“Mr. Leadbeater . . . developed, as was reported, great psychic abilities, as the result of which, not with standing his frequent disclaiming of occult authority, he exercised great influence over the thought of a large number of members of the [Adyar Theosophical] Society. His studies and his books reflected the attitude of ‘scientific common sense.’
He claims to have brought the phenomena of the superphysical realms of life, of the astral and the mental plane, of the future disembodied life, and of the past and future of this and other spheres, under his direct clairvoyant gaze.
He wrote elaborate descriptions of these things in a style of simplicity and clearness. He asserted that such powers enabled one to review any event in the past history of the race, in as much as all that ever happened is imprinted indelibly on the substance of the Astral Light or the Akasha, and the psychic faculties of trained occultists permit them to bring these pictures under observation.
With the same faculties he asserted his ability to investigate the facts of nature in both her realms of the infinite and the infinitesimal. Hence he explored the nature of the atom, its electrons and its whorls, and in collaboration with Mrs. [Annie] Besant, who was alleged also to possess high psychic powers, published a work entitled Occult Chemistry. For years he stood as perhaps the world’s greatest ‘seer,’ and in books dealing with Clairvoyance, Dreams, The Astral Plane, Some Glimpses of Occultism, The Inner Life, The Hidden Side of Things, Man: Whence, Howand Whither, he labored to particularize and complement Madame Blavatsky’s sweeping outline of cosmic evolution and human character, as given in The Secret Doctrine. . . . “ ~Source: http://www.blavatskyarchives.com/leadbeaterbib.htm
Theosophy Versus Neo-Theosophy compiled by Margaret Thomas 2003 online edition
Edited and with Additional Material by Mark R. Jaqua http://blavatskyarchives.com/thomas/index.htm
Leadbeater, Charles Webster
(1854? -1934). A leading figure of the Theosophical Society (TS) “second generation” (c. 1900-1934), Charles W. Leadbeater was a prominent theosophical writer, speaker, and teacher. The author of some forty books and many more pamphlets and articles, Leadbeater has been read more widely than any other theosophical author, and has had an influence, direct and indirect, on western occultism, including the “New Age” movement, perhaps greater than any other single person of his time or since. His influence on modern art, through the concept of “thought-forms,” also cannot be overlooked. (See ART, THEOSOPHY AND.) In addition, he was an important figure in the Co-Masonic movement, and the second Presiding Bishop and a leading theologian and liturgist of the LIBERAL CATHOLIC CHURCH. At the same time, Leadbeater was and remains a controversial figure, admired by some and trenchantly criticized by others both for his own character and his influence on theosophy.
Something of the same can be said of Thought-Forms (1905), also prepared in collaboration with Annie BESANT; this work, which has had a remarkable influence on modern art, presents through the medium of vivid color illustration the subtle energy patterns generated by various moods and feelings, as seen by a clairvoyant eye. It suggested, to a world moving rapidly beyond the literalism of Victorian art, the expression in painting of surreal forms and forces underlying, but different from, the visible world. These writings were all presented in a smooth, matter-of-fact manner that belied the sensational material invisible to virtually all but the author, as though no more than a scientific description of some newly-explored island or, in the case of Occult Chemistry, observations of the atom with a super-microscope. (See OCCULT CHEMISTRY.) ~Source: https://www.theosophy.world/encyclopedia/leadbeater-charles-webster
The Unavoidable Facts about C.W. Leadbeater
Some Theosophists take offence when they see C.W. Leadbeater being written about in seemingly negative, critical, or condemning tones by other members of the Theosophical Movement. They object to him being referred to as a fraud, a liar, or a fake or being charged with wrecking the Adyar Theosophical Society. This is quite understandable, since they are in most cases entirely unacquainted with the facts of the matter.
* The fact that Leadbeater admitted under oath in 1906 to having performed sexual acts on young boys in his care on numerous occasions and often in ongoing circumstances. This confession, which he made after complaints and allegations from several boys, quite rightly resulted in his being forced out of the Theosophical Society in shame and disgrace, only to later be invited back and readmitted by Annie Besant, much to the disgust of many other Theosophists.
* The fact that he was secretly a member of a sexual magic group in Australia during the latter part of his life when he lived there, having been introduced to the group by James Wedgwood, his fellow co-founding “Bishop” of the Liberal Catholic Church, whose disgraceful and sickening antics and abuse of young boys are not worth repeating.
* The fact that he was frequently under investigation by the police and considered by them “a person of interest” due to both rumours and accusations of paedophilia which unfailingly arose wherever he went.
* The fact that eyewitnesses reported having seen him perform indecent acts upon the young Krishnamurti and that Krishnamurti in later years when asked about Leadbeater would only say “That man was evil.”
