(Previously Published in California Gazette March 2005)

If Annie Besant lived today in California, she’d probably just blend into the masses. Those Californians that practice Yoga, eat Tofu, and burn incense. Today it’s a rather commonplace culture in California. But given her time at the turn of the century, she bordered on heresy. At first, many may even wonder who was Annie Besant? And even if they know her name, what does she have to do with California?

Here's a woman whose unorthodox religious views included first atheism and freethought and later theosophy.

Annie Wood was born in England. At age 19 Annie married Rev. Frank Besant, and within four years they had a daughter and a son.

Annie's views began to change. When she refused to attend communion, her husband ordered her out of their home. They were legally separated, with Frank keeping custody of their son. Annie and her daughter went to London, where Annie broke away completely from Christianity and became a freethinker and atheist.

Soon, Annie Besant was working for the radical paper, National Reformer, whose editor Charles Bradlaugh was also a leader in the secular (non-religious) movement in England. Together they wrote a book advocating birth control, which got them a 6-month prison term for "obscene libel." The sentence was overturned on appeal, and Besant wrote another book advocating birth control, The Laws of Population. Her husband so upset by this filed for legal divorce and full custody of their daughter.

During the 1880s Annie Besant continued her activism. She spoke and wrote against unhealthy industrial conditions and low wages for young factory women which resulted in women’s strikes. One pamphlet she wrote, in 1887 with Charles Bradlaugh, "Why I Do Not Believe in God" and is still considered one of the best summaries of arguments defending atheism.

In 1887 Besant converted to Theosophy after meeting Madame Blavatsky, a spiritualist who in 1875 had founded the Theosophical Society. Besant quickly applied her skills, energy and enthusiasm to this new religious cause. After Madame Blavatsky died in 1891 at Besant's home, the Theosophical Society split into two branches, with Besant as President of one branch. She was a popular writer and speaker for Theosophy.

But what does she have to do with California?? In 1927, she bought land in the upper Ojai valley north of Ventura, California on which she planned to build a religious center. She couldn’t do it because there wasn’t enough water. Annie owned the newspaper called The Ojai in the late 1920s and felt that Ojai was the magnetic center of the universe. She did start the Happy Valley High School in Ojai in which she believed that a new type of children were being raised in Southern California that would need a unique education in living. The emphasis of the Happy Valley High School was to teach the students how to think, not what to think.

Besant moved to India to study Hindu ideas (karma, reincarnation, nirvana) which were foundational to Theosophy. Her Theosophical ideas also brought her to work on behalf of vegetarianism. She returned often to speak for Theosophy or for social reform, remaining active in the British suffrage movement and an important speaker for women's suffrage.

In India, where her daughter and son came to live with her, she worked for Indian Home Rule and was interned during World War I for that activism. She lived in India until her death in Madras in 1933.

A heretic who gave little care to what people thought of her, Annie Besant risked much for her ideas and passionate commitments. From mainline Christianity as a pastor's wife, to radical freethinker, atheist, and social reformer, to Theosophist lecturer and writer, Annie Besant applied her compassion and her logical thinking to the problems of her day, and especially to the problems of women.