'Anna Bonus Kingsford' (b.
September 16,
1846 in Maryland Point,
Stratford,
Essex - d.
February 22,
1888 in
London) was one of the first
female English physicians, after
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson. Kingsford participated in the
Theosophical movement
England and was best known as an advocate of
women's rights,
anti-vivisection and
vegetarianism.
She obtained a
medical degree in
Paris in
1880. In
1883, she was made President of the
Theosophical Society. She promoted a Western,
Christian and
Hermetic esotericism that diverged with the Oriental esotericism of
H.P. Blavatsky. Kingsford claimed that she had received mystical insights in
trance states and in her sleep. Her "revelations" were collected from various manuscripts and pamphlets by her collaborator
Edward Maitland, and published posthumously in the book, ''Clothed with the Sun''.
She participated in many of the
counterculture movements that occurred in the second-half of the
19th century, resulting from new discoveries in
medicine and
science. She attempted to combine her strong spiritual tendencies with new ideas like
evolution and
cellular biology. Subject to ill-health her entire life, she died at the young age of 42 in 1888. Her life and works have gone virtually unstudied since Maitland's lengthy biography, "The Life of Anna Kingsford."
See also
★
Ecofeminism
★
Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
Selected publications
★
1889 - ''
Clothed with the Sun'' - Full text online at ''Sacred Texts''
★
1916 - ''The Credo of Christendom and other Addresses and Essays on Esoteric Christianity''
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1882 - ''The Perfect Way, or the Finding of Christ''
★
1881 - ''The Perfect Way in Diet''
External links
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Anna Kingsford chapter of Occultists and Mystics of All Ages, published in the early 1900s.
★
Anna Kingsford: Maintained by Alan Pert
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History of Vegetarianism: Anna Kingsford M.D.
★
The Perfect Way - Anna Kingsford, Feminist Biblical Interpretation
★
★
Mysticism, Theosophy & the Occult - Anna Kingsford Article on Mysterious People website
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[1]: The Victorian Web biography