Travers Christmas Humphreys, QC (1901–1983) was a barrister and an eminent British Buddhist of the 20^th century. He was a prolific writer who wrote, co-authored and edited books largely focusing on Buddhism and spiritual practice. He started out as a barrister who prosecuted several controversial cases in the 1940s and 1950s, and later became a judge at the Old Bailey (London’s Central Criminal Court).

Humphreys established the Buddhist Society in London which is now one of the largest and oldest Buddhist organisations outside Asia. Today, he is remembered mostly for his passion for promoting Buddhism in Britain.

Early Life and Interest in Buddhism

Christmas Humphreys was born on 15^th February 1901. Although he was christened Travers Christmas, he was commonly known as Toby among family and friends. His father, Sir Travers Humphreys, was a well-known British barrister and judge while his mother, Zoë Marguerite Neumans, was an actress.

During World War I, Christmas Humphreys’ world was shattered by the sudden death of his beloved elder brother, Richard Grain Humphreys (1897-1917) in the Third Battle of Ypres. This traumatic news drove the young man to question the purpose of the universe and the nature by which it came into being. When he was 17, he bought a copy of ‘Buddha and the Gospel of Buddhism’ by Ananda Coomaraswamy, a Ceylonese philosopher, historian and metaphysician. He recalled later that “I seemed to remember the principles of the Dharma almost as fast as I read them, and lightly regarded Buddhism as an old friend once more encountered.”

Following in his father’s footsteps, Christmas Humphreys enrolled at Trinity Hall, a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. While studying law in the early 1920s, his interest in Buddhism deepened as he joined the Cambridge Lodge of the Theosophical Society. At that time, Buddhism was only known in academic circles. He attended lectures by British Buddhists such as Allan Bennett (Ananda Metteyya), the second Englishman to be ordained as a Buddhist monk.

Trinity Hall, a constituent college of the University of Cambridge.

At 21, Humphreys met his future wife, Aileen Faulkner (Puck) who was already interested in Buddhism and Theosophy. In 1924, the two of them and some friends formed the Buddhist Lodge of the Theosophical Society. The Lodge Charter was presented by C. Jinarajadasa, a Sinhalese Buddhist, who was the Vice President of the Theosophical Society and happened to be in London at the time.

Due to his illustrious family background, Christmas Humphreys was invited to join the bar in 1924 as a member of the Inner Temple. Called the Court Inns, it was the most exclusive and wealthiest of the four principal professional associations for barristers and judges during that period. His appointment to the Inner Temple marked an auspicious beginning to his legal career.

Christmas Humphreys and his wife, Aileen Faulkner, in their later years

Illustrious Judicial Career

Like his father, Christmas Humphreys built his practice in criminal law. In 1934, he became a Junior Treasury Counsel (prosecutor) at the Old Bailey. He was promoted to Senior Prosecuting Counsel in 1950 and later as a Bencher, a principal officer of the Inn, by the Inner Temple in 1955. Four years later, he was appointed as the Queen’s Counsel (QC). In 1962, he was appointed as a Commissioner and in 1968, he was promoted to a judgeship position.

Christmas Humphreys’ preference to work as a prosecutor stemmed from his belief that witnesses for the prosecution were far more likely to tell the truth than witnesses for the defence. He felt that his task as a prosecutor was to establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt. He also believed that he was destined to be a prosecutor due to his karma.

From left: Neville Major Ginner Faulks (1908-1985), British barrister Travers Christmas Humphreys (1901-1983), and Professor Emlyn Capel Stewart Wade (1895-1978), after being sworn in as new QCs at the House of Lords, London on 7^th April 1959.

His conviction in karma influenced the way he viewed criminals. He would remind everyone in the dock that “only your own actions have put you where you are. You knew that what you were doing would bring you here.” When Humphreys was asked how he could be a judge as a Buddhist and how he felt about it, he replied, “I am the man in the dock.”

As a lay practitioner, Humphreys was able to demonstrate his ability to draw on Buddhist values while working in the modern legal system of an essentially secular Christian society. He set a good example for instilling wisdom and compassion in his courtroom even though he was involved in a few controversial cases as a prosecutor and as a judge.

Newspaper clipping about the Evans-Christie case. Click to enlarge.

His legal career was marked by notable cases. He acted as an assistant prosecutor during the Tokyo war crimes trials of 1947-1948 in Tokyo. In these trials, the leaders of the Japanese Empire were tried for war crimes and crimes against peace and humanity committed during World War II. In 1950, he acted as the prosecuting counsel for the Attorney General for the trial of the nuclear spy Klaus Fuchs.

