ADDENDUM A
Bishop Matthew has now been dead for several years, and early in 1928 we also learned of the death of 'Jongheer' Mazel. Consequently, other bishops of the 'Liberal Catholic Church', notably Mr Irving S. Cooper, were likewise consecrated at Sydney, the reason being that Leadbeater took refuge there when he was obliged to leave India after the scandalous trial at Madras. It might be believed that the immorality with which Mr Leadbeater has been reproached is an isolated case in Theosophical circles, but unfortunately, it will be seen that this is not at all the case. The facts that we are about to report are those to which Mrs Besant alluded at the end of the passage we included in [3], p196. These incidents have been the principal cause of the scission of the Agni branch from Nice (see p192, [26]). In November 1922 this branch, under the direction of Countess Prozor, had sent to all the other branches in France a circular letter announcing its intention of undertaking 'an effort of purification' in the Theosophical Society, and notably to shed light on 'the abuses of power, the duplicity, and the eminently immoral conduct charged in the first place against our President, and secondly against Mr C.W. Leadbeater.' This initiative was poorly received, and the Bulletin Théosophique of January 1923 published a note according to which the 'Administrative Council [of the French section] deemed that there was reason to disapprove' the initiative, given that it was of such a nature as 'to sow trouble and dissension in the bosom of the Theosophical Society of France.' The Agni branch nevertheless continued to publish a series of brochures 'for the exclusive use of members of the Theosophical Society,' a series that was concluded with a collective letter of resignation dated February 11, 1923. These brochures contained very instructive documents, and although it is true that pains were taken to contest them even before they were all
published, no better response was found than declamations of which we take the following sample from the Bulletin Théosophique of February 1923:
Do we Theosophists place ourselves among the calumniators or among the calumniated? Moreover, who among us believes himself pure enough, sufficiently free from sin, to throw a stone at one of our brothers when the latter is gravely deceived? In this crisis let us seek a lesson. If this lesson, this trial, enlarges our views, if it leads us to greater tolerance, to greater comprehension, and to a higher ideal of brotherhood, it will be nobly useful, it will be blessed....
Unless one is blinded by prejudice, it is certainly difficult to consider this sermon as constituting a satisfactory and valid response. - The first of the brochures published by the Agni branch contained a letter, dated May 20, 1921 (thus before the resignation of its author), from T.H. Martyn of Sydney to Mrs Besant, from which we extract the following:
In 1906 I was in London and fought for your cause and for that of Mr Leadbeater. The latter was threatened by judicial prosecution. One of the youths of his entourage came to me in desperation and besought my aid in thwarting the threatened prosecution because he would be forced to testify to the immoral practices of Leadbeater. The prosecution did not take place.... In 1914 Leadbeater came to live with us in Sydney. I accepted his own opinion, which was the same as yours; and considering him an Arhat, I willingly came under his influence and took joy in carrying out all his projects. Subsequently many things about him astonished me.... For example, one day in July 1917 it was said to five among us that we had received various initiations. No one remembered any of them.... At that time, Mrs Martyn was suffering much from Leadbeater's sojourn in our home.... Later (1918-1919), scarlet fever broke out in our home and caused the precipitous departure of Leadbeater and his young boys; all my efforts at persuasion could not convince Mrs Martyn to reopen our home to him.... In 1919, I went to America. The
young Van Hook was in New York. He spoke freely of Leadbeater's immorality of and of the deceit of the 'lives' [the famous 'lives of Alcyone']. We have therefore the witness of two adolescent boys concerning Leadbeater, the boy who sought me out in 1906 and the young Van Hook. I add to this the compromising things that occurred in my home (I can only touch this subject lightly in this letter), all of which lead to the conclusion that Leadbeater is a sexual pervert. His habit, which takes a particular form that I discovered only recently, is very well known and altogether common in the annals of sexual criminology.
We do not know if the youth of 1906 is the one who was later presented as 'Pythagoras reincarnate' (see pp180-181), nor whether he should be identified with the youth whose deposition was produced in the Madras trial, a deposition signed only with the initials D.D.P., and which ended with these lines:
I make this declaration with the intention of warning parents, so that they may protect their children from the pernicious teachings of persons who pose before the world as moral guides but whose practices debase and destroy children and men.
