The Perfect Way
Or, The Finding of Christ

These wide-ranging lectures on theosophy, first published in 1882, discuss religions, spirits, divinity and redemption, truth, liberty and reason.

Anna Bonus Kingsford (Author)

9781108028110, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 19 May 2011

382 pages, 10 b/w illus.
23.4 x 15.6 x 2 cm, 0.54 kg

Anna Kingsford (1846–1888) published her first book at the age of 13. A passionate anti-vivisectionist, she also championed womens' rights and vegetarianism. Leaving behind her husband and daughter, she travelled to France to study medicine, accompanied by the writer Edward Maitland. The pair shared a fascination with the spiritual and became leading members of the Theosophical and Hermetic societies. This book, first published anonymously in 1882, is a collection of lectures on theosophical topics delivered to a private audience in summer 1881. It explores the basis of all religions, the nature of the soul, spiritualism and the feminine aspect of the divine, and also discusses blood sacrifice, vegetarianism, pantheism and the teachings of the Kabbalah and the Bhagavad Gita. The author hoped this wide-ranging study of allegories, symbols and myths would 'restore and rehabilitate the truth', reconciling mind and heart, religion and science, and promoting liberty and reason.

Preface
1. Introductory
2. The soul, and the substance of existence
3. The various orders of spirits, and how to discern them
4. The atonement
5. The constitution of existence: its nature and unity
6. The Fall (No. I)
7. The Fall (No. II)
8. The Redemption
9. God as the Lord
or, the divine image
Appendices.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX]