Speaker 1: Pushkin. Sometime in the eighteen eighties, my great great grandfather
Speaker 1: built a hoveli, a large house in the city of
Speaker 1: Argra in North India. The house had many rooms built
Speaker 1: around a courtyard and a back garden filled with plants
Speaker 1: and trees. Outside there was a bustling market, but behind
Speaker 1: the high walls the house was its own secluded world.
Speaker 1: That world has gone now, but when I was a child,
Speaker 1: that was still there, and whenever we went to visit
Speaker 1: my grandparents in India, we would stay at the hoveli,
Speaker 1: the family home. To me, it was a magical place.
Speaker 1: Tribes of monkeys roamed through the trees and they often
Speaker 1: came into the rooms. You had to sleep with a
Speaker 1: stick beside your bed so you could stop the animals
Speaker 1: from stealing your shoes. Some rooms were no longer used.
Speaker 1: The furniture in them was coated with a thick layer
Speaker 1: of dust. Outside, the toilet block had spiders, which made
Speaker 1: it scary to visit in the night, even with a flashlight.
Speaker 1: There was electricity sometimes, but if you wanted hot water
Speaker 1: for a bath, one of the servants had to heat
Speaker 1: it and bring it to your quarters. A defining moment
Speaker 1: of my childhood was the shame of realizing that another
Speaker 1: little boy just my age had to carry a heavy
Speaker 1: bucket so I could wash. It was a house built
Speaker 1: for a household, a family, and the people who worked
Speaker 1: for them. My great grandfather had loved traditional Indian wrestling.
Speaker 1: When he inherited the house, he built a wrestling pit
Speaker 1: by the servants quarters in the garden. The pit was
Speaker 1: a sandy enclosure where matches could take place. One year,
Speaker 1: when I was eight or nine, a big tournament was
Speaker 1: held there and I was allowed to sit at the
Speaker 1: front of the out as enormous men with impressive curled
Speaker 1: mustaches oiled themselves up and grappled, competing for a prize
Speaker 1: given by my grandfather at the house. When everyone else
Speaker 1: was occupied, I would climb out of the windows and
Speaker 1: walk along ledges high above the street. And one day,
Speaker 1: maybe when I was ten or eleven, I found my
Speaker 1: way into a forgotten room in the compound. It had
Speaker 1: been my great grandfather's study. The shelves held a dusty
Speaker 1: jumble of books and papers. There were old photos, family groups,
Speaker 1: sports teams. A book was lying on the table. I
Speaker 1: only remember it because of the strange title, The Lives
Speaker 1: of al Signy by CW. Ledbetter and Annie bessent Al
Speaker 1: Signy A lcy o ne What did that mean? I
Speaker 1: doubt I read much of the book beyond the title page.
Speaker 1: It was published in twenty four I do remember the
Speaker 1: curious subtitle rents in the Veil of Time. You're listening
Speaker 1: to Into the Zone, a podcast about opposites and how
Speaker 1: borders are never as clear as we think. I'm Harry
Speaker 1: Kunzru and this episode is about gurus and disciples. It's
Speaker 1: about East and West. It's about a young Indian who
Speaker 1: didn't want to be the new Messiah. And it's about
Speaker 1: my family and how they discovered that fighting colonialism might
Speaker 1: involve making contact with being from the astrostra plane. Now
Speaker 1: years later, I know much more about the authors of
Speaker 1: the Lives of Our SciOne. Together they had become the
Speaker 1: leaders of a mystical religion. Their book is a record
Speaker 1: of the past lives of a boy whom they believed
Speaker 1: to be the new Messiah. Why that book was in
Speaker 1: my great grandfather's study is one of the strangest stories
Speaker 1: in my family. It's a story I've only recently begun
Speaker 1: to understand. But first, Young Indiana Jones has a question
Speaker 1: for his dad father. What they, well, Theosophists, believe in
Speaker 1: the commonality of all religions, what they call a brotherhood
Speaker 1: of man. The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones was a
Speaker 1: TV series that ran in the nineteen nineties. It chronicled
Speaker 1: the globetrotting colonial youth of the fictional archaeologist from Raiders
Speaker 1: of the Lost Arc. It's kind of a weird show,
Speaker 1: very preoccupied by intellectual things. Young Indie Jones goes to
Speaker 1: Russia and meets Tolstoy in Vienna. His father takes him
Speaker 1: to the first psychoanalytical comp Friends, where they hang out
Speaker 1: with Freud and hung In one episode, Indie's father has
Speaker 1: been invited to India to give a lecture and they
Speaker 1: attend a meeting of a group called the Theosophical Society.
Speaker 1: They're interested in psychic and supernatural phenomenon. There's even a
Speaker 1: rumor they found them Assia some sort of great spiritual teacher.
Speaker 1: Maybe so, though Young Indies Governess dismisses the whole thing
Speaker 1: as flimflam. Anyway, Theosophy is much more than a subplot
Speaker 1: in an obscure televised prequelps. It's one of the strangest
Speaker 1: and most quietly influential religious organizations of modern times. If
Speaker 1: you've ever heard about aura's color therapy, clairvoyance, or spirit guides,
Speaker 1: you have Theosophy to thank. It's behind many of the
Speaker 1: ideas we associate with the New Age movement. Theosophy inspired
Speaker 1: some of the wildest pop culture of the twentieth century.
