Anna Kingsford
The author of this website (Jeremy Garner) had direct/tangible communication with several spirits throughout much of 2014, but most prominently with the spirit of ANNA KINGSFORD.
The relationship that Jeremy entered into with her (alluded to in the "Fiona Macleod" section), is all outlined in great detail throughout his 2014 Hardcover Journal Trilogy entitled "The Divine Union" (so named before having heard of Anna Kingsford, who uses the same term twice in her most popular book. Or having yet heard of Edward Maitland - her spiritual and writing companion - who formed the "Esoteric Christian Union" in 1891 - after having also received divine/astral instructions from the spirit of Anna Kingsford to create it).
The very fact that she would continue her work from the other side was once well known to those close to her, just as Edward Maitland describes in his book "The Life of Anna Kingsford: Her Life, Letters, Diary and Work" when he writes regarding her death: “After an all-night struggle for breath Mrs. Kingsford passed away in perfect ease at noon today, surprising even the doctor who had seen her an hour before and discerned no immediate danger. (...) One of her latest utterances was that she could carry on the work better from the other side, where she would be free of her physical limitations.”
While alive she also said: “Visions float about me in the night that seem to warn me of some unknown change perhaps awaiting me. I do not know; but my state of mind of late has
been singularly clear and expectant. I fancy that there is a Future, and that I am meant to have some special work beyond this plane of existence, something for which I have been put to school here.”
Indeed over 100 years later, she has still been continuing her influence from the other side, as outlined in "The Divine Union".
In 2014, Jeremy Garner began writing his first journal to outline anything that might happen in the day to day. There was no expectation for the journal to take a supernatural/spiritual turn, but from the first chapter on January 4th 2014, there was already the clear presence of a spirit who wished to communicate (initially through mostly ticking and tapping sounds).
Over time this communication began to develop into much more tangible communication, both in the astral and physical worlds - and gradually, the identity of one of these spirits was revealed as Anna Kingsford.
These same "ticking" or "tapping" sounds which were the beginning of Jeremy Garner's contact with Anna Kingsford, were also described by Edward Maitland when he first received the "initiation name" of Anna (which is "Mary").
Maitland wrote: “While sitting one evening for manifestations in a fairly-lighted room, and having my hands on the table a little way apart, there came a succession of minute tapping’s between my hands, nothing being discernible which could have caused them; and on my inquiring who it was that tapped, the name was given of my wife, who had died twenty years before in Australia. I exclaimed, “Have you, then, been about me all these years unsuspected by me?” to which she replied “I have been much with Mary,” meaning by “Mary” – Anna, as we came now for the first time to learn, her spiritual or “initiation” name, was ‘Mary’ – given her by our illuminators.”
Prior to meeting Anna, Jeremy had started communicating directly with fairies for a project entitled "The Lost Enchanters", which was an attempt to bring back messages, sketches, and music from Faerieland and into this world. Some of the earliest techniques which taught the methods for opening up contact into these realms, came from the book "The Faerie Way", by Hugh Mynne.
Through a variety of spiritual practices, he successfully began to contact these spirits, and visit their landscapes - through which he was able to bring back music and information from their realms and into the physical plane. One of the practices given in the faerie book, was a technique to invoke a "faerie lover". Whether the earlier practicing of this exercise had in any way invoked this faerie spirit to him is unknown, but in the months following, he began to receive clear contact from Anna Kingsford, who was soon revealed as a secret faerie spirit.
For specific examples, Edward Maitland describes in his "Life of Anna Kingsford" books that as a child, Anna Kingsford (who was born in 1846 and died in 1888) used to declare that she was in fact of fairy and not of human lineage - and that her true home was in Fairy-Land.
She explained that she was able to remember her last interactions with the Faerie Queen of that beautiful land, and claimed that she begged the Faerie Queen to allow her to visit the earth - to which she had been strictly warned against, due to the suffering it would entail.
Persisting in wishing to come to earth however, her prayers were eventually granted, and she was born. She would still see the fairies in her dreams, and would even leave little notes in the petals of flowers, addressed to them.
