PSYPIONEER Founded by Leslie Price Editor Paul J. Gaunt Volume 4, No 8: August 2008 Available as an Electronic Newsletter Highlights of this issue: When the devil went down to Dublin: Annie Besant…. – Wendy Cousins Enrico Morselli’s forgotten bibliography – C. S. Alvarado & M. Biondi Are the ages of the Fox Sisters important? - Paul J. Gaunt The first Duncan trial – Leslie Price Sir Oliver Lodge - The Strand Magazine An Australian Pioneer – Update by Elizabeth Pretty Books for sale How to obtain this Newsletter by email 186 190 193 195 207 213 214 215 ========================================= WHEN THE DEVIL WENT DOWN TO DUBLIN: ANNIE BESANT IN IRELAND Wendy E. Cousins In her autobiography, Annie Besant, President of the Theosophical Society from 1907 until 1933, lamented the fact that she had been born in London when “three-quarters of my blood and all my heart are Irish” and if Mrs Besant had a fascination for Ireland, likewise Theosophy held a fascination for the Irish. The charter for the first Dublin Lodge of the Theosophical Society was obtained by Charles Johnston in April 1886. A student at the High School Dublin 1 at the same time as his friend W.B Yeats, Johnston was the son of a staunch Orangeman, the Conservative-Unionist MP for South Belfast. The other original members of the Irish Theosophical Society were also decidedly protestant and numbered several other High School old boys including Charles’ brother Lewis Johnston (also an Orangeman) the poet W.B. Yeats, F.T. Gregg [sic], H.M. Magee, E.A. Seale, W. F. Smeeth, and R. A. Potterton (Foster, 1997: p 552). It has been suggested that the presence of so many members from a protestant evangelical background in the Dublin Lodge can be read 1 Still in existence today, the High School Dublin, was founded in 1870, by the Governors of The Erasmus Smith Schools, as a school to prepare boys for business and the professions. In the main, students were Anglicans from the Church of Ireland but other denominations were represented. 186 as an expression of dissent from the sectarian identities on offer during the 1880s to the 1890s. The Irish Theosophist magazine claimed in 1893 that, “the Theosophical Society is non-sectarian and has in its ranks members of every denomination. Its one binding rule is Universal Brotherhood. It is the friend of every religion and endeavours to show the truth underlying each”. Theosophy may thus have offered protestants a new liberty of conscience, and a new way of breaking free from an intellectual climate constrained by sectarian bigotry (Guinness, 2003). Another young man from an Irish protestant background who became deeply involved with the Theosophical Society was the Belfast born playwright and poet, James Cousins. He travelled to India in 1915, to work for Mrs Besant at the Theosophical Society in Adyar but from 1905-1913 he was school-master at the High School Dublin, responsible for teaching English and geography. On his first day at the school, in a fore-shadowing of his Theosophical future, James had particularly noticed that the name Charles Johnston appeared 4 years in a row heading the lists of school exam successes. Remarking on this fact, he was told in no uncertain terms by the Headmaster that “Charlie Johnston…was an Olympian. He might have gone to the very top, but he made a fool of himself by marrying the niece of that charlatan Madame Blavatsky 2 ” (Cousins & Cousins, 1950, p 98). James Cousins’ own lifecourse was equally unexpected and by the start of the 20th century he might be said to have made a much longer journey metaphorically than the 100 or so physical miles which separate Belfast from Dublin. His early instruction from his Methodist parents was “that a woman called Besant was an agent of the Devil, and doubly dangerous by her immoral associations with the atheist Bradlaugh.” The first time he caught sight of that “bad woman” in the flesh was on October 1st 1902 (her birthday) as she gave a lecture in a small Irish hall. This event proved a memorable one which he later recorded in his autobiography: “Mrs. Besant’s lecture was on “Theosophy and Ireland”. I gathered that clairvoyance, or revelation, or both, declared a long process of racial and cultural evolution out of which Ireland was ultimately to emerge as the spiritual mentor of Europe, even as India long ago had been to Asia. Mrs Besant, then fifty-five, short, grey-haired, pleasant yet serious, and intelligent of countenance, spoke with facility in plain language without notes in an attractive full-toned voice. I learned from her lecture that Theosophy was a much bigger matter that what I had derived from small manuals- and so was Ireland; which was quite a lot to learn in one afternoon…” (Cousins & Cousins, 1950: p 75) Some years later in July 1907 on a visit to London, James and his wife Margaret, a militant suffragette and musician who was already well-read in the works of Madame Blavatsky and Anna Bonus Kingsford, were invited to attend a Convention of the Theosophical Society at the British headquarters in Albermarle Street. This led to an unexpected meeting with Mrs Besant who had recently become President of the Society, the successor to Henry Steel Olcott. James records that Mrs Besant: 2 Charles Johnston was indeed married to Madame Blavatsky’s niece. 187 “…expressed pleasure at having someone from Ireland at the Convention…She loved Ireland and was thrilled by its future as the spiritual leader of Europe. She concluded the ten-minute interview by ignoring me, putting her hand on Gretta’s shoulder and saying “Go back to Ireland, my dear and form a Lodge of the Theosophical Society, and when it is formed I will come and lecture for you”. (Cousins & Cousins, 1950: p 126) James Cousins was later to be one of the founders of the third Theosophical lodge in Dublin, but Mrs. Besant’s offer to visit Dublin did not wait on the formation of this lodge. A letter came sometime after the Cousins’ London introduction indicating that Mrs Besant would break a return journey from the United States at the Irish port of Queenstown (now Cobh) to come to Dublin and requesting James to organise an afternoon reception and an evening lecture in the city. Although he felt some misgivings about what his employers at the High School, with its management of Anglican clergymen might make of this endeavour, he felt that “there was nothing to be done but to do it” and the event was duly organised. On October 10th 1909 in the Contemporary Club in Dublin, Annie Besant gave a lecture on The Meaning and Value of Theosophy to 300 hand-picked invitees. It promised to be a stimulating event, and that evening James noted with a touch of wryness that the hall was “full of the most intelligent people in Dublin, with some exceptions”. He moved unobtrusively on the margins of the meeting with as unconcerned an air as he could manage. He was well aware that to his Episcopal employers at the High School “the name of Annie Besant called up odours of fire and brimstone” and the discovery that he “was the devil in disguise” who had organised the lecture could end his career as a teacher. Complicating matters, he had also written a confidential invitation to Sir William Fletcher Barrett, at that time Professor of Physics at the Royal College of Science for Ireland, and asked him if he would take a seat on the platform along with a few others in compliment to the eminent visitor. Sir William knew James and Margaret Cousins from academic circles and through joint experiments in psychical research, but he still replied to the effect that he would have nothing to do with the eminent visitor - or any of her works. Nevertheless, among the audience at the back of the hall James saw a figure “that suggested the psychical scientist, but apparently veiling his identity.” He made no sign of recognition and the lecture proceeded (Cousins & Cousins, 1950 p 127). Mrs Besant spoke for an hour, the audience was appropriately fascinated and the applause at the end was reportedly cordial and long but as she turned to leave the platform, a familiar voice called out from the back of the hall, “Ladies and Gentlemen!” It was none other than Sir William Barrett. James “got cold shivers at the dread possibility of some controversy” into which he might be disastrously drawn but the crisis passed. Over the suppressed hubbub of the crowd’s departure and surprise at the intrusion, Sir William made an announcement: “I was invited to take a seat on the platform tonight. I declined the invitation, as I did not wish to be identified with the ideas held by the lecturer. But I wish to say that, in my long life, in which I have heard the greatest speakers of English in the world, I have never listened to anything finer in substance and 188 delivery than what has been given to us tonight, and I wish to express my personal thanks to Mrs Besant and to the organiser of the meeting.” (Cousins & Cousins, 1950: p128) James felt some relief that no names were mentioned as to who that organiser might actually be and records that at home the next morning he received a letter from Sir William. It asked him to convey to Mrs Besant, who had stayed overnight with James and Margaret, his deep regret that an unbreakable engagement prevented him from going to the steamer at Kingstown (now Dún Laoghaire) to bid her farewell in person. It was noticed that “She read it with a pleased smile”. James stops short of claiming a Theosophical conversion for one of the founders of the Society for Psychical Research but records that some years, later in a chance meeting in a Dublin tramcar, Sir William told him that he considered the Hodgson Report on Madame Blavatsky a black item on the Records of the Society for Psychical Research, and that he hoped to see it expunged before the end of his life. He didn’t (The Theosophist, 1925; Cousins & Cousins, 1950: p128). References Besant, A. (1893) Annie Besant: An Autobiography. Project Gutenberg http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=12085 [Accessed 27th July 2008] Cousins, J. H. & Cousins, M.E. (1950) We Two Together. Madras: Ganesh. Foster, R.F. (1997) W.B. Yeats a Life Volume 1: The Apprentice Mage. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Guinness, S. (2003) 'Protestant Magic' reappraised: evangelicalism, dissent, and Theosophy. Irish University Review, Vol 33 (1) 14-27. The Irish Theosophist (1893) July, p.120. The Theosophist (1925) October, p 5. Wendy E. Cousins is an Irish university lecturer and SPR member, currently carrying out some personal research into the paranormal experiences and experiments of the writers, artists and mediums of the Irish revival, with a particular reference to the practice of automatic writing. She would be very interested in hearing from anyone with information about the Irish medium Geraldine Cummins. Her email address is dalriada3@gmail.com 189