GLOSSARY OF THE GOSPEL OF INTERPRETATION - Ideas for a Better World

GLOSSARY/INTRODUCTION OF THE

“NEW” GOSPEL OF INTERPRETATION

GENERAL INDEX OF ENTRIES

LETTER “A”

– Adam

– Allegorical and Non-Literal Meaning

– Anna Kingsford

– Armor of Michael

– Atonement (Vicarious Salvation)

LETTER “B”

– Bible: Collection of Symbols and Parables

– Body and Blood of Christ

– Bread and Wine

– Buddhist Christianity

LETTER “C”

– Catholic

– Chalice and Blood

– Chivalry (Divine Order of Chivalry Is the Order of the Christ)

– Christ

LETTER “D”

– “Daimon” (or Genius, or Guardian Angel)

– Divine Order of Chivalry: It is the Order of Christ

LETTER “E”

– Ecclesiasticism

– Eden

– Edward Maitland

– Egypt – Flight from Egypt – Exodus

– Eve

LETTER “F”

– Faith Versus Credulity

– Fig Tree and Hermes

LETTER “G”

– Genius (or “Daimon”, or Guardian Angel)

– God (Importance of the Image of God)

– Guardian Angel (or “Daimon”, or Genius)

LETTER “H”

– Horse – Chivalry (Divine Order of Chivalry Is the Order of the Christ)

LETTER “I”

– Idolatry: It is a Form of Materialism

– Image of God (Its Importance)

– Intuition

– Israel

LETTER “J”

– Jesus

LETTER “L”

– (To) Labour Is to Pray

LETTER “M”

– Mary

– Mount – Mountain

LETTER “O”

– Order of the Christ (Divine Order of Chivalry Is the Order of the Christ)

LETTER “P”

– (The) Perfect Way; or, the Finding of Christ

– (To) Pray (Is to Labour)

– Purpose We All Have in Our Heart

LETTER “S”

– Sacerdotalism

– Salvation (Vicarious Salvation, Atonement)

– Science and Religion

– Serpent of Eden, Herod and the Dragon

– Son of God

– Soul

– Spirituality Versus Psychism

LETTER “T”

– Temptation of the Serpent

– Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, or Tree of Life (in Eden)

LETTER “V”

– Vegetarianism

– Vicarious Salvation (Atonement)

LETTER “W”

– Wine (Bread and Wine)

– Woman

– (To) Work Is to Pray

GENERAL INDEX OF ENTRIES, QUOTATIONS AND TEXTS

ADAM

Quotation (1): “Adam,” “Eve,” “Christ,” and “Mary” and the Rest – Denote the Various Spiritual Elements Constituting the Individual and His States

Quotation (2): Adam and Eve

ALLEGORICAL AND NON-LITERAL MEANING

Quotation (1): Bible, Collection of Parables About the History of the Soul: Persons, Peoples, Animals etc, Are Symbols – To Materialize the Symbols Is to Commit Idolatry

Quotation (2): Bible Presents the Fall and Redemption of the Souls Under the Form of Symbols and Parables

Quotation (3): “New” Gospel of Interpretation: Appealing to the Intellectual As Well As to the Devotional Side

ANNA KINGSFORD

Text (1): Brief Chronology of Anna Kingsford’s Life; Brief Biographical Information and Works

Text (2): Anna Kingsford – Her Life and Work (Samuel H. Hart)

Text (3): Anna Kingsford – Obituary (Helena P. Blavatsky)

Text (4): Anna Kingsford, Buddhist Christianity and Vegetarianism (Arnaldo Sisson Filho)

Text (5): Why the “Anna Kingsford Site” Was Created? (Arnaldo Sisson Filho)

Book (1): The Perfect Way; or, the Finding of Christ (Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland)

ARMOR OF MICHAEL

Quotation (1): Horse Is the Symbol of Intelligence: Divine Order of Chivalry Is the Order of Christ

ATONEMENT (VICARIOUS SALVATION)

Quotation (1): Crucifixion, Resurrection and the Doctrine of Vicarious Atonement Which, As Ordinarily Understood, Is Idolatrous, Blasphemous, and Pernicious in the Highest Degree

Quotation (2): Christ Jesus Inside of Us; “Blood” of God; Vicarious Salvation; Importance of the Image of God

Quotation (3): Treasure of the Egyptians; Falsehood of the Vicarious Salvation; Celestial Jerusalem; Bloodshed Is Inversion of the Divine Order

BIBLE: COLLECTION OF SYMBOLS AND PARABLES

Quotation (1): Bible, Collection of Parables About the History of the Soul: Persons, Peoples, Animals etc, Are Symbols – To Materialize the Symbols Is to Commit Idolatry

BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST

Quotation (1): Crucifixion, Resurrection and the Doctrine of Vicarious Atonement Which, As Ordinarily Understood, Is Idolatrous, Blasphemous, and Pernicious in the Highest Degree

Quotation (2): Christ Jesus Inside of Us; “Blood” of God; Vicarious Salvation; Importance of the Image of God

BREAD AND WINE

Quotation (1): Once the Veil of Symbolism is Lifted All Churches Are Akin, and the Basic Doctrine of All Is Identical

BUDDHIST CHRISTIANITY

Quotation (1): Two Things About the Christian Religion

Quotation (2): Faith Without Understanding Is Credulity

Quotation (3): The Interpretation of Your Bibles

Quotation (4): Ex Oriente Lux. Why the Christian Church Is Catholic? The Central Figure of the Christ Synthetizes All the Characteristics, Legends, and Symbols Appertaining to the Central Figures of Preceding Dispensations

Quotation (5): Christianity and Buddhism Are Parts of One Continuous, Harmonious Whole

Quotation (6): The Principle or Law of Universal Brotherhood is Very Little Understood: It Is the One Essential of Doctrine and of Life of Both Buddhism and Christianity

Quotation (7): In the Union of Buddha and Christ the World’s Coming Redemption

Quotation (8): Toynbee Declared: a Thousand Years From Now the Historian Will Be Preoccupied with What Happened When for the First Time Christianity and Buddhism Began to Penetrate One Another

Quotation (9): At Some Distant Day It Will Become a Religion of Great Nations

Quotation (10): My Principal Preoccupation at Present Is with Learning from Buddhism

Quotation (11): Pythagoras, Buddha, and Jesus; Namely, Works, Understanding, and Love, or Body, Mind, and Heart

Quotation (12): Buddha Gautama (including Pythagoras) and Christ Are Necessary to One Another: Together They Form a System Whole and Complete

Quotation (13): Buddhism and Christianity Are Parts of One Gospel

Quotation (14): Doctrine of the Buddha: Regeneration of the Mind and the Indispensable Forerunner and Interpreter of the Doctrine of the Christ

Quotation (15): Karma and Continuity of Existences Explains the Inequalities and Incongruities of Life and Vindicates the Divine Justice

Quotation (16): Praise to the Buddhas-Christs

Quotation (17): Ecclesiasticism Is Intolerant of All Other Faiths and Religious Systems, Attitude Fatal in the Long Run to the Existence of Ecclesiasticism Itself

Text (1): Anna Kingsford, Buddhist Christianity and Vegetarianism (Arnaldo Sisson Filho)

Book (1): The Perfect Way; or, the Finding of Christ (Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland)

CATHOLIC

Quotation (1): Ex Oriente Lux. Why the Christian Church Is Catholic? The Central Figure of the Christ Synthetizes All the Characteristics, Legends, and Symbols Appertaining to the Central Figures of Preceding Dispensations

CHALICE AND BLOOD

Quotation (1): Crucifixion, Resurrection and the Doctrine of Vicarious Atonement Which, As Ordinarily Understood, Is Idolatrous, Blasphemous, and Pernicious in the Highest Degree

Quotation (2): Christ Jesus Inside of Us; “Blood” of God; Vicarious Salvation; Importance of the Image of God

*CHIVALRY (DIVINE ORDER OF CHIVALRY IS THE ORDER OF THE CHRIST)***

Quotation (1): Horse Is the Symbol of Intelligence: Divine Order of Chivalry Is the Order of Christ

CHRIST

Quotation (1): Christ, the Realisation in Man of His Own Divine Potentialities

Quotation (2): Christ Jesus Inside of Us; “Blood” of God; Vicarious Salvation; Importance of the Image of God

Quotation (3): Theme of the Christian Creed: the Crist Jesus Within Man

Quotation (4): Praise to the Buddhas-Christs

Quotation (5): “Adam,” “Eve,” “Christ,” and “Mary” and the Rest – Denote the Various Spiritual Elements Constituting the Individual and His States

Quotation (6): Ex Oriente Lux. Why the Christian Church Is Catholic? The Central Figure of the Christ Synthetizes All the Characteristics, Legends, and Symbols Appertaining to the Central Figures of Preceding Dispensations

Book (1): The Perfect Way; or, the Finding of Christ (Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland)

“DAIMON” (OR GENIUS, OR GUARDIAN ANGEL)

Text (1 ): Concerning the Genius or “Daimon” (Guardian Angel) (Anna Kingsford)

DIVINE ORDER OF CHIVALRY: IT IS THE ORDER OF CHRIST

Quotation (1): Horse Is the Symbol of Intelligence: Divine Order of Chivalry Is the Order of Christ

ECCLESIASTICISM

Quotation (1): Ex Oriente Lux. Why the Christian Church Is Catholic? The Central Figure of the Christ Synthetizes All the Characteristics, Legends, and Symbols Appertaining to the Central Figures of Preceding Dispensations

Quotation (2): Crucifixion, Resurrection and the Doctrine of Vicarious Atonement Which, As Ordinarily Understood, Is Idolatrous, Blasphemous, and Pernicious in the Highest Degree

Quotation (3): Christ Jesus Inside of Us; “Blood” of God; Vicarious Salvation; Importance of the Image of God

EDEN

Quotation (1): Bible, Collection of Parables About the History of the Soul: Persons, Peoples, Animals etc, Are Symbols – To Materialize the Symbols Is to Commit Idolatry

EDWARD MAITLAND

Text (1): Edward Maitland – His Life and Work (Samuel H. Hart)

Text (2): Edward Maitland and Vegetarianism (Samuel H. Hart)

Text (3): Books by Edward Maitland

EGYPT – FLIGHT FROM EGYPT – EXODUS

Quotation (1): Redemption of Spirit from Matter, the Theme of All Sacred Scriptures, Fall of Adam, Israel, Going Down of Israel or the Soul into Egypt, Exodus or Flight Into the Wilderness-Desert, Crossing of the Jordan and Promised Land

Quotation (2): Regeneration, Flight from Egypt, Wilderness, Ordeal, Forty Days-Years, Redemption, Jordan River and Promised Land

Quotation (3): Treasure of the Egyptians; Falsehood of the Vicarious Salvation; Celestial Jerusalem; Bloodshed Is Inversion of the Divine Order

EVE

Quotation (1): “Adam,” “Eve,” “Christ,” and “Mary” and the Rest – Denote the Various Spiritual Elements Constituting the Individual and His States

Quotation (2): Adam and Eve

FAITH VERSUS CREDULITY

Quotation (1): Faith Without Understanding Is Credulity

FIG TREE AND HERMES

Quotation (1): The Fig-tree: Symbol of Intuitional Perception and Hermes (Raphael)

GENIUS (OR “DAIMON”, OR GUARDIAN ANGEL)

Text (1): Concerning the Genius or “Daimon” (Guardian Angel) (Anna Kingsford)

*GOD (IMPORTANCE OF THE IMAGE OF GOD)***

Quotation (1): Christ Jesus Inside of Us; “Blood” of God; Vicarious Salvation; Importance of the Image of God

GUARDIAN ANGEL (OR “DAIMON”, OR GENIUS)

Text (1 ): Concerning the Genius or “Daimon” (Guardian Angel) (Anna Kingsford)

HORSE – CHIVALRY (DIVINE ORDER OF CHIVALRY IS THE ORDER OF THE CHRIST)

Quotation (1): Horse Is the Symbol of Intelligence: Divine Order of Chivalry Is the Order of Christ

IDOLATRY: IT IS A FORM OF MATERIALISM

Quotation (1): Bible, Collection of Parables About the History of the Soul: Persons, Peoples, Animals etc, Are Symbols – To Materialize the Symbols Is to Commit Idolatry

Quotation (2): Ex Oriente Lux. Why the Christian Church Is Catholic? The Central Figure of the Christ Synthetizes All the Characteristics, Legends, and Symbols Appertaining to the Central Figures of Preceding Dispensations

Quotation (3): “New” Gospel of Interpretation: Appealing to the Intellectual As Well As to the Devotional Side

IMAGE OF GOD (ITS IMPORTANCE)

Quotation (1): Christ Jesus Inside of Us; “Blood” of God; Vicarious Salvation; Importance of the Image of God

INTUITION

Quotation (1): The “Woman” Is Not a “Woman”, But the Soul, and the Intuition

ISRAEL

Quotation 1: Bible, Collection of Parables About the History of the Soul: Persons, Peoples, Animals etc, Are Symbols – To Materialize the Symbols Is to Commit Idolatry

Quotation (2): Redemption of Spirit from Matter, the Theme of All Sacred Scriptures, Fall of Adam, Israel, Going Down of Israel or the Soul into Egypt, Exodus or Flight Into the Wilderness-Desert, Crossing of the Jordan and Promised Land

Quotation (3): Regeneration, Flight from Egypt, Wilderness, Ordeal, Forty Days-Years, Redemption, Jordan River and Promised Land

JESUS

Quotation (1): Christ Jesus Inside of Us; “Blood” of God; Vicarious Salvation; Importance of the Image of God

Quotation (2): Christ, the Realisation in Man of His Own Divine Potentialities

Quotation (3): Theme of the Christian Creed: the Crist Jesus Within Man

(TO) LABOUR IS TO PRAY

Quotation (1): To Labour Is to Pray

MARY

Quotation (1): “Adam,” “Eve,” “Christ,” and “Mary” and the Rest – Denote the Various Spiritual Elements Constituting the Individual and His States

MOUNT – MOUNTAIN

Quotation (1): Always the Symbol of High Mystical Insight and Spiritual Attainment

ORDER OF THE CHRIST (DIVINE ORDER OF CHIVALRY IS THE ORDER OF THE CHRIST)

Quotation (1): Horse Is the Symbol of Intelligence: Divine Order of Chivalry Is the Order of Christ

(THE) PERFECT WAY; OR, THE FINDING OF CHRIST)

Book (1): The Perfect Way; or, the Finding of Christ (Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland)

(TO) PRAY (IS TO LABOUR)

Quotation (1): To Labour Is to Pray

PURPOSE WE HAVE ALL AT HEART

Quotation (1): Purpose We Have All at Heart: Dissemination of TRUTH Conveyed by Whatever Religious Channel

SACERDOTALISM

Quotation (2): Crucifixion, Resurrection and the Doctrine of Vicarious Atonement Which, As Ordinarily Understood, Is Idolatrous, Blasphemous, and Pernicious in the Highest Degree

Quotation (3): Christ Jesus Inside of Us; “Blood” of God; Vicarious Salvation; Importance of the Image of God

SALVATION (VICARIOUS SALVATION)

Quotation (1): Crucifixion, Resurrection and the Doctrine of Vicarious Atonement Which, As Ordinarily Understood, Is Idolatrous, Blasphemous, and Pernicious in the Highest Degree

Quotation (2): Christ Jesus Inside of Us; “Blood” of God; Vicarious Salvation; Importance of the Image of God

Quotation (3): Treasure of the Egyptians; Falsehood of the Vicarious Salvation; Celestial Jerusalem; Bloodshed Is Inversion of the Divine Order

SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Quotation (1): Faith Without Understanding Is Credulity

Quotation (3): “New” Gospel of Interpretation: Appealing to the Intellectual As Well As to the Devotional Side

SERPENT OF EDEN, HEROD AND THE DRAGON

Quotation (1): The “Woman” Is Not a “Woman”, But the Soul, and the Intuition

Quotation (2): The Son of God, Is No Other Than the Spiritual Manhood, Fortified and Sustained by Wisdom and Thought

SON OF GOD

Quotation (1): The Son of God, Is No Other Than the Spiritual Manhood, Fortified and Sustained by Wisdom and Thought

Quotation (2): Crucifixion, Resurrection and the Doctrine of Vicarious Atonement Which, As Ordinarily Understood, Is Idolatrous, Blasphemous, and Pernicious in the Highest Degree

SOUL

Quotation (1): The “Woman” Is Not a “Woman”, But the Soul, and the Intuition

Quotation (2): The Son of God, Is No Other Than the Spiritual Manhood, Fortified and Sustained by Wisdom and Thought

Quotation (3): Christ Jesus Inside of Us; “Blood” of God; Vicarious Salvation; Importance of the Image of God

Quotation (4): Treasure of the Egyptians; Falsehood of the Vicarious Salvation; Celestial Jerusalem; Bloodshed Is Inversion of the Divine Order

Quotation (5): Bible, Collection of Parables About the History of the Soul: Persons, Peoples, Animals etc, Are Symbols – To Materialize the Symbols Is to Commit Idolatry

Text (1): Concerning the Genius or “Daimon” (Guardian Angel) (Anna Kingsford)

SPIRITUALITY VERSUS PSYCHISM

Text (1): Concerning the Genius or “Daimon” (Guardian Angel) (Anna Kingsford)

TEMPTATION OF THE SERPENT

Quotation (1): Bible, Collection of Parables About the History of the Soul: Persons, Peoples, Animals etc, Are Symbols – To Materialize the Symbols Is to Commit Idolatry

TREE OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL, OR TREE OF LIFE (IN EDEN)

Quotation (1): Bible, Collection of Parables About the History of the Soul: Persons, Peoples, Animals etc, Are Symbols – To Materialize the Symbols Is to Commit Idolatry

VEGETARIANISM

Quotation (1): Christ Jesus Inside of Us; “Blood” of God; Vicarious Salvation; Importance of the Image of God

Quotation (2): Vegetarian Movement: Redeemer of the World

Quotation (3): Treasure of the Egyptians; Falsehood of the Vicarious Salvation; Celestial Jerusalem; Bloodshed Is Inversion of the Divine Order

Text (1): Anna Kingsford, Buddhist Christianity and Vegetarianism (Arnaldo Sisson Filho)

Text (2): The Banquet of the Gods (Anna Kingsford)

Text (3): Concerning The Three Veils Between Man And God (Anna Kingsford)

Text (4): Vegetarianism and the Bible (Edward Maitland)

Text (5): The Bible and Flesh Eating (Bertram McCrie)

VICARIOUS SALVATION (ATONEMENT)

Quotation (1): Crucifixion, Resurrection and the Doctrine of Vicarious Atonement Which, As Ordinarily Understood, Is Idolatrous, Blasphemous, and Pernicious in the Highest Degree

Quotation (2): Christ Jesus Inside of Us; “Blood” of God; Vicarious Salvation; Importance of the Image of God

Quotation (3): Treasure of the Egyptians; Falsehood of the Vicarious Salvation; Celestial Jerusalem; Bloodshed Is Inversion of the Divine Order

WINE (BREAD AND WINE)

Quotation (1): Once the Veil of Symbolism is Lifted All Churches Are Akin, and the Basic Doctrine of All Is identical

WOMAN

Quotation (1): The “Woman” Is Not a “Woman”, But the Soul, and the Intuition

Quotation (2): The Son of God, Is No Other Than the Spiritual Manhood, Fortified and Sustained by Wisdom and Thought

Quotation (3): Bible, Collection of Parables About the History of the Soul: Persons, Peoples, Animals etc, Are Symbols – To Materialize the Symbols Is to Commit Idolatry

(TO) WORK IS TO PRAY

Quotation (1): To Labour Is to Pray

QUOTATIONS AND TEXTS

LETTER “A”

– Adam

– Allegorical and Non-Literal Meaning

– Anna Kingsford

– Armor of Michael

– Atonement (Vicarious Salvation)

ADAM

Quotation (1): “Adam,” “Eve,” “Christ,” and “Mary” and the Rest – Denote the Various Spiritual Elements Constituting the Individual

Quotation (2): Adam and Eve

Quotation (1): “Adam,” “Eve,” “Christ,” and “Mary” and the Rest – Denote the Various Spiritual Elements Constituting the Individual

“The subject of her second lecture (…) was the second clause of the Creed: “And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord; who is conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary.”