During his legal tenure, Christmas Humphreys was involved in more than 200 homicide cases including controversial ones such as the Evans-Christie and the Ellis cases that sparked the movement to abolish capital punishment in Britain. He secured the conviction of Timothy John Evans, an illiterate and mentally disabled man for the murders of his wife and child. Evans was found guilty and was hanged on 9^th March 1950 as a result. Several years after Evans’ execution, new evidence surfaced proving his innocence and instead, found his neighbour, John Reginald Halliday Christie, a former policeman to be the murderer. Christie was sentenced to death by hanging on 15^th July 1953, three years after Timothy John Evans’ tragic end.

The Ruth Ellis case helped to spark the movement to abolish capital punishment in Britain. Click to enlarge.

The Ellis case involved a beautiful nightclub hostess, Ruth Ellis, who shot her abusive lover, David Blakely. She was subsequently found guilty of murder and sentenced to death by hanging on 13^th July 1955. The idea of hanging an attractive young woman was considered as shocking as the hanging of an innocent man. The Ellis and Evans-Christie cases played an important role in pushing the movement to oppose capital punishment in Britain. Eventually, capital punishment was abolished in England in 1969.

In the later years of his career, Humphreys’ judicial pronouncements caused much controversy. He found sentencing to be an ordeal because it caused more suffering for the criminals and their family and friends. He earned a reputation as a gentle judge due to his tendency to give lenient sentences. His leniency stemmed from his belief that heavy punishments were counterproductive. However, his lenient sentences did not go down well with the prosecutors nor with the press.

In 1975, Humphreys passed a six-month suspended jail sentence on an 18-year-old black man who had pleaded guilty to raping two women at knifepoint. A few days later, he jailed a man for 18 months for cheating his employer out of £2,000. The disparity of sentences in these cases caused a public outcry. There was a motion in the House of Commons, the de facto primary chamber of the Parliament in Britain, to dismiss Humphreys. Despite receiving support from the Lord Chancellor and the National Association of Probation Officers, Humphreys was pressured to resign. In 1976, he tendered his resignation from the judgeship position and went into retirement.

The Old Bailey, London’s Central Criminal Court

Theosophy and the Founding of the Buddhist Society

The modern revival of Buddhism in the West has its roots in the theosophical writings of Helena Blavatsky who co-founded the Theosophical Society. Writer and academician Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke described Blavatsky as ‘the foremother of New Age religion’.

Helena Blavatsky in 1887

Buddhism was Christmas Humphreys’ foremost priority, and he was considered to be the finest living example of Buddha’s teachings as presented by Helena Blavatsky. Humphreys found a resonance between Buddhism and Theosophy through his voracious reading and observed that the founders of the Society embraced the precepts of Buddhism… “Yes, Coomaraswamy and H.P. Blavatsky between them gave me what I wanted, a plan, a purpose, and a way!”

Humphreys joined the Cambridge Lodge of the Theosophical Society because he wanted to meet like-minded individuals. At one point, he even served as the Lodge’s President. He then co-founded the Buddhist Lodge of the Theosophical Society with the aim to ‘study, disseminate and attempt to live the fundamental principles of Buddhism in the light of Theosophy.’ It was always clear to him that this was the unadulterated theosophy as presented by Blavatsky.

Around this time however, the Theosophical Society was going through a period of being more interested in other ideas, which Christmas Humphreys believed “obscured the teachings given to Mme. Blavatsky by her Teachers in Tibet” – teachings that he strongly believed must be preserved untouched and unaffected by the many influences that comprised the spirituality of the times.

The Buddhist Society’s premises at Eccleston Square, London

Over time, the dichotomy appeared to be too much to handle. The Buddhist Lodge withdrew from the Theosophical Society due to differences in thought and beliefs. The Buddhist Lodge later became the Buddhist Society. In his autobiography, ‘Both Sides of the Circle’, Christmas Humphreys wrote:

“The Buddhist Society was now well founded. We had left the Theosophical Society, finding that the leech-like minor movements about it stifled the teaching it was founded to proclaim, and that henceforth those who liked their Theosophy neat, as it were, could find it in the works of H.P. Blavatsky and a few others, while the Buddhist Society, as the Lodge soon became, would proclaim what Puck and I held to be the finest extant application of that ancient wisdom.”

