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Correspondence
[Extracts from a Letter or Letters by Crowley on the Subject of the Theosophical Society]
[circa 1925]
I am making enquiries as to whether Leadbeater [Charles Webster Leadbeater] is in London, but it does not matter, he is not seeing anybody. He had to be dragged off a platform some little while ago in Australia because he started raving, and I think it is only a matter of a few weeks before he is entirely out of it. They are at least obliged to tell everybody that he has become much too holy to communicate with any one except the great ones beyond the range, and we all know what that means.
We have already seen how the sensible and thinking members of the Theosophical Society are beginning to feel discontented at the unproved assertions of Mrs. Besant [Annie Besant] and refuse to swallow all the jargon she has been preaching about the cult of Alcyone and the coming of Christ without adducing a scrap of evidence but only on strength of her spiritual insight which she has been so vaingloriously claiming to possess.
F. T. Brooks has gone [over] to [the] Aryasamaj.
Wilton Mack of Australia has been warning all Theosophists there against the esoteric teaching of Mrs. Besant, thus incurring her displeasure, which was displayed by her stopping the supply of 'Theosophist' which had for many years been supplied to him gratis.
Babu Bhagavand as the general secretary of the Indian section has written a vigorous protest against Mrs. Besant's teaching of the Alcyonic cult, and has refused to take the Esoteric Section pledge.
Mr. Graham Pole, one of the staunchest Scotch Theosophists, and the general secretary of the Scotch section, has also refused to take the pledge in which the Esoteric Section members were asked to "Believe without cavil or delay all Mrs. Besant's statements in their relationship with the Theosophical movement and the Coming of the Christ" and will probably secede from the Society.
Many Parsi Theosophists have also given up their connection with it. It is only in Southern India, in the benighted Presidency, that some influential judges have been lending the weight of their name and position, one of them at least knowing full all the events which led to the precipitated flight of Leadbeater to Italy with no immediate prospect of his return to India.
Now comes other news. Dr. Welker Van Nook has given up the general secretaryship of the American section. The importance of this announcement can only be known to those who knew the part played by Dr. Van Hook in the re-admission of Leadbeater to the Theosophical Society. In short he was the sturdy champion of Mr. Leadbeater's grossly improper teachings and practices and one who gave out that a 'Master' had appeared to him and bade him justify these filthy teachings.
True to his perversion Bishop Leadbeater fell deeply 'in love' with Master Van Hook, and somehow managed to get him along with his mother to Adyar. Mr. Leadbeater professed to read the past lives of this boy, and gave out that he was a great personality (Orion) and predicted a great future for him. He soon became the pet of Dr. Annie Besant and used to be seated by her during the Esoteric Section meetings, and much fulsome homage was paid him by the members, until Bishop Leadbeater met X [Krishnamurti].
The most docile and obedient Brahim lad completely superceded the American youth and the Bishop, for obvious reasons, transferred all his 'love' to the Brahim lad and neglected young Van Hook altogether, much to the chagrin of his mother who, however, soon reconciled herself (money speaks all languages) to the change over, and on the advice of Dr. Besant, acknowledges that Alcyone (Krishnamurti) was far greater then her son (Orion).
Dr. Annie Besant, Bishop Leadbeater, and many others have within the space of a generation made the Theosophical Society the object of supreme loathing and contempt.
I was once at a gathering of a theosophical character when the speaker, an unsexed freak of a woman, launched a trenchant attack against smoking. When an individual who looked like a man somewhat timidly pointed out that Madame Blavatsky [Helena Petrovna Blavatsky] was an inveterate smoker, and that many of the 'Masters' indulged in the weed, she tossed her cropped head and said: "I don't care; personally if I were to see the Lord smoking, I would tell Him about it."
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