George William Russell

"Self Portrait", 1903

George William Russell (April 10, 1867 – July 17, 1935) was an eminent Irish poet, painter and essayist who wrote with the pseudonym Æ (sometimes written AE or A.E.). He was a political activist and a key figure in the Irish Literary Renaissance.

Early life and education

George William Russell was born April 10, 1867 at Lurgan, County Armagh, Ireland. His parents were Thomas Elias Russell and his wife Mary Anne Armstrong Russell. As a child George was very sensitive to the beauty of nature. His family lived in the Gate Lodge of a large estate, Brownlow House, owned by Lord Lurgan. George and his sister Mary Elizabeth ran freely about the property, and "the parkland, the lake and the backdrop of the towers of Brownlow House all had a profound effect on him." At the age of four or five the boy experienced his first vision.

This was to become the essential feature of George Russell - he was a real visionary, not just in the sense that he had dreams for the future, but that he had actual visions in which he saw glimpses of the past and future that were glowingly real to him even though they were invisible to others.

The family moved to Dublin when Thomas Russell was offered a job there. George attended Rathmines School. When he was seventeen, he suffered a devastating tragedy when his only sister Mary Elizabeth died. His education continued at Metropolitan School of Art, Dublin, where William Butler Yeats was also studying. Yeats introduced Russell to Theosophy.

"Mother and Child at the Water's Edge"

"The Bathers"

Literary career

"Many of Russell’s poems are of a mystical nature reflecting his theosophical beliefs."

Verse publications include; Homeward: Songs by the Way (1894); Collected Poems (1913); Collected Poems, 2nd edition (1926); Selected Poems (1935).

Political activities

"Russell was a political activist who threw himself wholeheartedly into Irish freedom movements, editing The Irish Statesman in 1923-30."

Theosophical Society involvement

Russell joined the Theosophical Society in 1887, and was a pupil of Madame Blavatsky when she was at Dublin the following year. He was deeply affected by her ideas. For a few years he resided in a small community of Theosophists in Upper Ely Place, Dublin. In 1898 he married Violet North, a fellow Theosophist.

Russell view of The Secret Doctrine

A month before he died, he wrote in a letter to the Irish author Sean O'Faolein:

You dismiss H. P. Blavatsky rather too easily as "hocus pocus." Nobody ever affected the thought of so many able men and women by "hocus pocus." The real source of her influence is to be found in The Secret Doctrine, a book on the religions of the world suggesting or disclosing an underlying unity between all great religions. It was a book which Maeterlinck said contained the most grandiose cosmogony in the world, and if you read it merely as a romantic compilation, it is one of the most exciting and stimulating books written for the last hundred years. It is paying a poor compliment to men like Yeats, Maeterlinck, and others, to men like Sir William Crookes, the greatest chemist of modern times, who was a member of her society, to Carter Blake, F.R.S., the anthropologist, and the scholars and scientists in many countries who read H. P. Blavatsky's books, to assume that they were attracted by "hocus pocus." If you are ever in the National Library, Kildare Street, and have a couple of hours to spare, you might dip into "The Proem" to The Secret Doctrine, and you will understand the secret of the influence of that extraordinary woman on her contemporaries.

William Quan Judge

Russell and William Quan Judge

In a letter to Carrie Rea, Russell wrote of his friend William Quan Judge, one of the principal co-founders of the Theosophical Society in 1875:

I have sent you today... a book which I hope you will like Letters that have helped me. They are written by a man whom I consider the wisest and sweetest of any I have ever met W.Q.Judge (Z.I.Z.). I have more reverence for him than for an other human being I know of. I hope they will mean as much to you as to many of us. They are not badly written; but do not think of fine or beautiful phrases when reading the, but only of the things it is good to live with and ever to keep in mind. I think he says only things he knows.

Russell and P. G. Bowen

One of Russell's friends was Captain P. G. Bowen. They met in 1922 when Bowen returned to Ireland after serving in South Africa and France during the First World War.

