Part 10

It was in mid-February, when, having occasion to visit the _Ecole de Médecine_, I accompanied her thither. It was afternoon. On reaching the place we found it shut up, and a notice on the gate apprised us that the school was closed for the day on account of the obsequies of Professor Claude Bernard. We had not heard even of his illness. A cry, or rather a gasp, of astonishment escaped her, and she exclaimed, “Claude Bernard dead! Claude Bernard dead! Take hold of me! Help me to a seat or I shall fall. Claude Bernard dead! Claude Bernard dead!” The only seat available near was on the stony steps by which we were standing, and I accordingly placed her on these, seeing that emotion had deprived her of all her powers. Once seated she buried her face in her hands, and I stood before her awaiting the result in silence. I knew that such an event could not fail greatly to move her, but no special reason occurred to me. Presently she looked up, her face strangely altered by the intensity of her emotion, and asked me if I remembered what she had told me some weeks ago about Claude Bernard, and her having been provoked to launch her maledictions at him. I remembered perfectly. It was in the latter part of the previous December. Her professor had forced her into a controversy about vivisection, the immediate occasion being some experiments by Claude Bernard on animal heat, made by means of a stove invented by himself, so constructed as to allow of observations being made on animals while being slowly baked to death. Her professor had agreed with her as to the unscientific character and utter uselessness for any medical purpose of such a method of research. But he was altogether insensible to its moral aspects, and in answer to her strong expressions of reprobation, had taken occasion to deliver himself of a tirade against the sentiments generally of morality and religion, and the folly of allowing anything so chimerical to stand in the way, not merely of science, but of any object whatever to which one might be inclined, and setting up a transcendental standard of right and wrong, or recognising any limits to self-gratification saving the physical risks to oneself. Even the feeling which makes a mother weep over her child’s suffering he sneered at as hysterical, and gloried in the prospects of the time when science and intellect should be utterly unrestrained by what people call heart and moral conscience, and the only recognised rule should be that of the bodily self.

Thus speaking, he had worked his pupil into a frenzy of righteous indignation, and the vision rose before her of a future when, through the teaching of a materialistic science, society at large had become wholly demonised, even as already were this man and his kind. And seeing in Claude Bernard the foremost living representative and instrument of the fell conspiracy, at once against the human and the divine, to destroy whom would be to rid the earth of one of its worst monsters, she no sooner found herself alone than she rose to her feet, and with passionate energy invoked the wrath of God upon him, at the same moment hurling her whole spiritual being at him with all her might, as if with intent, then and there, to smite him with destruction. And so completely, it seemed to her, had she gone out of herself in the effort that her physical system instantly collapsed, and she fell back powerless on her sofa, where she lay awhile utterly exhausted and unable to move. It was thus that, on rejoining her, I found her, with just sufficient power to recount the experience, and to ask me my opinion as to the possibility of injuring a person at a distance by making, as it were, a spiritual thunderbolt of oneself; for, if such a thing were possible, and had ever happened, it must, she was convinced, have happened then.

At the moment the discussion on this subject was dropped, but further evidence was subsequently sought which it was hoped would confirm or disprove the idea that Anna Kingsford had been responsible for the great French doctor’s death. Eventually, our heroine came across an acquaintance of the deceased Professor in the person of a practical student of occult science. It appeared from his narrative that Claude Bernard was one of the few members of the profession who also took an interest in this subject, which had served as a link between them. He informed Mrs Kingsford that the doctor had described his earliest symptoms to himself, and had regarded them as somewhat mysterious. He was engaged, it appears, in his laboratory in the _Collège de France_, being at the time in his usual health, when he felt himself suddenly struck as if by some poisonous effluvium which he believed to emanate from the subject of his experiment. The effect, instead of passing off, became intensified, and manifested itself in severe internal inflammation, from which he eventually died. The doctors pronounced the complaint to be Bright’s disease. This was the disease which Claude Bernard had chiefly endeavoured to investigate by inducing it in animals. The possibility of such an incident is of course familiar to students of occultism, and Paracelsus, with others before and since, have maintained its feasibility. The great German occultist writes that it is possible that the spirit without the help of the body may, “through a fiery will alone, and without a sword, stab and wound others.” This is purely in accordance with the general trend of his doctrine, a large part of which is based on the belief that the will is a most potent operator in medicine.

