George William Russell

"Self Portrait", 1903

"Mother and Child at the Water's Edge"

George William Russell (April 10, 1867 – July 17, 1935) was an eminent Irish poet and essayist who wrote with the pseudonym Æ (sometimes written AE or A.E.). He was deeply affected by H. P. Blavatsky's ideas. A month before he died, he wrote in a letter to the Irish author Sean O'Faolein the following:

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.

Online resources

Articles

• "AE" Poet and Theosophist by Boris de Zirkoff

Additional resources

• In Memoriam - George William Russell articles from the Canadian Theosophist