When I completed my biographical novel of Alice A. Bailey The Unlikely Occultist I thought my service to a woman I have long admired had reached an end. I had a similar feeling when I completed my doctoral thesis back in 2006, having spent three years working on a ground-breaking study of the Bailey books, for which I received my PhD from the University of Western Sydney. Both times, I was wrong. This time, a door has been flung wide open and I find myself immersed in yet more research on my beloved subject for a full biography of her life and works.
I was first urged to write a full biography of Alice Bailey in 2007 by my then employer Mary Cunnane, former vice president and senior editor at WW Norton & Company in New York, who had established a literary agency and was keen to represent me should I chose to take on the project. Back then, my literary skills were not up to the task. My mind was still attuned to the formal academic style and I needed to unlearn a lot of habits.
I made a solid attempt at producing a non fiction biography in late 2016, when Mary once again urged me to set to work. My concern was primarily to salvage Alice Bailey’s reputation and tackle her detractors, who can be found among conspiracy theorists, Christians, Jews, scholars, and Theosophists. I rose up in defence, sympathetic as I’ve always been toward a woman who led a difficult life dedicated to world peace and goodwill. I produced a whole draft of the biography and then began to doubt the content was enough. I lacked access to vital material. I did not have the full story. In a moment of inspiration, I decided to fictionalise what I did know, based on my extensive research into the known story. The result was The Unlikely Occultist and the material that did not make the cut forms the content of https://alicebaileyconspiracy.com/
Three years have passed and I am happy to announce that I have begun work on a full biography of the life and works of Alice Bailey. This time, my focus is different and the content will be much richer now that I am unravelling portions of the unknown story of Alice and her books and pursuing a number of lines of inquiry. With the wholehearted support of key members of the Alice Bailey community, my aim is to produce a sympathetic, fair and balanced account of this underrated and most remarkable historical figure and her books, written in telepathic rapport with the Tibetan. I have forty-one fully referenced chapters planned. The book proposal is currently with a New York literary agent. And I am champing at the bit to see this project come to fruition.
Watch this space!
Dr Isobel Blackthorn is an award-winning author of unique and engaging fiction. She writes dark psychological thrillers, mysteries, historical and literary fiction. Isobel was shortlisted for the Ada Cambridge Prose Prize 2019 for her biographical short story, ‘Nothing to Declare’. The Legacy of Old Gran Parks is the winner of the Raven Awards 2019. Isobel holds a PhD from the University of Western Sydney for The Texts of Alice A Bailey: An Inquiry into the role of Esotericism in Transforming Consciousness, She is the author of The Unlikely Occultist: a biographical novel of Alice A. Bailey.
