The Elder Brother: A Biography of Charles Webster Leadbeater by Gregory Tillett

Author:Gregory Tillett
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781317311300
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2017-07-09T16:00:00+00:00

16

The priesthood recovered: Leadbeater and the Liberal Catholic Church

Leadbeater returned from his New Zealand tour on 11 February 1916. Two days later, in the Co-Masonic Temple in Blomfield Road, London, James Ingall Wedgwood was consecrated to the episcopate as Presiding Bishop of the Old Roman Catholic Church. The consecrators were Bishops Willoughby, King and Gauntlett, the latter two also being members of the Theosophical Society, as were most of the witnesses who signed the Instrumentum consecrationis. Thus Wedgwood received the Apostolic Succession which Madame Blavatsky had denounced as ‘a gross and palpable fraud’.1 Within a few months of his consecration Wedgwood returned to Australia to confer with Leadbeater, leaving the psychic Bishop King in charge of the work in England.

Leadbeater was most enthusiastic about the possibilities for the new church ‘and placed his services unreservedly at our disposal’. So, on 15 July 1916, Wedgwood re-ordained Leadbeater sub conditione to the priesthood, having previously administered baptism, confirmation and the Minor Orders and Diaconate in case his Anglican Orders were later called into question. These ceremonies were performed at ‘Nandina’, the house of Jonkheer Julian Mazel, a leading Dutch member of the TS, in Undercliff Street, Neutral Bay, a suburb of Sydney. On 22 July Wedgwood consecrated Leadbeater to the episcopate at ‘Crendon’, the home of Mr and Mrs Gustav Köllerström, also eminent Theosophists. The Roman Pontifical was used in an English translation, and Wedgwood was assisted by two priests whom he had recently ordained, D.M. Tweedie of Adelaide, and J.B. McConkey of Melbourne. The witnesses who signed the Instrumentum included the two priests, the Köllerströms, and four of Leadbeater’s current boy pupils.2

Three days later, Leadbeater wrote to Mrs Besant:

Wedgwood has arrived and is in good health. His consecration to the Episcopate has had the unexpected result of putting him practically at the head of the Old Catholic movement as far as the British Empire is concerned, all his colleagues (except, I think, one) in it being Theosophists ready to work under his direction. This being so, he desires most earnestly to offer the movement to the World Teacher as one of the vehicles for His force, and a channel for the preparation for His Coming. I took him therefore to the LORD MAITREYA at the Festival, and He was graciously pleased to accept the offer, and to say that He thought the movement would fill a niche in the scheme and would be useful to Him. From what He said I inferred that He Himself had so guided events as to produce this curious result, that a branch of the Catholic Church, having the Apostolic Succession in a form which cannot be questioned, should be entirely in the hands of Theosophists, who are willing and eager to do exactly as He wishes.

He then passed on the news of his own consecration:

With His permission Wedgwood has consecrated me as a Bishop, on the understanding that I am at perfect liberty to wear my ordinary dress, and am in no way bound to

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