The Ancient Wisdom

Annie Besant, social reformer and leading Theosophist in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, wrote brilliant and clear texts on many aspects of theosophical cosmology and anthropology. While Blavatsky also wrote clearly (at times), Besant brought the entire legacy of Blavatsky to a new level of articulation and probed into its ramifications. Yet she shows in her masterpiece "The Ancient Wisdom" that she had an independent and creative mind of high order. The book shows how the seven-fold nature of the human self works out its eternal drama in consort with the underlying cosmology that it mirrors. The so-called "higher" triad of the self (spirit, intuition, and mind) is displayed against the so-called "lower" quaternity of the self (lower mental, emotional, etheric, and physical). Unfortunately, in the climate of 1897, still lingering under the repression of the late Victorian era, the anthropological categories get mingled with value categories. Thus we read that the lower dimensions of the self are somehow morally tainted when contrasted to the higher dimensions. By contrast, Sri Aurobindo, writing in an overlapping period, was far less dualistic, refusing to conflate descriptive with honorific categories. This negative dualism haunts much of the early theosophical literature, but does not seem to be a necessary component. Besant does an excellent job in explaining the twin concepts of karma and reincarnation, convincing me that this model may be the best that our various traditions have to offer concerning justice and the complexity of the afterlife. Her discussion of the astral plane (certainly one issue that would cause strong resistence in the contemporary mind-set) opens up some vistas that are worthy of sustained probing. If this section of the book is augmented with her book "Thought Forms" (co-written with Leadbeater), much can be gained about how this surrounding field of energy might operate. She introduces Sanskrit language in a careful way so that it is always correlated with English rough equivalents. One comes away with the feeling that a master architect has been at work on "The Ancient Wisdom;" one who can build with materials from her native English world with those she acquired during her life in India. In short, this book is far from being simple (it is not) or a mere introduction, but stands on its own as a classic text.

Besant, together with Blavatsky, brought into being the Theosophical Society and made it an extraordinary influence in Europe, the US and India. One doesn't have to be anything like a Theosophist to appreciate what Besant is attempting here -- and what she ably pulls off. Contemporary Theosophists may think this book is far too elementary, but the fact is that most people interested in New Age thinking and the occult or estoreric or mystical "teachings of the ages" don't know much, if anything, about Theosophy...so this is a pretty good place to start.