Theosophical Encyclopedia

(1870-1952). Italian educator and Theosophist who was born at Chiaravalle near Acona on August 31, 1870. She gained her degree in medicine from the University of Rome in 1894, the first Italian woman to do so. She also earned a degree in literature. As a doctor, Montessori became involved in the treatment of children with disabilities and devised a special method of treating and educating them. Her method soon proved suitable for more general application and became known as the Montessori Method.

Maria Montessori

During the First World War, Montessori, who was then in India, risked internment as an enemy alien and was given sanctuary at the Theosophical Society (TS) headquarters at Adyar near Madras (now Chennai). She died at Noordwijk, Netherlands, May 6, 1952.

Montessori’s method of education focused on two essential elements: gaining the sustained interest of the child by the provision of various educational items that have significance in developing skills and also allowing the child a considerable degree of latitude for individual choice of study. Under her method, children learn to read, write and count before they are six years of age. Montessori Schools have been established in many countries and flourish to the present time. Her last book, The Absorbent Mind (1949) was devoted to the education of children under the age of three years and a book published a year earlier, To Educate the Human Potential, demonstrated the value of teaching children about pre-history.

In November, 1884, William Q. JUDGE, then vice president of the Theosophical Society, returned to New York after visiting the Society’s headquarters in India. On the transatlantic crossing, one of his fellow passengers was a young Irishman, Albert E. S. Smythe (1861-1947) on his way to America as a prospective migrant. Their shipboard meeting was to have an important and lasting influence on both Smythe and the Theosophical movement in Canada: so inspired was the young man with what he heard from Judge that he devoted the rest of his life to the cause. Smythe did not settle down immediately, but, after early career experiments on both sides of the Atlantic in 1890, he eventually established himself in Toronto, Canada.

A.E.S. Smythe

Smythe introduced Theosophy to that city and, within a few months, enrolled a sufficient number of members to apply for a branch charter of the Theosophical Society. These pioneers included the first woman to practice as a medical doctor in Canada and her daughter, who was the first woman to graduate from a Canadian medical school. A young English immigrant Algernon BLACKWOOD, who later became a successful occult novelist, was among these pioneers of Theosophy in Canada. Together they formed the Toronto Theosophical Society in 1891. Its charter bears the signature of Helena P. BLAVATSKY and was one of the last to be signed by her before her death. This branch is still active.

The Theosophical Society (TS) in Scandinavia started in Sweden in 1889. In the year before, the famous Swedish author Viktor Rydberg who had taken an interest in Helena P. BLAVATSKY’s The Secret Doctrine, called together a group of Swedes, among them two ladies who had visited Blavatsky in London; the purpose was to start theosophical activity in Sweden. A Swedish group, attached to the British section, was formed on February 10, 1889. Dr. Gustaf Zander became the first chairman. The other members of the board were baron Victor Pfeiff, Vice-Chairman, A. F. Akerberg, Ph.D., Secretary, Amelie Cederschlöld, Corresponding Secretary, and Emil Zander, B.A. Treasurer.

The main activity during the first years was concentrated in Stockholm with public lectures, group meetings, discussions and answers to criticism from the press and others, the publication of books and booklets in Swedish, among them The Key to Theosophy, The Secret Doctrine (offered in instalments published successively), The Voice of the Silence by Blavatsky, Light on the Path by Mabel COLLINS, and Man’s Seven Principles by Annie BESANT. A library with some 500 titles was gathered and was open to the public. In 1891, a theosophical journal, Teosofisk Tidskrift, started and has been continuously published since then, sometimes under other names and under certain periods in cooperation with one or more of the other Scandinavian countries.

In 1884, Henry S. OLCOTT, then President of the Theosophical Society visited Scotland. This led to the formation in Edinburgh, on July 17, 1884, of the first lodge in Scotland. This was named “The Scottish Lodge.” Factionalism in the early 1890’s resulted in the Scottish Lodge severing its connection with Headquarters which resulted in its charter being withdrawn. A new lodge was chartered in 1893 named “Edinburgh Lodge”. This was followed by the formation of a lodge in Glasgow which received its charter in 1900.

