Theos-Talk Archives (June 1996 Message tl01020)

In message <199606280514.AA14106@angel.elektra.ru>, Macnev Uri
<saf@angel.elektra.ru> writes
>Hello!
>
>=========================
>* Forwarded by Macnev Uri
>* From : Kay Ziatz
>=========================
>
>To: theos-l@vnet.net
>Subject: Alternatives?
>
>>For: "Dr. A.M.Bain" <guru@nellie2.demon.co.uk>
>
>    Hello!
>AMB> For example, CWL was completely wrong about life on Mars. His other
>AMB> clairvoyant experiences may have been more accurate, or may not, but how
> Unfortunately, i haven't read what he wrote about  Mars.

He wrote:


                     C.W.Leadbeater on Mars

Charles Webster Leadbeater (16 February 1854 - 29 February
1934), a former Church of England minister, was ordained deacon
in St.  Andrew's Church, Farnham, Surrey, England, on 21
December 1878, and priest in the same church on 21 December 1879
by Harold Browne, Bishop of Winchester, and was assigned to the
parish of Bramshott.  He became a theosophist in 1883, and was
consecrated on 22 July 1916 by James Ingall Wedgwood as Old
Catholic Regionary Bishop for Australasia.  In 1923 he became
Presiding Bishop of the Liberal Catholic Church.  He was
successful in achieving both fame and notoriety, the former
among theosophists, and the latter among the rest of the world.

The author of a number of theosophical works, his best know work
for Liberal Catholics is "The Science of the Sacraments," a work
which is not at all scientific, and the sacraments referred to
seem to be more of the order of 'High Magic' than a true
Christian Memorial of Jesus the Nazarene rabbi.  The late Henry
T. Brandreth in his "Episcopi Vagantes and the Anglican Church"
[SPCK 1948,1961] stated of the work that it "... abounds in
unhealthy mysticism and fantastic symbolism."

According to Gregory Tillet, Leadbeater's biographer in "The
Elder Brother" [Routledge, 1982] the 'high spot' of Leadbeater's
teaching to young men and boys, with whom he is reputed to have
had numerous sexual encounters, was reached during collective
masturbation, whereby at the moment of climax, all were exhorted
to raise their thoughts to the highest planes.

Leadbeater seems to have lived in a dream world of his own, and
his fantasies are perpetuated in some branches of the Liberal
Catholic Church, which itself grew out of the theosophical
movement in the early part of the 20th century.

Leadbeater lied about his age, causing many of his followers to
attribute to him a vitality associated with "Occult Adepts,"
when in fact he pretended to be seven years older than he
actually was.  Prior to Tillet's reproduction of his birth
certificate, sources give his birthdate as 17 February 1847.

[Adapted from my "Bishops Irregular" 1985, Bristol, England].

(A.M.Bain)

He was, at one time, expelled from the Adyar based Theosophical
Society in consequence of the homosexual allegations made
against him, but was later re-admitted to the fold.

In 1911, the first edition was published, in two volumes, of his
"The Inner Life" in which his "visions" of life on Mars appear,
along with a great many other lecture texts.  In response to
some interest shown by latter day theosophists around the world,
this particular lecture is reproduced here, together with the
book's
Foreword by the then President, Annie Besant, and his own
Author's note.  The text, without further comment, now follows:
*************************************************************

                      FOREWORD

OUR evening 'Talks' at the Theosophical Headquarters at Adyar
have become quite an institution, and a very considerable
amount of information, due to new research, often arising from
some question put by a student, is given in this friendly and
intimate circle.  Our good Vice-President, Sir, S.Subramania
Iyer, found so much help and illumination from these talks, that
he earnestly wished to share his pleasure with his brethren in
the outer world, and gave a sum of money to help in their
publication.  I cordially endorse his view of their value, and
comment this volume and those which will follow it to the earnest
study of all our members.
                                              ANNIE BESANT

************************************************************

                  AUTHOR'S NOTE

WHILE the President was absent from Adyar on a tour through
England and America last year, it fell to my lot to take charge
of the daily meetings of the students here.  In the course of
that time I delivered many little informal addresses and answered
hundreds of questions.  All that I said was taken down in
shorthand, and this book is the result of those notes.  In a
number of cases it happened that what was said on the roof at the
meetings was afterwards expanded into a little article for ~The
Theosophist~ or ~The Adyar Bulletin~; in all such cases I
reprint the article instead of the stenographic report, as it
has had the advantage of certain corrections and additions.
Necessarily a book of this sort is fragmentary in its nature;
necessarily also it contains a certain amount of repetition;
though this latter has been excised wherever possible.  Many of
the subjects treated here have also been dealt with in my earlier
books, but what is written here represents in all cases the
result of the latest discoveries in connection with those
subjects.  The subjects have been classified as far as possible,
and this volume is the second series, containing the nine
remaining sections.

