It would be superfluous to describe in detail the wild nonsense that composes the creed of Co-Masonry, since a long series of articles was recently devoted to the subject in _The Patriot_ and can be consulted by anyone who desires information concerning its ceremonies and the personnel directing it.[714] Suffice it to say here that its course, like that of most secret societies, has been marked by violent dissensions amongst the members--the Blavatsky-ites passionately denouncing the Besantites and the Besantites proclaiming the divine infallibility of their leader--whilst at the same time scandals of a peculiarly unsavoury kind have been brought to light. This fact has indeed created a serious schism in the ranks of the Theosophists, which shows that a number of perfectly harmless people are to be found amongst them. Yet the peculiar recurrence of such scandals in the history of secret societies leads one inevitably to wonder how far these are to be regarded as merely deplorable accidents or as the results of secret-society methods and of occult teaching. That the men against whom charges of sexual perversion were brought were not isolated examples of these tendencies is shown by a curious admission on the part of one of Madame Blavatsky's "chelas," or disciples, who relates: I was a pupil of H.P.B. before Mrs. Besant joined the T.S. and saw her expel one of her most gifted and valued workers from the Esoteric Section for offences against the occult and moral law, similar to those with which Mr. Leadbeater's name has now been associated for nearly twenty years. H.P.B. was always extremely strict on this particular point, and _many_ [my itals.] would-be aspirants for chelaship were refused on this one ground alone, while others who had been accepted "on probation" failed almost immediately afterwards.[715] It would appear, then, that these deplorable proclivities are peculiarly prevalent amongst aspirants to Theosophical knowledge.