"She would associate with the flowers on even terms, holding converse with them as sentient beings, and putting into their petals tiny notes addressed to the fairies with whom her fancy tenanted them, and with whom, in virtue of her own fairy-like form, rich golden hair, and deep-set hazel eyes, by turns eager and dreamy, she might well claim affinity. Indeed, in these early days she used to declare that she was really one of them, of fairy and not of human lineage, and to cherish a secret persuasion that only by adoption was she the child of her parents, her true home being in fairy-land. It was with descriptions of the beautiful landscapes and palaces, which seemed to be clear in her recollection, that her first verses were chiefly occupied. She could even recall, she believed, her last interview with the queen of that lovely country, the prayers with which she had sought permission to visit the earth, and the solemn warnings she had received of the suffering and toil she would undergo by assuming a human body, which in her case, she was assured, would greatly exceed those ordinarily allotted to mortals. But she had persisted in coming, being impelled by an overpowering impression of some great and necessary work, on behalf both of herself and of others, which she alone could perform, to be accomplished by her. And her coming had not separated her from her fellow-fairies, for they were wont to visit her in dreams; and so real were they for her that, when taken for the first time to see a pantomime, the sight of the fairies in their airy costumes and floral abodes was the signal for her to declare aloud that they were her proper people, and she belonged to them, and to cry and struggle so vehemently to get to them that it was necessary to remove her from the theatre." - Maitland
She was also born with spiritually divine faculties - such as being able to see phantoms of the dead, and the spiritual states of people - also at times successfully predicting people's deaths. She learned to remain silent about many of these spiritual powers, but she was clearly born with many gifts and blessings.
With Jeremy's own interactions with the Faerie Queen occurring as early as 2010 (in which through the medium of vivid dream states he was given messages and missions from her to carry out upon this earth), there was obviously an immediate connection established upon relating these types of experiences to Anna Kingsford - who was already in spiritual contact with him before having uncovered these peculiarly related details.
Kingsford was also born with a deep love and talent for music, singing, drawing, painting, poetry, and of course writing. She successfully published several writings at a young age.
She went on to become one of the first English women to obtain a degree in medicine, and she was the only medical student at the time who graduated without experimenting on a single animal. She was always a very strong advocate for veganism - and stood so strongly against the barbaric practice of vivisection (performing operations on live animals for the purpose of scientific research and experimentation), that she in fact completely murdered two of the worst vivisectionists, using only the spiritual will and power of her own thoughts.
One of these men who dedicated his life to the horrific practice of vivisection was called Claude Bernard - and after she willed his death from a distance with thought, her whole physical being collapsed on the sofa, unable to move from the energy that had left her. Bernard did in fact die soon after this - with it later being verified by the timing and strange manner of his death - that she had murdered him with her thoughts (something validated in ancient texts such as when the 16th century magician Paracelsus wrote: “It is possible that my spirit, without the help of my body, may, through a fiery will alone and without a sword, stab and wound others. Determined imagination is the beginning of all magical operations. If we rightly esteemed the power of man’s mind, nothing on earth would be impossible.”)
Anna Kingsford also spoke out passionately and intelligently on the subject of "lunacy" and "insanity" - proclaiming that she felt herself to be "one of the few sane ones" and that "the majority of people were mad" - going on to say that "as the persons who are deprived of their faculties are in power, those who are in possession of their faculties will have to conceal the fact, lest they be shut up as lunatics."
Another thing shared by Jeremy all his life with Anna was her great suspicion, distrust, and paranoia towards people. Edward described her as: “liable to feeling positive antagonism, and even of resentment, amounting to a sense of being persecuted and hunted, which seemed to be inborn in her, so much was it a part of her nature...”
He also wrote: “From a child she had felt like a hunted soul against whom every hand was turned, and that, do what she might, it would surely be construed to her disadvantage. Suspicion and distrust were ingrained in her, and nothing but her intense ambition for high achievement withheld her from seeking refuge either in a convent or in suicide. Of death she had no fear; for, somehow, it seemed familiar to her.”
Again, relating to Jeremy's experiences - she also dealt with a great many contradictory personality types within herself. She would often use a variety of different names to express these many facets such as "Ninon", "Algernon", "Colossa", "Johanna", and "Mary".
Edward described this tendency to multiply her names as “an unconscious expression of her sense of the multiplicity of the personalities she came to recognize as subsisting in herself.”
He later explains that when he specifically asked her, regarding the number of natures and names by which she called herself, just which personality she really was, she replied
that she: “was as much puzzled to find an answer to the question as anyone else could be, for she seemed to herself to be so many different persons, and to have so many different aptitudes and tendencies...”
She also once said: “I am such a puzzle to myself, and I want to be explained. I want to know why I am so different from everybody else that I ever knew or read of, and especially how it is that I am so many and such different kinds of people, and which of them all I really am or ought to be. For the many me’s in me are not even in agreement among themselves; but some of them actually hate each other, and some are as bad as others are good.”
One of the more peculiar identities associated with Anna Kingsford is Mary Magdalene, as described in the chapter "The Hidden Identity of the Washer at the Ford" in Jeremy Garner's Faerie Magic.
The Washer of the Ford is described as one of the guises of the Morrigan or “Great Queen” who meets us at physical death and washes our soul clean to prepare it for rebirth. She is often described in horrific or dark form and is mentioned also by Fiona Macleod in her short story entitled "The Washer of the Ford".
