Mabel Besant-Scott

Mabel Emily Besant-Scott (born August 28, 1870 in Cheltenham , Gloucestershire , England , † May 22, 1952 ) was an English theosophist , Rosicrucian and female Freemason .

Life

Childhood, marriage and children

Mabel Besant was born in Cheltenham on August 28, 1870, the younger of two children of Frank and Annie Besant . The father was a clergyman of the Anglican Church , the mother a well-known women's rights activist and later the second president of the Theosophical Society Adyar (Adyar-TG). When Mabel struggled with death during a serious illness, her mother Annie sought advice and comfort in theological books. The utter failure of these efforts alienated Annie's faith in the Church and, much to her husband's displeasure, she turned to atheist circles. This led to the separation of the parents in 1873, son Arthur Digby Besant stayed with his father, Mabel lived with her mother in London .

Mother Annie became involved in the women's rights movement in the following years and brought out her work The Laws of Population in 1877 , in which she spoke out in favor of birth control . For conservative circles at the time, this was an unacceptably immoral act and considered incompatible for an honest woman. The father then obtained that Annie had custody of Mabel withdrawn and that she came into his care. The following years with her argumentative father left Mabel profoundly traumatized . When she began to pay her mother secret visits in 1888, Mabel was rejected by her father.

On May 7, 1892, she married the journalist Sir Ernest Scott in Marylebone . Daughter Muriel (1893-1924) emerged from the marriage. In 1892 Besant and her husband moved to Melbourne , where they converted to the Roman Catholic Church in 1896 . From this time onwards, the marriage was marked by alienation and existed only on paper, but was not formally divorced until 1915. In 1909 Mabel returned to England without her husband, but with her daughter.

As a theosophist, Freemason and Rosicrucian

Before 1892 she followed the example of her mother Annie and joined the Theosophical Society . After its split in 1895 as a result of the Judge Case , it was followed by the Adyar-TG .

Like her mother Annie, Mabel Besant was a member of Le Droit Humain , both of which had the 33rd and therefore highest grade . Annie was Grand Secretary to the British jurisdiction of this co-Masonic organization. When Annie died in 1933, she gave this role to her daughter Mabel. Annie relied on the allegedly established rule 45 , sovereignty of the British jurisdiction over the Supreme Grand Council in Paris . The latter protested violently against such an interpretation of the rules, after some disputes Mabel resigned in 1934 and left Le Droit Humain with a number of other members .

After she left, Mabel turned to the Rosicrucian Order Crotona Fellowship (or Corona Fellowship of Rosicrucians ) founded by George Alexander Sullivan . Together with Sullivan, she founded the Rosicrucian theater in Christchurch in 1938 .

Footnotes

1. ↑ ^{a b} Arthur Digby Besant ( Memento of the original from December 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (pdf) 
2. ↑ ^{a b} Annie Besant
3. ↑ Sir Ernest Scott
4. ↑ ^{a b} Manifestations of the Neo-Rosicrucian Current
5. ↑ Annie Besant's Regalia ( Memento of the original from December 31, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.