Anna Kingsford was, it is well known, one of the earliest and foremost champions of the movement for women’s rights, but the line she took in this movement was supremely sane and wise, and was devoid of all the extravagances which have since brought certain sides of one of the greatest and most important movements of the day into well-deserved contempt. Edward Maitland was in entire sympathy with her in this matter, and in endorsing one of her communications to him observes: “I send you to-day’s _Times_, with a report of the debate on the Women’s Suffrage Bill, which will show you how much you are needed in that movement. For the debate shows why it does not advance. They are all on the wrong tack, supporters and opponents alike. The franchise is claimed in hostility, not sought in love. The women are demanding it as a means of defence and offence against man, instead of as a means of aiding and perfecting man’s work. They want a level platform with man expressly in order to fight him on equal terms. And of course the instinct of the majority of men and women resents such a view.” “Justice, in fact, as between men and women, human and animal,” was among Anna Kingsford’s foremost aims; for, as her biographer well says: “All injustice was cruelty, and cruelty was for her the one unpardonable sin.” “Her love,” he adds in a curiously revealing passage, “was all for principles, not for persons. The last thing contemplated by Anna Kingsford was an aggravation of the existing divisions and antagonisms between the sexes.” “And,” continues Mr Maitland, “so far from accepting the doctrine of the superiority of spinsterhood over wifehood, she regarded it as an assertion of the superiority of non-experience over experience as a means of education.” But that which most of all she reprobated was the disposition which led women to despise womanhood itself as an inferior condition, and accordingly to cultivate the masculine at the expense of the feminine side of their nature. “It was by magnifying their womanhood and not by exchanging it for a factitious masculinity that she would have her sex obtain its proper recognition.” This recognition no one more ardently desired than herself. She compares the modern woman to Andromeda bound to the rock on the seashore, shackled by the chains of ignorance and a helpless prey to that terrible monster whose name is ennui. “When,” she asks, “will Perseus come to deliver the fair Andromeda, to loosen her fetters and to set her free?” Much has happened to better the position of women since this was written, but much yet remains to be done.

All who knew Anna Kingsford unite in testifying to the impression conveyed to them by her striking personality with its originality, freshness, and force, no less than by her many-sidedness and the strange contradictions of her character. Her biographer gives the following description of her appearance at the date when he first met her:

Tall, slender, and graceful in form. Fair and exquisite in complexion. Bright and sunny in expression. The hair long and golden, but the brows and lashes dark and the eyes deep set and hazel, and by turns dreamy and penetrating. The mouth rich, full, and exquisitely formed. The broad brow prominent and sharply cut. The nose delicate, slightly curved, and just sufficiently prominent to give character to the face. And the dress somewhat fantastic as became her looks. Anna Kingsford seemed at first more fairy than human and more child than woman. For though really twenty-seven she appeared scarcely seventeen, and made expressly to be caressed, petted and indulged, and by no means to be taken seriously.

These impressions as regards her character were appreciably modified on subsequent acquaintance, and Mr Maitland observes that “when she warmed to her favourite themes, her whole being radiant with a spiritual light, her utterances were those in turn of a savant, a sage, and a child, each part suiting her as well as if it were her one and only character.”

The relationship between the authors of _The Perfect Way_ and the founders of the Theosophical Society in the days of its infancy affords matter of no little interest. The basic idea of the Theosophical Society, viz. the harmonising of the esoteric side of all religions, naturally suggested to the promoters of the movement that in the authors of so remarkable a work, they would find a tower of strength, and Madame Blavatsky, in particular, was most anxious to obtain their support and co-operation for the British section of the Society. Eventually, after considerable hesitation, Anna Kingsford responded to the advances made to her, and accepted the presidency of the British section. But the arrangement was not one which was destined to last long. That it was not likely to be a success might, I think, have been readily enough foreseen. Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland were too uncompromising in their point of view—too positive that the source of their own information could not be impugned, to accept readily the _bona fides_ of other and, as they considered, lower oracles. This, however, was by no means all. The attitude of Theosophy in its early days towards Christianity was in the main hostile. To make the esoteric interpretation of this creed the pivot of their teaching was the last idea they contemplated. Madame Blavatsky had attacked Christianity in _Isis Unveiled_. Mr Sinnett was equally unsympathetic. The basis of their actual teaching was an interpretation of Eastern religions, whereas the basis of _The Perfect Way_ was an interpretation of Western. Anna Kingsford was just as unhesitating in giving her preference to Christianity as the leaders of Theosophy were in according theirs to Buddhism, Hinduism, and kindred Oriental philosophies. Mrs Besant’s attitude when she joined the Society showed similar preferences. Her early experiences of orthodox Christianity were not such as to bias her in its favour, and it was not until later days that she assumed the mantle of the prophet of _The Perfect Way_, and openly recognised the importance of the esoteric side of Christianity to complete the circle of theosophical teachings. The views with which Theosophy commenced have in the course of time been materially modified, and a curious sidelight is thrown, by a letter of Anna Kingsford’s, on the question whether the leaders of this Society had originally adopted the reincarnation hypothesis, or whether this was in the nature of a subsequent development. Mrs Kingsford writes under date 3rd July 1882, to her friend Lady Caithness, alluding to the reception of _The Perfect Way_ by the Press:

