Mrs. Annie Besant vs G. Narayaniah (29/10/1913)

I do not think that the defendant questioned the finding of the Judge that, although the plaintiff was aware when he signed the letter of the 6th March 1910 (Exhibit A) that the defendant desired to bring up the boys in such a manner as to develop their spiritual powers, neither the plaintiff nor the defendant contemplated the development of the elder boy into “a vehicle” for the manifestation of supernatural powers or persons. The defendant denied in her evidence that she had ever said that the elder boy was or was to be, the Lord Christ or the Lord Maitreya; but she admitted having said that she believed that “his body would be the vehicle” for his reincarnation. In cross-examination, in answer to the question “Do you believe his body will be used by the Lord Maitreya, she said ” I do, I admit….that; I do believe that the body will be used by Lord Maitreya some years hence.” In an address by the defendant published in one of the Theosophical journals (Ex. P) we find a statement that ” the body of the disciple Alcyone (i.e., the elder boy) has been handed over to those who have come down with him through the ages, to be trained and made ready for a similar destiny,” the destiny being the surrender of the body to Christ. The defendant met the argument that the fostering of such ideas as these in a boy of fifteen or sixteen years of age would necessarily be prejudicial to his moral and intellectual welfare, by the contention that the setting before him of this ideal would necessarily have a purifying and ennobling effect. There might be something in this if what was set before him was that this destiny might be in store for him if he proved worthy of it. But I understand the defendant’s evidence, to be that the body of the boy had already been selected for the purpose of becoming the ” Vehicle”. In paragraph 12 of her written statement the defendant says it is true that respectable people have prostrated themselves before him. He was made the head of an Order called the Star of the East (the proceedings at one of the meetings of the Order are described in an article in a Theosophic Journal Ex. C. published in February 1912) and he underwent two ceremonies of Initiation as to the nature of which there is no evidence. It may be said that all this, so far from stimulating the moral and intellectual qualities of the boy, might have an opposite effect. I do not profess to know how much there is in common between the tenets and beliefs of the Hindu Religion and the tenets and beliefs of Theosophy. I am prepared to assume a very great deal. I am also prepared to assume that the plaintiff is a pious Hindu and that he was, when he signed Ex. A, an ardent Theosophist. But there is all the difference between a man holding abstract views in a matter of this sort and being a consenting party to these views being given effect to in the person of his own son. A father may believe in the doctrine of reincarnation and may have given expression to that belief, but he may well be reluctant that the body of his own son should be the medium.

[See the full post at: Mrs. Annie Besant vs G. Narayaniah (29/10/1913)]