Speaker 1: The book found in my great grandfather's dusty study was
Speaker 1: the first sign I had that my family had been
Speaker 1: involved in it. It turned out to be woven into
Speaker 1: my life more deeply than I knew. Theosophy starts with
Speaker 1: one of those great self invented people, Madame Helena Blavatsky.
Speaker 1: She was a minor Russian aristocrat, and it's probably significant
Speaker 1: that her mother was a romantic novelist. Though Helena Blavatsky
Speaker 1: herself wrote a number of books, her most stirring tale
Speaker 1: was her own life. She was the heroine of her
Speaker 1: own adventure story. She grew up in a drafty house
Speaker 1: in Ukraine, where her only pastime was curling up in
Speaker 1: the library and reading her grandmother's occult books. At the
Speaker 1: age of seventeen, she married a forty year old man
Speaker 1: who happened to be the vice governor of Yerevan in
Speaker 1: the Caucasus, a wild border region of the Russian Empire.
Speaker 1: Blavatsky's marriage lasted three months, then she ran away. Her
Speaker 1: father sent someone to bring her home, but she gave
Speaker 1: him the slip and did an almost unthinkable thing for
Speaker 1: a seventeen year old rich girl. In eighteen forty eight,
Speaker 1: she made it to the Black Sea, boarded a steamship
Speaker 1: and headed for Constantinople to start a new life. We
Speaker 1: don't exactly know how she supported herself, probably by working
Speaker 1: as a spirit medium. Madame Blavatsky was fond of putting
Speaker 1: her occult knowledge to use, contacting the dead on behalf
Speaker 1: of the living. So far, all I've told you is
Speaker 1: actually true. The rest of Helena Blavatsky's romantic story, well,
Speaker 1: perhaps not so much by her own account. She set
Speaker 1: off around the world looking for secret knowledge. She went
Speaker 1: to Syria, Mexico, Egypt, and India. She was badly wounded
Speaker 1: in a battle fighting alongside Italian revolutionaries. She was shipwrecked.
Speaker 1: She journeyed in a covered wagon across America. She rode
Speaker 1: bareback in a circus. She outwitted secret agents in Central
Speaker 1: Asia and played a major role in the Great Game,
Speaker 1: as people called the geopolitical power struggle between the Russian
Speaker 1: and British empires. Blevatsky climbed the Himalayas and studied in
Speaker 1: a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in London. In eighteen fifty one,
Speaker 1: Blavatsky attended the Great Exhibition in the Crystal Palace. There
Speaker 1: she had a vision of a spirit. This being Master
Speaker 1: Maria explained that he was one of the Great White Brotherhood.
Speaker 1: I know that sounds like a prison game, but the
Speaker 1: brotherhood was. Blevatsky reported a band of super beings who
Speaker 1: sely looked after the earth. From then on, Lavatsky was
Speaker 1: in regular contact with these so called ascended masters. They
Speaker 1: taught her, so, she said, the secrets of the Universe.
Speaker 1: Madame Lavatsky led an extraordinary opiated fever dream of a life.
Speaker 1: At a certain point, In a life like that, it
Speaker 1: becomes obvious that you should start your own religion. She
Speaker 1: called it the Theosophical Society. It aimed to be the
Speaker 1: vanguard of a new kind of universal human brotherhood. Theosophists
Speaker 1: were going to use the combined wisdom of the world's
Speaker 1: religions to discover hitherto unknown laws of nature. They would
Speaker 1: generally help humanity level up, turning us all into spiritual
Speaker 1: supermen and women. If you read theosophical descriptions of the
Speaker 1: ascended Masters, it's kind of like a cosmic boy band.
Speaker 1: Everyone has his own look. Jesus and the Buddhera in there,
Speaker 1: but so as Pythagoras and various other guys like Hilarion,
Speaker 1: a sexy Greek who's in charge of science, Kutumi, a
Speaker 1: fair skinned Kashmiri, and of course Maria, the spirit she
Speaker 1: met at the Crystal Palace. He's a flashing eyed Rushput prince.
Speaker 1: A plethora of leading men or for the leading lady,
Speaker 1: Madame Blavatsky. By the time she died in eighteen ninety one,
Speaker 1: her new religion was doing very well. Theosophy was Madame
Speaker 1: Blavatsky's gift at the future. Theosophical wizards and mystics were
Speaker 1: turning up in popular novels, along with shadowy groups like
Speaker 1: the Nine Unknown Men. By the early years of the
Speaker 1: twentieth century, the public was in love with stories about
Speaker 1: teams of beings with superhuman powers and missions to save
Speaker 1: the earth. The ex Men and the Avengers a director
Speaker 1: sentence of the beings in Blavatsky's Pantheon. DC's Green Lantern
Speaker 1: is part of an interstellar law enforcement agency that's like
Speaker 1: a cop version of the Great White Brotherhood. Superheroes are
Speaker 1: one theosophical legacy. Then, of course there's this, so it's
Speaker 1: safe to talk about flying saucers and people from outer space,
Speaker 1: the aliens. This is a news reporter called Jack Webster,
Speaker 1: who had a TV show in Vancouver in the nineteen sixties.
Speaker 1: People who may be circulating among us now, and who
Speaker 1: demonstrate their unearthly qualities if they choose you as one
Speaker 1: of their agents by disappearing and reappearing at will. The
Speaker 1: skeptical Glaswegian Webster is queuing up an interview he did
Speaker 1: with one of the early UFO contacts, a man named
Speaker 1: George van Tassel. Van Tassel ran a private airport out
Speaker 1: in the Mohave Desert at a place called Giant Rock.
Speaker 1: In fifty three, a spacecraft had landed on Van Tassel's runway.
Speaker 1: The aliens, beautiful humans dressed a little like ancient Greeks,
Speaker 1: had shared with him the secret of time travel. I
Speaker 1: say that what is occurring now has occurred before. There's
Speaker 1: many records of these ships landing throughout history, clear back
Speaker 1: into sandscript. When you realize we're dealing with a type
Speaker 1: of man that is almost as far above us and
Speaker 1: intelligence as we are above the lower animals, there is
Speaker 1: an anthing phenomenal in this at all. I researched UFOs
Speaker 1: and Van Tassel in particular for my novel Gods Without Men.
Speaker 1: I discovered that almost all that first generation of contactees,
Speaker 1: people who claimed to have met aliens, were also involved
Speaker 1: in spiritualism or theosophy. One belief system that emerged out
Speaker 1: of the Soup of the West Coast UFO counterculture in
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties involves the Ashtar galact Command, a team
Speaker 1: of super beings with many names familiar from Madame Lavatsky's pantheon,
Speaker 1: including Hilarion Ku to Me and the Great Beloved Commander
Speaker 1: in Chief Jesus the Christ. The Ashtar Galactic Command is
Speaker 1: still around today. I'll let British color therapist and spiritual
Speaker 1: teacher Hayden Crawford explain more. The Ashtar Command is an
Speaker 1: ethnic group of extraterrestrials, angels, and light beings, plus millions
Speaker 1: of starships, which act as coordinators over the space fleet
Speaker 1: over the Western Hemisphere. They are here to assist humanity
Speaker 1: through the current process of planetary cleansing, polar realignment, and
Speaker 1: ascension into the fifth dimension. I think that's reasonably clear.
Speaker 1: And then there's the Ethereous Society, the group of UFO
Speaker 1: enthusiasts founded in nineteen fifty five by Yogi Guru and
Speaker 1: former cab driver doctor George King. They're headquartered in Hollywood
Speaker 1: and London, but the real work gets done elsewhere. A
Speaker 1: top so called holy mountains like the wind Swept holds
Speaker 1: them down in devon site of their operation prayer Power.
Speaker 1: Picture this a friendly looking group of people, middle aged
Speaker 1: and retired, and dressed in all weather gear in case
Speaker 1: it starts to drizzle, sitting in folding chairs, communing with
Speaker 1: a great beyond. We send out energy from places like
Speaker 1: this to the world as a whole for healing, for peace,
Speaker 1: but we do it in cooperation with being from other planets.
Speaker 1: That's Richard Lawrence, the Ethereous Society's executive secretary. He's interviewed
Speaker 1: in a twenty seventeen documentary by Vice. Right, So, aliens,
Speaker 1: if you like, if you like, Yes, A number of
Speaker 1: the great spiritual figures of history, Buddha Shri krish were
Speaker 1: from other planets. In the documentary, Lawrence gestures to a
Speaker 1: strange object at the center of their circle, the prayer battery.
Speaker 1: It's the size of an old tripod camera, a brightly
Speaker 1: colored box with some cables and straps that definitely does
Speaker 1: not look like a prop in a late night movie.
Speaker 1: Has everybody been given the mantral we're going to use today? Good? Okay,
Speaker 1: that's great, So why don't we prepare ourselves then to
Speaker 1: become channels as the ethereans chant their prayers are stored
Speaker 1: in the battery. Later, this prayer power will be released
Speaker 1: in a jolt of good vibes directed at strife anywhere
Speaker 1: on Earth. In the past, the prayer battery has helped
Speaker 1: clean up oil spills, protected against hurricanes, and even in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one, kept the Soviet Union from invading Poland.
Speaker 1: Through this world, the prayer battery is a radionic device,
Speaker 1: a physical combination of theosophy and modern engineering. It was
Speaker 1: invented by a British cabby, George King, in nineteen fifty four.
Speaker 1: A voice told King he was going to be the
Speaker 1: representative of the ascended masters on Earth. King was already
Speaker 1: a serious practitioner of yoga. This is long before it
Speaker 1: was a mainstream lifestyle activity. He says, a famous Indian
Speaker 1: yogi walked through his locked door and initiated him into
Speaker 1: certain spiritual secrets. This type of turn from India to mysticism,
Speaker 1: to any number of incredible beliefs was already well worn
Speaker 1: by the time George King and his followers scaled holy
Speaker 1: mountains with their batteries. And it all goes directly back
Speaker 1: to a trip taken long ago by Madame Blavatsky. In
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy nine, records show that Blavatsky arrived on a
Speaker 1: ship into Bombay looking for enlightenment. Her effect on my
Speaker 1: conservative Indian family would turn out to be profound. Madame Blavatsky,
Speaker 1: the founder of Theosophy, came to India to meet Hindu mystics.
Speaker 1: She ended up selling her own brand of mysticism to
Speaker 1: the Indians. In England, they call this bringing coals to Newcastle.
Speaker 1: The Internet tells me that the closest American expression is
Speaker 1: taking sand to the beach, but Madame Blavatsky pulled it off.
Speaker 1: Theosophy became wildly popular in India. Theosophical meetings were one
Speaker 1: of the few places where British and Indians, the colonizers
Speaker 1: and the colonized could meet on equal terms around a
Speaker 1: shared worldview. And because of this, something unforeseen happened. Theosophy
Speaker 1: got political. The cranks and mystics who followed Madame Blavatsky
Speaker 1: got mixed up in the Indian independent struggle against the
Speaker 1: British raj. This is where my great great grandfather comes in.
Speaker 1: Pandit Adjudyanath Kunzru was a lawyer in the city of Argra,
Speaker 1: best known for the taj Mahal. He was from a
Speaker 1: wealthy family of high caste Hindus. In the one picture
Speaker 1: that exists of him, he's younger than I am now,
Speaker 1: maybe in his thirties. He has gentle eyes, but most
Speaker 1: of the rest of his face is obscured by a
Speaker 1: huge hipster beard. Like many educated Indians of his generation,
Speaker 1: my ancestor was torn into directions. When he was seventeen,
Speaker 1: Indian troops rose up against their British officers in Britain.
Speaker 1: This is known as the Indian Mutiny. In India they
Speaker 1: call it the First War of Independence. It was bloodily suppressed,
Speaker 1: and afterwards the British were determined that it wouldn't happen again.
Speaker 1: They set out to create a trustworthy Indian elite educated
Speaker 1: in British style schools and universities with a British curriculum.
Speaker 1: Adjudanath became part of this. He went to a government
Speaker 1: college where he learned English poetry, English history, the dates
Speaker 1: of the Battle of Hastings, and Magna Carta. It was
Speaker 1: drummed into the young men of this Indian elite that
Speaker 1: their own culture was backwards. All English schoolboys knew that
Speaker 1: Indians had barbaric gods with too many heads and arms.
Speaker 1: Indians burned widows on pires. Indians were passive and fatalistic.
Speaker 1: Unlike plucky Victorian Englishmen who had a candu spirit, Indians
Speaker 1: didn't try to change things because the state of the
Speaker 1: world was God's will. My great great grandfather internalized some
Speaker 1: of these feelings. He wished his country were more modern,
Speaker 1: but he also found he couldn't ignore the problems colonialism created.
Speaker 1: Indians had no voice in their own politics, and they
Speaker 1: were barred from joining the civil service that ran the country.
Speaker 1: On behalf of the Empress Queen Victoria English businessmen were
Speaker 1: making vast fortunes in India, but they spent the prophets
Speaker 1: back home. Ajudianath wanted social progress, the education of women,
Speaker 1: the end of child marriage. He was a strict vegetarian
Speaker 1: and was passionate about animal rights. He also became a
Speaker 1: rich man, so he did what rich men do when
Speaker 1: they want to voice their views. He started his own newspaper.
Speaker 1: It was called the Indian Herald. I have a Judynath's
Speaker 1: picture on the wall of my study, but it was
Speaker 1: only while I was researching this podcast that I found
Speaker 1: out that he'd had a newspaper. I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 1: No one in my family had ever mentioned it, though
Speaker 1: perhaps there's a good reason for that. It didn't go
Speaker 1: very well. A Judynath wanted a native English speaker to
Speaker 1: edit the newspaper, and somehow he hired a young itinerant
Speaker 1: American named Francis Marion Crawford, who, as far as I
Speaker 1: can see, was the eighteen seventies equivalent of a hippie backpacker.
Speaker 1: Crawford thought his job as a joke. According to him,
Speaker 1: my ancestors newspaper staff consisted of a baronet, a disqualified jockey,
Speaker 1: a drunken parson, a countess, a bank director, several struggling
Speaker 1: young barristers, and a host of others. The struggling barristers
Speaker 1: would have been a Judynarth's idealistic friends. Whatever really and
Speaker 1: at the Herald, Crawford and my great great grandfather soon
Speaker 1: fell out and the paper had bust. Crawford said the
Speaker 1: Herald lost money because it was too radical for the
Speaker 1: British and not radical enough for the Indian masses. Knowing
Speaker 1: what I do about A Judy Narth's views, that sounds
Speaker 1: about right. Despite his failures as a newspaper proprietor, a
Speaker 1: Judy Narth still wanted to work for his country. His
Speaker 1: chance finally came when he met one of the greatest
Speaker 1: eccentrics of Victorian India, a retired colonial official named Allan
Speaker 1: Octavian Hume. Hume was an obsessive ornithologist who has no
Speaker 1: less than seven birds named after him as Hume's leaf warbler,
Speaker 1: Hume's ground tip, Hume's short towed laugh, and so on.
