• The Story of Anna Kingsford and Edward
Maitland and of the New Gospel of Interpretation. Edward Maitland. 3rd. Edition, edited by Samuel H.
Hart. Ruskin Press,
Information: The book is written in seven chapters. First Edition:
Christmas, 1893; 2nd. Edition: Christmas, 1894; 3rd. Edition: Christmas, 1905.
The 3rd. Edition was edited by Samuel Hopgood Hart. The passage below, from one
of the biographical prefaces written by Samuel H. Hart [Long preface in:
Addresses and Essays on Vegetarianism. Anna Kingsford and
Edward Maitland (pp 1-60). Book edited by Samuel Hopgood Hart. John M. Watkins,
“My material, as will be
seen from the references, has been drawn almost entirely from The Life of Anna Kingsford, which
was written by Edward Maitland, and which was published in 1896. This book gives
a very full and interesting account of Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland and
their work. (…) I refer those who would know more of these two great teachers
and reformers – those who would know the whole story of Anna Kingsford as a
medical student, and of Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland as humanitarians – to
the above-mentioned biography. There is, also, another biography. In 1893, while
writing and in anticipation of the publication of The Life of Anna Kingsford, Edward Maitland wrote The
Story of the New Gospel of
Interpretation, in which he gave a short account of Anna Kingsford and
himself and their work. In
We hope to add in the future the translation of the
book into Portuguese.
Below you have the links to the chapters of the
complete Html text of the book, and in continuation, in this same file, you have the initial pages, the Table of Contents, the
Prefaces, and the Introduction:
Contents
Initial Pages, Table of Contents, Prefaces, and
Introduction (i-xix)
Chapter I – The
Vocation (1-36)
Chapter II – The
Initiation (37-70)
Chapter III – The
Communication (71-108)
Chapter IV – The
Antagonisation (109-141)
Chapter V – The
Recapitulation (142-162)
Chapter VI – The
Exemplification (163-183)
Chapter VII – The
Promulgation and Recognition (184-204)
THE
STORY
OF
ANNA KINGSFORD AND
EDWARD MAITLAND
AND
OF
THE NEW GOSPEL OF
INTERPRETATION
BY
EDWARD MAITLAND
EDITED BY SAMUEL HOPGOOD HART
“There shall nothing new be told; but that which is ancient
* * * * * * *
“Now is the Gospel of Interpretation come, and the kingdom of the Mother of the Mother of God.”
(Clothed with the Sun, Part I, No. ii (part 2) 10, 11; and Part II, No. xiii, 31)
THIRD AND ENLARGED EDITION
THE
RUSKIN PRESS,
1905
ABBREVIATIONS
A.K., for Anna Kingsford.
B.O.A.I., for The Bible’s Own Account of Itself, by E.M.; second edition,
1905.
C.W.S., for Clothed with the Sun, being the book of the Illuminations of A.K.;
edited by E.M., 1889.
D. and D.-S., for Dreams and Dream-Stories, by A.K., edited by E.M., second
edition, 1888.
E.C.U., for “The Esoteric Christian Union,” founded by E.M. in 1891.
E. and I., for
E.M., for Edward Maitland.
Life A.K., for The Life of Anna Kingsford, by E.M., 1896.
P.W., for The
Statement, E.C.U., for The New Gospel of Interpretation; being an Abstract of the Doctrine and
Statement of the Objects of the Esoteric Christian Union, by E.M.;
revised and enlarged edition, 1892.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface to the First and Second Editions (v)
Preface to the Third Edition (vii-xiii)
Introduction (xv-xix)
CHAPTER
I – THE VOCATION (1-36)
The Instruments – Their early lives – Their
consciousness of a special mission, and intimations of a call – Their training
in respect of circumstance, character, and faculty, until brought together for
their Joint work.
