such scandals in the history of
secret societies leads one inevitably to wonder how far these are to be
regarded as merely deplorable accidents or as the results of
secret-society methods and of occult teaching. That the men against whom
charges of sexual perversion were brought were not isolated examples of
these tendencies is shown by a curious admission on the part of one of
Madame Blavatsky's "chelas," or disciples, who relates:

I was a pupil of H.P.B. before Mrs. Besant joined the T.S. and saw
her expel one of her most gifted and valued workers from the
Esoteric Section for offences against the occult and moral law,
similar to those with which Mr. Leadbeater's name has now been
associated for nearly twenty years. H.P.B. was always extremely
strict on this particular point, and _many_ [my itals.] would-be
aspirants for chelaship were refused on this one ground alone,
while others who had been accepted "on probation" failed almost
immediately afterwards.[715]

It would appear, then, that these deplorable proclivities are peculiarly
prevalent amongst aspirants to Theosophical knowledge.

It is unnecessary to enlarge at length on Mrs. Besant's connexion with
the seditious elements in this country and in India, since these have
frequently been referred to in the press. It is true that the
Theosophical Society, like the Grand Orient, disavows all political
intentions and professes to work only for spiritual development, but the
leaders appear to consider that a radical change must take place in the
existing social system before true spiritual development can be
attained. That this change would lie in the direction of Socialism is
suggested by the fact that a group of leading Theosophists, including
Mrs. Besant, were discovered in 1919 to be holding a large number of
shares in the Victoria House Printing Company, which was financing the
_Daily Herald_ at that date[716]; indeed, Mrs. Besant in her lectures on
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, at the Queen's Hall in October of the
same year, clearly indicated Socialism as the system of the coming New
Era.[717] Since then the "Action Lodge" has been founded with the object
of carrying "Theosophical ideals and conceptions into all fields of
human activity"[718]--from which the political field appears not to be
excluded, since this lodge has been known to co-operate with the
promoters of a political meeting on the Indian question.[