ADYAR, July 1911.                      C.W.LEADBEATER

************************************************************

          MARS AND ITS INHABITANTS (pp. 410-425)

The present condition of the planet Mars is by no means
unpleasant.  It is a smaller planet than the Earth and more
advanced in age.  I do not mean that it is actually older in
years, for the whole chain of worlds came into existence - not
simultaneously indeed - but within a certain definite area of
time.  But being smaller it lives its life as a planet more
quickly.  It cooled more rapidly from the nebulous condition,
and it has passed through its other stages with corresponding
celerity.  When humanity occupied it in the third round it was
in much the same condition as is the Earth at the present time
-
that is to say, there was much more water than land on its
surface.  Now it has passed into comparative old age, and the
water surface is far less than that of the land.  Large areas of
it are at present desert, covered with a bright orange sandwich
gives the planet the peculiar hue by which we so readily
recognise it.  Like that of many of our own deserts, the soil is
probably fertile enough if the great irrigation system were
extended to it, as it no doubt would have been if humanity had
remained upon it until now.

The present population, consisting practically of members of the
inner round, is but a small one, and they find plenty of room
for themselves to live without great effort, in the equatorial
lands, where the temperature is highest and there is no
difficulty as to water.  The great system of canals which has
been observed by terrestrial astronomers was constructed by the
second order of moon-men when they last occupied the planet, and
its general scheme is to take advantage of the annual melting of
enormous masses of ice at the outer fringe of the polar
snow-caps.  It has been observed that some of the canals are
double, but the double line is only occasionally apparent; that
is due to the fore-thought of the Martian engineers.  The
country is on the whole level, and they had great dread of
inundations; and wherever they thought there was reason to fear
too great an outrush of water under exceptional circumstances
the second parallel canal was constructed to receive any
possible overflow and carry it away safely.

The actual canals themselves are not visible to terrestrial
telescopes; what is seen is the belt of verdure which appears
in a tract of country on each side of the canal only at the time
when the water pours in.  Just as Egypt exists only because of
the Nile, so do large districts on Mars exist only because of
these canals.  From each of them radiate at intervals
water-ways, which run some miles into the surrounding country
and are then subdivided into thousands of tiny streamlets, so
that a strip of country a hundred miles in width is thoroughly
irrigated.  In this area are forests and cultivated fields, and
vegetation of all sorts stands forth in the greatest profusion,
making upon the surface of the planet a dark belt which is
visible to us even forty million miles away when the planet is
at its nearest and favourably situated.

Mars is much farther from the centre of the system than we are,
and consequently the sun appears to its inhabitants scarcely
more than half the size that it does to us.  Nevertheless the
climate of the inhabited portions of the planet is very good,
the temperature during the day at the equator being usually about
70 degrees Fahrenheit, although there are not many nights of the
year when there is not a touch of frost.  Clouds are almost
unknown, the sky being for most of the year entirely clear.The
country is therefore to a large extent free from the
unpleasantness of rain or snow.  The Martian day is a few
minutes longer than out own and their year is nearly twice as
long as ours, and the variation of the seasons in the inhabited
part is but slight.
In physical appearance the Martians are not unlike ourselves,
except that they are considerably smaller.  The tallest men are
not above five feet in height and the majority are two or three
inches shorter.  According to our ideas they are somewhat broad
in proportion, having very great chest capacity - a fact which
may possibly be due to the rarity of the air and the consequent
necessity of deep breathing in order fully to oxygenate the
blood.  The whole civilised population of Mars is one race, and
there is practically no difference in features or complexion,
except that, just as among ourselves, there are blondes and
brunettes, some of the people having a faintly yellowish skin
and black hair, while the majority have yellow hair and blue or
violet eyes - somewhat Norwegian in appearance.  They dress
mostly in brilliant colours, and both sexes wear an almost
shapeless garment of some very soft material which falls straight
down from the shoulders down to the feet.  Generally the feet
are bare, though they sometimes use a sort of metal sandal or
slipper, with a thong round the ankle.

They are very fond of flowers, of which there is a great
variety, and their towns are built on the general plan of the
garden-city, the houses usually being one-storeyed only, but
built round inner courtyards and straggling over a great deal of
ground.  These houses look exteriorly as though built of
coloured glass, and indeed the material which is used is
transparent, but it is somehow so fluted that while the persons
inside enjoy an almost unimpeded view of their gardens, no one
from outside can see what is going on in the house.