Speaker 1: But more importantly for the future of India, Hume believed
Speaker 1: it was time for Indians to step up and take control.
Speaker 1: In typical victor in fashion, He expressed himself in verse,
Speaker 1: are he ss or archie freeman, he that grovel in
Speaker 1: the shade in your own hands? Rest the issues by themselves?
Speaker 1: Are nations made? The other thing about Hume, he was
Speaker 1: a theosophist and a close friend of Madame Blavatsky. Through her,
Speaker 1: he had personally received spiritual communication from two of the
Speaker 1: ascended Masters, Kut to me and Maria. The way it worked,
Speaker 1: he wrote letters to the Masters, which Blavatsky placed in
Speaker 1: a special wooden box. From there they dematerialized and were
Speaker 1: fedexed to the higher planes. The answers floated down from
Speaker 1: the ceiling or were found on the recipient's pillow. Though
Speaker 1: this is all rather silly, the Masters gave Hume a
Speaker 1: message that was to have profound political consequences. That told
Speaker 1: him that British India was in danger and it was
Speaker 1: up to him to save it. The cosmic balance between
Speaker 1: East and West had tipped too far toward the western side.
Speaker 1: It was up to him to correct it. How to
Speaker 1: do that by helping Indians gain more power, Hume put
Speaker 1: out a call for fifty good men and true, the
Speaker 1: picked men, the most highly educated of the nation, men
Speaker 1: like my great great grandfather. In eighteen eighty five, Hume
Speaker 1: started an organization called the Indian National Congress. The British
Speaker 1: authorities would instantly have shut down anything national started by Indians,
Speaker 1: but they found it much harder to muzzle the dissenting
Speaker 1: opinions of Allen Octavian Hume, a companion of the Order
Speaker 1: of the Bath and a distinguished member of the Imperial
Speaker 1: Civil Service. In eighteen eighty eight, the Congress met in
Speaker 1: Allahabad near Agra. I have a copy of the speech
Speaker 1: my great great grand father gave At the opening of
Speaker 1: the Congress. He defends his friend Hume. We mean to
Speaker 1: stick to mister Hume to the last, he says. His
Speaker 1: advice to us has always been loyalty and moderation, and
Speaker 1: yet he's been stigmatized as the most seditious man in India.
Speaker 1: A judianath affirms his loyalty to Queen Victoria. He points
Speaker 1: out that the Congress is only asking for the same
Speaker 1: rights as other subjects of the English Crown. There's also
Speaker 1: a defiant note. You know the strength of the opposition,
Speaker 1: he says, and you also know that it is fast
Speaker 1: losing its power for evil and dying out. As all
Speaker 1: unrighteous things sooner or later die. A Judianath had been
Speaker 1: influenced by Hume in more than politics. He had begun
Speaker 1: attending meetings of the Theosophical Society. He was still a
Speaker 1: relatively young man, only fifty two when he died suddenly
Speaker 1: of influenza. He left an intellectual legacy for his children,
Speaker 1: who all became ardent nationalists. Madame Blavatsky died at about
Speaker 1: the same time as Adjudynath, also of the flu Leadership
Speaker 1: of the Theosophical Society passed into the hands of another
Speaker 1: charismatic woman, Annie Bessant. She'd been a labor organizer in London,
Speaker 1: leading a famous strike of young women and girls working
Speaker 1: in terrible conditions at a factory making matches. Later, Bessant
Speaker 1: became a disciple of Madame Blavatsky and traveled to India.
Speaker 1: She took over the Theosophical Society with a lapsed Anglican
Speaker 1: priest called Charles Ledbetter. Led Better and Bessant with the
Speaker 1: oddest of odd couples, the fiery radical leader of the
Speaker 1: London match girl's strike and the former curate of Bramshott Village,
Speaker 1: who started talking to spirits and then ran off to Asia.
Speaker 1: One day in nineteen o nine, Ledbetter was walking on
Speaker 1: the beach when he saw a young boy who had,
Speaker 1: he wrote, the most wonderful aura he had ever seen,
Speaker 1: without a particle of selfishness in it. The boy's mother
Speaker 1: was dead, his father was very poor, and for whatever
Speaker 1: reason led Better became convinced that in this boy he
Speaker 1: had found the world teacher, the new Messiah. Not everyone agreed.
Speaker 1: At least one other, Theosophus described the child as dimwitted.
Speaker 1: And then there was the other issue. Ledbetter had already
Speaker 1: been expelled once from the Theosophical Society because of his
Speaker 1: sexual interest in young boys. The boy, Judu Krishna Murty,
Speaker 1: was very ansom. Early photos emphasized his fine features and
Speaker 1: soulful eyes. Very quickly led Better ascribed to him dozens
Speaker 1: of past lives. Somehow, Krishnamote's family agreed that he and
Speaker 1: his brother Nietzsya should go and live at the Theosophical
Speaker 1: compound in Adhya. There, led Better and Besson would tue
Speaker 1: to them and do further research into their past lives,
Speaker 1: which apparently stretched back twenty five thousand years from India
Speaker 1: to the lost continent of Atlantis. Krishnamoty was given a
Speaker 1: star name. He was Alcyone, the central star in the
Speaker 1: Pleiades constellation. Led Better began to publish an account of
Speaker 1: Krishnamurti's lives in a theosophical magazine. Eventually they were collected
Speaker 1: together into a book, a sort of reincarnation soap opera,
Speaker 1: in which all the characters were previous incarnations of senior Theosophists.