CHAPTER
II – THE INITIATION (37-70)
A baptism of the Spirit – “At last I have found a man
through whom I can speak!” – Intimation of the nature and aim of their work –
The Doomed Train, “No one on the engine!” – Instantaneous transfer of
inspiration – “Woman, what have I to do with thee?” – The recovery of a Gospel
scene, and its import – “The woman taken in adultery” – Vision of Adonai –
Source of the opening sentences in
CHAPTER
III – THE COMMUNICATION (71-108)
That “perfect love which casteth out fear,” in the
presence of celestial visitants – A parable of the Intuition – “The Wonderful
Spectacles” – The Greek element in the work – Hermes and John the Baptist – The
“heresy of Prometheus” – The Fig-tree, a symbol of the inward understanding; the
time come for it to bear fruit – The Seeress’s faculty – Her relation with
Hermes – “Thou art the Rock” addressed to Hermes – The parable of the Fig-tree –
The Mystic Woman of Holy Writ – “Go thy way, Daniel. Thou shall rest, and stand
in thy lot at the end of the days” – The prophecy of the book of Esther – The
Angel Genius, his account of himself and his office – Divine revelation the
supreme common sense – The source and method of the New Revelation – Its chief
recipient “not a medium or a seer, but a prophet” – An instruction and a caution
concerning the survival of tendencies encouraged in past lives – Communion with
souls of the departed – The conditions of such intercourse – An instruction
concerning Inspiration and Prophesying – The prophecy of “the kingdom of the
Mother of God.”
CHAPTER
IV – THE ANTAGONISATION (109-141)
“Ye are not yet perfected” – Our respective
Auras – An exhortation – The Seven spirits of God, their co-operation
necessary for a perfect work – “You belong to us now, to do our work and not
your own” – Enforced silence – “The Powers of the Air;” their mode of attack – A
strange visitant and his communication – A strained situation – Visions of
guidance – The “refractory team,” and the “Two Stars” – The promised land
reached only through the wilderness – “The Word a Word of mystery, and they who
guard it Seven” – “One Neophyte
could not save himself” – A Horoscope – A descent into hell – Counsels of
Perfection – A “Merry Christmas” – A timely arrival – Neoplatonic recognition of
Hermes – The one truth, never without a witness in the world – The key of
knowledge restored – Problems solved – The mystic “Woman” of Holy Writ.
CHAPTER
V – THE RECAPITULATION (142-162)
The key to the mystery of the Bible; the “Veil of
Moses” withdrawn – The secret laid bare of the world’s sacrificial system, and
the feud between priest and prophet – The Memory of the Soul – The Standpoint of
the Bible – All that is true is Spiritual – The revelation of “that wicked one”
– The seals broken and the books opened – The New Gospel of Interpretation –
Sacerdotalism the “Jerusalem which killed the prophets” – The suppressed
doctrines – Reincarnation the corollary and condition of Regeneration and
implicit in the Bible – “Ye must be born again of Virgin Mary and
Holy Ghost” – The doctrines of the Trinity and Divine Incarnation as now
interpreted, necessary and self-evident truths – Evolution the manifestation of
a divine inherency; accomplished only by the realisation of Divinity – The
process of regeneration, and therein of salvation, interior to the individual –
Adam and Christ the initial and final stages in the spiritual evolution of every
man – The “Christ within” of St Paul – The
Credo an epitome of the spiritual history of the Sons of God.
CHAPTER
VI – THE EXEMPLIFICATION (163-183)
Spontaneity of the Seeress’s faculty – Specific
illuminations, in illustration, chiefly, of the process of Regeneration;
concerning (1) Holy Writ; (2) Redemption; (3) Sin and death; (4) The Twelve
Gates of Regeneration; (5) The Passage of the Soul; (6) The Mystic Exodus; (7)
The Spiritual Phoibos and the order of the Christs; (8) The Previous Lives of
Jesus, and Reincarnation; (9) The Work of Power; the land and tongue of the New
Revelation, why ours.
