Los Angeles herald., 1907-09-22
Mrs. Annie Besant, High
Priestess Of Theosophy


/ charge from the Judge that was said at
the time to have been markedly against
the plaintiff.
Mrs. Besant took the stand in her own
behalf and parried the thrusts of counsel
on cross-examination. She submitted to
lhe latter ordeal for day and came out
| triumphant If historians of the period COR
rectly viewed the proceedings Mrs. Be-
SAINT made a strong final plea to the Judge
Baron Huddleston. Once her eloquence
was so effective that the audience broke
into cheers and the wigged jurist threat
ened to clear the room.
In 1893 Mrs. Besant virtually deserted
the secularists, not finding full comfort
with them. Constantly rowing for the
Golden Fleece of spiritual content, the i'm
pulsive woman found no satisfaction In
standing still and in accepting one re-
ligion because she could understand none.
She became Socialist and threw herself
heart and soul into the betterment of the
masses of the east end of London Mean
while she had met Madame Blavatsky.
and In the peculiarly seductive teaching
of that seeress seemed to find something
of the peace which other beliefs failed to
furnish. She Joined the theosophical So
ciety, and in 1t found final anchorage. She
became the best friend and most intimate
companion of Madame Blavatsky, and on
that leaders death virtually picked up her
scepter.
In 1879 the seat of the society was re-
moved to India, and from Benares and
Adyar the two score or more of docu-
ments and books from the brain and hand
Of Mrs. Besant have been issued in recent
years She, however, did not choose to
remain in her Indian bungalow and WELD
power through personalities. She made
frequent trips to England and America.
In the fall of 1888, when the worlds
Columbian exposition in Chicago was
drawing to close, she lectured on
theosophy and attracted great crowds.
Since that time she has made several
extended lecture tours and everywhere
met with welcome that must have
largely healed the wounds of earlier days.
Not long ago Mrs. Besant adopted the
Hindu manner of life. She established at
Benares the Central Hindu college, and
by her own efforts made it a success.
The so-called central facts of theosophy.
OF which Mrs. Besant is the principal ex-
pounder, are reincarnation and karma
Heincarnation means that mans present
life is but one of many undergone on
earth, and that his evolution from ignor-
ance I'd godlike knowledge requires re-
peated embodiments. This is said to have
been the belief of the 1sages of old and
the present belief of the strange philos-
ophers of India, the pundits of the far
east.
Karma is the universal law of cause and
effect. This is the rule that as man sows
so shall he reap-the wind and whirlwind
theory.
There are countless ramifcations of the
tenets of theosophy, but the foregoing
two doctrines are the essence of the faith
held to ard preached by Mrs. Annie Be-
SAINT. Between incarnation theosophlsts
claim there is long period known as
Devacham resembling the Christian
heaven. Into 1t no sorrow is said to en-
ter and only such happiness as the man
qualities himself for in his previous peri
DDS on earth.
Mrs. Besant claims she has heard from
Nine. Blavatsky since the latter's death.
Communication with the dead is not
called marvellous by her. In one of her
lectures she had thrown upon the screen
something that she termed the human
aura.
1.-THE aura may bo Defined" she ex-
planned not long ago, "as the effect re-
sultant from the vibration of waves of
psychic ether emanating from the invisi-
BILE bodies clothing human individuality.
1t is known to physics that the effects of
light, sound and color are produced by
vibrations. The vibrations are in them
selves invisible, and become apparent to
the eve only through the medium OF ma
terialization. In the same way every hui
man body is surrounded by an invisible
psychic cloud of magnetic vibrations, upon
which are projected the spiritual and
moral emotions of the individual, in what
may be termed chromatic shades, visible
to the clairvoyant eye.
''These aurae vary according 70 the
state of development of the individual.
just as the colors visible to the material
eye vary with the etheric conditions Of
light. Through countless ages the soul
of man has evolved from dull sense
toward the infinite fneness of spirit, while
his body has evolved through graduating.
forms from the primeval chaos. This ey-
olution of the soul and its corresponding
effects upon the human aura is what !
endeavor to symbolic in concrete form
by my stereopticon Illustrations. Natur-
ally the temptation is irresistible for some
newspaper reporters to announce that L
am showing ghost pictures"
1t Is the woman of these transcendental
ideas who is soon to reach Chicago and
lecture there. Her coming Is anticipated
with unusual interest by thousands of
Americans who consider Mrs. Besant as
the most profound thinker and most ad-
vanced religious philosopher of the gen
Grafton.