Laura Holloway-Langford

Laura Carter Holloway-Langford was an American journalist and clairvoyant who became a chela of the Mahatmas.

Early life

Laura Carter was born in Nashville in 1843 to farmer Sam Carter and his wife Ann, who had fourteen children. Laura was educated at the Nashville Female Academy. She married Junius Brutus Holloway, Lieutenant in the Union Army, in 1862. They had one child, Charles, in 1864. However, the marriage quickly fell apart, and ended in divorce. Laura moved to New York.

Writing career

In New York, Mrs. Holloway took up writing to support herself. By 1870 she had published a bestselling anthology called Ladies of the White House; or, In the Home of the Presidents. It sold nearly 150,000 copies worldwide, and gave Laura a degree of financial independence. That same year, she advanced in her journalistic career at the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, being promoted from reporter to associate editor.She held that position for twelve years.

Mrs. Holloway was also a social activist and lecturer:

She gave readings of literature and poetry and lectured on such topics as coeducation and women journalists. Her most famous lecture, “The Perils of the Hour” (1870), concerned “the obstacles that check the advancement of woman.” A suffragist who knew Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Anna Dickinson, Laura nonetheless criticized “strong-minded women” and their masculine habits. She supported temperance, urging the New York City Board of Education to adopt anti-alcohol textbooks.

Other books that she wrote included:

• An Hour with Charlotte Bronte, 1883
• The Hearthstone, or Life at Home, a Household Manual, 1883
• The Woman’s Story, 1888

Involvement with the Theosophical Society

In the 1870s, Mrs. Holloway became aware of Theosophy. She read A. P. Sinnett's books Esoteric Buddhism and The Occult World. In 1884, she traveled to Europe to meet Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, the charismatic leader of the movement. Laura worked with the Theosophists for about six months before returning to Brooklyn, where she remained a theosophist though not closely involved with the movement.

With Mohini Chatterji, she wrote Man: Fragments of a Forgotten History, using the pseudonym "Two Chelâs"".

Additional resources

Caldwell, Daniel H. Mrs. Holloway and the Mahatmas: including Articles by Laura C. Holloway and Letters from H.P. Blavatsky, the Mahatma K.H. and the Mahatma M.