CHAPTER
VII – THE PROMULGATION AND RECOGNITION (184-204)
Accordance of all the dates with those prophesied –
Other coincidences – Why our work has remained so long unknown to the generality
– Notable recognitions, by representative Kabalists, Mystics, Occultists and
Divines, Catholic, Anglican, and others – Spiritualism, Theosophy, and the New
Gospel of Interpretation as fellow-agents in the unfoldment of the world’s
spiritual consciousness, and the unsealing of the world’s Bibles, prophesied to
take place at this epoch – “Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” the Hebrew equivalents
for Brahma, Isis, and Iacchos, to denote the mysteries of India, Egypt, and
Greece, the Spirit, the Soul, and the Body, and therein the Gnosis of which the
Christ is the fulfilment and personal demonstration, and the restoration of
which was prophesied by Jesus as to mean the Regeneration of the Church and the
establishment of the divine kingdom on earth – Mysticism and Occultism, the
distinction between them, and the necessity of both physical and spiritual
science to a perfect system of thought and rule of life – Conclusion.
(p. v)
PREFACE (To the First and Second Editions)
This book is designed:
(1)
In satisfaction of the
widely-expressed desire for a more particular account than has yet been rendered
concerning the genesis of the writings claiming to constitute a “New Gospel of
Interpretation”; and
(2)
In fulfilment of the duty
incumbent on me as the survivor of the two recipients of such Gospel to spare no
means which may minister to its recognition and acceptance by the world, for
whose benefit it has been vouchsafed.
Although largely biographical in character, this book
is not a history of individuals, but of a Work, and involves only such personal
references as are necessary to such history. It is not, however, a full or a
final account that is contained in it. Such an account can be given only in the
form of a regular biography which is in course of preparation. This book is an
instalment only of that biography, being put forth in advance of it, partly, as
said above, to meet a present need, and partly, to prevent a total loss of the
record in the event of my failure to complete it – a contingency of which, in
view of the magnitude of the task and my advanced age, I am bound to take
account.
E. M.
(p. vii)
PREFACE (To the Third Edition)
SINCE the
publication in 1893 of this book which, as stated in Chapter VII., was “intended
but as an epitome and instalment” of a far larger book then in course of
preparation, the full and final account of the “New Gospel of Interpretation”
has been given to the world. In 1896 Edward Maitland published his magnum opus, The Life of Anna Kingsford,
in two large volumes of 420 pages, “illustrated with portraits, views, and fac-similes.”
This is, and will always be, the biography par
excellence
of Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland, and it is absolutely indispensable for
those who would know all that there is to be known of them and their work and of
the “New Gospel of Interpretation.” As that book, however, on account of its
great length, must always be a costly book, and therefore beyond the means of
many who would like to have some reliable information concerning Anna Kingsford
and Edward Maitland and their work, and as there are many who, on account of
their time for reading being limited or their inclination to read being little,
require information within the compass of a small book or go without it
altogether, there will, notwithstanding the publication of The
Life of Anna Kingsford, be a demand for this shorter “Story,” which is
so admirably suited to meet the
(p. viii)
needs or requirements of these classes of
persons; for, be it noted, the publication of The Life of Anna Kingsford
has not in any way depreciated the value of this book in this sense that, having
been written by one of the two recipients of the “New Gospel of Interpretation,”
it is a first authority second to none for the statements therein contained.