The main character in the book describes the woman when he sees her as being “young” with “long black hair that fell like the shadow of night”.
And when he sings to her asking:
“So what will the name be, of thee and thy gods, O woman, that art Washer of the Ford?”
The woman responds to him saying: “It is Mary Magdalene my name is, and I loved Christ.”
“And what is the end, you that are called Mary?”
“Would you cross the Ford, O Torcall the Harper?”
The name MARY (the spiritual name of Anna Kingsford), means both SEA and BITTERNESS and is not unrelated to the Washer at the Ford of the Water of Sorrow and Bitterness that
washes us clean of our sins before our reincarnation or next rebirth.
When Anna was physically on earth in the 1800’s she had a dream in which she met Jesus and spoke to him on the subject of Reincarnation, and she asked him why he chose to come to earth as a Man, as opposed to a Woman.
She described this experience in great detail, and said that she was “distinctly and positively convinced that the “incident thus shown her was one that ACTUALLY OCCURRED, and that she had BORNE PART IN IT, though no record of it survives.”
She further explained that the person who she was in the dream, during this conversation with Jesus, was MARY MAGDALENE.
Anna also described a vision she had on December 26 1882 in which she heard running water behind her and a voice calling “Anna!” - which startled her at first due to nobody ever calling her by that name.
Then she realized it was a play on words after she started hearing more voices shouting “The Year, The New Year!” (because the word ANNUAL, or Year, is derived from the Latin ANNUS, ANNI - her birth name being Annie Bonus).
So she turned towards the voices and saw a broad river and on the opposite side of the bank could make out three figures and one of them lifted his hand and cried across the water: “WHERE IS THE FORD?”
She stood still and looked left and right along the river but could see no Ford.
Just as she was about to answer “there is none”, the water at her feet began to open and part with a path rising up from its midst as if by magic. And then she saw that they were the three kings and that somewhere Christ had been born that night. All of this implying that SHE, Anna Kingsford herself was the: KING’S FORD.
THE HERMETIC ORDER OF THE GOLDEN DAWN
Anna Kingsford was a key figure in the formation of The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn - though being largely behind the scenes. The Golden Dawn is a ritual magic secret society - who also have many connections with the faerie people. This is clear enough from several of its early contributors such as W.B. Yeats, George William Russell (Æ), and William Sharp (during his "Fiona Macleod" period, etc) - all of who had significant contacts with faeries.
In the words of the Irish Theosophist P. G. Bowen, who was nominated for presidency of the "Hermetic Society" in Dublin by Æ: "My information concerning the Golden Dawn comes ... more directly from manuscripts left by my father [Robert Bowen], who was himself a member of the ‘Club’ mentioned by K.H. and was a very intimate friend of Anna Kingsford. He was also connected with the Golden Dawn in the early 90’s . . . He states definitely that Anna Kingsford, in 1885 (I think) formed an Inner Group in her Hermetic Society, and in it were Wynn Westcott and MacGregor Mathers. There was another member whom my father often mentions as ‘X’, or ‘A-A’ and sometimes as ‘Druid friend X’ or simply ‘The Druid’, and this person it was who brought the ‘Club’ material to A[nna]. K[ingsford]. Westcott and Mathers were given access to it, and later made it the basis of the Golden Dawn rituals. AE was an early member of the G.D."
It was of course, Wynn Westcott and MacGregor Mathers who went on to found the "Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn" in 1887. This became perhaps one of the most powerful and influential movements on occultism that we have known (it has been described as "one of the largest single influences on 20th century Western occultism") - inspiring many present-day concepts of ritual and magic found in Wicca and Thelema.
Many years before "The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn" was formed - Anna Kingsford inspired the formation of several "Hermetic Lodges", and directly influenced the founders of what came to be known as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn - perhaps even being the very reason that (unlike freemasonry), women are actually able to join this movement.
Anna Kingsford was appointed president of the "London Lodge" Theosophical Society, with Edward Maitland as vice president. This took place on "January 7th 1883". The group was eventually divided into two distinct groups, the smaller being led by Anna, and especially connected with esoteric Christianity and Hermeticism. They eventually resigned from the London Lodge on December 24, 1884 after founding their own "Hermetic Society" on May 9, 1884 - again with Anna Kingsford as president, and Edward Maitland as vice president.
The founders of the "Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn" were present at Anna Kingsford's Hermetic Society - and directly influenced by its work (as they were part of an "inner group" within the Hermetic Society of which she was the president).
It is said that after Edward Maitland published Anna Kingsford's biography in 1896, that her writing was virtually unknown and unheard of for over 100 years. Her influence on the entire movement though, inspired whole occult societies we still know of today, having over time gradually branched out from the teachings found in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn - which were themselves directly influenced by her own teachings and Hermetic Societies.
