Besant, Annie (1847-1933)

	Annie Besant, English Theosophist and Indian Political Leader . . .  —  Buy this art print at AllPosters.com

Prominent English social reformer and theosophist, successor to Helena Petrovna Blavatsky as the international leader of the Theosophical movement.

Besant was born Annie Wood in London, England, October 1, 1847, and was raised by a widowed mother in a very religious environment. She married Frank Besant, an Anglican clergyman, in 1867 but separated from him five years later because of doctrinal differences. She joined the National Secular Society and with the atheist journalist Charles Bradlaugh crusaded for free thought, birth control, and women's rights. Besant was also a member of the socialistic Fabian Society.

During the 1880s Besant denounced unhealthy working conditions and low wages for women factory workers, leading the Match Girls’ Strike in 1888. An admired speaker on women’s rights, Besant was elected to the London School Board and earned a science degree from London University. She continued to advocate the legalization of birth control, and produced other writings endorsing free thought and atheism while criticizing Christianity. An 1887 pamphlet, “Why I Do Not Believe in God,” coauthored with Bradlaugh, added to her notoriety.

In 1887, Besant met Spiritualist Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831–1891), who in 1885 had founded the Theosophical Society. Besant embraced Blavatsky’s beliefs, which seemed to ignite a religious awakening within her. The Theosophical Society split into two branches after Blavatsky’s death in 1891, with Annie Besant as president of one of them.

A few years after her conversion to Theosophy, Besant emigrated to India, where she spent the rest of her life. There she founded the Central Hindu College in 1898, and campaigned for Indian home rule. In 1916 she established the Indian Home Rule League , and became its president. In 1917, she became president of the Indian National Congress, but would break ties with Ghandi. Besant wrote widely on theosophy, but remained in India until her death in 1933. She returned to the West in 1926–1927 and traveled extensively in Great Britain and the United States with her protege, Jiddu Krishnamurti, whom she announced as the new Messiah — a claim he later renounced.

See Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Theosophy, The Chakra Store, Casting Black Magic Spells, Commanding Spirits, The Tarot Store and Divination & Scrying Tools and Supplies.

Sources: (1) Shepard, Leslie (editor), Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology, Thomson Gale; (2) Dictionary of the Occult, Caxton Publishing; (3) Steiger, Brad and Sherry Hansen, The Gale Encyclopedia of the Unusual and Unexplained, Thomson Gale.
 

 

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-- Riding The Medicine Wheel: Beginning Shamanism.

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Suggested Art Prints and Posters:

"The Theosophist" Cover of the First Number of Madame Blavatsky's House Journal Giclee Print Buy this Art Print			Theosophy Chakras 1696 Giclee Print Buy this Art Print
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky Russian Mystic Writer, Circa 1889, by H. Schmiechen Buy this Photographic Print			Elena Petrovna Blavatsky and Colonel Henry Steel Olcott Giclee Print American School Buy this Photographic Print
Annie Besant English Theosophist and Indian Political Leader Giclee Print Buy this Photographic Print			Annie Besant English Theosophist and Indian Political Leader Giclee Print Buy this Photographic Print

Theosophy: An Introduction to the Supersensible Knowledge of the World and the Destination of Man Buy this Book

Suggested Books:

-- 100 Years of Theosophy: A History of the Theosophical Society in America.

-- A Garden of Pomegranates: Skrying on the Tree of Life.

-- An Abridgment of the Secret Doctrine.

-- An Invitation to the Secret Doctrine.

-- Annie Besant: An Autobiography.

-- At the Feet of the Master.

-- Beauties of Islam.

-- Choices of Love.

-- Christian Hermetic Astrology: The Star of the Magi and the Life of Christ.

-- Clairvoyant Investigations.

-- Collected Writings of H.P. Blavatsky: 1886-1887 Vol 7.

-- Culture, Crisis, and Creativity.

-- Dharma.

-- Death and After.

-- Dialogues With a Modern Mystic.

-- Doctrine of the Heart.

-- Edgar Cayce's Story of Jesus.

-- From the Outer Court to the Inner Sanctum.

-- Giordano Bruno: Theosophy's Apostle in the Sixteenth Century - 1913.