– Christmas Humphreys (1978), Both Sides of the Circle

Christmas Humphreys dedicated much of his life to Dharma and to make the Buddhist Society known to all. However, he also retained a steadfast interest in Helena Blavatsky’s theosophy throughout his life.

Determined to do his best to preserve Helena Blavatsky’s teachings as they were given, Humphreys assisted Geoffrey Farthing in the founding of the Blavatsky Trust. His aim was to wean Lodges from pseudo-theosophy and provide a list of books of original teachings. “Whether an individual finds the vast cycle of wisdom offered to the world under that title to be true is for that student to decide, but at least let it be clear what is and what is not ‘Theosophy’.”

Students of esotericism should also appreciate that Humphreys produced ‘An Abridgement of The Secret Doctrine’, Blavatsky’s magnum opus, and his third and definitive edition of ‘The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett’ with Elizabeth Preston.

• An Abridgement of the Secret Doctrine
  Christmas Humphreys described Blavatsky’s ‘Secret Doctrine’ (1888) on Cosmogenesis and Anthropogenesis as written with ‘clarity and totality’ and that it made sense of the universe coming into being and ceasing. He published a simplified version with Elizabeth Preston titled ‘Abridgement of the Secret Doctrine’ in 1966, reducing 1300 pages to 250.
• The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett
  Christmas Humphreys together with Elsie Benjamin became Trustees of the Mahatma Letters Trust, which are currently held at the British Library. The Letters were ‘written’ to A.P. Sinnett, a journalist in Jalalabad, by the Great Masters who taught modern theosophy through Helena Blavatsky, and they were first transcribed by A. Trevor Barker. Humphreys spent nearly five years preparing the third and definitive edition of the Letters that was first published in 1972 and is still in print today.

VIDEO: Stephen Brooks Talks About His First Buddhist Studies With Christmas Humphreys

Renowned Buddhist psychotherapist and hypnotherapist, Stephen Brooks talks about his experience with Christmas Humphreys.

Meetings With Remarkable Men

The Buddhist Society in London that Christmas Humphreys formed in 1924 championed a lay and non-sectarian approach to Buddhism promoted through its regular classes and publications such as ‘The Middle Way’ quarterly. Humphreys met and formed many connections with Buddhist leaders and influential Buddhist figures through his position at the Buddhist Society and his travels across Asia. Those encounters encouraged him to later serve as Vice-President of the Tibet Society and support the Dalai Lama’s government-in-exile.

“After the 1959 invasion of Tibet came contact with the Tibetans. At the request of the Dalai Lama, [Humphreys] visited and reported on all of the exile camps in India, and then assisted His Holiness in creating a Council of Tibet to co-ordinate work for the Tibetans in exile and the preservation of Tibetan Buddhism.”

~ Muriel Daw , Theosophical Society Summer School 1983

Christmas Humphreys with His Holiness the 16^th Karmapa, the head of the Karma Kagyu sect, at the Buddhist Society, 1977

Christmas Humphreys recalled that meeting remarkable men ‘had a profound effect’ on his life and dedication towards the Dharma. The excerpts from some of these meetings can be found below.

Nicholas Roerich: The Great Explorer, Philosopher, Traveller, and Spiritualist

Nicholas Roerich, the famous Russian painter, archaeologist, writer, philosopher and theosophist (1874-1947)

“This was with Nicholas Roerich, Russian explorer, geologist, artist, herbalist, and much else. For some reason, I was asked to help him with his passport, and I called at his hotel. I helped as I could and then, as we stood in the room, looking out of the windows on to the Haymarket, the conversation turned to my current mental condition, which must have been one of mild despair. ‘No,’ he said, ‘look!’ And somehow his following words almost literally lifted me up into his own magnificent vision of the far ideal. I saw, as through his eyes, that it was ALL RIGHT, everything was ALL RIGHT! I saw it so, and have never ceased to see it so, even as what the Buddhists call the ‘three fires’ of hatred, lust and illusion still obscure my spiritual view. It was not what was said but the immense power of the man to enfold my mind in his and lift it for a moment to the level of his own at its highest. This power is surely the mark of a highly developed man, one of six I have been privileged to meet and who have helped me in this particular life.”

– Christmas Humphreys (1978), Both Sides of the Circle

Carl Gustav Jung: The Psychiatrist and Psychoanalyst

Carl Gustav Jung, the renowned Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst (1875-1961)

“I had the pleasure of meeting Carl Jung … (at) the first of his series of lectures at the Institute of Medical Psychology … the revelations of Jung’s inner thought and spiritual experience … lift him to the level of one of the really great minds of this century.”

