THE " NEW MESSIAH " [To the Editor of the
SPECTATOR.] SIR,—As I feel sure that you would not knowingly allow incorrect damaging accounts to be circulated through the medium of your widely read and influential journal, I trust that you will be able to find space for this letter, in order to correct some of the more important errors in, and the general misapprehension that will be caused by, the article on " The New Messiah," which appeared in your issue of June 26th.
The resignation from the Theosophical Society, about twenty years ago, of Mr. Leadbeater (now Bishop Leadbeater, of the Liberal Catholic Church) was a voluntary action on his part, though certain individuals were clamouring for it at the time. He rejoined the Society (of which he is still a member), because the Society itself invited him to do so. A general vote, taken after a committee of investigation had exonerated him from the serious charges laid against him, showed a great majority in favour of asking him to rejoin. - Your article states (quite correctly) that Mrs. Besant was deprived of the custody of her two Indian wards by the decision of the Madras Courts, but entirely omits the fact that this decision was subsequently reversed on her appeal to the Privy .Council. It was in that way that she regained the custody of both her wards, and not as stated in your paper.
Your article seems to insist that the World Teacher and Mr. Krislmamurti are one and the same person, though both Dr. Besant and Mr. Krishnarnurti himself have expressly and repeatedly denied that. The only claim that is made is that the body of this young Indian is used by the World Teacher— not continuously, one understands, but as occasion arises— as in the instance quoted from The Manchester Guardian. Using psychological terminology, the case would be called one of dual personality, or rather, dissociated personality. In Old Diary Leaves, by Colonel Olcott, the first President of the Theosophical Society, similar incidents are mentioned in connexion with Madame Blavatsky and some of her literary work. But no one confused her with any of the personage3 using her body. The idea that it is claimed that Mr. Krish- namurti is " the latest incarnation of the divine spirit " is a doubtless unintentional, but grave misrepresentation of Dr. Besant's teaching.
To me it seems a rash, unjustifiable and less than courteous proceeding to charge with the fraud of having " invented" this " new religion " (of the coming of the World Teacher), a person of the known integrity and sincerity of Dr. Annie Besant, and that merely because the writer himself fails to see how Dr. Besant can have had her own first-hand proofs, which, nevertheless, cannot be demonstrated to all and sundry. Many people must, at some time or other, have found themselves in a similar position—certainly I myself have—where one could do no more than assert one's actual experience (whatever it might happen to be) and could offer no proof to others. But the case with Dr. Besant does not stand on her own word alone.
However, it is not merely on the assertion of witnesses, however reliable, that she asks the world in general to rely in this matter. Repeatedly she has said, in effect, with regard to her teaching in general : " For goodness sake don't pay me the false compliment of setting. me up as an ' authority.' Use common sense. If you are unable at the moment to form an opinion on a matter, reserve judgment till you can ; then if the teaching commends itself to your reasoned judgment, accept it ; but not otherwise."
And it is in this way that she invites us to consider her teaching with regard to the coming of the World Teacher. She has shown at some length how reasonable it is that the Teacher should come specially at this time of need. But she impresses on as that it is by the quality of the message itself that the presence of the great Teacher must be judged by the world at large. If the message comes from an indwelling Christ, it should bear the hall-marks of the Christ—of His wisdom, His love and His understanding, and be something that should give the needed help and guidance to our con- fused and restless world of to-day.—I am, Sir, &c.,
30 Nightingale Road, Portsmouth.
J. A. EDWARD WREN.
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