Charles Webster Leadbeater
Early Theosophy writer
Early Years
Leadbeater was born in Stockport, Cheshire, in 1854. His father, Charles, was born in Lincoln and his mother Emma was born in Liverpool. He was an only child. By 1861, the family had relocated to London, where his father was a railway contractor's clerk.
In 1862, when Leadbeater was eight years old, his father died from tuberculosis. Four years later a bank in which the family's savings were invested became bankrupt. Without finances for college, Leadbeater sought work soon after graduating from high school in order to provide for his mother and himself. He worked at various clerical jobs. During the evenings he became largely self-educated. For example, he studied astronomy and had a 12-inch reflector telescope (which was very expensive at the time) to observe the heavens at night. He also studied French, Latin and Greek.
Anglican Church
An uncle, his father's brother-in-law, was the well-known Anglican cleric William Wolfe Capes. By his uncle's influence, Leadbeater was ordained an Anglican priest in 1879 in Farnham by the Bishop of Winchester. By 1881, he was living with his widowed mother at Bramshott in a cottage which his uncle had built, where he is listed as "Curate of Bramshott". He was an active priest and teacher who was remembered later as "a bright and cheerful and kindhearted man". About this time, after reading about the séances of reputed medium Daniel Dunglas Home (1833–1886), Leadbeater developed an active interest in spiritualism.
…his interest in spiritualism caused him to end his affiliation with Anglicanism in favour of the Theosophical Society, where he became an associate of Annie Besant. He became a high-ranking officer of the Society and remained one of its leading members until his death in 1934, writing over 60 books and pamphlets and maintaining regular speaking engagements.
Theosophical Society
His interest in Theosophy was stimulated by A.P. Sinnett's Occult World, and he joined the Theosophical Society in 1883. The next year he met Helena Petrovna Blavatsky when she came to London; she accepted him as a pupil and he became a vegetarian.
Around this time he wrote a letter to Kuthumi, asking to be accepted as his pupil. Shortly afterward, an encouraging response influenced him to go to India; he arrived at Adyar in 1884. He wrote that while in India, he had received visits and training from some of the "Masters" that according to Blavatsky were the inspiration behind the formation of the Theosophical Society, and were its hidden guides. This was the start of a long career with the Theosophical Society.
In India
In 1884 he moved to Adyar, the headquarters of the Theosophical Societynear Madras, India. He devoted himself to the cause of Theosophy and the related Liberal Catholic Church for the rest of his life.
He traveled in Ceylon with Henry S. Olcott, one of the founders of Theosophy, and publicly professed himself to be a Buddhist.
He left his position as a clergyman in the Church of England in 1884, travelling with Madame Helena Blavatsky to India to help her in her work for the Theosophical Society. He was accepted as a chela (disciple) by Mahatma K.H., one of HPB’s Adept-Teachers, in a letter (part two) written by him to the young Leadbeater while the latter was still in England.
His investigations into the unseen dimensions of life have had a far-reaching influence on the contemporary world, one of them being the discovery of the young J. Krishnamurti on the Adyar beach in Madras, India, in April 1909, who would later become one of the most respected and insightful spiritual teachers of the twentieth century.
Becoming a Buddhist
On an earlier visit to the lovely island of Ceylon, both Colonel Olcott and Madame Blavatsky had made public profession of the Buddhist faith and been formally received into that religion; and now Madame Blavatsky asked me whether I was willing to follow their example in that respect. She strongly impressed upon me that if I took that step it must be entirely of my own motion and on my own responsibility, and that she had no wish to persuade me in the matter; but she thought that, as I was a Christian Priest, the open acceptance of a great Oriental religion would go far to convince both Hindus and Buddhists of my bona fides, and would enable me to be far more useful in working among them for our Masters.
I replied that I felt the very greatest reverence for the Lord Buddha and whole-heartedly accepted His teaching, and that I should feel it a great honour to enroll myself among His followers if I could do so without abjuring the Christian faith into which I had been baptized. She assured me that no such repudiation would be asked of me, and that there was no incompatibility between Buddhism and true Christianity, though no enlightened Buddhist would be likely to credit the crude theological dogmas which were usually preached by the missionaries. Buddhism, she said, was not a question of creed, but of life; I was not asked to accept any article of faith, but to try to live according to the precepts of the Lord.
(How Theosophy Came to Me)
Used As a Prop
We sailed the same evening, and reached Port Said on the following morning, where Mr. A. J. Cooper-Oakley came off to meet me, and took me ashore to a hotel where I found Madame Blavatsky and Mrs. Oakley sitting on the veranda. Madame Blavatsky’s last word to me in London had been: “See that you do not fail me”; and now her greeting was: “Well, Leadbeater, so you have really come in spite of all difficulties.” I replied that of course I had come, and that when I made a promise I also made a point of keeping it; to which she answered only: “Good for you!” and then plunged into an animated discussion—all discussions in which Madame
Blavatsky took part were invariably animated—which had evidently been interrupted by my arrival. Though she said no more than this, she was clearly pleased that I had come, and seemed to regard my presence in her retinue as a kind of card in the game which she had to play. She was returning to India expressly in order to refute the wicked slanders of the Christian College missionaries, and she appeared to consider that to bring back with her a clergyman of the Established Church who had abandoned a good position in that Church to become her enthusiastic pupil and follower was somehow an argument in her favour.
