WEBVTT - The Guru of Ojai 0:00:15.170 --> 0:00:24.370 Pushkin. Sometime in the eighteen eighties, my great great grandfather 0:00:24.570 --> 0:00:27.650 built a hoveli, a large house in the city of 0:00:27.770 --> 0:00:32.490 Argra in North India. The house had many rooms built 0:00:32.530 --> 0:00:36.170 around a courtyard and a back garden filled with plants 0:00:36.170 --> 0:00:40.810 and trees. Outside there was a bustling market, but behind 0:00:40.850 --> 0:00:43.770 the high walls the house was its own secluded world. 0:00:44.850 --> 0:00:47.890 That world has gone now, but when I was a child, 0:00:47.930 --> 0:00:50.770 that was still there, and whenever we went to visit 0:00:50.810 --> 0:00:53.730 my grandparents in India, we would stay at the hoveli, 0:00:54.130 --> 0:00:58.210 the family home. To me, it was a magical place. 0:00:59.050 --> 0:01:02.090 Tribes of monkeys roamed through the trees and they often 0:01:02.130 --> 0:01:04.850 came into the rooms. You had to sleep with a 0:01:04.930 --> 0:01:07.370 stick beside your bed so you could stop the animals 0:01:07.370 --> 0:01:11.210 from stealing your shoes. Some rooms were no longer used. 0:01:11.650 --> 0:01:14.090 The furniture in them was coated with a thick layer 0:01:14.130 --> 0:01:18.490 of dust. Outside, the toilet block had spiders, which made 0:01:18.490 --> 0:01:21.290 it scary to visit in the night, even with a flashlight. 0:01:22.730 --> 0:01:26.290 There was electricity sometimes, but if you wanted hot water 0:01:26.370 --> 0:01:28.370 for a bath, one of the servants had to heat 0:01:28.410 --> 0:01:31.930 it and bring it to your quarters. A defining moment 0:01:31.970 --> 0:01:35.370 of my childhood was the shame of realizing that another 0:01:35.450 --> 0:01:38.690 little boy just my age had to carry a heavy 0:01:38.730 --> 0:01:42.810 bucket so I could wash. It was a house built 0:01:42.850 --> 0:01:46.330 for a household, a family, and the people who worked 0:01:46.330 --> 0:01:52.370 for them. My great grandfather had loved traditional Indian wrestling. 0:01:53.210 --> 0:01:56.090 When he inherited the house, he built a wrestling pit 0:01:56.170 --> 0:01:59.970 by the servants quarters in the garden. The pit was 0:02:00.010 --> 0:02:03.770 a sandy enclosure where matches could take place. One year, 0:02:03.850 --> 0:02:06.450 when I was eight or nine, a big tournament was 0:02:06.530 --> 0:02:08.450 held there and I was allowed to sit at the 0:02:08.490 --> 0:02:11.410 front of the out as enormous men with impressive curled 0:02:11.490 --> 0:02:15.650 mustaches oiled themselves up and grappled, competing for a prize 0:02:15.690 --> 0:02:20.370 given by my grandfather at the house. When everyone else 0:02:20.450 --> 0:02:23.210 was occupied, I would climb out of the windows and 0:02:23.330 --> 0:02:26.890 walk along ledges high above the street. And one day, 0:02:27.530 --> 0:02:30.330 maybe when I was ten or eleven, I found my 0:02:30.370 --> 0:02:33.530 way into a forgotten room in the compound. It had 0:02:33.530 --> 0:02:37.530 been my great grandfather's study. The shelves held a dusty 0:02:37.610 --> 0:02:43.010 jumble of books and papers. There were old photos, family groups, 0:02:43.210 --> 0:02:47.330 sports teams. A book was lying on the table. I 0:02:47.410 --> 0:02:51.330 only remember it because of the strange title, The Lives 0:02:51.370 --> 0:02:56.610 of al Signy by CW. Ledbetter and Annie bessent Al 0:02:56.730 --> 0:03:04.610 Signy A lcy o ne What did that mean? I 0:03:04.690 --> 0:03:07.530 doubt I read much of the book beyond the title page. 0:03:08.090 --> 0:03:12.490 It was published in twenty four I do remember the 0:03:12.650 --> 0:03:23.730 curious subtitle rents in the Veil of Time. You're listening 0:03:23.770 --> 0:03:28.370 to Into the Zone, a podcast about opposites and how 0:03:28.450 --> 0:03:32.410 borders are never as clear as we think. I'm Harry 0:03:32.490 --> 0:03:37.570 Kunzru and this episode is about gurus and disciples. It's 0:03:37.570 --> 0:03:41.090 about East and West. It's about a young Indian who 0:03:41.170 --> 0:03:45.130 didn't want to be the new Messiah. And it's about 0:03:45.130 --> 0:03:49.450 my family and how they discovered that fighting colonialism might 0:03:49.530 --> 0:04:05.010 involve making contact with being from