After all this reviewing and fault-finding on the part of critics having but a third of the knowledge which has been given to us, there is not a line in _The Perfect Way_ which I would alter were the book to be reprinted. The very reviewer—Mr Sinnett—who writes with so much pseudo-authority in the _Theosophist_, has, within a year’s time, completely altered his views on at least one important subject—I mean Reincarnation. When he came to see us a year ago in London, he vehemently denied that doctrine, and asserted, with immense conviction, that I had been altogether deceived in my teaching concerning it. He read a message from _Isis Unveiled_ to confute me, and argued long on the subject. He had not then received any instruction from his Hindu guru about it. Now, he has been so instructed, and wrote Mr Maitland a long letter acknowledging the truth of the doctrine which, since seeing us, he has been taught. But he does not yet know all the truth concerning it, and so finds fault with our presentation of that side of it which, as yet, he has not been taught.

Presumably in this matter Mr Sinnett reflected Madame Blavatsky’s views, and the fact that he cites _Isis Unveiled_ seems to me to leave little doubt in the matter. Surely if he had misunderstood her, H. P. B. would have taken pains to put him right! I think that the date given will fix approximately the period at which official Theosophy was openly converted to the doctrine of Reincarnation. Until that time, if it was not uniformly denied, at least there were wide diversities of opinion, and apparently its opponents mustered more strongly than its supporters. Eventually Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland founded between them the _Hermetic Society_. This was not destined to a long lease of life, mainly owing to the breakdown of Anna Kingsford’s health. But while Theosophy showed the greater vitality, in spite of scandals and discords which might well have shattered it to its base, the teachings of the authors of _The Perfect Way_ exercised a profound influence in leavening the mass of Theosophical teaching. Though possessing no little dogmatism in her own intellectual organisation, Anna Kingsford had no great liking for any form of society that taught dogmatically, her idea being that every one must necessarily find out the truth for himself and realise it spiritually from his own individual standpoint. Theosophy was altogether too dogmatic for her, without being dogmatic on her own lines. She was readier to admit the existence of the Mahatmas than to grant the inspired source of their communications. In any case she looked upon their teaching as of a radically lower order than her own, and reflecting those vices and defects which she and Maitland were wont to associate with the denizens of the astral plane. On the subject of communications with such entities, or with those whom she suspected of belonging by nature to this region, she was never tired of inveighing.

The secret (she says) of the opposition made in certain circles to the doctrine set forth in _The Perfect Way_ is not far to seek. It is to be found in the fact that the book is, throughout, strenuously opposed to idolatry in all its forms, including that of the popular “spiritualism” of the day, which is, in effect, a revival, under a new guise and with new sanctions, of the ancient cultus known as Ancestor-worship. _The Perfect Way_, on the contrary, insists that truth is accessible only through the illumination, by the Divine Spirit, of man’s own soul; and that precisely in proportion as the individual declines such interior illumination, and seeks to extraneous influences, does he impoverish his own soul and diminish his possibilities of knowledge. It teaches that “Spirits” or “Angels,” as their devotees are fond of styling them, are untrustworthy guides, possessed of no positive divine element, and reflecting, therefore, rather than instructing, their interrogators; and that the condition of mind, namely, passivity, insisted on by these “angels” is one to be strenuously avoided, the true attitude for obtaining divine illumination being that of ardent active aspiration, impelled by a resolute determination to know nothing but the Highest. Precisely such a state of passivity, voluntarily induced, and such veneration of and reliance upon “guides” or “controls,” are referred to by the Apostle when he says: “But let no man beguile you by a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels.” And precisely such exaltation of the personal Jesus, as _The Perfect Way_ repudiates and its opponents demand, is by the same Apostle condemned in the words: “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.”

