Deep compassion for life

Press, 14 November 1981, Page 17

Deep compassion for life

Beauty. Not the Beast: An Autobiography. By Muriel, The Lady Dowding. Neville Spearman, 1980. 276 pp. Illustrations. $20.70. (Reviewed by Joan Curry) People who face up to the deplorable realities of this world, and mount crusades against the evils and injustices that they see, deserve the greatest respect and admiration. People who keep in touch with other worlds, who are on nodding terms with fairies, and who talk intimately about psychic experience, spiritual enlightenment and mystical powers, are apt to cause uneasiness in those who do not sit in the same circles. . Lady Dowding does all of these things. She has a deep compassion for all living things, especially animals, and was instrumental in founding the Beauty Without Cruelty movement. Her fight against those who inflict pain on animals in the name of science, or profit, or vanity, is described in part of this book.

The details are not for the squeamish and neither are the photographs. The Beauty Without Cruelty movement is dedicated to encouraging the boycott of any product that has involved the suffering of an animal at any stage of manufacture or testing, and the documentation is available to all with the stomach for it. The point is made with the story of a sensitive child who backed away from a female relative dressed in mink because the woman was wearing a “coat that cried.” Lady Dowding has also spent her life studying such esoteric mysteries as Theosophy, astrology, reincarnation and spiritualism. She has drawn strength and comfort from her beliefs and she describes her experiences in this and other lives with a glowing trust in the good will of the reader. Her sincerity is obvious and her philosophy is attractive in a world which looks increasingly disagreeable to many people.