As to the young Van Hook, he is probably a close relative of Dr Weller Van Hook, Secretary-General of the American section of the Theosophical Society, one of Leadbeater's most ardent defenders, who in a letter alledgedly dictated by a 'Master' and approved by Mrs Besant, had declared that 'it was in no way criminal or wrong to teach boys the practices in question, but only the counsel of a wise tutor'-counsel inspired moreover by 'superior instructors' and that the 'introduction of this question into the thought of the Theosophical world is only the prelude to its introduction into the thought of the outside world,' these practices being destined to 'constitute the future regimen of humanity'! We add that Dr Van Hook succeeded Alexander Fullerton as Secretary-General of the American Section, Fullerton himself having replaced Judge, who had become a dissident (see chap. 16). After his arrest on February 18, 1910 for having undertaken an immoral correspondence with an adolescent, Fullerton was confined to an insane asylum in the state
of New York (there is a pamphlet on this affair by Mr J.H. Fussell). Leadbeater wrote to Fullerton on February 27, indicating as explicitly as possible the advice he gave his students for the purpose of helping them 'free themselves from undesirable thoughts,' and to 'avoid until later the frequentation of women.' And he added that 'a doctor might object to this practice on the grounds that it might degenerate into unrestrained abuse of oneself (self-abuse), but this danger can easily be turned aside by a frank explanation.' But let us again take up the letter of Mr Martyn:
This brings me to 1919 and my visit to London.... In October of 1919 I went to see Mrs Saint-John. I found her greatly distressed because, as she told me, the police were looking for four priests of the Liberal Catholic Church: Wedgwood, King, Farrer, and Clark. She had wanted to warn Wedgwood in Australia but did not know how to do so without being herself incriminated for complicity. Farrer, she said, had left the country, and she was sure that the police would not find him. King had decided to remain in London until the end, since Farrer was safe.... Naturally, while I was in London I learned of the accusations of homosexuality brought against Wedgwood by Major Adams and others. Reports on the same subject concerning him had also reached me at Sydney, but what Mrs Saint-John told me was surprising. A week later . . . you told me that you wished to communicate with Wedgwood in Sydney, but that by such direct action you could be accused of complicity. You gave me a message for Raja (the abbreviation of the name of Jinarâjadâsa, vice president of the Theosophical Society). Wedgwood must leave the T.S. and the E.S., etc. You explained that he was seriously compromised and that you believed it your duty to protect the Society's good name. I thought then of a talk you had given at the E.S. the previous Sunday on black magic and sexual excesses, and asked whether you had been alluding to Wedgwood. You answered yes.... Then the question of Wedgwood's initiation came up. You told me he was not an initiate. . . . In America, after I left you, certain persons came to see me; they had learned that the truth concerning Wedgwood had finally been revealed, and they explained to me
that in London he had confessed his evil to one of them.... When I reached Sydney, Raja received the message with obvious repugnance.... The most important point for him was your denial of Wedgwood's initiation, and I understood that the latter's fall indicated nothing less than the collapse of Leadbeater as an Arhat, of the divine authority of the Liberal Catholic Church, of all belief in the reality of the supposed initiations, of the recognition of certain persons as disciples, etc. From Raja's point of view, none of these things that concern so many people could be admitted at any price, for there was the peace of members and of the cause in general.... I discovered subsequently that Raja merely echoes Leadbeater, the latter communicating his occultism directly, and Raja accepting it blindly. . . . Truly, I would not wish to think of Leadbeater and Wedgwood as monsters who hid their unlawful practices under the veil of humanitarian interests and who acted with the skillful cleverness and cunning often encountered in such cases. That, however, is the opinion of many people. I would like to avoid having to recognize the accuracy of such criticisms, and I would with pleasure cling to any other reasonable explanation of these facts.
During the two years following the incidents just recounted, the dignitaries of the Liberal Catholic Church compromised in this unsavory affair do not seem to have been seriously worried; if the English police sought them, no doubt certain influences acted to keep them from being found. On February 28, 1922, one of them, Reginald Farrer, sent Mrs Besant his resignation as a member of 'Co-Masonry', accompanied by these admissions:
The imputation brought against me, as well as against Wedgwood, King, and Clark, contained in Mr Martyn's letter, are only too well founded. But I beg you to take into consideration that I was incited to the vice by those whom I considered very much my superiors morally and spiritually.... My reason for writing this letter is the hope of easing my conscience.... Wedgwood refuses absolutely to cease this evil practice.... Once again Acuna, who is tainted with this vice, has been the sponsor of one of his 'friends' in the Emulation Lodge.