The houses are not built up in blocks, but the material is
melted and poured into moulds; if a house is to be built, a sort
of double mould is first made in metal faced with cement, and
then the curious glass-like substance is melted and poured into
this mould,and when it is cold and hardened the moulds are taken
away, and the house is finished except for a certain amount of
polishing of the surface.  The doors are not exactly like ours,
since they have no hinges or bolts, and are opened and shut by
treading on certain spots in the ground, either without or
within.  They do not swing on hinges, but run back into the
walls on each side.  All these doors and all furniture and
fittings are of metal.  Wood seems to be used scarcely at all.

There is only one language in use over the whole planet, except
for the few savage tribes, and this language, like everything in
their world, has not grown up as ours have done, but has been
constructed to save time and trouble.  It has been simplified to
the last possible extent, and it has no irregularities of any
sort.  They have two methods of recording their thoughts.  One
is to speak into a small box with a mouthpiece on one side of
it, something like that of a telephone.  Each word so spoken is
by the mechanism expressed as a kind of complicated sign upon a
little plate of metal, and when the message has been spoken the
plate falls out and is found to be marked in crimson characters,
which can easily be read by those who are familiar with the
scheme.  The other plan is actually to write by hand, but that
is an enormously more difficult acquirement, for the script is
a
very complicated kind of shorthand which can be written as
rapidly as one can speak.  It is in this latter script that all
their books are printed, and these latter are usually in the
shape of rolls made of very thin flexible metal.  The engraving
of them is extremely minute, and it is customary to read it
through a magnifier, which is fixed conveniently upon a stand.
In the stand there is machinery which unrolls the scroll before
the magnifier at any desired rate, so that one read without
needing to touch the book at all.

On every hand one sees signs of a very old civilization, for the
inhabitants have preserved the tradition of all that was known
when the great life-wave of humanity occupied the planet, and
have since added to it many other discoveries.  Electricity seems
to be practically the sole motive power, and all sorts of
labour-saving machines are universally employed.

The people are on the whole distinctly indolent, especially
after they have passed their first youth.  But the comparatively
small size of the population enables them to live very easily.
They have trained various kinds of domestic animals to a far
higher condition of intelligent co-operation than has yet been
achieved upon earth, so that a great deal of servant's and
gardener's work is done by these creatures with comparatively
little direction.

One autocratic ruler governs the whole planet, but the monarchy
is not hereditary.  Polygamy is practised, but it is the custom
to hand over all children to the State at a very early age to be
reared and educated, so that among the vast majority of the
people there is no family tradition whatever, and no one knows
who is his father and mother.  there is no law compelling this,
but it is considered so decidedly the right thing to do and the
best for the children that the few families who choose to live
somewhat more as we do, and to educate their children at home,
are always regarded as selfishly injuring their prospects for
the sake of what is considered mere animal affection.

The state is thus in the position of universal guardian and
schoolmaster, and the school authorities of each district are
instructed carefully to sort the children according to the
aptitudes they display, and their line of life is decided for
them in this manner - a very wide range of choice, however,
being allowed the individual child as he approaches years of
discretion.  But children who show at the same time great
intellect and wide general capacity are set apart from the rest,
and trained with a view of becoming members of the ruling class.

The King has under him what may be called viceroys of large
districts, and they in turn have under them governors of smaller
districts, and so on down to what would be equivalent here to
the head man of a village.  All these officials are chosen by
the King from this group of specially educated children, and
when the time of his own death is considered to be approaching
it is from them or from among the already appointed officials
that he chooses his successor.

They have brought their scientific medical studies to such
perfection that disease has been eliminated, and even the
ordinary signs of the approach of old age have been to a large
extent got rid of.  Practically no one appears old, and it would
seem that they hardly feel old; but, after a life somewhat
longer than our own the desire to live gradually fades away, and
the man dies.  It is quite customary for a man who is losing
interest and feels that death is approaching (this corresponds
to what we would call a centenarian) to apply to a certain
scientific department which corresponds to what we might call a
school of surgery, and ask to be put painlessly to death - a
request which is always granted.

All these rulers are autocratic, each within his own sphere, but
appeal to a higher official is always possible, though the right
is not frequently exercised, because the people usually prefer
to acquiesce in any fairly reasonable decision rather than take
the trouble involved in an appeal.  The rulers on the whole seem
to perform their duties fairly well, but again one gets the
impression that they do so not so much from any pre-eminent
sense of right or justice as to avoid the trouble that would
certainly ensue from a fragrantly unjust decision.

one of the most remarkable things about this people is that they
have absolutely no religion.  There are no churches, no temple,
no places of worship of any sort whatever, no priest, no
ecclesiastical power.  The accepted belief of the people is what
we should call scientific materialism.  Nothing is true but what
can be scientifically demonstrated, and to believe anything
which cannot be so demonstrated is regarded as not only the
height of folly, but even as a positive crime, because it is
considered a danger to the public peace.