During these early years, the Scottish lodges were part of the English Section. The Scottish Section was formed in 1910 and the following year the premises at 28 Great King Street, Edinburgh were purchased for the purpose of being used as our National Headquarters. This building, in beautiful Georgian Edinburgh remains as our headquarters to this day. In the same year the Scottish Section held its first National Convention in these newly acquired premises with the then President of the TS, Annie BESANT, as our guest speaker.

On July 9, 1892, a national Theosophical Society was founded in Netherlands. Its name was De Nederlandsche Theosophische Vereeniging (NTV). This was not the first association that undertook Theosophical activities in the Netherlands; there had been earlier activities.

Early Theosophical Activities: One of the first Theosophical Lodges in the Netherlands was called the “Lodge Post Nubila Lux” (light after darkness). It was founded on June 27, 1881. One of its founders was Adelberth de Bourbon, grandson of the French King Louis XVI. This Lodge, which had joined the French Section, was established at The Hague. Among its members were several painters of the Hague School, a leading group of artists who worked from about 1870 to 1900. After the death of Adelberth in 1897, the Lodge became dormant.

In Sanskrit the term means “virgin boys” (compare the feminine kumari “virgin,” used as the name of a goddess). But in Theosophy the masculine form is used to denote various great beings in the spiritual hierarchy, specifically: (1) the four great beings who are the highest members in the spiritual hierarchy helping the evolution of humanity; (2) one type of DHYANI-CHOHANS; (3) the AGNISHVATTAS, who are creative solar angelic beings that played an important role in the generation of our humanity. In THE LIVES OF ALCYONE, by C. W. LEADBEATER, the term LORDS OF THE FLAME is applied to those first four of the hierarchy: Sanat Kumar (the “King”), Sanaka Kumar, Sananda Kumar, and Sanatan Kumar — all of whom came into the Earth world from the Venus system. In addition to those four, three other Kumaras (Sana, Kapila, and Sanatsujata), who had accompanied the four, returned whence they had come. Helena P. BLAVATSKY, discussing the Kumaras, wrote that they “may indeed mark a ‘special’ or extra creation, since it is they who, by incarnating themselves within the senseless human shells of the two first Root-races, and a great portion of the Third Root-race — create, so to speak, a new race: that of thinking, self-conscious and divine men” (Secret Doctrine 1: 457 fn). As such, they are the Pitris or “fathers” of our kind.

Philip Sydney Harris
John Algeo

Jinarajadasa, Curuppumullage (1875-1953). Fourth President of the Theosophical Society.

Jinarajadasa was born in Sri Lanka on December 16, 1875, one month after the Theosophical Society was founded. His parents were Buddhists and he was raised as such. In 1886 the prominent Theosophical worker Charles Leadbeater visited Sri Lanka in connection with Buddhist education there and met Jinarajadasa. At the age of thirteen he was taken to England by Leadbeater and after a period of private education went up to St. John’s College, Cambridge, and in 1900 graduated in Sanskrit and Philology. After graduation, Jinarajadasa returned to Sri Lanka and accepted an appointment as vice principal of Ananda College (1900-01). He joined the Theosophical Society on March 14, 1903, and worked energetically for the Society in Sri Lanka until, at the request of Annie Besant, then international president of the Theosophical Society, he spent two years in Italy on Theosophical work, during which time he attended the University of Pavia for post-graduate study. After his time in Italy, he commenced a period of international lecturing for the Theosophical Society, which continued until the outbreak of war in 1939.

Curuppumullage Jinarajadasa

Jinarajadasa was married in 1916 to Dorothy M. Graham who was a prominent worker for the Theosophical Society, a Justice of the Peace for Madras, and founded the Women’s Indian Association in 1917.

Jinarajadasa held many positions in the Theosophical Society, including vice president, 1921-28; head of the Manor in Sydney, Australia, 1934; and director of the Adyar Library, 1930-32. In 1935 he became Outer Head of the Esoteric School of Theosophy.