantly clear during a “Star” Congress held at Ommen, Holland, in 2 1925.

That this event should have taken place in the year that was the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Theosophical Movement, and on August 11, the anniversary of H.P.B.’s birth, only throws into greater relief the almost immeasurable departure from the original spirit of the Movement, to which Mrs. Besant had led her faithful followers. The purpose of the Congress was to further the “Krishnamurti” cult, for this young Hindu had been burdened by Mrs. Besant with the task of “saving the world.” In her opening address, which teems with supernaturalism and breathless references to personages like “the Nameless One” and “Lords of the Fire,” she told her listeners:
. . . And now I have to give you, by command of the King, . . . His message, and some of the messages of the Lord Maitreya and His great Brothers. . . what I am saying, as to matter of announcement, is definitely at the command of the King whom I serve. . . . His taking possession of His chosen vehicle . . . will be soon. Then He will choose, as before, His twelve apostles . . . and their chief, the Lord Himself. He has already chosen them, but I have only the command to mention seven who have reached the stage of Arhatship, . . .
Who were the “Arhats”? The first two [Mrs. Besant continued], my brother Charles Leadbeater and myself, . . . C. Jinarajadasa, . . . George Arundale, . . . Oscar Kollerstrom, . . . Rukmini Arundale,. . .

I left out one and must leave out another. Naturally, our Krishnaji was one, but he is to be the vehicle of the Lord. And the other is one who is very dear to all of us, as to the whole Brotherhood: Bishop James Wedgwood. He had borne his crucifixion before the seal of Arhatship was set upon him by his King. . . .

Those are the first seven of the twelve whom He has chosen, with Himself as the thirteenth. “Ye call me Master and Lord, and ye do well, for so I am.” . . .

Now the wonder may come into your mind: H.P.B. was the only one who was really announced as the messenger of the Master. Since then the world has grown a good deal, and it is possible that while the few may be repelled, many thousands will be attracted to the Christ. . . . Whatever the effect, since He has said it, it is done. . .

A continuous stream of this sort of “revelation” pervades the annals of the Theosophical Society of this period. For example, while, in 1925, Rukmini Arundale, George Arundale’s young wife, had reached the degree of “Arhat,” by 1928 she was ready for promotion to the almost ineffable position of “World-Mother,” embody ing the powe r of “Dur g a and La k shmi and Sarasvati”—aspects of the Hindu Trimurti “in Its feminine 3 manifestation.” Mr. Jeddu Krishnamurti, however, who had been either potentially or actually “Lord of the World” since 1909, and openly declared as such in 1911, eventually became unable to participate in these pretensions, for in 1929 he dissolved the “Order of the Star in the East” and proceeded to ignore both the Liberal Catholic Church and the World-Mother. He abolished his own office of “Lord” or “World-Savior” entirely and withdrew to the relative obscurity of an ordinary human being. Since that time he has been occupied with lecture tours, and has gained a considerable following, both in the United States and Europe. His principal counsel to his listeners is for them to depend upon themselves, and no one else, for spiritual enlightenment.

Mrs. Besant might be slowed down a bit by the defection of Krishnamurti, but she could hardly be stopped. A year and a half later, she published an article purporting to relate what went on in the councils of “the Hierarchy who are the real rulers of the world” on the occasion of deciding who the Messenger to the world would be. This account, which Mrs. Besant explained had been “sent” to her, runs in part:

The question seems to have been as to whether use should he made of H.P.B. or of Annie Besant. . . . The use of H.P.B. would involve the accentuation of the occult side, and a sharp conflict with Materialism. The use of Annie Besant would involve the accentuation of the Brotherhood side generally, with little conflict, at that time, with the materialistic attitude. H.P.B. was immediately available. Annie Besant would not be available so early. Hence the Society, if she were to be the principal medium, could only be founded many years later, instead of in 1875. Some of the Elder Brethren were frankly anxious about the stressing of the occult side. . . .

H.P.B. was . . . no less heroic than the one who would be her great successor, . . . She was an admirable channel for the Masters, and entirely selfless—utterly Their servant, no less than Annie Besant. . . .

In any case, the need of the world was urgent. Would it be safe to wait until 1891, with the advent of a world-catastrophe (1914-1918) in prospect? On the other hand, would it be wise to wait in view of the urgent need for the preparation of the world to receive its Lord in the first half of the twentieth century?

. . . Herein lay a risk, a risk that would not have been taken . . . but for the guarantee offered by our great Masters. . . . These two Great Ones offered to make Themselves personally responsible for an experiment both dangerous and desirable. They would watch over it with the utmost care and guard by all means in Their power against the development of the occult side into those terrible exaggerations 4 which in the past have led to such great disasters.

Anyone who digs through the files of the Theosophist for almost any year since Olcott’s death will find sufficient material of this sort to convict Mrs. Besant of either unconscionable deception or a “spiritual” vanity which carried her far beyond the bounds of sanity, to the point where she was able to believe what she said about herself. “Materialism” is spoken of in the above “communications,” but surely, an honestly doubting materialism of the “scientific” sort would have been much more desirable than the psychic maunderings which have passed under the name of “Theosophy” in Mrs. Besant’s society for nearly half a century. The “materialism” of the modern world has at least been a protection for the many against the sentimental nonsense to which the Theosophical Society descended under Mrs. Besant’s tutelage.

Mrs. Besant died at Adyar, Madras, India, on September 20, 1933. Her death was soon followed by that of C. W. Leadbeater, who, since 1895, had been the determining influence in her career and in that of the Theosophical Society of which she was President, as in its “esoteric section” of which she was the head. Mr. George S. Arundale succeeded to the Presidency of the Society, with Mr. C. Jinarajadasa at the head of its esoteric section. Neither Mr. Arundale nor Mr. Jinarajadasa enjoyed anything like the fame of Mrs. Besant, a circumstance which can hardly be regarded as unfortunate, in view of the weird collection of presumptions and declarations which they had inherited from her. In any event, every possible claim had been made during Mrs. Besant’s lifetime, so that anything said on behalf of Mr. Arundale would be found anti-climactic. During the latter’s term, there were occasional evidences of a renewed interest in the writings of H. P. Blavatsky. About forty years ago, in the heyday of the Besant-Leadbeater regime, “Bishop” Leadbeater had published a list of books said to be suitable for an education in “straight” Theosophy. Of some thirty volumes recommended, all but one were the productions of “Arhat” Leadbeater and “Arhat” Besant. These two kept on adding to their revelations until the end of their careers, so that the members of their society had hardly any real knowledge at all of the original presentation of the Theosophical philosophy. In 1934, however, Mr. Arundale announced that he was renewing his acquaintance with The Secret Doctrine, an experience which he thereupon recommended to others.

The Secret Doctrine [he wrote] is a challenge to effort and never an imposition of authority. Every page is a call to a voyage of discovery, and only he who sets out upon his travels can hope to begin to understand 5 the book.

There were other indications that Mr. Arundale was thinking things over. In the editorial section of the Theosophist, he told of a conversation with a woman who had recently resigned from the Society. When he asked her why, she replied by saying that most of the lectures at the lodge she attended “were about everything except Theosophy.” Mr. Arundale described the experience of this woman:
What she expected was a serious study of Theosophy. . . . and then study-classes to gain a more or less comprehensive grasp of our science. She said she found the syllabus full of addresses on Astrology, Financial Schemes, India, Archaeology, and so forth—all interesting, but for the most part dealt with more ably by bodies specializing in such subjects. What she wanted was Theosophy, and a progressive course in it. For what other reason, she asked, would she join the Theosophical Society? . . . I must admit I was inclined to agree with her; and I wonder how far she represents the average enquirer and our failure to offer him that for 6 which he comes.