The change in the title of the book from
“The Story of the New Gospel of Interpretation” to the present title calls
for some explanation and justification, because the former title was an
excellent one in many respects, and the book has become known to many by that
title. The “Gospel of Interpretation” is the name or description which was given
by its Divine Inspirers, the Hierarchy of the Spheres Celestial, to the work of
which this book tells the story, in token of its relation to the previous
“Gospel of Manifestation.” The former title implied, as the Author pointed out
in his preface, that that which this book propounded was “not really a new
Gospel, but one of Interpretation only”; and this is not really new, but, as the
Author has also pointed out, “so old as to have become forgotten and lost, being
the purely spiritual sense, as discerned from the purely spiritual standpoint
originally intended and insisted on by Scripture itself as its true sense and
standpoint, and those which alone render Scripture intelligible”. (1)
But notwithstanding this, and notwithstanding that on the front page it was
expressly stated that “There shall nothing new be told; but that which is
ancient shall be interpreted,”
(p. ix)
the former title failed to convey to the minds
of some the meaning that it was intended to convey, and it gave no indication of
the biographical nature of the work. Many who otherwise would have read the book
refrained from doing so because they thought that a new Gospel, inconsistent
with and perhaps opposed to if not intended to supersede the old Gospel, was
propounded. It is necessary, therefore, for me to state, if possible more
explicitly than it was stated in the previous editions of this book, that this
is not an attempt to create a new Gospel differing from that of Jesus Christ. (1)
Anna Kingsford’s and Edward Maitland’s mission and aim was to interpret the
Christ, not to rival or supersede Him. The “New Gospel” is, first and foremost, interpretative, and is destructive only in the sense of
reconstructive. “It tells nothing new; it simply restores and reinforces the
old, even the Gnosis, which, as the doctrine of the Church unfallen, is that
also of the Church fallen, though the latter has lost the key to its
interpretation”. (2) Nor is the teaching represented
by this book opposed to the existence of an objective Church. Anna Kingsford and
Edward Maitland fully recognised the necessity of such an organisation for the
formulation, propagation, and exposition of religion. Their opposition was “only
to the recognition by the Church of the objective, historical, and materialistic
aspect of religion, to the exclusion of that which
(p. x)
really constitutes religion, namely, its
subjective, spiritual, and substantial aspect, wherein alone it appeals to the
mind and soul, and is efficacious for redemption.”
The aim of the New Gospel “is defined exactly,” said Edward Maitland: –
“in the following citation from St.
Dionysius the Areopagite ‘not to destroy, but to construct; or, rather, to
destroy by construction; to conquer error by the full presentment of truth.’ As
will be obvious, such a design does not necessarily involve the destruction of
anything that exists whether of symbol or ritual, or ecclesiastical
organisation, but only their regeneration by means of their translation into
their spiritual and divinely intended sense. And it is precisely because that
sense has been lost – as declared in Scripture it had long been, and would yet
long be, lost – that a new “Gospel of Interpretation” has been vouchsafed in
fulfilment of the promises in Scripture to that effect; and this from the source
of the original Divine revelation, namely, the Church Celestial, and by the
method which always was that of such revelation, namely, the intuition operating
under special illumination. (…) Even the priest, though hitherto deservedly
regarded as the ‘enemy of man,’ will not be destroyed under the new régime
whose inauguration we are witnessing. For in becoming interpreter as well as
administrator, he will be prophet as well as priest, and speak out the things of
God and the soul instead of concealing them under a veil. So will the ‘veil be
taken away,’ and Cain, the priest, instead of killing Abel, the prophet, as
hitherto, will unite with him, becoming prophet and priest in one. And instead
of any longer corrupting the ‘woman’ Intuition,
(p. xi)
and suppressing the ‘man’ Intellect, he will purify and exalt her, and
enable her to fulfil her proper function as ‘the Mother of God’ in man, and will
recognise the intellect, when dully conjoined with her, as the heir of all
things. Thus, becoming interpreter as well as administrator, prophet as well as
priest, and recognising interpretation as the corollary of the understanding,
the prophet-priest of the regeneration will give to men freely of the waters of
life, that only true bread of Heaven, which is the food of the understanding,
instead of the indigestible ‘stones’ and poisonous ‘serpents’ of doctrines, the
profession of which, by divorcing assent from conviction, involves that moral
and intellectual suicide, to induce others to join him in committing which
Cardinal Newman wrote his Grammar of Assent. True it is ‘faith
that saves,’ but the faith that is without understanding is not faith, but
credulity.” (1)
It is for the above-mentioned reasons that the title of this book has been
changed. The title must be subservient to the book, and it is hoped that, the
change having been made, there will not be any further misunderstanding – even
on the part of those who are most superficial – as to the nature and object of
“The Story of the New Gospel of Interpretation.”