the astrostra plane. Now 0:04:05.250 --> 0:04:08.490 years later, I know much more about the authors of 0:04:08.530 --> 0:04:12.170 the Lives of Our SciOne. Together they had become the 0:04:12.250 --> 0:04:15.810 leaders of a mystical religion. Their book is a record 0:04:15.850 --> 0:04:18.210 of the past lives of a boy whom they believed 0:04:18.250 --> 0:04:21.570 to be the new Messiah. Why that book was in 0:04:21.610 --> 0:04:25.250 my great grandfather's study is one of the strangest stories 0:04:25.290 --> 0:04:28.730 in my family. It's a story I've only recently begun 0:04:28.810 --> 0:04:35.330 to understand. But first, Young Indiana Jones has a question 0:04:35.410 --> 0:04:41.730 for his dad father. What they, well, Theosophists, believe in 0:04:41.770 --> 0:04:45.290 the commonality of all religions, what they call a brotherhood 0:04:45.290 --> 0:04:48.610 of man. The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones was a 0:04:48.650 --> 0:04:52.210 TV series that ran in the nineteen nineties. It chronicled 0:04:52.210 --> 0:04:56.170 the globetrotting colonial youth of the fictional archaeologist from Raiders 0:04:56.170 --> 0:04:59.170 of the Lost Arc. It's kind of a weird show, 0:04:59.530 --> 0:05:03.490 very preoccupied by intellectual things. Young Indie Jones goes to 0:05:03.570 --> 0:05:07.330 Russia and meets Tolstoy in Vienna. His father takes him 0:05:07.330 --> 0:05:10.050 to the first psychoanalytical comp Friends, where they hang out 0:05:10.050 --> 0:05:14.290 with Freud and hung In one episode, Indie's father has 0:05:14.330 --> 0:05:17.290 been invited to India to give a lecture and they 0:05:17.290 --> 0:05:21.330 attend a meeting of a group called the Theosophical Society. 0:05:22.010 --> 0:05:26.370 They're interested in psychic and supernatural phenomenon. There's even a 0:05:26.450 --> 0:05:29.730 rumor they found them Assia some sort of great spiritual teacher. 0:05:30.570 --> 0:05:34.250 Maybe so, though Young Indies Governess dismisses the whole thing 0:05:34.290 --> 0:05:41.170 as flimflam. Anyway, Theosophy is much more than a subplot 0:05:41.210 --> 0:05:45.410 in an obscure televised prequelps. It's one of the strangest 0:05:45.490 --> 0:05:51.090 and most quietly influential religious organizations of modern times. If 0:05:51.130 --> 0:05:56.290 you've ever heard about aura's color therapy, clairvoyance, or spirit guides, 0:05:57.050 --> 0:06:00.010 you have Theosophy to thank. It's behind many of the 0:06:00.130 --> 0:06:04.770 ideas we associate with the New Age movement. Theosophy inspired 0:06:04.850 --> 0:06:07.690 some of the wildest pop culture of the twentieth century. 0:06:08.490 --> 0:06:12.170 The book found in my great grandfather's dusty study was 0:06:12.210 --> 0:06:14.650 the first sign I had that my family had been 0:06:14.690 --> 0:06:17.890 involved in it. It turned out to be woven into 0:06:17.930 --> 0:06:27.170 my life more deeply than I knew. Theosophy starts with 0:06:27.250 --> 0:06:31.970 one of those great self invented people, Madame Helena Blavatsky. 0:06:33.010 --> 0:06:37.010 She was a minor Russian aristocrat, and it's probably significant 0:06:37.010 --> 0:06:41.210 that her mother was a romantic novelist. Though Helena Blavatsky 0:06:41.330 --> 0:06:45.170 herself wrote a number of books, her most stirring tale 0:06:45.250 --> 0:06:48.370 was her own life. She was the heroine of her 0:06:48.410 --> 0:06:54.090 own adventure story. She grew up in a drafty house 0:06:54.130 --> 0:06:57.650 in Ukraine, where her only pastime was curling up in 0:06:57.690 --> 0:07:02.730 the library and reading her grandmother's occult books. At the 0:07:02.770 --> 0:07:05.970 age of seventeen, she married a forty year old man 0:07:06.250 --> 0:07:08.890 who happened to be the vice governor of Yerevan in 0:07:08.930 --> 0:07:12.330 the Caucasus, a wild border region of the Russian Empire. 0:07:13.330 --> 0:07:20.610 Blavatsky's marriage lasted three months, then she ran away. Her 0:07:20.610 --> 0:07:22.690 father sent someone to bring her home, but she gave 0:07:22.770 --> 0:07:25.650 him the slip and did an almost unthinkable thing for 0:07:25.690 --> 0:07:28.410 a seventeen year old rich girl. In eighteen forty eight, 0:07:29.890 --> 0:07:32.970 she made it to the Black Sea, boarded a steamship 0:07:33.330 --> 0:07:39.210 and headed for Constantinople to start a new life. We 0:07:39.290 --> 0:07:42.850 don't exactly know how she supported herself, probably by working 0:07:42.890 --> 0:07:47.770 as a spirit medium. Madame Blavatsky was fond of putting 0:07:47.770 --> 0:07:51.970 her occult knowledge to use, contacting the dead on behalf 0:07:51.970 --> 0:07:58.410 of the living. So far, all I've told you is 0:07:58.410 --> 0:08:04.130 actually true. The rest of Helena Blavatsky's romantic story, well, 0:08:04.250 --> 0:08:09.290 perhaps not so much by her own account. She set 0:08:09.290 --> 0:08:12.850 off around the world looking for secret knowledge. She went 0:08:12.890 --> 0:08:17.770 to Syria, Mexico, Egypt, and India. She was badly wounded 0:08:17.770 --> 0:08:22.570 in a battle fighting alongside Italian revolutionaries. She was shipwrecked. 0:08:22.970 --> 0:08:26.490 She journeyed in a covered wagon across America. She rode 0:08:26.570 --> 0:08:30.410 bareback in a circus. She outwitted secret agents in Central 0:08:30.450 --> 0:08:33.330 Asia and played a major role in the Great Game, 0:08:33.770 --> 0:08:36.850 as people called the geopolitical power struggle between the Russian 0:08:36.890 --> 0:08:41.570 and British empires. Blevatsky climbed the Himalayas and studied in 0:08:41.610 --> 0:08:47.010 a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in London. In eighteen fifty one, 0:08:47.410 --> 0:08:52.730 Blavatsky attended the Great Exhibition in the Crystal Palace. There 0:08:52.850 --> 0:08:56.770 she had a vision of a spirit. This being Master 0:08:56.930 --> 0:09:00.810 Maria explained that he was one of the Great White Brotherhood. 0:09:01.770 --> 0:09:04.170 I know that sounds like a prison game, but the 0:09:04.290 --> 0:09:08.690 brotherhood was. Blevatsky reported a band of super beings who 0:09:08.730 --> 0:09:14.570 sely looked after the earth. From then on, Lavatsky was 0:09:14.570 --> 0:09:18.730 in regular contact with these so called ascended masters. They 0:09:18.770 --> 0:09:22.090 taught her, so, she said, the secrets of the Universe. 0:09:23.290 --> 0:09:28.050 Madame Lavatsky led an extraordinary opiated fever dream of a life. 0:09:29.770 --> 0:09:32.770 At a certain point, In a life like that, it 0:09:32.770 --> 0:09:37.450 becomes obvious that you should start your own religion. She 0:09:37.610 --> 0:09:41.930 called it the Theosophical Society. It aimed to be the 0:09:42.050 --> 0:09:47.010 vanguard of a new kind of universal human brotherhood. Theosophists 0:09:47.090 --> 0:09:49.650 were going to use the combined wisdom of the world's 0:09:49.690 --> 0:09:54.610 religions to discover hitherto unknown laws of nature. They would 0:09:54.610 --> 0:09:58.770 generally help humanity level up, turning us all into spiritual 0:09:58.810 --> 0:10:07.050 supermen and women. If you read theosophical descriptions of the 0:10:07.090 --> 0:10:10.410 ascended Masters, it's kind of like a cosmic boy band. 0:10:10.850 --> 0:10:14.650 Everyone has his own look. Jesus and the Buddhera in there, 0:10:14.770 --> 0:10:19.530 but so as Pythagoras and various other guys like Hilarion, 0:10:19.650 --> 0:10:23.130 a sexy Greek who's in charge of science, Kutumi, a 0:10:23.210 --> 0:10:27.770 fair skinned Kashmiri, and of course Maria, the spirit she 0:10:27.850 --> 0:10:31.450 met at the Crystal Palace. He's a flashing eyed Rushput prince. 0:10:32.090 --> 0:10:35.370 A plethora of leading men or for the leading lady, 0:10:35.810 --> 0:10:40.770 Madame Blavatsky. By the time she died in eighteen ninety one, 0:10:41.170 --> 0:10:44.850 her new religion was doing very well. Theosophy was Madame 0:10:44.890 --> 0:10:51.370 Blavatsky's gift at the future. Theosophical wizards and mystics were 0:10:51.490 --> 0:10:55.090 turning up in popular novels, along with shadowy groups like 0:10:55.170 --> 0:10:58.450 the Nine Unknown Men. By the early years of the 0:10:58.490 --> 0:11:01.570 twentieth century, the public was in love with stories about 0:11:01.610 --> 0:11:04.770 teams of beings with superhuman powers and missions to save 0:11:04.850 --> 0:11:08.930 the earth. The ex Men and the Avengers a director 0:11:09.130 --> 0:11:13.570 sentence of the beings in Blavatsky's Pantheon. DC's Green Lantern 0:11:13.690 --> 0:11:16.610 is part of an interstellar law enforcement agency that's like 0:11:16.650 --> 0:11:20.730 a cop version of the Great White Brotherhood. Superheroes are 0:11:20.730 --> 0:11:25.210 one theosophical legacy. Then, of course there's this, so it's 0:11:25.250 --> 0:11:30.210 safe to talk about flying saucers and people from outer space, 0:11:31.170 --> 0:11:36.090 the aliens. This is a news reporter called Jack Webster, 0:11:36.130 --> 0:11:39.410 who had a TV show in Vancouver in the nineteen sixties. 0:11:39.650 --> 0:11:43.170 People who may be circulating among us now, and who 0:11:43.250 --> 0:11:47.530 demonstrate their unearthly qualities if they choose you as one 0:11:47.530 --> 0:11:52.530 of their agents by disappearing and reappearing at will. The 0:11:52.610 --> 0:11:56.770 skeptical Glaswegian Webster is queuing up an interview he did 0:11:56.810 --> 0:12:00.730 with one of the early UFO contacts, a man named 0:12:00.810 --> 0:12:05.130 George van Tassel. Van Tassel ran a private airport out 0:12:05.170 --> 0:12:07.810 in the Mohave Desert at a place called Giant Rock. 0:12:08.610 --> 0:12:13.010 In fifty three, a spacecraft had landed on Van Tassel's runway. 0:12:13.650 --> 0:12:17.530 The aliens, beautiful humans dressed a little like ancient Greeks, 0:12:17.970 --> 0:12:21.890 had shared with him the secret of time travel. I 0:12:22.050 --> 0:12:26.050 say that what is occurring now has occurred before. There's 0:12:26.090 --> 0:12:29.330 many records of these ships landing throughout history, clear back 0:12:29.370 --> 0:12:33.610 into sandscript. When you realize we're dealing with a type 0:12:33.610 --> 0:12:36.850 of man that is almost as far above us and 0:12:36.970 --> 0:12:40.410 intelligence as we are above the lower animals, there is 0:12:40.410 --> 0:12:44.530 an anthing phenomenal in this at all. I researched UFOs 0:12:44.530 --> 0:12:48.450 and Van Tassel in particular for my novel Gods Without Men. 0:12:48.970 --> 0:12:52.650 I discovered that almost all that first generation of contactees, 0:12:53.130 --> 0:12:56.770 people who claimed to have met aliens, were also involved 0:12:56.810 --> 0:13:02.370 in spiritualism or theosophy. One belief system that emerged out 0:13:02.370 --> 0:13:05.290 of the Soup of the West Coast UFO counterculture in 0:13:05.330 --> 0:13:12.250 the nineteen fifties involves the Ashtar galact Command, a team 0:13:12.290 --> 0:13:16.410 of super beings with many names familiar from Madame Lavatsky's pantheon, 0:13:17.170 --> 0:13:21.650 including Hilarion Ku to Me and the Great Beloved Commander 0:13:21.650 --> 0:13:25.930 in Chief Jesus the Christ. The Ashtar Galactic Command is 0:13:25.930 --> 0:13:30.050 still around today. I'll let British color therapist and spiritual 0:13:30.090 --> 0:13:34.890 teacher Hayden Crawford explain more. The Ashtar Command is an 0:13:34.890 --> 0:13:40.330 ethnic group of extraterrestrials, angels, and light beings, plus millions 0:13:40.370 --> 0:13:45.450 of starships, which act as coordinators over the space fleet 0:13:45.610 --> 0:13:49.570 over the Western Hemisphere. They are here to assist humanity 0:13:49.730 --> 0:13:54.970 through the current process of planetary cleansing, polar realignment, and 0:13:55.090 --> 0:13:59.650 ascension into the fifth dimension. I think that's reasonably clear. 0:14:00.570 --> 0:14:06.650 And then there's the Ethereous Society, the group of UFO 0:14:06.850 --> 0:14:11.690 enthusiasts founded in nineteen fifty five by Yogi Guru and 0:14:11.770 --> 0:14:16.530 former cab driver doctor George King. They're headquartered in Hollywood 0:14:16.570 --> 0:14:20.090 and London, but the real work gets done elsewhere. A 0:14:20.210 --> 0:14:23.290 top so called holy mountains like the wind Swept holds 0:14:23.330 --> 0:14:27.610 them down in devon site of their operation prayer Power. 0:14:28.610 --> 0:14:32.210 Picture this a friendly looking group of people, middle aged 0:14:32.250 --> 0:14:35.090 and retired, and dressed in all weather gear in case 0:14:35.090 --> 0:14:39.530 it starts to drizzle, sitting in folding chairs, communing with 0:14:39.690 --> 0:14:44.010 a great beyond. We send out energy from places like 0:14:44.090 --> 0:14:47.970 this to the world as a whole for healing, for peace, 0:14:48.250 --> 0:14:51.090 but we do it in cooperation with being from other planets. 0:14:51.690 --> 0:14:57.570 That's Richard Lawrence, the Ethereous Society's executive secretary. He's interviewed 0:14:57.610 --> 0:15:02.370 in a twenty seventeen documentary by Vice. Right, So, aliens, 0:15:03.050 --> 0:15:05.370 if you like, if you like, Yes, A number of 0:15:05.410 --> 0:15:09.770 the great spiritual figures of history, Buddha Shri krish were 0:15:09.890 --> 0:15:16.050 from other planets. In the documentary, Lawrence gestures to a 0:15:16.170 --> 0:15:20.450 strange object at the center of their circle, the prayer battery. 0:15:21.130 --> 0:15:24.650 It's the size of an old tripod camera, a brightly 0:15:24.690 --> 0:15:29.090 colored box with some cables and straps that definitely does 0:15:29.250 --> 0:15:31.810 not look like a prop in a late night movie. 0:15:32.690 --> 0:15:37.290 Has everybody been given the mantral we're going to use today? Good? Okay, 0:15:37.290 --> 0:15:40.810 that's great, So why don't we prepare ourselves then to 0:15:40.850 --> 0:15:45.970 become channels as the ethereans chant their prayers are stored 0:15:46.010 --> 0:15:49.530 in the battery. Later, this prayer power will be released 0:15:49.610 --> 0:15:52.850 in a jolt of good vibes directed at strife anywhere 0:15:52.890 --> 0:15:55.930 on Earth. In the past, the prayer battery has helped 0:15:55.970 --> 0:15:59.970 clean up oil spills, protected against hurricanes, and even in 0:16:00.050 --> 0:16:03.650 nineteen eighty one, kept the Soviet Union from invading Poland. 0:16:12.290 --> 0:16:18.090 Through this world, the prayer battery is a radionic device, 0:16:18.530 --> 0:16:23.490 a physical combination of theosophy and modern engineering. It was 0:16:23.570 --> 0:16:28.250 invented by a British cabby, George King, in nineteen fifty four. 0:16:28.370 --> 0:16:30.810 A voice told King he was going to be the 0:16:30.890 --> 0:16:35.530 representative of the ascended masters on Earth. King was already 0:16:35.610 --> 0:16:38.890 a serious practitioner of yoga. This is long before it 0:16:38.930 --> 0:16:43.250 was a mainstream lifestyle activity. He says, a famous Indian 0:16:43.330 --> 0:16:47.170 yogi walked through his locked door and initiated him into 0:16:47.250 --> 0:16:56.730 certain spiritual secrets. This type of turn from India to mysticism, 0:16:57.010 --> 0:17:00.410 to any number of incredible beliefs was already well worn 0:17:00.570 --> 0:17:03.650 by the time George King and his followers scaled holy 0:17:03.690 --> 0:17:07.650 mountains with their batteries. And it all goes directly back 0:17:08.090 --> 0:17:12.930 to a trip taken long ago by Madame Blavatsky. In 0:17:13.010 --> 0:17:16.810 eighteen seventy nine, records show that Blavatsky arrived on a 0:17:16.890 --> 0:17:21.810 ship into Bombay looking for enlightenment. Her effect on my 0:17:21.930 --> 0:17:40.770 conservative Indian family would turn out to be profound. Madame Blavatsky, 0:17:41.090 --> 0:17:46.210 the founder of Theosophy, came to India to meet Hindu mystics. 0:17:46.250 --> 0:17:49.010 She ended up selling her own brand of mysticism to 0:17:49.050 --> 0:17:54.370 the Indians. In England, they call this bringing coals to Newcastle. 0:17:55.010 --> 0:17:58.250 The Internet tells me that the closest American expression is 0:17:58.650 --> 0:18:03.010 taking sand to the beach, but Madame Blavatsky pulled it off. 0:18:03.570 --> 0:18:08.570 Theosophy became wildly popular in India. Theosophical meetings were one 0:18:08.570 --> 0:18:12.490 of the few places where British and Indians, the colonizers 0:18:12.570 --> 0:18:16.370 and the colonized could meet on equal terms around a 0:18:16.450 --> 0:18:22.850 shared worldview. And because of this, something unforeseen happened. Theosophy 0:18:23.330 --> 0:18:29.890 got political. The cranks and mystics who followed Madame Blavatsky 0:18:30.490 --> 0:18:34.210 got mixed up in the Indian independent struggle against the 0:18:34.250 --> 0:18:39.570 British raj. This is where my great great grandfather comes in. 0:18:40.970 --> 0:18:45.330 Pandit Adjudyanath Kunzru was a lawyer in the city of Argra, 0:18:45.770 --> 0:18:49.050 best known for the taj Mahal. He was from a 0:18:49.050 --> 0:18:52.930 wealthy family of high caste Hindus. In the one picture 0:18:52.970 --> 0:18:55.650 that exists of him, he's younger than I am now, 0:18:56.010 --> 0:19:00.130 maybe in his thirties. He has gentle eyes, but most 0:19:00.130 --> 0:19:02.290 of the rest of his face is obscured by a 0:19:02.410 --> 0:19:07.570 huge hipster beard. Like many educated Indians of his generation, 0:19:08.330 --> 0:19:13.050 my ancestor was torn into directions. When he was seventeen, 0:19:13.650 --> 0:19:17.650 Indian troops rose up against their British officers in Britain. 0:19:17.690 --> 0:19:20.850 This is known as the Indian Mutiny. In India they 0:19:20.850 --> 0:19:25.210 call it the First War of Independence. It was bloodily suppressed, 0:19:25.730 --> 0:19:28.890 and afterwards the British were determined that it wouldn't happen again. 0:19:29.890 --> 0:19:34.010 They set out to create a trustworthy Indian elite educated 0:19:34.050 --> 0:19:37.730 in British style schools and universities with a British curriculum. 0:19:38.410 --> 0:19:42.810 Adjudanath became part of this. He went to a government 0:19:42.890 --> 0:19:46.730 college where he learned English poetry, English history, the dates 0:19:46.770 --> 0:19:50.570 of the Battle of Hastings, and Magna Carta. It was 0:19:50.650 --> 0:19:53.690 drummed into the young men of this Indian elite that 0:19:53.770 --> 0:19:58.930 their own culture was backwards. All English schoolboys knew that 0:19:59.010 --> 0:20:02.770 Indians had barbaric gods with too many heads and arms. 0:20:03.370 --> 0:20:08.410 Indians burned widows on pires. Indians were passive and fatalistic. 0:20:09.250 --> 0:20:13.450 Unlike plucky Victorian Englishmen who had a candu spirit, Indians 0:20:13.450 --> 0:20:15.850 didn't try to change things because the state of the 0:20:15.890 --> 0:20:24.890 world was God's will. My great great grandfather internalized some 0:20:24.970 --> 0:20:28.410 of these feelings. He wished his country were more modern, 0:20:29.170 --> 0:20:33.490 but he also found he couldn't ignore the problems colonialism created. 0:20:34.170 --> 0:20:37.130 Indians had no voice in their own politics, and they 0:20:37.130 --> 0:20:40.050 were barred from joining the civil service that ran the country. 0:20:40.050 --> 0:20:44.570 On behalf of the Empress Queen Victoria English businessmen were 0:20:44.570 --> 0:20:48.010 making vast fortunes in India, but they spent the prophets 0:20:48.010 --> 0:20:53.690 back home. Ajudianath wanted social progress, the education of women, 0:20:54.210 --> 0:20:57.890 the end of child marriage. He was a strict vegetarian 0:20:57.930 --> 0:21:01.610 and was passionate about animal rights. He also became a 0:21:01.730 --> 0:21:04.650 rich man, so he did what rich men do when 0:21:04.650 --> 0:21:08.810 they want to voice their views. He started his own newspaper. 0:21:10.090 --> 0:21:13.690 It was called the Indian Herald. I have a Judynath's 0:21:13.730 --> 0:21:16.250 picture on the wall of my study, but it was 0:21:16.290 --> 0:21:18.730 only while I was researching this podcast that I found 0:21:18.730 --> 0:21:21.530 out that he'd had a newspaper. I couldn't believe it. 0:21:21.810 --> 0:21:24.770 No one in my family had ever mentioned it, though 0:21:24.770 --> 0:21:28.290 perhaps there's a good reason for that. It didn't go 0:21:28.450 --> 0:21:32.850 very well. A Judynath wanted a native English speaker to 0:21:33.010 --> 0:21:37.130 edit the newspaper, and somehow he hired a young itinerant 0:21:37.130 --> 0:21:41.250 American named Francis Marion Crawford, who, as far as I 0:21:41.290 --> 0:21:44.610 can see, was the eighteen seventies equivalent of a hippie backpacker. 0:21:45.450 --> 0:21:49.490 Crawford thought his job as a joke. According to him, 0:21:49.690 --> 0:21:55.090 my ancestors newspaper staff consisted of a baronet, a disqualified jockey, 0:21:55.530 --> 0:22:00.250 a drunken parson, a countess, a bank director, several struggling 0:22:00.290 --> 0:22:04.890 young barristers, and a host of others. The struggling barristers 0:22:04.890 --> 0:22:09.170 would have been a Judynarth's idealistic friends. Whatever really and 0:22:09.330 --> 0:22:12.690 at the Herald, Crawford and my great great grandfather soon 0:22:12.810 --> 0:22:16.410 fell out and the paper had bust. Crawford said the 0:22:16.450 --> 0:22:18.730 Herald lost money because it was too radical for the 0:22:18.810 --> 