Anna Kingsford was an extraordinary 19th Century woman. She was one of the first women in Britain to become a medical doctor, edited a feminist newspaper, and served as president of the Theosophical Society. She knew Helena P. Blatavsky, Eliphas Levi, and many other primary figures in Occult and Esoteric circles of the time. She was a principled vegetarian and anti-vivisectionist, and opposed foxhunting. She was considered one of the inspirations for the Golden Dawn, a ritual magic secret society which was one of the sources of modern neo-paganism, although she did not live to join it. In particular, the equality of the sexes in the Golden Dawn is acknowledged as her contribution.

Anna Kingsford claimed to be in contact with fairies as a child. As an adult she had channeled visions, both waking and in lucid dreams, in which she tapped esoteric knowledge imparted by angelic beings, travelled in time, and witnessed shamanistic visions of a vast cosmos alive at every scale of creation. These 'illuminations', as she called them, were exhausting and sometimes terrifying. Her close collaborator Edward Maitland worked with Kingsford to record her illuminations in this book, published after her death.

Much of the channeled and revealed literature of the 19th Century is surreal fantasy, invented pseudo-histories, or pure free-association. By contrast, Anna Kingsford's illuminations are consistent, coherent, and display a deep understanding of occult traditions. Her theology could be described as Gnostic Christian Polytheist. She had a radical feminist viewpoint which seems fresh even today, one in which a Goddess figure, the 'Sophia' of the Essenes, Gnostics and early Christians has a central role:

For the woman is the crown of man, and the final manifestation of humanity.
She is the nearest to the throne of God, when she shall be revealed.
But the creation of woman is not yet complete: but it shall be complete in the time which is at hand.
All things are thine, O Mother of God: all things are thine, O Thou who risest from the sea; and Thou shalt have dominion over all the worlds.

Kingsford was chronically ill her entire life; she died of complications from pneumonia at the early age of 42, on February 22nd 1888.

Part The First: Illuminations

ILLUMINATIONS

PART THE FIRST

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