The New Life
Theodore Besterman
Routledge eBooks October 24, 2018 DOI: 10.4324/9781315414010-21 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Historical analysis Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that Annie Besant was intensely suggestible and, after joining the Theosophical Society under Mme Blavatsky, accepted a claim of clairvoyant ability and interpreted vivid memory-images, hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations, and daydreams as clairvoyant visions. The author contends she abandoned sustained efforts at social regeneration. |
Abstract
After she joined the Theosophical Society and became a disciple of Mme Blavatsky, Mrs Besant lost all patience with the tedious effort for social regeneration. The intense suggestibility of Mrs Besant is obvious to every careful student of her life and writings at that time, but direct evidence would have been lacking if she had not herself unwittingly provided it. In one of her later lectures Mrs Besant describes how she had first realized that she possessed the gift of clairvoyance. Mrs Besant at once accepted this preposterous assertion, and ever after, no doubt, gave forth as clairvoyant visions all the memory-images, hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations and daydreams, which are so vivid in persons who belong to the visualizing type. In the summer of 1889, so unhesitating was Mrs Besant’s plunge into Theosophy, she, Mme Blavatsky and a group of disciples set up house together in Avenue Road, near Regent’s Park.