Speaker 1: It was this book, The Lives of Alcione, that I
Speaker 1: found in my great grandfather's study when I was a boy.
Speaker 1: To me, the real life of Krishna Murty is more
Speaker 1: interesting and affecting than the stories in the Lives of Alsiony.
Speaker 1: Annie Bessent and Charles led Better became the legal guardians
Speaker 1: of Krishna Mute and his brother Nitsya, even fighting a
Speaker 1: court case against their father. The Theosophists formed an organization,
Speaker 1: the Order of the Star in the East, to promote
Speaker 1: their young messiah. Krishna Murty was dressed in tailored suits
Speaker 1: from saval Row and plans were made to send him
Speaker 1: to Oxford. Christna Murty turned out not to be very academic,
Speaker 1: so the Oxford plan was dropped, though he himself was
Speaker 1: one of the ascended Masters, he never could hold a
Speaker 1: lot of the complex teachings in his head. In nineteen fifteen,
Speaker 1: Charles led Better left India run the Theosophical Society in Australia,
Speaker 1: where it was very popular. Chrishnamurtiu was relieved to see
Speaker 1: him go. Annie Bessant, who became a sort of substitute mother,
Speaker 1: combined her mystical interests with support for Indian independence. In
Speaker 1: the days when Hume was advising my great great grandfather,
Speaker 1: the ascended Masters, speaking through mystical letters seemed to be
Speaker 1: in favor of loyalty to the Crown. Now the Masters
Speaker 1: were sending messages from the astral plane enthusiastically supporting the
Speaker 1: corps for the British to quit India. Enter my great grandfather,
Speaker 1: rajnas the wrestling fan, whose copy of Bessend and Ledbetter's
Speaker 1: book I found in our old house. In nineteen sixteen,
Speaker 1: Rajnath was a delegate at the Indian National Congress along
Speaker 1: with both his brothers. The following year, Annie Bessant was
Speaker 1: elected as the chair. The Congress was gradually turning from
Speaker 1: an elite talking shop into a serious independence movement. By
Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties did the Krishna Murty, or just Kay
Speaker 1: as his followers called him, was traveling the world with Bessant,
Speaker 1: mixing in high society. Kay had become a startlingly handsome
Speaker 1: young man with a long, straight nose and sweat back hair.
Speaker 1: The Order of the Star of the East was now
Speaker 1: very wealthy. Thousands of people came to hear Kay speak.
Speaker 1: Sometime in early December nineteen twenty two, Krishna Murty and
Speaker 1: Annie Bessant were on a whistle stock tour of India.
Speaker 1: Kay hadn't been home for several years. He stayed the
Speaker 1: night in Argre and according to my family, it was
Speaker 1: our house that he stayed in. This was always spoken
Speaker 1: of as a great event, and it seems to have
Speaker 1: cemented Rajnath's loyalty to Theosophy. But though Krishna Moote was
Speaker 1: becoming world famous, there were signs that the new Messiah
Speaker 1: was contemplating his own independence movement. In the early nineteen twenties,
Speaker 1: Krishnamote's younger brother, Nietya, fell ill with tuberculosis. A theosophist
Speaker 1: offered a cottage in Ohi up in the hills north
Speaker 1: of Los Angeles. The healthy climate of California would be
Speaker 1: perfect for his recovery. In nineteen twenty five, Kay left
Speaker 1: his brother Nietya in Ohi, though Nietya was gravely ill.
Speaker 1: Reluctantly a Kay was on his way back to India
Speaker 1: to attend a massive rally of the Order of the Star.
Speaker 1: He stopped in England, where he met Senior Theosophist aboard ship.
Speaker 1: At port side, he received a telegram saying Nietzsche had died.
Speaker 1: Kay locked himself in his cabin and didn't emerge for
Speaker 1: some days. Much later, in an interview, Kay revealed that
Speaker 1: the English members had told him that if he accepted
Speaker 1: them as disciples, his brother would recover. What a joke
Speaker 1: he thought. Though he went on to India, this moment
Speaker 1: was the beginning of a total disillusionment with the movement
Speaker 1: and his role as the Messiah. Still, by nineteen twenty nine,
Speaker 1: Theosophy seemed as if it might turn into a global
Speaker 1: spiritualist church. The Theosophists arranged a big meeting at Omen
Speaker 1: in the Netherlands, where the Order of the Star had
Speaker 1: its headquarters. A wealthy Dutch donor had given them a castle.
Speaker 1: It was there rumor had it that would announce the
Speaker 1: names of twelve disciples, just like Jesus had. That is,
Speaker 1: whatever Vanard the wall is attempting to rue truth, he
Speaker 1: is lettered down LaMDA plating for those who are weak.
Speaker 1: But there was a problem. Kay hadn't chosen anybody. The
Speaker 1: list had been cooked up by Bessant and some other
Speaker 1: senior theosophists. Conveniently, their names were all on it. Kay
Speaker 1: told Bessant that he wouldn't cooperate, that he found their
Speaker 1: vanity absurd and disgusting. There's a photo of Christna Murty
Speaker 1: with Annie Besson opening the ceremony. They both look unhappy.