There is much more than that but those are some of the most important facts which are often ~ Source: https://blavatskytheosophy.com/the-unavoidable-facts-about-c-w-leadbeater/
Rudolf Steiner:
Steiner said little directly about Leadbeater. In his autobiography Steiner wrote of his one meeting with Leadbeater in 1902 that, “… he made no particular impression upon me”. To those familiar with Leadbeater’s work, it is possible to see how Steiner was continually correcting it in his own lectures and books. Two examples should suffice. In his 1903 book Clairvoyance, Leadbeater writes, “It may help to dispel this sense of unreality if we try to understand that clairvoyance, like so many other things in nature, is mainly a question of vibrations…”To which Rudolf Steiner wrote:
“We must not fall into the error of certain theosophical circles, and imagine that the etheric and astral bodies as consisting simply of finer substances than are present in the physical body. For that would be a materialistic conception of these higher members of man’s nature. The etheric body is a force-form; it consists of active forces and not a matter. The astral or sentient body is a figure of inwardly moving, colored, luminous pictures.”
The second example comes from the same book, where Leadbeater describes Reading the Akashic Record as follows:
“When the visitor to [the mental, a.k.a. Devachanic] plane is not thinking specifically of them in any way, the records simply form a background to whatever is going on, just as the reflections in a pier-glass at the end of the room might form a background to the life of the people in it. It must always be born in mind that under these conditions they are really merely reflections from the ceaseless activity of a great Consciousness upon a far higher plane, and have very much the appearance of an endless succession of cinematographs, or living photographs. They do not melt into one another like dissolving views, nor do a series of ordinary pictures follow one other; but the action of the reflected figures constantly goes on as though one were watching the actors on a distant stage. But if the trained investigator turns his attention especially to any one scene, or wishes to call it up before him, an extraordinary change at once takes place, for this is the plane of thought, and to think of anything is to bring it instantly before you. For example, if a man wills to see the record of that event to which we before referred – the landing of Julius Caesar – he finds himself in the moment not looking at any picture, but standing on the shore among the legionnaires, with the whole scene being enacted around him, precisely in every aspect as he would have seen it if he had stood there in the flash on that autumn morning in the year 55 B.C. Since what he sees is but a reflection, the actors are of course entirely unconscious of them, nor can any effort of his change the course of their action in the smallest degree, except only that he can control the rate which the drama shall pass before him – can have the event of the whole year rehearsed before eyes in a single hour, or can at any moment stop the movement altogether and hold the particular scene in view as a picture as long as he chooses.”
In a 1907 lecture, Rudolf Steiner explains:
“What is the Akasha Chronicle? We can form the truest conception of it by realizing that what comes to pass on our earth makes a lasting impression upon certain delicate essences, an impression which can be discovered by a seer who has attained Initiation. It is not an ordinary but a living Chronicle. Suppose a human being lived in the first century after Christ; what he thought, felt and willed in those days, what passed into deeds — this is not obliterated but preserved in this delicate essence. The seer can behold it – not as if it were recorded in a history book, but as it actually happened. How a man moved, what he did, a journey he took-it can all be seen in these spiritual pictures; the impulses of will, the feelings, the thoughts, can also be seen. But we must not imagine that these pictures are images of the physical personalities. That is not the case. To take a simple example. – When a man moves his hand, his will pervades the moving hand and it is this force of will that can be seen in the Akasha Chronicle. What is spiritually active in us and has flowed into the Physical, is there seen in the Spiritual. Suppose, for example, we look for Caesar. We can follow all his undertakings, but let us be quite clear that it is rather his thoughts that we see in the Akasha Chronicle; when he set out to do something we see the whole sequence of decisions of the will to the point where the deed was actually performed. To observe a specific event in the Akasha Chronicle is not easy. We must help ourselves by linking on to external knowledge. If the seer is trying to observe some action of Caesar and takes an historical date as a point of focus, the result will come more easily. Historical dates are, it is true, often unreliable, but they are sometimes of assistance. When the seer directs his gaze to Caesar, he actually sees the person of Caesar in action, phantom-like, as though he were standing before him, speaking with him. But when a man is looking into the past, various things may happen to him if, in spite of possessing some degree of seership, he has not entirely found his bearings in the higher worlds.”
Without mentioning Leadbeater, Steiner has very clearly differentiated his experience from Leadbeater’s descriptions of clairvoyance. Because of the delicate way Steiner presented these corrections, they are not obvious as such. To readers of either it is not evident that there was a substantial struggle between Leadbeater and Steiner concerning the nature of the spiritual world. Contemporary Theosophists, in as much as they were able to encounter Steiner’s work (and due to language barriers, these were mostly German-speaking Theosophists in central Europe) did experience the tension between the two different worldviews. But most Theosophists outside Central Europe were unaware of the conflict. ~ Source: http://www.rudolfsteinerweb.com/contemporaries/Charles_Leadbeater.php