In England
After his return to England from Ceylon, at the end of 1889, C. W. Leadbeater became one of the popular speakers for the Theosophical Society, visiting many Lodges in that country.
In the United States
During the period from 1900 and 1905 he also lectured extensively in the United States. As a result of his talks many people joined the TS and came into contact with the teachings of Theosophy. In 1903, for a period of six months, he delivered a course of lectures in the US.
Homosexual Pedophile?
Leadbeater's homosexuality became a matter of ongoing embarrassment to Besant and the society. In 1906 several mothers in the United States brought charges against Leadbeater for immoral practices with their sons. Besant found it impossible to accept these charges, so the mothers appealed to Olcott, then in London, and a judicial committee of the society summoned Leadbeater to appear before them. In the face of clear evidence, Leadbeater was obliged to resign from the society. However, after Olcott's death, the Leadbeater scandal took a bizarre turn. In an Open Letter, Weller van Hook, General Secretary of the American Section, vigorously defended Leadbeater's sex theories on the upbringing of young boys and even claimed that this defense was dictated to him by a Theosophical Master, or Mahatma. Leadbeater had initially designated van Hook's son as the new World Savior and believed that he was due to appear in the immediate future.
In July 1908 the British Convention of the society carried a resolution to the president and general council requesting that Leadbeater and his practices be repudiated. The council did not agree and "saw no reason why Mr. Leadbeater should not be restored to membership." This action prompted some 700 members (including the scholar G. R. S. Mead ) to resign. Leadbeater then rejoined the society, settled in Madras, and for several years exerted powerful influence over the Indian section, emphasizing clairvoyant teachings and an exalted lineage of reincarnation.
Towards the end of February 1906, Annie Besant, the resident in Benares, India, received a letter from Helen I. Dennis, dated 25 January 1906. The letter was co-signed by the following persons: Alexander Fullerton, General Secretary of the American Section of the TS; Frank F. Knothe, Assistant General Secretary; Elizabeth M. Chidester, Assistant Corresponding Secretary, E.S., and E. W. Dennis, Mrs Dennis’ husband.
The letter presented the following charges against C. W. Leadbeater and demanded an inquiry about them: 1) “That he is teaching young boys into his care, habits of self-abuse [masturbation] and demoralizing personal practices.” 2) “That he does this with deliberate intent and under the guise of occult training or with the promise of the increase of physical manhood.” 3) “That he has demanded, at least in one case, promises of the utmost secrecy.” The letter also enclosed testimonies of the mothers of two boys and branded Leadbeater’s conduct as ‘criminal’. Although Helen Dennis’ letter to Annie Besant did not mention the names of the boys or their parents, and presents the (unsigned) boys’ testimonies through their parents, later it became known that the boys in question were Robert Dennis, Helen Dennis’ son, Douglas Pettit, George Nevers and Howard Maguire, who was the recipient of the Cipher Letter. Although Dennis and her co-signatories ‘pledged each other to the utmost secrecy and circumspection so that no hint of it shall escape them’, it soon became known that the charges had been widely circulated among Lodges and members in the American Section, reaching newspapers in early June 1906.
On 27 February 1906, CWL wrote a frank letter to Alexander Fullerton, in which he said:
The business of discovering and training specially hopeful younger members and preparing them for Theosophical work has been put into my charge. Possibly the fact that I have been associated with the training of young men and boys all my life (originally of course on Christian lines) is one reason for this, because of the experience which it has given me. As a result of that experience, I know that the whole question of sex feeling is the principal difficulty in the path for both boys and girls, and that very much harm is done by the prevalent habit of ignoring the subject and fearing to speak of it to young people. The first information about it should come from parents or friends, not from servants or bad companions. Therefore I always speak of it quite frankly and naturally to those whom I am trying to help, when they become sufficiently familiar with me to make it possible. The methods of dealing with the difficulty are two. A certain type of boy can be carried through his youth absolutely virgin, and can pass through the stages of puberty without being troubled at all by sensual emotions; but such boys are few. The majority pass through a stage when their minds are much filled with such matters, and consequently surround themselves with huge masses of most undesirable thought-forms which perpetually react upon them and keep them in a condition of emotional ferment. These thought-forms are the vehicles of appalling mischief since through them disembodied entities can and constantly do act upon the child.
