Albert Smythe

Albert Ernest Stafford Smythe (mostly just Albert ES Smythe or AES Smythe , born December 27, 1861 in Gracehill , Antrim County , Northern Ireland ; † October 2, 1947 in Hamilton , Ontario , Canada ) was an Irish / Canadian journalist , author and theosophist . As one of the first theosophists in Canada and because of his decades of theosophical development work, he was also referred to as the father of Canadian theosophy .

life and work

Childhood, profession, marriage, children

Albert Smythe was on 27 December 1861 by the Moravian Brethren founded the village of Gracehill , the son of Stafford Smythe and Leonora Cary born. Visiting local schools and academies with a special interest in geology , botany and physics .

On a trip to the USA he was shipwrecked and stranded penniless in New York in 1879 . Initially doing odd jobs, he later worked as a journalist and sales representative for a cement manufacturer , lived for a time in Belfast , Chicago and finally from 1889 in Toronto , Canada , where he settled down.

During a visit to his Irish homeland, he met Mary Adelaide Constantine on the voyage and married her on December 19, 1889 in Toronto. The only child born from the marriage was Conn Smythe . After the death of his wife in 1906, he married a certain Henderson again in 1912 . The second marriage was childless.

As a theosophist

On a voyage around 1884/1885 he met William Quan Judge , who introduced him to the teachings of theosophy . He then began to deal with this topic and later joined the Theosophical Society . On February 16, 1891, he co-founded the first theosophical lodge in Canada with Emily Stowe , Augusta Stowe-Gullen and Algernon Blackwood and became its president. When the Theosophical Society split into two competing organizations in 1895, on the one hand the Theosophical Society Adyar (Adyar-TG) and on the other hand the Theosophical Society in America (TGinA), he followed, like most of the other lodges that had emerged in the meantime, the TGinA direction under Judge . When, however, under the leadership of Katherine Tingley in 1898, this changed to an autocratic leadership style and put an emphasis on social issues, he left the TGinA around 1900 and joined the Adyar-TG.

Until 1919 the Canadian lodges were affiliated with the American section of the Adyar-TG, including the Toronto lodge Smythes. Then, under his leadership, a separate Canadian section of the Adyar-TG was formed. This Theosophical Society in Canada (TS in Canada) consisted of 17 lodges with a total of about 800 members, Smythe became its general secretary.

He pursued a course that was mainly based on the original theosophical tradition with the works of Helena Blavatsky and William Quan Judges and was an opponent of the Christ cult around Jiddu Krishnamurti and the Order of the Star in the East propagated by Annie Besant and Charles Leadbeater . The modern successor of the TS in Canada is today the Edmonton Theosophical Society .

From 1894 to 1900 he was editor of the theosophical journal The Lamp and from 1920 to 1947 of the Canadian Theosophist . He was the author of several poetic works.

Works (selection)

• Mrs. Lothbury's Gospel . Toronto 1920.
• Poems, Grave and Gay . Imrie & Graham, Toronto 1891.
• The balance of life, a biographical sketch of the life and work of the poet and literary critic Henry Thomas Mackenzie Bell . Curlew Press, London 1955.
• The Garden Of The Sun . Macmillan, Toronto 1923.

Web links

• Biography and picture (English)
• Short biography (English)