In 1925, Various
Adyar Leaders Come to
The Conclusion
That They Are Now Mahatmas
Mary Lutyens
Mrs. Annie
Besant (photo) was naïve enough to
think and announce that she had attained Adepthood
A 2012 Editorial Note:
In 1894-95, Mrs.
Annie Besant obtained a significant amount of political power over the Adyar
Theosophical Society. Although she was comparatively new to the movement, she
achieved it by accusing one of the its main founders, William Judge, of forging
messages from the Mahatmas.
While accusing Judge, though, Mrs. Besant was herself taking
part in mediumistic talks with false Masters from June 1894, during meetings
presided by Mr. Alfred Sinnett. Mr.
Sinnett was proud to state the fact in writing, and he has never been contradicted.[1] Instead, he was nominated by Mrs.
Besant and elected as international Vice-President of the Adyar Society.
In her mediumistic activities, Mrs. Besant was accompanied
by Mr. C. W. Leadbeater. It should be also taken into consideration that Mr.
Leadbeater was not a member of H.P. Blavatsky’s Esoteric School as long as H.P.B.
lived. He had ceased to be a disciple before the creation of the E.S. in 1888. During the late 1880s and early 1890s, Mr.
Leadbeater was a leading member of that mediumistic “inner group” of the London
Lodge which worked under the direction of Alfred Sinnett. By then Sinnett already
followed a line directly opposed to the work of Helena Blavatsky.
It was in that environment that Mrs. Annie Besant
sought for inspiration after H.P.B.’s death in 1891. There she developed her “psychic
powers” and started to talk to various false Adepts. When the last living Founder
of the movement - Henry Olcott - died in 1907, Mrs. Annie Besant was finally free
to accelerate her talks to imaginary Adepts.
Karma is not always slow in its ripening. A few years
after accusing Mr. Judge of “forging false contacts”, Mrs. Besant started
organizing a Catholic Church, adopted various neomasonic rituals, and announced
the immediate Return of the Christ. She also had personal talks with the Manu
of the present humanity, and to the “King of the World”.
In the opening paragraph of her 18 pp. “Adyar
Pamphlet” No. 135, published in India in 1930 under the title of “The Work of
the Ruler and the Teacher”, she writes:
“When first the charge to work for the Freedom of
India was given to me - in 1909, by the King at Shamballa (..…)”. (p. 1) This
was a reference to her “King of the World”.
At p. 2 of the same pamphlet, she refers to the personal contacts she
had had with the Rishi Agastya since 1913.
Statements like these are but a tip of the iceberg.
Five years earlier, in 1925, Mrs. Besant had announced she was herself an Adept
or Mahatma, along with other Adyar leaders. This episode and its context are narrated
in the following text by Ms. Mary Lutyens, the official biographer of Mr. Jiddu
Krishnamurti.
It was not enough for Mrs. Besant to have talks with
imagined Adepts; she wanted to think she was One of Them herself. Krishnamurti was supposed to play the role of
“Mr. Christ” as ascribed to him by Besant and Leadbeater. After much hesitation,
he refused to do so from 1929 on. In the
following paragraphs by Ms. Lutyens, the expression “The Lord” is a reference the
“returned Christ” created by Mrs. Besant and who Krishnamurti was still making
an effort in 1925 to impersonate before the public.
The text is reproduced from Mary Lutyens’ book “The Life and Death of Krishnamurti”, published
by Krishnamurti Foundation India, at Chennai, first edition 1990, 232 pp., Chapter
7, pp. 54-56. Ms. Lutyens refers to
Krishnamurti with the word “Krishna”. In the transcription below, we use his
full name. We add a few explanatory notes.
(Carlos Cardoso Aveline)
NOTE:
[1] See for instance the volume “Autobiography”,
by Alfred P. Sinnett, Theosophical History Centre, London, 1986, 64 pp., p. 48.
Besant Announces She Is An Adept
[A Fragment from the book “The Life and Death of
Krishnamurti”]
Mary Lutyens
Parcels of land had
been given to Krishnamurti for his work in many parts of Australia, and a great
white stone amphitheatre had just been built on a glorious site on the edge of
the harbour at Balmoral, close to The Manor, where it was expected the Lord
would speak when he came. This and the land were held by different trusts at
Krishnamurti’s request.
By June the specialist considered Nitya [1] well enough to travel. When the
brothers sailed for San Francisco on 24 June [1925], with Rosalind and a Theosophical Swedish doctor, I felt
that the light had gone out of my life forever. My mother [2], who had supposedly passed her first initiation in Sidney, had
already returned to England, leaving Helen, Ruth, Betty and me at The Manor.
It was a fearful voyage as Nitya grew weaker and
weaker. Towards the end of it Krishnamurti wrote to Mrs. Besant: “We will pull
through and Nitya will be well once again. It has been and is a most anxious
time, my own beloved mother, but you and the Masters and there.” After only a fortnight at Ojai of daily
Abrams’ treatment, Nitya’s condition had improved. The remission was
short-lived, however, and for the next three months all Krishnamurti’s energies
were taken up in nursing him as he became too ill to get out of bed at all. Krishnamurti
would have despaired if he had not been assured by both Mrs. Besant and
Leadbeater that the Masters would not allow Nitya to die; his life was too
valuable.