The conventional idea that such thoughts do not much matter so long as they do not issue in overt acts is not only untrue; it is absolutely the reverse of the truth. I have seen literally hundreds of cases of this horrible condition, and have traced the effects which it produces in after-life. In this country of India, the much abused custom of early marriage prevents all difficulty on this score. Much of this trouble is due to the perfectly natural pressure of certain physical accumulations, and as the boy grows older this increasing pressure drives him into associations with loose women or sometimes into unnatural crimes. Now all this may be avoided by periodically relieving that pressure, and experience has shown that if the boy provokes at stated intervals a discharge which produces that relief, he can comparatively easily rid his mind of such thoughts in the interim, and in that way escape all the more serious consequences. I know this is not the conventional view, but it is quite true for all that, and there is no comparison between the harm done in the two cases even at that time – quite apart from the fact that the latter plan avoids the danger of entanglement with women or bad boys later on. You may remember how St. Paul remarked that while it was best of all to remain celibate in the rare cases where that was possible, for the rest it was distinctly better to marry than to burn with lust. Brought down to the level of the boy, this is precisely what I mean; and although I know that many people do not agree with the view, I am at a loss to understand how anyone can consider it criminal – especially when it is remembered that it is based upon the clearly visible results of the two lines of action. A doctor might advise against it, principally on the ground that the habit of occasional relief might degenerate into unrestrained self-abuse; but this danger can be readily avoided by full explanation, and it must be remembered that the average doctor cannot see the horrible astral effects of perpetual desire.
In Australia
The reemergence of the charges of active homosexuality with minor boys forced Leadbeater out of India. He moved to Australia, where he was living when Bishop James I. Wedgewood made his initial world tour establishing the Liberal Catholic Church. Wedgewood consecrated Leadbeater as bishop of Australia of the Liberal Catholic Church. Leadbeater remained in Australia, though at a distance from the local Theosophists, for the rest of his life. He died February 29, 1934. Long after his death, Leadbeater remains a controversial figure. A comprehensive biography, The Elder Brother: A Biography of Charles Webster Leadbeater, was published in 1982 by Gregory Tillett.
Liberal Catholic Church
The Liberal Catholic Church came into existence as the result of a complete re-organization in 1915-16 of the Old Catholic Church in Great Britain upon a more liberal basis. That Church derived its orders from the Old Catholic archiepiscopal see of Utrecht in Holland. It is neither Roman Catholic nor Protestant. It is called Liberal Catholic because its outlook is both liberal and Catholic. It aims at combining Catholic forms of worship, stately ritual, deep mysticism and witness to the reality of sacramental grace with the widest measure of intellectual liberty and respect for the individual conscience.
(From the Statement of Principles of The Liberal Catholic Church, eight edition, 1986)
In an article written in 1937 for Ubique, the magazine of the American Province of the LCC, the first Presiding-Bishop of the Liberal Catholic Church, James Ingall Wedgwood, mentions the circumstances surrounding the consecration of C. W. Leadbeater to the episcopate:
A few months later I was once more on my way to Sydney to take counsel with C. W. Leadbeater. The worldwide journeying was decidedly expensive, but I realized some capital in order to make it possible. Bishop King was left in charge of the work in England and admitted some good workers to the priesthood. Mr. Leadbeater saw great possibility for usefulness in the movement and placed his services unreservedly at our disposal. He was consecrated bishop on July 22, 1916, having previously received conditional baptism and confirmation and the earlier Orders, again conditionally, at my hands.
Bishop Leadbeater was the Presiding-Bishop of the LCC from 1923 until his death in 1934. He wrote a number of books in which he presented his unique vision of aspects of the Christian tradition, including The Christian Creed (1899), The Inner Side of Christian Festivals (1920) and The Science of the Sacraments (1920).
He was largely responsible for The St. Alban Hymnalpublished in 1921 by St. Alban Press.
Authored Freemasonry Books
The Hidden Life in Freemasonry
In 1926 Charles Webster Leadbeater published "The Hidden Life in Freemasonry" for the handful of Masons aiming to understand the true occult-theosophical workings of Freemasonry.
Leadbeater reveals how the Masonic ritual is a scientific way of energizing the Masonic lodge and its faithful members so as to bring about an attunement with the Great White Lodge.
"The Hidden Life in Freemasonry" develops key aspects of Freemasonry: History of Masonry; The Lodge; The Fittings of the Lodge; Preliminary Ceremonies; The Opening of the Lodge; Initiation; The Second Degree; The Third Degree; The Higher Degrees; Two Wonderful Rituals; Closing the Lodge.
Freemasonry and Its Ancient Mystic Rites
Written by a leading authority on the subject, this intriguing book explores the history of Freemasonry and its relationship to many of the ancient mystical rites of Egypt, Greece, Crete, and medieval Europe. It concludes with a discussion of the Scottish Rite and the Co-Masonic Order of the twentieth century.
Glimpses of Masonic History
A somewhat unorthodox history of Freemasonry by Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854-1934), a prominent, if controversial, member of the Theosophical Society, co-founder of the Liberal Catholic Church, Co-Mason, and author of many books on Theosophy, Freemasonry and various aspects of occultism. Chapter headings: Schools of Masonic Thought; The Egyptian Mysteries; The Cretan Mysteries; The Jewish Mysteries; The Greek Mysteries; The Mithraic Mysteries; Craft Masonry in Medieval Times; Operative Masonry in the Middle Ages; The Transition from Operative to Speculative; Other Lines of Masonic Tradition; The Scottish Rite; and, The Co-Masonic Order.
Closing
CW Leadbetter was a driving force in the early Theosophical Society. He lent credence to the notion that “Christianity” and Theosophy could co-exist. He was used in the movement to infiltrate the Catholic Church. And he was successful.