Concerning this clause, she said that in insisting upon the esoteric signification as alone true and of value, we are but reverting to the ancient and original usage.

It is the acceptance of the Creed in its exoteric and historical sense which is really modern. For all sacred mysteries were originally regarded as spiritual, and only when they passed from the hands of properly instructed initiates into those of the ignorant and vulgar, did they become materialised and degraded to their present level.

The esoteric truth of this article of the Creed can be understood only through a previous knowledge, first, of the constitution of man, and next, of the meaning of the terms employed in the formulation of religious doctrine.

This doctrine represents perfect knowledge of human nature, and the terms in which it is expressed – “Adam,” “Eve,” “Christ,” and “Mary” and the rest – denote the various spiritual elements constituting the individual, the states through which he passes, and the goal he finally attains in the course of his spiritual evolution.

For, as St. Paul says, “these things are an allegory”; and in order to understand them it is necessary to know the facts to which they refer. Knowing these, we have no difficulty in recognising the origin of such portraiture and in applying it to oneself.

Thus “Adam” is man external and mundane merely, yet in due time developing the consciousness of “Eve” or the Soul – for the soul is always the “Woman” – and becoming a dual being consisting of matter and spirit.

As “Eve,” the Soul falls under the power of this “Adam,” and becoming impure through subjection to matter, brings forth Cain, who, as representing the lower nature, is said to cultivate the fruits of the ground.

But as “Mary,” the Soul regains her purity, being said to be virgin as regards matter, and polarising to God, becomes mother of the Christ or Man regenerate, who alone is the begotten Son of God and Saviour of the man in whom he is engendered. Wherefore Christ is both process and the result of process. Being thus, he is not “the Lord,” but “our Lord.” The Lord is Adonai, the Word, subsisting eternally in the heavens; and Christ is his counterpart in man.” (Edward Maitland. Life of Anna Kingsford, Vol. II, pp. 197-198; emphasis added)

Quotation (2): Adam and Eve

“Eve is the moral Conscience of Humanity made subject to Adam – the intellectual Force – and thereby all Manner of Evil and Confusion abounds, since her Desire is unto him, and he rules over her until now. But the End foretold by the Seer is not far off.” (Anna Kingsford. Clothed with the Sun. See the illumination V: Concerning the Interpretation of the Mystical Scriptures; emphasis added)

ALLEGORICAL AND NON-LITERAL MEANING

Quotation (1): Bible, Collection of Parables About the History of the Soul: Persons, Peoples, Animals etc, Are Symbols – To Materialize the Symbols Is to Commit Idolatry

Quotation (2): Bible Presents the Fall and Redemption of the Souls Under the Form of Symbols and Parables

Quotation (3): “New” Gospel of Interpretation: Appealing to the Intellectual As Well As to the Devotional Side

Quotation (1): Bible, Collection of Parables About the History of the Soul: Persons, Peoples, Animals etc, Are Symbols – To Materialize the Symbols Is to Commit Idolatry

“The Bible, in short, may be defined as a collection of parables setting forth the history of the Soul from its first descent into matter, to its final return to its original condition of pure spirit. And as the Soul undergoes the same process whether it be one or many – a person, a church, a race, or even the universe at large – the narrative that sets forth, or the parable that represents the history of one, does so equally of all. And the same terms, which are three in number, comprise the entire process.

These are Generation, Degeneration, and Regeneration, and these, therefore, as applied to the Soul, are the subject of the Bible, as we shall presently show, and not the physical history of any person or people whatever, though described in terms derived from persons and people. And to take such persons, people, or other symbol from their proper place as symbols, and, ignoring their true signification, to pay to them the honour due only to that signification is, in biblical language, to commit idolatry. For, in so doing, we materialise spiritual mysteries, and accord to the Form the regard due only to the Substance. Whenever we understand the things of Sense where the things of Spirit are alone implied, and so conceal the true features of Divinity with false and spurious presentations, we commit what the Bible regards as the most abhorrent of sins, and make ourselves idolaters, and, at the same time, identify ourselves with that materialistic school which is fast overspreading the world with the avowed object of eradicating the very idea of God and the Soul.

For “Idolatry is Materialism, the common and original sin of men, which replaces Spirit by Appearance, Substance by Illusion, and leads both the moral and intellectual Being into error, so that they substitute the nether for the upper, and the depth for the height. It is that false fruit which attracts the outer senses, the bait of the serpent in the beginning of the world” (Clothed With the Sun, Part I, Nº. v.); and this alike for the race and for each individual who has ever lived, for all are liable to its attraction.

We ought then to know, for the right understanding of the mystical scriptures, that in their esoteric, or interior and real, sense, they deal, not with material things, but with spiritual realities; and that neither is Adam an actual man, but denotes rather the lower personality or intellectual force in every human being; nor is Eve an actual woman. But denotes the feminine element in every human being, namely, the Soul or moral conscience; and she is therefore called the “Mother of the Living” or spiritually alive, namely, those in whom the Soul has attained self-consciousness.

Nor is Eden an actual place, but a condition of innocence prior to a fall from a height attained. Nor is the Tree of Life in its midst an actual tree, but God standing in the midst of the Universe as its life. Nor is man made all at once in the image of God, but only after long ages of development, beginning in the lowest forms of vegetable life, and passing upward through many forms, till he reaches the human form; and even then he is not made in the image of God, is not truly man in the Bible and mystic sense. For in this sense it takes something more than the man physical, more than the man intellectual, more, even, than the man moral, to be a man.

To be made in the image of God he must attain his spiritual majority, through his development of the consciousness of his spiritual nature. He must be soul as well as body; Eve as well as Adam; as on the physical, so on the spiritual plane, he requires the woman to make him man, and the mystic woman is his Soul. Prior to her advent, he is man materialistic and rudimentary merely, human in form only, and an animal in all else.

But she comes at length, manifested as alone the Soul can be, when his lower self is wrapped in deep slumber, and he awakes to find himself wholly man, in the image of God, male and female, in that he represents the two aspects, masculine and feminine, of Deity, the divine power and the divine love, and also the Seven Spirits through whom God creates all things. Thus constituted he is indeed Man, for he is a manifestation of God, by whose spirit, working within him, he has been created. And thus created has been and will be every man who ever lived or will live.” [Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland. Addresses and Essays on Vegetarianism, chapter Vegetarianism and the Bible, pp. 216-218; emphasis added)

Quotation (2): Bible Presents the Fall and Redemption of the Souls Under the Form of Symbols and Parables

“Only let us once read the Bible with vision, unobscured by a veil of blood, and undistorted by prejudice, and its whole mystery – the mystery of our fall and of our redemption – becomes clear as the cloudless sky. For then we can trace as occurring in our own souls the whole process from beginning to end which the Bible from Genesis to the Revelation sets forth under types and parables precisely after the manner of our Lord Himself.” (Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland. Addresses and Essays on Vegetarianism, chapter Vegetarianism and the Bible, p. 221; emphasis added)

Quotation (3): “New” Gospel of Interpretation: Appealing to the Intellectual As Well As to the Devotional Side

“In an age distinguished, as is the present, by all-embracing research, exhaustive analysis, and unsparing criticism, no religious system can endure unless it appeals to the intellectual as well as to the devotional side of man’s nature. At present the faith of Christendom is languishing on account of a radical defect in the method of its presentation, through which it is brought into perpetual conflict with science; and the harassing and undignified task is imposed on its supporters of an incessant endeavour to keep pace with the advances of scientific discovery, or the fluctuations of scientific speculation. The method whereby it is herein endeavoured to obviate the suspense and insecurity thus engendered, consists in the establishment of these two positions: –

(1) That the dogmas and symbols of Christianity are substantially identical with those of other and earlier religious systems.

(2) That the true plane of religious belief lies, not where hitherto the Church has placed it, – in the sepulchre of historical tradition, but in man’s own mind and heart; it is not, that is to say, the objective and physical, but the subjective and spiritual; and its appeal is not to the senses but to the soul. And,

(3) That thus regarded and duly interpreted, Christian doctrine represents with scientific exactitude the facts of man’s spiritual history.” (p. lxxii) (Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland. From Preface to the Second (Revised) Edition, of The Perfect Way; or, the Finding of Christ; emphasis added)

ANNA KINGSFORD

Text (1): Brief Chronology of Anna Kingsford’s Life; Brief Biographical Information and Works

Text (2): Anna Kingsford – Her Life and Work) (Samuel H. Hart)

Text (3): Anna Kingsford – Obituary (Helena P. Blavatsky)

Text (4): Anna Kingsford, Buddhist Christianity and Vegetarianism (Arnaldo Sisson Filho)

Text (5): Why the “Anna Kingsford Site” Was Created? (Arnaldo Sisson Filho)

Book (1): The Perfect Way; or, the Finding of Christ (Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland)

Text (1): Brief Chronology of Anna Kingsford’s Life; Brief Biographical Information and Works

BRIEF CHRONOLOGY OF ANNA KINGSFORD’S LIFE

1846 – Annie Bonus is born at 5:00 PM on September 16, 1846, in Stratford, Essex, England.

1859 – Writes her first book: “Beatrice: A Tale of the Early Christians”; writes poetry.

1865 – Her father dies.

1867 – Marries Algernon Godfrey Kingsford.

1868 – Her daughter Eadith is born; writes stories for “The Penny Post” until 1872.

1872 – Buys and edits “The Lady’s Own Paper”.

1873 – Begins preliminary medical studies in London; corresponds with Edward Maitland.

1874 – First meeting with Edward Maitland and the start of their collaboration on esoteric studies; begins medical school in Paris.

1875 – Begins a ten-year period of “dream visions.”

1880 – Obtains her medical degree.

1881 – Studies esoteric texts with Edward at the British Museum; gives lectures in London.

1882 – Lectures published in “The Perfect Way; or, The Finding of Christ”.

1883 – Becomes President of the London Lodge of the Theosophical Society; campaigns against vivisection in Switzerland and Scotland; has a falling-out with A.P. Sinnett.

1884 – Meets Helena Blavatsky; founds the Hermetic Society.

1885 – “All kinds of lectures, in homes, invitations and engagements, medical and literary work” (Diary).

1886 – Travels to Europe for health treatment, but without success.

1887 – Travels to the Riviera and Italy for medical treatment; returns to London in July: health is very poor.

1888 – Passes away on February 22 at the age of 41 years and 5 months. His mother dies in March.

BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

ANNA BONUS KINGSFORD (16/Sep/1846-22/Feb/1888) was an outstanding figure in many ways. She wrote books of the greatest insight and value in the field of religious thought and vegetarianism. She was a woman of exceptional talents in other fields also: a medical doctor, a campaigner for women’s rights and for vegetarianism, and an ardent opponent of vivisection. Despite the constant ill health that plagued her short life, Anna made contributions of the greatest value for the well-being of humans and animals.

Annie Bonus was born at Maryland Point, Stratford, Essex, England at 5.00 pm on 16 Sept. 1846. John Bonus her father was a rich City merchant and ship owner of Italian descent. Anna, as the youngest of twelve children and suffering poor health, was alone much of the time.

Anna was what we now call psychic from a very early age, being aware of phantoms of the dead, of the physical and spiritual states of the living, and her foresight of impending deaths was always accurate. She soon learnt to keep her insights to herself to avoid the inevitable ridicule, and disagreeable lectures from the family doctor.

Both orthodox Christianity and materialism had only contempt for the spirit world, often persecuting people with psychic abilities. Liberating the human spirit from the deadening clutches of false Christianity and gross materialism was to become the major goal of Anna’s life.

Anna married her cousin Algernon Godfrey Kingsford (in 1867), on the condition that, once married, she would be free to pursue her own interests. Anna studied her husband’s Anglican faith and also Roman Catholicism. In 1870 she was received into the Roman Catholic Church, being drawn by its ritual and the mystical aspects. She adopted the Christian names Anna Mary Magdalen Maria Johanna. However, she was always critical of priestcraft and the materialism of the Church.

Anna took up medical studies in order to open up avenues to other subjects, and to aid her in her fight for the causes she believed in. Women were not allowed to qualify as doctors in England, but could do some of their study there. Anna commenced her medical studies in 1873 in England and went to Paris in 1874 for her main studies. She shuttled back and forwards between Paris and England until she received her M.D. in 1880. In her diary Anna wrote that she had an overwhelming ambition to change the world and achieve glory, and that her bodily suffering was Karma for her “sins of the flesh” in former lives.

Anna’s life became intertwined with that of Edward Maitland (27/Oct/1824-2/Oct/1897). Their collaboration began in February 1874 when Edward visited Anna and her husband at the vicarage, staying for two weeks. Algernon did not oppose their close (and platonic) relationship. Considering the course of their respective lives, it is not difficult to believe that the mysterious hand of fate brought Anna and Edward together. Had Edward’s wife not died, he would not have been free to collaborate with Anna, and he might have stayed in Australia and never have met her.

Anna was often in contact with the spirit world during her sleep, and collaborated with Edward in writing down what they called her “illuminations.” In 1881 she gave a number of lectures based on her illuminations to a select audience in London. In the following year these lectures were published as The Perfect Way; or, the Finding of Christ. It is their major work, and a fourth edition of this book was published in 1909.

In his essay In Memoriam to the Rev. G.J.R. Ouseley, Samuel Hopgood Hart wrote about the book The Perfect Way, quoting the Rev. Ouseley:

“We had a long talk together, but with some difficulty on account of his deafness. When I told him of my interest in the teaching of The Perfect Way, he said, in his opinion it was “the brightest and best of all revelations that had been given to the World”. In a letter to the magazine Light (1882, p. 475) he described The Perfect Way as “the most wonderful of all books which have appeared since the Christian era”. But he despaired of the world ever receiving it, because “the world had always rejected the Truth; had always crucified Christ and his doctrine, and would it not do so again?” Of this, however, he was sure; “The Church of the future would be the Church of The Perfect Way”.

Maitland collected together some of Anna’s illuminations and published them as Clothed in the Sun in 1889. Maitland’s final work was a two volumes biography of Anna (1896): Anna Kingsford, Her Life, Diary and Work. Anna Kingsford died at noon on 22 Feb. 1888, ending Maitland’s eighteen hours vigil at her side. She was buried at Atcham.

WORKS BY ANNA KINGSFORD (Chronological Order):

Beatrice: a Tale of the Early Christians. London, 1863.
River Reeds. Poems anonymously published, London, 1866.
Rosamunda, the Princess, and Other Tales. James Parker & Co., London, 1868, 1875. With 24 illustrations.
The Perfect Way in Diet. Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., London, 1881. 121 pp. Second edition: 1906. Based on her Medicine graduation thesis.
The Perfect Way; or, the Finding of Christ. In collaboration with Edward Maitland. Hamilton, Adams & Co., London, 1882. Enlarged and revised Edition: Field and Tuer, London, 1887. 3^rd Edition: 1890. Fifth edition, with additions, and a Biographical Preface by Samuel Hopgood Hart: John M. Watkins, London, 1923. 405 pp.
The Virgin of the World. A translation of Hermetic manuscripts. Introductory essays (on Hermeticism) and notes by Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland. George Redway, London, 1885. Also in Madras: P. Kailasam Brothers; Spiritualistic Book Depot, 1885. 154 pp.
Astrology Theologized: the Spiritual Hermeneutics of Astrology and Holy Writ. Subtitle: A Treatise upon the Influence of the Stars on Man and on the Art of Ruling Them by the Law of Grace. George Redway, London, 1886. 121 pp. Reprinted from the original work by Valentini Weigelius of 1649. Translation and prefatory essay on Hermeticism by Anna Kingsford.
Health, Beauty and the Toilet: Letters to Ladies from a Lady Doctor. Frederick Warne and Co., London and New York; 1886. 232 pp. 2^nd Edition in the same year.

WORKS POSTHUMOUSLY PUBLISHED (Chronological Order):

Dreams and Dream Stories. Edited by Edward Maitland. George Redway, London, 1888. 281 pp.
Clothed with the Sun: Being the Illuminations of Anna (Bonus) Kingsford. Edited by Edward Maitland. First edition: John M. Watkins, London, 1889. Second edition: The Ruskin Press, Birmingham, 1906. Third Edition: edited by Samuel Hopgood Hart, 1937. Sun Books (reprint), Santa Fe, 1993. 210 pp.
Addresses and Essays on Vegetarianism. (KINGSFORD, Anna and MAITLAND, Edward.) John M. Watkins, London, 1912. Edited by Samuel Hopgood Hart.
The Credo of Christendom: and other Addresses and Essays on Esoteric Christianity. (KINGSFORD, Anna and MAITLAND, Edward.) Edited by Samuel Hopgood Hart. John M. Watkins, London, 1916. 256 pp.

Text (2): Anna Kingsford – Her Life and Work

ANNA KINGSFORD – HER LIFE AND WORK (1)

(Samuel Hopgood Hart)

[Part of which is contained in articles in Light,

September 1930, pp. 472, 486 and 508.]

ANNA KINGSFORD was born at Maryland Point, Stratford, in Essex, on the 16th of September 1846. It is now nearly forty-three years since she was with us – she having died on the 22nd of February 1888, at the comparatively early age of forty-one.

But, during her short life, what a work she accomplished! The benefits of that work we are to-day reaping, although many know it not.

Fortunately, her friend and collaborator, the late Edward Maitland, has left for us, in his last and greatest work The Life of Anna Kingsford, which was published some few years after her death, a record of her life and teaching, the value and importance of which cannot be measured.

It is the history of a soul, a book which Edward Maitland was assured “would educate the world more than all else, by shewing how the divine life can be led and the faculties opened to divine truth, and that to get that truth, the divine life must be led.”

Of notable persons (other than Edward Maitland) who knew and have left records of Anna Kingsford, the late W.T. Stead who is well known to the readers of this Journal, in his Review of Reviews (15th January 1896, p. 75) wrote as follows:

– “I remember Anna Kingsford. Who that ever met her can forget that marvellous embodiment of a burning flame in the form of a woman, divinely tall and not less divinely fair!

I think it is just about ten years since I first met her. It was at the office of the Pall Mall Gazette, which I was editing in those days. She did not always relish the headings I put to her articles. She was as innocent as the author of The Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich of the necessity for labelling the goods in your shopwindow in such a way as to attract attention, but we were always on good terms, being united by the strong tie of common antipathies.

I saw her once at her own place, when, I remember, she wore a bright red flower – I thought it was a great gladiolus, but it may have been a cactus, which lay athwart her breast like a sword of flame. Her movements had somewhat of the grace and majesty that we associate with the Greek gods; and as for her speech – well, I have talked to many of the men and women who have in this generation had the greatest repute as conversationalists, but I never in my life met Anna Kingsford’s equal.

From her silver tongue as in a stream, ‘strong without rage, without o’erflowing full,’ her sentences flowed in one unending flood. She talked literature. Had an endless phonograph been fitted up before her so as to be constantly in action, the cylinders might have been carried to the printer, and the copy set up without transcription or alteration.

Never was she at a loss for a word, never did she tangle her sentences or halt for an illustration. It was almost appalling after a time. It appeared impossible for her to run dry, for you seemed to feel that copious as was her speech it was but as a rivulet carrying off the overflow of an ocean that lay behind.”

Anna Kingsford, the youngest of twelve children, and born long after her immediate predecessor, was the daughter of John Bonus, a prosperous merchant and shipowner in the City of London. Her mother, whose maiden name was Schroder, was of both Irish and German descent.

She inherited from her father a constitution that was fragile from birth, but from no ancestor did she inherit the faculties, tendencies, or characteristics manifested by her. These, Edward Maitland says, were entirely her own, and were due “not to physical, but to spiritual heredity, that of her own former selves.”

In her childhood, which was one of loneliness and isolation, it was her chief delight to lose herself in the garden where, we are told:

“(…) she would associate with the flowers on even terms, holding converse with them as sentient beings, and putting into their petals tiny notes addressed to the fairies with whom her fancy tenanted them, and with whom, in virtue of her own fairy-like form, rich golden hair, and deep-set hazel eyes, by turns eager and dreamy, she might well claim affinity.

Indeed, in these early days she used to declare that she was really one of them, of fairy and not of human lineage, and to cherish a secret persuasion that only by adoption was she the child of her parents, her true home being in fairy land (…).

She could even recall, she believed, her last interview with the queen of that lovely country, the prayers with which she had sought permission to visit the earth, and the solemn warnings she had received of the suffering and toil she would undergo by assuming a human body, which in her case, she was assured, would greatly exceed those ordinarily allotted to mortals. But she had persisted in coming, being impelled by an overpowering impression of some great and necessary work, on behalf both of herself and of others, which she alone could perform, to be accomplished by her. And her coming had not separated her from her fellow-fairies, for they were wont to visit her in dreams.

And so real were they for her that, when taken for the first time to see a pantomime, the sight of the fairies in their airy costumes and floral abodes was the signal for her to declare aloud that they were her proper people, and she belonged to them, and to cry and struggle so vehemently to get to them that it was necessary to remove her from the theatre.”

As she grew up, she read widely, but with this peculiarity – “all that she read struck her as already familiar to her, so that she seemed to herself to be recovering old recollections rather than acquiring fresh knowledge.”

The faculty of seership had manifested itself at a very early age, and had brought her into trouble with her parents who reproached her as though accountable for events she had foreseen, and “exhibitions of abnormal faculty entailed references to the family physician, with results at once disagreeable and injurious to her.”

Her aptitudes for music, singing, drawing, and painting were such as to procure from her teachers earnest recommendations to a professional career, but the only result was a discontinuance of her lessons, through a fear lest she should be induced by her consciousness of ability to adopt the suggestion.

Under such adverse conditions for development as these, she turned her attention to writing, and it was in verse chiefly that she at first sought relief from uncongenial surroundings and expression for her ideas. The quality of her poems, while still a child, was such as to win for them admission into various magazines.

Her first book was written at the age of thirteen. Her writing, she said, came to her ready-made, she had but to write it down. A small volume of her poems, all written before she was seventeen, was published soon after her father’s death, which took place in 1865, and was dedicated to his memory.

Her girlhood does not appear to have been happier than her childhood. She was sent to a fashionable school at Brighton to “finish her education,” where “they confounded the cravings of a large and highly vitalised nature for expansion and unfoldment with the wilfulness of a rebel against all the proprieties, and accordingly regarded her as one whose example could not fail to be detrimental to others.”

While she was strong of will and independent of judgment, she was “bent on the meanings of things as against their appearances” and was “heedless of persons where principles were concerned,” and she keenly resented injustice and oppression.

Thus, while her talents were recognised, her character was mistaken. We are told that “her curiosity respecting religious subjects was an especial cause of offence; and some of her severest school-impositions were incurred through her persistence in demanding from the clergyman who superintended that portion of the school curriculum explanations of the rationale of the doctrines inculcated. She could not be made to comprehend why the desire to understand, so laudable in respect of other subjects, should in the case of religion be accounted an impertinence and even a profanity.”

In after years, at a time of illness and great depression, realising what a life of incessant struggle, reproach and loneliness lay before her if she were to continue the fight against cruelty and injustice to which she had devoted her life, and looking back to the time of her girlhood and childhood, she wrote:

“I long for a little rest and peace. The world has grown very bitter to me. I feel as if everyone were dead … And behind me, as I look back on the road by which I have come, all is storm and darkness. I fought my way through my lonely, sad-hearted childhood; I fought my way through my girlhood, misunderstood and mistrusted always; and now, in my womanhood, I am fighting still.

On every side of me are rebuke and suspicion, and bitter, abiding sorrow. Pain and suffering of body and of spirit have hung on my steps all the years of my life. I have had no respite. Is there never to be peace? Never to be a time of sunlight that shall make me glad of my being?”

Some two years after her father’s death, she had the good fortune to meet Miss Theobald, a well-known spiritualist who lived at Hastings, to which place the Bonus family had then moved, and through her she obtained an introduction to Spiritualism. In Miss Theobald she found one in whom she could confide, and she told her of the visions she had all her life had, and how the doctors had declared they were due to over-excitement of the brain; and how she had, like many others, suffered much from physicians, and received good from none.” But, she said, “I know it is no fancy. I am sure I see all these things; and it is not caused by illness.”

The outcome of this meeting was that through Miss Theobald she became assured of the immortality of the soul which at that time she doubted. She had asked Miss Theobald if she could get a message for her, and a message came purporting to be from her father who said “how sorry he was to have brought her up in such erroneous ideas, and urged her to investigate Spiritualism, as it would bring evidence of the future state, and of his power to come to her and help her.” Miss Theobald says that this message “came to her with conviction. She believed it and accepted it as genuine.”

An important step in Anna Kingsford’s life was her marriage. On the 31st of December 1867, she married her cousin Algernon Godfrey Kingsford, who, shortly after, decided to take Orders. This necessitated his studying theology, in which he was accompanied by his wife, who thus made herself a “complete master of Anglican theology.”

At this time she had a severe illness which had the effect of enhancing her spiritual faculty by lifting it to a more distinctly religious sphere “wherein glimpses were obtained of interpretations and correspondences hitherto unsuspected by her, one especial effect being to impress her with a keen aversion to the religious system in which she had been reared, for its hardness, coldness, and meagreness, and its utter unrelatedness to her own spiritual needs, intellectual or emotional.”

The next important step in her life took place in 1870, when she joined the Roman Catholic Church. Through a small number of Catholic friends, she had obtained some knowledge of their Church, and had learnt to appreciate the atmosphere, at once devotional and artistic, that environed them, in contrast to what she had experienced among her own co-religionists. But the determining cause of her action was of an abnormal kind:

“It consisted in her receipt of nocturnal visitations, three in number, from an apparition purporting to be that of St. Mary Magdalen, who announced herself as the patron of souls of her Order, and bade her join the Roman communion as a step requisite for the work in store for her, the nature of which would in due time be communicated to her.”

This led to her seeking priestly counsel, when she was told that her experience, though of rare occurrence, was recognised by the Church as being orderly and regular, and as a mark of special grace and favour, and “one not to be disregarded without incurring grave responsibility.” Commenting on this, Edward Maitland says:

“Thus, was accomplished the second great step in what proved to be her education for the task which awaited her; for to her knowledge of Anglican theology, she now added that of Catholic doctrine, by making of it as careful a study as of the former. It must be stated, however, in view of her subsequent unfoldments, that no question had as yet arisen for her as between the two presentments of Christianity, the ecclesiastical and the mystical.

She accepted the Roman as against the Protestant, the Catholic as against the sectarian, the aesthetic and emotional as against the inartistic and formal, not the ecclesiastical and objective as against the spiritual and subjective. For of the existence of the alternative presentation she had yet to become aware. Meanwhile she retained complete independence, both in mind and act, declining spiritual direction, and only as the impulse took her did she avail herself of the offices of the Church.”

Three years later, in a letter to Edward Maitland, she said:

“By adoption and profession, I am a member of that most conservative of Churches, the Roman Catholic, but by conviction I am rather a pantheist than anything else, and my mode of life is that of a fruit-eater.”

It was subsequently shewn to her that the Catholic Church had the whole of the truth in a parable, that the truth was wholly spiritual, and that the Church had materialised it.

Being full of the idea which possessed her respecting a work in store for her, she had on her marriage made it a special condition thereof that it should not fetter her in respect of any career to which she might in after life be prompted – a condition which, it should be noted, was throughout their married life most honourably observed by her husband, who, a few years after, was appointed Vicar of Atcham, near Shrewsbury.

Atcham lying low on the banks of the Severn, and being liable to floods, proved at certain seasons, to be an impossible place of residence for Anna Kingsford, who suffered from asthma, which she regarded as her gadfly from which she was ever seeking to escape by change of place. She was at times forced to quit her home at daybreak, after keeping the household up all night, and to drive to the nearest town in order to escape suffocation. It was only in a large city that she was safe from this trouble.

Finding continuous residence at the Vicarage impracticable and being impelled irresistibly to activities for which a country life afforded no scope, in or about 1872, she became the proprietor of The Ladys Own Paper, editing it herself and dividing her time between London and her home. By this means she sought to give expression to her ideas.

It was in the exercise of her functions as editor of this paper that she became aware of the existence of vivisection, and it was in the columns of her magazine that was sounded the first note of the crusade which has since been waged against the atrocities of the physiological laboratory.

From that time the suppression of this “modern Inquisition” became one of the foremost aims of her life. She thus found what proved to be an important part of her mission, and so far as she was concerned the magazine had served its purpose. It had not been a financial success, and she decided to give it up.

She had already determined to take up the study of medicine with a direct view to qualify herself for accomplishing the abolition of vivisection “which she regarded with a passionate horror as the foulest of practices, whether as regards its nature or its principles.” The question of food-reform was also an object she had in view in coming to a decision regarding her future work.

A short time previously, under the tuition of her brother, Dr. John Bonus, she had adopted the Pythagorean regimen of abstinence from flesh-food, with such manifest advantage to herself, physically and mentally, as to lead her to see in it the only effectual means to the world’s redemption, whether as regards men themselves or the animals.

Man carnivorous and sustaining himself by slaughter and torture was not for her Man at all in any true sense of the term. She held that:

“That which is morally wrong cannot be scientifically right, and that to seek one’s own advantage regardless of the cost to other sentient beings is to renounce humanity itself – inasmuch as it is not the form but the character which really makes the man – and to degrade those who do so to the sub-human and infernal.”

We now find Anna Kingsford seriously working to qualify herself to pass the examinations that lay before her, and which she must pass in order to obtain the medical degree that she sought in aid of her work.

It was in the Spring of 1873. She was then living at Hinton Hall, near Pontesbury, in Shropshire (of which parish her husband had become one of the three Rectors), when she received from a lady, who lived at a distance, a stranger to her, a letter saying that she – the writer of the letter, who signed her name “Anna Wilkes” – had read with profound interest and admiration a story that had been written by Anna Kingsford and published in The Lady’s Own Paper, and, after reading it, had received from the Holy Spirit a message for her which was to be delivered in person. Would Mrs. Kingsford receive her, and when? After a little hesitation the permission desired was accorded, and an appointment made.

An account of the meeting has been given by Anna Kingsford as follows:

“At the hour named I met her on the way while she was driving from the station and was at once struck by her manner and appearance, and subsequently by her conversation, as much as I had been by her previous communication.

She was tall, erect, distinguished looking, with hair of iron-grey and strangely brilliant eyes. She told me that she had received a distinct message from the Holy Spirit and had been so strongly impressed to come and deliver it to me in person that she could not refrain.

Her message was to the effect that for five years to come I was to remain in retirement, continuing the studies in which I was engaged, whatever they might be, and the mode of life on which I had entered, suffering nothing and no one to draw me aside from them, and when these probationary and preparatory five years were passed, the Holy Spirit would drive me forth from my seclusion to teach and to preach, and that a great work would be given me to do.

All this she uttered with a rapt and inspired expression, as though she had been some sibyl delivering an oracle. And when she had ended, seeing, no doubt, my look of surprise, she asked me if I thought her mad – a question to which I was at some loss to reply; for I had encountered nothing of the kind before, and was disposed to share the impression which all ordinary and worldly folk have always had concerning those who profess to be prophets.

Having delivered her message, my prophetess kissed me on both cheeks and departed. And on subsequently reflecting upon my own experiences in receiving communications in dream and vision, and beholding apparitions, and also upon the singular accordance between the purport of the message and my own impression from childhood upwards, my sense of its strangeness became greatly diminished.”

In the same year, Anna Kingsford, having read in the Examiner a notice of a tale written by Edward Maitland which interested her, wrote to him; and after some correspondence he accepted an invitation to the Shropshire parsonage.

The visit took plane in February 1874 and proved to be a turning-point in both their lives. There was sympathy between them on the spiritual plane. They saw truth alike. They had been brought together by powers that they both recognised as divine, and for a work, no less divine, that they must accomplish together. They each had a mission, and, as events proved, it was a joint one.

During this visit Edward Maitland first came to know of Anna Kingsford’s psychic faculty under the following circumstances. They were discussing the possibility of there being an inner and philosophical sense to Scripture and Dogma, which, if ascertained, would remove religion from its basis of authority and tradition, and establish it on the understanding, when Anna Kingsford, as if just recollecting something which had escaped her memory, rose and fetched a manuscript of her own writing, asking Edward Maitland to read it, and tell her frankly what he thought of it. He says: –

“Having read and re-read it, I enquired how and where she had got it, to which she replied by asking my opinion of it. I answered with emphasis, that if there were such a thing as divine revelation, I knew of nothing that came nearer to my idea of what it ought to be. It was exactly what the world was perishing for want of – a reasonable faith.

She then told me that it had come to her in sleep, but whence or how she did not know; nor could she say whether she had seen it or heard it, but only that it had come suddenly into her mind without her having ever heard or thought of such teaching before.

It was an exposition of the story of the Fall, exhibiting it as a parable having a significance purely spiritual, wholly reasonable, and of universal application.

Physical persons, things, and events described in it disappearing in favour of principles, processes, and states appertaining to the soul; no mere local history, therefore, but an eternal verity.”

It was thus that Anna Kingsford disclosed to Edward Maitland the existence of her psychic faculty, a confidence that was made with no small apprehension on her part, “for she knew that by any other of her acquaintance her revelation would have been stigmatised as folly and her faculty as insanity.”

In the Spring of the following year, 1875, Edward Maitland first obtained proof of her possession of clairvoyant powers in circumstances fully related in her Biography above referred to.

We must pass over the details of Anna Kingsford’s life as a medical student at the University of Paris, to which she was compelled to go for her degree, which she obtained in 1880, when she became entitled to practice as an M.D. of the Faculté de Paris, a privilege obtained at the utmost cost in toil and suffering, both physical and mental.

During this period, she had from time to time the benefit of the help and companionship of Edward Maitland, which, at her husband’s request, was freely and unselfishly given, and without which she could not have stood the strain, endured the hardships, and overcome the difficulties that beset her path.

On obtaining her medical degree, she, with the help and support of Edward Maitland, soon became recognised as the foremost opponent of her day to Vivisection, and as the chief Apostle of a humane, pure and bloodless diet.

Everybody should read her and Edward Maitland’s Addresses and Essays on Vegetarianism, which is one of the best books on the principles of Vegetarianism that has been written. On the question of Vegetarianism, she said:

“I consider the vegetarian movement to be the most important movement of our age: I believe this because see in it the beginning of true civilisation. My opinion is that up to the present moment we do not know what civilisation means. When we look at the dead bodies of animals, whether entire or cut up, which with sauces and condiments are served at our tables, we do not reflect on the horrible deed that has preceded these dishes: and yet it is something terrible to know that every meal to which we sit down has cost a life.

I hold that we owe it to civilisation to elevate the whole of that deeply demoralised and barbarised class of people, butchers, cattle-drovers and all others who are connected with the deplorable business. Thousands of persons are degraded by the slaughterhouse in their neighbourhood, which condemns whole classes to a debasing and inhuman occupation.

I await the time when the consummation of the vegetarian movement shall have created perfect men, for I see in this movement the foundations of perfection. When I perceive the possibilities of vegetarianism and the heights to which it can raise us, I feel convinced that it will prove the redeemer of the world.”

In a sermon, written by her for her husband, and having for its text “Open the mouth for the dumb” (Pro. XXXI 8.), regarding the rights of animals in general to humane treatment, she said: –

“There are a great many people who seem to think that man’s duties begin and end with man; and that if they tell the truth habitually, forbear from injuring their neighbours, and eschew theft, dishonesty and the like, nothing else is required of them by God in their relation towards other creatures. But not only every human being, but every living being has its rights; and justice in the highest form should be applied to it in all our actions. I say that a lame or infirm horse has a right to claim that it should not be worked; and just as one man should be protected from ill-treatment by another, so, on the same principle, ought all animals to be protected from ill-treatment.”

No consideration can justify the torture which in the name of “Science” has been and is inflicted on the animal creation, who are “our dumb friends” and “our lesser brethren,” even though it be done as is sometimes claimed “for the benefit of humanity” – not for one moment admitting that humanity can benefit by inhumanity, otherwise the house, which is the house of life, would be divided against itself, and “good purposes should be the directors of good actions, not the apologies for the bad ones.”

Thus, in answer to an attack made by Miss P. on an address given by her to the Zetetic Society, Anna Kingsford said: –

“It is morally permissible to use the lower animals for the benefit of man, but not to abuse them. Miss P. confounds use and abuse. In using an animal humanely and intelligently, both the user and the used benefit, the one by the service rendered, the other by the education and discipline obtained.

Miss P. assumes that I would ride a horse to death to save a friend. No, I would not, because the horse is my friend also. I would urge him so far as reason and humanity permit, and for the rest I would have faith in God. The hypothesis of the vivisector is that of the atheist. By it all possibility of God’s help is omitted from the system of things. The scalpel, the saw, and the pincers are to do everything for man. Prayer and love and will, and all that is divine in him, are to do nothing.

Under the doctrine of modern vivisectional science the nations are fast becoming atheistic. ‘If,’ say the people, ‘it be necessary in order to know, and in order to obtain health and healing, that deeds abhorrent to moral feeling should be performed, then, obviously, Justice is not the essential principle of the universe, and religion has no substantial basis.’ I am doing my best to show both that knowledge is the supremely good thing, and that it is to be got by divine methods.”

With the enhancement of her psychic faculties, which occurred in 1876, she became and during the remainder of her life continued to be the recipient of Divine Illuminations which, after her death, were published in Clothed with the Sun. They were received by her mostly in sleep.

Some of them dealt with the profoundest subjects of cognition such as the procession of Deity, or Original Being, from static to dynamic, from passive to active, from unmanifest to manifest, from abstract to concrete, from universal to individual.

Others disclosed the method at once of Creation and .of Redemption, shewing the method to be one, and the direction only to be different, being as centrifugal and centripetal, evolutional and involutional; while others dealt with such subjects as Inspiration and Prophesying; Sin and Death; Christian Pantheism; The Communion of Souls (which was received by Anna Kingsford in sleep, and is considered by some to be one of the finest pieces of composition in the English language); The Origin of Evil; The Fall; The Gospels; The Christian Mysteries; The Dogmas of the Catholic Church; The Soul and Her Nature; The Great Work; The Redemption; Vicarious Atonement (the doctrine of which is condemned as false and pernicious); and there are those wonderful and beautiful “Hymns to the Gods”; and some of the Illuminations contain allusions to Jesus (whom Anna Kingsford declared she remembered) and his teaching, and to St. Paul (who is accused of having misrepresented the teaching of Jesus), and to other Biblical characters.

There are references also to the Great Pyramid, which was built for initiations, one of which is described. All are subjects of the greatest interest. These Illuminations, or some of them, are regarded by many as sacred scripture. Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland looked upon them as inspired. Some of them appear to be recoveries, by memory of the Soul, of ancient rituals long lost to the world.

From what has been written – and much more might be added in support – it will be seen that an explanation of Anna Kingsford’s character and psychic memories is to be found in the doctrine of reincarnation – a doctrine that both she and Edward Maitland could not but accept as true, and one that, among the Theosophists of their time, they were the very first to proclaim.

Until the receipt by Anna Kingsford of an Illumination on the subject, they were at a loss for any explanation that they could regard as satisfactory regarding the facts of their lives. The Illumination referred to was the one on “Inspiration and Prophesying,” and it was received by Anna Kingsford in February 1880, under the following circumstances.

Edward Maitland had been seeking a test whereby to distinguish true inspiration from false, and having been greatly perplexed over the matter, had mentally begged for an explanation. Shortly afterwards his delight was great when Anna Kingsford brought him an instruction, which had been received by her in sleep during the night which cleared up the mystery and without her having been aware of his need and request. The instruction, which had been written out by Anna Kingsford on waking, read as follows: –

“I heard last night in my sleep a voice speaking to me, and saying: –

You ask the method and nature of Inspiration, and the means whereby God revealeth the Truth.

Know that there is no enlightenment from without; the secret of things is revealed from within.

From without cometh no Divine Revelation; but the Spirit within beareth witness.

Think not I tell you that which you know not; for, except you know it, it cannot be given to you.

To him that hath it is given, and he hath the more abundantly.

None is a prophet save he who knoweth; the instructor of the people is a man of many lives.

Inborn knowledge and the perception of things, these are the sources of revelation; the soul of the man instructeth him, having already learned by experience.

Intuition is inborn experience; that which the soul knoweth of old and of former years.

And illumination is the light of wisdom, whereby a man perceiveth heavenly secrets.

Which light is the Spirit of God within the man, showing unto him the things of God.

Do not think that I tell you anything you know not: all cometh from within; the Spirit that informeth is the Spirit of God in the prophet (…)

Thou who art a prophet hast had many lives; yea, thou hast taught many nations, and hast stood before kings.

And God hath instructed thee in the years that are past; and in the former times of the earth.

By prayer, by fasting, by meditation, by painful seeking hast thou attained that thou knowest.

There is no knowledge but by labour; there is no intuition but by experience.

I have seen thee on the hills of the East; I have followed thy steps in the wilderness; I have seen thee adore at sunrise; I have marked thy night-watches in the caves of the mountains.

Thou hast attained with patience, O prophet; God hath revealed the truth to thee from within.” (Clothed with the Sun, pp. 4-6)

In an Illumination concerning the interpretation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Maria, which was in July 1877, received and written by Anna Kingsford while in a condition of trance, she was told: –

“The Church knows not the source of its dogmas. We marvel also at the blindness of the hearers, who indeed hear, but who have not eyes to see. We speak in vain – ye discern not spiritual things. Ye are so materialised that ye perceive only the material. The Spirit comes and goes; ye hear the sound of its voice; but ye cannot tell whither it goeth nor whence it cometh.

All that is true is spiritual. No dogma of the Church is true that seems to bear a physical meaning. For matter shall cease, and all that is of it, but the Word of the Lord shall remain for ever. And how shall it remain except it be purely spiritual; since when matter ceases, it would then be no longer comprehensible?

I tell you again, and of a truth – no dogma is real that is not spiritual. If it be true and yet seem to you to have a material signification, know that you have not solved it. It is a mystery; seek its interpretation. That which is true is for Spirit alone.” (Clothed with the Sun, p. 9)

Letters and words, as we know them, may be and must be used, but the language of the Church throughout all ages has never been of this world. It is addressed to the soul and not to the senses.

After Anna Kingsford obtained her medical degree she was free, not only to prosecute the great work which had inspired her to enter the medical profession, but also to join with Edward Maitland in what they regarded as their appointed mission – that of unsealing or interpreting the Bibles of the West.

The purpose of their collaboration, as stated by Edward Maitland, being “the restoration of the esoteric philosophy or Theosophy of the West, and the interpretation thereby of the Christian and kindred religions”; and having materials for lectures in their possession and in abundance, they decided to open their campaign by giving the series of lectures, which, in 1881, they gave to a private and select audience, and which, in the following year, were published under the title of The Perfect Way; or the Finding of Christ.

The book, which was their joint production, at once met with the greatest praise and enthusiasm from the few spiritually-minded who were able to judge of its merits, but otherwise by the representatives of orthodoxy and materialism who were unable to withstand its attacks on their respective strongholds; and, to-day, after the many years that have passed and books that have been written since its publication, it is recognised as being one of the best and greatest books on esoteric and spiritual – which is the true – Christianity that has been given to the world.

The book, which was intended to make known the revelation received by Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland, and which they regarded as a new “Gospel of Interpretation,” was largely written from or as the result of Illuminations which had then been received by them. It represents the restoration of the “Key of Knowledge,” with the taking away and withholding of which Jesus so bitterly reproached the ecclesiastics of his time. Baron Spedalieri, the disciple of the late “Eliphas Levi (1) after reading it, wrote: –

“Humanity has always and everywhere asked itself these three supreme questions: Whence come we? What are we? Whither go we? Now these questions at length find an answer, complete, satisfactory, and consolatory in The Perfect Way.” (The Perfect Way, Preface to the Second Edition, p. lxxx)

Lady Caithness, Duchess de Pomar, regarded it as “the most complete revelation, certainly, that has ever been given to man on this planet.” Writing to Lady Caithness on the subject, Anna Kingsford said: –

“Strange indeed it would be if our Book should find universal acceptation in a world which rejected Christ! But those who do recognise our teachings do so not warmly only, but enthusiastically.

Of one thing I am sure; which is, that the Doctrine of which our Book is the first Apostle will sooner or later become the headstone of the corner; for it is the only doctrine capable of explaining the otherwise insoluble enigmas of the universe, and embodying the philosophy in which are united all the elements of every divine revelation vouchsafed to mankind. By it Christian and Buddhist, Parsee and Hebrew, Greek and Egyptian, are brought into harmony, and shewn to be only so many different dialects of one Catholic language. The Perfect Way is thus an Eirenicon (2), and the Peacemaker is the Child of God.”

In a joint letter from “The Writers of The Perfect Way,” which appeared in Light (23rd Sept. 1882), they said: –

“The Perfect Way seeks to consolidate truth in one complete whole, and by systematising religion to demonstrate its catholicity. It seeks to make peace between Science and Faith; to marry the Intellect with the Intuition; to bring together East and West, and to unite Buddhist philosophy with Christian love, by demonstrating that the basis of religion is not historical, but spiritual – not physical, but psychic – not local and temporal, but universal and eternal.”

Not only was Anna Kingsford the recipient of Divine Illuminations such as those to which reference has been made, she was also a great dreamer – perhaps the most remarkable of which there is any record. She would dream complete stories and verses of poetry which, on waking, she would write out. Her “Dreams and Dream Stories” were, after her death, published in the book of that title, edited by Edward Maitland. Many of them were in the nature of instructions in the form of stories intended for her guidance.

Much more of interest might be said of this dear and truly great woman who was “no stranger to heavenly visions and voices,” and of her collaborator Edward Maitland and their work and teaching, but space will not permit. Those who would know more, must seek it in her Biography above referred to ([The Life of Anna Kingsford, by Edward Maitland, two volumes).

The latter years of her life were rendered doubly hard by reason of her physical disability and failing health. But her mission was ever before her, and she worked on to the end, which occurred on the 22nd of February 1888, when she withdrew to higher realms – not unknown to her – to continue under more favourable conditions her work for God and Humanity to which she had devoted her life.

In a message subsequently received from her for Edward Maitland, he was informed as follows: –

“She rejoices to let you know that the suffering she enjoyed – yes, enjoyed – was the ladder that led her spirit upward, ever upward. She knows now that, had that suffering not chained her spirit to her material frame, the power she possessed would have been of no use in this sphere of earth. For had her body not suffered, her knowledge could never have been expressed but must have remained in her inner self as a dream, one day to be realised.”

In the early part of their married life, Anna Kingsford wrote many sermons for her husband. In one, wherein she described “the true Man of God in all ages,” I feel that we have the personal testimony of a sufferer. She says: –

“The World esteems him not – it does not know his greatness; it does not recognise his real strength. When he dares to stand up alone before its face and brave its displeasure and its opposition, the World is amazed at the man’s temerity.

It sends out its hosts to crush him like a worm – ignorant in its blindness that he is not alone. It sees only the solitary figure standing unshielded and unprotected in the teeth of its rage and indignation and prepares to sweep him away with a blast of its mighty wrath.

But the Man is greater than the World. Unseen by common eyes an invincible Host protects him. He only knows his own power, and conscious of that power, he dares defy the armies of earth. Who are the protectors of the Man of God? Who are these invisible warriors who defend and save him? They are the powers and the graces whose names are written in the Word of God: – Fortitude, Purity, Steadfastness, Hope, Love, Valour, Sincerity, Patience, Longsuffering, Wisdom, Meekness, and all the mighty gifts of the Spirit of God.

This is the Celestial Host whose arms are more than a match for the assaults of the World. By the help of this great armament every Saint has conquered, every Man of Genius has withstood and has won the day. The thousands of good and great men and women who one by one have fought the World and vanquished it gloriously.

They have been despised and rejected, persecuted, ridiculed, rebuked, threatened – all in vain. They knew, each one of them, standing alone before the great array of their adversaries, that ‘those who were with them were more than those who were against them’.”

Croydon. Michaelmas (29th of September), 1930.

NOTES

(1) Part of the content of this essay appeared in articles in the September 1930 issue of Light magazine, pp. 472, 486 and 508. It was later published as a booklet by Mr. Samuel Hart himself. Mr. Brian MacAllister kindly photocopied this booklet and sent it to us for initial publication on the Anna Kingsford website (www.annakingsford.com).

(2) Eirenicon: A work written by Rev. E.B. Pusey, in three parts (1865-1870), being an attempt to find a common ground for the reunification of Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism.

Text (3): The Late Mrs. Anna Kingsford, M.D. – Obituary (Helena P. Blavatsky)

THE LATE MRS. ANNA KINGSFORD, M.D. – OBITUARY

(Helena P. Blavatsky)

“We have this month to record with the deepest regret the passing away from this physical world of one who, more than any other, has been instrumental in demonstrating to her fellow-creatures the great fact of the conscious existence – hence of the immortality – of the inner Ego.

We speak of the death of Mrs. Anna Kingsford, M.D., which occurred on Tuesday, the 28th of February, after a somewhat painful and prolonged illness. Few women have worked harder than she has, or in more noble causes; none with more success in the cause of humanitarianism. Hers was a short but a most useful life. Her intellectual fight with the vivisectionists of Europe, at a time when the educated and scientific world was more strongly fixed in the grasp of materialism than any other period in the history of civilization, alone proclaims her as one of those who, regardless of conventional thought, have placed themselves at the very focus of controversy, prepared to dare and brave all the consequences of their temerity. Pity and Justice to animals were among Mrs. Kingsford’s favourite texts when dealing with this part of her life’s work; and by reason of her general culture, her special training in the science of medicine, and her magnificent intellectual power, she was enabled to influence and work in the way she desired upon a very large proportion of those people who listened to her words or who read her writings. Few women wrote more graphically, more takingly, or possessed a more fascinating style.

Mrs. Kingsford’s field of activity, however, was not limited to the purely physical, mundane plane of life. She was a Theosophist and a true one at heart; a leader of spiritual and philosophical thought, gifted with the most exceptional psychic attributes. In connection with Mr. Edward Maitland, her truest friend – one whose incessant, watchful care has undeniably prolonged her delicate ever-threatened life for several years, and who received her last breath – she wrote several books dealing with metaphysical and mystical subjects. The first and most important was The Perfect Way, or the Finding of Christ, which gives the esoteric meaning of Christianity. It sweeps away many of the difficulties that thoughtful readers of the Bible must contend with in their endeavours to either understand or accept literally the story of Jesus Christ as it is presented in the Gospels.

She was for some time President of the “London Lodge” of the Theosophical Society, and, after resigning that office, she founded “The Hermetic Society” for the special study of Christian mysticism. She herself, though her religious ideas differed widely on some points from Eastern philosophy, remained a faithful member of the Theosophical Society and a loyal friend to its leaders. (1)

She was one, the aspirations of whose whole life were ever turned toward the eternal and the true. A mystic by nature – the most ardent one to those who knew her well – she was still a very remarkable woman even in the opinion of the materialists and the unbelievers. For, besides her remarkably fine and intellectual face, there was that in her which arrested the attention of the most unobserving and foreign to any metaphysical speculation. For, as Mrs. F. Fenwick Miller writes, though Mrs. Kingsford’s mysticism was “simply unintelligible” to her, yet we find that this does not prevent the writer from perceiving the truth. As she describes her late friend, “I have never known a woman so exquisitely beautiful as she who cultivated her brain so assiduously. (…) I have never known a woman in whom the dual nature that is more or less perceptible in every human creature was so strongly marked – so sensuous, so feminine on the one hand, so spirituelle, so imaginative on the other hand.” (2)

The spiritual and psychic nature had always the upper hand over the sensuous and feminine; and the circle of her mystically-inclined friends will miss her greatly, for such woman as she are not numerous in the same century. The world in general has lost in Mrs. Kingsford one who can be very ill-spared in this era of materialism. The whole of her adult life was passed in working unselfishly for others, for the elevation of the spiritual side of humanity. We can, however, in regretting her death take comfort in the thought that good work cannot be lost nor die, though the worker is no longer among us to watch for the fruit. And Anna Kingsford’s work will be still bearing fruit even when her memory has been obliterated with the generations of those who knew her well, and new generations will have approached the psychic mysteries still nearer. (3) (Helena Blavatsky. H.P. Blavatsky Collected Writings, Vol. IX, pp. 89-91. First published in the magazine Lucifer, Vol. II, nº. 7, March 1888, pp. 78-79)

NOTES

(1) Note from the original text: Both Mr. Maitland and Mrs. Kingsford had resigned from the “London Lodge of the Theosophical Society,” but not from the Parent Society.

(2) Note from the compiler of the work H.P. Blavatsky Collected Writings: “Woman: Her Position and Her Prospects, Her Duties and Her Doings,” Lady’s Pictorial, London, March 3, 1888.

(3) Note from the original text: The statement made by some papers that Mrs. Kingsford did not find her resting place in psychic force, for “she died a Roman Catholic,” is utterly false. The boasts made by the R.C. Weekly Register (March 3 and March 10, 1888) to the effect that she died in the bosom of the Church, having abjured her views, psychism, theosophy, and even her The Perfect Way, and writings in general, have been vigorously refuted in the same paper by her husband, Rev. Algernon Kingsford, and Mr. Maitland. We are sorry to hear that her last days were embittered by the mental agony inflicted upon her by an unscrupulous nun, who, as Mr. Maitland declared to us, was smuggled in as a nurse – and who did nothing but bother her patient, “importune her, and pray.” That Mrs. Kingsford was entirely against the theology of the Church of Rome, though believing in Catholic doctrines, may be proved by one of her last letters to us, on “poor slandered St. Satan,” in connection with certain attacks on the name of our Journal, Lucifer. We have preserved this and several other letters, as they were all written between September 1887 and January 1888. They thus remain eloquent witnesses against the pretensions of the Weekly Register. For they prove that Mrs. Kingsford had not abjured her views, not that she died “in fidelity to the Catholic Church.” (Emphasis added)

[https://ideas4betterworld.com/the-late-mrs-anna-kingsford-m-d-obtuary/]

Text (4): Anna Kingsford, Buddhist Christianity and Vegetarianism (Arnaldo Sisson Filho)

ANNA KINGSFORD, BUDDHIST CHRISTIANITY AND VEGETARIANISM (1)

(Arnaldo Sisson Filho)

[Presentation by Viviane Pereira]

“Raised in a Roman Catholic family, Arnaldo Sisson Filho began his search early for answers to the questions that guide our existence. He studied at Roman Catholic schools and, in his late teens, questioning everything he had learned up to that point, he became a materialist, an adherent of Marxism.

Within this context, he chose to study Economics to better understand the political and social issues of the world. Later, seeking answers to paranormal phenomena, he met the Theosophical Society and became a member, traveling to various parts of the world, seeking and disseminating knowledge. It was at a lecture of this organization that he met the person who would lead him to vegetarianism in 1973.

After witnessing paranormal, or psychic, phenomena, he immersed himself in the search for knowledge, studied religions, and found in the work of Dr. Anna Kingsford (considered the mother of modern vegetarianism) and Edward Maitland the answers he sought. There he discovered essential information to rescue Christianity. “It is religion that is at the base of Western civilization, which today dominates the world, for good or for evil,” he assesses.

In addition to spreading the work of those he considers great prophets, Arnaldo’s mission is to share the knowledge acquired in his pilgrimage. His new challenge is a work he is preparing on Buddhist Christianity: “Buddhism and Christianity are traditions that were born to complement each other.”

In this interview, he talks a little about these projects, the importance of religiosity in the current moment the world is experiencing, and vegetarianism within this context.”

Why did you become a vegetarian?

I was 19 years old, concerned about having a healthy body; I had quit smoking and drinking. I encountered paranormal phenomena, or psychic phenomena. For example, I had lost a friend in a car accident, and she began to appear to other friends, and I didn’t believe any of it. I thought it was all an illusion, a fantasy. And some friends I had known for many years said: this is happening, she is manifesting herself. I went to check it out and realized that there was some truth behind it. It was a time when I wanted to investigate all this phenomenology called paranormal or, in my language, psychic phenomenology – which concerns the psyche, the supra-physical part of our human constitution.

In the context of this questioning, I went to a lecture by the Englishman, Mr. John Coats – he was an international speaker for the Theosophical Society and later its international president. After the lecture, I spoke with him and presented questions that intrigued me. He invited me for a chat, and the next day I had lunch with him at the home of a vegetarian yoga teacher where he was staying.

We spent the whole afternoon talking; he had been a vegetarian for many years and showed me that if I was on the path, on the search, becoming a vegetarian was the natural next step. As a good gaucho, raised on barbecue, I believed that meat proteins were important for good health. Calmly, I asked him: “Mr. John, isn’t meat necessary for our good nutrition?”

With the same kindness, he took out a file containing a series of articles, reports, and data on vegetarianism and began to show me that it was possible to live very well, and even better, as a vegetarian. He addressed the aspect of animals, the cruelty implicit in it, told me about his journey, and all these things made a deep impression on me. He even showed me arguments of an economic nature, about how the solution to world hunger might be linked to vegetarianism.

I am very grateful for how much this person helped me, for the good example and positive influence he had in my life. At that moment, I decided to study the issue scientifically and that if I found a scientific basis for becoming a vegetarian, I would never eat meat again. I looked for some books on nutrition and in less than a month I had come to the conclusion that I could be a vegetarian and live very well. I never ate meat again.

Does the Theosophical Society have any inclination towards vegetarianism?

Yes, although the founder of the Society, Madame Blavatsky, was not a vegetarian. In the Theosophical Society there is a strong tendency in favor of vegetarianism. It is not mandatory, but the Society has already done a lot for vegetarianism and, just as I am grateful to Mr. John Coats, by extension I am grateful to the Theosophical Society for bringing this beneficial influence into my life. Many authors of this Society have done a lot for vegetarianism.

You encountered the work of Dr. Anna Kingsford, considered the mother of modern vegetarianism. In her work, the defense of vegetarianism is very evident. What is her main argument in this defense?

Dr. Anna Kingsford went to study medicine at a time when women were not even accepted into medical schools in England – we are talking about the mid-19th century. At the University of Paris, women had only recently been accepted. There was controversy among the professors: many said that women were not suited for the study of medicine, that they did not have the emotional constitution for it.

The few women who studied had to be very good students to pass the subjects whose professors believed that women were not suited for the study and practice of the medical profession. She did this because she wanted to scientifically promote vegetarianism. Her thesis was called “On Vegetarian Nutrition for the Human Being”. It was a scientific defense of vegetarianism – perhaps its first major academic defense.

This work is a landmark in the history of vegetarianism and is impressive because the arguments she uses are the main arguments of vegetarianism to this day. Later, she translated this work into English and published it in 1881 in England under the title “The Perfect Way in Diet” – an adaptation of the thesis for a more general audience (this work is free, in its entirety, on the Anna Kingsford website –www.annakingsford.com).

What does she address in this work?

She discusses the social aspects of vegetarianism, as well as humanitarian aspects, including cruelty to animals. As a doctor, she also addresses health issues, such as how the consumption of meat and animal fat is associated with certain illnesses; she discusses obesity, alcoholism, among many others. She even talks about environmental factors – such as how the leather industry affected the health of rivers in England.

It is a work approved by the University of Paris and a landmark in the history of contemporary vegetarianism. The arguments she uses are impressive for their time, from the philosophical and religious foundation, through the medical and general health issues, to the socioeconomic aspects.

Regarding religion, why is it important to be vegetarian?

All religions worthy of the name tell us that God is love and that religion means approaching and living love to the point where we become, or merge with love and the will of God.

As the philosopher Plotinus said, “the eye only managed to see the Sun because it assumed its miniature form” – it’s an analogy that demonstrates that if we want to approach the great love that is at the heart of this universe, we must begin by being a tiny love in this universe. We must assume this form of God, of loving-kindness, even in miniature.

Vegetarianism is the natural expression of love, of sensitivity, of not inflicting unnecessary suffering in our lives. This is the most obvious aspect of vegetarianism that is directly associated with religiosity – developing within yourself, even in miniature, divine love.

We must remember the great law of action and reaction: if we are sowing cruelty and pain towards animals in the world, we will reap pain. That is what we are reaping: increasing violence, aggression, ever-greater environmental instability, and emerging diseases.

Do you think religion can help spread vegetarianism and love for animals, this feeling of protecting and defending animals?

Not only can it, but it should. One of the things I find most fascinating about Dr. Ana Kingsford’s work is that she, as a Christian, understood the importance of rescuing this knowledge within the context of Christianity, knowledge that has been lost over the centuries. A text by her and her great colleague Edward Maitland shows that vegetarianism was an integral part of true Christianity. That true Christianity is vegetarian. And not in the distorted way they want to present it to us today. The text is titled “Vegetarianism and the Bible,” and it’s free on Anna Kingsford’s website: www.annakingsford.com

Religion not only can but should help promote vegetarianism because true religion is that which makes us, even in miniature, mirrors of divine love. And vegetarianism is a natural expression of divine love.

At what point in Christianity was this idea of vegetarianism lost, and why did this loss occur?

The history of Christianity is complex and full of conflicts. We find this conflict already evident in the letters of Saint Paul: he shows Jewish-Christian communities that were in favor of vegetarianism and others, within Christianity, that were not vegetarian.

These communities began to argue among themselves from that time, and there are letters from Saint Paul seeking to harmonize, indicating that they should not accuse each other. With these conflicts already existing within Christianity, as it became the official religion of the Roman Empire, it became corrupted. Christianity, since then, has renounced things that were essential, and has become influenced by vulgar politics, making concessions to the world and its dominant status quo, especially in Rome, and from there, forcibly imposing this degeneration.

Christianity adapted to the prevailing reality.

It adapted in a degenerate way. And, in this way, we have what we call Christianity today, which is not true Christianity; it is a distorted and anti-Christian form. Today, only a few sacred symbols and a few still divine things remain of true Christianity.

In this stage of becoming the religion of the Roman Empire, Christianity began to be used by politicians and priests in a distorted way, in conflict with the true prophets who were linked to divine will and wisdom. These changes ended up excluding the fundamental knowledge of vegetarianism from Christianity.

Do you perceive a greater awareness regarding the vegetarian option today?

There is no doubt about it. It’s a palpable thing in the world. I think that even within Christianity itself we can observe this in an initial way.

To what reason do you attribute this progress?

I attribute it to the work of people who have given and continue to give their lives for it. It’s always like that. Humanity’s progress always depends on a few who sacrifice for it. Around the world, there are people who dedicate their time and energy to promoting vegetarianism. In our time, there’s a movement to reclaim a more genuine religiosity, and vegetarianism naturally emerges within this movement, although still in its initial stages. We need to make much more progress.

Many people say that energetically, eating meat is harmful, for meditation, for connecting with one’s inner self. Have you found this to be true in your studies?

It has a significant influence. This is ancient knowledge of humanity: in antiquity, true mystics, saints, and prophets already spoke of this. It’s nothing new. If there is anything new, it’s this degeneration that has occurred. Eating meat heavily affects our psychic and psycho-spiritual capacity. As a student, I learned this from many sources, both in the East and the West.

Within Christianity, there is Good Friday, when one cannot eat red meat. In the past, there was Lent, a 40-day period of restriction. What was that like, and what has it become?

These are remnants; this recognition of not eating meat is something that has remained. In Orthodox Christian communities, which separated from Rome many centuries ago, this knowledge is more explicit, and fasting takes place throughout Lent – they don’t eat meat during the entire Lent period, but they can on Sundays. In Roman Catholicism, Good Friday remains, even then only with red meat.

Why? What is the argument?

The argument used is that during this period it is necessary to participate in the sacrifice of Christ, to combat gluttony, for example. Today, and for centuries, it has been considered a penance. It’s a remnant of a way of saying: this is the best, it should be like this. But the idea has become so lost that for several centuries, not eating meat has been considered a sacrifice, a penance.

Being vegetarian is merely a preliminary foundation, a recognition of the importance of benevolence in our lives. For people who want to delve deeper into true religious life, vegetarianism is a base, and these people need to move towards a purer diet.

Dr. Ana Kingsford brings the knowledge that we should not only migrate to vegetarianism, but also increasingly consume raw foods in our diet, as they have tremendous importance for the psychic vitalization of our bodies. To become more psychically sensitive people, it would be very important for us to eat more raw foods, as much as possible.

What is the basis of Dr. Ana Kingsford’s defense of raw food?

She addresses this topic in several texts, within the limitations of resources imposed at the time. There is a text, translated on our website, called “The Banquet of the Gods.” This text is a dialogue between her and demigods. It is an account of a perception, a psychic vision. In it, she describes a banquet where the gods say that the diet of those who want to draw closer to them, who want to advance to the more advanced stages of spiritual realization, must be basically raw food. She tells us that Ephaistos, the god of fire, is a destroyer, and that as he passes through food he leaves dead, lifeless things, with very harmful effects on health and psycho-spiritual perception.

Today, with scientific knowledge, we can go further. We can know, for example, that enzymes and many vitamins are destroyed by cooking, that many vitalizing properties of food are lost with a large increase in temperature.

Why do you dedicate yourself to philosophy and religion? Why did you take this path in your life?

Out of a search for justice, to bring, especially to the most needy people, well-being, happiness not only in physical terms, but also psychological and spiritual happiness, that is, true inner peace.

In my search for solutions to the conflicts of excessive social inequality, I came to realize that the economic question depends on the political question, which depends on the philosophical question, which depends on the religious question. It’s like a domino effect where one inevitably influences the other.

Mr. Krishnamurti, that great thinker and prophet of the 20th century, stated that religion is the foundation of any civilization. The ultimate questions and ideas – why we are here, what we came to do, what the constitution of the human being is, these deeper ideas that define a purpose for our existence – are fundamental because they determine the rest of our existence, both individually and collectively. If religion is the foundation of any civilization, then the great institutions of the world, as they exist today, are the “children” of religious degeneration, or of materialism, which in many aspects is even worse. This is a fact. Thus, if we want to find solutions to the world’s problems, we need to recover philosophical and religious truth before anything else.

Is religion at the base of this social transformation?

When we deny religion, as materialists try to do, we don’t renounce metaphysical ideas, but simply end up with a bad metaphysics. Even so, you need ideas that are beyond the physical. You can’t live without them, either individually or collectively.

Regarding animals, does animal rights also involve awareness in this area, of equality, of equity?

Yes, it does. If we defend animals based on a materialist philosophy, we end up making a mistake. A religious philosophy is like a map that guides our lives. If you have a bad map, you’ll follow the wrong paths. If you have a good map, you still have a chance of not arriving, because the road is still difficult, full of challenges. But if you don’t even have a decent map, how will you get there? Then there’s no chance at all. The world today is guided by very flawed maps, both in the religious and socio-political fields.

Within philosophy and religion, ethics is very present; it’s at the core. Ethically speaking, it doesn’t seem right that an animal like a cat or dog should be treated with affection while another animal is tortured or murdered.

How do people resolve this within their religions to justify these attitudes, people who live within a certain religious ethic?

It doesn’t resolve itself. They live their lives with this incongruity, this contradiction, even in the case of so-called religious people. In one area of life they believe in one thing, in another they believe something else. One day they act one way, another day another way. In one place they act one way, at work one way, at home another way, at church another way. People’s lives are full of incongruities because the philosophy that governs their lives is deficient, misguided. That’s why this work of seeking improvements, seeking greater truthfulness, more light, in the philosophical and religious field is so important.

You created Dr. Kingsford’s website (www.annakingsford.com) to spread her work. What are your future plans within the objective of projecting this message?

The work of spreading and continuing the message of these prophets is vast. The objectives of the “New” Gospel of Interpretation (as Kingsford and Maitland called this message) are as broad as “opening the Bibles of the world,” “raising the level of the religious ideal, removing it from the external and physical plane to the internal and spiritual plane, and thus defeating the dominion of materialism over moral life,” or even, “the restoration of true Christianity, esoteric and spiritual.”

Today, our plans are to continue translating the main works of Kingsford and Maitland, writing and publishing works, especially those presenting this message, and also developing websites, videos, and holding meetings and lectures.

We are finalizing the translation of Anna Kingsford’s text on the Creed of Christianity, which will soon be available on the website. We are also publishing a work on Buddhist Christianity (The Wheel and the Cross: An Introduction to Buddhist Christianity), because these prophets taught us that Buddhism and Christianity are traditions that were born to complement each other, as two aspects of the same great Catholic gospel, that is, universal.

Since resources are needed to do this more broadly, we are developing some projects that aim, among other things, to provide us with more resources for this work in the future. One of these projects is a farm for planting trees. This project aims both to generate resources and to transform this farm into a center for environmental education, as well as a retreat, peace, and the dissemination of spiritual forces. The location is in the Federal District, next to the Fundamental Stone Monument.

NOTE

(1) Interview conducted by journalist Viviane Pereira on May 2009. Published in summary form in Revista dos Vegetarianos (June 2009). Year 3, Number 32, pp. 18-20.

Text (5): Why the “Anna Kingsford Site” Was Created?

WHY THE “ANNA KINGSFORD SITE” WAS CREATED?

(Arnaldo Sisson Filho)

First of all, I want to express my gratitude to Leslie Price for the suggestion about writing this article.

The first great reason that motivated the construction of the Anna Kingsford Site was the desire to help in the understanding of the original Christianity and, through that, to help in the great intellectual reform which the world so urgently needs, because, as it was already written:

“At the present moment there are two things about the Christian religion which must be obvious to every percipient person; one, that men cannot do without it; the other, that they cannot do with it as it is.” (Matthew Arnold, quoted in The Perfect Way, Preface to the Second Edition, p.lxxi )

The understanding of these two aspects may generate different interpretations, but we can at least explain some facts related with these two aspects.

First, that Christianity, as the heir of the Greek-Roman civilization is one of the pillars of the western civilization, for the good and for the bad – western civilization that is amply dominating the world of our days. This aspect alone should already be enough to support the statement that the present world cannot do without Christianity.

Second, that the ideas and the great institutions of the western civilization (which are hegemonic in the world) are generating immense problems, in relations of which they will never present consistent solutions, since they themselves are at the core of these problems. These ideas and institutions, in their turn, are leading the world in the direction of gigantic catastrophes. In summary, the western civilization needs a great reform in its philosophic-religious fundaments, and in its great institutions derived from these fundaments.

The current Christianity, as well as the crass materialism of dominant scientific thought, which are the main sustaining columns of this civilization model, need to be reformed and reoriented towards true principles. And the world, if it wants to avoid the catastrophes that are coming, cannot live longer under the dominion of these false principles and their consequent unjust and incompetent great institutions. This vision is not new and it is in agreement with important writings from the early times of the Theosophical Society, as in the example of the two following quotations:

“To be true, religion and philosophy must offer the solution of every problem. That the world is in such a bad condition morally is conclusive evidence that none of its religions and philosophies, (…) have ever possessed the truth.

The right and logical explanations on the subject of the problems of the great dual principles – right and wrong, good and evil, liberty and despotism, pain and pleasure, egotism and altruism – are as impossible to them now as they were 1881 years ago. They are as far from the solution as they ever were but, To these there must be somewhere a consistent solution, and if our doctrines will show their competence to offer it, then the world will be the first one to confess that must be the true philosophy, the true religion, the true light, which gives truth and nothing but the truth.” (Mahachohan. Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, 1st Series, letter n. 1; emphasis added)

“Under the dominion and sway of exoteric creeds, the grotesque and tortured shadows of Theosophical realities, there must ever be the same oppression of the weak and the poor and the same typhonic struggle of the wealthy and the mighty among themselves . . . It is esoteric philosophy alone, the spiritual and psychic blending of man with Nature, that, by revealing fundamental truths, can bring that much desired mediate state between the two extremes of human Egotism and divine Altruism, and finally lead to the alleviation of human suffering.” (Adept. Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, 2nd Series, letter n. 82; emphasis added)

Anna Kingsford, as far as we can see, gave an extraordinary contribution to the understanding of true Christianity. In spite of that, only relatively small attention was given to her works and to her life. Being so, it seemed to us that it would be something relevant to help in making this message more widely known.

After many years of active participation in the Theosophical Society, I had learned that we must help to improve the understanding of the sacred Scriptures of all peoples, in order that these Scriptures may accomplish their hole in the great intellectual reform that is so badly needed. And, in this sense, as I live in the sphere of the Christian western world, it is but natural that one have as an objective to bring to the western populations (and to the world in general), a greater and deeper comprehension of the Christian tradition.

This idea of doing something for Christianity was already occupying my mind for a long time, and in the many years that I was leading the World Theosophical Youth Federation I tried to stimulate some people with sufficient intellectual training to study and to publish on this subject of the origins of Christianity. Nevertheless, as this part of history is not easy to be recovered, I practically could not find people interested in doing so, or with sufficient time and intellectual background to accomplish this task.

Then, when I arrived to know more deeply the writings of Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland, I felt that there was contained an important contribution to the recovery of original Christianity that I was seeking. Therefore, it was mainly due to that reason that I decided to face the task of making this message more widely known.

When I started to study the works by Kingsford and Maitland, already having in mind this purpose of helping Christianity to recover its origins and, therefore, to recover the harmony with the truths of the other great religions (when they are well interpreted), at the same time I was translating into Portuguese the autobiography of the Christian monk Bede Griffiths (The Golden String), which built bridges among the Hindu and the Christian religions. And in the same period of time my wife Marina was writing her biography of Helena Blavatsky [A Esfinge Helena Blavatsky (The Sphinx Helena Blavatsky)]. Reading her writings I observed that the difficult relations among Helena Blavatsky and Kingsford, as well as among Alfred Sinnett and Kingsford (with the consequence of Kingsford leaving the London Lodge), was a great lost opportunity to the understanding and to the realization of the difficult but most important work of the Theosophical Society.

By that time Marina and I were also participating in a group which had the object of creating in Brazil an ecumenical monastery. This group had the leadership of a Christian religious man, who apparently had some psychic faculties, and who brought to me the counsel that “I should study the works of Dr Anna Kingsford, since I was interested in helping Christianity.”

So, it was trying to work in the direction of my old desire of doing something for Christianity, and under the double influence of the researches of my wife and the suggestion brought by this priest, that I started a serious study of the works of Kingsford and Maitland. It did not take a long time for me to realize that those works were very relevant, in the sense of answering to what I was looking for, that is, to help in the recovering of true Christianity.

Naturally, having understood this point, it was a surprise when I saw that those works were not widely known, and in some cases were almost lost, even in the sphere of the Theosophical Society, which has the duty of doing this work of enlighten the religious Scriptures, mainly with the help of the comparative study among the different religions, the philosophical traditions and the modern science.

Therefore, it was as a consequence of this old intention, added to these influences and studies that was born the idea of creating the Anna Kingsford Site. After that decision was taken, we started to collect all the works by Kingsford and Maitland, and of those who wrote about them, or works related to their works, in order to preserve and make more easily accessible this message to the interested people around the world. And for the same reason the Site was developed in two languages, English and Portuguese.

To arrive to the present stage – where practically all the know works by Kingsford and Maitland are online – it took us near 10 years, with the help of several people, both from Brazil and from abroad. In this process we had recovered some books in a surprising way, what suggests that this work deserved the help of the Celestial Church, to use a Christian terminology. Our searches led us to meet new friends, including, as it should be expected, from England, the native country of Kingsford and Maitland.

It is with gratitude that I remember the help received from some English friends: Ralph Johnson, who worked just in front of British Library in London, and who helped us in finding some books that were almost forgotten; also Gabriel Buist, that already passed away, who helped to find and to copy other very rare works from the library of the organization which he was engaged (The Order of the Cross, with headquarters in London); and also Brian G. McAllister (editor of the publication of unknown letters from Edward Maitland), who helped us correcting many English mistakes in the Site, and passed to us some texts from Samuel H. Hart, and also wrote a text about Samuel H. Hart, who was the great continuator of the diffusion of these works, after Maitland passed away.

As to the message brought to the world by Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland, what are the most relevant points in it?

One of its main points, as far as we can see, is the catholicity (universality) of their interpretations of the most important parts of the Christian Scriptures. And that is why their message was named the New Gospel of Interpretation. Actually, as they explain to us, there is nothing new in the message they brought to the world, but, it is the recovery of something that was so forgotten and degraded that, when once recovered, it seems to be something new.

Let us see a quotation that will help the perception of the true catholicity of the message of the New Gospel of Interpretation:

“The Christian Faith is the direct heir of the old Roman faith. Rome was the heir of Greece, and Greece of Egypt, whence the Mosaic dispensation and Hebrew ritual sprang.

Egypt was but the focus of a light whose true fountain and centre was the Orient in general – Ex Oriente Lux. For the East, in every sense, geographically, astronomically, and spiritually, is ever the source of light.

But although originally derived from the East, the Church of our day and country is modelled immediately upon the Greco-Roman mythology, and draws thence all its rites, doctrines, ceremonies, sacraments, and festivals.

Hence the exposition to be given of Esoteric Christianity would deal more especially with the mysteries of the West, their ideas and terminology being more attractive and congenial to us than the inartistic conceptions, the unfamiliar metaphysics, the melancholy spiritualism, and the unsuggestive language of the East.

Drawing its life-blood directly from the pagan faith of the old Occidental world, Christianity more nearly resembles its immediate father and mother than its remote ancestors, and will, therefore, be better expounded by reference to Greek and Roman sources than to their Brahminical and Vedic parallels.

The Christian Church is Catholic, or it is nothing worthy the name of Church at all. For Catholic signifies universal, all-embracing: – the faith everywhere and always received. The prevalent limited view of the term is wrong and mischievous.

The Christian Church was first called Catholic because she enfolded, comprehended, and made her own all the religious past of the whole world, gathering up into and around her central figure of the Christ all the characteristics, legends, and symbols hitherto appertaining to the central figures of preceding dispensations, proclaiming the unity of all human aspiration, and formulating in one grand ecumenical system the doctrines of East and West.

We find in her teachings the Pantheism of the East, and the individualism of the West. She speaks the language and thinks the thoughts of all the children of men; and in her temple all the gods are shrined.

I am Vedantist, Buddhist, Hellenist, Hermetic, and Christian, because I am Catholic. For in that one word all Past, Present, and Future are enfolded.” (The Credo of Christendom, pp. 94-96; emphasis added)

Why this point of the catholicity is so important in our times?

First, because we live in a world each time more interlinked by the satellites, by the communication media, with the paradigmatic example of the Internet, by the air transportation and by the each time more globalized economy.

Second, because we live in a world dominated by the scientific thought, in which it is only by the understanding resulting from logic explanations and, as far as it is possible, supported by empirical demonstrations that the more intellectualized minds may reach the truth.

In relation to the great metaphysical truths – that are so decisive to the advent of a true ethics and of new great institutions – it is only through the comparative method that it will be possible to demonstrate that in all places and in all times the wise ones had thought the same truths. The demonstration of this fact will make evident (among other principles of the greatest relevance) the existence of superior faculties of cognition, faculties that enable the human being to a direct realization of truth. This demonstration and realization alone will necessarily bring a more truthful vision about what is the human being, a vision that is fundamental and decisive to the great intellectual reform in the world dominating ideas. This is summarized in the following quotation from Helena Blavatsky:

“It is only by studying the various great religions and philosophers of humanity, by comparing them dispassionately and with an unbiassed mind, that men can hope to arrive at the truth. It is especially by finding out and noting their various points of agreement that we may achieve this result.” (The Key to Theosophy, p. 58)

The catholicity of the message of the New Gospel of Interpretation is in perfect harmony with this requirement of our age (of logical explanations and based in empirical demonstrations). There are two other aspects that we have to mention, even if very synthetically:

1) In the New Gospel of Interpretation was presented – more clearly than in any other author or book – the necessary union of Christianity with Buddhism. Let us remember here that Buddhism, with its logical and non-theistic fundaments, is well adapted to be the moral basis of an era dominated by the scientific thought.

2) This message is in perfect harmony with the principles of the Esoteric Philosophy (or the Perennial Philosophy), and with the due emphasis to the aspect of the “unity in diversity”, since this point is decisive to the right understanding of the principle of the Universal Brotherhood of Humanity, which is the vision of the human being (collectively considered) derived from the Perennial Philosophy.

This vision is present in all the main religious and philosophic traditions. This aspect, it is important to say, finds corroboration in empirical researches, as we show in our works in the area of Political Science A Consciência Política na Massa (The Political Consciousness in Mass Publics), a Master degree dissertation, UFRGS; and What Is Wrong With Politics? Bases for a True Democracy, where we try to corroborate and to show the relevance of the researches of the American political scientist Philip E. Converse.

We conclude this article with a few more quotations, where these two last mentioned aspects are rightly emphasized and a little more explained:

1) “Christianity, then, was introduced into the world with a special relation to the great religions of the East, and under the same divine control. And so far from being intended as a rival and supplanter of Buddhism, it was the direct and necessary sequel to that system; and the two are but parts of one continuous, harmonious whole, whereof the later division is but the indispensable supplement and complement of the earlier. (…)

But for Buddha, Jesus could not have been, nor would he have sufficed the whole man; for the man must have the Mind illuminated before the Affections can be kindled. Nor would Buddha have been complete without Jesus. Buddha completed the regeneration of the Mind; and by his doctrine and practice men are prepared for the grace which comes by Jesus. Wherefore no man can be, properly, Christian, who is not also, and first, Buddhist.

Thus the two religions constitute, respectively, the exterior and interior of the same Gospel, the foundation being in Buddhism – the term including Pythagoreanism – and the illumination in Christianity. And as without Christianity Buddhism is incomplete, so without Buddhism Christianity is unintelligible.” (The Perfect Way, pp. 250-251; emphasis added)

2) “Of the spiritual union in the one faith of Buddha and Christ, will be born the world’s coming redemption”. (The Perfect Way, p. 252; emphasis added)

3) “Once the veil of symbolism is lifted from the divine face of Truth, all Churches are akin, and the basic doctrine of all is identical (…). Greek, Hermetic, Buddhist, Vedantist, Christian – all these Lodges of the Mysteries are fundamentally one and identical in doctrine. (…)

We hold that no single ecclesiastical creed is comprehensible by itself alone, uninterpreted by its predecessors and its contemporaries.

Students, for example, of Christian theology will only learn to understand and to appreciate the true value and significance of the symbols familiar to them by the study of Eastern philosophy and pagan idealism.

For Christianity is the heir of these, and she draws her best blood from their veins. And forasmuch as all her great ancestors hid beneath their exoteric formulas and rites – themselves mere husks and shells to amuse the simple-minded – the esoteric or concealed verities reserved for the initiate, so also she reserves for earnest seekers and deep thinkers the true interior Mysteries which are one and eternal in all creeds and Churches from the foundation of the world.

This true, interior, transcendental meaning is the Real Presence veiled in the Elements of the Divine Sacrament: the mystical substance and the truth figured beneath the bread and the wine of the ancient Bacchic orgies, and now of ours own Catholic Church.

To the unwise, the unthinking, the superstitious, the gross elements are the objects of the rite; to the initiate, the seer, the son of Hermes, they are but the outward and visible signs of that which is ever, and of necessity, inward, spiritual, and occult.” (Life of Anna Kingsford, Vol. II, pp. 123-124; emphasis added)

4) “My Genius says that we are, above all things, to teach the doctrine of the spiritual grades. The Christians made a serious mistake in requiring the same rule of all persons. Castes are as ladders whereby to ascend from the lower to the higher. They are properly spiritual grades, and have no relation to the outward condition of life. Like all other doctrines, that of Caste has been materialised. The Castes are four in number, and correspond to the fourfold nature of man.” (Clothed With the Sun, Illumination n. XVIII); and, Anna Kingsford – Her Life, Letters, Diary and Work. Vol. II, p. 5; emphasis added)

5) “That great principle of Reincarnation must ever go hand in hand with the principle of Universal Brotherhood if Universal Brotherhood is to be applied, if it is to be made a working principle of ordinary life. For it is out of these differences of age that grow up all the possibilities of an ordered and happy society amongst ourselves.” (Annie Besant. The Changing World, p. 80; emphasis added)

6) “The term “Universal Brotherhood” is no idle phrase. (…) It is the only secure foundation for universal morality. If it be a dream, it is at least a noble one for mankind: and it is the aspiration of the true adept.” (K.H., The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett, Letter n. 4, p. 17; emphasis added)

7) “It is not physical phenomena that will ever bring conviction to the hearts of the unbelievers in the (Universal) “Brotherhood” but rather phenomena of intellectuality, philosophy and logic, if I may so express it.” (K.H., The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett, Letter n. 35; emphasis added)

Note: Several of the bold characters were added by the author.

MENTIONED WORKS

BARKER, A.T., comp. The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett. Pasadena, Theosophical University Press, 1975. 589 pp.

BESANT, A. The Changing World and Lectures to Theosophical Students. London, The Theosophical Publishing Society, 1910. 333 pp.

BLAVATSKY, Helena P. The Key to Theosophy. Bombay, Theosophy Company, 1987. 367 pp.

CONVERSE, Philip E. – The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics. In: APTER, D. E., org. Ideology and Discontent. New York, The Free Press of Glencoe, 1964. pp. 206-261.

CONVERSE, Philip E. – Public Opinion and Voting Behaviour. In: GREENSTEIN, F. I. – Handbook of Political Science, vol. 4, Reading, Massachusetts, 1975. pp. 75-169.

CONVERSE, Philip E. et al. – The American Voter. New York, Wiley, 1960. 576 pp.

JINARAJADASA, C., comp. Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, 1st Series. Adyar, The Theosophical Publishing House, 1973. 183 pp.

JINARAJADASA, C., comp. Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, 2nd Series. Adyar, The Theosophical Publishing House, 1973. 189 pp.

KINGSFORD, Anna and MAITLAND, Edward. The Perfect Way; or, the Finding of Christ. Hamilton, Adams & Co., London, 1882. Second enlarged and revised edition: Field and Tuer, London, 1887; and also Esoteric Publishing Company, Boston, 1988. 3rd edition: 1890. Fifth edition, with additions, and a Biographical Preface by Samuel Hopgood Hart: John M. Watkins, London, 1923. 405 pp. Complete online book, free of charges, in the Anna Kingsford Site.

KINGSFORD, Anna and MAITLAND, Edward. The Credo of Christendom: and Other Addresses and Essays on Esoteric Christianity. Edited by Samuel Hopgood Hart. John M. Watkins, London, 1916. 256 pp. Complete online book, free of charges, in the Anna Kingsford Site.

KINGSFORD, Anna. Clothed with the Sun, Being the Book of the Illuminations of Anna (Bonus) Kingsford. Edited by Edward Maitland. First edition: John M. Watkins, London, 1889. Second edition: The Ruskin Press, Birmingham, 1906. Third Edition: edited by Samuel Hopgood Hart, 1937. Sun Books (reprint), Santa Fe, 1993. 210 pp. Complete online book, free of charges, in the Anna Kingsford Site.

MAITLAND, Edward. Anna Kingsford – Her Life, Letters, Diary and Work. Two volumes. 3rd Edition, edited by Samuel Hopgood Hart. John M. Watkins, London, 1913. Vol. I, 442 pp.; Vol. II, 466 pp. Complete online book, free of charges, in the Anna Kingsford Site.

SISSON FILHO, Arnaldo. A Consciência Política na Massa e as Eleições de 1982 em Porto Alegre. (The Political Consciousness in Mass Publics). Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, 1984. 159 pp. Diss. M.A. Political Science.

SISSON FILHO, Arnaldo. What Is Wrong With Politics? Bases for a True Democracy. Brasília, 2021. Internet Edition. Complete online book, free of charges, in the Ideas for a Better World Site.