Accordingly, as Maitland and Kingsford fell foul of the Theosophical Society on the one hand, they fell foul of the Spiritualists on the other. But the cleavage between Spiritualism and the teaching of _The Perfect Way_ was far deeper than that between this teaching and Theosophy. With Theosophy indeed, in its broadest sense, there was nothing in Kingsford and Maitland’s teaching that was radically antagonistic. _The Perfect Way_ might in fact be accepted to-day, with some reservations on minor points, as a theosophical text-book, and, looked at from this point of view, it is the fullest, the most complete, and the most coherent exposition of Christianity as seen through theosophical spectacles. Anna Kingsford had indeed herself been received into the fold of the Roman Catholic Church, though certainly Roman Catholicism never had a more rebellious or more independent subject. On the doctrine of authority she would never have made concessions, and, without this admission, one fails to see what status the Roman Church can be held to occupy. It is indeed a case of Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark. Her leanings, however, towards the ancient mother of Christian churches was, even in its modified form, gall and wormwood to her partner and collaborator, and in the end it brought about some very unhappy and regrettable scenes in connection with her last hours, and a dispute as to the faith in which she died, which must have been exceedingly painful to all concerned.

Perhaps in no single point does Roman Catholicism present a worse and more undesirable aspect than in the manner in which its missionaries besiege the last hours of the passing soul in the effort to induce its victims, when too weak for resistance, to say “ditto” to the formulæ which their priests pretend to regard as constituting a password to the celestial realms. Certainly, in Anna Kingsford’s case, the admission of a Roman Catholic Sister of Mercy to tend her in her last illness was productive of the worst results, troubling her last hours with an unseemly wrangle that did not cease even after her body was consigned to its final resting-place.

A sidelight is thrown on Mrs Kingsford’s attitude towards Roman Catholicism by the record of a conversation which her biographer cites her as having had on one occasion with a Roman Catholic priest. She was calling on a Catholic friend on the occasion, and speaking as usual in her very free and self-confident manner with regard to the religious views which she held. Some remark which she made elicited from the priest the rebuke, “Why, my daughter, you have been _thinking_. You should never do that. The Church saves us the trouble and danger of thinking, by telling us what to _believe_. We are only called on to believe. I never think: I dare not. I should go mad if I were to let myself think.” Anna Kingsford replied that what she wanted was to understand, and that it was impossible to do this without thinking. Believing without understanding was for her not faith but credulity. “How, except by thinking,” she asked, “does one learn whether the Church has the truth?”

When the Hermetic Society was founded, W. T. Stead was editor of the _Pall Mall Gazette_, and Mrs Kingsford wrote for him an account of the new Society. Stead, with his usual taste for dramatic headlines, entitled it “The Newest Thing in Religions.” This was the very last description that its founders were likely to tolerate. Anna Kingsford wrote back an indignant letter of repudiation. “So far,” she says, “from being the newest thing in religions, or even claiming to be a religion at all, that at which the Society aims is the recovery of what is really the oldest thing in religion, so old as to have become forgotten and lost—namely, its esoteric and spiritual, and therefore its true signification.” Elsewhere she writes of _The Perfect Way_ as not purporting to be a new gospel. “Its mission,” she says, “is that simply of rehabilitation and re-interpretation undertaken with the view, not of superseding Christianity, but of saving it.” She continues:

For, as the deepest and most earnest thinkers of our day are painfully aware, the Gospel of Christendom, as it stands in the Four Evangels, does NOT suffice, uninterpreted, to satisfy the needs of the age, and to furnish a perfect system of thought and rule of life. Christianity—historically preached and understood—has for eighteen centuries filled the world with wars, persecutions, and miseries of all kinds; and in these days it is rapidly filling it with agnosticism, atheism, and revolt against the very idea of God. _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. It avers that the true “Lord Jesus Christ” is no mere historical character, no mere demi-god, by whose material blood the souls of men are washed white, but “the hidden man of the heart,” continually born, crucified, ascending and glorified in the interior Kingdom of the Christian’s own Spirit. A scientific age rightly refuses to be any longer put off with data which are more than dubious, and logic which morality and philosophy alike reject. A deeper, truer, more real religion is needed for an epoch of thought, and for a world familiar with Biblical criticism and revision—a religion whose foundations no destructive agnosticism can undermine, and in whose structure no examination, however searching, shall be able to find flaw or blemish. It is only by rescuing the Gospel of Christ from the externals of history, persons, and events, and by vindicating its essential significance, that Christianity can be saved from the destruction which inevitably overtakes all idolatrous creeds. There is not a word in _The Perfect Way_ at variance with the spirit of the Gospel of the “Lord Jesus Christ.”