Edward Maitland did not long survive the completion of the great task that he
undertook when he set himself to write a full account of his life and that of
his colleague. He retained his full mental vigour until the publication of The
Life of Anna Kingsford; but after that he rapidly declined,
(p. xii)
and on the 2nd October, 1897, at the close of
his seventy-third year, a little over nine years after the death of Anna
Kingsford, (1) he passed away peacefully at “The Warders” at Tonbridge, the
home (at that time) of his friends Colonel and Mrs. Currie, with whom, and under
whose loving care, he spent the last few months of his life – a life concerning
which, as also that of Anna Kingsford, I will not say anything here, for this
book will testify. Blessed are the souls whom the just commemorate before God.
Many who read these pages will not rest until they know more of those great
prophets the story of whose lives is here told, and of the Divine Gnosis that it
was their high mission to proclaim. I have indicated whence they can obtain this
information. This “Story,” interesting as it is and much as there is in it, is
little more than an indication of some of the facts that are fully stated and
dealt with in The Life of Anna Kingsford, and there
is much of importance that (as it could not possibly receive proper treatment in
a book of this size) was passed over here to be related in the larger biography.
I have not thought if expedient to alter the character of or to add much to this
book, but I have enlarged it by incorporating therein, from
The
Life of Anna Kingsford, some matter which is of interest, and which
should add to the value of the book. The most important additions are the
account of Anna Kingsford’s vision of “The Doomed Train,” on pp. 43-47; the account of Anna Kingsford’s
vision
(p xiii)
of Adonai, on pp. 64-68; the “Exhortation of Hermes to his Neophytes,”
on pp. 110-112; the verses “Concerning the
Passage of the Soul,” on pp. 169-170; and the illumination of Anna Kingsford
concerning the “Work of Power,” on pp.
180-181. I have also amplified the text in some places when, on comparing it
with corresponding passages in The
Life of Anna Kingsford, I found that I could do so with advantage. These
amplifications are not otherwise noted. Finally, I have added some notes where I
thought that further explanation was desirable or would prove acceptable.
SAMUEL HOPGOOD HART.
Croydon, December, 1905.
FOOTNOTES
(viii:1) E.M. Letter in Light of 29th August,
1891.
(ix:1) See further as to this, an article by A.K. and
E.M. in Light of 23rd September, 1882, reprinted in Life
A.K. Vol. II. p. 77.
(ix:2) E.M. Letter in Light of 22nd July, 1893.
(xi:1) E.M. Letter in Light of 17th December,
1892.
(xii:1) A.K. died on the 22nd of February, 1888.
(p. xv)
INTRODUCTION
THERE are certain
introductory remarks which, in view of the prevailing tendency to reject prior
to examination whatever conflicts with strongly cherished preconceptions – as
anything purporting to be a “new Gospel” is undoubtedly calculated to do – may
be made with advantage. Those remarks are as follows: –
1) As its title implies, (1) that which is propounded is not
really a new Gospel, but one of Interpretation only, which is precisely what is
admitted by all serious and thoughtful persons to be the supreme need of the
times. It was said, for instance, by late Matthew Arnold, “At the present moment there are two things about the
Christian religion which must be obvious to every percipient person: one, that
men cannot do without it; the other, that they cannot do with it as it is.”
2) As also its title implies, (1) nothing new is told in it, but
that only which is old is interpreted; and the appeal on its behalf is not to
authority,
(p. xvi)
whether of Book, Tradition, or Institution, but
to the Understanding – a quality which accords not only with the spirit of the
times, but also – as shewn herein – with that of religion itself, properly so
called.
3) Scripture manifestly comprises two conflicting systems of doctrine and
practice, having for their representatives respectively the priest and the
prophet, one only of which systems, and this the system reprobated in Scripture
itself, has hitherto obtained recognition from Christendom. It is the purpose of
the New Gospel of Interpretation to expound the system represented by the
prophet and approved in Scripture, with a view to replacing the other.