SISSON FILHO, Arnaldo. Theosophy, the Law of Universal Brotherhood and the World Problems. Brasília, 2025. Internet Edition. Complete online book, free of charges, in the Anna Kingsford Site.

SISSON FILHO, Arnaldo; com PEREIRA, Viviane. A Roda e a Cruz: Uma Introdução ao Cristianismo Budista (The Wheel and the Cross: an Introduction to Buddhist Christianity). Coleção Roda e Cruz, Brasília, 2012. 369 pp. Complete online book (Portuguese language), free of charges, in the Anna Kingsford Site.

Book (1): The Perfect Way: or, the Finding of Christ (Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland)

THE PERFECT WAY: OR, THE FINDING OF CHRIST

(Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland)

Initial Information:

Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland. Hamilton, Adams & Co., London, 1882. Second edition, revised and enlarged: Field and Tuer, London, 1887; and also, Esoteric Publishing Company, Boston, 1988. 3rd edition: 1890. Fifth edition, with additions and long preface, by Samuel Hopgood Hart: John M. Watkins, London, 1923. 405 pp.

In the Anna Kingsford Site we have the complete Html text of the Fifth Edition (1923) of The Perfect Way. This work, possibly the most important one by Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland, certainly is the most well-known of them. To give an idea of its importance, below we have a few passages of comments on the book. The first one is from an obituary written by Madame Helena Blavatsky, with great praise to Anna Kingsford, where we can read:

“She was (…) a leader of spiritual and philosophical thought, gifted with the most exceptional psychic attributes. In connection with Mr. Edward Maitland, her truest friend (…) she wrote several books dealing with metaphysical and mystical subjects. The first and most important was The Perfect Way, or the Finding of Christ, which gives the esoteric meaning of Christianity.”

The second is a quotation from Samuel H. Hart, from his essay In Memoriam to the Rev. G.J.R. Ouseley. There he brings the opinion of Rev. Gideon Jasper Richard Ouseley on The Perfect Way. Rev. Ouseley was the author of The Gospel of the Holy Twelve:

Finally, the opinion of Baron Giuseppe Spedalieri about The Perfect Way, quoted from the Preface to the Second (Revised) Edition:

“The veteran student of the “divine science,” a reference to whom, as the friend, disciple, and literary heir of the renowned magian, the late Abbé Constant (“Eliphas Levi”), will be for all initiates a sufficient indication of his personality, thus writes to us: –

“As with the corresponding Scriptures of the past, the appeal on behalf of your book is, really, to miracles: but with the difference that in your case the miracles are intellectual ones and incapable of simulation, being miracles of interpretation. And they have the further distinction of doing no violence to common sense by infringing the possibilities of Nature; while they are in complete accord with all mystical traditions, and especially with the great Mother of these, – the Kabbala. That miracles, such as I am describing, are to be found in The Perfect Way, in kind and number unexampled, they who are the best qualified to judge will be the most ready to affirm.

And here, apropos of these renowned Scriptures, permit me to offer you some remarks on the Kabbala as we have it. It is my opinion: –

(1) That this tradition is far from being genuine, and such as it was on its original emergence from the sanctuaries.

(2) That when Guillaume Postel – of excellent memory – and his brother Hermetists of the later middle age – the Abbot Trithemius and others – predicted that these sacred books of the Hebrews should become known and understood at the end of the era, and specified the present time for that event, they did not mean that such knowledge should be limited to the mere divulgement of these particular Scriptures, but that it would have for its base a new illumination, which should eliminate from them all that has been ignorantly or willfully introduced, and should reunite that great tradition with its source by restoring it in all its purity.

(3) That this illumination has just been accomplished, and has been manifested in The Perfect Way. For in this book we find all that there is of truth in the Kabbala, supplemented by new intuitions, such as present in a body of doctrine at once complete, homogeneous, logical and inexpugnable.

Since the whole tradition thus finds itself recovered or restored to its original purity, the prophecies of Postel, etc., are accomplished; and I consider that from henceforth the study of the Kabbala will be but an object of curiosity and erudition like that of Hebrew antiquities.

Humanity has always and everywhere asked itself these three supreme questions: – Whence come we? What are we? Whither go we? Now, these questions at length find an answer, complete, satisfactory, and consolatory, in The Perfect Way.”” (pp. lxxviii-lxxix) [Fifth edition. John M. Watkins, London, 1923. 405 pp.]

THE PERFECT WAY

or,

The Finding of Christ

ANNA (BONUS) KINGSFORD

AND EDWARD MAITLAND

________________

Fifth Edition, with Additions and a

Biographical Preface by Samuel Hopgood Hart.

________________

“God hath uttered His voice: and the Earth shall melt away.” (Ps. 46:7)

London:

JOHN M. WATKINS,

21 CECIL COURT, CHARING CROSS ROAD.

1923.

ABSTRACT OF ARGUMENT AND CONTENTS

Preface to the Fifth Edition

Preface to the Second (Revised) Edition

Preface to the First Edition

LECTURE THE FIRST

INTRODUCTORY

PART 1. Purpose of this book; to supply the existing need of a perfect system of thought and life by one founded in the nature of existence. This not a new invention, but a recovery of the original system which was the basis of all religions. Its recovery due to the same means by which it was originally received, namely, the Intuition, which represents the knowledges acquired by the Soul in its past existences, and complements the intellect, being itself quickened and enhanced by illumination of the Spirit. Revelation a proper prerogative of man, belonging to him in virtue of his nature and constitution, and crowning the reason. God the supreme Reason. The Understanding, the “Rock” of the true Church. Illustrations of Method, classic and rabbinical. Sketch of Doctrine. Spirit and Matter: their nature, relations, and essential identity. Existence and Being. The Kalpa, Sabbath, and Nirvana, Divinity of Substance: its unity and trinity, and mode of individuation and development. The true doctrine of creation by evolution; found in all religions, as also that of the progression and migration of Souls; personal and historical testimony to its truth; recognised in Old and New Testaments. Rudimentary man. The Sphinx. (1-25)

PART II. Relation of the system recovered to that in possession. The true heir. Religion, being founded in the nature of existence, is necessarily non-historical, independent of times, places, and persons, and appeals perpetually to the mind and conscience. Objections anticipated. Persistency of religious ideas due to their reality. The apparently new not necessarily really new. Christianity not exempt from the influences which caused the deterioration of Judaism. Its future development by means of new revelation foretold by its Founder. Need of such new revelation to preserve, not only religion, but humanity from extinction. The “man of sin” and “abomination that maketh desolate.” Substitution of Gospel of Force for Gospel of Love. One name whereby is salvation, but many bearers. The Christs. (25-37)

LECTURE THE SECOND

THE SOUL; AND THE SUBSTANCE OF EXISTENCE

PART I. The Soul, universal or individual, the supreme subject and object of culture; the essential self, to know which is the only wisdom, involving the knowledge of God. Mysticism or Spiritualism, and Materialism, the doctrines respectively of Substance or Spirit, and of phenomenon. Matter a mode or condition of Spirit, and indispensable to its manifestation. The object of all religion and subject of all revelation the redemption of Spirit from Matter. Necessity to creation of the idea of a No-God. The ascent from Nature’s Seeming to God’s Being. The recovered system and Materialism respectively as Phoebus and Python. (38-44)

PART II. The Soul as individual, its genesis and nature: the divine idea, eternal in its nature, but perishable if uninformed of the Spirit. The “Fire of the hearth:” the Divine breath. Convergence and divergence: the celestial Nirvana, and that of annihilation. The end of the persistently evil. The planet and its offspring. The fourfold nature of existence, alike in macrocosm and microcosm, due to differentialities of polarisation of original substance. (44-50)

PART III. The Soul as individual, its history and progress: commencing in the simplest organisms, it works upwards, moulding itself according to the tendencies encouraged by it; its final object to escape the need of a body and return to the condition of pure Spirit. Souls various in quality. The parable of the Talents. (50-52)

PART IV. Of the nature of God; as Living Substance, One; as Life and Substance, Twain; the Potentiality of all things; the absolute Good, through the limitation of whom by Matter comes evil. Subsists prior to creation as Invisible Light. As Life, God is He; as Substance, She; respectively the Spirit and Soul universal and individual; the Soul the feminine element in man, having its representative in woman. God the original, abstract Humanity. The seven Spirits of God. “Nature.” The heavenly Maria, her characteristics and symbols. As Soul or Intuition, she is the “woman” by whom man attains his true manhood. The defect of the age in this respect. No intuition, no organon of knowledge. The Soul alone such organon. (52-58)

PART V. Divine Names, denotative of characteristics. Function of religion to enable man to manifest the divine Spirit within him. Man as an expression of God. The Christs, why called Sungods. The Zodiacal planisphere a Bible or hieroglyph of the Soul’s history. Bibles, by whom written. The “Gift of God”. (58-63)

LECTURE THE THIRD

THE VARIOUS ORDERS OF SPIRITS;

AND HOW TO DISCERN THEM

PART I. The sphere of the astral, its four circuli and their respective occupants. The Shades; purgatory; “hell”; “devils”; “the Devil”; possession by devils; “souls in prison”; “under the elements”; spirits of the elements, subject to the human will; souls of the dead; the anima bruta and anima divina. Metempsychosis and reincarnation; conditions of the latter; descent to lower grades; cause of the Soul’s loss. (64-75)

PART II. The astral or magnetic spirits by which, ordinarily, “mediums” are “controlled”; reflects rather than spirits; difficulty of distinguishing them from Souls; elements of error and deception; delusive character of astral influences; their characteristics; danger of a negative attitude of mind; necessity of a positive attitude for Divine communication; spirits elemental and elementary; genii loci; cherubim. (76-85)

PART III. The sphere of the celestial; the procession of Spirit; the triangle of life; the Genius or guardian angel, his genesis, nature, and functions; the Gods, or Archangels. (85-93)

LECTURE THE FOURTH

THE ATONEMENT

PART I. This the central doctrine of religion, and, like the Cosmos, fourfold in its nature.

What the doctrine is not; its corruption by materialism; priestly degradation of the character of Deity. The Bible represents the conflict between prophet and priest, the former as the minister of the intuition, and the latter as the minister of sense. (94-99)

PART II. The occult side of the sacrificial system. Effusion of blood efficacious in the evocation of sub-human spirits, as shown by various examples. These spirits visible in the fume of the sacrifices. Astral spirits personate the celestials. Abhorrence of the true prophet for bloodshed, illustrated in Buddha’s rebuke to the priests. The orthodox doctrine of vicarious atonement, a travesty due to astral spirits, of the true doctrine. Pernicious effects of the use of blood (or flesh) for food; impossibility, on such diet, of attaining full perception of divine truth. (99-105)

PART III. Antiquity and universality of the Cross as the symbol of Life physical and spiritual. Its application to the doctrine of the Atonement fourfold, having a separate meaning for each sphere of man’s nature. Of these meanings the first is of the physical and outer, denoting the crucifixion or rejection of the Man of God by the world. The second is intellectual, and denotes the crucifixion or conquest by man of his lower nature. The third, which refers to the Soul, implies the passion and oblation of himself, whereby the man regenerate obtains the power – by the demonstration of the supremacy of spirit over Matter – to become a Redeemer to others. The fourth appertains to the Celestial and innermost, and denotes the perpetual sacrifice of God’s Life and Substance for the creation and salvation of His creatures. The pantheistic nature of the true doctrine. (105-117)

LECTURE THE FIFTH

THE NATURE AND CONSTITUTION OF THE EGO

PART I. Psyche as the Soul and true Ego the result of Evolution, being individualised through Matter. (118-123)

PART II. Man’s two personalities. Karma or the results of past conduct and consequent destiny. The soul essentially immaculate. (123-124)

PART III. The Ego more than the sum total of the consciousnesses composing the system, as representing these combined and polarised to a higher plane. The Psyche alone subjective and capable of knowledge. (125-135)

PART IV. The Shade, the Ghost, and the Soul; their respective natures and destinies. (135-139)

PART V. The Anima Mundi, or Picture-World. The soul of the planet, like that of the individual, transmigrates and passes on. (139-141)

PART VI. The Evolution of the Ego, and therein of the Church of Christ, implied in the dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of the B.V.M. (141-144)

LECTURE THE SIXTH

THE FALL (Nº. I)

PART I. The first Church; its type the Kaabeh, or cube, denoting sixfoldness; dates from “Paradise.” The Merkaba, or vehicle of God, drawn by the four elements. The four rivers of Eden. Allegorical character of the Mystic Scriptures; how recovered by Esdras; their origin and corruption. (145-153)

PART II. The parable of the Fall: its signification fourfold, being one for each sphere of existence; the first, physical and social. (154-161)

PART III. The second signification rational and philosophical; the third, psychical and personal. (161-166)

PART IV. The fourth signification spiritual and kosmical. The Restoration implied in the Sabbath, and prophesied in the Zodiac, and in the arms of Pope Leo XIII. (166-171)

PART V. A new Annunciation. (172-175)

LECTURE THE SEVENTH

THE FALL (Nº. II)

PART I. Interpretation of Scripture dual, intellectual and intuitional, or exterior and interior; the Soul as the woman, through whose aspiration to God man becomes Man in the mystic sense, and made in the image of God; and through whose inclination to Matter he falls from that image. As the fall is through loss of purity, so the Redemption is through restoration of purity. (176-187)

PART II. The Soul’s history as allegorised in the books of Genesis and Revelation. (187-194)

PART III. Source of errors of Biblical interpretation. The historical basis of the Fall. The Church as the Woman. Rise and Fall of original Church. A primitive mystic community. The source of doctrine, interior and superior to priesthoods. (194-204)

PART IV. Nature and method of historical Fall. The three steps by retracing which the Restoration will come. Tokens of its approach. (204-209)

LECTURE THE EIGHTH

THE REDEMPTION

PART I. The “great work” the Redemption of Spirit from Matter: first in the individual, next in the universal. Definition of mystic terms used to denote the process: “Passion,” “Crucifixion,” “Death,” “Burial,” “Resurrection,” “Ascension”. (210-217)

PART II. The Man perfected and having power: the “philosopher’s stone,” and kindred terms; the Adept and the Christ; sense in which the latter may be called a medium for the Highest; not as ordinarily understood: the Hierarch or Magian, his qualifications and conditions. (217-224)

PART III: Design of the Gospels to present perfect character of Man Regenerate; selection of Jesus as subject; Church’s failure of comprehension through loss of spiritual vision, due to Materialism. Answer to objection.

Jesus as Liberator necessarily spiritual; Paul’s view. Method of Gospel symbolism; the miracles; kosmic order of Gospels. (225-232)

PART IV. Parentage of the Man Regenerate. Joseph and V. Mary as representatives of Mind and Soul. The two Josephs. Catholic tradition and hagiology. Mary Magdalen as type of Soul; also Seven Apocalyptic Churches. Identification of the Magi; the Stable and Cave of the Nativity. The John Baptist within. The Acts of the B.V.M. Ascension and Assumption. Final State of Soul. (232-244)]

PART V. The Twelve Gates of the Heavenly Salem; the Tabernacle; the Round Table and its “bright Lord;” the Number of Perfection; the genealogy of the Man Regenerate; “Christ” no incarnate God or angel, but the highest human. The world’s present condition due to sacerdotal degradation of truth. Christian gospels represent later stages only of regeneration, the earlier ones having been exemplified in the systems of Pythagoras and Buddha. Christianity framed with direct reference to these, not to supersede but to complete them; Buddha and Jesus being necessary to each other, as head and heart of same system. Of these combined will be produced the Religion and Humanity of the future; hence the import of the connection between England and the East. “Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” The “Kings of the East.” The “Eastern Question”; its interior significance; the destiny of Islamism. (224-257)

LECTURE THE NINTH

GOD AS THE LORD; OR, THE DIVINE IMAGE

PART I. The two modes of Deity; God as the Lord, in the Bible, the Kabbala, and the Bhagavad Gita. Swedenborg and his doctrine: his limitations and their cause. The Hermetic doctrine. The “Mount of the Lord.” True meanings of “Mystery”; sacerdotal degradation of the term, and its evil results. (258-264)

PART II. Function of the Understanding in regard to things spiritual. Its place in the systems human and divine. The “Spirit of Understanding,” his various names and symbols, and relation to the Christ. Cognate myths in illustration. Hermes as regarded by the Neoplatonists and by modern Materialists. Mystic and Materialist, the feud between them. The School of Torturers. The “Mystery of Godliness,” according to Kabbala and Paul. The Pauline doctrine concerning Woman; its contrast with the doctrine of Jesus. Woman according to Plato, Aristotle, Philo, the Fathers, the Church, the Reformation, Milton, Islamism, and Mormonism. (264-282)

PART III. Charges whereby it is sought to discredit the system of the Mystics; Plagiarism and Enthusiasm: the signification and value of the latter. Ecstasy: its nature and function. Mystics and Materialists, their respective standpoints. Conspiracy of modern science against the Soul. Materialists, ancient and modern, contrasted. (282-291)

PART IV. Man’s perception of God sensible as well as mental. The Divine Unity, Duality, Trinity, and Plurality. The Logos, or Manifestor. The mystery of the human Face. (291-295)

PART V. The Vision of Adonai. (296-299)

PART VI. “Christ” as the culmination of Humanity and point of junction with Deity. The Credo of the Elect. (299-302)

APPENDICES

The Constitution of Existence: Its Nature and Unity (Being Lecture V, of the First Edition) (305-327)
Paragraphs 27 to 41 of Lecture VIII, of the Second Edition (328-340)

III. “The Perfect Way” and Its Critics (341-364)

ARMOR OF MICHAEL

Quotation (1): Horse Is the Symbol of Intelligence: Divine Order of Chivalry Is the Order of Christ

“The divine Order of Chivalry is the enemy of ascetic isolation and indifferentism. It is the Order of the Christ who goes about doing good. The Christian knight, mounted on a valiant steed (for the horse is the symbol of Intelligence), and equipped with the panoply of Michael, is the type of the spiritual life, – the life of heroic and active charity.” (p. 278) [Anna Kingsford. From: Dreams and Dream-Stories – Edited by Edward Maitland. Second Edition: George Redway, London, 1888. 281 pp. Emphasis added]

ATONEMENT (VICARIOUS SALVATION)

Quotation (1): Crucifixion, Resurrection and the Doctrine of Vicarious Atonement Which, As Ordinarily Understood, Is Idolatrous, Blasphemous, and Pernicious in the Highest Degree

Quotation (2): Christ Jesus Inside of Us; “Blood” of God; Vicarious Salvation; Importance of the Image of God

Quotation (3): Treasure of the Egyptians; Falsehood of the Vicarious Salvation; Celestial Jerusalem; Bloodshed Is Inversion of the Divine Order

Quotation (1): Crucifixion, Resurrection and the Doctrine of Vicarious Atonement Which, As Ordinarily Understood, Is Idolatrous, Blasphemous, and Pernicious in the Highest Degree

“And it is always by the crucifixion and death on the cross of renunciation of that old Adam, the lower self, and the resurrection and ascension to a condition of final perfection that salvation is finally attained. And the reason why all these eternal verities in the soul’s history are made to centre in the prophet of Nazareth is simply because, recognising in him the tokens of his attainment of perfection in a degree never reached before, and in his history the fitting symbolical correspondences, the Divine Spirit, under whose inspiration the Gospels were composed, selected him as the type of the possibilities of humanity at large.

