THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 81, 30 December 1929, Page 5

THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

ANNUAL CONVENTION. The thirty-fourth annual convention of the Theosophical Society, New Zealand section, was held in Wellington on December 27. Chilton House, at Island Bay, was engaged for the accommodation of visiting delegates, and the convention meetings were held in one of the schoolrooms there. In the unavoidable absence of Mr, T. Querec, president of the Wellington Lodge, Mr. J. It. Thomson, president of the H.P.B. Lodge, Auckland, was voted chairman of convention. In his opening address. Mr. Thomson referred to his recent world tour, in the course of which he had seen much of J. Krishnamurti, the famous teacher, sometimes called the “World Teacher. Mr. Thomson stressed Krishnamurti’s saying that "living the life” was the whole secret of spiritual progress. Mr. Thomson also referred to the great leadership of Dr. Annie Beasant, who had borne the brunt of the society’s long struggle to establish its great mission. L , The annual report, presented by the general secretary, Mr. Crawford, revealed the total membership of the New Zealand section as 1040, comprising nineteen lodges. Two important properties of the section were the Vasanta Garden School, at Epsom, with two teachers and a present attendance of forty-two pupils, and > asanta Farm, which eighteen years ago was presented to the society as one hundred acres of rough, barren laud, now changed into a beautiful and ideal farm through the selfsacrificing labours of Mr. Cohu Macdonald, formerly a Southland farmer. As national lecturer Mr. Crawford reported on the lodges he had visited, comprising all the section lodges except three, during the year. , , The treasurer's and other business reports were then read and discussed. The election of section officers followed for 1930.