Find quotes, thinkers, and ideas across centuries of human thought.
Charles Webster Leadbeater
1854 – 1934
101 quotes
"One of the main objects of the foundation of the Theosophical Society was that these two Masters might gather round Them a number of men who would be intelligent and willing co-operators in this might…"
"It is probable that even the Masters who are by name best known to you are not so real, not so clear, not so well-defined to you as They are to those of us who have had the privilege of meeting Them f…"
"Much of what is written here has appeared in the form of articles in The Theosophist and elsewhere; but all has been revised, and considerable additions have been made. I trust that it may help some b…"
"In those far-off times it was the Lord Gautama who ruled the world of religion and education; but now He has yielded that high office to the Lord Maitreya, whom western people call the Christ—who took…"
"C.W. Leadbeater life, writings and theosophical teachings at the Blavatsky Study Center"
"The Master Kuthumi himself once said smilingly, when some one spoke of the enormous change that the Theosophical knowledge had made in our lives, and of the wonderful comprehensiveness of the doctrine…"
"Clearly one of the great objects, perhaps the principal object, of the daily celebration of the Mass is that everyone within reach of it shall receive at least once each day one of these electric shoc…"
"The Lord Maitreya had taken various births before He came into the office which He now holds, but even in these earlier days He seems always to have been a teacher or high-priest."
"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. …"
"The ringing of bells has a distinct part in the scheme of the 'Church, which in these days seems but little understood... those who know the delights of the proper performance of a triple-bob-major or…"
"You ask about the Great One whom we call the Christ, the Lord Maitreya, and about His work in the past and in the future... there is what we may call a department of the inner government of the world …"
"The man who stands before one of Them cannot but feel the deepest humility, because of the greatness of the contrast between himself and the Master. Yet with all this humility he yet feels a firm conf…"
"In His presence everything seems possible and even easy, and one looks back with wonder on the troubles of yesterday, unable now to comprehend why they should have caused agitation or dismay. Now at l…"
"Everywhere there are people who think they are so busy and so wise... And yet the truth IS that all of these are working in the unreal and the outer, they have not, most of them, even realised that th…"
"There is a school of philosophy still in existence of which modern culture has lost sight." In these words Mr. A.P. Sinnett began his book, The Occult World, the first popular exposition of Theosophy,…"
"Beyond all question the future is with the vegetarian. It seems certain that in the future — and I hope it may be in the near future — we shall be looking back upon this time with disgust and with hor…"
"In beginning this practice of meditation it is desirable to watch closely its physical effects. Methods prescribed by those who understand the matter ought never to cause headache or any other pain, y…"
"Perhaps the greatest and most disastrous of all the taboos that we erect for ourselves is the fear of what our neighbours will say. There are many men and women who appear to live only in order that t…"
"Having myself been a priest of the Church of England, and knowing... the disputes as to whether that Church really has the apostolic succession or not, I was naturally interested in discovering whethe…"
"It is a religion in so far as, having shown us the course of ordinary evolution, it also puts before us and advises a method of shortening that course, so that by conscious effort we may progress more…"
"The historical records of every nation are full of the doings of men of genius in all the different departments of human activity, men who in their special lines of work and ability have stood far abo…"
"The first and most fatal of all misconceptions about death is the idea that it is the end of all things; that there is nothing in man which survives it. Many people seem to be under the impression tha…"
"This is a school in which no pupil ever fails; every one must go on to the end. He has no choice as to that; but the length of time which he will take in qualifying himself for the higher examinations…"
"It has often been said that the characteristic of one is power, and of the other love and compassion, and this is perfectly true, though, if it is not rightly understood, it may very easily prove misl…"
"It is a science, because it treats both these subjects as matters not of theological belief but of direct knowledge obtainable by study and investigation."
