by Dreams End » Thu Jul 13, 2006 11:54 am
From Wikipedia on Leadbeter. <br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Leadbeater was accused of pederasty, the first accusation coming in 1906.<br><br>Mary Lutyens in "Krishnamurti: The Years of Awakening" writes:<br><br> * "Then in 1906, after Leadbeater's return to England, the fourteen-year-old son of the Corresponding Secretary of the Estoric Section in Chicago, whom Leadbeater had taken with him to San Francisco on his first lecture tour, confessed to his parents the reason for the antipathy he had conceived for his mentor, to whom he had at first been greatly devoted -- Leadbeater had encouraged him in the habit of masturbation. Almost simultaneously the son of another Theosophical official in Chicago charged Leadbeater with the same offense without apparently there being any collusion between the two boys. Then a typewritten, unsigned, undated, cipher-letter was produced; it had been picked up by a suspicious cleaner on the floor of a flat in Toronto in which Leadbeater had stayed with the second boy and was said to have been written by Leadbeater. The code was simple and when broken revealed one passage of such obscenity, for those days, that the letter could not by law be printed in England. When decoded the offending passage read: 'Glad sensation is so pleasant. Thousand kisses darling.'" (Mary Lutyens, p 15)<br><br>A commission was appointed by the American Section, but before the meeting, Leadbetter resigned the TS, as he told Olcott, "to save the Society from embarrassment." (Mary Lutyens, p 16).<br><br>On the nature of the accusation itself, Leadbetter wrote to Annie Besant in the following words:<br><br> * "...So when boys came under my care, I mentioned this matter to them [masturbation], among other things, always trying to avoid all sorts of false shame, and to make the whole appear as natural and simple as possible...." - Letter from C W Leadbeater to Annie Besant (quoted by Mary Lutyens, p 17)<br><br>Another such accusation came later from Hubert van Hook of Chicago, who as an 11-year-old was proclaimed by Leadbeater as future World Teacher.[11] On the denunciation, Mary Lutyens states: "Hubert later swore to Mrs Besant that Leadbetter had 'misused' him, but as he was extremely vindictive by that time, his testimorny, though unshaken, was perhaps not altogether reliable.' (Mary Lutyens, p 45n)<br><br>Leadbetter was never charged or brought to court, though there is a body of evidence that suggests he had sexual relations with students in the United States, India and Australia. Peter Michel, in his biography of Charles W. Leadbeater, writes that these accusations are suspect as they came from those who could be considered his enemies: Alexander Fullerton, Herbert Burrows, G.R.S. Mead, Hubert van Hook, Katherine Tingley and Hilda Martyn.<br>[edit]<br><hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>Also one of the theosophists who "discovered" Krishnamurti. <br> <p></p><i></i>