Speaker 1: Bessant is an old lady by this point, and she's
Speaker 1: dressed up like a Christmas tree with mystical embroidered robes
Speaker 1: and a mess of necklaces and pendants hanging around her neck.
Speaker 1: Christia Murty Movie Stars Suave has impeccably tailored double breasted
Speaker 1: jacket and a fashionably casual open necked shirt, and he
Speaker 1: bescent knows what's about to happen. Chrishna Murty gets up
Speaker 1: on stage and he drops the bomb. He tells the
Speaker 1: assembled crowd that he's not the Messiah. He doesn't want
Speaker 1: any disciples. Theosophy is a sham. The speech wasn't recorded
Speaker 1: at the time, but later on Kay was persuaded to
Speaker 1: repeat it for a newsreel crew. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned,
Speaker 1: unapproachable by any part whatsoever, cannot be organized, nor should
Speaker 1: any organization deform to lead or cause people along in
Speaker 1: a particular path. Christna Murty says, you can't find truth
Speaker 1: by following leaders. You have to find it for yourself.
Speaker 1: He's giving back the castle and disbanding the organization. The
Speaker 1: Theosophists are at Paul Ledbetter, the old pedophile who found
Speaker 1: the beautiful boy on the beach, splutters that the coming
Speaker 1: has gone wrong. What did Krishnamurti do? Once he'd walked
Speaker 1: away from being the Messiah? He went to California. He
Speaker 1: settled in Ohio and made his home there for the
Speaker 1: rest of his life. He never stopped writing and giving talks.
Speaker 1: His presence in Ohio became one of the seeds for
Speaker 1: the West Coast counterculture that grew up in the fifties
Speaker 1: and sixties, a fusion of East and West that secretly
Speaker 1: owes so much to Madame Lavatsky and the Theosophists. The
Speaker 1: Ohi cottage is pretty modest. He can't help feeling that
Speaker 1: it was a reaction to the pomp and circumstance of
Speaker 1: his days in theosophy. Kay certainly wasn't a hermit. But
Speaker 1: though Christian Murty always had famous friends and followers, from
Speaker 1: Langston Hughes to Van Morrison, the trajectory of his life
Speaker 1: was towards quietness and meditation. Since the famous pepper tree
Speaker 1: that in the mid nineteen twenties that he sat under,
Speaker 1: and he kind of came to some kind of understanding
Speaker 1: or opening. This is Christie Lee, who helps run the
Speaker 1: Christian Murty Center in Ohio. It fell at a certain
Speaker 1: point and we thought it had died, but obviously it's
Speaker 1: you know, gave back roots. This needs actually the same tree.
Speaker 1: So the stump of the pepper tree is taller than
Speaker 1: I am, and it shoots out like a branch, a
Speaker 1: fully mature, beautiful tree with a canopy of shade. There
Speaker 1: was such profound calmness, both in the air and within myself,
Speaker 1: Christian Murty wrote, the calmness of the bottom of a deep,
Speaker 1: unfathomable lake. Like the lake I felt, my physical body,
Speaker 1: with its mind and emotions, could be ruffled on the surface.
Speaker 1: But nothing, nay, nothing could disturb the calmness of my soul.
Speaker 1: In Ojai Kay completed his transformation from a beautiful, rather vague,
Speaker 1: young dandy into a profound thinker. Christie Lee's husband, Up Sloater,
Speaker 1: directs the Christian emoti Foundation of America. I asked him
Speaker 1: how he'd characterized Kay's teachings. Unlike theosophy, there's no complicated
Speaker 1: metaphysical system, no rituals, no trances or incantations. He was
Speaker 1: constantly saying, look at yourself, look at what luke, at
Speaker 1: your thinking, at your thoughts, See how you're building up images.
Speaker 1: See how your consciousness is put together, and see how
Speaker 1: your consciousness is similar to other people's consciousness. And see
Speaker 1: how that's the root of all conflicting in society and
Speaker 1: conflict inside you, under your root of human suffering. Another
Speaker 1: person who works at OHIO is Michael Kronin, who used
Speaker 1: to be Christiana Murty's personal chef. He would hear Kay
Speaker 1: rail against organized religion a lot. He said, Look, I'm
Speaker 1: not starting a new religion. This is not a new religion.
Speaker 1: I am not an authority, you know. I'm not having
Speaker 1: sacred scriptures or any of that. The only thing that
Speaker 1: approaches what you might call a device is observe. Observe yourself,
Speaker 1: be aware of your own reactions, be aware of how
Speaker 1: you are conditioned. This feels intuitively right to me. I
Speaker 1: feel a connection to Christiana Murty. Partly it is because
Speaker 1: I admire what he did, how he had the courage
Speaker 1: to be simple, to reject or the messianic flimflam of theosophy.