Martian history in the remote past was not unlike our own, and
there are stories of religious persecutions, and of peoples
whose beliefs were of so uncomfortable a nature that they forced
them not only into feverish energy for themselves, but also into
perpetual interference with the liberty of thought of other
people.  Martian public opinion is quite determined that there
shall never again be any opportunity for the introduction of
disturbing factors of that sort, and that physical science and
the lower reason shall reign supreme; and though there, as here,
events have occurred which material science cannot explain,
people find it best to say nothing about them.

Nevertheless on Mars, as in other places, there are a certain
number of people who know better than this, and many centuries
ago a few of these joined themselves together in a secret
brotherhood to meet and discuss these matters.  Very gradually
and with infinite precaution, they took other recruits into this
charmed circle, and so came into existence, in this most
materialistic of worlds, a secret society which not only
believed in superphysical worlds but knew practically of their
existence, for its members took up the study of mesmerism and
spiritualism, and many of them developed a good deal of power.

At the present time this secret society is very widely spread,
and at the head of it at this moment is a pupil of one of our
Masters.  Even now after all these centuries its existence is
not officially known to the authorities, but as a matter of fact
they something more than a suspicion of it, and they have
learned to fear it.  None of its members are actually identified
as such, but many are strongly suspected, and it seems to have
been observed that when any of these strongly suspected people
have in the past been injured or unjustly put to death, the
persons who were concerned in bringing about that result have
invariably died prematurely and mysteriously, though never in
any case has their death been traceable to any physical-plane
action on the part of the suspected member.  Consequently,
although such a belief is no doubt somewhat of an infringement
of the principles of pure reason by which everything is supposed
to be governed, it has come to be generally understood that it
is safest not to pry too closely into the beliefs of people who
seem to differ in some degree from the majority, so long as they
do not openly make profession of anything which would be
considered subversive of the good morals of materialism.

Driven far away from the pleasant equatorial regions into
inhospitable lands and impenetrable forests, there still exist
some remnants of the savage tribes who are descended from those
left behind when the great life-wave left Mars for the earth.
These are primitive savages at a lower stage than any now living
on the exterior of our earth, though bearing some resemblance to
one of our interior evolutions.

Some at least of the members of the secret society have learnt
how to cross without great difficulty the space which separates
us from Mars, and have therefore at various times tried to
manifest themselves through mediums at spiritualist seances, or
have been able, by the methods which they have learnt, to
impress their ideas upon poets and novelists.

The information which I have given above is based upon
observation and inquiry during various visits to the planet; yet
nearly all of it might be found in the works of various writers
within the last thirty or forty years, and in all such cases it
has been impressed by someone from Mars, although the very fact
of such impression was (at least in some cases) quite unknown to
the physical writer.

Of our future home, Mercury, we know much less than of Mars, for
visits to it have been hurried and infrequent.  Many people
would think it incredible that life such as ours could exist on
Mercury, with a sun that appears at least seven times as large
as it does here.  The heat, however, is not at all so intense as
would be supposed.  I am informed that this is due to a layer of
gas on the outskirts of the Mercurian atmosphere, which prevents
most of the heat from penetrating.  We are told that the most
destructive of all possible storms on Mercury is one which even
for a moment disturbs the stability of this gaseous envelope.
When that happens a kind of whirl-pool is set up on it, and for
a moment a shaft of direct sunlight comes from the sun through
its vortex.  Such a shaft instantly destroys whatever life comes
in its way, and burns up in a moment everything combustible.
Fortunately such storms are rare.  The inhabitants whom I have
seen there are much like ourselves, though again somewhat
smaller.

The influence of gravity both on Mars and Mercury is less than
half what it is on earth, but while on Mars I did not notice any
particular way in which advantage had been taken of this.  I
observed on Mercury that the doors of the houses were quite a
considerable height from the ground, needing what for us would
be a respectable gymnastic feat to reach them, though on Mercury
it is only a slight spring which is required.  All the
inhabitants of that planet are from birth possessed of etheric
sight; I remember that the fact was first brought to my notice
by observing a child who was watching the movements of some
crawling creature; and I saw that when it entered its abode he
was still able to follow its movements, even when it was deep
down under the ground.

---------------

End of C.W.Leadbeater's claimed observations.

---------
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