This letter was confided to Mr W. Hamilton Jones, who reports that Farrer left England the very same day, while he [Jones] met Wedgwood, who had been warned by an anonymous letter that he would be arrested if he did not leave Europe before March 1st. Wedgwood protested his innocence, but disappeared the same evening. And Mr Hamilton Jones adds: 'I had faith in Wedgwood until, quite recently, I learned of facts of such a nature as to remove all my illusions in his regard.' Leaving England, Wedgwood came to Paris where he established a branch of the Liberal Catholic Church which on March 5th was installed provisionally at the Anglican Church, 7 rue AugusteVacquerie, and which, under the name 'Free Catholic Church of France' organized itself into an association that professed to be in accordance with the law, this declaration appearing in the Journal Officiel of April 13, 1922. Some say that Wedgwood subsequently went to America, while others claim that he simply went into hiding in France. Whatever the case, there was a considerable time during which it was not known what had become of him. But since he surfaced again not only in Paris but also in London, one must believe that his affairs were finally settled thanks to certain political influences. As to his Paris church, it was moved somewhat later to 72 rue de Sèvres, from where it then published a manifesto from which this passage is taken:
The Free Catholic Church does not wish to oppose any Church or any religious or lay group, but on the contrary to work in peace and charity, offering its ministry to all souls of good will. It aspires to study together with all Christian confessions, the bases of union necessary for the universal Church to work effectively at the task of the Kingdom of God. Also, it adheres fully to the program of the Faith and Discipline conference, which groups together the greater number of Christian churches. Far from isolating itself in a sterile egoism, it intends to realize a truly traditional catholicity based on the apostolic Faith; united, not by an exterior and imposed uniformity, but in mutual respect and fraternal affection, working to raise the world to sanctity, union with God of which the Kingdom of justice and love is the end of creation.
The task of the 'Kingdom of God' is the advent of the new Theosophical Messiah. As to the 'sanctity' of the Church of Wedgwood and Leadbeater, it can be fully appreciated by what has just been recounted! To this we add the following information taken from an article that appeared in an American journal (The O.E. Library Critic, February 5, 1919), which further enlightens us as to the value of this church's 'apostolicity':
The facts prove that in reality Wedgwood's apostolic succession is fraudulent, having been received from an interdicted priest, a certain Willoughby who had been expelled from the Old Catholic Church (of Bishop Matthew), just as he had been expelled previously from the Anglican Church owing to the gross immorality of his life, an immorality which, in sum, consisted in vicious relations with boys placed under his care. It is from this defrocked priest, from this pervert, that Mr Wedgwood received the right to be considered as following in the direct line of the apostles of Christ himself and of passing this right on to others, including Leadbeater and various priests in America. Each priest of the Liberal Catholic Church must trace his spiritual forefathers to this moral sewer. And in a notice on 'the validity of orders in the Liberal Catholic Church' which was written in 1921, a member of the Sydney Lodge concluded ironically: 'Mr Leadbeater has often proclaimed that, thanks to his clairvoyance, he could distinguish between a true priest of the apostolic succession and a dissident. Only the first named could render the host luminous during the celebration of the Mass. And here at his first public test, he let himself be 'consecrated' by a false priest without even being aware of it!'
As regards the 'Free Catholic Church of France', it must be added that the Theosophists have encountered some difficulties. Bishop Winnaert, who had been placed at its head after his consecration by Wedgwood, is a former Roman Catholic priest (he was vicar at Viroflay) who moved over to the Utrecht schism and for some time served the 'Old Catholic' chapel on Boulevard Blanqui. When the letters from the 'Mahatmas' to Sinnett appeared (see p51, [1]), he protested against the spirit that inspired these letters, which he
adjudged atheistic and materialistic. Mrs Besant came to Paris expressly to reach an understanding with him, but the reconciliation that followed was short-lived. Finally, following the publication of Mr Jinarâjadâsa's book entitled The First Teachings of the Masters, Msgr Winnaert quit the Theosophical obedience in 1924 for the same reasons. Winnaert gave a lengthy explanation of his position both in his bulletin (L'Unité Spirituelle, July-August 1924) and in his letter of resignation of July 30, addressed to Wedgwood, which concluded with these lines:
I am forced to renounce all ties, however slight, with the 'Liberal Catholic Church', which henceforth is for me only a counterfeit Church and, intended or not, a disloyal enterprise to attract souls and, according to your own words, to insinuate the doctrine of the Theosophists into Christian pulpits. I would never have accepted episcopal consecration from such a source had I suspected all the secret mystique behind the 'Liberal Church'. I must emphasize the fact that I was left in complete ignorance as to the occult influences under which it had been founded and by which it claims to be directed. I believed I had encountered a traditional Church, but one liberated from outdated theology. It was in fact a matter of slipping in, under the label of Christianity, ideas totally foreign to it-when they were not in actual opposition. Despite my sentiments of sympathy for the persons involved, I cannot be complicit, however remotely, in such an enterprise.
The Theosophists therefore had to reorganize their 'Liberal Catholic Church' when Wedgwood again passed through Paris, and it is now situated in the rue Campagne-Première.
In the collective letter they sent Mrs Besant on February 11, 1923, the members of the Agni branch did not hesitate to stigmatize the Liberal Catholic Church, which more and more identified itself with Theosophy itself, as
a sect endowed with a special morality which no religion had ever taught, and the propagation of which would be one of the works of darkness which Christianity attributes to instruments
of Satan, and which Theosophical occultism attributes to adepts of black magic.
Now it is undeniable that the propagation of this special morality had zealous partisans. In his apology for Leadbeater, which Mrs Besant declared to have been written under a 'high influence', Dr Van Hook presented the so-called 'prophylactic' methods of this strange educator as a revelation by which 'Theosophy gives to the world a service of which the consequences will extend as far as the distant future progress of humanity.' Moreover, we are told that 'the members of the E.S. already find themselves faced with the alternative of defending these abominations and of identifying themselves with them, or of resigning.' These are very probably the 'things contrary to his conscience' spoken of by Chevrier, who for his part preferred to resign, which is all to his honor. In such conditions, the resignants of Nice had good reason to foresee 'a dark future for the Theosophical Society.' In other similar circles, among spiritists and occultists for example, we find equally repugnant undersides. We called attention to these in The Spiritist Fallacy (pt. 2, chap. 10), limiting ourselves, as here, to statements of fact and witnesses. But what is new in the affair which presently occupies us, and what lends it particular gravity, is the attempt to spread the theories and practices of Leadbeater and his associates to the 'outside world'. What truly diabolical intentions must be concealed behind this? Several questions put by the Agni members to Mrs Besant will perhaps help us fathom them.
It is no longer a question of Leadbeater and the system according to which he tries 'to cure adolescents of their vicious habits'. This system he practices and which Dr Van Hook recommends with your approval, is adopted by the entire community. In this way the speculative conception you expounded in your Theosophist article takes shape. Fallacious logic then derives a moral rule from this: did not the Beings that preside over evolution liberate Mme Blavatsky from her bad karma elements, causing her to resolve them through action? Why then cannot their disciples, the Sydney initiates, use analogous means to liberate children from future vices which they [the 'Beings'] perceive in their [the
young people in question] aura? An objection must occur even to those swayed by such arguments: will not the practices in question, along with the fear of women simultaneously inspired in the 'subjects', tend to destroy in them an attraction which, when transformed into love, gives to the procreative act a sublime and divine character? By what right would one impose a restraint on this motive which acts on every level and enters into the Dharma [law] of our humanity? In various countries, notably England, has not the legislature acted on this intuition in punishing as a crime the depravity affecting the generative instinct to which the race owes its preservation? You seem to have foreseen this objection, for, as though to parry it in advance, you begin by making those who might raise objections feel incompetent in the matter. But today it occupies both the religious and the learned worlds, and one of the principal points therein bears on the neo-Malthusianism which you formerly preached but later combated. Today you can see the progress in public opinion, only recently raised up against it. Either this allusion has no sense at all, or its meaning is this: the same reversal of opinion will be effected very soon concerning the Lead-beater-Van Hook doctrine and the practices it formulates. This reversal will be accentuated in the measure that 'the process of mental development determines the weakening of the sexual instinct and the physical creative power.' Do you consider the end of the sub-race desirable? Does this in your opinion prepare the advent of a new sub-race, the sixth? Or, with a humanity in the travail of Buddhist evolution, does the return of the initial and final androgyny commence? And henceforth do you consider anything that hastens this goal and this future to be moral, that is, conformable to evolution? One may believe so, according to certain comments that filter through the walls of the E.S. to spread subtly through the body of the Theosophical Society.
Here we neither can nor wish to develop all that is implied in the last lines of this citation. In Theosophist phraseology, one would find an echo of far distant ideas which as always seem to have been grossly materialized. We will only add that a writer who seems very
well informed has noted that the 'reversal of opinion' in the sense just indicated is presented as forming part of a well-defined plan, and that 'everything now happens as if certain protagonists of bad morals obey a slogan' (Jean Maxe, Cahiers de l'Anti-France, sixth fascicle). Surely it is not the directors of Theosophy who have given this slogan; but they too obey it, and consciously or not, work toward the realization of this plan just as others do in their respective domains. What formidable enterprise of corruption and ruination lies hidden behind all that presently happens in the Western world. Perhaps it will one day be known, although it is to be feared that it will be too late to effectively combat an evil that ceaselessly gains ground and whose seriousness escapes only the blind. Remember the decadence of Rome!