Charles Webster Leadbeater Quotes

We have to learn to apply, each one of us to himself, what IS written in these books I cannot do that for you, I can tell you what you ought to do, I can try to explain, I can illustrate in various ways, but each person must do the actual work for himself. It is like physical culture, like training for a race or some effort of that sort, there may be a trainer who can give useful hints and can tell you what to do, but the candidate himself must exercise his own muscles, and nobody can by any possibility do that for him. (First Talk)

In the progress of ordinary research the discovery of radium by Madame Curie in the year 1902 put an entirely new face upon the subject of electrons. The beta particles emanating from radium were soon identified with the electrons of the cathode ray. Then followed the discovery that the gas helium, previously treated as a separate element, evolved itself as one consequence of the disintegration of radium. Transmutation, till then laughed at as a superstition of the alchemist, passed quietly into the region of accepted natural phenomena, and the chemical elements were seen to be bodies built up of electrons in varying number and probably in varying arrangements. So at last ordinary science had reached one important result of the occult research carried on seven years earlier. It has not yet reached the finer results of the occult research—the structure of the hydrogen atom with its eighteen etheric atoms and the way in which the atomic weights of all elements are explained by the number of etheric atoms entering into their constitution.

Of that higher life of His we can know nothing. But of the fragment of His life which energises His system we may know something in the lower levels of its manifestation. We may not see Him, but we may see His power at work. No one who is clairvoyant can be atheistic; the evidence is too tremendous. Ch. II

We have long accepted the doctrine of the evolution of the forms in which dwells the Divine Life; here is the complementary and far greater idea of the evolution of that Life itself, showing that the very reason for that wondrous development of higher and higher forms is that the ever-swelling Life needs them in order to express itself. Forms are born and die, forms grow, decay and break; but the Spirit grows on eternally, ensouling those forms, and developing by means of experience gained in and through them, and as each form has served its turn and is outgrown, it is cast aside that another and better form may take its place.

Physical. First, then, as to the physical part of the mechanism. We have in our bodies a great central axis of nervous matter, ending in the brain, and from this a network of nerve-threads radiates in every direction through the body. It is these nerve-threads, according to modern scientific theory, which by their vibrations convey all impressions from without to the brain, and the latter, upon receipts of these impressions, translates them into sensations or perceptions; so that if I put my hand upon some object and find it to be hot, it is really not my hand that feels, but my brain, which is acting upon information transmitted to it by the vibrations running along its telegraph wires, the nerve-threads. Chapter 2

Students, who should know better, perpetually speak as though the hidden side of things were intentionally concealed, as though knowledge with regard to it ought to be in the hands of all men, but was being deliberately withheld by the caprice or selfishness of a few; whereas the fact is that nothing is or can be hidden from us except by our own limitations, and that for every man as he evolves the world grows wider and wider, because he is able to see more and more of its grandeur and its loveliness.

Our own Theosophical Society... is striving to help humanity It has no connection with any form of politics, and it is not trying to act directly in any way with regard to social conditions, its effort is rather to dispel ignorance, to put before men the truth about life and death, to show them why they are here and what lessons they have to learn and so to bring them to understand and to realize the great truth of the brotherhood of man.

Clairvoyance means literally nothing more than "clear-seeing,"... It has been called "spiritual vision," but no rendering could well be more misleading than that, for in the vast majority of cases there is no faculty connected with it which has the slightest claim to be honoured by so lofty a name.

The subject of the future that lies before humanity may obviously be treated in various ways; perhaps the simplest division which we can make is to speak first of the immediate future, then of the remoter future, then of the final goal. Both the immediate and the remoter future may be to some extent a matter of speculation, or perhaps ue should rather say of calculation; but the final goal we know with absolute certainty, and that is the only thing which is really of importance. Still it is well that we should try to look forward a little, so that we who are units m this great mass of humanity may be able to take our part intelligently in the evolution which we see to be progressing all round us.

Astral. Still another mechanism that we have to take into account is the astral body, often called the desire-body. As its name implies, this vehicle is composed exclusively of astral matter, and is, in fact, the expression of the man on the astral plane, just as his physical body is the expression of him on the lower levels of the physical plane. Chapter 2

Naturally, having watched all this, I then proceeded to make further investigations as to how far this outflowing of force was affected by the character, the knowledge or the intention of the priest. I may sum up briefly the results of the examination of a large number of cases in the form of two or three axioms, which will no doubt at first sight seem surprising to many of my readers. Ordination ...only those priests who have been lawfully ordained, and have the apostolic succession, can produce this effect at all. Other men, not being part of this definite organisation, cannot perform this feat, no matter how devoted or good or saintly they may be. Secondly, neither the character of the priest, nor his knowledge, nor ignorance as to what he is really doing, affects the result in any way whatever.

The Better Time to Come. We might all be freed from it very soon if men and women would only think; for the average man is not after all a brute, but means to be kind if he only knew how. He does not think; he goes on from day to day, and does not realise that he is taking part all the time in an awful crime. But facts are facts, and there is no escape from them; every one who is partaking of this abomination is helping to make this appalling thing a possibility, and undoubtedly shares the responsibility for it.

That our thought on the subject may be clear, let us first of all try to define exactly what we mean by the term “Master.” We mean by it always one who is a member of the Great White Brotherhood—a member at such a level that He is able to take pupils. Now the Great White Brotherhood is an organization unlike any other in the world, and for that reason it has often been misunderstood. It has sometimes been described as the Himalayan or the Tibetan Brotherhood, and the idea has been conveyed of a body of Indian ascetics residing together in a monastery in some inaccessible mountain fastness.

If these bells are, to begin with, strongly charged with a certain type of magnetism, every form made by them will bear with it something of that influence. It is as though the wind which wafts to us snatches of music should at the same time bear with it a subtle perfume- So the bishop who blesses the bells charges them with much the same intent as he would bless holy water—with the intention that, wherever this sound shall go, all evil thought and feeling shall be banished and harmony and devotion shall prevail—a real exercise of magic, and quite effective when the magician does his work properly.

Assuredly when we reach a more enlightened state of society people will learn to focus their connected thought upon others for good instead of for evil; they will endeavour to realize very strongly the opposite virtue, and then send out waves of thought toward the man who needs their help; they will think of his good points and try by concentrating attention upon them to strengthen him and help him through them; their criticism will be of that happy kind which grasps at a pearl as eagerly as our modem criticism pounces upon an imaginary flaw. p. 247