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Posts tagged ‘Leadbeater’

  1. “A thousand kisses darling”: Sex, scandal and spirituality in the life of Charles Webster Leadbeater – some conclusions

    I’m going to close this series of posts on the Leadbeater scandals with some general observations. The Leadbeater scandal erupted at a time when, as Eve Sedgwick has argued, the ‘nameless abomination’ of homosexual desire was subject to increasing scrutiny – being named, pathologised, and (cautiously) celebrated through various scientific, medical, legal artistic and occult discourses. The discovery of the homosexual as a type of person was the subject of early sexological investigations, and at the same time there was an emergence of discourses which made a link between inversion and religious (in the writings of Havelock Ellis and Edward Carpenter, for example) – even mystical sensibilities – and the idea that the appearance of the invert or Uranian sensibility represented a new phase of human spiritual progress. The Leadbeater scandals emerged at a time when the many facets of the “sex question” were being hotly debated. Continue reading »

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  2. “A thousand kisses darling”: Sex, scandal and spirituality in the life of Charles Webster Leadbeater – IV

    This post examines the “third phase” of the Leadbeater scandal – the events in Australia and Leadbeater’s association with the Liberal Catholic Church. Continue reading »

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  3. “A thousand kisses darling”: Sex, scandal and spirituality in the life of Charles Webster Leadbeater – III

    This post examines Leadbeater’s return to the Theosophical Society, problems with the press and the “second scandal” – the court case over Krishnamurti. Continue reading »

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  4. “A thousand kisses darling”: Sex, scandal and spirituality in the life of Charles Webster Leadbeater – II

    For this post, I will further explore the unfolding of the 1906 scandal, the Theosophical Society’s response and the efforts to contain it. Continue reading »

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  5. “A thousand kisses darling”: Sex, scandal and spirituality in the life of Charles Webster Leadbeater – I

    This essay started off as a lecture presented at Treadwells Bookshop of London in February 2008, as part of LGBT History Month.

    Introduction
    The Theosophical Society was one of the most influential esoteric movements of the Twentieth Century, not only in terms of its role in formulating many concepts that remain popular in contemporary occult and new age ideology, but also in shaping the modern world as we know it. In this series of posts, I will examine the sex scandals that dogged the career of one of the Society’s most infamous members, Charles Webster Leadbeater, a prolific author and lecturer, who was hailed by his followers as one of humanity’s most advanced adepts, yet at the same time, denounced by others as “a sex-pervert.” Continue reading »

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