4) For those who attach value to the prophecies contained in the Bible, so far
from there being an a priori improbability against the delivery of a new revelation
in interpretation, confirmation, or completion of the former revelation, and in
correction of the false presentment of it, the probability ought to be all in
favour of such an event. This is because Scripture abounds in predictions of a
restoration both of faculty and of knowledge, as to take place at the present
time and under the existing conditions of Church and World; and this of such
kind as shall constitute a second and spiritual manifestation of the Christ in
rectification of the perversion of the import of His first and personal
manifestation, and in arrest of the great Apostacy, not only from the true faith
of Christ but from religion itself, of which that perversion has been the cause.
5) So far from the idea of a new revelation which shall have for its end the
disclosure, as the
(p. xvii)
true sense of Scripture and Dogma, of a sense
differing so widely from that hitherto accepted as to be virtually destructive
of it, – so far from this idea being universally repugnant to orthodox
ecclesiastics, it has found warm recognition from one of the foremost of modern
churchmen. This is the late Cardinal Newman.
Said Dr. Newman in his Apologia pro vita sua, speaking of his earlier days, “The broad
philosophy of Clement and Origen carried me away; the philosophy, not the
theological doctrine. (…) Some portions of their teaching, magnificent in
themselves, came like music to my inward ear, as if the response to ideas,
which, with little external to encourage them, I had cherished so long. These
were based on the mystical or sacramental principle, and spoke of the various
Economies or Dispensations of the Eternal. I understood these passages to mean
that the exterior world, physical and historical, was but the manifestation to
our senses of realities greater than itself. Nature was a parable: Scripture was
an allegory: (…) The process of change had been slow; it had been done not
rashly, but by rule and measure, ‘at sundry times and in divers manners,’ first
one disclosure and then another, till the whole evangelical doctrine was brought
into full manifestation. And thus room was made for the anticipation of further
and deeper disclosures of truths still under the veil of the letter, and in
their season to be revealed. The visible world still remains without its divine
interpretation:
(p. xviii)
mysteries are but the
expressions, in human language, of truths to which the human mind is unequal.” (1)
Dr. Newman is credited also with the remark, made on visiting
These are utterances the value of which is in no way diminished by the fact that
their utterer failed to bring his own life in accordance with them. He could
write, indeed, the hymn “Lead, kindly light”; but when the “kindly light” was
vouchsafed him of those suggestions of a system of thought concealed within the
Christian Symbology, “magnificent in themselves” and “making music to his inward
ear,” which he found in the patristic writings; instead of following that lead,
and striving to exhume the treasures of divine truth thus buried and hidden from
sight, for the salvation of a world perishing for want of them, – he turned his
back upon it, and – entering the Church of Rome – wrote his
Grammar of Assent, calling upon others to follow him in committing the
suicide, intellectual and moral, of renouncing the understanding and divorcing
profession from conviction.
This was a catastrophe the explanation of which is not far to seek. Dr. Newman
had in him the elements which go to make both priest and prophet. But the former
proved the stronger; and the Cain, the priest in him, suppressed the Abel, the
prophet in him. Thus was he a type of the Church as hitherto she has been. But,
happily, not as henceforth
(p. xix)
she will be. For “now is the Gospel of
Interpretation come, and the kingdom of the Mother of God,” even the “Women,”
Intuition, – the mind’s feminine mode, wherein it represents the perceptions and
recollections of the Soul – who is ever “Mother of God” in man, and whose sons
the prophets ever are, the greatest of them being called emphatically, for the
fullness and purity of his intuition, the “Son of the Woman” and she a “virgin.”
E.M.
FOOTNOTES
(xv:1) The original title of this book was “The Story of the New Gospel of
Interpretation.” See preface to
the present edition. S.H.H.
(xviii:1) Apologia pro vita sua, by J.H.
Newman. New edition of 1893, pp. 26, 27.
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