Red Cactus

Book excerpt: Here at last, an accurate biography of the amazing Englishwoman, Anna Kingsford (1846-1888). 2nd edition now available. Anna Kingsford accomplished much of lasting value in her life, tragically cut short by consumption. Beautiful, talented and rich, she eloped with a theology student at the age of 21, and married him on the condition that she be free to pursue her own career. She owned a paper in London, then took a medical degree in Paris to aid her promotion of progressive causes. As a mystic of a high order, she received illuminations which formed the basis of her classic Hermeticwork, The Perfect Way. On invitation, she became president of the British Theosophical Society, but fell out with the irascible Madame Blavatsky to form her own Hermetic Society. She will long be remembered for her mystical works, her promotion of vegetarianism and animal welfare, and her courage in exposing cant and hypocrisy in a repressive age. Anna Kingsford's reputation has been seriously maligned in some quarters. Did she kill two Frenchmen by mind power? Was her mind taken over by a black magician? In past lives was she Mary Magdalen, Joan of Arc, and Anne Boleyn? Now, for the first time, these and other disturbing questions are answered.