0:22:23.530 British and not radical enough for the Indian masses. Knowing 0:22:23.570 --> 0:22:26.650 what I do about A Judy Narth's views, that sounds 0:22:26.650 --> 0:22:35.010 about right. Despite his failures as a newspaper proprietor, a 0:22:35.130 --> 0:22:38.490 Judy Narth still wanted to work for his country. His 0:22:38.650 --> 0:22:41.290 chance finally came when he met one of the greatest 0:22:41.290 --> 0:22:46.570 eccentrics of Victorian India, a retired colonial official named Allan 0:22:46.770 --> 0:22:52.450 Octavian Hume. Hume was an obsessive ornithologist who has no 0:22:52.530 --> 0:22:56.610 less than seven birds named after him as Hume's leaf warbler, 0:22:56.970 --> 0:23:00.210 Hume's ground tip, Hume's short towed laugh, and so on. 0:23:01.090 --> 0:23:04.010 But more importantly for the future of India, Hume believed 0:23:04.050 --> 0:23:07.330 it was time for Indians to step up and take control. 0:23:08.210 --> 0:23:12.610 In typical victor in fashion, He expressed himself in verse, 0:23:13.370 --> 0:23:17.570 are he ss or archie freeman, he that grovel in 0:23:17.650 --> 0:23:23.890 the shade in your own hands? Rest the issues by themselves? 0:23:24.290 --> 0:23:30.290 Are nations made? The other thing about Hume, he was 0:23:30.410 --> 0:23:35.210 a theosophist and a close friend of Madame Blavatsky. Through her, 0:23:35.490 --> 0:23:39.370 he had personally received spiritual communication from two of the 0:23:39.410 --> 0:23:44.450 ascended Masters, Kut to me and Maria. The way it worked, 0:23:44.970 --> 0:23:48.170 he wrote letters to the Masters, which Blavatsky placed in 0:23:48.210 --> 0:23:52.890 a special wooden box. From there they dematerialized and were 0:23:53.090 --> 0:23:57.330 fedexed to the higher planes. The answers floated down from 0:23:57.330 --> 0:24:02.010 the ceiling or were found on the recipient's pillow. Though 0:24:02.050 --> 0:24:05.170 this is all rather silly, the Masters gave Hume a 0:24:05.250 --> 0:24:09.330 message that was to have profound political consequences. That told 0:24:09.370 --> 0:24:12.010 him that British India was in danger and it was 0:24:12.130 --> 0:24:15.810 up to him to save it. The cosmic balance between 0:24:15.850 --> 0:24:19.210 East and West had tipped too far toward the western side. 0:24:19.450 --> 0:24:22.050 It was up to him to correct it. How to 0:24:22.170 --> 0:24:29.890 do that by helping Indians gain more power, Hume put 0:24:29.890 --> 0:24:32.730 out a call for fifty good men and true, the 0:24:32.810 --> 0:24:36.450 picked men, the most highly educated of the nation, men 0:24:37.130 --> 0:24:41.770 like my great great grandfather. In eighteen eighty five, Hume 0:24:41.810 --> 0:24:46.290 started an organization called the Indian National Congress. The British 0:24:46.330 --> 0:24:50.810 authorities would instantly have shut down anything national started by Indians, 0:24:51.250 --> 0:24:53.850 but they found it much harder to muzzle the dissenting 0:24:53.850 --> 0:24:57.290 opinions of Allen Octavian Hume, a companion of the Order 0:24:57.330 --> 0:25:00.290 of the Bath and a distinguished member of the Imperial 0:25:00.370 --> 0:25:04.450 Civil Service. In eighteen eighty eight, the Congress met in 0:25:04.490 --> 0:25:07.850 Allahabad near Agra. I have a copy of the speech 0:25:07.970 --> 0:25:10.490 my great great grand father gave At the opening of 0:25:10.490 --> 0:25:15.170 the Congress. He defends his friend Hume. We mean to 0:25:15.330 --> 0:25:18.650 stick to mister Hume to the last, he says. His 0:25:18.770 --> 0:25:22.730 advice to us has always been loyalty and moderation, and 0:25:22.890 --> 0:25:27.090 yet he's been stigmatized as the most seditious man in India. 