Crosbie, Robert (1849-1919)

Robert Crosbie, founder of the United Lodge of Theosophists, was born on January 10, 1849, in Montreal, Canada. He was raised a Presbyterian by his Scottish immigrant parents, but declined to join the church as a teenager as its thought did not satisfactorily answer his questions about life. He and an older partner started a shoe manufacturing business in 1869 and eventually he married his partner's daughter. The death of his partner's wife occasioned an interest in Spiritualism and led further to his investigation of various psychic and occult phenomena. Then around 1886 Crosbie and his partner sold their business and moved to Boston, Massachusetts, where they started an even more successful business of the same kind. Here he attended the very first gathering of the new Theosophical Society and joined. When the national leader, William Quan Judge (1851-1896), came to Boston to speak, they met and became friends. Crosbie also began a correspondence with Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891), the main teacher in the society who at the time resided in England. He became president of the Boston Theosophical Society in 1892.

In the 1890s, when the American society under Judge became independent of the international Theosophical Society, Crosbie remained loyal to Judge and continued to work with his successor Katherine Tingley. He was one of the signatories on the new organization that Tingley created, the Universal Theosophical Brotherhood, designed to offer a practical demonstration of the theosophical principle of brotherhood. In 1900, soon after the founding of the theosophical community at Point Loma (San Diego), Crosbie relocated there to assist Tingley in her utopian experiment. However, over the next few years he came to feel the experiment valueless and the teachings espoused by Tingley an unacceptable departure from Theosophy as he understood it. In 1904 he left Point Loma and moved to South Pasadena, California, where he organized a study group that was chartered by the branch of the Theosophical Society still aligned with the international movement. However, in 1907 it became fully independent. In 1909, that group became the new independent society that he called the United Lodge of Theosophists. He sought to present Theosophy as he understood it to have been presented in the early years of the movement.

Crosbie was opposed to the creation of a strong central organization or to the emphasis upon charismatic personalities. The various lodges that came to be associated with the United Lodge are autonomous centers for the dissemination of theosophical teachings. In the periodical he began in 1912, Theosophy, the articles were unsigned (unless copied from the writings of the theosophical founders). He also initiated an education program for the children of his members (called associates). Only in the years after his death on June 25, 1919, were his writings collected and published under his name in two books.

Sources:

Crosbie, Robert. Answers to Questions on the Ocean of Theosophy. Los Angeles: Theosophy Co., 1937.

——. The Friendly Philosopher. Los Angeles: Theosophy Co., 1934.

Ten Broeck, Dallas. "Brief Notes in Mr. Robert Crosbie's Life and Work." Unpublished paper in the American Religions Collection, Davidson Library, University of California-Santa Barbara.

The Theosophical Movement, 1875-1950. Los Angeles: Cunningham Press, 1951.