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Syracuse HeraldFOUNDED BY ARTHUR JENKINS, JANUARY IS, IS77 Published Dally and Sunday by The Herald Co., Herald Place, Fmnklin Street and Marnell Avenue MART E. JENKINS, President EMMA JENKINS. Vice PresidentEDWARD H. O'HARA, Publisher, Secretary and. Treasurer Telephone 2-02U Address of All, Herald Place, Franklin Street and Marhell Avenue MAIL SUBSCRIPTION RATES Dally rate to R. F. D. Subscribers In Central and Northern New York, 84.00 a year; Sunday, 56.00 • year; payable In advance.MEMBER OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS The Associated Press Is exclusively entitled to the use for republlcation of all news dispatches credited to It or not otherwise credited in the newspaper and also the local news published herein.Entered in the Postofficc at Syracuse, N. Y., as Second-Class Matter MEMBER AUDIT BUREAU OF CIRCULATION .Ignoring party politics and pursuing an independent course, tec shall not hesitate to discuss public questions and to support such men and measures as seem best calculated to advance ,ths best interests o/ the people.—ARTHUR JENKINS IN FIRST ISSUE OF THE HERALD.SUNDAY MORNING,- JANUARY 17, -1932THE REMARKABLE ANNIE BESANTWhen Mrs. Annie Besant, famous leader of Theosophy, suddenly appeared before a convention of her faith in Adyar, Madras, India, a fortnight ago and, by a two-hour address, amazed those who had been told she was dying, the attention of the entire world was again called dramatically to one of the most picturesque feminine figures of this age.Her remarks on that occasion were typical. She said, “It’s quite true that I am doing a great deal of work out of sight. This frail body can not do it, but my many other bodies do.”This brilliant Englishwoman—divorced ■wife of a clergyman of the Anglican Church and now more than SO years old— has for decades been the incarnation of Oriental mysticism, and has drawn thousands to her exotic faiths, even in hard-boiled,” practical America, with its mass production and its machine age.Mrs. Besant is the second of two remarkable -women who have personified the cult of Theosophy. The first was its foundress, Mme. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky', who was born in Ekaterinoslav, Russia, in 18-31.Mme. Blavatsky for years studied Indian religious lore and mysticism. It is said that she even penetrated into Tibet and was initiated into the mysteries of the Lamas and monks of that strange and isolated land.Theosophy, as a philosophic term, had long been known in the terminology of English culture. The systems of Spinoza and, later, Hegel, who so profoundly influenced thought in America, were both of a theosophic tincture. But the theosophist par excellence were the mystics Meister Eekhardt and Jacob Boehme.These schools of theosophy were based on the -weird conceptions of Neo-Platonism and Manichaeism, in part, and from other strange and esoteric doctrines and beliefs.Something of these, blended with the Vedic and Buddhistic mysticism of India, were synthesized by Mme. Blavatsky into what became known as the religion of Theosophy. She traveled the world, preach-ing these doctrines and claiming miraculous powers. These were challenged and she was denounced by the Society of Psychical Research and others as a faker.As early as 1873 Mme. Blavatsky had founded the Theosophieal Society of New York and was editing a paper in that city. She died in London in 1891.For j-ears, before that, however, Mrs. Besant had been emerging as a leader of the faith. On Mme. Blavatsky’s death she was among several contenders for the succession to the foundress as head of the cult. To those outside the pale of that faith all over the world she is esteemed as the very personification of theosophy today and has been for a generation.Mrs. Besant, like some of the women devotees of Mahatma Gandhi, was born and grew up in a conventional English atmosphere. London was her birthplace. The year was 1847, In 1867, at the age of 20,: she was married to the Rev. Frank Besant, whose more celebrated brother was Sir Walter Besant, , the novelist. The marriage proved unhappy and the Besants were legally separated in 1S73.Within a year Mrs. Besant had become actively interested in social and political problems, but never on the conservative side. In fact, having become identified with the National Secular Society in 1874, she was prosecuted in 1877, in conjunction with Charles Bradlaugh, because of the publication of a book entitled “Fruits of Philosophy.” She was acquitted.Five years !r she linked herself with . the Socialist . ip in London and theremet George B- ,rd Shaw, which was thebeginning of ; ielong friendship. From then until 18f (she took part in manySocialistic mov ients and was a frequentspeaker at mee figs of laboring men. She also served for nree 3-ear. as a member of the London sc! jiol board.The story has been wriu \ although it- is not to be found in any of ti. standard biographies of Mrs. Besant, that she was assigned by a London newspaper to expose the'“fake claims” of Mme. Blavatsky, being given that assignment because of her shrewdness and exceptional clearness of judgment. Shaw has said frequently that she was one of the brainiest women in the British Empire.The legendary story, at any rate, is ! that she went to “expose” Mme. Blavatsky and ended by being converted to the remarkable Russian woman’s esoteric cult. Shaw has often deplored the loss Socialism suffered. when Mrs. Besant accepted and gave her life to