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 known 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 did, at one time, resign 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:

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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

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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

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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.

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