-- Hidden Side of Things.

-- Hidden Wisdom in the Holy Bible (Theosophical Heritage Classics).

-- How the World Can Be the Way It Is: An Inquiry for the New Millennium into Science, Philosophy, and Perception.

-- How to Know Higher Worlds (Classics in Anthroposophy).

-- Hpb: The Extraordinary Life and Influence of Helena Blavatsky, Founder of the Modern Theosophical Movement.

-- H.P. Blavatsky and the Secret Doctrine.

-- Initiates of the Theosophical Masters (Suny Series in Western Esoteric Traditions).

-- Isis Unveiled.

-- Isis Unveiled: Collected Writings/Boxed Set.

-- Isis Unveiled: Secrets of the Ancient Wisdom Tradition, Madame Blavatsky's First Work.

-- Jesus Christ, Sun of God: Ancient Cosmology and Early Christian Symbolism.

-- Jesus, Teacher and Healer.

-- Karma: Rhythmic Return to Harmony.

-- Key to Theosophy.

-- Kingdom of the Gods.

-- Life Streams: Journeys into Meditation and Music.

-- Madame Blavatsky's Baboon: A History of the Mystics, Mediums, and Misfits Who Brought Spiritualism to America.

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-- Man Visible and Invisible.

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-- Neurospeak: Transforms Your Body, While You Read!

-- 'No Religion Higher Than Truth': A History of the Theosophical Movement in Russia, 1875-1922.

-- Ocean of Theosophy.

-- On Spiritual Unity: A Slavophile Reader (Library of Russian Philosophy).

-- Practical Occultism.

-- Rebirth for Christianity.

-- Reincarnation in Modern Life: Towards a New Christian Awareness.

-- Reminiscences of H. P. Blavatsky and the Secret Doctrine.

-- Rhythm of Wholeness: A Total Affirmation of Being.

-- Rules for Spiritual Initiation.

-- Shadows of the Sacred: Seeing Through Spiritual Illusions.

-- Son of Man: The Mystical Path to Christ.

-- Studies in Occultism.

-- The Adept.

-- The Adepts in the Eastern Esoteric Tradition: The Arhats of Buddhism.

-- The Altitude of Prayer (Collector's Edition Set of Books).

-- The Aspiring Adept: Robert Boyle and His Alchemical Quest: Including Boyle's 'Lost' Dialogue on the Transmutation of Metals.

-- The Bhagavad Gita; The Lord's Song.

-- The Book of Dzyan.

-- The Edgar Cayce Bible Companion : Biblical Treasure from the Edgar Cayce Readings.

-- The Essential Mystics: Selections from the World's Great Wisdom Traditions.

-- The Etheric Double: The Health Aura of Man (Theosophical Classics Series).

-- The Key to the Kalevala.

-- The Masters.

-- The Masters and the Path.

-- The Masters Revealed: Madam Blavatsky and the Myth of the Great White Lodge (Suny Series in Western Esoteric Traditions).

-- The Millennium Myth: Love and Death at the End of Time.

-- The Pilgrim Self: Traveling the Path from Life to Life.

-- The Secret Doctrine: Collected Writings 1888: Cosmogenesis/Anthropogenesis/Index/Boxed Set.

-- The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy.

-- The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy (Volumes 1 and 2).

-- The Seven Rays.

-- The Spiritual Life.

-- The Theosophical Enlightenment (Suny Series in Western Esoteric Traditions).

-- The Voice of the Silence.

-- The White Buddhist: The Asian Odyssey of Henry Steel Olcott (Religion in North America).

-- Theosophia: Hidden Dimensions of Christianity.

-- Theosophy: A Modern Expression of the Wisdom of the Ages.

-- Theosophy: An Introduction to the Spiritual Processes in Human Life and in the Cosmos (Classics in Anthroposophy).

-- Theosophy Simplified.

-- Thought Forms.

-- Thought Power (1908): Its Control and Culture.

-- Thought Power, Its Control and Culture.

-- Total Freedom: The Essential Krishnamurti.

-- When Daylight Comes; A Biography of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky.

-- Yankee Beacon of Buddhist Light (Life of Col. Henry S. Olcott).