– Christmas Humphreys (1978), Both Sides of the Circle

Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki: A Prolific Writer on Zen, Buddhism and Shin

Christmas Humphreys (left) meeting with famed Buddhist writers, Alan Watts (1915-1973) (middle) and D.T. Suzuki (1870-1966) (right)

“To meet heart to heart with such a Master of Zen, to have a wider glimpse of the glorious realm of Mahayana — far nearer to the Ancient Wisdom than the Theravada Buddhism known in England at that time – all this deepened Toby’s understanding and gave him an extra sparkle. The immediacy of Zen spoke directly to his heart and filled his need. If one could describe Christmas Humphreys as the Father of English Buddhism, then it must be said that its grand-parents are H.P.B. and D.T. Suzuki — an unlikely pair, but there it is!”

– Muriel Daw in Theosophical Society Summer School 1983

Christmas Humphreys (right) with Lama Anagarika Govinda (middle) and his wife, Li Gotami (left), outside the Buddhist Society, 1960

Igniting Widespread Interest in Buddhism in the West

The Great Wars led some people to search for answers. Some had ceased to go to church regularly and could no longer accept dogma and a faith-must-come-first approach. Muriel Daw described that these individuals “…simply needed a religion with a fairly straightforward approach towards self-improvement and self-understanding for all, together with deeper wisdom and enlightenment for those who could rise to it.”

After the Lodge seceded from the Theosophical Society in 1926, Christmas Humphreys led the new Buddhist Society to carry on with its main work of spreading the Buddhadharma. Even when London was torn apart by war in 1939, the Buddhist Society continued to grow under the leadership of Humphreys as President, Chairman, and Publisher. He was an active President for over 40 years. The Society pioneered the framework for growing the Buddhist movement in Britain and subsequently, a council was formed to run what was becoming a national organisation.

Humphreys also played a role in reintroducing the understanding and practice of meditation that was central to Eastern mysticism in Western culture. In 1930, he and his wife founded the Meditation Circle and self-published a book titled ‘Concentration and Meditation’, sharing with readers the power that meditation can produce, which, according to them, many teachers failed to realise. They believed that unless this power was developed and used with the purest possible motivation, misuse of this spiritual force for selfish ends would turn back against the user.

Twelve Principles of Buddhism

One of Christmas Humphreys’ lifelong endeavours was to extract the essence of the Buddha’s teachings for Western practitioners to apply in everyday life. With his sharp intellect and spiritual insight, Humphreys managed to shake off centuries-old clutter and compiled the “Twelve Principles of Buddhism” in 1945. He even sought views of prominent leaders of Buddhist schools around the world for his compilation.

Christmas Humphreys continued to work with the ever-growing Buddhist Society and published the Penguin paperback ‘Buddhism’ in conjunction with his 50^th birthday. By then, he had authored more than 30 books, but this publication did more than any other to propagate the Dharma in Britain and, perhaps, the whole Western world. The book became a standard textbook that turned Buddhism from a minor fringe interest to a mainstream subject. As a result, streams of people came for more information, and groups were formed in several English towns. It has sold over a million copies and inspired generations.

Later Life and Legacy

Christmas Humphreys was notable for his work to popularise Mahayana Buddhism at a time when people were more familiar with the Theravada tradition. As an intellectual and visionary, he was unique in applying Buddhist teachings in everyday life when it was still considered the domain of academic study. That was unheard of at a time when the Church of England dominated British religious life.

In 1962, he became the Vice-President of the Tibet Society and Joint Vice-Chairman of Royal India, Pakistan, and Ceylon Society. His last visit to the East was marked by his attendance at the 8^th Conference of the World Fellowship of Buddhists in Thailand.

In 1977, he was invited to attend the Thanksgiving Service in St. Paul’s Cathedral for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee as Founding President of the Buddhist Society, the oldest and largest Buddhist organisation in Great Britain. This royal mark of recognition indicated that Buddhism was finally recognised and accepted as one of the mainstream religions of England.

In answering a question as to why he had made Buddhism central to his life’s work instead of continuing to pour all his energy into Theosophy, Humphreys replied on more than one occasion, “The Theosophical Society grumbles because I am too Buddhist; Buddhists grumble because I’m too Theosophist. I am always Theosophist, but if I ever found religion of more use to more people I would change in a flash.”

