Quotes:Keightley, Bertram

Zirkoff, Boris

Keightley, Bertram. English Theosophist and staunch friend and collaborator of H. P. B. during the London days. He was born at Birkenhead, April 4, 1860. His father was a Liverpool solicitor and owner of much land which later greatly increased in value. Both his parents were to some degree influenced by the mystical Christianity of Swedenborg, so that Bertram escaped the more orthodox forms of faith. His education began at Charterhouse, a famous school, and was then carried on in Germany and France, and finished at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he majored in mathematics. He also took the degree of Master of Arts. Being endowed with an eager intelligence, he was especially attracted by philosophy and science, and combined the critical acumen of the student with a genuine love and intuition for mysticism. While still at Cambridge, he studied mesmerism and was led to the reading of Éliphas Lévi, mediaeval mystics and neo-platonic writers. He came into Theosophy quite naturally. Having come across Sinnett’s Esoteric Buddhism and recognizing in it the outline of a system which would co-ordinate previous study and furnish a complete philosophy of life, he promptly made the acquaintance of the author. He first merely attended the meetings of the London

BERTRAM KEIGHTLEY (1860-1945) Reproduced from The Theosophist, Vol. XXX, September, 1909.

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Lodge, T. S.; then, early in 1884, he was admitted to the Theosophical Society, together with his own nephew, Dr. Archibald Keightley, and Mr. and Mrs. Cooper-Oakley, by Col. H. S. Olcott himself, then in England.

He first met H. P. B. at a special meeting of the London Lodge described by his nephew, Dr. Archibald Keightley (see the foregoing biogr. sketch). William Quan Judge tells (The Path, Vol. VIII, Aug., 1893, p. 143) how H. P. B. suddenly informed him that she was ordered by her Teacher to go quickly to London and attend the London Lodge meeting, although she was not well at the time. An old tie between H. P. B. and Bertram as well as Archibald Keightley was no doubt renewed, and they placed themselves and all they had at her service. Bertram spent much of the spring and summer of 1884 in H. P. B.’s company in Paris and London, going with her to Elberfeld, Germany, in the fall of the same year. He met W. Q. Judge that same summer, when he was in England on his way to India.

In the year 1885, Bertram Keightley was Hon. Sec. of the London Lodge T. S., and continued to be associated with it until the formation of the Blavatsky Lodge in 1887. In that year, H. P. B. being quite sick at Ostende, he and his nephew went over twice to that city to urge her to come over to London and help with the work there. After his second visit, he and Dr. Keightley accompanied her to England, after she had decided to make the move.

In the same year he joined with Dr. Archibald Keightley and Countess Constance Wachtmeister in forming the celebrated household at 17, Lansdowne Road, London, making it possible for H. P. B. to reside in England. From that time dates the active participation of both the Keightleys in the preparation of the manuscript of The Secret Doctrine for the press. Bertram Keightley was largely responsible in meeting the financial deficiencies incurred in the printing of this work. Apart from this work, he helped H. P. B. with her newly-founded magazine Lucifer, and later, together with his nephew, typed and duplicated her E. S. Instructions.

At the request made by H. P. B. herself, Bertram Keightley came to New York in the Fall of 1889, and visited the majority of the Branches in the United States, attending the Chicago 434 Convention of April 27-28, 1890, as special delegate, afterwards returning to Europe. A month later, again at H. P. B.’s request, he embarked for India, reaching Bombay August 31st, 1890. He was soon elected General Secretary of the newly-formed Indian Section which was chartered January 1, 1891. He also organized the Indian E. S.

Simultaneously with the founding of the Indian Section, Bertram Keightley started the publication of a monthly journal called The Prasnottara, very similar to The Theosophical Forum issued by W. Q. Judge in the U. S. A. It was intended for Questions and Answers and was to be distributed free to the Members of the Section.

While in India, Bertram Keightley travelled extensively, working among the various Branches and founding new ones. H. P. B. died while he was absent from England. After her passing, he joined Col. H. S. Olcott at Colombo, Ceylon, and sailed with him for a brief visit to London, returning to India shortly afterwards, and leaving India again in January, 1893.

On this last trip he suffered shipwreck on his way from Madras to Colombo. The S.S. Niemen, a coasting steamer of the “Messageries Maritimes,” was wrecked off the coast of Trincomalee on the Eastern shore of Ceylon, within a few hundred yards of shore. Bertram Keightley was the last of the passengers to leave the sinking ship. All of them spent the night in crowded boats, unable to cross the surf till daylight, and then were obliged to walk many miles through sand, marsh, mud and jungle to the nearest village, in the blistering sun and without food or water. Bertram Keightley was barefoot. A few articles were washed ashore, but almost all of his luggage was totally lost, money, letters, personal souvenirs— worst of all, his “dispatch box,” containing notes collected during two years for a work on Indian literature, and his cherished letters from H. P. B. It took him four days to get to Colombo. This misadventure came after another in which he was robbed.

Being in London in April, 1893, he again travelled to America, and was a delegate from the European and Indian Sections at the American Convention of that month. In July, 1893, being back in London, he was present at the Third Convention of the T. S. held there, William Q. Judge being present also. In May, 1894, Annie Besant and he went to Sweden to attend the First Annual Convention of the Swedish T. S. 435 During Judge’s so-called “trial” Bertram Keightley was in London, his attitude being diametrically opposite to that taken by Dr. Archibald Keightley.

He remained in England until the death of his mother. Later he broke up his home and sailed for India, together with Annie Besant, who was on her way to Australia, reaching Colombo August 13, 1894. Before going to Adyar, he lectured extensively in various parts of India, going first to Calcutta. Together with Annie Besant and Countess C. Wachtmeister, he took part in the organization of the Benares Centre, which became the headquarters of the Indian Section.

At the time of the so-called “split” of the original T. S., Bertram Keightley remained with the main body under the Presidency of Col. H. S. Olcott, and served for some time on the General Council of the Society, and as General Secretary of the British Section, 1901-1905. At a later time, after the passing of Col. Olcott, being opposed to the “presidential policy” of Annie Besant, he publicly expressed his dissent, but remained in the T. S., and it is said that he had promised to H. P. B. never to leave it. From that time on until his passing at Cawnpore, in 1945, he lived in practical seclusion and took no active part in the activities of the Theosophical Society.

Throughout the years of his work, Bertram Keightley was an eloquent speaker in the cause of Theosophy, and contributed a considerable number of essays and articles to various Theosophical periodicals. His Reminiscences of H. P. Blavatsky (Adyar, 1931) originally appeared as a contribution to the pages of The Theosophist.

SOURCES (in addition to those referred to in the text above): The Path, Vol. VI, 196-97; Vol. VIII, Aug., 1893, pp. 143-44; Lucifer, Vol. XV, pp. 171, 255, 507; The Canadian Theosophist, Vol. XXV, p 339; The Theos., Vol XXX, Sept., 1909, pp. 729-30.

Source: Boris de Zirkoff, «H. P. Blavatsky Collected Writings», vol. 9, pp. 432-435

Keightley, Bertram (1860-1945). See Vol. IX, Bibliogr. Index, for comprehensive biographical sketch.

Source: Boris de Zirkoff, «H. P. Blavatsky Collected Writings», vol. 11, p. 579