Annie Besant Quotes

There was one policy with regard to the Masters, the phenomena worked by her, and Their communications, which she would not tolerate: the attempts to separate the occult from the philosophical, and to evade the criticism and the hostility of an ignorant world by exalting the philosophical at the expense of the occult. To do this, she repeatedly declared, was to invite the destruction of the Society. She was bitterly conscious of the unfairness with which she had been treated, and of the way in which many Theosophists were willing to sacrifice her to the mob, while profiting by her teachings, and declaring that the Theosophical Society had its own foundation, and could continue to exist, even if she were regarded as a fraud.

The Theosophical conception, as widely put forward among thoughtful people, asks them to consider the coming of World Teachers as normal, not as abnormal; as under a certain definite law, and not as a breach of continuity; as part of the Divine plan working out in human evolution, by which these Teachers form a long succession, appearing at quite definite intervals, and accompanied by certain definite signs or conditions in the civilization of the world to which they come. Theosophists, looking back over the world's religions, pointed out that each religion had such a great Teacher as its Founder; that no matter where you searched in the past, you found some magnificent figure at the commencement of a new era alike of religion and civilization; that you could trace a definite order; that you could recognize a quite intelligible sequence of world religions, rising one after another and appearing in the world when the previous civilization and religion was beginning to show signs of failing in its power, and of no longer being able thoroughly to cope with the conditions surrounding it. p. 126

In a lesser degree a man is inspired when one greater than he stimulates within him powers which as yet are normally inactive, or even takes possession of him, temporarily using his body as a vehicle. Such an illuminated man, at the time of his inspiration, can speak that which is beyond his knowledge, and utter truths till then unguessed. Truths are sometimes thus poured out through a human channel for the helping of the world, and some One greater than the speaker sends down his life into the human vehicle, and they rush forth from human lips; then a great teacher speaks yet more greatly than he knows, the Angel of the Lord having touched his lips with fire. (Isaiah vi. 6, 7) Such are the Prophets of the race, who at some periods have spoken with overwhelming conviction, with clear insight, with complete understanding of the spiritual needs of man. p. 378

Hail to thee, Osiris, Lord of Light, dwelling in the mighty abode, in the bosom of the absolute darkness. I come to thee, a purified Soul; my two hands are around thee (xxi. 1).

Liberty is a great celestial Goddess, strong, beneficent, and austere, and she can never descend upon a nation by the shouting of crowds, nor by arguments of unbridled passion, nor by the hatred of class against class.

The most sacred duty is filial piety. “God showers his blessings on him who honors and reveres the author of his days,” says Pampelus (De Parentibus, Orelli, op. Cit., ii, 345). Ingratitude towards one’s parents is the blackest of all crimes, writes Perictione ( ibid.,p. 350), who is supposed to have been the mother of Plato. p. 58

Looking just at these purely physical things, and trying to understand them as signs of the line along which mankind will be evolved, we remember that whenever a new sub-race has appeared a new great Teacher has come to start it on its way. There we find one of the strongest reasons for looking to the coming of the great Teacher within a comparatively short time: that there is in the making a new type, and that always in the past that has been accompanied by the manifestation of a World Teacher. Is it likely, we say, that what has happened over and over again — is it likely that, when looking back over our own great race, we see how the Teacher has come with each of these offshoots that we can trace in the past, that, as we see the beginning of a new vista when another type is developing, then the sequence of Teachers will be broken, and that one type for the first time will be left unguided, with none to shape its spiritual aspirations, with none to lay the foundation of the civilization that it will be its destiny to build?

The doctrines of the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ also form part of the Lesser Mysteries, being integral portions of "The Solar Myth," and of the life-story of the Christ in man.

Helena Petrovna was married, as a girl of seventeen, to an old man, and promptly took flight from her husband, on discovering what marriage meant, and roamed about the world in search of knowledge. In August, 1851... on a moonlight night, as her diary tells us, beside the Serpentine, " I met the Master of my dreams." He then told her that he had chosen her to work in a society, and some time afterwards, with her father's permission, she went into training for her future mission, passing through seven and ten years of probation, trial and hard work....

The world-Bibles, then, are fragments—fragments of Revelation, and therefore are rightly described as Revelation. p. 375

The time has now come for a fuller communication than is represented by this delicate thread in its original form, and it, as it were, widens out. This is but a clumsy way of picturing the fact that the Ray from the Monad glows and increases, assuming more the form of a funnel: “The thread between the Silent Watcher and his shadow becomes stronger and radiant." - The Secret Doctrine

But when the Will is exercised for the advantage of the lower self, when it is employed for personal ends and aims, then is the man a Black Magician, a danger to the race, and his results obstruct and delay human evolution.

India demands Home Rule for two reasons, one essential and vital, the other less important but necessary: Firstly, because Freedom is the birthright of every Nation; secondly, because her most important interests are now made subservient to the interests of the British Empire without her consent, and her resources are not utilised for her greatest needs.

Since all of us, men and women of this restless and eager generation—surrounded by forces we dimly see but cannot as yet understand, discontented with old ideas and half afraid of new, greedy for the material results of the knowledge brought us by Science but looking askance at her agnosticism as regards the soul, fearful of superstition but still more fearful of atheism, turning from the husks of outgrown creeds but filled with desperate hunger for spiritual ideals--since all of us have the same anxieties, the same griefs, the same yearning hopes, the same passionate desire for knowledge, it may well be that the story of one may help all, and that the tale of one should that went out alone into the darkness and on the other side found light, that struggled through the Storm and on the other side found Peace, may bring some ray of light and of peace into the darkness and the storm of other lives.

Over and over again he would be led by desire into excess, and each time he would experience the painful consequences, until at last he learned moderation, i.e., he learned to conform his bodily acts in this respect to physical law; for he found that there were conditions which affected him and which he could not control, and that only by observing them could physical happiness be insured. Similar experiences flowed in upon him through all the bodily organs, with undeviating regularity; his outrushing desires brought him pleasure or pain just as they worked with the laws of Nature or against them, and, as experience increased, it began to guide his steps, to influence his choice. It was not as though he had to begin his experience anew with every life, for on each new birth he brought with him mental faculties a little increased, and ever-accumulating store. p. 278