Letter from Max Heindel to C. W. Leadbeater, 1904

Letter from Max Heindel to C. W. Leadbeater, 1904

Los Angeles, Cal., Jan. 15. 1904. Mr C. W. Leadbeater.

Dear Sir.

Before you leave California I desire to thank you for your lectures, all of which I have attended with great benefit to myself.

Curiosity drew me to hear your first lecture; your statement that every man had in him clairvoyant faculties – which I reasoned would benefit me personally – prompted me to attend. Your 2nd lecture, in the hope of getting some information on how to develop this much desired and desirable power and when in your 2nd lecture you said that this faculty should not be used for selfish purposes – I sneered inwardly – what good would it do a man if he did not use it to his own interests.

The next day I applied for the Astral Plane at the library, that was the plane I wanted to find out about where one could go and, with advantage to himself, learn other people’s secrets. However, I did not get it – the librarian had none to loan or for sale; they were all out.

But I got Mrs Besant’s Karma and Reincarnation and when I had read them I understood why occult powers must be used reverently as a help to humanity and not for personal gain. I saw that I had a place in this great cosmic scheme and it seemed all so real to me that I needed no argument. I believed every word I read and it was in a frame of mind very different indeed from what it had been at the first two lectures that I presented myself at your lecture on Reincarnation.

I have since then been literally devouring Theosophy and I have put in practice in my life by discontinuing the use of intoxicants and tobacco, though I did not know until the other day that that was one of the Bud- dha’s precepts, but worse than that I was a sensualist and a liar and I never had any idea that I could help it or that my thoughts did any harm or that I could banish them, but when I found out that I could control my thoughts I set out with a steady purpose and rejoice to say that my waking hours are very nearly free from obscene thoughts; if I could but say the same of my sleeping hours I would be happy indeed but I have no doubt that by persistent effort I shall soon have it entirely obliterated, specially as I have started a few days ago to live on a vegetable diet after reading your argument in Glimpses of Occultism.

I hope my long letter has not tired you, for long as it is it does not cover a tenth of what I would like to say if I could find words to express myself. It is wonderful I can scarcely realize it that I who thought myself a mere earthworm living today and as I believed dead for all eternity when I died, that I am to live forever. Do you wonder that I feel grateful and feel the need of expressing my gratitude to you who opened my eyes to the high and noble destiny in front of me?

Once more I thank you and wish you god speed.

Yours truly

Max Heindel