Book 4 (Part I)

I7 they have themselves pictured; and, without the slightest grounds for saying so, they make the assumption “ This is That.” In the Bhagavadgitaa vision of this class is naturally attributed to the apparition of Vishnu, who was the local god of the period. Anna Kingsford, who had dabbled in Hebrew mysticism, and was a feminist, got an almost identical vision; but called the “divine” figure which she saw alternately “ Adonai ” and “ Maria.” Now this woman, though handicapped by a brain that was a mass of putrid pulp, and a complete lack of social status, education, and moral character, did more in the religious world than any other person had done for generations. She, and she alone, made Theosophy possible, and without Theosophy the world-Wide interest in similar matters could never have been aroused. This interest is to the Law of Thelema what the preaching of John the Baptist was to Christianity. We are now in a position to say what happened to Mo- hammed. Somehowor another this phenomenon happened in his mind. More ignorant than Anna Kingsford, though, for- tunately, more moral, he connected it with the story of the “ Annuncia- tion,” which he had undoubtedly heard in his boyhood, and said “Gabriel appeared to me.” But in spite of his ignorance, his total mis- conception of the truth, the power of the vision was such that he was C