Katherine Tingley

Katherine Tingley in 1906

Katherine Augusta Westcott Tingley or Madame Tingley for short (born July 6, 1847 in West Newbury near Newburyport , Massachusetts , USA ; † July 11, 1929 in Visingsö , Sweden ) was an American social reformer , author of esoteric works, theosophist and president of Theosophical Society in America . It was often called "KT" or "KT" for short.

Life

Childhood, adolescence and marriage

Tingley was born under the maiden name Catharine Augusta Westcott on July 6, 1847 in West Newbury, as one of three children of Captain James Westcott and Susan Chase . The father was a hotelier, businessman and police director of the city, the family was very wealthy. In addition to attending school in Newburyport, her parents also made it possible for her to take private lessons. a. in singing and playing the piano . In 1861 the family moved to Alexandria , Virginia , because the father had to set up a volunteer company there for use in the Civil War on the Union side . For a short time she attended a school in the Catholic monastery Villa Marie in Montréal . After leaving the monastery, she is said to have worked for a while as an actress in a traveling theater in the 1870s, more details are not known from this time. Around 1870 she married a printer named Henry Cook , with whom she presumably adopted a child, but the marriage ended in divorce just two months later. In about 1880 she married a train station attendant named George Parent and adopted two other children. She later gave one of the children back to their biological parents, another died, the third child is said to have lived with Tingley until around 1895, then his traces are lost. The connection with George Parent only lasted a short time and then broke. In the 1880s she moved to New York , where she married the inventor Philo B. Tingley in the spring of 1888. This relationship lasted even though they were separated in later years, but remained just as childless.

In the service of welfare

At the age of 14, Tingley, Virginia , was first confronted with the misery of war in June 1862 when she watched wounded and starving soldiers from the seven-day campaign . Spontaneously she asked her mother and together they brought the food stored in the house to the soldiers. This was the beginning of her social commitment. When a fire made numerous people homeless in a neighboring town during her time as a monastery in Montréal , she and other nuns set up a charity for those affected by the fire. Starting from her home in New York , she founded numerous homeless shelters, poor house meals, charities, hospitals and women's shelters between 1887 and 1894. She herself, and the members of the Ladies Society of Mercy, which she founded in 1887 , visited prisons, cared for the wounded, comforted the dying, and initiated relief efforts for the needy and disadvantaged. Such a thing was not taken for granted at the time and was very unusual for a woman. In her activities she showed a remarkable organizational talent, perseverance and assertiveness.

The Theosophical Society

The beginnings

After Tingley met William Quan Judge , head of the American Section of the Theosophical Society (ASTG) at a poor house meal in 1893 , her life changed fundamentally. So far she had pursued her aid rather haphazardly and helped where it seemed most urgent. In the bottom of her heart she recognized the ideas of theosophy , which her judge now conveyed, as her own and the well-organized Theosophical Society (TG) represented the ideal platform for the realization of her far-reaching ideas. On October 13, 1894, she joined the TG , and on October 27, 1894 she was admitted to the Esoteric Section . When the ASTG separated from the TG on April 28, 1895, Tingley stayed with Judge and the newly founded Theosophical Society in America (= Theosophical Society in America (TGinA)), of which Judge was now president. During this time a close collaboration developed between Tingley and Judge, and when Judge died on March 21, 1896, Tingley appeared, despite her brief membership in the TG, as a possible successor.

A controversial search for the last will of Judge with regard to his successor followed, and after opaque surveys, Tingley was initially unofficially fixed as future president. Ernest T. Hargrove was officially elected as President of the TGinA at the end of April 1896 , but the real Eminence in the background was Katherine Tingley from the beginning, and on February 18, 1898 she was officially elected President.

For Judge, the realization of the esoteric - occult - religious ideas of theosophy was in the foreground, Tingley expanded this building to include social and educational aspects.

