An Open Letter to Annie Besant

A 2016 Editorial Note:

Karma has its own and mysterious ways to operate. Valuable people get
invisible for some time in the history of theosophical movement. They are
almost completely forgotten, and then – due to the law of cycles – the memory
and record of their lives and efforts awaken again.

Alice Cleather is one example among others. She belonged to the Inner
Group of the esoteric school founded by Helena P. Blavatsky in London
during the late 1880s. In the first part of the 20th century, Ms. Cleather wrote
three books on her teacher, on theosophy, and on the theosophical movement.
She showed how Annie Besant abandoned the original theosophy in order to
talk to the “king of the world” and to organize the public reappearance of her
own imaginary “Lord Christ”.

Forgotten by some, unknown to many, Alice Cleather’s books have decisive

things to say to the theosophical movement in the present century. Though
not infallible, Ms. Cleather was an ethical person. She had a clear vision. Her
testimony has a place in the history of the theosophical movement.

Mr. William Kingsland is another “invisible” theosophist whose life and

work are getting visible again. Kingsland was the president of the London
Blavatsky Lodge for some time, during H.P.B.’s life. He was present in all of
the 1889 meetings with H.P.B. whose content is transcribed in the volume
“The Secret Doctrine Dialogues” [1]. He chaired 12 of those 21 meetings,
and took an active part in the discussions and dialogue. Page after page, the
reader of “The Secret Doctrine Dialogues” gets used to Kingsland’s views
and ideas, as he follows the direct and frank dialogue with H.P. Blavatsky.

It was in December 1909, some twenty years later, that William Kingsland
resigned his membership of the Adyar Society. He did so with an Open Letter
to Annie Besant, and a significant part of the document is reproduced in
chapter one of Alice Cleather’s book “H.P. Blavatsky – A Great Betrayal”.

The books by Mrs. Cleather are helpful in many ways to the new generations
of students who want to understand the evolution of the theosophical
movement as a whole. While in the United States the United Lodge of
Theosophists (ULT) started to emerge in 1909 with the goal of rescuing the
original philosophy, in London William Kingsland, Edward Schuré and others
were leaving the Adyar Society because Adyar had adopted as its de facto
guru someone who many considered a criminal, or at least an enemy of the
Masters of the Wisdom and their Ethics. Kingsland and Schuré followed the
example given by G.R.S. Mead.

The honest people who had been used in the political campaign unleashed
against William Judge in 1894-1895 then could realize, at least in part, what
had really happened to their Society.

We reproduce below Chapter one of Mrs. Cleather’s book “H.P. Blavatsky, a

Great Betrayal” [2]. The title of the text is “Mr. William Kingsland on the
Crisis of 1906”. In order to understand the first paragraph, the reader must
take into consideration the fact that in 1906 Mr. Charles Leadbeater had been
forced by Henry Olcott to resign his membership of the Adyar Society, in
order to avoid being formally expelled.

(Carlos Cardoso Aveline)