0:25:27.570 --> 0:25:32.010 A judianath affirms his loyalty to Queen Victoria. He points 0:25:32.010 --> 0:25:34.690 out that the Congress is only asking for the same 0:25:34.770 --> 0:25:38.690 rights as other subjects of the English Crown. There's also 0:25:38.770 --> 0:25:42.810 a defiant note. You know the strength of the opposition, 0:25:43.050 --> 0:25:46.650 he says, and you also know that it is fast 0:25:46.770 --> 0:25:50.090 losing its power for evil and dying out. As all 0:25:50.330 --> 0:25:56.730 unrighteous things sooner or later die. A Judianath had been 0:25:56.770 --> 0:26:01.090 influenced by Hume in more than politics. He had begun 0:26:01.130 --> 0:26:07.610 attending meetings of the Theosophical Society. He was still a 0:26:07.650 --> 0:26:12.610 relatively young man, only fifty two when he died suddenly 0:26:12.690 --> 0:26:17.490 of influenza. He left an intellectual legacy for his children, 0:26:17.530 --> 0:26:22.690 who all became ardent nationalists. Madame Blavatsky died at about 0:26:22.730 --> 0:26:26.890 the same time as Adjudynath, also of the flu Leadership 0:26:26.930 --> 0:26:30.010 of the Theosophical Society passed into the hands of another 0:26:30.130 --> 0:26:35.650 charismatic woman, Annie Bessant. She'd been a labor organizer in London, 0:26:36.410 --> 0:26:39.370 leading a famous strike of young women and girls working 0:26:39.410 --> 0:26:44.330 in terrible conditions at a factory making matches. Later, Bessant 0:26:44.330 --> 0:26:48.650 became a disciple of Madame Blavatsky and traveled to India. 0:26:48.770 --> 0:26:52.050 She took over the Theosophical Society with a lapsed Anglican 0:26:52.130 --> 0:26:56.850 priest called Charles Ledbetter. Led Better and Bessant with the 0:26:56.970 --> 0:27:01.250 oddest of odd couples, the fiery radical leader of the 0:27:01.290 --> 0:27:05.410 London match girl's strike and the former curate of Bramshott Village, 0:27:05.730 --> 0:27:10.370 who started talking to spirits and then ran off to Asia. 0:27:15.330 --> 0:27:19.770 One day in nineteen o nine, Ledbetter was walking on 0:27:19.810 --> 0:27:23.890 the beach when he saw a young boy who had, 0:27:23.930 --> 0:27:27.690 he wrote, the most wonderful aura he had ever seen, 0:27:28.090 --> 0:27:32.970 without a particle of selfishness in it. The boy's mother 0:27:33.170 --> 0:27:37.650 was dead, his father was very poor, and for whatever 0:27:37.770 --> 0:27:41.290 reason led Better became convinced that in this boy he 0:27:41.370 --> 0:27:49.850 had found the world teacher, the new Messiah. Not everyone agreed. 0:27:50.650 --> 0:27:53.850 At least one other, Theosophus described the child as dimwitted. 0:27:55.170 --> 0:27:59.450 And then there was the other issue. Ledbetter had already 0:27:59.490 --> 0:28:02.650 been expelled once from the Theosophical Society because of his 0:28:02.730 --> 0:28:08.170 sexual interest in young boys. The boy, Judu Krishna Murty, 0:28:08.490 --> 0:28:13.170 was very ansom. Early photos emphasized his fine features and 0:28:13.330 --> 0:28:18.250 soulful eyes. Very quickly led Better ascribed to him dozens 0:28:18.290 --> 0:28:23.690 of past lives. Somehow, Krishnamote's family agreed that he and 0:28:23.810 --> 0:28:27.250 his brother Nietzsya should go and live at the Theosophical 0:28:27.290 --> 0:28:32.330 compound in Adhya. There, led Better and Besson would tue 0:28:32.370 --> 0:28:35.490 to them and do further research into their past lives, 0:28:35.890 --> 0:28:40.370 which apparently stretched back twenty five thousand years from India 0:28:40.450 --> 0:28:44.810 to the lost continent of Atlantis. Krishnamoty was given a 0:28:45.010 --> 0:28:49.850 star name. He was Alcyone, the central star in the 0:28:49.930 --> 0:28:54.290 Pleiades constellation. Led Better began to publish an account of 0:28:54.370 --> 0:28:59.370 Krishnamurti's lives in a theosophical magazine. Eventually they were collected 0:28:59.410 --> 0:29:03.330 together into a book, a sort of reincarnation soap opera, 0:29:03.450 --> 0:29:07.650 in which all the characters were previous incarnations of senior Theosophists. 0:29:08.490 --> 0:29:13.090 It was this book, The Lives of Alcione, that I 0:29:13.250 --> 0:29:16.370 found in my great grandfather's study when I was a boy. 0:29:17.850 --> 0:29:21.010 To me, the real life of Krishna Murty is more 0:29:21.090 --> 0:29:24.570 interesting and affecting than the stories in the Lives of Alsiony. 0:29:25.690 --> 0:29:29.170 Annie Bessent and Charles led Better became the legal guardians 0:29:29.170 --> 0:29:32.290 of Krishna Mute and his brother Nitsya, even fighting a 0:29:32.330 --> 0:29:37.170 court case against their father. The Theosophists formed an organization, 0:29:37.570 --> 0:29:40.730 the Order of the Star in the East, to promote 0:29:40.770 --> 0:29:44.530 their young messiah. Krishna Murty was dressed in tailored suits 0:29:44.530 --> 0:29:47.770