When we turn to Charles W. Leadbeater we find the strange doctrine of “overshadowing”. At one time I believed that this idea was the creation of Leadbeater’s imagination, but I do know of an instance in which it occurred. That does not mean that Maitreya actually overshadowed Jesus, as Leadbeater, and more recently, Benjamin Creme, claimed. For once we may trust the instincts of Christians. Instinctively they regard the proposition that Jesus was merely a medium or a mouthpiece for another man as absurd and probably the “work of the devil”. I will put aside for now the idea that Satan or a “Dark Master” influenced Leadbeater. It is true that the man made mistakes and has a bad reputation, but we need not seek a supernatural cause for his doctrine. He simply wished to exalt a Buddhist teacher over the Christian one. If Maitreya could claim as his own the supernal teachings of the Aramaic Master his superiority would be beyond doubt. It was predictable that the picture of the “Master Jesus” that Theosophy gives us makes him look boyish, almost feminine, and excessively sensitive. This picture bears no resemblance to the image on the Shroud of Turin, which would still be truthful as art even if---which is certainly possible---it was produced in the Middle Ages.
Esoteric authors have employed still another strategy in an attempt to belittle Jesus. The claim has been made that he never lived, and that if there is anything truthful in the gospels it is derived from the life of Apollonius of Tyana. I have my own theories about Apollonius. I believe that he was the Bodhisattva Maitreya and that he was the reincarnation of Simon of Alexandria. Simon was the biological father of Jesus. He was the highest initiate of a mystery school in Alexandria, Egypt; because he was psychic he was able to locate the woman he was meant to marry in her obscure home in Nazareth. For some unknown reason Mary was born in a small town in Galilee and not in the city of Jerusalem, as was planned. According to the original plan the parents of the World Teacher of the Age of Pisces were supposed to meet in Alexandria and marry and have a son who would benefit from the teachings of the mystery school.
Simon journeyed to Nazareth and Mary became pregnant in a pre-marital love affair---but only after she had already been betrothed to the village carpenter. Mary asked Simon if she could accompany him to Alexandria in order to marry him, but he knew that he would be murdered on his way back home and advised her to remain with Joseph. He died in 7 BCE, nine months before Jesus was born. Apollonius was born in 15 CE, twenty-two years later. In 6 CE, when Jesus was thirteen years old, he left Palestine and journeyed to India where he met Maitreya on the spiritual plane. He remained in India until 24 CE, when he was thirty years old. It was an obvious likelihood that father and son, master and disciple, would have similar teachings, and that the two men could be confused with each other.
I will end with a quotation from Apollonius: “As soldiers need not only courage but tactics also, so does a philosopher need not only courage and philosophy but discernment also, to tell what his right time of dying is---so that he will neither seek it nor flee it.” This thought is certainly apropos to the death of Simon and the death of Jesus.
Below: Theosophical authors prefer this picture of Jesus to all others, calling him the "Master Jesus". This is probably the sensitive kind of person who could be overshadowed. Contrast this innocent face with the one on the Shroud of Turin.