Travel for the TG

On June 13, 1896, Tingley began a 10-month promotional trip around the world for the theosophy of the TGinA. Shortly after her departure from New York, she began giving lectures on the ship. On her journey through Europe she also stopped in Germany, where she was present on August 30, 1896 at the first general meeting of the Theosophical Society in Europe (Germany) , when Franz Hartmann was appointed President. In Switzerland in September 1896 she met Gottfried de Purucker , her future successor. Purucker also warmed Tingley for a piece of land near San Diego , which she later bought and where Lomaland would eventually be built. It finally reached the USA again on February 13, 1897 in San Francisco via Egypt , India and Australia . In addition to her lectures, she had founded numerous theosophical lodges and centers, but also fed poor people and started charities. Further world and European trips followed in 1903/4, 1908, 1912, 1926 and 1929.

Back in New York, she founded the International Brotherhood League ((IBL) = International Brotherhood League ) on April 29, 1897 as part of the TGinA . As part of the IBL, she called the Sisters of Compassion (sisters of compassion) into being in August 1898 , which supported people in need. The IBL established u. a. This year a hospital in Montauk , for wounded American soldiers from the Spanish-American War , because medical care in the army was extremely poor at the time.

New organizational structure

Before that, on February 23, 1897, she had founded the School for the Revival of the Lost Mysteries of Antiquity ((SRLMA) in Point Loma , near San Diego in California , for the revival of the forgotten mysteries of antiquity). On January 13, 1898, the International Brotherhood Organization (IBO) was founded in New York and on February 18, 1898 the TGinA was integrated into the IBO. On that day, Tingley was elected president of both the TGinA, and here also the Esoteric Section , and the IBO. Both organizations were reorganized by her and known as the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society (UBTS). She now united all existing organizations and those that were founded later under the umbrella of UBTS with herself as President. She centralized the important competencies in her person and "governed" the UBTS autocratically from now on . On February 13, 1900, she moved the headquarters of the UBTS from New York to Point Loma. Already on their advertising trip around the world in 1896/97, Tingley had called on the theosophists to settle in Point Loma because they wanted to build a large theosophical world center there. She also succeeded in getting numerous influential and above all wealthy people from the USA excited about her idea and harnessing it.

The downside of this development was that already in the first years of her presidency, several theosophical groups and lodges turned away from the UBTS and founded their own organizations. This fragmentation of the Theosophical Society in America was triggered above all by Tingley's absolute claim to power but also by her turn to social and educational tasks; theosophy was neglected for some. More on this on TGinA .

Lomaland is born

Tingley's life's work originated in Point Loma and later became known and famous as Lomaland . In addition to the theosophical headquarters, a school, an academy , a college and a university were built there . Based on the ancient Greek model, an open-air theater was built, as well as a "normal" theater, handicraft building, a printing shop and a temple. Apartments were built, gardens and parks created - in short, a real village, a community was created .

Weekly performances by the school orchestra and the theater performances in the amphitheater , combined with the unusual architecture of the buildings, soon became a real tourist attraction, curious people from all parts of the country flocked to Lomaland and their enthusiastic descriptions attracted new streams of visitors. In the 1920s , Lomaland could be described as an early form of the Findhorn Community with a dash of Disneyland .

Worldwide expansion

Tingley had day schools and boarding schools built in several locations in the US, Cuba , Great Britain and Sweden . Theosophical lodges and centers were founded primarily in Europe , but also in Asia , all of which were closely linked to the headquarters in Point Loma and on whose development Tingley often had a direct influence. Its European headquarters were built on the Swedish island of Visingsö in 1913, alongside a school and a Greek temple where the students were taught. To make this happen, Tingley even had an underwater power line laid on the island at their own expense, a company reported by several newspapers at the time. The islanders honored Tingley for their many benefits by naming a ferry in 1993 with the name "M: me Tingley" (= Madame Tingley).