Mr. Arundale died at Adyar on August 12, 1945, at the age of sixty-six years. He was succeeded in office by Mr. C. Jinarajadasa, who is the present President of the Theosophical Society. So far, Mr. Jinarajadasa’s rule has been marked by a peculiarly “esthetic” emphasis in his published writings, and numerous references to “God.” A recent T.S. publication, for example, contains a brief treatise on the “Theosophical Heaven,” and how to get into it. “Being artistic,” according to Mr. Jinarajadasa, is one of the prerequisites. As he put it:

. . . why should I exact an artistic nature as one of the qualifications to enter into the Theosophical Heaven? Because the Theosophical Heaven is not merely a place of goodness and devotion. It is also a place where the Divine Mind manifests itself in fullness; it is such a Heaven as Plato dreamed of, when he postulated the Ultimate Reality as a triple embodiment of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. . . . If, therefore, as you enter Heaven, you were merely pious and tenderhearted, but not intellectual or artistic, your understanding of life will be limited, and your evolution will be one-sided. For there is evolution in Heaven also; otherwise Heaven would be a dull place and its 7 splendours will cease to affect you after a while.

Elsewhere, Mr. Jinarajadasa has announced that “the hot, flowing streams of life” which surge through the heart and brain of the artist “reveal the quality of beauty which has been planned for all by God.” Not only the “moulds of beauty,” but also, Mr. Jinarajadasa relates, “all the ideas of Theosophy are 8 God’s ideas. . . . ’’ The President of the Theosophical Society ought to heed the advice of his predecessor in office, Mr. Arundale, and gain “a definite acquaintance at least with the spirit of The Secret Doctrine,” for he would find in that book the categorical statement by Madame Blavatsky that “Initiates never use the epithet ‘God’ to designate the One and 9 Secondless Principle in the Universe; . . . ’’ As one who, in 1925, was not merely an “initiate,” but, according to Mrs. Besant’s Ommen revelation, a first-string “Arhat,” Mr. Jinarajadasa betrays an amazing ignorance of the customs of his “degree.”

Looking back over the career of Annie Besant and her Society—for the Adyar Theosophical Society became veritably “hers,” to do with what she would—two incidents not yet mentioned seem worthy of report. The first was the receipt by Mrs. Besant of an “adept” letter warning her of the direction in which the Society was moving. Despite all the claptrap circulated by Mrs. Besant in the name of the “Masters,” this communication seems to have the ring of authenticity. The following passage is taken from a printed version of the letter appearing in the T.S. publication, Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, First Series, and described in this volume as “The last letter, written in 1900, received nine years after the death of H. P. Blavatsky”:
The T.S. and its members are slowly manufacturing a creed. Says a Thibetan proverb, “Credulity breeds credulity and ends in hypocrisy.” How few are they who can know anything about us. Are we to be propitiated and made idols of. . .

Are we to be propitiated and made idols of. . . . . . no one has a right to claim authority over a pupil or his conscience. Ask him not what he believes. . . . The crest wave of intellectual advancement must be taken hold of and guided into Spirituality. It cannot be forced into beliefs and emotional worship. The essence of the higher thoughts of the members in their collectivity must guide all action in the T.S . . . . We never try to subject to ourselves the will of another . . . . The cant about “Masters” must be silently but firmly put down. Let the devotion and service be to that Supreme Spirit alone of which each one is a part. Namelessly and silently we work and the continual references to ourselves ...raises up a confused aura that hinders our work. . . . The T.S. was meant to be the corner stone of the future religions of humanity. To accomplish this object those will lead must leave aside their weak predilections for the forms and ceremonies of any particular creed and show themselves to be true Theosophists both 10 in inner thought and outward observance . . . .

Even with the deletions made by Mr. Jinarajadasa of parts of the letter which he says “refer to the occult life of Dr. Besant,” its implication of the erroneous course of the T.S. is quite plain. Whatever the source of this letter, if Mrs. Besant had been able to take to heart the counsel it offered, she might have saved herself and her many followers from some of the more ridiculous extremes which she reached in later years, and avoided, also, the contempt which she earned for the term Theosophy among those who would look no further into the Theosophical Movement than newspaper reports of the doings of the Theosophical Society.

The second incident relates to the accusations brought by Mrs. Besant against William Q. Judge. In the 1920’s, a respected member of the Adyar Society, a man who had carefully studied the claims and evidence presented by both sides in the Judge 11 case, went to see Mrs. Besant to interview her on this subject. In the course of a serious conversation, Mrs. Besant admitted that what was presented to her—namely, that Judge was innocent of the charges made against him—was on the whole accurate, and she said that some time previously she had come to the conclusion that Judge had committed no forgery, and that the messages received by him were genuine. On being requested to say that much, only, if not more, to the Theosophical public the world over, Mrs. Besant demurred and remarked that it was an old and forgotten matter—“Why revive it?” When the inquirer, who was also a long-time friend of Mrs. Besant, sought permission to make her view public himself, she flatly refused it. This came as a shock to the inquirer, for he fully expected that, in the interests of historical veracity, Mrs. Besant would agree to say in public what she so readily admitted to him in private conversation, completely exonerating Mr. Judge from the charge of manufacturing bogus Mahatma messages.

About all that can be said in extenuation of Mrs. Besant’s attitude in this connection is that she quite possibly really believed that Mr. Judge’s innocence was no longer a matter of importance, so far had she departed from the essential work and meaning of the Theosophical Movement.

In justice to Mrs. Besant as a world-figure, it should be said that she labored for many years on behalf of the liberation of India, gaining through this work the respect and admiration of Indian patriots. She took an active part in the Indian National Congress and started the Home Rule League which campaigned for the position of “equal partner” for India in the British Commonwealth of Nations. Because of her political activity she was interned by the British Government early in1917, during World War I, but was soon released. In the same year, she was elected the first woman President of the Indian National Congress. After the Amritsar Massacre of 1919, however, she opposed the civil disobedience program led by Gandhi, which caused her to lose much of her popularity with the Indian masses. She is nevertheless remembered with respect by the leaders of the Indian Independence Movement, as one who gave unstintingly of her time and energy to the cause closest to their hearts.

Col. Olcott, like Mrs. Besant, also revised his opinion of Mr. Judge, but, again like Mrs. Besant, expressed himself only in a private interview. The occasion was a conversation with Laura Holloway (one of the “chela” authors of Man: Fragments of Forgotten History) in New York City in 1906, during Olcott’s last visit to the United States, a year before he died. Mrs. Holloway (then Mrs. Langford) had known Olcott in the early days and had also been acquainted with his sister, Belle, who had since died. Olcott wrote to Mrs. Holloway from Boston, asking her to visit him when he arrived in New York to give a lecture at Carnegie Hall. She did so, and the conversation turned to the work of the Theosophical Movement. Olcott, Mrs. Holloway soon realized, was lonely, homesick, and missed very greatly his old association with H.P.B. He spoke of his “dear old colleague” and recognized the magnitude of her loss in “the trend of events in the Theosophical Society since her death.” Moreover, although Olcott was still the “President-Founder,” other and younger workers, he said, were in control of the affairs of the Society. Mrs. Holloway reminded him that there was a third coworker who had been with him and H.P.B. at the beginning, to whom Olcott later became hostile. Olcott knew that she spoke of Judge, and, encouraged by his visitor, he took her hand and said, “in a manner subdued and most impressive”:
“We learn much and outgrow much, and I have outlived much and learned more, particularly as regards Judge. . . . I know now, and it will comfort you to hear it, that I wronged Judge, not wilfully or in malice; nevertheless, I have done this and I regret it.”

When Mrs. Holloway expressed happiness at this admission, Olcott replied: “To no one else have I ever said as much, and since you are so pleased, I am glad that I could say it to you.”

The report of this interview was published by Harold W. Percival in The Word for October, 1915, as part of a series of reminiscences 12 concerning the major figures of the Theosophical Movement. In a Supplementary Letter to the editor, Mrs. Holloway explained that she “did not seek a confession from Col. Olcott,” nor want “any confidences from him not voluntarily extended.” Her own deep friendship with Judge, she thought, which was known to Olcott, had led him to reveal his heart’s feelings at the end of his life. Her account of Olcott’s mien during this conversation is of interest:
. . . after thislong lapse of time, and with a sense of justice due to the memory of both himself and Mr. Judge, I feel I am doing right in consenting to its publication. I cannot reproduce his earnest, contrite manner, nor can I impart to you the atmosphere of peace and harmony that characterized the occasion . . when I reminded him, as I did, of how long and how unalterably she [H.P.B.] had loved Mr. Judge, he sat like one listening to an unseen speaker. But these things cannot be portrayed in this telling of the few words he spoke in vindication of Mr. Judge.