The Ancient Wisdom

About this book

Human beings are described as layered creatures in Annie Besant's The Ancient Wisdom. Bodies, desires, thoughts and higher faculties belong to different levels of an invisible order.

Besant outlines Theosophical ideas of planes of existence, karma, reincarnation and spiritual evolution in a single connected system. Terms that appear mysterious in other works receive detailed explanations here. The argument is persuasive within its own framework, although the planes and subtle bodies remain matters of religious speculation. The great appeal of this book to its earliest audience was the promise that life's scattered experiences could fit an orderly cosmic pattern.