A difficult legacy

Tingley had bought the Lomaland property, some 132 hectares after all, on credit in 1897. In the years that followed, donations and income were mainly used for the construction of buildings and to cover running costs. At her death in 1929 Lomaland was greatly indebted to this year came the Great Depression , making the UBTs finally practically bankrupt was. Tingley's successor, Gottfried de Purucker , took over a difficult inheritance and only through drastic austerity measures was it able to repay its debts by 1942, when Lomaland was finally given up by him that year.

Working for world peace

As part of the International Brotherhood Organization (IBO), which she founded and heads, she worked for peace worldwide. She took part in numerous conferences, spoke at congresses, appealed to politicians and published appeals for peace. On March 3, 1913, in anticipation of the First World War , she founded the Parliament for Peace and Universal Brotherhood (Parliament for World Peace and World Brotherhood ). She initiated several peace congresses, April 13, 1913 in Point Loma, from 22 to 29 June at Visingsö , on 13 September in Stockholm and 6 October in English Brighton . On September 28, 1914, she held Sacred Peace Day for the Nations in San Diego . She protested to US President Woodrow Wilson in 1917 against the entry of the United States into the war, and at the same time opposed the drafting of Lomaland schoolchildren and students into the army. She warned of the consequences of the Balfour Declaration and accused Woodrow Wilson of breaking his word because of the unfair 14-point program . Tingley also fought for the abolition of the death penalty , briefly having success in the US states of Arizona and California , but then reintroducing it.

Death and succession

During a trip to Europe during a night drive near Osnabrück on May 31, 1929, your driver got off the road and hit a stone embankment at a bridge. Tingley was seriously injured in the accident and never recovered from it. According to her request, she was transported to the European headquarters on the island of Visingsö , where she died on July 11, 1929 as a result of the car accident. Her body was burned in a crematorium . Half of the ashes were taken to Point Loma, while the rest remained on Visingsö. The successor at UBTS was Gottfried de Purucker .

Works (selection)

• The future cooperation of Germany and America, the 23rd World Peace Congress in Berlin . Parliament for World Peace and Brotherhood, Point Loma 1925.
• The wine of life . Bohmeier, Lübeck 2002, ISBN 3-89094-378-0 .
• The gods are waiting . Theosophical University Press, Pasadena 1995, ISBN 3-930623-17-X .
• The mysteries of the doctrine of the heart, retrospect and outlook on the theosophical movement . Heller, Nuremberg 1908.
• Theosophy, the path of the mystic, "chain links for your own blacksmithing", from the lectures and writings . Esoteric Philosophy Publishing House, Hanover 1986, ISBN 3-924849-27-7 .

literature

• Josef H. Fussell: Events in the History of the Theosophical Movement, A Lecture on San Diego in California . Heller, Nürnberg undated (approx. 1921).
• Emmett A. Greenwalt: California utopia, Point Loma, 1897-1942 . Point Loma Publications, San Diego 1978.
• Emmett A. Greenwalt: City of glass, the theosophical invasion of Point Loma . Cabrillo Historical Association, San Diego 1981.
• Emmett A. Greenwalt: The Point Loma community in California, 1897-1942, a theosophical experiment . AMS Press, New York 1979, ISBN 0-404-60068-9 .
• Martin Sievers: Purpurkvinnan. Histories from Katherine Tingley and teosoferna på Visingsö. 2013, ISBN 978-91-637-2038-3 .
• Thomas Streissguth: Utopian visionaries . Oliver Press, Minneapolis 1999, ISBN 1-881508-47-1 .
• Lilian Whiting: Katherine Tingley, theosophist and humanitarian . Aryan Theosophical Press, Point Loma 1919.
• Lilian Whiting: Katherine Tingley and her Râja Yoga system of education . Bookstore for Universal Brotherhood and Theosophy, Nuremberg undated (approx. 1920).

Web links

• Brief biography and picture
• Special issue of Sunrise magazine dedicated to Tingley (PDF; 3.1 MB)
• Article about Tingley in the magazine Das Forum (PDF; 666 kB)
• Brief biography and links list to numerous online articles and books about and from Tingley (English)