Before all else, AE was a Theosophist. With the crystal sincerity, and childlike simplicity which at all times distinguished him, he revealed to me that his aim in life overriding all else was to bring knowledge of the World of Spirit "where all hearts and minds are one" into the clouded sphere of human thought. He sought to bring it to Ireland, his own country, first and foremost, not because he ever forgot the equal needs of the rest of the world, but because he held, and held rightly, as every true Theosophist will agree, that we should cultivate the field which lies nearest to hand with the tool which stands most convenient. His literary pursuits were not followed as a way leading to gain and fame, things to which he was supremely indifferent, but because they furnished a ready channel created by "the instrument built up by many lives," (his personal selfhood), through which might flow "something of the rhythms of the ONE Life", and with their touch "restore to some sort of tune the jangled strings of human consciousness".

Russell and Albert E. S. Smythe

Albert E. S. Smythe (1861-1947), an Irish immigrant to Canada, was a friend of W. Q. Judge and editor of The Canadian Theosophist. In 1931, Russell wrote to him in response to a previous letter: The grey visitor was James M. Pryse who first instructed me in magic, conjuring up pictures in the astral light, and holding them before my inner eyes so that I could see initiation scenes, the evolution of the astral from the physical, the movement of cells and forces in the body. A good deal of what he wrote in the interpretation of the Apocalypse he showed me in the "glass". He was one of the few members of the T.S. who knew things for himself and had a good deal of occult power. He was really rather a mysterious person whose talk and writing had personal knowledge behind it. He, Judge, H.P.B., Subba Row,Damodar, and Jasper Niemand were the only members of T.S. who had their own sources of knowledge, as far as I can know. Most of the others wrote either out of intuition or retold what they had read: though Pryse said Archibald Keightley; who rarely wrote, knew a good deal.

Hermetic Society

After the deaths and Madame Blavatsky in 1891 and then William Quan Judge in 1896, Russell left the Theosophical Society. He formed the Hermetic Society.

Other activities

for 25 years he was associated with the Irish Agricultural Organization Society.........

Later years

After 1930, Russell had become somewhat disillusioned about Ireland, feeling that the Roman Catholic Church was too powerful. His wife died in 1932, and he went to London.

He gave a helping hand to nearly every aspiring Irish writer. Helen Waddell, Patrick Kavanagh and James Joyce all benefited from his encouragement, as did P. L. Travers. James Joyce painted a vivid picture of AE in Ulysses, making fun of his eccentricities, but also, in one of the puns, which he so loved, he used the list of vowels A E I O U to express his indebtedness…

One of his lesser-known acts of support was to an American lady called Pamela Lyndon Travers. She came to England in 1924 and her interest in myth brought her into contact with Yeats and Russell. AE encouraged her to write and published her writing in "The Irish Statesman." P. L. Travers then went on to become famous in a rather different field as the author of the children's book, Mary Poppins, published in 1934…."

In 1935 Russell went on a lecture tour of the USA to speak on "Rural Policies". He became ill in February and had to sail home in March. In July he had a major abdominal operation and it became obvious that he was terminally ill. For some time there had been coolness between Yeats and himself but he was much encouraged when Yeats sent a warm message. The rapid decline continued and he died on 17 July 1935 in a nursing home in Bournemouth.

His body was brought back to Ireland from London, accompanied on the train to Holyhead by a group of Irish writers including James Stephens and Helen Waddell. In Dublin his coffin lay in state in Plunkett House in Merrion Square. This was where he had worked for many years in the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society. He had a Church of Ireland funeral service, which was attended by W. B. Yeats, De Valera and Oliver Grogarty before being buried in Mount Jerome Cemetery"

Resources

• "AE" Poet and Theosophist by Boris de Zirkoff
• In Memoriam - George William Russell articles from the Canadian Theosophist.