In the meantime Mrs. Besant had gone to England with
Shiva Rao to give lectures at the Queen’s Hall. George Arundale, who had been
on a world tour with his wife, Rukmini, was staying at a Theosophical community
at Huizen in Holland, not far from Castle Eerde, run by a Theosophical bishop
of the Liberal Catholic Church, James Ingall Wedgwood. A young Norwegian called
Oscar Kollerstrom, a former pupil of Leadbeater in Sidney and a priest in the
Liberal Catholic Church, was also at Huizen.
Arundale telegraphed to Mrs. Besant in London to say
that amazing things were taking place: Oscar had just taken his third initiation,
Wedgwood his second and Rukmini her first; kundalini
had just been awoken in Wedgwood and Rukmini. (Arundale was already a second
initiate and he and Oscar both claimed clairvoyance.) After another exciting
telegram, Mrs. Besant cancelled her Queen’s Hall lectures and went to Huizen,
accompanied by Esther Bright, Lady Emily, Shiva Rao and Rajagopal.
Two days after Mrs. Besant arrived, on 26 July,
Arundale was ordained a priest, Miss Bright, Lady Emily and Rajagopal were said
to have taken their second initiation, and on the night of 1 August, Arundale
and Wedgwood took their third initiation and Rukmini her second. On the 4th,
Arundale was consecrated a bishop. Leadbeater’s consent for this step had been
requested by cable; when no reply came, Arundale asserted that he had received
Leadbeater’s “cordial consent” on the astral plane. When they returned from the ceremony Mrs.
Besant found a cable from Leadbeater strongly disapproving of the step. None of
the Huizen steps was ever confirmed by Leadbeater.
Arundale kept on “bringing through” instructions from
the Masters; no initiate was to share a room with a non-initiate; silk
underwear must be worn by all Liberal Catholic priests (this was very hard on
the poor ones, Lady Emily noted); copes were to be carefully chosen but no hats
worn (for the first time Miss Dodge struck when she was asked to buy gorgeous
vestments for the bishops); Mrs. Besant, Wedgwood and the Arundales were to
give up eating eggs in any form. (According to Lady Emily, Mrs. Besant was the
only one who adhered to this instruction, with the consequence that she was
half starved from then onwards.)
On the night of 7 August, Krishnamurti (at Ojai),
Jinarajadasa in India [3], Arundale
and Wedgwood were said by Arundale to have taken their fourth or Arhat
initiation, and two nights later Arundale “brought through” the names of ten of
what he said were to be the Lord’s twelve apostles. These were Mrs. Besant, Leadbeater, Jinarajadasa,
Arundale, Wedgwood, Rukmini, Nitya, Lady Emily, Rajagopal and Oscar
Kollerstrom. Krishnamurti had not been consulted but it was taken for granted
that he would know all about it on the astral plane.
In the June issue of the Herald [4] Arundale had
announced that Krishnamurti would not be able to attend the Ommen camp that
year because of Nitya’s health but that Mrs. Besant and he would be there and
he hoped that everyone would consider it a special duty to attend. There were
few cancellations, therefore, and on 10 August the Huizen party moved to Ommen
where the camp and Congress were opened that afternoon (Mrs. Besant stayed in
the Castle).
At a talk next day Mrs. Besant announced publicly that
the Lord had already chosen his apostles but that she was only allowed to give
out the names of seven of them, those who had already become Arhats - herself
and Leadbeater, Jinarajadasa, Arundale, Krishnamurti, Oscar Kollerstrom and
Rukmini who, she was assured, was to become Arhat in a few days’ time. It was
not until it was pointed out to her afterwards that she realized she had left
out Wedgwood and named Krishnamurti as one of his own apostles.
She rectified these mistakes in another public talk on
the 14th. The camp broke up that day and the Huizen party returned there.
Arundale kept saying excitedly, “I know something else has happened but it
seems impossible.” The next morning Mrs.
Besant called Esther Bright, Lady Emily, Rukmini and Shiva Rao into her room
and shyly told them she, Leadbeater, Krishnamurti, Jinarajadasa, Arundale,
Wedgwood and Oscar had all taken their fifth and final initiation on the night
of the 13th, but it was to make no difference to the way they were to be
treated.
Lady Emily had been caught up in the hysteria of that
time at Huizen and had written enthusiastically to Krishnamurti about it. He
cabled back, asking whether Leadbeater had confirmed all these happenings. She
cabled in reply that Mrs. Besant herself was making the announcements, adding
“Put your faith in her”.
When Lady Emily returned to London she found a very
unhappy letter from Krishnamurti full of scepticism. She destroyed, at his
request, all his letters to her during this crazy period; he feared they might
fall into other hands and hurt Mrs. Besant who was writing to him begging him
to confirm all that Arundale had “brought through”. Not wanting to wound her,
he merely replied that he had been far too busy looking after Nitya to be
conscious of any of it. [5]
NOTES:
[1] Nitya: Krishnamurti’s brother,
who was ill and who would soon die in spite of false Masters saying they would
cure him.
[2] Lady Emily Lutyens.
[3] Jinarajadasa. In her book, Mary Lutyens uses the
abbreviated form “Raja” to refer to C. Jinarajadasa.
[4] “The Herald of the Star”, the magazine especially
created for the theosophical “Christ”, or “the Lord”.
[5] In order to go on trying to
play the social role of Christ, it was of course not convenient for Jiddu
Krishnamurti to tell the public the truth about the false initiations ascribed
to himself and others.
000
In September 2016, after a careful analysis of the state of the
esoteric movement worldwide, a group of students decided to form the Independent Lodge of Theosophists,
whose priorities include the building of a better future in the different
dimensions of life.
000
