Misplaced Pages

Charles Webster Leadbeater: Difference between revisions

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
Browse history interactively← Previous editNext edit →Content deleted Content addedVisualWikitext
Revision as of 19:49, 18 June 2006 edit999~enwiki (talk | contribs)5,157 edits →Accused of Pederasty: add citation requests; remove "It has been speculated" - speculated by whom, see WP:WEASEL← Previous edit Revision as of 22:38, 18 June 2006 edit undoWjhonson (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users, Pending changes reviewers19,811 edits restore erroneously deleted citationsNext edit →
Line 28: Line 28:


== Accused of Pederasty == == Accused of Pederasty ==
Leadbeater was accused of ] in ]. It is said that he was defrocked as a result.{{citation needed}} One such accusation came from Hubert van Hook of Chicago, who as an 11-year-old was proclaimed by Leadbeater as future World Teacher but at twenty-four denounced his mentor for improper relations.{{citation needed}} Nonetheless, he was never charged or brought to court, though there is a body of evidence that suggests he had sexual relations with students in the United States, India and Australia.{{citation needed}} Peter Michel, in his biography of Charles W. Leadbeater, writes that these accusations are suspect as they came from those who could be considered his enemies: Alexander Fullerton, Herbert Burrows, ], Hubert van Hook, ] and Hilda Martyn.{{citation needed}} Leadbeater was accused of ] in ]. It is said that he was defrocked as a result.. One such accusation came from Hubert van Hook of Chicago, who as an 11-year-old was proclaimed by Leadbeater as future World Teacher but at twenty-four denounced his mentor for improper relations . Nonetheless, he was never charged or brought to court, though there is a body of evidence that suggests he had sexual relations with students in the United States, India and Australia. Peter Michel, in his biography of Charles W. Leadbeater, writes that these accusations are suspect as they came from those who could be considered his enemies: Alexander Fullerton, Herbert Burrows, ], Hubert van Hook, ] and Hilda Martyn. It has been speculated that an incriminating letter to a young boy attributed to Leadbeater, advising the youth on ] methods and signed "Thousand kisses darling", was a forgery by Fullerton.


==To Australia== ==To Australia==

Revision as of 22:38, 18 June 2006

This article is about the clergyman and Theosophical author. For the contemporary author, see Charles Leadbeater.
Thought-form of the music of Felix Mendelssohn, according to Annie Besant and C.W. Leadbeater in Thought Forms (1901)

C.W. Leadbeater (Feb 16, 1854 England-1934 Perth, Western Australia), English clergyman and Theosophical author, contributed to world thought mostly through his work as an alleged clairvoyant.

Early Life

The controversy over his birthdate is here. Notwithstanding the insistence of certain sources that he was born in 1847, the proof is conclusive that he was born in 1854.

His uncle, on his mother's side, was the prominent Anglican clergyman, William Wolfe Capes.

Charles himself was ordained an Anglican priest, by his uncle's influence, being ordained in 1879 at Farnham, by the Bishop of Winchester.

Joins Theosophical Society

Leadbeater was an Anglican priest when he joined the Theosophical Society in 1883. The next year he met Helena Petrovna Blavatsky when she came to London. At this time he was the recipient of a few Mahatma letters which influenced him to go to India. In India he claimed to have received visits and training from some of Blavatsky's Masters. This was the start of a long career in the Theosophical Society.

Return to England

Part of a series on
Theosophy
Theosophical Society emblem with the ankh symbol in a seal of Solomon encircled by the ouroboros, topped by a swastika and the om ligature and surrounded by the motto
Founders
Theosophists
Concepts
Organizations
Texts
Publications
Masters
Comparative
Related

Although he was living at Adyar, and then in Ceylon, by 1889 he was back in England with Jinarajadasa. He became one of the most known speakers in the Theosophical Society for quite a number of years.

Leaves, then rejoins Society

To avoid a scandal within the Society, he resigned in 1906. He avoided some elements of the Society, but others kept him as their friend and educator of their children. While in this position, he also continued his clairvoyant work and writing.

After Olcott died in Feb 1907, Annie Besant after a political struggle became President of the Society. By the end of 1908, the International Sections voted for Leadbeater's readmission. He accepted and came to Adyar on Feb 10, 1909.

Discovers Krishnamurti

His most well-known activity was the discovery, in April, 1909, of Jiddu Krishnamurti, on the private beach that formed part of the Theosophical headquarters in Adyar, India. Krishnamurti and his family had been living in the headquarters for a few months before this discovery. Krishnamurti was to be the vessel for the indwelling of the coming "World Teacher" that many Theosophists were expecting. This new teacher would, in the pattern of Moses, Buddha, Zarathustra (Zoroaster), Christ, and Muhammad divulge a new dispensation, a new religious teaching. Theosophists believed that the teacher was a spiritual being who would dwell in the body vessel.

Charles Leadbeater stayed in India for some time overseeing the raising of Krishnamurti, but eventually felt that he was being called to go to Australia for the cause.

Accused of Pederasty

Leadbeater was accused of pederasty in 1906. It is said that he was defrocked as a result.. One such accusation came from Hubert van Hook of Chicago, who as an 11-year-old was proclaimed by Leadbeater as future World Teacher but at twenty-four denounced his mentor for improper relations . Nonetheless, he was never charged or brought to court, though there is a body of evidence that suggests he had sexual relations with students in the United States, India and Australia. Peter Michel, in his biography of Charles W. Leadbeater, writes that these accusations are suspect as they came from those who could be considered his enemies: Alexander Fullerton, Herbert Burrows, G.R.S. Mead, Hubert van Hook, Katherine Tingley and Hilda Martyn. It has been speculated that an incriminating letter to a young boy attributed to Leadbeater, advising the youth on masturbation methods and signed "Thousand kisses darling", was a forgery by Fullerton.

To Australia

Annie Besant had come to see Leadbeater as a liability and was relieved when, in 1915 he went to live in Sydney. While in Australia he came in closer contact with James I. Wedgwood who initiated him into Co-Masonry in 1915 and then in 1916, as a Bishop himself, consecreated Leadbeater into the Liberal Catholic Church.

Work as a clairvoyant

He remains well known and influential in his work through clairvoyance with for instance his books The Chakras and Man, Visible and Invisible dealing with the human aura and chakras, and writing on the function of the Sacraments in the Liberal Catholic Church, to name just a few subjects. Leadbeater's clairvoyance was not without grave errors. In his book The Inner Life he claims that there is a population of humans on the planet Mars. See Leadbeater's Observations on Mars.

Works

  • Reincarnation (1898)
  • Thought Forms (1901)
  • Man Visible And Invisible (1902)
  • The Inner Life (1911)
  • Man: Whence, How and Whither (1913)
  • Occult Chemistry (1919)
  • The Inner Side Of Christian Festivals (1920)
  • The Science of the Sacraments (1920)
  • The Masters And The Path (1925)
  • Glimpses of Masonic History (1926)
  • The Hidden Life in Freemasonry (1926)
  • The Chakras (1927); The Theosophical Publishing House, Wheaton, IL
  • Occult Chemistry (book)

For a more complete list of his works, see A Chronological Listing of C.W. Leadbeater's Books and Pamphlets.

Notes

  1. Leadbeater, C.W. How Theosophy Came to Me.
  2. Warnon, Maurice H. Biographical Notes.

References

External links

Categories: