Theos-Talk Archives (October 1995 Message tl00277)

Rich:

> [writing to Liesel]

>CWL is a huge liability, and just cannot be defended from the FACTS about his
>life and teachings. I don't see what he offers that can't be gotten from
>other, more respectably teachers, and instead, he really drags the T.S. down.

Many of us *want* to believe in an astral plane, in mastery of occult powers,
in being a magician, an occultist, an "invisible helper". This touches a part
of us that perhaps remembers better times, when we weren't so mired in
materiality. There is talk of spirits and the spirit world in the various
religions of the world. To picture oneself with the power to walk the skies
stirs powerful feelings. If we don't care about the literal accuracy of
Leadbeater's writings, and consider them as good stories, with hints at occult
truth in them, intermixed with fantasy and error, then it's not so bad. If
some of the books appeared in bookstores under "occult fiction", they would
still have a fan club.

For myself, I found the books appealing, although they did not prepare me
for reading Blavatsky or for the more advanced studies that I was opened up
to in later coming to read Purucker. I would, as you, disagree with some of
the materials in the Leadbeater books as wrong, and inconsistent with source
Theosophy. My approach is to work on the clarify of my writing about what
I consider to be true, and correct, to approach the differences with a
positive rather than a double negative. Both approaches, thought, are useful
at different times, if handled diplomatically.

-- Eldon