All but the first four works listed above have been reprinted by Kessinger Publications. Other “works” by Anna have been reprinted, but they are extracts mostly from The Perfect Way and Clothed With the Sun.
Special note. Edward Maitland has told us in his biography of Anna that he wrote for publication seven and a half of the nine “Perfect Way” lectures. Unfortunately his ponderous prose mars this work. I suspect some of the illuminations in Clothed With the Sun were altered or written by Maitland, for they exhibit his hand and preoccupations. I postulate that illuminations which display insight and inspiration are Anna’s, while those involving astral entities and occult phenomena have been inserted by Maitland.
For example, illumination No. 28 includes a dream by Anna where her mother is distraught over her daughter’s religious views. We have no information from Anna about her relationship with her mother. In his novel By and By the character representing Maitland keeps from his mother his religious views so as not to upset her. No. 30 is a criticism of Paul regarding atonement. The subject of vicarious atonement was a particular hobby-horse of Maitland.
The relater of No. 34 has a vision of being with Christ in the fields outside Jerusalem, and states Christ said he was a woman in a man’s body. The relater writes, “I was distinctly and positively assured that the incident thus shown to me was one that actually occurred, and that I had borne part in it, though no record of it survives.” Anna did not make such assertions of self justification, but Maitland did. In his preface to The Soul and How It Found Me, he reiterates that the incidents in the book really happened and are all true. Further, Anna did not believe in an historical Christ. She wrote, “Jesus Christ comes in the flesh when He is incarnate in man; and this is the way in which he comes to all mysteries, in which only He can come.” (The Credo of Christendom, p.207.) Anna states the Gospels contain spiritual truths, not history. Historical “facts” are ephemeral, but spiritual truths are eternal.
Clothed With the Sun warrants further study to distinguish genuine illuminations by Anna as opposed to Maitland’s interpolations.
Front page of the first issue of Anna’s paper
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