"I said that there was a second effect, which I compared to the streamers of the sun’s corona. The light which I have just described poured forth impartially upon all, the just and the unjust, the beli…"
"For the purpose of this treatise we may, perhaps, define it as the power to see what is hidden from ordinary physical sight. It will be as well to premise that it is very frequently accompanied by wha…"
"Things of real worth, such as the mental life of the ant or the crab, fill psychological and scientific literature; but such a thing as death, which involves the whole human race more intimately than …"
"The cases in which assistance is given to mankind by nature-spirits are few. The majority of such creatures shun the haunts of man, and retire before him, disliking his emanations and the perpetual bu…"
"It is at once a philosophy, a religion and a science. It is a philosophy, because it puts plainly before us an explanation of the scheme of evolution of both the souls and the bodies contained in our …"
"One of the superstitions condemned by the Master, you will remember, is that man needs flesh for food. That IS, of course, a superstition, because there are many thousands of people who exist in perfe…"
"It is impossible for us to calculate the vast amount of utterly unnecessary sorrow and terror and misery which mankind in the aggregate has suffered simply from its ignorance and superstition with reg…"
"The Existence of Perfected Men is one of the most important of the many new facts which Theosophy puts before us. It follows logically from the other great Theosophical teachings of karma and evolutio…"
"Most of our students are familiar with the thought of the four stages of the Path of Holiness, and are aware that a man who has passed through them and attained to the level of the Asekha has achieved…"
"My attention was first called to this by watching the effect produced by the celebration of the Mass in a Roman Catholic church in a little village in Sicily. Those who know that most beautiful of isl…"
"There has always been a Brotherhood of Adepts, the Great White Brotherhood; there have always been those who knew, those who possessed this inner wisdom, and our Masters are among the present represen…"
"C.W. Leadbeater articles and media"
"Let us at least make the experiment; let us free ourselves from complicity in these awful crimes, let us set ourselves to try, each in our own small circle, to bring nearer that bright time of peace a…"
"Nowhere else in the world at this present moment is there such a centre of influence—a centre constantly visited by the Great Ones, and therefore bathed in their wonderful magnetism. The vibrations he…"
"The Effect of Meditation. Remember also that every one who meditates upon the Master makes a definite connection with him, which shows itself to clairvoyant vision as a kind of line of light. The Mast…"
"Let no man.. despair because he thinks the task too great for him; what man has done man can do, and just in proportion as we extend our aid to those whom we can help, so will those who have already a…"
"There is no one physical characteristic by which an Adept can be infallibly distinguished from other men, but he always appears impressive, noble, dignified, holy and serene, and anyone meeting him co…"
"What is desired in order to promote the work of the great plan is that all these races should be drawn into much closer sympathy. This has already been achieved to a great extent in the case of Englan…"
"What is called death is the laying aside of the vehicle belonging to this lowest world, but the soul or real man in a higher world is no more changed or affected by this than the physical man is chang…"
"To anyone who has even a faint idea of what the powers at the command of an adept really are, it will be at once obvious that for him to work upon the astral plane would be a far greater waste of ener…"
"The term ‘occultism’ is one which has been much misunderstood. In the mind of the ignorant it was, even recently, synonymous with magic, and its students were supposed to be practitioners of the black…"
"The vibrations of the Masters are so strong that only those qualities in you which harmonize with them are called out, so that you will feel the uttermost confidence and love, and the desire to be alw…"
"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 the…"
"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 wa…"
"Not long ago the little daughter of one of our English bishops was out walking with her mother in the town where they lived, and in running heedlessly across a street the child was knocked down by the…"
"Although this path may at first seem hard and toilsome, yet ever as we rise our footing becomes firmer and our outlook wider, and thus we find ourselves better able to help those who are climbing besi…"
"The deep reverence and the strong affection felt for the Lord Gautama all over the East are due to two facts. One of these is that He was the first of our humanity to attain to the stupendous height o…"
"Perhaps the greatest of the many fundamental changes which are inevitable for the man who studies the facts of life is that which is produced in his attitude towards death. This matter has been fully …"
"Services for the Dead. What I have said in the earlier part of this chapter will explain a feature which is often misunderstood by those who ridicule the Church—the offering of a Mass with a certain i…"
"There is a definite scheme of things; it is under intelligent direction and works under immutable laws. Man has his place in this scheme and is living under these laws. If he understands them and co-o…"
"Would the delicate ladies who devour sanguinary beef-steaks like to see their sons working as slaughtermen? If not, then they have no right to put this task upon some other woman's son. We have no rig…"
"It asserts that man has no need to trust to blind faith, because he has within him latent powers which, when aroused, enable him to see and examine for himself, and it proceeds to prove its case by sh…"
"The bell which is often rung in Hindu or Buddhist temples has yet another intention. The original thought here was a beautiful and altruistic one. When someone had just uttered an act of devotion or m…"
"They may for the time be putting forward different aspects of the truth to suit the needs of those to whom They speak... The teaching is always fundamentally the same, though its presentation may vary…"
"When we look upon the world around us, we cannot hide from ourselves the existence of a vast amount of sorrow and suffering... It often seems as though evil triumphs, as though justice fails in the mi…"