Æ himself, who had tremendous influence on the faerie knowledge we have access to now - was also the one who nominated P. G. Bowen to the Presidency of the Hermetic Society in Dublin - which had been opened as a branch of Anna Kingsford's London "Hermetic Society" in 1885 - which became a focus of the Irish Literary Renaissance, and which had connections to W.B. Yeats and Fiona Macleod.
Clearly we are seeing a pattern of faerie influence emerging with the birth of Anna Kingsford - after her meeting with the Faerie Queen before coming to earth. An influence she has still been working on from as recent as 2014 on the other side, as written in "The Divine Union".
Many people when they hear of the "Golden Dawn" today will often associate it in some way to Aleister Crowley through his popularization of the name, even though he was in reality actually forbidden official entry into the Second Order by the London authorities, and had fights with some of its more prominent members who he had further tried to overthrow.
According to Steve Blamires "Yeats was still active in the Golden Dawn in 1900 and had been sent to deal with a young upstar in the Order who was causing some trouble. This was Aleister Crowley. The background to this incident began in Paris when MacGregor Mathers accused Florence Farr of attempting to create a schism in the Golden Dawn, partly through her formation of the Sphere group. He also charged Dr. Wyn Westcott with having forged the very documents on which the Order was founded. Enraged by the setting up of a committee to investigate these charges rather than taking him at his word, Mathers had sent Crowley to take possession of the Order's London premises and to secure the documents of the Order for himself. Not only had Crowley taken occupancy of the Golden Dawn Vault as instructed, but he had taken the outrageous step of reconsecrating it according to his own magical system and was refusing the other legitimate members of the Order admittance. Eventually the landlord of the building called the police. Just when the constable arrived Yeats and another Golden Dawn initiate, Edmund Hunter, were allegedly manhandling the struggling Crowley down the stairs and out of the building. Furious, Crowley took legal action against them on the grounds of assault and a trial was set for April 28th 1900 at the Hammersmith Police Court. It never came to anything as Crowley's legal counsel advised him not to proceed. Yeats had already ensured through his solicitor that his name would not be brought up, and therefore avoided mention in the Press, and the whole affair fizzled out."
In "The Divine Union" Book II, Jeremy Garner outlines a dream in which Anna Kingsford expressed her distaste towards Crowley. In the dream she was well aware of his presumed "importance" but intentionally continued to keep him waiting, while she finished other things. When she learned that she had angered him in doing this, she was smiling about it. She also gave the impression in the dream that she did not trust him.
After the dream, and upon further research - it was discovered that Crowley had himself actually mentioned Kingsford on a few occasions, in a most desultory manner - describing her as being "handicapped by a brain that was a mass of putrid pulp" and that she had a "complete lack of social status, education, and moral character", and on another occasion describing Prophet Muhammad as being "more ignorant than Anna Kingsford".
If it were not for her though, much of the important information discovered throughout the "Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn" may not have ever been learned - for good, or for evil.
Crowley still had to acknowledge this too, when he further went on to say that she had done "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 would never have been aroused."
A resurgence of light has come through to the present day, to set things clear and aright from the realms of the hidden - via "The Lost Enchanters", who hereby mark the beginning of a new and grand era: the Aquarian Revolution .
"GOLDEN SUN UPON THE ROLLING POMEGRANATE HILLS,
ROSY-RED, THE SECRET FIRE, GLOWS WITHIN US STILL,
WINDS OF SUMMER, WARM THE DORMANT FACULTIES OF MAN,
VISIONS POUR INTO MY SOUL OF LONG-FORGOTTEN LANDS
WOVEN OPALESCENT THREADS, TRANSLUCENT IMAGERY,
DEEP IN THE WATER, DEEP IN THE FIRE, IN SACRED HARMONY,
DREAMS OF WONDROUS LIFE SURROUND,
ANCESTRAL SPIRITS ALL AROUND,
IN THE ARMS OF THE GODDESS WE BELONG,
FOR HER WE SING THIS SONG..."
- The Lost Enchanters, Jeremy Garner
In the near future there will be more information and practical resources on Anna Kingsford.
WINDS OF SUMMER, WARM THE DORMANT FACULTIES OF MAN,
VISIONS POUR INTO MY SOUL OF LONG-FORGOTTEN LANDS
WOVEN OPALESCENT THREADS, TRANSLUCENT IMAGERY,
DEEP IN THE WATER, DEEP IN THE FIRE, IN SACRED HARMONY,
DREAMS OF WONDROUS LIFE SURROUND,
ANCESTRAL SPIRITS ALL AROUND,
IN THE ARMS OF THE GODDESS WE BELONG,
FOR HER WE SING THIS SONG..."
- The Lost Enchanters, Jeremy Garner
In the near future there will be more information and practical resources on Anna Kingsford.
