The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13, 1926. A NEW MESSIAH.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 10, 13 January 1926, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13, 1926. A NEW MESSIAH.

—■ » For the cause that lacks assUtanm, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance. And the good that vat can do.

Among the remarkable women who have played a conspicuous part in the world's affairs during the past halfcentury, an important place may fairly be assigned to Annie Besant. Endowed with exceptional intellectual powers, and gifted with remarkable natural eloquence, she possesses also in an unusual degree that fervid energy which inspires confidence and enthusiasm in the adherents of a party or a creed, and which has always been the - secret of success for all the leaders of mankind. Whatever line of life 6he might have followed, Mrs. Besant could never have been conventional or commonplace, and throughout her" long life her versatility, her inexhaustible activity, her driving power, and, we" may add, her supreme self-confidence, have always marked her out as a born propagandist and prophet. From the far-off days when, converted early from Anglicanism and ritualism, she gave herself heart and soul- to Mr. Bradlaugh's rationalist campaigns, and through, the subsequent period of her devotion to Madame Blavatsky, her adoption of Oriental mysticism and her final advancement to the leadership of the Theosophists, Mrs. Besant has always been a source and centre of intellectual and ethical activity to all the many thousands who have come within the range of her influence; and these things may at least help to explain, even if they cannot justify, the remarkable utterances attributed to her in our cable columns this week. To those who take an interest in the religious problems and developments of the age, the rapid spread of Theo3ophical teaching in recent years has long been 'a noteworthy phenomenon, and it is well known that for some time past the adherents of the Theosophical Society, of which Mrs. Besant is president, have been expecting confidently the advent of a great spiritual leader who, as the "avatar," or incarnation of a Higher Power, would lead the world back to righteousness. Mrs. Besant has now assured her followers that the time for this great event is close at hand. It has been revealed to her by "tne Great Beings who rule the world" that a young Hindu who has been her pupil for some years is the chosen medium through whom the Divine will and power are to be made manifest; and the leading members of the Theosophical Society, with Mrs. Besant at their head, have been already appointed as apostles, to prepare the way for "the New Messiah" and to preacli his will. This is a brief and simple version of the story, 'and it should hardly be necessary to point out that those who. accept it as convincing and true must do so simply on the testimony and authority of Mrs. Besant. To the outsider who has never been subjected to Theosophical influences it may seem improbable that such extravagant pretensions should secure acceptance from intelligent men and women. But the history of Theosophy during the past half-century shows clearly enough that there are very large numbers of people throughout the world who will accept as the truth statements however incredible and inconceivable so long as'they are associated with the hope or the promise of some kind of intellectual or moral satisfaction such as their hearts or souk desire.

Here, we may observe, is to be found the reason for the remarkable success that the Theosophists have achieved in preaching their extraordinary doctrines. Amid, the general failure of the more orthodox religions to satisfy the needs and the aspirations of the majority of mankind, Theosophy attracts its votaries by offering various inducements which other creeds appear to lack; and to minds and temperaments constituted or circunistauced in certain ways it does seem to make a very forceful appeal. But unfortunately there is a more serious side to the question than this. The doctrines preached by Mrs. Besant and her followers are based for the most part on the writings of Madame Blavatsky who forty years ago was proved to be an unscrupulous impostor, while her "inspired" books were shown to be derived entirely from ordinary mundane sources by tlie simple process of stealing without acknowledgment. Worse than this, the name of "Bishop" Leadbeater is still connected in the public mind with memories of a most unsavoury and deplorable episode in connection with which a judge of high standing declared that Leadbeater's influence on his pupils was to the last degree degrading and demoralising; and Krishnamurti, "the New Messiah," was one of his disciples. Unless and until the Theosophists can detach and dissociate themselves entirely from Madame Blavatsy and her teachings, and can explain the Leadbeater incident to the satisfaction of the world at large, most people will continue to believe that it needs more than Mrs. Besant's personal guarantee to prove that Theosophy, in the form in which it is taught at Adgar, is much more than a crude and undesirable superstition.