But even while thus rejecting as idolatrous, blasphemous, and pernicious in the highest degree the doctrine as ordinarily understood of Vicarious Atonement, we still see in “Christ Jesus” “the only begotten Son of God,” [John 3:16, 18] and still cling fast to His blood and cross as the sole means of salvation.

But it is the Christ Jesus, or man reborn of a pure soul and spirit, as Jesus Himself declared that all must be born – even precisely as He is dramatically described as having been born – within ourselves, to whom we look for salvation. And the means are His cross of self-sacrifice, renunciation, and purity of life; and the reception into ourselves of that “Blood of God” which is no mere physical blood – between which and moral imperfection is no congruous relation – but which is the life of God, even pure Spirit, which is God, and which God is ever freely shedding for His creatures, giving them of His own life and substance.

How pernicious is the doctrine of vicarious atonement as ordinarily accepted may be seen in the world’s present condition, intellectually, morally, and spiritually, no less than physically.

Man ever makes himself after the image of his God, that is, after his idea of God. And believing in a God who is unjust, selfish, and cruel, man cannot be other than unjust, selfish, and cruel also.

It is precisely this misrepresentation of the divine character, and this perversion of the true and only possible doctrine of the atonement into one that makes man’s salvation a process external to himself and dependent on the action of another than himself, which, by falsifying Christianity, have ensured its failure, and, instead of a world ordered on the principles of justice, sympathy, and purity, have given us a world of wrong-doing, selfishness, and sensuality.” (Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland. Addresses and Essays on Vegetarianism. Chapter: Vegetarianism and the Bible, pp. 222-223; emphasis added)

Quotation (2): Christ Jesus Inside of Us; “Blood” of God; Vicarious Salvation; Importance of the Image of God

“But it is the Christ Jesus, or man reborn of a pure soul and spirit, as Jesus Himself declared that all must be born – even precisely as He is dramatically described as having been born – within ourselves, to whom we look for salvation.

And the means are His cross of self-sacrifice, renunciation, and purity of life; and the reception into ourselves of that “Blood of God” which is no mere physical blood – between which and moral imperfection is no congruous relation – but which is the life of God, even pure Spirit, which is God, and which God is ever freely shedding for His creatures, giving them of His own life and substance.

How pernicious is the doctrine of vicarious atonement as ordinarily accepted may be seen in the world’s present condition, intellectually, morally, and spiritually, no less than physically.

Man ever makes himself after the image of his God, that is, after his idea of God. And believing in a God who is unjust, selfish, and cruel, man cannot be other than unjust, selfish, and cruel also.

It is precisely this misrepresentation of the divine character, and this perversion of the true and only possible doctrine of the atonement into one that makes man’s salvation a process external to himself and dependent on the action of another than himself, which, by falsifying Christianity, have ensured its failure, and, instead of a world ordered on the principles of justice, sympathy, and purity, have given us a world of wrong-doing, selfishness, and sensuality.” (Edward Maitland. Addresses and Essays on Vegetarianism, chapter Vegetarianism and the Bible, pp. 222-223; emphasis added)

Quotation (3): Treasure of the Egyptians; Falsehood of the Vicarious Salvation; Celestial Jerusalem; Bloodshed Is Inversion of the Divine Order

“According to the true gospel, as declared by the prophets, the substance of humanity is not material and created, but spiritual and divine. And man rises out of his lower into his higher nature by subordinating the former to the latter, and so rising wholly into that higher, becoming thereby divine – for between Spirit and Matter there is no boundary line. The knowledge of this was the priceless treasure of which Israel fleeing, “spoiled the Egyptians.” [Exodus 12:36] And it was the grand secret of all sacred mysteries from the first.

That, on the contrary, is a false gospel, proceeding from the priests, which, defying at once the intellect and the intuition, ascribes salvation to a vicarious operation, and, instead of the sacrifice of our own lower nature to our own higher nature, and of ourselves for others, insists on the sacrifice of our higher nature to our lower, and of others for ourselves.

It is of this inversion of the divine order that the prevalent habit of flesh eating and of vivisection – that most infernal of all practices that ever issued from the bottomless pit of man’s lower nature – are the direct and inevitable outcome. And until the divine order is restored, in act as well as in thought, by the renunciation of the doctrine of vicarious sacrifice as ordinarily held, and by the consequent rehabilitation of the character of God, all our efforts at improvement must be futile; our civilisation will be but a mockery of the term; and our morality and religion will be things we should be the better for being without.

In conclusion: that at which we aim is no reform of institutions merely, or promotion of benefits merely material, but a radical renovation of the very Substance of men themselves on every plane of their nature, with a view to the realisation of the long-promised “new heaven and new earth wherein dwelleth Righteousness,” [2 Peter 3:13] and the advent of that perfected state, the New Jerusalem, or City which hath God for its light, and which cometh down from the heaven of man’s own celestial region, even that kingdom of heaven which is within him, but which can never be realised by those who persist in so ordering their lives as to make bloodshed and injustice necessities.

“He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” (Micah 6:8)

“They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord.” (Isaiah 65:25)

And if it be asked what is the source of, and what the authority for, these interpretations, the reply is that there is but one source and authority for truth, and that is the Soul of man himself, and that to obtain access there, and to know of the doctrine, it is necessary to do the Father’s Will, and to live the pure life required.

For the Soul sees divinely, and never forgets what she has once learnt. And all that she knows is at the service of him who duly tends and cultivates her. From her comes, directly and without admixture of human alloy, that which has just been said. And no other source or method is there of divine revelation.

It is true, as is commonly supposed, that divine revelation is uttered by a voice from heaven. But the heaven is the innermost sanctuary of the temple of man himself, and the voice is that of God speaking therein. Only where the soil, which is the body, is pure and purely nourished, so that no noxious exhalations arise to obscure the atmosphere, can the man and his Soul thus hold converse together.

Living as does the world today, it cannot know the potentialities of humanity. Hence it regards one foremost example as divine, at the expense of the rest of the race, whereas all are divine, if they will but let themselves be so. And revelation is, no less than reason, the natural rightful possession of man. Only let him live purely, and he will reverse the Fall.” (Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland. Addresses and Essays on Vegetarianism. Edited by Samuel Hopgood Hart. John M. Watkins, London, 1912. 227 pp; emphasis added)

LETTER “B”

– Bible: Collection of Symbols and Parables

– Body and Blood of Christ

– Bread and Wine

– Buddhist Christianity

BIBLE: COLLECTION OF SYMBOLS AND PARABLES

Quotation (1): Bible Presents the Fall and Redemption of the Souls Under the Form of Symbols and Parables

Quotation (2): Bible, Collection of Parables About the History of the Soul: Persons, Peoples, Animals etc, Are Symbols – To Materialize the Symbols Is to Commit Idolatry

Text (1): The Bible Insists on the Esoteric Sense

Quotation (1): Bible Presents the Fall and Redemption of the Souls Under the Form of Symbols and Parables

See this quotation in Quotation (2): entry ALLEGORICAL AND NON-LITERAL MEANING

Quotation (2): Bible, Collection of Parables About the History of the Soul: Persons, Peoples, Animals etc, Are Symbols – To Materialize the Symbols Is to Commit Idolatry

See this quotation in Quotation (1): entry ALLEGORICAL AND NON-LITERAL MEANING

Text (1): The Bible Insists on the Esoteric Sense

“But, first, to vindicate from Scripture itself the assertion of the presence in it of an esoteric sense on which Scripture insists as its true and divinely-intended sense. That such vindication should at all be necessary is in itself proof positive not merely of the inadequacy, but of the unfairness of the manner in which Scripture has been dealt with by its official expositors. But that it is necessary is shown indisputably by the charge of impiety which those expositors are wont to bring against the advocates of an esoteric sense, on the ground of seeking to “wrest Scripture from its obvious meaning” – namely, the meaning “obvious,” not to the spiritual, but to the superficial vision – and even of ascribing to its writers insanity for intending a meaning other than the obvious! As if spiritual things could be “obvious” to the superficial vision!

Herein the literalists show that they fail to see that to make the “obvious” sense of the Bible its real sense would be to destroy it as a Bible or book of the soul; since as such it must appeal to the soul and not to the senses; and must refer, not to persons, things, and events belonging to the physical plane, but to principles, processes, and states purely spiritual – though expressed in terms derived from the physical plane – using persons, things, and events by way of illustration only.

The literalists fail, moreover, to see that, in view of the fact that all ancient Scriptures were similarly written, namely, in symbol, parable, and allegory, to insist upon the Bible as intended literally is to make it differ absolutely from all other books of its order. The following are some of the passages relied on: –

1) “Thou shalt see my back-parts” (the parchments used for the outer coverings of the sanctuary, and the material of books), “but My face thou shalt not see.” – Ex. XXXIII, 23. (Moses is here informed that the external sense only, and not the true sense of the Divine Word, should be recognised in his time, for the reason subsequently given: – the “hardness of men’s hearts.”)

2) “Moses gave you not that bread from heaven;” – (the food of the understanding). – John VI, 32.

3) “Even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart. Nevertheless (…) it shall be taken away.” – 2 Cor. III, 15-16.

4) “He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.” – Heb. X, 9.

5) “And they (the Levites and Elders) read in the book, in the law of God, with an interpretation, and caused them (the people) to understand the reading.” – Nch. VIII, 8 (R.V. margin).

6) “And the good or understanding heart (Caleb) said, he that smiteth the city (or system) of the letter (Kirjath-sepher) and taketh it, to him will I give the Rending of the Veil (Achsah), my daughter, for wife.

7) “And the strong man of God (Othniel) took it, and he gave him the Rending of the Veil, his daughter, to wife. (And she brought him for dowry “the upper and nether springs,” an expression of frequent use in Scripture to denote the satisfaction of spiritual needs.)

8) “And that which before was called the city, or system, of the letter, was thereafter called the Word (Debir). – Josh. XV, 15-19.

9) “We speak theosophy (theou sophia) in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom (of God). Wisdom among them that are perfected (lit. full-grown, implying initiated). (…) Unto others as babes.” – 1 Cor. II, 6; III, 1.

10) “Which things (in the books of Moses) are an allegory; for there are two covenants; the one from Mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar” (the stranger which must be discarded as foreign to the soul and the true sense).

11) “But Jerusalem which is from above (the perfect doctrine contained in the interior sense) is free, which is the mother of us all. What saith the Scripture? Cast out the bond-woman (the literal sense) and her son” (the falsity engendered of that sense). – Gal. IV, 24-30.

12) “Perceive ye not yet, neither understand? Have ye your hearts yet hardened? Having eyes, see ye not? And having ears, hear ye not, and do ye not remember? How is it that ye do not understand?”

13) “Take heed; beware of the leaven of the Pharisees” (literalism and formalism), “and of the leaven of Herod.” (Ecclesiasticism, which is always the slayer of the pure intuition, and hence the massacrer of the innocence in man. Both name and deed imply Herod as identical with the Serpent of Eden.)

14) “O foolish, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken. (…) And beginning from Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” – Luke XXIV, 27. (Little or none of which appears on the surface of the books referred to.)

15) “Woe unto you lawyers” (Ecclesiastics)! “For ye have taken away the key of knowledge (Gnosis); ye have entered not in yourselves, and those who would have entered in ye have hindered.” – Luke XI, 52. (Addressed to, the Ecclesiasticism of all time.)

16) “But this I (Paul) confess unto thee, that after the way which they” – the Ecclesiastics, my accusers – “call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and the prophets.” – Acts XXIV, 14.

17) “For as Jonas was a sign unto the Ninevites, so shall also the Son of Man be to this generation.” – Luke XI, 30. (Because as the swallowing of Jonah by a whale represented the suppression of the true doctrine by the Ecclesiasticism of his time, and his ejectment its restoration, whereby the Church was set free to accomplish its mission, so would Christ be a personal demonstration of that doctrine to the world in spite of its suppression by the Ecclesiasticism of His time.)

18) “If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die.” – Rom. VIII, 13.

19) “Henceforth know we no man after the flesh; yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no more.” – 2 Cor. V, 14. (The flesh here denotes the literal and personal sense, as distinguished from the spiritual truth represented by Christ, namely, the doctrine of salvation by regeneration as the one way for all.)

20) “If David then call him Lord, how is he his Son?” Matt. XXII, 45. (An example of the confusion caused by understanding persons where principles are intended.)

21) “Render unto Cesar the things which are Cesar’s, and unto God the things which are God’s.” – Matt. XXII, 21. (This is an injunction on behalf of attaching their due relative value to the two senses of Scripture as against the exclusive preference for the superficial.)

22) “Understandest thou what thou readest?” “How should I except some man should guide me?” – Acts VIII, 30-31.

23) “Art thou a Master of Israel and knowest not these things?” – John III, 10. (This is a rebuke addressed to the Ecclesiasticism of all time for its blindness to the spiritual doctrine of regeneration of which Jesus himself was the express and typical example, and its preference for the sacerdotal doctrine of vicarious sacrifice.)

24) “Open thou mine eyes that I may behold the wondrous things out of thy law!” – Ps. CXIX, 19.

25) “Mystery; Babylon the great; the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth.” – Rev. XVII, 5. (This is a denunciation by Jesus, speaking by his “Angel” through “John the Divine,” of Ecclesiasticism as the “Scarlet woman,” for denying to man a faculty of understanding, by insisting on authority as the criterion of truth, and making Mystery consist in something which transcends and contradicts reason, instead of only requiring the application of reason to a higher, because spiritual plane, thereby falsifying the doctrine, wholly reasonable, represented by Jesus.)” (Edward Maitland. The “New Gospel of Interpretation”. Chapter III: The Bible Insists on the Esoteric Sense; emphasis added)

BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST

Quotation (1): Crucifixion, Resurrection and the Doctrine of Vicarious Atonement Which, As Ordinarily Understood, Is Idolatrous, Blasphemous, and Pernicious in the Highest Degree

Quotation (2): Christ Jesus Inside of Us; “Blood” of God; Vicarious Salvation; Importance of the Image of God

Quotation (1): Crucifixion, Resurrection and the Doctrine of Vicarious Atonement Which, As Ordinarily Understood, Is Idolatrous, Blasphemous, and Pernicious in the Highest Degree

See this quotation in Quotation (1): entry ATONEMENT (VICARIOUS SALVATION).

Quotation (2): Christ Jesus Inside of Us; “Blood” of God; Vicarious Salvation; Importance of the Image of God

See Quotation (2): entry ATONEMENT (VICARIOUS SALVATION).

BREAD AND WINE

Quotation (1): Once the Veil of Symbolism is Lifted All Churches Are Akin, and the Basic Doctrine of All Is identical

“Once the veil of symbolism is lifted from the divine face of Truth, all Churches are akin, and the basic doctrine of all is identical (…). Greek, Hermetic, Buddhist, Vedantist, (1) Christian – all these Lodges of the Mysteries are fundamentally one and identical in doctrine. (…)

We hold that no single ecclesiastical creed is comprehensible by itself alone, uninterpreted by its predecessors and its contemporaries.

Students, for example, of Christian theology will only learn to understand and to appreciate the true value and significance of the symbols familiar to them, by the study of Eastern Philosophy and Pagan Idealism

For Christianity is the heir of these, and she draws her best blood from their veins. And, forasmuch as all her great ancestors hid beneath their exoteric formulas and rites – themselves mere husks and shells to amuse the simple-minded – the esoteric or concealed verities reserved for the initiate, so also she reserves for earnest seekers and deep thinkers the true interior Mysteries which are one and eternal in all creeds and Churches from the foundation of the world.

This true, interior, transcendental meaning is the Real Presence, veiled in the Elements of the Divine Sacrament: the mystical Substance and Truth figured beneath the Bread and the Wine of the ancient Bacchic orgies, and now of our own Catholic Church.

To the unwise, the unthinking, the superstitious, the gross Elements are the objects of the rite; to the initiate, the seer, the son of Hermes, they are but the outward and visible signs of that which is ever and of necessity, inward, spiritual, and occult.

NOTE

(1) A careful and an erudite student of the Hindu Scriptures said that The Perfect Way contained “passages identical with some which he had rendered from the Upanishads, but of which no translation had ever been published; and he accounted for the coincidence by supposing an identical illumination of both” (Life of Anna Kingsford, Vol. II, p. 310). Edward Maitland says: “Whenever the highest plane of consciousness has been attained, and entrance won to the ‘kingdom within,’ the doctrine discerned has been one and the same – to the mind a necessity, and to the soul a reality: and has always been that of the Gnosis, variously termed, by the Gentiles, Hermetic, and by Hebrews, Kabbalistic.” (Edward Maitland. Preface, dated March 1885, to an American Edition of The Perfect Way) Samuel Hopgood Hart.”

(Edward Maitland, quoted by Samuel Hopgood Hart, in his Preface to the Fifth Edition, pp. xii-xiii, to the work The Perfect Way. Quotation from The Life of Anna Kingsford, Vol. II, pp. 123-124; emphasis added)