Christmas Humphreys believed that Buddha was the greatest teacher of Wisdom as how the Great Masters taught modern theosophy through H.P. Blavatsky and in the Mahatma Letters. His lasting achievement was his key role in the advancement of contemporary western spirituality and his ceaseless work for that cause until his death in 1983.

A few days before his death, Christmas Humphreys who was 82 years old at the time, recounted to Muriel Daw how, having awoken in the night with the last line of a poem flaming in his mind, he had worked backwards, a line at a time, to complete ‘Progress’, his last short poem.

Progress

The bonds of arrogance are slow released
As self, exhausted, writhes in impotence.
The ceaseless efforts of the I have ceased;
The world about withdraws to immanence.
Perception comes, with heart and mind elate.
Night perishes before the sudden dawn.
And lo! The world awakens uncreate
In blazing splendour of the Light unborn.

 
A prolific writer and editor, most of Christmas Humphreys’ writings dealt with Buddhism. The following is a list of his known published works:

• A Buddhist Student’s Manual
• A Popular Dictionary of Buddhism
• A Religion for Modern Youth
• A Western Approach to Zen: An Enquiry
• Both Sides of the Circle (autobiography)
• Buddhism: An Introduction and Guide
• Buddhism: The History, Development and Present Day Teaching of the Various Schools
• Buddhist Poems: A Selection, 1920–1970 (1971)
• Concentration and Meditation: A Manual of Mind Development
• Exploring Buddhism
• Karma and Rebirth
• One Hundred Treasures of the Buddhist Society
• Poems I Remember
• Poems of Peace and War
• Seven Murderers
• Sixty Years of Buddhism in England (1907–1967): A History and a Survey
• Studies in the Middle Way: Being Thoughts on Buddhism Applied
• The Buddhist Way of Action
• The Buddhist Way of Life
• The Development of Buddhism in England: Being a History of the Buddhist Movement in London and the Provinces
• The Field of Theosophy
• The Great Pearl Robbery of 1913: A Record of Fact (1929)
• The Menace in our Midst: With Some Criticisms and Comments, Relevant and Irrelevant
• The Search Within
• The Sutra of Wei Lang (or Hui Neng) (1953)
• The Way of Action: The Buddha’s Way to Enlightenment
• The Way of Action: A Working Philosophy for Western Life
• The Wisdom of Buddhism
• Via Tokyo
• Walk On
• Zen A Way of Life
• Zen Buddhism
• Zen Comes West: The Present and Future of Zen Buddhism in Britain
• Zen Comes West: Zen Buddhism in Western Society

Recommended Reading

Concentration and Meditation

Zen Buddhism

Buddhism

Karma and Rebirth

A Western Approach to Zen

A Popular Dictionary of Buddhism

Sources:

• Christmas Humphreys autobiography, ‘Both Sides of the Circle’, 1978
• Blavatsky Trust, http://www.blavatskytrust.org.uk
• Robert Kitto, The Blavatsky Trust, http://www.blavatskytrust.org.uk/html/c_humphreys.htm
• Imperial War Museums, http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205197331
• Vajratool, ‘Christmas Humphreys – the most eminent of 20^th Century British Buddhists’, 5 May 2010, https://vajratool.wordpress.com/2010/05/05/christmas-humphreys-the-most-eminent-of-20th-century-british-buddhists

For more interesting information:

• Li Gotami: The Woman Who Dedicated Her Life to the Arts
• Anagarika Dharmapala: The Revered Buddhist Revivalist
• Madame Blavatsky: Mother of Modern Spirituality
• Kazi Dawa Samdup: a Pioneering Translator of Tibetan Buddhist Texts
• Professor Garma C.C. Chang -The Illustrious Pioneer
• Alexandra David-Néel
• Herbert Guenther – Master of Languages & Buddhism
• Ekai Kawaguchi – Three Years in Tibet
• Danzan Ravjaa: The Controversial Mongolian Monk
• Agvan Dorjiev: The Diplomat Monk
• John Blofeld and His Spiritual Journey
• George Roerich – Light of the Morning Star
• The Russian Princess Buddhist Nun
• In the Footsteps of Joseph Rock
• Nicholas Roerich & art (1874-1947)
• D.T. Suzuki: Introducing Zen Buddhism to the West
• Bill Porter (Red Pine): The Translator of Chinese Poems and Promoter of Zen Buddhism

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