theosophy.Mme. Blavatsky died in 1891 and it was not until 1899 that Mrs. Besant . announced her intention of devoting her life to theosophy, although- in 1891 and 1893 she visited the United States, lecturing on Mme. Blavatsky and Theosophy. In 1907 she was elected president of the Theosophieal So-,1In the last 40 years she has written numerous books and articles, mostly of a religious liature.The present generation in this country, however, knows Mrs. Besant best through )ier Jbringing'.to this • country, in 1926 ayoung Hindu named Jeddu Krishnamurti, whom, it was erroneously reported, she was proclaiming as the reincarnation of Christ.” She had predicted, from India in 1925, that “a second Messiah would appear soon” and had founded the Order of the East, which was to be the basis of a new religion grounded on the expected new Messianic appearance on earth. This brought heated protests from theosophists all over the world.Whether it was these protests, or whether her intent had been misunderstood, she did not, at any rate, bring young Krishnamurti to the United States as a “reincarnation of Christ,” as the newspapers hsd expected.Upon the arrival of young Krishnamurti, then about 30, and his patroness at New York, the Hindu was asked the direct question by the ship news reporters, “Do you believe that 3‘ou are a second Christ?”He replied, “No, but I do believe I am the new vehicle for the World Teacher.”Krishnamurti, who is an Oxford graduate, made many addresses during the visit to this cbimtiT, which was part of a world tour he made with Mrs. Besant.In’ 1927, when she was 80 years old, Mrs. Besant made several air trips between India and Europe to keep speaking appointments. When she was asked if she would consent to a public celebration of her 80th birthday-, she replied, “Time enough when I’m 100.’”VANISHING EMPIRESMaking an excavation in the heart of London for a new office building, British workmen the other day came upon some relics of the very distant past—relics of the day when London was an outpost of the British empire, a provincial garrison on a distant island.They found a number of interesting things; old Roman tools, bits of broken pottery, pilings that marked the first of London's river wharves, and so on. Their finds, archaeologists say, date back to the first century of the Christian era.Of course, the London subsoil is full of such things, and there isn’t any-thing especially new or startling about his latest find.. But the whole business stimulates the imagination, somehow. It makes ancient history seem real and it gives us an eerie glimpse into the future.When those relics were first deposited there, Rome was what London is today-; the capital of a far-flung empire, filled with tradesmen, administrators, shippers and “empire builders.” Young Romans, one imagines, sailed for administrative posts in the British isles much as young Englishmen, half a century ago, sailed for similar jobs in India. They felt that they were going to the very ends of the earth, and the placid river Thames—as Conrad points out in his Heart of Darkness”—must have seemed as mysterious and subtly hostile as the Congo seemed to the roving young Englishmen of the last century.It is easier to make Roman civilization seem real by drawing that parallel. The imperialism of the Caesars was, after all, very like that of Queen Victoria’s day. There were far-off colonies to be developed, and England, which was to have colonies of its own some day, was a raw and wild land that needed cultivation.And all of this makes one look ahead. Rome’s empire has vanished, centuries since, and her colonies have grown to ripe maturity-. Will the empires of today, sometime, follow Suit? Will English relics, dug up in Delhi—or American relics, dug up in , Manila—set antiquarian memories adrift?HISTORICAL MYTHS Rafael Sabatini, the author who permitted post-war readers to turn back to tales of piracy and other varieties of romantic adventure, declares that history is so full of myths that it takes years of research to find out whether any colorful incident of the past is fact or fiction.Among the “historical” tales which are pure fiction, says Mr. Sabatini, are thc_ famous yarn about the man in the. iron mask, the William Tell episode and the story that Richard III of England made away with his two youthful nephews.'This, of course, is interesting information; and yet, when you stop to think about it, it makes very little difference whether these and similar historical anecdotes really have any truth in them or not. True or false, they point a moral, so to speak. They summarize certain times, certain people and certain events in such a way that they will live even if we prove them to be sheer invention.The tale of the man in the iron mask, for instance—who hasn’t felt a cold shudder or two at this story about the Bastille’s hopeless prisoner? The story may be a fake—but it tells us more about the way France was governed in those old days than a whole volume of dry facts. -Similarly, there, is Mafie Antoinette’s supposed remark that the starving peasants ought to eat cake—a remark which, historians assure us, was never made. Suppose she didn’t say it? The whole ruling class had just such a stupid and flippant attitude toward misery of the Iowa1 classes
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Syracuse Herald
Syracuse, New York, US
Sun, Jan 17, 1932
Page 2
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Onondaga C.
NY, USA 20 Jul 2023
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