Speaker 1: But my sense of connection also goes back to something
Speaker 1: much simpler. Listen for a moment to Krishna Murty's accent
Speaker 1: as he reads out his speech disbanding the Order of
Speaker 1: the Star. I am concerning myself with the only one
Speaker 1: essential thing, the true freedom of man. I would help
Speaker 1: him to break away from all limititians. That clipped, old
Speaker 1: fashioned accent of K's that's very familiar to me. I
Speaker 1: heard it in the mouths of older Indian men, men
Speaker 1: of my grandfather's generation, who had been taught English by
Speaker 1: British teachers in the last days of the raj. I
Speaker 1: remember being startled once when I was at the house
Speaker 1: in Arga. An old man, a friend of my grandfather,
Speaker 1: came walking toward me, supporting himself with a stick. He
Speaker 1: was dressed in a shawl and a lungi with a
Speaker 1: cap on his head. Hello, he said, you don't happen
Speaker 1: to know the latest score in the cricket that East
Speaker 1: west accent. I didn't understand until recently how marked my
Speaker 1: family had been by theosophy. Various older relatives were astrologers
Speaker 1: and homeopaths. I have an uncle who's a retired army
Speaker 1: officer but gives out a business card advertising his skill
Speaker 1: in the mystic science of namology. My father was different.
Speaker 1: He became a doctor, a scientific rationalist, and it's his
Speaker 1: spirit I'm inherited, not the mystical side. In Ohi, Michael
Speaker 1: Cronin takes me into Kay's personal library, where the books
Speaker 1: are just as he left them. The Ways of White
Speaker 1: Folks by length and Hughes. This is actually quite a
Speaker 1: oh my goodness, an interest in wonder, Sincerely, Lengthston Hughes, Carmel, Highland,
Speaker 1: September eighteenth, nineteen thirty four. Like most writers, when I
Speaker 1: walk into a room, my eyes are drawn to the bookshelves.
Speaker 1: In Ohi, it's impressive to see all the various editions
Speaker 1: of works by and about K. But you can also
Speaker 1: tell a lot about someone by what they like to read.
Speaker 1: So when I'm taken into Christian Murty's study, I'm immediately intrigued. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was a Jack Higgins. The Igor has landed. He
Speaker 1: was a great fan of these kind of books. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was a Jack Higgins. Oh yeah, We've got The
Speaker 1: Freelance Spy, the Wolfling, the Scream of the Dove. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So he was pop fiction, that's what. Yeah. Sometimes I
Speaker 1: remember he asked me, you know, I mean not here,
Speaker 1: but in over where the lunch was served, and he said, sir,
Speaker 1: could you go to the local bookstore and maybe by
Speaker 1: by a couple of books by Leon Urus, you know,
Speaker 1: and I would buy some of those. I mere Garden
Speaker 1: Ruins and oh yeah, Tom, these books James Bond, the
Speaker 1: Scottish thriller writer Aliston McClain, and Leon URIs, who wrote
Speaker 1: a lot about World War Two. They're mucho trashy entertainment.
Speaker 1: I think this is the moment that Christian Murty really
Speaker 1: comes into focus for me. He didn't just reject being
Speaker 1: the Messiah because he had some philosophical belief in simplicity.
Speaker 1: He was simple, he was ordinary. He spent the second
Speaker 1: half of his life turning himself into an ordinary person.
Speaker 1: My family house in Argre is gone now. Sometime in
Speaker 1: the nineteen nineties it was torn down and all the
Speaker 1: books and papers vanished. Every time I think about that,
Speaker 1: I experienced a pang of loss, all that lost knowledge,
Speaker 1: all that history. Let the cottage, you know, Hi, I
Speaker 1: decide that I'm okay with it. This is a place
Speaker 1: to let things go, to allow the past to slide
Speaker 1: into forgetfulness. Maybe the thing to do would be to
Speaker 1: follow Kay's example and sit under the pepper tree reading
Speaker 1: Tom Clancy, enjoying the afternoon sun. Chrishnamuti was not exactly
Speaker 1: hiding out in California, not an exile, but many others were,
Speaker 1: and they hated the sunny state. To find them, we
Speaker 1: have to leave behind the orange groves of Ojai for
Speaker 1: the freeways of la I don't know how you feel generally.
Speaker 1: What are your feelings generally about literary pilgrimage. Is it
Speaker 1: something you you're always up for? I am always up
Speaker 1: for it, and I'm always disappointed. Fun Son and lots
Speaker 1: to complain about optimism. Pessimism that's next week on Into
Speaker 1: the Zone. Into the Zone is produced by Rider Also
Speaker 1: and Hunter Braithway. Our editor is Julia Barton. Mer La
Speaker 1: Belle is our executive producer. Martin Gonzalez is our engineer.
Speaker 1: Music for this episode composed by Spatial Relations. Our theme
Speaker 1: song is composed by Sarah K. Pedinatti, also known as
Speaker 1: Lipp Talk Special Thanks to Jacob Weisberg, Heather Faine, John Schnaz,
Speaker 1: Maya Kanig, Carlie Migliori, Eric Sandler, Emily Rostick, and Maggie
Speaker 1: Taylor into the Zone as a production of Pushkin Industries.
Speaker 1: If you enjoyed this episode, please consider letting others know.
Speaker 1: The best way to do this is by rating us
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts. You could even write a review. See
Speaker 1: you next week. I'm Harry KUNZRN