From New Dawn Sept.-Oct. 2007 by Colin Wilson
Shortly before her death from tuberculosis at the age of 41, the mystic Anna Kingsford wrote in her diary the comment that she felt sorrow at the thought of death 'because she had hoped to have been one of the pioneers of the new awakening of the world'. But the world of the late 19th century had simply failed to understand what she stood for. Madame Blavatsky, Annie Besant, Alice Bailey, all achieved a certain fame in their lifetimes, while Anna Kingsford remained - and still remains - unknown except to a few students of 'esotericism'. Even the massive two-volume biography by her 'soul mate' and fellow mystic Edward Maitland (1896) made little impact.
It was this book that made me aware of Anna Kingsford around forty years ago - I paid £ 10 for it in a second hand bookshop. Even so, I never got far into it, for I found something faintly irritating about Maitland's style, which was ponderous and stuffy, with an underlying feeling of egotism, which gives the impression that he can hardly wait to stop talking about Anna and tell us all about himself. All I could gather was that Anna was a feminist and a vegetarian, and that she saw visions, usually in sleep. She was also, as her photograph showed, slim and beautiful (although she later began to put on weight).
So when Red Cactus, The Life of Anna Kingsford, by Alan Pert, arrived in the post, I was delighted; it offered the prospect of bypassing the long-winded Maitland, who evidently irritates Mr Pert as much as he irritated me.
First, a summary of the facts, as recounted by Alan Pert. She was christened Annie Bonus, and her father was a wealthy ship owner of Italian descent, Annie being the last of ten children. The eldest sister, Ann, had died of consumption just before Annie was born, and Annie resembled her so much that her mother often said she thought that Ann had come back. During childhood Anna believed she saw fairies. When the family moved from London to St Leonards on Sea, Annie attended a finishing school at Brighton. At the age of 21 she eloped with a vicar's son, and married him on the understanding that she should be allowed to pursue her own career. They had one child, a daughter, and her husband soon became a curate, then a vicar.
She began to have visions, mostly in sleep - in which she resembles Swedenborg. But she combined this with a practical disposition, and became an eloquent speaker for Women's Rights, then anti-vivisection and vegetarianism. She bought herself a magazine called the Lady's Own Paper to serve as a platform, but it went out of business because she refused to accept advertising.
At that point she decided on a medical career and since this was impossible in Victorian England, went to study in Paris. Her aim was to oppose vivisection and she felt the medical degree would give her authority. In 1880, at 33, she became only the seventh woman doctor in Great Britain.
Six years earlier, she had met the novelist Edward Maitland, 22 years her senior, and her husband made no objection to their friendship - no doubt realising that his wife was anything but the flighty type. Maitland also 'saw visions', and they remained close until her death fourteen years later. Together they collaborated on a volume about their visions called The Perfect Way. Anna and Maitland spent much time studying esoteric subjects - like Neoplatonism, Kabbalsim, Gnosticism and Egyptian religion - in the British Museum.
Now in 1875, Madame Blavatsky had launched the Theosophical Society in New York with her disciple Colonel Olcott, then gone to India. By 1882 a London lodge of the Society had achieved some success, and in the following year, Anna and Maitland were asked to become its President and Vice President. They accepted. But this was not as good an idea as it seemed, since Madame Blavatsky's Theosophy was firmly rooted in Hinduism and Buddhism, while Anna (a Catholic) was very much a Christian mystic. In 1883, when A. P. Sinnett, the author of the bestselling Esoteric Buddhism arrived from India, disagreements soon became clear - to begin with, Sinnett claimed that his ideas originated with 'hidden Masters' in Tibet. When Madame Blavatsky and her fellow-founder Colonel Olcott arrived the following year, Anna and Maitland resigned, then founded their own esoteric group the Hermetic Society.
Anna's health had never been strong, and with many activities - including her medical practice and anti-vivisection campaigning - she exhausted herself. And it was in November 1886, o her way to visit Pasteur's laboratory to obtain ammunition for the case against him, that she 'waded across Paris through sleet and mud', and received the soaking that brought on consumption.
