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This is the first biography of Allan Bennett, one of the first British men to gain higher ordination as a Buddhist monk and one of the seminal figures in the development of Buddhism in the UK.
Bennett rejected Christianity early in his life and turned to late-nineteenth-century occultism and esoteric new religious movements, namely Theosophy and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. His involvement in the latter led to a friendship with Aleister Crowley. After he travelled to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) around 1900 for health reasons - he had chronic asthma - he was attracted to Buddhism. Believing Buddhism in Burma (Myanmar) was purer than in Ceylon, he opted for ordination there in 1902.
From Burma, he created an international Buddhist network, founding the International Buddhist Society, the Buddhas¿sana Sam¿gama, and starting a journal, Buddhism - An Illustrated Quarterly Review. In 1908, he led a Buddhist mission to England. Convinced that the West needed Buddhism as an antidote to growing materialism, he became a prolific writer. Two volumes of his writings were published. The first, The Wisdom of the Aryas, which recorded a series of talks he gave in London in 1919-1920, was published just two months before he died. The second, The Religion of Burma and Other Papers, was published posthumously. Controversy has surrounded his life, particularly in Western Buddhist circles, because of his early involvement with occultism.
About the author
Elizabeth Harris is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow within the Edward Cadbury Centre for the Public Understanding of Religion, University of Birmingham, UK. Before this, she was an Associate Professor at Liverpool Hope University. She specializes in Buddhist Studies and inter-faith studies and has published widely in both disciplines. Her publications include What Buddhists Believe (Oneworld, 1998) Theravada Buddhism and the British Encounter: Religious, missionary and colonial experience in nineteenth century Sri Lanka (Routledge, 2006) and Buddhism for a Violent World: A Christian Reflection (Epworth, 2010/now published by SCM).
