‘The evolution of life and form’ by Annie Besant

Once again, Bessant wishes to integrate ancient and modern science, this time to outline an inteligible concept of evolution in its two aspects of life and form, revealing the complicated and successive waves of life and conscience that take place in the world in an orderly and coordinated fashion.

From these movements, Man and the rest of the living creatures will develop, in a successive sequence whose first manifestation is the descent of the spiritual essence that flows towards the material. This is where the text can become somewhat complex, but we can seek Bessant´s explanation, who states that in this first moment “the spiritual forces exercise an attractive impulse towards their sphere dragging the human units to a journey that will take them back to their source”; this is Evolution.

Bessant´s essay is situated even before Darwin´s Evolutionary Theory and confronts the biologist´s point of view by following the traditions of Occultism that is constructed on spiritual development. The essay outlines the journey from essence to form, and its subsequent retraction, as expressions of the Divine Spirit.

• Title: “The evolution of life and form’”
• Author: Annie Besant