Alan Pert, a music librarian, admits that he originally intended to edit a compressed version of Maitland's biography before he became impatient with it. He decided that it was a self-serving book, designed to bring Maitland fame as much as Anna. Maitland insisted that they were 'soul mates', but there is evidence that at one point they came close to quarrelling, and that she became rather tired of him. Their relationship, which began when she wrote to him, had turned into something like a marriage (although they were almost certainly never lovers), and now she rather wished she was out of it. But her death left her reputation in his hands, and he not only took full advantage of this (asserting in one place that they were sharing the same roof when he was merely a guest), but even destroying all the papers on which he had based the book, so posterity could not catch him out.
Fortunately, there were still plenty of letters and other evidence, so Mr Pert was able to create his own alternative portrait. And it is certainly livelier than the one Maitland has left us.
That said, I have to admit that I find something oddly elusive about Anna and her ideas. Ideally, a biography sets out to give a reader an idea of what it would have been like to meet its subject. For me, this never happened. I know all about her opinions and ambitions, and that many people loved her; yet for me she remains a stranger. And there are times when her assertiveness makes me wonder if she was not a little like a religious Margaret Thatcher.
Aleister Crowley offered an interesting clue when he wrote in Book 4:
'Anna Kingsford, who had dabbled in Hebrew mysticism, and was a feminist, got an almost identical vision [as the Bhagavad Gita]; but called the 'divine' figure which she saw alternately 'Adonai' and 'Maria'. Now this woman, though handicapped by a brain that was a mass of putrid pulp, and a complete lack of social status, education and moral character, did more in the religious world than any other person had done for generations. She, and she alone, made Theosophy possible, and without Theosophy the world-wide interest in similar matters could never have been aroused. This interest was to the law of Thelema [Crowley's own doctrine] what the preaching of John the Baptist was to Christianity'.
The notion of Anna as Crowley's John the Baptist has a flavour of the comic, and would certainly have horrified Anna. But it helps us to see her historical position. She belongs among figures like Lord Lytton and Eliphaz Levi as an inspirer of the 'occult revival' in the last quarter of the 19th century (I have offered a brief overall view of them in my book The Occult.) Alan Pert points out that the magical Order of the Golden Dawn was launched a week after her death, and one of its founders, MacGregor Mathers, dedicated to her and Maitland his translation The Kabbalah Unveiled, which Yeats mentions with enthusiasm in his Autobiographies. Pert also points out that Anna was an influence on Dion Fortune, who would later create her own Christian mysticism. And although it is nonsense to say that Anna made Theosophy possible (since Blavatsky and Olcott had launched it when she was only 21), it is still true that, appearing at that time when a new 'occultism' was becoming popular, her mysticism did much to bring about the frame of mind that spawned both Yeats and Crowley.
Crowley also remarks in his book on astrology: 'She was doubtless the head of the battering-ram that broke in the gates of the materialist philosophy of the Victorian Age.' And this takes us one step closer to defining the problem. The Victorians were much preoccupied with routing materialism. But in our age of quantum theory, the Big Bang and zero-point energy, it is hard not to feel that things have moved on. People like Richard Dawkins, who rabbit on about being atheists, seem oddly old fashioned.
I suspect it is also true of Anna Kingsford. Anyone who, like myself, tries to read The Perfect Way (which is available on the web) will probably end in a state of teeth-grinding irritation and bafflement. All this discussion about Jesus and salvation may have been acceptable to the Victorians, but in our century it is as unreadable as Swedenborg's The True Christian Religion, which is now memorable mainly for its weird conversations with angels. But Anna, who admitted she was devoid of occult powers, did not even offer this kind of nutty diversion.
I suspect, as Crowley hints, that she belongs to the history of vegetarianism and feminism, rather than occultism. I very much hope that Alan Pert's excellent book will trigger a Kingsford revival, but am inclined to doubt it.
Comment: Anna Kingsford would have been appalled to be compared to Maggie Thatcher. They were at opposite ends of the spectrum. Maggie Thatcher worked for the materialistic ruling class to exploit and enslave people. She represented the forces of darkness. On the other hand, Anna selflessly promoted human (and animal) wellbeing. She worked for the forces of light. In no way was Anna aggressive like Thatcher. Anna was not militaristic and never took the country to war, as did Thatcher. In her own day Anna faced sexist put downs, and unfortunately the malady lingers on.
