First to Eighth Annual Conventions.
Annie Besant and the Theosophical Society
[Besant, Annie]. Report of Proceedings of the Theosophical Society in Europe. First [through] Eighth Annual Conventions. London: Women’s Printing Society, 1891 – 1898.
8 vols., 8vo.; 65, 69, 39, 51, 39, 35, 27, 30 pp., respectively; printed wrappers.
Bound with:
Report of Proceedings and Documents of the Theosophical Congress Held by the Theosophical Society at the Parliament of Religions, World’s Fair of 1893, at Chicago, Ill., September 15, 16, 17. New York: American Section Headquarters T.S., 1893.
8vo.; 195 pp.; printed wrappers.
Bound with:
Report of the General Meeting of the British Section Council, Held at Headquarters Oct. 10 and 17, 1890. London: H.P.B. Press, 1890.
12mo.; spotting to first leaf; 16 pp.; foxed; annotation on first page; printed wrappers.
Bound with:
The Theosophical Society. London: H.P.B. Press, 1891.
12mo.; 24 pp.; printed wrappers.
Bound with:
Notice. Regarding Rule 3 of the British Section Code. October 17, 1890.
2 ½ x 5 inches; recto printed only.
Bound with:
Printed subscription notice, addressed in autograph to “Sir,” regarding the member pairing program of the British Section of the Theosophical Society. 189_.
5 ½ x 5 inches; recto printed only.
Bound with:
Advertisements of works by Blavatsky and Besant.
8vo.; 2 pp.
A collection of scarce reports and pamphlets from the Theosophical Society from the years, which saw the ascension of Annie Besant to a position of prominence within the movement, gathered and bound together by the previous owner into a single volume.
Theosophy played an important role in the feminist movement at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. In Divine Feminine: Theosophy and Feminism in England (Johns Hopkins, 2001), feminist historian Joy Dixon writes of discovering in the classified advertisements of suffrage newspapers “a feminist culture that had been largely ignored by historians,” central to which was “a self-conscious attempt to create a feminist spirituality.” She continues:
There were advertisements for women’s spiritualist seances, lectures on the Divine Feminine, and prayer circles that met to offer intercessory prayer on behalf of women imprisoned for suffrage militancy. In the midst of all this activity, one organization occupied a prominent place: the Theosophical Society, which...had been founded by one woman (Helena Petrovna Blavatsky) and led by another (Annie Besant). (xi)
The Theosophical Society offered women spiritual equality in a way Christianity did not, one of its three main objects, as laid out in the Theosophical Society booklet included in the present collection, being, “To form the nucleus of a Universal Brotherhood of Humanity, without distinction of Race, Creed, Sex, Caste, or Colour” (p. 2). According to a study cited by Dixon, almost ten percent of the most prominent women active in the feminist movement from the 1890s to the 1930s were members of the Theosophical Society at one point or another (p. 6). Their involvement was in no small part due to the enthusiastic leadership of Annie Besant, as witnessed by Miss L.M. Cooper, Secretary of the Blavatsky Lodge, in her report at the Second Annual Convention, also included in the present collection: “one great cause of the increase of interest in Theosophy generally, and in the Blavatsky Lodge especially, is undoubtedly owing to the powerful manner in which the subject has been expounded in public lectures by Annie Besant” (Report of the Proceedings...1892, p 37).
Besant joined the Theosophical Society in 1889, having already established herself as a prominent figure in the women’s movement for her efforts to disseminate information about birth control and for her agitation on behalf of female workers. Quickly becoming a member of Blavatsky’s inner circle, Besant was elected President of the Blavatsky Lodge in
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